Chapter 1 - Loud Arrival
I woke up already standing. It felt like those times when you suddenly go from nodding off to fully awake in an instant and end up with a sense of vertigo. I took a step forward, stumbled, then caught myself on the second step. My balance was shot for all of two seconds before everything suddenly righted itself. I was… in an alleyway? What?
Then I noticed the purple hair hanging in front of my face. "What–"
That wasn't my voice.
Looking down confirmed that it wasn't just my voice that had changed. For one, I used to be able to see my feet without having to twist my body sideways just to see past the new assets in the way. And my hair certainly didn't reach halfway down my thighs before… whatever this was.
"What the fuck," I swore, more to express my confusion and frustration that from some expectation of getting an answer. And yet…
"This the fuck, presumably," A girl's voice deadpanned from right behind me.
"Whu–" I spun around, hands reflexively going to my waist to hold—what?
The first thing I noticed was the need to look down to properly take in the surprise girl. Then came the silvery-gray hair styled in some kind of twisting drill, the steel-gray eyes and the oversized black jacket with indigo blue accents. The white crop top, the weird frankenstein miniskirt-shorts-fishnet-thing and the tall black boots with silver buckles screamed try-hard punk to me, but it's not like I ever knew much about clothing styles.
Actually, gray hair and eyes, spiral hairstyle, short… Even the voice seemed somewhat familiar. Bronya? What would that make me then, Mei? But that was just absurd. Isekai kind of absurd.
"You wouldn't happen to have an idea of what's going on, would you?" I asked the girl. I wasn't expecting much of an answer, to be honest. If I were to guess, she was as lost as me.
"We are stranded and unless you have more in your pockets than me, got no cash, IDs or even phones." She sounded particularly vexed about that last point, mostly because the subtext of frustration underlining her deadpan became outright text as she shifted full on to grumbling.
"Joy," I commented while patting my own pants in hopes of finding something—mine certainly would have more space to hide stuff in than maybe-Bronya there with her frankenshorts, being full-length jeans. Alas, they were empty. The pockets of my white jacket, on the other hand, weren't.
"Ah! Got a phone," I said, showing off my find before attempting to open it. The moment it turned on, I saw countless lines of text fly by too fast for me to read, only for it to finally settle on 'Device successfully connected to local networks'. "Aaand signal. Somehow."
There was a minute eyetwitch from maybe-Bronya at me being the only one with any sort of tech between us, but credit where credit was due, girl knew when to pack it in and focus on the task at hand. "Good, check the date and the GPS to see where we even are."
I side-eyed the girl for a second, "Thanks, was thinking of starting by looking up cat pictures." Still, I did as she'd advised. "Date's August tenth… twenty-ten. The fuck. Just– fucking fifteen yeas in the past. Amazing." I wasn't even going to dwell on this nugget of bullshit for now.
Finding the damned map app took me a minute or two due to the unfamiliar layout and icons, after which I nearly dropped the phone. I just took a few steps back and leaned against the wall to look at the sky. Brockton Bay. Fucking Brockton Bay. Worm. Land of depressed omnicidal space whales and too many fuckups to bother counting.
"Joy and rapture. How bad?" possibly-Bronya gritted out, looking like she was already planning how to stowaway out of the city, just off of my reaction. Justifiably so.
I presented the phone to her, map of Brockton Bay clearly visible and labeled on the screen. "See for yourself. I almost hope you don't recognize it, you know, ignorance being bliss and all…"
If her expression had been dead before, now it looked stuffed in a lead-lined coffin and buried twenty feet under, face going flat enough you could probably use it to prove a physics thesis. Whatever the grey girl wanted to say on this cosmic joke they were the punchline of, however, got pre-empted by the sound of a car crash just outside the alley and in the street proper. A second crash accompanied by a veritable concert of car horns immediately followed.
Then I was staring at empty space because she'd just bolted, her jacket shattering into flakes of white-blue light that swirled around her limbs, reforming into red and grey power armor sleeves. Her boots followed suit a moment later, changing between steps to give her a jolt of speed and just like that she was around the corner and out of sight.
Ok, then, that's a reasonable reaction. Run towards the danger. Help people… I started running after the shorter girl who either had some kind of Valkyrie subspace storage for her gear or, and I was kind of hoping it was that option, she had the power of Reason. And if the Bronya lookalike had Reason, then…
Thunder. A heat at my very core, spreading through my body. A tingle along my spine, the taste of ozone in my mouth. Lightning sparked across my body and I cleared the rest of the alley in an instant, allowing me to see the commotion in the street.
The street was packed with cars—well, the lanes on our side were. All of them honking like savages at the pile-up blocking the road further up. The three-way intersection was a mess, multiple damaged cars scattered over the place, one of which had been flipped over completely. On the other side of the intersection, cars were piled up bumper to bumper and spread across the width of the street from the drivers' attempts to avoid the crash. And, right in the middle of it all, a large beat-up pick-up truck with its front bumper completely crumpled—the vehicle that started the whole accident, if I was to take a guess. To make things worse, idiots in the directions that weren't completely blocked were trying to sneak past the wrecks and debris to make their way across.
Maybe-Bronya—I really needed to ask her name—looked like a completely different person, lips peeled back into something between a grimace and a snarl as she dug power-armored fingers into the edges of the upside down car's door and ripped the entire thing clean off with the sound of shearing metal. It was hard to make out what she was barking at the passengers, with the sheer amount of honking and car alarms filling the air with noise, but it definitely was working to get shell-shocked victims more or less conscious and cooperative as she shoved half her body in the vehicle and pulled out helping someone with a busted leg. It wasn't to the point bone was showing, but that really shouldn't be bending that way, leaving possibly-Bronya to act as a set of very grumpy crutches for the heavyset man it belonged to.
"Mei!" she yelled, not my name but also not the time and honestly it worked as a placeholder just fine. I didn't exactly have the luxury to sit down and ponder what I wanted to be called at the moment. "Help me with this one, I'm too damn tiny to carry him and I think he's concussed!"
"Coming!" I shouted back as I made my way towards her. Time to see just how strong this body was, I suppose… I arrived next to the shorter girl and took the man off her hands, having to bend down a bit to put my shoulders under his arm. It barely took any effort, despite him likely weighing over twice as much as I did. "Here, I'll get you somewhere safer."
"–y girl. Anna– help…" the man slurred his words, pain and probable head trauma leaving him barely coherent. Still, that was plenty enough for me to turn towards the Bronya-lookalike to warn her. I only had time to open my mouth before I witnessed her pulling out of the toppled car holding a girl even smaller than her. "My friend has your daughter, she'll be fine," I promptly informed the man, causing him to slump in my arms in relief.
Together, we brought the father-daughter duo to the sidewalk, away from both the damaged vehicles and the idiots still trying to cross the intersection.
"Right, that's two out of who knows how many, let's keep at it so the EMT have an easier time," maybe-Bronya said as she returned what was presumably the man's phone to him, the screen showing an ongoing emergency call feeding the assortment of firefighters and ambulance drivers all the GPS info they needed to get here.
We kept on, ignoring the people exiting their cars to gawk at us and headed towards the second most damaged car and the pick-up truck that had nearly crushed its rear half. The truck was in good enough shape that prioritizing the other vehicle seemed best.
Checking the car for passengers, tearing out the crushed doors to allow us to extract the victims, helping them walk—or carrying them—to the sidewalk where they'd be easily collected… I joined the Bronya in those tasks, doing my best to mask both my inexperience and uncertainty. She was helping a teenager walk to our improvised gathering point when I heard it, the sudden roaring of a motor just barely reaching my ears through the cacophony around us. I turned my head just in time to see a sports car sneak through and try and turn the intersection at high speeds. The intersection we were standing in the middle of. That fucking moron was heading right towards us!
