Chapter 10: Deal with the Devil

Wilson Martinez felt anxious heading into the Explorer building. This certainly wasn't the same anxiousness that he had faced before, those desperate drives to the bank to pay his family's growing debt, biting his nails, on the way to . This was different. Unlike the times where Wilson had expected the worst, this time Wilson didn't even know what to expect.

Wilson slyly slid towards the clerk's desk in the main lobby. The clerk sitting there was a woman who looked to be in her late 30s. She had a wrinkly face, her blue eyes expanded by the wide-framed glasses on her face. She looked up at him, smiling.

"How may I help you?" the clerk asked, giving a standard complimentary question. Wilson stood trembling in fear of the future predicament he was to encounter, but found enough courage to speak to the lady upfront.

"I'm looking for a guy named... Toffee?"

The clerk looked at him with a slight bit of confusion but then looked right back at him with a devilish grin. With the same grin, she quickly shot up to Wilson's height and moved close enough to him so she could whisper into his ear.

"He's been expecting you," the clerk whispered in a rather creepy voice. "Just take the elevator to CEO Martin's office. He will meet you there."

Wilson gulped. He managed to brush past the clerk with a polite 'thank you', before nervously sliding away towards the elevator. The lady's tone certainly didn't help matters.

Once the elevator had leveled Wilson to the top floor, the man slouched his way in front of a wooden, windowless door that was facing adjacent to the elevator. He waited for a few seconds before slowly giving three consecutive knocks on the door. At first, he had heard nothing from the other end of the door. Breaking the silence was a creaky voice on the other end saying, "Come in."

Wilson shoved the door open to find the lizard from the night before, Toffee, sitting grimly in the office chair, hands placed firmly on the desk, while Explorer's CEO, Mr. James Martin, was sitting in a chair slightly behind Toffee. Wilson hadn't been in Mr. Martin's office before, nor ever talked to the rich CEO, but he knew from the times he glared at him as they both walked past each other in the corridor that he certainly looked down at him. For some reason, this was the first time that Mr. Martin had been smiling at him. Both the CEO and Toffee had smirks on their faces. Wilson got the creeps the more he stared into those faces.

As Wilson got closer to the desk, Toffee shoved a large blue backpack onto the wooden desk. When Wilson grabbed the bag and rummaged through its contents, he was shocked that tons of gear scrambled within the pouch were steel weapons.

"Man, what's with all of this?" Wilson asked, jumbling around loosely with the items in the backpack. "This is pretty hardcore for something that I'm doing to save my family."

"Just pay attention carefully to my instructions." the lizard explained, before turning and nodding to the shorter CEO. "James."

James quickly reached into a small compartment in his desk and grabbed a small portable earpiece. The black earpiece was Bluetooth, it had no port and when Toffee snatched it away from Mr. Martin, he immediately gave it to the bulky Mexican man.

"No matter the circumstances," Toffee spoke, speaking in a rather lecturing tone, "Keep that piece in your ear at all times. It has a built in earpiece so you can speak to us and we can speak to you. There's also a hidden camera on this so we can watch you at all times. It will be the only way we can communicate with you or see you, especially to where you're headed. I will give you directions as to how to use each item in the backpack when the time comes."

Wilson looked at the blue backpack as he firmly grasped the strips. He looked back at Toffee unamused. "What about my end of the deal?"

"Your end of the deal?"

"Yes." Wilson asked. "I want to make sure that my wife gets the cure as promised. I don't want you double-crossing me, man."

Toffee sighed, then gestured to Mr. Martin to make a move. "I think you can handle this, James."

"Oh, um... very well then!" James laughed awkwardly, looking at Wilson and leaving the room. "Wait here, I'll be right back."

After a minute or two, James came back with a blue-eyed, blonde mail-woman wearing blue attire followed behind the CEO and stood patiently behind him with crossed arms. James was holding a small cardboard package and gave it right to Wilson Martinez. Wilson noticed what the package was right away, as it was addressed right to his home address.

Mr. Martin spoke. "Okay, here you go. This is the cure to your daughter's disease. You can take all the time you need, make sure the serum is in there, check the package to see if that's the right mailing address, or whatever you want to feel comfortable. I won't BS anybody here."

Wilson opened the package to find a small flask with an orange liquid swirling inside.

"How do I know you haven't poisoned it?" Wilson asked accusingly. "Is the serum safe for consumption?"

Mr. Martin shrugged. "Try it."

Wilson unscrewed the cork on the flask and dipped his finger into the vial. He sucked on his fingers and took in the weird taste of the serum. It was almost like honey, but tasted like normal medicine. He waited a few seconds to finally come to the conclusion that the serum was indeed harmless. He screwed the cork back onto the flask and quietly placed the flask back inside the small package, sealing the flaps of the box shut.

"Are you now thoroughly convinced?" the Explorer CEO asked with a tinge of impatience on his voice. Wilson nodded. James came up to snatch the package from the Mexican's hands and gave it to the blonde mail-woman in the room.

