After a few hours, Jack couldn't take it any more.
Without his weapons on his person, he literally felt like he was naked. It was almost humiliating for him. His reasoning for joining the project was that it said he could carry whatever weapons he wanted and go on an adventure where he could shoot the living fuck out of a load of weird mutants for absolutely hours. Plain and simple.
So the very idea that now he was in a completely safe area, his guns no longer in his charge, was devastating to his psyche. He sighed for the fifteenth time the following morning's breakfast, and scratched his forehead. Blanc looked at him with her usual, unreadable expression. "Are you feeling alright, Mr. Funrun?" she asked calmly, sipping from a cup of tea. Jack sat up, and looked at her.
"Doin' fine," he replied flatly. "Mostly buggered off 'cause I've not got my guns with me. I feel like I'm ffffffff..." He cast a glance to Rom and Ram, and to Mina, who was sat beside them shaking her head with a serious expression. "...ffffreakin' vulnerable as sssssssugar." James stifled laughs. If anybody could be any more awkward in trying to not swear, it was probably Gordon "It's Fucking Raw, You Fucking Shit-Faced Cock-Sucking Donkey Shagger" Ramsay. Mina gave an approving smile, and mouthed the words 'Thank You' to Jack, out of the twins' vision. He shook his head as they returned to eating. Blanc continued looking at him, nonetheless.
"Why do you not leave the basilicom for a while?" she suggested. "I have gathered enough research from Mr. Hillman, and enough knowledge from you, alongside my sisters being with Oracle Mina for the day, so there is little need for you around the basilicom." Jack sat up again, interested.
"You'd give us permission for that?" he asked. Blanc nodded. "You're not gonna have someone keeping an eye on us?" There was a pause.
"...do you intend to do something that would significantly anger me?" the goddess asked. Jack thought for a moment.
"I might swear. Like, a lot. And, uh, James and I would be walkin' around with guns. Plus, we might get into trouble with any other guys from our world that we meet. Could end badly if rounds're fired off.'
"Then you avoid them."
"Difficult. We all got the same trainin'." James joined the conversation, sweeping his fringe out of his eyes. "They'd see us comin' a mile away."
"I'm not that fat, you prick..." Jack muttered.
"Besides, what could we even do once we go out?" Blanc thought for a minute, sipping her beverage once more. There was silence throughout the large dining hall with the table continuing to eat their meals.
"You could go shopping," she suggested, setting her cup down and looking to Jack. "I remember you mentioning that you had a fairly large sum of money available to you, Mr. Hungwon." Jack, ignoring the blatant running joke that was going to piss him off to the point of homicide, nodded, reclining back.
"From what exposition's tellin' me," he grunted, stretching his back, "I've got about twenty-odd thousand credits. I suppose I could go and buy summat that looks interestin'." James nodded.
"We could probably flog some stuff, as well," he noted. "Especially those robot parts from yesterday. Wonder if those broken things're still lyin' there?"
"Some of them turned into those big purple light things, and some of them stayed long enough for me to smash them to bits, so yeah, maybe they are." Jack stood up, stretching a leg. "You wanna go have a look?" James nodded again, and stood up as well.
"Right behind you, in a no homo way," he grinned. Jack resisted the urge to vomit, and they bid Lowee's upper hierarchy goodbye.
As the door closed, Ram turned to Blanc. "Sis?" she asked. Blanc looked to her with her usual dull expression.
"That is me."
"What's a 'no homo'?"
"I can't say without being a hypocrite about not wanting them to say unpleasant things in front of you. Wait until you are older."
Mina let out a breath she didn't know she was holding as Rom and Ram continued their breakfasts.
Later, in Lowee town centre...
"So," James began, hands in his pockets as they walked down the street. "Impressions?" Jack cast a questioning glance over to his friend, raising a brow.
"Seriously?" He let out a sigh, before shaking his head and thinking for a moment. "Well, better weather than in fuckin' Scotland, I'll tell you that much. Why'd you care?" James gently shrugged, giving a tip of his black cap to a few women that were staring at them in interest, prompting them to break off into giggles.
