"Are you crazy? I can't sell all this myself. This is way too much enchanted gear to sell from one store. I will have to do it in batches for the next like… twenty years. Can't we just hold an auction or something and just accept the loss?" – Renee when Penny showed her the inventory of enchanted items to sell.

"Alright let's hit it." Kurt said and pulled out his Glock 20. He figured an extra spicy ten millimeter would be the best place to start since the armor was already guaranteed to stop nine mil. He took aim, centering his dot in the middle of the armor panel and pulled the trigger three times in less than a second. Even at ten yards, all three rounds struck in nearly the same place, rocking the stand holding it.

He stored his gun and walked down range with Jay, Val and Kristi to inspect the damage. They were currently in one of the Order training ranges, albeit one of the smaller ones used for target practice. Kurt had made the same enhancements to all their armor and was now testing to see how much it improved. Naturally, he was putting his set on the line while the girls were wearing theirs to try out the enhanced fit. Oddly enough, it was Jay who asked for this meeting on a Sunday morning.

That flexibility enchantment had been the biggest selling point for them. The armor was already well articulated but there was still much to be desired in how it restricted movement. So far, it was a massive improvement over the original iteration. He was now wondering if he could add in some way to regulate temperature but thought that might be a bit too much at the moment.

"Hmm, I only see one hole." Jay said as they approached and saw the bullet hole in the fabric covering of the upper arm armor.

"Yeah, he tends to do that." Kristi said. "Trust me, all three are in there."

Kurt pulled the armor off the stand it was on then opened the pocket, revealing the metal plate within and tipped it over to let a lot of metal spill out. Along with the powdered lead were three separate, nearly smashed, copper jackets which all had their bases intact, showing they were separate rounds.

A surprised look crossed Jay's face. "Well excuse the fuck out of me." He laughed a little. "I won't doubt your ballistic prowess ever again."

"It's alright." Kurt said while pulling the plate out to examine. "Huh, not even a dent or scrape." He ran his thumb over the impact site. "No back-face deformation or discoloration either."

Val had been looking at the carrier that housed that armor panel and brought it over to where everyone was looking at the plate. "No spall either. Looks like whatever spell you used managed to catch it all."

"Great, now let's try another test." Kurt said with a big smile. He reset the panel, this time just taping it to the stand without the fabric covering.

They all trooped back to the bench after setting the armored upper sleeve back on the stand. This time, Kurt didn't use his Glock. Instead, he pulled out his twenty-inch barreled AR and loaded a magazine of the M855A1 ammunition with its enhanced penetrator. This test he only fired a single round to start with and then they once more walked down range.

Unexpectedly, Kurt found the bullet to not have penetrated. The blunted penetrator and the fragments of copper were all lying in a neat pile atop the table, just below the impact site. Kristi leaned in and looked at the little pile of metal.

"That was strange. Did you see it?" She asked and then clarified when they all gave questioning looks. "There was a delay between when the round hit and the fragments fell away."

"Hmm, I guess that anti-spall bastardization of an enchantment worked really well after all." Kurt said while inspecting the plate for damage, once more not finding much besides some discoloration from the copper which wiped off easily. "I think its converting all the kinetic energy into the enchantment and making it stronger."

"What next?" Val wondered aloud as they passed the plate around.

Jay waved his hand, summoning a very large rifle from his own storage ring. "Is that why you asked if we had these in inventory?" He passed the McMillian Tac-50 over to Kurt along with a few magazines. "We also have a variety of ammunition types."

Indeed they did have quite a selection. There was standard ball which was always good. Then what looked to be the older black tip variety of armor piercing and a magazine of SLAP, the newer armor piercing round. The fourth magazine held the green and grey tipped Raufuss, the most exciting offering that they had that day.

"Well, let's start with the three-thirty-eight I brought and do that next." Kurt said. "No point in jumping the gun on this."

"Pun intended?" Kristi asked.

Kurt paused for a second then it clicked. "Nah, happy accident this time." He once more fired at the plate of metal with his Sako chambered in 338 Lapua. They once more walked down and discovered a very small deformation to the impact site but nothing more.

Then came the big one, fifty cal, starting with the standard ball round. Kurt was of the opinion there was nothing standard about over six hundred and fifty grains of bullet at three thousand feet per second. But who was he to judge? This time the impact threw the plate and the stand it was on into the backstop, clanging against the wall. Oddly, there was also a bright flash of light to accompany the reaction.

