Endbringers Hate Paperwork Part 4 (Patreon)

Drax froze when he looked away from the strange horseless carriages and noticed the shop filled with books that they were walking past. "Books…" he trailed off with a longing look.

"It's a bookstore, we have a couple in town," Victoria replied, pulling her attention off the people that were taking pictures of them from across the street.

"I'm surprised someone hasn't robbed it yet," Drax admitted, thinking of some of the damage to the other buildings they'd walked past. "Wards?" he asked, forgetting for a second that they'd already explained the 'fact' that they didn't have magic.

"Wards?" Taylor asked, pulling her attention away from the little girl that was staring at the dragon in wonder.

"Spells that prevent people from smashing the windows or picking the locks, I forgot that you already mentioned that your world doesn't have a lot of magic," Drax admitted.

"I doubt anyone thinks they're worth stealing," Victoria replied absently as she used her phone to take a picture of the dragon and the book shop, looking forward to the reactions when she posted it on the boards.

Drax turned his head and looked at Vicky. "Why wouldn't they be worth stealing?"

"Books are cheap," Victoria replied with a shrug, causing the dragon to stare at her.

"We have machines that print books, used books are cheap enough that you can buy them for the price of a sandwich, unless they're rare and old," Amy explained.

"Do they take gold?" Drax asked hopefully.

"We can check," Amy assured him, not sure how they were going to get the pony sized dragon into the shop.

"Excellent!" Drax replied enthusiastically and shapeshifted into his human form, not wanting to deal with knocking books off shelves in his excitement.

Amy stared at the thousands of shimmering stars on the dragon's midnight black robes that seemed to be glowing and slowly moving. "I need a better costume."

Taylor pulled her attention off the attractive silver haired teenager that looked like he'd just stepped out of a movie and looked at Amy. "At least you have a costume."

"Not currently," Amy replied, having left her costume at home.

"Nice robes," Vicky offered, wondering if she could get her own costume enchanted.

"Thanks. They're enchanted to give me a decent amount of protection in my human form and to keep the water off the stuff in my pockets, plus they look neat," Drax replied with a grin then opened the door and walked into the shop, eager to look through the collection of books that rivaled his mother's library.

'I think he's worse than Mum was about books,' Taylor thought as she followed the dragon into the bookstore.

"Where do we start?" Drax asked as he looked around the floor to ceiling bookshelves with wonder.

Amy glanced over at the gray haired man behind the counter. "Let's start with figuring out your budget."

'Mom always loved it here,' Taylor mused as she glanced around the familiar bookstore.

Drax pulled a handful of gold coins out of his pocket. "I wasn't expecting to need much when I went for a walk."

"It's been a while since I've been paid in gold but let's give it a look, my friend runs a coin shop," the man behind the counter said with a smile.

"Excellent," Vicky said cheerfully as she walked over, wanting to make sure Drax didn't get cheated.

0o0o0

[Paperwork is evil], Myst complained, not particularly impressed with the sheer amount of paperwork the PRT wanted him to fill out for the bounty, mostly because a lot of it was just fishing for information the form clearly, if in fine print, said wasn't actually required.

Taylor jumped, not used to having someone else talking in her head. [What are you filling out paperwork for?]

[I'm picking up a bounty], Myst replied as he signed yet another form with telekinesis.

[They probably just want to make sure you got the right person and didn't commit any felonies while catching them], Taylor replied, making a mental note to look up the relevant rules and regulations now that she was a cape.

[Sure, let's go with that], Myst replied as he carefully flipped the page and started reading the page, wanting to look everything over before he started to fill things in. [Speaking of bounties, do you want a job?]

[Doing what?] Taylor asked.

[Personal assistant, if you haven't noticed, I'm sort of vertically enhanced], Myst explained, not seeing a reason to deal with shopping when he didn't have to. [Not to mention, you're the only person I can talk to across the city.]

[How much?] Taylor asked, knowing she'd have to clear things with her father.

[At least twice minimum wage], Myst replied, not sure how much the job was actually worth but not particularly concerned with the details since Jack's bounty was excessive.

[I'll have to clear things with my father], Taylor admitted, not sure how to explain the job to her father in a way that wouldn't have him saying hell no.

[No worries], Myst replied, fairly sure Danny would sign off on the job once he realized that she'd be safe and earning at least a million a year. [Speaking of work, what are you working on?]

Taylor glanced over at where Drax was reading the cover of a romance novel. [I'm showing the dragon around a bookstore with Panacea and Glory Girl.]

[What are they like?] Myst asked as he started filling out the page.

