Panic Mode II

The morning sunlight slipped through the blinds, casting a soft glow across Emma's room. She lay stretched out on her bed, one arm dangling over the edge, her hair a tangled mess as she held onto the last bit of sleep.

But her peaceful morning didn't last… someone was knocking on her bedroom door, fast and relentless.

"Aunt Emma…?"

Emma's eyes barely cracked open.

Her frown was instant and fierce.

Like some kind of grinch.

"Who the hell…?"

She mumbled, but her words slurred off as she tried to bury herself further under the covers.

The knocking continued.

Each tap grated on her sleep-deprived nerves.

"Aunt Emma!"

It was her nephew, Marcus, who called from the hallway.

His voice was loud, yet cautious, as if he knew he was disturbing a bear from its hibernation.

"Y-, You said you'd take me to school today, remember? I'm already late!"

Emma forced out a low, frustrated groan as she rolled onto her side to face the door. Her glare was so intense it was like she was trying to burn a hole through the wood, as if she could make him burn to ashes just by staring.

"I swear, Marcus, if you wake me up one more time… I'm gonna find the biggest stick and beat your stupid ass so hard that CPS will be on my ass for a week. Got it?"

Marcus mumbled something under his breath, just barely loud enough for her to hear:

"…with an ass that big, yeah, they probably would."

"Did you just say something?"

Emma's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"N-, No, nothing, Aunt Emma!"

Marcus stammered and took a step back as beads of sweat rolled down his forehead.

"Mm-hmm…" Emma grumbled.

But, she was satisfied for the moment.

With a tired, overly dramatic stretch, she reached out blindly toward the small pile of car keys on her nightstand. Her fingers fumbled around until she managed to grab one at random, then she tossed it toward the door.

… KLAAK!

It clattered against the floor right in front of Marcus.

"Here. Drive yourself to school…"

Emma's voice was muffled as she rolled back over.

"…I'm way too tired to get up for your whiny ass."

"Hrmm, no surprise there…"

Marcus hurried to grab the key, but let out a yelp when she threw a beer can that smacked him right on the forehead. He stumbled back, rubbing his face and mumbling complaints as he bent down again to pick up the car key.

"Geez, Aunt Emma, maybe you could be a little more… I dont know, careful?"

The young man still winced in pain.

Emma peeked one eye open, saw him rubbing his head, and let out a rare chuckle.

"Oh, stop crying about it. Toughen up, brat."

But then Marcus's gaze fell on the car key in his hand.

His eyes went wide and his jaw dropped.

"Wait… Aunt Emma, this is your Bugatti Chiron key! Are you serious?! You actually want me to drive this?"

"Uh-huh…"

She mumbled, barely listening as she waved him off.

"You're a nerd, right? Figure it out. Maybe you'll finally get some bitches if you drive a nice car to school."

Marcus's face lit up.

"Alright! Thanks, Aunt Emma!"

He raced down the hall with a new spring in his step.

If a grown-up thought it was okay, then who was he to argue? Unless, of course, that adult was totally careless and lazy.

Emma barely registered his response as she slipped back into her blissful half-sleep with a faint smile on her face.

Hours later…

Emma's eyes flew open in horror as the memory of her earlier decision finally hit her.

"IDIOT! You told your flipping nephew to drive his fuckin' self to school!"

She leapt out of bed and supersped toward the window.

As she peered out she recited silent prayers.

『Please be there, please be there, please be there…』

Sure enough, her prized Bugatti was nowhere to be seen.

With a frustrated groan, she zipped around the room, looking for her phone. Her fingers finally wrapped around it, and she tapped the screen, ready to give Marcus a piece of her mind… but she stopped dead. Right there, staring back at her, was her chat with Nightwatch from last night, filled with all the horribly embarrassing, desperate messages she'd sent.

She scowled, rubbing her temples.

"Oh, god, the nerd can wait."

She threw her phone onto the bed and rushed to put on her black tracksuit, quickly tying her hair up in a messy ponytail. Without a second thought, she tapped on Jenna's contact and called her, already preparing herself for the teasing that was sure to come.

The phone barely rang once before Jenna picked up.

"Emma? Don't even start. How bad was it?"

Emma paused mid-step, narrowing her eyes.

"How did you…?"

Jenna's chuckle was annoyingly smug.

"Girl, I could smell your desperation through the phone. Just how badly did you fumble?"

Emma let out a huff, scowling as she sniffed herself despite knowing it was just a jab.

"Shut up! Also, wait, how'd you even know?"

"Oh, please… Marcus texted me last night. Apparently, you were groaning and refusing to eat for two days straight."

Jenna couldn't stop herself from laughing as she talked.

"That little brat…" Emma muttered under her breath.

"Relax. He just worries, that's all. Anyway, why don't you swing by my office? Maybe I can help you dig yourself out of whatever mess you made."

