trans_9 | Adjustment Period [Open]

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Adjustment Period [Open]

He'd been deliberately avoiding people since they returned from the mission and Leela had been safely transported to the MedBay to recuperate from her injuries. Brainiac 5 didn't like to admit it, but even he needed some time to process things if the events were significantly large and life-changing enough.

And finding himself here, in this bizarre ship with no idea how he'd come here, then meeting an alternate counterpart of himself who was similar enough to be disconcerting, but different enough to make him more than a little jealous and defensive, and topping the entire experience off with suddenly having to be involved in a mission that he didn't understand his role in and with a group of people he didn't know? It was enough to make even his considerable intellect need a break, if only for a short while. Particularly when he factored in the... unfortunate circumstances before his arrival.

Fortunately Stacy had more than enough room for him to find a place to just take time to work things through in his head without being distracted by the presence of others.

And he'd since resolved to try and avoid sleeping in the 'bed' provided by the ship at all costs.

But experiences with the sleeping area aside, he's now feeling a little more accepting of what's happened so far. He's far from happy about being here, but there isn't much to be done about that - and it's not like he's particularly unique in that regard either - and he'd rather do something productive with his time, so he heads down to the laboratory in Special Weapons his counterpart had shown him around earlier.

After checking that the area is indeed currently empty by cautiously elongating his neck until his head could peek into the room without being too noticeable, Brainiac 5's body follows the rest of him into the room and his neck returns to its normal length. He's alone in what passes for a laboratory, and therefore feels a bit more at home.

And also free to poke through other people's projects.

It's not meant to be rude or anything. It's just that he's not used to having other people working in his lab back with his Legion and while he reminds himself that this lab is a shared space, he can't help but occasionally make a note on someone's equation or a footnote on a diagram to suggest a different idea.

He's just trying to be helpful, really. It doesn't really occur to him that others might not see it that way.

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Dani beamed. "Exactly. And maybe two processes can fill in the holes each process has on it's own, don't you think?" She asked.

"Yes, that's true," he agrees. "Not to mention generating ideas that either party might not have considered otherwise."

He shoots Dani another smile and a pleased look. He's reminded of something he heard once about good things in small packages. He hadn't expected the conversation to be this helpful, but he's glad that he tried talking with the girl.

"Exactly!" Dani said, still smiling. Not that she actually did this sort of practice, but she found things with multiple theories gave her a more complete picture. "So see any goals you were thinking of doing yet?"

"Actually, I think spending some time on the power source problem would be beneficial," he muses. "Maybe some work into that would be useful for everyone else's projects as well..."

He adds, "not to mention it's something that different perspectives on would be highly beneficial."

"A power source problem?" Dani asked, looking confused. "But the ship has lots of power."

"The ship does, but we don't," he explains. "If we're to make things like shield generators and scouting robots, we're going to need a way to make decent power supplies that aren't cannibalised from existing technology. Something reasonably easy and inexpensive would be the best option..."

And he's lost for a moment in making some notes on a holographic display projected from his arm.

Dani thought about this a moment before she nodded. "Okay, I get what you mean! Yeah, there can be a lot of power sources," she said and paused. "I know the basic theory of how normal people could use ecto energy. I guess gathering it would just be from me and Danny directly, somehow. He might know more about it," she said thoughtfully. She'd come across it while looking up how ghosts gained their own power in her own little quest to try and stabilize herself.

"Ecto energy?" he asks, looking confused. "I've never heard of it. Could you elaborate?"

Dani held up a hand, a ball of green energy forming there. "This is ecto energy," she said before pulling it back into her body with practiced ease. "It's energy that makes a ghost's body in my world. If there's enough ghost activity in the area, in theory, it's possible for humans to harvest it and use it for weapons and energy sources," she explained. "Though I think Danny and I might be the only real sources of it, but we just have to rest if we use too much."

The moment the ball of energy forms his eyes glow a faint purple, scanning what he can of it and storing the data in his systems. There probably are some applications for it, but if it's only generated by two members of the crew, then there's definite problem-

"Wait, did you say 'ghost activity'?"

"Yeah. Ecto energy is supposedly drawn to post human consciousness. In most cases. Thus, ghosts are made from ecto energy and where there's a lot of ecto energy, there's a lot of ghosts. So, lots of ghostly activity means there's a lot of ecto energy in the air," Dani explained as if it was a perfectly logical topic of conversation.

"Oh, and I'm half ghost. Not a full ghost. I'm one of those not ghost cases," she added. Just to make sure he didn't think she was actually dead.

"So ecto energy creates these ghosts? Fascinating... I'd be interested in learning more about this energy and it's practical applications-"

He blinks and frowns at her. "Did you just say you're half ghost? How is that even possible?"

"I know some of the basic stuff. I think Danny knows more, but I'll have to check for sure," Dani said.

"Well....I only understand about a third of it, but..." Dani started and then went into a whole technical explanation on how a halfa could exist, with how ecto might be attracted to a living body provided with a portal present and how the DNA was rather sensitive to changes and other such things that included knowledge on biology and ectology.

