Third Wheelin' It In The Desert

In what was probably the least stealthy move ever, Tsubasa waved at the two while they were still quite a little distance away. His hand dropped ever so slightly as a wave of uncharacteristic dread washed over him. These two were coming to meet him rather than him coming to meet them. It had not struck him until now that the Royal Knights were going to be working with him this time, that two people as strong as they, and their giant puppies, were going to be (under the extremely limited scope of this job and this job only) going to be taking orders, or at least suggestions for plans of actions, from him. The weight of it hit him like a stone, although his outward visage hadn’t changed in the slightest.

Under his breath, and only to his own companion, he murmured a very quiet, “What if I can’t do it?”

The squirrel’s whole kilogram and a half pressed on his shoulder and said, “What if you can? Come on, Tsu. Nut up time.”

There was a moment of silence. A gust of wind took particles of sand across the young mage’s chest,

Ahab nudged his friend’s cheek with his little green elbow, inadvertently tickling him with the patagium, the furry little parachute of skin connecting his arm and leg “Get it. Nut up. I’m a squirrel. Ah?”

Tsubasa snorted and side-eyed the squirrel. “It’s a horrible joke and I should pretend I don’t know you. But I’m glad you’re working on your solid fifteen.”

Ahab snapped his fingers (a stunted sound due to the nature of his little hands), and pointed with finger guns at Tsubasa, “You’re a lovely audience, tip your waitresses.”

When the two arrived he awaited their introductions then took his own turn, “Okay. Right. So first thing’s first. Hi! Great to see you again. I’m super glad you remember me. I think I briefly caught your names before but there was a lot of commotion from the giant stone dog men and the panda people.” He shook their hands, possibly forcefully and definitely for just a fraction of a second too long, “Nice to see you again, Lady Serilda. Mister Mythal. Xiuhcoatl, Gren, a pleasure as always.”

If he was fazed by the giant fucking wolf he did a wonderful job of hiding it. Despite the thing probably being capable of biting his head from his shoulders and swallowing it without chewing, he approached it without reserve (unless Mythal stopped him). He offered his hand for the giant pupper to sniff, then gave some scritches if acceptable.“Oh I’m sure you’ve just been feedin’ him right.” He looked towards his own hood, in the direction of his own partner, “You see Ahab, sometimes animals grow larger instead of just fatter.” Even as he spoke he did the same to Xiuh, hoping to show them both a greeting and a little bit of pets.

The squirrel squinted, having retreated back into his resting spot, stuck his head out again, “I resent being called an animal. I resent being called fat. I resent bringing me to a desert. This whole situation is less than agreeable and you will be hearing from my lawyer. Introduce me to the hot people.”

“Hey maybe we don’t call them that to their faces.” Tsubasa said, his visage unchanging, but tone gaining the same inflection of a parent gently correcting their child about a public faux pas. “Forgive my rudeness. This is Ahab. He is here for the food, and will not go away.” The statement was made with that special kind of love for a best friend who you could, at any moment, just snap and kill. It became clear why a giant dog wouldn’t get to him too much, because his best friend was a clearly altered green flying squirrel capable of speech and sarcasm, and what gets weird after that?

Once the introductions were all completed, he moved on to the job. He pulled out a small notebook and opened it up to a page marked with a little yellow tab of tape. It seemed to be written in a strange language, a mix of pictures and words. He started reading from it, as though it contained real words, “Right. So yeah, as you said Lady Serilda, that’s the broad strokes of it. So basically one of my subscribers let me in on this private battle ring going on. Like an underground boxing thing, which I hear happens from time to time — not old enough to go myself —except this one’s with slaves. People are just kidnapped from the desert and sold to these slavers, and then forced to do the fighting.”

“That alone is bad enough, of course, but you might notice that we are not in Fiore and so why are we here. Well, this is the sour pickle. The people running the Arena of Blood, kinda wish it didn’t have such a cool name, are Fiorean, two people wanted for murder, trafficking and something called super arson. One is… Infierny Launce, some obscure duke of something, and the other is named… Bruce Hamilson. It’s his assistant. I was told that you would know who those people are. Of course because they're Fiorean nationals, the Deser...Des... these people don't want any of it, and aren't gonna take action even if they could. Get to that in a second.”

