"How many bricks does it take to build a wall?"
"How many?"
"2. 1 gets a merchant to buy the materials and another to hold the workers at sword point! What do you think?"
"Eh it was like a 4/10."
---------------------------------------------------------------
Zolsho took a deep breath to center himself now that he was on his feet again. Now that he was no longer panicked and didn't have any adrenaline racing through his system, the smell of the alley finally caught up to him. The whole alley smelled of rank mold and the nauseating rot of old trash; of nose burning bitter alcohol and some kind of artificial sugary smell. His nose immediately wrinkled once he took it all in and it felt like a lead ball had dropped into his guts.
While bringing his right hand up to cover his nose, Zolsho noticed that his left hand felt weird, wrong even. He looked down at it, the hand that halted his crash into the dumpster before the fight started.
His palm was smeared with some sort of foul smelling residue that felt both slimy and gritty at the same time.
"Ewww… I need a new hand I guess."
"Yeah, please don't put that hand anywhere near me." Remarked Savidstan with a small grin.
Zolsho scowled at the other young man. He didn't want any witty lines from the rich young man right now. He didn't want this grime on his hand for a single second longer, without much thought he looked all around, for something he could use to clean off his hand. But everything else in the alley was covered in a similar muck or filth. At his wits end, he decided to just wipe he palm against the alleys wall.
With his hand now less covered in the alley's juices, Zolsho turned back to Savidstan. The well dressed young man was checking the scrapes on his knuckles at the moment.
"Do we have to worry about those guys coming back or…?" He asked the ginger young man.
"I'm pretty sure they've done what they were payed to do. They don't have any reason to take it any further." Responded Savidstand.
Once Savidstan finished speaking, Zolsho looked toward the entrance to alley and froze for a second as he thought of something.
"Yeah they finished with their work and won't come after you again, but I'm not you. Those two, Lanky and Heavy, may come to settle their score." Zolsho said anxiously.
Zolsho didn't know the full story behind all this. He could guess that those guys were paid to get the spoile- well off guy Savidstan into an isolated place and put him through the wringer, but he had no clue about the who and why of it all. It wasn't a hit cause they were both still breathing, but that made it make even less sense.
"That… I will see if I can keep them from bothering you, but I can't promise anything." Savidstan said with a bit of remorse.
Zolsho knew that this wasn't really the neat young mans fault. Those thugs were at fault for all this, there was no chance he was their target but they dragged him into it cause they… felt like it? Thought it would be fun?
"I 'ppreciate it, and I'm not angry at you or anything. Wrong place wrong time-"
Zolsho suddenly remembered something after he said 'time'.
"Oh shit what time is it?" He asked himself out loud.
Zolsho woke his centipede up and checked the time.
Zolsho really didn't want to deal with work after this. The stuff Savidstan gave him was helping, but he was so roughed up that he would be sore the rest of his shift.
"Zzt-zzt-zzt-zzt"
A sound almost like a rattle snake's tail came from Zolsho's centipede. The living bracelet projected a small holo-screen that had a picture and name.
[Yora is calling: DeclineAccept]
Zolsho was getting a call, from his manager Yora.
Savidstan had turned his gaze away from his own device toward Zolsho. He was curious what the bracelet was, he wasn't from the city of Inpectra so he didn't know anything about this cities unique "Ropoda Devices" or how they worked.
"Well, I gotta answer it…" Zolsho quietly said to himself.
Zolsho resigned himself and slowly lowered his finger to press the 'Accept' button. The screen changed and the call timer started.
"Hey Yora can you hear me?" Zolsho spoke first.
"Yeah Zol I can hear you." Yora could be heard on the other end.
"What's up? I'm on my way back." Zolsho wasn't technically wrong.
"Yeah well that's why I'm calling you, something happened at the restaurant."
"Something… what happened? Something big?"
Zolsho still didn't understand why Yora was calling him, if something happened at the restaurant then they would get him up to speed when he got back. But if Yora was calling him while he was out, then it was something he needed to know before he got back, and that worried him.
"Well, ummm, yeah Zol, something big. Some people got hurt but nobody's gonna die, everybody that was working today is fine." Yora sounded exhausted, like she had just done a double or triple shift.
"That's… fuck. What happened?" He stuttered out.
"Some drunk asshole flew a whole fucking Dragonfly through the front! He crashed straight through dining area and caused some pipes or some shit to burst and now the bar is flooding. The place is a whole mess right now."