"Bronya!" I shouted her way, her head jolting up fast enough that any normal human would've had vertebrae pop like rice krispies. Blue light forcefully tore itself free from her, like a massive ballista bolt shot from her chest cavity, only to coalesce into a mechanical arm almost twice as big as Bronya herself even before the shield plates were accounted for. I only barely registered the white-red-black-gold paintjob it sported, a little busier watching it project a forcefield of interlocking blue hexagons that cushioned and slowed the car.
Not enough to keep it intact, the whole front was a dented mess and the airbag had popped, but it was mostly intact and–
And Bronya was sagging, panting and sweating. The only reason she wasn't swaying on her feet was that I could hear joint locks engaging in her partial power armor to avoid crashing to the ground with the teen she was helping. I could wonder at the partial projection of what was probably Project Bunny later.
Electricity sparked around me as I rushed to her side. "Are you both okay?" I asked, resting a hand on probably-not-Bronya's shoulder to support her.
"Yeah…" the young boy answered, visibly shocked by his second brush with death. Ironically, he was still steadier on his feet than the person supposed to bring him to safety.
"Just, haah, winded," my partner in this clusterfuck replied haltingly as she experimentally unlocked her power armor's joints and managed not to tip over. "Ugh, take over for me for a sec, I'll be on overwatch until it doesn't feel like I just sprinted through a marathon."
The utterly withering look thrown at the caught car and the rest of the mess of honking and gawking on the other end of the street said it all about what she thought of the chances of someone else getting the bright idea to try that again. I could faintly hear Project Bunny's hand swivelling around to rip out the front wheels of the offending car, which I was going to state to anyone who asked was just my friend making sure there were no further 'accidents'.
"Yeah, take five. I'll go check on the people in the truck right after," I agreed before quickly walking the boy to his mother who was sitting among the other victims of this mess with her sprained ankle. Then it was the turn of the idiots—or so I assume—present in the truck that caused this fuckfest in the first place.
I approached the driver's door of the jacked-up pick-up truck and opened it to get bombarded with the stink of cigarettes, weed and alcohol. "Kagh," the noxious fumes made me gag and I had to force myself to persevere and actually check on the occupants. The man in the driver's seat was holding his head and moaning in pain, but otherwise looked like he hadn't been really injured.
"You okay to get down on your own?" I asked, only to receive unclear grunting in return. Whatever, I was leaving him for later. I then stepped down and opened the other door to check on the rear passengers.
"What about you, are you sober enough to–"
Time seemed to almost freeze when I saw the handgun pointing at my face. A trembling man with bloodshot eyes was holding a gun to my face. I barely registered him shouting at me, "You won't be getting at our stock, you fucking whore!" His voice was broken, like he barely even knew what he was saying himself.
I took a step back and he jumped down from the truck. Belatedly, I realized that I should have reacted in the second after he'd jumped, when his gun bobbed down from the shock of the fall and his weak, shaking arm. He must have shouted something else, but I couldn't even hear him from the sound of the blood pumping through my ears.
What the hell was I doing? Was I going to let some crackhead just order me around? What a start to my 'heroic' career that'd be. No. Fuck that noise.
Heat—energy—pumped from my Core into my body, I could feel it. Electricity crackled around me and the druggie with a gun frowned. Faster than he could react, I slapped the gun out of his hand and down to the side where it couldn't hit anyone even if it went off. The handgun clattered on the asphalt and slid a few feet away while the man looked at me, still processing what had just happened.
"Huh?" And then I threw a right jab right into his cheek, a burst of electricity going off on impact. His body flopped to the ground in an excellent imitation of a fish, then stayed there, unmoving.
Shit, was he? No, I could see the slight movement of his jugular pumping on his neck. Huh, talk about improved eyesight.
I turned back towards the truck and stared at the second druggie still sitting in the back, looking at me with wide eyes. "You planning to cause trouble too, or?" The man sensibly shook his head in response.
Mercifully, before any other bullshit could happen, I began hearing the sirens of approaching police cars and ambulances. Finally, I allowed myself to relax a bit and let the energy coursing through my body fade away alongside the sparks surrounding me. I turned back towards my friend in dealing-with-far-too-much-bullshit, only to see project Bunny's lone arm holding a tire, ready to throw it at any moment. That might have contributed to the second idiot's quick surrender, now that I thought about it.
A/N: This new story is brought to you on this specific day by the Honkai Fictionologists.
This is a reboot of my first story, Thunder Falls, this time as a Dual-SI with the help of Nihilo, a good friend of mine.
He proposed the idea and I figured that doing something with the story I'd gotten stuck on was better than letting it die, so we started writing this together, it's been a lot of fun so far. If you're curious, Akira is "me" while Koleda is played by Nihilo.
You can expect regular updates every Friday from now on, with two advance chapters on my Patreon for members, if you want to support me and Nihilo.
Also, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everybody! (or whatever it is that you celebrate, Merry that to you too.)Last edited: 25/12/2025 Award ReplyReport231Nameless Arsenal25/12/2025Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Chapter 2 - Scolding and Planning New View contentNameless Arsenal27/12/2025NewAdd bookmark#76Chapter 2 - Scolding and Planning
"Thank God, the professionals are here," my partner in humanitarian efforts groaned in relief, Project Bunny's floating arm flagging over the small fleet of ambulances. In a few cases, cars were (gently!) picked up by that same giant hand and its forcefields and moved a bit to the side to make sure the EMT could roll in just fine. "Let's see how badly we screwed up and if after the dust settles we can get some courses on how to do this properly next time."
Given that this was Earth Bet, the way she talked about a 'next time' as a complete given was fair, honestly.
The paramedics were completely ignoring us for now. They swarmed out of their ambulances to take care of the people we'd gathered on the sidewalk while some of them split off to check on the damaged vehicles alongside the fire-fighters that had arrived right behind.
"Yeah…" I agreed, already dreading the coming conversation. Dammit, why did I have to remember those bits of First Aid training after it was needed, rather than during? We shouldn't even have moved those people who couldn't walk by themselves. We were just lucky none of them had a broken neck just waiting for one of us to finish them off with a crack. I'd just followed not-Bronya's lead because she'd reacted faster than me and ended up not asking questions, like an idiot.
Seeing her just suddenly use what was most likely the power of Reason had been surprising enough. I looked like Mei, so me having the Core of Thunder just fit, didn't it? Two lookalikes wielding the same powers as the originals, if at a much reduced power level. Honestly, if this was the Space Tuna's idea of a joke, I didn't find it all that funny. We were stuck in a world from a book, granted powers pulled straight from a game. Honkai Imp–
Honkai. Oh. Oh no. I was such a fucking idiot. How could I forget? We'd been using our powers without care, spreading our energy all around us.
I began looking around frantically. Nobody had died yet. I wasn't seeing purple lines spreading on anyone's body yet. Had the amount of Honkai Energy been low enough or did the contamination just take longer than this to show noticeable side-effects?
I turned back towards my gray-haired probably-friend, only to notice that her partial Project Bunny 'summon' was still active. I could feel some energy leaking from it. I grabbed her arm and looked into her gray eyes. "We forgot about Honkai Energy. You need to dispel that arm and we need to leave before we start infecting people."
