2023-12-02: Suspicions
- Log: 2023-12-02 Suspicions
- Cast: Sheryl Nome, Rin Naujakaite
- Where: Nadesico, Gallia IV
- OOC - IC Date: December 2, 2023 (UC 0098)
- Summary: Sheryl and Rin have a discussion about what might have been up with a recent attack on the expedition.
<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.
As always, golden evening light pours into the windows of the Nadesico where it's parted at a clearing within view of the Macross Global on Gallia IV. Sheryl is in her quarters on said ship, which are quite spacious for ship quarters; there's a living room, a bedroom, and a bathroom, all technically separate rooms from one another. The living quarters are what most who've paid Sheryl a visit here have seen. It involves a panel window through which Gallia IV's twi-light pours in; a box piano against one wall; two couches that face each other; a coffee table between them; a large HDTV and sound system; plenty of shelving with movies and CDs and decorations; and plenty of posters and such on the walls. Many, but not all, are of Sheryl herself.
At present, the door to her room is unlocked. She's expecting company, after all, and it's more convenient to just call for someone to "Come in!" when they knock. Why's it more convenient? Because she's at her piano, ironing out the last kinks in the melody and harmony of the song she, Ranka, and Lan have been working on together. For it to be ready for Ranka to perform at her concert in another couple of weeks, they've got to finish composing, arrange, record... Neither of them have access to the resources they otherwise would on this expedition, but they can at least make a perfectly good first version of the song, then do a proper recording once they return to Earth.
But because there is a due date besides, Sheryl's hard at work on playing it over and over. Rin might have to knock pretty hard to be heard well enough for her to be invited in in the first place.
<Pose Tracker> Rin Naujakaite has posed.
Evening or morning? It's an eternal question, but perhaps the fact that it never ends suggests evening more than morning. Morning is, after all, the dawn of a new day...
(Eye masks for sleeping have been a hot property.)
Rin was invited up here. It was a peculiar kind of thing, really, but out here in the back of beyond, she's one of - what - a thousand people or more? As opposed to the billions of the Earth Sphere and the fleets as a whole. She knew Sheryl already.
Rin wears the one-piece sunny dress from Ragna, freshly laundered and doing the wonderful service of 'being an additional set of clothes, thank god, those were getting kind of threadbare' -- her hair is loose, though, rolling down her back. She can hear music so dimly at the door, and she stands at it, and she taps. Knock knock!
Count three. Count six. Count nine.
Bonk bonk bonk, Rin goes with the side of her hand.
Count three. Count six. Count nine.
Rin's brow creases. Fantasies seep into her overclocked brain. Some of them are plausible (Sheryl in the bathroom, Sheryl brushing her teeth, Sheryl wearing headphones.) Some of them are less plausible if not outside of the bounds of reality (Sheryl fallen in the shower, Sheryl with her head struck on the coffee table like in that one TV movie, Sheryl suffering an unexpected major health event). Some of them get out there (Sheryl abducted by the Zuvorgs, Sheryl abducted by a human-sized Vajra heavy soldier, Sheryl abducted by a human-sized purple-and-white-striped VF... huh, Rin thinks, this is sort of a trend)
But the action potential comes down enough for her to reach down and grasp the door handle. "Oii! Sheryl! I'm gonna come in so say something if you're not decent!"
Count three. Count six. Count nine.
Fuck it, thinks Rin, and hip checks the door hard--
-- it didn't need it and so she tumbles in to land in a three-point stance on the carpet right in front of the entranceway door, hair falling over her face.
Rin alertly the observes the much louder music, the posters, the musical instrumentation, the memorabilia, and the presence of one (1) Sheryl Nome who is neither murdered nor abducted and, at most, could use a ten minute break.
Rin sweeps herself up like nothing happened. "Hey!" Rin concludes, with her best attempt at a sunny smile.
ACE * PILOT
<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.
