Filler Episode: The Pedestrian Liability
Malesh and Kniya were walking down a crowded, high-end commercial avenue in Seistain. They had left their luxury car three blocks away because Kniya wanted to stretch his legs while they discussed mass-scale extortion.
"I'm telling you, the medical supply chain is weak," Kniya said, casually chewing his mint gum. "If we buy up the top three pharmaceutical plants, we can artificially restrict the supply of basic anesthetics. The government panics, and we charge the Ministry of Health triple."
"Make it quintuple," Malesh replied smoothly, his hands resting in the pockets of his tailored suit. "The politicians will just use taxpayer money to cover the deficit to save face. It's a guaranteed return on investment."
"Exactly," Kniya grinned. "This is why I like—"
Kniya abruptly stopped walking, throwing an arm out to stop Malesh.
Directly in front of them, completely blocking the center of the pavement, was a couple having an absolute meltdown. The guy was wearing a pastel sweater tied tightly around his neck, looking incredibly stressed. The girl, wearing a flowing, highly impractical summer dress, was sobbing hysterically, making a massive public scene.
"How could you do this to me, Chadwick?!" the girl shrieked, clutching her chest as if she had just been stabbed. "Our six-month anniversary! You didn't even show up to the restaurant!"
"Isabella, please, keep your voice down!" Chadwick hissed, looking around nervously at the gathering crowd. "I told you, my father needed me at the country club! The regional governor was there. It was business! It was important!"
"Oh, so a golf game is more important than my love?!" Isabella cried out, her voice cracking with pure, unadulterated melodrama. "I sat there for two hours! You didn't even buy me the imported roses! You don't care about my feelings at all!"
"I bought you a diamond tennis bracelet last week!" Chadwick yelled, throwing his hands in the air. "What more do you want from me?!"
"You can't buy love, Chadwick!" she screamed back, stomping her foot. "I want your soul! I want passion!"
Malesh and Kniya stood exactly three feet behind them, completely trapped by the argument.
"Are they seriously doing this in the middle of a high-traffic walkway?" Kniya asked, his face twisting in disgust.
"Excuse me," Malesh said, his voice a cold, sharp blade cutting through the drama. "You are blocking the pedestrian flow. Move your emotional crisis to an alleyway. We have a meeting with the Treasury Secretary."
Isabella didn't even look at him. She was too deep in her own soap opera.
"I can't take this anymore!" Isabella sobbed, tears ruining her expensive makeup. "If you don't truly love me, I don't even want to look at you!"
Chadwick reached out and grabbed her wrist. "Isabella, stop acting crazy and get in the car!"
"Don't touch me!" she shrieked, violently ripping her arm out of his grasp. "I'm leaving!"
Blinded by her own tears and completely ignoring the basic rules of traffic safety, Isabella spun around and sprinted directly into the busy, multi-lane street.
She didn't look left. She didn't look right.
At that exact second, a massive, two-ton commercial delivery truck came hurtling down the road at sixty miles an hour, heading straight for her. The driver slammed on the horn, a deafening blare that echoed down the avenue. The tires shrieked violently against the asphalt, but there was no physical way a vehicle that heavy could stop in time.
"Isabella! Noooo!" Chadwick screamed. He fell to his knees on the sidewalk, reaching his hand out in dramatic, entirely useless horror as the truck closed in on her.
Malesh let out a slow, deeply annoyed sigh.
He didn't dive. He didn't dramatically tackle her out of the way. He just took one casual step off the curb.
He kept his hands perfectly still in his suit pockets. As the heavy steel grill of the speeding truck came within inches of crushing the crying girl, Malesh simply lifted his right leg and pressed the flat sole of his steel-toed boot directly against the center of the vehicle's bumper.
CRUNCH.
The sheer, physics-defying structural force transferred through Malesh's leg was catastrophic. The entire front grill of the heavy truck folded inward like a crushed soda can. The massive vehicle came to a violent, instantaneous dead stop. The back tires lifted completely off the pavement from the sheer momentum before slamming back down with a ground-shaking thud.
The truck's engine hissed, smoked, and died.
Isabella, standing exactly two inches away from the crumpled metal hood, stopped crying. She froze, her wide, tear-filled eyes staring at the destroyed truck.
Malesh slowly lowered his foot back to the pavement. He stood there, completely silent, looking down at the massive dent he had just kicked into the solid steel.
The Common Sense Sermon
Malesh slowly lowered his foot back to the pavement. He looked down at the massive, steaming dent he had just kicked into the solid steel bumper of the delivery truck, then back up at the trembling, wide-eyed girl.
Chadwick ran over, falling to his knees on the asphalt next to Isabella. "Oh my god! Are you okay?! He just... he just stopped a moving truck with his shoe!".
Kniya stepped off the curb, staring at the destroyed front end of the commercial vehicle. "Malesh, you are a normal human being. How could you even stop a truck with your fucking legs?"
"I will explain the kinetic load-bearing physics to you later on," Malesh stated, his voice a perfect, exhausted monotone. "For now, the logistical issue is that we have to pay the price of this truck because my leg has destroyed its engine block. It is a minor financial nuisance, but an annoying one."
