Outsiders Pt. 01

His face took on an unhappy cast. There was no way he was going to leave it at that. Yes, he had more money now than what she had taken, but it wasn't a matter of amount. It was a matter of principle. She had twirled a lock of his hair and tickled his earlobe and whispered into his ear that he was a good guy, a cute guy who "understood". She had whispered such tender and endearing things and inspired such hopes in him that it had really hurt when she turned out to be a liar. For that, he hated her more than he had ever hated anyone in his life before. He hated her more than Susan. Susan was ill in the head and couldn't help her lunacy. Krista was a malicious liar and manipulator. He wanted to get her.

Plus, she could simply not go unpunished for taking the sweat off his parents' brow. That just wasn't acceptable. He was going to see to it.

"How," Ben asked himself. "I'm too cowardly to do anything about it. I've never done anything about anything in my whole life before."

As soon as Ben thought that about himself, he reconsidered. Now that he had seen the emptiness inside of Susan, and the guilt of doing so had passed, he felt much better about himself. He wasn't a coward or a weakling, he told himself. He was just sensitive. Perhaps even a bit too sensitive. He was a genuinely considerate and mindful person and not a hollow, dispassionate mockery of a person, like Susan was.

Ben nodded his head and felt his spirits buoy. He was a good person and a good man. He was going to do things for himself and no longer abstain out of fear of possibly stepping on other people's toes, or infringing on their rights. He had empathy and consideration, he needn't worry about being an idiot that ruins lives without caring, or even noticing. By going after Krista, he was not going back on everything he had been raised to believe, he told himself. He was going to keep true to his upbringing, but still do things a bit differently from now on. His link to Susan's mind had given him the gift of perspective and he now saw that his views on things had been somewhat limited and even a little ill-informed.

"Fudge, yeah," he whispered aloud.

"What's that, Boss," Felicia asked.

"I'm going after Krista," Ben said and almost surprised himself with the firmness of that statement.

"Oh, hells yeah," Felicia said.

Ben laughed nervously as he realized what he'd just said. He was going to go after Krista and take her as his dominated slave in revenge for conning him out of his college money. Could he really do that, he wondered. As much as he expected to chicken out like he had done last night, he didn't.

Ever since he had felt what sex was like through his telepathic link with Susan, he wanted it badly. It was no longer some unknown thing his urges blindly compelled him to seek out. Now he knew that sex was a great and grand thing and he wasn't going to live without it for a minute longer than absolutely necessary. He was a person and he deserved it. He felt nervous, but positively so. He was more fraught with giddy anticipation than dread at the thought of getting Krista.

"Why shouldn't I get Krista," Ben asked aloud.

"No reason why not, Boss," Felicia said.

"It doesn't make me a bad guy to want to get even," Ben said.

"Even, Steven," Felicia said.

"I'm a human being," he said.

"Yes, you are, Boss," the cat affirmed.

"I've got needs," he said.

"Yes you do," the cat said.

"And I've got rights," Ben said. "I've got a right to vengeance!"

"Hells yeah, Boss," Felicia said.

"Even better than that," Ben declared, "I have a right to justice!"

"Amen, Boss brother," Felicia said.

"It is my right to get Krista and get her to make restitution for the money she stole from me," Ben said. "With interests!"

"Oh, yeah," Felicia said.

"And if she doesn't have cash, I'll just have to take twenty thousand seven hundred and two dollars and sixty-three cents out of her in trade," Ben declared.

"Boss, you really gotta stop citing the exact amount every time you mention it," Felicia said. "It sounds petty and... kinda pathetic, even."

"I'm getting the material components for the spells ready and I'm going after her," Ben declared. He checked the knowledge of the spells he planned to use and remembered he'd need to have an eyelash in a piece of gum arabic to cast either the Invisibility, or the Greater Invisibility spell. He didn't know what gum arabic was. He wrestled with the decision of whether or not to just go and fetch Krista without invisibility, but common sense prevailed. She was somewhere in Arizona and he couldn't be certain that she would be alone when he teleported to her. He didn't want people to see him appear and disappear. He needed to get a piece of gum arabic.

