stxr-bxster

[stxr-bxster]

"...Either those gas masks ain't shit, or someone was smuggling tubers in this suit." Knowing the company, both could have been possible, really. The suits tended to pass between a couple different hands, what with "employee rotations" - corporate speak for "this used to belong to a dead guy". Krigg didn't usually go for "suicidally stupid" jobs, but when one needs cash in the backwater bum-end of space, one finds a way.

Even if it involved masquerading as human, wearing some squeaky, ill-fitting, gross orange suit, and running around dusty buildings for unknown purposes, collecting litteral trash. While dodging loud, toothy, slimy or very creepy problems. It wasn't so bad when in a group - the shit talking made things bearable, but when she was alone, mumbling to herself was her only option.

Digressions aside - the smell of beets wasn't TOO frightening. But Krigg had a fairly well honed sense of things standing at the cusp of going very wrong. And that particular sense had been blaring like a siren, whenever the oddly natural scent flared up. "Please, just be a smelly suit..." So, this time, just in case, she slowly shifted to turn her body to look at one of the darkened hallways she had just crossed, holding in front of her with no small amount of caution what... looked like a warped road sign. She was not taking chances when not allowed to carry.

Open

There's been a presence lingering in the shadows for a while now. Lurking. Is it dangerous? Or curious? Oddly the smell of dirt and beets permeate the air.

[stxr-bxster]

As it were - a Minicorn was even less of a proper steed for a rodeo as a regular unicorn. Mostly because it was squat, chubby, and that Krigg couldn’t seem to loop her arms around its neck top save her own life. She was given little choice in the matter of whether she could hang on or let go, as what had to be the third of fourth buck and leap of the beast simply catapulted her into the air. Spinning uncontrollably, Krigg tried to flail all limbs available in hopes of righting herself up - but alas, t’was in vain.

She landed on her front against a tree with all the grace and delicacy of a bag of bricks with a crunch of mangled bark. Slowly, she peeled herself from her landing spot, spitting and coughing out a couple of brown flecks. Before she could feel TOO bad about her predicament, though, she got to witness Rex being chased about by the enraged beast, whom had decided that she was going to blast him with...

Were those /sparkles/? Either way, they seemed oddly effective against the cosmic contender. Wings beating a few times to straighten themselves back out, she followed after them, swooping down once the Minicorn was distracted to check on a somewhat singed Red. She gave a couple of sniffs his way, before gagging audibly, letting her tongue roll out of her mouth - all fifteen centimeters of it.

“Ugh- even the weird sparkly blasts smell like stale cake mix.” She grunted, before nodding her head and zipping away to fulfill the request of something to tie the Minicorn with. Lasso, lasso... there had to be SOMETHING-

Oh, would you look at that. A string of broken telephone poles, fallen across the streets branching out from the park. Not that people seemed to care - they steered clear from the unholy mist. Krigg made a quick landing, and studied the wires carefully. Once she’d found a lenght of cabling in which electricity didn’t run...

Well, it was a good thing that her jaws had the approximate strenght of bolt cutters. Chewy and bitter, EUGH! But, at least, she returned to Rex with an adequate lenght of cabling looped over her shoulder.

The two followed on their merry way through the smog, clearing a trail of the odd-smelling fumes behind them. Well-merry, Krigg still looked exceedingly unhappy to be involved in damage control for toxic rainbow fumes. Even if Rex was doing most of the work. ...Until they stumbled upon the source of said fumes. A tiny, grazing, one-horned creature with hard hooves that Krigg could safely say, was just plain weird looking. Small, tubby, and harmless-looking enough... until it sent some poor shmuck in a hazmat suit sailing a respectable distance through the air with a swift kick for even trying to approach it with a net.

“Animal control for your city doesn’t get enough budget, does it? Between that thing, and that giant rat that tried to eat me the other day, kind of scared about what they’re dealing with on the regular.” Krigg piped to Rex, pointing at the unfortunate officer currently counting his broken bones. She leaned back, cracked her knuckles, and revved up her wings, sailing on ahead towards the little beast.

“Alright, guess we’re going to have to figure out an angle of attack where it DOESN’T send us flying, and where we can get it out of the city in one, unbruised piece. I think I have an idea.”

