(Untitled)

[meatnsarcasm]

Sokka's been spending most of his time in the media library recently. After all, everybody loves the media library. Sokka admittedly spends most of his time watching WWE matches, a spy show, the most overdramatic documentaries he can find, and the occasional episode of Thomas the Tank Engine. Sokka does not make himself a slave to the recommended

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[fastandferal]

There's a cat-bot also prowling the hallways. Be vewy vewy quiet, he's hunting newbies!

But he could also stop to chat with people he hasn't really talked to before. And people walking in the hallways in a daze could always use some talking to.

"Oh, hey!" There's a light pause as he remembers, "Sokka!"

Those fangs are bared in a friendly grin.

[meatnsarcasm]

Hey, look, it's another of the robots! ...Well, Sokka figures it's a robot. Typically if the animals are talking, and they have little metal bits, then they're transforming robots.

Sokka waves.

"Hey. Cheetor, right?"

This goes way beyond the internal combustion engine.

[fastandferal]

You know what they say about assuming - it makes an ass out of u and me.

Of course, sometimes it's also right.

"Yeah, Cheetor! Guess it's one of the easier names to remember." He still has trouble remembering the names of humans.

[meatnsarcasm]

Success! Sokka assumed and won.

"Yeah - it's like our word chi, so it's not hard to remember."

That's the thing about coming from alternate worlds. Sokka has no idea what a cheetah is. Sabretoothed moose lions are not quite the same thing.

"You're Rattrap's friend, right?"

[fastandferal]

"Yeah, Rattrap's friend," Cheetor acknowledges. It's nice to say that again. "And you're Katara's brother. ...Right?"

Jeez, his memory circuits are buggy today. Someone needs a virus-scan.

[meatnsarcasm]

Sokka nods. "Yeah, Katara's brother. Just finished talking to her not long ago." And she told him how he could acquire seal jerky - of sorts - on this horrible, horrible ship. With that and his new knowledge, Sokka is the happiest boy in the worlds.

He looks at Cheetor out of the corner of one eye for a moment, an investigative glance, and asks: "Would you mind if I asked you a kind of personal question?"

[fastandferal]

Cheetor has not yet figured out that the Sensorium makes (fakes) food! He would be jealous, if he knew.

"She's really nice," Cheetor comments. He opens his mouth to ask his own question, but Sokka beats him to it.

There's a blink, then a mental shrug. "Sure? What's on your processor?"

[meatnsarcasm]

Sokka nods. "Yeah, she is. Too much, sometimes."

Sokka's not brooding over his sister's entanglement with his sworn enemy at all. What would make you think that?

With permission given, Sokka goes on to ask his personal question, and it's the other thing that's taking up all his attention at the moment: "I've been looking up files in the media room about this thing called the internal combustion engine. And some of them say it's really great, and some of them say it's really primitive, and some of them keep talking about something called global warming and are really no damn help. Anyway, I worked out how it worked, and how it could power a lot of things, and how it's really a lot like a heart." Sidewise glance. "Do you and Rattrap run on something like that?"

Don't blame the boy. He comes from a culture where the ironclad is pretty high-tech. Anything past the Industrial Revolution all gets sorted into the same whiz-bang it's-incredible folder.

[fastandferal]

Cheetor has his own thoughts on being too nice. "Sometimes - even though it really doesn't seem like it - being too nice turns out for the best." Nobody liked the idea of Blackarachnia joining the Maximals, but the whole thing turned out great!

Mostly.

The cat-bot plops down on his haunches and listens. "Internal combust-- man, that's old tech. But nope, not powered by an engine.

"I could go more in-depth, if you want...?"

[meatnsarcasm]

"That sounds like something Aang'd say." Which means it's either absolutely and completely right, or catastrophically wrong. Aang doesn't have a middle ground. Besides, Airrazor never decided that Tarantulus wasn't really evil he was just damaged and it was perfectly fine to date him, despite everything Rhinox told her about how many times Tarantulus had kicked him in the head and set him on fire and tried to capture the Avatar...

...Sokka's analogies never stay on track.

"It's old, huh?" Sokka says, with only a little heart-being-torn-out. It was a machine that ran on explosions! Sokka could only have been happier if it had periodically dispensed seal jerky and vindication, and kicked Zuko in the stomach. "Figured as much. They never had anything that looked up to your level in any of the films... they did have these boxes on wheels that moved by themselves - without even any bending! - which was pretty impressive, but none of them could turn into other things."

For all Sokka knew. Very possibly Optimus Prime had just been very

[fastandferal]

A little heart-being-torn-out? Earns a faint 'erk!' look from the cat-bot. "But, hey, compared to us, most tech is."

Pause. "Boxes that--" It'll click, it just needs a minute. Cheetor isn't used to thinking from a low-tech perspective; and seeing things from another perspective calls on empathy Cheetor doesn't always have, being a teenager. "Oh! Cars! Yeah, our ancestors could turn into cars and planes and stuff. So could I, back on the homeplanet."

Cheetor clears his throat. What he had to say? Um. "Aw, it was nothing," he says quickly.

[meatnsarcasm]

"Kh'aaz," Sokka says, nodding. "They mentioned them a couple of times on the films, I just couldn't put the word to the object." Nor pronounce it right. It's another world issue. "So, you've got the one form that's the... robot, right, that's the word... You've got the robot form, and then you've got another form that could pretty much be anything? And you can change it? ...That's pretty impressive."

He tilts his head to that last bit, and nods. "I'm gonna give you one chance to decide that it really wasn't nothing, and if you still say it was nothing I'm gonna start asking about the other subject. And Katara says when I start talking about machinery I need to actually be attacked before I stop. Fair warning."

[fastandferal]

"Uh, no, ca-rrrz," Cheetor says helpfully. Tactlessly, yes. But helpfully!

"Yeah, we can change our alternate modes thanks to good ol' nanotech. Basically, our bodies become covered in really really really tiny robots that reconstruct our form to match whatever form is available. On Cybertron I got chosen for a race-car form." There's a nostalgic smile.

"On the planet we landed on, we had to make do with what we had. Fortunately, I still got the best bod of the bunch."

Sokka's next comment makes Cheetor examine his tail. "Oh, it was just-- um, wondering how you guys were doing after...." C'mon, does he need to say 'Silent Hill'?