When they went to inspect the armor, they found that the plate was massively deformed. It had been bent severely into an 'L' shape and had a few signs of stress fractures at the edges of the impact site. The metal was also finally discolored to the point it was noticeable.

"And I think that's the limit." Kurt announced while inspecting the warped armor panel. He passed the metal around the group. Everyone took turns inspecting it as they returned to the firing line.

They were walking back after putting the stand away when their boss suddenly spoke up. "Sixty-five sets please." Jay declared after handing the mangled armor plate back to Kurt.

"Hmm?"

Jay cleared his throat and stopped walking, causing everyone to also come to a halt. "I would like to order sets of armor with this enchantment. I want our support teams to have this and all our field offices. Then the auxiliary squadron that is getting spun up would need some…" He trailed off, not quite finishing his thoughts.

"Are you…" Kurt began but Jay raised his hand.

"I will supply the armor, it's all the same as you have here so no changes."

Thinking quickly, Kurt did the math on how long that would take. "That is going to take like weeks to complete if I did only that every day." He wasn't opposed to it but needed to set the expectation on how involved these were.

"Not a problem. I can divert your rifts to the other teams or if you can get a couple done per week it would be fine to extend this out." Jay offered another possibility. "I understand the problem of doing the same thing every day. Honestly the monotony is the worst part."

Kurt quickly thought through the options and couldn't find anything he had a problem with. "I can work on them when I have time."

Jay clapped his hands. "Great! Let's talk money. How does sixty thousand per set sound?"

"That's almost four million dollars…" Val said, doing some very quick math.

"Right, we will be using some of the funds from the sale of all that enchanted stuff we seized form the guild to cover it." Jay said, half to himself as he scratched at his permanent stubble. "I don't think we will be getting anything from the guild any time soon, so your services are a hot commodity now. Let's get a contract in place so the Order can't stiff you on work that has been started. Also, you might get a few requests for bespoke armor from some people. You don't have to accept, but it could be very lucrative. Let me know if you need help negotiating the price."

Just like that, in a flurry of words, motions and gestures, Jay had signed Kurt up to make a lot of armor. A lot of apparently very effective and desirable armor. And a lot of money would be coming his way. Conveniently after he just made a big purchase that he had mentioned to Jay…

*****

"Have you noticed that Jay keeps throwing new tasks at us with a pile of money to sweeten the deal?" Kurt asked, voicing his suspicions to the girls.

"It isn't something that stood out. Thanks." Val said while walking through the door that Kurt was holding open for her.

Kristi was right behind Val, following her into the restaurant with Kurt dropping in behind them. They were having their first official date night and decided to start with an early dinner at a local steak house. The wait was blessedly short, being nonexistent, and they were sat at a table within a minute of entering.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Why do you think that stands out?" Kristi asked, adjusting her chair and scooting closer to Kurt's side of the table. "Isn't it normal to be compensated for your work?"

"Yeah, no… he might be onto something." Val said, mimicking Kurt on the opposite side from Kristi. "Jay has thrown a lot of cash at Kurt. It makes me wonder if he is doing anything for Piper and Rupert."

"Probably something for Piper's team since Sam does the whole alchemy thing." Kurt reasoned while flipping the wine list over to show the beers. He was hoping for something that wasn't one of the ubiquitous, over-hopped IPA abominations that seemed to be all too common.

Their waiter approached a few moments later, arriving with his note pad already in hand. "Good evening ladies and gentleman." He said in a smooth, quiet voice that fit the cozy atmosphere of the restaurant. "My name is Eric, and I will be your waiter today. Would you like to start with drinks, or shall I come back in a few minutes?"

They all glanced at each other before deciding they were ready. Kurt went with a beer while Kristi decided to try a wine. Val went the cocktail route and ordered something gin based, breaking away from the whiskey drinks. The waiter promised to put those in and be back promptly before he glided off to the bar.

"Why do you two drink when you can't actually feel any of the effects?" Val asked after the waiter left.

Kurt just shrugged but it was Kristi who answered. "Sometimes it's nice to have something with the bite of alcohol. Besides, just because I don't get drunk, doesn't mean I can't. I just need something stronger or with other… um, additives."

"And what kind of additives would those be?" Val said, smirking as she leaned in, resting her chin in her hands with elbows propped on the table.

