Young Writers Society

In a cramped little booth, jammed in the back corner of Bizzy Beau's Filthy Cantina, Avery found that Deadpan was an incredibly uncomfortable form of company. Especially when he had insisted that Avery remove his helmet. Avery eventually did, but only after Jason had mumbled something from behind his menu about it “not being that bad”. It was even more uncomfortable when the food came and Deadpan hadn't ordered anything, probably due to his lack of mouth, and Avery wasn't sure if him ordering food was rude or not. Jason didn't seem to care.

Avery might have felt more at ease with Jason beside him, if it weren't for the fact that Jason's only focus was on the massive purple steak set before him. Or, more specifically, on the one corner of the massive purple steak that he'd been chewing on endlessly since it had arrived at their table.

Deadpan had his elbows on the table, fingers locked together just beneath where his nose might have been, if he had one. He seemed to be watching Jason, quietly, contemplating the spiky-haired man's life and choices and a combination of the two. Avery looked away from their faceless guest and poked at the odd-looking vegetables on his plate. He wasn't entirely convinced that they were vegetables.

“So, boys,” Deadpan started.

“Um, I'm a man,” Jason interrupted shortly, his voice muffled through his steak. Deadpan paused and tilted his head at Jason.

“Okay, well, you guys--”

“Man,” Jason repeated, stretching the word, his mouth still full of purple flesh. Clenching his jaw harder than before, and harder than Avery thought possible, Jason abruptly ripped off the corner chunk of his steak and flew back in his seat. His head hit the wall behind him with a loud smack, but ignored it and simply began chewing the steak triumphantly. “I can't speak for Avery, though,” he added, spitting food across the table in the process.

“Okay,” Deadpan deadpanned. Jason squinted, still chewing. Avery had abandoned his fork at the side of his plate a few moments prior and was glancing between the two expectantly.

“So, what was it, exactly, that you said you were looking for, Jason?” Deadpan continued. Jason pointed up a finger — the completely wrong finger — asking for a moment while he tried to swallow the chunk of steak in his mouth. A pained looked and one loud gulp later, he replied.

“I want you to find a someone for me and make sure they aren't a someone anymore,” he stated simply. Avery turned to him, wide-eyed and bewildered.

“What?” he asked. “What're you doing?” He glanced at Deadpan, a wary panic bubbling in his gut.

“My job, Avery,” Deadpan replied uninterestedly. Quickly returning to Jason, the faceless man began asking for details, which Jason provided, but Avery had begun to tune out as his brain scattered and stumbled and tried to gather back together but got obstructed by the sudden thought of Jasmine back on the Cephalod ship. Somehow he'd forgotten to worry about her — he couldn't come up with a good excuse as to why — and his brain decided now was as good a time as any to start up again.

Then it suddenly decided now wasn't a good time, as it picked up on something in the crowded restaurant; a white spot.

“Er, Jason?” he chimed in to the table's conversation, tugging on the sleeve of Jason's cloak. There was no reply or reaction of any sort, but Avery couldn't pull his gaze from the white spot in the crowd. “Jason, you should...” he trailed off as he tried to relocate the spot he'd noticed; it had moved so fast.

He scanned the crowd for a few seconds and caught it again, closer now.

“Jason, you really need to look over there!” he gradually grew louder as he realized the thing was getting closer.

“What, Avery, we're busy he-- Oh my frogs!” Jason cried in such a distressed tone that Avery didn't even question the exclamation itself. The white spot was just two tables over, and much less a spot now, showing far more resemblance to a familiar white and orange exo-suit. Granted, Dorothy's suit now missed a chunk of its shoulder, revealing bright purple skin underneath, and the lower right corner of his helmet was split open, allowing a tuft of red hair to poke out a ways, but that did nothing to dampen the fear and dread building up from the previous wary panic in Avery's stomach.

Dorothy was marching towards them slowly and had closed the distance between them, now standing just a few feet behind Deadpan's end of the booth. The helmet's scratched up, light blue visor shone briefly, and was then followed by a deep, static-filled voice.

