Swiping through his various accounts Erich took note of the numbers displayed on the screen of his laptop. Debit, debits, debits and more debits colour his screen red but it's alright; his wages at the mart provided him a steady stream that kept him alive and he took opportunities Steve provided whenever he caught the man's time.
Those opportunities funded the fattening wallet of XCredits that are his hope, his entire lives savings piled up in one account and ready to be withdrawn at any day. There is quite a bit Erich needed to work on, his dingy apartment for one keeps falling apart, the heater died some months ago, he'd already changed the locks on his door twice this month and his landlord was four months away from legally extorting him for more money on the shit place. And while the XCredits he saved will be more than enough to afford him a better standard of living, he had a greater purpose for it.
Wiping the dew from his window, Erich stares out at the cold, white city beyond. The thick smog of industry and labour melded soot with snow that sprinkled all over the cramped neighbour he's lived in for years. He didn't always hate Xoxia. The memories that fuel his passion now remind him of what a joy living in the city could be or maybe that's just how everything feels when you have someone to love you. The city is cold in every meaning of the word and as expectant as his landlord is for his eighteenth birthday, Erich is just so to find warmth outside Xoxia.
Four more months. I've got to double, no, triple this by then. The XCredits sitting in his account have been piling up ever since he turned thirteen and rented the apartment with the charitable investment from Steve and the crew. Appalling as it is that his four years of savings scarcely amounted enough to achieve his great escape, Erich surges with pride every time he looks at it. The growing interests on the XCredits help a bit but not enough that he can sit idly by anymore.
There's a world out there he needs to explore. A better world that isn't buried in snow every night and didn't care whether he was a meta-human or not. Maybe don't put so much hope on that last part. But most importantly, the world beyond Xoxia is where he'll find his mother again, he's certain of it. At the thought of her he looks over at the mirror shrouded behind the pile of clothes on the couch. Walking up to it, he plucks out the one image of himself and the woman that fills his waking thoughts. She holds him to her chest with a grin that rivalled his cotton-candied smile, gold earrings droop underneath her short bob of curly black hair— a style he's begun to imitate— and her lips are cherry glossed even after marking his face with several kisses before and after the photo was taken.
Everything about the photo is visceral, her scent lingers from it and the chaos of the Ferris wheel and amusement park behind them echoes in his ears. He still tastes the last bits of cotton-candy he was so fixated on devouring as much of, strawberry blast it.
His wrist vibrates him away from the deep reverie. Gasping at the message on his watch he slams the laptop shut, grabs the beanie he'd modified with holes for his eyes and ears and snatches the BlastKnuckles from his desk drawer. He checks his side pocket for his knife and glances at the mirror and photo one last time, forcing a grin, thumbs up and finger blasts at the photo before another ping startles him into motion. Pulling the beanie over head he sets out of the dingy apartment— with any luck, this opportunity will land him all he needs to get out of Xoxia once and for all.
***
Erich walks out his apartment building with a bounce in his step. Careful not to slip against the slick snow-covered streets, the serrations in his boots help as he bounds across the street to the deteriorated and waterlogged buildings that makes up the view from his apartment.
It's a bright, sunny day in Xoxia's Downtown and even as Erich struts out with a mask over his face and his BlastKnuckles on full display, none of his neighbours bother with a word of greeting or better yet, alarm. It'd become instinct to mind your business until business came to you and Erich loves that about the shitty neighbourhood.
It enabled his wallet to grow fatter as Steve gave opportunities here and there over the years. It might not have always been like this, though, Erich wouldn't know for sure, but since he started living here his shitty Landlord only paid him a visit once to fix the heater the first time it broke and never again. His neighbours, riddled with a bounty of children near his age and older, yet all fell prey to uselessness and addiction only bother with him when they are desperate— which is often but it isn't often that Erich helps after the first year of drowning his hard earned XCredits feeding their addictions.
Crossing into the row of browning homes, reminds Erich of the other ways he enabled the drug addled community formed around the sick neighbourhood. With his next door neighbours, he only tried to help them get on their feet. Their mother, Patricia is a kind looking woman when she needs to be and his first impressions when he moved in were pleasant but like himself, that was a two faced lie she told to have her way. With the 'residents' of the alley he strolls through though, he enabled only to help himself.
"Ughh!" a hand stretches out from underneath a pile of wet cardboard boxes, reaching out for him with filthy gloves and broken fingernails.
"Not today boys," Erich booms as he hurries down the alley— he tries not to show his aversion to the begging addicts lying among trash heaps but it's there and clear enough that many of shamelessly preyed on his guilt to have lower prices.
"I have credits this time boss. I swear I do!" One steps out from behind a dumpster to block his path. He's a shrivelled man long into his thirties but still wearing the dark coat and red beanie Erich met him with some two years ago.
"Yeah but I don't have any Vie. How about some new clothes instead?" Snarling, Erich pushes past him in time for a nondescript van to pull up on the other end of the alley. He shakes his head and mutters to no one, "Why call me out when you're not even here yet?"
The backdoor slides open and Erich waves hello as the front passenger seat winds down its window on his approach. Neil leans out the window and beckons Erich with a finger. Buzzcut, permanent scowl and a serpent tattoo twirling around his neck, Neil remains one of the most difficult people to deal with.
"You give them anything?" He says, nodding at the trail of addicts forming behind Erich.
