Day 38: Breakfast

[deadlyjuliet]

What a singularly delightful evening he'd had. It was dampened, of course, by two things, but those were small things and he supposed he could overlook them for now. First was that his powers had still not returned. If he truly were on punishment as he thought, though, he couldn't very well expect those to come back. Second was that the little

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[scalyfishman]

Depth Charge awoke to a flood of bewilderment, pain and, above all, frustration. So that was how they played things around here. It was difficult enough getting things done in this smelting place without being cut off in the middle of doing them!

The bruises on his back protested with a steady throb as he eased himself upright in the bed, reminding him of the injuries he’d sustained that night. Warily, he lifted the blanket from his legs and inspected the damage- in the stark light of morning his legs looked infuriatingly pale and thin, streaked with dark, thick scarlet where the blood from his wounds had clotted thickly against his skin. And they still stung like the Pit. Distracted by this grizzly new sight, he found himself wondering how Lugnut was holding up. After all, the ‘con had been hurt a slag of a lot more than he had.

Not that he let himself ponder for long. With the night’s distinct lack of progress weighing heavily on his shoulders, he swiftly set about stashing the wooden bat lying next to him under the mattress and getting a head start on today’s plan- luring X out from under whatever rock he was hiding. He had just finished setting the bait when the nurse came to collect him for breakfast. Still, she didn’t give him any trouble- aside from insisting he change his pants, that is, seeing as they’d been pretty much obliterated below the knee. Depth Charge obeyed mechanically. He had better things to waste his energy arguing over.

Entering the cafeteria for the second time, Depth Charge made for the food with a surprising new vigour. His refusal to eat yesterday had left him feeling unbearably weak- not ideal, if he was going to face X again. He took a seat near the back, giving him as good a view of the rest of the room as possible. Keep your optics focused, Depth Charge. He could be anywhere.

[Free as a hippy at Woodstock.]

[rubbermancan]

Luffy always found the announcements more irritating than unnerving. It always meant the end of a mealtime, or the end of a nightshift, or the Head Doctor generally being a bastard. Sometimes he wondered if he could find a secret path to the guy if he yanked out one of the announcement box thingies. Or the woman who was talking to them lately, whoever the hell she was. That'd be pretty awesome, either way. Although getting to Landel would have been even better.

He'd have to work on that tearing that out.

But for now it was another day of waking up in bed like he hadn't been up two seconds ago. He and Brock had never found that friend of his. A frown tugged the pirate's normally bright and cheery face as his Cat Lady got him up and escorted him to the cafeteria. It might have been enough to curb the appetite of someone else, but Luffy didn't waste any time in getting to his usual morning ritual of piling on as much food as the Cat Ladies would allow. Still, as he moved through the line, his eyebrows were furrowed a little more than normal.

There weren't many people around yet, or else Luffy would have immediately sat next to one of his nakama. Maybe he needed to post a message for them. (It didn't really occur to him that he ought to check it more often than however many times he wrote stuff, which wasn't all that often.) For now, though, there was some guy with red hair and a girl sitting together. And then someone tall with blue hair caught his attention. Figuring the chair across from him was as good as any place to sit, Luffy plopped his tray onto the table and sat down.

"Yo," he said simply. "Who're you?" With the way he'd worded it, it would have almost sounded like he was the one who'd been sitting there first, but Luffy never really bothered about details like that.

[scalyfishman]

Depth Charge was still scanning the room carefully when the sound of the tray hitting the table and a voice snapped his attention back to his own table- violently. Slag, he nearly jumped clean out of his smelting plating. Sitting opposite him, as if he’d mystically materialised into the chair hours ago, was a gangly-looking human, apparently waiting for some kind of response. So much for keeping your optics focused, bright spark.

Scrabbling at whatever dignity he had left after that little reaction, he straightened up a little and eyed the newcomer with the usual penetrating suspicion. Dark hair, dark eyes, with a strangely gangly look to him- to say humans came in a variety of shapes and sizes barely covered it. Definitely not much more than a kid, though how old exactly he couldn’t say. All he could say for certain was that he definitely wasn’t X (like X would ever introduce himself with a “yo”…), and that was good enough for this Maximal. The kid passed. Just about. Over-enthusiasm had never sat well with Depth Charge, and he was just about grazing it with that kind of introduction. Nonetheless, with a stern mental reminder that things are rarely what they seem to be, he dropped his stare and rearranged his features into something a little less distrustful.

“Depth Charge,” he answered. Then, as if it had only just occurred to him to ask, added: “Who’re you?”