The idea... wasn’t particularly brilliant. Seeing as it involved Krigg somewhat stealthily creeping over the grazing beast, setting herself up at a reasonable distance up into the air, checking the wind... And letting herself drop straight down on the back of the beastie with an OOMPF! “Ha! Gotcha’!”

N E I G H !

“Oooh, no, I don’t got it!” CLING ON FOR YOUR LIFE, KRIGG!

[stxr-bxster]

vortship​:

Hal managed to squint through the dust this being’s ship kicked up as it lowered closer to her base. The girl waved her arms in a panic, piping up in protest, although it appeared to be too late. This person was landing, and whoever it was, Hal probably wasn’t going to like it. Should she even bother reacting like a human would to this display? Or cut the act entirely? Either one was worth a try right now, and neither seemed like they were going to work.

More prison, years more prison, she’d have under her belt if what she was certain was a bounty hunter found her here, on this dirt rock lightyears from her home. She’d probably never see freedom again with the number of crimes under her belt- showing no signs of stopping. She hadn’t stayed out of trouble on Earth for too long either, it always seemed to seek her out. Well- not exactly, maybe she sought it out. Just a little bit. Her mind wandered to what she planned today’s activities to be, saving those poor whales at the expense of some tech bro… it hadn’t taken her long at all to get up to the same antics she got up to on Vort. 

But the ship didn’t land, it stopped seemingly in mid air, and from it, she heard a voice. A tickle? What was she-? The girl grit her teeth as she suddenly felt shaky and weird. Oh no. She was using some kind of super weapon, wasn’t she? Hal wasn’t unfamiliar with bio scanners, they had them on Moo Ping 9, afterall, linked to every delinquent’s bio-signature to prevent escape. They weren’t too hard to fool either, had she known ahead of time this nightmare was going to unfold. Her mind was merely in a dazed panic, jumping to the worst-case scenario. Wait, topographical analysis… she had to mean her own ship… the one sending out no-doubt Irken signals. Hal breathed a small sigh of relief. 

Time for some horrible damage control.   

“I’m no Irken if that’s what you’re seeing!” Hal yelled over the ship’s whirring, “Ugh, okay here, I’ll show you!” Hal took a precautionary look around, no humans as far as she could see. Good, at least that was one less thing to worry about. 

Taking a deep breath, she reached into her pocket for the controls to her hologram. The image of her standing there distorted briefly, then disappeared entirely. The tiny creature it left in it’s wake had pink skin, gray horns where red hair once was, and most notably, hocked, zig-zag shaped legs.   

“Vortian!” she explained, gesturing wildly to herself, “Not Irken!”

Krigg’s front body slowly leaned towards the ship’s cockpit, staring with wide eyes through the glass at what had just popped out from the hardlight holographic disguise - nothing to sneeze at, just good tech in general.

“What in the florp-fearing fuck.” She’d worry about the fact that very much came through the ship’s speakers, which she’d very much forgotten to turn off, later.

A Vortian. A tiny, squeaky Vortian girl - they weren’t particularly big to start with, but this one was just a little smaller than what Krigg remembered about the race. Which arguably, wasn’t a whole lot. They lived in fuckland compared to where she’d originated from in the galaxy, so the number of Vortians she’d seen in her travels was low enough that her knowledge of their race was summary at best.

Small, obligate carnivory, exceedingly skilled technicians, allergic to most processed goods containing too much fluorite... Antennae grew with age. And this one was missing a segment or two. Juvie?

“Okay, okay - I believe you, I believe you! Chill, nymph, chill!” Krigg would worry later about whether being called a Nymph was offensive to members of other species. Clawed fingers flew across the controls, inputting a series of commands to her ship’s stabilizers. A slow buzz rattled across the craft, followed by a hiss of powering down engines. The Revenger, however, did not go any further down, and remained frozen in place in mid-air, not making a sound above a low murmur. Kill the engines, engage all the shieldings, gravity-lock the ship... check.

A moment of silence passed. Krigg reached over to pass her paw over her head.

“Geez... You need to check the shielding on whatever you nicked off from those weirdos.” She began, sitting up properly. “I got Irken tech signals while on high orbit, and I just thought it was some random science probe I could loot. I was wrong, but you trying to hide it was just plain sketchy - thought you were some form of smuggler, or defector, or something like that. Then again, I’ve never seen a Vortian dumb or bold enough to yoink their shit like that!”

