1340/Inevitable

Inevitable
Date of Scene:	17 March 2024
Location:	Dorms #2
Synopsis:	Mamoru tells Double Trouble that Beryl has Hinoiri, and then there is office gossip. Somehow. Backdated.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Double Trouble
Tinyplot:	Rainbow Crystals

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Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru's in his room with the door open a crack -- shoe stopping it -- and he's flopped back on his bed, back where Zoi had initially left him. He's still tired, very, from both a fight and healing Fuyuko, so he's nowhere near as cautious as he ought to be, and literally everyone who thinks he's reckless is probably not wrong, right now.

But he's tired and he has bad news to tell a very pretty lizard person, and when he went to leave a message with Dianora he had no idea how long it would take the information to get from her to Dee. So, flopped on his bed he is, reading something on his phone and waiting.

Double Trouble has posed:
Double Trouble may have become more lax about showing their face, but they still go to great lengths to protect Dianora's true identity. So, as much as they wanted to immediately rush over to his room after he left, they delayed by half an hour to simulate the time it would take for Dinaora to get in touch and for Dee to arrive. They even left the dorm as Dianora, and came back in as themselves.

Which is how they find themselves strolling down the hallway toward Mamoru's room, looking every bit the pretty lizard person. When the arrive at the door, they see it propped open, and give it a gentle knock with their knuckles and a nudge to step in. "A cute little star told me you were looking for me."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru's feet immediately swing down off the bed and he sits up, but then doesn't-- quite-- get up. "Come in!" he says. "Sorry, I'm not at my best. Come in and probably close the door, you can just kick the shoe. Have a seat if you like."

There are desk chairs and someone else's bed, after all. "I wanted to tell you where Sunbreaker is, since she's not going to be home for a bit? It's bad but it's not hopeless bad. Her current boss has her right now."

Double Trouble has posed:
Double Trouble steps in and snags the shoe with the tip of their tail, letting the door close behind them. It's what Mamoru said to do, after all. Clearly he left the door open for them. They're not sure what it is he might want to talk to them about, but it's a short list and their girlfriend is at the top of it.

So of course, they sit down. They sit down on the edge of the other bed and their tail wraps up around their waist, squeezing them almost like a corset. They look just a little bit anxious.

And then he lays it on them. "Beryl has her?" That's not good. That woman is terrifying. It's part of why she's such a horrendous manager. Double Trouble had been spying on her for Fuyuko ever since, well, ever since Mamoru and his friends had left. The biggest conclusion they'd drawn so far is that Beryl was not very well-suited to corporate life.

"Tell me more," they say, leaning forward, their tail unwrapping just enough so that they can grab hold of the end with both of their hands and squeeze it. "Please tell me you know more."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru feels awful for Double Trouble -- he doesn't know them, but he knows that they care a LOT about Hinoiri, and that they had to take the rose out of Hinoiri's hand, and he knows anxiety and distress when he sees them. He's sure that were they touching, he'd be overwhelmed by the weight of the emotion behind the squeezing of that tail.

So he goes on as fast and as concise as he can, keeping his voice calm and quick. "She's got her in a temporary prison she calls 'Eternal Sleep', in her office. It's something like stasis, but whoever is stuck in there is awake and aware for it -- it's psychological torture more than anything else. The longest I've ever seen anyone stuck in it was a week, and she was really over the top pissed off at the guy."

He takes a breath, then leans forward, his forearms on his lap, closed in a little bit. "So -- I don't know what exactly she did to piss Beryl off so much, but I know there was a fight right beforehand, for one of the rainbow crystals? And that in the fight, Sailor Moon destroyed a big black crystal that Sunbreaker had been carrying around that helped her find them. And I know that at the end of the fight, Sunbreaker snuck me the crystal after she got it. But even if Beryl had some youma or her scrying watching, she wouldn't have been able to tell about giving it to me, because I didn't even know in the middle of all the fire and shoving." A beat. "She probably mouthed off though. And it's Beryl. Nobody mouths off to Beryl for free."

Mamoru sits up again, rubbing at the palm of one hand with the thumb of the other, and he says with a sigh, "Yuuhi-san... she called Yuuhi-san to come help her, and she did come, and she tried to help, but Beryl is way too strong. Yuuhi-san will be all right, but she wanted to make sure that I said to whoever I told-- not to go in after Sunbreaker. I told her the same thing about it being a week at most."

