Scene #8179: Applied Ontolgy - Obligate Meeting

Owner	Pose
Metamorph One	It's one thing to be told that you're to meet 'at Io'. As in, the celestial body. The moon. Around Jupiter. Given the lack of useful explanation, one would be forgiven for arriving with sufficient gear to survive a sulfur atmosphere and negative one forty degree atmosphere, or perhaps more rationally start checking luggage for customs and decontamination in a quaint little bubble colony. One might not expect to be shuttled down from a space station warpgate, through an ocean of fluffy white clouds tinged with amber swirls, over a rolling landscape of snowy white dirt, bright green foliage, winding orange and cerulean rivers, what looks like the remnants of a volcanic shield mountain, and large numbers of inexplicable tangerine-coloured mineral formations that stain the earth orange. Upon landing, you certainly feel much ligher than on Earth, but it can't really be the 1.796 meters per second of the ordinary moon. Light enough to move without the fatigue of moving. To stand without the stress of standing. To jump and climb wherever you'd like. It somehow feels 'adventurous', maybe even 'playful', if gravity could feel like anything. The place you are welcomed to is not exactly small, but not exactly dense either. From the air, it appeared to have a predominant ring shape, formed around an especially large and dense mineral deposit, lush greenery, and a teal lake, with six or so radiating spokes that branch into mismatched buildings, almost like a college campus, save for the prevalence of runways, parking lots, landing pads, weather towers, and transmitters. From above, you can mostly see reflective panels and skylight glass between silver hexagonal ribs, but up close, where the air is thicker and somehow cleaner, everything is cast with a clean white facade marked with dramatic geometric stripes of orange and winding threads of green, all raised up on aluminium stilts over the dirt. You're welcomed on a landing pad outside, marked for the usage of two shuttlecraft abreast, barely railed off from the short drop to each side. Even the 'asphalt' feels more like rubber turf underfoot, as if for indoor sports. The baggily dressed flight jockets helping unload the craft outside, in mostly matching colours with fur lining to deal with the mild chill, guide you cheerily down the walkway (with one of those pedestrian conveyors to one side, likely for heavy cargo), but when you arrive at the actual doors, it is, of course, your two Concord contacts waiting for you, flanking the lunar colony-esque recessed entrance themselves. "Welcome everyone! Wow, we really do have more than I expected. I wonder if they really won't mind us peeking in? It's not like we cleared this with all the labs individually, right?" "Sorry there wasn't anything fancy to roll out. This isn't exactly a tourist op y'know? We don't scrounge for grants anymore. Executive rule." "Haha, sort of!"
Chains Knight	Chains Knight does the gamer thing and tests out his new movement options in low gravity. Can he triple jump now? No. Sadness. "Hello Dianna, and Elara. I don't believe I've had the pleasure. You can call me Chains Knight." He looks up from them towards the rest of the compound. "Well - are we here as tourists, or potential grant-ees?" he inquires. "Or just as... interested co-workers?" "The invite stated something about Sapient Heuristics, this is similar?"
Flamel Parsons	"Hoo boy, take a look at that! Don't think that's all imported, do you?" Flamel leans to look out of the Concord shuttle window. "No way, I bet you they've been digging a lot of that up. Or it's like what Persephone did, and it just exists now? Oh, no, wait, there's those deposits! Wouldn't build that there otherwise..." Flamel Parsons has come dressed for the part as far as space business goes, which is to say his usual MIB type ensemble, plus a nice scarf and a heavier jacket over the top of it all. He keeps his sunglasses firmly pushed up the bridge of his nose as he lightly bounces his way inside and to the pair. "Lovely to meet you! Hi, I'm Flamel Parsons, agent of a vague yet menacing government agency. We'll be touring then? I'd hoped it would be more than just a meeting, like that." And as usual, he does a little psychic sweep with his mind's eye, just to see what the local flavor is and how these two present themselves.
Darren	"It's cool," says Darren assuagingly. Usually, he's dressed in breathable, loose clothes suited for running. Today, however, he's dressed for visiting an outer space psychic development program--which evidently obligates a turtleneck and blazer combo, the former in a rich saffron and the latter in a muted charcoal color. Stylish, low-cut sneakers round it off, in a striking light shade rather like the clouds of Earth's sky. His locs are tied back with a bow matching the deep gren of his eyes. "Darren Spears," he offers as introduction, with a handshake soon to follow. "And this is Roswell," he says, gesturing to his right. A little brown alien with green eyes waves a hand bedecked with colorful, flashing orbs. His voice is felt, moreso than heard: WHAT'S GOOD "The rest of the team's here, too--might make an appearance if they like the vibe." Chains Knight gets a cool handshake, brought in for a chestbump. "Good to see you again, blood." He nods along with the gamer, lifting up slightly after the greeting to levitate rather than walking. Flamel had gotten his cool handshake on board the shuttle, presciently so, in fact--Darren made mention of something called FUTURE SIGHT. "'Sister organization' was what I heard," he says, snapping the lapels of his blazer. "I rock with Dr. Carpathia, so I figured I'd come kick it with y'all for a minute. What's the first stop?"
Ozhira	Ozhira spent most of the shuttle ride Nowhere To Be Found, although talented psychics could definitely tell the Beast was still on board somewhere. There's something about being on a cramped spaceship that makes them want to lurk in dark, unlit corners or scuttle through ductwork. Fortunately, harassment of the crew was kept to a minimum. As ground crew unloads cargo, though, they come across an old-timey suitcase, bright crimson with black straps all over. When this is unloaded and set down, it picks itself up on several dozen little tube feet and scuttles across the platform until it falls in somewhere behind Darren. Only then does the suitcase change its shape, extending upward into the girl-shaped disguise of the Devourer that ends with them in mid-stretch-yawn. Though they cover their mouth with one hand, the shark-like teeth are tough to miss. "We had. A good scuttle," the organism relates, "And a good nap." Their eyes lift to the structure that the group approaches, then drop to the pair who greets them. Almost timidly, they lift one hand to wiggle their fingers, "We are. Ozhira. We greet new friends."
Hiromi	Most things one would expect of acclimation to different environments and survival between them apply differently to Hiromi, including the environments of 'interplanetary space' and 'space shuttles.' This being a Concord operation, she does allow herself to be shuttled. This not being a high-budget tourist op, the short notice resulted in a lack of appropriate chairs. Traveling inside the shuttle affords that opportunity to converse, or at least to observe, her fellow visitors. She does this standing, digging in her toes to the metal flooring to avoid being moving from her position during either acceleration or deceleration. Though not everyone here has yet met her, the full description of the enormous wolf-woman with the attention-commanding presence will be omitted for brevity, including the curious lower-mind-affecting nature of her speech. Her intensity is at 'medium-low,' judging the changes in gravity over her first few steps, and then taking it literally in stride. The coloration of the planet, of which she had zero prior assumptions, has some interest for her, more apparent from the motion of her ears than her relatively still facial expressions, but it's certainly the pair that have come to greet her that get the greater share of her attention, her intensity edging up in the process. "I am Hiromi." Names, the vocalized shape of a person, are for giving. She's close, she's curious, she has no sense of personal space (for people not presently making threat displays), and her notably strongest sense is 'smell.' Getting right up into Elara's face or, more precisely, her neck, is inevitable, with Dianna immediately following. This is probably not a test, but only a mind-reader would know for sure.
