Pawn shop in space

Present day

Zlalto nebula quadrant 31

'Ouuuuuggggghhhhhhhh' Jim's groan echoed throughout the store, temporarily drowning out the sound of its hungry moaning. Every time Jim got ahead in life, this stupid store ate all his profits.

'But I just fed you!' Jim's exasperation was ignored, just as it had been every other time he'd expressed it. As if to remind him of who wore the pants in this relationship, the whole store jerked up and threw Jim into the air. Jim landed on his feet grumbling, knowing that antagonizing a sentient building wasn't the decision the wise man usually made. Tapping the counter with his left hand Jim summoned ten thousand credits to the plinth. Sure enough, a shaft had opened up next to the pedestal and Jim chucked the cube down there, feeding the rumbling below. After a while the storm calmed down, the digestive sounds fading. Instead of the slot closing however, it remained expectantly open.

'You've got to be kidding me.' Jims quiet and consistent complaints continued to go unanswered, the pawn shop demanded more. Jim formulated and threw a thousand more credits down the hole to no effect. Jim added another thousand to the pile, not quite believing the stores audacity. Another two thousand credits later and the slot remained stubbornly open, although a low rumbling had started up again. Exasperated, Jim chucked in another ten thousand credits in a vain hope of satisfying it, knowing he was rapidly approaching the end of his funds. twenty five thousand credits later and the monster seemed happy, having parted Jim from enough of his well earned dosh. Between the purchase he'd made of the flesh and the stores demands, despite recent profits, Jim only had around 10,000 credits left-the equivalent to around 100,000 US dollars. The rumbling below went on for a while as the store chewed on his money, although the slot thankfully closed again.

While 100,000 dollars may seem like a large number, none of the items Jim dealt with were ordinary. If you were trading in oranges and apples sure: But if you traded in ancient artifacts and siege weaponry, suddenly 100,000 doesn't seem like much any more-and despite Jim's humble earth beginnings, he wasn't interested in becoming a fruits salesman. Besides, half of the allure of the intergalactic pawn shop was the fact you could sell your cool stuff there, stuff you couldn't sell anywhere else. In order to be of use to the majority of his customers, he needed to at least have some cash on hand. This meant an increase in his real estates appetite didn't bode well for him.

Eventually, the rumbling died down. The store still shook a tiny amount, but not enough to be overly noticeable. In between customers at the moment Jim wondered to the back room, looking for something to do. Of the original mess of boxes in the back room almost half had been more neatly refilled. Jim had been slowly exploring what the mystery storage units had to offer and had discovered some interesting junk so far. One of his favorites was a tape player that you couldn't actually put tapes in. It had a play button on top and a huge library of alien music. Unfortunately, a lot of the songs were similar to outlandish star wars depictions, and not the moss cantina kind. The garbling alien languages and accompanying melodies were often abrasive and nonsensical to his earthen ears. The galaxy was a large place however, and not all of the music was bad. Some alien melodies were almost ethereal, with voices and words in languages far beyond earth's own. The songs invoked images of higher races singing on perfect worlds a millions years more developed than his own-although these tracks were only one in every many. One especially different collection of tracks seemed to be some sort of variant Jazz, and it was a very enjoyable listen. Jim played one of these songs now, a man singing in a smooth baritone over the sounds of a running river. When the bouncing drum accompaniment joined, the music became more lively, as if they were playing music for a celebration on a rocky river bank. It made Jim feel as if he was foraging for the village party in an ancient forest, and not for himself in a cluttered storage room.

He was searching for a usable power source today, a goal in mind beyond his usual aimless sweeps of the room. After rearranging all the boxes in the space when the store had first gone topsy turvey, Jim had found a marked square on the floor. At first he couldn't do anything with it, unable to pry it out the floor or break into it. He had to just leave it as a strange mark on the floor. He ended up covering it back over with boxes after the initial discovery rush had faded. Having much later discovered a small plasma drill and convincing a very large customer with mole features to repair it for him, he had remembered that same square and come back to it. Before he could start drilling into the floor however, a strange box had revealed itself, the four feet wide section of floor rising upwards. Jim didn't know if the square had come out of the ground because the store didn't want him drilling a hole in it or if it simply decided it liked him more now, but Jim had counted it as a win anyways.

