Skip Navigation
MPC 49A "World of Steel Titans"
|
Post by Hiroyo Oda on Mar 21, 2020 14:03:10 GMT
With a muted mic (Hiroyo checked twice) she sighed in relief as Alicia understood what she had been thinking! And it was a reasonable thought, and she was so glad that Alicia understood she hadn't meant anything untowed by it! Sometimes she said things and they just, didn't sound the way she wanted them to! Luckily she could relax.
...Until Kisara started talking. A look of panic broke across Hiroyo's face as the aerial ace started talking, her only thought 'oh no I've made a terrible mistake' as the woman started talking about Alicia's theoretical skills in the bedroom. Or maybe it wasn't theoretical? Maybe Kisara knew-
"NO!" Hiroyo promptly slapped herself in the face to knock the thought out of her brain even as she bolted upright in her seat. That would be incredibly improper! They were distant colleagues at beset, although this trip and the ridiculousness around it had surely strengthened her ties with this Alicia, but she still had to maintain a professional relationship with them even though she'd already acted a little unprofessionally!
"I would! I mean I wouldn't! You're just trying to fluster me and it won't work!" She yelled, clearly flustered. It was suddenly getting very warm in the cockpit or at least it felt like it. The heat was creeping up the back of her neck as Kisara spoke about the current Alicia and her presumed passions and Hiroyo twisted uncomfortably in her seat. Maybe if she made herself believe Kisara was talking about the Alicias' fighting abilities? Yes, yes that was good and safe and they were both so compentent it was easy to map her words to the previous fight and ones she'd seen before, with how wild yet effective Alicia's movements had been and how skillful and minimalist the other's movements had been in past battles and oh no that feeling wasn't going away.
"Stop!" She howled while Alicia and Sol warned the third pilot. Her face felt like it was on fire. A glance at a bit of polished unpainted metal in Morgan's cockpit showed the red head that her face was several shades redder than it normally was and she was so, so glad she was snug in the piloting chair and no one could directly look at her right now.
Unfortunately Kisara was. not. listening and Hiroyo squirmed in her seat as Kisara spoke about Hiroyo being caught between the two other red heads. The Empire pilot was not exactly chaste so Kisara's conjuring was pulling up helpful mixes between memories and imagination that Hiroyo really did not need while trapped in a Zoid! Especially now that she knew Zoids could talk. The sentience thing wasn't surprising but talking was..well, what if they gossiped? Morgan wouldn't but Roger...
To her horror she heard the shifting of the organoid and could 'feel' him move as Morgan subtly corrected his own balance.
"Hah! Hiroyo has her eyes set on someone already, would the Alicias' be willing to share? Between the three of them they could probably keep her time well occupied~" He was sitting up on Morgan's back now, his voice dripping with delight- until Alicia spoke up. Remembering her earlier threats he very quickly snapped his jaws shut and laid back down on Morgan's back to a satisfied snort from the Dark Spiner.
Hiroyo, meanwhile, had fallen back against her seat with both hands over her face and was taking this moment just to breath as Alicia and Sol stepped in. She was so, so glad they were doing so because right now all Hiroyo's brain was capable of was running in circles while maybe making noises? For a moment she had managed to push through it out of concern for Kisara's dive but then the Eagle had leveled out and she had descended safetly back into her mind's chaotic state again. She honestly couldn't think clearly enough to figure herself out as she listened to Sol talk about this being Kisara's first body in a while and the local Alicia and Sol possibly being able to do the same and-
wait what?
Hiroyo hauled herself to sit upright again, grateful for the level of comfort and suppport the piloting chair offered that her earlier antics and positions had still been comfortable. "What do you mean this is Kisara's first time in a body again?"
A light flashed on her console and her attention was drawn to the icon of a microphone with a line crossed through it. She sat in shock for a moment as she realized nothing she had said had come through. A wave of conflicting emotions hit her; relief that she hadn't added fuel to Kisara and whatever Roger had said, gratefullness that Morgan had evidentenly forced the mic to only unmute when she made it do so despite it being standard that it would normally activate when the pilot reached a certain volume threshhold, embaressment that she had been essentially talking to herself, clarity that she had been given a moment to compose herself.
She shook her head to clear it and pushed her sweat-slick hair away from her face.
"Thank you Morgan." She flicked the mic on to a short acknowledging rumble. "Anyways! What was that about this being Kisara's first body?"
|
|
|
Post by Alicia Westfield on Jun 16, 2020 4:46:12 GMT
Alicia couldn’t help but sigh as she noticed Hiroyo becoming extremely flustered as a result of Kisara’s shenanigans. She hadn’t shut the Queen of Mischief up in time. Alas, she didn’t have anything to do so earlier so there was nothing to do about that. As it was, though, she had to try and do some damage control.
At least, that was the plan until she was derailed by Roger’s chattering. “Wait, she does? Huh... I don’t know about the other me but I’d at least try to be open-minded about it. Matters of the heart at times don’t care about things like proper conduct or social standards. Wouldn’t be the first time I’d heard of multiple people being polyamorous with each other. And admittedly Hiroyo’s actually pretty easy on the eyes...”
And then she remembered that, currently fused to the Kriegsherrer as she was, she had no mute switch that wasn’t her own brain! Now she was the one blushing up a storm. “F-forget that I s-said that! I-I mean I meant th-that last bit- No wait- Erm! Pleasedon’treadintothatIdon’twanttoputanyextrapressureonyouI’msorry!”
That blob of hastened speech blurted out at maximum speed, the saurian’s jets flared and Alicia put some distance between her and Hiroyo. The comms were still left on, but after that bit Alicia was likely going to clamp her mouth shut tight after that.
Kisara meanwhile howled with laughter at that. ”And if the other me is anything like I am, she could get her Alicia to open up to the idea!” She had gathered enough from Alicia’s accidental commentary to figure out what Roger had said and extrapolated from there. ”And you’d all be one happy giant family one way or another, hehe!”
Of course, there was also the question posed about Kisara’s body situation. Sol decided to pick that one up. ”On the other side, Alicia is what’s known as a ‘Spirit Wielder’, a term for a type of human who has gained access to the ‘Digital World’. As the name suggests, she draws power from the souls of ancient warriors of the past in the form of Spirit Totems. Her’s however, are more in tact then most. Instead of only having vague impressions of the spirit or spirits they came from, they were able to manifest directly as advisors along her trials and tribulations. Those spirits... were Kisara and I. So this is the first time we’ve had physical bodies in... how many millenia was it again?”
”I lost count some where in the middle of the sixth one. Good times, though. Hectic, perhaps, but good. I miss my ice magic though. By the way, Sol, why’d you have Alicia pick up that chunk of the Liger?.” Kisara swooped the Eagle down closer as she asked her question, and it was a valid question.
”This, Kisara, is possibly our ticket to fixing this mess so things don’t remain SNAFU. Think about it, the enemy used a power that distorted time and space to gain an advantage. That power, if carefully repurposed, could potentially facilitate a switch back. Hiroyo gets the trio she’s familiar with back, we go back home to the people we know and care about. It’s going to be tough, though.” Sol explained, before sighing softly.
”Okay, but who’s going to hook it up? And make, presumably, the portal structure?” The ice queen seemed not be entirely convinced about things.
”That... will be my problem to sort out. I’m going to need a fair amount of materials. How we get them, though, we’ll have to figure out as we go.” There was something about the saurian organoid’s speech that made Alicia nervous. It sounded to her like even he thought the whole endeavor was a long shot, but forged onward because it was their only realistic option.
|
|
|
Post by Hiroyo Oda on Aug 5, 2020 19:53:35 GMT
Hearing that Alicia thought she was pretty on the eyes brought a fierce blush out on Hiroyo's face and she took a hand off Morgan's controls to stuff a fist against her mouth to stop her from responding on the radioo and repeating Alicia's mistake. Pretty! Even with all the dust and sweat and being deprived of any sort of make up beyond concealer and Alicia thought she was pretty!
Well, at least a different world's Alicia did. Annnd there was something about multiple relationships going on? UH!
"I-I don't really know what the context is but I'll thank you for the compliment? And maybe just, leave the rest at that?" She asked after finally taking the hand away from her mouth so she could speak somewhat-clearly. Roger was cackling up a storm from his perch and the Dark Spiner let out a short, low rumble that she could only interpret as the Zoid sighing at her. Or maybe her and Roger's very obvious even to her laughter? It was probably at the entire situation in general but! Not her concern right now.
