2023-05-12: Like Diamond Dust to Me
- Cast: Seolla Schweizer, Leina Ashta
- Where: Fujinomiya City
- Date: U.C. 0097 05 12
- Summary: Seolla catches up with Leina after she's gotten rather roughed up!
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
It came with a simple request...
[VERTEX]theater_girl_wp: hey seolla would u like to hang out?
[VERTEX]theater_girl_wp: figured we could spend a day hitting an arcade or something
[VERTEX]theater_girl_wp: fujinomiya has pretty great ones
Either way Leina's waiting inside the Ma-Zinger arcade, an old last gen Magical Girl named Wonderful Persimmon T-Shirt and light pink jacket, as well as a pair of skinny jeans and worn sneakers.
She's got a little holographic Haro barrette on the left side of her hair that's animated to flap every so often.
However her face is also sporting a draining bruise that's probably a couple weeks old, and she's moving a little stiffly.
That's just what happens when you're subject to some light police brutality in the Universal Century! While waiting apparently she decided to play some light Natural Lychee vs. Gekiganger.
...
...
...
"Hey that was pretty good, but you were up against-Magical Princess-!" She announces in time with her character, as a teenage boy exhausts his tokens. "-Natural Lychee-!"
Oh my God she's even doing the pose IRL, and throwing in a wink.
The moment that she spies Seolla though her eyes light up, and she nudges an elementary school girl forward, "Hey take over for me? Need to meet a friend."
There's quite a smile on her face as she moves over to greet her, "Seolla Hey! You made it! How was your trip over?"
<Pose Tracker> Seolla Schweizer has posed.
[VERTEX]ss19238572: OH! heya Leina, suddenly realizing its. been a while
(yes, she's still using that super wary VERTEX handle!)
[VERTEX]ss19238572: heeeell. have I been blowing people off from all the...studying I've been doing. i think so. yeah. let's fix that. love arcades
The buzz of a motorcycle hones in on the Ma-Zinger arcade - and isn't that a fitting way to commute to this place? Lightweight and clearly a budget bike - but it can decisively rip through the streets. It's a little bit dangerous how quickly it's roaring - and it's parked into place with a daredevil slide. (It's fine! Seolla's been driving these for a long, long time.)
-and yep it's Seolla! The encroaching summer brings her in kind of a showy getup - faded and partly ripped black crop top with a barely legible ad for some sort of 'Kamogawa Energy', beneath a glossier, high-visibility yellow, much more well kept short jacket that barely goes any further down than the top. Black short shorts and calf high boots and the overall, like, intent Seolla has whenever she moves preeeeetty quickly gets people kinda shifting out of her way. Huge delinquent vibes going on. (But maybe that just imparts huge 'gotta work up my courage oh hell' vibes in others?)
"You're braver than me for pulling that kinda pose, eh, Lein-AAAA, Leina, your face, what HAPPENED?" Stepping RIGHT into Leina's personal bubble, Seolla's leering at the bruise crossing Leina's cheek, a grimace across her lips, pulling backward just as soon as she leaned in. "M...my trip over was - It's not really anything to talk about beyond that I've got a bike now, but...there's not really any way to - are you alright? Who did that? Or was it an accident? Listen. If someone's been giving you trouble - everything you all have done for me, you'd better believe I'll give someone a knuckle sandwich for roughing you up, alright?"
--All of this said kind of fast and kind of breathlessly. Even when Seolla's been fairly stable for a while, she remains...So Much to hang out with, doesn't she...full fight and flight mode on everyone else's behalf, just like Akane might've told to Leina.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
[VERTEX]theater_girl_wp: lets! and its okay been kinda crazy you know?
[VERTEX]theater_girl_wp: can't blame you.
Leina would rather talk about ANYTHING ELSE but it's kinda right there on her face, isn't it? Seolla starts leering at the bruise, and Leina looks awkward for a moment under the scrutiny, a hand against the back of her head.