Krigg let out a peal of laughter, slapping one knee in delight as a smirk slowly crept up her face. “You don’t have to worry about me, I might do bounty hunting, but I don’t take their credits. They yuck my yum by just existing. I just got curious about the wayward signals - and now I know why those are a thing!”

“Say...” The grin turned mischievous. Krigg could smell an opportunity. “Think you could part with some junk?”

[stxr-bxster]

cometofjustice​:

Duo’s lower lip had tensed in mild embarrassment during Krigg’s pause. He was just about to utter a ‘nevermind’ when he heard her speak up.

“It’s alright. I can eat almost anything as long as it can be converted into energy. Organic matter can work, but liquid fuel would be ideal.” He said. “But… You don’t have to give me anything if there’s not enough to spare. I don’t need to eat to survive.”

“Juussttt... give me a minute to check.” Krigg mumbled through ground teeth as she slowly scrolled through her ship’s damage reports, a kindling spark of an idea flashing to life in the back of her mind. She didn’t exactly KNOW if it’d get anywhere but, blast it - might as well give it a shot.

Her ship’s thrusters all had a small amount of liquid fuel to ignite the plasma burners between takeoffs. Useless unless taking off from cold thrusters, and even then, only a tiny amount was expanded at once. With a couple of them wrecked - maybe she could afford to siphon off the fuel and hand it over to Duo. Didn’t cost much to buy a fresh can, anyways.

That is, if the siphoning mechanisms still worked...

-Vrrrrrrrrrrrr-

Oh, would you look at that, they did! At this this did reduce the risk of fires - along with scealing off a few air pockets. She’d need to loop back to the hold to grab the heavy duty welder anyways. One small trip through the ship’s maintenance tunnels, and Krigg’s head was popping out from a freshly unscealed hatch in the flooring of the cargo hold, a small distance away from her resting buddy. First to heave a sloshing jerrycan, and then to hold the rest of her out, waddling over to Duo’s resting spot to hand out to him the fuel.

“Here, hope it’s compatible with your systems. Gotta’ warn you though, it’s small, but it’s strong!” She greeted, dusting off her hands. “After that, I’m going outside to plug a few holes. I might not be available right away for much.”

[stxr-bxster]

The two followed on their merry way through the smog, clearing a trail of the odd-smelling fumes behind them. Well-merry, Krigg still looked exceedingly unhappy to be involved in damage control for toxic rainbow fumes. Even if Rex was doing most of the work. ...Until they stumbled upon the source of said fumes. A tiny, grazing, one-horned creature with hard hooves that Krigg could safely say, was just plain weird looking. Small, tubby, and harmless-looking enough... until it sent some poor shmuck in a hazmat suit sailing a respectable distance through the air with a swift kick for even trying to approach it with a net.

“Animal control for your city doesn’t get enough budget, does it? Between that thing, and that giant rat that tried to eat me the other day, kind of scared about what they’re dealing with on the regular.” Krigg piped to Rex, pointing at the unfortunate officer currently counting his broken bones. She leaned back, cracked her knuckles, and revved up her wings, sailing on ahead towards the little beast.

“Alright, guess we’re going to have to figure out an angle of attack where it DOESN’T send us flying, and where we can get it out of the city in one, unbruised piece. I think I have an idea.”

The idea... wasn’t particularly brilliant. Seeing as it involved Krigg somewhat stealthily creeping over the grazing beast, setting herself up at a reasonable distance up into the air, checking the wind... And letting herself drop straight down on the back of the beastie with an OOMPF! “Ha! Gotcha’!”

N E I G H !

“Oooh, no, I don’t got it!” CLING ON FOR YOUR LIFE, KRIGG!

pzfr​:

@stxr-bxster from here

“Of course I can! Magic can bend the rules, certainly tries at breaking or rewriting them for good– but as long as it’s doing anything within the universe, all the other stuff and processes are going to notice it foolin’ around. Physics and chemistry and whatnot, there’s still energy of a kind involved, even if it’s not empirically understandable at present.”