"Well, y'know," smiled the Welshman, "It's the city I was found in. Survived just outside it for a while, fightin' monsters and such like," He swept his hair back over. "Then when it came to actually goin' into the streets once Lady Blanc let me go out, I came to kinda like it. Rather charmin' place." They stopped momentarily to let a tram roll slowly past, and Jack let out his usual huff of 'meh', though it was one that was visible in the frigid Lowee air.
"Anythin' beats Stockport," he said flatly, finally being able to move over the road past the tram. James rolled his eyes. "Besides, I have money to spend, so I'm probably gonna end up buying weapons. Heard in Lastation that Lowee does a lot in terms of gun tech, so why not go lookin' for summat ridiculous?" The eyes of crowds subtly watched the two, but they were fully aware of their constant observation by the masses. Jack felt its existence more than either of them, because he was easily two or three heads taller than pretty much everybody. They stood at the side of the pavement, and Jack put his hands on his hips, sleeves still rolled up with his ballistic guards on.
"Maybe it'd be more sensible to buy a fuckin' coat," James muttered. "Dunno how you're not cold."
"I'm Scottish. Also, my internal thermometer is buggered. Anyway, you know any decent weapon shops in this place, considerin' you like it so much?"
"Can only give you a shrug and a middle finger," James replied, kicking at some snow. "Might need to wander for a bit." Jack groaned, and thumbed at his Mossberg strap.
"You lazy fucker. Go learn street layouts." The taller lad turned heel and began his steady march down the pavement, James lagging behind slightly as passers-by watched in interest.
"Says you, dickhead!" James laughed. "You're the one who took Drama over somethin' like Geography in school." Jack turned suddenly, halting and jabbing a finger at James.
"Hey, fuck you, Miss said I had the potential to be a famous actor one day," he shot back, before turning and continuing his walking. James shrugged.
"You must be in a family of actors; Pretty sure I saw your Mum and Dad in a porno once." He was certain he heard someone chuckle as they went past. Jack shrugged it off.
"Don't care, their reputation, another reason for me to despise them," he muttered, before halting, and looking at a nearby shop. James paused as well, and looked at it.
"...this is a hardware shop." Jack said the words almost curiously. James nodded.
"Congratulations. You're not fuckin' blind."
"They sell tools in here."
"No shit."
"Let's go inside." Without further words or explanation, Jack turned to his left and marched straight through the door of the dingy little shop on the corner of an alleyway. James let out a groan, and marched in, ducking through the entrance at an angle so as to avoid the lengthy rifle on his back getting caught in the doorframe.
"Why?" he groaned, squinting in the low light conditions. Lying around the miserable little store were assorted tools, labelled at prices like one hundred credits for a crowbar. "No guns here. Thought we were lookin' for weapons." Jack, however, paid no heed, moving straight to the power tools segment of the store and eyeing up the rack of assorted building equipment. As he watched his unusually quiet friend pick up a meaty looking chainsaw, James began to understand. He folded his arms. "Maybe for you, not for me. Won't catch me with one of those things. Better to stay in one good place and shoot from there." Jack dismissed him with a wave of his hand as he held the nearly-perfectly sized engine with the massive spiked chain.
"Because you're a bloody wimp, that's why," he retorted, eagerly looking at the tool's rotating chain and giving a few mock swings. "You wanna deal with Dogoos, you turn them into either caramel or paste. For the first one, I have Dragon's Breath. For the second one, I have my boot, and I'll also have this." James rolled his eyes as he looked at a gardening axe. It was barely a tomahawk, going by its size for him.
"It's overkill, mate," he sighed. "But, it's your money. How much?" Jack leaned back momentarily to look at the price marked on the metallic rack, before his grin returned.
"Seven hundred credits. Lovely jubbly." Without a further word, he turned, and carried the hefty machine to the counter at the back of the shop, poking the bell with a finger to get service.
