//------------------------------// // Chapter III: I'll hook ye in the gabba, I swear on me mum // Story: The Journey of an Inventor // by Inquisitor Seigmund //------------------------------// Günter was a simple dog. He was never known to be the smart type, nor inquisitive. As long as something seamed to sway in his favor, he was perfectly content with it. So when Lockjaw appointed him as the front door’s guard, he didn’t give so much as a groan of annoyance, harrumph or depressed sigh. So, here he would sit, day in and day out, a crate full of whiskey at his side and a knife and a block of wood in his paws. He would sit here for hours on end, letting fellow Jug-Street colts in and keeping trouble-makers out. But, of course, this is not Günter’s story. *KNOCK KNOCK* “Cah’min, cah’min” he grunted, picking himself up off his seat and moving toward the door. I waited patiently at the door of the old distillery. It was easy enough to find this place, what was going to hard was probably getting into this place without having to kick the- A small window in the door opened, revealing a pair of eyes. “Watcha ‘ere for?” droned the doorman. ‘Oh fuck, gotta improvise…’ “I’m here on account of business; I’d like to see your boss, Lockjaw.”I said as calmly as I could, hoping I would pass off as one of Lockjaw’s benefactors. ‘Well, it looks like I’m going to have to smack a-‘ “…Alroight, cah-mon een.” The Diamond dog said as the he closed the window and began unlocking the door. ‘Wait, that actually worked?!’ The door opened, revealing a dog that was slightly shorter than me that had a seemingly permanent nonchalant expression plastered across his face. With a wave of his hand (or paw, I suppose) he invited me in. “Thank you, kind sir” “Sure, sure…” he mumbled, plopping down on his chair, carving a block of wood with a knife. ‘Hmm… either he’s simply stupid, or he just doesn’t particularly care… either way, bonus for me.’ SUNLIGHT OBSCURED. 48 HOURS OF POWER REMAINING ‘And I’m apparently solar powered; double bonus.’ Well, I must say they have a pretty nice set up in this old place. For a bunch of squatters turned street gang, they really know how to spruce things up. I was on the distillery floor, and I had just stepped into what seemed to be this town’s version of the “Ragged Flagon”. The bar was made of old shipping crates, most likely stolen from the harbor. The hutch (which appeared to have been fished OUT of the harbor, judging by the amount of mildew on its surface) appeared to be filled with nothing but crappy, knock-off whiskey, which seemed appropriate, considering this place, was once used to make such drinks. There was also a large collection of round, musty, wooden tables, that some of the gang members were using to play cards. There was also an old billiard table that was missing a few pockets; this became evident when one of the dogs playing sunk a ball into one of said pockets, causing the ball to land on his opponent’s foot. “Oi’m tellin ya mates, Oi know wot Oi saw!” I heard a very familiar voice talking at very audible volumes. I looked over to one of the playing tables, and spotted the small dog from Dredger’s debt-collecting posse. He was literally standing on top of the table, waving his tiny arms as he blathered on about me roasting Dredger like a turkey. “He just caught Dredger’s panch loik it was nuffin! Den he used some koind of freaky magik an’ zapped him!” “An’ loik Oi said: Oi don’t give a rat’s ‘airy arse! Now git off da fookin’ tay-bull!” one of the other dogs shouted. “But Dredger’s in the bloody ‘ospital! An’ that shiny met’l bloke is probably ‘eadn’ this way roight-“ “*AHEM*!” Right after I cleared my throat (or, rather made the sound, since I don’t have a throat to clear) every yokel in the bar redirected their attention toward me. They appeared to be trying to give me their best murderous glare but were failing miserably thanks to them being utterly stupefied by the sight of me. The moment the small dog saw me his eyes grew to the size of soccer-balls. “Oy! That’s him, mates! That’s the guy Oi’m on about!” “Who? Me?” I said, in a faux innocent tone. The other dogs scoffed at this. “This is him?! You shittin’ me, Scrappy? Oi could take this pencil-neck any day a da week!” “Oi sweah it, mates, that’s him!” Scrappy (yeah, literally, Scrappy) shouted, before turning back to me. “It’s thanks tah this wanka, that Dredger in da ‘ospital, cryin’ loik a pup!” The entire tavern exploded with laughter; I suppose Dredger wasn’t as popular as I had originally hypothesized. “I don’t think you’re doing your friend any good.” I chuckled slightly. Scrappy shrunk a little, as the tavern’s Patrons continued to guffaw at the thought of the big, tough Dredger crying like a baby. I joined in, chuckling along with them until the laughter finally died down. … I briefly wondered how long it would take these idiots to remember that I was here, trespassing in their little clubhouse. … “OY! Wait a secund! Wot choo’ doin in ‘ere!?” ‘One minute and five seconds, faster than I’d thought.’ “Oh I’m so glad you asked… you see, I don’t like the fact that your boss has you dimwitted thugs strutting about this town, bullying people into paying for protection, beating the weak in the streets in full view of the populace, acting like you’re hot shit, and... OH. MY. GOD. Half of you idiots are wearing trilbies; fucking TRILBIES! But aside from that, I don’t like your little gang’s attitude. So, I’m here to do something about it…” In that moment, the bar’s patrons stood up, knowing full-well where I was going with this. “Simply put: I’m here to kick ass and chew bubble-gum… and I can’t chew gum.” The gang immediately got into offensive stances. A handful of them pulled out knives, batons, leather-billies and broke the bottoms off of the empty whiskey-bottles lying around. A few of them even picked up what looked like make-shift machetes made of fan-blades. Time slowed to a pause as I began counting each of the patrons. ‘Ten dogs……..six griffins……..four ponies…..this’ll be fun….” UPDATING COMBAT SYSTEMS Suddenly, there was an intense surge of activity in my coordinative-matrix. LOADING… LOADING… LOADING… UPDATE COMPLETE After the activities died down, all I could think was: ‘I know kung-fu…’ Well, not really, just some mixed martial arts. But, joking aside, I was primed and ready to crack some skulls. ACTIVATING COMBAT MODE NON-LETHAL PARAMETERS ENGAGED My HUD began highlighting each of the thugs with circles; each one of them displaying their vitals 9 ARMED HOSTILES, 11 UNARMED CHANCES OF SUCCESS: 98.5% Oh, I love my new body better every second. ENGAGE I balled up my fists and took up a defensive pose. At that moment the group of thugs tensed up, ready to fight. As they began to draw closer, I said the first thing that came to mind: “Your move, creeps.” One of the dogs took that as an invitation to charge in. He reared his right fist back, going for a haymaker punch. I responded by raising my left arm, stopping his punch. With the dog now open for a counter attack, I delivered a swift, under-handed punch to the dog’s gut. The dog reeled over from the pain, granting me another opening. I took advantage of said opening by upper-cutting him in the jaw, sending him flying backward. HOSTILE ASSESSMENT SEVERAL BROKEN RIBS JAW BROKEN POSSIBLE CONCUSSION STATUS: INCAPACITATED ‘One dimwit down, nineteen to go…’ Just as I was about to pick another target, my vision flickered slightly as wooden splinters flew over my head. I turned around and saw a griffin standing before me. He was holding the remains of a chair that he’d evidently bashed over my head. Given that I don’t feel pain, and the fact that the chair was rotting to pieces anyway, I was left completely unfazed. It was thanks to my indifference to being struck with something that would have rendered any mammal of my size unconscious, the griffin that had assailed me had a slack-jawed look on his face. Before I could make some sort of witty one-liner, one of the dogs rushed up behind me, putting me into a full-nelson. The griffin then snapped out of his trance and put up his claws, his intentions of attempting to rip me apart apparent. Despite the fact that he’d have no chance of cutting through my titanium hull with claws made of keratin, I wasn’t going to let him try and risk damaging my vest. So, right as he approached me, I did the only thing I could do and I kicked him… …right in between his legs. Right after doing so, I came to regret it as I suddenly understood the gravity of that action. Given the substance my body is made of, and how hard I hit him, I more than likely reduced the poor bird’s testicles to mush. But I supposed that there was no use crying over spilled milk. As the bird dropped, I twisted my arms around, grabbing a hold of the dog’s head, sending a charge of electricity through his skull. Right when the dog released me I saw movement to my left. It was a more slender dog, armed with a knife he was holding underhanded. Just as he was right on top of me, he attempted a downward stab. However, I simply seized his wrist, twisting it around and pinning it to his back. The dog dropped the knife from the pain. “Hey, guess what?” “W-w-w-w-wot?” the dog said through the pain. “Kidney-punch!” BAM “AAAAAAAAAAAH, WHY?!” I responded by forcing my foot down onto the back of his leg, consequently forcing him down to his knees. His head now accessible, I delivered a strike to the back of his head with the blade-edge of my hand, knocking him out. “Wot choo gits doin’?! Kill em’!” one of the dogs shouted as I turned to face the rest of the group. I spotted a fairly large dog standing two meters away from me. He had picked up one of the lengths of chain lying around and was heading for me. Just as I readied myself for his attack, he swung the length of chain. Time once again slowed to a pause as I planned my rebuttal. ‘What to do with this one, I could catch the chain and pull him right into my fist, or maybe… wait a moment…’ Using my HUD, I measured the length of chain, then the distance between me and the dog, and came to the very amusing conclusion that- ‘That