The eternal twilight of Gallia IV is very pretty, but also hell on one's sleep cycle. Sheryl has very much been making use of sleep masks during her time here. But that's neither here nor there.
It's hardly any shock that Sheryl would invite Rin, either. They're maybe not super close, but they've talked and hung out, and Sheryl would consider her at least a casual friend. It helps that Rin's also a friend of a friend, i.e. Ranka's--and it helps even more that Rin's been helping out on the various missions that have taken place for the expedition. The relevant one for right now is when Alto and several others went to check out some kind of mechanical thing--Sheryl's not clear on all the details, but she knows it involves mechanics, and also a bunch of Lucifers that attacked out of nowhere. That's what she wanted to talk about--
Except she ends up so absorbed in her music that she does not, in fact, hear the knocking at the door like she'd figured she would. She's singing under her breath along with her song to make sure that the lyrics match up to the beat of the melody too--Ranka might be the vocalist on this one, but it's just not like Sheryl to not sing. And so she plays and plays and plays and
BOOM.
Sheryl half-gasps, half-yelps, as Rin slams the unlocked door open and barrels inside, hands whipping away from the keys as she whirls around as much as she can while sitting on a piano bench.
"Rin!! You scared the daylights out of me!" Sheryl utters. Being not particularly overclocked and having no psychic ability, she can't guess after the increasingly alarming scenarios Rin had been running through in her head. All she can do is demand, "Why didn't you knock?!"
...So, you know, that's an oops for both of them.
"Oh well, it's fine," she glosses over without waiting for Rin to reply, raising her legs so she can scoot around and face her, thighs folding as she settles into place. "There's something I wanted to talk to you about! Close the door behind you, wouldn't you?" She phews, brushing her blonde hair out of her face. She actually could use a ten-minute break, she realizes now that she's stopped playing. Fortunately, there's a mini-fridge in here, always stocked with drinks, and she gets up to head over to it. "Do you want any refreshments? I've got water, sparkling water, coffee, and tea," she says. She picks a water for herself.
<Pose Tracker> Rin Naujakaite has posed.
"Ha! Sorry, sorry!" Rin says with a laugh! (Wow, BEEFED IT, Rin thinks to herself, even if she follows one of her little tricks of just holding onto a feeling for a second and letting it get just that smallest bit numb. Turn it off! Like a light switch! That's a good Britannian's plan.)
"Whew~. Yeah, I was probably jumping the gun on that," Rin continues, swinging her arms back and forth. "I should've probably hit the chime or texted or something -" But Sheryl's already talking, and then she's given an instruction.
"Sure," Rin says, pivoting around, nudging the door shut with her elbow, and finishing the twirl to face Sheryl again. (Her head tilts and she reaches backhand to click the lock, just in case of rambling fans.)
After this she faces forwards.
'There's something I wanted to talk with you about!'
Rin blink-blinks. "Sure, of course," she continues bluffly, stepping nearer. "Oo, sparkling," she adds; once it's accepted, she pops it open with a fizz and looks around for somewhere to sit. She decides on one of the couches, although she half-sits on the arm rest for a moment to fish something out of her pocket; it's a tablet of some kind, though she crunches it in her teeth and washes it down with a swig of the water.
"What's on your mind?"
<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.
"What made you charge in here like that, anyway? I know I was playing loud but you could've just opened the door," Sheryl points out. This might be a good time for Rin to explain herself, now that Sheryl is functionally giving her permission to. What Rin ought to have done instead gets glossed over when she tells her to shut the door, and then further when refreshments are offered. A water for Sheryl, sparkling water for Rin, and both of them sit on a couch each to face each other.
Sheryl frowns a little at the tablet--the medicine--that Rin swallows, a sheen of concern in her eyes; however, she opts not to pry into whatever Rin's medical condition might be. God knows Sheryl has medication that she should be taking and maybe is not. That's not for a fan to know about, though. Even if Rin is a bit more than just a fan at this point.