"What Honkai Energy? It's logged as Imaginary Energy." She frowned but didn't move to remove my hand, instead a pulse of sky blue light rippled out from where I was grabbing to the tips of my toes and hair then back to her. "And so's yours and your Core did you no– ah, you got the phone, and I got the user's manual."
Really? That seemed almost too good to be true. "You're sure?"
Ah, there was that flat face again that was pure Bronya. "I am the Herrscher of Reason and just scanned your body and Core. What do you think?"
"Okay… okay, that's good. Yeah, great. No space zombie cancer." The sheer relief I felt… I didn't know what to say and my heart was still beating fast enough that I could feel it.
The first person to approach us turned out to be a paramedic maybe a decade older than me who looked like he was running on four hours of sleep and twice as many coffees. "Are you two the ones who got the victims out of their vehicles?" he asked us in a calm voice. Maybe too calm. I had a feeling…
"Yes, we tri–" I began, only to get cut off as the paramedic's expression did a complete one-eighty, his expression becoming colder than the Canadian winter.
"Never do it again," he spat out. "These people were extremely lucky none of them had serious enough brain or spine trauma, otherwise you'd have killed them." He paused for a second to breathe, then pointed at the upturned car. "See that car? The people inside were lucky the whole thing didn't just crumple on them the moment you ripped out the door. If you want to help people that much, then how about you just call EMTs next time and then sit your asses down instead of playing amateur rescuer, huh?"
"I take full responsibility for what we did, it was me who acted out of pure adrenaline while having no formal training, my friend simply followed my lead. My powers did allow me to ensure the vehicles would not cause further damage, but all actions we took other than calling EMT, stopping that driver over there and restraining the armed gang members were a mistake," my friend cut in sharply, standing her ground as she ate crow without a moment's hesitation. "Therefore, as soon as a channel for it is provided to me, I will pay for all damages and distress. Car repairs, medical fees, remuneration to the victims for reckless endangerment, everything. Name's Koleda Zaychik, simply give me an address to submit myself to and I will see to it."
Koleda… I wonder if it means something specific? Shit, I'll need to come up with a name too, something that fits this body.
"We'd rather learn how to do it correctly than just stand aside and let people suffer, honestly," I added onto my friend's declaration. Judging by the paramedic's stunned expression, I had to wonder just how common it was for capes to take responsibility for anything. Adding to that the fact that we were both in street clothes (power armor sleeves on Koleda notwithstanding), not even wearing masks—not that I'd have bothered, inconspicuous my purple hair was not—and I could only guess at the kind of blue screen the man must have been having.
"...Right. You should ask the fire-fighters about that, volunteer EMT training is more their thing. Just go to the fire station on Jefferson, that's where these guys are from," he said, nodding towards the men that were going around making sure that none of the cars were about to suddenly burst into flames. With that said, the man went back to help his colleagues, muttering something about capes being even weirder than usual as he did.
"Look alive, one of the boys in blue is headed our way. You got a name figured out yet? Because he's definitely going to ask," Koleda murmured a few moments after the paramedic was out of earshot, nodding at an approaching policeman with a motion that made her hair drill ponytail flop around.
"...Akira," I said after a while. It'd work. It was a fairly neutral name from what I remembered from time spent creating NPCs for campaigns that never happened. Plus, I could just figure out a spelling I liked later on, thanks to the way Japanese names are structured.
"Hello, ladies," the slightly corpulent policeman greeted us and proceeded right away with his first question. "First off, were there any other capes involved in this mess apart from you two?"
"No sir. As far as we can tell, those gang members over there kicked off this whole disaster by driving under the influence. I reckon that if they had any powers, they wouldn't have had the restraint to keep them under wraps," Koleda replied with a small shake of her head.
"Great! No need to involve the big boys in black, then," Officer Ogata, according to the badge on his barrel of a chest, sighed in relief. "That makes things a lot simpler. Now, do you mind giving me your names or am I gonna have to write some placeholder names on my report?"
"Koleda Zaychik. If paperwork requires a cape name, Laplace should do without causing too many spelling headaches," Koleda said, clearly not giving a solitary shit about keeping a secret identity. Which, well, a young woman who could be mistaken for a teen with steel grey hair and matching eyes wasn't going to have any easier a time passing unnoticed than me.
"Akira… Raiden." Fuck it, Koleda was already using 'Zaychik', might as well match. "No cape name for now, I wasn't exactly planning to go out and try to help people and punch druggies today."
"Raiden?" the Japanese officer repeated with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah," I answered, fully acknowledging the weirdness of the name—it was, after all, a name used to refer to the god Raijin, from what I remembered. The policeman stared for a few more seconds before shrugging.
"Something new everyday…" he muttered while writing down our names on a notepad. "Now, please recount the events as you recall them."
And so we did. From the moment we ran in to help all the way to when the EMTs arrived, with Officer Ogata occasionally chiming in to ask for clarifications.
"On behalf of the BBPD, I'd like to thank you both for your restraint in dealing with the reckless driver and the armed drug addicts," he said, sounding entirely genuine and also faintly baffled. Really now, how bad were the local capes? "Now, miss Zaychik, if you could remove the restraints you put on those gang members? We'll need them gone so we can finish taking them in."
"Of course," Koleda said with a bob of her head, armored fingers clenching into a clawing gesture before she wrenched at something I couldn't see beyond the fact all the wrought iron bands around the Merchants' forearms crumbled away into motes of sky blue light, leaving only the cuffs the police had already put on their wrists. Focusing a bit, I could feel Imaginary Energy dispersing through the air as the Reason-made metal returned to its original form.
"Will you need anything else from us, officer?" I asked the man, figuring that we should be just about done by this point.
"No, we're all done here. You two should probably vacate the area if you don't want to be here when the PRT comes sniffing around. I bet they caught wind of your presence from the media, by this point," Officer Ogata said before magically becoming very busy through the power of malicious compliance and jurisdictional snits.
'So far so good', Koleda mused. They'd managed to successfully evade the PRT and had eventually made their way to a small deserted park. The place clearly hadn't been maintained in a long time, judging by the fact that all the greenery was overgrown and the weeds were running rampant and crawling over everything.
"Right, so where do you want to go from here? I already got a couple of plans, but since I fucked up by just rushing into things…" Koleda shrugged in the eternal 'what can you do?' gesture. She didn't regret trying to help, only having endangered people by not having done it properly.
Thankfully, she had the perfect power to make the restitutions she'd promised, she'd just need a bit of legwork and time. But it'd be a while until she was asked about that promise, this sort of thing was slow-going.
"Where to go from here…" Akira trailed off. "This place is Hell, good people are a rarity and shadowy organizations are helping about as much as they're making things worse. The government-sponsored heroes are hampered by red tape and make-believe rules while monsters both literal and not are wreaking havoc on the populace. All the while, a depressed godling is just one bad day away from committing omnicide. What do we do indeed?" she asked with a sardonic laugh.
"If I'm not wrong, you have the power of Reason and I have Thunder," the purple-haired girl added in a more composed tone. "We have the potential to turn this world's fate on its head if we grow to the level of power I'd expect from a proper Herrscher. We could make a difference."
"Mhm. Bronya was kind enough to leave me with a database and user's manual, too," Koleda chimed up, keeping to herself how that self-same database had layers of encryption locks to ensure she didn't get too big for her britches. Her senior in all things Reason believed in earning your tech and in not letting someone loose with things they would just get blown up by out of ignorance and incompetence.
