Super Sales on Super Heroes 4 -ch16-

Chapter 16 - Going Shopping -

Felix looked at the map in his hands and carefully drew a black sharpie through the alleyway they’d just gone through. It was no longer viable and given the trash pickup schedule, which they were one day ahead of, they wouldn’t have to come back for a week.

“Okay. Next is… across this intersection, then into the parking lot. We’ll be checking the back of those,” mapped out Felix, sliding a finger across the paper to what he’d just described.

“Alright,” Miu said and then pulled the truck out of the parking lot they were in. She made a left across the street and pulled up to the intersection.

Sitting there, Felix looked to the light, the cars going back and forth, and then to Miu. She seemed quite pleased at the moment though she was clearly watching their surroundings.

“You good, Miu? You look good. Look happy. Healthy. Less… well, crazy,” asked Felix, his eyes moving along her profile.

Surprisingly, Miu laughed at that, a wide smile spreading over her face. She looked at him and wrinkled her nose, then she looked back to the road ahead.

“Yes. I’m… very happy. Very healthy. Not… less crazy, though,” she murmured. Her fingers drumming from left pinky all the way across to the one on her right hand and went still. “I still want to kill Andrea. Kill Faith. Goldie.

“Drink their blood and eat their wombs. Devour anything of them that might have been part of you. Take you for myself.

“That I wish you’d just… leave bites all over my neck and shoulders and claim me in a way that everyone can see. Then I want you to ravage me atop the corpses of all the other women. Push my face down amongst their bodies.

“But… I know I can’t do any of that. We need them more than my desire to take all of you for myself.

“I guess… in the end… I’m just happy, I suppose. That’s all. I’m happy. Happy with my coworkers, my love, and what I’m doing.”

Please… don’t. No.

You can’t treat me as touching something as seasoning.

“Really,” Felix stated in a flat tone. “Happy with your coworkers that you want to kill and have me sex you up on. That seems rather counter, doesn’t it?”

“Not at all,” Miu said with a flick of a hand. The light hadn’t yet changed. “I am Miu Campbell. I’m your Miu, specifically. I want all of you to me. I would go to great lengths to make that happen.

“I wouldn’t do anything, mind you. I would never do anything that would harm you. Nothing that would ever make you unhappy. Thats my limitation, really.

“So while I want to kill every woman who looks at you, I can’t. The world is fortunate that you’re a kind and caring man. Otherwise it’d be half a population as I’d cut the eyes out of every woman’s head who looked at you.”

“And the happy with coworkers part?” prompted Felix, turning his head and looking toward someone standing at the crosswalk.

He noticed that the timer was counting down for how long someone could cross to the other side. He imagined when it got to zero the lights would change.

“I’m very happy with who I’m working with. They’re so very much like me that I’m not alone. I’m not… not dealing with Kit and Lily giving me weird looks.

“Where I have to constantly walk a line between what I can do versus what they don’t want me to do,” growled Miu with a shake of her head. The light changed and she eased them forward into the intersection. “They were against me watching you with anyone else. Against me collecting your… your wastes. They wouldn’t let me collect your… genetic material from them.

“It was all no’s and don’t do that. A never-ending line of them. That all ended with them vanishing thankfully.

“You took away the control and told me to be me. So I am. I’m me and I get everything I want.”

“My… waste and genetic material?”

“Yes. Don’t worry, I now understand why I wasn’t allowed to take the first. It isn’t sanitary despite me wanting it. It wouldn’t have been healthy for me either. I have to take care of myself so that’s off limits,” Miu said mater-of-factly while driving them into the next parking lot. “My coworkers now though all understand me. Understand my needs and concerns.

“They literally have similar mental conditioning to my own in most cases. You apparently feel that Goldie is a self-replicating loop of care for you. Much more similar to myself than she would like.

“Faith has gone full Dryad with a grove on you and thinks the world is blessed where you walk. I have no doubt she’d do much the same I would for your attentions.”

