Welcome back, one and all! I'll have another chapter up as soon as my mum reads it! Or maybe before, depending on how impatient I get… XD
I don't own Jak and Daxter, so (don't) sue me.
OWTF!
Sammich
Ammo And Obis
The group went to the Naughty Ottsel for lunch, where Serenity woke up and at once dropped off of Fury's shoulder, getting up onto the counter where Daxter and Tess were. At once, the small silver ottsel hugged Tess, careful of the older female's pregnant stomach. "'Ello mum..."
Alex gave a look to Tess that Loor caught, snickering lightly. "When Fury came back, Serenity was just a baby... and Tess adopted her."
Fury shook her head, rolling her eyes. "Only because I didn't have time between getting into business and school."
Alex snapped a look back at Fury. "You have to go to school here?!"
Fury glanced Alex up and down. "Not you. You look like you skipped your teen years and went straight to drinking age when you fused with Loor's cat. But yeah, Haven's education system started back up, and Loor made frickin sure that I went back in." Fury then glared at Loor for this, as if it was some horrid crime.
"What?!" Loor yelped. "C'mon Fury, you can't blame me!"
"Oh yes I can! I'm stuck in school again after being dead for a year, and you and lucky Alex got to skip right over it!"
"It's not my fault that the Baron decided I made a good guinea pig!"
"But it is your fault that I came back at the age that I had died, since you wished me back without the eco damage!"
"What, would you rather Serenity still being evil, talking to you in your mind?"
"Well... fine, but what's Alex's excuse??"
Alex put her hands up, as if to say that she wasn't getting dragged into this argument, but Daxter answered for her. "Alex's excuse is that you guys are ignoring the guy with the menus."
Loor giggled, going over to the bar and sitting. "Ah, Dax, how did you know?"
"I know because you, my lady, stop here almost every day for lunch." Dax dropped a menu that was bigger than him in front of her. "And Fury, long time no see. How come you don't drop by more often?"
"Because." Fury said, taking her own menu. "I'm busy."
"Too busy to see Serenity's adoptive parents once in a while and say hi?" He joked, shaking his head. "And, Alex, was it?" He smirked. "Loor, how come you didn't tell me you were running with a new lady?"
"She's not new, technically speaking." Loor smirked, looking over the item in her hands. "Look closely Dax, you might know her already."
"If I did already know her, I would have recognized her by now!" The ottsel nipped back as Alex took her menu from him. "I never forget a cute face, and that one is pretty cute!"
Alex wrinkled her nose at him, giggling and leaning down to Dax's level. "Smelly kitty!"
For the few and proud who managed to drag themselves through Vacation or War up to the second part, you would know that Alex hugged Daxter like her favorite teddy bear when she first saw him, licked him, and then, upon finding that Daxter was not a creature of hygiene, yelped 'Smelly kitty' at the top of her lungs.
Daxter had issues forgetting that event.
"Whoa, that Alex?!??"
Alex waved a hand over her face. "EW! Kitty has bad breath!" She said sitting back up, looking over her menu.
Daxter slid down the counter. "Back things up Loor! How did she get here?? We already had two of the trouble trio, and now we got all three of you!"
"She blackmailed my ex., who didn't do what I told him to do when I told him to destroy the last copy of the VC-M1. Don't worry Dax, if she's still here tomorrow, everything is okay."
Dax nodded, and then slid down to the other side of the bar. "So, Alex, you need a job?" He asked.
Alex lowered her menu, looking at the ottsel. "Uh... maybe?"
"Well, if you ever do, we can always use a hand around here during the night shift." Dax grinned. "Not to mention it's a great reference if you wanna get a job anywhere else in the city."
"Only if you brush your teeth." Alex muttered, looking back at her menu.
"Deal!"
Tess, with Serenity, giggled at the other side of the counter.
"So where to next???" Alex asked, practically jumping up and down when they got outside. Of the many things that Loor had introduced to Haven City from her own time, she was regretting introducing caffeinated soda, because Alex had drank about three glasses before they left.
"We need to go to the Bazaar for two reasons..." Loor said, putting her hands behind her head and thinking. "We need to get you some clothes that fit, and pay a visit to another friend of mine."
Fury perked up. "Oooh! We can stop by my store!"
Loor giggled. "We're gonna shop around Fury, but I'm sure Artimus won't mind us visiting. Not to mention, I've been looking at the new piercing section you guys opened up..."
"Piercings?" Alex asked. "What kinds do you guys do?"
