2022-08-30: The Black Joker
- Log: 2022-08-30: The Black Joker
- Cast: Koji Kabuto, Sayla Mass
- Where: Photon Power Labs, Fujinomiya City, Free Japan
- OOC - IC Date:30 August 0096
- Summary: With solid new information, Sayla realizes something she has to tell Koji about the attack on Shiro.
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
The Old Photon Power Laboratory is ostensibly condemned for demolition, and yet somehow there's no movement of construction teams around the building, no equipment prepared to destroy the icon of the OCU's defiance against Doctor Hell.
Given that Koji recommended it as a meeting place to Sayla, there's probably several good reasons why this illusion stands.
'Ping me when you're in, I'll open the hangar access for you'.
Mazinger Z stands, as always, on the lift platform under the swimming pool, forearms separated from the body for individual maintenance and Hover Pilder parked in its own maintenance dock nearby. Koji is dressed in oil-stained maintenance clothes, but he's not working on anything directly related to Mazinger - instead he's tapping at a computer, staring at some blueprints of the Jet Scrander and a new, unfamiliar vehicle of similar silhouette, focused on the former craft's docking port.
As the elevator touches down at hangar floor and the doors open, Koji pushes away from the computer terminal, standing and turning to greet his old friend. "Sayla. Something's come up, you said?" His brow is wrinkled in faint concern as he walks over to her. "Can I get you anything? I keep a fridge down here pretty well-stocked."
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
It's been a long time since Sayla set foot in these labs. The first time was all those years ago, when Karaba had started to form in the years leading up to the Gryps Conflict.
It had been depressing to see it from the outside, but the inside was still, well, the same old lab. The same place that helped to save the Earth from Doctor Hell and the Titans both. It was just wearing the facade of a tired old building.
Sayla steps out of the elevator, feeling pretty tired and old herself. She gives Koji a half forced smile in greeting, and nods. "Canned coffee?" She asks, in response. "It's hot up there and I could use the caffeine. Otherwise I'll take a water and a chair.""
She takes a deep breath before speaking. "I found out who attacked Shiro, and I'm pretty sure I understand why." There's a reason she wanted to do this in person, privately.
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
Koji indicates a small table set aside next to his computer corner, heading over to the fridge. "I think we've got some ice coffee in here," he murmurs, grabbing a can for Sayla and a bottle of water for himself.
He still has his back to Sayla when she explains her reason for arranging this meeting, and he is... still, for a long, drawn-out moment.
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
She expected this. The fierceness in his voice. She'd be the same if someone had attacked Leina and it took this long to put it together. "I got information last night that made everything line up. I came here as soon as I got back to Earth." Another deep breath. "Shiro's attacker was a being name Alexis Kerib. Are you familiar?"
She thinks he might be, but her perception is difference from the Gridman Alliance's. "Back when the attack happened, I had suspicions but it didn't make clear sense and there were complicating factors. But I felt a pressure then- one that felt familiar but I couldn't place. But when I understood the timing I..."
Sayla takes another moment to gather her thoughts. "I felt it when Alexis intervened in rescuing Renais. A being that enjoyed inflicting pain..." She pops the can open, and takes a drink. "The only time I felt anything close was when Amuro killed Dozle Zabi- and comparing them is like comparing gas heater and the sun."
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
He's not angry, exactly, and certainly not at Sayla - this Koji is a far cry from the incandescent teenage hero of ten years ago, someone who has learned to carefully marshal the flame within himself until the moment is right to direct the full intensity of his wrath. That said, he's still serious and focused.
"I know the name." Sayla isn't afraid of saying it out loud, he notes. "Guy had a pretty detailed description of him from when he intervened to 'help' Renais." The dryness of his voice indicates exactly what he thinks of that 'help'. "And I know how closely he's tied to Akane Shinjo, too." That's going to save a few steps.
The comparison to the One Year War isn't one he's missing either. "Like Ashura but so much worse, then. I had a feeling it was that kind of problem." He matches like for like, one veteran to another, recalling the half-and-half Baron's enthusiastic sadism with a grimace.
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
Sayla gives a small nod. This lets her skip to the why without other steps. "...Right. Except this one we can't just kill and call it a day." Sayla says that with no humour. Instead she keeps going.
"As for why, well... This is some conjecture, but it has nothing to do with Shiro and everything to do with Akane." Sayla says that with the gravity it deserves. It's not as if this makes anything better- if anything it makes it worse.
"Alexis is making enemies for her. Making her feel more trapped, more reliant on him as the only person who can protect her." She bites her lip. "I think the goal was to make her think the Federation would hunt for her. The fact that if he'd succeeded he'd have you and Tetsuya out for blood was merely a bonus- but a big one for him."
