2023-06-15: Flickering First Meeting
- Cast: Kikka Kobayashi, Shelby Korts
- Where: Merida Island
- Date: U.C. 0097 06 15
- Summary: Two young women intimately tied to different eras meet in a hangar on Merida Island, ignited through psychically shared memories. Although they came here through different means, they agree they want to accomplish the same things.
<Pose Tracker> Kikka Kobayashi has posed.
Kikka is still getting used to her new position as 'Spade-8'. She was thinking about her post-graduation options of course, but... military-level intelligence didn't top the list, even if her work with Kai makes her qualified!
So for starters, she's been getting used to the Shuffle Alliance's facilities, bringing her to Mithril's Merida Island base. It's not that she isn't used to military-type, places, growing up on the legendary White Base... but it's definitely been a long time.
She already made it clear that piloting would not be one of her responsibilities, refusing to become another weaponized Newtype... so it might be unusual that she decided to visit the hangar. But she feels reminded of the time she stumbled upon the Federation's MS development factory in Jaburo as she eyes the Arm Slaves that line the hangar.
Most of all, she's just looking for a decent distraction - her heart feels heavy for what happened to Leina and it feels conflicted about what to think about Char Aznable and Sayla's secret.
Because of that, it takes a minute for her to notice she's not completely alone in this block of the hangar. "Oh! Ah, this is Spade-8. I have clearance to be here, don't worry... but I'm just kind of looking around." She explains herself, a little lamely. "I'm new, you see."
<Pose Tracker> Shelby Korts has posed.
Mithril's Arm Slaves are quite incredible pieces of hardware: Compact, powerful, responsive, and numerous in the hangar. And then there's a few that are from allies, and outside forces; common machines or custom units. And then there's one, a good chunk of the way down the hangar blocks: A Jagd Doga. It's had a bit of a rebuild; swaths of parts replaced and still varying shades of unpainted steel or gunmetal with scorchmarks that create a border with painted segments of knockout pink and black.
Sitting in front of it, no uniformed Zeon remnant or member of the Sleeves. Instead, it's a young woman with pink hair, dressed in a t-shirt, leggings, and worn red sneakers. A zip-up hoodie sweatshirt thrown over a satchel bag to her side, and black sleeves are fit tightly over her forearms-- with thumb loops keeping them steady above the wrist. She's watching the screen on a laptop a few feet away, propped up on another box with a bit of a bored, pass-the-time-however sort of look on her face. Thick-frame glasses hang by one arm from her mouth.
And then ... a voice. Her head perks up, pulling the earbuds out; the volume a bit loud as she blinks and looks up for the source. "Huh?" It clicks, and then her glasses are slid on while she scoots up to her feet. "Hi! Sorry. Sorry, I was." She gestures at the screen, then her finger wheels around a little. "... Preoccupied. I'm Temperance."
She offers a hand. "But you can call me Shelby."
<Pose Tracker> Kikka Kobayashi has posed.
Kikka wasn't closely adjacent enough to the Second Neo-Zeon War to identify Shelby's unit as a Jagd Doga, let alone the amount of refurbishes it's undergone. But the design itself is recognizable enough with that iconic mono-eye to be understood intrinsically as something: Zeon.
Shelby herself, though? She didn't look anything different from herself: seemingly an ordinary girl dressed in comfortable casual clothing. It's enough that Kikka doesn't flag Shelby herself as a danger.
"No worries!" Kikka replies, with a thumbs-up when Shelby apologizes. "Shelby... okay, I'll remember that. I'm Kikka. Nice to meet you." She takes the hand, going for a slow, but comfortable handshake.
"So, I'm not actually a pilot." She clarifies. "I'm here to help shore up our intelligence... but I'd rather not think of myself as a replacement for Spade-7 or anything like that." She frowns, taking a deep breath that might sound more like a sigh. "Because the other reason I'm here is to help bring her back." She concludes, resolutely.
"So, is that mobile suit yours?" She looks back up at the Jagd Doga. "Everything else has been pretty standardized around here, but that one is pretty unique compared to the rest." She point out, but she doesn't mean it in a bad way or anything. "...My actual hobby is journalism, so I guess I'm just used to asking questions." She adds, with a shrug.
<Pose Tracker> Shelby Korts has posed.
Shelby's grip is a mixed bag: Her hand has callouses, not all of them from piloting. Her hand's also a little on the cold side.
When she gets her hand back, she reaches out to tap the spacebar on the laptop to stop the video, shifting on the crates to sit a little more comfortably while addressing Kikka. "Oh, that is good. I tried to help out with intel once. When Sayla was... was missing. Did some recon for her. She's... she did a lot for me. So... I hope we get her back soon."
Shelby twists a little to look back over her shoulder. The Zeon machine? "Yeah. I've had it for a few years now. Kept it when I left..." A thoughtful pause, then she adds, "my old... um. Job. Needed a lot of repairs after the Dakar op. My regular mechanic is probably still going to kill me for bringing it back like this. T-That is, this isn't my usual place. I'm just a guest."
