Party Down

[legionnpcs]

Who| Everyone!
What| A party
Where| In the Sim Rooms
When| After "Whistling in the Dark"
Warnings/Notes| N/A

Avoiding the destruction of Legion World was more than enough reason to throw a party, especially since its destruction could've meant the Lunar Debris Field might have fallen out of its orbit onto Earth. After Legion World's repairs were underway and the ship was mostly safe again, the old-timer Legionnaires decided to throw a little party in celebration of the newbies getting through their first trial by fire.

Even though duty might call them away, they all figured on being able to spend at least a little time hanging out with the rookies.

One of the Sim Rooms proved itself to be the best place to have a party, since the inside could be made as big as they needed it to be. In one section they had a massive setup for laser tag, and in another area there were games and food and couches in a massive square.

Times like these weren't going to be easy to come by, if the kind of crisis the Lux had caused was any indication, so it was time to enjoy their free time while they had it.

Comments

[enthraller]

While Brainy was busy snarking, Saralegui took a moment to look over the array of strange and admittedly brightly-colored drinks available. An uncertain look crossed his face only briefly before he swallowed that uncertainty down and snagged something purple. Never let it be said that he isn't open to trying new things.

"What kind of projects?" he asked, graciously ignoring all the sass that had accompanied that bit of information. He sat back with his drink, crossing his legs in a mirror of Brainiac's and peering at the green boy curiously.

(If there was one thing Saralegui was good at, it was people. And if there's anything that gets people talking, it's things they're personally invested in.)

[googledox]

"That depends on which of the thirty-fix projects you're referring to," said Brainy archly. "I have quite a few running, meant to perform a wide variety of tasks."

He was the problem solver and that meant his work had a wide variety of purposes for the team.

"That's my function on the team. To solve a multitude of problems with technological solutions."

[enthraller]

The drink, as it turned out, wasn't terrible. Bubbly, and with a taste he didn't recognize at all. But not bad.

"Whichever one you like best, then," Saralegui said flippantly, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

[googledox]

"I haven't had time to work on one of my own projects in over a year," said Brainiac. "My work isn't for my own enjoyment, it's all for the betterment of the team and to find away to return you displacees home."

Which said more about him than he realized. He spent most of his days at work and all that time was dedicated to projects that were for the benefit of others.

He also had to practically be dragged out to social gatherings.

[enthraller]

Perhaps that selflessness should have awed Saralegui. But it also served to just shut down his attempts at conversation, so the young king finally just sighed and dropped his head against the back of the couch.

"You really are terrible at this," he said dryly, all that easy charm vanished from his voice. "I'm just trying to talk to you. Why must you make it such a struggle?"

[googledox]

"What other information can I offer you besides the truth?" he huffed. "I have no for time personal hobbies and haven't had time for even my own personal projects in ages."

His expression was sour.

"This is precisely why I despise it when my friends pressure me into these...gatherings with other people. They at least know better than to ask about what I've been doing."

He wasn't used to dealing with many people outside his own little circle.

"Why don't you talk about yourself instead? I know people usually enjoy that. Droning on about themselves. I'm at least somewhat adept in pretending to listen."

[enthraller]

"Funny, that's what I was trying to get you to do." People do usually enjoy talking about themselves. "Look how well that worked out."

Saralegui frowned, peering at Brainy out of the corner of his eye and idly rotating his cup in his hand. "And I have a bit too much pride to just babble at someone who doesn't care."

[googledox]

Brainy could almost hear Lyle or Ayla or...well, most of his friends chiding him for his terrible social skills and being so cold to one of these strangers -- so far from home.

"When I say 'pretending to listen' I am perhaps being slightly more...asocial than I should be and exaggerating my lack of interest. Slightly."

He looked at his drink and his expression softened slightly. It was easier to be sincere when he wasn't making eye contact.

"I do want to at least try to get to know the rest of you. But I despise small talk -- and it's not the most appealing idea to befriend you all only to send you away to your home dimensions when I resolve the issue that brought you here. I've already --"

He stopped. Just stopped.

Because he was going to say that he'd already lost too many friends and that was far too personal. Perhaps the alcohol had loosened his tongue a little too much. He had a tremendously high tolerance due to his high Coluan metabolism but those first moments after he first started drinking usually brought on a dull buzz even if it went away quickly.

He never really got used to it, largely because he partook only rarely.

[enthraller]

Well, look at that. The green guy had emotions beyond "vaguely annoyed".

Saralegui didn't lift his head or stop toying with his cup. But he eyed Brainy out of the corner of his eye, carefully observant. He was long accustomed to picking apart others' acts by now, watching for any sign of falsehoods or deception and neatly-sidestepping the same sort of traps he would lay for others himself. Here, however, he couldn't find any sign of insincerity.