Yora's words brought Zolsho's thoughts to a total stop. A dragonfly ornithopter crashed into the restaurant. Zol had to take a minute to process all this. The fact that no one was seriously hurt was good news though.
"So doooo… do you guys need me to help? Like what should I do right now, I don't really know what I'm supposed to do in this situation."
"Zol it's- it's fine. We're handling it. Though I think you can guess that we're closing for the day, maybe for the rest of the week." Yora answered.
"So… okay. Well this sucks. Thanks for calling me to let me know so I didn't just to be told to go home when I got back."
"Yeah Zol, no biggie. Hope you can enjoy your day or week off and stay safe. Bye."
Zolsho said bye and hung up. This was just too much to process all at once, the alley fight or the restaurant accident would be enough excitement for a several days. But Zolsho was so lucky that they both happened on the same day.
"Haaaa… Alright then, what do I…" <... do today then?> Zolsho finished the last bit of the sentence in his head.
His dad wasn't getting off work till much later in the day, so he didn't have to be home anytime soon, but also he didn't really have much to do so he may as well just go home.
Savidstan had turned his attention back to his own device during Zolsho's call and seemed to be checking something. Once he found what he was looking he turned to Zolsho.
"I'm sorry if this is abrupt, but I actually need to be on my way. I have something scheduled soon."
"O-ok, I'm not gonna stop you if you have stuff to do."
"Before I go, lets trade contacts. If the medicia I gave you wasn't enough and you need to go to the hospital I can pay for that, it's the least I can do."
"Sure, don't see why not, but I should be fine. Thanks for worrying though." Zolsho let out a small chuckle and told Savidstan his contact.
Even if they used devices sourced from wildly different technology, the whole world used the "Satellite Communication Array Network" for communication, so sharing SCAN contacts was easy. It took a few seconds for both of them to set up new contacts for each other.
"Alright, that's done, so I'm gonna go… And I didn't say it before but I'm sorry you got caught up in this." Savidstan gave Zolsho a quick apology and started walking toward the entrance of the alley.
Zolsho stood there for a minute while Savidstan was walking away. While he didn't have anywhere he needed to be now, he wanted to at least get out of this alley as soon as possible. He took a moment to check his pockets to make sure nothing fell out. Finding everything was where it should be, he began walking behind Savidstan.
Savidstan was already walking through the boundary between the alley and the sidewalk.
"Ssssshhhhhh-tinkt"
A small sound came from behind him.
It that sounded like metal scrapping against stone. But it was softer than it should be. Even if the sound came from far away, it should have a small hint of sharpness to it, but it didn't.
Something in the back of his mind was urging to find the source of that noise. The sound was unique, but Zolsho usually never had any interest in chasing down weird sounds he heard in weird alleys.
But that little spot in the back of his mind, the spot that was usually overshadowed by other spots, was muttering to him that he should find the source of that noise.
Zolsho was… apprehensive about the idea to say the least, today was already way too much and he was thinking of just going home. But he also had nothing to do today or at least the foreseeable future.
With that Zolsho decided to investigate the alley. If Zolsho from 10 minutes ago saw him now, he would be reprimanding himself and telling him to just go home and watch videos on SCAN.
He passed by the dumpster, passed the spot Lanky had been when he was knocked out and then a little further he reached the spot he had been knocked out at.
He glanced at the spot as he walked by. It wasn't his first time being knocked out in a fight, but it was the first time he had no idea how it happened. He could guess it was the man with the eyepatch because he was the only one not fighting.
With that promise to himself made, he kept walking.
After a minute or so of walking, he passed by one of the destitute buildings that formed the alley he was in, but that wasn't the end of these backalleys. Alleys like this snaked between the backs and sides of dozens of buildings. In some parts of the city, these kinds of alleys would at least be clean and somewhat orderly, but these streets were dirty, poorly lit and had squatters around every corner.
The realization that he didn't really have much to go off for his search finally dawned on Zolsho. All he had was a unique sound he heard once, but he hadn't heard it again so he didn't really have any new information for what direction to go.
"... Well I guess this was a waste of time. Not sure what I was expecting…"
Deciding that this would be the end of his search and he would just turn back the way he came. But when he turned the corner, he saw a man standing in the middle of the alley in front of some kind of store or gym.
