There's never a dull moment around here, Anthony thought as he sat up in bed and stretched. Warm morning sunlight streamed through the window and the barren tree branches outside rattled in the chilly wind. The sky was piercing blue, not a cloud in sight, and if you looked past the obvious signs of the coming winter, you could easily mistake it for summer. It was not, however. It was three days after Thanksgiving and Royal Woods was still in the throes of an epic turkey coma. The people were sluggish, the streets were largely empty, and there was a sedate feeling in the air. Every day since The Feast had felt like a weekend. School was still out, many businesses were still closed, and no one felt like doing much of anything.

Except Anthony.

Well, it's not that he felt like doing anything, but he had to. He had a job down in Detroit. It wouldn't take very long, a couple hours maybe; the groundwork was already laid out for him by his handlers. All he had to do was show up and make a deal.

While wearing a wire.

See, back in the 1920s, Prohibition outlawed the sale of alcohol, creating a lively black market. Common criminals willing to break the Volstead Act made millions from illegal hooch. One result of that was the creation of the American mafia as it is known today. Italian street criminals, who were already masters at extortion, formed together in a loosely connected network of "families".In Newy York City, there were originally two Italian crime bosses, Massaria and Maranzano, who waged a bloody war for control of the Big Apple. Massaria was taken out in early 1931 and Maranzano reigned supreme…for like four months before he was ousted in a violent coup. In his short tenure as big boss, Maranzano basically created the structure of the mob that still endures to this day. In New York, there were five families, each with its own boss, underboss, and army with Maranzano as the "boss of all bosses."

Maranazno's men - primarily among them Lucky Luciano - didn't like that Maranzano wanted to be supreme ruler, so they whacked him. Luciano created The Commission, a sort of Congress for wiseguys. The bosses of all the families sat on it and decided policy. Individual families were given a lot of leeway on how to run themselves, but a lot of really important decisions went to The Commission.

The most famous mob families are the ones in New York City - Gambino, Columbo, Genovese, Luchese, and Bonanno. They were, and are, the most powerful, but they're not the only ones. There are dozens of mob families still active across the country, and in the olden days, there were dozens more. There were mobs in Florida, New England, Cincinnati, Buffalo, New Jersey, Cleveland, St. Louis, and Philly. There was a mob family in New Orleans that allegedly had six members by the late 1980s - including the boss, underboss, and consigliere, or the mafia equivalent of a Human Resources officer. There was also a family in Texas that randomly went dark one day. They "fell out of touch" with the New York families, and to this day, no one knows what happened to them. Anthony liked to imagine a bunch of Italian guys sitting around a social club, and the biggest, dumbest one stands up and says, "I don't want to be a mafia anymore."

And everyone just agreed with him. Anthony didn't know, maybe they were tired of getting arrested, maybe their rackets dried up, maybe they wanted more time to hunt, fish, and do other Texas-like things. Whatever the reason, they disappeared like the lost colony of Roanoke and that was that. No more guidos in the Lone Star State.

One of the most powerful non-New York families was the Chicago Outfit, which began under Al Capone. Capone didn't go in for the Old World tradition and ceremony the other mafia families held as sacrosanct. He was quick to point out that he was American - born in Brooklyn - and not Italian. He didn't induct members the way the other families did, and he didn't restrict full fledged membership to only Italians. You can be any color or ethnicity to "associate" and work with the mob, but to be a full on, card carrying mobster, you had to be Italian. It wasn't like that in The Outfit, at least not until Capone was out of power.

Anyway, the Outfit had control of much of the midwest, including Detroit. Their influence had waxed and waned over the years, but they still had business dealings in the Motor City. Recently, Johnny Dio, a soldier in the Outfit, had been moving in on the drug business in Detroit. The FBI had been setting him up for months and claimed that their associate - Anthony - could help him move large quantities of cocaine. Anthony was to go in, meet with Dio, and arrange a deal. The wiretap evidence would be enough to arrest, ty, and convict the mobster.

Anthony was nervous about the sting. He was putting his life on the line here and there was a chance that something could go wrong at any moment. He would do it regardless of the danger because it was his duty to rid the streets of bad guys. He was committed to putting bad guys away because he was sick of seeing them hurt and take advantage of innocent people. It had always made him mad to know that people like that existed but it was worse now. Crime was through the roof in America and everywhere you turned, bad people were getting away with bad things. And of course none of the people around Anthony cared. They lacked the strength and moral/emotional fortitude to deal with it, so they stuck their heads in the sand, obsessing over cartoons and fanfictions while the world around them burned. That's a recipe for disaster. Instead of rising to the occasion and meeting the challenges of life and society, they ran and hid.

