2010-07-24 - Operation: Lasagna Sucks

Considering how close humanity came to extinction, one would think Pascal Ambler would have had more of a visible reaction to what has happened. Or in general. He's not exactly an emotionally reserved guy by any stretch of the imagination. He was right there when part of humanity melted into a collective unconscious. Shouldn't he be terrified? Or rapturous? Or perhaps longing to return to the perfect world, or thrilled and endeared to the fact that humanity will continue?

Except that lately, ever since that incident, he has not been very...anything. Except tired. He's reported to drills and done just fine, but there's a dull gaze behind his eyes. (Were his eyes always all the way red? Must have been, right?) He almost seems like he's sleepwalking around the halls of the Argama, and he hasn't been by the kitchen to fix up pancakes or fancy chicken dishes. He didn't even argue when the chef made lasagna with cottage cheese instead of ricotta. In fact, perhaps alarmingly, his /appetite has dropped./

He knows this has all happened to him, but it isn't like anything he's done is helping him. He's just so tired all of the time, and spaced out. It feels like something is missing.

He did manage to drag himself out of his room today on the way to the mess hall. That's...something, isn't it?

Suddenly!!


 * IT'S TIME FOR A SERIES OF FLASHBACKS?!

The world ends. Judau Ashta feels as if his mind is being torn apart from a billion angles simultaneously, repeatedly, reformed and destroyed a thousand times in the span of a second. He feels the very pulse of life -- and it is angry.

After about his third time throwing up what is largely stomach acid at this point, the young man groans, clutching his head and rolling on his side.

"Shouldn'ta... ate that... lasagna...!"


 * AND YET MORE

Judau Ashta walks down the halls of the Argama. Debatably, he is supposed to be going to drills today, but he is walking in completely the opposite direction. His planned excuse is 'he forgot the way to the hangar bays.' He's only used it twice in the last two months and as such he's pretty sure he can get away with it at least a third time. While wandering, his bright green eyes catch note of a dull red stare.

"Hey, Pascal!" Judau greets cheerfully. "Man, did you have some of that lasa--"

And as if he didn't even notice, Pascal Ambler shuffles right past, as if in a daze.

"... gna?" Judau's brows furrow together, and he rubs the back of his head.


 * IT'S LIKE A MARATHON OF BACKFLASHING

Judau Ashta looks dejectedly down at his lasagna made with cottage cheese. He looks sidelong towards his 'bowl of gray stuff special' to the left of it. His lips curl distastefully as he prods the strangely gelatinous midsection of the pasta dish with his plastic fork, as if testing to see if it will melt the utensil or something equally disastrous.

"Man, I thought today was pancake day," he mutters. Torres looks up from gleefully shoveling lasagna into his mouth.

"Pascal hasn't been cooking in the mess hall for days," the navigator explains. "Where've you been?"

"Wh-- really?" Judau asks, blinking. "What's wrong, is he sick or somethin'?"

"Don't know," says Torres. "Seems sorta out of it lately. But at least we still get great food, right??"

Judau's face visibly pales as Torres continues to gobble up his meal. Despite this, though, the junker looks slightly -- concerned?? "... Hrm..."


 * IT'S DEFINITELY NOW, NOW

Pascal Ambler is shambling his way to the mess hall. He might not notice the red form peeking around the corner as he approaches the intersection at the hall. He may also not notice the very worried Iino slowly approaching him from behind.

"U-uhhhm, Pascal...?" comes the timid boy's voice. And if Pascal turns around--

--he'll find a frying pan coming down to whack him abruptly on the head just before his world is enveloped by something that might feel - and smell - strangely like some sort of potato sack.

"Man," Judau Ashta says as he attempts to bag up Pascal and drag him off in a thick, massive bag labeled 'POTATOES.' "Why'd you hafta hit 'em?! I said distract him!!"

"But I--"

"Took it too far, man. Ya took it too far."

By the time Pascal might be aware of where he is and not covered in a sack, he'll find himself not in the Argama, but in the passenger seat of a transport shuttle.

That Judau Ashta is driving.

While humming 'Convoy'.

Pascal is still a Newtype, albeit kind of a damaged one at this point. His precognitive senses poke repeatedly at his conscious mind as a frying pan approaches, but said conscious mind doesn't really notice until CLANG.


