Fluff

Chapter Ten - Born Knowing

Teddy walked just a bit ahead of the Boss with her head held high and her chest puffed out. She was allowed to look so prideful because she’d done a good job.

That guy in the hidden bar place had been super suspicious from the start. Asking the Boss for money and favours in exchange for information. She was pretty sure he was one of those Capitalists she’d been warned about.

So at the first sign of him being crooked she’d used her power and she put the fear of the proletariat--and of the Boss--in him.

Now they were on their way back home and Teddy was sure that the Boss would give her something nice for all of her hard work.

The Boss was a bit busy though, she had one hand up, holding a phone close to her face so that she could read all the information she’d gotten from the Handshake guy while her other hand was safely guarded by Teddy’s own.

“Found anything good, Boss?” Teddy asked.

The Boss made a humming noise. “I guess?” she said before looking up and sighing. The Boss was really dramatic that way. “All of this information is... piecemeal? It’s not set in a straight-forwards way, I guess.”

“What’s that mean?” Teddy asked. Information was... knowledge and stuff. It couldn’t be straight or crooked or anything like that, as far as she knew. Maybe the Boss was being metaphorical again.

“I mean... um, there’s a lot of little bits and pieces of... data? But it’s not organized. When you open a textbook, things are all neat, and when you look something up, it’s usually made to be easy to understand, or at least find? But we kind of just... took everything.”

“Yeah, okay,” Teddy said. “But we did good, right?”

“I-I don’t know?” Boss said. She looked over her shoulder as if she could see the coffee shop from where they were, but it was a couple of streets back already. “What we did back there, that was illegal. So illegal. We used a power to threaten someone. Before that, well, at least I had never used my power for anything. They could have accused me of being a... V-word, but not of any crimes.”

“Yeah, but he was a capitalist,” Teddy said.

“I, I guess?” the Boss said. “I mean, he tried to extort us, but the right thing to do would have been to call the police, right?”

“Nah, you did okay, Boss,” Teddy reassured. She squeezed the Boss’s hand to make her feel better. “We even completed a quest.”

The Boss blinked a few times, then her eyes wiggled through the air as if reading something. “Oh no,” she said.

Teddy’s smile faltered and failed. “What’s wrong, Boss?”

“I, I didn’t mean to complete any quests,” the Boss said. “If I do the wrong ones, I’ll be stuck as a... V-word for a long time.” She pulled out her phone and scrolled over to a chart that Teddy couldn’t quite make out. “I... think that to move up the morality thing I need to only do certain kinds of quests?”

The Boss sounded really unsure to Teddy, so the girl slowed down and tugged Emily’s sleeve down so that she could see the picture on her phone.

​

The chart was nice enough, with small words that Teddy knew already. It was also dead wrong. “Yeah, most of that’s not right, Boss ,” Teddy said as she let go of the Boss’ sleeve.

“P-pardon?”

Teddy waved at the phone. “Those moralities. Some of them are wrong.”

“How do you know?” the Boss asked.

Teddy puffed out her chest some more. “Cause I do,” she said.

“You mean, like something you were, uh, born knowing? Because you’re a summon?” Boss asked.

“Yeah. Like I know how to talk, and do my business in the bathroom, and I know how to be a bear real good,” Teddy agreed. She could list off all the things she knew how to do all day if that was what the Boss wanted.

The Boss’ expression twisted this way and that before her arms went loose by her side and she let out another deep sigh. “I could have just asked you this entire time,” she said. “I didn’t need to look it up online, and get into trouble, and threaten Handshake.” She tucked her phone away in her purse and then used her now-free hand to rub at her face.

“It’s alright Boss, you didn’t know that I know,” Teddy said. She didn’t like seeing the Boss looking all mopey and sad. Her job was to help the Boss, which meant making the Boss’ life better. That meant that the Boss being sad was the opposite of what Teddy wanted.

“It’s okay,” Emily said. “I just--I think it’s been a long couple of days.”

That made sense. “Yeah. But don’t worry Boss, I’m here for you now.”

The Boss actually cracked a smile, even if she did it while turning to look away from Teddy. “Thank you, Teddy,” the Boss said.

Teddy couldn’t have puffed her chest out any more without turning into her full size. “No problem Boss! Hey, do you want me to explain things to you?”

“I... would appreciate that, yes,” the Boss said.

Nodding, Teddy searched for a nice place to start her explanation. She decided to settle for the thing the Boss was confused about the most. “So, your rank, like on that chart, you wanna change it, right?”

“Yes,” Boss said.

“Right. Well that’s easy. See, you get Quests, just like I do, right? So if you do quests that fit with your rank, you’ll stay there, but if you do some for other ranks close to yours, you’ll eventually move over to one of those.”

“I see,” Boss said. “I guess that makes sense. Can you move up a lot? Like... faster?”

The Boss was already at Villain and she wanted to move up? Teddy searched her memory for ranks that were ever more impressive. Super Villain and Mastermind were both close, but if she wanted to move fast... was the Boss aiming to be a Demon?

Teddy was very impressed. “Yeah Boss. You just need to do really impressive stuff, like, way more than what the quest asks for.”

“I see,” the Boss said. “Okay. That’s good. I can do that. We can do that.”

Teddy grinned. She was being included in the Boss’ plans!

“What about, um, the points?”

“Points? You mean like on your status screen?” Teddy asked. When the Boss nodded, Teddy brought up her own screen just to be sure.

Two Skill Upgrade points. One from her mugging the other day, and the other from scaring the Capitalism right out of that Handshake guy. “Right, so there are three sorts of points, right? The power slot one gives you a whole new power. You don’t know what you’ll get though, just like when you got the power to summon me.”

“I think I’ve heard of that,” the Boss said. “Some of the best heroes have a bunch of powers.”

“That’s right, yeah. The Skill Upgrade one allows you to make a power’s traits better. Like once I unlock some traits for my bear power, I could make them better and stuff like that.”

“Okay,” the Boss said.

“And the skill slots one, that one unlocks new traits for a power you already have.”

A frown appeared on the Boss’ forehead. “I don’t understand that one, sorry.”

“Ah, it’s like... I could get a new skill that allows me to, uh, talk to bears. It would match with my power, but be a whole new skill.”

“I guess I can see that?” the Boss said. She didn’t sound like she saw the whole thing, but Teddy figured she would in no time.

They’d arrived at their destination, so Teddy slowed down and finally came to a full stop.

The Boss blinked a few times and looked around in confusion. “Why did we stop?” she asked.

Teddy pointed across the street to the Im Orton’s they’d gotten lunch from. “We’re here,” she explained.

The Boss stared at the busy store, a look of confusion appearing and then passing with a roll of her eyes. But because she was the best Boss, all she did was mutter something under her breath and then nod her head. “Fine. Might as well.”