After the first ray of sunlight touched the surface of the ocean... Viktor, who had only slept for an hour, was mercilessly dragged out of the pod by Rachel.
He could fight for weeks without sleep, but he came to Earth for a long vacation. He didn't understand why Rachel wouldn't let him rest properly.
Rachel stared at him with blank eyes and pushed her phone in front of his face.
It was a long shopping list she had made the night before, saving him the trouble of washing his face and brushing his teeth.
Then Viktor was dragged out of the escape pod in resignation by Rachel.
"Hurry up, there's a lot to buy. I've made a detailed plan, and after we finish shopping, we'll come back and build a house!"
Rachel quickly jumped onto Viktor's back, wrapping her arms around his neck and locking her long legs firmly around his waist.
He made a short protest.
"You've listed over a hundred things to buy. There's no way we can finish in one day. Can't I sleep a little more?"
"I woke up early on purpose. There won't be many people outside, and we can use this time to head straight to downtown Metropolis!"
Rachel was so excited that even the magic suppressing her emotions couldn't fully contain it.
She lifted one hand and kept hitting his shoulder in excitement.
"Fine, fine, just hold steady and stop moving."
Rachel's constant squirming actually woke him up quite a bit. He didn't really bother to complain about her riding on his back.
After a few minutes, they hovered above the clouds in downtown Metropolis.
They carefully found a spot where no one was around, and then Rachel activated her teleportation magic.
With a flash of purple light, a boy and a girl appeared in a quiet alley.
Rachel eagerly jumped down and grabbed him, leading him straight to the first shop listed on her phone.
"First, let's go get two cups of coffee, and then we're going straight to buy you some clothes!"
"Do we really need coffee?"
"It's about experiencing what a normal person's day feels like!"
"Normal people drink coffee, and then go to work looking tired and unhappy."
The entire morning passed as Rachel led him around nearly every store and shop in Metropolis.
They bought way more than just the dryer and washing machine mentioned the night before.
A bathtub, pipes, curtains, a TV, tables, chairs, stools… The shopping list covered everything—eating, clothing, living essentials, and more.
Viktor even ran some calculations in his head, figuring out the total of the building materials they hadn't bought yet.
He realized that Rachel was planning to build a three-story luxury villa on the empty beach by the sea, with each floor over two hundred and fifty square meters.
On top of that, they each had their own large wardrobe with an average of thirty outfits per person.
Viktor only bought five sets, because spring, summer, fall, and winter made no difference to him.
The larger items had been quietly stuffed into Rachel's magical storage space whenever she found a chance.
But to keep the feeling of normal human shopping, they still carried several carefully chosen bags in their hands.
Viktor didn't mind much, but Rachel's legs were shaking.
Rachel dropped the bags on the ground with a crash, shook her trembling arms, and quickly muttered a few incantations.
Suddenly, Rachel grabbed the bags again with full energy.
Even though it seemed like they bought a lot of things, including many expensive clothes Rachel liked...
Viktor roughly calculated that they hadn't even spent one hundred thousand dollars in the whole morning.
Rachel turned around and gave him a small smile for the first time.
After being buried by bags, Viktor barely managed to peek his eyes out from one of the bags as he blinked.
He knew that for Rachel to show such a clear, genuine smile meant she was absolutely happy at that moment.
"How much money do we have left?"
Since Viktor had been the one holding the card, Rachel cautiously asked.
"About… six million nine hundred thousand."
"Wow~"
Rachel's pale blue eyes seemed to sparkle.
It seemed like her emotions reached a certain point. Suddenly, Rachel walked quickly toward him, and a faint blush even appeared on her cheeks.
But the very next second, a dark purple-black magical energy swirled around her, and Rachel's blank expression returned with her face turned pale again.
She looked at him in a daze, then stepped back and lowered her head.
"I'm sorry, I almost lost control again. Let me put these things in the magic space, and then we can find a restaurant to eat."
Viktor had seen parts of her memories. He knew that she had to constantly suppress her emotions with magic.
Otherwise, the demonic power inside her would go out of control, creating a catastrophic release of power that could even affect the entire planet.
Rachel's situation was truly difficult.
"Okay."
A few seconds later, the two of them began walking down the street with empty hands, searching for a restaurant that caught their interest.
As he watched the expressionless girl beside him, Viktor quietly thought about how he might cheer her up a little.
Just as he opened his mouth, a sudden, unexpected feeling of danger made his pupils shrink.
'It didn't belong on this peaceful street.'
Viktor's pupils shrank instantly.
The sky seemed to flash with a golden lightning bolt.
Viktor stepped forward abruptly, positioning himself in front of Rachel. In less than the blink of an eye, the golden streak stopped right in front of him.
The figure wore a red-and-gold suit, covered in tears and scratches with bloodstains in several places.
A few strands of golden hair were stuck to the outer wall of his helmet's crack, and the dried blood was clearly visible.
Viktor was taken aback.
The sense of danger vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, almost as if it had never existed.
"Flash? What happened to... Wait..."
Viktor noticed something off.
The suit was the same, the power felt the same, and the appearance was the same... but the eyes and presence of this person were nothing like the Flash he met before.
The one from yesterday, standing next to Superman, awkwardly offering long words of blessings with "disclaimers," was young, shy, and talkative.
This one was different.
Flash in front of him was older, calm, and had been silently observing Viktor, not uttering a word.
"Who are you?"
Viktor asked in a low voice.
The worn version of the Flash let out a cold snort, his voice rough and cracked, as if he hadn't had water in days.
"That's a question you should ask yourself. In a world that shouldn't exist… you appeared. You're someone who absolutely shouldn't be here."
He stared at Viktor as if he hadn't fully made up his mind yet.
Then the television in the shop beside them began replaying the morning's hot news story through the display window.
A flash of anger appeared in the Flash's eyes, and from that moment, he stopped hesitating.
"I won't stand by and watch that world's tragedy happen again here. The war between Atlantis and Themyscira will destroy everything!"
After finishing speaking, a golden lightning crackled around him, wrapping around his hand, which was missing a large piece of armor.
The speed of the attack was so fast that Viktor couldn't follow it.
In one thousandth of a second, every muscle in Viktor's body tightened.
The power to instantly collapse the entire Metropolis surged inside him, ready to be unleashed.
Viktor's eyes widened, and driven by pure survival instinct, trying to track the trajectory of the incoming attack.
However, the flash of golden light was too fast.
It was probably... a speed many times faster than Viktor could manage at that moment.
In that frozen instant... the television beside them continued playing the morning news.
...
"Good morning, everyone. I'm your host, Lois Lane. At eight o'clock this morning, the Daily Planet received breaking news: Justice League member Aquaman has officially announced his resignation from the Justice League and has issued an order prohibiting any land-dwelling residents from engaging in fishing, navigation, or related industries within the coastal waters of Gotham City.
...
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