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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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?"

"I've told you before, Kara, very few historical records survived for a thousand years. The history best known to the Legion--at least in our universe--is that which concerns Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the legendary Justice League."

As for his alternate, the pile of scraps...

"As for the Legion's stay in the 20th century, it did indeed take longer than several weeks for me to devise a way for the team to return us home. Rather than building a simple time machine, I invented C.O.M.P.U.T.O, a Cybercerebral Overlapping Multi-Processor Universal Transceiver Operator--computer capable of creating a portal to the future. It was so advanced it spurred on the advent of sentient machine life over the millennium, leading to machines eventually evolving and being recognized as sentient beings by the United Planets by our own time."

He pauses. "So, in a sense, I was waylaid by inventing the progenitor of a species much like your own." He sniffs, "It wasn't difficult. Merely time consuming."

Edited 2009-04-24 06:31 (UTC)

Kon looks between the two worriedly, then looks to Kara and Kal.

"They are never gonna stop, are they."

"I kind of hope not," Kara whispers in Kon's ear. "That was hot on Brainy's part."

That statement = good-natured eyeroll + amused smirk.

Super hearing ahoy. "Kara!" Supes has that dad frown on his face.

"A Kryptonian?" He turns around and looks at her intently. "But Superman was the only one to survive Krypton's destruction..." Not including the city of Kandor, but he's not wanting to bring that up right now. It's simpler to answer the other question. "In my dimension there was another clone of Superman from the 41st century. He took on the name Kell-El and joined the Legion for a time."

And that would be his inferior counterpart trying to prove his worth again.

"C.O.M.P.U.T.O.? I invented that when I first joined the Legion, along with the time bubble technology. It was really more of a side project, however, as I'd already created many other pieces of technology and upgraded most of the facility. But I can understand why you'd be so proud of that achievement." His smile is quick and pure condescension. "After all, considering my substantially advanced mental and physical nature, it's unsurprising I would find those achievements much simpler than you."

Did someone order a side of robo-burn?

"Suuuuper-hearing, Kara," Kon reminds his cousin, leaving her to Kal, and he turns to the Brainies just as he sees the very incensed Brainy from their world start to open his mouth to start the next stage of the intellectual pissing contest.

He slings an arm around each of their shoulders.

"Girls, girls--you're both pretty."

Brainy frowns. (And he's too busy glowering at the other Brainy and then Kon to have noticed Kara's whispering).

"Unhand me, you oaf."

It's not said entirely rudely, but he's still got that grimace of malcontent, as he carefully lifts Kon's hand off his shoulder and then wipes his own hand on his plant-suit afterwards.

"As I was about to say, my C.O.M.P.U.T.O is likely far more advanced, given the level of his sentience--and far more complex. It may have taken me more time to create him, and more time to help him move further along in his evolution as a sentient being, but I sincerely doubt the final incarnation of your version was remotely similar if you simply call yours a 'side project.' Though he had a rough start, in the end, he was my greatest creation, and I could likely, never, in the rest of my lifetime, create something of greater value."

He goes on, "Not that a machine like yourself would understand the significance of creating sentient life."

Get the picture, you robotey robotic robot?

Edited 2009-04-25 04:25 (UTC)

Kara smiles uncomfortably at Kal, and looks at the Brainy bot. "Different universes, different things? I didn't land on Earth until like thirty years after Kal did, though." And beyond that? She's quiet. She might let something else embarassing slip.

While he's not exactly much happier with a complete stranger draping an arm around his shoulders, he doesn't get quite as melodramatic about it as certain others do. He's had to deal with Lightning Lad and others doing similar things before, so he allows the contact to last for precisely 7.32 seconds (previous experimentation had shown this to be an adequate length of time to allow the other person to believe they'd 'had a moment', as the Legion put it, and then they were happy to leave him alone) before pulling away.

Privately he's fascinated with the description of this other C.O.M.P.U.T.O., but he won't admit that to the other Brainy and just files that information away for later.

"Kara has a point," he says instead, indicating Supergirl. "Obviously our universes are much different from each other, with different achievements being made in each. Arguing about it constantly won't serve much of a purpose, particularly not here."

When in doubt, make yourself look like the better ~~robot~~ person by trying to be the (belated) voice of reason!

"Sounds like a plan." Superman said. "Besides, all this means is we have *TWO* 12th level intellects on the ship. That's a good thing for figuring out how to get out of this, right?"

Poking around the ship...

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