"So, I heard about that whole thing where you and Alto and the others were guarding those mechanics while they were trying to excavate something, and all of you were suddenly attacked by a bunch of Valkyries," Sheryl says, to-the-point. "I even heard that they looked like Brera's Lucifer. Is that right?" And, once she confirms that much: "Can you tell me more about what happened during that fight?"
She doesn't explain why she wants to know, but the look in her eyes is deadly serious. This isn't just idle, passing curiosity; this is important.
<Pose Tracker> Rin Naujakaite has posed.
Rin has space now. To explain herself. "Oh, well... I got worried," Rin says, "that you were stuck or something."
There is a beat after this, and then Rin reaches into the dress pocket to bring out the tablets. The bottle isn't marked.
"Sometimes I lose track of time because I perceive it differently," Rin says. "It's like... slower for me. I mean, like my neuro-transmitters are weird, since my dad was a Coordinator, I guess. It's pretty stable, honestly, but sometimes it crops up like that. It felt like I was waiting like a whole minute, and, I mean..."
Rin laughs. It's fake. She looks at the bottle, then puts it back into her pocket.
Sheryl then cuts to the chase. Rin looks at the floor for a moment, then glances up to Sheryl, and then back at the floor. This takes her several full seconds, and another quick sip of her beverage.
"So THAT," Rin says, "is why I was worrying aboutcha!" That is the last flare of all that daffy-cheerful-genki attitude Rin pulls, because afterwards she straightens up slightly and begins to speak.
"We were flying oversight on the recovery team," Rin continues. "Myself, some of the Aestis, Alto... we were mostly there to keep us busy. The VTX people basically funded my idea so I was sort of there under their aegis, and I think they have a budget for flight-hours. So," Rin continues, "we're just flying circles, shooting the breeze on the comms. I was talking with some of the Zuvorg people on comms, and it just... suddenly happened."
Rin makes a plane-shape with her free hand. "The VFs just kind of - dived on us. We weren't in a formation so we were pretty lucky we didn't just get shot down. They came from the direction of the Sun... kinda obvious, huh. At the same time, there was some kind of strike force on the people in the dig-out section."
"So we're all scrambling," Rin says. "As I'm looking upwards I just barely spot this VF -- so I break off up to chase it because it had active stealth. Scorn gets a radar return on it, barely, so we're climbing upwards... there were three others and it just turns into a fur ball there. The Zuvorg got into it too... I think they probably tipped the balance, honestly, because otherwise we were pretty much outnumbered."
Rin takes a breath then. Her plane-gesturing hand wheels upwards. "... So since I was focusing on the top bogey I didn't see a lot of this directly but I did hear it on the radio that the squad that went after the ground team. Uh... they killed someone, hurt someone else... I think Sheder fought them off with a laser cutter."
A second or two passes. A deep breath.
"The top bogey goes battroid and turns back on my group," Rin says, "and guts out Scorn and burns out Rancor's PPB before, I guess, maybe they scratched the mission. They were talking to me in Chinese... it... It was kind of weird, honestly." Blink blink, another sip of the drink.
"So then they left," Rin says, glancing back to Sheryl. "The one of the attackers that got killed was, uh, there wasn't much left. I guess he had some kind of cyborg stuff going on. I figured they left the planet because VTX took me out to pick up Scorn like thirty six hours later and they hadn't wrecked or stolen him, so, like..."
Another deep breath and she lets it out.
"They had some datalogs, at the recovery site, which I guess went to the Nadesico... they also found these like, really high-quality fold quartz samples? I don't know much about that, I was kind of..." Rin finishes with a faint laugh.
"But yeah," Rin says, "that's what happened, let me know if you have any questions."
<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.
"Stuck?" Sheryl echoes, raising an eyebrow. But... then she goes on to explain about her neurodivergent relationship with time. Sheryl follows her gaze to the medicine bottle. "Oh," she utters, eyebrows curling up in the center. She pauses; then she brushes back her hair with one hand, smiling a little. "Hmmm... So you were worried about me, huh."
...And then she'll leave it at that. Sheryl could tease Rin about it, but... she doesn't really feel like teasing someone about how their body is just made differently. Besides, at worst there might be a bit of a wobble to her door, and she can get that fixed no problem. No harm, no foul.
The topic moves on to the attack, and Sheryl listens. A lot of the details aren't that helpful to her, but she doesn't interrupt anyway, because there's no knowing what will and won't be good to know. She nods her on every so often, sipping her water, and eventually leans back in deep thought.
"That's terrible... I heard that something bad had gone down, but that's worse than I'd been let on about," she says. But the fact that someone had been killed isn't the main reason why she looks troubled. The ground attackers that Riika fought off had implants... and the sky attackers flew Lucifers... and then they just left the planet afterwards, meaning they had somewhere else to go....
"I did hear about the fold quartz samples they recovered," Sheryl replies, looking back up at her. "I don't know what was on the datalogs, but then, I didn't ask." She reaches up to her right earlobe, removes her earring, and holds it up to the light. The violet crystal therein glints. "Fold quartz... Was that why you guys got attacked? Or was there something in the datalogs?" She re-attaches the earring to her ear, hands fussing gently as she turns her head.
"Thank you. Honestly, I don't even know what to ask--I really don't know what to make of what you told me." Sheryl shakes her head a bit. "I guess I should explain why I was asking, at least. You know I used to live on Galaxy, right? That is, the Macross Galaxy. It was one of the colonization fleets, before..." Her eyes lid. "...before the Vajra attacked it."
<Pose Tracker> Rin Naujakaite has posed.
'You were worried about me, huh.'
"Yeah," Rin says, quietly.
She reaches up as if to push up glasses, but she's not wearing any.
Something in Rin's posture relaxes when Sheryl says 'that's terrible'. "I mean, it could have been worse," Rin continues. "I don't know why they went there. Maybe there was something in the data logs they were trying to hide, but --" Her eyes turn to the twinkling crystal.
"The fold quartz... that's what I would guess. People just steal or fuck with information. If it's an actual 'treasure,' that's when they get nasty." She looks back to Sheryl. "That's fold quartz too, isn't it?"
A beat passes. "... Why is it important? I mean, like... I don't know the theory of fold space much or anything, I understand it might be complex... s'not that important," Rin concludes, with another swig on the increasingly empty water bottle.
"I..." Rin purses her lips. "I think I knew it but I didn't know about the Vajra. I'm sorry."
She shifts now, crossing one ankle over the other, back straighter.
<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.
'Yeah,' Rin admits quietly. Sheryl's smile warms, crinkling the corners of her blue eyes. With a chuckle on her breath, she simply says, "Thank you."
She could tease. But she chooses not to--this time.
She shakes her head, though, when Rin says the attack could've been worse. "That doesn't mean it wasn't terrible! Though I guess you're still right. At least you all were able to drive them off. It's just..." She looks up at her earring while she holds it up. When she puts it back on, Rin asks about it.
"Apparently," she replies. "At least, it looks just like those quartzes that were on the Global. I haven't seen the refined quartzes that were recovered, but... Grandmother was there, and these earrings--" 'these earrings,' she says, despite the fact that she's only wearing one, "--came from her. They were a memento. I couldn't tell you why they're important, though. I know barely anything about them. Based on the name, I'm guessing it's got something to do with folding, but past that..." She shrugs and shakes her head.
She takes another drink of her own when Rin offers her condolences. "It's okay. It's been a while now," she says, not quite brisk but certainly more business-like. Galaxy's fate is hard for her to say; she insisted that it must have survived and that she'd go home for a long while. "My point is more, Galaxy's been lost, presumed destroyed, for close to two years now. The thing is... one of the big things that was really common on Galaxy was implants. Almost everyone had them. That includes Grace and Brera. I'm actually unusual for not having any."
She sets down her water bottle and leans back on the couch to meet Rin's eyes. "...On top of that--well. Brera was with the Galaxy military while it was still a thing. His Lucifer was a prototype back then. And those Valkyries that attacked you and everyone--they looked just like his, only with a different color, right? In that case..." Her hands curl in on each other. "...I can't help but wonder if the people who attacked you all came from Galaxy, too."
Which is also hard for her to say, but for different reasons.
<Pose Tracker> Rin Naujakaite has posed.
Rin looks up at the smile, and returns it a little. She doesn't show her teeth. (Inwardly: is this GL moment? Am I having GL moment?)
Externally, though, there are questions. "Ah," she says. "So it's a family memento, even if you don't remember getting it... I bet you were little, right? If you were really small, you don't like, really remember stuff; at least that's what I've heard."
Rin reaches up to rub at her ear, which has a plain gold stud in it. Mirroring, maybe. "... huh," Rin says then. "Really? Were people sick or like...?" This, of course, is an artifact of the modern Earth Sphere culture. As is her thoughtful comment next: "I know they just found, like, I didn't look but 'cybernetic parts' in the remains. So it wasn't like Guy Shishioh's body or something."
A second or two passes. Perhaps longer. "... But why would they attack us!" Rin says, suddenly, looking up. "We had nothing to do with any of anything! Even if they were pissed off at us about not, I don't know --" Rin sort of sputters out, shakes her head once, and sweeps her hair back behind her head with one hand and a forceful breath out.
"Sorry," she says, looking back to Sheryl. "Just... I guess it's possible. If there were smaller ships with fold drives of their own, they could have gone to another planet like Ragna, right? If they had the specs or if it was a manufacturing ship, they could make new VFs... They could even go to wherever the Zuvorg are in charge, they seem like they're basically humans. Hide out. Make new lives."
A beat or two passes again as Rin thinks.
"But why would they come all this way just to hurt people?" Rin says, looking back up. "If they wanted to go back to Earth, or the Frontier fleet or something... I mean, everyone would have celebrated! Who's going to complain, that weird labcoat woman? We'd be coming back with more people than we left with! The Emperor would probably give them a medal for space survival!"
<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.
"No, I remember getting it. It was a birthday present from my parents when I was six," Sheryl corrects Rin. "They just never said anything about it being... special, I suppose. I don't know if they knew. Grandmother gave it to Mother, and Mother gave it to me. I'm not really sure when Mother got them, to be honest with you, looking back on it..." She shakes her head a little. "That was the same day my parents died, so I honestly don't know if they knew and just didn't have a chance to tell me or what."
There's a certain tightness to her voice that implies her parents' deaths are still a big deal to her, no matter how casually she delivers it.
Were people sick? The question surprises Sheryl, if her widening eyes and blink are any indication. "I don't... think so," she says slowly. "There was a big political clash about it when I was young. I'm sure some of them were sick or injured--" As far as she knows, that was the case with Grace and likely with Brera, "--but a lot of people just liked the convenience of implants, I suppose. Then again, maybe they just wanted to have a colony where they got to be 'normal.'" Her eyes lid. "I don't really know."
Why would they attack them, though? "I don't know that either," she admits, unruffled by Rin's outburst. "Maybe I'm overthinking it. I haven't exactly made a secret about my being here, so you'd think that if they were from Galaxy, they'd reach out instead of attacking. After all, I'm from Galaxy myself." She doesn't know how much a medal from Emperor Charles would matter to them, but Sheryl would think they'd at least be welcoming to one of their own. ...No matter how un-welcoming they were when she was an orphaned nobody.
She sighs, glancing to one side. "Maybe it's wishful thinking on my part. Even if they were survivors from Galaxy, what would they be doing all the way over here? Well--actually, since they were attacked by the Vajra, maybe they came here to find out more about them, or maybe their surviving ships were dragged here by the Vajra or something..."
