Scene #9555: Fox's Academy of Anomalous Biology

Owner	Pose
Petra Soroka	The relationship that Petra has with the politics of the multiverse is one that is both deeply entwined with the major factions, and denies every rational means of engaging with those factions possible. This is how she ends up scheduling a collaborative research session with her employees at a Concord facility, in order to provide aid and networking to a new Paladins Chevalier, while extending an invitation to the leader of the Watch just out of occupational interest. When it comes to the City especially, Petra plays all sides so Petra always wins, so she's really got very little reason to not open her doors to whoever's interested in coming. And besides, last time she tried to get Watch and Paladins Elites to come to her villainous lair in order to thwart her, they took forever. She's not really worried about being sabotaged this time. Especially since her evil lair has been converted into, basically, just a flying Animal Crossing town with a scary-looking castle. Still, it's just good sense to not hand out the warpgate coordinates to everyone casually. Instead, she takes advantage of the Dorado airship services once again, to ferry people directly to where Hydrochoeria floats over the Great Ocean. The airship taxi service brings the Elites right to the main island, the biggest hunk of floating rock that other, smaller islands orbit via attached chains. The first impression of Hydrochoeria from a distance is of the spike of rock that was ripped out of the ground, and the tall gothic sci-fi-ish castle at the head of the island, but once you come in closer, it's more of just a cozy small town covered in eclectic architectural pursuits. The grounds are covered in plants and trees spilling all over the place in between buildings, and the roads are springy and soft, like playground rubber. There's not a single building with a rectangular wall that rises square to the ground higher than a story; instead they all have pipes sticking out of the sides, or smaller structures next to them that one could hypothetically climb on to hop onto the roofs, and in many cases there's ladders directly connecting the roofs of one building to the roof of its much taller neighbor. Arranged like a college campus, there's only one tall apartment building that presumably houses all of the former L-Corp employees, and some scattered group living homes elsewhere. Floating on an island to one side is an entire obstacle course, and on the far side of the island is a coliseum besides a terrace garden covered in flowers, but the destination you're going to is nearby the apartment building. Petra intercepts the Elites soon after they arrive, sitting on the edge of a roof next to the street to slide off with a 'hup'. She's wearing a grey hoodie over a black compression top and shorts, with her compact mirror pendant hanging around her neck. "Heyo. Welcome to my lair." Leading the way, "The Academy's over this way. Fox's only been running it for under a year, obviously, so it'll probably be less sophisticated than what you're used to, Lissandra, but with how much equipment and info we scrounged out of L-Corp, I hope it's specialized enough to be useful." She brings the group through the lobby of the apartment building, where a bulletin board has fetch quests pinned on individual scraps of paper, and then through a hallway and door labeled 'FOX'S ACADEMY'. It leads into a classroom that smells faintly of bleach, but not like blood, with a couple doors towards the back. Petra leans against one of them to push it open, and then calls down through that next hallway, "Yoohoo, Fox. Guests're here."
Petra Soroka	The first thing that responds to her calling out isn't one of the former L-Corp agents, though, but an uncomfortable skittering screech like musically-toned nailed on a chalkboard. A spiderlike assembly of black scribbly limbs scrambles down the hallway, attached to a ball covered in crayon-colored hearts in the center. Its head, also a colorful heart-shape, stretches off of its neck towards Petra, and Petra reaches into her hoodie pocket to withdraw a handful of colorful crystal shards. She holds out her hand, and the Abnormality buries its face into them like they're dog treats, crunching down with a noise like hitting a dozen keys on a piano at once. "Hey, hey, Fragments, we're making nice noises. Don't be cringe in front of the guests."
