trans_9 | Some Beach... [Totally OPEN!]

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Some Beach... [Totally OPEN!]

It was going to be like the much needed vacation stuck on a ship with people from all forms of live in the middle of the Black. What better way to take a quick break than to go to the sensoriums and ask Stacy for the most tropical place that she could think of that was crew friendly? It was perfect. That was all Gwen could say as she stretched out on her beach chair soaking up fake sun resting on the fake sand as the fake crystal blue water lapped at the empty beach.

Okay sure none of it was real but it was as close as the red head could get and she was going to enjoy every single minute of it. The fact that there was plenty of room for others to come and enjoy it was just what she possibly thought everyone needed. So Gwen had sent out a text over the waves for people to come on up and bring their sunscreen for the fun that could be had. There was a wetbar not far up nestled under the large palm trees and tropical plants with their own virtual bar tender, heck there was even a place to rent a surfboard or boogieboard if no one was daring enough to test the waves. Thankfully she had asked Stacy to leave the sharks out. No one wanted to reenact the movie Jaws while they were there.. she hoped. Even an empty volleyball court was just down the way waiting on someone to take up a game or three.

Everything was... perfect.

With a pleased little smile Gwen settled back against her chair only adjusting the large sunglasses once. Yep. This was the life.

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"What is a yacht? Well, that kind of depends on how rich you are," he laughed.
"It's a ship, a status symbol, whatever. Mine was basically a floating mansion. Pools, cinema, massage parlour, ballroom- the works."

He shrugged, raking a hand through his hair as he looked out over the artificial ocean.

"Ah, so you were wealthy. Inherited, earned, or both?" Kang asked, grinning. "I had more than enough steel, and status, but I'm really not one for fancy things." He didn't see a point in spending steel on things he didn't need.

Tony grinned. "Inherited. Then lost. Then earned... and apparently lost again. It's been a ride."

Kang laughed, "That sounds like an interesting story. Mind sharing it with me?" He patted a spot on the sand next to him.

Tony considered the offer for a moment- he hadn't intended on staying, but declining an offer to talk about himself wasn't really in his nature.
That, and the sand was warm, the artificial sea breeze calming, and he didn't have anywhere else to go.

"The rise and fall of Tony Stark? Sure, it's a story," he agreed, settling down with a satisfied sigh. "Great one, really. Plenty of action, suspense, twists, turns..."

Kang moved his wing a little further away from Tony, in case it was uncomfortable, and teased, "I hope so. The only way I can deal with boring stories is if I have ale, and I am lacking in that at the moment. Doubt I need any after last night, too."

"Well. You can always tell me if I'm boring you," he retorted with a grin. "And then you can take your turn, and I'll make sure to yawn copiously. Deal?"

"It's a deal," Kang grinned. This Tony fellow was alright so far.

Tony laughed and kicked off his shoes, digging bare feet into the hot sand.

"Okay. So our story begins with a rather handsome kid, son of legendary weapons developer Howard Stark. He's building circuit boards by age four, engines by age six. I don't know if you're read up on humans enough for that to be suitably impressive, but take my word for it- certified genius. Off the scale, and you'd better believe he's got an ego to match. Aces college far too young to really enjoy it, with mom and dad promising him a bright, lucrative future as a company partner- and then one day he gets the news they've both died. Car crash. He's never been particularly close to them, so it maybe doesn't hit him as hard as it should. Or it does, but not in the way you might expect."

He laughs, remembering his teenage years- drink, wild parties, sex with anything that would stay still long enough.

"So anyway. He's too young to take over the company, so daddy's best friend takes over for a few years while our hero gets himself utterly wasted partying. Sex, drugs, rock and roll, all the good stuff- he's in the papers all the time doing stuff he should really be ashamed of, but he's young and stupid, and he never really wanted to be a Stark anyway. Or at least, the money's fine, but the legacy, not so much. He's basically allergic to introspection. Boring you yet? This is all important for later on, I promise."

Kang listened, the end of his tail moving every now and then, and laughed, "I was raised by humans. And you're lucky I've recently found out what circuit boards, engines and cars are, or you'd have to be giving me some explanations. My world is nowhere near as advanced as this 'Earth' most of the humans here are from."

Tony grinned. "And Earth's not as advanced as this ship. Or at least, mine isn't. Wasn't. Whatever."

A shrug, and he was working his toes deeper into the warm sand, part of his brain still unable to shut off and accept rather than try to work out how it was he could feel each grain against his skin.

"Circuit boards weren't what Dad's business was all about. Stark Industries was a weapons developing company. And I was damned good at it. Too good."

"That sounds foreboding. What happened?" Kang asked.

"Well, our hero grew up, took over the company, developed new and increasingly efficient ways of killing people. And then after one too many drinks or something, he decided it would be a great idea to go see his work in action. Which of course, coupled with his crippling egotism, provided a group of his biggest fans with a perfect opportunity to stage an ambush."

He grimaced, just about resisting the urge to press a hand to his chest, over his heart. Years now, and even thinking about it...

"Got injured in the attack. Shrapnel shredding up my heart- hundreds of tiny shards. Inoperable. I pulled together a quick fix solution to keep me alive- an electromagnet to keep the shrapnel from digging in any further, powered with a battery I threw together with pieces from dismantled starktech, built into a kind of chestplate. Genius, really, but they do say necessity is the father of invention. Kept me alive long enough to be tortured for the designs for my weapons. Bit of a far cry from martinis on the yacht- and after a month or so I figured no-one was coming for me. So I told them I'd do it. I'd build them what they wanted."

Kang stayed silent, listening. Tony obviously liked being the center of attention, and it was an interesting story. An interesting way to tell it, too.

