2216/Mahou 101: Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha

Mahou 101: Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
Date of Scene:	09 January 2025
Location:	The Shed
Synopsis:	Devices are put to Entrapta's test! Not as deeply as the others were, but perhaps in a better way really. Because this time, they do it together!
Cast of Characters:	281, Rashmi Terios
Tinyplot:	Mahou 101

---

Entrapta (281) has posed:
Entrapta has cartoons on, in the background. It's something odd, a weird history lesson of sorts, while she works. "Pass me the flux," she says, and the roomba rolls across the table. It bumps a roll of flux closer to Entrapta, and she smiles behind her mask.

Just some random piece of electronics, she's working on upgrading or fixing or learning about, one of those things most likely, but she's definitely thrown herself into the technology of the world.

Earth. A mix of cultures, she's still not comfortable with. Christmas just passed, and she mostly ignored it. It gave her more time to get stuff done. Quiet time.

Right now? She's not expecting anyone to come out to play, though there's always a possibility. "We're okay, right Emily?" The roomba bumps her hand, on the table she's working on. Peaceful time to work.

Then, her stomach rumbles. Entrapta ignores it, but her phone sends out a message. Penelope calling, Entrapta is ignoring her body's needs again. Can you send someone? She has a few contacts stored. Good ones, people that matter. And that care.

Rashmi Terios has posed:
About five minutes after the ignored rumble, the Shed door opens, and Rashmi bops in with a drinks tray in one hand, and a fairly well-laden cloth shopping bag in the other. "Entrapta-chan!" she chirps, grinning. "I heard you were hungry! Also I have a treat for you; Chrono gave me a new project, and it's... *definitely* gonna teach you a lot about Devices if you want to sit in. Also, did you have any more questions about Devices, specifically?"

The food is lugged to a desk near her kohai, and various takeout containers arranged atop.

It looks, to anyone who'd know, like Rashmi just did a sweep of the street-food stall just outside of campus; grilled meats divested of their skewers, takoyaki, vegetable croquettes (pre-sliced, to better serve Entrapta's one-food, one-bite meal philosophy), and two cups of warm, fragrant tea. A straw is poked into one of the cups, and nudged Entrapta's way.

"But according to Penelope-chan, you need food first. So here y'go!"

Entrapta (281) has posed:
Creeeeeeak?

That's the sound of Entrapta raising her welding mask. Slowly, looking up from her work, because you have to stop working when people arrive. Right? Right. Oh, I know this person! "Rashmi?" She turns a look upon Penelope, you traitor.

But, can't stay mad. She likes Rashmi. Also, research! "I...aaactually do!" she says, as she sets her tools down. And turns them off. So she won't burn the shed down. Nice of her.

Entrapta comes out from her table, the work looking like..well, like work..and comes over with a smile and an exposed face. Taking osmething small to pop into her mouth, she smiles at Rashmi and then says, "I probably should take a break anyway. And I need to get your data on record properly, I wasn't recording last time."

Hm. This is tasty! She eats another, then motions to a chair with a grin. Or with her hand, one of those two. "Do you mind going over some things we've already covered, just in case?"

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"Of course!" Rashmi says, sliding into the indicated chair, then blinks. "Oop... right, one sec."

And her hand comes up to the sunburst charm around her neck, and -- somehow -- she extracts what looks like an incredibly technologically advanced... cavalry lance. Which is just plunked down to lean against the nearby furniture. "So! Where did you want to start!"

How evil, Rashmi, bringing such a toy out with zero comment and moving to *something else.* Just the worst.

Entrapta (281) has posed:
Entrapta's mouth goes dry. There's a script to these interviews, and she was getting good at them! But...that thing looks really fascinating, and she so wants it. She wants to take it apart, or fix it, and she was not tracking her original goals quite bang-on.

Eyes coming back up, she says, "How...about...tell me about that?" OKAY, I have no impulse control! Sheesh! "What is it? Is it one of your...No!" She slaps her cheeks, then focuses.