“So that’s why you’re here. To arrest those two guys and bring them in. Uh. Alive. Mostly, I guess. I’m here because my subscriber has a nephew in there that needs to be freed. Additionally, there’s a teleportation rune on this place that causes it to outright disappear if we try to seize it. Straightforwardly. And that’s a valuable piece of magic that we—I— uh… Silver Wolf, wants. So you guys get the collar. I get the freed person and copy the rune. ”

“So. That’s... the situation. Now for the plan,” He put away the notebook and took two collars out of his pocket, “So I thought of this myself, and so if it’s really bad don’t get mad at me too much, please. Anyway, I got these from the R&D people. They’re gonna read like they suppress magic, but they actually don’t. So I take you guys in, register you for the arena and get you set up for everything. You’ll be stripped of weapons and like… we’ll probably have to hide your puppies. And once I get in — I have a ticket here for the… the event — I’ll locate the rune and… de-rune it. Which’ll prevent the escape and keep them here. Then give ya’ll the signal and you can… pew pew pew the mercenaries and guards that are holding the place together. While I round up the people we shouldn’t kill and get them out.”

He took a deep breath, like he had just finished giving a presentation in a high school class, “What do we think?”

As a new member of the Silver Wolf guild and a young hero setting out on his own relatively recently, it was an honor to work with two such esteemed members of the Royal Knights. However, as Tsubasa the young man it was really cool to hang out with the hot people again and this time he got to play with their dogs a little while everyone caught up, especially the big one that was, like, holy shit big. Ahab had remained hesitant but at Serilda calling him “Mr. Ahab” he seemed to ease into the group. He even looked pointedly at Tsubasa as if to say ‘See? Mister.’ And put another little punch into their ever evolving argument of… well whatever they were arguing about now. Neither of them could track it entirely.

But of course then it was time to get to work. Upon a self review of his own explanation, he knew it was a little more ramble oriented than he had intended, but since he hadn’t had the chance to practice it in front of a mirror or anything, delivering it all in one go was definitely a good step forward for him. He didn’t have any particular anxiety issues speaking in public, but one always gets a little nervous when they’re presenting their ideas to people with more experience. It was a relief to get general approval of his idea and although Tsubasa hadn’t been expecting any particularly negative response, getting general acknowledgement that he had done his research from two people that were outstandingly more experienced than himself was more than a little encouraging. Though there was admitted curiosity at his idea initially, the two of them saw the merit in the fake slaves idea over brute force, allowing them to position themselves in the exact easiest place to get what they needed before they cleared the place of anything that needed to be cleared out. Including people.

While the two of them discussed their own part of the little act they’d be performing, he had a quick discussion with Ahab. Although the two of them had mastered the Odd Couple type relationship quite easily, it seemed that when it came to planning things they needed very little actual dialogue between the two of them, as they seemed to instinctively understand the meaning of the other’s intent. Whether he was purposely letting them have their romantic moment or not, Tsubasa missed out on the cutesy part entirely as he and Ahab figured out their own little part together. Shortly following that, the squirrel ducked back into the hoodie and seemed to fall asleep again.

In preparation for taking them to the arena itself, he would obviously need to have them chained up before arriving, otherwise the entire jig would be up before it even started. He had them attach the collars to themselves, from which burst forth two manacles which were connected to the collar, and a leading chain for the “slave owner” to carry. He didn’t seem eager to grab onto it, but once it seemed that they would be in the presence of others, he “lead them onwards” in a kind of destitute trudge that anyone would imagine would be acceptable of slaves and slave owners. However, as he walked with them he found no better time than to ask, “So you guys go on LacTube? I mean you’re probably busy but…”

And then he gave them the elevator pitch of his channel, leading up to a tentative asking of including them (identifying information excluded) in the video. None of the planning had really been planned, but the action would likely get a few million views if the editing was done right. He wasn’t pushy and definitely not a fanatic about it, but informing them of his secondary profession that he had planned on including in this one seemed better than trying to do it behind their backs. Before they reached earshot of anyone he finished by saying, “If you wanted to include about your particular affiliation we could do that too without adding any names. Get a little synergy going with the Knight Lives Matter movement and—”

One of the exterior sentinels pounded the sand covered stone with his weapon, a rather plain looking halberd, and said, “Halt there!” As two others hurried to Tsu and his companions.