Angela	Angela has had enough study of Anomalous Biology to last a lifetime but academic rigor and the advancement of the sciences is something that's very important to her despite her not really being a scientist and so she has quietly supported 'Fox's Academy' by providing funding, the occassional researcher or librarian, and generally not going out of her way to make the former employees of Lobotomy Corp who decided to leave her a living hell. The two people 'in charge' of Fox's Academy are Haschen, former captain of the Training Team though, really, she wasn't captain of the Training Team for very long because she took over the position after OhNo took over who took over after the prior captain of the Training Team, Tiffany, lost her shit and assaulted her fellow employees. One might ask, perhaps, how competent a Training Team can be if they are continuously losing members but ask it softly because Hod might cry a little and try to be so strong and it could just break your heart so you're better off not making such inquiries where she can hear it. She still wears the Training Rabbit EGO Gear (though some wonder if it actually even is EGO Gear? The Dummy Rabbit never attacked anyone, provided negligible enkephalin, and was, well, used for training) because Angela didn't bother to try to demand its return. At this point, Haschen just sort of wears it as accessories and has made it a part of her personal style to be bunny. Fox is a shaggy dull orange-haired man with a permanently sullen expression but he is also the only agent who tried to organize the other agents into having a better life for himself. He was at the facility for the incredibly mundane reason of wanting to pay his student loans. Now that he's out of Lobotomy Corp, he decided to make lemonaide out of lemons and has sort of just formed this academy making use of the skills and training he gathered up at LobCorp to make something of a life for himself. He was the Welfare Team captain so his job was to look out for the welfare of the agents--so it might seem a bit odd that someone like him, rather than Sal, made an academy for the purpose of studying Abnormalities and other anomalous entities--though right now it's largely just Abnormalities due to a lack of access to anything else. Fox is wrapping up a lesson about the cellular structure of the 'eggs' that Abnormalities transform into upon 'death' when Petra arrives. A couple of former clerks are finishing up some note-taking while sitting at their desks. The former captain looks to Petra, "Hey chief." He says. "Sorry 'bout the smell. There wasn't an accident or anything, but some of the clerks find it comforting and cleanliness is still important."Planned a visit to two Abnormalities today, though Fragments is also around so we might--oh hey, there they are." Fox lets out a pleasant little whistle and gives Fragments a smile. "Always chipper when Petra drops by." He looks to the others, "We'll start with Happy Teddy Bear then we'll move onto Meat Lantern. I'd like to suggest real caution around Meat Lantern since while we have found alternative food sources, we haven't really trained it off of eating humans that get too close." He pauses. "Not that that's happened yet but Kathy over there nearly lost an arm." Kathy, sitting at a desk, mumbles, "I wanted to check our progress so I had to tempt it a little..." "I'll also make sure you all get to know Haschen if you haven't already. Her job's to keep everybody safe. But like for real."
Kale Hearthward	Kale's been away from the Elite stage for a bit. There've been things to do that have drawn his attention away, allegedly. (He hasn't said what he's been up to.) But an invitation from Petra, even if it's not addressed to him specifically, is enough to get him back into things. He politely takes the offered airship ride. He could fly there himself. He's not shy about saying it. He mentions it a lot, actually. But it's good manners to take the offered way in. He's not shy about mentioning how polite he is for not just flying up there, either. > "Heyo. Welcome to my lair." "I... like what you've done with the place?" he says, looking around. Why pipes? "It looks... kind of out of character for a villainess lair, though. Lots of cozy town vibes, not floating island death fortress vibes. I'd have thought you'd take more design inspiration from the castle that- other villains tend to have." Kale's getting better! The unfortunate pause where he rapidly changes what he was about to say is only somewhat perceptible. > Fragments Kale raises his hand to ask a question. "Is it okay to pet or is it like a service spider" On into the Academy. "So is this... pure research, or are you trying to develop something out of it?" he says, once Fox has made his spiel.
