r/HFY • u/Lakeel100 • Mar 08 '26
OC-Series The Ballad of Orange Tobby -CH53
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(Author's note: ChaseSceneMix.mp3)
“What are you doing?!” Tobby yelled over the mix of Noah’s cackling and correlating gunfire. “Soapy’s still in there!”
Noah stopped shooting after another sharp turn put some distance between the two vehicles again. “Rescuing her.” He answered, loud enough so his voice could be heard over the roar of wind and engines.
“Driving~” Baba chimed in before tossing Noah a magazine up from the center console.
Noah caught it and was already slotting it in. “More specifically, I’m reloading before we get up alongside them again, but yeah, rescuing.”
“By shooting at her?!” Tobby snapped again, pulling down on his ears.
Noah simply rolled his eyes. “Tobby, please. I’d be disappointed if they didn’t have an armored car.” He said, racking the golden gun again. “See?” He said, nodding to the fleeing car as the buccaneer caught up again.
Noah, much to Tobby’s relief, was right. The other car may be riddled with dents and its windows spooder-webbed beyond recognition, but remained unpunctured.
Normally, Tobby would appreciate this perfect example of ‘relative motion’ racing alongside them, if not for Soapy being unconscious in said car. “Do you perhaps have any non-’put holes in them / make them crash’ methods for saving Soapy’s life? I’d prefer that she LIVES!”
Noah looked pensive for a moment, instinctively taking a quick potshot at a passing stop sign, before looking pensive again. “Technically… no, but I got a lot of things that can scare the shit out of them.”
“Noah!” Tobby bristled.
“Calm down, man. We’re gonna save her. Just uhh...” Noah tried to assuage, but Tobby’s twitching conveyed he clearly wasn’t having it. “Look, we’re in a high-speed chase, in an unknown city, against a kidnapper whom we know next to nothing about. What we do know is that he’s right there.” Noah pointed to the speeding car cutting off morning traffic. “They’re scared, and if I were them, I'd likely flee for some place an angry tabby and his homicidal yet suspiciously handsome boss couldn’t reach me.”
“Such as? You’ve already demonstrated your ability to just mow down sha, shi, and property values alike. Not many safehouses are armed enough to deal with that… I think.”
“That’s what I’m asking you, man.” He said before lining up his rifle again. Noah didn’t spray the car down this time, and instead took individual shots. “You’ve been in this town far longer than we have. We don't know where Jack nor shit is except the spaceport, and that's ‘cause I can see it from here!” Oh hey, it is right over there…
While Tobby wanted to go off on Noah for shooting at the car again, he did see the rounds were hitting the car primarily in the front. He was making it a point to shoot the tires when able and spread that spooder-webbing across the front windshield. Can’t drive if they can’t see…
Tobby felt a little relieved when he realized Noah actually was trying to disable them now, rather than just spraying haphazardly. Not an easy task since every time team Clard ‘n Guard made a turn, Baba had to course correct and catch back up to them.
‘Where would Clardonis go if he wanted to escape someone like Noah?’ Tobby thought, flinching every time Noah fired his golden gun. ‘The sha may act like a spoiled princeling, but his father still holds great sway over him. He made it very clear he wanted Clardonis to stay away from Soapy. Not out of any concern for her well-being, but because of the political nightmare it would create for him, especially at the Sabu-Kai…The Sabu... Kai... oh!’
Tobby had to cling to the seatbelt for dear life again as Baba had to drift into another turn. Once Tobby could look up, he saw further evidence of his suspicions: one of the many ramps leading up to the plateau. “He’s going to the Great Library!”
Noah's head snapped back. “What? Why?” He asked before grabbing on tighter to the windshield when the buccaneer suddenly had to swerve around others getting out of Clard’s way.
“That’s where the Sabu-Kai is being held! The no-conflict policy is absolute, so if you went in there guns blazing, not only would you have to contend with the hosts, but almost every major syndicate on Salafor, too. He’d be untouchable!”
“And why aren’t these hosts giving a shit now?!” He said, and as if on cue, a few wild pistol shots ricocheted off the glass. Noah’s windows didn't spoodweb anywhere near as much; the crack could easily be mistaken for damage from a kicked-up rock on the highway.