Pouring herself another lid-cup of iced tea from the thermos, Shelby gestures to the crates. "You can sit if you'd like. I'm mostly just waiting-- Paperwork for the repairs. It's um... you think you can escape the paperwork. It still just comes after you, no matter what."
"Are you staying here for long? Or just getting the lay of the land?"
<Pose Tracker> Kikka Kobayashi has posed.
"Sayla's the one who recruited me here, actually." Kikka replies, when Shelby brings her up. The time she went missing... at the time, Kikka had no idea, so absorbed in her studies. "I've known her for... pretty much my whole life. Because I was one of the kids who was caught up on the White Base during the One Year War." Her secret was a shock... but she still regards the woman fondly.
"Leina, too. When Sayla took her in as her ward, she became friends with me and my brother. We were hanging out and playing video games not even that long ago..." She looks away, distantly for a moment. "...And now she's forced to fight in that cursed mobile suit." She knows how that ends for so many people... so if Kikka can prevent Leina from dying to that fate, she will. "It can't end like that... I won't let it."
"That makes sense," Kikka nods, about her taking the Jagd Doga with her from her old work... it's not hard to intuit that it was probably Neo Zeon, but... "If there's one thing about this place, it's that there's people from all sorts of walks of life. Grizzled military veterans, those martial artist guys... and a surprising amount of ordinary people like me. Kind of like how the White Base was pretty much all civilians except for Bright oji-san by the end." Oof, let's hope he never hears that nickname in his lifetime.
"I guess all the repairs and dealing with your mechanic is better than the alternative," Kikka proposes. "But I get it. Piloting must be really tough, huh? I'm... mostly satisfied with being non-com." She laughs, a little nervously.
She takes a seat next to Shelby at the offer. "Mostly just finding my way around." She nods. "But I'm happy to stick around if you could use the company. If there's one thing this place has in common with the uni and the printing press... it's all the paperwork."
<Pose Tracker> Shelby Korts has posed.
If she can use the company? "I'm not doing much while I wait, anyway." She gestures toward the screen while setting the thermos aside. It looks like she was watching ... cooking shows? "My French is awful. But I get the gist. All I need."
Taking a sip from the cup, Shelby holds it steady in both hands, her hands falling to her lap. "So you were from the original. ..." Her hand rolls around a little, eyes closing. It's like she's trying to encourage her brain to spit out the correct wording. "Team. Crew. From the One Year War. But you were a kid?" Her expression tics, as if the whole thought was interesting. She knew Sayla was too, but... Huh!
Sayla would move mountains for Leina, that much she knows -- even if the relationship between herself and Char Aznable has put a strain on certain relationships. And-- that-- is definitely a nickname she never thought she would've heard for the likes of Bright Noa.
"Around here it's mostly Mithril. Nice people. But very professional. Not sure how I'd fit."
A flicker of a memory-- perhaps even one Kikka can feel?-- Like a flash of a single frame in film, a moment in time when a slightly younger Shelby Korts stood in front of a mirror fixing her jacket -- her hair fiery red with long open curls, a pair of glasses left on the dresser, and clad in a Neo-Zeon uniform.
A memory twinged with regret.
"I did the military thing once," Shelby says. "I like the flexibility with the Shuffles. And piloting is ... yes, tough. But I go out there to try to minimize the damage. Save lives." She lifts her cup a little to the nobody else present in their immediate area. "Curse paperwork."
<Pose Tracker> Kikka Kobayashi has posed.
"The terror of war was something I learned pretty early," Kikka answers Shelby, of just being a kid on the White Base. "The story goes that Char Aznable got word of the Gundam being hidden in a little colony on Side 7. The ensuing attack devastated the colony... and the survivors had nowhere to go except for the White Base." There's a flash, and a brief memory of the initial explosion that rocked the colony - the Gundam slicing a Zaku II clean open with the beam saber.
"I was so young, I didn't even really get it. Why everyone on the ship was so miserable all the time, especially Amuro. Still... they were family. And I'm grateful we at least made it out of that conflict together."
Next, it's her turn to receive a memory from Shelby, if just for a moment. Neo-Zeon... "I bet you haven't had it easy yourself. It'd probably be really tempting to just... say 'I'm out of here' and never set foot on a base again, you know?" She eyes the computer again... would she be happier just cooking for people? "Still... I think it's admirable that you can still go out there and save people."
"Curse paperwork, indeed." She nods. "I'd be happy if I never had to practice a signature again... but that's probably too much to hope for."
<Pose Tracker> Shelby Korts has posed.
Shelby's eyes close as Kikka recounts it -- at least in brief. The memory, however, is shockingly clear for her: The smell of smoke and ozone, the rumble of reactors reverberating in the air, the sound of a saber slicing through metal. The feel of the air, and the ground beneath her feet, even. The faint feeling every spacenoid knows, the feel of living on a colony cylinder.
It makes sense. Kikka looks ... a little older? Close to her own age? She thinks her own age, anyway.
