"So the Undersiders rob a bank and just the Wards get sent out? Where were the PRT Troopers?"

"I don't know," Amy said. "I wasn't there."

"And then Piggot fined them?"

"That's what Vicky said Dean said."

I didn't have words for this bullshit. What the fuck was Piggot doing? What the fuck was the Youth Guard doing? Why wasn't a PRT captain leading? Where were all the actual Protectorate members? Why were under-trained Wards being sent out against villains that had violent crimes to their name? I was newer than them and even I had more training even though I'd only been in Boston for like a month.

"What the fuck," I breathed. "And they didn't appeal the fine? Has nobody even read their contract?"

"Greg, I don't know, I wasn't there."

"Why not? Didn't you go and heal them up?" I snapped, glancing over to where everyone was distracted playing Lets Dance. "Piggot can't just do that, that's months of wages just gone."

"Fuck you, I don't have to go running every time someone gets a booboo. Those pills have given me the biggest fucking headache all day, I don't need you making it worse."

I wanted to snap at her, tear down her stupid bitch worldview, but I was angry at Piggot, not Amy.

"Why do you care anyway," she continued. "I'm not really friends with them and neither are you."

"But I want to be!" I hissed, the word a venomous snake wrapped around my neck. That they didn't like me was my fault, I wanted to make that right and show them the real Greg. The one they would like.

"Ok," said Amy wearily.

I heard a computer mouse clicking in the background. Clearly this wasn't the best time to talk to her about this, and I'd already checked if she was feeling holdover megalomaniacal tendencies so I figured I should talk to her when she was in a less distracted state.

"I'm gonna call Armsmaster, I'll talk to you later."

I barely waited for her to say goodbye before hanging up and thumbing through my contacts for Colin's number, still titled Bromaster, and dialling. The phone rang out and I was left with his voicemail. Damn it.

"It's Greg," I said after the beep. "Call me back about whatever this shit is about Piggot fining the Wards. Thanks, bye."

I clicked my tongue and walked back over to witness the showdown between Lily and Tyrone. I was sure it was an absolute mismatch but I couldn't actually see through Tyrone's illusions, so as far as I could tell they were tied even with Lily's perfect sense of timing. I leant up against the back of one lounge chair, behind Basilisk, thankful once again for my visor obscuring my sightlines to Lily's butt. But it probably wouldn't have mattered, my body language power was implying most people were staring too, binding us in patrician solidarity.

Our masks were all still on, but nobody had been bothering with the full uniform for a while which was a plus since sweats and a hoodie were comfier than my skintight, not quite breathable getup that collected sweat which, if not for my inventory, would render it unwearable and super gross.

I was going to ask her out. My resolve couldn't be shaken on this, only further solidified as I watched her dance to A Crazy Little Thing Called Love. There was nothing in her Observe to imply she was seeing anyone or anything, though there was a concerning bit about a villain being obsessed with her due to their group trigger but I don't think I had to worry about that kind of competition there.

I checked my phone, nothing.

The song ended, leaving Tyrone victorious and sadly booting Lily from the competition of Best Dancer New York vs. Boston.

I vaulted over the lounge, bouncing in the air with a double jump, and high fived Tyrone on the way down.

"You ready to get creamed, Bas?" I said over my shoulder.

Basilisk raised a lazy hand, bent his middle finger down, placed his thumb over it and flicked, sending his hat spinning into the air. It revolved five times before landing directly back onto his head, his extended middle finger mocking me with its smug aura.

"Yes," he said.

I cackled, pumping my fist-

AIYAYAYAYAI!

Fucking typical. I fished my phone out and accepted the call, "just one second."

I held my free hand out, shimmering blue streams coalescing into a clone. I touched my fingers to its neck, fine blue wires trailing from them as I drew my hand away.

"I have to take a call from Armsmaster real quick," I said, my second line taking over directing the clone as I edged around another lounge. "Sorry, I'll be right back. This guy is gonna dance for me on this one."

"Sorry," I said into the phone, making sure to keep an eye on the clone at all times. "Hello."

"Hello, Greg," Colin said in one of his less tired voices, and then, clearly remembering to be polite. "How are you?"

"Yeah, good thanks. So about Piggot fining the Wards?"

"I didn't actually know until you called. You remember we transferred control of the Wards to the PRT at the start of the year, yes?"

"Yes."

"It's been great for my work progress-"

I rolled my eyes.

"-and until now I hadn't heard anything untoward about the director's management. I did hear about the robbery, however."

"Ok, so why were they fined?"

"Let me see…" he trailed off and went silent for a moment. "Looks like Gallant called in Glory Girl who caused some property damage, and the Wards pay was docked to compensate."

I drew in an angry breath but he cut me off.

"No, you're right, this isn't right. I can't for the life of me think of a reason why they were fined, what was the director thinking?" Colin muttered under his breath for a bit. "They were just supposed to stall until we could get there, but the Undersiders fled before we arrived. I already spoke to Kid Win about his Alternator Cannon, and let me tell you his segmented teleport system is a fabulous design, I'm definitely going to incorporate it into my Halberds, but it's not a finable offence…"

He'd trailed off again.

"Where were the PRT?" I demanded.

I could almost hear the severity of his frown.

"Not deployed alongside them. This makes even less sense, surely a single truck could be spared? A foam sprayer could have netted us the lot." Colin made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. "The altercation was over well before we got there, so it was not attached in my report, and I didn't read the Wards reports since that's the director's job now. I understand why you're confused."

"Fucking good! Can we do something about it?"

"Well," Colin hesitated. "I don't particularly have a lot of time."

He seemed to sense that I thought this answer was unacceptable.

"But I'll send an email."

Oh my god, was I about to lecture fucking Armsmaster on how to do his job? Yes, apparently I was. Fuck me.

