AN: Special shoutout to American_D00D (AO3) / Mighty J (FFN) and KuronoDono12 for helping me out with this project. Please enjoy!
Reagan
There are three different types of headaches.
One of them was the hangover kind, which was the worst after the trauma-induced one. Then there was the one her dad was giving her right now - the type of headache she was quite used to getting since she was six years old.
Currently, her father Rand Ridley was doing a protest outside of the White House, yelling your typical conspiracy nonsense that most people wouldn't believe...which was good, because nearly all of it was true to some degree, and her father was about to get JFKed for shouting about it on the sidewalk.
Long story short, she had to go pick him up and call off the snipers aiming at his forehead on account of him actually telling the truth.
Reagan's life is far from ordinary, for she exists in a world where most of the conspiracies you would find on the internet have some semblance of truth to them. That included her father's public rambling about the world being controlled by a shadow government.
How does she know this? Because she works for the said shadow government. Specifically, she works for Cognito Inc (which is a small anagram for Incognito. How clever.)
Little fun fact: her father was the one that actually founded Cognito Inc - a branch of a secret society dedicated to helping contain the supernatural as well as to keep the public none the wiser about it. Lizard people. Puppet presidents. Easter Island Headed people. Hollow Earth. You name it.
Then one day, her father went on a meltdown, and his partner J.R. kicked him out and took his place. And now, she worked her butt off to one day take his place.
Until then, she was stuck taking care of her asshole father, who did all of this just because he wanted a ride to the mall for some kind of cheese pretzel or something.
However, today might be the day where it all changes. She could smell her promotion coming, and that is what got her up faster than her usual shitty coffee and caffeine pills.
"Imagine it, me, ruling the office with an iron fist!" Reagan grinned, punching her steering wheel. "I even made an iron fist!"
She quickly pulled out what appeared to be a prosthetic arm. With a simple command from her mind, the metal fist gave her a thumbs up.
"Eh, I've seen better," her father scoffed, putting away his hip flask.
"Oh, have you seen better?" Reagan resisted the urge to sigh as her moment of pride fell faster than a house of cards. The arm then flipped her father the bird, before two more hands suddenly sprung out from the sides, also giving her father the finger. A small puff of confetti shot out of the main hand as a small flag that read "Like a boss" erected from the middle finger.
"...Alright, that's pretty good," her father gave her a rare smile of approval, and her smile returned to her face.
["Welcome to Cognito Inc. We are a company!"]
Even though she heard and saw the entrance to her workplace a million times, she still couldn't believe just how lazy they got with keeping things, well, incognito.
For one, the parking lot was nearly empty as usual. Two, once you stepped inside, there was literally nobody but a holographic female secretary that greeted her with the same, soulless "Good morning, Dr. Ridley." And third - well - everything in here screamed suspiciously empty.
Sure, the extraction team always did a fine job of capturing and mind wiping anyone who got a little too nosy, but would it kill them to put up a semi-decent effort on covering up the entrance?
"Look, Dad, as long as you're living with me," Reagan said as she looked into a camera on the wall. It scanned her retinas quickly, and a hidden door slid open, revealing an elevator with an armed guard inside it. "We need to set some ground rules. First, no more vodka for breakfast."
"Oh, come on~" her father whined.
"Second, you can't tell people that the government isn't real."
"But it's not!" Rand argued as he shoved aside a large, many faced orange alien with tentacles holding paperwork.
Reagan rolled her eyes as she blocked out the sights that would've made a QAnon nutjob cream their pants. Aliens, cryptids, lizard people, you name it. They were all hanging around and mingling amongst each other like it was just another Tuesday. A giant, very Star Wars-like walker had just vanished from sight, herding away a literal group of sheep-people, but she just blocked it off her mind as she continued talking to her father.
