A few days after the big fight, Sentri arrived at the airport to fly abroad for business. He was only supposed to be in town for one month in the Summer, but it seems that once again The Metal's fiascoes have kept him busy all the way through to the late Fall. It was approaching on two decades now that they'd known each other and he couldn't believe that he still allowed The Metal to talk him into these misguided adventures. Sentri just shrugged it off though, seeing as regardless of whether it's for business or not, his trip overseas would be a nice vacation from the collective chaos that surrounds his crazy friend. He was looking down at his ticket as he stepped off the bus so he could recall which gate he needed to be at, but as he looked up there were two bizarrely dressed individuals with luggage waiting for him.
"What are you two doing here and why are you wearing Gung Fu Saam? Metal, shouldn't you be training for a rematch with Pitaya or something?"
"That's actually what we're here for."
"I don't follow."
"We, as in Buck and I, are going to China… to train," The Metal said slowly as if speaking to a young child.
"Yeah, just so happens we are on the same flight as you since we have a layover in Hong Kong."
"Wait… how did you guys get the visas needed to enter China, especially after that incident in North Korea?"
"We don't talk about that, Sentri. It never happened. Besides, I've got local property and people in the Chinese government who owe me favors."
"What, when, how!?"
"Two Octobers ago, the job at the Dallas World Trade Center."
"Oh yeah…"
International flights, specifically to Hong Kong, were less expensive at this time than prior ever since Dallas was opened to some non-stop routes a few years back. Unfortunately, the TSA has become even more thorough about its boarding policies after reports of an unidentified man illegally sneaking Japanese forged swords into DFW International Airport multiple times. To speed the process up as much as he could, The Metal despairingly left his training weights at home. The most recent set was filled with extremely heavy metals, so there was no way he'd get into the terminal even with them in his bags. They all found it pretty funny when they asked The Metal to remove his cotton shoes temporarily since he only put them on to enter the building in the first place. After the irrationally long boarding process, the trio finally made it into the aircraft to locate their seats.
"Well, guess I'll see you guys after the flight."
"Yeah right. After the flight…"
Sentri didn't like the way The Metal said those words. As the others walked to the rear of the coach cabin for the furthest back seat physically available since The Metal is paranoid of people he doesn't know being behind him while he is trying to relax, Sentri strolled up to first-class only to find someone was already in his seat.
"Excuse me miss. I believe you are in my seat."
"I thought so too, but the attendant told me otherwise."
"ATTENDANT!" he shouted with a furious concern.
Moments later, Sentri found himself in the back seated in the empty seat directly across the aisle from Buck. It appeared that someone had made some last-minute changes in the system stating that Mr. Sable had requested seat change, which would normally be against company policy, giving him all the information he needed to assume whose fault it was for that. Waving joyously from across the aisle was The Metal, to which the only reply Sentri gave was, "Don't fuckin' talk to me for the rest of this flight." The Metal was no moron. He knew perfectly well why Sentri was mad at him, but he was also kind of a prick who let his friends bubble up to the brim until they exploded. No one really knew why; maybe life was just more interesting to him that way.
The flight went as expected for many hours with The Metal and Buck playing the current model of family-friendly handheld video game systems with each other while Sentri slept through most of the trip. As someone who made these sorts of long-distance trips regularly for business, Sentri has always found that sleeping helped him the most with the transition across the international date line since their day and night schedule was off-kilter to begin with. Everything was fine, up until they approached within an hour of the Hong Kong International Airport. First, he was awoken by a soothing, but somehow still discomforting scent followed shortly the feeling of being lighter. Not exactly being lightheaded per se, just overall lighter. When he opened his eyes, Sentri noticed that not only were the vast majority of the passengers unconscious but the only other two people up and moving around were already bolting to the front of the ship. He leaped up without a second thought and attempted to catch up to his associates. However, by the time he caught up with them, they were already trying to pry the pilot's cabin door open.
"What on Earth are you doing? Hijacking an aircraft is highly illegal!"
"Relax. This isn't a hijacking. This is a rescue attempt."
"Beg your pardon!?"
"You see all those sleeping plebs back there? Yeah, that's not my doing. I'm just trying to fix an unfortunate situation."
"If you didn't do this, then why are we still awake, huh?"
"Yeah, why are we?"
"Oh," said The Metal struggling to open the vault-like door, "that's because I've been slipping you guys nonlethal doses of various toxins in your meals for years. You know, so you'd not die, or worse be useless, in a situation like this."
"Why are we friends with you again?"
"Because we don't have a say in it. Metal, you aren't going to open that door with your bare hands. They make those things practically blast-proof at this poi-"
"Were you saying something," he asked as he dropped the hefty cabin door to the side.
"How heavy have your weights gotten again?"
Without wasting much time answering Sentri's meaningless question, The Metal pushed the unconscious pilot out of his chair and pointed at his talking friend to do the same to the co-pilot.
