Slayer Anderson

Mind Games - Chapter 33

The only person in the entire agency Endeavor would tolerate rudeness from was...

Well, okay, there were technically two. His former UA classmate Kenji was one of them. The second, though, was his daughter.

Which was the primary reason he simply leaned back and gave her an unimpressed stare as she slapped down a thick folder of information on his desk.

“There are psychic elements to her quirk.”

Enji hummed as he picked up the folder and began to skim.

He paused almost immediately on the first page.

“Her IQ is a Code Seven, just like Bootstrap's,” Enji noted, then furrowed his eyebrows as he read on. “She has the same gift for languages?”

“She requires a subject's blood in order to understand them, but yes. It's not as versatile as Hitoshi's when taken alone, but...” Fuyumi trailed off meaningfully.

“In the greater context of her quirk as a whole, it's far more impressive in many ways,” Enji murmured, flipping pages in the report. “In retrospect, it's not all that surprising though. What kind of infiltrator wouldn't be able to speak the language of the person they've taken the appearance of? Her ability to read emotional states from exposure to an individual's blood...”

“It needs to be fresh – or close to it,” Fuyumi stipulated as she turned to begin pacing. “They tried giving her filtered plasma and while it seems to provide basic nutrition, it's the equivalent of asking someone to live off tasteless porridge and vitamins. It can be done, but the negative psychological and physiological effects are obvious.”

“...and her heightened senses,” Enji frowned, tapping a finger against his desk thoughtfully. “She's effectively able to track someone by scent, can mimic vocal and physical tics, and her physicality is exceptional even at what they're calling her 'baseline' readings.”

“She was asked to abstain from any form of blood for at least three days prior to the testing and then allowed to have basic plasma as well as blood from several volunteer lab technicians to evaluate her shape-shifting,” Fuyumi sighed and rubbed at her face. “She's one of the vanishingly-few mass-correcting transformation quirks we have on record, Dad. It took barely a half-hour after her file hit the classified database before I was getting calls from intelligence agencies-”

“Refuse them and, if they persist, tell them to call me,” Enji nearly growled, the temperature in the room spiking as he grit his teeth. “Gods-damned vultures – these aren't the Dark Ages anymore! They can at least wait until these kids finish high school!”

He slammed a fist down on his reinforced desk.

“Did Lady Nagant teach them nothing?!”

Hot Ice sighed, shaking her head. “I was honestly surprised we didn't get more people asking for Hitoshi's – Bootstrap's – contract when we filed his updated registry.”

Endeavor scowled, taking a deep breath before pulling a bottle of water from the mini-fridge behind his desk and taking a long pull from it. “The boy's quirk has a more obvious use in diplomatic subterfuge. The people looking for those quirks have a more staid and patient mentality. The deeper intelligence agencies operate on more urgent timelines and are quicker to snap up talent.”

“Is there anything we can do about this in the long-term?” Fuyumi asked, shifting the topic as she considered it from more angles.

“Getting them into UA will be the best defense,” Enji grumbled. “Nezu won't allow anyone from those groups to poach a student and the contract I gave the Toga parents is as iron-clad as we could create. Even if they wanted to, they couldn't back out of it and she'll effectively be an adult in two years anyway. At that point, the matter will be primarily up to her if she wants to pursue that line of work.”

“Unless Hitoshi decides to go down that route, I don't think it's very likely Himiko will choose it of her own volition,” Fuyumi stated.

“Oh?” Her father asked, looking down at the documents in his hands again and flipping through them. “Ah...”

“Her psych evaluation came back clean,” Fuyumi summarized. “Too clean, in fact, if what Hitoshi has said about her parents is-”

“He's correct in his assessment,” Enji cut his daughter off, not meeting her eyes as he studied the files. “I met with them to sign the final contract for her subsidized housing, employment, and studies at UA. They made my skin crawl. Reminded me too much of-”

Fuyumi waited a moment, cocking her head as she stared at her father, who took another long pull of cold water. “Of?”

“Nothing,” Enji grunted at the prompt. “Nothing important, at least. But reading between the lines of the team's assessment, I think I agree with them. She's too smart for the tests.”

“Just like Hitoshi,” Fuyumi nodded.

Endeavor made a vague noise of agreement and nodded, leaning back in his chair as he stared off into the middle distance. “The only real data point worth mentioning is her dependency on Hitoshi. Do you see that as being a problem, Fuyumi? Either in their professional or private lives? They strike me as mature beyond their years, even if the Toga girl is a bit too playful about it at times, but they are still teenagers. Relationships and romance at that age can be... turbulent at the best of times.”

“According to Himiko, the only real point of tension in their relationship is Hitoshi wanting her to express more of an opinion on her own wants and desires,” Fuyumi stated somewhat dryly.

Enji snorted. “A bit of a strange dynamic, but if they do sour... well, it's not as though the agency isn't big enough to put them on separate sides of the building or something.”

“And it will also give you the chance to set Hitoshi up with Shoko,” Fuyumi noted, her tone far too casual.

Enji coughed and looked away. “It's the duty of every father to see their daughters' life goals accomplished and Shoko... she's made it clear that she wants a husband some day.”

Fuyumi hummed, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms. “I also stacked the results from Hitoshi's hero examination in there.”

“He passed,” her father replied bluntly, not taking his eyes off Himiko's quirk evaluation.

“That confident?” Fuyumi huffed a laugh. “I'll be sure to let him know.”

“The test for that rear-echelon heroism is grueling, tedious, mind-numbing, and requires the analytic skills of a professional bureaucrat,” Endeavor summarized succinctly. “It is not, however, difficult beyond those qualifications. In fact, I think most of the top ten percent of any high school class could, with a bit of study and preparation, take the exam and pass it.”

Fuyumi frowned, her brows furrowing. “Why don't they, then? Plenty of kids have aspirations of being a hero.”

“Children want to beat up villains,” Endeavor refuted, glancing up at his daughter. “They want to use their quirks in public and engage in running battles across rooftops. They want to be invited onto talk shows and have plastic models of themselves sold at toy stores.”

“Right... and being stuck in an office all day going over ten year old financial reports isn't very in service to that,” Hot Ice sighed.

“There are other reasons,” Endeavor grunted, flipping a page in the document he was holding. “Beyond the lack of glamour, it's a niche industry to break into and one that needs contacts or a powerful patron to support you in the first few years. There are civilian firms which have licenses to do most of what 'Office Heroes' do, which further hurts their prospects. Add onto the fact that there are – at best – five independent agencies run by this class of licensed hero in the entire country, which means there's little, if any, room for advancement. The most important factor, though, is the lack of respect from most professional heroes.”

Fuyumi scowled and looked away from her father. “I... can see why, even if I'd like to pretend otherwise. Not being active in the field makes it seem like you're not contributing substantially to the occupation as a whole, even if the work you do is important and valuable.”

Endeavor nodded absently, humming under his breath. “That's why the majority of Office Heroes work directly for the Commission itself and offer their services as contract-employees to various agencies when necessary. Even our agency usually goes that route due to the relative scarcity of talented individuals who pursue this career path.”

…

“I expedited the toxicology, it just came back.”

Toshinori looked up from the screen where the information on the Shie Hassaikai was displayed, turning to regard Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa. More specifically, he took notice of the concerned expression on the man's face. “Something worse than we thought? Permanent damage?”

Naomasa shook his head, but he remained frowning as he dropped a manila folder on the skeletal blonde's desk. “Nothing like that. It's just that the department is familiar with this mix. It's a specialty date-rape drug created by a small-time villain with a chemical synthesis quirk operating out of Chiyoda. The stuff he makes is custom-crafted for people with more robust immune systems that could fight off the normal types of drugs circulating with average scum.”

“That's... unfortunate,” Toshinori stated, gritting his teeth slightly. “If our vigilante contact is dealing with a man like that-”

Naomasa shook his head. “No, that's the thing. He was beaten to within an inch of his life and dropped off in front of a police station last week. Police found a note on him detailing where he lived, but they barely recovered any finished product or cash and his bank accounts had been emptied as well. They'd thought he got busted in the middle of making a new batch, but now...”

The civilian guise of the most powerful hero in the country leaned back, taking the revelation thoughtfully. “So this...” He glanced at the notes. “Perspicacious Mauve Avenger. She takes down a roofie dealer specifically to loot his supplies and funds, then uses the product she stole to drug a villain's drink while he's in a bar with two cops and All Might's secretary.”

“More like she drugged the ingredients used to make the cocktail,” Naomasa corrected tiredly, pulling his coat off and hanging it up near the door to the expansive apartment at the top of Might Tower. “It was a tinary compound – it had to be mixed with all three parts of the drug. Even just two of the three wouldn't do anything. The bartender had no idea what he was doing-”

“So he couldn't give the game away,” Toshinori hummed, rubbing at his chin. “You asked him with our quirk?”

Naomasa nodded. “That was my thought, too. The bartender thought he was just setting up some kind of odd date night or something. Maybe arranging an illegal business deal with a special signal. He had no idea the stuff behind the counter had been tampered with. Whoever this is, Toshi, they're extremely competent.”

“What I want to know...” Toshinori asked slowly, his eyes tracking to the grand view of Tokyo outside his window. “...is why she bothered letting us know she was involved at all? I've seen these kinds of skills before with some of the American and Japanese covert hero teams, especially the more elaborate planning or mental-enhancement quirks. If she could pull something like this off, she could do it without us knowing about it.”

“The simplest answer would be time,” Naomasa suggested, striding over and flipping open the original data dump they'd received and held up a picture of a gray-haired girl. “Think about Nakamura. She showed up to rescue him and his kids. She went in loud and fast, broke people, and saved the victims.”

“I'll admit that it's heartening to think she's driven by concern for the child,” Toshinori stated, frowning still.

“You don't think so?” Naomasa pushed, frowning himself. “You're usually the one to think the best of people.”

“It's all these... elaborate games,” Toshinori waved a hand. “I don't like this kind of thing. Why not just approach me – or you, since she knows you're one of All Might's contacts – and be upfront with it? What does she stand to gain with all this cloak and dagger nonsense?”

“Someone could be after her,” Naomasa pointed out after a moment's thought. “If you're right and she does have a higher-end planning quirk... or something versatile enough to emulate one, then there are a lot of people who'd want to recruit her – one way or another.”

“If that's the case...” Toshinori paused, looking between the picture of the young girl 'Eri' and the picture that he'd pulled from Endeavor's files. He seldom personally made use of the pool of shared intelligence that the Top Ten had created, but on occasion it was helpful. “...what if this is a test?”

Naomasa hummed, raising an eyebrow. “You save the girl from the yakuza, then you can save her from whatever is trying to get her?”

Toshinori nodded, the set of his jaw growing more firm. “Someone operating like her... it means they lack trust in institutional heroism. That's why this is happening. She's been burned before or... for some reason, feels like she can't trust an established hero agency. So she's reaching out to All Might personally through someone he's been photographed with multiple times.”

“It's not a bad theory,” the detective nodded slowly. “So how do you want to handle the Shie Hassaikai?”

Yagi Toshinori snorted, slamming a fist into the opposite palm. The sound that resulted was many times in volume what one would have thought an emaciated figure like him was capable of. The suddenly many-times thicker muscles and foot of height attested to his strength, though. “How else, Detective? I'm going in head-on and teaching those thugs a lesson, of course! Even if we're wrong and this isn't a test of my commitment to heroism, everything we know says there's a little girl who needs a hero!”

All Might scowled, his usual smile vanishing momentarily. “That alone compels me to act!”

Despite himself Naomasa felt a shiver go up his spine as he beheld the Number One Hero in the country – some claimed the world – before Toshi relaxed his grip on his power and shrank back to his emaciated form. “Alright then, but we're going to need to go over everything we know about this Overhaul character leading them. The information about his quirk – if Ms. Avenger is correct – is daunting. You'll need to finish the fight fast and-”

Ding!

Both men blinked, turning towards Toshinori's PC. “Huh... I almost didn't expect her to reply.”

“The email address she gave Endeavor's Agency?” Naomasa asked, stepping forward quickly to lean over his friend's shoulder. “What'd she say?”

Toshinori hummed as he leaned back and stared at the text. “Since you asked for my advice, here are a few thoughts and a warning: If You Want To Protect Her, Give It Your All.”

“Cryptic,” Naomasa commented with a frown.

“It reminds me of some of the things Nighteye would say, back when we worked together,” Toshinori stated. “In fact, all of this data that's been compiled... if I didn't know any better, I would swear my old sidekick had assembled it. I'm more certain now than ever that Mauve Avenger has some kind of versatile planning quirk, possibly one with either probability-altering or precognitive components to it.”

“You don't have faith in the Endeavor team's assessment?” Naomasa probed thoughtfully.

Toshinori grimaced slightly. “I think she's deliberately deceiving them, honestly. It's not particularly their fault, I've been at the game a lot longer than they have and I trust my own gut more than a relatively inexperienced group of B-listers.”

“That's fair, now let's see what else our vigilante friend wrote-” Naomasa continued, narrowing his gaze the the enclosed text and beginning to read.

…

“Your friend Stendhal has a body count,” Sir Nighteye stated bluntly. “I can excuse your presence in the operation, but not his.”

Mirio frowned, once again confronting the truth about the man he considered something of a mentor. “Sir, he hasn't killed anyone in years-”

“No, only maimed them,” Mirai denounced the absent vigilante. “Permanent disfigurement, lost of appendages, crippling of bodily functions... more than not being able to abide his presence myself, I won't force the heroes I've assembled to tolerate his level of violence.”

Kaito Lemillion grit his teeth, trying to come up with a response that didn't involve admitting he'd been a party to some of that violence. The career of a vigilante was one of harsh choices, where one often had to decide between a potentially crippling injury and allowing a criminal to get away to harm others again. “Many of those were murderers or people who had taken civilians hostage. The injuries were necessary to-”

“Necessary for an illegal hero to handle the situation, yes,” Nighteye interrupted, glaring at the teenager. “Which is why I was against involving any of your group in the first place for this operation. Vigilantes operate outside the law and, by necessity, under different rules of engagement than accredited and licensed heroes. Being part of a joint task force such as this involves submitting yourself to an authority greater than your own judgment for the sake of a common chain of command as well as cooperation on tactics and strategy.”

“Then assign us an independent operation!” Mirio all but shouted at the stiff and unyielding man. “Stendhal and Pop Step are the only ones who were there to help me! They're the only ones who believed me wh-when Tamaki-”

Mirio took a sharp breath and turned away.

Mirai paused, heaving a silent sight as he folded his arms behind his back. The former sidekick turned professional hero did not like the situation he'd been put in, especially given it had been at the behest of another vigilante. Part of him wished he'd never picked up the phone that day a week ago.

The larger part of him knew there was nothing for it.

In the grand scheme of his career, he'd faced hurdles and annoyances much greater than being forced to work with an unpleasant, violent sword-wielding maniac. In particular was the ongoing hurdle that had become finding a successor to his mentor's power, a frustrating task that had yielded few results. All of the candidates he'd selected over the previous years had the wrong quirk, the wrong temperament, or the wrong background.

Case in point, the teenager before him.

The Phantom Thief Lemillion was something of an urban legend, frequently hitting high-profile members of society and stealing valuables. Those valuables, in turn, were often revealed to, themselves, be stolen. Or, in the process of investigating the case, damning information would come to light that the 'victim' was in fact a criminal themselves.

Often a heinous and particularly disgusting one.

He'd gained a cult following online that was threatening to transition to legitimate popularity, the politics within the Hero Commission split on how to handle him. In fact, if Nighteye could turn Lemillion from a vigilante into a professional, it would be quite the feather in his cap. And, judging by the teen's conduct in the field, he'd make an excellent hero once he sharpened up his quirk use a little bit.

It was quite clever of the boy to pass off his tendency to phase out of his own clothing as a 'magic trick,' distracting from a weakness by highlighting it and turning it into a mark of showmanship instead. That and a few well-placed smoke bombs allowed him to ride the thin line between mysterious and glamorous that marked an individual with no little talent.

But he had willingly associated with a serial killer.

Nighteye might have been willing to look the other way to reform a flashy thief with a heart of gold if it meant All Might's legacy secured behind a quirk that ensured the next hero could dodge a lethal blow no matter the circumstances.

But the stain resulting from even a passing acquaintance with someone like Stendhal would hound someone like All Might's successor. And that was if the boy was even interested in the first place. Mirai tentatively thought he might have the right attitude, but whoever this 'Tamaki' was... there was trauma there. Trauma enough that it had made the boy drag his own reputation through the mud for the sake of a single individual.

That was not enough.

Not enough to be Him.

But... not being fit to take Toshi's place wasn't a crime in and of itself. It wasn't even cause enough to truly condemn someone. Mirai felt that he, himself, did not measure up to the legacy most day, either.

So as unfit to stand as the next Symbol of Peace as Phantom Thief Lemillion might be...

“There's a task I can give to your group,” Mirai sighed, adjusting his glasses tiredly. “I'll need to know more about your capabilities, but with the information Perspicacious Mauve Avenger has forwarded me, I believe I can put you where you will do the most good.”

There was a particular section of this yakuza group – the Abegawa Tenchu Kai – that was known for its violent crimes, usually committed under the cover of 'Enforcing the Peace.'

Mirai would not be particularly bothered if some of them were to suffer permanent injuries that put them out of their line of work.

If, however, Lemillion was correct and Stendhal was turning a new – slightly less gruesome – leaf, perhaps accommodations could be made.

Perhaps.

Sasaki Mirai did have connections befitting a former sidekick of All Might, after all, and there were segments of the Japanese government and its associated apparatuses that could use a maniac who wanted to purge the world of evil. As long as the sword-wielding man wasn't a mad dog and could be reasoned with – trusted to a degree – he could find Stendhal something to do that got him off the streets and made him someone else's problem.

Especially if it removed the murder even further from association with the word 'hero.'

Calling him a vigilante, even now, was a step too far in Sir Nighteye's opinion.

“Th-thank you, Sir Nighteye,” the Phantom Thief replied, bowing deeply.

...and if this merry little band of vigilantes bungled things in such an important operation, it would give Mirai enough leverage to hand over a campaign of negative press to the Association. Which would neatly remove the problem either way.

As Lemillion explained his own abilities and that of his friends', Sasaki brushed his hand against the hero's arm and-

A flurry of images passed through his mind's eye, so oddly incoherent and strangely off-color, but the gist of it...

-the professional hero sighed.

It seemed he'd be calling in a few favors.

Thankfully, the next prospect for All Might’s successor he’d found was a far less complicated issue. If the vigilante who couldn’t be struck wasn’t an option, then he’d gladly accept the aspiring hero who could take any hit without folding.

…if only he had better taste, though. Crimson Riot, really?

…

The tarot deck was in hand once again as I stared out over the skyline.

My other hand held my phone, various markers representing trackers and tags I'd left slowly being populated across the screen.

I looked back to the deck, an instrument of divination turned into one of predestination.

As I had before, I could force a draw and snap that sign into place, twisting the weave of destiny in the direction I wanted.

I was on the other side of the city now and three days had passed as I watched the various heroes and villains move into position. I wanted to be out there, taking part in the action, but that wasn't my place. Not now, at least.

My place was in the shadows, for the moment.

I slid the tarot cards back into their case and snapped them away into my Pocket.

I closed the Mapper app on my phone and flipped back to the countdown timer I had going.

It hadn't been all that difficult sneaking into the room where the Boss lay comatose, rendered so by the boy he'd taken in and raised as his own son. Getting in hadn't been the problem. Putting the collar on hadn't been the problem, either. It was having the conversation I'd need to have, without being interrupted, that would be the problem.

I sighed, still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

For something to go wrong.

“I suppose there's nothing to do but go home and fake an illness now,” I said to myself lightly. “I'll need the day off today if I'm going to play puppet master for this mess.”

~~~

What's this? I'm early for once?

World must be ending!

Joke's aside, next chapter will be the end of The First Sidereal Scheme and I hope I can do the payoff justice.

After that, it's straight to UA! Finally! Patience has been rewarded and I hope the journey here has been a fun one so far.

Thank you again for your support, each and every one of you. Voting for the August Polls will open up later tonight.

In the interim, I think I'll be working on a surprise to post over the weekend. Not sure what it will be yet, so it'll be a surprise for me, too!

Mind Games - Chapter 32

The technical term is 'cartomancy.'

It's an umbrella title given to any school of magic or mysticism that uses cards as a tool for divination. Note that this isn't limited to just tarot cards and the like, but any sort of selection of cards made of any material used for such purposes. It's fairly common, in fact, to just use a basic set of playing cards to substitute for a tarot deck if you don't have a formal one.

But while you could use a deck of playing cards, a proper tarot deck was more powerful.

More accurate.

There were different patterns you could 'cast' with the cards, as well, called spreads.

One, three, and five card spreads were common, but there were more complicated ones for people who wanted detailed answers on subjects. The more cards you revealed, the more clues you got to the questions you had. Beyond that, there was the positions of the cards themselves. When you shuffled a tarot deck, you didn't try to keep all of the cards in line with each other, you cut them and flipped them constantly. This meant you could reveal a card in a reversed position, modifying the meaning to the symbol on it.

The next layer of cartomancy was the cards themselves.

In general, you had five different kinds of cards you needed to pay attention to. The first four were the standard suits that anyone familiar with a regular deck of playing cards would be able to pick out, though because this was magic they had old-timey names for them that harkened back to the original medieval stylings of playing cards. Pentacles, swords, cups, and wands... each assigned their own platonic element and their own attributes to govern.

Pentacles covered Earth and governed the physical world.

Swords covered Air and governed intellectual pursuits.

Wands covered Fire and governed the realm of passion.

Cups covered Water and governed emotions and relationships.

Taken collectively, these were all known as the 'minor arcana.' The fifth type of card that existed in most modern tarot decks was the Major Arcana set. These existed outside of the standard set of numbered suits, so someone using a normal deck of playing cards would have to choose whether to read the major arcana or just do the minor ones instead. Seventy eight cards total were in a tarot deck, twenty two of those in the major arcana, and the remaining fifty six in the minor.

Which, yes, made using a deck of playing cards to do a minor arcana reading messy, but if you used the jokers and the placeholder cards that everyone threw away when they opened the deck, it could be done.

But I didn't have to worry about that, because I'd legitimately purchased a centuries-old tarot deck from a very nice establishment that wasn't at all a front for illegal drug smuggling.

I set the first of three cards down on the rooftop asphalt under the light of the full moon.

“The Hanged Man, Reversed.”

The card denoting sacrifice or martyrdom, though usually nothing so extreme. In reversed position, it denoted needless sacrifice or a fear of the act itself. Perhaps even a tendency to stall or linger in that state for one reason or another.

The second card.

“Death, Upright.”

Unlike what most horror movies would have you believe, the 'death' card wasn't all that ominous. Usually all it meant was just 'change.' If it was reversed, it could be somewhat nasty, but that wasn't a consideration here.

The third card.

I gathered my Essence and felt it snap into place with the reveal.

“The Emperor, Upright.”

A card of authority and control, but also of fatherhood and responsibility.

Distantly, I could hear the howling of something that sounded like the wind, but wasn't. The wind didn't have intent behind it, and this did. Something running behind the veil of reality had felt what I'd just done, and it didn't like it. I snapped the cards up in my Pocket, jumped off the roof of the abandoned building, and shifted midway down into my male form, throwing off the scent of my metaphysical power and sealing my essence.

I got a block away before I opened up the Apartment and slipped inside.

“Everything go well, Dear?” Himiko asked, her mask smiling.

I hummed as I kicked my shoes off and put on the slippers, the unnerving feeling of being watch – being tracked – having faded. “Another day, another set of problems, opportunities, and solutions.”

Himiko gave me a side-eye and nodded, letting me slip in beside her seamlessly as we continued to prepare dinner. The part of me that remembered being a normal human wanted to remind her that we were making extra for my Dad so he didn't make midnight convenience store runs, but the more attentive parts of me counted ingredients and referenced the recipe before confirming there was more than enough for those purposes as well as our own meal.

That... still caught me off-guard sometimes, operating on a superhuman level.

“I'll need to follow you out your side of the door tonight,” I commented idly, instead. “I think something nasty felt me plucking the strings of fate earlier and I don't want to risk going back to that neighborhood for a while.”

“Oooh... one of those monsters you told about? The Mythology Monsters?” Himiko asked with a grin, showing just a bit of fang.

“Mythos beasts, but yes,” I nodded, chuckling a bit. “This world doesn't have a Loom of Fate or anything like that, but I think there's some kind of... hmm, perhaps... immune system? Whatever noticed me obviously doesn't react to probability-controlling or divination quirks or we wouldn't have examples of those to point to...”

“So it's just... outside context powers?” Himiko asked thoughtfully, her mind still obviously on the ingredients being prepared in front of her.

“That's my current hypothesis, at least,” I nodded. “The fact that they targeted me is encouraging, though.”

“I don't think I agree, but how so?” Himiko replied, frowning.

“It means that, whatever it is doesn't care about the changes I make, for now.” Which, despite the attention it put on me was a benefit. Even if I couldn't feel exactly what it was that had looked in my direction – I didn't want it to get close enough to understand it – I'd felt the Fate around me warp and twist as it reached for me.

Only me.

In the moment, I'd compared it to a howling wind with intent... but perhaps it was more akin to a hunting shark. Something just under the water that was prowling around trying to find out what had made its way into its domain. That made more sense, actually, especially with the way they hadn't surfaced. My phone was still recording the entirely-mundane and disposable camera I'd left watching the space I'd done my proactive divination upon... and nothing had moved.

I wondered...

“Could this be a Hounds of Tindalos situation?” I asked, frowning.

“Puppies? Are they cute?” Himiko asked, perking up as she continued stuffing the dough.

“Ah... saying whether they're cute or not would require them to have a single common form,” I hesitated, pulling a pan out from the cabinets. “Eldritch beings are typically given names according to their purpose rather than any general identifying set of features or abilities.”

“So living quirks then,” Himiko nodded, tapping a flour-covered finger against her chin and making me pause. “Quirks that have their own minds... or instincts, at least? A fire quirk would only know how to burn, but could be a candle or the flame in an oven or a wildfire or something like Endeavor's power.”

“That's... precisely it,” I stated, my mind racing at the implications.

The possible implications.

I couldn't get ahead of myself.

“It's weird, you know... thinking so much faster now. So much clearer,” Himiko commented, tilting her head thoughtfully. “Is this what it felt like for you?”

I hummed in agreement, belatedly placing the pan down. “Probably a bit more intensive on my part, but yeah. You dealing with the influx of memories okay?”

Himiko nodded slowly. “I'm okay, mostly. Except when I look up at the stars, at night. That's when it hits the hardest.”

“I've got some of that, yeah,” I sighed. The heaviest memories of space travel were tied to River, but Cass had ended up in the wild black yonder a time or two herself. I was intensely grateful I didn't have to deal with any space-based shenanigans from Ranma's side of things, though, and the Sidereal's memories...

Well, space was less 'space' and more primordial chaos full of living narratives that wanted to eat people from the inside out, so I didn't have the same issues when I looked up at the night sky. This same associations just didn't exist.

“Could we go into space one day?” Himiko asked suddenly. “I... think I'd like to see it for myself, not just have the memories.”

“If you'd like, I can arrange something. Probably not until Golden Week of next year, at the earliest, but I'll see what I can do. Fair warning, though, we might have to wait until after graduation, depending on certain factors.” I grimaced slightly with the last admission.

“Ah... we're still under quarantine, that's right,” Himiko hummed, finishing up the dish and putting it in the oven before turning to wash her hands. “Has the branch of The Company you work for decided what they need to see before they let us travel? Not that I really want to go anywhere else permanently, but it'd be nice to visit a peaceful world where the PLANTS and ZAFT never went to war.”

“I have to admit, I wouldn't mind hijacking a gundam for a joyride,” I grinned slightly.

“Ah!” Himiko gasped, her eyes widening and clapping her hands happily. “We're planning a vacation! Together! Eeeee! It's just like in those magazines the girls are always talking about! Soooo~cute~!”

I sighed and shook my head, amusement wafting off me in waves. “Just make sure you get enough rest for your evaluation tomorrow.”

…

A few hours later, I had dropped in at home to deliver the food to my dad, had another passive-aggressive un-discussion over when Himiko could have dinner with us, and post a note on my computer that I had to go out 'for work' if he decided to check on me.

I had two more errands to run tonight, just to make sure things went smoothly.

Thankfully, though, I'd had enough time to lay low for my essence to fade when I shifted back to my female form. A quick stop by a conbini for a late-night snack and a pair of energy drinks that shared coloration with toxic waster, and I was good to go.

I gave the area I'd picked out a quick scan, then selected a nice window ledge to sit and wait. It was a deserted street at this time of night, the various neon signs and digital displays casting the empty avenue in a strange half-light that waxed and waned with the clouds drifting over the moon. Resisting the urge to pop in a pair of headphones, I popped an energy drink and grabbed a beef croquet out of my bag. I might have just had a filling dinner five hours ago, but the insane ultra-active lifestyle I was pursuing meant a calorie intake that would match most professional athletes.

Outside of a pair of drunk salarymen staggering home, my impromptu meal passed by in silence. The only observer was what appeared to be a young homeless woman a block down...

...until...

A white-caped figure dropped into the street from a grappling hook, a pristine top hat with a bright gold band of cloth around the base.

I raised my drink to him, “Yo.”

I could feel the awkward stare behind the domino mask. “Ah... you are Ms. Perspicacious Mauve Avenger?”

“Yep,” I nodded.

He stared at me for a moment longer, then snapped his heels together and ruffled his cape out to one side before bowing deep at the waist. “On behalf of my teammate, thank you very much!”

If I was actually a teenage girl, I might have swooned at that. I could entirely see how Kazuho was crushing on the young man so hard. “Both you and she are quite welcome. I was happy to help, even if she wasn't quite so happy to receive my aid.”

Mirio barely caught a laugh as he slowly eased up, standing back into a more normal vertical position. “Ah... Kazuho has been... well, she's very glad she got out of that.”

“I'm sure,” I nodded, then crumpled the wrapper of my last croquet and pulled out a small wet wipe to clean the grease off. “Thank you for coming, Phantom Thief Lemillion. I know it must have been hard to extend so much trust to someone you aren't acquainted with, even if you did have your team on overwatch.”

I nodded towards a building on the opposite side of the street.

“How did you-” Lemillion stiffened.

I waved a hand, “Peace. It's only common sense to have someone watching your back when meeting with an unknown element. Though, a word to the wise, I'd invest in some military surplus binoculars. They tend to have their lenses arranged so that they don't catch the light.”

“Ah...” Mirio muttered, his cheeks going red. “T-thanks, I'll remember that!”

“A very useful purchase, if what the underground heroes have told me is true.”

The Phantom Thief Lemillion and I both turned to regard the third party of our little meeting. Dressed in an off-white suit, a red tie with white spots on it, and wearing his traditional expression of a piercing gaze behind a set of square spectacles, the man looked more like the average salaryman out for a midnight stroll than a famous hero. The only thing that was remarkable about him was the green hair with yellow highlights, something I still wasn't sure was natural or an affectation.

There was a measured inhalation as Mirio took a cautious step back.

“Fear not, Vigilante, I'm not about to arrest you... tonight, at least,” Sir Nighteye snorted, dismissing the older teen with a casual glance. “Not when such significant and potentially deadly activities have been brought to my attention. It is my duty as a hero to decide upon which crimes must take priority above others.”

He turned to me, fully. “Perspicacious Mauve Avenger. I was promised information-”

Before he could finish, I pulled out the packed set of thumbdrives and threw the box containing them at him. A quick snatch of preternatural reflexes saw the hero catch them with a mildly surprised look. “As promised, it's all there Sir Nighteye.”

He blinked slowly at me, adjusting his glasses with his free hand. “You're not going to hold the city ransom for the price you demanded? My, my... what are the egos of vigilantes coming to, these days?”

Even as Mirio bristled at the implied insult and opened his mouth to respond, I snorted and shook my head, not rising to the bait.

“I still want the information that I asked you for, make no mistake,” I informed him plainly, “and withholding it will cause innocents and good people to suffer, but it should be the choice of a hero whether or not to trust another, no matter their credentials.”

The professional hero grimaced like he'd just stepped in something unpleasant as he stared me down.

Then, slowly, he extracted a similar drive to the ones I'd given him, except...

The tiny digital storage device was red, blue, and yellow with a righteous grin atop it all. I could tell with a single glance that it was a piece of All Might themed merchandise.

“Much like the people you have been investigating,” Sir Nighteye stated, frowning at me, “I should not need to inform you that the Shie Hassaikai are – despite their pretensions towards honor – every bit the violent criminals, traffickers, and thieves that the Abegawa Tenchu Kai are. I... find myself uncertain of the wisdom of handing over my own research into their organization to an untrained teenager playing who doesn't even wear a mask.”

“Look, we could continue the verbal jousting until you feel satisfied that you've picked up enough clues to my identity and quirk or I can assure you that I'm going to hand that information over to another pro hero with 'proper credentials' instead of taking action against the yakuza myself,” I informed him, absently stowing the empty can in my hand and retrieving another energy drink as I did so.

Mirio's shoulder's hunched as he visibly fought off laughter while Sir Nighteye gave me a particularly unpleasant look while rolling the thumbdrive between his over-long fingers.

Finally, Nighteye snorted and flung the drive at me with a deft movement, the impact enough to likely bruise a normal civilian's palm as I caught it.

“Thank you for your contribution to the continued safety of those most vulnerable,” I nodded at him and stood, picking up my bag of trash in the process.

“You're not staying?” The Phantom Thief Lemillion asked, surprised. “I thought we were about to discuss strategies to deal with the villains who wanted to poison the water supply?”

“My recommendations are within the information I passed to Sir Nighteye,” I assured the other vigilante. “Given that and the fact that I have other obligations tonight, I believe you'll have a more productive discussion if I excuse myself.”

“O-oh!” Mirio stated, frowning momentarily, then perking back up. “Well, it was a pleasure to meet you! I hope we can work together more often after this.”

“Indeed,” Sir Nighteye stated, still frowning as he regarded me and fixed his glasses again. “It was... an enlightening experience.”

Giving the two one last nod, I turned and walked away, leaving a pair who would have, in another world and time, been mentor and sidekick. I wish I could say that it was amusing to see them so anxiously regarding each other – and part of me did think it was funny – but I was mostly just saddened by the loss of such a strong bond. Even if I thought Sir Nighteye was something of a dick, I couldn't help but feel that both he and Mirio were the lesser for not having each other in their lives.

Maybe, after all is said and done... which reminds me...

Passing by a young girl in ragged clothing with a beggar's pan out in front of her, I pulled one last thumbdrive out and dropped it in with the coins. Blue eyes blinked up at me, her equally blue skin going slightly pale at my singularly unimpressed look. “Bubble Girl.”

Now looking up at me fully, the sidekick tensed. “Avenger. Can I help you?”

“No,” I replied, making her blink. “But you can help both your boss and the Phantom Thief. The information on that drive is unrelated to the current crisis, but should help someone in dire need of it.”

“I'll... see that he gets it,” Bubble Girl nodded, then sighed. “You knew I was a plant the entire time. How?”

I shrugged. “A homeless person would know better to beg in the middle of the night. Their income is dependent on foot traffic, after all.”

The sidekick's shoulders slumped as she took in the empty street around us. “Right, thanks for the tip.”

“Always happy to help the forces of good,” I smirked, walking off towards my next destination. Once I'd made a suitably dramatic exit, I drained the rest of my drink, trashed my waste back, and took off running.

“This is why I need a ride,” I grunted, moving quickly and leaping up a fire escape to gain the high ground. “Goddamn trains need to run at night!”

But I wasn't comfortable going below a minimum reserve of ten credits in case of emergency. At the rate I was going, I really hoped Endeavor pulled through and got my mother out of jail this year. Beyond the fact that it would substantially alleviate stress in my personal life, it would give me enough Company funds to see to a few concerns. I still wanted to purchase another Talent or two as well as get Sweet Home squared away, since it would at least let me park whatever I bought to drive around in somewhere.

And I had plans, but they all required time.

Time was something I didn't have, however.

I was, at least, grateful that I'd managed to pick up Sexual Calibration from Himiko the other night. That would make things between us quite a bit easier when the time came. I wasn't really a fan of keeping the Apartment stocked with dozens of boxes of condoms when we eventually started having full intercourse. Neither of us were fans of the taste of latex, either, as it turned out.

Between that and a reimbursement of ten credits for all the stuff I’d stolen as well as the few divergences I’d noted…

I was sitting at thirteen credits.

If I managed two more, I'd be able to snag a ride.

Still without anywhere to actually store it, though, and I don't think my girlfriend would be terribly amused at a motorcycle being parked in our Apartment.

I dismissed those thoughts and slowed down as I approached the figure leaning against a vending machine drinking a cup of coffee. “Officer Nakamura.”

“Kid,” he nodded. “I got in touch with that detective you wanted me to reach out to and fed him the initial info. They're waiting at that bar you mentioned for the handover. Sure you don't want to come along?”

I shook my head, smirking. “No, I'm afraid I'm underage. I shouldn't be caught near an all-night drinking establishment.”

Nakamura snorted. “That's a laugh. A vigilante like you is afraid of getting tagged for underage drinking, hah!”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the thumbdrive, holding it out for him. “Here, this is the information about the Shie Hassaikai. I've confirmed they have the girl in question and are working towards the goal outlined in the data.”

The seasoned cop looked over the All Might-themed drive, gave me an odd look, then shrugged and pocketed it. “Alright, if that's everything...”

I nodded. “I need to go. I hope you have a nice night, sir.”

“You too, kid. Be careful out there,” Nakamura nodded at me, walking off.

That done, I waited for him to get a block away before pulling out my phone and hitting a saved number. It only took two rings before he picked up.

“Hello, Soudai-san. Are you interested?” I asked.

There was a response, tentative yet affirmative.

“The other half of what I already gave you, yes. You'll find it in your apartment's mailbox when you get home,” I confirmed.

A shaky breath, another agreement, more firm this time.

“All you have to do is make the cocktail I detailed and serve it to the man in the picture. He's a regular and he'll be there tonight. Tell him it's compliments of the thin blond man. That's all you need to do to get your money.”

One final affirmation and I cut the call.

Even without the Loom of Fate that governed Creation, the esoteric senses The Sidereal possessed were acute enough for me to feel the twisting motion of destiny as the consequences of what I'd just put into motion arranged themselves.

There wasn't anything magical about it, though.

A fact I was reassured of when I failed to feel anything beyond the veil of reality focus on me.

“Five days,” I muttered to myself, unhappy with the tally. I was cutting it close, too close in my opinion, but it would have to do. Nighteye would be occupied and unable to intercede in the coming conflict while the Shie Hassaikai would be taken care of as well. That would stop both the first-order threats to the current tenuous peace Japan enjoyed that I was aware of.

Then, Nighteye would have the information to move onto a second-order threat, hopefully resolving that situation and moving things towards a better conclusion there. I'd have to keep an eye on the Shie Hassaikai situation to get what I needed, too. All of that wasn't accounting for the tertiary or quaternary effects being put into motion.

And I had five days before I was supposed to take the UA Entrance Exams.

I sighed and shook my head. Something was going to go wrong with this tight a schedule, I knew it.

Hopefully it was manageable enough.

“Just as much as I hope Rappa enjoys the spiked cocktail,” I sighed. That was a clumsier and blunter approach than I preferred, but it would have to do on the time frame I was working with. Tracking down one of the biggest roofie dealers in Tokyo had certainly been a task, but breaking most of the bones in his arms and legs had left me feeling pretty good before I called the cops. I'd be putting both his cash and his stash of drugs to better use as well.

Checking the time on my watch, I made my way back to the rooftops to monitor the meeting that was about to take place.

I wouldn't be able to shepherd everything, but I had another thirty minutes before I needed to head home.

This was the least I could do.

~~~

Here's the next chapter of Mind Games.

Hitoshi struggles to tie up loose ends as the UA Entrance Exam draws near and the dominoes begin to fall.

Will his schemes come to fruition or will an unforeseen wrench find itself in the gears of his machinations?

Only time will tell.

Well, time and the next chapter, which I'm looking to have out before the end of the month. That'll probably be the last chapter for July before I put the polls up for August. Hope everyone had a good weekend in the meantime.

Industrious: Engineering Marvels - Chapter 27

“Shoot them! Shoot the intruders!”

At this point, I'd learned enough German in order to communicate with Erik that I was able to understand the simple orders being yelled out by a man in a Hydra's officer uniform. Even if I hadn't, the tone of his voice and the way he was pointing his sidearm at us and unloading the entire clip would have been a dead giveaway as to what he was trying to convey to the men around him.

At least, before he took an over-sized round to the chest and collapsed in a pool of his own blood.

Then we all had to duck at the volley of fire that was sent our way.

“Well, that's one down!” Bucky laughed as we all nestled against the far edge of the gantry. “Someone else got a bright idea to get us out of being pinned down?!”

The sounds of bullets ricocheting on the steel and concrete around us was nearly deafening.

Logan and Victor cursed heavily behind us.

Instead of answering verbally, I reached back and pulled out an arrow, replicating my trick from the castle we'd raided weeks prior. It was nearly impossible to shoot in a cramped position under fire like this, so I didn't even bother. Instead, I put my feet on the bow and pulled back on the string and notched arrows with my hands.

“Ray?” Steve asked, crying the word out.

“Smoke bomb!” I yelled back, releasing the trio of arrows to impact the ceiling and explode in a cloud of smoke.

“I'm going after the gem,” Taskmaster stated, latching a rope onto the side of the gantry and jumping off as soon as the smoke obscured us.

“No, wait! We can-” Steve shouted.

Then she jumped and was gone, repelling down into the fray.

“-coordinate.” Captain America's quieter finish was almost lost in the mess of noise, though Bucky was evidently close enough to hear him as he laughed and clapped Steve on the shoulder.

“How about we go down that way and Ray takes Vic and Logan down that way?” Bucky asked, pointing to the left and then right of the gantry.

A quick nod was exchanged and we parted, Steve firming back up as his 'mission-face' set in under the mask.

I just turned and plugged a standard broad-head into the hydra agent climbing up the stairs.

“Alright gang, let's split up!” I grinned behind my mask, tilting my head at the mutant brothers.

“Fer some reason, I think yur yankin' our chain,” Victor growled, clambering to his feet and hurrying after me.

“Would I do that?” I asked, laughing as I took a flying leap down the stairs, impacting the next enemy climbing up with both feet and surfing him down the rest of the way as I knocked an entire column down.

“Yes!” I heard two gruff Canadian voices call out in unison and restrained further laughter as, ten feet before the end of the stairs, I jumped over the side to avoid some clever boots that had decided to set up a defensive line.

I shot an arrow mid-leap into the man who looked like he was leading the squad, the head sinking directly into the man's eye and shooting through his skull to impact the man behind him in the shoulder. Between my own native strength in a body that I was just beginning to train to a degree I was comfortable with, the more exotic tricks in my arsenal, and Howard Stark's superb expertise with modern material sciences and physics, well...

The bow I was wielding, at this range, could over-penetrate to a dangerous degree.

I used the momentary surprise and horror at the loss of two men to arrows to pull out a pair of perfectly ordinary grenades.

Why waste my specialty ammunition on mooks, right?

Pulling the pins in a deft motion, I raised my voice to be heard over the awful din. “Victor, Logan – Goose!”

Victor roared in acknowledgment even as Logan flipped his emptied rifle to slam the butt of the weapon against a man's temple like a baseball bat. A moment later, they'd both disengaged from their opponents, Victor's claw-like hands trailing a stream of blood from the man's throat even as the two Canadians threw themselves behind some cargo containers.

Why did I yell goose?

Well, it comes after duck-duck, of course!

More seriously, it was a code phrase that could be used to alert allies to incoming ordinance while enemies would be struck with a moment of confusion.

Often, a particularly fatal moment of confusion.

I wished I could claim credit for that fit of absurdity, but it was actually Nick who'd come up with it.

Barely five seconds later, the grenades I'd sent skating across the cement like hockey pucks, ricocheting off walls and debris to find themselves behind the cover the enemy squads were huddling for safety...

They did what grenades do and exploded.

I blinked, turning to look-

A secondary explosion cooked off as one of the damaged crates of... whatever the fuck Hydra made giant robots out of cooked off in the wake of the grenades.

I ducked back behind my cover as shrapnel flashed by, fragments of metal and bone both.

Sheltering in place for a few more moments, I tilted my head as I listened for the warning signs of something else about to explode...

“No more geese, kid!” Logan yelled out.

“Yeah, kinda figured that out myself, thanks!” I shouted back.

“There they are! Hiding behind those crates!” One of the Hydra commanders spoke up in a commanding voice. “Now! Open fire! We must stop them before they prevent us from finishing the Great Work!”

I rolled my eyes.

Fucking Nazis.

The huge bunker where the giant robot lay was a chaotic battlefield at this point. Between the constant noise of gunfire, shouting soldiers and scientists, the cries of the wounded, the still-settling smokescreen I'd deployed, and the entirely mundane assortment of crates and machines all around the space...

Splitting up might not have been the best call.

It was a belated realization, sadly.

The Howling Commandos were a team that worked best in small, well-coordinated units with significant planning aforethought. We tried to prepare as best we could, especially since we'd been blindsided by the strange and weird bullshit science experiments Hydra kept in their basement.

I snorted, a moment of humor in an otherwise violent pit as an honest-to-god Wilhelm Scream rang out, a Hydra soldier having been thrown bodily across the room.

Tracking the person-projectile back from whence it came, I could guess where Nina was.

