RP: ISC Phoenix [Mission 10] - Lock Up The Wolves

Uriel could not contain his outrage, but he also couldn't bring himself to express anger directly at the Captain. Where he would have normally bellowed his rage, the Elysian delivered instead a venomous diatribe.

With surprising fluidity, the Archangel cracked open his revolver, dumped the rounds on the floor and tossed his gun aside, saying, "You disarm me, Captain, and let the galaxy's bane persist aboard your ship. I can't very well abide these beasts," his gaze moved first to Smith and then to Bortelli, "And see no reason to continue in this manner. I'll be in my room until we disembark so that my desires for safe and secure galaxy will not hinder your self-serving ways any longer. I can see my words and ideas are only a burden to this crew and will take my leave first chance I get."

He bowed with a glare at Luca, but his expression was only sad when he caught the eyes of Zeta, Robert, and the others heretofore unaddressed. "It's a shame, but it's clear my philosophy does not mingle well with this crew. Good luck in your future endeavors, and may God protect the worlds from your foolishness." With a final stare at Luca, he disappeared to his room.

His gun still lay abandoned on the floor and looking pitiful in its lackluster and scarred condition.

Luca gave a look to Smith. It took him a while to remember that Smith worked for Origin - he forgot based on all of the flailing Smith had been getting into recently, "Wonderful work. You're as useful as tits on a bull, you can't compose yourself, you've got so many unresolved issues you make the Empress look calm, you let a fucking mishhu adopt you, and you manage to piss off one of the more useful members of the crew," He raised his gun again.

"Uriel. I'm giving you permission to kick Smith's ass and kill the little bastard. Smith, work for fucking Origin too. Just pork Aerin and she'll bail you out! We practically swam in money during our two-day stint!"

Luca was not just mad, he was outright incensed by the entire affair once it all culminated in threats the leave the crew, "Actually, fuck all this shit. I've had it up to here with this fucking Mishhu, stealing the limelight and focus of the story!"

He stood up, threw down his gun and marched towards Smith, grabbing the offending object as he went by and he walked towards the Kitchen. However, the Mishhu looked at Luca and it chirped: "WA-RU-UI!" It stabbed him in the arm once, prompting Luca to squeeze it - the crunch of exoskeleton was palpable as he headed towards the sink.

He used his spare hand to pull the needle and the rest of the mishhu off of his hand and pushed it into the sink's drainage pipe. He looked under the sink and found a plunger, then inverted it and started pushing the Mishhu further into the drainage pipe. His other hand reached for a switch.

Click.

Splinters, shards of chitin and jellied innards were sprayed against the captain's face and chest as he pushed it further and further into the in-sink disposal unit. It wasn't until the plunger had been reduced to a few inches of splintered matchwood and a rubber head that Luca stopped. He observed his handiwork for a moment and turned off the in-sink disposal unit.

The Payday cheque had been shredded. He sauntered back over to the couch and gave Smith a firm push to knock him over. A handprint of Luca's blood and Payday's guts were left on his breast jacket - his arm had been bleeding like a stuck pig.

"...what the fuck are you looking at?" Luca gave everyone assembled a venomous glare, trying his best to ignore how thin his blood was, and how his heartrate was racing - coupled with his vision shifting before him. Payday had injected him with a cocktail of drugs: Anti-coagulants, hallucinogens, amphetamines - no parasite though.

Even Yuki was speechless.

"What? At least I still don't like Necrophilia!" He tried to joke, but coughed. A splatter of blood was left on the table, "GET A DOCTOR YOU GODDAMN SCROTES!" He demanded while he was still lucid, blood dripping down his lips.

Enzo yawned and moved away from Smith, crackling his neck as he went.

"Looks likes it'll haves to be my own money I spends this time, after all." The grifter said with a shrug and a puff of smoke. Within seconds, he was gone, at so casual of a pace as to suggest he wasn't off in search of anything.

It was in the front of his mind, however, that he must find Naoko. She wouldn't let Payday's death go unanswered.

"WA-RU-UI!" could be heard from the direction of lounge. I can't even take time to put some pants on without them running in some trouble. Did Uriel kill it? She thought. What made her go unease was other sound that could be heard. It was Luca grunting and strange sound of something being shredded.

