Chapter 26: 24 – Astonished

Sometimes, Google could lead you to dark places you wish you never visited. But other times, it actually helped you realize something.

That’s right! After the shopping trip, when I was brooding over my two crushes, I turned to the Internet and randomly typed something in, and as it goes, my virtual adventure ended up nowhere near where I started.

I stared at the word “polycule” and its description. It felt like I was having a huge revelation all over again.

Apparently, some people weren’t satisfied with just one partner, so they find multiple, and it ends up with everyone being each other’s girlfriends and boyfriends. When I had first read about this, it had blown my mind.

I’d been so stuck with the notion that you can only ever have one partner, otherwise you’re cheating, but as usual, I had been wrong!

So that was it! The solution to all of my problems! Troy and his fish, and piranhas, and whatever could go take a hike! I could date both Fern and Iron Pack if I wanted to!

Well, those two would also need to click together and get along. But I was sure it wouldn’t be a problem. They were quite similar, to be honest… maybe they were secretly sisters? Hah, no way, Fern said she was an only child.

Anyway, now, the only problem left was finding Iron Pack again and this time actually confessing instead of being an idiot. A tough challenge for someone like me. Obviously, the confessing was the hard part. Finding her shouldn’t be a problem since I’d already found her once. I could do it again, no problem!

“You did a good job finding her last time. It was just kind of unfortunate she was in the middle of a fight,” Fractal admitted.

In a way, it was fortunate for me, since I’d gotten to be slightly cool in front of her. But I couldn’t say that out loud. Which reminded me, I still didn’t know what the bone Fractal wanted to pick with her was.

“By the way… I never asked, but why are you going after her?”

Fractal frowned and crossed his arms whilst looking away.

“She betrayed me… We used to be allies, but one day, she left out of the blue and took some of my tech with her.”

That made me stop. Iron Pack had done that? It was hard to believe he was talking about the same person who I fell in love with.

Why would she do something like that? And more importantly, I had never heard about Fractal and Iron Pack being teammates at all. Was he lying to me? No way, he wasn’t the type. What was going on here?

“Why…?” I whispered to myself.

“You tell me.” He shrugged. “One of the reasons I’m going after her is to figure out the why.”

It felt wrong. Surely, Iron Pack must have had a reason to do that? It seemed very out of character from what I knew about her.

“Now, while finding her again is important, there is another job I have planned, and you are gonna play an important role in it.” Fractal brought me back to reality from my brooding thoughts.

“Uh, yeah? What is this job?”

“Follow me, I’ll show you.”

I nodded and followed as requested, still thinking about why my supervillain crush would turn on and steal from a nice guy like Fractal. It didn’t make any sense.

We arrived in Fractal’s office; he sat behind his desk, pushed up some buttons, and summoned a hologram showing a building of sorts.

“This--” Fractal pointed at it. “--is Nova and Fissure’s base.”

My eyes widened.

The heck? Why did he have the floor plans for the hero duo’s base? And also… why was he showing me this right now… surely, he didn’t mean… 

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“We are going to raid it.”

Well… shit.

I mean… right. I kept being thrown off by his demeanor, but at the end of the day Fractal was a villain. Raiding a hero’s home was exactly what a villain would do, after all.

“Uh… but why?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

But instead of yelling at me for even asking like every cliché villain boss ever, he nodded and calmly explained, “As you probably know, Shadeskip is in town.”

Shadeskip? That rogue mercenary assassin villain thing guy? Yes, of course, I knew, I had been watching the news like a hawk and totally had not been distracted by other things like crushes and trying to figure out the fact that I was a girl.

“The heroes managed to apprehend him… well, at least for a little while before he inevitably teleported away, but the point is, they also confiscated something from him.”

Fractal clicked another button and the hologram changed to a… piece of rock…?

“And this stone is…?”

“A material from another world, apparently.”

Wait, what?

“The general public doesn’t know, but Shadeskip can teleport to other worlds as well… and other worlds can have very valuable materials, especially for someone like me or Fissure.”

Right, Fractal and Fissure had similar powers.

“Now, normally, I wouldn’t go out of my way to steal this, but I managed to get a hold of a tiny piece and have done some research.”

“Oh…?”

“Well, long story short, it’s the missing piece of the puzzle for my long-time project. With it, I can finally finish it.”

Huh… suddenly, Fractal sounded a lot more like a villain. What kind of big project was that? If it even needed materials from another world…

Wait.

“Can’t you just… hire Shadeskip to bring you more of it?”

Fractal nodded. “It would be much safer, and I already tried to negotiate with him.” He then sighed. “But he refused.”

Well, there goes that.

“That’s why I have no choice but to steal what was stolen by the heroes.” My boss then looked straight at me through his glowing visor. “And that’s where you come in. I’m willing to bet your power… whatever it is, will make this operation exponentially safer.”

“O-oh… right.”

That’s what I get for claiming I had powers.

BottledChaos

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