Granted, Steve and Bucky could entirely throw someone if they put their mind to it, but they seldom did. It just wasn't their style. They hadn't really had time to acclimate sufficiently to superhuman combat tiers, so they didn't fully understand how their own capabilities could be properly leveraged against more mundane combatants. I was trying to fix that, but our sparring sessions often to a backseat to more pragmatic and time-sensitive matters.

I shook myself, this was no time to be woolgathering...

Most impactful course of action I can take?

I thought for another moment, then nodded to myself and quick-fired another smokescreen arrow towards where the Hydra forces were marshaling against us. Then, while it was still in flight, I collapsed my bow and went for my swords.

Shouts of alarm and curses in German echoed as the smoke began spreading.

I breathed in through my nose, thankful for my balaclava as I centered myself.

Coughing and choking started, the gunfire becoming intermittent as they struggled to keep eyes on target.

I moved.

Normally, I would have been more circumspect, choosing a route that took me around them to strike at their flanks or rear. But they already knew I was here, were already on-guard, and were actively shooting at me anyway. Even with the decreased visibility, there was a strong chance that the more time I took to get in their midst, the greater likelihood I'd pick up a random bullet from someone spraying and praying.

So I just ran straight at them instead.

It wasn't the perfect tactic, admittedly.

But it had the advantage of catching them off-guard. Few soldiers expected an enemy that wasn't hard-pinned to abandon cover and charge in a situation like this. Regular troops, after all, didn't have reflexes that allowed them to dodge rifle fire by reading the aim of the shooter.

“-coming!” One of the men cried, still hacking from the smoke as he finally caught site of me.

By then, of course, it was too late.

The other advantage of this strategy was that fucking no one in this day and age expected someone on the front lines of a modern war to pull out a pair of swords and start stabbing people. Granted, there were good reasons for that most of the time. Melee weapons had been largely phased out beyond a bayonet and a trench knife for obvious reasons and, even if soldiers possessed the weapons, they largely wouldn't be trained in their use. Or, at the very least, possess a level of skill equal to the average conscript.

My full blade sliced a man's head off.

My short sword stabbed through another's heart.

From there I was a whirling dervish of death, sweeping through the Hydra soldiers and cutting down scientists and engineers as I came upon them. For what it was worth, I tried to take as little satisfaction in the act as I could. Some of them, particularly those that were working as skilled labor, might have been coerced or simply too afraid to speak out.

But this was 1944.

What little sympathy I had for the people I cut down was tempered in the knowledge that they'd performed or been aparty to the incredible evils of not just the Nazi regime in general, but the Red Skull's plans for global devastation in specific.

There was simply a point where you consigned yourself to the same fate as your masters.

Whether you were willing to admit that consciously or not.

So I killed.

After the initial rush, I noticed Logan and Victor falling into step behind me, joining the hurricane of violence as their enhanced strength, endurance, and senses allowed them to fight through the heavy fog of smoke. Putting truth to my earlier thoughts, I watched Victor grab a masked Hydra soldiers and bodily swing him into a heavy metal rack while Logan suddenly deployed his bone claws and lifted another soldier up to shield himself from a clutch of men attempting to reform their unit's cohesion.

As they were shooting, I attacked from the side and cut into them again.

For the moment, that was my purpose.

Slash.

Stab.

Cut.

Pierce.

Then, all of a sudden, something with the weight and power of titan moved.

Logan, Victor, and I stilled.

The whine of servos and energy began to pick up, the charge of immense power in the air around us filling with promise of danger and-

One of the arms of the prone mech shifted.

“Fuck,” I spat, slashing the blood off my swords and reaching for my stash of explosive seals. “Cover me!”

I'd made the wrong call.

It was a stupid oversight on my part, but one that I could perhaps fix now. As Logan and Victor charged into the remaining troops and their fresh reinforcements that were streaming in from parts unknown, I pulled out the stack of explosive notes I'd been slowly building and, after a bare instant of hesitation-

A noise like thunder rolled through the room as the giant humanoid robot began to move further.

Then I just took the entire pack and stuffed it into the ankle joint.

I did, however, have to set an extended timer.

“FUCKING RUN!” I shouted, pulling out a flare arrow and simply throwing it instead of bothering with my bow.

Harsh actinic green light flared into existence as the arrow arced towards the ceiling and over the shifting form of the robot.

“I thought we said no more geese!?” Logan shouted as he turned to cut and run with me towards literally any door.

All that mattered now was getting the hell out of here.

“It's either geese or that fucking robot stands up and kills us all when the ceiling drops anyway!” I yelled in reply.

“If you can shout you can run faster, dipshits!” Victor called back, slamming his foot into a door and sending it flying with clear inhuman strength.

“What about Cap?” Logan shouted.

“Bucky will drag his ass out of here when he sees the signal flare!” I replied, diving into the corridor. “C'mon! We've only got three minutes!”

Less, now.

We kept running, one of the brothers tanking shots from a few panicked Hydra soldiers as we pushed through a few half-backed ambushes.

“Here!” I shouted, seeing a loading bay and running towards it.

“How long do we have?!” Logan roared, plugging a few shots into the men who were stationed at the giant rolling doors.

“Minute and a half!” I shouted back.

Then the shaking began in earnest.

“I thought you said we had more time!” Victor argued, grabbing a Hydra energy gun and beginning to unload at a few unlucky vehicles.

“That wasn't my shit!” I replied, ducking into an enemy jeep and grabbing a fistful as the brothers swept the perimeter.

“The fuck does that mean!?” Victor spat.

“It's standing up!” I replied, relief flooding me as the engine roared to life. “Get in the damn car!”

As I said that, the earth behind us heaved and moved, the sound of an artificial earthquake rolling through the land.

“Fuck-fuck-fuck!” I spat, desperately working the gears as I floored the gas.

“Shit!” Logan cursed as I watched him lean out the backside of the covered cargo area, staring as the earth and concrete were upended.

Then a massive explosion from within the hill rocked the earth so hard I felt the jeep bounce.

“THE FUCK WAS THAT?!” Victor shouted.

“Okay, that one was me!” I cackled maniacally as the earth continued to buckle and roil for a long moment, the weight of the Hydra base's reinforcement having confined the bulk of the explosion within the bunker.

“Hey, it's Steve! Ray, turn right!” Logan spoke up, slapping the barrier between the driver's cab for emphasis.

I pulled a hard right, slowing down now that the very ground beneath the vehicle was no longer rumbling. Victor leaned out of the window on the passenger side of the cab and waved as guns started to come up from the bedraggled crew. Giving a quick headcount, I noted all accounted for, though more than a few had injuries. Dougan's left arm was hanging limp by his side with the sleeve torn off and bound to stop the bleeding. Nick was limping, behind helped around by Frenchie. Steve and Bucky, thankfully, seemed to be fine, though a few other men cradled ribs gently or obviously favored one side.

“Need a ride, Cap?” I asked jauntily.

“Ray, you crazy motherfucker...” Bucky sighed, then blinked. “I thought you couldn't drive stick?”

I shrugged. “We keep stealing Hydra shit so I thought I'd learn. It wasn't too hard.”

“Ray, for God's sake... next time a little more warning?” Steve asked, slumping tiredly against the truck.

“The ceiling was coming down either way,” I told my superior officer candidly, my voice loud enough to carry as I noticed a few disgruntled looks in my direction as the injured were carried into the back of the jeep. “Once they started getting that thing working, it was going to sit up and tear through the concrete roof, bringing it all down on us either way.”

Steve and Bucky stopped for a moment, realization crossing their faces as looks were exchanged between the various members of the squad, their expressions softening.

“When the kid's right, he's right,” Dougan spoke up, dropping himself into the rear tiredly.

Steve grimaced, then nodded. “Alright, that's... more than fair. I don't think any of us realized that was going to be a problem.”

I jerked my head over to where Nina was carrying an unconscious Taskmaster on her back. “What happened there?”

Bucky sighed, rubbing his head. “Overeager bitch tried to storm the high-security area where they were keeping that stone she wanted. There was some kind of mutant playing defense. After it took her out, Steve and I ended up tied down fighting it and they managed to get the crystal into the robot.”

“Well, at least this clusterfuck is over, right?” Morita asked, waving towards the lump of sunken and jagged ground. “Base is destroyed, right? Even with the giant fucking robot, our job's done, we can go home.”

A few tired voices spoke up, relief and agreement in their words.

I opened my mouth to reply-

-when the earth shook.

For a long moment, no one spoke, eyes slowly widening.

In mutual silence and dread, all of our heads turned towards the former Hydra base.

The earth shook again, harder this time.

“So... anyone got any ideas?” Steve asked slowly, his hand going to clutch at his shield.

“We run?” Victor proposed unhelpfully.

“Running's not a plan. Running's what you do when a plan fails,” I stated firmly, the wisdom of a nineties B-movie on my lips. “Hence what we just did.”

“Fuck you too, kid,” Victor growled, showing teeth.

“Focus, people,” Bucky spoke up as the earth rumbled more, longer. “We need ideas. We can't let Hydra get away with having one of these things operational! For all we know, the damn thing could walk across the channel underwater and invade Britain.”

A giant metal hand punched through the ground.

I sighed, rubbing at my head as cries and panic springing up from the troops.

“Okay, first off, all the injured stay in this vehicle,” Steve snapped out an order, cutting through the rising dread. “Anyone able-bodied and ready to fight, come with me. Morita, you good to drive?”

“Long as I don't start hacking up blood,” the Asian man muttered as I popped the door and he began moving gingerly to take my seat.

“Good, drive everyone back to the pickup location. We'll... figure out something,” Steve ordered, grimacing as we watched the arm begin to move around, slowly digging itself out of the hole it was in.

A few moments later, the able-bodied group – myself included – was heading towards the heavily-damaged motorpool.

“So, do we actually have any plans?” Bucky pressed.

I paused as Steve pulled out a handful of wires and got to work hot-wiring this car.

“I'm working on one right now,” Steve promised.

I stared at the slowly-erupting earth thoughtfully, ruthlessly crushing the fear threatening to well up. It was the mind-killer. The little black death. I would not allow it to control me.

“Maybe we can call in a bombing run?”

“Not on short notice like this.”

“What about stealing the gem thing? Isn't that the power source?”

“You wanna get close enough to nick that?”

“If that explosion didn't kill it, what hope do we have of a bombing run doing it?”

There was something in the back of my mind...

I cocked my head as more earth erupted, the robot's head coming into view.

Cow. Unlucky... cow? No, the World's Unluckiest Cow... follow the thought...

Something clicked.

I stalked over to the vehicle and, after a moment, came up with a set of maps. They weren't as detailed as I was used to, but...

Earth shook and steel twisted as I worked, following decades-old memories that I couldn't quite... a ridge line on the map caught my eye and I traced a route to it.

There.

Twenty, maybe thirty minutes, if I had my math right.

“Think we can get it to chase us?” I asked aloud, my head coming up from studying the map.

Conversation ceased around me as the Howling Commandos looked at each other.

“We at least have enough ammo left to piss it off,” Bucky shrugged, trying not to seem nervous as he looked over to the giant machine digging itself out of the hill.

“I... have an idea,” I stated slowly. “One that... might work.”

“That's better than anything we've got so far,” Steve stated leadingly, frowning over my shoulder. “How likely is it to work?”

I shrugged. “Honestly, no clue. I wouldn't suggest it in any other situation, since it's kind of crazy, but... I'm not hearing anything else.”

Bucky grimaced, looking at Steve. “Buddy, the super ninja thinks this is kind of crazy. We have any other options?”

A giant metal arm, now free up to the shoulder, slammed down on the ground as the mech began pulling its other arm out of the earth. I could see a baleful glow within its chest behind a secured plate. A part of me wanted to chance juicing myself with chakra and trying to cut out the power source. A more reasonable part of me knew that I had little chance against something that had just tanked an explosion of the power I'd just unleashed on it.

“Okay, let's do it Ray,” Steve stated, jumping into the driver's seat. “Everybody in! Where we going, navigator?”

I took a deep breath. “The only place where I think there are enough easily-accessible explosives to kill this thing.”

…

Forty minutes later, General Philips felt the earth shake under his feet as cries of alarm rose up in the underground command bunker. After a moment, it passed, leaving everyone looking around in surprise and wariness.

“You! Find out if we're under attack!” The general barked, then turned to the woman beside him. “Carter, why aren't we hearing sirens?”

“That... honestly felt more like an earthquake than a bomb going off,” the captain stated, frowning as she looked around. “I can't remember London ever having one, though. There were a few shakes over in Wales a few years ago...”

Philips paused, frowning, then continued in a more thoughtful tone. “Get me the seismic readings and tell me they didn't originate from wherever Captain Rogers' team is right now.”

Carter snorted before she could stop herself, then cleared her throat as the older man's searing gaze cut into her. “Sir... don't you believe it's a bit... paranoid to suspect that-”

“I'll ask for your opinion when I want it, Carter,” he replied brusquely. “Now get me those readings!”

As she left, he turned to contemplate the map of Europe and its Hydra bases. “I hope you boys are alright, but damn if you don't make a hell of a mess sometimes...”

~~~

Alright! This chapter was a pain in the ass because I wanted to write a bunch of witty dialogue and realized that I needed 3k+ of pure combat.

But I did it! 3.8k of almost pure fucking combat.

I'm sorry this was late, but I've been very firmly reminded of why I don't usually do chapters like this. I do hope everyone enjoys this, though.

Next up is... probably a double-helping of Mind Games, I think.

Hope this finds everyone having a good week.

The Stupendous Adventures of Butler Boy - Chapter 4

“Open.”

I finished the motion of swallowing and dropped my jaw, parting my lips as I bared first the top of my tongue and then raised it to show the bottom.

The nurse gave me a fractional smile and nodded. “Good. Sorry, but we have to check every time, especially with our younger patients. Some of them don't enjoy swallowing the larger pills. You've been good, but I can't cut you slack. Missing doses of an anti-fungal medication will put you back at square one, or worse.”

“I understand,” I nodded, eyes glancing over the cart by my chair, then up at the television. “Would you mind turning it off? I was just about to go to sleep.”

“Sure thing, hon,” the nurse nodded, walking over to the set.

My hand swept out before I could second-guess myself further and slipped a sterile-packed syringe under my sheets before she turned back around.

Another round of pleasantries passed between us before she turned and rolled the cart out of the door.

Only after she'd been gone for a full minute did I pull the syringe out, still wrapped in sealed plastic, and stared at it. I sighed, shook my head, and double-checked my watch's alarm before shoving the syringe into the bag that my parents had brought for me. Then, I rolled over and sighed as I tried to get some sleep.

…

“It's official,” I muttered to myself, staring at my own image in the full-length bathroom mirror, “I'm a dumbass.”

This time, at least, I wasn't doing it by accident.

Did that make it better, or worse?

I shook my head and walked back to my bed, pulling up my sketchbook and tearing off the page I'd had it open to. Regardless of whether or not I succeeded, I'd be dumping this into a trashcan somewhere along the way. Maybe even flushing it down a toilet if I could manage it. Shredding it first, of course. I didn't need some janitor finding it after it clogged the pipes.

I took one more glance over the map I'd made and took a deep breath.

Then I stuck my head out the door, looked both ways, and confirmed the cameras were in the proper position.

I started walking.

Slowly, unhurriedly, a full syringe in my pocket and a bundle of cloth under my arm. One would need to be dumped if I got confronted. The other was an excuse that, hopefully, would pluck at someone's heart strings enough to get me off should I be caught.

I turned left, narrowly avoiding a nurse's station and taking the long way around.

I stopped in the empty hallway, the quiet of the witching hour broken only by the noise of medical equipment, janitorial staff, and the unlucky overnight shift.

The camera directly above me swiveled to look the way I'd come and I continued on my path further down, aiming for the bathroom. That would allow me to get out of sight and reset my waiting period so that I could dodge the next one more easily.

Hearing the squeak of shoes on tile, I ducked into a stall and pretended to use the toilet.

A few moments later, I heard a flush, a faucet, and a door swinging shut.

I stayed for another minute.

Taking a breath, I stepped out and checked the cameras' positions again, then kept moving. A right, pause under a camera, another right... and...

There!

Quickly, before the pivoting camera could turn back, I ducked into the room and unfurled the bundle under my arm and slipped it over my head. Once again, Addy had come through with an odd request that was only slightly unreasonable. The plain white hoodie wasn't all that difficult to acquire, after all, nor were the sharpies or glitterpens, but each and every other member of my family would have asked questions. Adelaide had simply raised an eyebrow, shrugged, and made the run to the crafts store when she went to get some coffee last night.

The mirrored aviators were, admittedly, a bit of a stretch, but Addy really came in clutch.

It had taken a little doing to properly stretch the hoodie and make sure the sharpies didn't bleed through, but overall the design came out...

Well, breathtaking, honestly.

As I flipped up the hood and slid on the sunglasses, I wondered if Father Martinez would want to sell a few as a fundraiser. I didn't know what you used to lock-in sharpie ink like dye, but we lived in an age of rampant commercialization, so there was probably something.

“Hello? Is someone there?” The voice in the room called out, sleepy and weak.

I flipped on the bathroom light as I passed, having practiced the move in my own room. The luminescent glow back-lighting me wouldn't trick an adult, but a bedridden child that was still half-asleep was an easier mark for this kind of trick.

“Hey Jamie,” I smiled, walking past him and towards the window to give it a cursory view. “I heard you were sick and came down to check on you. Feeling okay tonight?”

As he rubbed his eyes and sat up slightly, I saw the six-year-old's eyes glimpse the design on my back and pull a startled breath into his lungs. “I, um... I'm okay? I think. Umm... what's your name?”

I turned and grinned. “I don't actually have one yet. My boss hasn't given me one yet. I hear you earn that the same time you get the halo.”

Tapping the crown of my head, I emphasized the lack of anything floating above it.

His dark eyes, if anything, widened further. He spoke in a hushed whisper, “A-are you really a-”

“Like I said,” I smiled softly. “Not yet. I've still got to do some good works. Prove that I'm worthy of the full wings and halo, you know?”

The brown-haired boy nibbled on his bottom lip as he looked me over in the dim light. “You look like me, though. I always thought angels would look...”

He made a vague motion and I chuckled.

“I heard your folks like the bible, Jamie,” I smiled at him, and he nodded. “Do you know this one? 'And Lord Jehovah said to Shemueil: Do not gaze on his appearance and on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him, for I am not as a man who sees, because a man sees with the eyes and Lord Jehovah sees with the heart.'”

Uncertainty crept into his gaze. “I think... Samuel?”

My smile widened and I reached out to ruffle his hair. “First Samuel, sixteen-seven. Very good. You know what it means?”

“Th-that we shouldn't judge people by what they look like? But who they are, and what they do?” Jamie asked cautiously.

Good kid, you listened in Sunday school a few weeks ago. I suppose it's something of a blessing that they got lazy and standardized the plans across the younger groups.

“So... here's just a little bit of proof, okay? But you have to keep it secret, alright?” I asked, leaning in dramatically so that he could see his face in my mirrored sunglasses.

He nodded his head rapidly and I held up my fingers, snapping them dramatically to produce a small flame that hovered above my palm.

Jamie Richards drew another stilted breath, the action too quick for his ill body and making him cough harshly. I quickly squashed the flame and poured the kid a glass of water. Coaxing him through the act of drinking, his breathing slowly got back on track until he was able to look up at me with wonder again.

“You really are an angel!” He whispered.

“Not quite yet,” I reminded him, poking his forehead with a sly smile. “I've got to do a bunch of good deeds before it's official, remember? And one of those good deeds is helping you.”

“Me?” Jamie asked, even further awed. “You came to help me?”

“Special miracle medicine,” I confirmed, drawing out the syringe packed with blood and waving it slightly, the plastic cap having been replaced. “Can you be a big boy for me and take it?”

Jamie swallowed slightly at the needle, but nodded slowly. “I-I'm not that little,” he replied, a touch sourly.

“Sorry, sorry,” I apologized to the eight year old, holding up a hand. “Now, I don't want to rush, but once I'm done here, there's another person who needs my help, okay?”

“I guess angels are busy, too,” Jamie hummed as I adjusted the blankets and sleeve on the arm without the IV drip.

“Little prick, okay?” I asked, and he nodded with a bit of trepidation.

Then I leaned to the left and looked past him. “Oh, what's that?”

He turned, looking towards the window.

I slid the needle in and depressed the plunger smoothly.

“I don't see-” Jamie started, then took a suddenly-deep breath as his entire frame stiffened, his slightly-sunken cheeks filling out, color returning to his face, and a little bit of musculature growing on his arms. “-whoa! I feel amazing!”

“Shh!” I reminded him gently, smiling as I blinked rapidly, relief flooding me.

I really had wanted to test this first, but... today was the only day. Jamie was leaving to see a specialist tomorrow in Denver and I was going home. I honestly didn't know if my ability would work against the aggressive form of cancer the kid had, but I'd hoped that even if it didn't, it would give him a fighting chance against the monster eating his body from within.

Then, as I capped the marker and the kid looked like he was about to launch himself at me in a hug, his stomach growled low and loud.

I chuckled as he turned red and clutched at his abdomen, slipping the syringe back where it came from into my pocket.

“S-sorry, I'm just really hungry all of a sudden,” he muttered, grimacing. “It's the first time I've really wanted to eat in weeks...”

I reached out and patted his head. “How about this? You give me a few minutes and then you can hit the nurse call button and ask for some food, okay?”

“They won't be angry?” He asked, frowning as his stomach growled again. “I thought that was for emergencies?”

“I think they'll understand,” I assured him, already backing away. “Now, I've got to go. Be good, Jamie Richards. Help those in need and live well. Not everyone gets a miracle when they need it, remember that.”

“I-I will,” Jamie replied, reaching up to rub at his eyes. “Th-thank you! I hope you get your wings soon! And your halo, too!”

“When I earn them,” I nodded at the child one last time, turning and heading to the door, only giving the hallways and cameras a brief look before stepping out and pulling my hoodie off. Bundling the sunglasses into them, I straightened out my hospital smock and turned back the way I came.

Despite my heart beating rapidly in my chest, I didn't run.

Running was the enemy. Hurried footsteps drew attention.

Walk with purpose, walk like you have a right to be here, walk like you have somewhere to be...

Bathroom stop again, though a different one, and I deposited the used syringe into a red biohazard disposal bin, taking a moment to pop the cap back off so it looked like all the others. After that, it was just a dozen more feet until I-

“Oof,” I grunted, almost falling down.

“Oh dear, what are you doing out of bed, wandering the halls at this time of night?” The nurse asked, catching me as I tried to rush around a corner and collided with her.

I chuckled, forcing myself to blush, reaching into my pocket for my emergency cover story-

“Looking for the vending machines?” I asked sheepishly, holding up my wallet. “I kind of wanted a midnight snack.”

The nurse gave me a level stare, folding her arms in a very unimpressed manner. “And you weren't going to fill up on sugar and soda, I bet.”

I chuckled awkwardly, my heartbeat slowing. “Ah... maybe just a coke?”

She shook her head. “Let me get you settled and I'll bring you some fruit and juice if you're really that hungry. Honestly, walking around at this hour... you could catch your death of cold!”

“I brought a jacket if I got cold,” I intentionally whined, holding up the cloth bundle under my arm and making the nurse roll her eyes as she coaxed me back to my room.

“Kids these days,” she sighed and pointed to me as I got under the covers. “Now don't leave your room again, young man. If you have an issue, hit the button to call a nurse. We don't need kids wandering around the hospital at all hours. Who knows what trouble you'll get into?”

“Yes ma'am,” I nodded, dipping my head.

No, seriously, am I just small for my age? I'm thirteen, not ten! I can handle a walk to a vending machine without being compelled to drink the nearest bottle of bleach!

“Good, now... I've got another patient to see to for a few moments, then I'll come back up with a snack for you. Just sit tight,” she informed me, turning and passing through the doorway before allowing it to shut behind her.

My shoulders dropped as I heaved a huge sigh of relief.

“Am I sure I want to be a hero?” I asked the empty room, staring at the ceiling. “Crime has got to be less stressful than this...”

I chuckled hysterically and reached back into my pocket for my wallet, stilling as my fingers brushed against paper instead of faux-leather.

Slowly, I pulled out the two strips of shiny paper.

One was gold, one was silver.

The gold one had Jamie Richard's name on it.

The silver one was equally clear, though all it said was, 'Not Getting Caught.'

There was a moment of temptation, then I giggled madly and opened my wallet, putting the tickets inside. “Absolutely not. Not fucking way. I might be crazy, but I'm not completely insane, thank you very much. I am going home tomorrow and this can wait.”

Surprising myself, I practically devoured the fruit and juice the nurse brought me, though the second plate on the cart was...

I closed my eyes and let my head thump back onto the bedframe.

“You couldn't have given me thirty more seconds, Jamie?” I asked tiredly.

…

“Now, just let us know if you need anything while you're recovering,” Mom ordered me softly, yet sternly.

I was unmoved. “I'd love my own bed.”

Her caring gaze dropped a few notches. “You're going to stay down here, on the couch, where I can check on you at the very least until your medications run out.”

I sighed and looked around the spacious living room, three large dog beds lined up against the built-in bookcases against the left side of the far wall. To the right of those, there was a classic brick fireplace that faced both this room and the kitchen on the other side of the wall, letting it pull double-duty. To the far right of that wall was a large CRT TV sitting on a catty-corner stand with the various electronics that characterized the modern age, such as a VCR and one of the most recent gaming systems, the Lexcorp Luna.

'It's out of this world!'

Personally, I was just waiting for the next WayneTech system to release. Doubtless, it would have the most boring name imaginable, but outperform Lex's console on nearly every aspect. I'd still need to keep the Luna around, though, because Lex had a number of widely-publicized exclusivity deals with popular franchises.

Luthor was gonna' Luthor, I suppose.

“Sorry squirt, looks like you're stuck down here,” Algernon chuckled, distracting me from my musings as I pet one of the large dogs who'd taken my arrival on the couch as an invitation to beg for attention. Carter, now laying on my legs, directed a smug look towards Lincoln and Monroe, the other dogs huffing and laying down on the floor next to the couch. In all likelihood, they smelled the lingering sickness on me, either from my own illness or from the hospital in general.

I sighed and leaned back. “There are worse places to be trapped.”

As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew I'd made a mistake.

Mom's lips quivered as she closed her eyes and took a steadying breath while Algie grimaced and swallowed, his eyes looking dark for a moment.

“Sorry,” I muttered, reaching up to rub at my face. “Maybe I'm still a little off. I'll stay down here mom, don't worry. I will need a few things from my room, though.”

My attempt to power through the awkwardness was picked up by my brother, who likewise forced a smile. “Which is what I'm here for. You need anything upstairs, let me know and I'll bring it down, okay?”

“How about a run to the general store?” I asked instead, half-joking. “I do kind of need some art supplies...”

“Way ahead of you there, champ!” Dad chimed in, coming through the door, arms laden with bags. Addy, likewise, lugged a large bag into the living room as well, the obvious shape of an easel sticking out of it.

I groaned. “Dad! I didn't mean the entire store! I just wanted a better set of pencils and paints, maybe a few brushes... not all this!”

Mom shook her head, seeming to throw off the momentary faux-pas I'd made. “Nonsense. You're the only one of my children that's ever shown any talent for art. I'd be a failure of a parent if I didn't insist on nurturing it.”

Despite my protestations, my fingers were twitching as I watched them set up the easel and unbox the various supplies. I shook my head and leaned further back, busying my hands with the attention-seeking dog in my lap instead.

“I have no idea where I'm going to put all of this,” I sighed, thinking of my electronics-filled room.

My mother and father traded a look that had me raising an eyebrow.

“Mom and Dad have been-” Algie began, only to be cut off by a pointed cough from my mother.

“Archibald and I have been discussing adding a large detached shed to the property,” Mom began, and my eyebrows rose. “While Adelaide is currently at college, we don't want her to feel pressured to move out-”

My elder sister notably did not say anything to that declaration.

“-and we enjoy having the other downstairs room open for guests when your grandparents or aunts and uncles come visit,” Mom finished.

“Which means the house is getting a bit cramped, especially if Arden is going to take up another space-intensive hobby like his electronics repair,” my dad commented pragmatically, then looked to me. “Which is great, Arden. You're a talented boy and we want you to explore hobbies, especially ones that might open up doors to colleges or universities in a few years.”

“What would happen to the shed we already have?” Addy asked curiously, leaning over to look at it through one of the back windows.

Mom turned to look at Dad expectantly.

Archibald coughed, clearing his throat somewhat sheepishly. “Part of the deal I've made with your mother would be to clean out and reorganize the old shed and move the tools that are in the garage out there once all the junk's gone. That way we would have the full garage open and not have to constantly play musical chairs with our cars. But I'll be needing you boys to help me with that sometime next week.”

“After Arden's had plenty of time to recover,” Mom stipulated and dad nodded sternly.

“After that, yes, but I'll also need you boys to help me with the warre out back, too. Since the new shed would need to go there and your mother could use the leftover space to expand her garden,” Dad sighed.

Algie and I traded grimaces as we looked towards the back yard.

It was a pretty significant space, all told. The entire lot that the house sat on was about an acre, with a quarter of that space being taken up by the house itself, the front yard, and driveway. But the house abutted literal woodland on the back property line and most of what had once been cleared decades ago had eventually been taken back over by that same forest. Thus, the space that was apparently being eyeballed for an expansion was covered in a nasty combination of the three types of American poison vines – Ivy, Sumac, and Oak – in addition to a thorny tangle of weeds. Topping it all off was the various junk that had been eaten by the foliage, such as an old wheelbarrow, that positively bred wasps and bees. And that ignored the actual animals that liked to stalk around the area, too. It was such a horrible mess that even three fully-grown wolfhounds wanted nothing to do with it.

Mom, whose degree was in Philosophy, had dubbed the space, 'the warre.'

Which was a reference no decent human being should understand without looking it up.

Roughly translated, it meant, 'the state of all against all.'

And, apparently, we were going to be assigned the task of cleaning it out.

Joy.

“If everything goes well,” Dad spoke up, grunting as he rose to his feet and walked over to the back windows, “we should be good to start work on laying a foundation for the new shed... say, sometime next month? I'm thinking... one and a half stories? A loft, where we can store some of the holiday decorations or other stuff that's clogging up the attic. Maybe make a full spring cleaning of it when we get the Easter stuff down.”

I was, distantly, reminded of the renovation videos I'd once enjoyed watching on a platform that didn't yet exist in this reality.

Someone decided to replace their tub instead of patching it after it started leaking. But once the tub was out, you noticed mold, so you had to start pulling the subfloor out. Then you realized the tub you wanted to install wouldn't work with the current plumbing, or the pipes were actually old lead ones or something, and had to start working on that. Which, in turn, involved removing the tile on the walls, and then the sink and vanity. And then you notice that the floor joists are rotten or have termite damage or some idiot cut into them to install the toilet and... well, eventually you find yourself in the basement with a jackhammer trying to fix the foundation so that you can properly level the floors and stop them squeaking.

It was called 'scope creep.'

IE: A phenomenon that occurs when a project begins to dramatically, unexpectedly, and repeatedly increase in size, complexity, time, and cost.

Well, I guess we'll see how things go. Not like I wouldn't enjoy a little mini-studio...

“But that won't be for a bit,” Dad stated, shaking his head and dismissing whatever daydream about the extension he was having before turning back to me. “Arden, I know you just got out of the hospital and you've given a lot of statements about... those boys-”

Mom's expression grew strained as she interrupted her husband. “I'm going to go call for dinner. You said pizza, Arden? You want your regular, right?”

“Yes ma'am, please,” I nodded. “Extra cheese, if possible.”

She smiled and nodded. “You two come with me, I need your orders, too.”

Algie, being slightly oblivious at the best of times, opened his mouth to declare that his own 'regular' hadn't changed, either. Being red-blooded Americans in the nineties, pizza night was a semi-regular occurrence, at least once a month if not more often. Which meant that, when Addy walked by him and grabbed his arm with a sigh, there was something afoot that Mom wanted to leave me and Dad alone to discuss.

“C'mon Algie-” Addy began, a smirk playing at her lips.

“Sis, c'mon!” My brother complained as he was dragged off, loosing his train of thought at the nickname. “I already told you-”

“Just as cake,” I nodded, looking back to Dad, who sighed with fond exasperation.

“One day, you're going to tell us what that actually means,” Dad grumbled.

I grinned as I pet the dog in my lap. It wasn't a white cat and a living room wasn't a Bond Villain Lair, but it was the thought that counted.

“So, what'd you want to talk about that Addy and Algie couldn't be here for?” I asked, pushing the discussion back on track.

“More shouldn't than couldn't,” Dad temporized as he made his way over to a stool and picked it up before gently nudging one of the hounds out of the way and sitting down on it next to me. “Your mother and I are having a... spirited disagreement about something involving your case and we didn't want to draw your siblings into it.”

I hummed thoughtfully, giving him a nod.

Dad reached up and rubbed the three-day stubble on his chin. It was a habit of his when work got hectic, though that was rare in our town. Usually only the holidays brought that about. It wasn't exactly a surprise to see him disheveled here and now, but it was confirmation of just how much everything was affecting him.

My throat clenched as I thought about how everything else he didn't know would weigh on him.

“Do you remember me mentioning Benjamin Baxter?” My Dad asked.

I nodded, sighing as I rubbed my head. “It was... one of the reasons I didn't want to escalate things when he started giving me crap about homework, if I'm being completely honest.”

A pained grimace flashed across Dad's face as he leaned forward to hug me. “Son – Arden – from now on I want you to promise to tell me if someone's giving you trouble, even if it'll make things a little complicated. That's my job. Both as your dad and a cop.”

I nodded as he pulled away. “Yes sir. I promise I'll come to you in the future if there's a problem at school or around town with someone.”

Archibald Villin looked me dead in the eyes for a long moment, then nodded, sighing as he fully sat back on the stool. “Benjamin and his brother want to talk to you about their kids... about maybe getting the courts to go easy on them.”

I grimaced slightly.

Normally, this would be where a thirteen year old would ask a lot of questions about what that meant, given I wasn't a lawyer, a judge, or really expected to be a significant part of the actual trial at all. Thankfully, I didn't really need a refresher course on the American legal system, since the DC-verse's was roughly analogous to our own. Though, there was an entire section on 'metahuman law' that could give Superman's abs a run for how dense the material was.

I'd skimmed a few summaries online out of curiosity, but hadn't really been able to get further than that.

On the mundane side of things, though, the victim's role in the court proceedings wasn't all that significant. In the case of a crime being committed against them, once the initial decision to 'press charges' was made and a police report was filed, the justice system was at least nominally on autopilot from there.

The case got investigated, witnesses interviewed, evidence was cataloged, media was circused, potential criminals were taken into custody... and then someone from the prosecution's office decided whether or not there was substantial enough evidence of a crime to formally accuse the person or people in question. The victim couldn't simply ask that the charges be dropped or anything like that, despite what dramatized courtroom movies might assert.

Because, in terms of legal theory, the crime wasn't just committed against the victim.

A crime was a violation of the law of the state or nation.

That made it the concern of the whole of society to see such a transgression investigated, evaluated, tried, and – if need be – punished.

A victim really didn't have all that much say in those proceedings, really.

On paper, at least.

Depending on... well, a lot of factors, a victim's words could sway the court a significant amount, especially if called upon to testify before a jury. The party who had been wronged asking for clemency or, if that wasn't possible, a reduction of charges/punishment could very easily get what they wanted.

Of course, you could also go before the court and emphasize the irredeemable nature of the crime and ask the judge/jury to throw the proverbial book at them.

“Do they understand that I'm not going to recant my statements?” I asked, frowning. “Like... they understand that I'm not going to help John and Kevin get off scott free, right?”

Dad's face grew serious. “I made sure of that, don't worry son. If they decide to pull something like that or threaten us, the meeting stops right then and there. But the District Attorney is up for reelection this year and with the news cycle picking this case up...”

Dad trailed off and I hissed as I inhaled.

Yeah, those that news coverage I hadn't wanted to watch?

They'd been national ones.

It'd been a slow news week, apparently.

I groaned and rubbed at my face tiredly.

Yet another thing I neither wanted on my plate nor had the time to deal with. “So, what do they want?”

“Right now, the DA's office is thinking about moving forward with attempted murder-one charges,” Dad explained with a scowl. “Apparently, they're of the belief that no one could be stupid enough to legitimately believe that locking someone in a confined space for three days without food or water wouldn't... well...”

“I get it,” I assured him, squirming a bit as I was confronted with my own possible death yet again. “They probably haven't had much interaction with John or Kevin, have they?”

Dad snorted and shook his head. “No, I don't think so, but... you speaking up for them would go a long way towards an attempted manslaughter charge, maybe even negligent.”

I sighed, pushing myself back into the couch as the doggo squirmed against me and demanded more attention. I obliged with a slight smile.

“Arden...” Dad started slowly, then shook his head. “Don't... don't do this for me. Benny Baxter and I might go way back, but you're my son. All I promised to do is ask you if you'd be willing to talk to them, let them make their case. If you say no, that's what I'll tell them. It's not like Benny and I are ever going to be going out for drinks again, anyway.”

“I'll hear them out,” I shook my head.

Dad stared at me for a moment. “You're sure?”

I nodded. “Yeah, as long as it's somewhere safe and everything. I don't think they'd... do something stupid, but... I didn't think that about their kids, either.”

Dad grunted and nodded. “Don't worry about that. It'll be down at the station with lawyers present, probably someone from the DA's office too, and I'll have an officer standing by if there's a problem.”

I exhaled, relief drawing out the tension in my muscles. That... was good, yeah. Really good. It made me feel a lot better about what was probably a bad idea. But, well... I did kind of owe Benny Baxter a favor, I guess. His son almost killing me had kind of soured me on that prospect, but hearing him out would let me put any lingering guilt to bed.

They probably wouldn't like my terms, anyway, if the idea blooming in my mind was anything to go by.

“I'm proud of you for doing this, Arden,” Dad smiled and came in for another hug, which I returned. “Even if it's going to make things awkward with your mother for a bit.”

“Look up Colossians 3:12, Luke 6:35, and Ephesians 4:32,” I advised him with a grin. “They're pretty good choices for this situation.”

Dad chuckled, opening his mouth to speak, when-

“Uh... hey, Dad? Ardie?” Algernon asked, taking a few quick steps around the doorway and heading for the remote sitting on the end table next to the couch. “You might want to see this.”

He flipped the TV on and swapped channels to Metropolis Global, one of the big names in the news business. A woman with a plastic smile was sitting behind a desk, speaking into the camera.

“-just coming in, but we've uncovered evidence that suggest young Arden Villin, previously known to our viewers as they young man who'd flexed his ingenuity to get out of a life-threatening situation in Colorado, has been revealed to be both an academic genius as well as – apparently – an investment savant-”

I groaned, dropping my head back against the couch.

Great.

They'd found out about the stocks.

…

It was two in the morning and, thankfully, the news vans had finally gone home.

That was only after they'd tried to interview the pizza delivery boy.

For some reason.

It was a safe bet they'd be back tomorrow, though, which was a prospect that had my cheese-filled guts churning. So, to comfort me in my hour of need, I was contemplating an entirely different topic and taking my mind off my worries.

A gold ticket.

A silver ticket.

And a bronze ticket.

The first for saving Jamie Richards. The second for not getting caught while doing so. The final one for making a full recovery and getting out of the hospital without arousing suspicions.

Honestly, I thought it was a little silly to give me a reward for just being patient and waiting out a few boring days of medical rest.

On the other hand, though, that was the kind of thing that fit the definition for a bronze ticket. A basic bitch chore that took no real skill or aptitude, just time and tedium.

“The smart thing to do would be to wait until the heat dies down and wander off into the woods for some privacy,” I murmured to myself, rubbing the slick paper between my fingers. “But I've been making a lot of stupid decisions lately.”

The gacha siren called.

I looked upwards and sighed before easing off the couch and heading towards the guest bathroom. It was on the opposite side of the house from my parent's master bedroom and would give me the most walls between myself and them in case I got something weird or loud or...

Fuck, I don't know, it's called the Chaos Gacha for a reason.

“This is why I never started in on gacha games,” I muttered at the tickets accusingly, sitting down on the closed toilet lid. “I've always had terrible impulse control.”

I hesitated.

Rare one first? Or common?

“Terrible impulse control,” I repeated myself and tore the gold ticket.

The sound of a gacha capsule rolling down a machine rang out and...

“I need to find out if anyone else can hear that,” I hummed as I caught the plastic egg and taking a breath before cracking it and looking at the paper within.

212. Non Binding Clause (5.3 Rarity, 0.05% odds)

-Epic Trait-

That contract you just signed? The one with the soul bindings or magical enforcement? Yeah, unfortunately for them it's non-binding for you. At any time you choose to, you can destroy any contract or clause bound to you that you have agreed to. The fae will cry.

“Huh,” I muttered as I felt something within me shift. “That's... potentially very useful as a late-game surprise if I end up dealing with higher-order beings.”

But, sadly, it wasn't all that immediately impactful

A great ace up the sleeve, don't get me wrong, and very nice should Mixxy come back and want to make a deal or something, but... that was late-game stuff.

I set the paper to one side and picked up the silver ticket.

Tear, rattle, drop, open, and...

298.Blessing of Hestia (3.2 Rarity, 0.29% odds)

-Rare Trait-

You are a child blessed by Hestia, the goddess of Hearth. You have resistance to all mental effects and negative ailments. Your body is way healthier and people feel more comfortable around you due to the natural aura you have around you.

I instantly felt like a million bucks, my eyes wide as the simple absence of all the little aches and pains I'd been suffering just... vanished. I stood up and turned to look in the mirror, my eyes going a bit wide.

“I really hope I can play this off as finally having a good night's rest in my own home,” I told my reflection, pulling a face at how full and healthy I was suddenly looking. While I hadn't been on death's door before, I'd looked... well, like a young teen who'd just been through a traumatizing event and spent a week in the hospital.

I blinked and looked closer. “Holy shit... did this just clear up my acne? Damn... score one for the Greek Goddess of the... oh, shit.”

The penny or, ah... drachma? No, wait, that was like a Greecian dollar or something... what was a Greecian penny?

I shook my head. “Damn it, the Greek Pantheon is a thing in this world. Ugh... has Hes-”

My mouth slammed shut.

“No names,” I told myself firmly. “I made that mistake once, I'm not doing it again.”

If the blessing hadn't attracted her attention, someone with said blessing saying her name aloud almost certainly would. I looked around the bathroom cautiously, then opened the door and looked around the dark and quiet house, waiting for... something.

Something that, apparently, wasn't coming.

I looked around again, then ducked back into the bathroom.

“Congratulations, you've complicated my life significantly,” I informed the summary on the paper, setting it aside and dropping heavily onto the toilet once again. “Aw, hell... I'm not going to be able to get back to sleep now, am I?”

I sighed, rubbing at my eyes with mental and emotional tiredness, if not physical.

I looked back at the bronze ticket, then picked it up.

“Look, I'm done pretending that there's a chance I'm not going to go ahead and tear you,” I told it sternly. “But if you do give me something weird, at least let me hide it better than this blessing, okay?”

The ticket was ominously silent.

“Yeah, about what I figured,” I muttered, then tore it.

The great gacha machine in the sky chimed out and a plastic egg hit my outstretched hand.

I cracked it an, much like the blessing, immediately felt the difference.

This time, though, it was a weight in a part of my... sould? Mind? A weight in a part of my being that I hadn't even known existed before this.

97. Divine Dogs (1.8 Rarity, 2.16% odds)

-Common Familiar-

Jujutsu Kaisen - A pair of twin wolves capable of tearing apart targets with their claws and fangs. Each of the dogs can detect hostility and negative emotions and notify their master when they feel hostility directed toward them. Their tracking abilities allow them to find lost allies and locations as well. The power of shikigami with your own energy levels.

I stared at the paper.

“Well, at least I can apparently keep these guys in storage like real shikigami when I'm not using them,” I noted, more than a little frazzled by... everything that had just happened.

Don't ask how I knew that, either.

I just did, the moment I received the dogs.

Moreover, this was the first thing I'd pulled that actually had an identifier that pointed to a specific world it had been pulled from.

On top of everything else, Jujutsu Kaisen was apparently real somewhere out there. I'd guessed that was the rule ever since I'd been reborn in a comic book universe, but to have actual confirmation…

It begged the question…

If I could pull from JJK, what else was there?

I picked up the other two summaries of my new rewards and stared at them.

“I should make a list,” I hummed to myself. It wasn't the most exciting thing to occupy my mind with, but it would give me something to do for a bit. Plus, if I kept getting tickets, I'd want to be able to reference what I pulled and when I pulled it. “Yay, bookkeeping! Maybe that'll keep my dumbass occupied instead of getting into more trouble.”

~~~

So... chapter ballooned out to about seven thousand words.

I am very tired now.

Marvel Industrious over the weekend.

Thank you for your support.

Oh, and it looks like Transhumanism Lite won the poll. Woo! Thanks to everyone who participated.

Himiko's Template - Fixed Voting Method

• YOU CAN VOTE FOR MULTIPLE OPTIONS NOW! BY REQUEST!

Next chapter will have to cement Himiko's template and I'm still fussing over the choices.

What do the readers want to see?

Mundane Support Skills will have Himiko be more active as a secretary-esque position for Hitoshi, running numbers and being close to him while handling mundane tasks (Himiko Likes This). Same level of dependence on Hitoshi, little personality shift.

Transhuman Lite will have Himiko run battlefield support and be more active 'in the field' while still receiving a boost to non-combat skills and capabilities. Decreased level of dependence on Hitoshi, moderate personality shift. (A middle-ground between what Himiko wants and what Hitoshi thinks is 'good' for her.)

