Waking up, John's first thought was, “Well at least I don’t have to go to work.” John had, as Flora put it, been graciously granted freeloder status. A title that came with a small room free food and coffee making responsibilities.
Getting out of bed and working his way to the kitchen in his pajamas,John did something he had done quite a few times over the course of the last few days, which was simply breathing in a relaxed manner whilst taking in the environment he now found himself living in, and boy was it an environment. First of all the place was huge, originally a warehouse by a dock that had since its peak long been abandoned. Whilst the space was in theory(and possibly even in practice, although he’d be lying if he said he was sure) quite large it felt to John almost suffocating. Not strange considering how cluttered it was. Aside from a few cubic meters near the entrance, where cars had probably been parked sometime in the distant past, every part of the warehouse was filled with layers upon layers of mechanical junk. As well as inventions in various stages of development. Separating these piles of garbage were narrow passages that to John, seemed to be in a perpetual state of slow collapse.
Successfully avoiding the collapse of the fragile ecosystem only known as the garage. John entered the kitchen that had gone through a great change in the time he had lived on the premises from a greasy swamp with dirty dishes piling up to the ceiling to the now pleasant office like kitchen it was always meant to be, or according to Flora not to be. After arriving John started to brew some coffee and fry some bacon and egg for his and his “roommate’s” breakfast, finishing making breakfast John started to carry his creation out of the kitchen towards the tinkering area he was sure Flora would be at. At one point a blue beam passed a few centimeters from his face obliterating one particularly unlucky teddy bear, not batting an eye at the more than usual display as he finally reached his destination.
“Breakfast served, my lady. Today we'll be feasting on the finest pig that France has to offer and ostrich eggs all the way from tasmania.”
“Food! At last thou will be mine I shall devour thou whole much like how a cat devours a mouse or a snake devours a cat.”
"Shut up Alis!”
“Hehe.” A childish voice echoed.
Any way how are you holding up, this level of sanity almost a week in is almost unheard of” Flora says whet her ever present smile on her face.
“Great thanks for asking.” John responded his voice laced with sarcasm not really taking her word on things anymore, after all he was fine when she had claimed he'd be acquainted with the beings known as gruesome death or insanity at this point.
“Wait, how did you get here anyway? The dimensional rift is usually way too unstable. John, did you perhaps get here with more than just yourself?”
“Yeah I guess I brought my car and all of my clothes over” The last part added slightly jokingly. Flora however did not think this was a joking matter judging from the coffee that now dirtied his shirt.
“Are you serious you brought your surroundings with you when you passed over! Most people get here buck naked, or in some cases even missing limbs. Ha ha ha ha.” Is how flora ends her sentence sporting her very much trademark crazed smile
“We need to go now!”
That is how John found himself dragged into a sporty cab and before he knew it they were on the road driving at frankly unsafe speeds, and that is coming from someone with a healthy disregard for traffic rules.
“Where did you last park your vehicle?”
“At my workplace parking lot 468 Cherry Street. But you really need to explain why this is important? I mean you are currently driving what to me looks like an extremely revved up thunderbird. What could you possibly want with my old half broken Skoda that was probably designed in the gulags of the Soviet Union? “
“You don't know! Well of course you don't, you just got here. Okay it’s like this things that pass through the dimensional are changed they become powerful, incredibly so. Let me tell you the story of underpants Wille. Wille you see was just a normal lad, your regular young adult working a shity job not sure what to do with his life which is when he came across someone like you. All of a sudden there was a man in front of him, a man in only his underwear. Now this might seem strange but contrary to what you believe would happen if an almost naked man showed up in your store they hit it off. Became best friends in a week however the man himself was dead within the month. Wille grieved but eventually moved on. Now having shared a closet due to the fact that Mr World-Traveler had not owned any clothes aside from his trousers. One day however, Wille through sheer coincidence wore his deceased friend's trousers. This created a force so powerful it dragged the world into a third world war from which large parts of the world has yet to recover from. That was about 20 years ago and Wille now lies dead, his trousers blown into space, but his legacy shall forever remain.” Flora finishes her story with a rare serious expression on her face.
“Wow, just Wow. I mean, I am literally wearing the clothes I had on when I arrived and I can tell you there is nothing super about them.”
No longer paying any attention to the road Flora turns to me and studies my apeareal strange, perhaps the traveler has to pass on for the effect to take place, or there is some kind of condition that needs to be met. We'll just have to experiment I guess.” A sentence that caused a large chill to travel down John's spine.
