thegingernut

  A section of dancefloor was cleared for a danceoff. "You're going DOWN Tyler!" called Charlie. "Sure, whatever…" replied Tyler, clearly about as invested in this as I was. "Aight, the rules are simple" said the pretty goth barmaid who apparently had nothing more important to be attending to. "A beat is pyed. Party A dances to the beat. The beat is repeated. Party B replicates and where possible improves upon the dance moves of party A. Party A becomes Party B and the cycle repeats until one of the parties is booed off stage or riles up the crowed enough" she expined.

  We lined up Rose, Leah, Charlie, Alice, Me from left to right. Tyler took the centre of his own party. He was short for a man, only 5′ 8″, but really stocky. His bros meanwhile were all around the 6′ mark. We were spaced just far enough apart to still high-five each other should a dance routine call for it.

  It started off simple. They got the first turn and kept it to a simple foot tap and repeated side gncing. We wouldn't even have needed my power to stay in sync for that one. For our opening gambette, I went with a simple four hop pirouette. (One full rotation divided into four hops).

  They did a routine where dancers two and four crouched down to their hunkers, then on the next beat dancers one, three and five crouched down while two and four popped back up, and kept inverting positions for the rest of the beat. This we repeated with minimal effort, despite the protests from my long healed bullet wound. We responded with a wave from left to right and back again. This posed them no issue.

  Then they did something fancy. On the first beat one and two did a hop that nded them backwards. On the second two and four joined hands with three. On the next beat three did a quarter turn, two and four leaping into pce to stand in front and behind him. On the same beat, One and five hopped into two and four's positions. For the next three beats they hopped around three in quarter-circur steps. On the forth beat, one and five hopped outward to their original positions while three completed his rotation and four and two returned to theirs. On the next beat one and two repeated their one eighty hop to nd facing forward. I don't think we would have succeeded in that one without my power or actually practicing in advance. Hell we wouldn't have succeeded anyway if I wasn't getting so much practice with my power in school PE.

  Okay. Guess they got serious. I turned to Alice and Rose turned to Leah and they turned to face us in turn. Rose and I pced a foot each in our respective girlfriends' hands and were thrown into the air. Rose and I caught one another's hands, pcing a right foot on each of Charlie's shoulders. Our left feet went to the shoulders of our respective girlfriends. And then, bancing Rose and I on their shoulders, Charlie did a six step pirouette while Alice and Leah marched around xir. Once they had returned to their original positions, Rose and I backflipped off our respective partners, nding on the balls of our ankles, and then falling on our butts. Alice and Leah reached down and pulled us to our feet in twin chivalric gestures.

  Tyler and his bros stared on dumbfounded for their entire turn. "Does that mean we win?" I asked. The goth barmaid blinked twice. "I mean, the crowd isn't booing or cheering but yeah, nobody's topping that" she said weakly. We bowed as one, including the two of us nursing bruised coxae. Then, as soon as xe was free of my power, Charlie turned into the worlds worst winner. "IN YOUR FACE TYLER! SUCK IT! WE WIN! BOOYEAH!" xe cried.

  "You sure did…" Tyler admitted. "A round of drinks for the victor?" he offered. "With thanks" I smiled. We found a table and sat down for a round of drinks. Alice got a French 75 because she wanted to try what I had bought Leah. Leah got a pi?a cota because she wanted to try what I had bought Alice. Rose also got a pi?a cota because she thought the beer tasted like piss. I got a coke and Charlie insisted on a shot of champagne. "Cheers!" I smiled. Gsses and aluminum cans clinked.

  "So are you like a space alien or something?" asked Tyler. Coke came out my nose. "What?" I spluttered. "Because I can tell you were the one pulling everyone's strings. None of you had ANY idea what was going on except you. You kept gncing at everyone. So how'd you do it? Alien mind control ray? Psychic powers? Fungal hivemind? Bluetooth controlled buttplugs?" asked Tyler. "Is it so absurd that you just legitimately lost the dance off?" I said with a cynically raised eyebrow. "Given that we all went to Juilliard and Tragedeigh couldn't dance her way out of a heterosexuality allegation st time I saw her? Yes, space aliens are way more likely" said Tyler.

