(no subject)

[not_a_possum]

WHO: Moxxie and you!
WHERE: Undertown for the open prompt, then Jun's apartment complex and the warehouse for the closed prompts
WHEN: Throughout March
WHAT: Moxxie getting fish for the open prompt (then frying fish and trying to clear out a warehouse for the closed prompts)
WARNINGS: N/A


[The Rainbow Connection – Open]
Guess who has the time to keep following a rainbow until he gets to the end? This guy.

Sure, he has no idea why the rainbows are there or what's going on, but he can definitely see that they look a lot closer than most rainbows do, and he's heard the stories about leprechauns and the pot of gold, so he figures...why not? He could use the cash now that Crowley, the guy who was starting up a business that Moxxie was working at, no longer remembers that he is not, in fact, a possum.

He is keeping in mind this time that he can, in fact, ask for help, but he figures he might as well try for some gold to see if he can delay that, right?

Then, after a few hours of searching, he finally finds it. The end of the rainbow, which is in a sad, dirty little alley in Undertown. He runs up to it and, since the three foot tall pot was taller than the 2'5 imp, he reaches up and pulls himself up to see inside the giant pot of...fish? Disappointing, but Moxxie decides not to let it go to waste. After all, if nothing else it's at least free food, right? He reaches into the pot, trying to catch the fish within, but he ends up leaning in a bit too far and--

"Oh!"

Splash.

Soon he's treading water inside the pot. After a long, beleaguered sigh, he dives down, catching the fish more easily and tossing them over the edge, taking a breath each time before diving back down. Once the fish were all flopping on the pavement he begins to pull himself over the edge, climbing out of the cauldron when he spots someone near the mouth of the alley.

He's shivering, cold and dripping wet, and now he just really hopes they don't want his fish because he just did way too much to just have it taken away.

"There's no gold here. Only fish. Nothing you'd be interested in," he calls out, hoping that's enough to get them to lose interest.

He continues to try and climb out...only to slip and go crashing down to the ground.

"...ow."

[Fish Fry - Jun]
He has way more fish than he can eat, of course, but that doesn't stop him. By the time Moxxie gets home, his arms are tired and sore, and he's shivering because he's still in his soaking wet clothes, but he has plenty of fish. Of course, he also has no idea how he's going to eat this before it spoils, since at his size he really doesn't need a lot of food, but he can always share it with the cat to get rid of some of it.

On his way to his teapot, he spots Jun.

"Oh, hi! Just bringing home some fish."

Some weird golden salmon, nothing to worry about!

[Where All Your Dreams Come True - Luz]
Now that Crowley's gone, Moxxie is going to have to find a new way to make ends meet, and that's where this job comes into play. It seems fairly straightforward. Go into the warehouse, and clear out the various monsters he finds down there. He's got his guns, a ton of ammo, and his fire powers, so he feels pretty confident he can handle this.

After burning up a couple of raccoon skeletons with a few fireballs, though, something catches his eye. A tail, not unlike his own, disappearing around the corner. Moxxie races after it, peering around the edge when he sees...another imp. This one doesn't look exactly like he does, of course. This imp has small yellow horns and a pair of tiny wings that appear to be vestigial, but his skin is the same shade of red as Moxxie and they're about the same size, and while this may not be an imp from Moxxie's own world, it's still very clearly another imp.

Hearing footsteps behind him, Moxxie stops, turning to look behind him.

Comments

[not_a_possum]

When Luz suddenly becomes visible, all the imps aside from Moxxie, the leader and the other imp that had already seen her jump back, some of them scrambling out of sight. The leader narrows his eyes, reaching for a knife at his hip, but Zrox speaks up.

"This is the girl I told you about. The one that this one," he points at Moxxie, "Says is okay."

The leader pauses, moving his hand away from the hilt of the knife but still watches Luz warily. Listening to what she has to say, he formulates a response.

"No. We won't. We are greatly offended that no one offered us money. We will be forming a union and we will be leaving on a journey to find people who will pay us for our services!"

What, exactly, those services were, exactly, is something Moxxie is dying to know, but he doesn't want to ask in case doing so would divert them from their current plan. Instead, he eggs them on.

"Yeah! You should be angry! Get out there and demand your money! ...also, can I get some contact information? I might be interested in joining, myself."

[a_cute_batata]

Whoa, a knife?! That escalated quickly! They killed children?!

Luz, you came into this place and just squeezed a beat skeleton into submission. You're not exactly bringing in the peace vibes either.

Luckily, things calmed down when the one they'd seen earlier spoke up. Ok. Danger averted. For now.

"Right, that's totally fair! We were just told to get this location from the guy that's paying us. They didn't really go into details, just vaguely hinted at some monsters we had to fight off."

At Moxxie's proclamation though, Luz tugged at the Imp's shirt. "Whoa, take it easy, Moxxie!" Luz said as quietly as she could. "You don't even know what they do. That's probably something you'd want to know about any new job, right?"

