Lettuce+Rogue Bunny=Teaser

[Rieverre]

***teaser***
To a veteran combatant, there is a number of clues and hints about a person that can be read from the way they stand, the way they move, even the way they look at things.
To someone who'd also been trained in the intricacies of etiquette and had done more than enough work in politics to last other people several terms in office, reading body language was something of a second nature.
She was both.
And the only thing she could actually tell about the person standing in her office, before her desk, and casually looking around, was that she couldn't tell anything about him.
No changes in posture, no fidgeting. If she didn't know better, she'd think he was some sort of cyborg or lifelike manequinn.
And the fact that two of his characteristics reminded her of another person, whom she neither trusted nor liked, didn't help much.
"You'll have to be brief, I'm afraid," she said. "There are matters that need to be seen to, and it's one of the burdens of mine to see to them as soon as possible."
"Ah. No worries, Miss Kruger, I shan't take up much of your time," the man replied. "This is more of a 'how do you do' visit than anything else."
"I was led to believe something different," Natsuki Kruger, Garderobe Principal and one of its Pillars replied.
"Oh, that. Yes," he drew a small document tube from with the jacket of his suit. "Pardon the absent-mindedness. I'm afraid I pulled rank on one of the usual middle-men we use so that I could look into this contract myself and get bearings for the company. We've never had the chance to pursue a communications exchange with Garderobe, you see."
"Is that so? I was aware the border nations usually send middlemen, rather than attend themselves, if only because of the travel times involved. I was not, however, aware, that the party in question had subcontracted," she admitted.
Red eyes blinked at her in what seemed like a well studied show of surprise.
"I'm sorry for my rudeness, in that case, and for being remiss in my introduction," he withdrew a small card from within another of his pockets, and laid it on the desk. "My name is Katz Schrdinger, of the freelance information gathering company 'Black'."
***
The Empress' new Robes.
an Incarna sidetrip
***
******
While I'm not going to actually start doing any work on this until Otome is out in its entirety, the scene has been running through my head for the past few days.
I've also been considering asking Nathan if his avatar's White Guardian Airlines flight schedule eventually deposits him there, since Nagi is arguably more hateable here than he was in HiME.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[Valles]

---

I've also been considering asking Nathan if his avatar's White Guardian Airlines flight schedule eventually deposits him there, since Nagi is arguably more hateable here than he was in HiME.

---

Am I to take it from his introduction that Mr. Shroedinger (*snrk*, BTW) arrived via the Black Guardian Limited?
Anyway, I hadn't even really thought of it - Otome's share of inspiratrons have been gravitating to HiME, mostly because it features Mai herself, and she's, er, um... *blush*
I'm stuck at episode sixteen of Otome until StaticSubs catches up to it, since my ability to download from Doremi has apparently magically vanished into the aether, but that doesn't make me any less interested in where you might be planning to take this! Very cool, Griev!
Ja, -n
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[Rieverre]

---

Am I to take it from his introduction that Mr. Shroedinger (*snrk*, BTW) arrived via the Black Guardian Limited?

---

There are two different paths I could take this along, actually.
One of them being that, yes, Incarna!Griev did, somewhere and sometime after that botched attempt to get back to his first dystopian stop of the multiverse, meet with a representative of Black Guardian Limited who offered him a bit of a helping hand on his way for, say, 'Oh, nothing much. Just sow some chaos, confusion, maybe start a world-destroying war or two in that one reality. A trifle, really.'
The other is that he ended up there by chance and chose 'Black' because there's a symmetry to it. He likely came up with it after being made aware of Schwarz and Smith. I mean, we have Aswad, we have Schwarz. Plus, Schwarz has a guy with an English surname working the field for them. Hence, Black and Schrdinger (and I was waiting to use _that_ one for a while, let me tell you). Also, if there are actual Black&White Guardian recruited presences also present, it could make things even more twisted. Potential conflict with whoever the White Guardian recruited because Katz was being flippant and chose Black as the company name.
Ah. My bad. There's the third possiblity, wherein he's working with the White Guardian's chosen insertee as an indie, and the Black thing is, along with the reason named in the last point, there as the equivalent of a rude gesture towards the other side. Which is where I thought of a Nate avatar.
Regardless, given his history, he's not likely to respond well to the concept of the Otome as an army's main weapons.
Anyway, this is still in the pipe dream stage. Like I said, I'm waiting for Mai Otome to be finished before I put down anything that's actually, y'know, plot-relevant or definite.
And Mai will likely show up sometime soon.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[Valles]

---

Ah. My bad. There's the third possiblity, wherein he's working with the White Guardian's chosen insertee as an indie, and the Black thing is, along with the reason named in the last point, there as the equivalent of a rude gesture towards the other side. Which is where I thought of a Nate avatar.

