After what can be described as an uneventful journey—not counting some knee-scraping turns and unnecessary stunts on Hotrod's part—the girls finally arrived... at the Night Market.
As it says on the label, it's a market. And it's night time!
Prior to the Slag turning into an utter piece of shit, it was likely that this area was formerly a midtown, just by virtue of the amount of back-alley laundromats, same-day loans, and liquor stores. Also with the territory of it being a former midtown, neon lights all over. Physical ones, too, not those fake AR ones. The entire place seemed to be in conflict with itself, unsure if it wanted to be bright pink or a light blue. It almost seemed out of place in the Slag with how largely intact it was compared to most of the other hotspots.
Though, the permanent structures here were largely not the main attraction. The entire location was packed entirely with temporary and semi-temporary stands; all selling different kinds of goods. Some sold meat, others sold produce, another sold knick-knacks; if you looked hard enough—and in the right sections—you could probably find some brave souls selling firearms. Given the set-up alone, it can be assumed that whatever market stall you visited would force you to haggle for anything remotely close to a reasonable price.
Other than that? It was crowded. Whether it be locals who didn't want to make the distance to the closest Primo Purchase, people who were ‘stickin' it to the man’ and bought local, or someone who was looking to buy something that was, frankly, not legal. This caused the issue of making it difficult to see if there was anyone around who might recognize one of the duo and raise a fuss. Conversely, whoever was likely to raise a fuss at the two intrepid Banshees might have the same difficulty picking them out in a crowd.
Hotrod smoothed down her bulky armored jacket after engaging the Katana's anti-theft system, parking it out in the open as a direct challenge to anyone to try and dare do anything to it. Her hand snaked inside a pocket to grab her pack of Lucky Thirteens, setting a stick alight and closing her lighter with a loud clink. “So, here we are.”
“You know, I've never tried smoking before. I totally can't 'cause the smell sticks to you and like, anyone with a keen nose can—”
“Would you like one? These are pretty good, smell dissipates after a few minutes.” She offered her pack to Mary, blowing O-rings of apple-menthol smoke upwards.
Mary seemed to seriously contemplate it before shaking her head. “Probably not the best idea to get hooked on a vice.” She laughed heartily. “Thank you, though.”
“Good call. So, what do you got in mind?”
“Just a few bags of fruit. That should be enough—Wait. Do you have any suggestions? You would know your girls better than I.”
“Lessee... Cherry's big into cooking so she'd probably appreciate some produce. Stiletto would probably like a hardcopy of some trashy romance novel. Pizzazz would take anything. Dunno what Growler would like, she don't talk much. By which I mean at all.” She paused. “—Y'know what, bags of fruit would do.”
Mary moved forwards, pushing herself through the crowd. Of course, anyone dumb enough to walk into her cloaked form simply kind of bounced off; the side effect of bumping into what amounts to a walking slab of metal. Mary, being Mary, seemed kind of oblivious to the fact that she's a walking wrecking ball. Or didn't care. At least she was making a clean path for Hotrod to follow.
While probably drawing attention to herself.
Hotrod followed behind her, occasionally scanning the crowd, smiling disarmingly at whoever gave them dirty looks as they got bumped out of the way by Mary. “You got a regular for buying fruits?”
Hotrod noticed something a little off as she looked around. There were quite a few tatted up humans who kept to the sides of the foot traffic and stared them down, easily a half dozen or more. Their displeasure seemed to stem from something other than Mary parting the crowd like it's the Red Sea. From the look the duo were getting, they're probably a few minutes away from dealing with some human supremacists.
And they looked like some real Boys from Pheng-Ghoi.
“I shop around, usually. I mean, it's pretty easy to tell what's a bad product and it's easier to find someone who is selling cheap, right?” She glanced over her shoulder to regard Hotrod. Mary didn't seem all that aware of the glares, still walking forwards to her first stop; a nearby fruit stand with wicker baskets filled with apples, oranges, and pears stacked to the nines out front.
Hotrod inconspicuously patted herself down, checking for her trusty Mühl AMP and baton, carrying on conversation with Mary like nothing is amiss. “Ah, yeah. That's true. I usually just go to the nearest stand, grab what I want and go. Bad habit, need to start comparing prices more.”
She pivoted on her heel when they arrived at the fruit stand, scanning the crowd once more to get a better look at the Boys from Pheng-Ghoi while maintaining a disinterested expression on her face, taking the occasional drag from her Lucky Thirteen.
From the corner of her eye, she saw one of the thugs making a move towards them. The bustling crowd between them gave him a good moment's pause as he waited for it to ease up. A few more seconds before something bad happens, at the very least.
