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It was from outside of the old, decrepit walls where DeVita’s first cries were heard the most. Loud, aggressive and punctually filled with swears, the sheer volume it made was enough to wake up the lonely sleeping prisoner from his jail.
Down the filthy and unkempt hall, filled with cracks, dirt, grass and vomit, the door swung wide open. First entered a pair of guards, carrying with latest gun technologies. Then, came in few guards with makeshift spears. After them, an odd pair of men, pushed forward by the last few with spears.
One of those men was DeVita, a scrawny, but violently-temperamental lizard who kept on shouting how all of them will hear from his “cuzz”. The other, Schwarz, was a monstrous shark, whose small eyes and dopey walk gave way to his strangely docile personality. They were pushed all the way to the end of the hall, passing by the lone prisoner’s cell.
They shoved both into the largest of jail rooms and smacked the bar door right into the face of the screaming DeVita, threatening them for ruing his suit with the blades of their spears.
“You okay dere?” Schwarz asked his smaller friend.
“YOU WILL HEAR FROM MY BOSS ABOUT THIS!!!” DeVita screamed behind his bars, “AND YOU WILL BE SORRY THAT YOUR ASSES LEFT ME IN HERE!!!”
None of the guards took in to his threats, and soon left not long after. The lizard kicked a bit of the sand that was below his feet and then leaned on the wall, before going down on his knees and sulk. The prisoner couldn’t tell who the two were,
“Awh, no need ‘o feel bad!” Schwartz then pointed to area around himself. “Look! We goth inside, jus’ like we plannd!”
DeVita took a deep breath.
“When people say, I want to get inside that facility, they usually mean, get inside without getting caught,” he explained in a mannered tone.
“…Oh?” Schwarz muttered.
DeVita then got out and began pacing back and forth. It was obvious by his actions that he was the leader of the two. The lizards instinctively reached for his mouth, only to find something missing. He then went on to check his pockets.
“If they didn’t leave me with one single blade, I’m gonna…“ He then stood there for a moment, and began patting somewhere behind his back. Reaching down, he then pulled out a small scalpel. “Ahah!” He gleefully stared at it and stuck the knife into his mouth like a lollipop. Soon enough, the angry reptile became as calm as a newborn.
“So uh…” Schwarz stumbled on his words, “wha’ do we do nex’?”
“Can’t say, big buddy,” DeVita answered and stared right outside of the bars. “Oh, what do we do…”
While what Schwartz said wasn’t entirely correct, he was still right that they were now inside the facility, so one problem has been taken care of. So the next step should be about getting out of their confines, however way they could. Both of their hands had been cuffed, and even if they got out now, they probably would have to deal with the guards later. And its thanks to those guards that they got captured.
“Excuse me, who are you two?” Suddenly they heard coming from outside their camera.
“Uhh, who said dat?” wondered Schwarz, as DeVita scanned outside.
Out of several cells that were adorning the hall, only one of them actually had one other person, and he was diagonally opposite to the two. The man who spoke was tattered and shaggy looking homeless red bird, although the species DeVita couldn’t discern. One thing he could tell was the gigantic distended belly the sucker had, which honestly looked too misshaped to be worth attention that wouldn’t require gagging. DeVita even wondered what they hell they were feeding him to get him like that, as it looked like even walking around would be a chore. Probably they could do the same to him just to keep them from trying to escape.
Honestly a scary thought.
“Ehhh, some weirdo with us,” DeVita told his companion.
“I heard that!” Complained the odd tattered bird-guy.
“Good for you.”
DeVita then went on to do brainstorming. The first thing to do, he reminded himself, in case of capture was to take a good look at the surroundings. The cell was, for the lack of better term, an empty dump. Aside from dirt on the floor and walls made of stone, the only thing they had with them were a small sheet, a bucket and a cup. Presumably it was the best services they offered for the captured. The bucket even already had imprinted some smell, making him ignore the whole thing altogether.
Outside wasn’t exactly better. The stone on the walls had lost all of possible luster it could have had, and bits and pieces are taken out of the walls. There were symbols on the wall, presumably crests that belonged to the previous owner, with few of them already broken of from their hinges. A cell could be seen missing some bars, and another completely rusted all the way through. From the looks of it, they were placed in technically the best prison cell they had.
“Maybe we should ask him?” Schwartz chimed in out of nowhere, pointing from behind DeVita towards the bird-man from the nearby cell.
“…Why?”
Schwartz then took a moment, scratching his own head which was what he did when he was remembering something, and then said,
“…Because we should ask around!” He then gave a prideful, toothy grin.
“…Yeah, don’t think so.”
DeVita then went on to continue his pacing.
“I can help you get out!” The weirdo guy suddenly called.
“I don’t think we have time for small talk, ya bum!” He called back, before continuing chewing on his blade. Hmmmm, hint of titanium, he mused in his head.
“But I can!” The man insisted.
DeVita scoffed, thinking that there was no way this guy could know a way out.
“I know a way out of this place too!”
DeVita pulled the blade out. He approached the bars, now with interest.
“Hey!” He called the guy again. “Is what you said right now… Is that true?”
“Yes!”
“Alright!” DeVita then went on to give Schwarz a high-five. The duo were extremely ecstatic by the change of their predicament. “Heh…so then,” he faced the bars again, “if you say you gonna help us, what do you need in return?”
“Well…uh, how about you tell me about yourselves! So I get to know how both of you got here.”
“Us, huh…” He put the blade in his mouth again, thinking on it, then said, “Listen here buddy, and listen carefully! I ain’t here to tell you our whole story, just only parts of it! You good with that?”
The homeless bird promptly nodded.
“Good. Now then, it all started yesterday…”
…
In the middle of the day, at the main hall.
“What do ya mean you took it down!?” DeVita yelled over the counter at Cassandra. The young human girl with an eye-patch barely reacted to his outburst, continuing on with organizing her desk.
“Our requests will be taken down if someone else has already took it, the problem has been taken care of, or the client rescinded,” she answered as if she had been reciting it several times in the morning.
“I KNOW THAT, I just want to know why in the world you chose to take it down? I thought we made a deal that I-“
“Requests will be taken down if-“
“I said I know that!”
“Then go away already!” The young lady moved around the back and out of her desk. “Seriously, why do you always have to bother me! Anyways, I’m taking a break.”
“Wait where are you going, hey!”
She dashed to the wall behind her desk and hid behind the door that was locked as soon as he touched the knob. Thus, she left him the same as they met, completely and utterly upset. He had his mind on that mission since the beginning of the week, and had already planned the whole thing out. It was supposed to be easy money! He even talked to her about it, for god’s sake, saying how much he needed it.
And he needed it because of rather overzealous spending he’d been doing as of late, with a big one being him getting a new collection of high-quality hunting knives. To say they were a thing of beauty was an understatement, and he even bought a case with it just to hang it on the wall and be adored by him every morning. But all that spending cut into his other expenses, such as rent, sadly, so he had to find a way to get it back as soon as possible.
As far as one could guess, well, the rest is pretty self-explanatory.
DeVita ran smack first into Schwarz, as he was about to scream his lungs out in anger.
“Did you learn why?” Schwarz asked his friend.
“Yeah I learned!” DeVita snapped, albeit turning towards empty air as he did. “C’mon, we got to do stuff now.”
“O-Ok!” Schwarz followed the smaller guy with short, quick steps. “Where?”
Devita took out his newest “Behemoth Cutter 3000tm”, combat knife as large as his hand and began chewing on it to calm his nerves. And it definitely did. The seller really sold him on the difference between strength and toughness of the knife, and how he needed to prioritize those that won’t fall apart from single uses. Plus, it was delicious to boot. Devita even smacked his lips a little after taking a taste.
Best waste of money.
“Hey, look! It’s that knife dude!”
The duo turned around to see someone calling from behind. As he did, DeVita immediately began to wince.
“Aaah! Tis I see too!”
“Hey, over here!”
“Oh god’s sake…” DeVita wiped his mouth. Being in the middle of his own dilemma, he wasn’t exactly interested in talking to someone, though perhaps he was less interested in talking to them in particular.
“What’s up!” Came forward a hawk-man, wearing a friendly smile on his beak and carrying a skateboard over his shoulder. “We are the ‘Four Musketeers’, big fans of your work by the way!” He said with a smile, as he reached out for a handshake.
DeVita glanced at it without breaking an expression.
He knew of them of course, the “Four Musketeers” as they were dubbed, had only joined recently. Art-Onyx, the hawkman, was the leader of the group and also the oldest. Alongside him were Pot, a tall skinny weasel with a beany, a huge camping bag stuffed to the brim with equipment and a smile so wide it befit an idiot. Next to the latter was Ramus, sheep man wearing glasses, cross, a pouch and a book. He also was considered handsome one by the guild (really, it was only the cafeteria lady). Lastly, at the back stood there was Dart, a young lady, whose covered upper half, coming with a mask, apparently hid her mechanical nature, whereas her legs, which were more exposed, looked long, soft and appealing, if scratched.
When he first heard of the group, they were just a bunch of no-names, likely to die in their first week as any low life would. But then they began slowly earning their wings and soon the credit they worked being given to them. And the problem with that for DeVita was that it had a slight possibility of it supplanting him from his position near his boss. There was a reason he was made the right-hand man by head of the guild, and with limited spaces there are as is for the best of the best, they might end up pushing him out. Which meant no more stuff like planned meals, separate room, and even respect a right-hand man has to his boss.
And DeVita wanted none of that.
“Whaddya want?” He hissed at them, clearly not in the mood.
“You heard that there is this new add-on within the guild section nowadays?” Art-Onyx continued, not minding the atmosphere one bit. “About the competing team efforts, I mean?”
“What?”
This was a first for DeVita to hear. It wasn’t completely out there that the guild would sometimes put these “add-ons” made to help boost notoriety for its members. It is an element that makes the place so popular for many a start-up scavenger. They usually add some odd thing about what can or cannot be done while the mission was being held, like making sure not to kill a violent beast while stealing its eggs, taking down a whole thief group in two days, discovering a new treasure in an unknown location, all that kind of stuff. It also what made the guild infamous thanks to the chaos it stirs up whenever these “add-ons” are added, and some kingdoms found it especially outrageous how blatant they tend to be with requests. That said, these things come around about once in every month.
Which was what made it all the more baffling for DeVita to hear, as the last mission with an add-on had already been finished.
“Oh, you haven’t heard?” The hawkman asked him in a surprise.