That's how bad things happen and continue to happen; people checking out and not giving a shit. Not until, that is, it begins to directly affect them.

By that point, it's usually too late, but okay.

Anthony wasn't the type to just sit there and jack his dick while the world went to shit around him. Unlike those poor assholes with their heads shoved up their butts, he actually believed in shit beyond instant self-gratification. For that reason, he was willing to take whatever risk he had to in order to assure that Johnny Dio and his whole punk ass mob family went to prison. You wanna be the don so bad? Be the don of D-block, you piece of shit.

After breakfast, a black SUV filled with FBI agents would whisk Anthony down to Detroit. If all went well, he'd be back in time for dinner.

He was just about to get up when the door creaked open and Ramona slipped in. She was clad in an oversized pink T-shirt that hung almost down to her knees like a dress. Her black hair was messy and her eyes were still puffy with sleep. The first thing Anthony noticed about her aside from the stuff he already mentioned was that she was wearing sloppily applied make up: Purple eyeshadow, pink lipstick, and red rough on her cheeks. She reminded him of that fat woman from The Drew Carey Show, which he sometimes fell asleep to on TVLand. That's to say, she looked like a circus clown. Maybe that's what she was going for, in which case, kudos to you, Ramona, you really knocked this one out of the park.

Perhaps not noticing he was awake in the gloom, she slipped under the covers and cuddled up to him, one leg hooking possessively over his and trapping him in place. She laid her hand on his chest and pressed her moist lips to the side of his neck. "Good morning," she purred.

"Good morning," Anthony said.

She brushed her hand down his naked stomach, toward his crotch, and he pushed it aside. She let out a frustrated sigh and threw her head back so quickly that he almost expected her to give herself whiplash. "Why?" she whined.

"I have to go," Anthony said and started to get out of bed.

Ramona grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him back with surprising strength. He uttered a sharp, shocked cry and tumbled back into the bed, whereupon Ramona wrapped her arms around his shoulders from behind as if by doing so she could prevent him from leaving her side. "Fuck me first," she said, a begging note in her voice.

"I can't," Anthony said, "I have to go now. Some people are coming to pick me up and I can't be late."

"Who's coming to pick you up?" she asked.

Anthony tried to break free from her grasp but she was too strong. He would have to use more force and he didn't want to do that because he might hurt her. His bare hands were classified as deadly weapons by the US government after all. "I can't say," he told her. "It's top secret."

She rolled her eyes. "I think you just don't want me. You want that frilly pink bitch Lola."

Anthony sighed. "That's not it. I really have to go."

"Not until you eat my pussy."

Anthony glanced at the clock on the nightstand. He had to get up and start getting ready now.

Reaching behind him, he clutched Ramona's shoulder, pinching a vital nerve. Her eyes rolled back into her head and she fell to the bed, unconscious. Sorry, he thought guiltily as he got up. By the time he was dressed, she was starting to come groggily around again. Anthony rushed downstairs and hurriedly ate breakfast. He was out the door before Ramona came down and the SUV was waiting at the curb as planned. He went to the curb, opened the door, and got in.

There was a plague in the Loud House, one that struck the very core of one's being and sent them reeling into a pit of sickness and death. Or, feeling like death. From whence it came, nobody knew. It attacked the digestive system with vomiting and..really, not much else. A general feeling of inexplicable ickiness, the kind of all over blah that usually served as the first sign of impending illness. It started the day after the pageant. Lola woke up "not feeling right" and wound up bombing the towel bowl with chunky, smelly throw up. A little while later, Lana started to feel kind of queasy, the way someone with a mean case of sea sickness might feel onboard a boat. It wasn't serious - she didn't poop or puke or anything - but she felt kind of like she was two clicks away from being sick the whole day. By evening, however, the misery had departed her and she was ravenous. She pounded down three chili dogs from Flip's and finished strong with a honey bun slathered in peanut butter.

Oh, she paid for it that night, lol. She was on the toilet shitting her guts out for hours. The hot smell of poo wafted through the whole house and sent everyone running into the night, even Lisa, who was normally placid, was in a panicked uproar. Her bowel movement was so rank, so messy, so brown and wet and sticky, that she had to jump in the shower to wash her ass off. When she was finished, she put baby powder all over her rump to make extra sure it was clean. Hey, she liked being dirty, but even she had to draw the line at poop.

The next morning, she woke up with a stomach ache. Her guts were gurgling and she felt like she had to poop again. She expelled everything the night before so the only thing that came out was nasty brownish yellowish water. That made her feel a little better, so she had a breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausage, toast, beans, and horseradish.

An hour later, she was poopin' again.

