[X]: Mama Maria's Pizza
Samus
"Pizza of course!" You still hadn't tired of the pies so far and you weren't feeling too adventurous when it came to what you wanted to eat today. Besides, this was probably going to be a bit different from what you've had before. Different place, different food. So much fun to be had! Elerya looked to the others and nodded before gesturing for you all to follow her, the procession accompanying her to a place of brick within the expanses of the shopping centre. Every little sight and detail catching your eyes for at least a moment.
Flashy, glitzy stores and monuments to capitalist consumerism in every direction. Nothing quite as intrusive as the holo-ads in the Federation but definitely plenty of visual stimulus overload to be had in various directions if you weren't careful. But well, it was interesting to say the least. Trying to make sense of what you were seeing. Game stores, cafes, little restaurants catering to various specific tastes. Though a lot of them seemed to be redundant. You counted no less than six different establishments all offering, as far as you could tell; largely the same sort of Sushi that were separate for reasons that were a mystery to you. People of this time sure were weird.
Old Bird probably would have...hrm....
...
Three years ago
Shortly before you had turned eleven, you were trying to prepare the cake for yourself, face sticky with dough and icing as you couldn't help but enjoy the sweet flavours on your face and tongue while the somewhat owl like head of Old Bird turned his massive red eyes towards you, a hand petting your hair as you were busily mixing up some cake batter with the chocolate that Old Bird had conjured for you, pausing to wipe the corners of your mouth with a finger to reach for the chocolate mix and then sucking on your sweet encrusted finger with a thoroughly pleased expression.
You had looked at the various bars of chocolate that he had procured for you, but you, for the life of you, couldn't figure out why they put so much effort into giving them all distinct packaging when they didn't really taste that different and for the most part weren't really distinguishable. Some of them had numerical values attached to them that you hadn't really sussed the meaning of out yet besides that they asked for some Iskarit, which was something called "currency" that people had to have to get this stuff for some reason when it wasn't very hard to make. But on the varieties, you thought a bit as you mixed in two more squares, one from the "Wakori" bar, one from "Estikal", not really caring about any sense of brand purity as you tossed the two in after having determined that their flavours would be compatible.
"Papa, why are there so many kinds of chocolate?" You asked as you applied some heat to the bowl to help melt the squares into the mixture, adding just a bit more of the sponge mix into the concoction and humming mostly to yourself to the tune of some jaunty chiptune music whose little pops and warbles sounded so rich to your ultrasensitive hearing. Your body swaying a bit in tune with the beat and your voice murmuring out lyrics you had formed in your head to go with the melody. After all, Papa always said you had the singing voice of a goddess and well...it was just fun! A charming puzzle to try and find words that fit with the energy and the melodic structure of a song by ear.
Old Bird didn't try to interrupt you, Re-Sekh knowing full well that you sometimes just liked to lose yourself to the music for a bit some times. He of course, still spoke; "In the cultures of the cosmos exists a race among many to try and accumulate the most power possible. Counted by their control over assets and the size of their digital hoards. It is a practice that in time, will need to be done away with as it inevitably seeks to drive people apart to maximise this accumulation. But for those who are at the top, there is a great deal of power to cling to." He explained with the utmost patience, you had heard a variant of this explanation before when he explained the concept of money to you. It didn't make much sense to you then since it seemed like everything was produced in enough quantities for people to just get what they need, but a lot of things about the world beyond didn't make sens.e
"But you didn't answer my question papa."
"Patience Aira." He said, referring to you by your Chozo name as he often did when he was teaching you. You gave him a nodded while you returned to the song you were making in your head, pouring out the mix once you deemed it to be ready into a few containers. Certainly, it was far less efficient than just using a fabricator or having a Chozo create it from nothing, but it was really fun! You couldn't wait to watch the cake start to rise to life once you put it into the oven, and the idea of eating something made with your own hands just made you feel so warm and fuzzy inside.
