justinq719: 1. Dude, Athena and Artemis being sisters was a real curve ball.
2. Moxxi and Paula in a three-way, Jesus Christ!
3. Donut! As a cook! No way!
4. My god, what did Dr. Yumeno do to Virgil to make me sing that good?!

Re: Dr. Yumeno basically "downloaded" it into him; think The Matrix, but with his DNA Computer being a wireless version of having those railroad spike-sized plugs slotted into the back of your skull.
As for the Turkeys… A lot.

BlitzNeutral69: "normalcy"? we are way past normalcy here!? normal is for the weak!
and plus im pretty sure normalcy been chucked out the window long ago, especially the moment you added elements from borderlands AND red vs blue, virgil chance at normalcy been shot down, beatened and destroyed to dust. XD

Re: Yes, well, since he's technically crazy, he might as well experience "the Delusion of Normalcy", so that way he can convince himself he hasn't ALREADY gone off the deep end~
After all, what crazy person knows they're crazy?

superpierce: Not surprised their are three first world countries that want Sunny though it get's me curious whether or not she will be able to get her canon job at Solis Space & Aeronautics.

Re: When the heat dies down a little more.

LuckyShadowWolf: So I'm ashamed to say that I just realized I forgot to leave review in the last chapter in regards to my question about the deal Vergil entered into with Hecate. In regards to what he has to offer there are two possibilities for what he has to offer. Either offering his service to preform a quest for Hecate or he can offer to become an agent/servant of Hecate in an effort to at least get some downtime so that he could destress a bit in between, hijinks! Also I can't help but wonder how Jade herself will react to the news that she has another sister! And we see an overall, relatively, stress free Thanksgiving. And considering his new language package and the source of the MDBs I am going to guess that Vergil will soon be making his way to Asia to look into them.

Re: It's less of a "pact" and more of… her "spitting in his eggs" as it were. Something that happens behind-the-scenes that no-one "sees" unless you're working really hard. Think of it like a Debuff you randomly receive in a Roguelite game out of a pool of Debuffs you can't escape.

Jamius: A libido heightening phychoactive for pandas...you, are a funny, funny person. This was a great chapter, thanks again. Good stuff all around, lots of great jokes and bits I liked. As for your name change, I did make that connection, as in I thought that was just a silly name, or if there was any connection to "neo nazi" it didn't actually transfer over to your stories or person and was just a name. I guess I am dumb, or just lazy...bit of both. Thanks again, I await your next update, whenever it is done.

Re: Yeah, funny story about that; I was actually on vacation near D.C. when I was finishing up the previous chapter, and though I got to go the Smithsonian National Zoological Park, no matter how-hard I tried, I just couldn't get a digital pass to see the damn pandas…! So, I decided to vent some of my frustration into my work while making commentary on how pandas need "daddy's little helper" to do "the dance with no pants".

fallendemon248: Kinda suprised vergil and athena didn't do a whole dip and kiss thing during their duet but then again I wonder how the other girls would have reacted to that, welp I guess now that we passed thanksgiving we move onto the next arc or is there more I anxious

Re: If they were alone maybe, but he was in mixed company, and Athena is so socially-awkward she might lock up on him if he'd tried.
That and, after realizing "that boy can sing", they wanted a duet with him too; Zatanna is still pining for him even if she doesn't realize it, while Megan is projecting her American 80s sitcom fantasies onto her real life. It's kind why she suggested Kon-El/Superboy call himself "Connor".

*GIVING THANKS*

Moxxi's Red Light
November 29, 09:08 EST

It went without saying that after all the food they'd eaten the night prior, everyone slept like logs doped up on horse tranquilizer doped on tranquilizer tranquilizer. J'onn J'onz in his Human guise could master himself on the cellular level, but not so much his niece who had to digest all those calories the old-fashioned way. While it wasn't the traditional Rockwellian-style Thanksgiving she had imagined, M'gann was infinitely more-happy than she'd ever been on Ma'aleca'andra, and for what it was worth, he was happy she'd stowed away to Per'elandra with him.

Hopefully, she wouldn't set an example for the rest of his young relatives. It was hard-enough making one Visa appear out of thin air, let alone three hundred-plus.

Giovanni for his part didn't mind the non-traditional Thanksgiving, since the alternative was another lonely dinner with just the two of them, the empty seat a reminder of the mother who was no longer there. He still had his doubts about Virgil, but that was largely because he was still "a boy"; and sure, he'd explicitly stated in "no uncertain terms" that he wasn't attracted to Zatanna, but, you know, fathers will be fathers.

To everyone's surprise, Moxxi and Paula didn't do "the dance with no pants" as soon as dinner had ended, but had what may as well have been a sleepover, the two mothers gabbing about their kids until the wee hours of the morning.