"For the love of God, please tell me out of all the usually useless things you know, piloting this aircraft is one of them."
"Umm... how hard can it be?"
"Dang! And the last thing I ate was soup. I knew I should have paid extra for the chicken meal, what a waste."
"Buck, is that seriously your last regret?"
Buck simply shrugged.
"Listen, I built Chrysanthemum and took her out on plenty of test runs before she disappeared. I'm sure I can handle-," The Metal interrupted himself just before the craft took a nosedive that caused the other two to scream in a panic until it leveled out again. "Okay, forward is down and backward is up. That's an archaic and dumb design choice, but I get it now."
"How many times has he almost killed us now?"
"Frankly Buck, I've lost count."
Then to their surprise, a dinging sound played over the intercom.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaattention, hopeless morons!" rang an excited yet somewhat groggy voice of the speakers.
"Oh. Oh, God. Not him."
"This is the one and only Pirate King sending you reassuring messages as I was confident you'd avoid impending doom."
"You've got some nerve, Joe," The Metal stated agitatedly into the ship's radio. "What the fuck do you want?"
"Excuse me, but you will refer to me as Pirate King or Pirate Lord, peasant."
"I'll refer to you as Ass-wipe or whatever the Hell else I want until you return her to me, you little piece of shit!"
"Yeah…" Buck began to interject on their behalf before Sentri pulled him away signaling that it'd be best to stay out of this affair.
"Now listen up you little turd nugget. The only reason you'd go to this extent to get my attention after the shit you pulled would be that you are in desperate need of my help, so maybe it is you who should speak to me with some respect."
"Still the same as always. Fine, Metal, since that is what you go by these days, I really need your assistance. It is a case of certain jeopardy."
"Sure, Joe, but it'll cost you."
"As if I don't have anything anyone could want. What is your… Wait a minute. No, I'm keeping her!"
"I mean, I could just land this at Hong Kong International and be on my merry way. You know we'll be gone long before the authorities arrive even if you notified them now."
"Very well, Metal. I'll text you the coordinates to meet me at and we'll… negotiate your terms."
The intercoms went silent and then finally dead moments later as The Metal gained a wide grin on his face.
"Ahahahahaha! Darn. I've never heard him cave in so easily without aggressive negotiations prior to a meetup. He must be in some serious trouble."
"Why are you laughing as if that is a good thing?"
"I already told you. For me, this trip is for training."
The rest of the flight went fairly smooth, aside from the panic that ensued between his colleagues when The Metal struggled to figure out where the landing gear was operated only moments before landing. With everyone still out cold and the authorities clearly on the scene by now, The Metal rushed them all into the cargo bay to retrieve their luggage. Not even a minute later, a chunk of the aircraft blazingly erupted open with two men dressed as luchadors sprung out on an oiled-up life raft being propelled across the ground by a third wrestler on mechanical rollerblades. They were gone and off the property, before anyone could properly react.
"Why are we heading out on foot now, won't they follow us?"
"Relax Buck, they'll be looking for luchadors on a raft in Hong Kong. After we ditch this stuff it'll be worse than trying to find a gemstone thrown into the Gobi desert."
"He knows the latter part from experience, trust me."
"Well, I guess thank God your paranoia forces you to have a contingency plan for just about everything."
"Yeah, and now you two are on your own."
"Don't be that way, Sentri. Don't you want to see what kind of trouble Joe is in?"
"No. I don't care. Need I remind you I'm here for business purposes? Business that I actually only have to do because of you and your hijinks. Business that I'm also a couple months late for because of you as well. Can't you at least be a little bit appreciative and let me do the actual thing you need me to do? This is a stressful job. Who else is gonna run around the globe and do damage control on the messes you cause, Buck here? No offense, Buck."
"None taken. The manual labor portion is more my cup of cocoa anyway."
"But Sentri, it could be really dangerous. Life-threatening even. Are you really going to let me go off and do this without you?"
"It's okay dude, I'll be there to watch his back."
"No, dammit. He's right, I can't. Again, no offense Buck, but in the off-event Metal actually did die and I wasn't around to even attempt to prevent it, I'd never hear the end of it. Remember, I'm responsible for this asshole as far as they are concerned."
"Suh-weet! We're not even far from the meeting ground. Maybe five minutes at a brisk pace."
And lie he did not, for within a few minutes of walking they found themselves in a very sketchy part of Lantau Island's forestry that they didn't feel comfortable being in, with both legality and self-preservation in mind. At exactly the longitude and latitude that they were told to meet there was nothing but a post-it note on the ground.
"What's it say?"
"Without looking, and judging solely on the clacking of those jackboots and the clicking of that gun, I'd have to say it reads 'look behind you.'"
"How very astute of you, Metal. I believe now we can begin our... negotiations."