Super Sales on Super Heroes 4 -CH7- (Patreon)

Chapter 7 - Change and Changes -

Closing the door to the truck Felix felt somewhat odd behind the wheel. It’d been a while since he’d driven anything. Andrea had taken over those duties with her chauffeur Other.

Right now the poor Wolf girl wasn’t capable of much more other than existing.

Glancing over to said passenger he found she was staring at her boots. Her hands resting in her lap and looking rather lost in her own thoughts.

The two Others who’d helped watch everything were in the truck-bed. They’d decided to remain separate at the moment. More than likely to give Andrea space in her head to discuss the situation with him.

Miu, Goldie, and Faith were all going to go back separately by way of Dragon. They were going to also see if they could find a large city in the nearby vicinity.

Felix would need to know where that was to advance to the next stage of his plan rather soon. For now, it was mostly just clearing trash in this small nowhere-town and laying foundation work down.

“Do you want me to start the car and we can drive and talk, or did you want to sit here for a bit first?” asked Felix. He wasn’t actually sure which way she’d want to take this.

If she was feeling talkative this wouldn’t be half as difficult as he feared it would be. The opposite held true as well because should Andrea not want to discuss anything, she’d just shut down outright.

“Start… start the car, Love. Darling,” Andrea said, her voice morphing oddly as she gave him both titles. Then the Beastskin twitched, tilting her head one way, then the other, only to finally look over to him.

Tears were rolling down her face, her eyes wide, as her eyes met him.

In that moment Felix changed his thought process on how to handle this. It wasn’t a matter of being talkative or not, it was going to be figuring out what she actually wanted.

In those eyes he could see she was incredibly torn.

“Want me to guess first or do you want to open the conversation yourself?” offered Felix with a sad smile for her.

Her brows came down over her mis-matched eyes and she gave him a glower that was mostly a pout. Her lower lip even stuck out partly.

“Guess, then. If you’re wrong, I’ll be mad at you,” she grumbled with a firm nod of her head.

“You’re becoming a new Elex woman. A woman made of all the Thirds. One third Andrea, one third Adriana, one third Myriad,” Felix stated, leaving her without any wriggle room. “Either it’s going too well and you’re all being submerged, or it’s going really bad and you’re all fighting.

“Yes,” Andrea confirmed, her eyes widening as she gazed at him. “It’s going too well. We’re… we’re all being… blended. I’m finding it harder and harder to distinguish ourselves from one another. It’s like… it’s like when an Other gets really close to being a copy of another one. They end up becoming the same Other and one just vanishes into the other. Then a new Other appears to take it’s place.”

“Okay… so… if you all become one, won’t you just end up splitting out again afterward?” asked Felix.

“Maybe? We don’t know. We’re scared. We might just become Myriad with an Andrea for our world outlook. Where Adriana becomes our libido. Or it could be entirely reversed into something else. I don’t know. We… we don’t know. What if it’s wrong?” asked Andrea more to herself than Felix, he imagined. “We’ve never had something like this happen. It’s always been much easier to split ourselves apart, than it was to bring ourselves back down.”

Felix couldn’t help but think maybe this was a good lesson to learn, but he didn’t want to actually say that aloud.

“Do you want it to happen?” he asked instead. “I mean… Andrea is Myriad, Myriad is Adriana, Adriana is Andrea. As much as I tell you that you’re all different, you’re also all the same.

“I mean, you heard what our benefactor told you about this world. That while I see you as unique people, the world doesn’t. You’re all one person. One soul.”

Andrea was shaking her head, then started to nod it instead. Her eyes had drifted down to his chest only to flutter back up to his face.

“You… won’t be upset that we become someone else?” whispered Andrea in a tentative voice.

“No. You’ll still be an Elex woman. I can’t seem to get enough of those. If I’m being honest, I was rather disappointed that you didn’t have any Others that I could go steal.

“Even if they’d been dead for a while. Take a bone or the like, regrow the Other, then add them to my Elex collection.”

Andrea started laughing at that. A low soft noise that was more akin to a chuckle in fact. One he’d often heard from Myriad.

