RP: ISC Phoenix [Prologue] - Just For Today

"Baby doll?" Seiren said with a squint, biting his lip slightly. "I-"

Of course, some stranger insulted the big guy before he could fully respond, so he just let that play out before he finally decided to answer Bronzi's (re)question.

"Yeah, I can make crazy things. But it's gonna cost ya!" He daringly stated, retracting the Little Killer and waggling an authoritative finger in the Gartagen's direction. A difficult task, considering that Bronzi's bulk and height was worth about three of Seiren. If not more.

Makari gave a curt nod to the bartender and turned his attention back to Bronzi. He made sure to keep a straight face and asked, "So where's the barbeque? It smells like you're cooking some sub-par meats."

After the person fell through the ceiling, he couldn't help but leave a snarky comment and a genuine laugh, "Looks like he had a fun night! Hahahaha! Get up kid, you'll be OK."

Zeta remained quiet. Seiren's attention was stolen and man falling through ceiling was taken care off by other. She did keep an eye on the young girl, and the hole in the ceiling. Her hand was seemingly comfortably rested on handle of her revolver, it was so she could draw it fast though. It was a little bit fishy. Zeta expected a gang of bounty hunters or old villains burst through the window. Maybe Malice got out of freezer? Something was bound to happen. Happy reuning, the crew getting together, old faces and new faces appearing. Something was bound to happen unless the story changed.

>ON!

"Well." Luca replied to his daughter as he stood over the downed man, who'd now become the centre of attention in the room despite his flat qualities, literally. "Now that you mention it," he looked up at Scott Smith. "He does look familiar." Whoever this Smith was, his name wasn't Matthew. Matthew didn't smile nearly as often, nor was he as open about his abilities - he just kind of was, and was even more when the chips were down. This kid looked like he had something to prove.

"Um." Vita pressed a finger to the man's cheek. "He looks flat." Luca nodded in agreement. The flat man was indeed flat. Perhaps he was doing a manhole cover impersonation that stressed out Yamataian salarymen were so fond of. Of course, they had a slightly bigger jump, and it tended to be a one way trip. He still seemed to be breathing - or trying to, which was not part of the impersonation.

"Flat man. Hey. Hey. Hey guy. Guy." Vitalia patted the man's cheek again for effect. Then, when she didn't get a response, she sighed. Not to be deterred, however, she grabbed a nearby drink from a table and dumped it on the flat man. "Heeeeeey-lo, welcome to living and breathing."

Vitalia leaned forward over him and grinned real big.

"I think we are going to be friends, flat guy. What sort of sports do you play?" He had the conversational skills and personality of a brick - due in no part to being unconscious, and still having trouble breathing.

Smith merely stifled a snerk at the younger girl's antics, keeping whatever thoughts he had on mind to himself. "Broken ribs, a broken nose, lots of bruising - he's not getting up," the young man confidently replied. "Hey, if you wanna see something fun, help me see if there's any hot sauce and stuff like that around." He then waved over to the bartender. "You got any spicy sauces around? And a funnel? We need to make some wakeup juice for this guy, since I don't have any medical stuff on me," Smith smiled devilishly.

"I saw someone stab a straw into a guy's lung once," Vitalia added helpfully, sitting back on the heels of her combat boots and shoving her hands in her hoodie's pockets. "You know, because their lungs collapsed or something and they breathed through the drinking straw. It was kind of cool."

"TV these days." Luca rolled his eyes and chuckled before looking around and looking over to Lina, who shook her head. He then snapped his fingers as his gaze went over to Seiren. He stood up and walked over to him and bumped into him, and then held up a couple of those incredibly hot candies on the way back - the Phoenix ones. "Will this suffice?"

"Hey! You could ask, you know!" Seiren said, waggling a barely aggravated finger at the idol. "And careful with those things! They're dangerous in the wrong hands!"

Scott rubbed his nose at Vita's remark. "Straw? Man, shows never quite get it right." Soon enough though, just what he needed arrived. "As long as they're spicy," Smith remarked, taking up the candies. He doubted they had the punch, but it was worth a shot. "Thank you." He then reached into his pocket and pulled out a spare magazine of .45 and one of the larger beer mugs - like a mortar and pestle, he ground them all up into something as fine as he could make it.