He thought of all the things that are material components needed for the spells he had at his disposal and decided he'd get himself a utility belt to keep such things on his person at all times. But first, he sat down at his computer and went online to find out what gum arabic was. The Wikipedia article said it was an extract from the acacia tree, produced in the Arab parts of Africa. It was edible and used by the locals to make gelatin. It even had its own E number. He ordered some online and paid for overnight delivery. He decided to wait one day to get the gum needed to cast the invisibility spells. He had plenty of eyelashes to draw from and one was more than enough unless he lost it.

He shopped online for some of the other things he'd need as material components for his spells. By the time he finished placing the orders, including one for a utility belt with tiny pouches where he would store his material components, he calmed down. His righteous wrath at Krista faded away to be replaced by a tremendous feeling of guilt for having even spoken such things aloud about another human being.

He didn't want to be that kind of monster. He didn't want to enslave anyone. Not even Krista, he realized. "Sure, she's hot and owes me twenty thousand seven hundred and two dollars and sixty-three cents," Ben thought, "but that's no excuse for doing to her what I already did to Susan. What I did to her was in necessary self-defense, if I did it to Krista, too..."

No matter how much he told himself he'd be crossing the line by dominating Krista with magic, he couldn't quite extinguish the flames of hatred and revenge he harbored for her. The very thought of dominating Krista simply ignited the primal parts of his brain and overrode his rational mind for a time. He hated the fact that she had such an effect on him. They had spent so little time together and it was months ago, yet she still pushed his buttons without even trying. He imagined she'd be very pleased to know just how big a mess she made in his head.

He sat there for a long time, just stewing in a whirlwind of bad thoughts until he remembered a French film he once saw, called Amelié, where the lead character would sneak into the apartment of a man that bullied his disabled employee and pull pranks on him in revenge for it.

The movie gave him a spectacular idea. He could stalk Krista! He could discern her exact location and teleport there invisible and then spy on her and pull prank after prank. His primary intent would be to spy on her until she gave away where the money she stole from him was, but the possibilities were endless. He'd start with swapping her sugar and salt, but he'd make her question her own sanity before the summer was out. And if he got to perv on her naked, from time to time, that was much better than raping her body and mind. He laughed out loud, both in relief at finding a healthy compromise between his desire to harm her and his desire to not become a rapist bastard, and at the sheer ridiculousness of his idea.

"Soooo," Felicia drawled, "we're laughing now, because...?"

"I've decided I'm going to gaslight Krista this summer," Ben said, still chuckling at his ludicrous idea.

"Gaslighting," Felicia said and cocked her head. "That's where you sneak into a person's house and move their stuff around, make them think they're going nuts?"

"Yup," Ben said, smiling. "This is going to be such a fun summer!"

"Sounds fun, Boss," Felicia said. "Can I tag along?"

"We'll see," Ben said. "I've got to wait until tomorrow to get the material foci for my spells." The more he thought about his idea, the more he liked it. Now that he came up with a relatively harmless release for his darker impulses towards Krista, he was feeling a tremendous sense of relief. The only thing marring his elation was the fact that he was starting to feel hungry. He was tired of Prestidigitating crackers and decided he'd go for actual food for dinner tonight.

"I'm hungry," he said. "I'm going out to dinner. Are you going to be alright minding the house?"

"Sure thing, Boss," Felicia said.

He looked up which restaurants were open on a Monday evening. No cab company liked to come to his neighborhood to pick up fares, so he called one that he knew would come pick him up in a well lit place. He ordered a cab in front of the supermarket that was a mile away from his house. He changed clothes and went out.

He walked to the supermarket parking lot and found his cab waiting for him. He gave the driver the address of the restaurant he picked and soon found himself perusing a thick menu. After a delicious dinner, he called for another cab and went home, carrying three small doggy bags full of leftovers.

The cabby quickly took off after dropping Ben off at his place. Ben went to his door and unlocked it. He went in and was greeted by his familiar. "What's that, Boss," she asked. "It smells really fine. Can I have some?"

"Nope," Ben said, lifting his doggy bags high.

"Aw, please," she begged, standing up on her hind legs.

"No," Ben said. He went to the kitchen. "I'll use a spell to make your kibble taste like my leftovers, but that's all! No touching my food!"

"Aw," Felicia said, wilting behind him. He put his delicious leftovers in the fridge and turned around. "So, what are we up to tonight, Boss?"

Ben held up his cellphone and said, "More calling around to get people to give me the phone numbers I lost."