---

Of course! Still, like I said, I'm afraid that he's decided to fix himself pretty firmly as being more likely to go to HiMEland. Which doesn't mean that one or another other people here couldn't volunteer... After all, it'd be a shame to miss out on potential plotlines this interesting.
The scary thing is, Drakensis' Buffy might well fit in perfectly.

---

And Mai will likely show up sometime soon.

---

No doubt - I was just saying that there's a difference between dealing with a main character vs. someone who is, likely, no more than a background role. And I, alas, am ecchi enough to care.
Speaking of which, I got ambushed...

---

Yuuichi snapped awake with a gasp, then glanced around to regain his bearings. After a moment, secure in the knowledge that he was safely in his own room rather than, at best, a hospital somewhere, he let the snatched breath gust out and began trying to remember what had so terrified him. "Some dream," he chuckled.
"I'm afraid not."
"What?" He turned his head to face the voice. The speaker was sitting cross-legged on top of the desk that was supposed to help him with his homework, but which mostly ended up as a flat surface to put paper on... and now that he looked again, the entire room was far too neat.
"The short version is that someone shot you in the head." The intruder was older than he was, though still young - college aged - and probably would have been at least half a head taller if they were standing. His hair was a brown a little lighter than Yuuichi's would have been without the bleach, and long enough that all of it could be pulled cleanly back away from his face, while the eyes behind the wire-framed glasses were blue. The rest of him didn't make as much of an impression - Caucasian features, average build, and dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt with an iguana on it.
"I'm... dead?" As he said it, he realized it felt like the truth. "But why?"
"Well... Destiny." The older of the two made a face, like the word tasted bad, while the younger swung his legs down off of the western-style bed. "A couple days from now, you were gonna meet a girl... And she was gonna save the world. Except, without that sympathetic voice to talk to..."
"Wait - save the world?! Sounds like something out of a comic book."
"That's about what I said, yeah. But it certainly seems to be real enough... and there are people who don't want it saved."
Yuuichi wasn't a fool, and he didn't need it spelled out any farther. "Some of whom had a couple million yen to spend assassinating some little cog that the entire machine needs even if you'd think it shouldn't?"
"That's the size of it. And the side of the equation we'd like to see win can't really spend more energy on this than their enemies have... At this point, it looks like the best thing they can do is stop one unnatural death... by trading it for another."
"You lost me."
"This room has two doors... one of us will have to walk through each." A nod towards the door that should have lead to the apartment's common room. "That one leads up - on the other side, you wake up with Miss Munakata crying into your shirt and doctors muttering about how lucky you are. The other..." he smiled, softly, and sighed. "...is a one-way trip. You walk through the first and meet the girl of your dreams - and I make my life worth something. But, since free will's just about the biggest part of what this entire question is about, you're the only one that can decide to do it."
Yuuichi heaved a sigh of his own and heaved himself to his feet. "And if we switch it?"
"I honestly don't know. Either I wake up in my dorm room and think this was all just some wierd-ass dream... or I find myself wearing a stupid looking bleach job and really, really wishing I actually spoke Japanese."
"Stupid looking!" he tried to sound outraged, but the attempt at humor fell so flat in the room's heavy atmosphere that he gave it up almost immediately. "...I made a promise. Never to save my own life... at the expense of someone else's."
"...Fuck."
"Are you a gambler?"
"Not ever. But... it's your life."
They looked at each other for a long moment, then Yuuichi held out his hand. "Tate Yuuichi."
The other shook it. "Nathan Baxter."
"Take care of Shiho for me," he said, and Nathan nodded. And then, with no further words or drama, he walked to the door that, if this really had been his bedroom, would have led to the bathroom.
Opened it.
Stepped through.
And shut it behind him.
Alone in the room, Nathan let out the breath he had been holding in a rush and turned to rest a hand on the remaining door's knob. "Please, dear lord," he said to himself, "Don't let me fuck up."

---

Ja, -n
(*just realized his sister is a year older than she is*)
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[Florin]

I now have an uncontrollable urge to create a COX character named Black Schrodinger... maybe a Warshade or Dark/Dark Stalker...--
Oh, what has science wrought? I sought only to turn a man into a metal-encased juggernaught of destruction powered by the unknown properties of a mysterious living crystal. How could this have all gone wrong?
--
If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all. 

[Rieverre]

---

No doubt - I was just saying that there's a difference between dealing with a main character vs. someone who is, likely, no more than a background role. And I, alas, am ecchi enough to care.

---

Plus, you sound like I did back in the day when I first laid eyes on the El-Hazard OVAs and saw Ifurita. So, yeah, I think I know where you're coming from.

---

"The short version is that someone shot you in the head."

