Poor, Unfortunate Souls (Quest)

Mickey Mouse

Murdermouse
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Head still spinning as he followed Hiro Hamada through some back alley passages of this big ol’ honkin’ satellite, Mickey Mouse idly wondered: what heckin’ time is it?

The mouse didn’t quite know how to track the passage of time on the ARC. Truth be told, he was still pretty new to the whole idea of being in frickin’ space, period, so trying to figure out how normal planet things worked up here in the great beyond made his noggin go sore. He’d sorta lost track of how long he’d been missing from the Disney realms, between this universe and the last one, and if cosmic, clock-less adventures were his new destiny, well… he truly might never know what freakin’ time it was ever again.

Mickey and his new, blonde companion were led by their teenage guide into a sector of the ARC cordoned off for refugees from the Unmaking, mostly contained in an enormous, derelict hangar that somehow still seemed crowded despite its massive size. At one end, the bay opened into the vast reaches of space. The crowds inside were protected from the unkind elements by a shimmering forcefield, but the barrier was transparent enough that Mickey could see what must’ve been the Crossroads’ sun — or, well, one of its suns. The little mouse supposed he didn’t really know how many there were, or if a galaxy even could have more than one. Wouldn’t that just be insanely bright? Double the sunburns, too. Ouchie.

“The technology they use to protect us from the UV rays is actually really fascinating,” Hiro Hamada piped up, probably having noticed Mickey’s awestruck stare. “It’s sorta like they took all the things that hike up the UV index and amalgamated them into one, big radiation field to amplify and break down the light particles all at once.”

“Amalga-whoosit into an ampli-whatsit?” Mickey looked quizzically up at the boy, many years his junior yet already much taller than him, and much smarter, too. His humble beginnings as a servant mouse in the Musketeers’ tower hadn’t afforded much opportunity to delve into the finer sciences. He’d done his fair share of inventing once he’d gotten into adventuring, but mostly always had Chip and Dale around to parse through the technical mumbo-jumbo.

Hiro chuckled. “They took sunscreen and made it into a laser.”

“Oh,” Mickey blinked, shifting his attention back to the huge window, “neat-o.”

“Yeah,” Hiro crossed his arms, “for all the bullshit going on, Leia’s at least got her ducks in a row when it comes to science, I’ll give her that.”

Mickey’s gaze dropped to the haphazard tent city before him. This must’ve been the ‘bull poop’ the kid was referring to; makeshift domiciles were stuffed so close together they nearly overlapped, and the people in them seemed like they had seen much better days. Mickey wasn’t surprised — he’d yet to lay eyes on a world ravaged by the full might of Darkseid, but from what he’d already learned about those places, it wasn’t pretty. Hiro himself seemed to be in pretty okay shape, but even just in the small quadrant Mickey could make out at the moment, the mouse could spot more than one refugee who could be categorized as malnourished, as well as a few who seemed to be recovering from some pretty nasty injuries. The sight tugged his mouth into a frown.

Just ahead, the lithe form of Samus Aran peered into an empty tent. Mickey let his gaze fall on her, narrowing his eyes and once again trying in vain to place her. She let out a grunt, then turned back toward her two pint-sized companions. “Okay, so,” she started, “you want to give me the lowdown on what exactly is happening, Hamada?”

“Most of the people in here are refugees from Govermorne,” he shrugged. “Some from Cevanti. A few from other places.”

“Gover-what? Who-vanny?” Mickey asked. He’d heard of the two worlds that had gotten the brunt of the Unmaking’s first foray into the Crossroads, but he didn’t understand why the people here had given them such weird, hard-to-say names!

“You two… aren’t from around here,” Hiro observed, and Samus simply nodded.

Hiro wasted no time jumping in, giving Mickey and Samus the lowdown on what exactly a Govermorne was and the shiznit that had gone down on Cevanti. Mickey, normally quite chatty, remained quiet as the young man explained the Unmaking’s impact.

Sure, he’d slain a Parademon on Nos’talgia. But to hear Hiro tell it… one parademon was basically nothing. The mouse king still couldn’t be sure who this Darkseid fella was or what he wanted, but he’d been afraid that the Fallen Arbiter’s influence was far more formidable than what he’d already faced. Now, it seemed, he had confirmation -- this dude had already swallowed up a whole planet, and almost eaten another one.

His heart sank as Hiro’s story drained him, just a tad, of his traditional optimism. He, Blues, and the Sqwid Sqwad had basically almost died at the hands of one single monster, and now even they had gone missing somewhere in this big ol’ space station. How the heck was he supposed to stop Darkseid from, eventually, completely freakin’ wiping out this entire galaxy? And if he succeeded at wiping out this one, what was to stop him from moving on to some other sunspecting realm -- like, maybe, the one Mickey had come from in the first place?

Mickey scowled. It had been a long time since he’d felt like he had any shot at protecting his homeland.

The low hum of activity around them began to die down as Hiro’s story crested to its climax, his own personal encounter with a parademon — and something even bigger — during a huge battle on Cevanti. Mickey was sitting with Samus on a footlocker-turned-couch (Hiro had slapped some cushions on it, and it wasn’t altogether uncomfortable) when the hangar’s fluorescent overhead lights suddenly shut off, blanketing the entire bay in darkness. The glow of the sun still trickled in, but Hiro was right -- the forcefield dampened its effect considerably, giving the whole place the appearance of ‘nighttime.’

“Ah, I didn’t even realize it was so late,” Hiro sighed.

How could you? the mouse joked to himself, bringing a smile to his face even for just a moment.

“I’ll take you guys around tomorrow, if you want,” the teenager smiled. “I’ve gotta send some messages before bed, check up on some friends from Cevanti, see if they’ve found out anything new. You guys have had long days, you should get some rest. You can sleep here in my tent.”

Mickey wondered idly why Hiro would just offer up his living space so freely -- after all, he barely even knew either of them. But, the mouse supposed, when you’d been through a shiitake mushroom patch as bad as Hiro had, anyone who wasn’t the enemy could be considered a friend... yeah, he knew what that felt like.

And it wasn’t like there was much to risk letting an anthropomorphic mouse and an unarmored bounty hunter crash in this lil’ bachelor pad. For all his adventures and the excitement of his stories, Hiro’s life hadn’t been easy, it seemed. His brother dead. His robot best friend probably kaput. From the looks of their surroundings, the boy didn’t really have much to his name besides some spunk and an overwhelming desire to do the right thing. Or, at least, the good thing.

It was slowly becoming clear to Mickey that those weren’t always the same thing.

As they curled up in their own corners of the tent to sleep, Mickey’s gaze lingered on his new lady companion. Samus Aran… Samus Aran… trying to think about why he felt like he knew her was something else that made his noggin hurt, but she felt so familiar.

“You don’t have to stare,” she muttered, opening her eyes and turning toward Mickey.

“Oh,” he replied, embarrassed, “sorry, pal.”

“It’s fine,” she sighed. “I’ve been doing my share of awestruck staring since I got here, so I guess I deserve one back.”

Mickey smiled a gentle smile, and, betraying an exterior that until now had seemed almost steely, so did Samus. For a second, the pair of hunters — each hunting something different, but likeminded in their goals nonetheless — lay there grinning at each other, until finally, Samus went to turn over and try to get some sleep.

Then came the scream.

Instinct sent Mickey flying to the opening of the tent, unsheathing his keyblade and batting the cloth doorway aside before he had time to consider the implications. “Voltar thundasir!” he whispered, lifting his other gloved hand up and releasing a crackling, electric blue thunderbolt down the ‘corridor.’ The path ahead illuminated briefly, he squinted his eyes and watched for any signs of life, but none made themselves known.

