[E] The Ride Home

[Hiro Protagonist]

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Another broken tooth zinged out from between Hiro's lips and pinged off the steel wall of the tugboat. The island was a fading sight in the distance, and he hadn't moved from this spot since he dropped into after watching Jason retrieve his mask fron the murky depths. What a fucking day.

All around the boat, the other survivors chatted, rested, huddled around themselves or stared into space. Deadpool was up on the bridge with Karl Jak, and Hiro could hear faint snatches about sponsorship deals and action figures and other meaningless things.

He couldn't wait to get home. He didn't even know how long it had been since he left at this point. Time was weird in the Omniverse. When he got back home, would Madotsuki still be there? Or....goddamnit, maybe it would have been too late and the rent would lapse. Shit. He could always recreate his gear, but he'd had more than a few projects running on autopilot while he was away. Not to mention analyzing the data on physical programs he'd gathered from Colonel.

Across from him, a few feet underneath the spot hed been spitting teeth at, was Okor's severed head. Someone had thoughtfully placed a bucket under his neck stump so that he wasn't stuck on the floor. The space marine's corruption was steadily turning the bucket even rustier than it had been before, if that was possible.

"So.....I could kill you right now, Okor. Claim a nice little bounty."

"Do try, Bounty Hunter. I invite you to attempt." He bared long, broken fangs that leake poisonous ichor. Even as a head, he was intimidating.

There was a pregnant pause.

"Nah. Wouldn't be fair. Plus....besides the brain eating, you actually acted....somewhat honorably. What did you actually do to get that bounty?"

Okor paused, and answered slowly. "I liberated an artifact from a public repository."

Hiro raised an eyebrow and let out a weak laugh. "You stole from a museum? I would have figured you murdered a hundred people, or infected a school or something. Speaking of which, where's your robot ghost friend?" 

On top of his head, Hiro's goggles thrummed with energy, the raw omnilium residue slowly sinking into the structure and bonding with it....