That wasn't entirely out of the norm for her, though. She ate straight garbage so her body was always doing weird things. Usually her poops weren't so violent and volcanic, so she chalked it up to food poisoning. She and Lola both had leftovers from the fridge the other night, so it was possible. No one else seemed to be sick but no one wanted to admit their illness in the Loud house because Mom and Dad went nuts. If you were sick, you were instantly quarantined to your room and forced to stay there until you got better again. That was to prevent whatever you had from spreading to all the other kids; it made a lot of sense but no one liked doing it. For that reason, it was well known in the Loud house that if you were sick, you kept that shit on the down low. She considered asking around and seeing if anyone else felt iffy, but decided it wasn't a big deal. Like shit, it happens. In fact, that second post breakfast poop left her feeling normal, so she figured she'd let it drop and move on with her life.

Too bad Lola couldn't do the same thing. Maybe it was her weak, frilly pink constitution or something, but Lola was laid out for the count. She was curled up in bed, hugging her knees and puking, and every time she tried to get up, she got dizzy and almost passed out. Lana felt kind of bad for her, but really, Lola had to suck it up. She was probably faking for attention anyway. She did that sometimes, being all dramatic and stuff. You could slap her on the back and she'd act like you shot her. She was worse than Rudy Guliani. Such a queen: A drama queen. On the day Ant had to go to Detroit, Lana woke up feeling kind of off but dismissed it as the doing of the greasy half done T bone she had for dinner the night before. She liked her steak bluer than California; run it through a warm room and she'd be happy.

Lola was hold up in the bathroom, vomiting, and Lana waited patiently in the hallway, whistling and looking at all the cracks and dings in the wall as though they were the most interesting things in the world. They sure lent the place character. Finally, just as her bladder began to twinge and her patience began to wear thin, the toilet flushed and Lola emerged from the bathroom looking like something from The Walking Dead. Her pink robe was wrinkled and her blonde hair stuck out at weird angles. Her eyes were bleary and her face was the color of old, sour milk. Lana jumped back a step and crossed her index fingers in the shape of a crucifix as if to ward off an evil spirit. "Be gone, Satan," Lana said.

Oooh, if looks could kill, Lana would be dead on the floor. "Fuck you, bitch," Lola said. She pushed past Lana and shuffled back to their shared bedroom.

"Sorry," Lana called after her, "I thought you were the living dead."

Lola held up her middle finger.

Chuckling to herself, Lana went into the bathroom. She briefly considered jumping in the shower but decided against it. She bathed last week so she was still good to go. Snapping out the light, she went back into the hall and skidded to a stop when Lisa appeared in front of her as if from the very ether itself. With how smart Lisa was, and with all the projects she was constantly working on, she very well could have found a way to do just that. You could never tell with her. Whenever anything strange, impossible, or crazy happened in and around Royal Woods, Lisa was always the first to catch the blame, and usually rightfully so. One time she opened a rift between dimensions and these strange tentacled alien creatures came out. Lana and the other Loud siblings had to race through town on a zany, madcap adventure to catch them all before they ate the whole of human existence lol. Fun times, fun times.

Lisa's eyes narrowed to hateful, reptilian slits, and without warning, she shoulder checked Lana so hard that the trash-swilling tomboy was driven back into the doorframe. Lisa went into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her, hitting Lana in the butt and pushing her forward. The garbage quaffer lost her balance and rocked back and forth on her feet like Michael Jackson wowing the crowd at a concert in the eighties. She flapped her arms and fought to retain her balance, but alas, it was not to be. She pitched forward like a falling oak and went to her knees. Twin bolts of pain shot into her hips and a gasp was jostled from her throat.

For a moment she stayed where she was, recovering from the initial shock of the attack, then she shook herself like a wet dog coming in from the rain and pushed herself back into a standing position. She turned on the bathroom door and gritted her teeth, a fat, worm like vein popping out on the side of her thick neck. She marched herself right over to the door and tried the handle.

It was locked.

She couldn't say with any certainty what she would have done to the little pipsqueak if it hadn't been locked, but it most likely wouldn't have been very pretty. She balled her fist and pounded on the door. "Let me in, you little shit, I need to talk to you."

"We've absolutely nothing to discuss," Lisa shot back, voice muffled. "You were simply in my way, which, as it so happens, is a theme with you…and that halfwit twin of yours."

Now that made Lana mad. She was literally the only person on the face of God's green earth who was allowed to call Lola a halfwit. It was cute and funny when she did it, and Lola usually deserved it, but when anyone else dared try, it was an intolerable attack. "Leave Lola out of this, you pint sized female bastard."