  "My name is Charlie!" snapped Charlie. "Whoa!" Tyler raised his arms in surrender. "Its okay. No biggie. I didn't know. You um… didn't mention. You just kinda challenged me to a dance off for slightly unclear reasons" he expined. "You know what you did!" cried Charlie. "Enlighten me" he said patiently. "You scattered my poor maiden heart to the four winds!" xe accused. "Huh?" asked Tyler. "Xe told me you were xir ex" I contextualized. "What? No! We never dated. I was… xir?" - I nodded - "Xir babysitter!" he defended.

  "You said you loved me more than anything else in the world!" cried Charlie. "You were a kid! That's what you say to kids!" compined Tyler. "Great, so I bruised my ass because you couldn't get over your puppy love over your old babysitter?" spat Rose. "Oh you'd know all about puppy love, puppy lover!" retorted Charlie. "Oh! Is one of you a werewolf?" asked Tyler excitedly.

  "You sure y'all never dated?" I asked. "What? Never!" cried Tyler. "Because y'all got very simir energies" I noted. "We do not!" protested Tyler. "Oh, I see it!" ughed Leah. "Shut up!" pouted Tyler.

  "So what brings you to Cali?" Asked Charlie. "Casting call for backup dancers in the next Princess GooGoo music video" he expined. "You sure that's safe for you? She is a testosterone stealing succubus afterall" said Charlie. "That's just an Alex Jones conspiracy" scoffed Tyler. "She was right about the scalies imbibing atrazine in an attempt to induce the legendary forty minute orgasm" argued Charlie. "She was right they were attempting it. She never actually proved it worked" retorted Tyler. Sometimes I hated not drinking. But the alternative was drinking and that was probably worse.

  "I'm going to go find Victoria" I announced. I stood up and scanned the room. I failed to see her. Victoria?" I yelled. The club was too loud. "VICTORIA RAISE YOUR HAND" I thought loudly. A hand was raised and I worked my way through the crowd to find her. But when I got there it was a short hispanic girl, not the Victoria I was looking for. A sinking feeling hit my gut. I dashed into the bathroom. "VICTORIA" I yelled. No answer. I dashed back out and into the mens, just in case she got confused. "VICTORIA?" I called. No response.

  I returned to the table. "Victoria's missing. Leah, can you track her?" I demanded. She nodded, a look of furious determination crossing her face. "Leah, with me. Charlie, Rose, Alice, stay here in case she comes back" I ordered. "Whoa! You're not going to look for her on your own!" said Tyler. "I can look after myself" I smiled. "The hell you can. Me and my boys are coming with. Lesbian transmasc solidarity yo!" he said. "You're all transmasc?" I asked skeptically. "Nah, just me. Still though" he said. It would be faster to bring them along than argue with them. "Fine" I agreed.

  "She left the club eleven minutes ago with a blonde and a bck haired dy" said Charlie. "What? How did you know?" I asked. "I hacked into the club's security system" said Charlie. Xe turned xir phone screen to face me. It showed a grainy freeze frame where Victoria was being apparently carried out the door by two women. It was too grainy to see if she was conscious. Eleven minutes. You can't get far in eleven minutes, and how far they could have gone was going up by the second, so I didn't waste time asking Charlie about since when xe could hack into computer systems with a freaking phone.

  We stepped outside and Leah took a whiff. "This way!" she said, and took off at a run. I could barely keep up, but Tyler and his boys were only a step behind her. Two turns and three minutes of running ter and we came to a rge parking complex. Leah began weaving in and out of cars, sniffing. "Her trail keeps doubling back on itself" she noted. "Shit! Does it leave the carpark?" I asked. Just then, Victoria teleported in right in front of me and I crashed into her.

  I nded on my butt again. Perfect. I pushed myself to my feet. "Found her!" I called. Leah, Tyler and Tyler's bro squad came jogging back. "Victoria? Are you okay?" I asked. I pulled out my phone and turned on the fshlight. I shined it on Victoria's face. Her pupils weren't diting right. "Shit, she's been drugged!" I gasped. Tyler's bro squad let out a round of varying obscenities.