Future Tech Engineer will have Himiko focus on rear-line support, usually staying out of combat in order to create support items or legitimize the existence of things that Hitoshi acquires through The Company. Increased level of dependence on Hitoshi, little personality shift. (Hitoshi consider this the most 'optimal.')

Vampire Enhancement will have Himiko focus on a combat role instead of any kind of support, but potentially rise to meet upper-level threats native to MHA with time, training, and experience. Strongly decreased dependence on Hitoshi, potentially large personality shift. (Hitoshi considers this a way to force Himiko to confront her vampirism, which she is obviously uncomfortable with and ensure her survival long-term.)

Himiko's Template (Old Vote - Invalid Results)

• I'm keeping this post up for the Q&A in the comments section.

• This is the OLD POST and the votes are closed. These will not count.

Next chapter will have to cement Himiko's template and I'm still fussing over the choices.

What do the readers want to see?

Mundane Support Skills will have Himiko be more active as a secretary-esque position for Hitoshi, running numbers and being close to him while handling mundane tasks (Himiko Likes This). Same level of dependence on Hitoshi, little personality shift.

Transhuman Lite will have Himiko run battlefield support and be more active 'in the field' while still receiving a boost to non-combat skills and capabilities. Decreased level of dependence on Hitoshi, moderate personality shift. (A middle-ground between what Himiko wants and what Hitoshi thinks is 'good' for her.)

Future Tech Engineer will have Himiko focus on rear-line support, usually staying out of combat in order to create support items or legitimize the existence of things that Hitoshi acquires through The Company. Increased level of dependence on Hitoshi, little personality shift. (Hitoshi consider this the most 'optimal.')

Vampire Enhancement will have Himiko focus on a combat role instead of any kind of support, but potentially rise to meet upper-level threats native to MHA with time, training, and experience. Strongly decreased dependence on Hitoshi, potentially large personality shift. (Hitoshi considers this a way to force Himiko to confront her vampirism, which she is obviously uncomfortable with and ensure her survival long-term.)

Mind Games - Chapter 31

Time seemed to speed up, even if each moment felt almost painfully slow.

I finally made time for Kirishima's dinner invitation, even if his mothers' ploy was painfully obvious the moment they were introduced to me. Admittedly, I had a bit of fun playing deliberately obtuse and making polite inquiries regarding their family, the house, and their occupations... even when they deliberately attempted to move the topic towards what they really wanted to know.

“We just wanted to make sure that Eijiro is in good hands, since you're teaching him so much.”

“That's right, Dear. A few of our son's friends have been... flaky. It seems like every time they drop by they've forgotten an urgent matter at home and can't stay.”

“Which isn't very becoming of young men who say they want to serve their community. Being mindful of your chores and practicing polite manners is very important.”

Eijiro had looked uncomfortable and slightly embarrassed through the entire affair.

Which was an enjoyable bonus.

For me, at least.

They were nice enough women, though, for all the fact they were obviously feeling out how I'd accept their son's crush on me. Which... I would need to turn Eijiro down, sadly. In addition to my... complicated circumstances and the powers I was connected to behind the scenes, the other boy just wasn't really my type.

It was close, though. Closer than I'd thought might happen.

It helped that Eijiro reminded me an adorable puppy begging for approval, I think. Especially since he retained a level of independence that Himiko simply wasn't capable of. In theory, I could pursue a romantic entanglement with Eijiro without a problem and... part of me wanted to, I'll admit it. The lives I remembered living, especially that of the Sidereal, had made me apathetic towards all but the worst debaucheries known to man or god and, even before that, it wasn't as though the thought of homosexuality bothered me.

But... I'd bound Himiko because she needed it.

Her new position offered an element of psychological stabilization that would have been nearly impossible to find in a relationship with someone else on this world. That's not to say she couldn't still go crazy if pushed, but it was decidedly unlikely as long as I paid even a modicum of attention.

I could justify binding Eijiro, but they would be, at their heart, excuses.

There was also the compensatory aspect to the relationship I had with Himiko. I'd offered her a choice of various templates which she was still mulling over. I knew, even before she insisted, that I didn't have to do that, but I also wanted Himiko to be as prepared as possible for the challenges that were coming up. Moreover, there were challenges that I couldn't know about as well.

There had to be, after all of the eavesdropping I'd done on Haneyama Kazuho.

Unfortunately for her, she'd opted to disregard my advice on a burner phone and simply keep using her civilian cell phone. Even if she'd decided to get one, though, I had little doubt she would have docked the two and transferred her contacts over anyway, so it wouldn't have been an inconvenience for my efforts, either way. It was just a mark of someone not taking her lifestyle choices with the weight and gravity they deserved.

To Kazuho, she probably saw herself as a street performer who dabbled in vigilantism to help her friends out.

To the criminals she fought? She'd put them in jail and destroyed their lives.

Even after her brush with death, torture, or worse, she'd still refused to take steps to prevent a recurrence.

And her friends…

“Aw, c'mon Chizome! Try it, try it! I just picked it up from this nice little restaurant a few blocks over! They even remembered us from when we helped them out with those punks the other day!”

“Togata, if you do not cease with your prattling, I will remove your tongue to force the issue.”

“Are you alright, Chizome? You're a little prickly tonight – well, more than usual.”

“I am merely meditating upon the corruption and lawlessness of our foes. Focus will help my blade strike true when we engage in battle this night.”

“Right-right! Well, you wouldn't want to fight on an empty stomach and I've seen your fridge. You need more than those nutrient packs, buddy.”

“...if I accept a plate of fried chicken, will you leave me to eat in peace?”

Funny thing about your phone being loaded with spyware?

It could let someone turn on the microphone anytime they wanted.

Or the tracking function, for that matter.

Combined with the fact that Kazuho had docked her phone to Mirio's computer for charging and to transfer a few video files of her concerts, and I knew pretty much all of their movements. I'd even indulged and created a classic 'murder board' complete with multi-colored string in The Apartment to track their every move across Tokyo.

Sadly, I only knew where Chizome's apartment was located. Kazuho had absolutely no interest in spending more time there than necessary, unlike Mirio's place, and hadn't even made an attempt to plug her phone in to share media or vigilante data. If pressed, I could make the trip myself while the three were otherwise involved and bug the older man's computer myself, but...

I was worried about the third member of their group.

'Stendhal.'

Akaguro Chizome.

Stain.

I hadn't recognized the name, not at first. I'd never been a huge fan of Vigilantes and was waiting for the animated series to come out before I made a judgment on whether or not to read the manga. Part of that was, admittedly, being a bit salty still over the ending of the main series and the rather lackluster solutions to a lot of structural and societal level issues depicted as problematic.

Yes, we fixed it. No, we're not going to show you how. Just take our word for it.

Personal gripes aside, though...

I'd looked up Chizome in The Company's systems, on the off-chance he was a Named Character and discovered him to be the civilian identity of the psychotic vigilante Stain.

Who, it appeared, had either not yet come into existence in this world, or simply did not exist at all. That made me feel... some kind of way, honestly. I'd been at least somewhat looking forward to punching Stain right in the absence-of-a-nose before breaking at least a few of his vertebrae and possibly his jaw just to be sure.

But... I suppose as long as Stain wasn't making himself my personal problem, I could let Chizome run around like the Red Hood wannabee he was stabbing criminals.

Especially since Mr. Sunshine, Togata Mirio himself, appeared to be riding herd on the psycho.

As a vigilante.

Which... said things, especially after the close look at his personal computer my spyware had gotten.

Admittedly, there had also been a wealth of information that I found both more relevant to my own investigations and substantially more useful. Still, I'd been able to construct a sizable data packet that was only missing a few valuable nuggets before I would hand it over to the authorities. Naturally, though, nothing I did could be simple or straightforward.

“Detective Nakamura?”

The man blinked, turning from where he was sitting contemplatively as he watched his children play. “I'm sorry, do I know you?”

“My hair was a shade of lavender that night,” I stated, lowering my sunglasses to give him a wink with eyes that were the same shade even as I pulled back my wig just a bit from where it was affixed to show a few stray strands.

He stiffened, like I'd electrocuted him, eyes going wide. “You're-!”

“A friend,” I stated, smiling as I put my glasses back on and leaning back, affecting a posture to lower my threat-rating in his eyes. I hadn't missed how he'd instinctively reached for a firearm he didn't have at the moment.

“R-right,” Nakamura nodded slowly. “I, um... is there-”

He cut himself off, trying to find a polite way to ask why I was here.

“I'm mainly just popping in for a welfare check, making sure things are okay after everything,” I nodded at his kids obliquely. “For both them and you. Just... think of this as a little followup to my investigation.”

The older man took a deep breath, nodding slowly. “It's... good. Better than the first few days. Kids stayed with their aunt – my sister – and I got blind-drunk with a buddy. That helped, strangely enough.”

“Alcohol consumption can dull the memory,” I nodded, then looked at him more directly. “Just make sure not to make it a habit. Children don't need parents that can't pull themselves out of the bottle.”

He shook his head viciously. “Don't worry about that. I went there once, after my wife died. Not going back.”

I hummed and nodded, giving him the benefit of the doubt. There wasn't all that much I could do without resorting to extremes, anyway. “Also, I wanted to ask if you'd consider doing me a favor. Nothing illegal or even on the fringe. Just handing over some evidence I'm gathering to a hero. They'll trust it more from a cop's hands than a vigilante's.”

Nakamura had agreed easily.

It was a cheap enough way to repay at least part of the debt neither of us discussed him actually owing. That was one of the double-edged swords of Japanese society, though. When someone had power over you, both sides understood it tacitly and didn't fight too hard as long as you kept things reasonable.

If Nakamura worked out, I could probably keep using him into the future as a contact for my vigilante ID into the future, as long as I kept in mind the boundaries of an honest police officer.

Even gratitude would only let me push him so far.

The preliminary documents had already been sent to the agency that needed them. I wasn't going to keep supplying the Endeavor Agency exclusively, after all. That would look at least a little suspicious and, despite being a nominally national agency, there were places where their coverage was... thin that I'd need to investigate in the near future.

I already had a number of rural sites picked out that I'd need to trek out to at some point, once I figured out a suitable and suitably convoluted excuse.

If Nakamura could feed me a recommendation or someone he knew, even if it was a friend-of-a-friend type relationship... well, it was better than nothing. I had a feeling I was going to be on my own for some of them and few things sucked more than wandering into a small town as an outsider and trying to get something invasive and productive done. Even if it was Japan and they tried to be polite about it, the isolated hill people absolutely despised any kind of outside authority coming in and disturbing the peace.

Even when that 'peace' involved mysterious disappearances and events that were frequently explained away as a woodlands-dwelling villain of some type.

Those were more comforting conclusions to come to, especially when you had pieces of the victim impaled on twenty different trees ten kilometers apart in a geographical configuration that overlaid with an Elder Sign.

That particular location was rather high on my 'Oh Shit' list at the moment, needless to say.

Hopefully I could arrange something for my UA internship or work study.

I paused in my ruminations, puling out my phone and making a note about the idea. Endeavor could probably be sold on some kind of inter-agency liaison deal that would give me some professional development outside of Tokyo. Seeing how rural heroes operated was useful experience, after all.

...and, of course, I'd had to keep up with Bootstrap and Buster's streaming gig all the while.

Because spare time was a thing that other people enjoyed.

At least that had been fairly interesting.

“Okay,” I skimmed the question. “Here's something from a subscriber. LevelUPHero46 – He? She? Hmm... I'm gonna' go with 'he' for this one. Still, if you care about pronouns or being identified correctly, add it to your account or write it in on the question.”

“Cause it ain't manly to be rude,” Buster chimed in crossing his arms. “Bein' polite, though? That's where it's at!”

“Easy there, cowboy,” I hummed, leaning back. “Okay, so our question is this... 'Can you be a hero with a weak quirk?'”

“Easy answer,” Buster laughed, slamming a fist into its opposite palm. “Of course you can! You just gotta' focus on where you're going, keep your eyes on the prize! If you're willing to sweat and bleed for your dream, nothing's impossible!”

“Alright, so you've had your optimistic shounen manga answer,” I waved Buster off, ignoring his faux-offended squawk. “Now I'll give you the pragmatic one. A lot of people like to say that there's no such thing as a weak quirk or a strong quirk and it's how much effort you put into developing your skills that counts. To a certain extent, I can get behind that answer. There's more than a bit of truth to it, even.”

“Buuu~uuut...” Buster called, drawing the word out unnecessarily.

“But,” I nodded, “there are some caveats. People with strong quirks will always have it easier than you. Macro-scale elemental quirks, especially versatile heteromorphs, quirks that are flexible in their application like enhanced strength or flight... all of these are easy A-Grade hero material.”

“You don't get to slack off, though, just because you got lucky with your quirk,” Buster stated, jabbing a finger at the camera.

“Truth. I can name a dozen B-List heroes who should be in the top fifty instead of where they are because they rely exclusively on their quirks and don't bother properly developing them on top of that. Hard work is necessary, no matter how strong your quirk is. Heroism isn't an easy career path and you shouldn't pursue it if you can't commit to it,” I explained patiently.

“So between someone with a weak quirk and a good work ethic or a person with a strong quirk who was lazy...” Buster prompted, looking at me questioningly.

I shrugged, throwing up my hands. “That's the other part of this discussion. Quirks are unique – or nearly so id you've inherited one of your parents' abilities. Even a weak quirk, if you can properly apply it to crisis incidents is invaluable. The downside to all of this is that I can't say every single 'weak' quirk can be trained to a level that heroes would be useful.”

“Maybe an example?” Buster asked, turning to me fully as I kept facing the camera.

“Okay, so you've got two people... the first has a...” I rolled a wrist, making a searching motion with one hand mid-air. “A plant-controlling quirk. Able to cause rapid growth, can be used to detain villains, strong and obvious applications for a hero career. This person is going to need a lot less training, and that means a lot less time, energy, and money to prepare them for a hero career. A properly-motivated individual will use that time to further hone their skills, develop supplemental training, and expand their knowledge, but they don't have to. If they choose not to, they can still be a hero, they'll just be a mediocre one.”

“And someone with a weak quirk?” Buster asked absently, staring at me contemplatively as he rubbed his chin.

“Our second person... can make their fingers longer, let's say,” I shrugged, distantly remembering someone from Izuku's middle school with that quirk. “This person doesn't just need quirk training. They need to find a martial art that plays to their strengths, they need to be inventive and creative regarding their quirk use, and they're probably still going to be the underdog in any fight they go into. This person would need to put in at least a hundred and fifty percent the effort that someone with a strong quirk would to the same place.”

“Harsh,” Buster replied, the grimace apparent in his voice.

“But honest,” I cautioned. “I don't want anyone to walk away from this discussion believing they can't be a hero, but I also want them to have reasonable expectations. My best advice is going to be to take a serious look at your quirk and its potential applications. Be creative. Think about the clips of heroes you've seen on herotube, consider how you could apply your quirk to solve those problems or at least help mitigate civilian casualties or property damage. If you can't do that...”

I sighed and shook my head.

“But there's also a bunch of things you can do to raise your chances,” Buster spoke up, bringing the energy back to full throttle. “There are emergency medical certifications, lifeguard training, and other types of licenses that even middle school students can get. That's a good way to test if you've got the temperament to be a hero, so here are some places that offer-”

We'd been doing a few more physical demonstrations here and there as well, though again my schedule had fought me tooth and nail to make enough time for further shenanigans.

Thankfully, it appeared as though the 'inside scoop' on Endeavor's Agency was garnering a significant amount of attention, more than enough to compensate for the awkward update schedule.

Well, that and the karaoke party we'd live-streamed.

Or, well, we'd live-streamed the audio of the event, given we had two 'guest stars' appearing with us.

“Okay-okay! This is Codename Pinkie here with Buster, Bootstrap, and... oooh, Blondie?”

“Hmm, that's cute so it works! Hehe!”

“Cute is justice, huh? I like that attitude! Anyway, I'm handling the intro today. So, like I said, I'm going by Codename Pinkie for this event! And I'm the coordinator 'cause I made the reservations!”

“Just to make things clear, this is Bootstrap waiting in the wings. Pinkie here decided she wanted to take over and run things. If she doesn't let us go eventually, I'll have to call in backup, though.”

“Hah! C'mon Bootstrap! It's just karaoke! Even I've done it once or twice! Oh, yeah... this is just audio, so um... Buster chiming in, too!”

“Hello internet people! This is, um-Blondie! Because that's my hair color! I'm here, too!”

“...they have no idea who you are, you know that, right?”

“I'm Bootstrap-kun's girlfriend!”

“Whoa... chat's totally exploding... dang, dude. How do we have this many thirsty-hey, wait, Pinkie and I aren't like that!”

“Oh, what are they saying about me and... wow, you guys are weirdos. Uh... no, not into stepping on people, sorry.”

“Don't respond, you'll just encourage them. Ugh, Buster and Pinkie are friends from school. She listens to the streams and heard about the karaoke, so she wanted to join in. That's the whole of it. I'd ask you not to be weird about it, but that's a futile gesture.”

“Hehe! I think they'd look cute together! Oooh... um, well... sorry chat-kuns? But, um... I only do stuff like that with Bootstrap-kun. Yup! We're just like that!”

“Aaaaaargh... you're just encouraging them on purpose now.”

“Hmm... maybe? It might be payback for being really un-cute that one time. My boyfriend was a big meanie so now I have to tease him or he won't learn his lesson!”

“Let's just... sing these stupid songs.”

“That's the spirit! Well, maybe at least. But, bro... you shouldn't be mean to your girl. Totally un-manly.”

“Keep in mind that I taught you everything you know when we get back to hand-to-hand practice, Buster. Push my buttons at your own risk.”

“Haha... I suddenly feel like I'm in danger...”

“Trust your intuition. Now, I'll start us off. As promised, a two hundred year old Disney song. Let's see… yeah, this one.  An underappreciated classic.”

~~~

First thing's first! Winner of the Awesome Tier poll is...

...a three-way tie.

Why do you people do this to me? I'll... pick one of them, I guess? Ugh, anyway, expect an extra-long chapter of something soon. Beyond that, I'll be putting up a chapter of the Marvel side of Industrious, too.

Mind Games! This is kind of an experimental chapter on my part. I realized that I was going to get incredibly bogged down in detailed stuff, so I decided to skip forward and do a few small interludes that got glued together to make a larger chapter. I'm not entirely happy with this one and might revise a bit, but... well. If I didn't do this, I'd easily spend another ten chapters before we got to the UA entrance exams. As it is now... it'll be a chapter or two at most.

The New Ron - Chapter 42

“Tara, crowd control!” Kim barked, snapping her head towards the blond girl even as I began ducking and weaving through the gaggle of rich people. “Keep the civilians out of the line of fire!”

“Oh, line of fire! Did you hear that Eleanor?”

“Oh my, yes! Terribly exciting Jerald!”

I couldn't roll my eyes while I was running, I remember Ron learning that lesson the hard way several years prior, but I wanted to. So badly. Instead, I cut through a group of socialites and landed a kick to the gut of a henchman, knocking one into another just as he was about to snatch a purse from a scandalized woman.

“Ron, mook-duty!” I heard my partner cry.

“Already on it, KP!” I shouted back, performing an acrobatic monkey-leap over two men trying to rush me and pushing them into the fountain behind me in the same motion.

“Bonnie, you-” Kim started.

“Don't you dare touch me! This gown cost more than one of your stupid glowing sticks, you plebeian!” Bonnie screeched, grabbing a chair and throwing it one-handed in a smooth motion at an approaching minion.

“You know what, sure! Keep doing that!” Kim shook her head, making a beeline for Shego.

Well, a beeline for Drakken really, but Shego was – as always – between the two.

“You can't tell me what to do, Possible!” Bonnie replied hotly, kicking out with a pointed shoe and hitting one of the unitard-wearing men between the legs.

Which, even if I knew they wore athletic cups...

Ouch!

“Ah, how like my young nemesis!” Drakken gloated, watching as we dealt with his mooks, Shego waiting to receive Kim. “But for shame! I haven't even explained why I've decided to grace you with my presence yet! Hahahaha-!”

“Oh, can it!” Shego growled, tossing her hair with a flick of her head. “You're just here to rob the rich fucks, right?”

“Shego, please!” Drakken replied, wincing at a momentarily crack in his confidence before he rallied. “We're here to redistribute the wealth! It's a noble pursuit in the face of the unequal distribution of-”

I ducked under a minion's blow, wrapping my arm around theirs and hyper-extending the joint to force them into the path of a stun-stave.

“Redistribute to yourself, right?” Kim asked, her voice deadpan as she stepped over a fallen henchman. “What, your bank account finally run dry?”

Drakken gave her an annoyed look. “If you must know-”

“I told him exactly how much he owed me for getting you two dweebs to help me pull his blue tuckus out from that douche Archer,” Shego growled. “And I don't take checks.”

“Good call,” Kim noted, giving Shego a nod of respect.

Shego blinked, then preened.

“Will people stop interrupting me!?” Drakken screamed, stamping his foot in what was definitely a manly act of protest and not a borderline manchild two seconds away from throwing a hissy fit. “Ah-hem! Yes, anyway! Due to recent financial irregularities, it has come to my attention that... accounts need to be balanced! Yes, that's suitably ominous. And once it came to my attention that you were attending this ostentatious party, I simply couldn't help myself but to spoil your good time, Kim Possible!”

I arm-locked a henchman who'd tried to rush me. “You're stalking our website, aren't you?”

Drakken rounded on me with the fury of an exploding volcano, opened his mouth, and-

“Totally stalking,” Kim nodded, giving the blue scientist a sour look.

Drakken twitched, his anger almost physically deflating as his shoulders drooped and his accusatory finger sagged.

“No offense, Dr. D, but it is kind of weird,” Shego chimed in with a sly smirk. “I mean, I let you off the hook for the whole 'teenage nemesis' thing because she shows up at your schemes, but...”

Turning away from the now-purple mad scientist almost literally shaking from rage, the green-eyed woman threw KP a wink.

“That's it!” Drakken screeched. “No more Mr. Nice Guy-”

I opened my mouth, let it hand for a moment, then shook my head. We'd already fucked with the guy enough for now.

Drakken pulled out a hand-gun sized blaster with a strange orange spiral cone on it. Definitely a weirdo non-lethal super-science gadget. “With this, my truth ray! I will compel each and every member of the world's wealthy elite gathered here to disclose their financial information to me! Bank accounts, passwords, the locations of hidden safes! Once I acquire those records, financial freedom and independence will finally be mine! Hahahahaha!”

The various wealthy elites in question went from looking mildly amused by the entire thing to instantly rather terrified, appalled, and angry.

Very angry.

I sighed, palming my face as I muttered. “Dude, you don't mess with a rich person's checkbook.”

Then one of the men in suits stepped up. “I'll pay you ten million for the rights to your technology, whoever you are!”

My head snapped up as a creeping dread began to seep in.

Several heads snapped towards him as the entire party seemed to pause, Drakken himself blinking in shock. “Ah, I mean...”

It was worse than if he'd just scared a bunch of rich people.

“Fifteen Million!” Another woman stepped forward, glaring and scowling at the first man. “You think I'll let your corner the market on such revolutionary technology, Richards? You've got another thing coming!”

He'd taunted them with something they didn't have.

“Twenty! Twenty million!” The first man, 'Richards,' snapped back.

“I'll bid thirty!” A third man stepped out of the crowd and up to the front of the party.

Slowly, I turned towards Kim. She did likewise towards me.

My redheaded partner gestured first to Drakken and then to the crowd before turning her hands up like she couldn't get a grip on what was happening. I nodded rapidly, looking between the two groups as numbers fell off lips, the total bid going up and up and up.

Shego, still standing in front of Drakken, appeared completely shocked by the turn of events, her mouth working open and closed silently. The man himself, though?

He looked utterly dumbfounded.

Internally, I was...

Confused?

“Fifty! Fifty Million!”

...or, maybe... perplexed?

“Ow-owowowowow!” The dude who's arm I was holding in a lock began whining and I reflexively released the limb.

“Whoa, sorry guy,” I said, backing off and holding my hands up. “Didn't mean to really make it hurt or anything. You okay?”

He grimaced behind his face-concealing goggles as he held his shoulder, but nodded. “Yeah, yeah... I think I'm okay. Just... I'll tag out for this one, okay? Once I get back to base, I'll ice it down.”

“Make sure you use alternating cold and heat,” I advised him seriously. “Too much of either won't let the muscles properly relax.”

“Seventy! I'll bid seventy!”

He stared at me for a moment, then nodded. “Good advice, thanks dude. You're alright.”

I gave him a thumbs up and retreated to Kim's position where she was awkwardly whispering with Shego as she two looked increasingly irate.

“-I just, it's not technically illegal or anything just... all you've done is trespassing! And that's basically a technicality!” Kim hissed.

Shego stepped closer to the redhead and loomed over her with the older woman's slight height advantage. “Yeah, Possible, I don't give a shit about that. The only reason I'm here is because Drakken promised I'd get a chance to throw down with you!”

“With me?” Kim asked, blinking.

Shego growled – almost snarled, “You and your dweeb think we're even from last time around?! Where you threw me around like a piece of carry-on luggage?!”

“I kind of thought you owed us,” Kim glared.

“Eighty!”

“That!” Shego sputtered, her mouth working in silence for a moment. “That and this are two different fuckin' things!”

“Ladies, I hate to interrupt-”

“Dweeb!”//”Ron!”

The two girls rounded on me, fire in their eyes as I interrupted their little verbal spat, but I refused to shy away. Taking a deep breath, I drew on the spirit of a rambunctious monkey who did not give a shit.

“Yes, yes, you're both very pretty,” I replied stoically. “But maybe you can resolve your disagreement after our current crisis?”

Two pairs of green eyes slid along my pointed gesture towards where Drakken was standing, still cluelessly holding up his raygun like a young child who'd been caught mid-prank by a group of adults.

“One Hundred Million!”

“One Hundred and Twenty!”

“Rrrrrrrr-ight,” Kim drawled out slowly, clicking her tongue once as she stared at the ongoing dumpster fire. “Rain check?”

Shego took a deep breath, reaching up to massage the bridge of her nose. “Goddammit, fine. What the fuck's going on here, anyway?”

“Ah... I suppose I should answer that,” Senor Senior Sr. spoke up, walking over to us at his sedate pace. “I'm afraid your blue villain friend has fairly chummed the water for sharks by showing off a piece of technology that is ahead of the curve regarding even custom devices. Tell me, does this 'truth ray' of his actually work?”

“It worked on the hench he tried it on, at least,” Shego shrugged, then looked at Senior full-on and paused. The master-thief frowned thoughtfully. “Do I know you? You seem familiar for an old geezer.”

“I doubt it very much... I am a simple man who prefers my privacy,” Senior chuckled and shook his head. “Decades past, that was a different story, but that is sadly old news. I very much doubt a vivacious young woman such as yourself would have interest in such stories.”

Shego frowned, squinting at him.

“One Hundred and Fifty!” The youthful voice of Junior rang out, making his father slump in annoyance.

“I swear, that boy...” The old man sighed.

“Anyway, what do we do about the Drakken sitch?” Kim asked, interjecting herself back into the center of the conversation.

“Well, if this mad scientist truly does wish to sell his invention for a sum of money...” Senior stated contemplatively. “I could part with, say... three times what is currently being offered to put all of these shenanigans behind us?”

“Assuming he wants to sell...” Shego rumbled, raising her gaze to Drakken and frowning. “I mean, that much money on the table, he'd be an idiot not to...”

I hummed, nodded. “He'll never sell.”

“Not that I enjoy agreeing with the sidekick, but,” Shego took a hissing breath through her teeth, “Nope.”

“Hey guys?” Wade spoke up, his hologram passing through a few people to get to us. “Ooops, sorry about that... uh, anyway, I'm picking up a fast-moving object heading our direction. Looks like a supersonic VTOL on par with what I built. I'm having trouble getting a lock on it, which means it's seriously high-tech, so...”

“Try to hack it?” I asked, shrugging when Wade gave me a level, unimpressed stare. “Hey, whoever it is could be a total moron and leave an access node open.”

The holographic image of the young black genius kept the stare up for a few more moments, then sagged, sighing as he replied. “Yeah, already tried it. Was worth a shot.”

“You got weapons on the VTOL you flew us in on?” I asked instead.

“No, but...” Wade looked speculatively at Shego. “Drakken usually has something mounted on his hovercraft.”

“Wait-wait-wait-” Shego stopped, snorting with laughter as she looked between the three of us. “Is the geek squad actually asking me to shoot somebody down? Little junior heroes?”

“I mean, I was going to ask for a warning shot,” I temporized.

“I suppose I could ask that the island's aerial defenses be activated,” Senor Sr. hummed, then frowned. “Though if it has the same technology in it as the craft your blue friend flew in, that may not be as effective as I would wish. Terrible business, allowing security apparatuses to lapse like that.”

I frowned, feeling like I was missing something. This was already getting too elaborate. There were too many moving pieces. Something just… wasn’t right, like the world had gone off-script.

Which, admittedly, was an especially funny way of putting things for me, personally.

But, here we were, having another peaceful - if awkward - interaction with Shego and Drakken. No fighting. I slowly cocked my head to the side and addressed the black-haired woman. “Was coming here really Drakken's idea?”

Shego and Kim both blinked, turning to look at each other before back to me. “Uh-doy, Stoppable. He's the one who's obsessed with you two.”

I gave her a look at that, then rolled my eyes. “Okay, so did he actually stalk our website or...”

Shego frowned, obviously thinking about it. “He said something about getting an alert or whatever? I dunno', I usually ignore his rants as much as I can. Once you've heard one of them...”

She rolled her wrist and shrugged.

I stared at her, then turned to Kim and raised an eyebrow. “Trap?”

“For Drakken?” Kim asked, blinking as she turned to the mess that the action had devolved into. “But who would-?”

“Someone who wants the truth ray?” I asked, pointing up to Drakken as he cowered before the desirous gaze of the rich shouting ever-increasing sums at him.

“Who would actually want one of Dr. D's shitty inventions?” Shego asked, looking derisively up at her employer.

“Someone who went to the trouble of kidnapping and mind controlling him before wiping his memories?” Wade asked, his holographic head tilting up.

Overhead, a stealth VTOL that, if anything, looked like a more advanced copy of the one Wade had flown us to the island swooped in, piloted by two black-clad figures at the side. The thing was bristling with weaponry, a teenage edgelord's wet dream come true as it prowled through the night sky, its silhouette visible in the absence of light as it eclipsed the stars in its passing.

Then, the side door swung open.

I gasped.

Rufus jumped up onto my shoulder and pointed, jabbering wildly.

“Hell there, teenage heroes!” The red-clad mystery-villain grinned, waving one hand as his other held aloft his weapon of choice. “I'm back!”

“Adrien J. Bowman!” I cried, Rufus joining me in pointing accusingly at the airborne man.

His face instantly fell and his shoulders drooped. “Goddammit, kid! I do not remember being such a little shit when I was your age! Call me Archer! Archer! Got it?”

“How about I call you mincemeat?!” Shego snarled, her hands lighting as a rictus of rage overtook her face. “AAAAAHHH!”

So said, Kim and I grabbed Senior's arms and gently pulled the older man back as the green-eyed villainess began lobbing bolts of plasma at the aircraft above, which-

“A forcefield?!” Wade cried, his holographic eyes widening. “No way!”

As the plasma splashed against the invisible barrier above us, Archer threw his head back and laughed, affecting a surfer bro's accent. “Yes way!”

“Ron, what's going on?” Tara asked, obviously giving controlling the crowd of elites up as a bad job as she jogged over to us.

“GET DOWN HERE AND LET ME BURN YOU ALIVE, YOU FUCK!”

“A villain's villain showed up,” I shouted over Shego's... shouting.

“A villain's villain?” Tara asked, looking between the furious Shego and the grinning Bowman safe behind his shield.

“He means a villain who steals from other villains,” KP translated as she looked around, spotting a terrace and pulling out her grappling gun. “Hold on, I'm going to bring that thing down.”

Kim shot the grapple at the terrace and cranked the servos in the gun up to their maximum before hitting the release, yanking her off her feet faster than normal. With the speed of the device, she flexed her body as only a master athlete could and gave herself angular momentum, spinning around the terrace and guiding herself in a long arc, feet pointed towards the open doorway as she skirted around Shego's ongoing plasma fire. Then-

“Ooof,” I winced, pulling a face and breaking into a run.

“Owie,” Tara hissed.

“Oh dear, that looked like it hurt,” Senior grimaced.

“I gotcha!” I yelled, running towards where Kim was falling after smacking straight into the forcefield bubble. “I gotcha KP!”

WOOMP!

“I gotcha,” I groaned, over a hundred pounds of lean redheaded teenage muscle falling directly onto me and knocking me to the floor as I cushioned Kim's fall.

“Awrite? Awrite?” Rufus asked, scampering over the girl's groaning form.

“Uuuuugh, did anyone get the number of that tank?” Kim groaned, rubbing her head.

“I thought it was supposed to be a bus?” I asked, groaning myself as I slowly sat up.

“I've been hit by a bus before, that wasn't a bus,” Kim grunted, checking herself over. “Thanks for the save, Ron.”

“No prob, KP. It's what we do,” I grinned.

“Kim, you okay?” Tara asked, running over at a more sedate pace and helping the other girl off me.

“Yeah, I just-what?” Kim asked, looking back up to the VTOL as the shield finally cut out.

“HA! TAKE THAT ASSHOLE, YOU-”

Then an arrow detonated on top of Shego and splattered her with neon-orange goop, pinning her to the floor.

“Oops,” Archer grinned, pulling out another arrow. “Now, let's see-”

The arrow flew, exploding into a net and wrapping around Drakken-

No, Drakken's hand, pulling the truth ray from it and yanking it back up into the VTOL with him.

“Hey! You give that back! I didn't even steal it! I invented that one fair and square!” Drakken cried, waving his black-covered hand in impotent anger. “Shego-”

“AAAAAAHHHH!”

The blue man blinked, turning from his chief henchman with a nod. “I can see you're preoccupied. Kim Possible!”

“Excuse me?” Kim asked, arching an eyebrow. “If you think you can-”

“I have been robbed! Robbed, I say!” Drakken cried, pointing at Bowman, where he was still standing in the VTOL's door, untangling his acquisition from the net. “Do your do-gooding and retrieve my device!”

Kim's face creased in something close to actual, physical pain. “I-you-wha-”

“Got a better idea,” Archer yelled, fiddling with the device. “How about I give you a bigger mess to clean up, KP?”

I blinked.

No. No fucking-

He held up the gun at the crowd and swept them with a sickly yellow beam. “There! A bunch of politicians, business moguls, and heads of state being forced to tell the truth for a while shouldn't cause any problems, right?”

Kim stared up at him, her jaw dropping open.

My own, however, had already fallen agape for an entirely different reason.

“Well, it’s been fun heroes, but I’ll have to cut this short.  See you on the flipside,” Archer called, stepping into the plane fully and shutting the door behind him.

Then he was gone.

~~~

Me: "Well, it's Friday night and I'm super tired. I'll finish this tomorrow. After all, there's no way I'll be either busy or exhausted for the next 48 consecutive hours. Ha!"

So, here's the update. 4th of July shenanigans got a little out of hand and I had to pitch in with some stuff I didn't expect to. Also, I have jury duty in a few hours. That'll be fun. And exhausting. Maybe I'll pass the time plotting the next chapter of Mind Games? Ugh.

Hope everyone had a great weekend. I pray it was more restful than mine way, anyway.

Mind Games up next.

The Stupendous Adventure of Butler Boy - Chapter 3

I hate being right.

No, scratch that.

I enjoy being right, except when I'm correct about something inconveniencing me. Then, and only then, do I hate being right.

I stared up at the hospital television with a blank expression as the cheery OP played over the classic nineties animation.

“I'm actually watching the Busy World of Richard Scarry,” I muttered to myself. “I haven't watched this since I was... what, seven? Eight? Last time around.”

I twitched and pushed the mute button. There was nothing really wrong with the show. To the contrary, it was actually fairly engaging... for what it was. Still, it was also the kind of programming that you view with a certain amount of nostalgia and self-delusion regarding exactly how interesting and developed it was. Past the first or second episode, it stopped being charming and just got... kind of bitter-sweet and disappointing? A little sad, too, that reliving old memories from childhood didn't quite measure up to your perceptions of them.

But it was either this, talk shows, or infomercials.

“Man, daytime TV sucked ass back before streaming services,” I sighed.

Thankfully, Ducktales was on next and was just as good as I remembered it being. My eyes skimmed over the TV guide in the newspaper, looking for an interesting movie and finding nothing on this early in the day.

Ducktales it was.

“I wonder how hard it would be to get a copy of the original Ghost in the Shell movie stateside,” I hummed speculatively. The movie had come out two years ago in Japan and was released in the US on a limited release last year. I'd wanted to go see it in theaters, but... well, I'd been twelve and my mother actually cared about the specifics of our media intake.

Last time around my sister had taken me and my brother to see Anaconda in theaters.

I'd been nine and he'd been six. We'd watched a giant snake eat several human beings while they were alive and turned out completely fine for the experience. Not even afraid of snakes.

But, no, Gits had tiddy in it, so that was a no-go.

I'd been a very pouty child for a few weeks after that and only let it go when I'd rationalized that we'd have had to travel to fucking Denver to see the movie. Which was several hours away and just plain not happening for a single theatrical release, no matter how groundbreaking and immortal the movie would go on to become.

There was a quick rapping of knuckles on my door before it unceremoniously opened and a beautiful young woman that could nearly pass for a Hollywood starlet walked in. No, not walked. She sashayed, she moseyed on in... she 'walked' in the same sense as a top-level ballet performer just 'dances.'

“Adelaide,” I gave her a nod, reaching over to pick up my sketchbook and a few of the cheap drafting pencils mom had gotten me, glancing at the odd oversized purse hanging offer her arm. That definitely wasn't her usual one.

Well, one of her usual purses.

I shook my head and returned my attention to the pencil I'd just picked up.

They were an interim tool. Once I got out of here I'd hopefully be able to convince my parents to stop at an art supply store on the way home. I probably wouldn't be able to justify getting everything I wanted, but...

“Hey Ardie,” she hummed, leaning over and – I swear to God – deliberately pressing my face into her breasts.

She smelled of cherry and lavender.

“Sorry I only got in today. Had a big test on Monday and Mom said-” She started.

“It's fine,” I cut her off with a small gesture. “It's not like I was bleeding out or anything. As it is, they're just waiting for the anti-fungal stuff to clear my lungs up and for the antibiotics to run their course.”

Blue eyes like chips of ice narrowed. “You were coughing when we talked on the phone. Are you sure I shouldn't have a talk with one of Dad's guys? I bet they could get me into that little dick-weed Kevin's cell for a few minutes.”

I huffed a laugh, a smile playing at my lips. “Tempting, but no. Thanks anyway, though, Addy.”

“Hmm... if you say so. You seemed to have handled it alright yourself so far,” Adelaide stated, leaning back.

“How are Mom and Dad?” I paused, my eyes cutting towards her. “Really? Algie was pretty messed up by the whole thing, I don't think he's telling me the full story.”

She visibly chewed on the question for a moment and my eyes drifted back to the paper on my lap, the soft scratching of graphite on bleached wood pulp the only sound in the hospital room for several seconds.

“Mom's been going to church more than usual,” she replied at length, looking away and staring – not watching – the TV. “She's pretty rattled. Looking at the whole thing as an act of God. You know how she can get... like back when Gram got sick.”

I hummed, neither agreeing nor disagreeing and definitely not commenting on the note of derision in her voice regarding a certain subject. “Dad? And Algie for that matter?”

“Dad'll get through it, he's mostly just stressing about Mom right now,” Addy shrugged. “And she'll stop freaking out once Father Martinez manages to talk her down. Algie... well, he fucked up the game. Stress, worry – not your fault, but it's still a fuck up. As long as he does well in the next few games, he might still get picked up by a scout, but crashing and burning like that can get in your head.”

I grimaced, pulling and tearing off the sheet of paper and throwing it down by my feet, letting the quiet seep in again.

“How about you?” She asked quietly. “No bullshit this time, you really okay?”

“I'm...” I paused for a while, beginning the lines of my brother's face, carefully idealized. I'd seen him on the field enough to know what he looked like in his uniform. “Coping.”

“Coping,” she repeated, the word dissatisfied and irritated and, just under the surface, seething. “Whatever happens, you let me know if one of those two chucklefucks tries something like this again. Dad won't have to deal with it if no one ever finds their bodies.”

Her perfectly-painted lips twitched, but she didn't smile.

I didn't expect her to.

Algie had my back, I knew that well enough. We gave each other shit aplenty, but that was pretty normal for siblings. There were lines we were each careful not to cross. But Algernon had his limits. More specifically, he was a decent and kind person. If it came down to it, he'd help me out of a jam even if he had to break the law doing it, but it'd tear him up inside if it was really bad. He was the kind of guy that I'd only ask for help as a last resort in a situation like that, for the simple reason that he'd get angry at himself for not preventing it in the first place.

Addy, though?

If I ever needed to bury a body, I knew who I'd call.

“You staying at the house while you're in town?” I asked, pushing the topic away from my wrongful imprisonment.

“Hard not to, with all this,” Addy sighed.

My mouth twisted slightly as I started shading. “Sorry.”

“Not your fault, squirt... and it's not horrible,” my sister shrugged awkwardly. “Any chance I can hide out here and play the dutiful sister tonight?”

“Mom won't enjoy that,” I cautioned, my tone slightly playful, brushing off the warning as a light teasing poke.

“I'll bring my bible, tell her we'll have our own little prayer sesh,” she grinned sardonically.

I sighed. “Sis-”

“Don't. You know I'm not going to be convinced by anything less than full-on divine intervention. I love Mom, even when she's being a bit much like now, but not even you managing to pull through this is going to make me flip, Ardie. I'm just not a believer, not like you and the rest of the family.” She paused, looking deeply unhappy. “I don't want to deal with that from you of all people.”

I stretched my legs out flat, letting my arms fly wide and pull pleasantly at my muscles-

“Ack!” I coughed suddenly, violently, as I tried to inhale.

Addy was on her feet in a split-second, her hand on my back and her eyes looking me over as my chest spasmed for a few more seconds. Once I'd hocked a thick blob of mucous into a tissue and taken a full deep breath, she had a cup of water at my lips.

“Slowly,” she advised, a kind of controlled frustration and subdued anger in the word.

Taking small mouthfuls, I slowly drained the cup and leaned back. “Thanks. That still happens now and then, but it's getting rarer.”

Adelaide hummed, refilling the cup and offering it to me again. I sighed and accepted, even if I was craving a coke. Too much liquid in this water, not enough sugar and caffeine.

“I'm not going to give you shit about not going to mass,” I told her bluntly. “We've been over this. Besides, I don't believe like Algie and the parents. I-”

“Right, you know,” Addy nodded, her tone shifting to amusement. “Sorry, forgot.”

I gave her a gimlet eye before shaking the topic off. It was a non-starter anyway. Adelaide was something of a textbook case on why you didn't push your religion on your kids too hard. Sometimes it worked and they grew up just as rigorously adhering to the principles as you did. Other times, they started getting ideas and asking questions that weren't easy to answer. Or that didn't have a real answer to begin with, so the parent told them to sit down, shut up, and memorize the dogma.

But regardless of all the complications of my relationship with Adelaide, I wasn't quite willing to open the nasty can of worms regarding my reincarnation and absolute certainty that this universe's cosmology explicitly contained 'The Source Wall,' behind which was 'The Source.' Also known as 'The Presence' or 'The Light of Creation.'

On Earth, that entity tended to go by the title God of Abraham.

I settled for sighing again. “Sis, if aliens are real-”

She groaned, the most animated noise she'd made the entire conversation. “We don't know that Superman is actually an alien just because he says he-”

“If aliens are real!” I interjected pointedly, glaring at the older girl. “And the Greek Amazons are real! Then there's absolutely no reason that God isn't real, too. Just... trust me on this.”

She gave me an irritated look, her hand brushing across her lower abdomen-

I cut my gaze away, more than a little uncomfortable.

Then froze as the implication hit me.

...what had it said? My fingers itched to grab my wallet off the bedside table and check the tiny slips of paper I'd pulled from the capsules.

It was... I could inject my blood to heal people? No, it wasn't 'healing.' It was rebuilding.

“There something on my face?” Adelaide asked, and I realized I had turned back and was staring at her-

-I twitched, jerking my head away, looking anywhere else. “No, nothing... just, I...”

Her face softened. “Arden, is there something wrong?”

“I need to talk to you,” I heard myself say, almost against my will. “Not here. After I get out of the hospital, when we've got some privacy.”

There are times we have choices and there are choices that aren't that at all.

Things you have to do, even if you'd rather put them off.

I'd rather roll the dice than make her think I waited even a moment longer than I needed to.

“We don't have privacy here?” Addy asked, looking around the otherwise empty room, though her eyes lingered on the large table opposite my bed covered in flower arrangements and get-well-soon cards. My sister smirked. “What, are the petunias listening in on us?”

I spun the pencil that was still in my hand and looked at the flowers speculatively. “Probably shouldn't take the chance.”

Adelaide blinked, obviously not having expected that. “Okay, now I'm worried.”

I hummed, shrugging off her concerned and curious stare. Then, in a moment of inspiration, I passed her the sketchbook. It'd been leaning on my slightly-raised left knee as I lay in the hospital bed and she'd been at the wrong angle to watch me work beforehand.

“What'd you think?” I asked, shoving it at her.