Lissandra	Lissandra arrives for the airship-ferry ride dressed to handle a chill, namely in long black slacks, a navy-blue felt jacket, and a little hint of a light-pink shirt just barely visible behind the buttoned and flipped-up collar, around which is wrapped a long but light scarf in gentle, almost halloween-ish orange and black stripes. Rather than her toolbelt, Lissandra only seems to have a single holster for her wand clipped into her pants-pocket and hanging against her thigh. Her shoulderbag is present as always, and she has a thermos of something hot but distinctly not smelly enough to be coffee; all the same it seems to dispel whatever morning grogginess she's dealing with over the course of the flight. She takes the opportunity to enjoy a more leisurely and less involved flight than her usual, peering outside of the ship in various places inbetween bouts of chatter. She's still quick to disembark once they arrive though! The view from an airship is lower on her priorities than the real attraction of the afternoon, and even just visiting a genuine flying island would be a treat relative to a flying vehicle. She exits the ship at a more energetic pace than she'd boarded, reaching into her bag to double-check her preparations as she goes. She silently appreciates the greenery, pauses on the road to gently bounce on one foot testingly, and upon seeing the peculiarly clamberable construction and the obstacle course, she ends up wearing a bemused smile for a few minutes longer. It's silly, but in a way that's somewhat refreshing. Certainly, it's more hazardous, but... Well, it's not her problem right now! And then there's Petra; it didn't take her long to recieve her guests, which is ideal. Lissandra follows her with her eyes as she drops from the roof, and practically the moment Petra lands without busting an ankle she changes the intensity of the stare to a more nonchalant eye-contact, and relaxed arm-fold. "Lair? Hm! It seems a bit like a playground if anything." It doesn't sound like she's mocking the decor at least. "Well, I appreciate your arranging this. And don't worry about my expectations overmuch. A collegiate environment isn't exactly what I'm used to either, if that's what you were imagining." She, of course, follows along! The bulletin board piques her curiosity a little, enough to skim as they're passing by, wondering if the 'quests' are more along the lines of a shopping list or some kind of rare curiosity hunt, related to the Academy. Or perhaps neither? It doesn't hold her up for long though. The unfamiliar creature that approaches at Petra's call causes a predictable amount of discomfort with that initial noise, leading Lissandra to couch her ears against her shoulders for a moment before she starts to adjust- or perhaps just subtly lower the volume in her own head with magic. She cycles through expressions starting from that physical discomfort, toward perplexity and almost immediately into novel curiosity, enough to step up alongside Petra with only the barest hesitation to make sure the bizarre creature doesn't react poorly to strangers. "What a sight... It seems as if it sprung out of a child's drawing. And, hmm... Mineral diets aren't especially common even among magical beasts. Are those more of a 'treat'?" She points at the crystals in Petra's hand while they're being eaten, of course. Relative to this, the bleach smell is all but ignorable. Fox approaches! Lissandra listens! Lissandra smiles at first, blinks and smiles less at the name 'Meat Lantern', and lets out a little nasal huff at poor Kathy's close call. "... I suppose you're working in extraordinary conditions, but I hope you at least tried to think of an alternative test first..." She doesn't really have the desire to go right into a scolding when she's looking forward to what comes next anyway, so it might has well have been sleep-talk. "Very well. I'm here to learn, rather than to put my hands on every funny little creature. Let's avoid any incidents."
Tamamo	Tamamo hasn't come dressed for winter, so there's no coat -- but she isn't expecting warmth at this time of year, either, so she's in the same many-layered dress as was her usual wear when visiting Lobotomy Corporation. This is, perhaps, not entirely different from those times... though she can be a little more relaxed here than in the City, despite not having all that much experience with Petra's floating land project. There's some reason for that, surely. The trip over is spent with polite interest in the sights, a few degrees from calm. "Ah, that must be... a training course?" An obstacle course. "And the buildings, as well?" The road goes without remark, though she does tap it with the (extremely) thick sole of her geta. Kale's been away from the Elite stage for a bit. "Have you been spending time in your homeland, Mr. Hearthward, or was it elsewhere? Whether for work, or pleasure... that is, for a vacation, one may choose either. Have you been well?" Lissandra arrives for the airship-ferry ride dressed to handle a chill. "And you must be Ms. Lissandra. My dear Lilian has mentioned you. I am, as it happens, known as Tamamo-no-mae." Perhaps assuming she's already been mentioned, she doesn't give the full introduction. Or maybe she's just being a little more casual than usual. "Do you shake hands?" That may be a weird way to ask, but she'd rather not assume. Lilian didn't mention that much. 'Heyo. Welcome to my lair.' "I was certain there were other connotations to such a term, and yet... ah, well. It is no great matter. It may still be a place in which one lays in wait, even if it is seldom used as such." The gentleness of Tamamo's demeanor for meeting new people or seeing again old friends gives way to something more mother-in-law-like, just for Petra. Surely this will pass without incident. ...an uncomfortable skittering screech... Her poor ears. Tamamo starts at the sound, tall ears straightening, head leaning back and away, headdress faintly chiming, and the skittering sight doesn't help much, either. It takes her a moment to recognize what she'd last seen inside the storybook, and settle back down. "They seem to be doing well, after all," is her considered opinion, with some reflection. It leads into a classroom that smells faintly of bleach, but not like blood... What a curiously specific denial. Rather, what a curious thing for a classroom to smell like. Good thing Tamamo's nose isn't as sensitive as her ears. Still, it has her looking around, trying to spot some trace of what needed cleaning up. Agents. Former agents? "A pleasure to meet you." 'We'll start with Happy Teddy Bear then we'll move onto Meat Lantern.' "I am uncertain I have met either. After such cases as the 'helper,' a 'happy' bear sounds..." She doesn't finish the sentence, but it's clear that Tamamo has some distrust toward Abnormality naming schemes.
