Alfredrick's

[Terrador Bellator]

(Oh, my apologies. I seeit was me who skipped SOLIS.)

[Echo]

[Guess I'll go ahead and post then]

Amiroo froze as suddenly several weapons were drawn on him.

"whoa, everybody just calm down. I'm not here to hurt anyone I was invited here. Sorry for the scare I hadn't intended that."

Am moved carefully up to Gichii and whispered a quick thanks.

"Am everything ok down there? What's going on?" Sarah chimed in.

"Everything's fine Sarah. We had a small misunderstanding but I think things are going to be ok."

Am smiled being careful not to show any teeth as that could be considered a threat.
"so..." am began clearing his throat briefly before continuing "..about that rum? Mister...um..what's your name sir?" he said locking eyes with the barkeep.

[Nail Strafer]

Reginald lowered his weapon. The badger often figured a friend of Giichi's was a friend of his, although this particular friend was straining things. Nonetheless, he offered a small (although insincere) smile to the dinosaur.

"My name is Reginald."

He began to prepare a drink, although he did this while never taking an eye off of Amiroo. However, Nail's gun did not waver from the target, even after Giichi's stunt.

"Cat...move."

Nail spoke sternly, as if he were talking to an actual house cat rather than a Mobian.

"But he's a friend!"

"What kind of friend hides such an important secret from you? That's no friend. At best that's a business associate, and you keep someone like that at arm's length. This though..."

He slightly shook his head in a disapproving manner. Sure, the analogy wasn't perfect, but Nail felt deeply suspicious of anyone who wanted to be buddy buddy without revealing all of his cards. And this right here was several orders of magnitude worse than someone hiding a conflict of interest. For all they knew at this point, Amiroo was some sort of spy for a hidden dinosaur race that planned to conquer the planet.

"I'm not taking my gun off of him until he spills all of his guts, either literally or in the sense of the idiom. Then I'll see if I trust him enough to let him drink with us. By the way barkeep..."

Nail turned his head just enough to look at the badger out of the corner of his eye.

"I'd say you're closed for the day, don't you?"

Reginald caught the hint, as he slowly began to draw the curtains around the room. The badger certainly did not want a fiasco with a dinosaur here. That would draw a lot of attention he didn't want to his bar.

While this might make it easier for Amiroo to attack them without being interrupted by someone outside, Nail did not want any attention drawn to where he was either. On SOLIS's screen the canine had just read a news article written today, about himself. Someone saw him last night in that prison outfit, and the police were looking for him.

[Giichi Twinkieland]

While Giichi felt terrified with Nail pointing that gun at him, he also felt pissed off. Nail kept calling him 'cat', like he was a pet. Plus he kept ordering everyone around even though they'd only known each other for an hour or less. Giichi at least wanted Amiroo to explain his side of the story before threatening him with a weapon. He figured that if Amiroo wanted to kill them, he would have just busted down the door and then slaughtered everybody with his jaws and claws.

Nonetheless, when Nail mentioned he wanted to know Amiroo's backstory, Giichi found himself intrigued as well. Why did a dinosaur disguise itself as a human and then hang around regular people like him?

"Okay..." Giichi said, lowering his arms. "Amiroo, would you mind telling us what you're doing here?"

He briefly turned away to look at Amiroo, but then looked back at Nail again as he remembered something.

"By the way, it's Giichi. Giichi. Not 'cat', okay 'dog'?"

Nail either didn't notice or didn't care about Giichi's slightly angry tone. Either way, Giichi had the feeling Nail was a cool professional, and he'd keep his word about not shooting as long as Amiroo talked. So, Giichi gingerly moved off to the side as he waited for Amiroo to speak.

[SOLIS]

[Sorry for the slow reply, I was distracted by work.]

The tension was clearly rising in the room, making SOLIS very uncomfortable. It decided remaining quiet would be safest, and instead decided that it'd continue to evaluate the signals given off by the Amiroo entity. They were considerably weaker now, but still present. Curiosity begged it to try sending some return signals and seeing if it could control them, but as Nail often erred on the side of caution, it decided to follow suit and simply observe for the time being.