Addy snapped out of her suspicious mood – if only for the moment – and took the sketchbook on reflex. She made a show of giving it a cursory glance, “It's fine Ardie, now-”

She stopped, pausing as she was about to turn back to me, then snapped her head down to stare at the sketch I'd done in complete silence.

“Arden... what the fuck.”

I shook my head, not needing to look at the pad to see what I'd drawn. It was one of those moments that stuck with you. As much as I derided my father and brother for their love of the game, I admired the skill, precision, teamwork, and sheer physicality to play football at even a high school competitive level.

So while I mocked him for it in the traditional brotherly way most siblings did to things their opposing family member liked but they didn't... a single instant of Algie catching a long pass had seared itself in my head. He'd scored with the pass, diving and catching the ball just over the endzone, but...

It was the way he'd seemed to hang in the air for a few seconds too long, like the world was holding its breath to see if he'd make it.

That got to me.

The penciled drawing was, admittedly, slightly stylized. I'd added a bit of height to the flying leap, a bit of definition to what you could see of Algie's face behind the guard on his helmet, and a bit of artistic license with the cosmetic damage to his team uniform. It was an image of a hero at the edge of their capabilities, just barely succeeding where others would have fallen short, a cheering crowd just beginning to take definition behind him. For all that I'd added a bit of a stylistic touch to things, the whole worked looked almost photo-realistic... just not of the event itself.

I'd distilled the idea of the event on paper.

Swallowing dryly, I had to admit that unsettled me, just a bit.

“What the fuck?” Addy asked again, looking up to me with a stunned expression that was equal parts puzzled and disbelieving.

“I dunno,” I stated after staring at my own work for a moment. “I think... maybe my brain got a little rewired, while I was down there? Like... I think they call it 'acquired savant syndrome.' Something happens like an accident or a disease and it fries part of your brain.”

She blinked and looked at the art again, her eyes still wide in surprise. “You think you got dumber to do this?”

I blinked at her.

Right, no constant stream of info-tainment youtube videos giving summaries of esoteric topics yet.

“No... I mean, the brain's flexible. It just moves things around,” I shook my head, reaching for my water again. “But sometimes that means you end up being able to do things you weren't able to before.”

She frowned at me doubtfully and I sighed, taking a long drink before rubbing mock-tiredly at my eyes.

“Look, I'm not joking. There was this guy in the eighteen-hundreds, Phineas Gage. He was using a iron staff to tamp down blasting powder to blow a hole through some rock laying new track for the railroad. The tamping rod ended up sparking the powder and shooting the entire six-foot length of iron through his head,” I pointed upwards at the edge of my jaw and traced the path through my head to the top of my skull.

“That usually kills people,” Addy noted idly.

“Yeah, but sometimes weird shit happens,” I muttered, twitching as I remembered Mixxy's appearance. Even now I was unwilling to think of the pink elephant that was his name lest he somehow hear me and be recalled from that. “It didn't even knock him unconscious. He explained to the doctor how he was injured and let the man look inside the hole in his skull to see his brain to prove it.”

Adelaide turned slightly off-color at the imagery. “But nothing like that happened to you.”

“Not a traumatic injury, but my brain was being starved for oxygen,” I replied, making her grimace. “I think... some stuff got messed up. After the accident, Gage had weird emotional fits, but he'd suddenly become incredibly talented at making pottery. Some of it's still in museums over on the east coast.”

Which was a departure from the story that I was familiar with, but... this was an odd world to begin with. It didn't particularly surprise me that someone in a world of heroes and villains and aliens and gods would get super-pottery powers after taking a shaft of metal through his head. It helped, I think that I'd always found Gage's story to end sadly. Him finding solace in art during the last decade of his life was a happier ending.

I liked that version of history more, I'm pretty sure.

“What do the doctors say?” Adelaide asked, looking back down at the piece of art in her hands.

“I have a referral to a neuro-psych specialist, but the general practitioner in charge of my treatment doesn't have any better ideas for a sudden jump in skill and ability like this. It's just... anomalous,” I stated, sticking to the story I'd told everyone.

On the one hand, I could have let things lie and simply built up a visible increase in my artistic ability over the course of the next few weeks or months. On the other hand, that would require a level of acting and deception that... well, I might be capable of. Maybe, maybe not. But that was a long time to fool a lot of people and I didn't have faith in the idea that I'd pull it off perfectly with no one the wiser. Moreover... the idea didn't appeal to me all that much.

It was just too elaborate.

Who was I trying to fool with it, anyway? Other than Mixxy, no one else knew I was anything special right now. Being good at art wouldn't change that unless I could make my doodles come to life and do/fight crime. If the gacha had seen fit to bless me with some insane mechanics, science, or weaponry skills... well, that would be another story.

Few people saw artistic skill as either useful or desirable enough to attempt to harm me or recruit me at gunpoint to use my skills for their own ends.

So I'd take refuge in audacity and lean into the blip of fame that I'd received as a result of my survival. It was a story that would play well in the news, anyway, and likely add an air of mystique to my art that I could capitalize on.

Speaking of...

“So has the little media circus outside calmed down?” I asked Addy with curiosity. “Dad told me they were down to only a handful of reporters after the initial rush.”

“They come and go,” Addy shrugged. “I just threw on a smock and a fake name badge and no one looked at me twice. There were about six crews still hanging around when I went down there. I think the Telluride cops chased them off the Baxter's property and ours, so they needed somewhere to film and the school is still off-limits.”

I snorted, now that was a mess I didn't envy anyone having to deal with.

Turns out hypoxia hadn't been my biggest concern down there. Some really nasty shit was growing in some of the older piles of debris I'd written off as useless in addition to being too difficult to get to.

I guess that explains the purse.

The thought came unbidden, but made sense. It probably helped sell Addy's disguise. Normally she wouldn't have been caught dead with a huge floppy handbag like that, but it likely held the smock and tag she'd faked her way through the crowd with.

“What's the news like, anyway?” I asked, curious.

“You haven't been watching it?” She asked, a smirk playing on her lips as she raised an eyebrow.

I stared at her for a moment, then pointed to my bedside where a stack of books lay. “I have literally a dozen books I'd rather read on top of suddenly being an amazing artist. Stroking my own ego by watching the news talk about me is somewhere down on the lowest five things I'd like to do right now.”

Addy giggled and smiled. “Well-”

…

“Genius Thirteen Year Old High School Student Escapes Certain Death – Does MacGyver Proud!”

Archibald Villin looked up from his work with an annoyed expression. “Potter, I swear to God himself, if you don't put that rag of a newspaper down and get to work, I'll have you on scut duty for a month.”

Detective Elizabeth Hollis gave the suddenly-dismayed Officer Potter's head a slap before snatching the paper out of his hands. Glaring, she injected herself into the conversation. “Take a hint, Danny. The man's son was missing for two days. It's not suddenly okay to joke about because he's going to make a full recovery. Sorry about him, Chief.”

The chief of police for the small town of Telluride Colorado grunted, intentionally turning away from Danny Potter and pulling up a stack of documents. “Speaking of which, I've got the documents on the contractor, Hollis. Looks like a bigger contract with the school system that was signed in Denver.”

The woman sighed and dropped the confiscated newspaper into the trash before sipping at her coffee in her other hand and taking the documents. “Excellent. Just what I wanted, Chief. More paperwork.”

“I'd do it myself, but I'd like the charges to stick,” Archie grunted unhappily, sorting through more folders, “which means properly recusing myself from the case. You need help, pull Martinez off traffic duty. This is more important than handing out speeding tickets before the vacationers even get here for spring break.”

“Right, will do,” Hollis nodded.

Potter slid up to the desk awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head. “Ah... sorry, Chief. Thought you'd like the headline since they were saying good stuff about your kid.”

Chief Villin sighed and looked his youngest officer over, a fresh recruit only a year out of the academy who was trying and failing to grow a beard to compensate for an age that most people still associated with college students, not cops. “You ever have kids, Danny, you'll understand. Even if I'm proud of Arden, the whole thing scared me half to death and Abby, too. There's nothing quite as frightening as not knowing where your child is for a parent.”

“Right, sorry again,” Danny repeated, anxiously trying to fix his hair by combing his fingers through it. “Saw the mess he made of that big door tearing through it, though. Really impressed the hell out of me, sir.”

Archibald snorted and nodded. “Arden's always been one to impress. Even more than Addy or Algie. He's always made me worry more than the other two, though. I guess that goes hand in hand.”

“What'd you worry about?” Danny asked, confused. “Kid's smart as a tack. We got to talking about that cartoon on right now, Daria. I swear he had stuff to say that made my head spin.”

Not unkindly, the police chief reflected that wouldn't be too hard. Danny Potter wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer and would likely always be a beat cop, but that wasn't the worst fate in the world. There wasn't too much serious crime to chase in Telluride that required serious investigative work and they always needed someone to handle the domestic disturbance calls in the meantime. It helped that Danny's youthful appearance made him non-threatening and, surprisingly, good at defusing tense situations. Saw what you would about the young officer's lack of tact, he could make fast friends with a burglar he'd just arrested five minutes prior.

Archie wouldn't believe it if he hadn't seen it happen.

“You ever pick on the nerd in class?” The police chief asked instead of answering the question directly. When Danny winced, but nodded regretfully, Archie nodded as well. “I did too. Guess it's my punishment to know what a really smart kid can go through in school from the other side of things.”

“Most of the kids at the school seemed like they liked him well enough,” Danny tried to comfort the older man. “Didn't hardly have a bad thing to say about him. Lotsa' girls even called him cute.”

Archie snorted. “Don't let his mother hear that, she's already worried that some pretty young thing will get her hooks in Arden and tie him down here instead of seeing him off to college.”

“Anyway, sir... just wanted to say that it's a hell of a thing, what your boy did. Really smart kid you've got. Brave, too,” Danny nodded respectfully, then turned to walk away.

Meanwhile, Archie leaned back in his chair and sighed deeply, looking over at the far wall for the umpteenth time that day, a mix of burned-out rage and deep regret welling up. His high school football team stood there, gathered around the state championship trophy and holding it up with easy cheer and exaltation.

“How'd it turn out like this, Benny?” Archibald sighed, running his hand over his face.

The blinking message light on his phone caught his eye and he shook his head before picking it up. “Chief of Police's office-”

Archibald paused, grimacing as the voice on the other end of the line spoke up.

“Yeah, Benny, he's doing fine. I didn't stick him in the general tank. Or his cousin, even if I wanted to,” Archie stated, a tad sourly. “I gave you my word I'd look after them, wouldn't let anything happen to them while they're under my care. They'll go to trial just like they should.”

Another long pause as he listened to the replay, his face growing cold and grave.

“You know I can't do that, Benny,” Archibald stated tiredly. “And I wouldn't if I could, frankly. That was my son, just like this is yours. I know you're doing what you have to, to look out for the boy, but I need to look out for my own, too. The people of this town, as well. I slap him on the wrist and make some paperwork disappear and it's more than my reputation on the line. More than my job. I'd be lucky if my wife let me back in the house.”

A few long moments of real silence.

Another tired hand rubbing at his eyes at the question being asked.

“The most I'll do let you meet with Arden, if he's up to it,” Archie replied. “If he doesn't want to hear you out, that's the end of it, okay? I'm only doing this much for old time's sake. If it were anyone else, I'd tell 'em to sit and spin.”

Archie paused, then nodded in reply even if the other man couldn’t see him. “You too, Benny.  As good as a day you can have, anyway.”

~~~

The New Ron is already started and I'm working on it. This was just almost done, so consider it a bonus.

Arden recuperates and we meet the last member of his family and, likely, the most complicated.

Meanwhile, other people face their own challenges.

Hope everyone enjoys.

July Favoritism!

Alright, I think everyone knows the bit by now, but just to make sure...

You vote it, I write it.

Yeah, pretty much that simple. Or mostly, at least. The option with the most votes gets the most attention, second-most gets that level of attention, and so on. I might shove something weird or new in there every now and again, though.

The vote's set to close Friday night. In the meantime, I'll be working on a chapter of The New Ron, so look forward to that.

Thank you again for your support and I hope all of my American patrons will have a safe and responsible Explosion Day to celebrate liberty and freedom.

The Hand We're Dealt - Chapter 12

“Hmm... that should do it,” I muttered, closely examining the flask of oil as I held it up to the glare of a powerful magical light.

Fuck candles, seriously.

Well, no... first, that would be awkward and dangerous, especially if they were burning. But candles were great, and very atmospheric, but the candles of this age weren't the overpriced novelty scented candles I'd grown up with last time around. They were thick, oily things that gave off soot and smelled vaguely like a grease fire in slow motion.

They were also terrible for proper illumination.

Even Master van Beek, traditionalist that he was, agreed with me on that. The difference between us was that he used a magician's spell for 'that sort of thing' and used 'real sorcery' for the actual work he was doing.

I'd just copy-pasta'd my atmospheric mana tap into a chunk of quartz crystal, then duplicated the process a few times, and had instant bright lights that didn't give me a headache trying to read with.

Now if I could only get the faint buzzing sound right... Possibly-Extant-God, I'm such a nineties brat deep down. I shouldn't find the hum of fluorescent lighting comforting.

I blinked, shook my head, and turned back to what I was doing, opening my Sacred Gear to the correct page via an easy bookmark. Thankfully, bookmarks did work as long as I didn't change the subject matter it was focusing on. My eyes scrolled down the page before I tapped the relevant passage.

“Once the mixture is complete, place a few drops in a mixture of a shaman's blood and purified water. If you have properly constructed the oil, it should glow a faint purple. The more rich the tint, the more effective and powerful your specific case will be. To those of particular skill, it has been recorded that tiny sparks of gold will appear, though this is perhaps due to the purity of ingredients rather than...”

I skimmed the next section where the author devolved into a rant that could be summed up as, 'Kids these days, blaming the tools instead of taking responsibility for subpar work.'

I didn't know if it was terrifying or reassuring that some things really did never change.

Humming, I pressed a finger to a large wooden box and felt the enchantment on it discharge as it opened up properly instead of self-destructing and taking out the entire room and a good portion of the house with it. Normally, I wouldn't be so paranoid about things kept in my room, which was a nominally-secure location anyway, but...

Removing one of the small vials of my own preserved blood, I considered it a pretty reasonable precaution.

Beyond what van Beek had told me, often and frequently in excruciating and graphic detail, about what had happened – not could, had – when an enemy got any amount of your blood... Well, I'd also read plenty of horror stories about it, too.

On the one hand, keeping even a small amount of my blood on hand for experiments was incredibly dangerous.

On the other hand, extracting blood mid-ritual to use fresh was also incredibly dangerous. Causing any level of distraction or potential contamination when using magic, such as slicing open a palm and potentially cutting muscle... or leaving a line of blood crossing a circle of salt or silver.

You want dangerous?

That's dangerous.

I held up the glass of purified water with my blood in it, swirling it slowly before I added three drops of oil to it.

A moment later, there was a strong shade of purple, a deep violet, suffusing the mixture.

No flecks of gold like I'd hoped, though.

I sighed, partially reprimanding myself. “I've got four years total of magical training. Even if my reserves recover faster, I'm not so much a genius to get it right on my first try.”

I paused, admiring the tiny vial of purple liquid before setting it down in the sterilizing tank and activating it.

“It worked, though.”

Smiling, I made sure to reactivate the enchantment on my stasis box before turning back to the larger and now-complete magical oil. Magical? Alchemical?

“I guess this would technically fall under witchcraft by modern definitions,” I stated, squinting at the oil in thought. “Ugh... defining the different traditions is such a fucking pain sometimes.”

I wouldn't tell the Professor that, of course.

The man lived and died by the anal-retentive traditions of sorcery.

At this point, though, I was just doing magic. I'd stopped caring what people called it a while back.

-beep!beep!-

I twitched, turning a disgusted look towards the small block of wood on my desk. “Oh, right. I haven't regretted making you this week, my mistake. Let's see...”

I tapped it, sighing as an illusion snapped into place over the thin wooden rectangle. Even though it looked like a single piece of dead tree, it was actually thin-cut strips of wood that had been painted with an elaborate series of runes before I'd glued the entire thing together and put a pair of clamps on it to keep it that way until it dried.

The result?

“Henry! You'd think you'd use these things more often! What, don't like seeing my beautiful face?”

What kind of masochist was I, that I'd gone back two and a quarter centuries and invented the magical equivalent of the smartphone?

“Hector, as I've told you many times before, I am gratified that you like my invention, but I'm often very busy during the day and can't really take calls,” I sighed. “Then I've got work for the Professor at night and-”

“Not tonight!” Hector replied cheerfully, grinning widely as I watched the scenery behind him move.

The familiar scenery.

“Why do I see Dartmouth Hall behind you?” I asked, my voice devoid of suspicion and containing only certainty. “Instead of say... a building in New York? Where you're supposed to be?”

He blinked, looked behind him, and winced. “Right, right! Sorry, it was going to be a surprise!”

I reached up and rubbed the bridge of my nose. “Are you at least making sure no one can see you use the damn thing?”

“Oh, yeah! I'm using that, ah... what'd you call it... SEP Field thing?” Hector asked awkwardly.

Taking a deep breath, I released it slowly, counting to five. “That's supposed to be for emergencies, Hector. Like if your life is in danger or there's a huge problem and you need my help.”

“There is a huge problem!” Hector grinned, still looking like he was a disreputable teenager instead of the upstanding member of society he was supposed to be. “And I do need your help! I just talked to Dr. Simons and he's taking de Jaager and Old Dutch out for drinks tonight! That means you've got the night off!”

“You've clearly thought this through and made an effective plan to overcome the obstacles in your way,” I deadpanned. “Truly, the fact that you – of all people – felt the need to do so concerns me greatly.”

“Oh, you're still a gem, Henry! It's your birthday coming up! We're going out tonight!” Hector enthused.

“My birthday isn't until next month,” I protested tiredly.

“And I'll be in Virginia by then,” Hector replied jovially. “Which means we celebrate now instead of letting you hole up in your room filled with witch's brews and other wickedness.”

“Hector, I am twelve goddamn years old,” I hissed at the man, very nearly done with his shenanigans.

“Almost thirteen! And that's good enough for me! You're out of excuses not to learn how to have a good time like a real man!” He laughed, and I saw he was drawing closer.

“For fuck's...” I groaned. “You are like the toxic, insufferable, irritating older brother I never had. You know that, right?”

“And you're the little know-it-all-brat I'd rather have as family than my real brothers,” Hector cheerfully commented. “Now, you can either lock that house down or open up. And if you don't open up, I'm taking the quarterly earnings I brought with me to the gambling house instead of dropping them off with you.”

We both knew he was bluffing, but...

He'd brought me money. And, more than that, he'd brought it early.

“Some days I wonder if I really should try Catholicism, because my forgiveness is clearly for sale,” I sighed. “Give me five minutes to wrap things up and I'll be out.”

“I'll be waiting with bells on,” Hector laughed.

I had to wonder if the man had already had a little social lubricant before heading this way.

Sighing and shaking my head, I put away the few things I still had out, reaching for the vial of oil to stash it with the rest of my third-tier creations. It wasn't anything particularly impressive, really, just a magical oil that you could dab under your eyes and would let you see magical effects, with the secondary benefit being that it somewhat increased night vision. Mostly I'd created it out of a combination of curiosity and desire to test myself against something new and outside the magic systems I was studying.

“Eh, I guess I'll field-test it,” I shrugged, uncapping the vial again and plugging the top with my finger before turning it upside down and back upright again. That left enough on my digit to coat my bottom eyelid with a thin residue.

The other reason I'd picked this particular potion to create was that it was startlingly simple. Mostly it just needed magic to properly catalyze. Nothing in the ingredients list was volatile, toxic, poisonous, caustic, or anything more exotic. Nearly everything was easy to acquire in this day and age and I could practice making it a dozen times before the Professor noticed any dip in his stocks.

I'd also been able to cross-reference the recipe from three different magic-users who all gave it a good review as a beginner's exercise.

The safe thing to do would be to engage in a round of animal testing using a few rats, turn one into a familiar, test that one too, and then test it on a human tissue sample or three.

But I was pretty damn sure that it would work as-advertised at this point.

I opened the door, aiming for my shoes next to the bench I'd grown to test out a few horticultural biomancy spells and stopped halfway.

“Boy.”

The Professor had just come out of the main laboratory.

“Sir.”

He scowled, looking me over. “Your work is done.”

It wasn't a question, but I nodded anyway. “I believe we have both been betrayed by our compatriots, Master. They seek to force us to engage in their respective frivolities.”

If anything, van Beek scowled harder and spit off to the side. Internally, I was readying a cantrip to clean that up. It was a nasty habit, but in my experience old people seldom gave a fuck. “Damn that Simons, wasting my time like this.”

Nevertheless, the old man turned to – no doubt – storm out the door in an angry huff of distemper.

Then he paused, turning to me. “Don't let that horse's ass you insist on maintaining acquaintance with drag you into anything, Apprentice. God knows I had enough idiots trying to do so to me when I was your age.”

Then, before I could recover from my mild surprise, he'd turned and stalked off, barking insults to Hector on the way out that I could easily hear.

After a moment of silence, the man himself slipped through the door and grinned at me, holding up what looked to be a bag of grain. “Henry, my good man, you absolutely must charm this thing better. It's actually quite heavy.”

I just groaned and rolled my eyes.

…

“So the rest of the money went towards Staten Island?”

“Yes, yes... though I have no idea why you want the damn thing, I'm buying up as much of it as I can, like you asked. Honestly, most of the people have been happy to sell, given the hospital on the island and the bad press around it,” Hector waved me off as we walked.

“Excellent,” I nodded, relieved that things were going so well.

“Ready to tell me why you want it?” Hector asked bluntly, raising an eyebrow.

“It's a good investment, especially without people. If I can manage to acquire all of the land that makes up the island, I can essentially turn it into a private resort for... well, projects that are very far off,” I replied.

“Henry,” Hector sighed, looking at me with his dark-eyed gaze. “I've known you for almost five years. That means I know bullshit when I hear it. What's the real reason?”

I released an aggravated sigh. “There's a major dragon vein on the island that's unclaimed and I'd like to acquire everything legally so that I can build on it and not have to worry about anyone getting irritated when I do weird magic stuff, okay?”

“Now was that so hard?” Hector grinned, then shrugged when I gave him a mild glare. “Well, anyway, you'll have the money for it. Like I said, The Quarantine's got everyone on the island irritated and half-ready to sell already. What's your plan about that, anyway? I doubt you'll be able to convince the city to move it.”

“I'll offer to take it over and run it myself as a private institution once I'm of-age or I'll sell them on building a more modern and secure facility on a smaller island with less possibility that a patient could escape and spread disease,” I stated firmly.

The latter of which was what had happened in my time, after all. The Quarantine War was a little-known aspect of New York's history, where a civil insurrection burned down pretty much the entire hospital complex, reduced its outer walls to rubble, and then set fire to the piers as well.

There was, in other words, a tad bit of resentment towards the city's government for placing the single largest quarantine facility in the entire young nation right next to their homes and businesses.

Yellow Fever, in this day and age, was no joke.

It was terrifying.

But that particular crisis likely wouldn't happen given the people closest to the facility were the ones who had sold their land the fastest, for the most part. Still, no one on the island liked the idea of living next to a ticking time bomb of one of the most dangerous diseases of the era.

But that was just the first plan. “Have the articles been helping?”

“They definitely haven't been hurting,” Hector stated. “I didn't have any idea that the place was a hotbed of Loyalist sentiment during the Revolution, but apparently a lot of the old-timers still remember it. Bringing up those memories has really painted the people complaining about The Quarantine in a bad light, too, so it's cut down on sympathy and no one wants to move there.”

“Which means less competition for the land,” I hummed. “We're still setting fair prices, right? I can afford it with all the ice we've been shipping.”

“Fair and honest,” Hector stated, holding up both hands in a surrendering expression. “It's helped turn a few people around on taking the offers, knowing that we aren't trying to twist the knife and take their land from them, so I won't complain. The big headache's been making all of the fake companies... ah, you called them 'shells' or something? Anyway, the paperwork is a real mess.”

“The upside is that the messier it is, the less likely anyone else will be able to see what we're doing,” I stated, satisfied enough to switch topics. “So, given that you dumped that big sack of gold on me, I'm guessing business has been good.”

“The slave-holding shits have been paying through the nose for reliable shipments of ice and all of our contracts with the sawmills are holding up in court,” Hector reported with a grin. “Even if they're complaining hither and yon about the deals.”

I rolled my eyes. “We offered to haul away a waste product – sawdust – from their operations and pay them for the privilege. It's not our fault they were too quick to sign the contract to see the angle.”

It wasn't as though sawdust didn't have other uses than as insulation material to keep ice cold on long ship transfers, but those uses weren't all that profitable, either. Which meant the sawmills had jumped at the chance to get rid of the stuff at a twenty-five percent markup for the going rate. It was a great deal before they knew we were going to be making money hand over fist with something they often had to throw away.

Now they weren't happy.

Thankfully, the contracts Hector had offered specified substantial periods of time and high penalty fees if they wanted to prematurely break them.

“I'll take the court cases over my family, though,” Hector grumbled, his eyes sweeping over the cold ground around us with a scowl on his lips. “Seems like everyone wants money for something these days. It's one of the reasons I'll be happy to get out of the city for a while.”

I hummed. “Normally, being an orphan, I'd tell you that you should value what you have-”

Hector gave me a raised eyebrow, silently asking who I was and what I'd done with his friend.

“-but that sounds awful. I'd rather never know my parents than have a deadbeat father or some cousin I've never heard of show up one day with a stack of debts.” I paused, frowning. “Do you want actual advice or to handle it yourself?”

My friend clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, walking in silence beside me for a few moments. “Well, I'd say it's none of your business, but I did just call you someone I'd rather have as a brother, so... shoot.”

“Take a bunch of money and set it up separately. Maybe one for each of your relatives that have asked you for money. Tell them that they have to go to the bank to get money, not to you. The account will refill every month with the standard amount and every time they want money, they'll have to explain what it's for and why they need it to the account's overseer.” I explained carefully, making sure he understood where I was going with it.

“What if they come to me asking for money after they've pulled everything out of the account?” Hector asked.

“Refuse to see them,” I shrugged. “Have your security guards escort them from the building if need be. Walk out on family dinners. Make it extraordinarily clear that you will not discuss money with them.”

“That's gonna win me a lot of friends,” Hector chuckled.

“Do you want to make friends or do you want them to stop bothering you about money?” I asked bluntly.

“Fair,” he conceded with a frown. “So that's it? Just give them money? That's your advice?”

“Give them a certain, specific, sustainable amount of money and absolutely no more than that,” I clarified. “You make just as much as I do, I know you can afford it. The problem right now is that they're trying to make a financial relationship dependent on the family relationship they have with you and it's going to sour both; eventually destroy them, probably. The question you have to ask is whether the money you've got is going to be worth more to you than never talking to your family again.”

Hector seemed to chew on that thought for a long time as we neared one of the buildings that had been converted to an inn. He'd very obviously aimed us towards the backroom, which I'd heard a few times to play host to a game of cards or dice.

“And if they decide that's not enough?” Hector finally asked. “If they say they're in debt and need more?”

“Have the man overseeing the accounts pull the records and demand that they produce their own finances,” I replied. “Then hold a family meeting to go over where all of the money is going.”

“Ouch,” Hector chuckled darkly. “You really know how to make people hurt, little brother.”

My cheeks heated and I tried to ignore how the affectionate term made me feel. “If you don't draw a line, tell them plainly: this far and no further, then they'll keep taking as much as they can.”

“I'll think about it while I'm down in Virginia,” Hector sighed. “At least my mother's not pushing things too hard. All she wants me to do is find a wife and start giving her grandchildren to spoil. She wants to meet you, too.”

I blinked, looking at him askance.

He shook his head, already knowing where I was going. “Not as the genius behind the ice plan or the steel smelters or anything. None of them know about that or they'd probably be demanding I cut you out of things and let them help run the businesses instead.”

He made a disgusted face and I grinned slightly. “So why's she want to meet me, then?”

“We're friends,” He shrugged, and I felt my cheeks heat again, more intensely. “I talk about you, not the calls themselves, but I say they're letters. She knows I like your advice, how smart I know you are and whatnot.”

“I'll, uh... we'll talk about it if I end up in New York sometime,” I muttered awkwardly.

“Well, let's talk about it later, then,” Hector shrugged, and finally opened the rear door to the inn.

“Hey, it's the birthday boy!” A group of raucous students called out, mugs already full of liquid that smelled of piss and tasted worse.

I groaned and glared half-heartedly at Hector.

He deserved it.

…

The party was...

It was a thing, I guess.

I'd sung, casually, for the first time in a long while. Even if I volunteered at the choir to keep my voice up, fill time, and throw off any potential suspicion... it was all church hymns.

Not exactly my type of music.

So my heart wasn't in it.

I inhaled deeply, raising my pitch, “Aaaah'm a man – of constant sorrow! I've seen trouble – all my days!”

The crowd around the table cheered.

“Aaah bid farewell to old Kentucky, the place where I was born and raised!”

There were some songs that needed changing and some songs that could be eternally relatable.

“Get the fiddle out and keep up if ya' can,” I grinned at Joseph Marks, who was laughing with everyone else.

“Hey, I always like a challenge,” Joe smirked, picking up the instrument. Being able to make music was the one sure-fired way to get invited to pretty much any party, backroom or otherwise. And, as always, the musician drinks free.

Some things really never changed.

“What's the tune?” He asked, fitting the rest on his cheek.

“Fast,” I smirked, going on to describe exactly what I wanted before taking a large swig of near-beer. It was still awful, but I'd cut it with fruit juice and that let it go down without too much protest. I'd also gotten shit about it from the other ten guys there, but whatever. It was either that or puke.

I'm actually starting to feel it... I'll need to cut back soon.

Nodding my head to the tune that Joe was picking up, I mentally shrugged. It wasn't perfect, but jamming at a party didn't need to be.

I cleared my throat.

“Devil went down to Georgia – He was lookin' for a soul to steal – He wasin a bine 'cause he was way behind – and he was willin' to make a deal!”

I sang a few more tunes before calling it quits with the music, much to the dismay of many of the boys. Amusements were still pretty rare and having someone who could sing like me... eh, even if it was supposed to be my party, I'd had fun.

Oak and Ash and Thorn in particular went over very well, I thought.

Maybe one day I'd end up as the first real rock star the world had ever seen.

No, wait... that was Mozart, wasn't it? Eh, he was European. It was an American tradition to ignore their achievements anyway.

“See, I told you that you'd have fun!” Hector stated, jostling me playfully.

I rolled my eyes and ignored him as I sat down, having nearly sweat through my clothes with the exertion of singing and performing.

“We should get you to sing one of those for the pastor on Sunday,” Will Grimsby snarked with a grin.

“You know they've still got lashings on the books, right?” Nicholas Day spoke up, pulling out a deck of cards. “It's why we're not on campus right now.”

It was a wise precaution, though it probably wouldn't stop any of the truly strict professors or staff from lambasting them verbally. Still, it would likely get them out of real punishment unless they made a public scene or cost someone money by damaging their property. Still, as long as no one complained, most of Dartmouth would simply roll their eyes at a bunch of students showing up for a class or event looking red-eyed and bedraggled.

“Okay, folks! Name of the game is Loo! In the name of appeasing the birthday boy, the pot is pennies only-” Nicholas continued, though groaning cut him off for a moment. “Hands are five cards, spades are trumps, and we're playing with a dummy hand for exchanges. Any questions?

At the few events like this I'd gone to – all of which were Hector's fault one way or another – I'd eventually picked up the game. Originally, I'd raised the possibility of poker, but the only guy who knew that card game even existed was from New Orleans. He'd been surprised I'd even heard of it...

Another little slip.

Thankfully, they were coming up less and less.

“You know, if you'd told me a few years ago that Burr might be president, I'd have laughed my ass off,” Tommy muttered, fanning his cards and squinting at them.

“What brought this on?” Joe asked, frowning at his own hand.

“Just thinking. We were talking about the election in class today,” Tommy replied, waving a hand. “Had to take a stance and defend it and all that muck.”

In my history, Madison had won the 1812 election pretty easily. It wasn't a complete landslide, but the Federalists had been collapsing for a long time. Here, though? Burr was a twice-over war hero who'd managed to survive coming down with Malaria. It all made a great story and the press of the day was eating it up. A wrongfully-accused hero of the revolution with bad boy appeal for fighting a duel with another famous politician whose trial had exposed a real traitor and sparked a war to defend the honor of the United States of America...

Personally, I just thought Burr had managed to steal Jackson's plot armor.

It was all very silly to me, but most popular narratives about elections and politicians were anyway.

“Who'd you pick?” Hector asked curiously, taking the trick for the turn with a clever play.

“Burr,” Tommy replied bluntly. “Even if I think he's dirtier than his trial found, he didn't let the damn slavers take Cuba for themselves, so he's earned my vote.”

“But he let them take Florida, the bastard,” James Kelly called out from where he and a man who's name I didn't know were sitting the game out and – formerly – speaking on their own. “That and the mess he made of the Jay Treaty make it obvious where his loyalty lies!”

I mentally rolled my eyes as the discussion spiraled into an argument.

Then – of course – Hector opened his mouth. “What do you think, Henry? You were right about Cuba going free all those years ago when the war started. You seem to know Burr pretty well.”

This time I rolled my physical eyes and sighed. “Burr doesn't have loyalties. He doesn't have friends, not really. His relationships – public ones, at least – are rooted in expedience. He obviously wanted to make a run for the presidency after coming off Wilkies' War-”

God, that name still made me cringe. 'Wilkinson's War.'

Really?

...well, I guess it was better than the War of 1812.

“-so he knew he'd need southern votes. In politics especially, the perfect is the enemy of the good enough. Trying to keep Florida a free territory – state, now – was never going to happen without a significant natural boundary. That's the only reason why Cuba got away with it.”

Well, that and the large population of heavily armed former slaves that Burr 'accidentally' allowed to walk off with a few artillery pieces and a whole store of ammunition.

“And what about the Jay Treaty?” Tommy asked, speaking up. “That one stumped me in class. Why'd he get compensation for the slaves the British freed during the American Revolution?”

“Well, first off, even if everyone's calling it the Burr Treaty, the bulk of the work was done by Jefferson and his Secretary of State,” which was another rather jarring change from my time.

Thomas Small Government Jefferson had run for a third term to 'finish the war Spain had started.'

And he'd won.

Part of me wondered if he'd been trying to make sure Burr died during the war given how personally he'd taken everything. That was probably hyperbole, though. Still, the historians of tomorrow were going to have so much fun with this little contradiction in Jefferson's character.

As a result, though, we were entering an election year with no incumbent candidate where there should have been one.

So Madison versus Burr could go either way.

“But Burr greased the wheels,” Tommy pointed out. “He opened up a backchannel with that general he met, Packing-whatever, and got that and the impressment issue settled.”

“According to Burr himself, yes,” I nodded, not bothering to hide my skepticism. The only man who could really refute him was Jefferson himself and that wasn't going to happen. His third term had been kind of a mess and I don't think he was leaving his plantation anytime soon to dip his toe in. In a different time in history, I'd just say he was done with this shit. “But even if you believe that, it's one thing to have a handshake agreement and another to be the one to write out everything, present it to diplomats and heads of state, and actually get it signed.”

Tommy made a little bit of a face at that, but I continued.

“But Burr's taking responsibility for it because he knows he needs southern votes, like I said. If he's going to win the election over Madison, he'll need to be able to have concrete proof that his personal feelings won't interfere in his ability to steer the nation. Even if he was willing to give Cuba a push towards freedom with a large population of free – armed – blacks, he's still made a lot of friends by settling the issue of compensation for American slaveholders in their favor.”

The game went on, politics making the rounds as tricks were picked up and, eventually, I lost pretty firmly.

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen, and you know who each one of those is,” Hector called out, to much laughter. “The hour draws near where we must depart, but before we leave... a toast!”

William perked up and reached down to pull up a full bottle of wine. “Our contribution to the party. End things on a high note, why not?”

“And a gift!” Hector continued, looking at Kelly with a hand out.

The other brown-haired young man rolled his eyes. “You're lucky you're paying for all this or I'd give you a gift all right.”

So said, a thick document case was handed over to Hector, who handed it over to me as I eyed it with a bit of trepidation. Hector smirked, “See, I've still got a few contacts at the school as a wealthy alumni and a little bird told me that James' grandfather just passed-”

“God rest his soul,” Hector interrupted himself, turning with a respectful nod to James.

“Thanks,” James nodded back, his scowl lessening.

“-but, there were a few things that James' father was looking to get rid of in the wake of his father's passing,” Hector explained, tapping the case in my hands. “Specifically, a certain copy of a certain document I know you hold in high esteem.”

I blinked and stared at the man in incomprehension for a long moment before it clicked.

I tore the lid off the case and carefully pulled the parchment paper out, unfurling it just slightly.

My eyes widened and my breath caught in my throat.

It wasn't all that legible, really, the ink having faded slightly over the course of forty years and the messy scrawl being a far cry from the neat text of a type-set print.

But I'd had a lot of practice interpreting worse penmanship.

“In Congress, July 4, 1776. The Unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America.” I paused, skipping to the first full paragraph. “When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

My eyes slowly widened even further, almost bulging as I saw the bits and pieces of scribbling on the document. I knew the start of the text almost by heart, but... there were parts missing. Small ink stains crossing out some areas and drawing blocks of text in.

“My grandfather worked for John Dunlap when he printed off the broadside copies,” James stated, startling me out of my fugue. “That isn't one of those, sorry about that. It's just one of the copies they had to transcribe the broadside from, so it's kind of a mess. Honestly, it has so many marks on it that we might have just thrown it away if Hector hadn't contacted us.”

I kept my grip on the parchment slack and gentle, even though I wanted nothing more than to toss it aside so that I could leap over the table and start strangling the teen.

You were going to throw this away?!

I took a calming breath and nodded, smiling at Hector and James. “Thanks, both of you. It's amazing.”

Hector breathed out a sigh of relief. “Great. I was worried. James was the only one willing to sell that I could find on short notice. Maybe next year I'll get you a proper Dunlap Broadside instead of that mess. Consider it an IOU.”

I twitched, noting the singular signature at the bottom, and carefully rolled it back up into the document case.

The toast to my health, and a second one to the departed Andrew Jackson, defender of the Spanish attempt on New Orleans, passed in a haze as the party ran down. Eventually, Hector and I were walking back, only a bit unsteadily, towards the Professor's house.

“So, yeah... sorry. I was in talks with this guy with a Broadside, but he took ill and we weren't able to make the sale. Hearing about James' grandfather was just a lucky stroke,” Hector laughed.

“This is worth at least a hundred times whatever you paid for it,” I stated bluntly, holding the case tightly to my chest.

Hector blinked, raising an eyebrow as he swayed slightly. “Oh? How'd you figure? I looked it over, you can barely read it.”

“That's because it was hand-written, you nincompoop!” I nearly growled, turning to look at him with a glint in my eye. “Tell me, Hector, who would be hand-writing an incomplete copy of the Declaration of Independence? Who?”

Hector blinked, stared at me, his eyes slowly drifting down to the document case in my hands.

“Aah,” he muttered, looking a bit stunned.

“The author of the Declaration itself!” I whispered venomously, my eyes still a bit wild. “Thomas fucking Jefferson! This isn't messy slop! This is one of the original goddamn drafts, you nitwit!”

“Aah,” Hector repeated, opening and closing his mouth a few times.

I took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Thank you for the excellent gift, Hector. You are my best friend and someone I would be honored to call a brother, but please for the love of the almighty himself, learn to use your common sense.”

“I'll... see about that,” Hector nodded slowly, distantly.

We stared at each other, then slowly, painstakingly, began to laugh with just a tinge of drunken awkwardness. Hector grinned and opened his mouth to say something...

Which was when the sound of rapid footsteps caught our attention.

Both of us blinked, slow to react, and turned to where the evening sun was already setting.

A young girl with dark skin and green hair was running down a woodland path towards us, three men chasing her.

~~~

...and just under the deadline! This took another day than expected, but it's also over 6k because a scene ran long, so there's that.

Here we go with another chapter of Henry Bell's adventures, starting with that most difficult of opponents! A social engagement!

Also, Hector being Hector. That's a thing, too.

Get ready for a little inside scoop on how Henry's been changing things and a few notes on how the war turned out in the background.

Thank you for your support and patience, votes for July will be up and running in a few hours!

Mind Games - Chapter 30 (NSFW)

“We need to talk,” I said around the food in my mouth, swallowing before continuing. “About that, I suppose.”

I'm the guy, why am I saying that so much?

Himiko's face blanked. “I said something wrong, didn't I?”

I shook my head, making no effort to comfort her. She didn't really understand the idea of 'comforting someone,' I'd come to realize. It was something I'd have to work on. She understood affection, at least, but the idea that 'feeling better' after you'd made a mistake mattered was still an alien concept.

“You didn't,” I replied with a swig of my drink. “You brought an issue we need to discuss to my attention. I would like to discuss it to resolve any confusion or disagreement that we might have on the subject.”

I paused for a moment, cocking my head and raising an eyebrow in a show of curiosity, giving her something to read.

“Or would you rather put off the discussion for another time?”

Himiko frowned slightly, scooping up another share of red meat, cheese, and pasta. Truly the pinnacle of American cuisine. “Do you not want to have sex?”

Understanding that bypassing the answer to my question was an answer in and of itself, I nodded. “I wouldn't mind it. Do you want to have sex or do you feel obligated to have sex with me because we're married?”

Himiko blinked, narrowing her gaze. “It doesn't matter.”

“It matters to me,” I replied.

There was a moment of tension between us as we stared each other down.

Then, finally, Himiko's patience snapped.

She brought her hands down flat on the table, partially rose out of her seat, and spread her lips in a near-snarl. “Why?! Why do you keep asking what I want?! I'm your wife! You're my husband! Tell me what to do and I'll do it!”

I was unmoved by her little outburst, the psychic thread connecting us bypassing the defenses she'd received from her binding and giving me an ultimate trump card if she decided to get into a snit. Instead, I smiled, leaning back as her breathing slowly evened out, her body still hunched over the table slightly as if ready to pounce.

No.

Ready to pounce.

“Do you want to fight me?” I asked instead, my voice speculative as I readied myself.

“No!” She shouted. “I want to do the right thing! Tell me the right thing to do!”

“I refuse,” I smirked, giving her one more prod with cues to let her read my amusement. “What do you want-”

She leapt, a feral cry on her lips.

I kicked off slightly and let the chair I was sitting in tumble backwards, Himiko flying over me in a long arc as I did so.

I rolled backwards with the momentum, chuckling openly as Himiko turned on a dime and struck out with her foot in a kick she'd learned just a few days ago from a hero. It wasn't quite right. She hadn't adjusted for her own size and weight yet. I blocked it as Himiko snarled again, lunging with her fingers curled into claws, wanting to rake and hurt.

Wanting.

There it was.

My forearms rose up and smacked her strikes away before I moved in and pulled her into a throw.

But instead of letting go while she was at the apex, I pushed off the floor with all my might.

We fell right onto the couch, the impact hard but both of us were durable enough to take it and the couch was Company-made. It would need more abuse than that to break. Still, the impact jarred her for a second, not having been ready for it.

But I had been.

In fact, I'd positioned her on top of me just for the occasion.

Her eyes dilated, her blood still running hot, a snarl still on her lips...

I kissed her.

It was a hard and messy thing, an expression of raw desire and need more than anything else. I didn't have the advantages I could have bought, but I had more than five millennia of work as an escort and prostitute guiding my lips, fingers, and lust.

The blond girl on top of me didn't freeze.

She pushed back instinctively, pressing her hips against my own and slamming her fingers into the cushions on either side of my head as one of my hands gripped her waist and the other roughly massaged a breast.

Then I slipped my tongue into her mouth and slid it over a canine.

That reaction was also instantaneous, Himiko jerking so hard I'd almost mistaken the motion for a seizure as her hips bucked against me and a low, throaty moan vibrated into our kiss. Letting my head flop back, I gave her a self-assured grin as I massaged her sides. Still positioned above me on shaking arms, her dilated gaze was wide, her face flushed as if she'd had a fever, and her breath coming in heavy panting gasps.

Slowly, she started to come back to herself as she lowered herself onto my chest, small whines erupting from her quivering form.

“Meanie,” she muttered, her eyes flicking away from my satisfied gaze as she curled up against me like a cat, her head over my heart. “Un-cute jerkface idiot meanie.”

Ah, I've had a Japanese schoolgirl call me 'baka.' I feel seen.

“We wouldn't have this problem if you would let that side of yourself come out to play more often,” I stated softly, my amusement fading as I shifted one arm to hold her close to me and the other to slide my fingers through her hair. The cold analytical part of me saw this vulnerable moment as the perfect start to recondition her into accepting human touch.

Most of me just wanted to make her pain go away.

“You'll get scared eventually,” Himiko muttered, quaking against me. “They all do, when they see enough of me.”

“The difference between those people and me,” I replied carefully, “is that I can be a lot scarier than even you, my cute little vampire. If they're scared of you, they'd be terrified of me.”

Himiko's breath caught, a trace of a giggle escaping before she clamped down on it. “You really won't make me leave?”

“No,” I replied firmly, my hand trailing down to the band at her neck. “This means you belong to me. That's the end of that discussion.”

It said something about the girl in my arms that those words cause her to relax more than my other attempts to soothe her.

“Not even if I hurt you?” Himiko pressed, gold eyes glittering up at me in narrow slits, a trace of her previous aggression echoing through them. “When I... get like that... I've hurt you. Before, and now.”

