The Invisible Empire

Like a noose so gently hung waiting for its next victim, his hands sat clasped upon his desk while a group of men and women in varying forms of business attire sat quietly before him. The air was thick; to breath was to choke on it. The expression of the black haired man at the desk staring off into his subordinates with his steely gray gaze seemed to make some of the newer faces tremor in their nervousness. His fingers twitched as he scanned faces expressionlessly, and slowly fingers began to untangle as an arm navigated its way over to a pencil. He took it up with the most gentle mannerism, and began to tap the eraser against his brow.

His face lowered slightly to the left, and his eyes left the small pond of people in front of him. He clicked his tongue in his mouth before placing the pencil in his mouth and applying some pressure to it with a bite. He looked back up to the sea of people as behind them a door creaked open. Light poured into the darkened room as a silhouette entered silently and shuffled to the back of the people. Some whispers carried to him from the back of the room, and he interrupted them.

"I'll imagine you've been of searching for buried treasure, Mark." The whispering stopped, and a moment later a male voice answered from the back meekly.

"Sir?" The man resumed tapping the eraser in a slow, rhythmic manner as his glare came upon the top of the man's head, his eyes fearful and visible.

"You're twelve minutes late. Not one. Not five. Twelve. Over ten minutes. I could have tolerated nine. I might have even been able to tolerate eleven. But you have decided to delay me for over twelve minutes for what I can only assume is buried treasure. I can't imagine another reason why you'd throw your job away." Silence once more, before the man managed to sputter the beginning of an excuse before he was quickly cut off. "Get out. You've twelve minutes to get out of this building before you're considered a trespasser. I trust you recall what we do with trespassers." He tapped a buzzer on his desk and radioed a similar sentiment to the security desk, informing them of Mark's departure. The man called Mark scurried from the room, his exit once more heralded by light peeling back the shadows of Alexander's office.

Once more, the room was quiet. No clock ticked in the background; the drumming of a pencil's eraser kept the seconds in check. His mouth opened once more. "On to more productive matters." He eyes shifted to a woman as he sat his pencil down and reaffirmed his hands over one another. "Have we secured the assets I requested?"

The woman nodded. "Yes sir. Before New York City fell our office forwarded all the intelligence they've collected on the Amaran, and even managed to send a few artifacts via transport. Unfortunately, the military confiscated the items almost immediately."

"I'm unsurprised. Well have them back by tomorrow. John, after the meeting you'll need to make some calls."

"Yes sir." A man in a green business jacket nodded with these words.

"Excellent. Contact SIREN. They'll handle our salvaging efforts in New York. They need to pour through that entire building. If its Amaran or ours, I want it here now."

"Understood," another woman replied.

The next hour of the meeting was spent discussing stocks, the DOW, employees, hiring practices, and their general ownership of practically every main company. On the surface, Alexander was the owner of a major corporation, with his fingers in the pies of practically every organization and government on the planet. In truth, he was the Emperor of an Invisible Kingdom. He owned the world. He was the world.

"Good meeting, team. Get some lunch, take the day off." Loyalty was rewarded. Mark was not, because he was tardy. Mark was fired.

Mark was also shot the second the he left the room by fifteen men with silenced weapons. That bit could be left out.

Alexander sat in his office quietly, pondering the repercussions of the Demonic invasions. Oh, the Amaran could call themselves whatever they wanted. They were demons, plain and simple. He supposed it was a matter of time before he met his new people... but he did not care. He did however, want to know how they knew where to when they arrived. They hit Asia the hardest,  and seeing as it was where the most manufacturing took place he believed they had prior intelligence. Plants in the human world, he theorized. This invasion was planned well in advance. They came through ready for war, not to explore.

The devil spawn around the world could play with the humans if they wanted. They had just hope to not cross paths with the Devil himself. A grin crept over his borrowed face, and he cracked his neck in anticipation. On the side of his hip, Trio sat strapped to his belt. His arm felt the weight of an invisible chain. Anarchy was here on Earth, and slowly the planet was going to hell.

Alexander was bitter because it was not his doing. He had spent centuries planning a way to destroy the world's economy... years spent gaining control of corporations and resources. For a group a hell-raisers to appear from beyond some outer world and take it from him, the joy he got from anarchy? It was unthinkable. He gritted his teeth, but straightened his expression. I was going to be one of those days.