Unintentional Trouble

Finding the Scengar had not been difficult. Reports and sightings of giant bipedal lizard men didn’t often get mixed up with other searches on the lacrinet. Manipulating the events around him to get him where she wanted to go, however, had been a much more involved task that had required a bit more careful planning and patience, skills that Mercury had in abundance. And now that he had made his way over to the bar she needed him to be at, all the pieces were finally falling into place. Not only that, but she was set to accomplish multiple objectives in one fell swoop; always a plus!

She had made sure to set herself up in the bar early, so that she would already be in place by the time he arrived. Currently, she was perfectly blended into the crowd of people dancing to the thumping base and seemingly minding her own business with drinking and cozying up to the men and women around her. She was dressed very much like she belonged in a club, with a high waisted denim mini skirt that barely covered her ass, and a black halter top that hugged her stomach only with fishnet style material. She wore black, platform gothic boots over bright pink stockings, with an assortment of jewelry and lightly tinted sunglasses that she wore even inside. She had a beer bottle in one hand and lit cigarette in the other, and anyone looking at her would just see a young woman enjoying the atmosphere and grinding up against all the various people packed in around her.

While she danced away to the music seemingly without a care in the world, Mercury was very much keeping an eye out around the room and beyond for everything she was waiting for. While she was looking to meet up with Grubar, Mercury was also working on a job. In fact, she had been hired by the owner of the bar to help with some criminal elements that had taken residence in his back rooms some time ago that he was hoping to finally get rid of. She already knew that her primary targets were in the back, out of sight of the rest of the crowds through a door where two bouncers stood in idle vigilance. All she needed now was for Grubar to show up.

And when he did, she was not disappointed. His presence brought the entire room to a stand still for a brief moment, with a couple of more weak willed people outright bolting out the door without a moment’s reconsideration. But soon enough everyone was back to what they had been doing before, many of them parting out of the alien’s way to allow him to approach the bar. Smiling to herself, pleased as ever when a plan came together, she continued dancing and drinking for the time being to give Grubar enough time to get his own drink and settle into a corner booth where he wouldn’t cause too much damage with his mass.

When she was ready, she got a replacement bottle of beer and sauntered over to where he was. Hopping over the back of the seat in front of him, she sat on the back of the booth with her boots on the padded cushion where people were supposed to actually sit. She leaned forward comfortably, one elbow propped on a knee as she held her cigarette to her face while her other elbow rested on the other knee, carelessly holding her beer by the bottle’s neck near her inner thigh. The lavender haired woman didn’t seem to care that, at this angle and with her legs comfortably spread, that the alien was getting a fully unobstructed view of her underwear beneath her skirt. Raising her cigarette laden hand to her face, she gently tapped her glasses down her nose so she could eye him openly over the rims with a grin that was a mixture of mischievous and flirtatious.

“I don’t know what you are, but what I am is interested,” she told him outright. “You got a name to go along with that over abundance of rippling pectorals, or should I just pick something that sounds good when moaned out loud?”

Mercury had of course done her research into Grubar, and in so doing had come across quite a bit of supposed “evidence” that would lead one to believe that he was more into docile, submissive type women. And perhaps under any other circumstances, she might have put enough stock into that to at least explore the validity of that information. However, the little she had heard Hosrius speak of Grubar lead her to believe that the Scengar was genuinely interested in quite the opposite. In fact, she had a feeling that she herself was exactly the kind of woman that he would be drawn to, and it seemed she was correct. The large alien laughed heartily at her forwardness, not only encouraging her to be creative with what she would call him, but also challenging her to make good on her threat to moan it.

Oh how her grin widened, the lavender haired woman’s excitement evident in the cheekiness of her expression, even as he turned the inquiry back around on her. “Lucky for you, I ain’t exactly a classy woman,” she quipped back. Then, she raised her cigarette to her mouth and took a drag from it as she gave him a considering look. “Now let’s see… What kind of name vibe do you give off? Hmm… How about Aaron? Nah, that’s boring. Maybe Dick? Mm too on the nose. How about…” She paused in thought before grinning like a cheshire cat. Throwing her head back and fully committing to the challenge, she raised her voice far above what one might expect from a woman of her size.

“Ohhhh, Klauuuus!”

