442/Some Very Threatening Pizza

Some Very Threatening Pizza
Date of Scene:	18 August 2014
Location:	Strait of the Americas
Synopsis:	Ferham tracks down Theo to see who the heck this "Union Elite" is that tried to soup her to death. (Which is funny, because he isn't.)
Cast of Characters:	Theo Morrison, 516

---

Theo Morrison has posed:
Theo likes to travel around. The cooler a place, especially a take on one he knows of, the better. Thus, a New York. He's kind of lost track of which one it is. When they go into the tens or hundreds of thousands, your brain starts to glaze over. This particular New York is near-future (to him), with post-humans wandering around all over. Cyborgs, a few anthropomorphic animals, a couple big ol' robots... plenty of stuff to watch while he gets a bite.

At the moment, he's sitting at what should be a sidewalk cafe, occupying a wide, round table all by his lonesome. While it /should/ be serving coffee and the like, it's actually a pizzeria, and, as Theo has discovered, a really good one. He's got a pizza missing a few slices occupying the table, with his trusty myr sidekick Kickotron sitting on a too-big chair next to him. Theo appears to be playing around with some kind of futuristic tablet PC, flexible and multipurpose, with his feet kicked up.

He isn't really hard to find, all told. He doesn't think to hide.

Ferham (516) has posed:
    
Having gotten wind that one of her assailants had been around New York in the strait of Americas, Ferham had decided to have a little look. By a little look this meant shadowing the individual and genuinely spying on his activities in general. Of course she might have expected Theo to be out on union business, checking up on leads and trying to scout out more information. What Ferham has spent the last two or so hours doing instead is watching Theo putz around the city and eat pizza. Just TALK about a surprise once she finally realizes just how silly she's been, so she just decides to fly down from the building she was perched on and approach him at the outdoor portion of the pizzeria.

     "Well hello, you're the one that sent that soup man after me, aren't you?" Ferham asked, her voice deep and feminine.

Theo Morrison has posed:
Theo has in fact spent the last couple hours putzing around the city. He has been to such glamourous places as 'a local traditional gaming store,' 'the one arcade on this side of town,' and three different convenience stores to get another caffeinated drink. They were different each time!

It must be /maddening/ tailing him.

Theo looks up when the totally out-of-place woman approaches him. He takes a second to blink and stare, because... well, despite the murder-chic aesthetic, Ferham /is/ totally hot. He swallows a mouthful of soda, and then mouths 'soup man' in apparent confusion.

"OH! You mean the Brass Squire, in the museum! That was you in there?" He cocks his head a little. "Huh. I guess I was right."

Ferham (516) has posed:
     Indeed, it had been quite frustrating realizing her target was just hanging out, eating and in general being a nerd. Theo would be able to notice that Ferham's gait is swaying and dainty, as those boots of hers sport a pair of 5-inch heels. She narrows her eyes at him as of accusatorily. She then nodded, boots clicking as she walked around his table.

     "That's right, no doubt you know who I am, and think I'm here to kill you... well, I want to know one thing, what exactly is such a powerful member of the Union doing... just sitting around eating pizza?" she raised a brow at him beneath the opening of her helmet, drawing in a sharp breath, as if waiting for him to reply.

Theo Morrison has posed:
Theo watches her for a second. He has an inkling that this is going to go one of two ways: awkwardly or painfully. It is the first time in his life he's ever hoped for the former.

Meanwhile, Kickotron, that three-foot sorta-birdlike robot of his, turns its head in Ferham's direction. It stares silently at her. It's kind of cute, in a robotic pet sort of way, even if it's sort of creepy how it doesn't blink.

"Um... I don't really want to burst your bubble," Theo says slowly, holding up his hands in a sort of defensive, placating gesture, "but you've got that basically entirely wrong. I don't know who you are, except a thief and, judging by that implication, a Confederate; I don't know why you're here, except maybe to practice the femme fatale routine, which, by the way, really solid --" He actually gives her a thumbs-up.

"-- and I'm not with the Union at all. I just hang out with a few people who are. Multiversal war isn't really my thing. Sorry?" He looks apologetic. A couple seconds later, Theo does append quietly, "I guess you /were/ right about the pizza thing, though..."

Beat.

"Do you, uh... want a slice?" he offers, awkwardly.