"Leave yourself out of it," Lisa retorted.

Flashing, lana pounded the door again. "That doesn't even make any sense."

"Your entire existence makes little sense to me," Lisa said. "Perhaps if the zygote didn't split and you and Lola would have remained one, you would be more tolerable. As it stands, however, each one of you is barely half a person."

Okay, that was it. Lana was going to tear down this door and beat Lisa into a fine, bloody paste. She kicked the door and it cracked.

At once, Dad screamed from downstairs. "STOP BREAKING MY DOORS!"

"But, Dad -"

"BUT NOTHING!"

Sighing, Lana swore death upon Lisa and returned to her room, fuming. Lola was humped under the blankets, snoring away. Lana paced back and forth, from the door to the window, What the heck was Lisa's problem? She was always snooty and holier than thou because she thought she was God's gift to humankind, but she was never outwardly aggressive like this. Was it the Loud Gene? Maybe, but then again, maybe it wasn't.

That hint of doubt, however, was enough to calm and stay her. If Lisa was just going through the normal hormone swings of the Loud Gene, she couldn't really control it, and therefore didn't deserve to be drop kicked in the face.

Lana took a deep breath that did little to ease the pressing weight of anger bearing down on her chest. She could understand Lisa's actions and even forgive them, but that didn't make them any more tolerable. A small, callous part of her wanted to beat the stuffing out of the little genius but she forced herself to let it go. Eve with how smart she was, Lisa was just a dumb kid still. Lana was virtually a grown woman. She had no reason or right to be upset about something a dumb, snotty little kid said.

Okay, she thought, that was settled. Now she turned her full attention to Lola, who was a mound under her soft, pink blankets. You know, maybe Lana was wrong about her. Maybe she wasn't faking or exaggerating for attention. Maybe she really was sick. Perhaps it'd be a good idea to take her to the doctor's, behind Mom and Dad's backs of course. If they found out Lola was sick, she'd be restricted to her room and not allowed to come out. And because Lana was always in such close proximity to her - their beds were literal feet apart - Lana would also wind up in quarantine. Screw that. She bit her bottom lip in indecision and ticked her head from side to side like a clock counting down the seconds.

Eh, she'd wait on that. Lola wasn't that bad off, after all. Even if she was being one hundred percent serious about her symptoms, they didn't seem to be life threatening or anything.

That thought blew away like a fart on the wind when a knock came at the door. "Come in," Lana called out.

That would probably be Lisa come to apologize for the way she acted back in the hall. The knob turned and someone walked in, only it wasn't Lisa.

Lana blinked in surprise.

"What are you doing here?" Lana asked Ramona.

Dressed in a pair of tattered leggings and a pink shirt that hung almost to her knees, her hair done up in ragged pigtails whose lengths didn't match, Ramona wore a deep frown on her freckled face. She looked like her favorite pet had just died…and she was the one who killed it. "I was bored," she said. She went over to Lola's bed and dropped on with a little bounce. Lola moaned and stirred and Ramona looked at her funny. She was but an indistinct lump under the blanket.

"Lola," Lana explained.

"What's wrong with her?" Ramona asked.

"She's sick," Lana said.

Ramona jerked away from Lola so fast that she almost fell off the bed. "With what?" she asked. "It's not COVID-19, is it? That shit's no joke."

"Nah, it's a stomach bug," Lana assured her.

The tension in Ramona's shoulder drained away and she seemed to relax a little. "I got one of those," she said matter of factly. "I ate breakfast then got really nauseous this morning."

Lana sat on the edge of her bed. "I guess it's going around," she said.

She had no idea how right she really was.

After being wired up, Anthony was met by the undercover agents who had set up the deal. Their names were Frank and Gary but for this mission, they were called Vinnie and Fredo. Fredo was a strange choice for Gary since Gary was even blacker than Anthony was. "Eh, I'm a black Italian," Gary said when Anthony questioned it. There's some debate on this topic, but once upon a time, the mafia only made full blooded Italians members. Some guys claim that was an absolute rule, other guys say it wasn't. Anthony guessed it boiled down to what family and when the guy was made. Anyway, at some point, it became general practice to make half bloods, but only if their father was Italian. Meeting Gary got Anthony thinking: If a guy had an Italian father and a black mother and came out looking like your standard homeboy, could he be made? As far as Anthony knew, no black guys had ever gotten their button, but if they had an Italian father, they would be eligible, right? The same could be said of any ethnicity. Imagine a straight up Chinese dude named Chang Rossitti.

He'd probably eat his lo mein with pasta sauce. And when they send him to whack a guy, he uses nunchucks LOL. They'd find your body in the trunk of your car with an icepick in the ear and a bunch of ninja stars in your back.