Reagan went on to continue about what her father can't do, even as they passed by the said topics in question, which included shape-shifting lizard people (they passed by a senator that just shed his human form), weather-controlling robots courtesy of Gerald from Accounting (who was currently having trouble with one of his machines), and that the Dow Jones is controlled by blood sacrifices (which consisted of a Satanic cult in the Financial Department who were in the process of slaughtering a goat in order to up the shares of JPMorgan.)
"Rules, rules, rules," her father scoffed. "When did this become such a boring place to work?"
"Morning, Dr. Ridley!"
"Hi, Steve." The two Ridleys waved at a bizarre fetus which was floating in a water dispenser that nobody drank out of (for obvious reasons), before she continued.
"And most importantly, you absolutely cannot tell people that we are replacing the president with a robot, okay?"
On cue, the lights to the laboratory turned on, revealing a small replica of the president's office, with the said false president sitting on his leather throne with his hands folded together. This was her work, and perhaps one of her finest as well, and she'll be damned if her father compromised it before they could even execute the mission.
But of course, her father couldn't give a hoot.
"Aw, don't be so uptight." her father just shrugged off, scratching the back of his dandruff laced hair before he took a small bottle of vodka from his bathrobe.
"Uptight? Uptight?!" Reagan nearly shrieked. "You almost exposed the Deep State because you wanted a ride to Wetzel's Pretzels! You're lucky I called the snipers off!"
Although I still wonder why I did that, a part of her grumbled. Her thoughts were cut short as a red laser trained itself onto her father's forehead.
After calling off one of the snipers named Gary again like a dog (which he seemed to really like for some weird reason), she asked an intern to take her father home, giving him her taser for "motivation."
With her father out of her hair, she can now get to work.
"Jesus, can we turn on the lights for once?" Reagan huffed, before slapping the light switch. The lights from the triangular ceiling light above their triangular desk switched on, prompting her co-workers to groan in agony.
"Some of us have hangovers, all right?" her colleague in a lab coat wearing cheap sunglasses cried out, trying to block out the powerful LED lights with his hand.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Andre, is your Molly comedown relevant to global security?" she snapped back. "Guys, in case you guys don't remember, we're shadow-running the free world here. Can we try to take this job seriously?"
She took a quick deep breath before she walked over to their large monitor screen.
"As you recall, the candidate that we backed in the last election won, but turned out to be too stupid to manipulate."
The large TV screen turned on, showing a clip of their president smiling and waving at the crowd as he stepped down from his personal plane...before he proceeded to tumble down the stairs and somehow get his big head stuck in the metal railing.
"But thanks to my sick new invention, the Deep State will finally have a president we can control!" Turning to the screen with pride, it showed a photo of Reagan tirelessly working on a perfect mechanical clone of the president.
"I'm a genius.~" Reagan said to herself. Her colleagues were very much used to her eccentric behavior at this point, so they said nothing as they allowed her to enjoy the moment.
"Anyways, this is our biggest job yet, so get your shit together! That means no huffing chemtrails…"
Reagan's words faltered a little as Dr. Andre was caught sucking in the said chemical.
"...no using drones to spy on your ex-wife…" Reagan continued, walking over to the half-man half-dolphin of the group, who was using the said technology to angrily watch his divorced wife eat a sandwich.
"...and no taking selfies on the moon-landing set!" Reagan finished by clicking on the remote, revealing a picture of a woman and a brightly-colored mushroom creature taking a selfie in front of the moon-landing set, the green background sticking out like a sore thumb.
"Ha! Top secret isn't a thing for eights and above, Reagan." Gigi, her only female coworker, just shrugged.
"Besides, you're not the boss of us!" the mushroom creature waved off, one of his six blue tentacles mimicking the hand gesture people would use to tell someone to take a hike. The orb in the clear sac below his large head glowed as he spoke.
"Actually, as of 12 PM today, I'm literally going to be the boss of all of you." Reagan replied smugly.
The group just groaned at that thought, and a shit-eating grin stretched across her face.