Double Trouble has posed:
Double Trouble fidgets with the end of their tail as they attentively listen to Mamoru. They watch him closely with their big, yellow eyes, trying to pick apart every little bit of body language that accompanies his words. They always do this. It's character research, but right now they just want to make sure they learn as much as they can.

They just sit there in silence for a moment after he's done. It's a lot to take in, and they're running all of their schemes in their head to figure out how this new information changes everything. They shake their head and sigh.

"It's Sunbreaker we're talking about. I love that stupid unicorn with every fiber of my being, and she's a disaster. She was in the same room as Beryl. It was inevitable," they say, sounding rather theatrical by the end. Inevitable. "But it's not hard to guess why. You have the rainbow crystal and Beryl does not. Even if she doesn't know you have it, she knows she doesn't, and she knows Sunbreaker was there."

They laugh anxiously and shake their head. "And as I have said several times recently. She has a very punchable face," they say, looking toward the door.

Then they turn back to look at Mamoru. "But it doesn't matter. If Yuuhi-san says not to go after her, then I won't. She's as close as I have to a boss." And they want to make a good impression. Besides, it sounds like Hinoiri's just going to be emotionally scarred, which is hardly anything new for her.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Riventon's my brother. I know from loving people with punchable faces," Mamoru says sympathetically. Very sympathetically, and very wryly. But then he nods. "I like her. She's very sensible. Yuuhi-san, I mean. You could do a lot worse for a boss."

He's silent for a second, contemplating Beryl.

He doesn't want to spend any more time than that thinking about Beryl, really, even a second is interminably long. But he says, finally, "You have to really piss her off to get Eternal Sleep. Just failure doesn't do it. We all failed, a lot of times. She told me she almost tortured me for failing her in something stupid, once, and only didn't because I was her favorite."

"But that would just have been pain, or -- making me watch her do it to someone else. This is-- you're furniture in her office and everyone who comes in sees. You don't know how long you're going to be in there. You can't move, or breathe, you're just stopped except for your mind and your senses, and you can't tell what time it is or how much time has passed or anything. It's scarier than pain," he says, and he pulls his legs back up onto the bed.

"I'm not telling you this to make you feel worse, I'm just telling you so you maybe have a better idea of the psychology involved. Maybe so you understand Beryl a little better, I don't know. I don't know why Sunbreaker and Riventon are even working for her in the first place, they had their own shit to do before we left. I didn't think people could be transferred from one division to another when the divisions are that different."

Double Trouble has posed:
Double Trouble laughs and looks directly at Mamoru. "Yeah, I could work for Beryl," they say, with a rather flat affect. That's who he worked for.

They continue to look at him, but the tone in their voice gets less flat, and just a little snarky. "If you think about it a little, I think you'll figure out why they're working for her, Mamoru-san," they say.

They wait about thirty seconds, and then go on to say, "Beryl Holdings recently experienced a massive exodus of staff. Unfortunately, there are still organizational goals that must be met, so Obsidian has had to re-assign staff to Beryl Holdings in order to fill those vacant roles. That's Riventon and his whole team. Sunbreaker freelances, but she's been doing jobs for Beryl too."

Their tail unwinds and they stand up. "We're all a big family at Obsidian, you know that. Beryl's the terrifying crazy aunt we all have to deal with, but we deal with her for the sake of the family goals."

"Thanks for giving me a heads up," they say, their anxiety all but gone now. Their mask firmly in place. "At least now I won't be worried when I don't hear from her. I'll let the twerp know she won't be back to their room for a while."

They pull the door open, and with their hand on it, turn to look at Mamoru. "Don't beat yourself up about it. You got out. Good for you."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I didn't know that. I was on a pretty short leash in a lot of ways. Anyway, I'd rather be out than dead," Mamoru says, shrugging. "She's killed me before. I'm her favorite."

The particular flavor of cringe at 'favorite' that he's trying to hide probably says more about his relationship with Beryl than literally anything that has come out of his mouth.

He's back to mashing into his palm with the opposite thumb, again, and he doesn't bother trying to smile. "Goodnight, Dee. I hope she's out fast."

Double Trouble has posed:
Double Trouble catches that cringe, even though Mamoru is trying to hide it. They're a master at reading even the smallest twitch and micro-expression. But they don't say anything. They just file it away. Character research.

"Glad you're not dead," they say with a nod and a wry sort of smile. He healed Hinoiri, after all. They linger there at the doorway for a moment, just looking at Mamoru. Their eyes blink. It's that weird vertical blink. "Thanks again."

Then they turn and leave, letting the door close behind them.

They have to leave the building and then come back to their room as Dianora before they can fall apart.