Brockton Bay, New Jersey, September 13th, 17:34.
I am annoyed.
We had to wait two days just for Elle, or Labyrinth, as she is apparently known with her costume on, to be having a 'good day,' whatever the fuck that means.
According to Faultline, she struggles to differentiate reality on a bad day, which, in fairness, doesn't seem like it would make an incredibly productive conversation.
But at the very least, after all of this I am now free from ferrying Mimi around, and also have a connection with Faultline's crew through Mimi, right?
That's what would make sense, isn't it.
So 𝘸𝘩𝘺. Why is she still here, sitting in my car next to me?
We are parked outside the Palanquin, because I just dropped her off not that long ago, and I was just waiting here to say goodbye. But then she comes storming out of the building, clearly struggling to control her flames, and takes a seat next to me without a word.
"So!" I start, turning to face her just in time to see Gregor close the Palanquin's doors, "things not work out?~"
In response she just crosses her arms and doesn't answer. Her reticence just makes me narrow my eyes at her, and she immediately caves in after.
"No."
Ugh, teenagers. Trying to get information out of a moody teenager is like trying to ask a parahuman to live a quiet life on a farm. It's all but impossible.
"Will you not be going back to the Palanquin, or Elle?" I ask, not bothering to try and dig into what specifically has her in such a bad mood.
It's probably just that Elle doesn't like her as much as she likes Elle. That's just a guess based on how Mimi's power fucks with her head. I doubt she was particularly pleasant to talk to in an asylum of all places.
"No."
With a sigh, I lean back into my seat and close my eyes.
When I speak again, I am resigned to the knowledge that I can already guess her answer. "What about Brockton overall? I hear there's a fire breathing dragon somewhere around here, you wanna go see if he'll take you in?"
They'd actually fit pretty well if the dragon, whatever his name is, is as pyrokinetic as I'd heard, since that means he should be able to put out her fires if she gets in too deep.
"No." She says, crushing my hopes.
Who would have guessed.
"Okay, then what 𝘥𝘰 you want to do?" I ask, not really expecting much of an answer.
"I don't know," she says. Who'd have thought it?
"Do better," I demand, causing her to flinch and re-think her answer.
"...Then, can I go back to Maddie and Sam?"
Eh? The butlers?
...Fuck it, I'm sure they won't mind.
She better not burn my fucking house down though, that shit was expensive and I don't have insurance, because insurance is a scam. They seriously want me to just give them money, 'just in case' something happens?
Bullshit, I say.
"That works!" I exclaim, hiding my annoyance at having driven all this way for literally no reason at all.
Not wanting to give her the chance to change her mind, I quickly turn the car on, and immediately shift into second and slam on the gas. The car jerks forward, the sudden change in velocity pushing us back into our seats slightly as the hum of the engine echoes down the street.
The speed itself might not be as impressive to be as it would have been, but damn if it isn't fun to drive anyway.
Unfortunately, I only make it about three blocks before some maniac pulls out in front of me at a cross junction and I am forced to slam on the brakes, but I can tell that the car won't stop fast enough and decide to act.
Replacing a window is far cheaper than the whole front, so with that in mind, I force my power into motion, pushing it forward. The surge of my blood crashes through the windscreen and washes over the bonnet to form a barrier.
The next second, a thunderous 𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘴𝘩r rings out and I feel the impact, as my blood is still connected to me, and I'm pretty sure I just broke my seat with the force I got pushed against it with.
Luckily I didn't get pushed back enough for my makeshift barrier to touch my car, so other than the seat and windscreen, the car is fine, which sucks but oh well, it's good enough.
It's only after checking the car that I realise Mimi isn't in her seat anymore.
Ah.
It turns out that while I went backwards from the impact, Mimi did something of the opposite.
Luckily she still has the mods Riley gave her when she was in the Nine, otherwise she'd probably be dead right now.
Wait, is she dead? She's not making any noises.
"Mimi? You alive?" I ask, idly noticing the sound of a pair of rushing footsteps. A quick glance shows that there was only one dude around to witness this incident, since we're in a pretty out of the way area where I thought I could speed in peace.
But he's rushing up to the other car, so I focus back on Mimi.
