-Neighpon, Backstreets of Canter Dojo, Flamberge-
So here I was being led by a kitsune to find a sturdy shield for my brother while carrying a sack load of kappa coins over my shoulder.
“Dragons are really quite lazy, we’re quite dumb and I don’t see why you would be interested in anyone like me!” I was trying to warn Sweetcakes off pursuing me, you can guess how well that was going by what she said next.
“Laziness I don’t mind, you don’t seem that dumb to me, love you already.” She rubbed up against me like a cat and then Sweetcakes led me down an alleyway, I moved away from her slightly and was worried about the sanctity of my body with the affectionate gestures her three tails kept giving me. “You want me to stop, propose an unwinnable challenge, otherwise I won’t.”
“Okay I propose a word challenge, if you lose you won’t be able to talk for three hours!” I had an idea and it was cruel to use that word, mostly cruel to me because it was hard to say and it was one of the things Cheerilee praised me on looking up and remembering. It was a word that would be Sweetcakes bane for the next three hours. “If I can say a word that you can’t possible speak then I win!”
“That sounds too easy. Where is the challenge I seek? I accept your terms.” Sweetcakes would come to regret that, we stopped for a moment as she raised a brow to me and I cleared my throat with a grin.
“The word that you can’t say is this, hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia!” My toothy grin was in full force. Cheerilee was correct in saying that a good education is very important, and to think I had doubted her somewhat. “Would you like to know what it means?! It’s an actual word!”
The vixens jaw just dropped and her tails slapped against the ground with a thunderous force that left three foot wide craters were they landed. She just stood there wide eyed like a reindeer with a flashlight shined in their face on dark evening. Eventually her ears wilted too and I let off a small chuckle.
Sweetcakes went to open her mouth and then quickly shut it with a look of understanding on her face, she nodded at me. Three hours starting from now she couldn’t say a single word.
“You look so surprised that I know a word with more than seven syllables!” I couldn’t help smiling as I said this, she glared at me and held her tongue. She was taking the bet seriously, at the very least she was an honorable vixen and that was a good trait to have. “It’s an ironic word that means fear of long words!”
Sweetcakes gave me a flat look for a second before slamming all three of her tails and both her front paws to her face.
“Right, now back to showing me where this black market place we’re going to is?!” Right now I could care less that I upset her, she had been so haughty about the challenge that I knocked her straight through an entire ladder and not just a few pegs.
Makes me wonder if Skelly would have lost her bottom jaw… how do her bones stay in order anyway? Skelly was just plain weird and I wasn’t going to think too hard about it.
Sweetcakes motioned with her tail at me and I followed her down the alleyway and through narrow twisting and turning streets, we soon came to a stop at a place that looked like a restaurant.
Sweetcakes opened the door and stood in the doorway, I just followed closely behind her and looked inside.
“Hello and welcome to ‘The Maneki-Neko’, how can we help you today sir and ma’am?” It looked like a small restaurant establishment with very few seats and it even smelled like a restaurant… could Sweetcakes have just led me here for a date? No… she was pretty adamant about this being a place to get black market stuff before I turned her all quiet.
“Do you have any special inventory?!” Looking about, I saw that there was only a pegasus mare and an abyssinian here. “I’m looking for something unusual and I’ve been informed by my acquaintance that you might be the ones to talk to about acquiring odd things.”
“We might have just the thing sir. I am Bengal and that is my partner Hawker, she’s the one you’ll want to talk to about our ‘special’ inventory.” The abyssinian was male, orange and black spots and looked like a chef, the way he clasped his paws together and smiled sent a shiver down my spine. His eyes were barely open and I couldn’t see what color they were, but I knew they were looking at me. “Given the fat sack of loot over your shoulder, you must be here for our Cat and Hawk services.”