Hilarious. Racist but hilarious.

Anyway, Gary/Fredo's race didn't matter. They weren't trying to join the mob, only sell it drugs. And when it came to business, the only color Cosa Nostra cares about is green.

Frank and Gary debriefed Anthony and then took him to a social club in South Detroit where Johnny hung out. Every mafia family has captains who head crews of made guys. Johnny Dio was in Carmine "Baby Dick" Merlino's crew. Baby Dick - a name that started as a joke but stuck - operated out of the Italia Food and Beverage Club on 8th Ave. Old men played cards at tables and younger guys drank at a bar and plotted crimes. Johnny Dio met them at the door, a tall, olive skinned man with neatly combed black hair and brown eyes. He gracious introduced them to Carmine - all three hundred and fifty pounds of him - and then took them to a table. Anthony was shocked that Johnny wanted to conduct his business here, where the threat of FBI listening devices was very real.

As it turned out, he didn't want to discuss business. For a mobster, Johnny Dio was very talkative. He told Ant and the others a butt load of stories. He told them about Billy Shats, the captain who was "such a slob they whacked him."

Anthony scoffed. "No, come on, they whacked him for being a slob?"

Johnny nodded. "Yeah. He used to spill food all over himself. Ate like a fuckin' pig too, slurpin' and shit. He was so fat he made Baby Dick look like an anorexic. They kept warning him, you know? You represent the family, you're a captain, you're somebody, and you're making us look bad. Scrub the marinara sauce outta the rolls on your face and act like you have some class. He didn't listen. He was a fucking embarrassment. The final straw came when he had an important sit down with some bosses from other families. Not only did he spill his drink all over the table, he shit himself too."

Anthony groaned.

"Yeah. The family finally had enough and took him out. They dumped him in a random pig pen outside the city "so he can be with his family."

Ha, good, fucking mobster.

Johnny and the others agreed to meet later in a junkyard to seal the deal then parted ways. On his way back to the hotel where Frank and Gary were staying, Ant's phone rang. He took it out of his pocket and looked at the screen.

Lisa.

Huh.

Of all the people who could possibly be calling him, Lisa is the last one he would have suspected. Curious, he swiped his thumb across the screen and held the phone to his ear. "Hello?" he asked.

"Greetings, Anthony," Lisa said in that stilted, overly formal way of hers. "I'm calling to inquire as to whether you would be interested in accompanying me to an event at the library this weekend."

Though he liked to think he wasn't a complete dumbass, it took Anthony a minute to filter her words through his brain and to make sense of them. "What event?" he asked.

"It's a comic book convention," she said.

Anthony raised one eyebrow incredulously. "There's a comic book convention at the library?"

"It does seem a rather small venue for such a function, but yes."

Hm. Anthony loved a good comic con. In addition to being a spy and secret agent, he was a total comic book nerd who voraciously read and used his sizable personal wealth to collect rare comics. "When is it?" he asked.

"This Saturday, noon to 10pm."

Anthony had to think about that one for a moment. As far as he could remember, he didn't have anything already planned for this weekend. Of course, he could be called away at a moment's notice by the FBI or even the CIA.

That, of course, was an ever present possibility; he couldn't let it control and dominate his life. "Sure," he said, "I'd be happy to."

"Splendid," Lisa said happily.

After they arranged for a time for Ant to pick her up, they ended the call, and Anthony puit the phone back into his pocket. "Date with your girlfriend?" Fredo asked from the passenger seat of the SUV. What was his real name again? He was Gary, right?

"No," Anthony said, "just a friend."

Gary chuckled. "That's what they all say."

Uh, no, Lisa was not his girlfriend.

Was she?

They did, ahem, share a moment together in the recent past, and Anthony felt great affection for her. Saying they were a couple, however, was really pushing it. A better question would be: Could they be boyfriend and girlfriend? That was a different one altogether. Yes, he thought, he could see himself with Lisa, at least as much as he was with Lola and Lana.

And Ramona too, he figured.

It had occurred to him on the drive down from Royal Woods that he and Ramona hadn't even kissed yet, and that made him feel bad. Having to stun her and then run out that morning also left him feeling kind of shitty about himself. He genuinely liked Ramona and didn't want her to feel used and abused or something. Maybe when he got back, he and Ramona would have a long talk about them - what they were and where they stood.

It was kind of funny, he reflected; he was building a harem much like a Mary Sue in one of those fan fictions he used to read. He'd see how perfect and amazing and off the charts awesome the main character was and roll his eyes. Oh sure, he'd think, every single girl is just dying to throw her panties at this basic, uninspired, mediocre kid. This isn't fiction, it's a 12 year old boy's ego driven fuck fantasy.

