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The trap was simple. In Sips’ experience, traps didn’t really need to be complicated. That was generally when people screwed up. No, it was the KISS rule for him all the way(and he couldn’t complain when it had a name like that). Plus, the trap those jokers had gotten him with was laughably simple; it was only fair he returned the favor. The garbage court had kept him for several weeks after finding him breaking into their car directly after they’d robbed him. It’d been kind of a mess of a night. They hadn’t really known what to do with him and he’d been held “hostage” by them until he’d managed to convince them that his friendliness towards them was genuine. They seemed concerned, and rightly so, that he would hold animosity towards them. So they refused to let him go until he’d proven that wrong. Oh, and also payed them a fairly hefty ransom. He really hadn’t felt like much of a hostage. It had been easy to get along with the garbage court; he seemed to mesh with them fairly easily, despite the awkwardness that being a hostage brought. He’d had a good time while he was there. Plus he genuinely liked all of them so there was no need to put on an act to convince them. There were no hard feelings over what they’d done.
But, for some reason, they seemed to believe that if he liked them so much, he wouldn’t hurt them. Because he held no bitterness over their trespasses they thought that he wouldn’t retaliate. In his line of work, that was very false. Especially now that the trio had, in the eyes of those watching, added insult to injury by kidnapping him. Besides, he didn’t like them that much. He didn’t like anyone enough to hesitate to take them out if it was good for business. As he was (very) fond of saying, “I’m not the good guy, honey.”
So, using his numerous connections, Sips spread the rumour of some rich new guy in town. Someone with lots of cash but no knowledge of the area. Sips even threw in tales of some ancient artifacts that this mysterious rich dude, conveniently oblivious to magic, kept stored with a large amount of cash in a highly secured warehouse. Of course, it was only highly secured against mortal thieves, making it an easy target for any magic creatures. In short, Sips created the perfect target for the garbage court.
It took nearly a month for them to bite, with Sips being forced to fend off other would-be robbers in the meantime through a combination of fatal accidents and bribes. The garbage court, despite Trott’s caution, had no idea they were being watched closely by Sips’ people and, once they began showing an interest in the warehouse, it didn’t take long for Sips to hear of it. His phone buzzed in the middle of a conference and once he saw the message he couldn’t stop grinning for the rest of the day. This was going to be fun.
“There’s something suspicious about this, Smith.”
“You /always/ think it’s suspicious Trott mate,” Smith rolled his eyes and snorted. He gestured to the dimly lit building across the street from them, “We’ve already done a fuckton of boring research and all these precautions and blah blah. This place is fucking perfect. We’ve done it your boring-as-fuck way, now it’s take ‘em down!” He glanced slyly at Trott. “You ain’t telling me you’re scared, mate.”
“Fuck you, prick.” Trott shoved him. Smith laughed and Trott smiled. Then he muttered, “still think it’s too perfect.” Smith groaned and opened his mouth to respond when a large figure landed beside him.
“Fucking shit!” Smith swore, flinching back. He eyed the man who’d just appeared next to him, taking in the blue horns and mischievous grin. “Ross mate, you’ve got to stop fucking doing that.”
“Woops, sorry mate.” Ross grinned, raising his hands apologetically. He sounded calm, but Smith knew otherwise. The gargoyle’s tail was swishing back and forth behind him in agitation. No matter how well Ross could hide how he was feeling, his tail always betrayed him.
“No you fucking aren’t.” Smith growled, nudging the gargoyle with his shoulder and giving him a mock scowl. “You fucking prick.” Ross laughed softly and wrapped his tail around Smith’s leg to give a gentle squeeze of thanks.
“Enough flirting, jesus christ mates,” Trott sighed in exasperation, “We’re planning a heist here, we can all shack up with each other later, yeah?”
“Is that a promise?” Smith retorted, raising his eyebrows.
“Honestly, do you ever think about anything else?” Trott snorted, seemingly annoyed. But a smile quirked at his lips and he seemed more relaxed now.
“Not really, Trott. I’m randy as fuck you know that, mate,” Smith grinned. Trott looked at Ross, a helpless expression on his face.
“C’mon Ross, back me up here.” Trott pleaded. Ross seemed to consider for a moment.
“So it’s a promise, Trott?” Ross grinned. Trott threw his hands up.
“Hopeless! Why do I even put up with you two randy bastards?” His tone grew serious then. “Okay Ross, what’d you find mate?” Ross nodded and began relaying the information from his scouting.
