860/Donuts and Warnings

Donuts and Warnings
Date of Scene:	07 December 2023
Location:	Obsidian Tower - Dark Laboratory
Synopsis:	Takashi calls a meeting of nearly all of his subordinates, which totally doesn't turn into an evil rant.
Cast of Characters:	Takashi Agera, Fate Testarossa, Catra, Norie Okana, Mami Tomoe
Tinyplot:	test
Tinyplot2:	test2

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Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi basically... never called meetings of his staff. In general he wasn't much of a micromanager, and he was more of an 'send emails and maybe they'll read them' kind of energy. So even the fact that he's calling one is surprising. At least, as he said, there are donuts. There are probably more donuts than there should be for the number of girls there are. But Takashi doesn't know how many donuts the other girls might eat, and wants there to be enough for Norie - and enough for the others if Norie gets here first.

    He's got chairs set up in front of one of the big desks and more surprisingly he's actually cleaned up enough of the lab for there to be chairs for everyone. There's even one chair - Hotaru's - that will remain unfilled.

    "So, I know I don't normally do this..." Takashi starts "... but something happened earlier, and you should all know. And it's not something I want the rest of Obsidian hearing until Kaolinite or Tomoe shares it, so keeep it to ourselves. Also since I don't think you've all met each other fully yet... well, it's as good a time as any."

    "But... I'm going to cut to the chase so it doesn't drag out. Our department suffered the first casualty in this little cold war of ours. One of the sparkleskirts, Sailor Moon, just outright killed one of the Witches 5." he says, just dropping it on the table. "So if anybody thinks it's all fun and games, still... the games are pretty dangerous."

Fate Testarossa has posed:
    For the record. Fate usually reads her emails. Her replies are kind of terse though, likely due to using Microsoft Outlook-- err Bardiche's auto reply feature that comes pre-packaged with several automated click and send replies.
    But for Takashi to call a meeting... That is a little out of the ordinary.
    Nevertheless, Fate has a belief...
    If you're early, you are on time. If you are on time, you're late.
    So she's been here already in one of the chairs for a good ten minutes now waiting for the others and for the meeting to begin.
    So when the meeting *does* begin, she's listening quite intently.
    "... Mn."

Catra has posed:
Catra arrives... when she arrives. Probably just in time to hear Takashi start speaking. She wanders in like she's showing up at precisely the right time after a leisurely stroll to get there, in any case, acting like she's just woken up from a nap for this particular inconvenience. Still, there are donuts, so she goes ahead and plucks one from the box without looking -- and gets the one chocolate glazed donut, because of course she does.

"...Someone's dead, hunh?" She shrugs her shoulders. "That happens in war. Casualties are unavoidable. Never assumed it to be anything else."

The feline plops down in a seat, and sets about munching on her prize. "Good donut," she comments, as though nothing of note had just been announced. Or, like, if the announcement had been Obsidian's participation in a yearly tramisu contest.

Norie Okana has posed:
Norie Okana got here early. Which means there's still donuts. But exponentially less donuts than if she wasn't here first. She has a plate loaded with them and is eating them. She's wearing the same business suit she wore before, with Takashi when they went to the facility in the mountains with Hematite and the Boy Band Squad. She wanted to be all proper for an actual meeting.

When the meeting starts, she stops munching and listens. So Takashi gets right down to it. Sailor Moon killed someone!? One of them.

"Uh." she blinks. "Ho...How?" she asks, sputtering a moment, "What'd she do, make her choke on her tiara!?" she asks rhetorically in disbelief.

She narrows her eyes when Catra gets the chocolate glazed donut, but says nothing. She just munches her donut again a moment before she considers.

"It uh. Wouldn't have anything to do with the word... I've been learning about recently, 'Purification' would it?" she asks.

Mami Tomoe has posed:
Even Mami knows Takashi is not the sort to call meetings, and she's the new girl. She knows something is up because Takashi called a meeting instead of just telling her. The only reason to do that is to tell everybody something at once, and that can only mean bad news.

