[AMY IN DISPATCH (2025)] CHAPTER TWENTY

As the last warmth of dusk faded into the chill of the night, Amy made a decision, very firmly, that if tomorrow was going to be A Whole Thing™, then tonight absolutely could not be.

“No training talk,” she declared, pointing a fry at Hunter like it was a legally binding document. “No stress spirals, and no existential dread about identity, purpose, or public perception.”

Hunter, midway through unwrapping her burger, paused just long enough to give Amy a flat look. “You realize that eliminates, like, eighty percent of my brain activity, right?”

“Then we are working with what’s left,” Amy replied without missing a beat, popping the fry into her mouth. “Which is clearly the fun part.”

Hunter huffed, but a ghost of a smile tugged at her lips despite herself. “And what, exactly, counts as the ‘fun part’ to you?”

Amy leaned back in her seat, gasping in mock offense. “Excuse you; I am extremely qualified in fun.”

“You spent three hours earlier reorganizing your slime storage by emotional vibes.”

“They have emotional vibes,” Amy said, a touch defensive but entirely sincere. “You’d understand if you actually listened to them.”

“I’m not listening to slime.”

“They’re very supportive.”

Hunter shook her head, but she took a bite of her burger anyway. The diner was busy around them, filled with low, indistinct murmur, the clatter of dishes, and the soft hiss of the coffee machine behind the counter. The kind of place that stayed open too late and never asked too many questions.

It was… normal.

And for once, that felt like something Amy could hold onto.

Hunter seemed to feel it too, if the way some of the tension in her shoulders eased had nothing to do with the food. She was still alert, still aware, but not quite as intensely as before. She wasn't waiting for something to go wrong.

They lingered longer than they needed to, stretching the moment out without really acknowledging that they were doing it. Eventually, though, Amy checked the time, made a small, satisfied noise, and stood.

“Alright,” she said, brushing crumbs from her hands. “Next stop.”

Hunter narrowed her eyes slightly. “That sounds like a plan I was not informed about.”

“You are being informed now,” Amy replied brightly, already heading for the door.

The boutique was small, tucked between a used bookstore with faded window displays and an electronics shop that had long since closed down. Warm amber light spilled out onto the street, giving the place an inviting glow that felt at odds with how much Hunter immediately regretted stepping inside.

So, unsurprisingly, she stopped just past the doorway, arms crossed and leg tapping restlessly as she took in the racks of clothing.

“I do not need new clothes,” she said, already bracing herself.

Amy, meanwhile, had moved with alarming efficiency and was already halfway through a rack. “You absolutely do,” she called over her shoulder. “Tomorrow is your debut, and you need something that says ‘mysterious but competent,’ not ‘I found this hoodie during a crisis and never emotionally recovered’.”

Hunter glanced down at her hoodie, fingers brushing absently against the sleeve. “…This hoodie has been through a lot.”

“And tomorrow you are going to be through a lot more,” Amy said, turning back toward her with a dark jacket in hand. She held it out like an offering, her earlier energy softening just a fraction. “Try this.”

Hunter did not move right away. Her gaze went from the jacket to Amy, then back again, as if weighing something that had very little to do with fabric or fit. There was a moment where it looked like she might refuse on principle alone, the instinct to push back still very much present.

Amy cocked her head to the side slightly, her voice losing the last of its performative brightness. “Please?”

The genuine plea settled between them.

Hunter exhaled slowly, the resistance not gone so much as set aside, even as she reached out and took the jacket.

“If I look stupid,” she said, already turning toward the changing rooms, “I am blaming you.”

“That is entirely fair,” Amy replied. “I accept full responsibility for your future reputation.”

A few minutes later, the curtain shifted and Hunter stepped out.

The jacket fit cleanly across her shoulders, the dark fabric contrasting against everything she had been wearing before. It did not transform her so much as sharpen her, pulling something into focus that had been there all along but buried under layers of practicality and habit.

She adjusted the sleeve slightly, not quite meeting Amy’s eyes yet.

Amy, on the other hand, lit up immediately, the reaction instinctive and unfiltered. “Oh, that’s it,” she said, stepping closer. “That’s so Hunter.”

Hunter shifted, uncomfortable under the weight of her attention. “…You just made that name sound real,” she said, quieter now.

Amy’s expression softened.

“It is real,” she said. “You made it real.”

Hunter’s fingers stilled against the fabric.

For a brief moment, she looked at her reflection in the mirror off to the side, really looking this time, as though trying to reconcile what she saw with what she expected to see.

She did not argue.

And she did not take the jacket off.

By the time they reached the waterfront, night had fully claimed the city.

The air carried more of a bite to it than it had earlier, cool enough to raise a faint prickle along Amy’s arms where her sleeves didn’t quite reach. Somewhere out past the docks, the smell of salt lingered beneath the heavier scent of asphalt and distant traffic, and the wind came in scattered pulls that tugged at Hunter’s hair and pressed lightly against their backs as they walked.

Amy drifted toward the railing without much thought, planting her elbows against the cool metal as she took another sip from her drink, which was aggressively sweet in the way she preferred. She only half-registered the view in front of her, though it was hard to miss: light spilling from the skyline, stretching across the water in broken streaks that shifted and reformed with every movement of the current.

Hunter noticed it more.

Her gaze tracked the reflections as they broke apart and came back together again, over and over. There was something about it that held her attention longer than she expected.

Amy, meanwhile, had already moved on.

“You know what,” she said, turning her cup slightly as if the idea had been floating somewhere near the surface. “Let’s run a scenario.”