Hotrod's gaze darted from man to man, focusing on their hands and waistline. Nothing that looks like the outline of anything heavy, at the very least. Her gaze shifted upwards. Nothing slung over their shoulders, no impression of concealed holsters. So the meanest thing they might be looking at was a machine pistol, or maybe a really gnarly cleaver.
“That's how you get scammed around here. Totally learned that quick when I got stuck out here originally.” Mary nodded after dispensing what she thought was sage advice, her attention now completely fixated on the wicker basket filled with apples. She still wasn't aware of what's going on, as she's now preoccupied with picking out the best apples.
“That's why I keep to the Zhaponese side of the market. They tend to soften up on you if you speak the language.” She glanced over her shoulder to check on Mary. “—those apples do look pretty good, though.”
She shifted her weight to stand at contrapposto, nonchalantly ashing her cigarette onto the ground.
The human decided that his best bet now was to simply hurl insults from across the street at Hotrod and Mary, considering the crowd still wasn't easing up whatsoever.
“Hey! Knife-ear! Fuck are you doin' here?!” he hollered, making no qualm over the fact that he's trying to be the one to instigate. “Go home an' fuckin' die, knife ears! Make the world a better place!”
Of course, Mary still didn't notice, apparently being in too good of a mood to be anything but oblivious.
Hotrod definitely heard that.
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Loathing to give him the satisfaction of any reaction, she resumed to take a long drag from her cigarette while maintaining eye contact, acting as if the insults weren't directed at them specifically.
“Yeah! What are you going to do, huh? Tree huggin’ lookin' motherfucker!” he continued to holler, pacing back and forth. “I'm gonna come over there and kick your fuckin' ass!”
His pacing around gave Hotrod a better view of his shitty ad-hoc pistol holster made out of some leather scraps and a belt; showing off his Reeve Peacemaker.
And the crowd started to take notice of the commotion, slowly thinning out at this point.
Sighing, Hotrod discarded her cigarette and crushed it under her heavy boot, addressed Mary over her shoulder. “You grab any Fuji apples? Would be good to munch on those. Also we got trouble.”
“Fuji? No, I haven't. I was just planning on taking the assorted basket and sorting it out la—” the other elf trailed off hard at the word ‘trouble’ as she realized that she had been kind of hyperfixating on staring at fruit and ignoring the world around her. “—Ah. Uh, what sort of trouble?”
And with that question, the leader of the group—unwisely—approached the duo to yell at them more, given the current lack of a crowd separating them.
“You deaf or somethin'? Get out of here, fuckin' cunts. Fuckin' worse than the orks for listenin'!” he continued his diatribe, approaching the duo without a fuck in the world. Probably assuming that his buddies were enough to back him up.
Hotrod lazily jutted a thumb in the direction of the man yelling profanities. “That sort of trouble. Are you packing anything besides the MG? He's not alone.”
Mary's head swiveled around at an unnatural angle to stare at the approaching trouble, who continued to spew obscenities as he approached extremely slowly.
“No, just the—Are we really going to—Is it the smartest idea to turn this into a reenactment of the Morosini Vineyard Shootout?” she asked, her eyes darting between Hotrod and the aggressor. Regardless, her body clicked and whirred again as she started to open her compartments to get access to her firearm.
“One, that's an obscure reference, considering where we are. Two, this won't even take us forty-four minutes.”
The Boy from Pheng-Ghoi didn't take kindly to being ignored and raised his voice even more. “You got five fuckin' seconds before we have a problem here! And we already have a fuckin' problem! Are you listenin'?”
Hotrod put on the act of just hearing what the man was saying, putting on her best disarming smile while looking at him with half-lidded eyes. “Oh, sorry, I couldn't hear you over the crowd. What were you saying?”
Mary just watched this exchange. Defusing situations with words wasn't her strong suit whatsoever. Although, it did look like she had ants in her pants, considering that she was now stuck in the middle of trying to not look like she was in the middle of pulling an LMG out of her body.
The Boy from Pheng-Ghoi was standing within spitting distance at this point, and shouting even louder. There was no crowd around them by now; anyone local enough to the Slag understanding they should've been Outtie 800 about thirty seconds ago.
“What, the fuckin' ears for show, then? I'm telling you to fuck off. Get out of here. You're about as fuckin' welcome as a mutant rat at a wedding,” he snarled, now reaching up to rest his hand on the handle of his Reeve. Big gun for a little guy.
Hotrod glanced at his piece and resumed eye contact, raising her hands in a non-threatening gesture, somewhere between a shrug and a high five. “Hey now, no need for that. There a reason why you singled us out? We ain't exactly the only knife ears around, y'know.”
“We ain't exactly the only fuckin' knife ears around,” he mocked Hotrod, before looking over his shoulder to gesture towards the seven boys standing across the street; all arms folded for maximum standoffish posture. “Boys, do you see any other fuckin' knife ears around?”
“Nah, boss!” one of them shouted out. Well, he wasn't exactly lying, considering that the area had more in common with an abandoned midwestern town than a common modernis midtown, what with some boys trying to play cowboy. Even the merchants have found cover nearby.
“You fuckin' strut in here, like you fuckin' belong. Do you think you belong?”
“When you start saying things like that, you gotta be able to back it up, champ.” In a flash of movement, she pulled out her custom Mühl AMP from its concealed holster behind her jacket, a purple laser dot now sitting on the lead Pheng-Goi Boy's chest. She still had that same disarming smile on her face. “Do you think you belong on these streets?”
The leader took a cautious half-step back, removing his hands from his holster; having only then taken into account that he wasn’t the fastest draw in the west. Of course, he did the typical ‘I fucked up’ pose’ and held his hands up in front of his chest.
“Fuck, girly. No need to get violent over a misunderstandin'. Just tryin' to get you to fuckin' leave before you cause a scene,” he continued to growl as he stepped backwards to where he came from.
Thankfully his boys seemed to be just as put off at the sudden drawing of a firearm, fidgeting amongst themselves and throwing cautious glances to one another. Typical animal behavior. Don't pick a fight that you could win if it ends up with you being horribly injured. Not to say they wouldn't try something given the chance.
“Fuckin' Bloodtooths are movin' in and you don't wanna be elfin' up the place when they show their fuckin' ugly ass faces.”
Mary snapped out of her dopey trance for long enough to take this as a sign to start putting together her RPM; which continued to make her look dumb as hell as she tried to do the entire process from under her cloak.
“See, that's what I thought. Just a misunderstanding, yeah?” Hotrod didn't put her gun away, though. She took steps forward and closed the distance, her AMP still trained on the lead Pheng-Ghoi. She quirked an eyebrow at the mention of the Bloodtooths. “Who the fuck are they? Talk.”
“Fuckin'—You're fuckin' kiddin' me.” He kept his hands up and squinted his eyes at Hotrod. “Fuckin' chromed up thrillseekers from outta town. Buncha them are movin' up here for a change in huntin' grounds. You ain't heard of them? Fuckin' love stringin' up knife-ears by their guts and leavin' them hangin' by streetlamps. Shit's gonna happen to you if you stick around, shit-for-wits. Fuckin' any minute now, you'll hear those bastards bark at the moon and they'll be comin' for you.”
The boys continued to look uneasy, firing quick mutters and hushed whispers amongst themselves, likely trying to formulate a plan.
Mary finally managed to get her shit together, signified by the loud CLICK of her pulling back the charging handle on the RPM. She continued to remain silent for the time being.
“I don't keep tabs on outsiders.” She called out to the group across the street. “Try anything funny and your buddy here gets new breathing holes for free!”
“Eat a dick, elf!” one of the younger guys shouted from across the street in retort. They returned to quickly muttering amongst themselves despite the fact that El Fearless Leader was going to eat shit the moment they moved.
“Not going anywhere near your sad excuse of one! Hey,” she addressed the lead Pheng-Ghoi boy once more. “You can live with just one foot, yeah? I'm starting to think you and your boys aren't taking me seriously here.”
“Shut up, boys.” He fired a sharp glare over her shoulders. “Fuck, fine. What the fuck else do you wanna know? You gonna stop shovin' that gun in my face any time soon?”
The boys did indeed shut up, probably gathering that they'd be next in line on the chopping block once their leader went down. Automatics weren't a joke.
“If you promise to behave, maybe. Numbers.”
“—The fuck do I look like? Fuck. I don't know. Maybe a dozen.” The leader continued his huffing and puffing. “Don't fuckin' ask me specifics. Ain't like I know shit.”
“Ah ah ah.” She tutted with her free hand. “I'll put my gun away if you behave. Your name.”
“Fuckin' Lheng. Why do you give a shit?”
“Basic courtesy, yeah?” She stowed away her AMP, engaging the safety before reseating it in its quick-draw holster under her jacket. “Well, thanks for the warning, but we really need to get our shopping done. Be seeing you around, Deng.”
“Fuckssakes,” was all that was audible in Common as he stomped off, gesturing for the boys to follow him. Cuss words in Liao followed along, fading into the distance…