"Umm, ahhh…" Kristi suddenly looked nervous for some reason, her face flushing red while her eyes looked anywhere but at her lovers.

"You know we don't actually care, right?" Kurt said. "Besides, things on Earth are different, that includes the available 'additives' and the laws regarding them."

That seemed to help, and Kristi relaxed significantly. "Well, the hoard liked to add a distilled sap to some of its wines which would suppress our immune system and digestive functions."

Something about how she explained that reminded Kurt of one of the space marine chapters in a Warhammer book he read once. "So, you add a toxin to allow yourself to experience another toxin?"

Kristi rocked her hand back and forth. "Sorta. It's more like a protein that blocks certain receptors. It still took a lot to truly make a dragon newt drunk but it seemed to help. Only problem was the taste."

"Bad?" Val guessed

"Bitter beyond belief." Kristi said while making a face. "It was often put in a sweet wine or mead and drank very quickly followed by something better tasting."

Kurt snorted in amusement. "Well, it seems that the dragon newts of your former home would fit in with almost every college fraternity out there. You already mastered the shot and chaser method."

Their waiter brough the drinks a moment later and took their orders. Naturally, all of them ordered steaks and in large portions. Val ate the least out of all of them and she normally had double what a woman her size should be able to put away.

That was something that intrigued Kurt and one of those things he never quite got an answer for. It seemed that many paras could put away a lot of food but it never showed, or at least didn't show much. He never got uncomfortably full, had a bloated stomach or any other such side effects like normal humans. It was one of those questions that he never remembered to look up the answer for and he definitely wasn't about to, given his current company.

While he was thinking about the possibilities of an extradimensional stomach, Kurt scanned the restaurant. It was one of his habits that seemed to fascinate people who had never been in the military. He was always looking around, never really letting himself focus on only one thing unless he was talking to someone. Even then, he scanned during pauses in the conversations.

These little visual sweeps of the tables around them were what tipped him off that something wasn't quite right. There was a man and a woman sitting on the other side of the dining area and both of them were looking at his table with very unfriendly faces.

The couple would look away when he laid eyes on them, avoiding catching his attention, but he saw it out of his periphery. They seemed to be having a rather intense conversation, judging by the hand gestures and facial cues they had. It was times like these that he wished he could read lips.

"Don't look now." Kurt said via the implant. He waited for both Val and Kristi to look at him before continuing. "The table on the south-west side of the dining area is paying us a lot of attention."

"Which one?" Val asked, carefully making it look like she was checking her coat pocket while looking out of the corner of her eye.

"The woman with the light brown hair, wearing the yellow and green shirt." Kurt sent back.

"That shirt is clearly maze and sage." Val said with a mental giggle.

Kristi's nostrils flared for a moment, and her lips pressed together in a thin line. "What is their problem?" She grumbled aloud.

Kurt was about to answer but the couple flagged down a waitress and began making a lot of hand gestures while they talked. The waitress kept a straight face, but Kurt caught her eyes for a brief moment. He couldn't read much in the expression yet had a feeling that they would soon find out what the problem was as she ducked into the back after finishing her conversation. The couple at the table still looked upset but also a little smug.

"How long until it makes its way….here." Kristi began to ask then finished with a mental sigh. Their waiter had just reemerged with what appeared to be the manager in tow. Neither looked pleased, both looking like they would rather be anywhere else than in this position.

"Excuse me, folks." The manager said. "It seems we have a slight… um… issue." Now that he was close, Kurt could smell that he was nervous, the acrid tang was clinging to him, and he was visibly shaking.

"We have an issue or the table on the other side of the dining area has an issue?" Kurt asked, keeping his tone flat. He also initiated eye contact with the manager and refused to break it, locking the man into a very uncomfortable situation.

"Ahaha… weeellllll….." The manager began but was interrupted by their waiter.

"It seems the gentleman and lady you mentioned have taken issue with you, our honored guests. They have insisted that either you leave, immediately, or they file a complaint with… some organization that sounds like a lot of government nonsense."

Taking full advantage of the speed at which their implants worked, Kurt had a quick conversation with the girls. "What do you think, should we stay or just get out of here?"

"I am fine leaving, just let's find food somewhere else." Kristi said. Her voice sounded meek as the situation she had worried about came to fruition.

Val chipped in at nearly the same time. "I am fine with the food court at the mall or a burger, honestly."

"Doesn't the place we are going have food? Let's just eat there."

