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Topic:
On Yodimus (completed) Deleted Scenes! Language selections! Widescreen option!
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1Yodimus_Prime
Registered:
Mar '04
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Date Posted:
3/13/04 6:41pm
Subject:
On Yodimus (completed) Deleted Scenes! Language selections! Widescreen option!
- Date Edited:
11/19/05 4:08pm (25 edits total)
Edited By:
1Yodimus_Prime
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Now complete!...and also digitally remastered at 16:9 widescreen with dolby surround sound, for optimal viewing experience. 
Title - On Yodimus
Author - Yes
Timeframe - Some time near and around the Zahn Trilogy.
Characters - Nobody you know. They're all mine. Ha! Take THAT Lucas
Summary - A morally ambiguous Salesman with a bottomless trench coat finds himself on the run.
"more twisted than a pudding sale during a spoon shortage!" - Oqidaun"
And the NY Times calls it "The biggest piece of...good...-ness...I've ever read...in the history of man. Never...not read this. Please."
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This is my first try at a star wars tale. I don't quite know where it's going to go, but i guess we'll find out eh?
i'll update once a week or not, depending on how much progress i make.
I guess now i'm supposed to put some kind of disclaimer about how everything save my original characters, and even large portions of those, are all owned by ole' Georgey and whatnot. If so, well that should be close enough. If not, eh. So sue me.
-Author's note.
On Yodimus
In retrospect, I shouldn't have splashed the cafe in his face. And now that I think about it, throwing the metal cup at him wasn't such a hot idea either. And since I'm on a roll, the whole shooting him in the leg thing probably wasn't smart of me. But really, calling his entire armada on my ship just because I called him a stupid, silly little name over the intercom is overreacting just a little, don't you think? On the other hand, his reaction could...could be attributed to the fact that I took his payment and didn't give him his artifact (really now, 700 credits for a one-and-only? Get real), and his ship has a big hole in it where I blasted out of the hangar. But I doubt it. Ridge Freem is the kind of guy who kills his mom if she uses one of his dimes, not because she used one of his dimes, but because he happens to be bored that day.
In fact, as I race through a rain, nay a torrential downpour, of blaster fire, I remember from reading his journal that that's exactly the way she went. Which explains how I thought up such a grim hypothetical. Now, you're probably wondering what moron is stupid enough to deal with such a psycho...or how that moron got a-hold of his journal, but I'm not going to let you in on that...so as for the first question? Well, as I implied in the previous statement, me. And why would I be dealing, dealing rudely even, with a psycho? Because he's a rich psycho, that's why. There are two things that make me happy in this universe: money, finding cool ways to make money, and pudding. Ok, that's three, but come on. Nobody can't say they don't not like pudding; it's the best! I think...I'll have to go over that statement a few more times to make sure.
If you're wondering who I am, and I know you are because that's the kind of thing people who actually read this crap want to know, I'm telling you now you are not gonna find out. I don't even let people in on my fake names. Hell, my aliases have aliases. But since I am such a nice guy, I'll let you in on the name I use to base all my aliases off of: Yodimus Prime. Yeah I know what you're thinking, that it sounds like an idiot’s screen name in some holo-chatroom, but I don't care because it's memorable. And it has to be in my profession. So what's my profession? I am a curator of fine goods. A salesman if you will - of the strange, bizarre, unique, unknown, ancient, or otherwise interesting items, antiques, androids, machinery, parts, devices, garments, pretty rocks, art supplies, appliances, and anything else your creative little mind can think of in one breath, all of which is crammed right into this simple-looking, inconspicuous and rather stylish, brown trench coat. And that’s the abridged version. Specifically, I'm a traveling salesman. And my traveling is what gets me all my crazy-cool stuff. I'd explain more, but it's difficult to do that and figure out the stupid alien language on these controls while dodging pilots to whom the term "trigger happy" describes their most calm and serene moments. In fact, because of this, I believe I might just commission this part of the job out to a 3rd person narrator. You know, make it easier for me. Oh, don't worry, this guy's good from what I hear. Of course, I also heard the original death star was destroyed with two little proton torpedoes, which is completely absurd. So my information may not be perfectly reliable.
*******
At the edge of the galaxy, on the boundary between the inner and outer rim, lies the steeply angled planet Vortex. Hovering above the planet is what anyone who doesn’t know any better may believe is nothing more than an oversized research ship, and for good reason. The owner of this substantially large ship studies the planet's natives, the Vors. It is not uncommon. Similar things go on over nearly every single planet. Even Coruscant, the most advanced, has been studied (with permission of course) by inquisitive and otherwise isolated races. And yet, this particular substantially large research ship is unique. For within the ship lies not just a researcher with a penchant for anthropology, but a mob boss researcher with a penchant for anthropology. His name is Dr. Freem, and right now he is extremely angry, bordering on homicidal. I have the feeling you know why. I might add before we move on, this is a very proud man and the source of his pride is that surname. He didn't go through four years of a graduate planetary science academy, murdering his way to the top, to be called "Mr."
Four levels down is a spacious docking bay holding several well-armed ships and their pilots, as well as it's own wealth of crates, strewn-about repair equipment, and exposed ventilation pipes. Walking out of the fresher in a vest two sizes too small, not because he's on a tight budget but rather because it showed off just how much he worked out, is one of those pilots: Darin, a name that had elicited him a number of puns in the past concerning his flying techniques, and probably still does. Our buddy Dr. Freem had yet to send word that the deal had gone bad, so Darin was in no rush to check over his ship or even pick up his gun for that matter. Leaning against Darin’s ship was a ragged, broad-chested, unshaved figure that looked like he was designed specifically to fit the gritty background. He nodded to Darin.
"Ey, got any of the good spice left?" he inquired.
Darin paused, smiled and shook his head, "...Gunner," he replied, ", I told you yesterday I ran out of that stuff...and last week...and the week bef-"
"OK! Ok, I get the point. Got a little nostalgic is all."
They had been dazing through the entire past month via the wonders of a spice acquisition of a quality they doubted they'd ever see again. It doesn't help that Gunner's brain, and consequently, memory could be compared to Darin's vest in relative size.
"Say, that gets me thinking..." Gunner added.
"A miracle if I've ever heard one." Darin dryly responded.
"Ha. No, seriously, I am: We never found out where that stuff came from."
"And were oh where do you think it might have come from?" he asked sarcastically. Darin feigned annoyance with Gunner on a regular basis, but the truth was they got along better than any other two people in the whole ship.
"...Maybe it came from the White Watch Tower..."
"Again with that stupid myth. There ARE better ghost stories out there, you know. I mean, you tell that one to children when they ask about what's left of Alderaan..."
"But wouldn't it make sense?"
Darin continued unhindered, "...Or use it to make a bad holovid. Remember, 'Tower in the Rubble'? Not even a planet-sized holographic recreation of Alderaan could save that SSD wreck." he shivered at the thought. But deep down, Darin may always hold a place for bad movies.
"...And the spice was white-"
"...All chemically altered spice is white."
"But still..."
Several meters away from their discussion, docking security had just received a message from one of Freem's...Dr. Freem's guards. Something about keeping a lookout.
