[LN] Colonel Sanders in the house

[matchmadeinhell]

The thing with superspeed and cooking was that it was great for food prep but it still took just as long for things to cook as they always did. Kon had tried heatvision in the past, to speed things along, but that'd always had disastrous results. Using it to warm food, though, that worked and that was how he reheated the first batch of fried chicken he'd made after he finished the last batch. He also used it to reheat the gravy.

It was a proper gravy, a creamy sawmill gravy. He was crazy proud of his gravy. He'd never been able to replicate Ma's cooking 100% but he sure came close with the gravy.

The lounge area had lots of comfy chairs and was an ideal place for people to relax and hang out while eating fried chicken so he set up shop near all the comfy couches, putting down plate after plate of fried chicken and biscuits. The biscuits had been made in a massive batch and had been left warming in the oven so they nice and warm and flaky.

He danced around as he finished cooking his massive chicken dinner to one of those ipod stereos. He had an ipod full of girly pop that he'd nicked from the lab. At first he thought it was maybe Honey Lemon's but when he saw that the playlist names had somehow been programmed in Interlac, he figured out it was Lyle or Brainy's. In the past, their inclination towards girly pop music was something he might have ribbed them over but now? Now he danced around and sang to Katy Perry's "Roar" like nobody's business.

Between the music and the smell of delicious fried chicken and biscuits, most of the myths at the Pole would come see what the fuss was about but in case some of them didn't, Kon had made a whole tray of biscuits as a treat for the elves and he used them as a preemptive reward for getting the others.

"Go, my minions!" he cried out, tossing biscuits to them. "Go and get the others so they may feast!"

Out of gratitude for the delicious biscuits, they saluted him and spread out to bring everyone's attention to the glorious spread. Anyone that came to see what the fuss was about would be treated to an early dinner of delicious fried chicken, biscuits and gravy, and for the vegetarians among them (like Lyle and Brainy), grits, collard greens, black-eyed peas, and mashed potatoes.

Yes, he'd gone all out. It was almost Easter and that meant a few people would be having an Easter here instead of with their families, right? So it'd be a good one. He also figured doing it before Easter was a good idea in case Bunny needed their help or something on actual Easter Day.

When people started showing up, they were treated to the sight of a rather spectacular feast and the sight of Kon dancing around between the lounge and the kitchen as he finished making one last boatload of gravy and cleaned up. He was wearing an apron that said 'Kiss my grits!'

"Go ahead and tuck in," he said to people as they started showing up. "It's Before-Easter Dinner! And while I can't claim I'm as good a cook as the lady I learned to cook from, who I learned to cook from is a genuine Kansas farmer so it's still finger-lickin' good."

[ooc: Mingle thread! Pop music! People! Chicken! This is a nice little post for all the characters to mingle. Start up a little subthread for your characters and then tag around to other people's! It's set after all the recent intros so all the newer characters can participate and meet everyone.]

Comments

[iamresponding]

"I'm not crazy, what are you - oh! Oh, the talking to myself. No no, that's not what it looks like. I get that from people sometimes, thinking I'm crazy." He pointed to his head. "I've got an organic supercomputer in my head. It has a personality interface that talks back to me. Kind of like a very sarcastic GPS." ||I am way more complex than a GPS.|| "Yeah, says the computer that can't even act as a GPS right now. Hush, lemme talk to the kid." He held out his hand in a placating fashion. "I'm just, uh, I'm having a little trouble right now getting used to the one arm thing," he said, picking the knife off of the floor and setting it on the plate. "And Worldmind's not making it any easier, distracting me with so many questions about Santa." He looked back at Peter, narrowing his eyes slightly. Okay, so he sounded younger, sure, but there was just something about the lilt of his voice, the way he carried himself... "You sure you aren't one of those Slingers, or whatever they call themselves? The ones that copy Spider-Man?"

[morescaredofyou]

"Of course. You have an organic supercomputer. That only you can hear. You couldn't possibly be crazy." And come to think of it, talking back to the crazy guy with such obvious sarcasm probably wasn't the best idea. But seriously, this guy was just asking for it. Especially with that helmet.

"And I have no idea what a Slinger is. Is anything you're talking about even real?" It'd be a big relief if all of this was in this guy's head. Then he wouldn't have to worry so much about maybe having even more clones running about.

[iamresponding]

"They were a group of superheroes that imitated Spider-Man a few years back. My old superhero team beat 'em at basketball once." Which was...a very long story. That wasn't even really about basketball. "Look, I'm telling the truth about Worldmind, I'll show you." He took a yellow cloth out of belt, shook it out, and kthunk it suddenly took the shape of a hard metal helmet, even though it'd been cloth mere moments before. How about that? "Put this on and then you can talk to her."