But the technobabble could wait. Rex had to defend his honor and prove that he was incapable of emitting such foul odors, even if he had at some grand quantity of beans. That meant finding the spectre, mythical beast, or warlock, whatever had started up this whole affair. He borrowed a stray clothespin from a ruined laundry line, and put it over his nose to protect his sensitive olfactory capabilities. That, and he pulled his undershirt over his mouth. At least until he could find a much better substitute.

“Ergh. C'mon, we gotta wade through this. The culprit must be around here. Heavens help us if it’s some kind of unicorn…”

“...You. Have one weirDly versatile set of aBilities.” Krigg noted in an even tone, eyebrows and antennae arched upwards in an expression that was decidedly curious, despite the situation. And, of course, while still holding her shnoz - if Rex was at least a respectable distance from the glimmering soup, Krigg was unfortunate enough to have it reach her chest. Once again, the misery of being a shortie struck.

Though, not for long. As she watched Rex busy himself with placing some form of protection over his nose and mouth - one that made her wince a little in empathy, she began to squirm furiously, rolling her shoulders. However, the intent wasn’t to start a shake war, and eventually, Krigg was able to retract the arm not currently occupied with nose protection into the sleever of her coat, and eventually, slip completely the protective garment. Briefly letting go of her nose - and without using her mouth either, she tied the sleeves around her waist, and finally, finally, was able to give a bit of a stretch. Two legs, two arms, four... wings? Insectile, long, delicate-looking membranous wings that had been previously folded tightly over her back like complex origami. One flaps, two flaps, and Krigg was taking off the ground with a low fluttering buzz as the appendages picked up the pace.

“SBeak for yourDelf, I’m not touching Dat.” And the hand, of course, back on her nose.

[stxr-bxster]

vortship​:

Human hackers really thought they were hot stuff, didn’t they?

Pretty presumptuous for a species who only went to their own moon once and just got cameras on their phones a few cycles ago. Hal wasn’t worried. Sitting on her knees with her legs splayed out behind her, clacking away at a broken, sticker-laden keyboard, Hal decided she’d show this one who the superior tech-whiz was… whiz… what did that word mean anyway? It sounded funny. Obviously this was someone hired by that human tech billionaire to stop her from emptying his bank account into a ‘Save the Whales’ fund. Not for nothing but he had tried to cheat her, and she had warned him. Did he think she was bluffing?

Well, she was, at the time, but it turns out whales are big and cute and sing songs and have best friends so now she’d love to give them more money. 

Music blasting, she furrowed her brow. Hal wasn’t going to be distracted by anything. No way was she going to go topside and check on what that strange whirring noise outside was- wait a minute. Strange whirring noise? The girl’s gaze took on a hint of concern, she knew that sound. A ship? Here? Humans didn’t have ships, just those weird long tubes with the wings. This definitely didn’t sound like one of those. Ugh, billionaire bro would have to wait- this might be a sign of something very bad.

“…aaaaack no no nonono!”

Time for some damage control. Some major ‘human’ damage control. She’d venture to bet her disguise was so amazing, no bounty hunter or galactic authority would know The Halinor Nima set up a secret base here. Donning her disguise, she headed up to the surface where the strange ship was waiting. It didn’t come from any species she recognized… it looked too heavily modified to tell. Florp, this being was going to attract all kinds of unwanted attention!

“Oh wow an alien etcetera etcetera!” she could move past that part, right? Cool.

“What. The hell.”

Krigg had a rather ugly expression of disgruntlement on her face as she squinted through the cockpit glass and the faint shimmer of the optical camo at what the ship’s scans has been tugging her slow descent towards. Now in stationary flight, she was given the full luxury of taking a look at what was leaking those foreign signals across the atmosphere like a burst pipe.

A house. A ding-dang HOUSE, with walls an icky shade of bright purple, a janky-looking antennae on the roof, and that looked like it had been dropped from the sky in the middle of dense woodland.

Krigg leaned back into her seat with a groan, reaching to run her hand over her face. Well, whatever the source of the signal was, it was smack dab on top of that vexingly placed dwelling. Over, under, or around - the Revengers’ scanners were made to pick up things across space, they didn’t do so well with pinpoint precision of such a tiny scale. If she wanted more details on what the hell was going on, she’d need to take her goggles, and actually make landfall.