Persephone Kore	It's either a sign of considerable wisdom, or considerable carelessness, that Phony shows up wearing nothing more protective than a ribbed sweater and arm-warmers. On the early approach, she's chatting on her phone, but that's soon stowed in favor of staring out the window and basking in the ambiance. She's in no hurry. "No, I'll let you know! I promise. And I'll take photos, too. ... I won't forget! Really!! ... Noooo, it isn't like that, ahahaha! Well not yet anyway." That feeling of mine falls over the surroundings, like a vast weather formation, when the shuttle's still just a speck on the horizon. It's a sense of heavy lulling warmth, of reassuring peace, of fathomless and slightly terrifying gentleness. Like being held, oh-so-carefully, in the palm of someone's hand. Haha, sorry, but that's probably a bit too much right now! Let me turn it down. "Dianna! Elara!" Persephone waves with an armwarmer-clad hand, stepping down the shuttle's ramp with clacky heels. She has almost exactly the manner of an aunt cheerfully greeting someone she barely knows at a family reunion. "I'm so happy you let us come! It's so, so beautiful here. I can't believe they let you have a whole planet!" "I've never been here before, actually," she says to Darren. "It's similar principles, and I think we've shared reserarch back and forth, but I don't know much more than you do! Still, it sounds realy nice, doesn't it?" When he gets ahead of her, she stares at the back of his head contemplatively, then adds: "I like the ribbon, too. The color really suits you, you know?" Then, a moment later still, she allows herself a little laugh when Hiromi violates personal space. "Ahaha, sorry! But don't worry. She's friendly, I promise. Aren't you?"
Hiromi	"I am friendly," Hiromi confirms Persephone's statement, only to immediately follow it with, "to some. Very. Others, not. Here, are friends, yes?"
Persephone Kore	"Here are friends," Persephone repeats confidently, as if it were a perfectly normal phrasing. "And a lot of impressionable little ones, if it's anything like home! So set a good example for them, okay?" This is probably a bad thing to ask, but she is terrifyingly oblivious to it.
Darren	Darren looks over his shoulder and smiles at Phony. "Thanks," he says, a hint of copper spreading over his cheeks. Everyone likes to be told their outfit is nice! "I'm pumped," he admits, head bobbing in enthusiastic agreement. "I'm interested to see how it diverges from the body of work I'm already familiar with." Roswell chimes in on the matter of setting a good example. BLOOD I'M THE BEST EXAMPLE THERE IS FOR YOUNG MINDS Darren looks very doubtful towards his partner, floating on, arms crossed. ON MAMAS, Roswell insists. "Electronics store," Darren intones, a phrase with palpable history.
Ozhira	"Small ones," Ozhira chimes in, eyes closing, "Lacking mass. Lacking strength. This we know. We were this once." They raise a hand, bopping it into their other palm while opening those red eyes of theirs, "We will teach the little ones. To hunt. To earn their strength. To earn their mass. As we did."
Chains Knight	Darren gets a fist-bump back. "Blood." Then Chains Knight perks up a bit. "Little ones!" He reaches into his belt pouch, and pulls out two fistfulls of foil-wrapped booster packs and theme decks. "Fortunately I came prepared," he says. "Do you think they prefer set sealed or should we set up a draft...?" The emanating aura of desire to get kids hooked on cardboard meth does not need mind reading to be picked up.
Metamorph One	"Elara Steloj!" says the tiny woman with long crown-braided blonde hair and blue eyes, dressed up primly in a chic white double-breasted jacket dress, slate blue skirt and heeled boots. She holds out her hand to greet each new arrival in turn, having little grip strength to speak of, but an absolutely sparkling smile. "Similar? Well, I wouldn't dare speak on behalf of Sapient Heuristics personally, but our respective founders are kind of close, and you could say that they were simultaneous initiatives with parallel dreams, perhaps?" "Dianna Nenui." says the woman who has evidently stolen all the other one's height, tanned and built despite the gravity and distance from the sun, with a messy partial ponytail of dyed white hair and dramatic orange eyeshadow on green eyes visibly matching the building behind her, offering no such cordial physical contact, and dressed down in a crop top and what was probably originally a matching jacket now consigned to life as a skirt , despite the chill. "What kind of question is that? You're just guests, I guess? This is home. We can invite people over over." For some reason, that makes Elara laugh. According to Flamel, the two of them are Very Psychic. They don't exude it in vast, encompassing waves like Persephone, but are shockingly far up there for how closely they keep it to themselves. They also clearly aren't the only ones, given what must be a little over two hundred resonant pings as his sweep expands outwards. Very few are near their level. Most are considerably more garden variety. Strangely, the weaker signatures register to him as relatively 'garden variety' psychics-- people with minor latent abilities and lots of training. The stronger ones register as somehow closer in nature to Persephone. Not exactly the same, but like seeing a family resemblence in the faces of two siblings. The orange mineral towers ping as well, but the staining in the dirt around them only seems chemical. "Touring? If you wanna call it that I guess. Who goes 'touring' someone's house though?" "Oh knock it off~ They're our coworkers too, remember? Even if the accounts are all settled with the Concord, it can't hurt to be a little bit professional, can it?" "Being 'professional' gives me a headache." "Except behind the joystick, right?" "Yeah, so I'll be on good behaviour when we go into the Backyard." "If!" Elara makes an ecstatic little noise at Roswell's appearance, bunching up her hands and turning to Dianna and Pointing in silent, implicit 'what animal is that?' mode, to which Dianna shrugs. You're good! That's what, cutie! reverberates around the immediate area in response, while she's still beaming. "As in, you're actually coworkers with Carpathia? Directly?" Dianna raises an eyebrow, heavy with reluctance. "I've never actually met her. We just know lots about her through Miss Angkasa." "Shouldn't we call her Professor in front of coworkers?" "As if I could keep that up."
Metamorph One	Elara is instantly enraptured by Ozhira. She leans forward as if to touch her on top of the head, then freezes abruptly when Dianna says "Don't. Come on. We both know that's a bad idea. And kind of rude.", eliciting a sheepish laugh from the shorter woman. It turns to a strangely bashful little yelp when Hiromi noses in close, holding up her hands as if, for some reason, to emphasize the fact she is unarmed, though her face turns a little pink anyways. Dianna is the one who has the attitude to politely put her palm over Hiromi's face and try to hold her off, saying "Personal bubble." "Really? Isn't it kind of exciting?" "No?" "But she's even taller than you! And--" "Nope. Bored of this conversation. Let's go." "I'm going to say 'hot' and you can't stop me." The two of them look alert in a different sense for Phony's arrival. The subtly alternative tension of trying to look reputable rather than trying to assert boundaries. It goes: "Miss Kore! I'm so glad you're here!" "Wow, you really came. Well, not that I doubted you would. But I kind of did anyways." "Well, it's a moon, not a planet, right? And we don't have the whole thing, we--" "Might as well have. The whole pioneer rush that was supposed to happen never actually did. It's just us, one little city, a few little colonies and farmsteads, the crater, and the space elevator." "But it's nice." "Yeah, I prefer it that way."