With a simple thought, the barrier formed from my power turns back into a liquid and flows over Mimi before carrying her back into the car, rotating her to fit the seat properly.
"Mimiiiiii,~" I say as I lean closer to her, but with her now so close to me, it's easy for me to pick out her heartbeat. It's steady enough, she's just unconscious.
Oh well.
It means she gets to avoid the boring process of exchanging information with the unfortunate participant in this incident, so that we may both contact our insurances and all that jazz.
Laughing to myself slightly at the stupid thoughts, I start the car, again, and start driving once more. though I do spare a quick glance at the woman who I hit.
She has long and curly brown hair stuck to her head from the blood leaking out of her scalp and she has a kind of scholarly vibe about her. I'd wager that she's an English teacher or something equally inane, maybe pottery?
Though honestly, if you ignore the whole being probably dead thing, she's pretty attractive. Shame that.
However, right as I am driving past her totalled car, I notice something interesting. Out in front of her vehicle, is a small little box, glinting innocently despite it's evil actions.
What I am talking about is of course a phone, and for it to be there, it means she was using it. While driving. Everyone knows you shouldn't use your phone while driving, so clearly this whole incident is her fault, and her family should be grateful I'm not suing them for reckless endangerment of my most esteemed self.
"Hahahaha," I laugh to myself. I have no idea how laws work.
"Oh well, too bad, so sad. I should put some music on, maybe some Queen? Queen is always good." Decision made, I pull out my phone and plug it in to the aux.
Time for another long drive.
A little over an hour later and I am pulling back into my house in Staten Island, with Mimi once more conscious, though slightly concussed still. She'll be fine in the morning. Probably.
It's not even seven yet, so this time when I knock the door is actually answered in short order, no doubt in part due to them hearing my approach.
"The pizza's here!" Sam shouts back into the house as he opens the door, only to be greeted by my dry expression.
"Ah. Uh, you're back soon?" He says with a sheepish chuckle.
"No need to sound so disappointed,~" I respond with a roll of my eyes, "complications arose, ensued and were overcome. Now, we are back, and Mimi here recently had an unfortunate fall and I'm sure she'll appreciate some pizza right about now.~"
Caught rather flat footed, Sam merely gives an awkward chuckle and steps aside to let us in, following which I immediately rush to the only other person in the building, hoping for a fun situation of walking in on her naked and presenting herself for Sam.
Unfortunately, movies must have lied to me, because she is just sitting on the couch wearing a loose shirt and panties.
Laaame.
Turning around with a pout and ignoring Maddie's startled exclamations, I grab Sam by the elbow as he and Mimi are entering the room and march him back out, leaving the girls together so that we can have a word in private.
"Uhh, I'm really sorry about calling you pizza?" Sam says, sounding vaguely concerned.
"What?" I ask, confused for a moment until I remember that I'm scary, "oh, no, I don't care about that. Just wanted to let you know that I don't plan on hanging around."
Before he can finish his relieved sigh, I speak again, doing my best to sound as sympathetic as possible so as to get him to ride the pity train all the way to where I want him.
"But Mimi wants to stay. See, we left 'cuz we thought she'd have a friend she could stay with, but that turned out to be a bust and now she doesn't really have anywhere she can stay. Before you ask, staying with me isn't an option because I'll be traveling a lot. But, she has taken a liking to you and Maddie, so do you mind if you keep taking care of her, here?"
He clearly wasn't expecting that, but contrary to my expectations, he doesn't seem put off at all by the request, even seeming to appreciate it for some reason.
"Sure, I don't mind, and I know Mad will be happy to have someone around for girl talk. Seriously, why would anyone care about whether or not one shade of makeup is like, a barely noticeable amount lighter than the other? Women care about the weirdest of things."
...I can't tell if he's trying to be satirical of if he's just somehow forgotten.
"...You 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 I'm a woman right?" I ask, causing him to get a deer in headlights look to him as he clearly forgot. If it wasn't so funny, I'd probably be insulted, "and for the record, picking the right shade is very important. If you can't wrap your head around that, then just think about it like the uncanny valley effect and maybe you'll get it."