"Vlad explained it once. I just remembered it," she ended the explanation with. She'd bothered to pay attention and to remember it because it was good to know how one was made.

That... actually made a surprising degree of sense considering it was an explanation from someone who'd only overheard it all. Brainiac 5 wants to investigate further, particularly in regard to Dani's unique DNA structure, but it's probably not considered polite by anyone to just take samples for the sake of satisfying personal curiosity.

"This ecto energy," he says instead. "Would I be able to take a sample of it to work on? It might be useful, or maybe we could find a way to create more of it."

"Yep!" Dani said. "Since ghosts are made of the stuff, taking a blood sample would be getting an ecto sample. There will be a little human DNA, but it's only a little like this. I'm still working on making any sort of ecto goo instead of blasts. You can use it as rope."

A blood sample? That seems easy enough, and if there is some DNA in there, well, he could satisfy his curiosity about that as well.

"If you don't mind then..." And his hand shifts to create a futuristic looking syringe.

"You can use it to create a rope? What else can you do with it?" An idea of it's functionality would be useful.

"....okay, that's a bit scary. It's like a normal syringe, right?" Dani asked, floating a bit away just to make sure he didn't get it quite yet. She wanted an answer to her question first.

"You can do most...anything with it. Supposedly you can even cook with it," Dani said. She wasn't sure if there WASN'T a thing that couldn't be done with ecto energy.

"Exactly the same," Brainiac 5 answers, remembering to try pitching his voice in the same soothing tone Duo Damsel and Saturn Girl used with small children they sometimes encountered. He isn't sure how well it worked though.

"So it's versatile as well? It seems useful then. Are there any downsides beyond it's rarity?"

"....okay, that's more creepy," Dani said. "And I don't like the 'talking to a small child' voice even when it's not creepy." But she did move closer, pulling off a glove and rolling up the hazmat sleeve.

"Well, you have to know HOW to make it work for you. And besides that...I think it just means you'll get more ghosts in wherever it's used a lot," Dani said with a slight shrug. "Oh! You have to make sure it's stable and it's pure. If someone gets hit with impure ecto, bad things might happen."

"...sorry, I just thought it might help," he says, clearly put-out. He'd just been trying to make things easier. But in the end the result was the same. He moves closer and carefully takes a sample, making sure to sterilise the area first and make the entire procedure as quick and painless as possible.

That done, he tucks the sample away in a compartment in his chest.

"Stable and pure? Bad things? Maybe you should explain that a little more." The last thing he wants is to cause some sort of monstrosity while working with the sample he'd just taken. He doubted the rest of the crew would enjoy the excitement.

"It doesn't fit you. And I get that talk a whole lot more than I like to because people think I'm some lost little kid," Dani said, looking annoyed. She hated that and usually had to put up with it because people might give her food. She winced a bit at the needle poking her, but stayed still otherwise.

She really didn't like needles. Too much poking.

"If ecto energy has an impurity it can't adjust too, it can cause ecto acne," Dani said, rolling down her sleeve before pulling on the glove. "Only one known case of it, though the report didn't say who it was, had it and it hospitalized him for years." A report made by Jack and Maddie Fenton almost twenty years ago, in fact. It had been interesting to read about it.

"Then I'll make a note not to try it again. I just thought it might help you feel less worried about taking the sample." It's probably for the best though. He's not particularly good with children.

"What kind of impurities are you talking about? I'd rather not accidentally end up destroying the labs if I can avoid it. I don't think anyone else would appreciate it if there was some kind of accident like that."

"Just answering my question would have worked. I've had plenty of shots, that just made it look like...horror movie-ish when it comes out of your arm like that. Cool, but scary when I'm gonna get poked with something," Dani said. She would have been geeking over it because it was a cool alien robot thing if it wasn't for the fact he WAS going to use it to take a sample from her.

"Well, impurities can come up over a longer period of time naturally. The more powerful and condense the ecto, the more likely it's to gather and the more likely it might explode whatever machine it's in, and would cause ecto acne in a human. I think it's only a portal that really gathers them really fast because, well, it's a hole ripped through space," Dani said with a shrug. "There's ecto purifier, but I don't know how to make it, but impurities could be anything that ecto doesn't naturally attract too. Ecto naturally attracts to things that are or were once living, more so for the once living. Anything else can make it to the impure form that it can be dangerous for people. But I think if we just change out the ecto itself regularly, it shouldn't become dangerous and it pretty much just dissolves into the air after a little while."

"My apologies. I sometimes forget how disconcerting it can be to others." That and he wasn't sure if it was much worse than what the ship itself seemed to do on a regular basis.

"That does sound like something to be avoided." Especially since he's storing it in his chest for the time being. Exploding violently because of an unstable sample would be more than a little embarrassing.

"How regularly do you suggest?"

The thing was, Dani expected the ship to be creepy since it was a creepy living ship. "That's all right. Just a warning next time," Dani suggested.

Dani looked thoughtful. "It depends on the power level. The stronger it is, the more often we'd have too. I'd say...if we got, like, a full power generator, once a month at least if not more often."

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