Chapter Three: Wasting Time

It was here. Or it had been here, not long ago. Its presence - a memory, perhaps - hung in the air. And he missed it.

* * *

And so he had a Coke in the dingy little bar. No alcohol - he'd been off the stuff for a while and didn't want to go back. The rotten orange stench quickly grew unbearable as he sat: it was bearable in itself, but it reminded him of things far more rotten than mere bad fruit. Indeed, he'd only been in this town for a few hours and he could already feel their foul influence on that damn factory. The sullen, broken people, the gangs that ran the streets, that monstrous death-veil of decay that covered everything - surer signs of them few have found. Just another reminder of why he was out here in the first place.

A cloak, a deviance, folk too sullen to care, and he was left alone. None saw the sword and buckler, none asked about the shaved head, no inquiry came about the sign tattooed on the back of his neck. He held little regret for his younger, rasher days, when he'd flaunt his beliefs to the world; only necessity and orders from above could make him hide anything. What he knew - what the common man needed to know - was a disturbing truth to many, and if his appearance disturbed as well, so be it.

Right now his presence only mildly disturbed one particular patron, however.

- Hey, buddy... yer in my seat.

Jon Krigsley glared up from his Coke. Glared, and saw only horror look back at him. Huge, glassy eyes empty of soul or thought, on a putrid, thick head slick and briny. No neck beneath the strange head-carapace, and Jon could hear breathing from that gaping, gruesome gap the thing had for a mouth. For a moment he almost panicked - he'd seen a few strange-looking humanoids around here, but for those few seconds he simply could not piece together what he was seeing.

- I said, yer in my seat. You fuckin stupid or somethin, son?

That slightest lisp along those Ses...

Jon stood up, towering over his unidentifiable adversary. He didn't even cast a monster scry. At that moment he knew what this fell beast was.

They had at last taken off their old human guises.

- Stand aside, foul Hell-spawn! I'll not be ordered like some wretched tame dogs you wish to make of my people! Perhaps not the smartest response while traveling through unknown territory, but Jon had little regard for tact.

- What the fuck kind of games you trying to play here, fuckwit? Get the fuck outta here before I fill you with lead--

- As you lie drowned in your own blood, monster! Enough with your pollution and your lies--

- Go fuck yourself you stupid sack of--

- Alright, enough, if you two can't solve this peacefully get the hell out of my bar.

- Very well, sir, lest we endanger the other patrons and your property.

He turned to find two more of the monsters stood at the door. They drew their pistols and...

It was but a few months after he joined the Seraphic Order of the Arthurian Knights of Ineffable Dogma. Master Hendricks was giving his new pupil an introductory lesson to a certain property of space and time in a fluid and malleable reality. The unstoppable Rage of the ancients, it is said, was merely very good timing, manipulating a certain nuance just right to...

The bullets passed through Jon's body, leaving little ripples within him as they tunneled through. He felt their heat, but offered no resistance. The necks of the two monsters, however, offered a little resistance - just enough for the passing blade to have cut something instead of simply moving through. He turned. A straight vertical chop clove the eyes, the death-cold head, the gasping mouth, the many years of ill-begotten, ill-spent life, from one another and themselves. Brains began leaking onto the floor.

And so ended Mickey the Cod and two more of his nameless, forever doomed henchmen.

* * *

Through much blood, sweat, fire, magick, time and solvent was the place eventually cleaned, largely at Jon's expense. He would have gladly stayed to help, but both time constraints and the law had him out of the city rather abruptly. It was here not long ago, but that would change.

Bidding farewell to Dave and the patrons who still ignored him, Jon ducked into an alley where no one could see him and left town. It was near, but without a quick jump it wouldn't get nearer.

The Order sought the fourteenth most powerful object in the universe, having already secured the forty-second the year before. He appreciated their sense of numerical symbolism, though he would have preferred a campaign to retrieve the thirteenth himself. But they had to make do with what they could get, if they were to ever triumph over their enemy back home.

And so Vinny and Oscar are walking down the road when suddenly a cloaked skinhead with a sword and buckler suddenly appears before them...

- Hand it over, in the name of the Order!

- I, uh, haven't a clue what you mean. Really.

- A brigand? Have you no better calling in life, friend?

- You both know exactly what I mean!

- In that case I think it's pretty obvious to all of us just how convincing you are trying to get it by force.

- Good sir, I have ways of cutting it out of you...

- Y'know, Vinny, this may be a good chance--

- Well, uh, I didn't actually mean it in a benevolent way, but now that you mention it maybe we could surgically remove it back at the Order...

- But what in the hell's gonna stop you from killing me anyway once you get it? Sorry, buddy, I'd rather keep this rock where it is.

- Then you'll pay the--holy fuck!

- ... ?

- ... ?

In the middle of the exchange Jon had surreptiously cast Know Alignment around the area. He found something much more killworthy than Vinny with his special little rock. ...

It took a few tries to ward off the illusion as the mage on the other side fought back with no little skill. Just beyond the culprit stood Joel, sneering maliciously but clearly far from having recovered enough to fight. He and Oscar began circling each other by reflex, though one of them had no chance to inflict damage.

Against the background of theologically poignant insults and curses the other mage beheld his assailant quizzically. He himself was dressed no more conservatively than Jon, with camo pants, matching combat boots, black leather jacket with - of all things - spiked shoulder pads, and two bangs dyed blindingly blue as the sky currently was not.

- Hi. Name's David Samsa. Nice to m--

- Chaotic Evil! The Lord guide my blade against thee!

- Oh, another one of them, I see. I take back the "nice" part.

A flurry of knives flew from somewhere near the mage's hand. Jon dodged them expertly, calling forth an ethereal spear that nearly impaled the knife-thrower's arm. Dave dodged another of Jon's attacks, this time from his buckler. For Dave could slip through other dimensions just as easily as his adversary, but did so far more crudely and with less regard for discovery - to an obeserver, Dave seemed to randomly teleport around the area of the road where the fight took place. Again Jon hurled the magic spear, the bolts, the darts. Again Dave bent himself into the other side of the road, assailing him with great walls, lances, blobs of enchanted flame. Any lesser fighter would have been burnt into bacon bits.

Vinny stood and watched. Neither fight was his, and the one he had somewhat more interest in - Oscar's and Joel's - the man he rooted for was almost sure to win. The rock would have none of that, however.

Dave managed to get out Power Word: Ki before the blue blast threw his black magics away into oblivion. Being a resourceful man, however, instead of finishing off Jon who had just taken a shock lance to the groin he cast what he had on himself, the miswording doing as it would. The ki blast was astounding; the ki blast rocked the area; the ki blast saved Dave's body from being annihilated by the powers of the great dissolving rock; it sent him flying quite some distance north - probably back to MeanPop's, as it were.

* * *

Eventually Joel fled again and the remainder sorted things out. Jon, bound by honor not to hurt Vinny, having recently had his life saved by him, being not entirely free to return empty-handed, was to follow Vinny around until he could somehow extract the rock and take it to the Order, without any hurt to the aforesaid. All in all a fair deal.

They headed again to Vegas.

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