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10.74% (COMPLETE) Jester~ / Chapter 23: 23 A good influence

บท 23: 23 A good influence

A/N: ples gib me powr stone, ples (ಥ _ ಥ) and review, ples.

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After making it back to the city, the first thing I did was check my flat, only to find that it is already up for rent again, which made me really wonder how long I'd been gone.

Luckily for me, I had the foresight to keep my bug out bag outside of the house, hidden under a disused air conditioner on top of a building.

Which is nice, because at least I have most of my money and some necessities.

It is a shame to put an end to 'Alice', but I didn't really think she'd survive forever so it's not too big of a deal.

After that it was just a case of finding another empty house and breaking in, whilst also making sure to ditch the truck some distance away.

Then after that it was just a matter of carrying all of little James' stuff, as well as James himself, since he'd fallen asleep, to the new house and getting settled.

This leads to the next day, where I have a whole list of things I need to do.

First things first is finding some hair dye. I've decided to go with brown hair and not bother with contacts this time.

Then I need to do some clothes shopping, for both James and I.

Oh, and food too, James needs normal human food.

Then I need to get my hands on some information.

After that, I am going to experiment with my powers, because the thing is, powers don't really 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦, everyone knows this.

You can't train powers, you get what you get and all you can do to improve is gain experience and find more creative ways to use your powers.

Like Pop Stop, her power is never going to change in radius or frequency, because powers don't change.

This made me assume that my two tails was the limit of my power, that it wouldn't change from that, so I never really bothered.

But clearly, my power is more than that, so I've got to do some tests with that.

Then, and only then, comes the most important item on my list.

Finding Equaliser and ripping his spine out.

Well, I don't really care how he dies, just so long as he does.

However I won't simply rush into Red Branch territory looking for him like I no doubt would have two weeks ago.

It's wild to me that I was apparently in that room for ten whole days.

Who knew that all it takes is ten days of constant torture to find the true meaning of life.

Because as much as I hate Jason, I am still thankful to him for helping me understand.

Also, it's christmas tomorrow, so I want to get through my whole list today so that I can give Equaliser a proper christmas present.

I finish getting dressed shortly after going through my list one more time and head down the stairs only to be greeted by piles of junk that has somehow materialised surrounding little James in the kitchen.

"...James.. what the fuck?"

At the sound of my voice, he turns to face me and shrugs, completely unrepentant.

"I was hungry but there wasn't any food, then I got bored and you said boredom sucks so I started doin' stuff."

"..Fair enough, I can't really argue against that. Well, I was about to go do some shopping, wanna come with?"

I don't bother asking what he was doing, because it's clearly some tinker stuff and not only do I already know his specialty, but I also kind of just don't really care what he does with his free time.

It's not like I'm actually his mother after all. I'm not even twenty yet, I'd have had to have been eleven or twelve to have birthed him.

Still, it is really weird to me that I am asking a child if they want to hang out. The joys of not having any friends I guess.

Ah well, he is a pretty cool kid.

His eyes sparkle as he looks back at me with a smile.

"Really! I've never actually been outside before!" He cheers.

Huh, awesome.

That means that his face won't be ticking any cameras for missing child posters or something.

That settled, I bundle all my gross hair into a beanie while little James get's ready, and then we are out, stalking the streets with a bag full of cash and a mind full of shopping.

At least for me that's the case, because after we left the house, only after making sure no one was on the street, something that wasn't too difficult considering how out of the way the street is, James' head was like it was on a swivel as he keeps looking around everywhere.

As we walk to the nearest mall, I find myself eyeing the floor and it's light dusting of snow.

Honestly, I wasn't expecting snow here, not even such a small amount as this, but I guess it's a christmas miracle or something.

But the reason it actually draws my attention is the fact that I don't actually feel the cold.

Well, that's not entirely accurate. I can feel that it 𝘪𝘴 cold, I just don't 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 cold, even though I'm only wearing thin jeans and a normal white shirt. All I have to 'protect' me from the cold is the beanie I'm using to hide my hair and the scarf I'm using to hide some of my face.

Eventually, James actually notices the snow, having been too distracted by looking at everything else to really notice it beforehand.

He tugs on my sleeve to get my attention, and speaks once I look at him with a raised brow.

"What's that?" He asks me, pointing down.

"It's snow. It's something that happens when it's cold enough. Do you know how it rains sometimes?", He nods, "well, it's like that, but when it's cold enough then the rain turns into snow, which is basically frozen water, like a mix between ice and sand. You can even clump it together into what we call a snowball."

Turning back to the snow on the ground, he looks at it with a curiosity that only a child could have, reaching a bare hand out to grab a handful.

Mentally, I add warm gloves to the shopping list.