At my words, I watch in real time as he does as I said and changes his way of thinking, resulting in his eyes slowly widening in understanding. It's not like it's that complicated in the first place, one red may look natural while another similar one could look forced. Like if you were to paint over a leaf with green paint, it's the same colour but you can still tell it doesn't match.
"Huh," is his verbose response.
"Anyway, I'm gonna be going now. Call me if anything Parahumaney comes up, or if anything happens to the house. Oh, and get someone to fix my car, I'll send you some money for it, and whatever happens do 𝘯𝘰𝘵 burn my house down, or I 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 feed you your own brain."
For some reason, he doesn't seem all that bothered by my threat. I can tell he's taking it seriously, he just doesn't seem to care about it.
...I never went to collage, but I've heard enough to assume that this isn't too weird.
Whatever, now that that whole waste of time is over and done with, I can finally finish off my list of things to do. Shame I'll have to leave my car behind, but I missed riding my bike anyway, it's a lot more nimble and I can skip any traffic with it.
Then I'll just need to figure something else to do, but I already have an idea in mind that should be fun, and I must say.
I am once more looking forward to the future.
=================
A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
Hehehehehehehehe the funni thing I was planning that needed lusia to waste time was this!! Lusia killed Taylors mom!! MUAHAHAHAHA!!
(Taylor is the protag of Worm btw)
I can't believe that I actually forgot that Mimi and Elle weren't actually friends, like I had this whole thing planned out that was gonna span into the arc after next, some 40 chapters away, (I'm guesstimating) with faultlines crew and mimi being a part of it. I even had some lines written out in my head for some character interactions.
But fuck all of that I guess, cuz if ya didn't know, the asylum they were both in used Elle as enticement to get Mimi to behave. Elle does not harbour any positive feelings for Mimi, and with it being 3 years before canon, she is in an even worse position to hide those feelings, thus things not working out.
Also, in case you haven't noticed, I kinda got annoyed at trying to figure out something to do with Mimi that doesn't kill her (because that would have been a waste of a kill order bounty) so I basically just put her in a box for later.
Fun stuff should begin again next chap, which as you should know by now, means that it will not happen until the chap after next at least.
.....I just realised, but with how many A/Ns I do, is this a blog? Am I blogging?
(5+)Advanced chapters with the links below!
pat/reon.com/user?u=41732867 (get rid of the first slash or check the description)
Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
Detroit, Michigan, September 15th, 19:59.
Since my mysterious new potential hire wanted to meet in Detroit, I ended up passing by Columbus and decided to stay a day, check in on the kids, as it were.
They're doing good, I guess. To be honest they kind of gave me the cold shoulder, too busy doing wacky science stuff to give their old lady the time of the day.
It wasn't all bad though, since I just spent the day with his Hearts, in part because I'm nice and decided to vet all of James' capes, just in case any of them were the unsavoury sort.
Though, I can't deny the fun I had fucking with them, since they obviously know my actual identity now. Funnily enough, most of them didn't really give a shit, it was mostly really Jack who was obviously afraid of me. It was fun messing with her.
Oh, and there was also that girl from ages ago, the one who melted the transport I was in way back in my first fun little scheme. But despite still being a pussy, they've clearly grown somewhat, even if they were demoted to number three.
Point is, I had a fun day even with the kids being unreasonable, but now I am here, in Detroit.
He said he wanted to meet in the middle of this mall, for some reason, at exactly eight.
So here I am, sitting on a bench at the front entrance, dressed in casual clothes, ripped jeans, a white woollen blouse and a new face, with a hot pink beanie on my head for identification purposes.
Taking my phone at my pocket, I check the time, 20:00, and sigh. I'll wait another half hour at most, any later and I'm just gonna-
"Hey there Miss, what's got you looking so down? Did you get stood up or something?" A voice interrupts my thoughts, and when I look up I am greeted by the sight of a young man, probably only recently having turned eighteen.
He's dressed in what is very clearly a Legend cosplay, just with a shit tonne of glitter, to make up for the lack of lasers, I guess.
The fact that someone with a convenient excuse to be hiding their face just happens to be talking to me right on the minute that I was expecting to have company makes it pretty clear who this is.