"Many of those who seek such things organise themselves into groups to better concentrate their accumulation of power. Often called companies; they soon turn into machines that exist solely to grow and consume more for themselves, operating by processes often out of the control of any one person. To draw in those who offer them their time, take the product of their time, and then pay them a portion of what their production sells for." He said as you added a few finishing touches to the cake mixture before slowly setting it into an oven, humming as you wiped your face and nodding a bit at his words.
"But as these companies usually concentrate their wealth into only select groups, others who wish to also accrue this power will set up their own. Fighting for the right to sell off what the people working beneath them labour for. They will tell you this is as it should be, but remember that much of the supposed choice offered is illusory." He would go on, before carrying on with a more intricate explanation of the theory involved, responding to every question you asked with the patience you had come to associate with him; only stopping when the cake you had made was ready, and you reached into the oven with bare hands and pulled out the hot metal with little concern for the temperature. No oven that baked anything human edible was hot enough to be any concern for you.
At last Old Bird's explanations ceased as you placed your icing and decorations, and the feast had at the table was something you remembered as warm, pleasant, and joyous. All save for Mother Brain whose Oculari drones observed the affair with the cold, measured disdain you had come to associate with her. Her drone staring intensely at you as if to deliberately make you feel as uncomfortable as possible before looking towards the sugary confections you had created for everyone and then back to you.
"-What a waste.-" Her psychic voice said, simply vibrating the air molecules through telekinesis to produce a voice like a stern and cold mother that prompted you to stick your tongue out at her and blow a raspberry. Screw her, this was fun, why not do it?
...
You realised you had zoned out for a few seconds when you were tapped on the shoulder and saw that you were standing in front of the entrance to the Pizzeria The logo showing a surprisingly young looking woman with glasses in front of the flag of Italy, stylised in a cartoony way as she held out a Pizza pan. There sure were a lot of Italians in this place. Many even speaking in the old country's language while plenty of conversations went on in French, Afghan, Yoruba, or Hmong Daw and some languages never native to Earth at any point.
Such a diverse place! Fascinating. The interior was warmly decorated and lit, made to resemble an actual Italian restaurant without going too hard on the national kitsch to avoid feeling like a stereotype. It almost felt like somebody's home really. The chairs being more the sort you'd find in a house than in a professional eatery, and you caught a glimpse of a woman who resembled the figure on the logo quite closely. A woman you figured for being maybe in her late 20s at most; speaking to a few staff and then patting a small child on her head. Once again, you sensed the presence of something a bit more than standard human.
This was the city of Heroes after all. Lots of people had superpowers, though you weren't sure if she just used hers for civilian life or if she had some form of alter ego to go out and fight crime. Or maybe commit it, you'd need to dig in more to know where she fit on the local "Hero, Vigilante, Neutral, Rogue, Villain" scale that they used to categorise where a metahuman stood compared to society's expectations. perhaps it didn't really matter at all, but the six of you were soon seated by someone you figured was the owner's younger brother based on his resemblance to her ; similar overall face constructions that gave the dark haired lad a soft, pleasant countenance.
"Bonjurno!" You said to try and impress him with the Italian you had downloaded into your memory, getting a raised eyebrow before you introduced yourself and your friends; concluding with leaning your head on Arne's shoulder while maintaining a wide, cheery grin all the while.
He laughed and replied in surprise, noting that despite your Irish accent; you spoke the old country's language nearly flawlessly. Just a bit, overly formally really. Arne spoke up himself, saying they weren't native speakers; with the boy making a quick, friendly remark asking about how the weather was in Oslo. You weren't sure why people kept on assuming the two of you were from Europe, but it at least helped to guise some of your unfamiliarities with how things worked.
He gestured you over to a free booth where the six of you found yourselves sitting down in short order. Arne between you and Vista; Chris across from Vista, Alyrsero across from Arne, Elerya across from yourself. Menus were offered, and your eyes tried to scan for anything that didn't contain actual meat or animal product.
