2023-05-10: Cama-ramen-derie
- Cast: Koji Kabuto, Roux Louka
- Where: Fujinomiya City - Boss Ramen
- Date: U.C. 0097 05 10
- Summary: Roux swings by Boss Ramen and meets Koji in a funk. They catch up and talk tactics and armaments.
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
Boss Ramen is something of a sanctuary in an Earth Sphere descending into conspiracy-chasing and escalating jingoism - an oasis of warmth and comfort and Good Food.
This is why Koji's dining here today.
And why he was here two days ago.
And three days before that.
Look, it's a busy time for Koji Kabuto.
Currently he's staring out of the window at nothing in particular, stirring the bowl in front of him with his chopsticks. The steam rising from it is starting to dwindle.
<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.
Roux Louka has relatively fewer RESPONSIBILITIES in her life than some people, or perhaps she simply works on a somewhat lower level than may often be the case. Where SOME PEOPLE in her household manage international do-gooder sex cults and/or survive the eternal agony of being SOMEBODY'S younger sister, Roux Louka, herself, did not.
Does not.
What Roux DOES do sometimes is come to Japan, despite a promise to keep an eye on Sayla Mass. She didn't promise she'd be there all the time, and she has manufactured a significant set of obstacles to binge drinking, which was her primary plan for emotional support.
Roux can't help but think, while on the passenger shuttle to Kilimanjaro, about her own adventure in the desert... and the fall of most of the other Strike Zetas in the Karaba forces.
(Imagine a SD Roux head entering the Kilimanjaro space port. Rising to the Orbital Ring. Swearing at terminal prices for a lunch set. Getting on the ring shuttle track. Getting to the Orb terminus. Descending. Getting on a JAL shuttle. Landing in Fujinoyama's commuter terminal. Going to a familiar place and grimly surrendering her six-visit coupon to receive, with a sigh, her complimentary iced beverage and choosing a facial upgrade from the other options. And then, after the facial treatment...)
"Koji!" says Roux Louka, directly behind Koji Kabuto.
I feel like hugging him, Roux thinks. Is that OK? I shouldn't just spontaneously hug. Agh, the moment's passed!
Roux has on a blue bolero-cut jacket and one of those damn colony-fashion rompers-with-leg-wraps outfits which keep staying in trend, possibly because they look really great if you untie the foot-knot and are frolicking in zero gravity. That is rare on Earth, but if you can pull them off, they're great. Roux's complex is also, legally, completely perfect right now, because she had photon-infused mudlike gel on it *less than two hours ago*.
"Do you mind if I join you? God it's good to see you," Roux continues, sitting down near but not RIGHT next to Koji, resting her elbows on the counter and folding her hands. "It feels like it has been ten years!" Her eyes widen. "I know it's actually been, what," Roux thinks, "a month? Max? I'd have to check my day planner."
Roux stops gabbling then, perhaps having noticed the cooling noods resting before Koji.
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
Koji starts when his name is called, almost falling off his stool. "Roux! Sorry, I was..." Half a country away. Thinking about the occupation. Again.
He sighs. "It's good to see you." He glances down at his ramen and makes a face as he realises he's letting it get cold, getting a hefty helping of noodles in his chopsticks and slurping them up before returning his attention to Roux. "You're coming by the city a lot, lately," he observes. "The spa really got their hooks in, huh?"
"S'been about a month, yeah." He takes another mouthful of ramen. "How are you holding up?"
<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.
"I know, I'm gorgeous," Roux says with a little toss of some of her hair.
The vanity is for once feigned.
Mostly.
"Well, it really is comfortable," Roux says. "I feel a little guilty in a way because I felt like I should do something local, but I suppose that's something you CAN do on Earth, isn't it? If you have the money, anyway." She, presumably, does.
"Mixed," Roux reports. "It's been a month, huh."
She rests her cheek against her loosely curled fist (and briefly glances around, as if to ascertain who else might be present), before saying in a lower tone of voice, "I'd heard you got raided."
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
It's relatively quiet today in the restaurant. Koji looks up and catches Mucha's eye in the kitchen, and within a minute Boss is at the counter. "Roux! I'd heard you'd been back for a while," the big man beams. "What can I getcha? Special rates for our old pals the Gundam Team!"
