Downtown, University of Arcadia

September 4th, 09:00

---

Walking through the crowded halls, Mary ignores all her 'fellow' new students as she makes her way to the first of her lecture halls, her eyes glazing over everyone present, failing to find anyone of interest.

She's decided to go full goth today, just because the idea of being so audacious on the first day is amusing to her, plus she's hoping that no one will want to bother the goth kid, and she can just play some Tetris in peace as she waits for the day to be over.

So in line with that, she is wearing tall black leather boots, fishnet black stockings that hide under a straight black skirt that stops around her mid-thigh and is held by a belt full of silver metal studs.

Above which she is wearing her black tank top, with more fishnet over her upper chest, but she's also added this weird piece of clothing she doesn't know the name of. It's basically just two full sleeves that cover her arms in black down to her fingers, connected by a loose collar. And a long black cardigan over it all, who's back drapes down to her knees.

Then to finish it all off, she's put on some black lipstick, but she dyed her hair green instead of black, both because it matches her eyes, and because it might make people even more hesitant to attempt to befriend her.

The first place she arrives is the lecture hall for her biology course, where their lecturer went and introduced himself, and what they are going to be covering in the semester. She honestly didn't understand most of the shit he said, she doesn't know jack about actual biology, with all their fancy words and stuff.

She only picked the class because she needed four, and didn't care about any of the others.

As for the classes she actually might pay attention to. First she picked English Literature, because it can actually be interesting sometimes. Which leaves English Writing and Ethics. She picked the former purely because she wants to write incredibly graphic porn to turn in on her assignments, and the latter because she can probably have some fun with it. It's not like she cares if she gets expelled, she doesn't want to be here in the first place.

But after a few hours, their professors have all gone through what they are going to be doing, as well as some icebreakers that Mary handily ignored.

With all of that out of the way, she decides to check out the campus shops to buy some coffee. Then she figures she'll just wander about until Suzuya's school gets out, so they can hang out.

The place she ends up at is a pretty simple and plain coffee shop, lots of brown colours decorating the place, with only a short queue.

However, as she is standing in line and staring out into space, she hears a pair of women join the line behind her, assessing them mostly just out of habit, and quickly concluding that they're just another pair of average nobodies, except for one of them probably being in pretty good shape, if their regular heartbeat is anything to go by.

It's a good thing that she doesn't really need her sense of touch, smell, or taste to just navigate life, since it lets her roam with an eight times boost, which is the minimum she needs to be able to hear heartbeats like this.

But just as she is dismissing their presence in her mind, she hears something she can't ignore.

"She looks like if Zorg's secretary started cutting," one of the women whispers to the other, making her stifle a laugh. Now, without her enhanced hearing, she definitely wouldn't have heard that, but that doesn't mean she can just ignore something like that.

So, with a raised brow and a smile she can't fully hide, Mary turns around to face the two of them. The smaller of the two, likely the one who just spoke, is wearing simple jeans and blouse, with a plaid shirt wrapped around her waist. She has light skin, red lipstick and blonde hair shaved on both sides, leaving a wavy mohawk that flops to the side slightly.

She's also the more fit of the two, clearly having some level of combat training, but probably not anything beyond a few years in some martial art or other. 

The other one is a tall black woman, with her hair hanging down in braids against her skull. She has soft features and a less fit, but still somewhat athletic physique. Mary feels a little racist for assuming that her physique is just a result of playing basketball. She's wearing simple jeans and a tank top with a leather jacket on top.

After taking in their appearances, Mary doesn't waste any time in introducing herself. "Ex-fucking-scuse me?"

The girls' eyes widen slightly at having been caught, before they both adopt mean smiles of their own, and the white one speaks up again. "I said, you look like if Zorg's secretary started cutting, got a problem with that?"

"A problem?" Mary sarcastically asks, "nah, I don't got a problem, so much as I think that's a pretty fucking bold thing to say while actually copying Zorg's hairstyle."

The black girl snorts, getting a look from her friend, to which she only shrugs, "you kinda walked into that one, not gonna lie. Honestly, I'm just surprised she's seen that shitty movie."

"It is not a shitty movie." The white girl rebukes, making Mary nod along with her.

"Yeah, what oompa loompa said, The Fifth Element is a great movie."

Unfortunately, the white girl seems to have some sort of complex about her height, as she immediately snaps back at Mary. "The fuck do you think you're calling an oompa loompa, you Marilyn Manson lookin' ass bitch?"

But Mary isn't one to take insults standing. "Marilyn Manson? Bitch, at least I don't look like the archetypical lesbian. What, did you move over to pussy 'cuz you couldn't get any dick?"