"I-I'll be through in a second!" came the responding, undoubtedly shy, female voice. James put the axe down, and wandered idly over to his partner, hands in his pockets as his armoured form trudged towards Jack. And after another moment, the shop attendant came out of the back room, in the form of a rather small girl with ash-grey hair and a relatively skimpy outfit. For some reason, she looked to be rather frightened, which contradicted the ripped dragon-pattern jeans adorning one of her legs, massive golden chain necklace with the word 'TEKKEN' hanging on the end, and a black and red...bra...thing. James, being an expert on these things, immediately deduced her to be a C-Cup, borderline D-Cup. She made her way over to the register, and looked up at Jack. "He-Hello." Jack, being careful, gave a nod.
"Mornin'," he replied, "Just lookin' to buy this appliance right here." He raised up the notably weighty chainsaw, and held it high enough that she could see he was carrying it. Her red eyes went slightly wide, and a noticeable bead of sweat appeared on her face.
"Th-That's an industrial logging tool!" she yelped. "I-I thought only cranes and robots were supposed to be able to carry those!" Jack tilted his head, and bobbed it up and down slightly.
"Really?" he asked. "Not too heavy, if you ask me." There was another pause as the woman stared at him in awe.
"Y-You're a big guy..." she gasped gently.
"Yeah, and nobody cared who I was until I picked up the chainsaw," he groaned, rolling his eyes. "Anyway, this is seven hundred credits, right?" The woman nodded, pressing some buttons on the register.
"I-I have to say, though," she began in her rather timid voice, "Nobody has come in and p-picked that up before. It's just too heavy." Jack gave her a grin.
"Not really," he shrugged. "To be honest, where I'm from, this is a normal-sized logging appliance. But we're all, as everyone likes Banepostin', 'big guys', so most of the stuff in here could be called hand tools." As the woman continued pressing buttons on the register with a slightly confused expression, James couldn't help but speak up.
"Do you run this business alone?" he asked. The woman looked up in surprise at the sudden new voice, before swallowing hard and shaking her head with a slightly worried expression.
"I-I help one of my friends run it," she stuttered, "She's n-normally in the back, running experiments and things. She says I shouldn't get involved, because they're dangerous, or something, but I help when she lets me. Otherwise, I-I run shopfront." Jack nodded.
"Fair enough." There was more silence as the girl in front of him continued to try and work the register. James rolled his shoulder to alleviate a cramp. Jack shifted his weight in classic Mass Effect style.
The silence was broken by the sound of a woman's voice yelling from the back room. "Blast!" cried the other voice (presumably the shopkeeper's friend. "I almost had it that time! Why must success always evade me at these crucial moments?" Jack and James almost immediately recognised the voice.
"Was that Mages?" James asked, looking to Jack. Jack shrugged.
"Dunno who Mages is," he replied, "I can remember MAGES., though. She was nice." The woman behind the till suddenly gasped.
"You know MAGES.?" she asked in amazement. Cautiously, Jack and James nodded, and the girl smiled. "I've lived with her for a good long time now! She's very nice!" Jack raised a hand.
"Just to clarify, here," he began, causing the girl's smile to drop for a moment. "Your friend MAGES. wears a cool hat, has blue hair, wears a white coat thing with gears on it, has a mole, and smells weird?" The girl nodded, and Jack smiled again. "Yeah, it's the same MAGES. we met in Leanbox." James gave a shrug of acknowledgement.
"Didn't really get time to speak with her, though," he said coldly, folding his arms, "That whole bank robbery thing happened, and we wandered off after that." Once more, the shy lady behind the till gasped in surprise.
"Y-You're the two that helped stop the bank robbery, right?" she asked, amazed. Jack nodded. Was it really that big of a deal? Nonetheless, James made a 'pfft' noise.
"Yeah, we helped," he muttered. "And I think all we did was knock out two Russians."
"They didn't move fast enough: I was Russian faster than they could," Jack grinned, prompting everybody in the whole world to collectively commit suicide at his shitty sense of humour. Also, it prompted Uni to start cutting herself because she had once thought he was cool.