[morescaredofyou]

Peter looked at the helmet. Then Rich. Then the helmet.

"You know you might willing to be seen in that thing, but some of us half self-respect." And this from the guy who fought crime in his pajamas. "...Although I'll give you that that transforming-cloth stuff is totally cool."

[iamresponding]

"Just put it on. You'll be able to hear her." He added, "And see what I have to put up with all the time." ||Ha ha, like putting up with you is a picnic on Elanis. Giant pain in my nonexistent rear end -|| "Think about it this way, looking unfashionable for a minute is a small price to pay to know you're not cooped up in the frozen north with a total lunatic." He did have a point.

[morescaredofyou]

"Or I could put it on, hear nothing at all, and have solid confirmation that I'm living in the frozen north with a total lunatic," Peter countered. "But fine. I'll put on your stupid helmet. Just doesn't expect me to play along with your insanity if I don't hear anything."

Peter took the helmet and signed. Well, at least he can feel glad that Flash isn't here to see this. He put it on.

"Now what?"

[iamresponding]

Silence for a moment. Just silence. Clearly, he was indeed crazy. "You better not be keeping quiet so he still thinks I really am crazy," Rich said, going back to trying to cut up the chicken. Less violently this time. "That wasn't funny the first time and it never will be." Caught in the act, a woman's laughter suddenly sounded in Peter's ears through the audio feed in the helmet and now Peter could hear every word she said. "It was so funny the first time," she said, making her voice as audible to Peter as it was in Rich's head. "Ko-rel, kid-I-just-met. kid-I-just-met, Ko-rel." "He is telling the truth, kiddo. I'm the personality interface of the Xandarian Worldmind, the central repository of knowledge of the now-extinct world of Xandar. I help guide Nova Prime here while he runs around the galaxy and tries to tick me off by ignoring most of what I say and almost getting himself killed. Constantly." "Yeah, totally leave out the part where I'm helping people. It's all just about ticking you off." "Sometimes it feels that way."

[morescaredofyou]

Peter rolled his eyes. "Sure, sure, the voice in your head is just pretending to now anyth--Jesus!" he jerked back as the voice rang into his ear.

Holy crap. The guy wasn't loopier than a fruit loop.

He didn't think on that too long, because oh man, he was talking to an AI and there were no words for how cool that was. "I...I have no idea what the Xandarian Worldmind is. Oh man. How...how do you work? Who created you? Is the hemlet you? ...wow, if they made it so that that helmet is you, then they were mean.."

[iamresponding]

"The helmet's just providing an audio feed." Rich tapped his head. "She's up here." "It's much more spacious in his head than it would be inside his helmet. I really have room to stretch my legs, so to speak. Completely hollow, you know?" Rich just rolled his eyes. "There used to be a planet called Xandar. A loooong time ago, the Xandarians created an intergalactic police force called the Nova Corps. She's the sentient supercomputer the Xandarians made, an AI that's basically a living repository of all the knowledge they'd collected through their history - and of the personality engrams of every deceased citizen of Xandar and member of the Corps that ever lived."

[morescaredofyou]

"So she's not in helmet, she's in your head? That's...doesn't really sound like an improvement. Extra legroom notwithstanding."

He had to admit too, while he still wasn't sold on this guy...he liked Ko-rel. She could give a good quip, and he always did like someone who could give a good quip.

"So you're like...every person that ever lived on Xandar?" Peter said. "How does that not drive you crazy?"

[iamresponding]

"Hey, the 'super' in supercomputer is there for a reason. But how it works is one personality is dominant and acts as the interface for the end-user, managing all other personality engrams and data more as an archive. And that personality is currently me. I'm actually the second one to manifest; I had to reboot and delete my previous one." "That one kinda did go insane," Rich admitted awkwardly, nibbling on a biscuit. "Wasn't his fault though. He was protecting me from losing it. We fought through a war together and the strain of helping me control the Nova Force that gives me my powers - that used to give the entire Corps their powers - without losing my mind kinda made Worldmind lose his." "Luckily, I was there to pick up the pieces. At least after Nova Prime here saved me from myself." A pause. "He sometimes has his uses." "I can so feel the love."

[morescaredofyou]

"I'm sorry," Peter said. Even if it was an AI, being deleted must be just like dying. "But, um. I guess you're not crazy then. Although you should still stay away from knives. Very far away."

He brought his hand up to his head, hovering around the helmet. "So do I just give this back then?" he said. He'd kinda miss being able to talk to Ko-rel as well, he had to admit. She was definitely cooler than this 'Nova Prime' guy, that's for sure. But he also felt really stupid standing around wearing this helmet, and even if it didn't look like a complete fashion disaster he couldn't wear it forever.

