2025-07-12: Why Envy This?
- Log: 2025-07-12- Why Envy This
- Cast: Akane Shinjo, Aurora Dusk
- Where: South Britannia - Alcazar de San Ramon
- OOC - IC Date: 0100-07-14
- Summary: Akane meets Aurora again, this time with her handler in tow. They have a surprisingly honest conversation about the First Generation premiere... among other things.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Despite everything: you have to eat. Akane's treatment is not so miserable, so singularly bad that she's being starved. Indeed, it's been argued that a modest amount of steady external routine is necessary, as it was in Tsutsujidai, to keep her output of kaiju optimized.
Alcazar de San Ramon does not have Pizza Hut; instead, it has a standardized ration-pizza that Akane actually enjoys more. (Unbeknownst to her, it's because when she was quite little and living on a joint OCU-BU military base with her father, she had the same pizza. She doesn't remember this, but it's still engraved in her heart.)
She eats like a desperate woman, and it's because she is; the first day here, she took it slow and ended up having to sacrifice about a quarter of her meal as she got dragged back for another round of extraction.
There's a very faint burn on her temple. It doesn't seem to bother her at the moment.
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
The base is fairly quiet at this late hour. Aside from a few night shift personnel, the larger part of the staff is off now. As far as the cafeteria is concerned, this is the hour you would eat in if you wanted to be as left alone as possible (while still actually being able to eat). The cafeteria is quiet.
"-see that? Right between-"
"-bagged me some insurr-"
"-then, BANG!"
It SHOULD be quiet. However, tonight, muffled conversation resolves into banter as the doors swing open, and a group of assorted uniforms and the people inside them stream into the room, chittering as they line up at the counter and wait to be served. They're obviously coming back from a late night mission, and from the way they're talking among themselves, it went well.
Aurora is among them. So is... a blue haired woman that Akane has either never seen before or recognises from the premiere, depending on her memory. Or possibly from earlier, but Heaven's Base is a large place.
The woman is talking with Aurora about how their last sortie went. Naturally, since they're part of the earlier-mentioned team, performance was good. "Good work with the sentries."
Once she gets her pizza, Aurora looks around for a place to sit. Look, there's Akane. She takes the seat next to her and sets her plate in front of her.
"...how's the burn holding up?"
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
The group gets Akane's attention simply by dint of being a group. Pulling her head up slightly as the group sits near her -- Aurora first -- Akane lets her gaze slide across them, each in turn, and then back to Aurora. She... vaguely remembers that blue-haired woman, but can't dredge everything up right now. It's too much.
Akane looks at Aurora with momentary confusion. "Huh? Burn?" Noticing where Aurora's looking, she brings her hand up to the side of her face, feeling the raw edge of it -- and closing her eyes. "Oh. So to be perfectly honest my whole body hurts a lot. That's nothing special right now... unless I touch it."
She takes a bite of her pizza, explaining, "They have me undergoing extraction at least 10 hours a day now. I think maybe it's more like twelve. It's over for today, at least." The burn must be from one of the electrodes. Not enough gel, maybe. "... You guys sounded like you had a good time out there."
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
Assorted teams sit around the cafeteria, but a few trickle over to where Aurora is sitting and continue their own conversations. Akane rates a little bit of starting, but they don't directly approach her.
"...I've been there," Aurora says. "I usually lie down when that happens, if I have time." This seems like it should be obvious, but she's met people who need to be reminded to rest when they're worn out before. (Besides, she doesn't really know what else to say here.) As determined as Aurora is to push through and succeed, even she realises you need to rest sometimes.
"The machine I'm on hurts to use. I have to take medication for it. Did they give you any yet?" Drugs are a fact of life for her, so it'd be weird if Akane wasn't on any yet.
"Ten hours?" Akane does not need to be paying close attention to see the way Aurora's eyebrows raise in shock. "That sounds like a lot. Do you make a lot of kaiju, at least?" Might as well hope to get something done if you're going to have your nose to the grindstone for that long.
Akane has her own comment to make towards what Aurora was doing. She nods. "We did well. The secession forces don't field a lot of good machines, but they had a few more up to date ones this time."