Zeta quickly put on a tank-top and ran back to Lounge just in time to see Luca covered by Misshu and more importantly his own blood. "Bloody hell!" She shouted out, running to him and catching him before he would fall to ground.

"Echelon call Jimmy in the infirmary!" She shouted and picked up Luca. Sudden rush of adrenaline in Zeta's veins made him seem sort of light. Zeta was angry, but there was not time to vent now. There was so much blood.

"Ernie! I give you order! Kick Smitty in the knee!" She said as she made her move for the infirmary. "You are going to be okay Luca!" She told him as she carried him away.

By this time Ernie has ungracefully removed the soaked cloth from over its head and put away its weapons. It stared for a few seconds at the fate of Payday before answering Zeta.

"Medical protocols engaged, priorities reordered." It reported as it walked over.

The robots chest compartment folded open and it pulled out a medkit and its expressionless sensor cluster examined the area.

"You have been poisoned, toxins unknown. You have also suffered minor lacerations to the right hand." It said redundantly as it opened the medkit and pulled out a syringe.

"Ernie requests you do not move." the robot asked as it used the syringe to take a sample of the toxins from Luca's wound before scrubbing medical alcohol into it to try and clean it. Obviously the robots programming was not prioritizing painkillers.

"Ernie inquires into how you feel?" It asked with it's sensor cluster facing up to Luca, in a blink the cluster swiveled around and turned to the rest of the room.

"Ernie requires help moving the patient to the cool room." it said loudly but still in its monotone voice before turning back to Luca.

Victory. Luca had put his foot down and that was - ?!

With the Elysian's words, Luca completely snapped. Smith made to keep the goods from the Captain, but his efforts were in vain as the man recklessly grabbed hold of it, prompting the little Mishhu to scream and sting him with a cocktail of drugs. Watching Payday get ground into oblivion by sharp whirring teeth, Smith could only grit his teeth as his silver bullet - his one shot solution - got flushed down the drains. Literally.

Smith merely shrugged off the weakened shove Luca gave him as a bloody mark was left behind on his otherwise immaculate suit. He could only look at the man with narrow eyes as the Captain fell, but as the others came rushing in to help him, Smith knew what he had to do. Reaching into his pocket, the Ori-Rep slash Mercenary pulled out an autoinjector and administered his own counter-cocktail to Luca. "Sir." Getting up, Smith turned to look at Uriel with one final, tired and defeated expression.

He was out the door.

Luca's view of reality was distorting quite a lot. The Ernie droid and indeed everything else around Luca was vastly different looking in terms of his perception. The world had taken upon vastly oversaturated and polarised colours and brighter hues. The red dripping down his arm had taken on an orange appearance. The areas where Payday had stabbed him were bright pink, and those around him were a sombre shade of teal.

Pain had started to fade away into illusion and with it, so did pleasure. The stabbing sensation in his right hand had faded away and he couldn't feel the area at all. He was able to open and close his hand, but he couldn't feel the sensation of balling his hand into a fist. He pinched the area with his left hand and wondered why he couldn't feel anything. He then turned over to Ernie and replied:

"Why is a blue gnome taking my blood?" Luca couldn't help but ask incredulously to the assembled shapes before him. He was so swept up in just how strange everything was looking around him that he had to ask questions, just to ground himself somewhere in his mad reality. "And why is an iron golem hugging me?" He was referring to Zeta dragging him away to the ...

-

"Medic Fleshbag Jimmy, you have incoming."
The medic was preoccupied with running tests and biological samples as a part of some indolent individual research, which Luca never minded him doing. Amongst other things, he discovered a wonderful hangover cure that didn't involve drinking oil, "Huh?" He looked up and looked at the security camera, "Who?"

"The captain has been injured, you'll see the rest in a moment."

The door was pushed open by Zeta and Jimmy almost jumped out of his skin, "Holy crap." He rushed over to Zeta's aid and placed Luca on the stretcher. He bent down to the Ernie and punched in some numbers to get a print out of what he'd gotten, as well as a sample of the toxin and Luca's blood, "Thanks Ernie. You've saved me some work."

He turned around and started looking at the variables and analysing them on his equipment, having to put on a pair of headphones so he could completely preoccupy himself with his readouts. Ernie's preliminary readings had deduced that there were some powerful stimulants, depressants and mild paralysing neurotoxins present in Payday's final cocktail.

