154/Mistaken Circumstances Sure Do Hurt

From Radiant Heart MUSH

Mistaken Circumstances Sure Do Hurt
Date of Scene: 25 July 2023
Location: Pikarigaoaka Ward
Synopsis: Two old Devices meet in the most unlikely of planets, and Hannah suspects a plot. One case of violent mistaken identities later, and Koji has a new ally.
Cast of Characters: Hannah Steiner, Koji Silvia


Hannah Steiner has posed:
What is a mahou to do with Summer ascendant and the duties of schooling put aside for a time? Well, in Hannah's case, this is the perfect time to improve herself and pick up the hunt for the Kinslayer that brought her here in the first place. And so during her evening jog, she's wound her way to one of Pikarigaoaka's many parks. And one with a mobile ice cream setup!

Sweating, still clad in her sportware with Lyra panting floofily beside her, her thousand-watt grin earns her a discount from the old lady manning the thing. A quick eccentricly noble bow, and she pays up. With just a little extra defly slipped in, never one to /not/ observe her homeworld's protocols.

A few minutes later, with both sure they're alone, Hannah gently tosses up the ice cream cone into the air....which despite all logic, floats in the air beside her as she sucks in a breath.



"Blauer Greif! Aufwachen!"

<Linker Core Online>

<Sensoren Online>

<Zauberspr?che Online>

<Alle Systeme Nominal>

<Bereit meine Herrin>

Blue magic washed over the young woman, leaving her in the blues-blacks-and-golds of her House, an elegant coiffed dress, with her hat and glasses somehow that much more stylish as pieces of her beautiful henshin grows hard and armored. Heels don't even bother touching the ground, a mere invocation from Device and User resulting in a sudden splitting of real-space and the area around her in a Barrier.

A hand reaches up, and she goes for a lick...

A giant clawed paw baps her. Lyra, now fully Big Blue Furry Lizard in form, hiss-growf's!

She laughs without shame. If Blauer Greif could sigh, she would.

Blauer Greif, Hannah, and Lyra work as one. A few swift barks that carry within that space, an Area Search, and she has that mental map of the trees and space around her. She holds out her hand.

"Blauer Greif. Run gravitic calculation algorithms. Reverse the results, und, KONZENTRIEREN!"

Gritting her teeth, Hannah Steiner holds one of the most fundamental forces of all creation in her hand. Gravity. It swirls, turns, and soon everything around her fish-eyes in her own direction. Trees shudder. In this small slice of dimension, she is the center.

<Fluss: Akkretion>

And with those layers upon layers of swirling gravitics, she lets out a howl of distress. She's very nearly taken off her feet by her own attempt at a spell, held down by the quick thinking of Lyra with her jaws and her Device chaining her feet down in turn. Her hand feels like it's trying to rip apart. Wildly, her muscles flex, and desperately she tries to punch the nearest tree in a form that is shameful for one so obsessed with power and execution of attacks!

The results are catastrophic, tearing multiple trees into floating splinters and ravaging the ground in chaotic rents as the contained gravity well splits apart. It's nothing like her attractive spell.

This is might, and it knocks her into, then through a few trees despite all three's attempts.

Hannah groans. Blauer Greif does the Device equivalent of picking her back up by the scruff as Lyra nudges the cone towards her.

Thoroughly dusted up, she takes a lick, panting and sweating already.

Even with a Barrier, it will be hard to not notice that magical pulse.

Koji Silvia has posed:
    *BEE-DO BEE-DO BEE-DO BEE-DO!*

The classic sound of a conbini door opening and closing, the thrum of business in action, and of course... someone stepping out into the streets dressed down for the evening. Clad in nothing but a dark blue track suit and sneakers, one Koji Silvia is going back over the things in his bag. Besides snacks, there seems to be a few sauces and staples in there. Checking a bottle of soy sauce one more time with a dubious expression on his face as it has a 'Sale' sticker on it, he sighs and puts it back away in his bag muttering to himself, "It's the same stuff Dad uses for his... just trust the process, Koji. He may not know much else, but he does a mean steak."

As he's walking down the street and back towards the rail station and munching on a KitKat, there is a tingle that goes down the back of his neck, a sensation he's only just starting to get used to after half a year of life-changing discovery, followed by a familiar voice in his mind.

