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The Bounty Hunter stepped out of the portal, their suit dirty with blood from the bounty they’d finally wrapped up after a long day. A tired sigh came out from their lips as they lowered their helmet, breathing in somewhat fresh air. Lizzie had probably cleaned up around the house herself after finally giving up on trying to force Gene to help, Bounty Hunter thought to themselves, smiling softly at that.
"Another one down, kid," Gene said, clicking the TV off. "Now go turn the bounty in and clean yourself up before you get that blood everywhere."
"Oh, NOW you care about our house being clean?" Lizzie barged in from behind the counter, offended obviously - who wouldn't be in her place.
"ah-" Kenny started, wanting to say something but got cut off quickly.
"I’ve always cared," Gene shot back. "I just figured you had it handled. Which, clearly, you did."
She grumbled at that, then turned toward her sibling, eyes glancing at the dried blood on their suit, then at the gatlians peeking from their holsters, watching the argument while some smirking, some looking rather lost at what's going on, and then finally at Bounty Hunters face "He’s not wrong thought..." she said, a little more gently. "You should probably go clean up, atleast take off that suit of yours."
Bounty Hunter nodded, chuckling quietly under their breath at their banter. Then they headed to the bathroom to take off the suit. They could still hear Lizzie whining about something, probably still the tidiness around the house to Gene, but they no longer paid much attention to whatever was still going on in the living room. As they got there, they took out their weapons, one by one and settled them on a washing machine nearby, which was the closest to a shelf in this room. Then they leaned against the bathtub, slowly peeling the suit off of them.
"Man, what a day, huh?" Kenny started after a quiet while, not managing to add anything more before Creature leaned to his side, slightly crushing his smaller friend, making him let out a slight oof.
"Yeah, but I liked today! We're such an awesome team, aren't we guys?!"
The Bounty Hunter didn’t catch Kenny’s desperate "help me" look, but Sweezy did noticed that look - and she barely managed to stifle a laugh, poking Gus beside her to also make him look at the scene. Kenny shot her an irritated glance in response, lowering his antennas.
"Uh-huh. Blood suits you. Almost lookin' like a real bounty hunter now!" Knifey jumped slightly.
Kenny gave him a confused look. "We are real bounty hunters-"
"Whatever" Knifey cut in. "You get what I mean."
Bounty Hunter finally took off of their suit from their worn down body, deciding to get properly cleaned up later. Right now, they just needed to somewhat rest from the day. Gathering their weapons in their arms, they headed out and made their way toward the stairs. They climbed upstairs and opened the door to their room. Messy was putting it lightly in the words - trash had piled up ever since they became a bounty hunter. Still, it was better than it had been during the G3 bounties. They'd tried to tidy the mess in the room up back then... eventually, they had given up. But atleast their bed wasn't a trash bin no more.
"So... what do we do now? We got back kinda early." Gus asked, peeking at Bounty Hunter from their arms. "I dunno about y'all but I don't feel like sleeping yet"
Bounty Hunter's gaze went to their old computer, sitting on their desk, slightly dusted. They hadn't played anything in quite a long while - the realization hit them quietly. Before all of this, before bounty hunting and all, they used to spend entire days glued to a screen, staying up late until their parents yelled at them to go to bed. Kenny noticed where their sight had gone and smiled a little.
"Huh... I forget you humans have computers."
Bounty Hunter shot him a flat, resigned look.
"I-I mean, y'know-" Kenny rushed to add awkwardly, lowering his anteenas. "I’m just saying! Humanity is kind of- kind of behind- in uh... tech-technology... No offense, really!"
"Yeah" Sweezy cut in, backing him up. "He's not insulting you. You guys didn’t even have translator microbes before all of this, nor warp devices or anything like that. That's just... history. No offense again."
They just rolled their eyes at that, and set their weapons on the desk, infront of the computer, before settling themselves on the creaking gaming chair.
"Oh, games time!" Creature yelped happily.
