Aleric, hunchbacked and scruffy as always, perused the aisles of Bargain Basement. He pushed a cart in front of him. His greatcoat flared behind him. Occasionally other shoppers were looking too, and he politely avoided them, looking elsewhere so as not to appear confrontational. He was going down the used shirt aisle, just seeing what was there. Small, Medium, Large, XL ... plain, striped, faded, yeah yeah yeah.
But then, there it was. A Hawaiian shirt that seemed to jump off the rack. Black background mixed with ... purple? .. striated with deep green palm leaves streaked with white sunlight, punctuated by red blossoms exploding off the fabric. The pocket had been sown carefully from the same pattern such that the pattern continued uninterrupted across the seams. Bloody hell yes. What art allowed such a fabric to actually exist?
But a hand took it. A tall, fussy looking man in a suit. Somehow tastefully wearing a different bright Hawaiian shirt underneath. Standing ramrod straight, head held high, carrying a cane. And he was wearing ... a monacle? In Bargain Basement? A villain if he'd ever seen one. The fussy man laid the shirt across his arm. Aleric forced himself not to stare, but continued watching out the corner of his eye.
The fussy man laid The Shirt across the rack and picked out another shirt ... long sleeved, white, frilled ... and held it up. He adjusted his monacle to examine it.
Aleric nabbed The Shirt, putting it across his cart, and nonchalantly ambled towards the checkout. He looked intently at the hoodies on the next rack over, to show how completely innocently he was behaving. He considered whistling, but felt that would be too much.
The Shirt flashed off his cart, and was held again by the Fussy Man. He was staring at Aleric now, openly. "Sir!" he said. "I had selected that shirt!"
"It was on the rack," said Aleric. Aleric reached for it, but the Fussy Man held it away, standing even straighter.
Aleric frowned, pulling back into himself, and growled deeply. He flexed his arms. With lightning reflexes he snatched the shirt back.
Yet he hadn't. The Fussy Man had somehow snatched back his snatch.
Aleric threw back his coat and pulled out a sword. The Fussy Man pulled a rapier from his cane. In a blur, the two met, parried, spun, countered. The clash of their swords filled the store. Others watched, alarmed.
As Aleric called on his power, a white aura surrounded him. The Fussy Man grew angry, and his own black aura crackled. The fluorescent lights flickered. Aleric swung, but the Fussy Man dodged. The Fussy Man laughed, a high cackling laugh. "You dare oppose ME?" He thrust forward, a killing blow.
But as the rapier sliced through where Aleric ought to have been, Aleric dissolved into a swarm of bees. The buzzing cloud engulfed the Fussy Man.
The Fussy Man too dissolved into a cloud of smoke, billowing, black and purple.
Power and lightning throbbed in the air as bees and smoke battled. The air tasted of storm. Garments flapped in the wind as the tremendous forces battled each other. The cloud of conflict strengthened and expanded, with lightning bolts reaching as far as Women's Shoes. The Shirt was swept up in the maelstrom, pulled in and out, disappearing from view then appearing again.
Aleric and the Fussy Man resolidified, auras of white versus black, throbbing power, with The Shirt held taut between them. Stretched between the two titans. Glowing in a field of light.
The shirt ripped.
Both auras promptly winked out. The sound of the rip echoed through the now deadly silent Bargain Basement. The fluorescent lights blipped on again. A few multicolored threads of fabric floated through the air, falling to the floor. What had been The Shirt was now two ripped pieces of fabric, beautiful fabric true, but now of no use to anyone. Half was held by Aleric, half by the Fussy Man. What had been a work of beauty, was no more. Aleric and the Fussy Man stared in horror at what they had done.
A store employee came over and looked at the half held by Aleric, which had the price tag. "That was $7.99. You'll have to pay for that, let's see that's $3.99 each, damaged merchandise."
"Yes. Yes of course." said Aleric.
The Fussy Man blew his nose, loudly, on his half. "You sure you don't want $4.00 each?" he asked. He removed his monacle and wiped away a tear.
"That's OK," said the employee. "Don't worry about the extra cent."
They all ambled over to the cash registers. "Come," said Aleric to the Fussy Man. "I'll treat you to lunch. Least I can do. You can tell me about your Hawaiian shirt collection."
"Such a loss," said the Fussy Man.
Aleric and the Fussy Man both laid down their cash, then went out together. The employee counted the coins and bills. Each of them had surreptitiously left a $100 bill as their last bill rather than a $1. He looked up, but the two were no longer to be seen.
This was in response to a prompt on reddit.com r/WritingPrompts