Salvage Operations

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"I knew there was something I liked about this planet." Thrax grinned.

"Wait... Why are you calling them they? Aren't you an Earthling too?" he asked curiously.

[Mooncalf]

"Hrmm... That depends." she seems to seriously consider the question. "Who is 'me'? Because I was born on this planet, but part of 'me' wasn't born anywhere, but then that's kind of true for a lot of people, especially here and they definitely consider themselves Earthlings. But how much their power's part of them kinda varies and really I don't have the right words cause the only thing that comes up when I try to think of one is a box that may or may not contain a cat."

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"Why wouldn't you know if there's a cat in the box?" he asked, not getting the reference. "The cats I know of are quite noisy and what do cats have to do with powers or souls or being an Earthling?"

"Do humans believe souls are cats?"

[Mooncalf]

"Nooo. Well, maybe. Some of them? It's more that multiple things can be true at the same time. I'm from here and I'm not from here."

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you don't mean in the spiritual sense of wherever you believe the spirit comes from."

[Mooncalf]

"No. I shouldn't really exist at all and this body should be braindead but something went really wonky when I tried to give this body it's power. Well, not really 'me' cause without this body I'm not really anyone."

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

Thrax stopped walking and turn to look at her. The unusual revelation took him a moment to wrap his head around. While it raised more questions than it answered, it was still something. It sounded like the coma patient thing was, at least, possible. This mystery was beginning to get interesting.

"You're telling me that you're something inhabiting the body of someone whose spirit has departed? Something, what, responsible for awakening mutant powers?" he asked a bit skeptically.

[Mooncalf]

"I don't know about spirits. But I think someone forced powers onto this body. It didn't feel right. I'm not responsible for awakening powers." she shakes her head. "The powers are already there or they're formed when someone from here reaches out. Often with little proteins that go blib-blib-blib. We just respond to it. We follow your directions because we can't make decisions like you. We can't be something because we're too much of anything. You guys, you have decision-making brains and they make things real."

"We're the cat that is or isn't in the box because there's no such thing as a 'cat'. You're the ones who open the box and that makes the cat real. Or not real. Those two really are the same thing if you think about it! It's an answer. We're just part of the question."

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

He didn't completely follow but what he did get was disturbing. Someone effectively killed the person Mooncalf was before and only through some bizarre cosmic error was she still walking around.

"And when this someone gave her powers, your function was disrupted?"

[Mooncalf]

"No, I felt something reach out like it should, but when I made the connection there was... nothing there anymore. Head empty. Broken. We can fix that. Not me, but others. Sometimes we help each other because the pattern needs something else to be reshaped or remade, but it's just... empty still. And that's where something went wrong because dead is one thing but no decision-thoughts means I can't stay connected but I was stuck somehow and so we tried to make new decision-thoughts. But we don't think. We don't create or make from nothing like you guys can. We don't have creativity, that's a decision-thought thing. So we made them from a pattern we had. Me. Attenuate. Inflect. Attune. That's what I do. But now I exist for real somehow and that's not quite right. Mooncalf."

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

Thrax was most definitely not the higher intelligence sort of alien and this wasn't making a lot of sense to him. But he was, at least, trying to follow her with an open mind. Such open-mindedness was a mixed blessing when he was with the Order but it had served him well as a vagabond, even if it occasionally led to him getting hoodwinked.

There was an obvious question, though. "Who or what is 'we'?"

[Mooncalf]

"Your powers! Or at least the patterns of your powers. Yours is Conductor Mercurial. We're... like the imprint you leave in the source of All when you reach for it."

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"My people call that The Great Storm. Are you telling me you are the embodiment of the metaphysical lightning itself, or at least one solitary spark of it?" he asked, "Metaphorically speaking, anyway."

He had honestly never been that much of a believer in the mysteries of his faith but, if her story wasn't just madness, then he really should have paid more attention. This could be confirmation of something he only ever thought of as philosophical metaphor.

[Mooncalf]

Mooncalf tilts her head at the words 'Great Storm' and seems to think for a moment. "I think so, yes. A tiny part of it."