Felix noticed she didn’t mention Andrea in any of that.

“She’s not as crazy as we are, but as devoted,” Miu clarified as she started pulling the truck around the back of buildings. “I mean, she splits herself into new people, constantly trying to figure out how to be the perfect Andrea for you. It isn’t like she did this before you.”

Huh. That’s… a valid point. She might actually be seeking out a version of herself that I am particularly happy with.

That’d make sense.

“Okay, first one,” Miu said with a small nod her head toward a dumpster on their right.

Felix nodded and then leaned up into the passenger door. Felix leaned out his open window just a bit and then focused on the dumpster.

He could just barely see the interior as they drove past it.

Focusing on it, he tried to activate his powerset. To clear everything out of the dumpster. Leaving nothing behind at all.

It was all junk that belonged to no-one and had no owner.

Much as it’d happened every time this morning he did it, there was an odd popping noise. Followed by the trash simply vanishing to nothing.

The interior of it also became quite clean.

Even stains on the interior could be considered trash, which meant it was cleaned off, too. Nothing was left behind.

“You know, this is a lot easier than trying to own people,” mumbled Felix as Miu started them forward again.

There were some things next to the dumpster that he couldn’t clear, unfortunately. Unless it was in the dumpster it could still technically be claimed as property.

Even if he put it in the trash himself, it wasn’t considered abandoned property.

“I imagine it is. Not to mention a lot less overhead for you. You were managing a massive empire in the end but we saw less and less of you,” complained Miu. “Even if we expand our operations now, so long as we do what you’ve been doing, we’ll be fine.”

Felix could only nod his head as they passed another dumpster. He once again emptied it entirely.

Unfortunately that was the only two he could see in the alley.

“Alright. That finishes this alley,” he reported almost to himself and picked up the map again. Taking the sharpie, he crossed out the alley they were in. “Next is—”

***

Felix hadn’t forgotten about Edmund.

In fact, he’d been diligently counting the days down.

Collecting points by destroying trash, spending time with his group, and generally relaxing had been his day by day plan.

Right now, he was feeling the most relaxed he had in a long while, in truth.

Even without all the niceties and luxuries he’d had previously. Or the sheer amount of manpower he could throw at any problem back on Legion Prime.

None of that compared to how he felt right now, working to build everything up. That maybe it was the “starting something new” aspect that was truly appealing to him.

Which is why he really was looking forward to talking to Edmund today. The young man was a resource he couldn’t let go of easily.

Felix really didn’t want to have to run him down, but if he had to, he would. That’s how vital he felt to the Legion cause right now.

There was no way he would let someone so talented escape. Especially with the fact that he would have a super power later.

Walking into the bookstore, Felix looked straight to the woman behind the counter. It was the same one he’d seen previously.

He couldn’t imagine she didn’t know Edmun, or at least, knew of him. The way he was sitting in the back wasn’t something that would go overlooked or unnoticed.

Given his response, it was likely others had complained about him in the past.

“Hi, did Edmund come in today?” Felix asked, meeting the girls eyes squarely with a smile. “He and I had gone over some books recommendations last time and I wanted to pick his brain a bit more. My wife loved his choices. Absolutely loved them.”

The woman gave him a cautious smile, then slowly shook her head.

“He hasn’t been here in a few days. Which is really weird. One of the books he ordered came in,” said the store-clerk.

“Ah, that’s fine. I’ll pay for it and take it over to him. He’s still out at Forest Ridge right? Number o— uh, actually. Not that I think about it I can’t remember the exact address.”

Felix was thankfully dressed in much more casual wear today. He blended in perfectly with the general public and wouldn’t be out of place at a trailer park.

Pulling out his wallet, he set down two-twenties on the counter.

“Could you give me his address? I’ll go drop it off for him. Oh, and while I’m here, do you have any type of a discount card, repeat customer card, or anything like that? I imagine I’ll be coming back repeatedly,” Felix asked with a warm and wide smile.