"Decices! I mean, devices! Here, I'll just do it." She pauses, calling up in her memory.

"Honestly Amy-chan, if I had anything but *guesses* then I'd have a cure for Dark Energy by next month...no, that's not the right bit. Um.."

"There it is. '"A Device will find a resonance with a person who has a particular kind of Linker Core -- and honestly Devices themselves can't really say why -- and if that person registers with the Device, they become its Master."' You said that. Can you explain, maybe?"

Okay, her eyes are totally on the new toy, but she's trying!

Rashmi Terios has posed:
Rashmi cannot help but grin as Entrapta syncretizes *both* meanings of recall, and plays back Rashmi's part of that old coversation. "So okay," she says, arranging a selection of food onto her own napkin. "Let's start with Linker Cores. They're a kind of organ, that collects ambient mana and stores it, to circulate through the body. ...Note that this is all science according to the worlds that Devices *come from,* and I have a suspicion that Linker Cores are known by different terms with other kinds of magic, all talking about the same thing."

Pausing to sip her tea, she clears her throat. "Anyway... Devices tap into the mana stored in a Linker Core to power magic."

Glancing back at the lance, Rashmi grins even wider, then turns back to Entrapta. "*That* I will talk about when I cover different *kinds* of Devices."

Entrapta (281) has posed:
Looking up from the new toy, Entrapta does a 'what, you were talking?' moment. She looks left, then right, then reviews what was said in her own memory core. We call them brains. Zombies love them, I hear. "Got it. That meshes with m observations," she says, as she tries to find some observations that she's had to mesh with.

Hey, she's been busy! Also, not perfect.

"Your Barrier Jacket simulates clothing by tapping into that, which is more accurately some form of barrier itself with a simulation system involved." She isn't eating, go figure. All that food, going to waste. "Would you mind bringing it up? I have more collection equipment this time, I can get information from the patterns used now than before."

For reference, Amy Faust and Rashmi had shown up, yes. And shown off their transformations. But this was before Entrapta was really ready to start her research. It's still good data though.

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"Absolutely," Rashmi chuckles, tucking a chunk of barbecued eel into her mouth before sliding out of her chair, removing the little sunburst-shaped charm from the cord around her neck. "Nicomachea: Set Up!"

    << *BONG!* >> << COMMAND INPUT EXECUTE >>

Rashmi is then enveloped in a bubble of golden, faceted light, which shatters to reveal her Barrier Jacket, and Nicomachea's giant armored book form, cradled in one arm.

"Specifically," she says, "it's like a forcefield that simulates clothing, but also augments my strength. So I'd have trouble picking up a person normally, but my Barrier Jacket allows me to do so pretty easily."

Entrapta (281) has posed:
"The word forcefield is sufficiently vague as to have no scientific meaning," Entrapta says distractedly as she looks at the data on wavelengths that comes up on her screen. "But I'm getting into it. There's a magnetic pulse involved, and ...something. I'll be able to say more later."

So this at least has the power to draw her away from OOH SHINY NEW THING! Information and data. But she isn't really watching, so much as analyzing. "How strong would you say that you are? No, that's not important. Where does it all come from?"

She pauses, then holds up a hand. "I'm absolutely desperate to ask about that new toy you brought in, but I'm trying to stay on topic as long as possible. It's hard!"

Rashmi Terios has posed:
Obligingly, Rashmi lets Nicomachea fall open, and a holographic screen blips into existence over the pages. "I'm sure a Device Mage whose specialty was medicine would be able to give you exact answers to that one, but personally? All I know is the Linker Core sits... somewhere int he body, and the Device taps into the energy to power spells. Each Device has a different array of spells loaded in, and they work a lot like computer programs; they involve a lot of extra-dimensional math, which I just could not do without Nicomachea doing most of the actual calculating for me; it's a benefit of having an Inteligent Device. My boyfriend, Chrono, grew up in the worlds Devices come from, and he can actually do the math without the help; his Device isn't intelligent at all."

