Arcanum, Rough 1-6

“Well, at least that took long enough we won’t be playing day drinker.” Shèn sighed, running Physik’s green light over her wrist and fingers as they finally, finally walked out of PRT HQ. Between finishing the tests, getting all the paperwork looked over by a lawyer and signing everything, the sun was starting to set already. At least the sky had cleared up by now.

“They were honestly ludicrously generous. A basic stipend to live off for the next year, a fund with a debit card for immediate funds, apartments near a bunch of PRT agents with everything paid for for the next year plus; provided we don’t abuse it, and we were literally just told to go have fun tonight.” Miho blinked, still a bit dazed at the special treatment, though certainly not protesting it, “They aren’t being very subtle, are they?”

“Nope, although the face Ms. Petterson made when she read through the deal was hilarious.” The dragon chuckled, shaking her head. “At least they were upfront about the phones they gave us having trackers.”

“They weren’t insulting us by pretending we were stupid, yeah.” Miho nodded, humming as she thumbed through the phone, “I ended up using Miho as a name after all, eh? Ah well. It wasn’t worth the bother of changing it.”

“Only thing I don’t like is this nonsense radial menu system.” Shèn grumbled, fiddling through her own phone before finally figuring out how to flick her contact info at her partner. She’d set down her legal name as Shèn Liáng, after everything was said and done. Her mother’s surname would invite troublesome comparisons, while she was entirely soured to her paternal surname from how her sperm donor kept going on about how she should wear it with pride because it was so unique. 

There was a pang of loss, thinking about her mother who must be worrying sick. It was nothing but a dull ache that faded in moments. Same as when her grandfathers had died wracked with convulsions. Same as when the cat she’d grown up with had done the same. 

It was good that part of her mind was still broken. She’d seen what grief did to people and wanted absolutely none of it.

“Remind me to get an accountant. I am not dealing with the fucking nonsense of spreadsheets that are finances here.” She kept talking as though nothing had happened, mock-shuddering at the thought of the excel wasteland. She would happily and richly pay someone to handle that for her, together with whatever interest wizardry was in order to keep her money plentiful. It wasn’t like she ever spent money on anything other than groceries and buffets, so the cash should pile up nice and high.

“Probably a good plan,” Miho acknowledged, quickly type out a note on her phone as she did so, “I should probably get one myself. I don’t particularly want to deal with the headache either, and I already know I’m bad at the financial side of life.”

“Preaching to the choir, sister. Now shoot me that contact info.” Shèn retorted, smacking her friend lightly on the ass with her tail.

“No ass smacking yet,” Miho warned dangerously, “Don’t know you quite well enough for that yet.” Still, she complied. Moments later, the fox’s contact information was across from the dragon, complete with a profile picture featuring a selfie of fuzzbutt. Although sadly not the actual behind or even the tail like Shèn’s own pfp, just her mug.

“Well, that handily answers a few questions I was gonna ask at the bar.” The dragon replied with a shrug, quietly making note of that very pointed ‘yet’. “What do you drink, anyways?”

“Wine, mixed drinks, generally preferring sweater beverages.” Miho replied, humming to herself, “I generally limit myself to one glass.”

“I have a weird relationship with white wine. Smells fucking amazing and it is my go-to for sauces, but I have yet to find one that agrees with my palate without being cooked.” The blonde dragon replied as she slipped her phone back into her coat pocket. “I’d been meaning to try mead, cider and sake but I was on meds that didn’t much like booze so I never got to.”

“More of a fan of reds myself.” Miho hummed, looking at her fellow Arcanist, “Do you know where we’re headed, by the way? I’ve mostly just been following you.”

“Nope! Just picked a random direction.” Shèn replied cheerfully, dinosaur teeth peeking through her smile. “Either we stumble on a bar I like the vibe of or I get bored and poke google maps.”

“...You’re useless.” Miho groaned, pulling out her phone and pulling up the aforementioned map, though apparently it wasn’t Google here. “Right. There’s a nice bar about ten minutes walk from here. Let’s go there, yeah?”

“Spoilsport.” The dragon chuckled without any heat whatsoever.

______________________________________________________________________________

“What brand is this?” Shèn asked the beef rectangle disguised as a man and stuffed into a waistcoat behind the bar, holding up the shot glass full of cider she’d been sipping. The black man couldn’t be more aggressively veteran, with a crew cut and a shrapnel scar chewing up half his face. She was onto him, though, that ‘glassy’ eye was actually tracking her motion and the pupil shifted just fine. Must’ve gotten some work done by Panacea. 

