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  “My name is Leric.” Leric said, as he stepped into the warehouse. The entire room stopped dead in their motions, when they saw how big he was. That combined with his overwhelming amount of muscle, made him a very imposing figure. He continued walking into the warehouse in the dead silence. “I have come to take control of the Tenners. Anyone who objects speak up now.”

  He stopped next to some kind of stripped recliner. It had clearly been modified to be uncomfortable to sit on. He idly examined the recliner, while they gathered their wits enough to complain.

  “Who the fuck do you think you are?” One of the leaders yelled. He looked up to see a group of men and women, standing on a raised platform. It seemed that each of them had their own little throne to sit in. One of them had stepped forwards.

  She was standing at the edge of the platform, an actual gun in her hand. That was good, that meant the Tenners had some worthwhile connections.

  “I already told you.” Leric replied. “Should I take that as dissent?”

  “Damn right you can take it as dissent!” One of the others yelled. This one a man, he looked to the others before they all stepped up next to the woman.

  Leric reacted the moment he saw them all reach into their clothes, for what he could only presume to be guns. Lady Magra had told him he could still survive being shot, but he hadn’t wanted to try it for himself.

  The moment they reached for their weapons, he grabbed and flung the modified recliner as hard as he could. Before any of them, other than the first woman could get their guns out—she hadn't even started shooting yet, damned amateurs—the recliner impacted with the platform.

  The platform broke underneath their feet, dropping them onto the floor in a shower of splinters and recliner debris. Leric watched with contempt as the group of ‘leaders’ all struggled to right themselves from their tangle of limbs.

  Before another five count, Leric was among them. The woman had surprisingly managed to keep her hands on her gun, so he stepped on her first. With a satisfying pop and squirt of viscera, she expired. Then he stomped on the next one, a smile creeping onto his face. This was why he did this, the scheming and fighting to see who was better was fun, but sheer domination was what got him up in the morning.

  Within half a minute, he had managed to smear the collective leadership of the Tenners, onto the concrete floor of their base.

  Finally he stopped, when there was no more writhing and crying. At least not from them. He stepped forwards addressing all the low ranked scum in the room.

  “My name is Leric. I have come to take control of the Tenners! If anybody disagrees with me! SPEAK UP NOW!” He finished his little speech, by staring through the crowd. He mostly saw terror some signs of greed, but no one dared dissent to him directly. Lady Magra thrummed and vibrated happily on his arm, in her little disguise.

  HE couldn't help let a little chuckle escape, as he watched the sheep bow and kneel before him. He hadn't even needed to say anything. They knew what to do.

  “Excellent!” He had a lot of work to do. He would need to spend sometime stabilizing the gang, and rooting out all the ones smart enough to not oppose him directly, before making any drastic move.

  Chapter Four

  Valeria Valencia was having another day. That was the best way to describe it, she thought. She woke up, turned her alarm off, showered. Now she was standing in her bedroom. Two paths were cleared in the a little too small room.

  Pileups, and huge droves of junk, and garbage she had collected over the years, lined her paths. One led from her bedroom door to the bed, and the other led from her bedroom door to her dresser. She was now making her way towards the dresser. Since she had last cleared the path some junk had shifted and moved, causing debris to impede her path. Oh well, she would just have to take care of that later.

  Now came the hard part. It had been too long since she had last done the laundry, and she was now in the unenviable position, of having to find enough clothes—of relative cleanliness—to assemble an outfit for work.

  She sighed, as she started burrowing through the first layer in her dresser, this was all her comfort clothes. Lots of sweat pants, and too old, and too big t-shirts. Soon enough though, she had stopped pulling away t-shirts to reveal actual button down shirts. Her jacket was hanging over by the door right? She didn't want to check right now, so she dove back into her pile of almost laundry.

  “Wow,” She mumbled pulling out a white blouse, it would do for work. “That’s an old timer.” She couldn't have worn that in the last 5 years. How in all that is Wild, had it gotten here from the laundry.

  Tentatively she sniffed it. It was a little hard to tell amongst all the other smells, but she thought it was clean or at least as clean as she was going to get it. Good enough. She pulled the shirt over her head. When she finally got it on, it was a little tight over the shoulders.

  “I couldn't possibly have grown more.” Valeria wondered, stretching her inhumanly muscular shoulders back and forth. Not inhuman because they were so big, inhuman because she hadn’t worked out in… What year was it? At least a decade or two. It would take a while to get used to, but the shirt would do for today, if she did her laundry when she got home.

  Now for pants. That might be harder. She shoved the dresser drawer closed, but it caught on the clothes she had haphazardly stuffed back inside. She shoved some of the clothes inside the drawer around, until it fit again. Then she turned around scouring her room, for where she had left her pants at.