Lissandra	When greeted by Tamamo, Lissandra seems relatively pleased. Enough to set aside the priorities of the day for a moment, at least. "Shake hands? I suppose I could? But, first, I did have something else in mind." She gestures as if to say 'excuse me' before pulling her shoulderbag around to the front and flipping the flap open to dig inside of it, quickly finding a little ceramic jar with a line of inert wax sealing the lid to it. She plucks the jar out, closes up her bag, and gently shakes it where Tamamo can hear; it's not-quite a powder. "I took my best guess and thought you might appreciate an herbal tea. I grew the ingredients myself, of course. It's a very gentle anti-inflammatory. Well, by your reputation I'm sure you could have guessed... It's a pleasure to meet you." Of course she doesn't just make homemade tea for tea's sake.
Maricel Thorne	"It looks... kind of out of character for a villainess lair, though." "I believe it's, ahhh... brilliant sociological commentary," a strange woman says. "Is the village villainized by its proximity to the lair, or is the laiiir, ahhh, villagized by its proximity to the village? The parasitic externalities of a pastoral suburbia are--" You'd be forgiven for not taking notice of her on the ride over. She's of average height (5'4"?), average weight (a little out-of-shape), average age (mid-thirties??)... Everything about her feels designed to make her thick glasses and faded-rainbow-stained labcoat her most distinguishing features. Only once she starts talking and moving, slight-slouchy and smiling and glasses-fidgety, does she snag the eye. "--Oh. Beg apologies." Shfff, she slides a slightly-too-long white sleeve back to offer Kale a limp handshake, "Doctor Maricel Thorne if you like me, or just Maricel if you don't, or Doc Thorne if you want to make me sound scary. It's, ahhhh... pleasure to meet you, I'm ascertain.")] "... it'll probably be less sophisticated than what you're used to, Lissandra..." "A collegiate environment isn't exactly what I'm used to either..." "A poor craftsman blames xyr tools," Maricel says agreeably, hands-in-pockets sliding in. That's possibly the most concerning thing a doctor could say. Inside: "Delightful to meet you, Fox," she says to the screeching heart-spider anomaly, totally prepared to believe this is the person she's meant to meet. "Oh, Fragments? Fragments. Excuse me. Oh, you needn't scold, Pet-ra; I know how they are at that age." "we haven't really trained it off of eating humans that get too close." "Ahhh. Have you thought about becoming less, ahhh... appetizing?" She rummages in her pockets for a syringe. The Syringe That Makes You Taste Bad, apparently. "... Well, in the meantime, do lead the way."