Darren	"Set sealed," says Darren sagaciously to Chains. "Kids love opening stuff. More of a surprise that way, and they're prolly gonna trade, anyway." Roswell bleeps happily at the praise from Elara, the little lights on his hands fladhing a brief 1-2-3 pattern. Darren can't help cracking a smile himself, reaching out and patting the little alien on the head. "Phony's the closest to a direct coworker," explains the quarterback to Dianna. "I'm just a huge fan of Dr. Carpathia's. Read her work when I was still learning to use this," he elaborates, tapping the side of his temple knowingly. "I ended up finding a different way, but it was still mad helpful in a formative sense, you know? When i finally met her I even managed to get an autograph," he proudly adds, with a momentarily starstruck expression. "Anyway," he says, coming back to Earth (or rather, Io), "If I wanted coworkers, I'd have gone some other place. I don't see it as a workplace, but a covenant, and the blood of that covenant is what makes us strong. We work together, yeah--but we also keep it 100, know what I mean?"
Flamel Parsons	When Hiromi provokes that reaction, Flamel Parsons makes a short quick "Hah!" sound that manages to contain, in a single sound, a whole phrase that doesn't get spoken. He looks around, admiring with psychic senses... "Looks like you have a great training setup around here! Reminds me of some of the better years at Whispering Rock. You know, speaking of that..." He looks further in, eyes focused beyond walls on something else. "Is that a... psitanium deposit? I mean-- no, that can't be it. What is that?" He whips those sunglasses off, stares, and then puts them on again.
Ozhira	Elara leans towards the Beast, whose eyes follow her movements with sudden intensity. It's not quite the same as a predator looking at prey. It's more like the sort of intense focus one sees in a cat when waving a toy about. Dianna stops her, though, and the focus ceases the moment Elara is distracted by Hiromi. What does happen is a deep, rumbling noise that eminates from deep within Ozhira's body, vibrating through their feet and into the floor. An unmistakable infrasound pulse that rapidly drops out of the normal range of human hearing. It's not a growl, though it may be mistaken for one. It's just Ozhira getting a feel for the base through echolocation. "We do not know," they eventually state, "Carpathia or Angkasa. Our song has not yet heard theirs." The beast tilts their head up in thought, staring up the face of the building again. When Flamel calls out the crystalline deposit the station is built around, their attention shifts to the formation itself. A hand lifts, touching a finger to their lips in thought, "Psitanium? We have. Heard this word before."
Hiromi	Hiromi only gets to the 'almost touching' point, though that's plenty close enough for Elara to feel her breath. That's close to the point. Dianna, instead, gets the unmistakeable feeling of Hiromi grinning under her hand, as the hand holding her back -- which takes no more strength than that needed to push a mostly-ordinary person of the Archwolf's size -- is unlikely to avoid feeling at least one of her teeth before pulling back. "'Personal bubble.'" There's that uncanny, perfect yet distorted mimicry, the inhuman repeating words she can speak but doesn't know. "'Bubble.' Fragile tension. Borders in air. 'Personal.' What is?" Perhaps unfortunately, the differing reactions between the pair doesn't greatly affect her attention. If anything, the resistance makes her want to keep pushing, but safety is achieved by there being a surplus of things to distract her. 'I'm going to say 'hot' and you can't stop me.' "I am warm," Hiromi confirms. "Feel." Taking her up on that offer will reveal that she tells the truth, despite the area's chill. She's like sun-warmed stones. ON MAMAS, Roswell insists. "'Young.' 'Mamas.' Which?" Hiromi makes this demand in passing of Roswell, to clarify what she interprets as a contradiction. After a few moments, she repeats, "'Coworkers.' Colleagues. Collaborators." The taste of the words rolls around on her tongue. "No. 'Working,' I don't. I am the Archwolf." There's that sense of meaning skipping the language center of the brain, again, as with her name. It's a barely-distinct term; the Archwolf is Hiromi is the Archwolf. "The Concord, it was explained, to me, as this. 'Many who wish for change.' To lead, to cause, to transform. My nature is this. We are maybe-allies, maybe-friends. What you wish for, you'll tell me. Are you wise, or foolish? I'll learn this. You'll prove this." That almost sounds like a threat. "'First stop.' 'Tour.'" Hiromi's intensity level lowers back down to barely a simmer. She doesn't quite say 'go ahead,' but she might as well, implied by her body language.
Persephone Kore	Phony is both good at reading and easily read, in many senses. That 'desire to look respectable' immediately registers with her. A little flinch runs across her face, followed by an apologetic deflation. "No, no, it's okay! Just call me Phony. Or Persephone. Really. It'd be so weird if I called you 'Miss Steloj', right?" It's unlike her to make herself smaller. "I'm interested to see how it diverges from the body of work I'm already familiar with." "Me too," Persephone says, midway through patting Roswell on the head too. "I know the basics of it. That their project mostly wanted to build tools to make the world less real, more pliable. Where we wanted to teach people to be more real than the world. Right?" She glances up at Elara and Dianna for just a second, for confirmation. "But how that all plays out... haha, I really don't know!" And don't worry, Roswell! I know you are. You're a good influence on Darren after all, right? Ahahaha~ "Darren's a good teammate," she reaffirms, once she disentangles herself from Roswell. "And Doctor Carpathia is..." Her eyes slide to Ozhira, too, declaring their unfamiliarity. There's an asymmetry here: that Angkasa should be 'Miss' instead of 'Professor', but that Carpathia remains 'Doctor'. "... Small. And worried. She's really smart, you know, to see things that didn't exist yet and reach for them. But she wasn't quite smart enough to know what she was reaching for. What kinds of people the children of space would be. Do you know? And so she worries, like it's more precarious than it is. Like we're fragile." She shuts her eyes, breathes in through her nose, holds it for exactly five seconds, and then exhales from her mouth. A ritual. When she opens her eyes again, they're brighter. "Anyway. The Backyard. Tell me about that! That's where you do things with your robots, isn't it? I really want to see!"
