Ever hear of the term Snafu? Well we hit a FUBAR moment.

So the plan was ready. The outline? We load up for bear, we have Stoner (the Mall Cop we saved) letting us in, we'll track it down, I'm going leave my body while the others (including Flamer) hit its body with everything they have. Once it's out of the mannequin I Mind Bolt it to hell, while keeping an eye out for Eddy. Eddy shouldn't be there. Eddy should be with SH, but who knows if he'll wander away from her and show up? Having a medium would help, but the only one we can contact at the moment is SH and SH is the idiot that invited the thing into the mall.

There are more details, but that's basically the plan.

Going in with the plan like that is kind of snafu. We know things are not going to go as planned, that something will zig when we think it will zag, and that's situation normal (all fucked up) for us. I wish it stayed that way, but it went to hell earlier than I thought was possible. See, when Stoner let us in, he asks if we know about the other group and we're at FUBAR. That other group? The idiots are testing their tour before it officially starts. Yes, they are here, with innocent people at risk, and we're out of time.

Stoner shows us where they were, bringing up one of the few still active security cameras (the dying mall isn't focused on paying maintenance costs) and I relax a bit. I point out who's there and everyone else relaxes.

You know how there are some people who kind of shut down your powers a bit just by being there? People who, if they hang around too long, you start to doubt that you have powers? Well there's a couple of guys like that working the local Cons. They do panels and lectures explaining away weird things. The presentations always start "It would be cool if <supernatural thing> existed, but...". The nickname for those guys is "The Cool, But Show". The guy I recognise, call him Cool, can scramble our stuff. I once tried to attend one of those panels on the Astral plane and things got so uncomfortable that I couldn't get close to the room.

The camera had sound, and Stoner turned it on for us. Cool was pointing out the fake info on the website etc while MB was weaselling around it. SH wasn't there, and I don't blame her for not wanting to be around Cool. Finally MB admitted that actual reality was boring and that's why they were offering an ARG.

The tour started and we won't see anything again until much later. We'll have to we have to retrieve the dash cam and hope it worked. Meanwhile I'm writing all this up and posting it here.

Jack

Yeah, I'm tired, but here's an update.

We got the dash cam and by then it was late. Most everyone had work tomorrow (make that today), so Prof, Diviner (who's Prof's summer student) and I were the only ones with time to watch the footage then. The others plan to watch it later, but like I said, it was the three of able to watch last night.

We ended up at a media room in the Parapsychology department, going through the footage. That was when I discovered how much low res video can fit on 512 GB. Luckily it was broken down in five minutes chunks. We moved it all to the university's network (which had all of the other footage we recorded there) and made ourselves comfortable. I hit the vending machine in the break room and bought bags of microwave popcorn. Prof hit his "private office supplies" to provide some soda pop, some beer, and a bottle of medium priced boozed. I say medium price because it's more expensive than what I would buy but not top notch.

So we settled down in the media room with popcorn and drinks to watch what was to be seen. It would have taken hours, but we skipped to the next file if there wasn't anything happening. If the next file had something interesting we'd back up and see the start of it, but mostly we were skipping the files showing an empty room, advancing 5 minutes at a time.

Finally some of the ARG idiots showed up. We watched a bit, but it was boring. A bit of snipping over who could take credit for which part of the plan; the type of thing you hear around amateur drama groups or the board of directors of a badly run local Con. Mostly they just set up the room. We fast-forwarded through most of that until other people arrived. We watched the actors getting briefed (there was too much cross talk for us to hear most of it, but Prof thinks that he could get someone to punch the audio if it matters). Little People actors, young teen actors, and child actors. I don't tell ages well, but some of them talked about playing young. One guy said something about being 19 but playing a young teen. I've known guys with baby faces, so maybe. Who knows or cares, right? Well Prof cares. He made notes about looking these people up and finding out who they are, not knowing where to look.

I said I could help. I'm not saying that any of them are on IMDB but the local talent agents have websites, and there's facebook and so on. I know a lot of those sites because sometimes I hire models. Not recently, but I do, and at times I've been part of a "Hey, if everyone chips in we can hire a real model" painting groups. If nothing else I can just clip their images from the footage and do a reverse look up.

