On The Mend

Job Details:

Job Sign-Up: Page 4, Post Number 99

-The Sheridan Estate, 10:07 A.M.-

Wearing a plain green t-shirt and black gym shorts, Victoria rolled out of bed and her feet hit the floor in a staggered right-left pattern. Her left leg was killing her and so was a good chunk of her body. She felt like she had fought a honey badger and definitely looked the part. Her left arm was bandaged to the point it looked like she was making a mummy costume and it had several holes in it from bullet wounds, but at least she had not suffered any permanent nerve damage from the wounds sustained by her own bullets that had been redirected by Kalama.

Victoria frowned when she thought about Blondie.

Kalama was mostly responsible for the current shape Victoria was in. The blonde swordswoman had given Victoria the fight of her life and had pushed her further than any opponent the brunette had faced before. That was before Kalama had called in Death Metal Horse, that bloodthirsty horse who wanted to stomp Victoria into an unrecognizable mess on the ground and had done its best to make it happen. Despite the best efforts of Kalama and Death Metal Horse to kill her Victoria had managed to survive the fight, but she had paid quite a price for survival.

Victoria was not going to be able to go on a serious job for awhile... a week at the least, if not longer. With the way she felt she was not up for another fight unless there was no other choice. She was also going to avoid strenuous activity unless there was no other choice. The doctors who had treated her forbade it.

Victoria faced the television and frowned when she saw that street racing anime with the unbelievably lucky male protagonist who always bragged about his luck to his opponents. She was not in the mood for that nonsense. She turned back to her bed, located the remote to her television, and quickly turned it off. Just then the door to her room opened and in the doorway was Abigail.

"Hey Vic!" Abigail greeted Victoria. Abigail was wearing a baby blue midriff-baring t-shirt and blue jean short shorts. She looked to be happy about something, which was not out of the norm for the blonde.

"Hi Abby." Victoria returned the greeting. She walked slowly towards Abigail while wincing every few steps. The brunette had made some progress towards regaining full mobility, but it was clear that she was not going to be dancing or running a marathon any time soon.

"You look to be doing a little better, Vic." Abigail made an observation in an optimistic tone of voice. Victoria laughed a little.

"I may look better, but I certainly don't feel it." Victoria commented on her condition. She was hurting everywhere. Her left leg, her left arm, her shoulders, her back... every part of her body hurt.

"At least you're able to move on your own." Abigail tried to inject some optimism into the conversation.

"Yeah. Even though I walk very slowly I can still walk without needing help." Victoria remarked in a slightly cheerful tone. Abigail kept her cheerful mood as she made eye contact with the brunette.

"Say Vic, do you wanna go to the mall?" Abigail asked Victoria.

"You bet!" Victoria replied enthusiastically. She had spent two days at home and she was desperate to do something that did not involve sitting around here all day. Besides, she wanted to see if she could find a game console and the Malevolent Tenant triple pack with the Malevolent Tenant games that were currently out.

"OK, Vic. But I don't think you should drive your Centaur to the mall in your condition." Abigail said.

"Don't worry. I'm not driving anything today, Abby. We're either gonna walk or have someone else drive us." Victoria replied. As if she could sense when she was needed Laura suddenly spoke to Victoria from the hallway.

"Do you need anything, Miss Sheridan?" Laura asked Victoria before appearing behind Abigail. Both Abigail and Victoria jumped in fright at the silver-haired maid's sudden arrival. Once she recovered from the surprise Victoria spoke to Laura.

"Yes, Laura. Abby and I want to go to the mall but I can't drive us. Can you drive us there?" Victoria asked Laura.

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[Total Word Count: 720/11,000]

-Capital Crocus Mall, one hour and forty-one minutes later-

Thanks to the driving of Amy Sheridan she, Victoria, and Abigail were at the mall none the worse for wear. The vehicular traffic was every bit as bad as the foot traffic, but Amy had gotten the trio there safely. Now the trio were standing inside the entrance hall and were walking towards the food court, which was busy as usual.

