OTA Log

[doubled_speed]

WHO: Tommy Shepherd and Anyone
WHERE: Graq Planet, Agrii Ship
WHAT: Harvesting seeds, capturing animals(?), and trying to learn Science! (TM)
WHEN: During the Return Journey
WARNINGS: None Anticipated?


A. Farming Boy | OTA | Graq Homeworld

Was it strange that he found this world so damn fun? Probably not. The trees were strong, the food was abundant enough that for the first time since coming to their damn level of reality he was full as he needed to be. It was a relief. And the food? Fuck the food was good. Good enough that Tommy had been poking around at the Graq trying to ask questions.

Which was silly. Who needed questions. Tommy just needed the fruits and vegetables. Or at least, the ones he can find that have seeds.

Anyone approaching will find the speedster laying out a variety of fruit on a large piece of stone, considering them before he raises his hands at them.

"You might wanna stand back," he warns, because he's going to try playing with his powers in a whole new way. "These... could explode in a juicy manner. Not sure. Haven't been able to do an explosion since getting here but... well, it's try time."

His hope was that it was just the Agrii ship and planet that fucked with his powers. Then again, if it hadn't... then he had the most awesome idea for trying to get some seeds to long term storage really fast.


B. Bacon Time | OTA | Graq Homeworld, minor Network

Meat. Protein. Fucking GOOD long term food that can be bred and brought up to size with foods that are less desirable to mainly human constitutions? Yeah, Tommy's all on that. Right from the world go on tasting his first side of bacon, he resolves a plan. One that he broadcasts out to the network as a group-text.

Listen. Some of us need meat and protein and all that shit in greater quantities. So I suggest this. A 'hunting' party. We can cure and preserve some of the meat. But I also wanna capture one or two breeding pairs? So we can, like, have more meat in the future? I'm sorry if you're squish and all that, but some of us need this.

Anyway, I'm starting at about noon or whatever noon is here. That's an hour or so. I've put a coordinate point up, and I've woven nets from vines and trip ropes and other stuff. Anyone wanna help?

And at the appointed time, Tommy will be standing at those exact coordinates, with one of those hats like you'd see on an episode of some nature documentary with a wise-cracking Aussie in it. Where he got the hat will have to remain a mystery. Just like why he's doing an Aussie accent. Horribly.

"Well get on their mate, we're huntin' food!"

Horrible


C. Learning Science | OTA | Agrii Ship

The problem with only needing to sleep four hours a day when you're travelling on a ship where the aliens operate on a thirty hour day is... Well, a lot of things. Including keeping oneself entertained when trying not to go crazy from a sense of confinement. Sure, the Agrii ship is a LOT larger than the ships the 'guests' of the Agrii have used, but sooner or later, every space feels confined when he doesn't have a whole planet to explore.

Which had led to the strangest behavior from Tommy Shepherd. All throughout the day the young man can be seen loitering in all sorts of places. He loiters on the bridge, watching the Agrii manage their consoles there. He loiters in the engine room, watching the Agrii and Stark and Tuesti and anyone else who comes in as they look at the new engine core. He crawls through the confined spaces of the Jeffries Tubes and maybe nerds out a little over the idea that he's in a fucking Jeffries Tube because he just happens to be a closet Trekkie and looks at where all of the wires go. He even hangs out in the hangar and watches the people who know how to do it mess with modifying their ships.

Why is he doing it? Well, Calibrations had taught him one thing, if only from the way Tony had stared at him.

Maybe, just maybe, Tommy wasn't as dumb as everyone had always told him he was. Maybe he even wanted to explore that.

So, if he happens by someone studying something, he pipes up with a question.

"How do you think that works?"

And if someone catches him staring as an Agrii is working hard, he waves them back for a second, watching a delicate process complete before looking at them.

"What's up?"

Comments

[rage_on]

Raphael figures it's a basic plan, at least. He's not that great at those- he's more the dive right in and kick butt kind of guy. But he figures between the two of them they shouldn't have any problem in checking out what's making the noise.

Once Tommy acknowledges, the turtle moves to spring up to the lowest branches of the nearby tree. He's not speedy-fast like Tommy, but he can still make himself pretty scarce in a jiff, quietly and quickly picking his way to higher branches before he begins to cross between trees. Ninja.

