Patchwork Part 3

"There is something seriously wrong with people," Taylor complained as she spent the mana that she'd just received from Moonbeam getting a tip to increase her maximum mana, pushing it up to thirteen.

"Why?" Greg asked, not taking his attention off the pair of pixies that were dancing across the stage, a touch surprised that his pixie could dance as well as he could.

"The world fell apart and they're wasting money tipping a girl on the net so she'll take off more clothes, you'd think they'd have better things to spend it on," Taylor muttered as she spent another ten points of mana to boost her mana pool by another point one, doing her best to keep up with the tips that people were sending to her pixie so she didn't waste the mana.

"The world isn’t falling apart, it’s just a bit… scrambled, we might as well enjoy it," Greg pointed out.

"It just seems weird," Taylor admitted quietly, glad that Moonbeam's mic was directional and wouldn't pick up anything they said unless they were talking loudly. She glanced at Greg's pixie who was wearing a pair of cowboy chaps and a tiny cowboy hat, fairly sure the pixie could have stepped right out of a movie if it wasn't for the butterfly wings. "What made you pick Darkness Generation for your pixie?"

"None of the attack spells I could afford would harm a five year old and the darkness generation lets him blind people and sneak around in the shadows. When you combine it with his magitech it lets him pretend to be a magitech cowboy which should increase the number of people that watch my game streams," Greg explained as the pixies stopped dancing and Moonbeam blew a kiss to the camera, causing several people to toss her five dollar tips.

Taylor quickly spent the mana that Moonbeam getting tipped to increase her mana pool, trying to get her mana pool large enough so that it wasn't maxing out every time Moonbeam got a series of tips. "This is going better than I thought it would."

"I'm not surprised, I used a throwaway account to toss up a link to the chat along with a picture and Moonbeam is actually talking and interacting with people," Greg explained, knowing the girls that actually talked to people did better than the ones that didn't, regardless of the amount of skin they showed off.

"Have you figured out how to be a hero with pixies?" Taylor asked, curious what else he'd come up with.

"I have a couple of ideas but most of them involve having the pixies sneak into places and report things to the PRT or a team of heroes," Greg admitted. "They're small enough to fit in the vents of just about any building."

"Point," Taylor agreed as Moonbeam got another ten dollar tip. She spent the mana then went back to listening to Greg's stream of ideas, figuring something might be useful.

0o0o0

"Shit," Kara muttered when she spotted three young men with Nazi tattoos walking toward the girl selling rainbow colored shorts.

"Yep," Zatanna agreed as Diana sprinted toward the largest of the idiots wearing the symbol of a dead political party that should have stayed dead and buried as far as she was concerned.

"Shake yer tits!" one of the Empire punks called out.

"She's underage, asshole, take a hike!" Vicky suggested, hoping they'd give her an excuse.

"She looks eighteen to me," the punk replied with a smirk.

"Nice knockers…" he trailed off as an attractive dark haired woman wearing blue jeans, a black t-shirt and an old pilot's leather jacket stepped in front of him. "What's your problem?"

"Do you even understand what the symbols you've tattooed into your flesh mean?" Diana asked, wanting to make sure he wasn't from a world that hadn't had to deal with the Nazis.

"It means I don't have to listen to inferior bitches like you," the man in his mid twenties replied with a smirk.

"You're pathetic," Diana replied as she stepped a half step closer to invade his personal space.

Kara winced slightly as the man flipped out and punched Diana in the face, causing several bones in his hand to snap because of his poor technique and the fact that she hadn't moved like he'd expected. "We're supposed to keep a low profile."

"They're Nazis," Zatanna replied as Diana 'lightly' kicked the man in the groin, sending him a foot into the air and making sure that he wouldn't have children without medical assistance.

"Shouldn't we stop her?" Kara asked as the other two idiots pulled knives out of their jackets.

"He swung first and he's still alive," Zatanna pointed out, not seeing a point in stopping her friend as she doubted she'd kill them.

"I'm not fixing that," Amy told the group as one of the empire thugs slashed at the woman with dark hair with his knife and she grabbed his wrist with her right hand and shattered his elbow with her left.

"Oww, it's a good thing I'm off duty, I might have to save them," Vicky mused as she watched the next idiot try to slash the woman only to get kicked in the gut and dropped to the ground.

"Fuck you bitch!" the man with a shattered elbow screamed through the pain trying to keep his arm from moving and making the pain worse. "The Empire is going to fucking murder you slut!"

"Bring it," Diana replied as a car showed up, looking forward to ripping the Empire apart.

"Fucking die!" Alabaster shouted and opened fire on Diana as he got out of his car, unwilling to let the bitch get away with fucking up his boys. 

Diana blocked the bullets with her bracelets, wanting to make sure no one in the crowd got hurt.