Most of the actors were made up as ghosts. The makeup jobs looked okay, but I've seen better at university productions. Anyway, we watched, ate popcorn, drank a bit, and maybe tossed some popcorn in the direction of the screen. At one point SH showed up, complaining about a headache. Yeah, I could see that, with Cool in the building. She left to go home while the others finished getting things ready.

Most of the actors dispersed, some remained. We watched a bit, fast-forwarded a bit, until the remaining actors took their places. With fewer people in the room we could make out one final reminder of someone's role. This teenaged girl was playing the role of "Sally", aged 13, who died in 1952 and was the first kid spanked in this room when it opened in 1952. She had an oversized 50s style T-shirt and put a pair of jeans (and panties) on her ankles before facing the wall.

That was when my heart almost stopped. Not from what we were watching, but someone said "That's not accurate. In the 1950s a girl would have worn a skirt or dress. Are those Calvin Klein? Calvin Klein underwear didn't come out until the 1970s. No, the way that ghost is dressed is completely anachronistic.". I didn't say it, Diviner didn't say it, and Prof didn't say it.

Bad news: the Dean of Parapsychology had wandered in and none of us had noticed.

Good news: he was, as usual, tripping out of his mind. He's a true psychonaut, trying to unravel the mysteries of the universe by diving deep into his psyche. Name the psychedelic drug and he's taken it hundreds of times.

Prof replied calmly that we were looking behind the scene of the ARG, but it didn't seem that the creators of the ARG were putting a real effort in to making that alternative reality look authentic. As they talked Diviner and I untangled. Yeah, we reacted like we were at a horror movie and Diviner ended up on my lap, hugging me tight. Having special power doesn't always keep the hindbrain from reacting. I was so scared that my Mind Block came up, she was scared enough to jump on my lap and squeezed me tight.

Back to the dash cam footage. The tour group finally showed up. Cool was dragging a young "ghost" in each hand and scoffing at the scene. The rest of the tour was divided between trying to get in to the tour and laughing at how Cool was taking it apart. Cool said something about if this was the spanking room he was going to see if he could spank these ghosts, which set the actors off. Breaking character, they wanted their agents and pointed out that they had been promised that nothing like that would happen. MB broke character and admitted that Cool had broken the game, proving that the Alternate Reality was false. Things broke up then, with the actors facing the wall revealing that they weren't actually bare under their oversized T-shirts, that they were wearing their normal clothing under it. Mostly shorts.

Prof and the Dean kibitzing the show all the way to the end, commenting on the holes in the prep work, but Diviner and I kept quiet. We didn't want the Dean to remember we existed. I don't know what the Dean was on, but I relaxed a bit when he knocked back some of the hard stuff. I'm guessing that booze took him even more out of his mind.

Anyway, Diviner and I... Stayed quiet and snuck out when the video was finished. She said it was too late for her to head home, so we ended up at my place. I offered to sleep on the couch but she claimed it. Anyway, I couldn't get to sleep so I wrote this. I'll post it when I get around to it.

PS:
So we both slept late. Diviner told her folks that she was sleeping over at a girlfriend's dorm room. Just as I went to post this I got a message that the plan is delayed. There are workmen all over that mall because...?

Well for different reasons. Some workers are there stripping shelves and stuff from dead stores and other places are doing post closure inventories prior to shipping everything out. I don't know why, but the workers look to be there 24/7 and

And I hated getting Visions like this. One minute I'm typing away and next I'm Seeing something and ...

Okay, here goes. I see us watching a battle in that room when a tour is going on. There's some unknown (unknown in the Vision) danger keeping us out of the fight as a mannequin terrorises / attacks / hurts / maybe kills the people on the tour and the ARG group. No, I don't have any idea what kept us out, but I'll let the crew know about the Vision...