It's around now that the squad leader, having finished collecting her pizza (it's a popular pizza, even if it's not The Hut), chooses to show her face at the table, bringing a couple more hangers-on with her... and an ongoing conversation. "Honestly, after the last few deployments over the open sea, jungle work is a change of pace. I'll take it. At least we can use cover too..." She rests a gloved hand on Aurora's shoulder. "Speaking of jungle work. Another good job finished. Keep it up." Then, she takes the seat next to her.
Ashcroft's eyes fall on Akane's burn, and she recognises it almost-immediately. "...Is that an electrode burn?" she asks, with the tone of someone confirming what they already know as opposed to actually asking.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Just non-prescription painkillers on top of my normal antidepressants and hormones," Akane answers, with a small shake of her head. "They're not like -- giving me anything for it, besides that." She takes a deep breath, and it's obvious how much she's struggling to remain coherent and together -- and to make the most of the time she has that isn't just suffering.
Aurora asks such an innocent question. "... Kind of," she says. "Apparently the machine they have me hooked to mostly throws up duplicates. They're trying to get something... specific, and it's basically just random chance."
She doesn't have the taste for talking about the Gaia Sabers' job. She wants to see the USSA succeed, though she doesn't dare say that. ... it does sting to see Aurora praised, though. Not as much as it used to -- 3G is good about esprit d'corps -- but... there's a warmth there that she can't help but envy.
Ashcroft asks a question she already knows the answer to, and Akane agrees, "Yeah. They have me hooked up to wires and stuff. It's... basically they're shocking me into having flashbacks and then the energy... goes into some goop, or becomes goop, or something. Then they pour that into a machine and sometimes a Kaiju Capsule comes out." No sense in keeping it from anyone here.
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
"...The painkillers don't look like they're cutting it," Aurora observes.
"You look like shit," Ashcroft adds candidly. The both of them can clearly tell Akane is getting her insides scooped out like a coconut. The Nu testbed might be hard on Aurora, but she at least gets rotated.
Aurora isn't in the mood to brag too openly right now, but she IS basking in the warmth of a job well done. She accomplishes her missions with flying colors (is that how you use that expression, she wonders) and gets praised for it. She makes her mentor proud of her. Simple joys. It's not like the praise a small child receives, but it's still... at least quasi-motherly.
Ashcroft stares at the electrical burn. "That is very obviously an electrode burn. Landry is in charge of that directly now, right? Is he... not using enough gel for the electrodes?" She raises her eyebrows. It's worrying that Landry would get this sloppy with it. This isn't a resort, of course, but all medical-adjacent endeavors go smoother when you approach them with the proper level of... professionalism. Professionalism Landry evidently lacks.
Besides, they can't keep Akane forever. She was an impulse acquisition, and GGG isn't a terror cell. Sooner or later, something will have to be done about the fact they're keeping an OCU officer in a dingy cell somewhere. Something Lilium said almost half a year ago echoes in the back of Emily's mind...
Between the random chance comment and the capsules, this is reminding Aurora of something. "...I'm not that into gacha games." Aurora inclines her head. "Sounds like you're a skinner box for the kaiju extraction team..."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Yeah," Akane agrees, blandly. "But it's... it doesn't matter." She looks off into the distance, vaguely northwest. "Rikka... they'll -- if I don't cooperate, they'll use her for the same project they're using Lilium for. I can handle it. I don't want her to get hurt for my sake."
Indeed, the last few days, the distress she's felt in her gut has seemed to attenuate somewhat -- directly in parallel with the experimentation on her. Maybe they let her go, Akane fantasizes.
"Yeah. I don't know why they have him doing it... he mentioned he was an engineer." She'd expect this to be the work of a biologist or maybe a cyberneticist, not a non-medical engineer.
Aurora mentions that Akane's a skinner box for the kaiju extraction team. Akane laughs a little grimly. "... Yeah, basically. I was dumb enough to ask to get to do this five or six years ago, and now I'm here... doing it again. Kind of stuck with it." Looking down at her pizza, she forces herself to take a bite again, looking between Ashcroft and Aurora.