He leans in, then, conspiratorially. "You guys talkin' about the black mobile suit?"
Koji nods. "Yeah." To Roux, matching her quieter tone: "Michele Luio brought the Banshee back around to order us to turn over the Phenex after she crashed on the mountainside. The Phenex took off and made the Banshee chase her, but..." He sighs.
"I'm still pissed about it. The Vists having that pilot at their beck and call is bad enough, but to know there are people willing to use them beyond the Foundation - " He shakes his head. "This obsession with weaponising Newtypes is really starting to get to me."
<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.
"Really...?" Roux asks Boss, cradling her chin. "Or do you mean in general? Do you still have that miso broth? I took the packaged stuff back with me last time we were --" A pause. Special rates. Lips purse, and nod-nod, with a wink. "But yeah, if you don't, just give me whatever's up!"
But then the black mobile suit comes up.
Roux's lips purse. The flirtatiousness drains out of her face.
"I," Roux says, before pausing.
Her eyes close. She's deciding if she wants to do something.
"I want to take every single person who takes any of these, I don't know, GIFTS or TALENTS or whatever and decides to cram them through a mandolin slicer in order to run a Mobile Suit three percent better and kill people from another three klicks out and make THEM do it," Roux says, voice slowly rising, "see how THEY like it if they're so eager to do it, and THEN they can go scream at all the people who CLAIM they're doing this stuff for the sake of the poor fucking Spacenoids who are just too dumb and stupid to stand up for themselves unless some dickbreath who's two meters tall on his back legs and has a fancy jacket on TELLS them what to do!"
Roux stops. Her eyes close.
She puts a hand to her chest.
"Sorry," she says, to both Boss and Koji, "but I can't just say that stuff at home and it has been digging into me." A pause. "Though! Full Frontal. I actually saw him. I assume it was him, anyway; he definitely had a vibe."
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
Koji and Boss stare at Roux for a long moment once she's done venting. Then Koji beams and leans over to hug her. "Wow." He grins. "... Yeah. All of that!"
His face falls. "I miss being sixteen again where I could just yell shit like that and people would brush it off, but now I'm supposed to be respectable." He rolls his eyes. "If respectable means rolling over when people with more money than sense flaunt their latest attempt at bootlegging Mycenaean Warrior Beasts then respectability can go hang."
"... Except I can't just blow it off." He grunts. "I kind of feel like deciding to get involved in the fighting again is just making things worse in the long run because now we've drawn attention to ourselves."
"... What's Frontal like, anyway? The so-called Return of Char." He smirks. "That lasted, what, a year?"
<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.
Koji comes in for the hug!! Roux is hugged at a peculiar angle, and Koji gets a whiff of lavender-orange hair wash of some kind before she lets out an 'ehehehe' and -- doesn't pull back for a couple of seconds, for reasons she can't quantify. She settles back into her seat after that, letting out a breath.
"I don't know either," Roux says. She rests one hand in the other. "I mean I've THOUGHT about it... but it's a pretty big project, I guess. I kind of don't think any one person can do it. The machinery of the world is just too big; it takes a team to build, but just one person can destroy."
She exhales.
There's a different topic then. Roux rankles, just a little.
"Well I only saw him at one meeting, and I don't think he had any idea who I was," Roux says, though slightly more flatly, she says, "I don't think he's interested in women, at least," but having provided her GAYDAR READINGS, she provides more actual information:
"This was after his forces came in and saved Banagher's friends, uh," a pause, "Suberoa Zinnerman and theeee Garencieries!" She gets it correct, probably due to the name-search in her head. "At this point he linked up with the Ra Mari II and tried to pull some shit on Captain York, which I think was tolerated grudgingly. I know they're still out there, so... I suppose they've left the ship by now. I had other things to do, and I'm not on a Federal bounty list (to my knowledge) so it was mostly 'get off at the next near cross to a colonial orbit.'"
A beat.
"He picked on Banagher," Roux says. "I had the feeling they knew each other already, but it was just-- ugh! I would have probably yelled at him-- God, maybe I should just pop off whenever I feel like it. But it might have derailed things, and York doesn't deserve to bleed for my mouth. He had this lilac-haired guy with him who was a real shit, too. Yelling about the Spacenoids. I had the feeling he had reasons-- but you know what else I felt?"
