Hey Everyone, it's been a while! Over a month and a half since the last update, to be precise. What can I say, life has been busy, and I've started on 3 other projects, 1 of which has a little snip posted. I do hope that updates will be more frequent from now on, but who knows. Anyways, on with the story!
"And that's another hundred thousand dollars. Not bad for a few hours of work." Ivy wiped her brows, smirking down at the gagged and tied-up villain at her feet.
Kassandra hefted the bound villain onto her shoulder. "I never knew bounty hunting was such a lucrative field," she commented as they took off.
"It's not." Ivy floated along beside the hero. "Most of these guys are too dangerous for just anyone to try to catch them. These are an entirely different class of villains compared to what most people see," Ivy sighed. "Because of how rare these dudes are, we're already running out of bounties to hunt."
Kassandra frowned. "How much have we made so far?"
"Less than 20 million USD."
"That's… not enough to get us established even just in New York." Kassandra did some mental mathematics and frowned more. Ivy's eyes were drawn to the furrow between her brows before snapping her gaze away.
"We do have the donation fund set up," Ivy responded, very much trying not to stare at Kassandra's face. Ever since her revelation, she'd been staring at Kassandra more, which was definitely not helpful to her cause. Ivy would say Kassandra definitely considered her a friend, but the heroine had only known her for months, whereas Ivy had known her for more than a decade. The rather one-sided love/hate relationship Ivy had with the original Kassandra was definitely not present in the current Kassandra, and it would take a lot of time and effort for that sort of deep feelings to develop naturally.
Thus, after much deliberation, Ivy had come up with a solution. To simply let their relationship develop naturally. Ivy thought she'd be happier this way. As a child, before… that, little Ivy was a big romance fan. The pile of books that she'd collected over these past few months was a testament to those simpler days, a habit Ivy had kept all these years. The small part of her from those days longed for a connection like the ones she admired and dreamed of. Besides, less of a chance she'll screw up this way. She couldn't be caught in a scheme if there was no scheme.
"Yeah, but do you really expect enough donations to come in, and so early to boot?" Kassandra questioned.
Ivy hummed lightly. "I think you underestimate people's willingness to be a part of something bigger." What she actually wanted to say was that Kassandra underestimated Ivy's determination to make this work, bending her powers to the max every night to play the stock market to make money. Completely illegal, but then again, Ivy was an unrepentant villain. The dark-haired woman smirked to herself at the thought.
"Well, let's hope you're right." Kassandra nodded to herself, and the two took off hunting down some more criminals.
"I always am. I'll make sure of it."
***
"... and, sell sell sell! Sell everything, you idiots!" Ivy cackled in glee as she bought up millions of shares of a company whose stocks had just plummeted like a stone. With her powers to invert causality came a basic, vague understanding of ordinary cause and effect. In essence, it was incredibly unclear precognition, but for this, it was enough.
"Well, thank you all for your generous donations," Ivy said to the screen before her, mouth twisted in a smug, self-satisfied grin, as she lay back in her chair, throwing her head up. "Now to set up those burner accounts." As a career criminal, Ivy knew a lot of tricks to avoid being detected for financial fraud. After all, even in the age of superheroes, money was a superpower.
Over the next week, Pantheon's donation box would see millions of small donations from around the world, each barely a drop in the bucket, but together, enough to achieve something real. And no one could prove a thing even if they suspected Pantheon didn't get their money legitimately.
Ivy leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms over her head, groaning in satisfaction. "That should be enough. Katherine should be able to manage the rest." That financial manager they'd hired was truly a force to be reckoned with. Already, the 30 million in bounties had grown by the tens of thousands of dollars. That was pretty damn good for a day.
"Hmm, but what to do while the infrastructure gets set up?" the supervillain mused, staring at her star ceiling, the twinkling lights bringing a smile to her face. "Oh, right." She rewound her phone into her hand and shot a message to Kassandra. "Do you wanna grab dinner together tmrw?"
The reply was nearly instant. "Sure 😀! where and when?"
Ivy thought about it. A full-on fancy dinner would probably be too much, and it wouldn't do to give the ever-fame-chasing press ammunition to paint them as corrupt and greedy.
"40°44'42.3"N 73°59'46.2"W, does 7:30 sound good?"
"dude, that's a coordinate, why are you sending me a coordinate 🤨? also, 730 👍"
"It's a surprise ( > . o ) Don't look it up. Also, this is more accurate."
"ur so goofy. I better like it!"
***
"This is… a hot pot place? It looks spicy. I don't like spicy." Kassandra looked at the establishment in front of the two of them. Ivy had waited out front just in case Kassandra got lost.
"Yep. From my memory, you haven't had hotpot before at this point in time, so I thought I should bring you. This is gonna be one of your favourite restaurants." Ivy also pointedly left out that it was very LGBTQ+ friendly. That wasn't why she brought the heroine here… yet.
Kassandra glanced over skeptically. "You sure you're memories are all right? I do not like spicy food."
Ivy smirked at her. "Trust me. You'll like it." Ivy dragged the reluctant Kassandra into the restaurant. "Party of 2, private booth please~ It's registered under Harkness."
Kassandra crossed her arms petulantly under her breasts as they sat down. "Ivy, I can't eat spice! I can't!"
Ivy quirked an eyebrow, lips pulled up in a teasing grin as she leaned forward. "That's what you think, Kass."
Kassandra flushed red. "I don't believe you. What do you know about the future? How could I possibly be converted to liking spicy food?" She stared at the villainess accusingly.
Ivy leaned back, putting down the tablet that she had just finished ordering food on. "You see, Kass… I'm not telling you~!"
The real reason was actually that once upon a time, when Ivy was trying to get Kassandra to join her in the past timeline, she dropped the heroine onto a deserted island, suppressed her powers, and airdropped her only absurdly spicy food for the entire month Kassandra was trapped there. That was… not replicable in the new timeline. Instead, Ivy's plan was to trick Kassandra into eating spicy food over and over until she got used to it.
Now, why would Ivy care about Kassandra's spice tolerance, you ask? Because Ivy was a huge fan of spicy food, of course! And she couldn't have Kassandra not enjoy it with her.
Kassandra's indignant cries could be heard for hours as Ivy refused to let her leave unless she finished all her food.
So, this was a more slice-of-life-y chapter than usual. We'll get more into the plot in the next chapter, but I just wanted to expand on the relationship dynamic between our main duo a bit more before things start to kick off again. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, see you next time!