She frowns a little as the possibilities occur to her. The more she thinks on it, the more plausible it seems--except for the whole attacking-them-all part. "They came in all of a sudden and then apparently they left afterwards. Maybe they were pirates or something who found--" a slight hitch in her voice, "--whatever was left of Galaxy and scavenged whatever Valkyries they found there for themselves."
A long pause. Then she considers Rin. "You said you talked to one of them, right? They were talking in Chinese. What'd they say?"
<Pose Tracker> Rin Naujakaite has posed.
Rin ahhh's about the full story, nodding slowly in response. (Did I ruin the GL moment?? ahhhhhhhhhhghgghghgh)
She lets the topic move along. She shrugs her shoulders. "S'just what came to mind. Otherwise I guess I don't see why you'd do it for... convenience. Someone in Count Starking's family had to get an artificial heart last year, so I read a little about it. It's mostly for old people and if you get into accidents, at least on Earth."
Galaxy may have had different plans.
Rin takes a breath in through her nose. "Mm," she says. "Yeah. They might've just been using the VFs. Or like... if they'd gone pirate, or joined some kind of space triad." Somehow, hearing it here, now, doesn't make it sound imaginative. The world's gotten colder, hasn't it? Rin thinks.
Maybe not entirely. "Oh, uhm," Rin says, turning her eyes upwards for a moment. "They... said 'think thrice before you act,' they--"
Rin pauses.
Her eyes turn towards Sheryl as if something comes together. "They said 'did you show all your friends at school, or are they not aware of your afterschool activities?' -- something like that."
Rin pauses for another moment, lips pursing.
She gestures at her face. "I know I don't look old," Rin says, "but I'm basically grown up, right? And I was flying a VF with two Ghosts on the wings. But they knew about Rancor and Scorn. Either it was some kind of deep scan or something so they could see the custom logic cores, or..."
<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.
Did she ruin it? Sheryl won't tell...
Her GL interest lies elsewhere, anyway.
"Mmm. Well, I can't speak for everybody, but my manager Grace has a lot of implants, and Brera's got a lot too. Brera's got a lot of combat enhancements because of it, and Grace--" Sheryl laughs a little here. "There's terminally online and there's terminally online." Her smile fades. "Grace is a little sensitive about it, though."
More than a little. But she doesn't want to go too much into it.
Rin recounts what she was told. It doesn't sound familiar to Sheryl, so that would seem to indicate that it's pirates after all (at least, superficially so), but then something seems to dawn on Rin.
Her eyebrows furrow. "What?" A deep scan... That'd be easy for Grace to do, but one, Grace isn't here (as far as Sheryl knows), and two, Grace would never do anything like this (as far as Sheryl knows). But Grace is far from the only person with a full-implant body. Stuff like that was common on Galaxy. If it really was that, that tips it back over to Galaxy survivors, and again invokes the question of why they would attack the expedition, once, and then just run away without even trying to make contact, except apparently to be assholes.
So instead, Sheryl prompts, "Or what?"
<Pose Tracker> Rin Naujakaite has posed.
"Is she always logged on?" Rin asks, about Grace.
"My god," Rin says, with something like pity afterwards.
Rin scratches behind her ear again. "Or: it was someone with us," Rin continues. "Like, an inside man. I don't know if they'd have been involved with the raid, but they might have been in touch with them... I don't know HOW, though. They obviously didn't launch from the Quarter or the Nadesico."
"I know I'm just being paranoid but I've worried about the Zuvorg," Rin continues onwards, "but even there they'd have to know someone WITH us to know about that. I mean, I know I'm being kind of self-centered here but that's really precise information BUT I haven't exactly been loud about it."
Another pause.
"Let's see," Rin continues. "We can probably leave out anyone who was on the trip... and you and me, obviously, since at this point we'd be having a fist fight or something..." Rin pauses for one second exactly, looking up at Sheryl, and then smiles again.