---

Meaning that Tate!Nate is going to be sporting a stylishly Sergei-esque scar on his mug, yesno?
So, right back at you: I'm looking forward to this!
Especially if the inevitable 'So, you've discovered the softer side of Searrs?' joke makes an appearance.
-Griever
Edit: *snicker* 'Golden Millenium? Sounds vaguely Herbert-ish, and we all know how well _that_ turned out, don't we?'
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[Rieverre]

*grumblegrumble* another bit of teaser material. Nate, we may be a bad influence on each other.
This scene is, obviously, set after the evacuation of Garderobe in the wake of Schwarz's and Nagi's little ploy.

---
"It's ... big."
"It's also pretty much buried, Miss Kruger," Katz replied, not bothering to stop. He'd seen the sight too often, as it was. "Not exactly a state of affairs I'm happy with."
"So, this is where Black gets its technology," Natsuki said, following the man down, still somewhat unsteady.
Head wounds, she remembered from both education and experience, did that to a person, and were one of the things the nanomachines in an Otome's bloodstream had to let heal naturally. Or, at least, could do fairly little to help with.
The fact that Shizuru had slung one of her arms over her own shoulders and had been helping steady her ever since the beginning of the descent into the caverns helped.
"Not entirely correct," came the response. Schrdinger had stepped on top of the armor plating - at least that was what she assumed she was seeing - and extended a hand towards them. "Few of my associates are actually aware of this site, as it were. Or they weren't before now, at least. Also, the technology is in some ways cruder than what can be found buried in other places around this globe."
The two Pillars soon stood beside him, within a crimson-edged rectangle. There was a hiss of escaping pressure, and the surface within said rectangle started sinking into the depths of the buried armored structure.
"There are residential areas within, enough to house more than the group we brought here," the man continued as they descended. "Medical should still be functional enough to deal with the injured."
"This ..." Shizuru looked around. There were no signs of neglect or damage on the interior, and ...
... what looked like a small mechanical cart with a rotating broom up front drove past, cleaning the floors ...
"You mean to say that you managed to restore a fully operational stronghold, stocked with working ancient technology, functional ... by yourself?" the user of the Graceful Amethyst Robe asked, nonplussed. "I find that difficult to believe."
"It's not quite as pristine as it looks, but it is mostly operational," the man shrugged. "And it's not a fortress. It was functional when I got it, and I have more right to it than anybody else on this dustball, since I stole it fair and square."
He turned to face them, and grinned. "Ladies, welcome to the Third Foundation, Odyssey. What's left of it."
---

because Incarna vol2. is going to be titled 'Uchuu no Katsu', or simply 'Katz in Space'. I mean, come on, the rift at the end of Stellvia is just too nifty a plot device not to be used.
-Griever
because you can never get enough bad puns
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[Valles]

---

Plus, you sound like I did back in the day when I first laid eyes on the El-Hazard OVAs and saw Ifurita. So, yeah, I think I know where you're coming from.

---

Yeah, exactly like Ifurita.

---

Meaning that Tate!Nate is going to be sporting a stylishly Sergei-esque scar on his mug, yesno?

---

That honestly hadn't occured to me, but now that you've mentioned it, hell yeah.

---

Edit: *snicker* 'Golden Millenium? Sounds vaguely Herbert-ish, and we all know how well _that_ turned out, don't we?'

---

*blank* Herbert?
Anyway, I think that the 'bad influence' thing is pretty much certain, since this'd never've gotten beyond the daydream stage if you hadn't provoked me. ^_^

---

It was a door opening that woke me up, but after the first moment or two, my mind had cleared enough to recognize the steady beeping inside the room with me as being a heart monitor.
There was a faint rattle, the kind a rolling cart makes, and I raised my head - which felt far heavier than it should have - a little to get a look. The nurse was a frumpy looking oriental woman with short hair and a mole on her nose, and was quite surprised to see me looking back at her. "Oh, you're awake!" she said. "How do you feel? Dizzyness, nausea?" She hurried over towards me and started checking the machine on my right.
"Weak," I told her, "and maybe a bit lost. But other than that, and having a needle in my arm, I feel fine."
She grinned, a surprisingly impish expression to see on someone who looked maybe forty-something. "Good! I'll go get the doctor, then."
She was about halfway out the door when I realized that both of us had been speaking Japanese.