    << EMERGENT DIMENSION SPACE DETECTED. SIGNATURE MATCH: 100 PERCENT. BELKAN POWER SIGNATURE. CROSSMATCHING DATABASE NOW, Young Master. >>

"Ohm...", He mutters with a half-bite, and then chews it down and swallows, "You have got to be kidding me. One night... just..."

Exhaling, the young man holds up the bag and says, "Hey Hanzo, can you stash this please?"

    << Dimensional Space Open. Inventory System Updating. Storage and Identification Complete. These are suboptimal sustenance, Young Master. Primarily salt, fat, sugar, acid, and taste chemical altering substances identified as: Spices. >>

"I don't," Koji retorts, "Need the commentary on my diet!" And as the bag of goods vanishes into nothingness of his Device's storage zone, he rolls his eyes, "Okay..."

Striking a bit more of a gallant pose, he crosses his right arm over his chest and up next to his cheek, "HANZO! SET UP!"

For a moment the area around him goes dark, and then it's almost like the impression of a moon clearing past an eclipse, and once that fades, standing there instead is a Device Mage with a half-mask covering his mouth, dark blue cloth and light armor, and three pairs of energy-blade kunai in holsters on his hips.

    << BARRIER JAKCKET. Ikimasu! >>

Throwing out one of his hands, Koji creates a palm-sized MidChildian magic circle, and a rope-like wire of mana with a blade-tip goes shooting out to wrap and tag into an overpass. It retract-pulls at the same time as he jumps, and from the other hand he shoots out a second one to catch on a lamppost, and uses that as a swinging slingshot to send him high into the air and into the D-Space suddenly existing a few blocks away.

    << Young Master. Warning. Dimensional Shift causing interferance with OBSCURE and SENSOR. Adjusting. Energy Signature Matching to known Device Database. Working... >>

Hannah Steiner has posed:
Between Blauer Greif's sensoren array and the fact that Hannah's just knocked her own clock through trees with a spell of pure Belkan hubris? 'Hiding' has never been something a Steiner indulges in, aside from keeping out those without the magic to walk into the thing. As Koji enters? Well, the Barrier ripples a bit like a pool of mercury. Clearly not one meant to keep people out particularly. In fact, as soon as one pierces that veil of magic, one is getting drawn in. And in. And IN!

Normally Hannah has her Barrier tuned to 'welcome to training land' but that gets abolished as wood splinters and then /chunks/ of battered wood goes flying thanks to the chaos of winding-down spell experimentation! It's like stepping into the aftermath of a nuke. A Mid-Childan mage calls down a beam. This is just brute force in whatever way this particular Belkan is trying to hammer into -something-.

By the fact everything is being drawn towards the big scar in the middle of the Barrier? That's probably the impact zone.

<Herrin. Eindringling> Comes the dour Device, somewhat needlessly, as Lyra is already growling. That. Is one massive Lizard-Pupper. With intelligent eyes and stalking towards the sound of someone entering even as she feels Blauer Greif's sensors go off in their collective heads.

Hannah...is groaning, dusting herself off, and wondering where her hat and glasses went.

Said hat floats down, and alights neatly upon Koji's skull.

"...Intruder....MEIN ONKEL?"

She may or may not have a slight concussion. This may explain the slightly wobbly gait she takes as she seeks out the source of the intruder.

"COME FORTH YOU GUTLESS CUR! SANKT KAISERLESS HEATHEN!!! All und much more than you deserve I shall so gracious....graciously g...give und your pathetic, cowardly yellow-striped backside!"

Hannah's voice is used to addressing a very large throne room beside her parents. Or lifting her warm voice to be heard in order to embarrass someone half way across a ball room without shouting.

This is pure Steiner outrage. Another tree falls in the distance from the Countess-Palatine's concussed wrath!

Koji Silvia has posed:
Koji almost misses his braking shot when the hat not just lands on his skull, but covers his whole FACE. Spluttering in surprise and twisting in the odd pull that is dragging him unnaturally towards the center of the 'arena', he pulls it away with his free hand, and then shifts his aim so he can go through a full loop-the-loop, releasing the manastring of his Guidewire so he can skid to a halt against the gravitic pull of the Dimensional Space.

    << ADJUSTING. >>

    << ADJUSTING. >>

    << Complete. SENSOR Online. OBSCURE Online. Device Match... Complete. >>

Feeling a ripple in the air around him, the ambient draw is cancelled by his own magical aura, and the young ninja-dressed magical boy is able to stand straighter now. Looking around for a long moment, he then puts one hand out so that four of the six Blades on his hips rise up and drift up and away from him, the blade vanishing as they shift function, "Hanzo. Alright, what are we dealing with."