"Did she? That'll save you a lot of time building up your knowledge base if your Reason is anything like the original," Akira commented before leaning back on the bench and considering the new information for a few moments. "Trying to join the PRT would be problematic at this point, I think. No matter the support and training they could give us, it'd probably be Hell for you, what with you being a 'Tinker' and looking like a teenager," she added, actually making use of air quotes.
"Twenty-two years old biologically, but tell that to anyone I'm trying to buy booze from." Koleda snorted. "But yeah, if I had nearly any other Authority, I'd advocate for PRT because roughing it even with superhuman bodies would suck and accepting unlimited red tape works is better than being a legal nonentity. As is, I'm a walking talking post-scarcity machine."
Gold, 79 electrons (4f14 5d10 6s1), 79 protons, 118 neutrons. Standard metallic molecular latticing, toroidal macro arrangement–
A flare of sky blue Imaginary Energy and she had a perfectly featureless golden ring between her fingers. She kept pouring it in, making it not Imaginary Energy but rather very real matter. Something to pawn off later.
"Hmm. So what, then? We find a place to make ours and build up from there, trying to do some good along the way? God knows this place could use some… Ironically, the pot people's little project just makes things safer for us in the short term, less chances of them poking their heads in to bother us," the purple-haired woman mused while Koleda made Midas proud.
"Wait, is that pure gold?" Akira asked once she'd realized what her friend had just done.
"That's the funny thing about Reason. Elementally pure, small and with a simple structure is the cheapest and easiest to create. Which means everything from silver to iridium is free game," Koleda said as she flicked the ring up into the air and caught it on the way down.
"Ah, no, that's not my concern," Akira replied with a little wince. "The thing is that 100% pure gold is practically never used for jewelry, it's just too soft. Meaning that any competent buyer would realize that something fucky is going on."
"Tch. Well, just build more gold around it and mark it as bullion? I can lace in a bit of silver or some other filler metal to make it less perfect." Koleda grumbled, figured it wouldn't be so easy. It really was the paradox of Reason, its production methods and incentives were completely at odds with how human manufacture of anything worked and encouraged.
Akira started laughing, "Sorry, but that's an even worse idea. Bullions are all marked according to very specific standards, as far as I know. Our best bet would be to make some jewelry, I think. Now, if I remember correctly, rose gold is a gold and copper alloy, think you can make that? Let's say, eighty-percent gold and twenty copper. Wait, no, make that ninety-ten, considering the difference in density."
Koleda closed her eyes, and for a few seconds all she could see was blue.
When she opened them again, she had a bracelet of alloyed gold. She'd even flexed her metaphysical muscles a bit by having it sport some actual engravings, namely a bit of Celtic-style knotwork. This time, though, she didn't feed it enough Imaginary Energy to make it real. No sense fumbling and ending up with a useless trinket again.
"Hopefully something like this will work. Actually, can you check whatever version of Google Maps we got on that phone for the usual We Buy Gold pawnshops? Let's feel out what we can get away with," Koleda said as she dropped the bracelet on her friend's lap, instead fidgeting with the elementally pure gold ring in her hands some more. Slowly, more material grew in, turning it into a coin. The profile of her face on one side, Akira's on the other, with laurels of cogs and lightning respectively.
They couldn't pawn this off, but it was her first fully real creation, may as well make it a little memento.
The not-so-glorious continuation of Akira and Koleda's adventures.
You can read two chapters ahead on Patreon.
Chapter 3 - New Home
This place was a shithole, but it was our shithole now, I thought as I grabbed a length of copper pipe that Koleda had produced for me. I cut it to length using a tanto she'd also made for me and welded it into place. Electricity sparked around the end of the tube, heating it to a red glow, at which point I pressed it against the elbow fitting to seal them both together. It definitely wasn't the standard way to do it, but I had a good enough control over the whole process to not need filler material.
After a couple minutes waiting for things to cool down, I opened the valve to check for any leaks. Nothing… Great!
"Koleda! The shower's fixed! Are you done with the heater?!" I yelled at the holder of Reason who'd been working downstairs to solve our hot water situation.
The place we'd ended up choosing was a small two-story building with a shop on the ground floor and an apartment upstairs. Judging by what was left downstairs, it used to be some kind of small mechanics repair shop—there was even the stripped-down corpse of a forklift in the back area, right next to a busted garage door. Well, formerly busted, thanks to some Reason magic– low-complexity things like that were the easiest to make, according to Koleda. 'Simple and small' had quickly become her bywords, with fist-sized lumps of elementally pure materials to prove it. Also a perfect diamond dodecahedron when she decided to experiment a bit.
The abandoned shop was located in the 'border' separating the southern part of the Docks from the Commercial District, which was effectively the no-man's-land between the ABB and the E88. On one hand, this meant that there'd be less scrutiny when it came to our presence there. On the other, it also meant that we'd have to deal with both gangs the moment one decided to try to expand their territory. Honestly, that was probably still preferable to being directly in reach of either Lung or Kaiser.
Also, Koleda had muttered about 'playing turret defense' and given the sort of tech Bronya had probably lifted from Anti-Entropy's toybox… speaking of, that was now apparently what our little shop was called. She'd wasted no time printing out a solid brass sign to hang over our storefront, with a little 'planned obsolescence-b-gone!' embossed in bright copper on one of the corners. I just had to roll my eyes at that, really.
"Almost!" came the tech-goblin's cry, together with some noises of machinery snapping and twisting into place. "Okay, should be! Top off the battery bank and I'll put the heater in turbo to stress test it!"
"Will do, just don't go too hard on the heat, my welds aren't rated for high-pressure steam!" I replied before running down to the garage section where we'd installed the newly-produced equipment. "We're just lucky the water was only shut off through the building's valves and not through the city's valve in the street. That would have been a lot more annoying to fix," I commented while charging the large, sleek white block sitting against one of the walls. It was some kind of power pack used in some of AE's robots, apparently. I was just glad that the thing was made to handle just about any voltage, it meant that I could easily charge it without having to worry about the exact frequency and intensity I was providing.
Looking at what we'd already managed to do around the place, we should be able to finish renovating most of the building within the week if we kept that pace. Not that we would—there were a few other things apart from setting up our 'home' that we'd need to do if we wanted to stay in the city for any length of time.
"Aye aye!" Koleda called as the pipes began rumbling as empty air was flushed out and water entered the system. "And at that point I may've just made our own water tank, probably with a rain collector and filter because damn is making Imaginary Energy into real matter tiring. Orders of magnitude better than actual energy to matter, mind you, but still. Feels like I'm running a marathon over here. Hopefully we'll get better once our Cores settle down and get consistent workouts, the user's manual lists a nominal output that we're so far behind on, it isn't even funny."
"Yeah, I'm not exactly surprised. At full power, most Herrschers could probably make Endbringers look like they aren't even trying," I informed my friend as I stopped next to her. "Anyway, think you've got a mattress left in you? The only one left upstairs is very fucked. The couch is in better shape, but there's two of us, so…"
"Yeah, but I think I'll just make a pair of cozy sleeping bags and some sleepclothes for both of us. That way we can take a good shower and slip into clean clothes while we shove this stuff in the washer," Koleda said as she tugged at her franken-skirt. Honestly, it was a minor miracle that the washer and dryer were still in working condition. There was a lot of calc and lint buildup that we'd have to take care of later, but my fellow baby Herrscher had scanned both and declared them 'good enough'.
"That'll work. Wanna go first?" I queried the shorter girl with a yawn before starting to untie my ludicrously long hair to let it flow around me—I'd found that I really liked having long hair, weirdly enough. "In the meantime, I think I'll just try and dig into the phone, see if I can't find anything interesting hidden inside."
