2910/Cat Cafe Open Social

Cat Cafe Open Social
Date of Scene:	15 January 2026
Location:	Cafe BAKE Neko
Synopsis:	A crew in the Cat Cafe talks about the Fade and also about the Nightmare Nexus.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Usagi Tsukino, Chibiusa Tsukino, Amanda Faust, Rei Hino, Hinoiri Kirara, Molly Skyline

---

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Today, Mamoru is COLD. He is not sick, but he hasn't gotten enough sleep with all the psychic garbage going on in the background except for on campus, and Usagi's dorm bed is a little too short for him to stretch out on. So he's cold and sleepy and wearing a poncho over his leather jacket, and his black kitty-ear beanie, and he's hunched over a very sweet cafe mocha with whipped cream.

One hand emerges from the poncho to bring the mocha up to Mamoru's face, and it fogs his glasses, and he breathes the steam, and he sips it, and it's too hot, and his brow furrows. "Chibiusa-chan, can Luna-P cool down my coffee?"

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
It's cold but not too cold, which is why Usagi is wearing her big purple jacket with too many pockets, instead of a poncho over a jacket, like her silly husband. She's got a huge monstrosity of a drink, maybe thirty percent coffee and forty percent whipped cream and another thirty percent caramel and toffee and other bits. It's sweet enough to make the teeth of lesser ache.

In the cat cafe, with a kitten draped over her neck and half hidden in her collar, she's warming up.

"I told you you should have asked for extra extra whipped cream, it cools it right down," she informs him, a whipped cream mustache on her upper lip.

Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
    Chibiusa, wearing a thick pink puffy jacket, is sitting across from Mamoru with a textbook and some homework opened up in front of her. It's third grade math, so she's filling out a multiplication table. Next to the worksheet is a steaming cup of hot cocoa with a cat-eared marshmallow floating on the top surrounded by a crowd of other, smaller marshmallows. Luna-P is sitting on top of her head, as if she's balancing there, except that Chibiusa is clearly expending no effort to maintain that balance.

    Mamoru is cold, so he gets a mocha. The mocha is too hot so he wants it cooled down. The duality of Mamochan. "Luna-P, become a drink stirrer," she says without taking her eyes off the page.

    The catball hops off her head, turns into a plastic stir straw that has her signature cat ears on the holding end and is maybe a bit cold to the touch, and then drops into the mocha to start stirring it up. Don't worry about the fact that it moves on its own. It's magic.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Nobody tell Kazuo I'm giving his job to Luna-P," Mamoru says, staring as the catball cools down his coffee for him, and lean-bumping into Usagi for her told-you-so, and-- oh very lightly bumping, because of the kitten.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    It's cold but not too cold, but Amy conjured a cute puffy pink parka -- like an ice climber or that girl from the Frosty the Snowman cartoon -- anyway and then was slightly uncomfortably warm after misjudging the weather but now she's inside and has it off again.

    "You don't put any milk or cream in it? Huh..."

    "I'm probably terrible to coffee snobs though, I like mine with two creams, two sugars, blueberry flavoring."

    She's having hot chocolate too, and when she saw the cat-ear marshmallows she had to get some too. "Oh, these are cute! I'd never seen them before... I wonder how they make the shape? I guess the same way they make marshmallow peeps?"

    When Chibiusa issues that command, Amy gives her a curious look. "But there are stirrers right--" She grabs one from the table, and then Stirrer-P starts stirring by itself. "Oh. Okay, that's cool. Hinoiri got me a brush from KiraKiraFantastica that does that.. I mean, it brushes my hair on its own. It's pretty nice actually."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"I'm telling hima nd he'll be the saddest boy ever, he'll be the saddest boy and you'll have to make up for it by doing something," Usagi says, because she is his wife and today that means she's got to tease him like hse's getting paid for it. Chibiusa is their good precious future daughter.

