2081/Mental Gymnastics

Mental Gymnastics
Date of Scene:	19 November 2024
Location:	Plot Room 2
Synopsis:	Molly meets up with Koji and Rashmi; there's a much needed talk about devices, some ideas, and Starcrash talks smack about other devices.
Cast of Characters:	Molly Skyline, Koji Silvia, Rashmi Terios

---

Molly Skyline has posed:
It's late afternoon after classes are finished for the day, which means some students are on their way home while others are heading to their various clubs. Threading the scrimmage of students all walking in opposite directions is Molly, the purplenette with the round glasses keeping a tight grip on the strap of her backpack as she dodges people crossing her path, and the occasional flare up of unwanted attention.

"Nerd!"

Yeah well, highschool in Japan and hichschool in England have some similarities at least. Molly just rolls her eyes, reminds herself that that guy's greatest skill is throwing a ball while hers is deleting large buildings, and continues on her way.

Molly doesn't have any clubs meeting today, but her feet carry her to a particular club room anyway, as Rashmi texted her to do a few minutes earlier; and it's one of the largest rooms, owing to its requirements. The gymnastics club, a large space on the ground floor and full of equipment with none of it being crowded, isn't meeting today either; but it's where Rashmi told her to come and meet, so here she is, walking into the large and well lit space, entirely not dressed for anything athletic (still in school uniform afterall), and looking around herself at all the... stuff.

"Hey! Anyone... here?"

Koji Silvia has posed:
*Squeak*

*THUNK*

*Squea-Squeak*

*THUNK*

*FLUMP!*

Those sounds are coming from a set of parallel bars, where one Koji Silvia is currently going through some basic grabs and flips, the THUNK-sound from the bar each time he transitions. Hair bound up, sweat on his brow, and lacking his glasses, he's dressed in an RHA Athletics T-shirt and a pair of tight workout pants and honest-to-gosh ballet-style shoes.

What will be seen if a few steps are taken in is that he spins twice in full extension on the higher bar, stops-midair, turns, and does it in the reverse direction before going into a flying somersault and landing! He's clean enough that he looks like he's on one of the teams people see on television, like those that compete for the Olympics. But then he grabs a towel and a water-bottle, walking off the heavy mats and to where a laptop is sitting, finally speaking up by saying, "Club is out for the winter... if you're here about us clearing out the equipment, we still have the space until Sunday."

Without his glasses he can't see to clearly from his spot, so he fumbles for them close by where Hanzo, his device is, disguised as a sedate folding smartphone.

Rashmi Terios has posed:
Rashmi doesn't spend much time in the athletic parts of the Club building... for obvious reasons. When one spends one's nights fighting webcam youma or clown-faced onigiri monsters, one might assume that's all the workout one needs. Mileage, obviously, varies on such thinking, but for the redhead herself... yeah.

Which is why she's actually breathing a bit heavy as she jogs up behind Molly. "No... Hanzo-kun... It's... it's us. Rashmi and Molly? Remember, we were gonna meet up? Hooooo," she says, wiping at her brow with a jacket sleeve. "Also... there anyplace to sit...?"

Molly Skyline has posed:
Molly pauses, rooted in place until Rashmi catches up to her, and then she turns a prime shade of scarlet. "Err, yeah, uhm, I'm abolutely nowhere near athletic enough to do *this*, I'm proud of myself when I can do two push-ups and follow them up with a third one. And I'm not here about clearing out the room or anything either, I'm definitely not athletic enough for that."

The Purplenette unslings her backpack and unceremoniously dumps it beside the door -- and then thinks better of that. "Store backpack," she instructs, holding it back up until it basically just vanishes. "Yeah that's not gonna stop being awesome anytime soon."

She grins, and bobs her head, stepping to the side to make space for Rashmi. "Yeah, that's... Well I mean you know Rashmi, I'm Molly, I'm pretty sure we've been in a couple battles on the same side -- like, uhh, the other night, and I'm extremely worried about ALoisia -- but I don't think we've ever actually *met*.

