Scene #4034: WEIRD SCIENCE!

Owner	Pose
Yunomi Stadler	From my heart and from my hand -- why don't people understand my intentions? Yunomi had been increasingly quiet on the radio, pulled in several directions at once, from her research to her budding relationship ito her strange need to feed... ... well. Everyone needs to eat. She was sitting at a large table, working on a bit of tech that had huge brassy bits to it, leathery bits, and wires and baubles sticking out in all directions. There was a little sign above her that read "THIS WORKSPACE HAS BEEN EXPLOSION FREE FOR: 2 DAYS"
Sakura Kinomoto	Four months ago, possibly more, Sakura broke. She retreated inward, first mentally and then even physically. No one has seen her outside of Tomoeda for months, and even those who visit Tomoeda looking for her would be asked to leave her alone. So one of Sakura's Cards showing up in RAVNICA of all places might be something of a surprise. So Yunomi is in for a shock when the Wood suddenly seats herself on the work table, cross-legged, looking curiously up at Yunomi as if she doesn't recognise her.
Yunomi Stadler	"Spanner, lackwrench, solder iron, The Wood, where is that--" Yunomi began, and then paused, and slooowly looked up. Her eyebrows drew upwards and then she leaned back, turning off the bright lights she was working under and pushing her goggles up with a bit of a grin. "Oh hey! The Wood! How are you?" she greets the Clow creature with a small smile, and then glances back "Is Sakura visiting with you?"
Sakura Kinomoto	The little wood nymph's head tilts slowly to one side for a moment, seemingly uncomprehending... before she nods! Hopping to her feet, then little sprite puts two fingers in her mouth and whistles! ... Except not sound comes out. And then suddenly Sakura is being dragged over to Yunomi by a large vine. Huh!
Yunomi Stadler	Yunomi was concerned for a split second that The Wood didn't comprehend -- or then, that something terrible had happened to Sakura. And then, the young mage is dragged in by a vine. "Sa-ku-ra~" Yunomi chimes as she turns in her seat, and leans an elbow back against the work table with the large.... thing behind her. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?" the tanuki smiles, her ears shifting forward... and then she purses her lips... usually the y ounger mage is more enthusiastic... "Ne? Is something wrong?"
Sakura Kinomoto	Sakura is dragged in, and deposited in front of Yunomi - almost falling before a few more vines materialise out of nowhere and prop her up. Once she's stable, the Wood gives a bow, twirls, and then in the next moment is replaced by a spinning Clow Card which neatly inserts itself back into Sakura's pocket. Sakura looks at Yunomi blankly for a moment, rubbing her eyes. "...Hweh?" She looks like she just woke up! "Y-Yunomi! Where... Am I in Ravnica?"
Yunomi Stadler	"I had... assumed to visit me, but it appears you've been kidnapped." Yunomi states as she hops off her chair, and reaches down to steady Sakura as she teeters, giving a nod to The Wood as she takes over. "You don't remember coming here from Tomoeda?"
Sakura Kinomoto	Sakura rubs the back of her head. "...Nope!" A few more of her cards swoop in and fit themselves neatly into Sakura's pockets! Seems this was a combined effort from the card spirits or something like that. Sakura continues to look baffled - then she throws her arms around Yunomi and squeezes. "Yunomi! It's been ages!"
Yunomi Stadler	Yunomi gives a grin, and she throws her arms around Sakura as well. "IT has been; I was getting a bit worried when we were told y ou weren't taking visitors!" she replies. "C'mon, I was about to go and grab some lunch, my treat!" she states, turning off the other lights in the lab, twisting the knob so that the mana flow depletes itself.
Sakura Kinomoto	Sakura rubs the back of her head. "Eheh. Well, you know... after I found all of my Cards again and..." she trails off. "Well, no, I don't really have an excuse. I was kinda a huge jerk for ages... Sorry." Rub rub. "Uh. Sure, lunch sounds good! I haven't eaten since... breakfast."