" 'But still' NOTHING." Darin retorted, "The spice was good because that happens every once-in-while. Aren't you tired of this argument? You've been bringing it up practically every week." Darin's mind had been wandering since the start of this conversation. Mostly on newer and more morbidly creative ways to do in his boss, those always got his mood up.
Above Gunner, the cockpit door of the ship he'd been leaning on sealed shut with a hiss. "I have?"
He sighed, "Yes."
The ship vibrated into preflight operations. "So how much you think the good doctor will give us from this latest endeavor?" Darin continued, trying to change the subject before he felt compelled to backhand him.
"I doubt anything. Hey, isn't this your ship I'm leaning on?"
"Exactly. Nothing. This is exactly what I can't stand about..." Gunner's switch in subject suddenly caught him up. He continued slowly, "Yes...that's my ship. Why?"
"Because..." Gunner got off the ship's side, and gestured back to it. "It kinda seems like..."
An explosion of sound escaped the back end as it lifted itself a good two meters into the air. A feat that should have been impossible considering the pilot was standing about the same distance away from it.
"What the FRELL?" the bewildered and obviously pissed Darin ran before the ship, an action that Gunner found rather funny, and began chuckling. Darin couldn’t see inside, because earlier that month, around the time the spice ran out, he had his view-port tinted. "No! Stinking son of a slaughtered Sith!" he prided himself on his alliteration skills, "I don't know who you are, but get out of that!" He searched frantically for a missing thug he could place the blame on. But impossibly they were all accounted for, and staring at him, no less. "Well? Someone do something before-" Before he could finish, his ship decided to take a spin about the bay, bouncing itself goofily off the particle shields that acted as an invisible air lock.
"This is hilarious!" Gunner got out, before his chuckles became full-blown laughter. Even if nobody found the situation funny before, the sight of a giant, gruff spacer laughing his face red is thoroughly comedic enough, and soon the whole group of Dr. Freem’s henchmen was joined in laughter.
Except for Darin. "This is serious! Serious! What if this guy-" at about that time, the ship made a decorative decision concerning the size of the dock, and unloaded a round of blaster bolts upon the nearest wall. Whether this was what Darin was envisioning 'this guy' to do or not, 'this guy' was. The action was enough to command everyone's attention.
"Everyone to their ships!" The group stared at him, "Now! Oh, except for...you." He pointed randomly to a scrawny long-nosed pilot, who hung his head and grumbled off at the news. The scrawny man's ship was less comfortable, and lacked the heavy music Darin liked to listen to while flying, but it would do.
Darin's comlink activated. He paused from climbing into the cockpit to answer it. He already knew it was his boss.
"The sale went bad, Darin. That piece of soon-to-be-rancor-meat ran down your way. If you see him, kill him".
It didn't take Darin long to make the connection, "That may be a problem. He's stolen a ship."
"Then. SHOOT HIM DOWN...but patch me in, first. I want to hear him die."
"...Yes sir." That meant destroying his ship. The idea of destroying the only thing in this wretched galaxy he ever cared about more than irked him. The contempt in his response was thick, but Dr. Freem's rage blinded him to it.
"Oh yeah, and get a medic up here for my leg."
Darin closed the com and called out, "Pursue him, but leave the kill to me. Got it? That's my girl we're shooting at out there" The least he could do was do it personally. The ships had all been designed pretty much the same in shape, but in the area of performance, Darin was the only one there who really knew what he was doing, and his was faster, better armed, and lighter on its feet than any of the others. The creatures that made them were strange: they liked putting multiple functions together and hated mass-producing anything. It was a simple design though: three main engines, two heavy blaster cannon attachments beneath the cockpit, and enough cargo space for either two people or one very big, very dead wookie. A jumble of affirmative responses, and they were off.
Accelerating away from the science vessel, the unmarked, one-person, heavily modified ship moved as fast as the pilot within would let it, which happened to be about as fast as the thing was able to go. Yodimus Prime had been in worse situations. This would be cake.
His first assessment of the ship was SCAGIS, which in his bizarre form of classification meant: Sketchy Controls, Awesome Guns, Interior Smelly. It took him a few seconds to get oriented - controls were separated into two different steering devices for each hand, buttons on top meant firing guns would be nice and easy, and the display had an aesthetically pleasing, ergonomic button/view screen setup. This coupled with the antique cult B-holovid posters the owner had plastered over the empty portions of the wall made the general cockpit experience quite satisfying for Yodimus.
"Let's see what kind of easy listening we got here." He said to no one in particular. Under the seat, he had found a metal box filled with music disks. "Hmm...crap...crap...Ooo, über-crap...crap...crap...crappy crap...crap...this guy's got the worst...Ah man! Hypercrap with a side of crap! This is really sad. My grandmother listens to better stuff, and she's deaf." After convincing himself that someone would have indeed laughed at that, he dumped the box into a jettison container behind the seat. The man we are looking at is human, a bit smaller than average height, thin-faced, and wears a trench coat which he keeps absolutely everything he owns in. At the moment we can see that one of those things is a music disk. He places it in a reader. "Oh yeah! Pirated songs by 'Sabered Arm' and 'The Demented Corellian', one after another! This is the stuff!" The first song, by 'The Demented Corellian', began. It was a parody of the song "Alderaanian Danish" recalling instead of the loss of a planet, the failure of one of the biggest movies of that year. Funny and irreverent, it was Yodimus's favorite.
Suddenly, a voice filled the cockpit. Its dark and serious tone killed off any trace of light-humor Yodimus had intended on bringing into the ship, "Think you can just run away? I'll track you down, Yordifus Perm!" The pronunciation was no mistake. That was the name Yodimus had given Dr. Freem. Making up stupid aliases like that amused Yodimus to no end.
"Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that. Personally, Mr. Freem-"
"Excuse me? What did you say?"
"Um...personally?"
"After that."
"Freem?"
"Before that."
"I...said two words..."
" My name is DR. Freem!! I am a DOCTOR!"
"Oh."
It was at about this point that seven ships exited the docking bay in pursuit of Yodimus, guns blazing. Deciding that his choice of surname was a bad one, Yodimus smashed the com. You know, in case he might accidentally say something else to make Dr. Freem mad.
Flanking Darin, Gunner let loose another volley. "Hey, what did I say?" Darin demanded over the intercom. With that, he maneuvered into position between Gunner's ship and his commandeered pride and joy. He set the com to his own ship's frequency. "Hijacker, you will turn around and give me back that ship, or I will be forced to vaporize both of you."
Static. Either the guy had figured out how to turn it off, or broke it attempting to figure out how to turn it off. Probably in order to shut up his boss, he considered. He switched to the alternate com's frequency. Everything in these ships had a backup, even the ejector seats. Another byproduct of eccentric aliens. Sighing, he repeated himself, "Hijacker, turn around now, and give me back that ship, or I will be forced to atomize both of you."
"Both of me? I didn't know I was two people." Came the crackled response through his cabin.