Miho’s step had hiccuped for a moment when they’d opened the door into a classy bar filled to the brim with off-duty troopers and police officers, but Shèn had been cut off with an ‘It’s fine’ the moment she’d opened her mouth. So in they’d gone and the dragon couldn’t be more glad they had. There was a whole-ass piano in the corner and the ginger playing it was sure beating those soulless allegations. This also meant that the chatter of the boys and girls in blue was kept a quiet murmur that actually made for nice white noise.

Also, her new palate? Actually agreed with the burn of alcohol. So she was having a great time sampling drinks. Cognac has been her favorite so far, but she may be looking into cider for something to keep at home. Softer and, if she remembered right, cheaper.

“It’s a local blend,” The bartender explained as he moved to service another customer, “If you like that, I’d recommend trying out some of the sake their local competition produces.”

“Ah, right.” Miho interjected herself into the conversation, her glass of alcohol still largely untouched, “There’s a whole Little Japan in Brockton, right? Of course there’d be some local industries born from that.”

“I hope it also has some Chinatown bits, it’s been like three years since I had chinese style fried chicken. Nevermind niche dim sum like four seasons and money pouch dumplings.” Shèn hummed, finishing up the last of her glass and pushing it forward. The bartender, Mike, already knew to swap it for a new glass full of whatever was next on the ‘surprise me’ list. “Although I can damn well live on American food if these hot wings are anything to go by.”

Another fun discovery? She had the spice tolerance of a south east Asian now.

Out of the corner of her eye, Shèn noted Miho grabbing another of the wings and munching on it, humming in contentment all the while. Evidently, the fox enjoyed spice herself, not that she was surprised given her looks. Genuine article, right there.

She was just waiting for the vixen to realize that the wings came with bones and she was crunching them down without a thought.

“Japantown isn’t the proper name, it’s honestly closer to an Asian District,” Mike clarified with a grunt as he poured in what was probably sake into the dragon’s cup, “You’ll find real good Asian food over there, though I wouldn’t recommend popping over until you’re a bit more settled. While the ABB is generally… decent, for a criminal organization, they are still very much criminals and won’t have any particular qualms trying to recruit you. By force, if they think they can get away with it.”

“Right, I’ve heard some stuff about forced recruitment from the gangs but… how does that even work? Most parahumans are frontliners, so they can just sandbag the moment the PRT comes knocking and get whisked away. The rest are the types who can sabotage your everything. How do gangs get any value out of that?” Shèn commented as she grabbed the glass with the hand that wasn’t full of hot sauce, taking an idle sip. Then everything was forgotten for a moment as her eyebrows tickled her hairline and she looked back down at her glass. Goddamn. What the hell was this made of, Ambrosia? Heidrun’s milk? 

“Threats to family, brainwashing, torture, they’re villains for a reason.” The guy Mike had been serving a moment ago chimed up. Turning around to look at him, Shèn got treated to the sight of a well toned Asian man in a form fitting tank top and pants, “The gangs are very good at what they do, and there is very little the PRT and BBPD can do to actually prevent the murder of an unknown cape’s family. If there’s no family, brainwashing and torture to break the person, or even more esoteric methods, depending on the gang.”

“Right, so either using fear like a lever with all the risks there or breaking someone into a fire and forget berserker. That’d do it, although they would definitely want to try for softer methods first, given how unreliable the other end results are.” Shèn hummed in thought as she forced herself to savor the sake instead of chug it like the thirsty fucking noodle she was. God, but did this soothe like crisp water on a desert dry throat. “Some problems and problematic people removed, no questions asked. A tidy pile of cash. Goons waiting hand and foot. Pretty faces. Lots of ways to loosen up someone’s morals.”

“Classic stories as old as time,” Miho mused, eyes wandering around the room as she munched on another wing, her drink finally half full as she spun around on her chair to face the rather buff looking Asian man who had spoken up earlier, “We’ll take your advice and avoid the ABB’s territory for now, thank you. Unless our services are required due to unfolding events.”

“Week minimum, ideally wait until we’ve done a fair few shifts at the hospitals.” The dragon agreed with a bob of her head, quietly asking Mike for a bigger cup of sake as she finished her glass. She wasn’t sure if it was the french fries and hot wings she’d been munching on or a quirk of her biology, but she was still stone cold sober. 

