Scene #7826: How Odd The Roles Are Reversed

Owner	Pose
Xion	In the town of Twin Peaks, Hamada Haru had thrown money at the problem of the local hotels getting into his dreams with spookiness. He still took advantage of the breakfast, of course. But the spookiness was right out. In the town of Twin Peaks was the past place Xion had met Haru, having missed him Lilian's mansion. She still wanted to connect with the now-ex-Kamen Rider, and having ended one point of trauma, Xion looked to end a second. Stepping through a swiftly-closing Corridor in the grounds where she and Haru had talked down Bobby, Xion looks around briefly before pulling a cell phone with a few jangling charm-chains from her flannel shirt's pocket and starts typing away. > Hey Haru. > I'm in Twin Peaks. > Are you there? > I wanted to talk, and thank you. > Trying to be a Kamen Rider is very difficult and painful. Do you want to hang out? > I kind of wanted to see Dynamic Era, but I could do tacos, too.
Hamada Haru	Hamada Haru is half-napping, half merely lounging in the loft of the RV that he rented to move around Twin Peaks without really having a strictly known headquarters. The hotel had simply been an unacceptable liability in that regard. He ought to have left by now, but... well, it was a pain to get the damn RV back where he needed it to be, and it was plenty quiet out here. Besides, there's unfinished business here. An alert quarter-wakes him. The second half-wakes him. The third jars him the rest of the way awake, and he tugs his phone out from beneath his pillow a little blearily. > Hey. > Yeah. > Thank me? > I don't mind. > This town has a taco place?
Xion	Xion is a conscientious botherer of brooding boys, having brought neither accoustic guitar, collection of shoes and Haru's old things, or a pile of a rocks to pelt his camper's window with. She just keeps texting, a little smile lifting the corners of her screen-lit face. > Thank you. > I get the feeling you went out of your way to care about me, and the way I was treated. > So for that I'll thank you. If you'd like to send me the bill, that's fine too. > I understand. > But if some tacos cover it, I can get us to a taco place, no problem.
Hamada Haru	There is no reason for him to expect anybody to be just outside. For that matter, for dramatic reasons, he will always be able to transform before Shit Happens. The RV could be exploding around Haru and he would still have time to MIST MATCH his way out of things. Accordingly, he's really not paying that much attention to the fact that Xion is already physically here. > I guess. > Bill? There's a moment of sleepy confusion. > Oh. > It's fine. > Bobby will pay. This, he is absolutely certain of for some reason. Haru's expectations of payment are not 'high'. More accurately, nobody can actually give him enough money for it to be materially meaningful to begin with. > If you want to see the transteam transformation that's fine. > Probably shouldn't eat before if you're wanting a demonstration. > The food here upsets my stomach no matter what I do.
Xion	Xion laughs out loud at 'Bobby will pay', falling into giggles. > Well I'm right outside then. Pocketing her phone, Xion walks up to the door to the inside cabin of the camper, rapping her knuckle on the door lightly and then stepping back so the door can swing out. "If you're not feeling Inventory Tacos I can just open a portal to a late-night taco place. Trust, me, it's all stoners and drunks and night beachgoers." She announces aloud to the facing wall of the camper.
Hamada Haru	Hamada Haru grabs his transteam gun -- presently absent blade, though it would be there if he needed it -- and sockets one of the bottles after a couple of shakes. He sprays it against the side of the RV and slides through the temporarily-intangible wall, landing lightly. He's a bit ruffled. He thinks about what he wants to eat. "This place has a lot of lakes. Do they eat fish, or is it just for looking at?" There's a vague undercurrent of 'like people who need their stomach to work' in that question.
Xion	Xion bounce-cants her head as the hole opens in the side of the RV wall, arms crossed loosely and balance tilted to her left side. With a tapping foot, her voice rises in greeting: "Wow, did you just wake up? Sorry, if you want to get a coffee first, you can. I'm not Heartless. Literally, actually." She grins, loosening the cross of her arms further. Reaching out with her left hand, the hilt-frame of Starlight 'shwink'-s into reality around her reaching fingers. Clasping and catching in one smooth motion, the down-pointed tip loops back into a casual reverse-grip. "I think they eat fish here. If you'd rather do local food, I bet we could get a killer fish soup around here. Or maybe crawfish? They're great if you get 'em boiling hot and spiced up. Yum." Taking a few spacing steps back, away from the RV, Xion puffs and gives an apologetic smile. "I wanted to thank you for caring about me and that crime they accused me of. It meant a lot for someone to believe in me. You didn't, and I didn't pay you, but you did. So I wanted to thank you. I just, you know..." She shrugs widely, her keyblade lazily looping up through the air with a toss to land in her right hand, pointed outward. "You ready?" Shifting her feet and quarter-crouching, Xion springs into a simple and orthodox sparkle-glitter flinging lunging distance-closing thrust, looping stab, circle spin, and rising ground-to-air sweep that expels a pale star hurtbox at the end.
