Chapter 2

Phoebe woke to a bing! of her phone. Her hand slithering through the sheets to grab the device, unlocking it, she immediately bolted up at the notice of Link's name on her notification panel.

'I-Its from Link!'

She quickly entered her password, biting her lip in anticipation when she pressed the menu button, her finger pausing on the messaging icon.

'What if he! What if I!'

She couldn't possibly read the message. Besides, what if he doesn't want to see her again? Or maybe he was texting her to refuse from meeting with them?

'What do I-wait, that's it!

Her mind made up, she flung the sheets off of her and bolted downstairs.

Everything was perfect.

He had finally conquered the planet. Defeated all superheroes who dared defy him and those who were against his supremacy. His intentions weren't heinous at all, no, not all. What he planned during his reign of earth was to bring worldwide peace among all nations. Of course there were those who deemed the notion both delirious and delusional, but he was a man of his word, so he proved everyone wrong by creating a machine unheard of to mankind.

He spent an entire month in his fortress, working on his newest invention, making it a reality, with the ambition to prove his godly ingenuity. Everything went smoothly and accordingly, just as he had envisioned. Months passed and he finally issued a live worldwide feed.

As the self proclaimed ruler of planet earth, Max claimed he had found the solution to forth bring world wide peace. A panel of questions from on how he would accomplish seizing the tensions among nations and other worldly controversies that threaten the survival of mankind, his answer was simple:

Take away the powers of both heroes and villains.

Immediate protests were in order but they fell on deaf ears. He presented his innovation to the world and activated it, projecting a beam into the sky, turning it into an eerie and ominous blue.

In a few days, every villain and hero had lost their powers with the exception of him. The hero and villain leagues without their particular set of powers were forced to band as one unit .

The world was now at peace, all thanks to one ambitious good looking teenager who took initiative and settled the disputes among earthly governments who were slowly but surely destroying such a pure, magnificent planet.

Max now resided in a large ship based in space, dubbed the 'Overseer'. Which only he and his dark empress inhabited. His dark empress of the night. Although the world was littered with beautiful girls, he knew only one qualified to rule beside him. His search had come to an end when he made up his mind and chose her, he was sure it was her. Headstrong, opinionated, but she was right for him, that much was enough. She was extremely pretty, her incomparable beauty always left him shaking his head, patting himself on his back for his accomplishment in finally settling down from all the work.

He was young, so was she. He considered himself lucky, because he believed he'd never find love since he deemed such an emotion fickle and meaningless. Yet, he couldn't bring himself to care. She loved him for all the worth and egoistic he was. At the break of dawn, he let loose a yawn, feeling another weight on top of him. Dark locks laid on his chest, tickling his skin. When he opened his eyes, big elegant shining brown eyes and a naughty smile greeted him. He absentmindedly shut his eyes.

"I know you're awake."

Her heavenly voice did nothing to evoke the action, too deep in fear of this being a dream.

"Wake up."

He isn't taking chances, although her voice vaguely sounds familiar.

Max, wake up.

Wait, hold on, he recognised that voice.

Wake up!

He bolted upright, immediately feeling pain to his forehead.

"Darn it!"

"Ouch!"

The distinct voice pulled him out of his pained reverie to acknowledge his twin fervently rubbing her forehead with her eyes closed. Their eyes met. Slack jawed, and still a bit shaken from his dream.

"Empress?"

Phoebe didn't give away any recognition to the title but she did shake her head in exasperation as her face contorted to an annoyed glare.

"I tried waking you up but you kept on making this stupid face."

Max was taken aback at the response, before taking a look at his surroundings.

Right.

He sighed and ran his fingers across his scalp. It was all a dream.

"What do you want?" he asked in an unusual monotone, trying to shake out the residue cobwebs of fantasy out of his mind.

Phoebe shoved her phone into his chest, trudging a distance away, pacing back and forth. "Link sent me a text message, and I'm afraid to read it." she glanced at him. "I want you to read it. If it's bad news, like really really bad news, I don't want you to tell me. No! I want you to tell me, but you have to make it sound nice, yes, nice bad, get it, get it?!"

"Phoebe, calm down!" he yelled, shaking her shoulders until she visibly calmed taking a deep breath. He stepped away from her, adjusting her phone, scoffing as he read the message. "He said we can swing by during lunch."

Phoebe sighed in relief, taking her phone from Max, smiling. "That's a relief, I can't believe I got worked up over nothing."

"While nursing your relief, could you get me a bandage?"

"What for?"