[not_a_possum]

Another imp piped up. "Wait, they just told you to show up and kill monsters? They didn't even say not to kill us?!"

The other imps look disgruntled at that, and the head imp, who already looked angry about the whole situation, looks even more upset.

"When we write up our union contract, we definitely will have to include a clause about that sort of thing!"

At Moxxie's proclamation, though, Zrox and the leader glance at each other before Zrox explains, "Uh...we don't really have contact information? We just kind of will be going together. You can come with us if you want. Otherwise..."

Zrox kind of shrugs to indicate that he doesn't have another suggestion for Moxxie other than just becoming one of the swarm of imps. Which, honestly, that does sound inviting, but...with Luz's comment about how he might want to know what the job is first, he considers whether he should hold off on running away with a band of imps.

"Oh. Yeah. I guess," he answers quietly, before replying in a louder tone, "I actually have to be somewhere after this, but maybe I'll find you guys later."

Well. It's probably no surprise that this is the guy who would sell Zodiac a peach while being completely oblivious to the potential consequences.

[a_cute_batata]

"More implied. 'Get rid of them' doesn't HAVE to mean kill them. In the case of those skeletons though, I think you guys can forgive me forgive me for being violent. They were not exactly coming out to shake my hand."

Luz was very well aware of how strong regular bears were, she wasn't going to take a chance with skeletons of them either.

"Good plan! You want an airtight contract where no one can exploit you. Make sure you lay out your union goals too, in case you have to deal with some unforeseen plans. You'll probably want to make sure that your union president has a fair time frame until they're replaced too, so the newer generation get to share their ideas too."

Wait, was Moxxie considering this? Just be a part of a flock, doing whatever? Which he still didn't know yet??

"Right! Yeah, if you guys ever do want to get together later, you can do that, talk to each other about the things you see in Kaisou! If you ever do have a base of operations, I'm sure Moxxie would want to keep in contact."

Oh boy. Moxxie. Never tell Luz you did that, as she already didn't trust Zodiac as far as she could throw them.

[not_a_possum]

"No one cares about the skeletons."

"Yeah, they're always trying to eat us. I don't know why. They don't even have stomachs.

"I just care that this person tried to have us 'gotten rid of'!""

Then yet another imp pipes up. "Can we put it in our contract that if anyone makes vague deals that may or may not end in us being killed by adventurers that we TP their house?"

"We can, yes!"

They look at Luz when she gives her input. "I guess. I mean, it'll kind of be up to him to find us or keep up or whatever, it sounds like we're leaving soon."

"We're leaving tonight!"

"Right, we're leaving tonight. So if he wants to follow us or track us down, that's up to him."

They're not worried about a new imp tagging along, but they're not going out of their way to make sure he can keep up if he's not going to stick around and go with them, either.

"It's fine. I'll figure it out, Luz. Want to finish up with the skeletons?"

Since it already sounds like the imp portion of this is taken care of.

[a_cute_batata]

"If you made a contract and people tried to have you killed, I'd probably join you un TPing their house, if not made sure that their door gets mysterious frozen shut along with the windows."

Luz was normally not that spiteful, but an attempt on one's life clearly deserved an answer like that.

"Sorry to hear about that with the skeletons though! I hope you won't have to worry about them with your next job!"

With Moxxie's suggestion, Luz nodded, then gave the imps a wave.

"If you need help proofreading your union documents, I don't mind giving it a look over!"

[not_a_possum]

"Do you know where this guy that hired you lives? We want to TP his house!"

"I...do not." They'd met elsewhere to discuss the whole operation. "Although I have the impression he plans to either move here, or start working here, so either way if you TP this place in a few weeks that'll probably do it."

An evil grin spreads across that imp's face. "Perfect."

"Well, I'll try and track you down later, and maybe I can join you on that!" he says with a wave, before turning to walk with Luz so they can investigate this place and check for any remaining skeletons. "That went surprisingly well."

[a_cute_batata]

"Yup, or maybe you can have a lengthy discussion! It might not even have to end with TPing!"

Look, it was Luz's last-ditch effort to stop people from exploding at each other. Very last ditch.

Luz walked on with Moxxie, shaking her head. "Sure, but why'd you want to join them without getting all the details? Are you having trouble with your job?"

[not_a_possum]

"It definitely has to end with TPing."

Moxxie mostly ignores that final comment from the other imp, and focuses on Luz's question.

"What job? Oh, do you mean that thing where Crowley was hiring me to work for his start up? Yeah...he's not on the app anymore, so...he kind of doesn't remember that I'm not a possum, so that's no longer a thing."

[a_cute_batata]

Welp. She tried. Besides, their involvement was to clear the space, not to take care of whatever happened afterward, right?

"So you're out of a job now? Is...is that why you're doing this?"

[not_a_possum]

"Yes and yes."

To make matters worse, he'd shared half the money he got from the peach with Crowley to try and get funds to get his start up going, thinking it would pay off later and...well, at least he still has half of that. And at least he lives in the teapot now, so he doesn't have to worry about the usual expenses that come with living in a home that has any records of existing, and with his small size comes lower caloric needs so his grocery bill is pretty affordable.