Hal and David were swift to vanish like the morning mist, staying in an above-ground safehouse that FOXHOUND had purchased within Bludhaven, with Hal wanting to give Sunny a little bit of normalcy before they went back into hiding again.

As for Virgil… For his part, he was the first to rise as the rhythmic breathing of the girls around roused him from his slumber, and he knew that if Moxxi were to see the state he was in, she'd never let him hear the end of it. As for what aforementioned state was… Basically, Athena and Gaige were clutching onto him from one side each and drooling into the crook of his neck, Sunny was curled up on his lap like a small cat, and Zatanna and Megan were snuggling up to whatever real estate had been left.

Only Artemis was exempt from this pileup, sawing logs on a recliner as she slept off the turkey.

And when the hell had they opened the pull-out sofa?!

'Shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit…!' Virgil panicked, his eyes darting as he tried to pull any part of himself free, only to find his limbs held down like by car jacks. 'If Moxxi sees me like this, she'll never let me hear the end of it!'

*Click*

"Oh, this is going to be such a cute Christmas card~" Moxxi cooed from the foot of the bed, holding a camera in her hands as she grinned cheekily at him.

'Oh crapbaskets…'

*GIVING THANKS*

"So girls, how did you sleep~?" Moxxi asked cheekily as she and the adults whipped up a huge breakfast, Zatanna and Megan flushing red in the face out of sheer embarrassment, while Athena and Gaige blushed for getting caught. Sunny was the only one who kept a straight face, having no sexual attraction toward David's successor, though that didn't stop her from getting pampered as she sat in the teen's lap and he fed her pancakes, still half-asleep.

"Hey, why aren't you pampering me!?" Tina demanded.

"Because the last time I offered, you got a taste for blood."

"Hey, I only broke the skin a little…" the manic teenager pouted.

"Yeah, and don't I have the reminder for it," he said holding up the small white scars on his right-handed fingers for all to see; much smaller than it would've been and continually shrinking thanks to his Medical Nanotech.

"So what's the plan for today?" Artemis yawned.

"I think we can hang around a bit longer," Paula hummed. "I'm still a little sleepy after that dinner last night."

"Amongst other things~"

"Moxxi, down," Paula chided.

"Which is also the name of Moxxi's sex tape! Heyooo~" Tina cackled.

"What about you guys?" Artemis asked ignoring her mother and Moxxi's byplay.

"We're going to stick around until this evening, then head home," Zatanna answered.

"It'll be a while before we can hang out again, so we wanna make the most of our time together," Megan added merrily.

"Hey Artemis, I have to ask… How does Bludhaven compare to Gotham?" Virgil groused.

"Well… I can walk down the street without worrying about the 'Insane Clown Posse'," Artemis admitted. "Not that I don't like where I live, Gotham made me tough, so if I can make it there, I can make it anywhere."

"I kinda feel like that saying would apply more to Metropolis than Gotham, what with NYC being a toxic hellscape," Virgil hummed idly.

"But seriously, what is it with East Coast cities being Villain-magnets?" Artemis hummed aloud.

"Honestly, if you try to blame it on Heroes, that's just stupid; any Villain worth their salt would sooner work out of Bumblefuck, Albuquerque than a known Hero haunt. My money's on just that; the money."

"The money?" Megan blinked.

"Villains and criminals in general want money, or material gains they can liquidate into money, so big capitalist havens would be tempting targets," Virgil answered. "Honestly, whatever idiot blames Heroes for Villains running around, is really fucking stupid."

Tucking back into his morning meal, the brunette's dialogue became food for thought for those moonlighting as crime fighters. Or at least those that planned to.

*GIVING THANKS*

'Hmmmmm… Is it really that simple? Heroes and Villains clashing because of the money in the background…?' Artemis mused to herself as she left the restroom. 'I mean I guess it does make sense, from an economic standpoint… Unless there was big money involved, a Villain would just go to some middle-of-nowhere place… except middle-of-nowhere places don't have that kind of money. Not the kind of money that's worth dying over.'

Counter-intuitively, the reason Villains were hesitant to attack small towns was because, due to the fact that "everyone knew everyone", it was quite easy for an out-of-towner to become surrounded by "enemies". A "you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us" mentality, if you will. In summary, fucking with an entire town was a good way to get your head blown off by some yahoo with a shotgun in a town where no-one would convict them.

In the big cities it was more complicated than that; more political.

'Huh… I guess I never stopped to really think about it before…' the blond archer hummed. Her motivations for putting on the proverbial cape & cowl laid in spiting her father, rising above the mistakes her own mother made. However, Virgil's color commentary had nagged at her ever since breakfast that morning.