“Your Elex collection,” she said, her eyebrows raising upward.

“Yeah. My Elex collection so… if you become a fourth Elex… that means my collection grows,” Felix said in a false conspiratorial tone. He was also pitching his voice in such a way to make sure the Others in the back heard it. “I get a new Elex prime. A new Second, and a new Third. Then there’s two lovely Others, already.”

Felix pointed at the two Others in the back, who were also clearly paying attention to him now.

“You’d have to pick a new name. New hair color probably. Platnum blonde, maybe? Allison Elex is kinda fun to say as far as names go,” he suggested. “Wanna be Allison Prime? Get you a nice gold earring?”

The chuckle had slowly shifted toward an actual laugh he knew. It was Andrea’s laugh. One he knew through and through.

She turned her head and looked at one of the Other’s behind her.

Something passed between them before the one on the left of the back of the truck reached around to the passenger side window.

There was a fluttering flash as the Other was absorbed and then released again. Almost as if there’d been some type of passing of information.

“I think… yes, I will. I’ll do exactly what you’ve said, Dear,” said Andrea with a grin. Then she gave herself a small shake and her entire posture changed. “There. Allison exists. I’m now Andrea, and she’s Allison. Allie, for short. She’s made up of Andrea Third, Adriana Third, and Myriad Third. A… a new Elex for your collection.

“But she can’t come out. She can’t come out till we’re done. Because I’m still Andrea until that moment. The moment she comes out, I’ll be absorbed and you’ll no longer have any Andrea’s.

“And Felix should always have an Andrea. Always. Though, before you ask, don’t change me. Not yet. I don’t need to be able to hide the ears or the tail yet. We’ll need the points for other things, I think.

“Oh, oh, and… err… uhm, any Other I make from here on out will be Allie. Is… that okay, Dear?”

“Of course it’s okay. It’s all rather fantastic and I look forward to seeing you, Allie and truly meeting you,” answered Felix. He’d always talked to them as if they were all present at the same time. “Be sure to make this Andrea your Second. She’s very worthy of that title for sacrificing so much of herself.”

Smiling brilliantly at that, Andrea looked unexpectedly excited. To the point that she was practically vibrating in her seat.

“Yes. Yes! When… when I rejoin, I’ll be the Second. For now though, I’m just Andrea. Nn!” said the Beastkin with a sharp and pointed nod of her head. “And what I need right now is one thing. I’ll need your help to get some, too.”

“Pancake mix for pancakes,” Felix answered confidently. He knew for a fact that they’d stolen the proper equipment to cook pancakes just for Andrea. Mix was going to be the next thing needed. “We’ll go turn all the cans and bottles over to the recycling center and get some mix for you.”

“Great! Great. But… ah… yes, I do want pancakes now that you mention it. I’m going to make so many pancakes,” murmured Andrea, slowly leaning toward him. “But I want something else right now… and Allie is demanding that I make sure you know that this is our first time so be gentle. It’ll be awkward in here but at least it’s a bench seat. We’ll make it work.”

Ah.

Adriana or Myriad is the libido. If it was Andrea, she would’ve stopped at pancakes.

Such an interesting woman.

I love Elex women.

***

“—and thirty six cents,” said the cashier, placing a large silver coin, a small silver coin, and a small copper coin down on the counter.

Felix took up the handful of blue colored paper bills and the coins and nodded his head. Walking back to the truck he was rather happy about the situation.

They’d made apparently a hundred and fifteen dollars and thirty six cents.

Felix couldn’t imagine it would always be that easy to make money.

Especially considering there really was a great heap of things in the farmer’s field to take care of. This was a perfect starting point though.

Moving to the truck he simply held their haul out to Miu. As soon as she took it he went over to the driver’s side door.

“And why am I being given our money?” asked Miu, rapidly reorganizing the bills and coins in her hand.

“Because I trust you with it. Andrea would do something silly. Faith wouldn’t really completely understand how to use it. And Goldie… well… it isn’t gold so it might not be that big of a deal to her,” explained Felix as he buckled his seat belt after getting in. “Better you hold it.”