At the admission, Rashmi chuckles. "And I promise I'll tell you about it and where it came from. ...Unless that's the question you meant to ask, where *Devices* come from?"

Entrapta (281) has posed:
Entrapta pauses. Then she answers, after having a moment. "No, it's all good information. I didn't think to ask about medical issues but I really should add that to my investigation, it could allow for me to help with injuries in the future if a person of some group needed it." She seems quite serious about that, taking the data as important and worthy. Very worthy.

"I was asking historically though. Nicomachea is so advanced, he has to have an advanced culture behind him. Is there much information known? I know that some groups have informed me about their lack of actual background before signing up for their particular area of magical support."

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"Hooo," Rashmi says, letting the book float over her shoulder as she sits back down. "Thousands of years of history, in fact... Not all of which I know, sadly. But what I do know... The Time-Space Administration Bureau administers at least a hundred different worlds, across several dimensions. Its capital is Mid-Childa, which also generated the magical standard used on most of those worlds. A thousand or so years ago, they fought a war with a different magical star nation, the Belkan Empire. Mid-Childa won the war, and the Belkan Empire was folded into the TSAB. But where Mid-Childan magic is more concerned with longer-ranged magic as a general rule, Belkan Devices..."

She gestures back at the lance.

"They're a warrior culture, so their magic is a lot more concerned with close combat. That right there is... *most* of a Belkan Device, it's just missing the core that holds all the programming."

Entrapta (281) has posed:
The look on Entrapta's face is torn. She loves history, but only so much as it educates her on technology. So listening to this gives her something to work with, but not enough. "If there's a writeup of that anywhere, I can review it for important facts," she says with a half-smile.

It's almost with a visible sigh that she's directed to the actual object that she's been shown, indirectly thus far. "I want to touch it," she mumbles to herself. Then, more loudly, "Can I touch it?" Well, I never said that Entrapta had an inside voice.

"The core programming is missing? That's disappointing, but there's a lot you can learn from a society's hardware. Why do you have it? I have so many questions. Why is the core missing? Do you know where it went? Can we adapt anything to simulate a core? What kind of programming does it use?"

Okay, now she's clearly engaged with the topic!

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"I'll ask Chrono," Rashmi says, bobbing her head. "And yes, you can touch it if you like! Just, obviously, try not to swing it around, it's heavy."

With permission given, she picks at her lunch, sorting Entrapta's questions to answer in order. "The core programming and the hardware that *stores* it is missing, yeah. I sort of... picked it up from a fight against a Devicer problem a few days ago, I'll explain more in a sec. The core's missing because it was never installed, it came from a small ship that was carrying a few Devices as... I think for resupply purposes? And as far as i can tell there's no way to simulate a Device Core without the equipment and materials necessary to properly fabricate one... which doesn't exist on Earth. All the parts I've been able to source, came from fallen chunks of a starship that managed to explode in *time* as well as in space. And to the last one... Nicomachea? Could you display the code for your Storage function?"

Obligingly, the screen above the books pages begins to display text... dense, with strange symbology, that scrolls and scrolls and scrolls and scrolls.

"Thaaaaaaat's the first few dozen pages of code that has to do with Nicomachea's ability to store things in an extradimensional pocket, in stasis. Even thermal activity is preserved as the state it was in when it was stored, which is *really* handy in the summer."

Entrapta (281) has posed:
Entrapta is very good at some things, very bad at others. Keeping from doing things when she really wants to do them is on the second of those two lists. She's trying to pick the item up a half-heartbeat after she's given permission, and listening with her ears even if she's not with her hands.

