Saint City

Whilst Tricky was "conversing" with Cean, Breezy had already begun to poke around. As she browsed the store, she had come across an object that grabbed her attention. She starred at it with interest, admiring the... broken television. Wait a minute. A broken television? She lightly pressed her finger against a sharp piece of glass where the screen had shattered. There was no way she was fascinated by a mere piece of junk. No, that wasn't it. Having seen Tricky work his cool gadgets, she believed there to be something more to this useless box. 

She looked around the outside of the television, trying to find some sort of button or switch to activate this "gadget". She pressed the power button and messed with the volume controls, but nothing happened. She then began to search inside the TV, reaching her hand in to feel around for some sort of switch. After failing to find anything, she pulled her hand out, and stuck her head inside to see if she could get some sort of visual of said switch.

Hearing Cean say his words of departure, and picking up the sound of the door opening and closing, she knew he had left. Once Tricky hard begun to speak again, she quickly realized he was speaking to her, so she briskly straightened her back, and saluted him to show that she was paying attention. As she had done so, she neglected to pull her head out of the screen first, so the TV rose with her, resting on her shoulders with her head still inside. 

This certainly made her seem unreliable in some sense, but rest assured; she is as diligent as she is curious.

(OH WEHLL MARK NOH POHST TWYSE TYMES INN THREDD HEE GOH BI-BI)



     Saint City was, by no means, a small and lacking place to be! If he needed a place to stay, there were plenty of apartment complexes, hotels, motels, and BnB getaways to choose from. Of course, depending on the money he had and just how much he was willing to spend on this particular assignment of his, he might have to settle for more, errrr... "interesting" locales. While Uptown had fancier places like its own Hotel de Blanc, several Breezie Towers, and a Casino Park, Downtown had your usual shadier, 'private' spots where you normally paid cash under a false name and hoped that the spot on your wall was someone's spilled coffee. Thankfully, public transportation was still available, so Caen could essentially get anywhere he needed to go.

     As for finding something to do... well, it was a CITY! There were any number of things he could do, just as long as he knew what he wanted to do. Any newspaper stand around could give him a map, and any Joe Blow on the street could give him directions. All he needed to do was look for it, and chances were he'd find it somewhere! The only limitations he had were his imagination, annnnd the fact that he'd probably have to go walk or ride his way there.

     Meanwhile, Tricky was none too pleased at Mark's lack of sympathy. Sure, it was Tricky's barf, but he truly believed it was Mark's fault for making him barf in the first place!  His silence and inaction spoke enough volume, giving him cause to finally eject the dumbfounded hedgehog from his building... And he just got his new security guard, too~

     "Alright, fine. You're a busy hedgehog, you've got space to waste, people to annoy, pants to soil. Sea Bunny, dear, sweetheart?" he'd call out, his face flattening to an unamused scowl as she wore one of his props like a helmet. "That's a great look for you, I'm sure your friends all thought you should be in television and all. But right now, I could really use your help. Be a friend and show Mister Crazy Hedgehog here the most painful way out of my shop? And while you're at it, please clean the sidewalk outside with his face. Don't forget to throw him in the trash when you're done... And please, no blood on the floor, I just had this place sanitized."

     With that order out of the way, he'd go back to his desk and start tapping into the street cameras and his own security feed to see just who was sneaking around his shop... If this person was trying to case his store, he picked the wrong shitty business to steal from!

((Um, hullo? Can I join in on this?))

Breezy picked up the sarcastic snide from Tricky, yet despite her situation and his unpleasant remark, she appeared immune to whatever sort of embarrassment any normal person would feel if they were in her shoes, right now. She placed her hands firmly on either side of the television set before lifting it off her head. After raising it above herself, a few small pieces of shattered glass rained down from inside the broken screen, hitting the bunny and falling onto the floor. She gently placed the TV back into its spot of the shelf, her "ears" pivoting as she listened to her boss's command.

She exhaled strongly through her nose with breathes of hot air exiting ting through her nostrils, like a mad bull. She looked over her shoulder at Mark. Her expression remained unchanged, still retaining a rather unamused, deadpan look. However, there was a sort of air around her that gave off an ominous vibe. There was also a menacing look in her eyes that would send chills down anyone's spine. 

She looked back and straightened herself before turning to approach Mark. Her hands were clenched into fists as she marched over to him, and her strong movements displayed signs of hostility. She tightly grabbed the hedgehog's jacket. Due to her rather short stature, it was impossible to impressively lift him off his feet. Instead, she pulled him in close, their noses almost touching. She murmured something barley audible, even to Mark himself. Her grip on his jacket tightened as she pulled him over to the door. Her hands moved to the back of his jacket where she grabbed the article of clothings with both her hands before strongly thrusting him out the door. This sent him sliding across the vomit outside. What a mess. She let out a huff and stepped out. Her hand gripping his jacket collar as she drug him over to the dumpster in the nearby alleyway. She lifted him up, and pushed him over into the garbage. The heavy load rattle the dumpster as it landed inside.

She soon returned to the store. Any sort of hostility emitting from her seemed to have all but vanished. Her lackisdale expression was back to being nothing but that. Her eyes locked on to Tricky as though it was her way of letting him know the job was done. However, it didn't take long for her eyes to start wandering once more as she scanned over Tricky's store with a gleam of curiousity in her eyes.