She knows everyone on the team except for Catra, who catches her attention when she arrives. Takashi really does have a knack for finding strays. Her lips curl into the slightest smile at that thought.

But then Takashi starts talking. She listens attentively, but when he says 'casualty' her eyes immediately tick over to Hotaru's empty chair. But then he says 'Witches 5' and she exhales the breath she didn't know she was holding. At least this meeting isn't about her.

She doesn't say anything, the other girls asked all the questions she had. She just looks to Takashi and listens.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    "As far as what happened to her - obliterated. She wasn't purified, there was just an enormous outflow of energy. Hotaru was there and she's still trying to process it... There's not enough left of Cyprine to fill a test tube vial. Death was always a possibility, but it didn't seem so close. But now? This girl shared locker space with us and now she's gone. Like that. Here yesterday, dust today. And I wanted you all to hear it from me, first. I know it'll affect each of you differently, and some of you will probably feel one way and present another, cause that's just what we do, but that's fine. But you should know." Takashi notes.

    "And if you find yourself staring down Sailor Moon or anyone else, you shouldn't hesitate to call for backup - everybody in this room should be ready to help everybody else, and part of the reason Cyrpine is dead, is that she was part of a group so busy trying to stab each other in the back they didn't guard their own fronts. They were trying to change the sign on the door to read Witches 4 before the dust of what was left of the girl settled on the floor." he notes.

    "You all know, outside of this room, there are a bunch of people, wannabe kings and queens, all fighting over who's gonna get to be the king of the mountain. Inside this room it's the same thing, except everybody in this room is smart enough to realize the only way to stay on top is to have people there with you to shove their foot into the faces of dudes climbing up behind you while you shove your foot into the faces of other dudes trying to climb up in front, cause all those losers not on top will be banding together just long enough to get you off your spot so that the climb up Murder Mountain can begin again." he says. "Or at least, I hope the people I've collected in this room are all smart enough to understand that. And if not, well, I did my part, go be stupid if you want. But I'm sure you've noticed the sparkleskirts do not hesitate to come at you in big piles, and now you know what the goal is. They're not here to arrest you or help you. They're gonna leave you a fine particulate if you fuck up too many times."

    "Catra, I don't know what the world is like where you're from, but it seemed to me like Adora wanted to avoid killing you, at least. And she's obviously still alive despite you two clashing enough to build up that anger in you." Takashi astutely notes. "I don't want you to think you can expect that from everybody else. You want to take on Adora alone, that's fine, you have the tools now. But I can almost promise she's gonna start calling in friends and you should do the same."

    "Because look, the truth of it is? The reason you're here right now? I don't want to be giving this talk about any of you to the rest of you.Each of you have an important part to play in the long run. Within Obsidian, outside Obsidian, there are people with some really stupid ideas on how they want the world to look and what's important to them, and if we, collectively, want to achieve things and make sure our priorities get through and the world changes the way we want to see it change, and that we all become who we want and all - then we need to work together which means I need you to not die. Zombies tend to be incompetent."

    "And I know they've made some sort of overtures to each of you in their own ways about being your friend or helping you or whatever. But none of them have helped you like I have, and that's because what they are saying has an understood 'stop being yourself or else' - this, what happened to Cyprine, that's the or else."

Catra has posed:
"Adora and I are..." Catra trails off, and shrugs.

"Different," she says at last.

As if that seems to explain everything, she just goes about finishing up her donut. The chocolate glazed one. The only chocolate glazed one. And it's delicious, totally. Did she catch the look from Norie? Impossible to say, the cat is inscrutable. Even her ears give nothing away, and the lazy twitching of her tail is probably just her enjoying the donut. Probably.

Her demeanor continues until she reaches over and claims a lemon donut. Mmmmm.

