2022-02-05: Initialization
- Log: 2022-02-05: Initialization
- Cast: Akane Shinjo, Riika Sheder
- Where: Tsutsujidai - Train Station
- OOC - IC Date: 0096-02-05
- Summary: Akane helps a mysterious ZAFT tourist get her bearings.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
The rain hasn't let up today. It's a mess. It's *almost* a break from the oppressive heat, but honestly it's hot enough that it isn't fully a break from that, even. It's the worst kind of summer rain -- it's not refreshing and it's not cool. It's that kind of weather that leads to it feeling sticky for at *least* a day afterward.
At least it's the weekend.
Akane Shinjo heads home from class. The last thing she wants today is another visitor, but she's doing her best to hide the frustration she feels; the day was a little taxing, but she's at least getting through it.
Her usual loop is disrupted, though. There's a tiny bit of road construction -- the normal kind -- on her usual route, so she has to take a long way around that takes her past the train station before getting home. She looks at the trains, thoughtfully. Could she break them from *this* side...? But does the world make any sense at that point?
She puts it out of her mind. Solving outside is Alexis's problem. *Her* problem is cleaning up Anti's mess now.
<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.
Riika Sheder was a woman with a plan.
After Lily's report, she knew she'd have to check out Julius Seven to see if something was up with it. She didn't expect to find anything.
And yet here she is! So apparently she did find something. The only catch is that she isn't quite sure what she found.
Having listened pretty carefully to the report, she had assumed that she would show up with her GINN and packed appropriately; a gym bag with items stashed in the back. Now she's in Tsutsujidai and she had the gym bag but not the robot, which is going to be a real problem for her if she doesn't come back to the ship with it. Still, at least she had her stuff.
Which is why she's dressed almost like she fits in. Almost; dark tights and skirt, lighter top, and her ZAFT pin which she decided to leave on in case anyone else was stuck here and recognized it.
Unfortunately, because Riika has never actually been to Earth before, it did not occur to her to pack an umbrella, and so she looks miserable. Her hair is plastered down and has lost much of its floof, she has water all over her glasses and no way to get it off because none of her cloth is dry, she has no idea where she's going, and she's still carrying that bag around. She looks like a lost tourist near the train station, because she assumes they will have a map. Or something.
But does Tsutsujidai get tourists? Well, these days... maybe it does.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
These days, it seems to find a new tourist or two every single day! Akane can usually spot 'em, even dressed to have more casual interactions; it's an easy spot, in fact. Most people have umbrellas, weird kaiju notwithstanding; they expect the type of weather they have today. Someone at the train station, hair flat, clearly confused?
Well. Akane can help with that, at least. She's not super enthused to! But she *can*.
Holding her umbrella up a little bit higher, Akane approaches her mystery tourist. Those red eyes take in a *lot* of data very quickly. "Hey there. You look lost," she says, casually. Her eyes rest on the ZAFT pin for a moment, and she adds, "... *really* lost. I didn't even realize ZAFT was still a thing! I thought they dissolved that when the PLANTs became independent in 0091."
Well, that certainly... answers questions? Raises questions?
The question set has been completely swapped out for a new question set. Let's go with that.
<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.
Riika's first experience with Earth is not really meeting with her approval! It's raining more steadily (and harder) than she's used to, it's awfully hot even disregarding that - and Riika has forgotten that it is supposed to be winter in Japan right now - and it's not laid out nearly as neatly or logically as a PLANT.
"A little bit," Riika says, looking over at the other voice through droplet-covered glasses. "It's my first time here, I've never even been to Earth very much," or at all, "and, ah...?"
That last bit threw her a bit. The PLANTs independent? In *0091*? That's not right at all, and while Riika knew this place was weird (just look around for the kaiju and you can prove that), that wrong-footed her in a way that other history didn't.
"I guess I'm just used to it," she says, even though she's not old enough to have served then; in 0091 she looks like she might have been thirteen or fourteen. "Though I'm not sure you have your year right..."