isn’t even going to hit me, not by a long shot’ So I simply stood idle, allowing the dog to take his swing. Time returned to normal and the dog swung the chain. As I had predicted, the chain passed swung past my face, missing me by five inches. To make matters even more amusing, the chain slipped from his paws and went flying, hitting a griffin and two ponies in their faces, knocking them unconscious. As the dog responsible gawked at his handy work, I took an opportunity to rush at him. “Looks like someone rolled a natural 1!” And with that one-liner, I delivered a round-house kick to his face, sending him tumbling to the ground. Right before my foot returned to the ground, something slammed into my side, knocking me to the wet ground. I looked up to see my attacker, a griffin, holding his left arm as he winced in pain. He must have dislocated his arm when he slammed into me, judging by the fact that it was dangling in a weird way. Despite this, the griffin quickly shook off the pain and lifted his machete. I quickly began looking around me for something to use to defend myself, as I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to test how effective the griffin’s machete was going to be against me. In an instant, I found an object within arm’s reach; a ball-peen hammer. ‘Perfect!’ As I looked back up, the griffin was charging for me, machete held overhead. Hastily, I held up my left hand. “STOP” The griffin did as I told him to out of confusion for my choice of words. As he gawked, I grabbed the hammer with my right hand and held it over my head. “HAMMER TIME!” And with that, I threw it right into his face, knocking him out before he even hit the ground. But that small victory was short-lived as a group of seven of the thugs came at me with weapons, clearly preparing to mob me. ‘Oh fuck, what do I do now?!’ I panicked as the chances of my success began to dwindle. But just as I was prepared to brace myself for them to dog-pile me, I remembered I was lying in a half an inch of water. It was then that I got a very nasty idea. Right as the group closed in on me, I sent a charge of electricity to my hand and slammed it down into the puddle I was lying in. The entire group began to convulse as the electrified water they were standing in fried their nerves. After giving it enough time, I took my hand out of the water. The entire group collapsed in a heap, moaning from the pain. I quickly sprang to my feet, ready to take the rest of the gang on. I did a quick sweep of the room with my vision, checking the number of the rest of the gang, all that remained was one dog, a griffin and a unicorn. Just as I prepared for one of the saps to charge me a loud metallic clatter rang throughout the distillery. I looked over to the source of the noise and saw that the griffin had dropped his machete and was shaking in his boots. “F-f-f-fuck this noise; I don’t wanna die!” And without warning he took flight and flew out a hole in the ceiling. As I watched him go I shook my head in disappointment. “Pity.” I suddenly noticed another sound, a light hum. I looked down and saw that the unicorn’s horn was lit up, as if charging a beam of some sort. Before I had a chance to react, a pulse of light shot from the unicorn’s horn and hit me in the chest. Right as it hit, my HUD was reduced to static and my limbs began to malfunction. “GAH! What the fuck, shit shit shit!” It became clear that the beam had similar properties to an EMP. This meant that I was vulnerable to this “magic” unicorns seemed to posses; I was going to have to be cautious from now on if I needed to deal with them. Went I regained control over my body and my vision returned to normal, I saw that the pony was awestruck that his attack had done anything at all. He then snapped out of his surprise and began to charge his horn again, but like hell I was going to let him do what he did to me again. So, I rushed him, rearing both my hands back with my palms open, with the intention of slapping him in the ears. However, I didn’t anticipate that he was going to lower his head down to point the horn at me, so I missed his ears and hit his horn instead. The result was a shattering of bone as my hands crush his horn. What happened next was odd. In a split second, he screamed, vomited, soiled himself and passed out simultaneously. I would later find out that a unicorn’s horn was basically an insulated nerve, which explained his reaction. As I stepped away from the pony, making sure none of his fluids got on me, I turned and faced the last of the thugs; none other than Scrappy. I began walking toward the now terrified dog, his ears drooping down. Right as I reached striking distance, the tiny and helpless dog began to stammer. “W-w-w-w-wot are you?” In response, I bent down really close, to the point where he could see the aperture of my ocular lens, and I said: “I r guy… that’s gon t33ch you lesson” Before he could even ask what I was talking about, I punt kicked him across the room. CONFLICT RESOLVED Well, now that the patrons were no longer an issue, I could go after the