[iamresponding]

"Yeah, I'll take my fashion faux pas back now," he said with good humor, putting the biscuit down and holding out his hand for the helmet. The second Peter got it back into his hand, he shook it and it collapsed like it was fabric so he could tuck it into his belt. "So what's your name, kid? I'm Rich Rider. Or Nova. Doesn't really matter which. In the circles I run in, people don't care much about secret IDs and I guess they don't matter much here when we can google each other."

[morescaredofyou]

...Great, now Peter had to be paranoid about Google as well. He was probably going to need to go and google himself at the nearest opportunity, just so he knew exactly how screwed he was. Although he wasn't really sure that he actually wanted to read about himself. That seemed like a road that could never lead anywhere good.

"I'm Peter," he said. Somehow, after all that talk of people being able to google all your secrets, he wasn't so keen on giving out his full name.

[iamresponding]

He didn't need to. Because the moment that name was paired with that face, a memory called out to him from his past, of a nearly identical face. Peter Parker, the student that had been studying in his uncle's research library the night his uncle had been killed. He'd slugged the guy at first, thinking he was possibly the murderer until the evidence ruled that out. He was nearly identical. Little younger, different hair, and sure, that was some years back, but the guy'd been visible in the years after, enough that Rich could remember his face. A big photographer for the Daily Bugle, the one that always took pictures of Spider-Man. The gears suddenly started turning in his head. Peter Parker, the one that always took pictures of Spider-Man. Peter here who had dodged like Spider-Man could, so much that Rich's first instinct had been to ask if he was one of the Slingers. Peter Parker, who'd never been in the same room as Spider-Man when they were working out who had killed his uncle. He'd ruled both Peter and Spidey out as the murderer when they appeared in the same room as the murderer, but never had they been in the same room with each other. And his uncle's house was a looong way from Spidey's usual stomping grounds, something he didn't know at the time, but learned later. I. Am. An idiot. A world-class idiot. I'm an idiot. ||I could've told you that, but what for?|| "You got superheroes in your world?" Rich asked. "You kinda didn't blink when you saw me. Other than the talking to myself thing, at least. Which is kinda understandable." He was very good at playing it casual, nailed the tone of voice perfectly. He was a cop, it was part of the job. Sometimes you had to talk to people like you were making normal conversation to find things out. "And you recognized Spider-Man's name but not the Slingers. Although, to be fair, they were kinda even more no-name than the New Warriors were, but I'm wondering if we're from the same dimension or a similar one or something. You got the Avengers where you're from?" He was just gonna lead things away from Spider-Man for a little bit.

[morescaredofyou]

"Uh, yeah. Kinda weird to think that there are worlds without superheroes, really," Peter admitted, without realising at all that he had, in fact, already been made. "We've got the Fantastic Four, the X-Men...um, we don't have the Avengers but we do have the Ultimates? But I don't know any New Warriors."

"This multiple-universe thing is weird. You know that there's a guy here who says his universe like, merged with one like...uh...ours?" (Weird to say ours about someone who kept referencing things he'd never heard of.) "He says they've got superheroes from our universe, and superheroes from the other one as well."

[iamresponding]

"Wow, that is weird. I mean, even for worlds like ours." He paused to think about it. "Although, not the weirdest parallel universe stuff I've seen." He'd had to bury an alternate version of his brother on the moon, after all. And had pretty much died in a Lovecraftian nightmare version of his own universe before somehow getting pulled into this one. "I wonder if you're from the same world as me or not. You could be from a close alternate - I've seen it before and I've never heard of the Ultimates, although we do have the Fantastic Four and the X-Men. I'm pretty close with the Fantastic Four, actually." A pause. "Or at least I was until recently. Although my beef's more with Dr. Richards than Mrs. Richards, the Hothead, or the Thing." They'd always been good to him, the Fantastic Four. Quite a few times that he'd been trouble or needed help with his powers. At least, until Reed freakin' Richards ignored his summons to get all the heroes into space to stop the Annihilation Wave and chalked it up to a Kree-Skrull border skirmish. For that? He was dead to him. "What year is it there? Did you have the incident at Stamford? The Superhero Registration Act?" He wanted to narrow this thing down.

[morescaredofyou]

"It's the year 2000. I have no idea what happened at Stamford. And what's the Superhero Registration Act?" That he didn't like the sound of. Nick Fury already knew, like, everything about him. Did he really need to get...registered for whatever this was as well?

Whatever it was, he hoped it definitely was an alternate universe thing - and only an alternate universe thing.

