1948/Fueling Up and Breaking It Down

Fueling Up and Breaking It Down
Date of Scene:	15 September 2024
Location:	Mitakihara Ward
Synopsis:	Rashmi and Molly meet on a rooftop, so Rashmi can explain just what's what around Firefly, and the dark energy ping from the other day. And why exactly Molly should be terrified.
Cast of Characters:	Molly Skyline, Rashmi Terios

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Molly Skyline has posed:
It's early evening in Tokyo, and when you can fly, and your best friend can fly, there's nothing better than sharing dinner now and then on top of a building. This time, they've gotten food seperately and met up once they had whatever they'd wanted; which means that Molly has a large helping of fried chicken. Well, and some sushi, and a bubble tea, but the main feature here is the fried chicken.

Someone has been practicing her spells and is low on mana, so it's time for carbs.

So, Molly is sitting on the top of a skyscraper with a good view, having just arrived moments earlier and is happily dangling her feet over the edge, as she waits for Rashmi to arrive.

Rashmi Terios has posed:
While Rashmi hasn't been working her Linker Core as hard as Molly, she *does* tend to have a high resting appetite. It is, after all, the price one pays when one comes from a family whose life is centered around food. So when she touches down on the rooftop with a surprisingly large pork don-bowl, and holding two skewers of what look to be whole -- if small, just large enough to fit on a skewer -- fish, impaled head-to-tail on the bamboo stakes between her fingers, and a bottle of melon soda in the other, it's probably not that surprising.

"You've been working hard, Molly-chan," Rashmi remarks with a chuckle as she scans her friend's food, then turns to drop onto her place on the roof's edge. "Still terrifying?"

Molly Skyline has posed:
"Gotta get good," Molly agrees. "It's like a video game, the more time I spend getting better at casting spells, the more fights I'm gonna be on the winning side of. And since I can't like, die and reload a previous save point, making sure I'm on the winning side as often as possible feels like a really great thing to work towards." As Rashmi sits down, she produces the sushi she got -- actually it's a pretty big platter of various rolls and a bunch of nigiri -- and sets it between her and Rashmi.

"Help yourself," she offers, gesturing towards the sushi. ...The fried chicken appears to be just for her, though, must really need those carbs.

"Been practicing my Stellar Convergence a lot," she adds. "I've got it down to using... just forty percent of my full mana reserves when I cast it. So like, I get to practice it twice, and then eat enough fried chicken that I've had to stop doing it around my Moms because they've been threatening to take me to either the hospital or sumo-wrestler school."

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"I mean, you're not wrong," Rashmi says, smiling. "Just keep an eye on yourself; something Chrono told me, like, the first time he started training me really stuck with me. He said 'Always make sure you have at least a little mana held back for real emergencies.' For me, it was to make sure that no matter how exhausted I was, I could always do *one* healing spell. Just to patch me or someone up to get away, if it got really, really bad."

With a single bite and a quick pull, she reduces half of one of the poor fish to bones, and cronches thoughtfully. "I'm definitely not saying you're not being careful enough or whatever, just... I've always tried to keep that in the back of my head, and I think it's a good idea if you did too, y'know?"

Molly Skyline has posed:
"Oh, definitely." Molly tears into a piece of chicken, and demolishes it in short order, leaving herself holding nothing but a bone with a couple bits of grissle. As she looks at it, a holographic display pops up in front of her face; from where Rashmi's sitting, she can see it attach a little yellow tag to the bone. Molly looks down, gazing towards the street, and after a moment, tosses the bone.

Littering is extremely out of character for Molly. But, as the bone sails downwards, her display zooms in to keep track of it, until it lands neatly in a garbage can on a street corner.

"Anyway, yeah," she murmurs, as the holodisplay vanishes again. "When Aloisia-san... drained me, like, completely? I had to *walk home*. I had nothing, I could barely cast 'punch' or 'harsh language' let alone anything else. I don't think I've ever felt so... vulnerable. If something had happened I'd have been a total liability." She pauses, blushing softly, "Well I mean, if something *else* happened. And maybe 'total liablilty' is a little unfair on myself, but I wouldn't have been helping much, that's for sure. I didn't like that feeling."

