2349/Mahou 101:Dark

Mahou 101:Dark
Date of Scene:	21 February 2025
Location:	Mitakihara Ward
Synopsis:	An introduction to one of the Dark Art workers that Entrapta can not deny! Also a good read, worth having a science at!
Cast of Characters:	Takashi Agera, 281
Tinyplot:	Mahou 101

---

Takashi Agera has posed:
    It's a chilly day up on top of one of Mitakihara's many small buildings. On the roof of this particular building is an antenna tower of some sort - fenced in with signage denoting that this area is Obsidian property and for anything to dial their number, tresspassers will be prosecuted, video surveliance is in use, DANGER: High Voltage, WARNING: May interfere with Pacemakers, and several other signs - the chainlink fence is at least 50% warning sign by volume.

    Inside the area, currently, is a young looking male in a white labcoat, with long silver hair and a strange device in his hand, which connects to a metalic glove on his arm. The strange device is a bit like a forked soldiering iron, and he's got a panel open on the base of the tower, touching the pins of the device to it, creating purple-black sparks that are keenly magic, if you're magically aware enough to note.

    The boy, of course, is Riventon - recently titled 'vice director' of Testarossa Technologies, and the tower is one of several spread around Tokyo's Four Wards, a shielded device designed to give him information on the flow of magic (and the presence of things like Jewel Seeds or anything else magical). He's engrossed in the work right now and it might be easy to sneak up on him in a conventional way, assuming the sneaker weren't aggressively using magic for his Device to alert him of.

Entrapta (281) has posed:
    There always comes a time in your work when you need a different tool. It happens, and you just reach for the right one and it's never there, and you grumble and fish around until you find it and then you forget where you were, until you manage to get back to the point you were at mentally in the process and it's suuuper annoying.

    "Here you go," someone says, and his outstretched hand is handed the tool he was looking for, no big deal. And the work can continue without those ridiculous interruptions. Wires pushed aside appropriately, and the next tool he needs is passed to him without interruption as well.

    "The wire's a bit frayed, you'll lose some signal through the conductors," that person says. Which you know, there IS a frayed wire, when it's looked at closely enough. Good eyes. That'll need replacing. The right wire is...ah, held out for him to take, when he's ready for it.

    Wait.A.Minute.com

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Riventon's actually used to having help at times, which is part of what caused his brain to accept the passed off tools. Hotaru used to be a lab partner, Hinoiri was a lab partner, Norie was still a lab partner - all of them had at times been engaged in assisting him in this way.

    But two of those have left his side for one reason or another annd and one of those isn't here and neither of them are spindly girls with long pink pigtails.

    So as Riventon reached out for the last tool, he suddenly looked up to her and flailed, standing up quickly as he tried to juggle the wayward tool from one hand to another to stop it from dropping.

    An undignified noise of surprise erupted from his mouth, before he pointed his gauntleted hand towards the intruder, palm out, Dark Energy hastily collecting into a ball of dripping black energy, colors dancing across the oily surface. "Who the hell are you, what are you up to, and why shouldn't I blast you off this rooftop right now?!" he yelled, trying to act tough to cover up his genuine surprise and the feeling of his brain racing to accomodate this sudden situation.

Entrapta (281) has posed:
    The reaction is so mahou it hurts; the girl leans in, right past the gathering ball, and sticks her face past him into the machine itself. She puts one hand right smack dab in the middle of his face to brace herself so she can see into it better, and gasps!

    "Inverse reactive current! The design is so retro, you've gone muuuch less aggressively than you could have with this. And synchronized cardial phase detractors! Why did you go through the modial flux? That burns out at a much lower temperature than the symmodial product, you know you can get that easily if you know who to talk to, right?"

    She shifts her hand to his chest, so she can push further inside. "Magitechnology! That makes so much sense now! You couldn't use the symmodial, it'd burn right out at the first mystic influx! Ooh your power lines are garbage though, that's a prefab model you should look into making your own if you want this to be truly stable. Anmium is best for that, what are you trying to actually accomplish with this one?"

    She pauses, taking a breath, then finally looks. "Oh. Am I not supposed to be doing this?" She finally spotted the dark energy.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Riventon is... really, really perplexed by the girl's course of action. Somewhere he knows he should be annoyed, but then she starts talking and she knows what she's talking about to some degree, or seems to.

    And he can appreciate being a little too into your work - or someone else's work. But there's a point where he does decide to maybe step in.

    "It's a sensor, and it gets the best readings by linking into the flow, and if you had any idea about how much magic rolls through this town you would know that burnouts are a question of when, not if." he says, and looks to her.