Before she could muse on it further however, a flash of red caught her eye.

"Hm?" she blinked as she spied the ends of Megan's reddish hair disappearing into Virgil's room. 'What's she doing in there?' she wondered.

Tiptoeing over and taking a knee, Artemis squinted her eye and adequately braced her hands against the door.

To not do so was a really good way to get caught in the eye with a doorknob.

'Good thing Moxxi's upstairs rooms have these old doorknobs,' she hummed as she caught a glimpse of Virgil's room; although, all she could see was the foot of his bed and an empty space with a couple of chairs, of which Virgil was sitting beside Zatanna in. 'Where's Megan?'

"You wanted to show me something?" Virgil asked.

"Yeah. Hold on a second," Megan returned somewhere from the left. The next moment to Artemis' shock, the girl's socks, skirt, blouse, and undergarments were thrown in sequence into his lap.

"Megan! That's improper!" Virgil gawped.

'Yeah, you tell her!' Artemis nodded, realizing it wasn't just "the quiet ones" you had to watch out for.

"You throw clothing on the floor, not at people," he chastised as he set the now-naked red-head's clothing on the floor at his feet.

"Got it. Sooooo? What do you think?"

" . . . Nice," Virgil conceded after a moment, nodding his head as his eyes panned her from head to toe.

"That no-good, two-timing son of a bitch!" Artemis hissed.

There were only so-many places her mind could go when "shown" something like that.

"What was that?" Zatanna blinked.

'Oh shit!' Artemis yelped, squat-walking away from the door.

*Creeeeak*

'Fuck!'

Abandoning all subtlety, Artemis shot up to her feet and bolted for the stairwell.

"Llup reh otni moor!" Zatanna's voice called out.

"Eyauuugh!" Artemis shrieked as she was suddenly dragged across the floor by her ankles and into the room's open door like something from a B-grade horror movie.

*GIVING THANKS*

"Zatanna, I thought you said you put up privacy wards."

"Yeah, well, I didn't think I had to block an old-timey keyhole…!" Virgil and Zatanna argued over her as she found herself strapped to a chair with magic ropes.

'What the fuuuuuck…?' Artemis gawped as she beheld the room's third occupant.

Megan Morse was nowhere to be seen; in her place was a shapely green-skinned girl with a weirdly familiar freckled face and shoulder-length red hair brushed to her right exposing her left ear. Her lips were a darker shade of green than her skin, her eyes matching, and her visible ear tapered off into a visible point; not knife-shaped like you'd find on Elves in a Fantasy setting, but more Star Trek. Her skin-tight attire, practically a second skin, was an all-black number that went form neck to toe with a thick wrap-around X colored dark red, her matching gloves and boots featuring cuffs with sharp angles, and a dark blue cape with a popped collar around her neck dropping down to her knees, a pair of gold clips and a band across her chest fastening it in place.

All in all, she looked like a super high-quality "Martian Manhuntress" cosplayer.

"What's going on here…?" Artemis blinked. "Holy crap… Are you Martian Manhunter's daughter?"

"Niece, actually."

"M'gann! You're not supposed to answer that!" Virgil chastised.

"Oops."

"Hold on, are you… Are you Megan?" the archer asked incredulously as she counted heads.

"Well, shit. The cat's out of the bag," Virgil sighed. "Oh well, time to erase your memory."

"WHAT!?" she yelped at his nonchalante tone.

"It's nothing personal, but we can't have her secret identity exposed to a civilian," the brunette answered in a conciliatory tone.

"B-But I'm not a 'civilian'! I'm a Hero too!"

"Oh? And what's your 'hero name'?" Virgil asked with a raised brow.

"It's Ar…temis…" the blond trailed off, only just-then realizing how-stupid it was to have her Hero Name and real name be literally the exact same thing.

" . . . That name doesn't sound inspired in the slightest."

"Oh, fuck you!"

"Hey! Swear jar!" Megan, M'gann, or whoever she was chided.

"Well, either way, we can't let you keep that memory," Zatanna hummed. "Do you want to, or should I?"

"But… She's our friend, isn't she? I'm sure if we ask her really nicely-"

"M'gann, when she talks, and she will talk, it isn't just you this'll blow back on," Virgil said crossing his arms. "What's the point of having a secret identity if you won't even protect it?"

"I… But…" M'gann paused before gaining a pensive look on her face. "No, you're right. This is too important to trust to a civilian."

"I'm not a 'civilian'! I'm a-"

"A 'Hero' whose real name and alias are exactly the same…?" Virgil asked with a raised brow.

"Well when you put it that way it sounds stupid," Artemis pouted before M'gann extended her hand to her, her eyes glowing an iridescent green.

"So… You in yet?" Virgil asked after a couple moments.