He was holding something in each of his hands, but caught Zolsho's attention was the state of the alley. On the ground and walls of the alley were giant marks. It was hard to come up with a term for these markings because they were so outlandish. The marks formed a line, each mark was straight and they were all going the same direction and angle. Even still the markings themself were extraordinary, each marking looked like it was carved into the stone, like a deep line was carved out of the concrete and bricks. Looking so deep at parts that Zolsho could probably put his whole hand in the gash and still probably not reach the end of it.
Zol could barely believe what he was seeing, what could even leave a mark like that?
The man was still standing in the same spot when Zolsho turned his attention back to him.
He looked like he was in his thirties or so, his black hair had a few flecks of graying hair. He had a messy textured crop cut and some scruffy stubble on his neck and jawline. He was wearing a short sleeved shirt that clung tightly to his body and some grey blue sport pants that went down to his knees.
The man was muscular, just about every muscle on his body was well built. He wasn't as bulky as the burly man Zolsho had run into a moment ago, but the man was shredded, it looked like not a single ounce of fat existed on his frame.
It was after looking the man over did Zolsho finally notice what he was holding. The hand on the other side of the mans body was holding something large and rectangular. It looked like it was made of wood but otherwise it didn't catch his attention.
But the thing the man was holding in his other hand was more than peculiar. It looked like it had a spears pole but it had a sword blade on both. This… double bladed sword, twin-sword(?), was unlike any weapon Zolsho had seen, both in real life and online.
The man standing in the alleyway seemed to be a Martial artist, Martial for short. Everyone knew what a Martial was, a Martial wasn't just someone who learned simple self defense, a Martial was someone who can perform feats impossible with a normal human body.
The man began walking into the building he was standing in front of after he seemed to finish his contemplation. All the while Zolsho couldn't hear a single sound from the man as he walked, absolute silence, like he wasn't there. He reached the doorway in about 4 steps and for a small moment, he hesitated for some reason. But that short pause wasn't even a second and he then fully entered the building.
"Hmmm."
Zol now knew what made that interesting sound, it was made by that martial guy with that weird sword thing. Usually seeing a martial in the flesh was either a moment of awe or dread, but this wasn't either. It was rather mundane, just a guy who seemed to be sulking in an alley.
But Zol felt all the more intrigued. Usually sticking your nose into a martial's business would end in you losing that nose and your head with it, but Zol thought just taking a peek wouldn't hurt.
Zolsho crept up to the buildings entrance. He took careful and quiet steps and reexamined the gash mark. That's when he noticed something he had missed before, the front of the building had a sign. 'Had' being the proper tense, as it had been cut in half, with the gash mark in the alley perfectly lining up with the cut on the sign.
The building had the front door between two large windows, giving a clear view into the front room of the building. The said room was almost the whole length of the building, stretching from the end of one window to the next. The man was working with some kind of contraption built into the walls of the building, seemingly loading and priming it.
Once he finished setting up the device, he walked over to the middle of the room, picked up a metal staff that resembled to the double bladed sword spear weapon he had earlier and put on both a blindfold and ear plugs.
With all that preparation done the man raised one of his hands and snapped his fingers. And after that Zol could barely tell what was happening.
<…How is he moving like that?>
Dozens of metal bolts and discs shot from the walls. Drones swarmed around the man and seemed to create and swing sword and spear and axe like constructs.
All while the man, who was still blindfolded and deafened by the ear plugs, was reacting or predicting every one of the projectiles and the weapons swung by the drones. Perfectly deflecting or dodging every one of them.
<....>
The man, the drones, the projectiles, were all too much. Too much visual information to process all at once, too fast to even try to track. All the while Zol's ears where assaulted by the constant ringing of metal on metal and hardened chitin.
This dance continued. As the first few seconds passed, the man's shape began to blur. After the first half minute, the different ringing and clanging and all the other noises became an undistinguishable string of noise. It was so overbearing that Zolsho could only firmly cover his ears with his hands to escape the sensory overload. He felt like the sounds alone were cutting and bashing his ears.
The dance of the man and machine continued and continued. The man that was more of a blurry area in the gym at this point, and the young man standing outside watching in silence. Zolsho stood there and just watched.
For so long that the bottom of his feet started to get sore from being in the same position.
Then it all suddenly stopped. The man's shape solidified, no more missiles were shot from the walls and all the drones quietly buzzed as they hung in air. All of the drones surrounding the man then retracted constructed weapons, all except for one.
