194 When in Rome...

Rome, Italy, February 27th, 14:23.

What do you get when you mix an incredibly competent and powerful parahuman, me, with a whole lot of free time and very little desire to be spending it fighting or engaging in otherwise high octane activities?

You get what local officials are starting to call a 'menace'.

I was just continuing my touring when I got to Rome, to visit the colosseum, which sparked another idea, when I got the sudden inspiration for a really really funny prank.

It took a while to pull off, mostly because I had to go to a bunch of different stores for all the supplies, namely I had to buy a bunch of sets of Monopoly.

Of course, it was only after the sixth store that someone asked me what I was doing buying hundreds of Monopoly sets, and after explaining that I needed a lot of Monopoly Dollars for a prank, I only cried a little when they pointed out that I could just use a printer to get as many as I want.

It's not my fault I didn't think about it! I'm not a technology kind of gal ok? Shit's confusing, and I'm better with people than machines, so using a printer never even came to mind as an idea.

But whatever right? The end point is the same, me with a metric fuck tonne of fake money.

Spending the night sneaking into Banca d'Italia, the main Bank of not just Rome, but all of Italy, wasn't honestly that much of a hurdle, because there happens to be a decent Mover in Rome who can teleport people around him to further around him, so I just got him to teleport me right into the vault.

Then it was case of making use of a gift from Vendor to make the inside security utterly fail to perceive me, and then another of Vendor's toys that returns one to where they were in the past, which effectively got me back out of the vault once I'd swapped all the money with fake bills.

Of course, the reason the teleporter was willing to help me was that he'd be getting a significant cut of the money, by which I mean all of it. 

The only reason he hadn't already robbed this specific bank is due to not having access to any Tinkers capable of doing what I did to keep from being noticed.

I even left behind a Joker card as a calling card just for shits and giggles.

I  also happened to refrain from mentioning to the friendly Mover all the different ways that I knew the local capes could track down the stolen money. Getting caught was always a risk, if he didn't want to get arrested, he shouldn't have robbed a bank.

What? He had an accomplice? Says who? The  criminal? Sure thing buddy, then try explaining why you have all the cash? You're gonna be going away for along time.~

So that was fun, I guess.

The money will probably all be back by the end of tomorrow and the whole thing will just be seen as either a joke or an epic failure. Either way, I had fun, and now I'm moving onto more interesting things.

Specifically, a thought that came to me as I was taking tourist photos of the colosseum. I was thinking that it's a damn shame that nobody really uses it to fight anymore when I got a grand idea.

A couple of phone calls later and I had Fast Travel on board, then again, anything that makes money will have him on board. The dude really loves money way too much.

Now all that needs to be set up is an actual colosseum, and we'll have our very own death sport of gladiatorial combat making a comeback!

The whole thing will work pretty similarly to the ranking sites, except none of that 'waiting for them to fight' bullshit. You just hop onto the site and register if you want to fight, with separate parahuman and human brackets, and then use Fast Travel to teleport into the arena to fight.

I'm thinking we can even try for a legal angle by properly involving Last Laugh Inc. but I'm not too sure about that. Doing so would mean that we couldn't do proper death sports, it'd be more like superpowered MMA, but with the inclusion of some liability disclaimers and making it at least seem on paper that we're trying to avoid 'accidental but inevitable' deaths, then it should be fine.

Either way, with pay-outs offered to winners and the profit from all the gambling, it'll be a cash-cow with or without any amount of legality. If it's legal we get more betters, and if it's illegal then we just make the bets bigger and it evens out.

Best part is, we can throw Cerberus in as the standing champion, so we never even have to pay the ultimate championship prize. It'll also double as amazing marketing, so I don't doubt that a bunch of capes would jump at the opportunity to show what they've got.

Though, we obviously won't be the only ones scouting for talented newcomers, but that's fine, since we'll be the strongest out of all the scouters, so any particularly impressive new capes are most likely to accept our offer anyway.

The joys of giving people exactly what they want with basically no strings attached, is that they tend to accept the offer.

All said, things are going pretty well. Which is when I get a call.

"Yeeello?~" I say as I bring the phone to my ear, only to be greeted by loud, raucous and purposefully mocking laughter.

With a complete deadpan expression, I patiently wait for Jinx to stop pointing and laughing at me, and I know he's pointing, even if I'm not actually there.

I start tapping my foot as I keep waiting. He seems to come down from his high for a moment, going from a hard laughter to slow, deliberate 'Ha's.

"Okay!! I get the fucking point! What are you laughing about!" I shout out as he really just doesn't seem like he's going to stop anytime soon.

"Ha Ha Ha Ha Haaaaahahaha, okay, I'm done, for now.~" He says, taking a breath.

"Fun," is my droll response, "so you gonna fill me in on what that was all about?"

"Nah." The line goes dead.

Did this motherfucker seriously just call me to laugh at me, without even explaining  why he's laughing at me?

