Vape Shop Isekai: A Retail Manager’s Guide to a Stolen World

The snow-capped roofs of Alwayswinter had always been such a magical sight to Muffin when she was a youngling. Her family used to bring her up to the wall together before adulthood pulled everyone toward different towns, tours, jobs, and lives. They had never stopped loving each other. They just stopped fitting in the same place as often.

Now all of them were together again in Etokuso, and Muffin had added so much new family that sometimes she had to stop and count.

Kaori leaned into Muffin’s right shoulder, smelling like weed, sesame oil, and the yakiniku smoke that followed her home from Restaurant Row. Mora pressed against her other side, all chlorine, strawberry shampoo, and the honey-thick healing salve from the Shafted clinic. Beneath it, the sharper edge Muffin remembered from when they met had started softening into something she couldn’t name yet.

Kaori gazed over the windswept trees below, probably looking for danger, snacks, or something she could turn into. Mora stood straighter on Muffin’s other side, calculating the distance to the rebuilt Ritz Carlton and every possible way the three of them could get inside.

“Just to clarify, is this a mission or a date?” Mora asked without looking away from the hotel.

“A date,” Muffin squeezed both hands.

Kaori leaned around Muffin. “With ass beating.”

“A date with responsibilities,” Muffin corrected.

“Only if we stop for food,” Muffin said.

“Can we stop for food?” Kaori asked.

“We haven’t left yet.” Muffin smiled.

“Planning is important.” Kaori put on a fake serious face.

Muffin giggled and pulled them both closer. Kaori fit against her without thought. Mora still held a little tension in her shoulders, but it melted quickly once Muffin’s arm settled around her.

Kaori looked toward the hotel. “You think Bukkakelyn might still be running it?”

Mora’s fingers tightened around Muffin’s hand for only a second. “Maybe. We get the box and leave her alone unless she makes that impossible.”

“That’s fair,” Muffin said.

Kaori rubbed her cheek against Mora’s shoulder. “And then food?”

“And then food,” Mora agreed.

Muffin kissed Mora’s cheek, then Kaori’s. “Good. Date rules.”

Mora raised an eyebrow. “There are date rules?”

“One: nobody dies. Two: nobody leaves mad without talking. Three: if Kaori turns into something with hooves, don’t stand behind her.”

“That happened once,” Kaori protested.

Muffin looked at Mora. “It happened this morning.”

Mora snorted.

Muffin thrust her hand between them. “Peaches!”

“Cream!” Kaori slapped hers on top and planted her free hand on her hip.

Mora looked down at the pile. “You already decided I’m Violence, didn’t you?”

“Would you like something else?” Muffin asked.

Mora looked toward the hotel. “Absolutely not.”

She placed her hand on top of theirs.

“And Violence!” Peaches shouted. “Three of the Flower Wind, time to whoop ass!”

“Hanakaze Sangumi!” Cream cheered.

Peaches pulled them both in tight, one under each arm, and fell backward off the massive wall.

For one long, glorious second, it was magic. Thousands of feet of open air rushed around them. Cream screamed with joy. Violence laughed into the wind. Peaches held them both and felt absolutely no doubt that they would keep one another safe.

It was terrifying.

She loved it.

Violence tightened her grip as the ground rushed up. “Sugar, Spice, and Flight!”

Magic caught them all at once. They broke apart, swirled upright a hundred feet from the ground, and shot across the remaining distance toward the hotel.

Peaches landed first, one knee bending cleanly under her. Violence touched down beside her, boots carving two lines through the snow. Cream clipped the ground with both feet and landed directly on her face, sliding another ten feet before stopping in a little Cream-shaped trench.

Peaches walked over calmly, grabbed the back of her dress, and pulled her free.

Cream spit out a mouthful of snow. “I was testing the ground.”

Violence covered her mouth, but the laugh still broke through.

Cream’s face lit up. “You laughed!”

“I did not,” Violence said.

“You did!”

Peaches brushed snow from Cream’s hair. “Focus.”

“I’m focused.”

“You have snow in your ear.”

Cream shook her head violently and sprayed both of them. Violence laughed harder.

The rebuilt Ritz Carlton rose ahead, lights glowing behind the windows. The gates stood open, but the property looked mostly empty.

An unbelievably average-looking man in a wrinkled polo stepped out from beside the front doors.

Geoffrey.

He walked toward them with a heavy sigh and stopped directly in their path. “You can’t be here. Go away.”

Peaches buzzed with excitement.

Her turn.

“Hi, there!” she said with her biggest smile. “We are so sorry to bother you, but my honeybae has something in the lost and found. Can we just come in and pick it up real quick?”

“No!” Geoffrey lifted one foot really high and stomped harmlessly in the snow. “No one can go innnnn!”

Peaches took Cream and Violence by the hands and walked around him.

“Hey!” Geoffrey called as they opened the doors. “Stopppp!”

Violence looked at Peaches as they entered the lobby. “Was that the entire plan?”

“Yes.”

“You just walked past him.”

“He moved.”

Cream nodded solemnly. “That means it worked.”

The entryway was familiar and aggressively uninspiring, but the six Golden Wieners blocking the employee area were not.

Violence stopped. Her whole body changed. “Why are my father’s guards in Craig’s hotel?”

The lead Wiener lowered his halberd. “Visitors aren’t permitted.”

Peaches stopped and smiled. “We aren’t visitors. We came to kick your ass.”

The Wiener charged.

Peaches stepped inside the swing, kicked him once in the knee, twice in the breastplate, then caught the bottom of his helmet with a rising kick. The helmet flew off, crossed the lobby, and knocked an unhelmeted Wiener cold before he even entered the fight.

Cream stared after it. “That was awesome!”

“Thank you!”

The remaining Wieners swarmed. Cream ran straight at them while Peaches held out both hands. Cream jumped sideways, stretched herself flat, and landed across her palms. Peaches threw her.

A Wiener reached to catch her.

The second his gauntlets touched her, Cream became a giant shark.

Several hundred pounds of deeply misplaced ocean life slammed through the formation and bowled the Wieners across the lobby. Cream rolled over the pile, shifted back, and popped to her feet on the other side.

Violence stared. “That was incredible.”

Cream beamed at her and immediately took a halberd shaft to the shoulder.

“I’m okay!” Cream called.

Violence rushed into the pile, grabbed the first Wiener trying to stand, twisted his arm, and sent him directly toward Peaches.

Peaches planted one foot and drove Sweet Chin Music into the front of his helmet. The guard’s head snapped back, and he collapsed across two others.

“Did you plan that?” Violence asked.

“Nope!”

“I love adaptable women!”

Violence grabbed another around the waist from behind and lifted. “Sūpurekkusu no Kuni!”

Cream lit up. “You used it!”

Violence grinned as she threw the Wiener over her shoulder. “I told you I would.”

Peaches watched him hit the marble. “Was the pronunciation right?”

Cream winced. “Close enough for combat.”

Another Wiener swung for Cream’s chest. She ducked and touched his breastplate.

“Chill out!”

Ice spread over the gold armor. The man inside screamed as the joints froze shut, and he tipped over like a very angry statue.

Another rushed Cream from the side.

“Cream, down!” Violence ordered.

Cream dropped instantly. Violence’s boot passed over her head and caught the Wiener in the jaw.

Cream looked up at her with an expression so bright it almost glowed.

Violence blinked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Cream’s smile somehow got brighter. “It’s nothing, Mommy.”

Violence missed the next attack entirely.

A halberd blade swept toward her ribs. Peaches grabbed the back of her leather jacket and yanked her down. The blade passed less than an inch above them.

“Breathe later, duck now,” Peaches said.

Violence’s face went red all the way to her ears. “Right.”

Cream giggled from the floor.

The next Wiener swung down at her. Cream met the attack with her own fist, shifting her arm into a bear limb just before impact.

“Creamori Punch!”

The bear paw sent him flying backward into Violence’s second suplex. The two armored men collided in the air, plates clanging together like someone throwing cookware down a staircase.

“You named it!” Peaches cheered.

“You said moves need names!”

“I said plans need names!”

“Same thing!”

Before either Wiener hit the ground, Peaches spun through them and kicked both into another clanging pile.

“Ding ding! Anyone back there?”

She planted one foot on a kneeling Wiener’s chest and jumped as Violence grabbed another guard by the ankles, dug in her heels, and swung him upward.

Peaches drove a rising kick directly between his legs.

“Patriarchy Punt!” Peaches and Violence sang together.

The guard sailed over the front desk. They landed back-to-back and folded their arms.

For a beat, the only sounds were the moaning Wieners strewn about the two-inch purple shag carpet of the lobby.

Then the back-office door opened.

Violence fell away from their celebration and instantly snapped up Peaches’ hand with both of hers and pulled it to her chest.

“No…” A gasping whisper left Violence’s chest.

Peaches held her hand firm until she took a ghost-step toward the door. It wasn’t until the woman stepped through the door, that she knew exactly why Violence had left herself.

“Another one!” Cream jumped and shifted into Creamori and came crashing down with the full force of a bear on the general.

“No! Please!” Violence frantically clawed her way free and ran. “No! Cream get off her!”

She grabbed onto Creamori’s fur and pulled uselessly, screaming at the top of her lungs in terror. Peaches’ stomach dropped. Mora had told them she still loved Dicktoria. Seeing it was different.

Click. Shink.

The poleaxe extended out from under Creamori and hooked her back leg. With a heavy grunt, the bear flew up over Dicktoria and into the front desk, crashing through it.

Peaches slowly closed the distance to Violence as Dicktoria pushed up from the ground and retracted her poleaxe.

“Di?” Violence was somewhere else.

“Don’t call me that…Mora.” Dicktoria folded her arms over her chest. “You know my orders are to kill you on sight.”

“Do it.” Tears spilled down Violence’s face.

Peaches heard the certainty in her tone. “Behind you, or beside you?”

“Beside.”

Cream scurried out of the desk as a mouse and shifted back next to Violence and grabbed a hand just as Peaches took the other.

“What are you doing here?” Violence barely mouthed.

“I’m the general of the Golden Wieners.” Dicktoria stood tall. “I go where I please. Why are you here? With…them.”

“They see me.”

“They don’t know you.” She scoffed.

“At least they listen.” Violence choked out.

Dicktoria’s mask slipped. Barely. Peaches still caught it.

It was another beat before she had anything to say. “Leave. Now.”

“No.” Violence shook her head slowly. “Not until we get what we came for.”

Dicktoria didn’t wait. She lunged, extending her poleaxe. Peaches watched her anticipate Violence’s dodge to the right, the axe head coming down to intercept. She pulled Violence by the arm to the left. As soon as the pole was low, Cream jumped over it, landing a solid elbow to Dicktoria’s chin and falling to a knee. The general staggered and Violence froze. The options blurred through Peaches’ head in a snap. One step and she pushed off of Cream’s back and launched straight at Dicktoria, her foot extended in front of her. Dicktoria snapped the shaft short, turned it in her grip, and extended it straight into Peaches’ gut like a hammer blow, knocking her back into the side of the fountain. She gasped for air as Violence reacted.

“Stop it!” Violence charged wildly.

Dicktoria countered her wild punch with a punch to the gut, dropping Violence to her knees. Cream dove over top of her fists first into Dicktoria’s chest, knocking her back long enough for Cream to turn and push Violence back toward Peaches. The poleaxe came over Cream’s head and Peaches yelled out as she was too far away.

Violence short circuited. “Yaaaaaahhhhh!”

She threw both hands wide, and two jagged swords of spectral green light formed in them. She charged Dicktoria and shoved the blades in between the two, stopping the poleaxe half an inch from Cream’s face, the force driving Violence down to a knee. Cream panicked and backed away. Violence’s face changed when she felt the force of a hit clearly meant to bisect. Violence strained and pushed the poleaxe up as she rose to her feet. She became a blur of green spectral steel, swinging the blades faster than Peaches could keep track of. Dicktoria predicted every swing like she had done it her whole life. She had.

“You took everything!” Violence got more unstable with every swing.

But then, Dicktoria looked bored. That meant she was about to strike, and it was time for Peaches to act. “Cream! Blinkori!”

Cream was already in the air and a mouse. Peaches took two steps, jumped, and kicked the mouse at the general. At the very last second, after passing perilously through Violences slashes, Cream changed shapes into Blinkori, a blink dog. Dicktoria swung too late. Blinkori opened a dimension door beneath her boots, and the general vanished through it. The second Blinkori landed, she opened the second door overhead, shifted back into Cream, and dragged Violence clear, the swords fading into the ether. Dicktoria fell. And fell. Until the pole extended across the bottom portal opening, her feet hanging down ten feet above. Violence’s face emptied as she walked over, bent down and pressed the retract button on the pole and pulled it out of Dicktoria’s hands as she fell again.

Peaches looked around at the wreckage and identified their target. She lifted her hand and pointed toward an office door just behind the now destroyed desk. “Violence. That door.”

Violence watched the woman fall another two times before she lifted a hand and cast. “Slow.”

After another three passes, continually slowing, Cream closed the bottom portal and Dicktoria crashed to the ground with a pained clang. She was twisted and beaten. She tried to push up, but only got to an elbow before she spat blood on the ground. Violence walked past her and into the door.

Dicktoria huffed and stared at the two. “You know she still loves me?”

“Yeah.” Peaches linked hands with Cream.

“And you’re okay with that?” She coughed.

“Why wouldn’t we be?” Cream asked.

“Love is not a finite resource.” Peaches said.

“It’s not pie!” Cream confirmed.

The door swung open and Violence walked out, holding the Octo-Nut under one arm. She ignored Dicktoria and walked past Peaches and Cream. “It’s done. Let’s go.”

“Iona misses you.” Dicktoria called out from the ground.

Violence stopped. She turned and stood still for a moment, cocking her head and taking in the sight before her. She came back and stopped just in front of the general. She waited.

“Come back.” She said. “See your daughter.”

“Would she even know me, Di?” Violence shook her head. “Or just what he told her about me?”

Dicktoria’s mouth opened, but nothing came out.

“Come on, honeybaes.” Violence said. “Time for regicide training.”

“You’ll never find the other two boxes!” Her voice was desparate.

“I already know where they are.”

“Then why don’t you have them?” Dicktoria mocked.

“Because I have complex PTSD now, Didi.” Violence’s reply was as sharp as a blade.

Dicktoria went completely still.

Violence held the box tighter. “I can’t be alone anymore because all I hear is you in my head. Every promise. Every time you said I could come back after I changed. Every time you looked through me. It just keeps happening.”

The general disappeared from Dicktoria’s face. “Mora…I didn’t—”

“You didn’t know,” Violence said. “Because you never asked.”

Dicktoria’s hand slipped against the marble. She caught herself before falling flat again, but her eyes stayed on Violence.

“Do you still love me?”

Violence looked down for a long moment, then knelt. She looked right in Dicktoria’s eyes and did not wipe the torrent of tears streaking black mascara down her cheeks. She pushed a stray lock of jet hair behind Dicktoria’s ear. “I fought a king for you.”

Dicktoria had no words. Dicktoria’s fingers closed around the collapsed poleaxe. Her face folded before she could stop it. Violence stood up, turned and walked away, this time stopping for the arms of her honeybaes.

“And I’m going to win.”