A drone so low to the floor that it was hard to tell if it was really even floating, and with an ax construct that was firmly making contact with the back of the man's ankle.
This single instance of contact was the failure that ended the dance. A dance that lasted for 42 minutes straight.
Zolsho only then felt the soreness of his feet and realized he had lost track of time. For him it felt like a minute stretched out for way too long. As he started to awkwardly shift his weight back and forth to alleviate his soreness, the man inside took off his blindfold and earbuds and turned to face Zolsho, as if he already knew he was there.
While he was , he didn't seem annoyed or irritated by Zolsho spying on him. His lips actually were slightly curled upward into a small smirk.
The man walked across the room and opened the front door. For a moment he just looked Zolsho up and down.
"Hey man, what are you doing back here?" The man asked.
"Ah I- I'm just looking around…" Zol stammered out, the fact that this man could, at any moment tear him apart in a split second wasn't the cause of his sudden awkwardness. Rather it was the fact that he felt embarrassed by how ridiculous his reason for going deep into these shady alleys was. Who would go into a disgusting back alley just because they heard something weird?
Most people would instead go in the opposite direction when they heard something weird and out of place instead of toward it. The idea of having to explain himself caused him to shiver from embarrassment.
The man however thought that the young man was instead intimidated by him.
"You're alright man, I'm just worried if you're lost or something." The man said.
"N-no I'm good, I'm not lost, just wandering around."
"Really? Why would you want to wander around here? There's nothing here but trash and… more trash." The man's eyes tilted down when he said 'more trash'.
"..." Zol replied with just a look, not knowing how to respond.
"... Anyway, you wanna come inside? Personally, I think it's more interesting in here than out there with the dumpsters and roaches." The man stated.
Though Zol wasn't someone who would follow random strangers into empty buildings, he was curious about the mysterious man, why there was a martial artist of his level languishing in a backstreet alley? But going into a building someone you've never met before, was beyond stupid, especially if that someone could tear a skyscraper apart with their bare hands.
"Thank you for the invitation sir, but I'll have to decline." Zol said as politely as he could, deciding it would be better to play it safe even if he was intensely curious about the man.
It was unlikely that the man had any ill intentions for him. Zolsho may not be a perfect judge of character, but he knew what to listen out for to figure out if someone was trying to hide something. A small quiver at the beginning of a word, overly consistent pauses between words and syllables like they were precalculated and other things are tale tell signs somebody is speaking from behind a mask.
The man stayed silent for a moment.
"Oh well okay. If you have somewhere to be I can't stop you, but do you mind if I ask you something before you go?"
"Sure, ask away." Zol was relieved this was ending smoothly, he was concerned that the man could have been insulted by Zol refusing him.
"So I don't see many people back here, like ever. I think you're the first person in… 4 months to pass by here, so I was wanted to ask, what you were doing back here?" The man asked.
"Oh, um, why I'm here? In this alley? Well thats… I kinda got dragged back here because of a misunderstanding, and now I'm just… wandering around." Zolsho said sheepishly, facing the embarrassment he dreaded just a moment ago.
"... Really? Are you running from someone?" The older man seemed as confused as Zolsho was embarrassed as he looked behind Zolsho.
"No no no I'm not running or anything it's just that uh... I'm bored..." Zol said meekly, each word smaller than the last.
"You came into this grimy alley cause you were... bored? Are you...?" The last word of that question didn't make it out of the mans mouth.
Zol's face was as red as a tomato at this point, inside he knew what he was doing was stupid but having to openly confronting this was agonizing for the young man.
"Yeah yeah I know it's stupid, it's crazy, I just wasn't thinking." He stammered out.
"Hey man nothing wrong with doing something stupid from time to time, as long as you make it out in one piece..." The man tried to give Zolsho some words of encouragement, he plainly saw that the young man looked like he had tomato sauce smeared on his face.
Then a thought crossed the man's mind. A thought that most people would call stupid, but the man believed in what he preached so...
"You know what, you're totally fine. By the way, my names Wihn. What's yours?"
"Oh, my names Zolsho sir."
"Zolsho?" Wihn pondered the young man's name for a moment, like he was tossing it around his mind to see what it felt like.
"So Zolsho, ever want to be a martial?" Wihn asked like this was barely more important than asking someone how they liked their coffee.
However, Zol's flabber was absolutely gasted.