“Alright, spill.” Crystal demanded once Dinah was situated in one of the unused rooms. I’d need to get more sheets since that used the last of the spares, but it was better than keeping her on the couch.

Stupid thing was too firm to sleep on comfortably. Dinah probably agreed with me, because she was out like a light barely a minute after lying down on a proper mattress.

I sighed because I already knew this was going to be a pain. Still, let's see what I could get away with.

“Okay, you know how you and the girls think someone sent me to Earth Bet? And how Paladin thinks he knows me? It’s because–” my mouth snapped shut as a triggered the geas preventing me from talking about how I got here or the ‘game’ in general activated. “Paladin thinks it’s because he saw someone that looked like me somewhere and assumed I was the same person while I saw someone with similar abilities.” I rephrased my statement. The geas couldn’t stop me from saying other people’s opinions afterall, especially if I didn’t include information it was specifically trying to censor.

Crystal knew about that, and while she looked annoyed that I was going to have to be vague about things she would understand because I wasn’t doing it just to mess with her.

She huffed and started putting the puzzle pieces I gave her together. “Okay, so Paladin thinks he knows you but you know other people can have the same or at least similar powers… and that somehow matters with you being sent to another Earth and how you know about Dinah…”

I smiled at her to show she was going in the right direction.

“...so, wherever you saw those images you saw someone similar to Dinah and why she can’t ask for help, I guess? Is it some downside to her power that things turn out bad if she goes to someone to handle her problems for her?”

So close, only to miss at the last second. Still, me knowing about a power was more reasonable than assuming I knew Dinah specifically by watching her from another dimension. Even if Professor Haywire had definitively proven to Earth Bet that alternate realities existed by blowing open a hole to another Earth, most people still didn’t jump to the conclusion that a story they read was real somewhere. Even fewer would theorize they were the ones that existed only in a story somewhere. People were self-centered that way.

“Not quite, it’s–” my throat locked up again. Okay, can’t give specifics about Dinah’s situation. Is it because the ‘plot’ of Worm was getting in the way, that the only reason I knew about this was metaknowledge, or a restriction by the game? I’d have to experiment later…

“As the niece of the mayor, a lot of people probably want to use her to influence her uncle somehow.” I changed tracks by saying a very generic, but true, line. “Some of those people are likely criminals.”

Crystal furrowed her eyebrows, thinking hard. “Okay, so it’s not that you know her power but you know someone looking to use her? But how – no, that’s not important right now. There’s a person or group of people after Dinah and they do bad things if she goes to her family or the PRT. Wait, she also said she came here because someone was going to kidnap her for her power. Are you saying someone willing to sell Dinah out to the gangs for her power works for the mayor and the PRT?!”

Dammit, just a little off once again. I just– “I couldn’t say.” I said automatically. Shit, tripped the geas.

“About the gangs or the informant?”

“I couldn’t say.”

Thankfully Crystal stopped before I got locked down again but it pretty much put a hold on giving her new information. She got the gist of it though. Someone knew Dinah had powers and wanted to take advantage of her and would step in if she went to people for help, and that I knew something about it.

I wasn’t sure what she intended to do with that information, but I was satisfied that she would handle it her own way, especially now that she knew I couldn’t say much more about the subject if I wanted to. She was the hero here after all.

“Alright, topic change then, what are you going to do now?” Crystal asked. “The PRT are still outside and I assume trying to get in somehow.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Just going to keep ignoring them really.” I shrugged. “I doubt they can really keep this up once the gangs make a big move somewhere. Until then everyone can just fly or teleport out. And speaking of going out, I’m probably going to need to run to the store since a certain uninvited guest ate through a bunch of my staples.”

“Seriously? With everything going on, you are just going to go shopping?”

I shrugged again. “Yeah, kinda? It’s not like the PRT can really stop me from going where I want and while I have the most transparent secret identity on the East Coast, I can still take advantage of it since I haven’t done anything criminal as a civilian.” That anyone could prove. “Oh, that reminds me – are the rest of New Wave hanging around for a while? I need to plan how much stuff to get.”

Crystal looked at me with an expression that said she wanted to shake me for being so cavalier about this but took a deep breath and sighed instead. “Give me a minute, I’ll ask what everyone wants to do.”

-o-

What most of the group wanted to do, it turned out, was to just stay at home and relax or do their own thing for the day. For the most part.

Carl was content to keep tinkering in the garage. Sam, Alex, and Clover decided to stay in the house. And most of the New Wave kids were currently caught up screaming at their parents over the phone. Apparently a week apart wasn’t enough for both sides to calmly talk things out and things quickly got heated.

I wasn’t staying around to find out how that was going to go and it seemed Amy agreed with me since she decided she was coming with me. Theoretically a dangerous move, but between flight and teleportation it was much less risky than most would assume. Plus I wasn’t about to lock Amy up. If she wanted to head out for something as normal as grocery shopping I wasn’t going to say no. Not when I was taking Gloria with me too.