Rashmi Terios has posed:
Rashmi is silent at this, fully cleaning her fish of its meat, then setting it aside. Without Molly's visor, she has little hope of repeating the trick, but one can see both things caused something to occur to her.

"...Y'know... I *try* to understand Hinoiri, but... just now I think I really *get* where she is right now."

Shaking the thought away, she stores the second fish skewer in Nicomachea, before taking up her rice bowl and doing serious damage to the pork demographic within. "So I promised you I'd explain a bunch of things, and honestly? Now seems ike as good a time as any to follow through on that."

Molly Skyline has posed:
Molly is busy tearing into more chicken; she's already lobbed a second bone down towards a different garbage bin and managed to repeat the same stunt, which either indicates that she's the best bone-tosser who's ever been, or perhaps more likely, her barrier jacket and combat visor make for extremely useful tools for hitting stuff. She's just picking up another piece of chicken (doesn't look like she's going to run out any time soon) when Rashmi makes her offer, and Molly tilts her head to gaze at her friend and nod.

"Yeah, please do," she softly replies. "And I know whatever you're gonna tell me is gonna be serious business, 'cause I haven't seen you that worried about anything since the... Paris stuff. And I don't think I've ever seen you light outta there like that, like, I was totally gonna follow you but by the time it occured to me to do that you were already pretty long gone." She shrugs lightly. "So... what's the scoop?"

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"I mean, I'm kinda glad you didn't follow me," Rashmi admits, lifting a shoulder. "You'll understand why in a minute... So." Taking a deep breath, letting it out in a sigh, Rashmi further reduces her pork bowl while organizing her thoughts.

"...So y'know there's all kinds of folks in Obsidian. Some are bad, some are worse, some are *absolutely evil,* and some are pretty okay if it wasn't for who they worked for? Well... There's this girl. And I mean, *girl,* can't be older than thirteen and looks closer to ten. Her father is one of the directors at Obsidian. Her father is also an ultra-genius research type. ...Her father's department is also the one that made those rifles last year, that shoot out peoples' souls? Anyway, the girl. Absolute sweetheart, doesn't have an unkind bone in her body, Riventon made a Device for her. ...Because apparently... she has these attacks. Dark Energy attacks, that the Device's main job is to be a medical animal about; detect, mitigate if possible, call for help if not."

Molly Skyline has posed:
Molly slows in the eating of her chicken; that's how it is when she's paying close attention to something someone is saying, and not paying quite so close attention to what she's eating. She even stops lobbing bones to garbage cans, and just starts lining them up on the end of the roof, like they're come kind of tally of her victories. (And there's a lot of victories left to go.)

"Dark energy attacks...?" Her brow furrows. "But-- Oh, you mean, not like she uses dark energy to attack people, but she gets, like, panic attacks but instead of panic it's dark energy, right?" She shifts, hiking on knee up onto the rooft so she can sit and face Rashmi more directly. "I mean, that sounds super awful, honestly. And she's stuck with Obsidian?"

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"Oh it gets way worse," Rashmi sighs as she finishes off her don -- it's not impressive *how much* the girl can put away, in mahou terms, but the fact that every time Molly looks away, the food level is *visibly lower* -- and sets the bowl aside, cracking open her soda. "But yeah, you've pretty much got it. Anyway, that's how things stood *last year.* Since then? Setsuchan figured out who she is -- who she *really* is. She's one of Sailor Moon's people, Molly-chan. Fourteen thousand years ago, she wiped out all life in the Solar System as... kind of a reset button for the entire place. That was her *job,* and Setsuchan remembers what it was like for her. Imagine that, Molly-chan... Just... Try to wrap your *head* around it. You're a *living nuke* for *everything within five and a half light-hours of the sun.* People are so afraid of your power, you're just... put to sleep. You don't get to wake up until you need to do your job. And you're a *child.*"

Shaking her head quietly, she takes a swig from her soda, pausing for a moment before continuing.

"...And then she was reborn with all the others. As a sweet, sick little girl, whose Daddy loves her *so much,* and is doing everything possible to cure whatever's wrong with her, but can't. ...And her daddy is one of the most powerful minds in a corporation literally built from the ground up to do evil. But she still has no idea who she was."