  Leah picked her up in a princess carry as if she weighed nothing. Good old reliable Leah. We set off toward the club again. Victoria was mumbling incoherently. "Shit, this is all my fault" I muttered. "How?" demanded Tyler. "I told her to go off on her own. I should have been watching her back" I said. "Girl, ain't nobody responsible for this sides the one who drugged her. Specially a kid" said Tyler.

  "Yeah well… I'm the only one who's been to a city before. I'm the one who should have seen this coming" I said. "And what would you have done?" asked Tyler. "Killed the fucker" I said frankly. "You know they say if you kill a killer the number of killers remains the same" noted Tyler. "And if you kill four killers the net number of killers is negative three" I retorted. "Why four specifically?" asked Tyler. I only smiled evilly in response.

  "Meredith? Meredith!" called a voice. I turned to see two women in their early thirties approaching. One blonde and one bck haired. "Oh my God, you found her!" excimed the blonde one. "Oh, do you know her?" I excimed, instantly adopting the mask of an unaware bystander. "That's my sister Meredith! She got messed up on coke and wandered off. I've been worried sick!" she excimed. "Funny. I could have sworn she said her name was Victoria" I said sardonically.

  "Oh, she's just messed up on coke, she doesn't know what she's saying" said the blonde one. "Bullshit!" yelled Tyler. Suddenly him and his bros were standing in front of us, rearing to fight. "She is! She's my sister. I'm only trying to help her. You've got to believe me!" cried the blonde one. "Are you sure you're not mistaken? Maybe you were looking for a different drugged up redhead. You said she was on coke, but her symptoms are more in line with GHB" I suggested diplomatically.

  Two versus six, excluding Leah who was still holding Victoria. They'd have to be idiots to pick that fight. But there was one born every minute. The bck haired one pulled out a gun. "Look. We don't want any trouble. Just give us her sister, okay?" she snapped. "Put that down before you hurt yourself" I said zily. "I mean it. Don't make me shoot you!" she cried.

  "Your trigger discipline is terrible. One errant twitch and you could… " - BANG - "shoot yourself in the foot" I noted. Nobody heard anything I said after the gunshot of course. Gunshots are loud. When my ears stopped ringing the bck haired one was on the ground clutching her foot, with two of Tyler's bros restraining her. Blondie had been simirly wrestled to the ground.

  "PLEASE!" screamed the blonde one. "I'm sorry. We had no choice. We have kids to feed" she cried. "So you kidnap my aunt Vicky to sell to god knows fucking who? And then point a gun at a child? You're lucky I didn't kill you" I spat. "We can't put food on the table. There's no jobs anywhere" gasped the bck haired one. "So you think its okay to sell people to make ends meet?" I asked. "Come on! She's a f**, she's a dead end anyway!" growled the blonde. "OH THAT'S IT. I'M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU" I yelled.

  "Get back to the club Vanessa, we'll deal with scum and scummer" said Tyler calmly. "A HATE CRIME! SHE WAS COMMITTING A HATE CRIME!" I excimed. "And you're about to make a mistake" noted Tyler. "THE HELL I AM!" I cried. "Vanessa! Just go back to the club. Please" said Tyler. I let out a screech of rage. Tyler just kept smiling benevolently. I sighed. "If we don't see you again tonight I'll have Charlie text you we're safe" I promised. "Thanks. Nice meeting you Vanessa. Shame about the circumstances" he said. "Likewise" I replied.

  And then I left Tyler and his boys to their viginte justice. I wish I could say they turned them over to the police and had them put on trial and convicted and sent to prison. But Victoria wouldn't be sticking around to testify so instead they beat them bck and blue.

  Leah and I went unaccosted all the way back to the club. Almost like we were invisible or something. Charlie, Rose and Alice were still sitting in the same seats we'd left them in. "Where's Tyler?" asked Charlie. "Taking out the trash" I replied. Leah pced Victoria lying down on the bar bench. "What's wrong with her?" asked Alice. "She's been drugged, just like I warned you could happen" I expined.

  "Shit! What do we do?" gasped Alice. "She can't teleport us home like this. So we find a pce to stay for the night, and she teleports us home in the morning when she's slept it off" I said. "How are we going to find a pce to stay?" demanded Rose. "Leah, see if you can find that nice dy who bought you a drink earlier" I said.

