Inpixeption: or TV Dinners

Old Vegas Shopping Mall, or to Cook, home. He was 'born' and raised in Las Vegas, but had never made the time to visit this place known for having the biggest ceiling screen. He mostly stayed in the strip clubs as a teen. For this was where his 'family' worked. It was a good if odd upbringing he had.

He strolled down the Freemont Street, he couldn't help but notice the glorious site that was set before him. The sheer enormity of it made him stop in his tracks to ensure he could fully take in this site. Having seen so many before he assumed no man could ever use his hands to create such a marvel. He just wanted to reach out and touch it. Feel it. Make sure his eyes weren't making a fool out of him, or this wasn't the work of some illusionist.

But no, as his hands made their way to the random woman's large chest, the immediate five finger show of disaproval showed him that they were in fact; real. Or real in the sense that they were there and not that they were natural. As the Ginourmous television above him changed to a light blue, reflecting the color upon the the shoppers, he shrugged. That was pretty cool too.


Rubbing his cheek gingerly and tasting the familiar coppery taste of his own blood he continued to meander around. He had forgotten why he had even came to this place. Besides the TV there was nothing for him here. The food was banal at best. He sighed as he took a seat down on one of the benches next to a fake palm tree. He grabbed a few of the leaves and plunged them into his mouth and slowly chewed them as he thought about what exactly to do here.

But then it came to him. He was supposed to fight someone! He couldn't remember the exact reason. Something about him and cheese and an inflatable pool of Merlot... He gave another shrug. He was sure his soon to be opponent would be here soon. And then they would have their little scuffle, and afterwards their could be pancakes. Cook did enjoy pancakes.

A young man walked down the mall with a grin wider than that of its customer service. His happiness was transparent, though its source far too selfish to be infectious. Hugh was positively eeelated when a plan came together this well. Never before had his enemies been so compromising, so willing to listen to reason. Usually it was just some big-shot Titan trying their darnedest to knock him on his backside. Today it was some plucky cook who was happy enough to let him pick the arena.

Let's face it. Someone had to make that mistake eventually. (^_^)

Given his pick of battlefields, Pix had chosen himself the biggest advantage he could have on Earth. Beside setting this inside the TV dimension, of course. It was such overkill, that Pix hadn't even asked for Nix to escort him. The arsenal in this place would allow him to single handedly give the Titans a run for their money. Surely one sorry sucker would be no problem.

Seeing the foe, Hugh resisted the urge to do a Nix, and walked over instead of skipped. Before now he had been up in the mall security terminal, scanning the cameras after having knocked out the operators with their own display screens. Now that the security here wasn't a problem, they could have their battle unhindered. Cook would pay dearly for his indescribable misdemeanors.

“There you are. Still in one piece, too. I thought that woman from earlier on was gonna take you out before I got a chance. It's time you ate your words, Cook!” Pix pointed dramatically at the lad, shopping commuters passed freely between the two.

With a full mouth of plastic leaves, Cook would look up at his newly revealed advarsary from his sitting position as he sized Hugh up with his eyes. Within just a few seconds Cook assumed that this young man before wasn't much of a physical fighter due to his frame. Also he imagined Hugh wasn't a fan of beetroots but probably liked pancakes. Of course that had nothing to do with the two of them fighting but these were things that a patron of the culinary arts thought about when meeting a person.

With a quick hard swallow, he rose to his feet still eyeing the Hugh. He knew nothing about his person before him. He didn't know if he was a a metahuman, what his powers were, if any. Age, occupation... Nothing. He especially didn't understand why he chose to do battle in strip mall with a roof TV. Cook was never much of a planner, so his lack of prior knowledge didn't concern him too much. Besides, if Cook knew nothing of Pix, then conversely, Pix knew nothing of Cook.

After obtaining as much info as he could from just staring at him all day (Which was just shy of nothing) he decided it was time to return Pix's pre-battle banter with a bit of his own.

"First off Dude, might wanna lay off the dramatic, this isn't Luxor." Cook then proceeded to slightly lower Pix's pointing hand down. "And second, I did eat my own words once time out in Pueblo... Don't ask, long story." he even shoo'ed away the notion of being asked with his hands. " So my spiky head dude friend, did you wanna get some grub first, or just get this little shindig going? Cause I had to kick ass on an empty stomach."

On a less than super day, Pix would take offence at having his personal space invaded. Tolerance was a staple of good spirits. He allowed his arm to drop and crossed it against his chest instead. As Cook went on he retreated a half step whilst listening with ill-disguised anxiousness. There was little danger of him compromising his plans with time consuming monologues. No long drawn out explanations of how he did it, no unnecessary elaborations of detail that go beyond conventional conversational procedures, no endless trade in banter that would inevitably allow chance for reversal of fortunes. His victory would be quick, abrupt, and without cause for delay. If he was to liken his encroaching success to a flavour of ice-cream, it wou-

“Eat on your own time. I've got a life to get back to.” The nerve of this guy, pretending they were friends. No one could be civil after what had lead up to this. It was straight to battle, “What are you doing anyway; thinking about dinner with no movie.” The HIVE student jerked his thumb up, indicating above their heads. The ceiling had begun to ripple, disrupting the massive display monitor. Adverts broke apart into oblivion as pixels tore free of their surface. Each and every LED fluttered clear, condensing into clouds of silver swarms.

Where attention could be spared, people observed the new happening with critical assessment. Tacky – they thought; impressive what the mall could do with 3D effects these days, but nothing like what they had down in Henderson. The pixels began to gather high above the heads of the two teens and almost orbit as mass continued to trickle into the gravitational ring. Hugh returned a sly look at Cook before his features also became blocky. Where once a human stood now there was sprite (^_^).