So, this guy was being smart, he thought to himself. He couldn't possibly be blind, seeing the way he was dodging the blaster fire. "You do not have three strikes, buddy. And I'm not giving you a count down. If I don't see you turn that ship around right now, it'll be that last thing YOU see...yeah." He winced at that. He'd heard pathetic attempts at dark wit before, but he never thought he'd hear one from his own mouth. After an awkward silence in which he could barely make out the muffled sound of laughter through the com, he continued, "Those fighters behind me are getting impatient. I won't hold them back if one of them decides I'm taking too long."
Surprisingly, the stolen ship was turning back before he could even finish. And slowing down at that. Nothing like an enemy who follows orders...
Or uses those orders for his own agenda. A shockwave pushed his borrowed ship downward, and he was blinded by a bright streak. It's never good to be close to a hyperspace jump, especially a blind one. There's no telling which direction it will put them. Had it been a millimeter lower, the collision could quite possibly have caused a blast equal to a 20 Megaton nuclear explosion. After catching his breath, Darin smirked; complying with his orders had made his guys stop shooting long enough for him to set up the hyper-drive. But only if he had figured out the language within the time between stealing the ship and the conversation. Which meant he was either really smart, or built the ship. Since the people who built the ship were nitrogen breathing crab things, Darin was betting on the former. And considering his getaway method - a blind jump in a crowded area within a system beset with many planets - his sanity was probably not as ample as his intelligence.
"I'm on him, Dar!" Gunner called in.
"Gunner, N-" was all Darin had time to tell his friend. Turns out, my estimate for the explosive size of a hyperspace collision was a bit exaggerated, as only the lower half of the hulking science vessel was vaporized, which puts the destructive radius at a 10 Megaton equivalent. As you can imagine, Gunner's own attempt at a blind jump was not so lucky. And in the time it took you to read that previous sentence, everything from the hangar, to the lower observation decks near the middle, to the laboratory rooms in the furthest end were turned literally into dust and energy, which propelled the remaining top portion of the ship 'up' and out of orbit. Darin sat there stunned. Well, no. Stunned is what you feel when a holovid you think is going to suck turns out to actually be pretty good. To an observer, Darin would look more like a wax statue. Chances are, several necessary body functions stopped dead for a good second or two, and regardless of how well his vision was, he wasn't seeing anything at the moment. That's not stunned. That's 'I just watched everything I own, my career, and my closest friend get sacrificed for a 3.5 second lightshow' is what it is. And worse yet, poor Gunner hadn't even gotten a chance to be sufficiently developed as a character. So he can't even trust that you, the prime viewer, will care that he died. Luckily, at least Darin cares...so there, you uncaring bastard.
"Check the area for survivors." His voice was serial-killer calm, "NOW!" If the first order didn't scare them into complying, that eardrum breaker exclamatory sure did, because the whole team was out of his hair in less time than it usually took them to brush their teeth. Which is impressive when you consider that their idea of brushing their teeth is somewhat equivalent to someone else's idea of flashing a smile into the mirror.
He of course, had no intention of following his own advice. That was a micro-jump, he knew, so there was still a chance of catching up to him without resorting to cat-and-mouse. Darin wasn't one to hold a grudge, even against someone indirectly responsible for destroying his life and a pretty good day. But this was due to the fact that his aggressors never live long enough for the word 'grudge' to be warranted. The stars stretched to lines, his ship disappeared.
******
So here I am, little bits of ice-chunks bouncing off my stolen ship at the far end of a system in the far end of the outer rim, working frantically to decode a language I didn't know existed until five minutes ago. What makes it especially hard is that instead of a base-ten numbering system, they seem to have adopted a base-'designer hats' numbering system. Which looks cool an all, but isn't making this any easier. About two hours ago, I saw a cute little flash in the distance. Either I witnessed a supernova, or Sorosuub was testing the universe's largest flashlight. Either way, it was pretty awe-inspiring. Reminds ya that even with the final frontier closing up, one can find beauty in...every...thing... Dang. Talk about your sappy comments. Remind me not to go off on those kinds of tangents anymore.
One a brightish side, I can make out the alphabet now. Which is how I got out here in the middle of nowhere in the first place. Oh, and I figured out how to work the back-up com. Unfortunately, the only contact that responded to my SOS is that Jawa I'd found drunk in a cantina on some backwater planet with town names like "Boossdurn-Hapeeow'R". No help there. Looks like I might be forced to call the 'duo' if the next guy doesn't respond. As you can imagine, I'm a little nervous about that prospect. They're basically my final last resorts when my last resort accidentally kills my last, last resort and my last, last, last resort in a freak accident. Oy. Here's hoping I figure out hat-math.
...Oh look. Company already. Shavit.
-----signature-----
Rule 12: A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head. --- http://boards.theforce.net/b/b1/26481069 - The Wise http://boards.theforce.net/B/b1/21283317 - Planet Hopping
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_JM_
Registered:
Jun '01
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Date Posted:
3/13/04 8:59pm
Subject:
RE: On Yodimus
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Very enjoyable, I liked the switch in perspectives from first person to third. Quite a different style from most SW stories.
-----signature-----
Seeming unable to just say "Nice post, I enjoyed it"  Sometimes amazed at how "I'll reply tomorrow" becomes "I should have replied last week" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Return of a Jedi. http://boards.theforce.net/the_saga/b10476/23421597
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1Yodimus_Prime
Registered:
Mar '04
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Date Posted:
3/15/04 7:35pm
Subject:
RE: On Yodimus
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Hey, just to let my huge base of 1 readers know, i'll be updating around thursday or friday depending on how much progress i make. Oh, and if i get the chance to scan them, i'd like to try supplimenting this with a few illustrations now and then. I mean, drawing is what i do, might as well throw it into mix, right?
</end thinly veiled thread-bump>
-----signature-----
Rule 12: A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head. --- http://boards.theforce.net/b/b1/26481069 - The Wise http://boards.theforce.net/B/b1/21283317 - Planet Hopping
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VaderLVR64
Title: Fan Fic Manager Digging out from Fay
Registered:
Feb '04
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Date Posted:
3/15/04 7:41pm
Subject:
RE: On Yodimus
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I liked it! Very different from what I usually read, but so well done that I am just going to have to follow it! Great job, Yodimus.
-----signature-----
If you have to choose between tears and laughter, remember that laughter burns more calories.
They call me NANA Vader.
At least she doesn't lack confidence...
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1Yodimus_Prime
Registered:
Mar '04
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Date Posted:
3/15/04 8:03pm
Subject:
RE: On Yodimus
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Thanks, VaderL!
Yeah, it's got some weirdness to it, mostly because i'm just letting the characters run the show. I'm riding from the back here, they're driving the car. Them and the narrator, who is just as much a character and who still has more control over this thing than i do.
So every odd quirk or bizzare twist is just as suprising and strange to me when i write it as it will be for you to read it.