The lizard just checked to his buddy, who took a moment and then shrugged his big shoulders. DeVita then slowly eyed the hawk once again with a sour expression, biting into him Behemoth Cutter 3000tm.
“We already had a stunt to do, birdbeak.” DeVita slid the blade against his sharp teeth.
“Apparently they had another one this month!” Art-Onyx proclaimed. “I actually asked around, some people think it’s maybe because the first time had to be taken down too early. Guess that’s just how it is, huh?” He chuckled and looked at the rest of his gang with each giving their own reaction: Pot gave an even bigger idiotic smile to his laugh, Ramus looked at DeVita and shrugged, while Dart just stood there, staring somewhere else.
He then continued, “Okay so, according to the latest one, it requires two opposing scavengers, a full group included, to compete against one another. The first one to propose has to give the winning conditions for the other and have them agree.”
“Hmmm, interesting…” DeVita mused.
“Yeah, I know.” Art-Onyx made himself chuckle again. “And I kinda glad to hear you said that…cause I feel like, we both could, you know.”
DeVita stopped chewing on his knife and focused his glare.
“So you guys want to compete for this one, with us? Izzat what you are sayin’?”
“Yeah! Could make for a friendly competition you know.”
DeVita actually guffawed at that.
“I dunno about competition,” DeVita pointed his knife straight at him, “but my granny told me to steer clear if my gut tells me there’s trouble or no reward from it. And from what my gut is telling me, its ‘this is the biggest waste of time since I tried to eat that shoe.’ Tell me, if you were in my shoes, what you would’ve done here?”
The hawkman stood there for a while, and after giving large audible sigh, moved his gaze down, before mopingly shaking his head.
“You’re right, man,” he admitted regrettably. “But you know, sometimes, you get cold feet. Since I’ve had to take many risks throughout my life, I’ve learned to accept them whenever they appear. ‘Cause truth be told, you can’t just stop yourself from doing something just because you’re afraid or your gut tells you it will be bad. Sometimes, there’s something great going on down the road.”
DeVita kept his cold expression, going back to chewing on his knife in boredom. Art-Onyx sighed.
“Look, alright, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to do it. We can find someone else, but just, having a chance to go against you has been a dream of ours.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, the stories and the way you took out random mercenaries and pirates and monsters, like that one time you destroyed a whole organization, or killed the boss of notorious gang who was also ten times the size of you, or how you even apparently killed a giant sand squid with nothing but a knife, bag of salt, wrench and sandwich press!”
“Yeah, we kinda had to do some ingenuity there, haven’t we Schwarz?” DeVita said to his friend while blushing.
“Yeah! And I nearly got’ swallow’d whole too! Man, dose were the times!” The shark behemoth smiled his goofy grin.
Then, Art-Onyx shrugged his shoulders.
“But I guess it doesn’t matter now, a gut says what it says and we can’t change it. Man, that would’ve been so rad, right guys? Well, I guess we’d be going,” he turned to his team and motioned to the door, signifying them to get out.
DeVita saw them leave, looking disheartened, only for the hawkman to turn around to him again.
“Oh, I also forgot to tell you, I had a money proposition, but I guess you wouldn’t be interested in it now. Part of the ‘add-on’ is for two parties to make up a bet, and I thought, we should ask for, I dunno, about twenty-thousand golds for it? It’s about twice more, but I think doing it like this would push the competitive spirit up a bit for both of us. Would’ve sounded fun, right?”
DeVita stopped biting on his knife.
“Now wait a minute there!” The lizard charged at the hawkman, who readily faced him as soon as DeVita began talking. DeVita brought out his scowl and raised his nose to show intimidation, not minding the fact that he was several inches shorter than Art-Onyx. “I gots to say, you were right about few things: in my time, I’ve dealt with all types of monsters, cutthroats, bandit groups and all whatever you wanted to throw at me there. And as one of my favorite cousins from lovely Aunt Lucille told me, ‘I’ve never seen someone with such a high passion and bloodlust over what they did as you do’. And guess what? He is correct, cause what you need when doing stuff like this is passion. And I know, that I have more passion than anyone else in this whole darn building alone.”
The hawkman kept gazing at him, now looking less focused over waiting for the lizard to get to his point. DeVita didn’t care to notice.
“As such, I have a proposition, and one you shouldn’t say no to. How about, you take this quest, and with its add-on, bet against us, huh? Whaddya say? Sounds good?”
Art-Onyx smiled through his beak.
“Will get right on it sir!”
“Good. Now hand me that paper.”
The hawk gave the parchment with information. As the “Musketeers” began to leave, DeVita exclaimed, “Don’t forget to put thirty-thousand golds as a prize!”
“You got it!” Art-Onyx high-fived between his teammates, as all of them exited the main hall and towards the cafeteria.
Looking over the mission details and grinning in content, DeVita proceeded on chewing his favorite knife. Schwarz approached him counting his fingers.
“Duh-Was’n’ ith suppos’d ‘o be thwenty..?”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s all good,” DeVita interrupted him, before hiding the paper and pushed his friend forward. “Now all we gots to do is to ride over there, do the job, steal their thunder, collect money and capische! Back to our humble abodes!”
“Oh! Gee, hope they don’t mind us winning then!” Schwarz said showing his full rows of teeth.
“You said it pal! Now, how about we visit a friend, eh?”
…
The best business is the one that cares for its workers as much as it does its customers, and considering the “business” most scavenger guilds offer, they are no exceptions. From the Garbage Area, only few guilds could in fact offer such high services, as surprisingly not many find themselves interested in betting their life in such harsh environments. Many scavengers take it as a sign of superior services, however, as the few they have tend to be just as exceptional at their craft as those outside of it.
Among their services, they offer room renting and maintenance, as well as food, entertainment, medical aid, weapon crafting, vehicle care, and even accounting!
“Chiron”, an unusual hybrid of man and horse, was a member who offered services, and had a special “workshop” created just for him. It was a large, double-leveled room specifically designed to house vehicles as big as two-story ones. One of its walls was a huge, heavy gate to allow most vehicles to get in from outside. Opposite side of it, was where Chiron usually situated himself, a wall with multiple floors, including spaces for his kitchen, bathroom and bed. The floors were connected to a ladder and a lift, latter designed specifically for him. At the bottom was were his work station, which had tools, spare parts and materials laying around, as well as games, calendars and books with which he busied himself on off time.
At that moment, his workshop was mainly filled with one car, and a wide variety of spares and garbage he would late deal with. It was a hybrid half-dune buggy, half stylish car with a convertible top and a “Greece Lightning” sign at the side, that belonged to their guild’s “postman”. For the most part, it had been making weird noises, so he had replaced it with a brand-new spare one just to keep it safe. It was the only one he was dealing with for that day, his shop closed from any other clients.
He turned it on with a key and tested the engine one more time. It smoothly revved up and then purred like a kitten, just as it should.
“Well, hello there, four-leg man!” A turtle “greaser”, wearing his bright green jacket and sporting a slicked back doo, called from above. “So, how’s my baby doin’?”
Chiron looked up at Ace, their guild’s postman, in charge of sending and collecting messages when simple computer or phone won’t work.
“As you can hear, pretty good,” he stated, and turned it off. He proceeded to his personal lift. It’s far more comfortable to have him come by machine than have his guests meddle with stairs. “I’ll take a look at the old engine, but you can basically take it with you already.”
“Hot stuff man.” The turtle grinned looking over his car, showing his pearly whites, “You are the miracle worker.”
Behind him peeked the “grim reaper”, cloth hanging over their face and body except for their skeleton hands. In each, he was holding a towering scythe with a rusty blade, and on the other, a chocolate flavored ice-cream cone.
“My buddy and I needed it for tomorrow,” Ace said, then bumped his buddy who was in the middle of enjoying their treat. “Hey, you heard what going on out there? The sands been swarming with bandits! Unbelievable, right?”
“Most likely they found another leader,” Chiron answered rationally. He left the car and went straight to the platform, pressing the panel on its side to raise him up. As he slowly moved to the second level, he said, “Anyways, your car is pretty much ready to go. You can talk with Cass about your bill.”
“I’ll just leave it to the big man. He said he’ll pay it off himself.”
“Really? That’s surprising.” Chiron doesn’t usually question too much of boss’s actions, even if most of the time they appear to make no sense. He then approached the door and said, “So what’s the special on the-“
Suddenly, they both heard a sound of car’s engine revving up. Chiron, surprised to hear that he maybe forgot to turn off the car, felt color fly off of his face when he looked right below him.
“HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING DOWN THERE!” Ace yelled. Chiron himself immediately recognized Schwarz. The large shark man was on top of the dune buggy, unable to properly fit himself into the seat. Right next to him was the scaly knife-enthusiast DeVita, pulling and wrangling on the former’s shirt, trying to make him get in or wriggle out.
“There’s no way they can get out of here, it’s closed!” Ace stated, noting that the two are slowly moving the car forward.
Chiron would’ve agreed with him, if he didn’t immediately realized two things. One, they somehow managed to get in without them knowing. The only entrances were the door on the upper level, where they have been occupying, and the heavy gates that held off the outside. That should be impossible, unless they managed to find a way, and most likely at that lower level. And thus, the second thing he realized, was that if they got in, they could easily get out.
“Stop it you two!!!” Yelled Ace, sliding down the stairs, along with his buddy. Chiron, still in the upper level, observed the whole thing.
As the car inched closer to the gates, Schwarz pulled himself out of the seat and carefully sat himself on the porch of the car. This sudden shift in weight nearly tipped it over, though the balance hadn’t been lost yet. He then saw them move to the corner of the gates, as Schwarz used his foot to kick against the gate’s door’s hinges. With each kick, the less apparent hole was becoming more and more bigger, finally coming to light, revealing the hole behind the garage’s defenses.
Ace had already gotten down and tried to go after them.
“WAIT!”
“Eh, Scuse us, man! We’ll be taking this for a walk! Be back soon!!!” DeVita yelled, and pressing on the pedal charged the car forward as Schwarz gave on last kick to make the hole finally big enough to let them through.
Ace stopped, carefully stepping away from the gate door that lost its balance and was on the verge of falling. Out in the distance, the duo have already gone far beyond the react for either of them.
Chiron leaned on the wall and massaged his head. Guess we’ll be phoning the boss again, he thought.
Ace looked into the distance with a shocked expression. His buddy, freeing one of its boney hands from ice-cream, gave him a pat on the shoulder.