Sayla looks down at her coffee. "I'm not going to excuse what Akane's done, but I don't think she was involved in this one." She sighs, whatever was left of her usual mask slipping. "She'll still have things to answer for, but all of this is because Alexis wanted to make the target of his abuse worse."
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
"I think most of us who've survived this long have done things we wish we could undo." He keeps thinking of Lorelei and Rhine X when Tsutsujidai's lonely god comes up - the android girl who felt so deeply that she was alone that she destroyed herself fighting Mazinger Z, and who he maybe might have saved if he hadn't been so eager to fight at that age. "I can... definitely understand wanting to control your reality like that."
"I get it, though - he was using one of her ideas to make things worse for her, while maintaining good relations with the connections he wants to use to drive her further into isolation. BioNet would have been... very pleased if the Ichinana Corps lost a leader like Shiro, and I bet they're super glad to have him providing Akane's kaiju to them. It probably won't be long before they try to use one of them for themselves." Has it already happened, he wonders?
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
That honestly... went better than she thought it would. She takes another sip, as Koji speaks. "...Yeah." She knows so much Akane hasn't told her, and Koji's taken her point. She doesn't need to say more.
"The problem is that... we don't know how to get to Alexis, let alone hurt him. He cut out Anti's eye and he hasn't regenerated. He tore apart Renais' Mazin and skewered her under his own power. He doesn't seem to need to exist anywhere. There's something he fears, supposedly, but I don't know what it is..."
Sayla's thinking out loud, with a trusted friend, but she's not normally this open. She's normally keeping things closer to her chest. "I don't supposee you have any theories, Professor?" She laughs, the laugh of tension being released. "I can't even be sarcastic asking that now..."
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
Koji grins a bit. "Well, since you ask... The thing I've noticed most is that Kerib seems... stagnant, in a way? He uses kaiju ideas that have already happened. He might move an ability from one monster to another, like, I dunno, giving Damdam L2 the ionising heat rays from Gromazen R9, but he's drawing from a limited pool of ideas every time, and they're not his ideas. He seems deeply interested in the creativity of others - Akane's not the only person he's offered his 'benevolence' to - and I think that's because he lacks it himself." Koji's seen and fought over a hundred unique monsters, after all - it's not hard to recognise a reused asset when it's deployed, if you have a sense of the bigger picture.
He taps the table thoughtfully. "He wants people to engage with the premise he's encouraging Akane to present, that she's a supervillain too far gone to deserve help. Her kaiju will still need fighting, so that's a part of the script that's unavoidable, but... Maybe there's a way to change the kind of story he's trying to tell."
He leans back and looks up at Mazinger Z standing silent over the two of them. "He has an understanding of the cognitive layer of reality and how to manipulate it. He only moves overtly when he's absolutely certain nobody will move against him or he's presenting himself in a benevolent light. He gets... something out of this emotional pit he tries to push people into, for sure, but what?"
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
"Stagnant, huh?" Sayla looks thoughtful as he says it, before tilting her head. She listens again as Koji lays it out, squinting as he lists the kikaiju. "...Maybe. But we need to do it in such a way that doesn't make Akane retreat- or try to buy into Alexis' story." Another sigh. "I'll think on it... this is something we need to be careful not to screw up. Abuse like this isn't something you can solve just by punching it. If only we could get her away from him..."
"The cognitive layer..." Sayla's very thoughtful. "I'm going to have to check my library, but maybe there's something there. Some way to lay a trap..." Sayla drains what's left of her Coffee.
"I've been mulling over it myself. I've seen the pattern countless times... I just don't understand what something like him gets out of it. Maybe I just want to hope there's something more to it than simple human cruelty, as though that might be more explicable..." Sayla shakes her head. "But maybe the best way to move forward is to treat him as an abusive piece of shit with no grand plan until we have something we can use." She finally looks up at Koji. "In which case it all comes back to protecting Akane- and getting her away from him."
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
"If we knew a little more about him, perhaps we could..." Koji frowns. "I don't know. Distract him? Get his attention away from Tsutsujidai for long enough to get Akane some positive reinforcement instead of whatever he's doing to her? But we'd need something superb to act as bait, something he couldn't ignore, and he seems to be able to just manifest as he pleases, so he would probably just... leave." He's not good at thinking sneaky, but he's clearly trying his best.
He sighs. "This is one hell of a puzzle we're trying to solve, huh, Sayla?" He grins. "Well, at least once I figure out this modification I'm making to my new toy I can get Z out to the PLANT and help you fight when needed." The Renais situation was handled without him being called in - reminding his friends that he's willing and able to help is important.