A Conspiracy?

For most of the walk back, John was quiet and contemplative. And to be entirely honest, it was starting to make Wes more than a little uncomfortable. The fact that the other young man hadn't bothered to say anything further regarding his particular talent wasn't what he'd expected.

Accusations, or questions or even just interest of some kind felt like it was going to be the way that John should have reacted to the situation, but nonetheless, he was quiet, and the longer it went on, the more Wes decided that he didn't like that. It made him feel as if John was plotting something.

"Are you planning to do anything about what I've said or shown?" Wes asked eventually, causing John to slowly drift to a stop. It was clear that he was the one being addressed. "Or are you going to keep it to yourself for some reason?" Wesley continued, his dark gaze glaring at the other.

It wasn't a glare of anger, but one of suspicion, and John frowned, noticing that the other four had also stopped, all of them were now facing him. "I don't... I'm not sure what to think," John spoke after a moment, his gaze rising up to meet Wesley's. "What you do isn't anything that I've ever heard of."

"Yeah, dude. That's what makes it wild," Jay spoke with a slight grin. "It's like we're playing solitaire but we've got a joker in the deck that can be any card we need it to be. I don't think any of the Beasts would ever see it coming."

Sasha let out a low, annoyed sigh at that. "It doesn't matter whether or not the Beasts see it coming or not. The fact of the matter is, unless Wes, and honestly the rest of us, can really start to fine-tune our Skills and fight as a team, we aren't going to take down a Beast. It's just not happening."

There was a quiet lull that appeared amongst the group then after the brunette beauty had spoken. Even Evie seemed to be rather quiet as well, which was unusual for her. "That... may be," Ted finally spoke up, causing several to turn to look at him. None had suspected that he was the one to break the silence. "But we are... still learning."

"Yeah!" Evie chimed in, pumping her fists as she grinned widely at Sasha. "We've been learning for like literally a day. We'll get there!"

"I know we'll get there- that's not the problem," Sasha spoke, her glare moving to the ground, seemingly unable to actually be angry at the ever-excited Evie. "The problem is we keep on finding ourselves in situations where we have no damn right to be," she snapped.

John frowned in response to her words, glancing to Wesley. "I think that's due, in part, to the fact that we keep going off and doing our own thing. Well, at least tonight was. The other Beast was just a fluke."

"I have been... considering that..." Ted responded, once more cutting through the conversation and leading the entire group to glance back at him again. His hand was over his mouth as he seemed as if he were deep in thought. "I have a... theory," he murmured quietly.

"A theory on what, dude? That us running into that Beast earlier today... or yesterday, or whatever day it is. That wasn't an accident?" Jay asked, arching a brow as he looked directly at Ted.

It was then that Ted quieted a bit more, and the others glanced at one another before looking back to him, as if expecting an answer soon. "I need... more time. And more data," the man murmured quietly as he considered how to answer further. "I cannot... say for sure... yet."

The lack of confirmation from Ted was almost more frightening than having to hear whatever he had to say. Jay frowned in response, moving a hand up to his hair. "So basically you're just saying you've got a hunch?" he asked simply, and Theodore nodded in response, but said nothing more.

"You can't just open up with something like that and drop it completely and expect us to be okay with it, Ted," Sasha snapped, the young woman's glare once more upon her features as she looked at Theodore. "You better speak up. What's the reason for your hunch?" she asked, setting her hands on her hips.

Wesley had remained mostly quiet during the discussion, but his gaze flickered to Ted, curious what the man had on his mind. There was no doubt among them that when it came to intellect, Theodore had all of them beat. The problem was he needed time (often a lot of time) to put his thoughts together in a way that would actually make sense to the rest of them.

"Hey. No one is going to criticize your opinions. Except maybe Sasha," Wes spoke, earning a middle finger from the girl. "What's going on in your head? Usually I'm pretty on board with where you're going with something, but this time I think you're seeing something that I'm just not at all following," Wes continued.

Theodore exhaled slowly- he hated to be the center of attention. But if nothing else, he should at least share his thoughts on the matter. "It is... mostly circumstantial... Our team was... chosen to go... to that part... of town. Nothing has... been done. It's just... suspicious."

The slow, methodical form of speech of Theodore's could make his conversation hard to follow at times, and Wes had to take a few minutes to process it before he actually started to understand why he was having these thoughts. "So you're thinking we were setup? Forced out there where the Beast was lurking?" he asked, and as he asked that, he could feel John's gaze on him.

Theodore nodded slowly. "A hypothesis... We cannot yet... test it," Ted finished quietly, before lifting his arm and coughing into the crook of his sleeve. He rarely talked that much, so it was of no surprise, really.

"Wes- no. Stop that right now," Sasha spoke up, and their gazes went from her over to Wes, who looked to be thinking. "I know what's going on in your head- stop that right now."

"Wes is gonna take us on an adventure and a wild goose chase!" Evie cheered. "A wild adventure goose! Chase!" the girl continued, before she hopped down from Mr. Woodhead, running over to where Wesley stood. "Hey, hey!"

"Uh... hey," Wes responded, not quite used to being accosted this directly by Evie.

"You've got lots of things going on in your brain right now but if you do what Teddy does your head's gonna explode! So let's not right now!"

Jay snorted in amusement her words, looking to his brother. "She's got a point. Your head is going to explode, dude. Look. Let's put the conspiracy theories away for tonight and just get back to get some sleep."

"Yeah! We don't have very long, anyway!" Evie pointed out, gesturing to her puppet with its rudimentary clock. "Come on come on!" she cheered, scrambling back up Mr. Woodhead like a monkey.

Wesley sighed, shaking his head. "All right, all right. No more wild adventures tonight," he announced, earning a low glare from Sasha, but nothing more.

But now that the thought had been put in his head, it was hard for him to think about anything else. Had it all been a setup? For what? There were too many unanswered questions and Wesley didn't care for it- especially considering his life and the lives of his friends were on the line.

He glanced to Theodore. He'd have to help get Ted some more 'data' so the two of them could puzzle this out together...