Guns For Hire

Taylor kept pacing in her office.

She wasn't nervous. Not really. She was more impatient than anything. Trading with Blasto was a titanic endeavour, one that we couldn't fail at. The physical distance between us and our buyer was problem number one, maintaining trustworthy security that would keep the transport safe was problem number two and problem number three started with an A and rhymed with O.D.D.: the villain thinker Accord.

Despite Taylor's agreements with Accord, the Boston supervillain still had no friendly feelings for Blasto so letting their shipments of Shimmer pass through with a simple tax was already a miracle. One that the gang couldn't let go to waste. If you didn't know any better, you thought Accord genuinely liked talking with the Boss, if the amount of time he lounged through her meetings were a clue… and wasn't that a whole can of worms that neither of them wanted to open?

That was why trading with Cranial and the rest of Toybox was a breath of fresh air in comparison. A simple teleport in and a teleport out. Neat stuff. Shame Boss's speciality didn't touch teleportation because she said her powers had no reaction while looking at Dodge's tech.

The truth was, no matter how fat and deep Coil's pockets were, you needed your own source of income. The Last Drop was profitable and the selling of low-grade Shimmer on the streets made for a neat sum of cash, but other revenue was needed. Boss was a tinker and tinkers needed shit that sometimes were really damn expensive. No wonder they were the most numbered type of parahuman in the Protectorate and the Wards.

Thankfully, in the beginning Taylor had cannibalized Squealer's tech, and so far what was made from it still works, but now with another tinker on the team Boss was getting antsy with the money.

You looked at the clock on top of the office's front door. Taylor's guests had yet to arrive; they were not late, but you could have sworn that they would have been curious enough to come early. Taylor seemingly deciding that she still had some free time went for her desk and opened the second left drawer. Rummaging through it she found what she needed and took it out.

"Do you need help with that, Boss?" Taylor doesn't really jump anymore whenever your power is forced to deactivate, but by her expression you could deduce that a warning would have been nice.

"Yes, please Aisha." She carefully gives the instrument to you and goes to sit down on her swivel chair, making herself comfortable. Meanwhile, you start playing around with the needle and the Shimmer vial accompanying it.

"Comfy?"

"Hmhm." You can see Taylor forcing herself to relax. After a few seconds, she flattens her expressive lips in a way that indicates she is trying to think of something. "What are your thoughts on today's meeting?"

You try to be as gentle as possible when sitting down on the desk next to her. You know she is not asking about the politics or the strategy of it all, so you take careful consideration before actually speaking. After a bit of fiddling with the metal thingy, you start to massage your patient's throat with soft hands. "I think… you were terrifying."

"I was?"

"But in a good way."

"How can I be terrifying in a good way?"

"You looked like royalty should, protecting your people… protecting what's yours."

"I didn't feel very terrifying."

You finally stop your impromptu massage and put the vial's needle on Taylor's throat.

"Don't worry. I really think they got the message. Bringing the skulls was a very good touch. You usually look like a mob boss but with those on display? Really brought forth the villain vibe, ya'know?"

Without waiting for Taylor's reply, you pressed down on the vein that is today's target. The Shimmer vial empties itself inside Boss's body. Taylor convulses, her expression a mix of pain and pleasure. You can't look too hard at her or you'll do something that might end up hurting her, so you try to force yourself back. You try hard not to hug her not even getting close to her personal space. When her eyes light up with purple light and when her veins do the same you keep trying not to look too hard. Only when the convulsing (the soft babbling of nonsense words and a small weak call for her mom) ends that you get up from the desk.

About forty seconds of this.

Forty seconds of your heart breaking softly.

Every day for almost two minutes your heart cracks a bit more.

She used to be under the effects for longer, in the beginning. Nowadays, her formula has improved immensely, and the quality of her raw materials are far better than before as well. She theorizes that she won't need this formula for much longer and that soon she will be able to move on to the more commercial version of Shimmer.