Taylor glanced over at where Amy was looking at the back of a novel with a picture of a unicorn on the front. [Amy is sarcastic and Vicky is actually smarter than you'd expect, considering some of the stuff I've heard about. Drax is like a kid in a candy store.]

[Nice, be sure to ask him if there's a way to learn magic], Myst suggested, figuring it was a long shot without some type of cheat system, but figuring it was worth a try.

[Sure], Taylor agreed as she looked at Drax. "Is there a way to learn magic if you're not born with it?"

Drax put the book he'd been looking at in his basket and turned to look at Taylor. "Most humans with a decent amount of intelligence can learn magic, but that might be a feature of living in a magical world. If you can get your friend to summon me back tomorrow, I'll grab the basic books I have in my hoard and we can run some tests. It shouldn't take more than a couple of days to figure out if you can learn magic. If you can't, there are a couple of things we can try."

"Like what?" Amy asked, curious if there was a genetic component to magic.

"I know of a potion that gives people the ability to use magic at a basic level, you might be able to leverage that into becoming an actual magic user. There are also rituals for giving people magic that we can try, the rituals generally aren't permanent but they might be enough to jump start the process," Drax mused, figuring this might be a good summer project.

[Do you think you could summon Drax back tomorrow?] Taylor asked hopefully. [He might be able to give us books on magic.]

[It's certainly worth a try], Myst replied, looking forward to seeing if he could learn magic.

"It's worth a try," Taylor replied, trying not to worry about the other shoe dropping as things were finally starting to improve in her life.

0o0o0

Alan Barnes opened his front door and stared at the pair of officers that were standing on his front porch holding tasers. "Can I help you?"

Officer Blake glanced past Alan into his house, hoping that he'd be able to see their target which would make things easier. "Before you say or do anything particularly stupid, we have a warrant for the arrest of Emma Barnes, we know her phone is in the house and she's a teenage girl, which means there's a good chance that she's in the house, giving us probable cause to search the place."

"What charge?" Alan demanded.

"Attempted murder," he replied, ready to tase the girl's father if he gave him even half of a reason, mostly because his cousin was still pissed about her divorce and Alan's part in it, but also because he wasn't letting the girl pull a runner when the chief wanted the matter dealt with as soon as possible.

"Let me see the warrant," Alan demanded, wanting to make sure it was legitimate.

Officer Blake handed Alan a copy of the paperwork. "Circle around back, if she runs, shoot her."

"Sure," Jimmy replied as he turned to head around the back, despite the fact that they already had two officers covering it.

"You can't do that!" Alan snapped as he opened the door the rest of the way and took a step forward without thinking about it.

"Assault!" Officer Blake shouted as he pulled the trigger on his taser, dropping Alan in his tracks and sending him to the ground twitching and screaming. "You shouldn't have tried to attack me."

"Still want me to check the back?" Jimmy asked, glad that he could honestly tell people that he hadn't seen the cause of his partner hitting Mr Barnes with a taser.

"No, stay here and make sure no one leaves," Officer Blake said as a red haired woman in her late thirties or early forties ran out of the kitchen to check on the screaming. "Hopefully Mrs Barnes is more reasonable."

"What happened?" Zoe asked warily.

"As I explained to your husband, I have a warrant for the arrest of one Emma Barnes. He objected and reached out to attack me," Officer Blake replied, knowing the chief wasn't going to give him shit about it on account of the man being his brother-in-law's lawyer and the fact that they didn't actually have enough evidence against his daughter for a conviction, it was mostly just seeing how much they could get to stick.

"Emma? Why?" Zoe asked.

"She's accused of trying to murder one of her classmates with Sophia Hess," Officer Blake explained.

"Emma! Get your ass down here, now!" Zoe shouted, wishing she'd put her foot down when the girl had shown up and Emma had started turning into a bitch. "Can I see the charges?"

"Sure," Jimmy replied as he reached down and picked up the paperwork, handing it to the woman when she walked over.

"Harassment, assault… harassment? Suspicion of blackmail? Verbal abuse of a disabled person?" Zoe asked, shocked at the collection of charges.

"Hess is a bad influence," Officer Blake replied.

"What the fuck?!" Emma sputtered when she ran down the stairs and saw her father sprawled on the ground.

"You're under arrest, put down the weapon or we will shoot you," Officer Blake warned the girl, not particularly worried about the nail file the girl was holding as he was reasonably sure he'd be able to shoot her with his taser before she managed to cross the room.

"What are you talking about?! What happened to Dad?!" Emma demanded.

"Put the weapon down!" Officer Blake ordered the teen.

