trans_9 | Aim to Win [Closed, pre Beyond the Sea Plot]

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Aim to Win [Closed, pre Beyond the Sea Plot]

The excitement of the poddrop had died down after a few days and Lash found herself back to her usual routine on the ship. It was rather amazing how much she could manage to do each 'day', from working in the labs, to shop management to training in the sensoriums. Truthfully, everything served to keep her occupied, which was an excellent thing--if Lash ever got bored anywhere it was a sure setup for a disaster of terrible repercussions. Probably explosive ones. Speaking of which...

"Fire! Fire!"

One of the ship's sensoriums was now being taken by her as she played it wisely and used it to tested out various prototypes before building them. They'd come out with a lot of robot parts to build thanks to SHODAN's rampage, and she was going to make the most use of what she'd gotten. With a typical Lash twist and flare, of course.

The soldier obeyed and fired the first cannon with a button press, the cannonball flying out and landing far away. Lash kept tabs using a CO pad, analyzing how the prototype fared. Upon landing, the cannonball opened itself up amongst the surprised enemy soldiers and turned into a small robot with turrets built on each side.

"Tee hee! It works, it works! Now, if I adjust the energy here, I should be able to build a small army, and that would be useful to aid during away missions..."

As she was about to approve it, the robot exploded. Soldiers, trees, dirt and burnt robot pieces flew into the air, landing close by.

"Oh oops! Hmmm...better not put that much energy into that one. The crew could lose a few arms and legs like that!" She said it with such a calm voice too, even if she was speaking to no one but herself and the nearby soldiers. With a small flick, she brushed off a piece of cracked robot, and began another prototype test.

Just another typical day for a wunderkind.

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"Well it's not like everything has papers tell me what they are," she replied quite casually as a cannonball nearly missed their heads. Not quite understanding how powerful they were, or perhaps because it was just a sensorium insect, they flew off when she flicked them away and grabbed a tiny piece. Maybe because she wasn't being too violent about it? Who knew. She put in the piece in her mouth, as both honey and cheese mixed together. It was good! And not on fire.

"Bright red could have meant a lot of things!" For Lash anyway. In response, a typical Black Hole military meal appeared next on the table, each color-coded box colored and numbered with a vitamin list, and nutriments they would bring. Compared to Zetta's netherworld food it was...very bland and boring. The only thing that stood out was the colored labels. She held out a packet at him that had a bright red one. "Like this soup here!" Really the only way you could tell it was soup was because it had a red level and the word "SOUP" was written on it in the same font and colors of a household warning label. But hey, it was good for you!

No wonder Lash had liked the slop when she had first come here. These things looked so dull and bland tasting that eating mustard right out of a bottle seemed more exciting and flavorful.

..and yet she couldn't help herself open a package of what looked like nutritional crackers. Before dumping a pile of meat on it, of course.

Edited 2012-01-20 18:02 (UTC)

Zetta stared in a mixture of shock and dull horror at the meal packet. When she held out the soup, he took it almost reflexively.

"You've... got to be kidding me," he said quietly, with the absolute conviction that she wasn't. His hand closed around the soup packet, crushing it so the alleged soup spilled out all over. Zetta hadn't noticed at all. "This? This is what they considered suitable for the Wunderkind?"

He hurled the remnants of the packet away so violently it hit the water and disintegrated from the sheer force of the impact. But his anger had no real outlet, and oddly he didn't want to shout and rage at Lash even if it wasn't really directed at her.

"You know," he said, with a great show of a calm conversational tone, "I'm obviously not going to set you up as some High Queen with dresses and like sixty attendants and you're treated like a goddess or something. Because you'd hate that. But as soon as I get my Netherworld back, I'm gonna make sure you have meals worth having every damn day for the rest of freaking eternity!"