“We’re as much an ‘antique’ store as we are a restaurant.” The pegasus mare looked more like a business specialist than a cook, she had her red hair done up in a bun, her yellow fur was almost glowing pristinely and her sharp cold ice blue eyes tried to stare me down. She was also wearing one of those neat robes that both men and women wore around Neighpon. “What exactly are you in the business of buying? I can see that you have an idea of what kind of pay to give us up front, we do work a lot faster for some solid cash up front and our services are exquisite.”
The mare eyed my sack of coins still slung over my shoulder as I and Sweetcakes finally entered the establishment and took a seat.
“What’s the sturdiest shield you can get on short notice that is big and can survive a lot of punishment?!” After posing the question, I watched as the mare leaned back and crossed her hooves. She tilted her head left and right. “It doesn’t matter how heavy it is, my brother can almost match a sumo wrestler in stature and smell! I’m just doing a little shopping!”
“Now there’s a good stumper my obscenely loud friend, it’s not often we get requests for shields. Neighpon warriors prefer asking for rare armor and weapons from other countries or somewhere within this one, but shields are quite a rarity around here because they aren’t in high demand. At least that means it’ll be within your budget, goodness knows we should be giving you something extra if you’re just going to dump all this money on us.” Bengal seemed to notice and then stare at the blade at my hip with curiosity. “While Hawker’s busy thinking, would you like some food on the house? Afterwards I want a spar with you to see what you’re weapon is like.”
“Sure, a spar sounds nice, Neighpon has some really interesting warriors like that Blur Step guy!" I took notice when Bengal sat up a little straighter. "I want to see how you compare to him!”
“You know Blur?” After nodding to Bengal, he hummed. “What’s your name stranger?”
“I am Flamberge the fiercely flammable! It is also joked that I'm Flamberge the obnoxiously loud because I can only control the volume of my voice sometimes.” Looking to my side, Bengal pointed to the silent kitsune sitting next to me. “She’s Sweetcakes Crumble Tail, she’s being quiet because she lost a bet to me!”
“She did? It is not often that someone is able to outfox a kitsune, especially not one of the Tail’s brood and the Troublemaker of Neighpon at that!” He let out a laugh and Sweetcakes made a pouting face directed at the cat, he then started working on some food for us. “Take a seat, it’ll be a while before I finish cooking and Hawker has an idea of what to give you. I like you, so she won’t skimp on the quality if we have anything worthy of purchase... and we usually do.”
“I need to send some messages.” Hawker huffed loudly and flew into the back room.
“Oh don’t mind her, business has been a bit slow and she actually loves making a sale.” As Bengal continued to work, we sat there and watched as he worked. “We make quite a tidy profit on what we do here. So how did you meet Blur?”
“Well I arrived in Neighpon not too long ago, went to these training grounds and he just attacked me from out of nowhere after I watched him slice a straw dummy into eight pieces!” The guy was fast, faster than any pony I’ve ever seen and the way he draws his weapon was almost impossible to follow. “I blocked his first strike and we went from there to sparring, having lunch and then him getting drunk.”
“You actually blocked him?!” Bengal seemed utterly surprised, it wasn’t like it was that hard to do right? “That, my good sir, is one of the most impressive things you can do to earn some attention around here. No wonder Blur sang your praises. You reacted preemptively to his infamous split second attack, emphasis on the split if he wants to cleave you in two. I can tell already that our spar is going to be far more interesting than I first thought when I asked.”
-Canter Dojo Orphanage, Fortitude-
So Silk and Ryu just left three strangers with all their orphanage children… should we stay and watch the foals or do we play tourists? We also needed to find Flamberge, even I was beginning to worry about him… he has yet to even set anything on fire since we got here.
I am not exactly being child safe due to my size. Skelly is possibly more child friendly and Blade… she looked rather grumpy and sad. I am thinking that Blade shouldn’t be left alone with the children at this moment in time.
“Are we watching the children?” I got a look from both Skelly and Blade, I don’t think they knew the first thing about children.
Skelly looked to Blade and held up a hoof, then shrugged it. Blade’s response was to shake a hoof lazily at her and then they turned back to me and nodded. They are both getting very good at holding silent conversations with one another, I didn’t understand any of that.
