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 Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2018 9:07 am
( music theme) The PI Edition
Character: Noah Jones Word Count: 1,012
Six months.
That was how long this job had taken to complete. Twenty four weeks of dry pastries and subpar coffee while he trailed some hot shot CEO around. From the looks of things, he probably voted for the orange faced shut head president based on his treatment of the women he interacted with and the lecherous way he carried himself.
All in all, Noah pegged him to be the worst kind of person, the rich elite who thought that the amount of money he had in his pockets, that he couldn’t even use in his lifetime, made him great.
He hadn’t even talked to the b*****d and he hated him already.
Most of the time, Noah loathed taking jobs like these and usually didn’t bother for a variety of reasons. The largest one was because guys like Renegade tended to hire dudes like his husband when they thought people were poking around where they shouldn’t and he knew Paulie would flip if he got into some scuffle he could’ve avoided.
But the money was too good to pass up.
It came from a big name p***k among the upper class who practically had money springing out of his sleeves and passing that up seemed kinda idiotic, especially considering the fact this was Noah’s first big job since they moved to the city.
He can’t really complain, not when he’s taking home a few grand every week for some pictures of the dirt bag and his young girlfriend.
The meetings are weird, if he had anything to say about them, because the girl looks frightened but she comes and goes as she pleases and the dude never touches her. Most they do is talk and occasionally there’s some money exchanged but he doesn’t see anything but that.
Unless the guy is a ten second shot, he can’t imagine they’re doing anything physically intimate with how she comes and goes. Something bout her gives him weird deja by vibes he can’t place but it’s not his business and outside of getting some dirt on an old rich dude a young rich dude wants to wreck, it ain’t his job,
As far as he’s concerned, when he hands over the last of the photographs and the recordings from the mics he’s planted and takes his cash, it’s all over when the job is done.
The man who’d hired him really isn’t much better than the scumbag he’s been paid to tail because while the dude doesn’t give off vibes that scream piece of s**t there’s something unsettling about the way the man barely older than himself carries himself.
How a dude like that is flourishing so young in a corporate world designed to eat the young and feed the old rich bastards is beyond him, but even Noah can tell that the man was probably raised for it and he’s damn lucky he never met the b*****d’s father.
If Chase Black gives him the shivers, he could only imagine what dear old Daddy Black might’ve been like.
.
“Y’need anything else?” He asked at the end of it, already sticking a smoke between his lips and working the shitty gas station lighter he had to pick up when he discovered he’d lost his nicer one. Stormy eyes flicked over to meet whiskey ones and he tried not to feel unnerved by the sharpness of the glint in his employer’s eyes.
“No,” Black’s voice was a firm thing and Noah knew that at the end of the day, he was damn grateful this whole thing was about to be ******** over.
Flames licked the end of his cigarette and the lighter was pocketed when he took a slow drag, blowing out the smoke away from his employer’s face before his hand was extended expectantly. “What’d this guy do to get on your s**t list?” He asked, regretting it the moment the question left his mouth.
It was none of his damned business but the weirdness of the job was something he couldn’t shake and curiosity seemed to get the better of his better judgment. Already, he could picture his husband tensing up at the idea of Noah making small talk with someone who made him nervous but the damage was done and he would either get an answer or told to mind his damn business.
Chase’s gaze was intense, in a way that made the taller man want to shirk back even if he did no such thing. It wasn’t the first time he got a stare down that could bring a weaker man to his knees, but he was no p***y and he didn’t even flinch from the weight of it. “He gets in the way of business,” the man’s raspy voice answered and Noah hummed as he took another drag, thumb flicking the butt to a** the thing before it went back in his mouth.
There were a few rebuttals floating around in his head, but Noah managed to keep them there when he nodded, fingers wrapping around the stack of money Black had placed in his hand. Carefully he opened his jacket to slide it into the pocket in the inseam, something to be stashed or deposited in the next couple of days.
“It’s always about some kind of business,” he offered, because even when thought he wouldn’t, he still did.
Black’s mouth twitched and Noah swore the b*****d was grinning or smirking-- what was the difference when it came to seedy business men anyway? And it managed to make him more uncomfortable than the weighted, intense stares and impassive face. “Pleasure doing business with you Mr. Jones.”
Noah stared at the outstretched hand for a moment before going <******** it and shaking the devil in a suit’s hand.
