Snippet #2433390

Michael hated the sensation of entering a door, any door, a marine felt as he came into a building. He had no assault rifle for whatever bastard would be on the other side, no battle blade at his hip to gouge a man’s neck through. Ratter, some punk kid from the Inner Empire - Sarguska or some pansy shit - was enough for Michael to snap out of his momentary haze before the music and lights consumed him and the trio of others that made it past the bouncer at the front.

“ -- And man, you best believe I straight told that shithead him and his boys better not come around again after ol’ Mikey over here dealt with their last little flare up!”

His voice, Michael hated that voice. It was the kind of voice people on their deathbed were glad they were soon dying, to be relieved from the sounds this human being made. Any time prior he might have just stopped in the middle of the hallway right now and stabbed him to death, but once again he had nothing. Michael was quick with pretending normalcy with the other men around him.

“Just taking care of business, Rat.” Michael offered nonchalantly, eliciting a big laugh from the pot-bellied Azric in front of him. Mavis was a syndicate entrepreneur, or what essentially passed as a legitimized con-man taking advantage of the inherent stupidity of people now-a-days.

“Whatever gets those Volos or whatever the fuck they call themselves out of my fucking hair.” Mavis lead the entourage of Scatterrans to the floor, their eyes quickly going to the enormous tank in the center of the building.

“Well I’ll be damned.” Michael clicked his teeth together for a second, as in the back of his mind somewhere that foul wretch devoid of even naked women on the internet suddenly became a screaming pain.

“Oh yeah -- they had a good idea with that tank right?” Mavis’ typical chuckle was enough to make Michael want to snap necks, though: his smile faded just as quickly as he turned away from a particular Taihjan, and wished he might have taken some time for himself when he had first gotten into town. Curiously he took one last glance over his shoulder, back at the stage as Mavis began droning on about his precious relationship with Metro City.

“Y’know, I’ve got a special place in businesses like this -- Ratter, you know, right?”