one person I had come for, Lockjaw. I then realized that none of these guys could tell me where he was, on account of them all being unconscious. But with some quick deductive reason, and using my knowledge of movies, I concluded that Lockjaw was likely in the foreman’s office. I wandered the upper floor of the distillery for a few minutes before my audio receptors picked up music being played from a phonograph. I followed the music coming to a door with an opaque, glass window with ‘Foreman’ painted on in black letters. I went for the door handle, only to find that it was locked. Me jiggling the handle caused a voice to call out from inside. “Huh, what, who’s there? I told you idiots to leave me in peace!” the voice said. Deciding I wasn’t going to politely ask permission to come in, I punched a hole in the window, grabbing the door handle on the other side and letting myself in. I stepped inside the office, greeted by the sight of a gray stallion with a black mane, an angry and confused look on his face. His butt-tattoo was what appeared to be a bear-trap. I continued to scan the room, admiring the furniture, pictures and what appeared to be a map of the town with thumb-tacks pinned to certain parts of the town. “W-who are you…WHAT are you?!” The stallion yelled, who I’d deduced was Lockjaw the moment I saw him. “I must say, you’ve got a pretty nice office for some wannabe Al Capone.” I said, ignoring his questions. “How did you get in here, how did you get past my boys?!” “Well the doorman just let me inside, and your boys… well they’re incapacitated at the moment.” I said with a chuckle. Lockjaw seemed to grow angrier at this, gritting his teeth. “Bloody… what do those idiots think I’m paying them for?” He looked up at me, still angry. “What do you want from me?!” “Well it’s funny you should ask” I said, taking a few steps toward him. “You see, I just came into town and I couldn’t help but notice your little club harassing the citizens of this town. If there is one thing I hate most, its scum who can’t make their living without shitting on the weak. You and your gang are a prime example of that.” I’m not going to lie, I was spewing complete bullshit, but I was crushing the whole “heroic speech” thing. As I stepped toward him, Lockjaw began to nervously back away from me, until he was stopped by the wall behind him. “N-no! Get away from me!” “Pathetic… all these thugs prostrating themselves to you, the town cowering at your gang’s presence, all this fear of your wrath, and as soon as you’ve got no one to back you up you fold?! This is it; the fearsome Lockjaw, leader of the Jug-Street Colts?! I came up here expecting a stallion, but instead I get a sniveling little colt!” Totally crushing it. Just as I reached arms length of him, Lockjaw made one final act of resistance and tried running past me. Of course, I was able to stop him by put out my arm, clothes-lining him. “Ah ah AH!” I waggled my finger on my free arm. “You’re not getting out of this that easily!” I seized him by the throat, bringing him to the wall and pinning him there. Just as I pinned him to the wall I noticed a “wanted” poster on pinned to it right next to his face. WANTED 10,000 bit reward for Lockjaw Racketeering, drug dealing, fraud, counterfeit, assault and battery, vandalism, destruction of public property, arson, theft, armed-robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, forgery, vagrancy and loitering. “Oh look, it’s you!” I humorously pointed out. “Tell me, is this poster up to date?” Lockjaw began stammering, trying to formulate a sentence. “You know what; don’t tell me, I want it to be a surprise!” “Wuh-what do you mean? What do you want-“ Lockjaw stuttered out. “You and I are going on a little trip down-town!” I said whimsically. “W-wait, no! don’t turn me in; I-I-I can make you rich! I’ll promise you a cut of my quarterly!” “Oh, you’re already going to make me rich, silly!” “Wha-“ “Nighty-night!” BAM Lockjaw slung over my shoulder, I walked with a spring in my step, satisfied with my deliverance of raw justice. And with my task through, I was prepared to collect ten thousand bits, whatever that was worth. Just as I turned the corner to the exit, I remembered that I’d forgotten to remember something: the doorman. I froze up as I saw him, expecting him to charge at me that very moment. But instead, he lazily looked up from the block of wood he was widdling and stared for a few moments. When he noticed Lockjaw’s unconscious body he raised his eyebrows. “Hm, ‘see Lockjaw finally got wot was cah’min to ‘em.” He said quietly, looking back down at the block of wood. Hell yeah, I was confused. “You don’t care…?” I asked. He just shrugged. “Nevah really cared much for the Jug Street Colts to begin wif.” “But… what are you going to do for a living?” “ ‘Job as a carpenter sounds noice.” I quietly stared at him for a few moments. “Well… um… have a good night.” “ ‘Ave a safe trip ‘ome.” He said without looking up. As the door shut behind me and I walked down the cobbled street, I thought to myself: “What a swell fellow…”