A pause. "Is there a map or something anywhere around here? I'd like to see it."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"I guess it could've been 0090," Akane says, though she doesn't sound like she's thinking she's *seriously* wrong. "Like... five, six years ago, right?" So it *is* at least 0096 here. Wherever here is. That's a start on valuable data!
Akane glances around. "Yeah, there *should* be one... hold on." She false starts in one direction -- then mumbles, "Nope," before turning back around the other way and, sure enough, leading her new acquaintance to a map kiosk. "I think this is what you're looking for?" Riika is in Tsutsujidai, at least. It's definitely a ward of Nouvelle Tokyo, which is something. And there's definitely a map.
Akane pivots to asking a slightly more specific question. "I bet I can help you find something, if you're looking for somewhere specific..." She glances off toward the city for a moment. She sees the kaiju; she's *almost* certain Riika sees them too. But she isn't too fussed about it. Instead, she explains, "I just got out of school. I'm kinda bored."
<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.
There's a map. Hurray!
More importantly, those things are usually under cover and Riika is no longer getting rained on. She reaches up to literally wring out her hair. It helps a little bit, though she's still pretty drenched. "Thanks," she says, turning her attention to the map for a moment. She brings her hand up to the side of her glasses, adjusting them slightly.
Then she looks up a moment when Akane does, toward the city. The kaiju - she *can* see them. But they're not moving, and she couldn't figure out what they were doing - and without her GINN she wasn't willing to go over and poke one.
"Actually, maybe you can! I heard there was, um, a battle here about two weeks ago but I didn't see anything like that. Someone I know was caught up in it so I wanted to make sure everyone was okay." Because Riika's contact hadn't stuck around to be able to tell her that the city fixed itself. "Oh, my name is Riika," she adds, which might throw Akane for about a quarter second until she continues: "Riika Sheder."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
The name *does* throw Akane for a second -- but it actually gets her to giggle, after a moment. "That'd be with the choonpu, right?" Akane pays attention to pronunciation! "If it was the sokuon instead, you'd have the same name as a girl in my class!" She doesn't linger on that too long, though. It's neat trivia about her life, not something that *really* matters.
"... wow, you're really lucky you got me first, though," she says, moving back to the battle side of things. Oh -- this is probably a friend of that Hizack pilot's. That makes a little sense. "There's some... weird stuff about that. Hey, I think we should go somewhere a little less crowded to talk about this... if you had to pick, would it be coffee, ramen, or sofubi?" One of these things is not like the other, but clearly there's *some* connection.
"Whatever we talk about would probably freak some people out," she thinks to add, as an afterthought.
<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.
"That's right," Riika agrees. "I suppose neither Rikka or Riika is *that* uncommon, huh?" Well, Riika is, but given the names of some of her copilots it's positively normal. It's certainly easier to spell.
Lucky she found her? "I - well, nobody else commented on the ZAFT pin, so I thought maybe you might have seen her. I don't think there's going to be many PLANTs citizens down here," she says, with a slight smile that makes it a little less harsh; it's not because nobody wants to come to Tsutsujidai, it's because they live in space and this is not space.
Probably. Given how she got to it, it might be in space.
"...yeah, there is some weird stuff. I got here after all! This is my first time on Earth actually." Riika doesn't know how to say 'by the way, you can get to here from a space station', so that's as close as she's getting.
Riika considers. Then she shoulders her bag. It should be fine, she thinks. It's not like she's in any particular danger here. "I'd rather not freak anyone out. How come you're not. Oh... coffee?" she guesses. "Though I could look at sofubi too..."
Wait, she knows about it? She *cares* about it?
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"A little, but not really," Akane agrees, at the idea of Rikka being a common or uncommon name. "And yeah! I think there was a ZAFT unit here a little while ago -- plus a few weirder ones. I saw a couple of giants, plus some mobile suits... and then this little tiny one. Weird, right?"