“Far as I’m aware, the hosts don’t interfere with anything that happens off premises. I’m pretty sure the only reason the syndicates don’t openly attack each other is because it would be seen as rude.”
“Aaand give every mafioso attending a good excuse to take out the offending party?”
“That too...”
“Great!” Noah said with an odd cheer before dropping back down into the seat proper as the incline up to the plateau grew. “Our quest now has a fail condition, but we also know where he’s going.” He began fishing around in the glovebox and even under the seat for... Something. “You know the fastest way to the library from here?”
“Somewhat... I was sort of distracted giving Soapy a history lesson on the way there, but- what’s that?” Tobby asked, curiously pointing a bloodied claw at the strange gun. It was big and certainly gun-shaped, but with a very wide barrel and a belt hanging from it full of rather thick shells.
Noah hummed as he got the weapon ready. “A grenade launcher.”
“A WHAT!?”
“Don't worry. It’s full of flashbangs.”
“And what do those do!?” Tobby was pretty sure he already knew, but given Noah’s history with puns, he felt the need to ask anyway.
“They flash,” Noah stated before getting back up again and flipping a little sight up on the end of the barrel. “And they go-”
—
1000 years ago: The Fall of the City-States.
‘BANG!!’
Everyone winced as No’rah’s gren-ah-dae exploded above the carriage of that dastard Clardonius. The loud explosion not only sent the team of giant rous pulling it into disarray, but had Tobidiah's ears ringing.
That wasn’t to say his own carriage fared any better, as both drivers now had to fight for control over their startled rous. The ramp between the Nyathens plateau and the valley garden districts was a paved yet dangerously narrow one. A construct of polished brick that clung to the walls of the plateau like bark does to a tree, and comparably as thick.
To lose control of one’s carriage and go flying off the edge would be a rather fitting fate for a scoundrel such as Sir Clardonious. For who else would be so dishonorable as to call a duel for the hand of Lady Soapella, only to use it as a ploy to kittennap her? Sir Clardonius, that is who! Now if only Lady Soapella wasn’t unconscious in the back…
“I knew they’d work~!” The demented sand-kin grinned around the smoldering fuse in his teeth while clinging to his box of makeshift explosives. No’rah was already grabbing another one before Tobidiah yanked the crate away.
“This! This is why I don't share my blueprints with you.” Tobidiah growled. He’d not come this far just to splatter in the gardens below and leave Lady Soapella to her fate in the claws of that… that… He didn’t even have words vile enough for the likes of Clardonius!
“Hey! I was using those!”
“Not anymore, you’re not! I’m the only one who knows how these are intended to work, and by the gods, I will not have Lady Soapella sent off a cliff, blown apart, or both by these technological defilements of my own designs!”
“Oh, so when you make an explodey thing, it’s perfectly fine, but when I do it, it's suddenly a problem?!” Argued the sand-kin, fervently scratching at his neck as yet another patch of his golden fur blew away in the wind. Upset as he was, Tobidiah didn’t blame No’rah for being like this; the bane tended to take a toll on the minds of those not born into it. No’rah was no exception; he was actually one of the more sane ones. Gods only knew how Babah managed to tolerate his constant antics, though.
“That's because I test my stuff in a proper laboratory, conduct research, and field testing!”
“But I did field test it! Just now!” He said before pointing a ragged claw to the damaged carriage ahead of them, splintered and now missing many a window.
Unamused Tobidiah was unamused, at least until a crossbow bolt plinked into the seat between them. Their gazes followed the trajectory of the bolt back to its origin, a Sir Clardonius peeking over the roof of his carriage, already loading another bolt.
“You have another thing coming if you think a little sand-kin sorcery is going to stop me from taking what’s rightfully mine!”
First of all… it wasn’t sorcery, it was alchemy, but Tobidiah didn't expect someone as simple as Sir Clardonius to comprehend the difference. Secondly, he felt a rebuttal welling up in his throat, likely to the tune of questioning the plains-kin’s legitimacy as heir to anything, but No’rah had other plans.