"But hey, at least this mission seems to have worked out pretty well."

He met more imps, and they seem to be doing a good job of getting this place cleared, so overall a pretty decent outcome.

[a_cute_batata]

"I'm sorry about that, Moxxie. You've already had enough stuff happen to you. You didn't need to lose a business partner too."

Not that Luz had exactly had a great last month either, finding herself right back to being the only one that remembered the Boiling Isles and losing the person that had made Kaisou much more bearable.

"Well yeah. The imps deserve to get properly compensated, and those skeletons had to go. So, yay for us!"

[not_a_possum]

"Yeah, that was a pretty big blow. I'm still kind of hoping he'll show back up on the app."

In case that doesn't happen, though, he's going to have to find a new source of regular income.

"Yep, I hope they get paid well for...whatever it is they do."

Little do they know the imps do absolutely nothing, they just want to get paid for existing as imps.

[a_cute_batata]

"Yeah," Luz said, sighing. "I know what that feeling is like."

All too well. Between Amity and Luisa, Luz was feeling less sure about the state of anyone here. She hoped that Moxxie got back on his feet (hooves)? soon enough.

"Which remains to be seen," Luz said, chuckling. "You at least have a resume."

[not_a_possum]

"There is that. Even if it doesn't do me any good when it comes to regular human employers that aren't aware of the supernatural, maybe it'll help if I look for jobs in Undertown."

It's worth a shot.

[a_cute_batata]

"I wish you luck. If I can find a place for you, I'll let you know. I'm going to probably start exploring more of Kaisou anyway."

With no Amity around, Luz thought it would probably be a good idea not to stay inside and drive herself crazy.

[not_a_possum]

"Great, thanks! I mean, anyplace I can work is probably going to be in Undertown, but--" He suddenly looks over when he hears a sound. "Is there something over there? Behind those racks?"

He freezes, watching carefully and drawing his gun in case he might need to shoot something.

[a_cute_batata]

"Right, I know. I can look there too though! It'll be interesting to see what they can offer."

At the mention of something looming, Luz turned with the staff, ready.

"I'll go check. Cover me."

[not_a_possum]

He nods, holding his gun at the ready. Suddenly, a swarm of rat skeletons rush out. Moxxie fires, managing to kill one in a single shot, but the others are still swarming after Luz.

[a_cute_batata]

"Whoa." Luz was not expecting smaller ones now.

"Aw, rats! I love-"

Well, she loved rats. She didn't love rat skeletons, which these guys looked very aggressive. Without missing a beat Luz threw down her fire glyph and incinerated the rest, making a disgruntled noise.

"Ok, I normally like rats. That's just something out of my nightmares."

[not_a_possum]

"Yeah...it seems like turning anything into an animated skeleton just makes it so much worse. And much more aggressive."

Though why walking skeletons were so aggressive is anyone's guess.

"Let's keep going and see if there's anything else in here."

Shall we do one more final (skeleton) boss?

[a_cute_batata]

"And creepy!" Luz added, kicking away the bones. "Talk about removing all the good parts of a creature. It's like they're being made into mindless robots. At least the imps weren't just trying to fight us."

Who knew?

"Get behind me in case it's something you can pick off with your gun. Did I mention you were a great shot?"

Sure! I'll let you pick what this one will be

[not_a_possum]

"Yeah...I guess that makes sense, though. I mean, usually it's the brain that lets you make decisions for yourself, and skeletons don't have those."

Nevermind that it's the brain that lets you do anything, as well as muscles and oxygenated blood, all things skeletons lack.

"Thanks!" he says, getting behind Luz. "Apparently in my previous life I was a weapons specialist, and in this one I really enjoyed going to the shooting range before I turned into an imp."

There would be nothing more terrifying than a cheetah coming after you. They are FAST.

[a_cute_batata]

"That's cool. I was never into the idea of guns. Even if you're a bad shot, you can still kill someone, you know? With actual weapons, you at least have to be good. But being good with guns, that's kinda one of your superpowers!"

And boy, would they need that. When they entered the last room, there was a streak of speed that told them that their opponent was going to be very different.

"Uh. That's a cat. A BIG one."

Luz didn't sound quite so confident now. When they were hunting prey, they could be terrifying. They were very quick and deadly when they came in for the kill.

[not_a_possum]

"I mean, I'd consider a gun an actual weapon...and sure, you can still kill someone if you're a bad shot, but if you're a good shot you actually kill the person you're trying to kill."

Which is a problem with projectile weapons in general. It's easier to avoid swinging a sword near people you don't want to kill than to avoid having a bullet ricochet into someone you don't want to kill. Then they reach a new skeleton. And this one is fast.

"Oh crumbs!" he says, raising his gun and firing. He misses. Then he summons up a fireball and throws that. Again, he misses. "A fast one!"