2023-03-08: On Shaping Yourself
- Cast: Arriety Hearn, Koji Kabuto
- Where: Fujinomiya City - Photon Power Lab Hangar
- Date: U.C. 0097 03 08
- Summary: While maintenance is done on the recent protectors of the Photon Power Lab's machines, Koji Kabuto makes a new friend in Arriety Hearn as they talk about the choice to take a life, and the tension between peace and battle.
<Pose Tracker> Arriety Hearn has posed.
Arriety was one of the people present to fend off the Banshee and the Amabilis at the Photon Power Labs when they came for the Unicorn; at the end of that battle, the white Zeta Gundam she's piloting comes in to the hangars for servicing and repairs, since she took quite a nasty hit to the arm. Luckily, PPL hangar staff and (Roux) are available onhand to make sure nothing explodes and presents a hazard.
Koji might identify the mobile suit as one that used to belong to the Karaba, back in the days of the Gryps Conflict, from some of the older, faded markings on it.
But the black-haired teenage girl piloting it is clearly way too young to be its original pilot -- she is leaning against a railing in the hangar, not terribly far from her mobile suit. She has an oversized Ra Mari II jacket that she kinda disappears into, over a cream turtleneck and skirt combo, with leggings and sneakers; she also has thick gloves covering her hands and...
...?!
A pair of red-tinted Mazinger Z Breast Fire sunglasses?!
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
The Photon Power Lab's underground hangar was expanded from its two-Mazin capacity a long time ago, in order to help the Lab's friends in the AEUG during those gruelling wars, so there's more than enough space for Mazinger Z, Aphrodite Areia, and everyone else's machines to be repaired. Koji's been doing the rounds with the mechanics, making sure the other machines have been getting the maintenance they need, so eventually he's brought round to Arriety's Zeta.
He pats the mobile suit from the cockpit access gantry, smiling. "You've gone through it too, huh? Hang in there, okay?" Turning away from the machine, he approaches Arriety. "... You're miss Hearn, right? From the Ra Mari II?"
Grinning a little at the sight of the sunglasses shaped like Z's chest array (much easier to make glasses than Great's clean V shape), he extends a hand. "I wanted to thank you and Lieutenant Lancaster for coming to our aid - the Three Ships Alliance's assistance was much appreciated."
<Pose Tracker> Arriety Hearn has posed.
In part, Arriety hasn't wandered off too far from her machine (other than a drink with Rena and a chat with Roux) since she's not sure what clearance she has with the Labs and didn't want to assume; the other is, well...
When Koji arrives from the gantry, Arriety jolts up a bit as she's addressed, and she ends up awkwardly saluting as a first reaction. "O-oh, yes, mister Kabuto. I'm Arriety Hearn from the Ra Mari II."
He extends a hand, and she reaches out with those gloves of hers. They're very thick, like work gloves, extending up past her wrist where her turtleneck's lapped over. "Oh, it's no issue... I really couldn't leave it alone. Banagher's a friend, and I know they're up to no good too."
An awkward pause.
"Oh, sorry about the glasses, um... my eyes are a bit... weird... right now. Miss Roux gave these to me to help hide them."
The glasses are translucent, and it's not impossible to see through them to her red eyes -- right now, her pupils are shrunk until they're little more than dots, and look somewhat agitated.
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
"I'm glad the kid's got friends in a bunch of places," Koji says, sighing. "He needs them a lot right now."
The contrast between the way he and Arriety are dressed is stark - where she's bundled up against the elements, he's still clad in his red-and-burgundy guard suit for piloting Mazinger Z, though he has at least thrown a jacket over it.
Arriety mentions her eyes, and Koji squints a little. "... Huh." He turns to lean against the railing, next to her. "Does that kind of thing happen often?" He gestures to his own, stone-grey eyes for comparison.
<Pose Tracker> Arriety Hearn has posed.