[rubbermancan]

Luffy met the stranger's suspicious gaze with a casual stare of his own, as if this sort of thing happened all the time, or he didn't entirely pick up on the man's reaction to his sudden presence. He wasn't really put off by it -- no reason to be. It wasn't like he had any reason to be suspicious of someone he just sat next to!

"Depth Charge, huh?" Well, he'd never heard a name like that before! Neat! "What do you like to be called, then? Depth? Charge? Or do you have some kind of awesome nickname?" Or maybe that was his nickname! Maybe this guy was the champion of underwater bull-fighting. (Did underwater bull-fighting even exist? Well, maybe! He'd never known anyone to say it didn't!)

He liked this guy already!

"I'm Monkey D. Luffy," he introduced himself brightly before giving an almost unnaturally wide smile. "Nice to meetcha!"

[scalyfishman]

Monkey...? A brief image flashed into Depth Charge's mind, hairy, squat and dragging its knuckles in the dirt. Almost instantly he was reminded of the proto-humans he'd seen on Earth. He could see the resemblance there, but this kid? Not so much. He seemed more like a tin toy that'd been wound too tightly.

The subject of nicknames provoked a little more of a reaction from the Maximal, however. He winced. He'd been given enough 'friendly nicknames' by Rattrap to last him for stellar cycles. Charlie Tuna, Captain Minnow, Fish-face... take your pick, kid.

"It's just Depth Charge," he answered firmly, picking up the glass of orange liquid on his tray and downing it in one, nice and quick. Despite himself, he found himself peering over the glass at Monkey with a kind of fascination. There was no way he was human. For one thing, humans complained a slag-load of a lot more. "What are you?"

[rubbermancan]

Just Depth Charge. How interesting! Luffy suddenly laughed, not really caring whether it'd come across as weird or rude. "Okay, then!" He'd try to remember it. But with such a funny name, it'd be pretty hard to forget. Well, probably, anyway!

The question of what are you? was, unsurprisingly, one he'd heard a lot during his travels. "Me? I'm a rubberman!" he replied with a large grin. As if to demonstrate his point, the pirate pulled the side of his cheek out, stretching it farther than a normal person would have been able to. Then he let it snap back into place, as if it were some kind of rubber band.

"What about you?" he asked. "Are you something like that too?" So many people here had crazy powers that it was worth asking!

[scalyfishman]

"Rubberman?" Depth Charge frowned. "What the frag's a-"

The Maximal's question was cut neatly down to size as Luffy answered it with a tug at his cheek that stretched it nearly a foot away from where it was supposed to be.

Ah.

"Rubberman." he repeated. "No slag." To be honest, it was probably a good thing he'd been so thrown by it. Without the distraction, the kid'd probably be seriously crawling up his tail pipe with that attitude. Happiness was one thing. Incessant, overbearing cheeriness? Don't even go there.

"I'm Cybertronian," he answered, once Luffy's cheek had returned to its usual place, "so no. Metal doesn't usually stretch."

[rubbermancan]

Luffy chuckled. "You sure use some funny words. What's a 'frag' and a 'slag', anyway?" He'd been to a lot of places, but he'd never heard anyone talk like that before. Maybe this guy just made them up. That sounded kind of fun, actually!

Then again, he'd never heard of a Cybertronian, either. Did they live on some kind of far away island, or were they one of those people who came from space? Except, wait--

"Metal?" he blurted with wide-eyed curiosity. "But you don't look like you're made from metal!" Without even asking, he reached over as if to pinch one of Depth Charge's arms, apparently wanting to check this out for himself.

[scalyfishman]

Apparently, the fascination only ran so far. Depth Charge reeled backwards as though Luffy's hands were on fire. Slag, this kid's got bearings of steel!

"Don't even think about it, kid!" he snapped, narrowing his eyes into a warning glower. His arms were tender enough without some weird bendy-boy pawing him around. And anyway, he still didn't know how much damage this body could take without dropping down dead.

Eventually, after giving himself a few moments to cool his circuits, he gave a whistling sigh of frustration through gritted teeth. “Someone screwed with me. Turned me human. I wouldn't have this slagging problem if I was still made of metal.”

[rubbermancan]

Eyes widening, Luffy stopped short when the guy snapped at him. He was quiet for a long moment, and for those who didn't know him well, it might have looked like Depth Charge had gotten through to him. Then the pirate blinked and frowned. "Sorry," he finally said. "I thought about it again." He didn't reach for him a second time, though.

He listened as the older man explained what happened to him. So this wasn't Depth Charge's real form? "Woah, wait, wait, wait," Luffy said, perking up in his seat now. "You mean...you were, like, a robot before coming here?!"