"Just fuck off with that." James leaned forwards onto the counter, drumming his fingers and finally looking at the girl. She raised her hands slightly, and shifted away, looking worried. "You got a name?" There was a pause, and the woman nodded.
"Y-Yes..." she trailed off, finally speaking up after looking at her necklace for a few moments. "M-My name is Tekken." Jack raised a brow.
"Tekken?" he repeated, testing the name. "Fairly certain that's the name of a fightin' game." Tekken tilted her head.
"Um...is it?" she asked, genuinely confused.
"Pretty sure."
"Oh. Do you think I should get a different name?" She seemed to be considering her options, looking around worriedly. Jack shook his head.
"Nah," he replied, dismissing her with a wave of his hand before returning it to the rear handle of the chainsaw. It was surprisingly light for what Tekken was making it out to be. "Your name's fine. Couldn't be any worse than fuckin' 'Nigel', or 'Ed', or 'David', or-"
"You're namin' politicians, aren't you?" James sighed.
"Shut up, I'm not done," Jack retorted, "Or 'Nikola Sturgeon', and yeah, now I'm done." James muttered something about not being sure if that's what the woman's name was, and shook his head. Before Tekken could voice her confusion over the joke, however, there was another loud boom. This time, a massive cloud of white smoke blasted through the doorway behind the counter with another object coming flying through and smashing into the back of the counter, prompting Tekken to audibly yelp and curl up into a defensive ball, whilst Jack and James crouched as low as they could to actually make use of the desk as cover.
Jack could identify a hint of Jasmine that was being carried in the air amidst the chemically burning aroma. Leaving the chainsaw to rest on the floor (with a fuckload of protest by the floorboards), he stood up, and dusted himself off, helping James to his feet in a typical bro-like manner, complete with super badass handshake and triumphant music. Tekken carefully wobbled to a relatively stable position, and leaned on the counter, looking worriedly into the smoke. "M-MAGES.?" she called out. There was no reply.
After a moment, someone made a groaning noise, and a figure became visible standing / staggering to its feet. Through the rather generic cloud of smoke, Jack could make out the brim of a hat and a long coat. "Y-Yes, T-Tekken?" mumbled the response, facing quite clearly the wrong way as the smoke began to clear. MAGES.' grey haired companion darted over, and placed a gloved hand on the shoulder of the wizard.
"Th-That was some explosion!" Tekken cried, using both her hands to steady MAGES.' balance. "A-Are you OK?!" The smaller of the two carefully manoeuvred the wizard towards a chair, and sat her down. Jack could now see that MAGES. had the spirally eyes and wavy mouth that you'd expect from someone who just hit their head on a solid oak counter.
"Fuckin' hell," he piped up, scratching the back of his head and leaning forwards over the desk to check on her. "You want me to get an ambulance or summat? That was a fuckin' huge boom!" Tekken turned and quickly shook her head.
"No!" she cried, before realising she had raised her voice for no reason, swallowing hard. "I-I mean...n-no, thank you. This happens all the time. We'd just be causing problems for the ambulance service." James raised his brow, leaning forward as well.
"What, you're sayin' this is a daily thing?" he asked, astounded. Tekken nodded, withdrawing an ice pack from hammerspace, removing MAGES.' hat, and placing the ice on her forehead. The blue-haired woman let out an unintelligible mumble mixed with a groan.
"She's a scientist, it's what she does," explained the lightly-dressed girl, "She's always making new ways to make our lives better! But it...um...doesn't always work. Yesterday, she knocked herself out for three hours when her microwave exploded. Another time, she tried a potion that she had made herself, and ended up projectile vomiting for a week."
"What was the potion meant to do?" Jack asked.
"Cause projectile vomiting and diarrhea," Tekken replied calmly.
"...so her first instinct was to try it on herself?"
"She said she would do all the washing related to it."
"Eurgh," James groaned. "But how the hell is she still alive? That'd have broken my fuckin' neck if I'd've hit that counter." To that, Tekken could only respond with a shrug. James sighed, and leaned over to Jack as the smaller woman dealt with her dazed friend.
"What do we do now?" he whispered, "She's dealin' with Mages, you got your chainsaw: Do we leave?"
