January 18th, 2011 Rockwaller Estate, Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, 5:00 AM EST- SP:600

I dipped out of Bonnie's in the morning. She was a clingy sleeper, at least after sex, but I didn't mind. She grumbled when I left, but remained half asleep, so it wasn't really that big of a deal. I slipped out and scaled the tree by her window, then booked it back to my place while it was still dark outside.

Making it into my room, I called for Lucky, and he showed up after about ten minutes. After my session with Bonnie I'd sent him to the address Tattletale had given me, just to check things out and see what I was dealing with.

His report back was…unpleasant. Lucky had the best jamming and scanning tech a future universe had to offer. He was able to operate on a level that people who used fucking giant fighting robots in SPACE couldn't detect, and obviously he had no trouble scanning Coil's underground lair. But that was where the good news ended.

Coil's place was a fortress. Underground bunker with tinkertech defensive emplacements and reinforced walls. Turrets, guards, capes patrolling, if you could think of it, Coil had it.

I ran through some scenarios in my head. Assault with Shego, assault on my own, monkey rushing, having Lucky slip in and cut the defenses first, having Lucky just fucking KILL Coil. Nothing seemed feasible.

My biggest advantage over him was my obscurity, though it wouldn't last. That said, Tattletale said that A even that would probably fail when I got close enough for him to spot the holes, and B it was just me. I couldn't say for sure if Lucky would be immune, and if he got caught in Coil's thinker web I'd have no way to be sure I could catch him again.

Based on what Tattletale had said, I didn't want Coil as an enemy, especially not a hidden one, biding his time to face murder me.

Direct assaults would probably tip him, same with sending the monkeys to soak bullets. I slumped back on my bed. My options were as followed. Read out some shit to give to Shego and anyone else I brought along to block thinker powers. Expensive and time consuming, plus passing out powers felt…risky. My tinkertech story would give me some wiggle room, but still.

Option two, read out a person with some kind of stealth based theft power, one who could help get me inside. Hopefully if they just set me up and didn't actually ENTER the base, they wouldn't be picked up by Coil's power. The fact that he hadn't spotted Lucky (hopefully) could either mean Lucky was covered under my immunity because of our connection, or that he needed knowledge of or direct interaction with something to detect it.

I was leaning toward the latter. If he had more nebulous limits, he probably wouldn't have set things up as he had. Holed up in a bunker with people coming and going only works if you can vet those people, and if you trust everyone around you. OR if you have some sort of localized precognition. There was no other reason for him to limit his travel. I probably wasn't location based if Lucky hadn't been spotted (and I trusted his scanners to notice being followed or observed).

Whatever my suspicions, I absolutely wouldn't be acting on them without confirming. Unfortunately, that brought up another problem. Points. Now I absolutely didn't regret picking the Heart as my first B-class purchase. I lived in a dangerous world, and there was no more points or powers if I died.

But now that I had that, I needed to find ways to put it to use. I had six hundred points, which meant I had six D-class purchases. I'd gotten the Hyde serum for pretty cheap given its effects, because of the downside. So I went over to my shelves and started pulling off books, tossing them on my bed as I searched for the right item.

I sat down, excited to see what I could do, and found…a lot. Like a ridiculous amount. There were an INSANE amount of magic items that killed the user. Also ones that mutated them or turned them insane, but I crossed those out of my short list because immortal didn't mean infallible. I wanted to spend life force, life span, or vitality, assuming those weren't all the same thing.

My first problem here was that almost all the items were higher class than I could afford. Sure, they were cheaper than they should be because of the price, but the thing was that people didn't WANT to die, and traditionally if something killed you when you used it, the only reason to ACTUALLY use it was because it was powerful enough to be worth it.

I figured my best shot would be some kind of berserk item or drug, but those were less common than expected. That said, after hours of research I had been able to make a list of at least a few D-class items that I could afford.

First up. A Madra Engine. It was an energy source from Cradle, an interesting series about martial arts wizards. It was KIND of made of dead kids, but since I wasn't MAKING one, just reading out an already made one, I decided to overlook that. Basically it drained your life force to flood you with madra, which was like…some kind of of martial arts mana?

The obvious downside was that I didn't know how the fuck to USE madra. I might be able to find some kind of technique scroll or something, or maybe even adapt it for use with a cultivation technique from another series, but since ANY of those would be freakishly expensive, it seemed like a bad long term buy. That went in the 'later' pile.

Next on the list, The Dark Stone of invisibility, from some novelization of a game about a mummy and a sphynx. It made you invisible, but killed you. Pretty straightforward and still useful to me, given I couldn't die.

Third I could get the scroll that animated a golem. Writing out the incantation in it would suck out my life force to power the thing, but Golems were VERY powerful, so that was definitely a potential yes.

A palm pilot with magitech eldritch spells on it from the Laundry Files by CHarles Stross was tempting, but that entire series was mostly a cautionary tale, so I was worried I'd invite some eldritch entity into this place and fuck the world. With supervillains and endbringers running around, the last thing I needed was some creepy horror from space getting in on the fun.

I also found a set of rings from a novella series called Infinity Blades that could increase healing at the cost of lifespan, though they apparently forcefully grew your hair and beard in the process.

The crest worms from Fate were…disturbing and looked painful. I could survive them, but the process was probably going to seriously fuck me up.

In the end, I decided to go with the invisibility stone, the healing rings, and the golem scroll. I'd have to actually fucking MAKE a golem to use it, but it should be doable. I could consider that a longer term project.

[Sufficient point total! D-class creation medium. Golem Scroll: An enchanted item that drains the life force of the user to animate a stone construct. Write your name in blood and insert the scroll into the mouth to take control.]

[Sufficient point total! D-class healing objects. Healing Rings: Speed the body's natural healing process at the cost of lifespan. Increased hair and beard growth for duration of effect.]