 * Gundam spinny*

"...Huh? Wh..." Pascal mumbles to himself in half-slurred French, rubbing the bump on his head and looking around. At first he suspects he's been kidnapped, remembers that he should probably panic at that, and then he recognizes the hum and the brown hair of the person in front of him.

"Judau...? Did I miss a mission or something?" He looks back and forth, eyes trying to focus, and yawns. "Are we going somewhere?"

He's not quite with it enough to ask the obvious question, 'why did you kidnap me?'

The humming comes to a gradual stop as Pascal sluggishly wakes up. In a complete display of how amazing a pilot he is, Judau turns his gaze completely from the viewscreen in front of him as his hands leave the controls.

"Oh, hey, you're up!" Judau observes helpfully in that bright tone of his. Thick brows lift as the questions come, before they knot together.

The awkward laugh that comes after as Judau rubs his head is not even remotely encouraging.

"I guess ya could call it a mission!" he agrees enthusiastically, even as he turns his attention back to his piloting just in time to barely -- and jerkily -- swerve out of the path of a piece of debris. "Let's call it, uhhh... Operation: Lasagna Sucks...? Yeah, that'll work!"

As he speaks completely without context, the shuttle slowly dips down, approaching a nearby colony. Eventually, it docks (more than a little roughly) in one of the smaller bays of the colony. Turning off various systems, Judau seems quite intent to just lift out of his seat, take Pascal by the arm, and then just drag him along with him through zero g out of the shuttle.

"You seemed a little down in the dumps lately, so I decided t'take you to the best place in the world for a pick-me-up! And for quality food too!"

The entrance to this particular segment of the colony helpfully explains what Judau is talking about with a single, flashing sign:


 * SPACE HOOTERS

"Alright, c'mon already! Let's go! Heh heh heh!"

"The lasagna did kind of suck the other day," Pascal admits after a slow pause. Thinking has been hard lately. It's like his mind is made of molasses and his body is running on empty. Speaking of empty, he is a little bit hungry. He shouldn't have skipped dinner last night, perhaps.

He lets himself be dragged out to the spaceport, being both too dazed to really resist and weaker than Judau even on a good day. (Any bulk the pilot might have is probably just due to his appetite.) His eyes do widen and then actually refocus, however, when he sees that amazing flashing sign.

"...I...I had no idea such a place existed." He sounds a little awed.

Rubbing his index finger firmly under his nose, Judau Ashta flashes a grin. His other hand is conveniently upraised into a symbolic THUMBS UP.

"Heh heh, yeah, ain't it great?? They got 'em all over the place! You're not livin' 'til you've been to one of these!" Not that Judau has been to one yet in his life.

He conveniently does not mention this. Or the fact that he only went here because Amuro Ray recommended it.

Regardless, it isn't long before Judau is stamping his way inside. Tables aren't that hard to get; it seems that THE WORLD ALMOST ENDING has been bad for business, somehow. Getting a seat close to the kitchen in the back, Judau settles in, still grinning like a complete idiot as he glances up at Pascal.

The grin, however, gradually fades, replaced with something more oddly neutral. There's something wrong with Pascal, he can tell. Not just by looking at him. Something else...

"So, you been sick or somethin'?" he asks astutely, squinting. "You've been lookin' like a zombie all day, man!"

As drained as he might be, Pascal is still a guy, and he still loves what he used to love. (Women, and food.) He might not be the bright, shining constant stream of conversation he ought to be in this sort of context, but he is smiling, and that's more than he's done in a while. He follows Judau in, and glances down at the menu.

"Huh, fried pickles, that is really a thing...? -Oh, uh." He pauses when Judau asks the obvious question, straining to think. What /is/ wrong with him?

"Uh, I'm not sure. I thought I might be, but the medical staff said they could find nothing wrong with me. They had me take more iron," he shrugs. "I've been trying to wake myself up, taking cold showers and drinking coffee, but nothing seems to work. Ever since the, uh...the thing happened, I have just felt like my body is made of rubber." The youth rubs one of his eyes, even now shaking off the desire to just fall asleep in his seat. "Maybe I am coming down with something, you know? Or some kind of...stress...disorder. Have I really been looking odd?"