"Not a fuckin' chance," Jack hissed. "I feel as if we'd be bein' rude if we left her to it. Might as well stay and check that MAGES. is OK." James sighed, and rubbed his face for a moment.
"...fine. Fine! Have it your way. But keep in mind that you gotta get her number." Now Jack facepalmed.
"Why's that comin' into this?!"
"Because you're the kind of bloke that sticks his dick in crazy, and she's crazy."
"Which one?"
"Why choose?"
"Fuck you. I'm just here in Gamindustri to have a good fight, not get with women."
"Great. Then nothin's stoppin' me goin' after Lady Vert."
"Except fuckin' Chika. That woman is obsessed with Lady Vert. She'd probably kidnap and kill you. Fuckin' psycho. Fun woman though."
"Once again, she's crazy..."
"Go fuck yourself."
One, maybe two hours later...
Jack, not being involved in the conversation between Tekken and James, decided it would be more fun for him to wander about and assess his Desert Eagle. Tekken had been kind enough to invite both of them upstairs, knowing that MAGES. would have wanted to see them again after their strange disappearance in Leanbox and being accepting of their help in getting her dazed friend upstairs, which meant she let them poke around the small, five room flat that she shared with the unconscious woman in question. It had a living room (where James was sat speaking with Tekken), MAGES.' room, Tekken's room, a kitchen, and a bathroom, all connected via a series of corridors. One thing Jack noted was the soundproofing: He couldn't hear the other two discussing things in the living room, which was only next door. That meant he was standing alone in the hallway between the bathroom and kitchen, MAGES.' room tucked to one side with the door open a crack or so. He didn't much partake in social occasions.
Of course, he understood that Tekken had invited them in, and that it was polite to speak with your host, but he had a strange aversion to socializing. The only reason he knew James was because they both came from the same school and area, sat next to each other, and generally ended up meeting on the lad's days out that his limited social circle went out on. Thus, discovering their similar interests, they decided they might as well become friends. Thus, the two had done nearly everything that a pair of bored young English lads could do over the course of several years.
This, of course, included signing up for a government project that claimed to be willing to send anyone to another dimension. There were about twelve of them on the day, all wandering about in a shopping center whilst they killed two hours before the first Avengers film was being shown. "Load of bollocks, right?" James had laughed after they'd all signed up, as the group of their friends headed towards McDonald's for lunch. In the weeks that followed, they received a strange amount of letters telling them to provide a few things. Simple things, really: Clothing measurements, shoe sizes, medical documents, passports, and generally things you'd expect to have if you were going on some description of camping trip or holiday. Naturally, the group of mismatched social outcasts began to wonder if it really was going to happen, considering all the planning.
And a few weeks later, a bus showed up to take them to Heathrow, then on to Nevada.
The journey was long, but that wasn't Jack's main complaint on arrival: Aside from a few other young people that looked to be relatively normal in background, everyone else was either ex-military, in the military, in the police, or a criminal. That left them all with more questions than they started with, but no answers came: Instead came the ringing voice of a drill instructor, who proceeded to tell them that they no longer legally existed as people. They were designated barracks in some military establishment, their records had effectively ceased to exist on official records, and from that point on, they were going to be trained as scientific tools with self-defence capabilities.
The training was tough. Jack had broken his arm during the assault course and been forced to finish, while another part of the training involved being shot and forced to run a half mile whilst bleeding out. One of the Chinese trainees, whose name for the life of him Jack couldn't remember, received a punctured lung, and never made it to the finish. The instructors just took that as proof that some people weren't cut out for the task. Jack was the only one who barely felt a thing: Considering one major spine surgery had left him unable to feel a few patches of skin on his torso, the bullet entered painlessly (and sat there painfully), striking a rib and blocking the hole that the blood would have come out of.
From there, the training had aspects of science put into it. Biology, mostly, but some aspects of chemistry and physics for the purpose of making medicine from some plants, and throwing grenades with velocity rivaling most professional cricketers and accuracy to match a mortar. Then came the more high-demand tests; tactical training, moving and shooting, shooting in different body positions, hand to hand combat, combat with close-quarters weapons, advanced driving, and all the others inbetween.