*****

In the long run it turned out that, despite having inherited his brain, I had actually lost most of Tate's memories. The ones that had stayed, though, were definitely the one's that'd be most useful. The language, of course, was first and foremost, both spoken and written, followed closely by physical skills. Given that the bullet that had hit me - him - had actually taken out enough of my head to leave a five-centimeter long exit wound running down my forehead from the scalp line, I had absolutely no problem explaining the fact that I didn't know a damn thing about a lot of the stuff that 'Tate Yuuichi' should've known backwards and forewards.
The reason I had been so weak on waking up was that, contrary to what I'd been told going in, 'I' had actually spent better than a month and a half as a vegetable, and had needed nearly as long to reach a 'full recovery'... which was another way of saying that I was in better shape than I'd ever been in my original life, and thanks to the things I'd learned during the therapy, it looked like I'd be able to stay that way.
With any luck, I wouldn't need to do any fighting myself, but counting on that would be an idiot's plan. Machida-san, the therapist, was a big help in digging up a teacher whose lessons were aimed more at practical application than perfection of the self, and I managed, somehow, to be consistent in keeping up with the lessons.
I'd been shot in early January and woken up a little over halfway through February, which meant that I had just barely had time to get as ready as I was going to be for the start of school - and the 'Festival' - in April.
Honestly, the hardest part about that period was dealing with Shiho. As a character, I had never regarded her as anything much better than an unjustified brat, but she actually wasn't that bad, in person. 'Not that bad' is strictly a relative statement, though, especially since she swung back and forth between hating me for not being 'her Oniichan' and flat-out denial of same.
Still, she had her moments, and in a lot of ways reminded me of my real sister - a lot shorter than she'd been at that age, and neither as smart nor as athletic... Which wasn't actually saying anything much about Shiho, since Sis'd gotten an equal share of the family brains and both our helpings of athletic and social skills.
I don't think of myself as a sentimental person, most times, and if I'd just been able to let my family know that I was okay and likely to stay that way the lack of contact wouldn't've been a problem. As it was, though, I missed all three of them, and worried about Mom - my Uncle had died only a few years past, and my Grandmother and Great-aunt, the only family in that generation I'd had a chance to know on either side of my family, only this last summer, so my... death... would leave my sister and younger cousin as her only living kin.
I lost more than a few nights' sleep hoping that she'd taken it okay.
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[Rieverre]

---

Yeah, exactly like Ifurita.

---

No character had quite as profound an effect on me ever since, actually.

---

*blank* Herbert?

---

As in, Dune. Specifically, Children of and later books, and Leto the Second's Golden Path. It was the first thing that popped into my mind upon hearing the mention of the Golden Millenium.
Hmm ... I shall provoke away, then.
------
The first time I'd actually experienced Limbo and been conscious of it, my body had unravelled and gone rushing along a path that would have brought me 'back' to where I'd wanted to be, reforming after crossing back out of it.
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I didn't hit quite on target. Actually, I didn't even hit the target at all.
The second time, I'd not really experienced it as much as I had travelled through it, like a speck of moss riding a stone that's been skipped over the surface of a body of water.
Of course, if you consider for a moment that the stone in this particular equation had been bloody huge ...
On the grander scale, this hadn't really mattered. For some reason, souls seemed to be able to travel through Limbo just fine. Or mine did, at least.
And ever since I'd learned how to grasp a bit of the potential that the human soul represented, I'd been able to do more than just let myself be carried by the currents of this chaotic 'sea'. I'd not had a chance to test how much more, though, since the second time I'd been aware of Limbo in my passing through it was also the first time I was doing so without being deconstructed into base spiritual particles or whatnot.
To this end, the 'stone' had been effective. It was less a question of it being as huge as it was, and more one of it having both structural and projective gravitic shielding arrays. Ones which, when jacked into my mind via Direct Link System, actually managed to simulate an AT Field's waveform pattern ...
... for all of five minutes.
Enough time to get a positional bearing and an idea of the direction I'd want to travel in. Not nearly enough to actually _do_ something about it.
At least, not before the fusion furnaces had redlined, and the wild flux of failing shielding arrays had my skipping stone unbalance, wobble, and fall back into the pond called Reality.
Which it did none too gracefully.
***
What had been my second voluntary attempt at navigating the 'sea of chaos' - and no, as far as I knew, there was no L-sama involved - and my first attempt to do so with vehicular assistence, ended in a less than stellar manner.
Also, it made me realize the bad thing about not being discorporate while doing so.
The sensory overload is far worse when doing it this way.
I found awareness returning after what felt like a few minutes, but may just as well have been a few days. Or weeks. Or ... well, the general idea should be clear.
That, and I woke to color. And sound.
Neither of the two paricularly soothing.
The faint stirrings of a half-remembered dream lingered at the forefront of my mind, for some reason. Something that involved some sort of bad Colonel Sanders ripoff arguing with a guy who looked like he'd never quite grasped the fact that too much hair-gel was never a good thing. There was a lot of glaring involved, especially from 'greasy hair' guy.
Maybe my subconsciouss was trying to tell me to lay off fast food.
I shook it off, discarded the apparently broken DLS headset and visor, before being confronted by more red lights than I'd care to count lighting up the computer core chamber revealed to my eyes.
Vey.
***
"Well, no cinnamon smell, no giant worms ... that's one less worry right there. Sadly, unfamiliar constellations make one more worry." I said to myself, leaning back against the rock wall beside the cavern entrance.
Exploration had taken a backseat for the past three weeks. Those had been spent on either attempting to get automated maintenanace back online, or - in the latter part of that timeframe - on making sure the structural integrity fields could keep the millions of tons of rock from crushing the Foundation's hull. Odyssey had, after all, been built with space in mind. Suddenly finding itself buried underground ... it was a testament to how well it had been built that the Foundation was still intact, not to mention functioning, with conditions being as they were.
Unfortunately, keeping itself intact was about the extent of what it could do at the moment.
Maybe with all the fusion furnaces fully functional ... then again, the Foundations, for all their robustness, had been built for orbital and deep space operations. I wasn't exactly keen on having it try to haul itself out from under that much rock and out of a gravity well. Wouldn't have been, even if it were at a hundred percent. With only half the furnaces at anything resembling operational output level?
Not bloody likely.
Besides, it wasn't like I could actually _do_ anything towards the goal of getting back 'home' - which this was most definitely not - as things stood now.
From prior experience, I'd found that even initiating a crossing requires obscene amounts of power. Maybe ... and it was a big maybe ... the furnaces at maximum output could have delivered enough to rip open a small rift for a few seconds. Even then, it would have only been enough to allow my discorporate form passage.
The Odyssey had managed because there had already been a ready made rift present, and it didn't need to actually rip through Reality and into Limbo on its own.
Of course, there could have been another way to do it. Hell, there probably was. Sadly, I knew of no such way.
Meaning I was stuck here for the duration, at least until I figured out a way to move on.
Again.
With desert left, desert right, and a bunch of rocks in the middle, under an unfamiliar sky.
And why did looking at that one star give me feelings of foreboding? And cravings for some Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Must have been the Col. Sanders dream.
***
------