“Ah, yes, that makes sense,” Miu replied with a small nodding of her head. Then she put the money into a pocket and then turned to face him directly. “Thank you. I’ll be sure to make sure it’s used appropriately. What… what do you we do next?”

Felix had been eying the recycling plant after he finished talking. Watching as a garbage truck filled to the brim with products was brought around the back.

“Not sure. But I think I might want to try and get a hold on this place,” he murmured, leaning forward in his seat to watch the truck for a few seconds longer. “If there’s no oversight of either incoming, or outgoing, we could get into that spot. Take it all for ourselves.

“Just convert it all to points. Let it build up and constantly rising higher. Till using them was as simple as breathing.”

“Still haven’t figured out the extra items though, have we?”

Glancing at Miu as she asked her question he realized he’d forgotten about that. It was a worry he didn’t want to gnaw at.

“No… no idea yet. I suppose we’ll encounter it when we do. That’s fine. We’ll get there,” muttered Felix as he turned the key in the ignition.

Then he stopped.

Wait… I haven’t tried to modify powers yet. Or anything like that, actually.

Can I even do that?

This place is supposed to not have any super powers yet.

Does that mean I wouldn’t be able to modify someone with a power?

Looking at Miu he stopped and considered that.

Then he put his mind to wanting to give Miu a super power. To let her blend in with the shadows at will. To slip away into nearly nothing and be invisible.

Just as she had been back in their original world.

No window surfaced or appeared.

Shit. It refused me outright, didn’t it? I can’t give out super powers at all.

That’d make sense given what was explained but it’s still a bit unexpected.

Then Miu was in front of him, kissing him. Her hands were on the sides of his face, holding to him as her kisses went from light-weight to her tongue searching the inside of his mouth in under a second.

Letting it linger for a second or two, Felix gently pushed her away while making sure he smiled. Miu was always going to be Miu and he’d been staring at her.

“I… I did good, right? That was why you were looking at me so intently?” asked Miu a bit breathlessly.

“Yes, you did good. Thank you, Miu,”he murmured. He needed to make sure to keep her stimulated, rewarded, and on good behavior.

If he didn’t there was a strong possibility of her killing or hurting someone.

He’d taken a risk in leaving the door open for Miu to join him here. He could have just as easily told her to not come after him and she would have listened.

“Now, we need to go find a phone and call up our dear mayor and make him an offer. That means a phone booth or someone letting us borrow theirs.

“Pretty sure phone booths don’t exist anymore though. Those weren’t even in our old world anymore and I haven’t seen one here.”

“If I get a phone for us, will you take control for me? Tonight?” asked Miu. “I know I don’t need it anymore, but I still… I still really enjoy it.”

Ah… that’ll work.

“Yeah. Get me a phone I can use, but you can’t hurt them to get it. Or break anything. Once I’m done with it, you’ll have to give it back, too,” said Felix, putting the truck into gear.

“Okay, one second then,” Miu replied and then opened the truck door.

Felix watched her, putting the truck back into park.

Miu rushed off toward a man that was working what looked like a massive compactor. He had one hand on the controls and the other on his hip.

Waving a hand at the man with a wide and warm smile as she got close, Miu didn’t look anything like the woman he knew.

She looked a lot more like a coed that’d just came off a college campus. Even going so far as to drop her shoulders forward, stick her hands behind her ear end and look upwards at the man from below.

“What an actor,” Felix drawled with a grin. “I guess she has to blend in with normal people enough to know how to pull it off though.”

In seconds, the man was grinning at Miu and handing over a cell phone to her.

Waving her hand at the man, Miu made a small motion off to one side and then wandered off back to the truck. She made sure to look back twice at the man as she went, both times with a smile on her face.

“Damn. I’d probably be played by that, too,” muttered Felix.

Reaching the car, Miu bent over at the waist, pointing her rear end at the man. The look on her face was clearly pleased with herself.

Holding the phone out to Felix she chewed at her lower lip.