(Finally getting back into posting again. I missed this~)

     Ahhh, fantastic! Nothing warmed his heart quite like seeing a crazy, screaming degenerate getting his face rubbed in the mess he made before ending up dumped into a dumpster. Dusting his hands off as if he was the one to just knock Mark off his ass, he'd give Breezy a good ol' thumbs up for her efforts from the comfort of his seat. "Beautiful, couldn't have done it any better myself, barring my lack of the ability to use my imagination could physically impact reality. I'd give you a gold star, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't count as legal tender. Anyways, you're hired! I'll take care of the, uh, the..."

     His voice trailed off as he pushed a button on his keyboard with one hand, snapping his fingers with the other as he struggled to recall the archaic technology these primitives used to express visual medium using graphite and ink. "PAPER work, right. I'll handle the paperwork and all that shit." His computer let out a brief hum as its fan buzzed, giving its core a much-needed cooling as he had it running all sorts of different programs. Even if he made this beast of a machine himself, it was still far too 'old' for his liking. Still, at least he kept tabs on the weird freak that was running around in the shadows. He seemed to be gone for now, possibly to go sleep in a pile of used-up boxes somewhere, but he'd keep wary for the time being.

     While Breezy's eyes wandered, he'd casually explain things to the distracted Sea Bunny. "Anyways, you might notice a few 'gizmos' and 'doo-dads' around here- that's current lingo, right? It's really hard for me to recall who's saying what with trends changing so quickly." That was a bit of a lie... trends changed far faster in his day and age, to the point where the internet itself was no longer a tool but a way of life and culture accepted by every man, woman and child all across the globe, all streamed directly to the brain. Here, though, without a direct mental connection, he wasn't able to really catch up with the latest racist memes or stupid tweets being broadcast to millions of others. "Whatever- the POINT is, not everything here needs repairs. See, I'm also an inventor of sorts."

     Spinning once in his desk chair, he'd hold his hands up to motion at all of the various tinkerings he'd messed with. "As long as you're working for me, you should at least know that you're going to see some really weird shit during your time here. Work hard enough and ask few stupid questions, and you'll get your tenure. I caution you to not touch a lot of my shit because some of it can and will peel your face off. I don't really have patents with the government for most of this crap, but I do have permits." He took a moment to type a few keys on his computer, looking up to the shelves of broken goods and props that were designed to LOOK like broken goods. "Permits which are not presently here, but if you HAVE to bring up my questionable ethics at any time, I will gladly produce them after I retrieve them from my home office. The point is, I'm more of an independent figure in the field of... science, or whatever, and I like to keep this crap to myself. Most of the time. That's where you come in."

     Standing up, he'd lazily stretch his body out and groan with satisfaction as his bones and muscles pop into place. "Mmmnnggh... Yeah, so, I do have some defenses set up to keep people from taking my shit, but some people have... 'allergies' to my defenses. There's no predicting what this crap can do most of the time, and thankfully I'm happy all it did was paralyze that crazy hedgehog back there for a few minutes, but it's MUCH more ethical and preferable to just have someone beat the crap out of these intruders. Just don't kill anyone, I hate death. Death sucks balls, alright? You're gonna see more homeless, drunken hedgehogs, but you'll see spies and thugs who want to get their hands on the stuff I make. If you do your job well, I'll even lend you some of my gadgets to play with. Like this baby here!"

     He'd hop up to swipe a shoddy looking remote for an old television from the early 90s. It looked like your average remote, but after pressing a few buttons, a stream of light would flash out from the top where the signal would be transmitted. "Boom! Soft-light projection!" It... just seemed like a needlessly complicated flashlight... at first. However, a few more button-presses would show an identical Tricky working an identical remote at the end, mimicking his motions with a 5 second lag in between movements. "Okay, yeah, it's REALLY fucking slow, but it's trying to compensate for the difference between my slow-ass speed and the speed of light. But hey, it makes for a nice distraction, right? Anyways, this is kid stuff compared to the heavy duty gear I've got in back, but that's all off-limits until I'm sure you're more loyal than curious. Right now, your job will be to show up here when it gets dark, look after all the crap I have, and make sure nobody touches anything so they don't get stun-gunned and have a bad reaction to said stun-gunning. Your pay is minimum wage at first, with the option to negotiate for a raise at whatever-fucking-point you think you deserve it, and opportunities to... I dunno, play with my inventions like they're toys. Any questions? Please, please, don't have any questions..."

    PHEW! This had been the most he had to talk in days! He hated direct contact with other people that didn't involve a bedroom rendezvous, but it was still necessary to outline those safety precautions. He didn't want her accidentally blowing up half a block of Saint City in the end! Whether she caught most of that or not during her distracted gaze around his shop at the various holographic projectors, stun-rays, gravity manipulating devices and force-field generators was anyone's guess... He could care less, just as long as the idea that she shouldn't play with most of that stuff without explicit permission got through to her head.

Finally, after the longest time deliberating his options, Caen shook his head, taking a look at his surroundings. He appeared to be in a more run-down part of the city... Then again, the entire city appeared to be some degree of run-down. God knows what kind of halls of depravity lay just in front of the hedgehog.

He sighed "I would go to the casino," he said, looking at said building in front of him "but I highly doubt the house rules would be overly customer-centred," he muttered, walking past and sighing.

As his thoughts rushed through his mind, they were brought to a halt when a loud rumbling sounded in his stomach. Hunger. Of course.
Spotting a stand selling newspapers, he shrugged his shoulders and decided to go and ask for directions.

"Excuse me, sir, do you know where I could get a half-decent meal?" He asked, doing his best not to look too out of place, what with his rather expensive-looking coat and fairly well-styled spines.