Koji Silvia has posed:
Glasses on, Koji's face goes 'Oh' at the two girls in the otherwise empty space, and he stands up from his lotus position at his laptop on the mat, and then reaches over to a gym bag to take out a couple Pocari drinks. kicking a couple wedge mats over close by where his computer set up, he holds out bottles to both of the girls, "Sorry! Here, you can sit on these... and... I kinda forgot. Also... it's not Hanzo. At least not right-here-now. It's Koji Silvia."

He smiles and then as the reflection goes from bottom to top on his glasses, it fades a little and he adds, "Aloisia isn't a problem we can... really do anything about right now. If she's Belkan, then it doesn't matter how powerful that thing is... they're a stubborn people."

Motioning for you both to come closer, "Though, Rashmi said you needed help with your Device? I mean... short of the actual TSAB agents here, I've got a lot experience, especially with working with Devices that aren't acting right... so I'm not sure what I might be able to do... but I'm happy to try."

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"Yeah," Rashmi says around a sigh... well, two. One to push out a little more exhaustion, the other just at the general state of Aloisia. "Those gems just whooshed out way before, so... I'm gonna put a note up in the Shed about the whole mess," she says, heading over to the indicated mat, and accepting a Pocari Sweat with a grateful bob of a bow.

"The problem with Starcrash is... Well I mean the *really* short of it is, Starcrash was *in the middle of being repaired* when the Arthras hit whatever it is surrounding Earth and blew up. So like, a lot of modules you and I would take for granted, just got... scattered."

Molly Skyline has posed:
"Thanks!" Molly accepts a drink, and settles down on the third mat. She oohs, "Electrolytes," Looking at the side of the bottle, before she unscrews the top and has a drink.

"Yeah, so... I mean I seem to be doing okay so far, Starcrash can definitely dish out some damage even with I don't know how many modules missing, or what those modules even *are*. ...Although I'm betting the one Rashmi-chan and I almost recovered the other day but didn't is probably important, and it's probably gonna matter sometime soon. Anyway!"

Molly glances over her shoulder at the door to make sure it's closed, before she plucks her solitaire earing off her earlobe, reconfigures Starcrash into staff form, and sets her device down in front of her. "Rashmi-chan also had a really, really good idea the other day; I was on about making... I mean basically more explosions and stuff that I could use at close range, and she suggested working on an emergency shield instead, and Aloisia even hooked us up with an emitter, before..." she trails off. "Uhm, yeah, before things happened."

Koji Silvia has posed:
Blowing out a breath then, Koji closes his laptop with two fingers, and then picks up Hanzo from where it's sitting. He comes over and after a moment, the phone begins to glow and changes form into a spearpoint Kunai blade connected to a braided rope, and a ring-weight on the end. That gets set down next to Star Crash, and he nods once, "Alright... so let's get a new perspective on this, Miss Molly. Would you please request that Starcrash sent his current system schematics to Hanzo?"

Going crosslegged on the mat in front of the pair, he starts taking off the slim shoes he's wearing, and then tosses them over towards his bag, "When I inherited Hanzo... I did not know at the time, that he was unstable. There was an unregulated Cartridge System that was installed in him that was overloading parts of him, and causing damage that he could not damage. Since he's an Intelligent Device... he was building around it. When he finally couldn't function anymore, I turned to Hannah... who diligently and as delicately as she could, rebuilt him with what she had. She managed to bring him back to baseline. He no longer has the experience data he had, or the extra programming he created to make his use of my power more efficient."

He pauses, and looks back and forth between the two girls, "Sorry... I'm probably telling you stuff you don't need to know. But what's important is that these Intelligent Devices continually evolve and WANT to evolve... they work to ensure they work better and better with their chosen Master. Depending on how long you've had Star Crash, you must have noticed that it's gotten easier to cast and you're able to cast more often?"

Rashmi Terios has posed:
Rashmi nods here and there through Koji's explanation, sipping at her drink and just letting the boy tell his story. And all of it is true, in her own experience, which makes it yet more important to hear.

"What we *did* get back includes the spell-creation suite," she pipes up, finally. "And Molly-chan's been making some seriously good use of it so far, but... yeah. His entire grimoire is full of holes that are pretty sure they're not holes, and we have to *find* them to put the holes back. Like... right now they can't even talk telepathically, for example."

