My Bad Boy Werewolf Quadrillionaire Space Lord

Picking Up The Pieces

"Fucking fucktardery," Luca muttered irritably into the dregs of a pint. Despite the numerous awards this particular bar had won in its sixty years operating in the Sea of Tranquility on Luna, Luca was barely able to taste the liquid he was currently taking as medication.

It was only his first, though they had been in this bar for quite some time. At Luca's feet, an old sign reading 'Tranquility's Wet Hole' lay in pieces. Alcuard had spent a few minutes rearranging the pieces and had managed to make "neaTly Wettish liquor', which impressed the new owner and bartender enough that he was still considering making it the establishment's new name.

Their conversation was accompanied by the quiet drone of construction work, as a crew of people who looked conspicuously like former mercenaries were slowly building new walls. Rubble was strewn in a wide path around the foundations of the building, and little was standing inside except for a half-dozen stools, a bar, and a now copiously well stocked collection of ales.

"Frankly, it's a little weird this didn't happen earlier," Isabella said, and she clapped him on the back hard enough to shake him out of his reprieve. "You are the sole controller of portal technology. That's scarier than having thermonuclear armed dreadnoughts in orbit or a mass accelerator on the moon capable of flinging rocks at Earth. Why shouldn't you be making decisions about world security?"

"Because I'm terrible at it," Luca said, and he gestured with his empty mug towards the bartender. "Let's try a sour IPA this time, see if that kicks my funk."

Isabella set a mug down beside his. "Enough ale, give me rum!"

"You're really taking this pirate thing seriously," the barkeep, Lanval, replied with a wry grin as he took Luca's glass first.

"Hey, why are you serving him first?" Isabella asked.

"Besides the fact that he asked first? Odds are you're going to make him pay," Lanval said.

"Wait, you pay for drinks at bars?" Isabella asked. "I thought barkeeps just handed you pints and then showed you some guy who wanted to sleep with you."

Luca was glad he wasn't drinking anything, as he might have choked on it.

"Well, consider me an enlightened man, Miss Bonny," Lanval said, as he finished pouring Luca's drink. "I won't accept Luca's money to pay for your drinks tonight."

"Now let's not go that far," Isabella pleaded. "I'm technically unemployed, and I have a ship to care for. They're expensive and super high-maintenance."

"In that they actually need maintenance. I know, I've owned a few," Lanval commiserated as he set Isabella's rum on the counter. "And unlike Luca here I actually had to think about budgets, ongoing expenses, and the ammunition cost of a job."

"Hey! I think about budgets," Luca protested.

"I just ran your credit limit. It came back with the infinity symbol. I ran it again, it showed me 1/0. A third time it printed a document saying 'unless you're selling him a planet, yes he can afford it. Now fuck off'," Lanval said drily. "And this is even after the recent news report saying that your stock dropped by 99.99999%."

"Yeah, I know. I'm the one who set up the short-sell scheme. Made a fortune that I'm not allowed brag about, because I'm a lowly fucking billionaire now," Luca cursed. "It's degrading. Billionaires are disgusting, just look at what they get up to on Wattpad."

"I'm not sure about Wattpad," Lanval mused as he dried a glass with a towel. "I had started 'There are many Flowers in Tokyo', but the author never talks about what kind of flowers they are. Another one called 'Local Flavour' didn't have a single recipe, 'Dirty Lying Faeries' had faeries that were mostly honest, and 'The Heir and The General' had an heiress and someone who probably should only have been a major."