trans_9 | Eat This, Yuletide! [Open]

Entry tags:

lord zetta,
ophelia

Eat This, Yuletide! [Open]

"HYAAA HA HA HA HA!"

That wasn't St. Nick's jolly laugh waking the ship and ringing through the corridors.

Crashing through the halls, bolting through the City, smashing couches out of the way on the Obs Deck, ran nine minions of the Overlord, roped to a sleigh that appeared to be made entirely out of scrap parts Zetta had found lying around the city. (It was heavily armed, too, because, well, this was Zetta.) Another minion sat at the front of the sleigh, yahing the minions rather pointlessly, since they never slowed down or sped up no matter what the driver did. Behind that minion stood Zetta's minion of choice, proudly holding up -- the Sacred Tome, with a massive Santa hat and an even more massive fake beard attached.

"HYAAA HA HA HA HA! Meeeerry Overlordsmas, ship! Everyone enjoy your holiday gift -- the privilege of basking in my radiated badassery! Meeeeerry Overlordsmas!"

....well.... he HAD threatened to start celebrating Netherworld holidays....

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Well. This was certainly a thing.

Ophelia heard Zetta coming long before she saw the vehicle approach. She wasn't quite sure what to make of the sleigh: it was a little amateur, sure, but the builder certainly had an eye for... accessories. She climbed up on a convenient fence to avoid the onslaught.

"Nice ride!" She called as they passed.

"Hyaaaa ha ha ha! Thanks!" The sleigh slowed down a little at Zetta's command, so the book could grin at her, eyebrows arched wickedly. "Wanna be an Overlord's Holiday Helper?"

"Oh yeah? What does a 'holiday helper' do, anyway?" Ophelia secretly hoped it involved working on this vehicle. She was already thinking about adding a proper engine.

"Eye candy?"

That hung awkwardly in the air for a moment.

"Uh, unless you have something else in mind. Turnout's a bit lower than back home, so I'm mostly doing this for kicks."

Yes. Awkward was a good way to put it. She'd heard Eddie use that phrase before and had a general idea of what it meant.

"You know, I bet I could make this thing run a lot faster." Ophelia finally piped up. "And by itself, without a bunch of people pulling it. I just need the materials."

"Well, it's kind of going for the image," Zetta said, looking at the sleigh. "But you know, having this thing mobile after this whole holiday crap ended would be pretty cool. I have a lot of material back in my plaza... wanna meet me there, or ride around a bit with me first?"

Ophelia had never celebrated Christmas before, but hearing that she could work on the sleigh would have made the perfect gift. She did want to get a feel for how it handled first, but she was a little put off by the small army tied to the front.

"I wouldn't mind a ride, but..." She nodded to the minions. "They don't mind, do they?"

"Naw. They're just extensions of my power. Constructs. They don't have minds TO mind. C'mon, pile in."

The Overlord, or rather the minion holding him, scooted over to let Ophelia have some space. "The helper outfits are under the seat," he added, though not sounding really expectant that she'd actually don one.

Magic, then. Not slaves. That was reassuring. They were wearing silly outfits regardless.

"I think I'll pass." She said as she hopped in. "So, I take it 'Overlordmas' is kinda like this Christmas thing I've heard other people here talking about?"

"Strongest mana power in the cosmos and I can't even get any hot girls in skimpy elf costumes," the Overlord sighed, resigned to his unfortunate fate. "Oh well, I guess it's not like I can do anything but enjoy the view right now anyway." And that knowledge prompted an even deeper sigh.

"Eh, I got annoyed at everyone deciding to celebrate this human holiday that doesn't exist for three-quarters of everyone on the ship and decided I might as well use it for my own purposes. My Netherworld DID have an Overlord's Day, but not quite the same thing. No sleighs or stupid beards involved."

Ophelia chose to ignore that first comment. It's not like a book could pull anything on her. "Human holiday? Not where I came from. We didn't have many celebrations at all, at least not until the war ended, but even then it mainly involved lots of beer."

And then the Ohm destroyed everything, she thought to herself bitterly.

Much to the Overlord's perpetual dismay, she was right. Hooking-up prospects were thin on the ground when one was a tome.