Hamada Haru	"I was dozing," Haru says, truthfully. It was heavy enough that he didn't wake up immediately, but he wasn't totally asleep. Probably. "And I don't need coffee." He changes the bottle attached to his transteam gun... An announcement rings from the handgun as the bottle is connected to the magazine port. L O C U S T "Vaporize," Haru says, sweeping the barrel of the transteam gun through the air adjacent to himself. M I S T M A T C H A great cloud of mist engulfs his body, golden-yellow light flashing violently and illuminating his silhouette, briefly presenting his untransformed self's shadow before being replaced by an armored and horned suit. L-L-LOCUST LOCUST F I R E ! The final announcement heralds a burst of energy like lightning, Dynamic Era's visor and a turbine symbol on its chest lighting brightly for an instant while the mist still lingers. Crackles and pops of energy dance in the air around him like fireworks for a moment as the mist finally clears. "Local is easier," he rumbles, his voice lightly distorted by the transformation. There's an undercurrent of some sort of independence nonsense. It's probably a preference to be able to just walk back without needing a teleport lift. "And crawfish sounds good. Is it 'real' spicy or 'here' spicy?" Dynamic Era flicks his wrist when he's asked if he's ready, the 'blade' segment of his gunblade materializing along the transteam gun. He nods, adjusting his stance lightly to be a little more loose, and waits. The charging thrust he sees coming and parries, giving ground and catching it on the flat of the blade. The follow-up stab that weaves around the gunblade he deflects, apparently at least moderately expecting a quick work-around to the first parry. Although he begins to move with her spin -- almost like a dance -- he does NOT predict the fancy blade uppercut and catches it along the chest up to his chin, eliciting a shower of sparks.
Hamada Haru	GAIA STRASH The gunblade announces, as Dynamic Era comes about with his gunblade and strikes-- the ground. The ground outside of the RV is adjacent to a small lake, where Bobby had been laying low. What sprays up in a great shower and at speed is a shower of gravel and rocks being used more as a flak blast than anything else. What is, perhaps, less expected is that Dynamic Era is quick enough to outpace the spray of rocks-- or at least, is in this particular burst of speed. He pushes forward and brings the blade about from several different angles, hammering the rocks in more directly and with considerably more force than the general storm of shrapnel.
Xion	Haru's gunblade skills delight Xion, her eyes twinkling in reflected sparks as keyblade meets gunblade in silvery friction-sparks. "I don't know if they have crawfish here, I was just thinking crawfish would be kind of good. Maybe I was thinking of things with shells? It's kind of a vibe." She weaves into her combo, and then follows up her chill vibes with the air carry. Era further surprises her by just specialing through it. Drawing her blade back to couch against her chest in a tight-in guard and drawing back a step, Era's earth-shattering field of distractions draws her immediate attention. His charge draws her breath away. Drawing back to a fencer's posture, Xion's left hand closes around a scarlet-and-white medallion that twists into complex plastic greeble: a motorcycle and toy sidecar. Closing her fist around the object, an orbit of telescoping-out wheels surrounds her momentarily. It announces: SIGNAL BIKE//SHIFT CAR - RIDER DEAD HEAT The telescoping wheels collapse around Xion, the metal splattering like paint over her shirt and jeans and dark rubber smearing over that, reshaping itself into a cut down armored black 'leather' racing jacket and suit, with a magenta quarter-line vertical stripe that fades across the left side in the suggestion of a flame pattern in oranges and reds towards the outside. With the mild armor comes an extreme uptick in her expressed speed, a crackling penumbra of cardinal Heaviness afterimaging behind her as she brings her blade around in a whirlwind defense. Here and there, Era drills her with a SRASH that crashes a pebble through her lightened armor and causes a shower of sparks, but freezing mid-danger frame, she adjusts feverishly into an active defense. "You really are incredible, Haru. Even with Dead Heat, you're pressuring me." She breathes, and settles her keyblade into both hands. "This might be even more suited for you than Tetra. Or did you say that this form's power is set?" Despite her conversational tone, Xion's measure of Dynamic Era is clearly 'high threat', and a set of forced-spacing backsteps that cede all offense momentarily dash her back into the lake area and then out over the water momentarily, where she skids to solid footing across the water's shallow surface, before her splashing steps leads her simply -gone-. Left and right comes splashing footsteps as she probes and changes directions in single-frame moments with smears of pale light between the two, and then a muddy step that heralds her dead-angle leap-strike, Mach's Zenrin Shooter held in her left hand and revving across the edge of Starlight with a 'vrrRRRM'. Falling down with a rising spray of wheel-charged shots, Xion immediately corkscrews with a tyre-pattern empowered slash of Starlight's edge that hangs in the air. Another 'vRRRM' roars, and she pulls the Zenrin Shooter's trigger again. BURST The wheel-marks explode violently a frame after.