"No, he has whipped cream, he just didn't get enough, cause it's still hot," is her generous explanation to Amy. She digs a spoon (a SPOON) into her coffee and drags out it again, getting momre whipped cream than coffee, just as she likes it.

Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
    Chibiusa frowns at her homework, furrows her brow, and squints at it. "Hey... why is 2 times 4 different than 4 times 2? Teacher told me they were the same." Then she starts counting on her fingers and muttering under her breath. Her mouth twists as she gets increasingly perplexed, and then leans closer to her homework. "How did I get 6?" Closer lean. "... Oh, that's an 8. I just wrote it wrong."

    While she erases her handwriting and redoes it to make it more legible, Luna-P pings at Mamoru. She's not telling nobody nothing. Alas, she is powerless against Usagi, so instead it makes a sad ping noise after 'saddest boy ever'.

    Chibiusa blinks at Amy. "You got a brush that moves on its own? That's so cool. I should get one of those." Then she looks at Luna-P and says, "... though I guess Luna-P could do that, too."

Rei Hino has posed:
    Rei walks in, wearing a puffy pink jacket - rather similar to Amy's except more fashionista than cute - that shaves off the cold, though maybe the senshi of Fire is in fact bothered more by the cold anyways. She starts getting the big poofy jacket off as soon as she's in the door, though, having actually mostly coincidentally stopped by to pet cats and maybe run into Mamoru and Usagi - which hey, look at that!

    Still polite, in some ways, she walks over to Mamoru, Usagi, and Chibi-usa. "Is this a family occasion, or or are more friends welcome?" she raven-haired girl asks, running a hand through her hair that causes her large gold earrings to jingle a bit. It's both a question of her presence and perhaps a way for her to get an excuse to pull Amy away if they were trying to get some alone time; not out of any hostility, more a keen sense that sometimes, Usagi's magnetic personality might be too magnetic for Mamoru in terms of extra, bonus attention it attracted them when together.

    Rei looks over at ChibiUsagi's homework and does not comment on how her handwriting is still more legible than her future-mothers. But she does think it.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"You would want to make Kazuo the saddest boy ever? Has he done anything bad lately I should know about?" asks Mamoru, laughing, and it's real laughing; he's not worried. "There's milk in there, and whip cream on top," he confirms to Amy, "but I don't want the ratio of coffee to dairy to chocolate to change, so it needed either time or magic. Fortunately I know a time-traveller with magic." :D

Mamoru now picks up his coffee and tests it, then gives a decisive nod of job-well-done to Luna-P, and a thumbs-up.

Rei's approach nets her a smile from the high school senior seated next to her princess; Mamoru's smile gets even warmer when Rei asks what she asks: he knows what it is. "Plenty of room for more," he says cheerfully, "pull up a chair!"

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy ahhs at the explanation of coffee ratio, and nods.

    Why is 2*4 different than 4*2? Amy looks at Chibiusa in confusion. What math have they discovered in Crystal Tokyo? Oh she just wrote an 8 that looked like a six. "It happens."

    When Chibiusa comments on the brush being cool, Amy smiles, but when she says she should get one of her own, Amy blinks at her, about to ask-- "I was assuming-- yeah, that Luna-P can do that, too."

    Rei calls out and Amy turns to look at her, offering a friendly smile. "Friends are cool!" She is oblivious, and assumes if they'd wanted alone time they would have said. Also she leans over to pet a passing cat.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Speaking of everyone's most annoying pony, guess who decided to walk in then and there? After having made herself scarce for a few weeks, between school work, research in the shed and then running off back home whenever the portal was open, it seems the girl has been giving just about everyone the slip, only popping in and out on occasion to grab snacks, occasional reminders that she was still alive and a brief musical number that ended in her getting a coffee stain out of a dress (don't ask).

Now? She was in gloves and a coat, walking into the little cat cafe, her cheeks a lil rosy red from the cold as she waved. "How's my favorite cat-shop owner and company?" Hinoiri asked. She'd order a hot strawberry drink today. "Hey Time-hopper," she said, holding out a fist towards Chibiusa to pound.