Yunomi Stadler	"You fell into a deep, exhaustive and restorative coma in order to heal from your mental wounds and tribulations, it's all right, Sakura -- it happens to all of us." the tanuki replies, and she gives a soft smile. "C'mon. Let's go get you something to eat." And she exits the lab, and makes her way down the hall. She's entirely nonpulsed when the building shakes. "So other than sleeping, how've you been?"
Sakura Kinomoto	"..Sure, let's go with that." As the building shakes, Sakura also doesn't react very much - although Yunomi may notice one of her hands forming into the first mudra for Sakura's 'wand summoning' spell. After a few moments the mage relaxes her hand, however! "I've been... getting better, I guess. I kinda stopped training entirely for like a month... it didn't help that it was summer vacation, so I didn't have cheerleading or anything!" She rubbed the back of her head. "That first day back at training -hurt-."
Yunomi Stadler	"CHeer or mage training?" Yunomi replies good naturedly, patting Sakura re-assuringly on the shoulder. "Take it easy, this place explodes with disturbing frequency." she reminds her gently, and hits the button for the Great Lift. "Must be nice to take a vacation. Maybe I can encourage Rhapsody to take one."
Sakura Kinomoto	Sakura giggles a bit. "Um. 'Yes'? I pretty much stopped doing -anything- that wasn't just 'normal person stuff'. I mean... okay it's kinda hard not to use magic, but I never really did anything huge with it..." Shrug! "And I ended up getting so out of shape. My first day back at running I could barely run three miles without needing a break!" ... Sakura is, as always, ridiculous.
Yunomi Stadler	"ONly three miles..." Yunomi replies, and gives a wheeze for effect "Pretty sure unless there's food at the end of it, I couldn't run a whole mile. My dad would be /so/ disappointed that I didn't keep up with PT... he'd probably get DeClere to get on my case about it." Yunomi gives a smile, and opens the grate for Sakura to pass through. "After you~."
Sakura Kinomoto	Sakura rubs the back of her head as she steps into the lift. At this rate she's going to go bald! "I, uh. I guess that sounded kinda douchey. But! My brother and my father and... even my mom, I think... Kinomotos are really athletic, right?"
Yunomi Stadler	"I'm joking, Sakura." Yunomi gives a grin. "I could run at least /two/ miles if there was food at the end of it." she jokes, and hits the button to head down to the main floor. She leans back against the lift. "So, what's on your docket in the near future? I might need some help testing a few of the manalines, if y ou're not busy."
Sakura Kinomoto	Sakura leans as well! "Uuh... aaactually now that I think about it I was totally going to ask you about potentially helping with my Ultimate Project." The way she says it makes it clear it's a Proper Noun. "But... I'm not really in a hurry to do that. So, sure! I can help you out. Maybe I'll learn something useful~"
Yunomi Stadler	"Oh, no, no, tell me about this 'Ultimate Project'. You already have all fifty three cards, a star castle...." she gives a grin. "And now you have my curiousity."
Sakura Kinomoto	Sakura looks at her hand. She extends her index and ring fingers out, and folds her thumb in to touch the tip of her ring finger. A faint pink glow surrounds her hand until she relaxes it again. "...I'm special. Yeah? Not everyone in my world can do magic. And... that's really unfair. I've always wanted for as long as I can remember to... to let other people experience what it's like. You know?"
Yunomi Stadler	Yunomi pauses and considers the rammifications of turning a low-magic world into a high-magic world. Considers the logistics. The gears turn in her brain wrestling with moral and ethical issues regarding the thought, but her face is a little blank, her eyebros rising a b it as the lift comes to a rest in the busy 'lobby' of the Izzet spire, goblins and humans and djinn waiting to get on the lift to return to their own work and studies after lunch. "And how do you plan to do that?"