"Aha. Um, would you believe me that it was some Manhunters back in Barcelona? They wanted to give my girlfriend's papers a second look. And her getting caught would be bad? Long story short we had to run and... I distracted them so she could get away."
Her expression becomes briefly livid, "They didn't like that, so they took out their frustration on me." There's this, prolonged sigh, before her expression becomes this helpless shrug, "Charges got dropped. Wasn't more than just a concussion and a few broken ribs. Lucky to be honest, they knew who I was as I'd been stopped by them dozens of times. So they went easy on the 'rich brat'."
To be perfectly honest if she hadn't thrown that flashbang, she doubts they would have even struck her. She gives her a smile then as if to deescalate her, "S'okay. Just the fascist police. Lots of people get it much worse every day from them. Anyhow-"
A hand moves forward to Seolla's shoulder, squeezing it lightly as if she were trying to quickly deescalate her, shift her mind to another subject, "-damn girl, looking chic. Love the bike!" She says as she looks past her and outside the arcade, with a grin before leaning back front and center to face her. "You got this whole image going on for you now and it's great!"
There's this almost sly cast to her expression as she asks, "That wouldn't happen to have anything to do with that you know..." A beat pause, and her smile becomes almost cat like, "...girlfriend of yours right?"
<Pose Tracker> Seolla Schweizer has posed.
"Man Hunters..." All the sudden, there's a decisive pullback from Seolla, fidgeting in place. It's been a while, hasn't it... memories that are supposed to be hazy and pushed away surge in with more detail than usual. Holding a pistol in lockstep with other uniformed officers. Chasing after children trying to make a run for it. Aiming a beam rifle at a civilian transit-
Holding her forehead a little telling, Seolla breathes out, "They really are the damned worst." And now, in a weird little way, Leina and Seolla are even on a subject they'd rather not talk about - just not even on who's actually had to talk about it. "...I'd say you should be resting up since you got banged up pretty bad, but...I'm gonna guess we're pretty similar, in that you'd have to handcuff us to a hospital bed to get us to stay in one for as long as we ought to."
With ninja-like precision, Seolla flicks a water bottle and oatmeal bar from her purse into her hand, covertly nibbling and drinking in a seamless motion that obscures how she kind of just inhaled both of them. A second water bottle and food are swiftly offered up to Leina like the hilt of a sword - and perhaps this is the true nature of what Leina will need to do battle.
There's a distinct rosiness in Seolla's cheeks at being complimented - an instinct to go all tsun tsun 'it's really nothing special, I just kind of threw it on' - but like. No you don't just casually dress like this for nothing. So, with one foot planted, a hand upon a cocked hip, Seolla gives her hair a slightly tryhard cool little tousle. "Obviously I needed an actual wardrobe when I got out of that controlling situation - so I kinda went for it and picked out a bunch of stuff that caught my eye. ...Jacket's one of the things I spent a little too much money on. ...The shirt, not so much, ahaha."
A pause, though. Okay, now the tsun is rising and rising. "N-n-no, don't be ridiculous, I'm just trying to feel confident on my own, and it's not like we're really girlf-" Another stop. Seolla.exe has hit an impediment, eyes shifting left and right. "...wait. ...Which one are you even assuming is my girlfriend? " SHE'S POSSIBLY MADE IT SO MUCH WORSE-
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
There's, a swatch of memory that Leina catches, her eyelashes fluttering in that moment, and- this realization in that moment, as if to say 'Oh'. Yet she realizes it's not the time to press it.
"Yeah. Been subject to a lot of light harassment for years for the crime of being... you know, the outspoken Spacenoid Girl living on Earth."
There's a sigh, and a smile, "I'm real stubborn, but even I had to lay around for a few days in bed after that. Just- did it at the guest home I'm staying at right now."
She doesn't like taking pain meds, but she sure did this time.
She decides to leave off the uh, rift between her and Sayla at the moment. That's hard to explain without telling Seolla the 'Char's Sister' part.