Heck, Jack didn't even have a real driver's license and he already knew how to lock the accelerator in place so he could steer with his foot and keep his hands on his gun.
By the end of it, they were all real-life action movie heroes, having gone through the training reserved for the best of the best.
After a whole year, they were given five days (under guard by a Predator drone) to visit one location of their choosing on Earth and say goodbye. Obviously, none of them had expected that it would be the last time they saw the places they visited. Heck, the last time they saw their own world. Thus, Jack, James, Josh, Luke, and all the others from their social group that had made it through training chose to go on one last trip to England: Where it all started, and ultimately where it all might end.
And to celebrate on the last day, they went back to the town, walked past the same spot they'd signed up at, had a McDonald's, and then went to the cinema. He couldn't remember what they'd watched. It didn't matter. They weren't going back. To think the last time he'd been there before his training was when he was a slightly overweight, basically useless young lad with a dull future.
'Now look at me,' he thought. 'Never would have expected to be in another universe, in a woman's kitchen, fiddling with one of the most powerful handguns available, and it's mine.' He smiled, adjusting the rear sight whilst he leaned on a wall, gently whistling God Save the Queen to himself as he did so. The darker corridor leading to the living room was rather small, so he did have to crouch to get through, but the darkness made him wonder if he was supposed to be checking the CCTV or the lights or something. Before he could consider closing the door for a moment, there came a light groaning from down the hall. "Must be MAGES.," he muttered, standing up and beginning to make his way to the doorway. As he reached to open it, he remembered a crucial detail: He still had his Desert Eagle drawn. "Could've ended badly if I walked in with this in my hand..."
Slipping it back into its holster, he finally pushed the door open to enter MAGES.' room. It was a rather cramped place: All around lay mechanical components and strange gizmos, mounted on walls were accolades and awards, and in the centre of all this, MAGES. herself lay under the bedcovers. She was shifting her head and scrunching her nose up slightly, so she was waking up in a rather adorable way, meaning Jack would be better off not just looking menacingly over the end of her bed. Casting a glance around the room, he saw a chair, so he pulled it up and sat in it, the seat creaking under his weight. He was almost tempted to yell at it for basically complaining he was too heavy, but then the blue-haired woman in the bed let out a soft moan, her eyes fluttering open. She stared blankly at the ceiling for a moment, before suddenly wincing and grabbing her forehead with her left hand as she propped herself up slightly with her right elbow. "Goodness," she groaned, casting a dazed glance about the room. "What...? Oh, not again..." It was only after a few seconds that she noticed Jack, squinting at him for a moment before going wide eyed, panickedly scrambling away and clutching her bedcovers to her chest. "W-Wait! Wh-Who are you?! Were you watching me sleeping?!" Jack quickly raised his hands defensively against the accusation.
"Woah, no, not a chance of me doin' tha-"
"Pervert!" MAGES. cried, pointing a finger at him. "Pervert pervert PERVERT PERVERT!" Jack kept his hands raised.
"Jesus, calm the fuck down, I helped carry you up here after yo-stop throwin' shit at me!" He was forced to duck, as a gear flew past his head and smacked into a wall behind him. MAGES. was throwing anything she could grab at him, including dirty looks. As he dodged, he tried explaining. "Listen! I walked into the shop, you blew summat up, and the force threw you back and smacked your head on the shop counter! I helped carry you up here, for fuck's sake! I'm the bloke that you were talkin' to on the night of the bank robbery, remember?" MAGES. lowered the nailgun she was aiming at Jack's forehead, and thought for a moment.
She narrowed her eyes. "Were you with another man that evening?" she asked suspiciously.
"Yeah," Jack replied, dropping his hands. "And you were with your sister, 5pb. or Lyrica or whatever you personally called her." She put the nail gun flat, but didn't un-narrow her eyes.
"What was I wearing?"