[Sufficient point total! D-class stone of concealment. The Dark Stone of Invisibility: Turn invisible and die. Invisibility lasts until the stone is released or removed from the user's grip. Requires intent to activate.]

That was a useful bit of information, actually. The fact that it clarified usage as pretty nice. I read all three items away into my books, glad to have them. I could be invisible like Lucky now, so maybe I could scout Coil's lair a bit myself, at least from the outside. Before that though, I had another pressing need.

I glanced at my book. The Golem would fit right into Vagabond's kit as a Master, and would seriously beef me up. I could probably get the merchants to help me build a body for it too. I looked up, eyeing Lucky as I remembered something about him. Lucky was a gem cat. Gems enhanced constructs in unique ways. I could buff my golem after I made him.

My cat seemed to sense my intent, meowing snidely about lack of food, and I rolled my eyes, telling him I'd feed him soon. The little bastard was lucky he was so cute, he was basically a bottomless pit.

I fished out my phone, staring at it for a minute, before making a call. "Hey." I said when the voice on the other end picked up. "I'm thinking of doing a job. How would you like to help me break into a bank?"

The wicked chuckle on the line was answer enough. I was going to send Lucky to scout for places with lots of gold and jewelry for him to eat. I'd need a cover and some help getting in though, plus someone with experience. Luckily, I knew just the gal. "oooh, you're workin' to get that booty aren't you cherry boy?"

I laughed. "Is that a yes, or should I ask someone else. I have one more person in mind for our getaway as it is."

Squealer was hell on wheels as a getaway driver, and she had a knack for getting away. Unlike the Huntsclan Manor, this place wasn't going to be a private residence occupied by capes. The cops, the wards, plenty of people would notice a bank heist.

"I can do that." She purred. "You take me to the nicest places, you know that?"

We flirted a bit more, then she hung up and I turned to my cat. "Banks." I said bluntly. "I want you to scout every bank in town. Phase out so no one notices, and DO NOT eat anything. We'll feed you when we rob the place, but if you start taking nibbles, someone is going to notice and it'll fuck us."

He meowed at me. "What am I going to do? I'm going the fuck to sleep. I was balling a nutjob cheerleader all night, and Bonnie can TAKE it. I'm worn out." He meowed again. "Well I'm DOING this to feed you, so you're clearly not that unappreciated."

He huffed and floated out through the wall, vanishing as he went. I slumped back onto my bed, grabbing my book and reading my boots and clothes in rather than take them off. THen I crawled up the mattress and slid under my blanket.

I shot Squealer a text about the bank job, but decided not to wait up for a response. Any heisting would need to be done at night anyway, which meant I had all day to sleep and then get cleaned up. Before I went to sleep, I remembered to text Kim, telling her I was going to be out sick today.

Briefly, I wondered if she'd be suspicious of me and Bonnie being out at the same time…but why would she? She had no reason to suspect. I pushed a duplication item further up my list though. Having a clone would make a lot of things easier. Another reason to do this bank job, gather some points. I'd read all the shit in before Lucky ate it, and rake in some serious point value in the process.

I smiled as I closed my eyes, finally drifting off to sleep with everything handled. Today was looking like it might be a lot of fun. I couldn't wait to see how it went.

January 18th, 2011 Collins home, Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, 8:00 PM EST- SP:500

Lucky came back later that night with a wealth of information, no pun intended. I wasn't entirely happy with my recent acquisitions (though the golem had the potential to be a serious game changer) and I wanted to be more prepared going forward. I'd spent the rest of the day searching for my NEXT purchase, once I had some decent points to spend, and I'd managed to dig up a pair of possibilities.

First, Ultra Divine Water. Basically this super potential excavating serum that maxes out your body and spirit, at the small expense of killing like…ninety percent of the people who take it. It was pretty much ideal. I also found a bunch of pills you could take that would burn calories in exchange for a massive boost of physical power and spiritual energy. They even have you wings for a little while.

Sadly, both of these were C-class, which meant I'd need two thousand points to get them both. That just made me even more certain of my path forward. Defenses aside, I felt so vulnerable without some good old fashioned muscle, and the UDW was the perfect solution for me. Realistically it SHOULD have cost a lot more, and only the nearly certain lethality kept the price down.

Which was why I slipped on my Vagabond gear and headed out to meet with Shego and Squealer at the trainyard, so I could pass along the intel and get some feedback on our first group job.

Once I was clear of the house and Lucky ensured me I wasn't being watched or followed, I decided to take the scenic route. I summoned a few of my monkeys from the book, and let them carry me up into the sky, lifting me by the arms and letting my coats enchantment disperse the force across my whole body to make it more comfortable.

It was funny, I'd done some crazy shit. I'd shot a plasma gun, robbed a mansion, fucked a supervillain, and all sorts of other amazing things. But something about FLYING (not gliding), soaring over the rooftops carried by my winged monkey minions, was just fucking cool. This was probably the first time I really FELT like a cape since getting my powers.

We kept low, and it was dark, so no one spotted us (thank you lucky snowdrop). Lucky flew beside me, meowing smugly as he floated through the air weightlessly, spinning and doing backstrokes like a little feline showoff.

I had him hide when we got close though, and when the monkeys got me near to the ground of the trainyard, they just dropped me at my command. My boots absorbed all the impact, so it was basically like taking a step. A fifty foot step, but still a step, and the sensation of weightlessness followed by the easy landing was kind of addictive.

"Did you come here by FLYING MONKEY?" Demanded a familiar voice. "I can't tell if that's really cool or super stupid."

Squealer stepped out of the shadows, in her usual skimpy top and tiny shorts. Her voice was normal, not the screechy mess she used around the other Merchants.

"Bit of both." Said Shego, who stepped right out behind her. "But I give him style points for the landing. That was smooth. Now can you explain why we're meeting here and not…I don't know, at someone's house or a hotel or something?"

