There are innumerable benefits to being this well prepared. Planning and forethought is exactly what gets us the positions of power we deserve. For instance, planning to have a complicated surveillance system in all of our main properties linking up to a central security center run by our agent in charge of Intelligence - that enabled us to quickly find the storage depot that Sagacity was using to prepare his "little project." Also having previously filled the storage depot with hiding spots and false containers in case of "unpleasant meetings" was just icing on the cake.

And right now, Anya was enclosed in one of those false containers with some equipment and plan.  From inside I could hear her whimper, "I don't like it!"

I leaned on the wood container, "You hate the gun more than you hate the undead?" Hesitated whines gave me an idea of her indecision as to which she hated more. "I'll tell you what. You do this for me, and you can have me as a servant for a full day. Whatever it is you want, I'll do it for a day." The stock silence left me imagining what sort of elated face she was making.

I walked towards the center of the warehouse, looking around at what had been set up. On the floor was a scarlet pentagram with burning candles - your standard evil power setup. It spanned at least thirty feet, and had a wide variety of arcane and mundane items strewn around the edges. Hanging up in the rafters of the warehouse was a massive something covered by a huge black drape. I knew what it was, and put on my mirrored sunglasses. This brought the dark warehouse to an almost pitch black, with the exception of the candles on the circle.

Just in time, R and his friend showed up. They seemed to materialize out of thin air. Just as they saw me, they hurriedly tucked their magic talismans back into their shirts. I stood with my hands behind my back in a very authoritative pose. "You don't have to hide those from me, I know what they are and how you've been using them."

I could hear more and more people phasing into the warehouse. There had to be a crowd in the warehouse at the end of a few minutes. And ever so predictably, a black puddle welled up in the ground and out arose Sagacity himself. "Welcome, human, to your very own "going away" party. As you can see, I have invited all of your defected humans to share in the revelries."

I smiled, "And for that I thank you. It would have been a lot of work to have to sort through my member base for those of questionable loyalty."

Sagacity grinned, "Impudent to the last. A noble, but futile gesture." Sagacity pointed to a certain wooden container, "Even your ace in the hole is squatting in an very transparent hiding place. You are pathetic, human."

I returned the evil grin, "Do you know what I like most about you, Sagacity? Your complete lack of imagination and forethought. Keep it up."

Sagacity sneered, "While we're on the subject of forethought....." Sagacity waved, and the sound of several dozen guns being drawn and cocked filled the warehouse, "Perhaps you would like to know what this is?" The black drape in the rafters waved as if a giant hand had grabbed it and shook it.
Sagacity grinned cruelly, "It is the next best thing to a full moon - a Lunarstone. All lycanthropes that gaze upon it abandon control and become the instinct-driven savages that they are. Your sunglasses are about as useless to you as cloth is to preventing bullet wounds."

I adjusted my sunglasses with my middle finger, "My sunglasses are not for protecting my eyes. They're for you."

The demon lord seemed unfazed, "I'm going to relish this moment, Seven. For when this curtain comes down, you will be helpless to my Lunarstone, and your own defective minions will shoot you down in a hail of Tungsten. I am already in a quandary as to where in my realm I will place your stuffed body."

I shook my head, "Gloating is a sign of insecurity. Let me guess, you couldn't convert people over to your way of planning a New World Order, so you're just going to summon more undead to simply mow down the military might of Earth instead?"

His silent seething was more than a confirmation for me. "Humans! I want you to shoot Seven to injure him. I want him screaming and begging me for death!"

With a whoosh, the black drape flew off into the darkness. Forget gazing upon it, I could feel the pull of that Lunarstone. Much to my amusement, there was consternation among my ex-members. Murmurs of "He's not changing!" "It's not working!" "What are we gonna do?" ran through the crowd, bringing an even larger smile to my face.

I could feel Sagacity's rage at my resistance. Another three drapes were flung into the darkness, and the three other Lunarstones I saw hidden in the depot. Their combined force was absolutely incredible. I could feel every tendon, muscle and ligament twitch and squirm. If I wasn't facing death, it would have felt so good to let go. But as long as not a single patch of fur was showing, I was still winning. By now, the whole crowd was silent.

I grinned my best evil grin. "Sagacity, that's the problem with your old school of magic. The sunglasses are on my face to prevent you from seeing that my eyes have been closed since everyone pulled a gun on me. The Lunarstone only works if I GAZE UPON IT."