…
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It was from outside of the old, decrepit walls where DeVita’s first cries were heard the most. Loud, aggressive and punctually filled with swears, the sheer volume it made was enough to wake up the lonely sleeping prisoner from his jail.
Down the filthy and unkempt hall, filled with cracks, dirt, grass and vomit, the door swung wide open. First entered a pair of guards, carrying with latest gun technologies. Then, came in few guards with makeshift spears. After them, an odd pair of men, pushed forward by the last few with spears.
One of those men was DeVita, a scrawny, but violently-temperamental lizard who kept on shouting how all of them will hear from his “cuzz”. The other, Schwarz, was a monstrous shark, whose small eyes and dopey walk gave way to his strangely docile personality. They were pushed all the way to the end of the hall, passing by the lone prisoner’s cell.
They shoved both into the largest of jail rooms and smacked the bar door right into the face of the screaming DeVita, threatening them for ruing his suit with the blades of their spears.
“You okay dere?” Schwarz asked his smaller friend.
“YOU WILL HEAR FROM MY BOSS ABOUT THIS!!!” DeVita screamed behind his bars, “AND YOU WILL BE SORRY THAT YOUR ASSES LEFT ME IN HERE!!!”
None of the guards took in to his threats, and soon left not long after. The lizard kicked a bit of the sand that was below his feet and then leaned on the wall, before going down on his knees and sulk. The prisoner couldn’t tell who the two were,
“Awh, no need ‘o feel bad!” Schwartz then pointed to area around himself. “Look! We goth inside, jus’ like we plannd!”
DeVita took a deep breath.
“When people say, I want to get inside that facility, they usually mean, get inside without getting caught,” he explained in a mannered tone.
“…Oh?” Schwarz muttered.
DeVita then got out and began pacing back and forth. It was obvious by his actions that he was the leader of the two. The lizards instinctively reached for his mouth, only to find something missing. He then went on to check his pockets.
“If they didn’t leave me with one single blade, I’m gonna…“ He then stood there for a moment, and began patting somewhere behind his back. Reaching down, he then pulled out a small scalpel. “Ahah!” He gleefully stared at it and stuck the knife into his mouth like a lollipop. Soon enough, the angry reptile became as calm as a newborn.
“So uh…” Schwarz stumbled on his words, “wha’ do we do nex’?”
“Can’t say, big buddy,” DeVita answered and stared right outside of the bars. “Oh, what do we do…”
While what Schwartz said wasn’t entirely correct, he was still right that they were now inside the facility, so one problem has been taken care of. So the next step should be about getting out of their confines, however way they could. Both of their hands had been cuffed, and even if they got out now, they probably would have to deal with the guards later. And its thanks to those guards that they got captured.
“Excuse me, who are you two?” Suddenly they heard coming from outside their camera.
“Uhh, who said dat?” wondered Schwarz, as DeVita scanned outside.
Out of several cells that were adorning the hall, only one of them actually had one other person, and he was diagonally opposite to the two. The man who spoke was tattered and shaggy looking homeless red bird, although the species DeVita couldn’t discern. One thing he could tell was the gigantic distended belly the sucker had, which honestly looked too misshaped to be worth attention that wouldn’t require gagging. DeVita even wondered what they hell they were feeding him to get him like that, as it looked like even walking around would be a chore. Probably they could do the same to him just to keep them from trying to escape.
Honestly a scary thought.
“Ehhh, some weirdo with us,” DeVita told his companion.
“I heard that!” Complained the odd tattered bird-guy.
“Good for you.”
DeVita then went on to do brainstorming. The first thing to do, he reminded himself, in case of capture was to take a good look at the surroundings. The cell was, for the lack of better term, an empty dump. Aside from dirt on the floor and walls made of stone, the only thing they had with them were a small sheet, a bucket and a cup. Presumably it was the best services they offered for the captured. The bucket even already had imprinted some smell, making him ignore the whole thing altogether.
Outside wasn’t exactly better. The stone on the walls had lost all of possible luster it could have had, and bits and pieces are taken out of the walls. There were symbols on the wall, presumably crests that belonged to the previous owner, with few of them already broken of from their hinges. A cell could be seen missing some bars, and another completely rusted all the way through. From the looks of it, they were placed in technically the best prison cell they had.
“Maybe we should ask him?” Schwartz chimed in out of nowhere, pointing from behind DeVita towards the bird-man from the nearby cell.
“…Why?”
Schwartz then took a moment, scratching his own head which was what he did when he was remembering something, and then said,
“…Because we should ask around!” He then gave a prideful, toothy grin.
“…Yeah, don’t think so.”
DeVita then went on to continue his pacing.
“I can help you get out!” The weirdo guy suddenly called.
“I don’t think we have time for small talk, ya bum!” He called back, before continuing chewing on his blade. Hmmmm, hint of titanium, he mused in his head.
“But I can!” The man insisted.
DeVita scoffed, thinking that there was no way this guy could know a way out.
“I know a way out of this place too!”
DeVita pulled the blade out. He approached the bars, now with interest.
“Hey!” He called the guy again. “Is what you said right now… Is that true?”
“Yes!”
“Alright!” DeVita then went on to give Schwarz a high-five. The duo were extremely ecstatic by the change of their predicament. “Heh…so then,” he faced the bars again, “if you say you gonna help us, what do you need in return?”
“Well…uh, how about you tell me about yourselves! So I get to know how both of you got here.”
“Us, huh…” He put the blade in his mouth again, thinking on it, then said, “Listen here buddy, and listen carefully! I ain’t here to tell you our whole story, just only parts of it! You good with that?”
The homeless bird promptly nodded.
“Good. Now then, it all started yesterday…”
…
In the middle of the day, at the main hall.
“What do ya mean you took it down!?” DeVita yelled over the counter at Cassandra. The young human girl with an eye-patch barely reacted to his outburst, continuing on with organizing her desk.
“Our requests will be taken down if someone else has already took it, the problem has been taken care of, or the client rescinded,” she answered as if she had been reciting it several times in the morning.
“I KNOW THAT, I just want to know why in the world you chose to take it down? I thought we made a deal that I-“
“Requests will be taken down if-“
“I said I know that!”
“Then go away already!” The young lady moved around the back and out of her desk. “Seriously, why do you always have to bother me! Anyways, I’m taking a break.”
“Wait where are you going, hey!”
She dashed to the wall behind her desk and hid behind the door that was locked as soon as he touched the knob. Thus, she left him the same as they met, completely and utterly upset. He had his mind on that mission since the beginning of the week, and had already planned the whole thing out. It was supposed to be easy money! He even talked to her about it, for god’s sake, saying how much he needed it.
And he needed it because of rather overzealous spending he’d been doing as of late, with a big one being him getting a new collection of high-quality hunting knives. To say they were a thing of beauty was an understatement, and he even bought a case with it just to hang it on the wall and be adored by him every morning. But all that spending cut into his other expenses, such as rent, sadly, so he had to find a way to get it back as soon as possible.
As far as one could guess, well, the rest is pretty self-explanatory.
DeVita ran smack first into Schwarz, as he was about to scream his lungs out in anger.
“Did you learn why?” Schwarz asked his friend.
“Yeah I learned!” DeVita snapped, albeit turning towards empty air as he did. “C’mon, we got to do stuff now.”
“O-Ok!” Schwarz followed the smaller guy with short, quick steps. “Where?”
Devita took out his newest “Behemoth Cutter 3000tm”, combat knife as large as his hand and began chewing on it to calm his nerves. And it definitely did. The seller really sold him on the difference between strength and toughness of the knife, and how he needed to prioritize those that won’t fall apart from single uses. Plus, it was delicious to boot. Devita even smacked his lips a little after taking a taste.
Best waste of money.
“Hey, look! It’s that knife dude!”
The duo turned around to see someone calling from behind. As he did, DeVita immediately began to wince.
“Aaah! Tis I see too!”
“Hey, over here!”
“Oh god’s sake…” DeVita wiped his mouth. Being in the middle of his own dilemma, he wasn’t exactly interested in talking to someone, though perhaps he was less interested in talking to them in particular.
“What’s up!” Came forward a hawk-man, wearing a friendly smile on his beak and carrying a skateboard over his shoulder. “We are the ‘Four Musketeers’, big fans of your work by the way!” He said with a smile, as he reached out for a handshake.
DeVita glanced at it without breaking an expression.
He knew of them of course, the “Four Musketeers” as they were dubbed, had only joined recently. Art-Onyx, the hawkman, was the leader of the group and also the oldest. Alongside him were Pot, a tall skinny weasel with a beany, a huge camping bag stuffed to the brim with equipment and a smile so wide it befit an idiot. Next to the latter was Ramus, sheep man wearing glasses, cross, a pouch and a book. He also was considered handsome one by the guild (really, it was only the cafeteria lady). Lastly, at the back stood there was Dart, a young lady, whose covered upper half, coming with a mask, apparently hid her mechanical nature, whereas her legs, which were more exposed, looked long, soft and appealing, if scratched.
When he first heard of the group, they were just a bunch of no-names, likely to die in their first week as any low life would. But then they began slowly earning their wings and soon the credit they worked being given to them. And the problem with that for DeVita was that it had a slight possibility of it supplanting him from his position near his boss. There was a reason he was made the right-hand man by head of the guild, and with limited spaces there are as is for the best of the best, they might end up pushing him out. Which meant no more stuff like planned meals, separate room, and even respect a right-hand man has to his boss.
And DeVita wanted none of that.
“Whaddya want?” He hissed at them, clearly not in the mood.
“You heard that there is this new add-on within the guild section nowadays?” Art-Onyx continued, not minding the atmosphere one bit. “About the competing team efforts, I mean?”
“What?”
This was a first for DeVita to hear. It wasn’t completely out there that the guild would sometimes put these “add-ons” made to help boost notoriety for its members. It is an element that makes the place so popular for many a start-up scavenger. They usually add some odd thing about what can or cannot be done while the mission was being held, like making sure not to kill a violent beast while stealing its eggs, taking down a whole thief group in two days, discovering a new treasure in an unknown location, all that kind of stuff. It also what made the guild infamous thanks to the chaos it stirs up whenever these “add-ons” are added, and some kingdoms found it especially outrageous how blatant they tend to be with requests. That said, these things come around about once in every month.
Which was what made it all the more baffling for DeVita to hear, as the last mission with an add-on had already been finished.
“Oh, you haven’t heard?” The hawkman asked him in a surprise.
