First things first. Special thanks to Saber for doing an amazing job on the cover art for this story. Take a look at the link in my profile to see more of his work!
Everything was falling into place. It was far too easy to play their game when he set his mind to it. Perhaps one day he would thank the Mobians for toying around with his brain. At first it was terrifying, but now the world and all its secrets were his.
First Ixis and now the girl.
"No, Tails!" she screamed.
How had Kintobor been so blind? The girl had been sitting right underneath his nose for weeks. With any luck the dictator and his incompetence wouldn't be around much longer any way.
Only his friends call him Tails, Colin smiled as he watched from just off stage.
Just like any good soldier caught off guard, Jake did what came natural and grabbed the traitor.
"Jake," she begged as the man's grip sunk into her shoulder, "stop, you're hurting me."
"What have we here?" the fat slob asked if everyone was interested in his showmanship. "Someone who know Miles by his pet name in my midst?"
It was a wonder he hadn't choked on a rhetorical question yet. Every other sentence he spoke was a question everyone already knew the answer too.
"A spy?" Julian he attempted to deduce. "No you're just a girl," quickly ruling the notion out. "Ah!" his face jiggled with glee, "Yes, wait a moment, I know who you are."
Our president ladies and gentlemen… what a genius, Colin lamented as he watched with growing anticipation.
"Hello Mara," the dictator said with a warm voice, a grin exploding across his face. "Oh this night just keeps getting better and better."
I couldn't agree more.
"Collin," the rotund man commanded, "If you would be so kind to show her up on stage."
Sighing heavily, he hopped off the stage, pushing his way through the crowed. They stank of sweat, their breaths tinged with alcohol. Why does he bother to entertain them? They're nearly as fifthly as Mobians.
The new class of wealth in Capital City was young and reckless. Kintobor had no shame when it came to asking for more money. He would pander to the lowest of the low if it meant putting more fuel into his war machine. Finally having gotten his hands on Ixis' donors must have made his day.
It's too bad he doesn't know that kooky old man isn't dead.
A gaze of fright greeted him as he grew nearer to the girl. Colin couldn't help but extend his smile even further toward his ears; she is the key to everything!
Shifting his gaze to Jake, Colin did his best not to act intimidated. The soldier was nearly twice his size and far too prone unpredictable acts of rage. Reaching for the girl, the Dominion agent relented knowing that he had no other choice.
Not so tough now, are you, Jake?
"No!" the girl screamed obnoxiously in his hear, "Jake, don't let him do this!"
Acting like the trained dog that he was, Jake did nothing more than watch as Colin dragged her towards the center of the stage. How predictable, he thought just before a thunderous crash of footsteps approached from behind. What is it now?
The sniveling man turned just in time to see Jake mid tackle. Air left his lungs as the soldier collided with his mid-section causing the girl to slip from his grasp. However, before the oaf could do anymore damage, security pulled him off, attempting to restrain the enraged man.
"You've done it now, Jakey boy," Colin laughed as he tried to stand up, "you're as good as dead. I should have known you were as soft as the rest of them."
Screams erupted from the other side of the room as sounds of a stampede amplified through the auditorium. Everyone was running in fear of a newly freed fox. Colin paused as he tried to catch his breath and stomach the bubble in his throat. Mobians, big or small had the same affect on him.
He wasn't sure why, but he hated them. The dread he felt in their presence only solidified the fact. Backing away slowly, Colin tried to find his courage, but he couldn't in the face of such a well-known killer. Miles Prower was as fearsome as they came and here he was free, in the same room. A gunshot shattered Colin's fragile psyche, sending him another step backwards reeling in fear. It took every ounce of his concentration not to collapse.
"No," Julian proclaimed in a tone of disbelief, "this can't be. Fiona," the fat man pleaded now, "think of everything I have done for you!"
The vixen stood in the center of the hall, clasping her paws to the bare red fur around her neck in disbelief. Colin gulped as both his fear and adrenalin doubled.
Too soon… This wasn't supposed to happen so quickly… Ixis!
The red fox had never been kind to him with her collar on and he was in no mood to find out what she might do to him without it. Part of his plan had always been to free her, to use her to kill the fat man, but it wasn't supposed to happen like this.
Focus Colin! Focus and you can get out of this.
The robotic lion on stage let out a roar as it leapt clean over him, cracking the wooden floor when it landed. Almost immediately it took of after the Resistance fighter whilst everyone else looked on apprehensively.
The girl! He reminded himself. You need to get the girl!
Removing his pistol from the inside of his coat, Colin crept up behind an unsuspecting Mara. Pressing the barrel into the small of her back, he wrapped his free arm around her mouth.
Her tiny, muffled screams never roused the suspicions of anyone who might come to her aide. They were all too busy taming a metallic lion. One step at a time, Colin was able to force her towards the service elevator in the hallway.