She had picked one of the most ridiculous names she could think of, something that clearly didn’t fit for a man of his size and was an almost painfully human name. Regardless, quite a large portion of the people in the bar stopped what they were doing and turned to look at her with a mixture of concern and curiosity. When she was done, she leveled her gaze back at him with a shit eating smirk. “There you go, bruiser. If you want to hear more than that, you’re gonna have to earn it.”

The look on her face very much suggested that she was curious to see if he would, in fact, attempt to earn more out of her. “Name’s Mercury. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say you’re not from around here. You some kind of alien or something? Always wanted to fuck an alien. Sorry, meet an alien.” She corrected herself casually, but the smirk that lingered on her face suggested that the first version of her statement had been quite intentional.

He certainly seemed to appreciate the show, which Mercury was all too pleased with herself over. If it hadn’t been obvious from the start, she was quickly realizing that not only was she going to greatly enjoy the Scengar’s presence, but it was a bit of a toss up as to who was going to get the other in more trouble by the end of the night – though Mercury had a feeling she was going to be the greater enabler in the end, if only because that’s how she liked to plan these things. Grubar grinned and waved off the people that had stopped to look, informing them that there was just a dare going on before turning to her and admitting that he rarely made wages unless the reward seemed to be worth it. And as far as he was concerned, it seemed Mercury might fit that bill.

With a grin, Mercury fully removed her glasses and tucked them in the pouch that was strapped to her thigh. Now that the game had started, it was only a matter of time before stage two took place, and even though she could easily craft a new pair of them with her magic she just didn’t feel like wasting the pair she already had, and she had a feeling that anything not tied down was going to get broken very quickly if things continued at their current pace.

He gave her a hearty laugh of amusement before confirming that he was an alien and teasingly trying to question what had given away his secret. “It was definitely the clothes,” she told him with a sober nod that was betrayed only by the glint of mischief in her gaze. Grubar went on to let her know that he was all to willing to help her out with her sex fantasy, but he came right out with admitting that there were some physical traits that would prevent them from completing the horizontal tango in full. Her grin deepened but before she could make any remark on it he continued, electing to prove his interest by calling her prior bet. Sucking in a deep breath through what had to be a massive pair of lungs, the man roared out some delightful dirty talk so loudly that even the DJ stopped the music as the entire room turned to stare at the pair outright.

Even as the Scengar once again did his part to shoo off the onlookers, Mercury threw her head back and let out a thorough cackle of amusement, not even a little bothered by the fact that everyone could hear her without the music playing. Soon enough the club was back up and running, though by this point everyone was far more invested in the weird interaction going on in the corner than on actually dancing and drinking. Finally, Grubar introduced himself by his full name, following it up with a rehearsed line about how she could wax him. Mercury genuinely choked on her beer as he delivered the line, having to pull the bottle away quickly and cover her mouth with her forearm as she struggled to prevent herself from spitting the liquid out with her laughter.

“Shit. You and I are going to get along a little too well, I think," she admitted with a grin after she managed to get her involuntary reaction under control. Now recovered and back to form, her eyes traced over him once more in slow, considerate fashion for a moment or two before she took a final draw of her cigarette and flipped the butt carelessly onto the floor. Standing to her feet, she stepped down from the chair and sauntered leisurely toward him, stepping on the cigarette on the way to make sure it was out without taking her eyes off of him. “Well, I tell you what, Grubar Waxx… I know just the spot around the corner where we could sneak off to have a little fun without being interrupted by all these nosy nitwits, buuut you may have to give me a hand with getting us in.”

She nodded very subtly toward the door in the back where the two bouncers stood on either side of the threshold, preventing access to the room beyond where she knew that her criminal targets were currently gathered around a poker table with one another. Stopping in front of him, she lifted one of her legs to plant her boot on the seat next to him, putting herself in such a position as to be half straddled over him without actually sitting on his lap. With an impish smirk, she casually reached down and took his free hand, turning it over in her own and tracing the lines of his palm lightly with her nails as though taking a moment to appreciate just how massive his hand was, particularly in comparison to her own.

“So if you can get us inside…” Her eyes flicked back up to his as she set his hand on her knee and guided his palm slowly along the outside of her thigh until his fingers were fully under her skirt and all but on her ass. “...I’ll get you inside… And just to sweeten that pot even more, I’ll bet you ten thousand jewel that I can handle anything you’re packing.”

