Phase I was an overwhelming success. It had long been Anthracite’s belief that the best way to obtain energy from humans was to take some activity, practice, or personal habit that was already widely believed to be soul-draining in the metaphorical sense, and modify it through Dark Magic so that it became soul-draining in the literal sense. He reasoned that if one took something otherwise benign, or worse, something commonly believed to be good for the soul, then suspicions of do-gooders like the Senshi would be raised. That Beryl had been utterly defeated by the troupe of Magical Girls was evidence of that.
So, when he got free, he decided to take over the world the way it should be done: through craftiness and subtlety. That was why he’d avoided trying the direct route of using brute magical force—besides, it was damn obvious that the Ginzuishou had more magical power than anyone who wasn’t Serenity could hope to control. Instead, he’d chosen financial power; it was more indirect than political/magical power, but just as binding, if one knew how to use it, and as an added bonus, people often assumed that capitalist titans were evil in the first place, so he’d be able to get away with a few ethical misdemeanors without anyone so much as batting an eye.
It had taken a lot of hard work to transform Hypercorp from a struggling startup to a financial giant in a mere two years, but he’d managed to succeed, and he’d gained enough financial capital to keep the company afloat through the potentially very expensive Phase II, which began two months ago. While financial power was very effective, he needed to use some of the more traditional power sources, or else he’d have no chance of survival should those pesky Sailors decide to vaporize him. Thus Phase II was focused on getting the draining human life energy—and for the first time, he was finally able to apply his philosophy of energy gathering to a large-scale strategy.
The former Dark General knew that financial difficulties often had terrible effects on a person’s well being—and those effects could be remarkably similar to those of having one’s energy drained: grouchiness, lethargy, apathy, depression, etc. Thus, he imbued Hypercorp’s “products” with energy-draining ability—not the credit cards themselves, because then people who were responsible with their money would begin to act suspiciously, possibly raising the attention of the Senshi; instead, energy was drained through the credit statements, specifically, the amount of the unpaid balance at the end of each billing cycle. The more a customer left on his or her balance, the more energy the statement would drain. Thus, his victims’ change in attitude would have a “reasonable” explanation—and on top of that, their problems would be viewed as “their own fault”—and in a way, it would be, since someone could stop the draining by paying off his or her balance.
To encourage customers to leave part of their balance unpaid, Hypercorp’s interest rates were drastically lowered—rates that other companies would give to their “platinum” customers, Hypercorp gave on its “entry level” cards. Naturally, this would be expensive—giving a card with a low interest level and a high spending limit to a person with a bad credit history was normally financial suicide. The board of directors would never have allowed it—in fact, they nearly voted to remove “Gerald Stewart” from power when he initially made the suggestion.
So he brainwashed them.
There hadn’t been any objections to his plans since.
To cover the expense of Phase II, the aggressive marketing of Phase I was kept in place, so that there would always be customers from who he could get money (and, as a bonus, the occasional smidgeon of energy when these reliable folks had temporary financial troubles and couldn’t pay off their entire balance). Once he gained a significant amount of life energy, Anthracite had been able to summon some minor youma to become his crack squad of “ninjamarketers.” The name was a bit of a euphemism, since they rarely did any “marketing” in the traditional (or, for that matter, nontraditional) sense of the word, but Anthracite thought it had a nice ring to it. They would eventually serve as all-purpose goons, but right now, their main task was the reconnaissance of potential energy stores (i.e., those with high amounts of life energy but terrible financial habits), as well as the occasional collection/repossession mission. They often walked the fine line between legitimacy and criminality, but so far, none of their shadier activities had been traced back to Hypercorp.
All of this was building up to Phase III, where he would make his presence known to the Senshi, eventually forcing a confrontation and, ideally, a negotiation as well. If all went well, he would be in a position to ensure that he would be able to impact the politics of Crystal Tokyo as he saw fit.
And therein lay his dilemma… when to begin Phase III? Phase II had been more successful than originally planned, as more of his regular customers left balances on their statements due to the low interest rates, giving him much more energy than he’d expected to have. On the one hand, having extra life energy on hand allowed him to be more versatile and take more risks in the supernatural aspects of his strategy. But there were several drawbacks. First of all, while Hypercorp was certainly in no danger of collapse, things were becoming precarious—but he had a plan for this, namely the expansion into Western markets to increase his customer base (in addition to gradually raising the interest rates on Hypercorp’s card to a more manageable level).
Second, and more importantly, if he continued to build up a large storehouse of magical energy, pretty soon, the Senshi would notice. And if that happened, he’d have to put Phase III into action before he was ready, which he did not want to do. At the very least, he wanted to figure out their identities. He’d initially believed that that would be easy since they were just a bunch of high-school girls, unless that bitch Pluto had somehow managed to not die between the fall of the Silver Millennium and now. But even if Pluto hadn’t died, he should have made some progress by now—but the Magical Girls’ security procedures were surprisingly solid, and ever since that big to do with Galaxia, there hadn’t been any major attacks to coax them out of hiding.
But then, they might be getting complacent—maybe they wouldn’t notice the buildup of magic at Hypercorp Tower. Yeah, right. And one day, men might have been allowed to own property on the Moon. Anthracite shook his head vigorously to clear his mind. Calm down, Maxil, there’s no use whining over twenty-thousand-year-old politics. Focus on the now. He had a decision to make.
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(Posted Tue, 13 Dec 2005 00:25)
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