Manipulation's A Bitch

You Guys Need to Listen to Me

The next day, Xephos woke up without Lomadia in his arms. After a brief panic, he calmed down once he realised that she was sitting in the cozy chair reading a book.

"Morning, sleepyhead," she said, not looking up from her book.

"What time is it?"

"Oh, about"--she glanced at her non-existent watch--"wake-the-fuck-up-already o'clock."

"That late?" He got up sleepily, rubbing his eyes.

"Late enough that I thought you may have died in your sleep."

Xephos rolled over to look at the clock next to their bed.

"Oh, come off it, Lom. It's only 11:40. It's not even noon yet."

"Whatever. Do you usually wake up this late when you need to receive a message that day from two mob leaders?"

"Shit. I almost forgot." Xephos shot up in his bed, rubbing his eyes. "But to be fair, Sips and Sjin probably just woke up, too."

Lomadia probably would've retorted somehow, but they were interrupted by a loud bell noise.

"That's the alarm system, so I think it's safe to assume they've answered your letter," Lomadia said, looking pointedly at Xephos' still not dressed figure.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm going." Shoving on a pair of pants and some boots and throwing on a shirt, Xephos went downstairs, noting the absence of workers due to the weekend. Those who were there weren't too bothered by the alarm; they'd heard it often enough.

As he went down, he met up with Honeydew and Lalna, who were already chatting about the somewhat expected disturbance.

"Hey, coming down with me?" Xephos asked, breezing past them without waiting for an answer.

"Uh, yeah, I'll be right down," Lalna answered, adjusting the goggles on his messy hair and chasing him down, Honeydew in tow.

Reaching the front door, Xephos looked at the security cameras which were pointed at their main front entrance.

"Looks like they decided to give back the body. How considerate."

Lalna looked over Xephos' shoulder and saw the bloody body slumped at their door.

"Oh, that's nasty," he said, feeling a little pity for the nameless guy."Too bad for him. There's probably a note for us somewhere there; I'll go get it."

Lalna opened the door, and could be seen rummaging through his lab coat for some gloves to search the body.

After a few minutes, he found a wad of paper stuffed in the mouth. Pulling it out and flattening it, Lalna went back inside, quickly being greeted by his friends' demands to see the writing.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm on it, give me a sec." Lalna positioned himself where everyone could read the letter, and started to scan the handwriting, clearly Sjin's.

Wow, would you look at that! You jokers decided to send us a letter, right? Well too bad for your messenger, 'cause he's dead. But we still read your note, and we've decided to accept. Because we're nice that way. Besides, what are you gonna do, kill us? HAH.

Hope you fuck a horse,

Sips and Sjin

P.S. Fuck you.

"Well that was very eloquently said. I applaud them," Xephos said after reading the letter a few times to catch the words covered in blood.

"At least the handwriting was nice," Honeydew remarked. "Sips probably had Sjin write it down for him. Architects always have either horrible chicken scratch or nice, flow-y cursive."