"...A trade, then," he said after a moment with all a diplomat's cool compromise. "I'll answer a question for every question you answer. It can't be called 'small talk' if you're just following the rules, hm?"

[googledox]

"An interesting proposition," Brainy mused, latching onto it so he could change the subject. "And one that's less bothersome than generic small talk. I accept. However, I think we should both reserve the right to pass on certain subjects."

There, now the others could no longer say he wasn't socializing. He was just doing it in a much less annoying way.

He took a sip of his drink and said, "You may start."

[enthraller]

"Fine." He kept a straight face for the most part, but he couldn't help sounding just a little bit pleased with himself. Saralegui paused a moment, pensively staring at the surface of his odd purple drink while he picked somewhere to begin.

"How does someone so antisocial end up on a team like this?"

[googledox]

"After the team was initially formed as a volunteer enterprise, the United Planets Council interfered -- as they so often do -- and instituted a draft. I was my planet's chosen candidate."

He was forced.

"We were able to to eventually get the draft rescinded but by then I'd grown accustomed to my lab in Legion headquarters."

It wasn't friendship that that'd made him stay. At least not at first. Mostly, he just liked having the freedom to do his own lab work in between his Legion duties.

His turn.

"What is the most advanced technology in your world? That you can think of."

He was curious about Saralegui himself, of course. Somewhat. But he was also curious about where he'd come from, what kind of world it was.

[enthraller]

Unsurprising, that it required force or that a lab was the biggest reason to stay. But politely, Saralegui gave no voice to those thoughts. And politeness aside, Brainy would have probably called them redundant anyway.

The mention of technology, however, only brought to mind the conversation about horses and cars he'd had with that irritating speedster man, and Saralegui frowned at his drink before glancing away towards the rest of the part with apparent disinterest.

"I already know my world is somewhat behind the rest of yours as far as all that goes." A disclaimer of sorts, and he sipped at his drink. "During my father's rule, a man in my country came up with a method of keeping the entire palace warm using the heat of the hot springs it was built over."

There was that woman in the demon kingdom who'd built herself a reputation as an inventor, but the stories Saralegui had heard seemed too ridiculous to be believed. And the only glimpse he'd gotten at her work while visiting Blood Pledge Castle had been an explosion out her window while he was getting a tour of the castle grounds, so he wasn't inclined to think much of her "inventions".

[googledox]

Don't laugh. Don't laugh. Don't laugh...

It wasn't as if it was Saralegui's fault he was from a hilariously technologically inferior world. And even Coluans had once struggled to develop the basic scientific principle of "fire bad," like all other species.

They'd done it eons before most other species did, naturally, despite not being much older than many other species but they'd done it, too. You know, before they went on to the stars while other species huddled in their caves on distant spheres.

He tried to be gracious and managed it. Just barely.

"Forward-thinking, at least. Until your world discovers self-sustaining fusion and zero point energy power sources, it would be wise to use as many renewable energy sources as possible. Fossil fuels cause so many insidious problems."

Gotta reduce that carbon footprint, Sara.

"Your turn."

[enthraller]

Even at his most gracious, Brainiac still managed to sound just a little patronizing. Saralegui's frown didn't slip as he stared the green boy down, but he answered as dispassionately as possible.

"...I'll keep that in mind for when I return home."

Not that he knew what most of that meant. But he'd rather save those questions for a source that wasn't going to sigh at him for having at ask. A library, maybe.

"Anyway. Do you have any special powers beyond just being smart?" A beat, and he added, "Not that the latter isn't useful, of course, but I wouldn't send a soldier to war just for being clever."

[googledox]

"Forcefield manipulation."

A glow appeared around his body, shimmering back and forth between blue and gold, and he raised a hand and extended the field slightly, creating a simple extension of it.

"It can withstand most sources of concussive force, cutting implements, energy attacks, and even an antimatter explosion. I can extend it around others or around a small location, and can create simple constructs that I can use more offensively."

No one was in front of him, so he demonstrated. A column of the field suddenly jutted forward from his hand, faster than the speed of a striking fist, clearly something that could hit someone else quite hard.

He withdrew it and the field faded.

"It was initially controlled by an external apparatus that I had invented -- a shield belt -- but an encounter with a...somewhat unexplainable cosmic force altered my physiology and internalized my abilities."

Saralegui and the others being pulled in definitely wasn't the first time the Legion had come across the strange and unexplainable.

[enthraller]

"Ah. That seems useful. Both the field itself and the new internalization." Saralegui's eyebrows arched up in something like approval as he sipped at his drink and examined the multicolored glow unashamedly. Not too unlike some of the ways humans could manipulate esoteric magic back home, though certainly more versatile. And... "Pretty."