The store-clerk couldn’t quite keep up with Felix but instead nodded her head.

He’d hit her with someone she didn’t want to answer, with something she did. His hope had been that she’d be more willing to do the first as she’d agreed to do the second.

A few seconds later she pulled out a book and a clipboard while taking the money off the counter. Lifting her eyes back up to him, she gave him a smile.

“We have a book club,” she started. “I’d love to get you down for a year membership. I get a commission for everyone I get it.”

Ah, clever girl.

I like her. I’ll have to keep tabs on her, too.

Grinning, Felix gave her his information.

***

Looking to the address, then to the mobile home, Felix realized he’d under-estimated how bad off Edmund was.

While many such places had bad reputations, they didn’t always live up to them. Felix had already found that his own community he was living in went against his preconceived notions.

His direct neighbors were actually quite kind and had even come over with home-made chicken wings as well as a large case of beer. They were an older couple that just didn’t have enough money to keep up with their previous lifestyle and had changed their lives to fit their ability.

Goldie had made fast friends with them since she was home all the time. She’d even been quick to share some of the stockpiled meat with them.

On the other side of them was a younger family that had developed a strange game of hide and seek with Andrea. Where she’d stalk them around the yards and then catch them.

Miu had inadvertently been dragged into it when one of the children had managed to find her. Now the two of them had started up a massive game of “hunt and stalk” as they called it.

Creeping around the community all looking for one another.

What Felix had in front of him was the opposite of all that.

It was every bad flavor, stereotype, and rotten possibility one could conjure up with a mobile home.

“Shit,” Felix said under his breath, the bag in his hand mostly forgotten. He hadn’t expected it to be this bad.

Faith shook her head and looked to Felix.

“This makes our own home feel almost like too much,” she muttered. “I know we’ve done what we could without buying the trailer to fix it up. Spent some money on some decorations but… this is… it makes me almost feel ashamed.”

Nodding his head, Felix tried to ignore the rusted out exterior, the holes he could see through into the interior that was clearly missing insulation.

He did his best to not focus on the fact that it was dangerously sagging to one side as if the running gear was bad. Not to mention a number of the skirt panels were just missing outright.

What mattered to him was finding Edmund.

A resource that was quite literally rotting away in a place like this.

He’d have to get in touch with Treston and rent a trailer out for Edmund. This was simply too much of a problem for Felix to leave alone.

“Hey there pretty,” called a voice from the side. “Watcha doin’? How about you come talk to me?”

Faith turned her head and looked to the speaker.

Apparently she wasn’t really in the mood to deal with something like this as she turned around and opened the door to the truck. Reaching under the seat she pulled out a short bat that one could only call a billy club.

Standing up, she gave it a waggle with her left hand while looking at the man who’d cat called her.

“Come on over to talk to me instead,” she replied, her right hand in the pocket of her hoodie. Chances were she was more than willing to draw her pistol and shoot these people if she deemed them to be an issue.

The baton was just a polite warning that was about as flimsy as the toilet paper you’d find at an entry level bathroom at a corporate HQ.

Apparently the bat wasn’t enough to deter them.

In fact, six or seven men started moving over toward them.

“I’m sorry, Felix,” apologized Faith with a heavy sigh. “I thought that’d steer them clear. Anything you want me to do?”

“No guns, please. If we have to dump bodies in a swamp later, it’d be better if they just vanished.

“Kind of annoyed that we’re bringing problems to Edmund’s house, but it’s not like we didn’t try to stop this,” Felix warned her.

“Can’t promise that, but I’ll try. Starting to feel a lot like home here. My old home that is. This was rather normal. A regular Tuesday, you could say,” muttered Faith, then went silent. It felt like she was a spring that was winding up.

As soon as the goons got close enough, Faith brought the club around in a wicked swing. She wasn’t here to play around or listen to them trash talk.

The club slammed into the original speakers temple and sent him crashing to the ground. Laying there unmoving the man was facedown in one of his friend’s shoes.

