After that, I made an excuse while we moved around the store. I really did not want to talk to Brandi anymore. We had a bunch of stuff we needed for the house, as well as finding some interesting chemicals I might be able to use. The arts and crafts supplies were surprisingly useful, actually.

We managed to fit everything into the Dodge, including a few extra lamps and light fixtures and some replacements for a faulty faucet in the secondary bathroom, but I wasn’t wanting to stick around for too long, and while I was fine with giving Brandi the sale, I just didn’t want to be around her. I was angry, but how could I hold her responsible? Almost anyone else would have done the same thing.

We went to Tyson’s corner mall afterward, and I discovered that Lauren was a total mall rat. We walked through, and she seemed to duck into every store, spending at least 15 minutes inside before coming back and grabbing me if she found anything she wanted.

When she came and fetched me to head into the Victoria’s secrets, I offered her one of my ten grand pre-paid cards.

She shook her head, “No thank you. I would rather get you. Not only do you get to see what I pick, and can refuse it, but I also get to beg for you to spend money on me, and sooner or later I will owe you a lot more, and then you get to make me pay for it somehow.”

I nodded and tucked the card away. “Right, this is but another Machiavellian plot to corrupt me into setting you free of your no-sex command.”

“Machia..huh?”

“Machiavelli, the guy who wrote the prince, kind of a handbook on how to be an evil overlord without all the stupid tropes.”

She smiled, “Exactly. I don’t want to actually drain your money, since we both need it, but if you look at all the stuff I bought, you might get irritated and decide I deserve a spanking.”

I groaned a little, followed her into the store, and hoped no one noticed that her words had an effect on me. I did manage to get even, though. She picked up a lot of stuff that she claimed was the best around for her, and I forced her to pick up a couple of things I wanted to see her wearing.

Did you know that when a girl is small but has larger breasts, it is really difficult to buy bras? Apparently, most places that sell that kind of thing, like Value-Mart, sell really uncomfortable and ill-fitting versions for girls that were not a particularly narrow range of sizes. I would have never guessed. I also would not have guessed that her official size was a D, Aquantis was a C, Alison was most likely a B, and Caelo and Akiko were both A if she hadn’t informed me. I had no idea that women’s clothes were so complicated, especially the ones that few people ever get to see.

I finally got a reply to my text to the lovely Mariah. I hadn’t sent exactly the text Baldwin had suggested, but it was close. I told her that I missed her and couldn’t get her off my mind, and was going to spank and probably wear Victrix out as payback for the kidnapping since I couldn’t be with Mariah right now.

The reply was a little bit surprising.

Mariah: at 12:16 today

Go4it save some for me. Busy till tomorrow, pulled for Greenland spill. See U Sat? Pics or didn’t happen. Did swim free work?

Baldwin had kind of called it.

I quickly tapped out my reply.

Louis: at 12:22 today

Like a dream. I think you will like it, definitely male. I Look forward to seeing you.

Mariah: at 12:27 today

I cant wait. Swim with me in Pacific. Love you.

Whoa.

After the Mall, and more food from the food court, we hit up the grocery stores for more food and the GNC for important supplies, at least for me.

A household with three metas and One full-grown man tended to go through an enormous amount of food, enough so that I was seriously considering getting both another freezer and another refrigerator. Right now we had a full-sized farm-style refrigerator and freezer, as well as an extra chest freezer in the storage room, but I went ahead and picked up another 500 bucks worth of raw food supplies, rather than pre-made junk.

The price probably escalated because a lot of it was labeled as organic, and I think I surprised Lauren with how carefully I checked the labels of everything I got for nutrition and ingredients. I also picked up probably another 500 bucks worth of stuff strictly from the vitamin and medicine department. Some of them were worthless, but a lot of them contained reinforcing aspects I was eager to experiment with.

To be fair, I wished I could check out one of those famous Chinese markets where kids were known to pick up monsters you cannot feed after midnight, specifically for all the strange herbs and weird substances they supposedly had available.

