The shotgun sings the song (Ch. 6: Day 3b)

Rusty · Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 12:27 pm

The truth to what Rock said was clear, though Green did not openly agree or disagree. He merely continued to let their interactions play out--perhaps he was trying to determine any intricacies of their relationship that may have arisen during his absence, or maybe he just didn't care that much. Positive or negative energy, he took a situation for what it was.

When Jam had left, he focused on Rock. "Are you two alright?"

He could have been referring to any number of things, but what exactly was up to the simian.

psikeout · Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 12:56 pm

Rock just watched with a tight-lipped, unspoken welp as Jam left. He drummed his fingers once.

Green's question was met with a reassuring (dismissive?) series of nods and a wave, as if to wave off the notion that anything was wrong. "We're good. They just get her really worked up."

He looked back to the robot, as if to somehow try to restart the interaction.

"How 'bout'chu? You're not gettin' too stressed out with all this work, are you?"

He truly had no idea what Green had been up to prior.

Rusty · Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 6:57 pm

"Work is no such thing when your energy knows no bounds. And I don't get stressed anymore." He paused a beat. "I just get angry."

He spared a short glance out the window, to draw attention to the landscape of the sky before them. "You could say this sight is certainly a touch more pleasant than the ones I've seen before." As if realizing an inadvertent admission, he looked back to Rock. "In our time apart, I... saw many things. Met many people. And my times were not always positive." The careful choosing of words made it clear he was not entirely comfortable discussing his ventures and experiences yet. Suffice it to say while their world was by no means perfect, who knew how much worse things could be somewhere far off.

"Of course I know you haven't had it easy yourself, so I've no right to complain. Besides."

He held up an arm, encompassing the whole Chimera military in one swing of his arm.

"I have a fleet to command once--"

There was a crashing noise somewhere down in the halls behind the bridge, like a lot of dishes falling to the floor.

"Oh noooooooooooo"

(Dizzy.)

"... Again."

psikeout · Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 7:33 pm

Rock nodded thoughtfully. "It's good havin' you here, by the way. It's taken a load off. Gives me a lot more time to handle th'..." He paused. His face read as though his mouth had just been denied the permission to say something nonsensical.

"Huh," he laughed once; his eyes darted to the general. Finally, he finished his previous sentence: "The 'diplomacy.'"

He swiveled slowly in his seat to look back out the huge, armored glass windscreen of the bridge. "How funny's that? You're headin' up the fleet, a rogue AI's doing our R&D and supply chain management, and I'm handlin' our diplomatic relations with all these governments."

The white primate stared simultaneously across South Island and the United Federation, and let this thought roll around in his head for a few seconds.

"They're all pretty screwed."

Rusty · Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 10:46 pm

"Mm," came the grunt universally accepted as agreement. "When you think about it, they probably would have been screwed anyway with all of us still around."

The activities on the bridge were minimal, with the various robots at the controls keeping the airship afloat. More fighters breezed by the window, patrolling the perimeter of the airspace around the largest of the vessels in the area. Green seemed to be staring at nothing in particular, until renewing his focus. "Sometimes I wish I'd never left. My men were a boon and at least offered company, but it's been difficult at times nonetheless. But then, we are shaped into who we are today by our choices. And I'd rather not dwell upon what I may be had I not taken the roads I traveled."

There was another pause, in which he just looked straight at Rock this time.

"So I suppose you could say I'm pleased to be here. Although I can't imagine you necessarily enjoy the... diplomacy aspect of the job."

psikeout · Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2012 12:37 am

"It's not so bad," Rock was quick to reply. He looked at the general, eyes glinting, and donned an ill-behaved smile. "I've started usin' a special style I call 'green diplomacy.'"

Rusty · Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2012 6:45 pm

"Ah," said Green simply, with an appreciative nod. "My favorite kind. Sadly I'm not entirely certain you own enough swords and high-powered rifles to gain the full value of such--"

Magnet, another one of Green's Capsule Troopers, approached and stopped directly next to them, thoroughly encroaching upon the personal discussion space solely reserved for the simian and caped general. His head was enraptured almost entirely in the string of the yo-yo Green had just given Dizzy. He looked like he'd just endured the worst attempt at wrapping a mummy ever.

"I want to file a grievance regarding one of our men."

Green looked back to the primate. "I don't suppose you'd be up for switching jobs for a while."

psikeout · Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2012 11:10 pm

***

So, what does a monkey and his sinister warlord robot buddy do on a lazy weekend with nobody else around? Let us count the things.

1. Freestyle yo-yo-off. ("That's no fair. Your arm swivels 360º. You can't do that.")
2. Watch Ninja Challenge on TV. ("Listen, I've met ninjas, and only some of them have been on television gauntlet challenges. Like this one guy... Wow, that had to hurt.")
3. Take direct remote control of grunt-level robots for some "live-fire training exercises." ("I don't quite feel like myself right now--OH GOD WHAT AM I DOING, I NEED AN ADULT, I NEED AN ADULT")
4. Debate whether or not it is truly possible to reliably get clean kills with neck breaks, and circumstances necessary to succeed. ("Bro, trust me. This works. It helps a lot if you can knock the wind out of'em a little first, then...")
5. Continue watching Ninja Challenge until accidentally turning to Pawn Pros, laugh at how bad it is, watch for the next several hours. ("Y'know, I'm actually pretty sure Jam's mom has that porcelain dolphin. That same one.")
6. Play with Green's toys, accidentally shoot hole through ship's frame, airship drops several thousand feet within seconds. ("[general noises of indescribable pandemonium and chaos]")

... Eventually, they had pretty much expended every potentially fun thing there was to do, at least on the confines of the airship. Big important military vessels had only so many ways of passing time that didn't involve blowing up things.