"Of course it's really a thing! This place doesn't serve anything but the best quality food the Earth Sphere has to offer!" Judau says confidently, as if he already knows all of this from experience.

"Man though, fried pickles sounds really tasty. --Oh look, buffalo shrimp!"

And then completely demolishes it in the same stroke.

Eventually, though, Judau sets down his menu, squinting pointedly at Pascal as he speaks. The young junker's cheeks puff out in some ridiculously exaggerated expression of thought as he brings a hand up to rub his chin. "Hrmmm..." he muses, rumblingly. Has Pascal really been looking odd?

"Are you kiddin'?? You look like some sorta irradiated zombie mutant from the fifth dimension!" he says, as if this were a good descriptor and not something he just made up right at that second. "An' ya haven't been cooking or anything!" Which Judau might just be bringing up because he has a burning hunger for pancakes, or -- perhaps -- because he remembers just how much Pascal enjoyed cooking.

It's strange. Judau can't put his finger on it, but... all of this is strange.

"... the thing... huh?" he asks, softly, his expression grave. He knows /exactly/ what is wrong, now.

"Ya mean Cagalli breakin' up with you?? 'Cause I totally heard about that!"


 * BEFORE

"Judau! Did you hear?? Cagalli and Pascal broke up! It's terrible!"

Judau looks up from his 'JUNKERS WEEKLY' magazine and squints at his sister.

"... Pascal an' Cagalli were goin' out?"

"... Yes. You didn't know that?"

"Nope. Were they like, goin' steady or somethin'?"

"... people haven't 'gone steady' in decades, Judau Ashta."

"Huh." And Judau Ashta blandly flips to the next page of his magazine.


 * NOW

Judau Ashta: he has his finger firmly on the pulse of the community.

"You're probably sufferin' from a broken heart! You need an immediate rebound date or somethin'!"

Also: relationship genius.

Pascal's not really sharp enough to notice Judau's little slip-up there, don't worry. He does take a moment to ponder the peculiar American tendency to deep fry everything and anything. God bless that tendency.

"Do I really...?" He runs a hand absentmindedly through his tangled black hair. He's been neglecting his appearance a little, too, although at least he's clean. "Oh, uh, sorry about that! I guess I forgot about it-you know, pancake day and whatnot. Somehow it didn't cross my mind..." Pancakes, yes. He should make pancakes, right? How does he make pancakes again...?

Focus, Pascal! The Newtype looks like he's concentrating hard for a second before he speaks again. "Uh, well, I figured it was just-uhh." He turns a little flushed and then sighs when Judau brings up the breakup. "N-no, not that! I mean...okay, that has me down too," he admits. "I mean, of course it does! I guess this could be a broken heart." He rests a hand on his chest. "I had been dating girls before, but that was the first time I was really in love, you know? So I guess I am just reeling harder than I thought I was..."

He glances back down at the menu. "But, uh, I meant the thing where we all..." He snaps in midair. "You know. We melted together or something. I do not fully understand it, but I am told all the Newtypes felt it a little?"

Judau's mouth opens as if to speak, but is interrupted when the waitress floats by, quite literally, on some sort of hover shoes or something. Who knew Space HOOters was so advanced.

"Can I get you anything to drink? Any Hooterstizers?"

"... is that really a-- oh, right, uh, yeah! We'll have like two orders of those fried pickle things, an' I'll have a glass of milk!" The waitress looks, and her eyes slowly squint.

"... is that really what you want?"

"Yeah, why the hell wouldn't I want some milk?" Judau asks, entirely serious. The woman puts on her most polite smile possible before turning to take Pascal's drink order, even as Judau leisurely laces his hands at the back of his head and stares silently at the other Newtype.

"Ya want me to TP her room or somethin'?" he asks in the most helpful, concerned way imaginable, because this is how Judau Ashta helps his friends. "'Cause Beecha's gettin' really good with his throwin' arm, and he only tries to set the toilet paper rolls on fire, like, fifty percent of the time nowadays--"

But, apparently, this isn't just about Cagalli. Judau's eyes shut into a slow blink as he leans forward. "You /melted together/?" he asks, apparently having /completely missed/ all of that. Somehow. It's best not to question it.

'... but I am told all the Newtypes felt it a little?'