Virginia was not known for such stores, however, but while we were shopping for food, Lauren was cruising her phone. She was a bit of a phone junkie but finally pointed out that there were a number of local Wiccan stores that had giant display racks full of bottles of all sorts of strange substances that might fit the bill.

That gave me an idea, but I hadn’t really thought it out at length until now. I knew Kjootoo was not only a metahuman but was also a practitioner. I had assumed that there might be other ways to improve aspects, but I hadn’t really explored them and I wondered if I asked, if he would consider being my mentor? While I wasn’t sure about the efficacy of his own studies on real-world chemistry, he certainly tapped into the collective beliefs about magical medicine. Half of his formidable reputation was based on the fact that he was a voodoo priest.

Or, perhaps, I should tap into the Wiccan belief systems. The only problem with tapping the Wiccans for alchemical knowledge, was that from my experience, a lot of it was done because it was amusing, not because there was a solid core of belief, and outside of the core of Wiccan groups few if anyone actually believed in it.

What supernatural manifestations did the vast majority truly believe in? I didn’t want to say ‘religion’, because that would open a can of worms I didn’t feel I could deal with, up to and including blasphemy. I was a firm believer in Pascal’s wager, where it was safer just to believe in heaven and hell because if you were wrong nothing would be different and if you were right you were covering your butt.

I intended to cover my butt, and didn’t want to exploit people’s religious beliefs because it just felt evil, even though I was reasonably certain I could. There were Meta organizations that already did that, and I refused to be associated with that kind of manipulative corruption. Convincing people you were some kind of a god was wrong on so many levels I couldn’t even begin to detail the moral and ethical issues I had with it. Maybe it wasn’t faith as people understood it, but I was doing my best, and if my best wasn’t good enough then I wasn’t sure if I wanted any part of it anyway.

My biggest problem right now was getting the most out of Hyde, without trying to deal with Hyde’s lack of concepts of consequence. To do that, I might have to start researching a new freedom pill. I sort of named my aquatic freedom Abe, after a character from a supernatural movie I loved, but my best and strongest superpower seemed to be my ability to take on more powerful forms. Abe was very useful, but he wasn’t any better of a combatant than I normally was, and had a strong restriction to the sorts of terrain the form was useful in.

Once we returned home, I noticed that Baldwin and Alison were back with Toby. Without a word, even before unpacking the car, I marched right over and put my hand on Alison’s bare arm.

Alison Ellenda Baxter (Windfall)

Parahuman 13%, class C(S)

Aspects: body, fortune, dimensional, karmic

Power: 136

Conditions: currently in menses.

Projected lifespan: ??? years barring mishap. Current age: 19

healthy, exhausted, frustrated, resigned

Powers: fortune transfer, karmic analysis, left sock

no current abnormal infections, poor eyesight(curse), forgettable appearance (curse)

I sighed at her, “I realized why you wanted me to wait, but your abilities confuse the heck out of me.” and sat on the couch. She nodded at me, and carefully shifted Toby, who was asleep, onto the side of the couch next to her.

She peered at me through those thick and distracting lenses, and I really looked at her, ignoring them. She had a pixielike, heart-shaped face, with a fine sprinkling of orange freckles across her nose, and of course, those eyes that were so clearly emphasized by the glasses. To be honest, as much as I hated the ‘pretty ugly girl’ trope that John Hughes films thrived on, she had that in spades. She had an almost Molly Ringwald look to her, the icon of redhead fans, and probably the reason there were so many of us, that was utterly disguised by the thick lenses.

She looked at me silently, and I remembered that despite her brilliance, she had an even more submissive personality than Glinda. Assuming that she was probably waiting for me to ask a question, I obliged.

“What is with all of the curses?” I asked, “And why are you coming up as Parahuman like me, and last but not least, what the hell is left sock?”

She smiled a little, “Why do people still call you Alchemyst, even though you hate the name and make it clear at every opportunity that you don’t want to be called that?”