“There’s a fenced perimeter with one tower. Two guards and a searchlight on top. There’s two pairs of guards patrolling along the fence on the ground. Oh! And one of them has a mutt.” Ross counted on his fingers. Smith groaned. Damn. Animals were always more difficult to deal with. He snorted to himself. Humans probably wouldn’t be happy to hear that they were ranked below dogs. It was just the truth though. Smith had yet to meet a human as commendable as a canine. A face briefly surfaced in his memories– pale blue eyes, short cropped hair, smiling at Smith like he was the kid, like he was the mortal. Smith shook himself. They’d bested that prick long ago. No reason to think of him now. And certainly no reason to feel… feel… With a start he realized Ross had started talking again.
“–four on the roof, one on each edge. From what I can heat sense, at least two inside, maybe–” Ross cut himself off and glanced at Smith, puzzled expression clear on his face. “You okay, mate?”
Smith cursed inwardly and through force of will stopped himself from shaking. What the fuck was wrong with him? It was their jobs to be the nervous wrecks. He was the cocky asshole who didn’t take anything seriously enough and lightened the mood.
“Just a bit chilly, mate.” Smith lied. “Let’s hurry and break the fuck in.” Ross smiled and nodded, shifting himself closer to Smith.
“Couldn’t agree more, mate.” Ross agreed, before hurriedly adding, “Almost forgot, security alarm. I saw one guard input a password when he walked in the building.”
“All right,” Trott nodded. “Our info was correct then. Good.”
“See?” Smith gestured at Trott, “Nothing to worry about.” Trott hummed, seemingly still unconvinced, but he shook himself as he began to formulate a plan.
“Okay,” the selkie said, gleam in his eye. “Here’s the plan.” Smith watched and listened as Trott drew faintly glowing schematics in the air. He smiled to himself, feeling the queasiness in him settle down. As long as he was with these two, nothing could get in their way.
The plan had gone nearly perfectly, as all of Trott’s schemes tended to. Ross and Smith had used snipers to pick off the two guards in the tower, closely coordinating their shots. The four on the roof had been harder since there were only two of them. Ross, the one with the best night vision and most steady hands out of all of them was tasked with taking out two, one directly after the other, as Trott and Smith each took one of the others. There was a risky moment where Ross’ second shot had hit the guard in the shoulder, not head, but Smith had turned his scope in time to finish him off before he could alert the others. The dog, as predicted, caused some problems. Luckily its owners were morons who didn’t listen so it was pretty easy to take them out from behind. In this way they took out the four on the ground and snuck into the warehouse with no alarms tripped.
Smith headed down the stairs while Trott busied himself with the alarm and Ross watching over the selkie. Once Smith reached the warehouse floor, it only took a few steps and a few seconds to realize something had gone terribly wrong. He couldn’t really understand what was happening. The entire warehouse was… it was…
“It’s fucking empty,” Smith hissed, fury and confusion bubbling inside him.
“What?” Trott demanded in a whisper, just now descending from the staircase, Ross right behind him.
“I said,” Smith growled. “It’s. Fucking. Empty. There’s nothing fucking here.” He turned to look at Trott and had time to see the selkie’s eyes widen and hear Ross’ quiet utterance of “shit” before he was blinded. Light flashed and pain momentarily spiked through his eyes as the warehouse was flooded in bright light, the beams of several spotlights pointed directly at them. From the edges of the warehouse, he could hear the click of guns and feel tendrils of magic curling around them. His eyes adjusted to see a mob of what had to be around 100 people, humans and monsters alike. They were completely surrounded. A trap. Fucking brilliant.
“Well, well,” said a voice. Smith knew that voice. Goddamn he knew that voice and it shouldn’t have sent chills down his spine, it fucking shouldn’t have. “If it isn’t my favorite bastard trio: The garbage court.” The owner of the voice stepped out from the shadows, surrounded by bristling guns and threatening magic. Sips wore that same wide smile he’d worn a billion times. Smith had come to like that smile in the time Sips had stayed with them. But now there was something about it. Something that somehow had nothing to with the fire and man power that surrounded it. Something Smith did not like. Something that set his instincts screaming for him to hide. Wait, hide? No, fuck that, he was motherfucking Alex Smith Like hell he was going to be intimidated by this mortal prick.
“Sips,” he said, halfway between a smirk and a snarl, like his body couldn’t decide on anger or cockiness.