    << Device Match... Oh.>>

"Oh? What does Oh mean, Hanzo." Koji grumbles, "Help me out. Spread a sensor net... let's see what.."

And then the tree comes down...

    << Warning, Young Master. Depart Immediately! WARNING!>>

"Warning about What?!"

To the point that another tree decides in the tumult being caused by Hannah causes to fall directly on him!

    << Point Warp! >>

As he vanishes and reappears next to one of the Blades in the air, holding onto it and hanging, the Device on his belt finally speaks up.

    << Identification Complete. Belkan Unity Knight Blauer Greif. Property of... House Steiner. >>

"And... WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?!"

Hannah Steiner has posed:
A figure stumbles out of the blasted and broken trees, one hand rubbing her throbbing head as she clenches the magical gravitic lead on a...well, Razorhounds are normally big, but Lyra is a trained, magical-genetically modified monster of the breed straight from her home. The lizard hisses straight like a raptor out of Jurrassic Park as she leads her somewhat battered looking charge. Blauer Greif's blade is gripped as much as a cane as a sword as she rights herself.

Blonde hair, blue eyes that don't gaze but her face is attentive to her surroundings somehow.

And she has a scowl that's the utter inverse of her normal, sledgehammer-like friendliness.

<Herrin. Vorsicht.> Comes Blauer Greif even before her young charge can fight down her outrage enough to form words.

<Nennen Sie sich, Kind of Mid-childa> Offers the voice of the Ancient Belkan Device as Hanzo speaks their House Name aloud. It's a dull, sad, but prideful and wary thing. The inflection is low. The nigh-robotic thing typical of her kind, but just emotive enough to tell this old thing of war is intelligent.

With another groan, Hannah lifts the point of her Device's blade, and points it right at the sound of Koji's voice.

"How do you know mein House's name!? Answer me! Nein, nevermind, perhaps I should force it from you!" Her words are...a bit slurred. One might think she's drunk, but any simple scan would show a BAC of 0.

<Mein Herrin...> Another inflection. Concern. Lyra is growling and stalking forward.

Hannah's holding her head hard. It's not too hard for Hanzo at the very least, if not Koji, to get the idea.

Such a bad circumstance, especially as she's suddenly floating off of the ground, then kicking off it to try to launch forward and slash at Koji bodily!

Hit or miss, two new trees are suddenly slashed in half!

Koji Silvia has posed:
While the rest of it is kind of lost on him for the moment, Koji has had enough experience in his time as a magical warrior in a shadow conflict with monsters from a place that craves anything and everything to do with life itself to MOVE!

Letting go of the floating Blade, he vanishes once more, and reappears holding onto another on the far side of the thrust, another of those Point Warps that feel like a distortion on the senses of the gravity wielder. Recalling the four, he somersaults into a landing pose and each of them float just behind him, their energy kunai-blades re-igniting and blazing a bit more.

"Watch it there! I don't know who you are... Steiner-chan. Do you have a first name, or are you just going to yell at me and try to take my head off."

Reaching up to two of the four, he shifts to a backhand grip and slides his right foot back into defensive fighting posture, "How about for now you call me Hanzo, and we just call this one a case of bad timing, alright?"

    << Young Master... >>

If it could, the Mid-Childian Device would be just groaning, closing it's eyes, and shaking it's head.

Hannah Steiner has posed:
As Hannah slowly gathers up her scrambled braincase, the Point Warps prove a point of....she'd be more fascinated, but she's mostly working on Steiner grit and a lot of help from her two friends right now. Blauer Greif doesn't have the disadvantage of fleshy thinkmeats, and is doing a good job of drawing in all that sweet, sweet distortion-based combat data. A teleport? Speed too fast to follow at such a short range?

Only time will tell. Hannah slowly bends down to a crouch as she tries to regain her composure. Deep breath. Calming. The sheath of her Device floats by and recombines with its' whole, blue lights flaring and steam venting as they become one once again. She /taps/ it on the stump of a tree she's created as she shakes out her hair a bit. Her ponytail finds its' binding floating away, into a warm shock of vaguely long blonde hair.

Her teeth grit. What a most talented opponent, even if she can't shake her rivalry with that particular strain of magic. Even for a House now tied with the TSAB, friendly rivalries remain.

And this one is heated.