"You have to stand up for them," I marshalled all my power to keep my voice steady. "They clearly don't know they have options. This has got to be months worth of their wages, how can Piggot punish them for something that they really shouldn't be responsible for? They need you on their side or nothing will change. Imagine if this happened with your team, you'd stand up for them, right?"

"Nobody would dare to do this to my team."

"Exactly! Because you're Armsmaster. And the Wards need your help-"

"Enough, Greg. I understand. I suppose I can make some time to sort this out," he heaved a sigh. "I can already see the meeting we'll need with the Youth Guard. You can't imagine the tedium."

"It's the right thing to do," I protested. "You can't just let Piggot do this."

"I'll set things right, Greg, unfortunately, I can't ignore this now that I know. Actually, maybe I can get Miss Militia to sub in on the meeting, I have a lot to do and it'll give me some time back to whip up something I had planned for you. An additional quest reward of sorts. Nothing fancy, but your Armsmajor title gives you an armour bonus so I was going to get around to asking if you wanted me to redesign your Dark Smoke Puncher costume into something a bit sturdier."

I had so many ideas, but we could deal with that later.

"Thank you so much, that sounds amazing," I said with as much gratitude as I could project. "How many people can say they have something made by Armsmaster? Before that though, could you let me know how the talk with Piggot goes?"

"Yes, yes, I'll keep you updated. Don't hold your breath, something like this could take months and there's only so much time I can be bothered to spend on it," Colin said without the slightest hint of apology.

I supposed it was better than nothing.

"I'll send over some sketches for my new uniform, I'd like to know how you make stuff actually. I've never talked to Chris about the actual process for t-"

"Sure," Colin interrupted. "Send them over and I'll get around to it. I have to go now, goodbye."

He hung up immediately, as usual. But something was done, a step had been taken in a direction. Whether I had done enough, I didn't know, but if nothing had happened in a month or two I could always email the Youth Guard rep myself. Hopefully, all it took was Armsmaster mentioning this and they'd get their money back.

I inventoried my phone and turned my full attention back to where Basilisk was cutting my clone a new fuckhole with his mad shapes. I cracked my neck and prepared myself for the sickest pop and lock of my life.


Our last activity before the big group spar tomorrow was a scavenger hunt and by some unprecedented divine act I was partnered with Lily; truly I had both god and anime on my side. This was my biggest chance to impress her and I was not going to squander it like I had so many other opportunities over the years.

"And then the first hobo says, 'Sure, we can switch, but I lost the sausage six bars ago'."

Lily chuckled the gurgling chuckle of both disgust and amusement, which was miles better than the utterly tepid reaction I'd gotten last time I told this joke.

I grinned stupidly, my heart hammering in my throat, my tooth twinkle sparkling. "Actually," I suppressed a voice crack. "I have something even better!"

I materialised my phone, typing 'its hip to fuck bees' into youtube, and shoved it under her nose.

"What movie is this?" she asked as Bateman started talking about Hewey Louis and the News.

"American Psycho, it's actually really good, we should all watch it tonight and like, cover Hunch's eyes when it gets to the naughty bits."

Lily hmmed, engrossed in the clip.

I held my breath as we walked. She didn't look like she liked it as much as me. I relaxed a little when she smirked and chuckled when the song changed before handing me back the phone.

"The movie does look good, what's it about?"

"It's a dark comedy about that guy being crazy." Oh, thank Christ, at least she didn't hate it. "I guess it's also social commentary, but funny."

"Cool. Hey," she pointed to the glinting pin holding a man's tie to his shirt. "I think that's next on our list."

"Yeah," I Observed. "It is."

I can't believe she didn't like its hip to fuck bees that much. What was wrong with it? Was it too niche? Did she just have to have seen the movie first? Both movies? Should I link her to the KYM page?

While Lily was getting the tie pin I quickly texted Sveta.

Greg: hip to fuck bees slaps, right?

I had to do something else, what would impress her? What would come off as both impressive and natural and not try hard in the slightest? The prevailing consensus on the internet was that I just had to be myself, bro, and while that seemed to be working out on some level, it wasn't enough. I kept my frown off my face as Lily walked back over to me, it was time to do something radical. Something crazy, but crazy was my middle name.

"Catch," she lifted the pin up, a little glinting gold PRT logo, and lobbed it to me.

I let my enhancement skill burst open, focusing it fully on my charisma stat, boosting it to fully double. I smiled with the force of a full thirty-four CHA, pouring into it my happiness, my positivity and my will to take her out to a nice dinner and hold her hand-

"Nice one, Flechette!"

-and in her pleased smile, I couldn't see any of my attraction returned. My blood ran cold, it had to be a mistake. My body language skill wasn't high enough, or I wasn't attuned to such high charisma and missed a subtle signal, or, or-

Why?! We've made so much progress! It wasn't supposed to be like this!

Can't our quests predict the future, isn't that why the true love one runs out soon? Lily was the one?

Yes! It has to be, the only other girl we've felt like this for was Victoria and some of that was fake!

Right? The timing is too perfect, she's too perfect a fit. The quests don't lie

The quests don't lie. Everything is aligned, us, Lily, the quest timer. We aren't failing this, she likes us-

So why doesn't she like like us?

My other Greg was silent because I had no idea why. It didn't make sense. Lily did like me, that much was plain as day, but apparently only in a friend capacity. I'd been friend-zoned. It figures, why would girls start liking me now? They never had before. Granted that was entirely on me, but I thought things were different. That I'd changed.

Not enough, apparently.

I caught the pin and put it in my inventory with the rest of our scavenged loot.

"Ok, so next we have to find a specifically monogrammed handkerchief," my mouth was saying. "I haven't seen one on any of the other floors, so we have to go up."

I really thought I was good enough this time.