... 7th of September 2047 ...
Standing in the doorway the echoing ring of the shop bell smacking against the door as it swung open would subside and return to it's idle position before being woken again and ringing briefly for a moment as the door closes giving the two privacy, another man was in the shop in the back simply inspecting some of the fine goods the shop had to offer. Approaching the counter the raccoon would gaze at the dusty shelves of many products such as rations and food, other times there was makeshift gadgets and traps even weapons.
The bearded dragon standing behind the counter was dressed in a long sleeved grey sweater that had seen better days, the sleeves were of course rolled up since it was humid showing off his scaled arms, this scaled friend as well supported brown suit pants that were fairly clean. The man was expecting the raccoon, clearly with the expression that showed happiness with a nice welcoming smile and a quiet gasp of surprise as his lizard eyes would fixate on the approaching raccoon.
"Jaklo, What a wonderful sight. It's been too long" Revealing the name of the silent raccoon in his own words, his voice was comfortingly soft and rasped indicating perhaps he was a smoker or this was natural for him. Reaching under the counter not lifting his gaze away from his old friend once he would grasp up a makeshift spyglass from below the counter and lift it up shining it into good health with a cloth with fine material occasionally analysing it in the fresh light of the sun shining through the blurred and broken windows of the building, this spyglass was wonderfully made surprisingly enough, gems covered along the sides of it with a blue and hopeful, bright colour that glimmered beautifully in the light showing this spyglass was perhaps just for show more than being used. Although this light as much as it revealed many of the pretty aspects of the spyglass would reveal a lot of the negative attributes to it's body including dirt, stains and grime that revealed the gems were fake and nothing more than plastic, such as a manipulative individual's personality, when you are brought into the light of knowing what they do you begin to see the dirty aspects of them more, being in the dark about them will reveal them prettier than they are, No cloth can ever shine away the dirt stained on someone like that.
"I, Trust you got my message? I knew you were held up in that dump of a town out west from here, I sent my friend out to deliver a message there and my hunch was right as I expected. I remember you always told me how you wanted to settle down there and bask in the beautiful coast when.. "all this was over." Finishing his sentence his cheery welcome would dissipate and his eyes stare down at the counter for a moment before shining up the spyglass some more and maintaining eye contact with his old friend once again.
Standing there the raccoon would nod in approval and still maintaining the cloak of silence he had, fixing his hat on his head and analysing his old friend he would lean his forearms on the counter and crossing them, staring up at his old accomplice and completely ignoring what he asked going straight to asking his own questions with an uninterested but comforted look on his face to see his old friend who purely used to exist as a memory in his head, giving him a high of nostalgia for a few moments.
"What did you want from me Ellis?" Jaklo states firmly, bringing himself to speak, avoiding eye contact and staring down at the scarred wooden counter with multiple scratches and blemishes. The scaled man would sigh placing the spyglass down onto the surface in front of them and seeming distressed "You know what I want. I wrote it specifically in the letter as well as this you should know from the get-go, I am-.. was your right hand man Jaklo and I always had your back and never steered you wrong when giving you options to make. Going out there alone with how this world is currently is suicide, strength in numbers right?"
Gazing up again at the lizard he would return his gaze to him with a dead expression completely neutral and unchanged letting out a small sigh of his own before leaning off of the counter and then giving his reply back "Getting our crew back together again would ... be impossible Ellis, this world is not how it used to be, travelling is a costly thing to do in this world with all these lunatics running around. I barely made it into this town last night in one piece, let alone it was hard getting a room here without being referred to as a fucking Outsider left and right and spit on, they certainly rolled out the red carpet for me didn't they?" His tone of voice grew more aggressive yet still vaguely unintrigued by this situation. Something was still drawing his attention to his former associate considering how much he was now talking than he talked before speaking under his own volition, feeling better in the presence of someone else finally rather than being alone.