Bounty Hunter flipped the power button on, and the monitor came to life. Their desktop tho was a disaster - icons everywhere, scattered randomly. The wallpaper was a picture of a random dog from internet with a ridiculous poofy hairstyle.
Gus leaned back, squinting at the screen. "Interesting... decor choice you've got there, Bounty Hunter."
Before anyone could comment or add anything more, Creature shouted excited "Nice dog!! That's what you humans call these, right?? ANYWAY what do we play guys?"
Bounty Hunter hovered the cursor over an pixelized icon of a game that was named "Buck Thunder II" and double-clicked on it, waiting for the game to load. The screen finally switched and on the monitor appeared the title of the game, Buck Thunder II: Xenoslaughter. Big, white letters flashed, retro music buzzing through the speakers. Bounty Hunter clicked the "continue" button, even thought they didn't even remember clealry where they left off last time but it was a shooting game anyway, not much lore to catch up with, besides fighting your ex wife's evil boyfriends. As the game started, they adjusted their arms carefully, trying not to crush their weapons betweem them, or have them dig into each other sides more than they already did.
"Ohh a shooting game??" Sweezy wiggled under Bounty Hunters arm. "Now we're talking"
"Could've been stabbing, but it'll do" Knifey added
Bounty Hunter's fingers flew over the keyboard, their character in the monitor dodging the bullets shot from the angry boyfriends, while the other of their hands on the mouse was clicking rapidly to shoot them one by one. They leaned forward in their chair, tracking enemies across the screen.
“THERE’S ONE AT YOUR LEFT, BOUNTY HUNTER!” Kenny shouted, almost jumping slightly from his seat.
As he said, they aimed their cursor at the enemy on the left and blew their head off.
"Yay!! It's almost like we're bounty hunting again! Are we really on a break then?" Creature bounced slightly.
"Don't think about it too much" Gus replied leaning back "it's just a game-"
"THERE'S ANOTHER ONE AT-AT YOUR RIGHT THIS TIME!"
Kenny was absolutely losing it over the game, yelling over Bounty Hunters hands as they mashed keys and clicked the mouse, trying to keep up with whatever was going on in the game.
"Geez, dude, chill!" Sweezy snapped, turning to him.
He ignored her completely, shouting at the game like it would somehow make the Bounty Hunter shoot those enemies around faster.
“YESS, KILL THEM!” Knifey yelled, bouncing around excitedly. "THAT ONE TOO, HE SHOT YOU ALREADY 3 TIMES, FIGHT BACK!"
Sweezy groaned softly, if she had hands she would be probably rubbing her temples right now.
"Y'all are loud as hell-"
"Bounty Hunter! There's a barrel! Shoot it!" Gus interrupted, gesturing with his hand at the screen, also getting into it.
They tried to line up the shot, but their aim was off - they missed like... three times in a row. That was all it took for Sweezy to lose it and join the yelling.
“SHOOT THE BARREL, DUDE!” she screamed, almost vibrating from the place. "THERE'S SIX OF THESE DIPSHITS AROUND IT, SIX"
Bounty Hunter let out a soft exhale before their lips pressed into a thin line, and their eyebrows started lowering in mild annoyance as they tried to fix their aim. Finally they did shoot the barrel, killing every enemy around it.
"Good job, Buck, yeah! You killed all these fuckin' blood sucking boyfriends of your ex wife, Buck! Good job!" a voice rang out from the game, showing some old dude on the side of the screen. "Oh yeah, it's still me, your divorce attorney - Phil - you know me, just reminding, and listen, it’s not over yet. You’ve gotta keep moving Buck! Just like you moved on from her... even if she still sends texts at 2 AM telling you to pay rent... okay Buck, keep you senses sharp! They're just waiting for you! Oh i love you Buck dont die!"
"What is this game even about again?" Creature looked up at Bounty Hunter.
Sweezy glanced at him, not even surprised at his goldfish-like memory "Shooting some guys wife ex boyfriends, that guy just said."