"So, Amy, how goes work on the pin drive? Have you managed to extract any information from it?" She... certainly looked... excited. Wide eyed and, pardon the pun, bushy tailed. "Cause I got some great news. Guess who... ahem... after... a lot more time and effort than she... originally expected... mastered the spell to setup the dream defenses? Turns out... Runa... is a bit more of a stickler for some things than I thought she'd be..." Hinoiri mumbled, side eying a bit. Well, at least her excitement was now apparent. Likely first ones she told.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"No, I just think you'd make a really funny face trying to apologize for replacing him with Luna-P," Usagi says, earnest and silly in equal amounts, before glancing over to Chibiusa's homework and frowning. She counts off two and two and two and two and then four and four on her fingers and squints about the problem of the math -

"Oh, that makes sense," she says, when Chibiusa realizes she just goofed her writing. "There you go - oh, Rei-chan!!! Hiiii, Hinoi- oh."

It's an oh of ah, work is coming... but at least it's good news that Hinoiri is bringing with her? She purses her lips, looking at Hinoiri and says, "I don't think you need any coffee. Want some hot chocolate? They have kitty marshmallows."

Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
    Small Lady looks up as Rei approaches and smiles. Briefly, though. She's focusing on homework. She wants to get it right!

    Luna-P Stirring Straw pings cheerfully at Mamoru and then hovers back over to Chibiusa, who wipes her off with a napkin before the stirring rod becomes a catball again. The catball bounces over to the nearest actual cat, who stares at her for a moment before batting her around with one foot. Luna-P rolls along, letting itself be pushed like this.

    When Hinoiri comes in she lifts up her fist for the fistbump. "Hi, former Timelooper." After a pause she asks, "... Runa?" Then she looks at the others and realizes that this is probably code for something magical.

    After noticing the amount of drinks coming to the table she closes her textbook and starts stuffing it back into her pink bunny-print bag under the table. Then she starts double checking her homework.

    Oh right! She has hot chocolate. She likes hot chocolate. She sips the hot chocolate and a little bit of melty marshmallow ends up on her nose. She is oblivious to this fact.

Molly Skyline has posed:
Either by design or by coincidance, the door opens to admit Molly Skyline, though it's a bit of a struggle for her to get her knapsack through the door -- which is nothing new, everything's some sort of struggle at the moment, one way or another. She comes in wearing dressed in her stylishly damaged jeans (and she doesn't care if it's cold apparently) and a bright pink, puffy jacket that somehow manages to work with her purple hair. And with the left sleeve tied in a knot around where her mid-bicep would be, just keep it out of the way.

She's also got a bit of a black eye and a split lip, though not something that's happened in the last five minutes at least. She glances around the room, and approaches where her friends are sitting, sliding into a seat at the end and plopping her bag down on the floor.

"Hey everyone," she greets, unable to entirely avoid sounding tired -- but, hey, trying to cram an entire year of studying (or at least half of one) into a couple of months will probably do that.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy can't help smirking a little at the thought of the ridiculousness of this being phrased as 'Mamoru replaced Kazuo with Luna-P'

    She looks briefly confused at Usagi counting on her fingers but then just thinks: different brains, after all. Amy may as well be counting social problems on her fingers, compared to what she saw a glimpse of Usagi's mind doing the other day.

    She hears the door open and there's Molly. She smiles, "Everyone with the pink coats today! Tripletsies!"

    Hinoiri asks about the pin drive, and Amy smiles and is about to answer when the other girl continues, and her eyes widen, "Oooh, really?! Cool! How does it work?"

Rei Hino has posed:
    Rei mostly lets the 'sad boys' talk pass right by her, but she's smiling - it's good to be in the company of friends, not cooped up in her temple, even if sometimes she misses the direct nearness of the fire. "Thanks. There's a lot to be said for pulling up a chair with friends - and kitties." she says. "Even if I can't bring Phobos and Deimos within like a mile of this place." she says with a little snicker.

