Since the taxi was already headed for the Watson residence— Tammy's home —the taxi didn't need to change destinations when Maxie asked to stay over. When they arrived, Max and Tammy jogged through the rain to get into the house. Joseph merrily greeted the two girls when they came in through the front door, but seeing their general demeanors, he knew something was up.
"Hey, what happened? Did the boy you were seeing give you trouble?"
"No! I mean, no... that's not it," Maxie denied awkwardly. "He was great, just... something else happened on the way home."
Confused, Joe turned to his daughter, who shrugged and said, "Maxie needs some rest for now... could you bring some food up for us? If she's cool with it, you'll know in the morning."
"Alright," Joe nodded, turning to return to the kitchen without further question in order to heat something up for the girls.
...
Tammy shared a warm, light dinner with Maxie in her bedroom. They went light because Maxie had already eaten with Lucian, and Tammy herself enjoyed some free food at Inigo's.
They had already finished eating by now, and were changing to turn in for bed. Maxie returned the clothes she borrowed from Tammy earlier, switching back to the regular and frankly unimpressive clothes she'd been wearing previously. They were just an oversized shirt with a few holes in it, and baggy pants that had been trimmed short to fit her.
"G'night, sweet sundae..." Tammy half-mumbled, dead tired. She had been acting high-energy all day, but that was just her outdoors personality. Now that she was safe at home, a switch seems to have flipped, and all of the electricity in her demeanor vanished. On top of that, she finally washed off the makeup on her face. They had done a good job concealing her eyebags before, but now...
"Night-night, cotton candy..." Maxie whispered, tucking a stray lock of pink hair behind Tammy's ear. Her best friend looked utterly adorable, if a little miserable in the moment. So helpless...
While she was around the same size as Tammy, Maxie definitely had a lot more muscle and a little bit of fat on her. She was a big eater on top of being physically active, after all. Tammy also had a much more delicate face— which spoke volumes, since Maxie was already plenty dainty-looking herself.
With all of that combined, Tammy looked so small, curled up next to her, tightly hugging a frilly pillow.
"... I just wish you could leave your shitty boyfriend already," Maxie whispered. "It hurts seeing you like this..."
◎ ◉ ◎
Lucian awoke from a short nap, completely refreshed and energized. He could hear the river just a few dozen meters from his hideout, and the overcast lighting filled him with a cold, nostalgic mood. After a mighty stretch, he rolled forward and sat up from the couch in his hideout.
"Penny... what's on the to-do list today?"
[ Since boss-man gave you the day off, here's our schedule: ]
[ Free time for the entire day. Because of Inigo's decision to give you and Maxie a day off, I suggest getting in contact with her. You've already helped her get school stuff; now it's time to help her study. ]
[ Come nighttime, you need to visit that woman from the fire incident. She wanted to talk. ]
[ After that, you need to fight at least two rounds in the ring. You weren't there yesterday. ]
[ Then the rest, I guess it's just more patrol, then back to work the next day. ]
Having confirmed his schedule for the day, Lucian turned his attention to the glossy black item sitting on his hideout's only table— another something that Inigo had given him for date night.
'I have a thing now... I expected to have to buy one myself, but Mr. Suarez just gave me his old phone. Nice.'
It wasn't any fancy sort of phone, but a regular smartphone worked well enough for Lucian. He only needed it to get in contact with people anyway. It's been completely reformatted, so he could do with it as he pleased. Last night, while they were out eating, he'd exchanged numbers with Maxie.
"Should I call her...?" Lucian asked Penny. He wasn't sure at all.
[ Just text her for now, ] Penny suggested. [ It's still early in the morning, and she's probably sleeping in. Most people don't recover energy as fast as you. ]
...
Back in the Watson household, Maxie, Tammy, and Joseph all sat around the dining table, enjoying some hot soup. Why hot soup? Well, both girls managed to catch a cold the previous night.
"Sorry about 'dis," said Maxie, sniffling quietly.
"Max, come on... what're you saying? I'm glad to help," countered Joseph.
By this point, Joe had already learned what happened after date night At least, what Maxie had learned from Bailey so far. She wasn't the one to tell, though; that job was more or less left up to Tammy.
With her head and sinuses feeling heavy, Maxie could only nod her gratitude.br/>
For a good few minutes, the three of them just ate in companionable silence. Then, Maxie's phone rang.