Before I can even call him back to, at the very least, leave an angry voicemail, the phone rings again, this time a call from May of all people, which is a first.

I know she likes talking with me, but I always have to be the one to call otherwise she never will, so there must be  something going on for her to call  me,  and with my 'talk' just now with Jinx, I briefly consider just not answering.

Alas, I'm too kind for my own good, so with a put upon, if fond, sigh, I answer the phone.

"Wassu-"

"Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!"

God motherfucking-

I get the feeling that I'm missing something important, because  clearly I've become the butt end of some joke.

Still, I can hardly be mad, even if I'm going to pretend to be. Hearing May laugh, even like this, is always going to bring a smile to my face.

Eventually however, she  does run out of steam, quite literally as I hear her suck in a desperate breath, having quite literally laughed at me until she couldn't anymore.

"I'm glad you got that out of your system," I say, my voice just as droll as with Jinx, "now will  you at least tell me  why you're laughing at me?"

The line pauses for a moment, and I can almost visualise May tilting her head side to side in thought. "Haha nope.~" The line goes dead again and a sudden  thud rings out as my phone makes a dent in the wall opposite me.

Annoying little shits.

Deciding to go get laid to vent my frustrations, because while I  could investigate why I'm getting laughed at, doing so would ruin the fun for them, and I'm fine being laughed at so long as it's them who are laughing, I get to my feet.

Only to be interrupted by the pinging of my phone.

With a sigh, I walk over and pick it back up, rubbing a thumb over the cracked screen and inwardly thanking Tinkers for making phones durable enough that it's  only cracked.

Powering it up, I see that the notification was informing me that I have a voicemail...

Something tells me I know exactly what I'll hear when I play it.

As I thought, as soon as the voicemail starts, I am getting laughed at, by James this time.

"Hahahahaha- Hey!" The sound of a brief struggle comes through as James is cut off, and I hear distant shouting from multiple different voices until the phone seems to once again be in the hands of a single person.

"Hey Mommy, sorry about him, he's just being a big meanie!" Riley purposefully said that last part extra loud, no doubt so that James can hear it, much to my amusement, "I don't know why he was being a meanie, but I won't let him bully you!"

Awwwwwwwww my god she's so adorrrable!!

I practically feel myself melting from sweetness overload at how friggin' cute she sounds 'defending my honour' like that.

God, I just want to give her the biggest of hugs.

...Maybe I should cut my travel short and head back, pretty much anything fun I'm doing over here I can also do in the states.

Before I can settle on a decision, it's made for me as I get  another phone call. I really am blowing up today...

Preparing myself to be laughed at some more, I don't even bother giving a greeting as I answer the phone.

"Ahhh, Lusia? Sorry, I got distracted with something and I get the feeling that some others might have called before I could even share with you the news?" John's voice is a welcome surprise, especially with the promise of information.

I said I wouldn't investigate, but if the answers just walk up to me, who am I to say no?

"You could say that... So what's got everyone laughing at me today?"

"I guess they did call ahead then," he chuckles lightly, "well, we all heard about a deal you made, courtesy of you telling Fool, and, well... I'll just send you a link, I'm sure I won't need to explain why they were laughing."

"Aight, thanks... out of curiosity, did  you laugh at me for whatever it is that the others did?"

"Errr, kshhh, psh." With that  awful attempt at imitating phone static, John hangs up on me without a word.

I guess that's a yes, then.

As I'm rolling my eyes, the phone pings as John sends me a news link that I tap on, having to tap multiple times to get the input through the broken screen.

The article, Canadian, explains how a famous actress from Vancouver, Sidney Saile, was kidnapped. The culprit being none other than Heartbreaker. According to the article, heroes from both Vancouver and Montreal, as well as some extra help, including but not limited to Dragon, are all going to be teaming up to rescue said actress.

It takes a second for it all to click in my head, but when it does, I find myself laughing at myself too.

They were laughing at me because now I have to whore myself out to Heartbreaker, as per my word.

That is pretty funny.

Though, he has to survive the hero assault first. Fast Travel's taken to making some Doors over here in Europe, but it's more of a side project to him, so there aren't any outside of Germany yet.

Which means I have to take a plane, which takes time.

If he's not arrested when I get there, then sexy times it is. If he  is arrested..? Then, I guess I'll play it by ear.

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A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

Y'know how the end of Murder Wizard was super rushed? Well, I can feel that happening here, so when I said this fic was coming to an end soon, I meant like in the next few chapters, plus an epilogue.

I'll probably go down to a release schedule of everyday bar sunday or something after this, and I'll  also probably start working on some other fics.

I'd said I was thinking on doing multiple fics at once after finishing with this one, and that  did mean only once this fic has run it's course, but eh, I think variety will help avoid burnout. I'll still prolly focus mainly on one though, knowing me. Plus it seems y'all would prefer one fic to be focused on, which honestly surprised me.

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