victory_road | (no subject)

May 17th | Video

[The video turns on to show Cherrygrove City at the beach and focuses on a man that hasn't posted to any network yet. He's seemingly early middle-age with some facial scars along his cheeks half hidden by his beard, sleeves on a new button up shirt rolled up, wearing a twined snake necklace with a red string, barefoot in the sand and flanked by a Seviper, a Psyduck holding its head. Another unseen Pokemon is doing the filming. He's also surrounded by a mostly-empty box of donuts, a milkshake he's still working on, some fruit rinds and cores, a plastic container of some rice dish or another that's now down to a few grains, and a watermelon that's been reduced to hollow green hull halves.]

[He has torn through this meal in one sitting.]

So I gotta admit, I was sorta expectin' the other shoe to drop, but I ain't ever seen anything like this in a long, long time. [He has a thick southern drawl when he speaks.] I walked all the way here, three days, without a single thing attackin' me. No ambushes. No crazy four-armed assassins outa nowhere. No floating angry three-eyed women throwin' fire.

[He doesn't have any of his guns, though. That bit bothers him but as guns don't seem to be a big thing here he'll just be grabbing berries instead of scrounging for ammunition and weapons.]

Now, I guess I gotta amend that thought. I did read that supposedly there's things that'll throw fire but this lady? [He motions to the Seviper over his shoulder, who is just basking like a happy reptile in the sand.] Her name is Fortune, and she's been takin' care of everything. [He gets the gist that she's supposed to, and that it's like having a game rep going into battle for you (something he's very used to). This is so much of a better situation.]

So uh, me an' Fortune are gonna be makin' our way all to one of the bigger cities. But I read about this one called an Ekans? I really wanna get my hands on one, if someone could do me the favor. I heard there was some breeders that might be amenable.

[As he talks, he pulls out a single jade coin and walks it over his fingers. Though with some monstrous slight of hand, that one coin is followed immediately by three more being passed over his knuckles. Just a casual fidget as he talks, and someone with a keen eye might notice the coins are double-sided with two wrapped snakes that match his pendant.]

You can call me Wu Ming. ...And don't worry, I'll take care o' this mess. [He won't leave garbage on the beach. He can't afford to deal with fines right now if he's caught.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

See now I gotta ask...where the hell do you come from that fire throwing women are normal?

Cuz I've only ever met one, and she was a real asshole.

[Like, the worst asshole. Best part about this place? No Lilith. Never has been, hopefully never will be.]

I'd argue everybody should need to know about furries, ya never know when it's gonna come up. And that's not even glib talk, I mean it, you'd be surprised how often I end up talking about furries in casual conversation.

Eh, you got this thing called the 'Traveller'. Piece of floating moon-sized crap gave some people some special abilities. They're normally called Solar, Arc, and Void. Means they're Wave based, Electron based, or Gravity based. Anyway, some people specialize in those Solar abilities and hell hath no wrath like a scorned woman capable of manifesting a flamin' hammer in her hand and throwin' it at your head.

[He could do it, too, Warlock style. He's just not shown it off to anyone. What's the point? Probably would just provoke a fight he wasn't in the mood for and Drifter has a habit of not leaving people alive when they pick fights with him.]

Hell of a world where that's a recurrin' theme in your life. I'd almost rather the four-armed assassins. At least they can be negotiable if you throw enough of their chosen capital at 'em.

Huh. Big ol' chunk of that sounds uncomfortably familiar....

So this dimension you come from...humans got interplanetary capabilities yet?

[He's gotta ask. Because that just screams 'Eridian' and look at that, there's a Eridian Guardian called The Traveler.]

Again, you'd be surprised!

We do. Nowhere near transmat capable from planet to planet, but we got lightspeed engines without time dilations. I went way out of the system on the last trip. A longer reach than you'd expect.

[He's curious, though.]

You to that point, Brother?

Oh we got that and beyond, buddy! Mankind's colonized so many planets. Across six different galaxies. Back home I lived on a space station. Owned my own planets!

Yeah, well... this Traveler thing? Turns out the hussy gets around and brought back a few crazy love interests that can't let go. Problem is these love interests come with heavy artillery.

We'd colonized a lot of places, but a lot of it was ripped out from under our feet. Personally? I think it was because we became too complacent, relying on that big hunk of metal in the sky, dependin' on peace instead of learning how to fight when we needed to.

But then again, what do I know?

[Just that he's died more than he'd like over some pretty common crap.]

Well, now I'm thinking way too much about the sex lives of interdimensional aliens.

Yeah, see, the trick is to wait till the crazy aliens fuck off to some other plane of existence, then take their shit. I mean, sure, sometimes a couple of'em come back, but...

Eh.

[It's not like the Eiridians he encountered on Elpis were that hard to deal with, a team of Vault Hunters took care of it no problem.]

A lot of egg laying or building new ones in pocket dimensions and hell if I know how the Cabal do it. None of it's nothin' to write home about from what I know.

[Sometimes when you're old as him you get bored and start asking the Dreg on your crew a lot of strange questions, like 'how does this even work?'.]

I don't think that's gonna be an option for us. Last ones tried to blow up the sun. [Next ones have even bigger plans, which Drifter knows, but a lot of people don't.]

Honestly the weird little monsters here are a lot better.

Sucks to be you guys, I guess!

Yeah, most of the critters around here aren't too bad. But there's some big weird ones that pop up sometimes ya wanna watch out for. And some of'em are just big and mean.

I'm not too worried about back home.

[Not yet, anyway. The thing due to come is what has him pants-shittingly scared.]

I know one of the best mercs in the business. They call 'em the 'Young Wolf' in some circles. Best damn fighter you've ever seen.

Speakin' of which, so there are some big bads out their roamin'? Pray tell. You got me interested.

Yeah that's a merc name. They always got those dramatic names... not that I'm knocking it, I was married to a merc for a while! Kind of. Common law.

I mean what's you're poison? Dragons? Dinosaurs? Freakish monsters that defy one word description?

You're a braver man than I am. I'd be a poor partner for somebody like that.

[He doesn't think he could marry someone who might stab him in the back.]

People gave 'em the name. They just sorta... I guess didn't argue. I'm usually the 'big reptile' type but I like to keep my options open. Can't make yourself too exclusive.

What can I say? I like'em deadly. And me and Felix had a good thing, a real good thing. Miss that guy like hell.

Plenty of big reptiles around here! Oh, and giant insects. Those are pretty cool. And sea monsters...

I do admit, deadly at least makes for entertainin' company, ha ha. [He doesn't really care about being public with that. Because, well, it's not like a lot of people die permanently in his world. He can always slap that on as an excuse.]

Oooh, sea monsters? I bet those are somethin' impressive. How big we talkin'?