Caboose smiled happily to himself as he made his way back towards home from Polt's gym. She was going to be busy for a while making calls and doing research to make the fixes to the place he'd helped her come up with, and would probably be at it for quite some time. He was sad that meant he wouldn't be able to see her for a while since she'd be busy and couldn't be 'distracted', but he focused on the fact that he'd be making a new friend in Mero when he got home-

"Comic Books!" Caboose declared happily as he caught sight of a manga shop, immediately turning to enter. He glanced up at the name on the store sign. "Li...bi...do? I wonder what that means? And...Doo...Jin...oh, D'jinn! It's a wish granting comic shop!" He paused at the entrance. "I wish to make lots of new friends while I'm here!" With that stated, he moved quickly inside and began browsing for comics to read. While he had some trouble reading Japanese, many of the comics were in Galactic Standard...and all had lots and lots of pictures!

Eventually, he found a comic that had a character in it that looked a lot like Polt. He immediately decided to read that one, especially when he saw it was in standard. However, he paused when he came across a word he didn't recognize. He turned to the nearest person in the store. "Excuse me," he asked hopefully, "but can you tell me what this word means?" For some reason, the man tugged awkwardly at his collar and refused to respond. Similar reactions happened with each other customer he approached...except for one girl who looked completely human, even though his visor insisted she was a demi-human. She seemed to find his confusion highly amusing, but still refused to answer.

For some reason, she'd looked very familiar...

He decided to ask the store employee behind the counter, but paused. "Oh, he's busy with those big guys with guns," he observed idly, his visor registering them as 'orcs'. "I'll wait."

Caboose continued to wait as the orcs opened fire and took control of the store, staying perfectly still beside the counter while he waited his turn. Somehow, the orcs managed to mistake him for a display...probably because he was standing right next to the "The Reds and Blues Graphic Novel" rack. He listened calmly as they proceeded to declare their demands...which made no sense to him. Orc X? Do they want demi-human themed video games? Those sound awesome! ...but those are some really strange boss names. Royal Knight sounds like Cerea...no idea what an elf is, is it like an Emp? Core-taser? And why would you want to fight your sister?

After a time, Caboose's helmet registered the presence of a demi-human giving off negative vital signs in the ceiling. Before he could ask about it, however, one of the orcs fired at the ceiling, causing a rather shapely girl with red hair in an orange ninja-esque outfit to fall out, riddled with bullets. The orcs commented rather appreciatively on her figure, but Caboose's thoughts were much more straightforward.

Is she going to be a new friend?

After a brief conversation he didn't really follow - Orcs smell good? News to me. Little piggies always smell better than big ones. - one of the orcs shot the woman in the chest. With attention away from him, Caboose leaned over her. "Excuse me," he whispered softly. "Can you tell me what this word means?" He showed her the comic and pointed to the word.

The woman blinked at him. "Are you nuts?" she hissed out. "I've just been shot!"

"I've been shot lots of times," Caboose observed idly. "You aren't losing much blood, so you must have a heal unit."

"I'm trying to play dead!" she snapped, keeping her voice as low as possible.

"Oh," Caboose allowed. "You're doing a great job. I'm not picking up any vital signs at all."

"Buhi!" one of the orcs suddenly declared loudly. "That's not a display, that's a person!" He reached over and grabbed Caboose's arm, attempting to haul back.

Caboose turned to look at him. "Excuse me, but I was in the middle of an important conversation with the dead lady. I waited my turn with the clerk, you can wait yours with me!"

The orc blinked, plainly flustered at not being found intimidating. Another of the orcs' eyes widened. "That's Caboose!" he declared in shock. "Of the Reds and Blues!"

"The celebrity?" the orc grabbing Caboose's arm gasped in surprise. "That's an even better hostage!" He held the gun to Caboose's head.

"I don't think it's a good idea to threaten him…" the orc who apparently had a brain warned.