"Thanks for getting us here, Amy." Victoria thanked her older sister for driving them to the mall. The younger brunette had expected Laura to do it, but Amy jumped in and took them to their destination instead. Victoria was not going to complain... Kalama had hurt her left arm so badly that driving the Centaur was something Victoria would not do unless there was no other choice.

Speaking of her left arm, Victoria had put on a green long-sleeved shirt to cover the bandaged arm but kept the gym shorts because there was no problem with them. Abigail's outfit remained unchanged. Amy was dressed in a blue tank top and blue jean shorts with brown sandals.

"Yeah. Thanks Amy." Abigail chimed in.

"It's no problem, guys. I've been wanting to come here myself but didn't have any reason to. Now that you two are here I've got a reason. Sherry and I were going to go to Boomslang tonight and I want to look for some clothes." Amy explained what had made her offer to drive them to the mall. Again Victoria was not complaining. She was just glad that someone had driven her to the mall, saving her and Abigail the hassle of having to walk.

"Well, I'll let you two do your thing without an older sister following you the whole time. Have fun!" Amy said before walking into the crowded mall, going right, and disappearing. Now that Amy had left to do some shopping of her own Abigail and Victoria were left to their own devices. The two mages turned to face each other.

"Ready to go shopping, Abby?" Victoria asked her friend.

"Yeah, Vic." Abigail replied.

"Is there anything you're here for?" Victoria asked the blonde. Abigail shrugged her shoulders.

"I'm on the fence right now, Vic. I kinda want to go looking for anime merchandise, but I'm not sure if I want to do that. I've kinda been slacking off when it comes to looking for jobs to earn money." Abigail confessed that she had not been doing very much work lately. Victoria was not upset by that at all. She had no room to say anything because she went through bursts of activity followed by periods of downtime that probably stretched on longer than they should.

"If you want anything let me know. Me, I'm gonna look for a store I can buy a game console from and the Malevolent Tenant triple pack." Victoria offered some help to her friend before stating her goal. She was interested in the games because wearing the costume of main character Jane Easter had gotten her interested in the lore of the games. She had already read a bit about Parasol Company and its shady business practices plus its belief that medical ethics were more like guidelines when it came to medical research. Intrigued by the story she had read to date, Victoria now wanted to play the games and get the full story.

The triple pack consisted of all three games to date plus the downloadable content, which included cosmetic outfit options for the main characters, new looks for their signature weapons, and more tangible bonuses like more side missions and even three separate full-length single player campaigns from the point of view of a Parasol Company "cleaner" tasked with trying to keep the company's messes under control, one for each game in the series so far. Victoria was more than willing to buy the games if they included a selection of bonuses as wide as that. The will was there, but the trouble would be actually finding the games and a console to play them on.

"All right then, Vic. We'll have to look for a mall directory because I'm not sure if there's a video game shop anywhere in here." Abigail said to her friend. Victoria looked forward and saw a mall directory less than ten feet away from them. She pointed it out for Abigail's benefit.

"Wow. I totally missed that." Abigail said in embarrassment while Victoria did her best to keep a straight face. She wanted to laugh, but that might not be a good idea right now. It would be wise to keep quiet, so that was exactly what Victoria was going to do.

[Post Word Count: 782]
[Total Word Count: 1,506/11,000]

-The third floor, twenty-seven minutes later-

With the help of Abigail providing a shoulder to lean on Victoria had finally made it up the stairs. The brunette felt like she had just run a marathon despite only climbing a couple of flights of stairs. Her left leg had balked at what she was making it do and had nearly given out on her a couple of times during the ascent. It was only with Abigail's help that she had made it to the third floor.

Abigail helped Victoria move to the left side of the third floor because a new wave of shoppers was heading up the stairs and they were not stopping for anything. The pair let the shoppers pass by them until there was an opening to finally move deeper into the third floor. When that time came Abigail and Victoria began to move again with Abigail once again providing physical support.

They were headed to an electronics store named Gaming Gear. As it turned out it was located next door to Anime Merchandise, the store which Abigail had expressed an interest in visiting earlier. Whether that was coincidence or not remained to be determined, but that was convenient for Victoria because should her friend decide to pay Anime Merchandise a visit they would be right next to each other.

