The Airship

The smell of freshly baked pancakes wafts through the vast halls of the Airship, a pleasant aroma that could make just about anyone salivate. Inside of the kitchen, Chris had just finished cooking up two pancakes for a joyous Pool, putting one on a plate and sprinkling powdered sugar and syrup on it. He sets the other cake on top of the first one and slathers some butter on it before repeating the process with the sugar and syrup. Feeling proud of his art, he takes the plate and sets it in front of Pool at the dining table, giving her a fork not long after. Pool takes the fork and examines it.

"What is this?" She asks quizzically.

"You really don't know what that is? Wow... I never realized Merpeople were really that different from humans-" Chris chuckles.

He takes the fork from her and sets the side of it on top of the pancakes, holding the plate steady as he begins to cut out a piece with the fork. He then jabs the fork into the slice and holds it up for Pool.

"This is a fork, it's used to cut food and eat it so that your hands don't get dirty, though I suppose you didn't have to worry about that while you were living underwater." Chris says jokingly.

"Oh yes... This makes sense, thank you Chris." Pool says with a light grin on her face.

After inspecting the slice of fluffy goodness that was on the fork, she puts it into her mouth and starts to chew. After a few seconds of silence, tears suddenly began to pour from her eyes. Chris's happy face quickly shifts to one of deep concern.

"E-Eh-!? What's wrong-!?" Chris says, panicked.

Pool swallows her food before slowly looking at Chris, her face now wet.

"...I have never tasted anything so delicious in my whole life..." Pool says softly.

Chris breathes a sigh of relief, wiping sweat off of his forehead.

"You had me scared there... Yeah, welcome to the culinary world of surface food. I think you'll like it, judging by this reaction of yours." Chris says, laughing a bit.

Not long after Chris speaks, Pool starts absolutely downing the food before her, much to Chris's surprise.

"H-How... Can a girl her size eat like that-?" Chris asks himself in awe.

Meanwhile, in the lab, Noland was finishing up the mechanism he had been working on. He had built skin around the metal frame he had been working on before. He made a creature-like contraption resembling a Chinese Dragon, it had brown antlers and whiskers. It's serpentine body was a blue color, having a tuft of fur around it's neck which sported a lighter shade of blue. It was small, being only slightly over a foot and a half and had short, almost stubby legs. Noland pulls a chip out of his computer and picks up the body he had made and walks down the hall towards the elevator to the control bay. Up inside of the control bay, Corry was now looking at the main command panel, checking how much more time until the crew would arrive at their destination of the Techway HQ. The elevator door opens, revealing Noland with his creation.

"Hey Corry, considering this is the command deck, is MAPI's maintenance panel around here somewhere?" Noland asks.

Corry looks confused, staring quizzically at Noland.

"Uhh... Yeah?" Corry says hesitantly, eyeing the fake creature in Noland's arms.

"Alright, can you tell me where?" Noland asks with a straight face.

"Why do you need to know? Did MAPI already malfunction??" Corry asks, sounding somewhat surprised.

"I'm just uhh... Giving it an update is all-" Noland states, holding up his computer chip.

Corry eyes him suspiciously, causing Noland to start sweating from it's sheer intensity. Eventually, Corry smiles happily.

"Ok! The panel is on the far right of the console." Corry chirps with the most innocent face known to man.

"Oh- Uhh, ok then, thank you-" Noland says, clearly confused.

Noland walks over to the far left of the console as instructed and bends down, opening up the bottom of it. He takes a look inside, there were a bunch of wires and outlets for plugs and other mechanical devices.

"....Yep, this should work." Noland confirms to himself.

He grabs a handful of wires and yanks them out, causing sparks to erupt from the console. Corry runs up to Noland, now panicked.

"W-What do you think you're doing!? You said you were updating it-!!" Corry yelps frantically.

"I am!" Noland replies.

He opens a panel on the creature-like machination and sticks the ends of the wires inside of it before putting the computer chip into a port under the console. After doing this, MAPI's voice is heard throughout the ship, glitching heavily before suddenly going silent. Over in the kitchen, Chris and Pool look up towards the ceiling, pondering what the noise was.

"The hell was that?" Chris asks.

"That sounded like it was that computer thing..." Pool says quietly.

"Hmm... I'm gonna go check it out." Chris states before walking out of the room.

"H-Hey, wait for me Chris!" Pool squeaks, hobbling after Chris.

Back in the control bay, Noland seemed to be waiting for something, whilst Corry was just staring in complete disbelief at his friend.

"Noland... What was that chip that you just plugged into MAPI?" Corry asks nervously.