Metamorph One	Elara giggles at Hiromi's mistaken summary. Dianna eyerollingly corrects, with a lack of shame bordering on contrarian pleasure, "She means sexually attractive." "H-hey! Don't! It sounds so rude when you put it like that!" Dianna talks over her. "Personal bubble. Space that's mine. Not a wall, but a zone that people aren't supposed to go unless I know and like them. Got it?" Despite her too-cool-for-this tone, the subtle tension in her shoulders speaks to a certain kind of discomfort at being approached. The two glance to each other when Persephone settles the matter of names. "Would it?" "I mean, I don't mind. I have a name so people can use it." "Well, i-if you really don't mind being called Persephone, then I won't mind either!" "But don't think you're being magnanimous." "Hey now, what's that about? You were so excited for her to be here earlier! I can tell!" Dianna huffs through her nose. Continuing inside as promised requires going through a proper two stage airlock for unknown reasons, brightly lit and fast-cycling as it is, less inconvenient than an elevator. Beyond it lies a space so dazzling that it somehow feels brighter than the outdoors; an atrium that feels much more spacious than it really is, with soft grey floors warmed under the glittering hexagonal mesh of glass panels for a ceiling, and dazzling white walls and smooth-edged furnishings lit by the same, the energetic orange present in everything from bench cushions and wall lettering, contrasted by both every every LED and touch screen being green, and the actual greenery planted in recessed micro-gardens wherever the space would be too much. It's not all that busy, but it feels like it is. The indoors crackles with a certain kind of energy despite its modest traffic, like the feeling of entering and giant and bustling shopping mall with the day off and money to burn. Most of the people passing by are pairs and trios adults in no discernible pattern of uniform and casual, physically transporting what looks like computer equipment, power tools, small stamped plastic cases, rolls of hard copies, or just today's lunch and coffee, talking to each other as they go. A lesser number of youths, ranging all the way from what looks like nine to twenty three years of age weave between them, socialize on benches, tend the little gardens, or rush behind schedule to other rooms, the faint buzz of many soft, localized speakers calling out individual names and timetables without the echoing racket of a central intercomm system. Some of them are doing little more than taking naps or poring over e-readers, mixed between articles and books. Some are returning in a state of dustiness and light scuffing that indicates they were screwing around outdoors. A number are carrying adult-identical cases of their own. About one in five is wearing similar versions of the same article; a piece of white and orange equipment with a shield-like shape and body-flattened curve, strapped somewhere secure and comfortable on one side, with six raised cylinders on its exterior. There are minimalist stand-up panels with strangely retro-green tinted touchscreens as open directories, but simple markings on the walls are enough to navigate by. Directly across from the door is a suspended, glass-walled walkway into the outdoors space at the ring center, and on the two sides adjacent to it, main thoroughfares wide enough to walk six abreast comfortably curve away into the left and right distance. The stacked lines of colour-coded arrows indicate routes to living space, community common, computing, psychodynamics, library, mechanica, verification, and hangar.
Metamorph One	"Oh. A fan." Dianna replies to Darren, in relaxed neutral. After a thoughtful pause, she asks "What's she like? We used to talk about her a lot. Elara thinks she must be the stern but kind type, but I think she has to be like a chronically overworked mom." She visibly pumps her fist with a little pop-off when Persephone confirms something closer to her vision. Elara tilts her head in unison with Flamel's question, her breathy voice taking on the lilt of curiosity. "Sorry, but we don't have that here. I know what you mean, though! I have a hunch at least, haha~ No, no, that's . . . that's . . ." She pushes her fingertip to her bottom lip in exaggerated thought. "That's a byproduct of the way Io was terraformed. But at the same time, it's also something we made. Technically, it's all the toxic elements that used to blanket the surface and fill the atmosphere on Io, concentrated into a safe parcel. Some of them turned into this instead, though, when we cleaned it up with our prototype tools. You could call it an 'embodiment', of a human desire for a safe and beautiful home. Poison, transformed into a wish!" Dianna sighs impatiently. "They just named it Iorite. Unexpected result of the first generation cleaning up the place. Mosty sulfur and salts that were crunched down by subverting the exclusion principle, and accidentally turned pseudo-radioactive. They fuse, like a star, really really slowly, emitting all that heat and light that makes it feel sunny outside. They're dotted all over one side of Io. You can use them as fuel rods too." The two begin heading along the left side, where the walls mark 'community commons', 'verification', and 'mechanica'. Practically everyone feels both Persephon and Hiromi long before they arrive, even the adults who don't register to Flamel or Darren. They part naturally around Hiromi, giving her very lingering looks, without any particular fear or suspicion, and typically smile and greet Persephone without really thinking about it. One in ten says something to Dianna or Elara in passing about liking their friends. The younger children stare is wide-eyed curiosity at the entire group by contrast. Some gasp and giddybounce at the Pokemon (or Hiromi's ears and tail), some boys and dudes whisper too loudly speculating on Flamel being from the Concord (due to his slick outfit and shades), some younger shes and theys loudly opine about Persephone being 'pretty' and Ozhira being 'cute' in wistful ways. It takes a while to notice that they're all staring at Dianna and Elara too. Subtly scooching out of their way and watching their backs as they go by, mouths closed. A young man old enough to be in post-secondary gives the two of them a bro nod as they pass only after five solid minutes of walking. Elara waves back. Dianna invisibly releases tension.
Metamorph One	"Not a bad way of putting it." Dianna says to Persephone. "Different visions from different people. Back then, they didn't think it was realistically possible to go right to changing human beings themselves into something that could defy physical law. The founders thought it was smarter to tackle it midway. Humans were invented by tools." She doesn't correct the backwards way she put it, and neither does Elara. "So it makes sense to expand their tools as they've always been used. Force multipliers. A lever can theoretically be long enough that one person can lift planet Earth. A metaphorical lever can theoretically be long enough that one person can bend Law." Elara continues in a vaguely singsong fashion, naturally sensing Dianna's ending thought with the flow of natural twins. "That was a predecessor, you know! The 'Instrumentality Foundation' initiative. A lot of really fantastic people came together for that beautiful idea. Back then, they needed a lot of subjects to help test the technology. Young people. Did you know, separate of neuroplasticity, lateral thinking ability completely plummets with age in a normal society? Children don't see anything wrong with ideas that adults will obsess critically over. And they had to be at least a little 'special' already. You can't just start off with subjects who have no 'power of mind' when you don't know what you're looking for!" Dianna tacks on a little bitterly. "Well, it made sense at the time, but Sapient Heuristics showed them they were completely wrong. Trying to prototype technology instead of people was insanely expensive. Trying to make it work for that many subjects was way harder than just raising a few children in 'new and beautiful ways'. And when you need the kids to test the tech, not to be special, you only get a specific kind of kid." "The old project went broke and nearly tanked. Some things happened, it struggled on through, but the adults couldn't make ends meet and pursue their ideal at the same time. The Concord bought it out in the end. Absorbed most of it into R&D, Elite oversight and training, some into civics and engineering for Grand Dorado even, and some even got hired onto Sapient Heuristics as contractors. The real loyalists stuck around and revamped the rest into Applied Ontology." "Bigger and better than ever! And finally flourishing, after all those years! All it took in the end was enough people to believe in our dream! Now we have all kinds of subjects! New members and partners all the time! Tons of prototypes! Even some finished products! We're self-sufficient and everything!" Dianna stares at the floor.
