victory_road | Audio/Action for Goldenrod

[Audio]

What the hell's with all the flowers?

[That's really all Handsome Jack is concerned with, at the moment.]

Seriously.

What the hell?

[Action]

[Freaking flowers.]

[They're everywhere. The sidewalks look like the aftermath of some kind of soft core snowstorm already and more just keep falling from...he doesn't even know. A pocket dimension, who the hell knows? He's been standing outside his usual cafe for hardly a handful of minutes, and already there are pastel petals in his hair and flowers clinging to his blazer and getting caught on his watches and in the hinges of his mask.]

[Not to mention floating in his overly-sweet coffee.]

[It's too much to hope for that the rain of flora is at least recreationally viable. The only kind of highs plants around here give are not fun ones. This planet sucks. If it weren't so clearly ripe for the picking, with nobody else even thinking about grabbing it, he doubts he could find anything redeeming about it at the moment. It's not even terrible, it's just stupid and annoying. Everything is stupid and annoying.]

[He sighs audibly, covering his face with his hand and adopting a dramatically irritated pose.]

[His nose is starting to itch. And he's got to bike back through this ridiculous weather. With his stupid fat puppy. That's rolling in the flowers because of course the scary bone dog named Doom Boner loves flowers.]

[What did he ever do to deserve this?]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

_{[Here comes a Texan!]}

I don't know! Nobody I've talked to has seen anything like this before! I couldn't find my Rhyhorn for twenty minutes after I left 'em asleep behind a restaurant. This has t'be some kinda plague!

What, like 'let my Pokemon go or suffer the seven most annoying curses ever.'?

'Cause plagues are usually...plagues. Terrible stuff. Bursting eyeballs and boiling blood and stuff.

Not the debris from a chick lit photoshoot.

Well I haven't lived through any plagues, I don't know! It's an idea. God, I feel bad for anybody who's allergic.

That's because divine plagues aren't real. It's just how stupid people explain things they don't understand.

I mean, the way things work around here, it's probably a giant flower monster with a case of the sneezes.

God this place is stupid.

Oh...well that makes me feel better. Have you been here very long?

Yeah. Too long. And I just keep waking up still here.

_{[There's a pause. Maurice is still trying to wrap his head around how someone could not like this paradise.]}

Well...my friend says you go home eventually. So. There's that.

Yeah, I've heard that before. Not exactly stellar reassurance, cupcake. 'Eventually' covers way, way too big a span of time. What, it's gonna be next week? next year? God help me, five years?

Nah, screw that. I'm finding a way off of this planet.

[After investigating any potential resources that can be later exploited, once he has his galactic empire back under his control.]

_{[Another long pause. He wonders if he should just put down the Poke'Gear and leave this guy alone.]}

If I hear anything, I'll let you know.

I somehow doubt that kind of info's just floating around.

But who the hell knows? Nothing makes sense in this friggin' place. My cat poops money.

I mean, I have a horse that poops guns back home, but she's kinda unique. Not something a kid could save up their allowance over a month for....

_{[Maurice had the very beginnings of a sassy you're welcome poised on the end of his tongue but THEN JACK HAD TO BRING UP THE GUN HORSE.]}

Woah. Wait wait wait wait wait. Wait. Rewind. You got a what that whats what?

Yeah! Gotta diamond pony. Literally diamond. Feed'er Eridium, she shits out high powered weapons! She's awesome!

I mean, I guess she's a....I dunno, what do you call a unicorn with two horns?

_{[Maurice opens and closes his mouth a few times, staring down at his weird computer phone.]}

You mean a cow?

....no. I mean a majestic diamond unicorn who has one horn in the middle of her forehead, and another one above it. Or below it. You get what I mean.

And did I mention she is literally organic diamond?

She's not a cow.

Nosir, y'didn't. I'm...sorry, my imagination is not great. I'm having a hard time imagining a diamond horse that shits guns. Dude, what kinda world are you from?

She's literally organic diamond.

Yeah, I get it, a I own a ton of mind-blowing stuff. It's cool. Take a minute, be amazed.

Technically I live on a space station. Well, no, my turbo-mansion's on a moon, and there's the vacation resort on Eden 6...and the one on Eden 5...

But I spend most of my time in orbit over the nacho flavored shit hole known as Pandora. I don't live on the planet, I just own it.

It's a fixer upper.

Okay, now you're pullin' my leg! Nobody can own a planet!

Yeah they can. It's easy! find a planet nobody else owns, acquire it! That's where you gotta get creative, but I find saving everyone from giant tentacle-y death and destruction works pretty well. So does wiping out the violent, murderous bandit clans that ruin things for everybody.

I mean, save a whole planet and they practically just give it to you!

So you're some kinda space hero, huh? Cool, cool.

_{[He's not buying it.]}

That is exactly what I am. Handsome Jack, hero and savior of Pandora!

And Elpis, but it's the moon, so I figure it's included.

Trust me, if you came from a central planet, you'd have heard of me.

Maybe we're just from different times. Where I'm from, Earth's the only planet with any life on it.

...Uh, did you just say 'Earth'?

'Cause Earth has literally no life on it. If it even exists anymore. I mean it probably does, but it's gotta be a dead rock in abandoned space by now.

Cool music, though. I got a soft spot for classical crap.

_{[It's a same that Jack can't see Maurice's horror-stricken face.]}

What! But Earth is--it's just like here! Except, y'know, without Pokemon. And there are way more trucks. I'm from 2008! How long do we have until Earth is doomed?

I dunno. That number doesn't mean anything to me. I just know the stories. The planet got all used up, so everybody said 'screw this shit hole' and blasted off to colonize the six galaxies. Humans pretty much dominate the universe.

So that's pretty great!

Oh...

_{[Maurice frets quietly. Back home, he's a vampire. Immortal. Will he see the Earth get all used up? But then he catches himself. He didn't buy that this guy was a space hero. Why would he buy that his world is doomed? Whew, he almost whipped himself into a frenzy there! He still felt like he needed to lie down.]}

So did we ever find aliens?

[Audio]

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