He stood right under the rusty streetlight in the dark alleyway, just as we had agreed. Barely recognizable in his fully black attire, he leaned against the wall and took a puff of his cigarette. I walked up to him, my shoes loudly clicking against the sidewalk, and he gave me a quick nod of recognition. I set down my sleek, black suitcase, and leaned against the wall opposite to him. My handler, after fixing his dark glasses, which hid the most intimidating eyes that I could feel burrowing deep into my soul, cleared his throat and spoke:
“So… do you know the Muffin Man?”
“The Muffin Man… the Muffin Man?”
“Yes, do you know the Muffin Man? The one on Drury Lane?”
Confused, I nodded. Honestly, what self-respecting member of the MTA, or the Magic Trackers Association, didn’t know the baker? He was one of the most prominent offenders of our organization's rules and regulations, having been detained many times for unregistered use of “living powder”, a powder used to, as the name implies, bring inanimate objects to life. My handler coughed lightly to snap me out of my musings and reminiscing, and continued:
“It’s time to kill the Muffin Man.”
“Wait, what’d he do, the Muffin Man?”
“He caught our boss, and took his life, for that he should be slain.”
I stood rooted to the spot, unable to respond. To kill our boss, the honorable and noble Sir Charming (more commonly known to everyone by his first name, Prince), was absolutely despicable, for he was respected by good and evil alike, and it would take a truly twisted soul to do something as vile. As one of Sir Charming’s closest advisors and assassins, I would not stand for this. After a quick briefing, I was ready to be equipped with all that I could possibly need for this mission: a flamethrower finger, a gun (to be used in extreme scenarios), and a few other simple gadgets, to be used as necessary. Armed and ready to go, I set off towards Drury Lane, making sure to ominously crack my knuckles as I walked.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Soon enough, I stopped in front of the towering, almost industrial-sized bakery which doubled as the Muffin Man’s house. Not pausing to form an adequate plan, I marched right inside, and found myself surrounded by an almost hypnotizing aroma of freshly-baked pastries. All around the shop, living gingerbread cookies pulled bags of sugar and flour across the counters, and I made a small mental note that there were more of the living cookies than allowed, but I decided to keep my silence. Behind the counter stood the baker himself, a grin plastered on his face, almost fondant-like in appearance. He noticed me and contorted his face to smile even wider, and he reached under the counter, only to pull out a tray of bright, blood-red cookies, the frosting almost glimmering in the sun.
“Ah, my favorite MTA agent! Here to bust my bags of flour again about my stashes of living powder? Well, you can at least try my new cookie recipe before we begin. Trust me, it’s so good, it’s practically to die for!” he said, an evil sparkle in his eyes.
“Leave the niceties aside,” I gruffly said, “You know what you did, Muffin Man, and you know the price to pay for your deeds.”
The crazed baker maniacally cackled at my words, grabbed my hand, and dragged me to the back of the building faster than I could react. The sight I saw was simply too gruesome to describe, but to put it lightly, I had witnessed everyone’s beloved Sir Charming become meat pie filling before my very eyes. Enraged, I struck the baker with my fist, sending him flying against a wall. He stood up quicker than I could finish the job, and loudly snapped his fingers, the sound echoing all throughout the suddenly silent bakery. Almost instantaneously, a ceiling tile crumpled away and the fragments fell at my feet. I looked up, gun at the ready, and a horde of cookies, all holding sharpened candy canes, flooded out of the ceiling and started piling on top of me, starting to stab me with the pointy confections.
Luckily, just when I thought I was done, the candy canes leaving deep marks on my skin, I remembered the flamethrower finger I had been equipped with. I twisted the ring on my finger and turned my face away from where the fire would burst out of, praying that it would work. A moment passed, and now the cookies were no more than a pile of smoldering ashes. Clearly not expecting this turn of events, the Muffin Man stood there, dumbfounded, no more tricks up his sleeve. The baker began to run in my direction, to make it out the door that was behind me, but I stuck out my foot, and he tripped, falling into the conveniently placed industrial meat grinder nearby.
A scream and a turn of the meat grinder’s lever later, the Muffin Man was no more, nothing left of him except a bloody heap of new meat pie filling for his cookies to clean up. The job now done, I calmly strutted out of the bakery, ignoring the scars I had been given, for they would serve me as a reminder of the baker’s horrid actions. On the way out, I grabbed a stray marshmallow lying on the counter and popped it in my mouth. Revenge truly was, as they say, quite sweet.