“Me, The Wizard of Oz himself!” Sips smirked, completely confident in his gestures. “It’s good to see you again, Smiffy. Sorry about the melodramatics, they’re fucking hard to resist.”
“Sips,” came a voice behind Smith, low and dangerous. Smith glanced over his shoulder to see Trott, stance low and head tilted down. It almost looked like the selkie was about to drop to sleep, except for the death glare he was giving. Anyone who knew him, knew that this was what he looked like whenever he was seriously pissed off and about to get violent. Smith would’ve found it hot if he hadn’t felt the same uncontrollable rage simmering within him. Trott continued in a low growl. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Look, ‘mates’,” Sips said in his canadian accent, butchering the british expression. “It’s bad business to let you jokers get away with stealing and kidnapping. I mean, c’mon, you didn’t really think you’d get away with that without punishment?” He looked at their faces. “Or maybe you did, jeeesus. This is why you guys aren’t me. Holy shit, really?” He muttered in disbelief and shook his head disapprovingly.
“Okay, well I’m not going to give you jokers a business lesson. I’m here to show you what happens when you mess with me.” Sips’ voice grew threatening, though the bemused smile didn’t leave his face. Smith tensed and behind him he heard Ross’ low growl. Sips raised his hands.
“But look, I like you guys, so, like any good bad guy, I’m giving you a chance. All these bastards,” Sips gestured to the masses surrounding them, “have strict, no-kill orders. Plus, they’ll attack in waves instead of all at once. If you defeat all of them, you’re free to go, if not, you’ll be captured and dealt with in some non-fatal but highly painful way. There, not a bad villain monologue, huh.” There were murmurs of agreement from his surrounding cohorts.
“So,” he said, spreading arms wide, “what do you–” Then, something strange happened. Try as he might, Smith couldn’t understand what Sips was saying. It was the damn ringing in his ears. If only that fucking annoying ringing would stop. He tried to move his arms, hoping he could massage it away, but they were so heavy, he could barely twitch a finger. The world blurred and tilted and he felt something soft and solid behind him.
Suddenly, he was on the floor and Trott’s face was above him, eyes wide and mouth moving frantically. Smith reasoned he must be saying words. But they wouldn’t connect. They were just sounds. Like a song that for some reason refused to resolve itself into a pattern and remained disjointed, discordant. The ringing had died down but it was replaced with a different sensation. It was… What was it? It was… Oh. Oh, right. It was pain. It was pain, pain, pain shaking his insides and gripping his head in hot agony. Pain. He looked down to see what… what the fuck. His vision blurred. The pain. Too much… pain. Then he saw it. His lower right side. There was a bruise, a perfectly circular, dark as night bruise, the size of a tennis ball. He almost wanted to smile. Just a bruise. Just a… He’d be fine. He’d be… it wasn’t a bruise. He looked again. It was… It was a hole. A hole. A hole in his side. A tennis ball hole. Was someone playing tennis here?
“Oh,” he said, voice thick and clogged. A voice he could barely make out himself. “Oh, oh, oh.” He wanted, he wanted to say more but his throat stuck. It was just panic, or shock. People always suffered from shock in these situations didn’t they? But no, there was something in his throat, some liquid. He coughed and felt it dribble down his chin, hot and sticky. Ha. Hot and sticky. He tried to laugh and more liquid came out. Was it red? Why… why would it be red? His lungs were… was… was someone sitting on his chest? No, there was no one. Just a blue-green glow over his stomach. Blurrily, Smith could see Trott’s hands pressing into the sea colored light. Good ol’ Trott. Smith tried to look up at the selkie’s face but looked right past instead. Something… something was wrong… what was it? Something to do with… with tennis balls? Smith couldn’t remember. But there. There was a figure. Huge. Dark. Looming over Trott. Impossibly… impossibly big. Was that… Ross? Ross… ?
The last thing Smith heard before it all faded away, before all the pain and confusion and nausea dropped away, was a roar as loud as the pain, as raw as Trott’s expression, a roar like the world was ending. And, for Smith, it was.
Sips stumbled to his knees. His stomach revolted. Fuck, he hated teleporting. But he wouldn’t deny that it was useful. He looked at the blood staining his white shirt seeping from a long gash in his side. No. He wouldn’t deny teleports were useful. It was the only reason he was alive. In all likelihood everyone he’d left in that warehouse was already dead. He sighed, the paperwork and expenses would be massive. People would be very unhappy with him. This was the second big failure in a short period of time, there would probably be a huge bailout after this. People abandoning ship Sips like he was the Titanic. He snorted. Blood loss seemed to be making him a bit loopy.