Reagan all but ran to the CEO's office, nearly tripping over sheeple and colliding with a robot along the way, but who cared? She was finally going to be the new leader of Cognito Inc - her dream since she was in kindergarten!
"...No, really, I could do it. My finger's hovering over the button."
Reagan took a deep breath as she entered the already opened room. She quietly took a seat as she waited for her boss to finish his conversation over the phone.
"Ah, there she is," JR Scheimpough said, beaming at the young scientist as he gave his usual weary smile. "Reagan Ridley, child prodigy, top of MIT at age 17. I don't need to look at your eye-bags to know you've been working hard."
"Thank you sir. And I am prepared for them to get deeper." Many might assume that Reagan was half-joking, but to those that knew her, they would all agree that she was being serious.
"Ever since your dad had his...meltdown and you took over his duties, productivity is up, and team morale has skyrocketed-"
"Thank you, sir!" Reagan beamed at the praise, standing up in excitement.
"Let me finish. Into the toilet."
Reagan's look of pride immediately morphed into one of confusion and disappointment.
"Look at your HR complaints."Yea JR sighed, taking out a folder made specifically for Reagan herself. "Difficult. Doesn't make eye contact. Says 'suck my dick' a lot for a woman."
"I-I make eye contact," Reagan scoffed, laughing nervously. "I make tons of eye contact!" To prove her point, she quickly leaned forward to stare at the boss's eyes with manic determination.
"JESUS! Never do that again!" JR yelped as he leapt back, finally noticing just how close Reagan got into his face just to make her point.
"Look," JR continued after his heart settled, "I know you care about your work, but your intensity freaks people out."
The two of them winced as they recalled a particular incident where Reagan had gotten into an Alien mech suit, crashing through the wall and a pair of doors just to tell her group to fill in their time cards after five days of restless sleep, some shots of alcohol, and one too many pills of Adderall.
"JR, am I still getting promoted?" Reagan asked meekly. Her hand began to squeeze her crystal necklace. "I've worked my whole life for this job. I skipped grades and showers to prove that despite my dad's legacy, I can run the shit out of this office."
"...Sure, you're very smart. But your people skills? Oof. That's why I've brought in someone to co-lead the team."
"E-Excuse me? Co-lead?" Reagan's mind stopped working for a moment as her boss summoned someone named Brett into the office.
JR
JR hummed as he walked down the hallway into the recreational room to play some golf. Entering the room, he nodded at his underlings as they got out of his way.
Letting out a satisfied sigh, he started the machine to summon him a golf ball and got ready to swing.
"You can come out now," he suddenly said to seemingly no one. He struck the ball, watching it fly into the distance before he turned around.
He barely blinked as a hooded man in black camo stood in front of him, a fox skull mask worn over his mouth.
"It's been a while, kid. Didn't think you'd get here this fast, but at this point, I shouldn't even be surprised."
"It's good to see you again, sir."
"Aw, no need for formalities, kiddo. C'mon, just think of me as your uncle or something, alright?"
"...If you say so." The man pulled back his hood, revealing a wild mess of blond and grey hair.
"Yikes, and I thought that Reagan looked bad," JR whistled.
The name of the girl seemed to spark some life back into those dull, blue eyes.
"...How is she?" His voice was as quiet as it was before, but JR detected a small hint of desperation.
"She's doing fine, kiddo. Still got those bags under her eyes and is probably gonna fall over from a stress aneurysm one day, but she's fine."
"...May I go see her now?" Naruto Uzumaki nearly pleaded.
"...Tell you what," JR sighed. "Your mission for today would be to watch over her. I got a new guy with her to try to work on her… let's call it 'people issues'; but if for some reason things go to shit, you can go take that new guy's place, alright?"
"T-Thank you." The young adult bowed quickly at him, before he turned and left.
"Oh, and one more thing."
The man froze in his steps, before whirling around, his body at attention.
"Until I say so in the next couple of days, you're not allowed to talk to her or go up to her, you understand?"
"Y-Yes sir!"