Chains Knight	"Maybe 'coworkers' is the wrong word," says Chains belatedly. "Party members, maybe?" The group heads on in. Chains takes it all in - trying to get a sense of how people live here. It seems... fairly peaceful, and Dianna confirms it. "A wish for a peaceful home, hmm?" says Chains, peering at one of the kiosks as the group passes by. Chains, being 'a guy in armor' without too many standout features, doesn't seem to attract nearly as much attention as the arch-wolf or the psychonaut, and his tendency to naturally fall towards the back of the group doesn't help. This is to his liking, though - being in the background suits him. "That said, I'm not sure I understand. Is the peaceful nature here a prerequisite of what you're trying to accomplish, or... a byproduct?"
Flamel Parsons	"Interesting, interesting... instead of amplifying psychic activity, it's a byproduct of amplified psychic activity. It reminds me of depleted psitanium... not a whispering rock, but a whispered rock." Flamel looks with a sense of wonder. "But still full of all that energy... If you had enough, you could make an amazing fake sun out of something like that, great for tricking a flat planet into believing it's round." What? What the fuck? Flamel keeps his walk in a straight line, but he spins slowly as he does, looking all around... "You know, I love the parallels." He says, in a wondering tone. "I'd been worried that the Whispering Rock approach wasn't really in fashion for this type of project, but I guess it sort of is! At least, as much as space can have something like that." There's a long, heavy sigh. "And even more parallels. Reminds me of how the Psychic Six became the Psychonauts... I guess you really can't get away from something like that. Though, jeez, sure do have a way, way better track record with making powerful outcomes and not so many corpses!"
Ozhira	The actual scientific and theoretical subjects in the discussion all kind of... go over Ozhira's head. The Beast may consist of approximately thirty percent Scientists by volume, but that aggregate knowledge was largely lost in their genesis. Much like the thirty percent of volume that is security personnel didn't lead to the creature having military decorum or literally any familiarity with firearms. Those with psychic powers have little trouble seeing that Ozhira's own mind consists of countless conversations between individuals, only occasionally speaking with one or similar voices. All against the backdrop of ever-present, rumbling hunger and instinct of a placated but still very wild monster. In the Here And Now, the Devourer trots along near the middle of the group, though on the edge, which makes them Quite Visible. It takes a bit for them to notice they're being noticed, though, pausing to glance at those complementing them. 'Cute', huh... Several of their internal voices align to this and the creature raises a hand to wiggle fingers in a wave. That would be a cute aknowledgement. Their terrible attempt at a smile, less so. The awkward way Ozhira bares those predatory teeth should be considered a threat display by most species even if it's unintentional. That acknowledged, they pick up the pace again, re-joining the group they had arrived with, hands drawn up to their chest, "So the crystal. Is the poison. We understand. It will not escape? It seems safe." When Flamel says something about fake suns and flat planets, the Beast swivels their head towards him. The expression is unclear between 'predator sees prey' or 'complete confusion'.
Darren	"In Unova, 'on mamas' means 'I swear," Darren laughlngly advises Hiromi. "He was saying he swears on his mama he's a good role model." AND I'M RIGHT PHONY EVEN SAID SO YA HEARD? "Yeah," says Darren with a grin. "I heard." The airlock is, surprisingly, not a new experience for the quarterback or the wide receiver. Both of them wait patiently for the hiss of open doors, and both are equally impressed by the gleam that awaits them on the other side. Darren, one hand in his pocket, looks up through the hexagon-paneled ceiling, shading his eyes with the other and smiling. Roswell bleeps and flies a tight little loop through the atrium, darting between the odd bit of foot traffic to peer obviously at screens and over shoulders. "Mad contemplative of the consequences of her actions on the people and things around her, for one," says Darren to Dianna. "Like Phony said, almost like she's afraid everything's fragile. But that also makes her pretty thoughtful and engaging to talk to, on top of..." Darren strokes his chin thoughtfully, after his eyes return to what's in front of him, as opposed to above. "She's clearly drawing from a deep well of interpersonal experience and wisdom that makes her approachable despite her academic accomplishments." He chuckles. "Undercurrent of cool grandma energy," Darren summarizes, with a waggled index finger. As they float through the left side, Darren offers passers-by respectful nods and 'what's ups,' while Roswell holds his blunt little hands out for high-fives from the kids. For the more excited ones, Darren stops and gets a pen, which Roswell uses telekinetically to autograph their things, if desired. It's a little stick drawing of him dabbing in a classic flying saucer. Floating a little faster to catch up, he adds his piece to the conversation. "Finished products for making the world less real," he says, in that way that one does when they're asking if they've caught on to the unspoken part. "I'd be interested to see some of those before we go, but what I'm really tryna get at is the vibe. That is to say, what kind of differences are there in the average member of the organization today, versus the onset?"
Persephone Kore	"But don't think you're being magnanimous." "No, haha, not like that! I mean, I am magnanimous, but..." She taps her cheek with a finger, tilting her head slightly to the side. It'd be hard to notice if not for her dangle earrings marking the perpendicular to ground. "There's a certain kind of 'seniority' I don't want to have. I'm not sure how to say it in words. Does that make sense? Maybe it's silly of me." Their explanation of Iorite is absorbed raptly. She can't take her eyes off of the crystals' glow for a while. "That's so beautiful. Fuel... so it's all valuable? But there's a lot of it, right? Do you think there's any way I could take a little bit of it home, though? I know someone who'd love to see it a whole whole lot. Haha, but if not, I can just bring her here instead someday!" Once the group gets inside, Persephone half-marvels and half-basks in the atmosphere. "It's different, but familiar, you know? It isn't home. But it might be the closest to home another place has been." She drifts towards the common area as much as she can while staying with the group, finding someplace to sit down on that's near some potted plants, and returning her admirers' stares with a little wink. "Is it home to you, though? It seems like it's been through a lot of changes. And the other subjects here... they grew up in a really different project than you did, didn't they?" Ozhira un-smiles, and Persephone gestures the monster over with a concerned little frown. "Almost! You're really getting there. I'm proud of you. But you really want to do it like..." If permitted, she pushes their facial muscles into a more natural smile with her fingers and a bit of telekinesis. "This! See? Now you're extra cute."
