Apartment Above Luke's, Thursday Afternoon

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy was sitting crosslegged in her living room, surrounded by a truly staggering number of anatomically-shaped lollipops, hard candies, and other confections. It turned out that the company that had supplied Dite's with chocolates and candy had gone out of business and multiple other companies had sent samples to the store in hopes of scoring the contract. Kathy...wasn't sure what it said about the store or the island that it was considered a lucrative enough market for a number of stores to go to this much trouble.

But, she was determined to be a good manager and if that meant spending the afternoon trying a ridiculous amount of sexy candy to decide which she liked best, well, she was up to the task. As long as she took breaks for real food every few hours, she should be okay, right? And she had a pen and paper to record her observations (and had come up with several criteria to judge them on), making this all legit and aboveboard and not just an excuse to gorge out on penis-shaped candy all day.

So far, she'd noticed that the sour gummy boobs made the cut on her lip burn and the mold for one of the companies tended to make their chocolates look more like melted candles than anything sexy. Oh, and another company used cheap chocolate that tended to flake off which was just NOT attractive in something meant to simulate body parts. It was this kind of attention to detail that separated the good managers from the mediocre, see?

[Open! But probably slow as I'm still in training, so who knows what my schedule will be when this finally posts. Link to Anders' thread.]

Comments

[rebelseekspizza]

"... You run Dite's? How the hell did that happen?" Dante asked, reaching for a cabinet. Glasses? No. Next one.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Because I was standing under the metal chicken statue when the last manager quit and threw her keys," Kathy said with a what-can-you-do-Fandom shrug. "I picked them up, figured I'd lock up or something, and then realized that working at Dite's wasn't the worst gig I could have on the island."

As opposed to, say, slinging drinks at the bar with the ex-band or having a panic attack every time she had to unload The Shambling Dead inventory or whatever

"One more to your left."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Got it," Dante said, producing some highball glasses. "So... Kathy Li, Queen of Sex Toys, huh?"

That wasn't potentially awkward at all.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy was doing an excellent job of not thinking about how awkward it could potentially be, thank you.

"Apparently so," she said, snagging the bottle of juice and heading back to the living room and her candy stash. "It's pretty much the title every girl aspires to, isn't it?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"Master of 'brators," Dante said, pottering after her. "Chief of condoms."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Duchess of dildos," Kathy returned, settling back into her spot in the midst of all sorts of naughty-themed candy. "Sultana of strap-ons."

She waved at Dante to take a seat. "Help yourself to any of this," she said. "Just let me know what you think of whatever you've eaten."

[rebelseekspizza]

"'If this was a real dick, I'd tell 'em to go to the doctor'?" Dante offered, picking something up.

[spin_kick_snap]

"...I think that was a batch error," Kathy said, looking at it and snickering. "I can probably mark them under no, but you should still try it. It could be delicious!"

Even if it looked a little...yeah.

"So what's new with you?" she asked, cracking open the bottle of vodka. "You up to anything exciting since break?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"Killed a Succubus yesterday," Dante said, dropping the fake dick.

[spin_kick_snap]

"You--what? The soda succubus? That thing?" Kathy asked. "What happened?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"Went to the factory, dipped into Limbo, and killed her." Beat. "She was kinda gross."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Gross?" Kathy wrinkled her nose. "Gross how? I thought succubi were supposed to be sexy and alluring."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Gross like a giant demon worm hanging from the roof, throwing up acid and screaming," Dante said, wrinkling his nose. "Not my idea of a good time."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Well, I'm glad to hear that," Kathy drawled. "I'd really start questioning if you were suddenly attracted to screaming, acid-puking worms."

She shook her head, biting off the nipple on a gummy breast. "So, that's going to take care of the soda? I mean, they won't be able to get a new succubus before the current stock runs out? There aren't other manufacturing plants to hit?"

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante shrugged. "Vergil says the point is to get Mundus pissed, so we can take him out," he said. "But I think this was their main US plant, so..."

[spin_kick_snap]

"So this was basically the warning shot," Kathy theorized. "Something to get him to look up and take notice that the shit is about to hit the fan. Because you can't take him out quietly?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"Nah," Dante said. He tilted his head, looking thoughtful. "So he's got this Hell Gate?" he said. "It's a portal into Limbo or something. It's what's making him immortal, but he's got to be near it for it to work."

[spin_kick_snap]

"So you piss him off enough, you lure him out of his office and then ambush him," Kathy said with a decisive nod. "Right. I know that I'm likely not going to be much use in all this, but you know if there's anything I can do, I would, right?"

Which wasn't the same as heroing. It was helping out a friend and totally different.

[rebelseekspizza]

"I'm trying to keep people out of it," Dante said. He snagged the vodka he'd brought and poured some into his glass.

[spin_kick_snap]

Somewhere, Vergil was thinking about the parade of people Dante had led into his secret warehouse lair and looking into the camera.

"I figured as much," Kathy said, motioning for the bottle when he was done. "I'm volunteering anyway. And other people are going to do the same. You've got friends who care about you and want to help however they can."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante held out the bottle for her with no pressure at all.

"Alana helped this week," he said, "But that's because of Kat."

[spin_kick_snap]

Good because it was her bottle. And his easy pass almost made her miss their longstanding argument about sharing. She really needed to burn her nostalgia reflex to the ground. She made a mental note to get on that.

"Alana?" Kathy asked, topping off her glass with a little more vodka and taking a drink. "How's she doing? What did Kat need?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"Alana's good. Got roped into military service," Dante said, pulling a face. He swallowed a mouthful of vodka before continuing. "Anyway, she was helping me break into the factory, but the place was crawling with rent-a-cops."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Real security?" Kathy asked. "Or collaborators and demons in human guise? They make it out okay?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"I think they're collaborators," Dante offered, "Can't be sure. But they were humans."

He took another sip of his vodka. "Alana and Kat came out fine. Just tussled with a couple of the guards."