150 Tiger’s Patience

“Stop,” Amelia demanded.

Her grip tightened on my throat again, not enough to crush, but enough to draw a thin, warm line of blood that slid down my collarbone. It wasn’t the worst chokehold I’d ever been in, but it ranked high on the list of ‘am I really being scolded right now?’ experiences.

“Can the two of you stop arguing like children?” she continued, voice rising like she was speaking to a kindergarten class instead of two grown men. “The two of you are expected to act like adults in the face of society—”

“Nice nails,” Chad cut in. “Nullifier, huh?”

“Yeah, but…” I added, throat straining against her grip as I managed, “Cat ears are the best.”

Amelia let out a long, painful sigh. Her tiger-like features flickered under the dim street light, eyes striped with amber, jaw tense, and fangs just barely visible at the edge of her lip.

“Where did I get them done?” she said slowly, like she was about to murder both of us with tone alone. “In therapy. Thanks to all the stimulation from fighting Light, and a few incidents the past two months, my powers have been overclocking. So now I have a few neat tricks that I swore the two of you wouldn’t like.” She raised a brow. “And for the record, they are tiger ears. Tiger! Not cat.”

Chad made a face like he simply couldn’t help himself. “Is that what you’d call cat-calling? Uuuh… I suppose it’s tiger-calling? Nick, you’re slipping. You’re supposed to match my energy if you’re trying to impress the ladies—”

Her grip tightened on us both.

Chad yelped. It was embarrassing.

“We are no longer in high school, Chad,” Amelia said, tone suddenly sharp, slicing the moment clean. “And our past with the Watch means nothing now. That was the worst point of my life, watching my hero ranking plummet because of how incompetent we were.”

“Hey, the Watch wasn’t that bad,” I said.

Her eyes snapped to me. “Not a word from you.”

“Yeah,” Chad said, gesturing at me like I was a problem stain. “It’s not my fault. It’s totally Eclipse.”

I stared at him. He stared at me. Really? That’s the angle today?

“Do you really think that?” Amelia asked, turning toward him, eyes narrowing.

“Yes,” Chad replied without hesitation.

Her disappointment was so sharp it felt like another blow. “I thought you changed. But you’re still the same self-absorbed idiot who flirts with any woman breathing near him.”

“No,” Chad said, offended. “I’m a changed man. I got a wife.”

That one actually made me pause. Huh. Good for him. Shame, I was probably going to kill him eventually. But this was the moment and the perfect time to bring it up about Tigress, the mission, and the reason I had followed Chad in the first place.

All thanks to Chad picking this nice little hidden location with no witnesses, I should be able to meet my goals right now, if it turned out well. Chad sure knew what he was doing. I’d hate to thank him in the face for getting rid of the surveillance.

“Hey, Chad. How did you get rid of the surveillance?”

His expression changed.

“So you knew,” Chad said, disgust thick in his voice. “You’ve always known we were watching you.”

“What surveillance?” Amelia asked, and that was the worst part, as she really didn’t know. For someone with tracker instinct, that had to sting.

Chad clicked his tongue at her. “See? She doesn’t even know. And she’s supposed to be the tracker between us.”

“You have to do better than that,” Amelia said, though doubt cracked her tone.

I exhaled, licking blood from my lip.

“The SRC has been monitoring me,” I explained. “Because they want me for their super secret special task force designed to fight a god. The Entity. I was recruited not long ago. The surveillance is to make sure I don’t run or hide anything from them. Wouldn’t surprise me if someone checks my apartment regularly.”

Amelia stared at me like I had just told her I collected human teeth for hobbies.

“You’re insane,” she said flatly.

Chad raised his voice, disbelief cracking through his anger. “Are you seriously just… saying classified intel out loud? Here? In an alley?”

I shrugged.

“Why not? We’re all involved now.”

Amelia’s grip on my throat didn’t loosen. If anything, her claws pressed a fraction deeper, just enough to remind me she could rip out my larynx if she felt like it.

“Since you’re reacting like this,” she said to Chad, “I imagine you were in the same task force as him. Judging by the potency and variety of your powers, I assume you went through some very harsh trials to get where you are now.” Her tiger-gold eyes flicked back to me. “I guess you have changed. But that doesn’t mean I trust you. There are bigger things in motion. My investigation is paramount above everything. If the SRC sent you here to butter me up, to pull some stupid honey trap strategy through familiarity, then no luck. I won’t fall for that.”

That caught my attention like a blade to the spine.

Investigation?

Her investigation was important enough that the SRC issued a kill order. Interesting. And if they wanted ‘me’ to carry it out, despite my history with her… then they weren’t trying to avoid complications.

They ‘wanted’ complications.

So that meant the kill order wasn’t only to remove her. It was also to test me.

I turned to Chad. “Hey. You still haven’t answered my question. How’d you get rid of the surveillance? And how long do we have?”

“Three minutes,” Chad said immediately.

I looked back at Amelia. “Let me down. It’s related to your investigation.”

She stared at me, suspicious. “What makes you think that?”

“Hey, Chad,” I said casually, “What would you do if I killed Amelia right now?”

Chad didn’t hesitate. “I’d fucking kill you. Don’t touch my friends.”

His intent hit my empathy like a hammer. It was genuine. Which told me something incredibly useful: Chad didn’t know about the kill order. The SRC didn’t tell him. They were using him, too.