She could park the Revenger somewhere - she trusted it was pretty much airtight, as far as transmissions went. The radio and scanner shieldings were secure. Only way she could get into trouble would have been some dumb shmuck stumbling upon it and actually SEEING the bloody thing.

...But even then, was it even worth the effort? If the house was on top of the probe, she might as well give up right then and th-

Oh, would you look at that, someone was home, and waltzing out to look square at the ship. As though breaking the prime directive NEEDED to be part of the whole situation. Krigg groaned, sinking somehow even lower in her seat and flicking on the audio recievers of the ship as she noticed the local look up at the ship. Hopefully, her translator could keep up with her-

Surprisingly mild reaction to a big, shimmering, color-changing ship-shaped form in the sky. Huh. Krigg slowly got back up to a sitting position, and this time, her permanent grumpy pout had something inquisitive to it. Naw, if the local primitive sapient was used to aliens, the more logical reaction would have been throwing junk at her ship in aggravation, or being at least kind of spooked.

Her finger hovered over the audio reception... and moved over to the scans, pressing down with a tap. Actually, maybe there was a third option to a probe or a whole invader. Stolen tech. And the least convincing acting game she’d ever been witness to.

“Now, hold still a minute. This should only tickle.” Krigg’s voice blared out in intergalactic common from the still cloaked ship, somehow managing to sound lazy despite the crackle of static popping from the loudspeakers over it. And the slow rumbling buzz of the engines. Well, it wouldn’t tickle per se - more like make her feel like she was vibrating like beans in a can. Which, technically, still tickled. It was basic proximity sonar, after all. And a few other things. None of which caused cancer in living beings at least.

A wily smile crept up Krigg’s face as the ship fed the results through the screens. “...Well, that’s one topological analysis that doesn’t quiiiiiiiite track, does it? Question is, are you spitting out why, or am I gonna’ have to come out and check?”

[stxr-bxster]

@vortship

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrip-

Krigg casually discarded the removable pin of her cup of instant broth noodles over her shoulder, reclining back into the pilot seat of her ship. In a string of hisses and faint bubbling noises, the cup’s built-in heat pack brought the contents to a pleasant temperature. The covering followed the pin suit, and she eagerly dug into the warm food, bringing a heaping ball of soupy noodles to her mouth.

Slurrrrrrrrrrrrrrpppp-

Hmmm. Not bad. Krigg chewed slowly, watching the view of the big blue marble her ship was orbiting. It had life on it - because of course it had, but she’d decided to sneakily plant herself behind a clump of space debris and to stabilize the Revenger there for a few rotations. She didn’t exactly NEED to go planetside, or to even come into the planet’s orbit, but it was always a little more convenient to continue one’s journey after accumulating some passive momentup from going a few times around a planet.

Plus, she wanted to recharge the ship’s solar batteries. So might as well loaf around on low ship power and take a little relaxing break from cruising through the cosmos in a straight line.

Beep!

Or not. Krigg got up on one elbow from her leaning posture, stopping mid-chew. She looked over to the ship’s dashboard, where passive scans were reporting transcripts for some unusual comms arrays. She leaned towards them, squinting. Something about the wavelenghts and equipment that denoted made a faint itch pop in at the back of her mind - oh she knew those signals, she knew them, she KNEW THEM-

“...The hell are THEY doing there?” She grumbled. Oh, now she remembered. And she was more confused - Irken signals, in the litteral ASS END of nowhere, far away from conquered space?

Krigg grimaced. She didn’t like those guys in a very personnal manner. She thought they were honestly creepy. But if this was just a probe broadcasting things, the prospect of tearing it apart for the hell of it was enough to put a giddy little grin on her face.

Oh, what the hell. She could use some action. Slowly, Krigg backed up the Revenger from its hiding spot, toggled on the optical camo, and zipped Planetside, claws drumming eagerly on the ship’s controls. Maybe this WOULD be interesting!

[stxr-bxster]

@vortship​ started following stxr-bxster

“...Why do I suddenly feel the urge to kick a grub like a lob-ball?”

