Scene #2924:

Owner	Pose
Molly Skyline	It's after school, but plenty of students either stick around to study, or sleep in a dorm room here, so the student population tends to remains fairly significant even once classes have ended. And, hey, it's not like this isn't the coolest school in the city. Right? Right. But apparently it doesn't mean that Starcrash can't send Nicomacea an alert, requesting (in his own manner) that Molly receive immediate help. Given that this is Radiant Heart Academy, there is really only one sort of threat that Molly could end up having to deal with here. Bullies. By the time Rashmi would find her in the gardens, the event seems to be over. The purplenette is sitting in the middle of a park bench; her backpack is tornw open, books strewn about, her nose is bleeding from both nostrils, and she has a split lip, black eye, and an absolutely incandescent expression to go along with messed up clothes and bruised knuckles.
Rashmi Terios	For Starcrash to send an alert, the danger must be great, even if on the scale of 'bullies.' And when she hurries to the location provided, and sees what's become of Molly, she skids to a halt, eyes wide for a moment. Then, she's striding purposefully toward the purplenette, leaning over to give her dear friend a tight hug. "How many?" is all she asks, because right at this moment, it's the most important answer she could get. She knows Molly's not-okay-but-not-on-death's-door, she knows the fireworks have already died down, and she knows that she wouldn't come off much better if she went a-huntin'. But Godoka help those bullies if she finds them where there's folding chairs to hand...
Molly Skyline	"Three," Molly replies with sullen defiance. "Remember the three boys who three myh books on the floor the other day? ''Those three''." She licks her lips, and seemingly becomes aware that she is in fact bleeding, and wipes her hand under her nose so she can look at it. And for a moment, she just stares at it, and lets her brain process the implications about the state she's in. At least her glasses aren't broken; she must have had a chance to take them off first, given the thorough nature of the beating she seems to have endured. "You know that new girl, dunno her name, she got here a couple days ago? Not a Mahou or anything, just... she's new. They were picking on her and I told them to leave her alone and go find something better to do, and they told me to make them, so I..." Molly sighs, and closes her eyes as she hunches her shoulders. "So I took my glasses off and took a swing at the leader and I'm ''positive'' I felt a tooth buckle but it went about as you'd expect after that. At least the new girl got away, she ran for it promptly."
Rashmi Terios	As Molly tells the story, Rashmi begins gathering up the books, setting them in a pile on one side of Molly, then taking a seat on the other side with a quiet chuckle. "If you're expecting me to get disappointed that you started a fight to defend someone against bullies, Molly-chan... You may as well start holding your breath until I do too, because it's gonna be about as useful. How's your knuckles, though? Papi says never go for the mouth if you can help it. 'Average head's hard enough, but a bully's gonna have a skull o' iron,'" she recites. "He says it's better to go for the body, and thumb goes on the outside of the fist." While such advice seems out of place for a person like Rashmi... it seems doubly in character for the gruff head chef of the Korma Chameleon. He must have been an absolute hellraiser in his youth...
Molly Skyline	Molly watches Rashmi pick up her books, and sighs, letting anounce of tension out of her muscles. She holds up her hand for a second inspection, this time clenching and unclenching her fingers. "Knuckles hurt," she admits, "And I knew the bit about keeping your thumb outside your fingers. Ideally you wanna connect with the two knuckles closest to your thumb 'cause the other two are weaker and I mostly managed that too. So I don't... ''think'' I broke anything." The purplenette grinds her teeth, "How much would it ''suck'' if I broke the one hand I've still got? It's not like I could put it in a cast for a month and ''use the other one''." Molly doesn't bother trying to stuff the books back in her backpack just yet, she just sits there letting herself recover for the time being, before pulling up her shirt to look at her stomach -- and sure enough there's a ruise there too. "Kicked me when I was down," she explains, letting her shirt fall back into place. "Jackass."
Rashmi Terios	"That son of a--" Rashmi's head whips to glare over her shoulder, as if she could find the bullies with the pure heat of her gaze alone. "Might be nothing, but you probably wanna get to the nurse anyway. If for no other reason, than so Setsuchan knows there's bullies roaming around who'll kick someone while they're down, y'know?" Sighing, Rashmi shakes her head. "I'm so sorry you've managed to find the worst bullies in the school, apparently... We're gonna have to do something about them, soon."