I could practically hear Sagacity bursting a capillary in his head. "Shoot him. Shoot him now."

I snapped my fingers. "And here is where your plans fall apart."



Neuroticfish - Gelb - Waving Hands

7

sitting up all night, listening to the monsters in my head

R stared at Sagacity in his with his predictable scared and confused face. Next time I hire a minion like him, I'm going to have to be a little more discerning as far as intelligence and creativity goes.

Almost verbatim as I predicted, he quivered, "Wh-wha-what do you mean they're BOTH monsters?"

The inky blackness that pooled around Sagacity on the floor started to spread out towards R. The four men backed up quickly, staring fearfully at the blackness. The pooling stopped growing, and what looked like a video feed was playing inside the pool. What was showing was apparently a very feral male werewolf that had just cornered some poor human in a dark alley. What followed was a scene of unbelievable carnage.

"Behold," Sagacity waved towards the pool, "Your Seven, doing his part in population control."

R and his posse stood frozen with horror. One of the sub-contracted men pointed, "He just tore that guy in half - lengthwise!" One of the other men became sick.

Anya squeezed me tight, "Awwwwww. If it's any consolation, you look like a complete stud. You make me feel hot and weak when you're so savage. Mmmmm!"

I scratched her ears, "I don't even remember that night. That's not usually something I like to have happen to me."

Anya nuzzled closer for more ear scratching, "Full moon, dearie. Neither of us have a choice. Since you weren't born a werewolf, you won't remember those nights."

On the laptop screen, the black pool evaporated. Sagacity crossed his pitch-black arms; the only indication as to where they ended were his silver claws. "He only looks human. The difference between him and his mate is that she is a born werewolf who revels in her own savagery, and he denies and represses his own lycanthropy that was given to him by her. In any case, the answer is obvious. We go forward with our plan when the moon is full. When he is consumed with blood and flesh lust, his planning abilities will be for naught, and our army will overcome both his and his mate's might. The victory will be unmistakably clean."

R was still not convinced. "But they're immune to bullets! They don't even look like a tank would stop them!" One of the men R sub-recruited pipped up, "Hey, aren't they werewolves? How about silver bullets?"

Sagacity waved, and guns appeared in the men's hands. "You will use these. Seven's mate is a genetically altered werewolf, and now, so is he. They are no longer vulnerable to silver. Fortunately, I know their weakness. It was rather ironic for Seven to choose the metal Wolfram as an fatal element to the new werewolves' existence."

R and the group looked confused. Sagacity glared, "I suppose to you, the metal would be known as Tungsten. You don't even have to be completely accurate. If you even so much as graze them with the bullets, they will become violently ill. While they are writhing in agony on the floor, you can take the time to properly kill them. Understand?"

Anya gasped, "Is...is that true?"

I stared grimly at the laptop. "Yes, yes it is."

I smacked her thigh and stood up, "Okay girl, up with you." Anya pouted, "Awwwww."

"Listen, we're not alone." That got her attention, "There's someone still here, and I need you to have your eyes and ears open. We're about to have company."

Anya looked around wildly, "How do you know? I would have been able to smell them, or hear their breathing."

"There were only three pairs out of four that left the building. And I'm fairly certain that the breathing has stopped."

I opened up the mic on the laptop, "Okay, Sagacity. You really should reconsider your ability to perform a hostile takeover. You clearly didn't take into account my inescapable surveillance network."

R and his friends panicked and pointed their guns in every direction. Sagacity grinned a mouthful of silver incisors, "Human, count your seconds. You don't have many left." Dark bolts of energy lashed out and the screen went black.

I closed the laptop and pulled out my Smith & Wesson. "Okay! Look around! It'll be coming for us now!"

We didn't have to wait, or for that matter, worry about sneak attacks. What once was a well-trained sniper now had the subtlety of panicked elephant. He rose from behind his cover in the darkness and floated gracefully towards us, glowing hot with unholy fire.

His skin was torn as if he had killed himself with his own fingers. Fire poured out of the slash wounds, making his body look like a burning map of trenches in no-man's-land. His chest cavity was torn open, revealing a hole where his heart used to be, and morbidly swollen burning lungs.

"ANYA! KILL!"