Bounty Hunter chuckled and kept playing, guiding their character through more corridors, ready for whatever enemies might appear. For now, it was mostly a continuation of tutorial on the further controls that weren't mentioned earlier - and Phil kept rambling nonstop.
Kenny groaned loudly. “Hey! Where did they go?!”
"Give it time dude-"
"OH THERE'S ONE" before Gus could finish his sentence, Kenny yelled out again.
The shooting didn't continued for too long thought - because Lizzie swung their door open, lighting up the dim room. Bounty Hunter quickly hit the escape button to pause the game and turned around to see their siblings pissed-off face.
"I get it it's your free time and you're doing a lot, but can you atleast tell your guns to shut up a little?!"
A faint “Yeah, be quiet!” drifted up from downstairs, obviously from Gene, and Bounty Hunter smiled sheepishly at their sister.
"Geez... fine. W-we'll be quiet" Kenny mumbled, peeking out from behind Bounty Hunter's arm.
"Yeah! Sorry again!" Creature chirped with a smile.
Lizzie mumbled few words under her breath in annoyance as she was leaving the room, gently closing their door. Knifey groaned at Lizzie's comment after she finally left
"Pfft, big of a deal"
"Maybe we could play something else to not piss them off more, what else ya got, Bounty Hunter?" Gus looked up at the human.
At that question, they turned off Buck Thunder and hummed under their breath, looking throught the mess on their desktop. Most of the files were unfinished drawing projects, some notes, or random saved photos from pinterest they will never use again. Finally they found the folder titled "gsmes". Yeah, they misspelled the word "games", and yeah, it had stayed that way ever since. The folder was mostly full of multiplayer games or atleast games that required wifi, that probably wouldn't work, especially considering that Earth was still "under repair" after the whole G3 incident. The rest of the games in that folder were long, story-packed games. Bounty Hunter hesitated, they weren't sure if their weapons would want to play these. Maybe they could just watch something instead... - they thought to themselves. Still staring into a monitor, still spending time togheter. Bounty Hunter closed the folder and hovered over the desktop for a moment before opening another folder with saved movies, waiting for their friends to say anything about their choice.
The weapons went quiet.
A few seconds passed.
"…Ohh" Kenny started, lifting up his anteenas. "Movies now?"
Bounty Hunter smiled at him and nodded.
"You know what, sure," Sweezy said. "I don't even remember the last time I watched a full movie - besides whatever garbage Gene's got on downstairs. G3 didn't exactly give us free cinema time."
"Yeah me neither, I would love some movies dude" Gus added.
Bounty Hunter started searching throught the folder again as if looking for a specific movie
"Just pick out something good" Knifey declared. "Itll be good if there will be some violence."
Before starting the movie, Bounty Hunter gathered their weapons and placed them on the bed, all of them angled toward the monitor. Then they shifted the screen so everyone could see. Finally they hovered their cursor over a mp4 file named "Evil Dead" and double clicked it, looking at their weapons with a sight that said "you'll like it, especially knifey".
"HEY, what about popcorn?" Creature whined loudly.
A voice drifted up from downstairs - Lizzie "WE DON’T HAVE ANY, GENE ATE EVERYTHING!"
And right on cue:
"HEY!"
Few "awhs" could be heard from the small crowd of weapons.
"Fine, can be without popcorn, atleast we're watching togheter!" Creature bounced, already glued to the screen.
Bounty Hunter laid back against their pillow, finally relaxing their body, as they drifted their gaze to the screen too. The movie was starting and everyone went quiet. Kenny was the first to wriggle closer to them, as expected, leaning to their arm that they were supporting their head on. Bounty Hunter snorted quietly and poked his antenna, earning a soft, offended “Hey!” in response to this action from him, but no backing away, at most just scooting closer. Slowly, the others followed, inching closer until they were all huddled together.
For once, someone was treating them like more than just weapons. They appreciated it.