Big Mike wasn’t quite sure what the hell was going on.

But he knew one thing for sure.

There is something up with Greg.

At first, he could pass it off as weird fashion choices. Perhaps his change of hair colour was due to a shoddy attempt to dye it. Perhaps his weird eyes that changed colour and seemed to have rings of multi-coloured light, orbiting the pupils were some sort of new contacts.

However, no matter how he thought about it, Greg selling the most weapons and armour in the first week of sales made no sense.

On the one hand, there was Greg. A certified slacker

On the other hand, there were sales numbers. Twice that of anyone else.

Something didn’t add up.

Big Mike suspected foul play. And he would be damned if an idiot like Greg fudged the numbers on his watch.

Thus, he set into action his 3-part plan.

Observe the target, aka, Greg.

Tempt the target.

Catch the target.

As well as the optional Kill the target, although Big Mike hadn’t quite figured out how to pull this one off yet.

So, he put plan OTC into place.

Big Mike stuck his head out of his cramped little office, checking that there was nobody in the storeroom at the moment.

When he was sure the coast was clear, he got up from the thoroughly worn-out chair he had been refusing to replace for the last 5 years.

The chair groaned in protest, and he froze. Sticking his head up like a meerkat to check that nobody had heard anything.

Sighing in relief, Big Mike swept back his flimsy combover that did little to hide his retreating hairline and tiptoed across the storeroom's grimy floor.

He paused at his first obstacle. The breakroom.

This was Big Mike’s least favourite place in the world. Aside from charities.

Just the idea of it irked him. Why would people need a place to not work at work? It made sense.

And yet, when he tried to remove it altogether, he got reported for a ‘Treating his Workers Inhumanely,’

‘Bunch of pansies,’ Big Mike cursed internally.

He could hear muffled chatter from the break room. Clearly, someone was inside. Judging from the chatter, it was probably Shawn.

‘That kid is always on his phone,’ Big Mike grumbled to himself.

Phones were another thing he had unsuccessfully tried to ban. His original plan had been to remove the pockets from their uniforms so that nobody could carry one with them to distract them from working.

But when an elderly worker had a cardiac arrest, and nobody could call an ambulance because all their phones were locked in the breakroom. Who did they blame?

Him.

Despite being annoyed at the person who was slacking off, Big Mike was inherently nosy. He loved gossip because, on a good day it could be interesting and on a really good day, he could use it as blackmail.

Leaning closer to the breakroom door, Big Mike listened intently to what Shawn was saying on the phone.

The words came out through the door in muffled whispers but, he could hear them well enough. Especially due to the excitement in Shawn’s voice.

“Yeah! No, I’m serious… Look Mum why are you so worried it’s only ether abilities… Yeah, I know lots of hunters die every day but think of how much… No… Look, I may not know how to fight but I can go take a judo course or something…”

‘From the sounds of it, Shawn has awakened his powers,’ Big Mike thought this was strange.

Not because it was strange for Shawn to awaken his abilities. He was only 19 and it made sense for him to awaken sooner or later.

But he was the second person this week to awaken powers who worked here.

Big Mike peeked into the breakroom and saw Shawn standing beside that stupid blackboard.

Every time he saw what name was currently winning, he had to grit his teeth to stop from shouting in anger.

‘There’s no way I’m calling the shop ‘Armour… etc’ he swore to himself.

Even when Paul and Simon had put up the new sign, christening the shop as Armour… Etc. Big Mike still refused to accept it as reality.

Suddenly, realisation hit him.

“What the hell am I doing?” Big Mike cursed, this time aloud.

The first part of Plan OTC is to observe the target.

Big Mike had planned on sneaking downstairs and watching Greg work from the shadows like some sort of stalker.

How had he forgotten how much more convenient stalking… I mean observing Greg from the surveillance cameras would be?

Big Mike stood up from where he was crouched beside the breakroom door, his knee clicking uncomfortably.

He dusted himself off and hammered one bony fist on the breakroom door.

Inside, Shawn yelped, and Big Mike heard the clatter of what he hoped was the boy's phone smashing on the ground.

“Get back to work!” He yelled, striding towards his office at breakneck speeds.

“But I’m on my break!” Shawn yelled back, equal parts confused and infuriated.

Big Mike clicked his tongue in annoyance and slammed the door of his office behind him.

Big Mike’s office was in fact, a broom closet. When the shop was being built, he had been too stingy to put it in actual office.

And thus, the brooms had no place to stay, and Big Mike had no lightbulb in his office. That was why he had to always keep the door open. Otherwise, he would be sitting in absolute darkness.

The only light in the little broom cupboard/office was the blue glow from the 4 bulky TVs that cast strange shadows on Big Mike’s angular face.

He stared intently at the tv in the top right corner, where he could just make out the grainy image of a man with stupid hair and weird eyes slouching in front of the till.

That man was of course Greg and when Big Mike realised that Greg was slouched over his phone instead of doing his job, he ground his teeth in frustration.

He brought out a crumpled notebook and flipped through to a page with a particularly large amount of writing on it.

At the top of the page, was Greg’s name, followed by a comprehensive list that documented every time he had done something that annoyed Big Mike.

First on the list was his own name

Big Mike – He gave me that nickname.

This was particularly annoying, as recently; Big Mike had taken to referring to himself as Big Mike.

He had forgotten his own name!

Just the thought of it made him want to put his fist through the monitor.

Taking a deep breath, he went down and added a tick beside

‘On the phone when at work.’ On his list of Greg’s offences.

Turning his attention from the battered notebook, Big Mike watched intently as a woman approached Greg.

She was wearing leather armour that was quite badly damaged.

At a glance, Big Mike could tell that this was the perfect customer. And it took him all his willpower to not run downstairs and stop Greg from messing up an easy sale.

Clenching his fist tightly, Big Mike watched in silence as the woman started speaking to Greg.

Since the TVs had no sound, he could only try and figure out what was being said through context.

The woman gestured towards her damaged armour and then pointed to the back wall of the shop where numerous brand-new sets of armour were hung up.

Clearly, she wanted to replace her broken set with a new one.

Greg nodded and shrugged.

“What the Fuck is that!” Big Mike yelped, his chair creaking violently as he leaned closer to the monitor.

He watched in awe as Greg gestured vaguely towards the back wall and the woman smiled and thanked him.

Then, even more dumbfounded, Big Mike watched the woman walk up to the wall and pick up a piece of armour seemingly at random.

She brought it to Greg, who smiled and nodded as she handed him her money.

Big Mike was lost for words.

How was it that easy? He was certain it couldn’t be that easy.

What annoyed him, even more, was that Greg went straight back to hunching over the till on his phone.

Big Mike’s eyebrows were the same pale blonde colour as his hair, making them almost impossible to see under any normal circumstances.

But these were no normal circumstances. He was currently frowning so intensely that they had practically joined together into one, big, furrowed brow.