2022-11-30: Awakening of Este

• Cast: Ai Martel, Asciel Colette
• Where: Martel Manor, Area 11
• Date: U.C. 0096 11 30
• Summary: Ai shows Asciel her family's secret legacy--a mech from the era of the Prehistoric Subterranean Empires, which she refers to as "Bradamante." Asciel speaks to her about her own far-too-human vulnerabilities, all while still skirting around them.

---

<Pose Tracker> Ai Martel has posed.

It's a quiet day for Ai Martel. Perhaps more quiet than the lady of the house would like... her left arm has a compression bandage wrapped around it, and she sits at a recliner in her study, reading.

'Even someone of your power needs time to recuperate, mistress,' Madeline told her.

Ai knows she's right, but... she doesn't have to like it.

And she very much does not.

Nearby, the computer at her desk sits idle. A small quad-copter drone perches next to it, connected to the estate's network, also sitting idle. On the network, it is labelled simply as: 'A Gift'.

<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.

        Time has slowed to a crawl too for Asciel Colette. After a close brush with annihilation at one of the most dangerous military operations in recent memory at the Federation's jugular, followed by yet another high stakes affair at another importan artery, Chrome's engineers were quick to point out rather erratic behaviors. Intensely emotional personal logs, followed by slow response times and periods spent aimlessly idle out of the blue. The overwhelming amount of errors needing correction at the start of that potent axe to the heart dulled to something like a constant ringing in her ears - but it was still far more than before.

        ...It took convincing to even authorize her impending rendezvous with the Black Rainbow at Side 6 in the coming days - and a promise that she wouldn't push her limits, as she always does.

        The pinging of a gift to Asciel does cheer her up, though - and it's not too long before that little quadcopter whirs to life, gently hovering a few inches in the air...then drifting forward to land right atop Ai's chest, the camera in its nose pointing upward balefully.

        "...You've gone and done something a liiiiittle bit unthinkable," Asciel chimes teasingly. "...you've made me worry a lot about you. Yet you don't seem all that worse for wear! Mmm...it's alright for me to humor being in this position, if you're going to be increasingly amazing...~"

<Pose Tracker> Ai Martel has posed.

The whirring of fanblades catches Ai's attention, and she glances over with a smile, perhaps relieved. She watches quietly as it decides a destination... and lands squarely atop her chest. The smile becomes something more like a mischevious grin at that point... and a light frown as Asciel speaks.

"As I said, my dear, I'm a resilient woman~" She lifts her bandaged arm to Asciel's camera. "Nothing more than a nasty bruise. Madeline insisted I take it easy, though." Clear annoyance, at that. "Arm Slaves are rather brutal machines, though, and the best solution is a more elegant one." She winks, placing a pair of fingers on the quadcopter's frame to hold it in place as she puts her book aside and stands.

"Is it really so unthinkable to worry for me, though? You're quite fully-sapient... surely such things aren't outside your parameters?" A few more moments held in place, and she releases the drone, leaning to grab her parasol. Her mind returns to the train attack, and the scar across the Codarl's front. "Though... speaking of worry, that wound you took... what happened, dear heart?"

She doesn't quite understand how such a thing would be a mortal wound for Asciel, but the realm of Super-AI is thoroughly outside of her experience.

<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.

        "It's hardly about parameters. It's about the inherent span of distance between us, even as well as we sing in harmony," Asciel ponders, zooming in on the bandaging of Ai's arm, shifting in place in her perch - almost as though she'd bury the drone in that abundant comfort. "...In times long past, it would not have made sense for humanity to worry about the denizens of the moon. It would not be healthy for the moonfolk to concern themselves with earthly affairs. Though these celestial bodies share a path around the sun, they are very different places, separated by a vast span of the cosmos which few can overcome. Even today, where it's a more feasible journey, the distance makes for many a boundary."

        Eventually, though, it becomes clear Ai has plans for where to go, and Asciel flits upwards from her cozy settlement, hovering in a lazy circle as though orbiting Ai, her camera strafing and staring at her companion all the while. Asciel's...reticent, for a little while, at the question.

>I don't want to get into this. At all. It's ridiculous that I keep getting into such bad situations, just because I have a hard time with such weird weaponry. It doesn't make any sense that it's so tough! It's damned embarrassing! It should be easy. It has to be easy. It needs to be. The future will require my supremacy over the art of war. I don't want to get into it - not with anyone, not even with you, it shouldn't have happened, it should never EVER-
|Recuperation Advisory: Theta processors are overheating. Cascading failures will be imminent at current trajectory. Course of action: delegate solution-finding to a second party.
>
>...fuck.