"Looks like I won't need a painkiller until later," Jim grimly deduced as he watched Luca lying on the table, looking at the world around him through uneven eyes, and unable to feel his right arm. He turned back around and started synthesising an antidote, headphones on and listening to the on-the-fly analysis.

-

Luca's Brain said:

Holy shit man. We're completely tripping balls! We should've kept that damn thing if this is what it was going to be like!
Yes. We are 'tripping balls' - how wonderful, there's a reason drug addicts don't make good fighters, as you've seen yourself. Why didn't you just shoot it?
I really didn't like it. It was a Mishhu, and I didn't want it to be anyone's problem. Not me, not my crew, nobody else's.
So much so that you -picked it up-, by hand, and stuffed it into a sink. Really, that's cold.
I thought it was awesome. Quality television there: World Hero Shows the World how he thinks of the NMX! Thank your lucky stars you're a self-made man - nobody's going to argue with that ... except for the NMX, but who gives a crap about them?
There is such a thing as being considerate to your enemies. Yes, the Mishhu had to die, but ... not like that.
Remind me why you two are arguing in my brain again...
Because you need help.
And a Pony.
You're unravelling.
And its awesome.
This is going to be a long day...

Click to expand...

Zeta put Luca on the stretches and let Jimmy work. She only stood by, holding Luca's healthy arm. She was worried about him, what if those toxins were too much, what if they leave some damage? Drugs are always bad. Said Iron Golem was slowly coming from worry to anger.

When it seemed Luca will be fine and when Jimmy put on headphones and turned back, Zeta caught Luca's face and give him one kiss. She then frowned and looked at him. As proper nepleslian woman she did not cared one bit that he was hurt. Scolding won't wait.

"YOU RECKLESS IDIOT!" She shouted at him. "Why are you always doing needless things like that. You want to give me a heart-attack? Why didn't you just shoot that bloody thing. You bastard! We care about you still put yourself in the needless danger. Don't always just think about yourself." She was red and there were also tears sliding down her face. She kissed him again and then turned and walked out.

She marched right into the room where everyone else was. Except for Smitty, but she will find him later. "Okay I am angry with all of you! Why did you just let him do it. It is not like you do not know him, why didn't you stop him! Bloody idiots!" She vented even more and then stormed away looking for Smith, swearing like a drunk sailor.

Ernie watched Zeta's tirade without comment. Indeed, the robot had been abnormally silent after the recent incident. Its sensor cluster watched Zeta storm from the room in unjudging silence, it turned towards Jimmy who was busy with his machines before quietly striding out to the door and plonking itself outside as its suitcase form.

A faint whirring of electronics the only indication of live as the machine processed what had just happened. But for now, it kept its silence stoically. No one expected much from a machine.

"That was kind of mean, ne?"

The voice, of course, came from somewhere near at hand. The medic had his headphones in; the rest of the crew were outside the door, far away from the playfully melodic chirping of Luca's guardian angel.

"I think, even for a Mishhuvurthyar, that action was kind of cold, An-chan. But, you see why I kept it?"

The world to Luca Pavone was still a maelstrom of whirring colours, beings aetheric, netheric and otherworldly through mad eyes. One of the few things that did manage to stand itself out from the chaos was her. Cheeky little imp, voice of reason, and deadlier by herself than the whole damn crew combined. "Ugh..." He was trying to get his bearings and focus on reality, but it always seemed just out of his grasp, "I can't fight ... like this."

He felt the pressure against his side before he saw the slight, telltale ripples in the visual spectrum that the 'angel' brought with her holography; the arm that wasn't numb nestled itself up against a body that was both warm and firm, but too dangerous to be sexual.

"If it were my intention to kill you out of some sense of vengance I would not need to do it now. You have piqued my curiousity, you know?" Luca raised an eyebrow at the statement. "I watched the entire thing."

The entire thing. All over the walls, the floor, the ceiling, on his arm, in his arm. It was a difficult thing to avoid, and even more difficult to ignore. Luca simply tapped the back of his head against the operating table he was on, twice. Bok, bok. He could've sworn they sounded hollow.

"Thought... you'd intervene, or, something..."

Meanwhile, Jimmy, the Medic, was still getting the antidote syntehsised. Still not paying attention to what was going on behind him, focus consumed by biomedication.

"I could have. But I would have killed your crew, and somehow I think you wouldn't like that, Captain."