Once the square had risen it turned out to be made up of two components. One was a rock island with a cooker-which was pretty much useless considering the magical fridge-and the other was a large workbench. On the wall section of the workbench was a selection of nozzles, with a variety of components in the draws below to be attached to them. There were drills, screwdriver heads, hammers, suction cups, saws, and even more exotic tool attachments just waiting to be utilized. The only problem was that none of them worked, the only thing that did work in the whole square was the flames of the opposite counter top. There were hoses on the wall of the cooker that was flush with the workbench that made sounds when activated, but they didn't jet out any water. This made them slightly less useless then the workbench nozzles, which actually didn't do anything. Jim hadn't had cause to use the unit for a while after discovering it, not until a crusty mogozsite had sold him an absolutely filthy topaz/gold foger they'd found in a swamp and hadn't bothered cleaning. Then he'd suddenly wished his hose attachments were working.

After removing a panel below the workbench with a detached screwdriver head, he had managed to crawl under the bench and find a very dimly glowing block plugged in the middle of a mass of circuitry. When he'd pull the dull block off he'd discovered the light had been admitting from the circuitry itself and that the block on top of it was very much dead. Cleary most of the appliances higher functions needed some power, power they weren't getting from the dead cell. Of all the objects he currently wanted to find in the mound of unidentified objects this one was top of the list today. He was tired of the box on the floor doing nothing, and after feeding an alien asteroid/storefront the majority of his life savings he was suddenly interested in upgrading his living situation.

He was going to do some of his own cooking for once, something creative and beyond the bounds of the fridge presets. He would tinker around with the exotic tool heads in the workbench and make some cool stuff. Maybe he would be able to design a set of furniture to sit on that wasn't made of form fitting goo. Even the ability to spray down and better clean off his stock without sullying his limited drinking supply would be much appreciated.

There were a lot of quality of life upgrades Jim he had been putting off working on, believing he was fine with the state he was living in. But after his monstrous landlord had hiked the prices, he was feeling motivated to take advantage of all the provided facilities. In other words, it was time to start pimping out what he was paying for. It didn't take long for Jim to find a battery, although the one he'd stumbled on didn't fit his purposes. A small toy man, with a grinning lizard face, had a battery stuffed into its back. The gun it held its hand was poised to shoot and its legs were spread wide enough to be a stable base for it to rest on. He found it buried underneath a plain handkerchief and a solid plastic block that looked exactly like a brownie. When Jim pressed a button on its stomach stylized like bloody quarts, the gun kicked out a green energy blast, hitting him. The bolt passed through his clothing and into his chest, delivering a faintly uncomfortable sensation similar to pins and needles.

Resisting the urge to petulantly throw the toy behind him and continue rooting through the objects, Jim turned and aimed it. Targeting section EC of his storage, he picked a random box and tossed the figure, taking a measure of satisfaction in the action as it thumped to the ground. East central was where Jim chucked all the toys that irresponsible alien parents might want to give to their children, a section that was much larger than he thought it ought to be. He understood why the wealth of childhood memorabilia was relegated to the back section of the store, the pile of littered toys would no doubt alter the mystique of the pawn shop somewhat. But their position in the back didn't explain why the last guy had bought so many of them. He knew waiting for customers was boring, but it wasn't boring enough to start triggering Jim's mental regression. Not yet anyways.

After a few more toy finds and a few spatulas, Jim searched under a promising bunch of wires. A long flat metal slate lay buried there and Jim's eyebrow quirked at the find. Picking up the slate prove a futile effort, it was much heavier than it looked. It was about 1-2 feet in length and made of a light gray cool material. Flipping it over revealed more promising results. There was a huge battery on its back, maybe bigger than the original cell Jim had pulled from under the work bench. There was two indented buttons, one up and one down. Upon closer inspection Jim also spotted four stubs at the corners of the rectangular slate. Upon pressing the left indent the four stubs would rise and the other indent caused them to fall. It was some type of expandable table or lifting device, and judging by the huge battery it rested on it was pretty heavy duty. After engaging a few releases binding the slate and cell together, Jim took hold of the many inches wide battery and navigated to the empty workbench, beyond pleased with the fast find. After crawling through the access panel Jim got into position in the middle of the unit, awkwardly raising his arms up in the cramped space while trying to maintain balance on his knees. Mentally thanking God that no spiders had followed him here through the vacuum of space, Jim hammered the battery against the sides of the slot where the old power source was located. Once there was a wide enough space hammered out Jim shoved the battery into place with all the grace of an unlicensed electrician.