"Und you may formally call me Tr?ger des Blauen Greif! May you forget that name in your head, dear Hanzo! I should wish to call you freund, however! It is not you that spoke truths I endeavor to keep secret!"

Her anger is hotter with the pain, even if reasoning is slowly coming back to her. For...well, Belkan reasoning.

"Herr Hanzo, mein difficulty is not with you! Rather, your Device! Answer Blauer Greif's questions! Name, how you /KNOW/, und perhaps I shall not assume you are..."

Her Uncle's agent.

"Attent?ter upon mein personage!"

<Fluss: Erh?hen>

Hannah leaps off of the stump, back to the ground, and once more taps the ground. 'Tap' is an understatement. Her entire body becomes a missile, and though she pauses just before hitting it? The result is like an asteroid hammering into the earth, and makes the D-space rock from the impact, sending magically-infused shards of debris, earth, rocks, trees, spraying towards Koji as she unleashes her fury and concern all at once!

A deep huff. That...felt good.

Koji Silvia has posed:
Even with the half-mask in place, seeing all of THAT being just launched his way causes poor Koji to just stare in a sense of horror. That's a tree. That is a whole TREE coming at him. Life seems to be slowing down as adrenaline kicks up, and for an eternity of microseconds his brain is filled with tinnitus.

Thankfully? There is muscle memory that kicks in for the gymnast as brain and body both kick back into gear. All six Blades Deploy are deployed now, and they take a layered defense for him as he rushes INTO the railgunned scenery coming at him.

    << BLADE 1 BLADE 2. BARRIER. >>

    << BLADE 3 BLADE 4. FLYING SLASH. >>

    << BLADE 5 BLADE 6. POINT WARP. >>

Rapid-fire magical activations followed by a flurry of movement from the young man in sequences has two Blades closest to him spreading their energy into shields, angling to deflect debris away from him rather than try and take the full force of it. Another pair begin doing needle-fast crisscrossing attacks, breaking up larger bits that attempt to hit him as he ducks and weaves in his charge, relentlessly following what almost seems like a planned course through your chaos that has him to the point of leaping and kicking off a chest-sized rock to reach for the mid-air tree! The last two are the trump card for the thing as he wraps his hand around one Blade embedded in it, vanishes, and is on top of it running, both in hand and in the classic arms back ninja-run pose.

It all looks MAJESTIC, right until the final huge clod of dirt and rock just BODYCHECKS him after he flips over a recycling bin, and parkour slides under a lightpole. He just rolls right up into it, and you watch him go a good 10 meters to the left and skids into a parked car, causing it to rock and him to just lay there stunned for several moments.

"Ow."

Hannah Steiner has posed:
All throughout her explosive barrage of...well, basically anything and everything she can leverage gravity to chuck at the poor newbie ninja Device user? Hannah grips her cane with one hand, and holds it slightly behind her head in an obvious pretention to hammer straight into Koji once he fields the flurry of sheer pain going his way!

She's even smiling, Lyra stalks up and guards her left flank, while her arm flexes in anticipation of this swift little Mid-Childan (???) would-be warrior enters her personal field of battle.

<Mein herrin....> Comes Blauer Greif.

"Ah???"

PWAP.

Dirt-clod proves victorious, and despite her previous rage at her House's Name being so casually uttered? She's quickly awakened to the fact that poor Koji on the other end of Hanzo is...perhaps, not keyed in to House Steiner politics.

She expected at least one attempted thrashing. This just now feels...Is this what /guilt/ is like?? No, it's the Device that's wrong!

Cough! "By the Sankt Kaiser mein freund!!!! Are you alri...Again, I ask you how you know the House of Steiner!!! Tell me before this gets any more unangenehm! You are either an Enemy or someone with a Device far too well learned for your own gut!" Proclaims Hannah!

Koji Silvia has posed:
"YOU."

He pushes himself up to standing...

"ARE."

The Blades that remain after the assault, half of them being dismissed by the impacts of all of that STUFF, float back to him while the others reappear in their sheathes.

"INSANE!"

Clapping his hands together into a Kuji-In pose, a Mid-Childan circle appears under him, floating up off the ground and spinning slowly around his ankles. His hair starts to flutter as magic rushes up around him and a faint blue nimbus gathers into him. Then all six of those knife-like drones unsheathe themselves, and as he opens his eyes, he breaks the handsign and points at HANNAH!