"Sounds like a plan, and yeah. I may not have actually sweated that much, but I still kinda feel like a human slug," Koleda replied with a bob of her head and that was that.
We split off from that point, with Koleda going to take her well-deserved shower and me crashing on the couch upstairs to poke around on the mysterious magic phone.
The first thing I ended up noticing was the battery—it seemed like someone had gotten cheeky there, because it was marked with an infinity symbol. It took me a couple minutes of digging into the settings to find the specifics, but it seemed like the phone was drawing on 'ambient Imaginary Energy' to keep itself topped up. As far as I could tell, it was drawing on what little energy I was passively leaking around me. It was convenient, at least.
That same dive into the device's settings had shown me what hardware the phone was running. Soulium. Yup, someone was definitely having fun, because making a phone out of ancient near-indestructible nanomachines was just completely insane. Compared to that, the fact that the network connection only displayed 'Earth Bet - North America' instead of something normal was barely worth mentioning.
I fiddled with the thing for a few more minutes, eventually stumbling upon a catalog of pre-installed games.
Why is there so much HOMU stuff? No, I already know why… Still, really? Oh, that one looks interesting.
I'm sorry– How many tiers in that tech tree?! Oh, this is gonna be fun.
I looked back up from my game to see Koleda come out of the hallway leading to the bathroom. She looked like the moment she closed her eyes she'd instantly fall asleep, all the nervous energy she'd been running off of gone in favor of bone deep exhaustion about as subtle as a brick to the teeth with how she zombie-shuffled to her sleeping bag. Her pajamas were a simple affair, just a plain and loose set of pants and long-sleeved t-shirt that both hung slightly loose from her frame save for the elastic band on the pants. The only eyecatching thing about the whole ensemble was how it was dyed in the exact same shade as Reason's light.
"Left you your set in the bathroom," she mumbled as she sleepily scratched at the back of her head, making me belatedly realize that her hair had turned into a curly cloud of steel grey and electric blue after blow drying it. I could probably stash my entire tanto in there, it was so poofy. I stealthily raised the phone and switched to the camera app. A click later and the Bronyaffro was immortalized. I quickly switched back to the game I was playing before she could notice anything.
"Great," I replied, trying not to laugh. "I've got some kind of base-building game here, if you want to finish deep-frying your brain," I said, pointing the phone her way. "It's like some unholy child of Factorio, City Skyline and probably some other game I don't know about. It's uhh– kind of very addictive."
"Gimme, I need stimulation or I'm gonna pass out and then I'll be jetlagged to hell," the slip of a girl said with grabby hand motions.
I stood up from the couch to meet Koleda halfway. "Here, try not to turn everything into spaghetti," I warned as I handed the phone to her. Then I headed off to the shower, stretching with my arms up and yawning on the way there.
"'m not a pastafarian," came the mumble on the edge of a yawn behind me.
I emerged from my loooong shower into a practically steam-filled bathroom. I'd always been a fan of very hot showers, but now that I could endure actually-scalding temperatures, mustering the will to leave was hard. Being sleepy hadn't helped much with that, to be fair. After drying myself with some wonderfully fluffy towels—thanks again, Koleda—, I spent several minutes just staring at myself in the mirror.
I didn't want to be crass, but well– Mei could probably put most top models to shame without even really trying. And I guess I did too, now. Honestly, Koleda was in much the same boat, it's just that her beauty was a bit less 'in your face' than the one I'd inherited.
Uh? What's that purple bit on my shoulder?
I had to move my still nearly dripping-wet hair out of the way to see it, hidden away behind my left shoulder as it was. That was probably my Stigma, if I were to take a guess. The center part reminded me of Mei's while the sort of broken ring around it vaguely twigged at something in the back of my mind that I just couldn't quite recall. Gahh, that was so annoying, the more I tried to remember what it reminded me of, the further the memory seemed to slip away from me. I hate when that happens…
I should probably try and do something about my hair, shouldn't I? It's just gonna take an eternity to dry if I leave it that way. Right, think. Herrschers are bullshit. Herrschers are mostly cute girls. Herrscher are basically magical girls. Maybe if I try this?
I took a lock of hair in my hands and tried to simply channel Imaginary Energy through it. Apart from the hair starting to glow slightly, nothing much happened. Maybe if I try adding in my Authority? When I did, purple arcs of electricity coursed over the lock of hair and I heard a hissing sound as I dragged my hand over the length of hair. The hair was dry now and, looking closer, it didn't seem dry or damaged.
…Was that ozone I smelled? Did I just electrolyse the water in my hair? I looked up at the ceiling of the bathroom and its still non-functional fan. Let's try to not create a spark. Still, that was pretty damn convenient, I thought as I went through the process of drying the rest of my hair.
Then, I finally checked the clothes that Koleda had left for me, finding simple black underwear as well as a set of pants and shirt similar to the one she'd come out of the bathroom with, only this one was in purple the exact same shade as my hair.
"This is sin," I thought aloud once I'd finished putting on the clothes. Everything just fit perfectly and the material was just so soft. How did she even– Oh, she said she'd scanned me, earlier. She must have gotten my measurements back then.
I finally exited the bathroom after who knew how long—honestly, I didn't even want to know how much time I'd wasted under the near-boiling water. What I found in the living room was Koleda lying in her half-zipped sleeping bag, completely asleep with the phone still sitting on her face.
I snorted at the sight and went to gently remove the phone from her face, laying it down to the side. She twitched slightly and turned my way, a half-opened and completely unfocused eye looking at me for a couple seconds before she rolled back around, still seemingly asleep.
I laid my own sleeping bag—once again a Koleda creation, it was kind of ridiculous just how useful Reason was at this point—next to her and promptly joined my friend in Morpheus' realm.
I woke up the next day to Koleda holding our phone towards me, a text message displayed on the screen.
It took me several long moments to realize just who the sender of the message was. A profile picture of a smiling young woman with white hair and strange eyes, bright blue irises with a four-pointed star in pink and a bright white center that replaced the pupils. Her name was right next to it.
Kiana Kaslana.
Chapter 4 - A Goddess' Mistake
August 11th
I shivered at the revelation—the confirmation, really—that Kiana, someone I'd thought to be a mere fictional character just twenty-four hours ago, was really involved in this whole mess. As far as ways to wake up went, it wasn't exactly among my favorites so far.
"Fuck," I swore, still rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Just– The implications of it all. Sure, Koleda getting a whole customized database was a pretty good hint, but it still wasn't a Goddess contacting you, you know?
"One moment," Koleda said, before popping a large white tablet of… something in her mouth, crunching it loudly before swallowing. "That'll have to do, gotta give Bronya my thanks for including the chemical composition of caffeine and sucrose in the database."
"Madwoman," I commented in a teasing tone. In my case, I'd never needed caffeine to wake up before and I wasn't about to start now. I crawled out of my sleeping bag and stretched before turning back towards my short friend. "Alright, I figure we should probably sit down for this. Couch or table?"
"Couch, I'd rather have something soft under me and if you end up burning it with an electrical discharge it's something we were going to throw out anyways." Koleda grunted as she pretty much shoved the phone in my hand and scooted over to match actions to words.
"I'd like to think I have more self-control than that," I replied, following suit to sit on the couch next to her. I held the phone so that we could both see clearly and started typing.
"Better safe than sorry, although I'm not going to insult you by making a fire extinguisher," Koleda replied with an easy shrug.
