metalogs | [OPEN] Winter Preparations, Nanite Checkup, and...Sentient Potatoes?

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[OPEN] Winter Preparations, Nanite Checkup, and...Sentient Potatoes?

Who: Six

sixthdeadliest
What: Six prepping for winter in case he gets snowed in. Also heading to Alliance HQ for a check-up on his nanites. And getting a weird case of deja vu with sentient potatoes.
When: Winter prep stuff through all throughout the month. Nanite checkup November 12th
Where: Little Love and Central City (indicated in prompt)
Content Warnings: Other than potential mentions of the horrors of Six's hell world, I don't anticipate anything. Info on the potatoes comes from here.

Nanite Checkup (Alliance HQ, November 12th)

Six was starting to appreciate the patience Rex had for putting up with test after test due to these regular scans.

Because the nanites refused to leave his body in samples despite best efforts including attempting to force them via magnetic manipulations, Six's nanites had to be monitored solely via CT scan until anything more effective could be developed. (MRIs were out; the images of early victims of MRIs following the Nanite Event had been horror shows.) At least the Alliance allowed him to come in regularly for such checkups without costing him an arm and a leg each time. At this point, any hope that someone might be able to come up with a cure here that he might somehow be able to take back to his world was starting to fade.

As soon as the machine was finished, he got up to head to the cafeteria for some coffee. At this point, he knew the routine: Waste time while the results were analyzed then come back for the update.

Winter Preparation (Little Love, all November)

Due to Little Love being so rural, Six had started getting ready in case he ended up snowed in. With no vehicle, that meant a lot of trips back and forth to town on foot, carrying what he could back to the farmhouse.

He definitely stood out in the green trench coat that matched his usual attire. That and carrying a bulky backpack back and forth in varying degrees of fullness. Someone could bump into him not just in various shops but on the street or walking along the road back and forth to the farmhouse.

Sentient Potatoes ~~what is this EVO bullsh~~ (Little Love, all November)

This...this was giving him some serious deja vu.

Sentient potatoes. It was like something straight out of his world but with less body horror and fewer homicidal trees. At least the spuds didn't have teeth, just a desire to drag potential victims underground.

...Actually, that was worse than teeth now that he thought about it.

Six sliced through several sets of roots trying to drag one of the farmhands down into the soil. The unhappy spuds snapped imaginary teeth at him but retreated as he brandished the magna blades in warning. The unfortunate farmhand shuddered but went back to work harvesting the potatoes that had chosen not to achieve sentience.

At least the sentient potatoes were easier to handle than most EVOs. Just very annoying.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It was a Saturday in the chiller part of the year. David shouldn't be outside on a nice, chilly fall afternoon on a Saturday. He should be in his kitchen cooking. He should be in front of Balthier's fire, his lover curled up in his arms, as they read something. At worst he should be at work, fixing some code.

Instead he was here, as Prodigy, sitting at a table and carefully working a straw through a small port on the front of his helmet so he could sip his coffee without taking the thing off.

The things he did for privacy.

Still, when he saw someone familiar enter he carefully worked the straw free before rising to meet the other man.

"Six. I see you made a choice. Sorry I didn't check in on that before now."

"Prodigy." Six nodded his head in greeting as he walked a little closer, slightly out of his way to get coffee but not by much. "Honestly, given my situation, it was a matter of which guild not if I joined one."

Because if he had to pay for all of this out-of-pocket, he'd have to do some incredibly less-than-legitimate things to make enough money.

"Don't need to apologize. You've been kept busy?"

"Too busy," Prodigy agreed with a tired noise. But he offered the man a brief nod of understanding.

"I'm just glad you're getting the help you might need. How is it all going after all?"

"Not too bad. Spending a lot of time getting set up out in Little Love. There's not much coverage out there, so I figured that would be where I'd be most needed. Being outside of a major city does take some extra planning though. Especially if you don't have powers."

He started fixing himself a cup of coffee at the station. Not that it was hard: black, no cream or sugar.

"As far as the nanite issue goes, it's a 'good news, bad news' situation. Good news is that samples can't even be drawn with any nanites in them even if they are present under CT scan. Bad news is that samples can't even be drawn with any nanites in them even if they are present under CT scan."

Little Love. Comfortable place. If David himself wasn't such a tech person, he might have chosen Little Love for himself.

"I imagine so," Prodigy answered with a nod. "At least with the guilds you have access to HQ to help when you need it."

He almost chuckles at the 'good news bad news' because damn that's a hell of a one.

"Sound like in an emergency I wouldn't even be able to help you, beyond the medical degree. Can't use my technopathy on something like that."

"Honestly, it'd be more convenient to be stationed in Central, but the city's pretty well-covered. Same with most of the other urban areas."

The weird little rural town had been more or less left to its own devices. As inconvenient a place it was to live in when one wasn't a farmer, that didn't mean its people shouldn't receive any assistance.

