Re: Inexorable Altercation [Round IV - Hezekiah]
02-05-2012, 04:00 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.
It'd been a while since Will 19 had felt much kinship with the first of his iterations, but, having been transported a great distance only to be imprisoned on an alien vessel, he was starting to get an idea of how he might've felt.
Of course, their situations weren't perfectly parallel. For starters, Will 19's door wasn't locked, where Will 1 had to crack open an alien system and hotwire the doors with what he could pull off of the one guard that had keeled over in front of his cell.
In addition, Will 1 had had only dead aliens for company once he'd left his cell. Will 19, on exiting his own, found himself in the middle of what seemed to be a warzone.
On one side of the hall was a beastly-looking thing, its red jumpsuit somehow immaculately tailored for its two arms and indeterminate number of legs. It was brandishing what looked like it was probably a historical firearm from whatever world it came from, all tarnished metal and dark wood. On the other side was what was almost passable for a human; ten times larger, and it'd be perfect. As it was, the tiny man in the tiny blue jumpsuit just waved his tiny futuristic-looking gun at his opponent and shouted something too quiet for Will to hear. For a moment, Will was tempted to just turn around and go back into his room, instinctually wanting to get away from the intensity of the violence, but the impulse quickly died when he noticed that the two weren't actually firing anything at each other. They were shouting at one another with ferocity, sure, and going through all the motions required to shoot a gun, but nothing was coming out and neither one seemed concerned.
Tentatively, Will stepped a bit closer to them and said, "Hello? You two alright?" When neither one so much as acknowledged his existence, he walked directly between them and tried addressing the beast in red directly.
"Hey, can you even see me?", he asked, waving a hand in front of the thing's face. The only reaction he netted was the beast leaning to one side to continue "shooting" at his tiny opponent.
"They don't even eat," someone said. Will jumped and whirled. Directly behind him (and also between the two deluded warriors) stood a group of five people. Will hadn't even heard them approach.
With a fair bit of shocked profanity, Will asked who they were.
One of them, the one who'd spoken earlier, took a half-step forward and inclined his patched and frayed top hat. "Most people who know me around here call me Meddet," he said, "and these are Chester, Themm, Eltere, and Themm." He indicated each of his compatriots in turn. Chester was a big fellow, easily seven or eight feet tall, who managed to look shorter than the rest of the group thanks to his posture and expression. Eltere, for example, managed to look like she dwarfed him, despite barely breaking five feet long. This was largely due to her posture, but the way her mermaid-style bottom half floated a good foot or two above the floor probably helped. Will found himself not really having much of a description of either Themm or Themm. Both of them just seemed to not want to stick in his mind, and though he could look straight at them and see a great many details, nothing about them stayed with him past that moment.
After giving Will a few moments to take in (or not, in the case of the Themms) the group, Meddet continued. "Before you ask how we know your name, Mr. Haven, let me tell you: Chester here gets along with the computer systems that run this place better than the original programmers. When he got an alert that someone new had been added to the roster in this section, why, I thought we ought to swing on by and say hello."
"Seems only civil," Will responded, hesitant and cautious. "So what is it you folks do?"
Meddet chuckled. "Well, basically, we-" The tiny man in blue, his combat with the red-clad beast blocked for far too long, ran through the group-leader's legs and, shouting incoherently, dove for his opponent. Before he could reach him, though, Chester reached out and grabbed him, surprisingly fast for a person his size. After a quick spray of something Eltere handed over, the big man tossed the tiny one back where he'd come. The tiny man's opponent got a similar dose, and neither seemed to want to do much more than sit there once the drug kicked in.
The ringleader chuckled again, and this time, something in it reminded Will that the ship was filled with some of the worst scum in the galaxy, a range that likely included numerous madmen, murderers, and war criminals. "Well," the man said,"basically... we run things around here. This corner of the ship is ours, and you'd do well to remember that. Capisce?"
When Will nodded back, the dark air that had fallen on Meddet vanished, and he was back to being a madman with a faded top hat. "Excellent! Now, we were just about to head out to meet another new arrival; care to tag along?"