Hamada Haru	Hamada Haru makes a vaguely affirmative noise in answer to the assertion that crayfish didn't mean HERE. He doesn't seem interested in clarifying his location preferences right now. Imagine that. The announcement of DEAD HEAT is sufficient to cause him to re-evaluate instantly. Haru assumes that Xion didn't think she was fast enough to cope on her own-- he's not entirely certain that was true. But it's something he didn't actually have the time to contemplate. The change in speed is, however, enough that he doesn't keep pressing into Xion's zone when she does a SPIN DEFLECT that mitigates his approach enough that he knows he can't just step into the damn thing. "Kamen Rider usually scales, some. Not always enough. Tetra was powerful. Dynamic Era presents the wholeness of my threat immediately, more-or-less," he explains, even as he follows Xion out over the water. He doesn't bother with wings, just now. Dynamic Era can still walk on the air, if that's all he wants to do. Then she comes. The accelerated speed makes a difference but the awkwardness of fighting Starlight and the Zenrin Shooter is ultimately what gets him more than anything. Whenever his gunblade comes in contact with the spinning surface he has to compensate dramatically and it makes counteracting Starlight much less straightforward-- which itself opens him back up to the Zenrin Shooter. It's just such an awkward need to intercept both that catches him in the chest. Haru isn't one for expletive-laden exclamations but she can probably FEEL the 'aw fuck'. A great gout of sparks goes up, but Dynamic Era still responds extremely professionally within the limits of his ability to do so: He just stops standing on air and plummets into the lake, letting the water do the job of mitigating the amount of force that can be applied to him. Dynamic Era is a yard below the surface when the 'blade' on his gunblade vanishes and he points the transteam gun upwards. It does... something. Her mental abilities probably tell her what it is before it's obvious, because the call-out is muffled by water: DELETION PROTOCOL: OXYGEN The surface of the lake immediately below Xion distorts briefly, and tthen a great fireball goes up because she is situated within a hydrogen-saturated area with a hot wheel in her hand. Dynamic Era re-emerges with his transteam gun back in gunblade form by the time the explosion fades, weapon raised defensively. "That is," Dynamic Era says, "the sort of rev-up I do not have, that you're using just now."
Xion	There's a tangible thrill of the physical communication of bodies. One thing she loved about the men and women who became Kamen Rider was their dedicated to the communcation that came out of being able to put their resolves to a blade and purpose. Haru did so even without the blessing of the name 'Kamen Rider', and impressed Xion more. But he was already 'her ally'. Even still. It couldn't simply be expected. It was why he thanked her before. The combination of shooter and blade had been known-potent for a while, but the dwindling power of Mach had been a favorite of hers. Now, for a last sprint, she channelled the roaring engine of the young Shijima at full tilt. Smashing Era 'through' the water, Xion holds there, puffing and feet planted on the water's surface, watching Dynamic Era sink. She tilts her head at him. Was he a water hero? In a reflexive motion, she readies to re-spin her wheel. Era raises his hand. She completes the motion with a 'vRRRM' and then hears something odd. "Oh well that's--" She rasps oddly and promptly the air detonates around her in a column of combustion that wreathes her so completly that she is cast one way and the red-white medallion is cast 'away' and into the lake, smoking and greying as it falls. Xion bounces once into the water's surface as the surface tension holds her up like a matress and bounces her half to her side. With her fingers pressed into the surface she rises, smoking and panting. "But that's not why Dynamic Era is strong. A consistent power. The knowledge of how far you can go. You don't really fight like Kamen Rider, but you share some of the best tricks. You can still train yourself, your body. That matters. You can practice, and do incredible things like you just did. Being able to 'go over' the threat... isn't the only way to handle it." Taking her first step with a shoe and the crossing the rest of the distance as a water-skipping shooting star of pale light, Xion advances as a fractal pattern for a moment that resolves into single frames of motion translating across space in a dozen different potential paths that she snaps between seemingly at random. As a half-dozen strike angles approach from forward and above , bubbles from underwater betray a single 'afterimage' charging up a gravity spell. It all hits in an unfairly buffered single blockstring of lashing and water-distorting gravity spell that whirlpools down and in while Xion snaps to the vertical attack angle and makes a barrage of ending-cancelled wheel cuts and thrusts. "I'm trying to say you're--" "-Really good!"
