Waiting for Pirate Man

[Guu]

Guu was slightly distracted as the mouse and the robot approached her and Desco gave out introductions. She could sense briefly that the space marine was pointing his gun frantically at the demon child. Peering into his mind, she could hear his internal struggle to fire the weapon, before his rationale took hold and kept him from doing something rash.

Wary of the situation, she returned part of her focus back towards the pair.

“Ah, Mickey, Proto, long time no see.” Guu responded. Desco looked surprised.

“Woah! You’ve already met?”

“Yeah!” Said Proto. “We met in Ambrosia, apparently months ago.”

“What are we doing?” Yelled out Mickey. He was antsy and impatient. “We need to go find my wife!”

“Find her?” Asked Guu puzzled. She focused her senses on Minnie, and to her surprise, she could sense her location was not emanating from the Tangled gate but from another gate altogether. She heard that Mickey and Proto had head for the Dunes at some point, so she probably went searching for them. “Well, maybe you can call her and she can come to-”

“There’s no time for talk! We need to find her!”

“We just got back from a death dimension give yourself time to rest.” Said Proto calmly, patting his friend on the back.

“But-”

“Plus anyways, I have a Vita Compass and my sensors. We’ll find her easily after this, so cheer up!”

The mouse sighed.

“Okay.” He said, somewhat defeated.

As Doomy called out to Guu, the pink enigma had an idea.

“Anyways, Desco, Proto, and Mickey, someone I’d like you to meet.” She lead the trio over to the Space Marine who’s still standing by the Toybox Girl. “Doomguy. I want you to meet my three friends.”

Guu was hoping Doomy meeting Desco would kill whatever animosity he had against her, at least that was her original intentions of introducing them. However, as she psychically picked up Mickey’s ever growing dread, she realized she may just kill two birds with one stone here, or cause a shit storm.

[A.S.P.E.C.T]

It was chaos all around. As Aspect moved to hide behind the fountain, more people started popping up left, right and center, adding to the chaos. Providing security became more dangerous and difficult by the minute with more variables being added to its constantly running equation in mid calculation. And then suddenly a guy popped up wearing a full suit of armor and more weapons than Aspect had ever seen on one human being before. He yelled and threatened to blow everyone into oblivion with a gun that he shouldn't even be able to wield for its size alone and the chaos died down. Aspect tried a quick calculation as to the weight of the contraption but discarded the process as the gun proved to be highly efficient at getting people to do what the wielder wanted them to do. The Nexus suddenly grew quiet as most of the fights stopped almost instantly.

Aspect cancelled the charging of its attack and recovered the energy used as it moved the Crawler around the fountain to overlook the chaos. The pink princess seemed to be quite happy to be with all these new people around her now that the other guys had disappeared. Scanning its surroundings, Aspect found that the threat level of the immediate area had gone down to acceptable levels, although its results were based on nothing scientifically useful or worthy. Its lack of time and experience in this strange place didn't help when coming up with solid answers. Aspect scanned around, zooming in on the various people around the fountain and keeping images of their zoomed in faces and full body shots so it could start compiling information into data banks on each of them. It would have to see if they'd prove useful in the future but at least some of them had shown skill beyond what it came to expect from non-binary thinkers.

With a last image taken of the now quiet Nexus fountain, crowding with people around the Pink Princess, Aspect turned his Crawler away from the scene. It connected through its Dataverse Device to the relevant sites and sent through the information it had gathered and the questions it had gained on top of them. While it had only one person that it recognized as a similarly intelligent mind as a contact, Aspect knew there was a network behind that person that could potentially fill in all the blanks that he required. In the second it took Aspect to compile and send the data, the robot had started up his Crawler again and sped off towards the next gate out of the Nexus. He had visited two already, time for a third.

[Gamzee Makara]

Gamzee was a little more than disappointed. He practically threw a fit when Melx and the rest of those whack-ass crony lookin' motherfuckers absconded from the scene. He ain't even get to bonk that Swordy McBomberpants motherfucker. Alas, this clownish klutz could no longer resort to such basic, child-like tendencies. No, for he was in the presence of...

