@vamoose @haven_@shadowswordmaster@mastermouse
Uncle Sal's pizzeria, Labor Day weekend, lunch rush.
In the middle of New York City.
Line going out the door, each person standing in it intent on staying there. Waiting for Sal's cooking was worth the thirty minutes they were told by the usually cheerful Thelma. Right now, she kept track of the waiting list the best she could and did a spectacular job. The phone was ringing off the hook too, something that Janice handled.
More orders, piling in, just another day at the best pizza place on Yancy Street.
"Table 27 ready yet?" Jason was a punk, but an honest punk. Sal hired him out of one of his rare bouts of pity and never regretted it since. Always on time, never complained.
"Got more breadsticks, start handing them out to hungry customers!" Sal roared, steam hissing out of his joints as he continued to forcefully manhandle the inside of the oven, racks of pizzas greeting him as he inspected each one for the quality of ingredients during preparation.
"Table 27, medium with olives, spinach, mushrooms, and sausage. Ready!" Sal commanded, putting the pizza on a giant wooden spatula and sliding it onto one of the trays covered with wax paper meant to carry it to the table. Jason took the hint and raced towards the far left side of the restaurant floor.
"Table 13 is ready next, Benny!"
Benjamin Spencer, a quiet kid, set down a few refills for the table in question and smiled as he dismissed himself from their presence for the meal he was meant to take back to them. He was the newest of the crew and had yet to acquaint himself with the restaurant's namesake. Uncle Sal, or Salazar Roosevelt, was not widely known, yet those who had been coming to the place for years knew him by name. Ben looked up - way up - at the full broad frame of the giant robotic humanoid, and Sal's squared jaw just flapped up and down as he tried to get Ben's attention again.
"You hear me? Good, now go feed my guests. Get money get paid, little guy."
---
Dinner shift, surprisingly, was slow. Everyone had somewhere else to go. So Sal decided to close early. In a show of fairness, he let the waiters keep the tips they were given. Hoarding tips together and dividing it between them was stupid. With his giant metal fingers, he sifted through the cash register's contents in the back office, tapping his finger on the table to the dumb radio songs that repeated over the intercom.
All of his employees were already gone, having done their share of cleaning and silverware wrapping.
He sighed. Barely made the rent again. Keeping his place was getting harder each year. People were just tired of quality, apparently. They wanted fast food, now now now. Sacrificing good pizza for quick pizza was always a mistake.
"Just microwave a damn Red Baron's and stay at home, don't come out and chew on my metal ass because you feel like it."
He chuckled a bit, remembering the first time he kicked someone out of the joint for being a buttmunch. People these days, sheesh. He pulled his overcoat on and shrugged to get it to fit. Ever since the accident, things just didn't feel right anymore. Having custom-fitted clothes was almost insulting, like no human should be wearing this or something. Still, it made him look good.
At least, the parts that weren't the robot body.
Eleven at night, and the streets were pretty quiet. Locking the front door and shutting the metal blinds were just precautions learned during the riots throughout the 70s and 80s. He walked up and down this road every single day. Never got tired of it. Only thing was the spot.
It hurt just remembering it. How many times they hit his head. How many times they kept beating him. That's part of the reason why he had to get this new body of his. Sal patted down his thick armored chest, remembering there was still a heart in there. A metal one, but still there.
"Still here, you bastards,"
The muggers were identified and arrested, but Sal had to start over. His body was broken beyond repair, and even if he were to recover, he would never walk or move again besides facial expressions. Since this would mean a death sentence for his business, a business he owned for over fifteen years, decisions were made and he wound up as a living breathing robot man. The weirdest part was yet to come, however.
He kept looking down, a habit he learned in high school, and found something that looked like a quarter. Picking it up absentmindedly, he stuffed it into his pocket and continued walking, only he suddenly felt a bit lighter.
"H-Hey, what's goin' on?" he asked nobody, disappearing into thin air before he could do anything else.
---
Mere picoseconds later, he re-materialized on what he could best recognized as an alien world. Gasping for air, his brain told him to vomit, but of course he couldn't. He staggered to his feet, looking all around, absorbing the details. Judging by the look on a three-foot-tall mouse's face, he apparently poofed up right in front of him. Investigating further, there were hacked robot parts that looked to be chopped apart like firewood. He connected two and two together, comparing these marks to those on the machines in front of the mouse, and came to the conclusion that he switched places somehow with another person who was fighting here mere seconds earlier.
But then he did a double take on the mouse.
There was a three-foot-tall mouse staring right at him.
Good God.
"Uh," he stammered. "HelloOH, JESUS H. CHRIST!"
Getting knocked over the head wasn't high on Sal's list of favorite things to do right now, least of all by a rogue cybernetic beast that wanted to take his head with it. Shooting his hands forward, he brought the beast down to the ground and put it in a headlock.
"I don't know what's going on, and I don't care!"
Twisting and pulling, Sal managed to tear the metallic sinews holding the thing together, ripping it in two.
"No one blindsides Salazar Roosevelt!" he roared, feeling a bit funny after touching the winged beast. He scratched his head with one hand.
But felt another touching his robot scalp. Swatting it away, thinking it was another flying thing, he sputtered once he realized he had wings of his own! Apparently this was a power of his now, or the strange technologies of this alien species was just compatible with his own. Confused beyond any reason, he looked at the mouse for answers.
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