She was halfway to him before I finished the word, "kill." The undead creature was very quick to react. Both lungs swelled, and then exploded in a colossal gout of flame. I had seen this coming and leapt off to the side, as the column of fire consumed the area were we both sitting a minute ago. The undead continued to pour out unholy fire without end, until Anya's clawed hand rose up out of the fire and grabbed its head.

I don't even know why I bothered to aim my revolver at it. By the time I got up she had already torn the thing into blazing pieces and scattered them as far as she could throw. I holstered the gun and walked over, where what remained of the body begun to melt into poisonous green goo. Anya leapt up and squeezed me in a fit of hysterics.

"I DON'T LIKE! THAT WAS DISGUSTING!!! I DON'T LIKE!!!" I patted her on the back, "I'm just guessing - that was your first undead creature you've had to kill?" I patted her some more as she started dry heaving.

"I DON'T WANT TO TOUCH THOSE! THOSE WERE....HORRIBLE!!"

I lead her away from the warehouse and the mess inside. "Don't you worry. I always have a plan."



Long-view - Mercury - Further
 
7

spoon

Anya held me close as she relished her trade. I got her to calm down in time for the laptop to show us our four little problem-makers entering our logistical safehouse. "Remind me to thank Mr. Fisk and Miss Kristin for their surveillance network. I don't know how they found cameras with such good video capture for their tiny size."

I chose the top-right camera out of the lot, as it had the best view. Everything was as it should be. The superfluous crates hiding the safes, the hidden doors, it was all there. At least they haven't been too out of line. But what concerned me was......

Anya pointed at the screen, "Hey! They're....they're already there!"

I smiled, "He does drive recklessly, but no car can get across town that fast. Getting more interesting by the minute, mmmm?"

We both watched as the four of them stood around the center of the safehouse. They were clearly waiting for something. Just as Anya was about to get bored, an inky blackness started pooling on the floor in front of R and his group. Slowly, a dark-skinned creature arose out of the inky blackness. It had the head of a jackal, with glowing, golden, iris-less eyes. It wore the blackness like a cloak obscuring every part of it from the neck down.

R and his posse greeted it with a mixed chorus of "We serve only you, Sagacity."

Anya poked me, "Know him?"

"Nope. Newcomer. Shhh."

Sagacity spoke with an eerie, echoing voice. "Humans. I trust that you are making progress on our little project?"

R stepped forward, "Oh yeah, master. We even got all the stuff ahead of schedule, but....I think that Seven....might be suspicious."

The creature imitated human exasperation by smacking his head with a black, silver-clawed hand. "If it were not for my infinite patience, I would have killed the lot of you a long time ago. You would not have gotten this break from any other demon lord. OF COURSE he knows. He, and his entire inner circle know about you. What they don't know, is me."

Anya squeezed my ribcage excitedly, "Not anymoooorrre."

R stepped back, "I think he knows even more. I mean, he brought out one of his pet monsters this time....He never does that. How are we going to deal with him now?!"

Sagacity seemed to glide over until he was face to face with R. Surprisingly, for a demon lord, he wasn't that huge of a stature - R was maybe an inch taller and a few inches broader. "This is why I'm your master. You're just lucky that I have room in my expanding empire for idiot humans like yourself. THEY ARE BOTH MONSTERS. You just don't have the observation skills necessary to have come to that conclusion yourself."


Paradoxx - Atomika - Atomika

7

go into the corner and think about what you've done

"Alrighty R, and....posse." Apparently, R has done some sub-recruiting. After my eyes had adjusted to the dark conditions, I could see another the outlines of what I presumed were three more men standing a few feet behind were R was sitting. This is an allowed function of a minion of his rank, I just wished he wouldn't go recruiting more people that look like him.

"I need you to perform some conversions. Item one: There's a biker clan that is really a front for a Republican political manipulator. They claim to be part of the Hell's Angels, but they're not really. Whenever this "head" wants something on the political landscape changed, damage happens, people get emotional, votes change. This boob needs to be in our pocket. You are being given half a million dollars in grease money and the instructions to link him up with my Overseer of Criminal Affairs. That will start him down the right path."

I don't know if R is aware of this, but he always looks like he's trying to think. "After that, Item two....."

At that moment, two lean, feminine arms reached out and grabbed my hands. The red nail polish sparkled briefly in the light before drawing back my hands. R could only sit there looking mildly stunned. I waited a second before my hands were thoroughly gripped and held up in the light.