JR stared at the man as he nearly ran through the hallway.
"...Heh, I can hardly remember when he was a snot-nosed brat." he hummed in thought. "Looks like his time down there set him straight."
He turned around and cracked his neck just as a new ball arose from the floor.
Naruto
People gave him odd looks, despite the fact that he was the least odd one compared to the rest of them.
Not that it mattered. He had more important things to attend to. Or more specifically...
Reagan-chan… His fingerless gloved hand reached up to touch his crystal necklace - a gift from her before they had to part.
She had her role to play and he had his, which meant that they had to say goodbye for five years. Five excruciating years without her.
He remembered just how much his head and heart hurt each day he wasn't with her. It grew so bad that he once collapsed, his mind unable to handle it all. It took training, meditation, and lots of powerful drugs before he finally learned how to cope.
But still. A part of him still felt empty, as if someone had just ripped out a part of his soul. It didn't hurt physically, but he felt hollow. There were many nights he had stared down the barrel of his own gun, wondering if it was still worth it. Wondering if she still remembered him at all.
On the first day before his actual departure, they managed to talk for a while. The two of them stayed up all night talking to each other, enjoying the sight of their holographic faces as they spoke to one another.
After that, however, she stopped talking to him.
...No, Naruto shook his head. Maybe she couldn't reach me.
The place he had to go to was...far down, to say the least. He wouldn't be surprised if even her tech couldn't reach him down into the Hollow Earth. That's the day Hell truly began for him, and the only thing that kept him together was every night, when he got to stare at her beautiful, frozen smile.
He shook his head. That was then. He was finally free. Finally free to see her again in person!
...But no. As much as he wanted to go up to her - to just ask if she still remembered him - he couldn't. That would go against orders.
What was the word for this? Ah yes, "tantalizing."
For years he yearned to be back with Reagan. For years he yearned to be back with her - to create wonderful things together and to be in each other's arms. To just be there for her whenever she fell. To feel her warmth when they embraced. To smell her oily hair after she spent days without self care.
Honestly, while it would crush him if she were to find someone else, a part of him didn't mind. He just wanted to be there for her. He just wanted to be by her side once more. He would die for her. He would kill for her.
"Hey, watch it!"
Naruto blinked, and he realized that he had just shoulder-bumped a lizard-man.
"Ah...my apologies."
The lizardman just huffed, before he continued on his way.
Naruto cursed himself, and nearly got on the floor to do some pinkie pushups as punishment, before he blinked, remembering where he was.
"...I must get going," he said to no one in particular, before he took off running, his form becoming a black blur whizzing by the people.
He might not be worthy to be with her, but he'll at least continue to serve her until his dying breath.
Years of training is what helped Naruto focus on everything else besides Reagan.
But it was just so hard to not look at her. She looked tired and miserable. Sure, that was just a Monday for her (and Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays, Fridays, and sometimes the weekends), but today, she looked more miserable than ever.
According to the info JR gave him, they hired a man named Brett Hand after he shook hands with JR at a party, his sole purpose being to help Reagan out with whatever she needed, particularly for her...lack of social skills.
He honestly wasn't sure about what he meant by that last part. She was fine in his eyes.
But the world didn't think so. The world always thought that she wasn't good enough. That's why Rand pushed her so hard. That's why JR pushed her so hard. He hated it, and yet, he knew he couldn't do anything about it.
Until now, anyway.
His eyes narrowed at the sight of Brett Hand - the current source of Reagan's troubles. If she hadn't changed much over the years, there was no doubt that she felt threatened by his new presence. Not only did he seem to get along amicably with her team members, but he got into this position with a simple hand shake.
A hand shake.
...A fucking hand shake.
If there was one thing Reagan respected, it was hard work and sacrifice - something that this...man did not give.
So why the hell would they-
...oh.
He clearly wasn't a fighter, as indicated by his recorded history. Sure, he might've been a bodybuilder, but that was only to stay healthy. Even without his enhancements, the man wouldn't be much trouble to disable or eliminate face to face.