"Well let me think about that-" she said for a second, before taking most of the packet and tossing it into the ocean (although unlike the Overlord's hers landed with a plop and slowly sank.) "It wasn't a question of suitable more than how everything in Black Hole was drab," she added in a knowing tone, sighing. "You should have seen some of the cubicles we worked in." She had no idea he had. "That's why I liked inventing things and being a commanding officer. I got to light up the world in my own way!"

And kill people and make things explode, you know, all that good stuff.

She gave him a tiny nudge. "But...uh...thanks. I'm gonna start inventing things on my side too." Sometimes it sounded more like Zetta was offering all these things and she was along for the ride. Not that she minded, even if she was unused to getting this much attention, but Lash was a person who'd want to make her own contributions.

"Oh and good things there aren't any dresses involved. I'd probably get it all dirty anyway." She took another bite from the military cracker and meat...thing. "And probably on fire too."

Oh Lash, you were bringing the most important thing to the Netherworld: yourself.

"That was my point. Also it'd be pretty hard to run around the battlefield in a dress. Unless you did that dramatic 'rip the dress up the side' thing like they do in action flicks, but... why would you wear a dress onto the battlefield if you were just going to rip it, anyway?"

Zetta happened to notice what a mess he'd made of his outfit, and with a thought banished the soup stains and smears so he looked fully dapper again. "There'll be plenty of time for inventions, though. No doubts there."

~~Her and all her hair.~~

"That sounds counter productive," she said, agreeing. "Unless you used it to hide a lot of guns and weapons under it." Something Lash would probably do but--"and for that I've got this!" she pointed to her hair.

She watched the stains magically disappear with amusement before she went on, mostly ignoring the battle that was happening close by. Seriously it almost seemed like a background noise by now. Poor Prinnies.

"And good! We'll churn out inventions that will make the other netherworld overlord's heads spin! They'll never know what hit them. Or more like they will...but only too late!"

"Well. YOU will, and I'll enjoy the hell out of watching," Zetta pointed out. "I don't know all that much about science, remember. I'm good at using it, but building it? Not so much. You'll... probably have to teach me some stuff."

Zetta said the last part in a quick mutter, because it embarrassed him. But he HAD said it; the Overlord had not only admitted he didn't know something, but that Lash was in at least one way his superior. Gods, it MUST be love.

And the fact Lash wasn't teasing him about it was clearly proof of that.

"Well! I'm sure there'll be plenty of time for a Wunderkind to give an Overlord a lesson or two," she quickly said a wee bit flustered. "Although I'll have a lot of things to learn too, I bet! Nother either of us can't handle, anyway."

Yeah it had to be love. And don't worry Zetta, Lash was going to show you how science could be fun.

There was a roar in the far off distance.

Zetta stopped eying Lash with an appreciation that ran beyond physical lust to glance in the direction of the roar. "If that's them getting through the traps and stuff..."

Zetta had every faith in his disciples and fellow Overlord... to MEDDLE TO NO END!

"Naaah!" Lash pointed to something moving in the far, far horizon. "It's just a sea monster." She also knew there were a few people, Overlord and disciples alike that, if they knew what was happening, might try to just for the challenge. A possibility that would announce itself loudly with the number of traps in there, regardless. In fact somewhere in the level of traps, there was now a camera system.

"See? No problem!" Just a bunch of blades swinging back and forth between saw blades and man-eating wolverines dangerously. "Just the two of us." With that, the last piece of her cracker disappeared and she didn't notice the wasp-butterfly landing in her hair.

"The two of us... all the Prinnies... the kraken, the sea monsters..." He reached out to catch the horrible mutant insect in a palm and free it from the certain doom of the Black Hole Hairdo. "The cheese bugs..."

They kind of sucked at quiet romantic settings, didn't they?

"Tee hee! That's true." She rested her finger on her cheek to think about it. "We could always do some crowd control if you want..."

Besides, it wasn't like they'd ever settle for boring old romantic anything.