Molly Skyline	"Yeah but not just the two of us," Molly replies, "I don't want to see ''you'' get into this state, Rashmi-chan, and I ''know'' that you wouldn't hesitate to throw down so I'm not even gonna go after them until we have like... people. As many people as would like to go beat the crap out of a few bullies." Molly reaches up to poke at the side of her nose. "Ow," she comments, and pokes at it again. "Ow," she repeats. "Okay fine, hint taken." Molly gets around to roughly stuffing her books haphazardly into her backpack, and heaves it up onto her shoulder so she can get up. And, she doesn't look any less of a mess once she's standing, but at least she's standing. "Yeah, let's got see Setsuchan," she agrees. "I wouldn't wanna be a bully with ''her'' mad at me."
Rashmi Terios	Rashmi loops an arm around Molly's shoulder, just in case she needs the assistance, and off they go to the admin building. On the way, as is her habit, she zaps off a quick telepathic text to Setsuna. << Heeeeey Setsuchan, I'm bringing Molly up to the office. She... ran afoul of some bullies, and I'd feel better if you had a look at her. ...And possibly found a way to unleash your inner gremlin on those responsible. >> Rashmi is a nice person, and a good person. But neither 'nice' nor 'good' involve 'suffering egregious bullshit.'
Molly Skyline	And for her part, Molly looks a sight. She's definitely been in a recent fight; split lip, black eye, nose bleeding from both nostrils, bruised knuckles and messed up clothes. She definitely looks like she both lost, and lost on the ground out in the great outdoors. The look of incandescent fury that was on her face when Rashmi found her has subsided somewhat, but she still looks like a simmering cauldron of emotions with none of them being particularly positive. "Hey," she greets, once they reach Setsuna's office. She should probably say something else, but words are currently jumping around inside her brain playing hard to catch. "Uhm. So yeah, that went well."
Setsuna Meiou	Given that school let out a little while ago, it's perhaps not surprising that, when Rashmi's text comes in that she's got half the lights out and is doing some final rummaging around in one of the supply closets. She blinks as her phone starts playing a bit of a poppy tune and a group of guys singing 'wabadabadabada, wabadabadabada'...apparently the notification tone she has set for Rashmi. A quick glance at her phone gets another blink out of her, then a scowl. Moments later Rashmi gets a text in return: << I'll be waiting for the two of you, then. >> Thus, as the two girls enter the open door, Nurse Meiou is just walking out of one of the closets and waves them over towards one of the patient beds, "Rashmi-chan, if you'd be so good as to get Molly-chan situated, I'll be right over there." That said, she turns to the back wall and grabs one of several different tackle boxes and sets it down on one of the rolling desks for patients to eat from or other various horizontal-surface related needs at various random places in an infirmary room, "Okay, then...let's see what we're dealing with..." With that, she starts giving Molly a quick once-over looking for a few moments before opening the tackle box and retrieving a pack of alcohol wipes with which she begins cleaning the wound on Molly's lip and the underside of her nose, checking to see if she's still bleeding from either of those places.
Rashmi Terios	Rashmi simply nods, and guides Molly to a nearby bed. "Have a sit, it'll sting some but don't worry," she says to her friend, patting her shoulder. As Setsuna bends to her work, Rashmi hops onto another empty bed, and clears her throat. "Also she's got some bad bruising on her stomach, Setsuchan. It's why I asked you to go gremlin mode, she was already down when they gave her that bruise." ...Apparently having her friend get beaten up on, brings out the redhead's ruthless side.
Molly Skyline	Molly follows along and sits down on a bed without complaint; no, on second thought she lies down on it because she deserves to lie down after what just happened. Actually lieing down is rather nice right at the moment. Her nostrils haven't quite stopped bleeding, and her nose is just barely on the right side of broken vs not broken, so that's good...ish? We'll go with semi-good. At least her split lip has stopped bleeding and her black eye is just going to throb for a while. "Yeah, I was already down on the ground and one of them decided to kick me in the stomach," Molly explains, and once again tugs her shirt up to display the not insignificant level of bruising that's been applied to her stomach. And of course she's got bruised knuckles, and lets face it, her knees are not precisely in the best of shape either. "At least I told my Moms I'd stay over at the dorms tonight to study," she grumbles, "So I don't have to explain this to them ''tonight''. Though at least it'll be nice to have a normal-world explaination for why I look like I've been in the wars for once."