"What's wrong with looking like a lesbian, huh? You a fucking homophobe?"

"Hell yeah I am, I fucking hate you fags," Mary returns, a mocking smile lighting up her face while the girl in front of her gapes at the sheer shamelessness.

"Woah, woah," the black girl says, cutting into the argument, "no need to go getting political."

"Shut. Up. You, obsolete farm equipment." Mary's blatant racism leaves the taller girl stunned for several moments, until the white girl gets over her own shock and lets out a laugh, shortly followed by Mary's smile becoming less malicious, and culminating in the black girl chuckling while shaking her head.

"You're a real bitch, y'know that?" The white girl says, before offering a hand out for a shake, "my name's Stacy, this is Auntie Tammy-"

She's cut off, as 'Auntie Tammy' pushes her hand into her face, "they've been making that fucking Uncle Tom joke for a fucking month. My name is Tasmin, a pleasure."

"Uhuh, sure thing Auntie Tammy," a cheer and a groan respectively are heard, "my name is Maryam Malaki Bint Al-Chire Kadir Bin Abdullah Al-Hakim." The response to her introduction is silence, so as she hears the servers calling for the line to move forward, she adds, "you can just call me Mary, if ya want."

"What's with the fucking terrorist name?" Stacy whispers to Tasmin as Mary walks away to the counter, "it sounds like a fucking magic spell."

"She's Arabian, that's just how they do," Tasmin whispers back as they watch Mary step to the side, letting them go up to make their own orders.

They make some more small talk, mostly insulting each other, but it isn't long before Mary's drink arrives, and she doesn't wait to ask for their numbers or anything before simply taking her cup and leaving.

Those two were fun, she thinks to herself as she walks away, sipping on her drink, wonder if they're in any of my classes? I can throw erasers at them or something.

---

Winslow High School

---

Suzuya is having a great time.

To say he was nervous at the start of the day would be...a complete lie. Suzuya isn't really capable of that. But he was unsure as to what to expect.

However, after his silly homeroom teacher, Mr Glands or something, introduced him, a bunch of other kids started talking to him. Though, he did have to correct them that they should call him Suzuya, not Rei like Mr Gimpy introduced her as. 

And that's how he met Natalie-chan, Clara-chan, something beginning with an S-chan, the girl with a really short skirt, and the other one.

They're all really mean and kept insulting him, which he found really funny, because it reminded him of Ma-chan. But then some other girl came over and started being a spoilsport, so Suzuya pulled out one of his knives and gave her a warning gash on her arm.

That girl then ran away crying, but the other, cooler girls all called him a crazy bitch and ate lunch with him, so he's happy.

One of them asked him if she wasn't afraid of getting in troubled, and it was only then he remembered that knives were apparently bad or something. But then Natalie-chan let him know that it'll be fine 'cuz it's Winslow.

She doesn't really know what that's supposed to mean, but if it means Han-chan isn't going to yell at him, then he doesn't really care.

Then, when they were walking around during lunch break, they came across a group of underclassmen girls being mean to some other girl. They then spent the next five minutes showing them how real bullies do it, by insulting both the girl being bullied and all the bullies until the bell rang for class.

So, all in all, Suzuya is having a blast of a time making friends. From all of Ma-chan's complaining, he thought school would be a lot worse.

He doesn't even have to do any classes, he can just play around with his new friends instead. Apparently that's also because it's Winslow, but he still doesn't really get what they mean by that.

Either way, life is looking up. The only thing that would make it better is if Ma-chan was there with him.

---

Hannah's House

16:45

---

Hannah has been something of a nervous wreck all day. She has kept her phone on hand at all times and has been constantly plagued with the paranoia that she's going to get a call about one of her charges doing something to get expelled on the first day.

With Mary, it's a very reasonable worry that she'll just do something on purpose to get expelled as a form of protest. But at the very least, she knew that it probably wouldn't be anything too egregiously illegal. She wouldn't do anything she wasn't sure she could get away with.

However, Suzuya was a different worry entirely. Because Suzuya might just hurt someone without even realising why it is a bad thing.

But as the hours ticked by and her phone went uncalled, she started to relax. Once more faced with the idea that she underestimated the challenge of being a parent.

Not that they're her children or anything, but she's caring for them nonetheless right now, so it's an easy comparison to make.

Eventually, she is brought out of her thoughts by the sound of her door being opened, and she looks over the back of her sofa to watch the objects of her thoughts enter the building.

Suzuya comes in first, skipping into the front room with a wide smile and full of energy. Dressed in black slacks with a pair of colourful shoulder straps and a smart white shirt. He's rather overdressed for a place like Winslow, but she thinks it suits him.

