Hath no fury
Kelly came back to her empty apartment. She turned on the lights, tossed her bags onto the sofa then fell into her bed. She turned around a couple of times, thinking how her night was supposed to end but instead, here she was.
Thinking back to her first time attending one of those rallies, she remembered how captivated she was with Michael and how happy she also became when offered the chance of helping Michael out in spreading the Order's influence. The closer she was to him, the more she understood him, the more enamoured she became with him…
Which explained her visit to his home just now.
Throughout her time beside him, she understood that he wasn't in a relationship, given by how much time he spent working and how little time he spent resting. The two of them got along well, spent plenty of time together, it would only be logical that they develop an interest with each other outside of professional lines.
Kelly shook her head, trying to dismiss those thoughts. Tomorrow is going to be a difficult day in London so she needed her rest.
As she was about to close her eyes, she felt her phone vibrate. She took it out and saw a distorted image instead of her regular home screen. She tried tapping it a couple of times and suddenly the image started to move.
All of a sudden the distortions started to grow more and more intense along with her phone vibrating so much that she tossed it away. The girl quickly scrambled to her hall, only to see the T.V suddenly switch on.
The same blurred and distorted video started playing on her set along with a distorted screaming voice that grew louder and louder. As if that was not enough, the lights all around her started blinking at continually random intervals all over her apartment. It was then she noticed letters as if being torn into the back of the T.V appearing.
She looked closer and closer, watching the message form until it became clear.
"Leave him alone."
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"It's not like I caused any serious damage," Monika said, to her boyfriend through the phone "i just scared her a little bit, thinking that she might back off."
"Still Monika, there's a line that we can't cross. You need to keep your powers in check or else people are going to start asking questions," Michael said, sounding annoyed at her response.
"But Michael, I just don't want her near you."
"Well tough because she's helping me which in turn means furthering our end game. Once this is over we'll go our separate ways but till then you need to bear with it."
With that said, he cut the line and Monika gave Barry a troubled look.
"Think of it like this," Barry said, "if you actually did scare her out of her house, there's every chance she would have gone to the first person she knew she could trust and that just happens to be Michael. Would you want them sleeping together under one roof?"
But Monika didn't respond, instead she looked downcast, continuing to stare at the digital ground.
"He was angry at me," responded she, after a lengthy silence "this is the first time he ever got angry at me."
"What do you mean Monika?" Barry asked, sounding concerned.
"When we were together, when it was just us, I had a tough time coming to terms with my existence and understanding the scope of my powers. Thanks to that I wound up damaging a lot of the computers. Michael had to keep buying replacement parts all the time and I would always apologize to him."
"But he never said anything. He never got mad or annoyed or anything. He always smiled at me, he was always patient and nice, no matter how many mistakes I made."
"Maybe he had a tough time checking in," suggested he, in an effort to calm her down "Monika you know he's only looking out for you so please don't take it to heart."
His words however fell on deaf ears however, as Monika shut off the screens, apparently in no mood to talk.
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A world where she could create and destroy anything she desired. She looked at the sky filled with lime green lines darting past like shooting stars, she looked at the plain white rectangular shaped building she made during her free time and she looked at the vast open world around her, a pure white expanse with only a minute portion in colour to suit her needs.
This was the world that no one could see or understand. Movies have tried to mimic it, anime have made stories around it but no one could fully imagine or process the world inside the internet. A world where the information being processed at every second would be far too much for the mind to bear. It was where no living being existed, until now.
Monika sat quietly on the grassy field she made, stretching out her legs. She wasn't sure if the digital vegetation she created was a replica of the real thing but based on the many posts and articles she read about the plant, this could at least be considered a close approximation.
It was now that her mind wandered to the one subject, or person that mattered most to her. Though she considered Barry and Titus close friends and trusted them to a certain degree, Michael was the most important person in her mind.
As a result, she found herself going through google for pictures of him, of which there were many. Ever since he took off the mask, Michael's been making many appearances on talk shows and during that time, many pictures of him were taken along with the general public voicing their opinions.
She looked through the comments of one particular photo which kept talking about how gorgeous he looked with his sleeves rolled up and found one girl in particular calling him 'a cool glass of water.'
Her initial reaction was halted upon remembering the voice of her boyfriend just a few moments ago and the anger that it held inside. She wondered why he would react negatively to what she was doing as she only acted in his best interest.