  She thought, she might have left them over at the bed. She thought about carefully making her way around, to get at the pile of hopefully-pants.

  Then she decided that was too much work. She flexed hayer muscular thighs for a moment, feeling the muscles shift. Then bending down only slightly, she attempted to leap over her closest pile of junk and onto the bed. Clearing the pile wouldn't be a problem. Leaping lower than the ceiling wouldn’t have been a problem. Leaping so she cleared the pile and didn't smash into the ceiling apparently was.

  She managed to launch her knees into the pile, causing her to tip over. She landed short of her bed, which wasn’t nice and soft. Most of the debris that followed, was even less so. She let out a little growl. “You better be filled to the brim with pants.” She said, sitting up and crawling for the pile.

  Not pants. Not pants. Not pants. Pants! Gods damned. She’d found pants. She pulled them on, luckily these were loose enough not to emphasize her thighs. That would’ve hardly been appropriate for bank wear. She was just about to leave, when she saw what was under the pants. Something that wasn't meant to hide her muscular form.

  This was made to emphasize her form. It was meant to show off enough physique for her enemies to start thinking better, while also showing off enough to make all the young bloods, that should know better, but simply lacked the necessary blood flow to actually do so.

  She had lured many a young buck, into her den of sin with his costume. She frowned as she looked it over. This was an older version, not her latest. She pulled it entirely out of the pile, only toppling it a little bit. Which was fine. She could clean that up later, there just had to be enough space to sleep on the bed. The rest could be fixed later.

  The costume still had her colors, but it was more wholesome than she had first thought. Not exactly what she had come to be known for, though when she had worn this it had been a much different time. She hadn't exactly been doing the same things, she was when her last costume had been made.

  As she sat on her bed, reminiscing about memories of the old days. Her alarm clock beeped again. This was the House AI warning this time. She pulled up her phone, to see what it wanted. Most people had it on active speakers, but she couldn't keep fixing the holes she’d put in the walls, whenever it surprised her, so she had had to turn it off.

  “You will be approximately 1 minute late for the bus, if you do not proceed with your regular schedule in a speedy manner. Turn on the stove?”

  “Fuck,” She mumbled, ac
cepting the AI’s offer. She threw the costume to the side, and left her bedroom. She really didn't want to be late. The job was about the only thing she had going on right at that moment.

  At least she was good at it.

  Chapter Five

  I returned home from work feeling mentally exhausted and drained as usual. I let out a sigh as I tapped the door, waiting for the AI inside to register me and unlock the door.

  With a soft click, the door swung open and a message chimed on my phone. I didn’t bother to check the automated response, that someone had entered my apartment. I dropped my stuff off at the kitchen counter and stepped into the living room, going to the AI core.

  “Settings,” I said, placing my hand on the core, and pulled out my phone with the other. A brief light illuminated the core, reading my palm print. My phone chimed and I could now access the AI core settings.

  I let out a small sigh as I saw that Emmet had taken himself out of the free access, he would now need my express permission to enter the apartment, just like everyone else.

  This is it, I thought, It’s really over, he moved on and I didn’t.

  As always, I double checked that the setting allowing the AI to record and share data points were turned off. Closing the settings and removing my palm from the core, I stepped away to assess the apartment.

  The living room was much the same, as it always had been. Back when I’d moved in I’d gotten beaten up couch from a thrift store. That, the television and the dining table was all there was in the small living room.

  Sudden unexpected terror lurched in me. He’s finally seen me for what I am. The thought came unbidden. Just like all those times back with Madam Mireaux. For a moment I was brought back to all those tall and scary people visiting the orphanage.

  Panicked, I half ran into the kitchen, trying to force myself to think of something else. Except, this was the place where Emmet’s presence would be missed the most. All the best knives—the newest—all the best pans—again the newest—and the microwave…

  I had forgotten that my old microwave had broken and he had bought a new one. I was certain that he hadn't forgotten and had probably told me to get a new one repeatedly. That was probably one of the reason he left, he couldn't stand having to follow me around, helping me with everything.

  Next, I went through the cupboards. To my surprise, they were almost fully stocked. They were just as filled with food as before, except there wouldn’t likely be someone to fill them up later. I swallowed, feeling some sense return to me. He had left me somethings, maybe… maybe he didn’t hate me.

  I opened the fridge to check on the food stores inside. Once I touched the fridge, a message pinged to my phone. Curiously I brought up my phone to see what message Emmet had left by the fridge.

  “Hey, Van. I know you likely would’ve forgotten about the microwave, so I decided to clean one of your old pans for you and leave you with a stocked kitchen in the hopes that you would cook yourself some food, instead of ordering it on delivery. I know it would be tempting, especially after having an extra long day and stopping by the bank after work, but I am certain that it would do you good. Your friend Emmet.”