"Drop the nail file!" Zoe ordered her daughter.

"No, they shot Dad!" Emma shouted, fairly sure they weren't real cops.

Officer Blake pulled the trigger and shot the girl, dropping the screaming teenager to the ground. 'At least this means I won't have to deal with my in-laws for Christmas,' he thought, knowing he wouldn't be able to leave the city while on administrative leave or at least it would be a good excuse not to have to make the trip.

'At least no one got stabbed,' Jimmy thought, surprised that the woman just sighed.

"You should probably take them both, I'll have our lawyer meet you at the station. Where should I send them?" Zoe asked.

"North station," Officer Blake replied, pleased with how easy things had gone and looking forward to his ‘suspension’.

0o0o0

"Is there a reason you don't want to join the Protectorate?" Emily Pigot asked Myst.

Myst ripped the page out of the stack of papers that dealt with an NDA that could cover Sophia if you stretched things then signed the last page of the paperwork and turned his attention towards the overweight woman dressed in a no nonsense business suit. "I'm not particularly interested in working for someone that hates capes."

"Are you planning on being a villain?" Emily asked, not seeing a reason to argue about the fact that hating and not trusting were different.

Myst floated the clipboard and the completed paperwork over to the agent that was dealing with the paperwork. "Even paying for the twins to take a vacation, I have over a hundred million thanks to Jack's bounty. I don't have expensive tastes and I'm not insane."

"And yet you snapped a man's neck without hesitation," Emily pointed out.

Myst gave Emily a less than impressed look. "Jack was a nihilistic lunatic with a kill count in the thousands, I'm not losing any sleep over killing monsters. You wouldn't have hesitated either."

"Is there a reason you outed Shadow Stalker?" Emily asked, swapping subjects because he was right, she wouldn't have.

"Tell you what, if you really want to know, get Panacea to fix your health issues and I'll tell you over a drink," Myst replied with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"Enjoy your money," Emily said, not happy about the situation but knowing there wasn't much she could do with it since they'd confirmed that the dead man was actually Jack Slash.

"That's the plan," Myst replied as he accepted the paperwork from the PRT agent that had his account information. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to talk to a guy about a warehouse."

"For what it's worth, thank you for killing Jack Slash and I'll make sure Shadow Stalker leaves the city," Emily assured him.

"Thank you, I’m just glad I was in the right place at the right time to deal with him." Myst turned and left, making a mental note to do something nice for Pigot, like dealing with Calvert since she didn't seem to be completely unreasonable.

0o0o0

Drax stashed yet another book in his pocket, having already secured an entire chest full of books in his summonable chest that he used on adventures. He picked up the large cardboard box filled with yet more books when he felt the magic that was holding him in the world start fading. "If I don't see you again, thanks for all of the books."

"You're welcome," Taylor replied, ecstatic about the two gold coins he'd paid each of them for their help and for showing him around the city.

"It was fun," Amy assured the dragon as he started fading from view.

"Yep," Vicky agreed as the dragon vanished along with the box he was carrying. "Do you think we could explore his world if he was holding us?"

Amy shook her head. "I think that sounds like a remarkably bad idea and a good way to get permanently lost. Not to mention I doubt you have any immunities to the local diseases."

The shopkeeper laughed. "There are worse things, but it wouldn't be my first choice. Speaking of getting lost, I need to close the shop so I can get to the coin shop. Can I talk you into escorting me to my van?"

"If you give us a lift, we'll escort you the entire way if you can put in a good word with the owner of the coin shop," Amy piped up, knowing it would save her the hassle of making a trip to turn them into cash later.

"I'd certainly feel a lot safer," Taylor said, knowing she'd probably get mugged with her luck.

"Works for me," Vicky said, not seeing a problem with helping the old man out as she had nothing better to do.

0o0o0

"That was a lot more than I was expecting," Taylor admitted as she patted at her wallet, not used to walking around with thousands of dollars in her wallet.

"Eighteen sixty four an ounce and the coins were a bit more than an ounce," Vicky said cheerfully as she let the door to the coin shop close behind her.

Amy shivered when she noticed the way Vicky was smiling. "Crap."

"Crap?" Taylor asked as she glanced around the street, expecting to see a group of people crossing the street or something.

"I just realized that Vicky is going to want to go shopping," Amy admitted.

"I wasn't but that's an excellent idea," Vicky lied.

"You realize I can tell that you're lying, right?" Amy asked.

"Nope, I'm in complete denial, let's go do what you suggested," Vicky suggested as she picked up her sister and Taylor.