Ferham (516) has posed:
     Ferham just sort of stands there staring at him, a moment. Her gaze was momentarily borrowed by Kickotron, but she peered back at Theo after eyeing the stainless steel mouser-like bot. "Confederate doesn't just mean thief," she shoots back, a little icly, but relents. "Not usually," she narrowed her eyes at the compliment, perhaps not taking it for sincere. Those clawed tips of her gloves rattled over the edge of the table he sat at as she leaned over it, even screeching against the surface a little, like nails on a chalkboard.

     "Not with the Union... you have to be lying, are you telling you just showed up there and waded into all that screaming death outside the musuem and it wasn't even your job?" she looks positively dumbfounded, though her leaning over the table closer towards him likely gave him a nice view, there was that.

     At the offer she just blinked.

Theo Morrison has posed:
Theo actually winces at the noise of claws-against-table. A few of the other patrons are quietly moving away from what might turn into an altercation. He looks a little nervous.

"No, no, I mean -- you implied I was with the Union, and you obviously tracked me down out of nowhere, so it just tracks that you'd be affiliated with the Confederacy." Plus the icy retort about Confederates not being thieves, he thinks, but (perhaps wisely) does not say.

His eyes wander for about a half-second, but Theo does not otherwise take them off the face and occasionally claws of the... robot? Cyborg? Let's go with 'murder engine' leaning practically over him. "Well... it... seemed like a good idea at the time? I mean... I didn't think anyone was going to do anything, and then..." He trails off.

Ferham (516) has posed:
     "Are you sure you're telling me everything? There are ways to get you to tell me what I want to know, you know," with that thinly-veiled threat Ferham went silent, watching the stocky card user. Straightening herself up, she drags out the chair directly across from him and sits herself down, the chair going between her wings and her back.

     "Do you even know what I am? or what kind of operation you stumbled on the other day?" apparently she doesn't like others getting into her business, this much is clear. Though her voice has lowered into a more conversational rasp, she gestured her chin towards him. "And what was that man with the boiling pot of soup that nearly bowled me over?" her tone was more questioning now.

Theo Morrison has posed:
"I think I'm being awfully forthcoming, considering you showed up outta nowhere and started, I dunno, being all..." He makes some kind of vague gestures, and eventually settles on, "...intimidating, or something." Theo is super bad at this.

He sighs. Having decided something that he isn't sharing -- that is, that she won't murder him immediately, or she would have already -- he makes to pick up his drink. "Nope. I could give you my theories if you want." He takes a sip from the straw. It's the kind of covered container you see from fast food places the worlds over. "That was a Brass Squire. Like him," Theo says, pointing at Kickotron with a finger, "but built to do something else. I gave him soup."

He narrowly resists the urge to say 'hot soup, coming through.'

Ferham (516) has posed:
     Ferham wasn't about to just randomly try and kill the youth, though she had no intention of letting him know that. She frowned and seemed to be listening as he started to explain things. "Brass Squire, huh? And where did he come from? Are these robots of yours, this mouse catcher bot and the soup man?" she leaned back against the chair, causing it to slide back a little. She was a bit heavy in her armor, after all.

     "There must be a good explanation for that at least, are you willing to tell me?" she peered at him with those icy green eyes of hers, as if putting him on the spot to answer. She at least seemed less murderous by now, with how hse was acting. Maybe she was trying to transfix him with her stare like a deer in headlights?

Theo Morrison has posed:
Theo is having a hard time keeping himself from fidgeting and looking anywhere but her. Ferham is actually doing a pretty good job of leveraging her ability to be intimidating, but he doesn't want to be too obvious by lettig her know that it's working. He has to take a breath and remind himself that he's dealt with worse. Rampaging mutant monsters. Horrors that live outside time and space.

Giant, flaming bees.

"Sure, if you want. Are you going to tell me who you are, or am I going to have to listen to someone rattle off some kind of criminal record or something?" Theo asks. "I'll tell you straight-up that I had no idea it was you in the museum until you told me, though. I figured out it was a diversion so I sent the Brass Squire in to flush whoever was inside out."

Ferham (516) has posed:
     "Oh, I hadn't introduced myself yet. I'm Ferham, I'm a Reploid. To you that would be like an android, but I'm highly advanced," she said surprisingly without a hint of arrogance there. "Criminal record? hardly," she shook her head. She did seem a bit surprised at his savvy at having correctly figured out that the attack outside was a diversion, though. Took her off-guard, almost.