“I’m really looking forward to giving you control,” she said in a quivering voice. “Very much worth making a hick think I find him interesting.”

Felix took the phone from her with a small shake of his head. Often he tended to forget just how damaged Miu was because of her love for him.

Not for the first time, he wished she’d let him him fix her. It wasn’t something he’d ever ask her about again, however. He accepted her for who she was, which included the broken parts.

Dialing in the number for the mayor Felix pressed the phone to his ear. It hadn’t been too hard to figure out how to dial. In fact it seemed far simpler than utilizing his wrist communicator.

The line began to ring in his ear almost immediately.

Holding the phone Felix couldn’t figure out if it was him that smelled like trash or the phone.

“Hello, mayor Jordan speaking,” said a bright and cheery voice.

“Good morning mayor. My name is Felix and I was wondering if you had a moment to listen to a free service I’d like to provide the township of Brandonville,” said Felix in his best schmoozer middle-management voice.

“Ah… well—”

“I assure you it really is free. There is no dollar amount tied to it whatsoever,” promised Felix hearing the hesitation.

“Sure. I can hear you out,” said the mayor with a soft sigh in his voice.

“I’d like to offer this quarter’s large item pickup for free,” Felix stated in what could only be described as a straight thrust of words. “The only thing I need is your permission, providing a sign or two to that effect, and where I can do it.

“Anything brought to that location, anything at all, will be gone by the morning after.

“I’d be more than willing to take anything anyone brought over for an entire week. That way the residents wouldn’t have to rush to get it done in a few days.

“I know people were complaining about that last time around. At least this time they won’t be able to… ah… whine over that.”

Finishing his offer with a laugh, Felix rolled his eyes.

He had no idea if people had actually complained about it, nor could he imagine the mayor would even know that either. It seemed like something people with nothing else to do would complain about.

Which happened often and was quite believable.

“Ah… th-yes! That’d be wonderful. I was just talking to our previous contractor the other day and-yes. Yes, please,” the mayor said in a very excited voice. “In fact, can you start it tomorrow? There’s a lot of leftover flyers from last year that I can use again. We’ll just hand-write at the bottom that I’ll be for seven days.”

Perfect.

Grinning, Felix leaned his head back and couldn’t help himself when he let out a laugh.

“That’d be perfectly doable, mayor. I’ll have a couple of my people there to take everything away each evening. You don’t need to worry about anything at all. I won’t have anyone to unload on hand, but all the residents have to do is get it off their vehicle. That’s it,” expalined Felix. Then he cleared his throat as an extra thought popped in. “I’m also able to take any vehicles, farm equipment, or just cast-off materials they don’t want.”

“Really? You can take all of that? Is it going to the dump?” asked the mayor.

“Private landfill I work with. It’s out of state,” lied Felix. “And yes, I can take all of that. In fact, I can take anything. Anything anyone doesn’t want. Just have them all bring it down to where-ever you want this to happen. Won’t be an issue.”

“Perfect then… one second—”

There was rustling sound in the background followed by what sounded like the mayor asking someone a question. Followed by a thump of what sounded like a box hitting the ground.

“Actually, can you start today? I know it’s short notice but I can… ah… you’d probably get five-hundred from a donation if you could get it going today,” said the mayor in a cautious voice. “It’d be at Leake park. It’s not too far off from main-street.”

“Err, give me a moment to check something,” replied Felix, who then just sat there, staring at the windshield. His free hand was over the receiver just to give the illusion of trying to keep a conversation quiet. He was more than happy to accept, but it wouldn’t do to immediately accept.

Or to accept without sounding like it was at least a small inconvenience. After only a handful of seconds he dropped his hand and cleared his throat.

“Yeah, I can get someone over there in an hour,” confirmed Felix.

“Perfect! You came at just the right time,” said the mayor with a relieved exhalation. “Thanks, Felix.”

“Oh, it’s my pleasure. I look forward to giving back to the community though I might not be around during the drop off. My people will most certainly be there though,” lied Felix, still smiling all the while.