As though someone had flipped a switch in Tsubasa or shouted ‘Action’ in his mind, he immediately pulled the two leading chains downward, forcing the hot people’s heads down and halting there movement, “He said halt! Did I damage your hearing too?!” His voice was more gruff, just on the precipice of unbelievable to people who knew him. Frankly, it seemed like between talking about his LacTube and taking charge of them, his balls had dropped and he’d gone through a traumatizing war campaign or two.

“Who are you? State your business! We are still in preparation for the fights today!” The guard announced. True, the number of people milling about was minimal, which likely meant there would be minimal witnesses and potential casualties. Everyone involved here was definitely doing something wrong.

“Oh are you?” Tsubasa said, “You see I’m confused because clearly I’ve brought my lovely friends here to sabotage this place and destroy everything. Yes, I’ve brought two of the strongest wizards on Earthland here, to this shit hole, for the purposes of taking down the entire organization. And what’s more, I’m going to film the whole thing!” He told the truth with such dripping sarcasm that it absolutely had to have been a lie. “Why the hell do you think I’m here? I’m delivering gladiators to Lord Launce, and then I’ve got a ticket to see the show!” He waved a small, thick piece of paper in front of the guard, “Do you think I’m just taking a stroll with two battered, chained people? Does Lord Launce pay you in coin or does he just arrange for elementary education lessons?!”

“S’hurtful… Unnecessary.” The guard mumbled. He cleared his throat and regained some composure, “A-alright fine just… I’ll get these two to the pits.”

“No!” Tsu said, “Did you not hear me? These two are to go to Lord Launce first. He’ll want to give them both… physicals. Take them to the pits first and it’ll be on your head! And by that I mean your head will be off. Your shoulders.” He let the words hang before he added, “He’ll kill you.”

“I-I heard you!” The guard said. It was likely hearing all of this from a stick of a young man that had unsettled him enough into not taking into consideration that none of it made any sense. Talk fast and loud enough and no one will pay attention to what you're saying, after all. “G-get these two to the Lord, immediately!”

"A little advice: Put money on the girl, she's a biter." As another guard came to get the chains, Tsubasa made a point to purposely, forcefully shoulder-check Mythal, “Don’t see you fighting back now, tough guy.” Before he headed into the arena itself.



He had no idea whether either of them had any kind of telepathic or empathic powers but the apologetic tone was radiating from him as soon as it was unnecessary for him to keep his face blank.

Of course one of the most well known rules is that when you walk as though you belong somewhere, no one will ever stop you. Tsubasa walked calmly through the arena as though he owned it, looking around casually while secretly desperately searching for the rune. There was only a matter of time before Mister Mythal and Lady Serilda would either need to reveal themselves or really, really take one for the team. He tried to consider where something like that would need to be, which brought him down to the ground floor, and then considered that something like this would likely need to be in the very center of the arena, in order to assure that everything worked properly. Almost as though in a daze, he found himself walking out towards the center of the ring, where a massive emblem sat, advertising the name of the lord of the arena. It wasn’t Launce, of course, he was just an honored guest. No, this was an emblem he had never seen before, some obscure Desierto guy.

But there was something strange about this emblem nonetheless. It was almost as though it was carved into itself in certain points. As though the emblem was hiding another emblem within it. Tsubasa began retracing it in the air with his fingertip when he heard a voice behind him, “It’s quite marvelous, isn’t it?”

He turned around quickly to see a slightly elderly man approaching him. At his side was a young man, emaciated and clearly traumatized, being lead by a pet leash and wearing very, very little else. Flanking the elderly creep were two muscley guys who looked as though they would need to put together their entire brain power to spell the phrase “muscley guys”.

“Yes, of course. It’s as though the transportation rune is emblazoned in the emblem itself, which is why this one looks a little different from the others on the flags. It’s not something any old person would notice unless they were up close.” Tsubasa said, “Forgive me…?”

“Ah ha! Rare it is that anyone here would not know my name. A welcome surprise, as I have the opportunity to introduce myself. I am the Earl of Oaeren, this humble plot of land. Arenamaster, some call me. Others, simply Sir. My name, however, is Guan Yantin. And you have an astute eye, young one! Indeed, the rune that keeps us safe is hidden within the arena floor itself. How marvelous is that!” He laughed, which turned into a severe cough.