"I feel I have doomed us both to a long painful afternoon at the mall," Amy complained as Vicky shifted them so they were sitting on her knees and started flying.

"Are you sure this is safe?" Taylor asked warily.

"Not remotely," Amy teased. "Do you know how many people she's dropped?"

"I've never dropped anyone on accident," Vicky replied.

"That doesn't make me feel better," Taylor admitted, glad that she was wearing a mask as people were taking pictures of them as they flew past.

"We're not flying over any pools, you'll be fine," Amy assured her.

"Are we going in the right direction?" Taylor asked when she noticed they were heading to the boardwalk rather than the mall.

"Yep," Vicky smugly, knowing exactly where they were going.

"Where are we going?" Amy asked, knowing the boardwalk was filled with overpriced crap for tourists.

"Parian's shop," Vicky replied. "Taylor needs a proper costume and I wouldn't mind an upgrade or at least, I wouldn't mind getting some advice. Besides, this way Mom can't do something crazy like make us put it in the bank."

"Makes sense," Amy agreed, knowing Carol would want her to stick at least half of it in the bank, if not all of it.

'Can't hurt to check,' Taylor thought as they landed in front of Parian's shop. "I don't even have a clue what I want in a costume yet."

"That's why you get advice," Vicky said as she walked over and opened the door to Parian's shop.

Taylor followed Vicky and Amy into the shop and looked around at the dresses and suits on the mannequins and the large stuffed animals scattered around the room that probably doubled as security given the owner’s ability. She paused when she noticed the short girl wearing a gothic lolita dress step out from behind one of the mannequins.

"How can I help you?" Parian asked as she glanced between the three girls, her gaze drifting down to Vicky's chest before she pulled her gaze back up to where it was supposed to be.

"Our friend needs a costume," Vicky said cheerfully.

"Let me grab some measurements," Parian replied as she pulled a tape measure out of her pocket and walked over to check Taylor's measurements.

"Sure," Taylor replied as she looked over the notices her power had just tossed up when Parian touched her arm. 'Minion, flight cloak? Flying carpet? Animated ropes and dolls? That makes as much sense as the rest,' she thought as Parian took her measurements. 'Telekinesis? Not a bad power.'

"What powers do you have and what theme do you want to go with?" Parian asked, figuring she had some idea of what she wanted.

"I create minions," Taylor said, not wanting to say the word master with all the negative connotations that came with it.

"Can I get an example?" Parian asked, wanting to narrow things down a bit.

"Sure," Taylor replied as she opened her menu and selected the doll, figuring that seemed harmless enough. She selected Vicky as it gave her several options, selecting the high school skill package then hit the create button after checking the stats and realizing they were decent, not sure what exactly was going to happen.

Everyone stared when a two and a half foot tall porcelain and cloth doll that was wearing a cut down copy of Vicky's outfit popped into being.

"She's adorable," Parian said, impressed by the detail.

"Thank you!" Mini Vicky replied in a high pitched voice that sounded like Vicky when she was eight.

Parian stared as the doll floated off the ground. "You can make flying dolls?"

"Apparently," Taylor admitted.

"I’d complain that you were honing in on my territory, but my creations are completely different,” she said, amused.

Vicky smiled as she grabbed the flying doll. "Yoink, mine."

"You can't just steal her minion," Amy pointed out.

"Does that mean you don't want one?" Vicky asked.

"If they had powers like mine, I'd take three," Amy replied, not really thinking about it.

Taylor shrugged and quickly made three mini-Panaceas who popped into being and looked around curiously.

“You know if we stacked them on top of one another and put them in a trench coat we could send them to the hospital in your place,” Vicky teased as she cuddled her tiny cloth doppelganger.

Amy opened her mouth, paused and then asked, “Can they heal people?”

Taylor nodded. “They have your power.”

“I need a trench coat,” Amy told Parian, “one designed to make a stack of tiny me’s look normal.”

“I don’t know about normal, but I’m sure I can come up with something,” Parian said. “I swear this sounds like the set up for a joke.”

“They aren’t sneaking into an R-Rated movie, it’ll be fine,” Amy said.

“The people on the bus are probably going to notice,” Vicky teased.

“I don’t suppose you can give them flying as well?” Amy asked, turning to Taylor.

Taylor looked over her options and popped out a red and gold persian rug. “Will a flying carpet work?”

“Yes, yes it will,” Amy agreed with a grin.

“If you can make permanent items of that type… I believe we can discount your costume purchase up to one hundred percent,” Parian suggested hopefully.

“I believe I can,” Taylor said as she examined her screen.