Don't Bug the Spiders.
"Ah, Gene! How good to see you! Come in, you're just in time for tea!" Fred Lowe welcomed his outlaw crush enthusiastically, glomping onto his scarred arm and dragging the poor redhead inside the huge mansion.
"Er, yeah, hi Fred." Gene grinned nervously, wishing he'd foregone his usual macho 'relax, I can handle it on my own' speech and asked Jim and Mel to come with him.
"So how can I help you today? Did you crash your ship again?" Fred asked, guiding Gene into one of his many plush offices and sitting him down on a comfy couch while he had a lackey bring them tea.
"No..." Gene scowled, muttering something about not actually CRASHING the ship, just denting it a little that one time, and how everyone acted as though he'd gotten drunk and ploughed it into the space docks or something. He wasn't THAT stupid. Ahem.
"Oh? So how can I help you?" Fred asked, waving his minion away once the tea had been set out so that he could have his little 'alone' time with Gene.
"Well..." Gene began reluctantly, "Y'know that flashy wooden sword Suzuka loves so much?"
"I am familiar with it, yes," Fred winced. More than familiar.
"Weeeell... I kinda whacked some guy over the head with it." Gene finished, expecting Fred to work it all out from there.
"And?" Fred raised an eyebrow, not quite having that amount of psychic power. True, he could sell anything to anyone regardless of whether or not they actually needed or wanted it, and make a huge profit in the process, but when it came to working out just what Gene had done this time, he was in the dark. Gene was just one of those people who never failed to surprise.
"And it broke. Cheap crap."
"Ah. It broke. The man you hit, or the sword?" Fred just had to ask. With Gene, you never could tell.
"Both. Anyway, you have that room full of flashy weapons and stuff, and she said that if I don't find her a new one she'll use a kitchen knife and carve her own out of my spine. She's kinda pissed off about it. I was thinkin' of just buying her a cheap stick or something from one of those market traders, but she said that if it isn't a 'proper' one, she'll find her own and 'christen it with my blood'. Yeah, she was REALLY pissed off. So you think you can help?" Gene tried to look pathetic, putting on his best puppy-dog eyes.
"Oh, my... Why did you hit this poor man over the head with her sword in the first place?" Fred asked, since he was rather enjoying embarrassing Gene over a nice cup of tea.
"He asked for it! I was in the docks, just minding my own business, repainting all the dents in the ship, and the bastard just walks up out of nowhere and says red is a stupid colour for a ship! I asked him, very politely, if he had a problem, and he started insulting my hair! Well, you think I'm going to let a total stranger get away with that? No!" Gene growled. Fred wished he could have been there to watch, Gene Starwind drenched in testosterone is a wonderful thing.
"I kinda forgot my gun, but Suzuka had left her stick on one of the work tables next to the paint. C'mon, the guy totally asked for it!" Gene ranted.
"I'm sure he did. Did he survive?" Fred asked, watching with a slight smirk as Gene nodded grudgingly.
"Yeah. Concussion and a fractured skull, but he'll live. Probably. Bastard, I should have stabbed him with the damned sword!"
"So you need a new wooden sword or Mz. Suzuka is going to gut you, yes?" Fred summed the situation up, replacing his empty cup of tea back in its expensive bone china saucer, then standing up and gesturing for Gene to follow him. "I do hope you have money this time, Gene, those swords are quite expensive..."
"Yeah, yeah, I got money. Jeez. You merchants'd sell your own mothers." Gene sulked.
Fred laughed and led Gene into his armoury. The walls were lined with swords, guns and daggers, along with every other type of weapon small enough to fit through the doorway. There were also glass cases holding yet more strange devices, some of which made Gene wince just looking at them. He didn't even want to KNOW what some of those twisty metal things did. He shuddered.
* * *
Harry McDougal was pissed off. He was pissed off, because he was dead, and now his copied soul was stuck in the El Dorado's main computer. But, and this was the all-important part, it was all Gene Starwind's fault. He deserved to have very bad things happen to him in very large doses, and Harry was determined to see to it that he was the one dishing out the very bad things. Oh, yes, revenge was sweet. Even sweeter when your brother had built you a huge, heavy, mech body complete with rocket launchers, plasma missiles, anti-tank bullets and machine guns capable of blowing down reinforced steel walls. Now THAT, was sweet.
Ron McDougal watched Harry stomping about, destroying random things like cars, trees and people. The mech body was about the size of two large tanks stacked on top of each other, loaded with enough guns, bombs and nasty pointy things to take down a fleet of grappler ships and maybe a Ktarl-Ktarl warship for dessert. It was a VERY nasty piece of work, much like the McDougals themselves. Ron smirked, proud of his work.