“You can shoot lightning from your fingers?” Samus muttered, barrel rolling out of the tent and landing, kneeled, on the ground next to him. She placed her hands flat to the metallic floor of the ARC and hunched her shoulders slightly, making herself almost as small as the mouse king himself.

Mickey peered over. “Do you not have… a weapon?”

Samus scowled. “I’m working on it.”

Suddenly, muffled footfalls reached Mickey’s ears, and he let out a frantic ‘shhhh’ in Samus’ direction. She turned her gaze to where his was planted, and listened. The mouse knew she couldn’t hear what he heard, though — his big ears were much more formidable than any human’s. So without another word, he bounded off down the corridor, trying his best to keep his own sprinting as quiet as possible. He was surprised when he heard the slightly-heavier clacking of the Chozo warrior keeping pace, and even more surprised to turn and see her basically neck and neck with him.

She didn’t stay so for long, though, skidding to a stop at an intersection and training her focus to something just around the bend. Mickey halted his own sprint and spun around on his heel, looking to his would-be companion curiously. She glanced over at him, and met his eyes, but she’d lost the steely focus of a warrior. Instead, even as she remained in a combat stance and ready for any eventuality, horror glazed over her aqua-blue pupils.

She pointed down at the floor, and Mickey walked to her side so he could see what she saw.

Before them lie perhaps one of the most gruesome sights the mouse king had ever laid eyes on — and he’d seen some gross-lookin’ dead folks. The corpse that lay mangled before the pair now, though? Well, Mickey didn’t even really know if it could be called a corpse anymore. Did that moniker still apply if it had been ripped from the nape of its neck to its private parts into, like, seven different pieces?

Arms gushed blood. Legs lie prone far off from each other. An unsewn chest, ribs protruding out like something in the elephant graveyard, lay off to one side. The centerpiece, though? A severed head, rolling to and fro in the middle of the path, as if it had been dropped there not moments before and had yet to settle. Even as it moved, though, Mickey Mouse couldn’t help but notice that its expression was frozen in terror unlike any he’d seen in quite a while.

“Oh my goodness,” he breathed, something catching in his throat.

Samus went to speak, but her voice was cut off by sirens exploding from around every corner. Red-and-blue lights bounced off of several robotic sentries that zoomed out of the woodwork — or metalwork, as it were — and surrounded them. The colorful glow of the ARC’s built-in security droids illuminated the tent city intersection just enough to reveal a speeder bike dropping seemingly from nowhere into view, emblazoned on the side with the acronym ‘ARC-SEC.’

An honestly kinda jacked alien slid off the side, training his scanner on Mickey and Samus and resting his blaster rifle on his shoulder. He looked the freshly arrived pair over, read some read-outs on his scouter-thingy, and sighed a long, deep sigh.

“Don’t know who the hell you are,” he glanced at Samus, and then turned to the pint-sized one. “Mickey Mouse? As in… the Mickey Mouse from Dante’s Abyss?”

“Who’s askin’?” Mickey bucked at the guy.

The ARC-SEC officer scoffed. “Wrong place, wrong time, Mr. Mouse,” he said, lowering his rifle from his shoulder and aiming it at them. “You’re both under arrest for the murder of this refugee. Hands in the air, please.” He sighed again, exasperated, as the hovering droids’ weapons unfolded from the compartments they’d been hidden in, and the squadron of bots aimed for the supposed perps.

Mickey gulped. “Can’t we talk about this, fella?”

Quest: Aggression, Rebellion, or Charlatans?
Mickey Mouse, Samus Aran
Post WC: 2143 (according to Google Docs)
Quest WC: 2143/20000 (according to GDocs)
 
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Samus Aran

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Samus was still enjoying scenery she recognized. At least it was combat ready machines and security officers accosting her, instead of a giant chocolate ball that swung licorice or something. She could handle this.

The ARC-SEC officer approached them slowly, lowering his weapon and pulling a set of electrocuffs from his belt. Once he was close enough Samus reacted with lightning speed, knocking the cuffs away with a quick palm strike. He gasped in surprise at the powerful hit from the lithe woman, but Samus was surgical with her assault. Before he knew what happened, Samus shoved him into one of the droids and sent them both toppling to the ground. She finally struck the second droid in front of them, sending it careening away

“Wait! We didn’t do anything!” Mickey called out. He’d had a bad run since his arrival on this space station, and he didn’t sound too interested in causing more problems.

“Come on!” Samus shouted. In her experience sometimes you just needed to get the hell away from a bad situation.

The bounty hunter grabbed her new friend and turned to bolt, only to be hit with a face full of electricity.

Everything went dark.

***

Samus groaned as her eyes fluttered open. Her vision slowly returned as the grogginess faded, and all she saw was Mickey Mouse seated on a bench in front of her, his arms behind his back. She quickly understood why, because she realized her own were restrained behind her when she went to rub her face. Of course, they had been surrounded by those droids. She felt bad Mickey had been caught up in her ill-fated escape attempt, yet he only seemed to be worried about her well being.

“I thought I told you not to stare,” Samus weakly said.

Mickey looked at the bars of their cell, quickly. “Sorry! I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“Kidding,” Samus gave a faint smile as she looked at the entrance as well. “Sorry about this.”

“You did really, really well until the ones behind us got to you,” Mickey replied with a refreshing smile as the two prisoners directed their attention back to each other.

Samus wasn’t sure whether she was being mocked or just dealing with a perpetually optimistic individual, but she decided to just take the compliment and move on.

“Thanks, but where are we now?” Samus asked as she shook her head.

“They took us to this holding cell,” Mickey responded, finally sounding a tiny bit discouraged. “They said we would be questioned in a little bit.”

Samus knew they had nothing to hide, but she didn’t trust authority in the slightest. In her experience the questions would be to benefit a decision they had already made, whether it was accurate or not. She didn’t have the patience for that, but also lacked the options to do much of anything about it.

She didn’t know what else to do except rest the back of her head against the cold walls of the cell and wait.

***

The lights were out, but the two were offered no reprieve from their shackles. Samus had acted a little too rashly, and her mouse companion had a reputation that clearly preceded him. Somehow they’d managed to drift to sleep, but Samus would herself awake in the middle of the night anyway. It was a combination of restlessness, uncertainty, and worry. And just physical discomfort.

She closed her eyes and concentrated, as she had done multiple times since arriving in the Crossroads. She concentrated with all her strength, which was far more than this exercise ever took in the past. Her Power Suit was bonded to her body, to her very DNA, and yet all of her attempts to summon it to her had failed since she arrived on Nos’Talgia. She clenched all her muscles and tried harder, doing everything she could to will it into being. With it she could burst from these shackles and this cell, and escape this entire space station like she had countless others before it. And yet, nothing, not even now when she needed it most.

She felt the anger building within her. She had made a career, an independent life as a feared bounty hunter in an unforgiving galaxy. They suit was her key to it all. Without it, what was she? She had enhanced strength and agility, but nothing like the powerhouses she had encountered in her travels. She felt alone and defenseless in this cell, something she swore she would never be.

“Dammit!!!” Samus screamed with tears in her eyes as her latest attempt failed like all the others.

Mickey snapped awake at the sounds of his cellmate’s distress. Samus shook her head as she saw his silhouette move, thankful that the darkness covered her face.

“What happened?” Mickey asked as he collected his senses.

“Nothing, I’m sorry to wake you,” Samus quickly said.

“Don’t worry, it’s all a big misunderstanding,” Mickey assured her. “We’ll get it fixed.”

“Yea…” Samus trailed off, and a silence fell over them once more.

She could only look down at her legs, not covered in her powerful armor.

***

Hours later a guard struck the cell with his baton, waking them both with a jolt.

“Rise and shine!” he shouted. “Someone wants to talk to you, and not just anyone. So if you act up around her, you’ll long for this cell and those handcuffs.”

