149 The Final Piece of the Puzzle

Detroit, Michigan, September 15th, 19:59.

Since my mysterious new potential hire wanted to meet in Detroit, I ended up passing by Columbus and decided to stay a day, check in on the kids, as it were.

They're doing good, I guess. To be honest they kind of gave me the cold shoulder, too busy doing wacky science stuff to give their old lady the time of the day.

It wasn't all bad though, since I just spent the day with his Hearts, in part because I'm nice and decided to vet all of James' capes, just in case any of them were the unsavoury sort.

Though, I can't deny the fun I had fucking with them, since they obviously know my actual identity now. Funnily enough, most of them didn't really give a shit, it was mostly really Jack who was obviously afraid of me. It was fun messing with her.

Oh, and there was also that girl from ages ago, the one who melted the transport I was in way back in my first fun little scheme. But despite still being a pussy, they've clearly grown somewhat, even if they were demoted to number three.

Point is, I had a fun day even with the kids being unreasonable, but now I am here, in Detroit.

He said he wanted to meet in the middle of this mall, for some reason, at exactly eight.

So here I am, sitting on a bench at the front entrance, dressed in casual clothes, ripped jeans, a white woollen blouse and a new face, with a hot pink beanie on my head for identification purposes.

Taking my phone at my pocket, I check the time, 20:00, and sigh. I'll wait another half hour at most, any later and I'm just gonna-

"Hey there Miss, what's got you looking so down? Did you get stood up or something?" A voice interrupts my thoughts, and when I look up I am greeted by the sight of a young man, probably only recently having turned eighteen.

He's dressed in what is very clearly a Legend cosplay, just with a shit tonne of glitter, to make up for the lack of lasers, I guess.

The fact that someone with a convenient excuse to be hiding their face just happens to be talking to me right on the minute that I was expecting to have company makes it pretty clear who this is.

Unless it's a seriously incredible coincidence. But I doubt that.

"Well, I thought so, but I might have been wrong,~" I answer, keeping vague enough that I can play it off just in case, but clearly my sudden bout of paranoia was pointless as his next words lose any of the previous subtlety.

"Cool! I was worried I'd got the wrong person haha, if you would follow me Lusi, can I call you Lusi? Sorry if I'm rambling, this is just kinda exciting to me. It's like meeting a celebrity, except the celebrity might eat you. Is it weird that I find that exciting? Not in like a sexual way, it's just interesting, kinda like how people have like, pet bears and tigers and stuff, or pitbulls, I guess. Those things are brutal. Do you like dogs? Or are you more of a cat person?"

Fucking... what?

Taking a moment to process the sudden onslaught of words, an amused smile worms its way onto my face as I respond, all the while I follow as he leads me away.

"In order, you can call me whatever you want, I'm not going to eat you unless your power sucks after all of this, I don't care if you have sexual fantasies about me, in fact I'd be flattered and understanding, as I am undeniably sexy, and I prefer cats.~"

The guy's eyes light up at my response and he seems a lot less nervous now. He was probably worried I'd shun him for being so energetic or something, but people are stupid. The fact he's so excitable is just fun.

We come to a stop before he says anything, standing in a somewhat isolated corner of the mall, and I notice that there is only one guy who can see us here.

My mystery recruit gives said guy a wave, to which he just nods his head before going back to his paper, and then he turns to me with a smile.

"Sorry, I just thought it'd be best to have this talk somewhere more private, so if you wouldn't mind going through there?" He asks, pointing to a door. A door for the disabled toilets to be precise.

Seeing the opportunity to do a little mischief, I put on an innocent and shy expression as I turn back to him.

"Y-you want a quickie in the toilets before we talk business?~ W-well, I wouldn't mind, if you insist?~"

I can practically 𝘴𝘦𝘦 his brain short circuit as he takes in my words, and I watch with great glee as an impressive blush spreads down his neck.

"W-what!? N-no, that's not what I- I mean- I didn't-" It's then that he notices the shit eating grin on my face, and he just lets out a long suffering sigh, drooping over slightly with his arms hanging loose, "why?"

That single word has a lot of depth behind it, but I just give a careless shrug of my shoulders as I answer. "'Cuz it's fun.~"

With a sigh that doesn't feel all that annoyed, he simply gestures back to the door.

"Can you just go in? Please?"

"Why can't you go in first?" I counter, just to be difficult, but his response is not what I expected it to be.

"'Cuz it's fun,~" He says, turning my own words back against me.

I approve.~

So with a pep in my step, I walk up to the door and open it, only to be greeted by a wave of heat and not at all a disabled toilet.

Slamming the door closed, I turn to the side and look out of one of the mall's windows.

Yep, the sun is most definitely starting to set.

I open the door again.

Why is the sun in front of me?

Turning back to the window, I find myself with two suns in my field of vision.

If this is what I think it is, I'm- Well, I don't even know what I'm going to do, but I sure as hell will be having a good time regardless.

With far less caution than is probably recommended, I walk through the door.

