Traveling Magic Shop Part 23 (Patreon)

"What the hell?!" a woman in her late fifties with a pinched face sputtered as she walked into the laundromat and saw a teenage girl leaning over the basin without any pants on.

Rose pulled her attention away from the money she was washing in the wash bin and looked at the furious looking overweight woman wearing hideous pink and orange tiger striped stretch pants and a bright pink sweater that almost hurt to look at. "What's the matter?"

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" the woman snapped when she realized the girl was also wearing a sheer shirt without a bra in addition to not wearing pants. "Put your pants on, you're in public!"

"Have you tried medication?" Rose asked, doing her best to keep her expression neutral and not start laughing at the woman that the manager wanted to get rid of.

The Asian man behind the counter shrugged when the old woman turned to look at him to start ranting. "No English, no shouting!" he told the annoying woman in a horrible Chinese accent worthy of some of the worst movies he'd seen growing up in the Bay.

"You're in America, you should learn!" she snapped.

The Asian man behind the counter waved for the bitch to leave. "Go away, no fun."

"Heathens!" the woman shouted then stalked out, her four inch heels clacking on the tile as she stalked out.

"How often does that work?" Vicky asked the Asian man in his mid thirties sitting at the desk that was doing his best not to laugh.

"You'd be surprised," the manager replied in perfect English with a trace of a New York accent as he flipped up his laptop screen and went back to playing his video game. "Thanks, I'm not allowed to tell customers to fuck off and she's always complaining that the machines eat her coins and that America is going to shit because of all of the foreigners."

Rose flipped the woman off that was glaring at her through the window then went back to washing the money that she'd stolen from the merchants. "Nothing like a bit of nudity to drive self righteous people insane."

"You should have kissed your friend, that drives them completely insane," one of the women waiting for her laundry to finish suggested, rather annoyed that the ugly bitch was trying to ruin the eye candy.

"Next time," Rose replied with a grin.

"No point torturing…" Taylor trailed off when a new cape appeared in her range. 'Line of sight cloning and destruction of the original after a few seconds? The only cape in the Bay that fits is Oni Lee.' She scowled when he vanished and reappeared a couple of blocks closer to her location. 'Is he heading this way because someone spotted us or is it just a coincidence?'

Vicky twitched when she heard an explosion in the distance. "That sounds like trouble."

"Should we take a look?" Rose asked as she used her bracelet to conjure an illusionary costume, not seeing a point in causing herself trouble with the police.

"No point in getting killed," the manager told them.

"It's probably Oni Lee, he's going to kill people if he's not stopped," Vicky argued, not particularly interested in fighting the serial bomber but knowing that she should probably take a look in case she could help protect people.

"Unless you're a high end brute, you're better off hiding," the manager warned them, knowing that Oni Lee didn't have a problem with collateral damage or killing anyone that annoyed him.

Taylor reached out and tweaked Oni Lee's power so that his power wouldn't destroy the original and then tried to tweak things so the copy was only temporary, trying to stop his rampage. She sighed in frustration when she realized that Oni Lee had used his power before she'd fixed the second part of his power, meaning there were now two permanent copies of him. 'Bad timing.'

She wasn't sure how to feel when she heard two more explosions in the distance and both Oni Lee's vanished from her senses along with the echo a couple of seconds later, letting her know that he’d likely tried to do his suicide bomber thing unaware that he was the original and not a clone, ending his killing spree. 'Does that count as assisted suicide or murder?'

"I'll be right back," Vicky said as she headed for the door.

"Stay safe!" Amy ordered her sister as she walked back in from the bathroom.

"I'll be fine," Vicky assured her sister then ran out the door and flew in the general direction of the explosions.

"How durable is your friend?" the manager asked, feeling guilty that he hadn't tried harder to stop her and not recognizing her as Glory Girl because of the Supergirl costume she was wearing.

"Durable enough," Amy replied, hoping Vicky's costume would be able to deal with the idiots that would probably shoot her when she showed up to help.

'I'm not going to lose my shit over a serial killer,' Taylor told herself.

"Good, with any luck the heroes will kill Oni Lee and we can stop worrying about a lunatic with explosives blowing everything up," the manager complained then went back to killing monsters in his game.

