1125/The Rainbow Scheme

The Rainbow Scheme
Date of Scene:	17 February 2024
Location:	Obsidian Tower
Synopsis:	Riventon and Sunbreaker head off to the dusk zone to work on a small... side project that has to do with the rainbow crystals. As well as discuss how their own research is going. Dusk bonding, you could say.
Cast of Characters:	Hinoiri Kirara, Takashi Agera

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Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker was leaning on Takashi's desk, the day before valentines day. Tomorrow was going to be fun, probably. She was going to figure it out. But for now? Work! And apparently Takashi had managed to get some info on the rainbow crystals they were all going after. He had the black one, after all... And since she was going to take tomorrow off, she figured it was best to do her work before she left, not after.

For now, though, while she waited for his arrival... she had her phone out. It was a 'new' phone. A 'burner', as Moon called it. Such a nifty concept. And she had her mug, World's Best Employee, with some cocoa in it. Which she occasionally drank from...

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Getting data was the whole purpose of what he did at the last Rainbow Crystal fight, which was mostly act haughty and throw insults around... while getting readings off the Rainbow Crystal, the youma it turned into, and everyone around fighting.

    In the end he hadn't even contested the crystal that day, truly - as if he had taken it he'd just have to give it Beryl. If Chrono or one of the other sparkleskirts had it for a bit he could always slap it out of their hands, but Beryl? Not so much. That was a problem he was hoping he could solve, collaboratively, with the girl who was obsessed with her mug.

    "Yeah, I have some data for you." Takashi says. And then he pushes his hand into the Dusk Zone, making an 'after you' gesture with his other hand and inclining his head. He didn't want to talk about what he had, or what the plan even was, in Beryl's own department. The Dusk Zone was much safer in terms of sharing info.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker pushed off the desk and gave a nod. "Wonderful. I was starting to think you'd stand me up," she said in a teasing tone. She drank down the last of her cocoa and then the mug disappeared. She walked forward, into the dusk zone and... Once he was there... "Did you get what we needed?" she asked.

She then pulled out a bag, opening it... coal? She held out her right hand once he confirmed it. And her magic started to make walls, shoving out the 'dusk' of the dusk zone from an area. It wouldn't last long before the dusk energy closed in again, but by then they'd be gone. She gathered the materials in the bag and they began to swirl into a burning ring of fire, the 'room' heating up rapidly. Not burning them, but definitely a sweat maker.

"Did you have much trouble getting all we needed?" she asked, glancing over to him as she worked. She hadn't done anything like this since... well... she made the fake miracle gems.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi smirks. "Of course I wasn't going to stand you up. I'm a lot of things that a lot of people dislike sure, but I do keep my word." he says.

    "I've got all of the data I could get without physically touching one. And the issue with that is that we don't want to bring one back to Beryl. I'm pretty sure Axion's data is just as good though. In terms of knowing how to make something that does what we need. I'm a little bit closer to being able to track them myself too, but the crystal wasn't moving enough for me to be sure, so I'll need to keep the black crystal for a little bit longer. Probably best to have it with us anyways, since it seems to have some resonance with the youma, like Beryl said."

    He watches as Sunbreaker makes a little portion of the Dusk Zone into her temporary own, amused and interested. "Pretty sure I've got everything you asked for, data and otherwise."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker nodded. "Perfect. Can you go ahead and display a physical representation of them? They're called the 'rainbow' crystals so I assume they'll be different colors. I'll make these so we can swap the colors... but it'll only work once. So the plan should be grab it, get this one 'knocked' out of you, making sure it's the right color, then retreat. Easy enough. Adjusting the energy signature will be a bit... harder. It'll be a fake... but hopefully the only one who might be able to tell is the people with real ones. Something tells me that Beryl isn't exactly the magical expert type."

She then paused. "Oh... and I reached out to my sources. Apparently she broke two other perfectly good kingdoms and almost broke this one. So... yeah. Keeping her away before she breaks another toy is probably the right idea. She's a spoiled child desperate for toys she couldn't begin to understand. And once they didn't do what she wanted, she'd probably break them, too."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    "Well, it's not like I've seen any of the others, so I'm going to hope that since this one was obviously cut and faceted a certain way, the others are the same. If they're not, we're gonna have a tough time." He says, using Axion to projectt an image of the Green Rainbow Crystal.