Even though I'd been expecting it, the sudden ringing still nearly made me drop the phone, only ingrained reflexes allowing me to catch it without issue. The call was answered right after.
"Hi," Kiana's voice came over the phone. Her voice was somber and serious, maybe even a tiny bit hesitant, not at all what I'd normally expect from her. Then again, this was far from a normal situation, wasn't it?
"Hello," I replied softly.
"Hey," Koleda chimed, in that particular tone of 'this may as well be happening now'.
"I suppose you'd like to know what happened to you first, right?" the closest thing to a deity I was ever likely to interact with asked.
I merely responded with an agreeable hum—I didn't feel like talking with the almost tangible tension that was in the air.
"Right," the Goddess began, taking a breath as she audibly braced herself for what was likely to be a difficult explanation, "I was running a sort of experiment around the far worlds in the Tree, testing out how well the Coccon's powers worked so far from here and observing a few worlds while I was at it. Then it happened. Something tried to grab onto my powers and I lashed out. Whatever that was, the way it interacted with Imaginary Space allowed some of the energy I sent to bleed out into normal space and even across Tidal Barriers." I had a bad feeling about where this was going… "You two were just… unlucky. The scattered energy ended up striking both of you—only you—on your Earth. The energy vaporized your bodies instantly and, well, I noticed that something had gone wrong just barely in time to gather your souls."
We died? Or, well… our bodies did? That– I…
I suppose it was only to be expected, it's how most isekai stories start, isn't it?
Kiana took a deep breath before continuing, "After that, things were pretty frantic, your souls had managed to absorb enough Honkai Energy that just trying to put them back in a normal body would only give you a few minutes to live. It wouldn't be pleasant either. The only option I saw that might work to save you two was to put your souls into Herrscher Cores and rebuild new bodies around them. I uhh– I didn't have all that many options to choose from, which is why you look the way you do right now. I did my best to match your bodies with what felt the most compatible and– Yeah."
Koleda's brow scrunched up, but she looked more thoughtful and faintly confused than anything else. Given how I couldn't recall being vaporized and repackaged in a new body, I had something of a feeling where her thoughts were going. Still, I didn't feel like I could truly blame Kiana for that. How could she have known? Maybe I was just biased, maybe I was being hasty, but I think I could forgive her pretty easily.
"I'm sorry, it's all my fault, I did what I could to fix my mistake, but, well, you can see that things aren't the same as before. And I even managed to lose track of your Earth in this mess– I'll find it again! it's just… it'll probably take a while," Kiana scrambled to add, trailing off in a painfully awkward admission.
I felt faint for a moment as I realized that I hadn't even thought about my family or my friend back home since I'd arrived on Bet. I'd just been too deep in problem-solving mode to even think about it. Knowing that I wouldn't be able to see them for who knew how long… In a way, it wasn't surprising, and yet it still hurt to have it be confirmed.
"Uhm– Mei and Bronya are with me too, if you want to ask some questions," Kiana added, audibly uncertain. "They helped me set things up better so you wouldn't accidentally hurt yourself, among other things."
"Right off the bat, why am I the only one with a user's manual while Akira is the only one with a fancy Soulium phone? She nearly hyperventilated because she thought we had showered everyone in Honkai Radiation," Koleda cut in, blunt as a sledgehammer to the teeth. She was definitely ticked off about that, her voice only got that flat and neutral when she was deliberately keeping a grip on herself, I was starting to learn.
"Ahh–" Kiana started in that 'I fucked up' tone, only for a voice extremely similar to mine to cut in in an imperious tone, "Kiana."
Kiana cracked instantly. "I'm sorry, I forgot! When I checked both souls with Sentience to see which Core and body would fit best, I saw that one had a lot of knowledge about our world, so it slipped my mind," she explained frantically. "Akira, right? I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to scare you like that."
That– Huh. I didn't know how to feel, honestly. I'd never been the type to really hold grudges over things done to me, so long as the one responsible apologized and didn't do it again. All of this felt disconnected enough that I couldn't really get angry over it. "It's… It's fine, Kiana," I told her honestly. To be frank, forgetting things in high-stress situations was all too familiar to me. The scale might be different, but the woman seemed torn up enough about it already.
Koleda's eyes flicked between me and the phone, before letting out a gravely, "Feh, good enough. Not my grudge to hold. Speaking of things not strictly mine… I took the Zaychik surname because nothing else came to mind when it was time to introduce myself other than Koschei, I hope that isn't an issue?"
A voice similar, yet slightly more mature than Koleda's, responded, "No, it's fine, I don't mind. You can take the Zaychik name if you want." Bronya hummed, "What name did you choose, again?"
"Koleda Zaychik. We popped up next to a car pileup so we didn't end up with a lot of time to ponder on what we wanted to be called, same reason Akira here grabbed Raiden as her surname when she got questioned." Koleda chuckled softly, seemingly happy to steer things to more cheerful waters.
"Yeah… I didn't have much time to improvise. Is that fine with you, Mei?" I asked, hoping that I wouldn't have to start digging for an acceptable name, especially after having given this one to the police.
"I'll allow it," Mei replied with a small laugh. "Don't be surprised if my father insists on meeting you at some point, he's likely to want to treat you as his granddaughter with the way he's been acting recently."
I'd normally sympathize with Mei over the fact that her father apparently really wanted grandchildren, but I seemed to have found myself caught in the crossfire. "Ah? That's… good, I guess?"
"I'll make sure she visits," Koleda chimed up with a goblinoid smile, the filthy traitor.
"Oi!" I snapped back at the gremlin at my side. I ignored her shit-eating grin and got back to the conversation. "Actually, that reminds me, why did we end up here instead of on your Earth?"
Kiana seemed to perk up at the question, "Oh! I tried to leave you two in a world that felt similar to how your Earth felt so you wouldn't be too lost."
You what. How is this similar?
"...Kiana. This is a world with hundreds of thousands of what's basically Natural Stigmata bearers who only get theirs from mindbreaking trauma, on top of there being three apocalyptic monsters who have spent the past few decades slowly grinding down all civilization into a death spiral." Koleda groaned into her hands, before I was hit with the world weirdest doppler effect as two near-identical voices grumbled out, ""Idiotka.""
I barely held in a laugh at both Koleda and Bronya saying that in stereo. Wonder if it's some kind of instinct or muscle memory like me trying to draw a sword?
"Whaaa–" Kiana sounded out, completely bewildered. "But there's no Honkai and barely any Imaginary Energy on that world, I checked! It was supposed to be safe!"
"Yeah… Unfortunately, there are things able to mess with physics even across dimensions, all without the need for Honkai or Imaginary. And these things like to grant powers to traumatized people so they test them in their place," I informed Kiana.
Bronya piped up in a flat tone, "Kiana, did you forget that there could be powerful things in the universe that don't rely on Imaginary Energy in any way?"
That sounds about right…
"Huh– Next question!" Kiana adroitly avoided answering before suddenly backtracking. "Wait, how do you even know all this? You've barely been there for a day."
"Same reason I know about your world," I began explaining. "For all I know, echoes of those worlds travelled through the Tree, all the way to our Earth and ended up being interpreted and written down as stories by some people." I shrugged and even lifted my arm before realizing that they couldn't see me.
"I hope to God the Tree isn't as much of a headache as some other multiverse models," Koleda grunted unhappily under her breath before shifting back to speaking volume, "Either way, this place is a dump and I'm going to fix it."
Normally that'd be hubris of the highest order.
'Normally' didn't really apply to Herrschers.