"What's the point in making a snowball?" He asks me after he crushes the snow into a ball.

Getting a devious idea, I hide my smile as I pause in my steps and turn to him.

"I'll show you." I say, holding my hand out expectantly.

He obliges me and gives me the golf ball sized sphere of snow.

"Ok, now don't move." I say as I move behind him.

Then I simply raise my arm, aiming for the back of his neck so that it goes down his back as well.

Honestly, I thought about not doing this, about throwing it at someone else and picking him up and booking it, but then I realised that he wouldn't understand why it's funny if he's never experienced it himself.

So I let the ball lose.

𝘗𝘴𝘩.

𝘚𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘬!

When the snowball hits him, he jumps into the air like a startled cat and lets out a scream that also sounds like a startled cat.

By the time he turns around to glare at me, I am already bent over and laughing, my hands on my knees.

"Haha- you- yo- hah- you scream like a girl! Hahahahaha!"

I notice James running at me, but I pretend not to as I let him tackle me to the ground, my back making a small puff of snow raise around us.

With me under him, James starts shovelling the snow around my face and neck to under my scarf, making me squeal as I pretend that it's cold, laughing as he does so.

I let it go on for a moment longer before I sit up, the action knocking him to his butt in front of me.

Looking at each other with matching smiles on our faces, I speak to the panting child.

"𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵, is why you make snowballs."

"Humph, you could have just said so." He pouts, but his smile betrays him, so I just shrug in response and get to my feet before offering him a hand up.

"Now c'mon, we can throw some snowballs at strangers later if you want, but not until we get us some gloves, 'kay?"

With an innocent smile on his face, he takes the offered hand and we are once more making progress to our shopping trip.

It doesn't actually take long before the streets are getting pretty crowded, buzzing with activity as people prepare for the festivities to come tomorrow.

Eventually we do make it to a mall, and the first thing we bought was some clothes.

For myself I only actually only got another cardigan like the one I used to have, but other than that I am not desperate for clothes so I can get more later.

For James we just got him a simple warm blue jacket and gloves as well as a scarf on his insistence.

Now however, it is time to feed the beast.

We take a bit to find a place to eat, not due to a lack of options but because I wanted to find a place that at least had some good coffee.

I just pretended I couldn't hear James as he complained about walking past so many food stalls.

At one point, a mother and her kids passed us by and took one look at James yapping at me and me completely ignoring him and then gave me a sympathetic smile before moving on.

I suppose from her point of view James is likely to be the one being unreasonable.

Heh, bold of her to assume that I can't be more unreasonable than a child.

Still, I eventually found a place that smelled palatable enough and we made our way over.

"Fiiinally! I thought I was going to starve!" James exaggeratedly complains as he collapses into one of the chairs outside the café.

"Yeah yeah brat", I wave him off, "what do you want to eat?"

"Pizza!" He yells, making my eyebrow twitch.

"They don't do pizza here."

"Humph, fine then, a burger." He huffs out, crossing his arms and looking to the side.

"They don't do burgers either dipshit, read the damn menu then pick something."

Like a lightbulb going off, I see realisation spark in his eyes as he lunges for a menu to start perusing.

Meanwhile, I focus on the gasp I heard from behind me as what is presumably another mother is sitting with a family of five and looking at me with the most scandalised expression I have ever seen.

With her is who I presume is her husband and three kids. Obviously I don't know their exact ages, but if I had to put it in words, they were kid-sized, teen-sized and gross-puberty-moustache-sized, only the middle one is a girl.

While the youngest is focused on some colouring book, the others are all staring at me, the teen in mirth, the older guy who should shave also in amusement, while the mother looks like I just told her that I thought Hitler might have been on the right track.

Heh, train pun.

Wait no, that was a shit pun. It was too obscure for anyone to even find it funny, and now that I think about it, wasn't it Mussolini that did the whole "The trains will run on time!" speech thing?

Eh, doesn't matter.

Anyway, the husband is similar to his wife, but rather than scandalised, he has that look that only middle aged white people get where he is all disapproving because he can't accept anything different to what he knows as being right.

Seeing that James is taking his time, I turn myself in my seat so I am sitting on it side on and face them properly.

"What? You dipfucks got a problem with how I'm raising my child? I bet my kid could kick your kid's ass any day bitch, fuck around and find out."

With that out of the way, I turn away from the appalled looking parents as they try and fail to inform their own kids that what I just said was not in fact funny, but actually very rude.

Looking back, I see James with his knuckle in his mouth holding in his own laughter.

That makes me smile, and soon we are both laughing, only laughing harder when the parents drag their kids, who are also laughing, away from the café.

Well, that was fun.

"You pick anything yet?"