-----signature-----
Rule 12: A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head. --- http://boards.theforce.net/b/b1/26481069 - The Wise http://boards.theforce.net/B/b1/21283317 - Planet Hopping
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1Yodimus_Prime
Registered:
Mar '04
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Date Posted:
3/19/04 3:37pm
Subject:
RE: On Yodimus [strongbad]Over'd![/strongbad]
- Date Edited:
12/3/04 5:48pm (4 edits total)
Edited By:
1Yodimus_Prime
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Alrighty! 'nuther update
******************************
According to the good Doctor's notes from his third field study, on Vortex, there is a rarely seen creature called a Jusdi. Rarely seen because they are found only in the rocky southern areas, where there dwells a sect of Vors whose religion includes a certain tradition. In both ritualistic respect, and the general need to not die; they will fill with meat then cover the holes of the Jusdi's home. The reason is, before this ritual, the Jusdi was the most deadly animal known. Not one of the most, not pretty much the most, THE most. The Jusdi has no respiration system for reasons unknown even to Dr. Freem so lack of air is no obstacle, they're capable of sprinting to upwards of 80 km/hr, have top-of-the-line senses ranging from three levels of radiation detection and electrical detection to your basic sound wave detection, or in other words, really good hearing and eyesight according to the less pretentious sort. But all this could be found in anything if genetically engineered correctly. What makes the Jusdi interesting is it doesn't give up. Ever. If it decides you're going to be its next meal, you could travel yourself to Tatooine all you want, but come back 30 years later for your wallet, and you'll meet the same Jusdi, just as ready to eat you as it was the first day. Doesn't even matter that it has eaten 30 years of meals since you left, or even that it has a huge piece of food right in front of it. If you were marked, you die.
Darin, as he searched back and forth maddeningly in an endless series of micro-jumps across and through the system, would appear to the average Vor from the rocky southern regions, to be exhibiting traits disturbingly similar to that of a Jusdi. 'Jusdish', they would say. Or possibly not, it would be too early to tell for them being of the patient sort, and since that is a word given to someone who has let his need for vengeance take him over completely. Which one would suppose takes some time to do. Plus they wouldn't use the suffix '-ish'. In their language it would be '-sert' according to Dr. Freem's excellent notes on the subject.
The latest jump had proved most successful. His ship, his prey, lay directly before him now. There was no way to see within the cockpit, with the tinting, but Darin could just imagine his nemesis looking up from the input screen and becoming shocked to find another ship flying straight at him.
Yodimus looked up from another go at working out how to type in coordinates into the input screen. It bothered him that subtracting a symbol from itself did not always equal zero, as he felt that had to violate several basic mathematical laws. His frustration drained into shock as he found himself watching a ship, similar to the one he was in, flying straight toward him and closing in a bit too quickly for comfort. "Oh look, company already." He commented, and then mumbled something. In as much of a hurry as one in shock can muster, he hurried his hands to the controls. All the while, the psycho in front of him got exponentially bigger. A quick bank pulled him away from the runaway ship's attempt at collision. Had Yodimus looked up only a millisecond later, he would have been able to confirm whether he had won a bet he placed with a Gran on Nar Shaddaa that the afterlife is controlled by a nerdy 8-armed sea cucumber with a runny nose...nothing like becoming ten credits richer post-mortem, eh?
The aggressor was apparently angry, because instead of just being nice and opening fire at this point, he decided to turn around for yet another try at ramming him. Yodimus on the other hand, decided the other guy just needed to learn from example, and went all 'nice' on the hull of his ship. Fortunately for the aggressor, his shields were strong and the initial volley of fire only succeeded at forcing the guy to back down. But not for long and, just as Yodimus suspected, took the example to heart and shot back.
In the frenzy of the dogfight, as his eyes searched the other ship for weaknesses, as he compiled an idea of his opponent's flying and fighting styles, as he thought about where the next closest planet was, and as he pondered the deeper philosophical ideas on why ‘Blue’ and ‘Red’ are the only colors that are also homonyms, Yodimus got an epiphany.
There is no way to know where he got this epiphany, since most keep no records of where they've gone and don't come with a return address. And there is no way to know why it decided to come to Yodimus of all people, and now of all times. But it did, and it happened right as he looked down to check his damage readings. His eyes chanced to glance upon the input screen, and low and behold the key stared back at him. Or at least that's what he'd tell you for dramatic effect. In fact, it, like most input screens, had no eyes in which to stare at anything. Which, it has been found, can make them rather depressed. In fact, engineers have recently discovered that they have a higher chance of crashing if you type in too much visual description. Nevertheless, it WAS there.
Three characters: a top hat, subtracted by another top hat, and what he had assumed was another random symbol, a derby this time. But what he hadn't seen before, and probably should have missed this time too, what with the arbitrary glance it had been given, was a little square in the lower-left corner of the derby. It was enough to nearly fly himself right into his attacker. Which would have been a cool, ironic way to die, although Yodimus was always one for keeping 'death' and 'Yodimus' and even 'cool' from being placed into an obituary. (You'd be surprised just how often a holonet obituary editor will use 'cool' to keep their death craving demographic entertained) So he jolted the ship up, and felt the shields knock into each other as they passed by.
"Jeez, you'd think he would attempt to dodge at least once. He acts like he has some personal connection to this stupid ship or something." He commented as the hull shook. The irony of his own statement, of course, would be wasted had you, the viewer, not read it, since even he didn't know Darin actually did have a personal connection to that ship. For that reason alone, I left this comment in.
He looked back down at the screen. Typed in another 'x-x' equation to make sure, and just as suspected, a random symbol came up which included a tiny square in the lower left. Soon he was writing down other decrypted numbers, and in the time it took his opponent to bank he had 7 of 10 digits. And for the place he was thinking about, that seemed like enough.
Darin had been waiting for it, but not so soon. He stared at the spot the hijacker had occupied only moments before, "More of a coward than I'd expected." Luckily, he was already tracking the possible coordinates. The jump probably wouldn't be far, and there were only so many planets to choose from this far out. He smirked, "Like chasing a Backshin onto a glacier."
**********
Being the 3rd Person Narrator that I am, I get to know nifty little trivia about people that no one else is supposed to know. I don't know why anybody could be so stupid as to just give me this kind of information, but I'm not complaining. One little piece of trivia it is possible you are wondering about is Darin's comment just a few seconds ago. Well, I happen to know exactly what a Backshin is and why it is comparable to a medium-sized, square, metal ship. You see, before Darin ever went to work for the good doctor, he ran contraband to and from a planet called Vinsoth. Vinsoth is your average run-of-the-mill temperate-climate-based planet, with nothing special really going for it. That is if you exclude the fact that its native inhabitants include a race of elephant people and purple humanoids, and that it has a gigantic crater on one side. And we are. On this planet there exists an average-sized mammal, which also got the short end of the Interesting Stick. It is called, of course, a Backshin. But there is one neat thing about the Backshin - it has no traction. Zero. None. Couldn't stand on glue. But it's not surprising. I mean, if you lived your whole life on the firm ground of some meadow, you wouldn't evolve traction either. This little 'did-you-know' makes them an easy target in the northern regions of the planet where icy glaciers cut through said meadows, making it insanely easy to catch these tasty little creatures in a hunt. So Darin picked up on this common phrase, which had even become popular in the southern regions if for no other reason than because it's fun to say. Whew! Long paragraph, eh? And not a single word is pertinent to the story. And THAT is why it was stupid to give me all this information.