"I... didn't have it easy, either. Drifted around Britannia alone for years, until I got into space. Got in trouble. Ended up making a deal to get *out* of trouble, got help." Shelby's head slants to the side a little. "Got... swayed, by speeches. Propoganda. Next thing I know I'm in a Geara Doga making a lot of mistakes."
The pink-haired young woman tries to make a small, faint smile happen, the corners of her mouth curling up a bit. "I go out there and save people because I have a lot to make up for."
<Pose Tracker> Kikka Kobayashi has posed.
Kikka is in her early twenties right now... so she would've been four when the White Base first took flight. As Shelby closes her eyes, she closes her own, as the memory starts to become as vivid as herself. Her home now is on Earth, in Fujinomiya, but her earliest memories were in space... ones that defined how she came to see warfare.
"It's why... I never want to pilot," she says, of the memory. "Because every time I would swing a beam saber or shoot a beam rifle... it'd be reliving that moment."
She listens to Shelby's story next, the loneliness of it, and how she could be swayed into Neo Zeon's cause. She's a writing student, she knows how effective propaganda is - and the damage it can do to people like Shelby, vulnerable and just looking for a safe place. "I'm sorry to hear... I'm glad you're out of that." She doesn't breach the subject about Char Aznable, the man behind Neo Zeon's speeches, though. She's still wrapping her head around that one - the man she assumed was responsible for her colony in flames, in Shuffle custody?
She considers Shelby's reasons for saving people... to make up for her past. "Honestly? I think saving people in itself is enough." She replies, brushing her hair out of her face.. as she matches that smile. "I've known a lot of people who've become stuck in a cycle of their past." Amuro of course, now Leina... maybe even Sayla? "...We've only just met, but I can tell you've changed a lot since those days. There's nothing wrong with embracing that, I think." She mentally compares the Shelby sitting next to her with that tiny smile, to the young woman in the uniform who looked deeply unhappy.
<Pose Tracker> Shelby Korts has posed.
It's not just the obvious differences: The glasses versus contacts, the length and color of her hair: Shelby has a lighter air around her, even if she believes she's carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. The soldier, far more driven and cold and angry and--
"I understand."
-- both definitely have the same sort of 'cannot sleep for anything' look on their faces.
Being stuck in cycles... and breaking out of them? That too is something that weighs in on her mind. She learned how to let go of her anger and her rage. She learned to move on, in the light of Axis Shock. The light that changed ... everything, for her, really. The sessions with Nanai, their escape from Neo-Zeon, and moving back to Sweetwater and existing right under everyone's noses, even--
She changed, right? Even if she tried to shoot the Red Comet right in the cockpit block at Dakar? She broke out of it?
she
Briefly, her mouth shifts to a flat line, the thought rummaging around in her mind and trying to take hold. No-- not now. Don't think about it right now.
Shelby sips from the thermos cup again. "Thanks, too. I know I'm different from back then. A lot." She glances at Kikka, a little more calm. "Anyway, I owe Leina, so. I'm gonna do what I can. I'm sure you will too."
<Pose Tracker> Kikka Kobayashi has posed.
Kikka feels the thought about to form in Shelby - perhaps about a regret she still holds, a wound that's still fresh? She's... not sure she should pry into that.
Instead, she says, "If there's one thing that's important about the past, it's learning from it. It's why I'm making a full account of the White Base's story." She looks absently at the mobile suits and arm slaves that make up the hangar. "After all, people took a lot of the wrong lessons from it. Both Federation and Zeon. From what it takes to win a war, to what it means to be a Newtype."
And then her gaze turns back to Shelby's eyes. "...I think a lot of these lessons ended up hurting people like you later down the line. Which is why I'm so willing to break the cycle that I even joined the Shuffle Alliance." There's a certain calm intensity to her voice here.
"And now it's happening to Leina... I don't know what you owe her for, but I'm glad you want to help her too. Really glad..."
Finally, she reaches her hand out again. "Yeah, you're welcome." She smiles. "I'm looking forward to working with you.. and I hope we can be friends, too." She may not be aware of Shelby trying to shoot down Char's cockpit.. but she's willing to believe in the kind person she's trying to be.
<Pose Tracker> Shelby Korts has posed.
It isn't a new or unique thought to cross the young woman's mind, really -- it's been the subject of therapy sessions, of self-reflection, conversations, and arguments. She tries to cut herself off the line of thought, pushing her mind to another topic: To stay on topic, on the present and now. "I don't remember how old I was for the One Year War. But that sounds like it'll be a good book to read."
Reading Kikka is easy enough. It isn't just Shelby's ability to listen to thoughts and understand hearts-- she seems, at least, to be a very open and earnest sort. She can appreciate that.
What does she owe her for? "It's ... a long story. Perhaps next time. Off the record," she adds, eyes half-lidded and the lopsided grin implying she was just dying to make that crack at some point.
Shifting the cup to one hand, she takes Kikka's with the other for another shake, giving her a more straightforward nod. "Same to you. ... O-On both accounts," the pink-haired newtype says. "Good luck with getting settled in, Kikka."