Divine Royalty.

Yes, his mistress has also wrapped up her beat-down. The high-blood was only sorry he was unable to witness the majesty with which she must have slain these suckahs. As such, it is with great reverence, respect, and several other big words, that Gamzee Makara rushes across the Nexus battlefield, colorful juggling pins flailing and rubber bicycle horns honking. It is only when he is ten or so paces away that he notices all the other plebians that have come to bask in the Goddess of Rhyme's sick flow glow. He certainly hoped he wasn't interrupting any uh, what's the word? Basking? Baskering? Or would it jus be like, worshippering? Whatever. The clown wasn't all up and tryna step on anyone's toes but-

Well, hopefully kneeling at his Mistress' feet didn't count as stepping on her toes.

"Oh mighty Mirthful Vassal of Rhyme, it is I, your humble servant Gamzee Makara," He begins, in between kowtows, "I hope that I didn't all up and interrupt any sick servings you may have been dealing izzout. I just couldn't resist a chance to prove myself after that piss-poor display of representin' at the Colo-see-um..." He pronounces each syllable carefully and drawn out, almost as if with a country twang.

[Proto Man]

The group had wandered away from the Nexus. After a tense stand-off with a marine and some other unsavory characters, the trio had bid their farewells to Princess Guu.

“That’s the guy that blew you up, wasn’t it?” Proto Man asked once they were outside of earshot. After verifying that Mickey was nodding, the preteen machine glanced one last time over his shoulder and scowled. “Jerk.”

“I’m sure it was nothing personal,” the mouse replied warmly. “He did get decapitated a few minutes later.”

“Yea, but that one guy from the Graveyard.” Proto Man couldn’t shake the frown from his face. “People…”

“Primes,” Mireya snorted as she glanced up from a small knife she was polishing casually as they strode further from the fountain.

“Are you sure you want to come along, Mireya?” Mickey asked. “You didn’t leave the stove on at home or anything?”

The half-night elf smiled and shook her head. “Nah, I got some neighbors that’ll make sure my cabin doesn’t burn down while I’m gone.” Once the words were out of her mouth, the former nomad reached into a side bag and slid out a small handheld device. She chewed on her lower lip as she tapped out a message to send to Mitch, and after that was in the airwaves (or whatever magic crap these devices used), she pocketed the tiny machine.

“Were you just texting?” Proto Man chuckled as the gate to the Endless Dunes grew a little larger on the horizon.

“Like I said… neighbors.” The half-night elf shot back with a smirk.

“I thought you weren’t big into people.”

“He’s a moogle.”

It was then that Mickey glanced over and furrowed his brow. “Moogle?”

“Yea,” Mireya responded. The woman’s overly casual tone made it seem as if the two diminutive primes should have already known this information. “They’re these small furry animals with batwings. They also got, like… a pompom on an antenna and squinty little eyeballs.” At that description, both Mickey and Proto Man paused and glanced at their much taller friend. When the woman saw their reaction, she chuckled softly before gesturing for them to keep following her. “No, really, the guy’s name was Mitch. He was some sort of traveling salesman with a knapsack that could fit anything inside of it.”

“That’s loco,” Mickey muttered.

“From the talking mouse?” Mireya shot back with a faint smirk as they drew closer to the gate. “We’re going to have to make a sharp detour, won’t we? Empire ain’t too fond of you, Mickey.”

“Yup!” The mouse replied with a little too much enthusiasm for someone on a totalitarian government’s most wanted list. “I’m sure they’ve got other things to occupy themselves with.”

“We’ll still have to take the long way. The Empire might be busy, but that doesn’t mean their bounty hunters won’t be.”

Proto Man nudged Mickey in the shoulder. “Kopaka.”

The mouse scowled as he recalled the metal creature tearing through the forest to try and smash him to bits. “Don’t remind me, Blues.”

Mireya glanced back at her two companions. “What’s a Kopaka?”

“No es mada.”

The machine didn’t understand half of the Mireya-speak, but he knew enough to know that Mickey was skirting the question. “Kopaka was a giant robot thing that wanted to kill Mickey. It tried jumping us a few times while we were trying to help this fellow named Teucer.”

