Super Sales on Super Heroes: Book 2

Chapter 10 - Break Out -

Lily seated herself comfortably at the table and then smiled up at Felix as he took the chair across from her.

They’d been brought to their table rather quickly. In fact, he’d swear it had only been maybe ten minutes since he’d witnessed the pancake worship.

“Alright. So this is all rather interesting. You’ve got me there,” Felix said, looking around at the rather upscale restaurant in Legion city. “But I’m curious why you picked this of all places.”

“To get you away from everyone, mostly. That and to show you all the good you do. I know sometimes you get bogged down in… well… ordering people’s deaths and conquering companies, banks, and local governments. It’s good to see the good you do, no?” Lily said, leaning forward over the table.

Felix bobbed his head back and forth as he thought on that.

He couldn’t deny that earlier today had been bothering him. He’d more or less went full villain mode and ordered the death of the governor, and forced a deal on his successor.

Part of him wondered if it wouldn’t be easier to just run for governor after all, but that was besides the point.

On top of that, he’d realized that this wasn’t over by a long shot. If the government was trying to get to him to use him as leverage in Skippercity, that’d bode well for no one.

“No… you’re right. It was… yeah. It was getting to me, I admit it. Well. Since you’re playing the part of my therapist and girlfriend, what do you recommend?” Felix said, tapping the menu.

“I have no idea. Never been here. Girlfriend?” Lily asked, flipping open the menu.

“That’s the part that gets you strung up? Not the therapist?” Felix asked, staring at the top of the table.

“Not really. They’re the same thing anyway,” she said. She paused to read something on the menu that caught her attention. “That looks nice. I’ll do the tilapia. I’ve always liked tilapia. You’ll do a hamburger. Because you’re easy. Don’t bother opening it you’ll just confuse yourself.”

Felix snickered at that and slid the menu to one side. “Yes, dear. Thank you, dear. Am I paying?”

“You’re welcome, and yes, you are. Don’t worry, I’m worth every penny,” Lily said, giving him a dazzling smile.

“Are you now. Definitely gotten my money’s worth out of how little I paid for you,” Felix said, watching a waiter heading their way.

“That the best you got? You’ll need to do better than that,” Lily said. She gave her head a shake, her hair swishing back and forth as she refused to rise to the bait.

“Good evening. Welcome to Legion’s, what can I get for you to drink?” the waiter asked, looking from Felix to Lily.

Legion’s? Really?

“Wine for me, he’ll have a soda. And we’re actually ready to order already as well. I’ll have the tilapia. He’ll have the Legion’s Fist,” Lily said, holding out her menu.

“Ah, good choices. I’ll have that all brought out immediately.” The waiter picked up the menus and scurried off.

Felix smiled and let out a slow breath.

It was refreshing to not make choices.

To lead a company of people through a cesspit of humanity was hard. Being that he had both Villains and Heroes present was doubly so.

“Felix… why are we in Tilen?” Lily asked him softly.

“Hmm? To figure out who’s after us. To offset our risk with the whole slavery thing as well. Why else?” Felix said. Perhaps a bit too quickly.

“That’s a very good reason. Why else?” Lily asked. “I know there’s another reason, Felix. It isn’t like you to spend as much as you have on this enterprise simply to find out who attacked us. Knowing you, you’d make like a turtle and sit inside Legion until you had a chance to fight back. This is out of the ordinary for you.”

He wasn’t surprised.

Lily knew him fairly well. Knew what his habits were and what he liked and didn’t like. This move into Tilen was pretty far outside his normal tendencies.

“That obvious?” Felix asked, finally meeting her eyes.

“Only to me. Kit, too. Everyone else either doesn’t care, or doesn’t know,” Lily said, holding her hand out to him across the table.

Felix gave her half a grin and set his hand in hers.

“Ya got me there. Yeah, there is another reason. After everything that happened in Skippercity, I had to take a step back. Reevaluate everything. Figure out what was my weak point. Ask myself, if I started over today, what would I change,” Felix said.

“And what I found was that the one thing I’d change is my reliance on slaves. Sure, it’s a great way to hold everyone in check. Keep everyone in the same path. But all it would take for Skipper to end me, us, would be to make slavery illegal. And that’d be the end,” Felix said honestly.

“You mentioned something about that before, but I didn’t take it to the obvious conclusion. Outlawing slavery would… definitely hurts us,” Lily said.

“I know. It’s dumb, right? But that’s all it’d take. Hence our adventure to Tilen. If we can make this work, and it is so far, then all I have to do is change the contract everyone is on.” Felix shrugged and gave Lily’s hand a squeeze. “And there it is. I need to get this all hammered out. My only saving grace right now is how many people would be insanely pissed off if Skipper outlawed it today.”

Lily closed her mouth and opened it again, only to close it once more.

“I didn’t even think about it. It’s… such a simple thing to do, too,” she said finally.

“Yep. It really is. Like I said, the one thing I’d change would be that. But hey, most of the way there already. Kit is pretty sure we’ll have this all buttoned up in time. She’s been going over everything we need from a HR perspective. We’ll have the contracts over to you and your legal team by next week I imagine to finalize any of the wording and clauses. But enough of this, you didn’t ask me out here to talk about work, did you?”

“No. No, I didn’t. Not at all. I’m glad to hear that you’re being proactive though. Very glad,” Lily said, giving his hand a squeeze and smiling. “Now, how about we talk about something else entirely. Like that we’re going to go see some art from the Legion after this.”

“Art?” Felix asked, raising a brow with a grin. “We have art?”

“You said you wanted everyone to have a place. A position that fit them. If everyone earns the same, and costs are incredibly low, anyone can work doing anything without fear. There are a number of people in your employ who create art, write books, or make music,” Lily said, her teeth flashing as she smiled at him. “Kit took your meaning directly, and now we have many, many jobs that wouldn’t normally exist in a corporation.”

“That’s… actually rather interesting. I’d love to see it. You said we’re going after dinner?” Felix said, actually feeling rather interested in the whole prospect.

“That we are. Then after that we’ll see where the wind takes us. Legion is a city that doesn’t sleep since we have graveyard shifts in almost every department,” Lily said with an adventurous grin.

Felix wasn’t one to normally feel like he wanted to go explore the unknown, but right now, he was happy to be in Lily’s company, and let her dictate the pace.

Lily took a few steps out in front and held up her arms. “Well?”

“I had fun,” Felix said, nodding his head with a smile. They’d spent quite a while walking around the exhibit.

“That’s it? Just… fun? That’s all you can give me?” Lily said, exasperated.

Looking around Felix realized they were alone out here in the plaza. The art exhibit exit behind them wasn’t the same one they’d gone into.

An impromptu walk in the park, and a long conversation later, and they’d ended up on what seemed like the other side of the city.

Must be on the backside.

“Fine. You want to hear it?” Felix said with a chuckle. Taking several steps forward he caught up with her and slid an arm around her waist, drawing up close to her.

“I had a fantastic evening, Lily. One of the best dates I’ve ever been on,” Felix said seriously.

Lily dropped her arms around his shoulders and smiled at him. “Is that so? Does that come from a wealth of experience? Because I’m betting it doesn’t.”

“Har har. No, it doesn’t come from a wealth of experience. It does come from a genuine place. A realistic one. One that I have trouble expressing and putting into words. But I’m doing it, and will try to be more open with it,” Felix said, making sure he kept eye contact with her.

Lily froze up at that, her smile faltering till the point that she had a neutral expression.

“Really?” she asked finally.

“Yeah. Really. I mean it. I’m not the best at it, but I can definitely put in the effort. I want to put in the effort. You’re worth it. Especially when you’ve clearly put so much work into me and my needs,” Felix said honestly. “This isn’t something that you came up with on the fly.”

