Diddy informed Junior of the meet up point and the two arrived at the armory at the same time. Just before the two entered it looked like Junior had been talking excitedly to Diddy about something, but the moment he saw Deimos he shut up and suddenly looked grumpy.
“Oh. Hi there,” Junior said simply as he walked into the armory and looked around with a remarkably unimpressed pout, as if he were the world's worst fung sheui designer. “Not a bad ship. Not the best I've seen, of course. My dad's got a ship that's, like, five times as big as this and it's got super awesome state of the art navigation and all these thrusters--"
Diddy looked like he was dying trying to stop from laughing as he said this. In fact, the prince hadn't been able to stop salivating over how cool he thought this ship was since the two of them got on. He wondered how this must look to Deimos-- sure, a raptor in armor was a little strange, but how about a pint sized koopa strutting around like a spoiled peacock slinging a paintbrush over his shoulder as though it were some class-A hot shot weapon.
'Probably the same reaction I first had to Junior,' Diddy thought. 'He probably wants to sock him in his bratty little face.'
He supposed it would be wise to intervene before the prince went and got himself a well-deserved raptor mauling.
"Anyway!" Diddy suddenly cut in with a sudden smile. "Usso ran off somewhere, Mr. Deimos. I'm not sure where to. He'll probably be around in time for... whatever it is we're doing." He scratched his head and smiled disarmingly while Junior merely began wandering around the armory with an annoyed, bored look on his face. The kong found a box and sat down on it, and tried to make some light conversation.
"Where I come from everyone's always late for thing. It's just the laid back nature of the island life, you know? If you want anything done you better send out a call out an hour before you want them to arrive, because no one can be bothered from getting their pura vida disturbed. I grew up with it, so I don't really mind, but--"
"Mind?" Junior suddenly replied, looking at him from across the room with a grin of his own.
"Deimos, you happen to be looking at the reigning champion of missing appointments right here. Whenever we arrange for a date night, I have to account for the fact that Didds will have forgotten the time we were supposed to meet by two days."
The kong blushed a little, twiddling his thumbs. "Uh... Th-that's a bit of an exaggeration."
"Yeah, I know. Usually it's more," Junior said as he strolled back over to Diddy, grinning over at Deimos with a wink wink kind of look. "One day we were planning to go to a Yoshi race, and I knew that Diddy was going to get the date off by exactly one week. So I had to keep telling him a date that was a week early and he still was almost an hour late."
Diddy really couldn't do anything except give a basheful shrug and pull down his hat to hide how red his face was. "Hehehe. I still don't know how he always guesses how long my timing's going to be off."
Junior gave a proud smile. "Cause I think about things from your perspective a lot. And cause I talk to Dixie a lot about your habits. Ex-girlfriends never unlearn what they know about a guy."
His proud smile turned a bit more humble.
"And 'cause your cute, and I enjoy everything that goes on in your goody-two-shoes countryboy head. Scatterbrain and all."
Diddy's face really couldn't get any redder than it was right then, and though he normally didn't like getting romantic in front of other people-- particularly someone who'd had to put up with enough from the two of them as it were-- he was more than happy to let the koopa give him a quick peck on the cheek, not the least of which because he was blushing a tiny bit too, stubby reptilian tail a-waggle.
The moment was cut short by a sudden static sound from the device on the prince's wrist. Junior flipped the plastic cover off and stared at the screen. The radar had suddenly fizzed out.
“Uh…”
He flipped the setting to infrared. It wasn’t fizzing nearly as much, but it was still on the static. Junior hit the device. “What the hell? Interference?”
------
A plane flew into the ship's hanger, docking in a spot that was clearly meant for ships bigger than it. A helmeted figure jumped out while a strange ball-looking robot managed to chirp a few things before the cockpit closed again.
"Good luck! Good luck!"
