Chapter 9: Let's see what you can do

They soon stood outside the house and Marco had a quizzical countenance, "what are we doing it here?" He then proceeded to hand Marco a box and when he sat it down to search its contents, he pulled four guns from his jacket and placed them on top, followed by the sword at his waist and three swords they hadn't noticed on his back, followed by two they couldn't see. Marco, thinking he was finished, attempted to lift the sword that he thought to be lightest but struck the one he couldn't see and was incapable of living it. Star thought he was jesting, she tried her hand st it and found that their truly was a sword hiding in plain sight. Between the two of them, the sword moved about an inch up, not that they could see their progress, and fell with a harmless 'thunk'. The proprietor soon swiped left on the box and it opened to reveal a tattered and torn tux, as if it had been through war, showing between tears was a gleaming armor. He then continued to swipe left showing that the box was more like a holographic wardrobe. He continued swiping until the vast array of different styles of armor from a multitude of times and cultures, were replaced by many different weapons until he arrived at a knife with a blade the length and with of a needle. He gave the air a quick slash and handed it to Marco. "Are you kidding me?" He pointed behind him and they turned to see a tree in the neighbor's yard fall over leaving a stump at eye level. "I don't carry useless weapons."

"And I can't carry any of these."

"Yeah sorry forgot to adjust the density. Wait... How light am I in this universe? ...one sec"

"Wait what are you-" before he could finish he flapped his wings and disappeared into the sky. They all looked up waiting for his dissent. A shorter version of him was standing right there beside them saying, "all the way to mars huh?" They instantly turned their attention back toward him. "How'd you get back here so fast?"

"Cool little watch lets me stop or slow the flow of time." He said pulling up his sleeve to show a less than impressive silver watch on a brown leather band no numbers no numerals just a clock set to the wrong time with four hands instead of two or three. The fourth making ten revolutions every six seconds. No buttons and no dials. No way to set the time. Just an otherwise ordinary watch I've just wasted your time explaining. Further down the sleeve was what appeared to be a tablet attached to the armor upon which the watch sat. He quickly let go of his sleeve and when it was restored to its original position he lifted up his left hand and looked at his pinky which seemed to have a red thread attached to it. In this state, he was half of Marco's height and looked far cuter now without his beard. Like a child playing dress up. Star saw him in his oversized clothes and couldn't help but, "awww"

"How did you get so small?"

"Transferring coincidences is much harder than creating it. I'm keeping this inappropriate stature to remind myself there's more to come as my abandoned body slowly returns."

"Couldn't you have just flapped your wings and coffee back?"

"I tried, no atmosphere. Then I tried jumping but my calculations were off by one-sixteenth of an inch."

"Wouldn't you have still landed here?"

"No, while I was jumping. One sixteenth of an inch while accounting for the gravity on mars and the gravity of the rest of the things in this solar system. That little error in my angle of tragedy threw me thousands of miles off the mark."

"In English, please?"

"When you mess up your math in space you die." Remembering what he was doing he lifted a finger and began to scroll through the items in his inventory until he reached the old war torn tux. He slowly waddled up to the briefcase made wardrobe and opened the glass doors. Lifting his hands again the items he had placed on top prior to opening it began levitating before sorting themselves into the now rag covered armor. Once everything was in its place the doors closed, and he began frantically moving his fingers about the glass. Buttons they could only see after being pressed lit up and emitted different sounds, almost melodious until the glass flashed lights reading "calibrating" and within seconds the armor was Marco's size. He opened the glass and offered to help him into it. He accepted and was somewhat taken by how light it was. "How can something so light protect anyone?"

"It wasn't meant to protect it was meant to fit the wearer'swearer's taste. I'd offer to put it back and make it impenetrable but then it'd weigh thrice what it was."

"What's the point of the rags?"

"They're there on a whim and whimsy has no agenda."

"Come again"

"I don't need a reason."

"... so you made the weapons lighter."

" Yeah. But you know what I just remembered?"

"What?"

"Yeah you just needed the armor and your strength would be boosted to match the weapons. Isn't wasting daylight fun?"

"No. Let's just finish what we came for."

"You want to finish your book too right?"

"... a little bit yeah."

"Fine here. *hand him a pamphlet*"

"What's this *takes it* 'so you found out this idiot has power' I like it already"

"Damn it I thought we fixed that glitch. When I return to my castle I will have words."

Afterword: yeah, still short, I know but I already posted an exposition based segment about him on my profile so I felt uninspired to write this chapter. If you care, feel free to check it out if not the next chapter will probably come out on Monday to make up for my lack of chapter last week. I'm sick so count on more, probably. But don't get your hopes too high I'm still the guy who fell short literally the week before also the story'll probably be wrapping up soon. This'll probably be my longest story to speak of.