"Wild times," the cat said, deadpan. Ben sniffed and went to sit at his desk with a pen and paper. He opened his email, a search engine and an online phonebook and got to work. "You do realize you're a powerful magician, right? This is not how powerful magicians should spend their nights, Boss."

"Shut up," Ben said, good-naturedly. He found the number for Sean's parents' place in Arkansas and called. He left a message for Sean to call him back and give him everyone's phone number. After he hung up, he looked over his new contacts list. He had all the numbers he'd need for college and official, college-related purposes and, after Sean calls him back, he'll have all the numbers for his friends. Or, at least the ones he liked. Now he just needed to rebuild his meager list of miscellaneous contacts. He scrunched up his nose at the task and got up to go to the den and watch some TV.

After he watched some television with Felicia, he checked his email and saw one from Sean. It read, "Sorry, Ben, just got in and got your message. Don't have time to call now, going out! Hope you're doing better! Here's my phonebook! Bye!"

Ben smiled and copied the phonebook into the contacts list on his phone. He edited his friends' contacts, adding nicknames, pictures and ringtones. He was almost done when Kurt called. Ben startled in his seat before answering the phone in his hand. "Hello," he said.

"Yo, Ben, how ya doin', man," Kurt asked.

"I'm fine, Kurt, thanks for asking," Ben said.

"Why didn't you call me yesterday," Kurt asked. "I was worried sick about you."

"Well, I didn't have a phone," Ben said. "Remember? It got fried?"

"Oh, yeah," Kurt said. "It's still on the back seat of my car. Waaait a minute. I just called you on that phone and you answered. What gives? Are you in my car right now?"

"Are you stoned," Ben asked.

"Um, yeah."

Ben smiled and sighed. Kurt had obviously spent all day Sunday relaxing from his frivolous lawsuit scare with a bag of weed and had some left over for this evening. He knew talking to Kurt while he was stoned was a waste of breath, as he'd forget half of it in minutes, so he said, "Well, thank you for calling, I'm fine. I'm not in your car, I'm at my house and I have a new phone."

"Oh, ok," Kurt said after a few moments.

"Yeah, so, uh, I gotta go now," Ben said. "Bye!"

"Wait," Kurt said.

"What?"

"Wait, I gotta tell you something," Kurt said.

Ben patiently sat and waited for a few seconds. He heard nothing but silence on the other end. "Well," he expectantly said.

"Hang on," Kurt faintly said. Ben sighed and waited some more. "Ok, here we go. There's this flyer, see? It's all over my neighborhood, like, everywhere. And it says that the, um, the weather administration was experimenting on the night you were hit by lightning and that he's a lawyer and he can help you sue for damages."

Ben frowned. He didn't like the sound of that. Not one little bit. He had no idea why he had been struck by lightning and how that had given him magic, but he suspected that anyone asking around about it meant trouble. "What," he said. "Who's he? How does he know I've been hit by lightning? What's going on? What exactly does it read on the flyer?"

"Um, wait a minute," Kurt drawled. "Oh, it doesn't say that you have been hit, it says if you have sustained property or personal damage, or know of anyone who has sustained such injury to person or property..." Kurt chuckled. "Who writes like this?" He laughed. "Injury to property..."

Ben relaxed on his end of the phone line. It sounded like a typical ambulance-chasing shark trying to drum up some business and force a hefty settlement from someone. He doubted the weather administration, whatever that was supposed to mean, was doing any experiments with lightning over a populated area. He decided to check out the fliers himself. In the meanwhile, he needed to make sure Kurt didn't do anything about it. He didn't want any lawyers poking their big, fat noses in his business.

"Why are you telling me this," Ben asked.

"Oh, well, I thought that you might like to sue them," Kurt stammered. "You know, for money for damages."

"No," Ben said.

"Well, why not," Kurt asked. "If they were doing experiments, then they ought to answer for you getting hit by lightning. I mean, it's only fair, right?"

"Kurt," Ben said. "Kurt, listen to me! No lawsuits! No lawyers! I don't want to sue. If I did sue, this weather administration, or whatever, would hire a bunch of lawyers to make you their co-defendant and then they'd shift all the blame away from themselves and onto you. You'd be left out to hang and dry."

"Fuck," was Kurt's shocked reply.