If she were anyone else, you would have abandoned them, you know that deep down. You already have someone in your life making themselves miserable with drugs you don't need another. But she's your Boss. The both of you went through so many hardships together for the last five months. Besides it's not like Taylor got herself like this on purpose. It was either this or… shit that doesn't even bear thinking.

The shit with Coil, however, made Taylor more paranoid than usual, more irritable and angrier in between shots, and you think that how things are going the episodes will worsen.

The only thing you could do was hope.

That and pray that Skidmark and Mush's souls are being fucked over in Hell.

It pains you that Mush's skull isn't with the rest but the body hasn't been found yet. Bisecting the asshole in mid-air with a well-aimed projectile in the middle of the Boat Graveyard didn't really do well for body retrieval. Unless you were aquatic, that is.

When Taylor comes back to reality you are already holding her in your arms, staying as still as possible while you are awkwardly sitting next to her on the desk.

You start petting Taylor's hair calmly, trying to hold the older girl in place.

"Better?" You whisper.

"Yeah, a bit." Taylor says, frowning heavily as if she were forcing as best as she could to get her eyes to refocus.

Calmly you sit on her lap, trying not to jostle her too much. Now that you can hug her properly the both of you stay like that, in silence, for a while.

"What do you think of the meeting? You already told us some stuff when we arrived, but I want to hear your own thoughts." You confess.

"The E88 might try to test us soon, but not just yet. They still don't know what we can do, and they are afraid they'll bite more than they can chew. Lung, on the other hand, cares very little. As long as we don't mess with the dragon's hoard, he'll look the other way." She adjusts herself in the hug so she can look you in the eye.

"You think so?"

"For now? Yes. Of course, if we or the E88 falter, Lung will take advantage of it, but that's why we have the Protectorate on speed dial."

"Ah, the beauty of the status quo." You say with a smirk.

The landline phone on Taylor's desk starts to beep. Taylor disentangles herself from your hug and clicks on the red blinking button.

"This is Duchess, speak with me."

"Boss." Came Spitfire's soft voice from the phone. "The Undersider's are here to see you."

"Good, let them in to the club. Me and Imp are coming to the prop room to meet with them."

"Ok, Boss." The beep of the call ending vibrated through the air.

"Let's go." Taylor says. A hint of nervous anticipation creeps in, she opens another drawer starts taking out the masks the both of you will wear. "Remember, we need the Undersider's help in securing territory. The extra manpower that your brother, Regent and Bitch represent is too big to ignore. They will help us keep our transports safe and if the E88 does attack us we need their firepower. Tattletale is someone we dearly want and need on our side. Today's meeting made the villains think that I am a thinker and that Trainwreck is our group's tinker, but for us to gain the upper hand in this city we need an actual Thinker on our team. We either recruit Tattletale or we will have to entrench ourselves deeper into Accord's good will so that he lends someone suitable."

"What about Project Oracle? I thought we were pretty sure that we would get a Thinker out of that." You say strapping in the mask.

"The last thing I'll do is force the poor girl into a life of crime. Or worse, into servitude. I killed Coil as soon as I found out what he planned to do with her but it was a damn miracle I was able to spy on Coil's monitoring system." The vacuum seal of her mask activated with a woosh and her voice turned mechanical. "Let the girl figure out her numbers. Powers, by themselves, seek conflict. We know this. Some of Manton's theories were discredited after his disappearance, but this one seems to be correct. Her power will show her the numbers, but her power will also make her take risks. If we keep ourselves in our grey morality and be honest with our desires to help this city, she'll see that we are the better option and joins us." The she shook her head a bit and added. "She triggered this month, remember? It will take a while for her to get used to it. She'll babble all the questions lodged in her heart and only after will she start asking the real questions."

"Are you sure you are not a Thinker, Boss? 'Cause that was a very thorough analysis." You say jokingly, as both of you approach the door.