    Rei reaches over to ruffle Chibi-usa in greeting. "It's good to hear someone's got something for the dream problems at school, Kirara-san." she says, nodding. "I've mostly been focused on trying to get information on what Obsidian is doing, and the dream stuff... I don't think it's connected. I think, lucky us, we've just got a lot of problems going on at once."

    Amy is asked about the drive, and Rei's eyes turn to regard her. "I'm curious about that too, I admit. I put a message up in the shed but so far nobody's told me they've seen a palm tree planter masquerading as someone's grandma."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru in *his* black kitty-ear beanie and the poncho over his leather jacket, he's sipping his mocha finally and leaning into Usagi a little again, and smiling at Luna-P, then Chibiusa... when Hinoiri comes in and has news, and ooh maybe Amy does too, and Usagi says 'oh' and Mamoru notices it, and he closes his eyes and sips his drink again.

It's exactly the right temperature, and it will stay so for the next five minutes, so he has five minutes of perfection to drink it.

Opening his eyes again, Mamoru says to all the arrivees, "Yo." Then more specifically, "Ah, good to see you, Molly-san, Hinoiri-san~"

Molly Skyline has posed:
Molly flashes a smile in Amy's direction, and shrugs, "Yeah, I needed something in a bit of a hurry for this cold snap -- I had my old winter jacket in Starcrash's secure storage and Seriss destroyed all of that which was super great of her -- and this one was kind of there and was the only one that really fit. But it's okay because I mean, pink wouldn't have been my first choice but it's usually choice number three or four or something, so it's..."

The purplenette shrugs her shoulders lightly, "Sorry, I'm rambling, I'm still not like, entirely myself again yet I don't think. It's kind of a process." She shrugs, lifting her hand and dropping it back into her leg -- which promptly one of the cats assumes to be an offer of pets and jumps up into her lap. And of course there's nothing to do but oblige its desires.

"Uhh... Pin drive?" Molly leans in towards the conversation, "What's a pin drive? I'm still so behind the times on everything."

Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
    Chibiusa's hair is ruffled. Palm tree planter? Is that a youma, a person with bad hair, or an actual sentient planter? Chibiusa literally cannot guess. This timeline is weird.

    Oh right, the shed thing. She remembers now.

    Her eyes dart over to Usagi who was counting fingers the exact same way she was. Is she copying her? How dare! Before retribution can be enacted for this (imagined) slight, Chibiusa notices that it's getting even more crowded and well... the homework doesn't have to be finished now. She puts it away in her bag and zips it up, freeing up more table space and protecting her pages from accidental spills.

    "I think it's like a thumb drive. You know like a USB stick? I think that's what people use in this era," she explains to Molly. She takes a (normal) stirring straw to her hot chocolate and slowly starts pushing the marshmallows around, watching them melt as the steam floats upwards.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
"Kitty marshmallows?" Hinoiri asked, blinking a few times as if it was such a strange and foreign concept to her. Then, finally, it clicked it. "Awwww, those do sound pretty cute. And ehhhh, just a bit jazzed, not... that hyper." Okay, maybe a bit. She reached out and scritched a passing kitty.

"Sora's sister who I thought was just a myth," she informed Chibiusa, to catch her up. "Sora is my mentor, who I think you knew, but... just in case." Shoot, how much did she tell after that? Time loops made things weird. Also, the lil bunny with the marshmallow was... well, that was just perfect.

"With great difficulty," Hinoiri informed Amy. "A lot of complex variables and equations that I won't bore you all with," she said. "But basically, it'll be a lot of hoof-- hand holding, people focusing on things most important to them, good feelings, and thinking about the stuff that makes them happiest. But I'd like to do the first one with Emi around. Especially since this kind of magic, in this world? Her territory and it's going to be so many layers of unstable without her to ground it."