"No…" she pouted. "She's listing off Olympic gold medalists in archery by name and year… in Spanish."

"She's keeping you out?" Virgil blinked.

"Ha. Sorry to disappoint, but I'm not that weak," Artemis smirked, actually thankful for some of her dad's training; one subject of which was repelling telepathic invasion. Who knew it'd actually come in handy?

"Can't you force your way in?" Zatanna asked.

"Not without hurting her, and I don't want to do that."

"So all you need to do is break her concentration then~?" Virgil hummed, stroking his chin thoughtfully before tugging at his ear.

'Why don't I like the way he phrased that?' Artemis asked as the three suddenly went into a silent conversation with one another, eyes darting to her occasionally as they gesticulated with their hands. After several seconds, none of which she was able to break free of her magical bondage, Virgil stood in front of her with his hands crossed at his back, M'gann off to the side, and Zatanna behind.

"Guess whooo~?" Zatanna said putting her hands over her eyes.

"Really? That's the best you can do?" Artemis asked. "It's going to take a lot more than that to rattle this cage."

"Peek-a-boo!"

Zatanna's hands pulling away, Virgil had suddenly transformed into something completely alien; a towering form with a vertebrate-like body, a protective dark exoskeleton, a long flexible tail, long claws, an elongated domed head, and a toothed mouth.

"Screeee!" the Xenomorph wearing Virgil's clothes hissed as it leaned toward her with claws and teeth bared, its proboscis-like hindjaw shooting out and snapping the air in front of her nose.

"EYAAUUUGH!?" Artemis cried in fright at the unexpected sight.

It was at that moment of weakness that M'gann, in the form of a Xenomorph wearing Virgil's clothes for the sake of the 'Switch-a-Boo Maneuver', was able to bypass the now-terrified girl's mental defenses, which the "realization" that Virgil too was an "alien shapeshifter" wrenched open.

It didn't matter how-strong someone's mental defenses were. All it took was the fraction-of-a-second gap created by a jump scare for a ready telepath to slip on in.

*GIVING THANKS*

Moxxi's Red Light
November 29, 10:15 EST

While Artemis Crock was being exposed to mind-altering psychokinetics, Giovanni Zatarra and "John Jones" sat across from one another in council; their minds linked & shielded, a litany of privacy-granting and eavesdrop-scrambling charms enveloping the temporary guest room they now occupied, between the two of them there could be no more-private meeting place than the bowels of the Justice League Watchtower itself. Situated on the small table they'd set between them were a pair of completely unassuming objects; a book of matches, and a 9mm bullet.

' . . . I know how he found me out, but how did you get made?' Giovanni questioned his friend as he eyed the box of matches. Sure, his identity was public knowledge, so even an ant colony with the power of two Human eyes could guess who he was in his off hours; but "John" for all intents and purposes was 100% Human down to the cellular level when he really tried. He knew this because when J'onn was playing the role of a Human detective, he'd had to spend a month leaving behind Human hair, skin cells, excrement, and so-on when his true identity had nearly been compromised by some paranoid nutball in the department.

Of course, paranoia and being wrong about things wasn't always mutually exclusive…

'I am not sure,' J'onn returned. 'There were no candles or open flames of any sort to give me away, nor did my disguise slip.'

'Do you think he made you through your niece then?'

'No. Since our trip to Vegas, I'd been training M'gann to maintain her guise while watching a number of jump-scare videos. It won't be that easy to jostle her.'

'So you think Virgil told him then?'

'No… Nothing about his countenance implied he got this knowledge from Virgil,' the alien detective hummed. 'It's wholly possible this 'David' had been able to guess as to who I was through any of the breadcrumbs we'd left behind.'

A "She-Hulk" in Vegas at the same time "Zatarra's daughter" was seen hanging out with a similar-if-not-ordinary-looking teenage girl couldn't be 100% discounted as coincidence.

'Hal let it slip that they have a military background. Special Forces, perhaps?' J'onn questioned.

'More like 'Retired' Special Forces,' Giovanni hummed as he thought back to David's old, battle-beaten form. Though, admittedly, he too had begun to notice the peaking of his magical abilities, and the small lessening of physical ability as Zatanna got older. 'Still, he isn't wrong. Ours is a dangerous line of work, plenty of Heroes have 'retired' over the years, so he has reason to fear for his adopted grandson's well-being.'

'Still, he was rather cryptic…' J'onn hummed as he stared at the book of matches and 9mm bullet between them.

*GIVING THANKS*

Moxxi's Red Light
November 28, 21:16 EST

After the children had nodded off in the living room, David had more or less pulled Giovanni and "John" aside out of earshot to one of the guest rooms. It took him a while to get up the stairs, what with how old he seemed, but suffice it to say, when the door had closed behind them offering some modicum of privacy, neither Justice League member had been prepared for the direction their discussion would take.

"You wanted to have a word with us?" Giovanni asked of his senior.

"All of our time is valuable, so I'm just going to get straight to the point," David said flatly, rolling an unlit cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other, standing proudly with shoulders squared like a soldier at attention. "If you let Virgil get hurt because of the Justice League's 'Cops & Robbers' nonsense, the two of you will answer to me."

"What?" John blinked. "I don't-"

The next moment David drew a book of matches from his pocket, lit one, and lobbed it at him, the man yelping as he slapped the lit match away onto the floor, Giovanni swooping over to stomp it out.

"What is the meaning of-"

"I'm not an idiot," David said in the voice of a man whose intelligence was insulted. "You, make absolutely zero attempt to hide your identity, and you," he said turning to John. "All you did was 'localize' your name from Martian to English. I don't know if that on top of making yourself a black man is secretly brilliant, or just really stupid, but it isn't fooling me."

" . . . !"

"Oh, and don't bother altering my memories. I've trained to resist psychic assaults before from one of the strongest telepaths to exist on this planet in the last forty years. Neither of you bring anything to the table I hadn't already fought and beaten as a young man," David went on, seeming to loom over them. "Which of course brings us to the crux of our meeting. I'm not going to tell him who his friends can or can't be, your daughter and whatever Megan is to you have already wormed their way into his life; however, I'm not about to let him throw his life away on some altruistic nonsense."

"What exactly is it you want from us?" Giovanni asked tensely. Sure, he'd had to endure a tongue-lashing from people who felt he owed them something during the course of his Justice League activities, but unlike all those other occurrences, there was something quite real about the threat David posed.

"Simply put, that you won't put any… toxic ideas in his head, about whether or not he's allowed to defend himself."

"What? Of course he's allowed to protect-"

"Even if it means killing the other guy?" David cut in causing the magician to snap shut. "Your Justice League's ideals are outdated, and if they get that boy killed…" he said letting the threat hang, turning his back to them as he grasped the doorknob. "All it'll take is a book of matches and a 9mm bullet to keep my word, so you'd better not break yours."

And with that he left, aforementioned objects left on the nearby bureau like a calling card.

*GIVING THANKS*

Moxxi's Red Light
November 29, 10:17 EST

'And you couldn't read his thoughts?' Giovanni questioned, thoughts returning to the present.

'No. He was shielding his deeper thoughts with what he wanted me to see.'

'Which was…?'

'Memories of his time in the army. All the people he's fought, and killed,' John answered. What he'd seen in David's mind was a long and storied military career as he fought terrorists, soldiers, super soldiers, psychics, ninjas, cyborgs, cyborg ninjas; his entire lifetime on the battlefield from his prime to when he was an old man. 'What was more-terrifying, was what happened to those who didn't see him coming. If I weren't prior acquainted with Batman, I'd have doubted the veracity of one man being able to be that-silent, to sneak up on so-many professionally-trained soldiers, killers, terrorists, and so-on without being noticed until it was already too late.'

'So we've got an old man who doesn't want his adopted grandson getting hurt… and he's savvy-enough to know who we are.'

'To be fair, the possibility that there are those out there who know who we are besides Batman, has always existed.'

On a planet with 7 Billion-plus people on it, some of which were hyper-intelligent, there had to be more than one person smart-enough to suss out who the Justice League members were when they weren't wearing the cowl & cape. It was just a matter of whether or not it was in their best interests to investigate and/or act upon what they knew.

'So what is it we do then?' Giovanni asked. 'We can't exactly tell our charges to stay out of the fight, and the only reason Virgil would go into it is for their sake. And even if David is too-old to be a threat to us, there might be others he can call upon, and we don't know the extent of his knowledge as to our identities.'

' . . . The best course of action would be to, indirectly, prepare Virgil as-best we can for the future alongside our charges. The stronger the three of them are, the smaller the chance any of them will get hurt.'

J'onn J'onzz didn't disparage David for making the threats, indirect or otherwise, that he had. If anything ever happened to K'hym, whoever he could justifiably blame it on, he would. You did not screw with the offspring of a Manhunter, Ma'aleca'andran or otherwise.

'I should've taken whatever family the boy might've had into greater consideration when I offered him the gift of magic…' Giovanni conceded. 'Batman will never let me hear the end of this.'

'Not as long as he never finds out,' John said crossing his arms. 'All he needs to know about Virgil is that he has magical talent and he's a friend of your daughter, and through her, friends with my niece. He has a protective 'big brother' streak for the two of them, otherwise he isn't altruistic-enough, by his own admission, to be a full-time or even part-time superhero. He's a critic of the lifestyle, but the fact that he wants to keep your daughter and my niece alive, means we can predict his actions to a degree.'

' . . . I suppose that'll work… and after what happened in Las Vegas, it's not like I can say I'm against the idea of Zatanna having someone to watch her back when I'm not around. That, and, having someone she can talk about this life with can only be good for her.'

If you want to know what someone in their line of work looks like when they don't have anyone to talk to for years and years at a time… Batman.

'Then we are in agreement. You shall cultivate his burgeoning magical talent, and I will shore up his mental defenses. Between the two of us, he should become formidable enough to protect not only himself and our charges, but also appease David's own paternal instincts.'

Little did they know that it was more than Virgil's adopted grandfather, who had a vested interest in the boy's future…

*GIVING THANKS*

"DAMMIT! Lost again!" Artemis scowled as she threw down her losing hand.

"Yep. You know the drill," Zatanna hummed as she pointed toward a discarded pile of clothing off to the side. Shoes and socks in pairs apiece counted as one article of clothing each, and with this most-recent losing hand, Artemis was down to her undergarments; a pair of green biker shorts and a sports bra to match. "One more loss and you owe us a pizza."

"So unfair…" Artemis grumbled, but held onto some semblance of dignity as she tossed her T-shirt onto her pile with the rest of her clothing, revealing her toned upper body to the three of them. As the blond archer shuffled all the cards back in, she was blissfully unaware of the unspoken conversation taking place behind her metaphorical back.

'Remind me again why we're doing this?' Zatanna asked quizzically.

She might've been a Catholic schoolgirl, but even she knew what Strip Poker was.

The bigger issue was the 'why' of it…

'To protect my secret identity, we need to swap one memory for another,' Megan answered.

'Okay, but why strip poker?' Virgil asked only marginally worried about this.

Moxxi probably wouldn't care, but wheelchair or no wheelchair, he didn't want to get on Paula's bad side.

'She thinks I was stripping naked for her half-sister's boyfriend, so we need to change the 'association' in her mind's eye so the fabricated memory doesn't unravel if she decides to think about it too hard.'

'So you mean if you fabricated a memory that was too out-of-place she'd see through it?'

'Something like that,' Megan answered.

'Well… You're the expert. At least as far as those of us in this room are concerned,' Virgil hummed. 'Wait, how would she justify agreeing to this game?'

'She has a naturally competitive streak. It comes with having an older sibling,' Megan thought. She didn't know who Artemis' sibling was, she didn't dig that deep; she just knew there was "a story" behind it. 'Human minds are capable of 'accepting' most-anything. It's how the supernatural world remains hidden despite so-much evidence to the contrary.'

' . . . Yeah, that tracks…' Virgil and Zatanna conceded. 'But wait, what if M'gann's brainwashing comes undone?' Virgil asked.

'Don't worry. I have a few memory charms dad taught me in case someone who sees the supernatural starts having a panic attacks,' Zatanna answered.

'And this is really the best course of action?' Virgil asked incredulously.

'If she ever becomes a superhero for real, we'll undo the mind block,' Zatanna answered.

'Really? And what's she going to do? Pose as Green Arrow's niece?' he questioned, since given her attire and the apparent archery fetish, there were only so-many people she could've modeled her quote/unquote "superhero" identity off of.

*GIVING THANKS*

"Aaaaand you lose again~" Zatanna grinned. "If it weren't for all the leftovers downstairs, we'd reimburse that pizza now."

"Remind me again how you talked me into this?" Artemis asked as she got her clothing back on.

It wasn't that she wasn't ashamed at the prospect of being seen mostly naked. It's just that during the course of her training, her father had beaten it into her head that a little nudity shouldn't be the thing that gets her killed in a fight someday. And considering there were swimsuits that covered less than what she was wearing right then, a little nudity between friends wasn't anything to be overtly embarrassed about.

"Um… Uhhh…" Zatanna stammered desperately, Virgil tugging at his right ear.

"We started playing poker, you wanted to make things 'more interesting'," Megan answered making air quotes.

" . . . Yeah, that sounds like me," Artemis conceded, Zatanna letting out a sigh of relief that the ruse held. "So, what now? Wanna get an early lunch? Maybe some karaoke?"

"What, you don't wanna make it 'double or nothing'?" Virgil quipped.

"Nah, I know when to fold 'em," Artemis waved off.

"Could've fooled me~"

"Heyoooo~" Megan smiled, giving Virgil five while Zatanna smiled off to the side.

"Seriously though, are you guys telepathic or something? 'Cause it seemed like you were," the blond archer pouted.

"No, we aren't."

Not technically a lie! Artemis had implied/inquired they were all Telepathic, but only one of them was.

"We just made you the fall guy by ganging up on you."

Also true.

"What? Why?!"

"You turned a regular game of poker between friends into a mildly-uncomfortable strip variant," Zatanna answered. "What part of 'Catholic schoolgirl' do you not understand."

"Well excuuuuse me for not getting the memo…" Artemis grumbled.

"Sooooo… Are all card games meant to devolve into 'strip variants'?" Megan asked with a completely straight face, glad she was wearing actual clothes over her polymorphic body. Given how she wanted to have the "high school experience" she saw on Hello, Megan!, it was only an inevitability that she strip down in a locker room among her fellow gals.

One can only wonder what awkwardness would've ensued had she not gotten a tangible wardrobe.

"No, not usually," Virgil replied. He had no idea how well or how poorly the "memory patch" was going, so he'd just leave it up to M'gann to sort out. And even if Artemis' memory returned, it's not like she'd be able to tell anyone without sounding like a crazy person.

Or at least he hoped things stayed that simple…

*GIVING THANKS*

Elsewhere in the Moxxi residence…

"Are you sure this is wise?" Sunny asked Athena as she eyed Tiny Tina making her own blasting caps off in the corner, she and Gaige tinkering with Ace's robotic carcass while the computer prodigy watched.

"Don't worry, Tina has her own workshop to assemble product. No explosives this-close to the house," Athena answered, happy to have another genius around.

Not that she believed Hal's story about them being "extended family" for a moment. If anything, she suspected them of being co-workers under the same organization Virgil has been ghosting off to in the middle of the night for the last couple of months.

Still, though they were co-workers, the three of them genuinely cared for Virgil's well-being, and were it not for Tina dragging Virgil home with a dead hobo's trench coat over his bleeding-edge battle armor more or less against his will, it's possible that they would be his support group. They and whoever else was working around them.

Plus, it never hurt to branch out and network with other specialists. Ace's Blue Box had been completely fried after Brick made him punch a fuse box while standing in a puddle, and Hal's "niece" was able to do in a couple of hours what would've taken Athena and/or Gaige weeks to do when it came to repurposing the Royal Flush Gang's robotic muscle into something for the house. Athene and Gaige were both experts at fabrication, electronics, and engineering, but Sunny… Sunny was a bonafide savant with an incredible ability to work with AI.

Not that she ever said as such, but reprogramming a fragged artificial intelligence wasn't something you could do without intimate knowledge of the medium.

While there wasn't much they could do with "Bob" (a placeholder until she could come up with a new name) until one of her contacts could legally scrounge up a new Blue Box to place the robo-muscle's Personality Files in, it didn't hurt to get the chassis ready for future deployment. Bludhaven might not have the same supervillain problem that the nearby Gotham had, and Hotel Moscow did a pretty good job keeping organized crime to a manageable level that avoided anything to do with children, but that didn't change the fact that Bludhaven was home to Gotham's "castoffs".

Someday the Moxxi household might need a robotic bodyguard capable of tangling with those comparable to low-to-mid-tier Justice League members.

*GIVING THANKS*

'Well… I'm glad that didn't end horribly,' Virgil thought as he stepped out of his room, leaving the girls to shoot the breeze about stuff girls wouldn't talk about in mixed company once the conversation started going that way. 'Huh… I wonder how Lopez is doing,' he hummed looking down at his phone. 'No new messages. Eh. That's fair,' he shrugged. 'Guy'd have to be a real workaholic to get what I wanted so-quickly,' he mused as he made his way downstairs, passing by the kitchen. "Moxxi, Paula, how are you?"

"Oh, we're doing just fine, sug'~" Moxxi cooed, cutting leftover turkey for later's sandwiches.

"Did I hear a scream earlier?" Paula asked worriedly.

"Artemis thought she saw a rat. Huuuuuge one," Virgil said making a "I caught a fish 'thiiis' big" gesture with his hands.

"Oh god, is Tina trying to turn vermin into suicide bombers again?" Moxxi asked incredulously, Virgil and Paula staring at her with slack jaws. " . . . Just pretend you didn't hear that."

"Kinda hard not to," Virgil and Paula said in stereo, the older woman letting out a small laugh.

"You know, I'm kind of jealous of how-lively it is here," Paula hummed. "Things have been a lot quieter since…"

"Hey, we don't have to worry about any gate crashers, will we?" Virgil asked worriedly.

It helped having co-workers who could run comprehensive background checks on people he was unsure about.

He'd already gotten some idea of how-dangerous Artemis could be, half-baked as she was back then, but Paula, as a paraplegic, was only dangerous to him if she got in range or had a projectile weapon of some sort in hand. With her husband being a super-criminal and her elder daughter's current whereabouts unknown-but-speculated, Artemis had her own share of problems that could blow back on him if he weren't careful.

"I doubt it. Neither of them have been back since they left," Paula huffed, her hands grasping the armrests of her wheelchair furiously before she calmed herself.

*GIVING THANKS*

Elsewhere out behind the Moxxi household, a hooded figure in a green hoodie and tight-fitting pants passed by Athena's lab, her footfalls silent as a cat's paws. Ghosting up to the back door and digging in their pockets for all intents and purposes like one digging for keys, instead of keys, the figure instead drew out a set of masterfully-crafted, delicate-looking lockpicks.

In all the time it took to turn an ordinary key, the hoodie-clad figure had undone the lock with the delicate movements one would reserve for their lover. Slipping through the doorway, bypassing the landing with nary a sound, they slid up the darkened stairwell like an oily shadow.

Halfway up the stairs however, they struck something hard and unyielding.

'What the…?' they thought, raising their hands to inspect what they'd struck in the dark. 'Who puts a retaining wall in the middle of a stair…well…?'

Eyes going wide in the dark as they looked up, the wall before them began to shift like tectonic plates, a head like a battering ram with beady eyes turning over shoulders as wide as the stairwell to regard them.

'Oh crap…'

*GIVING THANKS*

"EYAAAAUUUUUGH!" a muffled voice screamed from the stairwell.

"What was that…?" Virgil blinked, the sound from the stairwell like a byte from a horror movie where some poor broad got found by the serial killer with the steak knife and the rugby mask.

The door to the stairwell opening a moment later, the larger-than-life Brick seemed to spill through the doorway like a parade float through a hangar door, a figure in a green hoodie and tight-fitting jeans clutched by the entirety of their head in his hand, the latter clawing furiously at the prior with their nails to no avail.

"Hey Moxxi! I found this little trouble-maker sneaking up the stairwell. What should we do with them?" Brick asked as he wrapped one massive hand around half of the figure's torso and an arm before the other joined it. The figure's hood falling from their head as they struggled, thick black hair and grey eyes came into view, causing Paula to gasp-

"Jade?!"

" . . . Hi, mom," the now-named Jade greeted bashfully, like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar. If Artemis took after her father, Jade definitely took after her mother; slender with a fit build, her Vietnamese heritage showed in her olive-colored skin. Looking at her and the dichotomy between the two, unless you knew them beforehand it was almost impossible to guess that Artemis and Jade were siblings at a glance. If anything, the uninformed would think they step-sisters instead.

A moment later Paula spat out a string of what Virgil assumed were "choice words" in Vietnamese; a language his "Info Dumps" into SECOND had yet to cover. Making absolutely zero effort to keep track of the mother's profanities, he assumed at least, he kept an eye on Jade in the event she had a concealed weapon.

The betrayal of his fellow survivors in the Red Zone taught him to always be wary of someone hiding a weapon…

"Jade Nguyen, just what do you think you're doing, skulking around into someone else's house like this?" Paula said once she went back to using English.

"What? Can't a girl pop in an see her own mom and sister?" Jade asked with raised hands. Or at least as-raised as Brick's vice-grip would let her.

"Not unannounced," the mother chastised.

"She going to behave herself?" Moxxi questioned.

"She'd better, or I'll put her over my knee."

"Fine, fine…" Jade sighed. Shaking out her sleeves and pant legs, a number of bladed weapons clattered to the floor. Her mother shooting her a look, Jade sighed before dipping her chin into her hoodie, retrieving yet another blade from inside her hoodie with her teeth, spitting it away before returning her mother's look with one that said- "There. Happy?"

"Okay. You can put her down now," Paula sighed, Brick turning to Moxxi who nodded, the big man dropping Jade to the floor, the half-Vietnamese woman gasping for air as she not-so-discretely crawl-walked away from the towering mass of muscle looming over her.

"Geez, and I thought dad was ripped…" she muttered before dusting herself off and rising to her feet. "So… mom… Interesting company you're keeping."

"Well, it is the season," her mother sighed. "How are you, Jade? Are you eating enough? You look thin."

"Ugh, mooooom," Jade play-sighed like a teenager.

'I think I'll leave them to talk,' Virgil hummed as he turned on his heel to leave. He could just smell the "dysfunction" coming off of them.

"JADE!?" Artemis gasped from the upstairs stairwell.

'Other wayyy…!' Virgil said rounding on his heel again and making for the opposite stairwell as the two sisters confronted one another.

*GIVING THANKS*

AN:
By the time I got to Jade appearing, this chapter started running a bit longer than I thought, so I split "Part 4" into "Part 4" & "Part 5". "Part 5" will be the end of this Arc before the next one~