Insomniac Player

Elias didn’t present the request as a heroic mission. There was no speech about destiny, no promise that five people could save the world. He set a thick digital file above the table and opened with limitations instead.

"You will not pursue the Order’s leaders directly. You will not infiltrate unknown strongholds, contact suspected officers, or follow financial routes past the boundary of an assigned operation. If you find a high-level target, you withdraw and report it."

Naked Nun raised a hand. "Define high-level."

"Anyone who can kill you."

"That depends on my mood."

"Anyone Sir Martin says can kill you."

She lowered her hand. "Less flexible. Clearer, though."

Elias expanded the file to reveal pages of rules for handling evidence, civilian rescue protocols, communication blackouts, and emergency extraction procedures. Damien read through each one. None of them granted the Nova Corps authority over ordinary soldiers. None of them required accepting every assignment handed to them.

Freelancers in more than name, then.

"You can refuse any mission before deployment," Elias said. "Once deployed, you follow the operational plan unless circumstances make that impossible. You can recommend additional members, but nobody joins the unit without approval from all five of you."

Hamari pointed at the file. "Can we reject someone because their whole vibe reads criminal?"

"You’ll provide a reason."

"So yes. Professionally."

Martin cut in before the conversation could wander further. "You’ll receive equipment, transport, intelligence support, and access to secure facilities. The party stays unofficial. Publicly, you’re independent players taking regional defense contracts. Nothing more."

Daria studied Elias rather than the contract itself. "Why us specifically? There are hundreds of freelancer teams out there with more experience."

"Experience builds patterns. Patterns can be studied and predicted." Elias’s eyes moved across the table. "Your team is new. Each of you is individually hard to pressure."

His gaze passed from Daria to each of the others in turn.

"Madam Marvel has wealth and family protection behind her. Doctor Smoke understands both military procedure and medicine. DeluluGirl handles long-range surveillance better than most trained snipers. Naked Nun is." He paused.

Naked Nun waited, clearly enjoying the pause.

"Difficult to predict."

She looked thoroughly pleased with that. "Put that on my identification card."

"And Damien?" Doctor Smoke asked.

The Prime Minister looked at him directly.

"Damien has been awake in this version of the world for only a short time. He’s already survived conflicts that should have killed him, drawn the attention of powerful individuals, and shown an unusual capacity for growth under pressure."

Damien leaned back, carefully, his ribs still objecting to anything fast. "You make me sound a lot more impressive when you leave out the part where other people kept saving me."

"I invited those people too."

Doctor Smoke’s mouth curved into a faint smile, the cigarette still sitting unlit behind her ear.

"More importantly," Elias continued, "Damien needs real allies. Not borrowed ones."

Something shifted in John’s expression. The Prime Minister didn’t look away from it.

"Sir Martin and I can protect his legal standing today. We can keep officials from detaining him, suppress any report that exposes his return, keep agencies from treating him like an unknown anomaly to be studied."

"For now," Damien said.

"For now," Elias agreed. "Governments change. People die. What happens the day Martin dies? What happens the day I do?"

Nobody had an answer for that.

"Most powerful players end up building guilds, brands, or private territories of their own. That doesn’t make them villains. But Damien’s future can’t rest entirely on two officials happening to stay alive and influential forever."

John hadn’t spoken once since the meeting started. He stood behind Damien’s chair, arms crossed, face unreadable as he watched Elias. The only real sign of what he felt was the metal still bent under one hand.

"You think fighting the Neva Order will build allies?"

"Shared danger reveals people fast." Elias’s tone stayed level. "Sometimes it reveals enemies instead. Those are also useful to identify early."

"Honest, at least," Daria said.

"I don’t have enough trustworthy people left to waste time being charming about it."

Damien looked at the four names sitting beside his own in the party window. Doctor Smoke had led them through Ironfall while acting like nothing in the world concerned her. Naked Nun treated a battlefield like a festival and never once left a wounded teammate behind. Daria kept every emotion locked behind ice and still showed up the second the team actually called. Hamari joked her way through disasters and then put a bullet exactly where it needed to land, every time.

They already chose me once, before any of this.

The photographs of the missing kids stayed lodged in his memory, refusing to move.

"What’s the first target?"

"Not selected yet," Martin said. "Three low-level branches are under assessment. You’ll get a mission once intelligence confirms the target can be isolated without alerting the wider network."

