Rock — Freakalair

Rock stopped for a moment at Noel's question, his eyebrows furrowing as he wracked his brain for an answer. Another second passed and he shrugged lamely. "I... um... honestly don't know. It could be anything - there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for what our captors do, so we should expect the unexpected."

Another pregnant pause.

"...I know that doesn't help. To be honest I'm just as confused as you are," continued Mega Man. "I mean, why turn us into paper? Of all the things you could do, why that?" He grunted in frustration. "It's annoying - it feels like I know almost as little as you do despite having been here for longer! Hopefully if we stick to it we might be able to get some answers."

"Regardless, if it's anything like the past three days you won't be stuck in that form for very long." It seemed like Rock was going to continue when the pair finally came across everyone else, just as Scott attempted to pass himself off as the owner of the Freakalair.

Walking over toward the new arrival and folding his arms, Rock said, "Uh... I know^note Rock was secretly hoping that Freakazoid was still around and had just gone off on some sort of bizarre adventure without notifying anyone - it seemed like something he'd do at any rate the guy who this place belongs to, and you're definitely not him. He was a lot weirder, for one. How about you tell us who you really are - perhaps over breakfast?" He decided to throw in that last comment to show that he meant no harm, and anyway Altair's suggestion was a good one. The Robot Master was sure that everyone else needed the food.

Freakalair

"I can cook for multiple people," Shampoo offered to the others, but then noted for obvious reasons. "Though I not sure food not come out tasting like paper."

Noel, Freakalair

Noel kept her mouth shut the whole time as Rock went on his minor rant. She just walked alongside him and nodded meekly at the appropriate times. She finally said something when Rock assured her that they wouldn't be in these paper bodies for too long.

"Oh, that's good at least." Because staying in this form for more than a day or two would've really worried her. What if she got burnt? Or ripped? She was so much more fragile than she was before.

When they met up with the others though (who were all in the same state, go figure), Noel shut her trap once again. The girl just wasn't a social person.

edited 28th Jan '14 5:15:05 AM by LatverianBadger

((OOC:Giving in a bit of a hand wave to see if I can get us unstuck.))

"I see. Just as I suspected" Altair said after Rock confirmed that 'Batman' wasn't the owner of the lair. Under normal circumstances, Altair would probably then question Scott thoroughly, mainly suspicious that he might have come here just to assassinate one or some or all of them in their sleep, or ambush them as they prepared to leave; said interrogation would probably be done at knife-point.

But Rock seemed to want to keep the conversation friendly, and nobody else in the group was really speaking out about it, so Altair decided to let it be, lest he inadvertently offend some of his allies. It didn't stop him from casting a suspicious look Scott's way as Shampoo spoke up. "That depends on what there is to cook, right? So let's see" Altair mentioned after Shampoo's comment, then went off to find the way upstairs...

Though it took Altair a little bit to find the way up, once he was up there it didn't take him long to find the kitchen. Mainly because the bowl of fruit on the counter was a dead giveaway. It was strange though, because the bowl was actually shaped more like an envelope, with the fruit sticking up out of the top like notes. Altair picked up an apple from it and examined it. "Come to think of it, how are we supposed to eat like this?" Altair thought aloud towards nobody in particular. He felt certain their captors still required them to eat, since he could feel a slight hunger.

He then lifted the apple towards his face to try and take a bite. A loud CRUNCH! kind of sound suddenly emanated from him, about the same as someone biting into an apple, and the apple was instantly replaced by an apple core. This caused Altair to jump, even as he could taste the... well, taste, of an apple in his mouth, and could feel his stomach not quite as hungry anymore. In his jump, Altair threw the apple core forward and drew his knife as the paper note that was the apple core slowly drifted down to the floor like a falling leaf. Altair stood there, knife at the ready for a few moments in silence, until he finally realized how silly he probably looked. He muttered some apology while putting the knife away, then headed over to the apple core and picked it up; he then looked around, wondering where to throw the apple core away.

It was at that point that he spotted a window, (made of clear plastic wrap) and got a glimpse of the rest of the city outside. He just stood there, staring at it, and still holding the apple core in one hand.

Agent G Callen at the Frekalair

"I guess my next question is how are we suppose to fight and defend ourselves if we look like this?"