"Too long to set up." I said with a shrug. "My intel is current and very good. If we let it sit things might change. Withdrawals, extra security, who knows. If you guys think doing it like this will screw us we can wait, but I for one want to get this shit done." I reached into my coat, pulling out a sheet of paper I'd sketched some blueprints on with my superhuman precision and dexterity.

Finding the hood of a car nearby, I spread the plans out, gesturing proudly to the girls. "I made notes of important information on the side. Shego, your opinion on the best way in would be appreciated, Squealer, what are we looking at for escape routes?"

Shego scanned the plans. "These are…really comprehensive. How the hell did you get the exact angles of the camera coverage?"

"Trade secret." I said cheerfully. "So how would you get us in. I want speed, not deniability. Take us through a wall if you have to but we should be in and out in like…two minutes. I can store the loot somewhere that won't slow us down, so don't worry about that." She shot me a suspicious look, but clearly decided it wasn't worth pushing me on.

Blowing out a breath, she studied the plans. "Here." She said quickly. "Breaking through the outer wall into the vault probably seems smarter, but if we add an extra thirty seconds to our time we'll halve our chances of being spotted. The vault wall lets out onto a crowded street, but if we bust into the bank managers office we can come in through the alley, then go through HIS wall into the vault at an angle."

Meanwhile, Squealer had her phone out, checking maps near the bank. "My part of this will be trickier." She admitted. "It has a lot to do with response times. You can't outrun, say, Velocity. You need to get far enough out from the bank that they can't reasonably connect you to the incident. Do we have a way to handle the cameras?"

"I've got a guy on it." I said vaguely. Lucky would easily knock out their feeds while we were there. "So if we just need to get far enough out wouldn't that make it easier?"

"It's not that simple." She said with a shake of her head. "Streetlights, speed traps, even accidents. Anything that causes congestion can jam up a getaway, and even seconds off your time can fuck your entire escape right in the unlubricated asshole."
I shrugged. "So we take your monster truck. It can roll over anything that doesn't get out of the way. Just lay on the horn if you see someone in a car. They'll move."

She snorted. "Hell no. I wouldn't take that to a heist. That beast is for territory disputes or part runs. Nobody fucks with it so it makes transport smoother, but it isn't built for escape. If we're looking for speed we'll take my Cuda'. It's got a twenty four cylinder engine. It shouldn't even be able to fit in the damned car, but my tinker powers made it work. Thing tops out at like four fifty."

Shego looked positively enthralled. "Four hundred and fifty MILES per hour? How does it stay on the ground? At more than two hundred or so most cars flip because of the air pressure from the wind running under the car."

"Tinker bullshit." Said Squealer with a shrug. "Same reason I can drive it when most people would end up in a ditch." She set her phone down, zooming out on a map. "So here's the layout. We need to know the exact time in question, and I'll map our route based on light configurations. Running reds is how you get tboned or tbone someone else, so we need a clear escape. Once we're out, we take the straigh away down tenth and slip into the underpass here."

She pointed as a spot on the map. "We can use a wrap, and there's a service area off the side of the road halfway in. We stop, strip the wrap, and then join traffic and drive out calm as can be." Her eyes narrowed at me. "You're sure they won't find anything if they search the car? It probably won't come up, but I need to know how careful to be. If we do it right, getting searched might clear us, but I'm not sure if that's on the table."

Shego and I both stared at her. "Um…ok." I said slowly. "That's more thought than I really put into this. Why all the…complications."

"Armsmaster." Squealed said bluntly. "He has drones. Sometimes. Aerial coverage makes car chase dicey unless you use misdirection. It's why the Merchants don't do heists that often. We don't have the firepower to just blast our way clear. Skidmark and Trainwreck aren't exactly calm and collected in and out types, so I try to steer them away from jobs like this. Luckily, they're distractible."

Shego snorted. "I'm sure distracting Skidmark isn't tough. He's a cokehead and a total hedonist. I've worked with some non capes that were Merchants before Drakken hired them. Skidmark is the worst kind of leader. Mean, petty, and willing to abuse his power. Getting girls addicted to coke or heroin so he can fuck them. He doesn't pimp them afterwards like the ABB, but it ruins their lives a lot of the time."

"That's…he doesn't force anyone to do anything." Squealer said defensively. "He might use drugs as a bargaining chip, but he doesn't get people hooked on purpose. I wouldn't be in the Merchants if he did."

"I thought you…" I gestured to her teeth, which showed obvious signs of meth use.
She grimaced. "I used to. When I first triggered. The tinker fugues were…stressful, and scary. But mostly they wore me out. My body would black out and then wake up exhausted and sore. The meth helped, gave me energy to get through. But I figured out pretty quick it wasn't worth it. By that point it was too late."

"That sucks." Said Shego sympathetically. "I lucked out with my first employer. The doc is a big stupid goofball, but he's really sweet. Like the dorky older brother I never had and will kill you if you tell anyone about." The last part was said in a threatening tone, but both of just smiled as darker green flooded her cheeks.

I clapped my hands. "Well, seems like we've got this figured out. Now we just need to go pick up Squealers Cuda' and then head to the bank. Once we're there we can time things out and Squealer can map our exit before we go in." I glanced at her. "You do have a way to check traffic lights and stuff to do that, right?"

She nodded. "I have a laptop hooked into my car for tuning. It's connected to a few databases that come in handy. Don't ask how I did that, i have no idea."

"Check. Now, how are we getting there?" I asked after a minute. "Because I can have the monkeys carry you, but I feel like for a long distance three person trip that's a bit attention grabbing."

Shego snorted. "I took my bike here, I'll drive us. It'll be a tight squeeze, but you have the dubious honor of being the meat in a badass villain bitch sandwich. Lucky you, cherry boy." She winked at me and I chuckled.