"I'm not touching his mouth," Vita informed Luca, matter-of-fact.

"He can, then. He's a doctor." Luca replied after he gave the red-hot candies to the doctor. They felt warm to the touch by virtue of being one of the hottest candies ever made. "Whenever I touch someone's mouth, their teeth go missing. No idea why."

Vita leaned forward over her knees, appearing to become a small teenage ball-embryo, leaning over the flat man. "I think you use the wrong end." Luca blinked and looked at his hands. Wrong end of where? was the question going through his head. His hands just kind of were - they were most often fist-shaped hands.

"What are you doing?" Luca asked as he peeled the flat man's face off of the floor - he definitely did have a broken nose, it was at least two inches wide across his face.

The smoothly dressed young man almost didn't notice with how focused he was at the job. It was only when Luca directly asked him that he looked up and smiled again. "Like I said, wake up juice." Reaching over into the bar, he quickly filled it up with water and traded the magazine in his hand for a pocket knife, stirring up the concoction with that. Go ahead and flip him over - I gotta...administer this medication," he spoke with plenty of sarcasm.

Luca wondered if he got his medical degree from behind a cereal box. He turned the man over and held his mouth open. Luca nodded to give the Doctor the go ahead. He was also giving the younger Smith a skeptical glance up and down. Luca could practically smell the mother's milk on this kid. "The last guy thought drinking oil was a good way to sober up."

"Well, he must have been a dumbass - this won't wake the guy up. Just give all of us a really good show as he freaks out in his dreams," this younger looking 'Smith' explained to Luca. "Involuntary reactions and all that, you know? Those are always good for a class demo."

"What's your name anyway? I know it ain't Matthew."

"Heh," he smirked. "Now I know you've seen him, that's for sure. I'm Scott. Scott Smith." And at that, the 'wake up juice' went straight down the hatch.

Vita shuffled back out of the way by moving her boots back and forth. The term might be 'scoot' - scoot was a good way to describe the way she seemed to simply transpose position. Luca tried to do the same, but his largeness and lack of finesse compared to the girl meant that it was more like a 'shuffle'. His hands were still on flat man's mouth.

The spiced concoction poured down the man's throat, and Luca clacked the jaws open and shut a couple of times to facilitate it going down, giving the doctor an uneasy stare as a tense moment passed.

Then the man's eyes opened. Luca withdrew his hands from his mouth and the man proceeded to stand up and begin running in circles around the crowded bar, even leaping up upon Lina's bartop screaming something unfathomable about spice. The surprise of it all caused Luca to fall over backwards.

Lina hid under her bar, and proceeded to bring up a broom, and waited for the man to make another lap - and then she interposed the broomstick where the man's next steps would be. As he sailed through the air, he had the grace of a drunken swan falling down stairs. Echelon's holographic display produced a '6/10' for effort as the man came to a stop on top of Luca.

Luca was content to lie down as the man eventually calmed down, and started demanding milk: "Doc, I think it worked." He looked over to Seiren. "What do you put in these candies, rocket fuel?"

"Drugs," Vita observed, sagely. "Motherfucking drugs."

"Language!" Luca held up a waggling pointer finger at his daughter.

"Sorry."

"Eheh. . ." Seiren embarassedly snickered, a lone bead of sweat rolling off the side of his face. "A little bit of cinamon, a bit of xanthium gum, a bit of jelly igniter. . . you know, stuff." Luca's eyebrow cocked like the hammer on a revolver as he quietly mouthed an expletive. Vitalia elbowed him in the ribs, giving him a dirty and accusing look.

The inventor nudged the Gartagen with one of his fingers, pointing to the recipient of the "wake up juice." He growled, "THAT is how you react to those candies!"

Scott slapped his thigh as he laughed at the scene, eventually calming down himself. "Wow, I didn't expect it to actually work - I only knew it would give us a show!" he explained. "Man, Matt must have had a blast when he was with you guys!" the young man crowed, holding his hands out in delighted exclamation. He then rubbed a tear from his eye. "I always, always wanted to do that," Scott pretended to sniffle.

