Outing
"How do you know they don't have a manager?" Edie asked.
Max shrugged, her eyes still fixed on her phone. Behind her back, Hailey and Minnie exchanged a significant look. "I came by a few months ago to buy something, can't remember what."
"Found it," Faith crowed, piling into the car after Edie as Hailey tugged her phone out of her grip telekinetically. "It's called E-Zee P-Zee Mart. Who comes up with this crap?"
"He does have a manager," Hailey reported, tapping at the screen as Max slammed the door shut behind her. Smoothly, Natsuo pulled away from the curb. "They just use a different term to refer to them. Owners instead of managers." She looked up, frowning. "It's stupid. If they serve the same function, why call them by a different name?"
"Weren't you going to complain to the manager?"
Hailey lifted her chin. "Maybe I will." Her eyes lit up. "Oh, they have a complaint box. Excellent."
They spent the remainder of the car ride workshopping the complaint, inserting at least a dozen snide comments and backhanded insults into the text before Minnie got her hands on Faith's phone. "It has to look proper if you want to get him fired," she said, ignoring their histrionics as she tapped at the screen to submit the form. "If not, they'll just assume it's a troll. And even if they don't, we're, like, putting our actual names on there. It won't reflect well on any of us if it's too, um, bitchy."
There was a brief silence. Hailey opened her mouth, but was cut off by the sound of the door opening. Slipping on their sunglasses, they filed out onto the tarmac and strolled up the staircase up into the private jet that was waiting for them. Their luggage had already been loaded onto another vessel, which was itself well on its way to Korea. Only when they were ensconced within the jet, shoes kicked off, toes curling and uncurling into the fluffy, disinfected carpet, did she speak.
"Okay, well, first off, we're not bitchy."
Minnie rolled her eyes, long-suffering. "Yeah, sure, of course, whatever."
"That's not being bitchy, anyway," Max added. Edie glanced at her; she seemed to have mostly recovered from whatever had been going on in that convenience store. "It's funny! I don't get it."
Minnie drummed her fingers on her armrest. "You literally called him an idiot who smelled bad. That one was way too blatant. First thing I did was get rid of it."
"Still. It's not like he doesn't deserve it, you know," Faith piped up. "He was rude to us! It's just payback."
Edie sighed. "You all just need to come to terms with being bitchy," she said, still tapping at her phone. "Nothing wrong with being bitchy. Own it."
"But we're, like, not?"
"What about Suzuki?" Minnie challenged.
A complicated expression flashed across Hailey's face. "That's not her name."
Minnie rolled her eyes. "Stop avoiding the question. What about her?"
"We were just picking on her," Max argued. "It wasn't bullying. She's perfectly capable of defending herself. It was all in good fun. Anyway, we stopped after less than a month."
"We just didn't vibe," Faith said, plaintively, staring out the window as Kyoto faded into the distance. "Not her fault, not our fault." She turned to glance at them. "Do you think we should ask her to change seats? Put her with, like, some other people whom she can actually talk to?"
"Who? Cain?"
"Cain and Abrams," Edie recited, setting her phone down and counting the names off on her fingers. "She goes to the gym with Son, Takeda, Samson-"
"It's like she lives there," Hailey grumbled.
"-Sigurd, Sen. That's seven people."
They were all quiet for a moment.
"She does have a lot of friends," Minnie noted.
Max threw her hands in the air. "So what? We don't need to be, like, fuckin' social butterflies to make it. We've already made it. We don't need Shiketsu. It's Shiketsu that needs us."
"They aren't friends," Faith added. "They're more of, like, an interest group. Gym friends. Whatever. Acquaintances, at most."
Edie smirked. "What about Kyoda?"
Faith jumped to her feet. "I'm glad you asked!"
Minnie momentarily descended from her imaginary moral high ground to join the others as Faith pulled out her handbag. After rummaging in it for a few moments, she produced a small lacquer box, and the five of them crowded around her to stare at the five vials inside.
Hailey folded her arms. "How long were you waiting for one of us to ask you about Kyoda?"
"Since, like, yesterday." Faith pouted. "Why didn't you?"
"We tacitly agreed not to," Max said, removing one of the vial from the box to examine it more closely. "Because you're, like, sensitive. We didn't want to set you off."
"Oh, come on."
"Epic surprise, though."
"Yeah."
"But what's it do?"
Faith shrugged. "He just said it was an experimental enhancement thing that he'd been working on."
"But what does it enhance?" Minnie pressed. "Our mental acuity? Our physical performance? Our quirks?"
"How did you even get your hands on this shit, anyway?" Hailey demanded. "I thought of just buying from him like a normal human being, but apparently that's, like, illegal."