She thinks to add something for Emily, though, after a little while. "Huh? I assumed it kinda had to hurt or they wouldn't get anything useful. I remember reading the report about when they were doing the same kind of thing to someone else and it was apparently pretty painful." The implication that it doesn't have to hurt is kind of strange.
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
The offhand mention of Lilium brings complicated feelings up for Aurora. It's nice to have a peer... but a lot has been done to Lilium. And, of course, she's not supposed to bring Rikka up. She's not good at carrying on complex deceptions like that, so she avoids comment on it.
Being strong and proving you can handle it, not letting someone down - now THAT's the language Aurora speaks. She nods, and her eyes meet Akane's. She gets it. The mix of 'I don't want to let this person down' and the pride inherent to being able to deal with it. Of course she would. She was raised to endure, and she endures. She can be depended on.
Maybe not the same way Akane is trying to be strong, but she prides herself on her strength.
Both of the women in front of Akane share a look when she confirms Landry is doing it. "Well," Ashcroft begins, "some of his work involves cybernetics - as in the field of human and machine neural interface -" Aurora winces slightly - "but this SHOULD be Ashton's department, or at least Sumino's."
"Well, I don't know the ins and outs of kaiju extraction. I can't tell you how much it SHOULD hurt. But I know those are the kinds of burns you get when you don't use enough gel to lower the electrical resistance." She makes an irritated 'tch' noise. "Sloppy work. I doubt he knows what he's doing here. I'll have to check in on him. ...I'll have to prescribe something for the burns, too. Used to be a team medic."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Ask no questions, tell no lies -- so it goes, so it goes. She sees that recognition and understanding in Aurora's expression, and she wants so badly to believe in it -- that Aurora could, conceivably, help her, could save her from her present situation.
... It's unimaginable, of course. But there's some solace -- at least temporarily -- in being understood. "... yeah that seems about right," Akane drones, as Emily mentions that this isn't actually Landry's field. Confirmation, at least. Maybe they're having someone handle her roughly to make it worse. It can't be that simple, but maybe it can?
"... thanks," Akane manages. Despite the fact that this is still well-underneath the bare minimum, it feels like something in a circumstance where she absolutely didn't expect anything.
Looking between the women in front of her, Akane muses, "... Wonder which one they want this bad. Could be the neurotoxin. Could be the dream kaiju... or maybe it's just one of the big monsters. It doesn't really matter, I guess."
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
Maybe it's not the same type of feeling, exactly, but there is a faint camaraderie based on being Strugglers about it. Way different circumstances, but a shared felling all the same. But as far as help goes, Aurora can only really offer the bare minimum. Odds of rescue coming from within are extremely poor... unless something happens politically. Perhaps history will wonder about that.
"It figures, doesn't it? Landry is a man whose entire experience is the singluar field he's competent in." Ashcroft, it seems, has gotten to gossiping. "Seeing how he treats people, you can imagine how he treats mobile suit components."
To this, Aurora quietly adds: "He's rough and it hurts."
It absolutely is below the actual duty of care someone in this position would have, but when you're used to being expendable, it gets you. Aurora is very acclimated to this kind of kindness.
Emily looks at Akane. "They don't tell you- no, of course they wouldn't, you're basically a political prisoner."
Aurora taps her chin. "...I saw a big one with multiple heads? That was a long time ago." She looks to Ashcroft to confirm whether or not she's allowed to talk about this. "...there's a big kaiju outside the castle, and it's making fog. I think we're using it for concealment?"
"I think that one is the toxin one, but it looks-" Emily snaps her fingers. "Now I remember. I think that one is a synthesis of both." Fuck it. Might as well tell her what she's produced. Not like she's going anywhere with an unscrambled brain.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
'He's rough and it hurts.' "He sure is and it sure does," Akane says, with gallows humor. She is enjoying this conversation, in spite of herself, in spite of everything; this is more humanized than she's felt the last few days.