...That and it did appeal to a long-buried fantasy of a house somewhere peaceful to settle down in.

"It's one reason why I come in for regular checkups: To see if someone can find some way of studying them without being able to remove them."

He nodded back towards Prodigy's table.

"It'll take a while for them to process the data."

Edited 2022-11-20 23:24 (UTC)

"Yes, but there are less mobs that will chase you down in Little Love. I have friends there and visit a lot out of costume. It's pleasing."

He knows that isn't enough to give him away to Six, so he's content on letting that tidbit slip.

"I imagine it will. I'm just sorry I didn't know how to help. I mean, if you needed brain surgery I could have done more, but this is... In my world you'd probably go to someone like Iron Man for this work, but it's not like he's a resource you just have lying around."

"I suppose. It helps I don't have any meta abilities to speak of. I blend in a little better with the locals."

That and he suspected some of them had built up some respect for him being a normal human dealing with metas as necessary.

"It's actually a better situation than the chaos after the Nanite Event. I'm no worse off here than I was back then. If anything, I'm in a better position here: There's equipment that's already set up to deal with unusual biological issues. Back after the Event, there were plenty of accidents. Most of them weren't EVO-related either."

MRIs used to be very commonly-used pre-Event. That practice very quickly came to a screeching halt afterwards.

Well, there's that. It helps a lot.

"I blend in too, out of costume. But perhaps they'd accept you more for no meta powers."

He's not jealous. He would miss his powers if he didn't have them. No, he was just envious of the fact that he can't have that same peace.

"I'm relieved to find you settling in, though."

"Adapt or die," Six stated simply. "The same here as anywhere else."

It kept things simple.

"Though it's been a while since I had so much space. Even then I was sharing it with Master and the rest of his students."

"I don't know," David said with a sigh. "I hate the idea of 'adapt or die'. We're supposed to have evolved into an adaptive species that can support each other. But ideals like that seem impossible to hold to."

Or maybe that's just cynicism talking.

"You've got a nice residence then?"

"Don't know if you've ever looked at the guild housing, but in Little Love, it's a farmhouse with some land."

He wasn't a farmer and wasn't entirely sure what he was going to do with all that space after he got a training course set up. (Maybe he could transplant some apple trees that were already old enough to bear fruit?)

"I have an associate that lives in Little Love," Prodigy admitted, "I do know some people don't go for guild housing though. I like the Little Love places though. Lots of space indeed. And isolation if you needed."

Apple trees would be a good choice, and very farmers' market friendly.

"Don't really have much else I'm qualified to do but fight and assist with trouble, so the guild housing is a way to save money," Six admitted. "Legally, I don't exist back in my world."

Edited 2022-11-30 02:20 (UTC)

"Comfort isn't something you're used to?"

Well now he's sad and concerned. Damn, this guy better be doing something to relax too.

"I didn't live on the streets if that's what you're thinking," Six said dryly.

Well, he didn't live on the streets anymore.

"Just not used to having such a large place to myself. Though it's keeping me busy getting ready for winter. Last thing I need is to freeze and starve to death if I get snowed in and the power goes out."

"If you need advice, I'm originally from Chicago. It's not the same thing, it's not flawless, but I know something about winterizing places."

Mostly he knows it from Wolverine and his life in the Canadian north, but he's not explaining that.

"Appreciate it, but I don't know how applicable the advice would be. The farmhouse is outside of the town proper, and it's quite a walk to get back into town. If I get snowed in, it might take hours or days for the road to clear enough to walk without breaking an ankle."

"Never hurts to know more, but talk to the locals. They'll know what helps most," he points out. Because that might be enough. They would know better than just about anyone as to what needs there are in Little Love.

"Oh, and get a generator, of course."

"First thing I picked up. Right now I'm just stocking up on extra supplies like plenty of fuel. Had to ask one of the men at the hardware store how to wrap pipes after he mentioned the pipes might freeze, so that's already done. Last thing I need is a pipe bursting."

He took a sip of his coffee.

"It's actually been a pretty good training regimen."

"Oh yeah, frozen pipes are the worst. I'm glad you had some instruction on it," David said with a nod.

So much better to be preventative than it would be to repair later.

"Glad the people around town are so friendly. Never had these kind of problems before. Master's home was on a volcanic island and we were too far south for snow, and living on base for the past five years meant I didn't have to worry about this sort of thing. Knew I'd need the extra food and a backup generator, but I didn't even consider the pipes freezing."

Home on a volcanic island? David couldn’t help but chuckle at that.

“Forgive me, that almost sounds like the secret base of a super villain in a kid’s tale where I’m from. Cultural baggage, that’s not on you. But yeah, living suddenly in a really cold place can be jarring.”

"Given who my master was and my ranking back home, you'd probably think we were supervillains." Six took a sip of his coffee. "So you're not that far off in the long run."

Well David wasn't expecting that. He's intrigued and sadly the raised eyebrow isn't visible.

"Did you hurt people?"

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