"If anyone needs my number, ask me," she adds, "I'll show up whenever you need help. I like fighting, and if they're gonna kill us, that means we can kill them, so that oughta be good for a laugh at least once."

Fate Testarossa has posed:
    Unfortunately, this news has dampened and soured Fate's appetite. She doesn't go for the donuts.
    ARF, however, who is in adorable-little-girl form to conserve energy, reeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaches out from where she was hiding at Fate's feet to snag a jelly filled donut.
    "Oh huh. Wow. That sucks." Arf says WAY too casually, earning a sharp and displeased look from Fate that quickly quiets her.
    "Obliterated...?" Fate repeats, frowning deeply. "Mm... I..." She begins to speak but trails off. Only for a moment though.
    "You all know how busy I am with mother's... Agenda..." She starts to say. "But if any of you need help at any time and I'm not otherwise engaged... Please call me."

Norie Okana has posed:
Norie Okana sputters. "Sailor Moon can just vaporize people!?" she says. This sounds all so much... insane. Why aren't more of them dead. Heck, why isn't she dead. She has opinions on this. "Now- I fought Sailor Moon during Nephrite's dumb push at the shrine and she used something called an 'Escalation' that hurt really badly and made me question my life choices because I think the attack just does that- and she called it 'purification'." she says.

She makes mental notes and pinches the bridge of her nose. "Ugh, we've been underestimating them is what this means in the end. Or at least I have." she says.

"I agree with that. That statement. But you already know that, Taka-senpai." she says lowly. She yelled as much recently during the recent Witch encounter to Amy.

She nervously eats a donut. "Hypocrites!" she mutters.

She looks over to Fate and says. "Same." she says quietly as she looks over to Mami, shooting her a nervous look too. "S-sorry about. Shooting Sayaka through a wall the other day. By the way." she says. "But she stepped out of line with..with that attack...!"

Mami Tomoe has posed:
Mami Tomoe listens and gets an answer to the most pressing question she had. Hotaru witnessed this killing, no wonder the poor girl was absent from the meeting. Surely she was traumatized. At least she's safe, or else Takashi would have said so.

"I'm just a text away if any one needs my help," she says, then she looks to Catra and lifts up a hand in a little wave. "We haven't met. I'm Mami Tomoe."

To Norie she just offers a smile. She's not in henshin, and so she does not reach out to give headpats, but she so desperately wants to. "Oh, no, she absolutely had it coming. That sword came out of nowhere and she'd been running her mouth the entire time we were in there."

She finally decides to pluck a donut--plain, sugar coated--and take a bite. Mmm. donut.

"Besides, she came out of it okay," she says with a little flip of her hair. Try harder next time, she thinks.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    "The truth is a lot of us have probably been holding back. On both sides. I don't know if something Cyprine did set Sailor Moon off, or if she wanted to make a statement, or send a warning. Or maybe she just came packing extra heat that fight. But it doesn't really mattter. Just like it doesn't matter if you're 'different' with Adora, you will probably be seen as another monster to a lot of them, Catra." Takashi says. "But. It's not like I could just not tell you, and this didn't really feel like an email issue even if most things don't deserve meetings." he explains.

    "And I guess kind of concurrent to this news, the reason the door still says Witches 5 is... they moved everybody up a tier with means we no longer work for Mimette, we work for Kaolinite, and we're the fifth department of the Witches 5 now." He looks over at Mami, just because her being a part of the organization called 'Witches 5' is amusing to him. "I'm pushing requests for pay increases through, but also we should have more funding for projects, so if you have anything you want to pursue that needs either funding or new tools, you should send me proposals."

    "Also... the skirts all have it coming, but don't go around taking it out on unpowered civilians. Actually attacking normals - as opposed to draining energy or something - it would make us look weak. Winning a war is about convincing the other side it's not worth fighting us anymore. It's as much psychological as anything. So whether that's against the Stupid forces within Obsidian or with the crayon box of magical girls that shows up when we try to harvest energy - we want to look strong. Defeat is momentary but surrender sticks. The end goal is to trounce them so bad they get out of the way - or, if that's impossible, we have to squash all of them permanently. Doable, but much more of a pain."