"What do you expect me to do?" the aggressive orc demanded sourly. "Ask him real nice, 'Can you please stand here by me with my gun to your head and pretend to be scared'?"

"I can do that!" Caboose declared happily. "Aah! Aah! I am absolutely in fear of my life!"

The orc with a brain promptly hit the floor with his face.

"Oh, while I'm doing this, can you do something for me?" Caboose asked eagerly. He held up the comic. "Can you tell me what a cli-to-ris is?"

The orc blinked, completely pole-axed. "Uh…"

"Oh, you don't know," Caboose allowed sadly. "That's okay. None of the other customers seemed to know either."

"Don't broadcast that!" the orc holding Caboose 'hostage' yelled at the one holding the loud speaker. Caboose could have sworn he heard Scary Smith Lady snickering somewhere.

"Hey boss!" one of the other orcs called out, dragging out the girl who'd found Caboose's confusion over the word amusing...although she looked much less amused now. She looked rather terrified. "I found another one hiding in the corner!"

All the orcs began squealing excitedly over the girl, one of them calling out, "She looks just like Sweetie Witch Mako-chan!" while holding up a cardboard cutout to demonstrate. Caboose admitted to himself that it was a startling likeness.

The girl took one look at the woman playing dead on the floor and let out a terrified shriek. She then rushed to the front of the shop, tearing open the curtains and screaming, "Help! Someone help m-" Her words cut off as one of the orcs approached her.

"Don't be scared," the orc spoke as he pinned her to the glass. "We're all gentlemen here…"

Caboose would probably be the last to admit that his mind worked very slowly at times. It often took him several minutes to get a joke, and one sometimes had to repeat an instruction three times for him to realized he was the one being instructed. Right now, however, his mind was moving very fast. He knew exactly what the orc was about to do, and he would not let that happen.

As the other orcs moved in to demand the leader 'not get all the fun', he reached up and crushed the gun being held to his head.

"Buhi?!" the orc holding him hostage gasped in shock...but the shock wasn't over as Caboose lifted the orc over his head.

"This little piggy went to market," he declared coldly as he hurled the orc forward, sending him through the glass front of the store and head first into the barricade.

The orcs turned to him in shock as he calmly stalked towards them. "This little piggy...should have stayed home!" With that declaration, he punched the nearest orc in the gut, sending him through another wall and into the grip of a rather massive girl in armor...who seemed rather startled at being revealed this way.

"This little piggy will be roast beef!" he declared as he grabbed the next orc and slammed him repeatedly into the ground as though tenderizing him, making the tiles crack with each slam before dropping the limp form.

"These little piggies are done!" he snapped as he spun and kicked one of the orcs into the others, hard enough to send all but the one holding the girl through the next building over.

He then turned like an oncoming storm to the last standing orc. "And this little piggy goes buhi, buhi, buhi…" Reaching forward, he grabbed the ring through the orc's nose and twisted. "Because his boys can't stop hitting themselves."

"But...but you're the one hitting us!" the orc wailed.

"No," Caboose observed darkly. He then jerked forward on the ring, slamming his head forward into the oncoming orc face with an audible crack. "You brought this on yourselves."

The orc slumped limp, the ring torn from his nose and hanging in Caboose's hand. He then let it drop before turning to the stunned girl. "Are you okay?" he asked worriedly, his voice back to normal save for an emotional intensity. "I stopped them before they hurt you, right? I wasn't too late again, was I?"

The girl stared at him for a time, and then her appearance slowly unraveled to reveal a dark skinned naked girl with lots of long white hair that floated around her as she herself floated. "I could have handled them myself," she complained petulantly, though her cheeks were oddly darker than the rest of her face.

"Oh…" Caboose allowed, staggering back. "That's...good...that's...my head hurts…" Like a puppet whose strings had been cut, he collapsed limply to the ground.

Agent Smith burst into the shop. "Dopple, what did you do to him?"

"I don't know!" Dopple shrieked out as the other girls present seemed just as terrified.