Everything started well enough. Trying on clothes was kind of tedious, but I pretty quickly found some stuff I liked well enough. Plus, sizes seemed to be pretty much the same around here as they were back home so I could just snag some packs of comfortable-looking generic boxers and socks without needing to think about it.

Crystal’s presence kind of slowed things down, but I didn’t really mind. By myself I probably would have been in and out in about twenty minutes, but I trusted her to have a better eye for things than I did––two different pairs of jeans were all basically the same to me––and it wasn’t like I was in any sort of rush. She might think that Vicky had a better fashion sense than she did, but both of them blew me clean out of the water in that regard.

Soon enough, the pile of yesses contained two cozy hoodies––one turquoise and another the same shade of bright red as Crystal’s shields––some matching sweatpants, three pairs of subtly different jeans, and a few plastic packages of socks and underwear. I also managed to snag a brightly colored Hawaiian shirt that reminded me of something my Dad would wear. Crystal was initially rather unhappy by the pick, but once I’d tried it on she quickly warmed up to it.

Things slowed down a bit after that. In my mind, I just needed a new pair of sneakers and some tees, but Crystal was absolutely insistent that I get myself something a bit fancier. I didn’t really see the point. When was I going to need a suit of all things? That was a Zeus and Hades thing. My Dad had a much better fashion sense than his brothers.

Eventually, I gave in and agreed to try on some slacks and button downs, but nothing more formal than that. It would probably just end up gathering dust most of the time, but it would make Crystal happy and that was reason enough.

Plus, a passing saleswoman made an excellent point. There were plenty of restaurants and other places that required a certain level of fancy. I probably wasn’t going to visit those places on my own, but maybe with Crystal…Well, her blush while the middle-aged employee loudly whispered to me was pretty telling.

However, after a brief look around and a half-dozen outfits Crystal decided that could wait until we were done here and went somewhere a bit more specialized. KCDimes sold men’s formalwear, but it wasn’t really their focus and it showed.

They did however have quite a selection of t-shirts, both mens and womens. I might not have a sense for fashion, but I knew enough to say that a tight shirt plus big breasts plus lean muscles was going to be a winning combination.

Not to say that she wasn’t pretty as it was. Crystal was hotter than a Colchis Bull. Even without literal godly genes and not a drop of ichor in her veins, her figure was nothing short of divine and it showed no matter what she was wearing. The way her current t-shirt hung down loosely from the curve of her breasts, occasionally revealing a tantalizing flash of her trim, muscular belly, was pretty great too.

The two of us spent some time wandering around the store picking out shirts, both for ourselves and for one another. We ended up needing to do a couple of laps because on the way back to the fitting room we’d been using in the men’s section, Crystal decided to snag some tank tops with big cutouts around the shoulders for me in addition to the shirts she was already carrying. I wasn’t going to take that lying down and turned us right around and headed back to grab a couple of things in the woman’s section that I’d noticed but passed on originally, not wanting to go overboard. But if she was going to go there first, I was happy to play along.

After a bit of back and forth, we decided to do things simultaneously. The fitting room had a couple of private sections where you could change so we would each go into one, put on the next shirt, then come out to assess how it looked.

We’d gotten through maybe a half-dozen options when it happened. I was wearing a dark blue short sleeved tee that was just a little bit too tight around my shoulders to be fully comfortable. Meanwhile Crystal was trying on a long-sleeved black crop top that left a good four-inch gap between the waistband of her leggings and the hem of the shirt.

Crystal was posing in front of a mirror, a barely visible blush dusting her cheeks, when Vicky flounced into the fitting room. She’d clearly only just gotten out of school, her backpack slung casually over one shoulder, and she pouted when she saw the two of us standing together. “I knew it! You guys should have told me you were going clothes shopping today! I’d have ditched after lunch and come join you!”

Without waiting for a response, Vicky dropped her backpack on the ground with a thump that belied just how easily she was swinging it around, then began to pick through the two heaps of shirts Crystal and I had picked out. “Oooooh, this is nice!” she exclaimed cheerfully, her pout vanishing as quickly as it had appeared.

She lifted the shirt up in front of her. It was one of the ones I’d picked out for Crystal towards the end. It was a mostly white crop top with a high neckline and black circles around the neck and the ends of the short sleeves. It was also made of some sort of stretchy, slightly-sheer mesh that would probably become only more translucent when pulled taut.