     "Hrm... you don't seem to be lying," she uttered quietly, continuing to lean back there, as if lounging there. She eyed him a bit more curiously, wondering how this seemingly portly young dweeb had managed to almost foil her operation and take her down. It bothered and intrigued her on some level.

     "And you're not Union, so do you work for someone, then?"

Theo Morrison has posed:
As it turns out, spending most of your young life playing games involving a great deal of strategy makes you kind of savvy. He gives her a nod. "Theo. Human." That's about as much as he feels like doing for introductions. It's functionally his equivalent to hers, anyway.

"Why would I lie to you? If I was bad at it, you'd just stab me with your claws," he says, nodding at them, "or probably, I dunno, set your whip on fire or electricity or something and do something equally horrible. It's way easier to just tell the truth. And safer." Theo's line of reasoning is pretty solid, except for the part where he did not choose the easy or safe route the last time they (sort of) met.

He shrugs. "Myself, I guess. Sometimes the Izzet League in Ravnica, usually nobody. Do I have to have a boss to be hopping around? Maybe I'm some kind of hero-in-the-making, wandering the Multiverse in search of someone who needs me."

Kickoron just kind of looks at Theo, as silently as always.

Theo looks back for a second, and then shrugs. "Yeah, that /was/ pretty dumb. Nevermind. It was just the wrong place at the wrong time. I summoned it, by the way," he appends, finally answering a totally different question at a totally random moment.

Ferham (516) has posed:
     "I'm not going to stab you," Ferham raised a brow at that, shaking her head "It's electromagnetic," she cracked a bit of a smile to him. She seemed to enjoy how intimidated he wound up being, at least. "I see, so you're not with any particular organization," her simple background check on him hadn't revealed anything in that regard true, but Fer had assumed that whatever info there was there was incomplete.

     "You don't LOOK like a hero type at all, for one thing you're well, a bit larger than normal," she shook her head there. "You look very... unassuming, lets just say that," she blinked again. "SUMMONED? you can summon beings like that? and they're not robots?" she seemed to be surprised there, almost as if she'd underestimated him... whoops.

Theo Morrison has posed:
"Ah. Probably better for fighting robots than people then." He can appreciate a somewhat unusual weapon, even if he thinks whips are sort of ineffective. Unless you've got a laser one. Or, he supposes, an electro-magnetic one.

Theo rolls his eyes. "Aaand here comes the jokes. Yeah, well, I'm new at this 'being a hero type' thing. I'm not even usually /that/, so give me a break." Maybe a bit sensitive about weight and the like. "/Anyway/, they're still machines. Sort of. It's magic. And complicated. Golems and robots are a good go-to for mindless goons to pummel monsters and marauders, though."

Ferham (516) has posed:
     "No, I don't intend to sit here the whole night antagonizing you, I just had no idea this person was someone who had caused me so much trouble," Fer grinned, but raised her hands showing them the palms. "I apologize, I hadn't known you were unaligned, but also so powerful," her voice had returned to something velvety, as it was normally. This was her casual speaking voice, low and feminine like a purr.

     "You'd be correct about my weapon, but it can work well on people also," she folded her arms over her front, remaining in her seat there. "It has however gotten a bit late now, though, I don't suppose I can strike a deal with you to not try to foul up my operations anymore... could I?" she raised a brow to him, perhaps smiling just a bit.

Theo Morrison has posed:
Flattery will get you... well, maybe not /nowhere/.

"It's okay, I guess." He doesn't buy the 'so powerful' line /completely/, but he will admit internally that he's got some skills. Especially the kind most people apparently do not. He's only met two people who do what he does, and nobody who does an approximation. "And it'd be kind of weird if it didn't."

He gives her a look. It's hard to tell if it's doubtful or what. "Well, if I randomly show up to the same spot you're committing a crime, I'll probably try and stop you, especially if innocent people are getting hurt in the process. Maybe if you've got something to offer me to stay out of it, we can talk about it then." A shrug. "Like I said, I'm not Union. I'm not heartless, either, but I like to think I'm at least sort of practical."

Ferham (516) has posed:
     She smiled just a little at the young man, mischievously, as she can see she didn't exactly fool him, but he didn't mind her attempt there. Those green eyes of hers were foxy. "Really unique then, lets say," she nodded, then folded her gloved hands over her front as she leaned her chin down against them on the table, watching him.