***********
The planet that came finally into view was Anobis. While there is a great more to say about Anobis than...oh, Vinsoth, it was in general a pretty normal place to be. That is, if you can tolerate the plethora of gangs who practically run the place. One great thing about Anobis that made it an easy world for Yodimus to hide out on was the big-freakin civil war that had gone on down there. For twenty-five years the war had drained the wealth of both sides until, when it finally ended for reasons unknown, the entire population had the combined riches of an anti-social Jawa. To a layman, such a society at first glance would be worthless to a salesman. But, to further the Jawa comparison, they also had the inventory. So, to a salesman it's a golden opportunity. No money, and lots of goods, means cheap goods. So, with the help of a few decently acted schpeels, Yodimus had practically become an economic god to the Anobians.
Yodimus entered Anobis space, "Ok, who's the sorry excuse for Bantha excrement waking me up?" crackled the dull, angered command from the backup com.
"Yodeling Palm, requesting clearance to land." He loved that one, so it was only right it should be used for such a cool group of people. And make no mistake; Yodimus truly did like these people. They were amoral, scheming bastards. Or as Yodimus would say: "And by the way, you guys are still the most hilarious people this side of the galaxy."
"Welcome back, Yod! How's the business been?"
"Been holding up, and who do I have the pleasure of being landed by?"
"You can't recognize me? I'm Donuld Theeuf, you deaf moron!" Now, there are a few things that anyone who wants to be a traveling anything has to learn. One of those things is how to remember names. It had been nearly a year since he even set foot on this planet, let alone talk with anyone on it. With all that, Yodimus still recognized that name instantly, or more instantly than the average name would come. The reason for such an immediate recollection, and the sinking feeling he got upon hearing it, will be explained in due time.
The landing was short and sweet. No need for formalities when dealing with planets lacking the concept of bureaucracy. Most of the planet was scattered with huge slum-cities, ruins, and the scorched earth of un-tread battlefields; so it wasn't hard to pick out the decently kept landing bay anyways. It also wasn't hard for Yodimus to decide where to go after landing either. If Don was here, that meant his brother was nearby, and since no other contacts were available at the moment, it looked like he was going to have to rely on his final last resorts after all.
Donald Theeuf exited the turbolift that lead to ground control. Him and quite possibly the entire staff. It's a pretty heady thing, being a celebrity to an entire planet. It's no 'Luke Skywalker' renown, but it really doesn't have to be. There are still about a billion people who know the name Yodeling Palm, and that's enough for Yodim- I mean, him.
Once the initial bewilderment concerning how they were able to fit thirty people into what looked like a two-person turbolift subsided, the salesman flashed his flashiest smile and shook people's hands in welcome. Finally, he reached Donald, who offered a general greeting and continued, "Now where in the unholy abysses of space have you been poopin around?"
"Oh the basic places. I recently took up the task of looking for the scummiest place in the galaxy...which is why I came here." The two laughed and walked by the main hangar, where two ship captains could be seen arguing over who really had the first spot. The first spot contained two ships, one directly on top of the other, "Hey that reminds me, the ship I flew in on isn't exactly clean, if you know what I mean. Would you mind getting it out of sight for me?"
"Sure! No problem, man, " he waved off several of the other employees to do the job, "how's about we go on down and I treat you to an Anobis Blaster, eh?"
"Sounds...great." Yodimus hated Anobis Blasters. They were created for the single purpose of getting plastered beyond repair. A state no salesman would ever be caught in, lest his own scam backfire. And it had precedent - four years ago, Yodimus let himself go at your average seedy bar while trying to sell a fusion-powered toaster. He came to 12 hours later in a back alley, holding the deed to Darth Vader's super star destroyer, the remains of which had been orbiting the remains of the second Death Star orbiting Endor for two years; and 800 credits poorer. "How bout I pass. Now, what I want to know is how in a Sith's black fate you got to be ground controller?"
"Heh heh, well let me tell YOU..."
Well, he told him. He told how six months ago he got a job in the docking bay when one of their more irritable employees got a bit too rude with the wrong angry gangster. And how he then worked he way up, blah, blah, hard work, dedication, blah blah, cleverly placed blackmail, blah blah blah. By the time Donuld had finished his idea of an interesting tale, they had reached the stockroom. Or more like ‘quote, stockroom, unquote’ since it was actually just a beach with a ton of abandoned war machines scattered about the sand. But it went on for miles, so Yodimus wasn’t complaining.
“So, you need anything specific for your clients?” Donuld inquired. As if he had any say at all on what Yodimus could and couldn’t take.
“Well, like I said, business has been dry lately. I mean, it really isn’t that easy to deal with worlds who actually need devices of this size, you know?” Donuld looked at him questioningly, “Ok, that and the fact that ninety percent of this stuff is junk. Look, I’ll take a look, but I pretty much know what you have, and I’d rather find a place to lay low. You know, somewhere slightly
less open?” he gestured around at the long beach and clear sky.
“Ah. Right. I do know of this nice little place right next to that bar I was going to take you to.” Yodimus rolled his eyes, but followed anyway.
About a due time's distance away, in your average seedy bar, two natives were doing their best to enrage every single customer and were enjoying every minute of it. Even a quick glance is enough to tell us these two are attention-getters. They're surrounded by the largest and rowdiest crowd, have the loudest voices, and are standing on the tallest chairs. Sporting a flight-suit and a goatee, minus the mustache, the thinner and wirier of the two showed off two large glasses each filled with a strong mix of Correllian whiskey and Huttese beer. His better-built counterpart, wearing the same kind of goatee and flight-suit, was loudly updating those just joining in on what was up.
"Bets start at 300 credits, who ever can take this fool in a drinking challenge need only step forward!" the thinner one had been out-drinking the bar's whole population for the past hour and had yet to show any signs of slowing.
"C'mon! I gotta stop some time, right? Right??" came the thin one's gestural demand, which prompted a Gran to sit in front of him. If you didn't know any better, you'd swear these two pilots were fraternal twins. They almost looked completely alike, they carried themselves with the same laid-back-bounce, and had equally poor taste in clothes. What absolutely nobody there knew was that not only were they not related, but the only time they ever got along was when they were drunk, and because they had to be around each other so much, it took them a long time to get drunk. It was a little fact a certain Gran just now learned as he fell out of his seat, plastered. Unfortunately for these two pilots, Grans make for angry drunks. That combined with knowing he just lost 300 credits and who can blame him for attempting to power-drive the thin guy's head. Had it not been for his energetic motion and a good amount of luck, his neck would have been feeling a cool draft just then. Taking a cue from the three-eyed giant, several pissed-off looking blasters were drawn from a now even more rowdy bar crowd.
"Hey bartender! Put this on our tab!" the thin one's friend yelled over the shouting.
Miraculously, the barkeep heard him, "Under what names?" he shouted back.
"I'm Mellinworth, and the little guy is Rybinstall!" He screamed as he dodged bolts of drunkenly aimed plasma. Pulling the wirey Rybinstall, the two made a speedy exit into the evening. "That went unusually well, wouldn't you say?"