    << SIX BLADE SEAL. SPIDER. >>

Unfortunately, his Device has not yet gotten enough 'control' to be able to actually make peace in this situation...

Which is a problem because now those Blades are flying at Hannah and Lyra, moving like wasps as they begin firing not Barrets... but web-like manathreads! They stick. To the ground, to trees, to debris, to Hannah and Lyra alike if they are not able to evade. The point of the assault seems to be to either bind the pair down or trap them inside a fast-growing barrier of thin and flexible semi-solid magic energy!

Hannah Steiner has posed:
A single brow rises upon Hannah's noble face! It even grows above her glasses as she's called a mad-mahou!

Grin.

A hand goes to her chest, and she bows in that dramatic, Noble way that so many of the Steiner upper crust seem to carry. And she's at the Height of such things, letting the insult fall off of her as if Koji is...complimenting her?

She laughs warmly! "HARDLY mein freund! You clearly know nothing of us! Ask your Device just what....ACHT!"

Hannah finds herself bound in a way she's never even conceived of! Everywhere, all at once, the world is...this clasping multitude of so many manathreads in pure Mid-Childan genius-treachery that she's at once wanting to call Koji and his Partner Honorless Curs...and yet finds the unique sensation of being taken so plainly off-guard alongside Lyra is a novelty that drives out the arrogance and boredom of so much training, perfection, and all that money and power can grand one!

Her glasses fall off of her face, her Bowler is in the wind, and her lightless eyes point in shock towards the last sound of Koji's voice.

Blauer Greif audibly lets out several pings. The Ancient Belkan Device is laughing openly, as her memory recalls another Wielder, and this particular spell. Somewhere...SOMEWHERE!

Hannah struggles, and tries to ignore the frankly worrying behaviour of Blauer Greif! "Und what is this!? Let...us...GO!" Comes Hannah scowling!

"Und what is the matter Blauer Greif!? Do you actually know these...NEVERMIND!"

Oh yes, Hannah is Annoyed (tm).

Can a Belkan Device /wink/? She surely is at Hanzo, if not Koji or Hannah. It seems she's willing to let their mutual wielders Learn with each other.

<Fluss: Aufhellen>

Suddenly those constrictly mana-threads are as light as...well, even lighter than thread, and the Belkan Noble begins to slash, stab, and cut at the many manathreads around her in indignant rage! She spits out a bit of all that spidery-thread from her mouth, face flushed, and teeth gritting.

"Impressive, und yet I find meinself irritated!" Okay maybe she's losing her initial worry, just giving in to the Joy of Magical Combat! Finally she catches the head of her Device in a fist, and then Gravity surrounds her arm. Muscles flex, and she's rushing forward quickly for Koji!

No subtlety here, this is just a Cane-Punch straight towards the young man's jaw with the full force of Noble Anger even as Blauer Greif happily sends renewed, Politic greetings as her old Core finally realizes this is indeed an old friend rather than an Enemy.

Her House's penchant for encouraging duels has her notably not enlightening either Hanzo's new wielder or her own new young charge to that fact! Crazy old bird, this Belkan Device!

Koji Silvia has posed:
This is the classic duel of opposing sides. Power versus Speed. Specialty versus Versatility. Stubborn nobility versus enlightened peasantry.

Well, that last one might not be all that correct, but lineage becomes a murky thing with Parents From Space.

Hannah's hammerblow strike is dodged by the young man not by magic. He braces himself, shifts his back foot so his weight is forward, and just as that jaw-shattering blow is coming in off the came, he spins like a matador!

One hand reaches out into the air, and a Blade flies into it, the energy edge igniting hard and he goes to swing for the back of her neck!

"Lights Out."

Someone has told him enough to make him aware it doesn't matter where he hits, because the Device's Knight Armor will absorb MOST of it.

Blauer's rather animated amusement is met with a stoic silence of the veteran Device.

But it's that quietness of a heavy sigh. Resignation just hangs there. Resignation and a lingering sense of agreement. Let these two just get whatever this is out of their systems before trying to restore order. Users will be Users. But one thing is coming clear to the Belkan Device User. He is a novice, but skilled, and someone has trained him in the fundamentals of Strike Arts, which he as adapted into knife fighting!

Hannah Steiner has posed:
With her blow escaped so deftly? As time goes on, Hannah feels her initial rage and worry lighten. Her Device isn't blaring warning signs or couching her on how to best conceal her House Name from this irritating wasp of a Mid-Childan! No. She's laughing!?