"... and I think the VTX people are clean," Rin continues, "because Sagiri and Meryl had the perfect chance to take me out and no witnesses who could say otherwise."
This is getting MORBID. Rin's brow furrows. "But I mean -- it's such a strange thing to DO. If you found out about the place... if you knew about it BEFORE you could just, go and do it, this is a huge planet and we didn't even know the Zuvorg were here when we landed, you could just literally go there at any time and for like twenty years it was just sitting there in the sun and there were no enemy aircraft over head. (Since we'd be the enemy from their perspective.)"
Rin folds her arms now, pursing her lips. "And in the end they failed... maybe it was opportunistic? But then they'd have to know about it and -- mm. I don't like it, but it does look like someone in here..."
"Must have told them about it," Rin concludes, looking upwards.
"... I'm sorry," Rin says. "I don't mean to cast aspersions or anything."
[OOC] Rin Naujakaite says, "blu-ray: *BUT I haven't exactly been quiet about it." <Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.
"Mmmhm," Sheryl confirms, of Grace's logged-on-ness. She giggles a little at Rin's reaction. "It's part of what makes her such an incredible manager," she adds, and then, dramatically, "But the price she has to pay...!"
Her cheer and jokes fade rapidly as the conversation continues. She hadn't known what Rin was going to say, but... It was someone with us. It's a chilling thought. Who would do that, and how, and why? "Who have you been open about it to, then?" she wonders.
A question Rin proceeds to answer bit by bit. She glances at Sheryl after the fist-fight comment, and Sheryl smirks as she winks back. "And chip a nail? Absolutely not! If I wanted to take you out, I'd just make Brera do it." She sobers. "But no, it wasn't me. Honestly, I didn't know about your core things either. I don't remember you mentioning them, anyway." Sheryl's still a novice at flying, comparatively speaking--she's gotten some hours in while she's been here, but she hasn't flown as part of any missions, and she's not familiar with Ghosts.
It really is a morbid topic, though. Morbid, and frightening. Sheryl really doesn't like the idea that someone in here might be--a spy, or a traitor, or something like that. It's such an absurd thing to think! Who would anyone be spying for? Who would anyone be betraying them for? Even if there were pirates in the area, how could anyone have known about them before they arrived?
"You don't have to apologize. I asked, and you said. I'd be angrier if you lied to protect my feelings," Sheryl replies quietly. "So, there's that option. I was thinking, though--you said the other option was that whoever you were fighting could've done some kind of deep scan. That's actually possible. For Grace, something like that would be easy." She sighs. "Which means maybe whoever you fought was a Galaxy survivor after all. Obviously you have to have the knowledge and skill to use them that way, but having implants really is like being online all the time. You get really good at manipulating technology when it's just a part of you."
She pauses for a moment. Then she brushes her hair back. "It doesn't really help either way, though, does it? As long as we don't know what they wanted or why they wanted it... For all we know, maybe it's just one big coincidence."
She doesn't sound like she thinks that's very likely, but it's not impossible, surely.
<Pose Tracker> Rin Naujakaite has posed.
Rin laughs a little at the idea of having to get into a fistfight with Brera. (She has no idea. Hopefully this will not be put to the test any time soon.)
After this, she tilts her head. "Yeah?" she echoes quietly, about lying to protect her feelings. She blinks once, slowly, but listens more.
"Mm," she says. "That's possible. And uh-- short version, custom drones with flexible interfaces. I was workin' on their programming for, like, years, but the Black Knights let me figure out how to slot them into stuff -- on that island, when the Vajra attacked, I had the ROM file on my phone so I was able to run one of them to do half of the maneuvering for me."
There are like three bombs in that paragraph. Some sentences are powerful!
Rin keeps going, though. "Hm... what would be really weird is if it was some kind of aliens who found wreckage... the Lucifer's a really solid design, honestly, it was flying circles around me. Maybe they had to learn Earth languages from old records, s'why that one spoke Chinese."
"Though..."
