1439/Ethics, Complications, and Backseat Drivers

Ethics, Complications, and Backseat Drivers
Date of Scene:	17 April 2024
Location:	Okujoo Ramen
Synopsis:	After 'the wrong way to file a complaint with HR' Mamoru takes Bow to get ramen in henshin and discuss ethics, complications, and Crystal Hope.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Bow
Tinyplot:	Crystal Nope

---

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
It was a blessedly uneventful trip over rooftops to get to the rooftop ramen restaurant, then come out from behind the elevator area like people just somehow missed the cosplayers arriving. This time, Mamoru's taken off his gloves in order to tackle the delicious bowl in front of him. His chopsticks are much less likely to slip out of his hand when he has some friction, after all.

He's utterly unself-conscious about wearing a mask and formalwear and a cape here; maybe they're used to him.

"You're definitely allowed to slurp, it's hard to avoid it-- in case no one's told you yet," Tuxedo Mask says cheerfully to Bow. "But it's too hot right now, so maybe we should start talking first."

Bow has posed:
It's hard to pick out the stranger of the two, really. The teen in the mask, top hat and full formal wear, or the teen in the armor with a heart on the front of it, shoulder paldrons, and a full quiver with bow on his back with combat trousers and boots with more heart motiffs on them.

He was going to ask if they should return to normal, but when Tuxedo just goes barging in like he owns the place (maybe he does!), Bow finds himself following after him, and places his own order. "I ah..." Bow looks confused for a moment. "I usually only have this in a cup out of the microwave." he admits after placing his order for the Yakamein.

Once the bowls are delivered, it's up to the roof and he's getting more instruction, and nods. "Sayaka taught me to use chopsticks, so I can do that at least." But for now, the bowl sort of sits in his lap to warm his hands and he draws in a breath. "So, to answer the obvious questions first. Yes, I feel like an idiot for letting Corona bamboozle me - even if everything she said is technically right. Second, I feel like a bigger idiot for not realizing the full scope of things - this is nothing like the intergalactic war back on Etheria and I have to get used to that."

A slight frown at that as he gets his bearings. "But before you call me the biggest idiot for trusting to have an AI attached to my neck that can take control at a moment's notice, Crystal Hope was only trying to protect me. Based on the information we had at the time, it could be safe for her to have assumed that Lacuna was trying to kill me and was only reacting to that."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I'm not gonna call you an idiot at all," Mamoru says, blessedly at least having left his top hat behind-- he doesn't wear it often, and seems to mostly use it as a showy dimensional pocket he sleight-of-hands away. "You didn't have all the information. You still don't, but the rest of the information there isn't necessarily relevant, and is private to Lacuna."

He stirs his own noodles with his hashi, looking at them for a moment instead of directly at Bow. "Crystal Hope is an AI whose mind you can't read. It's not a great idea to even allow someone well-meaning to have control over your body, because it means you don't get a veto if something goes wrong. And something always goes wrong. You have friends you should be working with, friends who will watch your back, you just need to call them for help. You're capable and smart enough to hold your own or get away if a threat is too much for you-- and once we get you in to talk to Stellar personally, she'll give you something that you can use to call her for instant help. Teleporting in like she did earlier."

He takes a breath and sets his bowl down, laying his hashi across the top of it for now. "'By any means necessary' is a phrase that doesn't align with your moral stance, my friend. It's one that aligns with 'the ends justify the means,' among others. And I've seen friends be taken over by something in the back of their heads before, making decisions for them that they would never make themselves. Would you really have wanted to kill Lacuna? Even with only the information you had?"

Bow has posed:
"I'm going to have words with that creature next time I see it. And maybe a cat carrier. A small, cramped cat carrier." Bow mutters sourly, poking that the beef in his bowl, dunking it in the broth and waiting for it to pop back up again.

"I'm able to override her in that mode, which is what I did when you arrived and I realized there was something more than I realized going on." he explains. "It's like... being inside me, and looking out a window to see what's going on, but I can take back control if I need to." Finally lifting the bowl, he blows across the surface of it to break the tension and cool the broth before sipping on the liquid, a satisfied smacking sound as he lowers the bowl again. After all, he was the busy one. It figures he worked up an appetite.

"Like I said in the alley, it waas never my intention, even if that's what Corona wanted and said needed to be done. I only came close to taking a life a couple of times back home. And... it's not something I would consider doing. Or taking lightly if given the choice."

But he realizes he's being chastized. "You're right. I should have talked to someone else on Corona first. I'm still... there's so much about this world I don't understand. But what I've seen so far -- it took a lot out of me to see Adora as broken as she was. To hear that Double Trouble is masquerading as Glimmer. That Catra is maybe worse than before. It's like this planet is bringing out the worst of those from my home. And even I apparently fell for it."

