The Absurd Mission/Chapter 3

Chapter Three: The Black Market

It was night. Austin had explored the Iceberg, the lighthouse, the Ski Lodge, and the other rooms of CP, and had enjoyed it all.

The only other places he hadn't gone were the Expedition Forest and the Dojo. He didn't dare set flipper near the Dojo's wooden steps. Sensei and those ninjas still had it in for him. He seriously needed to find a place to sleep. He didn't have an igloo, because currently he was in "jail". This created problems.

The Forest

Austin sighed, and trudged down through the forest. It wasn't exactly a good feeling, walking through there in the dead of night. The trees cast large shadows over the area, and he heard howling coming from the forest. He shuddered. Whatever was in there couldn't be good. Suddenly, he took a wrong turn and ended up in a large, empty forest. He searched around and found a note.

Join the Expedition today!

He waddled a bit farther into the forest.

Suddenly, a penguin with fangs, and dripping saliva popped out behind a rock, and approached him, growling. Austin halted, and fumbled in his player card. He found his sword, and pulled it out.

The Twiguin lurched forward, looking hungry. Austin pulled out his gun he got from Maverick (he liked it especially) and loaded a very large amount of Ditto A into it.

Suddenly, the Twiguin leaped at him! He aimed quickly and shot it. It fell to the snow, pulverized and frozen. He smirked at it, and kicked the frozen Twiguin over. Ha.

However, this put him on edge. There were probably more of these hideous lunatics around here. He quickly ran forward, going this way and that. He turned, and realized he was lost. He shuddered to think of what else might be in here. Panicked, he fled this way and that again, and then he heard voices coming from the left.

"Welcome to the Black Market. What'll ya have?"

"I'm looking for a unique weapon."

"Oh, well we have plenty. There's this RTF Gun, bought straight from XTUX and Austin.Inc, and we have a deletion gun. We also have some old banana blasters and snowball guns. And then there are these turrets that we hooked up to balloons..."

Austin peeked through the brush, trying not to be seen. The scene he saw was rather interesting. He saw a few penguins, all dressed in black standing near assorted tables of weapons. Wow. It was a treasure trove. Knives, deletions guns, rollback guns (he saw some that he and XTUX had made), bayonets, cream soda, cloaks, cactus juice, bombs, EPF documents, Judgies, and... were those armored balloons? He leaned a bit closer.

"Say, what are these?" said a larger one, pointing at the Snoss Blasters.

"Oh, those? We got those from the RDA Base under the Recyling Center."

Austin fell over, shocked. WHAAT? There was a RDA BASE UNDER THE RECYCLING CENTER? He should have known about that. However, his thoughts were quickly intterupted.

"HEY! Gangsta87! Is that you?"

Austin panicked. There were 6 of them and one of him, and he couldn't beat them in a fight. And they wouldn't be too happy. He quickly threw off his clothes and started changing into a black cloak and hoodie. "UH, yeah, it's me, just one second!"

"I don't think that's Gangsta87, PWNsta17."

Austin leapt into the clearing with his hoodie and cloak on.

"Sorry about that. I was slightly delayed."

PWNsta17, clearly the leader, faced Austin.

"Gangsta, you're late AGAIN. And you don't sound quite right. The accent's different." Austin ignored him, and got behind one of the stands. Another burly penguin shoved him.

"Gangsta, your table is the TECHNOLOGY TABLE. Even though you're pretty new, you're still real green." However, he didn't bother Austin anymore. Austin dealt items, pretending to be Gansta87 for a while.

Exploring the Market

It was an interesting place, and he saw plenty of people that could be recruited. In fact, he saw a villians that he knew about. Deathfin, a few UPM picciotos, The Robbers, Dark Penguins, Jerks, and a few Shadow Ninjas. For a second, he thought he might have even seen Rentu. He liked this place, and decided that he might come here after he got out. Unluckily, something bad happened.

Gangsta87, THE REAL ONE, came out of the brush.

"I'm sorry I'm late. I got delayed because I tried robbing the Pizza Parlor and it didn't go to well."

PWNsta turned around. "WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA? You're already here!"

Gangsta looked at Austin. "Uh, no, he's not me. That guy is Pengolian. See the square eyes?"

PWNsta flipped around, pointed a loaded stun gun at Austin.

"Okay, who're you, and WHAT do you think you're doing."

Austin gulped, and stepped backwards. "I'm Austin8310, and I panicked and pretended to be Gangsta. Anyway, I'm sorry for impersonating him."

PWNsta looked mildly interested. "Hey, aren't you that Snoss bloke?"

Austin nodded. "That would be me."

PWNsta extended his flipper. "For 30 coins I'll forget this ever happened." Austin pulled the coins from his player card and handed them to PWNsta, and then went searching around the booths. He skipped the Technology booth completely. Ack. Technology. He didn't quite get it, being Pengolian and all. However, he was mildly interested at the guns stand.

He walked up to the dealer. "What'cha got here?"

The dealer began rattling off a list in a bored voice. "We've got a rollback gun but it's pricey, snowball guns, ranging from Maverick to Snoss made, RDA Guns, banana blasters, and a Machine Gun that shoots frozen pizza. We've also got some deletion guns, rifles, and we've got a custom made machine gun that shoots icicles. -and a few Flamethrowers. -and Waffle Launchers.

The File is This Close

Austin paused for a second and thought. He already had a lot of weapons, but he was mildly interested. "Say, do you have information services?" he asked the dealer. The dealer nodded, and pointed over to that table. "There's Rondo65. He's a half Dorkugese and half adielie guy, and he's great with technology. He's over there."

Austin walked over to the stand and put some CP Coins on the table. "Do you have anything on the records for Gottfried Hochstadt, Fisch Hochstadt, Jock Hochstadt, or Piper. J Cub?"

Rondo dressed like a nerd, but he wasn't robed. His Adeluie heritage had him dressing more like a modern nerd, but by his criminal nature, he was donning all black.

"Yeah, I do." he said, with a slightly nasally voice. "...-but... I don't think I heard your request clearly."

Austin sighed and laid more coins on the table.

"Okay, it's coming back to me... -but I can't make it out..."

Austin laid a sack of a hundred coins on the table. Rondo adjusted his glasses as he smiled.

"All right. Our moles have intercepted classified Snoss Secret Service data regarding the wearabouts of the gang."

He slid a closed, blue-colored folder with the Seal of the Snowzerland Empire stamped on it. Written on it was "HOCHSTADT GANG 1/18/2011. Confidential."

Austin cocked what count count as an eyebrow. Why was he even dealing with classified data in the Black Market? He had PWNsome Clearence and was legally able to read this stuff... -but then again, the Classification Code only applied to the USA.

"Thanks."