There was a brief moment where Grubar seemed to make an effort at making it look like he was going to take a moment to mull her proposition over, but he dropped the facade almost immediately, realizing that it was useless as she clearly had already had him pegged. She merely waggled her eyebrows at him with a very self-satisfied grin without denying his claim. The Scengar agreed to her terms, taking a moment to warn her that his race was as much acclaimed for their stamina and increased scrotum capacity as they were for being violent, and Mercury merely smirked. “Two sets, eh? Good. That's twice more than most of the men around here boast.”

He gave her a firm slap on the ass before she pulled back, giving him room to down the rest of his bottle and stand up. Mercury was practically giddy as she followed behind him through the crowds, almost walking on her toes with barely contained excitement as she waited for him to put on what was sure to be quite the show. It did not take the bouncers long to figure out where the pair was going and there was a visible panic that washed over them as their confidence wavered before the colossal figure that loomed over them. Grubar gave them the standard choice: The easy way or the hard way, explaining that even if they were in possession of magic the chances of their abilities actually being able to affect him were slim to none. As he elaborated that either way he was going to wind up in the back room to do unspeakable things with Mercury, the petite woman gave the two men a bright smile, waving her fingers at them impishly as if to emphasize her companion’s point.

And yet, they chose wrong.

“Ooh, show time!” Mercury coo’d as the men attempted to block the door, clapping her hands together lightly as she stepped back to give Grubar space to move. After what was an unsurprisingly quick brawl – if one could even call it that – the way was now clear for the pair to pass through, though Mercury was more than aware that what laid in wait on the other side was not what Grubar would be expecting. As they walked past the fallen bodies, Mercury carelessly stepped on their bodies like they were little more than lumpy rugs. “Just remember, boys: you did this to you.”

And then it was time for the real games to begin. Mercury made a show of following after Grubar like an eager teenager sneaking out of the prom with her boyfriend when the teachers weren’t looking, taking his hand and giggling merrily from the thrill of being somewhere she knew they weren’t supposed to be. Yet that all supposedly came to a halt when they got into the other room and there was a group of men loitering in the space around a poker table that sported a mixed pot of jewel and valuables. Mercury was only a beat behind Grubar as she stepped in next to him, the look of excitement on her face quickly dropping to be replaced with confusion, and then apprehension. “This… is not a storage room…” was her only slow response as she looked around at the obvious mob members who’s complete and undivided attention was now upon the intruding pair.

As the men began to stand and pull out a variety of weapons and magical auras, Mercury shrank a little closer to Grubar, her hand seeming to hold his a little more tightly as the sudden realization of impending danger became a little more tangible. Her emerald gaze seemed wide with fear as she looked back and forth between the mobsters, but in truth she was simply scanning the room to find what she needed. The room was filled with crates that were mostly closed up, but in the back there were two men that set down the obvious pillows of drugs they had been packing up. There was a small makeshift station in the corner where a lactop was set up, and there was a map pinned to one of the walls with various pegs and routes marked onto it. Mercury took it all in, staying quiet and leting Grubar take up most of the space and attention to give him the chance to be the big hero for the woman he had been hoping to hook up with while she tried to blend into the background unnoticed.

“Well, you two sure chose the wrong back room for a hook up, now didn’t you?” One of the men toward the back that was smoking from a fat cigar spoke up, clearly the leader of the little group. “That’s too bad. I’m sure you kids would have had quite a bit of fun, considering that she’s got to be a little bit of a freak to want to get together with…” He paused for a moment to scrutinize Grubar. “...whatever the hell you are. Unfortunately, now that you’re back here you won’t be leaving this room alive. Can’t let any authorities catch wind of our little operation here. You understand.” With the wave of his hand, the men all raised their weapons or began charging spells, a split second away from mowing the couple down…

It was so nice when a plan fell into place. Grubar was being as protective as she’d hoped he would be, stepping up to take charge – and the limelight. He chastised the mobster for threatening to open up gunfire when they claimed to want to stay out of public sights. Maybe later Mercury would point out to him the lacrimas in the corners of the room that would prevent any sound from escaping outside. In truth, the room was actually a lot better protected than it looked. It simply wasn’t set up with sophisticated enough protections to keep her out, which was hardly their fault.