    "That's a roundabout way of answering one of my questions, but the most important ones are still here. You are tresspassing on private property, on Obsidian property, on MY property." he says. The Dark Energy doesn't leave his hand. It just stays at size, occasionally crackling with purple electrical-like energy over the surface. "So I know what you're doing here - being nosy - but who are you and why should I not give you a direct ticket off the top of the building in the form of an energy blast?" he asks.

    "...and now I would like to add, how do you know so much about these sorts of things, whoever you are?"

Entrapta (281) has posed:
    She isn't reacting right. Fear seems absent; in fact, she reaches out to try and touch his energy ball. With her hand. "That's fascinating," she says, drawing out the word as if it's her entire life. "You have got to have a different thaumatological component than anything I've seen in my research so far. Do you generate it with your hand? No, that has to come from an internal source of some sort."

    The girl pulls her hand back, the reaches into her coveralls and pulls out a crystal, which whines in her hand. "Ooh, that is a new wavelength, I should show you my work on this if you've got sensors this complex you could probably understand some of it if you could keep up with the math. Don't be ridiculous, we're both scientists. If you wanted me to stop you just needed to not be so very interesting."

    She pauses. "Or working out in the open like this, this place is ridiculously exposed." Fence. Signs. Security measures. 'ridiculously exposed'. Huh.

    "I'm researching types of magic, but I wasn't expecting to encounter something like this! Can you tell me what I'm looking at right now? So I know how to react? There isn't much to go on with what I can see right now, aside from a lowered ambient temperature and a shift in wavelengths that ...it has some variances I've seen before but no overall shift. Tell me everything!"

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Riventon doesn't pull the ball away from her - the worst case scenario is she hurts herself, which is something he's far less responsible for than actually blasting her. It's Dark Energy - it's toxic to conventional life on some level all the time, and this particular orb - condensed and held back and ready to fire - is the kind that hurts, crackling with power and vile energy that can surge through a person and make them feel terrible in addition to just hurting them.

    "...I might like to see your work, yes." Riventon says, cautiously, curiously. the girl's not acting normal but Riventon's sense of normal is a little thrown off by his coworkers and his-day-to-day work.

    "It's not really exposed. Most Sparkles don't fly, and most of them are also smart enough to not mess with me." He says. The second bit may be more doubtful.

    "This is Dark Energy - the most powerful sort of magic, and the most dangerous." he says, entertaining her question. "It's created by negative emotions, primarily. It's capable of almost anything, but it has a habit of turning people into the worst versions of themselves; I keep seeing people letting it control them, instead of the other way around." he says. "But you can do such marvelous things with it, as long as you maintain your power over it." He says. "...Have you not encountered it before? You're clearly magic aware on some level yourself, or you wouldn't be able to maintain this conversation or understand most of those words you used, but I don't recognize you."

Entrapta (281) has posed:
The girl repeats herself. "Scientist," she says, by way of explanation. "Magical researcher at this point, though I specialized in physics and electronics for most of my life due to restraints on what kinds of knowledge were available. I've only recently been given any kind of real access to the real power available to the world do you have any idea how impressive this is, right now?"

    She's not really lookin at -him- exactly, more studying what he's doing. "I wonder if you use these sensors to track magic of your own type, so you can keep track of the form. I would if I were you, you have the most access therefore the most knowledge and if what you say is true then you'd want to keep it under the highest level of safeguards, people who haven't the ability to monitor their actions shouldn't be allowed free access to the strongest type of energy."

    All without stopping for breath, and she absolutely isn't impressed by whoever it is she's speaking with. This is all about the science.

    "How did you get the ability to do this? Most of the interviewees I've been able to talk to have some kind of history, but this seems to be a much more flexible option. I saw someone transformed into a mirror of themselves just a short while ago, and the wavelengths I'm seeing now are reminiscent of that. Not identical though, you're clearly working with an alteration. Which makes me wonder if it's possible to change between magical forms if you had the capability, have you ever tried to sparkle? Also your wire is melting, you didn't finish the weld."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Riventon looks at her. "I'm a scientist too, but there are loads of scientists who can't understand magic. Who get to live in the world of physics and fundamental forces and things that are absolute truth. Whereas magic tends to defy that. And yet people such as myself continue to find the rules that govern it." he says. "So a magical researcher doesn't always mean scientist." he continues.

    "I can only imagine how interesting it must be to see it anew - it's been a part of me for a lot of my life though I lacked a name for it." Riventon says, and then pauses. "I track magic of all types, most people don't have a clue what they're doing, they wield it without awareness or focus or even the slightest hint of the powers they draw from... it's infuriating. And then they use those abilities to slow the progress of actual science and understanding? It's shameful." Riventon says, going immediately into tirade mode.

    "I may know what you're talking about, with the mirror. Sounds like a co-worker." he says, musing aloud. "But I've always been able to connect to the energy, to go into the Dusk Zone. For a lot of people it's not natural. At least till you get to the higher ups."