“I’m not carrying your ass home if you end up drunk, Shèn.” Miho idly stated, finishing off the last of her drink. The fox sighed, rubbing a hand against her head, “Gods, I’m even more of a lightweight than before, I think.” She paused, shook her head, and sighed again.

“I’m not even buzzed yet, Floozy.” The dragon chuckled as she got her order, taking a sip of heaven in a cup. Damn, but this was good. “Just drink some water, or else you’ll be the one carried home in my tail.”

“I do know how to handle my drinks, thank you.” Said floozy jabbed back playfully, waving down Mike for a glass of water, “But damn, you’ve got alcohol tolerance for days, huh?”

“Booze is stored in the tail.” Shèn drawled out, waving the tufted tip playfully in the vague direction of the fox woman.

“You have fun with that, scales.” Miho replied, raising her glass of water in a mock toast that Shèn clicked her own cup against without missing a beat, “Hey Mike, you got more of this water stuff?” She winked towards the blonde dragon before starting to chug, “It’s pretty good shit.”

“We have it on tap, as a matter of fact.” The veteran chuckled.

“Good, I’ll be chugging a whole-ass liter once I’m done with this.” The local knife ears snorted. She’d be pissing like a racehorse afterwards, but ah well.

______________________________________________________________________________

“Well, that’s about as much of a shitbrick as I expected when they said PRT owned apartment complex.” Shèn offered, sounding anything but unhappy. Reinforced concrete her beloved, none of that styrofoam and toothpicks nonsense. 

She definitely had a point, Miho thought, considering that the apartment complex was built like a goddamn fortress. Though not being primarily composed of glass definitely was helping with that appearance. Oh, there were windows, but they didn’t compose more than a small percentage of the overall surface area of the building.

“Nicer than I expected though.” Miho mentioned, double checking the address just to be sure they’d arrived at the right one. Her phone did indeed say that they had, “They really are pulling out all the stops, huh?”

“It sure is working, too. I’m going to sleep a hell of a lot easier knowing dumb fucking gangoon teens barely worth the cum splattered on their sheets can’t just go teehee and chuck in a firebomb.” The dragon grumbled, an almost imperceptible dusting of pink across the bridge of her nose. It had taken entirely too many glasses of sake to get her even vaguely buzzed. Evidently, she hadn’t been lying about all of it going to her tail. With a fond shake of her head, Miho continued to listen to her friend’s slightly tipsy ramblings. “Or whatever passes for ‘very good ideas’ among bottom feeding gangers in this city, anyways.”

“Well. I suppose we should head in.” Miho mused, pushing open the door to the lobby. Walking in with only a small amount of trepidation, the vixen blinked. Then blinked again. Then she rubbed her eyes to ensure she wasn’t going completely insane. Turning, she looked at Shèn, “How… can the interior of a building be so painfully average while at the same time be the perfect killing zone? What the genuine fuck?!”

Seriously, if it wasn’t for the tactical and strategic knowledge that’d been jammed into her brain, she wouldn’t have noticed. The lobby itself was an obvious chokepoint, clearly designed to give the defender the advantage of several firing positions while denying the defender any. For example, there were flowerpots flush against the window, ones built from concrete designed to be used as firing positions against an oncoming enemy without giving the enemy cover if they managed to break through that line of defense. The lobby proper wasn’t well fortified at all; as giving your opponent cover was a fool’s errand. All the furniture and decor was very pointedly made of wood and plastic. The only other notable thing was the secretary’s station, obviously reinforced and complete with some windows that I couldn’t see through. A killing zone through and through.

“The magic of bored veterans, if I had to guess. The flowerpots are a nice touch.” The blonde chuckled, waving at the hollow blocks of concrete pretending to be decor even as her tail gently closed the door behind them.

“...Fair enough.” Miho sighed, her eyes fixating on the receptionist. A stocky Indian man with laugh lines and obviously armed with a glock in a shoulder holster. Probably a shotgun underneath the counter they were working at, too. Joy. Walking towards him with a purpose, Miho greeted him with a wave of her hand, “Hello! Shèn and I are new tenants around here. We were told that our paperwork had been submitted, and that our apartments were being cleaned. I wanted to make sure that was done before we went up?”

“They should be apartments 343 and 344.” Shèn added helpfully, wiggling her fingers by way of a wave. 

Taking a moment to check his notes, the receptionist nodded after a few moments, “You should be good to take the elevator up to floor three, apartments forty three and forty four. The cleaning got done about an hour ago. Here are your keys.”

