81 A Journey Without a Map Never Ends

"-and that about sums it up!~ If you guys decide to move in within the week then it should be no problem gathering the Xiao Longs under you and you could probably convince most of the 'Lords' to change sides. All the while, the Heroes will probably do nothing so that you guys can bring the city back to order for them.~"

Kicking my legs back and forth over the edge of the tallest building in Denver, I play with a single Joker card in my right hand while I hold my phone to my ear with my left as I admire the setting sun.

"Good. Good. I must say Tear, you have truly gone above and beyond what I expected of you. I'd like you to know that my already rather high opinion of you has certainly risen thanks to this wonderful job you've done."

I can practically hear the smile on Uppercrust's face even through the phone as he praises me for a job well done.

The main reason he's so pleased is because he was probably expecting me to kill a lot more parahumans. But I'm not stupid.

Parahumans are like natural resources. Each city only has so many and only so many will be born with time. Each parahuman can provide great benefits to a group like the Elite, even the hostile ones.

After all, having an enemy to fight is great for team bonding.

That's why I've been holding out on getting rid of too many capes.

In fact, I only actually killed the two, Extinction and Taiyang, I'm pretty sure Scarface survived, but he might need to change his name to just 'Scar' at this point. Though I did also get Keeper to leave for Toybox.

With her I now have a spy in Toybox. Though I may end up 'killing' Lucy Kalmana, but I have a plan for that to make her just be a spy for the real me, rather than just a persona with basically the same name.

Shaking my head, I respond before the pause gets awkward.

"No need to sweet talk me Crusty~ it was no trouble at all.~ In fact, I had a blast!~ Besides, I was just holding up my end of our deal anyway.~"

I hear a huff of breath that could have either been a repressed laugh or a sigh, either one is funny to me anyway so my smile only grows.

"I think by now just about everyone knows all about that 'blast' you had. I'm glad you managed to survive that by the way. As for our deal, don't worry. I remember it and I will uphold my end just as you have yours. Also your payment for this job will be wired to your account within the next ten minutes."

Honestly I completely forgot I was getting paid for a minute there and now I'm remembering just how many zeroes are going to be in my bank account.

I should invest in something. Maybe buy out a couple arcades or something?

I know they're a failing business and a really bad investment and all, but they're fun!

"Cool beans! In that case I'll talk to you another time I guess. I've got to go fetch my bike.~"

With that said I get to my feet, twisting my right hand in a way that it looks like the card it was holding just disappeared.

"You have to fetch it? I wouldn't imagine you would leave it with anyone else. You seemed pretty happy with it. Do you have any plans for where you are headed next?"

I'm honestly not too sure whether or not he is being professionally inquisitive or just generally curious.

Either way, there's no reason to be evasive with him. Worst case would be that I end up having some trouble with some Elite, but that sounds like fun anyway.

Not that I really have a plan on where to go anyway.

"Not too sure to be honest. I'm thinking of heading south, maybe New Mexico or something, get me some sun you know?~ As for the bike, I just left it with my 'boyfriend' so imma go nab it and leave, maybe kill him too. Depends on if he's awake I guess.~ Welp! See ya!"

With that I hang up on him and put my phone away.

Night has basically set in by this point so no one can see me all the way up here as I take a few steps back and pick up a small hand glider from behind me.

I've always wanted to do this.

Moving to the middle of the roof to get a run up, I stretch my legs a little before running full tilt to the edge of the roof and with a large leap I launch myself off the building.

For a moment gravity has no effect on me and I feel like I'm floating, the next the wind is crashing into my face as I start rapidly gliding through the city.

Despite cities being called steel forests, the streets are orderly enough that I am basically flying in a straight line the whole time.

It's fun, but honestly I kind of expected more. Maybe it's because of the high octane lifestyle I've started living, but it just doesn't feel as magical as I was hoping it to and it's not long before it's over.

I'd like to say that I stuck the landing, but to be honest what actually happened was I couldn't slow down at the end and crashed into a wall at a really high speed.

Ah well, at least I am on the ground now.

Now I just need to go get my bike.

The glider is completely ruined, but eh, who cares and there is a dude staring at me with wide eyes and a dropped jaw.

...I guess I could eat.

About an hour later and I'm approaching an apartment building that has a bunch of Hispanic duded chilling outside.

They notice me and a couple of them give me a wave which I return and as I am passing them by to get to the neighbouring garage, where my bike is, one of them calls out to me.

"Ey Lulu! Donny says to let ya know he's gonna be out 'till midnight-ish if ya stop by."

With a confident smirk I don't stop my stride as I walk past him, waving my far more tan than usual arm at them in dismissal.

"Cool. Well if you're gonna be messenger boys then you can tell him that I'm goin' for a drive and that I'll see him tomorrow."

Obviously that's a lie, but so is my skin right now so it should really be par for the course at this point.

I don't know if shapeshifting was always a part of my power or if it is something that came later, but I figured out how to do it fairly recently.

Nothing too overt like turning into a man, but I can look like just about any woman with my kind of build, which is great for when you want to influence some Mexican gangster into getting too big for his britches.

Not that it's a particularly difficult thing to do with all the ego being thrown around anyway.

The whole being capable of shapeshifting thing is also why I no longer really care about keeping my identity a secret, since I can just change face whenever.