The lizard just checked to his buddy, who took a moment and then shrugged his big shoulders. DeVita then slowly eyed the hawk once again with a sour expression, biting into him Behemoth Cutter 3000tm.
“We already had a stunt to do, birdbeak.” DeVita slid the blade against his sharp teeth.
“Apparently they had another one this month!” Art-Onyx proclaimed. “I actually asked around, some people think it’s maybe because the first time had to be taken down too early. Guess that’s just how it is, huh?” He chuckled and looked at the rest of his gang with each giving their own reaction: Pot gave an even bigger idiotic smile to his laugh, Ramus looked at DeVita and shrugged, while Dart just stood there, staring somewhere else.
He then continued, “Okay so, according to the latest one, it requires two opposing scavengers, a full group included, to compete against one another. The first one to propose has to give the winning conditions for the other and have them agree.”
“Hmmm, interesting…” DeVita mused.
“Yeah, I know.” Art-Onyx made himself chuckle again. “And I kinda glad to hear you said that…cause I feel like, we both could, you know.”
DeVita stopped chewing on his knife and focused his glare.
“So you guys want to compete for this one, with us? Izzat what you are sayin’?”
“Yeah! Could make for a friendly competition you know.”
DeVita actually guffawed at that.
“I dunno about competition,” DeVita pointed his knife straight at him, “but my granny told me to steer clear if my gut tells me there’s trouble or no reward from it. And from what my gut is telling me, its ‘this is the biggest waste of time since I tried to eat that shoe.’ Tell me, if you were in my shoes, what you would’ve done here?”
The hawkman stood there for a while, and after giving large audible sigh, moved his gaze down, before mopingly shaking his head.
“You’re right, man,” he admitted regrettably. “But you know, sometimes, you get cold feet. Since I’ve had to take many risks throughout my life, I’ve learned to accept them whenever they appear. ‘Cause truth be told, you can’t just stop yourself from doing something just because you’re afraid or your gut tells you it will be bad. Sometimes, there’s something great going on down the road.”
DeVita kept his cold expression, going back to chewing on his knife in boredom. Art-Onyx sighed.
“Look, alright, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to do it. We can find someone else, but just, having a chance to go against you has been a dream of ours.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, the stories and the way you took out random mercenaries and pirates and monsters, like that one time you destroyed a whole organization, or killed the boss of notorious gang who was also ten times the size of you, or how you even apparently killed a giant sand squid with nothing but a knife, bag of salt, wrench and sandwich press!”
“Yeah, we kinda had to do some ingenuity there, haven’t we Schwarz?” DeVita said to his friend while blushing.
“Yeah! And I nearly got’ swallow’d whole too! Man, dose were the times!” The shark behemoth smiled his goofy grin.
Then, Art-Onyx shrugged his shoulders.
“But I guess it doesn’t matter now, a gut says what it says and we can’t change it. Man, that would’ve been so rad, right guys? Well, I guess we’d be going,” he turned to his team and motioned to the door, signifying them to get out.
DeVita saw them leave, looking disheartened, only for the hawkman to turn around to him again.
“Oh, I also forgot to tell you, I had a money proposition, but I guess you wouldn’t be interested in it now. Part of the ‘add-on’ is for two parties to make up a bet, and I thought, we should ask for, I dunno, about twenty-thousand golds for it? It’s about twice more, but I think doing it like this would push the competitive spirit up a bit for both of us. Would’ve sounded fun, right?”
DeVita stopped biting on his knife.
“Now wait a minute there!” The lizard charged at the hawkman, who readily faced him as soon as DeVita began talking. DeVita brought out his scowl and raised his nose to show intimidation, not minding the fact that he was several inches shorter than Art-Onyx. “I gots to say, you were right about few things: in my time, I’ve dealt with all types of monsters, cutthroats, bandit groups and all whatever you wanted to throw at me there. And as one of my favorite cousins from lovely Aunt Lucille told me, ‘I’ve never seen someone with such a high passion and bloodlust over what they did as you do’. And guess what? He is correct, cause what you need when doing stuff like this is passion. And I know, that I have more passion than anyone else in this whole darn building alone.”
The hawkman kept gazing at him, now looking less focused over waiting for the lizard to get to his point. DeVita didn’t care to notice.
“As such, I have a proposition, and one you shouldn’t say no to. How about, you take this quest, and with its add-on, bet against us, huh? Whaddya say? Sounds good?”
Art-Onyx smiled through his beak.
“Will get right on it sir!”
“Good. Now hand me that paper.”
The hawk gave the parchment with information. As the “Musketeers” began to leave, DeVita exclaimed, “Don’t forget to put thirty-thousand golds as a prize!”
“You got it!” Art-Onyx high-fived between his teammates, as all of them exited the main hall and towards the cafeteria.
Looking over the mission details and grinning in content, DeVita proceeded on chewing his favorite knife. Schwarz approached him counting his fingers.
“Duh-Was’n’ ith suppos’d ‘o be thwenty..?”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s all good,” DeVita interrupted him, before hiding the paper and pushed his friend forward. “Now all we gots to do is to ride over there, do the job, steal their thunder, collect money and capische! Back to our humble abodes!”
“Oh! Gee, hope they don’t mind us winning then!” Schwarz said showing his full rows of teeth.
“You said it pal! Now, how about we visit a friend, eh?”
…
The best business is the one that cares for its workers as much as it does its customers, and considering the “business” most scavenger guilds offer, they are no exceptions. From the Garbage Area, only few guilds could in fact offer such high services, as surprisingly not many find themselves interested in betting their life in such harsh environments. Many scavengers take it as a sign of superior services, however, as the few they have tend to be just as exceptional at their craft as those outside of it.
Among their services, they offer room renting and maintenance, as well as food, entertainment, medical aid, weapon crafting, vehicle care, and even accounting!
“Chiron”, an unusual hybrid of man and horse, was a member who offered services, and had a special “workshop” created just for him. It was a large, double-leveled room specifically designed to house vehicles as big as two-story ones. One of its walls was a huge, heavy gate to allow most vehicles to get in from outside. Opposite side of it, was where Chiron usually situated himself, a wall with multiple floors, including spaces for his kitchen, bathroom and bed. The floors were connected to a ladder and a lift, latter designed specifically for him. At the bottom was were his work station, which had tools, spare parts and materials laying around, as well as games, calendars and books with which he busied himself on off time.
At that moment, his workshop was mainly filled with one car, and a wide variety of spares and garbage he would late deal with. It was a hybrid half-dune buggy, half stylish car with a convertible top and a “Greece Lightning” sign at the side, that belonged to their guild’s “postman”. For the most part, it had been making weird noises, so he had replaced it with a brand-new spare one just to keep it safe. It was the only one he was dealing with for that day, his shop closed from any other clients.
He turned it on with a key and tested the engine one more time. It smoothly revved up and then purred like a kitten, just as it should.
“Well, hello there, four-leg man!” A turtle “greaser”, wearing his bright green jacket and sporting a slicked back doo, called from above. “So, how’s my baby doin’?”
Chiron looked up at Ace, their guild’s postman, in charge of sending and collecting messages when simple computer or phone won’t work.
“As you can hear, pretty good,” he stated, and turned it off. He proceeded to his personal lift. It’s far more comfortable to have him come by machine than have his guests meddle with stairs. “I’ll take a look at the old engine, but you can basically take it with you already.”
“Hot stuff man.” The turtle grinned looking over his car, showing his pearly whites, “You are the miracle worker.”
Behind him peeked the “grim reaper”, cloth hanging over their face and body except for their skeleton hands. In each, he was holding a towering scythe with a rusty blade, and on the other, a chocolate flavored ice-cream cone.
“My buddy and I needed it for tomorrow,” Ace said, then bumped his buddy who was in the middle of enjoying their treat. “Hey, you heard what going on out there? The sands been swarming with bandits! Unbelievable, right?”
“Most likely they found another leader,” Chiron answered rationally. He left the car and went straight to the platform, pressing the panel on its side to raise him up. As he slowly moved to the second level, he said, “Anyways, your car is pretty much ready to go. You can talk with Cass about your bill.”
“I’ll just leave it to the big man. He said he’ll pay it off himself.”
“Really? That’s surprising.” Chiron doesn’t usually question too much of boss’s actions, even if most of the time they appear to make no sense. He then approached the door and said, “So what’s the special on the-“
Suddenly, they both heard a sound of car’s engine revving up. Chiron, surprised to hear that he maybe forgot to turn off the car, felt color fly off of his face when he looked right below him.
“HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING DOWN THERE!” Ace yelled. Chiron himself immediately recognized Schwarz. The large shark man was on top of the dune buggy, unable to properly fit himself into the seat. Right next to him was the scaly knife-enthusiast DeVita, pulling and wrangling on the former’s shirt, trying to make him get in or wriggle out.
“There’s no way they can get out of here, it’s closed!” Ace stated, noting that the two are slowly moving the car forward.
Chiron would’ve agreed with him, if he didn’t immediately realized two things. One, they somehow managed to get in without them knowing. The only entrances were the door on the upper level, where they have been occupying, and the heavy gates that held off the outside. That should be impossible, unless they managed to find a way, and most likely at that lower level. And thus, the second thing he realized, was that if they got in, they could easily get out.
“Stop it you two!!!” Yelled Ace, sliding down the stairs, along with his buddy. Chiron, still in the upper level, observed the whole thing.
As the car inched closer to the gates, Schwarz pulled himself out of the seat and carefully sat himself on the porch of the car. This sudden shift in weight nearly tipped it over, though the balance hadn’t been lost yet. He then saw them move to the corner of the gates, as Schwarz used his foot to kick against the gate’s door’s hinges. With each kick, the less apparent hole was becoming more and more bigger, finally coming to light, revealing the hole behind the garage’s defenses.
Ace had already gotten down and tried to go after them.
“WAIT!”
“Eh, Scuse us, man! We’ll be taking this for a walk! Be back soon!!!” DeVita yelled, and pressing on the pedal charged the car forward as Schwarz gave on last kick to make the hole finally big enough to let them through.
Ace stopped, carefully stepping away from the gate door that lost its balance and was on the verge of falling. Out in the distance, the duo have already gone far beyond the react for either of them.
Chiron leaned on the wall and massaged his head. Guess we’ll be phoning the boss again, he thought.
Ace looked into the distance with a shocked expression. His buddy, freeing one of its boney hands from ice-cream, gave him a pat on the shoulder.
…
Checkout those Mickey Mouse shorts. They are FUN!!!