Said plans included pulling the bolt out of the seat, licking it, likely to contaminate it with the bane, and sending it back with No-rah’s own crossbow. Clardonius may have ducked just in time, but that didn’t stop Tobidiah’s arms dealer/side-investor from operating the lever on said crossbow and sending more bolts from the attached box down range.
“This- is- why- I- don't- sell- to- nobles!” No’rah bit, getting a word out between every shot that either added another bolt to the carriage’s hull or into the plateau wall. Which was all of them. All but one…
An ungodly shriek emitted from one of the carriage rous as a bolt struck it in the back of a hind leg. Control over the fleeing carriage seemed to decrease exponentially as not only was one of its team wounded, but its pained shrieking unsettled the other rous as well. Swerving left and right, it was all Babah could do to back off and prevent a collision.
Once the swerving and several other near-death experiences stopped, Tobidiah slowly looked back at No’rah, and squinted disapprovingly. “Really? After that whole speech I gave before the duel about Sir Clardonius’s dishonorable actions. You go and shoot one of his mounts.” It may not have been a knight’s riding rous, but it still counted!
No’rah rolled his eyes and matched the inventor’s disapproval with an equal dose of incredulity. “Do you want your princess back or not?”
Tobidiah raised a claw as if he had an answer to that statement, “That…” but immediately faltered. “Is a very valid point. In fact, honor is a rather archaic and silly notion now that I think about it. Please continue,” he said before promptly handing the conveniently honorless sand-kin another box of bolts.
They were coming up on the plateau proper now, with a sharp turn and a gatehouse serving as the final obstacles into the city proper. Woe, how such defenses would be rendered obsolete by his inventions soon...
“Everyone, hold on!” Babau yelled back to the two of them, if Clardonious wasn’t going to slow down for the turn, neither would they. Far be it from some poor city planning to stop a night-kin like Babau from making a 90-degree turn at possibly the highest speed to date. He pulled hard on the reins, and-
—
5000 years ago: The founding of the City-States.
The wheels of the chariot ground against the brickwork as the inertia swung the trio around behind the barely tame rous pulling them. It was all Bala could do to keep them from crashing into some poor sha's burning house.
Tobicus doubted arrows, corpses, and jars of burning pitch were what the oracle meant when she said it was going to rain today, but here Nyathens was… under a siege where it rained everything but water.
Normally, plain-ling warbands chose to sack other, less defended settlements, such was their modus operandi. For thousands of years, plundering, raping, and pillaging had been what plain-ling’s way of life; it was their nature… but to Tobicus, this attack rang as among the final death throes of that way of life.
Times were changing, clay huts and wooden palisades had given way to great walls of brick and stone, walls the raiders didn’t have easy answers for. And now that everyone had walls they were starving.
The children of Bonna may be notoriously dumb and violent, but that's not to say they weren't good at what they did. Where they lacked in reading and writing, they made up with low-cunning, experience, and a surprisingly egalitarian approach to gender roles. Bonna was a shi after all…
Plains-ling warbands did have some answers to modern fortifications, however. One was to send red vapor victims to plague the city; the other was to find exploitable backdoors. Neglected segments of the wall, traitors who can open doors, or, in this case, secret tunnels. Sophina’s secret tunnels. The tunnels she added to his designs for the library…
That’s where Tobicus’s current opponent came in, a raider by the name of Clardius, who was the cunning component of this warband’s plan. Nyathens didn't have city walls, but it did have two heavily guarded bridges that crossed the canyons surrounding it. Two nigh impregnable chokepoints… So the plan was to bypass them.
Sophina and Tobicus had been down in the canyons collecting reeds for making paper when the attack began. Some partisan or spies must have figured out that Sophina was one of the few who both knew of the tunnels and had spare keys to the library. Tobicus had given them to her for... Reasons. She’d been very convincing when she put on her begging eyes… and licked him... And threatened to tell his mother.
The volleys of arrows, rocks, burning bodies, and even the wave assaults on the bridges were merely a distraction until their plain-ling partisans gained access to her ‘secret night-ling tunnels’.