Ben grinned. He knew he was getting through the weed haze in the man's brain. He hated playing a friend like that while they were intoxicated, but he felt it was for the best. Something about this flyer just said odd. "Yeah, so no lawsuits," Ben said. "As a matter of fact, you should just toss that flyer in the trash and forget all about it."

"Yeah," Kurt slowly said. "Yeah, I should do that."

"Ok," Ben said. "You do that and then go to sleep. Everything is going to be alright."

"Yeah, ok. Good night!"

"Good night, Kurt," Ben said and hung up. He sighed and decided to send Kurt a text message and an email to remind him to not contact the lawyer from the flyers. "Can't be too careful with a stoned Kurt."

After spending a few hours surfing online, Ben went to sleep. He needed to restore all of his spell slots. Tomorrow, he was getting the materials he'd need and then he was going to get to work on Krista. He had barely fallen asleep when Felicia lightly poked him in the cheek with an extended claw. "Boss," the feline urgently said, "there are burglars in the den." Ben blinked the sleep out of his eyes and sat up in bed, barely suppressing a groan. "They're coming in through the window!"

Ben wiped his face and stood up on wobbly legs. He reached for his pants and struggled to make sense of what Felicia was saying. He came immediately awake when he heard someone bump into the coffee table in the den. He crouched down and dropped the pants. "What's going on," he whispered to Felicia.

"There are," Felicia started saying, but was cut off by a shush from Ben.

"Be quiet," he heatedly whispered.

"Um, Boss," Felicia quietly said, "no one can hear me speak but you. I'm kinda like Garfield and you're the audience and the rest of the world is Jon Arbuckle." The cat then bellowed, "There are four burglars climbing in through the den window and at least one of them has a gun!!"

Ben gasped and dashed over to the door. He flattened himself against the wall by the doorjamb and gulped air in mounting panic. Another noise was heard coming from down the hall and Ben could hear voices, heatedly whispering amongst themselves.

"Goddamnit," said one voice, "watch where you're going!"

"Shut up," said another voice. "You'll wake him!"

"Fucking rich boy's probably got drunk from all that fancy wine at his fancy-pants restaurant," said another voice. "He's sleeping it off, no doubt."

Ben winced. Someone must have seen him carrying doggy bags with the restaurant logo and decided he was rich enough to rob.

"Don't matter none," said the first voice. "Gonna wake the dead the way you stumblin' around in here." Ben took a chance and leaned over. The door was ajar and he peeked through it to see into the hallway. In the gloom, he saw a big figure standing in the hallway and looking into his den. "Come on," said the big figure and gestured for the others in the den to follow. Ben's eyes went wide and he straightened back up and flattened against the wall when he saw what was in the hand the big man had gestured with. It was a big, shiny revolver with a scary long barrel. This was getting too real and too dangerous for Ben's tastes.

"Boss," Felicia said, "what's the plan for the intruders?"

Ben put a finger over his lips and gestured for Felicia to shut up. "They've got a gun," he whispered, almost inaudibly.

"Yeah," Felicia said, "and you've got magic."

Ben looked down at his familiar. She was right, in principle. He wasn't exactly defenseless, or harmless. But that didn't mean that he wanted to fight. He went through his options in the blink of an eye. Hiding was right out, these guys would tear his place apart looking for valuables. Running was also out of the question. His legs felt like jelly, the crooks were between him and the front and rear doors, and all the windows had bars over them, except for the one in the den. The stupid landlord was supposed to fit them there, too. Ben was going to take him to task over that, but only if he survived the night. His next option was to talk things out with the robbers. He didn't hold much hope of that being successful. The robbers weren't going to go away without any loot and they would probably like the idea of beating it out of him. The fight option seemed like the only way for him to go. He heard the men creep towards his bedroom door and came to a decision.

He went through his mental inventory of spells and selected the proper one. He had mere seconds before they came through his bedroom door and he didn't have the time to waste on casting the spell silently. He softly chanted and gestured for the spell of Baleful Polymorph to be released upon the man with the gun.

"Wait," said the man with the gun out in the hallway, "do you guys hear that?"

Just as he finished asking that question, the spell was loosed and he was transformed into a large toad. His clothes fell atop him, effectively trapping him. For a moment, a stunned silence was heard from Ben's hallway. Then came the panicked screaming. Ben nearly collapsed in heady relief and silently counted out the three seconds until he could cast again.