"Deliver the package straight to the Martinez household. They're on the address as printed on there." James ordered the blonde woman.

"Right away, sir." the mail-woman said, giving James a quick salute before marching off. Once she had exited the room, Toffee and Mr. Martin's attention turned back to Wilson. Toffee was now carrying what seemed like a small pair of safety scissors with horns.

"What are those?" Wilson questioned, a shocked look on his face.

"That's my next point." Toffee said, "These are Dimensional Scissors. They are used to travel between dimensions, such as the Earth dimension as seen here. Allow me to demonstrate."

Toffee took the scissors by one end and sliced a portal out in thin air. The first sight of this portal shocked Wilson as he stepped back, his mouth wide open.

"Don't be scared of a simple portal. No one has ever been harmed by dimension-hopping with the scissors before. Well, not yet anyways..." Toffee said, muttering the last sentence under his breath so Wilson couldn't hear.

"I thought when you first talked about dimension hopping, it was all wack yesterday." Wilson inquired. "But man, you have caught me by surprise."

"Yes, and I feel the things you will see from this point on will just become more unbelievable. Main advice: Expect the unexpected." Toffee spoke, pacing back and opening a portal again. "Anyways, I left a pair of dimensional scissors in the bag. You've seen how I used them. As long as your mind thinks about heading home to the Earth dimension, the scissors will create a portal to just that. Now, are you prepared?"

Wilson slung the backpack onto his shoulders and looked determined. "Ready."

"Head into the portal, and wait for my first command." Toffee commanded as Wilson headed into the black portal. When Wilson could no longer be seen, the grey lizard closed the portal behind him. Toffee looked back at the curious long-haired CEO.

"Alas, a new era for the Explorer Corporation and the monsters begins." Toffee announced triumphantly.

"Indeed."

Wilson exited the black portal and began scanning the area around him. The sky above was a glazed purple with several clouds glooming over the horizon. Around him was an old dirty village, with houses made of stone, with angular wooden roofs looming over each house. Wilson heard the earpiece make an activated 'ping', before Toffee's voice spoke on the microphone.

"Alright now, you see that castle up there?" Toffee's voice boomed. Wilson looked up to find a small castle perched on a low-mounted hill slightly above the meadow overlooking the village.

"Mhm."

"Great, that's your next stop." Toffee said, "Oh wait, but before you do, there's a small vial in the backpack. I want you to drink all of it."

"All... of it?" Wilson gulped.

"All of it." Toffee said rather sternly. "Naturally I feel bad for making you taste two questionable liquids within the hour, but this liquid is a must. It won't hurt, I assure you."

Wilson quickly rummaged through the back until he picked up a vial that had a clear liquid inside of it. He quickly screwed off the cork and cupped the circular vial in both hands, quickly gulping down the liquid right until there were only droplets left.

Man, you must be crazy, Wilson thought to himself, First you go and accept a deal with the devil, you're willing to go on a mission that could cost you your life, and now you're willing to drink strange liquid a crazy talking grey lizard is telling you to. I've never heard that one before.

As Wilson pondered this, he realized the rapid growth of brown hair all over his body, including his chest. His entire body began expanding outwards, to the point that the red t-shirt he was wearing ripped along with his blue jeans. Looking down, Wilson screamed when he saw brown hair all over his arms and body, his feet replaced by hooves, and he also saw several horns sticking from his head.

"Wh-wh-what have you done to me!?" Wilson hollered into the microphone, looking down at his now changed body, getting even more frightened by the minute.

"Relax, Mr. Martinez," Toffee soothed albeit rather unsympathetically. "It's a Minotaur Morphing potion. It's the only way you can get into the Unicorn Kingdom undetected, without any hint of suspicion. You will morph back to normal within minutes."

"Unicorn Kingdom?" Wilson asked, picking his belongings up, and now darting up the path to the castle. "You told me this was a bank with a vault in it! Gosh, I wish I were dreaming now!"

"Sometimes your own perceptions can often deceive you, Mr. Martinez," The cunning lizard explained through the microphone. "And I didn't lie either. This particular mission does involve stealing from a vault."

Wilson got to a drawbridge with two rather buff unicorn guards with clad hooves, large bellies, and soft white fur, were standing guard outside the castle. He hesitated and continued on. However, just before Wilson could take another step, one of the guards positioned his arm to block him from passing. The guard looked at him intensely. Had Wilson been discovered? After all, they were walking unicorns while he was a walking minotaur. There was a difference for sure. After almost a minute of inspection, the unicorn guard lifted his hand out of Wilson's way.

"You're late." the unicorn guard growled. "Get to the shard mines. We've got reports of thefts occurring in the past month. Make sure nobody steals anything down there."

Wilson politely smiled at the unicorn and ran into the castle. "That was too damn close."

"I always plan ahead," Toffee said with a positive overtone. "Take the stairs down to the lowest level."

Wilson ran into the castle where he saw many different unicorn entities walking around the cathedral-like building. He even saw what seemed to be two talking... unicorn heads?