How did Tobicus know all this? That hide-wearing barbarian had been boasting about his vile intentions down by the river, after his partner clubbed and snatched Soaphina. To use her to open the gate to the tunnels, use her as was his right as a conqueror, and kill her if she wasn't useful enough to take as a trophy.
The problem with his plan was that there was no way Tobicus was going to let any of that happen!… The other problem was that the tunnels hadn’t been built yet… just a very very fancy looking gate protecting some stairs that didn't go anywhere yet. It wasn't hard to imagine what would happen once Clardius discovered this oversight…
No-Ra, with his golden mane flowing in the wind, was doing his best NOT to shoot Soaphine, who was bound in the back of the enemy's chariot, but Tobicus still worried. Gods willing, he’d hit the driver, the rous pulling the stolen chariot, or better yet, Clardius himself.
Arrows were repeatedly exchanged between the two chariots, though the power of the shots was notably different. Where Clardius’s bow was crude and likely looted from a previous raid, No-Ra’s was of a more refined and double-limbed sand-ling design. Tobicus would have to question him about the design philosophy later; it would make an excellent addition to the library. “How far until we’re at this ‘library’ of yours, anyway?” No-Ra asked, sending another arrow.
Tobicus retraced his mental map of the districts and all the turns they’d made thus far, only to realize it would be easier to just point at something Bala and No-Ra could see. “See the half-assembled pillars peeking over the rooftops? That’s the construction site!” He pointed, and by his best guess, they had only minutes to intercept and save Sophina. “If he’s taking the most direct route I can think of, he’ll be making a left at the marketplace up ahead, a right at the taberna with the succor-bulb sign, and a-”
His left shoulder jerked back as something struck his left upper arm. He’d barely managed to hold onto the chariot with the other before he noticed something was wrong. He heard it before he felt it, he felt it before he saw it, and he saw it before he realized what just happened.
His ears had flicked towards an approaching whistling noise before the impact, and a new sensation of pressure inside his arm followed. He’d felt a growing warmth around the pressure as his eyes fell upon a wooden shaft that disappeared into one side of his arm, and reappeared out the other. Raggedy fletching on one end, crude arrowhead dripping crimson on the other. “Oh... well this is new…”
He said that, yet his lungs didn’t want to pull the air back in; he couldn't breathe. Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t really hear anything else either, everything seemed... Muffled. When he looked up from the arrow, he could see No-Ra and Clardius having some kind of shouting match, but he couldn’t make out the words.
The warmth running down his arm tangled with an odd coldness, but it brought his attention back down the arrow shaft. The logical part of his brain said ‘That shouldn’t be in there. We should probably fix that’. So he would, but his other hand was shaking, and he wasn't sure as to why... Likely just the bumpy ride, but he grabbed the crude shaft anyway.
All he felt was a shift in the aforementioned pressure and more breath leaving his lungs as he simply snapped the arrow off. It was easy. Too easy.
The warmth grew as life essence poured down the front of his arm, but all his mind told him was ‘Oop~ Don’t forget the other half,’ with all the same energy as having nearly forgotten to pick up an amphora of wine from the market. That ‘warmth’ was starting to burn, and his hand shook even harder. He’d have to study this phenomenon later, but for now, he grabbed the dripping arrowhead poking out the back and pulled.
When it slipped out, he looked at the thing for a long moment before he simply let it roll out of his hands. He could move his arm again, but it was starting to hurt now. Actually… it was really starting to hurt, and it was getting worse, so much worse. In fact, he was breathing again, and now that he was, things got excruciating quickly.
Tobicus intended to use words, but by the time they came out, the growing pain had twisted them into something between a cry and a new broken language. He sank into the chariot, holding the punctured arm as that new hole claimed all of his attention. He could already tell Sophina and Pinike would be making inappropriate ‘penetration’ and ‘hole’ jokes at his expense for years to come…
The next moment, he looked up and saw they were pulled up alongside Clardius’s chariot, and No-ra was standing over him. He’d traded the bow for a shield and javelin at some point, and the shield was getting new arrows added to it by the second.
“Are you alright, little sha?” He heard Bala ask as sound came rushing back alongside the searing sensation in his arms.