Krigg’s never had much of a maternal instinct, or proclivity to handle hatchlings in any capacity, despite having been through the station’s fostering system with often younger grubs. Despite being commonly identified by other of her specie as having a rearing type, she had just never developped those urges. Junior cadets at the academy, she could somewhat manage - the age gap wasn’t so great they were completely alien to her, and they usually took positively to an older trainee teaching them the ropes.

But after reaching adulthood, hatchlings and teens, especially their more unwise antics, had gotten... annoying. She had some patience for them, as anyone should, but...

Brother, when they thought they were slick and started playing the “fuck around and find out” game, they made Krigg want to start throwing hands.

[stxr-bxster]

pzfr​:

@stxr-bxster from here

“Of course I can! Magic can bend the rules, certainly tries at breaking or rewriting them for good– but as long as it’s doing anything within the universe, all the other stuff and processes are going to notice it foolin’ around. Physics and chemistry and whatnot, there’s still energy of a kind involved, even if it’s not empirically understandable at present.”

But the technobabble could wait. Rex had to defend his honor and prove that he was incapable of emitting such foul odors, even if he had at some grand quantity of beans. That meant finding the spectre, mythical beast, or warlock, whatever had started up this whole affair. He borrowed a stray clothespin from a ruined laundry line, and put it over his nose to protect his sensitive olfactory capabilities. That, and he pulled his undershirt over his mouth. At least until he could find a much better substitute.

“Ergh. C'mon, we gotta wade through this. The culprit must be around here. Heavens help us if it’s some kind of unicorn…”

“...You. Have one weirDly versatile set of aBilities.” Krigg noted in an even tone, eyebrows and antennae arched upwards in an expression that was decidedly curious, despite the situation. And, of course, while still holding her shnoz - if Rex was at least a respectable distance from the glimmering soup, Krigg was unfortunate enough to have it reach her chest. Once again, the misery of being a shortie struck.

Though, not for long. As she watched Rex busy himself with placing some form of protection over his nose and mouth - one that made her wince a little in empathy, she began to squirm furiously, rolling her shoulders. However, the intent wasn’t to start a shake war, and eventually, Krigg was able to retract the arm not currently occupied with nose protection into the sleever of her coat, and eventually, slip completely the protective garment. Briefly letting go of her nose - and without using her mouth either, she tied the sleeves around her waist, and finally, finally, was able to give a bit of a stretch. Two legs, two arms, four... wings? Insectile, long, delicate-looking membranous wings that had been previously folded tightly over her back like complex origami. One flaps, two flaps, and Krigg was taking off the ground with a low fluttering buzz as the appendages picked up the pace.

“SBeak for yourDelf, I’m not touching Dat.” And the hand, of course, back on her nose.

@stxr-bxster from here

"Of course I can! Magic can bend the rules, certainly tries at breaking or rewriting them for good-- but as long as it's doing anything within the universe, all the other stuff and processes are going to notice it foolin' around. Physics and chemistry and whatnot, there's still energy of a kind involved, even if it's not empirically understandable at present."

But the technobabble could wait. Rex had to defend his honor and prove that he was incapable of emitting such foul odors, even if he had at some grand quantity of beans. That meant finding the spectre, mythical beast, or warlock, whatever had started up this whole affair. He borrowed a stray clothespin from a ruined laundry line, and put it over his nose to protect his sensitive olfactory capabilities. That, and he pulled his undershirt over his mouth. At least until he could find a much better substitute.

"Ergh. C'mon, we gotta wade through this. The culprit must be around here. Heavens help us if it's some kind of unicorn..."

[stxr-bxster]

cometofjustice​:

Duo had made no further reply, but he gave Krigg a full smile before she left.

Once the sound of her tiny footsteps had disappeared down the hall, the large robot tried to get a bit more comfortable. He subtly shifted closer to the wall, before relaxing his limbs and leaning back a little.

His lids felt sightly heavy as the instinct to rest and conserve his energy begun to set in, but he knew that wouldn’t be wise. A black-and-turquoise energy burn still ringed around his neck, and stretching the damaged synthetic skin too far would cause him excruciating pain… he had to keep his head upright.

After a few moments of sitting in silence, a certain thought rose to the surface of his mind.

“(…I need to eat something.)”

