***Chemestro***

“What’s this?” Chemestro asked, placing the vial in front of Dave the unicorn.

The leather-clad man with bushy mutton chops picked the vial up and studied it carefully. “This, my friend, is a Symbiotic Spirit. The kind people use to become mages. Looks like a lunar serpent. Especially useful for dark essence, travel essence, reflection essence, space essence, and a few other minor ones.”

“Nobody else I took it to could or would tell me what it was,” Chemestro said. One of the information brokers tried to kill him for it. Unprofessional. “Is it rare?”

“Well, they’re not making them anymore, if that’s what you’re asking. These things are basically a free ticket to fame and fortune, so yeah, seeing one that’s not in use immediately is a rare pleasure.”

“How many people have these already?” Chemestro asked. Whoever was offering it to him obviously already had one, given his penchant for appearing and disappearing instantly.

“Basically any pure human from Funkytown that uses magic.” Dave said with a shrug. “A dozen or so people, who either came from Manita or descended from those who did.”

“Any of them have something against the Zauberer family?”

“Not really, no.” Dave shook his head. “The Zauberer family opened the gate that allowed us to cross over to Earth. Everyone here owes them their lives. The sentiment may have faded a bit, but there’s still a lot of goodwill there.”

“How good is this one?” Chemestro asked.

“Oh, it’s good. A lunar serpent has the right essences in it for a teleportation spell, barrier, environmentals, and minor illusions, among others. Teleportation is top of the line magic.”

“Top of the line everything,” Chemestro muttered, staring down at the vial. “Who’s got something better?”

Dave frowned “What do you mean? There shouldn’t be anything better on the market, seeing as they get used as soon as possible.”

“Who has better symbiotic spirits in them right now?” Chemestro asked.

“Are you gonna kill somebody for them?” Dave asked.

“No, I’m trying to identify someone.”

Dave cocked his head and narrowed his eyes.

“I promise I won’t kill them unless they try to kill me first.” Chemestro said.

With a gesture from Dave, motes of light fell down from above Chemestro and blinked pink when they touched his skin.

“Alright. You’re telling the truth. You probably wouldn’t have much luck against these people anyway, given that anyone with better spirits in them would be an archmage, and they don’t fuck around. Dave jotted down a quick list of five names.

Three of them were Zauberers.

“Oh wait, he’s dead,” Dave said, crossing out one of the Zauberers before handing it back to him.

“Who’s this?” Chemestro asked, pointing at Marigold Zauberer. He already knew from his research, but he wanted to confirm.

“That’s the queen of Manita, such as it is. She’s hands-down the most powerful mage in the city. She’s sporting at least three powerful spirits that make that one there look…unimpressive.”

“Does she like fancy clothes?” Chemestro asked.

“I mean, she was a queen for most of her adult life, so…” Dave shrugged.

All the other names on the list absolutely loved the Zauberer line and would see no harm done to them.

All the other names on the list didn’t have as long a family legacy and coffers quite as deep.

The only kind of person that would have a powerful spirit burning a hole in their pocket would be someone to whom it was superfluous, and had already accrued a lot of magic.

Someone powerful, with a flair for the dramatic, a stick up their ass and a love of fine clothes.

“You’ve been very helpful,” Chemestro said, pulling out a gold brick from his satchel and placing it on Dave’s bloody butcher table.

“Hey! Thanks!” Dave said with a grin. “Just keep in mind, if you hurt Mary, you’ll spend the rest of eternity trapped inside a crystal, wishing for death!”

Chemestro raised a brow.

Dave gave him a thumbs up.

“Understood,” Chemestro said, walking out the door.

***Marigold Zauberer’s Clinic***

Marigold was studying her next patient’s charts, carefully checking for potential Essence conflicts in her Cecaelian heritage.

Bang!

The door flew open, revealing the six-foot-five wall of muscle named Chemestro. The young man walked into the hushed silence of the clinic, drawing out a familiar vial.

“I don’t appreciate being someone else’s tool. Make me a better offer, crone,” he said, making eye contact with Marigold before yanking the stopper out with his teeth and pouring the priceless spirit out on the ground.

Without another word, the super flew out the door and into the darkness of the night.

“Shall we eliminate him, your majesty?” Marigold’s shadow guards whispered.

“If only it was twenty years ago, I could’ve gotten Claudette to marry him instead of that potato bumpkin.” Marigold murmured, fanning herself off with the clipboard.

“If it had been fifty years ago…” She trailed off.

“Your Majesty?” The shadow asked.

“Ahem,” Marigold cleared her throat and pulled the spirit off the floor, re-bottling it with the slightest application of Essence. Chemestro must’ve thought he’d ruined it. The symbolism was good, though.

“I’ll deal with it myself. You can stand down.”

“As you wish,” the shadows receded.

***Chemestro***

“You’re a smart kid.” The old man said, arriving between one instant and another, sitting in the old recliner in the corner of the living room.

“Maybe you’re just not very bright,” Chemestro shot back. “It took me half an hour to figure out that no one else on Earth would have a spare spirit that good they could afford to give away…Gramma.”

The old man gave a smirk, “Paradox’s grandmother would never wish harm upon her only grandson. You’re dead wrong.”

“You never expected me to kill Paradox. You just want me to try.” Chemestro said. “Why?”

His eyes narrowed.

“I’ve got no problem with trying and failing to kill your grandson. I don’t even care if he becomes stronger because of it,” Chemestro said. “What I want is clarity of purpose and appropriate compensation. If you tell me why you’re asking me to make an attempt on his life and give me what I need to surpass the boost in power you’ve arranged for him to gain as a result of it, then I’m perfectly happy.”