Grubar told her to stay behind him, instructing her to find cover as soon as he started moving. “Y-yeah, okay,” was her only wary response, putting on the facade of a woman that was clearly in over her head but doing her best to keep up a brave face. The second shots started firing, Grubar used some of his tech to activate an energy shield and a shotgun, both items of which were clearly superior alien tech. Mercury would have to convince him to let her take a look at the items later, like she had done with Hosrius’ weapon. For now, she had other matters to attend to. Once he was armed and ready, Grubar let out a roar that shook the room before charging into the fray.

At the same moment, Mercury dove behind a crate and rushed around the perimeter until she could dive and roll to a spot right next to the computer station. Blowing her bangs off her face, Mercury’s demeanor pulled a full one eighty now that she was out of sight. Practically lounging where she was laying on the ground, she reached up and pulled the laptop down from the table. Conjuring a small wireless device out of thin air, she plugged it into the computer and got to work hacking it, humming quietly to herself with one particular ear worm that had gotten stuck in her head after she’d heard it earlier in the club, the noise drowned out by the sounds of gunfire and chaos around her.

At one point one of the gangsters came crashing over the crates beside her, having clearly been tossed by the Scengar across the room. Mercury blinked at the man while he shook his head to clear it only to notice her hanging out with their computer out of sight. The two stared at one another for a moment before Mercury pulled her knee to her chest and snapped her foot out, kicking the man hard enough in the face to cause his neck to twist in a most unnatural fashion, killing him on the spot. Then, she went right back to what she was doing.

By the time Grubar had more or less put most of the room out of its misery, she had already completed her task and put the laptop back where it had been before, exactly as she had found it. It was only a moment later that one of the remaining men in the room discovered her, clearly having decided that a fight with Grubar wasn’t worth it and looking to snatch the computer and make a break for it while he still could. Instead he saw Mercury sitting there and decided that she would serve as insurance to guarantee his escape. Reaching down, he dragged Mercury to her feet and right at Grubar turned around to look at her he wound find her being held captive with a gun against her temple. Her eyes were wide with panic, her breath quickened from supposed fear and adrenaline as she seemed to be giving Grubar a pleading look for help.

“One wrong move and the broad gets it,” the mob man informed Grubar, tightening his hold on Mercury and shoving the gun all the harder against her head. She let out a little whimper, her hands gripping the forearm around her neck like she was trying to keep him from choking her. He wasn’t the only one still alive, either. “Now, here’s how this is going to work. You,” he said, indicating Mercury, “are going to grab that computer for me, and then we’re both going to go on a little trip. So pick up that laptop and say goodbye to your ugly friend.”

For the briefest of moments it would appear that Mercury was too terrified to even move. Then, the oddest thing happened. Her expression shifted as she dropped the damsel in distress act and give Grubar a devilish little smirk, shooting a wink his way. From there, she gripped the man’s forearm around her neck so tightly that his brain errored out in processing the shift. Then, she slammed the back of her head into his face before yanking him violently forward, pulling him up and over her shoulder and slamming him hard enough into the ground to leave a dent. Reaching around and dipping her hand into the hem of her skirt at the small of her back, she withdrew Mercy, the oversized pistol being far, far too large to have been able to fit anywhere under her skirt and yet there it was all the same.

As the man recovered and tried to bring his own gun around to aim at her once more, Mercury caught the muzzle of it with her hand just as he pulled the trigger. But instead of having her hand blasted off, the bullet met her palm and simply stopped in their tracks. Using her grip on the gun, she bent the man’s arm backward and snapped it at the wrist causing him to shriek with pain. Without even looking up to aim her shots, she fired off two rounds of her own aimed behind Grubar where two more men had thought to try and sneak up on him from behind after letting him presume they were dead, her rounds planted squarely in the head for an instant kill shot.

Ripping the gun out of the man’s broken wrist, she clenched it in her fist, causing the machine to crumble to pieces onto the floor beside him. Mercury brought one of her boots to rest rudely on his chest, keeping him pinned to the ground, and it was only then that she finally took a true look around the room, her eyes resting on the leader that had been smoking the cigar. “Ah, damn. I was planning on leaving that one alive a bit longer. Oh well. That’s on me, seeing as how I didn’t exactly let you in on the details. Thanks for your cooperation all the same, big guy.”