Eventually, flat man was able to stop coughing, started breathing and looked at Luca. His eyes were red and bleary and his broken nose was still wide across his face and his next couple of words, despite being somewhat muffled were clear: "Mr. Pavone, you're that guy who does all the cool things! I need your help! Will you hear me out?"

You don't say... Luca thought quietly to himself while contemplating what Scott had said. He had to correct the kid one day, but now wasn't the time. "Uh, fire away, good sir."

"Well 'ee made 'imself a pancake, got woken up by friggin' explosives - so 'ee must 'ave something important t' say." Melissa observed sagely.

"Y34H. L3T'S H34R 0UT FL4T M4N'S ST0RY." Echelon chimed in with her 11 kHz voicebox trying its hardest to announce itself without sounding too fuzzy.

Of course, the others assembled needed an opportunity to interject, make witticisms or laugh, so;

>OFF!

After Panther downed a couple of drinks he chuckled at the man on the ground thinking that Luca's daughter's antics was hilarious. He was obviously a little tipsy from his drinking, but still tried to keep his focus on Luca and Seiren. Seiren fed the man a very spicy candy that could also be used as a poison in Panther's eyes.

Luca however he wanted to keep an eye on. This was a man who was able to cheat death, and Panther wanted to know the secret.

Ellen did her best to nurse, and then protect, her soda, with all the commotion going on inside this bar. "If this is how Nepleslians are, then I'm going back to Tami as soon as we're done..." she muttered, rolling her eyes. And your boyfriend over there is an idiot. She thought, not to herself, but to the other mind stuck in her head.

You just have no taste. Aerin responded to the young girl she was currently forced to share with. Out of everyone i've been with- Ellen's face blanched at the notion- He's definitely the best.

"I still think he's an idiot." the younger party answered quietly, sipping her soda.

Was that it? Zeta could not really believe. Her hand was still on the handle of her SiZi. Will it be just man falling through roof? No, cannot be! This man came for Luca to get his help. Zeta bet he was chased by the guys, who are attacking his home-town or something. To stop him. They will attack any second. Any seconds now. Aaaaany seconds. Zeta stood there, leaning against the bar, holding a beer in one hand and looking quite distressed.

"Is this the sort of thing these aliens like to do?," Bootsector commented to her companion with a detached air as she did not even deign to look at the commotion occurring around the body that crashed into the floor beside the Deoradhs' booth. The hole in the ceiling, however, did garner some interest from the Datajack as her mechanical eyes spun, examining what sort of damage could have caused such a collapse. "Run around spewing processor errors?"

Somerset nodded his head slowly then pushed his face down onto the table. His eyes were a little more glazed than they usually were, too. "Just hibernate, Boots," he told her from between folded arms, his metallic voice sounding very assured. "Nobody watches a lit-rec for the downtime."

Boots scratched the table with one long, metallic finger, scraping into the surface with little effort. "Let us return to the ship — at least there are more pleasant sounds and conversations to be had." Perhaps it was the large gathering of so many species that had tipped her xenophobia, but the Wayfarer's companion was not enjoying the throng of people in even the least bit. They all looked alike, one face bleeding into the next — the data sounding and looking too similar to each other to her aural and visual sensors.

"Nope-dot-avi," Somerset said in a monotone robotic voice not all his own. "Something truly awesome will happen eventually. And we've gotta be here to see it so we're not going back to the ship. Too broken for you to fix anyway."

Adding a curly shape to the end of the groove she had scraped into the surface of the booth table, Boots nodded solemnly, now focused on her art. "I didn't like the way it yelled anyway. So annoying."

>ON!

Anyone willing to share their story after all they've been through must've had something important to say. Who was Luca to refuse such a simple request? He stood up and lifted the injured man off of the ground and onto his feet. Vita slipped back in on the other side - the guy couldn't stand on his own after falling through a metal ceiling onto a mostly metal floor. The three of them presented an odd contrast - like a row of hollow Tiyevoushka dolls, lined up by height.

"Thank you - I remember seeing your message when I got back home a couple of days ago." He started, trying his best to remain understandable with a broken nose. He grabbed a bundle of napkins from a table and held them to his nose to stem some of the bleeding. "I didn't think much of it at the time but when I got home, something was wrong. I just knew it."

"So you came home from work and something just didn't look right?" Luca questioned. "I dunno, sounds fishy to me."

"Naw man." The man replied. "I mean, I was away for a few months on a mining colony in the Expanse, and I had shore leave - figured I'd pay mom a visit." He continued post speed. Luca raised an eyebrow but flourished his hand as a cue for him to continue. "But she, and everyone around town, they... they've lost their minds."

Luca tapped his foot and sighed, misinterpreting what he meant. "So everyone's killing each other in a gang war? Listen, wait a few days more, it'll sort itself out."

"Not everything's a gang war!" Ellen blurted. Then, eyes wide in shock, she cupped her hands over her mouth and ducked her head. Her mouth had apparently grown a mind of its own. Looking over the head of the ceiling man, Luca noticed his daughter watching the girl, speculatively.

"No - mindless mindless. They're just completely outta it." His eyes boggled as they stared into Luca's, his mouth and nose masked by his hand and the sheaf of napkins he was using for his bloody nose. "They just stare at th' walls all day man. I was so freaked out, the town was like a ghost town! And that's not the worst of it!"

Luca then snapped his fingers and his face lit up. "Now we're getting interesting. Keep going."

"Even the gang I used to roll with as a kid - brainwashed, out of it, and these new guys have muscled in. Yamataians mos'ly." He nodded along at Luca as he watched the captain's interest increase in the story. "They looked perfectly fine. They even took them a TV in broad daylight!"

"So everyone is out of it but these guys?" Luca clarified. "Intriguing..." He let his voice trail, folding his arms and looking at the others for how they felt about the story.

Vitalia sneezed. From across the bar, Enzo could be heard muttering, "G's'n'heigth 'r whatevah." even though he didn't know who'd sneezed.

Across the way, Ellen slowly settled her hands back down onto the bartop, deliberately took the straw of her drink, and began sipping it. Staring at the back wall of the bar, she muttered, "Sounds like a trap."

Lina, still sitting propped on the bar, blinked at the story. It sounded like something out of a suspense novel she used to read. "Sounds improbable, but when does this guy trade in the probable?" She tilted forward idly with Ellen as her only listener, and inspected the amount of blood on the floor. She would have to clean it, later. She crossed her arms to keep her breasts from being shown to the world. "Could it be parasites or something like that, though?"

Ellen looked over at Lina, bewildered. Then she shrugged, innocently. "I have no idea what it might be, or why I keep blurting things out. Perhaps I need to go back to the shuttle and start removing bits and pieces of-"

Ellen hit her own hand - and not kindly. She screwed up in pain and, strangely, surprise, but clamped her mouth shut before she could even whimper.

Lina cocked an eyebrow. It wasn't the weirdest thing she'd ever seen, though.

Enzo saw fit to approach the table. His sixth sense was telling him that interesting things were being discussed. He didn't comment quite yet, choosing instead to just hear out the new arrival.

"Yeah man. The cops were outta it too, an' you're my next best bet, but-" He removed another sheaf of bloody napkins from his face and left them on the floor for a new sheaf. The bleeding was starting to slow down as blood clotted. When he didn't find any, Vitalia leaned back and snagged the napkin dispenser from the table, holding it up for the man. He accepted, and promptly shoved them back into his face, muffling his speech again. "Thanks kid," he relayed before his attention turned back to Luca, "I ain't got much to offer ya. I'm just a miner. You need money to do this, don't ya?" The miner felt Luca's hand rest on his shoulder.

"I think I can do this pro-bono." He winked at the miner before turning to the others, whilst using his other hand to keep the battered, flattened miner supported. "Ladies, gentlemen, I think we have our first job."

John shrugged after chewing on the flattened miner's story and mulling it over: "I dunno, I still think something's hokey about it. It just sounds too improbable."

"Oi, we lived in a space ship." Melissa retorted to John's scepticism.

"I still do." Enzo provided, sliding into the booth with his drink. "Besides, there's always some kinds o' shit goin' on out here. We just gots to figures it out, see?"

"That's th' gist of it." Melissa replied to the vagabond, nodding. "Y'ever wonder if we're gettin' too old fer this shit?"

"Nah." Enzo shook his head, "Folks like us dies before that happens."