"We should probably get three." Elerya said, swinging her legs a bit beneath the table and occasionally bumping into your shins while Arne let you cozy up into his arms, your own legs poking back at her or tapping at Alyrsero's foot to get the Eldar to look up towards you with quirked brows. You sniggered at him while while gave a small smirk towards you and Arne, having a moment to look over Elerya who pointedly allowed him a chance to stare down at her relatively lower cut shirt; his cheeks going red and then going redder when Arne gave a coy look towards him, feeling Vista briefly lay her hands atop his own and getting a glance from him and a nod. You waved at Chris when you caught him staring at you for a bit; his expression turning bashful as he looked away and chuckled nervously before looking through the menu.
Vista and Chris ordered Barbecue Chicken and Bacon Pizza, Alyrsero and Elerya would be sharing a garlic and basil margherita at her recommendation; you and Arne would be trying a spicy salsa sauce with chili and bell peppers; getting a brief eyebrow raise from the others.
"Never figured you for a spice addict." Elerya said with curiosity.
"Well, it doesn't really cause a painful burn for me. But the heat adds a bit of interesting zest to it I'd say!" You responded. Capsaicin and Piperine didn't really have the same effect on you that they did with others. It was never something you couldn't handle, but you could always tell the intended flavour.
When the drinks arrived, you first contented yourself with blowing bubbles into the root beer and making a silly face as you did, trying to see who you could get to laugh. Arne chuckled, elerya giggled, Chris and Vista outright laughed, and Alyrsero managed to stop himself with a little wavering smirk before he looked away and covered his mouth with his hand.
"You're ridiculous you know?" Elerya said with a coy smirk.
"I've been called silly by quite a lot of people!" You beamed.
"Even him sometimes!" You thumbed to Arne who was in the midst of passing a slate over to Alyrsero for the Aeldari boy to look over before he froze and looked at your gesture and then nodding.
"Oh well...you are...honestly." He said with a little laugh.
"Well, sometimes silly is fun. At least, in the right time and place." Vista nodded. "As long as you don't get too caught up on it while on duty." She said with a sage nod.
Chris though seemed to have an eye, taking two straws and sticking them onto his upper incisors and making his best impression of a Walrus, out loud laughter coming from you and the rest of the table.
"Man...I haven't been this excited for more people to come over from a reality than this...ever...you guys are great!" Elerya said, cheery and leaning in to give you a closer look at her neckline as your eyes briefly wandered before focusing back up on her and her cat ear headphones while she gave you a daring look.
"Tell you what miss knight. I'm down for more group date like this...if can keep the rest of the evening interesting." She said with eyebrows going up and down quite rapidly, an elbow on the table and her chin in her hands while you slowly sucked down soda.
"Mmmh...define evening?" You asked while Arne looked over some of Alyrsero's writing and some drawings Vista had made; Chris passing you some notes and sketches he had drawn up; briefly taking your attention before you gave Chris the thumbs up in return, an eager look on his face.
"Oh like...the rest of dinner and the movie." She said, shrugging her shoulders before the smell of food made your head turn to the side as the pizza arrived. Your hands rubbing together with gleeful anticipation as the six of you started to dig in in short order; letting the aroma of something hot and spicy fill your nose with that slight zesty kick and eyeing the careful arrangement of toppings on the angry red sauce with bits of bell pepper and chili spread across the vegan cheese substitute. It didn't take too long for the Pizza to start going away; nor the deserts that came afterwards. But despite quaffing down four slices, your stomach hardly shifted at all as your body converted the mass into stores of energy for use later.
The Ice Cream was great of course, Chocolate just like how you liked it, and the natter of the conversation helped to tick down the minutes before you all had to get up and go; everyone paying for themselves; your eyes briefly catching onto the purse she procured from an over the shoulder hand bag before she waved goodbye.
"So what's the movie about?" Chris asked.
"Uh, Praetorian War Comedy." She said.
"Twin-Linked." She said, looking at her phone briefly before shrugging. "I like to go into movies blind. That way any opinion I make is just my own." She said before procuring the tickets acquired for the film from her purse, som popcorn and drinks also being acquired after everyone who needed to use the bathroom had gone. Your body didn't really produce waste so neither yourself nor Arne had to head off, but Alyrsero seemed to be almost haunted by what he saw, muttering about "abhorrent plumbing inefficiencies" to himself while rubbing at his shoulders, a look of sympathy from Arne and Elerya briefly getting him to perk up.
