148 Bumping Into a Hebert

Brockton Bay, New Jersey, September 13th, 17:34.

I am annoyed.

We had to wait two days just for Elle, or Labyrinth, as she is apparently known with her costume on, to be having a 'good day,' whatever the fuck that means.

According to Faultline, she struggles to differentiate reality on a bad day, which, in fairness, doesn't seem like it would make an incredibly productive conversation.

But at the very least, after all of this I am now free from ferrying Mimi around, and also have a connection with Faultline's crew through Mimi, right?

That's what would make sense, isn't it.

So 𝘸𝘩𝘺. Why is she still here, sitting in my car next to me?

We are parked outside the Palanquin, because I just dropped her off not that long ago, and I was just waiting here to say goodbye. But then she comes storming out of the building, clearly struggling to control her flames, and takes a seat next to me without a word.

"So!" I start, turning to face her just in time to see Gregor close the Palanquin's doors, "things not work out?~"

In response she just crosses her arms and doesn't answer. Her reticence just makes me narrow my eyes at her, and she immediately caves in after.

"No."

Ugh, teenagers. Trying to get information out of a moody teenager is like trying to ask a parahuman to live a quiet life on a farm. It's all but impossible.

"Will you not be going back to the Palanquin, or Elle?" I ask, not bothering to try and dig into what specifically has her in such a bad mood.

It's probably just that Elle doesn't like her as much as she likes Elle. That's just a guess based on how Mimi's power fucks with her head. I doubt she was particularly pleasant to talk to in an asylum of all places.

"No."

With a sigh, I lean back into my seat and close my eyes.

When I speak again, I am resigned to the knowledge that I can already guess her answer. "What about Brockton overall? I hear there's a fire breathing dragon somewhere around here, you wanna go see if he'll take you in?"

They'd actually fit pretty well if the dragon, whatever his name is, is as pyrokinetic as I'd heard, since that means he should be able to put out her fires if she gets in too deep.

"No." She says, crushing my hopes.

Who would have guessed.

"Okay, then what 𝘥𝘰 you want to do?" I ask, not really expecting much of an answer.

"I don't know," she says. Who'd have thought it?

"Do better," I demand, causing her to flinch and re-think her answer.

"...Then, can I go back to Maddie and Sam?"

Eh? The butlers?

...Fuck it, I'm sure they won't mind.

She better not burn my fucking house down though, that shit was expensive and I don't have insurance, because insurance is a scam. They seriously want me to just give them money, 'just in case' something happens?

Bullshit, I say.

"That works!" I exclaim, hiding my annoyance at having driven all this way for literally no reason at all.

Not wanting to give her the chance to change her mind, I quickly turn the car on, and immediately shift into second and slam on the gas. The car jerks forward, the sudden change in velocity pushing us back into our seats slightly as the hum of the engine echoes down the street.

The speed itself might not be as impressive to be as it would have been, but damn if it isn't fun to drive anyway.

Unfortunately, I only make it about three blocks before some maniac pulls out in front of me at a cross junction and I am forced to slam on the brakes, but I can tell that the car won't stop fast enough and decide to act.

Replacing a window is far cheaper than the whole front, so with that in mind, I force my power into motion, pushing it forward. The surge of my blood crashes through the windscreen and washes over the bonnet to form a barrier.

The next second, a thunderous 𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘴𝘩r rings out and I feel the impact, as my blood is still connected to me, and I'm pretty sure I just broke my seat with the force I got pushed against it with.

Luckily I didn't get pushed back enough for my makeshift barrier to touch my car, so other than the seat and windscreen, the car is fine, which sucks but oh well, it's good enough.

It's only after checking the car that I realise Mimi isn't in her seat anymore.

Ah.

It turns out that while I went backwards from the impact, Mimi did something of the opposite.

Luckily she still has the mods Riley gave her when she was in the Nine, otherwise she'd probably be dead right now.

Wait, is she dead? She's not making any noises.

"Mimi? You alive?" I ask, idly noticing the sound of a pair of rushing footsteps. A quick glance shows that there was only one dude around to witness this incident, since we're in a pretty out of the way area where I thought I could speed in peace.

But he's rushing up to the other car, so I focus back on Mimi.

With a simple thought, the barrier formed from my power turns back into a liquid and flows over Mimi before carrying her back into the car, rotating her to fit the seat properly.

"Mimiiiiii,~" I say as I lean closer to her, but with her now so close to me, it's easy for me to pick out her heartbeat. It's steady enough, she's just unconscious.

Oh well.

It means she gets to avoid the boring process of exchanging information with the unfortunate participant in this incident, so that we may both contact our insurances and all that jazz.

Laughing to myself slightly at the stupid thoughts, I start the car, again, and start driving once more. though I do spare a quick glance at the woman who I hit.

She has long and curly brown hair stuck to her head from the blood leaking out of her scalp and she has a kind of scholarly vibe about her. I'd wager that she's an English teacher or something equally inane, maybe pottery?

Though honestly, if you ignore the whole being probably dead thing, she's pretty attractive. Shame that.

However, right as I am driving past her totalled car, I notice something interesting. Out in front of her vehicle, is a small little box, glinting innocently despite it's evil actions.

