“Hey, hey, no need to worry, I’m an honest kind of guy. I’d never use my powers on friends,” he said with a smile that even Teddy knew was fake as fake could be. “I just want to head on back home, maybe move to the next city over? I wouldn’t want to mess with your turf.”

“My turf?” the Boss asked.

The man swallowed. “Your territory. Your city.”

“You don’t need to move away,” the Boss said. “I don’t have any . . . turf. I just . . . I just want to do my own thing.”

“Right, right, of course,” he said. “I’m very, very sorry about bumping into you. Here,” he said while reaching into his jacket. He pulled out a big wad of cash, all sorts of paper bills squished together in a heap. “I’ll give you half my winnings for the day. That ought to make us even, right?”

“Half?” the Boss asked.

Teddy knew what that meant. She swiped a paw down, tore the entire heap of cash out of the man’s hands, and pinned it to the ground.

Quest Complete!

A Muggy Afternoon

Reward: +1 Skill Upgrade point per person successfully robbed. Scoundrel +1 per item!

Awesome! The Boss must have known that Teddy’s mugging quest was still active.

“Right, right, that’s fair, sure,” Alea Iacta said. “Take it all. It’s what I deserve, right, Boss?”

“‘Boss’?” the Boss asked. “Oh, right, the name. Sure, you can call me Boss if you want.”

Understanding took a moment to appear in the man’s eyes, but when it did, Teddy backed away. The Boss had claimed him as one of her own now. He was more new than Teddy, though, so he didn’t have seniority or anything like that. Also, he was small and squishy compared to her.

Alea Iacta nodded, stood a bit straighter, and brushed off his costume front. “Right. Cool. So, ah. What do you want me to do, Boss?”

“Do?” Boss asked. She shook her head. “I don’t suppose I could tell you to hand yourself over to the authorities. That would be hypocritical.” She paused, then sighed. “Just go. And please, if you can help it, don’t kill or hurt anyone. I don’t want the Heroes coming around and asking a bunch of questions.”

“I can be subtle,” he said before adjusting his huge feathery hat.

Emily stepped back, too, and gestured toward the mouth of the alley. The words above her head flickered away, and she was back to being a normal girl who was also secretly the Boss.

“Wonderful, stupendous,” he said. “If you don’t mind me asking, Boss, what scheme were you running here?”

“Sc-scheme?” Emily asked. “None? I was working at the soup kitchen.”

The man’s eyes widened. “You were poisoning the food or something?”

“What?! No! I was doing the dishes.”