Malcolm Tent
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Wish upon the Stars chapter 615
🕑 Added 2024-04-30 23:31:40 +0000 UTCWe waited until we left the bar before Callie put us under Stealth. “Ok, that can’t have been a coincidence right?” Chelsea asked in a harsh whisper. “We come there and he immediately sends us to deal with the fallout of a situation WE caused?”
I shrugged. “It could be. It’s not even really that much of one. We went there specifically to find the gang of the people we stopped, and apparently they were the only team that didn’t come back. It kind of makes sense for our test to involve something a bit gruesome, and if he had us kill some OTHER gang’s people he risks tipping off a war when there’s other stuff going on.”
Callie grimaced. “Well we obviously can’t kill them.”
“I mean, we could kind of kill them.” Abel said matter of factly. At her glare, he just shrugged. “What? It’s not like we know or care about them. They attacked us first. It’s justified.”
“No.” I said bluntly. “It’s not. Killing people offering us violence is fine. Play stupid, games win stupid prizes, but killing defeated enemies who surrendered to us out of combat is wrong.” He started talking but I cut him off. “And yes, baiting them into attacking us for the express purpose of murdering them counts.”
Callie nodded approvingly, beaming at me in pride. It was staggering how her beauty could still beat me over the head after a year together, though admittedly we mostly wore masks around each other. Still, I’d drown in those eyes if I wasn’t careful. I felt a pulse of adoration from the bond and realize all of that had been leaking through, and I took her hands in mine, smiling down at her.
“Ugh.” Said Abel disgustedly. “You two can’t get married fast enough. I can’t wait until the shine comes off that apple.”
Mel snorted. “How romantic. Maybe you’re just mad Shane is making you look bad, Mr. ‘I spent our first anniversary in jail for assault’. Why don’t you ever gaze lovingly into MY eyes? Ass.” Her tone was playful, but Abel just turned to glare at me.
“You see what you do?” He demanded in annoyance. I wasn’t fooled though. Their bond was even deeper than ours, and there was no way Mel was secretly pining for romance and Abel didn’t know about it. She was just giving him a hard time. “Anyway, if we can’t kill the bastards what do you propose we do.”
Bethy snorted. “I mean, duh. We’re just supposed to bring him heads, we just make some fake heads and then sneak them off the continent so he doesn’t notice they’re still alive. Oooh! We can make them out of paper mache! I know a really cool mix of corn syrup and red food dye that looks like blood!”
“No one ask her why!” I shouted, cutting off several people in our group. “I don’t want to know. Good idea though Bethy. Maybe not paper mache though.”
She pouted. “Fine, I guess we can make a dumb wish or something. Nobody ever lets me have any fun. Can we wish for an extra though? Daddy showed me how to make a cup out of a skull when I was little but I’ve never been able to make one.”
“I guess.” I said with a shrug. “If you want. Does this love of morbid crafts apply to your fashion? You going to make a bone dress or something?”
Rolling her eyes, she gave a disdainful sneer. “No Shane. I make stuff because it’s FUN and do fashion because it’s PRETTY. We’ve been super busy though so I haven’t had time for arts and crafts.”
“We’re getting off topic.” Sighed Gabe. “Skull cups aside, we have a plan now, the question is what we think is going on.”
I explained my theory about this possibly being some kind of training exercise or way to keep tabs on them and everyone agreed. We decided to get this out of the way immediately, heading for the restaurant where they would still be doing repairs. “So…how are we supposed to do this?” Asked Chelsea. “Because while ditching or adding masks and changing our clothes might work on most people, they’ll probably figure it out pretty much immediately, recursion or not.”
“Yup.” I said with a grin. “Which is why we’re going to use the situation to our advantage. Chances are good that Griff has figured out where they are, I mean, it’s the last place he sent them, and he’s not an idiot. He didn’t have people watching them yesterday because they WERE the people, so we have that going for us.”
Callie nodded. “Makes sense, but the main issue is that if we walk up and engage with them it’ll become obvious what’s going on. Hell, the restaurant staff might pick us out, though we had the advantage of being in a huge party.”
“Which is why we don’t give them the chance.” I beamed. “I’m going to use Moonlit Night, and then we’re going to have a quick conversation with them while some of us make noise. Then we make the wish and leave behind the bodies, sans heads, and the reaction from the staff will help sell the fiction.”
“That’s not bad.” Admitted Abel with an impressed tone. “It assumes Griff will be watching us, but it’s what I would do.”
Callie snorted. “Oh he is, I’ve been tracking his people following us for about ten minutes now. They’re having trouble keeping track because of my Stealth, but I’m trying to make sure we don’t lose them completely. They can’t hear us, obviously, but the occasional glimpse keeps them on our tracks.”