Rin's head cants the other way a little. "Do people lie to you a lot? Like, lie-lie, not just putting a nice face on things or being polite or something. If that makes sense."
<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.
She really has NO idea, if she's laughing it off. Fortunately, Sheryl wouldn't actually sic Brera on Rin.
Unfortunately, that's not actually a guarantee of anything.
That really is a powerful sentence, though. The part that stands out the most to Sheryl is the part about the Black Knights, because the other things seem like they could be innocent enough and just things she didn't know, but Rin has just basically admitted to being a terrorist/freedom fighter, depending on your perspective. Sheryl, who has never had cause to think much about the Black Knights before but certainly knows them by reputation, gawks. "Excuse me? You're a Black Knight?! But you're a teenager! And a student!!"
If only she knew...
But Rin just plows on ahead, and Sheryl can only shake her head a little, staring. What she has heard about the Black Knights definitely leans her freedom fighter, and Rin was just so casual about sharing it that it's hard for her to see it as something she ought to be shocked about. And, well, she did just indicate she prefers people to be honest with her. Can she really complain if Rin took that to its logical conclusion?
"...Maybe," she says of the aliens idea. She settles somewhat at the question, uncrossing and recrossing her legs. "I get what you're saying. To me, though, there's barely any difference. I'm rich, beautiful, and famous, so that means lots of people want something from me. Like Chuck from the Ragnyannyan. He was all, 'I want your signature for my sister, who's a big fan of yours!' and then his sister was immediately like, 'You're full of crap!' and he went with it anyway. That's not really the point, though."
Sheryl shrugs, then frowns. "The point is more, I don't want people talking down to me or hiding things from me because they think I can't handle it. That's all."
It's not really all. But it's good enough for now.
<Pose Tracker> Rin Naujakaite has posed.
Rin grins a little weakly about the Black Knights. She rubs her neck.
"I get that," Rin says.
Glancing to the side, she says further: "I was lying to people a lot. I kind of hated it... even if it felt clever, too. But I decided if I was ever going to stop, instead of doing it all my life-- I mean -"
"Not long before we came out here, some bad stuff happened with the group I was with," Rin continues, her eyes turning back towards Sheryl. There is pain there even if she's still smiling. "So... I'm not mad at them, but... I guess I hit my limit, haha. So I guess I was a Black Knight. But I haven't had the chance to tell them yet. I'll figure it out."
Can you just QUIT?
Well, she does seem confident.
"... Thanks for asking me, though," Rin continues. "I guess I don't feel like -- I mean -- this is -- ahhh," Rin waves her hand, "like you said, you're rich beautiful and famous so I know, like -- I just feel like I can be honest with you!" Her hands spread out. "Even with VTX it's kind of like... job interview time, I suppose."
Rin's eyes come down to meet the pop star's own. "You're not like that."
("Though, if you're actually Zero, I have to say, good work," Rin adds, parenthetically. "But after that stuff I just can't keep going.")
<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.
Oh--so it was really about... Sheryl nods a little, frowning thoughtfully as she listens. Yeah, if she was with a masked organization, good or bad, she would have to lie a lot, wouldn't she? There's a lot she could ask about in regards to the Black Knights, but... she's going to need some time to process the conversation as a whole, so she opts to leave it alone for now.
"Good luck with that," she replies. "If they're the kind of people you can be honest about quitting at, then that's good for you. Still--you've got somewhere to go if you have to, right?"
She's rich, beautiful, and famous, and that's why Rin can be honest with her? That's the exact opposite of what Sheryl was saying, and so she has to laugh. "I'm an entertainer, so I admit I'm dialing it up a lot when I'm in front of an audience. But even if I'm exaggerating, I'm still me." She smiles. "I'm glad you're feeling more confident to be you, too."
("I'm definitely not Zero, so you can save your practice resignation speech," Sheryl shoots back. Maybe one day she'll ask about 'that stuff.' For now, though, she continues to leave it alone.)