Hamada Haru	"I wasn't a very good Kamen Rider," Dynamic Era says, perhaps not as grimly as the statement suggests. It's more of a concern that he's been turning over in his head. "Strength that isn't used doesn't mean anything. Strength used badly, is a problem that has to be solved. Strength that 'acts out'... but I still used that strength. The people who died to it probably deserved something along those lines, but that's just rationalization." "Disassembling that mob kaijin's businesses was entertaining. But 'where to move forward' is elusive," he says. "And that is truly galling." The moment that he blinks isn't one that's easily detected, but it does come. Xion, being psychic, knows that he's taken note of the Xion below him-- but he doesn't understand what she's doing immediately. A water attack is more expected. Dynamic Era pulls the trigger on his transteam gun once. The downward pull of the gravity spell is enough to stop him from being able to dodge, and he doesn't move to parry either. But there's something strange about the weight of him-- when she strikes him it's like she's hitting something half as heavy as he actually is. The movement of the water will inevitably reveal that in fact Haru is as much as 3/4ths intangible at any given moment, with the liquid crashing in around him with the gravity passing through large chunks of his body that have been selectively zeroed out so that the damage is distributed in a way he's comfortable with, filling the area above and within the lake with grand showers of sparks that come and go at VERY strange angles. He raises the transteam gun and adjusts something at his thumb, prompting his gunblade to come back-- partially. When Dynamic Era moves to parry one of what he doesn't even presume is among Xion's final blows -- there's no reason at all for her to let up -- the actual result is that his blade passes wholesale through hers, with the final quarter or so positioned to cut horizontally across her face. Nasty enough, though probably as much intended to prompt a flinch and disengage as it is a serious attempt to strike above center mass like that. In the process, he kind of just has to accept that her attack-in-progress that he pulled this on Will Hit Him, and it does, eliciting another shower of sparks. "Yes. But you're stronger than me," Era says. He doesn't seem to be parsing it as praise so much as a factual statement. He seems to realize that he's not engaged in the way that is intended however, because he adds, "Sorry... this is something that I'm very weak at."
Xion	"Haru." "I think. "I get it. "Now." Xion's sinkhole Three Baseball Bat Beating continues in a falling rhythm, breaking like a dancer from one wheeling slash to the next, the flow taking her in artful sympathetic sprays of lake-water, until-- Her eyes widen as her guard is just passed through, the blade finding her lightly-armored chest center and pressing into the jacket and folding Xion around it. She stays there, real and unflickering and definite, and she smiles gently. "It's okay, Haru. That's why we're practicing." The mutually-taken blow blows them apart, and Xion splashes back in her own time onto the surface of the water and splashes down into the lake, sinking with trails of waterborne 'smoke' streaming from her forehead. She's barely a red ripple in the water in one location and she rises from a second, the water's surface stretching her image like a straw through a glass of water. The distorted 'reaching' Xion hurls out Starlight in a boomeranging arc from the water's surface, the blade parting the water. Snapping back, she stands upside down on the surface of the water, focusing sworling 'dark' magic in fat purple motes of power. Her words, even through the water, sound clear and precise, even on the other side of the mirror-glass. "It's hard to be the hero of your own heart. It takes so much, and even then it's still hard. So don't feel bad about finding it difficult, okay?" "Strength that isn't used on purpose is control, too. Strength used badly can be solved by practice, too. Strength that 'acts out'. . . Can feel incredible, sometimes. I forgive you, because you changed. You tried to be better. Even if it was galling, you reached out to me to help too." With her thrown weapon a spacing tool, she finishes her overture and casting both, as a glitchy sphere of seeking gravity twitches towards Era. Xion reaches out a hand, to the water's surface, as the blade of Starlight dips back under the water and into her grasp. The weird crackling gravity orb menaces for a few moments in weirdmotion before beelining without strong tracking to Era's 'last known' location and throbbing into a gravitic detonation of microsingularity sworl.