-Outside Gaming Gear, six minutes later-

The crowds of shoppers on the third floor had been unusually light, meaning that the greatest obstacle to Victoria's goal was the condition of her left leg. That problem was surmounted thanks to Abigail, who helped Victoria get to the entrance before she reclaimed her shoulder.

"Hey Vic, will you be OK going into that store by yourself?" Abigail asked Victoria if she would be all right on her own.

"I'll be fine, Abby. Don't worry about me. Go into Anime Merchandise if you want to." Victoria assured her friend that she would be OK to do a little shopping on her own. Abigail took a step towards the store she wanted to go to, then paused and looked at Victoria. The blonde then faced forward and went into the store, leaving Victoria to go into Gaming Gear and look for what she came to the mall to buy.

Bracing herself and taking a quiet breath, Victoria limped into Gaming Gear to look for the Malevolent Tenant triple pack and a console to play it on.

-Inside Gaming Gear-

Victoria limped into a shop with a layout that was very similar to that of Anime Merchandise. The positioning of the shelves was largely the same but the merchandise was very different. On each wall was a tall glass display case featuring video games and game consoles plus assorted peripherals like controllers of different kinds. Above each case was a neon sign that labeled the contents of the case... the first case on the left was labeled "Retro Games" and inside was a bulky box-shaped console with a dingy yellow body that used to be white. On the front was print so badly worn away that she could not read the name of the system.

Victoria continued onward through the center of the shop and noticed that in addition to video games and video game consoles the shop also sold video game apparel. In the back of the store were a few racks of t-shirts that were helpfully labeled by the game they were from with a paper sign placed above each rack. Victoria looked at them and did not see one for Malevolent Tenant apparel, which was a shame. She would have bought at least one t-shirt.

Victoria continued limping until she reached the very back of the store, where a wooden counter was manned by a young woman about Victoria's age who was leaning on the counter. The young woman was wearing a lavender t-shirt and blue jeans and had short blonde hair with lavender streaks in it that went down just past her ears.

"Hi there. I'm looking for the Malevolent Tenant triple pack and a console to play it on. Do you have either of those?" Victoria asked the young woman. Green eyes met Victoria's own as the young woman stood upright and gave a small smile.

"We might have what you need. The triple pack's been selling like hotcakes, though, so don't expect me to produce a miracle. I'll look in the back for you... if you don't mind waiting." She told Victoria.

"Go for it. I'm in no hurry. I'll be right here." Victoria assured the employee.

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[Total Word Count: 2,266/11,000]

-Outside Gaming Gear, forty-one minutes later-

It had taken the employee almost forty minutes to find the Malevolent Tenant triple pack and the latest game console to play it on, but she had managed to do so. Luck was with Victoria since the triple pack she had gotten was the very last one in stock. She had purchased the console and the game pack and was now standing outside the shop with her items in a large gray plastic bag with the store's name printed in gold letters. Victoria looked to her left and saw Abigail emerging from Animated Merchandise with nothing.

"Hey Vic, you've got good timing! I just got out of Animated Merchandise!" Abigail greeted her friend.

"I saw that, Abby. I just now got what I was looking for. The employee must have turned the stock room upside down, but she found the Malevolent Tenant triple pack and the latest-gen console." Victoria stated that her goal had been achieved. Abigail walked over to Victoria and stopped short of her.

"You seem to be doing better. You look like you can walk on your own now." Abigail remarked on Victoria's physical condition. The brunette shrugged her shoulders before pain shot through her left shoulder and made her regret the gesture.

"I might be able to walk without help for short distances, but I won't be able to walk all the way through the mall. You might have to help me out every now and then." Victoria told her friend that she had made modest progress but was not out of the woods yet.

"I'll help you out if I need to." Abigail assured Victoria. Together the two started walking away from the stores and towards the staircase they had taken to get here. The crowds of shoppers were not quite as thick as they had been earlier, so the pair could get to their destination if they moved quickly. However, moving quickly was going to be rough for Victoria.