Giving Grubar a cheeky grin, she looked back down at her prisoner, pointing Mercy down at him. “So I guess that leaves you as tonight’s lucky survivor. Isn’t that exciting?” Shifting her foot, she moved it up to his face, practically crushing his cheek into the floor without actually breaking him. “Now, I need you to be a dear and deliver a message for me to your actual boss: Tell him this bar and its owner are now under the protection of the Silver Wolf guild. So, I’m afraid he’s going to have to find a new place to operate this branch of his little business here. Think you can do that for me, darlin’?”

The man nodded his head vigorously, or at least as much as he could with Mercury’s boot smashing it against the ground. “That’s the spirit. Now, be a good little cockroach and scurry back on home.” She pulled her foot away, revealing very distinctive tread marks in his skin from the underside of her boot. Nursing his broken wrist he quickly scrambled to his feet and made a mad dash for the door, stopping only to swipe the laptop on his way out. Mercury sighed wistfully, resting Mercy on her shoulder as the man disappeared through the back door. “Well, I’d say his boss is going to be really angry when he realizes that I planted a tracker on that guy to see where he goes… but they’re never going to find it, and he’ll be far too preoccupied trying to figure out why all of his bank accounts were emptied so suddenly.”

She glanced back over to Grubar, checking him over to see if he’d sustained any injuries. “So! How much do I owe you for your services?”

Grubar was intensely silent as Mercury went about her business, putting down nearly all that remained of those who had survived the Scengar’s onslaught and leaving one survivor to bring the news back to the true hub of crime. In reality, she actually didn’t plan on letting any of them off scot free – rather, she let one survive so that they could find the headquarters and it would be at that point that Mercury would notify the Rune Knights through an anonymous tip and let them swoop in to take care of everything else from there. But in the meantime, she’d fulfilled her contract and taken care of what she needed with the help of her unsuspecting companion that appeared to still be processing the dramatic reveal.

At first it almost seemed as though he weren’t going to be very happy about it, but Mercury wasn’t too worried. She hadn’t talked to Hosrius a lot about his sometime partner, but the few stories the Jirian had shared had led Mercury to believe that Grubar would be more impressed or entertained than anything else. And soon enough she would find that her calculations were correct as the large alien started laughing so hard that he almost couldn’t focus on anything else, throwing his head back and clutching himself as he roared his compliments and admitted that he was just even more turned on.

Mercury’s grin deepened into a shit eating expression, clearly quite pleased with herself even as she tucked Mercy away, the massive pistol disappearing beneath the hem of her skirt despite the fact that there was absolutely no room for it to fit there. Eventually he calmed down enough to speak clearly once more in order to answer her question about payment. He said that he would have accepted sex as compensation for his assistance, but at this point he wasn’t sure if her interest had just been a ruse or not – despite how much of a fix she’d apparently put him in. So instead he requested an even split between the amount of funds that she’d siphoned from the crime ring they’d just busted.

“That seems more than reasonable to me,” Mercury informed him, making no effort to try and haggle him to a lower percentage. Truthfully, she hadn’t even kept any of the money for herself. All she’d done was make it disappear. It wasn’t like she had any need for money. She had quite a bit of her own that she’d saved up over the last few years, and now that she was marrying into a very giving noble family finances weren’t much of a concern. “Should that include the ten grand you’re going to owe me in a bit, or should I just hang on to that now?” Reaching into a small pocket, she pulled out her tablet and opened the screen. It was only a second or two later that Grubar would likely receive a notification letting him know that someone had gained access to his bank account, but instead of finding any of his funds being withdrawn he would instead find a great deal of money being funneled into it from a verified but unknown source – likely quite a bit more than he was expecting.

Flashing him a knowing smirk, she tucked her tablet out of sight. “Now then, I believe we have a bet to settle. Not here though; the Rune Knights will be crawling all over this place soon and I think we’d both prefer to avoid answering questions. So why don’t you let me go collect my payment from the barkeep and then we can go someplace that isn’t littered with quite so many dead bodies?” Presuming he was amenable to the plan, she’d head back into the main floor to speak with the owner of the bar, confirming that the problem had been dealt with and the Rune Knights were on their way to clean everything up. By the time she returned, she had another bottle of the liquor that Grubar had been drinking before and she was throwing her sunglasses back on her face. “Alright, bruiser. Ready when you are.”