  Leah returned shortly with the nice dy in tow. "Oh God, what happened her?" she asked. "She got drugged. I'll ask her about the details in the morning, but long story short, we can't get home with her in this state. Would you have a few beds free for us to stay the night?" I asked. "Well… as long as some of you don't mind the couch or the floor" she said. "I volunteer to take the floor" I said. "But Nessie, your hip!" cried Alice. "My mess, my responsibility" I replied.

  "However" I said. I grabbed the nice dy by the wrist. "DON'T LIE" I mentally commanded her. "Why are you offering us your home?" I demanded. "Because I'd never let another woman (or girl) down if I could help them" she said. "Will we come to harm if we accompany you" I asked. "NEVER!" she excimed. I let her go. "Thank you humbly for your hospitality" I said.

  The nice dy, who's name turned out to be Chelsea, paid for two ubers back to her apartment. I went with Victoria and Alice in the first uber. Charlie, Leah and Rose took the second, on the logic that if this was somehow a trap, both groups had a cellphone and a bitch capable of fucking someone up.

  Chelsea's apartment was huge, and had a lot of bedrooms. However, she also had a lot of lgbt+ youth whos' parents had kicked them out living with her. There was only one spare bed, which Leah and Rose called dibs on. In spite of xir begging, they wouldn't share with Charlie, so Charlie got the couch and me and Alice took the floor. Chelsea gave up her own bed for Victoria and took a different space on her own floor.

  Her rug wasn't ridiculously harder than my own mattress. She herself kept stirring to check on Victoria. I'd feel guilty about that if moving wouldn't have disturbed Alice. Hmm… I was not expecting to enjoy ying next to her so much. Maybe I should acquire a double mattress for my own floor. That way Charlie would have an alternative to the couch. It probably wouldn't come cheap. Good thing the vegetable stall was such a success.

  I found myself thinking back to private Aaron. Did he have a family? Did the two men I killed on the way out? Did anyone caught in the messy battle I started in front of the complex? Statistically yes, probably. There were probably children out there who's parents never came home because of me. Should I have considered that before I started shooting, or cutting?

  Had they considered I might have people who'd miss me if I was killed? Wasserv?gel certainly hadn't. She'd killed the closest thing I'd had to a mother figure since… I guess my mother wasn't all there for a long time before she was committed. But Wasserv?gel had killed Irene in front of me while bragging about how she was going to make me… ugh! With a girl I considered a sister! Bile rose in my throat.

  I guess I understood that the families of people who'd tried to kill me should be beneath my concern. My family was clearly beneath theirs. But it still didn't feel good. I did not sleep especially well.

  Around an hour before dawn, Chelsea shook me awake. "She's awake and alert. She wants to talk to you" she said. I looked guiltily upon Alice's arm. I sighed. I closed my eyes and carefully moved it with my powers. Then I slipped out and followed Chelsea to the master bedroom.

  Victoria was lying in bed. She looked like shit. "Hey Victoria. You doing okay?" I asked. "I'm sorry" she whispered. "What for?" I said. "You told me not to accept drinks from strangers. They were just… I thought they were my friends! We were chatting for ages. We talked about our exes! I thought they were opening up to me!" she whispered. She looked ready to cry. "Victoria! If I were to tell you how to throw a punch properly, that wouldn't make it your fault if you got beaten up. I can give you all the safety advice in the world, but that might not be enough, and its not your fault if it isn't" I said warmly.

  "I'm sorry!" she said, actually bursting into tears. "Its okay. Its not your fault. Just, get some rest and let us know when you're ready to take us back to town. Okay?" I smiled. She was silent for a little while. "Did you hurt them?" she asked. "Hm?" I asked. "The girls. Who drugged me. Did you hurt them?" she asked. "I mean I made one of them shoot herself in the foot but most of the hurting was done by an old friend of Charlie's and his… he called them his bros but who knows what sort of retionship that implies. They could be anything from his co-workers to his polycule" I pondered. "Polycule?" asked Victoria. I shook my head. "That's not important. The point is bones were broken. Now rest" I ordered. Then I went back to make sure that when Alice woke up her arm would be around me.