...
The film had an awfully long series of preceding advertisements in front of the main feature, a large number of them being meant for movies to be coming out in the near future. The one featuring some man with a closely cut set of frizzy hair named "Adam Sandler" seemed to be quite possibly the most aggressively unfunny thing you ever saw as you internally revolted at the prospect of seeing the man pretend to be a superhero going to a court trial for a bogus sexual harassment suit. Just the very premise of the film made something do a loop de loop in your stomach while Arne made the most intense frown you've seen out of him these past few days.
"...Wow he's still awful." Chris said with a look approximating the one you'd imagine he'd give to finding some kind of parasite crawling on his face.
"Isha grant me the gift of unsight." Alyrsero sneered.
...
The movie started with an introduction to the main character, the superheroine Major Situation; and to her Praetorian Counterpart; General Catastrophe. Which seemed slightly on the nose but these sorts of cultures tended to breed all sorts of wacky names. Both tall, strong, fit blond women in the prime of their lives; Situation wearing her hair free and catastrophe having it part into two portions behind her. While Situation saved a school bus full of children only to respond to a kid complimenting her backside with a middle finger; Catastrophe responded to a Praetorian Resistance fighter telling her to choke him harder mommy by snapping his neck on the spot.
"He is older than she is..how could she be his mother?" Alyrsero said, Vista and Chris clearly somewhat disturbed but not entirely getting it while Elerya laughed out loud and whispered the answer into Alyrsero's ear, followed by you and Arne.
Alyrsero's face went through several expressions that were all some variant of "mortified" before he recoiled and babbled out "disgusting!" in horror while you mostly looked confused and Arne just blinked a few times.
...
"Emperor Cole demands that this world be taken, for the glory of the Empire. The Primals will need to learn that their proper place is beneath our heel until they have been taught how to walk with backs ramrod straight and souls hardened into steel!" Catastrophe shouted before legions of power armoured troopers standing alongside robots, psychics, and an array of Power Division metatroopers.
"...Yeah I've got something straight and hard as steel at the thought of being under somebody's heel alright." One soldier said before Catastrophe threw the man out of camera shot, his screams fading into the distance as she looked around.
"Anyone else have clever comments?"
"It doesn't seem likely that this army could be that organised if their commanders so casually execute their own soldiers." You said before Elerya rolled her eyes.
"Samus. Sammy, it's exaggerated for comedy." She said, patting you on the head and making you purr just a b it.
...
"What's the problem now? Shivans?" Situation asked.
"No."
"Rikti?"
"No."
"Nazis?"
"No."
"Imperial Japanese?"
"No."
"Aliens?"
"No."
"Time-travellers?"
"No."
"Demons?"
"No."
"Time travelling alien nazis summoning imperial Japanese demons?"
"No...that was last week anyway."
"Okay what is it?!"
"Well, Praetorians with your evil twin. Lady who seems to think indecency laws are a polite suggestion over there."
"What do y-....what the fuck am I wearing?!"
Okay that did get you to laugh.
...
"The great Emperor Cole sends you this gift of order, security, and liberty from your wants and needs when all will be made right by his mighty hand! Submit to Praetoria and you might spare yourselves the cost of further bat-" Catastrophe stopped as people seemed to mostly shrug, walk away or boo at her.
"How dare you!?"
"Get a better script, heard this spiel the last hundred times from you mirror dimension wierdos."
The eye beams that shot from her head vaporised half the crowd and started an immediate mass panic to get away from her.
"Fucking...hate....aaaaaaauauuugggggghhh!" She snarled before throwing off her mask and stomping on it in frustration.
This seemed kind of...silly, hokey, over the top. Surely no real army could be like that?
...
The Film's final battle seemed to be almost like a checklist of things that had to happen in spectacular sensory extravaganzas. Explosions, speeches, mockeries made of speeches, banter of varying grades of wit, and high stakes fist fighting as the two fought over who the real Mercy Wane was.