Akane is already gaming out the interaction in her head as she starts walking. Tsutsujidai's a pretty walkable city, with a few notable exceptions. "... Most of the people around this city don't have a clue," she explains for Riika. "Every time something weird or violent happens, the city just... resets overnight. No one sees it. Spooky, right?"
There's another playful little giggle, despite the bizarreness of the situation. "... It's normal to me by this point. Even if I could change it, I still have to go to class, right? So it doesn't really do anything." She takes a hard turn toward Sevendarake -- a veritable repository of nerd goods. It's... pretty low-traffic. Lower than you'd expect for this time of day, with class letting out.
"Stuff like that just... kinda slides off people here. They ignore mobile weapons a little when they show up, too, as long as they don't start shooting," Akane says, starting to fold her umbrella back up once she's under the store awning. "But I bet you'd freak them out if you poked at things too much. I kinda just go with it!"
<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.
Riika is not sure about the politeness level of trying to hide under Akane's umbrella, so mostly she just puts up with the rain. She's going to have to change soon, though. Maybe she can get a hotel room - no, she doesn't *really* want to stay that long, but if it takes her that long to figure out how to get out again...
No, concentrate! "Giants? Like kaiju - no, you know what those are," with another look in the general direction of one of the ones in the distance. "But yes, she would have been in a mobile suit. The Hizack, like you said. It was pink." Like Riika's, not that Akane would know it (and not that it's the same pink).
But nobody has a clue? That brings Riika up, again. "It just... un-happens? And nobody remembers?" Pause. "So does the day just re-do itself or is it still tomorrow but - no, no! Never mind, that's not important."
Riika finally ducks under the Sevendarake awning, running her hand through her hair to try to get it back to nearly normal shape again. That there aren't many people here isn't too surprising, to her; some of her hobbies aren't very popular in PLANTs either. (Or they do online shopping, which is something that Just Makes Sense when you're talking about a closely linked cluster of colonies.) "I don't really want to freak anyone out, but - that's weird!"
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Akane keeps her umbrella pretty firmly in her personal space. It's definitely something she uses to manage that, in fact -- the fact that she is alone in it is actually a little important to her.
"It just un-happens. People remember a normal day... though sometimes spooky stuff happens." She does not elaborate on the spooky stuff -- instead, she loops back to giants. "Yeah, though! Giants -- you know, like in Tarabaman. But they're not very crab-like." The topic of the pink mobile suit does seem to gnaw at her.
... nah. What happens to intruders in her world, fighting her kaiju, isn't her responsibility. It sounds like she survived. Good enough. Akane has no real interest in hurting ZAFT pilots -- indeed, she has slightly negative interest in hurting random ZAFT pilots! For now.
Akane moves to a bin full of sofubi. "So why's ZAFT suddenly interested in some random ward of Nouvelle Tokyo?" Akane asks. There's a *tiny* shift in her tone -- firmer, more cautious. She's no longer having a weightless conversation with a tourist.
<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.
Fortunately, Riika is not the kind of person to try to steal someone's personal space. She just wants to get dry.
"It would be kind of weird if it turned out to actually be crabs," Riika agrees, but really she's thinking pretty hard. It doesn't sound like she can press Akane for more information on that topic, though she's not sure it's because she doesn't know or if it's because she's not telling.
She covers for this by looking into a different sofubi bin next to a display of model figures. Riika seems to be actually interested and not just humouring Akane, though her tastes are not toward kaiju; she likes robots and cyborgs and seems to be keeping her eyes out for something, or at least some style.
"You know, you never gave your name. I don't know how to address you," Riika says instead, when Akane asks about ZAFT. "Anyway - I don't think we would, if it was in Nouvelle Tokyo. But I looked it up online and I didn't find it, though I found a lot of other wards. And, anyway, like I said - I haven't been to Earth much. You told me a weird thing, so I'll tell you a weird thing: actually, I've never landed on Earth."
"...I was in space when I came here and so was L - the other one. I was looking around because she went from near Lagrange 4, and so did I." There, that shouldn't give anything away she's not supposed to. "So, it's a little weird!"
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
There's some of that; most of the merchandise on display is Tarabaman, but the swath is pretty broad. Riika can find a lot of the general shape of what she likes, though it trends retro. New stuff does exist, but the average age of things on display is close to Riika's own.
"Oh, right. Akane Shinjo," Akane answers, when she's asked for her name. It's easier to just go through the interaction with basic pleasantries. They move quickly to the weirdness, though... and she seems to be fine with that. "I guess that's a spooky thing, too," Akane says. "But it's just another ward of Nouvelle Tokyo to me. Maybe you guys are *really* lost? I know there were some people here a little bit ago talking about a bunch of stuff that just... didn't ever happen."
L4, L4... Akane's space geography isn't perfect. But she's pretty sure that lines up with what she heard yesterday. "Huh... weird. I don't know how you'd be getting from L4 to here in one go! Maybe..." She chews at her lower lip for a moment, poking through the bin of loose toys. "... nah. That's too weird. Tell me a little about where you came in. What's it like?"
<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.
Riika appears to have a personal favourite in mecha musume, judging by a couple of the loose ones she considered. She hasn't actually picked anything up to purchase but she's definitely interested. Maybe it tells her something about the age of this place.
Or maybe she just likes them. It seems more like that.
"Akane Shinjo, all right!" Riika smiles again. See, they're friends. Friendly. Riika isn't that much older (nineteen maybe?) - she's still a teenager, it counts. Though given she's preparing to lead up to a rather awkward question, Riika feels vaguely guilty for taking advantage of her, if that's what she's doing. "And, well... It's a bit like that." The PLANTs weren't exactly peacefully recognized as independent, however much she'd like them to have been.
"L4 is where the PLANTs are," Riika explains, perhaps having forgotten that Earthnoids do not all know these things. "What's too weird? Because it's pretty weird to me! At least my bag came." Riika hefts it. "Otherwise I'd really stand out." More than she does, even.
Speaking of, she's getting drier, so she opens her bag and retrieves a small microfiber cloth. Then she removes her glasses with almost exaggerated care, habitually closing her eyes when she does, and gives them a polish, getting them dried off and un-spotty. Underneath her tinted lenses, her eyes are an almost colourless grey, for the moment they're visible.
She replaces her glasses with a little bit of fine adjustment to the way they sit. "It was in space; I was looking around near where she'd come in from," by which she means Lily. "Which is out in the Junius group. And here I am!"
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
That continues to confirm all of Akane's suspicions. Junius Seven presents as a wobble -- a psychic rupture -- that leads to Tsutsujidai. She nods once, to herself, as she starts to draw the line of best fit in her head. But why *there*? Isn't that...?
"Oh, I was just thinking that it doesn't make a lot of sense that that'd be special. As far as I know that's an agricultural zone, right? I think there's also a social studies institute up there, but I might be thinking of the wrong PLANT..." She rubs the back of her head. "So I don't know why either of you would've come through there. As far as I know, nothing interesting happens anywhere but Aprilius."
... does she not know? Then again -- she did say the PLANTs had been independent for years. Maybe there's some EXTRA weirdness going on here.
Akane leaves several possibilities that she's thinking of unvoiced; they would out her as more than 'an unusually clueful resident of her strange little city,' and she doesn't want the prying eyes. So instead: "Your glasses are really nice. I wear blue blockers when I'm at home... light wears me out. I keep the lighting in my room pretty yellow, too."
<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.
Riika's first instinct is to just *tell* Akane, because Junius Seven isn't a secret. It's like the opposite of a secret; it was the Federation saying 'We can do this, and you can't. Be afraid of us and listen to us.'
But something stops her. Riika is not a great liar but she is very good at simply avoiding saying what she shouldn't, though she does momentarily look a bit serious. She covers this by reaching into -
"Hey, I haven't seen one like this for years!" It *is* mecha musume, as if you hadn't guessed already; a little figurine rather than a sofubi. Riika has apparently decided to pick it up, because she doesn't put it back.
But, more seriously: "Oh - they're kind of special. I can't see without them." Pause. "I mean, at all, I know what glasses are for! I don't know if the Federation has anything quite like them. The pink is because they have to be tinted but it doesn't really matter what colour, and I like pink." Well, fair enough. "Thanks, though... I picked the style."
"Junius... is pretty special. But - why do you remember? Why doesn't this freak *you* out?" Riika asks, suddenly, a little more direct. "I mean, you noticed my pin, nobody else seemed to care..."
So much for avoiding prying eyes.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Oh, huh." Akane thought Coordinators were pretty much always above that kind of thing. She runs through a few options for why this might be the case anyway, and ... well, she's at least a little interested. But she's pretty sure it'd be rude to ask, so she doesn't.
"It's been like this for over a year now," she says instead. "If you freak out about the hundredth day of snow in winter, that's weird, right?" She paces around Riika, moving to the other side of the cart. "Good taste. I like mecha stuff every now and then. The Gekiganger theatrical was good." Then, back around to the question in full, though; she can't evade the other part forever.
"I don't know why some people remember and some don't," Akane says. She's not lying, though she's choosing very precise phrasing; like Riika, she has an easier time with that than an outright lie. "I heard a couple kids in my class start noticing about a month or so ago... maybe a little longer. It's definitely a thing."
Junius, though... "I wonder if someone tested some new science thing there," she says. This is less precise than she might be, but it's Enough.
<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.
Riika probably appreciates it. She's given that explanation before, because there really *aren't* very many Coordinators with glasses.
"I've never been super into Gekiganger specifically, but there's someone in my flight wing that is, so I'll probably end up watching it all the way through." Mysteriously, it's going through a bit of a renaissance among the mech show-interested ZAFT pilots. Can't imagine why. (Seriously, her imagination is not going to come up with the proper answer.) "I've always liked the musume figurines though... I don't know why. They're neat. Most of them are cute, too."
I don't know why some people remember and some don't... "But you've remembered longer than that, right?" Riika guesses. "And the kaiju... they're part of it?" So there's the proof she can see that. "Which school is that? There's gotta be more than one here, right?"
Does Junius Seven test science? "I'm from October. I'd never been to Junius." Still technically true, but definitely true in that she has no idea what they're doing there. "It is agricultural, though, like you thought."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Have fun. I thought the series was kinda mid, but the movie was really good." This is the opposite of a normal opinion on Gekiganger; liking the TV series but thinking the late stuff and the movie is bad is common, and liking *everything* is common, but... that's an odd one! Then again, for someone who seems to like monsters more than mecha, it makes a little sense.
"Tsutsujidai High," Akane answers, with a shrug. "It's not that big a ward." Or that interesting, apparently, if the school most at issue is just Name Of Ward School. "I've known this was going on for a little over a year. I moved to this town right after last Valentine's Day, so it's actually the only school I've even been to here *and* the only high school I've ever been to!" Presumably she missed a few weeks of middle school and then went straight into high school.
She looks like she's very deep in thought as she starts rubbing data against data. "... I guess you'll have to figure out why it's happening there," is all she eventually comes up with after picking up a Pyrilite EX sofubi.
<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.
Riika hasn't quite picked up that Akane really likes monsters. She just thinks she's into tokusatsu, which is fine, just not something that Riika herself is quite as familiar with. Probably more so than most people, because of her hobbies, but not as much as Akane certainly is.
"Hmm..." Riika, like Akane, is mashing data together. But her data set is both different and more limited and she's not getting quite as many answers out of it.
"I want to. If nothing else, it would be really bad if people just kind of came in from space... and what if someone went the other way?" That would be deadly, because Junius Seven isn't *there* anymore. "Plus, if Earth is that close..."
She trails off. "Hey, so, why don't I give you my number? And vice versa if you want. Then if something comes up or someone gets lost I can get them... and if I need help or something I can send you a text." That it might not work because of the whole Where Is This, Anyway is not lost on Riika, but it's worth a shot.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Exchanging cell numbers... it's a bit of pointless theater for the most part, as far as Akane is concerned. Her world doesn't get cell service (unless you're within a few dozen feet of Junk, but that's a separate issue and she sure doesn't know that). "Sure thing," Akane says. "We can make a group chat, too, I guess." She doesn't sound especially enthused about having someone's number, but she doesn't protest. She goes through the motions of doing that, at least.
"... ooogh, maybe that's where people end up when they disappear after a kaiju attack," Akane thinks aloud, at the idea of someone stepping out into space. It's the sort of conclusion she could see herself drawing. "Though that wouldn't explain why people forget them..."
She shrugs. "... Sorry, I'm just thinking about it. It bugs me more now that people from outside the city keep coming around. Usually we don't get a lot of out-of-towners, so the stuff that happens here doesn't matter to anyone else." ... that's probably the limit of what she can give without seeming like a particularly clueful local. She decides not to give Riika more rope. Hopefully this'll get her to back off. At the *very* least, it lets Akane shape the assumptions.
"What's this about Earth being that close, though?" she asks, instead. "Sounds like you have a couple ideas about what's going on..."
<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.
Even Riika realizes that her plan probably is not good for interdimensional communication (seriously, can you imagine what they'd charge for that?), but if she shows up in Tsutsujidai again presumably it will work, and that's what she really wants. "There we go. Thanks!"
She visibly winces when Akane says that that might be where they go. "People forget them?" she asks, because that's new; she knew they forgot the attack, but if people are missing... how many people are there in Tsutsujidai? And were there more before?
Akane doesn't give Riika more rope, but the reverse is not true. "PLANTs - our PLANTs - are at war with the Earth Federation," she says, after an awkward pause. "That's why I was surprised when you said you thought they were independent from 0091. Junius Seven... was attacked. If they're literally next door without having to launch anything from a mass driver or up the elevators, we kind of need to know." If she didn't know perfectly well that the ship that had attacked Junius Seven was tracked from the moon, she'd wonder if that's how they snuck up on it. She looks more serious than she has before, almost solemn.
That goes both ways. Riika, however, doesn't think of it. Attacking through Tsutsujidai is difficult to imagine. (Plus, you can't, because of the fog, though she doesn't know that.)
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Akane looks genuinely pained to hear about the Junius Seven attack. "... Oh, that makes sense," she says, a little weakly. "I'm sorry to hear about that. It sounds like your PLANTs are really different... here, we haven't had a war in sixteen years. I'm starting to think the world outside is just worse."
She starts moving toward the counter, Pyrilite still in hand. "... I need to go do homework, but I hope you're at least able to figure *something* out," Akane says. "I know a lot of the other tourists lately have just... taken the train back out and gone, if you're worried about getting home, Riika."
She begins to wonder if the Federation didn't test some new weapon at Junius Seven. It'd make a lot of sense -- the 'nuclear' attack could be a cover... It's probably beyond her understanding, though.
<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.
Riika still has her mecha musume. At least she'll have a souvenir.
"...I can't really say if it's better or worse, but it seems different." Riika makes a mental note, too. 'The world outside' suggests that Akane knows a bit more about it - or about Tsutsujidai's relationship to it - than she meant to let on. Riika's clever - she's putting some things together.
"The train? That might be a little weird if I don't come out in the same place," Riika says, resolving to put her normal suit back on and get out an emergency beacon *first*. Just in case. "And yeah, homework. Well, thanks for answering my questions in the meantime." She gives an honest-looking smile, dropping the serious look.
She's got a *lot* of things to think about.