    "Anyways, let's start with names - what's yours, Miss Scientist?"

Entrapta (281) has posed:
    "Bridging wire," the girl says in response, when he doesn't lean in to fix the melting weld points. She's already got her head in the machine, and is holding the tool to the welt points, softening the sauder. "Unless you want the system to shut down while I fix this. Why does everyone focus on the unimportant things? Names, dates, surviving, blah blah..."

    She takes the wire from him, then does a temp weld on the loose points, bridging the gap so the circuit never goes down, and pulls the proper wire so she can replace it with a good one. Then does a pro job of saudering the points, not even hesitating. "Entrapta. Have you considered adding a buffer in here, for when the system shuts down? This is clearly a weak point."

    She glances out at him, then sighs. "Fine, I'll talk about that too. I don't have any magic, never have. It's never held me back. Frankly I feel like the people who have it are relying on a bit of a crutch, making so they don't have to learn how it all actually works on a level that would make them actually effective. It's ridiculous, since there's so much to learn and it's all just amazing to me. Not really fair, but...I mean, they can't do long algorithms in their heads either. Weld's fixed."

    She backs off, showing the system. "I put in a backup in case the wire melts again, it's simple but it'll hold long enough to get back and repair it next time."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    He doesn't lean in because he's easily distracted and despite threatening to blast her, someone who knows what she's talking about is interesting to him - much as his work is to her. She has a level of interest that is so rarely seen, even amongst his lab partners - a dangerous level of focus, sure, but Riventon can respect that too.

    "Entrapta. Is that a name or a comment on the wiring?" He asks, looking down. "There's a lot of weak points in the system, but mostly it just overloads. It's tracking magic so standard electrophysics sometimes takes a walk and forgets it exists during. I mean, that's why half of it's made of crystal nonsense." he says, referring to his own work. "Normal stuff just shuts down when it's trying to pick up the properties. I wish I could interact with it directly through hard science but that's a waste of time. Best you can do is apply the method and hope you get consistent results." he explains.

    "Well, I can do long algorithms in my head." he says, shrugging. "And magic. You can have it all if you play your cards right. Shouldn't ever have to settle." he says. "A lot of people let their lack of knowledge hold them back, whether it's magic or particle physics. It doesn't really change that - some people are happy to remain ignorant, never applying themselves - or holding on to foolish notions about good and evil or ethics, and letting those lock off entire worlds of possibility and learning." he says. He crushes the orb of energy he's been nurturing and it leaks out into black tar that evaporates before it hits the ground. He's not going to be blasting her, at least not right now.

    "I should probably get on fixing this." he agrees. "And not let your patch job here go to waste. But I don't think the standard wires are going to handle the current - the mix of magic and Dark Energy requires some... thought." he says, taking a different length of wire and infusing it until it turns a purple shimmer.

    "At least it won't be relevant in a few years when everybody else forgets everything about magic, so maybe if they're that comitted it makes sense, given they'll one day be like any of the people down there, walking around, with no awareness of the greater magical world."

Entrapta (281) has posed:
    She grumbles. "Fine, Enissa if you must have an actual name," she says, which might be misleading but she really does. not. care. "Though it is a bit of d death trap, I learned that term last night from a movie. It's fun! You realize you're using the equivalent of miter tape to seal a flowcrux here."

    Pause. She rubs the bridge of her nose, then says more hesitantly, "Duct tape? You really need to get more descriptive terminology, that stuff is awful for ducts. I tried it, it was NOT helpful."

    The magic, used on wires, makes her lean in closer. "Do that again. That was a real time adaptation of wiring that ...I have got to take some notes, can you do that to a wire I can take home and test? I could get some readings and try to see what the flow capacity becomes in all the types of magical wavelength, it could be a gamechanger!"

    She may or may not have caught everything that he said, but what he DID was definitely on her radar. "I'm looking for ways to incorporate magic into technology, I've so much still to learn! Also is your security inside as lax as it is up here? Because I want to look around."

    Note she is not asking for permission, but it might sound as if she was!

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Riventon tilts his head. She's a little hard to follow. Then he turns back and, taking a page from her book, ignores her until the work is done - and then closes the box. And looks at her.

    "I mean, I can do it again. But why? Why should I give you an example of my work to study - where's the value in that? You have to give me something back." he says, transactionally. Then pauses. "Although you did try to help me a bit yourself, so maybe I owe you... a small bit." he admits, begrudgingly.

    He draws out a small length of wire again and does the same thing. "Oh, but you may want to wear gloves. There's not a lot of Dark Energy actively in this now that everything's been reoriented, but there's a little, and you don't want it to leak out and get you all cranky or something."

