[Dupli-Kate's POV]
I was so tired. It was a soul-crushing exhaustion that no amount of sleep could ever fix, mostly because every time I closed my eyes, I could still feel my own spine snapping. My Prime body was currently sitting in the sterile, glaringly white halls of the Global Defense Agency's medical wing. I had spent the last twenty-four hours smelling blood and antiseptic, listening to the agonizing sounds of the medics trying to piece Monster Girl and Black Samson back together after Battle Beast had turned us into human minced meat.
We had been utterly slaughtered. We were supposed to be the new Guardians of the Globe, and we had barely survived our first mission. Every time one of my clones died, I felt the echo of that death. Yesterday, I had died a dozen times in a span of twenty minutes.
So I did what I always did to get away from all that trauma. I had sent out this specific clone just to escape. Kate 0.5 I called it
I needed to breathe unsterilized air. I needed to see people walking their dogs, drinking overpriced coffee, and complaining about mundane things like traffic. I needed to pretend, just for a few hours, that I was a normal teenage girl and not a glorified meat-shield in a spandex suit.
And this clone is how I did that, by letting her volunteer at a soup kitchen or work part-time at a shopping mall kiosk.
And part of that desperate grasp at normalcy was hoping to bump into the incredibly charming, mysterious guy I had met at the mall. Johnny Joestar. He was cute, and most importantly, he was just a normal guy who had absolutely nothing to do with aliens, monsters, or the crushing weight of the superhero world.
Or so I thought.
When I finally spotted him under some massive oak tree, my heart had done a hopeful little flip. But it plummeted a second later when I noticed he wasn't alone. He was sitting on a checkered picnic blanket with a woman who looked like she had just stepped out of a high-fashion magazine about Old Wealth. She wore a pristine white sundress, a wide-brimmed straw hat with those tinted shades that completely hid her eyes. She carried an aura of effortless elegance that immediately made me feel like an awkward, dirty child in my civilian clothes.
I was hurting, hell I was traumatized. And looking at them, how peaceful and perfect they were, I was irrationally jealous. So, I defaulted to the only defense mechanism I had left: snark.
I marched right up to them, crossing my arms, demanding to know why he hadn't called, asking if this ridiculously poised woman was his older sister or cousin, even. I was being petty, yes, but I just wanted him to look at me the way he had at the mall. I just wanted one thing to go right this week.
I did not expect the elegant and poised woman to suddenly snap.
She latched onto Johnny's arm, pulling his bicep flush against her chest with terrifying possessiveness. She glared directly into my eyes, her entire posture shifting from a delicate flower to a territorial predator, and screamed at the top of her lungs.
"I am his girlfriend, you slut!"
The volume of her voice echoed across the quiet park. A few passing joggers literally tripped over their own feet to stare at us.
The silence that followed was deafening.
My mouth hung slightly open in shock.
'A slut? Really?'
I had spent yesterday watching my friends' internal organs spill onto a marble floor, and today I was getting publicly slut-shamed in a park over a guy I barely knew? The absurdity of the insult left me speechless.
I looked at Johnny, waiting for him to correct her, to apologize for the crazy woman's outburst, to do something.
Instead, a slow, genuine smile spread across his face. He wrapped his arm securely around her waist, pulling her even closer.
"She is correct," he said smoothly. "Nakime is my girlfriend."
"Wait, seriously? She called me a slut, and you just... agree with her?! Back at the mall, YOU were the one flirting with me!"
I bluffed to get a semblance of defence, or whatever it was I was trying to do.
Then he looked at me, offering me a charming and apologetic shrug, with those damn Tea-shades I helped him pick.
"I apologize for not calling you back, Kate. Honestly, it was not my intention to lead you on. But, well...It was a 'love at first sight' kind of situation. Once I met her, everyone else just kind of faded into the background."
A flash of exhausted hurt flared in my chest.
He really was casting me aside without a second thought to defend a woman who had just slut shammed me in public.
I didn't have the energy for this. I didn't want the drama.
'I just…I just wanted a normal day.'
"You know what?" I huffed, my voice trembling slightly as tears from overwhelming frustration at everything prickled my eyes. "Fine. I don't even care. You two deserve each other, you assholes."
