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[@Mr Allen J][@redbaron1234][@crosswire] heads up, I had Askin run in to Otsana, Brenda, and Brown where they're interrogating the mook.[hr][/center]

Askin peeked from his hiding space, where a figure in black was apparently being choked to death by a strange young woman in cargo pants.  She had no shirt, and wore what looked like a belt strapped over her naked chest.  

Okay.  Sure.  That's weird.  Askin was used to weird, but maybe this was the kind of weird that leaned too much on the dangerous side.  The woman shouted something, but Askin wasn't close enough to make it out clearly.  Before he could make up his mind about interfering, two others came into view, and the first pushed the topless woman away.

Askin crept a little closer.  Strange stripper women strangling unsuspecting bystanders, pretty weird, but not the weirdest thing in the world.

Here's what's weird:  

[i]"You're too late," said the ticket official outside the tournament.  "Prelims are already over.  Sorry guy, no more sign-ups."

"Aw, fuck.  And I thought I got here early."

"You an' all the others."

"Damn.  No joke?"

"No joke."[/i]  

And he was so sure he'd arrived early.  

Askin had found, over the course of his travels, that there were not nearly as many jokes in the world as their could or should be.

Earlier that afternoon, after a warm lunch and cold soda by the street curb, Askin La Askarrone had intended to at least get to the arena on time to spectate, see who was who and what was what.  But, overestimating his abilities, all Askin managed to do was lose himself among the narrow and crookedy Rio de Janeiro streets.  First, the disappointment.  No tournament, no spectating, nada.  Then, it was that: stumbling headfirst into something that was probably going to get Askin stabbed, or shot maybe.    

Askin skulked closer, hoping his diminutive form would go unnoticed in the cool shadows thrown down by the coliseum.  One of the others, not the girl with the belt on her chest, had the man pinned up against the wall—[i]Jesus she's tall[/i]—and it looked like her arms were covered with a hardened sheen of stone, and Askin was close enough now to see them glowing hot and orangeish, like the arms underneath were about to catch fire.  Definitely a Nomad.  The other one, also tall, also scary, with wolf-features and scars and very little clothes—Nomad material too.  [i]Not good odds,[/i] Askin thought.  

Maybe if he surprised them?  Maybe if he prayed extra hard?  Maybe if he got extra lucky?  

Then, he was close enough to hear their words, and he heard the dark-skinned woman say: "So, tell us who has the detonators?" [i]Detonators.[/i]  That was when Askin noticed the thick block of grayish clay and the helter-skelter wires sticking to the coliseum wall.  Not one block, blocks, in the plural, a whole bunch of them.

[i]Aw, fuck.  Fuck me.  Dangit.[/i]

At least it didn't look like he'd be running into a one-on-three Nomad fight.  No, now it was something else entirely.  [i]The little things,[/i] Askin thought.  A moment to think things over.  Then, steeling himself, Askin came out from the shadows, walking as calmly as he could up to the three strangers.  "Howdy.  So, uh, looks like some shit's going down.  Need a hand?"