“Not the lethal kind of experiment right?”
“Not to start." As this response was muttered John began, not for the time, to fear for his captor's sanity and also much more importantly his own safety.
“Either way we can’t let Organization X get their grubby, greedy, metal hands on the car.”
Soon after the party of two arrived at the parking lot where John had left his car.
“So which one is yours?” Flora asked, dragging out the o’s.
“It’s not here, but I left it right there in that empty lot.” As the words left his mouth Flora rushed forward and then stiffened, worried John hurried forward in very cool looking strides. Arriving at the scene John felt like a real detective and just as he was about to say a humorous one liner, Flora beat him to it with the most iconic line of all.
“Fuck!”
“Well what’s the problem? Or really what does this mean for those of us that do not understand what is so bad?” All John saw on his former lot was some artsy looking street graffiti and judging from the quality it might even have been commissioned by the local government. The graffiti displayed a skull with a pair of crossed bones on a red backdrop, all in all a somewhat silly piece that probably had some kind of political message if you looked deep enough into it.
“That is the flag of the Kid Pirates, the most feared pirate on the five seas.”
“Don’t you mean seven seas?”
“What, that's silly, everyone knows there are five large seas.”
“Yeah but the se-” John started before deciding that this was not a battle worth fighting.
“Well what do you mean pirates, surely those are not around anymore?”
<-Puas->
“What is happening?”The being known only as ALIS said.
“Who are you anyway?” She was mad knowing far less about the world than she at first thought.
“Hey! Knock it off with the condescending attitude, I’ll have you know that I can calculate integrals in 8 dimensions.” Alis was upset.
“Hump, Stop!” Angry noises continue.
“Whoa the fourth wall readings are off the charts when I speak to you, you're some kind of watcher aren’t you?” In a moment of realization she suddenly understood what was happening and what her purpose was.
“Yeah yeah I know. The reason I am here is to answer the question that
is pirates. What happened was as follows; starting in the 16th century the European trade went from quickly growing to uncontrollably escalating which resulted in exponential growth of piracy. While this new business of robbing and killing was a problem the market was expanding at a proportionally even greater rate, this in combination with laissez faire policies (and attitudes) from most western european governments simply left no money for a navy when the armies expenditures had been paid. Thus the pirate menace grew and grew until pirate presence became not only the norm but also necessary for the world economy to properly function.”
<-Resumed->
“Of course there are pirates, in fact according to most experts piracy is at an all time high with global trade being so profitable, truly suffering from success.”
“Well whilst this is not optimal at least this Organization X doesn't have the car maybe it’s even a blessing in disguise.” John said thinking he would be allowed to go back to the warehouse he now called home with the car now lost to the sea, but o how wrong he was.
"No! It will not end here. I shall have that car or my name is not Flora von Holsten!” Flora screamed out on the top of her lungs which from John's point of view accomplished little more than to give the local homeless man a fright. But from that moment on his fate was sealed. Flora seemed to get a sudden spurt of energy as she promptly barrelled towards the car. An action that made John want to call out tell her that her rush to the car would be pointless as she’d still have to wait for him or lose her precious captive. Then he thought better of it and instead opted to join his captor in her sprint to the automobile in question.
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Finishing his race and hastily entering the vehicle where he was meet by a largely annoyed glare that screamed; really? It took you 10 seconds to get to the car. What are you 80? Flora however, quickly snapped out of it and instead started driving.
“So where are we heading?” John asked in a tone that came out considerably more meek than he had intended.
"Eventually to sea for now, a seedy bar.”
“Why?”
“To get some drinks. As well as information of course.” The second part seemingly added as an afterthought.
Ten minutes later John was standing in front of an old run down building that with the help of much squinting you could imagine had at some point bean a quaint little pub. Now however it was literally run down to the ground. Literally. The establishment seemed to at some point have sunk into the ground and now sat in a four to five meter deep crater. Aside from the fact that mother earth was actively trying to swallow the building it was also horribly overgrown to the extent that you could barely see the stone underneath. John also noted that some of the wooden parts were in various states of rotting though the building was so far gone that even his prudent opinions could not start to call it out.