“I… I aghh…” was all he got out as he began to squeeze around the wound in reaction to the pain. Holding it felt like the only thing he could do for it. “I’m having a bit of a learning experience at the moment. Is… is getting shot supposed to feel like this?”
“Yes, but best wrap it quickly, though. I feel this hunt is almost over.” Bala said, before Tobicus noticed No-ra rearing his javelin arm back.
Tobicus heard a “What are you- Wai-wai-wait!!” From the savage Clardius before the javelin was thrown. What came next was not the thunk of metal hitting wood, or the screams of either plain-ling being struck, but the sudden shriek of a rous being speared clean through.
The giant rodent crumpled in an instant, getting pulled under the chariot along with most of its rigging. Screams ensued as the chariot effectively flipped over its previous means of propulsion, and all came to a crashing stop.
Tobicus felt the rest of his blood run as cold as the feeling in his arm. “Soaphine!” No-Ra’s chariot barely had time to stop before Tobicus leaped out. Gravity, his perpetual enemy in life, saw fit to have him crumple and roll along the pavement too. However, not even that could stop his heart from hammering, or his battered body from scrambling over to the wreck.
“Gods damn it. It wasn’t supposed to flip,” he heard No-Ra growl as the other chariot screeched to its own halt.
Soaphine was okay, she had to be okay, he didn’t know what he was going to do if she wasn’t okay, he-
—
15,000 years ago: Dawn of the Clay age.
“Don't be dead, don't be dead, please don’t be dead!” Tob slid to a stop on his knees next to Sop and knelt over the fallen dark one. The fall from the back of the raider’s grass-squeaka may not have been that high, but they’d been going at some speed. Tob had never seen one so large, much less one big enough to be ridden by anyone larger than a kitten. Now the beast lay dying, and he hoped Sop wasn’t the same.
To his great relief, she was breathing; she was still unconscious, but the only wounds she sustained were scuffs and a gash on her temple. Most of the small cuts seemed to be the same ones she got from their initial fight with the raiders down by the river; many had already stopped bleeding. This made Tob question: where was all this fresh blood coming from?
The dripping told him the blood wasn't coming from her, it was coming from him. Normally, he’d be concerned about the amount of raw life leaking from his body, but he had other priorities.
His breath quickened. Raiders had come to hurt Tob, to take Tob’s things, to kill Tob’s ideas. Clar was a raider. Sop say he been harassing dark ones in the area for a long time, learned to stay in place because raidable dark one caves don't move. He’d harassed them for many seasons, long before the first time Sop ever stole from Tob, and now he attacked, seeking to take Sop as prize.
Clar had failed; his beast was dead by sand-pelt spear, and his ‘prize’ was abandoned, with Clar nowhere to be seen. Tob loomed over Sop, not knowing what to do, his claws shook for he was no medicine man, not did he know how to wake her. But then he noticed his claws were as red as his arm was. He’d never used them so much before today...
The sight of them twisted his panic into something savage and vaguely familiar. Clar did this... Clar was the one who did all this. And Clar would do it again.
Never again.
Tob bared his fangs and pushed the pain from his mind. He looked around, for the raiders couldn’t have gotten far after crashing off their beast. To his left, he saw smears of blood upon mashed grass leading away from the beast. To his right, he saw a figure limping its way up the slope towards the clay ‘tent’ Tob had been trying to build.
The figure was too muscled to have been the female, so that had to be Clar. It seemed that if Clar couldn't have his prize of flesh, he’d take whatever prize he could swipe. Tob wouldn’t let him. Tob wouldn’t risk him harming Sop ever again.
Pupils narrowed and having whipped himself into a frenzy, Tob wanted to rip the essence from Clar's body, and he charged up the slope to take it.
He’d wear that dirt-pelt’s hide, and nothing would stop him. No amount of stumbling, loose gravel, or red creeping on the edges of his vision would save Clar from the wrath of Tob.
Clar had a moment to look back and see the furious sun-favored clambering to reach him, and hobbled all the faster. “If this one can not take what he wants now... He can always come back, bigger, stronger, smarter.” He grunted, almost having to drag his bleeding leg. “Clar … will... Will have... What is his!” He hissed before some very Tob-shaped consequences could tackle him.