[Terrador Bellator]

While his weapon was no longer drawn, Terrador's defense never for a second waned. While this disguise was deceitful, Am had proved himself a formidable ally during the skirmish over at Roval Arms. This current predicament did raise the echidna's suspicions and his emerald eyes were locked onto the raptor with fierce intensity as he awaited an answer. What also worried him was the gun-happy canine, but his focus would return to that after Am's confession.

[Echo]

"First of all 'Balto' you will treat my friends with respect because the last time I checked you were the one treading thin ice here not me. Oh and I would put that weapon down Mobian. You shoot me or my friends and my crew will hunt you down and update your definition of suffering for you free of charge." Am said staring into Nail's eyes as a predator sizing up it's prey would. He stared for a good long moment before his features softened as he turned to Gichii standing in front of him.

"listen Gichii, this guy's a professional. He knows how to mess with your head. He's trying to conquer us by dividing us against one another so that it takes the heat off of him. He is trying to distract you from the fact that he's likely a genocidal nut job up to no good. Remember he was a leader of F4 Gichii, an organization bent on the genocide of an entire intelligent species, that doesn't show strong character on his part. I'm not saying he's necessarily a bad person, he could very well have reformed, but it's just as likely he hasn't. Be cautious of him Gichii. Besides if I wanted to harm you I could have done that a thousand times over by now and you know it. I am your friend Gichii I ask you to trust me." Am smiled placing a clawed hand on Gichii's shoulder.

Quote:"What kind of friend hides such an important secret from you? That's no friend. At best that's a business associate, and you keep someone like that at arm's length. This though..."

Am snapped his eyes back to Nail...if looks could kill.

"you shut your mouth fool! I've had just about as much from you as I care to. The deception was unfortunate yes but I only met Gichii and Terrador six hours ago. Tell me, do you go spilling your guts to just everyone on the street? I had to know I could trust them before I revealed myself."

That was a very slight bending on the truth as he knew full well he hadn't intended to reveal himself. He had simply run out of time.

Quote:"Okay..." Giichi said, lowering his arms. "Amiroo, would you mind telling us what you're doing here?"

Am turned back to Gichii and stared at the cat a moment before smiling.

"alright I'll level with you Gichii, no more secrets alright? I was actually supposed to tell you another cover story to allow myself to hide in plain site but I don't think that would be cool or conducive to completing my mission. I'll try to make this quick so you and Nail can get to whatever business you two have and I can get that drink" Am said pausing briefly to eye his drink sitting on the bar counter by Nail before returning his gaze to Gichii.

"*sigh* here goes..."

Am spent the next twenty minutes explaining the story of his people. How they once proudly ruled this world they called 'Earth' the wars that eventually resulted in the wiping out of most life on this planet 60+ million years ago. How the collapse of their civilization saw his people scrambling into the stars and knowledge of Earth very nearly passing out of all existence until recently when they rediscovered this world. He briefly explained the mission he and his crew were on, the loss of contact with home when the dimensions merged, and some of his personal life story as well.

"...and that's pretty much it really. I'm an extraterrestrial, in a sense, observing your culture here with the eventual intent of first contact."

he paused a moment to observe everyone's reaction.

" Look guys, I'm taking a massive risk here but I need people on the inside I can trust that can help us make sense of your civilization far better than we could by merely observing from the outside. To better understand your society I need to live among you and integrate myself into your culture. In return for your cooperation you will have my friendship and the resources me and my crew can provide you with: food,water,shelter, transport,a means of disappearing without a trace and laying low if need be, the works. We'll do what we can to assist you. All I ask is you cover for me and my crew. No one can know about our true reason for being here. We were thinking our cover story would be that we're simply from an alternate universe and were flung into this universe when the dimensions merged. Simple, plausible, easy to remember. With all the other crazy stuff going on I imagine we should go pretty much unnoticed."

[Nail Strafer]

Quote:"First of all 'Balto' you will treat my friends with respect because the last time I checked you were the one treading thin ice here not me. Oh and I would put that weapon down Mobian. You shoot me or my friends and my crew will hunt you down and update your definition of suffering for you free of charge." Am said staring into Nail's eyes as a predator sizing up it's prey would.

As the two locked eyes, Amiroo would notice a strange phenomenon. What he was about to see would merely be an illusion invisible to the others, but to the dinosaur it would certainly feel real.