Molly Skyline has posed:
"Yeah, I'm willing to bet that talking telepathically with Starcrash would be amazing," Molly agrees. "I can do telepathic communication with other people, but only when one of them is providing it -- like, I could probably do the brain-talk to either of you, but only because your devices have that function."

The purplenette shakes her head at Koji, "No no, I really appreciate the context. I've got my device, and Rashmi's told me some of what she's been able to do with Nicomacea -- and I've seen a lot -- but I'm not super familiar with any other devices or their quirks past that. Getting more context is *great*." She looks down, and gazes at Starcrash for a moment, where he sits beside Hanzo. "Yeah, okay. Starcrash, could you share your current schematics with Hanzo?"

<< AFFIRMATIVE. SCHEMATICS SHARED >>

"Thank you!" Molly pauses, and bobs her head once more. "And yeah, it's been getting easier to cast all the time. Especially when I do Stellar Convergence -- my biggest spell -- that used to just drain me, but now I feel like if I really, *really* squeezed, I might be able to get two off in a day, if I had a bucket of chicken in between."

Koji Silvia has posed:
Stretching out his legs a moment, Koji does a martial artist's kip-up and is on his feet as he says, "Alright... Hanzo, display Starcrash's system schematic. Color code blue for stable systems and link, yellow for damaged but usable links, red for unusable, and white for missing."

    << Yes, Master. >>

As the display begins to resolve, he then tilts his head and grins.

"Okay, so first off... the communication issue is easy to fix. Ask Starcrash to access the telepathic system that Devices use to connect and communicate with us and others. Once it's on... ask Starcrash to designate itself as an active user for that system. Problem solved. He just uses what he already has to talk to you in a way you can already use."

Rashmi Terios has posed:
There's a drawback to learning the intricacies of Device hardware. That being, it becomes *incredibly easy* to fall into the trap of thinking that hardware problems need hardware solutions. As Koji enumerates a fairly simple workaround, Rashmi pauses, screws the cap onto her bottle, carefully sets it aside, then just... drops her head into her hands.

"I have been working," she begins, "on a bypass. For *three weeks.* But *everything I modeled* would mean I'd have to spend three times as much time digging it back out when the module was found."

Drawing in a long, deep breath, she lets her hands fall, and raises her head to turn a beaming smile on Koji. "That is *so much better,* thank you!"

Molly Skyline has posed:
Molly looks back and forth between Koji and Rashmi. "...Alright, so you do hardware, and you do software," she observes, and blushes softly. "That's awesome. ...All I do is blow stuff up. But! In a few years, when either of you have your first car, definitely come see me at my Mom's shop and I promise I will make it faster for you, because I'll know how by then."

The purplenette tosses a lopsided and very grateful grin in Rashmi's direction. "And, you have *no idea* how grateful I am for your efforts so far. Every time I toss off Stellar Convergence, that's all because of you, honestly." She looks back down at her device, and clasps her hands. "Alright, Starcrash... please access the telepathic system, for connecting to other devices and users?"

<< AFFIRMATIVE >>

"Okay, and now, please designate yourself as an active user for the system?"

Molly waits for a moment, when there is no immediate response. Her brow knits, and she leans forward with a slow build of concern. "...Starcrash?"

<< WHY SHOULD I? >>

"...Alright, where did *that* come from?"

Koji Silvia has posed:
Rubbing the back of his neck on that one, Koji tilts his head towards Rashmi and then gives a little shrug before he says, "Actually, I mostly work on our level of tech, but I do a lot of kitbashing and rebuilds of Earth based electronics. I don't really know much about Midchildian or Belkan magical constructs... software. But I do have a sort of 'Make do with what you have' mentality."

He then goes back to looking at the diagram while not touching what just happened with a Device and it's User. Some things are best left to that relationship, "So Rashmi... If this display is right... and this is your part to know not mine... Starcrash has the basic Barrier Jacket, and a LOT of offensive modules... but... where's the Shields?"

He motions, and the hologram becomes smaller, and a side-by-side of Hanzo and Starcrash is shown. By comparison it's a lot more complete, but there's far less offensive kit. In fact, the only one that anyone can see right now is for Barrets and Binds, but those have a lot of 'connections' to the larger 'Disruptor' system.

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"That's one of the missing ones," Rashmi sighs. "There's the basic Round Shield, and Molly-chan's iterated on that in an interesting way; she found a way to *refract* incoming magic, up to a certain point. The only problem is aiming, but that's where she came up with *another* awesome idea. Show him, Molly-chan?"

Rashmi is *quite* pleased, apparently; Molly's advancement, especially in light of her relative handicap, is an endless source of happiness for the red-headed support mage.

Molly Skyline has posed:
Molly slow-blinks, looking down at Starcrash. "Well... that's never happened before," she protests, "Like... Starcrash, what's gotten into you? Did I do something wrong?" From the staff, silence. "You do know it's not like I use any other devices, right? And I'm not going to? And I can't?" Silence, still, from the staff. "Could you like... stop being weird in front of my friends?"

<< I SEE NO REASON TO CONNECT WITH LESSER DEV-- >>

"STARCRASH!" Molly's voice resonates with equal parts shock and indignation. She sputters, going as red enough in the face to make cherries jealous of her complexion, "I don't-- What do you *mean* 'lesser devices'?! Actually no, don't answer that, you're pretty damn good at offensive magics and that can't be argued, but unless you can also boost another magic user's abilities like Nicomacea can or make me practically invincible like Doppelwand does for Aloisia? And yes, you're good at manouverability, but I'm going to bet Hanzo has you beat there too."

Starcrash is silent.

Molly's eyes narrow.

<< CONNECTING TO NETWORK >>

Molly breaches out, and shakes her head. "Does... You know what, nevermind." Since Rashmi's request has been hanging, Molly gulps down some of her drink and bounces to her feet, changing into her barrier jacket as she rises. "Check this out." A holographic display appears in front of her face; it's hard to read from the side that she isn't on, but it very clearly has Rashmi and Koji both outlined in blue, with little tags giving their names, little :D faces, along with their speed and trajectories (both currently zero).

"Dunno if there's a limit to how many targets I can track, but if there is, I haven't hit it yet."

Koji Silvia has posed:
Koji blinks at this as he sees what Molly is doing and then gets that cat-like tilt to his head, "So... instead of you trying to block an attack, you're trying to offensively deflect it... by..."

He suddenly stops and goes over to sit down next to Rashmi really quick and then says, "Molly hold on... I think I know how to help that too, but I need to consult with the ones who know more about raw spell design than I do... but I promise... I think this will help and it will fall right into your wheelhouse."

Taking advantage of all the display trickery that comes with being the wielder of Hanzo, and using things that he knows Rashmi is familiar with, he begins just direct telepath communication since it's faster.

    <<I'm gonna skip the explanation of how I know any of this... but let's just say you can thank Usagi, her gaming habits, and her dragging me along on her online adventures. I'm going to throw you a quick and dirty spell diagram and I want to see if you think this will work.>>

For Rashmi's eyes alone for the moment, in the air is a standard Barret magical diagram. The most off-the-shelf Midchildian offensive spell there is. But then he shrinks the circle down, copies it, and makes six of them. Next comes a larger control circle, usually used for multi-strikes and layered shields. The six are placed inside of the larger circle now. The image draws back and he simulates a Barret being fired... the circle he created begins to spin, and throws out a stream of micro-Barrets towards the incoming attack... and per the simulation it gets knocked off course and then destroyed. It takes about 40 shots from the spinning diagram, however, per what he puts up.

Basically... a spell CIWS.

He then speaks up, "Well? Could it work for her?"

And as if to emphasize the ability to get this off the ground, he materializes an empty TSAB memory module from his own Storage, one of the ones he kept from his raid on the Arthra debris months ago.

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"...Magical anti-missile batteries," Rashmi murmurs, tilting her head. "That... is an *excellent* idea too! My suggestion was to use the battle visor to help her figure out trajectories, but some things you *just do not want* to block; even in a worst case, this might degrade an incoming attack enough to *make* it blockable..."

Eyebrows rise, and she looks up at Molly. "New attitude or no, this *might* be up Starcrash's alley, if he's willing to lower his remaining data cores to sully them by converting our unworthy data."

