[Nexus] AMEN XLV: The Zoo

[Lord Magtok]

Kitchen

Magtok very slowly pulls a fork out of Becky's shadow-portal, taking short and shallow breaths as he carefully removes the tines from his spleen. A small chunk of purple and gray mottled meat remains affixed to the utensil, which he quietly slides off the end of the fork with his thumb and forefinger.

"Killing Starling now would make him a martyr, you stupid ****s. I have the very assassin he sent after me, properly rehabilitated and having renounced her supremacist ways without any use of brainwashing magicks, all set up to go public with her change of heart. Don't you ****ing lecture me about competence when the worst crime on your rap sheet is public indecency when some small child mistook the both of you for a sack of feces."

The oil goes ignored, even as it burns and scalds and fries. Looks like Maggy turned off his pain receptors after that spleen-impaling a moment ago. It's allowing him to keep up that stoic frown, but is such a thing really even close to worth it? Also, the bit about the assassin isn't entire true. I mean, he did torture the **** out of Linda to get to that point, and I doubt Dahilan's present psychological state is really anywhere near ready for a Starling-slandering press release of any kind.

"Ilpholin's only request was that I not remove the two of you from the organization for what you did at the Sitar Strings, as sex toys such as yourselves are quite expensive. Anything you want short of kicking them out of AMEN, she said. She did not, however, make any sort of limitations as to what to do if I was responded to with homophobic slurs, shown discourtesy and a complete lack of respect, or assaulted with silverware.

Get out. Ilpholin will be back in a week, and you can take up the matter of being reinstated with her when she returns, but as long as AMEN is under my control, you can consider yourselves exiled and excommunicated. I'll give you three minutes to gather your things, and walk out the door. Failure to comply with my first and last order to the two of you will punishable by immediate execution. Go."

At this point Magtok is shaking in place, adrenaline surging to dull the pain he's refused to allow himself to feel. His heart is racing, stomach churning, and every primal instinct in his body is screaming to quit with this talking nonsense and just bash the two girls against a sharp rock until they stop breathing.