Scampering backward to avoid electrocution, Jim was pleased when the whole unit briefly thrummed with power. After retreating from the crawl space and screwing the access panel back in place, Jim placed his palm on the panel's surface and felt the liveliness that signaled the presence of alien energy. The new battery was working. Smiling with his easy fix to the problem he'd been meaning to deal with for ages, Jim missed the sounds of the his front door opening. The faint tinkling of the bell likewise failed to warn him of anything, however the deep basso rumbling of his newest customer did. The eldritch voice startled Jim out of his positive state and the jerk to alertness caused him to bang his head on the underside of the counter he was still beneath.

"Owwwwwwwwww." Jim's whine stretched out to fill the quiet of the store. Once again his good mood was ruined by the cruel ministrations of the universe. Grumbling in pain and holding his bruised head, Jim trudged out of his backroom to go greet the latest bellowing monstrosity to enter his store. Waiting for him on the other side of the counter was a bipedal tentacled man with all the less finer features of cuthulu. Their octopus head had a long beard of tentacles hiding a beaked mouth, and the white jacket it wore was strained to the limit by their not inconsiderable girth. The occasional writhe below the fabric told Jim that more tentacles were lurking beneath and that this octopus man wasn't just an extraordinarily fat specimen. "Hello!" The ominous bellowing coming from the creature was overlaid by the translators simple greeting. The translated english response was flat and emotionless, and a bit too loud. But Jim decided to interpret the tone as cheerful, even if the translator didn't agree with him. From the bottom of the very spherical cloak was a spilled mass of tentacles, as if the octopus had found the cloak one a beach one day and done its best to stuff itself into it. The ensemble left Jim curious as to just what fashion trends could be found on its home world.

"What do you have? Do you have any toys or settlement flag greshes?"

"Uh hello, I'm Jim."

"Hello, Jim. Do you have any toys or settlement flag greshes?"

"Uh no, I mean yes. we have both of those things, some settlement starting equipment and many toys. You'll have to see if there are any greshes to your liking though." Please let a flag gresh be one of those boxes with a flag in it I found a week ago. "Is there anything else I can get for you?"

"Apart from toys and flag greshes? Yes, I have a selection of seafood."

Upon saying this the aliens cloak split open. From within dozens of tentacles emerged, each holding some manner of crustacean or amorphous sea creature. Before long, there lay a disturbing spread of foreign fauna in front of him. The alien's face tentacles briefly spread to the sides as they placed them, cleanly revealing the open beak in the center. The star-fished tentacles gave the impression the alien was about to lunge forward and eat Jim alive, but there didn't appear to be any malicious intent in the octopus's slitted yellow eyes. Jim guessed the octopus was smiling at him and did his best not to scream back, the pain in his head forgotten at the sight.

The squid man didn't say anything after they was done, just stared at Jim with its big eyes.

"Uhhhhh...I'll take some of the shelled ones, and just a couple of the soft ones. I'll let you choose which you think is best." Jim said, not wanting to be rude.

The alien shoved a few of the crab things forward and then picked the two juiciest looking blobs to add to a pile in front of Jim. The rest were swiftly grabbed off the table and disappeared below the jacket once again alongside a storm of tentacles.

"Thank you." Jim managed to get out, doing his best to sound grateful.

"Yes, I will trade for discount."

"Of course, I'll see what I can do." Jim cringed inwardly at the aliens words, not sure if he wanted to reduce his prices for some suspicious seafood. Turning his back on the alien Jim took measured steps to the storage room. He waved the door shut behind him, not because he thought the octopus man was a spy, but because it was freaky. He shoved a bunch of toys into a box, including the lizard who shot him earlier. He then went over to stack up a bunch of boxes he figured the alien was looking for. They were half glass, half metal boxes with a flag in the middle. The glass was poured around the flag but stopped just short of touching its edges, as if there was a valuable trophy on display and not a faintly dyed piece of fabric. He put the toy box into the floating shopping cart. He also added a pile of tools. Power drills, hydraulic hammers, shovels and a few ground pounders. Stuff useful for clearing ground for burgeoning civilizations. He carried the stack of flag greshses in his hand and walked out with the trolley following him.