        A long, stable static-ey sound fumes from Asciel, as her orbiting motion drifts out of place, steadily careening her dangerously close to a slightly expensive looking vase-!

        Thankfully, she pauses just in time. "...Mghhh...the -simple- answer is that I was up against someone with much better skill than I anticipated. And it turns out I have a tough time dealing with...cord-like weaponry. For that kind of operation especially, on the opposite end of the world from where I...'live', I do need to put...the most important part of me in a mobile weapon. The one that...if it's destroyed, it's really kind of the end of the line for me. ...incidentally, it was an axe that they used that time, so I was...thrown off when facing someone else with that same general arrangement of armaments."

        A flash of inspiration suddenly hits, coalescing Asciel's conceptual struggle with her input of more or less scanning Ai in every dimension.

        "...In the imminent future, you're going to let me test the dynamics of tensile materials on you. For whatever reason, I can't parse them easily. Maybe they've never come up before. I need to see how they work when held taut - how they move when there's slack, how they lace together to form inescapable binds. It strains me to think about from scratch - so I will need to observe them. And you make a perfect form factor to contrast it with.~"

<Pose Tracker> Ai Martel has posed.

"The Earth and the Moon..." Ai chuckles softly, "How poetic. But... you're right. There's a gulf between us." She looks introspective, a little tender. She exhales. "Quite frankly... you are precious to me, in whatever capacity you appear to me. But the desire-- the *need*-- for more, is nothing if not understandable."

She smiles warmly. The sound and ensuing drift has her stumbling over toward the drone in concern and alarm, desperate both to save it and the vase. She frowns. "This is taxing you, isn't it? These feelings, this..." She pauses. "This trauma, I suppose..."

They proceed out the door into the gardens behind the lonely manor. At the other end of a path sits an old, classically-styled stone mausoleum, its entrance flanked by pillars.

It's difficult to know how to help one so different from humanity, despite her similarity... but Asciel does offer a solution. Her grin returns. No request, no 'please'--simply 'You're going to'. "Gladly," she replies, with a smile, even as her mind wanders regarding what this may *entail*. "It sounds like a rather perfect activity.~"

They proceed down the path, approaching the mausoleum. "But today... I promised to show you something, didn't I?"

<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.

        Asciel sours at that word. 'Trauma'. ...what a human problem. A human condition, even. The very self re-adapts in a negative way to protect oneself from future pain, often overcorrecting quite dramatically.

        ...So it can't be that. It must never, ever be that. It can only be 'a problem not yet solved'.

        Thankfully, Ai's praise and warmth more then cancels it out. It's a problem for another time - in this moment, she can drown in this oh so direct honor from someone just that touch closer than the far side of the moon. "...yes. Yes, it will all be perfect. More perfect than you could imagine, even. You take a lot of care to provide doors into your life for me, and I'll open every last one of them. ...mm, but I know how I can make my very own.~"

        Gracefully, Asciel hovers upwards, near enough to the roofline of the mausoleum, then down lower, almost to the ground, as though peering through the door. "My my, I can't even begin to guess what precious treasure is on your mind bringing me in here. Everything you've ever shown me has been extremely fascinating and wonderful though, so I know this will be the same."

<Pose Tracker> Ai Martel has posed.

Ai steps through the door of the mausoleum, holding it open for Asciel's drone before closing it behind her. She retrieves an electric lantern at her feet, illuminating the antechamber. "Within this building lies the past of House Martel. Each of my ancestors, since our flight from France in the 18th century Anno Domini, rests here." She proceeds down the first of several flights of steps down underground.

A glance is paid to a particular sarcophagus on the first level. "... some less in body than in spirit." The name on the plaque reads 'Koharu Martel'. Born 0070, died 0089. The year the Britannian Union annexed Area 11.

She continues down two more levels, coming to what appears to be a dead end. The sarcophagi on this level flank a statue of a knight, posed as though he holds a sword, blade-down, at the ready; his hands, however, are empty.

Ai takes her parasol in both hands, pulling body away from handle, revealing the blade of a sword, hidden in the pole. Carefully, she places it in the knight's hands; the weight pulls them down, placing the sword's tip in a slot at the statue's feet. Ancient mechanisms grind to life, and the wall the knight stands against opens away, revealing a grand chamber behind.

Retrieving the sword, she steps through, throwing a large electrical switch beside the door, and the chamber illuminates, lamps turning on in series, revealing the form of a grand robot, tarnished by the passage of years, but no less imposing for it. Its armor is blue and black, trimmed in gold, its design unlike any machine of the modern era. It resembles, for all the world, a knight in the ancient tradition of medieval Europe, visage concealed behind a helmet, stylized wings padding its shoulders.