Though, I do like my original face the most, so I'm not planning on changing faces like shoes or anything.

The only weird thing is that for some reason, despite being able to change my skin tone, I can't change my hair colour. My assumption is that this aspect of my power is related to blood somehow, since that seems to be a general theme of mine and hair doesn't have blood in it so I can't change it.

Doesn't really matter though, hair dye exists.

With these thoughts in my head, I hop on my bike, after checking that all my shit was still in it, and head off to Pueblo, still dressed in my Lulu clothes, because I actually kind of like the punk look, plus I am on a motorcycle so it's only thematic really.

I should get there a bit before midnight and I can crash the night there and set of for places unknown in the morning, looking for anything interesting to do.

I could always have just stayed the night with Donny before leaving, but I don't know when the Elite are going to be getting here and I don't want to be around when they do show up.

I don't know all the details, but I know that it isn't going to be Uppercrust's cell that moves in. He is on the other side of the country after all.

So I'm assuming that he's using me to either repay a favour or to gain one from someone else, or maybe just money or something, but I doubt Uppercrust would be so short sighted as to prioritise money over powerful favours.

Our own deal is enough to show that.

But want to do my best to avoid other members of the Elite. Meeting them could complicate things whether the meeting goes well or not.

Besides, Uppercrust himself will get a higher standing among them if he's the only point of contact with me and the more influence he has the better he'll be able to keep his half of our deal.

Unfortunately, my thoughts are rather rudely interrupted by a tapping on my shoulder. This is incredibly strange and startling as I am currently speeding down a highway.

Turning to my side, I see another motorcycle driver matching my speed and he waves once he sees he has my attention.

Slipping a bit closer to me, despite both of us going about 140kmh(90mph~), he lifts up the bottom half of his helmet and starts shouting at me to be heard over the wind.

"Hey! I like your bike! Wanna race!?" He gives me an impish little grin after he finishes speaking and I find myself matching it once I notice that he seems to be driving the exact same bike.

I don't have to raise my helmet to respond as I am not wearing one. I like the wind on my face and sunglasses are enough to keep it out of my eyes and with my power helping me, they don't even make it hard to see on nights like this.

Glancing ahead, I see an exit from the highway that looks like it probably loops back around and I point at it for him.

"Sure! Through there, first back to the highway wins!?" I yell and he immediately agrees.

We keep in line with each other until we get to the road where on unsaid understanding, we both immediately start the race, going from already speeding to just making our bikes go as fast as they can.

Though we quickly have to slow down as the road is no longer straight and I quickly notice that he is a much better driver than me, which is no real surprise to be honest, as he starts creating a lead.

Part of me is honestly tempted to shoot a bone spike at him, but that is just a brief passing thought and it would be cheating anyway, not to mention petty.

No need to be a sore loser. Games wouldn't be fun if you won every time after all, and I am actually having fun anyway.

I've never raced anybody like this before, and I do love new experiences.

Alas, the road returns to the highway faster than I thought it would and he beats me by a pretty good margin, slowing to a stop after our imposed finish line.

Luckily it's so late otherwise stopping in the middle of a highway like this would be a pretty dumb idea.

Slowing my own vehicle as I approach, I come to a stop right beside him.

He takes his helmet of and offers his hand, to which I reciprocate by taking my glasses of and shaking it.

"That was fun! Though I get the feeling you're new to this. First bike?" He honestly just seems genuinely happy to be talking about bikes and it's kind of cute.

"You guessed it~ I've only had it for about a month, but I'm liking it a lot more than cars." I admit, and it's true. With cars you don't get the same feeling of wind blowing on your face, it's truly much better.

He gets this knowing look on his face and then proceeds to seemingly read my mind.

"It's nice to feel the wind isn't it? Bikes are much better than stuffy old cars right?"

I just got an idea.

"Speaking of bikes, wanna swap?" I ask and he blinks at me in confusion for a moment at my question.

"Numbers?" He looks a mix between relieved and insulted when I laugh in his face, but the way he asked was just too funny for me not to.

"No, I mean bikes. Wanna swap bikes?" I ask again and this time his face goes from confusion to amusement and I can practically see the moment his mind says 'fuck it'.

"Why not?"

With that, we both get of our bikes and take a minute to swap our stuff around.

"This is probably the strangest thing I've ever spontaneously done in the middle of the night. What about you?"

Putting my glasses back on as I prepare to get back to driving, I give a simple response as I start the engine.

"Not even fucking close."

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A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

This was supposed to be a PHO chapter. why was this not a PHO chapter? I wrote the PHO thing and everything. I was just going to do a little bit beforehand like last time, a few hundred words ending with lusia taking out her phone and then boom, ctrl + V and the PHO segment is there.

But for some reason this happened instead and now the PHO chapter is going to be after this.

Also I just had an amazing thought. When this fic is over, providing Lusia is immortal or cryogenically frozen or some shit, I could totally do a My Hero Academia sequel since it's just a few hundred years in the future, and Worm's first cape was a glowing golden man, while in MHA it's recorded as a glowing golden baby. Could just be something lost in translation over the years. I even have an idea for how I would do it lol

Also, Spain is hot, but I was right, it is better than being hot in england as not only is it less humid but they are obviously more prepared for the heat here.

(5+)Advanced chapters with the links below!

pat/reon.com/user?u=41732867 (get rid of the first slash or check the description)

Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses