The girl in green didn’t know what she was going to do when she caught up to Jenny McClain, even now she was regretting her decision to storm out of the building like a madwoman escaping from a fire. Sophia wasn’t the sort of person to let injustices fly and kidnapping her and her friends and then leaving them behind without a second thought seemed to qualify in that category. The Ring was still as dim as ever as she made her way over to the pirate captain. Should I just tap her on the shoulder? She questioned herself, but her feet did not stop. Shit, this is a really bad idea ain’t it?
The horrible, really bad, and totally not worth it idea was thankfully stopped in its tracks while Jenny herself was stopped in hers. Before them, a crowd of people had gathered around a little shop, shouts and arguments filling the air like a sour smell. Getting within seeing distance, the girl saw that it was the shop they had passed earlier, apparently, the fight still wasn’t over yet.
She hadn’t had time to catch what the two aliens had looked like, now was the time she corrected that mistake. The shopkeeper, whose shop was now surrounded by more people than it ever was before, resembled that of a robot. His skin was metallic, maybe it wasn’t his skin but rather some sort of helmet or armor but there was no way to tell the difference. The other man was quite different, his face protruded awkwardly in the shape of a beak and his skin was hidden in a mass of dirty grey feathers that slipped under a set of rusted and dingy armor. Right now, the feathered man was crossing his arms and tapping his foot, or perhaps talon, on the ground while the other screamed at the top of his lungs.
“You know what’s gonna happen to you, you no-good scraper?” The man called, as if trying for an echo. “Your face is gonna be plastered on my wall!”
The crowd around murmured to themselves like the audience before a cage fight, surely this spectacle must’ve been entertaining to all not involved. Jenny too was transfixed on the argument, from her demeanor Sophia guessed that this was a rare yet not unheard-of occurrence.
“Mr. Ham will sort it out.” The feathered man replied, smugly. “Unless you wanna give me my cred back right now, that is!”
His combatant paused for a second, weighing his options. His eyes darted to the crowd, if he backed down now his reputation would be ruined, so instead he barked back. “You’ll regret this!”
“Will I?”
Suddenly Sophia caught a shiver down her spine as something loomed behind her. At first, she thought it was her friends catching up with her but when she looked back she found that they were already there beside her- and looking at another man approaching them at a pace that can only be described as ‘threateningly slow.’ The girl held in a gasp as she saw him, now that’s not something you see every day.
Down the street stood a behemoth of a man, towering almost as high as some of the roofs on the buildings. The man was clad in a material that wasn’t tough leather but looked enough like it that no one cared about the mistake. He covered his body fully from his head to his boots, it was thick and bulky enough to stop a plasma beam- which by all the burn marks it clearly had many times. But the biker-esque gear wasn’t the gasp-worthy thing, no, it was his face. Thankfully this time there was a face to be had, but it certainly didn’t resemble human features. With a red nose, wrinkled skin, and sunken eyes it would seem that this man had the head of a pig.
The crowd parted as he came through, moving right up to the two complainers with the confidence of a giant. The shopkeeper looked up at him the way an ant does an elephant- nervously. “Ah, Mr. Ham.” He stammered. “So good of you t-to come.”
Mr. Ham did not speak, instead, his sunken eyes took the two in, weighing them in his judgement.
Even though he had called him here, the feathered man seemed nervous. “Mr. Ham, I know the rules here, and that’s why I called you… sir.” His hand shook as he lifted up his AutoBlazer. “He sold me this hunk of junk claimin’ that it was in perfect working order, but it ain’t worth anything I tell ya!”
“That ain’t true!” The other protested. “When that gun left my shop, it was in pristine condition, I swear it! H.P. Loadouts sells top of the line equipment, and that’s a guarantee!”
The crowd held their breath in anticipation, but again Mr. Ham did not speak. The feathered man suddenly found the AutoBlazer ripped from his hands, he would have protested but he valued his existence. The gun looked comically small in comparison to the giant pig as he inspected it closely.
The silence made the metal man want to break it. “L-look,” he said, voice straining. “I think the situation is plain as day! This scraper per is trying to pull a fast one on ya, trying to get his credit and his gun for free! I’ve had it happen to me before, and I ain’t easily fooled!”
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Mr. Ham gave the shopkeeper a slow look, the metal man gulped. Shoving the AutoBlazer back into the feathered arms of the now sweating plaintiff, the beast made his way over to the shop. The crowd watched as Mr. Ham lowered himself just to be able to squeeze through the small door- it was like watching an English Mastiff fit through a cat flap. Out of view, the only indication of what he was doing inside came from the sound of clanking, banging, and the noise of something falling and shattering on the ground. With each crash the shopkeeper winced, his metal face bending into an unpleasant expression.
After a few minutes, Mr. Ham returned outside holding a giant rifle. Jenny recognized it as a PlasmaLancer, one of the highest-end and expensive guns on the market. The shopkeeper smiled, “see?” He said holding out his arms to the crowd. “High-end equipment, I ain’t selling crap like what this scraper has!”
Almost gingerly, the pig man raised the gun to his side and then, uncharacteristically softly, banged the PlasmaLancer on the side of the shop. Instantly small pieces and bits went flying off the weapon, scattering to the ground in front of the crowd like leaves off a tree. The sign above the door displaying the name of the establishment swayed and fell to the ground with a sad plop. The people that had gathered looked at each other, smiles spreading across their faces.
For the first time, Mr. Ham spoke. “High-end?” His voice was lower than the core of the earth.
When one is caught in a lie, it is typical for one to panic- the shopkeeper was no exception. “Wait, wait!” He cried. “It was just a fluke, I swear to ya! Here, here! Take your credit, just go!” The trembling man reached out and through a credit ship, one of those glass panel-looking things, at the man with the feathers.
“Heh, ain’t how this works pal.” Replied the now victorious bird.
Over in the crowd, Neil raised his eyebrow. How what works?
As if to answer his question, from the giant mass of his back Mr. Ham pulled out a gun. Well, to say it was a gun is a bit of an understatement, it was more of a giant cannon that that bulked-out man carried like it was nothing. “Ring life buddy.” Said the bird with a smug grin. “You call Mr. Ham in, someone’s paying the price.”
The group of ex-kidnappees looked at each other in alarm, should they do something to stop this? No, it was too late.
CLABOOM
The top half of the shopkeeper was no longer the top half of the shopkeeper. Giant pieces of metal parts, wires, screws, and other things that would go inside a metal man flew through the air like the world’s worst bust pinata. It was so sudden and shocking that Neil couldn’t help but scream a terrified yelp. To his alarm, the entire crowd cheered as the carnage settled on the ground as if someone had just scored a homerun at a baseball game. His work done, Mr. Ham secured his weapon back on his back and slowly trotted away. Soon, as if it had never happened, the crowd began dispersing- their fun over.
As they did, the group got a better look at what remained of the shopkeeper. Neil had seen animals play dead before, but he knew that this certainly wasn’t a possum situation. There was no blood or gore, but something about the clank of the metal made it worse. Alex nearly hurled, unable to contain his reaction any longer. “Shit, man.”
Timothy, with all the innocence of a kid sitting down to build a puzzle, bent over and picked up a few scattered parts. “Do… do you think we can fix him?” He tried putting the pieces together, but they crumbled in his hands. “Oh, dear.”
Not everyone had disappeared, however. “What do we have here?” Said a voice that instantly put a bad vibe in Sophia’s heart.
“Looks like a couple of scrapers to me.” Said another.
The group saw that in front of them stood three very wiry-looking men. One was hunched over and swaying side to side, the man who had spoken first stood tall and confident in the middle, while the last stood at his side- face with a shit-eating grin plastered across it. “Now-now what are we gonna do with them?” The hunched man echoed his own words in an awkwardly paced tone.
“You ain’t doing nothing with us!” Sophia said, making sure to get Timothy behind her. “Now, I’ve been called a scraper more times today than I can count, will one of you gents please just tell me what that means?”
They all chuckled. “She doesn’t know. Wow!” The grinning one beamed. “They really are fresh meat ain’t they?
“Scraper- like you scrape the bottom of the barrel.” To the girl’s surprise, the answer came not from the men in front of her but rather from Jenny McClain who now stood at her side. “We tend to call newbies that, or people who can’t get a good bounty worth a damn- kinda like you three!”
The man standing tall in the middle, who seemed like the de facto leader of the bunch, frowned. “You talk a lot of shit, Jenny McClain.”
The pirate captain smirked. “I do, don’t I?” She chuckled a bit. “Now, what are you gonna do about it, huh?”
“We’re gonna teach you a lesson!” The other two looked almost surprised as their leader belted out.
Sophia was confused. “What are you doing?” She asked, turning to Jenny.
The pirate captain said nothing, but there was a slight flicker in her eye for a moment. “Really, you three? You, Short-Barrel John-John- who hasn’t got a bounty in years? Corpus Rexx, everyone on the Ring knows how much of a failure you are! And you, Novan…” She pointed a metal hand at the one in the middle. “You’re bite ain’t shit compared to your bark!”
“Oh really?” Novan spat. “You really wanna test me, Jenny? You really wanna do that?”
“No, no I don’t. Ya knows why? ‘Cuz I don’t feel like the hassle would be worth it.” She gestured to her long trailing armor. “This is a bitch to clean blood out of. Now do yourselves a favor, scram.”
Corpus, standing next to his friend who now was redder than usual, tugged at his sleeve. “Come on man, let’s get lost- lotto time is almost here!”
“No!” Novan shouted. “I’m tired of being treated like some sort of scraper trash!” Suddenly he pulled out a gun from his side and aimed it right at Jenny. “Jenny McClain, I challenge you to a duel!”