"... yeah. And it isn't just Banagher too. What they've done with the Banshee... that presence inside of it -- it got really personal too, since they're hurting my sister's... sister," Arriety sounds a bit unsure of how to phrase it, but it's the best term she's got at the moment.
Arriety prooobably should've put a Normal suit on, but it was an emergency scramble, so she just ended up piloting in her normal clothes. Is it really a Normal suit if it's not normal? Perhaps it's a different kind of norm.
"Oh... yeah. It tends to happen in fights, or when I'm in a lot of danger... I don't really know what causes it," Arriety glumly admits. "It tends to go away after a while, but lately it's been lingering longer." A pause. "It feels pretty tense when it's happening, sorry if I seem uncomfortable. It's not you, sir."
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
"... Yeah." There's a flash of incandescence from Koji when the topic turns to the Banshee. "Whatever they've done to that pilot is unforgivable." The information that Arriety considers herself close to another 'Puru' is filed away. "What's she like? Your sister, I mean."
"... Is it the phenomenon that makes you feel that way, or the way you feel that calls on the phenomenon?" He wonders. "Don't worry about seeming uncomfortable, I'll just assume you're starstruck." He beams a grin at her. "You're in the company of a 'hero of Earth', after all."
The way his eyes roll gives away just what he thinks of that particular epithet. "Can I get you anything?"
<Pose Tracker> Arriety Hearn has posed.
Arriety seems a bit more relaxed when Koji asks about her sister. "Callisto... Callie, as I call her... she's really kind and protective. I've known her for a long time now, when she came to our colony." A pause, and she explains: "That girl in the Banshee... I've sensed her around Callie-sis before. But before, she was joyful, heartwarming... caring. There's no way she changed on her own. Whatever they did to her... I also can't forgive them," she chimes with Koji's own words.
On the topic of the phenomenon, Koji asks a question that Arriety's... not sure of, a chicken and egg scenario. She takes the glasses off, and squints, as if hoping it'll make it go away, and laughs softly when Koji mentions his title. "Hero of Earth... ... to be honest, I was kinda glad we probably won't be made a big deal of for stopping the GENESIS. ... I don't like that attention."
"I don't know, though. I don't even have a name for it -- I've asked Dr. Bidan before, my usual physician, and he's at least checked me up and found nothing lastingly harmful with it... but it does feel worrisome at times. Sometimes it feels like it removes my hesitations and really zeroes me in, which... can be good, I guess, if I have to survive a fight, but... also really bad."
She lowers her head. "Like it feels like it makes me feel I can kill someone without hesitating, and I don't like it."
Can he get her anything? "Oh, um-- if you have any water, maybe...?"
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
"Yeah - her name's Elpeo." Koji frowns. "I never met her, but I know she's really important to Judau, Leina and Roux. As far as I know, she died, but, well. You've sensed her presence yourself; being a 'Newtype' makes that boundary a lot more perplexing, I guess."
The joke landed! Koji grins again, nodding. "Both the Federation and ZAFT seem pretty keen to make nice like it never happened, which... as much as I don't need that kind of adulation, we need to remember the lines both sides crossed during this war, otherwise worse ones will be crossed later."
Arriety continues to talk about her eyes. "Kamille's pretty good at what he does! If he can't find anything dangerous about it, then it's probably fine - but then, I'm not the same kind of doctor he is."
Walking over to a cooler and crouching down to open it, Koji grabs two bottles of water, and tosses one underhanded to Arriety as he turns back towards her. "Does it just happen in a fight, or are there patterns in how it emerges, some specific conditions or emotional states you enter first?"
<Pose Tracker> Arriety Hearn has posed.
Elpeo. Arriety didn't have a frame of reference for that, but that seems really important. "... yeah. It's fleeting, but... it's like she was watching over sis. So it makes it even more horrifying, if you can still be toyed with after... death."
There's a quiet frown from Arriety. "... we shouldn't forget about something like that, but I doubt they'd listen to us. But when we have so many counts of colonies and rocks and big lasers being shot at the Earth..." She sighs. "I don't get adults sometimes... ...maybe it's unfair to blame it on adults."