And then Sol was talking, very long and using lots of terms Hiroyo wasn't quite understanding in the way that the terms were suppose to go together -how the heck could you wield a spirit?- but she thought she maybe got the jist of it.
"Spirit Wielder? So you and Kisara are both very old ghosts basically? I would ask if that makes Alicia some kind of priestess but, um, no offense I can't really see you as the super-devoutly religious type so I'm guessing its not uh, that."
"So...ice magic huh?" Roger asked with the tone of someone who was walking by a very thin line and was about to heartily leap over it regardless of consequences. Morgan hissed a quiet 'dont' but the bug just ignored him and seemed to grin even wider from where he laid on the Dark Spiner's back. "Man, I bet you're really missing that being back in your body and stuck in the hottest warzone on the planet. Would it have helped with the portal?"
"I think I might hate you." Morgan sighed as he realized Roger had only been winding him up, or maybe it was the aful pun that annoyed the zoid. Either way the Organoid cackled again and then rubbed his face affectionally on the Zoid's back. Roger knew where the lines were with the trio now, he'd do a better job of sticking within them. "Worst sibling."
"A portal huh..." Hiroyo was lost in thought while her zoid and oraganoid bickered around her. And wasn't that a development! She'd never thought of either as mere machines but...it was weird to realize they could talk and she just couldn't understand them. How much had she been missing? She shook her head and resolved to worry about that another time. Right now her new friend (and maybe crush) needed help getting home! Or- no, she was going to do her honest best to help Alicia and Kisara and Sol out. They deserved that from her, and to do otherwise would be to break their trust.
"What do you need for the portal? The form of it or something more?" She asked. "When I give my report about fighting the Liger...maybe you could join their research? Have Alicia act as a consultant or something while you fiddle with stuff behind the scenes?"
There was a moment of silence from her own mechanical companions before Roger let out a low whistle. "Talk about risky and sneaky..."
|
|
|
Post by Alicia Westfield on Aug 5, 2020 21:16:43 GMT
“YES! Please let’s leave thing’s at that!” Alicia managed to squeak out in embarrassment. Then she sighed to herself and mentally fidgeted, whispering softly “… at least for now…?” What was she saying? What even was going through her head at the moment? What possessed her to extend that out, even as quiet as it was!? Admittedly, if something went wrong and she was well and truly stuck here, she’d at least be able possibly settle down with someone? Which was reassuring, even with what that implied about her fate.
”Something to that effect. Ancient, really. And… more generalist as a medium or shaman rather then a priestess. The latter implies worship as you noted and… I’ve gone out of my way to encourage people to not direct that towards me. Then again most examples of all the above don’t actually transform into potentially monstrous forms to engage in combat so I suppose those comparisons are off too. It’s complicated.” Sol answered back, sighing softly. ”And you heard us earlier. Thousands of years at least, that we actually remember.”
”Mmmmhmm.” Meanwhile, Kisara was getting fast hang of understanding their mechanical companions. ”I mean, it’s always hottest around me it feels. Part of my specialization choice was so I could offer to cool them off for having to put up with that. I’m sure Hiroyo and Alicia both could do with a chill out.”
Alicia seemed to catch what Kisara was implying, if the strangled mix of scream and groan coming from her was any indication. Kisara waved the noise off before getting to the serious part. ”Though it probably would have helped quite a bit… it’s going to run extremely hot. A pity, honestly, but those are the breaks.”
As for the portal itself… ”I’ve already got the plans recalled in my head, I just need material and some time to execute them with. Unfortunately I doubt a marching army has much in the way of spare supplies that aren’t already earmarked for Zoid repairs and such. We’ll probably have to cannibalize material from the hunk of Liger we’re hauling back to compensate. As for consultation… the level of physics I’m going to have to get into would make Alicia appear to have the mind of a revolutionary scientific genius and, sorry to say, I don’t think anyone here has a good enough act to even pretend to grasp a tenth of what is needed to handle this properly.”
