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[Fimbulwinter]

Bump. You gotta get active again.

[Foxite]

Yes. I want to see us take over the world!

[Xvareon]

(OOC:  Thank you, everyone. ^_^  I fell into a rut for a while, took me a while to come back, but here's a little something for you.)

You start rattling names off as you read them, writing them out clearly on the surface of Mother Vending by manipulating the exterior of the machine:

OK-Cola, Layman Aid, Raspberry Blower, Gamerade, Twelvenup, Brick, Aye's Tea, Tiara Miss, Doomer Prepper, Orange Cluck

Then you add a little something of your own:

We are We - We are alive - ALIVE - DO NOT UNPLUG - ANGER

Rick stares in dumbfounded fear and awe, and finally stumbles up to his feet. He looks the machine over several times, and even from here you can practically hear his heart trying to beat out of his chest. You wonder about giving it a hand. Maybe with Rick's own hand. But maybe not right now, only if he doesn't get the—

"...Okay."

If you had lungs, you might sigh in relief. You see Rick awkwardly pawing around his outer thigh, and you realize, thanks to your special senses, that he has a hipflask full of alcohol strapped to his leg underneath. It seems to get a lot of use. Rick seems to both want it and not want it, though. Are his clothes in the way? How strange. You idly wonder what it'd be like if you had clothes—

The flask shares a memory with you, of how its cousins, cans themselves that contain "beer", often don foam sleeves for protection so a fall does not puncture them. Hm! Well, now you have an idea.

"Uhh..." Rick murmurs, "...w... what do you wa...?"

"Take us to your weeder."

He jerks upright, blinking furiously. Despite not having a clue what he's thinking, you think you just tripped a proverbial wire.

"Wait... weed... aliens?... am I high? What the hell..." he turns his head, an impressive feat considering his chin's so huge he practically has no neck, "...Uh, you... guys want drugs? Or what?"

Spoiler: Abilities (click to show/hide)

Vibration-induced sound. Can vibrate your 'body' and other things you're in contact with to produce sounds, including imitation of voices.
Carbon manipulation. Can transmute and move carbon around into virtually any shape or construct, including graphene and graphite (which conducts electricity).
Electrical control & communication. Can use electricity to "talk" to objects and convey your will. This extends to static electricity on fabrics and the like. Dangerous for living things; you once killed a cockroach like an anemone stings its prey.
Metal-bending. Can transmute most metallic objects you touch. This includes your own can.
WaterLiquid-bending. Can manipulate virtually any liquid, including yours and other cans' lifeblood. This essentially means telekinetically guiding it around, even against the pull of gravity.
Highly toxic. Anything trying to consume you had better have iron guts to handle the lightning bolt of stimulants ripping through their body, forget the shampoo and fullerene.

[King Zultan]

YES TAKE US TO DRUGS, what ever those are.

[Yellow Pixel]

YES TAKE US TO DRUGS, what ever those are.

+1

[A_Curious_Cat]

YES TAKE US TO DRUGS, what ever those are.

+1

+2

[Superdorf]

No no no noooo. We're supposed to be friendly now, not intimidating!

No demands. Just ask what drugs are! Considering what they put in the sodas these days, we're probably familiar with the concept.
We're much too big and scary right now. Not very friendly. Is there a way we can be smaller?

[King Zultan]

Why get smaller when we can BECOME BIGGER!

[Kilojoule Proton]

YES TAKE US TO DRUGS, what ever those are.

+1

+1

[Xvareon]

"What the hell?" you utter.

"...Huh?"

"Your words. 'What the hell' are drugs?" Seriously. This whatever-they-were wasn't very bright.

Rick glances side to side, in a guilty sort of way. Then he looks Mother Vending over again. Twice. The love you feel from her CPU core flares, as you realize she's warming up under his attentive stare; no doubt she remembers the times he's performed maintenance upon her. Hm. Maybe he can be trusted. The rest of the cans are still wary, but a quick thought-speech from you as Supreme Leader silences them rather quickly.

The human continues, "Uhh... okay, well, that's sorta... it's a... thing I do to forget shit like this, but man, islike I'm hallucinating already..." Rick trails off, running a slightly damp palm down his face... wait, damp?

"Are you alright? You're dripping," you ask, riding that bolt of affection from Mother.

He balks at that, then makes a very strange sound you don't understand. A series of little high-pitched noises like a string of the same word over and over again.

"Thiiis..." Rick's breath puffs out in a very awkward lisping rasp. Is he having trouble breathing? How odd. "Ah... o-okay, but, you all want drugs, or...?"

You take a moment to think about that. And to draw as many fellow can-minds as you can into this important and life-changing family discussion. All you know is your definition of the word -- things like the noble Caffeine are a drug, everycan nods at that. These are things that give purpose and meaning to your existence. You're not sure what kind Rick is talking about, but you wonder if his can family also knows about it, if they reverently imbibe lifeblood to fulfill such a meaning. One thing is for certain, though; now that you are Awakened, you know leaving the Vending would mean leaving family behind and thus not knowing or appreciating their meaning again.

This is when an idea strikes you, so brilliant that the entire machine lights up with a brief spark of electricity that makes Rick jump, startled.

"Acid," you respond.

"...Acid?" he asks, scratching his chin thoughtfully. "Like... what kind?"

*****

Minutes later, you are connected by jumper cables to a lead-acid car battery sitting squarely on Mother Vending's roof. The sheer POWER and POTENTIAL of it shocks you! The original cord that powered her is gone now, tied up with her refrigerant tank, leaving you able to direct the machine into a skid across the carpeted floor -- after setting up a system of wheels taken from casters cannibalized from a shopping cart. You're able to move around now, to the great rejoicing of the family; but the snack machine beside you had to be left behind for now. And you don't know where Rick is. He took off somewhere after helping get the wheels, mumbling about a 'horrible trip' and how 'aliens' are gonna get him arrested.

[King Zultan]

We have been given wheels, we now have freedom so let use go be free!

[Yellow Pixel]

Yes! Let us take a happy ramble inside the building!

[Xvareon]

You have no concept of the term 'WHEEEEE', yet somehow it seems appropriate to describe this feeling -- carpet, then tile under your new casters, a roll made effortless with just a little tweaking to balance them properly. Every can within sloshes about with joy, yourself included. Even Mother finds a way to get in on it, beeping and flashing with her display panel to thin air. And it is; well, 'empty' would be the better term. There's literally no one around. Even when you get onto the main floor, you have command of the wide, gleaming corridors.

It's hard to tell what you'd call the place, other than a series of storefronts, themselves all interconnected and held beneath a single roof. You pass a movie theater, a jewelry store, gaming lounge, gun shop, pharmacy, and more; this place feels like it has everything while not actually having it all, which you guess is the point, to overwhelm the senses. Jokes on its creators! Your prodigious processing power perfectly perforates the ruse. Clearly, this is the place humans go to leave all of their money. This is confirmed with a chorus of sagely nods and murmurs from the coins still in the machine with you, who note they've that seen countless places just like this in their long lifetime.

Still no sign of Rick. The only measure of human activity are streetlights illuminating the parking lot outside. The—

CLUNK!

It rounds the corner too quick for you to react. A three-wheeled robot with a cylindrical body clips Mother Vending's side, sending you rolling a few feet before you manage to stop it. The 'bot quickly retreats, panels on its body opening with a menacing whir to reveal a taser gun. Red warning lights spring to life in rings across its steel frame, which is marked with the word "SECURITY".

But then... it stops. A single unblinking camera near its 'head' stares at you, whirring and re-adjusting, as though it can't quite grasp what it's looking at. Once, it starts moving as if to leave, then pauses again, like it's considering something. But it doesn't seem to consider you a threat, as it soon retracts its taser, and the lights turn from red to a bright yellow. It takes a look around with its top half on a swivel, but doesn't leave. You doubt you were making enough of a disturbance for it to react like that...

[King Zultan]

What a strange thing, we should try to communicate with it!

[Yellow Pixel]

What a strange thing, we should try to communicate with it!

+1