Waiting for Pirate Man

[Roger Smith]

Ah...the Nexus. Still just as blank and boring as the last time he'd been through. Nothing but white, far as the eye could see...people here and there maybe. Fountain smack in the middle, gates spaced around the 'edge' of the place...

"God damn I hate this place."

"NAK."

"Yeah, yeah, you hate everything. Just keep it goin'. To the fountain. We got a meeting to get to, remember?"

It was a long, uneventful jaunt across the vast expanse of nothing. Or it seemed that way. Really it was only the lesser part of an hour, but it gave Adam all the time he needed to mess with his preferred means of engagement. The firearm had gotten a touch banged up with all of that mess in the tournament. It was a little better off after finding itself mostly repaired after he'd died — he twitched visibly at the thought of that; dying just bugged him — but it was still gonna need some dedicated work at some point in the rather near future at the rate he was going. Didn't really have the mojo just yet in this place to keep resetting it to pristine condition.

.....wait, did he have the power to do that? It hadn't even really occurred to him to try.

"NAAAAAK."

Well, that was going to be an experiment for another time. Apparently there was a hiccup in the plan to just wait quietly at the fountain and slowly descend into boredom and insanity while so doing. He turned a very disgruntled stare at his red-scaled driver and grumbled at him in a fashion most annoyed, "What do you mean 'maybe we should wait somewhere else', you little pest?" It took Adam all of three seconds to register just what he meant, turning his irritated expression toward the fountain in the much closer distance, and his features dropped into a blank mask ".....oh. That's what you mean."

He just slowly pulled off his glasses, rubbing at the bridge of his nose with his opposite hand. He still felt out of it and sore from that last match in the Colosseum. Seemed like it had been weeks ago, looking back on it...but physically he felt like he'd just walked away from it a few minutes ago. Time sure was all kinds of outta whack in this place.

"Well....don't really want any part of that business."

"NAK NAK NAK."

".......what. Are you serious."

"NAAAAAAAK."

Adam sighed and took a much more careful look. Still a ways off, so he couldn't make out the best detail, but.... ".....shit. It really is her. Princess.....what's her name...."

"NAK."

"Guu, yeah. Looks like she's got her hands full."

"NAK."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah.... 'Don't be a jackass, Adam, go help out.' What are you, Rhys? Or my dad? Jeeze. Just keep this thing steady so I don't accidentally shoot the one I'm trying to help here, okay?" The tiny little crocodilian just snapped his jaws together in something that might have been a salute of some kind for something without limbs that were flexible enough to actually salute with.

And then Adam tuned him out, bringing his rifle up from where it had sat across his lap as he tried to fix it, snapped shut the small chamber that held the thing's laser core and brought it up to a ready position. "Okay...only question now is which one to try and pin down..." Scope went to eye, and he took a much more careful, thorough look at the scene. "....well the strange tentacled abomination seems to be doing alright for the moment....guess she's on the princess's side or whatever. Guess I got my target. Time to be generally distracting."

And a charge started to build up in the barrel of the rifle, the crosshairs coming to rest on the form of the raven-haired little abomination fighting the pink-haired abomination he was marginally more fond of. "Steady as she goes, mister Nakworth. Don't wanna mess this up."

One....two....three....

Inhale. Hold it.

BANG-HISS

The recoil of the focused bolt was just a little more than he'd been anticipating. It didn't throw off his aim — or so he hoped — bit it did surprise him more than a little bit. "Shit. That didn't go as planned."