It's okay, her hands are basically a different entity anyway. "I've never tried to mesh alien systems with your human technology, but it's not like it's entirely impossible. Also I have a few nonhuman options of my own," she says as she's inspecting the Lance. She wouldn't swing it around, apparently she's just there to look at it more closely as she gets in close, looking at all of the things.

Her head shoots up when Nicomachea is called on though, and she puts the lance down.

Cooooode.

Cooooooooooooddddddddddeee....

Her eyes bug out as she tries to memorize what she's seeing. No words, her brain is on fire. Cooooode.

For once, she might actually not be hearing what's being said around her.

Rashmi Terios has posed:
Nicomachea, at least, is nice enough to wait until a major function call is entirely spelled out, before halting the display. Better to end a story on a chapter marker, rather than mid-paragraph. With a cheerful *bong!* the screen blips away, and Rashmi chuckles.

"I'll see if he's willing to put the whole thing in text you can read from your laptop," she says. "And no, it's not impossible... But a Device Core using Earth technology would require... um..." She glances at the book, raising an eyebrow, and nods. "A computer the size of the school, to run at 0.005% efficiency, Nico says. As for *why* I brought that? My boyfriend gave me a test. If I want to qualify as a TSAB Meister -- that's the title given to Device mechanics -- I have to disassemble and rebuild Nicomachea, and upgrade him, using parts sourced from Earth."

There, Rashmi nods to the lance. "That was on Earth when I found it. So... I'm gonna be spending the next lot of days taking that apart, cataloguing each part, and studying how each part interacts with each other part. It's Belkan make, but since Belka's part of the TSAB now, they should be fairly well compatible."

Entrapta (281) has posed:
Eyes swirling, Entrapta takes a few seconds to recover. Her mind wants to study that code, and she's not sure she grasped anything that she read. But it's a start. "I'll study it with all my ability!" she insists. But that's not what Rashmi is asking.

"What -are- you asking?" Entrapta says, frowning as she realizes that she's not sure why she's being shown the Lance. Or any of this. She turns to Rashmi, then puts a hand on her right hip. "I'm sure that I can be of use, somehow, but right now this is a bit above me. I'd be an assistant at best. Admittedly a very good assistant, I know I could be of use, but I mean. I have to start somewhere, and this is a new technology to me still."

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"Well I mean," Rashmi says, chuckling. "I'd love to have an assistant to help, but mostly? I know how much you love to learn about new things, and I thought you'd just have fun learning right along with me, since all of this is gonna be information I'll be *needing* to study."

Basically: Rashmi offering to spend still more extra time with her kohai, doing *Entrapta's* favorite thing.

"If I know how it all fits together and interconnects, I can use that to upgrade Nicomachea safely! ...Because if I fail the test, it means Nicomachea will have failed his stress-test. And uh... I don't *want* that."

Entrapta (281) has posed:
Okay. Entrapta stands there a moment, then takes a deep breath. She needs am moment to be able to respond to that. But when she does, she's ...weird.

""Rashmi? I'm going to give you a hug. If you want me to stop, just tell me, okay?" It's very close to something that Rashmi once said to Entrapta, not too long ago. She might remember, or she might not. But it's very much the first time that Entrapta has initiated one. In her life, possibly.

I'd take that as a yes.

"Yes, I'll help. Yes, I will put all of my considerable abilities to helping. YES!"

Rashmi Terios has posed:
Rashmi dimly remembers her verbage when she first hugged Entrapta, and considering her kohai's powers of recall, she can be trusted to be mostly repeating Rashmi's words. Either way, when Entrapta *initiates* the hug, Rashmi makes a small 'awwww' sound, opening her arms to accept, and reciprocate, when Entrapta *does* go in for the hug.

"I'm glad to hear that, Entrapta. It should be fun! But first, was there anything else you wanted to ask me? Or did you want me to do a couple spells for your equipment to analyse?"

Entrapta (281) has posed:
Hug. An awkward hug, but a hug nonetheless. And Entrapta has no idea how to disengage, so she just kind of lets her arms drop and it's very strange, but she made a good effort and is almost positive that the meaning got across.

