Application: Sergeant Schlock, Schlock Mercenary (webcomic)

[ominous_hum]

Somewhere near the ceiling of the Sorting Room, there is a sound much like a baseball bat being passed through a coffee maker, and then a large gray-green mass materializes out of thin air and lands on the ground with a splatch. It sits there for a moment, inert, and then a pair of eyes emerge and pan around the room. The mass sprouts a pair of

Comments

[lemondrop_party]

"Attorney drones, eh?" Albus chuckled. "We do have our share of lawyers here. I think they would like to remain in one piece. That's quite a firearm you have there. Is it for pest control only, or is it a multifunction device?"

[ominous_hum]

"Well, I don't get paid if they're not actually attorney drones of the Partnership Collective, so they should be safe." Schlock mulls that over. "Unless they get me angry." He scratches what on a human might be a chin. "Or they get between me and my Genuine Imitation Ovalkwik.

"And the plasgun? Well, this model's a multifunction unit. It's got a rocket mode - the only difference between a plasma rocket and a plasma cannon is which way the switch is pointing, really - and it's got a variable beam aperture that can go from surgical-narrow to screaming-carnage wide." He grins. "Plus, it makes this really nice soothing sound."

[lemondrop_party]

Would it be much of a surprise to any of Albus's acquaintances that, of all those capabilities, it was the soothing sound that appealed to him most?

"Almost as nice as a Muggle hair dryer," he mused happily.

[ominous_hum]

"Yep. The ominous hum's how you know it's working."

[chaotic_miles]

"Space mercinary, huh?" Miles looked interested. He did not, however, appear to be bothered by the fact that he was talking to an amorphous blob. "How does your company feel about evil clowns?"

[ominous_hum]

Schlock grins cheerfully. "I don't know about the rest of Tagon's Toughs, but I took my very first plasma cannon off an evil clown that wanted to vaporize me with it." Then he gets a pensive look. "I miss that plasma cannon."

[chaotic_miles]

Miles looks approving. "You really, definitely can't trust evil clowns with plasma canons." He offers a hand. "Miles Vorkosigan. I'd like to offer you a position in the Hogwarts division of the Dendarii Free Mercinaries. We used to be a space outfit, too, but... well, spacefaring vessels are a bit hard to come by around here."

[ominous_hum]

"Well..." Schlock looks thoughtful, or as thoughtful as a blob can look. "Sounds good. I sure wouldn't mind the extra paycheck. 'Specially if getting back into space isn't so easy."

Then he looks at Miles, eyes level. "Y'know, I never knew humans came in your size. Except sometimes for the women, but even Elf's a little taller than you are. Even before she got body-modded, and back then, she was tiny. Er ... no offense?"

((ooc: Normally, Schlock is about Miles' height, although he weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred kilos. And most of the humans he knows are mercenaries with severely boosted physiques.))

[wright_phoenix]

"Killing....attorney.....droids......DONTKILLME!"

[ominous_hum]

Schlock gives Phoenix a contemplative look. "You don't look like a Partnership Collective Attorney Drone. No fangs, for one."

[wright_phoenix]

"But I'm an attorney....I was worried that you would start killing all attorneys, since there's no droids here."

[ominous_hum]

"Nah. You're not part of the Partnership Collective, so there's no money in it. Besides, I know at least one decent attorney."

[ka_click]

"Pretty nice gun you got there." Says the bunny on the shelf. "Ya think ya might offer that up as a bribe?" Cause we webcomics gotta stick together.

[ominous_hum]

Schlock snatches the gun back to himself protectively. "MINE."

Then he rummages in his mouth a bit and comes up with a much smaller (dare one say, Bun-Bun sized?) pistol. "Here. Kevyn gave this to me after my first plasgun got blown up. It's a ... something or other. Magic sleep gun."

[ka_click]

"Magic sleep gun, huh?" Bun-bun turns the weapon over, admiring it. "Does it work? Cause, if it does? You just bought your way into the house of yer choice."

[ominous_hum]

"I'm a space mercenary," Schlock says proudly. "Mercenaries don't get to cash their paychecks by carrying around guns that don't work." He picks up the sleep gun and points it at an owl that happens to be flapping by; the gun gives off a soft whistle like an old-fashioned television tube, and the owl drops to the floor like a stone.

Schlock hands the little gun back and picks up the owl, which is actually snoring. "See?"

Then Schlock eats the owl.

[chas_macaulay]

Erm, what is this 'Earth Capital' stuff? Earth's got lots of capitals. One per nation, state, territory et ceterah.

[ominous_hum]

"Funny. You must have been reading from a different history coloring book than I did. Then again, I only went to Earth a couple of times. Not a really fun place, but not as bad as its moon."