When it's offered, Leina unwraps the oatmeal bar, and snaps a bite off the end of it. It's easy to think she needs it, Leina certainly looks like she's lost weight since the last time Seolla saw her? Her clothes are just hanging real loose. Then again she was in a pilot suit...
Unscrewing the cap, she takes a swing, before putting it back down in her bag, "Thanks." Before the smile returns and, "Hey makes sense, you've got a great eye for fashion. And pfft, the jacket's great, worth the money I'd say. Actually wouldn't mind getting a date to go Clothes Shopping! Audrey could use a summer wardrobe, and we got kinda... interrupted grabbing her some options for it."
However, then, Leina gives her a scrutinizing look, grabbing the water bottle and while the tsun rises there's a glug, glug, glug, while that eye looks right at Seolla, catlike. As she then screws the cap back on, and puts it away.
"I don't know, which one do you think I"m assuming is your girlfriend?" Leina asks her, a touch smug, "Seolla~" She lilts musically, as she directs them over towards a seating area near one of the food counters, "How many people are you dating, girl? And no judgment. I always thought I was a monogamous kind of girl until-"
She gestures with a bottle as if for a loss of how to describe. And it even draws a faint, but pleased blush on her cheeks- "... look it just kinda happened."
Dating two people just kind of happened!? Well it can in the case of Newtype bonding at least...
<Pose Tracker> Seolla Schweizer has posed.
If only Seolla knew that her thoughts are usually very loud, but her hearing for those of others is very minimal - and that Leina is highly perceptive to that. If only she knew the sheer vectors for teasing.
Maybe nobody should ever tell her!
Parking her butt on an arcade machine that may need to institute a 'no parking your butt on these' policy, Seolla keeps one foot off the ground, trailing the toe of her shoe upon the garish carpet adorned with countless alternating Mazinger faces - poking each of the 'eyes' back and forth. Koshiryoku poke. "Audrey, right, I think you told me the two you were with were Audrey and Banagher...right, I met him at the prom-" Memory, memory, pushing back into Seolla's brain. It's like every last past event has to fight over which one occupies her thoughts. "...Did I ever tell you that we saved each others' bacon once? We were investigating a crashed ship, and I was...well. I couldn't really look at him directly cause things got really screwy if I did, but we were guts-deep in a space station that was about to explode, and...he's a good guy, but he's not exactly in amazing shape, so I had to carry him out - but that bizarre Gundam of his swooped in and brought us the rest of the way. Don't think I've ever met Audrey though - I should! I definitely should."
A spinning circular ring still works over Seolla's head though. To her - she's kind of in equal measures close friends with a lot of people. If anything she's borderline closer to dating, well, Leina than anyone else - - - well, that's not true, given how much she reports to Tessa. "...I...I don't think anyone's like, anything like that with me! I've been going out with a lot of people but nothing that much more involved than...what we're doing he-"
Connection complete! Seolla remembers that she danced with Gemini at the prom and then went on a little outing in Neo-America with her. Tsun protocols can resume. "D-d-d-d-don't be silly, it's not like that between me and Gemini - that's who you mean, right? I'm trying to put two and two together here and it's not easy! ...It wasn't like, a date date date, and I probably wasn't super charming about it anyways! Mmmn. Nnngh. Huff!"
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Maybe noone will-!
(Nah she will eventually.)
Leina doesn't tell Seolla to 'get down from there.' It's not like anyone wants to play on it.
"Yeah that was him."
Listening to Seolla, she remembers her issues with memory, having to write things down. It's interesting how she sort of sorts through, shoves through it until-!
"You didn't! Wait - is that what he left Side 6 for that one time?" Leina actually has an affectionate smile, and a shake of her head, "He told me later he snuck off as he felt something and I admit - I got a little mad as we were supposed to be laying low but-"
Her mind processes and mouths 'Real screwy if you did?'.
But eventually- "You should. Meet her. She's wonderful."
Her grin only increases as she watches Seolla work it through, she can see that it's difficult time of it, but still she has to tease her SOME for this, "I mean, that's how casual dating works right?"