The slave at his side stepped forward with some kind of bottled tincture, opening it up as he walked forward. Unfortunately, before he could take the two steps that would allow him to reach his master, the old man yanked him forward with such force that he spilled a few drops of the liquid. “Idiot!” Reverse Dumbledore said, “What if that had been the two drops to heal me?! Hurry and give me the damned tonic!” He took the bottle and downed it, wiping his mouth with a most uncouth ‘Ahhhh’ noise.

As he performed typical asshole things, Ahab had taken flight and gotten an arial view of the rune with the video camera, before zooming off towards the covered platform at the very top of the arena. Waiting until he was done, Tsubasa said, “Alright so I’ve just identified that guy as the nephew of DukeUAll33507XxXx, which means I’ve done everything I’m supposed to except this.” He made a fist and punched into his hand, three consecutive times, which caused three massive fists to come jutting out of the arena ground, shattering and destroying the rune beyond recognition. It was only in the video recording that Tsubasa had captured that it remained now.

“And before you send those two guys to kill me, there’s one thing I’d just really like to say: You shouldn’t have let the squirrel go.”

Because as Tsubasa unleashed his weapon and got into a fight with the two muscley guys, Ahab himself had flown up towards the covered area where Mythal and Serilda had been brought in preparation for their absolutely against code of conduct physical, and landed on the head of Lord Launce as he was in the middle of some speech or something. The squirrel didn’t care. His entrance was such a shock that the guards in the room didn’t immediately move to grab him. “Hey!” He said, waving at the two Royal Knights. “I’m the signal! Tsu did the thing, let’s trash this dump.” He turned around and swished his tail tauntingly against Lord Creepzor's face and took flight again just as the guards started to move. He still had to film the hot people doing cool things, after all.

With three against one, one would think Tsubasa would be more hesitant or uncertain. Yet, something about working with two aces like Lady Serilda and Mister Mythal gave him a certain amount of confidence, but so did his own abilities. He was nowhere near as strong as they were, but having gotten to this point so smoothly clearly showed that he had the gumption to fight on this level. With his magic more improved and in tune with who he was becoming as a person, he could see the results of his growth and it spurred him on.

So when the two giant guards came at him, he didn’t hesitate. One of them swung a massive hammer horizontally that would have likely broken all of Tsubasa’s upper body, had he not dropped backwards in anticipation like an expert limbo champion. Turning the fall into a roll, he avoided the guillotine-like axe drop of the other giant guy. “Whoa there, big fellas. I feel like two on one is a little unfair. Could we negotiate some terms or—?”

He jumped backwards to avoid an upwards swing of the axe that would have bifurcated him crotch to cowlick. “Alright so my word choice is a little difficult for you, that’s fine. Negotiate is a word that means to talk about something without violence, you know, with nice words.” He pushed forward this time, sliding between them and getting their back as they attempted to close in on him. They were very, very strong and he was certain that if they hit him once as he was, they would probably kill him. Which was fine. Because now would be a great time to premiere the magic he had been working on, he had been tinkering with for much longer than he had expected.

“Come at me, scoundrels!” He shouted, one hand up in the air and one hand out, like a clock striking three. His legs were spread into a wide stance, one bent at the knee and the other straight out. He slid to a standing position and crossed one wrist over the other, making a cross with them. “Battle Suit, activate! Drop the mic.” His arms turned reversing the cross and completing whatever strange mechanic he had built in to activate the transformation. His body began to glow as if he was the center of a momentary solar flare, and when the shine subsided, he was covered in a brand new red battle suit that vaguely looked as though someone had militarized a space buccaneer.

Wasting no time with the two goons seemingly unimpressed by his change of form, he whipped out the Eye of Ares, the sabre at his side expanding to a large claymore modified to be swung with one hand, as it seemed to balance itself with a small amount of expounded energy near the tip. The blade glowed internally, as though it was fueled by a deep flame, and three smaller blades jutted from the side as though the claws of a beast were connected to the weapon. At the base was a round circle that gave the weapon its name, glowing especially brightly and leaving a trail of fiery light in its wake. As the axe wielder swung out wide, he caught the blade in one of the three claws, using the combined momentum of the two weapons to catch the hammer as it came towards them.