Hamada Haru	Dynamic Era takes stock of himself. He's not that far off from a belt-out. If the enemy weren't 'a friend' he'd probably either be looking for an opportunity to finish decisively or to exit-- or to call for assistance. That last one feels almost foreign, though. It really shouldn't be necessary. It shouldn't be, but it was. For Prima, and for himself. "What do you get? And just what are we practicing now?" There's a disconnect between his feelings and the situation. Hamada Haru is able to be a highly efficient fighter, but he's not a 'Kamen Rider', and ultimately to him that is a Wrong Thing. But being something other than what he is, is something that is almost unfathomable to him. He knew the equipment inside and out, lived and breathed it. So what's the gap? What gives Go that sort of spark? A spark that somebody like Xion can ignite herself with and carry on so that it is felt well beyond the individual that first brought it about. "Do I feel bad?" He wonders. It's difficult not to know one's self. Hamada Haru is struck abruptly by the boomeranging motion of Starlight, staggering in place and sinking to one knee rather than troubling to re-find his balance. Ah-- that's right. He's not that far from belt-out. But the question remains. Where does he find his certainty? For someone like Mach or Drive, the motivation is clear. For him, it was simply something that he chased with all his might-- and didn't always succeed. A heavy breath that is probably a sigh echoes in Era's helmet. He starts to push himself up. This is around the time that he gets Gravija'd, which puts a stop to nearly everything of note that he could do-- he was flagging and not recovered when it reached him. But he does pull the trigger on his gunblade twice, triggering a mist to settle in where he was engulfed. It is uncomfortable being crunched. Dynamic Era is too stubborn to be terribly vocal, but even then some noises of alarm and surprise ring out amidst the star-like sea of sparks. . . . The Dynamic Era that coalesces out of fog several moments later bears all of the damage that the one in the fog exhibits, and neither dissipates into nothingness-- they are both quite real. But one is poised to act and the other is not. Amidst the turbulence of his other thoughts, this stands out: I won't be able to win with a small move. If this were a real crisis... Dynamic Era straightens up, removes the bottle in his weapon, shakes it, and replaces it. LOCUST Dynamic Era affixes the transteam gun to his thigh, even as a swarm of mechanical locusts coalesce into being from smoke around his leg. Then he begins to move, launching into a downwards-slanting kick towards the water. This, is completely absurd. There is no possibility that his level of strength will matter once the water comes into account. Which is why it doesn't. The wreath of locusts descend in a spiraling ring that literally temporarily robs Xion of the protection of the water simultaneous with Haru's meteoric descent. Distantly, he tries to remember if he's actually done this before. If he has, the occasions do not strike him.
Xion	Xion had settled into the pattern quickly, the tempo set by a stacatto of sparks and the skipping dance she moved between the steps in a random order. 'I'll be consistent', she had thought, and set about making a the violence of her resolve a deliberate thing. Still, she relied on the water. Still, she didn't expect that kick to be what he went to. What does one do? When the water doesn't hold her, Starlight lifts to clash. At the howling, thrumming point of afluidic contact, with Dynamic Era upright, and Xion reversed across the water's surface, she holds a single moment against a driven heel. 'I don't want to lose this.' But you did. 'But he said I was the stronger one.' He was right. 'So why am I losing?' You already said. The lake takes minutes to calm from the ripples, but Xion splashes from the lake and finds a large stone to sit down on and drip, a wild smile matching the water-whipped look of her hair. "So. . . local food, huh? We could probably get a decent fish sandwich." She acts like she didn't get her whole ass beat, but Era had seen Starlight crack and shatter, in the water, and a smouldering keychain slowly re-forms itself off of her phone as she pulls it from her chest-clinging flannel shirt to check the time. "Sure you don't want tacos? I was going to force you, but... If you're going to up and beat me, you get to choose the food place, right?"
Hamada Haru	The Dynamic Era that the actual previous attack was centered on is the one that doesn't dissolve into nanites. He rises from microsingularity hell and drags himself -- not lazily, but certainly lethargically -- back to shore, still halfway in the water itself because he just can't be bothered to take a couple of steps up. Stairs are hard, especially when you've been beaten up like this-- even if he did call the right shots at the end there. He hits some sort of release on his transteam gun, prompting the transformation to end. Beneath it all, Hamada Haru is scuffed up and dirty-looking with strange pressure marks as a result of the gravity, but he still wears that aloof expression. "Tacos are fine," he says, and he means it, because actually the thing he wants to do the most right now is overturn a glass of ice water on his head. The second thing he wants to do next to that is simply drink it. You can get that anywhere. "Maybe... change clothes, first," he suggests. After a moment or two of silence and staring off into space, he says, "You ARE stronger than I am. All-or-nothing attacks are not for the one who is in the lead. But I suppose that sort of thing is a part of what makes a Kamen Rider." "That is something I can grasp for a moment," he decides, "but that you seem to have figured out. Or maybe..." The thought doesn't go completed.