“One sec,” she told us, and promptly vanished into the fitting room I’d vacated a minute earlier, bringing the shirt with her.

Crystal and I looked at one another. Neither of us had had a chance to say anything since her cousin had rushed in, nor did we really know what to say.

“How the hell did she know we were here?” Crystal asked softly after a long moment of silence.

I shrugged helplessly. “No idea. Maybe someone recognizes you and posted the pictures online?”

“Hmm, maybe,” Crystal hummed, not sounding convinced. “But Arcadia only let out like, five minutes ago. She must have flown straight here and the school has a faraday cage to stop students from calling and texting while in class.”

I shrugged again.

“I was wondering if you were back from class yet and checked your location,” Vicky suddenly called out. We’d been talking quietly, but clearly not quietly enough.

Crystal facepalmed. “Oh right, stupid. I forgot that these new phones do that.”

“Huh?”

Crystal grabbed her small purse from where it was hanging off the side of the mirror and dug out her cell phone. It looked a lot like the one the PRT had given me, except hers was encased in a red plastic shell. She held it up by the corner and wiggled it in the air. “These new models have this feature where you can share your location with someone else. Mom and Aunty insisted that we keep it on in case something happens to one of us.” She turned towards Vicky’s changing room and raised her voice pointedly. “Not so we could stalk each other.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Hey!” Vicky exclaimed, sounding slightly offended. “I’m not stalking you! I was gonna ask if you or you-know-who wanted to go on a patrol later, but when I saw that you were at the mall I decided to come by and see if you could use some fashion advice!”

“Yeah,” Crystal rolled her eyes. “Sure.”

“Hey!” Vicky whined, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Crystal turned back towards me and gave me a deadpan stare. I had to cover my mouth to stifle my laughter.

“Anyway,” Vicky said firmly, doing her best to change the subject, “I guess you guys are getting Percy some new clothes? I’ve never met a guy who looks so good in orange, but there’s a lot of other colors and styles out there to choose from! He totally rocks the t-shirt and jeans vibes, but some variety is probably good too. Gotta spice things up sometimes, ya’ know? It's like if I wore my costume around all day every day. Sure I’m gonna look amazing, but eventually it will get old.”

Crystal leaned against my side, “And humble too,” she mumbled, this time making sure her voice was soft enough that Vicky definitely couldn’t hear her. She rolled her eyes again. “We were planning to go see if we could find something at Cabbage Kingdom or British Beagle once we were done here.”

“That’s a great idea! I’m sure we’ll be able to find something good! And I’ve been meaning to get a new swimsuit. Summer’s right around the corner you know! Percy, do you think you could help me pick something out? Crystal, your old suit is getting kinda worn too and I saw that Ohohorange is having a pre-summer sale!”

Vicky fell silent for a moment, but didn’t give either of us a chance to respond. The lock on the door of the fitting room stall she was in clicked and she stepped out into the open. She posed, one foot forward and a hand on her hip as she ran the other hand through her hair, pushing it back and away from her upward-tilted face.

“So, how do I look?”

Well. That was a hard question. A really hard question. Because the very first thing I noticed was that Vicky wasn’t wearing a bra. She had been wearing a bra––I could see it hanging from a hanger behind her––and its absence was, uh…very noticeable?

Crystal and Vicky looked a lot alike. They could easily pass as sisters, not cousins, what with their matching hair, eyes, facial features, and general builds. However, of the two, Vicky––despite being more than a year younger than her cousin––was the better endowed. She was a little bit taller than Crystal and just a tiny bit curvier as well.

It was probably a result of their powers. The sort of exercise that Crystal did every single day to stay in shape just didn’t work for someone like Vicky and it showed. Sure Crystal would never be stronger than her super-strong cousin, but she looked visibly fitter.

Anyway, I was getting off track. Vicky looked amazing. I probably would have been struck completely speechless, but after everything I’d done with Crystal, half-naked boobs just didn’t hit quite as hard anymore.

Saying that however was tricky, because I was standing right next to Crystal doing my best to avoid blatantly staring at her cousin’s chest. I really wanted to. It was a very, very nice chest. The shirt was clearly a size too small on Vicky, riding up way higher than it had on the mannequin and stretching until I could plainly see her rosy pink nipples poking through the thin fabric.