"After the first time, though? Between Mamoru's ability to do his lil dream thing and a few others, we can probably grab others for it. It's gonna be a whole group project, though. Something woven just to protect, heh. kind of reminds me of back home. Like a gardening project we'd make as fillies to keep out insects and stuff in protections 101. But... on a grander scale. And... in dreams. And... okay, nothing like that but I just didn't do a lot of group projects so my point of reference is a little off in that regard," Hinoiri mumbled sheepishly.

"And yup, Chibiusa's got it," Hinoiri confirmed. "... Thumbs are weird."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Usagi is blissfully unaware of how close she came to receiving Chibiusa's vengeance for her imagined slight of being very similar to her own future daughter. Instead, she's cheerfully greeting Molly and scooting over, their table having become very crowded.

The topic of the conversation is now definitely about work instead of play, even if there's also a brief moment of clothes talk before that too is work talk.

"I don't know if Emi is... back to strength," Usagi says, delicately. "At least, she wasn't the last time we helped her, right before Christmas, so - it would be good to check." She glances at Mamoru, after mentioning it, remembering that he'd recently run into Aoi-chan, the aftermath of that effort at helping Emi.

"So... are the rest of us all going to help think happy thoughts? Or something else? Because, I think we can be good at thinking happy thoughts." Even with the downturn her mood's been taking lately, she's still pretty good at picking herself back up.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    The cat she was petting pads off to attend to urgent cat business, apparently. Amy sits up and goes to answer Rei and then looks confused when Rei talks about palm trees pretending to be grandmas.

    And then she listens to Hinoiri, wide-eyed, at the tal of dream magic, and can't help grinning when Hinoiri says it will be a group project. "We all get to do dream magic together?!"

    Thumbs are weird. Amy smiles. "Why do they call them fingers when they don't even fing?"

    She nods to Molly re: becoming yourself being a process. "Oh, it's just a USB drive. Thumb drive. Flash drive. I'm not sure where 'pin drive' came from. I was confused too when they first called it that."

    She looks back to the others. "So, I guess it was some unique Obsidian-made flashdrive 'cuz even Nichomachea couldn't find one like it on the internet. So I did have to get and use and learn how to use a spiderboard adapter-- thankfully the chip itself wasn't Obsidian-made so I could get the pinout--" She blinks. "Right, sorry."

    Amy takes a breath and looks like she's trying to figure out how to organize her words in her head. "So. Um. Some parts of the partition were damaged and unreadable, and I got a lot of partial or corrupted files. Those look like they were about past Obsidian interference with the Fade, so I suspect they've been doing that for awhile -- and if the Fade indeed appeared in the last few centuries, quite possibly it was created by their predecessors and they had inside info."

    "Ummm..." Amy holds up one finger, then another, then taps it with her other finger, trying to find her mental place again.

    "...Right, there's talk about how gathered energy can be used to somehow... charge or overload the Fade? So I guess they've been doing that, which has been steadily lowering the age at which it happens. So it turns out that's one of the things they're working toward and have been working toward all along." She uncurls another finger and taps it, "There's files about the places Riventon and Kagayaki-san went to, they need to... get energy flow there? The reasons why were in missing files."

    Next finger. "Aaaand they realized we could use the memory jar to try and circumvent the Fade even after they 'overload' it so much that most current mahoujin won't remember magic anymore; so that's why Riventon had to steal it and make us think it was destroyed so we wouldn't look for it."

    Amy blinks. "Uhhh. I think that's everything. I've got copies of the files already in like three places just in case, and I'm happy to send them over to anyone who wants to look and see if they find anything that I overlooked"

    She beams. She did a thing! A useful thing! That wasn't explosions! She helped and is showing work she can be proud of! This is a really nice feeling!