Squealer flushed a bit, though it was hard to see through the makeup. "I guess that's ok. You want me to drive? My tinker powers make it a lot easier. I could even do some work on your bike sometime if you want?"

Raising her perfectly plucked eyebrow, the green skinned villainess gave Squealer a once over. "You know, I might take you up on that. I would normally choke a bitch for suggesting it, but what girl doesn't dream about fat piece of tinkertech between her legs? If I can trust anyone with my bike it'll be you."

The blonde beamed, and I smiled behind my mask because it seemed like they might be making friends. If this worked out I might have the beginnings of my very own team. Add in Bonnie once I got her powers and this could be a very lucrative operation. I already had plenty of ideas.

"Let's get this show on the road." I said with a laugh. "We're burning moonlight." I couldn't wait to test out that Ultra Divine Water, not to mention get some gems from Lucky for my new golem, and potentially buttfuck Shego if she was impressed by the heist. So many fun things to do.

January 18th, 2011 Goliath National Bank, Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, 9:00 PM EST- SP:700

"Alright." I said as we stood on a hill overlooking the bank. It had buildings on either side, and the back let out onto a tree packed hillock we were using for surveillance. The road wrapped around, and Squealer's Cuda' was behind us, a dark green sporty looking muscle car (at least it was dark green in the wrap she'd applied). "It looks like they're gone. Squealer?"

"One minute." She said as she tapped away on the small laptop hooked into the central console. "Accessing local traffic light patterns. How long is the actual entrance and exit going to take?"

I glanced at Shego. "My source says there are some kind of weird drones in there, Tinkertech but kind of trashy. There are two of them, one apiece, and I can have the monkeys loot the place. How long will it take you to take out a drone?"

She snorted. "Baby, I eat robots for breakfast. Doc makes half-assed drones and bots in his sleep, and my fine ass uses them for target practice on a daily basis. Can you handle yours? And can your monkeys get into the safe deposit boxes?" She was practically purring with anticipation, and I couldn't help but laugh.

"Easily. So what's our timeline? Five minutes?" I would be jamming the cameras and alarms via Lucky, so we could take our time a bit. Despite explaining that (vaguely) she shook her head.

"Three minutes." She said firmly. "Five is amateur hour, and if this is gonna be a repeat performance I need to know we're doing something right. Though I'm a bit concerned, why are there drones at a place like this?"

"A lot of rich people use GNB." I shrugged. "My source says it has the best stockpile. Nobody important though, just a bunch of millionaire assholes. I mean come on, do you really think the guy who owns Medhall is a threat to capes like us?" She nodded and conceded the point, and we turned to Squealer. "Do your calculations for four minutes and tell us when to go. Account for…lets say thirty seconds down the hill and to destroy the wall."

She tapped out a few keys, checking numbers and tables I had no clue how to parse, and then her head snapped up. "Go!" She barked, and we went.

I didn't bother to lead up or prepare for my descent, I just jumped full out down the hill, hitting the ground at a full out fun without interrupting my stride because of my fucking amazing boots. Shego cursed, bolting after me, and as we hit the ground at the bottom, I pulled back and let her continue on. She'd run full tilt down the slope, and she passed me with all the momentum such an action would imply.

My previous impressions of Shego were that she would stop and punch, but to my shock, she leapt up into the air, curled into a cannonball, and used her whole body to channel that green energy as she fucking bodyslammed the spot we'd picked out. The alley entrance had been convenient, but this one was even better, even if it meant we had to break a third wall. While she did that, I whipped out my book and read out my monkeys, thirty three of the little monsters streaking through the hole in the wall as I followed them in.

Lucky had already jammed the cameras and alarms, and the sound of our entry was being suppressed, so I let Shego handle the two wall holes and then sent the monkeys into the safe deposit box room with my cat as Shego and I faced the emerging drones.

Of course, I probably should have questioned Lucky on details, because 'drone' was a woefully inadequate description of the fucking heavy blue robots that emerged from the wreckage. A familiar, if massively scaled down version of the remote piloted suits that a very famous hero used on a regular basis.

I cursed and dove sideways as a large laser cannon blast smashed into the wall behind me, and silently cursed my cat, though he wouldn't have heard me anyway, being as he was in the middle of using his laser claws to play can opened for the monkeys to clean out the boxes. They all had backpacks on so they should be more than up to stowing it all before I read them back in.

"I thought you said these were DRONES!" Shego screamed in outrage. "These are fucking METAL KNIGHT suits! Why does a random bank have these guarding it?"

"How the fuck should I know?" I spat as I dodged a series of quick, low intensity blasts. "And they ARE drones, my tech guy just has kind of a skewed idea of what impressive tech is." Lucky was from the far future, bots like this were probably toasters to him. I probably should have thought of that.

A laser blast slammed into me, and I grunted as my coat converted the heat to kinetic energy and my mithril shirt absorbed it…mostly. The extra feedback felt like getting kicked in the solar plexus. I ignored it though and rushed one of the machines.

"Just take them out!" I called. "They should be jammed, so no one will see whats happening. Turn them to scrap so we can fucking book it!"

She snarled, ducking her own blast, and smashed a green glowing fist into the Metal Knight suit, which staggered back. These were pretty obviously WAY out of date, probably salvaged by some black market tinker, because Metal Knight's suits were cutting edge and would have been a genuine threat if they had been here.

Leaping up over the machine, I planted my feet on the ceiling as I went by and pushed off, putting all my superior jumping power into a brutal overhead falling axe kick. The force slammed into the machine's head, but sadly didn't do much damage, only forcing it to its knees. That was enough though.
Getting behind it, I slipped my arms around the back mounted cannon and hooked the head in an overhand hold. Then I threw my whole body into a jerking twist along the axis of the neck, snapping the head off (at least after I yanked it out along with a bunch of wires).