By the tone of her voice, Rashmi is kidding... mostly. Something about Starcrash's newfound teenager mode seems to be grating on her nerves, but, patience and understanding are winning the day.

Molly Skyline has posed:
Molly looks down at Stacrash, as she lowers herself back down to a sitting position, though she remains in her devilish-looking barrier jacket for the moment. Well, definitely devil-inspired. Which begs the question; is Starcrash's barrier jacket always like that, or is it because Molly just really likes tieflings?

"Alright, Starcrash," she asks, adopting an exageratedly sing-song voice, that indicates the nest question has exactly one correct answer. "Would you like a new toy to play with? If so, please make available your data cores to Rashmi, Koji, and their devices, Hanzo and Nicomacea."

There follows a somewhat lengthier pause than there might normally have been.

<< AFFIRMATIVE. DATA STORAGE AVAILABLE >>

"*Thank you*." Molly nods her head approvingly, and then, only then, permits herself to let out the high-pitched wheeeeee of teenage girl excitement. "Anti-missile batteries?! Something sitting on my shoulder going Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr while there's incoming magic that would otherwise make me do my best donut impersonation, complete with a hole in the middle? I mean that'd be fantastic. Between that and Rashmi-chan's emergency shield I'll have never been so safe in my entire life."

Koji Silvia has posed:
    "Here."

He passes the Data Storage item over to Molly, "This allows you to store and transfer information physically, from one Device to another. This will let you take your own ideas and put them someplace where you can give them to someone safely. I once used one of these to pass over a basic Scanning spell to another rookie Devicer."

With that said, he swipes in the air and all of the images vanish away, "You're still going to want Shields eventually. I've got an idea for it that will take Rashmi to really make work but... same principle, we work with what you have and worry about the official stuff later."

It's then that he looks down at Hanzo and then picks up the Device and asks, "One last thing... Molly. What do you do for your Device? Besides using him to fight and fly around? Do you take him places with you? If he has an interest do you leave him out to watch TV, or connect to the 'net? They're thinking machines, probably as smart as we are. Hanzo here... he likes watching old movies. So I'll let him hook up to streaming while I'm doing homework and he's been on a big Kurosawa kick lately. But he watches them as intended, and doesn't just download them. He even likes to rework and project movies in 3D. It made seeing Godzilla a whole new experience when you're sitting in the middle of Tokyo."

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"Nicomachea's just happy to be useful most of the time," Rashmi admits. "But he seems to *really* like movie night with the roommates, when he gets to be the screen and sound bar all at once. But he's been pretty invaluable helping me with my Meister projects too, so for an AI I guess you could say he's getting a nice, balanced diet."

Reopening her bottle, Rashmi takes a sip, and blinks. "Oh, right. There's gonna be some conversion involved, Molly-chan. Chrono has no idea why, but, whatever screwy thing allows for all this magic on one world kind of... Ended the universal data format for Devices. It's like Wizards in DnD, y'know? You can't just use someone else's spellbook straight."

Look, when you're talking to a nerd, you use nerd talk to get concepts across.

Koji Silvia has posed:
The words come out unbidden from Koji as he looks almost surprised, "People in Japan play D&D? Sorry... I... never got into the book-games. Never enough friends."

Molly Skyline has posed:
Molly's brow furrows, and she uhms softly. "I, uhh... Okay honestly I've just been carrying Starcrash with me pretty much all the time, ever since I found him and he helped me turn the tables on a monster that would totally have eaten me? It's just." She looks back down. "I... can't say that he's ever expressed any interests to me. But I mean, that'd be a pretty... reasonable reason for him to be cheesed off, if his thinking needs haven't been getting met."

She clasps her hands in her lap, and takes a deep breath. "Alright. How about this. Koji-kun is going to help us make the magic device equivalent of an AMS system from Battletech, and Rashmi-chan is going to help us make a mini-cannister, like hers, but for an emergency shield. That should help us stay well protected until we can find your defense module. ...And after that, I *promise* I will spend the rest of this evening taking a special interest, in your interests, okay?"