Petra Soroka	"Lots of cozy town vibes, not floating island death fortress vibes." "Lair? Hm! It seems a bit like a playground if anything." It takes Lissandra speaking to be certain that this is the same voice from the radio, and when she does, Petra gives her a handshake. This is extremely unusual for her to do, but she's been spending a lot of time around those sorts of people who like handshakes recently, so that's currently the mental stance she's slotted into. "Oh, hey. Good to meet you." Right after that, though, she crosses her arms and pouts a little at her and Kale. "Okay, like-- yeah, I haven't been shooting any death lasers down from the sky lately, so sue me. I've still got the death laser. Just, I've been focusing on making it liveable for everyone recently, so I just modeled it off that genre of island instead. Half of it's Nika's-- er, a friend's advice anyways." "It may still be a place in which one lays in wait, even if it is seldom used as such." "I-- I did kidnap Regulus recently." Petra really only stands to be in trouble for insisting on her villain cred to Tamamo, but Tamamo using that tone on her instantly inflicts an uncontrollable impulse to spout all of her secrets and goings-on anyways. "Um. She'd just been kidnapped by Parsons right before that, so I mostly just fed her and then put her back." Like a stray animal. The bulletin board's quests are all just fetch quests for mostly mundane items, like furniture or new amenities being added to the town. Upon a moment's inspection, it becomes clear that these aren't put up as mercenary contracts to be filled by whoever chooses to do them, but that they're all direct requests to Petra, and this is just the best way she could think of to give her residents a way to ask for stuff. "We'll start with Happy Teddy Bear then we'll move onto Meat Lantern." Petra shrugs at the comment on the smell, never one to complain about it even back then. "Did you finish on the viewing container for Meat Lantern, or is it gonna be stuck in the ground? Oh, y'know, Lissandra might find the whole egg thing super interesting too." "I wanted to check our progress so I had to tempt it a little..." "I swear to god, Kathy, if you're the last employee to die to an Abno months after the fall of the Wing, I'll be so mad. Literally like one of those Japanese soldiers that kept fighting World War II for decades after it ended. We're not rushing for time, or anything." Fragments of the Universe cl-cl-clicks around past Petra, making a low synthesized singing noise that warbles up and down like a theremin. At its full height, the Abnormality would nearly touch the ceiling of the classroom, but hunched over with its legs bent, it's only around two meters tall, and it orbits nearby Petra as she talks. "Is it okay to pet or is it like a service spider" "Well, it's the same Fragments you remember from before the Wing fell, just stabler now. Though, it won't remember you. Just like what Tamamo did with Love and Justice, Fragments is, uh... well, the technical term is 'Qlippoth deterrance', but you can just think of it as not being emotionally reset and super violent anymore."
Petra Soroka	"So is this... pure research, or are you trying to develop something out of it?" "Well, a couple things." Petra crosses her arms and leans back against the doorframe, while Fragments wanders around to inspect everyone. "Firstly, the equipment for EGO extraction is all gone now, and the methods for it were kind of, uh, psychologically unstable in the first place. Secondly, there's approximately thousands of Abnormalities loose in the City now, and understanding what they need and how they revive is really gonna be necessary for any long-term efforts there. Then also, like, the Library is sort of a zoo?" "Mineral diets aren't especially common even among magical beasts. Are those more of a 'treat'?" Petra tosses one more of the crystal treats over to Lissandra for her to catch, and Fragments' head swivels first towards Petra's face, and then makes a musical sound at the exact same pitch as her voice. "So, an Abnormality is a psychic entity-- not always a living thing, but even the nonliving ones have the same properties, so the distinction's not really important-- drawn from the human collective unconscious. They're all... kind of fucked up in some ways, including that for lots of them, directly giving them what they want would cause them to go on a rampage and kill people. Or in Fragments' case, make people go insane and kill themselves." "But recently, we got a way to directly interface with the 'stories' that make them up to stabilize them. Fragments of the Universe, O-03-60, is the idea of an alien creature that wants to make humanity happy but doesn't know how, and it and I have always got along. Those crystals, actually, are just snacks for it because I like them."
Petra Soroka	"Doctor Maricel Thorne if you like me, or just Maricel if you don't, or Doc Thorne if you want to make me sound scary." "Oh, uh--" Someone listing out the ways you can address them based on how much you like them would normally be pretty awesome, but Petra's nerves around Maricel-- who she's never met in person!-- make the task of choosing one very scary. They are, of course, standing on an island where Petra committed some very unappealing actions to a Watch perspective, and Petra did kind of abandon and sabotage the Watch for a while, but Maricel herself has never really held a grudge for that, and in fact has not only been very helpful to Petra on multiple occasions, but phrases things in a way that Petra understands and likes. So, after a sweaty hesitation, "Hi, um, Doctor Maricel. Thorne. Also good to meet you in person, finally." "Oh, you needn't scold, Pet-ra; I know how they are at that age." This is actually the exact correct way to interact with and talk about Fragments, in Petra's opinion. She's never been vulnerable to the insanity-inducing screams it makes, so she kind of just thinks of it as a very emotionally intelligent dog. "Actually! That's specifically what its training regimine was about. Uh, overeagerness with making noises that hurt people, and not understanding why, is sort of its main problem. If it gets too excited by new faces and starts messing that up, then it wouldn't be safe to introduce it to people." She pets the back of its weird pencil-line abdomen, and the crayon hearts shift around on its surface. "I used to bring the radio into its cell sometimes, specifically to get it used to that. Didn't work well, though." "Have you thought about becoming less, ahhh... appetizing?" "I can't," Petra says solemnly.