"Huh. That sounds like a pretty good way to celebrate, if you ask me."

"It's the only way to celebrate." Ophelia said with a smile. "And when we finally defeated the Coil... I guess that would have been a day we would have celebrated for years to come."

She didn't say it, but the "had the Ohm not destroyed everything" was fairly clear in her tone.

"I think I like the way you think," Zetta said, grinning, as the sleigh whipped around a turn to speed back towards the lifts. "What's the coil?"

He briefly imagined Ophelia kicking a giant Slinky down some stairs, but suspected that was not exactly what had happened.

"The Tainted Coil. The demons." She explained solemnly. "They were servants of the titans, our predecessors, but when the titans ascended to the heavens they were left behind. They tried to replace their old masters, but they created my people instead, and they took their anger at being abandoned out on us."

She hoped she was retelling this correctly. Eddie had found all of the lost legends and had been more than happy to share them with the rest of Ironheade, but he had a rather... informal way of explaining things. Especially after a few drinks. "They enslaved us, blighted the land and anyone who wouldn't submit was simply hunted down. After generations of their tyranny, we finally defeated them and earned our freedom. It was a day I would never forget."

"Hmph. Never heard of them," Zetta said. "But I guess if they were ex-servants who didn't have anything better to do than crap on a world instead of being Overlords worth the title, I wouldn't have anyway." The book grunted, irritated and contemptuous.

"And after all that --" defeating demons utterly was pretty impressive for humans, he had to admit, even if they'd been crap demons -- "you got yanked up here?" The Overlord actually sounded... sympathetic, but surely that didn't register in his own mind. It became anger a moment later anyway. "Damn Ohm."

"I like the way you think." Ophelia said, the smile returning. "Do you remember what you told me the first time we talked? That I could get everything back? I haven't forgotten that. I guess you know why that's so important to me, now."

She felt a little silly, opening up like that. But Zetta had been the one to give her a purpose on this weird ship.

"I remember," Zetta said. "Same thing I'm doing -- getting it all back."

It honestly hadn't occurred to him until now that 'getting it all back' meant more to some of the people on this ship than it did to him. After all, he was STILL the strongest in the cosmos. Even if he didn't get his own Netherworld back, he could always get a new one -- a new castle, find someone to wish back his body... But Ophelia wouldn't be happy with a new world or the Ohm's defeat.

It gave him something to think about. (And he HATED that.)

"Hmph. Well, don't think of beating the Spring as victory. They were just a midboss, the fake ending. Now's when the real fight begins, and --"

An entirely incongruous thought occurred to him. "Hey, how old are you anyway?"

That was an odd shift in conversation. She was all geared up for an inspirational speech, too. "I've never kept track. Why?"

''Cuz I've noticed something. Most of the ass-kickers on this ship are girls between the ages of eleven and eighteen." And this fact just kept bothering Zetta more and more. He peered at Ophelia thoughtfully. "You look like you might be on the upper end of the scale. Just wondering if you fell into it or not."

"I have noticed a lot of young people around." Ophelia said. "But I grew up fighting the Coil. Most of us did. If they come from worlds like mine, they've probably grown up fighting, too. And they have a lot gain back if we defeat the Ohm."

She wondered just how many of the children she had seen on board had been in similar situations. Had they defeated their enemies, or did they have another war to return to?

"Just be nice to be around someone who was, you know, an adult. And kickass. The two don't seem to go together much." The book exhaled, even as the sleigh picked up speed as it raced down the long streets of the city to the Overlord's ~~Plaze~~ Fortress.

"I know I'm the oldest person on this ship -- which is kind of weird -- but still, a LITTLE contemporary company would be nice!"

"Maybe you just have a knack for kids?" Ophelia offered with a grin. "How old are you, anyway?"

"Somewhere around 35,000." Zetta paused to reflect, but he couldn't put an exact number to it. Time spent away from suns and revolutions and all that crap made it really hard to tell. "I don't think anyone else has gotten past four digits. Kids!" he shouted at the City - since the person he would have loved to needle most with that insult had been repodded what seemed like forever ago.

