This wasn't exactly the easiest prompt to write because there are many times that Azul would make a contact with someone. For my prequel to Mika's main story, I decided to basically rewrite the scene from Book 3 in the game of making the contact with Azul to free Ace and Deuce from their scammed labor.

And that is the very last prompt of TWSTober. I have to say, it was quite a challenge to finishing the prompts each day, but it was definitely worth the brainstorming. Would I do this again next year? Maybe not considering how much work was required, but it gave me creative ideas, so I do not regret a single thing from it.

Link to original post: https://old.reddit.com/r/TwistedWonderland/comments/xe5lzy/twstober_prompt/

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The Monstro Lounge private office was the most intricate room Mika had ever witnessed. So much so that the Headmage’s office could never compare to it even if the Headmage himself decided to redecorate. Two couches and a coffee table sat at the room’s center. A golden storage safe door was attached to the back wall, and a wide desk stood in front of it as if it were a guardian symbol.

Azul offered Mika, Grim, and Jack the left couch as he took the right one. The meeting party sat down. Azul settled his cane against the cushions and fixed his gloves. “Are you sure you don’t care for a drink before we start? Who knows how much a consultation could make someone so quenched?”

“I believe it won’t be necessary, Mr. Ashengrotto,” Mika replied plainly. “I know how much you like to make things short and simple.”

“Oh? Is that what you’re here for?”

“Quite so. Azul, you have put my friends in a trifling position, and I refuse to stand idly by while they suffer unfairly.”

“Unfairly? My good woman, I am nothing if not fair. Whenever a client comes to me with a signed contract, we are both obliged to follow through on both of our parts.”

“Even if the terms are unmeetable?”

“Ms. Mika, allow me to explain something in the simplest of terms. My stepfather is a lawyer. Every day, he works with people who don’t understand a single word on a legal document. Who is he to tell a person that something is wrong when that person failed to foresee the consequences of a broken rule? He’s taught me everyone I know now about legal affairs, and I’d be remiss if I fell through on those lessons. I made it very clear to every one of those scrubs that if they didn’t reach the appropriate mark for their midterm exams that they would serve me at the Monstro Lounge. There is nothing about those terms that were unreasonable in their eyes. Every mage employed here was given full permission per the contract.”

“Employed?” Grim exclaimed. “More like enslavement!”

“That word offends me, sir,” Azul replied. “To be enslaved means that you are kidnapped to work against your will. To be employed is to agree to working terms

“You may be correct, but you’re a fraud,” Jack growled.

“Is that right, Mr. Howl?”

“Isn’t it obvious? You promise students proper studying tools to reach to the top of the score chart. However, when everyone is fighting for the same thing, people are bound to miss the mark. You have people fight for the same reward with the false promise of getting to the top, and I know these morons wouldn’t come up with the top of the score chart reward themselves. All they want is good grades. You feed them the score chart fantasy in order to up the ante. You feed them false ideals wrapped in colorful paper to trap them in your own wants, and when they get what they want but miss the part two mark, everyone comes to see that the contract has benefited you the entire time. You’re a con artist to the highest degree, and we refuse to stand by that.”

As Jack spoke, Azul managed to finish two cups of tea from the main pot. When the beastman concluded his statement, the Octavinelle Housewarden lay his personal tea set up in front of him on the coffee table. He intertwined his fingers together and sat his hands on the knee that was crossed over his other leg. “Are you finished, Mr. Howl? Can we get to the point of this visit…unless your point was to berate me in private as if you are the highest and mightiest mages on the entire property.”

“WHY YOU--”

Jack, sit down!” Mika demanded.

He immediately obeyed. He cleared his throat and apologized for his abrupt behavior.

Mika fixed her long hair, so that it was dropping to her back. “Please excuse us, Mr. Ashengrotto. While I don’t agree with Jack’s approach with his opinion, that doesn’t mean I don’t disagree. It’s because I agree with him that I am here. My friends were roped into a scam. They may be naïve and desperate for good grades, but that doesn’t mean that they deserve the worst treatment possible. No one in this school, no matter what I think about each individual wishes this kind of treatment on anyone.”

“So what are you offering, Miss Mika?” asked Azul.

“An offer I don’t think you can refuse. Deals are your greatest hobby, isn’t it?”

Azul sat his chin in his hand. “I’m listening.”

“I want you to free all of the students you tricked. I want you to release them from your curse. However, in exchange for that, I will give you anything you ask for.”

His blue eyes shimmered to the sound of that. “Anything?” Azul slyly asked.

“Did I stutter, Mr. Ashengrotto?”

“Mika, please don’t do anything rash,” Grim pleaded. “I’m already in hot water as it is.”

She covered his mouth, pressing him into the back cushions of the couch.

“Very well. If you offer it, I shall take it. What I desire more than anything is a precious item from my hometown. In its museum, there is a famous picture of the young prince from my kingdom, Rielle. It is framed in the main hall, and it is my great desire to get my hands on it.”