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"That's... incredible!" Thrax grinned, having never expected that to be the truth of Mooncalf's existence. He couldn't decide if the Order would revere her or label her as she, herself, had, a thing that should not be. But he couldn't make that judgment; he was no longer a monk of anything. He was just a drifter.

"Do you... remember anything about that place?"

[Mooncalf]

"Of course! But it's not a place. It's waves on an ocean. A membrane on the infinite that vibrates with the concepts you create. Oh! There is one place that's kind of real but only the First Flame can reach it. A white hot room that burns with possibility."

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"So much for confirming my religion's idea of where souls and powers come from," he chuckled, feeling silly about getting his hopes. "But if that is the Great Storm then I guess we're half right. So, I guess that's some comfort."

Though, didn't there use to be another concept that got folded into the Great Storm a long time ago? Shit, he had been a really bad student. Some last bastion of the faith he was.

[Mooncalf]

"Oh you mean what it'd be like for you. I don't think I can answer that... You know how some things change when they're observed? They get less... everything everywhere and get more something somewhere? Your Great Storm might rage somewhere that's a little more something than us."

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"Good, because apparently that matters to me more than I thought. Though it does blow my mind a little that our Gifts come from the same place as mutant powers. I bet Minamida would be very interested to hear that."

He grinned as he turned and started walking again. "But, for now, back to getting food! There's only so long a hungry Crocutan can wait."

[Mooncalf]

"You're made of the same kind of atoms too. Is that noteworthy?" she asks as she follows along towards the promised 'pizza', apparently genuinely wondering.

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"Fair." He chuckled as they made their way out of the hangar. "I just, I dunno, thought different races would have different things. They certainly have different ideas about it. Humans, for instance, seem to be largely convinced Gifts are something to be feared. Whereas my people have always put the Gifted on a pedestal. Maybe it's because, even in our peaceful era, we value strength."

It hurt to say that. That value had proved a double-edged sword; those that thought peace made the Crocutan people weak had slowly taken the reigns of the military and plunged them into a civil war that those dedicated to the ways of the Stormsaint were ill-equipped to win. The peaceful era was gone.

[Mooncalf]

"They are different and there isn't any one answer." she says cheerfully. "Two opposite things can be true, like a million billion blurry images on top of each other and they make different images but there's bits that belong to some or all or none. Like reverse crabs! Some patterns are strong because they happen a lot, some because they're so unique or powerful, some because they're brooaaaad. And those patterns can have more little patterns again that are different or not and so on forever and ever and ever!" she goes to say a lot of hard to follow stuff that roughly boils down to 'It's complicated.'

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

Yeah, this topic was well over his big, fuzzy head. As such, he found himself hung up on the silliest part of her response. "Reverse... crabs?" he asked, perplexed at what delicious crustaceans had to do with anything. "Okay, now that I'm even hungrier, you're going to have to explain that one."

[Mooncalf]

"You know, crabs! They're everywhere but, like, not on purpose. It just keeps happening. And in reverse it's like there's things that look the same on my end that are all different here."

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"All the more interesting though, right? It'd be boring if everything was the same. Maybe that didn't matter when you were in the cat box but you're an observer now."

Thrax grinned, exclaiming, "Embrace the chaos of the crab! You know you want to. "

[Mooncalf]

"I'm... an observer?" she blinks, as if that thought never even occurred to her. "I am! Oh gosh! What do I do? This is too much responsibility! How do I...? The [Pizza]! Yes, yes, of course. I will eat a [Pizza] that's never been eaten before!" she exclaims, grabbing Thrax by the wrist and (attempting to) pull him along.

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

The big guy cackled and pretended to be dragged along like a wayward child. It looked ridiculous but he was not the least bit afraid of looking silly. That would require thinking ahead, and that wasn't the way of Thraxion Ord'Rakar.

Eventually, they reached the cafeteria and began their search for the fabled pizza. "Now... If I were a bread disc, where would I be?" he muttered to himself as he looked around.

[Mooncalf]

Impatiently pushing through the students in line they soon manage to find the pizzas on offer. And while enticing, they are all prepared already with a selection of regular toppings. Mooncalf proceeds to wave down one of the employees and starts pleading with them to make her a custom one please, please, please, she'll make it herself if they let her and so on. Until they finally relent, just to be rid of her. They do manage to convince her that tomato sauce and cheese are integral parts of a pizza, as is sticking to generally savory things after she pulls a bag of M&Ms from a nearby rack.