-On the first floor, twenty-three minutes later-

Victoria was sitting on a bench just inside the entrance hall. She had made it down both flights of stairs under her own power, but now her left leg was not wanting to move at all. Maybe she should have accepted Abigail's offer of help before going down the stairs to the first floor, but it was too late for that now. Victoria would just have to accept the pain that resulted from refusing the offer.

Abigail was sitting close by and looking towards the first floor for any sign of Victoria's older sister Amy. Meanwhile Victoria was trying to get through the pain. She hoped that she had not hurt her left leg by going down the stairs unaided.

"Oh hey, there's Amy now!" Abigail reported and pointed towards the food court. Victoria looked in the direction indicated and saw her sister walking towards them with both hands full of shopping bags. She had obviously done a lot of shopping in the time she had been here.

"Hi guys! I managed to catch a few sales and I ended up buying WAY more than I intended to, but it'll be OK. I'm going out with Sherry to Boomslang tonight and I need a few good outfits to choose from!" Amy greeted the pair with the statement that she had spent more than she had planned to spend. Victoria was not bothered by that. What her sister did with her money was her business, not Victoria's.

"Have you guys done everything that you want to do here?" Amy asked Victoria and Abigail. Both young women had done what they wanted to do, so they were ready to go back to the Sheridan Estate.

"I've seen everything I want to see for today. I'm ready." Abigail replied.

"Me too." Victoria chimed in. Amy smiled at them.

"OK then. If you two are ready we'll get going. Follow me." Amy told Abigail and Victoria. Abigail helped Victoria to her feet and then offered a shoulder for the brunette to lean on, a shoulder that she readily accepted. Together the pair followed Amy out of the mall and began the walk to the parking lot where Amy had parked her car. Hopefully Amy remembered where she had parked the car because Victoria did not remember.

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[Total Word Count: 2,986/11,000]

-The Sheridan Estate, Victoria's Room, three hours and twenty-two minutes later-

The traffic on the return trip from the mall was awful, to say the least. Shortly after leaving the mall the trio had gotten caught in a traffic jam that had taken a little over an hour to clear and had gotten caught in slow traffic for the rest of the time after that. Now they were finally home and could go about their respective pursuits.

Victoria had set up her gaming console in her room and had grabbed a chair from the dining room to sit in. It was not the most comfortable setup, but it would do until she could get a better chair. In the meantime she had started the first Malevolent Tenant game and trying to decide which character to play as. Her choices were Jane Easter, the female protagonist she had been cosplaying as for the past couple of years, and Carl Farmer, the male protagonist and Jane's longtime partner.

Each character had a special ability exclusive to them and that special ability was described beneath the portrait of each character. Jane had increased carrying capacity from the start and Carl had the ability to gain double the ammunition from each ammo pickup. Victoria was not sure who to choose. In the end she went with Jane for the increased carrying capacity and the game started with a gunshot noise and a bloody bullet hole in the portrait's head.

Seconds later a cutscene started where the character she had chosen and their partner were standing in the foyer of a mansion they had found in a mountainous region thirty kilometers away from the nearest city. Jane and Carl had been sent there ahead of their team to scout the area and find some missing hikers who had vanished without a trace. Victoria watched as the pair discussed their situation.

"How long 'til the rest of the team gets here?" Jane asked Carl. Carl shrugged his shoulders.

"Beats me, Jane. You know that Reggie flies on his own schedule. He never gets in a hurry for anything." Carl replied. Jane snorted derisively.

"Reggie had better hurry up. If he doesn't get a move on Harry's gonna send him flying with a boot to the ass." Jane said to her partner. Victoria inferred that Reggie was the team's helicopter pilot and could not bothered with things such as "schedules" and "getting a move on." She continued to listen to the pair talk.

"Reggie's skating on thin ice. The captain's gonna have his head on a silver platter if he doesn't shape up. I heard talk around the water cooler that this is Reggie's last chance. If he screws this up he's off the force." Carl remarked on their colleague's sluggishness. Jane was about to respond when they heard the loud BOOM of a shotgun and both ducked simultaneously.

"WHAT was that noise?" Jane asked Carl.

"A GUNSHOT!" Carl shouted. Victoria laughed a bit at the cheesy overblown reaction.