But, well. It was complicated. It was already complicated, and this seemed like just the sort of thing to make things even worse.

Not saying anything though was going to be just as bad. I couldn’t say she looked bad, because she didn’t. I also couldn’t say nothing because Vicky was waiting for an answer and wasn’t going to relax––or change back––until I gave her one.

“I think it might be a bit too small,” I tried, “it's a bit too tight around your shoulders and it doesn’t really go with your jeans.”

Inwardly, I pumped my first. Perfect, Percy. And people said I wasn’t good at being diplomatic.

Vicky straightened and looked down at herself. “Hmm, you might be right.” She looked back up and hopped slightly in place. “Percy, do you think you could go grab another one of these in the next size up? Or maybe two? And a size down too, just in case.” She winked. “Women's sizes can be really unintuitive sometimes.”

Ah. Ahhhhhhh. Bit too soon with the fist pump, Percy.

I looked at Vicky. She was bouncing in place as she dug through the other clothing that Crystal and I had grabbed, swiftly sorting it into a half-dozen piles via some unknowable, arcane metrics. I looked at Crystal, who had her arms folded under her chest and was staring daggers at her willfully oblivious cousin.

I swallowed, gave my camp t-shirt––which was hanging right next to Vicky’s dark purple bra––a longing look, and hurried out of the room before they noticed me again. Hopefully none of the salespeople would mind me running around in one of the store’s tees, because there was no way I was sneaking past Vicky back into that changing room.

Needless to say, things only devolved from there. I had been genuinely worried that Crystal was going to try and strangle (or maybe laser) Vicky––she’d certainly looked pretty pissed off at her cousin––but instead she seemed to have decided to take Vicky’s presence and actions as a challenge.

Apparently, she was taking her vow to prove herself ‘better’ than Vicky very seriously. And uh, exactly in the sense she’d made it clear she would when she’d made that particular promise. Every time Vicky tried to do something, Crystal doubled down. It was kind of awe inspiring. And very, very sexy.

By the time we left KCDimes an hour-and-a-half later, I was carrying a full-dozen shopping bags, only four of which were mine. One of those bags also happened to contain two bras. One purple and one white. No awards for guessing where those had come from.

The other two bags contained a lot less fabric than the number of items Vicky and Crystal had each purchased would typically suggest. I was pretty sure that my three new pairs of jeans weighed more than both bags combined.

I had foolishly hoped that the two girls were as tired of shopping as I was at that point, but it was not to be. Three stores later, I found myself the proud owner of some rather comfortable brown dress shoes, a new pair of sneakers, and no less than four collared shirts, two pairs of dress pants, and an honest-to-gods tie. At least I’d managed to avoid buying a suit jacket, though from the way Crystal had been eyeing me, it was only a matter of time.

I’d also had the uh, great fortune to watch Crystal and Vicky try on a truly staggering number of outfits, culminating in me rating some swimsuits I doubted anyone ever actually expected to wear at the beach. They all looked absolutely amazing, but neither girl would hear it, agonizing over this or that detail that I really couldn’t see.

They’d even ended up buying two of those suits. Vicky’s was a white ‘monokini’, whatever that was supposed to be, and consisted of a handful of white straps held together by two metal rings––one just over her left breast and the other on her right hip. Meanwhile Crystal had settled on a criss-cross sling bikini, which left her entire belly and most of her butt uncovered while a pair of diagonal black lines struggled to cover her nipples.

As we finally headed home, I breathed a silent sigh of relief. At least we’d managed to avoid the worst store we could have visited. I’d noticed the Elizabeth’s Conspiracy on the second floor while Vicky was dragging me and Crystal towards the British Beagle, and I didn’t think my heart could survive going there with the two of them. Not when they were acting like this.

“This was a ton of fun!” Vicky exclaimed. “We should do this again sometime. Maybe next week? There are still a couple of stores I’d like to visit, and I’d love your input Percy!”

“Yeah,” Crystal agreed, squeezing my wrist so tightly that I could believe that she was the super-strong girl of the family. “Maybe on a weekend so we don’t have to head home so early. Isn’t the mall open till ten on Saturdays?”

Oh Tartarus. I was doomed.