"Why Lash. I'd almost think you wanted to be.... alone with me," he said, lifting his eyesbrows as he grinned and genuinely ruined it. "Actually, I kind of want to see the sea serpent fight the kraken." He assumed automatically that the Prinnies would just suffer in the crossfire, there. "After that, THEN we take out the survivor."

"Well why not?" she said a little too quickly before realizing that she had, before wanting to punch him a little for what he said. Good-naturedly, of course. "...my bet's on the serpent."

She wanted to punch him marginally less every time he hit on her. This was good progress. "I'll take that bet," Zetta said. "All the kraken has to do is get behind it and wrap its tentacles around. What's the wager?"

She hadn't any idea what to bet, did she.

Pretty much.

"Uhhh...usually when I did bets with people it was letting them pass our territory or something like that." She remembered her wager with Sonja that ended with a loss for her. Also Lash no don't say it like that, you should know what Zetta would say by now. "How about if the loser has to stand outside the Awesomeporium with a painted cardboard advertising it for a short while?"

"That's not really fun OR humiliating." Zetta lifted a hand to his chin thoughtfully. "How about an old classic? The loser has to do any one thing the winner says they have to do."

If this wasn't Russian Roulette in a more terrible and alarming form....

"Deal." That sounded perfectly terrible, so of course Lash was just going to accept it without thinking of the consequences. Or maybe she did, but was pretty sure she would win.

Now they just had to wait for the beasts to start attacking each other.

...ANY MINUTE NOW...

"HEY!" The Overlord stood up, bellowing across the water that separated the ships. "FIGHT, DAMN IT!!"

At least Lash could rest safely knowing she need never fear Zetta grasping the intricacies of subtlety and discretion.

Considering one of her inventions was a giant bomb strapped to some rockets, Lash never had much of subtlety in her as well.

"Yeah!" she called out, his yelling infectious. "I've seen better battles from first day soldiers! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO SHOOT THINGS!" The Prinnies looked around, and decided that despite the upcoming sea creature battle, they would rather risk getting killed from them than face the Overlord and the Wunderkind's wraith. The fighting continued again, and they continued to fall down the ships by the time the sea serpent had arrived.

Now there was popcorn on the table.

The kraken and the sea serpent stares at each other for a moment.

Finally, the kraken lifted one tentacle and lightly whapped the sea serpent.

Blinking, the sea serpent turned slightly, then smacked the kraken with a fin in turn.

They went back to staring at each other.

"This sucks," Zetta muttered.

The whapping continued in earnest, as the growls from the sea serpent persisted. It did grab the kraken, as the noise became a soft gurgle than anything else. The Kraken growled back, looking more like it was using its tentacles to massage the sea serpant than giving it a death grip.

"What the- what is this?! The world's most gentle monsters?" She stood up and cupped hre hands so her voice could be heard better.

"HEY! HEY YOU TWO DUMB MAN-EATING MONSTERS! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO FIGHT TO THE DEATH!"

In retaliation, the two creatures looked at her for short second, before looking at each other again and...well, it sounded like laughing really, before finally sinking into the ocean depths together.

"..."

"Uh," Zetta said, slack-jawed. "Lash, you don't think this is because of... us, do you?"

Did admitting their feelings for each other mean that their conjured sensorium monsters were going to start making out all the time instead? Because that was gonna make these battles really awkward and weird.

"I hope not," she answered angrily as she munched on a piece of what looked like glowing beef jerky. The last thing she wanted to worry about was sea monsters getting touchy-feely if she ever did another beach party.

"...so who won?"

"I'm pretty sure they won, and we both lost," Zetta said. "Though long-term, I think they might be in trouble once they figure out that their biology is completely incompatible..."

"..." Well, those where the type of things Lash didn't really need or want to think about right now. She stood up and looked at the Prinnies.

"THE MINUTE ONE OF YOU HAS SIMILAR IDEAS, I'M SHOOTING THEM WITH A CANNON!" Just so they knew and it was made very clear to them.

Aim to Win [Closed, pre Beyond the Sea Plot]

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