There was a bigger, masculine unicorn head who was speaking to a smaller, more feminine unicorn head with a pink mane. The bigger unicorn head looked to be scolding the smaller one.

"Now now, you are to be ruling Uni and the entire Unicorn Kingdom someday," the big unicorn head spoke to the smaller one, "Enough with this mischief!"

Wilson had already darted past the two unicorn heads as the smaller one drooped with sadness. He found the stairs and kept descending. As he kept going, Wilson thought, Please tell me I'm dreaming! Please tell me I'm dreaming!

After some sixteen flights of stairs downward (yes, Wilson had counted), Toffee exclaimed, "Good, you're there."

Wilson observed the basement level around him. It was actually a cave, no, like a mine, and he was completely alone in it. Wilson saw several glowing purple rocks protruding from a rock wall and the ceiling above, and, oddly enough, saw a galloping unicorn running on a treadmill attached to a small machine full of the purple rocks. The treadmill was grinding the purple rocks while purple dust spewed out of the treadmill and into a bucket. Still at this point, Wilson was convinced that he was dreaming.

"Now, listen to me very carefully," Toffee lectured onward. "Grab as many of those purple rocks as you can."

Wilson began rummaging through the bag and found a pickax. Wilson dumped the remaining two things from the backpack: a mace and a small mysterious box with an eye. He began to axe at the wall and grabbed any loose purple rocks that he could muster.

As he kept working, he began to see the brown fur begin to grow back inward, into his skin. He began to shrink until he was a naked young man yet again. He felt awkward and was lucky nobody was watching him. When he had grabbed enough of the purple rocks, so much so that it filled the entire backpack, Toffee gave further instructions.

"Now, press that button on the mace." When Wilson did, the head of the mace collapsed to unveil a rather small portal, enough for Wilson to stick the entire backpack into it so Toffee could receive the purple rock-filled backpack back at Explorer HQ.

"So is that it," Wilson asked, "Am I done?"

"Not quite yet," Toffee said. "Take the last item, that box, and hit the red button on the side."

Wilson did as he was told, but right as he did, the iris on the eye began to glow red and made a 'beep beep beep'. The beeps were getting more and more rapid.

"That doesn't sound normal! What do I do!?"

"Calm down," Toffee said on the other line. "Obviously you can't fit through the mace portal, but I remember I placed a pair of dimensional scissors in the bag as well."

Wilson looked down towards the ground. No! There weren't any dimensional scissors, and the beeps were getting louder and more rapid. Wilson rummaged through the other compartments, seeing if there was anything, anything, that Wilson could have possibly missed. When he looked in every possible area, even his own pockets, he called back to Explorer HQ.

"There's absolutely no dimensional scissors."

"Oh." Toffee said, "My mistake. In that case, you'd better run."

"WHAT?" Wilson said, looking back at the box, as the beeps were as loud as ever before. He rushed towards the stairs but by then it was too late.

The eye from the box flew open as the rest of the box expanded. A carnage of flame erupted from the box as Wilson blacked out.

When he awoke, everything around him was black. He saw a figure in the distance. It was a woman, whose skin was wrinkling and hair graying, but Wilson still recognized who it was.

"Mother!" Wilson screamed, as he took in the embrace of his mother.

"Everything is okay now, Wilson. Everything is okay." his mother replied.

From James Martin's office, Mr. Martin and Toffee were watching the computer screen silently. The transmission from Wilson had cut off to static. James shut off the monitor and began to sit quietly in the side. Toffee was still carrying the blue backpack, counting how many purple rocks were in the backpack. The lizard handed the bag over to James Martin. James was still stuttering in shock.

"Did... you just blow up an entire castle?"

Toffee looked away and quietly said, "Yes. I had a score to settle. Those unicorn people were heavy allies with a barbaric, power-hungry race. I needed to slow that race down. They would've helped had the race caused war on Earth."

"W-what about Wilson? Why couldn't he find those dimensional scissors?"

Toffee grabbed something from an inner pocket in his tuxedo and out came a red pair of scissors.

"I lied."

James was utterly baffled. "You said you were getting Mageantium legally. I didn't agree that we could kill anybod..."

"But you did promise to meet my conditions for getting this magical Mageantium you wanted so much." Toffee scoffed, throwing down the blue bag harshly on the desk. Some of the purple Mageantium rocks fell out of the opened pouch. "I got you your magic, You gave me my opportunity to do vengeance on those who wronged me and my people!"

"Fine. Fine. We'll start work right away." James spoke, raising his hands in a surrendering position.

"Also," Toffee stated, asking for another offer, "I want to clear the entire building. Send everyone home early. No one, except the two of us, should know the work we're doing here."

A/N: I'm gonna stop making promises with when I'm getting a chapter out. I mean, I've already broken promises twice. It's the summer, so I'm definitely gonna speed up the process (no promises though) of writing, but these chapters are coming out whenever I get to or feel like writing. I'm excited for July 11 as much as the next guy, but man it's gonna be hard to update the story when the new chapters come out.