Hunter made a noncommittal sound, her eyes still on the water. “That sounds dangerous.”

“Tomorrow goes perfectly,” Amy said, ignoring her. “You show up, do your thing, you don’t accidentally terrify half the room just by existing.”

Hunter glanced sideways at her. “That last one feels targeted.”

“It’s called being realistic,” Amy said. Then she continued, a little more animated now, “People are impressed, Blazer does that proud mentor thing, the higher-ups nod like they totally expected this outcome, and by the end of it you’ve officially established yourself as someone competent and not, you know, a Bet native.”

Hunter let out a breath that might have been a laugh. “Alright. And then?”

“And then,” Amy said, straightening slightly, “you come home and—what? Celebrate? Collapse? Dramatic rooftop brooding?”

Hunter turned her attention back to the water, considering it more seriously than the question probably deserved.

“…Probably all three,” she admitted after a moment.

Amy nodded as though that confirmed something important. “Good plan. Very balanced.”

A small silence settled between them, but it was comfortable. The kind of quiet that didn’t need to be filled.

Hunter’s fingers curled more tightly around the railing.

“What if I mess it up?” she asked.

Amy didn’t hesitate.

“Then you mess it up,” she said simply.

Hunter looked at her fully now.

Amy met her gaze, unbothered by the intensity behind it, and lifted one shoulder in a small shrug. “And then you figure out what went wrong, and you try again. That’s literally how this works. Nobody gets it right the first time, no matter how it looks from the outside.”

Hunter studied her for a second longer, as if trying to find the flaw in the answer. Then, she huffed. 

“You make it sound easy.”

“It isn’t,” Amy replied, the humor in her tone easing into something serious. “It just doesn’t have to be the end of everything if it goes badly.”

The word landed somewhere in Hunter’s chest, settling there, and her shoulders seemed a little less tight than before. She looked back out at the water, though she wasn’t really watching it anymore.

“…You’ll be there, right?” she asked after a moment.

Amy blinked, pulled back from her own thoughts. “Tomorrow?”

Hunter nodded once. “At SDN.”

Amy’s expression softened without her really noticing it happened. “Of course I will,” she said with a smile. Then, after a brief pause, more quietly, “I wouldn’t miss it.”

Hunter did not respond immediately.

Instead, she drew in a slow breath, the kind that came from deeper in the chest than before, and let it out just as gradually. More of the tightness in her shoulders eased, and her body relaxed, her fingers finally uncurling from the railing. 

“Okay,” she said.

Later, much later, they ended up back in their apartment.

The shopping bag had been dropped just inside the door and forgotten almost immediately, one of the handles folded in on itself where it leaned against the wall. Their shoes had followed shortly after, abandoned without ceremony near the entrance. The only light in the room came from the street outside, casting long shadows across the floor and up the side of the couch.

Amy had claimed one end of it the moment she sat down.

She was sprawled out now, head tipped back against the armrest, already halfway to asleep. One hand still held her drink, though her grip had slackened enough that it tilted precariously with each small shift of her breathing.

Hunter sat beside her. Her thoughts had not followed Amy into that easy half-sleep. They lingered instead, circling the same points as before, though without the edge they had carried earlier. Tomorrow was still there, waiting in the background, but it no longer seemed as insistent.

“Hey,” Amy murmured, her voice thick with sleep, and eyes still closed.

Hunter glanced over.

“You’re gonna be great, you know.”

There was no buildup to it, and no context offered. Only the statement, dropped into the quiet with complete, unbothered certainty.

Hunter hesitated. “…Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Amy said, as if there had never been any question. “You already are.”

Hunter watched her for a moment, taking in the slackness of her posture, and the way the confidence in her voice had come without effort or second thought. There was something almost disarming about it, that kind of certainty delivered with no expectation attached.

She leaned back slowly, letting her head rest against the cushion.

“…We’ll see,” she said.

But there was no doubt despite herself.

For a while, neither of them spoke.

Amy drifted further toward sleep, her breathing evening out, the hand holding her drink loosening just a fraction more.

Hunter noticed the shift a second before gravity could.

She leaned forward, reaching carefully for the cup, her movements slow enough not to wake her, only to pause. 

Something felt off.

It was not a sound, not at first, and not something she could immediately name. More like a pressure at the edge of awareness, the sense that something in the environment had shifted.

Her gaze lifted toward the window.

“…the hell is that?” she murmured.

Beyond the glass, something streaked across the sky.

A line of burning blue tore through the darkness, bright enough to overpower the city lights, its path cutting clean and fast across the horizon. It did not behave like anything natural, and it didn't look like it was just falling; it seemed to be moving, adjusting minutely even as it moved at supersonic speeds.

Hunter sat up straighter. “That’s not—”

The streak flared.

For a fraction of a second, it seemed to hang there, suspended against the night. Then it dropped.

Hard.

The impact came a second later, a distant, concussive boom that rolled through the air and rattled the window just enough to make the glass rattle in its frame.

Hunter stared.

“…That was a meteor, right?” she asked, even though every instinct she had was already screaming no.

No response came.

Hunter blinked, the silence registering a moment too late. “…Amy?”

She turned.

The space beside her was empty.

The indentation in the couch was still there, the cushion not yet fully risen back into place, and the front door stood ajar.

Hunter stared at it for the briefest moment.

“…You’ve got to be kidding me.”

She was already moving before the thought had fully formed, crossing the room at a near run as she followed after the healer.