"Item two....," she held up my two fingers on my right hand, "Is the part where you must successfully infiltrate this police district, and slide one and half million in more grease money to the officers." My hands slapped up against my face and rubbed up and down.

"We don't need anything fancy, we just need the police to lay off the fake Hell's Angels. This will help lessen the media impact of...." my right pointer finger went into my ear, and my left pointer went straight up my nose. "This will keep the media off of our newly acquired...." My right pointer went up my other nostril. "Our newly acquired pawn. We need a quieter, more organized atmosphere in the area, and this should do the trick."

R stared as my hands continued to abuse my face. He kept trying to see who it was behind me without avail, but the red nail polish gave him a hint. "Why are you letting a chick do that to you?"

My fingers started "walking" across the table. "Because she is a lot stronger than I am." I could barely hear the R's posse snickering in the background.

"Gentlemen, allow me to introduce she who will happen unto you if you fail." She was having my left hand "thumbing" backwards towards herself when I sprung into action. Catching her by surprise, I used my left hand to pull out the Smith & Wesson 500Mag from my shirt, pressed it against her right arm, and shot her. R and his friends were notably shaken by the loud bang and smoke. Much to her credit, I didn't even feel her flinch.

I put down the gun, removed the smoking hot squashed slug from her arm, and threw it at R. He caught it and threw it away like it was a live rattlesnake. I felt muscles and fur growing underneath me. The look on R's face was priceless. Even if my eyes had suddenly failed me then, I could already smell the pungent aroma of freshly soiled pants coming from his direction.  Just by following R's terrified stare looking over my head, I knew there were a pair of glowing yellow eyes hovering above me with a very well polished set of meat-rending teeth grinning out of the darkness.

"Just a little reminder that we're not playing a game. Serve me well, and your rewards will be never-ending. Fail, and she gets an hour to kill you in any way she pleases."

R and his friends hastily stumbled over each other in a mad attempt to get out. Anya's arms wrapped around me in a loving embrace. I felt where I had shot her - not even her whitish fur was singed, "Are you alright?"

Her toothy muzzle came over my right shoulder and nuzzled me, "Of course. I just wish you didn't have such a noisy gun."

I nuzzled her back and put the gun back in my shirt holster. "I needed that bang to overwhelm their ears. That way, they couldn't possibly hear Mr. Fisk's sharpshooters hitting them with the tracking bugs. Thanks guys!"

In the darkness, I could hear three pairs of footsteps quietly exit.

"Now, if you could please hand me my laptop?"

She reached down, and and sat up again. No laptop. She stuck her head over my right shoulder, "Trade yoooouuuuu....."

I'm still trying to get used to it. One full kiss on the lips and I had my laptop.




Cause & Effect - Another Minute - Another Minute

7

there's a hand sticking out of the ground

Even in these settings that would normally comfort me, one always gets a tight feeling in the stomach when they know they're about to set things in motion.

It's about midnight, and I'm in the center of a darkened and empty warehouse, sitting on one side of a small black-laquer table, with an LED-lightbulb dangling fifty feet down from the ceiling onto the table. The high-set windows of the warehouse have been shuttered closed, and I had chosen the LED-lightbulb specifically: they cast about a quarter of the light of an incandescent, and they produce almost no heat and a cool white light.

On the other side of the table was the one of my "underground" minions, "R." We dispensed with the concept of true names for agents, and reassigned them all new codes. This group got single letters for names. I felt it very appropriate because of my initial feeling of their length of employment. For several months, my feelings were vindicated, as my Department Head of Intelligence reported that they were taking different means and ways to get their tasks done. A "scenic" route there, a "stop" there, a message delivered in not quite the way I wanted it - little things like this that have accumulated into a pile of evidence I really didn't want to face.

I stared at R, probably cutting an imposing figure. Sure, I'm 5'7". But in the light cast, R could probably only see half of my face, slivers of the top of my shirt, and my arms out on the table. In certain angles, my glasses threw blinding light directly into his eyes.

R was a street thug of who-knows origins, with just as questionable parentage. I suppose I picked him because most of the public wouldn't notice him - they'd pass him up like the bum he looks like.  However, as my Department Head of Intelligence is rarely if EVER wrong, he's becoming a little more than just a street thug. And that doesn't sit well with me.



Glis - Balance - Discontent

7

you can't catch paint