It should be worrying. Instead, Hannah finds it freeing. She can fully appreciate the foe in front of her without guilt or politics.

This feels like a duel of Honor. And one done in the best of circumstances!

Hannah doesn't bother to dodge the blow she feels and hears coming! Lyra barks out firmly! Even as that Blade impacts into the back of her neck? First a Gravitic Shield forms, to ensure flesh won't be ruined. But it's a light thing. Blauer Greif is testing both Old Friend and Current Wielder at once!

Spittle flies out, and suddenly Hannah's not-insignificant neck-muscles flex with the blow. That wisdom proves true. She ducks down, but doesn't fall to a knee, toes audibly popping in her heels to prevent such an embarrassment! The blow glances off painfully! She coughs, and staggers, right back up with a manic grin!

"I!!!!" A sucked in breath!

"Refuse, mein freund!" Even as she shakes out her mane of pure blonde, now freed from the confines of haberdashery and tasteful Space German Gold Ties!

Her neck throbs painfully. The Old Bird pings Hanzo in agreement.

Were they both young once? Emotions both warm and sad for those fallen from these brief sparks called Users may well be traded!

"I tire of your Sankt Kaiserless heathenry, Mid-Childan warrior!" The words are offered as an insult, but the tone? Hannah finds herself /liking/ Koji despite. Granted, she tends to like most people, but she's one to hold Belkan Devices above all. Especially if they're from Defiance Industries!

She pulls back her hand, and her legs end one-before-the-other in a wide stance mimicing a runner's and horse-stance simultaneously. Magic flares upon her cane, opposing gravitic forces causing the nearby trees, scrubs, and brush to be ripped away from both herself and her new compatriot in Device Arms! A careful, blue-black flurry of magical energy so typical of a Belkan! Concentrated, blunt, and apocalyptic in nature as she forms that strange lance of gravity about her! Her arm trembles. Her socket seems to shudder, and then warping chains of gravitic magic locks down her shoulder just so she doesn't hurt herself.

Hannah pauses, grins, and nods.

"Shall we?" She waits, just a bit, and then launches forward for Koji!

<Alpha-Streik>!

Blauer Greif laughs in that odd Ancient Belkan way, and offers an additional Shield to Hanzo, should her old freund accept it for both their User's sakes!

Koji Silvia has posed:
Hanzo is not made to wield power on the level that the young Belka Wielder is gathering now, so much so that even Koji ends up taking a half-step towards Hannah as she gathers her power.

At least, not in this array.

    << Young Master. Please Activate Alter Mode. >>

Koji blinks in surprise, and then holds one hand out as his other five Blades fly back towards him from their previous task of trying to bind down the pair. They line up with each other, glow, and in the way of MidChildian Magic everywhere they reform. Blades retract fully, portions thin and lengthen, and then all interlock until they become a single Blade-topped Spear with a heavy counterweight cylinder.

"OH This is more like it!"

Reaching to his hip, he draws out six of what look like... CARTRIDGES?! HE HAS CARTRIDGES?!

Selecting Wind, he takes all six and loads them into the butt of his spear quickly, each one adding more blue-green light along the circuits of the spear and towards the head that goes from the sedate ghostly blue into a bright blazing jade color.

Whirling the spear like a staff, he twists to take a step back, then on a final spin he lunges forwards and throws the whole thing towards Hannah and her Alpha Streik!

    << TAKEMIKAZUCHI. -VACUUM CANNON- >>

Wind gathers in an orb at the tip, trails of wind coursing around it as it is alteratingly drawn in and feathered away. It increases as the lance of energy courses towards Hannah and her own Belkan Power, until finally it BURSTS and the throw evolves into a railgun shot, giving the spear so much extra boost that the vacuum blowback from this first use actually pushes Koji back to where he hits a tree that decides to brake for him in the backblast!

Hannah Steiner has posed:
Hannah may not be able to /see/ that array, but by the Sankt she knows a good load of Cartridges when she smells them on the wind! Quite literally, in fact, and Lyra only hiss-growf's to confirm it!

An old Device like Blaur Greif clearly accepts Cartridges, but between a Coup and the Old Bird's tendency to push her User's towards self perfection? Hannah likely has more theoretical knowledge of those things than Koji has, but quickly shows the practical application that has been cut short from her!