Molly Skyline has posed:
Molly is just reaching for her bubbletea -- raspberry with coconut pearls, judging by the look of it, one of her favorite combinations -- as Rashmi starts the revelation. And by the end of it, Molly is just kind of sitting there, with her lips on the straw, not having actually drunk any of her tea yet. She's just sort of... frozen, taking all that in.

So what is there to do, really? When her mind un-sticks, she slurps up some of her tea and drinks it, pearls and all.

"Uhm," she begins, lowering the drink from her lips. "Uhm, right. ...So she's a nuke that cleans everything in the immediate vicinity, where 'immediate vicinity' reaches all the way out to Alpha Centauri--"

<< CORRECTION: PROXIMA CENTAURI >>

"...Right, Proxima Centauri," Molly mumbles. "I mean anyway, so they only wake her up for *that*, and she's... awake, now?" Her eyebrows rise. "So, is that by accident, or is she... supposed to be doing her job, sometime in the near future? ...And like, if that's the case how do we stop her doing it, without hurting her 'cause I don't think this is her fault? Is she safe from her Dad? Am I even thinking about this the right way?!"

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"You don't worry about it," Rashmi says, "cos she's alive, but she hasn't gotten her memories back. Here she's just... well she *was* Firefly, that adorable little gremlin who was really bad at being bad, but a *terrifying* fighter. And that would have been it... But early last December, something happened."

Setting her soda down, she retrieves her last fish skewer, and cleans it off without even much thinking about it. "...I wasn't there. Setsuchan was, Usa-chan was, I heard about it later. She had an attack... But her Device couldn't do anything about it. And she... changed, somehow. Touched one of... her name was Eudial, right? Eudial's people, and just... *disintegrated* her. Usa-chan got blamed for it, and that was horrible..."

And then a little while later... She had another attack. Actually *shattered* her own Device. And nearly killed Moon and Mercury. Not disintegrating either just... beating the *heck* out of them. They barely got away, I don't know what happened after, but... Firefly herself? She got better. Back to *herself,* I mean. And Hannah-chan helped Riventon rebuild the Device."

Molly Skyline has posed:
Molly realizes she's sitting there like a bit of a dork, holding her tea, so she picks up her chopsticks and has a piece of tamago nigiri for something to chew on, while she's chewing on her thoughts. She chews on it for a good long moment, and swallows audibly.

"So... Okay. She's better, now? And someone with us helped *Riventon* of all people rebuild her device? I mean that must'a been something, I wish I'd been there for that."

She purses her lips, thinking it through for a moment. "But obviously it's not that simple, or you wouldn't have left half your ramen and taken off in the biggest panic I've ever seen you in. So, the portal, Eudial, the dark energy ping... it's all to do with her, right? ...And it's Obsidian so we know what's going on is bad, but what *is* it they're doing?"

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"Yeah, that... was all background," Rashmi sighs, carefully placing her cleaned fish skewers into the paper don bowl, and setting the whole thing aside. "So a while after *that,* she ran away. Like... so scared of what was happening she snuck out of Obsidian, without telling her father. I don't know how, but Setsuchan offered to shelter her. And that's how it's been for... at least the last six months, if not more? Firefly's been in hiding, and protected, and Obsidian's been looking for her and not finding anything. Turns out when she's not really feeling the feelings that Dark Energy feeds on, she's pretty okay! So we keep her feeling safe, and happy, and liked and cared for like she never got to be when she was a literal interplanetary superweapon, because she deserves it and it helps."

Tipping back her head, Rashmi finishes her soda and just... balls up the can in one hand, thanks to Barrier Jacket-enhanced strength. "Then you found that tower, and *right then* I knew that just keeping her safe and happy wasn't enough anymore."

Molly Skyline has posed:
Molly eats a few more pieces of sushi, going for rolls and nigiri alike, before returning to her friend chicken. (And she still has a lot of fried chicken, even though she's probably eaten enough for two ordinary high school girls already.)

"So... let me make sure I understand the bottom line," she murmurs. "A thirteen-ish year old girl, who is also a bomb that could wipe out everything in our immediate stellar vicinity, happens to be on the run from Obsidian? And she's with Setsu-chan? And, if we fail to protect her then, like... Obsidian will be in control of the power to return our civilization to the 'tinkle in your daddy's eye' stage of development?"