Chapter 5 - The Dropout
August 11th
Andrea had spent the last few months looking for a job that'd allow him to help support his mother and hopefully let her drop one of her jobs and get some time for herself. Unfortunately, the only work he'd managed to land had been a few odd jobs that had all lasted less than two weeks before getting fired the moment they didn't need him anymore.
He should have expected it, really. Businesses both in the southern part of the Commercial District as well as Downtown either didn't want to hire an Italian guy or were just obvious Empire fronts. The Docks were barely any better—he didn't look Asian enough for them, but at least the people there weren't just going to try and kill him because he wasn't white enough. And to top it all, the so-called neutral area between both gangs saw so much fighting that most shops ended up closing down after just a few weeks—a few months, if they were lucky or courageous enough.
The last option available to him at this point was one that he refused to even consider. Andrea's father hadn't died fighting back against those who killed the city's port for his son to then join one of the gangs making everything worse. He refused to even think about the idea. Nevermind that the only gang that'd accept him was that group of crackheads that had started calling themselves 'The Merchants' or something.
He didn't even remember why he'd gone outside and started walking through the District. Was he hoping for a miracle or something? There was no way a new shop would have just conveniently opened in the last… few…
…days.
Since when did someone move into Reno's old garage?
The place had been empty ever since the ABB ran him out of town after he refused to work for them. Now the front of the building had been cleaned up and there was already a new sign hung up above the door. 'Anti-Entropy'? What was that even supposed to mean? Wasn't entropy some physics thing?
Whatever, if the place had really just opened, then he might just be able to get some work there. He approached the shop and peeked through the window—he'd rather make sure he wasn't about to walk into a group of skinheads or something equally bad for his health. Through the—brand new?—tinted glass, he saw a woman sitting at the front desk, working on a laptop. Nobody else inside that he could see… It should be safe enough, he decided.
Andrea entered the shop to the soft *ding* of the door's digital bell, which caused the woman to look up from her work and glance his way. He nearly froze in place after getting a good look at her.
Santa Madonna…
She was the hottest girl he'd ever seen. Long straight purple hair framed her beautiful face and her brilliant eyes that faded from a bright purple to a deep blue. Even her skin looked almost unnaturally perfect. And her body! Not only did she seem fairly tall, the sleeveless top she was wearing did little to hide her curves and she was sporting the largest rack he'd ever seen on a girl that thin. It put the… 'literature' he hid under his bed to utter shame, and that was saying something since that included some kind of manga in moonrunes he'd gotten at a little 'please get this off my hands before my family burns it' sale.
"Hi?" the girl who seemed to only be a few years older than he asked, making him realize that he'd been staring hard.
"Welcome to Anti-Entropy, did you need something repaired?" she added with a smile once he'd refocused his gaze on her face.
"Uhhh–"
Focus Andrea, focus! You came here for a reason!
He cleared his throat and tried again, "Hum, I saw that you'd just opened and uhh– I was wondering if you needed any help in the shop?"
"Huh, wasn't expecting to get an applicant before we even got our first customer…" she mused. The unreasonably pretty woman looked back up at him and he had to stop himself from fidgeting. "Do you have any notable skills you could tell me about?"
His eyes widened and all he could think was 'Shiiiiiiiitt–'
"Huh, well– I'm good at hauling stuff around?" The woman raised an eyebrow at his uncertain answer—wait, even her eyebrows are a dark purple, is that her natural color!? He quickly continued, trying to give a better impression. "Um, I'm also good with numbers and I know how to drive." What else, what else, what else… "I'm a decent cook too?" Andrea winced and started going red as the woman chuckled.
"Sorry, but I don't think I'm so bad in the kitchen that I need a teenager's help," she said, barely holding her laughter. At that point, his face was starting to resemble a well-cooked lobster.
"Anyway," she said, moving on from his blunder, "So you know how to drive, do you have a car?"
"Err, well… I can usually use my mother's during the day," he replied. The car was old, but it still worked well enough. On most days.
The woman leaned towards him, staring with intent and it was all he could do to keep his eyes above her neck. "You do have permission to use it, right?"
"Of course!" he nearly shouted—he wasn't about to make more trouble for his mom by stealing her car!
She leaned back in her chair. "Good, good. Hmm… It'll probably take a while before we grow enough to give someone a specific job, so how willing would you be to do various tasks around the shop as needed? Hauling stuff, doing some cleaning, maybe holding the shop while we're out and probably making pick-ups and deliveries too, at some point, that kind of thing." She then looked up at the ceiling, wondering aloud, "Maybe helping out with repairs too? I'd have to check with Koleda about that."
His eyes widened. Was she– Was she actually offering him the job? Did he finally have a chance? "Yes! Yes, I can do all that, no problem," Andrea answered with perhaps a bit too much enthusiasm. Then he remembered to ask about the most important part of the job, "Uhm, if it's not uhh– Well, what kind of pay could I expect?"
Just as he began asking his question, he heard the shop's door open behind him.
"Knew putting you at the reception desk was the right call, Akira," a faintly accented woman's voice chuckled behind him, causing him to turn around. The girl that had just entered the shop looked just barely older than him and was wearing the weirdest outfit he'd seen in a while, being a super-short shirt and some weird-ass shorts and skirt combination. Did he mention the fishnet or the jacket that was a few sizes too large? She walked around him to stand behind the desk near the now-named Akira, dropping a plastic bag on the desk as she did so.
The new girl continued, bulldozing right through any word he may've wanted to get in edgewise, "Anyways, pay is going to be just minimum wage for the first… eh, let's say the first two weeks. Half up-front, half on your fourteenth day working here. That way you know we aren't going to stiff you and we know what kind of work you'll actually put into the job. We'll talk shop after that trial period. Your call if you want to try full time or just part time, I can't eyeball ages to save my life so I don't know if you got studying to do. Full time hours would have you help us tidy up and open the shop every morning and help do the same for closing at the end of the day, plus midday break opening and closing, about eight hours a day. Part time would be either a single afternoon shift every day or split into a short opening shift in the morning and a closing shift in the afternoon, 'bout four hours a day total."
Andrea blinked, trying to process both the much shorter girl's speech and the fact that she was about as pretty as Akira, if less bountiful. Was unnatural hair color just a thing with these two or what? Regardless, this was an opportunity he couldn't miss. "I can work full-time if you have work for me," he told the two girls.
"Right," Akira said, lightly clapping her hands, "you're hired, we'll start with a trial period like Koleda said and reassess once that's done." His new boss stood up from her chair to extend her hand to him for a handshake, which he gladly took. "Welcome to Anti-Entropy, uhh– Sorry, I forgot to ask your name."
"Andrea Marino, thank you so much," he replied, still surprised at just how he'd suddenly gotten this job. It seemed almost too good to be true.
"Great, let's see…" the shorter of the two girls said as she grabbed a wad of bills from the bag on the counter, muttering some math under her breath before handing him a neat bundle of cash. About three hundred and fifty bucks, if Andrea was seeing right. He had to slip a hand into one of his pockets to pinch himself and make sure this was for real. "Alright, here you go, your upfront payment. Your first job is helping me put up another sign on the front."
I watched Koleda pass by and exit through the front door with Andrea right behind her carrying a sign that said "If you can get it inside, we'll repair it. 20$ to 60$ per hour of labor depending on complexity. No appraisal fees. Cash only." That was that taken care of—I'd warned Koleda that we wouldn't be getting many customers if people didn't know what services we offered.
