"We wait for the one who allowed our home to be destroyed."
"...Ty Pennington?"
"Yes." Nero said, emphasizing the S, as he often did when he was pleased.
"Could you, uh, have enlightened me of this fact sometime before you camped us outside ABC studios waiting for the aforementioned to come out?"
"Didn't I?"
"No. No, you did not."
"I'm pretty sure I did, Ayel."
"I think I would have remembered if you told me this fucking 30 year vendetta of yours is over a sexually ambiguous reality show host with arrogant hair."
"Nuh-uh!"
"Once again your debate skills prove to be immaculate. You know, I regret leaving my good mining job to come on this, erm…adventure with you."
"FIRE EVERYTHING!"
"Not now, Nero."
---
"Morning, Kirk." Bones said, entering the break room, wishing they actually had a coffee pot in here. Why they could afford a toaster oven, microwave, tongs, and steak knives, but never a damn Mr. Coffee, was beyond Bones' comprehension. Sure, he was a mere security guard, but he knew right from wrong.
Dear God, I sound like my father. Bones thought, shaking his head, I could really use some fucking coffee.
"Mornin'," Kirk replied, looking like he was about to fall asleep in his Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwich. Like it or not, advertising executives, a breakfast sandwich does not mimic the pep of the 70 milligrams of caffeine found per eight ounces of instant coffee, nor would the damn solar system settle for anything less.
Fuck, Bones needed coffee. When the refrigerator looks plush, man…
"So didja see the weirdos camped outside?" Kirk mumbled.
"Fuck, you serious? Have you tried talking to 'em?"
"Hell no," Kirk replied dully, leafing through an ancient newspaper, "I figure we can leave that to ol' Cupcake."
"You really gotta stop calling him that, Kirk."
Kirk scoffed, but didn't reply. Bones shrugged and went about harvesting the fridge. The junk food stash had inexplicably been removed, and no one questioned this because it had never been made abundantly clear who it technically belonged to, even though Bones was sure it wasn't just him who was siphoning Pringles.
As Bones absently scanned the offerings, he made a discovery. Scott had been laid off, but didn't clear out his stale Chinese food.
"Jim, could you move for a bit?" Bones said, mostly to himself, "I want to do a cartwheel."
"What?" Jim replied, after a pause of a few seconds.
"Nothing," Bones muttered, and grabbed the Chinese food. As he searched for a semi-clean plastic fork, seeing as he was not packin' silverware at the moment, he came to a stark realization; his life sucked, blew, and swallowed. With a sigh, he settled for a dusty spoon.
---
"We're not gonna take it! No! We ain't gonna take it!" Nero yelled, picking up more rocks to throw at the large gate.
"Nero," Ayel said, massaging his temples, "We've been in Los Angeles for a day and a half. How in God's name have you managed to hit a Sunset Strip record store in that time?"
"We're right! Yeah! We're free! Yeah! We'll fight! Yeah! You'll see!"
"I'm going back in the tent."
"Now drop and give me 20, we're not gonna take it!"
---
Bones adjusted his aviator sunglasses and glanced at Kirk, who also had aviator sunglasses. They thought the sunglasses made them look more authoritative - like prison guards, a bit - but when Bones remembered that they'd bought them on Fisherman's Warf with a naked guy painted silver outside the cheap tourist shop, it sort of killed the self-illusion.
They were standing on the interior side of the front gate; on the other side, one tattooed freak was throwing rocks and singing Twisted Sister, and there was another, assumedly equally tattooed, freak in the tent, yelling about the stupidity of the former freak.
"Well?" Kirk mumbled, "You wanna go first, or me?"
"Eh," Bones replied, "I guess I will."
"Alright, whenever you're ready."
Bones cleared his throat.
"Hey, fellas," he shouted, "It's 11 in the morning, could this wait until after noon?"
The rock-throwing freak stopped.
"We await the arrival of the one who destroyed our home!"
"…what?"
"I saw it happen, he was perfectly able to stop it but did nothing! FIRE EVERYTHING!"
"Shut up, Nero!" The other freak emerged from the tent, and seemed surprised to see Kirk and Bones standing there, "Oh, uh. Hello."
"Uh, hi. You didn't realize…"
"Well, Nero often yells about his troubled past to no one in particular."
"Right," Bones said, giving a confused glance to Kirk, "What's up with your tattoos?"
"Well, we're from another world."
"Yeah, South Central is pretty nuts."
"No, I mean another planet."
"Look, dude, having ill-advised facial tattoos does not mean you're an alien."
"But we really are!"
"No, you're not." Bones groaned.
"Look," Kirk finally said, extending his palms as if Bones and the tattooed guy were fighting, "Let's just get beyond this alien-or-not argument, because no one here has the time to deal with that. What, exactly, do you want?"
Nero was still holding rocks in preparation for a great rock war. Ayel decided to just get this over with, because sitting through Nero's explanation could become unbearable very quickly.
"We're here to kill Ty Pennington."
Bones and Kirk looked at eachother, and words were silently spoken. Kirk punched a button, and the gate slowly swung automatically open.
"Come with us."