“Great bedside manner.” Samus sneered back at him, though she was thankful to be able to move literally anywhere. But who would want to talk to them, and why?

Mickey looked a little more relieved, but Samus could have sworn she heard a gulp.

Quest: Aggression, Rebellion, or Charlatans?
Mickey Mouse, Samus Aran
Post WC: 950 (according to Scrivener)
Quest WC: 3093/20000 (according to Scrivener)
 

Mickey Mouse

Murdermouse
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Mickey had been a tad bit distracted when the Spaceboat Willie first entered the Arc’s orbit. He hadn’t really taken the chance to absorb the space station’s full majesty as the vessel had careened, essentially pilotless, into the hangar. Now, however, as he and Samus took their handcuffed ride up the central ‘tower’ of the spaceborn structure, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

It was ginormous. Sleek and shiny, it looked essentially brand-new, stretching across the vast expanse of space like a giant, slightly more complexly shaped donut. The mouse couldn’t help but smile a bit as he gazed out at it, just extremely impressed by the entire thing. The old place had never had anything quite comparable to this, or to the unrelenting joy of most of Nos’talgia — even the Comet that Dante’s Abyss took place upon seemed a vast improvement to its last iteration.

He gazed up at Samus. Her, though… something about her struck him as familiar. He couldn’t put any of his four gloved fingers on it, but he knew there was something. Whether he knew her or not, though, he already liked her quite a bit. She’d been a tad impulsive with the ARC-SEC officers, but then when had Mickey Mouse found him in the company of people who weren’t ready to leap into action at the first sight of danger?

“You’re staring again,” she sighed.

“Sorry,” Mickey shrugged.

“Quit yapping, both of you,” the officer escorting them said as the elevator came to a halt and the doors slid open. He turned to look at his charges, then tentatively slid out of their way. “The General will see you now.”

He reluctantly removed their bonds and gestured through the doorway. Mickey went first, bounding forward with his usual spring in his step, followed by a slightly more nervous bounty hunter. He glanced around as he entered, taking in the room they’d been led into.

He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t this. Perhaps he’d expected something starkly different than the tinny, ramshackle refugee areas below — something that more matched the sheen of the space station’s exterior. It wasn’t quite as lowbrow as the areas of the Arc they’d visited, but it decidedly wasn’t regal. It seemed less the office of someone of high importance and more a strategy room of sorts, littered with control panels and teal holo-maps that rose vertically out of silver tables. The ‘General’ stood just behind one of these holo-maps in the center of the room, fully visible through its transparent facade.

She stood shorter than Mickey expected, with her brown, gray-streaked hair pulled back into a tight bun. She didn’t wear a ‘general’s’ clothes, but rather a simple brown combat vest, white tunic, and army green pants. She leaned forward on the table her holo-map burst out of, poring over the details of a section on the bottom right that seemed to be less map and more beeping blue grid — but upon seeing Mickey and Samus, she swiped the whole thing away and let her gaze rest on them.

“Ah,” she smiled gently, “you’re here. Good.”

And with that, she moved around the table, angling quickly for Samus and sticking out a hand. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure,” she said, “I’m Leia.”

Samus glanced down at Mickey, who simply gestured for her to accept the general’s greeting. The Chozo obliged, reaching out and shaking. “Samus Aran.”

“And you,” Leia continued, finishing her firm handshake and then turning towards the little fella to Samus’ right. “You must be Mickey Mouse.”

Mickey gulped, nervously. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure, either, ma’am!”

“Oh, we haven’t, but…” she turned, strode to the table, and clicked a button. Instantaneously, a biometric scan popped up on the teal-colored holo-screen that made the mouse king jump. He looked up and there it was: the revolting, nasty form of the parademon that he, Blues, and the Sqwid Sqwad defeated down on Nos’talgia. He sucked in a deep breath through his little mouse nostrils as memories of that fight, not altogether long ago, started to flow back into his noggin. He averted his gaze, accidentally falling right into eye contact with General Leia.

“When you kill one of these brutes, I hear about it,” she placed a hand on her hip.

“Is that… like, did ya experiment on it to get that picture?” Mickey asked, though he wasn’t quite sure if he wanted to know the answer.

“We didn’t,” Leia huffed. “Scrooge McDuck is not keen to part with his toys. It was expensive enough getting these readings from him.”

“What… is it?”

Mickey and Leia both turned to look at a dumbstruck Samus Aran, who stood — for, it seemed, the first time — confronted with the monstrosity that was one of Darkseid’s thralls. Mickey felt his chest clench up; in the grand scheme of things, he really hadn’t known about the Fallen Arbiter for long, but nonetheless, the idea of having no clue whatsoever about the dude already seemed like a foreign concept.

He let his eyes fall back on the readout of the parademon. Shouldn’t everyone know about the Unmaking? Wasn’t that the only way that anyone was going to get anything done about it? Samus didn’t seem like a bad person, and from the way she now looked, she wasn’t the type to just ignore the threat of ferocious dark monsters, either. Mickey blinked. Could it be that there were a bunch of people in the Crossroads who just didn’t have any frickin’ clue what was going on?

“That, my girl,” Leia crossed her arms, “is our problem. We call it a ‘parademon.’”

“It’s hideous,” Samus balked.

“It’s dangerous,” Leia corrected, “and it — or, well, it’s boss — is why I lifted this space station into the sky in the first place. Too much is happening too fast, and nobody was doing anything about it. Too much bureaucracy and red tape, I mean… Govermorne’s gone, Cevanti’s under attack. Something’s gotta be done.”

Mickey nodded, then turned to Samus. “Hiro’s from Cevain’ti, remember?” he said, and the woman nodded, still a bit awestruck. “Our friend who we’re staying with — he’s a refugee from that… that second place ya mentioned.”

“Cevanti,” Leia nodded.

“Cevain’ti,” Mickey grinned innocently.

Leia blinked, then pushed on. “But I can’t focus on anything with the mess happening right here, under my own roof,” she exhaled frustratedly, slamming a hand down on the table.

“Mess?” Samus asked. “What mess?”

Leia turned back to the pair of heroes, and Mickey felt his heart just a-thumpin’. He’d seen this look before.

She was about to pass off her frickin’ problems to them.

“Well, Aran, I’m glad you asked.”

Quest: Aggression, Rebellion, or Charlatans?
Mickey Mouse, Samus Aran
Post WC: 1124 (according to Google Docs)
Quest WC: 4217/20000 (according to GDocs)
 

Samus Aran

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Samus crossed her arms. She saw where this was going in a hurry. She was a little reluctant to do any sort of dirty work for a group she didn’t know, but the mere fact that she even could cross her arms reminded her that the alternative was worse. With that in mind, she didn’t make any sort of immediate objection, though she did notice Mickey give her a curious, momentary glance. He didn’t seem keen on what was developing, either.

“Are you familiar with the Ferengi?” Leia asked of her two visitors. Their silence was enough of an answer for her. “They’re a race that is very economically inclined through their culture. They’ve truly been a boon to the ARC with the vast amount of supplies they’ve been able to bring to the station. They’ve been happy to do it, too, because they’re certainly profiting off of it.”

Samus gave a faint smile. Sounded good so far. “But…?”

“But,” Leia smiled back. “There’s rumors and rumblings about their pod. Specifically the cargo hold.” Leia flipped a switch on the table before her and a holographic map of the ARC highlighted the area she was talking about. “Unfortunately one of the things we deal with in this melting pot of a space station is cultures that don’t like others, so rumors are treated with a grain of salt.”

Mickey frowned as he pondered the vast types of cultures and people a place like this would deal with, and the problems the leadership would encounter. It was certainly no small task.

“Yet we’ve had more than one dead body in their area,” Leia continued. “The one ARC-SEC found you by being the most recent.”

