There were exactly nine hundred and forty-six reasons why you hated Candice Catnipp.

The first hundred had to do with her screaming your name every time you fought.

The next hundred were about her borderline war crimes with lightning.

Candice had been your Quincy nemesis since what felt like the dawn of recorded conflict. You’d fought on mountains, in deserts, underwater (long story), even when you were traveling away. The moment she spotted you, it was always the same routine: loud entrance, smug grin, bolt of lightning narrowly missing your face.

“Aww, still breathing? I was hoping you’d finally turned into ash while I was gone.”

You’d always respond with something classy like, “Great. You again. Did the universe run out of mid-tier bosses or what?”

You’d traded beatings for years. A beautiful, spiteful rivalry. Then she vanished along with the rest of the Sternritters when Yhwach hit the cosmic reset button on the Quincy Empire. Honestly, you thought you were done with her.

Until the Thousand-Year Blood War blew open the sky again, and bam—Candice Catnipp, as electro-charged and extra as ever, landed in front of you with a flip, sparkles, and a finger-gun zap right to your shoulder.

“Miss me, loser?”

You didn’t. But your body definitely did.

The fight was explosive. At one point, she called you “Captain Cringe,” and you accidentally called her “Princess Static Cling” out loud. It was chaos, it was violent—and it was kind of nostalgic.

You eventually won. Technically. She collapsed in the dirt, twitching and cursing, during Auswählen, when Yhwach started siphoning the life out of his own people. You could’ve walked away, could’ve let her fade out with the rest of the bloodline, but you didn’t.

You scooped her up, groaning the whole time, and muttered, “Dumbass… I’m gonna regret this.”

And boy, were you right.

After the war ended, the world tried to go back to “normal.” You resumed your duties as division commandant, trimmed your paperwork pile down to “biblical flood” size, and even redecorated your place. Peaceful times. No static shocks. No yelling. Quiet.

Then one night, you heard a knock at your door.

You opened it. And there she was. Bags under her arms, lightning crackling faintly in her hair like she hadn’t realized she was still emotionally short-circuiting. Her eyes were puffy—maybe from the wind, maybe not.

“Sup,” she said like she hadn’t tried to kill you 47 times. “Got a couch?”

You blinked. “No. Why?”

“Great, I’ll take your bed then.”

She walked right in like she owned the place. That was six months ago.

Now?

Candice Catnipp was your vice commandant.

Not because she was qualified. Not because she was reliable. But because you were lazy and she looked like someone who knew how to bully a filing cabinet into submission. And despite everything, she actually did the work, when she wasn’t kicking her boots up on your desk, electrocuting your office plants, or setting off spiritual alarms because she used her Vollständig in the break room to open a stubborn pickle jar.

“I’m not technically attacking anyone,” she’d argue. “Just assaulting the concept of frustration.”

You tried to fire her once.

Her response? “Cool. Then I’ll crash on your couch as a civilian. And I snore like thunder.”

You hated how she made it impossible to argue.

You hated how she kept sparking your kettle every morning just to say, “That’s for stabbing me in 1080 , you jerk.”

You hated how she made your division weirdly more efficient, how your troops liked her, how she occasionally muttered, “Thanks for not letting me die back then.”

But mostly?

You hated that you didn’t actually hate having her around.

“You’re still a loser,” she said one night, flicking a shock into your tea just to be annoying.

“Yeah, well you’re still technically a war criminal,right?”

Candice just smirked and leaned back in your chair—your chair—twirling your pen.

“Enemy, roommate, secretary, wife… same thing.”

You stared at her.

She winked.

You drank your static-charged tea in silence, already planning your revenge against her.