“Did you get rid of it?”

“We didn’t, but someone else did,” Proto Man remarked as the image of Link smashing Kopaka with an oversized hammer popped into his head.

“So is this the reason we’re going to find Minnie?” Mireya asked after a few moments of silence.

At that, Mickey furrowed his brow. “Huh?”

“I figured it was just because you haven’t seen her, but if you’ve also got a robotic bounty hunter that you defeated, he probably respawned here and went after your wife, right? That seems like the logical thing for a malicious mercenary to do.”

The mouse’s eyes went wide as he reached out and snatched their wrists in his oversized, gloved hands. “Why are we still talking?! Let’s go!”

[Schwi Dola]

'Oh would you look at that', TBG thought to herself. 'That girl has the same Inner Demon thing that those guys had summoned. Might she be the original owner of the weapon?' She looked at Desco, noted the similiar color patterns to Inner Demon as well as the eyes. There was very little down in TBG's processing that this wasn't her. A short confirmation from the Beezle wirelessly confirmed that it was although she had gone missing just before Toybox Girl had entered the fight only to reappear now? Something certainly odd had happened to her if what TBG heard was correct.

TBG looked back at the BFG she was still holding and back at Doomguy, who seemed fixated on the little demon girl. "Sorry about that," Toybox Girl said, "I try not to copy every weapon I come across. It might not always show but doing this takes a lot of energy to do. It is tied directly to my core and taps into my Cosmic Energy but even that isn't enough to keep it up." For TBG, Cosmic Energy was an everyday occurrence in her world and in all beings. What was Cosmic Energy to her though was a specific form of energy generated by one's soul. Usually emotions jumpstarted its production which was why it was so useful in combat where emotions run high.

She let the weapon warp back out of her robotic hand. While she could appreciate it, that exposed energy matrix was too large a risk by her own calculations. She would be better off with one of the weapons she had mentioned. As Guu introduced these others that had also appeared but not fought, Toybox Girl bowed and introduced herself properly this time. "I am Toybox Girl ADAPT, Cosmic Hero of the WiZ Union of the Cosmic Ark. 29th Division Squad 'Alpha Seekers'. You can just call me TBG." She waved her hand and shrugged her shoulders after. She spoke with a sigh, "Not that most of that matters as I don't think many people around here know about the Cosmic Ark. These are my own friends, a pair of Beezle Caren and Nora. So, what was all that just now? We happened onto this brawl you guys were having and couldn't stand back with innocents being sacrificed to fight you."

[Guu]

‘Welp, that could have gone better.’ The Pink Enigma thought. Doomguy had stormed off for the Vasty Deep while Proto and Mickey made for the Dunes with Mireya along for whatever adventures awaited them. She could still sense Minnie that direction, so at least she knew they were heading the right path. She’ll have to get in a skype chat with Doomy later to patch things up. Considering her Twitter wars were getting attack robots after her, the less drama she can get into, the better.

But before she could finish that thought, the robot girl flew in and introduced herself. Guu paid attention to what she had to say. When the robot, now designated Toybox Girl, asked about the fight, she replied.

“If you haven’t heard my name from the previous conversation, I’m Princess Guu.” She used her formal title in this case, despite still feeling weird to refer to herself like that. “Most of the people who got involved are from my Principality of Ambrosia. The people that attacked me abandoned the land and I kind of stepped up to lead the place. Considering they were racist scumbags, they weren’t very cool with that… and apparently they blow up orc babies…. Yeah…” Awkward pause as she repressed that memory, nevermind the fact that it probably happened near where she was standing. “Anyways, a lot of these people are my subjects who came to my aid. Thank you for your help, by the way. You have my consent to join Ambrosia if you wish.”

“Designated Guu. I looked you up on the Dataverse not long ago. It’s a pleasure.” She said pleasantly. “While I appreciate the offer, I fear I must decline for now. I have my other duties.”

“I understand. Thought I should extend the offer at least.”

Desco stepped up, her face scrunched in confusion. She diverted the robot’s attention as she asked questions about the nature of good and evil. With TBG distracted, Guu turned her attention to the remaining group still here. She could sense Carn still regrouping from the fight. She could sense Adam heading towards the main group. And Gamzee… was kneeling at her feet.

‘Was he just kneeling there this whole time waiting for me to respond?’ She thought. Now she felt bad for not immediately responding to him. She calmly stepped up to the troll.

“Gamzee. Sorry for the wait. Can your repeat what you said just now? Was a tad busy.”

The Troll repeated everything, word for word, even doing the country twang again.

“Coliseum? Oh the tournament thing in Camelot? It’s fine. I didn’t even know about it until recently. I can’t be disappointed in something I know nothing about.” She reached down and pulled him to his feet. “However, what I do know about is that you came to my aid when I needed it, and that does matter to me. And you did good. You did very good.”

“Really my princess? So I have your approval?” Responded the clown, smiling gleefully.

“Of course you do. After what you did, you’re nothing short but a true Ambrosian now.” She stretches out an arm and pats him on the head.

[Schwi Dola]

The little demon girl approached her after she declined Guu's invitation. TBG was still a little wary about the claims about Guu being a criminal and she would have to do more research. She took her loyalties very seriously and wasn't about to join a random group of strangers based off of a single fight on the same side. Criminality itself wasn't as big an issue as what their true goals were. Many Cosmic Heroes were considered criminals in one place or another. Most followed the law and enforced the law in different planets but the whole setup was a mercenary outfit. Then there were some pirates, and Ravi who casually violated the laws of time which made her wanted on several planets that banned time travel for any reason. The important part was that when the cards were down they were united against the Demon Force.

The demon girl asked, "You are a hero? So does that mean we are really enemies? Desco is a Final Boss, so heroes are her enemies!" It took TBG a moment to process what exactly she said. But video games were a popular pass time on the Ark too, especially the virutal reality simulators allowing you to practice your skills while following some storyline. She did look like a child, and everything suggested that she was. But she was a powerful demon child. Demons had to be handled with care since by nature they were volatile creatures. TBG smiled and replied, "Maybe, if you do anything evil and get a bounty on you then I would be obliged to try to hunt you down and bring you to Justice!"

Desco turned to Guu, "Did you hear that Guu, she is Desco's enemy!"

Toybox Girl shrugged, "But I'm not your enemy yet. You haven't done anything that bad yet have you?"

Desco turned back and had to think about this one. Desco sighed, "No, Desco hasn't really done anything Final Boss-like in the Omniverse. She's just been having fun! Desco doesn't know if Big Sis would want her to take over this place, she just wanted Desco to take over Earth!"

Toybox Girl nodded, "Well then we aren't enemies yet! So we can be friends Desco."

Desco nodded, "Okay, that makes sense!"

Toybox Girl smiled again to Desco and turned to Guu and the others that still remained. "I have jobs to look for and bounties to hunt." She used a little Omnilium, which takes a couple minutes, to make a piece of paper. "Please, call or email me if you need my help. Depending on what it is I might just be able to come by."

Caren finally buzzed in, "If you run into guys like those again we'd be happy to help."

Nora added, "Or if you find someone that claims to be a part of the Demon Force! They are our sworn enemies. Don't be mistaken by the name, they are called that but they are all robots, the only real demon in it is their leader."

"Take care of yourself, TBG out." Toybox Girl started up her booster and with Caren and Nora doing the same they floated up and off. They weren't sure exactly where they were going yet, fixated rather on searching the Dataverse for information. As they looked about at different places, their web browsers came across one section in particlar about this Dr. McNinja. A crazy puesdonym, or a humorous creator's touch? Wanted for murder, that was a good enough reason to warrant his arrest. Hopefully this target would be more accommodating than the last. Toybox Girl really didn't want to kill for her hunts if she didn't have to. Not much information listed on the bounty, she will have to see if anyone has seen him recently.

[Gamzee Makara]

Shouts of joy and mirthful whimsy erupt from the silly servant's mouth. He does back flips and cartwheels and pirouettes and a lot of other really dangerous yet stupid circus stunts in an effort to show his overloading happiness. Guu watches him with the tiniest traces of disinterest splayed on her face. After a few moments, the smallest, barest of smiles paints her pink lips. "Thank you Mistress, thank you! I will accept this honor and be the best 'Brosian I can be! I-"

Gamzee's poetic revelries are cut off by a nearby explosion. It sounds as if it was originating from the fountain, the nexus of the...Nexus. The troll takes one solemn, super serious glance at his mistress. "Ah, sounds like some serious biznasty downers are going on over theres... D-Don't worry, Miss Guu! Imma take care of that messy mess for ya, as a true motherfuckin' servant of sick rhymes would. I'll catch up with ya when I all up and finish spreading the mirth of Ambrosia!"

And with that, the excitable clown dashes off towards the sounds of chaos, hoping to stake a claim in the name of his Mistress and the Odd town of Ambrosia.

[Doomguy]

So lets back it up a few minutes, because we're missing an important point.

As you could probably expect, I completely expected the group would descend into a royal fucking mess as Guu attempted to metaphorically drag us together. It was exactly like when the kindergarten teacher tried to get all the student to be friends, completely unaware of why the divide was there to begin with. The difference was that I was an adult and too cynical for that Kumbaya bullshit, everyone else here was also older that five (well, the demon girl might not have been), and both me and the mouse both had business we would suddenly much rather attend to. Every second had me question "WHY, Guu, why are you doing this?", followed by "Why am I doing this?" as regret built. On some level, I did value the comradely I had with the pink tyke and I wanted to leave some kind of good impression when I left the Omniverse. I stretched a fake smile (although hidden under my helmet) my face and tried to get along for her sake.

"Hey" As I tried to play to a casual conversation and hoped nothing incriminating came up "So I know one of you," the one I shot, "but I don't think the rest us have met. I'm sure Guu hasn't hasn't talked a lot about me, but trust me when I say I'm no where as bad as Dante's Abyss made me out to be. Or whatever the Empire says" Thinking about it now, that might not have been the smartest thing to say.

"Desco remembers you" the small demon girl said, her face rather stoic but the tentacled beast that seemed attached to her back stared daggers at me. A slight ping in my mind told me that she was familiar, but I couldn't quite place  "You shot Guu on the island" Oh, THAT's where I remembered her. She had been there in the massive meatgrinder over the furby. I tried by best to just breeze it off, but I could feel the already strained mood freeze over a little and see the frowns on the other two faces.

"That was in the past. She doesn't hold anything against that" I glanced over to the pink girl in question, who was as stone faced a usual. "Besides, I've been doing more productive stuff since then. I've been trying to get to Omni for a while now. What have you guys be doing?" I added at the end in a desperate attempt to change the subject.

"I've been actually helping people" The one in the ancient looking armor said, and I stared at him down. I don't know if that was meant to be hostile, but at that moment it came off like it to me

"The fuck is that supposed to mean?" I asked/growled, which admittedly only made the situation worse.

"It means exactly what I said" The helmeted teen shot back, and I had to hold myself back to not devolve the talk into a fist fight.

"Look, I've already done my fair share of saving people. I didn't want to to be brought here in the first place, and I don't need some punk on my case" I stared down at the "Protoman", and he stood firm in the face of it. "If I don't want to jump into harm's way for every Tom, Dick, and Harry when I have other things to do, then that's my fucking business!"

"But," I heard the timid little voice of Mickey off to the side, the mouse finally pulled together enough nerves to say something, "that's not very heroic"

I just stood there in dead silence as I watched him, his sense of impending doom and a very strong desire to not be here strengthened. I never really thought of myself as a "hero", when I considered how much pain I cause people. Even I knew I took a grim pleasure in the death I dealt. Sure, I saved Earth from the demonic invasion, but that meant I was a good soldier. I wasn't someone I would have looked up to, nor would I want anyone else to, and I was fine with being just one of the good guys and leave the heroics to people with better moral fiber.

So then why did that comment hurt so much?

"Fuck. You." Was the only thing I could eventually put together to communicate the thunderhead of bad mood, and just as I was done with this conversation so was everyone else. I turned and left, and I heard the foot steps behind me said they did the same. I held my PDA up, messaged the Hell's Bane to pull me back, and waited as I felt the pull into another space of reality. I gave a grunt and crossed my arms, already tired of whatever the primes were about to get into.

"When I get to Omni, I'll send you a post card" Was what I thought would be the last thing I said to Guu, before I was teleported back to my ship.

[Guu]

Guu watched as Gamzee and Toy Box Girl left to do their own thing. Soon after, Adam arrived with Carn.
 
“Ah, and special thanks to you two for showing up as well.” Said Guu casually.
 
“You’re welcome, pink one!” Stated the anomaly. “I hope this means you approve of my future plans in the Ashen Steppes!”
 
Guu tilted her head like a confused cat.
 
“I already said I’d support those plans.” She said, a little bit condescendingly. “In fact, in the coming months, I’ve made arrangements to make the transition go a lot more smoothly.”
 
“Really?” Said Carn ecstatic.
 
“Yeah, a faction in the Ashens needs our help dealing with a threat out there. If we do that, they’ll most likely help ya get set up out there.”
 
Carn celebrated, not as heavy in the theatrics as Gamzee earlier, but it was close. Guu noticed that Adam was quiet.
 
“What’s wrong Adam?” She said, her voice only vaguely hinting at her concern, almost coming off as sarcastic.
 
“It’s nothing.” He said. It stung that he let the killer of his alligator friend escape like that. Not that he would admit that in front of Guu, or himself.
 
“You can always re-summon him.” She said casually.
 
“What?” Said Adam, puzzled.
 
“You’re alligator friend.” She responded. Adam didn’t know about her psychic abilities. His lowered defenses at that moment was enough for her to piece together what happened.
 
“How did you-”
 
“If he’s from your world, then you must have accidently summoned him.” She continued. “So you could just summon him again like you can with any item.”
 
Adam, hit with this sudden revelation, clasped his hands together and gave it a shot. A ball of omnilium formed in front of him.
 
As he did that, something appeared under Guu’s senses. She looked over and saw a large crowd of Ambrosians walking through the Nexus, a familiar figure leading the pack. As soon as he got close enough, she finally realized who he was.
 
“Nyeseth?” She inquired.
 
“Long time no see, Guu!” He responded
 
To her surprise, it was one of her first travelling partners, the samurai ghost hunter. Desco, upon seeing the man, floated over to him and gave him a hug.
 
“Nyeseth! Desco hasn’t seen you in ages!”
 
“Yes, I’ve missed you two a lot!”
 
Guu just stood there, shocked at the sudden reemergence of the man.
 
“I didn’t expect you. Where have you been?” Asked the pink princess.
 
“I did some travelling for a while. When I heard you had a kingdom now and realized your royal guard needed someone experienced to lead them, I stepped up to the cause.”
 
“Well, it’s good to see yo-”
 
Desco grabbed Guu with her stretchy demon appendage and pulled her into a group hug. The Ambrosians surrounded the group, all relieved to see their Princess was okay. Guu, eventually breaking from the hug, looked around the group.
 
“Thank you all for coming.” She said. She looked over to Nyeseth. “Thank you too. Really.”
 
“We can catch up later. We should get you back home where you’re safe!”
 
“Oh.” Guu said, suddenly remembering. “That’s right, I was in the nexus because I had something to do.”
 
“What was it?” asked Nyeseth.
 
“It was…” She was about to explain, when suddenly, another blip came up on her radar. She couldn’t believe it, he must have showed up when she was distracted. “Hold on.”
 
She ran off in the direction her senses lead her. Just as they showed, there was Luffy, lying on the ground, sound asleep. How long he had been there, she couldn’t fathom, but she was glad.
 
She reached into her stomach, pulled out a pair of boots, and slipped them on his exposed feet.
 
She pulled out her phone and texted him an explanation before running back to rejoin the group.
 
“Okay, I’m done here. Let’s go.” She said.
 
Everyone set off for the long hike home, eager to see the green once more.

Guu's adventures continue in "Hugs and Kittens"