     "I actually hate for innocent people to get hurt, I had no idea the diversion outside would be so... violent, my partner hadn't told me it would be so barbaric," she sighed a little, finally sitting back up, looking off. She blinked then, as he spoke about her proposal. "Aww, you sure I could bribe you in some way? Weren't you trying to help those poor people because you wanted to?" she shook her head. "I'm not going to threaten or try to cow you to not use your powers against me, or others with me," she put her elbow on the table and cradled her chin in her palm, peering at him.

     "What if I could offer you something?" oh my.

Theo Morrison has posed:
"Your partner was pretty crazy. They were shooting the whole place up without even thinking about it. Maybe think about getting a new one? Just a suggestion," he adds. He isn't sure if she's going to take that as insulting. There's a lot of unknown elements floating around here.

Theo shrugs. "I was trying to help them because I was in the area and it looked like there was going to be a huge body count. Robbing banks and stealing museum pieces is bad, but I can't imagine how most of the things you're trying to get couldn't be found somewhere else in the Multiverse with less trouble attached. Things are replaceable; people, much less so." He /did/ say practical.

And she did say the very-vague something. Oh my indeed. "Um... like what, exactly," Theo asks, a touch hesitantly.

Ferham (516) has posed:
     "Hmph," the comment about Clokwerk seems to sting Ferham on some level, as if it made her feel bad but she was trying not to show it. It definitely had some common sense to it. Sure, it was just a lot of heavies that had been shot up, but she hadn't expected all the shooting and well, screaming death.

     "I wasn't trying to hurt anyone though, and outside of some minor frostbite I don't think the guards inside had anything to worry about... not sure if they got scalded by any men with soup, though," she shot back a little barb there. She didn't seem to be trying to have a fight with him though, this was just sort of a little battle of wits, a short one, but one nonetheless.

     "I understand what you're saying," she got up from the seat and walked around the table, taking one of the pieces of cooling pizza gently with her gloved hand and hovering it just in front of him, as if she was going to feed it to him.

     "As for what I could do for you well, just use your imagination," that end of that cheesy pizza dangled there, as if asking for him to open up.

Theo Morrison has posed:
"Technically an automaton with soup. Well... kinda. Anyway, most of them probably got out of the way," Theo points out, a little defensively. He exhales a very short sigh. "Right. Sorry. Shouldn't talk bad about you and your, uh, partner. Just, think about talking to her about the body count thing; it might mean you get less heat." That advice is friendly, even!

Theo watches her get up and wander around. He assumes, at first, she is actually going to take advantage of the initially-offered delicious pizza goodness. He is a little surprised when that is not the case. "Uh..." He opens his mouth, apparently to say something, but stops halfway.

He looks like he's trying to decide if he should stop there and let her, or say something along the lines of 'I'm from the internet, my imagination is a terrible place.' Judging by his expression, it is much closer to the former. (It is easy to be convinced to do things when you're talking to someone who was built to make supermodels jealous.)

Ferham (516) has posed:
     "It's alright, I'm not going to hurt you," Ferham's voice was calm and cool, a little soothing as well--but also sincere, or at least it sounded like such. Maybe she was trying to show him that he could trust her somehow? Or perhaps that she was sincere in what she was saying, shaking her head with a little smile.

     "You are right however, if I had known there was going to be that much shooting and loss of life I wouldn't have agreed to it, but the rigger didn't tell me that," apparently by rigger she meant her partner there, the crazy lady with data jacks in her head and shooting up the place. Still, that pizza /did/ look really good, and it wouldn't hurt to just take a bite from it, right?

     What was she trying to pull here though, really?

Theo Morrison has posed:
Theo is somewhere between paranoid that she's going to do something completely outrageous, and the idea that Ferham is actually trying to make amends. Or maybe kiss up to him? Definitely /something/. Every time he thinks of a new possibility, his mind -- which completely overthinks everything -- comes up with a half-dozen ways it could go very wrong or just as right. (Mostly wrong.)

"I guess it's good to get the plan down in writing first," he mutters, kind of half-heartedly. Given his plans tend to involve 'topdeck like a mofo'...

/Finally/, Theo suppresses a sigh and takes the bait -- er, bite. At this point, it's basically down to a roll of the dice for what could possibly happen. On the most likely end of the worst cases, he'll owe the owner for running out on the bill.

