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 Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 7:22 pm
Stupid stupid stupid. How could he have been so stupid? Archie had originally gone out today to pick up employment applications and drop off more of his qualificationless resumes, but somehow he had ended up walking into a convenience store and walking out with a lottery ticket. A lottery ticket of all things! The slip of paper had cost a dollar, his last, and now he was stuck downtown, all alone and with only a quarter to his name. He needed help, but everyone he approached gave him a look so dirty he felt the need to shower.
After about a half hour of mindless wandering, Archie spotted a bar nestled between a seasonal store - which was now stuffed with Halloween costumes - and a candle boutique. Despite its location, the place screamed 'locals only,' but Archie still thought he should at least give it a shot. He'd seen Pee Wee's Big Adventure. If worse came to worse, he could dance on the bar and bring all the scary bikers over to his side. Right? Someone was likely to be drunk enough to feel charitable long before dancing was necessary anyway.
He pushed open the door, slowly to minimize the squeaking, and stepped into the dimly-lit bar.
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 3:49 pm
Luckily for Archie, he was not the only non-local in the place, so should all of the local bar-goers gang up on the outsider, he had an ally....of sorts.
This other outsider was pretty obvious from the moment he walked in as not being from around there. She was definiately the kind of person who made Archie look almost homegrown in that area. With an all too large pompadour that bore a tremendous spike upwards on the end, she gave the impression of someone who was either too drunk to completely understand fashion, or in dire need of a way to make up for her lack of male genetalia.
Her attire-leather pants and a funny short sleeved leather jacket of a deep green shade, seemed awkward against her red tattoo decorated alabaster skin. The woman had long ago found that those who hid in dark corners of these such places had to at least blend in, and if one were as outstanding in appearance as well as reputation, it was pointless to even consider attempting such a thing. So there sat the unusually short foreigner, pointy umbrella propped against her leg-in easy grabbing distance should she need to use her favorite weapon-as she drank a rather large tankerd of who-knows-what kind of alcohol.
Due to the fact that this stranger was somewhat grouchy and was so freaky to look at, the bar stools around her were empty, the other patrons deciding that huddling closer to eachother was better then having to sit near this weirdo. That meant that the regular seating area was pretty full, and the only place that Archie COULD sit, was near this weirdass lady.
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Posted: Sat Oct 20, 2007 5:11 pm
Archie was used to weird-looking people, having been close to and part of a portion of the alien population of Gaia for some time now, but this woman was particularly astounding, looks-wise. Like, what was up with her hair?
His eyes swept the room, but he kept moving, walking slowly toward the bar. The place was full and everyone, with the exception of that one conspicuous person, seemed firmly attached to someone else, the pairs exuding 'stay the hell away from us' vibes. The woman exuded those vibes too, at least to Archie's senses, but she was sitting in the same general area that he needed to, so he took a seat near her, leaving one stool between them.
Despite the fact that everyone had drinks, this bar seemed to lack a bartender, at least for the moment. On any other day, Archie might have just waited for the person manning the bar to come back, but he was kind of in a hurry.
"Excuse me," he whispered. "Do you know where the bartender went?"
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Posted: Sat Oct 20, 2007 5:52 pm
Without really looking up the bizarre female jerked her thumb in the general direction of the back of the bar. At one of the semi-crowded tables a middle-aged balding man whose somewhat splotched head was turning red from annoyance at these weirdos showing up in his establishment.
"Just serve yourself. Or ask that freakshow. She seems to know her way around a bar." he hissed, pitch going a little high when he refered to the woman sitting near Archie. He found it almost insulting that someone would dare come into his bar and, when told he wouldn't serve her, walked behind the bar to serve herself.
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Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 1:45 pm
"Oh no, I didn't..." Archie squinted and peered into the darkness, trying to see the bartender. He didn't need a drink, in fact, a drink was the last thing he wanted right now. He squirmed on his stool, visibly uneasy. The last time Archie had been in a bar, all sorts of strange stuff had happened. The only thing he wanted this time was to use the phone, but he would settle for a dollar as well, to make up for the one he had spent.
Maybe she had one of the two. He decided to try the request that seemed less like begging. "Do you have a phone I could borrow?" he asked in a low voice.
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Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 2:09 pm
Again not looking up, the woman spoke softly, her voice somewhat crackly. "Not really no. There's one over there though." she pointed slightly, this time with her other hand. "Though I dunno if it works."
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Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 3:06 pm
Ah. A possibly non-working phone and one quarter to his name. Archie sighed. "Be right back," he said to the woman, as if she had expressed any desire to have him there in the first place. He hopped off the stool and hurried over to the phone, picking it up and holding it to his ear. Dial tone. That was good.
He fished in his pocket for the last of his change and held it up to the coin slot, taking a deep breath and...
Wait...
What was that sound? Archie's fingers paused as he dropped the earpiece of the phone to his shoulder and listened to what seemed to be nothing. A few seconds later he shrugged and dropped the quarter into its slot. He dialed his home number and waited.
Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. No one home. No answering machine.
Archie let it ring nearly twenty more times before hanging up and trudging back to the bar. So much for ever going home again. Maybe he could find a hidden talent and on the strength of that talent become a famous street performer. Then he would be able to get home. He took a seat on his stool and rested his head on his forearms. The strange, faint noise persisted.
"Do you hear that?" he asked the woman. A very small part of him wondered why he wasn't frightened of her, but... it was a very small part. He traced her weird tattoos with his eyes and waited to see if she was fed up with him yet.
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Posted: Sun Oct 28, 2007 5:00 pm
Her long pointed ears-covered with a few piercings and looking slightly ragged around the edges-twitched around a bit when Archie asked her the question. An assassin by trade, she'd learned enough about knowing when to listen and what to listen for. But this place was strange and one couldn't be sure exactly what noise the man was refering to. After all what she may consider a commonplace noise he might find strange, and what she might consider out of the ordinary, this young man may consider perfectly normal.
"That would highly depend on what the that you're indicating is. We're in a crowded bar, you'll have to be more specific as to what sort of sound it is you want to know if I hear."
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Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2007 3:00 pm
It wasn't so much a noise as it was the absence of one. The absence of some tone that made up the everyday spectrum of expected noise. It wasn't easily heard, but it had once been Archie's self-imposed responsibility to hear that sound at the exclusion of everything else. It gave him goosebumps to hear it again.
"Something's coming," he said vaguely. How was he supposed to find an appropriate guardian here? "I think I'd better go... see what it is." He chuckled nervously and scooted over to the door, sort of hoping that this woman wouldn't follow him. He normally didn't like making snap judgments, but she didn't seem the type to encourage rehabilitation.
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Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2007 3:17 pm
With an air of "I'm only doing this because I have nothing better to do and you're a hell of a lot more interesting then they are" the gigantic haired female stood, placing an actually pretty large bill on the table for the bartender and doing exactly as Archie had hoped she wouldn't.
As she walked a small necklace became visible-one that didn't seem to go with the rest of her outfit. It was small, delicate, silver chain with a thin bluish crystal hanging from it. It didn't go with her choker-which bore her family crest-or her other tough looking jewelry. This simple necklace wasn't being worn by choice. It was the home for the spirit of the reborn God that this woman was gonna care for. But of course most anyone there wouldn't know that.
Walking out after Archie, hands in her pockets, Dartsmoore glanced at the sky. "So exactly WHAT is it that's coming?"
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Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2007 6:03 pm
"I don't know," Archie said, completely unconvincingly. He too looked at the sky, searching for any sign of a little spaceship carrying a criminal baby. Unlike landings in his yard, he had little to no idea from which direction the pod would come. He sighed.
"Okay, fine. I'm looking for a little spaceship, like... this big." He made a sort of box with his arms, moving back and forth until he had spanned an area about five feet square. "I just don't know where it's coming from." She might as well help look since she had followed him out here.
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Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 3:51 pm
"oh. Then I take it that that belongs to you." the woman casually pointed towards a craft headed towards them from above and to the right a little.
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Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2007 2:46 pm
Archie's eyes narrowed. "Uh... yes," he said. If she had seen it in the first place, why hadn't she said so instead of watching him flail around like an a**? "Just..." Archie sighed. He looked up, spending a moment gauging the ship's trajectory before tentatively stepping into the nearly-empty one way street and waving his arms at an approaching powder blue Jeep driven by a hunched octogenarian. He hurried around to the driver's side of the car once it had stopped, and he and the woman spoke in hushed tones for about a minute as the ship chugged closer and closer to impact. Finally, after suffering a rather brutal pinch to the cheek, Archie hopped back up on the sidewalk, rubbing his mauled face. The old lady turned her car around and sped back up the street, parking the Jeep at the corner, effectively blocking any oncoming automobile traffic. Pedestrians were going to have to fend for themselves.
He looked up again just in time to see the pod's little parachute deploy, slowing its descent. It was nice to see they still worked like in the old days.
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Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2007 2:54 pm
Dartsmoore leaned against the the nearest solid object she could find. "This vaguely makes me homesick, spaceships and whatnot. Next thing you know I'll be seeing Akutekan babies or something ridiculous like that." she mumbled, which ended up being loud enough for Archie to hear as Dartsmoore didn't often address herself so she wasn't too good with the volume control yet.
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Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2007 3:08 pm
Momentarily distracted by the woman's comment, Archie turned away from the ship. "You're not from here?" he asked. He wasn't surprised, but seeing as how she was likely to be the mother of this swiftly approaching baby, he thought it would be nice to get to know something about her.
Sadly, when the pod landed, Archie nearly jumped out of his skin. It skidded down the middle of the empty street, almost as if it was loathe to touch the parked cars to either side. "Hold that thought," he said, hurrying after the black skid left on the road. Up ahead, the pod's door hissed open.
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