-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[Valles]

---

As in, Dune. Specifically, Children of and later books, and Leto the Second's Golden Path. It was the first thing that popped into my mind upon hearing the mention of the Golden Millenium.

---

Ah. My interest died about three chapters into Children of, so I can't comment on that. ^_^

---

I'd never been that nervous before in my life.
Frankly, I like to think that I had good reason to be - the potential end of all human life is more than big enough stakes, thank you. I'd checked the start date for the next semester at Fuuka Academy almost as soon as I'd put my thoughts back together after waking up. My age was listed as fifteen in the records, and my new birthday was in November, so I knew that this at least should be the right year. I'd even gone so far as to book my ticket on the only ferry that fit the timing more than a month in advance.
By the time the actual day rolled around, there was quite literally nothing for me to do but sit on the promenade deck with a novel that I was completely ignoring in favor of some last-minute fretting.
In my case, at least, the classic self-insert question of 'what do the characters look like' had defaulted to 'real people'... my own hair, now that it was growing out of the bleaching, was a shade or two darker than it had been, and Shiho's a fairly natural shade that bore only the faintest resemblence to her animated counterpart's. Nevertheless, my first glimpse of Tokiha Mai was utterly unmistakable.
In the first place, the show had gotten her clothes right, and that bright red t-shirt stood out like a road sign. Between that, the figure that would have been impressive on somebody five years older, and the fact that she must've had at least one western ancestor to inherit that flaming red hair from, she really couldn't have been anyone else.
Beyond that... I'll be honest and admit that I'm shallow enough that a girl's face usually isn't the first thing I notice about her, or the second.
But I noticed hers.
I didn't even realize I was staring until Shiho had poked me in the ribs. "You're being indecent," she said, which, as much as I'd discovered it to be a bit of a catchphrase of hers, definitely raised goosebumps on today of all days.
I tore my eyes away and dropped them back down to the book. "Right. Thanks."
Not long now, and dear god almighty what was I going to do? Mai, Natsuki, Mikoto I could deal with, and Yukino and Akane, sure. Midori - hell, Midori would probably know more than I did! But Akira was a total wild card, Nao was about as trustworthy as she thought everyone else was, and the idea of even having to try to negotiate with Shizuru was, frankly, terrifying...
"You're not going to go talk to her?" Shiho asked.
I turned a page I couldn't recognize a word of. "I'm not that brave."
"Of course you are! Don't you remember... oh."
I sighed and gave up on the book and flipped it shut, then reached over to mess up her hair. She shrieked and gave me an outraged look, and I smiled, then sort of shrugged. "I might've been. Now I'm not."
I found out later, when she gave me her old diaries, that after I had dropped the novel in my bag and walked to the side to look for Mikoto, she had gone to strike up a conversation with Mai.
In retrospect, the wonder is that anything went as similarly as it did.