The alien still stood there, unerringly still. The only movements he made was the occasional writhe beneath his suit, otherwise not moving a centre meter from the spot Jim had last seen him. "I brought the items you requested as well as a sample of tools that may be helpful for establishing your settlement."

"Ahhhhhh, thank you" The alien's cloak slit open in the middle and two tentacles slipped out. They clapped together three times and the alien's face tentacles spread out in all directions again, this time waving side to side. Beneath the translators words was also a new clacking sound as the alien chattered its beak. Jim was unable to suppress a shudder at the alien's delighted display. "Yes yes, let me look." Jim stepped to the side as the rest of its tentacled erupted out from its bulk. each of them lifted and considered a tool or toy. Those that picked up a toy quickly set them down, turning and glancing them over before losing interest after deciding they were indeed things children would play with. The tools were subject to a much longer examination. Each function was tested, drills activated and hammers swung. Ground pounders were lightly tested against other tentacles and shovels tested for how far the hydraulics could toss resisting flesh. The flurry of motion continued until the alien was satisfied with each item, upon which a point all tools were dropped back in their places and the arms withdrew.

"I will buy, how many do you have." The aliens words were as flat as they had been before, the translator relaying their words in a very matter of fact tone.

"Quite a few, although I must check the exact numbers." Jim replied evenly, trying to match the alien's straightforward demeanor.

"You do not know?" The alien blinked for the first time since entering the store, seemingly surprised at Jim's incompetence.

"Well you see, there are some on display in the front shelves and so it's hard to collaborate those numbers with the exact amount I still have in storage."

The alien blinked again. Not saying anything, and Jim had no clue wether or not it was accepting of his terrible excuse.

"Let me go and check." Jim backed away with a thin smile. turning and darting behind his door again. He motioned the barrier closed and snatched a whole different type of tool from the ones he was selling from his left. Despite what the alien was insinuating with his blinks, Jim was a very capable store owner. So capable in fact that he had slowly built up many aides to make his job easier. The rack he had adhered to the wall to his side was one such aide, and upon its hooks rested many tools Jim could use to better sort and categorize his items. The tool he grabbed now was the universes most advanced label gun, a weapon that shot beams of light that would adhere to and key his objects with different colors. Once an item was tagged it would be counted and could be made to glow on demand, allowing Jim to easily keep track of the numbers of his more well stocked items. Unfortunately for Jim, he hadn't been doing that, instead mostly using the light tagging portion of the tool to draw invisible images on his walls. This meant he now had to rush to section WG of his box system and frantically scan each tool item he could find, lest he found himself facing the disapproval of his terrifying tentacled customer as well as the losing the opportunity to part them from their credits.

Jim emerged one minute montage later, a little more sweaty than he was before and with a much less tidy room behind him.

'I've got 45 drills, 15 ground pounders, one big pounder, 25 shovels, 13 unpowered shovers and 12 hammers. I've also got 50 fireable saw blades and 3 brush whackerzz."

"Good, I will take those."

'Very good. May I also attempt you in some beast deterring weaponry? I also have a sonic emitter which can be used to keep sections of land free of pests and that can also be used to mask the loud sounds of construction."

"I will look"

"Great, 'lll show you where they are." Jim's smile was a bit more natural as he replied. He was getting used to the presence of the towering eldritch monstrosity. He attempted to walk through the section of foldable desk but it wouldn't open in front of him. After knocking against the wood with no reaction, Jim awkwardly vaulted over the barrier, trying to act like that was what he planning to do in the first place not what he was being forced into doing by the stores unresponsiveness. "Wow you are a lot bigger from up close buddy." Jim struggled to meet the aliens eyes through the mass of tentacles he was forced to look up through. The alien didn't respond, its yellow eyes simply staring back down at him.

