Blake felt that went rather well, they did say they would be in touch right? Now all he had to do was deal with that pesky rebellion, tidy up the city, and get an acceptance letter and they were set.

Unfortunately his colleagues, many of whom had been at one point in time or another placed in charge of such interviews knew differently, and even abandoned their usual expressionlessness long enough to glare at him. They were counting down now before the inevitable happened, and sure enough, right on cue a letter manifested.

Blake gulped, and nervously opened it.

Dear Sir,

I write this letter to thank you for showing interest in working with us. Unfortunately, your proposal was rejected by our board of directors.

A keen look at our terms and conditions established that the contract may not be economical for our company, as you are no doubt aware the specific role you and your fellow citizens applied for “underling” has a high applicant number. As such and due to the low qualification requirements for this role requires a streamlined and straightforward recruiting process, because of this management feels that undertaking this venture with your staff we may incur losses.

You are of course welcome to reapply at the next available opportunity, (at the time of writing 499 years 363 days 23 hours 59 minutes, and 22 seconds into the future.)

We wish the best in your business and hope that we will work together in the future.

If you need any clarification, please contact my office for details.

Once more we thank you for expressing interest to work with us.

Sincerely,

IxIx The Fathomable

Director of recruiting, Realm Of Order LTD, on behalf of The Duly Elected Administrators Of Order.

Blake felt his heart sink, he had to figure out a way to reapply, but that interview was far too long into the future, and violating the laws of life and death felt like such a chaotic thing to do.

On the subject of chaotic things, why were his subordinates drawing their ritual letter openers?........... OH dear, Brutus as well? He should have put running in the schedule. But in an emergency such as this, he made an exception, and legged it.

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Mibbet looked up at the sky, OK so where had the dreaded portal gone? That was a good sign wasn’t it? She gave a whistle for Alba, who quickly joined her, hopping on and readying Choppy they headed off in the direction of the most noise, she had no doubt she would find Elvira there.

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Sure enough Elvira was there, and had apparently somehow with the other kids figured out it was indeed possible to string a weird cultist in a grey suit up by their tighty greyies on a flagpole. The other much beleaguered cultists of order were somewhat distracted by all this colour. (In particular given how much of it was on their not very expensive suits.) They seemed to be having difficulty processing that the very essence of order itself had rejected them, but looking around it was hard to see how it could have gone any other way. A few of the kids had somehow acquired marshmallows and sticks, and were in the process of toasting them on the still burning ruins of an extremely excessive selection of administration offices. (Don’t worry folks the staff all got out safely, practically the only good thing Blake had managed to pull off since taking over the city was proper arrangement and adherence to every single fire safety regulation. Well even a broken clock is right twice a day isn’t it?)

Others had apparently been given rare, and privileged access to Elvira’s secret stash of googly eyes, and a bunch of pens, so before too long every single paint splat in the city would be giving people a goofy stare.

Errol sat nearby watching all this, he had no idea what the hell he had just witnessed, but he was totally looking forward to telling his little sisters as soon as they were done here. They really would not believe all this, it would be the ultimate kid bragging right. “We made our place so messy the council of order ran away rather than trying to sort it out.” Was the kind of incident that went down in legend.

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IxIx couldn’t help but sigh as she thought back on what she had just seen, she’d seen it before of course.

Some cheeky young brat decides that they have to prove themselves before the interview, and try for total control. Only to have things fall apart, because lackeys and underlings are hard to control. She pondered for a moment, before manifesting a cup of the bean juice the mortals were screaming about.

She took a sip, and the realm of order was introduced to the wonders of caffeine.

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Blake had made it out of town at last, he’d tried to get several followers to smuggle him out, that had not gone over well. Apparently when you train people to grass each other up it is very important that you specify this should not include you.

It had taken him the best part of three hours just to lose them, and another two after that to figure out a way to sneak out. (Hanging on under s refuse disposal wagon was hardly ideal, or pleasant, but if it kept him alive he was more than happy to do it.)

But now he was so far behind schedule, pulling out his pocketbook he began to plan. Writing down “comeback” in his schedule for a few weeks time, only to have something sharp hit the page, and a red stain spread across the page. It was INK. The Ledretter Executive Edition pen was embedded in the page, it had to be them. But it couldn’t be surely they were only a legend.

A man in an immaculately pressed suit emerged from the trees, and the last thing Blake saw was a Ledretter Executive Edition, out to deliver his final grade.