“I’ll be in touch,” Black told him after he’d pulled his hand back and straightened his suit.
“Sure,” Noah shot back, watching as the man made his departure.
The half smoked cigarette was dropped on the ground, the heel of his loafers putting out the glowing ashes before he too took his leave.
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Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2018 10:11 am
Character: Chase Black
Pieces in Place
Word Count: 569
Everything takes roughly six months to get into place.
The private investigator Chase has hired is a bit crass but damn good at his job and has slowly accumulated enough photographic evidence of Renegade’s dealings with the so called “terrorists”, if one was old school enough to remember that, or the gang members who have terrorized his star employee. It’s enough to take to the board, or will be once he exposes the laundering Renegade is supposedly doing .
Framing him was what took the longest in the grand scheme of the scheme. Well, keeping Levi on track enough was also a time consuming factor when it came to making sure their forgery seemed legitimate.
Levi was smart in ways that Chase wasn’t, with a working knowledge of the company and system that he lacked and while he could learn it to the extent the plan needs, there wasn’t enough time.
It’s already been a year and a half since the senshi attack on Anthemusa. Dredging things up now will be insufferable enough as is, waiting any longer will be too long.
Besides, he had seen the way the woman salivated when he told her that they’d found the senshi who had attacked her. She wore a hunger in her eyes he is too familiar with for some sort of vindication she can call justice.
She’s waited long enough, he reasons.
.
The last meeting with the private investigator goes smoothly enough and he’s got everything he needs to make that final presentation to the board that will out Renegade and provide the perfect opportunity to use his money and influence to secure himself and his allies a seat that the top.
.
It goes exactly as he expects, with Renegade throwing a tantrum and claiming all accusations are false but the video footage spanning across the year and a half since the festival, and the recordings of the assailant speaking with the CEO just before they launched their attack on the face of the company, along will all of the monetary embezzlement proof prove to be enough.
An investigation is launched almost immediately and Chase has to keep the smugness off his face as he sits back and watches all of the dominoes fall exactly how that should.
.
Internal investigation takes longer than he wants, much to his and Miss Argent’s frustration. Internal affairs works quickly and he can tell that Renegade is getting nervous because more and more things are ‘surfacing’ and Chase knows that he’s realizing that he’s in trouble.
It would be amusing, if he was truly capable of feeling such things.
In the end, Renegade’s panic and flightiness helps slide the last piece into place.
.
He doesn’t call or text, because those aren’t really his style.
Instead, he finds a place where he can power up discreetly and travels to negaspace with Prissy’s cat in toe to use once they’re ready to move into the surface world. Once in negaspace, he summons her. It takes a fair amount of concentration, as it’s not a skill he’s exercised in some time and Marcasite has never been his in the way his wolves are but suddenly the woman is before him looking dazed in all of her captain uniformed glory.
“What--”
“It’s time,” he states, cutting her off while he situtiates Theodore on a shoulder and extend his hand for hers. “No more waiting.”
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Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2018 8:23 am
Character: Marcasite
End of the Line
Word Count: 1,221
When she had been summoned, Marcasite had been startled. Outside of the large scale meetings and the summons of general-sovereigns or queens or the very power source that made it possible for them to power up and fight, she’d never been summoned before.
It’s a strange feeling and Marcasite isn’t too sure how to feel about it until he tells her exactly why he’s called upon her.
She can barely think past the sound of her heart and blood racing in her ears but when he offers her his hand, she accepts without question.
It’s time.
It’s finally time and she feels almost faint she’s so giddy.
.
She only notices the cat once they arrive in Renegade’s backyard. It’s a small fluffy thing with a bow tie and top hat but Marcasite has seen weirder things than a dressed up cat. She knew they were a thing too, but this is the first time she meets one in person and it’s oddly quiet, very concentrated.
When she asks, Black-- no, General Labyrinthite -- brushes her off and tells her that Theodore needs to concentrate.
His dismissiveness is aggravating, but there are more important things at hand and she can feel the adrenaline surging through her veins and excitement mixed with nerves twisting in her stomach.
From where they stand, they can see into the almost glass house (and Jade wonders why anyone thinks it’s a smart idea to live in a house made up of windows) and there Renegade stands, illuminated by the light of his kitchen. He looks eerily casual in pajama bottoms and a t-shirt and for a moment the captain feels displaced.