Dinah would be staying in the house for obvious reasons. She might have walked through the wards, but they had still done their job keeping everyone else out. And the house didn’t suddenly get less safe with actual people inside it again.

So with that settled, Amy and Gloria joined me on the teleportation circle in the main lobby and with a flex of magic we were whisked off into the city…

-o-

“Don’t you think that’s too many tomatoes?” Gloria asked as I loaded another container into our cart.

I gave her a half shrug while mentally going through the recipe I had in mind to see what we still needed. “Not really. They cook down a lot and there’s a bunch of us. If anything, we might need to make another run to get more.”

“Shouldn’t you just get bigger ones then?”

“Nope. you have to use either cherry or grape tomatoes or it won’t work right. And since I have the option I’m going with cherry.”

Gloria raised an eyebrow at me. “Do you actually have something against the word ‘grape’ or something? You do know for tomatoes it's just the name?”

I smirked at her. Grape tomatoes were honestly fine, but it was kinda funny that the breakfast conversation from earlier popped up again.

“What are you even trying to make?” Amy asked, returning with the garlic cloves I asked for.

“Gnocchi in a burst tomato sauce.”

“Sounds complicated.”

“Practically the opposite!” I laughed. One of the reasons I loved the recipe was because it was like six ingredients at its core and was absolutely delicious. It stored and reheated pretty well too.

“If you say so. Anyway, what else do we need?”

I looked in the cart and counted off everything we had picked up.

Some staples like bread, milk, eggs, and soda. Replacement jelly for the jars Dinah had emptied. A bunch of ground meats for whatever we decided to make later. Some dried pasta for days where we didn’t feel like putting effort into cooking. And enough snacks that it looked like we were going to throw a party for a hundred people. What were we missing?

‘Still need the cheese.’ Ddraig pointed out.

I thanked him for the reminder and wandered over to the deli section, snagging a few packets of prosciutto on the way. It would make this trip a bit pricier than I planned for, but one of my favorite ‘lazy meals’ were just throwing meat, cheese, and crackers on a plate and calling it a charcuterie board. It let me pretend to be fancy while really just having a more adult version of a lunchable.

My good mood did take a bit of a dip as I moved through the aisles without finding the type I needed, but mozzarella worked as a substitute. It was weird, but it never seemed like I could find a store with Burrata actually in stock.

Oh well, couldn’t be helped.

Or at least, not without more effort than I was willing to spend.

But with my desire for handfuls of meat and creamy things satisfied I made my way back to the other two and made some last minute checks for anything we might have forgotten. Though at this point it was starting to be less about what we might have forgotten for meals and more about what snacks we saw on the shelves we might want to indulge in later.

After Amy spent a good few minutes trying to balance a party size pack of cookies on the mountain of food practically spilling out of the cart before just giving up and holding on to it, I decided that we had gotten enough for one trip and headed towards the checkout lanes.

“So Rias, you never really explained what you wanted to make.” Gloria said, mostly to fill the silence while we were waiting for our turn. “How ‘not complicated’ is this?”

“It’s super simple.” I replied and started counting off the steps. “You basically take a bit of oil and fry some grated garlic for a bit. Then you add the tomatoes until they cook down into a kind of jammy sauce. Add in some red pepper and heavy cream and you have a really good base you can adjust in a few ways. Throw in some pre-cooked gnocchi and cheese that you let simmer for a bit and - bam! - one really easy Italian dish that isn’t just spaghetti and meatballs.”

“Huh, that does sound pretty good. Are you big on cooking?”

“Kinda?” I wiggled a hand back and forth. “I have a few things I know how to make pretty well, but at the same time I could live off of frozen chicken nuggets for a week straight if I wanted. My interest in it comes and goes.”

“Maybe we should set up a cooking schedule. It would be kinda neat to see if anyone else knows stuff like that.”

“I’d rather stick with takeout.” Amy huffed. “Maybe you two haven’t had to deal with it yet, but Vicky can burn water sometimes and Crystal’s friends have…weird…tastes.”

“It can’t be that bad.” Gloria protested, to which Amy just shrugged.

“Your funeral.”

While they were talking I was slowly getting the sense something was up. We might not have been shopping at a super busy time but there had still been people around, but I was seeing less and less of them. In fact I saw one of the store workers grab a co-worker and not so subtly tell them to go through a door after looking right at us…

I didn’t like that.

We paid for everything and began heading for the door. When we made it out of the store with nothing actually happening I almost wrote it off as just a bad feeling only for an unfortunately familiar voice to call out to us.

“Excuse me, Ladies! Do you have a moment to help a Hero out on his mission for Justice?!”

Paladin had apparently decided to swing by.