This was a familiar craving to him. It always seemed to ‘trigger’ every time he had taken a significant injury, but it was never so strong that he couldn’t ignore it. Still - even though it could be safely disregarded, he knew that taking in additional energy would supplement his repair systems and improve his recovery time.

He gazed down at the radio on his chest for a moment… Krigg had told him to call her if he needed something, but he was reluctant to do so. He technically didn’t 'need’ anything at all right now, and he didn’t want to dip into Krigg’s supplies for something nonessential.

Just then, he heard the small speaker crackle to life. He pressed the touch dial to reply.

“I’m receiving you clearly on my end as well.” He said. “…-do you have anything to eat?” He added without thinking.

“...Eat?” Krigg’s hands froze over the keypad of the Revenger in the middle of inputting a diagnostics and self command into the systems. Not that it would have been much use - it was easier to point out the parts of the holographic screens surrounding the cockpit’s interior NOT covered in bright red warning pop-ups. Regardless of any diagnostic the ship’s systems could make, she’d have to go in blind and fix the biggest holes in the hull before worrying about the more finnicky little things.

...Oh, yeah, where was she again? Ah, right. Eat... Eat??? Krigg’s head dipped back down to the communicator clipped to her jacket. She stared at it, as though it could provide her with context for the outlandish request, especially coming from a non-organic being. Then she realized she’d been quiet for a handful too many seconds, and pressed the responding key. “Uuuhhh- I mean, I do have a pantry -” Which she wasn’t too keen on sharing with him, if she could be honest. Given the size of the guy, his hypothetical appetite spooked her a little. “But what do you mean exactly by that? Hydrocarbons, metal ions, liquid fuel? Or just regular food?”

It sounded weird that such a large, advanced ‘bot would need /food/ food - some organic compounds and metals to power his self-repair systems was more likely. But then again, a lot of species in the galaxy had unusual dietetary requirements, and didn’t take well to galactic standard grub, instead requiring specific proteins in their diet to not go into shock or get sick. She was not sure that applied to him, though.

Either case, better safe than sorry. Space indigestion was no joke. “You might need to give me pointers because food specificity is NOT something I want to chance!”

[stxr-bxster]

meatoticindex​:

“Yeah?” He snorted in amusement. “Can’t blame ya really. I mean, sure it’s nice enough here for me but that’s just ‘cause it’s familiar y'know.” Even if he still wasn’t sure where or how exactly he belonged here, it was home enough for him.

“So you just kinda drop by from time to time for a snack?” Now he’s just wondering what they could possibly have on the menu out in the cosmos.

“Can’t say I’m the weirdest nonsense out here…” He thought for a bit. “Okay, close enough.” The nature of his existence was an anomaly, that much he knew. Trotters had never really found anyone else even close to resembling what he is.

“You’ve been to the other towns before then?” There’s a genuine curiosity in his tone. “I’ve only been to Basalt really. Not that far into the city either. Passed through Bayfloat but didn’t really stick around.”

Krigg gave a disarmingly casual shrug at the strange... porcine-thing’s question on her dietetary habits. “Pretty much, yeah. Earth got some dope stuff, if you’re willing to look past all the processed gross-ness.” She half-mumbled, stuffing her hands into the inside pockets of her jacket. He didn’t need to know it was mostly the sweets she was after. Or that she subsisted on a diet of rations and packaged goods probably twice as processed as her typical earth snacks of choice. “Honestly, you being the weirdest stuff around this corner of this planet is kind of reassuring. At least I won’t have to be too surprised when weirder stuff shows up to ruin my day of snacking, like they tend to do around these parts-” Krigg stuck out a high thumbs up in their direction, flashing them something of a broad, confident and very fanged grin. Gotta’ look for the positives!

His next question quickly got her to simmer down though, and she reached to scratch her chin, antennae crossed in thought. “Oh that? I’ve never been to Basalt - just vaguely heard about it from time to time. It’s more Bayfloat I’m familiar with, the locals are neat. I kicked a mechanical wolf in the metaphorical nuts once, it was pretty fun. Stressful, but fun.”

You really shouldn’t sound this proud about it, Krigg.

“Brother I would be raising all sorts of hell if I’d gotten stranded, solely to try to get off this ball of dirt. I would not be sitting here having this conversation.” Krigg’s answer was blunt and to the point, with not a hint of hesitation to her voice. There was no way of saying that in any other way, really - if she’d been stuck on earth, her main priorities would not have been dumpster diving.