    "Well, I don't know what the security is like down there, because this isn't my office building." Riventon says. And then he waves a hand over the box and it shimmers, before being replaced by a distinctly different, more mundane box. "But the security is pretty good when people can't touch my stuff." he adds.

    "Anyways, my office is in the big tower there..." he says, pointing to the tallest tower in Mitakihara, a gloomy skyscraper than towers over even the other buildings. "Obsidian Tower. I never gave you my name. I'm Riventon. Vice-Director of Obsidian, Testarossa Technologies Divison." he says with an aura that she's supposed to find this more important than she likely will.

    "And don't try to break into the tower. The security is mundane and magical and you'll probably just end up fighting something magical and like... bludgeoned by a giant, fat, incredibly red nine-foot-tall Oni with a steel club after you trip a magic ward. If you're lucky." he warns.

Entrapta (281) has posed:
    Of course, it'd be nice if she held still. When he looks up from his repair, she's moved. Peering at the apparatus itself, as if she can't hold still for long enough to hold a conversation. She's just looking, not altering the angles or anything..that you can see. If she did, she already fixed any changes she may have made.

    "Too many names," she says as she hops down from her perch, then pulls out a pair of pliers from a pocket and takes the piece of wire. "You people and your names." That is not a denial, of breaking in or not breaking in. But neither of them expected THAT at this point.

    The she leans in and starts prying at a panel. "I can smell burnt sauder, you're going to lose a filament in here soon. Did you want to watch?" She really has no idea how to interact normally, but in some cases that works out for the best. Is this one of those cases? Probably not, but there's a lot of faults. And she clearly knows what she's doing.

    Then she's humming, and working on your electronics. Which a person gets the feeling might be happening more in the future than expected yesterday.

    Oh lord, I just realized what this is.

    I.T. NINJA!

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Riventon looks at her like he's not quite sure what to do with her yet. "Too many names? I only have one name. Riventon. The rest is a title. You understand what a title is don't you?" he asks. "Are you not from Tokyo?" he continues.

    But he just puts his hands on his hips. "That panel's not real, I don't care if I lose all of the filament." he explains. "The real one's shunted off to a small stacked dimensional space." he says. "You're messing with a disg- you know what, knock yourself out." he says, folding his arms and leaning against the fence. "If you keep messing with my stuff you might end up turning into some kind of crazy red-eyed monster though." He warns.

    "Or maybe not, you seem pretty zen about all of this." he admits, shrugging.

Entrapta (281) has posed:
    Chewing on her tools, the girl 'Enissa' seems ...quite ignorant. She pulls the panel off, and in moments is yanking out wires. Useless wires. Ridiculous wires. She's having a blast, and isn't hurting anyone.

    So why does it feel like she's the one who's having a better time here? "Pass me the motive tester," she says, entering her own headspace. Some call it the madness place, some call it creativity, or art.

    In the end, she makes it into a new creation entirely. Was that worth the time? Oh hell yes. It was always meant to have defenses, after all. Now it's just got more.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    She's both ignorant and brilliant, in the way she moves, the way she puts things together. The creation she builds is impressive on its own rights. He passes her the tester when she asks, after a pause before he says something indignant about being treated as a helper, but then actually decides not to.

    "Do you want a chance to learn more about magic, and have the best tech the world has to offer?" He asks her, after a moment. "Do you have a cell phone? That you haven't diassembled? Or have at least reassembled in form that allows it to maintain its original function?" he asks, thinking of another strange, brilliant girl he met once.

Entrapta (281) has posed:
    "Would I?"

    She teleported. She's looking him in the eyes, too close, too close! "I have so many ideas already based on just the samples I've seen today! There's so much I can still learn, so much left to do! So much..."

    When the girl slides Penelope over to Riventon, the phone itself seems to react poorly. In a way that the girl herself did not. But it does take orders, and soon Riventon has her number. One that Hawkmoth may have mentioned, or not, given the way departments keep secrets. The way that Catra may have mentioned, or not.

    The way that he himself now has, and soon she's on her way out the way she came in. With a business card, perhaps? "When can I start?" Silly question, the job has already begun.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Riventon hops back when the girl is in his personal space, too close! "I can only imagine!" he says, and if nothing else, he's absolutely able to tell she's... excited, interested, dangerously full of wonder. Like a child with a genius level intellect and zero inherent fear.

    Riventon's got her number, and Hawkmoth may also reach out to her, and Catra may reach out to her, or warn her away - or warn Riventon away - or do nothing, as a cat is want to do.

    "I'll have to figure out where we're going to put you." Officially. Unofficially, she may be somewhat hard to contain, if she's got access... or even if she doesn't.

    "I'll be in touch. Or someone will." he says. Then he decides to duck out, and he does actually teleport, or Duskport, stepping backwards through dimensions in the shortcut way that only Dark Energy wielding people can.