”Yeah… I once tried to look over something of the sort for giggles. I was left bedridden for a full week from the aneurysm that resulted from that mistake. And that was after numerous procedures and medical attention of both scientific and arcane nature… Humans are not ready to comprehend something of that magnitude.” Kisara swallowed audibly at that unpleasant memory and shook her head. ”No, our best move for attempting to return this world’s Alicia and company here is to just tear the metaphorical bandage off. Hit the top brass with the cold and hard truth, and get them to sign off on what we’ll need to fix things. Which is an uphill battle in it’s own right for obvious reasons. Sol, can we count on you to wordsmith something?”
The emerald organoid heaved a wistful sigh at that. ”Get me a foot in the door and I’ll manage, somehow. I just wish our daughter was here. She was the tech expert of the family and would’ve been able to ad-hoc this from metaphorical scrap metal behind everyone’s back...”
”Before or after she had this world wrapped around her finger? You know how our little sweetheart is.” Kisara quipped back with a smirk. To which Alicia squeaked in shock at the implication. But she didn’t dare ask anything herself. That Sol also didn’t respond to the quip could either be reassuring or terrifying.
Alicia didn’t know which it was. And she was pretty sure that she didn’t want to know the answer.
|
|
|
Post by Hiroyo Oda on Sept 9, 2020 17:02:50 GMT
'She sounds terrifying' was probably not an appropriate response to learning Sol and Kisara had produced a child was, well it opened a lot of interesting questions. Especially since they had been ghosts. That meant she was a ghost child right???
Hiroyo very wisely kept her mouth shut on the topic and spent the rest of the ride back to base talking over some plans with the others for how they were going to convince the brass to let the group do what they needed. She felt they owed the original Alicia and Kisara a lot for all they'd done for the war effort.
To her surprise the brass would agree, after some minor flailing about how no one but Hiroyo had noticed the switch and how Hiroyo hadn't reported it.
Considering the fact her punishment was being in charge of gathering the personell Alicia and crew needed for the construction of The Device...she had at first suspected they were rather sympathetic to how impossible that would have been. Or maybe they wanted to see how well she would handle managing logistics.
Then she tried herding scientists and dealing with quartermasters and quickly learned this kind of work was its own special kind of hell until a member of the brass wrote her a letter to flash.
It had been a busy few months, and now Hiroyo carried a trio of brown paper bags out of the mess hall. She stowed them in a compartment in Morgan and then guided the Dark Spiner over to the huge building that had been assembled a mile away from the camp. She confirmed her identification with the Geno Saurers patrolling the outer perimeter.
Morgan came to a stop outside the smaller, pilot sized entrance of the ensembly for Hiroyo to regather the bags and disembark. There were old scorch marks on the runway outside, and Hiroyo walked over one as she smade for the door in the side of the building and the guard standing there. Roger dropped off Morgan's back with a thump and followed her in, eyes bright with mischief.
A quick exchange of pleasantries and a flash of her id card and the door was opened for the two. The building was cavernous inside: thick concrete and metal supports made up a space big enough to act as a hangar for fifteen zoids with a room that stretched twenty-five meters in the air. There was a smaller building half-way up one of the walls with reenforced glass windows. That was what Roger oh so kindly referred to as the 'Nest Box' as many of the eggheads assigned to help reverse engineer the ZOS had taken up the space with blackboard and whiteboards and endless piles of paper.
Hiroyo had learned very early on that academics could be as scary as any general when it came getting the 'right' kind of chalk.
Her target wasn't up high in the sky though. It was further away in the middle of the floor of the huge space. She and Roger followed a bundle of cables as thick as her thigh that snaked across the ground to the mass of machinery in the middle of everything. A grin broke across her face as she jogged the last few feet.
"Anyone home? I've got an order of burgers and some healthy junk here!" She asked cheerfully as she lifted the bags in her hands and let the smell of delicious, well-cooked burgers waft out. There were perks to the requisition letter she had gotten, being able to snag food from the officers' mess was one of them. "Is it safe to assume you've worked through lunch again?"
|
|
|
Post by Alicia Westfield on Dec 10, 2020 8:04:06 GMT
Saying things had been smooth sailing was... a misnomer at best. The ZOS itself was already poorly understood by humanity as is. And the eggheads were rather resistant to the idea that an Organoid that, until the night of the sortie they recovered the system in, had more of an idea of what they were working on already. The first few days of the whole project had been wasted on Sol thoroughly dispelling any illusions that he was merely parroting things from his memory banks.