I shrugged, “It was part of the price I paid. I was seriously mentally unbalanced when my mom and little brother died, but I was able to stabilize myself. It was a big call, and I wasn’t really able to rationally decide what the sacrifice would be, so it was chosen for me. Only those close to me, or who had a really good reason, would ever remember my name. The cartel guards decided that ‘cook’ was boring, so they called me el alquimista. Someone leaked the story to MNN, the Meta News Network since it was a really big bust involving several Prometheans, and I guess they thought that Alchemyst was a cooler spelling, and so everyone, even the prison guards and my lawyer started using it instead.”

I chuckled a little, “To be honest, I push fate a lot. The Alchemyst is considered a bad guy, a law breaker, an unregistered felon, and thus a supervillain. So I tell people Louis all the time instead. Most of the time, they won’t associate the name after that and think of me as a different person. I know it’s a bit weird, but it’s one of the reasons I think I am still walking around instead of in a Proteus hole somewhere. I stopped at The Home Workshop today, and everyone remembered me, but I bet in a week, if someone were to ask about me, they would forget they had ever seen me in the last three years.”

I chuckled a little, "I got stupid because I was used to people just forgetting my name. Even the people I worked with regularly usually just called me assistant manager, and I never paid attention when I said things or did things that were probably impossible. Right up until someone noticed and decided I was important enough to remember."

She nodded, “I will always remember who you are, Louis.”

I grinned, “I should hope so. I consider you close to me, and one of mine, even if you won’t admit it yet.”

She shook her head, “Oh, I knew I was yours a long time ago. A long time before you ever even had a clue you had abilities. I just didn’t know who you were at the time. Like you, I am a weird sort of meta, although I never heard of Parahuman before. My powers, other than analysis, draw on sacrifice as well. I awakened very young, and I thought my powers were like wishes. All I had to do was wish for something and everything would go right.”

I sighed, “How long before you figured out the sacrifices?”

She smiled, “a little too long. I never really connected my bad luck with the good luck I wished for. I wished I was lucky enough to get a dog, and my parents got me one for Christmas, and within a week it got into the Christmas candy and died. I saw a silly movie when I was a little girl and made a wish based on what the girl in the movie wished for, but it was really big, and after that, no one ever really remembered me. It has come in handy since I can play hero and never get caught or even noticed since I can make the bad guys unlucky to make myself lucky, but…”

“But?” I asked curiously, taking her hands in one of my own and rubbing my fingertips along her bare arm. She was dressed in a simple Tee-Shirt and jeans, without shoes, and I noticed she had very small feet since one was propped on the couch with her knee.

“But holding a job when people tended to forget you worked there was hard. They kept forgetting to schedule hours for me at the coffee shop, and even in school I was never called on to answer questions and they sometimes forgot my grades. Like you, there are some useful things from it, but even my parents forgot I existed sometimes, and I have been left behind when we went places dozens of times. Even now, if I call them, they sometimes forget who I am and why I call.”

I nodded understandingly, “That must have been completely nuts. What did you wish for?”

She shook her head, “Just something silly that an otherwise forgettable 12-year-old girl would wish for. But apparently, it demanded a huge price, and I didn’t have the slightest clue how to mitigate the price. I am not sure I would have even if I knew, because the easiest way to pay the price is to push the misfortune off onto someone else, and that’s just awful.”

I nodded, “Well, you aren’t forgettable to me. I am sort of impressed with how you manipulated all the factors to bring me where I am right now. Of course, I am a little irritated, but you probably already guessed how I plan to take out that irritation.”

She smiled slightly. “Yes, but I really didn’t manipulate all of it. Mostly I just read the situation and tried to push things gently. Even so, I had to pay a hefty price. I knew it would cost me a huge sacrifice, but someone was going to take you when you got out, too many people knew about it, too many corrupt cops and politicians. The reason you were even offered the spot was that millions of dollars went into the right hands to arrange your early parole so you could be in the right place at the right time for a snatch.”

I chuckled, “So you made sure I was there for Kjootoo and Lauren?”