The room quieted with one last thunderous crack just as he reached the hallway. The defeated girls screams finally began to carry a meaningful distance. However, it was too late. The elevator had arrived and in a matter of seconds he would be on the roof.
Colin waved goodbye to Jake as the doors shut, smiling devilishly at the man's futile attempt to save the girl.
Mara quivered in his grasp, incapable of much besides breathing. Something had already taken the fight out of her. You lied to him, you used him, Colin thought, and now you see this as your punishment... foolish girl.
The sky was awash with Capital City's neon lights. Stepping out into the stiff breeze, Colin began to panic, where is it? Where is the helicopter? Beads of sweat began to form even has he heard its engine in the distance. No one can make it up here that quickly, he deiced.
Looking out into the distance he waited patiently for the blinking lights of the chopper to grow closer.
"You're coming with me," he finally decided to inform her of the obvious.
She didn't reply.
Then the unthinkable happened. The sound of a deadbolt shattering wrenched him away from thoughts of victory, forcing him to turn around and face a more pressing problem.
"Sar… Mara," Jake corrected himself while fumbling for his breath, "it's going to be alright."
So many lies they've told each other.
"How nice of you to reassure her, but it only makes you a liar."
"Where do you think you're going, Colin?" the man asked motioning to the lack of obvious escapes.
What difference does it makes, you won't be around to care.
"Back to the lab," he answered anyway. "With just a drop of her blood I will have everything I need to finish Julian's work. The world will be mine soon enough," Colin grinned menacingly.
"And just how do you plan on getting there?"
"Always so slow, Jake?"
The hum of the rotors soon became loud enough for anyone to hear, even if you weren't listening for them.
He gripped Mara's arm more tightly, reminding the little witch who was in charge.
"Uh uh ahh," Colin shook his head as the patter of his salvation grew closer, "not another step, Jake. I would hate to have to kill such a pretty girl. I only need her blood remember."
Mara had been delivered right to him all while the other portions of his plan were coming together at an alarmingly fast rate. The two-tailed fox freed the red one and if the universe was being good to him, they were now in the process of hunting down Julian. You never showed me enough respect, uncle. You never could see my potential.
With one simple move, Colin had checkmated the most powerful figure in the country. The only thing keeping him from ruling the world now was the former Dominion Agent in front of him.
"Then take what you need and leave her, and so help me god I will let you live." the traitor retorted.
They all underestimate me.
Pressing his pistol into the girl's neck Colin made his point clear, "Do you really feel like you are in a position to make threats?"
Jake had always fancied himself better than everyone else and Colin had no intention of letting that continue. He would put the oversized gorilla in his place just like he had everyone else.
"Do you?" the agent had the audacity to reply.
The girl meant everything to him, enough to throw away what little of a life he had left. Certainly he wouldn't take a gamble on her life. Would he?
"She's the only thing between you and me. You kill her," Jake laughed uneasily at the thought, "well, let's just say I'll finally be putting all those interrogation tactics you cram down our throats to some use."
It was hard to hide the gulp. Even with the girl firmly in his grasp, the threat of torture was enough to make him second-guess getting between a man as big as Jake and the woman he loved. The Mobians had shown him a world of terror and they were much smaller creatures.
"You don't scare me," Colin replied convincingly.
The problem was Jake did scare him. This particular Dominion agent was prone to unpredictable fits of rage. If Mara wasn't enough leverage to keep the agent back, then Colin was as good as dead.
"Ha!" the agent laughed as he advanced, "Don't kid yourself, everything scares you."
Outside of Mobians little scared him. The sharper his mind grew the less he feared. His demeanor was nothing more than a façade now, designed to fool the overconfident.
If they think I am weak they will be blind to my strength.
For years he had played the part of patsy. He was the genius behind all the breakthroughs, the linchpin to all of Kintobor's work, taking Roboticization to new heights.
"Not another step," Colin shouted as he cocked his pistol with his thumb.
"Or what?" Jake asked before taking another.
"I'll kill her."
Killing the girl would be easy, but dealing with Jake was a different story. Once the girl was gone so too was his leverage.
"Will you?" the agent asked as if he had everything figured out.
It was too late to turn his gun on the overgrown copper. At this range Jake could probably comfortably shoot him without worrying about accidentally hitting the girl. Jake had called his bluff.
Colin released his grip on the girl delicately so as if not to alarm her. It took her a moment to realize she was free, turning slowly with an inquisitive look. Perhaps she expected to be dead, the guilt-ridden expression on her face said as much.
It was obvious Mara didn't trust him, and why should she? Backing away slowly, she refused to take her eyes off of the short man, unknowingly obscuring Jake's line of sight.
A devilish smirk crept up Colin's lips as he raised his weapon again.
Jake will never see it coming.
