OPEN | None of this was in the reg manual

[loyal_soldier]

WHO: TK-622 and You!
WHERE: mostly De Chima, with a some open to wherever.
WHEN: mid-March
WHAT: Various minor escapades in the life of a displaced stormtrooper.
WARNINGS: Nudity!

01 | A Supermarket, somewhere

[The food on Earth is incredible. Maybe it is back home too, but he'd only ever eaten rations before. They are free, no fuss, and nutritionally balanced.

He hadn't considered that last part very often, until he finally got a look at the nutrition label on the back of a food packet in #008 and realized how horribly he'd been throwing off his diet.

And so now he's standing in an aisle full of a dizzying array of brightly-colored boxes and cans, taking notes and trying to work out the math for a dozen different nutrients and how they might all fit together. The one rule he's figured out so far: If it has a cartoon creature on it, he couldn't eat it.]

Maybe I should just stick to rations.


02 | Late night on the streets of De Chima

[He has trouble sleeping through the night here. Too much on his mind, and too many little noises that sound like things he's learned to fear. This is the third time tonight he's thought he heard a speeder accelerating towards him, only to realize it's the refrigerator turning on. Falling back asleep isn't going to happen tonight. He could go for a run, come back, crash for an hour or two. Then he'll be as ready as he's going to be for the next day.

So he's out and running, when the bars are closing and night owls are probably starting to bed down for the night. Doing laps around the neighborhood is simplest right now. Lots of street lights, and the regular shape of the government-built hab blocks is soothing.]


03 | At the Sooper Trooper Kids' Club, wherever that is

[The legal consultation on his age came back: since the Imperial ID chip in his wrist can certify he's old enough to be deployed, then by local legal standards, he's "arguably an adult". That just leaves some worried staff and parents, who've heard something about leaving their kids in the care of a twelve-year-old.

Approximately eight thousand Yes Ma'ams and No Sirs later, he's mostly been deemed polite and respectable enough to be a scout leader, and issued a brightly colored short-sleeved shirt that fit a little tight across the chest. Maybe he can just blend in on his first day.

...But now he's been introduced to the children as "our newest imPort friend". Great.]

--

[The end of the day comes rather quickly. Not because it's easy, he's grateful for being paired with another scout leader who's more experienced than he is. The day is just short. The children didn't train for very long, and he still cannot comprehend what a lot of this stuff would be good preparation for. Athletics and practical survival skills, yes. Instilling good values, certainly. But making shoebox dioramas isn't going to do them any good. Nor is how loud and chaotic they tended to get when left to their own devices. It's like they haven't optimized this training program at all.

He leaves the office in the early afternoon, pulling on his jacket over the Sooper Trooper Kids Club Scoutmaster shirt. Good thing the day has been short, he'd skipped the midday meal and he's starting to really feel it.

He stops, concentrates for a moment, and a sealed ration bar appears in his hand. He hasn't quite figured out how to just summon the ration unwrapped, but he's getting better at it. He isn't pulling the whole utility belt with it anymore.]


04 | At a gym (whichever, not picky)

[Yes, he's new to this particular gym, but not to training in general.

Yes, he knows his entire fitness routine backwards and forwards, though he hasn't been doing it recently.

No, he isn't slacking off, it is because he's on patrols too often to train.

And no, he has no idea how a lot of these machines work. They don't look anything like anything you'd find in an Imperial weight room.

Please help him. He's very confused.]


05 | Locker room!

[One wouldn't think he'd be comfortable in a locker room. He's already twitchy enough about being out in public without his armor. But stormtroopers don't actually find nudity all that odd. No one has privacy in the Corps, especially not in the showers or locker room.

So he's not quite sure why so many people have towels around their waist. He's not bothering. It's not like he has anything to hide under there. No defects, and most of his scars tend to cluster around joints, where the flexible underarmor didn't quite manage to stop shrapnel.