“I’m not playing, and I’m really over this,” Faith said a second before she pulled out her pistol. She leveled it at those who were standing around. “You’ve got five seconds to pick up your friend, or I turn all your bodies into gator grub. I know a perfect swamp to dump you all into.”

Following Faith’s action, Felix put his hand around the pistol in his pocket. Holding onto it he finger-checked the safety and then flicked it to the off position.

The rather disreputable gang of lowlifes looked like they were considering rushing Faith. Which meant he no longer had a choice.

He dropped the bag with the book in it and then pulled the pistol from his pocket. Taking a second to rack the slide he then pointed it at the closest individual to him.

“Gator grub it is,” Felix muttered and started to squeeze the trigger.

Before he’d really made the choice to shoot everyone began running away as fast as they could. They didn’t even bother to pick up their friend.

Faith sniffed loudly and then stuck her gun back into her pocket. Walking over to the downed individual she rifled his pockets.

She came up with a wallet, a cell phone, and a set of car keys. The phone and keys both got dumped out on the man while she flipped through the wallet quickly.

Pulling out a gift card and what looked to be several ten dollar bills she then tossed that on top of the man as well. Pocketing her gains she looked back to Felix.

“At least we didn’t have to waste ammo. Hard to get without paperwork trailing,” she said then bent down and slammed her billy club into the man’s right forearm. There was a sickening crunch as the bone broke under the blow. “There, that’ll be a good reminder for him. He can give himself a stranger with his left hand.”

Felix snorted at that and looked back to the mobile home. There’d been no noise or response from anyone inside.

If there was anyone inside.

Momentarily, he had a thought that maybe Edmund had lied to him after all. Maybe that he’d managed to side step Felix in the end.

Walking up to the door of the mobile home Felix contemplated what to do. It looked to be bigger than the one he was staying in which meant that there was certainly room for more people.

He just couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t the right time or place. That this was already the wrong action to take given what’d happened.

Except Felix just couldn’t shake the feeling that he needed to try and reach out to Edmund. The sun had just set a short while ago which meant this was technically still a decent time to call on someone.

We’ll just play it off as a delivery.

That’ll work.

A free promotion for no reason.

Felix lifted his hand and knocked on the mobile home door. Then he took a step down from the stairs and stood at the bottom.

Seconds ticked by and Felix could hear someone shuffling around inside. Though they didn’t come to the door.

Nor did it seem like they were in any hurry either. Eventually whoever was inside settled back down and moved no more.

After an entire minute passed, Felix realized they weren’t going to answer the door. If Edmund was here, which realistically didn’t seem likely anymore, then he wasn’t answering the door.

The fact that Edmund hadn’t been spotted at the book store had been odd to Cindy. On top of that, there were some goons outside waiting nearby.

Were they here looking for Edmund or was it just coincidental.

Now the address that he supposedly lived at felt wrong. Which meant he’d had to have lied to Cindy as well.

Maybe it was a lie so well practiced that I took it as truth.

But why would he have to lie so often that it felt like he was giving an answer that was honest. Something to consider.

Nothing I can do for now. I’ll just have to try this one again later.

Or from a different angle.

Sniffing, Felix walked back toward where Faith stood near the truck. He did pause for a moment to bend down and pick up the thug’s wallet. Flicking through it quickly he pulled out the man’s drivers license then tossed the rest back down.

Slipping it into his pocket in case he needed to know more of the man later, Felix got into the truck.

“Hey, I want to do some testing with this regeneration power you said I’d have as your grove,” he said, looking to Faith as she got into the truck. “I need to test a few things without you hitting me with the magical whammy.”

“Oh? Wonderful. I’d be happy for you to experiment on me,” Faith said with some excitement as she turned the key in the truck’s ignition. “After that we can do some minor testing on cuts and things to see how you heal up.”

“I didn’t mean—”

Felix let the words die unspoken.

He saw no reason not to test if he could recover in that way quickly, either.