Sadly, it was a robot, so beheading it didn't really do anything except apparently take out the cameras, but that was all I needed. Grabbing a piece of rebar from the caved in wall, I spent the next minute bashing the living shit out of the now blind robot, and then used the rebar as a crow bar once it was down to take the body apart.

Making sure she wasn't looking, I waited until Shego was ready to finish hers and then read the demolished bot into my book, netting me a very solid thousand points. "Mine's done!" I called to her. "Go double check on the monkeys, make sure they're almost finished." She turned and started at the missing enemy, but after a suspicious glance she nodded and took off.

I grabbed the other bot before I followed, and when I made it inside I was thrilled to see the safety deposit boxes almost all empty, with the last few being cleaned out. The boxes hung open, vicious laser claw slashes across the locks, and I smirked because Lucky was nowhere to be seen (invisible) and it was impossible to tell razor sharp monkey claws from laser cat claws at a glance.

"Damn." Said Shego appreciatively. "These things are efficient. I bet the doc would buy some off you if you're ever selling."

I did have another sixty six of them in reserve on the hat. Then again, they listened exclusively to me. I could sell him the hat though, once I finished using it. Apparently the three chances thing was reusable by other people.

"Pop the front door." I commanded her. "I'll dismiss them and they'll keep the loot. Like I said, I have a way to transport it."

Passing off the book as an aspect of my summoning ability seemed like the safest way to do things. Shego smirked and headed for the door, and I couldn't help a powerful open handed slap to her tight green ass as she passed. She squeaked and I winked at her. "Just getting it warmed up. I'm not sure if this qualifies me for rear entry, but I'm gonna earn that ass."

She blew me a kiss and darted away. I laughed and checked with Lucky. He appeared from nowhere as usual, and I scowled at him. "You said DRONES. Those were fucking full autonomous armor units." He meowed. "I know they're old tech to you. Yes, you're very impressive. As for eating them…one of them. I have an idea for the other."

He seemed annoyed, but I ignored him. This would be genius if it worked out. I read the monkeys back into the book, loot and all, and grinned at the now four thousand full points I was rocking. That was a nice chunk of change.
With that done, I turned and booked it for the front of the bank. I went through the busted ass door and dove feet first through the open back window of the Cuda, screaming. "Go,go,go!"

We pealed off in a screech of rubber, and Squealer took the nearest corner on two wheels as we tore into the night. I laughed maniacally as I stared off into the night sky, spotting something far out into the distance glowing. "Oh, shit! Is that Glory Girl?"

Shego stared out into the dark. "Nah, I think it's that whore, Laserdream. Prissy little bitch is way slower than collateral damage barbie. Still, better gun it tits!"

"Don't call me tits!" Snapped Squealer. "But fine!" She reached down and popped a small lid on the center console and I beheld a bunch of switched, each with an indicator light below it. She flipped three of them, then flipped up another small panel and punched a big red glowing button.

I was at an angle from my entry, and I felt my body smash into the seat as the car accelerated like a fucking bullet, the world outside the windows blurring. Shego screamed like we were on a roller coaster, and I felt the car jerk left and right, sailing through intersections where I just barely caught a few yellow lights.

We started to slow down, and I grinned as we shot into the underpass, pulling over into a mostl abandoned side tunnel. We all hopped out, stripping the wrap off the car. Shego and I climbed into the surprisingly roomy trunk, and Squealer slapped on a wig and a hat and shades and we pulled out of the tunnel, rejoining traffic as we made good our escape.

I was laughing manically, blood pounding in my ears as Shego and I were mashed up against each other in the trunk. "That was fucking amazing!" I crowed.

She just laughed. "It was definitely a good one. Jobs with you always go so smooth, I fucking love it." I let my hands run up her body, grabbing a handful of perky villain tit as my other started undoing her jumpsuit.

"Whoa." She laughed. "I never said you earned your trip to the asshole orchard. Assuming quite a bit aren't you?"

"I'm hard as diamond, which by the way, we stole about fifty carats of, and I don't care too much which hole I use. If you're not down I can just ignore it, but unless you're protesting I want to fuck that pussy to celebrate." I decided to just be honest, given how my balls were already clenching in anticipation.

She sat there for a second contemplating and then shrugged. "Fine. But don't pull out. I don't want cum all over the place in this cramped ass trunk." We rearranged ourselves until she was on her stomach with her ass up and I was on top of her, and she grunted as I slid into her at a particularly deep angle. The rough, cramped trunk fucking we enjoyed for the rest of the drive was almost as much fun as the heist.

January 18th, 2011 Trainyard, Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, 10:00 PM EST- SP:4700

Squealer was less than pleased when we pulled into the Trainyard. She flung the trunk open, glaring down at us. "Did you have to fuck in my trunk for the last hour?" She demanded. "I haven't heard that much dirty talk since my roommate in college with a porn addiction. And they call ME Squealer."

I laughed as I climbed out, stretching a bit to limber up the muscles I'd cramped from pounding away at grade A pussy in a cramped trunk for forty minutes. "It wasn't a full hour." I said with a satisfied grin. "And the difference is that the girls in those videos were faking it."

She glanced down at Shego, thick green ass in the air, suit pulled down to her thighs, battered cunt still dripping my cum. She frowned, and then picked up a tire iron from the trunk edge with two fingers and poked one of her blushing cheeks (spoiler alert, not the ones on her face). Shego let out a low whine, and I patted her fondly on the ass.

"She'll be good in a second. This was as good for destressing for her as it was for me." Bonnie was a fucking blast in bed, but her body wasn't as durable as Shego's. Honestly barring my physical enhancements, I don't think I could have summoned the energy for that kind of vigorous sex in such a contained environment.

It took a few minutes to stretch out the many, MANY cramps, but I eventually got rid of them as Shego came around.