Judau pauses. He thinks back, remembering to that time he felt like his head was going to collapse in on itself. "... I guess it wasn't just the food... Huh." Rubbing the back of his head, Judau frowns, head tilting to the side. But people melting together... those feelings he was having...

"Aaaaah, I don't get it at all!" Judau ultimately declares. "But if it's screwin' you up, I'll find a way to fix it! Not even melting can stop Judau Ashta when he's tryin' to help his buds!" At least, he's like 75% sure it can't.

"I'll have a...a soda," Pascal orders, passing over the temptation to get something alcoholic. It's rude if someone else is ordering, after all, and he suspects any booze in him would actually put him to sleep. "And, uh, what he said about the pickles." He does blink at Judau ordering milk, though.

"Uh, well, it was something like that? According to reports...I cannot be sure what happened to me, only that something definitely happened. I felt like it did, but I don't remember it! Just a lot of pain and...I bet that was the side effect, right?" Yes, of course it was. All the Newtypes had /that/, didn't they? That must have been what the ripping sensation was.

"-Don't TP Cagalli's room! I mean," he hastily clarifies, "we ended on an...okay note. I mean, don't hold it against her, please? She works hard and has a very stressful position, and I really don't want to make things worse for her, whatever happened between us." He glances away for a second. He can claim he's over her all he wants, but really...

Judau's words are strangely encouraging, though. "...Thank you, mon ami. Hopefully I'll just heal over time, or something like that, you know? Sorry I forgot about Pancake Tuesday..."

Don't toilet paper Cagalli's room. "Got it," Judau assures. He likes Cagalli -- there's something good about her. But -- "Don't worry, I got your back." And there's a good chance he'll remember not to do it, too.

"I dunno, I got this really bad headache for a while. It felt like somethin' was shovin' my brain into some like rusty blender or somethin'," Judau relates thoughtfully, scratching the top of his head. "I bet you're just tired! You gotta rest off the crazy stuff, an' get a full meal in you!" The drinks come, and Judau looks thoughtful as he stares at his milk.

Judau's expression sobers just a touch when Pascal speaks. Tearing open his straw, the young junker pensively sips on some of his milk as he peers thoughtfully at the other man. The disappearance of his pancakes was a travesty, but...

"Hey, don't worry about it! You've been through a lot, y'know? It's just that, cookin' seems really important to you an' all that, so, I was just thinkin' -- somethin' really must be up." He still remembers that day, making pizza. His brows furrow together as he leans back, his arms crossing underneath his chest.

"... Hey, y'know, sometime, you should try my sister's cooking," he suddenly declares, as if a brilliant idea was dawning on him. "She's pretty good at it, but I bet you could give her some pointers an' stuff, an' then she'll become like, some kinda, cookin' SUPER genius like you! It'd be awesome!" In his head, Judau is envisioning some sort of cooking fusion dance.

It is totally awesome.

"It felt something like that," Pascal agrees. "I...think. I do not remember it very well! It...something felt like paper ripping, except it was my brain." He suspects he isn't expressing himself very well. English isn't his first language! "I bet you are right, it's just stress and lack of energy getting to me. Maybe I need to get more sleep tonight." Nevermind that he's been sleeping like a rock the past few nights. It has felt good to sleep, better than doing anything else...

Whoa, he almost nodded off right there, didn't he? He takes a long sip of caffienated soda, pounding on his chest and coughing when some of it goes down the wrong pipe. Turning red from embarassment, he gets through the little coughing fit in order to talk again, /trying/ to act natural. "Uh, right, anyway! Your sister? I do not think I have met her, have I? I would love to help her with cooking, though," he insists with a little grin. "It might take my mind off of things. What style of cooking does she like to do? I mean, does she have a specialty dish of some kind that she likes?"

He's at least focusing a little better.

"Like a-- what?" Apparently, it is in fact going over Judau's head, though -- considering how well he expresses /himself/, this might just be because he is not grasping concepts like 'END OF THE WORLD AGONY' so much as he does not understand Pascal's grasp on English. The fact that blenders aren't involve in Pascal's comparison is probably leaving him completely and utterly confused. "I dunno anything about that, but I guess that melting thing took like, a giant tire iron to Newtype brains and then kicked us in the nuts." A pause.

"Y'know, like. Metafiguratively an' all that." He's totally good with the English.

