>Her rage bubbled just underneath the surface >Her eyes, a deep violet, burned a hole into the surface of her lab table >Fists clenched at her side, she focused her mind with deep, calming breaths >How could they? >How could anyone...? >Her lab, the one she had spent all of four years building, now lay in tatters before her >Machines, once softly whirring and whizzing, now lay silent >Strewn about were destroyed papers, destroyed data >Everything was gone >Bullies were hardly anything knew to Twilight >She had had to deal with them long before now, and cared little for their petty squabbles >Twilight knew exactly who did this >The way she had looked at her earlier, her smug, self-satisfied grin that stretched a little wider at seeing her victim >It had to be her >There could be no other bully, that she knew of, that was even close to figuring out how to really get to her >Now, Twilight was livid. Horrendously angry. A coil was tightly wound within her chest, barely holding together >If bullying created the coil, the destruction of her lab, her life, was the bucket of liquid nitrogen that froze it solid and the hammer that shattered it >Twilight closed her eyes, bunching her eyebrows together. Trying to calm herself down >A part of her felt hopeless at the thought >Years of research, down the drain >Sensitive equipment, fine turned for her purposes, was shattered at her feet >Yet, she focused on a new goal >Twilight reached into the inner pockets of her uniform and extracted her phone. >A plan formed in her head >A devious plan, if there ever was one. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part I: The Pawn >Twilight knew that her ultimate goal would not going to be easy to achieve, nor swift >Yet she was determined >The first step in her plan was to knock the Queen off her pedestal >The best way, Twilight decided, was to begin from the bottom >No structure could support itself without a base >Twilight basked in the gentle stillness of her one-lab >Now that it had been cleared out. and all the machinery thrown in the trash, she could almost hear the dead trying to claw their way out of the ground >Any moment now >Her plan had gone into effect that morning >A long night of planning was followed by several pots of coffee >That was, she lamented as she drummed her fingers softly on her desk, the only thing keeping her roused >Her fingers tapped their way absentmindedly to a manila folder >Everything she had on her current target of Revenge >Everything. >From what made her sneeze to her social security number was in this folder >Twilight had found this information with, perhaps sometimes questionable, zealous glee >Amazing what several hours of unblinking, maniacal fervor could dredge up about a person >Twilight stopped her drumming >The distant, high-pitched scream of a girl echoed through the empty school halls >She sucked in a deep, shaky breath >Waited >Waiting >The screaming stopped >The distant wail cut off at the root >Now only silence >Her closet, no longer her lab, fell back into that gnawing, dead-filled silence >Like at any minute a corpse, rotten, disfigured, would explode from the ground to drag her to where she belonged >Where she would belong, in time >The beginning of her plan, The Pawn, was perhaps the physically worst >She had gym this time of day, and, as a creature of unending habit, always picked the last shower stall >A twist here, a screw there >And almost twelve straight hours of how plumbing and water moves, and she was able to achieve her goal >It was slow at first >Gently warming up >Soon the water wouldn't stop becoming hot >Boiling water would eventually be pouring on her, first at a gentle slope, then all at once >Her skin would be cooked, and naturally she would attempt to leave >Yet the stall door, with a simple shim in the door frame placed /just/ the right way would jam it >Perhaps she noticed when opened the door, perhaps she didn't >But it would then be far too late >Maybe she would be smart enough to crawl under the stall door, but Twilight doubted it >In between the third degree burns associated with boiling water, she would soon have more problems >A simple chemical solution, placed in the loosened shower head, would send the head of the shower careening at her >It would stop her screaming >And just like that, Twilight breathed out a soft sigh >One down, she lamented >Soon they would all be crushed -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part II: The Rook >A thin, shuddering gasp escaped her >The thick, almost viscous atmosphere of her tiny closet seemed to linger >Twilight let the manila folder, the one on her shower victim, fall into a shredder >There would be no proof of her misdeeds. >Not if she could help it, at any rate >The results