Freakalair House

As soon as the altercation calmed without any issue Axton decided to follow Altair up to the house. It was... surprisingly normal, for a house right above an underground equivalent of the Rakk Cave (he found it silly he was even comparing that place - while more primitive, a *lot* more organized - to the bandit hideout the Vault Hunters had found in the Fridge, complete with a rakkshit insane bandit - by bandit standards).

As he rubbed his stomach, he promptly saw Altair pull a knife on some fruit after lifting it to his face. In his favor, it had disappeared with a loud crunch and been replaced with something else the second he did.

Against his favor, he was trying to stab an apple.

"'Ey," he said, clasping Altair on the shoulder. "Save the knives for the pumpkins, huh?" He grabbed one and ate it himself. It was a little sudden how it had turned into a... core, he guessed, and especially strange how he could taste the food in his mouth like it was there, but not. After a few seconds it went away.

"...this is... this sure is something."

Freakalair

Shampoo looked inside the kitchen and watched Altair and Axton eat apples without eating apples, which caused her to raise an eyebrow, but led to her gathering up various ingredients together and putting them on one table... They were all made of paper, so she wondered what to do about them, when she got the brilliant idea of putting them all into the stove. After she put them inside the paper stove and closed it, she heard a ding... Inside the stove, the raw paper ingredients had suddenly and magically been turned into perfectly cooked Chinese dishes for herself... or the paper representation of perfectly cooked Chinese dishes.

"Umm, is weird, but works?" Shampoo muttered, confused about the situation.

edited 24th Feb '14 7:29:10 PM by GameGuruGG

Noel, Freakalair House

Following everyone up to the house, Noel found herself in a kitchen, filled with ingredients. Already, she felt a little more cheerful. Noel liked cooking you see.

A lot.

And once it was confirmed that they could eat with these bodies, the two dimensional lieutenant perked up instantly.

"Uh, hey! If everybody's hungry, how about I make breakfast for you guys?"

"Save the knives for the pumpkins, huh?"

Altair glanced at Axton, completely confused as to what the mercenary was talking about; but having gotten used to the idea of not knowing what people were talking about, he decided to leave it alone. He also eyed Axton's hand on his shoulder, considering yanking his shoulder away or such, but decided to just walk away instead, over to Shampoo, who had apparently just cooked up a whole feast more or less instantly. Something about that didn't actually surprise Altair, given the fact that he had just eaten an apple instantly. He reached out and grabbed a 'bowl' of noodles, and looked over at Noel as she suggested she cook something.

Altair glanced at the food that Shampoo had just cooked, specifically the bowl in his hand, turning it over once to look at the other side, then turning it halfway to look at the way it was flat. Experimentally, Altair grabbed opposite edges of the 'bowl', then folded it in half, then again the other way; then he tried placing it in one of his waist pouches on his own image, the folded piece of paper immediately disappearing. Taking a brief moment to shake his head, he then tried removing it, successfully popping the folded piece of paper into his hand again, which he then unfolded, revealing that it was unchanged. For one final test, he tried consuming it, (Since the apple hadn't filled him up entirely anyway.) and like the apple, he then 'ate' the entire dish instantly; the image of a bowl of noodles became the image of an empty bowl in an instant, accompanied by a loud slurping sound.

"It seems that taking food along with us will not be a problem today. We might as well cook more than we need for just breakfast, so we don't have to worry about it later, yes" Altair said, looking back at Noel and nodding his head. Placing the bowl and apple core flat on the counter, Altair then stepped away, heading for the nearest door that led outside. "I will be checking outside while you do that. I will not be long" he stated pretty neutrally over his shoulder. Given how fast Shampoo had cooked the other dishes, he figured Noel would probably be done well before Altair had circled around the house once. His usual assassin paranoia was telling him to check the immediate terrain for any visible threats.

edited 6th Feb '14 7:14:34 PM by FirockFinion

Rock — Freakalair

Rock jumped in surprise when the apple "disappeared" and was replaced by an apple core, since he hadn't been expecting it. What a strange, strange day this was shaping up to be.

"You know, you've got a good point..." said Rock to Callen. "Maybe it works like the food, and it still hurts despite things being made out of paper?"

