trans_9 | Poking around the ship...

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Poking around the ship...

Brainiac 5 was still uncertain what exactly was going on here (though rest assured that he intended to find out sooner rather than later), as what he had learned so far hadn't been particularly enlightening. But what he did know was that, according to his devices, there were two other Legionnaires somewhere close by. Obviously the most logical step now was to meet up with them and try to organise some sort of plan of action. Hopefully they would turn out to be someone competent and useful, such as Superman and Kell-El, though considering his circumstances so far, he wasn't terribly optimistic about that.

Following the signal brought him into a large hall, obviously designed for eating judging from the number of tables and chairs set around the place. As he entered, he passed by what appeared to be a large eye set into the wall. It must have initiated some kind of scan, as next a tray with some sort of substance he supposed was food was deposited nearby. Though he wasn't entirely hungry - his body was much more efficient at storing energy than those of non-Coluans - he took it anyway, deciding that he may require the extra energy sooner rather than later.

Now if only he could find the signal he'd been following...

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It's a simple order. It must be done. As soon as he gets over the surprise, that's something he realizes.

He hadn't been lying when he told Lyta that if he saw another Brainiac, he'd try to restrain them.

Immediately, he's up in the air again, forcefield being raised (causing the slop to slide off him), and holding out a hand to shoot off a hand-shaped forcefield to try to pin the other Brainiac to the wall.

"Superboy, Supergirl, help me restrain him!"

"Wait, why are we restraining him?"

"He's a Brainiac!"

That's reason enough. Only ONE Of the others was remotely like him, and he was still a jerk, and this one looks so much alike, and the chances of it not being evil/a probe/a Brainiac clone are infinitesimally small.

He hadn't been expecting the giant hand-shaped forcefield and it caught him by surprise, shoving him back against the wall and pinning him there firmly.

At least for now.

The danger was obvious, and it was second nature for him to shift into his heavier, stronger battle mode and shove the forcefield aside, reaching out a much larger hand to grab for the smaller... it had to be some sort of clone. That was the only logical explanation. But who would create such a thing? And why?

"I don't know who made you, but I will find out," he said, his voice less natural now. "Attempting to resist me won't work in your favour."

"And attempting to resist us won't work in yours, spanky," Kara says, striding up to him. At least she knows she's not seeing double. "Who the sprock are you, and who sent you here?"

Brainy darts out of the way of the robot probe's hand, zipping up into the air.

"Kara, less articulating, more restraining!"

That's when the energy tentacles come out.

||Brainiac 5, violence against podmates is not permitted. you have received 1 Violation.||

Fleshy Brainy is slammed into the floor.

This is about the time Superman walks into the mess hall, wondering what the commotion is.

Then he sees it.

"Great Rao."

The strange clone is pinned, giving Brainiac 5 the advantage. As soon as the other hits the ground, he floats over and levels a cannon at him.

"Now I suggest that you start talking. Who created you?" he demands, ignoring the others for now.

Bad move, Brainy. The robot thing kinda spurs Kon into action. NO WAY is this sucker a good guy.

He looks too much like a Brainiac-bot.

"Well, see, when a genius and an egghead love each other very much..."

Rather than punching the other 'bot, he grabs onto the cannon arm. Brainiac likely feels something surge through the cannon arm and all of a sudden, it's shattered, as his TTK dismantles it, scattering it into parts.

Have some TTK, Brainybot!

That's when he sees Kal.

"Kal! Actual Brainiac probe, ten o'--"

He's slammed into the wall with an energy tentacle and pinned like Brainy is.

||||Kon-El, violence against podmates is not permitted. You have received 1 Violation.||

He cries out as his arm is shattered, parts scattering around the area and stumbles back half a step in shock. Before he can do anything though, another energy tentacle comes out and pins that assailant as well.

He catches on quickly that violence won't do much here, and part of him is still surprised that Stacy called the clone by his name, but it's all forgotten as he hears a familiar name and spins around.

"Superman!" It sounds too thrilled for someone with the Brainiac logo and he switches back to his normal self (one arm still missing from the elbow down and sparking a bit). "You're here!"

Kara darts in front of her cousin and juts a hand out towards the Brainiac bot. "Careful there, sparky," she says, her eyes glowing red. "There's only one person who uses that squeeish tone with my cousin, and that's his wi-ah Lois Lane." She raises an eyebrow. "Or a five year old who's kitty he's just saved."

"OK, everyone, hold on a minute." Kal said. He then looks at the robot in front of him. "The real Brainiac 1 would probably not bother to make one of his robot extensions this...cute."

He then looks. "If this ship is pulling different people and characters from other realities and dimensions...it stands to reason that eventually it would possibly pull different versions of us, potentially." A pause. "The ship is referring to this one as a 'podmate', after all."

OMGWTFBBQ, KAL's explaining things now?

...squeeish?! He glares at the girl in his way and then furrows his brow in confusion. "Cousin?"

But it's not as important as what Superman's saying, so he ignores her for the moment, stepping to the side to face his ~~idol~~ teammate. "You know my ancestor and I have entirely different view points, Superman..."

...did Clark just call him cute? For a moment he looks confused as he tries to decide if he should be offended or pleased, but eventually comes to the conclusion that the older hero wouldn't have meant to upset him, he was Superman, and beams up at him.

...but then the conversation turns back to serious matters, and he shoots the ~~badly made clone~~ other Brainiac 5 a look. "...you may have a point. Normally I'd find it unlikely, as he doesn't appear Coluan, but perhaps he's just from a less advanced version than I'm familiar with."

"Less advanced?" Oh no you din't. "Less. Advanced?"