He glared, pointing to his red forehead.

As Phoebe sat with Cherry, she couldn't help but ponder on what Max said earlier. The memory having only registered her mind more defined.

Empress - was the first thing to leave his mouth at the sight of her.

She remembered a time when Max mentioned that apart from fulfilling his lifelong ambition of becoming the greatest supervillain was to have someone rule beside him, someone he could confide in, a partner of sorts, specifically female.

Empress.

Phoebe knew that the dark empress of the night was a spouse, the only woman he'd truly love. And that's what ate at her. Why would Max call her that? She knew he was dreaming but she still felt a bit bothered. She's his sister and he's her brother, they are twins.

"Bestie, is everything alright?"

She shook the impervious thoughts out of her head. She couldn't bother torture herself with such unacceptable wrong thoughts. It wouldn't get her anywhere. "Honestly, no. I'm nervous about facing Link."

Cherry smiled. "Well, that shouldn't bother you because your brother will be there to make things right between the two of you, right?" she asked, secretly snickering at the fact she said 'right' twice in the same sentence.

Phoebe shook her head. "I'd say you have too much faith in Max, but even I know how persuasive he can be."

"When are your parents coming back from Hero Con?"

"In a couple of days."

Her phone shook within the confines of her pocket, brandishing it to acknowledge the content displayed on screen.

"It's from Max."

"What does it say?"

Phoebe stood up, packing her books into her bag, sending her blonde best friend an apologetic smile. "Sorry Cherry, I have to go. Max just reminded me of something important."

"I can't believe you just used 'important' and 'Max' in the same sentence."

Phoebe actually took a moment to regard Cherry's words, finding them true. Well it was true, so far he hadn't pranked her probably because he still felt guilty for reading her diary and the fiasco created because of him having read said diary.

"You can say we've been getting along lately." she explained, reaching out to hug her friend, moving to the door.

"Hasn't it been just two days since he read your diary?" Cherry called out, escorting her friend to the door.

"Progress has to start somewhere." Phoebe waved. "Wish me luck!"

Phoebe hesitantly sat next to her twin, across her to-be ex if things went south.

"Hi, Link."

"Phoebe."

"Okay, now that salutations are out of the way, let's get this show on the road because I'm Max Thunderman; busy man and places to be, catch my drift?" Max inquired, looking across Link who's lips twitched in amusement at his antics. "Right, as you know, my band got a sweet deal to perform here at SplatBurger on condition we impress customers so they come back."

"I know of that." Link agreed, having occasionally seen Max and his band perform on his roundabout shifts.

"So we perform and get free food, it was that simple." Max explained further. "But as days passed, the guys started complaining about the lyrics. So I, as band leader needed to get new lyrics, so I kind of looked for the nearest inspirational source I could get my hands on."

Link noticed Phoebe suddenly glare at Max.

"Which happened to be her diary."

Link gaped. "You read your sister's diary, and sang about everything in it as lyrics for the songs you performed?"

"The way you say it makes it sound like a big deal."

"That's because it is a big deal Max. You don't read your sister's diary."

"The way you say it makes it sound like you have a sister."

Link glared, Phoebe subtly elbowed him.

"Look, Phoebe is great. Anyone would be lucky to have her as a girlfriend." he paused when they sent him looks. "I-I mean, she's my twin sister, so I know her better than anyone. And I'm probably the last person she'd tell anything she's not supposed to."

"I think that's pretty obvious Max."

"Then you have to know that she's been miserable without you."

Link looked at Phoebe, who shyly looked to the side. Max felt a trembling hand reach for his under the table, compelling him to glance at Phoebe before averting his gaze back to Link.

"Dude, we're sorry."

"Why is she sorry?"

"Because she wasn't supposed to write down your secret in the first place. It's yours, not hers. Just as it was her diary to read, not mine."

Link approved of the logic invested in that. He had no reason to cold-shoulder his girlfriend without hearing her side of the story.

"Max," he started, addressing the male twin, but his eyes remnant on his girlfriend. "Can I talk to your sister, alone?"

"Sure."

Phoebe looked him in the eyes and softly squeezed his hand. For some reason, she didn't want him to leave, even though she knew he had to. She was nervous as hell, the incoherent quiver of her lips didn't help in placating how nervous she felt. Ultimately, she released a sigh of forlorn, letting his hand go prompting him to stand up.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it." he said, ruffling her hair, earning a well deserved glare, which wasn't meant probably because of the small smile gracing her lips as she watched him leave SplatBurger.