"No, I don't deal Vie anymore." Erich says, sticking his hands in his pockets and feeling over the knife hidden within. It's a recent change but a good one. The addicts regularly default on payments and took beatings, nefarious jobs and other bullshit to cover the debt. Besides Erich not earning more than peanuts and the rare full payment, the addicts wouldn't stop no matter how many times he reported their defaults to Neil for consequences that escalated in their disappearances and that doesn't sit right with him.
Neil sniffs and spits, "Come here. Closer you fuck."
Erich steps close enough to smell the stench of syrup on his breath and as expected, Neil lurches at him, snatching up his beanie and a handful of hair underneath, "Look at this fucking fuck, Jean. Who wears a ski-mask in board daylight? Idiot!"
He rips the makeshift mask off and tosses it out, beckoning for Erich to come closer still, "See, I don't know what you said to Vertigo to make him agree to this, but if you fuck it up—"
"Yeah, I get it. I'm going to spit venom, right?" Erich says, staring Neil in his eyes; the left a pale green and the right scarred white in its cornea with an ugly slit iris that cut down his cheek in red.
Neil looks incredulously at Jean, the bulk of a man in the driver's seat. They shake their heads and scoff, "You're growing wings kid, careful now." He looks in the back of the van and yells at his crew, "Yo! What the fuck are ya'll waiting for? Move some Vie to any of these fuckers that's got the creds and let's get on with the meat!"
Feeling done with, Erich moves to take a seat in the back when Neil snatches his shoulder and shakes his head, "Not done boy. You got the right idea but the wrong method. You know how to handle one?" Neil waves a finger gun at Erich and snarls when he shakes his head. He pulls a nylon bag from under his seat and shoves it at Erich's chest, "You're gonna learn today, get in."
Erich goes to get in, grateful that all the others have stepped out so he could sit at the back. As he climbs in, he locks eyes with Cynthia, she chews gum in deliberate slow motion that placed her glossed lips, wet tongue and pristine white teeth on display. Erich tries not to react but he probably already has as she smirks and looks out the window beside her, pressing her pale blue hair against it.
"Mind if I…" Erich starts before forgoing the thought and seizing the space next to her. He gets right into the nylon bag, pulling out a small, old-fashioned pistol and a swirling mask that distorts a smile and eyes in a static maelstrom. There are some loose bullets too and Erich quickly figures those aren't extras— he'll need to load the gun.
Asking Neil or Jean for help was out of the question and the others, well, he wouldn't trust the others to teach him how to wipe his ass. That left Cynthia, the Frost Bitch beside him. Erich is far from being crass, she could be a bitch and she was self-aware enough about the fact to name herself Frost Bitch but not enough to care to do anything about it.
Cynthia was the name he knew her by when he joined up with Vertigo some four years ago. She came along a few months later and was angry all through, heck she's still angry now. Erich considers himself an anti-social person at the core, he would engage and sometimes he even found some fun in the process but he didn't seek it out. Cynthia was more extreme, her name fit the bill as her powers put her among the most useful and sought out Metas Downtown Xoxia and likely Uptown too. Whatever reason brought her here she's never in the mood to talk and only seemed to derive enjoyment from making people squirm, in more ways than one.
Erich takes a breath, pulls his jacket close together as the temperature to drops at his left side. Frost Bitch, the obvious culprit, doesn't pay him any mind and continues on loudly chewing gum. She couldn't have been much older than Erich and already Vertigo brought her to the fold, had Neil of all people watch her with his crew— though when he thinks of it, she fits in well with the crass bunch and would get along with Neil if she wasn't more useful to Vertigo than he was.
"Hey, Cynthia? Cynthia?" Erich stops himself from sighing and with reluctance says, "Frost Bitch?"
"Yes?" she answers without looking away from the window. The van begins to fill up with the rest of the crew and as one of them falls in seat beside Erich, squashing him against Cynthia all the more as he scowls. Cynthia growls, "Wanna die?"
Elbowing the man away with a glare of his own, Erich says, "Sorry, this guy…never mind, could you help me with this?"
She glances at the pistol as Jean starts the van and Neil hoots, slapping the door as the van races into the streets, "You've never loaded one before? Ha, I wondered why Vertigo wouldn't do anything with you."
Erich would say something to that, but he knew better that to antagonize her or any Metahuman for that matter. Instead he put on a weak smile and levels his gaze, "I don't know how to shoot either."
A sharp chill creeps up his shoulder from where they touch as she sneers, propping her chin with a fist, "Fucking…just snap the barrel open and slide the bullets in. Keep your finger away from the trigger until you have your eyes on the person you want to kill and then shoot. Otherwise don't pull it out at all." She snatches the gun from Erich and slides in four bullets in rapid succession, two slip out of her hand as the van flies over a speedbump and she curses, "Jean! Don't make me bite my tongue."
A mischievous cackle roars over the van's groans, "Stop chewing so damn loud and I will."
Frost Bitch scoffs and shoves the gun back in Erich's hand cold as dry ice, "Thanks?" he mutters, barely having learnt a thing. When he came out he didn't expect to handle a gun; his BlastKnuckles and pocket knife are all he's ever needed to protect himself— and occasionally bully others— the gun in his hand felt…lethal, it is lethal.
"Don't mention it. I mean it." Frost Bitch seethes.
Left with the loaded gun in his lap, Erich takes another sharp breath and deigns to bother the Frost Bitch some more, "By the way, we're robbing a store, right?"
She looks over her shoulder, eying him like he licked her neck, "A store? Neil who the fuck had the bright idea to—!"