Brainy and Kon are still pinned to the floor for a moment, but after that, Stacy finally releases them. Brainy gets up, dusting himself off and still glaring at the Brainiac robot suspiciously.

Superman does have a point though. The original Brainiac had no sense of aesthetics and likely wouldn't make his probes in tiny, adorable robot form. Not that Brainy though his counterpart was adorable, but outside the bigger robot mode, he certainly was nonthreatening. (Honestly, squeeing? Was that necessary?)

"Stacy, identify the robot."

Yes, he's calling it "the robot." He's still...just a little, tiny bit robo-racist, especially in the face of a 'bot that's his doppleganger. It's a little freaky.

||Brainiac 5, that is your podmate: Brainiac 5.||

"He's my dimensional counterpart from another universe?"

||That is correct.||

"Ah."

He does not look pleased with this, though he does rub his chin and ponder.

"Stacy, like always, some warning would not have been remiss, give my ancestor's proclivities towards making robot probes."

||I assumed you would attempt to communicate before engaging in violence.||

Burn.

Kon looks over at Kara, somewhat distraught.

"Now we have to put up with two of 'em?"

"Well, this one's like a cute little metal muppet. With tons of toy surprises inside," Kara says, pointing towards the robot. "Maybe he'll be less...prissy and snobby and more...socially adept." She turns to robo-Brainy. "You're not planning on taking genetic samples and stuff from us, are you?" She's actually less worried about that and more worried about him potentially humping Kal's leg.

"Enough with the in-jokes, both of you." Kal said. "The disorientation from just showing up here is enough for anyone, let alone the fact of finding out there's another one of you out there somewhere. Personalities aside...they're both teammates." He looked at the two Brainiacs. "And the both of you are neither inferior nor superior. You're both...you, and you're both smart and it's not a competition, so please calm down."

He then looks at the robot. "How exactly do you know me?" He wanted to get a sense of the differences between the two.

Personally he disagrees that his organic counterpart is as intellectually advanced as himself, but Superman doesn't want there to be an argument, so he doesn't say anything. Yet.

"In my dimension you were a member of the Legion for a while. You helped us with several major situations and we became close friends." He half hopes that Superman would remember him, but it isn't looking likely and he supposes that would make things easier considering recent... problems in his past.

And the girl had asked him something, hadn't she? He glances over at her. "Not particularly. Why would I want to? I don't even know who you are." Wait had she just...? "...cute. Metal. Muppet?!"

"Calm down, B5, that wasn't an insult," she said. "And I was asking because that's what my Brainy did when we first arrived on the ship." Kara blinks and turns scarlet. "I mean...the, ah, other...Brainy." She goes to stand behind Kon. "I'm just gonna shut up now."

"I didn't want genetic samples," Brainiac grouses. "I wanted scans, for perfectly legitimate scientific and medical purposes."

Querl is now slowly circling the other Brainy, still looking ponderous, and you can almost see it in his eyes that he's trying to work out how he works and filling in the details backwards. Coluan technology, certainly, but in more in the vein of the original Brainiac's designs--but then they were bastardized from normal Coluan tech...

"This Superman is not the one you know. Furthermore, he's from a point in the timestream that was before he met even my Legion. In our universe, Superman only met the Legion when we were trapped back in the 20th century. He never served with the Legion. Superboy did when he was trapped for a time in the future after Darkseid's machinations," he says, indicating the erstwhile clone.

Though Superman had actually been there very briefly during the business with Darkseid, but they mindwiped him (with his permission) and sent him back to when he'd been taken. Now is not the best time to mention it.

"It's OK...I'm getting used to going with the flow a bit in terms of who knows what." Superman said. "My last memory is dying after defeating Doomsday."

Something occurs to him in this instant. "Not to be off-topic...but does this ship have a barber?"

Superboy, who the other Brainiac might note looks an awful lot like Superman, brick-chin included (and barring a few facial features that seem to come from...somewhere else) holds up his hand, displaying his flight ring.

"I've got the flight-bling and everything," he shows off to Brainy.

In answer to Kal, "Not that I've seen."

He points to his head as example, which is indeed a little shaggy. If he hadn't been still close to a crew cut from shaving his head during the brain-washing business when he'd been grabbed, it'd be even longer.

He's aware of the organic Brainy's attention, and it prompts him to show off a little. His arm is still missing from below the elbow and he glances at it, concentrating as the cybernetic/nanotech mix quickly repairs itself, working from the skeleton up until his arm is perfectly whole and functional again. He flexes his fingers once, then shoots a smug look at the ~~inferior~~ organic Brainy.

The effect is ruined a little when he shoots a surprised look at Superboy though. Now that he's paying more attention, there are a lot of similarities, not only to Superman, but also to Kell-El. "Another clone?" His gaze flicks to Supergirl in a moment. "And you as well?"

From how they act and what he's heard, they all clearly have more in common with each other than the people he knows. "So you're all from the same dimension?" he asks curiously. "Interesting... It raises the question as to why I was brought here as well, among other questions. Like how you came to be trapped in the 20th century. But perhaps I'm thinking about the problem in terms of my own dimension."

There's a pause and the smug look is back, directed at his counterpart. "After all, it wouldn't have taken me more than a few weeks at most to create a suitable time machine, but I suppose it would have taken you longer."

And it looks like one way they don't differ is their egos.

"Okay," Kara said, looking between the Brainys, Kon, and Kal. She's clearly annoyed. "Why does no one in any future know about my existence?" she asked. "I'm not a clone, FYI. I'm Kara Zor-El of Krypton, cousin to Kal-El of Krypton. I'm the real Kryptonian deal." Yes, she's a little testy about that. "And what do you mean by another clone?"

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