Unless it's a seriously incredible coincidence. But I doubt that.
"Well, I thought so, but I might have been wrong,~" I answer, keeping vague enough that I can play it off just in case, but clearly my sudden bout of paranoia was pointless as his next words lose any of the previous subtlety.
"Cool! I was worried I'd got the wrong person haha, if you would follow me Lusi, can I call you Lusi? Sorry if I'm rambling, this is just kinda exciting to me. It's like meeting a celebrity, except the celebrity might eat you. Is it weird that I find that exciting? Not in like a sexual way, it's just interesting, kinda like how people have like, pet bears and tigers and stuff, or pitbulls, I guess. Those things are brutal. Do you like dogs? Or are you more of a cat person?"
Fucking... what?
Taking a moment to process the sudden onslaught of words, an amused smile worms its way onto my face as I respond, all the while I follow as he leads me away.
"In order, you can call me whatever you want, I'm not going to eat you unless your power sucks after all of this, I don't care if you have sexual fantasies about me, in fact I'd be flattered and understanding, as I am undeniably sexy, and I prefer cats.~"
The guy's eyes light up at my response and he seems a lot less nervous now. He was probably worried I'd shun him for being so energetic or something, but people are stupid. The fact he's so excitable is just fun.
We come to a stop before he says anything, standing in a somewhat isolated corner of the mall, and I notice that there is only one guy who can see us here.
My mystery recruit gives said guy a wave, to which he just nods his head before going back to his paper, and then he turns to me with a smile.
"Sorry, I just thought it'd be best to have this talk somewhere more private, so if you wouldn't mind going through there?" He asks, pointing to a door. A door for the disabled toilets to be precise.
Seeing the opportunity to do a little mischief, I put on an innocent and shy expression as I turn back to him.
"Y-you want a quickie in the toilets before we talk business?~ W-well, I wouldn't mind, if you insist?~"
I can practically 𝘴𝘦𝘦 his brain short circuit as he takes in my words, and I watch with great glee as an impressive blush spreads down his neck.
"W-what!? N-no, that's not what I- I mean- I didn't-" It's then that he notices the shit eating grin on my face, and he just lets out a long suffering sigh, drooping over slightly with his arms hanging loose, "why?"
That single word has a lot of depth behind it, but I just give a careless shrug of my shoulders as I answer. "'Cuz it's fun.~"
With a sigh that doesn't feel all that annoyed, he simply gestures back to the door.
"Can you just go in? Please?"
"Why can't you go in first?" I counter, just to be difficult, but his response is not what I expected it to be.
"'Cuz it's fun,~" He says, turning my own words back against me.
I approve.~
So with a pep in my step, I walk up to the door and open it, only to be greeted by a wave of heat and not at all a disabled toilet.
Slamming the door closed, I turn to the side and look out of one of the mall's windows.
Yep, the sun is most definitely starting to set.
I open the door again.
Why is the sun in front of me?
Turning back to the window, I find myself with two suns in my field of vision.
If this is what I think it is, I'm- Well, I don't even know what I'm going to do, but I sure as hell will be having a good time regardless.
With far less caution than is probably recommended, I walk through the door.
Warm air brushes over my skin with a light breeze as the afternoon sun shines down on me, meaning we're probably somewhere in South America, if I'm remembering my time zones correctly.
Though, as I look away from the forest around me, and take in the sight of what is clearly an Aztec temple, I think I could have figured out the general location anyway.
Still, I must say, I'm impressed. Having out meeting at the top of an Aztec temple is pretty fucking cool. Doubly so because it's not one of the ones that are in the middle of fucking city, though I can see the light pollution of a city nearby.
Hearing footsteps approaching from behind, I turn around to see the recruit walking through the same door, which is quite literally a door, including the frame, that is just leaning against a wall.
It certainly looks out of place, but if his power needs functioning doors to work, then it only makes sense.
"Nice spot, I bet you bring all the girls here, huh?~" I tease as he comes to stand beside me, looking out at the scenery with a smile that turns nostalgic.
