The following stories are in no particular order and do not occur during a set time frame. Some may have taken place before previous chapters, and some may take place after the continued events of Volume 3.
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Crucion stepped out of one of the empty cubes that were reserved for member spaces and into the underground beneath the Fiends for Hire. Quite a few members had claimed one of the shifting cubes for their own space. Rishaki had already set up her shop, and Niloy had opened her makeup business.
Besides just being used for members’ whims, a few cubes had been claimed for general community activities. The students had set one up as a study hall where they could go and work on their schoolwork in peace, and it gave Andi a dedicated location to provide tutoring that was conveniently easy to get to from the secret lab. Mazie and Bray had also taken one for what they claimed was a clubhouse, though it amounted to little more than a playroom for children.
There were still plenty of available units. And while some had been claimed for future projects, the majority would remain vacant for the time being. However, Crucion still had to clean them. Mallea wanted them to be usable at a moment’s notice. And to her, ‘usable’ meant in absolute pristine condition where it didn’t even need a dusting.
Crucion thankfully didn’t have to clean them every day, and it was light work that he didn’t mind, but he was always looking for the chance to do more. He didn’t mind the grunt work, since it was what he had signed up for after all, but there were days where he wondered if he was really helping the Fiends For Hire at all.
The last workspace left on his list to clean was Itsy’s garage. He usually saved it for last since she’d often make a mess of it in the mornings. Thankfully, everything was clearly labeled with where it should go, so Crucion could organize all the tools properly even when he didn’t know what they were.
The member app showed Itsy as still in her workshop, which was unusual for this time of day, so he’d have to clean around her. Before he used the workspace controls to cycle to her workshop, Crucion noticed that she’d also requested for her lunch to be delivered. He went to grab that first, since it’d knock out both at once.
With the prepared meal in hand, he went back underground to the controls. After selecting Itsy’s workshop, cranking mechanisms began to whirl. The cubes that were currently open in front of him started to shift, and the structure cycled through several different workspaces until it landed on Itsy’s. Hers was the largest by far, and it took up the entire entrance.
The mechanism had countless failsafes to ensure that no one was hurt by the mass of machinery. For starters, the cubes that weren’t at the ground level could be moved around those that were, so occupants could exit through the underground tunnels without disturbing others.
Those on the ground level with unlocked doors open to the public couldn’t be moved by anyone else using the controls. They had to be locked and in a secure state before they could shift. That said, they could be put into a secured state with an override if needed, usually when the occupant simply forgets and the cube needed to be moved. Currently, Rishaki’s shop was the only space perpetually on the ground floor during business hours.
Itsy was hard at work when Crucion opened the garage’s shutters. She was down in the pit, so he didn’t spot her at first, but Crucion had to jump away when a large arm came swiping out from below for a wrench.
“Hello, I brought your lunch!” he called down to her.
“Oh hey, just throw it on the table. I’ll be up for a minute,” the seemingly disembodied arm waved towards one of the workbenches.
“Sure,” Crucion set it down and then looked at the various tools sprawled all over. “I’ll go ahead and start cleaning up.”
“No-! -Oww!” After Itsy yelled, there was a room shaking thump followed by her spouting out in pain, having banged against her monster truck in urgency. She crawled out from the pit and said firmly, “I’m still working on something, so please don’t move anything. Would just be a pain to find everything again.”
“Sorry… that was rude. I really appreciate you cleaning up after me all the time. Never been good at that part. Just tryin’ ‘uh get this done.”
“Anything I can help with?!” Crucion was eager to tackle something more difficult, even if it was completely out of his area of expertise.
“Nah. Preciate it though,” Itsy was back to being humble. “I’ll wrap it up after a nice food break.” She walked over to the table and grabbed the container full of food. But instead of lifting off the lid to enjoy a nice meal, she started to shake the tub violently.
“Uhh, do you like it better like that? With all the food mixed up?” he couldn’t hide his curiosity.
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“Not particularly.” Itsy now tore off the lid and inspected the contents.
“Then why do that?” Crucion really couldn’t understand.
“Got my reasons.” When that clearly wasn’t enough of an explanation for him, Itsy went over to her tool chest and pulled out a giant spoon and brandished it towards the boy—the head of it as big as Crucion’s hand. She then took a big scoop of her food jumble and stuffed it into her mouth.
“Regular utensils are too small and dainty for me,” the giant elaborated. “Break most of ‘em, and the ones I don’t, I struggle to use. So, I made a few custom sets of properly sized silverware. Problem is, then they’re too big for the food. Can’t really pick out everything properly and keep it separate like I’d prefer, so I just started mixing it all together. Makes it easier. Thankfully, everything ‘round here tastes pretty good and yummy no matter what form it’s in.”
“I see, I see,” Crucion took some notes, wondering if there was some way he could help her out with this in the future. While she ate, he noticed a few dirty spots and oil stains that Itsy probably wouldn’t have minded him cleaning. So he really should have gotten to work, but he found himself so enthralled with the big woman, even when she was just doing something so simple as eating.
“Hey, did you mean whatcha said earlier?” Itsy suddenly asked when she finished her meal. “Do you wanna help me out?”
“Of course!” he was jazzed just to be asked. “Whatever you need, I’m there!”
“Well, it’s a bit of a weird request. Nothing too difficult that you’d have to do. Would probably take up most of the rest of the day though. You fine going off on a trip for a few hours?”
“Umm, I have a few errands I definitely have to finish today,” Crucion checked his list of work on his phone. “They shouldn’t take me too long, though, probably about a half-hour. Mallea doesn’t like me to take off without a good amount of advanced notice, but she shouldn’t mind too much if I’m helping a member.”
“Well, alrighty then!” Itsy’s spirits had suddenly jumped. “Meet me above ground in front of the garage when you’re ready. We’re gonna have some fun tonight!”
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Crucion rushed to complete the rest of his chores. He’d expected Mallea to scold him more, but she just nodded permission once he’d explained the situation. He found Itsy waiting where she’d said, standing next to her monster truck outside of the garage. That must mean that they were riding in it to whatever their destination was.
“Hop on in,” Itsy invited him as she led by example.
“So where exactly are we going?” Crucion clambered inside onto the oversized seat and clicked his seatbelt. It was so large that his knees didn’t quite reach the edge, so his legs were dangling at an odd angle. He almost felt like he needed a booster seat.
“Monster truck rally!” She told him eagerly. What Crucion found odd, though, was that instead of turning on the engine like a normal car, Itsy started pressing a myriad of seemingly random buttons on her dashboard. It was self-explained when the monster truck started to hover.
“Aight, lemme explain the sitchyation before we take off,” Itsy started once they’d floated straight out of the compound and above the mountains. “So… uh… I’ve actually been barred from this competition, sort of anyways, for some previous infractions. They can’t actually ban me from the event. However, I was given a serious penalty that functionally keeps me from competing.”
“I am not allowed to drive a motorized vehicle during the event—basically, nothing with an engine.”
“So… do you want me to compete in your place or something?” Crucion guessed.
“Nah, nothing like that. I’ll be in the competition, and I already took the engine out of this truck. But, I’ll explain more when we get there. Don’t know how long this trip will take really, so better tuh leave as soon as we can.”
Itsy looked over to Crucion and frowned. “Nah that tiddly little belt won’t be enough.” She pressed another button and a harness popped out of the seat and wrapped itself around him. “Was messing with the flight systems on this to try to get it working as a fake engine, but I couldn’t really figure it out in time. Now the external stabilizers are all wonky, so this may be a bit rough. But don’t worry, I got auto-pilot engaged, so it’ll be sure to get us there safely.”
Without warning, and before Crucion could raise a complaint, Itsy gunned it. The truck moved forward as expected, but unexpectedly, so did the front of the truck. It dipped down and the back tipped upwards. The entire vehicle rotated like a wheel while it sped forward through the air. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop at that one rotation.
For the entire trip, the truck spun nonstop, like a frisbee flying vertically. It never slowed down and never stopped for even a moment’s reprieve until the vehicle crashed down into the parking lot of the venue. Thankfully, it touched down properly on its wheels at least.
“Oh Cosmos,” Crucion flung open the door and flopped out of the truck onto the ground, hugging it like a long-lost friend. It took several minutes—what felt like hours—for his head to stop spinning. During the trip, he didn’t know what end of his body liquid wanted to spew from, since it was constantly sloshing around. But he miraculously managed to keep it all inside, and the feeling of death was finally quelling.
Since the moment they touched down, Itsy hadn’t stopped giggling. She sat in the truck for a few minutes, recovering much faster than he did thanks to being a Fiend. Once she had recuperated, but still a bit wobbly on her feet, she got out and came to squat next to him.
“Oh zjik, oh Cosmos, your face was so funny!” her giggling got madder to the point that it was almost disturbing. “Pretty sure if the internal stabilizers weren’t working you woulda just died—popped like a tomater!” It seemed like Itsy was the one about to die though, literally gasping for breath from how much she was laughing—tears were streaming down her face.
Itsy picked Crucion up and set him on his feet once he started stirring. “Alright, let’s go get registered!”