***Paul***

Carl gave him a pained look as he struggled to pull the cart up the minor slope leading to the hideout of the Iron Legion, A gang that distributed for the Gonzales family. Paul couldn’t see his face, but the look in his eyes screamed ‘why do I have to pull the damn cart?’

“Because Ragnar stands out too much.” Paul said, his voice muffled through the wool mask drawn over his face. Carl continued to pout, putting his substantial weight into the bar.

Finally they arrived at the shifty tavern, where the core members of the legion relaxed with their entertainment.

Paul got a strange look from the doorguard, who fingered his blade as he approached. The mask was a dead giveaway that he intended something nefarious. Problem was, all kinds of nefarious activities happened here on a daily basis, so what was one more to this man?

“Stop here,” Paul said, kicking the cart’s breaks into gear and hauling the top off, revealing three tightly bound young men with hoods over their heads, cutting off their vision completely.

They began to thrash as he and Carl grabbed them by their arms and roughly hauled them out of the cart.

“Be still,” Paul growled, delivering a light blow to their heads to knock some sense into them. They continued pulling them out and lining them up in front of the Inn, gradually gaining an audience.

“Delivery for Erena Speakers.” Paul spoke to the door guard, holding two of the men while Carl kept the third in line.

“Take ‘em off.” The man gruffly said, motioning to them. Whether he was talking about Paul’s mask or the men’s hoods, it didn’t really matter; Paul wasn’t taking them off.

“Oh, you want people to know who just got dragged in here? Your funeral, I guess,” Paul said, putting his hand on top of the hood.

“Hold up.” The grizzled door glanced around at their audience, then motioned for them to follow him. “Come.”

He guided the five men through the boisterous tavern to the back room, where six large men were playing a game of dice while their boss sat in the corner, literally snorting coke off a hooker’s genitals.

The only odd bit to Paul’s eyes was that the hooker was a man, sweating profusely as the opulently dressed woman used a sharp blade to arrange the line of white powder on his rather impressive erection. She made sure everything was nice and straight before closing a single nostril with a delicately painted fingernail and inhaling vigorously, all the way to the tip. she groaned and wrinkled her nose as she glanced back up at Paul.

Erena Speakers was a dropout from the dwindling Speakers family, who had severed ties with her former house and turned to a life of crime. She’d been somewhat successful, too, forming a gang and allying herself with the underbelly of the Gonzales family.

She was rather lovely, her slim arms, skinny waist and innocent features belying the sadistic bitch hidden below the surface. As a noble, her endurance made her body tough enough to only show a trace of her drug habit, and her strength was such that she could rule the gang with the threat of violence.

Not a nice lady.

“What do you want?” she asked, eyes narrowed as the guard showed them through the door. The six thugs in the corner perked up, grabbing their shortswords that were leaning up against the table.

“I came across something valuable on my travels,” Paul said, “Too hot for me, thought I could resell.”

“Take off the stupid masks.” She said.

Paul shrugged and took off the mask, Carl following suit close behind. It was beside the point now.

“I know your face…” she said, tapping her cheek and shoving the naked man away from her. “You’re a cop. A detective, right?”

At her words, a few of the men unsheathed their swords, glaring at him angrily.

“What makes you think you’re gonna leave here alive?”

“Captain now, actually,” Paul said, putting his hand on the first hood. “And I’m glad you’ve got such a good memory for faces. Maybe you can tell me who this is?”

Paul ripped the hood off of Jim Evans, the son of Erena’s direct competitor, the leader of the Sixth Street Demons.

Erena’s eyes went wide.

“Why give yourself a pain in the ass by killing a captain, when you could ransom little Jimmy here back to daddy?”

Paul smacked the back of the gagged kid’s head to punctuate his sentence. Jim Evan’s eyes went wide when he saw Erena, and he began struggling harder.

“And his merry men.” At Paul’s signal Carl took the hood off of two of the kid’s posse that they’d rounded up with him.

“You could make a tidy profit.” Paul glanced at the scarred man-slave holding the back of his head and wincing from where he’d impacted against the stone wall.

“Or, do whatever you like to them. I don’t really care as long as I get mine.”

Erena sat forward in her seat, a hungry look in her eyes as she surveyed the goods.

“I think we can do business…captain,” she said with a lovely smile.

“Don’t wear it out. Five thousand credits for the kid, one each for his friends.” Paul said gruffly.

“Seems a bit steep.” She said with a frown.