Before Jenna could even finish her sentence, Emma appeared right in her office, still holding her phone to her ear. Jenna looked up, blinking in surprise, to find Emma standing in front of her desk, hands on her hips.

"Uhhh… okay, that was desperately fast…"

Jenna said as she raised an eyebrow.

Emma shrugged then checked her wristwatch.

"Really? I thought I'd be late. Had to double back between a few of your pharmacy branches."

Jenna gave her a look somewhere between impressed and exasperated.

"Sure… let's go with 'early,' then."

"I prefer the term 'efficient'…"

Emma smirked, crossing her arms as she relaxed.

Jenna rolled her eyes and chuckled softly.

"Fine, 'efficient.' Anyway, let me grab Nadia and see what damage control we can do."

---

The tension in the room was obvious as Emma's foot tapped steadily against the tiled floor at superspeed.

『C'mon, c'mon… read it already…』

Her nerves ran through her like electric jolts, one after the other. She kept her face calm, but inside, she was on fire.

Across from her, her two best friends, Jenna and Nadia, were carefully reading through her chat with Nightwatch.

"Oh, he's smooth!"

Jenna chuckled and nudged Nadia with her elbow.

"I thought he'd be, you know, all 'grrr, I'm the lone vigilante' and not know how to talk to a woman, but this? This is straight-up romantic."

"Seriously," Nadia agreed, grinning. "I wouldn't have thought he'd be this… charming. He's almost like a poet."

Emma laughed softly before running her fingers over a chipped tea canister on the counter. She needed to keep her hands busy and her mind off what was about to happen.

『They… have no idea what they're about to see…』

Jenna kept her eyes fixed on the screen and bit her lower lip with some excitement as she watched Nightwatch charm his way through the conversation.

"Honestly, if I had a guy texting me like that… I might just spread my legs open on the first date."

Nadia gave her a quick side-eye.

"Girl, that's a little too much. It's always better to wait until. I know for a fact that smooth talkers like this Nightwatch fellows are a steal-your-girl kind of man… they'll sleep with you and be on the next bus to their hometown to start a life with their highschool sweetheart."

She folded her arms and nodded her head to show just how certain she was.

Jenna shrugged and laughed.

"Whatever. You're just missing out, girl."

She turned back to the screen, and her smile widened as she read another of Nightwatch's surprisingly smooth responses.

"This guy's actually good at this. I'm kinda impressed, Emma. Nice catch."

Emma just sighed, circling around the spacious office, hands flitting from one object to the next, wishing she could teleport right out of there.

『Any second now…』

Jenna and Nadia leaned in closer, scanning the messages with glee.

Then Jenna stopped.

Her smile faded slightly.

She blinked.

"Uh… hold up."

They'd hit the first line of that message.

Jenna's finger hovered above the screen as she read the words out loud. Her voice unsurprisingly grew less and less enthusiastic with each line she spoke.

"I wanna give you the sloppiest head like…"

Her voice trailed off while her eyebrows knitted together in deep confusion.

She shot a look at innocent Nadia, who was wide-eyed and frozen in place.

"Oh, dear me…"

Nadia muttered with a tired, almost sickly voice.

Her hand flew to her mouth, horrified.

"Emma… what is this?"

Emma turned away and buried her face in her hands.

"Ju-, Just keep going. Just… get it over with."

Jenna kept reading it out loud, sometimes sounding shocked, other times horrified or even amazed. Maybe it was because some of the things freaky Emma wrote were things even pornstars wouldn't do in bed. Strangely, Jenna was taking notes on some of them, planning to make sure she'd give any man of hers a night to remember.

"And then you're saying you want him to take you to… a phone booth? A bathroom stall?"

Jenna's voice was very hesitant.

She just half-read, half-skimmed the next line.

"Then you wrote, uhhh, '…I want you to bend me over like a dog…' Oh my god, Emma!"

She turned to stare at her friend, brows raised in shock.

"WHAT THE HELL──?!"

"Like… honestly…"

Nadia shifted in her seat and covered her eyes with one hand as she muttered something in Arabic. She shook her head, then gave Emma a look of heavy disbelief.

"You know, I think my religion won't even let me read the rest of this, let alone say it out loud."

Nadia stood up abruptly and sharply crossed her arms as if to shield herself.

Emma's head whipped around. "Where are you going?"

"To pray… Insha'Allah, I don't end up in hell."

Nadia spoke in a sad voice and covered her face, as if she were too embarrassed to even look at Emma. Without saying another word, she turned and walked out.

Emma groaned as her cheeks blazed red with shame.

"I'm… I'm such a fucking, perverted loser…"

She buried her face in her hands again.

Jenna sat there, staring at the phone with a blank look on her face, as though she couldn't move. She looked at Emma, her mouth opening and closing as she struggled to find the right words.