Hiromi	'Party members, maybe?' "'Party member.'" Hiromi tries tasting that one, then gives an affirmative-sounding grunt. It passes. 'She means sexually attractive.' The glance Hiromi returns Dianna is curiously lacking in surprise. Fortunately for one's comfort, she doesn't continue pushing on Dianna's bubble, in the moment. The mix of new sights is one for mixed reactions, though Hiromi doesn't outwardly reveal much of them as she absorbs it all. One might roughly guess that she far prefers greenery to a lack of it, and be right in that. The confined smells of a multi-purpose burrow carry plenty of little stories to her, but if it's humans, then she doesn't expect to take in much new, that way. Humans live in much the same manner, fundamentally, regardless of their environment, as far as she's concerned. It's the scents they take in from outside that stick out to her. The places they've been, and the strange new things they've made. Others making way for her is only natural. Her presence is big, and requires space to move. To look at her is just as natural. The terraforming is something she takes entirely as a matter of course, too. On the other hand... 'A lever can theoretically be long enough that one person can lift planet Earth. A metaphorical lever can theoretically be long enough that one person can bend Law.' "How very human." Something in this, it seems, strikes Hiromi as tremendously funny, though her humor carries more in the motion of her body than it does audibly. Whether she judges this as a good thing is left unclear. Some gasp and giddybounce at the Pokemon (or Hiromi's ears and tail)... As if taking that as an invitation, Hiromi falls out of step, and drops with her hands to the flooring, abruptly padding over on four feet, a wolf about five feet high at the shoulder, to closely inspect the nearest grouping of giddy children. She can stay straight up on her legs in this form while still reaching their sweat with her nose. Or Dianna's, for that matter, but that issue is momentarily settled. It's not that Hiromi didn't hear Flamel, or even that she didn't understand him. She just isn't respecting the 'personal space' thing as something important for her to care about. Catching up isn't difficult, whether or not anyone waits for her. She's plenty fast, not that it's likely to matter, and brings herself back up into her two-legged form when she does. "'Mecha.' Tools, weapons, armor, made-things for strength. This, I'll see. A test." Eyes alight.
Metamorph One	"Well, we have to be allies, right? The Concord is the reason we're free to pursue our dream now, so we should want to help them back." says Elara. "I don't know. I'm not really looking for friends, but it'd be nice to have a dependable echelon again." says Dianna, distractedly. "Not that we're averse to new friends, after all!" Elara adds, slightly strained in her compensatory upbeat. "We didn't really get to make any in school, and you know how it is meeting new people after you graduate, haha!" Dianna snorts (approvingly?) at 'party members'. "I could live with that." Then she trails off. "Peace was never required. Peace was the collective wish of every kid who ended up here back then. That's all. Now it's something they just get to enjoy." Both of them stop and blink-stare in an eerily identical fashion at Flamel's flat Earth comment. "What?" "Huh?" Elara clears her throat as they resume walking. "If you don't mind me asking, what is the Whispering Rock approach? I'm curious!" Dianna weirdly looks away as he keeps talking. The long walk passes by one of the ring's radiating branches, where a double wide corridor goes up soft plastic steps and into a gleaming dome, from which the heady mixture of animated chatter, running water, clinking forks and knives, digital bleeps and bloops, and yelling children drifts out. You can see scaffolding around the outer back portion, apparently still under construction, but the interior is given over to stacked rings of what look almost like cute apartments around an itty bitty garden plaza, ostensibly used for group activities rather than living space, like a variety of after school club rooms. Beyond that, the next branch is a tall geometric tower of avant-garde design, almost solid white and with extremely few and heavily tinted windows, bristling with sensor equipment. Only adults move readily in and out of here, and all in uniform. The 'verification' wing has an airport-like occupation registry, monitoring thirty two rooms, eight marked red as 'RENNOVATION', the remainder in states of 'warm up', 'testing', 'aggrevation', and 'normalization'. The doors are sealed. Both Dianna and Elara look, and say, "Ah, sorry." "High capacity testing day I guess." "Well, not that you'd find it interesting anyways!"%
Metamorph One	It's the swift approach on the 'Mechanica' wing that gets a smile from Dianna, saying to Persephone, "You liked it huh? That's what we call the zone designated as Applied Ontology sovereign territory, independent of the Earth sphere. It's pretty much safe enough for kids to get into trouble in, and big enough to take things out for a spin. If you break the rules, you can go all the way into town from there, if you have the wheels to get over the volcanic shield." "Ahhh, I don't know how many hours we spent out there. Back when it was much less pretty too! I wonder what the children do there now? They don't use Eidolon units like we did back in the day. They all have VPTs now, don't they? What games do they get up to with those?" Dianna falls silent, glossing over it. "Why?" she asks Darren, very suddenly. "Does it matter? You can't go back to the past to visit. Isn't it fine that things are the way they are now?" Elara smiles for Persephone. "I'm sure nobody would notice at all if you took a little piece off one of the formations from outside the shield. You're with Sapient Heuristics! It's not like we'd just be giving it out like souvenirs, right? I'm certain you can find a use for it." That smile becomes strangely confused and subdued at her other question. "Of course it's home. We both grew up here. It's changed a lot since we were children, certainly, but the whole world does that." "If it wasn't still home, then we wouldn't keep coming back here. We're not little kids anymore. We could go anywhere."
Darren	"It is fine, and I'm sorry if I made it seem like it wasn't fine," says Darren to Dianna. "Asking about the past because the present isn't fine is definitely a reason to look into history, but it's not the only reason. Even when the present is fine, the past can still offer insights about the way things are now. In the same way that I can't visit the past, the past is never totally gone, even for those of us that experience time linearly. It exists--in memory, in places, in that disparity that comes from the sublimation of what was into what is." There's a pause, and he lowers himself down, to walk on his feet instead of with his mind, heading up the stairs. "It's interesting to me, is all," he concludes.
Ozhira	Persephone's gesturing gets Ozhira's attention and the creature trots over at the summons, possibly-dangerous expression shifting to one of curiosity. The myriad voices that their mind consists of all rumble in various statements of respect or admiration, with a handful turning to objection when she reaches for their face. Enough voices admonish those who object that the Beast remains still while shown how to smile. They bring their own hands up to mimic what Phoney's fingers did, pushing on their cheeks a bit, "Like this?" The moment they pull their fingertips away, though, it becomes the disastrous Unsmile right away. This is fixed by carefully re-applying their fingers, pulling their face back into the desired shape, "...We see. Thank you." For the next leg of the wandering walkabout, Ozhira keeps their hands on their face like this. This lasts up until more Technology enters the Beast's view. They trot out into the dome area, eyeing over the activity rooms and all the bustling activity. As things move on to a testing room, the creature seems fascinated by the screens. Not the data on them, the screens themselves, tapping at the plastic, nodding briefly as if discovering something about it. At least they aren't choosing to explore the facility by sliding into the ventilation system. Again.
Flamel Parsons	"Oh, it's sort of like this one! A summer camp around the world's largest deposit of psitanium. Not as much of a permanent home, but a good, really good summer camp can be something kind of similar. It's sort of a re-creation of a failed tech-first mental exploration commune from the old days, done with better funding and experience." Flamel explains the Whispering Rock approach. He's intensely eager to get a sample of that "fuel" himself, just to put it under a big psychic scanner and get unhealthy volumes of data, so he's likely as anything to slice a chunk off too. "Can I get one too? I really want to put it under a high-intensity psictrometer..." "Oh, but, uh, anyway, this history really seems like it's mirroring a lot of what happened in the early days forming the Psychonauts! Just, a lot more success in one of the important phases, and with the robotics front-loaded instead of back-loaded. So I like it a lot!" His grin is wide, his tone bright and cheerful. "You guys sidestepped a lot of the traditional pitfalls and the casualties involved in those!"