On the other hand, you kind of lived that life pretty constantly, so it was hard to impress you with just a visualisation of high impact action. And a lot of the humour relied on references you didn't understand even a little.
"Arne, think we should try looking through more of the local movies?" You asked him as he leaned towards you and shrugged.
"Might help with understanding the local culture I guess..." He shrugged.
...
The six of you walked out of the theatre, Vista stretching exaggeratedly once she stepped out and rolling her shoulders.
"It was...eh." She remarked, getting some nods of agreement.
"I thought it was dreadful." Alyrsero sighed.
"Could have been better honestly, made me a bit uncomfortable here and there." Chris added as your eyes briefly looked at someone you caught staring at you a bit overly long without blinking. His movements just slightly stiffer than they should be before he ducked his head down back onto a phone without proper finger prints left behind; too clean and devoid of the proper oils. It seemed he was looking around at everyone occasionally, and you frowned noticeably before you boarded the metro out of the shopping centre, looking at the night sky above while the monorail ferried you back to steel canyon at high speeds.
Returning to the starsetter base; you gave and received some kisses from Chris, Elerya, and Alyrsero as well as a somewhat dreamy smile from Vista before she got a little smooch from Arne who passed out his own to Alyrsero and Elerya who both seemed quite pleased with the turn of events. Maybe you'd give them more in the future, but you were left with a warm, deeply satisfied feeling, humming a little tune as you held Arne's hand and went to the bedroom the two of you had asked to be assigned to you to get a bit of privacy after a day spent socialising so much.
After showering off, getting comfortable and changing into pyjamas, you crawled into bed by his side as he laid his head on the pillow; looking up at the ceiling as the lights turned off.
"Good night Arne." You whispered to him.
"Good night Samus." He said back to you as he let out a content sigh and held you tight to him before curling his eyes shut.
Interlude Choices (Pick up to Six and label them "[x]: Request Package (whatever)"):
[]: Samus' Dreams
[]: Arne's Dreams
[]: The hunt is on (Sevrin and Agafya trace Arne and Samus' path to Earth Bet, the Metroid part of the crossover is growing more active)
[]: Bureaucrat vs Bureaucrat (Piggot manages to snag a meeting with the Lady Grey; Commander in Chief of the United Nations Vanguard, trying to get a gauge of Primal Earth's primary line of defence.)
[]: Jormungandr (Godzilla stirs in response to unwelcome activity on his homeworld)
[]: Leviathan (Leviathan attacks a Primal Earth city as the Endbringers seek to gauge the potential threat that this realm poses to them)
[]: The Spider and the Brain (Arachnos fights with Epsilon while scouting out Earth Bet for potential recruits into its efforts to expand)
[]: On the Prowl (Bumblebee gets some leads on the Malware infecting virtually all human systems)
[]: You Owe Me (Taylor bails the Undersiders out of a hairy situation when they get in over their heads)
[]: Hell Hath no Fury (The Demon summoning ghost-mages of the Circle of Thorns from the lost civilisation of Oranbega war against another hellish force and make further bargains with the Great King of All Demons)
[]: Bloody Magpies!: (Blood Ravens Astartes arrive via a Strike Cruiser picket fleet and its escorts getting lost through a Wormhole and decide to explore an Earth and realise they're on an alternate version of Terra; long ago lost to Ghazghkull)
[]: There are now Strings on You: (The Machine Army discovers something glorious)
[]: A word please: (Eldrad and the first spawning Slann; Bilious; strike an accord with the representatives of the Metroid Progenitors)
[]: War of Monsters (Guilliman's offensives against the Nebulons are complicated by Stellaris originating shenanigans)
[]: The Chainmakers (The Battalion conquers another civilisation)
[]: The Fallen Tyrant (Former Emperor Cole; once lord of Praetorian Earth, is interviewed by a strange woman while in prison at the Hague.)
[]: Returned investment (The makers of the original ring station that brought Samus and Arne here decide to check on how their experiment progresses)
[]: World Shredder (Ridley is not as dead as Samus would like to hope after her father's sacrifice.)