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru finishes his mocha and slides his empty mug to the middle of the table, then puts his arm around the scooted-closer Usagi comfortably, and just -- listens, for the most part, taking in the information. He looks from Hinoiri to Rei to Hinoiri to Usagi to Amy; he settles to looking at his empty mug. "I'm sure I can think happy thoughts," he says with grim determination, then laughs.

Then Amy launches into a long explanation, and Mamoru listens, and listens, and his face gradually loses his easy expression, and he says very gravely, "Well done, Amy-chan. I'd love a copy, and I bet you Kazuo-kun would love a copy even more."

Then he hitches a sigh a little, and leans the side of his face against Usagi's head. (He's tired and his heart hurts and he loves her.) "And I'm sure Riventon's taken the magic from it to use for whoever he thinks he can trust or whatever." He doesn't sound bitter, just kind of sick.

(He's also trying not to think about Aoi, about that scribbleworld behind the walls, with the lost socks and memory cards, the forgotten gym shirts of the world...) (He's sorry.) He grounds himself in the scent of her hair, the warmth of her, the chatter of their friends around them. He's cold, but the coffee helped. His toes are very comfortable in these fancy shoes. He can think happy thoughts, like being married and having friends and being out of the orphanage and out of Obsidian and--

"Hinoiri, I think your analogy works really well, actually," he finally says, lifting his head. "And I'm excited to see the results of your efforts!"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara blinked a few times, before looking at her fingers. "What... what is fing-ing?" she asked. Trust her to not get the joke. Alas. She then reached out and... "Oh, oh! Runa gave me these!" she said, pulling out a little strip of star and moon stickers, looking very smug. "She said I did so well I deserved the whole sheet."

... She was *way* too old to be happy to, effectively, be getting a gold star from her *teacher*. As she peeled off one of the lil moons and put it on Amy's cheek. "You did very good, thanks. Please send it to my email, okay? That's going to be incredibly helpful."

She then glanced to Usagi. "And yeah, whatever works for you all. Happy thoughts, moon thoughts, pretty cure thoughts, mermaid thoughts. Your own... happy fortress thoughts, basically. Whatever it is that like, makes you feel happy and secure, more or less. It's about being inner zen, and stuff. Kind of like yoga, or meditation." She then blinked.

"... Wait, did Yuyami *diss* me? 'If anyone could use some meditation in their life, I think you could'... I think she did! Of all the girls... That girl about spazzed out over getting a *book* from this world..." she grumbled.

"Well... either way... now that we know? We'll have it beaten, no problem," Hinoiri said dismissively. "And once we do? We can stop worrying about it so much. It'll be nice, too, since I won't have to worry about magic disappearing anymore, I'll be able to stick around forever if I want. You guys might never get rid of me, won't that be terrible for you," she teased, before she started petting one of the kitties.

"But... who knows what he did with it. And it's probably something dumb," Hinoiri said, looking over to Mamoru. She then gave him an encouraging smile. "But... he did give it to me. Sure, he did it in a way which made me want to slug him, so he was still Riventon. But at the end of the day, he didn't have to. So... there's at least half a point for that. Maaaaybe three quarters of a point."

Molly Skyline has posed:
"Well now I just feel like kind of a failed nerd for not knowing the term 'pin drive'," Molly admits, blushing softly. "But like, in my defense, I've had a difficult year and I'm basically just off my game, so like... maybe it's okay if I didn't pick that up all the way. It's fine, right? I'm pretty sure it doesn't mean anything."

She smiles at Usagi too, and somehow manages to acquire a bubble tea -- or maybe she just surrepticiously retrieved it from her device's storage space. It's always good to have some food already on hand for when you're hungry or thirsty or whatever, and she may as well enjoy the perks of having a device for as long as she's got it.

The purplenette lets the conversation swirl around her, and there's so much stuff that's going on that she's just... behind on. And asking people to clarify details endlessly gets exhausting in a hurry and is probably annoying besides, so she just lets it go; she'll pick it up sooner or later. And it's not like she's feeling oerly ready to jump back into the action full time yet anyway, even if she's been in a couple of fights since being given back control over her own body.

