Lulu just had a very rough night working his job at a drive-through restaurant, and from the smell of things, it wasn't going to get any better. Yes, he could smell the sweaty tax demon with their bulbous body and many eyes just outside his apartment door, and yes, he didn't like the implications that came to mind one bit. Demons were the lawful sort, always on time, always demanding hard-earned money, and always ruining people's days with the precision of a crow eating only the sweet, gooey parts of an eye.

So he did what he did best: running away from his problems.

Lulu didn't have the most comfortable apartment in Yatu, but it looked like he was going to lose that too.

Well, it is what it is.

He grabbed his trusty cane and his patchy coat and examined his one and only window. From the looks of it, a jump wouldn't splatter him onto the scorching hot asphalt below but certainly had the capacity to shatter one or two bones.

"I am nothing if not a daring man," Lulu said with a wolfish smile on his face.

He tightened his grip on his cane and secured his gambler hat on his head. Before he could change his mind, he ran through the window.

What a lovely day it was for plummeting down a building.

Even if he broke half of his bones, at least the sweaty demon wouldn't get the satisfaction of their bonus paycheck and extra paid leave for getting a new "worker."

Lulu was no slave, never a slave, and the government could put his b...

With a jerk, Lulu came to a sudden stop.

"What do we have here? A running shapeshifter? Boss is going to give me all the extra gift cards I want. They may even allow two pizza parties per month in the office," said the weary, suit-wearing little imp carrying Lulu mid-air.

"Oh no, Rick, two pizza parties per month is just not financially possible. Remember, we are the tax collectors, but we still have to pay tax too," came the voice of the bulbous demon down below.

"Why am I being detained in the middle of my lovely morning routine, you gentle-things?" Lulu asked with fake curiosity and a bit of justified frustration.

"Hey, kid, leave that attitude for your managers in the work camp. We both know you didn't have the required money and thought you were trickier than half of Yatu, rotting in the work camps," noted the bulbous demon.

Lulu was really fed up with this now. If he was going to go down, he wasn't about to make it easy for these corporate dogs. "You see, my friendly shifting mix of flesh and misery, my name is Lulu, and I never ever dreamed of running away from the law in my life. Not even a second. But if I did, can you really blame me? There's no conceivable situation in which a citizen without a prominent family like yours truly can afford the price of these taxes with a nine-to-five job," Lulu claimed.

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"My name is Khorkhorè. You can call me Khor. And even if I had the desire to let you go, it would only mean that my head would be on the plate instead, and let me tell you that I despise being eaten. It ruins my day," Khor replied.

With all his peaceful options out of the way, Lulu could finally cause some chaos, and he was going to love every second of it.

He punched the imp's nose with the flat of his palm, and with a sickening crunch, Lulu resumed his graceful fall to the street below.

He aimed his body and bent his knees and hands.

The landing, accompanied by a roll, took him within striking distance of the lovely Khor, so he crushed their bare toes with his cane.

Khor already showed their speed with how fast they were able to get down from his apartment, so it wasn't enough to leave them be.

Lulu grabbed Khor's leg and with a grunt lifted them above his head. All those shoulder presses finally came in handy.

"You know, Khor, it was nice to meet you, but there's truly no rest for the wicked," Lulu said with a final grunt and launched the poor demon into the metal trash container nearby.

The force of the throw tipped the container and sealed Khor inside.

"That triple throw from downtown deserves a tax cut, if I do say so myself," Lulu noted proudly. He started running the opposite way.

Oh, how he hated his life. What was the crucial event that made him come to this point in his life?! No girlfriend, crap job, running from the law, fighting for his organs and freedom. Was it how he tried to get with that succubus even though he wasn't emotionally available, or was it all his experiments with "herbal remedies" that made him more or less immune to poison? What a mess!

Yatu was a big world. He could start another life somewhere else. Maybe open a fast-food cart and sell hot dogs. Buy a piece of land with his savings and open a farm in some unknown rural realm. Maybe even find a farm girl and pay her dowry in cattle. Those minotaur girls were fierce and battle-ready; surely they could protect him from the law. Lulu chuckled to himself between breaths.

What a mess!

He could think of a more feasible solution, but first, he should get the hell away from this city.

He turned inside an alleyway.

Jaduq was the central hub of Yatu, the big city, the meeting point of all that was magic and an amalgamation of government corruption and politics. There was no real big bad guy or anything, not truly. The system was corrupt, and everybody in it just wanted to survive and bite a bigger share of the whole pie just because the other guy didn't eat their justified share, a whole mess of opportunists eating through each other in a closed box. Like that Kodoku nonsense the sorcerers make for weekend pranks, but filthier and without end.

Lulu turned into another alleyway, hoping to find a way into the sewer systems. He didn't have a plan, but he hoped to lay low for some time inside the sewers. Maybe make friends and start a rebellion against the government with the help of a secret tribe of mole people down below.

He chuckled to himself another time, but his budding smile hurriedly faded when he saw Khor standing further away inside the alleyway, chewing on something resembling the fragments of that trash container he used as a pseudo-cage to contain them.

"Hello, kid. You are good, I give you that, and I was hungry, so thanks for the quick snack. Any damage to public property during a tax collection event is paid by the future work of the criminal, so good luck working 20 extra years for that," Khor said matter-of-factly, like they were saying it for the hundredth time this week.

A frustrated Lulu said, "I don't grace you with another witty comeback, you filthy..."

"Rick, tase the smarty-pants, please," Khor claimed with sweet poison in their voice.

"Aye aye, boss," Rick replied from behind and above his head.

Something slammed into his neck, and with a flash of pain, everything went dark.