“And we didn’t…” Samus began to quickly make her point.

“I know,” Leia interrupted. “I don’t have camera’s everywhere. I couldn’t. I shouldn’t. But we know where you’ve been since both of you arrived so spectacularly.”

“About that…” Mickey decided to make his own point.

“It’s nothing to have someone crash into the station,” Leia cut him off as well, obviously making her points in a hurry. Samus was quick to size her up as a busy woman. “The problem is the Ferengi have stopped arguing that the rumors about their pod is dangerous. Of course that leads to darker rumors, but the one that scares me the most is that the Unmade are on board.”

Mickey gulped, moving closer to the table for a better look at the general’s holographic map. Samus glanced down at him, noting the intense seriousness he took with such an accusation. His hesitance seemed to be vanishing quickly.

“That body was mutilated,” Samus said as she looked back to Leia. “Is that something the Unmade do?”

“There’s not much the Unmade won’t do,” Leia responded. “The mere idea of them on this station is terrifying. We have warriors and survivors, and are one of the best chances the Crossroads has against this threat.”

Samus glanced down at Mickey still trying to get a good look, and grabbed the back of a nearby chair. She swung it around and hoisted Mickey onto it, who took a moment from the seriousness of the situation to give her a thankful smile.

“If this is the best chance against them, then you should have everything you need right here,” Samus suggested. “Between those robots and roughnecks like the guy that brought us here, what’s the issue? Sweep them out.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple,” Mickey suggested, looking up.

“He’s right,” Leia agreed. “Most of this ship is survivors from Govermorne, a planet that was just completely ravished by the Unmade. True or not, talk that we’re fighting the Unmade on this station could cause an absolute panic.”

Samus nodded in agreement. It made sense, even if there was a chance of open combat being inevitable if all this was true.

“It may come to brute force eventually, but for now, I’m asking for something different,” Leia continued. “You two are skilled and capable, if not a little rash and destructive. Will you explore down there and see if you can figure out what is going on?”

Mickey was more than smiling at the chance to do some good and help those that truly needed it. Samus, for her share, was mostly happy her name was cleared, but the truth was she couldn’t resist the chance to help people a place like this. She didn’t fully understand the Unmaking, but she certainly knew enough. The two looked to each other, and the look on their partner’s face answered the question for them both.

“What can you give us that will help out?” Samus asked, getting right to business. “Names, contacts… weapons, equipment?”

“I’ll give you access to our case notes,” Leia responded. “You can look at it all in the armory, and grab what you think will be appropriate. If you have someone you trust to help, then by all means, but remember I need to keep this under wraps if possible.”

“We won’t let you down!” Mickey announced with a fist pump.

Samus gave a solemn nod, and the two turned to depart the room. Leia could only take a deep breath, and hope everything worked out. These two were her only hope.

******

It was a little while later that Samus was rummaging through one of many armories on the ARC. As promised, there was a large variety of weaponry and gadgetry to choose between. Guns and heavily technological equipment were everywhere, but there were also plenty of melee styled weapons, as well as others with technology she had never seen before in her life. She was forced to think about how bizarre Nos’Talgia had been, and many other realms she couldn’t comprehend touched this realm. In actuality it was a good thing, if not a little overwhelming, because she was happy to learn about new technologies.

Her browsing brought her to a dead stop in the far corner. She had ventured from supplies and typical stocks into more of a lost and found styled section. Used weapons and tools littered the area, but one stuck right out to her. Samus reached to the workbench before her and pulled her own Paralyzer into her hands. When she had arrived she’d lost her weapons, armor, ship, and even something as simple as the Zero Suit. She assumed they were gone forever, but this was undeniably her own weapon. She looked it over to note every little detail and imperfection to confirm it wasn’t just the same model, but her actual trusted sidearm. The thigh holster beside it had the same scratches from use and adventure, and even a few flecks of paint that had made their way onto it when she’d left it on while doing a bit of redecorating.

“You okay?” Mickey asked as he wandered up to Samus.

“Yea,” Samus answered, continuing to look her weapon over. It was partly damaged from its arrival, as she noticed the pistol mode wouldn’t be functional. At least she had a weapon, though. “This is mine. From before I came to the Crossroads. How did it end up on the ARC?”

Mickey gave a warm smile, but Samus could see it was housing some real fear and trepidation. She still couldn’t get a perfect read on him, as his attitude didn’t match the horrors he seemed to have faced, but moments like these gave her a glimpse of understanding into his psyche.

“It can be a little scary when you feel like you’re being guided by something you don’t see. Like you were brought to a realm for a reason,” Mickey admitted. “The only thing you can do is what you feel is right. Come on, Hiro is on the way. Let’s help some people that really need us.”

Samus nodded at that idea. She scooped up her holster and strapped it to her right leg, then holstered her weapon. It was nice to have a little bit of familiarity back, even if it invited far more questions. Her perpetually optimistic partner was right, though. They had their work cut out for them already, so everything else would just have to wait.

Quest: Aggression, Rebellion, or Charlatans?
Mickey Mouse, Samus Aran
Post WC: 1367 (according to Scrivener)
Quest WC: 5584/20000 (according to Scrivener)
 

Mickey Mouse

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Mickey Mouse had, in recent days, started to grow weary of the traditional scaffolds of authority. His experience with the in-power factions of the Crossroads hadn’t been extensive, but it’d been enough to warrant a bit of trepidation. It was the way no one had offered him any sort of assistance after his excursion with the Parademon that had really made the doubt set in; after rescuing him and his companions from that creepy castle, Wondertainment had been content to take more of a ‘wait and see’ approach. The other factions of Nos’talgia, too, had believed his story but been hesitant to offer more material help.

The fact that this General Leia lady seemed to believe wholeheartedly in the dangers of the Unmade was a point in her column, but nonetheless, Mickey was wary. As he, Samus, and Hiro rode the elevator down into the ARC-SEC headquarters, he couldn’t help but notice how much nicer a section of the space station it was than the refugees’ corner, fitted with all sorts of futuristic gizmos and gadgets and with shinier walls, to boot.

“ARC-SEC is one of the most powerful private militaries in the system,” Hiro piped up as he clocked Mickey’s wondrous gaze. “But that’s the deal — they’re a private military. They don’t work for the good of the people, they work for the good of their pockets. I don’t trust them as far as I can throw them.”

“Not very far,” Samus joked.

“You’d be surprised,” Hiro quipped back with a smirk.

“So you think these ARC-SEC soldiers did it, then?” the bounty hunter questioned further. “The ones they’re currently holding?”

“I just don’t see any motive for the Ferengi,” the boy genius shrugged. “Things only got worse for them because of these murders. It doesn’t make sense for them to be behind them.”

The elevator doors slid open with a gentle whirr, and Mickey bounded forward. He wasn’t altogether interested in continuing to postulate without having actually spoken to the parties that were under suspicion. He’d learned all too well over the past few years that making assumptions about people based on what you thought you knew… well, that it simply wasn’t the move. He merely had to harken back to his experiences with a certain gilded king to confirm that.

So he needed to talk to someone, anyone who was actually involved in this. Samus and Hiro could come up with theories all they liked, and General Leia certainly had her finger enough on the pulse of this space station to make a solid guess. He knew the truth, though: they would get nowhere without doing some actual investigatin’!

Wait, he thought, stopping in his tracks, does this make me a detective?!

He smirked. Detective Michael Mouse, Private Eye. Had a nice ring to it, right?

He pushed forward again, weaving through the halls of the ARC-SEC facility with a slightly widened stance and a furrowed brow, doing a weird little imitation of detectives he’d seen in movies. For the first time since he’d landed on Kraw, he found himself almost wishing he was in the old place, so he could just conjure a cute detective’s hat and shawl out of thin air. And where was a magnifying glass when you needed one?! Or a monocle?!