"We can help you. All of us when we reconcile and get back together Jaklo." The dim room went dead silent as he spoke, staring Jaklo right in the eyes from behind the counter and resuming his sentence as it clearly caught even more of the raccoon's attention as Jaklo stared right into his eyes with a sincere and focused face "I know how he humiliated and broke you, Jaklo. He's a dangerous man and you can't take him on alone, You're really gonna let him do in' Rosco like that and get away with it?"
Something about what he was talking about was igniting a slowly building rage up inside of Jaklo, adrenaline filling his body his face instead of sincere would accumlate a newly found slowly growing angered expression as he listened to him talk, desperately trying to keep his composure as much as what he was saying was troubling Jaklo.
"I'm not trying to guilt you into it but im not all sensible and well gathered, I remember you saying how rebellious I get sometimes heh.. I just.. want to make sure that boy is laid to rest, he deserves that much... he's the reason you're like this I know it. Look at you!, I've never seen you so quiet before in your life.. What happened to our once charismatic and ruthless leader, You're really gonna let that Musician scum rob your will to live?-"
Moving fast in a spark of uncontrolled wrath he would grip the collars of his sweater with both hands and pull him forward, the spyglass rolling forward and falling onto the ground with a clunk shattering the glass lens inside the scope while it rolled into the light permanently showing off it's imperfections. Some of the material on his sweater would audibly rip slightly as Jaklo yelled anguished at his associate "THAT IS ENOUGH YOU BASTARD, HE'S NOT DEAD I SWEAR IT-"
The outburst of rage was intense and sudden, slowly lessening his grip more and more he would let him go and push him back taking the time to gather himself and looking around the room confused, saddened and angered from the guilting motivation that surprisingly did the trick even if it agitated Jaklo. This gave the lizard more time to talk and play into his head not even caring for the broken spyglass on the floor now.
"I'm sorry for dropping all of this on you truly, my apologies but you need to understand he was one of us Jaklo. Something about the way that bastard reacted.. when he.. "
His words were choked up in throat, even he couldn't spit out whatever it was that happened those years ago. It was enough to force Jaklo out of his own anti-social shell that he dwelled in and lash out in anger like that, Being quiet and ignorant to the past ordeal was somewhat like it was his one comfort to try to forget it happened, one could only wonder just what exactly happened to make this remembrance all the more egregious.
Recovering and returning to his neutral self he would seem hesitant but then suddenly turned insistent as he reached his scarred paw over the table with a grab motion "Fine. Give it here, You can come with me. No fighting at least yet, I just need to talk with him for now. He may be a manipulative scumbag with that ability of his but.. Getting his respect may be the perfect play here" Jaklo spoke with a slightly more enthusiastic tone, the bearded dragon would of course protest against him with an alternative and louder route to take.
"You seriously wanna walk into another one of his death-traps? I insisted in the letter that we gather everyone up so we can all plan on it and not do something irrational, you're giving him the opportunity to strike you down again and then what? You're forgetting how smart this guy is. Listen, I'm not the type for murder and I think anything to do with it is wrong as do you. This guy deserves it, the world deserves peace. Rosco deserves peace... Scarletta.. deserves peace-"
The raccoon would interrupt his friend with a snarl banging his arm on the table that it laid on, causing a jar to fall over spilling out rusty nails over the counter that were of course used for craft. Still impatiently awaiting something that he needed to track down this long-time enemy of his now that he is motivated in a blood-lust for him. "Ellis, I am not in the mood for an argument. I would like to get this over with.. Understand?"
Hesitantly Ellis would stare off to the side before walking away from the surface finally convinced and over to a cabinet that was situated behind the counter easily accessible too, judging by how it wasn't locked or out of sight. Inside he pulled out a map that was rolled up neatly with nothing but string to hold it into that rolled form, it stretched to around 10 inches giving us an idea of just how much area this covered.