The moment they'd both exited, I slumped back in my chair and leaned my head back to stare at the ceiling. Fuuuuuuuck. I was horrible enough at job interviews and now I had to run one? Pretending that I know what I'm doing was just exhausting. While I was thinking about it, I made a note on my phone to properly arrange Andrea's pay schedule once his trial was over. No way I was leaving things as is with Koleda's improvised payment system. Sure, he'd still be getting paid in cash, but it would be on a regular basis.
Why had I agreed to this whole shop idea, again? This was such a mess, we'd be relying on not being too big so as to not get in trouble with the IRS and whoever enforced NEPEA-5. Well, until we were powerful and important enough for us to just force our way through the bullshit and go legal. It was a shit plan and I hated it, but it was the best we could come up with that didn't involve either throwing our lot in with the gangs or risking our future freedom by going to the PRT. If I'd been alone, I'd probably have decided to go to the PRT and try to make a difference from there, but with Koleda, there was no way she'd ever be able to do anything worthwhile if she was chained down by all the rules and restrictions imposed on Tinkers.
I was about to get back to planning the new Tier 4 component factory in my City of Progress spreadsheets when the door rang again. I looked up to see a black young man with dreadlocks walk in.
"Welcome to Anti-Entropy, do you need anything repaired?" I asked in my best customer service voice.
The man stared for a moment—a stare which I did my best to ignore—before rebooting and answering my question. "Yeah, uhh– My phone's screen is busted," he said as he took out said phone from his back pocket and showed it to me.
"Can I?" I asked as I extended my hand, receiving the phone a moment later. I looked it over, checking it from every angle and turning it on to see the damage. Yup, that screen was fucked, there was a large section that no longer lit up around the massive crack splitting the screen in two. Honestly, I was more surprised that the frame didn't seem bent. I took a couple more seconds to check it out, attempting to sense the electrical currents inside it—I knew well enough that I couldn't identify problems that way, but I still wanted to familiarize myself with the way electronics worked.
"Hmm, lemme just check–" I muttered, acting like I was checking a price list on the laptop before letting out a satisfied hum. "That should be about twenty dollars for the repairs, would you mind waiting a minute or two? Our repairwoman is just our front hanging up the new sign."
At that, the man glanced at Koleda, looking hesitant as he took in her outfit. "Don't worry, despite her clothing choices, she's very competent. She knows what she's doing," I reassured him.
"Yeah, sure. Twenty bucks is great," the man agreed.
Just as I'd said, Koleda came back in a couple minutes later. A couple minutes that I spent trying to calculate material costs while the man would stare at me whenever I wasn't looking in his direction. She instantly went to speak to the man after she'd crossed the threshold.
"Cracked screen, frame looks fine, yeah I'll have this fixed before the hour is out. Does need a bit on a heating table so the glue loosens and I can peel off the old screen and put on a new one without risking tearing up anything, though, so go ahead and take a seat." At least Koleda's no-nonsense tone as she examined the phone seemed to reassure the man, although it didn't do anything for me as she waved a hand over her shoulder and ducked into the backroom to work her Herrscher magic. She'd probably be sporting the same model of smartphone for herself before the day was out.
Well, I might as well create a sheet to track our 'sales' while I'm at it…
I closed and locked the door behind Andrea, our only employee having just finished his first day on the job. He'd spent most of the afternoon cleaning the shop and then running around the area putting flyers in mailboxes or handing them to people directly. Then I went back to the desk, unplugged my phone from the laptop—little more than a screen and a keyboard with a port to plug my phone into, in reality—and exited the front space, turning off the light behind me on the way.
I arrived into the garage and walked to a curtained-off corner to find Koleda busy printing off more Project Bunny parts to add to the growing pile. She'd been going at it on and off throughout the whole day, having determined that creating it piece by piece would be far less taxing on her in the long term.
"Yo," I greeted her, leaning my shoulder against the wall to watch her work. She'd changed into a set of overalls in dark blue lined with electric blue lines—the colors of the original Anti-Entropy, more or less—as well as boots and sturdy gloves after finishing up with her first client this morning.
"Hey. I'm pretty sure I'll have all the parts save the connectors done before the day is out. Then I'll just need to spend tomorrow fiddling with those to make sure everything is properly aligned and shaking hands and we're home free," Koleda explained, giving me a little wave over her shoulder but not really turning away from her work as she sloooowly wove some sort of fiddly internal part that I had no idea what it did. Could be a computer, could be the invisibility system, could be the levitation stuff. It still looked neat as blue-white light licked at its edges as it slowly grew into existence, like watching paper burn in reverse.
"Nice," I commented, watching her work for a few more minutes. "So, it looks like the TV was pretty easy, considering it took you barely fifteen minutes. What about the truck Andrea's cousin brought in, though? What was the problem with it?"
"Half-burnt spark plug. Fifteen minutes to get the owner to stop rubbernecking and glancing over my shoulder, five minutes to actually print out the part and swap it in." Koleda snorted as she finished conjuring the part, the glow now suffusing everything as she scanned it for imperfections before starting to feed it the Imaginary Energy it needed to become real instead of the world's best hardlight magic.
I laughed, "Oh, yeah, that'd explain the engine problems. He was pretty happy and kept saying that he'd talk us up to his buddies after you were done, so that'll be good for business."
"Almost as good as you." She sniggered as she set down the finished part, turning around to give me a smug smile that fit dangerously well on Bronya's features despite how the Herrscher of Truth had the facial expression range of a rock on a good day.
"Eurgh, don't tell me. The moment someone entered, I can tell you that I knew where they were looking. Not sure it's gonna help sales all that much, though. You don't exactly enter a repair shop unless you already need something repaired," I complained.
"We'll branch out into buying and selling second hand stuff, once we have enough cash built up for it. Beyond that, they aren't going to be questioning how sketchy our setup is if they're busy trying to pretend they are subtle with their looks or any sort of smooth, are they?" Koleda laughed, flopping back from where she'd been sitting cross-legged to be full spread-eagle on the ground. "Also, hormonal teens are right behind small children when it comes to accidentally breaking something, and they'll be lining up when they hear the combo of prices and pretty lady manning the front. We're basically angels from heaven for them, fixing whatever they broke on their consoles and cars and whatever they borrowed that they really shouldn't have for prices they can afford with part time job money."
"Just kill me now. Why did we choose to do this, again?" I merely shook my head, not really expecting an answer. "Anyway, I'm thinking of ordering something and, you know, actually eating. Want anything in particular?" I asked the floor gremlin I called my friend. We'd realized this morning that we hadn't even eaten anything since our arrival and yet felt just fine. I blamed it all on Herrscher bullshit.
"Because it helps people and it makes us money that won't get the IRS sending kill-squads on us for copy pasting bills with Reason," Koleda answered anyway. Not that we couldn't handle some very upset feds, but it was the kind of uncomfortable situation neither of us wanted to deal with. "Hmm… we're in the part of New England that gets all the boring bland white people food jokes made about it, so I think the best we're getting outside of the smorgasbord in ABB turf is something ubiquitous like pizza and burgers. I say the latter, Andrea still has his nonna around so we'll be getting buried in italian homecooking within the week."
I took a few seconds to carefully process that statement. "I see, so Italians have that kind of grandparents, uh? I'm pretty sure Herrschers can't get fat, but I suppose we might be testing that statement during the next few weeks."
"I'll probably have to make a second fridge just to keep up. Eurasian grannies of all denominations do it, but Italian nonnas are a class of their own." Koleda chuckled, but there was a wistful undercurrent to her voice. Did she have Italian family? "I'm just glad Herrscher bodies definitely don't do excess skin oils or pimples."