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Chapter 22
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The switch flipped with a click. Instantly, Judy felt the electricity fill her body. The sensation took her over, and she fell over in an uncontrollable fit of laughter. She felt her clothes burn and peel away from her skin. The juice from the battery only worked harder, and Judy only laughed more intensely.

She could barely move.

Could hardly breathe.

Her surroundings danced at blinding speeds until she heard a voice shout her name. The electricity had stopped, so Judy was free to look up. However, there was still a residual need to laugh.

“Warren, hi,” she said in a daze.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Mortar Mage asked. He bent down to scoop her up with one arm.

Mortar examined the battery on the ground. It was burned out beyond any future usage. He wasn’t looking at Judy, probably because, as she quickly noticed, she was naked with a few singed threads lingering on her form. Her charm she had gotten from Kyra was still around her neck as well, though a few scorch marks sullied the surface. The clothes and battery were gone, but her skin showed no signs of burning.

She looked backed at his averted gaze. Judy said, “I’m sorry. I just wanted to see if this could help me. I wanted to see if it would let me help out as a hero again.”

“Did it?” Mortar asked. His voice had a degree of harshness to it.

“I don’t know yet. I feel more alive, but just as tired. I don’t think I laughed that hard in ages. I think Wyatt might say it tickled my socks off, or something.”

He exhaled, eyes closed. “Up we go.” They stood. Judy covered her breasts with one arm and her vagina with the other hand while Mortar guided her back into the house. “Let’s get you some clothes on.”

“What?” Ohm Wire asked as she and Adamast walked.

“I don’t know,” Adamast said, “I just figured your old contacts might still be in the Nerva islands.”

“No, maybe one or two of them, but most of them live outside of Paragon City these days.”

“But not this one?”

“Not this one, no. This one fell for another man whose father owns a shop in Steel Canyon. Now they work together, and sometimes stage fake robberies to attract business.”

Adamast was caught between a simple nod and shaking her head sideways.

Something like that sounded familiar in a city like this. It recently made it harder to tell if a hero should step in or not. Usually, the staged robberies were filed with the police ahead of time, and they tried to make these things obvious at the end so no one got the wrong idea. Thinking of it further, the whole thing was on-brand for this city.

They found a jewelry store after a while. Adamast had been eyeing this place for a while with the idea of maybe one day buying something for Kyra. Mary’s salary as a teacher kind of made that look like it could happen as soon as they were old enough to retire; maybe a decade or two after that.

“We’re here,” Ohm Wire said.

“Is there a secret entrance to another store I’m not seeing?” Adamast asked.

This was actually one of the best jewelry stores in the city, too, in regards to its selection and pricing. That a former villain could work here boggled Adamast’s mind, or it would have if she hadn’t known better by now. Some villains needed help to live better lives, and her own girlfriend had a short stint as such a villain that had ended recently.

Ohm Wire opened the door and stepped inside, prompting Adamast to follow. The interior took on a look of wooden display casings, rather than a sterile white and silver that she was used to from the couple of times she rescued such shops from robberies.

There were five customers checking out the wares or talking to one of the clerks, of which there were two present. Adamast wasn’t sure if Ohm Wire’s contact was the man or the woman among them. Ohm Wire didn’t give any indication, and the two heroines examined a number of pieces of jewelry before Adamast heard the sound of beads banging together.

Another man, well-dressed, passed through the curtain of stringed beads. He said, “Ohm Wire, hello!” The man walked to her with his hands clasped together. He was enthusiastic, but he otherwise sounded normal. “How did my little gift work out for your girlfriend?”

Ohm Wire coughed. “No, just a friend, who is a girl.”

“So a girl-friend. Go on.”

“She’s doing better now, thank you. Actually, while we’re here, I’d like to introduce you to my actual girlfriend. Tucker, meet Adamast Cross. Adamast, Tucker.”

They shook hands. Adamast felt the man’s eyes on her and saw the smile on his face. He leaned in with a whisper. “Nice to meet you, Maryann.”

“What?” Adamast asked.

Ohm Wire giggled. “It’s one of his gifts. He’s totally careful with it though.”

“I try,” Tucker said. “You wouldn’t imagine the sarcastic pounding I got from her when I nearly let slip her name back in the day.”

“She’s my girlfriend, Tucker, not a random woman I picked up off the street. I’m pretty sure she’d come to expect something like how I’d react.”

Tucker’s smile twitched. “Pop quiz, then, if you don’t mind me asking. What is Ohm Wire’s favorite gem?”

“Unless your gift has grown to things people like, I doubt either of you will get this one.”

Adamast said, “It’s Benitoite.”

Ohm Wire, rather amusingly, looked at her with a state of shock. Tucker looked at the younger heroine and then back to Adamast.

“I’ve seen her look at a few things on the Internet,” Adamast said.

“Well now,” Tucker said, “the world certainly is full of surprises. I can’t say we have anything in with that one, though; it’s kinda rare and on the other side of the country. So how can I help you both today?”

“We’re here because of a crystal a couple friends of ours found yesterday. Also, we were wondering if you heard anything from the criminal underground about the new villains in town, or where we can find them.”

Tucker leaned against a display case that was fixed to the ground. “I don’t really listen to the underground these days, save for the whispers coming through here. As for your new villains, I only know what everyone does. They’re dangerous, and they move fast. If they are up to something, I can only hope they’re more bark than bite. Where they went after their appearance this morning, I couldn’t tell you. Wait, no, I heard they beat up someone that had followed them, but no one got a good look at who it was. It was a cape who ended up getting away super-fast.”

“I think we know who that was.” It didn’t make Adamast very happy, but she wasn’t going to turn down helping someone who needed it, not unless their intent was malicious at best. “I wish everyone was so lucky.”

“As for your mystery crystal, I wonder. I heard there was something flying around town yesterday, and that it was taken away by men in tailored dress robes, rather than your usual suits. There was a whole crowd present, but the best I heard was something about a giant pearl.”

“It wasn’t a pearl, according to Mortar Mage,” said Ohm Wire.

“Oh? That guy’s a class-A genius.” Both women barked a laugh when they heard Tucker say that. “What did he say it was?”

Adamast said, “I think he called it ‘Aelshinyx.’ I hope I said it right. That guy says a lot of things I can’t get right still.” What was that hippopotamus thing again from a few months ago?

Tucker paled about a shade or two. “Aelshinyx? Are you sure?” His deep breath was visible and audible from the other side of the room, judging by the man behind the counter who looked over their way. “That’s a trip. I thought that stuff was banished from our plane long ago.”

Ohm Wire said, “What is it?”

“That’s a fine question. It’s obscene is what it is. Do you remember any of the rules of magic I told you about a few years ago?”

“I can’t say. I wasn’t exactly listening back then.”

Adamast vaguely remembered something of Mortar Mage mentioning rules of magic, and how half of those rules came from other realms and plains. The few times Mortar had mentioned it in the past, Adamast told him he or she would take Mortar’s word for it.

“Well,” Tucker said, “there are rules. Not just guidelines; rules. For instance, some forms of magic cannot be performed correctly in a plane or realm when the tools are missing from a certain radius. Aelshinyx is responsible for soul magic that could, very easily, be argued as being evil. Hogwash, of course, since evil comes from the user, but that didn’t mean most of the worst spells weren’t used by the worst of beings.

“Aelshinyx. Damn. The last time I heard of it being sold in this world was some nine or ten years ago. It was purchased by the Circle of Thorns, here, in Paragon City. They’re all gone, as far as I care to tell. If you say that crystal yesterday was as you say it is, then it had to have come from back then.”

“It was in a magic temple the new villains were using until yesterday,” said Ohm Wire.

“That makes sense. I had heard a rumor that someone moved into some of the old Circle hideouts. This strikes me as odd, though. Aelshinyx is bound to the buyer’s soul. If the buyer dies or moves far enough away, then the gem moves as well. Could I have heard wrong?”

“Maybe we should look for the seller,” suggested Adamast.

“That might be a good idea, if just to get the seller off the market. Find a gem smuggler, an artifact smuggler, or someone who deals in both. The list will be long, even here in Paragon, but if you can do everyone a solid by removing their presence, you’d have my thanks.”

Her mom wasn’t going to be happy that Judy had literally burned through an outfit already, but she walked out of her room fully dressed. She passed the guest, who was sitting on her bed contemplating something.

Judy, rather ironically, asked her, “Would you like new clothes? Or even for us to wash your costume?”

“Thank you, no,” said the redhead.

“OK. I can’t speak for everyone, but I think you’d be welcome here any time.”

“I’d rather not. It’ll put everyone at a greater risk once I’ve been seen here. It’ll happen eventually. It happened at least once with that . . . woman.” She exhaled, and shook her head. “I meant to find someone else today. I’m not ready, not with her hanging around there. No, it’s more complicated than that.”

Those words seemed cryptic to Judy, but she said, “Try me. I don’t know if that letter mentioned anything, but I spent the last five years dead. Before that, I was going mad to the point where I would have become a villain, because I thought I was losing everything that mattered to me. I can’t remember my last day alive, but I can only hope something came along that redeemed me.”

“What do you know of redemption or villainy? I’ve killed.”

“So have I. In my final days before dying, I thought I was lying to myself by saying it didn’t feel good. Now I know better. It didn’t feel good at all, but I would do it again if it meant saving someone close to me. Like mother, like daughter, I guess.”

“I can kill you lot, you know.”

“We could do the same. Every one of us is thankful when we don’t have to kill, or even fight. That’s because we have our way, just as you have yours now. I won’t stop you if you decide to leave, but do us one small favor.”

“What?”

“Wait until dark. You were lucky enough coming here during the day.”

The guest laughed. “Does being dead come with wisdom or something?”

“No, but being a fifteen year old girl babysitting a bunch of adults will sure do it.”

The other woman laughed even harder, this time with a sort of “Yeah right!” to it. She was probably right. Pixeletta was known for instigating a lot of the League’s mischief.

“Very well,” said the red-headed guest, “I guess I’ll let you all be the ones to beat these Vanquishiri I read about. I have a dangerous villain to track down who fled the country.”

“Good luck.”