Oh, and this is the first Vision I've had when Diviner was around. She thought it was interesting and asked if I would let her try to look at things. Normally my Mind Blank comes up whenever someone tries to look inside me, but I forced it down and let Diviner do her bit. It was interesting, with a bit of fallout, and well, we sent emails to the rest of the team to tell them about the Vision.

Jack

Not much to say. We still can't access the parts of the mall we need to. We had Stoner check the security schedule, then show it us because he was stoned (duh) and couldn't make sense of it. It's simple enough, and looks like we won't have access until the night of the first tour. Not the day of, the night of. After the tour starts.

Yeah, it seems like that Vision will come true. No, I don't have any idea what the unknown danger is. It was unknown in my Vision so I doubt I'll find out until the night we encounter it.

Oh, I did look up the actors. Some of them are professional actors or models (at least as professional as they get around here) and some of them aren't. More than a few are related to the idiots running the ARG. Yes, those idiots know that something weird is happening and are putting their own relatives at risk.

A couple of those relatives are even posting about it on social media, daring each other to get spanked for real during the tour. Which makes me think that being an idiot runs through their families. When the relative who got them the job sees it they chime in with things like "that's not happening - ever", but the idiots keep making those comments, daring each other to add reality to the ARG.

Why? Because they are idiots.

Idiots who are related to other idiots.

Idiots who might get hurt or killed.

Idiots who we'll have to save.

Or at least we're going to try to save them.

More bad news. Prof contacted the "professional" actors and models, trying to get them to pull out, and no one did. There's still not a lot of paying work for actors around here and no one wanted to turn it down. Some of the Little People even said that they would be okay with being spanked, but they would need a bonus for that. A few of the parents (and the older teens playing young) were also open to that; just as long as it was mild and they were offered enough of a bonus to take a spanking. In short, there's money involved, COVID cost a lot of people their jobs, actors were hurt bad by the lockdown, and no one is going to walk away from cash because of "maybe danger".

Diviner admitted that if she had the chance to act young for a job like that she'd take it. Especially if it was an after hours cash under the table type job, but she'd draw the line at being spanked or showing too much skin. Something about if she wanted to make money like that she'd be a stripper like one of her cousins is. It's nice to see that she draws a line there, even though she needs the money. It got me wondering if my "make porn for rent money" line is somewhere beyond her "no stripping when I need cash" line. But she lives at home, I pay my rent, and that's a difference.

Jack

The tour is only days away now. Here's hoping no one dies on it.

Jack

Tonight is the first regular tour and the first time we could act.

We only got access to the mail minutes before the tour started. That's when the workers finally left. Stoner let us in again but he had said that our credit was overdrawn and he wanted something to help us out. Yeah, we saved his life, but he didn't put a high value on that. Prepared for this, Prof had hit the Dean's supplies and gave Stoner some mushrooms and a couple of tabs of LSD. Stoner smiled, told us he was going to get stoned, and we could do whatever we want to because he wouldn't see a thing. Then he tried to grab Pixie's butt but missed, because he was already half stoned. He ended up apologising to Boxer about that.

Boxer - the healer who likes to fight - left the guy needing a bit if healing. Not much, just a black eye, Stoner isn't going to grab Pixie's butt again. You might think that Stoner would be mad about that, but he wasn't. He was in too much of a rush to get stoned to care about a black eye. He gave us his code to the security room and let us get on with the job.

So we get to the security room and we see the tour group is forming up and Prof goes pale. Seriously, he's reacting worse than that time a couple of us almost died fighting Something That Could Not Be But Was. I was seriously worried about him maybe having a heart attack or stroke. Boxer started looking concerned too.

Prof recovered and explained what was what. He recognised one of people on the screen. He called it fallout from involving the Dean to get behind the pay wall of the ARG. One of those people was part of a group of wealthy psychonauts that always backed the Dean. That kept the Dean in place no matter what kind of campus politics happen. The man was in his late 50s, I'm going to call him Donor because he's endowed the department of Parapsychology with millions (with the condition that the Dean stays the Dean). The man is rich, well connected, and has smoked joints and snorted coke at political functions with the cops not caring because he donates so much to the right politicians.