He’d gotten so caught up in his imaginary detective cosplay that he nearly bumped into the leg of the guard standing just outside the holding cells. It would’ve hurt, too -- he was rotund and big and green, with his shin being almost the size of Mickey Mouse himself. He tilted his horned face down as the diminutive hero approached, a scowl crossing his features. The mouse continued forward unphased, and was inches from colliding with the big Gamorrean when Samus reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder at the last second, halting his advance.

“Watch your step, little guy,” she chuckled. Mickey smiled up at her.

“What’s yer business here?”

The great mouse detective turned an investigative eye towards the guard. His knees bent just a little bit as he started to put on an air of authority, thrusting a gloved finger up at the big green fella. “We’s here to see ya captives, old sport,” he ordered in what could only be described as a thick Brooklyn accent, despite the fact that he had no clue what a ‘Brooklyn’ was, “so why don’t ya’s move aside and let me and my compatriots in?”

The Gamorrean huffed, and scowled. “And why, exactly, would I do that?”

Mickey lifted his finger higher, but froze in his tracks. The detective voice hadn’t convinced him already? He needed to think up another reason, beside the fact that he clearly carried the authority of someone with far more policing experience?

“General Leia sent us,” Samus crossed her arms. “You’d be wise to let us speak with the soldiers.”

For a moment, it seemed like there might be a stand off, but at last, the Gamorrean stepped aside and pressed his big, fat finger to the door to slide it open. Mickey and Samus glanced at each other, then started to step into the holding cell, Hiro Hamada on their tail. Just as the boy genius was about to enter behind his older comrades, though, the Gamorrean’s blaster rifle fell down between them. “Not you,” the guard growled.

“Nah, pal,” Mickey protested, turning around. “The kid’s with us.”

“The kid is lucky I don’t arrest him right here, right now,” the big green hulking dude said. “He’s been quite a bit of trouble for ARC-SEC.”

Mickey glanced back at Hiro. “You good, little guy?”

Hiro scoffed a bit at being called ‘little guy’ by someone who was shorter than him, then held up a hand and nodded. “Yeah, yeah,” he sighed, “no reason to get Shrek’s panties in a wad. Y’all let me know what you find out, okay?”

Mickey nodded with a smile. “Okay, pal,” he grinned, then looked to Samus. “Shall we?”

Samus glanced down into the holding cell, and Mickey’s gaze followed the bounty hunter’s. There are the end, huddled in a dark corner, were Captain Aaron, Corporal Wyatt, and their subordinates. To the mouse king, they looked… a little worse for wear.

Sensing that, Samus finally replied. “I think the bigger question is ‘will they’?”

Mickey sighed. “Yup,” he said, “let’s go, pal.”

Quest: Aggression, Rebellion, or Charlatans?
Mickey Mouse, Samus Aran
Post WC: 1063 (according to Google Docs)
Quest WC: 6647/20000 (according to GDocs)
 

Samus Aran

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The door to the cell slammed behind the mismatched duo with the appropriate gravitas. Mickey turned to look at it after it closed, but Samus kept her eyes on the soldiers before them. The two of them had the accused’s attention.

“I was wondering who else would be coming to talk to us,” Captain Aaron spoke first, not bothering to stand and greet them.

“Leia sent us,” Samus shortly answered. She didn’t know the politics of this station very well, but in her experience invoking the name of the big boss typically worked well. Even more so when there was actual weight behind such a statement.

“General Leia,” the captain was quick to correct her. His respect was clearly deep, despite the fact he was sitting in a jail cell owned by the leader of the ARC.

Mickey smiled, taking advantage of that common ground. “She seems like a great woman, and only wants the best for everyone.”

“We’re not quite as thrilled about that from within here,” Corporal Wyatt laughed in disbelief. “Accused of a crime we couldn’t have committed!”

“Tell us what happened, then,” Samus asked, crossing her arms and doing her best to remain stoic towards their plight.

“We already gave our report,” the captain replied. “How many more times are we going to be grilled by different people? At some point we’d like to know what’s going to happen. As my corporal said, we couldn’t have done it.”

“And yet your squad’s fingerprints are all over the last murder scene, which was littered with ARC-SEC blaster fire,” Samus was cold in her response. She was still formulating her opinion, but she wasn’t giving the investigation a fair shake if she didn’t press hard against this guy.

“Everyone knows you’re supposed to smear your hands over everything when you murder someone,” the captain sarcastically scoffed. “We made sure to do that first thing.”

Mickey jumped up onto a random chair, leaning in to look at Aaron while squinting his eyes. He studied him intently as he pretended to take a puff from a nonexistent pipe. Of course he didn’t actually have a real one, that would be inappropriate! But, it was important to stay in character.

“So you’ve thought about what to do at a murder scene?” Mickey quizzed the man.

The captain threw up his hands in frustration and stood up. Samus was quick to approach, but Mickey didn’t flinch or even break character.

“This is ridiculous!” the soldier barked. “When those people were killed, we were escorting a diplomatic interest. We were on camera, we have alibis, we have witnesses. What’s the point of this!?”

Samus approached him, keeping her arms crossed. She studied the man up and down, and he did the same to her. Neither was terribly impressed with the other, as the soldier was ragged and worse for wear and the bounty hunter looked more like she belonged at the gym for the moment instead of leading an interrogation. Yet despite the outward appearances, there was a level of respect beyond their guises. After all, a soldier could always recognize another.

“The point is justice,” Samus answered sternly. “There’s a lot of weird things in this world, I’m sure you know. This is a good place for it to all gather.”

Mickey cocked his head as he considered the words of his ally just as much.

“When’s the last time you dealt with the Ferengi?” Samus questioned the captain, but then looked past his shoulder. “Any of you?”

There was a string of noncomittal murmurs from the incarcerated squadron. Nothing substantial.

“Ever cut through their area to go home, to work?” Mickey continued the line of questioning. “To get coffee?”

“The Ferengi keep together, for the most part,” Corporal Wyatt explained. “We don’t patrol the area they gather.”

“What about off duty?” Samus continued to press them.

“We-” the captain started to reply, but Mickey was already continuing their one-two punch.

“Merchant folks probably run a nice restaurant!” the mouse agreed.

“Cleaning services, mechanics, anything to get a dollar,” Samus agreed out loud, as the soldiers all looked for an answer.

“Hard to imagine you just don’t see them,” Mickey nodded.

“Well, we didn’t!” the captain shouted as he walked away from the two of them, throwing his hands up in anger once more. “None of us!”

Mickey took a puff of the imaginary pipe. They’d hit them hard, yet he couldn’t help but notice the leader was very quick to answer for everyone. Still, none of them seemed to phased. Was it confidence in the lie, or genuinely having nothing to hide? A detective’s work was delicate.

Samus frowned as she ran over the facts in her mind. These guys had a pretty airtight story and proof, yet there was just as much evidence at the scene of the crime. She’d reviewed it all several times before coming here alongside Mickey, and it hadn’t made a lot of sense. If they were being framed, there had to be an easier squad to pin it on than this one. If they weren’t, then how the hell had they accomplished the feat?

“Let’s talk to everyone one on one,” Mickey whispered to Samus. “Dig a little deeper.”

“Yea, I agree,” Samus said, walking over to the blast door and banging her fist on it so the Gamorrean would let them out.

“Is that all?” Captain Aaron asked as he watched her walk away.

“No, as a matter of fact,” Samus replied, keeping her ice cold mask up. “We’re going to get individual rooms. We want to talk to everyone.”