"We will leave." Kurt answered out loud a second later. He noted the waiter looked disappointed, but the manager looked relieved.

"Thank you." The manager said, still shaking. "We are truly sorry about this and would be happy to accommodate you on a future occasion."

"No, you won't." Kurt answered while helping the girls into their coats. "In fact, I don't think many of our kind will be frequenting this place again."

"I-I-I understand, sir. If you will permit me, I will bring the bill out…"

"That table demanded we leave. I think they can cover our bill." Kurt snapped back with a little growl in his voice as his features suddenly appeared more lupine despite not physically changing. That little comment made their waiter's lip quirk up in a barely suppressed smirk.

"V-very g-g-good." The manager stuttered as they walked to the door.

Eric bowed his head as Kurt turned to him. "I am very sorry for this situation but rest assured, I will deliver the news to the table personally."

Kurt almost laughed at the malicious glint in the waiter's eyes as he said that. "Make sure you add in that mandatory gratuity too." He said just as they left through the front door.

They walked to the car in silence. That is of course to say audible silence as they were all saying some rather nasty things via the implants. Kurt was surprised at some of the names that Val came up with to describe the couple. He honestly was about to start taking notes when they got to the car.

"I wonder what clued those chuckle-fucks on to us?" Val said.

Kurt grunted. "Probably the closeness. Not many humans have a triad of a relationship."

"I'm sorry…" Kristi's internal voice sounded guilty and the feeling from her necklace told him that was exactly what she was feeling.

"It isn't your fault. There is nothing wrong with our relationship." Kurt thought she felt guilty since she was the third person to join and wondered if it would be different if he met Val after her.

Val gripped Kristi's hand, pulling it into her coat pocket as they walked. "Yeah, it's their problem that they live in a loveless marriage and take it out on those who are happy."

After they all piled in the car, Kurt started the engine just in time to look up and see the couple at their table through the window. He also saw the waiter approaching with a thin, black book in one hand.

"Are we goi-" Val began but Kurt shushed her and pointed out the window.

All three of them watched as Eric approached the table. The middle-aged couple had returned to eating while having very smug looks on their faces. The waiter then spoke to them and Kurt watched in satisfaction as the couple's smiles slowly slid from their lips. They were then handed the bill and Eric made a quick about-face and walked away.

Kurt was sure he turned to watch after retreating to a safe distance and hoped that he did so in time to watch the man pick up the check. He opened the small book and began to look over it, his face going pale then an interesting shade of scarlet. Finally, the skin above his collar turned almost purple in color while his hand shook with barely contained anger.

It should be noted that the restaurant was a rather expensive one. As with any expensive restaurant, the food and drinks were naturally higher in price than a regular chain. Between them, the bill had to be over two hundred dollars as all three of them had ordered expensive drinks and entrees along with two appetizers to share.

"Serves him right." Kristi said from the back seat. "There was racism and discrimination back on my world but not to the point of ruining someone's meal. Not even the most xenophobic of dwarves were that rude."

"I bet not many people went where they wouldn't be welcome." Val said.

Kurt was interested in the topic. He had never thought about other world's social situations or how a wide variety or people interacted. "I am surprised at the mention of such discrimination."

"It's common place but not quite this overt." Kristi told them. "It's also a little regional. So, one of the scale kin would be lightly discriminated against in an area where they are not common. Mostly out of ignorance or stereotyping."

"Light discrimination?"

Kristi nodded and looked out the window as Kurt began driving. "Mostly it's bad prices or exclusion from activities. Not enough to make you feel in danger but definitely enough to make you uncomfortable and feel unwanted…"

Hearing the drop in tone of Kristi's voice, Kurt almost pulled over so he could comfort her. Val apparently had the same idea because a moment later he heard the 'click-fwip' of a seatbelt being unbuckled and suddenly Val was in the back seat wrapping her in a hug.

"I'm sorry." Val said and hugged her closer.

"It's ok." Kristi said, sounding a little better after the sudden embrace. "Not like I am alone anymore. I found a place where I do belong, and nobody is taking that from me." She gave Val a kiss and reached up to place a hand on Kurt's shoulder while giving him a smile in the mirror.

"That's good because we aren't letting you go either." Kurt said and pulled into another parking lot. "And we are here." He said after finding a space in the moderately full parking lot of the local arcade. Date night wasn't going to be ruined by one bad experience if he had anything to say about it.

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