Chess at Twilight

>Her rage bubbled just underneath the surface
>Her eyes, a deep violet, burned a hole into the surface of her lab table
>Fists clenched at her side, she focused her mind with deep, calming breaths
>How could they?
>How could anyone...?
>Her lab, the one she had spent all of four years building, now lay in tatters before her
>Machines, once softly whirring and whizzing, now lay silent
>Strewn about were destroyed papers, destroyed data
>Everything was gone
>Bullies were hardly anything knew to Twilight
>She had had to deal with them long before now, and cared little for their petty squabbles
>Twilight knew exactly who did this
>The way she had looked at her earlier, her smug, self-satisfied grin that stretched a little wider at seeing her victim
>It had to be her
>There could be no other bully, that she knew of, that was even close to figuring out how to really get to her
>Now, Twilight was livid. Horrendously angry. A coil was tightly wound within her chest, barely holding together
>If bullying created the coil, the destruction of her lab, her life, was the bucket of liquid nitrogen that froze it solid and the hammer that shattered it
>Twilight closed her eyes, bunching her eyebrows together. Trying to calm herself down
>A part of her felt hopeless at the thought
>Years of research, down the drain
>Sensitive equipment, fine turned for her purposes, was shattered at her feet
>Yet, she focused on a new goal
>Twilight reached into the inner pockets of her uniform and extracted her phone.
>A plan formed in her head
>A devious plan, if there ever was one.
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Part I: The Pawn
>Twilight knew that her ultimate goal would not going to be easy to achieve, nor swift
>Yet she was determined
>The first step in her plan was to knock the Queen off her pedestal
>The best way, Twilight decided, was to begin from the bottom
>No structure could support itself without a base
>Twilight basked in the gentle stillness of her one-lab
>Now that it had been cleared out. and all the machinery thrown in the trash, she could almost hear the dead trying to claw their way out of the ground
>Any moment now
>Her plan had gone into effect that morning
>A long night of planning was followed by several pots of coffee
>That was, she lamented as she drummed her fingers softly on her desk, the only thing keeping her roused
>Her fingers tapped their way absentmindedly to a manila folder
>Everything she had on her current target of Revenge
>Everything.
>From what made her sneeze to her social security number was in this folder
>Twilight had found this information with, perhaps sometimes questionable, zealous glee
>Amazing what several hours of unblinking, maniacal fervor could dredge up about a person
>Twilight stopped her drumming
>The distant, high-pitched scream of a girl echoed through the empty school halls
>She sucked in a deep, shaky breath
>Waited
>Waiting
>The screaming stopped
>The distant wail cut off at the root
>Now only silence
>Her closet, no longer her lab, fell back into that gnawing, dead-filled silence
>Like at any minute a corpse, rotten, disfigured, would explode from the ground to drag her to where she belonged
>Where she would belong, in time
>The beginning of her plan, The Pawn, was perhaps the physically worst
>She had gym this time of day, and, as a creature of unending habit, always picked the last shower stall
>A twist here, a screw there
>And almost twelve straight hours of how plumbing and water moves, and she was able to achieve her goal
>It was slow at first
>Gently warming up
>Soon the water wouldn't stop becoming hot
>Boiling water would eventually be pouring on her, first at a gentle slope, then all at once
>Her skin would be cooked, and naturally she would attempt to leave
>Yet the stall door, with a simple shim in the door frame placed /just/ the right way would jam it
>Perhaps she noticed when opened the door, perhaps she didn't
>But it would then be far too late
>Maybe she would be smart enough to crawl under the stall door, but Twilight doubted it
>In between the third degree burns associated with boiling water, she would soon have more problems
>A simple chemical solution, placed in the loosened shower head, would send the head of the shower careening at her
>It would stop her screaming
>And just like that, Twilight breathed out a soft sigh
>One down, she lamented
>Soon they would all be crushed
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Part II: The Rook

>A thin, shuddering gasp escaped her
>The thick, almost viscous atmosphere of her tiny closet seemed to linger
>Twilight let the manila folder, the one on her shower victim, fall into a shredder
>There would be no proof of her misdeeds.