Amelia’s jaw tightened. “I’m flattered you still think of me as a friend, Chad,” she said with icy contempt. “After all your screw-ups.”

Her grip on my throat tightened, another thin cut of blood. Sure, I could phase through her, slide inside her mind, and overwhelm her from the inside out.

But I wasn’t burning that card yet.

She leaned closer. “You didn’t answer my question, Nick. What made you think letting you go is connected to my investigation? And what did you mean when you implied you were here to kill me?”

“Because,” I said plainly, “I was ordered to kill you by Chad’s boss.”

Chad’s face broke first with shock, anger, betrayal, and confusion, colliding all at once.

I kept talking.

“Now let me go. So I can call someone to extend the blackout. Otherwise, surveillance comes back online, and we’re done here.”

Amelia looked at me.

Then at Chad.

Then back at me again.

Finally, she let me go.

But her other hand snapped around Chad’s throat in the same motion, claws dimpling skin just enough to make him shut up.

I rubbed my neck. Breathing was nice. I didn’t appreciate it enough.

“So,” I said, turning to Chad, “how did you get rid of the surveillance?”

Chad exhaled through his teeth. “I hired a hacker.”

“What kind?” Amelia asked.

Chad grimaced. “…Triplets.”

I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. Of all the cursed names… The goddamn Triplets. Apparently, business was booming because now they were hacking government surveillance. Of course they were. Of fucking course.

Time remaining before surveillance returns: 2 minutes.

I have to do something about that.

I took out a cheap burner phone for emergency contacts that required sensitive considerations. The plastic case was chipped on the corner, and the screen was already spidered on one edge. I thumbed in Bunny’s contact, under FluffySanta. Because Bunny insisted.

[Need anti-surveillance extension, Triplets' job. Cooperate with them. Remaining time blackout: ~3-2 min.]

Bunny replied in seconds. The typing bubbles flickered. Then a simple text came back:

[Can stretch to 15. Already speaking with them.]

“We’ve got fifteen minutes before surveillance returns,” I revealed, looking between Chad and Amelia. “Maybe less if they send a cape right now. So, let’s get this over with.”

“That’s fine with me,” Amelia said, voice flat, unwavering.

“Can you let me go now?” Chad asked, still in her grip. “I will cooperate. This is the first time I heard a kill order was put on your head. I want to help.”

“I don’t trust you,” Amelia replied.

“You can let him go,” I said. “He was sincere.”

Amelia studied him, a quiet, cold calculation behind her eyes. Then she finally released him. Chad rubbed at the red imprint on his throat, expression grim and a little wounded.

I gestured lightly. “How about we reveal our intentions for being here in Wamond?”

“Sure,” said Chad.

“Who goes first?” asked Amelia.

“Rock, paper, scissors,” I offered.

The two of them stared at me like I’d grown another set of eyes. Still, they played. Chad took it stupidly seriously. I expected him to lose first, but it was Amelia. She blinked once, as if offended by the rules of probability.

Chad and I went a few rounds. I finally won.

Which meant Amelia had to speak first.

She didn’t hesitate.

“On paper, I was sent here as a disciplinary reassignment,” she said. “A demotion. A reminder of my place. But I made sure it was Wamond specifically. I manipulated the paperwork and recommendations to push the decision. I needed to be here.”

Chad frowned. I stayed still.

“After Light’s incident,” she continued, “I started digging. SRC Special Forces were deployed against the Ten that day. We lost so many. Light’s rampage afterward only compounded the disaster, with heroes humiliated in their own cities and public trust shattered, but the real casualties were the Special Forces. They were used as cannon fodder. Disposable.”

Her voice had a rough edge.

“The abilities they exhibited… weren’t natural evolutions of standard cape traits. They were engineered. Surgeries, implants, and neurological grafting. The price was horrific.” Her eyes were far away. “I kept asking where these procedures were being done. No hospital logs, no contractors, and no procurement. A black site. But not in this world. In another dimension.”

Chad stiffened.

I stayed still.

“So I followed the trail,” Amelia said. “And eventually, rumors led here. Wamond. A place where whispers of multiversal transit technology originate from. I came to expose the SRC. To reveal all of it. I’m done being their pawn.”

She stopped. And looked at us. Waiting. Expecting disbelief, maybe awe, fear, shock.

Through Empathy, I felt her confusion when neither of us reacted the way she imagined.

“…Is there a problem?” I asked.

Amelia threw her hands up. “It’s the multiverse! This is groundbreaking! Why are you two so… so… calm!?”

Chad lifted a hand. “My dad’s an immigrant from another reality. Joined SRC by volunteering for a special program before I was born. I’ve always been curious how he crossed over. Also, I’m a member of Division Five. The secret special task force dealing with the Entity.” He paused. “Correction, possibly ‘multiversal’ Entity.”

Amelia’s mouth opened. Then closed. Then opened again.

I sighed and added my piece.

“Oh. I was in another world about a week ago,” I said. “I confronted a reflection of the Entity. Ended up nuking an entire city. Came back because I needed the SRC’s help. I’m playing along because I want to leverage them against the Entity. And possibly kill it.”

Amelia stared at us like someone realizing they had been studying basic arithmetic while seated at a table with nuclear physicists.

Her voice came out small.

“…It’s so groundbreaking it broke my common sense.”