“We both know you’d make hundreds of times that much if Hugh so much as cedes a single street, so don’t try to lowball me.” Paul said.

The crime boss shrugged, the exotic griffon plumage over her shoulders bobbing as she did.

“Fine. Far be it from me to stop someone from making a terrible deal.” She said with a shrug.

“Consider it a token of goodwill. I am a new captain after all, and I know better than to not pick a side.”

“I see,” she said before turning to her men. “Keep him here.” She glanced back at Paul “I’ll be back with your seven grand.”

“Make it in coke,” Paul called after her as she fished a fancy key out of her cleavage.

“I’ve got other friends to make too.” Paul said with a shrug.

“I see, captain.” She said with a devious smile.

She turned and left the room.

Paul counted to thirty seconds, then threw little Jimmy Evans into the crowd of armed men, they started, holding their weapons up and turning his valuable hostage into a pincushion.

Before they could react, Paul leapt over the table and bludgeoned all six men in the cranium with the Sixth Street Demon’s favorite weapon: A thin iron rod.

They fell to the ground, shivering as their brains bled to death. Paul eased the crick out of his back after finishing off the poor hooker before the pitiful man could feel too much fear.

Never felt good, killing innocents.

Carl and Paul swiftly executed jimmy’s friends before Erena walked through the door, a large package of coke in her hand. Her casual smile froze on her face when she saw the destruction Carl had wrought.

The woman dropped the package, reached into her vest and pulled out a thin adamantium dagger, almost a foot and a half long. She screeched and tried to block his blow aimed at her head, but the sheer weight of Paul’s strike drove the blade of her dagger partway through her skull.

Paul didn’t stop there.

Nobles are tough.

Paul swung back, lodging the heavy iron into her face again and again, burying the blade three inches into the woman’s skull, until she was a slumped mass in the corner.

“Ah, my back,” Paul moaned as he stood up, rubbing his aching spine.

Carl grabbed the coke and tore it apart by hand, spreading it around haphazardly before brushing it off his hands onto jimmy’s outfit.

They untied the dead kids, pulled out extra masks identical to their own and slid them over the three young men’s faces. He slipped an iron bar into each of their hands, made a few extra defensive wounds on the shivering thugs, and then surveyed the damage.

“Look like a hit gone disastrously wrong to you?” Paul asked.

Carl nodded.

The Iron Legion was crippled, the Demons were sure to be thoroughly pissed. With the tiniest bit of luck they would tear each other to tiny little pieces.

Gotta clear the field before you can grow something new.

“Gonna need a hell of a shower after this,” Paul muttered, sliding the mask back over his blood covered face. Everyone who’d seen him was dead. Now he was just a member of the Demons, running away after a botched assassination.

Paul lashed out and kicked the nearby furniture, knocking down expensive pottery and glass, screaming at full volume to attract attention before he and Carl bulled out the door they had come from, lashing about themselves as Paul used his superior strength to push open a path for them to retreat.

“Where’s Jimmy?” Paul shouted. “Just keep running!” he said in a different tone, speaking for Carl, who wordlessly shouted as they sprinted through the shellshocked Iron Legion bar.

The sheer speed and ferocity of their escape prevented any major pursuit, and in a matter of minutes, they were home free, showering at Paul’s house and tossing their clothes in the furnace.

The next morning, Paul was settling in behind his new desk when an overenthusiastic young detective named Simon, a man with a weak chin and short-cropped dirty blond hair, stormed into his office and began speaking at full volume.

“Captain Tucker, congratulations on the promotion!” he shouted.

“Thanks, ki-“

“There’s been a damn messy piece of work on the south side of the city. The Iron Legion was hit hard in an attack last night. They’re going to war with the Demons!”

“Oh, really?” Paul asked, trying to keep his expression interested. “Give me details.”

“I had to call in some friends to show up in force to get access to the crime scene, but there wasn’t any bodies, just some bloodstains, broken furniture, and a whole lot of coke spread around!”

“Use your inside voice.” Paul said, wincing.

“Sir! I believe there was some kind of deal between the two gangs that went sour, and now the two of them are having at each other. Someone big must have bit it because they seem pretty rabid. If you sign off on it, I can petition the military for backup and try to put a stop to it and retrieve the bodies for further investigation.”

“You’re going to invoke martial law,” Paul asked. “for this?”

“Yes sir!”

“They aren’t going to give you the bodies, Simon, because if it truly was someone important who got murdered, they would keep a fucking lid on it. You can bet your shiny new badge that they’re already ashes.”