>Not if she could help it, at any rate
>The results of her plan, the girl being boiled alive in the shower, had a few interesting results
>She had nearly died. Cooked almost completely.
>But that would've simply been too easy an end for her, Twilight believed, so as soon as the screaming had started, she had called an ambulance
>The high pitched wails rescued the burn victim just in time
>A moment later and...
>Twilight grinned behind her crossed fingers
>The stifling heat of her lab bared down on her. >Yet at the same time, the sense of satisfaction was like a cool glass of water on the fire sitting in her belly
>She tempered the blazing heat, though only for a moment
>It was lusting once more for revenge
>She could feel it beginning to rise and well within her.
>It had been a week since the incident, A week since she had begun her campaign of revenge
>She had been unsuspected
>A mere tool, that had been her target, a mere tool of the mastermind.
>The connection was minimal, if any at all
>Twilight's fingers drummed rhythmically on a new folder
>The last had to be destroyed, this one was for her newest target
>A boy, built like a brick house, who was just as straight forward and stupid as he was broad and imposing
>He would not be fooled by boiling water, no, he would simply rip the door off it's hinges
>The only way to go about this was to be subtle
>The research on this brickhouse was much more in depth than the tool she had already broken
>She had unearthed a dark secret in her research
>The boy, built like a mountain, was a steroid user.
>He was using a steroid that barely had any impact on his body. A simple boost. The long terms effects very well could be disastrous, but for now he would not be affected
>Those same steroids, however, were to be taken at high dosages. The lowest being twenty milligrams
>Twilight pulled the vial of anabolic steroids from her inner lab coat pocket
>The label was for his usual brand of steroids
>His gym bag, unattended mere hours ago, now held the very, very lethal Methyltrienolone.
>She thought on the drug, on the fact that the dosage was as different as night and day
>Even two milligrams was enough to overdose
>The thought made her chuckle
>Another one of the Queen's tools were soon to be destroyed
>And her revenge will be had
>Even if it killed them.
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Part III: The Bishop
>Twilight bit her lip, hiding a grin that threatened to surface
>No one had suspected a thing once that oaf had overdosed on steroids
>The cops simply ruled it an accidental suicide, content with his idiocy resulting in his death
>It almost made her laugh
>Now, a month after the toppling of the giant, she was ready for phase three
>In that time, she had come up with a plan
>Her new target was not an idiot like the last
>Surely, this one, this vile, wretched girl, was one of the masterminds
>She was smart and cunning
>Twilight wouldn't be able to fool her with phony medicine labels, she was certain
>Yet, despite her intelligence, she had backed herself into a corner
>A precarious position, a throne built on a pillar of sand
>Twilight chuckled softly in the gloam of her closet. A satisfied smirk on her face.
>Her plot was displayed on the screen
>Twilight had discovered the key to her downfall
>She was a closet kleptomaniac
>Anything that tickled her fancy, from simple knickknacks to jewelry and everything in between
>Thousands upon thousands of dollars, from what Twilight had managed to learn of
>She chuckled darkly, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose
>She had discovered this dark little secret almost by accident
>Twilight had observed her target, almost religiously, for a month
>It had been little things
>Bracelets made from woven twine, pencils, erasers...
>Then Twilight had seen her outright steal earrings from lockers, wallets, jewelry of all shapes and sizes. Phones, even.
>Thus, her plan
>A phone, a small, pink phone as the klepto preferred, left out in the open
>The bait was taken easily
>Twilight stared at the blinking red dot on the computer's map as it traveled through town
>She suspected that the Bishop would store her stolen goods in the same place. It seemed unlikely she would sell it all, at least for a while
>The softly blinking blip stopped, directly over a building full of rental storage sheds
>Twilight's wide grin stretched across her face
>A message was already sent out to the police a day before, the plot was set in motion
>She would arrive at the storage unit
>Twilight tipped off the police a day in advance about the phone theft, and gave them an accurate location of the Bishop's whereabouts.
>She had also gave them a heads up
>The Bishop would access an entire vault of stolen items, if they were lucky
>Another one down
>Twilight giggled madly to herself.