He assumed he had won, so he took the opportunity to monologue about how good a manipulator he was, how all my actions had been controlled by him.
So I pulled out my gun and shot him.
He fell to his knees, holding the new hole in his stomach, and I guess he'd rubbed off on me, as I decided to monologue as well.
"You assholes don't get it, real life isn't a game, there aren't rules about how humans have to react, we can-"
He pulled a gun from somewhere and shot me back.
And I mean, fair play.
Sally and Gareth had the perfect set-up going. They'd stake out the place they wanted to hit for a few moments, until they were fairly confident as to the sexual orientation of the clerk. Then, whichever way they swung, one of them would be outside and act sexy, before the other would hit the store and escape. There wasn't any good description of either of them, as the clerks would always be too obsessed with the 'unrelated' person outside.
This worked well until, after a scare with a bisexual clerk, they made the mistake of hitting an asexual one instead.
I was watching them through the bug in their glasses. I had it on good authority that they were the best hacker available, but I still didn't trust them. Plus I needed to make sure all the work done to get them in the room was worth it.
So I watched them use the ID card, the keypass, and the doorcode to get into the room. I spoke through the earpiece.
"Remember, the password is 36 symbols long, and is-"
They typed it in perfectly.
"You ARE good!"
A finger tapped the post-it note on the edge of the monitor.
He'd planned out every possible outcome and ensured they'd benefit him. Sure, some were better than others (he would much rather one of the many outcomes where he was ruling everything rather than an outcome where he was remembered as a martyr by his children who now ruled), but no matter what the rag-tag bunch of misfits trying to stop him did, he knew he'd win.
So when they burst into his throne room, he sighed, and prepared for one of the lesserly optimal outcomes.
Then they tossed paint over him.
Fine, just adjust the "defeat them epically" plan slightly...
Sister Grace found her new posting to an outreach center in the middle of central Africa rewarding, but as the days turned into weeks, she became more concerned.
The only other white person for miles was a man who was called Tonto, and who seemed to live on the general store's steps. With every greeting he gave her, she was sure he must be hiding from some vicious crime.
So in her messages back, she requested help from the authorities.
When the reply came that he was the local authorities, as far as they knew, she was graceless about it.
The Wizard clearly didn't get a lot of visitors, so I tried to look interested as he showed me a bunch of his devices. I don't think he would have noticed either way, until he showed me a simple silver ring with a pearl on it.
"And this is my Ring of Truth. If you wear it and lie, it glows."
I paused.
"Is that based on intent or fact?"
"What do you mean?"
"If I think I'm lying, but I'm not...?"
"It doesn't glow."
I put it on.
"My wife isn't cheating on me."
I didn't like the answer.
The two snipers were stuck in a dilemma, as both of them had their weapons trained in roughly where the other one was. But neither knew exactly, they needed the other to move enough to target. But both of them would only move once they were about to take the shot, and they wouldn't do that until they'd spotted the other.
So they were stuck, waiting for something, anything, to break the stalemate. A wild animal, an uncontrollable bodily function, anything.
A rainstorm wasn't really enough, at first, but then a couple simultaneous lightning bolts sniped the problem quite cleanly.
