I sighed after stepping onto the school bus. The public transportation-turned private vehicle by the University had its suffocating heat blasting due to the sheer freezing cold outside.

Having the temperature change so rapidly made Dantae dizzy, and she leaned on me while we sat down, causing me to smile.

However, that faded almost instantly. It was getting tough to hold myself back from outbursts these days, and pretending to be a loving and caring mentor didn’t help either.

As Dantae and I constantly joked with each other, we were broken. She with her preferential treatment being abusive and I, a shell of a human being with extremely dulled emotions.

I looked over at her sleeping face and a grin crept onto my face. Well, except for one emotion that is.

Luckily enough for me, acting, or rather bluffing, was always one of my strengths, and that was no less true now than back then.

“Leo, did you read the report I sent you last night?” Rob walked up with his partner and Dantae’s clone, Angelina, from the front of the bus and sat in the seats opposite us.

I looked at him up and down, still unsure whether he was suited for the job we were about to do or not.

Putting on my best ‘friendly smile’, I answered back in a voice much more relaxed than I actually felt, “Yeah, it was about her contact with that person yesterday. Um... Adrian... something?”

Angelina smiled and stifled a laugh, “Adrian Hudson. He’s known in the underworld as ‘The Protector,’ and is employed in a law firm where it’s suspected that he takes his employer’s clients and deals with their problems on his own time, if you know what I mean.” I stared at her for a moment before shifting my gaze out the window.

“Another daydreaming vigilante story out of New York, huh? What a joke.” My frown quickly caught on and soon Angelina and Rob had lost their gusto.

“What’s wrong Leo? Did Vanessa do something to you?” Rob seemed genuinely concerned for me, so I decided to put up my act once more to avoid any unwanted attention.

Letting a small smile etch it’s way onto my face I tried my best to look reassuring to the young cadet. “I’m ok. Just a little tired considering how many hours we’ve been putting into this operation, you know.”

Rob frowned, probably still unsure about my behavior but before he could question it further a shrill shriek blared throughout the bus. The eyes of surrounding students were drawn towards Rob’s pocket, and he cursed under his breath.

“Fuck my life! I keep telling Maria not to change my ringtone.” He pulled a shockingly pink and purple phone from his pocket. After muting his phone and apologizing to all the students in his vicinity, he answered the call.

“Maria, you wretched bitch! How many times do I have to tell you to stop touching my things!” A giggle came out from the phone’s speaker and a confident voice followed.

“Well stop leaving it on my table then! Honestly just cause we share a room together…” The line itself may have been fine, save for the fact it was on speaker-phone and once again Rob became the center of attention.

“Huh? Oh! Sorry, sorry!” after apologizing to the surrounding students once more, he turned off the obnoxious function and handed the phone to me.

“What is it Maria?” I tried not to sound like I was annoyed, and asked the question though with Maria I dreaded the answer. What were these idiots thinking? This is the opposite of how a covert mission should be done.

“Hi Leo! We’ve found the flower in the garden. We’ll meet up with you at the bus stop and bring you to see it.” I forgot how many mood swings and the schizophrenic rate at which Maria could change moods or personalities.

Appreciative that she found it in her heart to be serious for this moment, I looked out the window and watched the atlantic ocean that was stretched out before Empire State Community College's campus. “Thanks Maria, we’ll meet you at that time then.”

Hanging up, I handed the obnoxiously colored phone back to its owner and roused Dantae from her slumber. “Hmm? What is it Leo?”

“They found her. Since they knew each other previously, we’ll leave the talking to Alison and the others.” I turned to face her clone, “The same goes for you as well. Since Lena doesn’t know you, stay out of the line of sight of the escapee.

Rob sighed and frowned, “Please don’t call her an escapee in front of her. She’ll inevitably demand to met you since you’re in charge on sight, so try not to agitate her, will you?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but Dantae beat me to it. “Don’t worry guys. I’ll keep him on the straight and narrow!” She squeezed my body to put emphasis on the fact, causing me to lose my breath in the process.

I saw her smiling, a rarity since we were in public. Genuine happiness showed in her eyes and made me smile in return.

I remembered her bragging to me about her new friendships with Alison, Maria, and Angelina during our pillow talk. Maybe it was fine to pretend like I was their leader. As long as she was happy, not much else mattered.

———

The bus pulled up to the Campus Center, a series of tall brick buildings that reminded me of a prison compound. However, unlike the aforementioned, the college had people with bright and hopeful looks in their eyes. Although some of them did carry the soulless eyes of inmates, that seemed to be an outlier more than anything.

Although the building was something to look at, a certain individual at the stop drew my attention. She was dressed in a knee-length navy-blue dress with a white cardigan covering her shoulders. Her brown hair extended down to her shoulders and framed her pale face well. Her blue eyes drew me in, although what really caught my attention was the gun that was hidden just inside a holster covered by her cardigan.

She looked up and, upon noticing my gaze, widened her eyes and frowned with her dark-red lips. She went inside the building, reaching into her cardigan as the doors closed behind her.

Once the bus pulled up, we got off and met Maria and Alison, both of them were waiting on a wooden bench outside the Center’s entrance.

“Hi guys. How have the dorms on campus been?” Dantae hugged Maria and Alison, both of whom had volunteered to stay in the dorms in case our target decided not to commute to school but lay low in a different sense.

“They’re ok. As far as I can tell neither Lena or her friend Jessica have come to the dorms, but the tracker app we reverse engineered from Jessica’s phone shows that someone with a photon presence is on the fourth floor of the Quinn building.”

Alison pointed to a building covered in glass panes, “So that’s our next destination. Is the plan still the same as what we discussed?”

I nodded, flashing a small smile and patted Alison’s head. “I believe in you, and in Maria and Rob as well. Albeit for a short while, you were a student of mine and that's the least I can give you.” Alison beamed at me and Maria turned away, embarrassed.

“We won’t let you down! You should also check out the rest of the school while you wait for us, it’ll pass the time quite well I assume.” Rob clapped me on the back and the three of them headed off towards Lena’s classroom. I turned to face Dantae and Angelina, but before I could speak Angelina’s phone started to ring.

She clicked her tongue and said, “It’s Armando… give me a moment.” She walked in the direction opposite of us, so I focused solely on Dantae.

I took her hand and squeezed it before bringing her closer to my side. “So how are you liking New York?”

“Well, better than last time. Of course, last time we came here was because of the Dimension Eater that almost ate the Empire State Building… maybe they just have a thing for high places.”

“Sorry about that.” Our small moment was interrupted by a returning Angelina, who had a worried look on her face.

“ General Armando said that the immune system of my predecessors is starting to unravel, and they are becoming more and more sick as the days go on. To make sure I won’t be infected, he told me to return at once.”

“Want me to teleport you?” I asked out of concern, as her face had become pale and her lips trembled.

“No, we need you here to complete the mission and give commands to the other three. Just tell Rob to call me after the mission is over, and if I don’t answer to call Armando. He should be able to give Rob an E.T.A. on my return.

I nodded reluctantly, realizing that she was right and three novices at covert operations and negotiations leading themselves would be detrimental to our objective. “Ok, be careful. If he does anything to you please tell us so we can help you.”

“Thanks Leo, I mean it.” We saw her off on the next bus, after which Dantae pulled me aside.

“So, now what are we gonna do to pass the time?” She cuddled up to me, but I nonchalantly peeled her off.

“I have an idea,” I said, remembering the woman I had seen as the bus had pulled up to the College. “And I’ll probably need your help as well. You in?”

She grinned, “Of course! I’ll always have your back, darling.” smiling back, I took her hand as we walked into the Campus Center together.