Sakura Kinomoto	Sakura giggles a bit. "Well. It's become obvious that normal people can use certain magical devices. Tomoyo has a magical mirror, for instance! The thing is, they can't -charge- them, and they have to be specifically designed to be wielded by non-magical people. So... first, I want to see if I can come up with a way for normal people to charge magical devices with their own energy, first." "Eventually I'm going to try to invent a sort of magic that anyone can use but I need to get a LOT better at magic before I can do that!" The way she says 'invent a sort of magic' makes it sound different from just making magical devices, for some reason.
Yunomi Stadler	"Why not invest in electricity-to-magic adaptors? I'm pretty sure I could find something that'll work for your situation without having to change the metaphysical makeup of your world." Yunomi offers a short-term solution as she leads the way out of the spire and into the street. She takes a left, and begins to head down the way, diagonally across the steps. A massive Steamcore Weird eyeballs Sakura in passing.
Sakura Kinomoto	Sakura blows the elemental creature a kiss as she passes. "Or, yeah, something like that! That's why I wanted to ask you for help. You know about this sort of stuff! I know this isn't going to be an overnight thing. It's gonna be slow and there's gonna be people who don't agree with me, but..."
Yunomi Stadler	Yunomi purses her lips a moment, giving a blue-skinned person a wave on her way by and glances over to Sakura. "Did I ever tell you how the 'Magic Eaters' came to be in my world, Sakura?" she inquires, ducking over to a food stand and reaching for her money. She looks over what look like bowls of noodles and vegetables.. they definatly don't smell like any noodles from Japan though.
Sakura Kinomoto	Sakura shakes her head. "No. You haven't, uh, really ever told me anything about them." She gives a wry grin. "Which has made coming up with combat strategies to use against them REALLY hard, let me tell you..."
Yunomi Stadler	"That's because for someone who relies on magic and cards for defense, your best combat strategy is an exit strategy." Yunomi replies, and comes back with two large carry-out packages, with large wooden two-tine forks, and hands one to Sakura before she goes to sit on the steps of Nivix. "Back in the earlier days of Japan, did you know that river otters and many cats could shapeshift as well? Mujina, tanuki, kitsune -- most creatures had some family member who was magical."
Sakura Kinomoto	Sakura just smiles, before sitting down beside Yunomi. "If you say so..." She takes a tentative taste of the noodles! "Hmm? That doesn't sound too far-fetched, no."
Yunomi Stadler	The noodles are a little spicy, very savory, and a little bit octopus-y. Don't ask what the meat is. Yunomi stirs hers around with the fork, and then twirls some of the noodles up in her fork. "Well, shapeshifting otters went extinct. Many mujina and tanuki families who could shapeshift mysteriously vanished. The Odanuki, my family, were brought down to a single branch... because humans were hungering after magic, to weaponize it against others. Now, if the kami liked you you might turn into a magical being, like my mother did. Or a sorcerer... but it was very rare to be born able to use magic if you were a human... so they began to capture yokai... and eat them."
Sakura Kinomoto	Sakura slurps up some of the noodles. Octopus-y is good! Her favourite food is noodles with seafood, after all, so she's kinda loving this. "...Wait. S-seriously? People did that?" She looks down. "That's..."
Yunomi Stadler	"Mmn. People ate yokai all the time. Sometimes mamedanuki would get caught in traps, we'd get killed and eaten like our non-magical brothers." Yunomi replies -- for her it was a fact of life. "So these magic eaters purposefully hunted down and ate animal yokai, and then as they grew more powerful, they found they could absorb other magics -- from spirit yokai, from yukionna ... even from kami, like Kaeruhime." Yunomi brushes her fingers to the red silk collar she wears, and she lips purse a moment.
Sakura Kinomoto	Sakura has stopped eating. "...Wow. I already didn't like them because they were threatening you but now..." Her left hand comes up to rub her right wrist lightly. She looks thoughtful!