Then there was his personality and looks. A meek yes-man, his insecurity could set a world record, with it ironically playing a role in how he got here in the first place. That, and he was admittedly an attractive man, although he did have a rather generic face that made it hard for even himself to imagine when thinking about him in case the order was given to silence him.
So in a nutshell, he's the perfect intern who could theoretically be used for infiltration at best.
At least he won't be completely useless, he thought with a sigh. His eye twitched as he saw one of those Mushroom Men walk in to meet Brett. He encountered many of their kind during his time in Hollow Earth, and most of them were either pleasant to talk to, were complete jerks, or were confusing at best.
The one thing they all had in common, much like this...Myc, yes, was that they were all very sexual in nature. Then again, if his limbs were also his reproductive organs, he would probably be a pervert too.
And speaking of… Naruto nearly growled, his hand already on his gun. Myc had walked up to Reagan, and began speaking to her, touching her casually on the head. He had to take a few calming breaths and some Prozac to stop himself from making his orb-mouth glow dark for the final time.
His earpiece picked up their conversation, and evidently, Myc jokingly suggested that he could take out Brett for her if she wanted, and it looked like she considered it too.
The thought of Brett choking on his blood put a smile on the blond's face for a moment.
Naruto had to take his eyes off of Reagan for a moment to deal with another worker who cracked under the pressure. Well, in this case it seemed to be more out of guilt, but that's besides the point.
In one swift move, he snuck up behind the man while he fired aimlessly at his surroundings, put him in a sleeper hold, and dragged him out before Reagan could see him. After that, the day was mostly uneventful, although considering how he finally got to watch over Reagan like her guardian angel, uneventful was good.
Then Reagan had her meltdown. And it wasn't pretty.
She had stayed up all night trying to figure out who Brett really was, and while she did a good job, she overthought most of the details, and the lack of sleep certainly didn't help in the end. In the end, she was given the axe by JR, history rhyming itself within the Ridley bloodline, and his heart broke as he watched her cry in the restroom.
Oh, how he wished to defy orders just to give her his shoulder to cry on again. Even if it meant his death, he wanted to just be there for her, whether to just listen to her troubles or even taking a punch or two if that's what it took for her to be happy again.
Still, it did ease his heart when he saw her stare into her crystal necklace. She turned it on, showing a picture of his face when he was much younger. It wasn't much, but it was enough to eventually settle her hiccups as she tried to give his 3D photo an embrace.
It was twisted, but at that moment, he wished Brett failure.
Reagan
Be careful what you wish for, since it could blow up in your face.
That was a lesson she learned from reading a Goosebumps book or something at some point in her life, but she never gave it much thought until now.
She wished Brett failure, and now the entire shadow government may collapse because of it. Long story short, her father fucked with her robot president's code, and now it went on a very nationalistic tirade about America coming first, before declaring his plan to build an AmeriCube.
However, as terrible as the situation was, it gave her a chance to shine - to clean up what was technically JR and Brett's mess and to save the day.
It wasn't easy, since Brett's a goddamn, useless idiot. But in the end, she managed to somehow pull it off. And alright, Brett did have a role to play, using the "bullshit jutsu" as her...old friend called it to get them through the secret service.
However, things went south eventually. For one, ROBOTUS - the name of her project - had become a true AI and edited his own code. Taking advantage of this, she introduced it to Facebook, and just as planned, he lost his patriotism.
However, that part worked too well, and he (like most millennials) lost faith in humanity and decided to go full Skynet as the Shadow Council had feared. This led to their eventual showdown on a helicopter, where, after a moment of hesitation, Reagan had saved the day by cutting down her creation with a laser gun.
And everything was fine - sort of.
Naruto
Perhaps he had been wrong about Brett.
When push came the shove, Brett had been there for Reagan. Not only did he help her catch up to the President, but while "the gang" got high, he was the one that got their butts moving.