Think about that. The guy is so rich and well connected that he can literally get stoned in front of cops. As for being spotted naked with a bunch of naked teenagers, well that never happened and he'll sue anyone who say it did. Not that it was a sex thing, he was trying to open their minds with experimental drugs which is what caused the nudity and things got weird in a 60s Acid Party type of way. No one got charged over it.

Yes, Donor is the unknown danger. He linked up with the kids behind the ARG, feeding them a bit of cash to explore this new alternative reality. The biggest danger? Donor recognising Prof and getting Prof fired. That would end the team. We couldn't function without the university's resources. Not without Prof leading us and he would need to find a new job. Prof was talking about his pension and losing tenure as it sunk in that we couldn't just rush in and stop things. Not without ruining Prof's life.

But when people were starting to really get upset, I reminded them all about my Vision. How we show up at the end and save the day. Okay, I didn't see us saving the day, but Prof brightened up and explained how he could use my Vision as the basis of his new plan.

I wrote this bit while we are just waiting around for things to happen. I'll post this now and let you know how things turn out.

Jack

Shit. This was a night that some things changed forever. Um, trigger warning - I'm going to talk about people dying, because people died. Yeah, those deaths are part of the "changed forever" because people don't come back. Call it a lot of violence, some nudity, and weird shit. So much happened that I might have to break this up a bit.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

So we watched the security camera. We saw everyone on the tour sharing a ceremonial drink. That's something that didn't happen during the test run. Donor supplied the drink, the ARG people joined in, and Prof had a bad feeling about it. I was about to reassure him that it wasn't bad when my powers boosted for a brief moment. Boosted like I was facing something really major. During that bit I got a Vision that I didn't understand, so I had to ask Prof about it. Mostly because I sucked at chemistry.

I asked him about N,N-Dimethyltryptamine, sometimes called DMT or N,N-DMT. What it meant when it was mixed with something called RIMA and what the hell "ayahuasca" meant. Prof relaxed when I asked that. He told us that to make a long story short (and skipping the chemical equations) it meant that everyone sharing that drink was going on a mind trip. It was illegal as hell, but it was linked to Shamans, psychonauts, and was called the "business trip" during the 1960s. Something about how the trip was faster (starting and ending) than LSD or shrooms.

In short, everyone on the tour would be tripping hard, with Donor shaping their mind trip with his words while the ARG shaped the physical trip.

All of this meant that we all had to hang back until the end of the tour. But we didn't have to wait in the security room. We used the back ways to get near the end of the tour, and we waited. And waited. And waited.

From what we could hear everything was okay until the tour hit that finally room. When they were getting close is when I started to leave my body. And yes, I was feeling a boost being so close to something Very Bad. A few minutes after the tour reached that room screams started and the crew rushed to the doorway. Looking in they saw horror. There was a mannequin (a male dressed in a cheap suit) who was more than terrorising those people. There were several spanking objects floating chest high. Call it telekinetic lift. There were some (paddles and straps) being used with telekinesis to whap bottoms. Alas, the telekinesis attacks hadn't been the opening move.

The mannequin had blood on its hands. MB was on the ground, groaning. A couple of Little People were crawling on the ground. Others were hurt. We didn't know it then, but when we reviewed the dash cam we saw the mannequin walk in and pound on MB then toss the Little People in the wall. It hit some of the others and a second punch put MB down hard. Missed in the chaos of the room when the crew entered was that SH had the front of her dress ripped off (or ripped open - I'm not sure what the difference is). She was wearing 50s style underwear - bra, half slip, full bottom panties - which covered her more than the average bikini, but a backhand to her head had rung her bell. People on the tour wondered if this was part of the tour, up until the point the mannequin killed a few of them. Even then, they were still on a mind trip.

Every swing of its fist or grab and toss was doing serious injury, maybe killing someone, so it went to mental powers. Everyone in there knew it could kill them, but smacking them around a bit frightened them more and it liked the taste of terror. It was now focusing on smacking the kids around because kids have a huge amount of energy and the thing liked the flavour of fear, and everyone was screaming; some of them were peeing in their pants.

Well, almost everyone. Donor was standing there with a puzzled expression on his face. Seeing that, Prof made his move. Prof calmly walked up to Donor and asked if the Donor wanted him to lead a group of super powered people into the room. Donor laughed, said that it was time he saw a return on his donations, even if it was just help in a head trip.

That let the team get involved with without costing Prof his job. Boxer dashed to the worst injured and started healing them. I arrived about then, floating on the Astral Plane, and I noticed that SH was getting up. Eddy was urging her to attack the mannequin. Attacking the thing when it was in spirit form, that would have been a good tactic, but going hand to hand with an unstoppable mannequin? Nope, that wasn't good advice. All SH did was block our line of fire and have her bra and slip ripped off as she was sent back to the floor. Mentally the thing swung two paddles and a strap at our crew. Those were aimed at Diviner, Pixie, and Boxer, and all those impacted on their butts. Not for much real damage, but I'm sure they felt it.

SH looked hurt, but with her down the crew could open fire. And with Flamer involved, there was fire. Lots of fire, shotguns, and other weapons. Yeah, it got loud. Eddy was urging SH to get up again while Boxer was healing the injured. No, Boxer hadn't gotten around to healing SH yet, not when there were injured Little People and hurt kids. Part of that was a conscious decision on Boxer's part; when it's up to him, hurt innocents get healed before the idiots who got those innocents hurt. That was fitting with normal triage; none of the idiots were hurt as badly as those Little People. Those kids were wailing like they were dying and would be next, because he couldn't help the dead.

The mannequin was shrugging off the incoming fire. It was using its mental powers to swing paddles and straps, playing with us, until Flamer stepped forward. The mannequin landed a good punch on Flamer, but Flamer got a hold on the mannequin and whoosh! The mannequin was on fire and crumbling. Flamer switched to putting out fires while the rest of the crew continued to unload. The mannequin threw a bench at the team, knocking some of them down and setting the rest on fire, and Flamer worked on that while the mannequin continued to burn and hurl things at the crew.

It hurt us, but us getting hurt didn't stop it from burning. The fire finally consumed it. A well fed ball of energy popped out of the smouldering remains, and I was waiting for it. I hit it with a Mind Bolt with everything I had. I nailed it, but it didn't go down. So much for Plan A. Plan B was for me to wrestle with the thing, holding it in place until I could Mind Bolt it again. Mostly to keep it from getting away, but I did a bit of pounding too. I called for SH to get involved, but Eddy told her to keep her head down, smirking at me while telling her not to help in the fight. Her left shoulder was one big bruise, and Boxer finally shifted to her, but it would be a bit of time before SH could help anyone.

That's when FUBAR got, well I don't know what's worse than FUBAR, but things got worse. Hunter burst in, wearing his special "see spirit" goggles and holding his ridiculous looking "shoot spirits" gun. It looked like a big toy gun but it shoots flame bolts that only hurt astral beings.

Remember how I said the crew didn't shoot when SH was between them and the mannequin? Well Hunter either didn't see me wrestling the thing or he didn't care. He opened fire, mostly hitting the thing but at least one blast caught me. Maybe a couple of blasts impacted, all in the same part of my body. Yeah, I got shot in my butt by a flaming astral bolt or bolts. Anyway, I had weakened it enough that it wasn't too many shots before a puff of iron filings fell to the ground. I dashed back to my body, and hesitated there because my butt really hurt. It took me more than 10 seconds to get my injured butt in gear.

Which meant I missed a murder. Hunter fired his weird gun at MB, firing stuff that could affect normal people, killing him. It was like a Dirty Harry or Pulp Fiction moment, with Hunter declaring that this was justice for what MB had done. Boxer switched to try to help MB, but there was nothing he could do. I got there in time to see Hunter ripping most of the remains of SH's dress off. He was saying something about collecting a reward from her and if she didn't fight too much she might enjoy it, but maybe he'd enjoy it more if he had to rip her panties off.

