03-27-2018, 05:57 PM
The cadre of demigods walked slowly down the dusty path that lead from the gate for a few miles until it was consumed by the cropped, copper colored grassland that rustled wistfully under the light of the high-noon sun. They shouldn't have been traveling by the heat of day in the Dunes, but this was the King's wish, so by gum were they gonna do it. Drake was in hell.
He hadn't walked on foot anywhere for more than a thousand yards in...years? He'd have taken a chariot...no...a fucking unicycle over this pedestrian shit. His hat and jacket were tied around his waist, revealing the true, haunting gauntness of his body. The scarred, atrophied stump of his right arm swung out of habit as he marched along, and he noticed Yu Kanda keep staring at it. Yeah. He knew who all these guys were. Who knew who almost everyone in the Omniverse was, and never missed a beat on current events.
That's why, when he was forced to listen to Wolfe's bumbling explanation of the Nippur situation, the smuggler cleared his throat loudly.
"If it would please the King..." Drake said, trotting a few feet to catch up to the pair, "...I could possibly provide some insight into the situation since the...incident."
Gilgamesh stared down at the scrawny, dark-skinned man with a vicious red glare before fixing his crimson eyes back on the horizon.
"Speak swiftly."
Drake walked ahead slightly and tapped the holo display on his Datavice. The smartphone beeped slightly before projecting a faint screen into the air for all to see.
"Nippur has been falling apart since Law trashed it and banished you. A few regimes have come and gone, middle men trying to fill the power vacuum. It's really only served to make the situation worse. You probably already gathered that." Drake started, flipping through a few screencaps of dusty, abandoned buildings, filthy streets, and overgrown palace gardens. Gilgamesh muttered a sharply suppressed sigh.
"More importantly..." Drake continued, "...there's a humanitarian organization-"
"A what?" Giglamesh snapped. Drake balked for a nanosecond before recalibrating his speech patterns to accommodate Mesopotamian sensibilities.
"A bunch of helpful dumbasses giving food and medicine to the people of Nippur. They call themselves the Golden Cross." Drake said in a slightly sour tone. He could sense the conflict of emotions within the Golden King. It probably felt disgraceful that his city had been reduced to a charity case, but at the same time, Drake knew that the Gilgamesh of legend had cared dearly for his subjects.
"Anything else?" the King snapped. Now Drake became legitimately nervous. Even Kanda and Victor picked up on it, which was concerning considering the smuggler's usual bravado.
"Well...it seems that, as of a week ago, a pack of Primes moved into town and are trying to clean up the place. Not Babylonians. Just...strangers..." Drake said, flipping over to the Omnitwitter feeds that had been tracking the occupation of the strange Primes. Open source intelligence was a beautiful thing, and despite Nippur's third-world status, plenty of people still had ways to share on-the-minute reports on almost any civilized corner of the Omniverse.
Gilgamesh had stopped walking.
"Uh...you okay?" Drake ventured. The King's face was expressionless.
"These photos. Scroll back through them."
Drake obliged, and then realized what Gilgamesh was silently exploding about.
"Oh fuck."
In the photo taken of the Primes that had gone into the city, it was clear that one of them was sitting on a throne. Made of gold. In a car. Made of gold. Riding his little cronies up into the town manager's building like a little Prime parade. A bird tweeted in a nearby tree, and was subsequently vaporized as a wreath of bloody fire detonated into existence around Gilgamesh's body.
"FILTHY...DEAD...MONGREEELLLSS!" the King screamed, incinerating the prairie grass in a thirty foot radius. Some sort of Prime magic kept the others safe from the conflagration, but they all had to shield their eyes against the enraged inferno. Drake suddenly felt himself gripped by the scruff of his shirt and legit screamed like a little girl.
Gilgamesh hoisted the wiry man up to his silhouetted face, with only pits of incarnidine fury staring down at the Primeling.
"YOU. WRETCH. CONSTRUCT ME A GLORIOUS TRANSPORT AT ONCE. THIS WILL NOT STAND."
...
"Shit fam, you got it."
And so like half an hour later the four Primes were rocketing towards Nippur on an even more golden, more ornately decorated jet-throne. But hey. Drake was driving as Gilgamesh stood tall and dark upon his gilded hover-swag.
Which was really all he had wanted in the first place.
Victor and Kanda were riding too. Natch.
He hadn't walked on foot anywhere for more than a thousand yards in...years? He'd have taken a chariot...no...a fucking unicycle over this pedestrian shit. His hat and jacket were tied around his waist, revealing the true, haunting gauntness of his body. The scarred, atrophied stump of his right arm swung out of habit as he marched along, and he noticed Yu Kanda keep staring at it. Yeah. He knew who all these guys were. Who knew who almost everyone in the Omniverse was, and never missed a beat on current events.
That's why, when he was forced to listen to Wolfe's bumbling explanation of the Nippur situation, the smuggler cleared his throat loudly.
"If it would please the King..." Drake said, trotting a few feet to catch up to the pair, "...I could possibly provide some insight into the situation since the...incident."
Gilgamesh stared down at the scrawny, dark-skinned man with a vicious red glare before fixing his crimson eyes back on the horizon.
"Speak swiftly."
Drake walked ahead slightly and tapped the holo display on his Datavice. The smartphone beeped slightly before projecting a faint screen into the air for all to see.
"Nippur has been falling apart since Law trashed it and banished you. A few regimes have come and gone, middle men trying to fill the power vacuum. It's really only served to make the situation worse. You probably already gathered that." Drake started, flipping through a few screencaps of dusty, abandoned buildings, filthy streets, and overgrown palace gardens. Gilgamesh muttered a sharply suppressed sigh.
"More importantly..." Drake continued, "...there's a humanitarian organization-"
"A what?" Giglamesh snapped. Drake balked for a nanosecond before recalibrating his speech patterns to accommodate Mesopotamian sensibilities.
"A bunch of helpful dumbasses giving food and medicine to the people of Nippur. They call themselves the Golden Cross." Drake said in a slightly sour tone. He could sense the conflict of emotions within the Golden King. It probably felt disgraceful that his city had been reduced to a charity case, but at the same time, Drake knew that the Gilgamesh of legend had cared dearly for his subjects.
"Anything else?" the King snapped. Now Drake became legitimately nervous. Even Kanda and Victor picked up on it, which was concerning considering the smuggler's usual bravado.
"Well...it seems that, as of a week ago, a pack of Primes moved into town and are trying to clean up the place. Not Babylonians. Just...strangers..." Drake said, flipping over to the Omnitwitter feeds that had been tracking the occupation of the strange Primes. Open source intelligence was a beautiful thing, and despite Nippur's third-world status, plenty of people still had ways to share on-the-minute reports on almost any civilized corner of the Omniverse.
Gilgamesh had stopped walking.
"Uh...you okay?" Drake ventured. The King's face was expressionless.
"These photos. Scroll back through them."
Drake obliged, and then realized what Gilgamesh was silently exploding about.
"Oh fuck."
In the photo taken of the Primes that had gone into the city, it was clear that one of them was sitting on a throne. Made of gold. In a car. Made of gold. Riding his little cronies up into the town manager's building like a little Prime parade. A bird tweeted in a nearby tree, and was subsequently vaporized as a wreath of bloody fire detonated into existence around Gilgamesh's body.
"FILTHY...DEAD...MONGREEELLLSS!" the King screamed, incinerating the prairie grass in a thirty foot radius. Some sort of Prime magic kept the others safe from the conflagration, but they all had to shield their eyes against the enraged inferno. Drake suddenly felt himself gripped by the scruff of his shirt and legit screamed like a little girl.
Gilgamesh hoisted the wiry man up to his silhouetted face, with only pits of incarnidine fury staring down at the Primeling.
"YOU. WRETCH. CONSTRUCT ME A GLORIOUS TRANSPORT AT ONCE. THIS WILL NOT STAND."
...
"Shit fam, you got it."
And so like half an hour later the four Primes were rocketing towards Nippur on an even more golden, more ornately decorated jet-throne. But hey. Drake was driving as Gilgamesh stood tall and dark upon his gilded hover-swag.
Which was really all he had wanted in the first place.
Victor and Kanda were riding too. Natch.
![[Image: screen_shot_2018_02_16_at_4_33_57_pm_by_...c3dkog.png]](https://orig00.deviantart.net/883e/f/2018/047/1/d/screen_shot_2018_02_16_at_4_33_57_pm_by_tearen_and_zearen-dc3dkog.png)