“Hello, Volks. Are you prepared to die, yet?” Jason was tensed up in fear, and his mouth had drooped into a little frown. Avery, beside him, struggled to hide his trembling. The silence only lasted seconds before Jason chiseled through it.

“Is that a rhetorical question, or...?” The air around Dorothy felt stale all of a sudden, and the red hair poking through the crack in the helmet quivered.

“It... doesn't have to be,” the static-y voice replied angrily.

“In that case,” Jason started slowly. “No I'm not!” He suddenly vaulted over the table, ripped Avery out of the booth by his upper arm, and sped off through the cantina, knocking over tables, chairs, customers, and themselves.

As they slid to a halt, just feet before the door, Dorothy stepped up to stand over them.

“This time it's rhetorical, Volks!” he shouted, raising his arm cannon and aiming it at Jason. Avery was groaning and holding his head from its impact with the ground while Jason stared down the barrel of the cannon and watched a ball of white-purple light form, buzzing about and sparking. Glancing up, he caught the red eyes behind Dorothy's visor glaring, overflowing with hate.

“Roman, I'm sorry,” he mumbled. Something shifted in the red eyes, for a second, and the arm cannon dropped slightly, but it quickly shot back up, ready to fire.

“Hey!” a voice shouted from somewhere off to the right. A green burst of light rapidly followed suit, colliding with Dorothy and launching him deep into the opposite wall. Rubble crumbled to the ground and a portion of the ceiling fell in, cloaking the wreckage in a dusty atmosphere.

“You got the guy, Panny!” Jason yelled across the scene, shooting a thumbs-up.

“Just go on, guys, get out of here!” Deadpan shouted back as he holstered the offending gun. Jason scrambled to his feet and grabbed Avery's arm again.

“We're men!” he retorted loudly as he darted out the door, Avery in tow. Still clutching his head, and now staring around wildly, Avery couldn't quite register the throng of creatures on the outside platform. Jason didn't seem to have a problem with it, though, as he lumbered through the crowd, yanking Avery along with him.

It seemed like at least a good month before they reached the silver can, but Avery was sure they'd be dead by then if it had taken a month. He felt like Jason was talking to him as the man's blurry face appeared just before his own, mouth moving rapidly, joined by a pink hand smacking his face. Avery nodded woozily, smiling in his stupor. Jason spit a few obscenities in his face and, struggling, managed to toss Avery over his shoulder. Struggling more, he crawled up the side of the can and dropped Avery through the top hatch.

Falling in after him, Jason commandeered the controls and the can lifted into the air.

* * *

Several moments later, a ruckus started up around a fishbowl-headed man's chrome can ship. He wasn't too pleased with the fellow trying to take it from him, all geared up in a battered, broken, white and orange exo-suit.

“Yeah, yer arm cannon don't even look like it works, mate, so good luck robbin' me of me ship,” the man was saying. Roman growled and stared the man down from behind his light blue visor. When he didn't seem bothered, Roman drew back a fist and drove it straight through the fishbowl on his head.

The man promptly collapsed, blue smoke spewing from the gaping hole in his fishbowl helmet and blue ooze spilling onto the metal platform.

“Thank you for your generosity,” Roman said confidently, stepping over the man and boarding the ship. He was once again in possession of a chrome can ship, and though it wasn't the same as his own, he was quite pleased for the resemblance.

* * *

On the other end of the platform, standing just at the edge of the crowd, a couple of towering, faceless white men watched the cloudy yellow skies. Golden tattoos wrapped around their bodies, forming an 'X' in the center of the shorter one's face, whilst giving the taller a single, diagonal ring around his head. Large, bird-like wings stuck out from their shoulder blades and waved gently in the breeze.

“Rigel,” the taller spoke in a deep, gravely voice. “Inform Bellatrix and the others.” He watched the chrome can shoot up into the atmosphere, distantly pursuing its silver counterpart. “A human survives.”