Squeezing the trigger, the publicist readied himself for the sudden pop of his pistol. An explosion came and went, but the pressure he had expected to feel in his hand was instead somewhere north of his appendix. A nauseous feeling set in quickly and before he knew it his world was spinning.
The pain set it when Colin's knees hit the ground. He could feel the blood running down his leg.
He shot me…
"Damn it, Jake," Colin swore, "You always were such an ass."
He tried to back away, but the Dominion Agent was already on top of him, his hand wrapped firmly around the collar of his shirt. Stomaching the pain was difficult, even harder was fabric tightening around his neck. As he gasped for air, Colin looked at the ground below him. It seemed forever away.
"Jake!" Mara's voice grated his ears. "Just leave him, he doesn't need to die."
Yes, the short man gulped, listen to her, I don't need to die.
"You hear that?" the Dominion agent smiled wryly, "You don't need to die. You're lucky someone in this world still finds some value in your life."
Colin managed to open his eyes when a solid surface was under his feet again. All he had to do now was focus, it wasn't too late. Reaching inside his pocket he found the grip of a stun gun. He had never used it before, but gleefully rejoiced in the results. It made the biggest of men insignificant and week. Pushing harder, Colin drove the energized electrodes into Jake's mid section.
The agent's gun fell to the ground followed shortly by its owner. Jake withered on the ground, sweating as he fumbled for his breath.
Not so tough now! Colin thought as he drove his foot into the man's ribs. It felt electrifyingly good to inflict so much pain. Each kick sent the agent closer to the edge. Ha! The short man nearly laughed out loud, how about a taste of you own medicine.
Kneeling down Colin examined the Dominion agent who now hung by nothing more than his fingertips, "It appears love is your weakness, Jake. How fitting for a man made of principle." Standing up, he continued, "I'll be sure to thank Mara for saving my life."
"You always were a coward," the man had the audacity to quip.
"Tell me Jake," Colin chided as Jake looked past him, "how delusional does one have to be to talk out of place when he is about to die?"
You don't even have the nerve to look me in the eye.
"Not sure Snively, you tell me?"
He thinks he can fool me.
"Jake, look at you, just hanging there. Tell me, what use is all that strength now?"
"You're afraid to do it aren't you?" the man laughed, "Be a man!"
Afraid, on the contrary, I am enjoying this far too much to end it just yet.
"Do you honestly think you can goad me into doing something stupid with petty name calling?" Colin asked, crossing his arms. "Or do you just want to die faster?"
"He probably wanted to give me enough time to get his gun," a woman's voice stated sternly from behind.
Colin could feel his eyes widen as he braced himself for the inevitable. The ground came into view once more as the world tumbled in out of view. A sharp pain in his shoulder was secondary to the feeling of helplessness as gravity took over. In an instant, the fall that had lasted forever was over, ending in an abrupt blackness.
The world was slow to resume, the tendrils of his thought barely reaching past any semblance of awareness. This is no time to panic, Colin, the short man thought to himself, struggling with the reality he might be dead. He was suffocating in a fowl odor that he not only couldn't place, but didn't want to.
Eyes still closed, he extended his hands outwards, searching himself, expecting to find a broken body beneath his fingertips. Only the smooth fabric of his bloodstained clothes greeted him. Colin would have laughed, but the hole in torso made it painful.
I am alive! Snively exclaimed to no one but himself.
Getting shot hadn't hurt half as much as he expected. Bullets were far less troublesome than what the Resistance had already done to him. Finally opening his eyes, it wasn't to the glistening streets of Capital City, but the torn bags of trash inside a dumpster. He was covered from head to foot in garbage and smelled the part of a vagrant. What kind of metaphor was there to be found in being saved by a pile of rubbish? What is the world trying to tell me?
But that is not what concerned him as he crawled out of the festering dumpster, what about Julian? Did he make it?
The explosions in the distance told the tale of someone losing, but there was no telling who.
The foxes, surely they will tear him to pieces, Snively laughed over the distant gunfire. The red one is free now… How many times did I try to warn him about her? How many times did I tell him not to trust her?
Not that he minded. It's what Colin had wanted after all. However, he had always intended to be much further away when the leash was removed.
The fox's nature was predictable, once free there would only be one thing on her mind, revenge. All he had to do was find a way to get rid of the collar without being noticed and the fat man was as dead, at the hands of a Mobian no less.
Strangely enough, Ixis had been desperate to free the fox as well. There was little doubt the cunning man saw a similar opportunity in the vixen's release. Colin knew it was dangerous to do business with the crime lord, but the price Ixis ended up paying for the schematics was far higher than he could have ever anticipated.
Without any hesitation, Snively had asked the man to hold out his hands.
Sorry for a boring chapter, but it's important to set all the groundwork for the rest of the story. Also, I am sure there were a few of you wondering how Snively lived.
Reviews appreciated!
Cheers,
M.D