Then, Mary follows, the complete opposite. While Suzuya skips inside, Mary trudges. Where Suzuya smiles, Mary looks like she's gone a week without sleep.

If Hannah didn't know her as well as she does by now, she'd probably not be able to pick out how Mary is exaggerating her appearance. She's probably just trying to prove a point by making herself seem miserable.

Plus, Hannah can smell the coffee on her.

"How was school?" She calls out to the two of them, and Suzuya immediately responds.

"It was awesome!" He exclaims as he hops over the back of the couch to sit cross-legged at her side, facing her, "I made a buuunch of friends! They're all funny and cool, and they gave me there numbers and stuff!"

As he speaks, he turns to the side, where Mary walks up to the back of the couch and falls against it, folding over it and sliding down onto both of their laps until she is using Suzuya's lap as a pillow and sitting on Hannah's legs.

"Do you wanna meet them?" He asks the lethargic girl, who just gives a nod of the head.

"And what about you, Mary? How was school?"

"I am going to kill myself."

"You don't need to be so dramatic."

"I'm going to kill myself, and it's all your fault. I'll underline your name in my suicide note."

Hannah sighs, Suzuya giggles, and all is as it should be.

---

Somewhere Downtown

September 7th, 21:30

---

Sitting behind his large desk inside his temporary base, Coil considers the information being shown on his computer, mulling over his options in silence.

A new piece has been added to his board, but it is only another pawn, rather than a queen, so it's not truly something he needs to bother with. However, those are the thoughts of a lesser man, and Coil is anything but lesser. No, even a pawn can be useful, even if only as a sacrifice.

Normally, that would be the end of it. However, the...potential identity of this new variable has convinced Coil to err on the side of caution. Which is why he is sitting here now, using his power to ensure his safety as he waits for his employee to show herself.

Luckily, he isn't left waiting for long, as he soon hears the sounds of bells tinkling, shortly followed by a woman in a red and teal coloured jester outfit.

As soon as she enters his 'office', she leaps towards his desk, crossing the distance in a single bound before leaning forward over his desk, her hands held behind her back as her low, seductive voice sounds out. "You called~? Dear Leader~?"

"Indeed, I have a question for you, Jester." She nods and he continues, "you told me that you were the only Clown operating in this city. Has that changed?"

Even through her mask, she portrays her confusion perfectly with just her posture. A slight pull back, a tilt of the head, minor things that come together to form an image.

"No? Why?" She asks, seeming genuinely curious, before her teasing tone returns as she continues, "are you planning something~?" 

"I'm always planning something," he dryly admits, making her chuckle slightly, "but no, that's not why I ask. A new cape has popped up, a solo Villain going by the name Circus, and dressing themselves like a clown."

As he says that, he spins his monitor around, showing the image he received earlier in the day. What looks to be a girl, late teens or early twenties, in circus makeup and wearing a full-body suit of vertical black and white stripes except for her left leg, which is half red and half white, and her arms, that are the same. Her mask is just a simple gold domino, but the makeup beneath it helps further conceal her identity.

Seeing the image, Jester leans even closer to the screen, a hand coming up to stroke at an imaginary beard. "Interesting~."

Coil can already tell from her tone that she wants to go meet this new cape, but he already knew she would, which is why he only called for her after being sure that he was okay with that happening.

"Indeed. I take it you do not recognise them, then?" 

"Not at all~. It appears someone might be attempting to dilute our brand~."

"I'd like you to go and introduce yourself to this Circus. See if she can be recruited for me."

"Sure thing, Bossman~," Jester agrees, stepping back to give a mock salute before turning and walking out, only briefly stopping to ask one last question. "Oh, and what if she doesn't wish to be recruited~?"

Coil pretends to consider his response for a moment, before waving her away while giving his bland answer. "I don't need any more uncontrolled variables running around. If she doesn't want to be recruited, then you go and have some fun."

As the dangerous woman walks away, chuckling to herself, Coil leans back into his chair and considers her.

He hired her because Clowns have a reputation for being rather cheap for the services they provide. The reason being that they refuse most jobs they're offered.

After all, unlike typical the mercenaries he hires, Clowns do not solely care about money. At least, not most of them. So pay is only half of the consideration. If you want to hire a Clown, then the way it works is that you effectively send off a message containing all the details of what you want and why you want it.

Then, the Clowns will all look at it, and if any of them find it interesting, they will accept it. If none of them find the job interesting, then you won't be able to hire any of them, no matter how much money you offer.

And Coil knows this for a fact, as he has a lot of money and has sent in a lot of testing requests.