Flexing her legs straight for a second before looking up at the Miner again, Vitalia whined, "When are you going to stand up on your own? You're a little heavy, guy." The miner obliged by putting his feet down. Luca obliged by letting go, and the miner stood still for a few moments. He then took a step forward with a lumbering gait and using his spare arm to maintain his balance as he moved towards the bar.

"Drink please, ma'am." He requested softly. Initially, Lina seemed dumbstruck, but produced a bottle from beneath the counter. She was paid with some coins that had the occasional red stain. After having to recount the events that lead him here save for the most immediate ones, he deserved it.

Ellen turned to Lina again "Can I get another cola?" she asked. The bartender obliged Ellen quietly.

>OFF!

Bronzi snorted at the mention of price and puffed up his bulk. As he adjusted his seat. "yea...sub-par meats.." He drew silent was he contemplated what Makari was insinuating.

"Well.." His tail curled around the stool Makari was sitting on and then suddenly jerked the stool out from under her.

With Makari on the ground. "Jeeze baby-doll.." Bronzi said patting Seiren on the shoulder. "That gravity Luca leaves laying around is something else eh...a mite unpredictable!"

Zeta sitting aside from everyone had a good view on everything. It was deliberate, if anyone would attack she could react. No one attacked though, which made her freak out a little. There should have been an attack by some crazy psycho or alien mutant ants or something by now. But no, nothing. Zeta sighed and drank more beers, wondering what is happening to that town. Drugs would be good guess. Or some Yamataian psychic doohickey.

But then she noticed Bronzi and how his tail jerked a stool from under Makari. "Bugger," she said finishing her beer and walking to Bronzi, while Makari was getting his bearings. Zeta thought how to do this. Pull the things tentacle hair back and intimidate him? She doubted he could be intimidated so easily and those ugly legs of his were probably great for back-kicking. Drawing a gun would be an overkill so words will have to suffice.

"What are you doing you smelly wanker," she said, grabbing Makari and helping him get back on his feet. "You are part of Phoenix crew you lazy bugger, I won't tolerate stupid pranks and mean stuff towards other crewmembers. We are all mates on this ship and if you are going to do stuff like this I am going to kick your tail so hard it will fall off!"

Seiren squinted at the broad gartagen.

"Stop calling me that," He pouted, inching his stool away from the alien. He watched Zeta's outburst with a certain amount of respect, thinking she's much more the type to handle Bronzi. He added, "You should listen to her. That robot arm of hers is deadly!"

While watching the shenanigans and aftermath of "the bloke who fell from the ceiling", Makari did not expect to lose his comfy seat at the bar, but all was well as he was a bit tipsy. He hit the ground with an audible "OOF!" and then had a good chuckle. "That was a good one!" he managed to get out between laughs, "I did not see that coming. A round for everyone on me! Especially that fellow who fell through the floor and ran around like a crazy person. He needs to chill."

Panther felt it was time to get to work and pushed himself away from the beer, and grabbed a wad of paper. He moved through the crowd of people and aliens before reaching the human with the bloody nose. The blood smelled like normal human blood, but considering the story he just heard he wanted to make sure.

"Human miner, take these napkins to replace that one," Panther offered as he held out half the napkins. He then took the fresh bloody napkin by letting it fall on the other half of napkins in the assassin's possession, and then wrapped it in more napkins and put it in a safe pocket in his jacket for safe keeping. He's no doctor, but Panther can find out if it is indeed poison or not.

Bronzi turned about rose calmly to his feet. Makari took Bronzi's move the way it was intended to be take, as a jest. Seiren amused him...but that woman had been looking in his direction with challenge in her face since she had arrived. Bronzi ignored it due in part because he knew perhaps she had never seen one of his kind.

"What are you doing you smelly wanker," she said, grabbing Makari and helping him get back on his feet. "You are part of Phoenix crew you lazy bugger, I won't tolerate stupid pranks and mean stuff towards other crew members. We are all mates on this ship and if you are going to do stuff like this I am going to kick your tail so hard it will fall off!"