"But there's one more thing you need to know." Holding out his hand, he summons an arrow, twirls it in his fingers and then dismisses it. "...I couldn't do this before I got here." he explains. "It's only because of Crystal Hope I can now. I'm pretty sure if I seperate from her, I lose this. I lose my henshin. And I become... just normal Bow again. Which is far more useless in this world than back home. Back home, at least my arrows could affect targets. Here? Pretty sure a youma would laugh them off."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"So we get you an Intelligent Device," says Mamoru easily, "that will protect you without taking you over, and that will let you use magic again. You obviously have the potential on your own, or Crystal Hope wouldn't be able to do anything with you. You'd need dark energy to operate at all, which... you definitely don't."

He definitely listens through the whole thing, then nods. "Double Trouble pretended to be Naru once, and Sailor Moon knew right away. They already had a codeword and a passphrase to use with each other if there was a suspicion that either of them had been replaced by a youma, since it happened to Naru's mother once."

He shifts uncomfortably. "You... do know, I mean, I just said, but... I was still in Obsidian up until four months ago. And they're still after me to get me to come back. And I won't, willingly. But my old boss is really good at mind control. It's not something good people do. She wasn't able to do it to me before -- she could brainwash me, but it was only my friends, my guardians, that she turned into puppets when they didn't agree with her. But I think she'd try harder this time, knowing who I really am. And--"

Tuxedo Mask takes a breath, almost says something, sighs, and then says something else. "I just want you to know that there are options that aren't letting an AI turn you into a meat puppet that you can shrug off for now."

Bow has posed:
"The best way to know if Glimmer is really Glimmer? Ask her what my mother's name is." Bow glances aside to Tuxedo and explains. "Two dads, no mom. Or I guess you could ask her what the fifth of my twelve siblings names is, she might be the only one besides me that does. Glaive, for what it's worth."

"I've never had magic. I can only assume the magic I have now is because of Crystal Hope." he explains. "That's just how Etheria works." A shrug of his shoulders. "But I'll disable the protocol if that helps things. Because besides being my partner, she's also the one that helps me with understanding this world and everything on it and just... I'd probably be more useless than usual." a shrug of his shoulders. "I'll figure it out." he admits.

"I appreciate your concern, I really do. But I'm pretty tech savvy, and I need Crystal Hope if I ever plan to get back home - she's the key to opening the portal back to Etheria." he explains.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I'm definitely not saying to ditch Crystal Hope, just it would be a good idea not to let her have the ability to control you," Tuxedo Mask reassures quickly. "Even if she thinks it's a good idea. And asking questions isn't useless! And that's definitely not the way magic works here-- but I'm not gonna convince you of that over one bowl of ramen."

A beat.

"Maybe five," he teases. "But if I meet Glimmer, I'll definitely check."

Gingerly picking up some noodles, finally, Mamoru holds them to his lips-- and then mumbles out a quick itadakimasu before going nomf because they're apparently at the perfect temperature now. After swallowing, he adds, "Don't forget you can figure it out with help. You should ask Sailor Mercury, she's an outright tech genius. You've met before, Crystal Hope wouldn't let her scan her at all-- but considering one of Mercury's powers does mess with dimensions a bit, I think it might be a good idea."

Bow has posed:
"Sailor Mercury. We're working together on the Eclipse Zone project." Bow comments as he finally settles into his meal as it has cooled off enough, his thoughts turning away from the current fire to one of the other fires that he has going. "She and I have figured out that I can hack my way into the generator, and that she can access the password and unlock it."

"We have a whole plan that we related to Sailor Moon about us capturing and holding one of the generators - keeping it active instead of destroying it." He picks up some noodles and a bit of beef to chew on before he continues. "And once we have it held, brining in Sailor Moon and maybe a couple of other people with really powerful purification magic."

After downing another bite, he continues. "Because I think we can reprogram the type of energy that it's transmitting - so what if instead of sending just a little bit of dark energy at Obsidian at intervals... we flood the whole thing with all the purification magic we can stuff into it at once?" he asks, looking to Tuxedo to see his thoughts on the matter.

Oh, and deftly changing the subject, perhaps.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Poor Bow can change the subject all he wants, but someone's definitely going to hear about this later -- Mamoru has FEELINGS on mind control and puppet people.

"I have no idea what that would do if you can do it," he admits frankly after swallowing another mouthful of noodles and some egg. "Even if all it does is destroy the network, that would be an absolutely delightful outcome. I know Ginga Otome does a lot of purification, and I'm pretty sure that Pretty Cures can do it too."

Tuxedo Mask pauses, frowning. "But you should probably have them on hand to go as soon as you've got it on lock, because otherwise Sunbreaker will get there first."