The best things always were both destructive and lovely.

"It's your turn."

[googledox]

He wasn't expecting "pretty" but quickly recovered.

It took him a moment to think about his next one.

"How can you stand being a politician without despising every facet of your existence and most of the people you have to interact with?"

He'd always wanted to ask one that.

[enthraller]

"I do hate most of the people I have to interact with," Saralegui correctly smoothly, gaze returning to his drink now that the pretty light show was over. "Most people in power are selfish and short-minded. They don't care about anything beyond their own desires and their own lifespans. Am I supposed to cede my own position and let people like that control everything just so I don't have to deal with them?"

And if there was any reason to hate himself, it had nothing to do with his involvement in politics. Or rather, it was more due to a problematic personality, regardless of whether that helped him in the political world. Besides, he was trying to do something good these days. He could at least give himself that much credit.

"Do you just resent whatever politicians were in charge that sent you here in the first place?"

[googledox]

At this question, Brainy's expression changed. It suddenly went very soft -- almost warm. (Yes, it was possible). His answer was possibly an unexpected one.

Because it wasn't dry. It wasn't irritable. It was quietly sincere.

"Sending me to join the Legion is quite possibly the only thing I don't resent them for."

Which was something that implied volumes -- maybe whole libraries.

[enthraller]

"You just resent them for everything else," Saralegui said with a pointed stare. "Like what? I don't doubt this world's politicians are as bad as my own's, but I am curious how these things change in a place where you can travel through an airless void in a metal ship."

It wasn't his turn, but he was never the type to pass up more information.

[googledox]

"I believe it's my turn first."

He wasn't exactly the type to talk about his personal background to just anyone, even though it wasn't exactly something he treated like a deep secret, either. He'd scarcely talked about it with the Legion (other than Lyle. A little bit). But it wasn't because of shame. It was simply because he'd moved past it.

Still, it seemed a prudent question to ask before disclosing more information about himself:

"Why are you so curious about me?"

[enthraller]

"Don't think so highly of yourself. I'm curious about many things."

Information was useful, especially in a world where he knew nothing. Back home, he'd had his whole life to learn everything he could about his world and the major players in it, and he'd built a reliable network to fall back on when coming up against new unknowns. Here, he was starting fresh and it was more than a little irritating.

But all that aside, he just liked to know things.

"In your case, I just don't understand why someone who dislikes people so much is on a team that's apparently all about saving and helping others."

[googledox]

He pursed his lips thoughtfully.

"I'll go back to your previous question. You asked what else I resent my world's politicians for." There were quite a few things he could've resented them for. Like his exile, for instance. But that was a recent development and didn't matter that much when he never wanted to go back anyway. "Brainiac 5 is a title that was given to me by my people when I was born; my given name is actually Querl Dox. The first Brainiac was an infamous interplanetary criminal responsible for atrocities on my own world, Colu, and on many others. Every consecutive Brainiac in my family line was either morally bankrupt or openly villainous and most of them caused catastrophic harm to others."

He tapped his temple.

"My family line is also known for their intellect, which surpasses the highest range possible for normal Coluans -- a mutation caused by augmentations the original Brainiac performed on himself."

It wasn't a title he chose, was the point he was making. It was a legacy he was born into. A very dark one.

"My mother left the day I was born and my legal guardians were two politicians that sought to use my intellect to further their political careers -- largely because Colugov saw the Brainic intellect as an important commodity, something to be used in service of the planetary interest. I was considered something like royalty -- and state property."

That was reason enough to resent them.

"There is the answer to your first question." A pause. "The answer to the other, that you haven't quite phrased as a question: 'what the sprock happened to make you choose this life when you so clearly dislike being around most sentient beings?'"

That really was the other question in play.

"Colugov sent me to join the Legion against my will. Among peers my own age. Who were all exceptional sentient beings that over time showed me kindness and warmth I didn't think sentient beings were capable of. They also showed me the value of such sentiments as compassion and mercy -- important and highly logical externalities that allow for the continued existence of civilized society." He smiled slightly. "So, in answer to your second not-quite question: Because I made friends. Good ones. All of whom had excellent priorities."

[enthraller]

Saralegui was a good listener. Never one to interrupt and get distracted. He listened well and only seemed to grow stiffer as the story went on, jaw a little tight and lips pressed into a thin line.

"...How touching."

He'd meant it to come across dryly, intentionally inconsiderate to distance himself from the whole subject. But it doesn't quite work. Too much of that sounded too familiar, even with all the wild differences born of this crazy space world. His lips pursed into something like a frown and he looked away back to the rest of the party.

"I'm not sure if that counted for my turn or not."