It was from outside of the old, decrepit walls where DeVita’s first cries were heard the most. Loud, aggressive and punctually filled with swears, the sheer volume it made was enough to wake up the lonely sleeping prisoner from his jail.
Down the filthy and unkempt hall, filled with cracks, dirt, grass and vomit, the door swung wide open. First entered a pair of guards, carrying with latest gun technologies. Then, came in few guards with makeshift spears. After them, an odd pair of men, pushed forward by the last few with spears.
One of those men was DeVita, a scrawny, but violently-temperamental lizard who kept on shouting how all of them will hear from his “cuzz”. The other, Schwarz, was a monstrous shark, whose small eyes and dopey walk gave way to his strangely docile personality. They were pushed all the way to the end of the hall, passing by the lone prisoner’s cell.
They shoved both into the largest of jail rooms and smacked the bar door right into the face of the screaming DeVita, threatening them for ruing his suit with the blades of their spears.
“You okay dere?” Schwarz asked his smaller friend.
“YOU WILL HEAR FROM MY BOSS ABOUT THIS!!!” DeVita screamed behind his bars, “AND YOU WILL BE SORRY THAT YOUR ASSES LEFT ME IN HERE!!!”
None of the guards took in to his threats, and soon left not long after. The lizard kicked a bit of the sand that was below his feet and then leaned on the wall, before going down on his knees and sulk. The prisoner couldn’t tell who the two were,
“Awh, no need ‘o feel bad!” Schwartz then pointed to area around himself. “Look! We goth inside, jus’ like we plannd!”
DeVita took a deep breath.
“When people say, I want to get inside that facility, they usually mean, get inside without getting caught,” he explained in a mannered tone.
“…Oh?” Schwarz muttered.
DeVita then got out and began pacing back and forth. It was obvious by his actions that he was the leader of the two. The lizards instinctively reached for his mouth, only to find something missing. He then went on to check his pockets.
“If they didn’t leave me with one single blade, I’m gonna…“ He then stood there for a moment, and began patting somewhere behind his back. Reaching down, he then pulled out a small scalpel. “Ahah!” He gleefully stared at it and stuck the knife into his mouth like a lollipop. Soon enough, the angry reptile became as calm as a newborn.
“So uh…” Schwarz stumbled on his words, “wha’ do we do nex’?”
“Can’t say, big buddy,” DeVita answered and stared right outside of the bars. “Oh, what do we do…”
While what Schwartz said wasn’t entirely correct, he was still right that they were now inside the facility, so one problem has been taken care of. So the next step should be about getting out of their confines, however way they could. Both of their hands had been cuffed, and even if they got out now, they probably would have to deal with the guards later. And its thanks to those guards that they got captured.
“Excuse me, who are you two?” Suddenly they heard coming from outside their camera.
“Uhh, who said dat?” wondered Schwarz, as DeVita scanned outside.
Out of several cells that were adorning the hall, only one of them actually had one other person, and he was diagonally opposite to the two. The man who spoke was tattered and shaggy looking homeless red bird, although the species DeVita couldn’t discern. One thing he could tell was the gigantic distended belly the sucker had, which honestly looked too misshaped to be worth attention that wouldn’t require gagging. DeVita even wondered what they hell they were feeding him to get him like that, as it looked like even walking around would be a chore. Probably they could do the same to him just to keep them from trying to escape.
Honestly a scary thought.
“Ehhh, some weirdo with us,” DeVita told his companion.
“I heard that!” Complained the odd tattered bird-guy.
“Good for you.”
DeVita then went on to do brainstorming. The first thing to do, he reminded himself, in case of capture was to take a good look at the surroundings. The cell was, for the lack of better term, an empty dump. Aside from dirt on the floor and walls made of stone, the only thing they had with them were a small sheet, a bucket and a cup. Presumably it was the best services they offered for the captured. The bucket even already had imprinted some smell, making him ignore the whole thing altogether.
Outside wasn’t exactly better. The stone on the walls had lost all of possible luster it could have had, and bits and pieces are taken out of the walls. There were symbols on the wall, presumably crests that belonged to the previous owner, with few of them already broken of from their hinges. A cell could be seen missing some bars, and another completely rusted all the way through. From the looks of it, they were placed in technically the best prison cell they had.
“Maybe we should ask him?” Schwartz chimed in out of nowhere, pointing from behind DeVita towards the bird-man from the nearby cell.
“…Why?”
Schwartz then took a moment, scratching his own head which was what he did when he was remembering something, and then said,
“…Because we should ask around!” He then gave a prideful, toothy grin.
“…Yeah, don’t think so.”
DeVita then went on to continue his pacing.
“I can help you get out!” The weirdo guy suddenly called.
“I don’t think we have time for small talk, ya bum!” He called back, before continuing chewing on his blade. Hmmmm, hint of titanium, he mused in his head.
“But I can!” The man insisted.
DeVita scoffed, thinking that there was no way this guy could know a way out.
“I know a way out of this place too!”
DeVita pulled the blade out. He approached the bars, now with interest.
“Hey!” He called the guy again. “Is what you said right now… Is that true?”
“Yes!”
“Alright!” DeVita then went on to give Schwarz a high-five. The duo were extremely ecstatic by the change of their predicament. “Heh…so then,” he faced the bars again, “if you say you gonna help us, what do you need in return?”
“Well…uh, how about you tell me about yourselves! So I get to know how both of you got here.”
“Us, huh…” He put the blade in his mouth again, thinking on it, then said, “Listen here buddy, and listen carefully! I ain’t here to tell you our whole story, just only parts of it! You good with that?”
The homeless bird promptly nodded.
“Good. Now then, it all started yesterday…”
…
In the middle of the day, at the main hall.
“What do ya mean you took it down!?” DeVita yelled over the counter at Cassandra. The young human girl with an eye-patch barely reacted to his outburst, continuing on with organizing her desk.
“Our requests will be taken down if someone else has already took it, the problem has been taken care of, or the client rescinded,” she answered as if she had been reciting it several times in the morning.
“I KNOW THAT, I just want to know why in the world you chose to take it down? I thought we made a deal that I-“
“Requests will be taken down if-“
“I said I know that!”
“Then go away already!” The young lady moved around the back and out of her desk. “Seriously, why do you always have to bother me! Anyways, I’m taking a break.”
“Wait where are you going, hey!”
She dashed to the wall behind her desk and hid behind the door that was locked as soon as he touched the knob. Thus, she left him the same as they met, completely and utterly upset. He had his mind on that mission since the beginning of the week, and had already planned the whole thing out. It was supposed to be easy money! He even talked to her about it, for god’s sake, saying how much he needed it.
And he needed it because of rather overzealous spending he’d been doing as of late, with a big one being him getting a new collection of high-quality hunting knives. To say they were a thing of beauty was an understatement, and he even bought a case with it just to hang it on the wall and be adored by him every morning. But all that spending cut into his other expenses, such as rent, sadly, so he had to find a way to get it back as soon as possible.
As far as one could guess, well, the rest is pretty self-explanatory.
DeVita ran smack first into Schwarz, as he was about to scream his lungs out in anger.
“Did you learn why?” Schwarz asked his friend.
“Yeah I learned!” DeVita snapped, albeit turning towards empty air as he did. “C’mon, we got to do stuff now.”
“O-Ok!” Schwarz followed the smaller guy with short, quick steps. “Where?”
Devita took out his newest “Behemoth Cutter 3000tm”, combat knife as large as his hand and began chewing on it to calm his nerves. And it definitely did. The seller really sold him on the difference between strength and toughness of the knife, and how he needed to prioritize those that won’t fall apart from single uses. Plus, it was delicious to boot. Devita even smacked his lips a little after taking a taste.
Best waste of money.
“Hey, look! It’s that knife dude!”
The duo turned around to see someone calling from behind. As he did, DeVita immediately began to wince.
“Aaah! Tis I see too!”
“Hey, over here!”
“Oh god’s sake…” DeVita wiped his mouth. Being in the middle of his own dilemma, he wasn’t exactly interested in talking to someone, though perhaps he was less interested in talking to them in particular.
“What’s up!” Came forward a hawk-man, wearing a friendly smile on his beak and carrying a skateboard over his shoulder. “We are the ‘Four Musketeers’, big fans of your work by the way!” He said with a smile, as he reached out for a handshake.
DeVita glanced at it without breaking an expression.
He knew of them of course, the “Four Musketeers” as they were dubbed, had only joined recently. Art-Onyx, the hawkman, was the leader of the group and also the oldest. Alongside him were Pot, a tall skinny weasel with a beany, a huge camping bag stuffed to the brim with equipment and a smile so wide it befit an idiot. Next to the latter was Ramus, sheep man wearing glasses, cross, a pouch and a book. He also was considered handsome one by the guild (really, it was only the cafeteria lady). Lastly, at the back stood there was Dart, a young lady, whose covered upper half, coming with a mask, apparently hid her mechanical nature, whereas her legs, which were more exposed, looked long, soft and appealing, if scratched.
When he first heard of the group, they were just a bunch of no-names, likely to die in their first week as any low life would. But then they began slowly earning their wings and soon the credit they worked being given to them. And the problem with that for DeVita was that it had a slight possibility of it supplanting him from his position near his boss. There was a reason he was made the right-hand man by head of the guild, and with limited spaces there are as is for the best of the best, they might end up pushing him out. Which meant no more stuff like planned meals, separate room, and even respect a right-hand man has to his boss.
And DeVita wanted none of that.
“Whaddya want?” He hissed at them, clearly not in the mood.
“You heard that there is this new add-on within the guild section nowadays?” Art-Onyx continued, not minding the atmosphere one bit. “About the competing team efforts, I mean?”
“What?”
This was a first for DeVita to hear. It wasn’t completely out there that the guild would sometimes put these “add-ons” made to help boost notoriety for its members. It is an element that makes the place so popular for many a start-up scavenger. They usually add some odd thing about what can or cannot be done while the mission was being held, like making sure not to kill a violent beast while stealing its eggs, taking down a whole thief group in two days, discovering a new treasure in an unknown location, all that kind of stuff. It also what made the guild infamous thanks to the chaos it stirs up whenever these “add-ons” are added, and some kingdoms found it especially outrageous how blatant they tend to be with requests. That said, these things come around about once in every month.
Which was what made it all the more baffling for DeVita to hear, as the last mission with an add-on had already been finished.
“Oh, you haven’t heard?” The hawkman asked him in a surprise.
