Interlude – Balls

Interlude – Balls

“Oh, I think it’s starting,” Joshua said. He shifted in his seat a little next to her, taking in the stage up and ahead of them.

When the Nut Punchers had been invited to this thing, she’d decided that they really didn’t have too much of a choice but to attend. Zoe and her friends were always down to kick anyone that didn’t know where they belonged, but in the grand hierarchy of things, Samurai sat at the very top.

She hadn’t been expecting the event to be so… corporate.

The badge around her neck, the plush but not very comfortable seats, the little finger foods and opportunities to mingle. Even the location only felt vibrant in the way that only very corporatized event-locations did. All they were missing were a few banners and a poorly-done tech demo and this would be the ideal corpo thing.

Zoe crossed her arms and leaned back into her seat, eyes scanning the crowd. There were all sorts here, but she supposed that was kind of the point. The place smelled. Sweat, the faint stink of some inhalable drugs, gunpowder, lots of body spray.

God, she could go for a good beating right about then. Smack some fool upside the head, maybe.

What even was the point of all this?

The Nut Punchers were doing fine. Better than fine, even. The government had cut costs on all of its security stuff. The cops were less funded than ever before. Corporate security was still high, but even that had taken a kick in the nads.

The global incursion, and more importantly to New Montreal, the previous incursion just a week prior, had turned things on their head. Now anyone that wanted a job could get one, easily. They just had to be willing to risk life and limb, but that was a small cost.

Better yet, the reconstruction had started already. Walls were going up, buildings were being repaired. New construction had stalled out, but there were so many maintenance projects going on that anyone even mildly inclined towards manual work had plenty to find.

That meant more credits in people’s pockets. The corps and government had gone from being penny-pinchers to suddenly dumping trillions into the economy as if it was going out of style.

Maybe it was.

A lot of people had felt like the end times were near. She’d felt that too. The mega building they lived in was a few blocks from the edge of the city, but that didn’t mean that she and the other Nut Punchers hadn’t done the math on how long it would take a wave of aliens to make it to their doorstep.

Now though? Things were looking up.

It was always like this. Something big would happen. A bubble would burst, the corps and government would reel, and in their absence, her sort of people, the marginalized, the criminally inclined, the fun and cool sort of person, would step up and gain a bit more. Then the corps would find their footing and the status quo would return, only worse now that they were chasing something new.

She crossed her arms and glared at the empty stage. What a waste of her damned time.

“Look,” Joshua said. He pointed to something off to the side of the stage just as the curtains moved and a woman stepped on. She was a Samurai, obviously. It wasn’t that Stray Cat woman, but another cat-themed one. Tall, darker armour, cat ears, lots of hips swaying in the way she moved.

The Samurai crossed the stage, dragging an unfolding chair behind her. Somehow, she made just walking look dangerous. There was something in the mix of carefree and graceful in her motions that felt off in a way that had Zoe’s hackles rising.

“Who is that one?” she asked.

Pete’s eyes lit up for a moment. “Nya,” he said.

“Nya? Seriously?” she asked. Her estimation of the woman dropped a few notches.

“Japanese Ronin. Samurai for a long while. Also known as the Nightmare of Kanagawa, the ocean-side cat, and Nya the… indomin-nya-ble. One of the top enforcers of the Asian Kiretsu samurai group. Ranked six hundred and twelve on the worldwide Samurai popularity charts.”

Zoe hummed, arms still crossed. So, a big shot in the samurai world? Top one thousand was a big deal, at least as far as popularity went. There wasn’t always a link between how popular a Samurai was and how dangerous they were, but the exceptions didn’t prove the rule. The rest of her titles sounded dangerous too.

Nya shuffled around, then sat down. She gestured to the side, and there was suddenly an entire guitar in her hands.

Samurai tech? Teleportation? Miniaturization? Had she just bought that? Zoe couldn’t tell, but as far as shows of force went… well, some morons wouldn’t catch the implication, but she did. If Nya could summon a guitar, not much stopped her from summoning something else.