The captain rolled his eyes and pressed his hands against the wall. He was clearly exhausted by this, but that could be expected of anyone being put through the ringer so intensely. Samus was careful to watch his body language the whole time, and couldn’t get a read on him. She was used to seeing this with the more hardened soldiers, but it didn’t make extracting information very easy. They could hide lies just like the rest of their emotions.

Ignoring one of the soldier’s comments about “hoping to get the blonde,” Samus banged her fist on the door again when it didn’t open. Mickey looked over to the exit at that point as well. He’d seen enough detective stories to know the door was supposed to open for the interrogator pretty quickly after that universal sign.

“Are you out there?” Samus shouted.

No answer.

“Hiro!?” Mickey called out.

Again, no answer.

They were locked in with the soldiers.

“Now do you believe we’re innocent?” Captain Aaron asked as he watched their growing concern.

Samus looked to Mickey, the concern apparent on both of their faces. This certainly wasn’t what it appeared to be at first glance.

“No,” Samus sternly answered the captain. “But someone not in this room is guilty.”

The only problem was getting out of the room.

Quest: Aggression, Rebellion, or Charlatans?
Mickey Mouse, Samus Aran
Post WC: 1,158 (according to Scrivener)
Quest WC: 7,805/20000 (according to Scrivener)
 

Mickey Mouse

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Locked in. At first glance, that didn’t sound good at all. Mickey Mouse and Samus Aran stared ahead for a few moments, their detective work stalled by the fact that they were, literally, trapped inside a room in the middle of nowhere in space. Then, suddenly:

“Oh, but this is gonna be a fun game!” Mickey exclaimed.

Samus scowled, looking down at her diminutive companion. “Fun?”

“It’s like an escape room!” the former mouseketeer grinned, immediately bounding towards the door and pressing his cheek up against the metal. He tapped it a few times, listening for any clues, then turned back to the bounty hunter. “Nope,” he shrugged, “it’s solid!”

The blonde sighed, crossing her arms and turning back to the ARC-SEC soldiers trapped in here with them. While she interrogated them about their enemies and who would like to keep them quiet – y’know, stuff altogether irrelevant, if you asked the great mouse detective – Mickey scurried about the room, eyebrows raised and eyes peeled for the next big find.

Truth be told, this holding cell wasn’t that large. Mick was no expert on like… sizes and dimensions and shiz, but he would bet money that it was no bigger than the living room he and Minnie shared back in the Clubhouse in the old place – and he wasn’t a gamblin’ mouse. He also noted that, unlike the metallic door, most of the walls were made of concrete, which meant that this chamber was designed for exactly what he figured a holding cell would be designed for: making sure no one unwanted could get in or out.

Stellar detective work, Mickey, he nodded proudly to himself.

That being said… the thick walls did make it rather stuffy in here, huh? For a few moments, he stood very still, holding his arms out to the side and just… breathin’. Pulling air in through his little mouse nostrils, and blowing air out through his little mouse mouth. Just keep breathin’ and breathin’ and breathin’ and breathin’...

“Enemies?” Captain Aaron scoffed, “of course we’ve got enemies. We’re the cops. The cops have enemies wherever you go.”

“You’re a private military,” Samus bit back. In spite of his efforts to the contrary, Samus knew that in the grand scheme of this mystery, she was going to have to act as the bad cop. Mickey was full of fervor, but his intimidation factor low. So was hers, of course, without her Power Suit – and especially considering the bravura of these grizzled men – but she knew she had what it took to coax them into giving her more information. “I’d hardly say you count as law enforcement, and I hazard a guess that your tactics sway more guerrilla than the cartoonish boys in blue I saw back on Nos’talgia.”

“You’re not from around here, are you?” Corporal Wyatt snarled.

“I’ve been around enough men like you to know your type,” the bounty hunter spat.

“Hmph,” Wyatt huffed, crossing his arms and leaning back in his rickety seat. “You’ve got a lot of nerve for someone who’s been on this station for such a short time.”

Samus’ lips curled into a smirk. Got him.

“I’m pretty sure I didn’t tell you how long I’ve been here, Corporal,” she blinked, innocently.

The corporal’s face went a bit pale, and he straightened up.

“Samus!”

The bounty hunter spun around, only to see a deadly serious Mickey Mouse splayed, crucifix-style, against one of the walls of the holding cell. What could the mouse king possibly want at a time like this, at the crux of her interrogation, when she was about to catch Corporal Wyatt in a lie?! He seemed to be staring rather intensely up toward the ceiling, so Samus followed his gaze and… there it was.

“I’m going in,” the mouse said, and before Samus Aran could think to stop him, Mickey Mouse ran towards the wall, leaping up it and wrapping his gloved fingers around the grate of an air-conditioning vent. He pressed his feet against the wall and started to try and pull, but his tiny body couldn’t quite get the leverage he needed. He glanced down at his would-be detective partner, eyes a bit glassy as he begged for help looking like a bad-A in this moment. “Partner?” he asked, pleadingly, releasing one hand and hanging off the vent by the other.

Samus couldn’t help but crack a bit of a smile as she lifted her Paralyzer and fired off several rounds into the metal grate. It exploded on impact, and Mickey leapt through the smoke and dove into the vent proper, clambering away towards wherever it led.

He crawled through quickly, feeling altogether spider-like as he slipped this way and that through the ARC’s ventilation system. Finding the grate that led to the room just outside was easy-peasy, and he quickly kicked that obstacle out of the way and slid out onto the floor, feeling altogether satisfied that in a matter of minutes, he’d managed to solve the puzzle and get out of that stuffy ol’ room. Hoo-wee, I’d be dang good in an escape room!

Outside, though, the puzzles continued coming. Mickey glanced around for Hiro Hamada, not seeing their teenage ally anywhere nearby. Instead, he was greeted by the imposing forms of two ARC-SEC guards that already had their blaster rifles trained on him.

“So the mouse got out of the trap, eh?” one of them remarked.

“Kind of a cliche first line, fella,” Mickey mocked.

“Fuck you,” the guard replied, “and your bounty hunter friend. You all and Leia have been getting too cozy with the lessers around here, and it’s time to pay the price, alright? We’re in charge here, and we’re not gonna tolerate you schmoozing with the riff raff anymo–”

Zzzzzzzap!


Mickey lowered his keyblade, lightning spell successfully cast, and glared at the shocked guard, scowl plastered on his little mouse face. “Watch your language.”

***

The bounty hunter resumed her focus on Corporal Wyatt. “I bet you thought I was done with you,” she frowned, approaching him, Paralyzer in hand. “So how do you know so much about the mouse and I, then?”

“You associated with the refugees,” Wyatt growled. “Those good-for-nothing fucks and anyone who associate with them are on our watchlist.”

“Wyatt, what the hell?” Captain Aaron asked, standing from his seat. “Our watchlist? Who, exactly, Corporal?”

Just then, the door to the cell slammed to the ground, and Mickey Mouse leapt in on top of it. “Probably these guys!” he said, frantically pointing behind him at two ARC-SEC troopers lying unconscious on the floor. “They tried to get me when I popped out of the vent, so I had ‘em take a little bit of a nap!”

“Us guys,” Corporal Wyatt threatened, standing up. The five other troops in the cell gathered behind him, cocking their weapons and aiming them for the mouse, the bounty hunter, and the Captain. The two humans backed up towards the smaller third target, trying to discern what, exactly, was going on – but Mickey Mouse already knew. They were dirty! Dirty ARC-SEC officers, biased against the refugees, even though taking care of the refugees was what the ARC was all about.

And Hiro, the mouse thought, Hiro’s a refugee.

He glanced back out of the holding cell. The boy genius was nowhere to be found, which meant that whoever was trying to frame the Ferengi must’ve taken him. He turned back towards their adversaries, yanking his keyblade from his belt and taking a step past Samus and Captain Aaron.

