Metal City - Nothing Good On

[The Huggernaut]

"Next on Wolf TV! 'Sol: Reality, or Mass Psychosis?'"

Crash frowned as he dug into his couch, one leg gingerly resting stretched out in front of him. Today his knee had decided to act up after Julie left for work, so he'd been stuck at home all day till it decided to pop bag into place.

With a triumphant growl, Crash held up the TV guide, and looked to see if anything else was on...

"Great. This is prolly the best thing on right now." With a snort, Crash tossed the TV guide to the side, letting it hit the armrest. Then, Crash just put his hands behind his head, leaned back a little, and continued watching TV.

[Leedzie]

Out in the hall, a low rumbling sound gradually got louder and louder. It quickly became clear it was the sound of someone sprinting up the stairs, occasionally stumbling in their haste.

And a moment or two later, the door burst open, revealing a pangolin near-completely covered in oil and grease. A broad smile covered Julie's face. "I LOVE MY JOB!!"

[The Huggernaut]

Crash just looked over at the door as Julie can barreling in, and smirked.

"Really. It looks like you took a bath in some motor oil." The devil chuckled, wincing a little as his knee got jarred.

"Damn knee."

[Leedzie]

"Close enough!" Julie chirped, ripping open the snap-buttons of her jumpsuit. "OH SOLARIS, YOU SHOULD'VE SEEN IT! Someone brings in this big SUV, right? And they said they just needed a quck oil change and maybe to top off the other fluids. So we get to work and..." From there it got a little unintelligible, partially due to the rapidness with which the pangolin spoke, but mostly because Crash didn't know the first thing about cars. Actually, neither do I. YAY LOOPHOLE!

Slipping her once-blue jumpsuit off her shoulders, Julie's enthusiasm paused a bit as she peered at Crash's propped-up knee. "What's with the leg?"

[The Huggernaut]

The devil grumbled as he glared at the limb in question.

"Old injury. Makes my kneecap shift, and I can't move it much till it decides to shift back." Crash let out an annoyed growl.

"So I get stuck watching crappy TV shows."

[Leedzie]

Kicking her oily uniform across the room, leaving her in her black shorts and white undershirt, Julie cracked her neck and resumed her pleasant smile. "Kneecap problem? I can fix that. Lemme take a crack at it!"

Under these circumstances, that was probably a poor choice of words.

[The Huggernaut]

The word crack, when referring to his knee, was NOT a pleasant combination to the devil.

"Uh, no, really, it'll shift back on it's own. It always does."

Crash, or course, was now thinking about the time HE tried to fix his knee himself.

That didn't end well.

[Leedzie]

Unfortunately, Crash was immobile and Julie was quasi-hyper. "Nah, really, it's okay! My brothers and I screw up our knees all the time!" she cheerfully countered, kneeling beside his injured leg. The pangolin spit into each palm, then rubbed them together. "Okay, this'll just take a sec, but it'll probably hurt like a bitch."

[The Huggernaut]

No, really. You think so maybe?

Crash KNEW he was stuck, but he could try to change her mind one more time.

"What if you mess up or something, Then I'll be stuck like this all day!"

Besides, he had a pretty good idea how much it would hurt.

Yeah. REALLY good idea how much it'd hurt. NO THANKS.

[Leedzie]

"Oh, quit whining, you wuss!" Snickering in an almost sinister way, Julie braced her hands on either side of Crash's knee. "Okay, brace yourself!" And without much more warning than that, the pangolin gave a massive yank on her roommate's knee with a sickeningly loud SNAP.

But still she grinned. "See? Like ripping off a bandaid!"

[The Huggernaut]

Crash barely had time to let out one more protest, before that was cut off by a harsh yelp, and a stream of rapid cursing. In interests of censorship, we'll just cut down the the end of it.

"-CHAOSDAMMIT! THAT HURT LIKE HELL!" Crash almost snarled at Julie, instinctively trying to pull his leg away...

And was pleasantly surprised as it bent quite easily, with only minor stiffness.

"Huh."

[Leedzie]

Rising to her feet, the Gifted pangolin snickered and flicked Crash in the ear. "Told'ja sooooo."

[The Huggernaut]

The ear that was under 'attack' twitched a few more times after Julie's flick, as Crash smirked.

"Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Julie. Need to remember you can do that..."

Crash's attention then fell to the TV, which was just coming back from a commercial apparently.

"Who comes up with this crap?"

[Leedzie]

"People with waaaaay too much time on their hands." Twisting from side to side, which resulted in a series of pops along her spine, the perky pangolin disappeared into the kitchen and buried her muzzle in the fridge. "Do we have anymore string cheese? I got a craving for it at work today."

[The Huggernaut]

"Yeah, should be some in the drawer." Crash's attention had come back to the show that was on.


"While most scientists believe that stories about 'Sol', are nothing more than delusions, one other theory has been raised..." Then host, for dramatic effect, waited for a moment.

"That this 'Sol' resides in another dimension! This theory has not been that widely accepted, but it does however explain various inconsistencies. The greatest of these, of course, is maps. People who claim to be from Sol do not recognize ANYTHING on a normal map, and state that no locations they know of are present."


Of course, this caught Crash's interest, as Julie had made pretty much the same statement looking at his map.