“Thanks, Mr Agarwal!” Shèn chirped with an easy smile as she took hers. Good food and good booze had really done wonders for the girl’s mood. Not that Miho herself was immune to that either. She was definitely in a better mood than before, but…

Well, she’d process that in the privacy of her room. Reaching out to take her own key, Miho spoke as well, “Thank you as well, Mr Agarwal. The help the PRT is providing is greatly appreciated.”

“I’ll need to figure out a schedule for patching up troopers, assuming they can’t just take walk-ins when I work at the hospital.” Shèn dropped casual as a summer breeze before strolling over for the elevator, tail swishing happily behind her. With a polite wave towards the secretary, Miho followed her, her own tail significantly more sedate. Arriving at the elevator in good order, the pair of strange women entered it, pressing the button for the third floor.

“...So, Shèn, do you have any plans for tonight?” Miho asked as the doors closed, leaning against the wall as she attempted to appear casual.

“Shit, shower and sleep.” The dragoness replied bluntly. “Probably cuddle my summons in bed. That’s about it.”

“I see.” Miho replied, humming in consideration, “I’ll likely do the same then. Not sure about cuddling a carbuncle, considering how they glow.” She paused, went to say something more, before shaking her head, “Either way, I suppose we’ll talk more tomorrow?”

“Yea. Doubt we have anything in the fridge, so we’ll be eating out for breakfast.” Shèn shrugged as the elevator dinged and they stepped out.

“I’ll see you then, Shèn.” Miho answered with a noticeably weak smile, pausing in front of her unit’s door. With a harsh sigh, and before her friend(?) could say anything, the fox entered her room. Shutting the door behind her with perhaps slightly more force than was necessary, Miho finally let her mask slip, grief and rage etched onto her face as tears began to pool in her eyes.

“WHY!?” She roared, barely managing to contain her impulse to slam her fist into the wall, tears streaking down her face as she grit her teeth, “WHY?! WHY AFTER SOMETHING FINALLY STARTED GOING RIGHT FOR ME!?” She screamed to the uncaring ceiling, rage slipping from her grip as the crushing weight of despair and loneliness overtook her. “Give them back…” The woman sobbed, collapsing in the entrance to her new home, a broken voice thick with despair and hopelessness.

For what felt like hours, she simply laid there, kneeling on the floor as she wondered what exactly she’d done to deserve this.

‘...Pathetic.’

The thought raced through her mind like lightning. For all that it seemed intrusive, she could not ignore it. After a few moments, she even found herself agreeing with it.

‘They aren’t dead, so long as I remember them. Though parting is painful…’ Miho smiled woodenly, ‘I’ve gotten some good things out of this. A body I love, rather than hate. Powers that I didn’t have before. An apartment - a place of my own. I’ve lost a lot, but I’ve gained much in turn.’

She rose, nodding to herself. That was right. She couldn’t sit here crying. That could come later. For now, she needed to keep herself busy. While it would be easy to simply accept that they were going out for breakfast tomorrow, she’d been given a new beginning. Forced on her though it may be, it was time to turn over a new leaf. That meant not going out for breakfast when the option remained to cook. Purpose granting her the mental fortitude to push past the trauma of sudden partings, Miho strode into her kitchen with purpose, blanching as she realized she was going to have to purchase everything she needed. Thankfully, it wouldn’t be too much, and she wasn’t going to be able to sleep either way. So long as she got the requisite shopping done now, she could spend the rest of the night simply organizing things.

‘First. Pots, Pans, Rice Cooker.’ Miho listed out the things she would need in her head, “Baking trays, some kind of contraption to keep boiled water ready. Then I need rice, an assortment of vegetables, spices and toppings, eggs, and an assortment of dairy products.” Exhaling dramatically, the fox winced, “Yeah… this is gonna need a hilarious amount of trips. I should probably check to make sure that the stores will be open.”

‘Talking to myself might be the first sign of insanity, but it’s helping me cope so I frankly don’t care. Probably shouldn’t be alone right now either, but Shèn’s probably going to sleep and I’d rather not bother her.’ The vixen mused to herself, rummaging around in her pocket for her phone to search up if any of the places she’d need to go were open.

She winced. They were not. However, all except the grocer had delivery as an option. Which definitely would significantly lessen the amount of stuff she’d need to carry personally. She also actually had the funds to furnish her kitchen, which meant she should definitely do so.

‘Right. So, rest of tonight is going to be spending an absurd amount of money shopping. Truly, I am a woman.’ 

Sometimes, Miho’s own thoughts scared her.