“Where is it. Where…Ah!” He took out a small thing that looked like a lighter from his pocket and pressed it to his side. With a burning sensation the gash began to tighten and heal. It got small enough that it was about the length of Sips’ hand and shallow enough that it would stop bleeding within the next ten minutes before the device ran out of juice and clattered to the floor.
Sips collapsed against the wall. It had been a long day. Worst of all, he hadn’t even brought cigarettes with him. He rested his head against the concrete behind him and somehow, found himself to be smiling. Who would’ve thought. Well, maybe he shouldn’t be so surprised. When it came to the garbage court, nothing ever seemed to work out the way it was intended. His only regret was that he wouldn’t be able to personally punish the bastard who’d disobeyed him and blasted a hole through Smiffy. He hummed, still wishing for a cigarette. Hopefully Trott would be able to save the kelpie. He’d miss that cocky ass.
Which was… surprising. Sips had been certain there was no one he would really care if they died but somehow… the ragtag trio had wormed their way into his mind like maggots.
“Ew,” he said aloud. “Bad analogy.” He really wanted a cigarette. He ran his hand through his hair He was… shaking. Motherfuck, he was shaking. What was… Was it rage? Sadness? Blood Loss? Suddenly, he knew what it was. It was fear. No, terror. He hadn’t felt this way, hell, he hadn’t felt even remotely scared since he was in his teens. He laughed. He could remember those times. The times where the adrenaline spiked through his system, when his entire body tingled like he’d been zapped with electricity. Or like he used to feel after he would down ten cups of coffee in a row in preparation for consecutive all nighters to pull off some harebrained get-rich-quick scheme. He looked at his shaking hand. He felt… alive again.
Which was a depressing thought. Had his life gotten so boring that he only felt alive when he was almost killed by a rampaging demon? Really, with all the power and money he’d amassed you’d think he’d be able to keep himself entertained. He smiled again and pressed his hand to his side, feeling the blood leech between his fingers. It hurt, but it was nothing compared to the excitement that was pounding through his heart and head. Fuck. He never would’ve thought those jokers… well, he’d been interested in them before, but now he was fascinated. With them, he certainly wouldn't ever be bored.
Ross was standing when he came to. Which was weird, since he couldn’t remember having woken up in the morning. Shouldn’t he be in his bed? He looked around himself and for a moment wasn’t sure if he was even conscious. It was as dark as if his eyes were closed. But then the starlight began filtering down and his eyes adjusted to see he was in the middle of the warehouse. There were lumps of cloth around him. Was this… a clothing warehouse? Had he been kidnapped? He looked up at the ceiling. There were huge gashes is in the metal that let the stars beam down. Peacefully, calmly, like nothing was wrong. What had done that? What was going on?
He looked down at himself. There was something dark and shimmering covering his hands and staining his clothes. What the… Then it all came flooding back. He remembered where he was, he remembered the bright lights, all the guns and magic. He remembered Sips and he remembered… Smith. Oh god, Smith. He looked around frantically but there was so much stuff in the warehouse he couldn’t see Trott or definitely-still-alive Smith anywhere.
Wait. Hadn’t… hadn’t the warehouse been empty? He looked around and suddenly understood. The warehouse wasn’t filled with cargo. It was filled with corpses. Mutilated, bloody corpses strewn around him like trees knocked down in an explosion. And he, and Ross, was at the center. He looked at his hands again, unaware that he’d started to shake. He could remember now. He could remember flashes. At the time he’d been as deeply lost in inky unconscious as any fainting episodes but now… when he looked back.
He had been… powerful. And furious. And he could remember flashes of...of delight. Of vicious delight as he ripped into people. None of it seemed real, it seemed like a dream sequence, but looking around he knew there was no other explanation for what he was seeing. He had done this. And he had enjoyed it. God, he had fucking enjoyed it. Where was Trott? Where was… Smith? He needed them. He needed to see them. Ross had never felt cold in his life. Warmth could make him drowsy, but he had never felt, truly cold even standing naked in a blizzard. There, in the warehouse, surrounded by corpses, unsure whether Trott and Smith were even alive or if he had… God, could he have? There, in the warehouse, for the first time in his life, Ross was cold.