“If you'd attacked me of your own initiative, I might blame you depending on the circumstances, but I made a choice to provoke a reaction out of you,” was my clear response, staring back into her eyes, “while knowing full well that you have a hard time controlling that side of yourself so far. The consequences of my actions are my own.”

“You keep doing that, being mean,” Himiko pouted, “why?”

A question she already knew the answer to, but wanted to hear me say it.

“Because you're honest when you're like that,” I answered her, tilting forward to kiss her on the forehead and making her whine with need. “And because I think that side of yours is beautiful.”

Her arms, limp by my head until now, curled around the back of my neck and pulled herself tighter to me. “What will happen to me if I do hurt you and it's my fault?”

“Hmm... in all likelihood, I'll tie you up in a compromising position and play with your body until you beg me to stop,” I replied candidly. “Likely in conjunction with using my quirk to render you harmless and unable to resist me.”

The last bit of tension in her spine flowed out of it, leaving her limp and relaxed in my arms.

“Good,” she nodded against my chest. “I'd have been angry if you lied or didn't have a plan to punish me.”

I blinked, then snorted.

She'd been listening to my heartbeat to determine whether or not I was telling the truth.

“This side of you is unbelievably cute,” I told her in no uncertain terms, her eyes widening as her face broke out in a severe flush.

“Meanie! Jerk! Uncute jerk!” Himiko whined, squirming in my grip as she flustered, pulling her arms down so that she could beat futilely at my chest.

I just laughed, letting her have her little fit.

Eventually, she calmed down and we went back to cuddling quietly. We both knew that the time for us to return to our respective houses was coming near, but wanted to enjoy the closeness while it lasted. Very likely, this was the first mutually-enjoyable human contact the girl had had in... at least a decade.

“That was an orgasm, wasn't it?” Himiko asked eventually.

I hummed, my chin lightly tapping the top of her head as I nodded. “I don't experience what you do, but especially intense orgasms are usually accompanied by the tensing of unrelated muscle groups, a burst of sensation, and involuntary noises. So, likely, yes.”

“Orgasms feel good,” Himiko replied, licking her lips. “That's... that's sex, right? Making each other have those?”

“It's one component of the act, yes,” I nodded again.

“Then... I want to make you have one.” Himiko paused, sitting up slightly so she could more easily look me in the eye. “Give you one? That. I want to do that.”

“You want to,” I stressed pointedly.

Himiko's mouth opened, then closed, and she nodded slowly before sounding out the words as though they were a foreign language to her. “I want to make you happy. An orgasm would feel good and do that, wouldn't it?”

I huffed a laugh and nodded. “It would.”

“Then I want to do it,” Himiko replied, her expression serious and firm.

I folded my hands behind my head and made a considering noise deep in my throat. “Okay. Do you want to use your hands, your mouth, or your breasts?”

Himiko frowned, nibbling on her bottom lip. “Which one do you want?”

I opened my mouth, but Himiko hesitantly – haltingly – held up a hand and placed it on my chest. “Y-you said that we both do things the other wants. That we don't always get our way. So I want you to choose. Because this is for you. That's what I want.”

I closed my mouth and considered that for a moment, then nodded slowly.

Himiko took a shuddering breath and relaxed again, waiting for my answer.

“I'd like you to use your mouth,” I told her, her eyes lighting up as she backed down to give me room to sit up. “Do you know how to give oral sex or would you like me to tell you what to do?”

“Tell me what to do,” came the immediate reply, then she paused before adding, “Dear.”

I sat up, flexed a bit, and pointed to the space between my legs on the ground in front of the couch. “Take off your sweater and blouse, then get down on your knees in front of me.”

My blonde girlfriend-wife nodded, hurrying to obey as she removed the specified clothing and folded it neatly on one of the couch's armrests. She paused. “Dear, should I remove my bra, too?”

I looked her over, the swell of her handful-sized breasts buoyed by a pale pink bra. If she hadn't been okay with it, she wouldn't have asked. That was who Toga Himiko was. Even still, I hesitated a moment, then nodded. “Yes, I'd like that.”

Himiko smiled back, reached behind her, and unclasped her bra before removing it in an equally deft motion and putting it atop the small pile of clothes. She paused thoughtfully, turning to me. “Do you mind... can I ask why people like breasts so much? Mostly it's just guys, but Ami-chan likes girls, so...”

I snorted, enjoying the view of her chest, which was probably why she was asking. Given I wasn't hiding my appreciation of her breasts and she was looking down to analyze them given my stare. “It's because female-presenting breasts are associated with maternity and child-rearing, which is attached to the concept of childbirth and, therefore, procreation.”

Himiko blinked, nodding as she tapped her chin cutely. “That makes a lot of sense. Larger breasts would hold more milk for babies then, so that's why a lot of guys enjoy larger breasts in those magazines they shouldn't bring to school.”

I chuckled and nodded. “Pretty much. Though, I just prefer them to be proportional to the woman's build, not specifically larger or smaller. Breasts that are... comically large – for lack of a better term – are actually unattractive for me.”

“Are my breasts proportional?” Himiko asked, frowning and allowing her eyes to search the room... likely for a reflective surface. “I know they're on the small side... Arupaka-chan has big ones that she tries to hide so the guys give her less trouble during PE.”

“They may be on the small side, yes, but you're actually fairly petite,” I told her. “It makes you look lithe and athletic... you could probably pull off a sporty tomboy look if you wanted. But, yes, you have a body type that I'm very attracted to. Don't worry about that.”

Himiko giggled, bounced slightly-

Which was very distracting.

-and maneuvered herself to kneel in front of me.

Growing slightly uncomfortable due to... well, growing... I raised my hips off the sofa and unfastening my belt before unceremoniously pulling my pants down. Immediately, Himiko's eyes locked onto my dick with a focused, analytical intensity. Her cheeks reddened slightly, but I couldn't detect any actual embarrassment.

“It's my first time seeing a penis, in real life at least,” Himiko commented, reaching out to tentatively brush her fingers against it, her eyes flicking upwards to check for permission. “The girls sometimes brought naughty stuff to sleepovers, I didn't pay close attention to it, though. Mother and Father don't like that sort of thing.”

I made a noise of understanding as she slowly explored my shaft, the flesh growing heated and harder under her fingers. “You're doing fine. Don't be afraid to take a firmer grip – yeah, like that. Ahh...”

“Hmm... should I put it in my mouth now?” Himiko asked, watching as it hardened.

“Do you have a gag reflex?” I asked instead of answering her directly.

She blinked, looked up, then back down. Her mouth shifted to a quiet 'oh' of realization. “Ah... there was a party game the girls played. It was... you took a banana and tried to put it all the way down without choking. I never understood why that was so funny, especially since Ami was so good at it.”

I snorted and Himiko's teeth flashed in a smile of honest amusement, the mask having fallen away. “And you?”

“I was the best!” Himiko grinned again, moving forward with her mouth open.

I put a finger on her forehead to stop her, the head of my dick at her lips. Her eyes flicked upwards. “Absolutely no teeth, especially your sharp ones. I don't mind if you nibble elsewhere, but not there.”

She dipped her head in quick acknowledgment and I removed my finger.

Her jaw opened wide, and she moved in to cover my dick with her mouth.

I sighed as the feeling of warm, wet pressure came over me. “That's good. Move your head back and forth along the length. Suck lightly while you're doing it.”

Himiko hummed an agreement and I groaned in response to that sensation as well.

The low noise from my throat made her pause for a brief second before she sucked lightly and continued the motion forwards and backwards. Then she hummed. Intentionally. I grunted, my fingers lacing through her hair.

“Good girl,” I muttered, staring down at her eyes. “Very good girl.”

Happiness and accomplishment almost literally radiated off her.

Himiko moved deeper, testing both herself and me as she took more into her mouth and began to push my member past the back of her mouth. A few telegraphed – but not faked – noises of appreciation and pleasure let her know she was on the right track. A few moments later, she pushed down the last few inches and buried her nose in my crotch.

I could have fought it, but positively-reinforcing that effort and initiative was more important.

Plus, we didn't have much time left.

I erupted, Himiko's eyes widening as she felt the heat and muscle pulse in her mouth and began to move off, uncertain of what was happening.

The first few shots caught her in the mouth, the next few on her face, and a handful of trailing ones splattered on her upper chest.

“Ahh...” Himiko began, smacking her tongue against the roof of her mouth and swirling my seed around. Then she swallowed and nodded, looking up at me, her golden eyes shining. “I did good?”

“Excellent, full marks,” I nodded, smiling as I pulled a handkerchief out and-

The blond plucked it from my grasp, gently rubbing it over my dick to remove the saliva. “It's my job to clean things. I'll take care of it.”

She paused. “Thank you for telling me to take off my top. It'd get messy.”

I huffed a quiet laugh, the motions of the handkerchief threatening to get me going again. “You're welcome. I enjoyed the view anyway, so it wasn't entirely for your benefit.”

“I'm glad!” Himiko grinned, her teeth almost fully exposed before she calmed down and gave me a more demure smile. “Mother said... she said if you wanted sex, I should do something like this. She... doesn't want me to have full intercourse with you until we're married, and she'll know if we do. So until I move out, is this okay?”

I nodded slowly. “As long as you decide to do it because you want to, it's fine. I greatly appreciated it and enjoyed myself.”

She stared up at me, her eyes narrowed. “That's what I do. I don't like it when you do it.”

I grunted and allowed my face to relax, rolling my eyes and dropping the blank mask. “Apologies. Your parents... I don't particularly enjoy discussing them. Or their treatment of you. But, as I said, as long as it's you wanting to do it – and not your mother – then I don't dislike it.”

Himiko nodded, relaxing slightly as she finished drying me off and moved to her own-

Her tongue peaked out between her lips and she dragged a finger through the semen on her face before putting it in her mouth.

I twitched, only an exercise of pure will enabling me to pull my underwear and pants back up before things got problematic.

Reading the question on my face, Himiko drew more of my essence into her mouth. “It's not bad. I like... um, b-blood more, but... this is good too.”

I swallowed, my throat a little dry. “I'm glad you enjoy it.”

Himiko smiled, then stiffened. “I left the food out!”

Still topless, still covered in a spray of my semen, Himiko hopped up from her crouch and flipped up onto the gravity-reversed dining area before hurriedly beginning to put away the cooling leftovers. I pressed my lips into a thin line and palmed my face, trying and failing to suppress the laughter shaking my body. Thankfully, I was able to keep it contained, if just barely.

…

“Hmm~mmm~hmm~” Himiko hummed happily as she walked towards the train station with me, her arm wrapped around mine.

“Ah, I almost forgot,” I clicked my tongue in displeasure, disappointed at myself.

I’d gotten distracted. Moreover, I’d gotten distracted with my dick.

Ugh.

“Hmm, what's wrong, Dear?” Himiko asked, pulling her head off my shoulder and looking up at me.

“I'll be purchasing you a gift,” I stated bluntly, her eyes widening in surprise and happiness. My eyes flicked around to the sparse crowd of people absorbed in their phones, often with a single headphone in and only half-aware of the world around them. “I told you about templates?”

Himiko's eyes widened. “You don't have to-”

“I want to,” I stated firmly, cutting her off. “But I'm giving you the choice of which one. I can't purchase anything with magic or exotic abilities for you right now, but I want to enhance your abilities to protect both yourself and me.”

My girlfriend frowned, then nodded, recognizing on some level that she wasn't going to win this fight. “Templates are... they're powers, right? Like quirks?”

I hummed an affirmative.

“But... if you can't buy an actual quirk... what's left?” She asked, her brows furrowing.

“Templates with wide skill sets, like the Barbies,” I told her. “They typically have an excellency – a particular occupation they focus on – but are good at almost everything they attempt. My employers use them as temp staffers when they suffer shortages or to clean up bureaucratic messes.”

Himiko nodded slowly. “Being better at office work would make things easier now that I'm interning with the agency like you.”

“Which is another reason I wanted to give you this now, instead of later,” I informed her. “Or soon, at any rate. To register for UA, you'll need a proper quirk assessment on file-”

Or you'll need All Might to personally vouch for you, but that's a little impractical.

“-and while most of the templates I can access won't give you anything impressive, there are a few available if you look hard enough. And if you choose one of those, you’ll want it on file instead of anomalously developing it later during your academic career.””

“Like what?” She asked, her gold eyes sparkling with interest even if her mouth was pulled into a moue of distaste at the idea of an examination.

“Mainly the 'harder' transhumanist upgrades. They won't usually stand up to a quirk, but they'll put you dramatically above the majority of the population that doesn't have a quirk specializing in some sort of enhancement. Given what your quirk already allows you to do, I'm hoping for a multiplicative effect there,” I explained, my voice still low, but Himiko nodding along with perked ears.

“I could help you fight,” Himiko stated.

I nodded, deciding to obfuscate things a bit. Against normal quirk-users, villains, and the like... I'd already bet on Himiko. There were standout examples of exotic attacks she wouldn't be ready for, though. Being able to literally think faster or see in the ultraviolet spectrum or something along those lines would help mitigate that.

I had thought about suggesting a vampire template, but discarded the notion. She wouldn't have accepted it and there were better transhumanist options out there that wouldn't feature communicable strains of disease. At least, for the most part. I couldn't precisely pick an Alucard template from Hellsing without the very real possibility of Himiko attracting attention from something, but...

There were a few attractive options if I really wanted to force the issue.

Biologically alive vampires without any of the classic weaknesses save for the diet of blood, which she already possessed. Officially classified as 'purely organic' with no real supernatural elements – even if a few of them bent physics – it would be pushing things, but they were strong enhancements.

“The final option I was considering was an advanced technical skill set, if you showed interest in it,” I added. “You've never mentioned a desire for technological fluency, but I could pretty easily acquire a template that would allow you to become a top-notch support hero.”

“I'd make things for you instead of fighting with you, then,” she hummed, considering.

We spoke a little longer on the subject while we waited for the train that would take her home. There were advantages and disadvantages to each option and I'd put a longer and more detailed list of them on the shared files folder on the Apartment's network.

In the end, I put it in Himiko's hands to make the final choice. It was up to her to decide whether she valued a broad – if entirely mundane – boost to her skills, a low-level transhumanist enhancement, or a next generational technological advantage.

I think she knew I was holding something back, though.

Regardless, we hugged and parted at the station.

~~~

Ha! I did it this time!

As promised, here's the next chapter of Mind Games, coming in at just over 4k.

First sex scene of the story, even if it's not full intercourse just yet. Himiko and Hitoshi's relationship is progressing, though, and something interesting is on the horizon. We will be approaching a short month-long time skip soon-ish, which will put us right at the entrance exam, so look forward to that.

Next update will likely be The Hand We're Dealt, as that got voted in this month as well. So look for that chapter over the weekend.

THE STUPENDOUS ADVENTURE OF BUTLER BOY! - Chapter 2

“Eat Shit!”

As I cried out, I pulled back hard on the bar of metal.

“STUPID FUCKING DOOR!”

There was an ominous groan as something began to slide out of place.

“GODAMMIT-OPEN!”

Whatever stray piece of metal this piece of crap had originally been finally gave way and snapped, part of it spinning off to clatter against the wall as the remainder came with me in my hand as I fell over onto the cushioning I'd set up in advance. It was frankly amazing what foresight could accomplish when you weren't literally dying of hypoxia.

“Shit,” I muttered, looking forlornly at what was left of my improvised crowbar, wondering if there was something else I could find...

I blinked.

Stared.

And felt a slow stretch of my lips into a wide grin.

“FUCK YES! You go to hell! You go to hell and you die, you fucking door!” I shouted gleefully, rising to my sore legs and stomping towards the entrance to the vault.

Which was now cattywampus!

The door wasn't open, necessarily, but I'd tilted it on one axis and opened up about a foot of space between it and the housing. The top right corner was now pulled into the interior room just a bit, while the opposite side – the lower left-hand corner – was pushed outward. Notably, this shouldn't have been possible with a well-designed vault door that had a smaller inset square of material on the inside to lock it in place. The only thing really keeping it in place right now was the heavy deadbolt mechanism that had seized and fucked me over.

But, again, this thing was nearly fifty years old.

“And it's not like I'm going to complain,” I stated, grabbing what was left of my crowbar and place it on the corner I'd pulled free.

Taking a deep breath, I pulled with my aching arms and-

Archimedes might have wanted to move the world, but I'll settle for this fucking door.

-my body weight wasn't anything to write home about, but I had a few muscles here and there and enjoyed a few too many burgers and sodas.

The pull-up I attempted worked its magic as the door slowly twisted more out of alignment.

Ironically, it didn't squeal at all. I'd slathered the damn thing in as much WD40 as I could scrounge up from the old machine shop's crap to make this endeavor easier.

“Fuck,” I hissed, finally dropping back to the ground and breathing heavily.

I looked at the lower left-hand corner and laughed.

And Laughed.

A few minutes must have passed as I lay on the padded concrete gasping with manic humor. A few more minutes probably crawled by as I stared up at the ceiling and the buzzing lights that had been my companions for...

A hand groped for my watch and I held it up.

“It's four fucking AM on Sunday morning,” I muttered. “Shit... I'm probably going to miss church this week.”

Mom would be pissed... well, once she got done freaking out. Mass was serious business for her side of the family. Dad didn't care as much. I was pretty sure he'd only converted to marry the love of his life, which I could respect on some level, at least.

“If I just lay here, I'm going to pass out soon,” I sighed and pushed my weary bones vertical, throwing shit into my backpack as I fought against exhaustion.

Sure, I'd slept six hours after Mixxy had given me a new air supply, but that was on a bundle of old drama costumes that smelled vaguely of mildew. Which, itself, was a thin covering over hard concrete. There was a couch buried under some ancient crap against the far wall, but I honestly didn't trust it not to give me bedbugs, lyme disease, and tetanus all at once. Also maybe rabies from a rat's nest somewhere in its guts. I swore I'd heard squeaking at some point during the night.

“Don't worry buddy, I won't forget you,” I whispered to my Frankenstein-drill, shoving it into the bag right after my pack of electronics equipment.

Last but not least was the baby tooth I'd pulled free... two fucking days ago.

Ugh.

Then I stopped and stared at the hinges I'd cut off.

“Fuck it,” I muttered, grabbing them and dropping them in a smaller compartment with the bloody knife I'd sealed inside the ziplock bag from my sandwich. “They'll make great souvenirs, at least.”

Yes, I had packrat tendencies.

Thank you for noticing, I feel validated.

Then I began crawling for the bottom left corner of the door, dragging my backpack from one foot to slip through the gap I'd created.

Then I was out.

Cheap decade-old linoleum covered the floor, creating a cool and smooth surface for me to lie against as I pulled myself clear of the door by a few feet. Just in case the slab of metal gained sentience and spite and decided to fall over on me to keep me from my victory.

I chuckled at the thought, still finding random bullshit absolutely hilarious.

Groaning, I pushed myself up again, dragging my sorry ass to the basement bathroom. Normally I wouldn't even consider drinking from a school bathroom faucet, but fuck standards. I hadn't had a shower in nearly three days and was coated in an ungodly amount of nastiness. I damn well stuck my head into that sink and slurped up water like a fucking dog until my throat no longer resembled a desert.

Then I sat down on the cool floor and stared off into space for a few moments.

I'd need to get up again, soon, I knew.

At this point it was about pride.

I was going limp my way up those fucking stairs and find a phone and I'd gotten myself out. No one had helped. I'd done it. Me. I could sit my ass down on the bottom step and scream until some janitor eventually heard me in a few hours, but fuck that. This was my win and I wasn't letting anyone else have the glory at this point. If they wanted it, they should have shown up yesterday before I'd accidentally summoned an interdimensional imp while in a state of altered consciousness due to hypoxia.

“Speaking of which...” I muttered, reaching for my backpack and fishing around in the over packed bag until I found it.

The plastic egg.

Cheap plastic, too.

The kind that you knew wouldn't take a single good hit from a hammer.

“I either open this now or I wait until next week,” I sighed, looking it over more closely. This was the last bit of privacy I'd likely enjoy for several days.

I'd almost certainly be confined to the hospital in the next town over for an observation period after this. Then I'd probably be forced to camp out on the sofa in the living room with the doggos for a few days while my parents observed my health.

“Eh, I just overcame a life or death situation,” I shrugged, my shoulders rubbing against the hard ceramic tiles. “This is a high point in my life. If I have to go out like this, it'll at least save me the trouble of cleaning all the shit off and the hospital stay.”

That would suck.

Go through all that trouble just to open the imp's parting gift and die after properly recuperating.

“I've got another hour till the sun's up anyway, so let's see what bullshit I have to deal with now,” I muttered, my nails finding purchase in the thin seam between the two hemispheres of the egg.

It was shitty logic, but admittedly, I still wasn't at my best. I was still tired as shit, hadn't eaten anything of substance in twelve hours, and my brain was dumping the good chemicals as a result of accomplishing my breakout. On the other hand, though, the imp's parting words stuck with me. He'd be back, to fuck with Superman if nothing else.

And he was going to 'check in on me' at that point to see if I was a 'disappointment.'

“I really hope this doesn't turn me into a sentient slime or something,” I grunted and finally felt the two halves give way. Immediately, there was a surge of energy that ran through my body and...

I blinked, looked myself over.

Cocked my head and felt around upstairs for a mental trigger.

“Huh,” I muttered, and finished opening the egg.

Five pieces of paper immediately fell out, falling into my lap, and the plastic egg dissipated into motes of stardust. I stared at my empty hands for a second longer and shook my head. “Alright then, let's see what we've got.”

Three of the pieces of paper were painted silver.

“Tear To Roll,” I read aloud, then flipped it over. “Free Ticket.”

That was all it said.

“...okay, what about you, Mr. Gold Ticket?” I asked, picking it up. “Tear To Roll, and on the back... Life Threatening Achievement Without Powers – Stubborn Bastard.”

I stared down at the clearly inked font, then turned towards the bathroom door I'd propped open to look down the short basement hallway at the dislodged vault door.

I nodded slowly and set the ticket aside for the moment. “I'll take that as a compliment.”

Then I went for the final piece of paper and carefully unfolded it.

“Welcome to the Chaos Gacha!” I read aloud, then paused as I belatedly realized the round 'egg' made of plastic had actually been a gacha capsule. They were little mystery prizes selected from a series of possible items that were usually deployed via coin-operated machine. While they weren't uncommon here in the states, they were almost exclusively for children at various events and arcades. In Japan, where the name 'gacha' came from – originating from the onomatopoeia sound of a capsule being cranked out and falling into the tray at the bottom – they were huge business for kids and adults, men and women.

I focused back on the words in front of me.

“You have been awarded three free silver-level tickets to start your gambling addiction,” I snorted and shrugged. “Tear a ticket to receive one random potential reward from the category of the ticket or, sometimes, of a higher or lower rarity. Rewards can vary between items, skills, abilities, traits, and familiars.”

That was... a lot of variance.

Vaguely, I remembered the trend of the Celestial stuff from my previous life. A collection of all the possible perks from the various jumpchains and CYOAs floating around the internet. Was this like that? I hadn't thought about that in years...

“Potential tiers of tickets by rarity are, in ascending order: bronze, silver, gold, platinum, diamond, legendary, mythical, and divine,” I continued reading, humming as I took that in. My eyes flicked back to the three silver and single gold tickets. “Rewards vary between trash, common, uncommon, rare, elite, epic, legendary, mythical, and divine.”

I frowned. “Looks like someone couldn't think of a synonym for legendary, mythical, and divine. Or, I guess they're supposed to be just completely off the scale of regular shit. Either way, that's neat.”

I looked down at the bottom half of the sheet. “In order to acquire more tickets and, therefore, more rewards, the participant must succeed in accomplishing tasks, goals, or other endeavors of commensurate difficulty to the level of the ticket.”

“In other words, I do shit and get tickets. Use the tickets, get prizes. Get prizes, maybe the interdimensional imp doesn't wink me out of existence,” I summarized.

“Bronze tickets are awarded for mundane tasks or accomplishments of no particular danger or difficulty save their time-consuming or tedious nature. They are only significant to the participant themselves or the individual they are being accomplished for,” I continued to read off. “Examples include cleaning a domicile for yourself, your family, or a friend. Taking a journey of significant time or effort for yourself or another. Attaining a significant academic achievement over the course of normal education.”

Do basic shit, get basic rewards.

“Silver tickets are awarded for mundane tasks or accomplishments of potential – if unlikely – danger, or in which failure has meaningful consequences. Examples include winning a standard contest of strength, skill, intelligence, or luck with substantial personal belongings or wealth wagered, accomplishing a milestone of significant difficulty during an academic or occupational career, or fighting off an opponent who means to do non-lethal but significant damage to you or another.”

I frowned a bit. “They could use better wording. 'Significant' and 'substantial' keep appearing. That's pretty vague, even if I get the gist of it. Though... leaving things open to interpretation is probably for the best. If they're handing this shit out to multiple worlds, things are probably really weird out there.”

I skimmed the rest of it... and the higher-end stuff was pretty terrifying, not going to lie.

Basically, gold tickets were for when you life or the lives of others were on the line. Or at the very least the possibility of permanent maiming or crippling injury. Anything where people stood a reasonable chance of dying – IE: 'Mortal Peril' – was worth at least a gold-tier ticket. That was why I'd gotten one of those for breaking out of the bunker, because my life had been on the line. Which made the 'stubborn bastard' line on the ticket make sense, if by implication only.

The tickets were worded vaguely because they seemed to be partially awarded on the relative danger and risk posed by whatever you were doing. If I'd opened the gacha capsule before I'd gotten out of there and received a reward that ensured my survival until someone found me, then I'd no longer have been in mortal peril. Getting out would have been worth a silver ticket at most.

“But if it was someone else trapped in the bunker or under rubble or something... would that still merit a gold? Or if I had something that made it easier to accomplish, would that downgrade the ticket because it wasn't as difficult for me and the only way the other person would die would be due to my own inaction?” I frowned as I considered the ramifications for growing more powerful.

The tickets sat heavily in my lap as I understood what they represented.

Power.

Mixxy hadn't been lying. Or, at least, he hadn't lied provided this offer was real. I could see the trap, though. This was bitch-basic skinner-box manipulation tactics, just like a real gacha smartphone game. Even if I wouldn't have to deal with those for another decade or more – thankfully – the principle was the same. Getting a 'reward' made a human's primitive brain light up with the good drugs. And just like any high, you'd want to feel that way again.

That was just how the gacha-system worked.

But as you accrued more 'rewards,' it would likely become harder to achieve new levels and get stuff you didn't already have.

And that was without taking into account the potential powers and abilities one would receive from the rewards.

A normal man who's run out of heroin might kill someone to get money to buy more, chasing that high ever-downwards.

What would a super-powered gambling addict who got rewarded for crazy shit do? What would they justify doing?

What would I?

The gacha will consume you.

“Credit where it's deserved, this is one insidious little game I've been entered into,” I stated. “And it's fitting for a chaos imp. As much power as I want, but I have to go out and use it to get more. Steal things, fight villains, kill people, save kittens out of trees... it doesn't really matter as long as I'm playing around with these fun shiny toys and setting the dominoes to toppling whichever way they fall.”

...and the worst part was, even if I didn't want to fight against planet destroying monsters, it would be nice to matter in a way that a regular civilian in this world simply didn't.

To do something.

To accomplish something in a world full of real people that I'd read about and watched on television and loved.

I wasn't even alone in that regard. Superman had only been active for a few years, but nearly every kid in my class back in elementary school had wanted to meet him or grow up to be him. He was the best-selling costume during Halloween for boys, with a WW2-era Wonder Woman that had surged in popularity with the re-emergence of heroes into the world.

I'd gone as Batman, though.

Fite me, bruh.

I worked my jaw, chewing on the heavy thoughts bouncing around in my head as I reached down and rubbed a silver ticket between my fingers, feeling the slick paper and raised ink under the pad of my thumb. I gave one last look at the instruction sheet before carefully folding it back up and sliding it into the pages of Pride and Prejudice before tucking both back into my backpack.

“Alright,” I nodded, my expression firming, “Let's do this.”

A silver ticket between my fingers, I took my last breath as a normal human and ripped the paper roughly in half. The rattling sound of a plastic gacha capsule in a coin-operated crank machine rolled through my head, another opaque plastic egg appearing in my hand shortly after it rattled into the 'tray' at the bottom of whatever cosmic process was impersonating the dispenser.

I didn't feel anything come over me, though.

Feeling out the seam, I forced myself not to hesitate as I cracked the capsule.

Then I felt a flare of... something move through me as the capsule faded into stardust.

I looked down at the remaining piece of paper in my hands.

“We're really doing this?” I asked in mild disbelief. “We're going to keep to the shtick this hard?”

Of course, I didn't get an answer. Exasperated, I unfolded the slip of paper.

350.Stim (2.6 Rarity, 0.37% odds)

-Uncommon Ability-

Flood your body with natural stem cells that will start rebuilding your body, warning, this consumes a lot of stamina and resources from your body. Doing it without any nutrients to rebuild your body won't work and will only harm you instead. You can also inject these cells into other people through the exchange of fluids.

“Jesus Fucking Christ,” I muttered, reaching up to rub my face. “First fucking pull and I can't let anyone I don't trust absolutely know about it. I'd be kidnapped by goddamn Amanda Waller in a heartbeat to serve as an emergency health pack for the President or something. Maybe rent me out to billionaires to fund her retarded schemes.”

I resisted the urge to activate the ability immediately, my finger brushing lightly across the mental switch in my head. My stomach wasn't anywhere near full enough for that kind of strain and the hospital would probably want to do a blood test. Even the best hospital would have one corrupt asshole on staff that would sell me out in a heartbeat.

Thankfully, it seemed this was an all or nothing power.

I stared at the next silver ticket in my hands for a moment before taking another breath.

It tore easily, the sound of a gacha machine rolled in my head, and another ball appeared.

“That's going to get old really fast,” I sighed, pulling the capsule apart and letting it fade away into motes of light again.

My eyes widened.

122. Master Drawing (4.1 Rarity, 0.19% odds)

-Elite Skill-

You are a master at illustration, you can perfectly convey your thoughts or reality through your art. If you put in the effort you can even create moving pieces of art that invoke the emotions you want on the people who witness them.

"I'm not going to be this lucky all the time,” I audibly reminded myself, staring at the blurb. “Uncommon is one thing... but an elite skill on a silver ticket? That's bullshit.”

Master Drawing didn't have the same immediate temptation as Stim, at least. Still, there was an itch for a pencil or pen in my fingers and I couldn't deny the desire to stagger my way to the art room to see what I could really do, now. I wasn't an awful artist before this, just a disinterested and untrained one. I'd chosen to become a writer in my past life, however hobbyist my skill and dedication was. Illustration had always interested me, but it was a messier skill that needed more equipment and preparation.

And I was pretty lazy.

Still... I'd enjoy the prospect of being able to draw and paint to such a level now.

I stared at the last of my 'free' silver tickets. The gateway drug. The first free hit.

Breath. Tear. Gacha Crank. Capsule.

“I should never visit Japan,” I shuddered. “Walking by a gacha parlor is going to make me break out in cold sweats from now on.”

I popped the capsule and pulled the paper out.

And stared.

And stared.

“One day, this shit will stop surprising me,” I stated. “That day will be a very, very strange day indeed, and there will be no going back from it.”

90. Adept Kama Sutra (3.3 Rarity, 0.56% odds)

-Rare Skill-

You are very talented in the carnal art, being able to spot signs of arousal and attraction, in addition, you instinctively know how to pleasure your partner in bed and be a very pleasant recipient, enhancing pleasure for both of you.

“I just hit puberty, motherfucker,” I sighed as I mapped out bits and pieces of the new knowledge in my head.

Which was beginning to pulse with the return of a migraine.

“Ugh, massive skill dumps cause headaches, gotta' remember that,” I stated. “If I pull a huge skill like artist or shit shit, I need to take a break before I pull anything else.”

I rubbed at my forehead and stared at the gold ticket.

It had fallen on the floor, its back facing upwards.

The words 'Stubborn Bastard' printed clearly on it.

“I need to take a break before I pull anything else,” I repeated myself aloud, still staring at the ticket.

A rationalization came unbidden and unappreciated.

I didn't know if these tickets could be used by anyone else.

I drummed my fingers on my thigh and sighed before looking at my watch. Half an hour. Eventually, I shook my head and put the ticket in my pocket. “Gimme at least a few minutes before I open another can of worms.”

I rose up slowly, tired and aching and wanting to just lay down on the cool bathroom floor and sleep. Instead, I washed my hands again, rubbing water on my face and cleaning at least some of the sweat and gunk off it before I hobbled out into the corridor and up the stairs.

One foot after the other.

Slowly and a bit painfully.

First set.

Turn.

Second set.

“Goddamn I am beat the fuck up,” I whispered, the climb having taken it out of me far more than it should.

But I was close, and I was a stubborn bastard.

They were right about that.

Instead of turning towards the main office, which was in one of the newer buildings on campus, I started walking towards the cafeteria. It had two big advantages going for it in this case. The first was that there weren't any locked doors between me and it. I might be inside the school itself, but several of the buildings were connected only by covered walkways. Those walkways began and ended with doors. Those doors would, in turn, be locked on the weekends barring special events.

So unless I wanted to walk out into the courtyard and lock myself out of the building I was currently inside, then be forced to wander down the fucking street and knock at a random person's door...

The office was a no-go.

Thankfully, though, some kid a decade ago had an allergy attack in the cafeteria and, while they hadn't died, the administration had installed a landline phone just outside the interior cafeteria doors for emergencies.

This probably counted as an emergency, I thought.

The second thing the cafeteria had going for it?

Vending machines.

“Thank you, sweet merciful god,” I sighed as I came into sight of the blessed obelisks. “I'm sorry I take your name in vain so much, forgive this poor stupid mortal his failings.”

I dropped my backpack against one and fished out my wallet.

“Goddammit,” I muttered, immediately falling back on my plea for clemency and sinning. “Fuck, I was going to run by the bank on Friday and get more singles after school, that's right.”

I'd burned my last few when the pizza booth had run out of small bills and couldn't break a twenty. I sighed and stared at the machine for a long second, then turned to look at the phone across the hall. If I called out now, someone would probably let me have something to eat before the ambulance carted me off. Or maybe dad or one of his officers would have some change.

I turned back to the vending machine.

“I want you to know that I could smash you open and feast on your delicious innards and no one would say a word against it in the position I'm in right now,” I told it bluntly.

Then I hit and held the service button down.

Five seconds.

The old-school display started blinking.

I hit 1-2-3-4 in that order.

The front of the machine popped open.

I gave a hysterical laugh and swung it the rest of the way. “Holy shit, the internet was right! Thank you, Jesus!”

Ah, the intemperance of the human soul.

Sadly, that code didn't work on the drink machine.

Happily, four zeroes did and I was able to collect bottled water, juice, and a single soda. After what I'd been through, I deserved a reward. I wasn't stupid enough to think my body didn't need something other than caffeine and sugar, but the burst of energy would help me get through the next mess that was coming.

Which was the other reason I'd been putting off using the phone.

“Keep the change,” I commented as I pulled my wallet out again and shoved a ten dollar bill in each machine before shutting them again.

My arms full of assorted snacks and drinks, I staggered over to the opposite wall.

“This is going to be a clusterfuck,” I sighed and picked up the receiver.

9-1-1

“Nine-one-one, who may I ask is calling and what is the nature of your emergency?”

“Hey Janine,” I sighed into the receiver, “It's Arden Villin.”

I barely got the phone away from my ear before her response came through at the highest volume the woman was capable of.

“ARDEN!? Where are you?! I'll have the entire station there in a minute!”

“Kevin Baxter and his idiot cousin John decided to throw me in the old fallout bunker under the school for the weekend because I wouldn't help them cheat on their homework,” pulling the receiver back to my ear, I sighed again at the absurdity of my claim. “It took me two days to cut through the hinges on the door to get out. Would you call my parents and tell them I'm not injured, there's no rush, and I'm sitting outside the cafeteria at the school?”

“I-ah, yeah sweetie. You're okay, really? Your dad's been awfully worried. Half the town has been out looking for you!”

I swallowed dryly, the words touching me more than I'd thought they would.

“I'm tired, sore, smell like some unholy combination of a mildewed closet and an outhouse, and would very much like to go home and sleep for a week.” I confessed. “But I know the drill and you're going to have to call an ambulance and a firetruck and I'm going to hospital in Shiloh across the bridge and the sirens are just going to make my building migraine worse.”

Janine gave a weak laugh. “You do know the drill, baby. You wanna' stay on the line while they're on their way?”

“I was thinking I'd go sit outside the cafeteria and eat a granola bar and drink apple juice from the vending machines while the sun rises, actually,” I admitted. “I think I've earned that.”

There was something like a laugh-sob on the other end of the line.

“You do that, Ardie. You do that. I'll have them there in a few minutes.”

“Thanks Janine, you're the best,” I replied. “I'll hang up now, okay?”

One more pair of goodbyes and I made good on my decision, setting my backpack to hold the door to the cafeteria hallway open before camping out in front of it and cracking a water. I drained the entire thing in one go, relishing the moisture on my still-recovering system. Dehydration was no joke.

The apple juice and the granola was next.

Vitamins. Nutrients.

The first rays of the sun started to peak over the treeline. I reached up and rubbed at my eyes, the sudden daylight making it hard to see. That was surely the only reason. Rubbing them again and snorting harshly to clear my running nose, I took a deep breath of air to compose myself.

It's not over quite yet. Hold it together.

Shaking my head, I pulled out the last ticket.

A distraction, something to focus on that wasn't... me.

It was gold, the same color as the rays of the morning sun.

“Do me a favor and don't dump more shit in my head and make me pass out, okay?” I asked it tiredly.

I could hear sirens in the far distance.

Now or never.

Tear.

Rattle.

Capsule.

Pop.

Stardust.

“Praise the sun,” I whispered, grinning as I raised my apple juice in a toast to Mother Sol herself.

4. Pyrokinesis (4.4 Rarity, 0.08% odds)

-Elite Ability-

Allows you to produce and control flames, your own or natural flames. You have fine control over the flames you control, being able to shape them into arrows, blades, walls, projectiles etc.

I tucked the small slip of paper away in my wallet with the others and went back to appreciating the morning sun.

It was warm.

Almost as warm as the heat that settled in my core.

I chuckled and reached up to rub at my eyes again. For some reason my vision was blurry and my fingers came away wet. “I didn't get a single fucking thing that would have helped me get out of there.”

The two mental skills were useless in that situation. Stim was nice, but I'd have destroyed my body's reserves with one use and no more food or water to replenish myself. Even pyrokinesis, the ticket I'd only gotten because I'd broken out on my own, would probably have just burned up my remaining air supply faster.

“Man, I have some shit luck,” I chuckled again, shaking my head in disbelief. Sure, they were awesome rolls, but they'd have done dick to help me in the now. “Fuckin' unbelievable.”

I drained my juice and went for the pomegranate, which I hated.

But had shit in it that apple juice didn't and my body needed.

I took a long pull and made a face as I forced it down. “Ugh, nasty ass-”

Tires squealed to a stop.

“ARDEN!”

I stiffened, and rose up on tired and unsteady legs. My parents were running across the courtyard, still in their nightclothes. I dropped my juice and took a few staggering steps towards them, my vision beginning to swim. Dad and Mom hit me like a freight train and held on like an octopus, wrapping around me in a fierce hug.

Okay, now it’s over.

I could let go.

My throat clenched and I didn't fight the tortured noise that wrenched itself free from me. Words I'd wanted to say shattered into empty, meaningless sobs of emotion and catharsis. I didn't cry.

I fucking bawled.

~~~

This is your fault.

You all know who you are.

You have only yourselves to blame.

Mind Games next, I goddamn mean it this time.

Thank you everyone else for your patience and support. I need sleep now.

THE STUPENDOUS ADVENTURES OF BUTLER BOY! - Chapter 1

I made it thirteen years before I did something stupid.

But when I broke that streak?

It set new records for just how much of a dumbass any single person in any given universe can commit in a single act.

...and it all started, as most horrible incidents of idiocy do, on a perfectly normal day.

“Arden! Get up or you'll be late for school!”

I groaned and obediently rose, yawning widely and rubbing at my face. “Thank fucking god it's Friday, ugh.”

My feet carried me through my room on autopilot, dodging the half-finished electronics projects that seemed to multiply when I looked away. Or went to a store. Heh. A dismantled Atari in particular was a great prize that was only waiting for a mail-order specialty piece to come in before I finished restoring it to full functionality.

Still, being a kid again had its perks – or, well, I guess I'm a teenager now. Thirteenth birthday was last month and everything. Made off with some sweet loot from presents, at least. Sadly, not the ones I had most been looking forward to. Which I was still perturbed about.

It was 1997 and for some godforsaken reason, I wasn't playing Pokemon Red Version on a Gameboy.

Forget the super villains, that was the real atrocity!

But, no... I had to suffer through/enjoy the experience that was playing Double Dragon on the Waynetech Portable.

Bruce, buddy... I know the cape and cowl eats up a ton of your time, but work with me here, there had to be a better name for a handheld game system than that.

There had to be.

I gave a short glare at the offending piece of electronics charging in its dock and lamented the heretical anti-American commitment to rechargeable battery packs. Oh my sweet toxic disposable tubes of acid and metal... you will be missed!

Well, no they wouldn't. Not really.

The WP had hot-swap capability so you wouldn't lose your game when the battery ran out.

That, I had to admit, kicked fucking ass.

The name still sucked, though.

“Pancakes on the table, dear. Eat up,” Mom commanded after I finished my morning ablutions and come bounding down the stairs. Almost instantly, the trio of small ponies that had disguised themselves as wolfhounds locked their eyes onto my food with the ease and precision of long practice.

“You've all been fed,” I informed them as I started eating faster than I probably should. “And besides, Lincoln, you're still being food defensive. No treats until you work that out.”

I swear Carter and Monroe gave the younger dog the evil eye at that pronouncement.

They were smart boys.

“Hey squirt, finally up?” My brother asked, coming by and patting me on the head while I ate. “Thought I was going to have a quiet drive to school for once.”

I rolled my eyes while scarfing bacon and rinsed my mouth out with orange juice before replying. “I could literally walk to school. Or bike. You really don't need the car, Algie.”

Wincing slightly at the childhood nickname, he rubbed at his brown eyes before sighing. “Listen Arden, I know I've asked you before, but please don't spread that around school, okay? I've just about gotten everyone to start calling me 'Al' these days, I don't need my little brother messing it up.”

“Yeah, sure... no skin off my nose,” I shrugged, really and truly not caring one bit. It was one of those 'trying to adult' things that teenagers did.

I'd tried to explain that the real secret to being an adult was not giving a shit.

More depressingly, that was usually because no one else actually gave a shit about you, either.

“Great,” he sighed, just as our father strolled into the kitchen and kissed our mother with a brief hug. It was honestly the kind of idyllic fifties-sitcom life that only a bare fraction of people got to enjoy. I'd really gotten pretty lucky, both times around.

“Hey guys, big day at school, right?” Archibald grinned, snatching a piece of bacon and popping most of it into his mouth with an audible and satisfying crunch. “Big football game tonight!”

“Football?” I frowned and cocked my head. “Is that the game with the small white ball or the black round disk on ice?”

“Be nice, Arden,” Mom sighed as Dad deflated slightly. “You know your father and Algie actually care about these things.”

“We can't all be super-nerds, squirt,” Algernon reminded me pointedly. “Some of us need to earn scholarships.”

I could have rebutted that, I really could have.

But Algie had taken the lessons our father had taught him on self-reliance and making your own way in the world to heart. My brother could have simply accepted that his college tuition would be taken care of and laid about, coasting to an average GPA and riding that to a state college.

Instead, he was the school's star running back, kept mostly straight A's, and was active in the 4H club as well as student council. All around, it was a truly stellar high school career that would end on the high note of nailing one of the top ten spots in his graduating class if he kept things up.

I wasn't sure if I could do the same in his position.

“Yay pigskin tackles field goal?” I responded instead, reverting to my old coping mechanism of humor.

My dad and brother both snorted, the elder of the two a hulking blonde man who'd once played the sport himself. “I guess I'll take what I can get. Still, you'll be there to root for your brother, won't you Arden?”

“I've got my giant foam finger and beer hat full of soda ready to go,” I nodded.

Algie pulled a face. “You know half the team gives me constant sh-er, crap-” He quickly abridged, eyes flicking towards our mother. “-about that, right?”

“And the other half think it's hilarious,” I nodded along, my lips twitching. “Just tell them I'd have my super-nerd credentials called into question if I attended a sports event unironically.”

“Okay, boys. Finish your verbal sparring in the car. Hopefully without running into anything,” Mom ordered as she looked at the clock. “Time for you both to head out.”

Replying with affirmatives, we both finished up the last bit of our meals while I handed out a few head pats to the desperate doggos looking for food. They were, sadly, disappointed save for a bit of grease clinging to my fingers. Once we'd both navigated the hounds, though, Algernon and I made our way out to the one vice my brother truly had.

A 1982 DeLorean DMC-12, lovingly restored from a nearly-destroyed state. Algernon had convinced my father, somehow, to buy the former wreck when he was thirteen with the promise that he'd rebuild the thing as his first car when he could eventually drive. In the end, he'd been able to some impressive work on it, but hadn't been able to bring the engine fully back to life. I'd dropped an amount of money that I still refused to disclose to have several key parts machined privately.

“You know I have to fight the urge to quote Back to the Future every time I get in this thing, right?” I asked him with a raised eyebrow.

“You can totally walk to school if you really want to,” Algie replied.

I sighed and popped the gull-wing door.

