“There is one thing that any soon-to-be or at least trying-to-be criminal masterminds ought to know, is that they are not the only one walking down that path.

It might sound silly, but this reminder is actually one of the things that help the most to make your life easier when it comes to criminal mastermind… ish stuff. And no, don’t go look into the dictionary, I just made that up.

Actually, I’ll include in the next edition.

Whatever the case may be. Always having present that you are not important, that there are thousands, maybe millions other people who have the same goal as you in mind, is always useful. Especially since most masterminds have the extremely annoying habit of considering themselves invincible and unfathomable. Thanks to them for the ‘I-Imposible!!!’ and ‘You cannot defeat me!!!’ cringy phrases so commonly associated with our ilk.

I could give you thousand explanations as to why this is so necessary on your oncoming future. I won’t lie, it’s too bothersome for me. However, out of the kindness of my heart, I will give you two of them.

The first is, it always helps to include a surprise factor in your plans. And in your backup plans. And in the spare backup plans. One should always have at least an H plan.

Don’t ask.

The last, but not least:

Of the thousand other struggling persons who wish the same as you, what makes you different from the others?

A passable Criminal Mastermind should have one distinctive trait, after all.

Mine, you ask?

Well…

 

• ••••

 

Some of you might not remember, but there had been one point in this story where Lawrence had decided to play both the charismatic villain and the unfathomable mystic criminal when in his villainous persona.

So far, the charismatic villain had been taking the lead, some exceptional circumstances aside.

Right now, the cold-blooded, amethyst eyed, clenched fists Lawrence had no droplet of charismatic blood on his veins.

And the criminal inside of him was waking up to the smell of fresh carnage.

However, Lawrence was also afraid. Which made him cautious.

“I cannot take those men from here” He whispered.

Long story short, in less than an hour Lawrence had dashed west from Plaza and to the docks, Jhonathan Chase’s residence… And Mika’s as well, if well against her will. He wouldn’t come in the front door; that would be downright stupid. He might as well just tie himself up and drop by Chase’s office.

Well, he actually couldn’t, but that was beside the point.

So instead, he decided to act casual and walk around the complex a few times, looking for a way in. One that didn’t involve him getting found out, shot to death and fed to the dogs, not necessarily in that order. Current him would have wished for a couple of days to prepare. He certainly did not have that much time. Not with the clock ticking and every passing minute increasing the chance of something terrible happening to Mika.

If that girl ends up hurt I won’t be able to look at her again…

I’ll make sure that anyone responsible is paid back tenfold, regardless.

In the end, he found a relatively easy path. It was one of the outside smoking areas for employees. A backyard with a couple of lounge chairs, surrounded by spike wire fences and guarded by two very not friendly looking man with even less friendly looking guns in their hands. Lawrence was ready to bet they didn’t use rubber bullets.

So yes, it was impossible for Lawrence to go in from his position.

…

Unless…

I wanted an excuse to test my new skills. Be careful what you wish for, they say. I suppose it is true.

Lawrence emptied his mind… And he felt a mental switch turning.

It was a strange feeling at first. He felt like countless droplets of cold water ran through his back, and wherever they touched, washed away a bit of himself. Lawrence shivered. But it wasn’t really cold. And he could feel the odd sensation quickly vanishing. He had to get moving.

And then, heart racing, he sunk in the wall.

Quite literally so.

If activating the side effect of his skill was weird, phasing through five inches of hardened concrete was way weirder. It felt wrong. His body felt itself inside the wall, but it just… didn’t stop it from moving. Breathing was… Actually, it wasn’t. At all. Lawrence wasn’t breathing, and he didn’t have to. Which felt even weirder. The fact that he could see through the wall as if light didn’t bounce on it was disturbing as well.

He shook his head. No time for that. Trying his best to ignore the uncanny feeling, he walked around both men, and once behind them stepped outside of the wall (and boy that sounded weird). Just in time, for the chill vanished away at that very same moment.

Lawrence sprinted. To his surprise, his now very much not intangible derby shoes made no sound when running through the concrete. And so, before the men had a chance to look back, he grabbed their heads, and with all of the strength of his burning rage, slammed them together.

There was a hollow thud when both heads crashed, and a couple more as the bodies fell to the ground.

“Not waking up anytime soon, I presume” Lawrence kicked both men to make sure they were unconscious and went through all their belongings. He took away their guns. They were both a standard model, so unloading one and putting the magazine on his pocket wasn’t very difficult. He briefly considered to take their clothes and disguise himself as one of them, but ultimately decided against it. He wasn’t taking the chance of getting caught. He would fight his way in. Besides, rescuing Mika would be easier if he had a clear escape route. And also…

He nodded to himself, and, picking up the gun that was still loaded, he ran to the complex, muttering to himself.

“I said I would pay back tenfold what was done to me. What kind of man would I be if I went back on my word now?”

 

• ••••

 

A phone rang. A burner, to be precise. Jhonny didn’t use smartphones for business calls. One was never sure enough.

He left his whiskey glass at the desk and picked up the burner. “Chase here.”

“Ah, Chase-dono! Glad to hear you! Doing well, I presume?” The man at the other side of the phone had a peculiar accent and sounded extremely polite and friendly, though not completely happy. Jhonny was even less happy to hear him.

“Mr. Nakamura.” He used all of his self control not to grunt out the name. He wasn’t particularly fond of him. Then again, he wasn’t particularly fond of anyone who tried to put Joy Dust on his ships, even less so if they threatened to make a hole on them if he refused. “I thought I had made myself very clear the last time we talked.”

“Well, I thought maybe the current circumstances would have made you reconsider…” Nakamura’s voice now sounded coarse and devoid of any friendliness. “It seems I was mistaken.”

“It seems you were.”