But, maybe that doesn't mean she's entirely consigned to just listening.

"Uhm... I have an appointment in a week, so uhh, please wish me luck, everyone?" She plops the bubble tea where she can get her lips around the straw without holding it, and resumes petting the cat that's taking up her lap. "I, uhh, finally get to go see someone about getting a prosthetic. So like. Maybe I can have two hands again soon."

Rei Hino has posed:
    Rei listens, intently, to Amy. "That's a lot. But. Uh. The palm tree lady is a reference, sorry. There's a lady that keeps popping up in my fire readings, she's really, really old and she's related to Obsidian and the Fade, and that's most of what I know. I keep seeing her in what feels like various time frames, and I think they're getting more modern. Which means she's really, really, super, really old, and she's maybe still around, and maybe responsible." She says.

    "Good work, Amy. Though it'd be nice if we could have recovered all of the data, it'd also be nice if the fire reading I do would tell me like 'hey the jerks are doing X' but I guess no such luck, so we'll have to peice it together out of what we can get." she says.

    "Well, that, and the big advantage they don't have - friends, teammates, allies." she says, looking around at the diverse crowd and leaning back, just a small smile on her face. "We'll get em. Also, we get to pet cats." she says as one walks by for the few scritchings it allows her.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Mmm," says Mamoru to Hinoiri, not quite able to smile back to that one. "Riventon is not my happy place," he explains, "so I'm going to think about something else, but yes, I'm very glad he decided to do that. And I'm jazzed you got a whole sticker sheet, with moons no less--"

Molly gets a thumbs-up, too. "Excellent! Are you going to put stickers on it?"

He gives Rei an impressed look. "Hope she's got a big enough chin to take all the fists headed its way."

Amanda Faust has posed:
What is fing-ing?
    Amy dutifully explains, "It's not a word, that was the joke."

Now I feel like a failed nerd...
    "Hey, I didn't know it either and I worked in IT. It's fine." She smiles reassuringly.

Palm tree lady, the ancient evil.
    "Could she be like, the one in charge? ...Are we sure 'Father Obsidian' is a guy and not a deceptive codename?"

She said I did so well I deserved the whole sheet.
    "Aww!" Amy smiles.

You did very good! *sticker*
Well done, Amy-chan!
Good work, Amy.    She beams.

    She is not too old to appreciate a gold star from teacher, it turns out that doesn't go away, you just learn to recognize when people are being patronizing and incincere and when teachers see you do anything less than gold-star-worthy they decide you're not trying and you learn adults don't actually care and can't be trusted and all think something is wrong with you and you start to believe it too and you don't get gold stars anymore.

    Anyway, the sincere praise for something she sees as having taken work and skill, rather than magic she lucked into and a decision to do the right thing that came naturally, is a feeling she has long been without and it warms her heart more than the hot chocolate ever could.

    "...I'll always be glad to have you around, Hinoiri-chan."

    Amy gasps slightly at the news of the prosthetic appointment. "Oh, congratulations, Molly! Good luck!"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara glanced at Molly and shook her head. "I don't think missing one obscure term for something out of seventy three thata word can have makes you a bad nerd," Hinoiri said in a playful tone. "I think it just makes you a person, like everyone else."

As her drink arrived, she took a sip and just relaxed, sipping it and nodding along. "Palm tree lady, huh? Sounds... weird. Not the weirdest, but eh...."

However, the comment about Father Obsidian... made her choke on her drink and almost drop it. She lowered it quickly and then shook her head. "I... I can assure you... well. I don't know if he is a guy but he is most assuradely... real..." she said, giving a light shudder. "And... terrifying. I've only seen him twice and I'm not even sure if either time was truly... real. When I first started working there I caught a glimpse... when his... agents... came to see me..." She shuddered. "And once in a time loop. When he tried to... well... the last time Obsidian found out about... the time loop."