Kara used her heat vision to destroy the man's gun, wanting to make sure none of the civilians or Zatanna were hit by stray bullets. She blurred over to the man, grabbed him by his jacket and lifted him in the air when he reached for another gun. "Surrender."

"Bitch!" Alabaster snarled as he grabbed for his knife.

"Be careful, he regenerates!" Vicky called out as she stepped in front of her sister and Lacy as three more gang members got out of Alabaster's car.

Kara used the cape she was holding to soak up the bullets that his 'friends' were shooting at her, trusting that the girl wasn't mistaken about his regeneration. 

"Peels," Zatanna chanted as she gestured at the thugs, putting them to sleep before they could shoot into the crowd or piss Diana off enough that she stopped playing nice.

"Give the heroes a minute," Officer Murphy told the rookie as he grabbed the radio. "Dispatch, we're going to need a van to collect some Empire minions and a PRT unit to grab Alabaster unless you want us to just shoot him in the head a couple of times and hogtie him with zip ties while he regenerates?"

"Do you know how much fucking paperwork that would cause?" the officer on the radio asked.

"No sir," Murphy replied with amusement.

"I'll call the PRT," Jenkins replied, wishing the calls weren't recorded so that he could tell Murphy to go for it without getting suspended.

"Thanks," Murphy replied and set the radio back in the holder.

"Do you have a plan?" the rookie asked.

"Yeah, don't piss the heroes off," Murphy replied as he grabbed the tennis ball that he kept in the change tray, opened the door and stepped out. "Thank you for the assist, the van should be here in five minutes," he told the heroes as he walked over, keeping his free hand away from his gun because he didn't want to startle the capes.

"I'm going to fucking kill you!" Alabaster shouted at the cop when he recognized him as one of the few cops in the city that wouldn't take a bribe.

"You have the right to remain silent, I suggest you use it," Murphy told the cape.

"You're a fucking race traitor!" Alabaster screamed as he struggled in the woman's grip, unable to even move her hands.

Murphy slammed his fist into Alabaster's jaw as hard as he could then quickly stuffed the tennis ball in his mouth so he couldn't talk while his jaw was broken, causing Kara to stare at him in surprise. "He'll be fine, he regenerates and this keeps him from annoying anyone enough that they stick him in a cement coffin and drop him in the bay."

"Ah," Kara replied as she twisted Alabaster's arms around so that the cop could zip tie his wrists. "How often does he escape custody?"

"The Empire usually just hits the transports and rescues them before they can be transferred out," Murphy explained as he finished securing the cape's wrists, adding a couple of extra since he knew that the asshole couldn't feel pain. "What happened?"

"We were going to buy some shorts and one of the idiots took a swing at my friend, then they pulled out knives and these idiots pulled out guns," Kara explained.

"We should be able to make something stick," Murphy assured her.

"She assaulted us!" the guy with a shattered elbow screamed.

"After you tried to stab me," Diana replied, glad that none of the civilians had gotten hurt in the confrontation and that the racist metahuman would be off the street. 

The guy turned his attention toward Amy. "Are you going to fucking heal us?"

"No," Amy replied, not seeing a reason to heal someone that would just cause more trouble. "This is my day off," she told him, not feeling the least bit guilty about not helping.

"You have the right to remain silent," the rookie said as she worked on zip tying the man that Glory Girl was holding in place, 'accidentally' grabbing his shattered arm as she worked on securing his arms with zip ties. 

"Kaiser is going to murder you!" the man snarled at the cop once the blinding spike of agony stopped enough that he could sort of think.

"I've heard that before," the rookie replied as she continued securing the injured gang members, less worried about the idiot's threat now than she would have been yesterday since the voice had given her powers.

'Laever," Zatanna whispered as she turned her attention to the stacks of rainbow colored shorts, curious if they actually did everything the girl had written on the small whiteboard.

"Anything useful?" Kara asked Zatanna.

Zatanna glanced at the piece of cardboard the girl was using as a sign. "They're surprisingly stable and the details match the board."

"Free samples for my heroes," Lacy offered.

"Don't worry about it, I’m here to buy some for my team," Zatanna replied as she pulled out the stack of hundreds that Bruce had given her, on the off chance that the shorts were useful, out of her pocket.

"Buy two, get one free," Lacy offered, not seeing a problem giving her a discount as it was great publicity and they didn't cost her anything to conjure.

"That works," Zatanna agreed as she started making a pile for her friends.

"Are you from out of town?" Vicky asked Diana once the cops secured the Empire goons.

"National City or a version of it," Kara replied as she turned to look at the blonde haired teenager that was floating a couple of inches above the ground.

"Version of it?" Amy asked.