“No… it isn’t,” Lily said, not pulling away from him. “Then what would you say all this is? It’s not exactly a normal relationship. You have a Beastkin—a Wolf, no less—that you sleep with,” Lily said. Then looking down and to the side, she continued in a softer tone. “I’m not quite sure what to make of all this myself, actually.”

“I… don’t know. I don’t even claim to know enough to give an honest opinion. When it comes to you and Andrea, I… don’t have a plan or even a direction. I’ve mostly just been going along with whatever pace you two set. Or so it feels like at times,” Felix said.

Lily nodded her head once and then turned her face back to his. She gave him a lopsided smile and then a soft peck on the lips.

“Good. I think for now that’s the right direction. Now, unless you plan on causing a scene here and now, you should be letting me go so we can head back. I imagine that Andrea is probably waiting either to pounce on you, or chat me to death to find out what happened,” Lily said.

Felix didn’t really care for her response, but he could understand.

She was an independent woman who gained her powers through the death of others. Many others.

Her very nature had been changed as of late, and he couldn’t imagine she was in the most stable of mindsets.

“Of course. In this, you lead, I’ll follow,” Felix said.

“Just the way it should be,” she said, grinning at him.

Neither of them moved however, and Felix wasn’t about to be the first one to let go.

After ten seconds passed, Lily laughed softly and pressed her forehead to his.

“You can let go. I promise I won’t run, and this isn’t the end. I… just feel cautious all of a sudden. That’s all. I’m interested, obviously, and Andrea and I have talked about this quite a bit. I think I want a bit more time though,” said the soul-stealing sorceress villain.

“Yeah, not a problem,” Felix said and released her. “What did you—”

Felix stopped as his phone started to chime in his pocket.

“I thought I told no one to call you,” Lily said with a touch of heat in her voice.

Pulling out the wristband from his pocket he flipped it over. He’d pulled it off as soon as their date started just case he felt tempted to look at it.

“It’s… Kit? That’s odd. You’d think she’d be the one person to listen to you,” Felix muttered. Sliding his thumb across the screen he accepted the call, buckling it to his wrist.

“Kit? What’s—”

“Felix, there’s a problem,” interrupted Kit.

“I kinda figured since you called me, but—”

“Shut up and listen. There’s been a super-villain breakout. Literally. That isn’t the entirety of the problem though. The Heroes guild is handling that. The other part of the problem is that in their breakout, they smashed a supermax prison apart and there’s a flood of prisoners and convicts running around the city,” Kit said.

Felix sighed and closed his eyes. He pressed his free hand to the middle of his forehead.

“Pull everyone in, get the generators up, and set the defenses on active,” Felix said.

“What’s happening?” Lily asked.

“Prison breakout,” Felix said, pulling the phone from his mouth.

“—id all that. We’re safe and everything’s buttoned up. But I was thinking. This might be a good opportunity to mobilize some of our resources. I mean, we have emergency responders for this situation. We should use them, the Telemedics, the Security teams, even the Fixers. Put Skippercity on a lockdown and transfer the resources here,” Kit said.

Huh. I guess we could. Might help a bit with our local PR problem. Thankfully we’re not getting into a dirt flinging contest with the guild.

The guild!

“Is the Heroes guild responding as well?” Felix asked, his entire attention now on the matter at hand.

“Yes. They’re dividing their forces up. Half to go for the villains, the other half to work in the city,” Kit said, her voice sounding weary.

“Alright. See if Felicia got the portal up and running for everyone else. I’ll need you to put a portal down to my current location. Do I need to tell you where I am or can you call it up with a camera? Oh, and don’t worry about checking on Felicia. Just tell her you wanted to see what her progress is. Chances are she already got it up and running just to spite me. I’m betting it’s already working. Get all the resources over after locking down Skippercity HQ. I need Miu, Eva, and a Fixer who’s been trained to multi-skill out to Miu’s department,” Felix said.

“I’ll take care of it. What else do you need?” Kit asked.

“A huge number of GPS transponders. I want one for about… three hundred Others,” Felix said. “We’re going to arm up the Andreas and send them out in a massive patrol but I want to recover any corpses they leave behind.”

“On it. Anything else?” Kit asked again.

“Nope. Date went fine, you didn’t interrupt anything. See you later,” Felix said, closing the phone and turning it off.

“I take it that was work?” Lily asked, the irony not lost on him.

“Indeed. And this time, I think we can use it to our advantage. The Heroes guild is going to be distracted with this. We’re sending Miu, Eva, and a Fixer in to get the information we need. At the same time, we’ll be assisting the local government and working on our public image. Get your pretty face ready to go smile into the camera, Lily. You’re about to go do some meet and greet with the press I imagine,” Felix said.

With one hand he started to work through a series of menus for the Skippercity HQ. Calling up pre-existing modifications he’d built in that he was now activating.

“Why me?” Lily asked.

Felix snorted at that and closed up the screen. He was ready.

Then a blue dot appeared to the side and started to slowly open up.

And there we have Kit’s portal.

“Why you, you ask? Because you’re the most attractive woman we have in Legion, and have a smile that matches. Doesn’t hurt that you’ve got a killer intellect on top of that. Now, I hate to date and run, but I think this is our ride out of here, and Kit doesn’t have the best control over it yet,” Felix said.

“I can hear you, Felix. Don’t make me close this up on you while you’re halfway through,” Kit said from the other side.

Felix froze in place and then shook his head. “Actually, can you keep it open for a bit? I need to zip up to my office and grab my armor. I’m thinking it might be best if I was on the scene and helping to organize the efforts from an operation base. I think everyone would agree with me doing that in the suit.”

“I… yes. That’d probably be wise. I’ll start opening a portal inside of your office, and move this one to the staging area in SC:HQ. Be a dear and activate the right protocol? I’m sure you already turned on all the right upgrades, but don’t forget the people,” Kit called through the portal, and then closed it.

“Protocol?” Lily asked curiously.

“HR loves having a process and procedure for everything. Leadership is expected to read through them all, it’s those online trainings that everyone gets pushed to their work stations or tablets,” Felix said. “I would hope since you’re in Legal you’d be—”

“Yes, yes. I’ve read all the ones pertinent to me. I just didn’t realize there was one specifically for a prison break,” Lily said.

“There isn’t one. But there is one for mobilization. Now. Let’s go get my armor,” Felix said, setting off at a jog, moving with the crowd.

“Do you even know where you’re going?” Lily called after him.

“The same place everyone else is, the elevators,” Felix said back.

All around them, people were starting to get messages from co-workers. They were all looking at their wrists or phones.

Felix imagined it was them being told about all the modifications going live. They would all be assuming something was about to happen.

Word tended to spread with something like that.

Those who had been notified first were already on their way to the elevators was Felix’s guess.

Sure enough, when he lifted his eyes to the horizon, he could see the outline of a massive column reaching up into the recessed lighting above.

That’d be the place.

An alert chirped on his wrist and he flipped it over to check the screen.

It read “R&D lab” and was from Felicia.

Well, she’s quick on the draw. New suit, maybe? Also should probably find out how she knew.

“We’re heading for R&D,” Felix called over his shoulder to Lily.

As they got closer to the elevator, he could see that it was part of a large plaza.

Sitting in the center of that plaza was the wrecked mech Felix had piloted.

Legion’s Fist.

It looked no different than what he remembered, half salvaged by his own hand.

Except that when he finally got up close to it, he realized the entire thing had been bronzed or recreated in bronze.

I thought she was repairing it. I’ll have to ask.

Felix noticed the placard as he passed and quirked a brow.

Legion’s Fist-Year One: Piloted by Felix to eliminate the Heroes Guild of Skippercity.

He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about being immortalized like that, but he wasn’t about to naysay them right now.

The time was right to strike.