The lizard just checked to his buddy, who took a moment and then shrugged his big shoulders. DeVita then slowly eyed the hawk once again with a sour expression, biting into him Behemoth Cutter 3000tm.
“We already had a stunt to do, birdbeak.” DeVita slid the blade against his sharp teeth.
“Apparently they had another one this month!” Art-Onyx proclaimed. “I actually asked around, some people think it’s maybe because the first time had to be taken down too early. Guess that’s just how it is, huh?” He chuckled and looked at the rest of his gang with each giving their own reaction: Pot gave an even bigger idiotic smile to his laugh, Ramus looked at DeVita and shrugged, while Dart just stood there, staring somewhere else.
He then continued, “Okay so, according to the latest one, it requires two opposing scavengers, a full group included, to compete against one another. The first one to propose has to give the winning conditions for the other and have them agree.”
“Hmmm, interesting…” DeVita mused.
“Yeah, I know.” Art-Onyx made himself chuckle again. “And I kinda glad to hear you said that…cause I feel like, we both could, you know.”
DeVita stopped chewing on his knife and focused his glare.
“So you guys want to compete for this one, with us? Izzat what you are sayin’?”
“Yeah! Could make for a friendly competition you know.”
DeVita actually guffawed at that.
“I dunno about competition,” DeVita pointed his knife straight at him, “but my granny told me to steer clear if my gut tells me there’s trouble or no reward from it. And from what my gut is telling me, its ‘this is the biggest waste of time since I tried to eat that shoe.’ Tell me, if you were in my shoes, what you would’ve done here?”
The hawkman stood there for a while, and after giving large audible sigh, moved his gaze down, before mopingly shaking his head.
“You’re right, man,” he admitted regrettably. “But you know, sometimes, you get cold feet. Since I’ve had to take many risks throughout my life, I’ve learned to accept them whenever they appear. ‘Cause truth be told, you can’t just stop yourself from doing something just because you’re afraid or your gut tells you it will be bad. Sometimes, there’s something great going on down the road.”
DeVita kept his cold expression, going back to chewing on his knife in boredom. Art-Onyx sighed.
“Look, alright, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to do it. We can find someone else, but just, having a chance to go against you has been a dream of ours.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, the stories and the way you took out random mercenaries and pirates and monsters, like that one time you destroyed a whole organization, or killed the boss of notorious gang who was also ten times the size of you, or how you even apparently killed a giant sand squid with nothing but a knife, bag of salt, wrench and sandwich press!”
“Yeah, we kinda had to do some ingenuity there, haven’t we Schwarz?” DeVita said to his friend while blushing.
“Yeah! And I nearly got’ swallow’d whole too! Man, dose were the times!” The shark behemoth smiled his goofy grin.
Then, Art-Onyx shrugged his shoulders.
“But I guess it doesn’t matter now, a gut says what it says and we can’t change it. Man, that would’ve been so rad, right guys? Well, I guess we’d be going,” he turned to his team and motioned to the door, signifying them to get out.
DeVita saw them leave, looking disheartened, only for the hawkman to turn around to him again.
“Oh, I also forgot to tell you, I had a money proposition, but I guess you wouldn’t be interested in it now. Part of the ‘add-on’ is for two parties to make up a bet, and I thought, we should ask for, I dunno, about twenty-thousand golds for it? It’s about twice more, but I think doing it like this would push the competitive spirit up a bit for both of us. Would’ve sounded fun, right?”
DeVita stopped biting on his knife.
“Now wait a minute there!” The lizard charged at the hawkman, who readily faced him as soon as DeVita began talking. DeVita brought out his scowl and raised his nose to show intimidation, not minding the fact that he was several inches shorter than Art-Onyx. “I gots to say, you were right about few things: in my time, I’ve dealt with all types of monsters, cutthroats, bandit groups and all whatever you wanted to throw at me there. And as one of my favorite cousins from lovely Aunt Lucille told me, ‘I’ve never seen someone with such a high passion and bloodlust over what they did as you do’. And guess what? He is correct, cause what you need when doing stuff like this is passion. And I know, that I have more passion than anyone else in this whole darn building alone.”
The hawkman kept gazing at him, now looking less focused over waiting for the lizard to get to his point. DeVita didn’t care to notice.
“As such, I have a proposition, and one you shouldn’t say no to. How about, you take this quest, and with its add-on, bet against us, huh? Whaddya say? Sounds good?”
Art-Onyx smiled through his beak.
“Will get right on it sir!”
“Good. Now hand me that paper.”
The hawk gave the parchment with information. As the “Musketeers” began to leave, DeVita exclaimed, “Don’t forget to put thirty-thousand golds as a prize!”
“You got it!” Art-Onyx high-fived between his teammates, as all of them exited the main hall and towards the cafeteria.
Looking over the mission details and grinning in content, DeVita proceeded on chewing his favorite knife. Schwarz approached him counting his fingers.
“Duh-Was’n’ ith suppos’d ‘o be thwenty..?”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s all good,” DeVita interrupted him, before hiding the paper and pushed his friend forward. “Now all we gots to do is to ride over there, do the job, steal their thunder, collect money and capische! Back to our humble abodes!”
“Oh! Gee, hope they don’t mind us winning then!” Schwarz said showing his full rows of teeth.
“You said it pal! Now, how about we visit a friend, eh?”
…
The best business is the one that cares for its workers as much as it does its customers, and considering the “business” most scavenger guilds offer, they are no exceptions. From the Garbage Area, only few guilds could in fact offer such high services, as surprisingly not many find themselves interested in betting their life in such harsh environments. Many scavengers take it as a sign of superior services, however, as the few they have tend to be just as exceptional at their craft as those outside of it.
Among their services, they offer room renting and maintenance, as well as food, entertainment, medical aid, weapon crafting, vehicle care, and even accounting!
“Chiron”, an unusual hybrid of man and horse, was a member who offered services, and had a special “workshop” created just for him. It was a large, double-leveled room specifically designed to house vehicles as big as two-story ones. One of its walls was a huge, heavy gate to allow most vehicles to get in from outside. Opposite side of it, was where Chiron usually situated himself, a wall with multiple floors, including spaces for his kitchen, bathroom and bed. The floors were connected to a ladder and a lift, latter designed specifically for him. At the bottom was were his work station, which had tools, spare parts and materials laying around, as well as games, calendars and books with which he busied himself on off time.
At that moment, his workshop was mainly filled with one car, and a wide variety of spares and garbage he would late deal with. It was a hybrid half-dune buggy, half stylish car with a convertible top and a “Greece Lightning” sign at the side, that belonged to their guild’s “postman”. For the most part, it had been making weird noises, so he had replaced it with a brand-new spare one just to keep it safe. It was the only one he was dealing with for that day, his shop closed from any other clients.
He turned it on with a key and tested the engine one more time. It smoothly revved up and then purred like a kitten, just as it should.
“Well, hello there, four-leg man!” A turtle “greaser”, wearing his bright green jacket and sporting a slicked back doo, called from above. “So, how’s my baby doin’?”
Chiron looked up at Ace, their guild’s postman, in charge of sending and collecting messages when simple computer or phone won’t work.
“As you can hear, pretty good,” he stated, and turned it off. He proceeded to his personal lift. It’s far more comfortable to have him come by machine than have his guests meddle with stairs. “I’ll take a look at the old engine, but you can basically take it with you already.”
“Hot stuff man.” The turtle grinned looking over his car, showing his pearly whites, “You are the miracle worker.”
Behind him peeked the “grim reaper”, cloth hanging over their face and body except for their skeleton hands. In each, he was holding a towering scythe with a rusty blade, and on the other, a chocolate flavored ice-cream cone.
“My buddy and I needed it for tomorrow,” Ace said, then bumped his buddy who was in the middle of enjoying their treat. “Hey, you heard what going on out there? The sands been swarming with bandits! Unbelievable, right?”
“Most likely they found another leader,” Chiron answered rationally. He left the car and went straight to the platform, pressing the panel on its side to raise him up. As he slowly moved to the second level, he said, “Anyways, your car is pretty much ready to go. You can talk with Cass about your bill.”
“I’ll just leave it to the big man. He said he’ll pay it off himself.”
“Really? That’s surprising.” Chiron doesn’t usually question too much of boss’s actions, even if most of the time they appear to make no sense. He then approached the door and said, “So what’s the special on the-“
Suddenly, they both heard a sound of car’s engine revving up. Chiron, surprised to hear that he maybe forgot to turn off the car, felt color fly off of his face when he looked right below him.
“HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING DOWN THERE!” Ace yelled. Chiron himself immediately recognized Schwarz. The large shark man was on top of the dune buggy, unable to properly fit himself into the seat. Right next to him was the scaly knife-enthusiast DeVita, pulling and wrangling on the former’s shirt, trying to make him get in or wriggle out.
“There’s no way they can get out of here, it’s closed!” Ace stated, noting that the two are slowly moving the car forward.
Chiron would’ve agreed with him, if he didn’t immediately realized two things. One, they somehow managed to get in without them knowing. The only entrances were the door on the upper level, where they have been occupying, and the heavy gates that held off the outside. That should be impossible, unless they managed to find a way, and most likely at that lower level. And thus, the second thing he realized, was that if they got in, they could easily get out.
“Stop it you two!!!” Yelled Ace, sliding down the stairs, along with his buddy. Chiron, still in the upper level, observed the whole thing.
As the car inched closer to the gates, Schwarz pulled himself out of the seat and carefully sat himself on the porch of the car. This sudden shift in weight nearly tipped it over, though the balance hadn’t been lost yet. He then saw them move to the corner of the gates, as Schwarz used his foot to kick against the gate’s door’s hinges. With each kick, the less apparent hole was becoming more and more bigger, finally coming to light, revealing the hole behind the garage’s defenses.
Ace had already gotten down and tried to go after them.
“WAIT!”
“Eh, Scuse us, man! We’ll be taking this for a walk! Be back soon!!!” DeVita yelled, and pressing on the pedal charged the car forward as Schwarz gave on last kick to make the hole finally big enough to let them through.
Ace stopped, carefully stepping away from the gate door that lost its balance and was on the verge of falling. Out in the distance, the duo have already gone far beyond the react for either of them.
Chiron leaned on the wall and massaged his head. Guess we’ll be phoning the boss again, he thought.
Ace looked into the distance with a shocked expression. His buddy, freeing one of its boney hands from ice-cream, gave him a pat on the shoulder.