She also had to stretch as she got out. She grinned shamelessly at Squealer. "Got to say, tits, your trunk space isn't roomy, but I love the itinerary." She grimed, leaning over to sniff the trunk. "You might want to scotch guard the replacement lining though."

"That WAS scotch guarded." Hissed the annoyed mechanic. "Can we just go inside and get the loot?"

We both laughed, heading past her into one of the bigger empty train cars. Then I 'summoned' my monkeys and had them dump the loot. The bearer bonds, the art, the cash, and basically everything that wasn't rock or metal went to the girls. I'd gotten the points for it anyway, so I didn't mind.

Sadly, gold and jewels made up a significant portion of the haul, and I ended up needing to tap into my cash reserves from other jobs to pay them, not that I minded. Once we finished up. Shego retrieved her bike, and the three of us made plans to meet up again for celebratory drinks the next night.

Squealer looked a bit spooked, and I was pretty sure she didn't want Skidmark finding out she'd run a job without his say so. I made a mental note to snag some body repair shit for her, fix the meth mouth, just to further cement myself in her good graces (and definitely not because her body was bangin' and I wanted to fuck her).

The girls left and I brought everything back to my place, sneaking in my window before dumping all the gold, jewels, and the body of the more destroyed drone on the floor. Lucky had jammed the area with his ECM, and he immediately dug into them with gusto. Before I proceeded to the next part of my plan, I grabbed a few books, and began my spending spree.

[Sufficient point total! C-class enhancement material. Ultra Divine Water: A powerful material that plumbs the depths of the user to excavate all human potential.]

UDW was one of the things I was most excited about. It was essentially the key to becoming all I could be, and it would definitely serve me well. It killed MOST of the people who used it, but I didn't care anymore, being immortal had its benefits.

But I wasn't ready to use it. I had another even more important step. UDW excavated potential, and wasting it on even my slightly enhanced body would be a travesty. No, I needed to enhance my potential. And I'd found the perfect formula to make that happen. Buried in a novelization of an aleph movie that had just come out, a third installment of a series about a billionaire arms dealer turned armored superhero.

[Sufficient point total! C-class super soldier formula. Extremis Virus (unfinished) : An unstable and nearly unsurvivable formula meant to turn the human body into an infinite well of potential energy.]

Remembering what I'd told myself about Squealer, I dug around and found a foul smelling potion that healed injuries and mended bone in a book called "The Girl from the Miracles District" that I barely remember the plot to.

[Sufficient point total! D-class. Healing Potion: a healing potion with a noxious odor, repairs light injuries and bone damage. Excellent for cosmetic use.]

And of course, the last one, my just in case pills. The ones that would act as an enhancement to my already incredibly powerful body in case of emergency.

[Sufficient point total! C-class forbidden medicine. Three colored pills: The secret medicine of the Akimichi clan, burns caloric energy for a massive boost in physical strength.]

I was pretty sure that the Extremis output, once it had been excavated by the UDW, would theoretically fuel the pills infinitely, but I also didn't know how the fuck I was supposed to turn it off, and walking around with giant glowing blue energy wings was a pretty obvious indicator of being a cape. Until I found some sort of seal to use to suppress the excess energy, the pills were a break glass in case of emergency kind of thing.

Which left me the other two objects. The Ultra Divine water was in a clay cup that I read back into my book immediately, and the Extremis was a shiny metal syringe full of glowing orange liquid with a weird shifting color gradient.

I wanted to take them so bad…but I knew this wasn't the place. I could SURVIVE anything, but Extremis turned people into living bombs, and I might blow up once or twice before it stabilized enough for me to function. So, with a sigh, I climbed out my window, and dropped off my roof, making my way over the fence and out to the most deserted clearing I could find in the nearst woods. Then I reconsidered and found a pond, because I didn't want to start a forest fire.

I stripped off all my clothes, read them into the book, then passed the book to Lucky, who flew it up into a nearby tree as I clutched the glowing syringe.

Hissing at the cold, I took a deep breath and nodded to my cat. "See you on the other side buddy. I have a feeling this is going to suck hard." Then I plunged the syringe into my chest, using my near superhuman strength to ram it through my fucking sternum and into my heart.

It hurt, but only for a second, and then hurt became a pretty lackluster description of what I was feeling. Agony. Torment. Those were better words, or would have been if I could have spared the brain power to use them. Instead, my thoughts were more along the lines of 'LAVA! Lava in my veins!' until eventually I lost even that amount of cognizance.

The energy swirled through my body, pumped by my heart through every single inch of my flash, seeping through the walls of my veins into skin, muscle, sinew, even hair. I felt the heat building. It wasn't nice, but after a few minutes (hours? Days? Time was hard to keep track of) it built too much and then…I blew up.

Well, I THINK I blew up? It was hard to parse, there was a sort of flash, I'd dived underwater as deep as I could get before it happened, but then a second later I was back and my ears were ringing, and steam was fogging the air that I was suddenly in again.

Lucky for me, that was the only time. Dying seemed to stabilize it somehow. I panted, bobbing in the water, but after about an hour my body settled enough for me to move. I paddled gently to the shore and then crawled up into the mud, flopping down and panting. That wasn't great. Dying kind of sucked. I felt the trauma vanish though, drifting into the past to become a story, easily my most useful power.

"Lucky." I rasped. "Book." He flew down, meowing reproachfully. "Yeah, I know bud." I laughed breathlessly. "We're almost done. This combination should put me at a pretty solid Brute rating. I'm not going to be Lung or anything, but I should probably be able to hang with someone like Hookwolf."

Not that I was planning to do that soon. My current loadout would be enough, but it would NOT be a pleasant fight, especially as Nightfall.

Flipping open the book with shaking fingers, i read out the cup of Ultra Divine Water. I passed the book back to Lucky. "You know the drill. This is going to be fucking noisy. Get some distance." He meowed softly, and I reached out to rub his oddly warm metallic head. "Sorry bud. Last one tonight. I promise."