"Uh...a hat." MAGES. sat up. She could trust him. She also now remembered who he was. Jack didn't understand why she'd remember that specifically because she was wearing a hat when her lab blew up, as well. She grabbed the maroon-framed nailgun and placed it back on the bedside table, before returning to looking at Jack with a facial expression implying she was barely interested.
"I see," she muttered, eyeing him up and down. "And I might also inquire as to why are you in my room?" Jack shrugged at that one.
"Well, I was in the hall, fiddlin' with my pistol, and then I heard you wakin' up, so I thought it'd be best to get you up to speed once you were awake." He cast a glance to one of the gears that was embedded in the wall after MAGES.' panicked assault. "Not too sure if sittin' next to a sleepin' woman's bed was the best decision, to be honest." The wizard took all this in for a moment.
"I see..." she repeated softly, then suddenly speaking up again. "Would you mind 'getting me up to speed', then?"
Jack nodded. "You exploded summat downstairs. Then you flew out the back room door. Then you smashed your noggin on the back of the counter and knocked yourself out. James and I were talkin' to your friend Tekken, and then your weird kaboom thing happened, so we offered to help her get you upstairs, which we did. James is in the livin' room, Tekken's talkin' to James, and I'm explainin' this to you."
"My lab exploded?" MAGES. asked, stunned.
"Well, summat blew up. Huge cloud of dust or summat. Haven't seen that much white smoke since I watched a documentary on Syria's White Phosphorous use on civilians." MAGES. frowned, shaking her head and lowering the covers slightly. Jack could now see the shoulder straps for her bra, and he began to wonder if this was going to end well for him.
"I do hope my lab is OK..." She muttered quietly to herself, and before Jack could point out her lack of apparel, she unflinchingly whipped the covers away and stood up.
For a few moments, Jack had laid eyes upon Eden: MAGES. was incredibly well-formed, with her long, straight blue hair dropping down her back to cover her bra strap and just reach the middle of her back. For her size, she had rather long legs, and a slender frame to go with them: She was a small, blue-haired Gwyneth Paltrow, and she was just about to start getting her clothes on. Jack was already looking to his left in the chair he was sat in, facing directly away from MAGES. and covering any view of her half-naked body he might have had (a small mirror not included, so he would be able to flick his eyes over and check if she was done) as she began to put on clothes. She was paying no heed to his presence. "You did ensure my equipment remained intact, did you not?" she asked, nonchalantly bending over to put her leggings on. Jack remained momentarily silent.
"I probably shouldn't be in the same room as you when you're half-naked, y'know," he said finally. MAGES. cast him a glance with her usual, uninterested expression, before turning to face him. His eyes drifted to the mirror. 'Oh my God, she's at least a C cup.' He swallowed hard.
"Indeed, you should not be present," the woman noted, drawing her tights up her legs. "However, I am willing to ignore my lack of garments in order to gleam answers from you." Jack wasn't sure what he was meant to do now. "So, did you or did you not check my lab for any major structural damage?"
"Oh. Uh, well, no, we didn't." He couldn't help but cast a glance into the mirror, watching her putting on her dress so he could get one last view of her heavenly body. If James were to walk in at that moment... "Pretty sure your potential concussion was a bit higher on our list of priorities." MAGES. shrugged slightly.
"I suppose so," she noted, adjusting her sleeves. "However, I still have some concern over structural damages, along with several other concerns." Jack raised a brow, lowering his hand from his face and looking at the now fully-dressed MAGES., minus her hat. She kicked the base of the staff that leaned on a nearby wall, which caused it to perform a flip that defied most laws of physics as it expertly landed in the magician's waiting hand, before she turned to face her male visitor. Jack stood up from his seat, once again towering over her.
"And what're those concerns, then?" he asked, moving over and holding the door open for MAGES. to exit through. She offered a nod of appreciation, and exited into the cramped, dark corridor where Jack had previously been evaluating his life choices and the pistol he was rather frightened of firing again.