"I think I'll wait for Noel to make breakfast," The Robot Master said. "However, I think he's got the right idea..." He indicated Altair. "We don't want to get hungry while we're taking a look around!"

He watched as the Assassin left.

I know it's not very good, I'm just trying to keep things flowing.

Freakalair Kitchen

Axton nodded as he took a few of the paper dinners for himself. "Honestly, from a logistical standpoint, this kinda rocks. It's ultraportable, filling food that tastes good - this is what everyone who makes MR Es tries to make. Or, at least, tried, before we remembered we could digistruct food into Storage Decks."

He pocketed several of the paper dinners before following Altair, the wireframe Infinity still sitting in place, ready to be drawn.

Exiting the house, Altair had initially led himself and Axton to the back yard. There, something caught the assassin's attention, the pool. The pool had water in it; not some arts-&-crafts facsimile of water, but actual water. Altair stepped up to the side and held a hand out to his side, signaling Axton to stop lest the mercenary be thinking of diving in for fun. Altair then held out the paper apple core, noting that the paper it was on seemed nearly identical to the paper that currently made his own body.

After that quick inspection, he dropped it in the water, where it got all wet and soggy. Altair glanced around, and saw a 'stick' nearby that seemed to be made of cardboard. He grabbed that, and tried to use it to extract the apple core. The apple core, or rather the paper that the image of the apple core was on, practically disintegrated as Altair lifted the stick up. The stick itself, being cardboard rather than paper, fared better, but was likewise looking a bit soggy and weakened. Altair turned his head to glance at Axton with a rather neutral expression, feeling this needed no comment.

Going around the rest of the house was fairly uneventful. Those familiar with the architecture of the Freakalair house would probably expect it to be in a residential area, but the randomness of the city didn't really have different set areas. As such, across the street from them was currently a large bank, which seemed to be bustling with confusion about both the proper exchange of currencies between different universes, and about whether any given currency today was actually currency or something that had had the image of currency drawn over what it actually was. A short man with large, rounded ears in particular was being led away by a guard; something about 'gold coins' actually turning out to be grapes.

Next door to the bank was a small park, with a number of lines attached to the ground leading up to kites... No, not kites, but people, who seemed to be enjoying this new found ability of their two dimensional forms.

After taking a bit to watch both the scene in front of the bank and the people floating over the park, Altair turned to go back inside the house.

Axton - The Deathball's Realm

As Axton followed Altair, he saw that there was a pool. Quickly thinking, he figured if that was actual water, and he was paper, he wouldn't need to go in there. Halfway through his train of thought teleported to station when Altair held up a hand and dropped the apple core in, the core becoming soggy as usual, before he retrieved it with cardboard - upon which the apple disintegrated.

The message was extremely clear. Don't go into the water. Axton nodded with a grim look on his face.

As he looked around, the town - whatever this town was - seemed to be enjoying the fact it was two-dimensional. Despite what his instincts said, Axton stopped, somehow managing to loop his thumbs into the pockets of his pants as he stared ahead, a light smile on his face at the peaceful scene.

Spider-Man - Freakalair

Peter was still mortified that his nightmare-induced screaming had woken up everyone in the Freakalair. Hoping to get away from this embarrassing situation as soon as possible, he went up to the house area with the others, his head held low all the way up to the kitchen. However, he perked up at the mention of breakfast.

"Uh, sure. Just not sure what I'd like."

At that point, something sparked within him. A voice, distant, but clear, entered his mind. The name eluded him, but he could tell by the tone, that whoever possessed this was a warm, motherly, and old woman. Perhaps his mother? Grandmother? Aunt?

"I cooked your favorite breakfast, Petey — wheatcakes!"

"Say, you wouldn't happen to know how to make wheatcakes, would you?"

edited 24th Feb '14 6:00:59 PM by TrashJack

Noel had been mulling over just what to cook, looking around the kitchen, when Peter made his suggestion.

"Wheatcakes? Those are like pancakes right? Alright, just leave it to me!"

And with a smile, Noel immediately got to work, getting the ingredients and utensils together. If one payed attention, they could almost see her skipping in delight. It seemed that cooking really helped Noel break out of her shell.

