01-08-2011, 08:07 AM
When Juno heard the melodramatic distress call, he almost spit up his orange juice.
“Grave danger?” he repeated, rather loudly, much to the chagrin of some of the breakfast diner’s other denizens, “unknown assailant? Are they just screaming, ‘Juno, come help me!’ or what?”
The patrons of the Waffle Shack started to divide their attention between their meals and the crazy guy sitting in the corner. He’d attracted their sideways, badly-hidden glances the moment he had walked in, thanks to the furry appendage sticking out of the back of his pants — God, he’d missed his tail — but now, their judgmental eyes fixated themselves on him, and the majority of them even stopped trying to hide it.
He continued to watch the television, scooping some hash-browns onto his fork and stuffing them into his mouth carelessly, even dropping some off the table in his haste. He had ordered a triple serving, though, so running out anytime soon was his last worry.
His Saiyan appetite allowed him to gorge himself constantly without ever getting full, but always feeling satisfied at the end of a good meal; and right now, a meal might’ve been exactly what he needed to keep his mind off of this ridiculous nonsense that was blaring from the television screen. “Blah, blah, blah,” he mused, downing the last of his orange juice and sliding it to the edge of his table for the waitress to refill, “Yeah, yeah, you need awesome, super powered people like me to come and save your ass, blah, blah, blah.”
Suddenly, there was a slamming noise from across the diner. Juno looked in the direction of the disturbance, and a moustache-sporting man was leering angrily in his direction. “What the hell makes you think you’re so special, huh?”
Juno’s tail whipped back and forth behind him excitedly, but the youthful Saiyan didn’t pay much attention to the hostility lacing the redneck’s comments. He engulfed another bite of hash-browns, and then lay the fork on his plate, wiping the sides of his mouth with a napkin. Kicking his feet up and resting them on the table, he leaned back in the booth, turning his eyes back toward the television.
“You gonna answer me?” the man shouted.
“I hadn’t planned on it,” Juno replied curtly, not even bothering to glance in the man’s direction. A whiff of his Foresight flashed into view, and he saw the redneck’s fist flying at his face — his tail intercepted the real thing when it approached him just seconds later, and with a jerk, the bones in the man’s forearm cracked.
The insolent Earthling let out a blood-curdling scream, and the other customers of the restaurant shuffled nervously in their seats. The waitress dropped her pad and pen, and shifted back behind the counter. Juno let his tail jerk on the man’s broken arm one last time, and the human fell forward, his face slamming into the half-Saiyan’s plate of hash-browns. The seer looked down at his meal, disappointed.
“I was still eating that, jackass,” he scoffed, and hopped out of his seat. Eyes darted toward him, but faces avoided his black irises; he smirked, and chuckled a bit, under his breath. “Self-defense, that’s all,” he assured the remaining customers as he took a few steps toward the counter, “I’m not going to go all Planet of the Apes meets Karate Kid on you guys, I promise.”
Those were the last words he was destined to say to the coffee-sipping midnight crowd inside the Waffle Shack; without another spoken syllable, he reached into the pocket of his black jeans, pulled out several bills, and tossed them to the waitress, giving her a flirtatious smile, his signature move, and then turning on his heel, ready to head back out into the world, where he wasn’t surrounded by bad-smelling, scrambled-egg-eating country bumpkins who weren’t used to the idea of someone who didn’t have a beer gut.
He walked aimlessly for what seemed like forever. It didn’t really feel, at the moment, as if he had a purpose, a goal, anything he was set out to do; for the longest time, he’d been living normally, roughing up a few muggers here and there who hadn’t exactly learned the lessons of chivalry, and then charming the ladies and sleeping with them later that night. When he was really desperate, he’d buy them drinks to seal the deal.
As he took a scenic stroll through South City — by far the hottest, most run-down of all of Earth’s five major cities — he began to replay the message in his head, the overdramatic distress signal that he’d spent literally five to ten minutes making fun of, when the rest of the Waffle Shack’s customers seemed utterly stricken by its seriousness. He didn’t think that he could take much seriously anymore — after all, when he did, everything usually went to hell in a hand basket, so he supposed that by making light of this particular situation, it could become… well… lighter? He didn’t know if that made any sense at all. It barely made sense to him.
‘To all who can fight, now is the time.’ He’d heard that before. Hadn’t that been said in both of the wars he’d been involved in? Granted, those were probably on a much lesser scale than whatever this Trek-level invasion advertised itself as, but still. He didn’t really see any point for him to waste more countless energy on something if it wasn’t going to have any actual lasting impact on the world.
It must’ve been an addiction. To adrenaline, or something else. Or, perhaps, his Saiyan blood was driving him. These were the things which he could attribute to how he ended up inside the militia recruiting station in the first place.
It was pointless, he knew that — or thought it, at least — but somehow, he’d convinced himself to come here, and sign up to go throw his life into harm’s way… again. He didn’t really understand how he could be quite so stupid, but he’d done it before, and here he was, repeating his mistakes.