Green lay on an uncomfortable-looking Eggman-red couch, staring at the ceiling. There was a gun in his left hand and a yo-yo in the other. Neither was being used, sadly. The television was on somewhere in his background but he paid it no attention.

"So here's Velo Wilder up to bat now, oh-for-one with a single..."

"I vote we fly somewhere that needs blowing up," Green said, mostly to the ceiling. "Somewhere out there, I assure you, there is something, someplace, that needs to be blown up."

"Had that... interesting incident with the oversized sombrero back in the second inning..."

"Like lawyers," replied Rock, gazing dispassionately into the TV from his seat in an oversized egg chair, one leg sprawled up over the seat's wavy arm, the other dangling too short to reach the ground, while his hand kept his head propped up by smearing his cheek.

Mie · Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 11:51 pm

Jam had said markedly little en route back to the Sky Queen. Despite the navigation system being largely automated, she went in manual mode, if only to have something to pretend to be busy with. Even from the retrofitted rear bench seat, there was a definite, palpable tension to her silence; one that was made all the worse upon returning to see maintenance crews repairing damage that she was reasonably certain hadn't been there when she left.

"Is everybody okay? How many were there?"

A short, purposeful, (and, of course, it should be noted,) terse march-run later, she all but burst onto the bridge looking some certifiable cross between angry and paranoid. There was no way she hadn't left her "guests" in her dust the second they docked in the hangar.

psikeout · Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 12:21 am

Rock peeked around the edge of his seat back, shot a glance to Green, then looked back to Jam again.

"Uhhh," he divulged meaningfully. He didn't budge from his sprawl, though he tensed in it a little.

Greens · Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 1:10 am

"...Are we there?"
"I'm pretty sure."
"Okay."
"..."
"Err... are you gonna get up?"
"One sec. I need to get back the circulation in my legs."

"Oh! Uh, whoops." And with that, her kung-fu grip around his waist was released. She was never one to deal soundly with heights. "S-sorry 'bout that."

"It's fine," he asserted, pushing himself out of their custom ride and on to the loading dock. A quick shake of the knees later, he pulled her out by the hand. "The awkward silence was killing me more than anything."

"Eeeyyeah..." The mole's eyes wandered agape as she stepped aimlessly about, taking in her surroundings. "Man... so this is the official Chimera hideout, huh? It's a lot more... drab than I was expecting. It's all gray and red. I dunno why, but I always thought the official Chimera colors would be orange and blue."

"Unfortunately, these are world superpowers we're dealing with, not high-school football teams. Besides, I'm pretty sure this is the official Chimera hangar. Jam went to the hideout."

"Oh," she stated. "Well, let's go check out the hideout then!"

---

"...Mmmnnope, still gray and... red. Uh."

Admittedly, it was a bit more to take in than could be expected, but what could one really expect when dealing with such unpredictable forces? Even so, a giant hole in the frame and a war-bot in a cape managed to take Caz by surprise. Even Ace himself couldn't appear unfazed by either. Oddly enough though, he seemed more caught off guard by the latter.

"Green...?" he asked aloud.

"What? No, red. Gray and red."

Rusty · Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 1:32 am

Green returned the glance of awkward silence to Rock, then put the look into Jam instead.

He swung his legs from the couch, getting to his feet in a quick, smooth motion. Her entrance gave him something to focus on rather than the ceiling, at least, though whatever she was babbling about brought up a couple of very red flags.

"What are you--"

The green orb and sliver that were his eyes gazed past her shoulder, meeting the alley cat. Very slowly, the battle-scarred machine's head curved to one side slightly in what could have been an expression of any emotion but was most likely mild disdain. The motion stopped but the flint-hard stare did not.

"Ace," he said, no detectable emotion delivered in the word itself. He seemed to have no noticeable interest in the alley cat's traveling companion--yet, anyway.

Mie · Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 1:41 am

With a look flashed over her shoulder that was more investigative than anything else, Jam looked back to first Green, and then Rock, deflating subtly with a bewildered crease to her brow as she realized that, in spite of being obviously ravaged by the GUN presence that had infiltrated South Island right under their noses, here sat her comrades in evident contentment. Chillin'.

"Wh- I... Didn't we get attacked?" she asked meekly.

Greens · Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 1:45 am

Suddenly, things took a turn for the even-more-uncomfortable... or at least for Ace. It was the same sort of look he'd give if he was suddenly under the sights of about a dozen or so semi-automatics, lined up in a neat circle around him. Now it was his turn to look awkwardly at Rock and back again, but by the grace of the few seconds that passed where he wasn't under the hell attack, he could relax to the point where strained conversation became a viable option. "Son of a bitch," he half-mumbled, almost with a tone of impressedness to his voice. "I thought you were space dust."

Caz was unfortunately stuck, still out of the loop, and still in 'awkward shifting glances' mode.

psikeout · Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 1:54 am

Rock slid out of his seat and slithered coolly over to Jam in that way he did when he was actually feeling sheepish about something, and set hands on her shoulders with a little pat and rub.

"It was... an unfortunate training exercise," he claimed.

The shotgun sings the song (Ch. 6: Day 3b)

Who is online