"I… uh… well, uhm…"

"Say something, Jenna! Just… anything!"

Emma begged, wringing her hands.

Jenna cleared her throat and set the phone down gently on her desk as if it were a ticking time bomb.

"Look, uh… I'm not gonna lie, Emma, that was… next-level freaky. But maybe just… maybe say you were, uh, drunk? Or… got a little too excited?"

Emma's cheeks turned an even deeper shade of red as she twiddled her thumbs.

"Uh… I kind of already blocked him."

"Emma…"

Jenna slapped her palm over her face, exasperated.

She shook her head and groaned painfully.

"Girl, you're hopeless."

"WAAAAAH, I KNOOOOWW────!!"

Emma's ruffled her hair like a mad woman as her head hopelessly fell back.

Nadia reentered the office with her lab coat swishing as she took a few slow steps forward.

She adjusted the prayer beads hanging from her neck and carefully slotted them into place before tucking them neatly into the pocket of her coat. Her pants—tight, practical, and crisp—shifted slightly as she moved.

She stopped for a moment to look at Emma, who was hunched over with her head in her hands, as if the weight of the world was too heavy for her to handle.

"Alright…"

Nadia spoke a little softer this time.

"Enough of this. No need to wear that frown like it's the end of the world."

"It's over, Nadia. My life is basically over."

Emma barely looked up, but her voice was full of defeat.

Nadia stepped closer to rest a hand on her shoulder.

"Look, maybe… maybe just unblock him. Tell him the truth, right? Like, maybe you're not exactly like that. Or—"

"Or what? I was joking?"

Emma interrupted, throwing her hands up in the air.

"What am I, a stand-up comedian?"

"Sure, that sounds stupid… but it might actually work. If you don't say something, he's gonna have all the low expectations of you now. Might as well own it and tell him what's really up."

Nadia said all this with a friendly smile on her face.

Emma groaned as her frown grew deeper.

Well, if that was even possible.

"I... I can't, okay? I don't even know what I was hoping for. He's probably scared of me now! Like, what kind of first impression is that?!"

After quietly observing, Jenna turned to Nadia.

Both of them could see how badly Emma was struggling.

Her hands fidgeted, her nose wrinkled, and her eyes were very distant.

She looked like she'd hurt someone close to her.

Perhaps… Nightwatch really meant that much to her.

And she completely ruined it with her desperation and painfully unbearable degeneracy.

"Emma…"

Nadia sighed.

"It's really not your fault. You didn't get proper sex education, and after your dad died—hell, after everything with your mom—if she'd done a better job, you wouldn't have been so attracted to all that stuff. You wouldn't be like this. It's just… it's like an addiction when you're not properly educated on it."

Jenna nodded and quickly added her thoughts.

"And remember, you could've finished medical school with us and became the super hot pharmacy girls we all planned to be. It's just… your powers kicked in and your life took a different but better route."

"I still think that name was corny."

Emma cracked a smile despite herself.

Jenna and Nadia started laughing, and before long, Emma joined in. Her laugh was a bit shaky at first, but then it turned into real, cheerful amusement. It felt nice—nice to laugh, nice to think back on those moments before everything changed. Emma knew her life hadn't been easy. Losing her dad and her grandfather had been huge losses. But through it all, her friends had always been there for her.

Nadia smiled too, but there was something softer in her expression… a kind of pity and concern that she couldn't hide even if she tried.

She had witnessed Emma's struggles firsthand.

The endless binge-watching of porn, the magazines that had somehow found their way into her hands… and the hard work it had taken to wean her off it. Emma had become good at keeping it hidden… too good. If her fans or the public knew what she'd been through, she'd be devastated.

But Nadia didn't want to dwell on that.

She just wanted her friend to feel better.

"Listen, Emma…"

Nadia kept her tone gentle and soft.

"You can't blame yourself for how things turned out. But now you've got a choice. Either you let this Nightwatch guy slip away, or you reach out and try to make it right. That's your call."

Emma raised her eyes, barely able to meet Nadia's gaze.

"What if he decides to boost his reputation by posting screenshots of my… desperate messages? Like, what if he shares them on Instaflick or Chirper? Or, hell, makes it a viral trend?"

Jenna, who had been quietly sipping her coffee, raised an eyebrow at that.

"Wait, hold up. You deleted the messages, right?"

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean he didn't screenshot them before I did…"

Emma sounded a little frustrated as she continued.

"Remember what happened to Foxgirl last month? That whole sextape thing with that lame ass, The Peak? That got leaked because someone saved screenshots."

Jenna's face twisted for a moment as she remembered.

"Oh… right. The one where The Peak sprayed a fat can of whipped cream into her…"

She stopped, staring at Emma in surprise, as if she hadn't already watched the video over twenty times. It was the first adult content to be voted the most popular superhero video of the month, and Foxgirl even received an award for it.