"Okay....well the emitter is this way." Jim walked the alien towards the gun section of shelving and stopped just before it. On the unit beside all of the space blasters was a bunch of tertiary weaponry. Or at least stuff that Jim thought was weaponry that didn't really fit the gun brief. The sonic emitter was a strange cylindrical object with two jointed arms that hung down into wide flaps. He accidentally set it off once and he could testify that it was certainly functional. Any flying bugs were sure to be knocked out the sky from the sound and any beast with ears was sure to keep far from the area it was set up. Although, so would all the people that were working for the octopus and trying to build the new settlement if the frequency wasn't adjustable-but Jim wasn't about to waste this valuable customers time outlining all that. "It's very loud and can be used to deter a range of creatures, although those not sensitive to sound vibrations may be able to ignore it." Not sensing any objections or questions from the tall man Jim added it to the basket.

"And now this, the beastlater 3000. Despite its contradictory name this weapon is used to scare off beasts not reschedule them. It will send an almost invisible wave through any monsters persistent or stupid enough to ignore your sound barrier which should cause them to turn and flee, leaving a compulsion in them to avoid the area. It can either be an uncomfortable warning or a deadly stun, the wave being able to fry am animal's nervous and sensory systems to the point of almost taking its life. In this way any invasion of beasts is but a trivial happen stance quickly resolved with a few pulls of this here trigger." Jim picked up and gestured the gun with a flourish. "Even more enticing is the fact the weapon does not work on intelligent life, only targeting non sapient organisms when fired." After hearing Jim's spiel the alien removed the gun from his hand with an emerging tentacle and pointed it at itself. Then, after spending a moment to think about it, it pointed the gun at Jim. All smiles and reassurance Jim gave the alien a thumbs up in encouragement. The alien pulled the trigger and the gun fired from within its encompassing grasp. A wave of energy traveled through Jim, shocking him with a strange sensation. He felt a buzz as it passed through him and felt invading energy pause just before entering his nerve cells. His body naturally crunched up as it waited to be fried. Then the sensation dissipated, the energy deciding he was not a mindless beast or perhaps dispersing before it could attempt to fry him.

"Hmmm, useful."

"Yes! A much needed tool for any lieutenant tasked with beating back the wilds." Jim stood up straight from his curl and cleared his throat, his words echoing out in a confident tone. He mentally thanked himself for sticking the gun on the lowest setting when he bought it.

"I will buy it." the alien spoke, its concise bellowing emanating out casually as if he hadn't just shot him.

"Great, I'll just add it to the basket." Jim gently took the gun back from its coiled tentacle and placed it in the trolley with the mussel facing decidedly away from him. "Anything else catch your eye?" The alien turned its head to regard the shelf of guns and then turned it back down to look at Jim again, staying silent. After an uncomfortable wait, Jim turned and began walking back to his desk, still nervous every time he let the eldritch sea dweller leave his eye-line. He jumped as he heard the bell at the front door ring, his anxious thoughts about being eaten without warning causing him to admit a not very manly exclamation at the unexpected noise.

"I'll uh, I'll be with you in a moment." He turned his head to see the new customer enter and glimpsed the back of a grey head as it disappeared between the stores overflowing units of shelving. An alien voice squeaked out a reply that Jim was too far away to hear, but the words were translated into his ear regardless.

"Okay, no problem!" The high pitch voice startled him further, the store so usually lazy with translations deciding to deliver the alien's words to him with crystal clarity across the distance. Jim had figured out the store was the one translating the voices for him long ago, it just used the outdated tech on his desk for an excuse. It was why he hadn't had any help with language for his first day, the store didn't trust him yet. At least now it extended the common curtesy to let him know what the customers were saying. It didn't always like him enough to do it well though, which made it's startlingly clear intervention now surprising. When combined with its unwillingness to even drop the counter down for him and its recent shakedown, it made Jim a little worried. It clearly wasn't translating this alien woman's words out of the warm feelings it harbored for Jim in its heart.