“Yeah, that's right – sucks to be you. You picked a fight with a meta-human. And I control pixels. Mhmm. That means every single LED here is about to tare you a new one. Place of the world's biggest LED screen. And you walked into it like-” Uh, damn, monologue alert. The pixel ring above them poured straight down like a dense stream. Pix ended his explanation abruptly and leapt backwards. See if he could drown someone in pixels.

In all honesty Cook wasn't too thrilled to be fighting with no food before hand. It had been at least five minutes since the last time he had a meal. It was the equivalent of torture for him. He had hoped the two of them could have sat down over a warm burrito stuffed full of meat and cheese and other deliciousness, but it seemed that would not be.

After a sigh of disappointment over the prospect of no pre-fight, Cook fiddled with the short hairs on his chin as his eyes followed Pix's jutting thumb. "Well I mean to be honest with ya, I reserve the movies for the ladies." he relplied in response. Besides who goes to a movie before a rumble? It's a preposterous idea. It did take a moment for him to begin to grasp exactly what Hugh wanted him to give his attention to however.

But after gazing at the giant screen for a few moments, the reason began to reveal itself. The Coca-Cola advertising ceased before the pixels in the screen loosed themselves from their former home in the screen, turning into a mass of silver pixels reminiscent of a swarm of gnats on a summer afternoon.

A look of child-like wonder overtook Cook's face as he observed the event taking place with the rest of the spectators. As the mass slowly descended and hovered high over the two opponent's heads like an ominous storm cloud, his eagerness could not be contained and he rocked on the back of his heels in anticipation.


His attention left the swirling pixels to return to Pix, his face now resembled an emoticon. Upon further inspection, Pix looked better suited for a 16-bit video game than the real world. Before Cook could ask for an explanation, Hugh was already explaining himself. So, he controls pixels? THAT IS SO AWESOME! Cook thought to himself just as Pix took a quick hop away. This was followed by a waterfall of silver pixels cascading down upon Cook. For some odd reason he had a wide grin on his face. His last words would be "Sweet."

Or those would have been his last words. Because like Pix, Cook was also a meta-human. A meta-human who could ingest any type of matter. And pixels were matter. Cook was grinning because he had never eaten a pixel before. TV's. Yes. Computer moniters. Yes. He had probably made a meal of almost every device in one's local electronic department store. But an actual pixel was new. Still, a meal's a meal.

The downpour was just inches before his face before he opened his mouth. The second the first pixel touched his tongue, the glutton with the same name and profession began to devour each and every pixel that fell upon him at a rate that would make any speedster proud. It was a marvel to behold as he simply stood in place, with mostly his neck and torso quickly moving to and fro to devour the pixels like they were snowflakes.

When the onslaught of silver finally ended. It was apparent that Cook was not unscathed. His poor chef hat was demolished and there were cuts all along his his coat. The pixels that weren't devoured were littered on the floor around him. After a quick dry belch, he soothed his jawline with his hands while devilishly grinning at his foe. "And you said there would't be any food. You even brought the movie to me." he chuckled at his comeback. He then crossed his arms across his chest, with his grin still present. "So dude, what else you got?"

This was of course a rhetorical question. With his arms still crossed, he closed his eyes. His dark skin flashed a copper hue for a brief second before returning to normal. Pix's attack had the untended benefit of giving Cook a wonderful energy boost. The brief flash was the result of Cook accessing his energy cells in his body. Opening his eyes, he moved into a running position and sprinted straight towards Pix, hopping into the air and aiming for his new emoticon face with an outstretched fist."One knuckle Sandwich, compliments of the Cook!"

A last look at Cook appeared the vision of a child trying to catch drops of rain upon their tongue. Then he was eclipsed from view as the dense mass of pixels consumed him. Unfortunately he consumed them right back. Much to Hugh's chagrin, Cook became visible again. The reflexes of his body were something unnatural. For the first time today the smile had dropped from the face of Pix as once again that bane of all words came into use, Complication...

The fearsome display of meta-human might was reduced into a tasty side dish followed by a murmur of polite applause as the shoppers acknowledged the entertainment. Pix shot the closest one what was intended to be a withering look, but had the effect tarnished by his Animal Crossing-esque features (>_<). His foe was apparently more of an enigma then he had bargained for. If he didn't know any better, Pix would swear that his pixels had been eaten. No matter. Plenty more where they came from.

He took it upon himself to try and answer the rhetorical, “Plenty. Just give me a mo-” Suddenly Cook had sprung at him with superhuman speed. The physical amplifications were just unfair. Hugh had never agreed to a sparring match when challenging this guy. Hand-to-hand (or hand-to-face) was undesired. A crying shame that he couldn't do anything about it. Pix appeared to be trying to emulate squirtle's 'withdrawal' when the fist hit.

It seemed a devastating blow. Hugh crumpled, was catapulted backwards, and tumbled across marble flooring until shunting café furniture. Two customers checked under their table to find the downed meta, only to have Pix leap back to his feet, smacking his head upon said table as he did. While he was wobbly, the recovery had been almost immediate. With one exception.

A section of Hugh's head was missing. Pixels that constructed the body were scattered along his flight-path. Automatically they drifted back towards him, repairing the damage done. Yet for the time being Hugh was lacking half a mouth. Instead the H.I.V.E. student improvised some gestures.

Point. Pause. Shake fist. Summon pixels.

A new horde of pixels started to gather. The first clouds arranged themselves together to form platforms. One of the Tetris blocks swept Pix from off his feet and into the air. The others held off on their kamikaze run and provided stepping platforms from the ground to where Pix was.

C'mon. Take the bait Pacman.