Setsuna Meiou	Nurse Meiou goes rather quiet as she listens to Rashmi and Molly's comments...taking a few moments to insert a small cotton roll in each of Molly's nostrils and putting a gentle clip over her nose to apply a bit of pressure. Her voice has an odd tenor to it...like someone tightly controlling thier speech as she says, "...just keep that in place for a few moments and let me take a look at that hand..." She looks over Molly's hand with pursed lips before shaking her head and blowing out a sigh, "...for future reference, Molly-chan, when punching, do NOT aim at the head. While striking that will cause some damage, it will do as much or more to your hand and impair your ability to continue punching. A glance is given over at the remains of Molly's bag before she adds, "...or better yet, use your bag as a flail once we get you a newer, sturdier, reinforced one and save your knuckles the hardship."
Rashmi Terios	"I already told her that," Rashmi chuckles. "Papi wanted to make sure if I was the type to get into fights, I don't get more hurt than I could help. ...But I can fully understand if some faces are beggin' for a fist." While she talks, she gets an unfocused look in her eyes, then taps at Nicomachea's charm a few times. Each time, she comes away with a chilled bottle of fizzy drink, the first two set in front of Setsuna, then Molly. "I get it, Setsuchan," she says gently. "I woulda hucked a chair at his head if he'd been about when she told me. ...And if there were chairs to huck."
Molly Skyline	"But his face ''needed to be punched''!" Molly's protest loses some of its gravitas with the way the cotton rolls up her nostrils distort her voice, and unfortunately, she knows it. She would raise her hand for emphasis, but Setsuna is currently tending to her knuckles so that would be improper right at this moment. So she just lays on the bed and quivers with renewed rage. "They were ''picking on the new girl''," she adds, "And I just..." You just what, Molly? "...Okay so like I told Rashmi I picked a fight with all three of them, but in my defense I wasn't expecting one of them to kick me in the stomach once I was down." The purplenette purses her lips, and looks over at where the ruined remnant of her bag is sitting, where it looks sad and defeated. "Actually a reinforced bag sounds nice," she adds, more quietly. "Hey, when I get my appointment to get lined up for a prosthetic, what do you think are the odds I could convince them I need one of the ones that can handle impacts, like punching blocks of ice and stuff?"
Setsuna Meiou	Nurse Meiou absently says, "Backpfeifengesicht." After she finishes cleaning Molly's knuckles, she starts wrapping the scraped areas in gauze, "...it's German for 'a face in need of a fist'." She smirks, "...say what you will about the Germans, but they DO have a lovely turn of phrase now and again." Her face turns a bit more serious, "As it stands, the ONLY reason I'm not working on paperwork to do anything official to those...those..." She trails off, holding in for a few moments before letting loose in what SEEMS to be German, "erbärmliche, wurmähnliche Kreaturen, die so feige sind, dass sie sich nur dadurch als Menschen fühlen können, indem sie Schwächere angreifen!" At the end of that outburst, Nurse Meiou closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, then holds it for several long seconds before blowing it out and shaking her head before reaching up to undo the clip and check to make sure Molly's nose has stopped bleeding, "...is because policy would force me to write up someone who truly did nothing wrong as well...thus, as Rashmi-chan has been suggesting, I will be taking..." She trails off once more before giving a small smile, "...extrajudicial steps to address the problem."
Rashmi Terios	By the expressions crawling over Rashmi's face, either she knows exactly the contents of Setsuna's diatribe, or -- far more likely -- Nicomachea's providing a running translation. "...I mean, you're not wrong about how useful German can be sometimes," she says faintly. Then, an idea occurs to her. "Molly-chan, why d'you have to ask your parents? There's someone right here who could probably help... and find a way to make it tactical American stuff to boot. Just gotta ask, y'know?"