"Would be nice," Harry agreed, surprised that the police hadn't already killed most of the villains since only a couple of them were actually bulletproof and some of them were Nazi.

Rose gestured and used magic to pull the recently cleaned cash out of the basin and wring the water out of it.

0o0o0

Emily Piggot glanced at Assault when he walked into the conference room then turned her attention back to Armsmaster. "How long do you think the costumes will last?"

"I don't know," Armsmaster admitted. "The shop was selling the costumes for fifty dollars and they had Glory Girl run some tests to make sure they weren't going to cut out if people left the city or tried flying too high so I know they work but they might have a time limit or a ranged limit or they could work exactly as advertised for a period of years."

"Is there any chance that Leet is involved?" Emily asked.

"He was in the shop but he didn't make the phone booth," Armsmaster assured her.

"How do you know?" Assault asked as he sat down next to Battery.

"It didn't explode and he was complaining about not being able to take it apart so he could find out how it worked," Armsmaster replied dryly.

"Is there a reason you didn't arrest Leet?" Emily asked.

"He wasn't in the middle of a crime and I didn't have any proof that the skinny cape calling himself Pay2Win was actually Leet," Armsmaster replied.

"That's annoying," Battery complained.

"His lawyer would have a field day," Assault pointed out.

"Doesn't make it less annoying," Battery complained.

"We'll catch him eventually," Emily assured her, knowing that Leet wasn't enough of a problem to make grabbing him when he wasn't in the middle of a crime worth the PR nightmare. She turned to look at Assault. "Was there any trouble with the Merchants?"

"Officially? None, we showed up and arrested twenty seven merchants that had been ziptied and seized enough drugs and weapons to put them away for ten to twenty years," Assault replied with a shrug.

"And unofficially?" Emily asked.

"Squealer showed up with one of her tinkertech tanks," Assault replied.

"How many people did we lose?" Emily asked warily.

"No one got hurt," Assault assured her. "We gave her Skidmark and she left."

"What about the gang members and the drugs?" Emily asked.

"She told us to keep the drugs and to get people therapy. It was weird, she seemed completely sober and strangely calm about the whole thing. She even volunteered information on two of their stash houses if we promised to leave her garage alone for twenty four hours."

"Makes sense," Armsmaster mused.

Emily turned her head to look at Armsmaster. "Why?"

"I thought I saw Squealer in the magic shop. Her voice didn't quite match previous samples but the hair was the same and her clothes were skimpy at best so her body was easily identifiable. It wasn't enough to arrest her considering the unwritten rules, but it fits, especially if she drank an elixir that cured her addictions."

"Healing elixirs?" Emily asked, wondering how much it would cost to have reliable access to healing that didn't involve relying on Panacea.

"One of the girls that was flying around mentioned that an elixir was able to fix her legs, she'd been paralyzed since she was four. Panacea was in the shop playing cards and was able to confirm that the elixir worked and that it didn't have any side effects."

"How much are they charging?" Emily asked.

"Two to five dollars, it seemed a bit random," Armsmaster replied.

Emily stared at Armsmaster in disbelief for a couple of seconds. "Seriously?"

"I'm not sure how they attach the healing properties to the cider but none of the tests found anything strange about the cider if you ignore the fact that drinking it healed Henderson's arm and made him look like he's twenty," Armsmaster told her.

"Frank Henderson? I thought he was pushing forty?" Emily asked, wondering if she was thinking about the wrong agent.

"He was and before you ask, Renick signed off on the test," Armsmaster told her, trying to avoid a rant.

"Not surprising," Emily replied, knowing that Frank had been thinking about taking disability and 'retiring' if they couldn't get Panacea to fix his shattered arm.

"Is the shopkeeper a trump?" Dauntless asked, curious if the shop had anything he could use for his gear.

"I don't know," Armsmaster admitted. "If nothing else, we can probably assume that he's a brute based on the costumes the phone booth can create and the fact that the shopkeeper didn't seem worried about having a shop filled with tinkertech or tinkertech like products."

"Which implies a certain amount of confidence or insanity," Emily mused. "How many elixirs do you think we can acquire?"

"There were at least twenty under the counter and he probably has more in the back considering he was selling the elixirs for cheap. I would have bought more but I was on my bike and I wanted to run some tests first," Armsmaster explained.