It isn't until he has finished his latest comparison that he notices Pascal seems to be fading in and out even now -- even at /Space Hooters./ Green eyes narrow slightly in concern as he watches Pascal choke down his soda. "... Uh, yeah, I don't think ya have. My little sister, Leina. She's a bit of a pain in the ass an' she keeps tryin' to make me learn all this boring stuff but she makes the /best/ meals!" At least, compared to the typical Argama slop. If he ever tried to compare it to Pascal's Leina might long-distance melt his brain.

"Uhhhh... I dunno, she learned a lotta stuff from Shangri-La while I was workin' in the junk yards an' stuff. She makes some really good lamb chops, though," he offers. "Man, an' then, I add some sour creme an' hot sauce an' ketchup, an'--"

Judau pauses as the fried pickles arrive, two baskets placed down between the two of them. Eyes lighting up, Judau goes /right to it,/ swiping up a slice and chomping down.

"Wow, these guys're brilliant! All ya need to add is some maple syrup, an' it'd be perfect!" he decides, before pausing. "How about you? Like, what sorta... cookery is all your stuff from?" Somehow, that is a coherent sentence to Judau.

"Something like that, I think." Honestly, Judau might know more about Newtypes than Pascal does on a good day. He knows he is one, but he didn't pay a lot of attention during the lectures on Zeon Zum Daikun's theories, and the older, more experienced Newtypes never struck him as very approachable for questions. He has simply assumed that what he experiences on a regular basis is normal, at least until recently.

He also assumes 'metafiguratively' is an English word.

At least the double efforts of 'food' and 'boobies' are helping Pascal focus, not to mention genuine conversation. He hasn't had that in a while. "Well," he explains while munching on fried pickles-which he would NOT add maple syrup to, thank you very much-"My father is a chef. He runs a resturaunt-well, he had to move after everything that happened, and business has not been so great, but they're still doing alright. I used to work in the kitchen when I was a kid, and I picked up on everything. It's kind of the thing I am good at, you know? It is, uh, well French is my specialty, but I can do Italian and American too. -And when I was stuck in La Gias for a while, when I got back, I couldn't wait to have /real/ food. You have no idea how much you want a beer and a basket of fries after a year of surviving off of fruit and fish..." Is he perking up? It seems he's doing it a little!

Judau knowing more about Newtypes than someone else is probably the most bizarre phenomenon in the entire universe.

He'd probably take an exceedingly rare moment to gloat about it if he even remotely thought he knew what he was talking about.

As it stands, the eldest Ashta is concentrating on devouring fried pickles in completely unhealthy and slightly hazardous amounts of handfulls now that he has determined that they are, in fact, tasty. He has shoved another considerable handful into his mouth by the time Pascal gets into his food history, blinking once as his cheeks puff up with food.

"Wauw, datsh uhmasheeng," he slurrs out, green eyes wide and wondering. "Itd be scho keww dah ruhn yuuh" --*gulp*-- "own restaurant! It'd be like--"

Wait.

"..."

Did he say--

"YOU WERE IN LA GIAS?!"

The words are almost literally yelled as loudly as Judau is capable of projecting, which ultimately leads to the stark majority of the restaurant's occupants turning to stare in varying states of annoyance and confusion at him. Somehow, he doesn't seem to notice, leaning forward with an excited gaze.

"Really?? You're serious, man?! That's so damn cool! Were there like, vampires?? An' elves? An' leprechauns, an' they had their pots of gold, but their rainbows were actually tractor beams that drew in unsuspectin' victims so they could steal their shoes an' stuff??" There is roughly a second of silence before:

"MAN that's so SWEET!"

Apparently, Judau never put together the whole 'PILOTS A GIANT DRAGON THING' in his head.

Pascal's eating a lot slower than he usually does. Well, he doesn't exactly shovel food down anymore, being the sort to savor the taste, but it's still clear he doesn't have the appetite he usually does. "You know, I thought of opening one myself, when things were more peaceful. Maybe some kind of place for people in transport to stop by and have a bite to eat that isn't a greasy ramen place or something...but you know, when the war is over." So basically never.

"...Uh." He pauses, shuffling a little uncomfortably. "I wasn't in one of the really interesting parts of La Gias," he admits. "It was an island, and there was no one else there. I fell through after a mission for Zeon went very badly. No vampires, no elves, no pots of gold, just an island with a volcano and a..."