Ophelia's eyebrow couldn't possibly raise any higher. "That's... yeah, I think you're gonna have a pretty hard time finding anyone close to that. Unless there are more magic talking books around somewhere."

"Hyaaaa ha ha ha ha! There's only one Zetta, in any form!"

With that pronouncement, the sleigh skidded to a halt in the Overlord's Fortress (formerly Overlord's Plaza).

"So. Whaddya need for this refit thing?"

Ophelia took that as her cue to disembark. She jumped off and immediately set to examining the sleigh again. "Knowing where you found all the scrap to build this in the first place would be great. And if you know where to find an engine and a gearbox. Just eye-balling it right now, but this thing's going to need a lot of power to move because of the size and, uh-" She nods to the heavy weapons. "Weight. But it should be doable."

"All over the damn place, but I think I can hook you up on some of those parts."

The Overlord concentrated for a moment, and a building crashed to the ground about a dozen feet away, as if it had fallen out of the sky. From it burst a couple of minions, leaping out with a larger piles of machinery in their arms than they really should have been able to carry.

Ophelia watched the spectacle with mild interest- after all, where she came from, huge structures appearing out of nowhere was par for the course. That sort of power was a plus in her book. She stepped forward to look over the huge caches of stuff Zetta's minions presented.

"Yeah." She nodded after a minute. "This will do. This will do just fine."

The minions obligingly piled up the parts haphazardly. The book, meanwhile, settled in - so to speak - to watch, actually curious. Ophelia hadn't seemed like a tinkerer when he'd met her, after all.

Where she came from, you didn't tinker so much as you tore the earth asunder and bent the raw elements to your will. The first part was already done, so all that was left was to cobble something awesome together from the selection here. As soon as Ophelia start picking through the piles, all of the things Eddie taught her started running through her head. This part could be a piston. That part would make a good crankshaft. And she might have to take that other part for herself if she ever had the urge to build herself another car.

It wasn't very long before she had something resembling the image in her mind, (http://image.rodandcustommagazine.com/f/11374794+w750+st0/0407rc_01_z+different_hot_rod_parts_accessories+engine.jpg) and she hoisted it up to place it so Zetta could get a better look.

"There." She said. "I need to clean it up a little, but it's a start."

"What the-?" He looked from the engine, to the pile of part, to her.

"How did you DO that?" The book was, against its will, impressed.

"It's an ancient art, thought long lost, that we had recently rediscovered." Ophelia explained. "Do you like it?"

"Okay, you have officially impressed the Overlord," Zetta said with a smug grin. "As befits a loyal minion! Seriously, why are you not in Engineering doing that sort of thing? They'd wet themselves the first time you did that."

"Engineering? There are others that do this kind of thing?" Ophelia asked, genuinely surprised. She hadn't been keeping up with the announcements and messages passed back and forth with the crew, namely because she didn't know or care to use the omnicomm system.

"Yeah. I don't think any of them can just slap together something working from a random pile of crap, though. They'd love to have someone who can do that."

The Overlord looked from the engine to Ophelia proper, something of a frown on his face. "If there's one thing I've had ground into me since I got on this ship, it's that humans need, like, social... people... things. Friends and all that crap, you know? You ought to consider going and helping out. Anything that kicks the Ohm's ass a little more is a plus, and it might do you some good."

Friends, huh? Ophelia had found herself keeping everyone at arm's length again, despite her talk with Maydril when she had first arrived. She couldn't help it; it seemed like every time she found someone to be close to, they were just taken away from her.

...And yet, on the ship there always seemed to be someone willing to extend a hand. Help her out. "Yeah, you're right about that. But they wouldn't be the first friends I've made here."

"Got shoved back into the pods?" Zetta guessed. It would explain her reluctance.

"Not yet, but it's something I'm always worried about." She sighed. "You aren't going back there any time soon, are you?"

"From what I hear, you go back in if your soul is about to fall out or something like that, 'cuz the Bleed thing we're in can make that happen." He grinned, oh so very smug. "But I can survive in the void between worlds. This is nothing!"

A little more awkwardly, he added, "Besides, my soul is already confined in this damn book as tightly as I can bind it. And that's pretty damn tight. I'll be fine."

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Eat This, Yuletide! [Open]

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