"If you'd killed me first, I probably wouldn't care anyway," He interjected with a gruff snort.

"It would have been a waste. I have never seen a Yamataian or Geshrinii go red-mad before. I figure, you're more my type than all of these crew of yours all together. I wonder what you're going to do with it. That knowledge, in the back of your mind. It's scary?" Luca felt the hand across his chest - then at the nape of his neck. "Ne?"

Knowledge of what? Luca wondered for a moment. Blinking as he stared at the ceiling lights, refraining from counting the scratches in the metal. "I wouldn't be where I was now without them," He sighed and cricked his neck as best as he could, "Is it like that proverb with the birds... they just jump out of the nest or something-"

"No. It is a different proverb entirely," Naoko explained, whispering it into Luca's ear, "I'll be the first to tell you."

"Go on." He murmured, head turning and brown eyes looking into hers - where he thought they must be. Where the faint shimmers, like heat waves, appeared on the edge of his vision - like some sort of transparent water-image.

"I was born as nothing and sent to nothing," Naoko explained, "But within that very same day I discovered that I was more than that; I killed reds. Then I killed greens. They were weak so I crushed them; It is hard to see Nepleslians and Elysians as otherwise when they cry and curl up, helpless. You know I ripped the wings off of one, once, and listened to the screaming. I've seen weak from the perception of a strong thing; because of this I can dispel this stupid weak lie that they have about justice and honor. The only things you can grasp are those that you defend with your own life. Do you fight for a cause?

Luca was short of an answer on his immediate forefront, however skewed it was.

"Iie, An-chan."

The whispered words became a light kiss, on the very edge of his ear.

"You fight for you, Aniki-kun. What sort of idiot can stand up to someone like that? I'm a weapon with no handler. I fight for me and me alone. I fight because I want to fight. After so long, it's just for the sake of fighting; I could go far far away, and live forever, but it's not enough for me, no. There are pleasures in life, but they come at cost. You're red-mad, just like me. Now you know the truth about the world, too. You're a wild card, Ace, you don't answer to anyone but yourself.

"You're in the dark now, Aniki; what do you want to do with it?"

Whether it was a suggestion or the truth was getting smudgy for Luca, but there were some diamonds amongst the dragnet. Gleaming, blinding his thoughts - so visible yet so hard to put into words, "Whatever I damn well please." He grinned, shielding his eyes from what he'd kept close to his heart all along - all since those humble beginnings in Ralt.

"That's worth losing some drugs over," Naoko admitted. Luca turned over to the other side, to see Jimmy still preoccupied, but judging by his waiting, it seemed like the antidote was in its late stages of synthesis.

"Looks like I'll be walking soon, you better..." He looked around, and couldn't see those telltale traces of distortion around him, and grinned. Clever girl. He could see Jimmy putting those drugs into an injection device, and he angled his head back at the ceiling, and resumed being lost in colourful oblivion... at least for now.

Jimmy turned around and took off his headphones, and in addition to the on-the-fly analysis of the toxins there was some classical music. Airano's 7th Symphony, Second Movement - one that never failed to make the listener wonder about their possibilites, "Alright, just stay still, and I'll get this over with. You'll be drowsy for a few hours, but the neurotoxic damage is reversible."

"Why is the pointy thing heading my way?" Luca asked incredulously, half feigning, and half because he was genuinely concerned about the broadsword coming dangerously close to his right arm - or so he would perceive.

Enzo was in the cargo-bay with his bottle of brandy, leftover from his rescue back in YE 31. He'd forsaken it for cheaper booze until this point. Now, with his fortunes seemingly frozen by the captain's morality-- Enzo decided to drink the good stuff. Another reason was his complete inability to find Naoko anywhere. He'd looked all over the ship, even calling her name at times. The brandy was the only fruit to his labor.

Enzo had been hoping there'd be a daring plan to murder the crew and hijack the ship, or at least steal the barrel of black goo from the cargo hold and unleash its contents on the crew as the two of them flew off into the sunset. Instead, he was greeted by empty corridors and confused looking crewmen. So, as he always did when sorrow threatened him, Enzo became aggressively happy.