Metamorph One	The children here, oddly, do not have an appreciably sensible fear of 'wolves' in particular, though many express the instinctive nervousness of small human creatures around large dogs by hiding behind each other, whilst others express the instinctive bold idiocy of small human creatures around large dogs by trying to pet Hiromi. "Hey. Um. Miss Hiromi. I'm sorry, but--" "We're going to get in a lot of shit if they think we brought animals on board." "Ahaha, and I think someone probably has allergies, right?" Dianna visibly rolls Hiromi's assessment around in her head. For a while. "I'd like to be so strong I could lift planet Earth myself. So strong I could just ignore its gravity and throw it somewhere far away, where I'd never have to see it again. But I'm not that strong right now, so I'll take whatever I can get my hands on that brings me closer to being that strong in the meantime, while I work on getting there." Elara is focused on the other thing though. "Ahh, you like mechs too? That's wonderful! Originally, that was all we had! Channeling the entirety of human will through a single tool just isn't really possible. For instance, the paradigm of a knife is to cut; even if a human can go as far as expressing the intent to heal someone with a knife, like with a scalpel for example, they can't normally express the intent to purify the air with a knife, no matter how creatively they try. It's outside the knife's paradigm. Making a tool that is its own entire body --metal bones and plastic skin, hydraulic blood and an iorite heart-- lets a human being express everything a human being can, though. Or, that was the reasoning!" "Yeah. The old Eidolon units. The first mass production prototypes. Clunky and fragile. High maintenance and barely safe. But somehow they always felt like they were 'yours'. I miss them sometimes." "Ah, but they weren't weapons." "Weren't designed to be." "They weren't weapons. Nobody made them to fight." "But the old factions wanted weapons. They didn't want new expressions, or new feelings, or new ways to come together. They wanted to win." "And Applied Ontology still doesn't make weapons. We make tools." "Not that we can really stop someone determined from making a weapon out of a tool. If you let people express any paradigm, some of them will find ways to express how much they want to hurt each other." The walk diverts into the third branch along the way, into a wide and flattened building shaped like a football stadium in, skylit along its central strip and covered in what an expert might recognize as solar generators around it. The doors are marked with a red locking light, but simply open when the two locals approach. The trickle of traffic flowing out parts more widely around them than elsewhere. To one side, VPT - fitting, maintenance, data recovery, to the other, Ontological Equipment - R&D, QA, export. Straight down the middle, Metamorph - hangar, bay, reserved. The density of younger people with those pieces of strapped equipment is near universal. Adults move around in both protective lab coats and garage wear. A small group of three, wearing clearly foreign suits marked with Grand Dorado insignia, passes down a nearby intersection, deep in discussion with two of the adults as they're escorted down the second wing. The straight corridor is where Dianna and Elara take the group.
Metamorph One	The last set of doors open to what must clearly be the hangar. The enormous skylight obviates any need for dingy directional garage lighting, giving it the bright and brisk atmosphere of a carrier flight deck, without the hazard of the sea or the bleakness of constant asphalt. As if to make up for a lack of convenient places to garden, most of the orange gives over to shades of soothing viridian and warning-marking acid green-yellow where necessary, all digitals rendered in holographic blue. For a change, there is more than ample space to walk as well. The level of noise barely seems worse than a busy restaurant for some reason, despite the audible whine of machinery and clatter of metal. The ceiling is easily four storeys high, making it much taller than the central ring, and balconies are connected as much by temporary movable catwalks as they are by safety railed bridges. For those who had been at the Soft Expanse recently, the sight is semi-familiar. The bulk of the hangar bay is dedicated to individual square platforms big enough to park a car in each quadrant, broken up by small paths and raised walkways and scaffolds, arranged along major pedestrial and conveyor arteries. Most of the platforms are currently host to a sizable white and orange machine of considerable size, though not necessarily similar make. Save for the spaces closest to the enormous bay doors at the far end, currently open and allowing in natural light and air, all of them are busy with at least two technicians each. Half the mecha occupying the bay could be considered the same quadrupedal model as Elara and Dianna's, with the same spider-like articulation, shark-like sleek physical contour, vaguely canid aggressive foward lean and bulk, and slightly aviant opposable 'toe pylons' folded into each bottom heavy foot. Most of the other half, however, are roughly hominid in shape, slender and strong and over-articulated in a slightly alien in way, doubling the quadruped 'slightly taller than Hiromi' height. Careful squinting might deduce that they might actually be the same model of machine, in fact, merely articulated differently. As, perhaps, are the less discernibly flattened and broadened, legless models in a raised row. All of them have the same plating, organically contoured and strangely similar to high-quality resin or plastic, rigid and just slightly soft. Most have similar ball mounts and drone bays to the one already seen. And precisely none have a turret assembly at all. They are, visibly, not even designed with space or machinery to even put a gun. The dense tracks in the heavily packed dirt of Io jut outside, leading down several split trails into the vegetation, the lake, and up the shield, attest to the fact that they are frequently used. However, none of the pilots hanging around seem to be any older than eighteen just by looking at them, and none of the machines have decals of any kind.
Hiromi	Hiromi allows the children to touch, with the easy air of one lacking that particular growing-up misfortune as makes approaching hands seem like threats. She approached them, and it's only right to allow them to show their appreciation this way. Her fur has the soft thickness of a winter-adapted predator with particularly good grooming habits, together with that living warmth, and tones of earth. She doesn't think of it as worship because she's not a cat, but it's not that dissimilar. 'We're going to get in a lot of shit if they think we brought animals on board.' They did, though. 'I'd like to be so strong I could lift planet Earth myself.' "Good," Hiromi says, as her assessment of Dianna improves several degrees. 'And Applied Ontology still doesn't make weapons. We make tools.' Her interest is locked throughout the explanation, until she says, "'Weapons.' None are needed. I know this. Have you learned it? Taken it into yourself, this knowledge. This wisdom of the world." She draws attention to her hand by presenting it with the fingers spread and upward pointing, hardly appearing more than unusually dangerous nails, rather than claws. A barely-perceptible motion, and black bone erupts bloodlessly, seeming too large for the finger to which it's attached. It's a claw that could hardly be used in the manner of a hand. And yet, it's intuitively true, to someone with the appropriate senses to tell the 'why' or the history or the purpose of a thing by looking at it, that she's telling the truth when she says, "There are no weapons," with the air of pronouncing a koan. Her claws, displayed or otherwise, are not weapons. They are not expressions of violence. Violence is in application. Her claws are something more fundamental than that. "Sharp things. Hard things. Things that endure. Cut. Pierce. Scrape. Push. Grasp. Cover. These things are." Her claw disappears, bone winding back into her, rather than retracting. "Do you see?"