Jack clenched a fist. “You mean to tell us you want us to sneak into a government facility and steal their property?”

“Stealing? It’s not stealing if I have the intention to return it. I just want to have it in my hands is all.”

“So you’re putting the task on a layperson?” Grim questioned. “Even for me, that’s sketchy.”

“Oh come now, if you know what you’re doing the mission is a piece of cake. I will give you three days maximum to do it since you are new to heisting of course. However, in order for this trade to happen, it will require another element on my end. The museum is located in the Coral Sea, and if it isn’t obvious, it will be under the water, so in order for you and your gang to not drown and kill yourselves, I will gladly offer you a potion that will give you the abilities to swim and breathe without issue. With that said, if I get the photograph I requested, the trade wouldn’t be such an issue. However, I will not let this deal happen if there is a possibility of your failure. If a failure is to occur, which could possibly happen, I still require a payment since I will give you my potions.” Azul snapped his fingers. From his desk, an ancient empty scroll and a feather pen flew into his grasp. He pushed his teacup aside and placed the writing setup in the now-empty spot on the coffee table. He began to write up the already planned terms. “So, Miss Mika, what will you also offer me in his exchange? Please, do make it interesting. I don’t have all week to think for you after all.”

Mika had nothing else. She was a poor layperson who came from another world against her own will. Azul would never be interested in another cell phone. What would be the point of that? If she offered herself, she would be throwing herself into the pit of no return. Azul would not be interested in her money, considering that he could get his own income by himself. What could Azul want from her that he didn’t already have but at the same time wouldn’t be able to steal what was left of Mika’s being?

“Then, I will offer you as such. If I fail to retrieve this photo and give it to you in the three days you set…” She deeply breathed. “I will give you Ramshackle Dorm as payment instead.”

Grim squealed in horror.

“Alright then. If you fail, your payment shall be…” Midst writing, Azul’s eyes turned into saucers. “I beg your pardon?”

“Mika, have you lost your common sense?” Jack shouted.

Mika crossed her legs and licked her teeth. “Think about it, Azul Ashengrotto. You said the other day that your greatest desire was to expand your business. What better way to do that than to utilize a building that would no longer be in service for a layperson such as myself? If I gave you that building, you would be one step closer towards your goal of restaurant domination. Is that so out-of-this-world?”

Azul tapped his cheek. “Hmm…” He closed his eyes to think. Mika could imagine that he was planning the restaurant layout with the Ramshackle Dorm in mind. She prayed for the agreement. Finally, Azul cleared his throat and finished writing up the contract. “My dear, I believe that this could be the greatest investment you’ve ever made.” Azul signed his half of the contract at the bottom of the scroll. He exchanged the document from his side of the coffee table to Mika’s. “All you need to do now is sign your name and…It’s a Deal!”

“Mika, don’t do it!” screeched Grim. “It’s a trap!”

“If you sign away your own dorm, your life will be over as we know it,” Jack warned.

“I know what I’m doing, you two. I’m doing this for your sake, Grim…for Ace and Deuce…and for the rest of my classmates. You can trust me, right?”

Grim and Jack harshly swallowed. She had never seen the both of them so mortified.

Mika took a deep breath, and with the feather pen of fate, she wrote her name in cursive across the line that was reserved just for her. M-I-K-A. That one name alone decided her fate.

“It’s decided then!” Azul snapped his fingers and the scroll returned to his possession. “Allow me to offer you my part, and you shall begin your quest.”

“Wait!”

“Pardon?”

“How will I know that you won’t do anything to the scroll to mix our terms?”

“My dear girl, that is against moral judgment between consenting parties to adjust a contract without consent from both the signees! Moreover, this scroll is a very special piece of paper. It wouldn't allow me to do anything I want to it. Observe.” Azul unrolled the scroll and propped it onto the coffee table one more. “I shall take this pen and attempt to make an adjustment to it.” He lowered the tip onto the paper, but before the pen could touch it, the scroll shocked the pen in a defensive jolt.

Grim and Jack hopped in their seats.

“See?” He lay the pen onto the table and took the contact into his hands. “And if I try to rip the contact in any way…” Azul tried to pull his hands in opposite directions as hard as he could, but the paper would not split. It was as if the scroll was now made out of metal. “And nothing. So fear not, Miss Mika. Once a contract has been officially signed, no harm shall come to it or our terms. The contract will be void once the terms of it have been met. However, to ensure that no funny business will happen to it…” He gestured to the closed safe behind the desk. “It will be secured in here. Only I have access to opening and closing this safe, so rest assured that our contact will be safe.”

Mika sighed. “Jack must be wrong then. You are the real deal, Azul Ashengrotto.”

“If the Great Sea Witch has taught anyone from my kingdom anything, it’s that preparation is the key to success. Now, you mustn’t waste any of your time. You have a photograph to fetch, remember?”