Norie Okana has posed:
Norie Okana frowns. "No more holding back, then." she says lowly as she places her donut down. She sighs a little and brushes her hair out of her face and then listens to the 'good news'. Well. In so far as 'hey someone just died, but also, we get their spot now!' is good news.

"Oh!" she goes, in surprise. "I'm gonna submit a request for new instrumentation, I'll get started on the proposal. But some of the systems I use need better resolution scanners and what not- for more reliable results when the lab techs help me understand my results that are put out." she says, more neutrally than the worried tone she had before.

Then, more worriedly. "Just be careful, yourself, Taka-senpai." she says. "If they we're playing backstabby games before you got a promotion, they probably still are. If you need support.... we're here too, for that. Even if it's--like..like- telling Eudial to screw off for you."

Catra has posed:
"Oh, we got moved up? That's good, then. Sounds like it was worth losing the old bag then, Moon did us a favor. I'll be sure to pay her back for it if I see her." Catra munches the lemon donut, and acts fast -- very fast -- to catch the glob of lemon custard that oozes out of it and almost lands on the floor, but pops it in her mouth instead, and then sits there licking her fingers while talking about murder.

"Actually, if you can get me some decent scanning equipment, we should get some readings on Adora's sword. Back on Etheria I had Entrapta use lost tech to put a virus in it, and it made Adora go absolutely berzerk when she was in transformed into She-Ra. She almost killed all her friends. It was *perfect.* Trust me, we're gonna want to do that again sometime."

Catra is about to finish her donut, when she looks at Mami instead, and returns the wave. "Catra. And yes I'm actually a cat. ...Now we've met, and I look forward to beating inconvenient wannabe tough-girls into next week with you."

Mami Tomoe has posed:
Mami Tomoe hasn't been holding back. She also hasn't been fighting sparkle skirts. At least not until just the other day. Indeed, until very recently her skirt was very sparkly. It still is, it's just sparkling with the evil that keeps rubbing off on her. Well, now she wouldn't even consider holding back.

But then Takashi lets slip that he got a promotion and Mami's hands are coming together to clap. "Oh that's exciting! Congratulations, Takashi-kun!" Then she glances to Norie, who makes a very good point. "Yes, please be careful. We're a team and that includes you."

She offers Catra a smile. "It's a pleasure to meet you," she says. "I look forward to working together as well." Then she pauses, glances to Takashi, then back to Catra. "And if you ever want to come along and test yourself against a witch with me. Just let me know."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi nods. "I will be careful. But... I at least have an emergency escape system that not everybody here has access to." Not just the Dusk Zone, either, but his little 'you're too dumb to leave on your own so I'm taking you' robot friend Hotaru and Hematite worked on.

    He's interested in what Catra says, though. "Well, as it so happens I have a serious interest in getting ahold of that sword of hers. So if we can track it down and take it - even if they steal it back later - I can probably do some very interesting things. And if a virus can make her go berzerk that says a lot about how tied into it she is..." he muses, for a moment obviously lost in thought. Then he drifts back down to this dimension for a bit. "Yeah, there's a reason I wasn't super put-out when I didn't get any new lab space. I'm better off far away from them. I just want the budget - and it's nice not reporting to the idol-crazed girl anymore." he says. "For a while we're going to lay low too - I have some boring paperwork to deal with, and it'll give us time to get more info on what happened. Though if she-ra or someone else pops up as a target of particular opprotunity I'm not going to sit on my hands, either."

    Takashi finally reaches for one of the remaining donuts. MMM. strawberry. "Maybe this was a one-off - but it's happened now, and now you all know. So. You can all go about your business, I won't steal anymore of your time talking about stuff. You know where to find me if you need me."