Jim picked up his pace a little, hustling back to his counter to finish the sale, hoping to get a better eye on the new customer in the process. Come to think of it, it was a little weird how busy it had been here recently. Jim couldn't remember the last time he had over two customers in a week, let alone two at the same time. "That will be-" Jim vaulted over the desk again, the gears in his head churning. "About," Calculations ran through his brain as he tried to remember the last thing he sold the different tools for. "For the toys at least, 880 credits" Scaling up those tool numbers to the amount he was now selling Jim decided on a price, and then added an extra 1,000 just for safety. "7,300 for the tools and 980 for the weaponry. 2,020 for the flag gresh. Over all that should be 11,200 with some change. With the discount, let's say that's..." Here Jim really focused on the alien's face tentacles, watching for any sort of indicating movement in expression. "10" There, a twitch like the tentacle were going to open, a smile then, so the price was too low. "9" The tentacles flattened, he was on the right track "8" They twitched inwards a little "6" They moved back towards flat but stayed a little droopy, exactly where Jim wanted them. "A good deal wouldn't you say?"

The alien was slightly disappointed with the price but couldn't see it as unreasonable, especially considering they did get it discounted. Plus there wasn't anywhere else where such a selection of items could be found, so really finding the stuff at all was an efficient victory...

Jim watched the small smile form on the aliens face as it processed the price, rationalizing it and counting it as a victory even if it was more than they'd originally wanted to pay. "Certainly." with a wave of tentacles a flag gresh was swept from the stack and a cube was formed on the counter. Jim signaled the trolley to follow the man out the store. The alien took one last look at him with its big slitted eyes before turning and walking out the store, not wasting any further time on pleasantries.

Okay. One down, one to go.

Jim strafed up and down the counter now his first customer was gone, freed up to begin peaking down each row of shelves to try and pinpoint the other one's location. "You find anything you're interested in?" He called out into the empty air, unable to catch sight of the second alien. He craned his neck to his right and tried to look through the shelves into his tucked away break room, considering it was one of the only obscured areas in the store.

"Actually I was wondering if you could help me with that." A tiny voice came from his bottom left, its owner having completely evaded his gaze. Jim jerked his neck to its source, straining his muscles in the process. "What's the biggest most deadliest weapon you have." A suscpisiousoly familiar alien looked up at him. Its skin tone was a much lighter grey than what he'd seen before, closer to the white of the earths moons shining surface than the slate of her counterpart. The head was rounder too, too round in fact, like a sphere that had been carved out and stuck on a pre-made body. The small body was similar to a humans in design, like a normal body scaled down. The addition of six fingers on each hand was a noticeable difference. Shining armor adorned their form, the torso covered by a single hanging metal plate. Thick clogs were worn on the feet, and Jim eyed them as he leaned forward over the desk to look the alien in the eye. Thick metal shoes like that couldn't be the easiest to maneuver in. It was a wonder Jim hadn't heard them traipse around his store at all. He kicked out the steps like he had done for a certain dastardly villain a few days ago. It seemed like Jim was meeting another member of the hastardand family.

"My biggest most deadliest weapon ay? Projectile or otherwise?"

"Projectile!" The alien practically squealed, Jumping up onto the top step.

Jim looked into the lady's wide eyes. "Any particular use for it in mind?"

"To defend her holy majesties glorious empire!" The alien stuck a pose atop the steps, many fingered hand raised into the air. "Or like for mercenary stuff." The alien finished, dropping her hand to rest on the counter, having sheepishly remembered where she was.

"Hmmmm, I'll have to see what I can do." Jim responded, a sparkle in his comparatively small human eyes. "I'm Jim by the way."

"Yeah I know. I'm Hascienda." Hascienda pointed at herself with a slightly too large finger.

Jim eyebrows rose fractionally into the air. "Do you now?"

"Yeah, I uh. Yeah I heard you tell it to that guy over there." Hascienda moved her finger to point behind her at the door, and Jim realized she didn't have any thumbs on her fingers.

"Right..." Jim replied, doubting the fact he had introduced himself while she was in the building. "So giant weapons?" Hasceinda nodded vigorously.

A few minutes later Jim and Hascienda stood before a comically large machine labeled, disintegrator-enator, one that had fallen out of a wall compartment on Jim's command. The hazardous machine was cobbled together from nuts and bolts, but it was the only thing big enough Jim had had to hold his boisterous customers attention. Of all the rays emitters and guns she had yet seen, this was the only one she hadn't immediately dismissed as "lousy', 'too small' or 'tiny'. The last statement an increasingly ridiculous comment considering her three foot frame.