Arriety raises one eyebrow. "Oh, you know Dr. Bidan? Oh, I guess you might've fought together in the past, huh..." She looks to the Zeta. "... the man who protected me, who had this suit, also was a part of AEUG."
She accepts the water bottle, and ruminates on Koji's questions about the phenomenon as she sips. "... Minae's helping me build a journal to try to figure it out, but... I mean, I've been angry or frustrated often lately in battle, and that tends to really focus those feelings. But I've had it happen in really dangerous life-or-death moments and I felt a strong desire to survive too. It does tend to help me get through a fight, but... I can't help be worried it'll make me do something I can't take back."
She lowers her head. "Um, this might be a bit personal, but... have you had to face that before, Mister Kabuto? Having to... having to kill in a battle, I mean."
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
"Yeah. It's..." He shakes his head. "It's not something I'm unfamiliar with, actually, that people can be brought back across that threshold, but... the price feels pretty steep, from what I've seen."
"Hopefully the more you learn about yourself, the more you become able to master the..." He considers. "If it heightens your focus and your survival instincts, I guess it is more than just a psychosomatic effect and might be properly called an 'ability'."
Has he ever had to face killing an enemy?
Koji frowns. "Does it count if they keep cheating death?" Of course it counts, but he's answering as though it does anyway. "The kikaiju Doctor Hell used against us are widely known to have had no pilots aboard, of course, but..." But that doesn't account for Hell or his generals.
"I have been pushed to that point before, yes."
<Pose Tracker> Arriety Hearn has posed.
Arriety looks surprised, honestly, that Koji seems to have so much experience with those who cheat death. His experiences almost feel like something that sounds out of science fiction, but... she knows enough that the strangest things that happen in life, sometimes, are truly stranger than fiction.
"Steep, or... ...in this case, it feels like something done against her will. It wasn't enough to abuse children and turn them into weapons in life, but in death too."
She sounds cold, but there's an edge to fury as she says that. On the topic of her 'ability', though...
"Mm... yeah. In the end, it's up to me whether this... 'ability' ends up being like a-- an angel or a demon," she muses. "To use a power responsibly or be used by it..."
Koji explains how the kikaiju didn't have pilots, but... it's not like he hasn't been pushed to that point before.
"... honestly, I think so. Even if they come back later, it probably didn't change or cheapen the tension and stress you had to process at the moment of your choice, right? The more I fight... the more it feels like it gets easier and easier, and I don't like that it feels easier. And conversely... the harder it feels to go back to a normal life."
She lowers her head. "I guess I was wondering... since-- you took a break to study, right, Mister Kabuto? Was that difficult to do? When I got discharged and placed on leave, I found it... difficult to just live like a civilian. Everything felt more dull, colourless. It was like the battlefield kept calling me..."
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
Koji actually laughs a little when Arriety says how it's up to her. "When my grandfather told me about Mazinger Z and passed it on to me, he warned me that with its power I could become 'either a god or a devil'. Until I piloted it for the first time, I didn't really understand what he meant, but that's it exactly - to understand and master the power you have, and wield it responsibly."
He looks up at the Castle of Iron, standing on the launch platform under the pool. Despite its empty cranial dock, it nevertheless casts a striking image. "And then he went and made the machine in the shape of a devil, to protect peace. It almost seems like a contradiction, but then we see people like the Vist Foundation, playing with life and death because they have so much money they think they're immune to consequences, and it becomes clear - sometimes it takes a heroic devil to cast down a wicked god."
"Baron Ashura, Count Brocken and Doctor Hell... They had a clarity of purpose that I almost respect - a willingness to fight to the last even if victory seemed impossible, to achieve their goals. Even though Mazinger Z was far too strong for their Air Fortress to fight off, they turned to face me when I chased them. ... That doesn't change that I still had to choose to destroy them, though, and still have their blood - or, uh, whatever it is Hell used in place of blood to get them moving again - on my hands."