---

Ja, -n
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[ordnance11]

I'm going to have to start downloading both Mai Otome just to make sense of what the hell you guys are writing about.
^^
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

[Bob Schroeck]

Otome won't help you on Nathan's stuff. So far it's all pure Mai-HiME.

-- Bob
---------
For Jor-El so loved the Earth, he sent his only begotten son...

[Rieverre]

Mm. And the Foundation (basically a bigass spaceship/station combo) is from 'Uchuu no Stellvia' (Stellvia of the Universe/Stellvia in Space - whichever translation they decided to go with). A surprisingly fun 'high school kids in space' type show, which, thank the Kami, is not anywhere even remotely close to Infinite Ryvius in angst levels. Though both series feature extensive gravtech, come to think of it.
Not that I didn't like Ryvius, but that show was basically all about human nature and people breaking down. Herr Schrdinger needed a metaphysical breather from that.
-Griever
Also, Stellvia's opener is far neater.
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[ordnance11]

There's no more torrents active.
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

[Rieverre]

Static Subs are still hosting Mai-Hime.
And I think *goes to look* yes, boxtorrents still has Stellvia up.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[WengFook]

Griever.. Nathan... you two need to get a room. and then after a montage scene unveil your collaborative piece for us to peruse _______________________________
"We few, we happy few. We band of buggered"
_________________________________
Take Your Candle, Go Light Your World.

[Rieverre]

That'd be interesting, since these two pieces are only collaborative inasmuch as we throw various fragments at one-another to make the other guy want to write more of his own. Although you could count the fact that my checing out the Mai franchise was motivated by Nate's reviews as well, if you put your mind to it.
The concept of somehow merging these two 'projects' is interesting, since Otome and HiME are connected (we merely don't know about the exact 'how' of this connection quite yet). There've been theories that the blue star in the sky of Otome is what's left of a colony ship circling Earl, there've been theories that it's actually some sort of weird reflection of Earth itself, there've been theories that the reason for the migration onto Earl was simply that the disasters didn't _stop_ after the HiME kicked Obsydian's ass and nerfed the star and the Earth had to be abandoned, or that Earl _is_ Earth and the fact simply disappeared into obscurity as a result of the wars, in which case the blue star could be something completely different.
If it's indeed a connection of that manner and Otome isn't simply in an alternate universe to HiME, it could be that the Guardians were playing a much longer termed game than had been initially thought ...
... but that's just my ramblings.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[ordnance11]

my thanks.
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

[ordnance11]

---

In the first place, the show had gotten her clothes right, and that bright red t-shirt stood out like a road sign. Between that, the figure that would have been impressive on somebody five years older, and the fact that she must've had at least one western ancestor to inherit that flaming red hair from, she really couldn't have been anyone else.

---

chest size 87E
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

[Valles]

---

That'd be interesting, since these two pieces are only collaborative inasmuch as we throw various fragments at one-another to make the other guy want to write more of his own.

---

*throws*

---

"Is this yours?" came a furious voice from behind me, and I stopped leaning on the railing and turned. Needless to say, I hadn't been expecting Mai herself to come up and talk to me - we hadn't been introduced, after all, and I didn't stand out in a crowd nearly as much as she did.
On the other hand, the way she was dragging Shiho behind her as she stormed towards me - and expression of mingled guilt, triumph, and defiance on the latter's face - provided at least a clear guess as to the reason. "'Fraid so. What has she done?" I asked, with no little trepidation but a surprising absence of panic.
She glared at me for a moment, then blinked. "You really don't know."
"Uh... No?" I offered.
"So you didn't send her to ask me if, if..." She spluttered to a stop and blushed furiously, then leaned forward and up a bit and hissed a short phrase or two that made me completely forget how close together the position had brought our bodies.
For a moment, my jaw just sagged, then I put myself back together enough to tell her, "No. I said no such thing." I stepped back a little and bowed, politely. "I'm sorry that she's bothered you - I'll talk to her about it, I promise."
She gave me a narrow-eyed look for a moment, then relaxed a bit and turned loose of Shiho's wrist. "You can't control if she's spreading rumors, so please, don't worry about it."
"Someone has to," I sighed. "But, thank you, Miss...?"
She smiled, and rolled her eyes, and the expression made my breath catch. "Tokiha Mai. Pleased to meet you."
"Tate Yuuichi, and it is very much mutual," I told her, with my stuffiest voice and the most formal bow I could manage. It didn't win the laugh I had been aiming for, but the wave she gave as she turned to rejoin her brother was friendly enough, so I couldn't count the effort wasted. I watched her go for a moment, trying to fight down a wave of bleak, tired, and all-too-familiar lonlieness, then turned to Shiho. "Are you really that dumb, or were you just trying to find a way to get me talking to her?"
She glared at me. "I saw those notes! You're mine! I won't let her take you away!"
I wasn't really surprised that she had gotten ahold of my notes - in fact, in retrospect I think I'd almost planned on it, since I could just as easily have made them a collection of cryptic phrases in English as structured Japanese paragraphs - but the idea that she could actually read through them, and obviously give them credence, yet still be more concerned about... "What the hell are you thinking?"
"Well," she said, as though it were the most reasonable thing in the world, "if she knows that you're mine to start with, then she won't try and steal you away, so you'll live and we can be together and she'l-"
"WILL YOU GROW THE FUCK UP?!"
She flinched at my volume, and looked about ready to cry - which was the last thing I needed when our - my - outburst had distracted pretty much everyone on the promenade deck from the bridge going by overhead.
With an effort, I got my temper back under control. "You've read all of it?" I snapped.
"Yes, Oniichan," she said quietly, looking at her feet.
"Then help me look for Mikoto - and hope you haven't killed us all."