    "I don't honestly know. I think at one point Beryl was some sort of sorcerer-sage? I wouldn't discount her. The suit part is the front. She's got a crystal ball and staff." he explains. "Our best bet is making sure she doesn't suspect so she doesn't check. So we get a fake one for them and a fake one for her?" he offers.

    "Then if she discovers the fake we can claim shenanigans from them, because they have the real thing, and just fail to get it. Either way nobody needs to know we've got the real thing. Unless somebody else gets six it shouldn't matter. Then we can keep tabs on the rest and keep things locked down, and maybe figure things out on our own time."

    "Her being a spoiled brat matches what my source told me, biased or not. I'm still of the opinion I don't want anybody getting all seven - I don't want any major changes in the balance of power right now. I have enough crap to deal with." He admits.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker gave a small nod. "We can hopefully avoid testing it. The ideal scenario is that she won't even know we have one. We leave the fake to them, stash the real one, then bring the black crystal back to Beryl. Then we grab the real one and do our own tests on it. Might be better to have one of us grab the black crystal from whoever has the rainbow crystal before we go too far, just in case."

"We don't want her even knowing we can make fakes until this is over. I'll... try and make it so that these won't give off any signature until we actually get the real crystal. Hopefully that will be enough and the crystal won't know. I don't... think... she can track us with it. But I'd still rather not take the risk. Like it or not, everyone is going to be expecting us to be helping Beryl on this. But, if we have to? Giving her a 'fake' and saying we were tricked by the sparkle skirts would be better than giving it to her. Better she think us a fool than us trusting her and removing all doubt," Sunbreaker said flatly.

"But yeah. I'm with you on that. I have my own plans and throwing a bunch of random rainbow crystal stuff into them is just going to give me more headaches that I don't want to deal with. The last thing any of us want, or need, is for it to turn out to be a whole treasure trove of those miracle rocks of theirs. They'd probably blow themselves up just trying to use them..."

As she spoke, she spun the materials around rapidly, a blazing white ring of forged magic. Finally, they began to shift and mold, forming four smaller circles... Sweat was forming on her brow as she worked and it was obvious that this magic was taking more out of her than she cared to admit.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    "Yeah, my plan wasn't so much to give her a fake crystal directly as have it in hand in case it's impossible for her not to know. Like if I trash the whole group of sparkles it becomes harder to argue they still got the crystal without looking like it's just impossible for me to do my job, which is not a look I want for my own wellbeing." he says.

    "So having the option of a fake for her would buy is more time in such a circumstance." he explains. "But ideally I can just convince her of another almost-success." he says.

    "Yeah I didn't get a lot of clarity on what's actually behind Door Number Rainbow One. So until I know it's not going to somehow ruin both of our plans I don't want to give it to either team of idiots."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker nodded. "It's pretty nice knowing at least one member of Obsidian has some competency when I have to work with them," Sunbreaker muttered. The four rings compressed, glowing white for a moment before they began to slowly cool down.

Sunbreaker, meanwhile, wobbled slightly and had to reach out to grip his shoulder, lightly panting. She then flicked her hand and a small pillar formed, the crystals dropped on it. "T-there. Appearance wise, how do they show?" she asked, taking a small break.

"And... me either. My source seemed to just believe it was the last remaining bit of this 'golden kingdom' of theirs. Honestly? I'm betting it'll just be ruins... at least, I'd say that. But the crystals survived, why wouldn't something else? Calling it now. We get in there... and it's just a bunch of sleeping sparkle skirts waiting to get out. Heh."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Riventon nodded. "Yeah, I could say the same thing about you regarding the rare competency." he says. He walks over. "They look pretty good. And even Axion is registering them right, like it would the real ones... I'll be able to make sure after I get some more data, but it's an impressive duplicate, Sunbreaker." he notes, honestly legitimately praising her.

    "Yeah... I'd say there's a 50-50 chance that we open the door and then whatever is in there just makes us close it right back up and shatter the crystals." he admits. "Doomsday weapon or sleeping sparkle skirts or spider-infested ruins with no value."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker gave a small nod. "Right. Physical done. Now... come thes the difficult part..." she said before picking one of them up. He could hear a light sizzling as she glanced at the readings from Axiom. Adjusting, adjusting... Panting lightly, she wiped more sweat from her brow.

He might notice the walls around them were beginning to darken. It seemed the dusk zone didn't like being kept out for long. However, she soon held out the crystal. "How... close is this?" she asked. "Scan it and let me know."