Supplying the dusty wooden surface with the now opened map he would lay it out showing off a birds-eye view of course consisting of the town that they were currently situated in and the surrounding forest that was at least 4 miles walking following a path until you reached civilisation once again, there was a town with a red X marking the spot.
"There.." The scaled finger would land over the X and tap the frail paper a few times and passing it over to Jaklo "Is exactly where we need to be heading to" Ellis states finally and smiles at Jaklo with hope, feeling somewhat nice that something may be done about whatever was haunting this poor scaled fellow. From how pacifistic he sounded the idea of murder still somewhat dawned on him, even in a world like this he didn't agree with the idea of it but something about The Musician really made Ellis want him dead.
Rolling the map up in his paws he would grunt and throw his rug-sack over onto the table, the impact sending some of the dust left behind on the counter flying through the air being made visible by the dim light shining into the shop, placing the map inside with a reassuring nod to his scaly partner before stashing the bag back over his shoulder.
"Look.. I wanna thank you, Ellis for writing a letter to me.. and I am sorry for snapping.. just now, but this is a One Way Road. There's a lot of obstacles to overcome to get this guy and vengeance sometimes isn't a very smart game to play, you may get dealt a bad hand or a great one. It all depends on how we go about this" The raccoon would state, still remaining sceptical about the whole ordeal, a partially worried expression washing over his face as his anxiety would peak. As much as he hated whomever they wanted to exact revenge on so much Jaklo continued to want to live in his humble yet miserable life of inertia, the freedom of not acting and letting the past be. Despite the fact the past clearly haunted him.
Ellis would argue back of course being the rebellious and well-gathered person he was "As does every situation we go through, would you rather live on in this husk of a world knowing that he is out there living happily in Star-Down after what he did to us? We had the world in our hands.. Jaklo- Our family--"
His reassurance and motivative comeback to Jaklo was cut short, the dragons eyes would widen in shock and dismay at whomever was now behind Jaklo, the click of a loaded gun cocking and pressed against the back of the raccoon's head echoes throughout the worn out shop, a grumbled voice would threaten the two from behind, mocking them and letting them know he was listening the entire time, Hiding in the background of the shop like he was blending in.
"You boys.. have loud mouths dontcha, You speak down on our saviour like he's a lunatic or a degenerate.. For lack of a better word, you called him a damn devil!, You lot are so stubborn, He's an angel, a legend who will lead us all to a better life. You really are a packa' stubborn bastards." His voice was wracked in hatred at the two's opinion towards this supposed Musician, it was surprising how he didn't just murder Jaklo on the spot and his scaly friend alongside him. "No matter.. There's someone in town who specialises dealing with scum like you. You pitiful.. bastards" What the man was driven by into such loyalty for this man was scarily sinister, his pride for someone was so strong it was like he was a slave to the good word about this Musician. This man rocked a thick southern accent and sounded much older, his warm breath creeped up along the back of Jaklo's neck causing the raccoon to shiver in disgust as he stood there arms raised and a new expression on his face which just showed disappointment, his eyes locked on Ellis hoping he would make a move to save him from this vulnerable spot.
"You lot' are coming with me, Say no and I will kill you here on the spot. The Turner Town Gambler would love to have a word with youse two." a quiet chuckle would follow the sentence the gunmen uttered out behind the raccoon and towards Ellis who also had his hands raised just showed how unhinged his character was. However, curiosity overwhelmed Jaklo's broken mind as well as Ellis' just at who this new name could be, it sounded familiar to Jaklo and Ellis knew who it was but they believed he was dead. "The Gambler?" would supposedly have something to say about the pair's hatred towards the Musician. Their captor would move the two out of the shop against their own volition as they would hesitantly both leave the shop slowly walking along, following his command without Jaklo even being able to sport a single look over at his captor. The bell would would ring out loudly into the shop as the door slammed shut, echoing through the now empty shop as the impossible trio would leave, The bell having rang out four times in total.