654/Don't Give Up!

Don't Give Up!
Date of Scene:	27 October 2023
Location:	Four Clover Mall
Synopsis:	Fate is a little bit down after her last battle with Nanoha. Takashi gives the right advice to the wrong person at the wrong time.
Cast of Characters:	Fate Testarossa, Takashi Agera

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Fate Testarossa has posed:
    In the days since the kitten and Jewel Seed fiasco, Fate has been... Absent and reticent. It is not like the Testarossa heir to sulk, but something is clearly up.
    That's about when there comes a knock on the door to the lab. Fate is outside; no sign of Arf anywhere near; she came on her own, and clearly has a lot on her mind judging from the look on her face as she fidgets with the hem of the lacy black and red dress that she seems to particularly favor.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi gets up and moves over to the door. He's not hostile - pretty much nobody he actually doesn't like bothers to knock. But when he sees it's fate, his neutral expression changes to a smile - one of kindness and concern. One of those smiles that very, very few people see him wearing, but Fate is one of those people.

    "Testarossa-chan." he says. "I've been wondering how you're doing. But I'm sure you know as well as I do that your mother doesn't take well to unwanted disturbances." he says, and for that his smile falters. "But it's good to see you." he says, and reaches down to pat her on the head. "One of the most talented girls in all of Obsidian."

Fate Testarossa has posed:
    This is where one of Fate's flaws comes to the fore. On the field, she's capable, self-reliant, and efficient, indeed. But when things aren't coming down to business, there's no changing the fact that she is something of a socially cool and distant girl.
    Vivid scarlet eyes fall half-closed briefly in the face of that smile.
    Inwardly, Fate doesn't feel she deserves it. And it is now that Takashi may learn something.
    She doesn't seem to like being touched.
    Oh she allows him to pat her on the head; it's an ingrained almost docile obedience from the blonde. But she seems to tense just ever so slightly at the contact. In truth. She wants praise, she wants love, friendship, camaraderie. But she does not now how to express that desire nor believe she is worthy of it.
    "... Agera-san..." She replies to the greeting, cool and polite as usual, even to someone she secretly wants to be friends with. "... I just. Wanted to thank you." She says haltingly.
    "For helping me. With the incident."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    He can see Fate cringe back and he pulls his hand back after a moment. "Sorry." he says, and then looks at his hand for a moment like it betrayed him - or like he's trying to make sure it didn't have weird lab goop on it. Or Dark Energy. There's a thousand mundane, normal reasons she might not want Takashi to touch her head and he just feels a little bad. "I just wanted to tell you that... I really appreciate your help. And I like fighting alongside you." he admits.

    "You're incredibly impressive there. You make me look like a novice." Because, relatively, Takashi was a novice. No formal training and only months of henshin versus Fate's rigorous, merciless instruction. She was the finely tuned engine and he was the jalopy, and not only did he know it, he admitted it. "The way you and Bardiche work together - I hope one day I can match it with Axion."

    <<YES.>> His device adds from its location on his wrist.

    "And you can call me if you need my help, whether it's for a jewel seed or whatever. I'm lucky I'm able to call on you sometimes, too."

Fate Testarossa has posed:
    In this case, it is an issue with Fate, not Takashi, and once again is something the girl cannot properly express. Takashi will find nothing wrong with his hand; Fate simply cannot accept his praise as he gives it, and slowly shakes her head. There's no lab goo nor dark energy. It's Fate's insecurity coming to the fore; the normally efficient and driven blonde is silent for a long moment as memories tumble through her mind.
    A mother's love. A teacher's care and affection. The cold scorn that soon followed. Being told to work with her new colleagues and then left to her own devices. This warmth she's being shown right now.
    "Ah..." She breathes at first. NO amount of training could have prepared her for the complex act of interacting with people beyond Linith and Arf.
    IT would be so much easier if Takashi, Norie, Hotaru and the others were as cold as Precia had become- Fate could deal with that and remain keen, sharp, and driven.
    "I don't deserve your praise." She says, finally at length. "I failed."
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Takashi Agera has posed:
    Perhaps Fate isn't the only one of the two of them that's insecure, challenged by their own destiny. Takashi has been thinking about a lot of things, and a few people lately. He might even be a little happier, kinder, than usual.

    Takashi shakes his head. "Failure is just how we learn what doesn't work." he says. "Any scientist - and also, people in general - will fail more than they succeed." he says. "Success is the product of failures you can't see."