It is especially weird to see so many males wearing towels when they didn't seem to wear skirts anywhere else. Yet another thing he couldn't figure out about this place.]


06 | Wildcard!

[Have at!]

Comments

01

[tenofswords]

[The Gray Man is in the middle of his weekly trip to the market. His cart has various items, for homecooked meals, and a little bit of junk food.

He's looking at soup cans when he overhears the other man.]

I don't believe you'll find those here.

[loyal_soldier]

Wh--? [What does he--] Oh. I already have them, sir. I'm just trying to determine else I can eat here that's nutritionally balanced.

[tenofswords]

There might be meal bars, or granola bars that could suit your needs.

[He's had to live on meal bars for days sometimes.]

Strict diet needs, or are you just in the army?

[loyal_soldier]

Oh. [He looks helplessly up at the sign hanging over the aisle. Where were those?]

The latter. We have an optimized diet and I'd rather not deviate from that if I can help it.

[tenofswords]

You might be more suited to the health food isle, then.

[The Gray Man finds that a lot of health food can be either terrible, or surprisingly tasty.]

[loyal_soldier]

Oh. Thank you, sir. [There's a specific aisle for healthy food? Why just one? Weren't all of them supposed to be that?

On second thought, he'd seen the nutrient label on that box with the orange and black alien on it. Thirty gram serving, eleven grams of it sugar. Why?]

I'll just go find that, then.

01

[kanyounot]

[ Kanan's here, at the supermarket, enjoying the - well, the smells, mostly. Hera's around somewhere, he doesn't go by himself for obvious reasons, but for the moment he's left to his own devices. No mask, today, he's experimenting going out in public without it more often, he gets fewer "why are you wearing that" questions this way. ]

Rations? You really should try to live a little while you're here, pal.

[ He doesn't really know who he's talking to, but does that even matter? It could just as easily be Rex. ]

eeeey

[loyal_soldier]

I've tried that already, sir. [That voice sounds familiar--? Oh. It's the blind man from the festival. That's why it took a moment. It was hard to recognize someone you'd first seen smeared with jam.]

Like the pie we threw at each other. [Some got in his mouth eventually, as was probably inevitable. He didn't really win that one, but at least he got the first hit.]

[kanyounot]

People calling me "sir" gives me the heebie-jeebies, please, my name's Kanan.

[ He holds up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. ]

But did you try the pizza? I could eat pizza every day, and there's about as many varieties as you can imagine. Oh, and have you tried ice cream yet? That stuff is great.

fun fact: peppers are canonical to legends.

[loyal_soldier]

Kanan, then. [He's not good with casual. But he can make an attempt.]

I did. Pineapple, pepperoni, and jalapeño, which I would advise against. It tastes like pepper spray. [He did not see that coming.]

Ice cream, no. What is it?

om nom nom

[kanyounot]

Oh, I'm not a big fan of the spicy stuff. Know someone who is, though.

[ Hera's got a bit more of an expanded palette. ]

Oh, ice cream is amazing. It's a frozen dessert, made from milk, but the milk here isn't blue, it's white. Looks weird, from what I hear, but tastes delicious. Comes in all sorts of flavors.

[loyal_soldier]

White milk? [That didn't sound healthy. Not on any logical level, but how could you trust milk that was white? What had they done to it?]

It sounds interesting, but maybe not wholesome. [And he was trying very, very hard to be wholesome.]

05. because i'm a fucking parody of myself

[flightforfreedom]

[It had been a few days, since Poe had finally stopped drinking (or at least drinking so much) and tried to put his life back into some semblance of a fucking order. So, gym it was, to sweat out the last of the alcohol and try to regain some of the shape he'd lost now that he no longer had daily sparring sessions with Finn.

He didn't really like the gym, but it was better than trying to do his work-out routine alone. And the pool was a luxury and a half - he'd never been on a base or a flagship that could spare the water resources to have a pool. So he'd hit the showers as soon as he got back to the locker room, then wandered in with a towel around his waist. (When in Rome.)