"Not every city was lucky enough to get teleported in one piece, some of them were stitched together from two or more," Kara explained. "I barely recognize most of it and my favorite coffee shop didn't make the jump, it's a bit annoying."

"I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that we have fifty two states and a president that we didn't vote for," Vicky admitted.

"You're not old enough to vote," Amy pointed out.

Vicky rolled her eyes. "You know what I meant. So, is there a reason you don't have masks? Is that a you thing or a world thing?"

"Mostly just an us thing," Kara offered. "Diana and Zatanna don't have secret identities and I generally dress down when I'm pretending to be a civilian."

"I normally deal with mystic problems so I'm not as worried about it," Zatanna offered as she handed the girl the money for the large stack of shorts she'd picked out.

"Thank you," Lacy said as she put the money in her box, figuring she'd probably be done selling her entire inventory by lunch.

"Mystic? As in magic?" Vicky asked skeptically.

"Your friend makes magic shorts, are you really that surprised?" Zatanna asked as she worked on putting the clothes in her bag that she'd enchanted to be larger on the inside.

"Magic doesn't or at least didn't exist in our old world," Vicky offered, less sure about her stance on magic not existing since someone had ripped the world apart and stitched a bunch of worlds together.

"We had a rather long tradition of magic use as well as metahumans, aliens, and mad scientists," Zatanna explained.

"Metahumans?" Vicky asked.

"People with mutations that give them extraordinary powers and no, most of them don't have weird nodes in their head like parahumans," Zatanna explained as she finished putting the shorts she'd purchased in her bag.

"What type of powers do you have?" Amy asked. "Unless we're not supposed to ask?"

"I'm a magician, by trade and powers, so a little bit of everything," Zatanna replied with a smile.

"So, pulling rabbits out of hats and hypnotizing people?" Vicky asked, sort of teasing and sort of fishing for information.

Zatanna laughed. "I've pulled my share of rabbits out of my hat. What about you?"

"Your basic Alexandria package…" Vicky trailed off as she realized they wouldn't know what that meant, struck by how much the world had changed. "Flight, enhanced strength and durability or in my case a personal force field. The voice also stole my aura and gave me the ability to conjure scrolls and a fountain pen that I can use to telekinetically write things down including a conversation or a book that I'm reading."

"That seems random," Zatanna offered as a woman wearing a trench coat and pair of welding glasses on her forehead walked up to the table.

"Yep," Vicky agreed with a shrug. "I'm not exactly broken up about my aura being gone, I had to actively suppress it if I didn't want people looking at me with awe or fear but it's weird not having it."

Kara turned to study the woman that looked and smelled unwell, a touch surprised she could even walk considering the chemical cocktail she could smell on her breath.

"Ten," Sherrel said as she pulled ten damp twenties out of her pocket and set them on the table then put her hands behind her back so they wouldn't be able to see them shake.

"Is there a reason the money is wet?" Lacy asked.

"I washed it, is that going to be a problem?" Sherrel asked, trying not to talk loudly as her splitting migraine and hangover refused to vanish despite the handful of pills she'd taken. 

"No, I was just curious," Lacy replied. "Cargo shorts or bike shorts?"

"Cargo, I like pockets," Sherrel replied, knowing she'd need a place to store her tools.

Lacy handed her a stack of cargo shorts, tossing in a couple of extra as it seemed like the woman needed the help. "That should do it."

"Thank you," Sherrel replied then headed back toward her truck, wanting to get back so that she could turn the cloak on, pass the fuck out and stop worrying about her idiot boyfriend that hadn't returned her texts or calls since everything went to hell.

"Is it just me or was that Squealer?" Vicky asked.

"Not a chance, she was way too polite," Amy replied, fairly sure her sister was correct about the cape's identity but not seeing a reason to harass her out of costume, especially since the shorts would probably make her less of a threat by helping her get the drugs out of her system.

"Local villain?" Kara asked.

"Probably," Amy replied with a shrug. "We try not to harass people if they're out of costume and not causing trouble."

"Makes sense," Kara agreed. "Everyone needs to unwind now and then and do their laundry or shopping."

"Speaking of being a hero, can I get your statements?" Officer Murphy asked, wanting to make sure they had enough evidence to make the charges stick on the goons.

"Of course," Diana assured him.

0o0o0

"This is working a lot better than I was expecting," Taylor mused, ecstatic that the pixies had been paid nearly three thousand already, most of which she'd been able to turn into mana.

"I think they've made more in a couple of hours than I've made total," Greg agreed, feeling a little bit envious.

Taylor glanced over at where the pixies were playing one of Greg's fighting games, leaning over the controller like it was a giant console or something. "It probably has something to do with the fact that you can see her ass every time she pushes up on the joystick and her skirt rides up."