"Let's... talk about something else. Prosthetic! So, Molly, how's that looking? Like... I've never seen a human's. Do they have wicked cool finger gizmos on them or like... wait, do you guys imitate them? That sounds so neat."

Molly Skyline has posed:
"Well... I guess I have to ask the prosthetesist -- is that a word? -- about it, but I read stuff on the internet and what kind of arm they give you is based on what kind of need you can demonstrate," Molly replies, blushing once again as there's suddenly more attention on her. Which is good! It's good to talk to people and have things be normal-ish again, which she's still not used to yet, really.

"So I'm just, like, completely nervous about it. Because I know what kind of arm I need. I need the best one possible. I want the one that can do a limited brain interface and has touch-pads on the fingertips and stuff. It's still... like it's still not as good as having two real arms, but I have to take what I can get and... and I'm really scared that they'll just give me one of those lame pinch-claw things or something."

The purplenette sighs, and deflates a little in her seat. "Because I can't figure out how I'd ever drive a car properly, let alone race one, with... with that. I can't deal with that. And I'm so, just... nervous about it, I'm alternating between being so excited to have two arms again I could jump up and dance and so nervous I want to cry about it."

Oh, hold oh, Hinoiri met Father Obsidian? ...That's something to ask her about... like probably never, actually, she sounded terrified over it.

"But... thanks, everyone. Any of you mind if I ever call you at two in the morning or anything, on the night before I go? I might be a wreck."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Hinoiri and Mamoru have both met -- sort of -- the mysterious Father Obsidian. And how they feel about him...

    Yeah. Best not to bring it up. Amy already knows that in one of the timelines she Witched, so, that's plenty bad enough. She can't even take satisfaction in the thought that her Witch might have at least seriously annoyed Father Obsidian, he sounds like he could crush a Witch no problem.

    Is prosthetesist a word? "Prosthetist, yes." She listens curiously; generally interested in transhumanism but never having had occasion to learn what the process of getting a prosthetic is in the real world. She nods at Molly's explanation of what she needs, and they know she needs to drive, of course. "That's..." She tries to imagine something that would hit close to her own experience and strong feels. Actually, wait, no, she uses a keyboard constantly. Do even advanced prosthetics have fine enough control to hit keys at the WPM she's used to? She could be condemned to typing so slowly it's like squeezing her thoughts through a straw, like when she has to use a phone... only it'd be all the time and not just when she's using a phone. And similarly inconvenienced for browsing, and gaming, and coding, and everything...

    Ah. Okay, and just imagining this is but a shadow of a sliver of what Molly feels. Amy tenses a bit. "Okay, yeah, I can begin to imagine..." she grimaces for a moment, then tries to reassure. "If they won't give you the best, we'll keep trying. And I bet there's adjustments that can be made to a car's controls to make it more accessible." Amy's tangential, weirdly-angled interest in accessibility may have real applications in the future. She makes a mental note to add 'person who comes up with stuff like that' to the possible future career list.

    "You have friends, and magic. If you can't get a good prosthetic through conventional means, we'll find another way."

    Amy blinks. "Of course you can call me, but I'm not sure I'm the best at reassuring people. Or calming them down. Maybe call me after works better. Although I guess I'm still learning how to handle venting instead of jumping to the 'look for solutions' stage, but I guess that means I need the practice too... hmm."

    She decides that, right now, at least, she can give Molly a hug, so she gets up from her chair and walks over to her and does that, unless Molly indicates she's not up for it.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara cringed a bit when Molly mentioned she'd need support that day, but... "I'll be there," she said firmly. "No worries, okay? If you need anyone to chat with and whatever. Just go ahead and give me a call. Just... make sure you let me know the day ahead of time, okay? So it doesn't sneak up on me or anything," she said firmly.

"Just remember, that's the best thing about magic in this place. No matter what? You're not alone. Heh." Before she took a sip of her drink and relaxed, leaning back and just chiiling out...