"It has potential."

"Indeed." Jim nodded sagely, not really sure the weapon was practical in any way but sure it was capable of producing at least some sort of explosion-even if it was only something of the self destruction variety. The most ridiculous part of the device was the massive trigger lodged underneath the standing barrels nose. He wasn't exactly sure who was gonna be carrying this thing around but he was pretty confident it wasn't the halfling woman in front of him. He wasn't even sure who the target audience for the weapon was, being fairly sure twenty foot rifle preferring giants weren't very common across the universe.

"I guess I could take it, but it would need a lot of work before it was useful for me." Hascienda looked at Jim out of the corner of her eyes, her flat mouth pursed as she waited on his response. Jim caught her expression out of his peripheral, having been staring at the weapon with the same level of consideration she was exhibiting.

"How exactly do you plan to carry the thing is my question." Jim ignored her probing statement, avoiding talking down the potential price of the product by agreeing with her assessment.

"Ah don't worry about that." A maniac look came upon her rounded face with her words, displaying to Jim her eagerness to purchase it and fire it at something. "I have my ways."

"Well I assure you it fires. Assuming you do actually have a way to fire it as you claim." At this Jim looked down at her before turning away with a side eye.

"Of course I can fire it, what do you take me for. You think this gun's too big for me? Ain't no gun too big for 'Ol Nelly!"

"I didn't say that." Jim replied, not so innocently.

"Well you dammed well may have." Hascienda narrowed her eyes at him. Then she began mumbling under her breath and shooting angry glances at Jim as she stepped underneath the weapon. "Can't shoot... too small to fire...too big for me... pink bastar-"

Jim stuffed his hands into his pockets and pretended he didn't hear her, whistling while rocking back and forth on his heels.

She came to stand beside him again after her inspection and shot him one last glare. "Well, you got anything bigger or is this hunk of junk the best you've got on offer."

Jim simply chuckled at her words and started walking back to the front of the store. "Feel free to leave it in the back, I'm sure I'll find someone else that will appreciate the fire power. I'm sure they'll be able to handle the thing no problem." He heard an indignant huff behind him. Spinning in the doorway Jim turned to look the angry alien in her eyes. "Come on 'Ol Nelly, I know you wanna disintegrate stuff with that as much as I do. Might as well drop the charade about it.'

Her cheeks darkened at his words, Hascienda likely embarrassed he'd picked up on her use of the nickname. But her crazed smile returned, revealing her burning desire to make things go boom.

Hascienda turned and bent over, grabbing the base of the weapon and grunting dramatically. Her arms bulged and she leaned back, lifting the huge gun off the floor. Jim's eyes about burst out of his sockets as he stared. Suddenly, the doorway surrounding him was a lot bigger, preparing to accommodate the halfling and her preposterous burden. Jim stepped out of the way as she came closer, frog marching the massive murder machine backwards. As she passed Jim he noticed a number of strange devices that were attached to the machine. The were made of the same metal as Hascienda's armor and were shaped like little tubes. Once Jim had enough presence of mind to look for them, he found them dotted all over the guns exterior, clashing with its steampunk esque design.

Hascienda reached the counter and pumped her legs, her whole body going taught. She released the enator from her grip and it flew in a graceful arc over the counter, moving slowly in a neat arc that defied all concepts of normal psychics. It came to gently rest on the other side, it's closeness to shattering the glass display in his counter top sending Jim heart into a panic. Hascienda wiped her hands against each other before jumping after it. Once situated on the other sweet counter with a huge death ray by her side Hascienda sized Jim up properly for the first time. Unable to contain her evil glee, a smile crept across her face. She rested a hand upon her distingrator-enator and fixed him in place with her stare. "So how much you gonna try and make me pay for it."

Jim sized up the tiny alien, preparing to fleece them for all they were worth. Before he could dive into negotations however, there was a sudden wine, and then a crash as something impacted the side of the store.

"What was the hell was that." Jim's exclamation was quiet over then sounds of his shaking store.

The alien's big eyes widened as she looked at him. "You're under attack!"