Little did the rest know, that they were in for a nasty surprise.

edited 24th Feb '14 6:26:18 PM by LatverianBadger

Agent G Callen, live at the Frekalair

G decided to make the best thing out of his situation when he walked into the kitchen.

"Morning, all." The NCIS agent greeted everyone inside. "Something up?"

"Wheatcakes? Those are like pancakes, right."

"Oh no," Shampoo stopped what she was doing, ate the meal she had cooked for herself, and made herself scarce. She knew exactly where this was headed due to her experience with Akane Tendo's cooking.

Leaving Axton to enjoy the scenes outside, Altair reentered the kitchen area right as Shampoo was exiting, simply turning himself sideways at the edge of the doorway to let her through. He then stepped in and looked around at everyone. "If you see real water today, don't touch it" Altair told them simply, particularly noting that Noel was now cooking up more food. "I'm going to go take a look around the city today. We are not the only people here nor are we the first; surely there must be other groups and organizations in the city, and I want to know who we may be able to turn to for aid... Or need to be wary of" he explained, and waited for Noel to finish cooking so he could fold some of it up and take it with him.

edited 28th Feb '14 12:53:19 AM by FirockFinion

Rock — Freakalair

Rock waited patiently for Noel to finish, completely oblivious to the warning signs that things might not turn out as well as people hoped. Indeed, he was rather pleased with how Noel had cheered up. By this point Altair had returned from outside and provided a rather ominous warning regarding water. "Thanks for the warning. If you don't mind I think I'll join you - knowledge is power! ...Or at least that's what Dr. Light would say. "

"Oh, by the way..." The robot's eyes focused upon Peter. "Do you feel any better today? You were pretty shaken up yesterday."

Spider-Man - Freakalair - Kitchen

Peter hadn't expected Rock to ask about his well-being. This almost certainly had to do with his rather rude awakening of the others in the group. He hadn't told them of his nightmare and tried to play it off as surprise regarding his transformation. And in all fairness, that had been rather shocking to him. Still, behind his mask, he averted his eyes, not realizing his head subtly turning away as well as he answered.

"I'm fine. Really. Just had a bit of a shock waking up as the Amazing Origami-Man."

Because of Rock's question, however, he had nearly forgotten that Altaïr had spoken about the dangers of real water in this paper world. While he woke up drenched in sweat, that didn't seem to count, given that sweat was never purely water, and that in this world, it seemed to take on paper-like qualities.

"Huh. Well, it's not like swimming is my forté anyway, as far as I know."

As the three spoke, and as Noel was making breakfast, Peter noticed a faint tingling sensation in the back of his head. Similar to how he felt during the fight against the Operator fight, now that he thought of it. However, he couldn't figure out what was setting it off, or indeed, what it actually was.

"Hey, is anyone else getting a kind of tingly feeling, or is it just me?"

Agent G Callen, live at the Frekalair

"It depends." The NCIS agent told Peter. "What is it?"

G reached out for his hidden holster, although he didn't if he can use his sidearm since he was in... "a different form" than usual.

Altair nodded when Rock mentioned coming with him; though Altair worked better alone and he knew it, he also knew what kind of burden it could be to have to wait here at the house with nothing to do. On the other hand, there was other things for people to possibly do...

Altair stood silently in thought as the others talked, before taking a step forward to speak again. "Alright, I think I know what we should be doing today. As I said, I will head out, see if there are any other factions at work in the city; anyone who wants to come along is welcome to. Another group should head out and see about resupplying our stocks; at the rate we eat, I doubt those pantries would last us another day. Those who stay here should work on defenses; we know from previous days that fighting can break out, possibly at any time. It would not do well for us to lose this house now that we have it" Altair said to everyone, rather neutrally.

"Now, let us not waste any more time" Altair muttered, grabbing some of Noel's food once she was done cooking it, folding it up and storing it away in one of his pouches for later. He did not try eating or smelling any of it, unaware of what might befall him later...

Despite, or perhaps even partially because of the changes, the city was bustling with activity. Plenty of people were about, walking or experimenting with other forms of transport, but because everyone was two dimensional, it couldn't really be called crowded. Altair, and whoever followed him, started at the bank, asking around about any groups in the city, then headed out from there, visiting the edges of a marketplace that looked like a giant child's arts and crafts project.