She ends up with an abomination that'd make even the Americans frown. Onion, bologna, scrambled eggs left over from breakfast, olives, mushrooms, cucumber, leek, pineapple, corn, shredded chicken and tuna. Each covering three-quarters and creating 4 different kinds of overlaps. The poor person preparing it under her instructions looks as miserable as Mooncalf looks happy as she receives her freshly baked atrocity.

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

Thrax, meanwhile, was content to do as the humans do and just get a standard pepperoni, sausage, olives, and mushrooms affair. He was a bit perplexed by the addition of fungi but it would be rude to make an issue of it. Besides, Mooncalf had drawn enough attention as it was and he was happy to seem normal by comparison. Though he did get a few raised eyebrows mentioning he had never had pizza before.

As they walked away to find a free table, he looked at her creation and smirked. "I think you scared them a little. Pizza is obviously serious business.

[Mooncalf]

"Well, this is what you do, yes? Sense stuff and make something new." she says and takes a slice that is threatening to buckle under the weight of it's toppings. It's also quite hot, but that's easy enough for Mooncalf to fix by taking out some of the molecular movement excess [Heat] out of it. She takes a big bite and chews thoughtfully, nodding occasionally as she works her way through it. "Mmm, yes." she smiles. "I believe this is what you would call [Terrible]. It's great!" she says and takes another bite.

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"I know I've said I want to experience everything the universe has to offer, but I should have specified good things." He smirked as he lifted a slice to his lips.

The taste all but practically caused his eyes to dilate from the dopamine rush. He chewed with a groan of pleasure and, eventually, swallowed. "Where have you been all my life you delicious bastard?"

[Mooncalf]

"But mine could have been good!" she says and moves on to the next slice of combinations. "And now I know! I made that happen." she grins. "The odds may be low but the lows are odd." she nods and takes a bite.

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"I may not be from around here but even I could tell that was going to be bad, judging by the traumatized looks on their faces when you asked for them to put that fruit on it. Like wars have been fought for less."

"Serious business." He nodded with mock solemnity.

[Mooncalf]

"Cowards, all! The yellow fruit is one of the best parts and you can't disagree because I'm an [Observer] now too." she says smugly.

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"Yeah, that's... not how that works. Different people observe the same thing differently, especially where food is concerned. Flavors being good or bad is mostly subjective. I love this pizza but someone used to ones not from a cafeteria might say it's bad. Hell, it probably is by comparison to, like, a restaurant."

"What I'm trying to say is no one person's observations are the unassailable truth of something. Objective reality does exist, but everyone perceives it differently. For instance, my senses aren't the same as yours so our observations can't possibly be the same."

[Mooncalf]

"The same? Of course not! But it's still real and you can't unmake my reality any more than I can unmake yours."

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"Exactly." Thrax nodded in agreement. "I can't disagree that you enjoy the yellow fruit slices on pizza."

"Damnit. I'm curious now. I'll try a slice of yours if you try a slice of mine?"

[Mooncalf]

Mooncalf grins and slides her plate into the middle of the table, leaning further to grab a slice off of Thrax' plate.

"Different..." she says between chewing. "Less full but much cleaner." Then she plops the half-eaten slice of Thrax' onto a half-eaten slice of her own abomination and lifts it up like a sandwich. "I've created a handling improvement."

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

Getting a closer look at the culinary abomination, Thrax immediately cursed his damnable curiosity. But he was not one to waste food or retreat from a challenge. With little hesitation, he took a big bite.

By the Storm was it... a lot. Far too many competing flavors mingling to be remotely enjoyable, and far too many vegetables to please someone who's evolutionary ancestors were pure carnivores. She was right about one thing, though; the fruit was the star of the show. He wouldn't want it on his pizza, but by itself it would be great.

He was happy when it was over, at least!

"Well, that was certainly an experience. Some good but mostly bad."

[Mooncalf]

"See? See!? Some good!" she says as if that justified the existence of the kitchen-sink pizza.