<< AFFIRMATIVE. ACCEPTABLE TERMS >>

"...Alright then! Thank you, Starcrash. So, what do I have to do?" She pauses, and immediately brights up considerably, "I *love* D&D, it's my favorite game to play by far. You should definitely try it!"

Koji Silvia has posed:
Koji rubs the back of his neck and then looks away, "I mean... I suppose I could sometime, but I'd have to get all the stuff to learn the rules, and figure out how to play, so I'm not bogging you down. It took me a couple weeks to learn how to play Call of Duty, but then Usagi doesn't let me play how I want, because she calls me a spawncamper. I don't want to... well... get in the way of any of your friends having fun because I'd be always asking about rules... or worse. I know I sometimes tell people what to do when I shouldn't."

But then he looks back up, and then looks around, "I need to get the cleaning done in here tonight, and then we should go someplace to eat and work on the stuff you're talking about. My roommate is moved out, and as long as I leave the door propped, I can have girls in. Do you two want ramen?"

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"Enough that apparently Capcom made a whole couple of arcade games back in my dad's day," Rashmi says with a grin. "And I know Molly-chan has her friends in England she plays with, and... hm. Setsuchan has, like, *all* the dice, and some are ridiculously fancy, so she probably does. I *know* there's a whole club for it, and Amy-chan was talking about some kinda esoteric games before... Bow-kun's most of the way there with his miniatures, but those are for explainers..."

Finding the winding end of her rogue train of thought, she shakes her head. "I've never played either, Koji-kun, but I'd be happy to try sometime! And it's okay; everyone's got their own stuff to navigate, once we get in sync it'd be nothing but fun!"

When Koji offers the use of his dorm, Rashmi bobs her head, getting up to her feet and stretching her arms up, rising on tiptoes. "Yeah... that sounds like a good idea, but only as long as we get to help you clean, right? It's just not fair otherwise."

Molly Skyline has posed:
Molly holds up a hand. "OKay, Koji-kun. So here's the thing, to address your first concern; whenever we D&D players get a newbie in our midst, I promise you, we *love it*. Nothing brings us greater joy than sharing the hobby with someone new, and if you ask a hundred question, you'll get at *least* a hundred answers. Probably somewhere over a hundred and twenty, anyway. And nobody plays 'perfect' either, so... I mean if you do sometimes tell other people what to do, as long as you do it in character, that's generally fine too. If your character has an argument with mine, that's just... part of the game."

Molly finally transforms back out of her barrier jacket, and adjusts her skirt around herself once it reappears. "Okay tell you what, If you two want... I'll DM a game, and maybe we can get one or two other people for it? 'Cause I *know* I'd love Rashmi-chan to get to try, too."

While she's making the offer she picks up Starcrash, shifting him back into being an earring and returning him to her earlobe. "I think I can definitely help you get the cleaning done here tonight, before we go to your room in the dorms? And yeah, I'd love Ramen -- I know a great place to order from too." She gives Rashmi a sideways, mischievous look. "That and Mom got a drone to do deliveries with and I know she's super nervous about it, so getting her to delivery to us would be cool for her, too."

Koji Silvia has posed:
    "Order... in..."

Koji's eyebrow twitches a little, and a flat-line appear on his mouth, "No one orders in Ramen in my room. I will make you some, and you will change your mind about half the places you go to. Sure, I start with packaged, but when I'm -DONE- you'll be seeing stars." With that he goes over and puts his laptop in his gym bag, ties his hair back again, and then as the light covers his eyes under his glasses, he points at the girls, "Cleaning supplies are in the closet on the far left. You two get the broom and sweep the exposed areas and then run a quick sponge along the floor. I'll get all the mats put up."

He rolls up a non-existent sleeve and fistpumps before marching off to begin folding all the floor mats and putting them against the wall!

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"Her mom owns the Okujoo Ramen place, down in Pikarigaoka," Rashmi laughs. "Her other mom runs the auto shop on its ground floor. Sorry, it's reflex. but, challenge accepted! Now I *need* to see this dorm-ramen sorcery!"

And as Koji assigns tasks, Rashmi stands briefly at attention, and with a "Ryokai!" gets to work with a will.