"I am just an observer of the human condition." She said with a fake lofty accent that made her sound like a senile old codger. "Besides, in the past three and a half weeks since her trigger she keeps being sent to the hospital for headaches, despite being in perfect health. For anyone with half a brain it smells like Thinker headaches like nothing else does. So, it means she has been using her power constantly. I just followed the breadcrumbs." You open the door for her, and you follow her. You then hear her mutter: "That the PRT hasn't picked them up like I did speaks more of their incompetence than it does the effectiveness of Coil's sabotages."

"Well good thing his moles are our moles now." You say with a laugh.

After passing through the hallway and going up the stairs you are finally at the secret door. She turns to look at you, her purple eyes gleaming with greed, and puts her left hand on your shoulder. She closes the gap between you and whispers:

"Remember: eyes on the prize. You want your big brother on our team and I want the hot blond, everyone else is a package deal."

"I know." You whisper back. "Should I activate my power?" You can feel the ever-smaller gap between the both of you. You try to supress a shiver at the proximity. Hugs are one thing, close encounters of the villain-ish kind in tight spaces are wholly another.

"If you feel dramatic, sure." She smiles and another shiver needs to be contained. "But just be yourself. But when I unmask you need to unmask yourself." The she leans back and leaves your personal space. "Your brother needs to know I haven't been a bad influence on you." She snorts softly. "Especially, when quite the opposite is true."

She opens the bookcase door just as you unchain your power. By habit more than need you already have taken out the butterfly knife you stole from some merchant jackass a few months back.

The prop room is empty for now, so the Boss takes the seat on the desk and arranges the place like she'd been there the entire night. You help chaotically organize the place even with your power on until the both of you hear a knock on the door,

Spitfire enters cautiously. She is wearing her mask and her official costume still from the meeting earlier today. She is a sweet older girl, kind and attentive. You gave her another month until she became the official mom of the team. She was already passive-aggressively forcing your boss to eat more and at regular hours and help keep the boss hydrated whenever she does something physically strenuous. You would have been jealous if not for the moony eyes she has been throwing Jack.

It must be the muscles.

Chicks dig muscles, right?

You are so concentrated in trying to gauge your own level of swole, that you almost miss what Spitfire says:

"-er's are all here. I told Hellhound that she should keep her dogs upstairs… she was not happy about that."

"Unfortunately, it must be this way. To Bitch even the smallest dog is deadly in her hands." Taylor, already in full Duchess mode, says. Then she nods. "You did well Fire, let them in, please, and go do whatever you like. You have the evening free."

"Thanks boss." Spitfire's soft voice somehow gets even softer.

She opens the door and with a with a gesture, lets your brother's gang in.

Brian comes first. You can still recognize his figure and his posture despite the black leather and the motorcycle helmet. The rest of the Undersiders walk in, in their disguises.

"Please, sit down. Can I give you all a drink?" Boss says in her mechanical tone of voice. With a few answering nods cups are given out and the boss pours the non-alcoholic drink from a bottle in a corner of her desk. "I trust Tattletale has told you why this meeting was necessary?" She questions Brian.

"Yeah." He said. Only with your status as his sister were you able to recognize his tone of voice, that was so similar to their father, of when he is angry but trying not to show it. "After the meeting she has told us the identity of our patron. Now that our employer is dead we should discuss with you our future."

"I don't mind who I work for. I didn't even know who it was to begin with." Says Regent pointedly. Brian looks at him but with the helmet you can't see his expression, but you can guess.

"Well, first I think a measure of trust is needed to begin with." You boss says. With a woosh and a click the entire face mask falls of into her waiting hands. "My name is Taylor Hebert, I am 15 years old and I have been a parahuman for the last seven months. I am the leader and co-founder of this organisation. I am classified as a Tinker"

The Undersiders seem a bit poleaxed about the unmasking but Tattletale comes to the rescue. She also takes off her mask and says:

"My name is Lisa Wilbourn, I am 16 years old and I have been a parahuman for the last two years. I am classified as a Thinker."