"At first it wasn't a choice, to retire - the Mycenaean attack in the wake of our victory over Doctor Hell rendered Mazinger Z almost irreparable - I was without the ability to fight, and Tetsuya and Great Mazinger entered the picture to shoulder the burden for us, so Sayaka and I decided to pursue the path of peace. I did return to the field to help Tetsuya finish off the Mycenaeans, but by that point it was his battle more than mine - and when we were done, we thought that was it. Sayaka and I agreed to become scientists and uphold the family legacy, of Photon Power as a light to save the world."
It wasn't, of course. "Then one year after Sayaka and I graduated, Britannia invaded Japan; then we lost Musashi in New Yark and the Gutsy Galaxy Guard were exiled; three years later, the Devil Gundam and Axis Crises back to back. The world started getting worse and worse, and we'd chosen to hang up our mantles and were politically hamstrung by Britannia, rushed off our feet just 'keeping the light on' for Japan. It wasn't just not being able to fight, it was how the whole world seemed eager to spit on the principles we'd spent five years fighting to protect."
He sighs. "I love my work with Photon Power. I truly do believe that, one day, it can be used to usher in a world where we don't fight tooth and nail just to stay warm for a night, but I realised that the scientist who believes in peace isn't all I am - a part of me still yearns for - thrills in - battle, and the world was filling up with enemies that the Castle of Iron wasn't protecting people from. I'm lucky that Sayaka agreed, when I asked her about it."
<Pose Tracker> Arriety Hearn has posed.
Koji's story about how his grandfather explained that Mazinger Z could be a god or devil seems to... resonate with her. She spends a few seconds in quiet contemplation, then gently nods. But when he compares Mazinger Z's devilish image to the Vist Foundation...
"... I think Mazinger Z has an honest image. It doesn't try to fool you -- the Castle of Iron is a weapon, and that it's up to its pilot how that gets used. Compared to people who try to hide their atrocities behind a really clean public image, behind smiles and platitudes, like what the Vist Foundation's doing... I prefer this."
Koji and Mazinger Z definitely have a new fan, it seems.
Koji speaks of how his enemies had a clarity of purpose. To fight to the end, even if victory seemed impossible. She reflects on how Rena warned her to not be consumed by that, even if Arriety said she'd fight for the Ra Mari's ideals.
And Koji also shares history -- of how the Mycenae came back, and how the fight was shared... and their decision to uphold the family legacy, but how politics became a nemesis for them in a way it didn't before.
"... I'm still really young. When I accidentally fell into the cockpit, I was just supposed to graduate high school when school burned down. Then, I just turned 18 last December, and I spent that birthday in a hospital because the Biosensor on this Zeta Gundam nearly crippled me, mentally and physically, when I overused it -- fighting Banagher when it came out of control, no less."
She lowers her head. "I still don't feel like I understand where my place is... both on and off the battlefield. In a way, the defection from the Federation forced it again, but I realise being forced into a circumstance isn't a substitute for having to find your own answers."
She lifts her head up, looking at the Zeta Gundam where it stands next to Mazinger. "... but... listening to what you went through, Mister Kabuto, I feel like I understand a bit better... how to find my way through the world."
At this point, Koji can notice her eyes are actually returning to normal - the shine is back on them, and her pupils have returned to a regular size. Her emotional tenor feels stronger and more relaxed, like a tightly-wound coil becoming undone. There's a soft smile on her face. She looks just a bit more comfortable in her own skin.
"Thank you for sharing your story with me, mister Kabuto."
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
Koji nods in understanding. "It's not an uncommon story - I was fourteen when I first got into the Hover Pilder, and I didn't have the first clue what I was doing. Fortunately, I wasn't alone - which is the actual secret, here."
"It's not just about figuring out how to make your way through the world, it's about having people willing to walk that path with you and support you every step of the way. Sayaka and I are getting started again on figuring out who we are and who we want to be, together. To have friends and family you can count on is probably the most precious thing."