"I felt like maybe you should talk to the spacenoids in the damn room!" Roux says, eyes widening. "Maybe we didn't all decide to kiss and hug Gihren Zabi on the mouth!"
This lets off the accumulated steam.
"So he was a very cold man, I thought, but I couldn't get a read from him. The only thing that stood out was picking on Banagher. I imagine if I'd been trying to pull something in his position I wouldn't have been much different in how I spoke. (Actually, that sounds kind of fun.)"
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
"When some bigwig gets it into their head to be the 'Symbol of their People'," Boss opines, "They never take the time to get to know the needs of the people they're claimin' to be the symbol of. Happens a lot! I bet this 'Full Frontal' guy's never spent any time with his boots on the ground among the common folk of the spacenoids. At least you knew what the deal was with Hell and his goons - it was personal."
Koji nods in agreement. "He sounds... Like if you took everything bad about Char and distilled it into a person with none of the redeeming qualities." He grimaces. "And he was barely tolerable as 'Lieutenant Quattro', so I can only imagine."
"Still, it sounds like he has the charisma, if he has devout followers... And he's a performer, too, by the sound of it. Someone who enjoys baiting traps for people to fall into." He makes another face. "I hope I have an opportunity to face off against him."
<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.
"I mean someone has to be out in front," Roux sighs enormously towards Boss, "but usually you have to actually come out on top first, right? Like what's this guy offering me? I'm not like, the Federation's biggest fan in the slightest... but what do they have OTHER than that?"
To Koji, she muses, "Was that guy that bad...?" She hasn't caught up with Kamille in a long time. "I wonder about this stuff. Of course, I don't know if that's what happened, given everything else... I can see why people would follow him, though, especially if you were angry."
Angry how?
Roux muses for a moment. "Well," Roux says, "you'd want to be prepared, because... he actually can walk his talk. At least in a Mobile Suit. I never saw Char Aznable in action, but I suppose he can at least give a good impression... you know, I wanted to talk to you about a couple of things about that."
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
"As Quattro, he was..." Koji pauses to consider, eventually settling for "... a lot. Definitely too much going on for teenage me to wrap his head around if I'd even bothered to pay attention to him that much."
He nods. "It makes sense. He has a big idea, probably, and a way with words to make it sound all shiny and perfect, and he can fly like the original?" He chuckles. "I can probably respect him on that count, at least - a good fight's a good fight, after all."
Roux mentions asking him a couple of things, and he frowns. "What kind of things did you want to ask about?"
<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.
"The first thing is," Roux says, a little diffidently, "that I wondered if you have a spare Ichi I could use sometimes. I guess I felt bad about using the Strike Zeta when there was an attack, and there's some stuff it just isn't that suited for..."
also breast fire is fun to say
"... and I think it's a real possible tactical trump card in a lot of situations! You know, you and I, we have this weird stretch of experience, don't we? You too, Boss, most of the guys in the EFSF or the Sleeves or, I don't know, the Illegal Crime Army of Gangashree Colony or whatever, they just train on one platform!"
A beat.
"The other thing's a little weirder, but it might also be easier," Roux says. "I guess it's also a trump card! But I was thinking something that could be, I don't know, small -- something that could punch through something heavily armored, especially if it got cocky. Because I have noticed that," Roux continues. "A lot of them get cocky, even if I don't know if that's a way to describe how the pilot feels. But there's a point when they have to change the focus to someone else if it's a big thing, like a Kikaiju or that horrible thing they keep throwing out."
The banshee.
She didn't want to name it.
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
Koji nods. "I can probably swing that. I know you kinda ditched Londo Bell, which would actually be the easiest access point - our personal garrison is pretty small and the Third Company keep a tight leash on theirs - but I might be able to nudge things here and there to make sure you have access. You're right about our weird skill ranges, though - it's a handy toolset to have. I finally figured out a stable cross-combination for my new shuttlecraft and Mazinger Z, since you mention it. It'll be... different, I bet, seeing Earth from the head of the Hover Pilder." He grins. "And the Borot, of course, is a hell of a machine to learn to drive."