The two of them crashed into each other as Tsubasa disengaged his weapon at the last moment. Pulling at the small firearm resting in the white holster on the opposite side of the blade’s scabbard, prepared to fire off a shot from the Bottle Rocket. The weapon, as it was removed from its holster, transformed into a red and black gun resembling a magnum, but with a rather large bayonet protruding from the underside of the barrel. As the two of them untangled from each other, he set off a series of blasts at each of them which caught their chests and lit up like little fireflies before popping off in burning explosions, miniature super novas peppering across their chests. They stumbled back and tried to put out the fires burning at their pecs. This revealed spurts of dirt rather than blood, betraying homunculus in the guise of guards. The ‘bleeding’ seemed to stop quickly with the sand being hardened into stone as the fire took hold.

“Oh good,” Tsubasa said, “I can let go,” He smacked the top of his weapon and in response it began to transform into a larger version of itself, barrel splitting in half as the bayonet retreated into the weapon. It seemed to fill with the same energy as the blade in his other hand had, although the color shifted from red to a plasmic yellow. As it continued to grow in size, Tsubasa dropped his sword to the ground in order to hold the weapon properly. “Here’s a Desperado Blaster!” He shouted, firing the weapon and sending a seemingly endless wave of white hot energy to and through the sand-comprised guards. When the blasts ended, there stood two glass statues of massive thugs holding very real weapons.

“Look,” Tsubasa said, “You have something to remember them by.” The gun dissipated into its base form and he turned around, grabbing the sword from the ground, “How about you stand down now and we can skip to the end?”

“Damn wastes of energy!” Guan Yantin, the old creeper shouted. “Foolish little boy, if you think it was difficult for me to create oafs like that, you’re dumber than your outfit.” He smacked the slave at his side and gestured to the ground. The poor creature picked up a pinch of sand and held it up to his despicable master. Gross Creeper grabbed the sand from him and said, “Faster next time, cretin.” He murmured something under his breath then blew the sand back towards the battlefield. Where the sand landed, the stone began to rumble and break. It sunk into itself and liquified before reforming, bubbling into some kind of creatures that sludged their way out of the ground and into being. There were at least a dozen of them, and they were about half the size of an average person. As far as appearance went, they were more or less what one would consider a humanoid, provided one had only seen one in the darkest of nightmares. Two legs, two-ish arms, a series of small, protruding tentacles in various parts of their upper bodies. Their mouths were a bit too wide, eyes a bit too narrow and thin angled slits in place of their noses. Slithering tongues seemed incapable of staying in their mouths, with excess dribbling sand falling as saliva would in a normal creature.

“Alright,” Tsubasa said, taking a half-step back, “You got more guys. Well—“ Before he could come up with any witty retort, a small group of soldiers shining bright as the sun smashed into the ground around the young man and his enemies, with the three groups creating a sort of Venn diagram of people who wanted to kill each other. “Looks like I brought backup too.” Recalling something about Bloodletters coming to assist him, the youngest Kageyama felt a wave of relief that Lady Serilda had spared a few troops to aid him, as the tide would have turned the other way very quickly. The loud and powerful shout should have made him jump, but instead filled him with a new jolt of adrenaline. “Bloodletters,” He said, “Destroy anything made of sand. Leave the old guy and his forced employee to me. Please and thank you.”

Two miniature armies charged at each other with battle cries befitting the arena in which they fought.

Anti-Gandalf moved fluidly through the ground, using it as transportation to carry him without having to actually move his legs. His magic had replaced his physical strength, it seemed, which wasn’t exactly surprising for someone of his age. That didn’t make him any less dangerous, and he shouldn’t be underestimated due to his age.

Regardless, there was still a relative innocent on the field, and Tsubasa couldn’t fight freely until he was taken care of. So ignoring the old man for a moment, he threw his arms up waved them over his head in a wide circle, summoning a sphere of water. He sent it at the emaciated employee without health benefits or any kind of salary and captured him safely within it, pushing it back out of the arena and depositing him in a wet heap in the stands. If the description had been correct, that now freed young fella was the very nephew he had been sent to find. He would be fine there, hopefully, as Tsubasa finished off the gross individual who’d decided it was acceptable to run this kind of establishment.