The rest of her team looks at her and she shrugs.

"She has access to Coil's files. She already knows who we are, probably for longer tha-, yeah, longer than that. This is just her levelling out the playing field."

Your boss nods with a small smirk.

Regent goes next:

"Hi, my name's Alec, I like video games and long walks on the beach. I am 15 years old and I have been a parahuman for the last five years. Oh! I am also classified as a Master."

Brian grunts but takes his mask off too.

"My name is Brian LaBourne, I am 17 years old and I have been a parahuman for the last two years. I am classified as a Shaker."

Bitch goes next. She takes her mask off like it personally offended her and says:

"The name is Rachel but I prefer Bitch. I am 16 and I have been doing this for a long while."

"She is a Master, like the PRT has her classified, but she doesn't have the disposable minions characteristic of Masters nor can she control them at will. She needs to train the dogs for them to obey her." Tattletale says. Bitch simply scowls at that and nods.

Your boss nods as well.

"Thank you. But… there's something we are missing." She looks confused.

Ah, right it's your turn.

You chain your power back into the depths of your mind.

The entire room except your boss jumps.

"Ah, yes. Everyone meet Imp."

You take off your mask.

Your Brother's jaw hangs open and he falls back into the chair he was sitting on.

"My name is Aisha LaBourne. I am 15 years old and I have been a parahuman for the last four months. I am the second in command and co-founder of this group. I am classified as a Stranger." You wave your hand. "Hi, big bro!"

"Aisha? What?"

"Aisha here is a dear friend and has been with me from the start of this operations." Taylor says.

Brian seems to try to raise from his chair and say something, but Tattletale stops him.

"Later. Not now."

"She killed Coil. And the Merchants. Were you with her?" Your brother asks.

"Yes. Every step of the way." You proclaim proudly. "But you should listen to the fox over there. We can talk later." You say nodding.

"So!" Tattletale speaks loudly. "You took out Coil. Why's that?"

"Well, there is only enough room in this town for one obligatory Bond villain." Says Duchess with a mocking tone, while you pick up a glass and pour your own drink. "And I couldn't go to Boston, because Accord already has the market cornered down there nor could I go north to Canada because I would either get gunned down by the Guild or snatched up by Heartbreaker." She took a sip of her drink and grimaced. "And I'm still in the process of figuring out how to use my speciality in getting rid of mental compulsions."

"You're planning on killing Heartbreaker?" Tattletale blurts out wide-eyed.

"Eventually. Maybe." The girl in the purple tailored suit said to the girl in the purple cat suit. "Your power is really good, by the way." Taylor admits.

"I know." Tattl-… Tats said. Her name's too bloody long, you think.

"I would pay you." Said Regent with a smirk. Although, you think he suddenly sounds awfully serious.

"Of course, you would." Duchess said with a matching smirk. "But in all eventualities, it wouldn't be me landing the killing blow. It would be Aisha over there." She points at you and you proceed to emphasize the point by twirling the butterfly knife on your hand. "I would just release some kind of bio-toxin, or sleeping gas, or an anti-master gassy bullshit, or all the above at the same time and let the Stranger 5 slit his throat." She sighed. "His skull would be a very nice addition to my collection."

"About that…" Said Brian uncomfortably. "Did you really need to kill them all?"

Duchess's left hand clenches around the glass and her mechanical fingers cause it to crack audibly.

"Yes." She whispers with steel in her voice. "Skidmark and Squealer deserved to die. I didn't start the fight thinking I would make their skulls into trophies but after I was done it seemed appropriate."

"What about Mush?" Said Regent.

"Dead. His body fell into the waters of the Boat Graveyard. We haven't been able to find it."

"Yeah, real shame, too. That was technically my trophy to keep." You said with a smirk. Brian just looks at you with a very complicated expression. You decide to stay silent and not gloat over how an amazing shot it was. You really wanted to ask Taylor to upgrade the sawblade-gun but the thing was too deadly to use on non-brutes so it was just collecting dust downstairs.