Seat belts snapped and a moment later we smoothly accelerated out of the driveway. I reached over to turn the radio up on R. Kelly's I Believe I Can Fly. It'd only been released last year with Space Jam and the artist had yet to make enjoying his work problematic, so I'd enjoy it while I could.

Unfortunately, Algie toned it down almost immediately after I'd turned it up. “Hey, anyone bothering you?”

“About what?” I asked, blinking and turning to the driver, who kept his eyes on the road.

“Ardy, you're thirteen and a sophomore in high school. You can't tell me no one's giving you shit,” Algernon scoffed.

I groaned. “Look, Algie, I don't know who told you about John Baxter, but he's just a jackass. He's not actually bullying me or anything. He just wants me to do his homework for me, okay?”

He flicked his eyes towards me, held them there for a moment, then nodded. “Alright, if you say so. Buddy, the tight end on the team, saw him hassling you. Just wanted to know if I needed to give him an attitude adjustment or not.”

“I am totally not above begging my big brother for help if some asshole who weighs twice as much as I do decides I make a good target,” I replied with a nod.

Algernon snorted and nodded. “Good.”

Then we pulled into the school parking lot.

“I wouldn't worry about it, though. Baxter's a wuss. Anytime he comes close, basically half the kids in class give him the evil eye,” I shrugged.

…

“OW, FUCK! You little asshole!”

So, I was right about John Baxter, for the record. I want that to be clear. I was objectively correct in my assessment of the teen's rampant cowardice and refusal to act. That much is not up for debate. Unfortunately, I had forgotten one key piece of information. Or, rather, hadn't considered it especially relevant at the time I'd made my assessment.

I was sent sprawling across the dirty concrete floor by the hit to my jaw, but I kept hold of the utility knife in my right hand and rolled up to a kneeling position with the weapon poised just in case Kevin took another swing.

Not John.

Kevin.

Kevin Baxter. John's cousin on his father's side. A fat sack of shit that'd been held back a year as a senior, which I'm told you have to be especially stupid to achieve.

“Little pissant nerd cut me!” Kevin snarled, his face scrunching up in rage as he took two steps forward, the gash on his arm streaming blood.

“Kev! We gotta' get outta' here 'fore someone notices we're gone,” John hissed, looking anxiously around the junk-filled room, his head twitching to the stairs up, out of the basement.

Kevin stared at me for a moment longer, then snorted and took a few steps back. “Fuck it, this was the plan anyway. Few days down here'll soften him up. Then he'll do both our work for us! Hehe!”

I blinked, disbelief coating my thoughts. “You just fucking kidnapped someone over homework? Are you goddamn serious, you apeshit troglodyte?”

It was like complaining to the water that it was too wet.

Kevin twitched towards me, then growled and spat off to the side before grabbing my backpack and throwing it inside with me. “Here, little piggy, have a present! Maybe they'll think you ran away! Teach your fuckin' daddy a lesson, too. Maybe the big pig'll cry when ya' don't come home for the weekend!”

Then he pulled the door shut with a rusty squeal of metal, which told me I might actually be in trouble.

I contemplated shouting a last parting shot at him, but that door was thick metal. Moreover, it wasn't really a 'door.' This school had been built in the fifties, after all, and in keeping with the times, they'd installed a bomb shelter underneath it. You could probably fit two hundred people down here if you really tried, but the school had been a lot smaller back then. Beyond a refurbishment in the seventies, it had never seen action. Instead, time and a lack of nuclear war had condemned the empty room to the fate of all disused spaces everywhere.

It had filled up with decades of junk.

But my main problem right now wasn't that.

No, my main problem was the thick, lead-lined steel door was really more of a vault hatch.

Instead of wasting my breath yelling at the two dipshits, I inhaled slowly and released it, letting the adrenaline fade and-

I winced, dusted off the fingers of my right hand, and reached into my mouth, giving the offending article a single quick tug and grunting at the sharp pain.

Bloody saliva dotted the floor as I spat across it.

I sighed as I looked it over. “Thank god for baby teeth, I guess.”

Touching my jaw tenderly, I opened and closed it a few times. Now that the pain was fading, I could tell I'd have a nasty bruise even without looking in the mirror, but that was it. I'd taken the punch pretty well and hadn't cracked my jaw. I closed my eyes briefly and took another breath, inflating my lungs as much as I could as I touched my throat.

“No damage,” I muttered, massaging the skin there, too. Kevin had grabbed me on a blind corner and put me in a headlock to drag me down the stairs, cutting off my airway when I'd tried to yell for help.

I looked at the door again, shrugged, and stepped up to it, giving it as hard a twist as I could on the large wheel.

Nothing.

“Goddammit,” I muttered, shaking my head as I stared at the thick door. “Worth a shot, at least. Shit, I hope the thing isn't seized.”

When was the last time it was even shut?

Or oiled?

“Okay, let's take stock of the situation,” I muttered to myself, sitting down on the floor to rest as the adrenaline high well and truly faded. “Two of the dumbest people in the school have thrown me into a disused bomb shelter from the fifties to intimidate me into doing their homework for them. Kevin's words seemed to indicate that he planned to keep me here all weekend.”

Would they bring me food?

More importantly, water?

I set my elbows on my knees and bent over to rest my head on my bridged fingers.

“Can't rely on that. They've proven themselves to be stupid enough to kidnap the police chief's son because they can't pass algebra on their own merits. They may not know how short a length of time you can go without eating or drinking.”

That left two options: rescue or escape.

The first was... probable, at least? Algie would notice I wasn't there after school, if nothing else. Hell, my teachers should notice my disappearance immediately after lunch. This was the nineties, though. That had upsides and downsides.

The bloody utility knife I'd set down on the floor in front of me was an upside. As long as you didn't bring a prison shank or something, most people shrugged at having a small box-cutter length blade on you for whatever purpose you needed it. The downside was that attendance was less strictly monitored and not digitally enforced. Great for sneaking off campus to make a run for fast food, not so great when you've been illegally detained in an old nuclear bunker.

“Sure, Waynetech probably has the... tech for it, but there hasn't been a societal need developed yet,” I grumbled like I hadn't just taken advantage of that lax attitude to run to Arby's for lunch a week ago.

Speaking of food...

I looked at the bag that had been carelessly thrown in with me.

“Inventory time.” Thankfully, the school had been serving pizza today, and not just any pizza, but actual delivery pizza in celebration of tonight's game. Oh, it was sold per-slice at a huge markup in the name of fundraising, but I'd gorged myself on it anyway, with plenty of coke to go with it. It'd also been a surprise, so I still had the packed lunch Mom had given me, too.

Little blessings.

“Okay, one full lunch... I'll eat that tomorrow if it comes to it. Maybe sip on the juice overnight,” I muttered, frowning. “A thermos of water that I was going to dump and fill with soda for afternoon classes.”

Officially, it was against the rules to drink anything but water in class, but opaque containers were difficult to check. I'd bet some of the seniors even had raw booze or spiked drinks today.

Maybe that explains the retardation? I didn't smell Kevin's breath.

Lucky me, I hadn't gotten around to dumping the water for soda, though. Which meant I could probably make it the full weekend if I had to.

“But let's see what I can do to shorten that,” I hummed and pulled out my electronics kit.

…

Unfortunately, the answer wasn't much.

The room had power, at least, but that was it. The blast door wouldn't budge and there was no sign of even moisture residue in the toilets at the rear of the bunker, much less the taps working. I was going to bitch the hell out of someone about not having a secondary exit to a hole in the ground when the time came, though.

The worse news was...

“Fuck nuggets,” I whispered, dread mounting at I looked up at the last vent in the ceiling from where I'd positioned a partially-functional ladder so that I could see if I'd be able to climb up them. Unfortunately, there was a flat piece of metal about five feet up.

They'd sealed off the vents. Possibly when they'd 'renovated' the space in the seventies. Which was beginning to look more like a decommissioning instead.

“If I get out of this alive, someone's getting sued,” I swore quietly.

Might be the school system, might be the contractors cutting corners they weren't supposed to.

I carefully climbed down the ladder and popped my thermos open to take a drink of water. That was ahead of schedule, but the schedule mattered a lot less now.

“I'm going to be dead in under forty eight hours,” I stated with a frown, looking around the room and estimating dimensions. It was a big room, to be fair. Large enough to fit an olympic-sized swimming pool in it, if only just. But there were no vents, barely any air was coming through the tiny gaps in the door, and the circulation was poor. Plus, I'd already engaged in some serious activity to take a tally of what junk down here I could actually use.

I took a slow, measured breath to fight the panic and sipped more water.

“Okay, situation update,” I spoke aloud to myself, my voice filling the oppressive silence. “School's out by now-”

I glanced at my watch briefly to affirm that and nodded.

“-everyone will be at the game in an hour or two.” I paused. “That doesn't help me. No one's going to come to the school while there are sports to be excited over. That means I'm on my own.”

I drummed my fingers on my thigh and thought.

Door.

Wall.

Vents.

I could try the door. It was tough, but even if the locking mechanism was jammed I might be able to dismantle the housing and get at the internals. There was a bunch of stuff from the old machine shop down here that might or might not work, too. After another few minutes of consideration, I discarded the idea. It was wishful thinking.

As were the walls. They might be old concrete, but they were still concrete and I was still a thirteen year old. There was a chance I could repurpose the giant-ass lathe in the back corner, but... would I get through it in time? What if I hit steel reinforcements?

The vents were equally chancy. All I could see was a sheet of tin sealing things off, but that didn't mean there wasn't more obstruction beyond that. Moreover, it was tin and I didn't have the proper tools. Specifically, I didn't have metal-working gloves. Tin was the widow-maker of metals. I had personal experience in my prior life that it could slice you open so clean you wouldn't start to feel it until you noticed the blood.

It'd suck to bleed out before my air supply went bad.

Very conscious of the breath I was taking, I got up and looked closer at the door.

Slowly, a finger reached out and slid down the side of the heavy steel until I hit the top of the lowest hinge.

I tapped it thoughtfully.

A memory bubbled up.

“Half-pin barrel hinges,” I muttered, and of course they weren't. This wasn't a cheap iron prison gate from centuries prior. But hinges were a weak spot. I grabbed my pen light again and squinted at the seem on that side, trying to remember the flash I'd seen before I'd stabbed Kevin and was thrown in.

“Locking mechanism only on the other side of the door,” I nodded to myself slowly. “If I take the hinges off...”

I didn't know if the entire door would come free. It might, it might not, but I could wedge it open.

Get fresh air.

Call for help.

I tapped the hinge and nodded again.

Alright, I had a plan.

…

“This plan sucks,” I huffed, leveraging my Frankensteinian creation up to the door.

It'd taken me two hours to dismantle the lathe, pull the motor out, and fix the broken connections. Thankfully, anything made before the seventies was cast from a combination of actual metal and the collective spite of the working class, so after a little oil it ran fine. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a piece of castoff machinery from a factory that made WW2 weapons.

If-

No, when I got out of here, I was taking this thing with me. Maybe the housing, too, if I could get some idiot to drag it up a flight of stairs.

How the fuck did they get it down here in the first-

No, focus.

I slipped my sunglasses back on and pushed my makeshift drill back on the hinge. The previous bit had melted and then, well... kind of exploded, so I'd had to wait for shit to cool down before I attacked it again.

Also because I didn't want to start a fire.

“Is it just me or is it getting hard to breathe?” I giggled to myself, an edge of mania creeping into my voice as I fired the lathe back up.

…

“First-” huff “-one down.”

A clatter of metal on concrete.

I dropped onto the cushion of old drama costumes I'd created to sit on while I worked, sweating like a dog, and grabbed my lunch.

“What the fuck time is it?” I grunted around a sandwich.

My watch was over by my bag. I'd taken it off both so it wouldn't get damaged and because it had started to chafe with all the sweat I was building up.

Thankfully, the juice cut back my building headache.

“Three AM,” I muttered.

I'd been in here for over twelve hours.

Shit.

I reached up and massaged my face with dirty hands. I was filthy, tired, sore, had a bucket of human waste in another corner of the room, and was only a third of the way done.

I sighed.

“Many, I wish I could have gotten that fan working.” It would have been a relief, for multiple reasons. Probably even given me a few more hours of air. Unfortunately, I couldn't work miracles.

I blinked, then turned around slowly.

“Goddamn, this shit is getting to me,” I shook my head, then stood to start dismantling the sewing machine. The tiny motor wouldn't be much, but...

…

It was six in the afternoon.

Saturday.

Over twenty four hours of hard labor in a confined space with little ventilation. The fan I'd gerry-rigged up was blowing on my face as I lay on the table I'd cleared.

It had helped, but it wasn't enough.

A second hinge lay discarded on the ground near the door.

I had one more to go.

I took a breath and my headache pulsed. Dizziness had set in three hours ago. Or was it four? It made operating my drill hard. The chest pains hadn't helped, either. I reached down and grabbed my thermos, draining the last few drops of it for a little relief.

I needed to get up.

I needed to...

I shook my head violent as my eyelids grew heavy. “Hey, Superman? Any chance you hear me? Kal-El, Last Son of Krypton?”

I waited a moment.

“Clark Kent?” I called out plaintively.

I took another few slow breaths, disappointed in spite of myself. I'd waited this long for a reason. It would have been hell to explain to big blue how I knew who he was, but it was better than dying. I'd be on Batman's radar for the rest of my life, too, paranoid motherfucker that he was.

I stared at the harsh fluorescent lights buzzing above me.

They weren't helping the headache, but I dared not turn them off.

I'd been awake for over thirty six hours at this point with only a few naps to take the edge off the exhaustion.

I needed to get up.

Finish the last hinge.

Did I have enough time?

Superman showing up would have been easier, at least. At this point, though, I'd even take one of his enemies. Lex. Meeting Lex would be awesome. Even if he was an egotistical prick. He'd probably have a laser that could cut open the door like swiss cheese.

I chuckled.

Or Toyman? That'd be fun to see, at least.

Maybe... maybe...

“What was his name?” I whispered plaintively. I could never remember it precisely. “Mister... Misxy? Mr. Mxysss-no...”

I blinked, finding it hard to focus.

“Mr. Mxyzptlk?”

I stared at the ceiling, the edges of my vision going hazy.

Yeah, that... sounds...

A puff of smoke, fireworks going off in a confined space, I startled awake and skittered backwards, falling off the table and staring up in surprise as my jaw dropped.

“You Rang?”

Purple clothing like a monk, orange highlights, a cape that was the first on the inside and the second on the outside. Oversized necklace of turquoise prayer beads. Blue skin with white hair tied in odd tufts as he grinned at me.

I tried to respond and only came up with coughs.

“Oh, huh... that's right, you fleshy-types need air to breathe. What was it again? Hydro-no, not that. Oxygen! Yep! Air freshener coming right up!”

He snapped his fingers and, all of a sudden, I could breathe.

I took a deep breath, feeling the fuzziness at the edge of my vision recede. Another and my headache... well, it didn't go away, but it became a lot more manageable.

I stared up at the interdimensional menace and swallowed dryly.

“You just saved my life,” I stated, still breathing irregularly. “Thanks.”

Purple rose to his cheeks as he twisted in place like a schoolgirl. “Aw... shucks, don't make me blush. Eh, you pulled me out of a tight spot, too... so no big deal.”

My gut clenched, knowing what I'd unleashed on the world in an oxygen-deprived stupor. I nodded, the words like ash in my mouth. “Yeah, no... big deal.”

“Still... bit of a pickle you've got yourself in here, kid,” the imp stated as he looked over my situation properly. “And... hmm, well, you did get me out of a mess... though I'm curious how you knew my name.”

He tilted his head and squinted at me.

I squirmed and I'm man enough to admit it.

“I, uhh... was muttering random nonsense?” I replied dumbly. “I... I'm not even sure what I said, really. Something... Mixy?”

The blue imp studied me for a moment longer, then snorted and grinned. “Heh, alright then. Not like I'm the type to complain when random chance throws you a bone. Still, let's see...”

He pulled out an oversized pocket watch and frowned.

“Huh. I'm early. Really early for this reality. Not even remotely the right time to bother big blue, yet.” He muttered with a bit of a frown.

“Uhh... sorry?” I shrugged, then cursed myself for speaking up when his attention returned to me.

And he grinned.

“You know what? I'm feeling pretty good today and you really did do me a big favor. Even if I saved you for the moment, you're still stuck down here, so... how about a gift? Random chance saved me... it might save you, too.”

Mr. Mxyzptlk reached into his pocket and pulled out a... plastic egg?

Tossing it to me, I awkwardly caught it after bouncing it off my hands for a moment. “Wh-what is it?”

“Eh, could be anything!” Mr. Mxyzptlk replied with a carefree shrug. “Might be laser vision, might be superspeed, might eve be a boat! You've always wanted a boat, right?”

I blinked, was that-

“So, anyway, thanks for the standing invitation to this universe, kid. I really appreciate it, but duty calls. And by duty, I mean chaos.” He turned back and waved. “I'll check in on you in a few years, maybe. See how you like my present! Don't disappoint me, now...”

Fading from view in a suitably dramatic manner, I struggled to calm my racing pulse.

Slowly, my eyes drifted down towards the plastic egg in my hands.

Then I shook my head and rose up, tucking the egg away in my bag.

“Later,” I promised myself. Maybe I'd die down here after all and not have to deal with the consequences of my actions. Until then... “I've got one more hinge to go. Let's destroy this bitch.”

~~~

I'll have a chapter of Mind Games out late Sunday/early Monday.

In the meantime, here's something to tide people over.

It's the first chapter of a thing that someone decided to give me the idea for. Curse their name. Curse it!

Anyway, there will likely be at least one more chapter of this one to flesh out the starting premise. Probably not this month, though. Hopefully not. I'm busy enough, dammit!

THE STUPENDOUS ADVENTURES OF BUTLER BOY! - Chapter 1

I'll have a chapter of Mind Games out late Sunday/early Monday.

In the meantime, here's something to tide people over.

It's the first chapter of a thing that someone decided to give me the idea for. Curse their name. Curse it!

Anyway, there will likely be at least one more chapter of this one to flesh out the starting premise. Probably not this month, though. Hopefully not. I'm busy enough, dammit!

Industrious - Chapter 66

Yakumo moaned my name.

I cut her off with a searing kiss.

The mother of my child, no matter how unconventional the birth, was not a master of prana bindu. Not in the traditional way, at least. I'd taught her a piecemeal set of lessons in the art, ultimately designed to fight the congenital condition that threatened to keep her from being a shinobi.

In some ways, her education was ongoing in the art.

But in others, she'd become skilled enough that she could hold her own.

As the moon rose higher, I pistoned myself in and out of her harder and faster, her body responding in ways that no virgin should have been capable of.

Our bodies meshed together, nervous systems lighting up as we competed with each other to trigger the most powerful responses.

She never really stood a chance, but it was cute that she tried.

In the end, she collapsed next to me and I curled an arm around her, pulling her close.

For tonight, at least, I allowed myself to fall into a deep slumber.

…

Standard blue jounin fatigues?

Check.

Chunin vest?

Check.

Half-face mask?

Check.

Hair dyed a straw-blonde?

Check.

Normal weapon loadout for a Konoha shinobi?

Check.

I hummed and looked myself over in the mirror as I reached up and tilted the headband down into a slant to cover my right eye.

Hataki Kakashi had, after all, 'died' years prior. He'd never become the infamous Copy Cat Ninja wandering around Konoha reading porn in a depressed haze like some cyclopian cryptid. It was true, according to what I remembered, that he'd worn a half-mask over the bottom of his face even as a youth, but plenty of shinobi did that. Plus, I'd added my own spin on it.

I lifted the pink haori with the flower-print aesthetic and slipped it over my shoulders, carefully tucking my swords outside of it.

“You look like a complete weirdo.”

I turned and raised my only visible eyebrow at Yakumo, who was staring at me from the bed, looking pleasantly tired and sore... if a tad exasperated.

“So like a normal jounin of Konoha, then?” I asked, my voice changed as I constricted muscles in my throat to shift it to a lower octave.

Yakumo blinked. “I'll have to remember that trick. Hmm... so what name are you going with for this identity? Which number does this make, anyway... you've got at least one other that fixed Naruko's mom, right?”

“I'm just going to keep Kota,” I waved her off, adjusting the clothing I was wearing.

“Really?” Yakumo asked, her tone deadpan. “You're just going to give them your regular name?”

I shrugged. “It's not like 'Kotaro' is all that rare. There was at least one other at the orphanage I was raised in. I'm pretty sure there's a vegetable merchant a few streets over with the name, too.”

“But how many swordsman ninja have that name in Konoha?” Yakumo asked dryly.

“I don't recall Kotaro the blacksmith's apprentice being a ninja,” I replied defiantly.

“Kota... my dear lover whom I care deeply about, the father of my child... you can't seriously keep making that argument at this point,” Yakumo stated.

I stared at her blankly, keeping motionless until Yakumo began to twitch.

“If I disassociate hard enough, anything is possible,”I stated.

Yakumo sighed and rolled over. “Ugh, fine. Live in denial. Just don't expect me to put up with your... weird fantasy lives or whatever. At least you sized yourself up to look mature.”

I huffed and pouted behind my mask and returned to perfecting my cosplay. “Whenever you get up, I left a lunch plate sitting on the counter with a stasis seal.”

“Mmm... I'm going to sleep in a little longer, thanks honey. With my parents watching Kokoro I want to take a little break from being a mom. Heh... I only lasted three weeks, huh? That's pretty sad.” She curled into herself and sighed.

I took a few steps over to the bed and sat down on the edge, thankful I'd taken the time to make a western-style one. It was less convenient than the eastern-style futon you could roll up and put away, but I'd gotten tired of dealing with that and wanted more support. Also, I'd put seals on the legs and headboard of the frame to stop noise from being transmitted through the floor and walls.

There had been... complaints.

“You're acclimating to an entirely different lifestyle,” I comforted her, my hand slipping through her hair. “Trying to do so without a break or without help would be a mark of arrogance or desperation. Take the time you need to build yourself back up. If that means a day, take the day. If that means you need to cry, cry. If you need me to do something, all you have to do is say it. I'm sure one of my identities will be able to figure something out for you.”

She giggled, almost against her will as she finally turned her head to meet my eyes. “Thanks, Kota. You're more than I deserve.”

I bent down and kissed her forehead, drawing a soft sigh from her. “I love you too, Kumo-chan.”

“Now go out and give those kids hell, okay? They're taking time away from me, Ten-chan, and Satsuki. And your daughter most of all,” she ordered me intently.

I chuckled and nodded, rising up and heading out.

Sighing, I decided to take a jump through the window like a barbarian instead of using the perfectly good door. I'd finished a version of the hiraishin a little while ago and had been covertly installing seals around Konoha for emergencies, but they were for emergencies. I didn't need to be broadcasting that I could teleport whenever I wanted. In fact, I didn't need anyone to know that at all. The only people that would be informed would be my women, in fact, and only if a crisis occurred and I needed to evacuate them from the village.

In that even, though, I'd simply remote-activate the skin-tone colored seals I'd put on the bottoms of their feet and pull them to me.

I was also working on a kind of sensory seal as well, designed to tie into the system and remotely activate the teleport if a preselected set of conditions were met.

Which, yes, would be difficult to explain to the Hokdage were it to happen.

It was far preferable to me that I be stuck answering awkward questions about withholding groundbreaking sealing technology from the village than mourning a dead lover, though.

Especially when I was still irreplaceable and one of those lovers was the Hokage's successor's sister.

Itachi would probably understand my motivations and let me off with a slap on the wrist given I was taking steps to protect Satsuki.

All I'd need to do if it came out was dodge the possibility of an escape route outside of the village being brought up.

And that was easy enough. I had no reason to leave, anyway.

Not until and unless Konoha decided to give me one.

I came to a stop on a tall building in a ninja-crouch with a sigh of disgust aimed partially at myself. “I'm being whittled away at, piece by piece. I know that. I had a plan. It was a stupid plan, but it was a plan. Leave this fucking disaster of a planet, get into space, and...”

Yeah, that was kind of why it was a stupid plan that hadn't survived first contact with a cute girl.

“What was it... A boy has the right to dream.” I hummed, feeling the growing presence of my watchers as they finally caught up with me.

Mostly, I ignored them.

I'd come to expect the shadows that followed my every step, likely as both bodyguards and enforcers should I decide to do something silly like publicly criticize the regime. As much as the Hokage could privately dismiss any knowledge I withheld with a good enough excuse, the weakness of doing so publicly would necessitate a stronger response.

Just one more of those ugly little social contracts you had to sign in order to operate in a society like this.

“That's certainly... an outfit, I suppose.”

I rolled my visible eye at the slow drawl.

“Nara-san, I'm pretty sure I'd ask your wife for fashion advice before you,” I replied in an equally dry tone.

The Jounin Commander huffed a quiet laugh as he stepped up beside me. “And have you asked one of your girls what they think? Since we're on the topic of women's opinions and all.”

I sighed. “Did you decide to track me down to ask about my romantic relationships, Jounin Commander? Or did you have something more practical and relevant in mind?”

“Just giving a newly-minted Jounin some advice,” the man stated, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it with a flick of chakra. “The Hyuuga girl. Her clan's not happy about her getting selected for special treatment.”

“Cry me a river,” I replied, a hint of snap in my voice. “I'm not happy about being selected to give her special treatment.”

Shikaku hummed, continuing regardless of what I'd said. “And because her clan isn't happy, they're making noise. Which means no one is happy, what with the Hyuuga having mutinied against their elders and everything.”

I made a noise between a sigh and a growl.

Yeah, so don't get me wrong. I was entirely happy that the Hyuuga clan weren't sitting under fuuinjutsu-gunpoint held by a bunch of old assholes that should have done everyone a favor and died before they became everyone's problem. I really, really was. Being what amounted to a slave to your own family was pretty fucking awful. And I'd seen enough of the records (not that anyone knew about it) to confirm my guess that the powerful old men and women in charge had done what powerful people do when they can force someone into compliance.

This is one of those times where I look back at the edgy Naruto fanfiction I used to read a lifetime ago and realize that 'obedience seals' for 'sex slaves' already kind of existed.

Thankfully, it seemed nothing of that sort – seal or no seal – had been attempted on the young sisters Hinata and Hanabi, if only because of the Hokage's direct intervention and the placement of an overseer to ensure the girls weren't targeted in reprisal. That and, as best as I could tell, Neji sparing them in his rampage, had apparently been enough of a warning for the rest of the clan not to be actively cruel towards them.

Just... well, passively.

Neglectfully cruel.

Politically, though, almost all of the Konoha clans had a group of old people at their head. When one clan decided to murder their old people, regardless of their crimes, it tended to make all of the other old people nervous as hell.

The result was that the Hyuuga were persona non grata in most of the village.

Which, I had to admit, retrospectively made the rise of the Uchiha make a lot more sense.

If the Hyuuga had properly repudiated Neji in the wake of the murders, the rest of the village would have been more or less forced to accept that this was just a case of a single prodigy shinobi cracking under the pressure of his too-young appointment and going rogue. Instead, though, Neji was still a figure of great respect in the Hyuuga clan. They'd even kept him on the clan rolls despite the fact that the village had formally placed a DOA bounty on his head and publicly listed him as a nuke-nin.

It was probably a satisfying act of defiance to the now-free clan.

But it didn't help things at all.

So on one side of things you had a fairly conservative political order made up of experienced and retired shinobi that pulled the strings behind the village with their connections to the greater political feudal network of the Land of Fire. And on the other side, you had a group of people that actively celebrated the deaths of their clan elders to the point of desecrating their bodies and leaving their heads on the compound's outer wall for over a week while they had a wild and raucous party.

There was a bit of tension, all things considered.

I took a deep breath, calming myself to-

I stopped.

No.

I was done.

This was it.

This was my line.

“Sounds fun,” I replied with a deliberate tone.

Shikaku slowly panned his gaze over to me, turning from the city proper and staring at my crouched form. “This is the part where I give you advice on how to properly defuse the situation you're walking into.”

“Eh,” I waved him off, channeling my inner Kakashi. “It'll work itself out. See ya!”

Then I was gone, busting into a hybrid speed move that combined the various forms of enhancement I'd studied and mastered.

I appeared in a clearing just a few moments later.

Hyuuga Hanabi?

Check.

Uzumaki Enkai?

Check.

Sarutobi Konohamaru?

Check.

What was not check-worthy were the people accompanying my young students-to-be. One redheaded Uzumaki who seemed to be half-hungover and looking for a fight, the all-black-clad Special Jounin Ebisu, and a pair of nameless Hyuuga.

Who were all glaring at each other.

To their credit, the kids at least looked completely done with this situation.

“Alright, I'm here now.” I waved at the adults. “You can go, I'll take things from here.”

To drive the point home, I made 'shoo-ing' motions with my hands, as if trying to brush away irritating piles of dust.

The kids blinked.

The adults blinked.

“This is the guy who's supposed to be teaching us?” Enkai squawked, pointing at me in disbelief and turning to his minder. “He looks like a retard!”

I was in front of him in an instant, the kids freezing as I invaded the personal space of their little group. My disguised blue eye pierced Enkai's shocked gaze as my chakra brushed up against his and he felt the oncoming certainty of his own death for a split-second. His face went white as I reached out and-

-patted him on the head.

“Maa-maa,” I chuckled, “kids say the darndest things sometimes.”

The three froze as I rose up, not daring to move, think, or breathe as I looked at the adults... all of whom had shifted subtly into stances that were ready for a fight.

“I said you can go now.”

One of the two Hyuuga 'guards' stepped forward and glared at me. “We represent the Hyuuga clan. The Hokage may have forced our hand in allowing a child of the forsaken line of the Head Family to be given special instruction, but as she is still a member of our clan, we will be overseeing-”

They flew back, hitting trees so hard they dented the bark as they cried out in pain.

Shocked inhalations of breath came from around me.

Stepping forward, I began to walk towards the two opponents I'd casually destroyed, humming as I went. “No. You're not. You're not any of those things. You're a hindrance. A nuisance. An aggravation.”

I stopped in front of their crumpled forms.

“But I am not without some understanding of how the world works, unlike you,” I stated, reaching down and pulling their forehead protectors free.

Exposing their clan's greatest shame.

The Caged Bird Seal.

One thumb on each of their foreheads, the stunned ninja still in disbelief over how casually they'd been put down, I flexed a bit of chakra.

And the seals disappeared.

“There we go, all better.” I clapped my hands, staring at them with a manic grin underneath my half-mask. “Little bit of carrot. Little bit of stick.”

One of them made a vague noise of incomprehension.

“When little Neji freed your clan, he just killed all of the people who knew how to activate the seal, contrary to what you all liked to say,” I hummed. “So your reward for basic competency is going to be that you send two people with Hanabi every time we have class. I remove their seals. They turn around and leave.”

“Or what?” The first one who'd spoke to me asked, a trace of defiance returning to him now that the shock was wearing off.

I brought my foot down on his shin and shattered the bone in a single motion.

He clenched his teeth against the sudden pain.

“I hurt you until you do what I say,” I answered plainly, happily, merrily. “If you have a complaint, I'm sure one of your clan's elders can talk to the Hokage about this arrangement.”

Equal parts hatred and fear boiled on the man's expression as his compatriot jerked his head and grabbed the man to begin retreating.

I turned towards the Uzumaki and Ebisu.

We stared at each other.

I reached up and scratched at my mask.

They twitched.

“Leave.”

They hesitated for a fraction of a moment, then vanished in a puff of leaves, apparently satisfied that the Hyuuga 'observers' had been dealt with and ready to stick to the original arrangment.

I looked down at the children, all remarkably recomposed as they shifted into a line and stood at attention. “Well, now that we've got that settled, let's sit down and have a chat. Names, likes, dislikes, hopes for the future... all that stuff.”

Konohamaru only whimpered a little bit.

~~~

I'd like one week without any drama.

Just one.

Ugh.

Long story short, one of my visiting relatives is in the hospital and they're probably going to extend their stay with us for... a while. Thankfully, it looks like they got him in before a cardiac event happened and he's due to recover in good time at this point so long as nothing else happens.

I'll be working on an update of Mind Games for this week provided nothing else in my life catches fire.

Thank you for your patience and support.

Industrious - Chapter 66

I'd like one week without any drama.

Just one.

Ugh.

Long story short, one of my visiting relatives is in the hospital and they're probably going to extend their stay with us for... a while. Thankfully, it looks like they got him in before a cardiac event happened and he's due to recover in good time at this point so long as nothing else happens.

I'll be working on an update of Mind Games for this week provided nothing else in my life catches fire.

Thank you for your patience and support.

Mind Games - Chapter 29

“So, how is he...” Fuyumi paused, looking around the observation room, her eyes briefly landing on Hitoshi through the one-way mirror that took up a large portion of the wall opposite the door. A dozen scientists were taking an assortment of notes on paper, laptops, and a few reviewing footage of the room on a small television off to the side, muttering quietly amongst themselves.

“Ah, Hot Ice! Yes, come have a seat, we're just... thoroughly analyzing the data from young Shinso. It's all very... fascinating,” Dr. Tanzaki stated, his forehead-mounted third eye blinking as he turned to regard the young heroine.

Fuyumi cautiously took a few steps forward, glancing at the assorted laboratory personnel with a frown. Making her way to Tanzaki's side, she dipped her head slightly to speak in an undertone to the older and slightly hunched man. “Is there a problem?”

“Hmm... oh, no-no-no. Ah... your ward is just... offering us a very interesting challenge,” Tanzaki stated, waving towards the one-way mirror.

Hitoshi was seated cross-legged in the chair in that odd way he sometimes did when he thought no one was looking or wanted to get comfortable for a long work-period. It probably testified to exactly how deeply enmeshed in the current test he was undergoing. The mass of electrodes and sensors was still attached to various spots on his head, his fingers occasionally twitching towards them as he visibly fought off the urge to scratch. His eyes, though...

...were locked on the stack of cards in front of him.

“Ace of spades.”

The boy's dull monotone crackled through the lab's speakers from the other side of the divider and the attendant opposite Hitoshi obligingly leaned forward and flipped the card over.

It was, indeed, the ace of spades.

The sound of note-taking around her briefly intensified.

“I thought Hitoshi's quirk was centered on interaction between people and their minds in some way,” Fuyumi frowned.

“That was our initial hypothesis, yes, and that of his original guidance counselor,” Tanzaki hummed thoughtfully, looking mildly frustrated. “But this is why follow-up appointments are so vital in cases like the boy's.”

“So it's a more general psychic quirk, then? With an aspected development due to underuse?” Fuyumi probed curiously.

The doctor blinked, several of the other professionals around her sending the woman odd looks for a brief moment before Tanzaki chuckled. “Ah... I forget you have the background you do sometimes, Hot Ice. It always helps when someone high profile like you knows what to look for.”

Fuyumi scowled momentarily. “A few classes in developmental quirk education should be mandatory for heroes. It would drastically cut down on teenage villains falling into the system.”

Tanzaki sobered a bit and nodded, sighing. “It likely would, at that.”

There was a moment of quiet contemplation between the two before Fuyumi raised her hand towards Hitoshi. “So... aspected development?”

Tanzaki paused, humming thoughtfully. “That's one of the competing hypotheses currently being discussed, but not the one I'm leaning towards.”

“Oh?” The pro-hero asked.

“It's a bit too vague for my personal taste,” Tanzaki stated, shaking his head. “Redefining abilities in broad and vague terms should be a last resort for quirk classification and assessment. It's the easy way out.”

“I'm interested in seeing how you reconcile what looks like precognition with brainwashing, then,” Fuyumi asserted expectantly.

“Here, look at this. Tell me what you think,” Tanzaki said by way of reply, handing her a few sheets of notes.

Fuyumi narrowed her gaze at the printout, looking over what was obviously a series of tests designed to evaluate more esoteric psychic abilities. Things like pre-, peri-, and post-cognition, empathy, telekinetic probability manipulation, remote viewing, inducing trances...

“You did this test already,” Fuyumi noted. “But you did it in another room where he couldn't see the cards being shuffled. He was still a full standard deviation higher than the general population, but nothing like what we're seeing now.”

Tanzaki smiled, reaching up to stroke his lengthy goatee. “Indeed. I imagine if we arranged a third test with the proctor on the other side of Japan or in another country entirely, even that statistical anomaly would disappear.”

“So, he's... what? Subconsciously reading the minds of the people shuffling the cards?” Fuyumi asked, her own expression more thoughtful as she looked through the other tests.

“And proctoring the matching exercises, and setting up the models for the remote viewing practice, and... well, you get the gist of it,” he stated, an amused expression on his face.

“That would tend to reclassify him as a general psychic, though,” Fuyumi stated, flipping the report closed and turning to regard the doctor more closely.

“Not if it's entirely subconscious, as it appears to be,” Tanzaki noted, holding up a single finger to emphasize the point. “What the boy's quirk is doing... it isn't an active mind-reading quirk. It's entirely passive until and unless he can get within a certain range of another person. Sensory range, specifically.”

“I feel like you're splitting hairs as far as the classification goes,” Fuyumi stated bluntly, crossing her arms. “Whether the information gathering is conscious or unconscious, it doesn't really change the result.”

Tanzaki chuckled again instead of getting offended, taking the sting out of a few sour looks she got from the other – almost entirely male – academics many years her senior. “Ah, but while the distinction itself is largely, and do pardon the pun, academic in nature, it matters quite a bit when one looks at the legal side of quirk use.”

Fuyumi blinked, then closed her eyes and admirably refrained from smacking herself in the face. “If it's a subconscious and, therefore, uncontrollable, aspect of his quirk it can't be touched legally unless it presents an active danger to other people. Right.”

“Precisely!” Tanzaki crowed, adjusting his spectacles. “Thankfully, it seems like the data works in the boy's favor. Putting him on the other side of the divide would have made his life a lot more difficult.”

Fuyumi frowned and looked down at the folder in her hands again. It did seem to point to the general... awareness Hitoshi demonstrated being mostly subconscious, though that wasn't a definitive analysis by any means. Still...

If your quirk had a secondary effect that was 'always on,' for lack of a better term, that was generally regarded as a mutation rather than active quirk use. One might, for example, have a set of extra arms or extra hands that orbited your body and were impossible to actually dismiss. Even if the effect was materially identical to another individual using telekinesis to move objects by visualizing psychic grasping hands doing so...

Well.

They lived in an imperfect world, with imperfect laws.

The motivation of the government of Japan was to enforce a social order that pushed people to be as close to a baseline quirkless human as possible or, if they were unable to do so, then to at least attempt to act the part as much as possible. Deploying telekinetic power was, in almost all cases, active quirk use and therefore illegal under the law. Using natural appendages such as extra arms, tails, tentacles, etc... was not generally considered active quirk use. In fact, one could pursue civil legal action against an arrest or fine that infringed on the bodily autonomy of a heteromorphic body-type, though that was fairly rare in practice.

It was much the same with mental effects, and Fuyumi had two easy cases to compare and contrast at the forefront of her mind.

Shinso Niko's quirk presented a clear and present danger to public society in the way it was both uncontrollable and always active.

Shinso Hitoshi's quirk was frightening to many, but it was also controllable in its active applications. The fact that it apparently had a hidden dimension that wasn't controllable could seriously hinder his career if that secret were to get out.

“So how does it all fold together?” Fuyumi asked thoughtfully. “I was pretty sure there was a telepathic component given the interactive nature of the brainwashing aspect of his quirk, but this goes beyond that.”

“It does,” Tanzaki agreed with a nod. “The current majority opinion is that his quirk's actual function is something like 'Eidetic Mimicry.' It makes him able to project behaviors onto others, yes, but the more subtle and powerful manifestation is acting as something of a repository for knowledge, skills, and talents.”

“So it's a dual-type quirk?” Fuyumi asked, only half-surprised. Something hadn't added up with the boy and him having a rare kind of quirk answered most of those questions.

Two of her brothers had dual-type quirks, after all.

They were rare in comparison to the general population, of course, but her siblings were living proof that they weren't that rare.

Especially considering that Hitoshi had very obviously inherited his mother's quirk in its active application, which allowed him to brainwash people. It wasn't terribly surprising that he's gotten something from his father's side as well.

The mounting comparisons between her family and Hitoshi's were... unsettling.

Tanzaki hummed in agreement, drawing her out of her fugue. “That term's a little out of date. The scholarship is calling them two-phase quirks these days given the existence of higher-order multi-phase quirks. There was an article on a young girl who had a hydro/cryo/nepho-kinetic quirk that was put forth as the archetypal example of a tri-phasic quirk.”

“Ah... I haven't had time to keep up on the latest articles,” Fuyumi apologized with a dip of her head. “Active Emitter and Sub-type Mutant, then?”

“That seems to be the prevailing theory at the moment,” Tanzaki stated, pulling a clipboard from the table in front of them and beginning to mark a few things down. “Thankfully, it seems that the mutant-subtype includes the kind of processing power his mind needs to handle all of the additional information he's computing, even if it only manifests by instinct.”

“Oh?” Fuyumi frowned. “Not that it isn't good news, but how were you able to determine that?”

“The linguistic-acquisition aspect of his quirk,” Tanzaki replied distractedly. “In conjunction with a general IQ test. As far as the former goes, the sensors registered a limited inflammation in neural tissue when we had his learn Thai and Nepali only a few hours apart, along with a nosebleed. That isn't conclusive, mind you, but it suggests a soft ceiling for his processing capabilities well above the normal application of his quirk in everyday life.”

Fuyumi grimaced, but nodded. She wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of inflicting tests on children that could injure them, no matter how mild. It was one of the reasons she hadn't gone any further with that side of her education and a larger part of why she'd ultimately chosen a hero career over an education one. “What about his IQ? Just from interacting with him, I can guess it's high.”

“Oh, he completely broke the scale,” Tanzaki waved her off, clearly occupied with watching Hitoshi move on to the next test. “The boy's easily at the point where assigning numbers to his mental acuity is essentially meaningless. At a guess, I'd put him somewhere in the top one thousand smartest people in the country at least, though it doesn't really matter when you're that smart beyond how you use it.”

Fuyumi swallowed, nodding at the implicit warning she'd need to pass on.

Being 'that smart' wasn't something a lot of people talked about, but it meant you went on a list. Thankfully, it wasn't necessarily a bad kind of list, but it did mean that you'd be considered a national resource for the rest of your life and have any significant movements monitored. Particularly if you left the country, your travel options would be restricted to an approved list of nations Japan had good relations with.

People with valuable quirks that chose the wrong vacation spot tended to have 'accidents' after all.

Or simply disappeared altogether.

“What about his sleeping adaptation? Is that hurting him?” Fuyumi asked, shaking off the feeling of unease.

Tanzaki shook his head. “As near as we can tell, he's sleeping better than ninety percent of the population. But keep in mind, that's from a statistically-insignificant sample size. We don't actually know what kind of effect using his quirk on himself is having in this specific area... at least, not without a much more in-depth study. Which I would urge you to get his father to advocate for, if at all possible.”

Fuyumi sighed. “Shinso made it particularly clear to me that he disliked the entire concept of a sleep study. Given how little I see him actually put his foot down, I'm hesitant to push him on it. Or get his father to, for that matter.”

“Well, seeing as he's, frankly, in an astonishing state of physical and mental fitness-”

“Astonishing?” Fuyumi asked, puzzled. “I knew he was in good shape-” Unwillingly, the memory of cut muscles and impossible combat moves flickered through her mind. “-but astonishing, really?”

Dr. Tanzaki finally turned to regard her fully, the third eye on his forehead focusing directly on her. “Shinso Hitoshi is, quite literally, the most physically fit young man in his age group I've ever even heard of. All his muscle groups are balanced, his flexibility is extremely high without showing undue wear and tear on his joints or muscles, his balance is on par with professional gymnasts, and his bloodwork is definitionally perfect. Honestly, if his quirk wasn't so obviously limited and his training regime so obviously well-documented on his streaming channel, I'd still be looking for some type of physical component to his quirk.”

The spar she'd watched Hitoshi and Himiko go through flashed into her mind again, though with admittedly less focus on the younger boy's muscles.

“Are you sure he doesn't have one?” She asked, her tone carefully neutral.

“As sure as we can be, and there's no real cause to suspect him of it,” Tanzaki muttered, turning back to Hitoshi. “It's readily apparent that his quirk allows him to essentially overwrite his own skills and abilities with those that he's drawing from other people. His fitness is just a byproduct of being proactive with that understanding. It certainly helps that he's still within the upper bounds of human limits for his age... if only barely.”

Fuyumi huffed a laugh. “Well, I suppose that sums it up then. He has a dua-er, two-phase quirk that takes information out of peoples' minds subconsciously on one side and actively inputs information into their minds on the other. Effectively meaning that he's brainwashing himself and others using his power.”

“But in a way which doesn't present an immediate threat to the general public,” Tanzaki cautioned. “With a quirk as potentially potent and flexible as Hitoshi's, that's an important point to stress.”

“Anything we should watch out for? Either in the agency or as points of concern that I can relay to his father?” Fuyumi asked, reaching up to rub at her chin.

“Beyond the possibility of his sleep cycle being unhealthy or dangerous in the long-term?” Tanzaki asked just a bit cuttingly, before shrugging. “Mostly the same dangers you run into with children that have hyper-intelligence and hyper-competency issues. Socialization, emotional stability, obsessive personality disorders. Given how his personality test went, I think we can nominally rule out the classic signs of antisocial or narcissistic personality disorders.”

“Nominally?” Fuyumi asked, fixating on the qualifier.

Tanzaki hummed, an unhappy sound. “The problem with diagnosing people as intelligent as Hitoshi is that they know all the answers they should give and see the stigma of a diagnosis as socially-inhibiting rather than the first step towards meaningful treatment and a healthier life.”

“Do you think that's the case here?” Fuyumi asked, concerned as she watched Hitoshi work his way through a puzzle they'd just set in front of him.