As she goes on to full out tsundere stammering though, Leina finally confirms, "Yep, that's who I mean." Before Seolla continues to downplay it and make excuses and...
... Leina steps a few paces forward. "Seolla. You're adorable. I'm sure she found you incredibly charming. ...I know I would."
Wait was that teasing or flirting? Which one was it?
WHICH ONE WAS IT SEOLLA?
"If it wasn't a date date date. I'm sure she WANTS to give one a go with you."
She then leans close enough to the cabinet in these moments to murmur. "Since you're one of us now- Audrey's her cover by the way. She's really Princess Mineva Lao Zabi."
And then she nods as if to say 'Yes really. I am not messing with you.' It's a common reaction to her telling someone else their girlfriend is a Space Princess.
<Pose Tracker> Seolla Schweizer has posed.
The demo for the arcade cabinet Seolla sits upon blinks and thrums balefully - it's one of those sorta lofty but niche fighting games, entitled: =ARCA WAR - DUEL OF THE GODS=. It's decorated with a lot of the 'pop science' around the Protoculture and other ancient civilizations - naturally, the Birdman is a prominent logo, and there's clearly a Mycenean warrior, some sort of dinosaur with a laser axe, and what is blatantly just Queen Himika on the side panels. Seolla keeps prodding one of the buttons with a stray hand, making a voice clip repeat a "Player 2, Awaken! Player 2, Awa-Player 2, Awa-Pla-Pla-Pla-Player 2, Awaken!" over and over - faster and faster the more Seolla gets all flustery. (is she the one 'awakening'?)
Her thoughts very much sound like a tea kettle! Steam would fume from her ears a bit. "K-Khkhkhh, now I get how you just 'stumbled' into dating two people, if you're totally maxing out that dating sim heroine energy! I can't even tell if you're pushing it, or if you flirt as naturally as you breathe!" Protectively, Seolla tugs her jacket a little more closed, to hide a bit of the...attention points.
reathing! Breathing is important. One deep breath, then a long 'kyuuuuuu!' to exhale. "One of them's even a princess, jee. ...wait. Huh?!" The specific name suddenly yanks at her attention. "Did you just say Princess Za-"
Both hands fly to her mouth - Seolla recognizes that this might be an iffy place to belt out kinda sensitive information. "S-s-s-sorry, that's a big...surprise, I sorta have a lot of...instincts around that name. Really, it happens with a lot of important people, they really drilled who my...'targets' are supposed to be, just in case of some ridiculous opportunity. ...there's an heir still alive? Isn't that kind of wrapping you up in some serious potential disputes? Or does she want to...put that sort of life and inheritance away...?"
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
The mish mash of real world events always does tend to inspire games doesn't it? Leina thinks Shiro and her played this one once, but it didn't last as something the two of them wanted to keep playing.
Leina grins as Seolla's prodding causes the voice clip to keep replaying.
The 'steam' elicits a chuckle, and with a tilt of her he head, she winks at her, "Sayla's influence, believe it or not." She explains to her, "And AEU Spain's a little too? Like eighty-twenty."
There's also Glemy SOME but she's not bringing that up here and now.
God even the way she exhales is cute, and- "Did." She grins at that too. And she pats her on the arm once as she stammers an apology, as she murmurs calmly, "Hey don't worry. Sure it's not great for it to get beyond us, but the people we need to worry about? Who'd be surveilling us? They'd already know."
She smiles at her, "I get it. Tough to break those old habits." Which in a sense, is why they're hanging out in her eyes. To keep her getting used to socializing, to her new life.
What she says touches upon...
A hand runs through the back of her curly hair, as she sighs and looks away, "Yeah. A lot of groups want her. Banagher too believe it or not. That Gundam of his you mentioned- the gyst is it basically has a program that leads to something both the Sleeves and the Federation want. So they're going all out to capture them both."