Turning on the screen, she half-expected it to be Bailey again, but it turned out to be Lucian's number. Looking up, she saw both Tams and Joe looking at her curiously. She shrugged her shoulders and opened up the notification.
L: 'Hey, Max. Good morning. You sleep well last night?'
Maxie's cheeks flushed, more than they had with the soup's heat. Hurriedly, she sent a text message back.
M: 'havent slept nearly enough'
M: 'tams and i kinda caught a cold tho'
M: 'wbu?'
Maxie turned off her screen, looking up finally, getting another spoonful of soup.
"So, who was it?" Tammy asked.
"It's Luce... Just wanted to say good morning, I guess."
"Well, isn't that sweet?" Joe remarked, and Maxie lowered her head a little, still chewing on a potato chunk. "From what we know, I think you've got something nice going with him," he added.
"Yeah... I think so, too."
...
Meanwhile, on Lucian's side of things...
[ Luce... ] Penny felt exasperated. Lucian had been bouncing the ball he'd found in the hideout for minutes now. [ Just look at your phone already. ]
"Still feeling nervous..."
[ It's just Maxine. If you waste any more time like this, I'll withhold all further EXP from you. ]
With the consequences of his cowardice made clear, Lucian finally mustered up all of his will to check his phone.
"Oh. Looks like she got sick," he said out loud.
[ See? It wasn't that bad. ]
"Yeah, but it's my first time really talking to a girl since early high school! I only made it through last night because you were coaching me..."
[ And I'll keep coaching you if you don't keep making this difficult for me. ]
"Alright, okay... I'll go do stuff now..."
Lucian shot Maxie a quick reply, which turned into a short conversation where they caught up. She was going to be staying at Tammy's for a bit, and he told her to rest up some more, adding that he'd be busy for most of the day doing random gigs. He also asked if they should postpone him helping her with school stuff until she recovered.
Maxie screamed internally when she remembered that they still agreed to do that, but saw the opportunity and replied in the affirmative. The longer she could postpone that, the better for her little heart, so she figured she could pretend to be sick for a bit longer even after recovering...
...
With nothing else to do while the sun was up, Lucian found himself bored out of his mind. He thought about going for a daytime patrol, so he put that on the list. Before anything else though, he made his way over to the gym to get cleaned up. He honestly worked up a sweat just last night with all he'd been doing, and he still reeked of smoke from the fire.
"Huh... well, ain't that somethin'?"
Leaving the gym's showers, Lucian's attention was drawn to a small clump of patrons, all huddled together and looking at a phone held by the one in the center.
Curious, he let himself draw closer to take a little peek. Since the owner of the phone was sitting on the floor, and the others had crouched down to look, Lucian could just stay standing and see just fine.
'Huh... whaddya know? It me.'
"—as you can see, we now finally have clear footage of a new crime-fighting vigilante that has appeared in Gotham city," said a news reporter. They seemed to be streaming their program on social media websites, on top of the regular news station broadcasts over radio and television.
The reporter continued. "The enigmatic figure was rumored to have been going around for over a week now, but with no conclusive evidence until this fire, it has all been just disregarded as a rumor and chalked up to other vigilantes, such as the Batman."
"Hey, I've seen that guy before..." said one of the men in the watch clump.
"Yeah, me too. He passes by my neighborhood a lot... you think he lives near?"
"Gotta be a hideout," one of them argued. "There's no way he just comes out from where he lives."
"Yeah," the phone's owner agreed. "This guy fucks up the days of anyone from petty criminals to actual crazies. He nailed my brother's dealer just a bit ago, actually. Good fuckin' riddance."
Thoroughly unconcerned, Lucian went to drift away and packed up. It seemed like either the first responders at the fire the previous night got him on camera as the Manticore, or someone in the crowd had their camera on and decided to focus on him. It could have been both.
Either way, at least the first bit of recorded information on him was positive.
Lucian kept listening in while stuffing his old clothes into a plastic bag.
He caught the tail end of the news report detailing that the perp for the fire incident had been put under custody, and was to undergo trial soon.
As for the perp's victim— his own wife —she was in critical condition when she reached West Mercy Hospital. Luckily, she had since been stabilized, and it looked like someone made an anonymous donation to cover the costs of her stay there.
Lucian had a good idea of who that might've been, but wondered why they chose the anonymous route. He didn't dwell on it, however, and decided to go running around as Manticore again after finishing his business at the gym.