Fury shrugged. "We hired a professional girl named Cloe. She does just about everything for the ears, including caps and chains, lip rings, nose studs... I don't think she does body piercings though."
"We have to check that out!" Alex crowed, jumping for joy again.
Loor sighed, shaking her head. "I hate shopping..."
Fury gave her a smack to the back. "You'll live, Loor."
"I know I will, it's just I know if I go into your store I'll start enjoying myself, and then we're gonna take longer. I told Jak that I was going for a walk, which means I'm permitted about three hours after lunch, and then he gets on my case again. And what if Torn calls him out? Then both boys are on my case."
Alex and Fury had to drag Loor to their next destination as she made up various excuses. Apparently she had been planning to let those two loose and just visit Onin all by herself, but the girls weren't going to let her off that easy.
Fury's shop was situated in the new Bazaar that had been built when the sections that the metal heads had taken over were cleaned up. The section was a lot like the old one, only bigger because the palace section was gone. When the palace and its support towers were cleared out, the old section was split in half. Half went to residential, and the other half went to commercial.
Ammo and Obis was a nice looking place from the outside, with a sliding Japanese style paper door and a sign above with two anime style characters standing on either side of the shop's title. One was a girl in a kimono like outfit, only the skirt was short, she was wearing pants and boots, and she was wearing a very large weapon on her back. The other was a guy wearing a horai top, pants, combat boots, and had something that paid a resemblance to the super nova mod in his hands.
"What's it say...?" Alex asked, looking at the sign.
Loor smacked her own face. The shop's sign was written in Haven's common language; precursor symbols.
"Ammo and Obis!" Fury proclaimed, grinning and running ahead, opening the door for her friends and then sitting like a geisha, bowing over her knees as if she was welcoming patrons to a teahouse. "Welcome!"
Loor led Alex in, who at once looked about with slight shock.
The shop seemed to be divided into three portions. On the right was clothing racks and fitting rooms for anything from old time kimonos, thing like the top that Fury was wearing, normal old jeans, add-on sleeves like ones that Loor used to wear at home, fluffy flair skirts, jewelry racks, and belts. On the left was a weapons shop with everything from whips to knives to guns, along with proper holsters for each that, believe it or not, looked stylish and would probably look good with all of the clothes that were sold in the place. In the back there was the section they had just added on; piercings. To top the whole look off, there was a music track playing through the shop; someone playing a traditional shamisen.
"Not bad for a year of work, huh?" Fury asked, smirking.
"You own all of this?" Alex whimpered, already seeing a few things she wanted to take a look at.
"Own, design, and sell." Fury said, leaning on the wall. "And trust me, I don't have time to be making house calls like these, usually."
Loor snickered. "Fury's been making lot's of money, but she doesn't have a monopoly on the market anymore. She has to be careful what she does and it takes a lot of her energy."
"At least she has help."
All three girls turned to see a raven-haired boy walk up to them. He was looking to be a late fifteen, and his long black hair was kept in a braid. He was currently in a full horai that was black with red underneath. "Konichiwa." He greeted.
"Arti-Kun!" Fury yelped, running at him and glomping him.
Loor smirked as Artimus caught his girl and hugged her, looking over. "Alex, this is Fury's boyfriend Artimus."
Artimus let go of Fury and offered a hand to Alex. "Nice to meet you. Are you a friend of Fury's?"
Alex looked at the guy's hand and wrinkled her nose, hugging her own hand that she should have offered. "Yeah..." She squeaked.
Loor snickered as Artimus took his hand back, giving Alex a funny look. "Don't worry about her. She's a little... spontaneous."
Alex was looking all over the place, and suddenly ran into the clothing section. "OH! Corsets!"
Fury smacked her own face. "Like that..."
Loor looked at Fury. "Since when did you start selling corsets?"
There was another squeal from Alex's general direction. "The same time that I started selling bondage pants and bodice dresses."
Loor looked around a bit, following after Alex. "The place seems pretty quiet too..."
"Lunch hour." Artimus explained, following them. "Most of the costumers are probably hitting the fast food places that opened up near the stadium and eating it on the steps."
The girls and Artimus found Alex looking through a rack of add-on sleeves. She already had proper undergarments picked out, a set of black bondage jeans with chains, and a white tube top hung on her left arm. After a few more moments, she picked out a set of black add-on sleeves that came with white fingerless gloves.
Loor sighed, turning to Fury and handing her the equivalent of a credit card. "I'll cover her."