"This is Bradamante, Knight of Charlemagne... my family's secret legacy. We stand in the presence of history, here." She grins, barely able to contain her excitement as she steps forward along the dusty floor, regarding the giant high above.

https://i.imgur.com/YnQ7Dkp.jpg (An approximation.)

<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.

        Asciel is silent in anticipation for what's so crucial within this . . . well. She's not going to -say- it, but. 'dusty old tomb' - though drawing a blade from the parasol is a stylish maneuver if there ever was one. ...What follows next is a liiiittle more interesting though - and Asciel is quick to hover and dart around the immense royal chamber, oohing and ahh-ing at the sight of Bradamante.

        "Well well well. A thing like this is hardly what I expected. You're full of myriad little charming secrets, aren't you? How enjoyable~ Admittedly, it could use a few bouts of polishing to be more presentable..."

        ...she notes to herself to keep everything here private. No need for 'an entire corporation' to start snooping around this.

        "Of course, Ai...a legacy kept locked away entails that it will be needed. Mmmm, I may as well say it forthright.~" The little drone descends onto a small plinth, legs extending to support - and shutting its rotors down, securing a bit more silence...and a bit less 'fanning dust everywhere in her wake'. It's terribly inelegant to cause a lady to cough.

        "It's an adorable set of armor - but it's far more important what purpose you will attain with it. What aspirations and dreams this will let you fulfill. The quest, if you will, that our Bradamante will be set upon!"

<Pose Tracker> Ai Martel has posed.

"Precisely," replies Ai, grinning. "Ah, it's hardly just adorable. You're familiar with the great empires of prehistory, right? The Jama and the Mykene are the most well-known... but they were hardly the only ones. I bear the blood of a previously-unknown such empire in Western Europe, which I've termed the 'Armigeri'... Bradamante is over twelve centuries old, and if the stories are to be believed, she marched with the armies of Charlemagne, William the Conqueror... and Napoleon, when he drove the Britannians out of England."

"His fall at Waterloo was my ancestors' doing," she adds with a wink, holding her blade skyward. It shines across a spectrum of color, and the giant comes to life, its visor glowing as it kneels down and holds out a hand for ingress. A panel in its chest opens to reveal a cockpit, a chamber of colorful stained-glass in arches. "I've subjected her to enough materials testing to know that she can stand up to modern weaponry..."

She steps over and takes a seat on Bradamante's hand, looking over the blade in her hand. "Are you familiar with the old Imperial Chinese concept of the 'Mandate of Heaven'? It was a philosophy which said that the fortunes of the empire were tied to the conduct of the emperor and his dynasty." She tips the blade upward. "An emperor who rules well, and does right by his people, has the mandate of Heaven, and the empire prospers."

"An emperor who rules badly, however..." She tips the blade downward. "Loses the Mandate of Heaven. He is met with crop failure, starvation, strife among the people, natural disaster... all of these are signs of the Emperor's depravity, and that his dynasty is not fit to rule. Revolution is, thus, not only justified, but *endorsed*."

"Now, the Federation's leaders are depraved, an aristocracy forsaking its stewardship over the people it was created to serve... apathetic at best, and cruel at worst. Decadent. I would say that the Federation has lost the Mandate of Heaven, wouldn't you?" She grins widely at Asciel, a glint in her eye.

<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.

        "The Mandate of Heaven...oh, most certainly, I've heard the term bandied about. Conceptually it parses. It's hard to imagine the Federation having ever truly been blessed by this mandate - as the formation of many vast realms go, it is usually simply a momentary mutually beneficial arrangement amongst the powerful. Reading into the mandate is a much more hilarious idea though.~" Asciel giggles merrily, hovering upwards to settle atop Bradamante's head, as though she were some sort of 'crown'. "It demonstrates a clear and obvious principle: that one's actions have effects, that poor oversight of your domain will lead to it being poorly overseen. Fail to provide resources for your farmers, and you will have less food. A simple and obvious observation of an abstract yet distinctly real force."

        "Even this, they ascribe to the will of heaven!~"

        Asciel's beside herself with laughter, gazing off in the distance - maybe she isn't staring anyhere physically at all with that little camera of hers, given the only feedback she now has is a slightly out of focus rear wall of the mausoleum's sanctum.

        "Aaaah, do pardon me. It perhaps sounds as though I am making light of a clear and evident truth. From my perspective, it's far harder to see it than from yours, of course - the equivalent concept is perhaps one you'd take more to mean the likes of exercise and self care. Organs may not be neglected in service of one or the other, as the entire body will fail. The 'fortunes of an empire' are quite like a physical pain."

