Blighted Skies

"This place is bloody depressin'..."

Despite having lived on Konats for a while, Tinker hadn't explored the planet too much. Never really felt the need, honestly. Lux had so much to work with that he never felt a need to do so. At most, he'd occasionally endure the sands to see if he found anything, or Vynh to peddle some tech off to people. Now that he was actually strong and freshly returned from Namek, he decided to explore the planet a bit. Namek didn't have much of anything, but Konats had to have more than Lux worth looking at.

He hadn't exactly expected to find himself in the middle of a destroyed town, but that's where he found himself. Though there was probably a history behind this place, Tinker didn't know it. It didn't seem like a story that'd appeal to him anyway, not if this aftermath was any indication. Similarly unexpected was for there to be another person in this broken town. Well, he assumed it was a person anyway. All Tinker knew was there was a skinny, tall and grey caped individual in this abandoned town with him.

Tinker took an involuntary step back after the strange creature turned to face him, and made a subtle movement to grab one of the modified baseballs in his pocket. As the caped individual leapt towards the reptile, he was fully prepared to start fighting. To have to avoid or intercept an attack of some kind.

Fortunately, the lanky guy stopped short of actually doing anything. He merely loomed before Tinker with his arms slack. Then he asked who Tinker was, assuming that the single word he spoke didn't mean something else. With how strange this guy was acting, Tinker wouldn't be surprised. Still better to go with what made sense for now, rather than gamble on something less sensible.

Well, this Majin didn't seem to be planning to hurt him at least. Still weird, but not harmful. Though still a little guarded, Tinker allowed himself to relax a little and accepted the odd handshake with his free hand. Though the stilted speech was somewhat off-putting, it was easy to understand what Halluc was asking.

"Fix this place, huh?" Tinker looked around at the ruined buildings, and he tried to envision what he could actually do here. This wasn't the kind of job he usually did, and he didn't know what he meant by smelling evil and fear, but the alien could come up with the basic concept for rebuilding the place at least. The hypothetical couldn't hurt, or at least, it shouldn't. "Could probably rebuild the houses, if I put my mind to it. Might take a while. Buildings ain't what I'm best at handlin'. More used to machines, computers, stuff like that. Generally smaller things, too. Still, I could probably do it, if I had the tools and time. Might not be my best work, but it'd be better than it is now."

"Though, fixing it might not be the right word. A lot of the buildings here can't be fixed, probably need to be replaced completely if anyone's gonna live here. Even if I knew what this place was like before whatever happened here... happened, it'd probably be better to clear out and build from scratch. It'd be a town then at least, instead of the ruin it is." There could be questions of whether it would be the same or an entirely new town by that point, but Tinker wasn't planning to engage with those questions if he could help it. The metal tail flicked at the air as he considered the situation further. "That said, there's not much point fixin' the houses with no one here. No one's lived here for a while. Anyone alive's likely moved on, 'less this place was abandoned more recently than it looks."

"So, yeah. I can probably make new houses, but there's not much point to it with no one here." He concluded, looking up at Halluc's face, forced to step back. Not out of fear but to face him more properly now that he stood at full height. "Or, did ya mean something else by fixing things here?"

The short alien's head tilted as Halluc seemed to try and parse the explanation. He seemed satisfied by the answer at least, or at least accepted it enough to move on to his past. Tinker didn't know much about Majins beyond their existence. One led the Novas, but that was all he knew about the Majin people.

Tinker working on Konats seemed confusing to this Majin, though he wasn't sure why. Maybe he was misreading something. "I mean, yeah? I live in Lux and work for whoever wants me to work. Came lookin' for places with better tech to work with than back home, and Lux worked out for the most part. It ain't exactly the nicest place, but people there don't care too much what you are, long as you do the jobs they want done. There's all sorts of people there." He shrugged to himself. Much of the work wasn't strictly legal, but the Fauxbian didn't care. "Maybe that's a recent thing, though. I ain't been here that long. And I guess I don't look as menacin' as you."