Fury nodded. "You want the discount?" Fury usually offered Loor an employee discount, even if her friend didn't work there.
"Naw." Loor's usual reply. She didn't like shorting on her purchases. Anyways, Fury was running a business, and Loor had money to burn.
Fury grabbed the card and ran to man the main counter for when Alex came out of the dressing room, and Artimus went back to his post at the weapon's counter. Loor stayed, and complemented Alex when she came out. She looked pretty good in the new garb. She had already ripped open the plastic packs that the underwear came in, wearing a neon green bra with the ensemble, the straps showing over the girl's bare shoulders. Loor would also venture to say that Alex had broken into the underwear. Fury would forgive them, and Alex refused to change back into the other clothes as they went to the counter. Fury scanned the tags that were still on what Alex had picked out, and the bags for the underwear, and then leaned over the counter to look at Alex's feet.
"You want a set of boots to go with that?" She asked.
Alex looked down at the sandals that Loor had borrowed her, and Loor excused herself quickly, handing the clothes that she had borrowed to Alex to Fury to put in a bag. On her way back to where they were selling shoes, Loor had taken the red scarf that she had borrowed to Alex and tied it around her neck like she always did, coming back to the counter with a set of black combat boots and a set of white socks. Fury scanned those, Alex put them on, and Loor grabbed the bag with her stuff as Fury ran her card through the machine and gave it back.
"Enjoy." Fury gave, giggling.
"Just one last thing...?" Alex asked.
"What?" Loor gave.
"Can we go look at the piercings? I don't want one right now... but maybe later..."
Loor looked at the manager of the store. Fury shrugged, and nodded. "Sure, Cloe should be back there. Go and say hi."
Both girls nodded and started taking the walk towards the back. "Fury has..." Alex tried to find the word for the changes that were quite obvious.
"Matured a lot? I know." She smiled around at the place. "I don't know how she makes time for her other passions while doing this stuff..."
"Other passions?"
"She's still a contortion nut, and she's trying to bring anime back."
Alex rolled her eyes at the anime comment. "Joy." She gave with annoyance in her voice. Back at home, Alex would get annoyed with Fury for talking about anime twenty four seven, and though Loor got annoyed with it too, she never said anything to Fury directly.
"I understand her efforts, but I've been trying to get her to quit." Loor sighed. "You see, pretty much all culture was stomped out of Haven's people by the Baron during the fifteen years that he ruled, and Fury doesn't get that they have to redevelop that culture mainly on their own. Sure, what she's doing is fine, but she can't go nuts. Of course the city is recovering, but it's only been a year since wartime has ended. Ashelin is still trying to figure out how her new position works, and most people that were refugees during the war have no idea what to do with themselves. On top of that, there's a housing shortage. We have to handle the economic boom, the baby boom, try to get people off the streets, and make more space in the city all at the same time, along with all the other little problems that people have every day."
"Wow..." Alex stuffed her hands into her pockets. "How are they gonna get more space?"
"Ashelin's first action was to bust down the remains of dead town. The only thing we left was Samos's old hut. There we've been fortifying the wall and putting up apartment buildings that will be affordable to help with the homeless problem."
"A ghetto?" Alex asked, raising an eyebrow.
"You know, I have no idea what an exact definition of a ghetto is, so I'm not gonna call it that." She shrugged. "These days, everyone has taken to calling it Old Haven. Maybe I'll show it to you tomorrow, hmm?"
Alex nodded, and then looked as they got to the back. There were various displays of the different types of earrings you could get, plus diagrams of where on the ear you could pick to put them. Along with that there was stuff for caring for infections, booklets on the subject, and even persuasive pamphlets that kids could hand their parents if they were trying to get their first piercing.
There was also a chair, a place to sit while you were getting your piercing. Currently sitting on that chair was Cloe.
Cloe's natural hair color was bleach blond, but you could only see it at the roots. The rest of her hair was black with red streaks. She had a single lip ring, twin studs in both of her ears at the tip and base that were connected by a silver chain, a red tang, black vest, and black bondage pants much like Alex's new ones. She also wore a set of black heels. When Alex and Loor arrived in her domain, Cloe looked up and gave a big smile. "Hey there!" She said, getting up from the chair. "Girl, you look good." She complemented Alex. "I've never seen anyone pull the black and white look before, but you pull it pretty well."
Alex turned lightly pink. "Thank you." She said, smiling back. "You look pretty good too. Nice chains. Can you show me around?"
Loor snickered, and picked a chair by the wall to sit in. This was going to take a while.