"Yeah, I was surprised how calmly they responded at that bar. We should go back sometime." On a normal occasion, they would have continued the conversation in this way for approximately three more seconds before an argument broke out, which would develop into a shouting match, and finally blossom into a full out girly-slap fest complete with high-pitched “ow”s when conact is made. Fortunately…or unfortunately if you really wanted to see that…this particular conversation was interupted by Mellinworth’s brother.
“Oh. Didn’t think you two’d still be here.” Donuld Theeuf said abruptly. Standing next to him, Yodimus had been fake-listening intently to Don’s ideas on filming blaster bolts in super-slow-motion and was at first very pleased to be on a different subject. Then the exact opposite when he realized what that subject was.
“Yod, this is my brother Mellinworth Theeuf, and his associate Rybinstall, um…Rybinstall..?”
“Uhm…It’s Rybinstall…Ssssssomething… You know what? Rybinstall’s fine.” Rybinstall replied.
“Oh that’s ok. We’ve met.” Yodimus explained calmly. In his mind though, he was going over what exactly he had done in the past year to possibly deserve this.
“Wonderful! Then you three can catch up, I’ve got a date with an Anubis Blaster to keep.” Said Donuld, and left about as excited as Yodimus wasn’t.
“Listen-“ Yodimus began. He intended to calmly explain that he did not wish to ‘catch up’, nor did he want to be anywhere near their general vicinity. Of course, Mellinworth had to interupt that.
“YODE! Where’ve you been the last year? Haven’t seen you around!”
“Well, I am a travelling salesman.”
“But you NEVER visit Anobis!”
“Would you have been here?”
It took Mellinworth a second to decide. “Nope. We’ve been transporting people around the backwaters. The business started kinda shakey cuz our customers kept dying before we got their payments you know? But then we figured out how to tell them to pay in advance and everything pretty much worked itself out from there. Right?”
“That’s-“ Yodimus attempted.
“Yep, that’s pretty much what we’ve been doin lately. Really puttin a number on our ship though.” Rybinstall replied.
“Wonderful, but-“ Yodimus started in vain.
“So what have you been doin, have any of those things you sold us that one time with those sensors and whatnot still lying around? My last one broke, I think its transponder was loose and well it pretty much fell off and I know it wasn’t the battery acid cuz the bucket was a big metal one. You know, those big acid-holding metal buckets? Yeah, one of those. So, you got any?”
Yodimus was completely baffled at that one. It wasn’t a cleverly constructed schpeel created to confuse the listener into agreeing. No, not in any sense of the phrase. It was just its mind-boggling stupidity that left Yodimus speechless. “Uh…” and “Wha…?” were the two best responses that came to mind. It was crap like this that made these two so annoying to Yodimus. He hated talking to them because of what they said, and he hated being around them because of the stupid stuff they did. They were the “Duo” to Yodimus. The two biggest mistakes in the galaxy. The least they could do is buy something. As Yodimus tried without luck to respond to Mellinworth’s question, which the two were still waiting for an answer to, the repercussions of one of those stupid things they had done were headed in their direction.
The disturbing combination of yelling and blaster fire was slowly getting closer. At first, Yodimus just assumed it was a local gang fight, or that the civil war had merely started up again. But lo and behold, the words “Two” and “Idiots” could be heard quite clearly in the ruckus.
“What in a Sith’s oblivion do you two do?”
They looked at eachother, Mellinworth responded, “Well…it wasn’t our fault.”
“Yeah! They knew the rules!” Rybinstall jumped in.
“To what?” Yodimus was rubbing his temples at this point. His question was left unanswered unfortunately, because at that moment the mob decided to stop shooting randomly and actually aim. A blaster bolt wizzed by Mellinworth’s head.
“RUN!” it was only thing since Yodimus had first met their aquainence a whole decade ago that resembled any form of sense. The kind of command that comes with experience. He complied immediately.
About ten seconds later, they were booking it in the entirely opposite direction away from a psycho with an undersized vest and an oversized gun.
-----signature-----
Rule 12: A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head. --- http://boards.theforce.net/b/b1/26481069 - The Wise http://boards.theforce.net/B/b1/21283317 - Planet Hopping
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1Yodimus_Prime
Registered:
Mar '04
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Date Posted:
3/22/04 8:58pm
Subject:
RE: On Yodimus (updated: March,19th)
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Eeaaah, i don't think i'm gonna update this week. I need to work on other things or i find i lose perspective. Can't have perspective being lost, now can we? Last thing anybody wants is to have the story suddenly switch to the pov of a ship's toaster without any warning. Eegh, scary.
Look for something new next week though.
-----signature-----
Rule 12: A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head. --- http://boards.theforce.net/b/b1/26481069 - The Wise http://boards.theforce.net/B/b1/21283317 - Planet Hopping
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1Yodimus_Prime
Registered:
Mar '04
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Date Posted:
3/24/04 6:36pm
Subject:
RE: On Yodimus (updated: March,19th)
- Date Edited:
3/29/04 8:17pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
1Yodimus_Prime
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-bumped like the ground of a speed-anal parking lot.-
-----signature-----
Rule 12: A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head. --- http://boards.theforce.net/b/b1/26481069 - The Wise http://boards.theforce.net/B/b1/21283317 - Planet Hopping
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1Yodimus_Prime
Registered:
Mar '04
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Date Posted:
3/29/04 8:20pm
Subject:
RE: On Yodimus (updated: March,19th)
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<Bump>
I am shameless.
Oh yeah, sometime this week, i'm gonna try to post some of the illustrations i have for this thing. Anybody know a good free hosting site??
Anyone?
Bueller? Bueller?
-----signature-----
Rule 12: A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head. --- http://boards.theforce.net/b/b1/26481069 - The Wise http://boards.theforce.net/B/b1/21283317 - Planet Hopping
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1Yodimus_Prime
Registered:
Mar '04
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Date Posted:
4/3/04 3:33pm
Subject:
RE: On Yodimus (updated: March,19th)
- Date Edited:
9/17/04 7:26pm (4 edits total)
Edited By:
1Yodimus_Prime
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[EDIT] overextended my welcome on the picture hosting site. Too lazy to do that over. I'll get around to reposting the pictures when i have better versions to show. Whenever that will be. [/EDIT]
-----signature-----
Rule 12: A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head. --- http://boards.theforce.net/b/b1/26481069 - The Wise http://boards.theforce.net/B/b1/21283317 - Planet Hopping
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Alion_Sangre
Registered:
Dec '01
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Date Posted:
4/7/04 6:11pm
Subject:
RE: On Yodimus (ILLUSTRATED as of April 3rd)
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*thwack*
Surface already. The boards need more insanity 
-----signature-----
BEWARE OF STRESSED NERD
Now POSTING: Halberd Squadron - see profile for link.
"Gratuitous acts of senseless violence are MY forte!"
I've become intolerant of stupidity in my old age. 
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1Yodimus_Prime
Registered:
Mar '04
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Date Posted:
4/11/04 7:59pm
Subject:
RE: On Yodimus (ILLUSTRATED as of April 3rd)
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ok.
the next time i update. Whenever that will be, I'm gonna PM everyone who has responded to this thread to let them know. That way someone will at least know i've updated, even if there isn't a response.
We'll see how that works.