Faith shrugged. "I dunno. I just asked nicely." She jerked her chin at the vials. "It's, like, a gaseous solution, so you'll - I mean, we'll - need to uncork it and breathe in. That's it." She paused. "Oh, and I'm gonna be recording everything. Because Kyoda asked me to."
The four of them looked at her.
"You know," Edie said, slowly, "this doesn't sound very safe."
"Nonsense," Faith retorted blithely. "It's perfectly safe! Kyoda told me so."
"He doesn't even like us," Max said to Hailey.
"See, this is why I've been telling you to be nicer to our classmates -"
"Oh, shut up, you were right there laughing with us when we stole Suzuki's clothes -"
"And it all turned out so well for you! I don't know what you're complaining about, you got a boyfriend out of the bargain -"
Edie shook her head, shared an eye-roll with Faith, and pulled out her phone.
Two hours of on-and-off bickering later, they landed on a small airstrip. It was only an airport on paper, having been constructed for the sole purpose of ferrying people to and from the complex which now loomed before them. Although they were now in Korea, Edie hadn't even bothered to pack her passport. They were only going to be here for a few hours, anyway. Once the staircase was set up, the five of them trooped down from the jet onto the tarmac. A middle-aged man with greying hair was waiting for them, and Hailey raised an eyebrow. "Anthony?"
Anthony Chang advanced on her, evidently going in for a hug, but allowed his hands to fall to his sides as Max and Minnie stepped in front of Hailey defensively. "Hailey! It's been a while."
"Who's this?" Edie asked, the question directed at Hailey.
"My brother." Hailey nudged Minnie and Max aside and turned to address him. "What do you want, Anthony?"
"Well, I just thought I'd drop by and see how you were doing. There's a tournament of some sort that's coming up, I heard."
Hailey blinked. "Oh, yeah. Yeah. That." She paused. "Uh, Mom isn't here?"
"Oh, Hailey." Anthony's eyes softened. "She's taking care of your father."
"Right. Yeah." Hailey flipped her hair, evidently unconcerned. Faith glanced at her, an expression of mild worry flickering across her face. "Okay, well, if you want to tag along, like, whatever."
Abruptly, the five of them started to stroll across the tarmac at a punishing pace. Anthony hurried after them as they passed through the gates and out into the small, long-abandoned company town. It had once been an industrial complex wholly devoted to the manufacture of electronics and semiconductors, but the machinery in use had grown outdated, and the decision had been made to move operations elsewhere. Refitting would not be necessary for at least another decade. The girls passed through the empty, desolate streets like they owned them - which, in a way, they did. Security guards appeared in some of the buildings, patrolling their empty shells.
"How many of these guys are there?" Anthony asked.
Hailey waggled her hand. "Uh, fifty? A hundred? I dunno. I asked Daddy for somewhere to, like, practice, and he gave me this."
"Gave you? It's yours?"
Hailey shrugged. "I guess?"
For once, Anthony was glad that his youngest sister wasn't looking at him, because he wasn't sure how to classify the expression on his face.
The centerpiece of this dilapidated company town was an immense factory, its ceiling several floors in height. The machinery within had been carted away long ago, and what remained was a soaring, cavernous hall. Piles of scrap metal lay scattered across the floor. "From previous, uh, games," Hailey said. She shied away from using words that connoted violence, but Anthony knew that his father wasn't the type to beat his daughters. It was probably something to do with socially-constructed femininity. He'd have to consult his library.
"Also, Anthony?"
"Hmm?"
"Since you're here, could you help us set these cameras up?" One of Hailey's friends - the half-white one - handed him a number of clunky cameras, her expression carefully neutral. Anthony looked at Hailey and took them. He was reasonably certain that she was entrusting him with this task so that he wouldn't keep hovering over her shoulder while she chatted with her friends. Turning, he made his way to the exit and sent the cameras skittering up the wall. Unlike Hailey, his quirk couldn't move things in three dimensions. They had to be supported by something. The ground, perhaps, or a free-standing wall. It wasn't a very strong quirk, and Anthony had reconciled himself to that fact a long time ago.
Minnie rubbed her arms. "I don't know how I feel about your creepy uncle watching us practice."
"Eh, he's fine. And for, like, the seventeenth time, he's my brother." Hailey cracked her knuckles and nodded at Faith. "Anyway, the camera footage isn't going to be streamed. Right?"
"Right," Faith confirmed, holding up her phone. "It'll all be going to the server back in my apartment."
"Okay, great, cool, whatever." Max bounced on the balls of her feet, restless. "Can we start? I've been wanting to try Kyoda's stuff for ages.
"Seconded," Edie muttered.
