Deadline

Scare raised her head and looked around at all the chemicals moving through the glass pipes and the machine pumping the different chemicals around in her lab. Then she looked up at the clock. Two hours left before she needed to leave for work. The project is far from done. Her potion still lacked completion. There were five other chemicals she had added to complete the potion for her master, the leader of Grimheart Gang. The purpose this potion had been put off for so long and her master, Curtiban, needs it tonight to do the trick. She is in the process of making extra potions just in case someone needs it. One and a half hours passed. Finally, the potion is done and in small, glass bottles and she could head to work. Her laziness has gotten in her way of doing things on time. She knew she could do better. After putting 10 bottles of liquid wrapped in paper neatly into her jacket she went out and headed to work. Because of the potion, she was going to be late as she tended to be. Sometimes oversleeping when she had been scheduled to work but still kept her job despite that.

"I'm here," Scare announced when she ran to the back to clock in. Her work could never be so repetitious as she stood at the cashier, checking out the people who come in to shop.

"You're late. Quickly clock in and go to the cashier. Next time don't be late again or you'll be fired," Quickla, her manager, scowled.

Quickly she went to the cashier she was assigned to be at and counted the money. Right on target. Scare then logged into the cashier and then started her day as a long line of customers gathered at her register. She made sure to carefully stuff her jacket in the place where the trash can lay. Now, onto just another day of cashiering without any second thoughts about what she could catch up on instead. Speaking of catching up she hasn't cleaned her house for a couple of weeks now and the dirt and dust are causing her to sneeze. Suddenly a few customers pulled out guns and shot them in the air. Everyone crouched down in fear as she crouched down on the ground. Quickly, she snuck out five bottles of potion. Wait until she gets the revenge she wanted to do. Only not to be a hero or anything, just for her purposes in testing out the potion.

"Give me all your cash," one of the customers with a gun demanded.

"What if I have something much more valuable than paper cash? You could earn big bucks from it," Scare said sarcastically.

"What is it?" the customer asked.

"Gather the others and then I'll give it to you to drink and you'll find out," Scare replied.

"Stop messing around and give us cash first. Then I'll see about this drink of yours," the customer scowled and made growling noises at her.

Scare quickly took out all of the cash from her cash register and then gave it to them. Now, this was different than the other days she had worked. Usually, robberies happen in large cities and in highly populated areas where there are a lot of people in one small area. Not here in a fairly small town where the crimes are so few. She would never have dreamed of this happening one day in her small town. Yet already had pledged herself to have full dedication and loyalty to Grimheart Gang. The plans and missions were simple, to overcome and rule over the small town. There were 30 members already and the gang had no enemies to face. Then she handed over the bag of cash to the customer. The customer snickered. After that, she pulled out her hand of potions in front of his face.

"Aren't you forgetting something? I can ensure you will see how priceless these drinks are if you drink them yourselves. Just try it out. Drink it all at the same time and you'll see the wonderful results of this drink. It will make you feel like running," Scare waved the potions to each of the robbers. She wanted to try out the potion she created and see if they would indeed please her master.

"All right we will drink it. What's so special about this drink it just looks like colored water to me," the customers took the drink into their hands.

"I'm not telling you. You'll have to experience it all for yourselves. Now drink it, all of you. Colored water is all you call it? I call it special potion," Scare sneered at them with an unpleasant taste in her mouth for these customers who are just making her work that much harder.

"Sure thing. It still just looks like colored water to me. It better not taste like colored water either," the customer grunted.

One by one they each drank the potion in full. Then Scare instructed them to wait for a few minutes for the potion to kick in and start working. A small smile crept up on the side of her face as she expected the potion to work out perfectly. Though she imagined that not everyone would enjoy being turned into a cat, it would be an excellent punishment for those who are up to no good anyway. Not that she was up to any good based on what her master wanted to do. Since she still had five potions left and only needed two then she figured she would be able to pull off her stunt quite well. Her work has had some coaching done to her for whenever she got into trouble because of what her master told her to do but had come out of it. Her laziness got in the way of working too when she started to just talk and not work.

After a few minutes, the potions began to work. The customers started growing cat ears and whiskers. Soon they grew smaller than their clothes and became buried in a pile of clothes. The guns they held were now scattered all over the floor. Quickly a few customers grabbed the clothes and then caught the customers that held guns and were holding the store hostage up in their hands. The potion worked successfully. Now they were just a bunch of cats shocked and bewildered. Soon sirens could be heard and Scare knew that the police had arrived to take care of the burglary that happened just now. She turned her head and watched as the police came in and took over. Her manager is shocked the most, standing there with his mouth gaped open at the stunt she had pulled. Then she wondered if she was going to get it this time and be fired after all the trouble she had caused. Something to worry about later.

When her day finished up Scare clocked out and then headed straight to where her master wanted to meet her. Curtiban doesn't take late for an answer and she had the potion he wanted ready to turn in. As she drove up the alley she found a place to park in a parking lot. Then she stepped out and met Curtiban directly, giving the potion over. The two rebels, as he called it, were being held back by two other gang members, Stitz and Zork. Then they began to confess their plans of spray painting the capital building. Curtiban held up the two bottles of the potion Scare had made and had Stitz and Zork force the two rebels to drink the potion. Just like before, she told him he had to wait for a few minutes for the potion to work. After a few minutes passed by they showed the same reaction as the customers robbing her workplace had. Soon Stitz and Zork were holding up two cats meowing and hissing profusely. The two rebels were not happy about it. Then she received a call to come over to the police station. Now she would need to come up with a cure from her potion to cure the people she had affected so that they could go about their daily lives. Robbing her workplace wasn't an acceptable thing either. Or she might be able to get away with it by coming up with some sort of lie, like lying about not knowing what would happen if they drank the potion. In a way she would be telling the truth she reasoned. Lives were saved because of her sleek actions after all.

Word count: 1,448 words