"And Coil?" Said Tattletale, seemingly eager to hear his fate.

"Planning to do worse to a preteen girl than what he did with you, fox girl. I couldn't abide by that." Boss said with a sigh.

Tattletale frowns. "I see. What about his money, his mercenaries and his workers in the PRT?"

"As soon as Assault tells Piggot everything that happened, the woman is going to do a clean sweep of all the departments in the PRT. The more obvious and untrustworthy of Coil's plants and moles are going to get caught. All while the ones we like will entrench themselves deeper into the system, because they would be revealed to be the seemingly trustworthy ones and the PRT will need new people to replace. Therefore, new positions open up and promotions are given, and staff is moved around." Duchess makes a circling motion with her free hand and takes another gulp of her drink.

"The PRT ends up doing the job for you." Says Brian with that constant frown, the one he has had ever since revealing yourself to him, lessening in severity.

"Pretty much. His money and his mercenaries are ours. Up until now they were doing a fantastic job of making it look like nothing was wrong and Coil was still active."

"So let me guess. Coil is gone, you replaced Coil and since Coil apparently was our employer you want us to accept a similar deal he gave us and continue to do our job." Brian sighs deeply.

"Meh. You are half right." Says Tattletale with a waving motion of her hand. "She will give us the same deal he gave us but, instead of acting independently she will ask us to fully join… her gang." She frowned. "Have you thought of a name for yourselves?"

Taylor looks at you.

You look at Taylor.

The both of you shrug.

"Names are hard." You say instead.

"I was thinking of Zaun, or Nation of Zaun. Something like that. Shorten it to NZ. Make a stylized tag of the first letters and start tagging the place. Our colours would be green and purple, of course. Now that we revealed ourselves, I already have a bunch of my workforce getting rid of all the Merchant tags we can find. Cleaning them and eventually replace them with our own." Taylor admits with a shrug. "The members would be called zaunites."

"Mhm, not a great name. But I also can't think of a better one." Says Regent.

"We could adopt the Undersider's name for us. But that just seems like inviting a bunch of trouble because it implies a lot of wrong things." You add to the conversation.

"Anyway, that needs to be a conversation for another time. Spitfire and Trainwreck can I have other ideas for the name that they might want to discuss with us." Taylor says. She moves to refill your glass and you let her. She smiles and you can't help but smile back. After the glass is filled, you move it to your lips and take a sip. With a small nod, Taylor turns around and goes to sit on the chair behind the desk. You watch her go. After she takes her place, and you see her adopt her role as Duchess, you let your eyes stray to the rest of the room.

The rest of the room is looking at you.

The sip you were taking deepens and you have to gulp the drink to avoid choking on it.

Regent has a shit eating grin on his face and Bitch just looks curious, but Tattletale has a calculative stare and Brian just seems a mix of half-pissed off and half-incredulous.

You look somewhere else.

Taylor, the oblivious and socially awkward idiot, who was messing around with a stack of papers on her desk, just seems to continue like nothing happened.

"Now, I understand if you wish to decline my offer bu-"

"No, we get it." Interrupts Brian, who is still looking at you. You can already see the we are gonna have words look that he usually gives when you do something that he dislikes. He finally dislodges his eyes from you and looks at the rest of his team, one by one. After each one gives an affirmative nod, he speaks again: "We accept."

Duchess smiles a bit, with a victorious glint in her purple eyes, and says:

"Welcome, then. Your salaries will be the same as the rest of the team: 2500 per month; except Trainwreck, who is a tinker and therefore receives an extra sum for his materials. Bonuses will be given as rewards and their content and value will be determined depending on the reason for them. If you wish to act independently, both alone and as a team, whenever you feel like it or want some extra cash, I want you to run by me your plans, just in case they intercept with some of our own." Duchess links her fingers under her chin. "Now, Bitch. Tell me, how do you like having a job specifically for you."

