Chapter 55: Scariest Thing In Any Room
"Relax, I was just joking. I am trying out a bunch of different forms of humor that I have found online," said Jun Li, causing me to breathe a sigh of relief. I mean, I would have gone into another nebula for cosmic dust, but I was happy that it wasn’t necessary.
"How about you leave the humor to Sha Shou?" I asked as my eyes continued to scan around the dark room. There were red, blue, and white lights twirling what I would want to call a dance floor, but I honestly had no idea what it was.
"Awe, but I was watching some prank videos online, and I wanted to try those next," he whined. I almost missed the cold shoulder that he was giving me before. Almost.
"Are you Merciless?" came a low growling voice from across the booth. I looked up to see what I could only call a werewolf sitting in front of me.
In more technical terms, he was a bipedal species with a large muscular structure, covered as far as I could see in fur, and had two very canine-looking ears on the top of his head. While I couldn’t see any form of clothing covering him, I was hoping that he was at least wearing pants underneath the table.
Then again, maybe it was normal for him to walk around naked. However, no matter what, I was going to make sure that my eyes were closed when he stood up.
"I am," I said. I was sitting up as tall as I could be, even before the wolfman sat down at my booth, but I was still completely dwarfed by the being in front of me.
"You are smaller than I thought you would be," he growled, his mouth displaying an impressive number of canines. However, it took me a minute to realize that his words didn’t match his mouth. Thank you, Jun Li, for insisting on programming the earpiece with a language program.
"All that much easier for slipping in and out of places," I replied with a shrug as if he didn’t just stab me through the heart with the comment on my size. I was on the small size for a human woman. The average height for women in Country M was 5’4, but I was practically a child out here in the universe. And I didn’t mean my age, although I was willing to bet that at 25 I was considered to be incredibly young.
Wolfman only grunted his agreement. "Plus, with that getup, no one would be able to recognize you." He stopped talking for a second and sniffed the air. "I can’t even get a smell on you." He tilted his giant head to the side and studied me. "I don’t know if I like the fact that you don’t smell."
"Do you like the fact that I have the weapons you asked for?" I asked, bringing the topic back to business. There was no way I wanted him to be able to identify me by smell. That would give him a distinct advantage in being able to track me down. I knew that the universe was large, but I wasn’t going to take the chance that it would still be that big when I needed it to be.
"Yes," the wolf growled. "I am very happy that you have my weapons. But I don’t see them on you unless you are hiding them all under the table," he continued with a scoff.
"I might be small, but I am hardly stupid," I said as I tilted my head. At least the veil hid my face, so it couldn’t tell him exactly what I thought of him. "There is a runner with all of your new toys in it. You transfer my money, and I transfer you the codes to get into the runner."
I hadn’t thought about this part of the exchange, how to actually transfer the weapons, but Jun Li did. And apparently, we had a bunch of unused runners in the lower decks that were used by the old crew to go planetside on leave.
Well, they won’t be needing them anymore, so we might as well make good use of them.
The wolf scoffed at me. "I am not some pup. I will not transfer the money until I see the weapons."
I shrugged like it wasn’t that big of a deal. Standing up, I waited for the wolf to follow me out of the nightclub and to where the runner was docked.
I was ecstatic to let you know that his species does wear clothes, at least they wear something resembling pants. And seeing that I went up to his navel, I was exceptionally glad of that.
I lead the way, more than aware of the wolf towering over me. However, I had more than a few ’get out of jail’ cards, the least of which were the bulletproof fabric, the shield earrings, and of course my armor. I was loaded for bear. Let’s hope it could withstand a wolf.
The hallways became less and less crowded as we continued to walk. Jun Li had specifically chosen a docking bay away from everything just to avoid suspicion. What type of suspicions he was expecting seeing as this was a black market planet, I didn’t know. But between the two of us, he was much more familiar with this new world than I was.
"You are like a fearless pup exploring out of its den for the first time," mused the wolf from over the top of my head.
"On my planet there is a saying," I said, keeping a steady pace. "There will always be someone bigger, better looking, more intelligent, faster, or stronger than you."
"I don’t understand," said the wolf, confused.
"It essentially means that if you think you are the scariest person in the room, there will be someone scarier. Never rest until you are the scariest one."
"I don’t understand," he repeated, practically bending his body in two to be able to look me in the face. "Speak plainly."
"Speak plainly?" I asked, coming to a complete stop and staring at the being that was definitely bigger than me, faster than me, and stronger than me. "Be careful if you believe that between the two of us, you are the bigger threat. Don’t try to doublecross me and take the weapons without paying for them. I will never stop until I am the scariest thing in any room."