"Firstly, the possible alarm caused to neighbouring buildings," she began. "That might have sounded like a terror attack plotting gone awry." Jack wanted to make a joke about either Al-Qaeda or the IRA, but refrained, both to avoid offending readers and because he knew MAGES. wouldn't get it. "Secondly, I'm concerned that I may have scared off a few potential customers to Tekken's shop, and scared Tekken herself." So it was only Tekken's shop? Did they both pay rent or something? "And third, I am concerned about your status as a man." Jack's eyes went slightly wide in surprise.
"Wait, my status as a man?" he asked in disbelief, following MAGES. into the kitchen as she went to get a drink of what looked to be...Pepsi? "What is there to fuckin' doubt? I'm carrying about five different guns, I swear all the time, I stop bank robberies, I'm fairly certain that after years of looking down that I am male, and all that other guff! Why're you doubtin' my manliness?" MAGES. shrugged, sipping her drink with the bored expression that Jack was now used to.
"In my room, I was getting changed from my undergarments," she began, "And yet you looked away. Whilst I am not suggesting you look at me when I change, on the contrary actually, I wonder why you did not take the opportunity to view my semi-naked form, which is a chance many men would have leapt upon." Jack scratched the back of his head briefly.
"Uh..." he trailed off. He needed an answer, fast. What about...yeah, that'd do. "...I don't perv because I respect women?" MAGES. gave him her blank expression.
"I see." She made no effort to display that she knew if he was lying or not, keeping her arms folded and staring up at him. The kitchen went silent for a few minutes as MAGES. finished her drink. Jack stood, deciding to pull out his Desert Eagle pistol and further assess it. The woman opposite him raised a brow.
"There is no way in Gamindustri that you can fire that," she said flatly. Jack made his 'pfft' noise, rolling the end of the barrel on his hand.
"On the contrary, MAGES.," he replied smartly, pointing it dead ahead of him in his right hand whilst putting his left hand in his pocket, all the while tilting his head in mock aim. "This is an IMI Desert Eagle XIX, chambered in forty four Magnum. It's like a revolver that you can't fire one handed, and it looks like a pistol. It's chambered in large calibers like fifty AE, three five seven Magnum, and forty one Magnum. No other pistol is as powerful as this, unless it's a revolver." MAGES. said nothing, choosing to look at the gun.
"The recoil on it is likely ludicrous," she finally announced, causing Jack to look at her in confusion. "Furthermore, the slide and barrel are not offering enough space for any possible combination of recoil reduction springs available to Gamindustrimen. Thus, I believe an appropriate addition to your sidearm to reduce the recoil and increase control would be a...'stock', and a 'foregrip', if those are their correct titles." Jack now stared at her even more blankly. Then he looked at the gun, considering.
She did have a point.
His wrists still ached considerably since the skirmish outside the city. He'd only fired the gun a few times there, and that was two handed, with his knees for support. What if he did turn it into a rifle?
That'd be pretty useful, especially if he could find another Desert Eagle chambered in Fifty Action Express, so he could manufacture his own ghetto anti-tank rifle. Plus, he wondered if such a device would be even better than something like an AR15, since he'd be able to control it more easily and do more damage.
He looked up at MAGES., continuing to assess the pistol by tilting it left and right in his hand. "...points noted," he murmured, staring her in the eyes. Was she a wizard, or an engineer, or both? MAGES. offered no response in the way of emotion, briefly sipping her glass of what looked to be and smelled like Doctor Pepper.
"No trouble." She kept her own eyes fixated on his, assessing him as well as managing to be a damn slight intimidating.
There were no warm intentions. It was a basic addition for a poorly-designed firearm. As to why she suggested it, she just didn't like the premise of watching Mr. London break his own wrists like an imbecile. And for all she knew, he might even owe her a favour at a later date, with which she could use to her advantage. For instance, a few ingredients and materials for her experiments could not be harvested without the use of force against the monsters carrying them: Mr. London and Mr. Hillman seemed to be ideal in that regard, and she could even go so far as to say that their application of force bordered prejudicial application of hyper-lethal force.
Her only worry was that if this favour did exist, there wouldn't be any monster left to harvest the required items from.