"Hey Harry, come on. He's over at Fred Lowe's, you can bring the whole building down on top of them." Ron called. Harry gave a trademark crazed giggle and stomped over, looking down at his brother and smirking.
"This time he's going to die!" Harry cackled, picking his brother up and heading off towards Fred Lowe's mansion.
* * *
"How 'bout this one?" Gene pointed to a wooden sword amongst the many hung up on the wall.
"Hmm. That one is very expensive. How about this one?" Fred pointed to another one, which, to Gene, looked exactly the same.
"Yeah, whatever." Gene shrugged, looking at the racks of guns, not interested in the slightest even though it was his life on the line if he didn't please Suzuka.
"Ok, would you like to try it out before you buy it?" Fred asked, carefully lifting the sword down from its place on the wall. Gene snorted.
"You think I'd know how to do anything other than whack someone over the head with it? My specialty is shooting people, not cutting them up with pointy sticks. Guns are more fun." The red-haired outlaw grinned roguishly in that way that made Fred melt, and squinted closer at the guns display. "Hey, what's that?" He murmured. "Something's moving there..." He moved a little closer. Fred sincerely hoped it wasn't anything that could either fly off or explode, because much as he enjoyed drooling over Gene's collection of scars, he really didn't want to see the making of a new one.
"What is it?" Fred asked, coming a little closer. A simple reply would have been nice, something like, 'just a spider' would have sufficed. What Gene in fact did was freeze for a few moments as all the colour drained from his face, then shriek in terror and scramble back, behind Fred.
"Uh, Gene? Are you alright?" Fred blinked, half enjoying the feeling of Gene's close proximity and half worried for the outlaw's sanity. He hadn't exactly been all there in the first place.
"Argh!" Was all Gene seemed to be able to say as he pointed helplessly at the gun rack.
"Argh?" Fred felt bound to ask.
"Spider!!!" Gene elaborated, and Fred considered bursting out laughing, but decided that it would severely shorten his life. Then the merchant considered turning around and comforting Gene in his own *special* way, but that didn't seem likely to help the situation, either. Also, Gene's hands were trembling and reaching for his gun.
"Oh, Gene, it's only a little spider, what could it possibly do to you? I'm fairly certain you've faced worse enemies before." Fred tried to calm the shuddering outlaw, who looked at him with slightly crazed eyes and gave an insane laugh.
"That's not the POINT!!" Seemed to be Gene's best argument.
"I'm sure it's more afraid of you than you are of it," Fred tried, but this, too, didn't help matters.
"Like shit it is!" Gene shrieked, drawing his gun and aiming it at the poor little spider, who, surprisingly, WAS actually plotting how it could kill Gene and take over the world.
"Oh, dear." Fred sighed, then gently detached himself from the terrified, arachnophobic Outlaw Star pilot and went off to find something to get rid of the spider with before Gene bought the mansion down.
* * *
"Heheheheheh." Harry thought to himself as he scaled the wall of the mansion, heading for the room in which his highly sophisticated sensors had placed Gene, his mortal enemy. Ron was stood beneath, on the ground, ready to shoot any guards who happened to notice the enormous mecha climbing up the side wall towards an open window. The guards, though, all seemed to be elsewhere, as they often were during a crisis. Ron just shrugged and watched as Harry reached the window and looked through, grinning wickedly.
* * *
"Argh!" Gene shrieked again, as he heard the door close behind Fred. "You can't leave me here with THAT!!" He pointed in the general vicinity of the arachnid, even though there was nobody there to see or hear him except the spider, who could have cared less, frankly.
"It MOVED!! ARGH!!!" Gene suddenly yelped, jumping back a good three feet and deciding that enough was enough. "Hah! You think I'm afraid of you, spider? No!"
The spider begged to differ, since Gene was currently cowering behind a desk, aiming his gun over the top of it, but it hated to ruin Gene's fun, so it left him to his ranting, quietly skittering away into a hole in the wall before things got violent, as they inevitably did where Gene was concerned.
"See how you like THIS, you creepy little bastard!!!"
That shrieked, Gene loaded a shell into his favourite gun and pointed it at where the spider had been. Yes, it was the caster. With a huge boom, Gene pulled the trigger and the shell rocketed out, slamming into the wall and making a huge crater. It also, coincidentally, caused every gun on the gun rack to go off at once, showering the room with bullets, one of which ricocheted out an open window and hit something metallic, which went 'Eek!'
