Greedy Cataloger 9 (Patreon)

Greedy Cataloger
Chapter 9

-VB-

With a flash of light, a figure materialized in front of me and as the light died away, Hermione Granger opened her eyes, fully aware and conscious.

She smiled. “Hello.”

“Hi,” I smiled back. “So do you know why you are here?”

She shook her head. “None of the … mental changes I have been told about are there yet, and it surprises me.”

“That’s because I haven’t bought you, a clone of Hermione Granger, yet.”

She nodded slowly. “That’s a surprise. I’m told that my sisters are in high demand.”

There was no ‘I’ in her wording, and I wondered why.

“I want to know what kind of person you are in person rather than basing you off of known facts,” I shrugged. “Besides, I have to see whether or not you would fit into the harem-.”

“I think that’s already a ‘no,’” she frowned.

“... that is a quick answer,” I commented. “Why not?”

“Aside from the fact that I don’t work well with a harem?"

"That's a fact?

"A statistical fact. I and most Hermione Granger clones, unless inundated with mind controls, develop problems. We don't like being just one lover of many. In fact, it is the Company's policy to advise against adding one of us to a harem bigger than three."

"... you're not a clone who's done this only a few times, are you?"

She smiled sadly. "No. I'm what you call a surveyor. We go out to survey prospective agents, and based on a few indicators, accept or reject on behalf of my clone batch."

"Batch?"

"Not all clones come out the same. Most of them do act and think like Hermione Granger but there are differences. My clone batch is known for independence."

I blinked. "That doesn't sound like something a lot of agents look for."

She shook her head sadly. "No. We actually have the least acceptance and highest return rate."

"... shucks. So that's a no from you?"

"It is a no."

"That's unfortunate for me." I paused. "Wait, didn't you talk about mental changes that you felt…?"

"Ah. Yes. I'm one of the returned clones."

I raised an eyebrow. "I thought all waifus are supposed to be -."

"Fresh?"

"For a lack of a better word, yes."

"Yes, but you asked the Company for an interview, not a clone for purchase."

I thought about it. The Company probably knew more about me than I knew about myself. After all, this was a corporation that has been around for millions of years, if not billions. They probably had methods and archives that made Amazon and Google look like chumps. "Makes sense. Off you go then?"

"Off I go." And then she was gone in another dim flash of light.

Humming in thought, I left the room I used for summoning and walked into the living room.

Lisa, who had been surfacing the internet on the widescreen TV connected to Earth Bet's internet, looked over her shoulder. "No new member, huh. Didn't agree with her position."

"Nope," I replied as I walked around and then sat down next to her. "Anything interesting?"

"Nothing too interesting," she mumbled as she leaned on me.

We sat there, just enjoying each other’s warmth.

-VB-

A week later, I went back out to the world, but this time, I didn’t walk out as a solo hero but an attache to the new hero team my girls formed. Today was their show.

Lisa, Taylor, and Kayden strutted forward, wrapped in the fires of my Volcanic Shroud, and there have been some changes to their powers.

Lisa’s eyes glowed with the infernal fire of the insufferable flames of the deep earth and wield the earth like clay mold.

Taylor gained a more acute upgrade to her power: she could now create faux-insects, each the size of a fist, and manipulate them like how she could manipulate her regular insect swarm. It took her a minute to make one of the lava bugs, and so far, we’ve hit a soft limit of a thousand that she could control at a time. This was on top of her usual insect swarm.

Kayden got the greatest upgrade out of the three. She could wrap herself with the flames and lava of the volcano without sacrificing her own power’s flight and laser shots.

Of course, I was the tank of the group, decked out from top to bottom in flaming armor. As I was already known in the city as a hero, the people greeted us with some amount of respect, though they found the flaming red of the team to be … maybe a little dangerous for them to approach.

This didn’t stop other heroes from approaching us, and to my surprise, New Wave was the first and it wasn’t the Guts and Glory duo.

“Good afternoon, Tephra,” Lady Photon greeted me with a professional smile on her lips. Behind her, Manpower and their two children, Shielder and Laserdream, stood with their backs straight but overall without a single drop of hostility.

It took me a moment to realize that she’d called me by my cape name. It’s been … some time since I went out so I might have forgotten.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lady Photon,” I said with a slight bow. “Manpower, Shielder, Laserdream,” I greeted the rest of her family.

“Sup~” Shielder, Eric, drawled with a lazy salute.

“Good afternoon,” Laserdream and Manpower greeted together.

“I wasn’t aware that you had a team, at least from what Glory Girl and Panacea told me,” she began conversationally.

I gestured for my girls to intermingle if they wanted. For obvious reasons, they were reluctant to. Kayden was Purity, a known villain, and it was only the visual changes that kept her from being outted as such. Lisa was Tattletale, and while her power had been somewhat restrained, it hadn’t been completely restrained.

As for Taylor, she felt uncomfortable talking to heroes out in the open streets like this.

Fortunately for her, the city took care of that issue very quickly with signs that I was all too familiar with.

A black man stiffly walked up towards us.

New Wave saw a fan in him despite the stiffness, but I had pre-cognitive knowledge of what was supposed to happen.

That and the fact that heat was constantly being drained by something in his head that I could feel through my Volcanic Shroud. Heat-sensing was awesome.

I drew out a sword, dripping lava from the edge of the blade, and pointed it at the man.

“Why are you so stiff?” I asked him. “Your body heat is abnormal.”

Lady Photon looked ready to chastise me before my second sentence caused her to pause.

When the man began to cry…

“I’M SOR-!” he sobbed as he jumped towards us.

I did not hesitate.

I stomped down on the ground, exuding sweltering heat, and let burst outwards. The heat exploded outwards, compressing the air around me, and then the compressed air burst outward.

It struck the jumping man and stopped him cold mid-air.

Taylor tried to catch him, but I caught her and summoned my Volcanic Shroud when I sensed the heat in his head skyrocket. I enlarged it as quickly as possible and threw the shroud around us, New Wave included.

BOOOM!