Not So Tough

Hodgepodge had been taught to him mostly. He had come up with the name and, with strings as thin as spider-web, he’d managed to tie them all together into one congruent magic type. However, even as he mastered different spells within that school, attempting to put together his own magic was much more difficult. It had started when his hoodie was destroyed. While someone of a little less natural cheeriness would have been put out by this, it only made the young Kageyama determined to reconstruct it. Accidents were, after all, only an opportunity for growth as he had been taught. Putting it back together would have been sufficient, but the more he studied the magic within it, the more he was lead to believe that it would be possible to add something to it, to make it more than the sum of its parts.

He wanted to put a robot suit in it.

However as it turned out, doing something like that was much more difficult than just saying it. For starters he had to learn how to sew. He had to learn how to infuse magic within a physical object and learn to conjure a spell that he created. Thankfully he was not a foolish young man. A bit headstrong certainly, but he was a quick study and therefore learning something like this wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. It was, however, a time consuming process, which left him in the Silver Wolf laboratory more often than he would have liked. After more than a few days of not sleeping, Ahab had convinced him to take what he had on a trial run. In actuality this was an attempt to get the young man to go outside and do something rather than stay cooped up in the lab. Ahab had caught sight of a few lab techs that were paler than sheets of paper. As long as Tsu didn’t figure it out, it would work just fine. Moreover, it seemed that Tsu and Ahab were running low on jewels to fund their research, which meant it was time to take on a job or two. So the two of them took a day trip to Crocus to go shopping for some necessary materials.

Tsubasa had felt a little uncomfortable going out without any kind of hoodie at all, call it a security blanket or some kind of preferential dress, but he had gone out wearing a black hoodie which seemed similar enough to his trademark. It made him feel more than a little creepy. Underneath the hoodie, however, were prototype glyphs that would act as summoning circles for his new requip magics. They would let him test out the weapons that he had been trying to put together. There hadn’t been a hundred percent success rate in his testing, but it would be good to get it out there and figure out what needed to be fixed. Of course if there were any emergencies, he still had Hodgepodge as a permanent backup. Of course, he needed a job first. There had been more than a few available at Silver Wolf, but for some reason he had wanted to check out the local city and try to find something smaller on his own.

Crocus, of course, had a square with job listings for such things. Smaller things like helping with farming and gathering ingredients for a cake were tempting, but in the bottom right corner was a job listing that looked a little forgotten. It seemed aged and torn. Perhaps this person still needed help? Tsubasa grabbed it off the cork board and read over it. It seemed that a local bar was in need of help with vandalism. It took him a moment to read it over but once he had, he looked at Ahab. “What do you think?” Tsubasa said.

“Vandalism’s a pretty bad deal. Makes a whole neighborhood look bad. Brings down property values. And the Homeowners Association gets very upset.” Ahab said with a yawn.

“I’m not even old enough to drink,” Tsu said, turning the leaflet over and looking for something on the back. An age range or something. “How can I help with this?” He had a strange mental image of being turned down from the job since he could only order juice.

“You don’t have to drink there. Just put a stop to the vandalism. It’s just another level of bullying, Tsu. But like… leveled up bullying.” While he was trying to get Tsubasa to go out and do a job, the little squirrel himself had been awake nearly as long as Tsubasa himself, and was not designed for any of that. Sleep was overtaking him as much as he fought it.

Tsubasa’s face scrunched like someone who’d just seen a house guest put down a drink without a coaster. “Alright, I’m in.” Despite being on day three with no sleep, he seemed perfectly fine. In addition to just being young and full of stamina, energy drinks had carried him this far, blocking the melatonin receptors and just ignoring the build-up of exhaustion in his body. He’d crushed another one before heading out and was riding that through this far.

As he made his way to the bar, a place called the Black Cat Lounge, he double and triple checked the runes on the inside of his jacket. There was nothing he could really do, no alterations he could make except to check and write notes on what would work and what wouldn’t. It did occur to him that this didn’t exactly seem to be a job where he fought something, but it was usually those jobs where the most battling happened.

It wasn’t difficult to find the bar, as the windows seemed to be pasted over with oversized posters directing patrons to the Demons’ Den instead. Had he been too late? Was this place shut down? He stepped up towards the posters and found that they had been put up hastily, with the glue used to attach them to the windows was running down the glass and mucking up the window frames. He examined it and pulled it away slowly. It wasn’t even meant to last. It peeled off easily. Underneath, however, the windows had been broken and repaired at least once.

He stepped towards the door and knocked on it. It was marked as closed but the door itself was unlocked and even open a crack. Regardless, he knocked on the door. It opened a little more. “Excuse me?” He called out, “My name is Tsubasa Kageyama, I’m here about the job posted in the town square?” Hearing no response, he stepped inside and knocked again. “Excuse me, I don’t mean to pry but is there anyone here? I can come back later if—“

“And alls we sayin’ is this place don’t make much money anymores anyway. Drinkin’ culture’s dead in dis town. So why not sell it? Better yet, give it away.” A gruff, deep voice came from somewhere in the back of the building, calling Tsubasa towards it. He inched quietly into the open dining area (is that what it was called in a bar?) then continued towards the back of the building.

“You can try and intimidate me all you want, it won’t work!” Came a response, quieter and clearly frightened. “I’ll give up this place over my dead body!”

“Well why didn’cha juss say so?” The first voice responded with a low, gurgling laugh like a car trying to start. As Tsubasa continued forward, his foot step predictably squeaked over an old wooden plank. He froze in place. Ahab was up in a flash. “What was dat?” The first voice said.

“Nothing,” Tsubasa responded. Ahab smacked his own forehead.

“Who’s out dere?” From the back came an extremely large human. Just a real beefcake of a guy. Didn’t even skip leg day, this dude. Like a bull rushing through a china shop, he headed straight for Tsubasa.

“Get outta here, kid!” The man behind the human wall shouted. “Just go!”

Tsubasa took a fighting stance. No better time than now to test his new magic. He took a step forward, planting his foot on the ground in a side stance, body turned to face the charging behemoth. Shoving his hand forward, the hidden rune activated, “Careful big guy, time for the Beat Drop!” A visible sound wave, like a series of rings, passed through the giant figure. Tsubasa slid to the side at the last moment, just in time for the rampaging villain to fall head first into a slide on the ground.

That move was as exhausting as he’d figured, but it definitely worked. As the big man fell to the floor, Tsubasa sat down on him and created a rope made of electricity. He wrapped it around the guy’s arms like hogtying a particularly rambunctious bovid. “Okay so I’m gonna make an assumption. This guy is bad, came here to hurt you, you’re the one that— Quit fidgeting or it’ll shock you more! — put the job offer up. And you need help fending off these guys. How am I doing?”