[iamresponding]

"I don't think it's something your world'll have to worry about if I'm right. See, 'cause we don't have a team called the Ultimates, we have the Avengers. They're the big leaguers. The A-listers. They started out with Thor, Ant-Man, The Wasp, and Iron Man. They came together to try to stop the Hulk." He stacked two more biscuits on his plate and heaped on a bit more mashed potatoes as well. Nothing to see here. Just a big man with a big appetite. "Are your Ultimates anything like that? I wonder if that's your world's answer to the Avengers."

[morescaredofyou]

Judging by Peter's expression...Rich's claim that this meant the Superhero Registration Act couldn't happen wasn't reassuring. After all...

"The Ultimates are Captain America, Giant-Man and the Wasp, Iron Man, and Thor," Peter said flatly. "They came together to stop the Hulk. They are, as you said, the A-league."

[iamresponding]

"Okay, that's different. See, Cap was still a Capsicle when the Avengers formed - they were the ones that found him and got him unfrozen. I wonder if that's one of the big changes that made it a different timeline." He picked up a biscuit seemingly to eat it, but kept gesturing with it as he spoke instead. "So we seem to be from similar worlds but mine's got a few things that are different and I'm from farther ahead in the future. I wonder if you guys are going to wind up having to deal with -" And just like that, mid-sentence, he threw the biscuit at Peter, hard, and very, very fast. His hand moved so fast it blurred and the other two biscuits from his plate followed right after.

[morescaredofyou]

If he had time to think about it, it was possible for Peter to choose not to react to his spider sense. It was tricky, to ignore all of the instincts telling him to move, but it was possible.

But he needed at least some time - and with the speed Nova was throwing at, time wasn't something he had. His spider sense blared, and his reactions instantly kicked in, all before Peter could even start to think about not reacting.

He twisted to the side, narrowly avoiding the first biscuit. But then he was in the way of the second and the third, so he somersaulted backwards, sailing right over them before landing on the ground again in that very familiar crouch - the same one that had topped Rich off in the first place.

All of this had happened at inhuman speed. But the real proof was that, fast as Peter was, he wasn't fast enough to dodge the biscuits through speed alone. The only was he could have done it was with the unique ability to instinctively know about danger, just before it happened.

And then Peter's brain caught up with his body, and all of the blood drained from his face.

[iamresponding]

"Son of a bitch." Even though he was cursing, something he didn't actually do often, he didn't sound angry. In fact, he was laughing. He pointed at him. "Parker. Peter Parker. I recognized your face. You look just like my version did when I first met him a few years back. He was only a few years older than you. Little bit less of a baby face when I met him but nearly identical." He threw his hand up in the air and then bashed himself in the head. "How did I not figure it out? How?!" ||Rich, what are you carrying on about?|| "Every time Parker ran out of the room, Spidey ran in to help me. They were never in the same room at the same time. Not once and that was miles outside Spidey's usual stomping grounds. I was so focused on the murder I never asked myself what he was doing that far outside the city in the first place."

[morescaredofyou]

Peter scrambled to his feet - bad enough that this guy had already figured out who he was (crap crap crap), but if he kept this up, everyone else would know too.

"I...I..." he stammered. Everything he had been afraid of happening had just happened, and what was he even supposed to say? But soon he started feeling not just like the rug was pulled out from underneath him. He started feeling just a little bit angry, too.

"It's supposed to be a secret identity! Secret! Not...information freely available on google!" he exploded. "It's bad enough that too many people back home already know who I am! It is too much to ask for people in completely different universes to not know that I'm Spider-man?!"

[iamresponding]

For a moment Rich considered picking the biscuits up off the floor but the elves got to them first. "Hey, hey, I know it's pretty freaky but it was gonna happen at some point. This parallel universe stuff can be a pain like that." It was kind of a jerk move, he had to admit, but what was the point of hiding it? Agonizing over it? There really was nothing they could do here and it would've come out eventually. "Look, all it would've taken was me seeing you in one fight and I would've figured out you were a version of him - and given how obvious he was, your secret ID wouldn't have taken that long after. I've fought side by side with my Spider-Man often enough. You move exactly the way he does and it's pretty distinctive." Nova sat down in a chair and nudged another one across from him with his foot. "C'mon, have a seat, we'll talk about it. Mostly I wanted to be sure you were you because me and my Spider-Man go way back." He added, "And with this world knowing, think about it this way: that means your story means something to the people here. They look up to you." He looked over at him, his eyes friendly. "Maybe almost as much as I look up to the Spidey I know." It wasn't malicious, what he just did. Mostly, it'd just been him wanting to be sure. Because it was reassuring that he was there, even if he was younger. And because he was younger, that meant maybe Nova could reassure him if he needed it, too.