"Hey, Julie! Come look at this." Of course, she may already have heard it, but still.

[Leedzie]

"Ehwot?" The Gifted pangolin appeared in the doorway, eating her string cheese like a carrot rather than as is intended. No wonder she tended to go through them quickly. However, Julie paused mid-chew the first time the word "Sol" was mentioned.

"...Sol?" she echoed quietly. "That's... That's the name of the emeralds Princess Blaze protects..."

[The Huggernaut]

The devil, noticing a shift in Julie's voice, looked over his shoulder at the pangolin.

"That word ring a bell?" The devil remembered Julie mentioning something about "Sol Emeralds" now that he thought about it, so, yeah, answered his own question.

[Leedzie]

"SHHHHHHHHHHH!!"[/size]

Apparently she was listening closely.

[The Huggernaut]

"Sorry, jeeze." Crash went quiet as he just watched the show.


The program showed several maps of Sol, as the host described in great detail accounts of the capital, Soleanna, as well as talking about people believed to be major figures in this other dimension.

Including Blaze, who they even had an artist's rendering of, from various descritptions.

[Leedzie]

Julie was unsure if she wanted to laugh, cry, fart, whatever, in response to what she was hearing. Finally, a link back to her home!! In the end the pangolin seemed to simple tremble with excitement, and seemed unable to emote until the rendering of fiery cat was shown on the screen. "That's Princess Blaze!!" Julie shouted, though her volume was unintentional. "She's Gifted, just like me!!"

Her heart felt ready to burst through the bandages compressing her chest. A link back to her home world! Did this mean that there was a way for her to get back? Julie knew it was a bad idea to get her hopes up, but it still happened anyway.

And with great enthusiasm comes great hyperactivity.

Without warning, Julie was airbourne and tackling Crash on the couch. "EVERYTHING that they said is true!!" she exclaimed loudly, her green eyes beaming into his face. "Maybe they can figure out some way for me to go home!!"

[The Huggernaut]

Crash had glanced over when Julie's mentioned Blaze, since she was, y'know, yelling in his ear, but his attention then drifted back to the TV.

Big mistake.

Next thing he knew, he was being GLOMPED by the pangolin next to him. Before he could protest, though, he found himself eye to eye with Julie... And starting to wonder where his voice just went.

"..." So he just kind of stared for a minute.

[Leedzie]

Eventually the pangolin allowed Crash his personal space again, giddily pacing about the room. "Man, it'll be great to get back home! I mean this place is great, but the city's just so sterile. There's not enough plants here. I can't wait to get back out to Radical Train and get good and dirty with the guys!"

Julie's glee eventually fell on the devil again, and she planted her hands on her hips. "Good news for you too, huh? If I can get back to my own world, then you won't have to share your place anymore! You can get back to your regular routine without me in your hair turning things upside down!"

[The Huggernaut]

Then it clicked. If there WAS a way to get Julie back home, she'd...

She'd be gone, pal. Prolly never to return.

Crash considered this for a minute, wondering why that idea bothered him so much. Then he realized the show hadn't mentioned ANYTHING about how to get to this other dimension...

"Hey, I haven't minded the company really... but y'know, they haven't mentioned a reliable way to GET back there."

Crash knew he was prolly dashing her hopes, so... tried to soften the blow.

"But... if they do have some way to get you home, I'll help ya..." The devil grinned as an idea came to him. "Maybe you can show me around."

[Leedzie]

"I knoooooooooow, I know I shouldn't get so excited, but..." The pangolin tittered. "Well come on! With all the other crap the scientific community's always coming up with, this has just gotta be a matter of time, right? I mean, there's already warp rings; there's gotta be SOMEONE out there that can make one warp back home!" Julie returned Crash's grin upon his suggestion. "I can give you the tour if you want, but... *snerk* I don't think I'd get to show you much before you start begging to go back home."

The Gifted pangolin sucked in a satisfied breath, then headed back to the kitchen. "Y'know what? I'm in such a good mood, I'm gonna make us dinner! ... Or I will so long as we still have any pizza pockets."

[The Huggernaut]

Crash just snorted. He knew Julie was probably right... about the warp ring thing, but begging to go back home? Please.

Yeah, you wouldn't wanna look bad in front of Julie, would ya?

Great. You again. Will you SHUT UP? Please?

Aw, c'mon! I'm enlightening!

You're an idiot.

This entire mental exchange took less than a second, so he simply snickered at Julie's suggestion of making dinner.

"There's a box on top of the ice in the freezer." Another snicker from the devil.

"Try not to BURN these ones."

[Leedzie]

"I CAN'T BE BOTHERED TO READ DIRECTIONS, OKAY?"

Which she demonstrated beautifully by dumping a pile of them onto a single plate and jamming it into the microwave. And setting the timer for 10 minutes. It seemed like a reasonable amount of time.

[The Huggernaut]

Crash had a lot of experience with his microwave, and knew that it had one kind of beep for when you were punching in how long to cook the food, and another when you had it start.

Why had he heard four beeps? The devil got up, and walked over to the microwave, saw how long Julie'd set it, and frowned.

"Ten MINUTES? No wonder you burnt the last box." Crash stopped the microwave, and reset the timer to closer to FIVE minutes.

Huzzah, a batch of hot pockets saved.