"Who's shooting?" Jane asked. Victoria laughed again. The dialogue was so cheesy it was kind of funny.

"I don't know, but they're packing some serious heat!" Carl answered before the shotgun fired again.

The pair turned towards a door on the left side of the foyer and it opened to show a black-haired man wearing a green long-sleeved shirt and torn blue jeans with muddy hiking boots holding a shotgun.

"WHO are you?" Jane asked the man.

"Me? I'm Dan. I went hiking in these mountains but after all those folks disappeared I added a shotgun to my gear before I set out. It's a good thing too... this mansion's full of dead people who won't stay dead!" Dan introduced himself and explained why he was armed.

"Dead people?" Carl asked Dan. The camera showed a walking corpse wearing a stereotypical black butler outfit shuffling towards Dan from behind. Carl raised his handgun.

"BEHIND YOU!" Carl shouted. Dan dropped to one knee and Carl fired once, scoring a perfect headshot on the zombie butler. Once the threat was over Dan stood up.

"Thanks!" Dan thanked his rescuer. Victoria was starting to wonder when she would be able to stop watching the cutscene and actually play the game. Things looked up when Dan said he was going to stay in the foyer. He said he had fought his way to this point and was going to stay here until help arrived... if it ever did.

The cutscene ended and a prompt appeared onscreen asking Victoria if she wanted to save the game. She saved her game and the game began in earnest. She followed the onscreen prompts and began the tutorial on how to control Jane. Victoria moved the left control stick on her controller forward and Jane began to move forward at a walking pace. She was grateful for the tutorial because she did not bother to read the manual that came with the triple pack.

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[Total Word Count: 3,814/11,000]

-The Sheridan Estate, Victoria's Room, one hour later-

Victoria had played Malevolent Tenant for the past hour and was liking it so far. She was still chuckling through the corny B-movie dialogue between the characters and wondering how a big-budget game had such crummy voice acting. She wondered whether that was an intentional choice to pay homage to the source material that inspired the series or if the first game did not have the budget of the next two games since it was the beginning of the Malevolent Tenant series. She might never know for certain.

She had taken a break from it for awhile because she wanted to get something to eat. Abigail, Lawrence, Amy, and Laura had already eaten while the brunette was busy figuring out how to play the game and now that she had stopped playing she really wanted something to eat. Victoria slowly rose from her chair, set the controller on top of the console, and began to limp out of her room to go to the kitchen and see if she could grab some leftovers.

-The kitchen, six minutes later-

Victoria had taken her time going down the stairs that led from the second floor to the living room because she did not want to suffer a fall that either killed her or hurt her even more and set back her recovery. She managed to make it to the bottom of the stairs without incident and limped into the kitchen, where she made a beeline for the refrigerator. She stopped in front of it and opened the right door, then reached inside with her right hand and pulled out a can of Cherry Charge soda.

"Hello Victoria." Laura's voice greeted her. The brunette jumped and nearly threw her can of soda into the air. Her heart was pounding as she turned to the left to face the maid.

"You weren't here moments ago, Laura. When did you get here?" Victoria asked the maid.

"Just a few seconds ago." Laura answered truthfully. Victoria was surprised by how stealthy the silver-haired maid was. It was like she was a ninja or something. One moment she was not in the kitchen and the next she was standing a short distance away from Victoria.

"If I may ask, what are you looking for?" Laura asked the brunette. Victoria raised the can of soda in her right hand.

"I found a drink, but I was looking for food. Do we have any leftovers from earlier?" Victoria inquired about leftovers. Laura shook her head.

"I'm sorry, Miss Sheridan. There's no romaine salad left. The others ate it all." The maid replied in the negative. Victoria sighed.

"It's no big deal, Laura. I'll find something else to eat." Victoria assured the maid that the lack of leftovers was no big deal. Victoria supposed that that was what she got for not eating with everyone else when the meal was made. That was OK, though.

"Is there anything I can make for you?" Laura asked Victoria.

-Victoria's Room, fifty-one minutes later-

Thanks to Laura's efforts Victoria had gotten to eat a basic salad. It had been good enough for her needs, so she had went back to her room to either play more Malevolent Tenant or do something else like browse for anime or actually read the manual for the Malevolent Tenant triple pack. She did not have anything in mind, so she would decide when she got there.