"Acht! Second rate /imitations/!" Rages the young woman in frustration, and a bit of envy, as that spear comes for her! Gravity and Cartridge-Boosted Wind war, only for the Lance to wear out. It's meant to explode and rip things apart, and so the Vacuum Cannon proves a natural counter!

Every layer of gravity working in counter-force to be so much more destructive, makes the railgun-like shot hammer deeper and deeper into Hannah's own work. By about that third Cartridge-based explosion she realizes where it's all going. Straight to her chest!

Another layer of gravity binds to her arm. Dodging is pointless. So is trying to lure Koji's strike off course! Really, she can't help but admire the sheer long-ranged talent of a Mid-Childan Mage married with the power of a Cartridge to make a martial strike that much more potent!

Grin. She's the Countess Palatine-Apparent of the Great Belkan House of Steiner.

Sublety dies a swift death. Spear and the point of Cane meet, and she howls angrily! Even as the gravitic-chains keeping her arm in her socket finally break, she pushes straight into the blow! And even as both knees and her back tries to give out from sheer force, Lyra suddenly leaps in from on high, their combined brute-force sending the staff wildly careening far past their mutual initial blow!

And Hannah likewise skidding first towards, then /through/ several trees, only to stubbornly stay upright with deep breaths and her clock thoroughly cleaned!

"I!!!" Cough.

"Do not recall acquiring..." hack, shudder, wobble.

"Your name, herr!" Manages Hannah deliriously! And...happily???

Belkans are Weird, Koji.

Koji Silvia has posed:
He is just as wiped. The sheathes on his belt can only bring back ONE Single Blade, and numbed fingers cannot see to even wrap around the grip. Shaky legs push him back up to standing, but only with the assistance of the aforementioned tree, even to the point he HAS to draw his Blade to slam it into the tree just so he can balance enough to face you.

"I... I'm not big on giving out na-", Koji starts, but then HANZO Interrupts.

    << Master Designation: Koji Silvia. On the Honor of House Steiner, it is requested that this identity not be divulged. >>

Even with the mask, the gape in his expression can be seen. His Device is ratting him out.

Finally able to stand, he rubs at the back of his neck and looks away in a sort of embarrassed expression, "So uhh... sorry for calling you crazy. I really don't know anything about you... or your House... or this Uncle you keep talking about. I don't usually lose my cool like that. Are you... alright?"

Hannah Steiner has posed:
Hannah proceeds to huff, puff, and lean /very/ hard on both Device and the assistance of her dear Very Large Lizard. Much like with Setsuna's presence? Part of her delights in being found out. Even as she /worries/.

"Hah! By your own perspective mein freuend, you are entirely correct! Acht. Blauer Greif...an old Freund then?"

The Belkan Device merely lets out a flash of magic. And melts back into her advisory role without a 'word'.

"Herr Hanzo? Your terms are accepted! Assuming you are willing to keep secrets, herr Silvia! Speak naught the name of House Steiner, lest you be drawn into..."

Blauer Greif floats up, and thwacks Hannah on the back of the head! ACHT!

"OW!" Grit! "Too late. Right. I rightly suspect our Partners date back to the time of the Accords. I am fine. Und so are you, mostly. I think tea und warm hand towels upon the noggin are in order! Explainations, too." Comes Hannah a little more softly than usual, and offers her hand to her new friend!

Koji Silvia has posed:
Pulling the Blade out of the tree, Koji sheathes it as a second one appears behind it finally, fritzing and almost vanishing before reconstituting fully. He still seems kind of stunned by everything that's just happened, but he seems to shake it off and remember his manners.

He approaches and reaches out his hand to meet the shake, "It's... good to meet you, Miss Trager-san?"

He's kind of struggling with how to title her within the rigid structures of Japanese culture without drilling too deep into their own nobility. But his delicate and almost feminine hand has the firm clasp of his gymnast's grip, and he gives one short pump before adding, "Yeah... I could use some tea and a hot shower. How about we hold off on explanations for another time."

"So... how do we get out of here again?"

Hannah Steiner has posed:
WHAP!

That's the sound of a palm smacking to a Noble Forehead. Twitch! Twitch!

"How...do you have Cartridges und yet not understanden how to exit a Bar..."

Blauer Greif floats innocently. So innocently.

Consider one arm around Koji's shoulder. Why is the lightless girl glaring at her own Device somehow!? CLENCH!

Hannah's words are friendly to Koji alll the way back to Radiant Heart Academy, but how is she stomping around so angrily all the same!?