Chapter Text
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“The story is different yet the end the same”
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A yawn escaped your lips as you finally sat down for your break. The lunch rush just finished and since the cafe was rather infamous and tucked between many corporate buildings, stationed in a “Yes you can come here on your break and get back in time” spot, you were very overwhelmed during it. The sun hit you nicely and you felt like those cats that liked to bathe in sunlight and you were finally relaxed.
The sound of the kitchen door open startled you out of your thoughts as your coworker walked in to handle the register. He smiled at your tired form “You handle the lunch rush so we'll” He remarked as he slide some newly baked goods into their spots in the display case “I should let you do it more often”
“Fuck off dude” You grumbled as you snagged your favorite pastry out of the tray he was holding “You left me to do it alone”
“Hey unlike you, I'm happily married and my beautiful wife was telling me about the new season of her favorite show. It's not my fault I'm a great husband who listens” This man knew no shame. They were on the phone for 3 HOURS! You felt like smacking him over the head or maybe more
You were ready to tell him to shut the fuck up until your boss materialized randomly next to the register. You yelped in shock and accidentally dropped your snack. No matter how long you worked there, having your Eldritch cloaked shadow creature of a boss materialize randomly will always startle you.
“Now now Adam, be considerate of your co-worker” Your boss lightly scolded, yeah despite being built like Slender man's emo cousin your boss was wearing a flower apron at the moment so he was significantly less intimidating.
You picked your pastry off the floor and figured it'd been just about 5 seconds so you ate it anyway. “Yeah what NB said” You backed up your boss with ganging up on Adam “Even Lilith wouldn't do this to me if she was here” You said with added dramatics
Adam just playfully rolled his eyes and started retelling his entire conversation about this random ass show that his wife was watching. You gave up on listening to him and we're pleasantly distracted by the sound of insistently meowing cats at the entrance.
You walked over and opened the door for your three favorite furry customers, who happily waltzed in at the door's jingle “Adam how do your cats follow you here everyday?” You asked as the cats made their way to Adam
Adam looked down at his squad and smiled “I think they've just memorized that path at this point” Having your cats be so dedicated that they follow you to work almost everyday must be great, you were jealous of Adam in that regard.
Everyone in the staff, so just the three of you, were used to them showing up and there were even some food and water bowls under the counter strategically placed out of the sight of customers. Adam and Nightbringer went back to the kitchen to keep the pastries coming and you, who hadn't finished your break but got bored, reclaimed your spot at the counter. The cats didn't follow Adam back and started having feast on the food that was there for them and trying to get your attention so you'd pet them, you were weak and did in fact crouch down and start petting the one who was definitely the most well behaved out of the 3, Abel. His brothers, Seth and Cain, didn't want to be out done and demanded pets too. This was the life, getting to pet cats after a tiresome shift.
The soft jingle of the door opening pulled you out of your cat loving wonder and the ends of the conversation were the first thing you noticed
“Come on, Trying something new every once in a while can be good” You stood up right immediately as the two sets of footsteps approached the counter
“Hello, welcome to the Nightfall cafe! Our special today is uh…” You just noticed you still had a cat in your hands. Abel, ever the poster child, meowed politely as if he was giving his own customer service greeting
There was a collective silence for a moment and you felt your career fly out the window, you heard about people suing over smaller things and this was a whole ass cat
“Is this a cat cafe?” was what you got instead. This person didn't seem upset, actually the opposite, his eyes were lit up like Christmas lights, which is funny since his eyes were green, and he seemed actually really overjoyed. His blonde hair swayed slightly as he leaned in for a better look at the feline in your hands
“Unfortunately no” You held out hope that you had met a cat fanatic and you wouldn't be getting sued today “My co worker's cats like to follow him to work some days”
The blond seemed to deflate slightly and his friend, with the exact opposite looks with dark hair and blue eyes that seemed to entrance you, just laughed and patted his back “Sorry, could we have a slice of apple pie and pancakes with blueberry sauce please? Satan, do you want anything else?”