He grabbed the book in his jaws carefully, then he and it both vanished as he went invisible and drifted away into the trees.

"Bottoms up." I muttered to myself as I tossed back the water, and then I hurled myself forward into the cold water again.

This time the sensation was different. The Extremis had been painful and built slowly, but it had been…static. It was all of me, changing at the same time, and I'd just lay there and let it wash over me.

The UDW wasn't nearly so passive. I felt my body start to change, and it engaged my muscles, bones, and joints. I started to twitch, limbs jerking and contorting, and I bit down a scream. My muscles tore, my bones cracked, my skin burned. I felt a sort of small shift in my form once all my muscles had been altered, once my bones had all hardened, and then another. And another. And another.

My body felt like it was molting, but the excess was being burned off by the Extremis. The heat would flare and sear away some of my weaknesses, then do it again, an endless cycle as the water dug into my body, excavating all that latent heat and energy Extremis had created as it turned me into a human bomb.

If the Extremis went on for an hour, I have no idea how long the Ultra Divine Water took to remold me.

When I finished, I swam back to shore, noting the pond's water line had dropped like two feet. I climbed out of the water and stretched lazily, feeling the power and responsiveness in my body, glorying in the strength.

I'd expected to be sloppy, unbalanced, not to have control of myself. But weirdly I didn't. The super cheerleader serum made me a perfectly graceful and balanced human being, and the UDW enhanced that potential to unnatural levels.

My fists flashed out in a few simple jabs, and small cracks cut the air as they displaced it. I didn't know my limits at all, but I knew they were a lot higher than they had been. I needed to do tests, find the depths of my new powers. I exhaled, and hot steam cut the air.

I realized I wasn't cold. I could feel the heat emanating from inside me. Not the same as before, a lot of that potential energy had become realized, but if I focused I could rev my engine a bit still. Heat myself up enough to steam the air. I could also regenerate now, enough to hide my immortality from most prying eyes.

Speaking of which, I checked my necklace, making sure the snowdrop was ok, and miraculously, it was fine.

Laughing, I read my clothes out, dressing again as Lucky and I headed back to the house. When we arrived, I glanced at the last remaining drone, the metal knight armor still totally intact despite not being functional. I'd reattached the head, at least roughly, and put the limbs back together. But that could wait until I got the gems from Lucky. I read it back into the book and decided to head down and make some dinner. I was kind of wired. Man this had been a good day.

January 19th, 2011 Trainyard, Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, 7:00 PM EST- SP:1800

This place was starting to become a regular hang out for me. That was kind of a bummer given how shitty and run down it was. I made a note to try to find some sort of portable base in a book I could read out. Maybe a flying ship. That was a problem for future Simon, though. Present Simon had bigger things to worry about.

"This place is gross." Complained Bonnie. "You said you were going to show me something cool. None of this is cool. I might have tetanus from a nail I just sat on. Why are we here?"

I grinned at her. "We're here, baby girl, because I need to test my powers, and I want YOU to be the one to see me do it. You're the only one I can trust." Realistically she was the only one isolated enough not to have anyone to leak it to or ask questions about where my powers came from, but still, I wanted to show off, and Bonnie was in a position to be the one to enjoy the show.

She pouted, but her cheeks flushed a little. "Don't tease me." She muttered. "You don't want me to be your partner, I'm just good pussy to you. That's why you never spend time with me."

"I spend time with you." I groaned in frustration. "I am SPENDING time with you right now, as we speak. But fine, you want trust? I trust you, Bon-Bon. Lucky." I called to my cat. "Come say hello to Bonnie."

My cat appeared from nowhere, blinking into existence and earning a shriek from Bonnie…only to be immediately swallowed in a crushing hug as she cooed at how cute he was. "Daddy he's adorable!" She squealed. "And he's so elegant. Look at this handsome boy. I can see swirls of gold in his metal plating, and its so smooth and warm. And his eyes are so pretty!"

I felt Lucky's purr of contentment at all the positive attention and I rolled my eyes. Vanity thy name is cat. "Anyway. Lucky is a very special cat. He's our third partner. I work with other people sometimes, but Lucky and I are peas in a pod, and you're the only person who knows he exists."

Her cheeks heated up. "Well…fine. I guess maybe you like me a little. You don't have to be so sappy, Daddy." She looked up at me through her lashes sweetly, and I chuckled. Bonnie didn't show her affection like a normal person, at least not outside the bedroom. She went daddy crazy when we fucked, but seeing her get all blushy and contrary was the closest she got to showing her devotion.

"Right." I said clapping my hands. "So, we're here today to test out my new powers. I have a brute package pretty much, and I want to see how it works."

"So you really can give powers?" She asked excitedly. "You mentioned making me a cape, but I was a little skeptical. You're a Trump though, aren't you? Those are super rare! I knew I made the right choice becoming your partner!"

I laughed. "Yes, you have excellent instincts. Now, we're going to test out my capabilities. I've devised a few tests. We're going to measure my running speed, my jumping distance, my lifting power, and my durability." I grimaced. "The last one I'm going to need help with, and it's going to fucking suck."

Sadly, I needed a baseline of my limits. All of them. Which meant I needed to know how much punishment I could take. But I'd be putting it off until last. First up was running speed, and I went ahead and passed Bonnie a backpack full of stuff I'd picked up to cover my assessments. "First up, the stopwatch." I handed it to her, then grabbed a tape measure and started pacing off a hundred meter section of ground.

I'd removed my boots, since they would render this test functionally pointless, and I took up a natural stance at one end of the space. "Alright Bon-Bon. I need you to count to three and hit the button ON three. Not after three. On three. Then hit it again when I cross the line over there."

Nodding, she took a deep breath and started counting. "One. Two. Three!" She hit the button and I pushed off, sprinting across the distance, pumping my legs as fast as I could. There was a blur and I appeared on the other side, and Bonnie was gaping at me. "Um…" She glanced down. "One second."