And a goddess, right? That's what she called herself? Was that correct?

"...Well, I started getting sick from not having enough to eat after a while, so I do not remember most of it. But I found Muspelheim in a volcano! I remember that much. I'm not sure /how/ I did that, you would think I would burn up or something..." He shrugs and eats more pickles.

"Hey, you know, Muspelheim can fly through heat vents and stuff like that. Sometime maybe I'll take you around there and we can visit one of the 'cool' parts, maybe? They say there's everything down there. Wizards and everything."

A restaurant. It's a nice dream and, through his haze of excitement over the prospect of MAGICAL elves who are MAGICAL, he does smile a little. It makes him think -- what are his plans? What does he want to do? He realizes he hasn't thought very far at all about that.

And then he immediately forgets about anything even remotely related to his future plans the exact moment Pascal starts talking more in depth about the magical fairy world.

"Whoa, that thing ya pilot is from La Gias too??" he asks wonderingly. "That's badass, man! Piloting a giant dragon from La Gias, you shoulda told me sooner!" Now he is going to imagine Pascal Ambler - French dragon knight of the La Gias nation of Frenchonia. Despite Pascal /just telling him/ he was with Zeon.

"Well, that's 'cause it's magic, y'know??" Judau nods to himself as he plops another fried pickle slice, arms crossing smugly over his chest. "I bet havin' a magical dragon companion that can live in lava is the best thing ever! Muzackheim is the most awesome thing ever!"

But then, that offer comes. Judau's eyes go as wide as dinnerplates, joined by an all-too ominously wide grin. "Oh man, really?? That'd be great! We gotta do that! I got the /best ideas/ for stuff to do there!" Which can only promise great and appropriately magical things.

"Uh-mostly it is! It makes me a lot stronger as a pilot," Pascal concedes, and then pauses. Can he really talk to Judau about the /problems?/ The sense that he's increasingly not himself, the voices he hears when his robot speaks to his mind, the uncanny sense that it honestly is alive and will someday turn around to swallow him whole?

That would kind of hash Judau's buzz, though, wouldn't it? And the last time he told someone about it, it didn't go well. He doesn't want to scare Judau off, too, or Tanith for that matter. Surely as long as he has friends, he can fight off any kind of problems with the dragon and remain the one in charge...

Instead, he laughs. "Yeah, really! I promise we will go down there sometime. We'll find some kingdom that needs a pair of handsome knights to save it, and impress all of the ladies, no? Then they will give us a big feast in our honor, I bet. We will just...avoid desert islands, if it is all the same."

"Heh heh, that's so cool. Ridin' in a dragon -- man, I'm jealous!"

And so the grinning Judau remains oblivious to those real worries of Pascal's. As it stands, he is caught up with imagining breathing fire on all his enemies.

Not through a dragon, just as himself. Because that is sane to imagine.

His daydreams are cut off, however, by more possibly-realistic-but-probably-not dreams of saving a town and its gaggle of beautiful women. "I bet they make the best food ever down there," he says, distantly. "... I wonder how dragon tastes... man, we oughta like -- slay one an' find out, right??"

He asks, as if it wouldn't be a thing at all to just go try to murder a monstrously huge dragon.

Leaning back in his seat, Ashta grins. He takes his glass of milk and brings the straw to his lips, sipping ever-so-thoughtfully. "Man, you've lived a pretty awesome life, Pascal," he comments honestly, flashing a bright grin. "You're the coolest! An' I can't stand t'see someone cool like you so down in the dumps! Don't worry --

"I'll think of a fool proof way t'get ya back on your feet." And, as if to solidify this point, Judau gives a 'V' sign with his index and middle fingers for his /imminent victory./ "You can believe in good ol' Judau!"

Pascal is quiet for a moment, genuinely touched. He's always considered himself kind of an idiot, someone who made it through school and ended up a completely average pilot who happened to come across a powerful robot. He's not used to anyone saying things like that to him. "Thank you, Judau. That really means a lot. And I will do my best to climb back up myself, okay?" He mimics the 'V' sign, though it's a little crooked.

"I do not think we should eat a dragon, though," he adds after a mouthful of soda. (Work, caffiene, work!) "Muspelheim would not like that."