And he does mean drive; it has a steering wheel. "Guy learned that the hard way," Boss chuckles. "That was a lot of fun to watch, the World's Strongest Cyborg trying to figure out how me 'n' Nuke and Mucha get the Borot moving!"
"I'm nowhere near close to as good in a mobile suit as I am with a Mazin-style control scheme, but I'm not an embarrassment at least," Koji chuckles too here. "This second thing, though. Are you thinking a weapon, or a machine?"
<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.
"It's going to be awesome," Roux tells Koji, wistfully, about the view. "If you really watch for a whole orbit, or a lot of one, you'll never forget it."
That one seems to be coming from a different place. "I'm s urprised you never got into a view bubble, but I guess going to space is so casual now..."
Roux frowns. "You need an emergency ballute for the Pilder, though," she adds, "if you're going to do that. OKAY? Because otherwise it's going to be like falling into superheated matter and dying. You can use it on Earth for crash landings too." Can you, Roux?
Roux saw a video once. She believes.
Back to Boss. "... You guys all have to run it, right?" she guesses at Boss. (Roux, back in the day, attempted to peek in on the Boss Borot and was immediately repelled at the powerful (if chill) man-cave energy in the cockpit. It may have been remodelled, of course, since then. Or Roux stopped being a teenager.)
"So how could even Guy...??"
"A weapon," Roux then answers Koji, more businesslike. "I was thinking something like... I don't know, the best I could think of was like sometimes when a Beam Saber breaks down it flares, right? Or if you, you know, have something collate the particle fountain. So it'd sort of be like a beam rifle shot, but it'd look like a saber, but most things like that... I could just use the beam rifle, right? Just jam it into the neck joint or something."
Roux muses, "You've had to punch through a lot of armor, right? How'd you do it?"
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
Koji nods. "I mean I've been to space before, of course, and flown Ichinanas in space combat, but... It'll be different to take Mazinger Z up there. The Castle of Iron was never designed for space travel originally, it's exciting to have finally pushed things to this point."
"Oh, Guy's really fast," Koji explains. "He was running between the stations." Is he messing with Roux?
The world may never know.
He nods. "You want something for precise penetration and carving - to rip the cockpit out. Mazinger Z's anti-armour options started out as 'just melt it' with Breast Fire, but eventually we developed the Iron Cutters for the Rocket Punch with a refined Super Alloy Z forging process. The Jet Scrander's wings are similar."
He considers. "Maybe a physical weapon with precise megaparticle emitters along the blade - use the weight to push through an i-field and then the particle energy can cut apart the armour?"
He grabs a napkin and pulls a pen out of his jacket pocket, starting sketching. "This would require... Careful nano-engineering. A pair of Super Alloy Z blades separated around a high-intensity/narrow-point particle emitter. Maybe use a Photon blade instead of a megaparticle one so you can modulate the thermal output, too... Shiro's got a repro of one of Great's Mazinger Blades that can channel electrical energy, maybe something like that would be useful."
<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.
"Oh, like that one movie with the shields and the knives and the worms," Roux says.
She thinks about this. There's actually like three seconds of consideration. She is playing out scenarios in a shadowy box between her eyes which has survived more MS battles than entire regiments of the EFSF's consolidated units, parlous though they may be.
"That does seem like it would work," Roux muses. "You're kind of combining them... normally they're mutually exclusive, of course, because megaparticles would just shred anything they're against. Even if you dipped it in beam coating that just means it might last twenty seconds, not zero seconds. Beam coats are erodable, like the medevial bomb armor on tanks."
"You can do nano-engineering here? I thought you had to do that in space," Roux then says, looking forwards. "The Mazinger Blade's good but I also have to carry it pretty easily... if it's too big they're going to watch for it. The reason I thought a Beam Saber is that having a third or fourth Beam Saber is just like, OK, this girl's going to throw one, which is completely misleading."
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
"No, that worked completely differently - " Koji cuts himself off because he's about to get into a whole Thing.
"Yeah we are still a little bit beyond what we need to work that precisely, and I'm not sure 3G would approve of me commandeering Orbit Base's manufacturing infrastructure for a project this specific," he chuckles. "Maybe if we scale it up a little bit. The stock Mazinger Blades are collapsible but that's not really a solution we can implement for this."