Swords of Justice	While Shirou didn't get a direct invitation from Petra, there's a general Paladin invitation along with Lissandra to join and visit. If he were to believe some people's reaction to her, or her declaration that she was a supervillain, he'd assume it was some sort of trap, or at the very least he'd have an unpleasant time. Despite all that, though, she seems nice enough? Sure, she's exasperated him a bit, but that just seems to be how people like to treat him, and unfortunately he can't get an answer as to why, even from his closest friends. It's also as good an excuse as any to learn more about... Well, a lot of things regarding the Multiverse. He's still pretty green, and getting out there is the best way to absorb information. Taking the ship to Petra's lair since he doesn't have any other option, he arrives dressed in a raglan sleeve shirt with a black and white tracksuit jacket thrown over it. He'd have worn the suit he got for potential future butler duties, given that he felt he should've worn something more formal, but Medusa talked him out of it. She's also here, dressed in the same outfit as always, though unlike Shirou who is interested in looking at the sights, her attention seems to only be focused on Petra and the group. 'Heyo. Welcome to my lair.' "Thank you for having us." Shirou bows as he says this, while Medusa just silently nods at her. As they're brought inside the classroom, Shirou tenses at the sound of the screech, his hands grasping the handle of a currently nonexistent weapon until he realizes it's not an enemy, at which point he just visibly deflates and says nothing out of embarrassment. Medusa, meanwhile, is rather unfazed, though one of her hands is currently grabbing onto Shirou's jacket, ready to yank him back if he actually did freak out. There's a lot of terms and words that fly over both of their heads as Fox explains things. Which raises a lot of questions, but they should probably just stick to asking one for now to be polite. "Abnormalities are what you call monsters where you're from, I take it? Or are they something more than that?"
Lilian Rook	Lilian, secretly (not really), happens to be a study of anomalous biology as well. In fact, even the kind that isn't just humans. It's come up all of once in the past two years outside of her work, but it was part of her mandatory officer training for years to attend lectures and dissections regarding Antegent physiology; though in that case it was to learn how to make educated guesses on how to kill them, not how to help anyone in particular. She wears this fact like a smug little secret the whole way in, terribly pleased with herself that she already knows 'a thing or two' on the subject. It completely escapes her that her more substantial classroom hours at Nova Heliosanctus definitely count as 'anomalous' biology according to literally anyone in the City and also probably most people here. Because that's just magical biology, and that'd be silly. 'Heyo. Welcome to my lair.' "It looks like one of those little games that Nika and Strawberry play." says Lilian, who also plays those games every so often, and is thus a fraud. "What fond memories, though. You've really improved the place." she adds, staring at the colusseum on purpose and smiling to herself. Of course, it only looks like she's being smug about the demise of Quicknest; the reality is that she hasn't spared a thought for what it used to be or where Petra got this place from at all. Happily bounce-walking alongside Tamamo on what is both an Outing and also a social call with a new Elite she actually likes and also Petra and Tamamo getting along, one could forgive her for not really remembering anything, up until she hears the horrid little janky screech, and snaps her fingers, saying, "Secrets-- no, ah, Fragments! Fragments of the Universe!" She points at the funny scribble horror like she's absolutely thrilled to see some kind of seldom-available confectionary fully stocked at a bakery counter. So she remembers that. The person who might be offended may also be getting off lucky though, since Lilian doesn't seem to notice Kale's verbal highway swerve at all. 'Have you been spending time in your homeland, Mr. Hearthward, or was it elsewhere?' "Who knows. But it's sort of nice to see him all the same, right?" Lilian says, shrugging Tamamo's way, like he isn't there. "Seeing the old guard come out for this sort of thing has a pleasant vibe." So he's 'the old guard' now? 'And you must be Ms. Lissandra. My dear Lilian has mentioned you.' One can almost hear the subvocalized 'hmmhmm!'. Almost. '"I took my best guess and thought you might appreciate an herbal tea.' "Oh well aren't you a studious one." Lilian says, sarcastic-worded yet approving-toned. Her fingertips hover politely near her lips, but her eyes don't widen to match. "Oh you're making my job very easy for me!" Rather, Tamamo is making Lissandra's job very easy; the dialogue option she's picking has a difficulty score of 'trivial'. 'I believe it's, ahhh... brilliant sociological commentary' Maricel Thorne's voice isn't one that sets Lilian on edge, but it is one that makes her sit up and pay attention. She considers herself part of a 'generation' that still considers the concept of factional leadership to be eminently meaningful, even if it hasn't resulted in a brushfire micro-war in a while, so she clearly gives that whole statement a second and third consideration she wouldn't give if it came from someone else. "You know, now that I think about it . . ." She begins, but doesn't finish. She narrows her eyes a little. She's can so easily imagine a convincing argument in that idea's favour, actually. "Though by that account, you could stretch to say that Petra's entire stint in villainy is a sociological commentary as well."