“Damn you, history,” he muttered to himself, “Always got to fucking repeat yourself.”
“Grave danger?” he repeated, rather loudly, much to the chagrin of some of the breakfast diner’s other denizens, “unknown assailant? Are they just screaming, ‘Juno, come help me!’ or what?”
The patrons of the Waffle Shack started to divide their attention between their meals and the crazy guy sitting in the corner. He’d attracted their sideways, badly-hidden glances the moment he had walked in, thanks to the furry appendage sticking out of the back of his pants — God, he’d missed his tail — but now, their judgmental eyes fixated themselves on him, and the majority of them even stopped trying to hide it.
He continued to watch the television, scooping some hash-browns onto his fork and stuffing them into his mouth carelessly, even dropping some off the table in his haste. He had ordered a triple serving, though, so running out anytime soon was his last worry.
His Saiyan appetite allowed him to gorge himself constantly without ever getting full, but always feeling satisfied at the end of a good meal; and right now, a meal might’ve been exactly what he needed to keep his mind off of this ridiculous nonsense that was blaring from the television screen. “Blah, blah, blah,” he mused, downing the last of his orange juice and sliding it to the edge of his table for the waitress to refill, “Yeah, yeah, you need awesome, super powered people like me to come and save your ass, blah, blah, blah.”
Suddenly, there was a slamming noise from across the diner. Juno looked in the direction of the disturbance, and a moustache-sporting man was leering angrily in his direction. “What the hell makes you think you’re so special, huh?”
Juno’s tail whipped back and forth behind him excitedly, but the youthful Saiyan didn’t pay much attention to the hostility lacing the redneck’s comments. He engulfed another bite of hash-browns, and then lay the fork on his plate, wiping the sides of his mouth with a napkin. Kicking his feet up and resting them on the table, he leaned back in the booth, turning his eyes back toward the television.
“You gonna answer me?” the man shouted.
“I hadn’t planned on it,” Juno replied curtly, not even bothering to glance in the man’s direction. A whiff of his Foresight flashed into view, and he saw the redneck’s fist flying at his face — his tail intercepted the real thing when it approached him just seconds later, and with a jerk, the bones in the man’s forearm cracked.
The insolent Earthling let out a blood-curdling scream, and the other customers of the restaurant shuffled nervously in their seats. The waitress dropped her pad and pen, and shifted back behind the counter. Juno let his tail jerk on the man’s broken arm one last time, and the human fell forward, his face slamming into the half-Saiyan’s plate of hash-browns. The seer looked down at his meal, disappointed.
“I was still eating that, jackass,” he scoffed, and hopped out of his seat. Eyes darted toward him, but faces avoided his black irises; he smirked, and chuckled a bit, under his breath. “Self-defense, that’s all,” he assured the remaining customers as he took a few steps toward the counter, “I’m not going to go all Planet of the Apes meets Karate Kid on you guys, I promise.”
Those were the last words he was destined to say to the coffee-sipping midnight crowd inside the Waffle Shack; without another spoken syllable, he reached into the pocket of his black jeans, pulled out several bills, and tossed them to the waitress, giving her a flirtatious smile, his signature move, and then turning on his heel, ready to head back out into the world, where he wasn’t surrounded by bad-smelling, scrambled-egg-eating country bumpkins who weren’t used to the idea of someone who didn’t have a beer gut.
He walked aimlessly for what seemed like forever. It didn’t really feel, at the moment, as if he had a purpose, a goal, anything he was set out to do; for the longest time, he’d been living normally, roughing up a few muggers here and there who hadn’t exactly learned the lessons of chivalry, and then charming the ladies and sleeping with them later that night. When he was really desperate, he’d buy them drinks to seal the deal.
As he took a scenic stroll through South City — by far the hottest, most run-down of all of Earth’s five major cities — he began to replay the message in his head, the overdramatic distress signal that he’d spent literally five to ten minutes making fun of, when the rest of the Waffle Shack’s customers seemed utterly stricken by its seriousness. He didn’t think that he could take much seriously anymore — after all, when he did, everything usually went to hell in a hand basket, so he supposed that by making light of this particular situation, it could become… well… lighter? He didn’t know if that made any sense at all. It barely made sense to him.
‘To all who can fight, now is the time.’ He’d heard that before. Hadn’t that been said in both of the wars he’d been involved in? Granted, those were probably on a much lesser scale than whatever this Trek-level invasion advertised itself as, but still. He didn’t really see any point for him to waste more countless energy on something if it wasn’t going to have any actual lasting impact on the world.
It must’ve been an addiction. To adrenaline, or something else. Or, perhaps, his Saiyan blood was driving him. These were the things which he could attribute to how he ended up inside the militia recruiting station in the first place.
It was pointless, he knew that — or thought it, at least — but somehow, he’d convinced himself to come here, and sign up to go throw his life into harm’s way… again. He didn’t really understand how he could be quite so stupid, but he’d done it before, and here he was, repeating his mistakes.
“Damn you, history,” he muttered to himself, “Always got to fucking repeat yourself.”