[doubled_speed]

Ninja. So fucking cool. Tommy watches for just a moment, clearly pleased. But then the green of turtle is lost to green of foliage and Tommy's got to do his part. He's off quicker than a thought and soon coming upon...

Well there is no way to describe it as anything other than a TRULY massive boar. With tusks that were probably as big as Tommy's leg. The thing had plenty of gray fur around it's muzzle and legs. Old, then. Probably tough and stringy. So, what, stews? Drying? Who cares. It's protein. Just has to figure out how to deal with it.

Tommy stands there just long enough for the beast to snort as it notices him, lowering its massive head.

"Fuck," he grumbles before darting quickly behind the thing. "You're an ugly bitch."

[rage_on]

It's both annoying and amazing to see Tommy already there. Super speed definitely has its advantages. Raphael's crouched in the trees, looking down at the big creature. "Whoa," he mutters under his breath. "When he said huge he wasn't kidding..."

He realizes that maybe a little more planning might not have gone amiss as he watches the thing. Its hide looks pretty tough so he's not sure how well his arrows might work. Glancing down for Tommy, he also realizes he has no good way of communicating...well, anything that he might be considering doing, and not sure if Tommy's got his own hand signals. Has Tommy even seen him?

....eh, ultimately they'd be winging it anyway. Shrugging, Raphael begins to make a lasso out of his rope. Time to wrassle down some giant boars!

[doubled_speed]

Totally about some winging it. They aren't the planners of their teams. They're the doers. And right now Tommy's jumping to one side as the boar turns and lowers its head, as if to charge.

"Listen, big guy, no offense? But you're tasty. And I need the food. You look old. I'm sure you've had lots of, woah!"

Yep, rolling out of the way of a charge.

"Wow, rude. I was complimenting you on being some kinda major stud. You're SO lucky I can't just explode your damn head!"

[rage_on]

Raphael drops down to the lower branches once he sees the boar's attention shift away from his direction. He grins as Tommy runs distraction, and then as the boar makes its move, the turtle crouches in preparation.

He leaps onto the creature's back as it rushes past him. That's...the easy part. The grin on his face has quickly vanished as the turtle has to grab on before he gets thrown off. "Whoa!" The boar probably won't appreciate getting its ears yanked on, but they're conveniently placed!!

[doubled_speed]

Definitely doesn't appreciate it. The boar bellows in pain and starts trying to buck Raph off of its back.

"Fucking well done!" Tommy cheers at Raph as he darts behind the creature and grabs it by the tail to try and restrain it some. That... doesn't go very well. It's definitely stronger than Tommy is.

[rage_on]

He had a hard enough time with horses. Boars are just not built for passengers! Still, Raphael hangs on, because right now that's about all he can do. He yelps as his hand slip from one ear, the rope and lasso flying as he nearly gets thrown off, and it slips past his fingers as he tries to grab it.

It's quickly forgotten if for the moment as he tries to grab a hold again, the air almost knocked out of him as he's slammed against the boar's back with another toss of its head. Thank goodness for plastrons! Raphael grabs onto the other ear again, hunkering low against the creature's back.

"Tommy, use the rope! Maybe we can trip it up!"

[doubled_speed]

"Rope? Okay. Sounds unsporting, but you got it," Tommy agrees, running and jumping to grab the rope and lasso. He darts around the beast as it starts to buck and twist. Soon he's dragging the thing across the path of two trees, tightening it.

"Think you can goad it this way?"

[rage_on]

"Look, you wanna be sporting or you wanna eat?!" Raphael yells as he clings, trying very hard not to accidentally bite off his tongue as he bounces off the boar's back. At least Tommy's going with it, although between the speedster's fleetness and being thrown about by the oversized beast, Raphael's having a hard time tracking things.

He turns his head when he hears Tommy again, catching sight of where he's set things up. "I'll try-!" It'll take him a moment as he tries to get himself into a more secure position. Waiting until the boar's turned itself about again, Raphael yanks on the thing's ears as he pulls himself up enough to ram his heels against its sides to spur it forward.

[doubled_speed]

The attempt works beautifully, to the point where Tommy's forced to dance aside as the boar goes right for the line. And credit where credit is due, the vine is insanely strong, tripping the boar up and sending it fumbling to the ground, dazed.

At which point Tommy's standing on the back next to Raph.

"I really should have thought about HOW we're going to take this down. Fuck. Want me to try ripping off a tusk?"