When we arrived at the restaurant, we all stopped across the street. “Alright.” I said to confirm. “Everyone knows the plan? I can rope them into the fog so we can all talk and no one else will pick it up, but we need to do this fast.” Before leaving, Callie made two wishes (one for the entrance one for the exit), paying with a pair of D-ranked chits she had left from what Celine had paid for her century, to make sure things went as well as possible. We could still fuck it up, but as long as we stayed on plan, our chances of people taking things exactly the right way were pretty high.
Once everyone confirmed they knew their roles, we crept across the street. Callie was running Stealth for all of us, which was the obvious choice given her much higher Perception, but when we got close enough, I triggered Moonlit Night. Instantly, a fog billowed out, consuming the restaurant and some of the nearby street.
It was the easiest thing in the world to push the Skill to include the others so they could see, and all of us blitzed into the place, though I slipped my mask on before going in to talk to them..
Callie and I headed straight for where I was able to sense the Horned Lords, Matthew and Bruno working on repairing the wall where the bigger man had been smashed through the stone by Gabe.
It took a minor flex of will to include them in the Skill so they could see, and I stopped in front of them. Before they could speak, I held up a hand. In the background I could hear Bethy and Abel casually brawling to make a mess. “Look, not much time. Griff basically hired us to kill you, we don’t want to do it, we have a way to fake your deaths but you have to trust us.”
Matthew froze, looking indecisive, then sighed and nodded. “I understand. You already let us live when you didn’t have to. What do you need?”
“I’m a Wyndham.” I said bluntly. “I can offer you a few wishes to help.” I couldn’t tell them exactly what to do, luckily Callie didn’t have that issue.
She jumped in when I stopped talking. “We need fake bodies, and we need you gone. Short range teleport or disguises or whatever you want to do, but when we leave here you need to look dead and not be around anymore.”
Matthew nodded. “We can disguise and mix in with the crowd.” He said, removing his mask. “As for payment…” He reached into a pocket, pulling out a bag. “I’ve got E-ranked chits, about fifty of them. I wish you had headless copies of our bodies that would stick around permanently and fool any form of inspection.”
I grimaced as I got the feedback on that. “Too general.” I said apologetically. “Any form of inspection is out of my depth.”
It took a few more tries for them to get the right wording. By the time we finished we barely had enough time to shove them into the clothes and slap on the illusion jewelry they’d managed to swing with the five wishes their coins had afforded them. Wishing them well, we grabbed heads, then came peeling out of the restaurant, letting the fog fade.
Screams of fear and disgust erupted from inside when they found the ‘bodies’ left behind, and we all grinned at each other as we fled the scene, sure we were being noticed by whoever Griff had watching. Callie Stealthed us again once we got further away, and I turned to grin at my friends, laughing.
“That was fantastic.” I said breathlessly. “With the two meta wishes Callie made I’m sure that went off without a hitch.” I turned to Abel and Bethy. “Your fight was perfect. It sounded so lifelike. I swear I heard Abel screaming and cursing like he was really injured.”
He glared at me, and I noticed he was cradling his left arm. “I WAS injured.” He snapped. “That airheaded lunatic broke my arm in four places. I THOUGHT we were holding back!”
Bethy looked devastated. “Oh Andy, I’m so sorry. I thought you WERE holding back. I promise if we ever have to fight again I’ll be super duper careful. Daddy says I’m never careful enough when roughhousing with weak people.”
Abel’s face turned red and he started sputtering, unable to form words through the obvious offense taken at her comments. I took the opportunity to walk up to him and put a hand on him. A quick Scan heal let me see how the bones were aligned, and when I noticed a slight misalignment, I grabbed his arm casually and jerked it, setting the bones before I double tapped heal burst, burning the last of my supply.
“Fuck!” He howled as the bones ground together. His face turned red and then faded back to normal as the healing energy coursed through him. “You could have been nicer about that!” He snapped as he rubbed his shoulder.
“Yup.” I said jovially. “And you could have decided not to shock me with your stupid lightning gloves. We all make choices.”
He blinked at me in shock. “Seriously?” He gaped at me. “ Have you just been waiting for an opportunity to fuck with me about that since it happened?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I said cheerfully. “But if I did I’d suggest that next time you test your little static tricks on someone who doesn’t occasionally hold their life in your hands. Ass.”
Mel, to my shock, burst out laughing, having to catch herself on the wall as she howled with amusement, literally doubling over for a minute until she straightened up, drying her eyes. When she caught our eyes, she managed to choke out. “Sorry. If you could feel what he’s feeling you’d be laughing too. He can’t decide if he’s proud or pissed.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He grumbled. “If we’re all done we ought to get back to Griff’s place. With the wishes Callie made he shouldn’t connect us to the original fight, but if we take too long after they lose track of us he might get suspicious.” I imagine he thought we’d refocus on the task at hand and get moving. Unfortunately for him we were still laughing when we got back to the bar. If nothing else, being so amused post ‘murder’ helped sell the impression we wanted to give.