Unfortunately prices are often paid for good deeds committed in the middle of a battle. As Tsubasa finished his rescue maneuver and pulled his hands back down, three blades of hardened stone pierced through his suit and impaled his shoulder, shooting through until they exited his body from the back. The thin blades were connected to Guan Yantin’s fingertips and as he closed his bony hand, the sand broke apart, essentially filling the wound in Tsubasa’s body with sand. “Oh see,” the old man said, “Now that’s what you don’t want to let me do.” With another wave of his hand he took control of the sand within Tsubasa’s body which began to dig through his innards.

“Don’t like that,” Tsubasa said as a new and unsettling kind of pain filled him. He rushed at the old man with his blade drawn and swung it hard, only to have it matched by a staff that was summoned into the old man’s hand. With youth and vigor on his side, Tsubasa swung out again to strike once more, only to have his muscles contract hard as the sand dug through them. Yantin’s staff smacked him hard across the head, sending him tumbling into the arena dirt.

Luckily the helmet had saved most of Tsubasa’s noggin, but he still found himself thrown for a loop by the sudden loss of control. Placing his palm against the open wound, he forced a magical wave of water through it expelling the sand in the process. The wound began to close very slowly, but a thin film of water protected more sand from coming in. “Ugh that was super weird. I hated that.” He kip-upped to his feet and readied another round with the old man.

As Tsubasa had gotten to his feet, Yantin had taken the time to pull various sized chunks of stone from the arena, swirling them around the battlefield at seemingly random speeds like hellish planets circling an unforgiving sun. He sent one crashing towards Tsubasa with frightening speed. “Ah come on,” Tsu said. Pulling a small disc from his belt, he threw it in front of him as he began to run towards where it would land. As Miss Mercury’s products had done, it expanded into a large boomerang shaped device which took to the sky with Tsubasa standing atop it. He rushed to meet the makeshift meteorite, producing a whip made of lightning by putting his hands together then pulling one from the other, the whip readying itself in the middle.

He whipped through the stone as he passed it, causing it to fall into harmless crumbled pieces on the ground. With his trademark speed, he rushed above the battlefield and attacked each and every one of these arena-bound compounds of ground grot. Causing a small rainfall of rubble, which would be harmless to the Bloodletters below, he knew that it would be best to finish this quicker than slow. Thus, he rounded on the old creeper and pulled his fist back. With too much distance to punch him straight on, he relied on the force created by his suit to magnify the power of his fist. Sending three consecutive punches into the air, they sliced through the sky like invisible missiles, smashing into the old man with less than lethal force, but no less painful. As Tsubasa fell to the ground, sliding to a stop and summoning the Mach 15 back into his hand, he looked at the crumpled pile of Creeper. He was breathing, he was alive, he was unconscious and he was gross. Pointing down at his limp form, Tsubasa said, "Don't call my outfit dumb."

Letting that sink into whoever wasn't listening, he turned to help the Bloodletters, only to find that they had made short work of the little gremlins they had faced. Only to be expected of Lady Serilda’s army, he supposed. With the direct threat taken care of, he let his transformation lapse and his hoodie returned to its normal state. Following that, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a second. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out an energy drink which he chugged, crushed and tossed aside, “Alright, we’re not quite done yet.” He pointed to one of the soldiers under his command, “Please go get him and make sure he’s safe. Thank you.” He pointed at the emaciated pile of former slave in the stands, and the Bloodletter saluted and went in that direction. He pointed at two of the others and then to the old man, “Please transport him to Mister Mythal and Lady Serilda. He was the one running this place but I don’t think he’s under our jurisdiction. Make sure he doesn’t regain consciousness, I’m not sure of the limit of his magic while in this place. Thank you.” To the last two he gestured towards him, “Let’s go see who else we can help.” Reactivating his battle suit, he lead them into the building to help clear it out.

At the end of the battle for the stadium, Tsubasa found himself exhausted and out of energy drinks. He had taken a seat in what was probably supposed to be Yanzin’s chair, overlooking the arena and high above the others. Rather than sitting in a regal manner, he was slouched in the chair with one leg hanging over the armrest and his head leaning against the crook of the other. At each side were the Bloodletters, no worse for wear but uniforms a little scuffed. The young man himself had sustained a few cuts and bruises but nothing that his water magic couldn’t take care of. He awaited the return of Ahab, Lady Serilda and Mister Mythal. Although he would no doubt right himself and regain his manners when they arrived, until then he was content to sit as the new ruler of this weird, terrible place.