"They do have me help with Lilium maintenance sometimes," Akane says. "Or did, anyway." That doesn't really shake 'basically a political prisoner,' but it does at least kick at the premises a tiny bit... if not really in a way that matters. She's not even sure why she clings to the clarifier. Maybe she just wants some sense of internal narrative to stick.
Big one with multiple heads... "Oh, Alexis did that when he was reusing mine too," Akane realizes, after a few moments. Her hands stray up to the burn again, touching it. "The heads, I mean. I only saw it after the fact, though." The mention of a big fog kaiju outside, though...
"That's definitely..." She pauses as she hears it's been hybridized. ... Hmm. "So not to put too fine a point on it but I'm gonna say you should start keeping a journal. Something physical that has your memories in it. The only reason I can think of adding anything to the neurotoxin one is so you could either make it stronger or do weirder stuff with editing people's memories."
She looks down at her pizza, feeling her appetite ebb and making the deliberate decision to shove it into her mouth before she's totally off of it.
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
Ironically, the most humanisation you can get as a resident of these labs and instititutions comes from the people who are 'not human'. "Landry is... I think he should stick to mobile suits." Aurora usually doesn't shittalk this much...
She leans forwards a little when Akane mentions Lilium maintenance. Ashcroft raises an eyebrow. "Sure. You're a conscripted assistant." She shrugs.
As it turns out, Ashcroft has been eyeing the fog kaiju's products for... projects. Aurora speaks up. "We try to avoid being directly exposed to the fog itself, but..." She stops. "...I think I'm going to write some things down."
Fortunately, this conversation isn't harming Aurora's appetite too bad. She DID just get back from some heavy exertion.
A little time passes. Emily has a question. "...The premiere was a reward for good behaviour, I'm guessing? How'd you find the movie?" She does not expect a good answer.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Akane nods. That isn't far off the mark. It feels almost -- compulsive, in a way, to be seen in full. Akane still hates being 'a victim,' even in this situation where it feels like it'd be easy to let that be the totality of her identity.
Akane stares at her now-empty plate, listening to Aurora and nodding. "Yeah, that's probably all you can really do." She wonders what they could possibly be doing with a combined kaiju of that type. The simple idea is packaging the gas, but even that doesn't 'feel right'.
Then Emily poses another question. "Something like that," Akane affirms. "It sucked. Really mean-spirited kinda movie. I'm not exactly a drinker, but after seeing it I just... I mean, Minerva was there at the bar, and I didn't really wanna sit with anyone else, so..." She admits, embarrassed, "I kinda... got... really drunk. Then the next day they woke me up and shuffled me onto a transport and now I'm here."
There's definitely an itch to talk about the film and why it sucks there that she can't keep out of her voice.
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
Aurora isn't really the type to talk about being a victim either, but that's because she was brought up with a sense of pride in her service. (It's no surprise her favourite Serena character is Cecilia. She's even got her own Antheia.) She didn't choose to be what she is, but it's easy to gloss over that part.
Emily has all kinds of ideas for the gas, but her department's ethos is 'creating better killers through technology', so the plan she's going with is likely to be some kind of combat conditioning test. Teaching soldiers to kill has something in common with teaching dogs to kill. Wasn't the Garuda on that kind of thing, back in the day? She'll have to procure the notes. Not that she's going to yap about that at the dinner table.
But she does yap. Neither of the people Akane is talking to thought it was a good movie either. "The movie was... I think the best way of summing it up is '0058, Space War 1, Area 11.' They can't even get basic history right. The lead actress wasn't even allowed to sit with the rest of the cast. This is why," the Britannian-accented woman says, "our culture is circling the drain. This..." she waves her hand as if she's accustomed to holding a cigarette, "hyperfixation with bloc nationalism. As soon as the EFF broke up after the civil war, they invade the OCU. You can trace the OCU no longer being a member bloc directly to that." Seems like it's soapbox time for the Colonel... She wants to shittalk it, and Aurora has things to say.
"...I liked the parts with Lilium in them," she offers weakly, damning with faint praise.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Akane is content to avoid talking about this, even as she finds herself starting to come down -- a tiny bit -- from extraction. Despite it being kind of bad company, this is company and she can talk with this company relatively uncoerced, or at least as uncoerced as she gets here. There's something worth embracing there.