Then he found himseklf living in that selfsame fuck fantasy and reliazed just how real and easy it was.

Whoops, let me take that back.

The only question he had now was: Where did it stop? How many girls would he acquire before he petered out? There were a few other potential members, or would be members. Like Lindsey Sweetwater. Anthony wasn't the kind of guy who believed that every girl wanted him, but…Lindsey wanted him. That's why she was acting so rapey the other day. In fact, she always acted kind of rapey. It was a huge turn off. She was an attractive girl, but there was something about her attitude, her personality…something…that rubbed him the wrong way, like sandpaper on a baby's butt. His time working covert ops for the government had taught him to be a pretty good judge of character so it bothered him deeply that he couldn't quite place his finger on exactly what it was about Lindsey that bothered him so. If you held a gun to his head and made him come up with an answer, he'd simply say: She's a mean bitch. That was about the long and short of it, she was a mean, snotty female asshole.

Anthony didn't like women like that.

Lola was kind of snooty, but in an understated, self-aware sort of way, if that made any sense. Lindsey, on the other hand, was just an all out buttface. He also didn't like the way she treated Skippy, truth be told. Oh, sure, Skippy was a scumbag, but something about the whole him being her simp thing offended Anthony as a man. Simps, tbh, disgusted him. Like…dude, she clearly doesn't want you and yet here you are simpering behind her and licking the ground she walks on. She uses you, manipulates you, and treats you like straight up dog shit. Have some fucking self-respect.

A lot of guys were too thirsty for self respect.

Anyway, Ant and the agents finally got back to their hotel and hung out for a while. Johnny Dio called around 2 pm and they drove to a junkyard outside the city. A black Lincoln was waiting. Johnny got out holding a briefcase/ Ant gave him a duffle bag filled with drugs and they discussed future business operations. Ant halfway expected the arrest to go down right then and there, byt the agents let Johnny and whoever else was with him drive off with the smack. "He's gonna put that shit on the street," Any said hotly, "why'd you let him go?"

"We wanna build this case up as much as we can," Frank told him. "If possible, we wanna take out the entire family leadership. We just need to wait until we can implicate the boss and underboss."

"In the meantime, you're providing this guy with drugs that's gonna wind up in people's heads," Ant said. "Brilliant."

Frank shot him a dirty look. "Sometimes you gotta break a few eggs, kid. You'll learn that one day."

Oh, Ant was about to break something alright. He had been trained by Mossad, MI5, the CIA, and the greatest Far East blackbelts to ever live. He could kill a man thirty five different ways with his bare hands alone (and sixteen different ways with his feet). Not only that, but he was very strongly anti drug. Drugs destroyed entire communities and turned once good people into stark, staring lunatics who'd sell their own grandma's booty hole to the highest bidder just to get a taste of their favorite drug. Ant hated that shit and if he had his way, there'd be a fucking holocaust of drug dealers in America. They'd be dragged into the streets and kicked to death; they'd be packed onto cattle cars and sent to death camps in the desert Southwest. That guy in the Philippines had the right idea about drug dealers. Wage a holy jihad against them and make them pay for their crimes against humanoity. Make them sorry they ever slung dope in the first place.

All of that to say, he was very passionate about the issue and had the dangerous weapons - his limbs and brain - to back it up. He didn't mind judo chopping an FBI agent's head smooth off is body. He literally had a license to kill, handed to him by Donald Trump and then personally renewed by Joe Biden. He could fade anybody he wanted whenever he wanted, including federal law enforcement officials. Part of Ant really wanted to take these two dweebs out, track down Johnny Dio, and then kill him and take the drugs back, but he took a deep breath and stayed himself. "Alright, fine, you're right," he said, more to diffuse the situation than because he truly believed it. If he didn't back down, he'd wind up icing both of these guys, and then he'd have to live the rest of his life with their brutal murders on his concious. "Can I go home now?

The two agents looked at each other. "I guess he's good to go," Gary said.

"Yeah, we'll take you home now," Frank said.

The ride back to Royal Woods was quiet and tense, no one speaking or moving to turn on the radio. When they pulled up outside of his house, it was almost five, and the streetlamps were on. Ant hated how early darkness came during the winter.

As soon as he was inside, he went looking for Ramona. Ronnie Anne said she was at the Loud House. Ant considered walking over there but decided against it. He wanted to be alone and take a nap anyway.

He used the bathroom and made himself a sandwich first. In his bedroom, he kicked off his shoes, stretched out on top of the blanket, and closed his eyes.

He was asleep in minutes.