Altair watched some people who had rolled themselves into tubes to roll along the sidewalk pass by as he questioned the latest person who had been willing to talk to him. "You say they're a church? Then what God do they worship? What beliefs do they follow?" Altair asked the middle aged man, or at least he assumed it was a man.

"Well that's a little hard to explain. Apparently they've been trying to consolidate the religions across their separate universes into one big explanation. Something about there originally being one god who split into an uncountable number of gods and spread out across the different universes, most forgetting their origin. Some become the only god of their universe, sometimes multiple gods land in the same universe, and sometimes these gods even create new gods below them. It's kind of super simplified yet at the same time, really complicated. Call themselves the 'Church of The One', or something like that" the man explained to Altair.

"What about their practices then?" Altair continued to question.

"Don't know. I passed by the place and they had guys out front handing out pamphlets. I only stuck around long enough to listen to part of their explanation of who they were."

"I see. Where was this church?"

"Well, I came from that way after leaving the place, but I'd bet all you'd find now is a pizza place or something. City keeps changing around when people aren't paying attention. Very inconvenient, actually" the man finished, pointing off towards a turn in the road not far away. "I've got things to do if you don't mind. Goodbye" he added simply, and headed off.

Other than this church, Altair had so far heard stories of street gangs populating the city and taking a dog eat dog approach to day to day life; but by the sounds of it, none of these groups were any bigger than ten members, and ultimately weren't much trouble unless you couldn't fight. There was also sort of a police force, or rather, two police forces. Both were made up of police, guards, volunteers, and such from multiple universes, but were split apart because of differing opinions on exactly what kind of laws they should be enforcing.

The first group, the 'City Police' were simply trying to keep peace and only cracked down on crimes that were unarguably crimes: violence, theft, rape, blackmail, distributing harmful substances, and so on. The second group, the 'City Guard' were being a bit more totalitarian, trying to maintain order by brute force and cracking down on more minor and subjective offenses, such as loitering suspiciously or a shop setting its prices 'unfairly' high. The two groups could not come to an agreement on how to keep peace in the city, so they had split, and ever since tensions between them had been uneasy. As far as everyone Altair had asked knew though, this tension had never come to outright conflict. The jurisdiction between the two factions seemed to be 'first come, first serve and protect'.

Altair pondered all this information, and thought about whether he should continue or head back home.

edited 10th Mar '14 6:07:07 PM by FirockFinion

On a Random Rooftop

Shampoo seemed to have decided to eat her own meal in peace and prayed for the poor souls who would have to suffer through 'cooking' like Akane Tendo's. After that, she began to ponder things about the situation. Water was deadly so she was grateful that she was stuck in her human form for the day, though is the Jusenkyo curse still active? After her meal, she began wandering the city, wondering what the heck she should do next.

edited 13th Mar '14 5:25:51 PM by GameGuruGG

IN THE CITYYYYYYYY

Axton wandered around at mid-day. He had only munched on one of the meals in his pack; it was surprising how flavorful it was, and how quickly it disappeared. It was definitely strange - he was waiting for everything to change again so that he could actually eat. Not that he didn't hate it - it was just extremely disorienting.

His Infinity was kept digistructed at his side, magnets keeping it on his Storage Deck (and probably the fact he was made of paper). He'd heard stories about random street gangs and a totalitarian police force not unlike that of Hyperion's forces rumbling about - all the more reason to keep armed and keep at the ready.

Axton didn't doubt someone would try to kill him. It had happened before. It would definitely happen again. He expected it to happen before he got back to the Freakalair.

But everything on Pandora that tried to kill him was in the hereafter. And nothing here was going to put the Commando down.

Nothing.

Momiji - Flying across the skyline

After being cooped up in the cockpit all yesterday, Momiji was having a lot of fun flying through the air by her own machine. And her new paper form did not come without benefits. She could kick off from one roof, and float through the air to the next with minimal effort. It was really fun, and she got to see a lot of the city. After a long time of jumping, Momiji noticed another papery person on the roofs and recognized her as Shampoo, who she'd tied with in the archery-competition. Happy to have found a familiar face, Momiji floated over to Shampoo.

"Hello!"