"How long?"

"Days. Possibly weeks."

"And until then?"

"Recover," Doctor Smoke said.

"That instruction wasn’t addressed to you."

"Medical authority. It’s always addressed to you."

Elias closed the file. "You haven’t actually agreed yet."

Damien glanced at John.

The older man stayed silent, and that silence carried more weight than any objection could have. John had interrupted Damien’s recruitment before, had refused Martin’s original offer entirely on his behalf, then advised him to freelance until he understood this world properly. This time he let the decision sit exactly where it belonged.

With Damien.

"I’ll help."

Doctor Smoke nodded. Daria did the same.

"Obviously," Hamari said. "We didn’t ride the secret basement elevator for a scenic tour."

Naked Nun rested her chin on one hand. "There will be fighting."

Martin considered her. "Probably."

"Then I also accept the moral responsibility that comes with it."

A system window opened in front of each of them.

➤[Classified Contract Offered]

➤[Operation: Unnamed]

➤[Employer: Earth-69 Central Government]

➤[Objective: Assist in the investigation and dismantling of Neva Order operations]

➤[Service Type: Voluntary Military Freelancer Deployment]

➤[Disclosure: Prohibited]

[Accept] [Decline]

Damien selected Accept. Four confirmations followed right after.

➤[Nova Corps contract registered.]

Elias let out a breath he’d apparently been holding back the whole meeting. "Thank you."

"Don’t thank us before we’ve actually done anything," Daria said.

"Fair."

The meeting ended without ceremony. Martin restored their external communication access and walked them to the lift himself.

John waited until the doors closed before he spoke.

"You agreed fast."

Damien watched the blank floor indicator as they rose. "There are children involved."

"There are always children involved when evil men want good people to stop thinking clearly."

Damien turned to face him.

John’s expression was stern rather than dismissive. "I’m not saying they lied to us. The Order’s real. The crimes are real. But governments show you the wound they know you can’t ignore. Remember that, even as they’re the ones pointing you toward where to swing the blade."

"You don’t trust Elias."

"I trust that he wants the Order destroyed. I trust Martin more than him. Neither kind of trust is the same as handing them your whole life."

Damien nodded slowly. "Then why didn’t you object back there?"

John looked down at him. "Because you asked me to let you reach my level without me carrying you there the whole way. I can’t respect your choices only when they happen to be convenient for me."

The answer sat between them, unresolved, until the doors finally opened.

Outside the Secretariat, reporters crowded the front plaza. None of them knew Damien had ever been inside. Screens above the road looped the official account of the Doppelganger Gate.

UNRANKED THREAT NEUTRALIZED IN CLASSIFIED DEFENSE OPERATION

No name was attached, no image of John catching him. The world still believed Damien was absent, dead, or simply unimportant.

Useful, for what’s coming.

Hamari pulled her hood over her instantly recognizable hair. "So what does a secret anti-crime team even do before its first mission?"

"Level up," Daria said.

"Eat," John said.

"Fight," Naked Nun said.

"Get vaccinated," Doctor Smoke said.

Everyone turned to look at her.

She shrugged. "I enjoy being the one responsible person in a group. Keeps everyone’s expectations conveniently low."

Damien felt the weight of the black manual sitting in his inventory.

Still haven’t cracked past the first stance. I wish there were a way to learn this quickly.

"You four should grind," he said. "I need a few days to actually recover."

Hamari pointed at him. "That sentence contained suspicious amounts of maturity."

"I also intend to train."

"There it is."

They split up at the next transport platform, the girls heading toward a government-controlled gate Imran had already picked out for them. John and Damien rode the aerial train back to the penthouse.

As it crossed Viremont, Damien watched the city slide past beneath the glass. Somewhere out there the Neva Order kept doing whatever it did every single day, uninterrupted. Somewhere, Martin’s people were already picking the first thread for the Nova Corps to pull.

Can’t control when the mission actually comes.

Can control what shape I’m in when it does.

He opened his skill window. Shadow Dash and Shadow Imitation both flashing there.

John caught the reflection of the window in the train glass. "No."

Damien closed it. "I was only checking."

"You check skills the way Naked Nun checks weapons."

"Thoroughly?"

"With immediate plans to misuse them."

The train carried them home while Damien quietly counted down the minutes until John finally fell asleep.

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