She pauses, then scratches her own chin for a second in thought. Then, she says, "Maybe one. So anyone reading my notes can see how cool you actually are." It IS very important that the notes be complete.

And, looking at the camera, she insists to herself that this isn't anything to do with a fourth wall situation. No, this is for science!

"Show off, I'll get it all down when you're ready!" She's on it! SCIENCE!

Rashmi Terios has posed:
Awkwardness can be smoothed out of hugs with practice. When the arms fall away, Rashmi steps back, and tries very, very hard not to laugh when her kohai calls her awesome. "Well... I can demonstrate the flexibility of Mid-Childan magic? Let's see..."

    << *BONG!* >> << SOLAR BARRET >>

A half-dozen spheres of golden light resolve into being, orbiting the Devicer's head like a planetary halo. "These are Barrets," she explains. "They're the most basic Mid-Childan attack spell, and you can tweak a bunch of different parameters based on what you need. Or, if you want to effect more fundamental changes...

    << BLAZE SHIFT >>

And the spheres burst into flame... though the flames are as purely golden as the original Barrets, and their heat feels... muted. Shielded, somehow. "Chrono taught me how to add thermal components to some of my spells. Mid-Childan magic is nonlethal by default, note; even fire magic won't burn *living beings,* but it'll simulate the feeling. With nonliving things, and structures? Not so restrained. Device magic can be pretty hard on the environment, if you don't take steps."

    << GLACE SHIFT >>

With a screeching *CRACK* like flash-frozen water, the balls of fire shed little golden sparks, as they become fist-sized lumps of what resembles ice... though still golden and glowing, thus appearing more like crystal than frozen water. "These, I use for helping to contain a target; the ice kind of sticks and clings in space, makes it harder to move even if you're airborne."

And then the crystals shatter into shards of golden light, that flake away to nothing. "Most of *my* attack spells aren't really high-powered, but that's because my specialty is more defense and support. If you wanted recordings of *high-energy* magic, I could get Nanoha-chan or Molly-chan, but their demonstrations *would* be hard on the environment. So a field trip would be involved."

Entrapta (281) has posed:
"I have got to set up some targets for people to demolish," Entrapta says, as she watches with her eyes wide. "I could set them up with sensors, a lot of tests I could do like that. Environmental as well, localized and more general..."

She is rambling, but at least it's related and slightly on topic. But she perks up, then says, "Let me get that set up, then I will absolutely call on you and Nanoha and Molly and oh gosh oh gosh so many others I need to call back for more testing now but I have to build it first and there's not enough room and I think I can work that out if I'm properly able to insulate and I don't know where but there's a way if I can only think of it."

Breathe, pause, and she looks at Rashmi. "Maybe with some help, I mean." And the grin she gives is almost...joyful? Woah, she's asking for assistance with the project? Well. Maybe she's actually growing after all.

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"I'd love that!" Rashmi says, grinning back. "And if you make them portable, I could create a testing environment that'll ensure the destruction to the surroundings is temporary. Nanoha, Molly and I all have spells that'll actually shift a bubble of space to one side, dimensionally. People without magic get filtered right out, so there's no hazard to anything outside the bubble."

Entrapta (281) has posed:
Entrapta pulls up her computer, then starts a program with the ability to show images. She brings Rashmi over, then starts to go over her ideas, taking Rashmi's suggestions when they are offered. Moving targets, sensory apparatus, systems and tests. There's time to talk now, and she so rarely has anyone to talk her ideas out with. Or to take the ideas of, and make part of the end product.

Yes it takes time. And yes, it will take work to make a reality. But it's fun, and dangit, it's worth doing. Just for the joy of making something become a reality, with a mind that's sharp and ready to engage.

And, it seems that Entrapta, the eternal loner, is starting to be ready for the greatest power of Mahou.

Teamwork.