That was a step much, much too far. Most of the crew reloaded while Hunter murdered MB and there was no way they were going to step down. Prof informed Hunter that his only choice is to let SH alone or die. Hunter is grinning and it's clear that he thought he could take us all, but that was when an intercom went off.

Yeah, we missed the intercom. The idiots had gotten tired of how phones didn't work this deep in the mall and set up an intercom. One of the idiots was at the main level of the mall and he was letting everyone know that he called 911 over the screams and gunfire he heard over the intercom.

Hunter said something about having enough time to get in SH before the cops arrived when Pixie appeared behind him. Yeah, I'd almost forgotten her invisibility bit. Anyway, she had a gun at the back of his head and that was enough for Hunter to step down.

So everyone but the crew and Donor is panicking, and that announcement sends most of the people running towards the upper level of the mall. Prof goes to Donor and offers to show him a private way out, but Donor says that he is fine. Prof nods and grabs the dash cam - there's no need to leave evidence behind. Not when we can use that video to work out what went wrong.

Hunter speaks up, saying how he doesn't need our way out, ignoring that we didn't offer to lead him out. He heads out the way he came in and we let him go. So since we know the interior sections of the mall we make a break for it. We're almost at the main level of the mall when we notice that SH is with us. Yeah, we were so busy running we didn't notice the mostly naked girl running with us.

We paused briefly near an emergency exit. Some of us had spare clothes with us (because experience taught us that we could need them) and SH got a light summer jacket to wear over her panties. That was when we did a head count and came up short. Which meant the next step was to head to the meet up place.

Yes, we usually have a meet up spot. Experience taught us that we could need one.

We dodged the cops and other first responders and head up to the meet up spot. The meet up spot? This time it was an out of business mechanic's shop / garage. I don't know how Prof got the keys, but we had them.

Good news, the missing people were there. Bad news, Kid was there. Something about a Dream that told him not to be around the mall tonight, but this place was safe and he decided to come down here because it's safe. Maybe he misunderstood the concept of a safe meet up spot or maybe he understood and wanted to see what had happened.

Prof unlocked the door and we head to the interior of the building. The power's off, but there's a generator that Prof gets running. Boxer asks if anyone is hurt and I speak up about my butt. I might be the worse hurt, but anyway, I said I could wait because it wasn't a burn and burns can scar.

We mostly make camp in the back office. There's a couple old laptops here, and I start using one to type this up. I'm using my phone as a hotspot to post, but this isn't the end of it. I know that something more is going to happen. Not really a Vision, but it's a feeling.

Meanwhile we're still decompressing, Kid is begging for details, and SH is wandering around in shock, talking to her Guide, trying to work out how it had all gone to hell. Getting her mind around MB's death. We have to shoo Kid in Prof's direction as Pixie, Diviner, and the other female crew members head off with Boxer to the garage bays to check them for hurts. He could use his powers to check them out, but the boost is gone and he doesn't have much juice so he needs to see the ouchies. All of us guys are either not hurt or toughing it out He-Man style. Me, my butt hurts, but that can wait. Flamer, he got clocked hard by the mannequin, but he can live with the bruises.

So I'm posting this now - but it isn't the end.

Jack

Shit yeah, it wasn't the end. Not even close.

Here's something we didn't learn until after I posted the last bit. Hunter went out with the main group, leaving as the cops were pulling up. With his toy looking weapons Hunter could have passed himself off a part of the tour, or a part of the act, or just ducked out, but no. He had just taken out the Big Bad, he had taken out the fool that summoned the Big Bad, and he was riding high.

And he had a real gun. It seems that MB had a 9mm Beretta (with extra powerful ammo) that he never had a chance to draw. A gun that Hunter took from his body.

The first two cops went down. One made it while the other died on the operating table.

But those were the first two cops. More came. They didn't know what was happening, but a couple of cops down? There was no confusion over that bit. Hunter winged more cops, trusting in his weird armour to keep him safe. Well that armour wasn't enough once the rifle and shotguns started firing. Remember that graphic novel I put together with three endings? Well Hunter took the "blaze of glory" way out. He also took the blame for most of everything that happened.

