Chapter 17
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“So.”
You looked down at Cordax in the seat opposite yours. The burning flame encompassing your head had grown larger and larger as you became enthralled in your own thoughts. Your comic relief sidekick had broken your train of thought, for whatever reason - maybe he noticed your spherical head slowly turning orange.
“So what?” You reply with a noticeable lack of tact.
“So… I think I deserve an explanation.” He muttered, making theoretical eye contact with your theoretical eyes. “For a lot of things.”
You leaned forward to rest on your knees and immediately ran into the back of the next seat. So you leaned back and were restricted by the seat again. Bothersome. Public transportation company vehicle seat engineers deserve to be incarcerated for their crimes against anyone higher than 4’9".
“Okay, um…” You rubbed one of your big, stupid hands against your big, stupid head. Self deprecation strikes at random times. “Let’s hear a question.”
“The purpose of the mission.” Cordax looked away with the sulky air of someone who already knows the answer. You hesitated to answer for a moment, as Sir Keksalot’s body language made it obvious he was eavesdropping, but you had to say something.
“The facility we just left was designed to test nuclear weaponry. Ghid just happens to also be a cider addicted madman who would risk having it be potentially radioactive to keep his cover from being blown. Why all of that, and why the first group was insane enough to go out there, I don’t know. But- if that group had figured that out, and brought that info elsewhere… It would not end peacefully.”
“So our group was sent to more or less ‘shut things down’ with their research. I pretended to be surprised that it had been a month, but in reality I knew we couldn’t head there any sooner. One month of aimless searching would have quelled all suspicion of the place’s true purpose, and they would be more than happy to leave.”
“But they died.” Cordax looked out of the corner of his eye at you.
Right.
“But they died.” You solemnly replied, trying your hardest to look disturbed by their deaths. “Zero was extremely unhelpful in that regard. He knows what happened, who or what killed them, but in spite of his position as contact he wouldn’t tell me. Maybe there’s a monster loose, maybe he killed them, I don’t know.”
Cordax seemed to be a little unnerved by the possibility that Zero could’ve killed people, and then suspicious of you since you seemed to care so little. Goodness, this kid was a handful.
“Anyway, we arrived in the main room. I asked Zero to escort you out in case there was an accidental explosion. Which there was. And it wasn’t my fault.”
“HaHAHhhahAHAhahAHahAHHAhAHhahHAHahAH”
Both you and Cordax turned to glare - you with theoretical eyes, of course, which you had to keep mentioning because you were sure that fickle scenario with the iodine would pop up again if you didn’t - at the madly cackling driver of the bus, who was so red in the face from wheezing his lungs inside out that he could hardly keep the bus on the road.
“Could you not tell a lie for once in your life, marble head?” Sir Keksalot snorted at you. “Of course you set off a nuclear bomb. Of course you did. Anything less would’ve been beneath you.”
“You’ll be beneath me in a minute, shorty.” You snapped. “Right under my heel.”
The bus suddenly lurched to a halt and shorty - who had somehow shifted it into park in a millisecond - was across the seats and about to deliver a sharp right hook to your precious head. You decided to let this happen to examine his getup - no visible weapons, well-built, extremely quick, and okay his fist just made contact with your stupid head.
Self deprecation strikes at random times.
“Strike! The party never arrived until twenty-seven days after they were supposed to!” You hurriedly explained as you smashed Sir Keksalot against the emergency rear window, sounding the vehicle alarm.
“Reorient! The whole Eilrach thing was- ngyaah- problematic because both you and I had to fight zombies!” You temporarily lost the upper hand as Sir Keksalot bent one of your fingers backwards, but you partially fell on him and pinned him to the floor of the bus.
“Tragedy! Krelikan disappears, Pakari is mortally wounded, and the nuclear room is full of alien zombies!” You slammed your knee into Sir Keksalot’s spine, gripping him by the jaw and applying just enough pressure to inform him you could literally rip his head off if you wanted to… Or if he so much as moved. “So Pakari accidentally activates the nuke and sacrifices himself trying to keep the beasts at bay, Wild too stubborn to leave his side. Anything else?”
Cordax was stunned by the fight so far, and also by your nonsensical questions - especially the part about alien zombies - but you threatening Sir Keksalot’s future as a person with a functioning spine worried him out of his confusion. “Wait, don’t hurt him! This is his bus, he kind of-”
“Attacked me first, hello?” You retorted. “He’s a few inches away from making me kill him. The dude’s tough, Cordax.” Sir Keksalot growled out an inaudible response, mostly inhibited by his jaw being pressed against his face.
“…I thought… You seemed like the kind of guy who wouldn’t just ‘kill people.’” Cordax sulkily slipped his hands into his pockets as you resented the guilt power he had.
“You got here somehow. Well, how?”
Cordax fiddled with his knife. “I, uh, walked… 'Bout a half hour.”
You stared out the window - no, who were you kidding? It had been a day; Fifty’s still had a massive board over where the window was. Maybe that was why you had been charged fifteen times the written price for the plain salad you were consuming.
“I’ll, uh, drive you. Heh.” You jabbed a thumb at the board. “Plus, it’d be good for me to know your address for if this sort of thing ever comes up again. Don’t worry, though, this particular brand of problem is over and done.”
Cordax didn’t seem too convinced. He sidled out of his seat and went to the door. “I’m gonna, uh, wait in the van. Give Sir Keksalot someone to talk to since he’s hogtied and all.”
“Wait.” You raised a hand and looked down at your unforgiving selection of the exact same leaf over and over again. “There’s one thing I haven’t told you, Cordax. The reason why the-”
“I know.” Cordax blinked. “I was there before, a couple years ago. Welp… Don’t take long.”
And you were left in relative silence. It took five minutes for you to notice the restaurant’s phone had been brought to you, still with the open receiver lying on the table. With a reluctant attitude you scooped it up in your oversized hand, and placed it gingerly next to the side of your head for your theoretical ear to utilize.
“You made my job a heck of a lot harder by withholding info.” You hissed.
There was a long period of silence on the other end of the line followed by a click. They were done. You were done. There would be reimbursement, one way or another.
You ate the last piece of your salad and started out the door, stopping for a brief moment to nod to the man cleaning a glass bartender-style at the counter, who slowly nodded in response, all four of his eyes gleaming. You tried to begin a response, but heard Cordax yelling for you about something involving Sir Keksalot and a knife and prioritized that over public appearance.
And that was hardly the end of your story, but just this one. Every story begins with a hero, someone to sympathize with, to understand, to possibly imagine yourself as. Illustrations, animations, visual media enhances this perception, and each medium and concept exists in its own vein, but the original script - written words on a white canvas illustrated only by the fantasy of the reader - remains an entirely unique source of storytelling and crafting of tales.
And every person, whether young or old, living or dead, has adamantly stuck to being the hero of their own personal story; the one they write every day and illustrate with their unique actions and personality.
But what if you were the villain?
The Book of Ramblings.