She shook her head, “Making sure they sent someone that you could subvert is why I have trouble seeing, and why I am wearing such crap glasses, but after that, it was all you. That’s also why I was late to meet you because I had to find glasses that would work after I accepted the fortune. It was minor but would make a monumental change in the long run, and I couldn’t afford to pay other sacrifices, and pushing it off on someone else who deserved bad luck would probably have killed them.”

“And that thing with Saving Kjootoo?”

She giggled a little, “Believe it or not, sometimes randomness just happens. His survival was the purest chance, and you being in the right place at the right time. There was over a 95% chance that he would die in the fight, and you would get Caelo’s help and would get to play enforcer for her for a while until things stabilized, securing her cooperation. I am not sure what happened exactly, but Kjootoo surviving required such a rare set of coincidences that I couldn’t even calculate it as possible, let alone know where to apply pressure.”

I chuckled, “Good, I was worried you were so smart that you wouldn’t even need me. So why is your eyesight cursed? I don’t think I can do anything about the forgettable one since it’s not physical, but I should be able to work out something that might work for your sight. Did you know you are a class C?”

She nodded, “Yes, my parents tried to get me tested when they could remember because I started telling them about the chances, but the test came up negative for meta abilities. If I need to, though, I could push probability to do some serious stuff which probably qualifies as class C if you look at it the right way?”

I smiled a little and lifted her hand, kissing her fingertips, “Well, I won’t forget about you.”

She nodded and smiled a little evilly, “Oh, I know. That’s why I couldn’t let you read me earlier. If you had, you would have seduced me, and then when you were kidnapped, I would have been pregnant. Whatever we are is highly biologically compatible, even if you think you have suppressed your fertility. At that point, it was very likely you wouldn’t have risked your life to rescue Toby because you had to think about being a father in the future, and you wouldn’t have Lauren now, who you need.”

She shrugged a little bit, smiling, “I would have been very happy, but your sense of honor would have demanded you ignore other girls, and some of them you have to enlist to your cause, or we all die, like Aquantis and eventually Sif. Sif is weird, though.”

I noted she was probably right. I wouldn’t leave a child without a father. I tilted my head, “How do you mean?”

She shook her head, “I don’t really understand it, but seducing Sif increases your chances dramatically. It’s not her presence or even her formidable physical ability. It’s not even the aid or contacts she brings to the fight, either. In general, she has a minor positive effect, but something about getting her just cranks our chances way up. Perhaps it’s the information she provides?”

I nodded, “That is possible. She apparently knows about a lot of non-metahuman supernatural influences. She will call on me at some point, but right now I am more concerned with Kyokudai’s clan.”

She nodded, and I noticed that Baldwin and Lauren were carrying bags in from the car. I excused myself to go help, but before I left, she said, “Oh, don’t worry too much about it, there’s nothing you can do to prepare except what you are already doing, and while there’s a chance you might die helping Akiko’s clan, it will make you much stronger. She will join us, because Lauren’s already in love with her and will insist. Not like that, though, Akiko’s like her sister. Oh, and we cannot play yet, for the same reason I couldn’t let you read me, even though I really want to. I’m sorry.”

Dammit, I didn’t even know what ‘left sock’ meant yet.

Our dinner that night was Baldwin’s treat. He spent several hours in the kitchen while I messed around with my gift and worked on my and Lauren’s armor. I would have worked on a set for the others, as well, but I knew Aquantis’ minor shapeshifting would render it useless, and I didn’t intend to let either Baldwin or Alison get directly involved in a fight. Alison was much more useful as a hidden backup, and Baldwin was, I hated to admit it, just too fragile if we had to go up against metahumans. That and it was not his job. He was already going out on a limb helping me as much as he had, and I would be damned if I’d let him get in a shooting match with a guy that could use a freeway sign as a throwing weapon.

Yes, I know it sounded stupid and elitist. Very superhero-esque. But the reality was, that there were some fires that firefighters couldn’t plunge into, they couldn’t do more than contain them. You wouldn’t send a single soldier with a rifle to deal with an attack helicopter in flight. Expecting normal people, even well-trained normal people, to be able to assist against guys that were capable of ignoring bullets and burning down forests with their minds was just suicide.