"What is it?" Bitch grunts.

"Right now our organization needs extra security. How do you feel about training some dogs into proper guard dogs for my men?"

Bitch frowns.

"They won't hurt the dogs?"

"Of course not, and if they do I'll let you do to them whatever you want."

"Good." She nods. "I can do it."

"Wonderful, I'll even give you a very small bonus for each dog you can train for us."

Duchess's attention then turns to Regent.

"Just do the thing and I'll be happy." Regents tries to shrug nonchalantly. "But until then, give me my salary and a place to play my video games and I'll work for you."

Duchess nods and turns her eyes to Tattletale who says:

"Keep me in the loop and I'm in."

"I was already planning on it."

Duchess turns to Brian, who looks grimly back.

"Anything you want?"

"Just keep my sister safe and we'll call it even."

"No worries. I'll even do you one better."

She takes some papers from a drawer and puts them on the table.

"This are the papers that will give you custody of your sister, just like Coil promised."

"Really?" Brian's eyebrows raise upwards in his forehead.

"Yes. You can read them at your leisure and if and when you sign them, give them back. I'll send them to a notary and after that you are the official guardian of your sister until she reaches adulthood."

"Wow, really feeling like I'm being traded like cattle here." You pipe up, slightly annoyed.

Duchess gives you a half-teasing, half-admonishing look but restrains herself from actually answering in front of the guests.

You ignore her refrain in favour of doing a few more tricks with your knife. You don't need to create more gossip with what would have been your first reaction to that.

At that point the meeting degenerates into… well, it's either the weirdest… well it's not dick measuring contest but it's certainly a contest measuring something between the boss and Tattletale. Then again, with Brian occasionally adding his own two cents it could also be classified as the world's most cockeyed gossiping session.

Bitch almost immediately stops paying attention, gets tired and leaves the room to re-join her dogs.

You, on the other hand, start playing thumb war with Regent.

By the third time he makes your thumb twitch with his power, you are five seconds away from drawing your personal hand cannon and giving him a third eye.

Unfortunately, that moment is also when Tattletale suddenly draws the meeting to a close.

"Well, all this was very productive. You don't mind if we keep our previous accommodations, do you?" She says raising from her seat.

"Of course not. Spitfire, Trainwreck and I are the only ones living here full-time. Aisha sometimes spends the night here as well." You can feel Brian's stare. "But you are welcome to come here whenever you want and even spend the night. This place is supposed to be our home away from home. Especially for us, outcasts." While saying this boss gives a meaningful look at Tattletale.

"Here, I'll show you to the door. Tomorrow, if you like, you can come back and I'll give you a tour of the place, right boss?" You ask, breaking the new stare-off.

"Of course, Aisha."

You cheerfully move to open the door as you lead them upstairs. You have to serpentine your way through the busy basement, filled with partying members of your gang and ignore the couple who are throwing knives at each other and ignore those two men arm wrestling for money and ignore… Wait!

Back up!

Is that Spitfire and Jack in the corner?

Are they…?

Huh.

It's the muscles, isn't it?

You don't feel in the mood for watching though, so you ignore them as well and move on.

But, maybe on the way down if they are still there.

You shake your head so those thoughts go away.

When you finally reach ground level the commotion is not much better. The club is full, instead of going into it though, there is a second door to the right of when you enter the hallway to the basement that leads backstage. So, you hurry through it.

After moving through the byzantine layout of this part of the building you finally find the back-alley door.

"There you go!" You say with a flourish. "Let me just open up."

You open the door and you are faced with Bitch sitting on top of an overturned (thankfully, empty!) bucket of paint, scratching behind one of her dogs ears.

The entire party leaves the building and before you can say anything else, Brian speaks, audibly irritated:

"Aisha! What in the world! Were! You! Thinking!?"