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A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

So, accidentally adopted James 2 Electric boogaloo.

P.S, credit to the reader Oglan for commenting James 2, because somehow I didn't notice the electric boogaloo opportunity before seeing his comment.

Advanced chapters with the links below!

pat/reon.com/user?u=41732867 (get rid of the first slash)

or

https://ko-fi.com/bored_works

Also, join the discord!

https://discord.gg/Pj3Dttwses


บท 24: 24 Definitely a good influence

After getting some food inside of little James we were finally done with the essentials, which basically just means that now we can just shop for whatever we want.

I insisted we do some more clothes shopping first, because other than the jacket and winterwear, little James doesn't actually have any clothes other than what he was wearing when I found him.

"Do you particularly care what kind of clothes you get?" I ask as we walk into some store or other that isn't too crowded.

"Nope! Can we just grab the first things we see? I wanna check out the arcade already!" I let out a snort at his bluntness and give him a shrug.

"Aight then, how 'bout this, you go grab yourself three changes of clothes, all in the same size, and meet me by the changing rooms so we can make sure they actually fit, meanwhile I'll quickly go grab something else, 'kay?"

"Kay!" He half shouts before literally taking off running down the isle, making me smile with his enthusiasm.

I'm glad he is as fun as I hoped he would be. Fun and useful, could I ask for anything more?

Anyway, I shouldn't stand around.

With that in mind, I head over to where the hair dye is and grab a few boxes of brown dye. That done, I make my way to the changing rooms.

Though, calling them 'rooms' is a bit of a stretch, since they are more like cubicles really.

There is already a woman there sitting on the benches when I arrive so I speak up when I approach.

"Hey there, mind if I take a seat?" I ask, startling the woman in front of me. When she turns around I am able to get a good look at her.

Brown eyes, blonde hair and a face that's more cute than sexy with a smattering of freckles. I never really understood what the 'girl next door' look was supposed to mean, but looking at this woman I feel like I kind of understand.

Pretty enough to get your attention when you are near each other, but not pretty enough that you would remember her once you move on. Then again, maybe I am misinterpreting that phrase.

"Oh, no, no I don't mind at all." She says, scooting over a little on the bench even though there was already more than enough room for me.

We sit in silence for a second or two before I get bored and realise she isn't going to start conversation.

"So, who are you waiting for?" I ask, making her look at me in confusion.

"What?"

"Well, you're just sitting here, and one of those curtains", I nod to the changing cubicles, "is closed, so I assume you're waiting for someone too?"

The time it took for me to finish speaking seems to have been enough for her to gather her bearings enough to recognise that she is in a conversation now, as her response is a lot more casual this time.

"Yeah, I'm waiting for my daughter, she has an armful of clothes in there with her and honestly I'm not expecting her to be out for another twenty minutes."

I smile at the playful lament in her tone and sigh sympathetically.

"Ahhh, the joys of teenage girls I assume?"

"Yea, she just turned fifteen recently. She's going out to some party for christmas tomorrow and has suddenly decided that nothing in her wardrobe is good enough, hence the sudden shopping trip."

The way her shoulder slump despondently gets a chuckle out of me that makes her harumph jokingly in return.

"What about you", she asks, "who are you waiting for?" As if to answer for me, the moment I open my mouth to respond, little James comes barrelling down the isle, jumping to a stop in front of me and throwing a pile of clothes at my face.

The pile hits my face with a soft 𝘵𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘱 before falling down to my lap to reveal the dry look on my face.

"You're supposed to try them on first dumbass, not throw them at me."

I say, taking a shirt and a pair of pants from the pile and throwing them back before gesturing to the open cubicles.

He gets the idea heads over, still running, and closes the curtain behind him.

"I take it that that little one is yours then?" The lady who's name I still don't know asks. Unfortunately for her, I'm still bored.

"Not exactly, he's actually my uncle." I lie.

The look of confusion is expected but still amusing, not that I let that show. Instead, I keep talking with a straight face, my tone light and casual, as if discussing the weather.

"Yeah, see my dad got my mum preggos when he was only 13. She was 16, it was quite the scandal at the time. At the same time, my dad's mom, my grandma, she gave birth to my dad when she was 15, then she had my uncle when she was 41, making him about 12 years younger than me despite being my dad's brother."

Looking at the bafflement on the woman's face, I almost break out laughing.

"O-oh. Uh, that's, huh. I don't really know what to say to that to be honest."

Right as I'm about to respond and embellish the story to include incest and be even more confusing, little James bursts through the curtain with such force that he brings it down with a clang with him as he collapses to the ground.

Well, at least the new clothes fit well enough.

They didn't impede his fall to the ground one bit. "They fit! Can we go to the arcade now!"

