Tractorpull Revenge Extravaganza Part 14 - Intestate Succession
The body of Grottz Tractorpull lay in repose atop his desk, a sickly grey colour rather than his usual lively green. Steamplate paces the room, thoughts run through his head a mile a minute. How could she do this? What would become of the family now? Does he inform the Baron and gather the guards, or is this all somehow… on the level?
He turns to the door as it creaks open.
The sharp knife drags through the soft supple flesh, juices leaking out of it as the cold metal slides effortlessly. It is sharper than it needs to be, sharper than it has any business being, but that makes her work easier. Pleased with the events of the day, Alibi Tractorpull takes her slices of tomato and lines them end on end across the sandwich she’s made for herself and returns to her now dead husband’s office.
Her eldest son, Steamplate, paces in the office, turning to her when she enters. He isn’t sure how to react. This is his mother, after all. On the other hand, she just murdered his father in front of him. He tenses.
“Steamplate, go join your siblings. I will be along shortly, I need to address the assembled.”
His eye twitches. She can’t presume to be ordering him now, can she? He looks her over, sizing her up. The knife is there. Tucked into her belt. But she is quite calm, eating a- does she have a sandwich?
“Fine. I’ll go find the brats.”
He leaves the office and the door closes behind him. He isn’t sure he trusts her with the body, given that she’s responsible for it, but what can he do? He doesn’t want to knife fight his mother for obvious reasons.
Staxxy is in the vestibule, he can hear her down the stairs, sobbing loudly as if this whole thing isn’t her fault. He decides to approach, as his mother requested, and as he descends the stairs he sees another member of the family has entered the manor.
“Boxcar, let me get your coat, sister.” He approaches her and offers to unfetter her. “Husband and kid not joining us today?”
“No, I thought, given what the courier had to say, that I’d best come alone. Is it true?”
He nods at her as she keeps her sable trimmed jacket rather than handing it over. Always about looking regal, this one. Dress to impress turned up to 11. “Yeah, he’s in the office, laid out on his desk. With her.”
“So she did it?”
“Had help. That one.” He gestures at Staxxy, still curled up on the bench, being hugged by Vrixx in an attempt to comfort her older sister. “She attacked him first.”
“Hm. Odds on that outcome were pretty good, actually.” She shrugs, seemingly expecting something like this. “He called, and the river dealt him a bad hand.”
Steamplate rolls his eyes and moves past, descending the rest of the staircase. “Good seeing you Boxcar. Don’t go too far, she wants to address those gathered.”
He doesn’t bother looking back to see where she’s headed or what sort of reference to dice she’s going to make next. Instead his eyes fixate on the remaining siblings on the ground level.
“Well I hope you’re happy. You came for this, and now he’s dead. You got your wish.”
Vrixx glares at her older brother, Staxxy is absolutely in no shape for this sort of confrontation, but before she can speak up, before she can object, her older sister turns to him.
“Th-this isn’t what I wanted!” She ripples, tears still streaming down her cheeks. Her eyes are a bright red from the crying she’s been doing. “H-he pushed me to it! I’m not a- I’m not a killer!”
“But he’s dead Staxxy. And you had a hand in it. You’re just as bloody as she is.”
“Steamplate! Fuck off! Leave her be!” Vrixx snaps at him. She’s tearful as well, but not nearly to the extent that Staxxy is. She’s never seen her like this before. It’s worrying.
“You aren’t even supposed to be here! He kicked you out!” Steamplate is having none of it from Vrixx. How dare she presume to lecture him, the heir apparent, when she was such a fuck up she got disowned.
“You didn’t- you didn’t even care how he treated your own sister!” Staxxy cries out through sobs, buried in Vrixx’s shirt. “You cannot lecture me on family when you’re clearly only a blind follower! Sycophant!”
Steamplate trembles with anger. He does what he does to continue the family. To safeguard their way of doing things. Now that their father is gone, it falls on him. He reaches into his breast pocket and draws a switchblade-
Then the water lands on him with a loud splash.
“C-calm down S-steamplate.”
The runt’s voice hits him. Howitt’s been holding out, if he’s got this level of control over the elements.He flips open the switchblade and, surprise, it’s a comb, which he now uses to sort out his now wet mess of hair atop his head. “Didn’t see you there.” He decides not to interact with the siblings on this floor after all.
Alibi Tractorpull draws the last remnants of energy from the corpse of her dead husband, faint wisps of green energy float up gently to her fingertips. Long has this day been coming, and now she claims the prize that was due her for two and a half decades. The green energy floats, directed by her fingers, into her open mouth, which is soon occupied by sandwich.
“Time to get this show on the road.”
The door opens, and she emerges, coming face to face with the eldest Tractorpull daughter, whom she ushers down the stairs with a wave of her hands. She doesn’t have time to deal with her analysis of the odds.
“Children! It’s good to see at least one of you could make it on such short notice.” She speaks, her voice booming with purpose. “As you know, Grottz is dead. The how and the why is unimportant. What is important is the unambiguous nature of inheritance.”
Steamplate looks up at her with suspicion, expecting her to grab power. Staxxy ignores her entirely, still sobbing. The room is honestly split.
“As his wife, ownership falls on me. But, we have a good family here. We have people with expertise. As such, the day to day operations of Tractorpull Incindiaries LLC will be headed by… my dear son Steamplate.”
The eldest son of clan Tractorpull looks at her with surprise. He had expected a coup, not to be given more power. This changes things. “I- th-thank you? You won’t regret this mother.”
She nods at him, certain of such. She doesn’t want that role. She doesn’t want that day to day nonsense. She has more pressing matters to attend to. “The direction the family has taken needs correcting. I am calling a truce with the Threespark family. We’ve wasted enough of our resources on a feud that gets us no profits. I know some of you have done good on your old role, and that’s fine, but times change.”
Boxcar smiles, knowing she’s still going to take her Threespark to the cleaners every Thursday at the casino. She’s not too concerned about the company, but she’s glad it doesn’t come down on her to run anything.
“The family trust fund will be divested fully from the business.” Alibi continues, once the running commentary is concluded. “And I’ve decided that I am putting my youngest daughter, Vrixx in charge of running the fiduciary interests of the family.”
This one is a surprise to the room. Steamplate blinks, wondering if she’s crazy not only bringing an exiled daughter back, but handing her the family vault. Boxcar didn’t see that one in the cards. Vrixx almost doesn’t hear her name being spoken.
“Pardon? What was that?”
“I said, you are now in charge of the family trust fund. You obviously are having your place in the family restored, and you will once again be afforded an allowance drawn from the fund.”
“I- what?”