Victoria entered her room to find everything as she had left it. She limped over to her chair, sat down in it, and looked for the triple pack game case in order to look for the manual. She picked up the case and opened it, then looked for the manual. She did not see one right away, so she examined the inside of the case again. After doing so three times the brunette concluded that there was no manual with the game.

Oh well.

Victoria would just have to hope that there were more in-game tutorials for game mechanics like combat and using inventory items. She had not encountered any combat aside from the intro cinematic because she was slowly exploring the mansion instead of rushing through it, but she was sure that there would be plenty of combat later to make up for the slow beginning. Victoria would just have to be patient and play the game, but she would play it later.

"Hey Victoria!" Amy greeted her. Victoria looked up to see Amy standing in the doorway. Amy was dressed in a light blue sleeveless shirt and black skirt and had a black purse slung on her right shoulder.

"Sherry's on her way here. We're going to go to Boomslang tonight!" Amy reported what she and her friend were going to do tonight. Victoria remembered Amy telling her that earlier in the day but did not think anything of it.

"I know that you're not in the best of shape, but would you like to go with us?" Amy invited her sister to go to Boomslang with her and Sherry. Victoria would have to give that question some thought.

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[Total Word Count: 4,672/11,000]

-The Sheridan Estate, Victoria's Room, three hours later-

Victoria had declined to go to Boomslang with Amy and her friend Sherry on the grounds that she just did not feel up to it because it was all she could do to get through the mall trip. Victoria had expected to be called out on it, but instead Amy had accepted that reason as a good one to not go to Boomslang. The older Sheridan had offered a rain check which Victoria readily accepted. The younger brunette would have to wait until another time to go to Boomslang.

In the meantime she had changed from a long-sleeved green t-shirt to a green tank top and had removed the bandages on her arm and threw them away. Her left arm was exposed and the bullet wounds were plain for anyone to see. She needed to re-bandage it before she tried to sleep tonight. She was looking for the bandages when her room door opened.

"Hey Vic, I wanted to see if you-" Abigail started before she suddenly stopped speaking. Victoria knew the cause for her friend's sudden silence. It was her left arm.

"Your left arm! What happened to it?" Abigail asked Victoria.

"I got in a fight with a Dark Mage who could deflect my gunfire with her sword. She deflected my gunfire back at me many times. My left arm got the worst of it." Victoria gave Abigail a very short description of what had happened during the fight with Kalama. The blonde swordswoman had been a very tough opponent who was even tougher due to the fact that she was able to deflect gunfire back to its source with a fair degree of accuracy. Since Victoria's Merces Letifer Magic depended heavily on firearms the Dark Mage had been able to turn most of Victoria's firepower back on her. As a result the Sabertooth mage was lucky to have made it out of the battle alive.

"Will it be OK?" Abigail asked about the brunette's left arm.

"It'll be fine, Abby. It won't be amputated and I won't need a cybernetic replacement. I just need to not lift anything really heavy with it for awhile." Victoria replied to the inquiry. She was not thrilled about that news since she depended on having both arms to wield her more powerful weapons and use her more powerful spells, but it could not be helped. She had survived and and had made it out with all of her limbs still attached. The brunette could have easily lost a limb to Kalama's sword or her post-battle injuries.

"I'm glad you're still alive and have all of your body parts, Vic. It looks like the outcome coulda been a lot worse." Abgail commented on Victoria's physical condition.

"Yeah. Me too." Victoria laconically replied. No one know how lucky she had been more than Victoria herself. It was one thing to fight someone who was close to her in terms of magic power, but it was an additional challenge to fight someone close to her level who had the ability to deflect bullets with their sword.

"I'll let you wrap up your arm in peace, Vic." Abigail said before turning around and walking off before Victoria could say anything. The brunette was not going to make the blonde leave, but it was too late to say or do anything about that now. Victoria turned to face her bed and resumed looking for the bandages she needed to cover her left arm.

-This post is not yet finished. More will be added later.-