"As for not hatin' ya, well, you ain't tried to hurt me, for one thing. I feel like you'd've attacked me already if you planned to. You don't look the nicest, but I can't hate you for that." He answered bluntly before scratching the back of his head. "Though, honestly, I'd've probably ran from you, like, a year ago. Wasn't as strong or confident back then."

Some part of Tinker wanted to correct Halluc but decided against it. He had no objection to breaking apart machines, but there was usually a purpose. The desire to find out how things worked, or to break them apart so they could do a better or different job. And he could maybe be a bit negligent while focusing, but he didn't intentionally destroy without reason. Usually. Destroying things could still be fun for its own sake, but he did prefer creating things. Besides, breaking his own stuff wasn't hurting anyone.

Admittedly, the talk about eating evil was weird, but as long as the Majin was being friendly, then Tinker didn't care about the reason why.

It was a little surprising to hear that the big guy was weaker than Tinker. Not cause of the size, but because of how old the Majin supposedly was. Honestly, the Fauxbian had no idea what was a good level of strength, how much power he'd want or need. What he had so far didn't feel like enough from his experience, but maybe that was just bad luck. If getting this strong so quickly was impressive, he'd take the compliment. Even if it felt like he maybe could've gotten this strong at any point if he cared before. Maybe, if he had...

He shook his head a little. No. Never mind that now. Focus on now.

"I mean, I'd like to think I can fight well. If you want to fight, sure, I'm down. Probably better here than somewhere else, too. It ain't like we can break anythin' important here." Tinker began to bounce on his feet; he wasn't averse to a friendly fight, but most of the battles he'd been in so far hadn't been particularly friendly. If nothing else, this'd be a nice change of pace. There was an important question before they started, however. "So, uh, how seriously do you want to take this?"

Nothing serious then. Tinker could work with that "'Aight. I'll try not to go too hard then." He gave a nod, before taking a few steps back to match the Majin's starting position. At least the mechanic felt unlikely to take it too far this time. If he was actually stronger than the Majin, he wouldn't need to force his body to go all out to keep up. He'd learned that his mind could burn a bit too hot like that on Namek and had a little less restraint than he expected. It was probably fine in a life-or-death situation, but this didn't seem like that. Well, hopefully not, anyway.

He'd probably have to practice that state some more. Get it more under control. That was a problem for the future, though. Well, hopefully anyway.

"So, guess I'll take the lead then." With that statement, he gave the ball in his hand a light toss into the air. He immediately caught it before transitioning into a forceful throw at the Majin's chest. Sure, it wasn't much, not his weakest, but far from his stongest. Admittedly, that kind of toss was getting a bit plain as his default. Still, it was a decent starting point to see how others reacted. If they just got caught off guard by the high-speed ball. Or if they were too winded by even a throw like that to fight. Or if they were fully prepared. Any of those could tell how much his opponent could actually fight, whether he had to be careful, whether they were used to unconventional attacks. Important stuff like that. It was good to learn that kind of stuff early, to see what kind of opponent he was facing.

"Eh, maybe. I mostly made 'em with those as the base since they're easy enough to just buy, and they're already built for throwing. The sports were kinda fun when I played 'em, though." It was somewhat amusing that Halluc was probably the first time someone else outright caught the ball with their hand, considering that was what they were designed for. Well, that and being hit. "'Sides, they probably can't have people too powerful or fast playin', can they? Pretty sure it'd make things too obvious who'd win. Maybe there's a separate league for that kinda thing, though."

Tinker caught the ball before facing the Majin as he closed in. Knowing the likely immediate target, he turned his body to the side to remove the outstretched part of his body from harm. The long mouth was an obvious target and not exactly a pleasant place to be struck. Maybe he could try biting to counter, but that was probably best saved for more serious fights.

The mechanic took a couple of hits before putting up a proper guard, as Tinker quickly adjusted to Halluc's attacks. Both hands moved to intercept the jumping kick, attempting to grab the leg as it made contact. Though he felt some pain from the impact ringing through his hands, he powered through. Assuming the Fauxbian successfully caught the leg, he'd move to pull Halluc out of the air and slam him into the ground.