There were also other concerning reports as Lucian stuck around for just a bit longer to listen in on the news. There were rumors of firearms being carted around within Gotham, as well as in and out of their ports. The drug trade seemed to be on the rise even as Gotham's police cracked down on them, and there was also the steady stream of missing persons' reports that never seemed to go away. In an unusual trend though, most of them seemed to be female...
Chewing his bottom lip, Lucian cursed that he couldn't just run around and resolve those issues right away. He had learned that [Justice Sense] had quite the limited range, so he couldn't rely on that to track crimes all the time. He was nowhere near strong enough to handle armed groups, either. He was far from bulletproof, nowhere near fast enough for his liking, and far from the threshold of wisdom that he deemed ideal.
He needed experience, and before he could start cracking down on larger issues like the ones reported on the news, he'll just have to learn as much as he could while sticking to the open streets...
To clear his head, he decided that it would be best to go visit Jodie first, before heading out.
...
When Lucian arrived at Jodie's apartment, the first thing to greet him was an old lady with an unreadable expression. Her hands reached for his face and pulled, and he soon found himself undergoing an intensely scrutinous inspection— he was turned upside-down and leftside-right, poked every which way just to make sure he didn't have any injuries.
"You had better not been biting off more than you can chew out there, Luce," said Jodie. "You're lucky you haven't gotten yourself hurt yet..."
"Seeing that response, I think I'm getting off really lightly here..."
Jodie shook her head and sighed. "I can't do anything about it now. Besides, I've seen what you did on TV. Even if I did give you corporal punishment— which I would love to, by the way —you probably wouldn't even feel it."
Lucian could only thin his lips in awkward silence.
Sighing once more, Jodie stood up and moved to the back of her home. She came back carrying a thing of pants, which seemed to perfectly match the aesthetic of his jacket and cowl.
"Are you sure that this is what you want to do, Luce?" she asked, handing Lucian his custom-made leather pants.
Nodding, he replied, "Yeah. Ain't nobody can do it but me."
Jodie nodded as she sat back down. "There's no way I can stop you... but for the love of all that is holy, be careful. Do you understand?"
"Crystal," Lucian affirmed with a resolute nod.
Jodie finally relaxed and let herself recline into the soft, cushioned backrest of her armchair. "I'd smoke just from the stress of this, but I'm too old for that..."
"Sorry..."
Jodie shook her head. "Don't be. You're doing a good thing here," she said. "Somebody has to do what you do. We already have the bats, but God knows we can always use more of your kind..."
Silence ruled the apartment for a while— at least, until Lucian finally put on the pants by using his Loadout ability.
"How does it look?"
Jodie opened her eyes to assess the fit. "Haha... I'm not even going to ask how you put that on so fast without making any noise. But, are you kidding me? It's perfect. I made it, after all."
"Damn straight."
"Now, go on out there. I know you're taking the day off, and I'm sure you're itching to do some justice-ing, or whatever you vigilantes like to call it. Your secret's safe with me, so don't worry."
"Thanks for everything, Jodes. I really, really owe you."
Seeing Jodie nod, Lucian reverted to his civilian attire and left Jodie's safe abode to reenter Gotham's overcast ecosystem.
...
"What the fuck?!?"
Screaming his nuts off, a man wearing a ski mask ran for his life as his accomplices fired their guns back towards the Manticore. Just keeping up the pace was a struggle; he had to pump his legs while carrying several bags of stuff over his shoulder.
"I thought these freaks only came out at night!" one of the gunmen cried, nearly shitting his pants as his handgun clicked dry.
"You're just shit out of fucking luck!" a distorted voice yelled from behind, clearly excited about all this.
The 'freak' chasing after them— the Manticore —was shrouded in two things: the usual purple lightning, and a field of visual distortions that made it seem as if he were fading in and out of reality.
On top of that visual, his proportions shifted and warped, distorting unpredictably and throwing off his quarries' aim.
'This Cloak of Distortion is so fuckin cool...'
...
[ Daytime Progress Report ]
[ Criminals taken down: 6 – EXP awarded: 300 ]
[ Arrest assistance bonus: 300 EXP ]
[ Money earned: None Looted – EXP awarded: 0 ]
[ Money received as thanks: 215 - EXP awarded: 215 ]
[ Items stolen: 0 – EXP awarded: 0 ]
[ Items received as thanks: 2 - EXP awarded: 50 ]
[ Civilians assisted: 8 - EXP awarded: 400 ]
[ Total EXP awarded: 1,265 ]
[ EXP to next level: 351 ]