Warm air brushes over my skin with a light breeze as the afternoon sun shines down on me, meaning we're probably somewhere in South America, if I'm remembering my time zones correctly.

Though, as I look away from the forest around me, and take in the sight of what is clearly an Aztec temple, I think I could have figured out the general location anyway.

Still, I must say, I'm impressed. Having out meeting at the top of an Aztec temple is pretty fucking cool. Doubly so because it's not one of the ones that are in the middle of fucking city, though I can see the light pollution of a city nearby.

Hearing footsteps approaching from behind, I turn around to see the recruit walking through the same door, which is quite literally a door, including the frame, that is just leaning against a wall.

It certainly looks out of place, but if his power needs functioning doors to work, then it only makes sense.

"Nice spot, I bet you bring all the girls here, huh?~" I tease as he comes to stand beside me, looking out at the scenery with a smile that turns nostalgic.

"Nah, just the one, Darcy. But she's dead now, so I guess it's just me and you," he says, his words sounding completely casual despite their contents, "so yeah, this is my power. I can connect doors together, no matter the distance. Though each door can only be connected to one other door, and it takes a few minutes to 'mark' them, for lack of a better word."

As I go to open my mouth to respond, thinking he was done talking, he beats me to it by continuing.

"After I Triggered I was planning on doing like a travel agency kind of thing, but the NEPA-5 bill kinda send that idea down the drain. Who's idea was it to not let Parahumans use our powers for business reasons anyway? Doesn't that just mean more of us will turn Villain? Like me? Speaking of, I tried to do it anyway, just illegally, which means I wouldn't even have to pay taxes, so even better. But I haven't been able to get it set up at all, because I would need reliable safe places to put the doors, but everywhere I've gone has either needed money I don't have, or had some gangsters telling me I'd need to pay them a toll 'cuz it's their territory, or that I'd have to join them!"

"And so," I interrupt, before he can keep ranting, "you came to me in the hopes that I could help you out, presumably without taking a cut of your profits?"

"Pretty much yeah! But you'll obviously be able to travel for free, though, now that I think about it, I'll probably have to hire guards, so I guess if you can help with that too, then some of the profits can go to you for that."

I'm not sure if he understands business, because by all accounts he's basically insulting me here, asking me to do basically all the work in setting this up, pretty much for free.

My grin only grows at how funny this guy is.

"Sure, we'll have to talk details later, I just need to do some stuff first," I say, already planning on getting a map of the U.S. as soon as I can to look through, "but if we're doing this, then I'll need you to do a lot of travelling to get a network spread out throughout the country. Maybe you can even go abroad after we're done?"

I only listen with half an ear as he responds, my mind awhirl with thoughts and schemes.

"Really!? Awesome! Oh, I go by Doorman by the way, but I was thinking about changing it up if you let me join you guys, since your whole theme is clowns and games and stuff, I figured I could call myself Fast Travel, like in games. But do you have any ideas about how it's all going to work? Because I've been thinking about it for the past couple months, and I have a couple of ideas, but I'm not sure how feasible-"

"Don't worry about it," I say, cutting him off, "I already figured it out. The protection stuff will be case by case, but for the most part, I'll just visit or call whoever owns the territory and 'convince' them of the importance of our locations remaining neutral. This is good, thank you Fast Travel, you've opened a lot of doors just now, and I can finally put an old plan I had into place.~ So don't you worry, I'll sort everything out and give you a call in a few days."

He honestly seems a little put out that I've already got everything sorted, but he also seems pleased at the same time, however, right as he turns around to go back to the door, he pauses and slowly turns back to face me.

"You're still not going to be taking a cut of my profits though, right?"

I just laugh at him.

"Hahaha, you really have your priorities in order, don't you? Well, allow me to put you at ease.~ No, I do not plan on touching your profits, money is meaningless to me.~ Just wait for me to get back to you, I think you'll like what I have in mind, I'm certainly excited for it at least.~"

And so we return to Detroit and go our own separate ways.

I barely make it half way to my car before I'm pulling out my phone, too excited with my plans to wait any longer.

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘢 𝘣𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘯!

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A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

Quick question, but what is the better way to do laughter? It's something I find myself concerned over a lot, like, just going up a little bit, "I just laugh at him. "Hahaha, you..."" is that better, or should I have gotten rid of the first part and just had the speech, or maybe taken the hahaha out of the speech and left the laughing as narration?

Considering the whole theme of the fic, it's kinda important for the sake of immersion but I've never figured out which is better, I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Also, this idea was something that I legit came up with ages ago, you know what? fuck it, imma go back through my chapters and try and find where I got the idea.

Found it. I've had this idea since chapter 81 at the latest, and now I can finally fucking write it lmao

Which reminds me, for those who've read my other fic, do you remember me saying how I started the whole thing just cuz I wanted to do anbu missions, and that it took me ages before I even got to start that? Well, I 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 haven't gotten to the idea that I had when I started this fic lmao, I'm just too autistic, everything has to be in chronological order or I get upset.

(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