"Nah, just the one, Darcy. But she's dead now, so I guess it's just me and you," he says, his words sounding completely casual despite their contents, "so yeah, this is my power. I can connect doors together, no matter the distance. Though each door can only be connected to one other door, and it takes a few minutes to 'mark' them, for lack of a better word."
As I go to open my mouth to respond, thinking he was done talking, he beats me to it by continuing.
"After I Triggered I was planning on doing like a travel agency kind of thing, but the NEPA-5 bill kinda send that idea down the drain. Who's idea was it to not let Parahumans use our powers for business reasons anyway? Doesn't that just mean more of us will turn Villain? Like me? Speaking of, I tried to do it anyway, just illegally, which means I wouldn't even have to pay taxes, so even better. But I haven't been able to get it set up at all, because I would need reliable safe places to put the doors, but everywhere I've gone has either needed money I don't have, or had some gangsters telling me I'd need to pay them a toll 'cuz it's their territory, or that I'd have to join them!"
"And so," I interrupt, before he can keep ranting, "you came to me in the hopes that I could help you out, presumably without taking a cut of your profits?"
"Pretty much yeah! But you'll obviously be able to travel for free, though, now that I think about it, I'll probably have to hire guards, so I guess if you can help with that too, then some of the profits can go to you for that."
I'm not sure if he understands business, because by all accounts he's basically insulting me here, asking me to do basically all the work in setting this up, pretty much for free.
My grin only grows at how funny this guy is.
"Sure, we'll have to talk details later, I just need to do some stuff first," I say, already planning on getting a map of the U.S. as soon as I can to look through, "but if we're doing this, then I'll need you to do a lot of travelling to get a network spread out throughout the country. Maybe you can even go abroad after we're done?"
I only listen with half an ear as he responds, my mind awhirl with thoughts and schemes.
"Really!? Awesome! Oh, I go by Doorman by the way, but I was thinking about changing it up if you let me join you guys, since your whole theme is clowns and games and stuff, I figured I could call myself Fast Travel, like in games. But do you have any ideas about how it's all going to work? Because I've been thinking about it for the past couple months, and I have a couple of ideas, but I'm not sure how feasible-"
"Don't worry about it," I say, cutting him off, "I already figured it out. The protection stuff will be case by case, but for the most part, I'll just visit or call whoever owns the territory and 'convince' them of the importance of our locations remaining neutral. This is good, thank you Fast Travel, you've opened a lot of doors just now, and I can finally put an old plan I had into place.~ So don't you worry, I'll sort everything out and give you a call in a few days."
He honestly seems a little put out that I've already got everything sorted, but he also seems pleased at the same time, however, right as he turns around to go back to the door, he pauses and slowly turns back to face me.
"You're still not going to be taking a cut of my profits though, right?"
I just laugh at him.
"Hahaha, you really have your priorities in order, don't you? Well, allow me to put you at ease.~ No, I do not plan on touching your profits, money is meaningless to me.~ Just wait for me to get back to you, I think you'll like what I have in mind, I'm certainly excited for it at least.~"
And so we return to Detroit and go our own separate ways.
I barely make it half way to my car before I'm pulling out my phone, too excited with my plans to wait any longer.
𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘢 𝘣𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘯!
=================
A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
Quick question, but what is the better way to do laughter? It's something I find myself concerned over a lot, like, just going up a little bit, "I just laugh at him. "Hahaha, you..."" is that better, or should I have gotten rid of the first part and just had the speech, or maybe taken the hahaha out of the speech and left the laughing as narration?
Considering the whole theme of the fic, it's kinda important for the sake of immersion but I've never figured out which is better, I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter.
Also, this idea was something that I legit came up with ages ago, you know what? fuck it, imma go back through my chapters and try and find where I got the idea.
Found it. I've had this idea since chapter 81 at the latest, and now I can finally fucking write it lmao
Which reminds me, for those who've read my other fic, do you remember me saying how I started the whole thing just cuz I wanted to do anbu missions, and that it took me ages before I even got to start that? Well, I 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 haven't gotten to the idea that I had when I started this fic lmao, I'm just too autistic, everything has to be in chronological order or I get upset.
(5+)Advanced chapters with the links below!
pat/reon.com/user?u=41732867 (get rid of the first slash or check the description)
Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses