2022-03-22: Quiet Roar ~ENTRAPMENT~
- Log: 2022-03-22: Quiet Roar ~ENTRAPMENT~
- Cast: Akane Shinjo, Guy Shishioh, Sayla Mass
- Where: Tsutsujidai - Breakfast Buffet
- OOC - IC Date: 0096-03-22
- Summary: Having set things rolling, Akane, Guy, and Renais finally discuss what, exactly, is rolling.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Meeting in Tsutsujidai -- at least, if you want Akane involved -- means meeting where she's comfortable. She's taken one guest in her house, at strain, when teleported in on; it's not her preference. If left to choose, she chooses literally anywhere else.
Her suggestion is a breakfast buffet; it's a lot of food she mostly doesn't eat, but she likes to take people to it as a treat. She also notes that she doesn't mind paying, if it comes to that. It doesn't see a whole ton of through traffic, and the booths are decently intimate, she explains -- it's an okay place to meet up while school's out.
So naturally, that's where she's waiting. She's got 40 gilla in loose bills with her, sitting in hand; it's 12.80G a head, and she's paying, and she's gotten a little annoyed having to fumble in her bag for change in front of other people.
<Pose Tracker> Guy Shishioh has posed.
Guy is the one who sets up the meeting - which is a neat trick, since Akane never gave him her number. Presumably he got that from Sayla. The even neater trick is that the caller ID doesn't have a number, it just says Guy Shishioh. Still works, though? Some...how...?
Evoluder magic is cool.
He suggests a meeting between himself, Akane, and 'a friend of his', Sayla, so they can talk a little more about what's coming with Renais, and things progress from there. He wasn't sure if he should connect both ends of this loop this early, honestly - he and Sayla haven't connected on what they think about Akane, yet - but...things are moving fast. This shouldn't wait.
Guy arrives at the designated time, punctual like a man whose intended career path involved timed-to-the-millisecond shuttle launches, in that casual gold vest over a green jumpsuit that passes for his casual wear.
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
Sayla has... just gotten back from four days with Londo Bell to a meeting in Tsutsujidai and her EA is probably going to knee cap her soon to make sure she makes her meetings, but when the King of Braves tells you he wants to meet, about someone who gets involved a lot... Well, you go.
Sayla is also prompt, but she's dressed relaxed and casual which means- Well, it's a blue tee and designer jeans and boots. She's got that cowboy hat she wears sometimes, and sunglasses but in Tsutsujidai it's more to deal with the light. No one makes a big deal here, and it's too warm for a jacket.
The good part is 'no one is left waiting', still seeing Akane AND Guy there... pretty much tells her what it's about. WHich means it will be serious.
She smiles, though and gives a wave before meeting. Better to play it calm. "Good to see you both," She says, because it is. Just under better cricumstances would be better.
But there never are.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
... that's weird. Akane trades texts with the weirdness as if it's normal, though; she just kind of thumbs-up stickers her way through it. (She reveals she has an alarming amount of Taraba Kaiju emojis for communicating thoughts, including a Nalgus and Super Nalgus that if you use them side by side look like they're giving *each other* the thumbs up.)
When both of them arrive, Akane looks surprised for just a few short moments. "Oh, huh -- I didn't realize it was going to be you. Good. I was kinda getting explanation fatigue..." She laughs a little, and calls to the counter, "These are the other two," and gives a thumbs up. She gets one back.
Akane seems content to use her buffet ticket on the coffee. It's not her *favorite* thing in the world, but it's all she's getting, apparently. She sticks close as the other two fill plates, asking, "... Okay, I guess there's one thing I have to ask. Does Sayla already know the plan? With Renais, I mean?"
<Pose Tracker> Guy Shishioh has posed.
Stickers feel weird but do not cause Guy to segfault.
"Oh, sorry, did I not mention?" Guy asks, a little surprised at himself. "I only thought this was a good idea because you already knew each other." He laughs, brightly.
Mmm, food. Guy is not ashamed to pile his plate. He could eat as a Cyborg, but that body wasn't really designed to, say, process it - certainly not into usable energy - so he's rediscovered eating. Particularly since the problems began up in Orbit Base's cafeteria...ah, thoughts for later. "The whole plan? No," Guy says. "But we didn't really have the whole thing locked in, anyway."
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
The blonde gives a light smirk. "I can imagine." Sayla notices Akane going for the coffee, but nothing else. That's odd. While Sayla would easily throw 13 gilla on a cup of coffee, she wouldn't throw 13 Gilla on *this* coffee- she can tell that from the scent, even as she pours herself a cup. She also piles up some pancakes, bacon, a banana and some maple syrup. She also palms a handful of sugar packets.
"...I have the broad strokes," she says, the slight furrow of concern on her face. "But I wanted to hear all of it from both of you." Maybe it's not as insane as it sounded. Or as reckless.
But given Guy is right there, it probably is.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"I think I just didn't connect that it'd be who it is," Akane admits, with a small rub at the back of her head. "There's two Saylas in the incoming first-year class, and I figured it might be like that over there, too..."
Oh, of course. That'd be 0080-0081 births. Of *course* there's a disproportionate number of Saylas (or Seiras), Amuros, Hayatos, Kais, and Mirais. (No Brights this year. That's *too* undisguisably Western.)
As they get themselves situated, Akane takes a sip of her cup of coffee. "Hmmm... I've definitely had better," Akane reflects, before moving into the meat of the meeting. "Right. Renais is really, really lonely, and wants to be my friend... and for some reason, she wants me to join her! You know, the assertion in her brain. Join... *that*. So I told her that I'd do it... *if* she came here, where and when I said. Only if she could prove it was hopeless to resist -- only if she could hold out against whatever you guys could throw at her."
Another sip. "That part went pretty well. She's *definitely* ready to bite. After that part... unless she goes off script, the rest of this is kinda on you!"
Ah. She's skipped to *already* having used herself as bait. Advanced bait techniques.
<Pose Tracker> Guy Shishioh has posed.
Guy sits. His lips quirk, unhappily. "Progressed that far, has it," he says. "Was hoping to have Porcauto around to keep an eye on you for that. I guess it just means she takes this, and you, seriously. They'd take me, too, if I offered. I'm glad, though." He nods to Akane, cutting up a pancake. "This way means you're not in the line of fire."
He appears to not be considering 'having agreed to join the Ruin Apostles if this fails' as in the line of fire.
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
"Two, really?" That's... actually surprising. There were plenty of other heroes of the One Year War... Sayla puts down her plate and coffee, and places all those extra sugars on the table where they're just there, before peeling the banana, slicing it up, and mixing it with everything else. The tastes you pick up.
There's a point where Sayla stops to drink her coffee, as Akane lays out what the situation is and it takes a bit of willpower to swallow he coffee rather than spit it. She's glad she did when Guy just... agrees.
"...Both of you think this is the best plan?" She grimaces. Akane's already laid it out there, it sounds like things have moved forward too quickly. And Guy...
"Akane, this is putting you in incredible danger for Renais. I appreciate you care about her, but you could be killed. Or worse." Sayla taps a finger on the ground. "If you're not at that place, at that time, she may just bug out and feel betrayed. If she sees us waiting for her with you, she knows it's a trap. Same issue. Or it could attract a kaiju, or people who go after them and don't care about collateral."
She looks back to the cyborg. "And you're fine with putting civilians into unnecessary danger now? I didn't think that was your style." Sayla croesses her left arm across her body, and rests her right elbow on her left hand. "There's such a thing as unacceptable risks, Guy. I'd say putting Akane into the middle of a firefight is one of them. She only has to get unlucky once in a chaotic field, even if everyone aims to avoid her."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
The last bastion of 'normal topic' gets a final comment. "Yeah. An Amuro, too, if you're curious... there's a Kai in my class, but that might not be related, he's a January birthday like me." Then again, it might be. Who knows?
Akane nods to Guy, saying, "I didn't wanna wait. Plus, she reached out to me first so I figured I might as well." A shrug about herself not being in the line of fire.
Sayla brings up the very real dangers, though, and Akane glances off. "She already knows to expect opposition. I more or less told her she was stepping into a trap. She's just kind of..." She catches herself before actually calling Renais dumb but there's only one way that sentence goes.
So Akane pivots before it has to go there. "She's *really* needy. I don't think she even needs to see me face to face while it's going on. She thinks I'd actually go along with..." Ugh, Akane thinks, as she takes a drink of coffee. They might be able to repair the psychic rupture leading into Tsutsujidai.
*That* thought leads Akane to one she hasn't considered at any step of this: Renais knows *who she really is*. She might be able to trust her... for a while. But are things going to be that simple? What if she tells them that Akane's the one calling the kaiju...?
It's at this stage that Akane realizes that she's come up with a plan with too many variables for someone who hasn't taken calculus. Maybe she'd be better off if Renais won... so she pivots *again*. "Look. I don't think it's going to come to this, but if she wins, I'm just a teenager from a world that sounds a lot more peaceful than yours." She glances to Sayla. "Maybe yours too? Or did you two meet here? Either way -- if you guys can't figure out some way to address her and her base *eventually*, you're screwed anyway. *I'm* screwed anyway. Even if you lost here, if you couldn't clean that up *eventually*, we're all dead!"
She waves that off, saying, "Anyway, it's a plan with a lot of risks for her, not a lot for you, and..."
... Her heart roars at her to just shut up. There's a lot of risks for her -- but she can't address them. Not at this stage. She reaches back and puts her hood up. The place is air conditioned. It's fine. "... this sucks," she eventually concedes, "but we don't have anything else."
A thought occurs to her on how to solve the follow-up problem. It instantly makes her feel shitty and selfish. ... she'll bring it up if Sayla doesn't storm out, she thinks.
<Pose Tracker> Guy Shishioh has posed.
Guy doesn't entirely seem to have pinned Sayla's opinion, because when she says 'the best', he just shrugs. "Well, I did discuss it with 3G Blue and Advisor Yang gave it north of 60 percent, which isn't great odds, I'll grant you."
He's already had this discussion on Akane's side, so he doesn't really interrupt on that front.
He reads her trailed-off sentence as 'determined', of course, because he's Guy Shishioh, and therefore he nods.
Then Sayla needles him, and he looks at her with a bit of surprise. "How many times did Mamoru need to get into the field? Or jump under the foot of a Zonder to rescue somebody he cared about?" he says, completely genuine. "She's protecting a friend in the only way she can. And, it's the only way we can try to isolate one of the Ruin Apostles' strongest Braves without canvassing the whole Solar System. You're right, it's dangerous, but I've already arranged for Porcauto to be in the area for a while. He's every bit as good as Volfogg was. He'll protect her."
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
Sayla looks away at the mention of an Amuro. She's happy not to talk about it.
For Sayla the trailing off seems more like deranged. But that's neither here nor there. She nods, as Akane actually alleviates her concerns a little. "...That makes her behaviour a bit more predictable, then. That's manageable." She pauses. "60 percent, huh." She's had worse odds. "Are those the odds of it working perfectly, or working at all?"
Sayla takes another pause as Akane lays out the stakes. And feels it, loud and clear in her head. The roar. It's loud enough for her to wince and rub her temples. "...You're not just anything. And I wouldn't want to put anyone through that. What I'm worried about is if it's too close to call. If she panics, or feels cornered somehow- unlikely, I know- or if Guy's down but everyone else is fighting, and she decides she wants to spare you the 'torment of living' after she neither succeeds nor fails."
Sayla takes another sip of coffee, to settle herself. "We're dealing with a woman with so much anger at the world and the belief that life is suffering even before that thing infected her thoughts. And she can cut completely loose without fear of being found out too early, as long as no one leaves Tsutsujidai." She hates this plan, this situation.
"But should he have been there in the first place? The White Base had children on it too. We know how that ended." There's so much bitterness and anger there. So much sadness. "Akane, at least, is mostly in a position to understand what she's getting into. But this isn't Wonderful Persimmon, this is an actual battlefield." She takes a deep breath, to ask a question that she knows how she'd answer if she were in Guy's situation. "Would you be as eager for this plan if it wasn't your cousin involved?"
She gives that a while to sit, because Akane says what shes thinking. "...You're right," Sayla eventually concedes. "It's the best option on the table at the moment, and it's already in motion. I'm guessing that our solution is purification, and that means you," She says looking to Guy, "or to kill her, which you're not going accept." Sayla would spend time gathering information, but her best source is next to her. There isn't going to be another option to set the battlefield. To make as much of an ambush. To end this 'ideally'. And her trying to come up with something else has yielded nothing. And she's frustrated, and headachey.
"What assistance did this Yang factor in with his planning?" She asks, moving quickly. "Have you given her the time and place yet? Does 3G have anything that can lock down her escape route?" Maybe the Gridman Alliance would have something... Or Mithril... "How much does Triple Zero change the internals of the equipment?" Guy would be in a good place to get in contact with the Photon Power Labs....
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
60 percent... well, Akane has some unique advantages that she can use to increase those numbers. She nods to herself. "I think I'll bet on you guys this time!" A beat, as she thinks about what Guy is saying, and... "Wait, that's come up twice now... Porcauto?" She looks visibly confused, in that way she often does -- wide eyes, a couple of blinks, cheeks puffing out a tiny bit. It makes her look uniquely childish.
The thing that startles Akane, though, is -- "Wait, you know Wonderful Persimmon? I only watched that show for the monsters..." It's a momentary tension-breaker, and shows her just a *bit* of Sayla. "Ahahaha... it's kinda hard to imagine you sitting there waiting for a broadcast..."
They get to practicals. Akane takes a moment to consider those more closely than she had. "I was waiting on you guys to pick a time and place... though I guess there's only the one ward you guys are showing up in, so it's gotta be here."
She looks to Guy, then Sayla. "Look... there's been at least a few kaiju attacks here. And she's helping with those. This is *less* risky than a lot of other options." Her tone flattens out a bit; there's frustration in her that's mirrored in her internal landscape, if perhaps not for the same reason. Her tone dagger-sharp, she says, "I have as much say here as either of you guys. Don't treat me like some helpless kid. We covered probability. I know what 60 percent means. I know about the 40 percent it implies, too."
She feels *very* present in the room, in this moment -- in every sense of the word.
<Pose Tracker> Guy Shishioh has posed.
Guy wobbles his head a little as if to say 'it not exact science' at Sayla's prompting. "There's margin for error, of course, so...perfectly, I guess," he says. because the magical percentages that don't really do anything must not be defined.
"She won't do that," Guy says, firmly. "Even now, she's a Brave. If they were going to attack individual people in the open, they'd have Hyuma and Taiga down here in ID Suits. They want this clean and painless." He almost brings up the Crusher, but that's...a lot. And Yang and Prickle agree it's likely there's another layer at work; Taiga wouldn't grasp straight for the prize without other angles in mind.
Questioning the presence of Mamoru...it bothers him, deeply; the boy is like a brother to him, even moreso now that they're nearly the same age. There's very few on earth he'd trust above Mamoru. Besides, it was quite necessary indeed, thanks to his Purification powers. But he can sense that there is something deeply personal in Sayla's words, and he chooses not to force her to lay it out, beyond a brief, furrowed look. Fighting over the readiness of a boy who became the earth's second King of Braves will not help anyone. Though...she pokes him, quite badly, by pointedly asking if it's the fact that Renais is at issue that makes him so eager. Something clouds in his expression. His fork slowly hits the plate, with an almost piercing sound.
But he chooses to focus on Akane's own question, instead. "Porcauto is the Super-AI Brave Robo who's the foremost field agent of 3G Blue's Intelligence Division. Volfogg, his predecessor, protected Mamoru Amami, the young man we've...been discussing, for years, to great effect. He was also Renais' partner in Chasseur, so he knows her better than just about anyone. He's here now, actually." He points out the nearby window, to where a red car is parked outside. It's...a Mini Cooper.
It beeps its horn once, in greeting.
"As for locking down the space, we're planning to have GaoGaiGo deploy simultaneously with the Gatling Driver to shore up the dimensional wall. It should prevent anyone from coming in or out for a while, even with J's ES Windows." Should. He can't really give you better than that one, not with ES tech. "And, it's a Mazinger, so the location of the cockpit is known." He taps his forehead. "I've already missed her with Hell and Heaven once, so now we just need to make sure she's not going anywhere when the moment comes." He motions to Akane. "Which, with something she considers important on the line...I don't think she'll even consider it. The precautions are more to prevent the other Ruin Apostles from intervening."
Akane presenting herself as an equal partner is...strange isn't the word. But it catches on some of the things he and Sayla discussed before, and his eyes cut to Sayla, briefly, when it happens. Then he says, "She's right. GaoGaiGar's first Final Fusion was done without even a whole percent of likelihood. We'll make up the rest with teamwork and courage."
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
That uneasiness in the world around is getting worse and harder to deal with. She feels herself getting tenser, her replies getting shorter. This isn't normal for Tsutsujidai. Usually it's quiet. Almost dead silent. That headache is getting worse.
"Then say that part from the start. Sixty percent chance of things going perfectly is better than even. Worth the risk." And that's where the communication breakdown might be obvious. For all her efforts, Sayla is a pessimist. 3G Maths isn't obvious to her.
But it's Akane whose dagger sharp words cut through. "...You're right. I'm sorry." Sayla looks away for a moment. She doesn't want people like Akane to have to fight. But sometimes they WANT to fight. That's the difference she keeps forgetting. Even if she was that person once. "You're making the choice. I just don't want you to make it carelessly." Still... she hasn't lived through the past 17 years. "There's a difference between a Kaiju attack and a warzone. And a gods damned mess when the two clash." She sighs. "But your mind is made up, right?"
Quick and painless, huh. It'd be anything but. But she's not rehashing the argument she had with Renais here. She doesn't need to crack the armour of anyone here. Then there's a beep, which startles Sayla. Is she this high strung right now? She looks out the car, and narrows her eyes.
Yes she is adding *that* particular mini cooper to the watch list of the Paris offices. Just in case.
"I was hoping more for weaknesses. Anything to disable her quickly and end the fight quickly." She sighs. "...I know some people still. They can help, if needed." Riku would, and so would the Gridman Alliance. It's not that impossible. "My understanding is that GGG have a unique relationship with percentages," She says, a little dryly. She's trying to ease the mood and cooperate. She'd not doing the best job. Quietly, she takes another sip of her cooling coffee. It's worse when it's cool. "I'll help, for what it's worth. And try and cover anything teamwork and courage can't."
She sighs, rubbing her temples. Neither of them have seen the world she has. Maybe that's how they have confidence. And if it has only been a short while for them, maybe time won't change a Brave as much as it changed everyone else.
There's not much else she can say about the plan. Not until she knows what cards she can play. She pokes at the pancakes, a little tiredly.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
The adults are starting to get tense. The fact that they're not unified here weighs on her, and the context -- that Guy's youngster was powerful, necessary, and actively protected, while the White Base crew were used as decoys even with children onboard -- is lost on her. What she sees is that clouded expression, that back and forth, and --
-- she retreats inward, a bit. It's not that she's not listening, but... to her, it just looks like two adults on the verge of an argument. It feels that way, too. "Yeah. I mean, at this point, I can't really back out," Akane says, before --
beep.
Akane is a teenager who likes created things. Sure, cars and mecha aren't her favorites, but... there's a faint upturn in her expression. She gives a wave. "I'm probably going to hole up in my room with a drone. Renais probably won't want to fight near my house anyway, but I'll be ready to go in an emergency!" ... go where, exactly? ... she'll deal with it later. She's fairly certain there won't be an emergency.
Practicals. This, Akane can pay attention to, even if she's trying to divorce herself from the emotional context. They have something that can -- wait, what? If *they* can do it -- if just some normal humans can shore up the dimensional wall -- why does she have to...
... rrrgh, none of this makes sense! The only person she can trust with the mechanics of *this* place is Alexis, so what he says... it has to be right.
"Okay," Akane says. She actually has one more condition, but... it might be easier, she thinks, to spring it on them later. "... now that that's out of the way -- you guys should eat up! It sounds like the hard part's ahead of you two. There's a reason I picked a buffet."