I spun around on my heel, intending to storm off, find a quiet alley, and dispel this clone so I could just merge back into the miserable, bloody reality of the medical ward.
But before I could take a single step, the peaceful atmosphere of the park was violently shattered.
ZAP!
A blinding, intense flash of blue light illuminated the grass. The air crackled with a sudden, violent discharge of static electricity, making the hairs on my arms stand up on end.
[Cecil Stedman's POV]
My blood pressure was currently high enough to shoot a hole straight through the reinforced concrete roof of the Pentagon.
Earth was effectively defenseless.
The original Guardians were dead, the new Guardians were currently in pieces on Dr Riya's operating tables, and to top it all off, the one guy on the planet who had just spontaneously manifested the ability to heal lethal radiation and severe physical trauma was ignoring my goddamn calls.
I locked onto Kaisen's encrypted cell phone signal, bypassed the standard requisition protocols, and manually initiated a targeted teleport.
'I didn't have time for diplomacy.'
I was already yelling before my atoms had fully reassembled in the park.
"Kaisen! You have a secure phone for a fucking reason!" I barked, gripping my communicator so hard the plastic creaked. "Pick up your damn calls when I—!"
The blue light faded, and I finally registered my surroundings.
I stopped dead in my tracks, my eyes darting rapidly across the scene in front of me, my threat-assessment was running on overdrive.
First, I saw Kaisen, who was currently disguised in his 'Johnny Joestar' persona, looking like a misplaced Teen Drama protagonist. His arm was wrapped securely around the waist of a woman in a white sundress and oversized shades.
I recognized her instantly, despite the modern clothing. It was Nakime, the Demon. The last time we had spoken, she was sitting alone in her bizarre wooden castle, radiating a cold, detached grief over the loss of her companion, Sebas.
I also remembered the parting advice I had given her before stepping out of her castle, spoken from a place of my own bitter, weary experience: 'Sometimes they desperately need the help of their loved ones to break those walls... Trust me on this.'
Looking at them now, looking at the fiercely protective grip Kaisen had on her waist, and the soft, grounded way she leaned into his side.
'She finally breached the kid's walls.'
Finally, my tired eyes landed on the third person.
Dupli-Kate. Or, more accurately, Kate 0.5, who was currently radiating humiliated teenage angst.
Her eyes were shiny with unshed tears, her fists clenched at her sides, looking like she had just been slapped across the face.
I stood there in total silence as the seconds ticked by agonizingly awkward.
I am the Director of the Global Defense Agency. I deal with interdimensional warlords, Alien conquerors, and the imminent collapse of geopolitical stability.
I do not deal with this.
I pinched the bridge of my scarred nose, closing my eyes tightly, praying for the sweet-sweet release of a sudden aneurysm.
'Oh, for the love of God. It's a teenage superhero soap opera.'
I seriously debated my options.
I could just port back and pretend I was never here. Let the world burn for another twenty minutes.
I simply didn't have the time, the patience, or the requisite amount of whiskey required to unpack whatever love triangle bullshit I had just interrupted.
But before I could make a tactical retreat, Kate broke the silence.
"Director Cecil?" she asked, her voice high and confused. "What... what are you doing here? This is just Johnny, not Kaisen. Why are you yelling at him? You must have confused him for that bastard."
Kaisen let out a long, heavy sigh.
He removed his arm from the demon girl's waist, reached up, and slowly pulled the tea-shades down the bridge of his nose.
"Well, the jig is up," he muttered.
Right before our eyes, his physical form shifted seamlessly. The messy black hair lightened into a familiar blonde, his eyes shifted from dark brown to a piercing blue, and finally his facial features shifted around just enough to completely change his face.
He transformed back into his original look.
He gave me a withering stink eye. "Thanks for blowing my cover, Cecil. Real smooth."
He then turned to the cloning girl, offering an apologetic smile. "I am sorry, Kate. I needed the persona to keep the bounty hunters away so we could enjoy today."
I watched Kate's face as the realization finally hit her.
All the color drained from her cheeks in an instant. She was looking at the man I had placed the highest bounty in human history on. The man the news called the Butcher of the Guardians.
"You..." Kate stammered, stumbling backwards. "You're... John Kaisen..."