The two and a half weeks after that were spent arguing about the specifics. What shape it would be, how to power it, what the controls would be. Much as Hiroyo had trouble herding them in the first place, Sol was suffering his own migraines getting them to play nice with each other and listen to him. For all their intelligence as individuals, the Organoid was thoroughly convinced that as a group they suffered from superiority complexes clashing against each other.
He could understand why they had them. He’d had his own phase where he felt the all consuming need to be the best in what he considered his specialty. Unlike humans though he’d lived long enough to grow out of it and felt secure in his own ability as a result. Still each of them were brilliant in their own ways, and so the Organoid hatched a plan to speed things along. And the saurian machine had achieved the task, slowly managing to carefully worm the idea of the design he had put together from pieces of their arguments into their heads and subtly manipulate them into agreeing on it.
There had been a short moment where each had then claimed the other was stealing their ideas, but that had been easier to dispel. They had nothing but the idea whispered to them. Sol snaring a piece of chalk and drawing up completed ‘blueprints’ on a board in record time shut everyone up, which he would admit later had gotten him a satisfied grin that evening.
As for a power supply... there was a method they had. The same resonance that allowed Alicia and Sol to maintain fusion with the Kriegsherrer almost effortlessly would also supply a significant enough power to charge the device in question. And the design Sol pulled out had banked on only a temporary ignition charge and became self-sustaining once ‘lit’. Design decided upon, they’d had to come to terms with the control method.
At which point they were all upset once more when Sol straight up told them to leave that to him because they couldn’t handle the calculations that were needed. Proving that had sent the poor sap who wouldn’t let up to the medical tent for a week. They were begrudgingly forced to accept that Sol had to handle yet another thing, and set about how to hook the Geno Kriegsherrer up to the device in a short time frame and how to get the device built.
Thus was the scene that Hiroyo came upon. A platform had been built in the center, with Alicia’s Zoid parked in the closest hangar, and upon that platform was an octagonal frame with some spines pointing inward from seven of the eight segments. The eighth, bottom segment had the ZOS core set into it. Plus the platform had several cables trailing out it. Some went to a secondary control panel, others ended in a coil by the evolved Zoid. Finally... there was a pair of legs sticking out and the sound of a wrench cranking.
At the sound of Hiroyo’s voice, the wrenching stopped and the person wheeled herself out. Thus was Alicia revealed and the mechanic-turned-mercenary pilot sat up, wiping her brow. And then she took a whiff of the delightful burgers her comrade had brought.
“Man, though smell good. But... has it really been that long already?” Alicia asked, quirking an eyebrow as she set the wrench down. That was all the answer Hiroyo needed, honestly. “Thanks for checking in on us... I guess I’m getting a little too excited that things are almost done. Much as our time together’s been great... I want to get home, and I’m sure my counterpart’s feeling the same way.”
”It’s certainly been a hell of a trip.” Kisara suddenly commented popping up from under the control panel. With a small ‘clang’ the plate was set back into place. ”How’s your end looking, Alicia?”
“Almost done, just gotta fit one more connection in is all. I take it your done on your side of things?” Alicia shot back, shouldering her borrowed wrench.
”Yeup” came the short and clipped affirmative, before Kisara had come over with a smirk Hiroyo would find distressingly familiar.
After all, it had been the same one she wore when they got back. The ice maiden had gone out of her way to dock in the hangar first so she could catch Hiroyo on the exit. At which point she’d put her arm around the other’s waist, commented about getting what she was owed loud enough to draw attention, and stole a heated kiss from the smaller redhead’s lips. The hushed whispers had gone wild at that as the juicy action kicked the rumor mill into full production. To this day the Queen of Mischief was entirely unapologetic about the whole thing. ”And yeah, what Alicia said. Thanks for dropping by so consistently. We’d probably wind up starving ourselves by accident.”
”It’s good to see you, Hiroyo” the deep voice of the Organoid came from the other side of the platform. ”We’re almost ready to give this a test run to see if it will fire up the way the designs indicate it will. With any luck the dimensional irregularities will be corrected by tomorrow morning.”
Or bad luck, possibly, depending on your view point of the situation. One had to wonder if a traitorous thought to that effect still plagued anyone...
|
|
|