"If I may intrude -"
The five of them whipped around. Anthony raised his hands in mute surrender, and when none of them spoke, continued. "Is this, strictly speaking, safe? These buildings weren't constructed in accordance with prevailing standards, and they might be liable to collapse."
"Uh, we do have rules," Minnie pointed out, sounding thoroughly unimpressed. "We always pull our punches, and we'll evacuate if things get dicey. We won't do anything that might damage the integrity of the building."
"And are you dressed appropriately -"
"All of our fits can double-up as costumes in a pinch," Max interrupted.
"But what if -"
"That's what the help is for," Hailey snapped. "Just - go and join them, Anthony. Okay? They know what to do if things go sideways."
Anthony pressed his lips together and left.
They chucked their phones into their respective bags, leaving only their individual vials on them. Hailey sent the bags flying at the exit, where one of the help would safeguard them for the duration.
"How long did Kyoda say it'd last?"
"Uh, an hour?"
They played rock-paper-scissors. Faith and Max formed one group, Minnie, Hailey and Edie the other. They looked at each other for a moment.
"Should we stand further away from each other before opening the vials?"
"Yeah, probably."
They shuffled into a rough circle, spreading ever-outward.
"'Kay, let's go," Minnie called, voice steady. "Three, two -"
There were five simultaneous pops as the vials were uncorked.
Edie looked at her hands, then looked up. "Is that it?"
"I don't feel any different."
"Same."
"Yeah."
Max raised her hand. She was vibrating.
The four of them stared at her for a moment. Then:
"Shit, shit, shit, get out of the way -"
"She's going to tag you -"
"Shouldn't I capture her first -"
Faith sprinted across the floor to the nearest pile of junk as the other three glided backwards. She slapped her hand down on the least-rusty segment of the structure and left it there as gnarled sheets of metal began to smooth themselves out, forming into servitors. Still vibrating, Max clambered onto the first servitor that emerged, squinting into the distance. "Dude, my eyesight is insane."
"I think it's boosting my multitasking."
"There should be a rule against putting you and Faith on the same team," Edie complained, feet dangling off of the levitating platform upon which she was seated. Minnie and Hailey were on adjacent platforms, the former's arms hissing with electricity as the other subdivided the various surrounding debris into pellets and projectiles. "You're both too good at affecting the environment. You need to be on opposite teams to balance out."
"Sometimes, the heroes are outgunned," Minnie said loftily. "That's no excuse to give up."
"That's real life. This isn't." Edie leaned forwards. "Hey, wait. I can hear Max shouting. She says we're too high up."
"Jeez, okay."
"One day, I'm gonna figure out how to sense vibrations through objects I'm controlling, and then you're gonna be fucked."
"Sure, whatever, loser."
Hailey flipped Max off and squinted as one of the interchangeable grunts working for her family loomed up in front of her. "Where's Anthony?"
"Mr Chang left on other business."
"Hm. Cool." Hailey turned. "Bath? Or shopping?"
"Bath."
"Bath."
"Bath."
"Bath."
"The Pohang villa as usual, then. Have any of my siblings crashed there?"
"No, Ms Chang."
"'Kay."
They piled into the private jet. Down below, on the ground, the help moved in to clean up the debris from their little scuffle. Edie sagged into her seat, mopping her brow, and checked her phone. "We're still gaining from that beach thing."
Faith spun her laptop around and opened it, spurring an eye-roll from Minnie. "For real?"
"We're getting shat on by TikTok, though." Max tilted her phone down as a chime sounded from Faith's laptop. "Something about how we shouldn't use NHK to advertise ourselves."
"I think it was pretty iconic, personally," Edie drawled.
"Let 'em shit." Hailey examined her nails. "I need another mani-pedi."
"We wreck our nails every time we do this shit," Edie muttered. "Why don't we just stop getting mani-pedis until after the tournament?"
"I'm not going to embarrass myself by showing up to a tournament with my nails undone."
"There's also something about how we were piggybacking on a tragedy to hawk the channel."
"It wasn't a tragedy, though," Faith opined. "We literally stopped it." She spun her laptop around, showing them all a graph of their subscribers across all of the platforms that they were active on. A quarter-thousand a week wasn't so bad.
"Mitsurugi and McCathy, you mean."
"Okay, well, whatever. We helped to stop it. We're heroes. That's what we do."
There was a long pause. Faith's laptop dinged.
"Oh, the footage just came in." She squinted at the screen, then cringed. "God, I look so unglam here."
The others stood up and started jostling immediately.
"Let me see, let me see -"
"Screw you, wait your turn -"
"Doesn't this hunk of junk have a projector? I'm pretty sure we used a projector on this, like, a few months ago -"