…
It was from outside of the old, decrepit walls where DeVita’s first cries were heard the most. Loud, aggressive and punctually filled with swears, the sheer volume it made was enough to wake up the lonely sleeping prisoner from his jail.
Down the filthy and unkempt hall, filled with cracks, dirt, grass and vomit, the door swung wide open. First entered a pair of guards, carrying with latest gun technologies. Then, came in few guards with makeshift spears. After them, an odd pair of men, pushed forward by the last few with spears.
One of those men was DeVita, a scrawny, but violently-temperamental lizard who kept on shouting how all of them will hear from his “cuzz”. The other, Schwarz, was a monstrous shark, whose small eyes and dopey walk gave way to his strangely docile personality. They were pushed all the way to the end of the hall, passing by the lone prisoner’s cell.
They shoved both into the largest of jail rooms and smacked the bar door right into the face of the screaming DeVita, threatening them for ruing his suit with the blades of their spears.
“You okay dere?” Schwarz asked his smaller friend.
“YOU WILL HEAR FROM MY BOSS ABOUT THIS!!!” DeVita screamed behind his bars, “AND YOU WILL BE SORRY THAT YOUR ASSES LEFT ME IN HERE!!!”
None of the guards took in to his threats, and soon left not long after. The lizard kicked a bit of the sand that was below his feet and then leaned on the wall, before going down on his knees and sulk. The prisoner couldn’t tell who the two were,
“Awh, no need ‘o feel bad!” Schwartz then pointed to area around himself. “Look! We goth inside, jus’ like we plannd!”
DeVita took a deep breath.
“When people say, I want to get inside that facility, they usually mean, get inside without getting caught,” he explained in a mannered tone.
“…Oh?” Schwarz muttered.
DeVita then got out and began pacing back and forth. It was obvious by his actions that he was the leader of the two. The lizards instinctively reached for his mouth, only to find something missing. He then went on to check his pockets.
“If they didn’t leave me with one single blade, I’m gonna…“ He then stood there for a moment, and began patting somewhere behind his back. Reaching down, he then pulled out a small scalpel. “Ahah!” He gleefully stared at it and stuck the knife into his mouth like a lollipop. Soon enough, the angry reptile became as calm as a newborn.
“So uh…” Schwarz stumbled on his words, “wha’ do we do nex’?”
“Can’t say, big buddy,” DeVita answered and stared right outside of the bars. “Oh, what do we do…”
While what Schwartz said wasn’t entirely correct, he was still right that they were now inside the facility, so one problem has been taken care of. So the next step should be about getting out of their confines, however way they could. Both of their hands had been cuffed, and even if they got out now, they probably would have to deal with the guards later. And its thanks to those guards that they got captured.
“Excuse me, who are you two?” Suddenly they heard coming from outside their camera.
“Uhh, who said dat?” wondered Schwarz, as DeVita scanned outside.
Out of several cells that were adorning the hall, only one of them actually had one other person, and he was diagonally opposite to the two. The man who spoke was tattered and shaggy looking homeless red bird, although the species DeVita couldn’t discern. One thing he could tell was the gigantic distended belly the sucker had, which honestly looked too misshaped to be worth attention that wouldn’t require gagging. DeVita even wondered what they hell they were feeding him to get him like that, as it looked like even walking around would be a chore. Probably they could do the same to him just to keep them from trying to escape.
Honestly a scary thought.
“Ehhh, some weirdo with us,” DeVita told his companion.
“I heard that!” Complained the odd tattered bird-guy.
“Good for you.”
DeVita then went on to do brainstorming. The first thing to do, he reminded himself, in case of capture was to take a good look at the surroundings. The cell was, for the lack of better term, an empty dump. Aside from dirt on the floor and walls made of stone, the only thing they had with them were a small sheet, a bucket and a cup. Presumably it was the best services they offered for the captured. The bucket even already had imprinted some smell, making him ignore the whole thing altogether.
Outside wasn’t exactly better. The stone on the walls had lost all of possible luster it could have had, and bits and pieces are taken out of the walls. There were symbols on the wall, presumably crests that belonged to the previous owner, with few of them already broken of from their hinges. A cell could be seen missing some bars, and another completely rusted all the way through. From the looks of it, they were placed in technically the best prison cell they had.
“Maybe we should ask him?” Schwartz chimed in out of nowhere, pointing from behind DeVita towards the bird-man from the nearby cell.
“…Why?”
Schwartz then took a moment, scratching his own head which was what he did when he was remembering something, and then said,
“…Because we should ask around!” He then gave a prideful, toothy grin.
“…Yeah, don’t think so.”
DeVita then went on to continue his pacing.
“I can help you get out!” The weirdo guy suddenly called.
“I don’t think we have time for small talk, ya bum!” He called back, before continuing chewing on his blade. Hmmmm, hint of titanium, he mused in his head.
“But I can!” The man insisted.
DeVita scoffed, thinking that there was no way this guy could know a way out.
“I know a way out of this place too!”
DeVita pulled the blade out. He approached the bars, now with interest.
“Hey!” He called the guy again. “Is what you said right now… Is that true?”
“Yes!”
“Alright!” DeVita then went on to give Schwarz a high-five. The duo were extremely ecstatic by the change of their predicament. “Heh…so then,” he faced the bars again, “if you say you gonna help us, what do you need in return?”
“Well…uh, how about you tell me about yourselves! So I get to know how both of you got here.”
“Us, huh…” He put the blade in his mouth again, thinking on it, then said, “Listen here buddy, and listen carefully! I ain’t here to tell you our whole story, just only parts of it! You good with that?”
The homeless bird promptly nodded.
“Good. Now then, it all started yesterday…”
…
In the middle of the day, at the main hall.
“What do ya mean you took it down!?” DeVita yelled over the counter at Cassandra. The young human girl with an eye-patch barely reacted to his outburst, continuing on with organizing her desk.
“Our requests will be taken down if someone else has already took it, the problem has been taken care of, or the client rescinded,” she answered as if she had been reciting it several times in the morning.
“I KNOW THAT, I just want to know why in the world you chose to take it down? I thought we made a deal that I-“
“Requests will be taken down if-“
“I said I know that!”
“Then go away already!” The young lady moved around the back and out of her desk. “Seriously, why do you always have to bother me! Anyways, I’m taking a break.”
“Wait where are you going, hey!”
She dashed to the wall behind her desk and hid behind the door that was locked as soon as he touched the knob. Thus, she left him the same as they met, completely and utterly upset. He had his mind on that mission since the beginning of the week, and had already planned the whole thing out. It was supposed to be easy money! He even talked to her about it, for god’s sake, saying how much he needed it.
And he needed it because of rather overzealous spending he’d been doing as of late, with a big one being him getting a new collection of high-quality hunting knives. To say they were a thing of beauty was an understatement, and he even bought a case with it just to hang it on the wall and be adored by him every morning. But all that spending cut into his other expenses, such as rent, sadly, so he had to find a way to get it back as soon as possible.
As far as one could guess, well, the rest is pretty self-explanatory.
DeVita ran smack first into Schwarz, as he was about to scream his lungs out in anger.
“Did you learn why?” Schwarz asked his friend.
“Yeah I learned!” DeVita snapped, albeit turning towards empty air as he did. “C’mon, we got to do stuff now.”
“O-Ok!” Schwarz followed the smaller guy with short, quick steps. “Where?”
Devita took out his newest “Behemoth Cutter 3000tm”, combat knife as large as his hand and began chewing on it to calm his nerves. And it definitely did. The seller really sold him on the difference between strength and toughness of the knife, and how he needed to prioritize those that won’t fall apart from single uses. Plus, it was delicious to boot. Devita even smacked his lips a little after taking a taste.
Best waste of money.
“Hey, look! It’s that knife dude!”
The duo turned around to see someone calling from behind. As he did, DeVita immediately began to wince.
“Aaah! Tis I see too!”
“Hey, over here!”
“Oh god’s sake…” DeVita wiped his mouth. Being in the middle of his own dilemma, he wasn’t exactly interested in talking to someone, though perhaps he was less interested in talking to them in particular.
“What’s up!” Came forward a hawk-man, wearing a friendly smile on his beak and carrying a skateboard over his shoulder. “We are the ‘Four Musketeers’, big fans of your work by the way!” He said with a smile, as he reached out for a handshake.
DeVita glanced at it without breaking an expression.
He knew of them of course, the “Four Musketeers” as they were dubbed, had only joined recently. Art-Onyx, the hawkman, was the leader of the group and also the oldest. Alongside him were Pot, a tall skinny weasel with a beany, a huge camping bag stuffed to the brim with equipment and a smile so wide it befit an idiot. Next to the latter was Ramus, sheep man wearing glasses, cross, a pouch and a book. He also was considered handsome one by the guild (really, it was only the cafeteria lady). Lastly, at the back stood there was Dart, a young lady, whose covered upper half, coming with a mask, apparently hid her mechanical nature, whereas her legs, which were more exposed, looked long, soft and appealing, if scratched.
When he first heard of the group, they were just a bunch of no-names, likely to die in their first week as any low life would. But then they began slowly earning their wings and soon the credit they worked being given to them. And the problem with that for DeVita was that it had a slight possibility of it supplanting him from his position near his boss. There was a reason he was made the right-hand man by head of the guild, and with limited spaces there are as is for the best of the best, they might end up pushing him out. Which meant no more stuff like planned meals, separate room, and even respect a right-hand man has to his boss.
And DeVita wanted none of that.
“Whaddya want?” He hissed at them, clearly not in the mood.
“You heard that there is this new add-on within the guild section nowadays?” Art-Onyx continued, not minding the atmosphere one bit. “About the competing team efforts, I mean?”
“What?”
This was a first for DeVita to hear. It wasn’t completely out there that the guild would sometimes put these “add-ons” made to help boost notoriety for its members. It is an element that makes the place so popular for many a start-up scavenger. They usually add some odd thing about what can or cannot be done while the mission was being held, like making sure not to kill a violent beast while stealing its eggs, taking down a whole thief group in two days, discovering a new treasure in an unknown location, all that kind of stuff. It also what made the guild infamous thanks to the chaos it stirs up whenever these “add-ons” are added, and some kingdoms found it especially outrageous how blatant they tend to be with requests. That said, these things come around about once in every month.
Which was what made it all the more baffling for DeVita to hear, as the last mission with an add-on had already been finished.
“Oh, you haven’t heard?” The hawkman asked him in a surprise.