He almost didn't even notice Taiko, and probably would have missed him completely if it wasn't for the fact that the man was completely naked. That tended to make Poe do a double take, even if he didn't mean to. So when he saw who it was, his eyebrows went up an a very genuine smile came to his face.]

Hey! Taiko! Buddy! How're you holding up?

nah mate call it satire it's classier

[loyal_soldier]

[That was a familiar voice. He looked up, returning the smile. Felt like the first one he'd managed in a while.]

Better. You're looking better too. [He'd been worried, honestly. Things hadn't looked good for a few days there, and he hadn't been sure what to do about it.]

Next time we should do this together. [Inter-branch rivalries were unprofessional and poor conduct. It didn't stop the tiniest smirk from sneaking onto his face.] See if pilots can keep up with the Corps.

2 time to scare the shite outta this Dude

[knaval]

[it's dark out. of course it is, it's like two in the morning. there's cloud cover, so there's no light from the moon and the dull street lights in de chima only do so much. it doesn't help that riptide is way, way taller than the lights, anyway.

there's something very fun to find when you're out running, and that's a giant humanoid shape with two piercing, glowing yellow eyes standing up near a corner shop that's still open late into the night.

possibly the weirdest thing is the few people around are so used to riptide being present by now that aside from a few pictures being taken, no-one seems too bothered about this giant robot?]

you do him a frighten!

[loyal_soldier]

[He's on the wrong side of the street to see it until he rounds a corner and it's right there. Whatever the kark it is.

He gasps, skids to a halt, and without warning his armor just pops into existence, the sheer instinctive force of his oh bugger I'm small and easily breakable reaction summoning it to him.]

ho ho

[knaval]

[riptide still doesn't notice tk, even with him now armoured. he's still crouched by the store, watching the door, for some reason?

he shifts his weight a little, and it makes a tremor run across the ground. weird that no-one is doing anything.]

Re: ho ho

[loyal_soldier]

[What is it doing? What even is it? It looks like--]

[It's that karking droid from the network. He had no idea it was that big.]

Are you waiting for something?

[knaval]

--Huh?

[he straightens up slightly at the sudden voice, looking around. then down.]

Oh. [he doesn't recognise tk.] Yeah? Obviously.

[loyal_soldier]

[This droid.]

What, then?

4; just to warn you, Shiro may know how to use these machines but I sure don't

[shiroics]

[ Until Shiro got ported in, it'd been a few years since he'd used a gym designed for humans, and the ones he'd trained in were from another time. It didn't take him long to re-familiarize himself, but he recognizes the fellow-import-in-headlights look. ]

Hey, man. Need any help getting started?

That makes two of us!

[loyal_soldier]

[Thank the stars.]

I think so, sir. [Always be polite to the person bailing you out.]

Not much in here is looking familiar.

oh boy

[shiroics]

It's just Shiro. [ He smiles to paper over the awkward moment. Even the people Shiro commands don't call him "sir," not that he'd want them to anyway. ]

What kind of training routine do you do normally? I bet we can figure something out.

04 similarly I do not know my way around the gear

[cannotrest]

[Until ending up on this alternate Earth, Ashley had been living for a while on a warship which didn't have this kind of equipment, so getting to use it for free is probably her favorite benefit of teaching at Dawn of the Delts. On the other hand, because it's her workplace and she's still wearing her staff lanyard, she does feel obliged to help out when she sees a confused face.]

Yeah, it looks like a lot when you're on your own instead of in a class. [She flashes her staff ID.] I teach hand to hand, not this stuff, but I know my way around the gear.

Fortunately his workout shouldn't need really fancy stuff

[loyal_soldier]

[Oh, someone with an official ID tag for this place. That was a relief.]

Thank you, ma'am. I'm trying to keep in shape for active duty, but it looks like the Corps uses a different standard than local equipment.