  I smiled at the message, my eyes stinging as I read it again and again. Your friend.

  Then I frowned, and checked the text I’d gotten earlier, back when I entered the apartment. Sure enough, that was from the AI, telling me that I’d entered. I had no message about the meeting at the bank… I… must’ve accidentally set the meeting for tomorrow. Yes, that’s it, that must be the reason.

  With that determined, I opened the fridge and looked inside. It was filled the brim. When Emmet set out to do a job, he always went at all full tilt. They used to say that we were alike like that. Except for his experience in the orphanage and then leaving it to live with me, had lit a fire under him and he had gone out in order to better his life…

  I closed the fridge to see about the bathroom.

  It was much like I had expected. All but two of the toothpaste pills had gone missing. That would likely be Tarra. She’s the only one I know, that would be petty enough to take all but two pills from a pack of 10, and I had even bought those myself! Other unexpected things I found was an old comb, a pair of hair scissors—I honestly didn’t know where they came from, I had never cut my own hair in my life—and a set of tweezers.

  They had left most of the cleaning agents for the bathroom, which was probably a good thing. While the micro-vibration motors minimized dust accumulation, it didn’t keep the bathroom clean of all the other stuff that comes with the territory.

  Lastly, I decided to look inside the newly emptied room. It looked much like I had expected it to when empty. Like the fact that he had painted the walls, or at least I hoped he had because mine were no longer that color.

  Eventually, like most evenings, I ended up sitting on the couch thinking I should go to my room, and work on my project. Instead, I spent the evening on the couch.

  When I turned on the TV, it had clearly been Emmet that had been using it last.

  “The Hero Guild representative Visor urges everyone to be extra cautious and on the lookout for this escaped villain.” I watched as the news reporter, gestured to the side and a picture of Grave Pace, an older villain. He was four meters of boulder-like muscles, his gray skin and distinctive red tongue standing out clearly. As she gestured, the picture faded to be replaced by a smaller woman, in a sort of coverall suit.

  I sighed and changed the channels. “That’s one thing I won’t miss,” I mumbled leaning back into beaten up old couch.

  Chapter Six

  I was on my way to work the next day—on time, thank you very much—when I got an automated call from the bank, asking me why I didn’t show up to my appointment. I spent the rest of the walk—it being the cheapest method of transportation I could afford, also one of the reasons I needed to go to the bank—talking with the bank and setting up a meeting today.

  “You have called High Stand Bank. We stand with all the people of the High Floors. What can we do for you today?” Asked a mechanical voice. It was oddly disturbing to me that the AIs still had a robotic voice, especially since the MagAI didn’t.

  “Hi. My name is Vanys Mireaux. I’m calling because I accidentally missed an appointment yesterday, and was wondering if you had the time for me to meet with one of your colleagues at about 16.30pm today?”

  There followed a silent moment of computing. “Hello, Vanys. We do indeed have time for you to meet with one of… my colleagues.” I noted the pause before the AI referred to the bank’s employees as I had. I felt a little impressed, it wasn’t often that an AI caught on to my little tricks like that, though it was clear that it nearly hadn’t.

  “Excellent miss AI. I shall see your colleague later today.” I faked a chipper impression before hanging up, cutting off whatever robotic reply was about to be delivered.

  As expected, I arrived a little early to work, and with some amount of relief, noted that the bags under Erik’s eyes were less fierce today. That was about the most exciting thing that happened at work that day, no exaggeration. I did another lunch run, raking in a few more points. I don’t know why I still did it. It wasn’t like I needed them, what would another 10 to 50 points add, that my 100,000 points didn’t already? Nothing, because my points added nothing. Dumbest superpower ever.

  The rest of the workday proceeded with the expected amount of flair and firework. There was only one thing more boring than listening to an old man complaining about how things have changed too much, and it was listening to two robots talking about how much other people liked a product.

  If not for an unhealthy dose of coffee, I was certain that I wouldn't have made it through an entire workday whiteout slamming my forehead into the desk. Usually, I started out a little slow, taking my time with the first two or three, but at the end of the day, I was usually listening at 2x speed and listening to the next one as I was typing up the one I had just finished. Sure sometimes I got a
little point wrong and would get reprimanded, but I was also half again as fast as Max, my next fastest colleague.

  I didn’t run out of work, but only because I had been in the middle of a call when the hour struck. That meant that most other people had already gotten out of their cubicles and started clogging the halls when I finished up.

  I did run to the bank though. Which just meant that I managed to really start sweating, just before having to sit down with one of their consultants. I didn’t know exactly how it worked, but consultant was probably a generous term since it was likely an AI that developed their budget plans and they simply printed it out. Maybe I’m wrong, but I wouldn’t count on it. Because that would be stupid, who would count against themselves?