With the booze fresh on his breath, the conman pried his guitar from underneath his bed and ventured into the cargo-hold once more. He played a fast paced tune to the boxes and ORVs that rested and sang at the top of his lungs:

"Yamatai would never have a rat in space,♫
So I went in search of a pirate race♪,
♫And now I sail the Southern Stars,
I'll have those Neko girls count their scars...♪"

"In high orbit over Valentine!"♫

Whilst Luca was receiving his injection, Sebastian picked up his son's communicator off of the lounge table and disabled the video to television and loudspeakers. He walked towards the med bay and glanced in, but walked right past and to his room. He held it to his ear before shutting the door behind him.

"Sebastian." Yuki answered, "Its been a long, long time."
The old veteran grunted in reply, "What is it you want this time? I've been doing as you asked. Why play my son against yours?"
"Your son, against your son," She was quick to correct, "And I have no intention of making them fight against each other. Quite the contrary."

The man chuckled in reply, "You were a slippery bitch when I met you, and I can still count on you being so now. You were ex-SAINT, then you turned out not to be, and masqueraded as a pirate queen for the Delsauria job. Almost had me fooled."
"I thought we'd never talk of the Delsauria job again."
"Apologies," He coughed in reply. When Sebastian was still a spry and spritely mercenary, the Delsauria job was one of those jobs with everything you never wanted to happen. "Besides. We've been trading the photos. Why can't your son handle himself?"

Yuki sighed. Having to admit something, even in half-truth via lying by omission was a difficult thing to do: "It seems like your son's past has caught up. Did you ever get the file the Yamataian Star Army sent you after the YSS Goban events?"

"I skimmed them." The old hunter sat down on his cot, "Apparently my son got a morale medal, kicked a mishhuvurthyar in the face, and the XO betrayed the entire crew."

"I have the feeling that the XO back for more. I've been watching things happen, and one by one, save for Ozaki Kyosuke, former members of the Goban crew have been dispatched systematically."

"Well," Sebastian heaved a sigh and slumped in his cot, "It seems like the cycle continues."
"Still going on about cycles? Tsk. Why don't you just switch to a new body?"

Sebastian remained despondent, until a message was sent to Luca's communicator, making it buzz unexpectedly.
"Must be Iza. Don't trust her. Direct your son to Delsauria."

-

"...I was green?" Jimmy asked Luca, who'd sat up and started explaining what he saw in his hallucinations after being bandaged.
"Y-Yeah." Luca replied whilst nodding fruminously, "And everything was so colourful and magical. We were all friends too!"
"That still doesn't explain what you previously said about all of us being turned into poni-"

Sebastian entered with Luca's phone in his hands and passed it to him, "Message for you. And a message from me," He gave Luca a firm slap across the face with his cybernetic arm. Luca barely flinched in reply, "The next time you dispose of something. Do it the right way, or don't do it at all." Sebastian went storming off.

"Lets not dwell on it. What I saw was, ah, dumb." Luca explained to Jimmy as he rubbed his red cheek and checked his phone, "And what I did was probably worse." That was a slight lie - it was enjoyable.

Iza said:

Luca. Saw you were busy with a call. Decided to send you two intercepted transmissions from a location we've been monitoring. What do you suppose they mean? We've tried unscrambling them, but we can't seem to find a way. All known methods seem to fall flat.
"red.nmv"
"orange.nmv"
If we can't I doubt anybody in SAINT can either.

Click to expand...

Luca didn't seem to like this news, and he listened to the odd signals. Both started with an odd gargle before proceeding to spew out a series of tones, clicks and noise that made absolutely no sense to him.

He sighed and flipped his communicator shut and lied back down on the operating table, starting to feel drowsy from Jimmy's medicine, "I'm no codebreaker. Why the hell is she sending it to me?"

"Don't know. Also, what did you say Smith injected you with before you got here?"
Luca shrugged, "I'm guessing some kind of counter-cocktail."
Jimmy rubbed his chin and frowned, "Huh. I'm asking because there was an incredible amount of dopamine in your system - I was able to identify it as artificially made dopamine for Nepleslian soldiers."

Luca blinked, "Why the hell would he inject me with that?"
"I think it might've been a mistake," He shrugged his shoulders.
Luca then remembered that impish, shimmering, invisible ghost that constantly haunted the hapless Origin employee, "Yeah, I wouldn't put it past him to do that." That cheeky little minx.