Was that what a Cybertronian was? Oh man, he'd had no idea!

[scalyfishman]

Depth Charge gave a short little laugh. "Nothing gets by you, huh?" he said dryly- but without the note of irritation from before this time. So long as the kid kept his optimism (and hands) to himself, he didn't have to lose it.

"Yeah, I was a robot," he said, folding his arms, "and I used to transform into a manta ray, too, though what good that did me I don't know. But this? Talk about a downgrade."

No kidding. A pang of horror flushed through Depth Charge as it suddenly occured to him that he was actually pretty smelting jealous of the kid- at least he had his own body. Fortunately, the moment was mercifully brief.

[rubbermancan]

Luffy just laughed at Depth Charge's remark before stuffing a bunch of sausage into his mouth. He didn't know this guy all that well, but he was having a lot of fun this morning!

He nearly choked on his food when he confirmed his suspicions. So he was a robot before coming here! With super-cool transformations! Man, who cared if he could use being a manta ray for anything, just the fact he could do it in the first place was really awesome! "That's so cool!" he practically crowed, eyes shining. "So what did you do while you were a robot? Did you ever get hungry? Could you swim around while you were in your super-awesome manta ray form? How'd they put you in a human body, anyway?"

He'd never seen a real live robot up close before! And even though Depth Charge was technically human now, he might as well have been in his original form with how excited the pirate was.

[scalyfishman]

Depth Charge, once again, was left simply to stare at Luffy with a baffled kind of incredulity. In a strange way, he was reminded of Cheetor: young, enthusiastic and terminally stupid. Seriously, how did those types stay so slagging cheerful? It was making his processor burn just from listening to it.

"Look, it's complicated, okay?" he said swiftly, before the kid could start to speak again (Primus only knew when he'd stop if that happened)."Yeah, I guess I did all kinds of stuff, but all that matters now is that I'm not a 'bot anymore. And I don't know how they did it."

Then, determined to move the conversation away from himself before things started to get awkward, he added: "What were you before you got here?" There. That should distract the kid for a while.

[also: awww. that's so cute. X3]

[rubbermancan]

"Well, it's still cool," Luffy countered, eyes bright. "I mean, how many guys can say they used to be a robot?" Not many at all! "When you figure out how to go back to normal, you have to show me what all you can do, okay?"

The pirate stuffed a pig in a blanket in his mouth before gulping down some juice. What was he before he got here? Well, he was still technically a rubberman now, so Depth Charge was probably talking about what kinds of things he did. "Oh, I'm a pirate!" he replied with a grin. "So I was out sailing on the Grand Line before I wound up here!"

As far as he was concerned, he was still a pirate, even if the Cat Ladies told him that was wrong. Who cared what they said, anyway? It wasn't really something Luffy could just stop being. Not if he was going to be the Pirate King!

((Hee, I think so! 8D))

[scalyfishman]

"A... pirate." Depth Charge repeated flatly. He peered at the kid again, trying to mentally fit him into the control room of a space pirate's cruiser- and then he got it. An Earth pirate. Not quite the same thing. For one thing, he was pretty sure Earth ships didn't have transwarp drives.

Still, at least this meant that they had some kind of common ground now. The sea. Of all the things that he'd had to adapt to after landing on Earth, the water was the one that had stayed with him. Thinking about it now, he found himself quietly missing it- the calm, the silence, the room to think. He'd not had that for a long time.

A thought suddenly dropped into his mental ocean. The Maximal frowned. "Wait, aren't you a little young for a pirate, kid?" he asked dubiously, "I thought Earth pirates were older. Men."

[rubbermancan]

"Yep, a pirate," Luffy said with a nod, as if he honestly thought Depth Charge needed the confirmation. Some people acted like they didn't really exist anymore, which was kind of weird since he considered himself living proof of a real, sea-faring pirate. Well, him and his nakama. They had a real pirate crew here!

When his breakfast companion questioned his age, though, Luffy just laughed. "You think so? I don't know much about the pirates on other worlds, but stuff like that doesn't really matter as long as you don't drown and you can kick some ass while you're at it, right?" Besides, age didn't always say much about whether someone was a real man or not. He'd met some "men" who were pretty lame, after all.

"And anyway!" he continued, words muffled from how full his mouth way. "Girls can make just as good of pirates as guys, you know. My navigator is a girl, and she's the best you'll ever meet!" Then there was Robin, who was flat-out cool. And Vivi, even if she technically was a princess now. She'd always be part of his crew as far as Luffy was concerned, though.