She whipped her horrified gaze toward me. "Director! Did you always know Johnny was actually John…fuck, even the name he chose to disguise was terrible…how could I fall for this?"
I watched her stammer to turn to self-blame before she turned it back to me.
"Why is he acting so familiar with you?! He's a villain! What are you doing working with a terrorist?!"
I groaned inwardly. "Kate, calm down. The situation is highly classified—"
"Classified?!" she yelled, her momentary shock violently shifting into fiery anger. She pointed an accusing finger at Kaisen. "If the original Guardians were still alive, they would have dealt with Battle Beast! We wouldn't have been slaughtered yesterday! It's his fault!"
Before Kaisen could even open his mouth, the temperature in the park seemed to drop ten degrees.
Nakime stepped out from the deep shadow of the oak tree. As she dropped her gentle demeanour, the illusion of a delicate human girl vanished, replaced instantly by the cold, dangerous register of a century-old predator.
"Keep your tongue in check, child," Nakime warned, her single eye narrowing dangerously behind her shades. "You are speaking to my Master. He is the only reason you and your fragile friends are not currently painting the streets of Chicago red. He forced that monster away while you were cowering."
Kaisen quickly came with his Umbrella covering Nakime back in its shade.
'Is she allergic to sunlight… best to file it away from now.'
I saw Nakime produce her Biwa from her palms, pulling the strings, storing enough tension to break it.
"Enough!" I interrupted sharply, my voice cutting through the escalating tension like a whip.
I glared directly at Kate, using my best 'Director of GDA' voice.
The voice that brokered peace treaties between countries and authorized black-ops assassinations just to kill their leaders the same day.
"Dupli-Kate. This entire situation is too damn above your paygrade. Report back to HQ immediately. Everything will be briefed to you when the time is right. You are not to speak of this to anyone. Dismissed."
Kate looked like she wanted to scream, cry, and punch Kaisen all at the same time, but my authority silenced her. She gave Kaisen one last look of betrayal before turning and sprinting out of the park.
I watched her go, making a mental note to have her debriefed thoroughly so she doesn't blow this way out of preparations, before turning my attention back to the billion-dollar headache in front of me.
"Alright, playtime is over, Mr. Kaisen," I said gruffly, crossing my arms." The medics are completely overwhelmed with trying to stabilise New Guardians, and I need your new Healing power for that."
Kaisen frowned, crossing his arms stubbornly. "Now is really not a good time, Cecil. I was in the middle of a date… our first date."
He looked over at Nakime, his eyes filled with regret at their ruined afternoon.
I rolled my eyes.
'Ugh, I can't even…'
I was about to remind him that the fate of Earth's defenders trumped his picnic, but Nakime beat me to it.
She reached out and took his hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. The terrifying, murderous aura she had directed at Kate completely vanished and was instantly replaced by affection. She shook her head gently, gesturing with her chin for him to go.
"Go, Master," she whispered softly. "They need you. This was a memorable first date."
Kaisen looked at her, a deep gratitude shining in his blue eyes.
I watched the exchange carefully with a rare flicker of respect.
'I told her to comfort him, but she did a hell of a lot more than that,' I thought, watching Kaisen's posture melt entirely under her gentle touch. 'This demon is the only tether keeping my most dangerous, unpredictable wildcard tied to his own humanity.'
"Go back to the Castle, Nakime," Kaisen instructed gently. "And remember, don't hesitate to use my gift."
He leaned in and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to her cheek before letting go of her hand and turning back to face me. He waved his hand dismissively, his demeanor instantly shifting back to guarded and cynical.
"Alright, Director. Let's go."
I tapped the device on my wrist. The air began to hum with a high-pitched, oscillating whine as the blinding blue light started to engulf us both. The edges of our physical forms began to distort, the teleportation sequence locking in to pull us back to the Pentagon.
The heavy silence in the park was awkward. I sighed, the crushing exhaustion of the last week finally bleeding into my posture. I looked at the kid who had single-handedly derailed my entire global defense strategy, and realized he was the only card I had left to play.
"Quickly, before I forget. There's something you need to know," I said, my voice grim and completely devoid of its usual snark as the blue light completely overtook us
"Nolan has left Earth."
[A/N]:
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