Tony liked this. It was all new and interesting for someone who hadn't a clue who or what Iron Man was, and getting to tell it his way? He'd never really been given the chance. He grinned, a little conspiratorially.

"They gave me the materials. Anything I asked for. So I asked carefully. A little paladium here, gyros, servos, actualisers- nothing that would raise suspicion, and never in quantities they'd question, but all essential items for my ticket out of there. And by the time they realised my project looked nothing like a missile, I was ready- or as ready as I'd ever be."

No, no need to mention Yinsen. That was his personal burden.

"I'd made a suit of battle armour, powered by the battery they'd let me build to save my life. Nothing glamourous, nothing you'd show off at a party. But it did the job. Lasted long enough to blow the camp and get me to safety, where I was picked up by a rescue team. Never could stop playing with the suit though. Kept tinkering, making it better, trying to work out why I couldn't let it go- even after medical science caught up with me enough that I didn't need the chestplate anymore. I guess I've never really worked out why I need it."

He smiled, a little awkwardly. Okay, so that had ended up a little more personal than he'd intended. Perhaps he should have stuck to the third person. Everything sounded more impressive that way, which was probably why Doom did it.

"That was smart of you. So you designed a better version of this suit? Did you ever use it again?" Kang asked.

"Yeah. After seeing just where my work was ending up I quit making weapons, which as you can imagine made me extremely popular with my shareholders, and worked on the suit in secret. And yeah, you might say I made a better version. A much better version."

He stretched out a hand and let Extremis fire up, coating his arm in the smooth golden interface suit, bright and obviously metallic under the artificial sun.

"The press call the armour Iron Man. And that's me. Inside and out, now. I run my company, take Miss World finalists out on ludicrously expensive dates, and spend my spare hours saving the world. Hopelessly seeking some kind of forgiveness for my years of willful ignorance, shamelessly feeding my voracious appetite for praise and recognition- who knows why I do it. God knows I don't."

Kang blinked down at Tony's arm, "...that's interesting; I've never seen anything like it before. And if it made you happy, do you need to know why? Unless you weren't, of course."

Tony shrugged and the gold slithered back under his skin.
"Not sure happy's the word."

Understatement of the damn century, that one- but there was no way he was going to dwell on that for much longer.

"So go on. Your turn to talk, my turn to yawn."

Kang eyed Tony for a moment before turning his head to look out at the water. "My story starts with with the beginning of my race. Draconians were created from stolen dragon eggs warped with magic roughly forty-five years ago, meant to be shock troops in the Dark Queen's attempt to take over Krynn. We were raised to hate Solamnics and elves, and taught that showing any mercy was a weakness; they even forced us to kill our own brothers by not giving us enough food as hatchlings. We had to fight for it."

Those weren't pleasant memories. He didn't like going back to them.

"We knew about it, knew the nature of the goddess who'd ordered us to be created, and we chose to follow her still. I have no intention of lying to anyone on this ship; we murdered, stole, and worse. The other soldiers in the dragonarmies did the same, mostly human, and pretty much treated us like shit. Even if we were of an equal or higher rank than a human, we weren't treated with any respect, and more often than not, we were thrown into infantry or latrine duty," the bozak snorted. "In the end, she lost her war. All the officers and Highlords were more interested in fighting each other for power. I honestly can't say I'm upset about that. Doesn't mean I regret anything I ever did, though. Most of us don't."

Well, that sounded very fantasy novel, but pretty damn unpleasant if you'd been forced to live through it. He was swiftly beginning to realise he was going to have to adjust his view on magic if he didn't want to come across as a complete asshole.

"And that's when Stacy picked you up?"

"The war ended over thirty years ago, actually. I took my regiment into the mountains, and we shared a valley with a village of hill dwarves for a good... twenty-seven, twenty-eight years. During the Summer of Chaos, we found out that females of our race had been created, but not allowed to hatch and hidden away to better control our numbers, and retrieved them. Nearly died in the process, something Takhisis intended when she arranged for the information to reach us," Kang snorted. He obviously wasn't very happy about that, for good reason.

"We decided to move out of the valley and started traveling to an abandoned dwarven city. Along the way, though, goblins hounded us, trying to kill us. We didn't understand why at first, but we figured out pretty quickly that someone was paying them to do it; we hadn't done anything to them, and they rarely leave their territory unless there's steel involved. Thought it was the Solamnics at first. We were wrong, though."

Yeah, there was no way his surprise at the idea of life without females wasn't going to show on his face. Christ, but that sucked. He wasn't much surprised that Kang's people had fought to get to them.

"Sounds like someone was trying to undo a mistake," he offered, getting into the story now.

It did suck, having no females. Kang snorted, "She left after the Summer of Chaos, with all the other gods. Her Knights, though, had found out from one of the dwarves about the females, and didn't want us around anymore. We were a danger. Didn't find that out until the girls were a little over a year old, and we were holed up in a fort with the bulk of what was left of our race; a human friend of mine, a Knight herself, warned me when I went to them to ask for aid and was lied to. They caught her, and she ended up coming back to the fort with us."

He smiled wryly. "On top of that mess, I had to deal with the girls having grown up and the crazy aurak general of the fort using a magical artifact that took the soul of a draconian and split it up. Stupid clones, basically. If you were of a higher rank, you could order one to hammer a nail into their brain, and they'd do it." He'd pitied them, really.

"The girls and I took care of Maranta as the goblins were attacking us, my regiment used a crazy, last-minute plan involving a fake dragon filled with explosives during the battle, and we won. I tore up my hand in the process, but it was more than worth it," The bozak held up his right hand, showing the mass of scars. Pausing, he decided not to mention Huzzad's death. "After that, I retired from the military, we all moved to an abandoned city, and I became the Lord-Governor of our new nation."

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Some Beach... [Totally OPEN!]

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