"Nothing much, it's just forcibly moving her to another place." Noland says casually.

".....WHAT!?" Corry shouts out.

"Now, if I'm correct, this body should change her programming a bit..." Noland mumbles to himself.

"What was that last part about changing her program-?" Corry hesitantly asks, not even sure if he really wanted to know.

"You'll see." Noland assures Corry.

The elevator door opens, revealing Chris and an exhausted Pool. Chris walks into the room, Pool stumbling behind her before falling on her butt. Pool runs her tailbone, but still has her attention directed towards Corry and Noland.

"What's going on here?" Chris asks Corry.

"Noland's doing something to MAPI-" Corry half whispers.

Chris and Pool's attention is diverted to Noland and his little dragon creature. Before long, the dragon creature's eyes open, causing everyone in the room except for Noland to recoil from surprise.

"That means the transfer is done!" Noland says proudly, stuffing the wires back under the control console.

"...Where am I? More importantly, what am I?" MAPI's voice asks from the creature thing.

The rest of the crew watches in amazement at Noland's fear.

"You know who you are, right?" Noland asks.

"Well, yes... I'm the Mobile Aerial Paradise Interface... I feel so different... I feel?" MAPI stammers to herself, confused by this revelation.

"You should have more free will now, so you don't have to be all fancy when talking to people, and you should also be able to feel certain things like us." Noland explains.

MAPI looks around, feeling at her newfound body with her little feet. She looks back up at Noland.

"Go ahead, say my name." Noland tells MAPI.

"Noland." MAPI replies.

"See? No more of that "Master" stuff" Noland says with a smile on his face.

"So... You weren't lying! This is an awesome update to MAPI-!" Corry calls out, amazed.

"Wouldn't this mean that MAPI cannot instantly come to our side if we need something?" Pool asks from her spot on the floor.

The crew all look at each other before looking back at MAPI.

"I... Didn't think that far. I actually didn't want her appearing all the time, but I guess she won't do that now that she has free will... But now she's in this body-" Noland says, thinking he may have made a mistake.

"...I have a theory." MAPI states.

"A theory? What kind of theory?" Noland asks.

"Well... It would seem that I'm still electronically connected to the ship's mainframe. Perhaps I can transport myself to people by using those computer monitors that I was already connected to." MAPI explains.

"But how would you do that? It's not like you're just gonna phase into the screen-" Chris says doubtfully.

"Of course not." MAPI agrees with Chris.

Despite agreeing with Chris, a monitor still descends from the ceiling. The screen opens up to reveal all of it's inner workings. MAPI crawls into the monitor and the screen closes, MAPI's new face appears on the screen with a light blue background. MAPI's smile is spread across her digitalized face.

"I had a feeling this would work." MAPI says happily.

Noland and Corry become very excited at this prospect, high giving each other. Chris and Pool sort of just watch from the back of the room, Chris chuckles a bit and Pool looks utterly clueless as to what was going on. The monitor turns off and MAPI hops out of it, landing like a cat on the floor.

"This is a very nice feeling, I could get used to this!" MAPI cheers.

"Hehe, you can't even tell that this just used to be a monotone voice inside of a computer screen, you did great Noland!!" Corry says ecstatically.

Noland chuckles lightly, scratching the back of his head.

"Ehehe... It was nothing, really." Noland says, smiling widely.

"Hey MAPI, how long do we have until we get to our destination?" Corry asks MAPI.

MAPI seems to think for a bit.

"We should be arriving at our destination in about 20 Hours." MAPI states.

"Still that long!?" Corry yelps.

"I uhh... Would assume that it's pretty far away." Chris says lightly.

"We best get comfortable then, if we really are gonna be fighting Techway later, we should be well rested." Noland advises the crew.

"Alright!! Let's go chill out then! I already know what I'm gonna do!" Corry chirps.

"A lay down would be nice after the wonderful meal I just had..." Pool says wishfully.

"Alright, afterwards, I'll tell you guys how we should infiltrate the base." Chris speaks up.

"Oh? You know how to get in?" Corry asks.

"Remember... I've been spying on the guys for a while, so I know a thing or two about them..." Chris sighs.

"Oh... That makes sense! Alright everyone, you're dismissed!" Corry says excitedly.

The rest of the crew nods and the three of them enter the elevator and head back down.

"Ahh... Back to my captain-ly duties!" Corry says proudly.

MAPI was just sitting on the floor, looking up at Corry.

"Oh, what are you still doing here?" Corry asks.

"I suppose this would also be my room, right?" MAPI questions, a blank smile on her face.

"....I guess so-" Corry admits.

To Be Continued ^^