of her plan, the girl being boiled alive in the shower, had a few interesting results >She had nearly died. Cooked almost completely. >But that would've simply been too easy an end for her, Twilight believed, so as soon as the screaming had started, she had called an ambulance >The high pitched wails rescued the burn victim just in time >A moment later and... >Twilight grinned behind her crossed fingers >The stifling heat of her lab bared down on her. >Yet at the same time, the sense of satisfaction was like a cool glass of water on the fire sitting in her belly >She tempered the blazing heat, though only for a moment >It was lusting once more for revenge >She could feel it beginning to rise and well within her. >It had been a week since the incident, A week since she had begun her campaign of revenge >She had been unsuspected >A mere tool, that had been her target, a mere tool of the mastermind. >The connection was minimal, if any at all >Twilight's fingers drummed rhythmically on a new folder >The last had to be destroyed, this one was for her newest target >A boy, built like a brick house, who was just as straight forward and stupid as he was broad and imposing >He would not be fooled by boiling water, no, he would simply rip the door off it's hinges >The only way to go about this was to be subtle >The research on this brickhouse was much more in depth than the tool she had already broken >She had unearthed a dark secret in her research >The boy, built like a mountain, was a steroid user. >He was using a steroid that barely had any impact on his body. A simple boost. The long terms effects very well could be disastrous, but for now he would not be affected >Those same steroids, however, were to be taken at high dosages. The lowest being twenty milligrams >Twilight pulled the vial of anabolic steroids from her inner lab coat pocket >The label was for his usual brand of steroids >His gym bag, unattended mere hours ago, now held the very, very lethal Methyltrienolone. >She thought on the drug, on the fact that the dosage was as different as night and day >Even two milligrams was enough to overdose >The thought made her chuckle >Another one of the Queen's tools were soon to be destroyed >And her revenge will be had >Even if it killed them. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part III: The Bishop >Twilight bit her lip, hiding a grin that threatened to surface >No one had suspected a thing once that oaf had overdosed on steroids >The cops simply ruled it an accidental suicide, content with his idiocy resulting in his death >It almost made her laugh >Now, a month after the toppling of the giant, she was ready for phase three >In that time, she had come up with a plan >Her new target was not an idiot like the last >Surely, this one, this vile, wretched girl, was one of the masterminds >She was smart and cunning >Twilight wouldn't be able to fool her with phony medicine labels, she was certain >Yet, despite her intelligence, she had backed herself into a corner >A precarious position, a throne built on a pillar of sand >Twilight chuckled softly in the gloam of her closet. A satisfied smirk on her face. >Her plot was displayed on the screen >Twilight had discovered the key to her downfall >She was a closet kleptomaniac >Anything that tickled her fancy, from simple knickknacks to jewelry and everything in between >Thousands upon thousands of dollars, from what Twilight had managed to learn of >She chuckled darkly, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose >She had discovered this dark little secret almost by accident >Twilight had observed her target, almost religiously, for a month >It had been little things >Bracelets made from woven twine, pencils, erasers... >Then Twilight had seen her outright steal earrings from lockers, wallets, jewelry of all shapes and sizes. Phones, even. >Thus, her plan >A phone, a small, pink phone as the klepto preferred, left out in the open >The bait was taken easily >Twilight stared at the blinking red dot on the computer's map as it traveled through town >She suspected that the Bishop would store her stolen goods in the same place. It seemed unlikely she would sell it all, at least for a while >The softly blinking blip stopped, directly over a building full of rental storage sheds >Twilight's wide grin stretched across her face >A message was already sent out to the police a day before, the plot was set in motion >She would arrive at the storage unit >Twilight tipped off the police a day in advance about the phone theft, and gave them an accurate location of the Bishop's whereabouts. >She had also gave them a heads up >The Bishop would access an entire vault of stolen items, if they were lucky >Another one down >Twilight giggled madly to herself.