Big Business

"It doesn't matter who he is or who he claims to be. He must face judgment." Stryder spun around in her padded chair, her eyes lazily wandering over the city landscape painted before her. "That someone could slither through our city without even brushing past justice is abhorrent. It makes me wonder how our precious hero society can even stand."

Stryder planted her heeled feet on the marble floor, shoes clicking as she stepped towards the golden light cast over her otherwise shadowy office. Cyan fingers sharpened like daggers ran across the perfect window howbeit, Stryder thought she could clasp the city in her palm.

"And what of his name? This declaration is the work of an immature child who thinks playing pranks will gain them merit. Don't give trash the idea that it can be anything other than disposable waste! Scum like this is found and punished, not shunted to the top of the corporate head-"

Routinely, Stryder caught wind of another loose thread danging from her otherwise perfect onyx doublet. Her lips became a thin line as she retrieved a long murderous blade from a sheath danging at her thin waist. "These loose threads are becoming a uniform occurrence." She grumbled, visibly upset.

"Despite the magnitude of your blunder, I'm not angry. You did exceedingly well to call me." Stryder's cutlass-shaped eyes bore into her nine-foot companion who, tried (and failed) to look presentable shoved into a chair so clearly too small for him.

"Zyx." Stryder smiled as she spoke the edge, in her voice lifted if only for the moment. "His name." The fine of the sword returned with a fury, and the ogre-like Zyx knew what it meant. Ever since the so-called Shadow Emperor or Shadow King, whatever they were choosing to call him, came into the picture, Zyx had been seeing a new side of Stryder, one without the superior haze and callous acidity for which she is known.

All this talk of scum and trash let Zyx, more observant than he played himself to be, know everything he needed to know. Stryder was afraid. Fear was never an emotion he'd thought to attribute to someone like Stryder, and yet here he was blaspheming but only to himself. . .for now.

After working together for a year the boulderesque, Zyx had learned almost nothing about his employer, nothing personal anyway. The air around Stryder was intense, and it didn't allow for worthless things like emotions to break through. Seeing her like this was, in a sadistic way pretty, damn satisfying for Zyx.

Zyx brushed his jet-black hair with his clawed hand his, darkened lips parting to reveal a maw filled with spikes passing for teeth. "If you can feel fear," Stryder grimaced at Zyx, which only made him grin broader, "then I can break you. Perhaps the chance to see you wiggle and squirm in agonizing pain beneath my foot is not passed yet."

"His. Name." Stryder wouldn't dignify Zyx with any more an answer but, the stubborn reply was enough to satisfy him anyway. For the first time in what might have been forever, he had managed to crawl under her iron-clad flesh.

"We don't know his name." Zyx adjusted his ill-fitting tie, the sleeves on his dress shirt torn off as a sign of defiance. "All we know about him is that he's evaded the Alliance and the public for a long, long time." Zyx leaned back in his chair, his paw-like hands massaging the back of his scalp. "It's like he doesn't even exist."

"That's what I'm starting to think." Stryder's hand went to her chin as her eyes darted toward the window as if hoping the answer would sit right outside the glass pane. Zyx placed his enormous bare feet on Stryder's desk, his toes flexing, just to rub it in. It was a long shot, but if he could find a hole in her mental fortitude twice in one day, he'd call it a victory.

"You can't honestly think this whole thing is a hoax? Even you couldn't be that stupid." Stryder glared at Zyx, her gaze enough to send shivers down the monster's spine. "Well, that's too bad. Because I do believe this is a farce. Or at least not what everyone thinks it to be. This Alliance between vigilante and government hasn't exactly been the most trustworthy source of information, and it's known to lie even to its top members."

Joy cut across Stryder's lips, her eyes wild and looking to the past she saw so clearly next to her. "Actually, it's our ability to deceive en masse that's allowed us to be so powerful." Stryder fell back into her seat, the bags under her tired eyes apparent under the blue light of her computer. "If there's nothing else to report," Stryder waved Zyx away like a bug buzzing around her head, "you can go now."

"Well, actually..." Stryder looked up from her work, her eyebrow raised. "There is something else. TWO something's actually." Stryder rolled her eyes and went back to the computer. "If it's about that printer, then-" "It isn't." Stryder found interest again. "Project Evolution is being let off the leash." Stryder couldn't help the sinister glint that shone through her pupils. "In other words..."

"We can approach him." Zyx finished her sentence. "With the promise of wealth and power not, a single soul on this earth can resist your charms." Zyx rose from his chair, his stature taller than Stryder even when seated. "Besides, he's just a stupid kid. I'm pretty sure I can-" "That won't be necessary." Stryder had already gone back to her work, uninterested in lending her gaze any further.

"I want to see just what kind of person he is. So I will handle him on my own." Zyx coiled at the proclamation, his mind flashing back to his own interview. "Hey, go easy on the-" "Two." Zyx silenced himself. "You said there are two somethings. What's the other one? If there is nothing, then stop wasting my time."

Zyx, his face stoic and unmoved reached into his shirt and pulled a file from between his ill-fitting buttons. "You've had your eyes on Evolution for a while now, and make no mistake its strength is undeniable. But if what we've gathered is, true we might have found the strongest Amalgam yet." Stryder scoffed at the proposition. Stronger than her latest prize? After all the time and resources she's invested in this Stryder wouldn't be swayed so easilly.

"Alright then. If you think so highly of this one, I believe you. Show me the file."