(It wasn't a question.)
It'd been a while since Will 19 had felt much kinship with the first of his iterations, but, having been transported a great distance only to be imprisoned on an alien vessel, he was starting to get an idea of how he might've felt.
Of course, their situations weren't perfectly parallel. For starters, Will 19's door wasn't locked, where Will 1 had to crack open an alien system and hotwire the doors with what he could pull off of the one guard that had keeled over in front of his cell.
In addition, Will 1 had had only dead aliens for company once he'd left his cell. Will 19, on exiting his own, found himself in the middle of what seemed to be a warzone.
On one side of the hall was a beastly-looking thing, its red jumpsuit somehow immaculately tailored for its two arms and indeterminate number of legs. It was brandishing what looked like it was probably a historical firearm from whatever world it came from, all tarnished metal and dark wood. On the other side was what was almost passable for a human; ten times larger, and it'd be perfect. As it was, the tiny man in the tiny blue jumpsuit just waved his tiny futuristic-looking gun at his opponent and shouted something too quiet for Will to hear. For a moment, Will was tempted to just turn around and go back into his room, instinctually wanting to get away from the intensity of the violence, but the impulse quickly died when he noticed that the two weren't actually firing anything at each other. They were shouting at one another with ferocity, sure, and going through all the motions required to shoot a gun, but nothing was coming out and neither one seemed concerned.
Tentatively, Will stepped a bit closer to them and said, "Hello? You two alright?" When neither one so much as acknowledged his existence, he walked directly between them and tried addressing the beast in red directly.
"Hey, can you even see me?", he asked, waving a hand in front of the thing's face. The only reaction he netted was the beast leaning to one side to continue "shooting" at his tiny opponent.
"They don't even eat," someone said. Will jumped and whirled. Directly behind him (and also between the two deluded warriors) stood a group of five people. Will hadn't even heard them approach.
With a fair bit of shocked profanity, Will asked who they were.
One of them, the one who'd spoken earlier, took a half-step forward and inclined his patched and frayed top hat. "Most people who know me around here call me Meddet," he said, "and these are Chester, Themm, Eltere, and Themm." He indicated each of his compatriots in turn. Chester was a big fellow, easily seven or eight feet tall, who managed to look shorter than the rest of the group thanks to his posture and expression. Eltere, for example, managed to look like she dwarfed him, despite barely breaking five feet long. This was largely due to her posture, but the way her mermaid-style bottom half floated a good foot or two above the floor probably helped. Will found himself not really having much of a description of either Themm or Themm. Both of them just seemed to not want to stick in his mind, and though he could look straight at them and see a great many details, nothing about them stayed with him past that moment.
After giving Will a few moments to take in (or not, in the case of the Themms) the group, Meddet continued. "Before you ask how we know your name, Mr. Haven, let me tell you: Chester here gets along with the computer systems that run this place better than the original programmers. When he got an alert that someone new had been added to the roster in this section, why, I thought we ought to swing on by and say hello."
"Seems only civil," Will responded, hesitant and cautious. "So what is it you folks do?"
Meddet chuckled. "Well, basically, we-" The tiny man in blue, his combat with the red-clad beast blocked for far too long, ran through the group-leader's legs and, shouting incoherently, dove for his opponent. Before he could reach him, though, Chester reached out and grabbed him, surprisingly fast for a person his size. After a quick spray of something Eltere handed over, the big man tossed the tiny one back where he'd come. The tiny man's opponent got a similar dose, and neither seemed to want to do much more than sit there once the drug kicked in.
The ringleader chuckled again, and this time, something in it reminded Will that the ship was filled with some of the worst scum in the galaxy, a range that likely included numerous madmen, murderers, and war criminals. "Well," the man said,"basically... we run things around here. This corner of the ship is ours, and you'd do well to remember that. Capisce?"
When Will nodded back, the dark air that had fallen on Meddet vanished, and he was back to being a madman with a faded top hat. "Excellent! Now, we were just about to head out to meet another new arrival; care to tag along?"
(It wasn't a question.)