It feels like she’s watching a television show or she’s looking in on something as an omnipresent observing things as they unfold before her and she knows that she is the one moving and acting and yet it almost feels like like it might not be.
Her companion seems to notice, his hand on her shoulder a startling jerk back into the moment and she feels light headed, dazed, when she blinks up at him.
“Ready?” He asks and she wonders how many times he’ll ask before he stops.
Marcasite only nods, gloved fingers curling into fists that tremble at her sides.
It’s now or never. Now.
.
Sparks arrives like clockwork.
Whomever Labyrinthite had hired to tail Renegade was thorough, good, and as soon as eleven thirty hits, there she is. Or rather, there her civilian identity is.
A girl with long pale hair that fades into purples. If she didn’t know, didn’t suspect and confirm, then she knows that she wouldn’t be able to place the girl that’s stepped into her boss’s home as the very same girl that attacked her.
Glamor is a funny thing, she’s lucky that Sparks had grown careless as time has ticked on and she thinks she might be forgotten.
Everything feels like white noise from there.
Marcasite knows that Labyrinthite is giving her orders, that she’s reacting to them like a good toy soldier, but she’s also aware that she’s not really present either. Her feet are leading her forward, the confrontation escalating the moment they move, disappearing with one blink and popping back into existence in the middle of the kitchen, on the other side of the island.
If she had been more of herself, she might have laughed at the high pitched squeal of terror that tore from Renegade’s mouth, but she can’t even look at him because her gaze is fixed on the girl who’s henshin pen is surfacing and the smile that curves her lips makes her sick when she catches a glimpse of it in the reflection of one of the house’s many windows.
She’s seen that smile before, in the man right next to her, in the man that she’d met in the bar however many years ago. The look on the faces of too many of her fellow agents because they’ve let this thing they house inside them bubble and boil until it’s polluting their veins.
It scares her, but not enough to stop her from moving.
.
It’s not as satisfying as she wants despite the way they have Sparks crowded against a corner in the kitchen.
Somewhere on the expensive tile lays Renegade’s dead body, the starseed a warm weight in her breast pocket after it was pulled from his chest while he begged and pleaded and cried for his life.
Someone else might have felt guilty, or pity, as he shook clasped hands at them while on his knees with tears streaming down his face, but Marcasite had felt nothing when she leaned over him, fingers slipping into the hidden cavity of his chest.
“You let this happen,” she sneers when her fingers wrap around his starseed. “You let them get to me, to assault me. Passivity is still a sin and you’re still paying for it.”
Maybe he hadn’t been the one to attack her, but he knew where her assailant was and he had protected her, kept her hidden and that’s not something Marcasite is willing to forgive.
If he pays for it with his life, then that’s how he pays.
.
Sparks is feistier than Marcasite gave her credit for and it is more difficult to subdue her than she would like.
It’s almost embarrassing how long it takes her to get the senshi in a position where she can sink her hand into her chest but the general who’s accompanied her is standing by not reacting, not helping.
There’s something dark in his eyes that gives her shivers and she can recognize the way he struggles with restraint, how he holds back because this is a victory meant for her.
And then there is a moment where she had the girl pressed against the pantry door, elbow pressed against her throat so that when she powers down she can keep her there for a moment.
Sparks’s eyes widen when she snarls, “Remember me?”
And then the senshi laughs before spitting in her face which only results in Jade shifting back to Marcasite and shoving her hand in her chest and gripping the starseed like she’s ready to shatter it.
“I knew it,” Sparks gurgles at her. “Kill me, just like you killed the rest.” The laughter bubbling from the senshi’s mouth is as hysterical as the captain feels in that moment. “Do it.”
And she wants to, so badly. She wants to crush the starseed slowly in her fist and watch the girl’s face contort in pain, for her to scream and cry and to feel all of the pain and trauma she put her through and more.
But something else hits her.
What is worse than death for someone like her? She thinks, except Labyrinthite’s gravely voice comes grating over the static of the air.
She’s posed the question out loud.
“Corruption.” She echoes, grip relaxing even if it does not leave.
When she looks at Labyrinthite, he nods his head and stoops to collect the dead man’s body so that they can finish the rest of their plan.
Blue eyes meet paler ones and that sickening smirk is on Marcasite’s face again.
“Say goodbye to everything you thought you knew,” she whispers and when they blink, the house is left empty.
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