Unless that somehow directly correlated to getting her back spaceborne, but she had her doubts on that ever occuring.

Krigg was not nearly asking herself as many questions on Trotters’ nature. For one, from her point of view, EVERYTHING was an alien. And from what she’d seen, the general area seemed to be home to a lot of bizarre things - this one just so happened to have enough brain matter to hold a conversation. Even if the conversation was just them throwing snark back and forth.

Krigg groaned, moving to rub her thighs. The uncomfortable posture was starting to wear on her muscles, and so she eventually decided that enough was enough, and she carefully vaulted back onto the ground, landing with a few wobbly steps forward. “Phew, that’s a bit better.” She sighed, before realizing, with something of a bitter scowl, that she now had to look UP to the strange creature.

He was short, but she remained shorter still. The curse of the teeny tiny was upon her once more. “It’s a pit stop. It’s not like I’d wanna’ LIVE here, but the food is pretty decent. Enough for me to bother coming back. Though, if you mean /here/ here, as in here, this city? Yeah, first time around the block.”

“...Which I GUESS makes you the de-factor authority of weird nonsense. Seriously though, every town around here is a hot mess.”

[stxr-bxster]

"Whoa whoa, I didn't do that. That energy signature reads like magic!"

"YOU CAN TELL?!" Krigg screeches, her voice somehow managing to sound clogged despite her not having a visible nose. Yet there she was, pinching the spot in the middle of her face where a nose would have gone, looking up to Rex with a proper disgruntled expression on her face. And there was reason to- a thick, faintly glowing mist was blanketing the street at around knee level, swirling with shimmering colors and coiling around the living bodies it encountered. Now, Krigg wasn't advancing the hypothesis it looked - and definitely SMELLED like psychedelic alien poots, but given the look she was throwing Rex's way, her questionnings were indeed leaning that way. Not a whole lot of beings made of colorful glowy starstuff on that earth, she'd learned.

Given his truthful attitude though, the diminutive alien's gaze moved away from her neighbor, and towards the strange glowing phenomena, still holding her nose for good measure.

"Well, if it ain'D' you, who?"

[stxr-bxster]

sea-m0nster​:

PFF! AREN’T WE ALL ALIENS T0 EACH 0THER? I’M N0 STANDARD CREATURE EITHER!

H0W D0 Y0U D0, LITTLE THING?

“I can SEE that.” Krigg pointed out, forced to crane her neck to look up at the tall fish-being. “You’ve been eatin’ your wheaties - even if that doesn’t mean much from me. I’m kinda’ small by galactic standards.” “Vexingly so. I’m doing well - how you doin’ yourself, beanpole?”

[stxr-bxster]

sea-m0nster​:

A FRIENDLY CREATURE! HELL0 THERE.

Oh, well that’s a speedy sorta’ greeting. She wasn’t expecting that! Krigg pauses a bit, before lifting a hand up to wave at the stranger.

“Hey! Technically, Imma’ friendly alien! I mean- pedantics, shmemantics. Groovy gear either way, bubble-head!”

[stxr-bxster]

@heliotropez started following stxr-bxster

“Oh this some uncanny valley type shit.”

As a rule of thumb, any one specie in the universe would someday find another that had taken the exact same shortcuts to deal with the exact same issues during its path to evolution. Weird similarities-but-not-quite-canny-ones across the universe were nothing unusual - it was a statistical certainty that you’d be able to draw comparisons between things from two different ends of the milky way.

So yeah, maybe it was rude to say your coworker’s face looked like that of an angry glurk. You could be right though!

But just because something was LIKELY, didn’t mean being faced with that situation was PLEASANT. Especially when the situation was, give or take a few crumbs, comfortably more than twice her height.

[stxr-bxster]

@sea-m0nster​ started following stxr-bxster

“...Hehe. Feesh.”

Seems that Krigg’s braincells were left at the door today. But, come on- cool piscine alien with an actual sense of gear tastefulness. Wouldn’t you be vibing a bit too?

[stxr-bxster]

mun vs muse!

TAGGED BY: @iiguess TAGGING: You try it!