What I am talking about is of course a phone, and for it to be there, it means she was using it. While driving. Everyone knows you shouldn't use your phone while driving, so clearly this whole incident is her fault, and her family should be grateful I'm not suing them for reckless endangerment of my most esteemed self.

"Hahahaha," I laugh to myself. I have no idea how laws work.

"Oh well, too bad, so sad. I should put some music on, maybe some Queen? Queen is always good." Decision made, I pull out my phone and plug it in to the aux.

Time for another long drive.

A little over an hour later and I am pulling back into my house in Staten Island, with Mimi once more conscious, though slightly concussed still. She'll be fine in the morning. Probably.

It's not even seven yet, so this time when I knock the door is actually answered in short order, no doubt in part due to them hearing my approach.

"The pizza's here!" Sam shouts back into the house as he opens the door, only to be greeted by my dry expression.

"Ah. Uh, you're back soon?" He says with a sheepish chuckle.

"No need to sound so disappointed,~" I respond with a roll of my eyes, "complications arose, ensued and were overcome. Now, we are back, and Mimi here recently had an unfortunate fall and I'm sure she'll appreciate some pizza right about now.~"

Caught rather flat footed, Sam merely gives an awkward chuckle and steps aside to let us in, following which I immediately rush to the only other person in the building, hoping for a fun situation of walking in on her naked and presenting herself for Sam.

Unfortunately, movies must have lied to me, because she is just sitting on the couch wearing a loose shirt and panties.

Laaame.

Turning around with a pout and ignoring Maddie's startled exclamations, I grab Sam by the elbow as he and Mimi are entering the room and march him back out, leaving the girls together so that we can have a word in private.

"Uhh, I'm really sorry about calling you pizza?" Sam says, sounding vaguely concerned.

"What?" I ask, confused for a moment until I remember that I'm scary, "oh, no, I don't care about that. Just wanted to let you know that I don't plan on hanging around."

Before he can finish his relieved sigh, I speak again, doing my best to sound as sympathetic as possible so as to get him to ride the pity train all the way to where I want him.

"But Mimi wants to stay. See, we left 'cuz we thought she'd have a friend she could stay with, but that turned out to be a bust and now she doesn't really have anywhere she can stay. Before you ask, staying with me isn't an option because I'll be traveling a lot. But, she has taken a liking to you and Maddie, so do you mind if you keep taking care of her, here?"

He clearly wasn't expecting that, but contrary to my expectations, he doesn't seem put off at all by the request, even seeming to appreciate it for some reason.

"Sure, I don't mind, and I know Mad will be happy to have someone around for girl talk. Seriously, why would anyone care about whether or not one shade of makeup is like, a barely noticeable amount lighter than the other? Women care about the weirdest of things."

...I can't tell if he's trying to be satirical of if he's just somehow forgotten.

"...You 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 I'm a woman right?" I ask, causing him to get a deer in headlights look to him as he clearly forgot. If it wasn't so funny, I'd probably be insulted, "and for the record, picking the right shade is very important. If you can't wrap your head around that, then just think about it like the uncanny valley effect and maybe you'll get it."

At my words, I watch in real time as he does as I said and changes his way of thinking, resulting in his eyes slowly widening in understanding. It's not like it's that complicated in the first place, one red may look natural while another similar one could look forced. Like if you were to paint over a leaf with green paint, it's the same colour but you can still tell it doesn't match.

"Huh," is his verbose response.

"Anyway, I'm gonna be going now. Call me if anything Parahumaney comes up, or if anything happens to the house. Oh, and get someone to fix my car, I'll send you some money for it, and whatever happens do 𝘯𝘰𝘵 burn my house down, or I 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 feed you your own brain."

For some reason, he doesn't seem all that bothered by my threat. I can tell he's taking it seriously, he just doesn't seem to care about it.

...I never went to collage, but I've heard enough to assume that this isn't too weird.

Whatever, now that that whole waste of time is over and done with, I can finally finish off my list of things to do. Shame I'll have to leave my car behind, but I missed riding my bike anyway, it's a lot more nimble and I can skip any traffic with it.

Then I'll just need to figure something else to do, but I already have an idea in mind that should be fun, and I must say.

I am once more looking forward to the future.

=================

A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

Hehehehehehehehe the funni thing I was planning that needed lusia to waste time was this!! Lusia killed Taylors mom!! MUAHAHAHAHA!!

(Taylor is the protag of Worm btw)

I can't believe that I actually forgot that Mimi and Elle weren't actually friends, like I had this whole thing planned out that was gonna span into the arc after next, some 40 chapters away, (I'm guesstimating) with faultlines crew and mimi being a part of it. I even had some lines written out in my head for some character interactions.

But fuck all of that I guess, cuz if ya didn't know, the asylum they were both in used Elle as enticement to get Mimi to behave. Elle does not harbour any positive feelings for Mimi, and with it being 3 years before canon, she is in an even worse position to hide those feelings, thus things not working out.

Also, in case you haven't noticed, I kinda got annoyed at trying to figure out something to do with Mimi that doesn't kill her (because that would have been a waste of a kill order bounty) so I basically just put her in a box for later.

Fun stuff should begin again next chap, which as you should know by now, means that it will not happen until the chap after next at least.

.....I just realised, but with how many A/Ns I do, is this a blog? Am I blogging?

(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