With a wry smile on my lips I get to my feet with little James and gather up all his new clothe in my arms, balancing the hair dye on top of it.

"Sure, you little tyke. Let's go pay for this, then we can check out the arcade." I say as I start walking away, little James hot on my heel.

"Later!" I yell back to the woman, "good luck with your daughter!"

With that, our journey to the arcade begins.

Unfortunately, we are on the opposite side of the mall from the arcade, so it takes a while to walk there. As we are walking, and after little James has had a moment for his excitement to die down a little, he turns to me from my side and asks me a solemn question.

"So, what 𝘥𝘰 you plan on doing anyway?" I only raise my eyebrow at his question, prompting him to elaborate.

"I mean, you said I could join you, but what are you even going to be doing, and what do I have to do?"

He really is mature for his age. Or all eight year olds are this mature and I've simply never interacted with one before.

Still, I've already decided to be completely, mostly, honest with mini James. Mostly because I don't want to experience that cliché where someone, for example, doesn't tell their kid about how they are some prophesised kid, but then they obviously end up finding out anyway and proceed to run away, thus making the prophecy self-fulfilling.

Obviously the situation isn't exactly the same, but the point lies that honesty really is the best policy. It's amazing how far a little communication can go.

"Well, the first thing on my agenda is to finish off your family. There's one guy left right now, but he's my priority. Other than that, I am planning on founding an organisation of sorts, more of a club really. That is what I am inviting you to join.

"You see, my organisation shall be called The Clowns, and when I say it's more of a club, that's because there won't be a leader or anything like that, nor will we even have to spend much time together, it's more like an alliance of mutual beneficence between likeminded individuals."

After I finish speaking, I see mini James looking at me with his face all scrunched up. Right, that might have been too many big words for him. However before I can continue explaining it, he interrupts me.

"..I think I get it. It's basically like making friends, right?"

I mean, that kind of takes the mystery out of it, but he's not really wrong.

"I guess. It's not as cool when you put it like that though." He ignores my pouting as he puts his chin in his hand and visibly ponders.

"So, if it's like a group of friends, then what's the uh, the link that connects everyone? And why Clowns?" He asks.

I smile down at him, a full smile showing too many teeth in a way that would probably disconcert most people.

He isn't even phased.

"Because~ little James", I practically 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘳 at him, "clowns always get the last laugh."

After that, we both lapse into a comfortable silence for a while, both of us lost in our own minds. Indeed, I plan on making an organisation.

Really, it's more to be a web of connections, so that people like myself, who want to make this world a little bit more enjoyable, people like me who understand the truth of life, can have more resources available to them if they ever have anything fun planned.

Not to mention, like mini James said, we could then enjoy each members plans together, like one big happy group of psychopaths.

Really, my idea is a lot like the Slaughterhouse Nine, I've come to realise. Only, I want my group to be far less short sighted.

Because while a slaughter every now and then might be fun, facing against an entire city, it's also repetitive and even more than that, if you just keep killing everyone, then eventually there won't be any more fun to be had.

After all, it's the people that make the fun, so if there's less people then there's less fun. It's simple maths really.

Little James' voice drags me back out of my thoughts to the earlier conversation.

"So what your saying is that I can join the Clowns and that I can then just do whatever I want? And you'll help me with it?"

"Close but not quite. What I'm saying is that you can join, following which you will have no obligation to anything, you can do what you want. But if you need help for something, then you can ask the group, and if it sounds fun enough, someone might be willing to help you out."

The conversation once more falls to silence as mini James contemplates things.

Eventually however, we do reach the arcade as planned and I give little James a handful of dollar bills and tell him to go wild, following sedately after him as none of the games really interest me.

That is how we spent the rest of the afternoon. Mini James running around from one machine to another, burning through all of my, literally, blood money.

We got a few disapproving looks from people who were probably thinking that I was an irresponsible parent... which to be fair isn't too far from the truth.

But eventually mini James tired himself out at around mid evening time and we decided to call it quits for the day.

At least for mini James anyway.

Because the day is far from over for me, as after we made it back to the house and put our stuff away, well, I put our stuff away, little James just went to bed, I got myself ready for a long night.

The first thing I did was dye my hair, since it takes time to set so I figured I'd do it first. Then I went to the living room and sat myself down on the floor where there is plenty of space, following which I focused inwards. Time for some experimenting.

-----------------------------

A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

You may have noticed that webnovel is fucking up formatting, if you are late to the upload though then it doesn't matter because I have hopefully already fixed it :)

Advanced chapters with the links below!

pat/reon.com/user?u=41732867 (get rid of the first slash)

or

https://ko-fi.com/bored_works

Also, join the discord! https://discord.gg/Pj3Dttwses


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