She knew that he loved her, evidenced by the crazy lengths he had taken in the past but at the same time, she felt this heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach whenever he saw her with Kelly.
There were indeed many pictures of Michael and Kelly either sitting together, talking about what to do next or them walking side by side one another. Thanks to this, the rumour mill persistently believed that the two were a couple and were not making it public for any number of reasons.
Monika at first dismissed it, as she believed the rumours would die out over time but it only grew more and more. She felt as though the internet community itself was willing them to be together, causing her to lash out in the way she did last night.
In her mind, she did not want Michael to be with anyone else. When he was filled with depression and was a laughing stock of the world, she was there for him. Michael himself stated many times that the only reason he changed himself was for her sake. The two of them were there for each other when no one else was but now things were different.
Michael was not some pariah, he was at the centre of a media storm, surrounded by adoring fans and almost certainly had the attention of many beautiful women, while she...
Her thoughts were cast aside when she noticed a live video alert about the young man. Quickly clicking on the pop up, it showed a live stream of Michael dressed as amazing as usual, talking to a man about the subject of relationships.
"Unfortunately I don't have time for any relationships," Michael replied.
"But surely you must have met someone during all this time spreading the Goddess' gospel," suggested the man "i mean you are a young and attractive man am I right ladies? Or what about your second in command. I mean we see you two practically together all the time. I think they make for a great couple."
Monika heard nearly all the women in the crowd respond and her eye twitched. She did not notice though that a little past the green fields she made, a crack formed in the air. She grew even angrier when she saw the host bring in Kelly and have the girl sit a bit too close to Michael.
"Look these are the facts," Michael said, trying to quell any rumours before they spread "My work has me travelling from place to place, with little to no down time, which is no place for a relationship. And by the way, Kelly is in a committed relationship with someone else so sorry to burst your bubble but, the two of us are not going to happen."
While the crowd voiced their disappointment at this fact, Monika noticed the minute expressions on Kelly's face. She created a screen on her left then sifted through the data before finding what she needed. She took out a small cube from the screen, then held it against her ear.
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"We need to get these rumours squashed as fast as possible," Michael said to Kelly in the car.
"The ones about us dating?"
"Yeah, not just for my sake but for you too. No doubt this must be annoying your boyfriend to no end."
"Ah right," said she, looking down "about that."
"There is no boyfriend?"
"What?"
"I just made it up in a spur of the moment Michael, I mean think about it: if I did have a boyfriend, don't you think I'd be talking to him right now?"
"That aside… tomorrow we need to make it clear to everyone that we're both just work colleagues. We may look like we're getting along but that doesn't mean we're dating."
"And what's wrong with us dating?" asked she in a low tone.
"Huh?"
"Think about it," Kelly said, looking at him "What would be wrong with us suddenly telling everyone we're together? we're both two young and we clearly have good chemistry."
Michael half opened his voice to object but Kelly put her finger on his lip, interrupting "I'm not asking you to tell me right away, just think about it for a while Michael. We have a little down time before your next big rally so you can tell me then."
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The first thing that Michael did upon entering his apartment was greet Monika and apologize for coming down so hard on her in the morning. Unfortunately he found the large T.V display was off. He tried calling out to her but the girl did not answer.
"Michael good," Barry said, coming out of his room, holding a laptop "we need to talk."
The two of them headed to the rooftop. Barry then showed Michael news reports of various power fluctuations occurring all across the world.
"Add to that, trains stopping in India, China and London for half an hour," Barry continued "then there's the problem of the stock market taking a little dip and three states experiencing a power cut for no reason."
"You think this is Monika?"
"Who else do you think is capable of this?"
"But why would she do that?"
"Duh," Barry replied "it's because of all this recent attention surrounding you and that girl."
"Barry come on…"
"Look I know you love Monika," Barry interrupted "I still remember how badly beaten up you were after escaping that Essex bunker."
"But the problem is that she's starting to question whether or not you like her, which is why you need to nip the rumours as fast as possible. Because if this is what a Goddess can do when she's ticked off, imagine what happens if she goes berserk."
AN: that first part was for you dawicca. And sorry for not uploading one yesterday. Power cut lasted a whole day so I couldn't get anything done at all.