Yunomi Stadler	"Yeah. They're a big deal. It was thought that they were gone by the time my father and mother met, defeated after the Five Warriors and the first Yokai Purge... b ut..." Yunomi frowns slightly, and stirs the noodlebowl again before filling up her mouth with the noodly goodness.
Sakura Kinomoto	Sakura frowns into her noodles. And then goes back to eating them because she's doing her best not to get all moody again! "If they ever come after you again, you have to let me know, okay? Even though I use magic."
Yunomi Stadler	"Don't worry yourself about that, Sakura-chan. I'm a Stadler, I have a plan." Yunomi gives a grin over to the other mage. ... and that plan was to /totally run away/.
Sakura Kinomoto	Sakura shakes her head. "No, I'm serious. Things can go wrong. Backup plans are always important. Right? They're too big a threat to just..." She shrugs a bit, and goes back to her noodles! "This isn't a very happy topic, huh."
Yunomi Stadler	"No, it's not." Yunomi replies quietly, and she leans back against the stairs. "Just keep in mind anything that you give to your world /will/ be weaponized, because there will always be people who hunger for it, who want it, and who will kill for it."
Sakura Kinomoto	Sakura nods her head. "Yeah. I know. I still don't think it's a bad idea, though. I mean..." She raises her left hand, flicks her wrist, and... snickt. Hidden Blade. "You can kill someone with a bit of sharp metal." Another flick and it's gone back in its hiding place. "Magic's not really any easier than hitting someone or shooting a gun. It's actually usually harder."
Yunomi Stadler	"Mmn. You're right. What do I know." Yunomi replies, and continues eating her noodles. "I'm not a human, so it might be entirely unpredictable. It might launch your world into a magical cold war or usher in a new age of peace and prosparity."
Sakura Kinomoto	Sakura reaches over to ruffle Yunomi's hair. "I'll be careful. I'm not the girl who used to do whatever she wanted without thinking about the consequences anymore. 'Everything will surely be all right' is still my Invincible Spell, but... 'Invincible' has shown itself to be less absolute in the Multiverse than I thought it was."
Yunomi Stadler	"Mmn." Yunomi replies, but her mind seems elsewhere. She purses her lips a moment, ears swivelling up as she stretches one arm out, resting her elbow on her armored knee as she glances up to the spires and machines around her, the crackle of lightning and the buzz and hum of electricity around them, the mana in the air tangible. "No," Yunomi replies, "there is nothing in this world that is invincable."
Sakura Kinomoto	Sakura wraps her arm around Yunomi's shoulder and keeps on eating her noodles. "These are really good. What's in it?" Changing the subject!
Yunomi Stadler	Yunomi gives a laugh. "Nautilous. It's a kinda cephelo.. sephi... it's related to octopus and squid. These ones get to the size of like, eight meters though! " Yunomi exclaims "Giant mutant shelled squid from the deeeep!"
Sakura Kinomoto	There's a pause. Then Sakura grins. "Wow. I could cook SO MANY THINGS with a nautilous. We'd be having octopus balls and seafood noodles and fishcakes for months..."
Yunomi Stadler	"... I might actually get tired of seafood at that point. Thank goodness Crab is a sometimes land food." Yunomi jokes, giving a small laugh as she draws herself back, setting the to-go container on the side, happily filled with noodles and nauts.
Sakura Kinomoto	Sakura gives Yunomi a big grin. "Don't worry. I'll eat your share~" She really, really loves sea food. "So... what was it you wanted my help with?" Smiiile! Ever eager to help. That's the Sakura Yunomi made friends with roughly six years ago!
Yunomi Stadler	"AH, I wanted to hook you up to a mana generator to see what the magical output of your cards was to test a theory... but it's way too nice a day to hook friends up to questionable machinery." Yunomi replies. It's hard to tell if she is joking.
Sakura Kinomoto	Sakura pouts. "Aww. But I wanted to help!" She huffs and crosses her arms, then sticks out her tongue. "Well, what -else- do you wanna do, then?"