Bow has posed:
"Well. Someone has already informed me we should tell Sunbreaker, so that she can make sure certain people aren't caught in it when we do it." Which was really perplexing to Bow, but everything about everything has been vexxing him since he got here, and he just doesn't understand it sometimes.

"That someone being Sailor Moon herself." he adds. "But yes, I planned to get with Mercury, ask her when a good time to plan is and put out a general notice on the Shed board about talking to any purifier that would be interested, as well as a task force to take it in the first place." he explains.

"Needless to say, it's still in the planning stages, so we're like... at step one of who knows how many to get to that end result. Like, figuring out which Eclipse Zone to attack. Clearly, we'll need one that isn't heavily defended, but I was hoping to capture one before it was erected so that we could set it up on our terms, but no luck with that so far."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Well, definitely call me in when you need to kick it off -- this is your baby and Mercury's, so you don't actually need me for planning, just for the briefing when you're ready to put us where you need us," says Mamoru after downing a good third of his bowl a little too quickly. He thumps his hand on his chest, then looks discomfited. "I... am not sure how much good I'll do, since my big new attack barely dented the thing last time, I might as well have been throwing rocks..."

This is not how he sounded when he figured all he had was a rose. He sounds frustrated. "They're not even magic yet when they're not turned on, are they?" He shakes his head. "Sorry, you don't need negativity from me in this too. How are you doing with school?"

Bow has posed:
Bow had used the break in his eating to listen to Tuxedo, but when he gets to the part where he doesn't think he can do much, his eyes narrow slightly, and he sets down the bowl again. "Come on. I can't even make ice or fire arrows, and your rose 'snapped' my arrow, so clearly, it's arrow, rose... I don't know what paper would be in this case." he admits with a small smirk.

There's a bump of his shoulder to the other boy's, as he considers. "I've seen the way you plan and organize. I've seen the friends you have, and what you can rally to yourself. Even if you thought you could do nothing with your attacks? There is sooo much more you can do in everything else and how amazingly awesome you are at herding henshins and making sure that everyone is seen and heard. Sound like you just need someone else to remind you that even if it didn't go well the first time? Doesn't mean it won't go differently the next time. And that's from a guy who apparently has a flare arrow as his most dangerous one."

Scrapping his noodles around up the side of his bowl to eat them, he considers. "I just started. Is it cheating if I already have a working knowledge of the language because of the program Nurse Meiou put me on?" he asks. "Math... is a little different. Learning units of measurement is a lot different, even if they are about the same size, if that makes sense? And science. Hooo boy. There is totally a difference between this world's science and technology and... well. A world filled with magic and technology was either invaders or long-lost explorers?"

"And don't get me started on Geography. I got so many looks when I said that I was from the Kingdom of America. How was I supposed to know they're call countries here?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"We should do a combo," Mamoru says, smiling a little as Bow jostles him slightly, the little shoulder bump. "If I give you a long-stemmed rose, the range you could get..."

Stars in his eyes.

He doesn't address most of what Bow says, just flushes a little, just a little bit red in the face. Teeny bit. He ducks his head, smiling maybe a bit sheepishly-- and then he says, "Flare stuff is like Greek fire, it just keeps burning and burning..."

Then Mamoru laughs, finally. "The Kingdom of America. Whoof... but hey, there's even a huge difference between this world's science and this world's magitech, which most people don't even know exists. You know, this place used to have magic everywhere... but that was a really, really, really long time ago in human time reckoning. Fourteen thousand years."

Bow has posed:
"A combo? Would that work?" Bow asks curiously. "I'm so used to attacks working in concert, but not like Glimmer and Frosta holding hands and doing a Sparkling Ice attack!" Though the idea of them doing it makes him snicker. "Though I suppose it would be more... sparkling ice fists? Frosta sure loved her ice fists." he admits.

Though he does notice the blush and smirks. "Nothing to sell yourself short about, you're pretty amazing. Might even give Glimmer a run for the money in the way you bring folks together."

"I've seen it. The ley lines I mean." he explains. "When I used the goggles or tech pad - I can see the lines that run through the Earth and how they attach to each other in intersecting points. That's the spots that Sunbreaker is targetting with the towers." he admits. "Four gathering towers, one control spire. Maybe if we could predict where she was going next, if we figured out the pattern..." And now he's thinking. He'll have to see where the last towers were, to see.

"Fourteen thousand years? That... is a very long time. You'll have to tell me about it sometime. But for now..." He gathers his bowl and items. "I should get home and study. While I'm good on some subjects, there are a lot that I need to brush up on. I'll see you later. And... thanks. For well. Everything."

And with that, he's off.