Naruto had to admit, while he did have his personal and professional feelings about him, he couldn't help but be a little impressed at how surprisingly useful he was.
However, in the end, someone had to pay the price for ROBOTUS going rogue.
Brett was originally going to be "terminated from the company" (which meant kicked out and literally terminated), but the gang managed to convince both the Shadow Council and JR to not only spare him, but to at least transfer him to another department. Brett himself agreed that it was the best, and in the end, he wound up getting transferred to the HR department for now, where he would be learning under Mothman on how to best represent the company and on the various cultures of folks like lizardmen.
The gang admittedly felt a little sad at his transfer, but JR then announced that Brett would be replaced with someone far more competent.
"Alright, you can finally meet the gang now!" JR shouted at the door.
The doors slowly opened, and Reagan's eyes widened in shock.
Standing there dressed in all black and armed to the teeth was the boy - no, man - that she thought she would never see again.
"His name's Naruto Uzumaki. He's a special force operative that had completed his training in the Hollow Earth and various other parts of the shadow government. From here on out he'll serve as your muscle and bodyguards, alright?"
JR continued on, but Naruto didn't hear it. He and Reagan were too busy staring at each other in disbelief. After all these years of being apart, they were finally together again.
"Yo! Reagan! You got the hots for this guy?"
It was Gigi's question that snapped the two out of their trance.
"O-Oh, yeah. T-This is Naruto you guys, he's an...assassin, I guess."
"Ninja."
"Wait, what?" Dr. Andre coughed.
"I'm a ninja, just like my father before me was."
"Um, you sure you don't mean modern-day assassin or something?" Magic Myc asked, tilting his large head. "I mean, I'm not a weeb or whatever, but aren't ninjas just asian assassins or something?"
"I practice the art of ninjutsu," the hooded man replied. "Therefore, I'm a ninja."
"...Right." JR just clapped his hands as he moved to leave. "Well, you guys have fun with this weirdo. I've got a date with a shit load of margaritas for tonight's fucking mess."
The gang ignored their boss as they finally got acquainted with Naruto. In contrast to Brett, he was a lot more quiet and reserved, although he did his best to open up some more, shaking hands with everyone and introducing himself personally to them.
It was an awkward first meeting, but they figured he was alright.
Then it was Reagan's turn.
The two just stared at each other for a long moment, much to the gang's confusion and amusement.
Then, in a moment of synchronicity, the two moved together and embraced each other in a hug.
"..."
"..."
"...It's nice to see you again," Naruto muffled into her hair.
"It's nice to see you too," Reagan agreed, her face buried into his shoulder. They stayed like that for what seemed like an eternity, never letting go of each other like they had done so many years ago.
In that moment of warmth and unity, they couldn't care less about Glenn wiping away tears as he could feel their joy and sorrow. They couldn't care less as Gigi wordlessly took photos of this moment, with Myc just shuffled around awkwardly, and Dr. Andre put down his blunt for once to watch the magical moment in front of them.
"So…" It was Myc who finally spoke up after the silent, yet heartfelt reunion of two friends. "Welcome to the gang I guess."
"...The gang?"
"Yeah, it's what Brett called it. Kind of unoriginal, now that I think about it, but yeah. Welcome to the gang."
"I see…"
The room fell into complete silence as they just stood/shuffled around awkwardly.
"Nakama."
"Excuse me?"
"It means 'friend' in Japanese," Naruto explained quietly. "So...we can be the Nakama Gang."
"Oh, cool," Myc said slowly. "Doesn't really roll off the figurative tongue, so how about we shorten it to 'N Gang'?"
"...I like the way you think." Naruto smiled. "So...you guys wanna go get some ramen?
"Sure, why not?" Dr. Andre shrugged.
Reagan couldn't help but smile a little. While her friend had changed a lot, it looks like some things didn't.
She might've not gotten the promotion she wanted, but just for today, she couldn't care less.
- End of Chapter 1 -