The old man clasped his gnarled fingers together, regarding him with pursed lips, all while Chemestro was secretly wondering whether or not he’d guessed right. If he’d been wrong about any of it, he’d thrown away a priceless treasure and burned his bridges.

Finally the old man spoke.

“When Paradox was eight years old, his mother gave him the most powerful Symbiotic Spirit the Zauberer family possesses…” The old man began to speak.

***Perry***

If this whole thing was about money, I think this is where I would get off the ride, Perry thought as he studied the march of zeroes in his bank account.

He’d delivered the last of the Mk3’s just a couple days ago, then gotten a call from his banker/lawyer.

They’d taken 16 mil out for Nexus’s fine, and a further eighteen mil out for taxes, leaving Perry with eleven million dollars.

Less than I’d expected, but more than I’d ever dreamed I’d have. Interesting how that works.

Of course, Perry now fully understood that a bad weekend as a cape could completely destroy that modest nest-egg.

When did eleven million dollars stop seeming like much?

Was it when he’d seen locust extort the city for over a billion, or was it when Nexus had charged him sixteen million for a disaster that he’d only been technically at fault for?

Taking a lesson from his previous experience with property destruction, Perry had decided to buy the scrapyard at full price, his lawyer haggling that money back from Nexus.

Since literal hundreds of tons of raw scrap materials came with the purchase, Perry would easily be able to recoup his losses and more.

Owning a scrapyard was the logical extension of Perry’s power set.

Sure, most of the surface stuff was rusted or rotted by the corruption demon’s presence, and the main office of the scrapyard was sagging, nowhere near up to code or even remotely safe to work in, and all the crushing and sorting equipment was similarly ruined…

But it was loaded with sweet, sweet scrap.

Perry was in the middle of scanning the scrapyard with the Miniature Vista spell when the locals came to visit.

“How’s it hanging, Paradox?” Locust asked, flanked by Blink, Tung-Stan, and no less than half a dozen of Perry’s armors that he’d just sold to her.

“Remodelling,” Perry said, watching the drones fly in a smooth circle around the scrapyard.

“Cool, cool. It’s good to see someone with some skill picked up Oberon’s scrapyard. I’m looking forward to seeing what you’ll do with it.”

“Probably just convert raw scrap into parts, weapons and suits on the Tinker Market,” Perry said with a shrug. The profit margin was going to be insane, while still being able to skim some raw materials off the top for his lab. Battery acid, lead, steel, plastic, freon, aerosol, aluminum…the possibilities were endless.

Gonna have to set up some AI sorters and converters to disassemble and sort all the scrap, Perry thought, practically drooling at the influx of raw materials.

“You know, Oberon used to contribute to the local economy, about half of his profits. It was an effective way of keeping the local color from causing trouble.” Locust said.

Perry blinked, his attention finally drawn away from his thoughts.

“Protection money?”

Locust smiled and shrugged, “This is my territory. You actually helped keep it that way. But I know you, kid. I like you. And I know you’re gonna make a hell of a lot more of a profit margin than Oberon ever did, so I’d settle for…thirty percent.”

“You realize if you tore this place to the ground, I could fix it for a couple bucks, right? You literally couldn’t damage it cheaper and faster than I could fix it.” Perry said.

Locust’s scaled brow twitched in surprise.

“Maybe,” Locust said. “But I could make sure nobody brings their junk here.”

“I mean, if you wanna be the jerk that arbitrarily pulls money out of their local economy, sure.”

“Can you guys give us some space?” Locust said to her followers.

Tung-Stan and Blink backed off out of earshot as Locust threw an arm over his shoulder and Perry away.

“Listen kid. I can’t afford to not take a cut from you, because if that happens, other people start asking why you and not them, and in a matter of weeks, I’ll have a full-blown meltdown in the slums. I’m talking war in the streets as dozens of little guys try to carve out their own territory.”

“There’s fringe benefits, too.” Locust said. “You pay me protection money, you’re a part of the community. They trust you. They know you’re one of them. business is good. You don’t, and you’re an outsider. I wouldn’t even have to do anything in particular to damage your business. People wouldn’t like you on principle.”

“You make a convincing argument,” Perry said. “Have you expanded your territory at all with my suits?”

Locust twitched. “Why do you ask?”

“Because I’ve got a code that will brick them all at once. I imagine it would be difficult holding onto expanded territory with all your suits and the people inside them out of commission.”

Perry met her gaze. “Your borders would retract. Violently.”

“Nice try kid,” Locust said, slapping him on the back. “My Tinkers cleared all thousand suits.”

“Magic.” Perry said, tapping his chest. It was total crap, but Locust didn’t have any magitech experts on hand, other than Perry.

Locust paused. “Shit.”

“Mmm,” Perry said, nodding. “You did made some good points, though. How about a compromise? Ten percent of my profit, and I’ll hire exclusively from the slums, rather than fully automating the process like I was originally planning. I’ll pay them a living wage, pump some money into the local area, and you can slip some spies in there at your leisure?”

Having locals represent him at the scrapyard would encourage other locals to sell their scrap to him. It would be a net positive despite costing him a substantial amount of money to pay them. He’d taken her words to heart and come up with a solution.

“Twenty percent.” Locust said.

“Ten.”

“…Fine. but you better pay the workers six grand a month, at minimum.”

“Deal,” Perry said, offering his hand.

“Deal.” Locus said, taking his hand in her pebbly-skinned one. She squeezed, Put Perry didn’t bat an eye. “You’re getting better fast, kid.”

“Thank you!”

“You might wanna check that speed. Some of the big leaguers aren’t above making accidents happen if they think someone’s coming for their spot.”

“I don’t care about your spot,” Perry said.

“Wasn’t talking about me.” Locust said with a sharp-toothed grin.