"Shit, Fred keeps them loaded?" Was all Gene had to say about the situation, once the last of the bullets had stopped bouncing around above his head and breaking things.
* * *
Harry looked through the window just in time to see Gene fire his caster gun at a wall. This was strange to say the least, but unfortunately Harry didn't have time to contemplate that, as a hundred guns all went off at once and a stray bullet shot out of the window, embedding itself in his main control panel.
'Eek' didn't quite cover it, really. The bullet had missed most of the really important things, bypassing the weapons controls to sever the wire which, unfortunately, let Harry control the arms of his mech suit. This was not a good thing, since Harry was at least five stories up, clinging to the side of Fred Lowe's mansion, and his mech had suddenly decided its arms would like to take a break.
Ron looked up, sighing as he watched the huge form of Harry's mech come plunging earthwards and towards him. He didn't even try to get out of the way; it wasn't as if he had time anyway. The only thing he did have time to do was reflect upon the fact that Harry didn't seem to be good with technology, and Gene Starwind was one lucky bastard.
* * *
Fred re-entered his armoury and stared at the huge crater in the wall where his guns had formerly resided. A second later there was a deafening crash from outside and what sounded like an explosion rocked the mansion.
"I didn't do it." Gene stated firmly as the shockwaves died down. Fred blinked at the crater in the wall again and raised an eyebrow. Gene had the grace to look a little guilty.
"Ok, I may have done THAT." He also looked at the crater. "But that spider deserved it!"
"I'm not sure, but wouldn't you say that was excessive force to deal with a single spider?" Fred found his voice, putting down the vacuum cleaner he had been carrying to suck up the arachnid that was threatening his poor Gene.
"No," Gene said flatly.
Fred wasn't in the slightest bit surprised. He also got over the crater in the wall rather fast as well. Most times when Gene came to visit there was usually a certain amount of property damage, but it was worth it, in Fred's opinion.
* * *
The spider sneered wickedly, looking up at Gene from the floor at his feet, right next to his boot. You missed me, human, it thought. Now you will PAY! MWAHAHAHA!!!
Giving a deranged little spider laugh, it began to climb up Gene's leg.
* * *
Fred noticed the spider climbing up Gene's leg and wondered what to do. If he mentioned it, would Gene shoot himself in the leg just to get rid of it? Possibly. With a shrug, Fred turned on the vacuum cleaner and answered Gene's puzzled look by pointing at his leg. Gene slowly looked down, blinking, then gave a very unmanly shriek as he noticed the arachnid and drew his caster again, aiming it at his own leg. Fortunately, Fred stepped in calmly and used his trusty vacuum cleaner to suck the eight-legged little bastard, as Gene called it, off of the redhead's leg and off, as far as he knew, to spider heaven.
Gene shuddered, whimpering in terror even as Fred turned off the vacuum and lowered his gun for him.
"It's alright, Gene, I got it." He smiled, looking into Gene's spider-crazed eyes.
It took a moment, but eventually Gene snapped out of his semi-catatonic state of spider-shock and threw his arms around Fred, clinging to him like a frightened child.
"Is it dead?? Did you kill it??" The outlaw asked in a pathetic whimper of a voice. Fred smiled, very much enjoying having Gene's arms wrapped around him.
"Yes, don't worry, the big bad spider is gone." Fred laughed softly, "I won't let any more spiders near you."
Gene looked up from where he was clinging to Fred, looking extremely pathetic.
"Really?" He whimpered.
"I promise," Fred smiled reassuringly, patting Gene on the head.
"Good." Gene muttered, then smirked and squeezed Fred a little tighter.
"Gene?" Fred questioned, then gave a startled little squeak when Gene moved up and kissed him full on the lips, pinning him against the desk he'd been cowering behind a few minutes before.
"Thanks, I owe you one." Gene smirked as they broke off. Fred blinked then grinned.
"No problem." He said.
"So... can I keep this?" Gene asked, whipping one of the wooden swords out from behind his back, looking hopeful.
"If you kiss me again I'll consider giving you a discount on it," Fred offered, a merchant until the end, as always.
"Ok," Gene shrugged, then leant down over Fred.
* * *
In the vacuum cleaner bag, the spider scowled a little spidery scowl and began plotting its revenge. Oh yes, Gene Starwind would pay. Mwahahahaha!!
The end.
There, finished at last, complete with the random Gene kissing Fred moment. Yay. As for Ron and Harry, relax, they'll be fine and back plotting their revenge along with the spider as soon as they get out of hospital, and as soon as the spider figures out how to get out of the vacuum cleaner bag. It sucked. I knooooow. *whimper*