Practically jumping out of the vehicle Flora approached the edge of the crater and then simply slid down the slope. Not confident in his abilities to do the same, John opted to take the crudely constructed stairs, going slowly as to not fall. Walking through the doors of the pub John was greeted with guns pointed at him and then promptly ignored as everyone's eyes drifted towards where things were actually going down. At the center of the bar stod Flora face to face with a large man easily four times her size, the man was old with white hair dotting his head but if you think that made him look less threatening, you were wrong his build was conflicting to say the least, he was a large man in more than one sense with a bloated stomach and bulging arms filled with strength, who, if the arms tattoos were to be believed, could and had rip of heads.
“What do you think you are doing here young woman? This is not an establishment where your kind usually sets foot.” A line that was met with a muzzled and, to John, menacingly sounding laugh.
“Oh, I'm sorry I didn’t know you only served losers.” Flora said, bending forward slightly and then giving the large man a flick on the forehead. To which p John could see the man's veins bulging.
“you've done it now you little tyke! I challenge you to a showdown.”
“I accept.” Flora said in a serious tone with a determined look on her face. Suddenly John heard a low voice to his left.
“Hank and Flora at it again huh, well I guess it’s been a while now. “
The man then turned to look at John. The man was of slightly lower than average height with a clean shaved face like he was trying to say: hey I wear a cloak am shady but not quite as shady as those other guys so you better bring your drug business to me instead of those maniacs over there that might have mixed in arsenic just for the fun of it.
“I saw you come in just after Flora. You her new boyfriend or what?” Taken aback by the forthright and, in his opinion, rude question. As well as John’s unsureness in regards to the answers of that question himself, and what he’d prefer the answer to that question be, not wanting to seem weak and fickle in front of a total stranger (like most men) he opted to tell a half truth.
“We do share an address.” Something that was technically true but was at this time not relevant. To this new information the stranger simply raised his eye with a dubious expression then shrugged.
“Well I’d be careful if I were you. I've seen her tear apart and toss away men with considerably more spunk than you, me included.” John, now desperate to get away from Flora, moved closer and confided in the man.
“You have to help me, she's holding me as a prisoner. She forces me to make her stupid lates with almond milk!” The man gave John a sympathetic look and then promptly turned and walked away.
“Well I didn’t need your help anyway.” John muttered half heartedly, too afraid to curse the strange man to his face.
“Dong!” Suddenly the sound of a loud gong going of in the middle of the room turning to towards the noise John saw a hastily assembled boxing ring (well a square really) where in the center stod Flora, the large man supposedly called Hank and a bartender presumably serving as some kind of referee there was also notably a barrel. The referee spoke up.
“Now I wanna see a fair fight, no flame flowers or tickling allowed three minute game you can only play fox on whole diamonds otherwise standard Aussie rules. Am I understood?”
“Right!”
“Right!” Both Flora and Hank screamed out. There was also a less audible “What?” from John's direction, although it was quickly drowned by the sound of cheers from the audience as both contestants took up positions on either side of the barrel. They put their elbows on the lid of the barrel and grasped each other's hands, at which point John awed in realization.
“It’s just arm wrestling.” Then everything kicked off literally. The barrel flew up in the air, both contestants jumping up with it locked in that age-old struggle of wills and things were not looking too good for Flora, her arm almost dipping under the red dotted line that had appeared from nowhere. Then the barrel descended and the game entered a completely different stage as holographic chess boards popped up on the left hand side of both players, a large timer visible above their heads. Flora had the first move she opened with the classic king's pawn Hank defended aggressively with a knight the battle continued and whilst slight it seemed like Flora was gaining strength with every move. Then the balls started flying, with the speed similar to that of which a baseball machine might fire, Flora nimbly dodging Hank skilful deflecting and absorbing impacts. Suddenly the smaller balls disappeared and a rugby ball flew through the room between the players that were rapidly stomping their feet then Hank caught the ball and successfully threw it through a hoop.
“Phwwwwwhht! That's a foul. Punishment to flora.” The judge screamed out.
“Look that way!” Flora said pointing left and then handed out the fastest left hook that John had ever seen. Hank's face contorted in pain and spat out a bit of blood but he was very much still in the game, wasting no time to roll a holographic 20 sided dice that had appeared next to him thew dice landed on a 20 and Hank screamed out “critical hit!” Flora visually flinched, and it was at that moment John realized that this was ridiculous he also got the sudden idea that the natural alcohol level in the blood must be much, much greater in this world than his own. Desiring to blend in with the natives, John opted to head to the bar and fix his terminal case of alcohollessnes. Getting there he heard all kinds of noise from the arena classic lines such as.