Metamorph One	Dianna leans against the wall immediately inside, looking on the fleet of thirty some machines with reluctant fondness. "This is the replacement to the old Eidolon line. The last thing Applied Ontology still deals with that actively requires a psychic to use. High end, big reactors, multi-utility, fast, safe, even kind of comfortable. The Concord really has their eye on them. They're sort of the last of a dying breed, but with the way they turned out, I think it's more like they were just strong enough to survive." Elara seems as if she barely needs to point towards any of the devices the pilots are wearing to specify. "Sixty percent of Applied Ontology's research and development deals with the Variable Paradigm Trigger system. Remember what I said about tools and paradigms? The VPT is designed to be a psychoreactive device that a human mind can process as any kind of tool, with any kind of paradigm, and express any kind of intent through. A do-everything prop that doesn't make to make sense, to interface between you and reality. Or, at least it will be when it's finished! We're getting to the point where you don't need any psychic potential at all to start seeing results from it! Some of our newer subjects don't have any powers at all now!" "Twenty percent goes to individual designs for more refined tools with narrower use cases --miniature steps towards the end goal of the VPT that really work-- which started being sold to the Concord lately." "Forty percent used to go to the Metamorph program, but it's getting eaten up by the Ontological Equipment branch more and more these days. It's where the money is, and it's what the Concord wants. "It's not as if the other programs are going anywhere" "So they say." Dianna sighs in an aggrieved way at Darren, then relaxes her arms against her chest, as if she can't be bothered to blame him. "I know what you mean, but you're not going to find anything you need in the past. The point of finishing things is that they stay finished. Sacrificing something today to make tomorrow better just ends up being a waste of time if all anyone wants to do tomorrow is fixate on yesterday. We worked hard to make things this good. Appreciate it for what it is." Elara smiles wistfully to Flamel. "A summer camp, is it? With other children like you, and a few adults you can trust. That sounds really nice, Mister Parsons. I'm not certain the project was ever really like that, but it felt like that to us, when we were little. You really do get it." She sighs. "It'd be really nice if it did avoid the pitfalls. It really would have been."
Persephone Kore	"Yeah! You've got it, Ozhira. Just like..." A little pause. Persephone's expression reverts to a thoughtful frown. "Oh. Hm. Well, you're getting there! Just keep practicing it, okay?" She does what Elara was forbidden from doing: applies gentle, encouraging pats to the top of the monster's head. Even those are so sincere that they can't be read as condescending. "Is home supposed to change?" As the group walks towards the Metamorph hangar, Persephone counts on her fingers. She doesn't get past one hand. The third finger makes her wince slightly. "... There's only a few times Sapient Heuristics has changed. I guess it has to stay the same. Maybe that's why it feels strange to me. Doesn't it make your heart ache?" En route, Persephone spots a crystal formation on the far horizon. Without a word or gesture, a finger-sized piece breaks off of it and zips the intervening miles in a second; she lifts her palm to receive it, and a distinctly smaller bit calves off to float over to Flamel. "There. Be responsible with it, okay? I'm trusting you!" She keeps her piece in her hand afterwards, gentle light seeping from between her fingers. "I'd like to be so strong I could lift planet Earth myself." "Huh? What's wrong with it where it is?" "Some of our newer subjects don't have any powers at all now!" "But isn't that a little sad? ... No, haha, sorry. I guess I'm still looking at it from the Sapient Heuristics perspective, right?" But entering the hangar steals the rest of her words away. Persephone walks forwards in quiet awe, as if she were entering a cathedral. She lays a hand reverently on one of the machines. "New bodies, for a new world. That's it, isn't it? The Eidolons... if those were as early as I think, we ended up with a couple of those too. It's nice to see what they turned into." "Even if not everyone could use them, I'm happy they were made." She looks back over her shoulder, but stays facing the machine, as if it might be offended were she to turn her back to it. "It feels sad to let that wither away." A thought occurs to her, brightening her eyes out of the reverent melancholy. "Hey. I told you about Carpathia. While I spend time with these, what's Professor Angkasa like? I think I know a little bit, by now. But I want to hear it from you!"
Metamorph One	Dianna looks sideways at Hiromi's approval with the barest hint of comprehension. Elara covers her mouth politely, and looks to Dianna with eyes full of mischief, saved for later. "Yeah. Whatever humans define as weapons is arbitrary. The function only sort of matters; getting caught up in that takes a certain kind of dumbass. The intent behind it is really what matters. Words are weapons when we mean to hurt someone with them, and knowledge is a weapon when we're competing with someone, but a rifle is a hunting tool if we're just trying to feed ourselves, and a sword is an art piece if we only intend to put it on a wall." "The only difference is whether you find yourself in a 'battle', or an 'argument'." Elara giggles in vaguely smitten fashionat Persephone. "Ahaha~ That's the first time I've heard someone take her saying that seriously in . . . goodness, it's been a while, hasn't it? Don't think too hard on, it; it's just something Di says!" Dianna happened to not be looking when Persephone broke off the crystal, but certainly feels it, turning at the exact moment Elara raises her hands over her mouth, bright blue eyes wide in shock and eyebrows disappearing into her bangs, seeing her pull it in. The fragment is warm in her hand. Even if it's supposed to be made mostly of sulfur, it smells like salty beach sand and a muggy tree house in summer. "Um . . ." "A-ah, maybe don't let it touch anything you're going to eat, okay? And wash your hands after? Please?" When they reach the hangar, Dianna looks at her as if suddenly seeing her again after a long absence; as if she should intimately know what Persephone looks like, and has noticed something has subtly changed over time, even if it's only been half an hour. "That depends on where that feeling comes from, Persephone. That might not be Applied Ontology's perspective, but that doesn't mean it it's different from ours." She finally smiles again, approvingly, and a little bit proud. "They're better classified as 'contraptions' than mechs, really. But aren't they sort of lovable anyways? Even if they were complicated and fragile and a huge pain to work, just being in the cockpit kind of felt like you could do everything you couldn't before."
Metamorph One	Her tone becomes more adamant, where it was petulant with Elara before. Denying, where it was damning. "It won't wither away. I'm not going to let it. I know now, not many people really want new bodies or a new world or new ways to see people. They want the same bodies, but a little better. They want the same world, but a little more convenient. They want the same people, but a little more exciting. The VPT is for everyone, and that's . . . that's an objectively good thing. The OE is there to fit into regular people's regular lives, and I understand why that's important. But I'm sure there are always going to be people who want more than that. We're still just scratching the surface. There's so much more we can do. There's so much further we can push these shapes." Dianna seems to grow exhausted of being so verbal all at once, and slumps back against the wall again, turning her eyes up into the skylight. Elara takes over to answer. "Gosh, that's suddenly such a difficult question when it's turned around on you, isn't it? I guess she's . . . complicated. But not in a bad way. She's the kind of person who can't bear to do something bad even if she knows it'd be for the best, and it's always making life hard for her, but she still accomplishes so much despite being that way. She has a way of talking honestly where you just want to believe in what she sees, and a way of getting into trouble where you want to root for her every time. She's really smart and really diligent, and really good with details, but she's weirdly forgetful about the silliest things! And she's incredibly nice! Whether its the children or the adults, she always talks to everyone seriously and always figures out how to understand what they really want!" She cuts herself off with a sheepish laugh when she realizes she's rambling. "Basically the type of person you'd feel horrible for disappointing, hahaha. I'd love it if you could meet her!"