Taking Flight

[chiaro_oscuro]

Ben's been hard at work lately, between preparations for winter, managing supplies, and working on a special project. He's standing beside the ship he got from Misfire a while back, now painted, windows refitted, and fully repaired. It looks like a solid ship now that it's back in order. Now that it's fixed, he's proud of all his hard work. It's not a model from his world, but it's close enough that he's been able to learn how it works.

This thing's more of a shuttle than a ship, small and sleek, but enough to get the job done, It doesn't feel finished yet, he's decided. Something's missing, and he still has work to do. Maybe he'll feel out the Nexus for ideas.

He finds a spot in the industrial area where he lands the shuttle, standing beside it. Yes, it has a solid start, but it could use something to make it even better.

"I'm almost done," he asks someone who stops by, "but I think it's still missing a final touch. Of course I'm open to suggestions..."

Then there's a sound of fluttering. There's something with him - a small bird Pokémon perches on Ben's shoulder, one eye open. She watches anyone who approaches closely, but doesn't move. The Rookidee seems tired, staying close to him and nuzzling the side of his face.

"On another note, does anyone want to meet Morrigan? I met her in the Wilds, and she followed me home. Suppose she's joining the family, then." Morrigan makes a chirping sound. Ben smiles faintly. "If anyone has any tips on raising Pokémon, I'd love to hear them."

Comments

[chiaro_oscuro]

"Misfire!" Ben visibly brightens on seeing the Cybertronian. "I was wondering if you'd be coming by. I'm happy to hear you like it."

"It's been a while. A lot's happened since then - I met a few of your friends. I joined the Decepticons. That, and I found something you might want to see. I took it with me because I figured you might be coming along." Ben jerks his head in the direction of the ship. "Bit of a story behind it, too."

[dontpetmeibite]

"Hello you two," Ravage says cheerfully. (He might be wearing a red flower crown...yes, he's definitely got roses on his head.) "Is that the ship you told me about?"

[chiaro_oscuro]

"That's the one." Ben's smile grows when he sees his friend come by, turning for a moment as he's about to enter the ship. "Hello, Ravage - nice to see you come by. I was hoping I'd get to show you this someday."

[debonairsharpshooter]

"Enough about the ship already!" he exclaims, despite there being, well, relatively LITTLE discussion about ship. His focus was on certain other things here! Important things. New(?) developments?

"What's this 'bout you joining the 'Cons? What'd you find? Is a present? Is it for me?" He rambles off and if he actually needed to breathe he might actually be a little breathless by this point.

"And s'up Rav," he nods in belated greeting, "Sweet organic foliage you've got. Smells nice."

[dontpetmeibite]

"Thanks." Ravage looks the ship over. It is a very human-sized ship, but it has been fixed up quite prettily. "I was given a lot of flowers earlier today, and we ended up making crowns out of them, because they smell amazing."

He glances over at Ben. "I keep explaining why we're Decepticons, and people keep wanting to be Decepticons, even after I tell them that we lost the war. We have Ben, Kyp, Predaking, and Terrible Dactyl, who is thinking of changing his name, which I endorse. Megatron is going to say 'I told you so' a lot the next time I see him. But it's not like I'm going to say, 'No, you can't come with us and use the Force to help us whack Galvatron.'"

Ravage grins at Ben, who really is fast becoming one of his favourite people.

[chiaro_oscuro]

"I haven't met half of those people," Ben says, "but I trust your judgement on them. There are a couple stories to tell. This is the first one." He comes out of the ship carrying something that looks a little like a strange sort of gun.

He flashes a grin back to Ravage before clearing his throat.

"There were a clan of space pirates called Eliksni who invaded the Nexus a couple winters back - insect-looking creatures with armor and four arms. Scavengers who are after technology and scrap. You've probably never seen one, they live in the Wilds and mostly keep to themselves. One of them dropped this, and I figured it's mine now." Ben shows the repaired matter encrypter to Misfire. "It's a matter encrypter - you can store things on it, turn physical objects into data. This one was broken, which explains why they dropped it."

[debonairsharpshooter]

"Four arms, huh?" he scratches his chin. There had been those little scampery guys he'd traded with when he had his yard sale going. They hadn't seemed too bad though. Some fine business associates. Or something. But that train of thought is dropped as Ben describes the encrypter.

"That's fragging WILD mate!" his optics widen as he imagines the possibilities, "Can it do the opposite? Turn data into something psychical? Can it encrypt a meme?"

[dontpetmeibite]

"Aren't memes already encrypted? I mean, they're data." Ravage thinks about it. "Show us how it works. And if you fixed it...do you think we could make more of them?"

