As ordered by the powers of good, Jason was no longer aloud to be the Backstabber. In a bizarre attempt to turn his life around he was now forced to give away everything he owned, including his suit goggles and even his trusty 9mm that he bought off E bay. What’s worse he now had to work every day at “Paws across America”, the local animal shelter as a volunteer, or else face the wrath of Galatea or more specifically her Dragon form. Through a lot of legal red tape he was lucky enough not to be put in jail instead, the local law secretly laughed when they heard of the whole deal. For his first day he walked in dressed in a ‘Bikini Inspector” shirt and a pair of jeans covered in layers of dirt, as if they had not been washed in over a year. Already cursing under his breath, he informs the owner, a kind old environmentalist nicknamed ‘Hugger” that “Okay Jerk, pal I’m gonna go take a nap in the back room, you wake me up when the day is over!” But instead of being greeted with the same level of awesomeness that he felt he deserved, Hugger simply replied “Namaste,” handed him a old wooden handle shovel and smiled, “You get the honor of cleaning up the cages!” He then placed his hand upon Jason shoulder, leaned in for a hug and whispered in his ear, “Billy says HI!”

Thinking himself to be a awesome con artist, in a blatant attempt to get out of work, Jason breaks the shovel over his knee and in a coy voice replies “Oops it looks like the shovel broke.” But as Hugger was fully aware of who Jason was and how his mind works, with a smile upon his old face he hands over an even smaller shovel, a hand shovel and replies, “Well then, looks like you’re just going to have to use this one.” Reluctantly, Jason grabs it in anger and walks out to the back of the place grunting and groaning all the way until he reaches the room where all the animals sleep. Immediately, an overwhelming scent of feces and pet food overtook him, forcing the Backstabber to gag and even vomit in his mouth. In a huge fit of defiance he screams, “Oh Hell No! There ain’t no way I’m cleaning that!” as he flails around in a hissy-fit, until he hears out from the main office, “Galatea wouldn’t like that!” Were it not for his spine chilling fear over Dragons he would have shoved the metal end of the shovel deep into the old geezers back, but instead he lowered his head in shame and uttered the words, “I’m still a winner!” as he surveys the area. To his dismay the place was filled with animals of each and every shape and size, including dogs so big that he could mount and ride them. But as the bigger animals have bigger poop, he choose to start with the smallest of animals, a little Chihuahua with the cutest brown eyes anyone had ever seen.

Still cursing he rips open the cage only to have the little Chihuahua come up and playfully nip at his foot while jumping up and down with affection. To any other man it would be a tender moment warming their heart, but to Jason all he saw was a rodent messing up his boots. “Go away ya little Jerk!” he yells while pushing it away with his heel, “You’re cramping my style!” But instead the little Chihuahua continued to nip away in the cutest of manners. But in true Backstabber form, overwhelmed with all the crap he now had to deal with, he kicks at the puppy a little to hard, breaking it’s pretty little neck and knocking it back to the far side of the cage. Immediately, Jason thought, ‘Oh crap Galatea’s gonna eat me!” and in genuine fear fumbles back with his arms flailing around. But as he falls back, he stumbles backwards into another animals cage, knocking it over on to another cage, which fell on to another. In the end every animal’s cage was knocked down, unhinging the lock and letting them all run free. In an instant Jason was surrounded by a hoard of animals, all running free and what’s worse making noise. Once again Jason thought to himself, “Maybe nobody will notice!” as he began trying to wrangle up the animals, but instead ended up slipping on a pile of feces and falling back, right on his a$$!

But just when things couldn't get worse, Hugger comes running in yelling, “What in tarnations is going on out here?” Immediately, Jason jumped to his feet covered in nervous sweat, and with the worst poker face in the history of lying, looked back at him and answered back, “What do you mean?” But just as he was expecting to be turned into Dragon food, Hugger suddenly grabbed his chest! Wailing in pain he stumbled around, leaning on the wall for support as his face turns a ghostly pail white, Hugger fumbled through his pockets in hast.“My pills!” he begged several times as it was obvious to all he was having a heart attack, except for Jason, who naturally thought the old man was popping drugs! But just as Hugger managed to grab his pill bottle from his breast pocket, he accidentally spills them across the room as he tried desperately to open them. Unfortunately, before Jason had a clue, Hugger fell to the floor dead, still clutching his chest, with his eyes slowly rolling up into his head. But even with a dead man laying before him at his feet, all Jason could think of was himself and how to cover up all signs of his undoings. It was then, in a moment normally not associated with the Backstabber, he came up with a plan.

Knowing that Hugger liked to smoke a cigarette every now and then, Jason quickly grabbed his matches, and with his trembling hands, struck one and tossed it into the garbage. Instantly the discarded papers burned, lighting a small fire that slowly grew, when suddenly the whole place exploded with fire. Unknown to Jason, with all the built up flatulence from the animals, the gas ignited, setting the whole place a blaze. Immediately, all the animals ran out the front door in fear, leaving Jason alone with Hugger and a huge problem. Still thinking only of himself, he knew he needed to do something with the body and in an irrational idea figured on dragging it out to his car, in the hope of discarding it somewhere else, rather than just leaving him there to burn. With the fire still raging around him, he grabbed Hugger by the legs and proceeded to drag him out the front door, when suddenly he was stopped by two police officers who just happened to be next door at the coffee shop. Before he knew it, the officers were in fact helping him and even praising Jason for his quick thinking! Shortly there after, after the fire department, medics and news arrived, the officers were under the impression that Jason was the hero of the day, and as one of the offices put it, “Mr. Reed, you are a hero! You may be a bit unorthodox letting all the animals run free, but you saved them from burning to death after Hugger’s accident. Yes sir you are a hero and I’m going to make sure everyone knows it!” Then as he shook Jason’s hand, a crooked smile crossed the Backstabber’s face and in his head, all he could think was, over and over, one word ‘Winning!’