Ferham (516) has posed:
     Ferham had stood there and leaned over to give Theo the pizza, that delicious slice almost gotten cold by the time he eventually took the bite. Those heels of hers of course caused the pose she was in to attract some weird looks by passersby, as she fed the slice to the seemingly overweight young man sitting there, she just smiled sweetly to whoever seemed confused or disturbed by it.

     "There, that's good isn't it?" she nodded to him as he chewed the pizza, allowing him to either snap off a bite and eat it piece by piece or simply let her feed the entire thing to him, she didn't seem to care. Whatever the case though, she seemed to be harmless. No attack came, and there wasn't anything wrong with the pizza, she hadn't touched it, and it had been there before she even showed up.

     "Believe me if I wanted to do something I was watching you for hours before this," she winked at him.

Theo Morrison has posed:
This entire experience is incredibly surreal, Theo thinks. Some kind of Confederate psi-ops technique?!

Nnnnooo, probably not. She's probably just legitimately messing with him.

Theo seems assured after a sizeable chunk, biting it off rather than going whole-haul. He looks up at her with an eyebrow raised, chews, and swallows. "That is both really creepy and kind of reassuring," he says, pretty frankly. "Kind of hot, in the potentially-lethal way, but what do I know?" Roll with it, Morrison, it's the only way you're getting out of this with any semblance of a clue.

Ferham (516) has posed:
     "Wanted to see what you'd do, is all," Ferham daintily took a bite of the pizza when it seemed like he wasn't going to go for the remainder, then another and another, reducing it to just the crust, which she turned sidewards and slowly slid into her mouth, seeming delighted at the taste. "Mnn... now I know why you humans like this stuff, it's just dough and cheese and tomato sauce, but," she carefully licked the tips of her clawed gloves after she had teasingly slid the crust into her mouth like that and finished the slice off.

     "Just trying to show you I'm not all bad, I guess," she shrugged, as if she could really do that after that bloody shootout at the musuem. What could she really do? Try to share the spoils with him? Somehow she didn't seem to think he'd go for that. Straightening out, she walked back to where she was sitting, heels clicking. "And I guess that I wouldn't hurt someone, not unless they gave me a reason to," she turned to give him a sideways glance, before turning around fully to meet his gaze.

     "Are you still afraid of me, Theo?" she asked, her voice casual.

Theo Morrison has posed:
"Hah." Theo raises his drink again, watching her for a minute. "It isn't exactly top-quality cuisine, but it does taste pretty great," he says. "New York is one of the places that's hard to beat when it comes to good pizza."

"Gotcha." He leans back in his seat, expression thoughtful. He actually meets her eyes. There is a small, almost imperceptible shrug. "I'd be stupid not to be. We'll call it a healthy appreciation for what you're capable of. It sounds less embarassing," Theo opines.

Ferham (516) has posed:
     "Mnn..." she wanted to tell him she wasn't really evil, or that she wasn't bad, just built the way she was, but it didn't seem like it'd change his mind, at least not yet. It hurt, but she wasn't going to dwell on it for long, she knew she'd done it to herself, as it were. Though what he said next making eye contact with her seemed to help. "Hm, that's sweet of you to say," though she did smile a little bit at how he phrased it, it did sound kind of funny.

     "I suppose I should go now, but perhaps we could do this again," hopefully less threatening over pizza and more a delightful conversation. "Unless you had any ideas, or anything else to say?" she had turned, but then glanced back at him, crossing her arms a little and facing him again.

Theo Morrison has posed:
Theo shrugs a shoulder, smiling slightly. It /is/ a weird kind of compliment, if you think about it that way.

He shakes his head, gradually having relaxed into a much less alert and definitely less coiled-spring-sort-of-tense state. "I think I'm good on commentary at the moment." He decides not to dwell on 'ideas.' "Sooo.. I guess I'll probably see you another time." Weird to say to a Confederate. "Hopefully next time we meet, it won't be on opposite sides of..." His smile widens a touch. It's a little bit sly. "...hot soup."

Ferham (516) has posed:
     She shrugged those big round shoulder joints of hers, pauldrons clicking together. "It's fine," as she turned to get clear of the table however, the young man's comment about hot soup came out. She turned and gave him a little grin before those flat metal wings of hers fanned out, giving him a little wave before she vaulted into the air, sailing into the blue sky so rapidly she was soon just a dot.