He frowns. "If you want precise cutting and something innocuous, then... Probably some kind of hooked dagger?" He sketches some more designs. "Latch on with the physical blades, then emit a controlled energy pulse to blast through the plating?"
<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.
Roux doesn't seem to know what this is, but when she sees the illustration, she says "Oh!" because the shape makes it clear. "Duh, like a dagger that's a hook. Do you sharpen the inside or the outside?"
"If it's made out of something as tough as the Mazinger Blade I could even use it off hand and it'd survive parrying most stuff," Roux muses. "I think that's a good idea. And it's not like you only have to make one... though I guess it's one of those secret tricks that won't work if you use it TOO much."
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
"You could double-edge it, that gives you more versatility with the blade - inside for hooking on, outside for cutting. I can run through blade shapes until we get something that works, and if we make... Call it two of them and they're small enough to easily mount on the machine, you have more options without overloading yourself on one specific gimmick."
"Using the same formulation as the Iron Cutters should get the physical blades durable enough to at least deflect a saber swing if you use the particle emitters too, at least, as well as making a mark on most armour that's used. Not sure about psycoframe, but... we're still learning about that." He frowns. "Should still get through the external armour well enough."
<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.
"Right," Roux muses. "If you can adjust the grip plates then you could use the same things for MS vs. Ichinana vs., I don't know. Those big skinny things at Tokyo-3 were using knives in every video I ever saw, so it's not like they're useless in battle."
"Psychoframe freaks me out," Roux says. "Do you understand it? It just seems like... like... if I understand it right, it was like Char Aznable found some kind of -- Getter metal formula and then he just *gave* it to Amuro Ray? I wasn't here, but I guess I did get exposed, the one time."
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
"Roux," Koji says just a hair too loudly, "Everyone knows research into that material was outlawed after Axis, this is a very dangerous subject to pursue."
He waits precisely five seconds, then lowers his voice again. "I've taken a look at it, it's... kind of fascinating. It's a bunch of psycommu microchips interwoven through an otherwise ordinary alloy. The same thing as lets Newtype pilots operate funnels, just... miniaturised and constructed so that quantum brainwave activity can travel through everything those chips are integrated into - which in the RX-0 suits' case is 'the entire endoskeletal structure'. It's definitely not Saotome's polyformic alloy, but the consequences of its development are... definitely as staggering in potential as Getter technology."
<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.
"It's just so scarrryyyy~~~!!!" Roux cries out. "Ugh! I should just -- I'm sorry for bringing it up -"
Wink!
Roux does lean in. Koji explains. Roux's eyes narrow. "But you'd cook your brain," Roux says quietly. "I mean I suppose it would be powerful, but Astionage told me Chara Soon (do you remember that skank?) killed herself with it. Or at least she took out the last of the MP Quebeleys she was fighting with a direct impact..."
"She was pretty nuts," Roux allows, "even before then."
A second or two passes. "... I think I just had a really scary thought, so I'm going to put it aside and hope I forget about it. I guess it might be less stressful since a MS is pretty much one for one with your body, as opposed to funnels."
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
"It's..." He nods. "very interesting is an understatement, hah. I won't lie - it is scary to deal with a material that powerful and peculiar, but, well."
He waves a hand vaguely. "That's literally my career, so." He chuckles, before getting serious for a moment. "Hey, Roux. Thanks for dropping by, I needed another friendly face to talk to."
"Hey," Boss complains. "What am I, Koji? Chopped liver?"
"You are the proprietor of this fine establishment, Boss, and you're on the clock. We can hang out and go through your sake reserves later."
"Ya promise?"
"You bet." Koji holds up a fist for Boss to bump, and the larger man reciprocates with a grin.
<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.
"No problem... I'm going to be here for another day and a half if you need me to come register an access card or something," Roux says. "I guess we can video over it if you wanna work up those blades. But, I guess, don't take super long, if you can..."
Paranoia? Forethought?
Or...
"There's some things you can only feel comfortable telling a beautiful lady," Roux answers Boss, not that she was asked. "See you~!" she calls after Koji.
"Now about those noodles," she says to Boss...
Unless they showed up while she was thinking about other things.
Because that thought isn't going to disappear from the back of her head. It's simple and logical, after all:
What if you did that with something that wasn't metal?