Either way, he wanted to hire a Clown in part because of their effectiveness, and in part simply due to their reputation. A Clown is a very powerful piece to control on the board, their reputation alone is enough to win some fights.

Of course, that doesn't mean he will let anyone know that the Clown in Brockton Bay is working for him. She works better as a mobile piece that isn't directly connected to him and his actions.

But then begs the question, what about this job interested Jester enough to accept? He knows the type that those Clowns prefer, and while he could have tried pretending to be some...juvenile, childish psychopath, he also knows that Jester would see through his act and rip his lungs out of his chest.

He spent some time using his power to investigate her, trying to get a picture of her motives. Though he wasn't able to do much. He can't torture information out of her, as she will just kill him if he does. Frankly, a lot of his usual options end in her killing him in some horrific way.

Eventually, after a few days, he simply decided to be straightforward, and while using his power as a safety net, he simply asked her why she accepted the job. She certainly doesn't seem the type to care about his ambitions, or the tediousness of his scheming.

Her answer? Apparently, she just wanted a chill job that she could relax with, and with him not being incredibly active, she's left with a lot of free time. Though, she has also stated that she finds his ambition incredibly amusing, and wants to see it come to fruition.

He remembers asking her why she would chose to support his ambition, instead of simply doing it herself if she finds it so amusing. Doubly so since it means she would actually be able to reap the rewards, and he thinks she'd have a lot of fun as a Queen.

Her answer was both comforting and worrying, and he remembers it perfectly.

"There's only so much fun to be had getting up onto the stage. I'm more of a spectator. The kind that jeers from the stands, throwing rotten tomatoes and shit. A watch on high. And I'll destroy any game that's boring to me. I love that kinda shit."

Comforting because of her lack of ambition, but worrying for rather obvious reasons.

Still, he's fairly sure of her loyalty, as sure as one can be with mercenaries really. But he doubts she'd be willing to hurt the Clowns' reputation by breaking a contract. Or rather, he doubts she'd survive it.

There is a good reason why The Clowns are the scariest parahuman organisation in the country. Just one Clown alone, like Jester, is scary enough to face, but no one wants to face them when they are working together.

And Jester is only around the middle in terms of powerful Clowns.

Either way, he can trust her to get the job done, his only worry is containing the chaos she will inevitably cause when she does said job.

The Clowns do have a reputation, but it's not necessarily a great one. Their good points are that they are strong, incredibly so, and have great influence all over the place, and they don't break their contracts.

However, they are also batshit crazy, and even when they don't break their contracts, they still tend to cause chaos with every job they take. Even when they're not taking jobs, they seem to just spend their free time causing chaos for fun.

At least six South American governments have been overthrown or executed by Clowns, though half of them were done by just the one, and the other half seem to have just been that Clown showing some others their 'hobby'.

He's pretty certain that this Circus person is not going to survive. With his permission to kill them if they prove uncooperative, he fully expects Jester to just kill them anyway. He doesn't really mind, obviously. He wouldn't have allowed it if he cared.

But who knows, maybe he will be surprised? Maybe Circus will be the right amount of crazy that Jester will spare them. That would be the best case for them, really. Because Jester certainly won't give them a slow death.

The only thing she's requested of him since coming under his employ was a house with a basement that has walls thick enough to hide any amount of screaming. He hasn't visited it in person, but he sent one of his mercenaries to investigate under his power.

In the end, through the body camera on that mercenary, Coil got a good view of what Jester is getting up to in her basement, and when he did, two thoughts went through his head. The first was, oh, that's a lot of blood, and the second thought was, ah, that's where that missing family went.

Then he got to watch as Jester arrived home, found an intruder, and almost immediately started torturing the man, all while staring right at the camera. A subconscious shiver runs down his spine at the memory.

Yes, they are a scary group. But if Coil was the type of man to simply cower instead of grasping every opportunity presented to him, then he would never be where he is now, and more importantly, where he will be in the future.

After all, he's already won. The world just doesn't know it yet.

---

A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

Didn't like this chapter, but I got in a Roma Hoito quote (paraphrased to be more accurate) so I'm happy with that.

Also, still mad that the american school year is what it is and that Mary's in uni because of it. It's much less convenient for friend making than highschool is.

Oh yeah, speaking of. His first day and Suzuya has already stabbed someone lol. He won't get into trouble for it though, because Winslow is a shithole, basically just a gang recruitment centre honestly.

And Mary is making friends in her own way :)

Also, next chapter things will happen, so look forward to plot! (I think I failed at making a slice of life lol)

(5)Advanced chapters on pat.reon, link in description and profile. Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses