Katpride
Story Collector
On a quiet street in downtown Pittsburgh, deep in the heart of the shopping district, there lies an unassuming store. Above the doors to the store, as with all of the other shops around it, there is a sign. “Dual Flame Outfitters,” the sign proclaims, clarifying in smaller text, “Handcrafted Weapons & Apparel.” As if to emphasize this point, a smaller sign hangs down beneath it, depicting a sewing needle and a hammer crossed in front of a flame.
The inside is comfortable, with wooden floors, high ceilings, and a couple of skylights set with stained glass that cast multicolored light across the contents of the store. Half of the large room is lined with colorful clothing and accessories, the other half with glinting weaponry. The two seem to mix in some areas, with chainmail accessories arrayed beside colorful weapon wraps and small wooden sculptures in bins by the counter.
Behind the counter sits an old woman, one of the proprietors of the store, humming to herself as she sews, knits, or crochets in the pauses between helping customers. From somewhere behind her, beyond the half door and curtain demarcating the employees only area, the faint ringing of a hammer against metal emerges, keeping time like an unorthodox clock.
The store itself seems normal enough, if a bit eccentric in its offerings. The woman tending the counter certainly seems to treat customers with the cheerful hospitality of any shopkeep. But there are whispers of a different side to the store. Rumors about how the light stays on long past dark, after the other shops on the lane have locked their doors and turned their cameras inwards. Rumors about cloaked figures, masked figures, people with strange silhouettes coming and going at odd hours.
The Seamstress does her best to fuel these rumors, saving pages in her sketchbook and room in her schedule for any metahumans who may require a more specialized outfit. She does love to see her designs out on the streets, be that fighting crime, causing it, or simply existing. And she’s well aware that the Blacksmith enjoys plying the new generation of combatants with blades and blunt objects, when she can be pried from her forge.
Alas, attitudes towards metahumans change with the tides of popular opinion, and so the rumors remain relatively quiet. For now. But with any luck, they’ll reach the right ears. The proprietors of Dual Flame are always willing to strike a deal with a young meta who needs equipment. They may even offer heavy discounts, for the assistance of young bodies in carrying reams of fabric or metal ingots. Neither of them are quite as young as they once were, and days and nights spent behind masks are long behind them.
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