-----signature-----
Rule 12: A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head. --- http://boards.theforce.net/b/b1/26481069 - The Wise http://boards.theforce.net/B/b1/21283317 - Planet Hopping
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1Yodimus_Prime
Registered:
Mar '04
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Date Posted:
4/15/04 8:27pm
Subject:
RE: On Yodimus (ILLUSTRATED as of April 3rd)
- Date Edited:
4/24/04 6:23pm (4 edits total)
Edited By:
1Yodimus_Prime
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Ides of April Update. woohaa!
------------------------------------------
Darin had actually gotten to Anobis practically right after Yodimus. He even watched his poor stolen ship as it docked. He then landed himself in a clearing outside the city and listened in on open comlinks to find out where his enemy was off to. It surprised him to learn that this guy was actually some kind of celebrity there.
Before long, every frequency he turned to had some mention of a so-called ‘Yodeling Palm’. “Yodeling Palm’s greeting everyone at the docking bay, get over there now!” “Yodeling Palm’s inspecting the ‘stock room’, full report in twenty.” “Yodeling Palm, what’s with the name? I’ll give you the lowdown at nine!” And so on. They got stranger from there. It made Darin uncomfortable. Sure he could track him easily, but then what? If anyone at all chanced to see Darin kill this guy, he’d be dead too. It was a lose-lose situation. So he fell into deep thought for a couple hours and decided he had, in fact, nothing to lose, which technically made it a tie situation, and he felt a little better.
Turning around to look behind the seat, Darin was surprised to see such a large pile of huge weapons. It occurred to him just then that the scrawny guy with the big nose he picked at random just happened to be their munitions expert.
“Heh, well I’ll be damned.” He pulled out a nasty looking number from the back about half his height and a quarter his weight, sleek and spiky on the ends with a black sheen that stared straight into your soul. And into Darin’s soul, Darin saw the image of that scrawny, long-nosed man who once flew that very ship, and was now a few of the many millions of vaporized ship-bits orbiting Vortex. Darin, Darin realized, was indirectly responsible for that man’s death simply by choosing him at random.
Thinking of death caused him to think of Gunner. He spaced out for a second, staring into the mussel of that gun. Darin’s line was blurring, the one he used to separate himself from the lowlifes he tracked down. Darin was technically just as responsible for that scrawny guy’s death as his ship-thief was responsible for Gunner’s.
A strong exhale cleared his mind. No, there was a difference. That Yodeling-whatever was wrong in what he did. And now there would be payment.
“So, what is UP with Yodeling Palm’s whacked up name, Bleck? You claim that you got some hefty lowdown in this department.” It was the local station again, back from some commercial break about the awesomeness of poison-dart guns.
“Yeh, some facty-oids I picked up myself while beating the crap outta this guy who landed his junkheap on top’a my ship. See, I followed him some ways as he were talkin to this goofy guy with an annoying voice…” The voice was probably one of a spacer’s. Even more probably a gruff one. Absolutely a drunk one.
“Whoa, whoa. Hold up there. You just said you heard it while beatin the snot out of some guy, now you’re implying it was after?” This banter continued for a short bit. Darin became mildly interested, since it gave him something to distract his mind with. Anyway, the spacer could end up giving away the ship thief’s position.
“Nah, nah. First I saw him pass by, THEN I dropped th’ bum I was punchin and ran on after. I’m jus workin in two different chronologies at once, cuz I’m just that cool!” Ok, it was possible that listening to this for too long could make him even more angsty and suicidal. Still, he waited, if impatiently, for some kind of fact to surface out of the inanity. Because I’m lazy and don’t feel like talking about the reverie he has or start a subplot about the little hopping spider-mammal he notices across the swampy plane, I’m going to just skip to the point.
“…When he got to that bar. Y’know, the one on Lander’s Avenue?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, when they got there he started sayin how his name comes from how in ancient times the natives would take a palm leaf, stick it in their-“ fsssht
“Good. Lander’s Avenue. I can start there.” Said Darin, cutting off the com. He opened the cockpit and jumped down onto the low brush and soft earth, and made for the city.
Moving forward in time to where we were, then back a few steps, The small group, led by Mellinworth, pounded ground frantically away from the angry drunken mass. Each second, they gained more and more positive acceleration, motivated by the ever more accurate blaster shots. Confidence began to build. Determination began to strengthen. Hope began to expand to proportions never experienced before by people being chased by an angry mob. Nothing could stop them. Nothing in nearly the whole universe, save the Sun crusher and the Death Star teaming up or…
Yeah, or a cannon-toting madman.
They all at once screeched to an abrupt halt, the only thing dropping faster than their acceleration was their hope. Their jaws, making a valiant effort, came in a close third. Before them was mounted a shadow. A bellowing, nostril-flaring, muscle-through-unnecessarily-tight-fabric-flexing, pissed-off shadow. On that empty, dirty street, backlit by the glaring lights of the docking port, which was not too far off and straight before them, he was at once as dark as the expanse of open space and as solid as the thick duracrete walls that held up the dead buildings which were making it so difficult to choose more than two directions.
In his left hand he harshly squeezed the handle of a long rectangular shape, actually cylindrical but flattened by the backlight, cut at mind-boggling angles by vicious lines and screwing with their eyes by reflecting on its black, shiny skin an intense light whose source you would swear up and down did not actually exist.
It was completely unfamiliar, save for a smaller rectangle shape, tapering just slightly inward as it went down and cut across on one side at an angle – the silhouette of a targeting scope – which betrayed its purpose to Yodimus before the shadow cut to the chase and started lifting the weapon. Before he was even halfway up, the salesman was already dragging the duo back toward the mob.
“Are you nuts, man? That’s the wrong way!” cried Rybinstall.
“No, no. THAT is. Trust me and get up.” Yodimus ordered. There was no question who was going to run this operation. These two, left to their own devices, would inevitably find the solution most likely to include the collapse of half the city and definitely also the docking port. Yodimus didn’t really care at this point if he left the planet alive, just as long as he left.
As the two were regaining a running balance, it began to get extremely windy. An odd thing when there wasn’t even a whispering leaf moments ago. Yodimus felt something drop in his stomach, which meant on instinct the wind was a bad thing. Plus it was going in the direction of the shadowy dude. A worse thing.
The street had been constructed over a shallow hill, and the drunken mob had just reached the summit and were now in full view as the wind picked up to a holler. They were determined to be louder as they screamed almost enough expletives to write a rap song with.
“SHIP THIEF” Darin was sure as a Sith went to Hell he would never use that guy’s poodoo-assed nickname, “YOU DO NOT GET A WARNING SHOT; I WILL NOT COUNT TO THREE!” (They’re not just loud capital letters, they’re loud and echoey capital letters)
Sixty yards away, Yodimus heard the bellowing madman over even the crazed bar crowd. His yell would most certainly be impressive on any average day, sure, but when he stood in that hyper reverberating half-tunnel of a quasi-abandoned main street boulevard, where even a Duck’s quack could echo, no human on that hemisphere of the planet missed his warning.