“I can't rule it out,” Tanzaki hedged. “But for what it's worth, no. I don't think that's the case. My opinion is that the boy just hasn't had anyone he can really relate to until recently. His streaming hobby is actually a very good outlet for social interaction considering his quirk and his abilities. I wouldn't normally say that, but putting significant physical distance between himself and his social circle means he can't use his quirk to bypass normal social cues. Still, I'd have to talk to his real-life friend group or his girlfriend to be able to give a more firm analysis of the situation.”

Fuyumi huffed a laugh. “I actually wanted to talk to you about scheduling an appointment for his girlfriend.”

Tanzaki blinked owlishly, all three eyes as he looked to the pro-hero again. “Really? Both of them?”

“She also has a high-functioning mimicry quirk, if you can believe it,” Fuyumi muttered, sighing. “Vampirism-based shapeshifting with a... questionable home life.”

“That's...” Tanzaki frowned, then shook his head. “I'll need parental consent, Todoroki-san. Will that be a problem?”

“Her parents were willing to sign over limited medical power of attorney if their daughter required any kind of treatment while on the job.” Fuyumi replied, her tone purposefully bland. “Given that I'm fairly sure they intentionally misfiled her quirk registration paperwork, I'm making the call that a secondary assessment is absolutely necessary for her induction into the agency.”

“Hmm... I see, it's that kind of situation,” Tanzaki muttered. “Well, in that case, I'll want to handle Hitoshi's exit-interview personally. I can slip some questions about the girl into the conversation and do the same for her in relation to him. That might give me a bit more insight into both of them and their relationship.”

…

I heaved an enormous sigh as I leaned back on the Apartment's sofa.

“Never again.”

“What's that?” Himiko asked, tilting her head back from above me.

“Twelve hours worth of exhaustive quirk testing,” I replied, my voice as dead as I felt.

“Hmm... didn't they have you take a nap in the middle, though?” Himiko pressed, her tone more honestly-curious than the kind of subtly biting I'd heard from some people.

“Yeah, but they had me covered in these little glue-on sensors all over my body. I can put myself to sleep using my quirk like that, but it messes with me subconsciously and makes it a lot less restful than it should be. Like trying to sleep on an airplane, ugh,” I groaned, trying not to make it a whine and mostly failing.

“Then it's a good thing I made dinner!” Himiko called cheerfully. “Lots of red meat and cheese, just like you asked for!”

I sighed in relief. “Oh, thank the gods. I don't hate Japanese food or anything, but it doesn't block nearly enough of my arteries to be proper comfort food.”

The tone of Himiko's laughter told me she didn't really get the joke, but I wasn't up to explaining it at the moment so I let it go. Instead, I heaved myself off the couch with a groan, feeling closer to forty than fifteen, and headed up to the kitchen and dining area. Slotting myself into a seat at the table, I sighed and looked over the mess of cheese-coated pasta mashed together with chunks of ground beef. Topping it all off was a plate full of garlic bread and a bottle of cold soda.

“Thank you for the meal,” I stated, bringing my hands together once as Himiko mimicked me.

Then we ate.

I groaned softly, biting off a piece of garlic bread loaded with hamburger pasta as the taste hit my tongue, Himiko doing the same. I think that had more to do with the heavy drizzle of red liquid on hers though.

“This is really good!” My girlfriend enthused, her eyes sparkling as the shoveled more into her mouth. “I thought it'd be way too heavy like a lot of American food is, but... Mmm! It makes me feel all warm inside.”

“That's your arteries clogging,” I muttered crudely around a mouthful. “That's why they call it comfort food. It feels like a hug from inside your body.”

Gold eyes blinked owlishly before a look of realization struck her. “Oh! That makes so much sense!”

For a long moment, neither of us spoke, preoccupied with eating as we were.

“Ah, I forgot to ask!” Himiko spoke up suddenly, taking a long drink from her water to swallow the large bite she'd taken. “Should we have sex now?”

“Let’s… talk about it after dinner, okay Babe?”  I asked with a sigh.

~~~

And we're back!

Mostly a chapter from outside of Hitoshi's POV to properly communicate the quirk-assessment's findings. So you get a lot of Hot Ice/Fuyumi and the doctor talking.

Poor Hitoshi, that testing took a lot out of him.

But at least it's settled.

In other news, it looks like The Hand We're Dealt won the high-tier vote, so you'll see another chapter of that time month. Beyond that, I think I'll try to get a chapter of Industrious out this weekend. It's been a while and I should get back on that horse.

Mind Games - Chapter 29

And we're back!

Mostly a chapter from outside of Hitoshi's POV to properly communicate the quirk-assessment's findings. So you get a lot of Hot Ice/Fuyumi and the doctor talking.

Poor Hitoshi, that testing took a lot out of him.

But at least it's settled.

In other news, it looks like The Hand We're Dealt won the high-tier vote, so you'll see another chapter of that time month. Beyond that, I think I'll try to get a chapter of Industrious out this weekend. It's been a while and I should get back on that horse.

Nexus Event - Chapter 17

The Society of Judas.

Even in a wholly mundane world, the Catholic Church has more than its fair share of secret societies, hidden branches, and forgotten organizations. It's not even uncommon for them to be all three at the same time. Between the surviving Nazis, the groups that cover up the rampant sexual assaults committed by priests and nuns, the heretical sects within the church itself, and all manner of lunatics high on the power that was bestowed on them by the Earthly representative of God Himself...

...and that's not even getting into the hidden banking institution or secret Vatican library.

Again, though, all of that shit existed in almost every variant of a normal, mundane Catholic Church. It was an institution a millennia and a half old, after all, with roots going back even further.

Now, add in a secret society of magic users.

See... the Catholic Church had a somewhat rocky relationship with magic. Given the length of time we're talking about, certain Vatican administrations had liked the idea of having loyal clergy capable of bending reality to their will and others had viewed them as a threat to the institutional power of the church itself.

The latter was, admittedly, more common than the former.

But... there were loopholes, too.

For instance, while 'The Church' is often portrayed as a monolithic entity, institutional power is handed down to local leaders. Especially in time where communication was a lengthy and tedious process where messages could be intercepted by bandits, well... a given cardinal or bishop or the local head of a monastery could have a great deal of leeway on how they interpreted the edits of the Vicar of Christ in specific and scripture in general.

And a lot of devout individuals who were incidentally capable of magic simply didn't call themselves wizards or witches.

They were philosophers.

Or alchemists.

Or whatever convenient lie of omission was necessary when they needed to obscure their metaphysical powers.

So to say that the Catholic Church had any real uniform policy regarding magical people or magical species... well, it's a gross exaggeration of the highest order.

But most of those groups remember the atrocities more than the long decades of peace and coexistence.

And a big reason why was because of the Society of Judas.

“Ah, as I live and breathe! A Pendragon on Holy Italian soil!” The giant of a man in a white robe over a thin gown of coarse goatskin tied around the waist. “Were it still the bygone ages where I could have you boiled in oil or burned at the stake!”

I smiled as the tension ratcheted up from Cassandra and Kitty at my sides, pushing a wave of calm at them.

“It's always a pleasure to be greeted by a sect so heretical, violent, and crazy that even your boss is afraid of removing you,” I replied with a pleasant tone.

The Catholic Mage-Hunter laughed loudly, clapping his hands once. “It is refreshing to see that one of your family still has their spine. The last one we dealt with practically wet himself, my predecessor's papers are to be believed.”

“Great-Grandfather Thomas was more of a courtier than anything else. He had genteel sensibilities,” I waved the insult off. “I can't imagine too many refined people of culture have the tenacity to retain control of their bowels when in your presence.”

The priest gave me a snort and chuckle, then shook his head as he sat down. “Alright. I guess I can put up with a royal brat like you if you can put up with that kind of talk without running back to your mother.”

“You mean that was all some kind of test?” Kitty asked, scowling at the man.

I shook my head. “No. He really feels that way. Father Schadel genuinely hates any and all magical beings, including witches and wizards, who operate outside the purview of the church. He's the type of man who would have burned people at the stake a few centuries ago.”

Cass scowled at the man, her fist clenching at her side, the only outward sign of her frustration at being forced to deal with someone like this non-violently.

“And we need a guy like this... why?” Kitty asked, disgust lacing her voice as she glared at the priest.

“If you'll allow me to speak for myself,” the hulking man interrupted, amusement lacing his tone as he gave a mocking bow from his sitting position. “As the head priest of the Society of Judas, I - Father Nikolai Schadel, know all about the sordid history of how my poor and disavowed order has been repeatedly and routinely used as a deniable weapon by this boy's family of heretics and apostates.”

I rolled my eyes and nodded at Kitty's wide eyes searching for confirmation. “Putting aside the childish plea for innocence by blaming my family, we do have a history of using them as deniable assets to take care of problematic groups.”

Kitty grimaced, looking away. “So my boss works with a group of religious nutjobs who hunt down anyone who doesn't conform to their sense of what's right. You can guess how that makes me feel.”

I hummed, nodding, holding up a hand to stop the still-amused Schadel from speaking. “This is my first time personally working with them and, generally speaking, we only point them at violent lunatics that they''d enjoy killing even without us paying them.”

“I have to admit that's true,” Schadel chuckled, reaching up to cradle his chin, which was as bald as his head. “Pendragons have always had a soft spot for innocent civilians. They even pay us extra to extract the children those monsters abduct unharmed.”

Kitty blinked, looking between the two of us and quickly determining that she'd been used, her grimace shifting to something approaching a snarl at the priest.

Schadel simply laughed in response, unknowing – or perhaps uncaring – of how close he was to serious injury.

Cassandra, quiet as always, gave off vibes that were less violent, but no more dangerous for it.

I sighed and cast a glance around the room. It was a very ordinary villa in the Italian countryside, hidden away in a remote mountain village that was barely on any map. This was the kind of place where the modern world hadn't truly penetrated yet, where the church was still the center of daily life and where the local church-run orphanage was the heart of economic activity.

It was impossible to tell how many people in the village knew that the little housing complex was actually a home for wayward magicals or what they were being trained for.

“If you're done trying to incite my friends into violence against me?” I asked the priest mildly. Part of me regretted not bringing Sara on this trip, but... well, she would have escalated instead of backing down. My sister might no longer be constantly urged towards violence by an extra-dimensional parasite, but old habits died hard.

Regrettably, I needed this man functional and cooperative instead of a raving psychotic who'd just had his entire life upended by a bratty preteen whose pride he'd injured.

“I suppose,” Schadel hummed, raising a hand towards the young attendant at the doorway, the boy only a few years older than us. “They'll be on guard for it now, anyway, and that takes away most of the fun. So, Pendragon-boy... why come all the way out here yourself instead of sending a gopher?”

Because you'd be even more obnoxious to them in my stead and I don't want to drag this out any further than I have to.

I sighed and reached down to the case I was carrying, pulling it up. “Tell me, how many combatants can you muster with extended notice?”

Schadel blinked for the first time during our conversation, frowning at me. “Provided you can pay? Hmm... give me three months and I can get... ten thousand?”

“How many of them are fit to teach?” I asked. “Give them a class of... ten or fifteen each, let's say.”

“This conversation definitely isn't going where I expected,” Schadel muttered, still frowning thoughtfully as I fed him even more odd questions. The young attendant interrupted thing as he stepped into the room carrying coffee and ice water. “Drink, please. The water's for you, so you know it's not poisoned or anything.”

I still tested it discreetly, giving Cass and Kitty a nod each.

Taking a pull from his coffee, Schadel sighed. “That's more of a question of how many of the students would be willing to learn and what you'd want them to be taught.”

“I'd want you to teach them everything the Society has to teach,” I replied bluntly. “I'd be willing to pay for your time and allow you to recruit a willing number of them into your organization no greater than five percent of the total as an incentive to teach them well.”

Schadel was scowling now, his gaze narrowed at me. “You're acting like we need that many. The Society doesn't have the kind of workload we used to. We can't feed that many mouths once you pull out.”

I waved the complaint off. “Imagine you have more contracts than you know what to do with and more work than you can possibly finish in your lifetime.”

“I don't appreciate being made fun of, if this is a joke,” Schadel growled. “And if it's not, you're making it sound like you're planning to take on the entire world. Planning to be a modern-day Arthur?”

“And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood.”

There was a long, heavy silence.

The sound of the attendant's platter shattering on the ground broke it.

“Do you have even the slightest idea of what you're suggesting, Solomon Pendragon?” Schadel asked, his gaze intent and serious.

I hummed and withdrew a sheaf of papers from my case, setting them on the table in front of us. “Being perfectly clear, I find much of the Society of Judas to be utterly disgusting. You use brainwashed child soldiers, you raid magical settlements in remote parts of the world, you kill as an indulgence to a religion that is supposed to be about peace and tolerance. You are the worst parts of a medieval mindset brought to life and given form. If there was a better option, I want you to rest assured I'd be talking to almost anyone else.”

Despite my insults, the burly priest smiled. “So we're the best choice? I suppose if you truly believe the apocalypse is coming...”

“The Society of Judas is the only remaining military force on Earth that utilizes fully modern military tactics and weaponry in conjunction with the application of magical knowledge,” I stated bluntly, and it hurt to admit.

The military forces under the Pendragon flag weren't anything to be ashamed of, but...

Well, we still used cavalry, pikemen, and cannon that hadn't been modernized since the mid-eighteen hundreds. That was still a few dozens steps above what virtually anyone else was using, but nothing to brag about, either. That was especially true given that the only governments that really had a magical military were a few city-states in the Middle East, India, south-east Asia, and China. Regrettably, they were all even more primitive than our own.

Honestly, the Pendragon armed forces were more of an honorary position than anything else.

Oh, they knew how to fight and they were perfectly willing to kill on orders from the nobility, but actual organized violence that required military force was usually limited to rogue dragon attacks, not organized responses to other militaries.

The Society of Judas, on the other hand?

They had been fighting a variety of small and large-scale (though admittedly few of the latter) military conflicts against the world's worst dark lords over the past five centuries. There was a reason that, despite the worst abuses of the seventeenth century, the collective response of the newly-constructed magical governments had been to pointedly ignore the Vatican's wetworks teams.

Because they did everyone's dirty work.

At least until the rot gets so deep that a government tells them to fuck off so that the Dark Lord can finish formally taking power.

Britain wasn't the only example, but it was the most prominent and visible.

“So, what... we're going to be fighting against the forces of hell?” Schadel asked, leaning back as much as he was able and crossing his arms.

“As long as you're amenable to my terms, you'd be forming the core of a military command structure to fight something analogous to an army of demons and devils. I'll be asking you to coordinate with a number of non-magical and magical mercenaries that I've organized the hiring of as well to supplement the educational infrastructure,” I explained calmly, seriously.

“You really believe this, don't you?” Schadel asked, looking at the folder in front of us and finally reaching out to take it.

“When a man who can move through the most powerful wards money can't buy shows up in your home and tells you that the world is ending, you listen,” I replied, blaming my alternate identity for the information.

“That's all he had to do, huh? Maybe I should send one of our assassins to tell you that the sky... is... falling...” Schadel began, trailing off as he bag to read.

The first few pages were a study on the disposition of the local forces of 'good,' the Silver Legion, in the local multiverse and how they weren't available to deal with this crisis. Regardless of how delusional I considered this man and his organization for following, it was a useful lever to motivate him into action. The fact that I had actual pictures of real angels doing battle with actual demons and devils on file probably helped.

The holographically-displayed animations, ones not even local magic was capable of replicating, was a nice touch, too.

For nearly ten minutes, the two girls and I sat in silence as Schadel watched and read.

“I suppose God doesn't consult mortals when he picks his messengers,” Schadel stated slowly, closing the files at last and taking a deep breath. “His designs, after all, are not for us to know. The fact that you've been visited by someone who does know them... that is proof enough.”

I nodded. “The final proof will come in September, when the first gate opens. The mundane military of whichever nation receives it will likely be able to handle that alone. Your forces will be committed to training.”

Schadel nodded gravely. “Provided everything occurs as described in this document during the appointed period, you will have our services as cheaply as I can arrange for. Under the circumstances, I would normally not charge at all, but...”

“We exist in an imperfect world,” I nodded. “Where people expect to be paid for the privilege of defending their own lives, families, and the world they live in from an invasion of the forces of evil.”

“Hah! You might be a heretic, but I suppose it wouldn't be too awful to fight and die in the service of God's will with someone who properly understands!” Schadel brazenly laughed, then clapped his hands loudly. “You do understand that if this actually is some manner of deception, it will mean the full force of the Society of Judas comes down on New Camelot with God's divine wrath.”

It wasn't a question. “I'm aware, yes. My family has always dealt honorably with you, despite our many disagreements. I'll ask that, despite the incredible circumstances, you trust in our lengthy history of cooperation.”

Schadel stared at me quietly, then nodded decisively. “Good. Well, I have work to do. You may see yourselves out.”

“Thank god we can finally leave,” Kitty muttered as we stood and moved towards the door. Once we were out of the seemingly-small meeting building, she looked towards me. “Are you sure we can trust them?”

“Trust them to do what?” I asked her in turn. “To walk my dog? To watch my house over the weekend? To borrow my car while I'm away on vacation? No. I would not trust them with anything I didn't explicitly want set on fire, shot full of enchanted silver, or interrogated by torture.”

“You trust criminals to act in certain ways,” Cassandra chimed in with a whisper-light tone. “But only in those ways. A gun only knows how to shoot, a killer only knows how to kill.”

Kitty grimaced, shooting a venomous look at the building we'd come from as we walked far enough out of town to be away from their wards. We needed to sell the illusion that our public identities were still bound by the known laws of magic, after all. “So long as I don't have to deal with those assholes, I don't really care, I guess. Why'd you want me along on this trip, anyway?”

“Because you were feeling like you weren't properly contributing to the group and had vital skills necessary to exfiltrate the situation if the organization had gone insane or decided we were lying for whatever reason,” I replied glibly, making her blink. “And, also, because you'd hate them.”

“You'll... have to explain that one to me,” Kitty replied slowly, her eyebrows knitting in confusion.

“You're a Gay, Jewish, Mutant,” I reminded her. “If anyone has reason to dislike the Catholic Church in our group, it's you. I wanted someone along who wouldn't fall for any bullshit they tried to feed you.”

Kitty winced. “But I still-”

“Once,” I nodded, “but you also waited to hear me out before getting upset, and it's not a mistake you'll make again, will you?”

She shook her head, a hard look in her eyes. “I'm sorry that I even believed him for a second.”

“That's good enough for me, then,” I sighed, reaching up to rub at my forehead. “Besides, my family has used the Society of Judas for some unsavory things before. Things that are less black and white than what he pretended, likely because he hasn't read up on all of the things his order has done for my family. More than a few of them are ancient history.”

“But never innocents?” Kitty asked intently.

I shook my head. “The Pendragon family, to the best of my knowledge, never mobilized the Society of Judas to kill a single innocent person. Man, woman, child, or a member of a magical species. That doesn't mean it didn't happen, but we never asked them to do it.”

That's also not to say that we never knowingly allowed it to happen, either.

The official histories, at least, always read that the Society of Judas had zealously extinguished entire villages and whole family lines.

Finally, I felt us pass the boundary of the ward-line and we vanished back home.

…

“Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygo-” Harriet chattered as she ran through the enormous arcade, followed closely by Sara.

Well, it'd be hard not to, seeing as the younger girl had my sister's hand in a death grip.

“This is... incredibly creepy,” the only real human adult in our party stated, staring up at the large animatronic mouse. He turned to me in disbelief. “And you're sure there's no magic making it dance?”

I snorted, sipping at my soda and feeling the pleasant rush of energy from the sugar as I began subtly bouncing on the balls of my feet. “I'm sure, yeah.”

“Hey boys and girls-!”

“Merlin's Balls!” Sirius hissed, dancing backwards with a horrified expression on his face. “How do muggles think this is a good idea to show children!?”

I snickered, drawing the man's ire.

“Only American mundanes,” I corrected him, glad that the giant three-story Chuck E. Cheese was mostly empty mid-morning on a school day. I could have easily rented the entire thing out, but Harriest didn't want to deprive any other kids of the experience, so I'd compromised in slipping them a few thousand dollars to open early for the party. “Well, that and maybe Japanese mundanes too. We're both pretty weird.”

“You're American? Circe, that makes so much sense...” Sirius shuddered.

I held up a hand and waggled it. “Technically. My sister and I were born in America, at least. One of the premiere magical institutions on the continent is the Magical University of New Orleans which also has some of the best medical facilities on this side of the planet.”

“So you were born there?” Sirius asked, frowning. “I've only ever been to Haiti once to inspect the Black family's holdings back before I got kicked out of the family. Never been to New Orleans.”

“We'll have to try and get you there for Mardi Gras. Harriet's a little young, but between you and Remus, you'll have a pretty fun time,” I hummed. “Anyway, by mundane American law, we count as citizens due to being born within the bounds of the national borders, though we're more officially citizen-subjects of New Camelot, which is about twice the size of Puerto Rico... ah, about twice the size of the entire metropolitan area of London. With about an eighth of the population, only fifty thousand of which are magical.”

Sirius cocked his head oddly, whistling lowly under his breath before taking a swig of his soda and grimacing. “Ugh... it's got a weird taste to it. Reminds me of that shite they served at Petunia's wedding.”

I frowned and took a sip myself. “Ah... probably the chemical additives and sweeteners. Don't worry, you'll get used to it.”

The dog-man looked as though he very much did not want to 'get used to it,' grumbling about pumpkin juice as I felt a tap on my shoulder.

Turning, I saw Cass staring at me impatiently.

I blinked.

Her fingers twisted into a series of rapid shapes. 'You're not having fun.'

She reached out and tapped me in the chest, then reached around and pointed at the large series of colorful tubes and the pit of equally brightly-colored plastic balls off to the side.

I sighed, looked down at my soda the same way most adults would a shot of whiskey, and downed the entire thing in a single long pull.

Sugar and caffeine coursing through my system, I nodded to Cass. “Race you to the top!”

~~~

Here we go!

A nice long chapter with the events of the quick negotiation between Solomon and the Society of Judas as well as Harriet's birthday party. I've got a bit more about the party in the next chapter, I think, especially considering Sirius made his choice, so I need to do at least a little introduction between him and Harriet.

Other than that... I think this is a good jump back into things.

I'll be working on a chapter of Where Your God Is later this month. More Mind Games up next on the list right now, though.

Nexus Event - Chapter 17

Here we go!

A nice long chapter with the events of the quick negotiation between Solomon and the Society of Judas as well as Harriet's birthday party. I've got a bit more about the party in the next chapter, I think, especially considering Sirius made his choice, so I need to do at least a little introduction between him and Harriet.

Other than that... I think this is a good jump back into things.

I'll be working on a chapter of Where Your God Is later this month. More Mind Games up next on the list right now, though.

The Hand We're Dealt - Chapter 11

“Seal.”

The intricate design of earth, stone, salt, wood, and a dozen other things flared with energy coaxed and stored in an array of small quartz crystals dotting the knotwork of power I'd constructed over the small hill.

Marteen van Beek watched impassively from a large rocky outcropping nearby, likely some kind of glacial deposit formed thousands of years prior.

As the energy coalesced and followed the complicated design I'd described into the soil, I reflected on what was, in some senses, my thesis project.

The Professor had, by this point, long gotten tired of seeing me bend my will towards tools to increase the quality of my life. Personally, I think it was the magical toilet and bidet that I'd made that finally broke the man. Seeing the 'higher magics' of sorcery twisted towards a device meant to deal with literal human waste was... well, beyond a waste, in his eyes. He'd outright demanded I put his lessons to better use than I was if he was going to continue teaching me.

So I had done just that.

My first 'real' act of sorcery had been a modification of the basic magical LEDs I'd placed around my room when I finally got tired of changing candles and dealing with the thick oily fumes that the slow-burning wax of this era used.

I'd created a series of leather bands to carry those spell matrixes embedded in them, placed them on my forearms, and...

Well, it worked.

The leather bands I'd created allowed me to project and control light.

It wasn't 'real' light, granted. With all of the munchkinry I'd resorted to in the end, the result was a form of magical illumination that behaved like light until someone with the right permissions told it what to do. When that happened, you could make it bend, twist, turn at right angles, or even dance.

And if you focused enough power through the arrays, you could turn mostly-harmless 'light' into a searing beam of magical laser-death.

To do that, I'd specifically omitted an upper ceiling in how much energy they could take before collapsing. It made the designs a bit less efficient and much longer, but that just meant another few layers of wrapped leather. All in all, it was a great little experiment to showcase my capabilities outside of making simple magical gadgets for everyday life.

The Professor had taken one look at it, pronounced it 'passable' and set me on another task.

And another after that.

And another after that.

Around the fifth time that happened, I finally got the hint and proposed my own project before I could get assigned one by my master.

After having my proposal for a magical ceiling fan dismissed with prejudice, I also intuited that it needed to be something that was 'worthy of the art.'

So I'd taken a year to build an intricate holographic armillary sphere for tracking the major constellations.

If nothing else, it kept the old bastard off my fucking back.

So I'd upped the ante this year.

The most advanced and powerful thing I'd ever made.

Now to see if I'd bungled everything or not.

…

The idiot child had finally stopped wasting his time.

It was one thing, Marteen reflected, to whittle away at one's own life thinking about creating little toys to amuse oneself, but that was not a fitting fate for his apprentice. At least, not while he still drew breath. The boy had it in him to be great.

He just needed to leave behind these childish delusions he clung to.

If he wanted to spend his final years playing nanny to an easily-amused magical infant, he would have simply settled for an idiot magician and let the art die with him.

Better for it to die here and now than be twisted to tawdry ends!

The boy was using it to clean toilets!

He had the power of the very Heavens and Earth at his disposal and he was using it to wipe his ass!

Marteen could tolerate much in a failure of an apprentice. Even a student of only middling talent would have sufficed, but to have one which held such potential squander it so... the old man had never thought himself much of a teacher, despite his profession of several decades. Learning was something his students did. Teaching was just the presentation of the material they needed to wrap their weak and incapable minds around whatever was being discussed.

Laziness, pure and simple, that's what it was.

As was evident with his apprentice.

A coruscating pattern of light briefly brought a second sun's brightness to the sky, the magical working Henry had undertaken straining the temporary wards erected to contain and obfuscate the energy.

Then it started to shrink.

No... compress itself.

That was impressive all on its own, a feat he'd seldom seen equaled among human practitioners. It was rare for a human to get to the point where they could comfortably handle controlling that much energy, yet young Henry seemed to do it with an almost casual ease.

Against the glare of the power that was being refined, reinforced, and structured, his apprentice wore a look of almost comically-bored focus, his hands extended and manipulating currents of raw energy as if he were dipping them into a placid stream.

Marteen may have never taught a student the arts before, but he had heard enough of his peers complain about the way those children flinched from the energy they were supposed to master. It was one of the reasons he'd held off so long on taking a student himself. Babying a neophyte was the last thing he wished to waste his time on, and there was no more simple a task than not being scared of your own capabilities than he could imagine.

The other side he'd heard – and seen more than a bit of – was the type of casual arrogance only a child could possess when toying with the fabric of the world itself. Without knowledge of the dangers, something that only seemed able to come from being burned by the energy itself. Not enough to maim or cripple, but enough to disabuse a student of their superiority.

Breathtakingly few practitioners went into the study of the art with a disregard for the danger they were in while simultaneously maintaining a respect for the power they were using.

Truthfully, Marteen knew of no real way to actually train that level of awareness and understanding of acceptable risk that was found in the most skilled and insightful magicians, sorcerers, and wizards...

Thankfully, something seemed to have finally gone right in his life after having been forced to flee to this godforsaken land after the fool's errand of supporting that Theresa bitch. Speaking up against madness, he'd learned, did little to affect the course of events when one was surrounded by the very lunatics themselves!

And then there was his Sacred Gear.

The Encyclopedia.

Marteen would be hard-pressed to imagine a more mundane name for such an incredible supernatural tool. It was precisely the kind of name that Henry Bell would give a blessing from God Himself, though. The boy who bent the firmament of the world and the echo of Creation Itself to common daily tasks... yes, Henry was precisely the kind of person to do something like that.

Today was not the Summer Solstice for Henry Bell.

No, it was a Tuesday.

And that was it.

Marteen did not believe, deep down, that he would be able to engender the kind of reverence that practitioners should have for the art. Perhaps with another decade or two, but even then...

He was tired.

He'd lived a long life, lost almost everything important to him, and been forced to rebuild from the scraps left more than once. Henry Bell was, in most ways, everything he could wish for in an apprentice. If he took to the ancient mystic art of sorcery like a carpenter took to working a block wood, then so be it. There was little enough time to teach the boy everything he could anyway. Some lessons would come with time, or not at all.

Standing up, Marteen cursed the weakness in his body as he pulled out a handkerchief and coughed into it.

At least the cloth came away clean today.

“The curse is getting stronger,” he sighed, leveraging his walking stick as he made his way down the large stone he'd taken for a seat before limping up the hill his apprentice was finishing the ritual on.

The great mass of magic which he'd summoned up and pulled together was no simply a terribly bright star of light hovering above the center of the diagram. Eventually, he made his way up towards the the peak of the hill where Henry was carefully discharging the remaining magical energies clinging to the array, as he'd made sure the boy knew to do. Casting his own metaphysical senses over the hilltop, he frowned.

Methodical as usual.

Irritating boy.

“Well, let's see it,” Marteen demanded, hobbling towards the center, a century of habit forcing him to step neatly over each of the ritual lines.

The day he disturbed a still-warm pattern like that was the day he'd take poison and put himself out of his doddering misery.

“Here, Master,” Henry offered obediently, holding up the tiny silver locket.

Silver, a good choice for the metal, even if it was a bit expensive. Still, the too-cunning boy knew well what he'd think of this project and he'd had little reason to turn it down. It was, superficially, even simpler than the boy's previous projects. Almost a waste of time, if looked at from a certain angle given that there was nothing new in the calculations.

But...

Marteen narrowed his gaze at the polished oval on the face of the locket.

There's something to be said for the fundamentals applied to mastery.

“I'm thinking of calling it a 'Second Heart,'” the Bell boy offered, then dipped his head at Marteen's gaze.

“The basics of sorcery are learning which materials respond in which ways when used together,” Marteen lectured softly, his senses poking and prodding. “Our magic works with the design we implement in our surroundings to give it form and function. Thus it could be said that the highest demonstration of mastery in the basic components of our art is to create a method by which that very resonance can be controlled or eliminated entirely.”

Marteen's eyes flicked towards the boy's blank gaze, almost wishing for some of that hungry youthful hope so he could dash it.

But no, Henry was smarter than that.

“This is not that,” Marteen stated, holding out the locket for his student to take. “But it is the first step on a path towards that goal, should you wish to aim for it.”

He paused again as he dropped the silver mirror-locket into the boy's hand.

'Second Heart,' was a good name for what he'd crafted. It was, as he'd thought earlier, a simple thing, but that did not stop the implementation from being difficult. Constructing a magical item that would take the place of your own mind, body, and soul for a single conceptual blow was no small feat. The mere fact that the boy could do so after only four years of study was a testament to his talent, though.

Yes, Marteen could ask for a better student in some ways.

But as long as the boy's own simple naivete didn't kill him or he grew a big head over his abilities, Henry Bell was a worthwhile successor.

As long as they boy would stop obsessing over the most inane and childish of things!

…

Ah, now that that's done I should be able to beg off starting a new project for a month before he gets irritable again. What should I focus on in the meantime?

The thought hung for a moment as I scrolled through my indexed project list.

Oooh! Magical dishwasher! Yes!

Then the crush of demonic power was in the air and the Professor was pulling me behind him, his cane out threateningly in one hand and his own power unfurling like a cloud.

I followed my mentor's gaze upwards, finding not one, but two figures floating in the air with black bat-wings extended, though motionless. Distantly, I felt the flicker of another pair of powers ignite and then rapidly fade into the distance, but nearly the whole of my mind was taken up by the focus on the devils in the sky above me.

One was slightly tanned, a skin tone even closer to caucasian than my own. He wore a fairly elaborate outfit of red and black leather with dull yellow trim stretched over a muscular body that left some of his chest and most of his abdomen uncovered. At a glance, I'd put him on the younger side of a human's appearance... likely in his very early thirties if past his twenties at all, but that meant almost nothing to a species that counted its lifespan in millennia. He could be anywhere from the twenty-five he looked to five or six hundred years old.

The Four Satanas, if I remembered correctly, weren't even that old and were already the powerhouses of their faction.

Staring up at the figure in the sky, I had to wonder...

Was this even close to that? Was what I was feeling right now the average power level of a devil?

It made the frustration of the Hero Faction a little clearer if it was.

So this is what it's like to feel insignificant.

“Marteen van Beek?” The elder of the two devils in the sky asked, blinking, then smiled. “I'd thought you dead decades ago!”

The figure at my side did not particularly relax, even if there was no threat in the words. “As I'd hoped most of my enemies would! If you have sated your curiosity, hellspawn, be gone with you!”

Proving that the devil knew my master, the supernatural being chuckled instead of taking offense, reaching out to take the hand of the younger and, with only the subtlest flap of their wings, lowered themselves to the ground before us.

I slipped my newly-made magic item into my pocket and made sure the folds of my outer jacket hid my Sacred Gear from view. Even if it could only be truly sensed upon activation when changing subjects, I didn't want to risk it.

“Cleria, this old bitter fellow is a contact of mine among the human magical societies,” the elder of the two introduced, nodding towards the younger girl.

She was thin, slight, and wore a dress that ended in ruffles at the upper thigh with stockings that left Absolute Territory between the two. It was something that probably would have had heads turning and sermons blistering the moment they stepped anywhere near a current-day American settlement, even if it was nothing too remarkable to the sensibilities of my old life.

It actually made me a bit homesick, to tell the truth.

“I am Cleria Belial,” the young devil stated, moving into a small bow. “Branch House of the Belial Clan of the 72 Pillars.”

“Marteen van Beek, Sorcerer,” my mentor bit out, glaring at the elder of the two. “And my apprentice. Boy! Introduce yourself!”

I cleared my throat and stepped around my master. “Henry Bell, Master Marteen van Beek's Apprentice in the Mystic Arts. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“You actually took an apprentice,” the elder of the two muttered, smiling as he shook his head. “Humans have always surprised me, I suppose. Very well, Apprentice Bell. My name is Deihauser Belial, Barony House of the 72 Pillar Families.”

“If you expect me to offer refreshments, I'm afraid those outfits of yours aren't anything I'd be able to show off around these parts,” the Professor snorted.

“Oh, if that's the case it's a problem easily remedied,” Diehauser stated with a snap of his fingers. A moment later he was wearing something far more modest that covered a great deal more skin.

His... cousin? Relation? The younger member of his family took a moment longer to ignite a Magician's magic circle that, likewise, made her body glow before it resolved into a new outfit that was much more appropriate for early nineteenth-century New England.

“Well, may I take you up on those refreshments now? We do have a great deal to catch up on!” Diehauser smiled.

The Professor bit off a particularly nasty curse and turned to stomp off in the direction of our house. My shoulder slumped and I sighed as I gave our soon-to-be guests a bow. “Please, this way.”

“Oh, how delightful! It seems the old man hasn't quite burned the politeness out of you yet!” Daihauser chuckled as he walked along. “Cleria, do keep young... Henry, wasn't it? Keep him company while I catch up with an old friend!”

With that, the elder of the two practically skipped off to walk with my mentor.

Cleria and I exchanged glances.

“I'm sorry for my brother,” she murmured with a tilt of her head. “He's quite impressive in the Rating Games, but his attitude often... leaves something to be desired of.”

“Apology accepted. I suppose... I should apologize for my Master,” I sighed. “I'd make the excuse that this was a bad day, but... he's like this with everyone.”

Cleria smiled at me, sweeping her white hair over an ear. “Apology accepted. Escort me to your residence, Mr. Bell?”

I shook my head, smiling back. “Please, call me Henry. It's just this way.”

“Then I insist you call me Cleria,” she replied, and we began walking.

The one-sided chatter in front of us, though, apparently demanded we make up our own conversation, as the silence between us began to linger into awkwardness. “If it isn't rude, may I ask what brought you and your brother out this far? I'm given to understand that the Americas aren't very popular with devils.”

Left unsaid was that there was a particular reason behind the Professor's move here.

“Diehauser heard about a new promising human practitioner in the human city of Toronto. North of here,” Cleria confessed. “He's been looking for a new contradicted mage ever since your Master fell out of touch some decades prior.”

I blinked.

Marteen van Beek? Dealing with devils?

My face must have shown something of my disbelief, as Cleria giggled and shook her head. “From what my brother says, he was the point of contact between his organization and Diehauser, who served as the most genial of our clan and is often sent to negotiate should the need arise.”

“I suppose that explains some things,” I hummed. “Though it raises other questions. My master is not one to talk about his life previous to my apprenticeship. I've heard bits and pieces from his scholarly acquaintances, but nothing of substance.”

“Ah... you don't know he was one of the most skilled of the Netherlands' College of Sorcery, then,” she informed me with a secretive grin.

I let that fact resonate with what I knew of the older man and, more importantly, of what I knew about history.

Contrary to what most people of my time might know of the Low Countries – Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg – weren't just pathways for the Germans to invade France. In fact, for most of European history, the idea that a German army would make it into France proper would be laughable. The sole exception to that claim being the Austrians who had, through their royal family's holdings, once controlled the Netherlands as a Hapsburg possession.

Truthfully, I didn't know all that much about those particular wars. Dutch names were difficult to pronounce.

What I did know was that the Austrian and Spanish Hapsburgs had fought a number of wars between themselves, France, and England and that the Netherlands were invaded almost every single time. So, given my Master's age... the last significant pre-Napoleon fuckery around the Netherlands was probably...

“The War of Austrian Succession,” I concluded, really only notable for being yet another European war that resolved nothing and set the stage for a bigger one a few years later. In this instance, it was the Seven Years' War, which had much more significant and far-reaching consequences.

“I think it was that, yes,” Cleria nodded, her face scrunching up. “You humans have so many wars I can never keep track of them. Anyway, the College voted to remain loyal to the Austrian Empress and got shelled by France when they were invaded. I don't think your Master's old friends thought much of gunpowder or canons.”

I hummed thoughtfully, nodding. “I suppose that would explain things. Cannons have really come into their own in the past hundred years or so. If the College were full of people who focused on the effectiveness of magic...”

Well, they'd probably set up shop in the sixteen hundreds or earlier. Effective artillery pieces did exist during that time, but they weren't fielded en masse like they would be starting in the seventeen hundreds. A sorcery sitting in their stronghold... or even a particularly talented magician could simply throw out a lightning bolt or a fireball and silence the guns fairly easily. Especially if the cannoneers weren’t well trained or experienced.  Gunners could take several shots to properly align their aim.

“It's a shame, really,” Cleria sighed, her head dipping. “My brother says it was the last great gathering of sorcerers in Europe and that our family had a lot of dealings with them to help refine important reagents.”

“He hasn't looked for a magician to do the same with?” I asked, half curious and half simply making conversation.

She shrugged lightly. “Diehauser can be silly about some things. He says that magicians don't do as good work as sorcerers do. Something about attention to detail or something.”

“There's some truth to that,” I stated with a shrug of my own. “Magicians rely on the spell itself to do most of the heavy lifting during a ritual or whatever. So they tend to be sloppier with the setup and force power through the matrix they're using to make things come out alright.”

“Huh... I guess big brother knows what he was talking about, then,” Cleria muttered, her green gaze snapping up to meet my own blue.

I blinked.

“Will you be my contracted magi-er, I mean, sorcerer?” Cleria asked, leaning forward. Then she grinned even wider. “Or, better yet! Join my peerage! I just got my pieces! You can be one of my bishops!”

I snorted, chuckling. “Ah... that's an honor. However... I haven't finished my training yet, and my Master would be very angry if I engaged in any agreements without his oversight. He's very strict.”

Cleria's enthusiasm dimmed. “Hmm... you're right. I suppose having a fully-trained bishop would be better than one only-” She cut herself off and turned back to me. “How much longer do you have in your apprenticeship?”

I sighed a little.

Sorry Future Me, this is really going to suck for you in a few years. My bad.

“Six years,” I replied, because the Professor seemed convinced he'd be dead by that point, which would mean my apprenticeship was going to be concluded one way or another. “After that, I'll be on my own.”

“Six years then,” Cleria nodded, both to me and to herself. “In six years I'll come back and offer you my piece again.”

“I'll look forward to it,” I stated with a nod.

And... I didn't know if that was a lie, truthfully.

Becoming a devil... it was certainly a choice, though it would make me beholden to the interests of whatever devil I was 'adopted' by specifically and their house more generally. Even if the Belial were apparently only a Barony House in the Underworld, I knew enough that such a title would mean they'd have resources equivalent to most minor nations here on Earth.

And it was the resources I was most concerned about.

Well, that and the fact that the Abrahamic Factions were still in a cold war and, unless something radical changed, would be for another two centuries.

Joining the ranks of the devils meant declaring myself an enemy of Heaven and the Fallen.

I wasn't sure if I wanted that smoke.

Moreover, though, the primary benefit that most people signed on for in the case of the devils was the extended lifespan, and that simply didn't factor into the equation for me.

Oh, my experiments were still developing, but I had about five or six theoretical solutions to the problem of human mortality. It had, after all, been a pretty significant motivating factor throughout the millennia of human civilization and one that all sorts of mystics, healers, and alchemists had fought to solve before it eventually overcame them.

Some of their work was incomplete.

A few of them had been writing for centuries on the subject before they finally stopped.

One or two of them... I suspected that they were still out there, given how recently their notes tallied up to.

The problem was that each of them had a flaw in their capabilities. Or, perhaps not a 'flaw,' but exacted a price for that immortality. No such thing as a free lunch, apparently.

Some only made you immortal in the sense that you wouldn't die of old age. Others prevented death by violence, but did nothing for the ravages of time. Rare ingredients or extreme power in the manufacturing process were also common requirements. The one that needed a cup of dragon's blood each century was particularly interesting, but... probably not something I was going to rely on.

I mean, unless I got a pet dragon, and even then...

The most promising were, of course, Flamel's Philosopher's Stone and a completely unknown doctor from ancient Japan named Katsuhei were the most promising so far.

The flaw in Flamel's Elixir of Life was that you had to make the Stone first, which required both an elaborate ritual as well as enormous magical power. That would likely necessitate a Dragon Vein Nexus of some kind... and those were usually occupied by people who didn't want to rent them out for extended periods of time. That, and the Elixir was only good for a week at a time when you took it, so you had to keep taking it or it'd quit working.

Katsuhei's drug, the 'Eternal Lotus Powder,' simply required a rare flower that I'd never heard of and that probably only grew in remote places in Japan. It was, however, a one-and-done type of drug, given the person who consumed it ageless immortality in the prime of their life, curing all diseases in the process. Unlike the Elixir, though, they'd be vulnerable to mundane or magical injury, whereas Flamel's stone could produce a fluid that would actively mend any injury you possessed when you took it.

And, of course, I had no idea how the two would interact if they were taken together.

Flamel's, at least, was pretty well-documented.

Katsuhei... well, he'd done as best as he could. A lot of it was rooted in eastern folk medicine that lacked any sort of observable cause for the drug to work. If it weren't for the fact that the man himself had seemed to live over two hundred years from his notes, I'd be skeptical of his work. He was also a good man, one who sought out the poor, desperate, and unfortunate to help with his medicine instead of selling it to the highest bidder and living a life of luxury.

I’d need to test both of them before I took either, of course.

There was more than enough information that either of the men who’d invented them hadn’t had access to that might make the formula better.

“What are you thinking about?” Cleria asked suddenly, leaning into my field of view.

I blinked, taken aback momentarily before I shook my head to clear it.  “Ah… just the future, I suppose.”

“A future as a member of my peerage,” Cleria nodded authoritatively.

“That might be in the cards, it might not be,” I shrugged.

“Hey, don’t think you can back out now!”  Cleria huffed, crossing her arms.  “You already accepted!”