Bronzi came nose to nose with Zeta and looked into her eyes with his own blues. He had put him self in-between Makari and Seiren, in an effort to ensure that if this escalated into something, they would not be the ones suffering for anything that might happen. The black bandana he had covered the top of his head and was obviously in place to keep his hair covered and tucked away. His face was hard...clearly the glare of somebody who had been in the shit.

"Well, come on then." Bronzi said flatly. "I promise ya it will take more then what ever ya got in yer fancy dick-skinner to take me down."

Bronzi's tone was surprisingly not condescending; he spoke these words as if they were fact. His deep rumbling voice seemed to shake the bar as he made is tone loud enough for all to hear. "Now me and my friends did not call out fer any help....so I suggest you go be a good girl and do the dishes." He added with a snarl.

Bronzi's guard was up, so if the girl made a move, he was set to make a stern and quick defense. Bronzi had fought these pink skins and synthetics on Ether, they were quick to make moves with their hands feet and heads. But something caught him. That smell. Zeta was saturated in it, and his Gartagen nose was filling up with it. No amount of bathing could mask the obvious.

"Speakin of smells.." Bronzi rumbled as he moved his head around Zeta...like he was inspecting her.

"Luca..."

"Luca."

"I am gonna request that you control yer woman." Bronzi was speaking not so much in a threatening tone, but Luca would get that instant impression that Bronzi was fully intent on protecting him self if he had to, regardless of Zeta's relationship with the leader of this band of misfits.

Scott listened intently, and then thought hard.

Even as the stool was pulled out of someone, the younger Smith rubbed his chin in concentration. It seemed the Phoenix crew had picked up its first job already, and so, he started thinking away. The people mentioned seemed 'mindless', fine. A lot of things out there could cause that, but, the thing to note was the Yamataian looters that were mentioned - it seemed to scream of 'bioweapon' or maybe 'chemical warfare' considering they had appeared suddenly, and were also seemingly immune to whatever was causing the mess.

As the Smith thought, he realized that something was amiss; the happy-go-lucky-anything-goes atmosphere, assuming that was accurate enough to even describe it, was gone. Instead, it was replaced with a tension he hadn't felt since...well, since Matt came home from his first assignment with Ai. Thankfully, it was pretty easy to put two and two together.

Well, somewhat. Culture with new people on the block was always tricky.

"Uh, hey - uh, guy with the dreadlocks?" he started a little meekly, a hint of curiosity in his voice. "I just gotta make sure - you know she's angry at you for pulling that stool out from under him right? And that it's considered a dick move?"

Scott sat at the bar, waiting and hoping he perhaps nailed the problem on the head right before it got far past talking.

"Well the guy I did it to knew I was foolin around. Last time I went an checked, buttin into other people's bidness was a dick move too." Bronzi snorted not even looking at Scott.

"Whoa, hey, whoa, hey, whoa hey. Let's call just calm down and have a drink. I did say the next round was on me, alright?" Makari shook his head disapprovingly at the multiple quarrels which had popped up around him. While he was not pleased at the whole seat-being-removed-from-under-him situation, he was simply mad at himself for not paying enough attention due to the tasty drinks he'd been downing. Hopefully, he thought, my peace offering of free drinks will calm the coming storm. Perhaps I'll just have to end up acting drunk and act the fool to get them to forget their confrontation. Let's hope I don't have to go that far.

Zeta was very very angry woman right. She was clenching her metallic fist, ready to punch Bronzi or headbutt, or knee him into his royal jewels. Anything she wanted to hurt him and teach him a lesson. Then she realised that she would probably fall to his level. It was idea she was not fond of.

"We are about to set out soon," Zeta said, more calmly. "It is not time to fight." Her finger then pointed in Bronzi's face. "But I know a bully when I see one. Hurting someone for your amusement is not something I can tolerate." Her finger then moved to Makari. "And if you let him do it, he will just do it again and again."

And with that she walked off again. She walked to Scott. "Hello," she said. The blonde woman sighed and then smiled at the young man. "Thank you for your help. So you are Matt's brother? I am Zeta Five, where is your brother now? I am sad that he did not show up here."

Bronzi just let out a snort and turned back realizing that Zeta had backed down. "You pink skins talk to much." He grumbled as he went back to downing his drinks.

He wanted this mission to get started but everybody seemed content to just sit about jabbering on and on about nonsense.