Yodimus had made the connection by now, of course. There was only a tiny doubt it was the ship’s owner when they had first skidded before him, but now that he basically paraphrased his previous warning, case was closed, “Hoo boy, I’m screwed.” With a nice little adrenaline rush, he gripped the two spacers’ shoulders and sprinted headlong for the mob, screaming his lungs out the whole way.
“Uh-uh, Yod-d?” Mellinworth tried to ask why in the galaxy they were sprinting headlong toward the mob like children after an ice cream truck, but the bouncing caused by his awkward attempts to regain his balance during a full run made it too difficult.
The mob, if they had been in the same sort of inquiring mood, would have posed the same question. Instead, they successfully played their parts as mindless drunks and stared stupidly at the crazies running toward them.
…Who then ran past them, shot past the street corner, cut to the left at a rubber-burning angle, and finally disappeared into a building and out of sight. The crowd, being visually, as well as mentally, impaired from the ridiculous amounts of alcohol they had consumed earlier, assumed in the darkness that the three bits of prey had continued running straight. So they, doing a horrible job of taking this sentence literally, ran straight after them.
Five seconds later, they were reduced to dust bunnies. This was preceded a good two seconds earlier by an abrupt stoppage of the wind with an excruciatingly loud “FUMP,” the likes of which one might compare to a cork thumping into the opening of a vacuum cleaner but on a much higher decibel level. Immediately following, was a solid beam of green pulsating light. It’s circumference you can demonstrate yourself by making a half-circle out of your arms, then imagining someone doing the same, standing opposite you. That is, unless you’re a little green midget. We apologize to any little green midgets in the audience if they feel discriminated against. There is nothing we can do.
After making its very serious way through the entire drunken congregation, the beam of bright gamma-green dazzling death continued in a geometrically straight line off the planet where it eventually dissipated somewhere between the surface and the nearest moon, stopping only for a moment to incinerate a duck who was haplessly standing a couple blocks down, practicing its echo.
Cautiously, timidly, two frightened and shuddering heads slowly rose at an angle from the doorway. They were the freaked out heads of Mellinworth and Rybinstall, who became more astonished and less freaked out when they finally found the courage to open their eyes and look at the aftermath. Just down a small ways, piles of ash swayed drunkenly in the breeze. Even further down, they could make out the shadow, which was now walking this way, looking to and fro. Searching. He still held the gun, but much more distantly and kept his hands nowhere near the location of the trigger. As he drew closer, his facial expression, as hard as it was to believe, seemed to match Mellinworth’s and Rybinstall’s.
Mellinworth turned around, expecting to tell this to ole’ Yod. But Yod wasn’t there. Worried, he turned instead to Rybinstall, “Hey, I think we’re missing a head.”
Rybinstall fell into deep thought for a second, he patted his face, and then he patted Mellinworth’s face, “Nope. All our heads are here,” he concluded, smiling confidently.
“Missing. Body.” Mellinworth patiently explained, enunciating each word carefully. Rybinstall looked down at his chest, confused. “Forget it.” Sighed the other, and spun around to peer back into the building.
Yodimus was in the corner of the dusty shop, chowing down, “Food! Is it safe food?” he asked the salesman.
“Best possible food. Look.” He pointed with his spoon toward the clear plastic cup he held, smudges of chocolate laced the insides. Mellinworth held his blankly expectant expression, Yodimus rolled his eyes. He pointed, again with the spoon, to the counter where a board sat, quietly proclaiming how buying two packs of pudding gave you a third for half-price and that this was somehow a deal of a lifetime. Mellinworth mouthed an “Ohhhhh!” and eased back into the shop, taking a seat next to Yodimus at the corner table.
“It’s probably what put ‘em out of business.”
“Hm?” Mellinworth took a couple unopened pudding containers out of the worn packaging.
“The sale,” Yod pointed, still using the spoon, back over toward the board, “Nobody ever wants to buy three of anything. You’re lucky to get people to buy a two of the same, and then only if it’s free or at least half-off. Telling a customer they not only have to make a commitment, but a second commitment as well, just to get a deal, man that’s asking a bit much.”
“Oh. But…that doesn’t matter to us, ‘cause we get it for free.”
“I’m just noting that this kind of thing is probably why we CAN eat it for free.”
“…I thought that was why it was a rip-off?”
“No no no…well, yes, but not…” He paused, took a breath, and thought about how to explain advanced economics in idiot speak “Look…” He paused again, took a breath, and this time thought about the logic of the whole situation. He looked at the doorway. Mellinworth’s partner was gone. The outside street was eerily quiet, his eyes widened as it finally clicked. He looked down at his pudding, “Damn you! Clouded my judgment again!”
Grabbing Mellinworth, Yodimus bolted back outside, slid to a halt right at the center of the street, and spun around in several directions to make sure they were alone. Mellinworth flopped around beside him, his arm caught in Yod’s mousetrap of a grip, then yelped wildly as Yodimus launched forward, toward the ship dock.
“But Yod!” Mellinworth cried desperately, “What does this have to do with pudding?!”
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Rule 12: A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head. --- http://boards.theforce.net/b/b1/26481069 - The Wise http://boards.theforce.net/B/b1/21283317 - Planet Hopping
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1Yodimus_Prime
Registered:
Mar '04
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Date Posted:
4/21/04 6:01pm
Subject:
RE: On Yodimus (Illustrated) Upate as of April 15th)
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Since i'm unable to update this week, here's a little 'bump' to keep this thing from wallowing forever in the depths of the forums:
<bump>
there.
-----signature-----
Rule 12: A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head. --- http://boards.theforce.net/b/b1/26481069 - The Wise http://boards.theforce.net/B/b1/21283317 - Planet Hopping
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_JM_
Registered:
Jun '01
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Date Posted:
4/22/04 6:05am
Subject:
RE: On Yodimus (Illustrated) Upate as of April 15th)
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Still surreal, and that is a bloody big gun. I hope that the local bars don’t have too much of a slump in their takings now so many customers have been converted to ash.
Feel sorry for the duck.
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Seeming unable to just say "Nice post, I enjoyed it" Sometimes amazed at how "I'll reply tomorrow" becomes "I should have replied last week" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Return of a Jedi. http://boards.theforce.net/the_saga/b10476/23421597
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1Yodimus_Prime
Registered:
Mar '04
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Date Posted:
4/23/04 8:39pm
Subject:
RE: On Yodimus (Illustrated) Upate as of April 15th)
- Date Edited:
4/23/04 8:44pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
1Yodimus_Prime
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JM: "Still surreal"
Hopefully, it'll stay that way. 
And don't mourn the duck. He made the choices in life that got him where he was, on an abandoned boulevard within the mean streets of that god-forsaken city. For all we know the bird was steeped in amoral activity, selling quack on the corner to kids or something. If not, well, he'll be with us in spirit.
At the moment, i'm working on filling this annoying gap between what i've already posted and the next scene, which is actually going to be the scene after the next scene. It may not be up next week, though, cuz that's when hell week starts for the musical i'm in.
"A funny thing happened on the way to the forum"
But after that's over, it should be good to go.
-----signature-----
Rule 12: A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head. --- http://boards.theforce.net/b/b1/26481069 - The Wise http://boards.theforce.net/B/b1/21283317 - Planet Hopping
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