---

...Y'know, I actually haven't got a clue what she said to her?
Ja, -n
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[Bob Schroeck]

Ah, geeze, Shiho with complete foreknowledge? I'd go run and hide, except Tate-N clearly isn't going to take any shit from her.

-- Bob
---------
For Jor-El so loved the Earth, he sent his only begotten son...

[Valles]

---

Ah, geeze, Shiho with complete foreknowledge? I'd go run and hide, except Tate-N clearly isn't going to take any shit from her.

---

...I hadn't even thought of that. Huh. Makes me glad that the characters have decided that they're doing the driving.
She just sort of walked up and informed me that, yeah, she knew - and did so, more, right in the middle of the scene.
And N!Tate is very far from being at his best, seeing as his stress levels are through the roof over all of this, which always makes me cranky. The only thing that could make his mood worse, really, would be if he managed to give himself a migrane - which is a distinct possibility, now that I think about it.
Ja, -n
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[Rieverre]

*catches* *snickers*
I'd imagine something along the lines of: You know, oniichan was wondering, and I was sort of wondering too ... are those real?

*throws*

---

In my defense, I'd been desert sitting for the past month or so without even as much as a single person passing by within visual range. Unaided visual range, at least.
This was sort of good, and sort of bad.
Good, because it meant that this ... wherever it was ... was likely far enough away from what passed as trade routes and such that there was little chance that somebody would try and go exploring and find something they shouldn't. Like yours truly.
Bad, because this meant I'd need to do a lot of travelling to reach anyplace I could get more information at. Also, it wasn't really helping with keeping me from going stir-crazy. I'd spent the last few years if not exactly interacting with a lot of people, then at least around a lot of people. Even back when I'd been playing hermit inside a Geo-Front and actively trying not to be noticed, I'd been aware that there were people around. Here? That was another matter entirely.
Then I found that there _was_ a fair number of somebodies around. That had been the first thing I'd checked, meaning the day after my finding a viable path to the outside I was scaling the big lug of a rock Odyssey had ended up under, a pair of high magnification binocs around my neck.
I didn't exactly catch sight of any people, just moving dust trails with a single exception.
I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. Memories of Boomers, Angels, and the occasional Space Cicada should have made the sight at least seem less weird.
No such luck. The ... well, I guess I could call it a sandcrawler, since that was what it did, but it honestly resembled a ship. Of supremely weird construction, yes, but still a ship. 'Sailing' across the sandy expanse ...
Well, rolling anyways.
I thought it looked rather Verne-esque.
At least, had Verne done 'Dune'.
Anyway, I needed some way to find out where the hell I was in a broader sense of the word. Not just 'in the desert'. Getting the lay of the land was the unanimously agreed upon course of action to take next.
So, I thought happy thoughts, hopped up, and hoped the pixie dust still held.
In other words, I pulled on that bit of my soul I'd learned how to harness, drew it out from the oversized black marble currently occupying quarters behind and slightly under my sternum, and sprouted wings.
Well, if you could consider four semi-solid energy constructs 'wings'.
It felt rather liberating, to be honest, and I wondered why before remembering that the last time I'd done this was a notable chunk of time in the past.
A brief hop upwards proved that my initial estimate of being stuck in the middle of nowhere still applied ... somewhat. This 'nowhere' seemed to stretch rather far.
Since I didn't want to risk a trip any longer or any higher than that until I knew that I wouldn't be, oh, targetted by any Surface-to-Air-Missile batteries or equivalents.
It wasn't until later, when I'd fed the data I'd taken using the binocs into the Foundation's core via one of the terminals and called it up to have another, calmer, look at it, that I noticed this wasteland couldn't be natural. Or all natural, at least. Some of the depressions were too regular, a few of the mountain masses too jagged ...
There _were_ areas, farther off, where hints of vegetation and/or a body of water could be seen, though. I'd definitely look into that later.
The realization that I had, this time, arrived in the _wake_ of a war, wasn't exactly heartening.
But, as said before, that had come a bit later, and after I'd met with my first local.
Because, apparently, I hadn't been as unobtrusive in my examination from a bird's eye view as I'd hoped to be.
Local, though, could be a bit of a misnomer in this case, and didn't neccessarily equal 'representative of the area'.
After all, how many desert nomads or travellers dress like somebody trying to simultaniously cosplay as Rei Ayanami and Vampire Hunter D?
'Gods, I _hope_ not many,' I thought as I first sighted my stoic, black cloaked visitor.