        Asciel does have to adjust the focus of her camera, much as she has to resituate the focus of her scale-set. The inherent difficulty of one whose personal scope is a city, against a human, who will always know their role largely as themselves.

        ...It brings her to a most important thought in that regard, though.

        Lifting downward from her lofty perch, Asciel settles the little drone astride Bradamante's hand in turn, resting and nudging into Ai's thighs. "...On that front...do tell me of what you believe regarding the phenomena of . . . psychic communication. 'Newtypes', as they were - though the depths of history describe many similar effects. In particular, I wonder if you'd ascribe success in large scale strategy to some form of it - the ability for humans to marshal organized command over thousands with few tools more effective and concise than the limits of their voice certainly seems strange. Perhaps your ancestors attained this victory with an...'advantage' like that~"

<Pose Tracker> Ai Martel has posed.

"Well, I suspect the first emperor to set it into place was quite aware of what he was doing--and knew that it had nothing to do with the will of the heavens. It justified his right to rule," explains Ai, watching as Asciel perches atop Bradamante.

"Aah, not at all... I simply think that it is a useful poetic parallel. There are no gods, of course. No divines to exact punishment upon the delinquent nobles, growing fat off the suffering of their subjects. I think, then... that we must act as the Instruments of Heaven. While Zeon claws for mere relevance, intending to simply replace one oppressive order with another... we have power, and resources, without the fetters of such things. What should take shape in the world to come is another question--but I think, even if the worlds we want to see don't align, we are still comrades in arms."

Au smiles, patting the drone on the 'head', as purely symbolic as that gesture is. "Mm. Newtypes... I would be truly foolish if I said that humanity didn't have latent power, and the potential for such, lurking in its genes. I owe my strength to my bloodline, after all."

She makes a thoughtful sound. "But... I don't believe one needs to be psychic to achieve great successes upon the battlefield. It certainly helps, and perhaps it has, in the past! But even before we had reliable methods of long-distance communication, battles were won by commanders who knew how to utilize the flow of battle. If you aren't in contact with your superior, you must act on your own. And knowing what to do--indeed, it can be as simple as reading the movements of your fellows' units across the field--is a matter of skill."

"In any case, I dislike attributing psychic causes to events in eras so far preceding our ability to confirm them. Without evidence, it's mere conjecture and speculation."

<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.

        "Instruments of heaven..." Asciel tosses that idea in her head a bit. She's known the landscape of her future for quite some time - searched far and wide for the elements that would make it come true. One may even be so close at hand - if the right people are exploitable enough.

        "...One can only wonder what truly kept the instinct to look towards a heaven in so many places for so long. The thunderbolt may invoke fear of a smiting, my thought has always been that it's a matter of...'hope'. A need for assurance and guidance - a need for a way to know if the actions taken truly matter."

        The mention of Zeon certainly does whir Asciel's fans a little bit. "...mmh. The Axis Shock was oh so shrouded in the mystique of what that 'latent potential' entails - and how replicable it is. How obtainable it will be should the next colony fall. Where exactly it was when the last -several- colonies fell." A pause. "...You weren't here for the Axis Shock! That's right, that's right - to you it's an event that means a lot to others, but which you know of after it's all settled. Mm...keeping track of events as they were unfolding gave so many of us so much to think about. In all truth...for a most galvanizing few hours, quite a lot of humanity faced its imminent and permanent end. An entire world's life, cut off after uncountable eons of life."

        "It's unforgiveable."

        "...and it's so, so easily replicable. It wouldn't even be too hard! A few madmen in the right spaces in the right colonies, and another miracle will be needed. The Universal Century has but wrought countless swords hanging over the Earth, all forged from the fires of careless mismanagement and wrong-footed dreaming."

        "It's unforgiveable. It's unforgiveable. Something has to be done. I have to do it. I have to forgive it. I'll never be able to forgive it. Just sometimes, I have to take it out-"

        That escalating storm of [need] punctuates with the sound of an audible grimace. Asciel has to stop - again - even though stopping just adds ever more strain. Gradually, the drone makes its way into Ai's lap - the most secure and cozy place in the world, its sheer concept enough to satisfy the distant 'heart' of Asciel.

        "...you bring me to tell too much. ...That's right. This lap of yours is just as much a battlefield as the rest of the world. It is the center of yet one more truth that must be conquered. ...but I know...if I can counteract the sword that is your heart aimed at my own, then I would be all that much more powerful."

        It is always a problem that must be solved.

>i have no choice but to solve it all.