“But…what about finding the culprit?”

“Believe me, they’ll find who’s responsible.” Paul said, oozing with confidence. “Your job in this instance is to minimize damages. Make your presence known in civilian areas and give the gangs a friendly reminder to keep their bloodbaths restricted to the cover of darkness, in back alleys and abandoned warehouses, not where innocent bystanders can get involved. Save military involvement for a worst case scenario.”

Simon frowned, then snapped a quick salute. “Understood.” He stomped out of the office and out into the precinct.

Paul watched the loud young detective leave the room, then threw his feet up on the desk and fished the little black book out of his vest, dipping a pen in his nearby inkwell and crossing out a couple names.

Then he looked further down the list.

More names. More information.

“I hope that bastard is putting in as many hours as I am,” Paul muttered, flipping through the booklet to try and locate the next lowest hanging fruit.

***Garth***

This time I think I’ll let her get a little more sleep this time, Garth thought to himself, tapping the huge feather against the wood of his chair. They had started much earlier in the evening, after all. Doctors generally recommend less than four hours of tickling at one time.

Alicia was once again strapped in place, redfaced, topless and panting desperately with exertion. Garth hadn’t even asked her to take off her shirt. I hope this becomes a habit.

“And that, Al, is tickle torture. Whaddya think?”

“I can’t breathe.” She muttered, staring at the ceiling, her eyes wet with tears. “My stomach is on fire.”

“Yeah, that’s a common symptom.” Garth said, leaning over her to undo her restraints.

She tried to sit up, but hissed in pain as her abs refused to flex. Garth put a hand behind her shoulder and helped her get to her feet, the only contact he’d made the entire time.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Fine,” she muttered.

“Want me to make the pain go away?” Garth asked with his most innocent face.

She glanced over at the riding crop leaning against the wooden chair.

“….” She said something, too quiet for Garth to pick up.

“Huh?”

“Okay.”

“Alright, just face away for a moment, and put your hands on the bed,” Garth said, keeping his voice businesslike despite the lewd grin in his very soul.

“I’m really impressed with you,” Garth said as she hesitantly turned away and stuck her butt out toward him. “You didn’t use the safe word at all.”

“I’m not that weak. You’ve got nothing I can’t hanDLLEEEE” Alicia sank to her knees and balled her hands into fists as the crop laid a welt beneath her tight black underwear. She breathed out of clenched teeth and began shaking as the marks on her body faded away.

Nothing you can’t handle? Garth thought as he watched her shudder in ecstasy. Girl, I’m treating you with the kiddiest of kid’s gloves.

“Good job, I’ll see you here tomorrow. You’re free for the rest of the night. I’ve got business to attend to.”

“Tomorrow?”

“You don’t want to be my favorite?” Garth asked sweetly, bending the leather-bound healing crop between his hands.

Alicia’s eyes narrowed, deliberating on who was manipulating whom.

People tend to think in either/or. The truth is, obviously both of us are being manipulated. Garth thought as he waited for her answer.

“Okay,” she said, suppressing a yawn as she picked up her folded shirt off the chair behind Garth’s head and slid into it, heading to bed.

That was fun. Time to go see a lawyer about Clan Law.

Garth Daniels

Advanced Phyto-Human

Apostle of Beladia & Pala

-Strength- 45

-Endurance- 60

-Speed- 70

-Intelligence- 125

-Memory- 125

-Senses- 125

Blessings: Photosynthesis, Temperature resistance, Empowered Plant Magic, Pheremones, Hyper-fertility, Unscryable, Empowered Illusion Magic, Deceitful, Shadow Guidance

Class: Journeyman Phytolich

Skills: Mana Boost, Mana Channel, Mana Wielding, Spell Theory, Delayed Spell, Recursive Spell, Enchanting, Divine Lantern Style, Create Life, Divine Channeling

Spells: Control Plants, Design Plant, Force Armor, Forestwalk, Create Fire, Haste, Plant Growth, Teleport, Polymorph, Fly, Shrink, Summon Nature Spirit, Force Shield, Fireball, Telekinesis, Magic Jar, Heal, Illusion, Floating Eye, Scry, Stone Shape, Wall of Stone, Create Water, Warding, Charm, Clarion Call, Operant Conditioning, Bark Skin, Cleanse

Evolutions: Mana Sight, Resilient Mind, Mind palace, Memory Lane, Plant Biology, Control Weather, Racial Advancement.