---

-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[CattyNebulart]

Yay Miyu. love your description of her griever. ^_^ Good job both of you on these fragments!
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[Valles]

*catch*
What?! Of course they are!
*gooshgoosh* Wow, they really are!
*toss*

---

Fortunately, the thing with Mikoto went well after Shiho had gone off to sulk - I was even able to convince them to let me take charge of Miroku rather than just prying it out of her fingers, and was lucky enough that it didn't take offense. (I like my fingers on my hands, thanks kindly.)
I'd decided to do it that way, rather than letting things play out, because I was fairly certain that the absence of the delay that little incident had imposed would do Mikoto more good than a failure to involve Mai and Mikoto in each other's lives at this stage. As it turned out, my concern was mostly wasted, since none of the crewmen on hand seemed to know CPR, but the question was asked that much sooner and, for whatever reason, Mai didn't delay stepping forwards.
"You did a good job helping out with that," someone said from beside me, and from his hairstyle and height I guessed he had to be Takumi.
"I hope it was good enough," I replied. "You know Tokiha-san, right? I saw you with her earlier..."
"I'm her brother." Bingo. "Don't worry - between this and how polite Oneechan says you were after the hentai-girl came up, I have no objection to your courting my sister."
Where the fuck had that come from? I goggled at him, of course, completely lost for words. Eventually, though, I managed to actually make a coherent response. "...gueah?"
If you were very generous.
He laughed. "I saw how you were looking at her - you like her, right? Most people do, so I can't blame you."
Even before I opened my mouth, I knew that it was a tremendously bad idea, but impulse control has always been one of my weak points, and had stayed that way even with more normal brain chemistry. "Including a fellow of your accquaintance with a bit of a sister complex?"
"I don't have a complex!" he snapped, face as red as any I'd ever seen.
"I didn't," I told him mildly, doing my best to keep the grin my face wanted to make away from both expression and voice, "think you did." The joke had gone over even worse than I expected, probably because it was coming from a stranger rather than a roommate, and the frustrated note in his voice made me realize that it was a much more sensitive point than I had guessed - I'd heard that high, 'caught between murder and tears' pitch in my sister's voice, but it had always taken at least several minutes for her to get that worked up... She'd never just gone to that point with a single comment.
I didn't quite manage it, and he reacted about the same way my she always had - which is to say, he exploded. "You don't know anything!"
I held my hands up, palm out, and made my voice as placating as I could. "I guess not! I'm sorry, it was just supposed to be a stupid joke. I didn't mean to say that..." I groped for the word, but he saved me the trouble.
"You shouldn't. Oneechan is a wonderful person, and deserves better than to have people saying such horrible things about her." I breathed a mental sigh of relief - the apology seemed to have cooled his temper - but a voice interrupted us before I could respond.
"Takumi, are you bothering Tate-san?"
She was wearing a Fuuka Gakuen uniform, just like on the show, but in person the jacket - or whatever the proper name for the thing was - was noticably small, and...
Wow. That was a really short skirt.
I reminded myself forcibly that she was a person, not some object to drool over, and deserved to be treated as such. "I deserved it. I said something stupid and he was calling me to task for it."
She blinked. "Oh. What was it, then?"
"I'd rather not say?" I offered, and gave her a sickly smile. "It's best for everyone if it were forgotten, I think. Is that a Fuuka Gakuen uniform?" Well, that was smooth of me.
To my and Takumi's mutual relief, she let it drop and herded us both into a set of deck chairs - seemingly without ever touching us or even glancing our way. "Yeah. All of my other clothes are in my big suitcase, so this was the only dry thing I had. Why, do you go there also?"
"So I'm told."
She looked even cuter when she was puzzled, although I don't know how she managed it. "You don't know?"
I reached up and tapped the scar on my forehead. "Before this, everything is all... wierd." Which was quite true - after all, whether I had genuinely been swapped or was just delusional, remembering someone else's life was about as wierd as it came. "So, I know things in general, but hardly anything about the school."
"You have amnesia?" Takumi asked, sounding somewhere between incredulous and just wierded out.
"Something like. Wierd, but true."
"Wow."

---

Ja, -n
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."