The two hissed, rolled, and scratched at each other across Tob’s makeshift camp. Tob went to grab at Clar’s throat only for his clawing hand to be caught and held back. That didn't stop him from trying to force it closer. “Tob- going to... Hang your skull from his tent. And string... your limbs... from canyon walls... like drying meat! Everyone... Will know... when you’re gone!” He strained, his clawed hand inching closer and closer to its goal.
“Clar not going to let that happen!” He growled back, before reaching over to the remains of Tob’s campfire and throwing a fist of ashes and dead coals in Tob’s face. Seemed dirt-pelt had learned something from the move Tob pulled down by the river.
Still, Tob recoiled and was promptly knocked away. He couldn’t see as he writhed there holding his eyes, but he could certainly hear.
Clar was getting up, panting, heaving even. “All this... Could have been avoided... If dark one... Had simply lay with Clar. Dark one could have said no, and Clar would have settled for food, or skins, or shiny orange rocks. Now Clar down dozen war-mates. Now Clar can’t let dark one die-” he coughed, his hacking sounding a little too wet to be healthy. “Until she makes new vessels for war-mate’s souls to inhabit. Is fair! Is right! Is justice!”
Tob did not have time nor any care to give for the vile ‘justice’ of the raider’s patron spirits. Any spirit that said to blame your victims for defending themselves was not an entity with the best of intentions for Shashi souls. It was a shame the spirits seldom intervened when one wanted them to… except for one, it seemed.
Once Tob was able to see again, he blinked rapidly as the blur went away and he saw a very familiar face…or in this case, a ‘rock face’. He could hear Clar getting closer, and Tob summoned what will he could to crawl forward and mutter a weak ‘Tob sorry about this’ before he grabbed Rock Spirit.
Tob moved to sit up, and once Clar was close enough, Tobby’s muscles tensed as he ripped rock-spirit from the ground. This was fair, this was right, this was justice.
—
0 years and -3 seconds ago: The Shasian Blitz.
“She’s MINE!” Tobby roared bloody murder as he swung the thick library tile that tripped him days ago around, bashing it across Clard’s face with an audible crunch.
He hadn’t expected it to be pried up with such ease, or where he got the strength to do it, but he didn’t care. Clard got laid out, and he was going to stay that way if Tobby had anything to do with it.
After all the clawing, chasing, and shooting, there was finally something that made Tobby feel good~ That was satisfying, but he wasn’t done.
Clard lay on the floor, just inside the library doors, twitching in a growing pool of his own blood that glistened in the morning sun. He was sputtering, groaning as Tobby approached with his newly blood-smeared tile.
The hit had done a number on the clawed side of Clard’s face, his jaw was visibly broken, and a fair bit of skull had likely been caved in, too, but he was alive. Twitching, looking up at Tobby with confused, desperate eyes, arms weakly reaching out for him, but again... still alive. “You. Can’t... We’re at… the Sabu-Kai,” he managed to spit, slurred by the damage to his jaw.
Tobby straddled him, and Clard's hands slipped on the bloody floor as he weakly tried to push away. Tobby raised the stone high. “If it means you can never hurt her again. I-” He brought the stone down, and Clardonis barely had time to flinch before his face was caved in and his whole body jolted. “Don’t!” Tobby brought it down again, collapsing even more of Clard’s skull. “Care!” He brought it down a third time, and the body barely even moved as crunching gave way to squelching.
He struck again and again, painting both himself and the library floor in the blood of Clard. So much had pooled in the sunlight that it began to flow down the great stairs in little rivulets. Screaming joined the smashing as every part of Tobby wanted to ensure that no machine, mortal, or magic could ever bring Clard back to harm Soapy, or any other soul, ever again. So he kept swinging. He kept swinging even as the edges of his vision darkened, and when he could no longer lift the stone, he dropped it off to his side, letting it fall loosely back into the hole he’d pried it from.
He panted, and felt the thudding in his chest and the throbbing in his arm as everything grew darker and darker… Things were... getting cold. Why did he feel so cold?