"Probably helps that Eastwood is there to play against her," Greg replied, glad that his pixie hadn't objected to being named after one of his favorite actors. He sighed in frustration when Moonbeam kicked his Pixie's character off the platform into the lava, causing several people to tip Moonbeam. "Cheater."

"Probably," Taylor replied as she spent the mana, glad that she'd managed to push her mana pool up to thirty or she would have wasted it. "At least they're making out like bandits."

"No kidding," Greg agreed, glad that he was getting part of the money.

"One second, let me ask," Moonbeam said as she walked out of the camera's view and over to where Taylor and Greg were sitting. "Do you have any chocolate pudding?"

"Why?" Taylor asked, surprised that she still wanted a sneak after the candy she'd already devoured earlier.

"Does it have to be chocolate pudding?" Greg asked. "We have vanilla in the cupboard."

Moonbeam shook her head. "Yeah, one of the guys offered to fill the tip jar to five thousand if we were willing to strip and wrestle in chocolate pudding, that's close to two thousand dollars."

"Do you have any cocoa?" Taylor asked thoughtfully.

"Is it that easy?" Greg asked.

"For two thousand dollars? Yeah, it's that easy," Taylor replied, figuring they could wing it if the people watching their channel came up with the tips.

"Sweet!" Moonbeam replied then rushed back over to the stage to tell her fans that they'd wrestle in chocolate pudding if they came up with the money.

Taylor quickly started spending the mana as fast as she could as the tips started pouring in. "At least they'll have plenty of money to start making magitech gear."

"This is going to be awesome," Greg agreed.

"The magitech or the pudding wrestling?" Taylor asked as she continued spending mana.

"Yes," Greg replied smugly.

0o0o0

"Are you stupid or just unhinged?" Richard Blackstone asked one of the idiots that had shone up with the PRT vice directors to the Oval office to discuss the continued existence of the PRT and Protectorate.

"What?" the man sputtered. "If we don't do something about Old Mexico, we'll end up with a lot of dead villains."

"Your point?" Richard asked, trying to figure out why the idiot was suggesting shit that would start a civil war. 

"We need the villains to fight the Endbringers," one of the PRT agents argued. "Which means we need to keep people from taking the law into their own hands and their senator didn't have any problem with the police shooting villains."

"To be fair, the senator merely said that if someone was going around murdering and raping people in his state that he'd have the police put them in the ground, I can't honestly disagree. Not to mention, I've had several hero groups scanning for evidence that the Endbringers were brought to this world. They couldn't find any, which means I'm going to assume they were left behind until proven otherwise."

"What happens if you're wrong?" the agent asked. "This wouldn't be the first time they've vanished for days or weeks at a time."

"Then I'll have the League toss the Endbringers into space and destroy them, they've dealt with worse," Richard replied, knowing there were several hero groups that could probably deal with the problem.

"I don't think they have," the agent argued.

"You haven't seen the files, they've dealt with creatures that destroyed entire worlds, I'm not worried about the Endbringers," Richard assured them, knowing the League could handle it.

"You're assuming they're telling the truth," the agent argued.

"Trust but verify, I had people check with some of their villains, most of it checks out," Richard assured him.

"We're going to need leverage," Tagg suggested.

Richard turned to look at the director. "What part of my explanation did you not understand? They've destroyed creatures that were able to destroy planets, what makes you think that trying to get leverage is a good idea? They're currently heroes, they've been heroes for decades in some cases, I'm not going to change that because some agent got trigger happy or stupid."

"You're just going to trust that they'll continue being heroes?" Tagg asked in annoyance.

"Unlike parahumans, metahumans don't require trauma to unlock their powers and they don't have the same drive toward conflict. I'm going to do my best to keep a good working relationship with the heroes and I'm going to trust that the heroes will police their own. That means that we're not going to pass a bunch of laws that no criminal in their right or wrong mind would follow because it makes it harder for law-abiding citizens to acquire guns or interesting toys or turn America into a totalitarian hellhole because that's a good way to get an indestructible hero to show up and murder you for the good of the world."

"What are you suggesting?" one of the more reasonable vice directors asked.

"We're going to spend the next couple of years putting the legal code back together, we're going to put in place a program where we hire inventors, because tossing them fifty or sixty thousand a year to play in a lab with reasonable supervisors is dirt cheap compared to dealing with mad science rampages. If we're lucky, we might even learn something, metahuman Tinkers don't have the same problems as your Tinkers which almost means this crap with capes not being able to make money off their powers needs to die. This is America, the land of the free, you will remember that or you'll find yourself no longer working for this country. I'd like your expertise, I don't need it, I have other options. Take a couple of hours and decide if you want to be part of the problem or part of the solution, dismissed."

0o0o00