She pauses, holding a half-eaten piece of chicken and gesticulating in the air with it. "But I mean, even if we *do* fail to protect her and Obsidian gets her, which I am against on principle even if she isn't a world-ending cataclysm with a cute smile because she's a *little girl*, what... good does it do them, anyway? If she wipes everything out that includes them, and even if it doesn't I'm pretty sure I've seen enough Science Fiction to know that ruling over a dead husk is kinda pointless?"

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"See that's the worst part," Rashmi says, deftly making up for lost time by denuding the other end of the sushi pile. "I don't even think they *know* about the apocalypse thing! That doesn't seem to have anything to do with... I mean... I can only call it a Dark Energy Demon just... sleeping in the poor girl's soul! That's why I panicked, because if there's something that could wake *that* up, when Moon and Mercury and whoever else couldn't stand up to it..."

She shakes her head, then looks over at Molly with large, scared eyes. "If those towers are supposed to *find* her that's bad enough. But if they're supposed to *wake up* whatever it is... That's *so much worse.*"

Molly Skyline has posed:
Molly polishes off the piece of chicken she was working on, which leaves her in a state of being almost out of chicken. Which is a bit like running out of shotgun ammo if you're playing hte original Doom, it's just... it's really unfortunate, but unfortunately it's what happens when you eat it all.

"OKay well, no matter how you slice it, wether they're trying to find her or trying to wake up the demon inhabiting her soul, it's just bad," she replies. "Bad no matter what, no matter how. So... every time they open up one of these portals, it sounds like we need to be prepared to oppose them with whoever happens to be around, and if they get a ping off we need to alert Setsu-chan or whoever happens to be watching over Firefly in the moment. Right?" She shrugs her shoulders lightly. "I've got no problem being there any time a portal opens up. Just call me if you're there and I'm not. I got good damage in against the tower last time, I'm sure that'll be consistent."

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"Basically, yeah," Rashmi says. "And if we see those towers go up, we need to bust them down quick so they can't get *anything* like a good ping off. Which'll be hard because Sunbreaker was kind of a jerk genius when she made them, stupid Dark Energy zones. And then call Setsuchan anyway."

With a rough sigh, she shakes her head. "Anyway, you too. Call me if you're there and I'm not."

Molly Skyline has posed:
"You and Chrono both," Molly agrees, with a bob of her head. "But... Well, y'know? Having had a minute or two for it all to settle, it's... not as horrifying as I thought it would be, honestly? When you started?" She shrugs her shoulders lightly. "I'd say something like 'I knew this was what I was signing up for', except I really didn't, all I knew I was in for was fighting monsters, like the very first fight I got into, when Starcrash revealed to me that I'm a mage, and a mailbox tried to murder me."

She pauses, and stifles a laugh, "I mean, not quite an Avengers level of origin story, hunh? But whatever, here we are. And I'll stand and fight."

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"It may not sound bad," Rashmi says seriously, "but Usa-chan was *terrified.* And she's one of the strongest people on our side, and when something rattles *her* hard enough that it causes arguments... I take that *seriously.* But right now, it's all just would-bes and could-bes, so it doesn't *feel* urgent."

Sighing, Rashmi rakes a hand through her hair. "But it feels like... Iunno. Like we're at Tokyo Bay, and seeing Gojira's fins off in the distance, y'know?"

Molly Skyline has posed:
Molly bobs her head. "Yeah, I know exactly what you mean," she murmurs. "Except, we're not the civilians who just run away when a big monster appears, we're the ones who get to go fight it. Because, we *have* to go fight it, 'cause if we don't, nobody else is going to."

The purplenette finally finishes her chicken, and has a lineup of bones beide her, as she scoops the last piece of red snapper nigiri and polishes that off too. "Anyway, I don't wanna sound like I think I've made a mistake or anything. I regret nothing. Even if I do wind up having to fight the real life big bad monster, that makes Usagi-chan quake in her boots. Because, I've got the absolute coolest friend I've ever had to fight 'em with me." She gazes meaningfully at Rashmi, and smiles.

"Oh, hey." She stretches, and clasps her hands behind her head. "The other day? Usagi-chan said that I'm... 'pretty rad'."