Chapter 6: Three Men and a Garland ---------------------------------- Garland sat on the bench in the alley. He was examining his sword and helm disconsolately, when he became aware of three figures approaching him from the shadows. Two were quite large, and the other was quite not-so-large. The not-so-large one spoke. "Weeeeeeeelll well. What have we here?" "Leave me in peace..." Garland said quietly. "No!" the small one in the trench coat snapped. "I don't wanna. I was actually thinkin' of robbin' ya. So, unless ya wanna get trashed, hand over all yer precious metals!" "Precious...?" Garland trailed off. He drew his sword menacingly. "It used to be precious!" "Yah!" the rotund one cried. "Get him, boys!" The two large men came forward. They seemed to have not a drop of intelligence behind their actions. They approached Garland, but seemed to hesitate when he didn't back down. A few passing pedestrians stopped to see what would happen to the man in purple with the dirty sword. "Don't make us hurt ya..." a hulk said. "Ya, er yu'll be sorry..." the other added. Garland spun his Light Sword on his index finger carelessly. Standing confidently, he tried to stifle a false yawn. As the two men drew closer, he produced a pen and soggy paper and proceeded to write a letter to Santa Claus. Once that was finished, he took a submarine sandwich which had truly lived up to its name out of his pocket and proceeded to eat it in a way that was surprisingly intimidating. All this made one of the tall men so angry, he wheeled back and threw a monster punch. Garland stopped the man's hand, took hold of his arm, and threw him against a wall, knocking him out. "Hey, come look!" a watching boy called. "Street performers!" The second large man began to back away from Garland. "Whatsa matter?" Garland asked, smirking. "H-h-hey man, we don't fight! We just scare people a bit!" the man said nervously. "I wasn't gonna hit ya er nothin'..." He continued to back off, as he saw his fallen comrade begin to slide down the wall. "Heh heh heh." Garland laughed. "Now witness my secret technique!" He held out his sword and twirled it in the air. As he caught the hilt, he shouted, "Haxtio Ronefxt Amakxsa Ardafxt!" This, as previously noted, roughly translates into "Honey Muffin Cocoa Butter." Brilliant light flowed from the blade in the general direction of his enemy. "GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" the large man screamed as the light streamed toward him. As the light cleared, the man was seen running down the alley in the direction from whence he came. A large crowd of townspeople applauded. "He's amazing!" "He's astonishing!" "He's... SUPERMAAAAAAAAN!" "No he isn't..." "He's not?" "Well, I suppose he could be..." * - * - * Meanwhile, at The Albrook Suites Hotel, the fiends were having one hell of a fight. Well, not really. They were actually trying to decide why it wasn't their fault that Garland did the sort of storming that generally took him out the door. Just when Kary was saying she had a right to be scared of others sleeping with her, they all became aware of the noise outside. "What's that?" said Kary, interrupting herself. "Let's go see, shall we?" Lich said. "I hope Master isn't in trouble again..." Kraken said. The fiends all piled downstairs to the lobby, and would've made it, but they all got stuck. Then they tried it single file. Much better. Lich walked back in. The manager looked up and asked, "Did you enjoy your stay?" "Yeah RIGHT!" Lich said, in an 'in your face' manner which was quite in the manager's face. "I wouldn't stay in this seedy dive again if my life depended on it!" He did a Garland-type storm which took him out the door. A moment later he reappeared again and said, "Sorry, I don't know why I said that." * - * - * "Pretty impressive." the not-so-tall man said. "But I betcha didn't know that I used to be a soldier of Vector!" "Meaning...?" Garland asked. "I got my DNA pumped so high you won't know what hit ya! I'm a wreckin' machine!" the little man said, psyching himself up. Garland could tell this guy was really getting into this. "Get ready! AAAAAAH!" The short guy charged Garland, and proceeded to repeatedly pummel Garland's torso. "YAHYAHYAHYAHYAHYAHYAHYAHYAHYAHYAH YAH YAH... YAH... yah... y... a... h... whew..." The small guy was breathing heavily, and teetering a lot. "Oog... I'm beat..." "You stupid," Garland said mockingly. During the entire pummeling, he hadn't even flinched. "You can't punch out someone wearing an Adamant plate!" The small man looked at his hands. "I can't feel my fingers... ooh..." He took the liberty of falling over. The crowd applauded wildly. "Great show!" "That guy's been buggin' us for months!" "Great sword trick!" "Bravissimo!" Garland looked down at his feet and found that a sizable amount of money had accumulated there. Kraken approached Garland. "Glad to see you're feeling better, master!" "Yeah, me too!" Garland said. "Let's get back to the hotel, alright?" "Um, well..." Lich said.