"Look, bro! I just wanted to help my friend! It just… it sorta escalated a lot over time you know?" You defend yourself, weakly. "One day I was kinda helping a girl kick her bully's ass, then in the other I was buying stuff for her to tinker with, and then I received the most amazing sawblade gun and-"

"Aisha!" Your brother interrupts. "What happened? Really?"

"It… Look it's like I said we didn't plan all this. Ok, that's a lie. We sorta plan a lot of this but we planned as things came along… And… Look, things escalated, right? You know I love you. You are my big brother! I was sorta, eventually, maybe, going to tell you. But kinda also thought you would confront me about it first? I mean I wasn't very conspicuous after all. My power literally makes you forget I exist! Wait a mi-"

"Aisha! Dammit! I just want a straight answer. Don't keep babbling on!"

"Or what?!" You snap. "It's not like you told me about all of-" You gesture to his team of villains. "- this! I had to Sherlock Holmes the shit outta of it! I thought you had some skank on the side! I thought you were dating that blond vixen over there or maybe that party clown there-" "Hey!" "or who knows! You were absent during the day! Sneaking out at night! I thought you joined a gang! Pfff, look you did!" You, again, make a gesture encompassing the Undersiders. "Worse! Sometimes, I thought you were planning to leave town! Leave me! So, when me and the boss found each other, we had no one so we stuck together! So, what if that eventually made me trigger? I don't regret it!" Before you know what your hand is doing you are already taking the hand cannon from it's holster and you are pointing it to the Undersider's. "So, here's the warning." You try to imitate the boss, getting close and personal, slow movements and threating tone. "You mess with Taylor you mess with me. You betray her? Well,… Grue's my brother so I won't do much permanent harm. But the rest of you?" You laugh a bit. "They still haven't found Mush, have they?"

You make sure to make eye contact to each one of them.

"Now leave." You put the gun back in the holster.

"Aisha…" Brian says, his voice sounds distant.

"Leave, Brian. We'll talk later. With cooler heads."

"Ok. We'll talk at home. But we will talk."

"Sure."

BONUS SCENE 2

"You understood all that, right?" Lisa looks at Brian. The actual meeting went well but she was sure that last part made Brian end up in a bad mood, worse that what he looked like externally that is. The full list of revelations hit him a bit hard especially all at once. The fact that Coil was their employer, that the employer was now dead, that we were getting a new employer, that his little sister triggered, that his little sister wasn't so little anymore and that he was suddenly getting what he worked so hard to get for the past half year… all of it left him numb.

"Which part, Lisa?"

[Annoyed. Angry. Tired. Wants to go to sleep. Won't go to sleep before talking with his sister. Wants to kn-]

She cut her power there and talked softly:

"It's pretty obvious your sister has massive crush on our new boss."

"Yeah, that part. Yes, captain obvious, I saw. I didn't know she was into girls, either."

[Refers to her trigger. Sad that his sister triggered. Angry at himself for it. Annoyed that she kept it a secret.]

Lisa sighs. The point she was trying to make was that she was sure that whatever feelings are being traded between the girls are not entirely of the healthy type. They are clearly influencing each other's personalities, and in teenagers? That thing tends to be important and sometimes everlasting. She looks back at the building they just left.

[Renovated. Rebuilt. Cleaned regularly. Cleaned by the members of the gang. Cleaned voluntarily.]

She shakes her head, feeling her headache arriving. She makes a last-ditch effort to rally herself up and looks forward, following Brian.

"We are still keeping our end of the deal, right?"

"Of course. It's not like we have much of a choice." He grunts.

She entertains a few thoughts in her head while walking back to base.

Like, how her power constantly told her that Duchess was on drugs.

If she were a worse person, she would have commented out loud how ironic it was for these two girls to start a drug business.

Instead, she shook her head again and tried not to think too hard on her new headache.

She only knew one thing for certain: for however long this thing lasted, it was going to be interesting.