"Do you think the costumes would work with my ability?" Dauntless asked thoughtfully.

"It's worth a try. Having an extra identity would be useful and you might be able to push the weak force field on the costume to the point where it's useful," Armsmaster replied, figuring the attempt would give him more data even if it failed.

"What else did they have in the shop?" Miss Militia asked.

"One of the girls mentioned magic furniture and Pay2Win was talking about game systems that worked better than they should and the game room had a giant flat screen that you could reach into and pull snacks out of," Armsmaster replied.

Assault shook his head. "If I didn't know you, I'd say you were setting up a joke."

"I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't reached into the screen and grabbed a soda myself," Armsmaster admitted. "I ran a bunch of tests on the soda once I got back to the lab, all of the tests confirmed that it was soda and perfectly safe to drink."

"You mentioned having to strip and put the costume on in the booth, is that a security feature or a way to record secret identities?" Emily asked.

"I don't know," Armsmaster admitted. "I wasn't able to find any signals when I checked the booth but it wouldn't be hard to rig up a camera and a transceiver on a delay or just use something chemical based."

"It might be part of his specialty," Miss Militia suggested.

"It is possible," Armsmaster admitted.

"That still doesn't explain why the shopkeeper is selling the costumes so cheaply," Emily complained.

"If his specialty includes power generation, the costumes might be cheap enough that he doesn't care," Armsmaster offered.

"Or they could also be using the costumes as a distraction, if everyone is flying around in costume, no one is going to look twice at you if you're flying around in costume," Assault offered.

Battery shook her head. "It's going to drive the police insane once people realize that they can buy the ability to fly for less than a hundred dollars."

"Unfortunately," Armsmaster agreed. "It doesn't help that at least one of the costumes changes your appearance while you're wearing it."

"Can we close the shop?" Battery asked.

Emily sighed. "I checked with legal while I was waiting for everyone to show up, the shop has a permit for selling tinkertech and ‘magical’ gear. Unless we can prove that their products are directly harmful to the people buying them, we're out of luck."

Dauntless glanced between Armsmaster and the director. "Do we have a plan?"

Emily glanced at Armsmaster then focused on Dauntless. "I'm going to put in a call to Watchdog to see if they can give me a threat assessment on the shop and call the Chief Director. If they don't start screaming, I have a list of medically retired agents that I should be able to convince to swing by the shop for healing and costumes."

"It wouldn't be all that hard to slip some of the capes in as civilians with the use of simple mundane makeup work," Armsmaster mused.

"Give me a couple of hours to make some calls," Emily told Armsmaster, wanting to make sure the booth didn't have the ability to master people, planning on swinging by the shop herself if the thinkers didn't raise a bunch of red flags. While she wouldn’t accept a parahuman healing her directly, using a product created by a parahuman that had been purchased by her was acceptable as she wouldn’t be beholden to them.

0o0o0

Myst pulled his attention away from the cleaning spell he was trying to learn when the bell over the door rang and a dark haired teenager walked into the shop wearing black pants and a heavy black jacket. "Welcome to the Magic Shop, how can I help you?"

"Do you have any curses for dealing with principals?" the teen asked as he glanced around the shop.

"Which one?" Myst asked as he used his Upgrade ability to check the kid's stats. 'No magic stat, no parahuman ability, just a normal kid.'

"Winslow," the teen replied without any hesitation.

"Hypothetically, have you considered using a hammer and smashing her car windows?" Myst asked, trying to get an idea of how far the teenager was willing to go to deal with the principal.

"I didn't want to get caught and the staff parking lot is one of the few places they still have security guards," the teen complained as he walked over to the counter.

"That's fair." Myst glanced at Greg when he reappeared with Uber behind the guy, wondering where he'd picked up the trench coat and the creepy wooden mask. "What type of curse do you want? Boils? Warts? Embarrassment or dismemberment?" he asked the teenager, trying to get an idea how far he wanted to push things.

"I don't want her dead or crippled, I just want her fired. She isn't doing enough about the gangs and she doesn't make the teachers enforce the rules," the teen complained.

"I have a couple of ideas," Myst replied as he thought about the various curses that he'd learned in school, trying to find one that would work and not spiral out of control. "We're going to need a method of targeting her."

"Like blood or hair?" the teen asked thoughtfully.