The police followed the tour plan down to that room where Donor was still standing with the corpses were and wondering what was happening. The cops were suspicious, but Donor is white, well dressed, and well mannered. He smiled, greeted them, and asked for help. Yeah, they had guns pointed at him and he politely asked them for help, explaining that he believed that someone spiked the pre-tour toast and he wasn't sure if they were real or just another hallucination. He was being honest with them, just leaving out that someone who drugged the toast was him. His well-paid lawyers were able to get him out of all potential legal issues.

Later we found out that Donor thought that Prof was part of the mind trip, and that Prof was Professor X. He saw the Justice League and X Men battling Frankenstein's monster to the death. When it looked bad for the heroes the Human Torch came in and saved the day. Donor knew nothing about the bodies until he came down and the doctors explained things to him.

Donor hadn't just shared that stuff with the people on the tour; he had shared it with everyone. Yeah, including the kids. As a result the actors, the people on the tour, and the people running the tour were stoned enough to blame Hunter for everything. At least the surviving ones do. The lawsuits are flying, especially from the actors that got hit by paddles and straps. The ARG group has good insurance, but the lawyers will be working on this for years.

We got most of that news after the fact. The girls were heading back from the garage bay with Boxer when Prof got a call from one of the cops he knows. That's when we learnt about Hunter's last stand. Prof had to assure his contact that he knew nothing about Hunter's "suicide by cop" plan. Nor did he know how Hunter had fired more than 30 shots from an 11 round clip. Or where most of the bullets and shells had gone.

We were all distracted at this point. We didn't like him, we had almost killed him ourselves, but he was once one of us. Knowing that he was dead, well, that was something more that we had to deal with. Most of us were still decompressing from the fight, dealing with how we had been hurt, could have died, and how we had seen some innocent people die.

Of course we were blaming ourselves over those deaths. Someone suggested we could use a medium on our team and wondered if SH had learnt her lesson. She wasn't in sight, so we start talking about her. I remind people that her Guide is messing with her mind and let them know that he was giving her bad advice during the fight. We were still discussing things when we hear screaming from the front office.

I'm in the lead as we charge out of the backroom. There's SH, balancing precariously on the edge of the counter with Kid over her lap. SH was spanking him. Her borrowed jacket was off and she had a wild (maybe manic) on her face as her boobs bounced in time with the spanks.

And she was screaming. Something about: "Eddy's right. You need this."

I don't if she had snapped or Eddy had somehow brainwashed her. More important, I didn't give a shit why she was doing it.

I hit her with a Mind Bolt. Not a powerful one, just to get her attention. She lost her balance, falling with Kid going flying, which was a good thing because that meant that the fire bolt missed her. Flamer, he wasn't just trying to get her attention. After she got people killed and attacked Kid, Flamer was playing for keeps. He had to focus on putting out the resulting fire while the rest of the crew pointed their guns at SH. I Commune With Spirits and hear Eddy urging SH to offer to let us spank her bare butt as way of apologising. Having enough of that asshole I Dispel Spirits and Eddy goes bye-bye for a while.

SH then had a new crop of bruises, mostly from the fall, and was saying that it was all Kid's fault and he needed a good hard spanking. Kid scrambled out of the way and she noticed all of the guns pointing at her. She changed her mind about hitting Kid and asked if we could heal her new bruises. Boxer's voice was chilly as he told her that he was too tapped out to heal her again. To prove the point he healed Kid's semi-sore butt. Yeah, the point he proved wasn't that he was tapped out but that he wasn't going to heal her unless she was dying, and maybe not even then.

We mentioned that we were leaving, that we were driving Kid home, that she should leave, and we hoped we never see her again. Diviner pointed out that SH was responsible for causing deaths, that if SH hadn't come up with the idea to get a real ghost for her ghost tour then MB and the others would still be alive. SH didn't believe Diviner, but she agreed to leave. Pixie pointed out that if SH ever went after Kid again then SH wouldn't need a Guide to talk to the dead. Boxer agreed with that point, and Flamer suggested that a messed up medium didn't need to be dead before he cremated her crazy ass.