The lizard just checked to his buddy, who took a moment and then shrugged his big shoulders. DeVita then slowly eyed the hawk once again with a sour expression, biting into him Behemoth Cutter 3000tm.
“We already had a stunt to do, birdbeak.” DeVita slid the blade against his sharp teeth.
“Apparently they had another one this month!” Art-Onyx proclaimed. “I actually asked around, some people think it’s maybe because the first time had to be taken down too early. Guess that’s just how it is, huh?” He chuckled and looked at the rest of his gang with each giving their own reaction: Pot gave an even bigger idiotic smile to his laugh, Ramus looked at DeVita and shrugged, while Dart just stood there, staring somewhere else.
He then continued, “Okay so, according to the latest one, it requires two opposing scavengers, a full group included, to compete against one another. The first one to propose has to give the winning conditions for the other and have them agree.”
“Hmmm, interesting…” DeVita mused.
“Yeah, I know.” Art-Onyx made himself chuckle again. “And I kinda glad to hear you said that…cause I feel like, we both could, you know.”
DeVita stopped chewing on his knife and focused his glare.
“So you guys want to compete for this one, with us? Izzat what you are sayin’?”
“Yeah! Could make for a friendly competition you know.”
DeVita actually guffawed at that.
“I dunno about competition,” DeVita pointed his knife straight at him, “but my granny told me to steer clear if my gut tells me there’s trouble or no reward from it. And from what my gut is telling me, its ‘this is the biggest waste of time since I tried to eat that shoe.’ Tell me, if you were in my shoes, what you would’ve done here?”
The hawkman stood there for a while, and after giving large audible sigh, moved his gaze down, before mopingly shaking his head.
“You’re right, man,” he admitted regrettably. “But you know, sometimes, you get cold feet. Since I’ve had to take many risks throughout my life, I’ve learned to accept them whenever they appear. ‘Cause truth be told, you can’t just stop yourself from doing something just because you’re afraid or your gut tells you it will be bad. Sometimes, there’s something great going on down the road.”
DeVita kept his cold expression, going back to chewing on his knife in boredom. Art-Onyx sighed.
“Look, alright, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to do it. We can find someone else, but just, having a chance to go against you has been a dream of ours.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, the stories and the way you took out random mercenaries and pirates and monsters, like that one time you destroyed a whole organization, or killed the boss of notorious gang who was also ten times the size of you, or how you even apparently killed a giant sand squid with nothing but a knife, bag of salt, wrench and sandwich press!”
“Yeah, we kinda had to do some ingenuity there, haven’t we Schwarz?” DeVita said to his friend while blushing.
“Yeah! And I nearly got’ swallow’d whole too! Man, dose were the times!” The shark behemoth smiled his goofy grin.
Then, Art-Onyx shrugged his shoulders.
“But I guess it doesn’t matter now, a gut says what it says and we can’t change it. Man, that would’ve been so rad, right guys? Well, I guess we’d be going,” he turned to his team and motioned to the door, signifying them to get out.
DeVita saw them leave, looking disheartened, only for the hawkman to turn around to him again.
“Oh, I also forgot to tell you, I had a money proposition, but I guess you wouldn’t be interested in it now. Part of the ‘add-on’ is for two parties to make up a bet, and I thought, we should ask for, I dunno, about twenty-thousand golds for it? It’s about twice more, but I think doing it like this would push the competitive spirit up a bit for both of us. Would’ve sounded fun, right?”
DeVita stopped biting on his knife.
“Now wait a minute there!” The lizard charged at the hawkman, who readily faced him as soon as DeVita began talking. DeVita brought out his scowl and raised his nose to show intimidation, not minding the fact that he was several inches shorter than Art-Onyx. “I gots to say, you were right about few things: in my time, I’ve dealt with all types of monsters, cutthroats, bandit groups and all whatever you wanted to throw at me there. And as one of my favorite cousins from lovely Aunt Lucille told me, ‘I’ve never seen someone with such a high passion and bloodlust over what they did as you do’. And guess what? He is correct, cause what you need when doing stuff like this is passion. And I know, that I have more passion than anyone else in this whole darn building alone.”
The hawkman kept gazing at him, now looking less focused over waiting for the lizard to get to his point. DeVita didn’t care to notice.
“As such, I have a proposition, and one you shouldn’t say no to. How about, you take this quest, and with its add-on, bet against us, huh? Whaddya say? Sounds good?”
Art-Onyx smiled through his beak.
“Will get right on it sir!”
“Good. Now hand me that paper.”
The hawk gave the parchment with information. As the “Musketeers” began to leave, DeVita exclaimed, “Don’t forget to put thirty-thousand golds as a prize!”
“You got it!” Art-Onyx high-fived between his teammates, as all of them exited the main hall and towards the cafeteria.
Looking over the mission details and grinning in content, DeVita proceeded on chewing his favorite knife. Schwarz approached him counting his fingers.
“Duh-Was’n’ ith suppos’d ‘o be thwenty..?”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s all good,” DeVita interrupted him, before hiding the paper and pushed his friend forward. “Now all we gots to do is to ride over there, do the job, steal their thunder, collect money and capische! Back to our humble abodes!”
“Oh! Gee, hope they don’t mind us winning then!” Schwarz said showing his full rows of teeth.
“You said it pal! Now, how about we visit a friend, eh?”
…
The best business is the one that cares for its workers as much as it does its customers, and considering the “business” most scavenger guilds offer, they are no exceptions. From the Garbage Area, only few guilds could in fact offer such high services, as surprisingly not many find themselves interested in betting their life in such harsh environments. Many scavengers take it as a sign of superior services, however, as the few they have tend to be just as exceptional at their craft as those outside of it.
Among their services, they offer room renting and maintenance, as well as food, entertainment, medical aid, weapon crafting, vehicle care, and even accounting!
“Chiron”, an unusual hybrid of man and horse, was a member who offered services, and had a special “workshop” created just for him. It was a large, double-leveled room specifically designed to house vehicles as big as two-story ones. One of its walls was a huge, heavy gate to allow most vehicles to get in from outside. Opposite side of it, was where Chiron usually situated himself, a wall with multiple floors, including spaces for his kitchen, bathroom and bed. The floors were connected to a ladder and a lift, latter designed specifically for him. At the bottom was were his work station, which had tools, spare parts and materials laying around, as well as games, calendars and books with which he busied himself on off time.
At that moment, his workshop was mainly filled with one car, and a wide variety of spares and garbage he would late deal with. It was a hybrid half-dune buggy, half stylish car with a convertible top and a “Greece Lightning” sign at the side, that belonged to their guild’s “postman”. For the most part, it had been making weird noises, so he had replaced it with a brand-new spare one just to keep it safe. It was the only one he was dealing with for that day, his shop closed from any other clients.
He turned it on with a key and tested the engine one more time. It smoothly revved up and then purred like a kitten, just as it should.
“Well, hello there, four-leg man!” A turtle “greaser”, wearing his bright green jacket and sporting a slicked back doo, called from above. “So, how’s my baby doin’?”
Chiron looked up at Ace, their guild’s postman, in charge of sending and collecting messages when simple computer or phone won’t work.
“As you can hear, pretty good,” he stated, and turned it off. He proceeded to his personal lift. It’s far more comfortable to have him come by machine than have his guests meddle with stairs. “I’ll take a look at the old engine, but you can basically take it with you already.”
“Hot stuff man.” The turtle grinned looking over his car, showing his pearly whites, “You are the miracle worker.”
Behind him peeked the “grim reaper”, cloth hanging over their face and body except for their skeleton hands. In each, he was holding a towering scythe with a rusty blade, and on the other, a chocolate flavored ice-cream cone.
“My buddy and I needed it for tomorrow,” Ace said, then bumped his buddy who was in the middle of enjoying their treat. “Hey, you heard what going on out there? The sands been swarming with bandits! Unbelievable, right?”
“Most likely they found another leader,” Chiron answered rationally. He left the car and went straight to the platform, pressing the panel on its side to raise him up. As he slowly moved to the second level, he said, “Anyways, your car is pretty much ready to go. You can talk with Cass about your bill.”
“I’ll just leave it to the big man. He said he’ll pay it off himself.”
“Really? That’s surprising.” Chiron doesn’t usually question too much of boss’s actions, even if most of the time they appear to make no sense. He then approached the door and said, “So what’s the special on the-“
Suddenly, they both heard a sound of car’s engine revving up. Chiron, surprised to hear that he maybe forgot to turn off the car, felt color fly off of his face when he looked right below him.
“HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING DOWN THERE!” Ace yelled. Chiron himself immediately recognized Schwarz. The large shark man was on top of the dune buggy, unable to properly fit himself into the seat. Right next to him was the scaly knife-enthusiast DeVita, pulling and wrangling on the former’s shirt, trying to make him get in or wriggle out.
“There’s no way they can get out of here, it’s closed!” Ace stated, noting that the two are slowly moving the car forward.
Chiron would’ve agreed with him, if he didn’t immediately realized two things. One, they somehow managed to get in without them knowing. The only entrances were the door on the upper level, where they have been occupying, and the heavy gates that held off the outside. That should be impossible, unless they managed to find a way, and most likely at that lower level. And thus, the second thing he realized, was that if they got in, they could easily get out.
“Stop it you two!!!” Yelled Ace, sliding down the stairs, along with his buddy. Chiron, still in the upper level, observed the whole thing.
As the car inched closer to the gates, Schwarz pulled himself out of the seat and carefully sat himself on the porch of the car. This sudden shift in weight nearly tipped it over, though the balance hadn’t been lost yet. He then saw them move to the corner of the gates, as Schwarz used his foot to kick against the gate’s door’s hinges. With each kick, the less apparent hole was becoming more and more bigger, finally coming to light, revealing the hole behind the garage’s defenses.
Ace had already gotten down and tried to go after them.
“WAIT!”
“Eh, Scuse us, man! We’ll be taking this for a walk! Be back soon!!!” DeVita yelled, and pressing on the pedal charged the car forward as Schwarz gave on last kick to make the hole finally big enough to let them through.
Ace stopped, carefully stepping away from the gate door that lost its balance and was on the verge of falling. Out in the distance, the duo have already gone far beyond the react for either of them.
Chiron leaned on the wall and massaged his head. Guess we’ll be phoning the boss again, he thought.
Ace looked into the distance with a shocked expression. His buddy, freeing one of its boney hands from ice-cream, gave him a pat on the shoulder.
…
Category Story / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Gender Any
Size 50 x 50px
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