Jack continued to breath heavily, having just about died when Chase used Stryker's full name. Stryker was sitting on the couch, his head propped in his palm as he watched Jack with an amused grin.

"I think...I ruptured...my spleen..." Jack gasped.

"If I ask why my name is so funny will you die?" Stryker asked, his grin widening.

Jack laughed wearily, then looked over at him.

"Maybe," he said. "If what I tell you is bad will you kill me?"

"Maybe," Stryker joked.

Jack hesitated, then grinned.

"I kinda just pictured you as a crab," he said honestly.

Stryker's eyes shot open and he raised an eyebrow. Jack snorted and started laughing again.

"Y-Your face!" he squeaked. "It's priceless!"

"Wh-Why?" Stryker shouted, laughing a little in disbelief. "Why a...you mean that crab off Little Mermaid?"

Jack's laughter reached a new pitch as he nodded, holding his sides again and falling back to the floor. Stryker shook his head and reluctantly laughed along.

"So," Stryker started once Jack started calming down. "Any other questions?"

Jack sighed and wiped the tears from his eyes; his grin slowly started to fade as he looked over at Stryker again.

"Do you…" he started nervously. Stryker tilted his head at his sudden hesitance. "Do you think I'm a loser?"

The question took Stryker by surprise.

"What?" he asked.

Jack bit his lip and sat up, resting one of his arms on his knees.

"Well, I...I don't have any...friends…" he started. "And the...monks say it all the time...so I was wondering if I'm a loser…"

"Those monks seem like idiots," Stryker told him, furrowing his brow. "And come on, you've got at least one friend I'm sure…"

Jack didn't answer, but stared at the floor in front of him. It was quiet for a moment as Stryker dangled one of his legs off the couch.

"You know, I…" he started. Jack turned to him when he paused and rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't-"

A piercing shriek interrupted him.

"What the heck!" Stryker asked as he looked behind the couch at Jack's workbench.

"Oh, that," Jack said sheepishly. "That's my Shen Gon Wu detector. Here I'll show you."

Stryker jumped over the couch and followed Jack to his table. He noticed all the scrap metal and crashed inventions filling it, completely integrated with the things that worked. His observation was proven when Jack shoved around some of the scraps while searching for the detector.

"Dude…" Stryker started. "Your bench makes a hoarder look like a germaphobe."

"Yeah, it's a little messy," Jack agreed. "To be honest I just cleaned it last week. Got rid of 80% of the clutter."

Styker raised an eyebrow at him, then looked at the end of the desk, seeing that most of the "clutter" was most definitely shoved in that corner.

"Ha!" Jack cried, pulling out what looked to be an oversized remote. "Found it!"

Stryker took it hesitantly, wondering if it would explode. It looked simple, just for arrows going up, down, left and right. The right arrow was blinking yellow.

"And it works?" he asked.

"Yeah, real well," Jack said, throwing on his helipack.

He whistled loudly and some of the junk moved. Stryker looked closely and saw that they were robots, big but obviously amateurly made. He hoped they weren't the redhead's calvary.

"These're my Jackbots!" Jack said proudly. He gave Stryker a giddy but nervous look, clasping his hands in front of him. "What do ya think?"

Stryker raised his eyebrows in surprise and scratched the back of his head.

"They're…" he stammered, looking around at the junk. "You sure got a lot of them."

Jack looked a little dejected.

"Uh...yeah, I do…"

Stryker grimaced, then looked down at the floor and saw the dozens of blueprints and sketches. He quickly picked one up and examined it.

"This is a good idea," he said, feeling relieved that it was.

Jack instantly brightened and moved to see.

"That?" he asked, furrowing his brow. "I came up with it a while ago, but I could never get them to do it."

"No?" Stryker asked, looking up at one of the Jackbots. "Should be pretty easy to program. You could probably get the wiring in with everything but duct tape."

"Oh, y-yeah," Jack asked, drop kicking the roll of skull patterned tape he'd been using to fix it.

Stryker smirked, having seen the roll earlier and glimpsing Jack kicking it across the room. He grabbed one of Jack's tool boxes off the table and squinted at the blueprint.

"May I?" he asked, gesturing to a robot.

"Huh?" Jack asked, looking at the tool box. "Oh, sure…"

Stryker set the tool box on the floor as one of the bots floated up to him. Jack watched him peel back the chestplate and kneel down to get a closer look. Jack didn't know if he should be insulted or appreciative when Stryker grabbed and pulled out some plugs and gears.

"Can you hand me a wrench, bud?" Stryker asked, pushing the tool box over with his boot as his hands were still in the robot.

Jack nodded and knelt to search, then paused.

"What'd you call me?" he asked quietly.

Stryker stopped and looked at him, smirking at the disbelief in his eyes.

"Bud," he repeated. "You know, like buddy."

He took the screwdriver from him and started adjusting things in the robot.

"We are buddies, aren't we?" he asked as he threw the tool back to Jack and switching the robot parts around.

"...Yeah…" Jack said quietly, a little smile coming to his face.

"Good," Stryker said, grinning as he turned to him. "Now if you ever tell anyone my real name, I will murder you."