SH left. We apologised to Kid on her behalf, and let him know that people had died this time. I pointed out that I had been shot while astral, Flamer showed off his bruise, and others told fresh horror stories.

That was most of it. We made it back to our cars. We got Kid home. He snuck in and we didn't rat him out for sneaking out. This time he had learnt his lesson. Even if he hasn't, well there's nothing dangerous at the mall now.

We headed back to the university. Decompressed. We stow stuff, Prof downloads the chip from the dash cam, and we do the rest of the usual post op stuff. We share a few drinks and relax. We don't toast Hunter, but we agree to send flowers to his funeral.

And that was that. We finish this job and move on.

Jack

A short update on the mall bit

There were deaths. There are lawsuits. Donor's name isn't mentioned anywhere. If you look at the news it's Money Boy and Hunter who did everything illegal, including drugging everyone. They make great patsies, seeing how they're both dead.

Shit Brain leading the charge against Money Boy, because he takes all the blame there's none left for her. She's as crazy as Hunter was, but hopefully less dangerous. Here's hoping she doesn't get anyone else killed.

Hunter's funeral is going to happen in his hometown. We're sending a wreath and a note reading: "We wish you had gone down a different path, from those who wanted to be your friends". Nice, short, and it feels good sending it.

Boxer finally got around to healing my butt (and the rest of us) within a day or so. It is nice to have a healer on the team, even if he can't cure COVID. Speaking of COVID, things are opening up and I've got my second shot. Yay me! I've got my calendar marked for 14 days after I got and when those 14 days are up I'm going to hit every Con, market, event, etc. I'm going to do caricatures at any event I can (including birthdays and children's parties) and rebuild my cash reserve.

I really have to be careful with that adult art stuff now that I've kind of got a roommate. Remember all of those dot dot dots I used when I was talking about Diviner? Well, we're kind of a couple and she's sort of moving in.

The age thing? If this had happened when she first joined the team, well that would have been Ick, but she's about to go in to her third year so it's not like I'm getting involved with a teenager. The (her age >= your age/2 +7) formula works for us.

The team's reaction? I've talked things over with Flamer and a few of the others. They're okay with things as long as I don't break her heart. I think Pixie might have offered to have a threesome with us, but I'm not sure and I don't want to consider it for a while.

The expenses of living together? It's not going be much. Most of my bills aren't going up and she's kicking in some money for food (because she insists on doing it). Diviner's summer job money, well some of that is still going to her folks and she needs to save for tuition, books, and the rest. She's even talking about modelling for me, to save me cash there, but any art she models for will just be for us to enjoy.

Why are we moving so fast? One of the reasons for that is, well, Diviner still gets her butt smacked at home. Yes, she's in university, about to enter her third year, and she still gets her butt smacked at home. That's not normal, and if we're going to be together there's no way I'm letting that go on.

Another reason is that Diviner divined a few things when she checked me after I had that Vision. She's convinced that we're going to be together for at least a couple years. That is, as long neither one of us goes out of our way to blow up our relationship and if we work at things, yeah, that's why she says "at least". I'm not sure this will be a life long relationship, but it feels right and that's enough for right now.

As a bonus, we are both gifted and both on the team. That means we don't have a huge secret in our relationship. We can even bounce ideas off each other and maybe figure things out. Serious, not having to lie about where I'm going when I'm heading out to save the world is great thing.

And that about wraps it up. I'll post again when something new happens.

Jack

Jack_Fisher wrote: We mentioned that we were leaving, that we were driving Kid home, that she should leave, and we hoped we never see her again. Diviner pointed out that SH was responsible for causing deaths, that if SH hadn't come up with the idea to get a real ghost for her ghost tour then MB and the others would still be alive. SH didn't believe Diviner, but she agreed to leave. Pixie pointed out that if SH ever went after Kid again then SH wouldn't need a Guide to talk to the dead. Boxer agreed with that point, and Flamer suggested that a messed up medium didn't need to be dead before he cremated her crazy ass.

Just refreshing my memories on how things ended with SH.

Jack