[chiaro_oscuro]

"You saw one? I keep away from Eliksni. They're not too fond of humans as a rule and I'd like to keep my head on my shoulders." Ben raises an eyebrow slightly. "But you aren't human or on their territory, so it makes sense that they wouldn't attack you. I'd guess they were attracted to that scrap heap you had."

Ben starts working the gun, looking for an object to use for a demonstration.

"That's the bad news. It's not as easy as making more of them, unfortunately. This one's got a bit of a quirk to it that means it might be a little too unreliable to use as a tool. The Nexus got to it in some way after it broke. If you encrypt an object, it'll spit out something else of equal value. I'll need something to use as an example, if you see anything in the area."

[debonairsharpshooter]

"You know what I mean Ravage! The physical manifestation of memes... just think of the possibilities..." he could certainly think of a whole bunch of situations that would be useful in. Like every day. It'd be great! En not just Cybertronian memes! Earth-human memes too! They were great at that. Some of the universe's greatest shit posters...

He blinks out of his fantasy to catch that statement. A demonstration...! Yes.

"You need something? Hmmm..." he mentally rifles through his personally subspace and then pulls out a box of rust sticks, "probably wanna do something not too valuable at first, ya? Will one of these work?"

He shakes one of the faintly glowing sticks out of the box and holds it out. Small for him but it's a little bigger then your standard size pool noodle. He also offers the box to Ravage because despite RUMORS he is a gentlemech (occasionally) and you always offer your snacks to friends for sharing.

[dontpetmeibite]

"Don't mind if I do, thanks!" Ravage takes a stick and nibbles delicately at the tip of it. Misfire always has good snacks, even when they're in a completely different universe, and this is his favourite flavour.

[chiaro_oscuro]

Ben carefully aims the encrypter at the stick Misfire's holding up. It's difficult to miss, being the size of a pool noodle and big by human standards. He fires it, and the noodle disappears in an instant.

One half of the job done. He sets a password.

When he puts in the sequence needed to decrypt the object, a large hot dog approximately the size of the noodle appears in Misfire's hand in the stick's place. Makes sense that it produced food in the place of food.

"I'd like to have that as a snack to go with your sticks, seeing as you still owe me one," Ben says with a laugh, "but that hot dog's too big to fit anywhere, let alone inside me. At least not comfortably."

[debonairsharpshooter]

Now many cybertronians, even those who are pretty okay with organics, might get a little freaked out or disgusted over suddenly discovering themselves holding a giant tube of finely ground flesh paste. Misfire, however, is not most mechs. His optics widen a bit an he stares at the pink meat cylinder for a good long moment.

"This..." he sounds... afraid? awed? "Is awesome! I'm so gonna poke someone with this..." he squints at it, lips turning down into a frown, "Wait... this is what I owe you? According to my scans this probably shouldn't go inside anyone big or small. It's just... Mate you'd probably get a more nutritious lunch out of... anything really."

[dontpetmeibite]

"So it's not actually human food?" Ravage cocks his head to one side. "Too bad--that could've done for a few meals at that size." He's seen what Ben can put away, but has no sense of what humans are normally supposed to eat to compare with. He has currently eaten about a third of his rust stick.

"Well, that's the end of my theory. I thought if it turned Cybertronian food into human food when a human was holding it, it might turn human food into Cybertronian food if I took a shot at something human-edible. Like, maybe it had a sense of who was using it."

[chiaro_oscuro]

"It is human food, just not especially healthy human food. Misfire's right, technically." Ben cautiously pokes the hot dog. "This is big enough that it would take me a week to get through. I think your experiment's still worth testing, Ravage, if we can find some human food to test it on."

He cautiously takes a large bite out of the hot dog, chews, and swallows. "Doesn't - ulp - taste unusual. For all intents and purposes, this is an ordinary hot dog, just enormous. That's the Nexus for you. It's worth a few more tests to see if there are any patterns as to what it spits out."

[debonairsharpshooter]

He's still looking pretty dubious even after watching Ben take a bite with no apparent ill effects. Immediate ones at least. But who is he to judge? He's eaten some pretty strange things before.

"So if I'm interpreting what you two are suggesting correctly... then I think we need to figure out what the most delicious human food in the Nexus is... and zap THAT!"

And that... sounds amazing.

He also shoves his new giant hot dog (with one bite taken out of it) into his subspace. For undoubtedly nefarious purposes later.

[dontpetmeibite]

"I have no idea what the most delicious human food in the Nexus is," says Ravage, looking at Ben in confusion. "Any thoughts?"

[chiaro_oscuro]

"It's hard to choose. Lord of the Fries makes a delicious Gluttony burger, Yaya's has some tasty Greek food, the Crossroads Cafe makes some fine muffins..." Ben thinks, considering the options. "It's subjective, I figure."