Malesh then turned his deadpan gaze back to Isabella, who was still frozen in shock.
"I successfully saved you from being isekai'd," Malesh told her. "Do you want to be isekai'd? This is not allowed. I am very against fantasy; it is a waste of creative resources. This is the real world, isekai does not happen, and that is why I saved you."
Isabella blinked, the sheer shock completely halting her tears.
"I have wanted to say this for a very long period of time. You romance idiots do not understand where you currently are. You are in a high-traffic commercial zone. You could easily fight at your home, behind closed doors, where your inefficient audio frequencies do not disrupt the public transit".
"Bro, it's not that simple," Kniya interrupted, leaning against the side of the crushed truck. "People have emotions. They aren't all built out of refined petroleum and steel like you."
"If the people are fighting, they should simply abort their relationship," Malesh countered, ignoring Kniya's sarcasm. "It is the only logical conclusion. If you insist on staying together, have a consensus. Draft formal agreements. Draft your own personal constitution just to make sure every interaction is legal in your relationship. Draft articles and clauses. If you don't want to do that, just abort it. Do not make a melodrama out of a fucking thing. That is my point".
"Drafting articles?" Kniya asked, raising an eyebrow. "Malesh, that's just not about the thing you were saying. You're talking about managing a romantic partner like a subsidiary company."
"In my opinion, it should be efficient," Malesh replied, fixing his cuffs. "Fighting is a friction-loss in productivity. If you want to be in a relationship, go home and have sex. If you do not want to have sex, do not be in a relationship. It is a simple biological binary."
"This is not efficiency, Malesh," Kniya cackled, popping a fresh piece of mint gum. "It is called lust. You're trying to calculate love with a spreadsheet, you idiot."
Kniya looked at the growing crowd of highly irritated DI'an citizens who were staring at them with a mixture of absolute horror and capitalist annoyance.
"Disperse," Malesh ordered the crowd. "The spectacle is over. Go back to generating capital"
The Deportation of Melodrama
Before the crowd could fully clear the street, a heavy armored transport vehicle screeched to a halt next to the crushed delivery truck.
Four heavily armed operatives from the Ultra Special Forces (USF) of the Republic jumped out. Clad in full black tactical gear and carrying military-grade rifles, they looked like they were arriving at a warzone, not a domestic dispute.
They assessed the crushed truck, the angry pedestrians, and finally locked eyes on Isabella and Chadwick.
The lead USF officer marched over. "Passports and federal identification," he demanded, holding out a black-gloved hand. Chadwick, trembling violently, fumbled through his pastel sweater's pockets and handed over their travel documents. The USF officer pulled out a biometric scanning device and scanned the chips inside. The device beeped red.
"Just as I suspected," the USF officer barked, glaring down at the trembling couple. "You two are not citizens of the DI'an Republic. Your visas mark you as tourists.".
Chadwick panicked. He pointed a shaking finger directly at Malesh. "We haven't committed a single crime! The guy who is present in the suit did all this! He kicked the truck!" Malesh slowly closed his eyes and let out a long, deeply exhausted sigh. "This is what you get for saving people's life. Fucking shit of a hell."
The USF officer ignored Malesh entirely and stepped closer to Chadwick. "Do not play games with me, tourist," the officer growled. "We know exactly what you are doing. You are executing public melodrama to actively sabotage our infrastructure. Do you have a federal permit for this level of public crying?".
"A permit?!" Isabella shrieked, her dramatic instincts flaring up again. "You can't regulate human emotions! We are in love! You can't arrest love!".
"I am not arresting love, ma'am," the officer replied, his voice completely deadpan. "I am arresting you for a Class-3 Noise Violation, Unauthorized Vehicular Stoppage, and Psychological Terrorism in a commercial zone. This level of soap-opera instability is a direct threat to the Republic's peace!".
"You can't do this!" Chadwick yelled, trying to stand up. "My father is a member of the regional country club! He has lawyers! He plays golf with the mayor of our town!".
"Then your father can file a grievance from across the border and son, it is not a town, but a city actually," the USF officer stated coldly. He signaled his heavily armed men. "Cuff them. This is a direct violation of international rights regarding public emotional warfare.".
"No! We were just fighting about a tennis bracelet!" Isabella cried as two armed USF operatives grabbed her by the arms and effortlessly hoisted her off the ground.
"Save it for the interrogators at the border," the lead officer commanded, slapping a pair of heavy steel cuffs on Chadwick's wrists. "You are being deported for gross inefficiency.".
Malesh and Kniya watched in absolute silence from the sidewalk as the elite military operatives dragged the screaming, crying romance-novel couple into the back of the dark armored van, slammed the heavy metal doors shut, and sped away. Within sixty seconds, the street was completely quiet again.
Kniya popped a fresh piece of mint gum into his mouth and looked at his business partner, completely bewildered.
"Well," Kniya smirked, shaking his head. "I didn't got to know that this would happen.".
Malesh dusted off his ruined steel-toed boot and adjusted his silk tie.
"Bro, this is DI," Malesh stated, his voice a perfect, exhausted monotone. "Anything could happen.".