I Don't Care How 2: Margaret Elle's Electric(And Elemental) Boogaloo

"Finally! You really took your sweet time getting here didn't you!?" The first thing that greeted Margeret Elle upon entering the client's office in his factory in Motor City was the clients angry red face and loud voice.  He was sitting there impatiently on a seat behind his desk where a lot of incomprehensible, at least to her, paper work was strewn about. A few more seconds of gazing at it and tuning out as much of the yelling as she could and she realized that the papers weren't strewn about willy nilly, just chaotically arranged.

"-and another thing!" Margaret continued to tune him out and wonder how was still yelling without being out of breath.

Half an hour later an out of breath, red faced, sweaty client was taking deep breaths. Margaret Elle couldn't help but admire the set of lungs her client had. 'Man imagine those kinds of lungs on a swimmer!' She thought. 'Or even better! A-'

Her thoughts were interrupted when her client cleared his throat, in the loud attention grabbing kind of way additionally, and settled comfortably in his chair. "*Cough*Right, you know what you're here for then?"

"You posted a job on the request board saying that you wanted some help dealing with some creditors. I'm here to help deal with creditors for you." She recited, taking some parts from memory from the job poster.

"Good girl. Creditors have been bothering me so much recently. Here, at my homes, their tax collectors even bother me when I'm taking a dump. Fucking creditors out for my money!" The client ranted. "So here's what you'll do for me, just hand around me til they show up and then you deal with them with any way you can think of..." He paused to think. "In fact, tell you what, I'll sweeten the deal. I'll throw in some extra cash if you get them to stop bothering me for a long long time. What do you say?"

Margaret Elle thought the offer over in her head. Extra money for resolving a situation that could probably have been dealt with easier with some proper complaints. 'This job should be a cakewalk!' She thought to herself. "Well Mr. Client, consider yourself a very convincing man. I accept the job for dealing with these creditors...and I'll throw in a bonus since your throwing in the bonus."

"Ah, so glad we can agree girlie." The client began ushering her out of the office. "Now out." He shoved her out of the door and slammed it shut. Margaret Elle remained silent for a few moments as she stared at the office door.

"Well..." She finally said, slowly turning away from it and beginning to walk away from the client's office. "That... was something." She turned a corner. "Not good, but I guess it was something..." Now all she had to do was hang around the places the client hung around and hopefully encounter these creditors or collectors...

For the rest of the day Margaret tailed her client for any sign of these tax collectors and creditors. She followed him in throughout his routine, keeping out of sight as to not incite any evidence of her presence. She could be sneaky if she wanted to and she wasn't making it obvious she was tailing her client.

She stayed hidden in the corners of the factory, dark and dusty as they were they were nothing compared to the ruins she's seen, it was actually refreshing to be in a space dark and dusty and utterly without a horrible horror dwelling in it. There were spiders but a quick smack with her hand swatted them away. The factory itself whirred and churned loudly as she hid in the corners, keeping here eyes on the office or the factory entrance should anyone come in unexpectedly.

One hour passed and the only people she had seen was the client and some factory workers. She had taken to paying a little attention to her job and decided to play with the spiders to pass her time, moving one spider from one hand to the other before letting them crawl away on a wall was fun.

Two hours passed and she had managed to find a chair and placed it in her corner. She was tired of standing in it so the chair helped a lot. Not the most comfortable but it would do for this job. She had grown tired to playing with spiders and letting them crawl away and had moved onto other things, like humming and tilting the chair she was on by the back legs and trying to balance it.

"UWAAH!" Her loud shriek came as she fell over backwards and kicked up a small cloud of dust. She quickly dusted herself and sat down again, not attempting any more balancing acts.

It was almost lunchtime and it looked like her client was still holed up in his office. A factory worker came by and had given her a sandwich, which she was now enjoying, and went on his way to eat with friends. Idly, Margaret wondered whether she should have invited a guild mate to this job but immediately put the thought aside when she saw the office door open. It looked like her client was getting ready to go out for his own lunch break.

Margaret stood up and stretched for a bit, watching her client as he left the factory, and began to follow him into the city. She figured that there'd be a better chance of the tax collectors appearing and approaching him in the city while he's eating rather than being holed up in his office all day. She looked at her sandwich and quickly scarfed it down, she'd have to get more food in the city too if she's planning on camping around her client. Nothing bad would happen to him anyways, he just wanted some help with some tax collectors, and she was sure that if she just let them know that they were inconveniencing her client then they would stop, or at least leash themselves to be less bothersome.

'It's official.' Margaret Elle thought to herself as she watched her client eat some great food through the restaurant's window. She was currently eating another delicious sandwich, sipping an energy drink named Abomination, and was sitting on a bench keeping an eye out for her client. 'I just wasted 4 hours of my life.' She finished her thought as she took another bite of her sandwich, chewed, and swallowed before taking a long sip from her bottle to help push it down. She let out a refreshed sigh before taking another bite of her food.

She watched as her client ate slowly and enjoyed his meal. She didn't bother to look at his table to find out what he was eating but from the general scent that wafted out every time someone came in or left she could safely assume that whatever he was eating it tasted good. In all honestly she was jealous and wanted to eat nice things too, but she was here for a job to do and not to gorge herself on fine food and drink.

No, she could that later, when the job was done, with the tax collectors dealt with, when she had the free time, the money to spend, and nothing to burden her for the rest of the day. Quickly stuffing her mouth with the remains of her sandwich and downing the rest of her drink in one big gulp she bundled up her trash and threw it into the closest bin.