[rage_on]

Raphael's managed to hang on, up until the boar hit the ground. While he hadn't been completely ejected from his seat, the turtle had been flung over the thing's head, shell wedged right between its eyes and either tusk. The turtle groans, shaking his head to clear it before looking up at Tommy.

"...yeah, I didn't really think past 'get meat.' What good's ripping a tusk off? If we tie it up, think we can drag it back?"

[doubled_speed]

"Ooooh! I like your thinking better than mine. Got more vines? I can try and keep it off its feet while you get more if we need."

The boar is definitely struggling to push back to its feet. Tommy sighs and shifts a bit before delivering a punch to the side of the thing's skull. His fist blurs with speed at the motion. Not fast enough to break through skin and bone. Fast enough to knock it out.

All done with a careful hit, calculated on the fly.

"I'm not sure I can drag it alone. Guess I could run back to find people to help..."

[rage_on]

Shaking out his hands, Raphael nods and darts off. He's up in the trees again, slashing a few vines that are wound about the trunks and branches with the small knife he'd gotten from their previous pitstop. A few fall to the ground, and by the time the turtle leaps back down, he's got a couple coils over an arm as well.

"Hey, I'm here! I'm sure we can manage," he says, eyeing the beast. "This thing's not as big and heavy as the Shellraiser and my brothers and I had to push that thing all the way back to the lair." He pauses, making a face. "With the brake on." Thanks Donnie.

[doubled_speed]

Damn, Tommy ENVIES that. He can go up buildings, but trees... don't tend to survive the effort. He stares up at Raph in wonder as he works. Fuck. So cool.

"Dude, you know you're supposed to turn the brakes OFF first, right?"

[rage_on]

"Yeah, blame our resident genius for that one," Raphael grumbles. "He was the one steering the thing while Leo, me and Mikey were pushing. And it is not easy pushing a subway car across the city." Well, maybe not actually across the city, but it was still a long way back home.

He walks up to the boar before setting his hands against it to roll it onto its side. "Let's tie its legs up before sleeping beauty wakes up."

[doubled_speed]

"Wow, aren't geniuses supposed to be smart?"

Yeah, subway cars probably aren't fun to push. And things could hit you. But he doesn't think about that now, just moves to help Raph push the thing onto its side. Helps to be strong like he is.

[rage_on]

Raphael lets out a laugh. "Being a genius doesn't exempt people from doing dumb things."

Between the two of them the boar is easily rolled over. Dragging it might be a fun task, but they'll find out soon enough, he figures. He hands over one coil of vines to Tommy and then goes to cut the rope Tommy'd tied to the trees to trip up the boar in the first place. Never know how much they'll need!

[doubled_speed]

Well, that’s a good point. Tony Stark and Reed Richards and even his grandfather in Pym tended to be stupid sooner or later. Tommy takes the offered vines and goes to start tying up the thing. Turns out, he does know how to hog tie something. Interesting, right?

“Always wanted to be a sled dog.”

[rage_on]

Tommy gets no questions from the turtle, who only looks over at his handiwork and grins in approval.

"Not something I ever wanted to be but anyway, time to see just how bad an idea this was," he says. There's probably much better ways to go about this, but he's committed now.

[doubled_speed]

"Probably the worst," Tommy grins, and he makes a nice harness out of vine to put himself into. "Want a harness too? Might make this easier."

[rage_on]

Well, at least they both admit it. Raphael's glad no one's here to yell at them or give them judging looks. "Oh yeah, that'll help," he says, nodding at Tommy.

[doubled_speed]

Takes no time at all for Tommy to start making another harness. They're going ot be the best sled dogs ever.

"You ever haul something this big? I mean, pushing is one thing. Pulling?"

[rage_on]

"Nice," Raphael can't help but note as he watches- or at least tries to watch- Tommy at work. It pretty much looks instantaneous to him.

"Oh yeah. I mean, it's not fun, but you gotta do what you gotta do. You ready?"

[doubled_speed]

Pretty much instant is right. He hooks the vine harnesses up and wiggles into one. This is going to be fun.

"Totally. Been ready for like weeks man."

[rage_on]

"Heh. Figured you'd say something like that." Raphael smirks, pulling on his own harness and giving it a tug in testing. He holds out a fist towards Tommy.

"Well, let's do this."