I stood up and went outside to watch the children play, nothing would happen to them on our watch. Skelly and Blade came out with me and sat next to each other seeming to have entered a conversation with various hoof gestures being made.
Maybe now would be a good time to teach Skelly how to read a little?
-Neighpon Streets, Ryu-
“Didn’t we just leave them alone with our little terrors?” Grunting at Silk’s question, I’m sure our new friends could take care of themselves.
I turned the corner and rolled my eyes at what I saw.
“There he is, let’s get him!” Three griffons approaching me for a fight, didn’t I once break all the legs on one of them? They were about five feet away when their wings suddenly stopped working, they skidded to a complete stop.
They were looking wide eyed at who was behind me, Silk just turned the corner and smiled at them.
“Right sorry to bother you, we’ll just be going the other way… um… can you stop her?” The griffon turned his eyes from looking off to the side to me and gave me a pleading look, I saw that one of the griffons was slowly being cocooned by Silk.
“Silk-chan, I think they get the point.” It paid a lot for me to be stern with her, she just smiled cutely as she held the struggling griffon. “We have to meet with my contacts and then find out where Dodgy is at this time, we have no time for you to play with them.”
“Fine… no traumatizing some punks into submission.” Silk tossed the griffon over her shoulder and onto the street.
We passed by the other two griffons who went to help the third out and just walked onwards ignoring their presence. We were at the west side entertainment district of Canter Dojo and we’d soon meet our contact, I spotted said pony swiftly.
“Well if it isn’t Ryu, out doing some wandering around and having fun with your giant spider friend?” Staring the pony down, I leaned forward and he leaned back.
“Business, I’m leaving Canter Dojo for an indeterminate amount of time and I need to set up things for my absence. I’m going to talk to my lawyers later today and you better tell everyone to be ready for a riot.” Lifting the pony up by his throat, I glared into his eyes. “Now repeat to me, what did I just tell you to do?”
“Gather the boys, keep the peace and make sure that word doesn’t spread about you flying for a long time and stop any possible coup that might get started.” He looked to Silk who crossed her upper torso's limbs and cleared her throat. “Also we’ll be protecting yours while you’re gone boss.”
“Good, I’ll be talking to the government later to given them an early warning, after that I’m going over what I want to happen with my lawyers. If I come back to a mess and you didn’t spread the word to hold up Canter Dojo while I’m gone, a lot of people are going to be in traction for years when I get back.” I dropped the stallion, he quivered and nodded. I don’t make threats, just promises. “Now where’s Dodgy?”
“Dodgy Gruff? The nut is looking into some crazy armored guy called Dispel, the guy wields a large sword and got the ogres riled up. The news is that the guy was tough enough to survive giving one of the ogres a paper cut and the horrible beating he got from several kanabo afterwards.” The stallion leaned closer to me. “Heard the guy walked away from that encounter spouting off about destroying all that is unholy, he works for some nutcase organization that’s out to slay all the gods and he’s seeking to slay things he considers unholy abominations. The Tail clan head said that one of said things he is currently sniffing around after is our lovely Silk-chan here. Dodgy is following him and looking to put the armored idiot out of everyone’s misery, I think Mad Mutt was last seen in the south side shopping and pachinko district of Canter Dojo boss.”
“I’ll deal with this Dispel personally before I leave Silk-chan. No one goes after those I care about without severe repercussions.” This was one of my better guys and he knew his stuff, I trusted him implicitly because we both joined the Yakuza at the same time. “Anything of note on the monetary front brother?”
“All things are running properly when it comes to money boss, we’re also still making it entirely unhealthy to run a slave market anywhere near Canter Dojo or most of Neighpon for that matter.” The pony smiled brightly and nodded to me. “Still some try herds out there, but they are absolutely steering clear of our turf bro.”
“They better continue with that trend or else they will be getting a visit from me.” My pony brother nodded and I turned to head towards the south side to find Dodgy.