A Trickster's Daughter

Chapter 12: Tall Tales-Part 1

Mid-February 2007, Springfield Ohio, United States

Maya sat at an old style metal and plastic table with a red top and rimmed with aluminum on pale green chairs in the kitchenette of the small apartment her and her Dad were staying at. Most of the table space was taken up with various assortments of cakes and some fruits. What wasn't taken up by food had Maya's notebook and information on a few individuals at the local college, Crawford. It contained important character points, habits, and rough schedules. The most important being was how these guys were assholes.

There was a student called Curtis who was his fraternity's pledge master. For the last semester he'd been putting his house's pledges through the ringer. Some were so humiliated they felt like they had to drop out. Those were some of the luckier ones. Others got sent to the hospital. The most recent being a young boy who was away from home for the first time, and was forced to stand outside for an hour while it was snowing. He wasn't even let back inside, when he couldn't handle it anymore, till the hour was up. He ended up getting serious frostbite and hypothermia. This Curtis dick didn't even feel remorseful for the emotional and physical damages he caused to the pledges. He was too drunk on the power he had over them.

Another was a research scientist at Crawford. Animal testing. 'Nough said.

The last was a professor of the 'Ethics and Morality' course at Crawford, a one Arthur Cox. It was ironic because he wasn't all that moral. He was married with kids, had a decently successful book on; you guessed it, 'Ethics and Morality'. He doesn't practice much what he teaches. Guess it was like that old saying, 'Those who can't do, teach.' This guy takes advantage of his position as a professor, and a minor local celebrity, and coerces young girls into having sex with him. Maya found out he sometimes purposefully gave some girls bad grades on their essay, mostly those on scholarships, and said he'd change their grade or give them recommendations if they put out.

Maya wrinkled her nose at the information she had on these assholes. It was a stroke of luck for them that she had planned to take point in how they were going to get taught a lesson. They were dicks but Maya thought they could change, that they just needed a push, a catalyst. In other words Maya wanted to ruin their lives, not take them. She was still fleshing out her plans, and at some point she was going to have to get her Dad involved. It was because it seemed Maya had hit a block, mental or physical, when it came to her powers. The biggy being that she can't just pop something into existence like her Dad could. It would have made things sooooo much easier.

As she was thinking up ideas, while absentmindedly eating her required piece of chocolate cake, the door to the apartment opened and her Dad came in whistling merrily.

"Hey Reese's Pieces," Gabriel greeted as he made his way over to the table to sit down, but not before ruffling his daughter's slightly untamable curly hair. He smirked as she went about straightening her hair pouting. He grabs a slice of chocolate fudge cake and looks over at what Maya had in front of her. "Whatchu up to?" Gabriel asked looking at her open notebook.

"Mmmmm trying to figure out ways to dole out just desserts to one of these assholes," Maya replied before letting out a groan and letting her head fall with a thud onto her notebook. "I know what I want to do, just not how to get there." Maya mumbled into her book.

Gabriel grabbed the book and carefully pulled it out from under Maya's face. He glanced over some of her ideas and plans, chuckling when he'd find questions in the margins when she ran into a snag. She was working on how to ruin Arthur Cox's life without the girls he coerced getting hit in the crossfire. Gabriel should probably tell her what he did tonight before coming home.

"These are pretty well thought out ideas Maya, though I wouldn't worry too much about professor Cox," Gabriel watched as Maya's shoulders tensed and she turned her face to stare at him in suspicion.