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Backdated to a variety of days of effort in December 2016, over the course of the holidays.
Word Count: 552

This year was different. Haüyne had been serving in the ranks for a year and a half. The corrupted super had spent the time wisely, or foolishly, perfecting a technique of shopping after hours with the help of teleportation. While it had felt wrong and out of step at first, the five-finger-discount had become a necessity of life as an agent, at least in order to do so with any large amount of hours out in the field. How did people afford apartments, food, bills, and manage to make quota or make any headway as an officer? Staying in the barracks had pitfalls, but it meant a closer availability to some officers and to Metallia.

Cash flow was restricted to the occasional contract for stunts, which was none yet, the part time s**t shoveller at the barn which all went to lessons at the same barn, and then what could be lifted off of energy and starseed hits. Usually all of a hundred or so a week. People mostly carried plastic. But ‘shopping’ and not using cash? Using the abilities that Metallia had given them, the corrupted could pick up all the useful things that they wanted to impart on others as tokens of appreciation and care for the Winter Season.

There weren’t too many names on the list yet, but that was something that would improve with time, as had already shown since recruitment and being completely alone to the current small selection. For the half-youma General Cinnabar was a selection of one of every bottle of whiskey in a liquer store: Tuthilltown Spirits Four Grain Bourbon, Wigle Wheat White Whiskey, Filibuster Bourbon Be Heard Rye, Old Crow Bourbon, Jim Beam, Ten High Bourbon, Seagrams 7 Crown Blended Whiskey, Black Velvet Canadian Whiskey, Jack Daniels, Windsor Canadian, Wild Turkey Honey, Fireball and Maker’s Mark (carrying it all had been a trial of clinking and the cops had shown up pretty quickly given the apparent high security at a Spirits & Wine place but magic had saved the proverbial goose.) For Bus was a Fieldcrest blanket from Target, one of every graphic tee in the place, and as many Utz cheese ballz plastic barrels as could fit in a big blue IKEA shopping bag. For Umber, even though he was a d**k that hadn’t even said hello since abandoning the corrupted in the barracks, there was a Philips Sonicare toothbrush, toothpaste, a pack of razors, a bottle of shaving cream, old spice fancy pants deodorant, and a hair brush all tucked into a men’s travel case.

Delivery was the more challenging part. Bus and Cinnabar were easy to keep an eye on and just set up the gifts in their space while they were out for them to find with the bows on when they got back. Umber? The best bet was to pull rank on some poor sot, a daft lieutenant, put the parcel in their keeping and send them off on the quest to find the Jerk General and deliver the bow-wrapped goods. Yay, internal parcel service.

Holiday appreciations a grand success, Haüyne settled into a personal nest of blankets with every sort of tiny of bandaid and first aid imaginable from the aisles of Target in order to plaster the most recent parkour injuries over with neosporin and cartoon characters.