If someone chose to go up against a force of nature, naked, that was their choice, but it was the worst sort of irresponsibility to expect them to do it. And it was even worse for that force of nature to turn itself against normal people for no more reason than they were in the way.

Baldwin had spent nearly two hours in the kitchen making, of all things, a giant pot of spaghetti. He kept whispering about his family’s sauce recipe, and when I tried it, I agreed completely with him that he was right, it was absolutely delicious. I could tell he had used Worcestershire sauce, a little brown sugar, and ricotta cheese in the recipe, and had filled the sauce with a combination of pork sausage and ground chuck, taking it to the next level with the various seasonings. I was careful, however, not to analyze the sauce. It was his family’s secret recipe, and I refused to pry.

“That, my friend, was amazing,” I said, grinning at him and helping with the clean-up. Everyone pitched in with getting stuff squared away except, by mutual consent, Baldwin himself. Not only had he made a meal fit for a king, with side trays of garlic bread, but he’d made enough of it to feed us all quite well.

I washed the dishes by hand. Another fun fact, dishwashers suck for actually getting things clean. Yeah, there were commercials that showed sparkling dishes coming out of a washer if you used such and such magic detergent, but the way we were doing it, my washing and Lauren drying, was the only real way to consistently get them spiffy-looking.

My cellphone went off for a text, and I stole Lauren’s towel to dry my hands while I checked it.

Unknown: at 21:33 today

Deal is brokered. 4m. Only you. Maximum will meet 2200 UVA ampitheater. She handles transit. Maybe emergency. Bring specials.

I sighed. “Girl, remember the amphitheater we went to today?”

Lauren nodded, taking back the towel.

“I was going to take horrible advantage of you tonight, but it looks like Kjootoo came through with the deal already. I need to get to the UVA amphitheater, to meet Akiko, in about 20 minutes. Can you make a portal without going through it yourself?”

“You don’t want me to come with you?” she asked curiously, hanging the towel on the edge of the cabinet door under the kitchen sink and brushing her fingers across her tummy, blinking and then smiling at me. I had been around both of the girls the whole evening, and the effect of both of them had been stimulating.

I shook my head, “No, she insists on me alone. I am not sure why. You know her pretty well, can she be trusted that this isn’t a trap?” I was bringing my flask along anyway, just in case.

She shook her head, “Akiko is tricky, and she might try to talk you into agreeing to something that wouldn’t benefit you, but while she might hunt someone down and kill them from stealth, she doesn’t lure people into ambushes. She has an odd code of honor, especially where her clan is concerned. If she’s tricking you somehow, it won’t be to attack or kidnap you.”

“So what kinds of tricks might she be employing?” I asked curiously.

“Well, she brokered it through Kjootoo, and he’s considered a sorcerer. She wouldn’t cheat you out of a legitimate deal. Although if you brokered it yourself she might try. She’s also fond of ripping off people that make money on the suffering of others, or who manipulate money to make money. She considers bankers, venture capitalists, and monopoly brokers to be beneath contempt, which is actually why we get along well. She hates my uncle and everything he stands for, although since she’s Japanese and he’s paranoid he’s almost impossible for her to get to in any real way.”

I nodded and went to fetch my ‘specials’, including some very expensive special healing potions that had minimal sacrifice attached to them due to the cost of their ingredients. Gold had the Value, metal, and beauty aspects attached to it, which didn’t help the potions if I included it, but it did make them sparkle prettily and was an intrinsic sacrifice, allowing each potion to take vastly less sacrifice from both me and the person using it.

There was a place called re-sold gold at the mall, that apparently specialized in antique and rare or hand-made used gold and silver jewelry. I suspected that they purchased nationwide from pawn shops and estates, although they didn’t purchase directly except by weight.