“Listen here, bub,” he frowned. “It looks to me like your pals laid their grubby paws on my friend, and so I’m gonna need you to cooperate, or I’m gonna make ya cooperate, capiche?” He lowered the keyblade so that it’s tip was pointed toward Corporal Wyatt.

“Tell me where he is.”

Samus blinked. Maybe Mickey could be the bad cop, after all.

Quest: Aggression, Rebellion, or Charlatans?
Mickey Mouse, Samus Aran
Post WC: 1,321(according to Google Docs)
Quest WC: 9126/20000 (according to Scrivener)
 

Samus Aran

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Samus had to raise her eyebrows in surprise. She didn’t take Mickey for the type you could push to that level of seriousness, but she should have guessed that it would come from threatening his friends. Hiro was in legitimate danger, without a doubt, and time was now of the essence more than ever before.

“I need to know!” Mickey emphasized to the now terrified trooper.

“I don’t know, honestly!” the corporal shouted. “We’re stuck in here!”

“And you never talk and plot with your co-conspirators,” Samus sarcastically commented.

“Look… okay,” Corpral Wyatt admitted, relenting finally. “They were going take the aliens and the refugees down to their own district. Make a statement there. I don’t know what, honestly.”

Mickey and Samus looked to each other with trepidation.

“It’s enough to work with,” Samus admitted, and they turned to leave.

“Wait!” Captain Aaron shouted as they exited the room, and Samus paused by the door. She looked curiously at him, so he continued. “I didn’t know that my troopers were doing this. Please, let me come and help you. I want to make this right. I can help by-”

Samus mashed the button to close the door, and it automatically shut in the captain’s face in a hurry. Ignoring the statement she made to the humbled trooper, she looked back to Mickey.

“We have a problem,” Mickey admitted. “We’re going to go up against ARC-SEC themselves. It’s going to make this difficult.”

“Not if we get in touch with Leia,” Samus reasoned. “She brought us on, she better trust what we figured out, even if it is ‘he said vs. she said’ right now,”

Mickey shook his head slowly, looking nervous as they did.

“I don’t have time to do that,” Mickey said. “I have to find Hiro, now. You can go explain everything to her, and catch up if you want, but I can’t risk Hiro’s safety.”

Samus closed her eyes as she examined the facts. Mickey was right. Valuable time tracking down a way to contact Leia, or just visiting her was wasting whatever precious seconds these refugees had. Something big was about to happen and they needed to stop it. Dividing their focus was a sound idea, but what if Mickey needed help? She couldn’t live with herself if something went wrong. She was used to being a woman against the world anyway, at least it was nice to have a mouse friend, this time.

“Lead on,” Samus replied.

Mickey beamed with excitement, and the smile on his face said the words he didn’t need to, but did anyway.

“Thanks, pal.”

The detective duo hurried down the hallway to find the Ferengi district.

————————

Samus didn’t know much about the Ferengi, other than the crash course she’d been given since arriving on the station. Yet she knew there were others much like them, and she’d encountered plenty in her travels. As she walked into the dilapidated district they called home, it all became a little more clear. They were traders and barterers by nature, to her understanding, yet they clearly faced plenty of obstacles and oppression based off the looks of the shanty town they called their home.

Of course, no sooner had they arrived than three rough looking individuals stepped out in front of them. Samus gave a heavy sigh, but Mickey remained optimistic as always.

“Um, excuse me,” Mickey quickly said as he looked up as the thugs. “Have you seen any ARC-SEC troops in the area?”

“ARC-SEC doesn’t like to come around here,” one of the thugs answered, laughing a little bit. “Brings trouble. You here to bring trouble like them?”

“We’re here to solve trouble!” Mickey happily replied, yet he wasn’t doing well hiding the urgency in his voice.

“Money solves trouble, you know?” another thug chuckled. “Why don’t you hand over what you have now?”

Mickey frowned, and opened his mouth to respond before Samus cut him off.

“Oh, get the hell out of the way,” the bounty hunter rolled her eyes, taking a step forward.

Two of the bandits were quick to match the gesture, stepping forward to intercept her. Just as one reached out for her, she ducked low and swung a kick at the man’s shin, knocking him to the ground. She leaped up from her crouched position and threw a knee to the other man’s face with an acrobatic leap. With the two down and stunned, the third leaped at the woman, thinking he had the element of surprise. Samus somersaulted backwards, causing the man to grasp at merely air. He swung again, but this time Samus countered with a jab to his neck. He dropped to his knees gasping for air, which was all the time the bounty hunter needed to deliver a hard kick to his face.

With the three bandits in various states of injury, Samus looked to see Mickey had walked past and ignored the fight. He was already looking for where the schemers might have gone. With most people she would have assumed that she was on her own because of some crazy survival of the fittest type mindset, but with Mickey she knew he was just hilariously optimistic about his friends’ abilities that he didn’t worry if not needed. She knew he was confident in Hiro, but there was also no telling how deep this web went.

As Mickey pressed onward, she looked back at the groaning attackers. Roughing up the locals was likely to get them even more attention. They needed to fix this situation fast. Samus trailed after her detective friend.

Quest: Aggression, Rebellion, or Charlatans?
Mickey Mouse, Samus Aran
Post WC: 934 (according to Scrivener)
Quest WC: 10060/20000 (according to Scrivener)
 

Mickey Mouse

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Behind him, Mickey Mouse heard the scuffles of Samus taking down the thugs that dared to cross their path. He heard the fisticuffs as they happened, and found himself once again impressed with Samus’s capabilities in battle. Man, he’d sure been lucky to run into her, even if she’d seemed ever-so-slightly sketchy at first glance.

He pressed forward, undaunted by their interruption. Didn’t these dudes know that they had places to be and other refugees to save?! It always astounded him how little trust people had in others – here he was, trying to help them, trying to stop ARC-SEC from continuing to frame them, and all they could think about was how to make a quick buck? Didn’t they see that he and Samus were rushing headlong towards the crisis of their entire refugee district? Didn’t they see that they needed to stop interfering and let the freaking heroes do what heroes do?!

He sighed, and stopped for just a moment. He turned back to watch as Samus knocked the last one out cold and he slumped to the floor, unconscious.

Of course they don’t get it, he sighed. Who’s ever given them a reason to trust before?

Certainly, at this point, the people who were supposedly charged with protecting them had turned out to be pretty nasty fellas, and from the looks of it, the refugees had come to this conclusion long before Mickey and Samus had picked up what they were putting down. Hiro had tried to explain it, he supposed… but buried amidst the other myriad tragedies the boy genius described, it was no wonder the mouse had missed the message.

Now, though, he had to find his friend. Corporal Wyatt and his goons might be locked up in the holding cells, but the others – the ones that had kidnapped Hiro – couldn’t be much farther ahead. His feet kicked back into gear, and he started walking.

Just as he continued forward, Samus caught up.

“You didn’t bang ‘em up too bad, did ya?” Mickey asked.

Samus chuckled. “Just some scrapes and bruises,” she nodded. “They’ll be fine.”

“Good,” the mouse mused. “They don’t deserve the worst of what’s coming.”

Samus glanced down at the mouse, once again lightly astounded by his unique sense of justice. She hadn’t known him for long, but she still hadn’t seen him so laser-focused, so full of purpose.

For Mickey’s part, he remembered a time when this feeling was all he ever felt. Back in the old place, as he’d been faced with the growing evils around him and suffocated by the idea that whoever was in charge of that place also was some sort of twisted, eyeless megalomaniac, there’d come a time when not a day went by without him worrying constantly about the next villain he’d have to subdue or the next opportunity he’d have to put his hero skills to the test.