    "The first time you do something, you almost always fail. And the second. And the third. Failure is the first step on the road to success." he says, with a grand, somewhat hammish gesture, his hands upraised and doing a spin in place before returning to look at Fate. And then his tone and gaze grow more serious.

    "But ONLY if you don't let it stop you." Takashi says. "The difference between a person who is remembered as a success, and the person who is remembered as a failure, is whether or not they let that failure stop them from growing, from improving, from eventually turning failure into success." He says. He walks over to a coat hook and shrugs off the lab coat he was, of course, wearing, to instead put his school jacket back on.

    "You're not going to give up, are you? Because I can't very well get a girl who's giving up an ice cream sundae, but a girl who's going to keep trying, well, that girl can have a sweet."

Fate Testarossa has posed:
    Leave it to a scientist to put his words in such a manner. And while it's true that the scientific method is all about trial and error and repeating experiments again and again until they yield stable results, such words bring Fate a bit of a revelation.
    "I... Can't fail." She says at first. "It disappoints mother." The words come out without thought, but as they do, she is GRIPPED by a thought.
    Fate's fingers clench, slowly ball into fists.
    That girl...
    That girl- a girl from a backwater planet, with no formal training, who picked up magic in a matter of months AND defeated her...
    That girl is an obstacle.
    But.
    It is as Takashi says...

    Obstacles are meant to be surmounted.

    "... But you're right. I can't give up." She relents after a moment of internal debate.
    That and an ice cream sundae sounds really good, after days of sulking.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi nods. "I know. You're not the kind of girl to give up, not as long as I've known you. It's really just an overdramatic excuse for us to both get ice cream." he says with a wink as he waves his hand to close and lock up several doors. Dark energy prestidigitation was useful.

    "But...' he begins, as the two of them walk down the halls of Obsidian's odd Stacked Space to come to a Door, and Takashi reaches out for the handle and turns it wrong-ways - stepping with Fate out of what should have otherwise been a back room in a mall shop (run by an Obsidian subsidiary) "... there's also no shame in getting help, either. That's what it means to be teammates. And you're part of my team, and I'm part of yours." the tall boy says to the sad girl.

    "Your mother didn't send you to me because she really wants me to succeed. But because she expects you to be able to call on me, too. So if that girl's giving you trouble, especially if there's a grief seed involved, but even if there isn't, you don't have to handle it all on your own. We fail and we succeed together. Me, you, Norie, Hotaru, Yochu, Arf. We're a big team. Kind of like a second family, in a way." He knows Fate has a First Family, like Hotaru and unlike himself.

    "...also the girl's probably cheating and using some sort of enhancer, might not last forever. The data was way out of expected norms." he says as they get to one of the counters. "What flavor, Testarossa-chan?"

Fate Testarossa has posed:
    This is true. Fate isn't the type to give up. She may stumble and sulk for a few days, but eventually pick herself back up and trudge right on. Her conviction is too strong for that. Her goals, far off though they may be, are not wholly out of reach- at least so she believes, as she follows Takashi out through the door into the mall shop.
    "Mn." She murmurs at first "A... Team..." A second family.
    Fate can't quite say she's had a family before. She has Arf. She had Linith. She had memories of Precia's loving times before she turned so cold. But this is different isn't it? People she can turn to and rely on to support her and who she can support. It's very different than the isolation she's been so used to.
    "I... See." She relents.
    It's a good feeling.
    "I'm not sure what kind of enhancers she could be using but..." But that girl is clearly cheating somehow.
    "A-ah... Um. Maybe... chocolate...?"

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi orders a chocolate ice cream sundae for Fate and a vanilla one for himself, and the two of them eat the dish with the little plastic spoons while he finishes up.

    "Don't let one defeat get you down, Testarossa-chan." he says. "I've been beaten before. And I'm going to get beaten again. But I'm going to get back up, and one day I'm going to make sure everybody who opposes the futures you and I want - that they don't get back up." he says, with a grin and even a little malice in his eyes, but that malice isn't for Fate. "It's not who wins how many times. It's who ends all of this a winner. One day you're gonna carve that Jewel Seed out of her stupid staff and bring it to your Mother." he adds. "Maybe the next time you meet. But you're more determined than she is." He said. He didn't see the look in Nanoha's eyes. But he's not trying to be correct so much as inspirational.

    Not only does he not like seeing Fate sad, but she's a powerful weapon at his side. If she isn't bringing her all to the fight, she's less dangerous to his enemies, too. Which one of those is the excuse and which is the truth is the sort of thing that's unknowable.