"And... yeah. Probably. what is with this world and all these 'destroy the world' weapons? Back home we have some 'I want to rule all of the world!' things, but blowing up a world, especially your own, seems just... dumb." Pause. "... Oh gosh if it is just sleeping sparkle skirts then does this make the whole thing a rescue operation? Ugh. These people need to take better care of their stuff."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Riventon did so, and then his eyes widened juuust a little bit. "No, it looks right on. You really know your stuff about gems and crystals." he says. "I mean, I knew you did, but it's still impressive to see it in action." he says.

    "If it's a rescue operation, they don't know. I very seriously told them I might shatter one if I got ahold of it to stop the nonsense and they didn't act like it was damning a bunch of people." Riventon notes. "Honestly, for all I know it's just the back garden of some long dead empire. But I also know if we let Beryl get ahold of it we'll probably regret it." He pauses. "Still a good chance of regretting it with the 'skirts, just less."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker preened under the compliment, giving a nod. "It's... okay, I'm not going to lie. Incredibly hard and most couldn't do this. Even in my world. But being the most talented mage in a generation..." Pause. "And living in a world with magic so I don't have to learn it all on my own gives me quite a few advantages. Gemstone magic like this is our speciality."

"Yeah... probably. I wouldn't mind *some* of them having it, so long as we could supervise. But if Beryl got it, I wouldn't trust her at all. Even if there was just a bunch of old paperclips. She'd likely just try harder and throw a massive hissy fit. Better she thinks whatever is in there is important and spends all her time trying to get it, rather than grabbing something else that's actually important."

The hardest part of all came next. Soon, the gemstones were all done. All... radiating very little magic. Just enough to show they were magic. "When you see the gem you want to have it imitate, focus on it and give the gem a little squeeze. It'll make their magic activate. After that... the black gem will, most likely, be able to track them. So make sure not to trigger them until then. It's a one time use, can't really be put back in the box once it's turned on."

She held two of them out to him. Two for her. Then... in an odd twist... "You know, I bet you could have done this too, if you'd been from my world. Your talent is so far beyond this world. Maybe not to my level... but definitely better than most here."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Unlike many compliments Takashi gave others, this one was actually legitimate. Not just words said to provoke a positive reaction. Though he knew it would likely cause that, too.

    Takashi nodded at her explanation, reaching out to take the gem. "You're keeping, or making, some for yourself too, right?" he asks before she splits them and he grins a bit. Good.

    Then comes her compliment. "Well, if you got stuck here I'm sure you'd still figure out how to make something of yourself. The only problem you had when you appeared here was expecting it to be different than it was - if you'd grown up here you wouldn't have nearly summoned half the Dusk Zone on your own head." he says with a grin.

    "But considering how weird your world was to me? The fact that you have been operating here successfully? Still impressive."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker glanced around the room. "Looks like our time here is running out. This dark energy is corrosive. Still, it makes these little regions useful. Making all you need, then it just... cleans it up once you're done. No real evidence." So long as everything you brought with you, you left with? It was perfect for little experiments like this.

Granted, the dark energy was starting to eat through the walls... kind of made you wonder what it did to the people who wielded it.

"Yeah... those first few days sucked. Humans bodies do NOT like eating random flowers. Do not recommend. I'll take the black crystal next, see if I can get a hit. I'll let you know if I get a hit." She started to go, then paused. "Oh, just a warning... there's a weird... thing... walking around. Corona. Apparently knows the HR lady. Don't trust it. It's trying to sow discontent and stuff." Pause. "It's... really, pathetically bad at the whole manipulation thing, though." She gave a shrug before she prepared to leave.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi sncikered. "I wouldn't recommending eating random anything. ...Unless your only other option is the Obsidian Cafateria, then you might as well play roulette outside."

    He pauses. "Corona... huh. A weird thing? Like a fairy or something? If the sparkleskirts are trying to sow dissent with us, that'd be amusing. Might indicate someone on there side has at least half a brain for sneaky stuff. Noted."

    He looked around. If only something like this could be made to coexist in the Dusk Zone rather than battle it and be corroded by it... hmmm. "Anyways. Thanks for the help and for... being someone around with their head on straight. Let me know if I can help you, too." he says, pocketing the fakes and nodding at her before stepping back into the not-dusk-world.