Saturday - the big day for comic book nerds far and wide (as long as they lived in or around Royal Woods) - dawned cloudy and cold. A biting wind swept over the hunkered town and the stoplight over the intersection of Main and Park danced a jittery hangman jig. Anthony was up at the butt crack of dawn showering and getting ready while Ramona slept curled up in his bed with a slight smile on her face. The previous night, they laid awake after having sex and had a long conversation about "them." She ducked and dodged them , not wanting to admit to her feelings, but they eventually arrived at the conclusion that they were "close friends." That, he suspected, was as close as she would come to confessing her true emotions.

Ramona, like Ronnie Anne, was a kind of Hank Hill type who liked to pretend she didn't feel mushy gushy emotions just as love. Hank Hill, if Ant remembered correctly, was uncomfortable showing any displays of affection to his family and thought that doing so would make him a liberal commie or something. Ant wasn't sure, but he had met a lot of men like that over the years, especially in the masculine fields in which he worked for the government. They were all too tough and manly for gay shit like hugging their son and telling him they loved him. Which is really fucking sad, to be honest, and smacked of insecurity. A real man had the balls to show his softer side because he was confident enough in who he was to do so. Anthony had no shame in being tender, because when he had to be rough, he could get rougher than anyone else.

The Santiago girls, on the other hand, fronted like they were too strong and hard-edged for love. Ant didn't know if it was a cute quirk or a serious character flaw, but it made him roll his eyes so hard they almost fell out of his head. He didn't understand it but okay. The fact that she assured him they were close friends told him that they were, indeed, much more than that, and from now on he would act as such.

Ramona was certainly happy. Of the many times they had slept together - and by that, he meant literally falling asleep and waking up in the same bed - she had never smiled in her slumber. She always frowned heavily, like she was mad at her dreams. Seeing her smiling was nice and made Anthony feel good.

In the bathroom, he showed, brushed his teeth, and swilled with mouthwash. He dressed in a pair of tights and tied a cape around his neck. He was going to the comic con dressed as his favorite superhero: The Amazing Alcoholic. He was a super with a drinking problem. His archenemies were The Big Boss Man, The Ex Wife, and a trio of demons who lived inside of him. He had a car called the DUI Machine (pronounced "dewy") but lost his license, now he took the bus. Anthony put his hands heroically on his hips, cocked his chin to one side, and admired his reflection. "Quick, Alkie Man, to the drunk tank."

He laughed to himself.

The Amazing Alcoholic was great.

Being quiet so as not to wake Ramona, Anthony went downstairs and had a quick bowl of cereal for breakfast. There would be food venders at the convention, Lisa said, but chances were that all the stuff there would be grossly overpriced. Anthony was not a materialistic person or a particularly big spender, but he didn't mind paying more for something if it was worth it. If it wasn't, he balked at the idea. He hated the idea of rewarding mediocrity with his hard earned money. So many companies these days pushed absolute garbage onto the market that it was insane. Everyting you got broke within weeks if it worked at all, and the heads of those companies laughed all the way to the bank. Screw that. They were bigger crooks than mobsters. At least guys like Johnny Dio and his greaseball pals only directly hurt people who were involved with them. Outside of peddling dope, of course. Mobsters were notorious loan sharks. And the people who borrowed from them knew full well who they were dealing with and what would happen to them if they couldn't repay. Regular people didn;t know what they were getting into when they innocently bought something at the store and it turned out to be a hunk of crap.

Yeah, Ant was weird like that. Sue him.

When he was finished with breakfast, he left the house and walked over to 1216 Franklin Avenue. He went to knock on the door but it opened immediately and Lisa stepped out dressed in a skirt and blazer accented by a black tie. She was cosplaying as someone but Anthony couldn't quite figure out who. He stroked his chin while she waited, a smug little smile on her face. "Have you figured it out yet?" she asked.

Anthony, giving up, shook his head.

"Lois Lane," she said.

Oh.

He saw it now.

Kind of.

They talked as they walked, about nothing of importance, just general stuff. Ant sensed that Lisa wanted to tell him something important but kept beating around the bush. Several times she opened her mouth and started to say something but cut herself off. Did she want to talk about them? Did she want a similar conversation to the one he had with Ramona?

The library was on the other side of town. Inside, the place was packed wall to wall with people and tables. Lisa stayed close to him and stole furtive glances at his butt. He didn't notice the way she licked her lips, or how sweat sheened her forehead.