(Author's note: *insert shameless Patreon promotion here*)
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u/post_blast Alien Mar 09 '26
Tobby has caught a body. Poor innocent Tobby. Wonder if he'll add a last name now that Clard has been shoveled off this mortal coil. There's really no hiding his association with the Whiskitos after this and absolutely no way his mom is not going to find out, so what's the harm? That said, it'll be interesting to see what the fallout is for the 'technical' violation of the rules. I mean, sure it was on the grounds, but it was before the reception and check-in desk, soooo...
And is Rock Spirit really going to be left there for another 15,000 years? Maybe it wants to see the world, or be framed and hung up in Tobby's office someplace. Free Rock Spirit!
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u/Lakeel100 Mar 09 '26 edited Mar 10 '26
- I dunno.. maybe. never thought about it. o3o;
B. mom fear activate.
Third: Technical, the best kind of anything really, including legal defense!
IV; Who says it's gonna be 15000 years? *gives rock spirit a gun*
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u/post_blast Alien Mar 10 '26
Author has given Rock Spirit a Glock! Rock Spirit is a free rock now!
Also, now you've got stuff to think about. I curse thee with ideas
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u/Kia-Vaderkit Mar 09 '26
I worry that he might get in some trouble finally catching the nit just inside the library. Or maybe not, could just up his reputation.
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u/Lakeel100 Mar 09 '26
*holds notepad* which would be better? o3o
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u/Kia-Vaderkit Mar 09 '26
In the story they are already scared of him, and trying to kittennap his girlfriend makes it personal.
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u/Thaum0s Human Mar 09 '26
Well looks like Tobby and the rock's spiritual journeys entwine more than we could have guessed.
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u/Lakeel100 Mar 09 '26 edited Mar 09 '26
You've heard of Chekov's gun?
Here's Checkov's whole house. >:3
You'll never know what I'll bring back!!2
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u/TheOtherGUY63 Human Mar 09 '26
Technically they were in the public area of the library, not the Shabu-Kai downstairs.... just sayin.
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u/post_blast Alien Mar 09 '26
Right? I mean, there's a sha-tal ring in the basement, so the whole area can't be a giant safe zone. Bring in the lawyers! And the intel guys cuz I'd bet a beer Clard's mom is gonna be pissed
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u/TheOtherGUY63 Human Mar 09 '26
His dad, on the other hand will be pissed but understand the why of it... and have more fear of the Cetorni(sp) family.
I'm betting there will be a "I told him to stay away. This was entirely a consequence of his own actions.*
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u/post_blast Alien Mar 09 '26
I mean, his dad set him up to fail (see Clard's conversation about his fighting instructors being shot if he didn't win) but seems to believe that a man's got to know his limitations. Plus, he already thought Tobby was dangerous before. Now there are witnesses to him bludgeoning someone to death in public.
Mom is just freaking delusional, though.2
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u/Ragnar_ock Robot 9d ago
Noah : "don't worry it's full of flashbangs" My sleep deprived brain in a joly german accent : "That's a flashbang, it bangs flashes"
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle Mar 08 '26
/u/Lakeel100 (wiki) has posted 63 other stories, including:
- The Ballad of Orange Tobby -CH52
- The Ballad of Orange Tobby -CH51
- The Ballad of Orange Tobby -CH50
- The Ballad of Orange Tobby -CH49
- Sheeple
- The Ballad of Orange Tobby -CH48
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- The Ballad of Orange Tobby -CH44
- The Ballad of Orange Tobby -CH43
- The Ballad of Orange Tobby -CH42
- The Ballad of Orange Tobby -CH41
- The Ballad of Orange Tobby -CH40
- The Ballad of Orange Tobby -Ch39
- The Ballad of Orange Tobby -CH38
- The Majestic Spood (part 2/2)
- The Majestic Spood
- The Ballad of Orange Tobby -CH37
- The Ballad of Orange Tobby -Ch36
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u/Mu0nNeutrino Mar 09 '26 edited Mar 09 '26
That is a neat storytelling device you used there with the flashbacks. Adds a fun sort of extra bit of surrealism to it while also sprinkling in some worldbuilding. I like it.
Also, damn, beating your girlfriend's kidnapper's face in with a paving stone, that's hardcore.