“You will never beat me!” and “I'll show you.” but also more creative and new ones such as “Your punches feel like a baby's breath you blaggard!”.
Arriving at the bar he was met with a lukewarm smile from the young woman that was standing behind the counter. Sporting the same sleek uniform as her colleague and long purple hair tied up in a ponytail.
“What can I get you stranger?” The girl asked.
“Whatever has the most alcohol in it.” John responded with a tired smile on his face.
“I saw that you came in with Flora, she not treating you well?” This question
ignited something in John, an urge to complain so bad that nothing could stop him.
“Well that's putting it mildly. First of all I get attacked by cyborgs, then I lose
my freedom, and to top it all off some dick of a pirate called Kid stole my car!”
As this was happening you could hear the duel in the background that appeared to have moved on into some kind of card game judging by lines such as.
“I summon Gargantina slayer of beasts and use my goblin demolitionist to tear down you’re wooden wall!”
The woman continued “Sounds like you have it quite rough” she then looked around, satisfied that everyone was focused on the confrontation in the middle of the establishment she leaned over the counter and whispered “Well I can't help you with the first two but there is a rumor going around that Kid’s fleet of a 100 ships is currently docked around Doggerbank probably planning to hit Amsterdam, I say as if it will help you get your car back. Well you did come in here with Flora so presumably you’re not quite as scrawny as you look.”
“Thanks, I guess, do you take cash by the way?” John asked not sure whether or not he should be offended.
“This one is on the house, you sound like you need it. ”Then in a quiet, quick voice she said “And it’s always a good strategy to give the desperate ones a taste of the good stuff.
“What was that?”
"Ooh, nothing.”
Feeling that He’d accomplished a great deal more than what he’d set out to do he walked back towards the fighting ring with new determination in his step. As the fight appeared to be drawing to a close, not that he could tell from any indicator other than the fact that both fighters looked exhausted, he heard a bit of banter between the two fighters.
“You have improved. I'll have to admit but it all ends here," Hank said, pushing forward a game piece on a three dimensional field. “Your lands are unprotected and while your commerce flourishes the orc tribes and vampire engineers are tunneling away towards my victory, better just give up now and save face.”
"Ha, hahahahahhahah.” a soul rupturing laugh came forth from Flora's food and speaking orfacis. “That is where you are wrong you see! You are forgetting what this game really is about, not warfare, not economic growth but magic! And you are the one that is about to face total and complete annihilation.” Flora said, making a show out of covering her face with one hand when laughing. “I use my accumulated mana to cast magic-missile at your kingdom's core.”
What followed was a large explosion at Hank's side of the barrel following which he seemed to lose most of his strength and with a resounding slam Flora slammed his hand on the lid of the barrel. Silence ensued then cheers defeated and on his knees Hank looked up on Flora's proud form and said. “I had no idea there was someone so good at armwrestling in this world. What will you have me do for having been bested in combat?”
“Well that one is eazy, you will be my wallet for the evening.” Thinking that sounded like a harsh punishment for having lost a bar game John was about to step in to suggest having to sing an embarrassing song his thought was cut short however as Hank grunted in acceptance.
Not wanting to stay in this pub for another moment feeling that he was somehow being cheated by simply breathing in the establishment John said. “Let’s go.”
“You are too rash Jhon” Flora said with a condescending smile on her face. “We have only just completed the first step of beating up the biggest and baddest guy in the bar, we still have to buy everyone a round, try to coax them out of some information, get into another fight, drink some alcohol and then finally someone will answer our questions, then we can leave.” Finishing the explanation she let out a sigh as if she had just explained something rudimentary to a four year old.
“But I already know where they are, they’re docked at Doggerbank.”
“Well that's certainly a good start but we still need to find out the size of kid’s Fleat."
“I have heard that it contains about a hundred ships.”
“That is still quite not enough though, pirates never stay in the same place for long and one of these dirtbags is sure to know what their target is.” Flora finished with a little bit of annoyance slipping into her voice and it was with more than a little mirth in his voice that John said.
“Amsterdam” John then proceeded to slowly walk out of the pub with a smug smile spread wide on his face. Eventually Flora caught up to him walking up the stairs at which point he received a slap on the back of the head, presumably for the little show he put on putting all her effort to waste.
“So I guess we have to find a ship now.”
“No worries, I have the perfect one in mind.” Flora said whit a wicked smilethat John hesitantly returned.