Working in retail means not many things faze you anymore, so seeing someone named after the devil? Yeah, just another day. The blonde (Aka Satan) looked seconds away from dying from cuteness aggression and absentmindedly shook his head. You put Abel down and cleaned your hands. You placed the order and wore some gloves to start on food handling.
“What's the name on the order?” You asked as you rung up the total cost
“Simeon” The dark haired man said with a smile so pretty and bright you were sure it almost blinded you, it was like looking at an angel
You quickly shook the thoughts away… after a few minutes though
You weren't sure how it happened but Satan somehow ended up behind the counter petting the cats. Simeon sat at a table right next to the register and apologized profusely at his friend's behavior no matter how much you reassured him. You were honestly just surprised that Satan had cat toys and treats on him at all times, he didn't even have a bag? Where was he holding a whole fishline cat toy in his outfit?
You decidedly didn't question it for the sake of your mental health.
This continued on for an hour or so before Simeon had to try coaxing Satan out so they could leave and was further incentivized to get Satan when Adam walked in, saw the situation and just went back to the kitchen. Simeon ended up convincing him to leave after another 39 minutes and then left a massive tip when they were leaving for “all the trouble we caused”. Your eyes practically turned to saucers at the cash.
The rest of your shift passed without any more fanfare thankfully, the cats went back home after Cain successfully stole a croissant and someone tried doing a card trick that somehow ended up jamming the register. By the end of the day you were exhausted and ready to go home.
You hung up your apron as Adam was finishing up sweeping, since he left you with the lunch rush you were leaving him with closing.
“You should come visit me and Lilith again one day!” Adam said before you left “She can't come in for shifts for a while and she's missed you”
“Alright I will” You readily accepted, Lilith was cool and you were genuinely worried about her so you had no reason to decline the invitation “Have fun with closing”
You finally walked out of Nightfall for the day, the teal green entrance that you've grown used to seeing was as usual. You remembered that it got repainted just about a year ago, you and Adam were the ones doing it but Lilith had volunteered to help too. You all ended up adding little doodles in a similar color so that you couldn't even see it from afar, even the cats joined in and had their paw prints all over the place.
You quickly shook yourself off of memory lane and continued heading home, the sun was still setting making the sky a wonderful gradient or purple red and orange. You were usually the one to do closing but today you got the early leave. Maybe you and Adam should switch like this permanently.The street was rather crowded compared to what you were used to, the vendors that you normally saw closed were wide open, it was nice and peaceful.
Then an explosion rang from two streets over that absolutely shattered the calm atmosphere. The whole street, including you, just froze in shock then the panic set in and people started running and screaming. You were panicking too because your home was in the direction of the explosion so where could you even go?? Worse yet the crowd was suddenly really dense and suffocating as most people piled onto the street that got them the furthest away, this one. There was pushing and shoving and without context one might think someone leaked a celebrity's house address.
So to avoid getting trampled like it was black friday, you stumbled into a surprisingly empty alley and breathed a sigh of relief when you had your own space again though getting back out now was practically impossible with how full the street was. You reached into your pocket to grab your phone only to panic and notice you didn't have it. You frantically searched all your pockets and even ran around like a dog chasing its tail to see if it was on or near your person but there wasn't a phone in sight. It probably either fell out of your pocket or was stolen in the chaos, either way you were truly screwed now. You were so focused on your lost phone that you didn't notice the street had cleared out and the loud noises you were still hearing weren't from the crowd.
You turned and noticed the empty street… that was strange, how did it clear so quickly?
You were just about to step out to check what was going on when a jet of water suddenly shot in front of you, thankfully you reeled back before it hit you but seriously what the fuck was going on??
After a moment you hesitantly poked your head out and saw that the street you were walking through just minutes ago was now a battlefield and you immediately recognized all of the fighters.
The jet stream of hyper pressure water came from Nixe. He was one of the high ranking villains of the city and during his original debut dubbed himself The Lord of the Shadows, which was a reference to a very famous book, it stuck for a while then the press switched to Nixe after a while because it made more sense with his powers and eventually even his fellow villains started using it too.