A lot of their pieces had a much higher value rating than their actual cost, which I guess meant that at one time they had held a great deal of sentimental value. I know it seems a little disrespectful, but I had bought a handful of earrings, rings, and pendants with extreme value ratings in comparison to their costs specifically to sacrifice in potions to reduce the feedback on me. I also intended to experiment with Alison to see if there was some way to use them to reduce her sacrifice from using her power.

I hadn’t made any elixirs lately, but now that a few people knew about and assigned a value to them, I bet that their value would be extremely high. I know that after my potions had saved Kjootoo’s life they had suddenly had a value much higher than the zero they started with.

The biggest irony was that if I gave a potion to someone else rather than using it myself. Its drain on me personally as well as the target was very small. I guess giving away something that could save my life was considered a pretty big sacrifice all by itself. And if I was getting paid four million for this job, it would be worth the expense, I hope.

I grabbed my now-coated armor. Yes, it was silly, but certain infusions turned out to work perfectly well on inanimate objects. I’d spent the last couple of hours before dinner reshaping the armor with a heat gun, and then coating it with a mixture of metal, elemental, and far too many antique pieces of jewelry to lower the sacrifice costs. It looked like a bit of a cross between a golden stormtrooper and BMX armor now, but I had surprisingly found a black long leather Captain’s coat from the House of Mouse that I adored to cover it up.

Apparently, it was a reproduction from some TV show about fairy tales, Captain Hook’s coat, but it was sized to fit a truly enormous fan, so it went over both my build and the armor fairly well. Add in the Top hat that Kjootoo had insisted I accept and a pair of black ski goggles, and I looked reasonably formidable. More Supervillain than superhero, but I refused to wear spandex. Perhaps with my build, I had earned the right, but if someone wanted to be able to judge my religion at a distance from the pants I was wearing, they would have to earn that privilege personally.

I had to use a different infusion on the top hat, coat, and goggles from what I had used on the armor. I didn’t want it to be golden, and they had to retain at least a bit of flexibility since they were not articulated like the Polyprovantus armor. When I fought, stuff tended to get damaged, and I had found a special kind of car coating that was supposed to fill in scratches on its own. The true product didn’t work very well, but with it and a few other ingredients, I was able to infuse the softer pieces with mending, durability, and element protection. Thank you, scotch guard! It should keep me dry and comfortable in even the worst weather, and might even provide a little protection from meta abilities or modern weapons.

The Top hat was a gift from Kjootoo before I left. It was odd, with a sort of lighthouse design carefully impressed into the leather and a small anchor charm at the brim, and a tiny semiprecious jewel set in the pipe at the top of the lighthouse, but the slight gold tinge from the etching matched the rest of the armor, while the black leather matched the coat. Kjootoo said it was perfect for me if a little large, so I happily accepted it. I had gone ahead and put toughened sheets of polyprovantus inside to improve my head protection, and with a pair of heavy shitkicker boots, I was ready to go.

When I got dressed in the get-up even I was impressed. I looked like either a supervillain or one of those grimdark antihero vigilantes, and it was certainly intimidating, and Lauren, who had helped me get dressed quickly, let out a low whistle. “You look so formidable, sir. If a girl may be so bold, if we had time, just seeing that outfit would make me want to learn how to do things with my mouth. It’s scary and exciting, and the hat just adds a touch of elegance to it that drives me crazy. If you told people you were planning on ruling the world, I bet a lot of them would just kneel and worship you instead of arguing it. But you do know that like this everyone is going to call you Alchemyst instead of Louis, right?”

I chuckled, “I still hate that name, but ruling the world would suck. The only one I want to rule is you, and I would be more than happy if you kneel and worship me when I get back. I think I will enjoy worshipping you right back.”

She shivered and opened a portal. I only had two minutes left after fetching my gear and getting dressed, but the inside of the coat had more than enough room to hold my flask, and the belt I had snatched fit around my waist snugly, although I was very glad that my bombs required me to activate them before they would erupt. Can you imagine how much it would suck to get hit by a bullet and then explode into flames when it set off a Molotov you were packing?