Unlimited Rizz Work or Reverse Cringe Technique I

Driving through Diamond District while a whole fifth of the neighborhood was sectioned off by the police because of the fire started by the arsonist villain named Firefly – had been a pain in the ass. In the end though, Jack managed to navigate through the blockade, avoiding areas that were quarantined and making his deliveries.

The detour he took ended up costing him time on his runs. But in the end, he managed to complete all his orders. Albeit, he racked up fewer tips than usual due to his tardiness. He made each delivery with more lateness than usual.

13 pizzas were delivered to seven different clients and yet, between all of them, he only got 12$ in tip.

Jack blamed Black Canary for that one. While the whole interaction had been fun – he bullied the fuck out the smol woman while pouring over some of his frustrations – the young rogue had wasted a lot of time. And in the end, after all the effort he went through to personally deliver her pizza, she hadn't even left him a fucking tip!

If he kept grinding his teeth in annoyance every time he thought back about it, Jack feared he would turn bald sooner than Stannis.

Though at least he'd get that delivery bonus fee of 15$. Small consolation prize.

Still, another 100% completion delivery rate later, he got back to Lorenzo's pizzeria.

When he parked the scooter in the storage at the back of the pizzeria, it was already well past 23:00 p.m. and thus his shift was over.

With a scooter, he felt like he could have been able to complete 4 delivery runs instead of 3 like tonight.

Once again, he cursed Black Canary and her bouncy booty. He should have left that pizza at the front entrance like Lorenzo advised him. But no!!! He was too curious to do so and wanted to meet that special client.

"Hey, Boss!" Jack called out, striding into the back kitchen. "Sorry for the shitty time tonight. Was caught up in Diamond District when a huge fire started up."

"How many times do I need to tell you to stop calling me that," Lorenzo grunted, shuffling toward him with a trash bag in hand. "Help me throw this out." He said, handing him off the bag.

Jack made a single hand gesture – a thumb up done to mask his opening of [chamber] – and made the trash bag float. Pulling the back door open, he sent the trash bag hurling toward the green dumpster that was on the sidewalk of the pizzeria.

Out of Lorenzo's view but still in his zone of influence, he opened the dumpster's lid and threw the trash back inside before letting the lid slam shut after he closed his [chamber].

"Huh… that will do it too." Lorenzo deadpanned while under his breath, he muttered. "Can't still fucking get used to this."

Jack chuckled, following after him as he made his way to the eating place.

"How was it?" The older man asked him upon sitting at a booth, a small pizza box resting on the table in front of him.

"The deliveries, you mean?" Jack slid in on the seat opposite his, took off his wrist-mounted GPS and brought out the cash money from the deliveries.

"Yeah, did you run into trouble? I heard about the fire started by Firefly."

"I was far enough from the blast zone when the first explosion hit," Apparently, there have been two other ones, albeit smaller ones scattered throughout the place. "The only trouble I encountered was driving through the district. I had to make a lot of detours to make the deliveries. Ended up eating me time."

From what he heard from the radio host, another villain going by The Riddler was the one responsible for the two others.

"I see," Lorenzo absently answered, going over the GPS. Probably looking at the Machine credit card's part. "It's good that you weren't caught up in the initial blast. You didn't have a delivery to make in the area but I was still worried you were in the area during the whole mess."

"I wasn't," he sighed. "I shouldn't say it but at least thankfully for me, by the time the first big explosion hit, a great part of the district got cordoned off by the police."

"Thankfully for you and thousands of other people who weren't in this zone," Lorenzo ruefully chuckled. "To think that even neighborhoods like Diamond are no longer considered safe… An explosion in the middle of downtown…"

He remained silent, letting Lorenzo to his thoughts. The explosion and fire that happened in Diamond District have seen a heavy toll in terms of human casualties and damage to infrastructures. The last he heard on the way, around 51 people were found dead while more than one hundred and counting were wounded. Some sporting third and fourth-degree burns.

After some time, Jack spoke, in an attempt to make idle conversation and break the silence.

"I was still with Black Canary when it happened… so… there's that."

"Talking about Black Canary…" Lorenzo trailed off, directly looking at him. "How did this particular meeting go?"

"Don't get me started on her," he grumbled, even though the inquiry was what he expected when he mentioned being with Black Canary. "She's a shitty tipper for one. I can't believe that mobsters and criminals are better tippers than a hero."

"Criminals tend to be generous tippers," Lorenzo chortled, eyes shining with mirth. "Crime does pay. Though don't say that to her. Or Batman if you ever meet him."

"No promise for the first one. It's a given for the second one."

Batman was notoriously known as the boogeyman of criminals. The strongest human. Earth's best detective. One of the founders of Justice League. These kinds of titles are the ones given to Overpowered characters in mangas. The type with few chapters apparitions but have an enormous popularity.

He wasn't particularly eager to start messing with him. Though Black Canary was fair game. Same for any other heroes or villains in the city if they annoyed him as much as her.

"Seriously, Black Canary is the worst client I've ever met yet, and I've been threatened at gunpoint by some."

"…What did she even do?"

Jack launched into a heavily edited summary of his conversation. By the end, Lorenzo was visibly rolling his eyes at him when he concluded with, "And she caused me to waste valuable time answering her pointless questions. If not for her, I would've been able to make my other deliveries on time."

"I told you you could just leave the pizza at the front entrance," Lorenzo reminded him. "It would have been fine."

"Maybe," he conceded. "But, I'm a perfectionist… Leaving the pizza sitting on the ground without even making sure the client got it would have left a bad taste in my mouth. Besides, mom didn't raise a quitter."

"Suit yourself." The older man shrugged.

The conversation met another wall and another silence settled between the two men.

"Was there something else you wanted to know or ask?" Jack asked him once the awkward silence became too heavy.

"No, there's nothing else much," Lorenzo replied, shaking his head. "You can go home. Tomorrow is Saturday. It's gonna be another long night, so make sure to get as much rest as you can."

The young rogue nodded, standing up as he took the pizza box Lorenzo made for him before sweeping up his pay – commission delivery fees and tips included.

"Enjoy your pizza Rule. Take care."

He threw the older man an okay sign behind his shoulder and strode out of the pizzeria, walking back home.

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As predicted by Lorenzo, the end of the week work's shift was hectic. Jack ended up pulling out overtime hours on both Saturday and Sunday. Doing as far as six delivery runs on Sunday.

His delivery spots have been expanding ever since he began making his orders on scooter's back. He has gone from solely operating in Burnley, Crime Alley and The Bowery; to delivering pizzas in New Town, Ostiburg, Cherry Hills, Amusement Mile and Upper East Side.

Lorenzo's clientele was growing back and fast. Far faster than what the older man had expected.

It was to the point that Jack didn't have the time to stop for the customary five-minute leisure chat between deliveries he always had with clients.

By the end of the week-end and the official first week on the job, he was delivering on average 45 pizzas per night, thus making 225$ cash on commission fees alone. Compared to before when he was making around 200$ on his best night – tips including – while running delivery on foot, it was a clear improvement.

A ridiculous improvement.

If the clientele and orders kept growing, he thought that there was a good chance that Lorenzo would have to hire another delivery man and prepare another scooter for him. Let the new guy handle the less-than-safe and safer neighborhoods while he'd handle the hardier ones.

At one point, Jack would also want to invite someone over – more likely a date, one-night stand or even a girlfriend.

Finding a decent apartment where he could live in his civilian identity would be a must once he is completely settled. Because he couldn't realistically bring a woman to such a dilapidated building at night, make her climb down a rusted ladder, pass a dark corridor of concrete wall with no finishing then show her a spartan living space – albeit one decently furnished – and expect the woman to be okay or not raise awkward questions…

'For the sake of regularly getting laid, I must have a nice apart it seems.'

It was a thought for later, he decided.

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Week 2: Monday

Monday came and went as fast as it began. Like the previous Monday, Jack spent the entire morning and afternoon of his day off work training his power at the same abandoned warehouse located in Cape Carmine.

His work day went fine and he sensed that he made some progress with his power, specifically with the number of items he could levitate simultaneously. He was also getting nearer and nearer to pushing through the weight limit of the heaviest object he could lift.

Maybe after another week or two of doing this exercise, he thought that he'd increase his current weight limit and improve the minute control of his telekinesis.

Repetition was the cornerstone of improvement, the mother of mastery.

The next day, Jack woke up bright and relatively early, at around 8:00 a.m. He did his usual morning ritual of brushing his teeth, showering, dressing up and cooking a simple breakfast of eggs and bacon with some toast accompanied by a cup of coffee.

Once done with his breakfast, he went out. Instead of going to Cape Carmine to spend his second day off training like he did the previous day, he opted to visit Gotham City Public Library once again like on Friday, the second day he arrived in this world – in Gotham City, Crime Alley.

The young rogue was a social creature, starving for interactions with people. When he wasn't working on something, training or entertaining himself in any way he could think; Jack liked to spend time among people, friends or family – talking, chatting, discussing anything or everything.

It was doubly so now that he was alone, lost in another world and universe. So interacting with people kept his mind and attention busy, preventing him from thinking about heavy subjects like his home or family. Because as soon as he found himself with some idle time on his hands, his thoughts always drifted to his family and his homeworld. Practically every night before he went to bed without fail.

This was the reason why the whole delivery gig was the perfect first job for him considering his less-than-ideal circumstances.

While making deliveries, he was constantly in contact with people, interacting and speaking with clients. Jack thrived during these times.

Which was the reason why he was going to the public library. To have his quota of social contact of the day. He had virtually no friends in the city – outside of his employer if he could consider him a friend – and as such, there were only a limited number of persons he thought of seeing. This number became even shorter considering that he spent more time as Rule than as Jack.

He couldn't go pester people like Lorenzo, Mark or Orca. And truthfully, he didn't want to spend even more time in his supe's persona than he already was.

So, off to see a redhead, Jack was. A sexy librarian redhead.

'Eurgh, my contact list is near non-existent… it's so pitiful.' He lamented.

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On the bus commute to the library, he noted how several of the buildings nearer to the edge of Diamond District were filled with scorch marks. The outcome of the fire that erupted in the district could still be felt even several days later. The streets were half-deserted compared to the last time he was there with some parts of the district still sectioned off.

There and there, Jack could still see some police cars lingering and roaming around the premises – a general state of vigilance still in full effect even after all this time considering that both Firefly and The Riddler have managed to escape from Batman and the Police during the chaos of the fire.

From what he has heard, Batman has been a little too busy and preoccupied with rescuing people caught on the scene and seeing to the evacuation efforts of the premises to personally arrest Firefly, having preferred to chase him off instead.

/-/

The bus drove off into the distance as Jack leisurely walked toward a small coffee shop with an open terrace.

After a short greeting and exchange, he ordered a medium coffee – two milk, one sugar – along with a Boston cream. As he was about to make his way to the library across the street, he stopped, realizing that if he was going to bother Barbara, the least he could do was to bribe her with some snacks.

So he went back inside the coffee to order something for her. Barbara had struck him as the kind of girl to not drink coffee – wearing clothes which gave her a classy vibe when he met her – but instead to prefer tea, if he was to make a bold presumption. Also, for some reason, he felt like she would like to drink her tea with either some blueberry muffin or lemon poppy.

Snap decision made, he ordered a blue muffin and asked the employee to give him the best hot tea they made, seeing as he knew absolutely jacked shit about teas unless he was going to order iced tea. A bad idea to, with the cold weather.

Some tea called brewed Chai was what the employee recommended to him.

Taking a leap of faith in the teenager who looked like he barely gave a damn about his job and his request, Jack crossed the street and strode into the library, his orders in hand.