I whistled. "Holy shit really? I mean, I know I'm strong, but my form is shit and I have zero experience getting up to speed. That's literally ten times faster than the world record holder for the hundred meter, and I think I could go faster."

"Maybe you did." She shrugged. "This watch doesn't track anything under a second. We should get you one of those speed meter thingies cops use to catch speeding teenagers so they can get their dicks sucked." She looked alarmed. "Not that I ever did that, of course." She reassured me. "I'm rich, I just bribed them. Hope has choked on a few dicks to avoid a ticket though."

That didn't surprise me. Neither the cops being corrupt or Hope being a semi-professional knob-gobbler. She had that kind of a face.

"We'll tentatively call this a one second hundred meter." I said with a shake of my head. "Next up we have jumping distance. Horizontal and vertical." This was going to be cumulative with my boots, and I was kind of psyched to see how far I could go before even bringing my magic footwear into it.

I marked off the starting point. Then I bent my knees, swung my arms, leaned forward, and PUSHED off. I left the ground in a rush of air and went sailing forward, I squawked in panic as I flew, making a long, shallow arc that ended in me hitting the side of a train car. My face broke, along with several ribs, but I felt a rush of heat that knitted me back together.

My previously busted lips pulled back in a grin of triumph. Extremis. That shit could regenerate missing limbs. The Heart made me immortal, but it didn't give me super healing. Non fatal injuries would still take ages to heal, and the harder I died the longer it took to come back from it.

Extremis made me more than immortal. It meant I could recover from crippling injury nearly instantly. "Simon!" Shouted Bonnie as she hurried over, still clutching Lucky. "Are you ok? Holy shit that was crazy!"

"I'm fine." I laughed, waving her off. "Let me try it again, this time I'll give myself more room." I'd expected to do a hundred meters like I had just run, but apparently I had more in me than that. A quick recreation of the experiment in an emptier space had me at a hundred and twenty meters. I could only assume that my explosive power was better than my sprinting ability.

After the standing, we switched to the high jump, and that one was just as shocking, with a whopping twenty five foot vertical. I jumped up onto a train car and then dropped back down. It was pretty awesome.

Next up was the lifting power, and I got under a train car and set my back against it and LIFTED. It groaned a bit, and I almost got an inch or two up, but my body gave out. I looked it up and train cars weight thirty tone empty, so that wasn't a complete shock. I climbed out and managed to find a mid sized SUV. THAT one I got up in a full deadlift all the way over my head.

We set my strength at about three tons, because the car was REALLY fucking hard to lift, but still, six thousand pounds was nothing to sneeze at.

Finally though, it was time for the last test. Hissing between my teeth, I read out my plasma pistol and handed it to Bonnie. I was immortal, healed like crazy, and I could realistically compartmentalize this shit with my book powers, so the test wasn't dangerous…it was just going to fucking BLOW.

Bonnie stared at me in horror. "I can't SHOOT you! Where did you even get this?"

"Bon-Bon." I soothed her. "I promise I'll be fine. I already tested it. My healing powers patched me right up. I just need someone else to observe and take notes on what happens." That was a lie, I absolutely had NOT shot myself with a plasma pistol. I wasn't a lunatic. But I did know I'd be fine. "Of course, if you can't do it, that's fine." I said breezily. "I'm sure Kim can help me out with this."

It was a bluff, I couldn't show Kim my powers without her asking a ton of questions. Vagabond would be the one exhibiting Brute powers going forward, Nightfall would stick to ranged combat and evasion.

Still, her eyes went flat and cold. "Fuck that!" She spat. "You think prissy little Kimmy will be willing to do the hard shit for you? I can do anything she can do! Go fucking stand over there."

I nodded solemnly, grinning on the inside as I walked over and read away my shirt. "Alright. First up, we need to check the most insignificant shot. Tap the trigger real quick and just wing me in the chest, don't hold it down."

Raising the gun, she took a long, deep breath, then tapped the trigger. Apparently Stormtiger had a durability power with his Brute package, because his head had been shockingly intact aside from busting on the wall. The green bolt hit me in the chest and blew me backwards OUT of my fucking shoes (a pair of sneakers I'd grabbed to replace my boots for the testing) and across the trainyard into the side of a train car. This time I left a fucking Simon shaped dent.

I felt like I got hit by a wrecking ball…but I didn't die. My sternum was probably cracked, but it repaired itself in a few seconds as I jumped down, cracking my neck. "Alright. So far so good." I wheezed. "That sucked but I could still fight like that. Next hold it for three seconds and shoot me in the same place.

I survived three seconds, barely, but five killed me. I woke up with Bonnie sobbing over my body, hyperventilating, so I decided to stop the testing for the night, writing down all the info before taking her home. In retrospect, that last test might have been a bit much for her. I tucked her in and held her until she fell asleep, then slipped my boots back on and dropped from her window.

As I made the way back to my house, I felt like a fucking rock star. With the boots and my unbelievable strength, I was able to literally leap buildings in a single bound. Not tall ones, granted. Single story homes, the occasionally two story if I got a running start. Lucky flew alongside me, ECM concealing me from prying eyes.

By the time I got back to the house I was practically vibrating with joy. I wasn't a top ranked Brute, but the combo of potent C-class serums had put me on a level where I could really start to be effective.

My next move was to use the golem scroll. I read out the Metal Knight armor and turned to Lucky. "I need you to walk me through repairing this, or do it yourself. I tried to minimize damage, just ripped the limbs off with a pry bar. Once that's done…" I grinned. "Well I think it's time to take a look at your first gems." His eyes glowed as he meowed excitedly. It seemed he was as ready as I was to see what he could do.

As usual pat-reon has the advance chapters at that site /malcolmtent hope everyone enjoys.