Molly Skyline	"It's not my parents I gotta--" Molly stops abruptly as the cotton wads are pulled out of her nose, now in a much more... gross and icky state than how they went in, but hey. Could be worse! At least her nose has stopped bleeding. "Not my parents I gotta convince," she replies. "If it were up to my Moms I'd already have something like what Bucky got in the Marvel movies. It's the government and their... process." She sighs, "They assign limbs based on 'need', so if I want an arm that can do things like have a brain interface and provide a sense of touch or whatever I have to explain why I 'need' it and I have no idea how to do that so--" Molly halts mid-sentence, processing what Rashmi just told her. And she looks back in her direction. And then back up at Setsuna, who said things in German that she can't actually understand, but can largely work out from context. "Or, like, yeah, I could just do that, that's a really good idea."
Setsuna Meiou	Nurse Meiou gives Molly a bit of an arch look, "Seriously, I don't know how any of you girls manage to forget I've got more money than some countries." She gathers up the various used bandages and walks over to dispose of them before thoroughly washing her hands, "...granted, most of our problems aren't really financial in nature, but any time we DO run into something that can be solved by throwing money at it, I'm quite willing to do so for a good cause." She then steps over and hands Molly a blue microfiber square that feels like it's full of some dense liquid and is rather chill to the touch, "Okay, so hold that over your eye for a few minutes and we should be taken care of." A few quick steps are taken over to a filing cabinet and then the nurse is stepping back to hand a few papers to Molly, "Even better is that it turns out one of the best ones in the world is made right here in Tokyo, so availability and fitting won't be terribly difficult."
Rashmi Terios	This particular revelation has Rashmi falling silent for a moment... then she clears her throat. "...I mean I was talking about the backpack," she says weakly, "but that's a thing too! ...And I'm not gonna insult you by asking if you're sure, Setsuchan. By now I ought to know better, right?" Her eyes instead move to Molly. "...That's your call, Molly-chan. I know well enough by now that she's serious."
Molly Skyline	Molly presses the microfibre square over her eye as directed, which luckily is the left eye so she's able to hold it in place with the truncated end of her left arm and accept the papers from Setsuna with her hand, holding them up so she can look. "Oh, uhm... I mean I ''thought'' you meant arm," she replies to Rashmi, just as weakly. Also there's a blush spreading across her face. "I ''do'' like the idea of getting a reinforced bag that I could hit one of these arseholes with," she adds, "Especially if I could put... y'know what nevermind, textbooks are more than heavy enough." As she speaks, she eventually kind of trails off as she looks at the arm, and sucks in a deep breath just to let it out slowly. "I... I've actually been kinda... avoiding looking at arms," she admits, "I... maybe this is stupid, but as much as I really ''want'' one, I... guess I've felt like once I get one and start using it, it'll make this whole... everything just... even more ''real'' somehow, like I'll have to finally, fully accept something I don't ''want'' to accept." Molly looks back at the picture of a prosthetic that's been presented to her, and blinks a couple of times as a tear rolls out of each eye. "But I really, ''really'' want to have two hands again."
Setsuna Meiou	Nurse Meiou blinks and looks over at Rashmi, an obvious expression of confusion, "...just the bag? I thought you'd realized that was just a given. Heck, I had a new reinforced one ordered for her before you lot got here." She then looks over at Molly again, and after a moment watching the younger woman, she smiles and grins a bit as she says, "...it's also got Bluetooth. And 5G. And NFC. And Wifi6. And RFID."
Rashmi Terios	"...I feel like some of those are just sounds," Rashmi says, side-eyeing the young nurse. "But of course, my mistake. And like... Look Setsuchan, it's just... I spent most of my life knowing we had to be very very careful about balancing 'nice' and 'inexpensive.' My family isn't poor, but it just doesn't occur to us to go for the latest and greatest except for kitchen stuff, y'know? And even then, Papi's Got Opinions about what's worth the price. So it's just... like, a blind spot, is all."
Molly Skyline	"As long as it's got fingers and I can wiggle them," Molly replies, "I'll be... I'll be okay. I think." I hope. "I've experienced both ends," she adds, looking over at Rashmi. "My Moms are pretty well off, but like... when I was in the orphanage money was practically non-existent, so I know how it is both ways. Or at least two ways, I guess, there's... more than two ways." Molly looks at the picture of the arm once more, then casts her eyes back up to Setusna. "Thank you," she murmurs.