TCR 42 The Great Dead Hope.

I got the next day off from monitor duty since I had done fieldwork, and I wanted a break before I showed up the next day to wherever it was Falco wanted me to show up at. The day after that I had dinner plans.

Scorn's parents wanted to meet their daughter's boyfriend. Officially.

“I’m not a boyfriend. I’m your man, your lover, and... sort of awkward, your employer.”

My woman had leaned forward to rest her face in her hands after asking me to go with her to her parents, now she turned her head to peek at me with one eye from the side of her hand. “...you hesitated, what were you going to say?”

I squirmed a bit as she sat up and stared at me, blank faced. "...sugar daddy. Then I thought better of it." I mean, I do pay her, feed her, and let her live on my land. But that's for the farm work she does, nothing else.

One side of her mouth curled up a bit. “We can talk about me calling you daddy sometime later tonight. But what about the dinner?”

...Wait? What?

I cleared my throat, “Ah, if I don’t have time sensitive superhero stuff to do, we can go together. Should we bring something?”

She thought that over. “You have some larger bottles of what I’m guessing is a hard cider in the cellar. Would that be the good stuff you poured for me a while ago?"

I nodded. “Applejack. Technically it’s a brandy, but it’s cold distilled which can give you a terrible hangover. I’ll bring some of Grandma’s Appletini blend for your dad. It’s fortified, not distilled.”

Light Knight was a force based Brute, and Force Former, whose strength and toughness were from an energy field that protected his body from harm while enhancing his strength. Which didn’t do much against drinks with higher alcohol contents from removing frozen water and leaving behind all the stuff that helped make hangovers such a hell.

Not that I knew about them personally. I'm a force based brute as well, but I got Regeneration 2 to deal with that.

Then again getting him to associate pain with spending time around me might be a good strategy to avoid future meet the parents times.

I got a poke in the ribs from Scorn. “You’re plotting. Stop plotting, it never ends well.”

Which got me poking back, her retaliating, and both dogs barking at me to protect her.

“Traitors.”

The next night, after another day being bored out of my mind in court, I arrived in Samantha’s body at the address I was given in a Rumor ride share. I paid in cash and the driver completely erased all video and travel records from the car’s memory. If asked by the police, he would swear up and down he never even looked at any of his passengers.

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The address was a marina, and the nervous looking guy from the club was waiting for me at the dock. "Hi. I hate to get personal, but I need to know if you're one of the types with super dense bodies that might be an issue when getting aboard a boat, or falling off of one.”

Huh, I guess that would be a problem for the higher ranked Brutes. “I’m under three hundred, but I’m still getting used to having a heavier body.” T-Rex had suggested the whole “Recently triggered” idea, and pointed out that it could explain why I moved, “Like someone doing the Robot, badly.”

It was clever, but sometimes I wished the guy didn’t have to make his little digs. I got that it was how he kept the personalities of the other three from overwhelming him. But he didn’t have to target me with it.

I’m easy to get along with. Really.

The nervous guy led me to a speedboat, “I’m Buzz by the way, you got a Name yet?”

I stepped into the boat, which did lean my way a bit, “Pyrope, it’s a red gemstone.”

He shook his head at me, "No one will get it if you don't explain it every time. But plenty of people choose their Names and don’t even bother to explain what it means. But at least it sounds unique.”

Buzz pulled a metallic looking bag out of his pocket, “I’m going to have to ask you to put all of your electronics in the bag. I’ll lock them up on the boat for you. But this is a non-negotiable rule for everyone. If you don't want to do it, we don't go anywhere. Period.”

I shrugged, it’s not like I needed the cheap phone I was carrying. The only people I needed to communicate with were currently gathered around my limp real body. So I occasionally split my attention between my own and Samantha’s body to keep the rest of the Royal informed of what was happening on my end.

At least while I was sitting down and in no danger of falling over, that sort of thing might cause a lack of confidence in a criminal looking to hire help.

A fairly short boat ride later, we were in international waters and pulled up to a floating dock alongside several other boats and pulled up to a really big ship. Maybe a cargo container? The writing on the side was in Arabic I think, with the name Old Kandahar written underneath it. It was the translated name I guessed.

The ship looked pretty run down, at least until we got to the top of stairs on the outside of the ship that led up to the well lit upper deck where it was all cleaned up with fresh looking paint on everything. With some people in smart looking white uniforms standing by.

Along with some heavily armed looking guys dressed in black lurking on the balconies of the upper decks.

As Buzz said something about appreciating me being the quiet type, one of the crew motioned for us to hang back as a helicopter made its landing and an older looking well dressed man stepped out with a girl on his arm. And I mean girl as in a teenager wearing not much of a dress. And I mean not much as in the amount of material. They were helped out of the copter by a tall hefty looking man with gray skin.

Who glanced back at me and gave me a wink.

Well, if I had to get someone's interest, at least this guy was tall, dark, and Superpowered.

Buzz tried to lead me along behind the rich people, but one of the crewmen stopped him. “Contestants take the stairs.”

Contestants? Aw, crap, this is going to be some kind of fighting thing, isn't it.

Buzz shrugged at me and led me to the opposite side of the ship, as we walked along we passed a large section of the deck covered with a thick steel mesh sporting some spots where it had been partially melted. I got a glance at what I would be dealing with that night.

A set of filled bleachers around a steel cage built around and over a fighting ring.

One with pink blood stains on its floor that looked like they had set in too deeply to be entirely chemically cleaned away.

I reached out with my powers. Fish and other meats mostly gathered up in one spot. Probably a kitchen. No dead bodies from people. That was hopeful.

Then again it wasn’t hard to get rid of a body at sea.

Oh hey, the sea bottom is in my range, lots of stuff down there.

I reached out to grab Buzz by the arm. "I'm going to need to get clued in a little here Buzz.”

He turned around, looking nervous again. “You don’t have to win, just make a good showing. Prove you got what it takes.”

I pulled him closer. “I’m not killing anyone…” Wait, that might make me sound weak. “...not for free, or for payback."

Buzz held up his hands. “Aw no. Nothing like that. It’s tap out or get knocked out. They even got healers to fix you up afterwards.”

I blinked. Hopefully, it won't come to that. Not many healers could do anything once someone was dead dead, so a failed attempt at healing might out me. And the dead can't get knocked out.

And tapping out might mean I don’t get hired by Falco.

Guess I got to win.