Nixe was teamed with Tephras, another villain with a similar ranking. He wasn't actually known for his powers but instead his smarts, he mostly used gadgets, gizmos, bombs and such in fights and people even doubt he has powers. But it doesn't matter since he still makes it to the top charts and beats amateur heroes who want to test their luck for a living.
The heroes they were fighting were from the number 1 team in the whole wide world, there was Genesis and Halo.
Genesis was dubbed the “Cat hero” as he was known for his particular soft spot for them, his uniform has so much cat insignia that it borders on being a different uniform altogether and he is mostly spotted saving cats from trees.
Halo on the other hand is a winged hero, his stark white wings helped him in speed and defense as they were surprisingly durable despite their softness. He was also known for helping people in day to day tasks, from petty crime to helping carry groceries. He was normally followed by his apprentice(?). Virtue was a hero in training and was usually found around Halo but he was nowhere to be seen today.
After the administration of being in a situation that you always saw on the news you realized if you stayed there any longer you might end up on the news as a casualty. Ending up on a t-shirt wasn't a part of your plan for the day so you had to find a way out of this situation and fast. Leaving the alley wasn't an option because it put you in a direct line of stray attacks with no defense whatsoever and staying wasn't either because the fight was getting closer to you!
After a moment of consideration you decided that maybe up on the roof was better. Tephras was known for using different kinds of chemical gas and everyone other than Halo preferred to fight on ground so it seemed like the safest option.
Making up your mind, you climbed the fire escape of the tallest building of the two you were sandwiched between. The previously nice weather was now windy asf and the sun had now completely hidden over the horizon so the city was a dark embrace, even the moon lit seemed dim.
You continued up and just when you nearly got to the top a sudden explosion hit the building you were on. You then remembered that if you get hit off you were more likely to die and internally cursed your past self for this dumb idea, you should have just hidden behind the bin. But it was too late to regret it as you felt the building collapse and you going down with it.
You scream as you fall and go through every documentary you've ever seen about situations like this, what position were you supposed to do to slow down your descent? Were you supposed to land on your legs? How fucked were you at this height? You didn't have time to change your position at all and figured you were about to end up like Gwen Stacy, so you hoped it wouldn't hurt as bad as it looked.
You shut your eyes tight and braced for impact and when you felt nothing but a suddenly warm embrace, you thought you died on impact. When you peeked your eyes open you instead were face to face with Halo, you may well have died because now you were in the arms of an angel. He was saying something to you but you were reeling in the fact that you were still alive to even think about focusing. You vaguely noticed you were being held bridal style or what you would now call the reverse Gwen Stacy
When you finally did decide to focus “... This is dangerous, why didn't you evacuate with everyone else?” Oh Halo was scolding you, made sense but definitely wasn't what you needed at the moment.
This wasn't even your fault you had dropped your phone- as if by fate it's when you looked down you spotted your phone among some other things. Those other things being from whatever bank the villains robbed and had probably been forced to drop them for the fight, but your sweet lifeline of a phone was also there!
Halo was still in the middle of a fight after all so before he could put you down or even close to the floor he got grabbed by Nixe’s water and lassoed back into the fight. You on the other hand went falling again it wasn't a far drop thankfully do when you landed you only sprained your leg and tumbled a lot. It still really hurt though but better than the building fall.
After you made sure you were still intact other than the sprained ankle and multitude of cuts you realized you had been dropped right next to the prize. Your phone! You quickly crawled over and grabbed hold of it like your life depended on it. Neither hero nor villain noticed you as they saw the other as more of a threat than a random civilian.
Other than the bags of people's stolen mortgages, there was a lone book hidden among them that caught your attention. It seemed out of place around the money so hesitantly you grabbed the book too. You were about to quickly make a clean escape before you heard Halo yell out
“Hey wait put that down”
Ah yes he was the only one who knew you were actually there at the moment, he wasn't the type of hero to let a civilian fall and then forget about them.
You heard the battle pause as Tephras and Nixe noticed you taking one of their stolen possessions and after turning slightly to confirm, yep all eyes were on you. Sparked with fear and urgency, you sprinted in the other way like your life depended on it.