Seolla might catch the look of sorrow in her eyes in that moment of transition, "And yeah I've... I've already been drawn up into it." A pause, as two fingers rub the bridge of her nose, "Maybe you remember that girl I told you about named Elpeo Puru? The one I knew years ago, who was in a situation a little like yours?"
A small shake of her head, "I don't know how they did it... she's-she's dead. But they're fielding a pilot in a superweapon called the Banshee. Which is, like Banagher's Unicorn. Except they... did something to it."
Dropping a hand from her face, she gives her a long look, "... they're fielding a pilot for it they've named 'Puru-1'... and back then they cloned her for their Cyber Newtype Corps, but there was no Puru-1... they were two through twelve."
She keeps looking at her, but now looking through her more like, abstracted in the look on her eyes, "My brother says it feels like- feels just like her." Something subtly cracks in her voice, "A-And I have no idea how that's possible."
She visited her in her dreams-! It doesn't make any sense to her how they could have done this.
<Pose Tracker> Seolla Schweizer has posed.
Seolla's brought herself, inadverdently, into this whole ordeal Leina's clearly been shouldering - she listens carefully and quietly about all the information on the Unicorn and Banshee, and 'Puru-1' - there's of course, the echo of someone especially important in that designation. Mercifully, Seolla's seeming nervous tic of pushing a button over and over has been exchanged for the much more quiet tugging and spinning of the cabinet's control stick, with the occasional *click* from pushing it into its socket.
Finally, when Leina finally starts to withdraw from the weight of what she's imparted, Seolla takes one little breath - normally, she'd feel a little dizzy from so much information, but when it's for the sake of someone she cares about?
"...sometimes I wonder why they were so insistent on making sure I forgot everyone who didn't make it. But...when I do remember them, I feel so strongly about it. And I'm sure they gave it everything they had too. This 'Puru'...you said there were a lot of them who aren't around anymore. But the bond they shared with each other, with the people they met - that...doesn't go away easily."
"...I feel it sometimes. The...calling, from out there. Whenever I start to fall into a really bad hole from one of those memories...it's like...those very same memories pull me back up. When I was really little, I don't think I believed in anything like 'ghosts', I thought they were just something made up to test if you were a coward or not, and I always had to-"
For a second, Seolla's eyes go extremely wide. Her train of thought hitting a wall. When she was really little - when was the last time a thought like that ever - she thought it was all gone. "...sorry, give me a second about this. Not getting distracted, I promise, it's just one of those-" Hurriedly, Seolla's whipping out her sketchbook and scribbling down a distinct 'scene' - three people standing in front of a broken looking building, gazing into darkness, trepidation in their forms. It'd be filled out later - it's already filling out the more she stares at her own depiction.
As soon as she's done, though...Seolla carefully reaches out, fingers outstretched...to press a firm, reliable hold on Leina's shoulder. "...I'll figure it out with you. Together we'll see what's happening with this 'Banshee'. We'll help Puru-1 if she's in there, no matter how she's in there. Even if it means...reassuring her that everything that happened to her isn't gonna repeat again, that the people who cared about her still cherish her. And hey! If she's still kicking somehow, by some weird miracle? Then we're gonna save her. That's a promise, Leina."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
For a while, the only sounds from Leina are the thin wisps of shallow breath against her healing ribs. She doesn't speak, her mind elsewhere, as if caught in a kaleidoscopic swirl of memory and feeling.
Despite having so few moments her mind could call positive ones, it's impossible to let go of them. Funny thing, trauma. The more you try to move past it, the more it clings.
Her eyes pinch shut for a time while listening to Seolla, forcing herself to refocus in. She doesn't interrupt though. She lets her speak of the bonds they shared- and all she does is nod.
When she says she feels a calling, there's a peculiar gleam in her eye, that watches her closely, but again she doesn't interrupt.
One might say that she's holding her breath, giving Seolla the time to sort through memory. When Seolla starts sketching, Leina doesn't even say anything when she apologizes.