The cause of her doing so was because she just saw her client get up and prepare to leave. He left the restaurant and whistled a jaunty tune to himself as he made his way down the streets with his hands in his pockets and his stomach completely filled. "Well that's nice for him." She muttered quietly as she blended into the crowd and stalked her client, watching out for any sign of persistent tax collectors. So far with the time she's spent following her client on his lunch break she had not seen neither head nor tail of the tax collectors.

Honestly she was starting to have a thought that the tax collectors were just factory workers asking for a raise. It was a distinct possibility after all.

Then she saw her client get cornered into an empty dark alley.

She rushed to the aid of her client, kicking off of the ground and using her flight to get to him much faster than she normally would've been able to if she were to have run instead. She soared above the cars and the streets, the crowds, and the obstacles that would've gotten in her way had she stayed grounded. She flew her way into the alley, scythe ready to be used to defend her client from the common street thug. It wouldn't do her well if her client gets hurt, or much worse, dies under her watch.

"The big boss is getting tired." Margaret overheard as she stealthily flew into the alley and began to keep watch of her client to make sure that he didn't get her, or worse, die. The fact that she wanted that payout for doing this job might've factored in a little bit to her wanting to keep the client safe. She really didn't want this man's death on her hands or his injury to burden her consciousness. She ducked behind a few bins, holding her breathe because it smelled terrible, and peeked out from the side.

"What would it take for you people to leave me alone!?" Her client angrily questioned as he was backed into the wall by several thugs. They were lightly armed sporting switch blades, and brass knuckles. She wasn't quite sure but she thought she saw the general shape of a gun hidden in the clothes of some of the thugs. To her this was just a regular mugging and it had nothing to do with the job she was hired for. "You tax collectors keep bugging me! I have more important work to do than deal with you myself!"

'Hang on just a minute here...' Margaret thought as she slowly processed what had just been said. 'You're telling me... that the tax collectors that you've been talking about... are these thugs?' She gripped her scythe. She was getting ready to charge in swinging her scythe at them. '...Somehow I feel that this job just a lot more complicated than I was expecting.'

"And we keeps on telling ya," One of the armed tax collectors, no, one of the armed street thugs began, holding his knife against her client. "You pay the boss what you owe then we'll stop." One thug cracked his knuckles menacingly and spoke. "But since you've been very stubborn on not paying, the boss gave us the go on... teaching you a lesson on paying what you owe." The thugs began to chuckle menacingly as they slowly approached the already backed up against the wall factory owner.

"Where's the mage I hired to deal with you?" The thugs paused and Margaret got ready to charge in while they were distracted by him.

"You." The thug began. "You hired a mage?" He looked like he was terrified of the fact that he had hired a mage, which was understandable considering the fact that they were regular people and mages could do a lot of weird things to them if they pleased to do so.

"YES HE DID!" Margaret yelled out as she flew at them. It wasn't a full blown out battle, it was more of a short scuffle between a giant foot and five ants. She didn't even have to use her magic outside of flying and dropkicking them in the face. She didn't kill them, she wasn't a monster, she did however leave them cut and bruised on the side. "So, client..." She began with a sinister sweet smile. "We need to have a talk..."

"So," Margaret Elle began impatiently as she escorted her client home with a very harsh and judging look on her face. "Tax Collectors." She continued, still as ticked off and annoyed, her voice somehow making the client feel like she was the client's mother and that she was very angry and disappointed at him.

Which she was, angry and disappointed, and definitely not his mother.

"Would you like to explain to me why." She dragged her scythe on the alley ground, eyes glinting angrily. "The job said tax collectors where instead you should've put in thugs and some warning that says it involves organized crime?" She paused to mull over what she said. "No, in fact why didn't you just say that it was an organized crime thing? Period? That's my greatest concern! Someone else could've taken this job and might've gotten caught unaware!"

Margaret continued her tirade about the dangers of misinformation on purpose and the dangers it poses to mages that takes the job. Finally she paused to see if her lecture had made it clear that the bond between client and problem solver was one born of trust that should be maintained as much as possible to the best of both parties' abilities.

"Well what do you have to say for yourself?" She said, tapping her foot impatiently and awaiting to hear her clients explanation, or what she was mentally referring to as excuse.

She'd seen some of her friends from back in the old days and she's seen first hand how badly misinformation could affect someone in a negative way.

"Okay look I'm sorry about the thing with the job." Her client apologized, cowed by the intense lecturing that Margaret had subjected him to. "Fact of the matter is that I needed some help badly and from what you've seen they were going to escalate and were about to hurt me if you hadn't come in scythe swinging."

He took a deep breath. "I'm not proud of what I did but I worked so hard to get to where I am. I will not be cowed by these low lives looking to make a quick buck out of me."

"Right right I got it...well why didn't you just pay them what you owe?" She asked, landing lightly on the ground and shouldering her scythe.

"Well I was planning to but..." Her client began.

"But?" Margaret urged him to keep talking.

"I was planning to pay the guy back, their boss, but they upped how much I owe over time so now I have to pay so much more than what I borrowed."

"That's how debt goes, how much did you borrow." Her client told her how much he borrowed. "Wow that's a lot, now how much do you owe." Her client told her how much he owes. "Yeow! That's not debt that's a hustle!" She looked to be in thought for a few moments. "Alright I've decided, I'm not going to quit the job, I'm already too far in anyways. Might as well get paid the extra."