Ben woke with a start Wednesday morning as his phone rang with the sound of jingling bells, his ringtone for the mayor. Confusion passed over him before a deep dread settled into his stomach.
Vacation days were sacred to the bloated gasbag mayor, so getting a call was not good news.
"Yellow," Ben said in his midwestern accent.
"Ben, good," Wilkinson fumbled over his words. "Listen, I hate to call you, but you were just penned for a court date this Friday. The National Parks Service is doing an investigation into your insistence against their parks in the village. They suggested you prepare any land ownership documents you may have before the court date."
Ben sat up with real panic. He had been kissing ass like a fetishist for the past year and four months just to keep any parks under local jurisdiction, including making several friends in and around the nearest National Parks Service state headquarters. It was part of his mayor bid to run the tagline 'Keep Lincoln Local'.
But this wasn't the National Parks he knew. Gary was the head honcho for the city-level and he would have just called Ben if something happened. If they were skipping the foreplay and going straight to the hard stuff, this wasn't coming from the people he'd been arguing against. This was coming from over their heads, which meant Washington.
On top of that, nobody sets a court date for two days in the future without serious consequences. It was basically asking to be appealed.
And the only enemies he'd made in Washington were-
"Tannenburg, that bitch!" he said into the phone.
"-What?" Wilkinson asked.
"Yesterday, with the journalists, there was a hero Department recruiter named Melissa Tannenburg," Ben quickly explained. "I turned her down, but she threatened to bring the full weight of the Hero Department down on me."
"Why would she do that?"
"I'm guessing the same reason the journalists are in front of my house," Ben groaned as his dimensional sight caught some intrepid young upstart stepped onto his lawn and up to his front door. "The Hero Department wants me under contract so I don't embarrass them with any interviews."
"But this is from the National Parks?" Wilkinson puzzled, and Ben remembered he was talking to an idiot.
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"I'm sure they just want to capitalize on all this media attention I'm getting. Tell them I'll be there. What time?"
Ben squared away the date, then hung up the phone and yelled into the ceiling with righteous fury. He went to his side drawer where a Makarov and a loaded magazine sat. He loaded the gun and chambered a round, keeping a tight grip while he went to the front door. While standing in front of the entrance, he flipped a switch near the door that spooled up a gigantic microwave under the front yard. The microwaves were all contained in a simple faraday cage, but on top of that was a de-ionizing field which would turn the radiation into an electrical pulse at a set timer.
The young man jumped when the Ben finally opened the door, but smiled and prepared his introduction.
The homeowner lifted the Makarov and pointed it at the journalists face, then aimed it slightly away and fired. The bullet ripped through the air right in front of this kid's face, freezing him on the spot and causing all the other people to activate their recording devices, until a large pulse of electromagnetic energy blew the electronics apart like fireworks.
"There are precisely two things I want everyone here to understand: Number one, this is a 'castle doctrine' state and the entirety of this sub-division is privately owned. For those of you who are new, this means that I have the full legal right to shoot every single one of you for the disturbance I was caused and I could then sue on top of it all. Even the street is officially dubbed private property, so if you want to camp out and wait for me to leave my house, you're going to have to wait on the public access road. If anyone decides they're brave enough for an interview, I call the cops to come collect you all in the morning.
"Secondly and lastly, I want all of your press credentials, because I am going to make your lives a living hell so that you pass along to your journalist buddies to LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE."
Ben then went around with his gun and his phone, collecting every bit of evidence he could, including the information in these people's wallets. They were all as amicable as sheep, but that was only because they believed their recording equipment still worked and they could attack Ben in the court of public opinion. Once he'd collected all their information, they then started to complain that their cars wouldn't start, so Ben called the sheriff.
"You know those journalists who've been making the municipal buildings such a nightmare the last few days? Well, they showed up at my house and now they're complaining that their equipment is broken and won't leave. It's funny because it they were all working a SECOND AGO!"
Ben then felt pure schadenfreude as the sheriff showed up and issued tickets and had to personally call all of them tow trucks at an enormous mark-up. This whole process took over an hour, during which Ben served some snacks and coffee to the officers and tow truckers. He thanked the sheriff and promised some special consideration for the vote for their monthly budget.
Going back into his house, the former supervillain set his phone down on the kitchen island and said, "Idet, ruin these people's lives. Be creative with it, really set your emotional spirit free."
"Would you like me to destroy this Melissa Tannenburg as well?"
"No," Ben said, pouring some coffee for himself and sipping it with a great, big smile. "I want to do that myself."