I simply laughed, shaking my head as the devil noble followed me to the house.

~~~

Ugh! I swear this chapter tried to kill me.

Anyway, here it is. By the time you're reading this, I'm probably already working on the next update. I'm pretty sure it's going to be either Where Your God Is or Nexus Event. I haven't been back to either of those in a while and need a change of pace.

Thanks again for your patience, I hope you've enjoyed the chapter.

The Hand We're Dealt - Chapter 11

Ugh! I swear this chapter tried to kill me.

Anyway, here it is. By the time you're reading this, I'm probably already working on the next update. I'm pretty sure it's going to be either Where Your God Is or Nexus Event. I haven't been back to either of those in a while and need a change of pace.

Thanks again for your patience, I hope you've enjoyed the chapter.

June Favoritism! - Advanced Tiers

Second Verse, Same as the First!

June Favoritism!

Okay, still working on THWD, but I'm going to go ahead and get the June poll rolling in the meantime.

If you're new here, the way this works is that you pick out the project that you want to have the most updates and I attempt to focus on it for the month if it gets the most votes.

Second-most votes gets second-most attention. Or, at least, I try.

May was, admittedly, a fustercluck. Between me going out of the country and family coming over these last few days as well as my short illness, I've just been pulled every direction at the same time. I'm really, really hoping that June is less of a disaster.

Regardless, thank you all again for your support. It really makes my life a lot better to be doing something like this that I can enjoy and be compensated for it.

Hope everyone's having a great weekend and I'll have another post up soon.

Mind Games - Chapter 28

“So... I didn't ask last night, but...” My father began, a pair of chopsticks pausing over his curry and rice. “What exactly...”

He trailed off, not entirely willing to finish the question he'd begun, but the concern in his expression was enough for me to intuit where he was going with it.

“Nothing too strenuous,” I replied, waving my own wooden utensils. “I needed to drop by a store and buy something, that's it.”

Shinso Niko blinked, staring at me in mild disbelief. “Buy something? Y-you mean, from a store?”

I chuckled and nodded, “I even kept the receipt so I could get reimbursed.”

In this Economy?: Affordable housing is a heavily mythologized tale told to younger generations in order to encourage their blind obedience to the mutilated capitalist dogma mortal economies function under. The Company only requires your suffering to be entertaining for you to earn a decent place to live. Steal at least [10 Million Yen] of money and/or goods from criminal enterprises over the course of a thirty-day period to earn your Pocket Apartment (One Purchase).

I wasn’t even joking, not really.

A moment after I finished, Dad seemed to cotton to the fact that I was fucking with him and gave me an unamused look, which only made me laugh harder.

The crackling snap-dry wind of disbelief only drove it home.

My old man sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Hitoshi, if you don't want to tell me...”

“I'm actually being serious, if omitting a few details,” I replied, still chuckling. “There was a shop nearby that had... well, stuff that it wasn't supposed to have. They didn't know what they had, really, and were selling them for a lot less than they should have, but... things like that shouldn't be left in the wrong hands. All I had to do was go in, flash some cash, grab them, and walk out.”

All I had to do, yes. Not what I did.

“Oh,” Dad muttered, blinking awkwardly, then frowning. “What kind of things did you have to buy? You said they shouldn't be in the wrong hands... they're not dangerous, are they?”

“Only if you don't know what you're doing,” I shook my head, then rolled my eyes at his insistent gaze. “Ugh, fine... it's just a bunch of evil statues. Nothing too nasty.”

“Evil... statues?” Niko asked, his tone suggesting he thought he was being punk'd again.

“If you keep them around and look at them directly for too long they make you go crazy,” I explained with a sigh, holding up a hand before he could open up his mouth to object. “When I say, 'too long,' though, I mean years or decades. Not minutes or hours. Besides, I'm keeping them in a tinted case so you can't see them well enough for anything bad to happen.”

“Ah... evil statues, then,” Dad muttered, frowning as he rubbed his chin. “You're not... keeping them in the house, are you? I'm not sure if I want things like that-”

“They're sitting in a secure site right now, at least until I can hand them over to my contact with the bureaucracy, don't worry,” I cut him off gently.

Again, close enough to the truth. They were sitting in the vault in the Apartment, secured where even Himiko couldn't get to them, and I'd had Velma run a scan on the place to make sure there wasn't any leakage on top of that. Even if this section of The Company wasn't licensed to create things that blocked Eldritch Crazy Juice out, the Pocket Apartments were made by a branch that was able to do so.

“O-oh,” Niko mumbled, nodding after a moment's thought. “If that's the case... then I suppose it's fine. You don't seem to be doing anything too dangerous, so...”

We both went back to eating for a few moments, but I knew the conversation wasn't done.

Sadly, the older man was just too run-down by his life to know when to push for more answers. Which, in a way, was exactly what I needed as a guardian figure in this life. Niko wouldn't press me if I dodged the questions he managed to work up the nerve to ask and, moreover, he wouldn't ask most of the questions he really wanted to for fear of distancing himself from me.

It wasn't what would make him happy, though.

No, more than that, letting him stew in that kind of uncertainty and quiet misery would only result in a slow poisoning of both the man himself and our relationship.

“You can ask, you know,” I stated absently, as if remarking on the weather. “The only questions I said you shouldn't ask were the ones with answers that might bother you. That's your call.”

A foreboding chill wind began to blow.

“R-right... I'm just not sure if this is one of those,” Dad admitted with a frown as he looked away. Then, before I could respond, he appeared to steel himself. “How does someone... get hired by the Celestial Bureaucracy?”

I stopped chewing momentarily and blinked at my father, actually startled at the train of thought, then picked up my drink and took a heavy pull before swallowing. “That's... hmm, that's actually a good question. Can I have a moment to think about how to answer it?”

“If you don't want to – or think I shouldn't hear it-” Niko began, already backpedaling.

I waved him off, leaning back in my chair as much as I was able to. “No, no... it's just... kind of complicated? I mean, on one level... it's kind of like any other job? You send in a resume or you get a recommendation or, well... that kind of thing.”

“They... accept resumes?” Niko asked, confusion pouring down light rain from on-high.

I sighed and scratched at my head for a moment before pulling out my phone. “Not really, it's just... like this, okay?”

Dad blinked and looked over the small rectangle. “This isn't a resume, Hitoshi... this is, I don't know what this is, actually. 'You have been chosen to defeat the Demon Lord, Pick One Major Boon and Three Minor Boons.'”

“Yeah, I know what it looks like,” I snorted. “But... it's kind of a stealth resume, in a way. A... test of character, to see what you choose and how you'd go about saving the world.”

Niko blinked, looking at the simple document in a new light. “Huh. I... that actually makes a little sense. So you submitted one of these and they liked your answers?”

I grimaced slightly. “I... ah, actually got in on a recommendation.”

Dad's eyebrows furrowed, harsh confusion beating down like the summer sun. When he spoke it was slow and ponderous, as if he didn't know whether he wanted the answer or not. “Can I... ask... who? I mean, as long as you can tell me, since you're trying to keep everything secret.”

I drummed my fingers on the table in front of me, considering how best to answer. “I'm going to answer this in a roundabout way, so... let's say... you hire someone for a job, okay?”

“Okay?” Niko nodded slowly, resolving himself to my little thought experiment.

“He's a good employee. He does all his work on time, gets his assignments done, doesn't cause any problems, learned the ropes quick after you hired him, barely anyone has a negative thing to say about him, okay?” I asked, painting a fairly ambiguous picture.

“Sounds like a great guy,” Dad nodded. “If I were running the business, I'd probably want to hire ten more just like him.”

I grinned suddenly, raising a hand and snapping my thumb against my middle finger in a motion that left a 'finger-gun' on my right hand pointing at him. “Right! Exactly! So... why don't you hire ten more of him?”

Niko frowned at me. “Because, obviously, I couldn't find ten more people exactly like him. If I knew how to do that, Hitoshi, I'd sell the secret for a few billion yen and never work a day in my life again.”

We both knew that last part was a lie, but I let it pass unremarked.

“Not people exactly like him... just ten more of him,” I repeated, emphasizing my earlier statement.

It still didn't click, the older man staring at me. “Are you talking about... clones, or something?”

I shook my head, pushing that explanation away to never. There were things my father would be willing to accept and things he wouldn't be, and that was firmly in the latter category. “No, just... if you think Shinso Hitoshi makes a great employee, all you have to do is find a world that's close enough to the one you hired him from and look for the Shinso Hitoshi there, then see if your current employee will affirm a recommendation.”

“Oh!” Niko's eyes shot wide as the penny dropped, then wider still as the implications hit home. “By the Gods! Th-that means... oh my... you were recommended by yourself?”

“I'm told I'm a great judge of character,” I smirked. “And I said it, so I know it must be true.”

Niko's jaw dropped and, for a moment, I thought the joke had landed flat, until he started laughing wildly. His fit of laughter lasted almost an entire minute, the sound almost pitching into the hysterical, but not quite. The way I could feel his mood change the atmosphere of the room meant that I could tell he viewed the entire thing as more of an exercise in absurdity than anything else.

Which was, honestly, a healthy reaction to learning how 'big' things were, out there.

Especially since the alternative was usually an existential crisis.

“This is... so insane,” Niko muttered, shaking his head as he internalized what I was telling him. “So you really... did you actually meet your other self? The one who recommended you?”

I shook my head with a small smile, just grateful that the tension had been broken. “Not really, he just left a message with my superiors to pass on.”

Niko sat up a little straighter. “A message? What was it?”

I snorted and intentionally focused on making myself blush. “Ah... a warning about a girl I shouldn't date, to make sure I never got drunk enough to think tattoos were a bright idea-”

Dad jerked in his seat in a fit of suppressed laughter.

“-and to have a better relationship with you,” I stated, shrugging.

The older man blinked rapidly, one hand coming up to wipe at his eyes.

Which is why I lie to you.

The evening devolved into sappiness and heartfelt familial moments after that, which was as good a note as any to end the night on after such a relatively heavy discussion. Still, that left me more than enough time to do some data crunching for the report my vigilante side was building up for the yakuza group that was distributing trigger.

And there was a lot of data to crunch.

Thankfully, I was using a Company-made computer to do so, which essentially gave me a near fiat-backed amount of localized computing power. The bandwidth going in and out of the Apartment was still a chokepoint, but as long as I stored all of the incoming data on my personal computer in my room in the Apartment, I could play with it to my heart's content.

After giving it a day to build up to the point where I could get an actionable amount of intelligence to work with, I was rewarded by the terabytes and terabytes of unrelated bullshit I had to pare down and cull from what would be my final report submitted to a hero agency to get them to move on the locations I'd pinpointed.

The good news, though, was that I had built up a pretty solid map of their supply chain, safe houses, and command structure simply through the panic that had resulted from my robbery.

In fact, I had several good angles from my own hidden cameras on two of the gang's lieutenants and one of the underbosses directly inspecting the basement level.

Nothing, of course, that would tie any of it to All for One, though.

That wasn't much of a surprise, admittedly.

You didn't become the shadow overlord of crime on a national level by being easy to identify as part of a criminal syndicate.

In fact, even knowing he existed, I could only barely see the traces left behind by the invisible hand of someone shaping the movements of the chemicals and money behind the drug.

All of this just reinforced the real problem with All for One.

Simply killing the man was easy enough. At least, if you brought a certain level of ruthlessness uncommon in heroes to the battlefield. Even if he was an old, treacherous, and formidable villain... he was still just a man at the end of the day, even if he wanted to portray himself as some kind of demon king. Enough ordinance – exotic or mundane – would put him down, especially if All Might could cave his skull in. It was just a matter of how much collateral damage you were willing to tolerate and how well you could plan to deliver that firepower.

What you couldn't just blow to smithereens with explosives was the criminal network All for One had built up over the past two centuries.

Two hundred years worth of favor-trading, blackmail, extortion, and judicious redistribution of superpowers left a lot of people in his pocket and a lot more too scared to cross him.

It really underscored why they called All Might the 'Symbol of Peace,' when something like All for One was lurking in the shadows able to mobilize a small army of followers to destabilize the system.

I sighed and toggled up Nakamura's shop on my browser.

Thankfully, the safe I'd stolen last night had refilled my cash reserves and I could place another expensive order for more surveillance equipment.

Given where some of these trails led? I was going to need ironclad evidence to make a dent in this network.

A certain fiscal institution's name in particular had drawn my attention when I was looking over the yakuza's bookkeeping records for their shop.

Every little bit would help, after all.

With that comforting thought, however, I ducked back into the bedroom in my actual home before throwing off my clothes and heading to bed. I had, after all, what promised to be a very thoroughly irritating day tomorrow.

…

“You know, when I heard that I was going to be taking the day off from school for these tests, I really didn't imagine that I'd spend the day filling out math problems as if I was still in the classroom,” I commented, my tone dry as the desert as my pen danced over the equations.

Dr. Kureka chuckled, his white labcoat a little off-color against his naturally-yellow skin, making the man look as though he were perpetually suffering from jaundice. In a pre-quirk world, at least. “Ah, I remember that feeling, Shinso-kun. When I initially looked into being a professional quirk assessor I thought I was going to get to play with high-tech gadgets all day. Sadly, reality always seems to be more boring than we'd like it to be.”

He waved a set of completed foreign-language tests for emphasis.

“Do you ever get to play with the gadgets?” I asked, partially out of real curiosity and partially out of a desire to relieve the mind-numbing boredom that came with proving I knew basic calculus.

Well, River considered it boring, anyway.

“Sometimes,” the professional shrugged his surprisingly broad shoulders with a small smile. “Not nearly enough, though, in my opinion. A great deal of quirk assessment – or reassessment in your case – is the grunt work of seeing what a given person's baseline performance is rather than the high-end capabilities of a professional hero's trained quirk.”

I hummed as I continued filling out problems. “I suppose that there's not much point in getting your quirk assessed if you already know what it does, for the most part.”

The older man chuckled, rubbing at this neatly-trimmed goatee. “You'd be surprised. I tend to recommend even professional heroes undergo a basic reassessment every decade as a part of a standard health check. Prolonged and intensive quirk use pushes abilities to grow in ways that are sometimes too subtle to catch without objective measurements and scientific data... and, unfortunately, it's rare to come across a hero that diligent in documenting their own quirk. Something of a blind spot, I've found.”

“Hmm... mostly at this point I'm just hoping that me filling out all these answer sheets tells you something important,” I stated, sighing as I flipped another page.

Oh, goodie... differential equations. Maybe they'll see if I can count on my fingers and toes next.

Which was, admittedly, an unfair gripe. Normal (whatever that qualifier meant in a world of quirks) people my age wouldn't have the training or skill set to handle this level of arithmetic. That didn't stop it from being the equivalent of basic addition for River Tam, though.

“Oh, we're already getting quite significant data from this little exercise, though your foreign language tests will have to be sent out to a few specialists to grade, sadly. We don't have the funding or resources to handle everything in-house as we'd like,” the doctor explained with a sigh of his own.

“If I'm such an interesting subject, mind telling me what exactly all of this is supposed to accomplish?” I asked, already having a guess, but listening to him explain it was better than nothing.

Kureka cleared his throat and nodded, ready to oblige me. “We're primarily looking to establish a baseline performance for you, Shinso. We want to know what you consider a personal level of strenuous mental exercise. Given your quirk's someone... opaque method of operation, we've formulated a certain hypothesis around it interfacing with your sense of proprioception – your sense of your own body's position and movement – due to the ease with which you pick up martial arts and other skills with a physical component.”

He was silent for a moment, apparently lost in thought, before picking his monologue back up. “That's... somewhat unusual for a quirk as straightforward as your own first appears. Which means that, after this, we're going to run you through another set of similar exercises, this time physical, though.”

I reached up and scratched at one of the pieces of metal and plastic glued to my head. “It'd be a vain hope to suggest that I don't have to have these sensors attached while I'm doing that, wouldn't it?”

“Afraid so,” the scientist nodded. “Frankly, you're lucky you're getting off with just the physical and mental rundowns. Given what Hot Ice told us about using your quirk to reduce your sleep and artificially generate REM cycles, we really wanted to keep you for a full week's worth of sleep study.”

I twitched. “Hard Pass.”

The doctor sighed, his shoulders drooping. “Which is why we'll only be doing an abbreviated one later in the day for you to demonstrate your ability to sleep on command and we'll extrapolate from there.”

I sighed deeply. “The things I do for the sake of becoming a hero.”

~~~

I do not suggest contracting a sinus infection while suffering from jetlag.

That knocked me on my ass for a good 24 hours.

In happier news, the update for Mind Games is finished and I should have the big chapter for The Hand We're Dealt out for Saturday. Thank you for your patience, I'm going to get the public post on QQ done now and go lie back down.

You're all amazing for your support, don't forget that. I really appreciate it.

Mind Games - Chapter 28

I do not suggest contracting a sinus infection while suffering from jetlag.

That knocked me on my ass for a good 24 hours.

In happier news, the update for Mind Games is finished and I should have the big chapter for The Hand We're Dealt out for Saturday. Thank you for your patience, I'm going to get the public post on QQ done now and go lie back down.

You're all amazing for your support, don't forget that. I really appreciate it.

Paldean Knights - Chapter 4

Back at the palace, at least, I was able to retreat away from all of the hubbub.

After the King and Queen got their greetings in.

The summation of everything was that all of the adults thought I was very brave for doing as I had, but that it was most decidedly not my job to do so despite being the elder sibling, and that I should leave future situations to those trained to deal with them.

Oh, and they were allowing me early enrollment in Uva Academy as a reward.

Which might not seem like much of a reward, but…

Uva and Naraja were Pokemon Academies.

You couldn't get enrolled unless you had, at the very least, registered as a trainer and possessed one trainable monster.

Which meant…

I sighed, and looked to the egg in the incubator resting on the stone floor right below me. “This isn't on you or anything, I was going to grow up sooner or later, just... thought I had more time.”

A soft pulse of emotion pushed back at me and I chuckled.

“I know, you want to get out and take on the world already, but take your time. Even pokemon... only get to be young once,” I stated, sighing melancholically and looking out over the distance from the parapets.

The moon was rising against the starry night sky as things began to wind down in the castle below me. Out across the castle walls, the small collection of buildings between and outside them, and finally the clean grassy lawn beyond that... then there was the Bosque de Rey or, in a more familiar tongue, the King's Woods.

It was a reserve for certain specific types of wild game and pokemon who wouldn't prey on them, meant to serve as both grounds for a young royal trainer to make their first pokemon catch or participate in a boar hunt with their pokemon to demonstrate their skill.

Honestly, it sounded a lot more impressive than it really was.

Most of the truly powerful pokemon had been overused by my family through the generation until their local populations went into decline and they died out. What was left were a number of insect, flying, and ground types... along with a smattering of dark and ghost types, because you couldn't turn over a fucking rock in Paldea without finding a ghost, apparently.

Just... so many ghost types.

Not that I was complaining, of course, ghost types were awesome.

But it meant that the King's Wood wasn't somewhere most people went for pokemon, anymore. Especially royalty, ironically, who could simply purchase the more powerful breeds on the open market in this day and age.

Not that we did.

Usually.

That kind of behavior set a bad precedent for the nobility and turned the battling culture of the region into a pay to win system. Not that it wasn't already, but there was a difference between having it be so out in the open and keeping the corruption and nepotism behind closed doors.

I sighed again at the reminder of the world I was walking into.

It was a world of expectations, for me at least. People had readily made it known that they wanted things from me, saw the potential for greatness within me that they could attach themselves to and ride my coattails. I didn't precisely regret revealing how smart I was at such a young age, but... being both very smart and very creepy had created a certain divide between myself and everyone around me. It had marked me as 'other.'

Unusual.

Perhaps that was why I preferred interacting with pokemon?

Maybe innately understanding the reasons why people do things isn't productive for interpersonal relationships. Who knew?

I scoffed at the thought and turned back to contemplate the night in the meditative silence falling across the world.

It was an almost magical time for me, the night. As people fell asleep, the world slowed down and seemed to get bigger... or at least emptier, without the presence of so many people in it. Sleepers' thoughts and emotions wandered, it appeared, becoming more diffuse and less substantial.

Being here, now... it was relaxing, especially after the mess at the party.

Somehow, some when, this castle had become home.

This world had become home.

...and I had no idea what I wanted from it.

Even after eight years, it was an awkward thought. I had an entire life ahead of me in a wonderful and awe-inspiring world full of monsters and heroes and villains. I could go on adventures! Meet creatures and people I'd only ever dreamed about! See things no other human had ever documented!

Even just here in Paldea there was plenty to ensure I had fame and glory to last several lifetimes if I wished it.

But did I wish it?

It seemed a waste not to, didn't it?

I grimaced as I realized that was the problem. I'd been given a gift beyond anyone's wildest expectations and I didn't want to squander it. But fulfilling life – for me – wasn't the same as some fanciful adventure. No, I was the kind of person who was happy eating pizza and burgers and watching old cartoons as I kicked back and relaxed.

Did I have it in me to be great?

To even want to be great?

“I suppose that's the question,” I muttered unhappily.

Then I stopped and sat up a bit.

I was overthinking this, I really was.

This was my life, not theirs.

I’d live it the way I wanted to, not according to how the world around me dictated it. This time around, I’d do what I wanted, without the regrets I still had from my previous life.

I rolled my eyes in a sudden bout of irreverence and reached down to pick up the incubator. “Look at me swooning like a Disney Princess, ugh. I'll just try to take things as they come, planning is for chumps anyway.”

…

I realized precisely three seconds after stepping into the room that I should have had a plan.

Past-Me had really fucked Present-Me over, there.

“-hey Mom, you wanted to... see... me...” I trailed off, taking note of the assemblage of people in the room. The first, and most important, was obviously my mother. My grandmother was also in attendance, the queen herself, which was a tad unusual. Even if she played favorites with her grandchildren, the relationship between mother in law and daughter in law had never been a particularly cozy one. Of course, Lehonor being there as well explained things better. While Aldonza might not be very fond of Lani, she adored her only granddaughter.

That was all very normal.

The problem was…

“Gym Leader Tulip, I wasn't aware you would be in attendance,” I stated evenly as I mentally scrolled through the secret passageways near this particular sitting room. Quickly, before anyone could respond, I continued. “I can see you're entertaining a guest, Mother, so I'll just-”

I turned and bumped into the amused and exasperated face of Lyra, my personal bodyguard.

I stared at the woman's red eyes, one equally fiery eyebrow arched high as she crossed her arms in front of me, an impassable wall.

“So it's come to this,” I stated quietly, “betrayal of your very prince, himself. What did they promise you?”

The woman huffed a silent tone of amusement and shook her head, her eyes never leaving me for a moment. Sadly, she was too used to my shenanigans and knew that any moment of inattention on her part would see me escape.

“My prince does have a love of drama,” she replied, her tone low. “Now go sit down with your mother, Her Majesty, and their guest.”

I sighed.

Yeah, really could have used a plan right about now.

Turning and walking forward with the air of someone approaching their own execution, I walked towards the three women and my younger sister. Grandmother and mother, at least, both had indulgent looks on their faces, still apparently too busy overcoming the shock of my near-death experience to get angry at me acting my own age for once.

“Well, if it isn't the man of the hour... should I feel slighted that you're suddenly too popular and famous to even greet your Aunt Tulip?” The tanned beauty asked, looking for every inch like she'd just stepped off a Talosian runway with her exquisitely tailored blouse, skirt, and miniature scarf... thing wrapped around her neck? Cravat? Or was that only men?

“I beg your pardon, Aunt Tulip,” I stated, giving her a little bow. “I've simply learned that discretion is the better part of valor when a trap has obviously been laid for me.”

My mother laid her face in the palm of one hand with a sigh even as Grandmother scoffed in that way old people do when they want to sound upset, but secretly think what you just did was amusing. Lehonor, on the other hand, just frowned cutely as she amused herself with her poke-doll. Today's favorite was the rare and exotic bellossom, a limited edition line that she'd received from one of her age group during one of their playdates.

Hmm... mental note, if Lehonor still wants a bellossom when the time comes, let her know about the sun stone.

It was one of the few real 'secrets' that I remembered from way back when I used to play the games and watch the movies.

In response to my sardonic accusation, though, Tulip simply laughed gaily, throwing one hand over her mouth to block it from view. “Oh my! You're quite entertaining as always, Aznaro! A shame that you still have the fashion sense of an undertaker, though... the things I could do with a complexion like yours...”

“Hence why I consider this to be a trap. Even if I admire your skill in battle, Aunt Tulip, I still haven't forgotten the outfit you put together for last year's harvest festival,” I stated bluntly, my tone deadpan.

“You shouldn't live in the past so much, Little Azi!” Tulip giggled, shaking her head. “But, still... I can at least assure your mother and grandmother that you're no more psychic than you were the last time I saw you.”

I blinked, honestly taken aback for a few moments.

Why would they... Oh, right.

I turned to my mother and the queen with a frown and crossed my arms. “You could have just asked, you know?”

“Aznaro, even if you are my dear grandson, getting anything out of you is often harder than pulling teeth from your grandfather's skeledirge,” Aldonza informed me with a narrowed gaze.

“At least when it isn't about the latest discovery of some historical site or esoteric pokemon research project,” Lani chimed in.

Ouch, a rare moment of agreement from the two of them and it's about me.

Although…

“I suppose that's fair,” I muttered, acknowledging my own fault.

“Now, now... leave the little genius alone, ladies,” the gym leader chimed in, and I narrowed my gaze at the fashionista, wondering what she wanted that she was willing to speak up in my defense like that. “He's a born academic, and a boy besides. You can't very well expect miracles.”

Oh no, wait, conversational feint to burn.

Elegant and irritating.

Bravo, Tulip. Bravo.

“If all you wanted to do was make sure I wasn't developing psychic type energy, may I be excused, Mother? I was looking round the old stables to try and pick one out to refurbish since I'm to be given my starter soon.” Although I didn't really need to go looking. I already knew which one I wanted.

Although I didn't know if the secret passage in the cellar was built before the stable itself or if the stable was built later to conceal the entrance and exit.

“Oh?” Abuela asked, sitting up straighter. “So eager? This is unlike you, Aznaro. Do you have your eye on a specific pokemon?”

“Nincada, Grandmother,” I answered promptly.

The older woman's face soured. “That's... a bug-type, isn't it?”

“An especially weak one, actually,” Tulip spoke up, tapping her lip with a manicured nail as she looked at me closely. “I don't think even Katy keeps them around for her lower badge challenges. Of course, that might also be because they aren't traditionally found in Paldea.”

“Importing a weak bug type just for the prestige of possessing a niche... ah,” my grandmother started, then stopped herself as she turned back towards me from Tulip. “You know something.”

I delved into a trace of the calm, my spirit still a bit tired from the Garchomp Incident a few days ago, and blanked my face out. “I have no idea what you could mean, Abuela. They're simply an interesting variety of nocturnal bug-type pokemon with good defense that I think could be a useful addition to whatever team I end up building.”

My grandmother studied me for another long moment, then sniffed and looked away. “Fine. Keep your secrets, Aznaro. I do hope you won't embarrass the family name with whatever you catch.”

As talked a great deal without exactly saying anything specific in my defense, I kept my smile to myself. While I didn't have all that many 'secrets' I could use to my benefit, I did have a couple. One in particular was something I'd been reminded when slipping through the incomplete pokedex textbook I'd acquired. It was,, as with most things my parents purchased for me, a complete and modern edition of the book.

I'd found it startlingly incomplete.

For instance, nincada were known. They were fairly well-documented as well, even. But they'd been written off as just another weak insect pokemon, one that wasn't even easy to acquire on top of that. They were almost wholly nocturnal, hibernated for significant portions of the summer and winter, and mainly lived in subterranean dens under large trees where they ate worms and other non-pokemon insects.

There was a not-so-subtle line of suggestion in their pokedex entry that, if a trainer wanted to waste their time, there were more interesting ways to go about doing so.

Ninjask, coincidentally, did have a completely unrelated pokedex entry, though it was just a bare blurb of a paragraph. Basically the damn things were so hard to catch on film because they were the fastest bug type on record - originally thought to have been able to turn invisible -  to the point it was now thought that they could actually teleport rather than moving. As a result, only a bare few trainers ever managed to catch one and whatever they knew about ninjask was a well-kept secret.  Oh, and they were apparently fairly hard to train, leading many of the trainer-owned ones to start emitting loud locust-screeches when unhappy or bored.

In short, it was very rare to see someone actually train a ninjask up to what they should be.

Shedinja, though?

Nothing.

With a side of jack and shit.

For the record, though, deciding to be the asshole wasn't a plan.

It was pretty fun, though.

“Anything more... interesting you have your eye on, grandson?” Grandmother asked. “Although I don't usually recommend ghost types, surely there are some interesting ones you have your eye on?”

“I haven't really thought too much more about it, Abuela,” I replied in a negative tone. “I figure since I have plenty of time with starting the Academy early, I can plan out a good team in the next few months.”

“Just keep an eye on the time, Azi,” my mother warned. “Tomorrow comes faster than one would think.”

“I hope you've at least given thought to your choice of starter, other than your mystery egg, of course,” Tulip stated, looking at the incubator I'd slung over my shoulder. “Speaking of which... give it here, Little Azi. Let's see if we have a psychic type...”

I hesitated for a moment, having thought I'd need to wait until it hatched before I knew what pokemon it was, but...

I had never been one for delayed gratification.

Passing the incubator over, Tulip's eyes widened dramatically. “Oh my... yes, this is definitely a psychic-type egg. I'll need to leave you some care and feeding instructions for when they hatch. Depending on what species they turn out to be you'll need to be careful introducing them to a larger group...”

I frowned and nodded, taking mental notes as I internalized the fact that my starter – or one of them, at least – was going to be a psychic type.

That had... potential.

“Any clue about which pokemon specifically?” I asked, looking back at Tulip.

“Hah!  I’m afraid I’m not quite that much of an expert, Little Azi,” Tulip giggled and twirled her fingers.  “I might specialize in psychic type pokemon, but my own gifts in that area are fairly modest.”

“You’re still sure that he’s not psychic himself, though?”  Lani asked, frowning as I sighed and rolled my eyes.  “Aznaro, I know you don’t think you are either, but the way you took control of that Garchomp…”

Tulip, though, simply shook her head.  “Definitely not.  I’ve been poking him quite a bit over the conversation, mentally, and would have gotten a reaction if he had any level of sensitivity.  Still… it is interesting…”

“Interesting?” Aldonza asked, her gaze suddenly intent. “Would you care to elaborate?”

“I’d always put it off as a personal quirk,” Tulip stated thoughtfully, looking at me closer as her eyes flickered with inner light. “But Aznaro is… well, a bit fuzzy for the lack of a better term, to my supernatural senses.  Now that I focus, it’s less like he’s failing to react and more like I’m failing to connect with him.  Hmm…”

I frowned, cocking my head. “Huh.”

My mother turned to me, raising an eyebrow as she did so. “You wouldn’t be able to shed some light on this, would you, Aznaro?”

“I’m not sure?” I hedged, not even lying… though I was still omitting more than a little bit. “I’ve been experimenting with channeling my ghost-type energy?  Maybe that’s it?”

That, though, was definitely a lie. I had a good idea what it was.

Lani stared at me for another long moment, then sighed. “Well, if you do happen to have any ideas you’d like to share, come talk to me or your father, okay?”

“I promise,” I nodded, then paused. “Ah… when is Director Harrington going to have my starter ready?”

The adults all shared a smile.

“Well, at least this mess has gotten you excited about something,” Aldonza muttered. “He’ll be coming by tomorrow to offer you one of the standard Paldean starters, don’t worry.”

I wasn’t worried.

I was… excited, actually.  For the first time in a while.

~~~

I hate flying so much.

Wanted to have this out earlier (story of my life), but flying for eighteen hours in a single day just wiped me the fuck out. Finally got home and slept for a solid twelve hours.

Anyway, I've got part of a Mind Games chapter written, look for that either tonight or tomorrow.

Hope everyone likes this and I'm really looking forward to not going anywhere out of the country for a long time.

I might put together a best-hits compilation of some of the pictures from my trip, if people want to see that.

Paldean Knights - Chapter 4

I hate flying so much.

Wanted to have this out earlier (story of my life), but flying for eighteen hours in a single day just wiped me the fuck out. Finally got home and slept for a solid twelve hours.

Anyway, I've got part of a Mind Games chapter written, look for that either tonight or tomorrow.

Hope everyone likes this and I'm really looking forward to not going anywhere out of the country for a long time.

I might put together a best-hits compilation of some of the pictures from my trip, if people want to see that.

Mind Games - Chapter 27

“What's the timetable?”

Those were the first words out of my mouth.

I'd read, of course, about the 'Instant Villain' incidents that had occurred a few years ago and with a smattering ever since. They were the opening shots in the new Japanese drug war against the societal menace known more formally as 'Idol Trigger.' One of the reasons I'd decided to make my first planned moves as a vigilante against this group was, in fact, because of the threat trigger represented not just to the people taking it, but to the country – and potentially the world – as a whole.

There were already a growing number of military consultants in the United States who had publicly advanced the notion of using quirk-enhancing drugs like these on the nation's active-duty military and, potentially, even the country's heroes.

Along with them, of course, was everyone and their fucking dog.

The Dark Age might have seriously dented the United States' willingness and ability to conduct large-scale interventions in foreign lands, but even the complete collapse of the world as I'd known it wasn't enough to obliterate the American Military Industrial Complex.

Go America... I guess?

Less sarcastically, I couldn't exactly put the genie back in the bottle on this one. Not that trigger was even the first attempt at creating such a thing.

It was just the most successful.

By far.

To the point that there were rumors that various powers had very quietly extended offers of sanctuary to the mastermind behind it. In that way, I suppose, the world was lucky. Garaki was inarguably a genius, true, but he was an ideologically driven and loyal one above and beyond anything else. The only way he'd take up one of those offers was if All for One told him to. And the only way that would happen was if the old bastard got tired of playing Criminal Underworld Demon Lord and decided to sell his services to the highest bidder on the international stage.

Both of which were vanishingly unlikely.

In that way, I suppose this world had gotten indescribably lucky two-fold times.

All Might was strong, yes, and photogenic, and stood for the values that people loved to extol. All of that was true, and he'd had a massively positive impact on the world because of that.

But it was equally true that, as evil as All for One might be, governments had done business – and continued to do business – with people colder, crueler, and more monstrous than he was.

The fact that Nestle still existed was proof enough for that.

If All for One had any interest in it, he could have been living as a god-king in some third-world cesspit crafting a religion around himself and bartering diplomatic recognition from the great powers of the world using artificially-created super soldiers.

Instead, he was pathologically obsessed with the jingle keys he'd loaned to his dead brother a few centuries ago.

And, yes, there probably was some kind of legitimate-sounding reason for that obsession, but even if someone did have a good reason for it, it was still an obsession.

One that, were it to be required, he would feed the whole of Japan to, in order to see it fulfilled.

Hence trigger.

Hence the Nomu.

There was a reason they were only emerging in these modern times, and it wasn't only that it had taken Garaki so long to create them. No, my past lives knew enough about engineered biological horrors to understand the timescale involved in their creation and while it might be lengthy...

Something was off in this case.

All for One had only truly turned to the Nomu and trigger after his debilitating injury at the hands of All Might. They, too, were a means to an end to see his ambition fulfilled. The destabilizing madness that was being unleashed with the advent of a successful quirk-enhancing drug was only a secondary concern, if it merited thinking about at all.

No, what trigger and the Nomu were meant to do was wear the Japanese state apparatus in general, and All Might in specific, down centimeter by centimeter.

A campaign of asymmetrical warfare disguised as a crime-fueled drug epidemic, in other words.

Drugging an entire city's water supply with trigger?

Yeah, I can see him doing that.

“What?” Pop Step asked, blinking.

“What's the timetable?” I repeated my earlier question. “How long do we have to stop it? Are they doing it right now? Or are they planning to do it in a week? A month?”

“O-oh!” Pop replied, blinking owlishly. “U-uhhh... two weeks, I think? That's when they said they'd have the last shipment in when I overheard them talking.”

My tension eased slightly. If we had two weeks, then the situation was bad, but not an imminent disaster. “Do you know where they're planning to put the drugs into the system?”

Unless they had someone with a very, very specific kind of quirk-

Which, seeing the fingerprints all over this, they might.

-there were only a handful of suitable places to inject that kind of complex chemical mix into tap water and have it be both undetected and remain within the water instead of being removed from it. Either as a result of its detection or through the normal filtration processes.

Although, the Bat Paranoia compels me to admit someone in the monitoring system might be on the take or being blackmailed.

Something to look into later.

“Uhh... the... water treatment plant?” Pop stated slowly, blinking at me.

I stared at her for a long moment.

“Is that a guess or did you actually overhear them say that?” I pressed.

“I-uh, I mean, what does it matt-” She began hissing.

Then I slapped a hand over her mouth to quash the noise as I pushed her against the car and held her there, something that she did not appreciate given how violently she began thrashing in my grip. After a moment or two of trying to pry off my hands, which she'd have had better luck with an actual crowbar given her apparent lack of a strength quirk, she finally settled down.

“Don't whisper,” I stated, finally removing my hand. “Talk normally at a low volume. Like this. Whispers carry further than softly-spoken normal words.”

She gave me a deeply unhappy glare as I pulled away, blushing in anger... and, thankfully for my sanity, it was actual anger that I could read in her body language instead of an overtone of 'tsun' hiding the 'dere.' “Fine. I'm guessing about the water treatment plant. I didn't actually overhear where they were going to put the trigger in, but doesn't that make sense?”

“No, it makes sense for them to target the water main after the treatment plant for this section of the city, given the comparative sparsity of guards and sensors that would tend to catch something like that,” I replied, my tone level and serious. The three heroes that had been tasked with showing me around Endeavor's Agency had, after all, shown me how to pull up a map of the city's utility grid from the different providers.

Pop Step opened her mouth to refute me, then slowly closed it.

“Is there anything else you know? Something that you heard them say and aren't just guessing about?” I asked her directly, channeling just a bit of The Bat into my voice, the trace of a low rasp making the hairs on her arm visibly stand up.

“I-ah, I know their names!” Pop Step perked up. “The Freak, Kaitou, and I have run into them before!”

As she spoke, now urgently trying to appease me, I stored the names for future use and returned to the trunk as I began rearranging things. In particular, I disappeared the spare tire into the Apartment and made more space.

“What are you doing?” Pop asked, following me as I worked. “There's nothing else really in there-hey, where'd that wheel go? It was bumping into my ass for the last few kilometers!”

“Quiet,” I ordered her, glaring through my tinted eyewear. “Do you want to have to fight your way out?”

She grimaced and looked down the corridor, then spoke more softly. “What are you doing? I meant it, there really isn't anything in there.”

“Do you want to fight your way out?” I asked again. “Or would you rather they simply drive us out?”

The pink-haired girl blinked, staring at me uncomprehendingly.

“I can tie what's left of the ropes up on you so that you'll be able to slip out of them easily,” I explained, “but it will still look like you're fully bound and gagged. That way, even if they check on you, they won't think anything's amiss.”

“I don't want to get back in there!” Pop barked in a harsh undertone, gesturing towards the trunk. “Besides, where will you be?”

“I'll be impersonating the spare tire, which was set up to keep anyone back here from working the middle section of the back seat free,” I stated, leaning in and pushing on the part of the seat I was talking about. With one firm shove, the middle half-seat of the back row hinged free and provided enough room for a person to squeeze through.

Provided, of course, they were lithe enough to do so.

“So, what... you're just going to pop this open, slide through, and disable the driver and the guard before they can call for help or stop you themselves?” Pop asked, looking askance between me and the plan I'd come up with.

“Yes.”

Pop Step stared at me for a long moment, frowning at the surety in my voice before shaking her head and turning towards the rolling door. “No. Look, nothing against you... whoever you are, since you haven't told me your name, but I'm not getting back in-”

I slipped up behind her, putting her in a choke hold.

“A shame, I wanted to do this peacefully,” I replied, my breath in her ear as I let her breathe just enough to.

“Fuck-” She started, then stopped abruptly.

“Go to sleep,” I ordered, instantly feeling her body sag in my arms.

I sighed and set her back in the trunk, positioning the ropes just as I'd told her I would. “I'd hoped we could do this peacefully because it would mean I'd only have to squeeze through the access panel to the truck once, instead of twice.”

Which was irritating.

Almost as irritating as having to use my quirk in this situation, but combined with the sleeper hold I'd put her in, Pop would almost certainly believe she'd just lost consciousness instead of being put into a mind-controlled trance.

Closing the doors behind me, I squirmed my way into the trunk and pulled the tarp up over me as I curled into a ball, disliking every second of this mess I'd gotten myself into.

Yet...

I couldn't wish it was any different, save for possibly Pop Step being smart enough not to get kidnapped and bringing the information to an actual hero rather than-

I quirked an eyebrow as I skimmed the articles I had indexed under her name.

That was where I'd heard about her before... she was some kind of street performer cum vigilante. As I lay there in the dark trunk of a drug dealing gang's vehicle, I slowly built up a profile of the girl lying unconscious next to me.

Appearances and shows suggest pattern fits with a school schedule.

I checked how far back the articles on her went, mostly fluff pieces about a rebel musical idol in some second and third-rate magazines. Her following was, in traditional idol-fashion, fairly devoted though. They had a sizable presence on a few message boards that I'd scrapped because of the mention of a white-clad phantom thief wearing a suit, top hat, and cape.

Which sounded like Kaitou Kid, but...

He was the wrong build, had the wrong MO, and seemed to deliberately seek out crime far more often than Kaito Kuroba ever did.

And by 'seek out,' I meant deliberately chase after a specific villain with...

Huh... well, that's... potentially not good. His quirk in the wrong hands could be... problematic.

My eyes flicked back to Pop Step and I pondered the appropriateness of questioning her under hypnosis for a moment... then disregarded it, for the moment at least. I was already balancing too many plates in this little operation, I didn't need any more thrown into the mix.

Evening out my breathing, I instead set in to wait as I pondered what twist of fate had turned someone who should be a hero into an apparent villain.

Though, with a quirk-stealing monster from before the dawn of the modern age wheezing around, it might not even be him...

The rapid sound of footfalls distracted me from my musings.

“Take the other car! Follow me to the boss!”

“Yes Aniki!”

“Tell no one! Make no stops! The report and the girl are mine to deliver to Boss Yonenaga!”

I relaxed, car doors opening and slamming as I thumbed on the Mapper App and took note of the time. Gratefully, it had only taken them ten minutes to deduce that they had been thoroughly robbed, the thief was nowhere in sight, and there was nothing they could do about it.

The obvious response to that?

They needed to tell the boss about the situation.

Doubtless someone had already called ahead and informed the leader that there was a 'problem,' though the extent of which was likely left vague. News like this, in a criminal organization? Experience told me it was usually given face-to-face as a sign of respect. A phone call was cowardly. More than that, the head of this business would need personal instruction on what to do next as far as potentially involving the police or if they had their own investigative wing of their organization.

I wasn't betting too hard on that, but if they did I wanted to know who those people were, what their quirks were, and how they operated.

For my own health and safety, if nothing else.

I smirked as the engine started.

I'd give them... three blocks before I made my move. Long enough to obfuscate matters and for the lead car to lose sight of the follower, but not long enough to actually get anywhere. Then I'd direct the driver and the passenger to pull over, knock them unconscious, and leave the access panel open so that it would look like their captive had simply managed to cut her ropes and escape.

Honestly, for all that it was improvised, I liked this plan better than crawling out through a disused vent, which had been my backup. Plus, I got to save someone from a fate that was likely worse than death. I would need to momentarily turn off the bug I'd planted, though, to ensure there wasn't any recording of my own voice or hint as to the application of my quirk.

Maybe I'd give these two a light concussion just to ensure there wasn't any possibility they'd remember me?

Yeah, better safe than sorry.

…

Haneyama Kazuho blinked sleepily up at the light-polluted sky of Tokyo, yawning momentarily as she stretched before wincing at the bruised flesh on her limbs. What had she been doing-

Sitting bolt upright as adrenaline flooded through her system, the vigilante's head spun left and right.

But there was only an empty rooftop.

No yakuza, no confining trunk of a car, nothing to indicate that her recent misadventure had been anything but a bad dream... except for the aches and pains of being confined for two hours in a small space.

Her breathing returned to normal as it sank in.

She was free.

She was safe.

“But how the hell...” The pinkette muttered, frowning as she looked around again, slowly getting to her feet.

The movement dislodged something, falling to the asphalt tiles of the roof with a soft clatter as Pop Step bent to pick it up reflexively.

“Oh thank the gods, my phone!” Kazuho squealed lightly, grabbing the shiny reflective rectangle off the ground with much more speed and care. “Wait, what-”

She turned it over, finding a business card attached to the other side.

“Perspicacious Mauve Avenger,” she read aloud, noting the email below and pulling the card free from where it had been adhered to the back of her phone case.

Writing on the other side caught her attention.

Fine, perfect pen strokes spelled out a message that was equal parts reassuring and frustrating.

“They think you escaped on your own. Keep my name out of it. I've got that facility bugged for information, I'll take care of it. If you want to help with the water poisoning case, contact me.”

She paused, outright scowling at the last two lines.

“PS: Told you it would work. Also, get a burner phone.”

Kazuho stared at the card for a long moment, fighting the urge to tear it into small pieces.

“That fucking bitch!” She finally screamed, tucking the piece of paper into a pocket and stomping off angrily to the edge of the roof before activating her quirk and flying off into the night sky, the liberating freedom of the air soothing her.

Looking down at her phone again, she sighed.

Time to get yelled at by an exceptionally buff mother hen.

...and tolerate The Freak's disappointment, too. Ugh, he was going to try and torture her during training again, wasn't he? Ugh, sword-wielding weirdo!

She hit the contact and brought the phone to her ear as she landed on a roof three buildings over.

“Hey Mirio, it's Kazuho-”

Immediately, she pulled the phone away as his cries of relief and worry flooded through. She rolled her eyes and sniffed. Now if only she factored into his mind as more than someone to be worried about...

…

I quirked an eyebrow as I listened to the conversation between the girl I'd just saved and her friend, ruthlessly crushing any hint of guilt for bugging her phone. I'd done the same thing to the driver and the passenger, of course, along with photographing their IDs and stealing what cash they had on them. Which was how I’d found Pop’s phone, since I doubted either of the adult male criminals favored a female hero as their lock screen.

Oh, and taking a glitter pen Himiko had left in the Apartment and scrawling Pop Step's name across their faces, just to make sure they fingered the right culprit.

This way, even if Pop – Kazuho – told them differently later, they wouldn't believe her.

Petty? Yes.

But effective.

I pushed my key into the door and unlocked it, announcing my presence in my deeper male-identity's voice. “Hey Dad, I'm home!”

Sadly, dealing with Kazuho had cost me an extra five minutes, making me just a bit late.

Dad was understanding when I held up the missing ingredients for dinner, though.

~~~

Okay! Minor problem with that update I said I’d have on Saturday…

I skipped that day.

I still don’t understand fucking time zones.

Anyway! This chapter was written across two different countries, a cross-oceanic flight, and an unknown amount of jet lag.

Have fun!

Next update will be… something. Not sure. Maybe more Mind Games, maybe THWD.