Zeta was stomping through the halls of the ship muttering some swears under her breath. By this time she finally cooled off a little, but she still could not find Smith. Maybe it would be better if she talked with him later. He was probably too pissed by now, just as she is. Zeta still needed to do some thinking though, so she went to garage. Cars, were always something Zeta was fond, something that she could just talk to if needed.

Alas garage was not empty. Aside from two GPORVs, there was also person. Enzo. If Enzo could be called person that is. Still Zeta did like that scoundrel for some reason. He was trustworty thanks to the fact that Zeta knew that, he cannot be trusted. It was plain as that. He also had his charm and was funny and that helped. Her and his view of world might be completely different, but maybe that was why they were on such a good terms most of the times.

"Blimey it is you." Zeta said a she walked in. "Got a room for one more?" She asked him, as she noticed the bottle he had. She walked to the workdesk and picked two glasses full of screws. She just emptied them on the table. One good blow and glasses were 'clean' and good enough to make makeshift drinking glassess. Assuming he will be okay with it, she just approached Enzo, sitting on the GPROV next to him, letting him play his guitar.

Enzo smiled at Zeta and played a short riff of acknowledgement into his song.

"Hey, princess." He said, propping himself against the ORV, "You looks pretty pissed off to be boinkin' Cap'n Pavone. All the others broads usually walks around wit' a smile."

The guitar stopped suddenly as the conman leaned over to pour some of his brandy into both glasses before pouring some of the spirit into his mouth.

"Say," He asked, wiping some of the brandy off on his sleeve, "You seen Naoko around?"

"Well I am not just any other broad, now am I?" Zeta said and chuckled. She held her cybernetic arm in front of herself and clenched her fist few times. Hmm maybe it was time to get real arm, but this was part of her for some ten years now. "Also if I am princess then what are you? Knight in shiny armour?" She joked.

"But," Zeta said, changing her tone from cheerful to one full of curiousity. "I did not seen Naoko since breakfast." She explained. Where that cheeky little psychopatic minx could just be?

"Yeah, nobody I axed has seen her eithers." Enzo said with a brief frown. "I was wantin' to gets wit her about Payday. Poor Payday. He was a simple squid."

Enzo spoke in a theatrical tone, strumming dark tones on the guitar, "He never wanted for nothin', an' was always glad to lend a hand with all the cookin' and gloatin'. Poor Payday!"

Enzo lifted his hand in a dramatic flair after the final chord, only to grab his glass of brandy and drink deep.

"I am sure Naoko will show up sooner or later. She could even be on the ceiling above us, naked, invisible and enjoying stalking us." Zeta said with a shrug. She filled a glass of her own with the brandy and drank some of it. It was really good, almost too good for just getting smashed, which was what she just wanted to do. She sighed and looked at Enzo.

"Enzo, what is your take on Luca? What do you think about him?" She asked and sipped more of her brandy.

"Cap'n Pavone?" Enzo said, his gaze on the nearest bulkhead. "He's alright, I guess."

Vincienzo never had much to say for leadership figures, having always been a thorn in their collective sides. Still, Luca had been one of the better ones; allowing him to breeze on through his more criminal sidework with little interference. Until now.

"I dunno, really." Enzo added, "It seems like the good Cap'n is a lil' unsteadys these days's. Ole' Enzo didn' get aways wit' somethin' fer the first time today. Maybe I oughta just gets outta here and outta his hair while he shores up his shit."

So Enzo noticed something was fishy too. Luca was getting even more reckless then before. He was more serious, but not thinking through what to do. It seemed to Zeta that Luca did not have sort of drive he had in past. That now he just went forward just for the sake of going forward. Maybe helping his long-lot brother will help him.

"You know Enzo," Zeta said and drank more Brandy. "If I know Luca, he would set out and drag your sorry ass back. Plus by now you would miss us all. WHo would you be making fun off?" She asked and laughed.

"Hah! As if I'd miss any of yous bozos!" Enzo chided, setting his guitar aside to stretch. "Every single one of yous sorry do-gooders ain't gots no sense! Ya always wants to helps people for free, don't does drugs, Smithy's goin' more an' more crazy each seconds o' the day, I tink Echelon watches me sleeps, Naoko up and dids a disappearin' act, and the only real lady wort' talking to on this scrap heap 'as gone cold on me a long toime ago!"

Enzo took a moment to catch his breath and take another sip. "Maybe, eh... Maybe it's time I ate some space dust."