“Chase-dono. If this goes on, we will have no choice but to openly confront you. Please do not force us to that point. I am not fond of bloodshed, and I would highly advice you against it. The situation is extremely tense as it is-”

“Maybe if the Yakuza stopped trying to break my company down, the situation would be less tense.” Jhonny had wanted to yell that last bit. But a good businessman never loses his cool. Not even in the direst situation.

“Maybe if you accepted to provide us with your services, we wouldn’t have been forced to such drastic measures” Nakamura, too, seemed at the verge of losing his temper.

“Right. I’m sure someone put a gun in your head. Listen up, and listen well, because this is the last time that I say this. I won’t lend you my ships to import drugs, never mind Joy Dust. And until you stop messing with me and my company, I will keep blasting your hideouts in your nose, so help me God. Oh, and the last assassin you sent was a real dickhead, he tried to steal my whiskey. Shouldn’t have done that. You can go pick him up in a cage by the docks. Jhonny Chase is no killer, but I would go fetch him a wheelchair, unless sharks suddenly lost their appetite, which I highly doubt.”

“What do you-?!”

“And if you wanna hear my advice, stop dealing with Joy Dust. That thing is evil, dangerous and unstable. I heard the Yakuza men were loyal to their brothers, so if you care for them, stop it. And now, Mr. Nakamura, I will hang up, and I expect to see my men coming back soon with a smile and a refund money for what you did to them. And my lost ships, brand new. I would say ‘I hope to see you soon’ but I’m no liar. Adios.”

Jhonny slapped the burner shut, and then he put it on the ground. And then he crushed it with his foot until he was satisfied.

“You little…” Crack! “Fucking…” Crack! “Son of a bitch…!” Crack! “How dare you…” Crack “’Do not force us’ he says!” Crack!

“Oh, I would fucking love to openly confront you! We’ll see whose blood will be shed…”

By the time Jhonny had stopped crushing the poor thing, not even a Meta could take it out of the carpet. The thing was turned into a grey sparking mush. There was no helping it.

“Haaah… I really need to get myself a fucking sandbag. This job is driving me insane…”

He needed something to relax. Something that made him feel like he had control over the situation. Or else, he would blow up.

Luckily for him, he knew exactly what to do.

“Let’s pay a visit to the little rat we found earlier. I’m dying to hear what that whole thing was about.”

 

• ••••

 

Mikaella was used to cold. It was one of the few advantages that came with a life in the streets. Emma and Mia, on the other side, weren’t.

“Sis, I’m f-freezing…” A puff of white mist came out of Emma’s mouth on regular intervals, as she hugged her little sister closely to keep their body temperature. “What’s going on? Can’t you get us out of here?”

“I know as much as you do…” Mia certainly wasn’t in a better state. Her teeth clacking and her fists clenched so hard it was painful just so she could still feel her hands. “And you know I used all of my skills when those bastards attacked. I’m out of energy now.” Sleep was trying to get her, but she knew she wouldn’t make it if she slept now. “Besides, I felt all of my passive skills turning off the second we stepped inside here. These walls are probably reinforced… with silver.” It was hard to stay awake though.

“Don’t fall asleep…! Mika, are you okay?”

Mika was carefully observing a corner, as if some kind of miracle were to happen and a hole was about to open in it.

“Trying to hear something on the other side. Nothing so far.”

She wasn’t very sure about what had happened. One minute, the pretty lady and her little sister (Emma and Mia were her names, she learned) were teaching her the right amount of sugar to put in a lime pie, and then the next second men in black started to swarm out of nowhere with batons and guns in their hands. To her surprise, Mia started casting explosive cookies, shuriken-like pastries and, at some point, she started batting flaming candies with her frying pan. Mika helped as much as she could. She used her new cool skill and a ninja suit appeared out of nowhere, and she could suddenly make crazy things from darkness.

She was having a lot of fun, confusion aside.

But then one of the (bad) bad guys took Emma, and there was pretty much nothing they could do then. One of the men put a funny-smelling strap in her mouth and then she fell asleep. She woke up to the feeling of extreme cold, and there they were. In a cold, poorly illuminated cell with nothing but a locked door, and a mirror she suspected wasn’t really a mirror. Like any proper cell.

Fortunately, she still had the Chief’s present, so she wasted no time in turning it on.

Meanwhile, she would try her best to help her new friends.

“Don’t talk too much” she said. “We have to save our energies.”

“What? What do you mean? Do you have a way of getting us out of here?” Emma looked at her.

“No.” Her nose perked up. She stuck her head to the wall once more. The men watching their cell were startled and talking nervously.

“…You hear…? Sounded… Someone screaming…”

Mika smiled.

“Bullshit… We’re in a safe… would someone scream…? Must… your imagination…”

“Then why aren’t we trying to escape?” Mia said this time.

“We couldn’t, if we tried. Besides… I’m not getting us out of here.”

The voices were clear by now.

“Is that a… fedora hat?”

“Shoot him! SHOOT HIM!”

“AAAAGHHHHH”

“The Chief is.”

There was a metal clunk, a doorknob turned, and the door burst open. A very fancy derby shoe came in, succeeded by an extremely expensive tuxedo pant… And then, a gentleman wearing a fedora and a black domino mask came in, dusting his cape, eyes gleaming an eerie tone of purple.

Somewhere in Emma’s brain, she wondered how that little domino mask made her unable to really grasp anything of the man’s looks, besides him being very… Attractive.

Huh, that was weird. Her heartbeat was increasing.

“Lady… es. Sorry to keep you waiting” he stretched a hand, covered in a bloodied butler glove… And smiled. Emma started feeling really wobbly all the sudden.

“Shall we?”

 

• ••••

 

 “I tend to really get into my characters’ skin”