The Crossroads weren’t like that. They weren’t inherently full of evil. Sure, they had their Karl Jaks and their Lord Freezers, but more than anything since he’d been yanked from the Disney Realms, Mickey had been struck by just how good people could be here. Even freakin’ Gilgamesh wasn’t all bad in this universe.

Which made it all the more important to stamp out evil whenever it arose.

Like Darkseid.

Just then, a noise caused the mouse to stop in his tracks. His big ears perked up, and behind him, Samus also skidded to a halt.

“What is it, Mick?” she asked, and the mouse held up a gloved hand.

“They’re close,” he scowled, then ducked off to one side, sliding beneath the edge of a nearby tent full of refugees.

A Ferengi family glanced over, the anthropomorphic mouse suddenly in their presence, not exactly a welcome sight. Mickey wasn’t there for long, though, as he sprinted silently out of the entrance fold of the tent and into another passage of the slums, this one wider and leading to a large gathering area at the end. Ferengi and other diverse kinds of aliens already rushed toward the court, where, it seemed, something was happening.

The mouse kept low, weaving between the legs of some of the refugees and finding his way as close as he could to the front. When he arrived, horror crept over his face as he laid eyes on Hiro, unconscious and tied to a chair before the crowd. Three ARC-SEC officers – in much more formidable looking armor than Aaron, Wyatt, or their compatriots, and with much bigger guns – encircled him, one of them calling the crowd to watch like the ringmaster of a particularly brutal circus.

“Hear ye, hear ye,” the main soldier chuckled sarcastically, “we are here to solve the problems that have been arising in this district.”

“That’s right, you ugly pieces of shit, we’ve got some news for you,” another scoffed.

Mickey’s brow furrowed. Why did they have to insult people? He looked away in frustration, turning his head just far enough to catch a glimpse of Samus’ blonde hair bobbing in another section of the crowd. He smirked. Good, he nodded, and turned back to look at Hiro and his captors. We’ve got this.

“We’ve got some news, freeloaders,” the main soldier smirked. “Seems that the killings running rampant throughout this district have been a sort of ‘both sides’ kinda game. On one side, the Ferengi – ” he started, interrupted by some gasps and hushed whispers “ – and on the other, the humans.”

The crowd erupted, its human members protesting loudly as one of the guards leveled his weapon towards Hiro’s head.

“Seems it’s some conflict been going on between both of you for a while, so we’ve decided to even the scales just a little bit,” the main soldier continued. “We’re gonna let a Ferengi somewhere kill this kid in retribution,” he nodded, “and let one of the humans in this crowd kill… eh, let’s say you, kid.”

The soldier pointed into the crowd, and one of his two ARC-SEC compatriots moved to grab a young Ferengi and drag him into view. Several more gasps and screams erupted from the crowd, and Mickey could see the young Ferengi’s mother reaching for him as ARC-SEC dragged him into something he undoubtedly wasn’t involved in. The mouse scowled. These sons of guns knew exactly what they were doing – violence like this, killing kids, wasn’t going to solve anything. It would explode into an all-out war between the humans and the Ferengi, until there was nothing left of the refugee sector.

Hmph, he sighed as he realized what was going on, …which is exactly what they want.

Quest: Aggression, Rebellion, or Charlatans?
Mickey Mouse, Samus Aran
Post WC: 1104 (according to Google Docs)
Quest WC: 11164/20000
 

Mickey Mouse

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Mickey Mouse had to act.

He watched, feeling helpless, as an adult Ferengi shuffled up onto the stage along with the young boy. Just a few paces behind him, Samus, too, seemed a bit at a loss on how to work this out without inciting some sort of negative response from the crowd. But Mickey could see the fearful look on Hiro’s face, and he wasn’t about to just let his little buddy die. Heck, Mickey Mouse wasn’t about to let anybody die, not on his watch, no sir-ee.

Without thinking much about a plan, he leapt up into the air, bouncing off a nearby human’s shoulder and launching himself onto the central platform.

“Hold up, there, mister,” he held out a gloved hand toward the adult Ferengi, placing himself between the alien and the ARC-SEC officer who was about to hand him the pistol that would spell Hiro’s untimely demise. Mickey met eyes with the young human boy, watching as the color suddenly flooded back into his cheeks at the sight of the mouse king. For a moment, the diminutive hero’s heart swelled — he had always loved, back in his home realm, knowing that people relied on him. That he was some kinda safe haven for them, that they felt like they could trust him. Watching Hiro’s eyes light up made him feel that maybe, just maybe, he was starting to get that status back again. Starting to earn it.

“Mr. Mouse,” the soldier sputtered, lowering his weapon and looking, just a little nervously, out toward the crowd. “We didn’t… this is none of your concern.” The crowd murmured a bit in confusion as Mickey Mouse rushed up and stood on the guard’s shoulder, snatching his microphone from him.

No one is dying today,” he squeaked. “There’s bigger problems to be dealt with!”

The crowd erupted just a bit at that, some shouting in agreement and others calling out protests, demanding justice for the violence.

And Mickey could understand their frustration. People in this district had been dying, and not just from these murders — these refugees were here, from Govermorne or Cevanti, because their entire planets had been, essentially, put at risk. Their families and friends had been freakin’ unmade, and now they were expected to just deal with some shadowy threat by remaining idle? By trusting a strange mouse and woman to try to find the culprit? He could empathize with them, he really, really could, but also… there was no darn-tootin’ way he’d let them take it out on an innocent boy. And with corporal punishment?!

Ha! Corporal Punishment. He’d have to name his tickle torture robot that, on the Spaceboat!

“Don’t y’all get it?!” the mouse shouted to no one in particular. “This is exactly what Darkseid wants!” The crowd entered into hushed, urgent whispers. “Oh, what, y’all don’t like me saying his name? Darkseid, Darkseid, Darkseid!”

The people — human and Ferengi alike — erupted at that. They were not incredibly pleased with the mouse’s flippancy when it came to the Fallen Arbiter, and the mouse could see why. After all, they’d had their whole homes ripped apart by the dude! Mickey had only faced his lieutenants thus far, so he knew he had no idea their struggles — but, in one of the moments he would feel most ashamed of in his entire life, he was willing to use that pain to save Hiro and the boy.

He gazed out into the crowd. Samus stood, looking quizzically at him, and they met eyes. She raised an eyebrow at his shenanigans; all the mouse could do was smirk, and give her a sly wink.

“Y’all are scared, I get it,” he nodded. “Which is why I’m gonna take care of that little B-I-T-C-H for ya. I’m gonna show Darkseid a little tough love.”

“Right now.”

“SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS!”


Mickey reached out and grasped Hiro’s arm at the last second, and with a swoosh, the two were gone. The ARC-SEC soldiers shook their heads confusedly before frantically combing the platform for their escaped prisoner, but by that time, the two were already slipping into a nearby corridor.

Flattened like two-dimensional versions of themselves, they slipped into a crawlspace and, when it had gotten big enough again, popped back out into 3D.

“That… was not fun, your Majesty,” Hiro huffed.

“Sorry ‘bout it, kid,” the mouse king shrugged, reaching into his knapsack and pulling out a small mirror. He tapped on it gingerly. “Blues. Blues, where ya at?!”

The face of the Proto Man popped up onscreen. “Waiting on you, duh.”

“We need a ride,” Mickey replied. “Can ya pick us up somewhere, pal?”

***

The Spaceboat Willie hovered just outside the radius of the ARC. Mickey worked on the magic mirror to send Samus a message — ‘Had to get Hiro out of there, and I hear something bad is going down on the water planet. Let’s circle back later and root out this killer, huh?’

Mickey Mouse departs (temporarily) for the Nausicaa Incident.

Quest: Aggression, Rebellion, or Charlatan?
Samus Aran, Mickey Mouse
Post WC: 823 (according to Google Docs)
Quest WC: 11987 (according to GDocs)
 
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