She lets her sketch. Her eyes falling upon the sketch. "... People you once knew?" Leina asks, quietly, but then falls silent again as Seolla offers her help.
Her eyes are still upon the sketch, but the gesture upon her shoulder brings her eyes back up, "I... That's-" She starts, stops again, seeming overwhelmed. Closing her eyes, and putting a hand over her face as if to control her emotions, to keep herself from crying. At her promise, she just nods, once, twice - thrice. It's like she wants to say something, but can't quite work through how she feels.
In the end she concludes on just... "T-Thank you... that's, so much to put on you too. Just after you got your... your second chance but..." She peels her hand away, and her eyes are just a little misty, "... It's a situation that's personal... to you too." She murmurs, after a moment, as if dwelling upon that common ground of how it's personal to both of them for different reasons.
"Uh..." She dabs the back of her hand at her eyes, "What you were saying earlier...It's because those bonds are a real, tangible thing, formed between two people." Leina tells her quietly, "They persist, beyond time... space... memory. Even beyond life and death."
It's at least something she can tell her, perhaps she will feel better over it, "I can't prove it, but I know all of this to be true. I'm..." She closes her eyes, then murmurs, "... I'm a Newtype Seolla. Her ghost visits me, sometimes in my dreams. She just hasn't since... this started."
And she has no idea what that means...
Still she manages a smile at her, "So if you're feeling that calling, then trust those instincts, because the bonds you form with other people? Some things go deeper than memory."
<Pose Tracker> Seolla Schweizer has posed.
A light head-shake from Seolla - something uncertain, on the subject of her drawing. "...I'm not even sure what they were like. Just...people I was with. Not even sure how many there were. It's a really...unsure feeling I need to hold onto. I don't think I can finish drawing it - if I hold on too tightly to these things, it tends to crumble, you know? So I just have to keep my hand extended, waiting for snowflakes to fall on them - and watch them as closely as I can before they float away."
Newtype...a word whose meaning - the argument of the meaning therein - has always been a little...beyond Seolla. She's heard 'cyber newtype' a fair bit - and the clarification that the School didn't produce those, but wasn't ever sure what it truly meant. But. Leina gives a concrete idea-
"...I mean, that probably settles my idea that she'd have turned up alive then, before I got to thinking it might be the case. ...Uhm. ...There's really not a lot I understand about this whole process, and especially not if they've somehow 'captured' a spirit that appears in your dreams. How does anyone even accomplish that? And what do you do about it? That's...mm. I promised to help you any way I can, and I'll uphold that promise, but. It might be that I'm limited to making sure you've got a shoulder to lean on when things get dicey."
Hopping down from her cabinet perch, Seolla ruffles Leina's shoulder just a little bit more, then flashes her a big thumbs-up. "...We should definitely make good on taking Audrey and Banagher clothes shopping too. I gotta show the guy that I could carry him like a princess even outside of zero-gravity.~"
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
There's a bittersweet melancholy to the way Seolla describes how distant memories come to her. There's a look of uncertainty, then sadness. "Like snowflakes..." She echoes.
A strange beauty in how she's come to live with what they took from her.
Once upon a time, Leina knew Cyber Newtype only as a person who knew how to fight. A person whose only purpose was violence and killing.
She was a child who heard it from authoritative people. And she'd called her that right in her face.
Far too late did she learn the distinction was much closer than is comfortable to dwell upon. The two of them were far closer together than what the people in authority told her.
"I don't... really get it either." Leina tells her quietly. "Psycoframe technology is... strange in what it can do, but she passed away before it existed."
In the end, she smiles at Seolla, and says softly, "That's plenty. More than I even should ask for from you. ... Thank you."
And then, her face lights up, "I'd like that." As a giggle escapes her throat, "Please, do that while I'm there. I have to see his reaction."
Then eyeing the cabinet, she looks back at Seolla and reaches into a coin purse, producing a few tokens, and putting them down, "Want to play some Arca - 'Duel of the Gods'?" Leina asks, with a grin, "Feels only right given how long we've been standing here."