"Technically but I was thinking something more direct like a spitball or a nerf gun," Myst replied as he grabbed his book of curses from under the counter and set it on the counter.

"What about a laser pointer?" Greg asked, causing the teen to spin around as he hadn't heard anyone walk over.

"Greg?!" the guy blurted out, surprised that Greg and a tall guy that was wearing a trench coat and a creepy wooden spirit mask had managed to sneak up on him.

"Could work," Myst amused, figuring he could use the dot as the targeting method.

"Hey Ben, what's up?" Greg asked, a bit amused that he'd managed to scare the goth.

"I'm trying to buy a curse to deal with Blackwell," Ben admitted, knowing no one would believe Greg even if he told anyone.

"You could curse her with something that makes her vomit out of both ends," Greg suggested.

Uber laughed as he pictured using that particular curse on his old principal. "That's nasty."

"No casting that in my shop," Myst warned him.

Greg shook his head. "I'm socially dense, not stupid and I don't have the ability to cast that particular curse, it was just an example," he assured the shopkeeper.

"Just making sure," Myst replied as he glanced at the rest of Greg's cards that were sitting on the table, not sure how many cards he'd scanned.

"As much fun as that sounds, you don't need a curse, you just need some good old fashioned character assassination," Uber suggested.

Myst focused on Uber. "What are you thinking?"

"We happen to know a changer and it wouldn't be hard to grab an extra set of keys to the school. If we have them shape change to look like Blackwell and have her give us permission to make a zombie hunting video. We just have to catch 'her' accepting a bribe for letting us use the school on camera without them obviously looking at the hidden camera, perfect frame job," Uber suggested.

"Zombie hunting?" Myst asked.

"Hardlight," Uber replied with a grin. "We've been planning on doing a zombie adventure for a while but it requires a bit of setup and doing it in a warehouse just doesn't have the same feel."

"How much trouble is this going to get you in?" Myst asked, figuring letting Leet deal with it was better than trying to curse the bitch.

"Considering the recording, we should be fine even if it blows up," Uber replied, knowing it would boil down to he said, she said and that Blackwell would get in a lot more trouble for taking a bribe than they would. "Is my buddy still looking for new games?"

"Yep," Myst replied as the bell over the door rang.

"Let's go," Uber said as he headed for the door.

"Same result, less dark magic," Myst told the teenager as a red haired teenager walked into the shop. "Welcome to the Magic Shop, how can I help you?"

The attractive red haired teen glanced over at the people walking toward the game room, not recognizing any of them from behind then focused on the shopkeeper. "A friend of mine said that you have healing elixirs and magic costumes, how much?"

Myst used his Upgrade ability to check the girl's stats and to see if she was a parahuman. 'PTSD? How the hell did you end up with that?' he mused as he grabbed one of the bottles of cider from under the counter. He used his Upgrade ability to boost the cider's healing properties to include mental effects and previous damage then set the cider on the counter. "Two dollars for the cider, fifty per costume but your friend will have to swing by to pick it up."

"I'll need a receipt," she replied as she pulled a hundred and five dollars out of her purse.

"Not a problem," Myst replied as he grabbed another bottle and upgraded it. "You should probably drink an elixir yourself."

"Why? I'm fine," the girl replied defensively.

"How often do you eat junk food?" Myst asked as he set the bottle on the counter. "This will clear up your physical issues and give you a boost of energy."

"You sound like one of the assholes on television," the girl complained.

"Give me a fucking break, I'm not charging forty nine, ninety nine, it's two dollars for excellent cider," Myst argued, tired of dealing with mentally compromised idiots that didn't want to solve their problems and annoyed that she had a valid point. "If you buy the cider, I'll toss in some breath mints that repair teeth and clean your mouth for a dollar."

"Fine," the girl groaned as she handed Myst the money.

Myst relaxed a touch when the girl popped the top then took a drink of the cider, causing her to relax as the tension she'd been under faded away. He grabbed a tin of mints and set it on the counter next to the other bottle of cider then grabbed his receipt pad and wrote a receipt for a costume as she finished drinking the cider. "Can you honestly tell me that the cider wasn't excellent?"

"It was good," the girl agreed, looking forward to grabbing a costume and being a hero.

0o0o0