"Well, yeah. It wouldn't be able to do the weird citizenship stuff if it were put together right." She hates the part about the actress not being able to sit with the rest of the cast, but what can she say to that?
... It's easier to talk about the movie's bad politics. "It also just, like, doesn't get Tarabaman? In ways that I'm not really..." Here she gestures vaguely in her own way, saying, "... I'd be better at talking about it if I got to have any kinda real rest. It's a weirdly bad, mean movie."
Aurora's comment gets a small smile from Akane, in spite of herself. "... she did okay," Akane says, begrudgingly. "Sucks that they cut up her parts so much though."
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
Ashcroft rolls her eyes again. "The 'weird citizenship stuff' is probably one of the worst cultural holdovers from the pre-Universal Century era. No other bloc feels the need to do that. Our glorious Britannian Union is the bloc most interested in expansion and colony-building, and its citizenship system is built to permanently separate new territory from old. An eternal neverland, built on an endlessly iterating series of Areas."
Aurora responds to the more basic criticism. "They brought back some old suits, but they spent most of their time mocking them. It felt like they..." Something sparks in Aurora's eye. "It felt like they only wanted to make 'a modern Taraba', but they didn't care about making a Taraba. Like they thought it sucks." She pokes at the last remnant of her pizza.
Ashcroft interjects. "They moved in on top and 'improved' it. It feels like a metaphor for Area politics."
"They liked the look they had in mind better. I thought it was an interesting look, but... It's not like Tarabaman HAS to look like an ECOAS operator, right?"
"It was interesting, as a soldier, to see that kind of interpretation of Tarabaman and the investigation team, I guess."
"Same for the monsters. Cordinaton was... a bit much."
"DON'T get me STARTED on CORDINATON. I'm sure you don't need an explanation of the racial animus behind that decision, but I guarantee you that somebody had to be held back from inserting "blue and pure world" somewhere in the script." Emily huffs.
Aurora doesn't comment on cutting Lilium's parts up, but she makes a face about it. "...I guess it'd be interesting to see what they did with Captain Zeon? Are they moving the timeline to 0079 or are they just going to go alt history with that too?"
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Hearing about this system from much closer to it is a weird experience. She considers talking about how spacenoids operated under similar structures -- but then, that's kind of the point, isn't it? The oppression of spacenoids came from the same Federal wellspring as the phenomena Ashcroft is describing.
"I mean, the whole project is Area politics. The license got there in the first place because Hi-TV 'bought,'" and here Akane makes scarequotes, "a company in occupied Japan. This concept has been moving around forever. The contracts are too solid for them to do anything about it."
Or, well, were.
Akane lets out a long sigh, mumbling, "I wish it wasn't such a mean-spirited movie. But I guess that's kinda the point, like..." Akane finds herself having adult thoughts about Tarabaman and it's actually enough to reduce the daze level she's carting around. "Tarabaman is kinda OCU cultural heritage at this point, right? Part of me feels like treating it like junk is the point."
... that's really demoralizing to actually say out loud, and Akane only kind of feels like it's in her lane, as someone dating someone Coordinator-adjacent. "I don't really wanna talk about the Captain Zeon stuff. I actually... kinda want to get back to my room? I gotta rest before they decide they want to go another round with me..."
... and, if she's honest, having the Adult In Aurora's Life enthusiastically talking about Tarabaman with her is kind of bringing up some complex feelings that Akane is less and less sure she'll ever get the chance to address, at this point.
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
That's completely true, but people like Ashcroft always fall short of acknowledging it. Some bad blood runs too deep to be banished in an evening.
"Britannians are terminally incapable of appreciating culture that isn't their own. It's a huge problem within the Fed... within NUNE. The victory lap interpretation is disturbingly plausible here."
Aurora nods. "...Have a nice rest."
...well, Aurora is lucky in some ways and not others with the Adult In Her Life. Then again, to hear her talk about it, in her circumstances this was always the best she was going to get, relatively speaking.
The 'Aurora Team' has finished eating by now, and they're filing out...