[Death Stare]

The lights in the bar slowly dimmed. It was like the electric lights had suddenly been replaced with small candles. The other people in the room faded away into nothing but black mist. Meanwhile, Nail's form went so dark that all could be seen was a silhouette...and his eyes. The eyes glowed with the intensity of two tiny yellow flames amidst the darkness. When Nail spoke, his voice became slightly lower, and not to mention it took on the undercurrent of what sounded like wolf growls.

"You really think I'm afraid of you? I spent my teens growing up with no parents. I have fought in wars and conflicts for over two decades. I cut off half of my tail to escape capture once. I've killed dozens of people over my lifetime in many different ways. I kept myself and my family hidden for ten years during a global manhunt for me. And I've even survived an alien invasion once before. Believe me, you come after me, and you will regret it."

Nail paused on the last sentence for emphasis, and then broke eye contact with Amiroo. Suddenly the dinosaur's vision of the room would snap back to normal, as if nothing had happened.

Meanwhile, Nail continued. This time he addressed everybody in the room.

"I do not deny being a member of F4. I was a lot younger and stupider back then. However, that was almost 20 years ago, and I was a member for only a few months. I choked on my first mission and ended up running away in the middle of it. But something good still came out of it..."

Surprisingly, a serene smile faintly appeared on Nail's face. His tone went from stern to almost happy. He sounded like he was taking a pleasant nostalgic trip down memory lane at this point.

"My wife Canma. I met her through F4. She was one of the leaders. But together, we decided to abandon the organization. And in the process we stole like 80-90% of their funds too. We used the money to hide, and F4 collapsed in on itself without it. They never recovered, and that's why you don't hear much about them these days. Believe me...if you hate F4, you should all be thanking me, not hating me."

Quote:"you shut your mouth fool! I've had just about as much from you as I care to. The deception was unfortunate yes but I only met Gichii and Terrador six hours ago. Tell me, do you go spilling your guts to just everyone on the street?"

"Only to close friends. If you want to be buddy buddy with someone, I believe you need a strong foundation of trust. Hide something like what you hid, and you aren't that much better than a shady used car salesman."

---

Over the next 20+ minutes, Nail continued to listen to Amiroo's story, without the 1911 wavering at all. In spite of the gun, the canine looked rather calm and almost bored as he followed the dinosaur's words. He took an occasional small swig from the beer, but didn't drink so much as to get intoxicated. As Amiroo finished, the gun went back into its holster and Nail laid his empty hands on the table.

"Okay, I've held up my end of the bargain. You told your story, so I've put the gun away. I still don't trust you all that much, but I do feel better about being in your company. But if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. Make sure I'm able to leave the city without being arrested, and I won't tell anyone about the aliens dinosaurs planning to take over our civilization."

The last sentence was delivered with a wink and a little smile.

[Giichi Twinkieland]

Giichi let out a frustrated sigh at the last thing Nail said. He was right about scratching backs. Like it or not, they'd need to ensure Nail safe passage out of the city. If he got arrested by the cops, he'd have nothing to lose by taking the rest of them down with him. Of course, they could just kill him...but Giichi wasn't sure if he'd be able to live with himself by doing that.

In any case, he decided to distract himself from Nail by talking to Amiroo instead.

"Sounds...good to me," he said in regards to maintaining Amiroo's cover story. "Where are you going to hide your ship though? And is it really a good idea to continue your research like this? If I were you I think I'd look for a way home first."

[SOLIS]

"Nail, may I have your attention for a second?"

If Nail were to pick up SOLIS to look at its screen, he'd see a list of positives and negatives to trying to associate himself with these individuals:

"While I don't have your experience with confrontations, there may be benefits with sticking with them.

+Having friendly entities proved useful at the last bar we visited.
+They may be able to provide more information about this F4 that isn't readily available on the internet.
+Might I remind you, they have a ship that can become invisible.
+Lastly, I want to know more about the Amiroo entity's technology.

On the other hand,

-You seemed to disapprove of our last companions.
-The outcome(s) of interacting with an unknown species cannot be reliably predicted.

Despite personal opinions, I trust your judgement on the matter."