"…And waited for her to squirt it out so she could—"

"Yeah, that one."

Emma let out a little perverted chuckle.

Jenna laughed and shook her head.

"Foxgirl is a freakin' legend. But hey, at least she's making money off it, right?"

"Yeah, she opened a FansOnly account. I mean, I'd never do that but I do watch most of her content there."

"I don't blame you, Foxgirl is hot."

"Yeahh, but I mostly watch it because you know… I don't want to be clueless in bed when I'm with Nightwa-, I mean, when I'm with my man."

"Uh-huh, I see you."

Nadia slammed her palms to her ears as her face reddened in deep shame.

"Can we please stop talking about porn now?!"

Emma snapped her fingers and got her focus back.

"Right. Back to the main issue. What do I do about Nightwatch? Do I leave him on block, or should I try to talk things out? Do I really want to know how he feels about me after everything I sent?"

Nadia stood up, moved toward Emma, and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sure your heart already knows the answer. But you're too set on using your brain to make a decision. Just listen to yourself, Emma."

"Fair enough."

Emma exhaled deeply then slumped her shoulders.

"Maybe I'll unblock him. But what if he just doesn't care? What if he just laughs at me?"

She stared at her phone, lost in thought for a moment.

Nadia looked at her with a soft smile.

"You'll never know until you try. And hey, if he laughs, at least you'll know that the guy can take a joke."

Jenna grinned and added, "Exactly. You've gotta at least give him a chance to redeem himself. Maybe he's got a thing for desperate women."

"You two are ridiculous."

Emma threw her hands up in exasperation, but a small laugh escaped her lips.

They didn't have all the answers, but together, they could at least face whatever came next.

━ ━ ━ ━

Meanwhile…

Scott stepped into the shower, letting the warm water wash over him as he rubbed shampoo into his hair.

The citrusy scent mixed with the steam, filling the bathroom with a fresh, earthy smell. He tilted his head back, enjoying the soothing feel of the water on his muscles.

As he relaxed, his mind wandered to Miss Mercury.

『But what's the whole point of her blocking me? I mean, the best way to handle her perverted side wouldn't be to support or encourage it in any sense… that's why I said what I said, but I thought she'd come around sooner.』

The sound of the water splashing against the tiles swept his ears, and for a moment, he tried to block out the thoughts of uncertainty.

He had no choice but to wait.

He'd waited this long already, right?

---

Down the hall in the bedroom…

Gwen was finally tangible again.

She materialized in a subtle shimmer as her body slowly solidifying from the mist she had been hiding in. Her eyes flickered over to Scott's phone, lying innocently on his dresser, next to his discarded boxer shorts and sweaty tank top.

Gwen's heart raced.

『Now's your chance, Gwendolyn. Don't back out now.』

Gwen paused for a moment as her eyes shifted nervously between the phone and the tank top. Then, as if something pushed her forward, she walked over to his boxer shorts. Her fingers shook a little as she picked them up and her hot breath caught in her throat.

『Just one little sniff… one…』

Her body leaned forward, and her nose brushed against the fabric. The familiar, musky scent of Scott's sweat hit her nostrils immediately. She inhaled deeply, letting the earthy, masculine scent drowned her senses.

A rush of warmth flooded her body as she closed her eyes and pressed the shorts harder against her face.

Like she wanted to eat it.

"Ahhhnnn~ ♡ it's freshly worn ♡♡…"

A desperate moan slipped out of her lips.

"Ugh… just like I imagined…"

She murmured, feeling her legs tremble beneath her as she fought the growing heat in her chest.

"I could get hooked on this~ ♡!"

She pressed the boxer shorts against her face again and her body involuntarily swayed as she took another deep sniff. This time, her knees buckled, and she pressed her thighs together, trying to hold herself steady.

But as the warm water continued to pour down on Scott, something strange caught his ear.

A sound- soft, almost rhythmic…

Like someone was… breathing?

Scott furrowed his brow as his fingers still massaged the shampoo into his hair.

He paused, his head tilting slightly as he strained his ears.

The sound came again.

A small, almost breathless moan.

… AWWHNNN~ ♡♡!

Scott's eyes widened.

『Those are the same sounds I heard last night… just a little bit… louder?』

He quickly turned off the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist before hurrying to the door.

His hand gripped the doorknob as his heart pounded.

『What the hell was going on?』

He swung the door open.

And there, in front of him, was Gwen.

Her face was flushed and her eyes were wide with panic.

She was bent over slightly, her nose buried in his boxer shorts, inhaling them like her life depended on it.

The sight was so absurd, so unexpected, that for a moment, Scott could only stare in disbelief.

"Okay, what… the flip?"