Since the previous day, her Loud gene had been in overdrive. She was extremely "horny" and gassy. She spent most of the night masturbating in a vain attempt to relieve the constantly building pressure between her legs and ripping putrid smelling farts. Her genitals and her intestines were both making it very difficult for her to function today. A few times she broke away from Ant to go fart somewhere. People coughed and gagged and a few left. She felt something wet and sticky between her legs and hurried to the bathroom, thinking that she had "sharted" on herself. She was mortified to find herself leaking - practically gushing - natural lubrication, her body preparing itself for penetration.

She hurriedly masturbated but that only took the edge off. Images of Ant performing various sex acts on her flashed through her head and each one aroused her more than the last. Afterward, she bought an overpriced soda from a vendor and drank it all in a single gulp. That was a mistake as the sugar exacerbated her situation. Now she was keyed up and thrumming with energy as well as horny. She buzzed around the convention in an aimless zigzag pattern like Beavis high on cola and plotted a way to get Anthony out of his clothes and inside of her. She put together several elaborate plans but rejected all of them as impractical. She supposed - and she didn't say this often - that she was overthinking matters.

Just a touch.

She did not believe that simple was always best, but in this case, she reckoned it might be. She would ask Ant to take her home, lure him into her bedroom, and go to work on him like she had the last time. Ant was a male and males are notoriously easy to manipulate once you have their reproductive gland in your hand.

Or mouth.

Hmmm, she remembered the taste of him on her tongue and a little shiver of anticipation went through her. She wanted him to lick her vulva and to thrust into her repeatedly until she achieved orgasm; she wanted to fellate him until his hot seed filled her stomach, She wanted to do all of the dirty stuff with him that she had seen in the porn videos she watched on Fapdotcom and Jilloffdotnet. Fire crept through her from the tips of her toes to the top of her head and her middle smoldered like a bed of embers. She stopped in the middle of the room and pressed her knees together like she had to pee. She really needed to get off. She needed to rub herself against Anthobny's face and fill his mouth with her love nectar. It was even now dampening her underwear and dribbling down the insides of her thighs. If this kept up, it would keep going until the whole building was submerged. She imagined a sea of people drowning in her juices and didn;t know whether to laugh or cry.

If she didn't get out of here - and get off - soon, flooding the entire world like the myth of Noah would be a very real possibility.

Getting herself under a semblance of control, she went off to find Ant. When she did, she was annoyed to see him talking to Vicky. She was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt despite the cold, and when Lisa walked up, she spared her a dismissive glance. "I didn't know you were fond of comic books," Lisa said. "I was under the impression that you couldn't read."

"I'm quite fond of animated literature," Vicky said. '"In fact, I've been reading more and more lately. My thirst for knowledge is second only to my distaste for you."

Lisa's jaw clacked open and a smug smile crossed Vicky's lips. The way she spoke, the way she carried herself, the gleam in her eye…she seemed more intelligent than usual. Dear God, had she become smarter?

Ignoring her, Vicky turned back to Ant and began "putting the moves on him" as the kids might say. She laid her hand on his chest and smiled at him while making surprisingly subtle and well thought out sexual innuedno. Lisa was somewhat impressed…but enraged and mortified more than anything else.

This was intolerable, simply intolerable. Lisa had to find a way to get that whore away from him. She couldn't directly attack Vicky. Intelligence boost or not, she was still much bigger and much more muscular than puny, scrawny Lisa. She needed to cause some kind of distraction. She wracked her lust addled brain and finally came up with a plan.

In the women's room, she pulled the trashcan away from the wall, struck a match, and tossed it in. The paper towels inside caught and began to smoke. She went out to the main room and waited for the alarm to go off. The fire would be small and contained. It was in the bathroom, after all, where everything was tile. It wouldn't spread. She was sure of it.

Only it didn't happen that way. Someone went into the bathroom and ran out again, an eerie orange glow behind them. "FIRE!" they yelled.

Everyone began to scream and panic. Moments later, the door blew off the hinges and a wall of flames swept out, igniting everything in its path. Lisa's eyes widened in horror and her jaw dropped. The entire hall was engulfed and the fire was spreading fast. Anthony ran over, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her away. Smoke filled the building, hazing the air, and Vicky coughed into her hand. They joined the stampede of people rushing out the door into the icy December day. Sirens rose in the distance and flames burst through the roof. Everyone huddled together and watched the fire consume the structure. Before the fire department even got there, it was clear that the library was a total loss.

"This is simply awful," Vicky said. "A tragedy. Our citadel of knowledge destroyed, the shining ight in our darkness extinguished. Woe."

Lisa's guilt was tempered by her wish that Vicky had been inside.

As they walked home, that guilt increased, and the paranoia set in. She could go to prison for this. What was she thinking? Why did she do something so stupid?

Suddenly, she didn't feel much like having sex anymore.

She felt like hiding.