Angela	''So is this... pure research, or are you trying to develop something out of it?'' "Mm, not trying to make EGO Gear if that's what you're asking. But I wouldn't say it's learning just for the sake of learning. Maybe it'll come in handy sometime. Haschen teaches other stuff besides Anomaly-related junk--trying to get clerks and other ex-agents skills so they can find other jobs and other things to do. But I figured you're not interested in that sort of stuff.")] His eyes slant towards Lissandra's holster dully but he doesn't comment on it, instead looking back up towards Lissandra's eyes. "Because we do not need to harvest Enkephalin anymore--frankly we couldn't even if we wanted to--the Abnormalities are a lot safer to deal with. But that doesn't mean they're safe. Think of it as like moving from taking care of tigers who were occassionally prodded with sharp sticks to just taking care of normal tigers. Respect still required. Fragments and Happy Teddy Bear, who we'll be seeing, are some of the safer Abnormalities but--again--that doesn't mean safe. The Library is trying to shift their nature, but here we're about adapting with their nature. Clerks and Info Team types tend to be a little more cavalier about their own safety.")] He looks towards Kathy. "Really, you don't gotta try so hard. There's no time limits anymore, we can take things slow." ''A pleasure to meet you.'' "...Sure. Everyone knows you, Miss Tamamo, you made many a tour of the facility, talking to Miss Angela 'bout this and that, helping with Gebura. You saved a lot of lives ... And you changed Abnormalities. This place wouldn't even be here if not for what you did for Love and Justice." He grimaces a little at saying 'for Love and Justice' because it still feels a little silly for him to say it like that even when he's just using their names. ''Have you thought about becoming less, ahhh... appetizing?'' "I thought about it." Fox says. "But if I became less appetizing just to survive, could I really call that life?" He stares at Maricel for a moment. Not, like, rudely, he just seems to be a slow-paced guy. "Also that would only help any other Foxes, I'd still be chomped up before it realized I tasted bad. Maybe it'd spit me out eventually?" He does smile a little when Petra actually agrees with him that there's no time limit, but it's gone quickly. He's naturally sullen--not quite pouty, just grim. Kathy for her own part does look suitably chastized, pushing up her shoulders. "Sorry... I just get excited..." ''The technical term is 'Qlippoth deterrance'.'' "Been a while since we used that term outside of internal memos." Fox not-quite mumbles. "Yeah, the more the Qlippoth deterrance, the more passive and chill Abnormalities tend to be. The old system had the lower the number, the more likely a breakout." He nods along with the added explanation that there's a ton of other Abnormalities in the City now and, frankly, even before ''Abnormalities'' there were still the occassional weird fucking monster bullshit to deal with in the City and outside of it. They just aren't quite the same.
Angela	Fox leads the group to Haschen who is in the process of teaching another clerk (Petra knows them as Elliot) what looks like to be sewing. And the subject of whom they are sewing together seems to be the Happy Teddy Bear itself! And the Happy Teddy Bear is, well, a truly large--about two or three times the size of an agent--stuffed bear. "No no no, you should use a ladder stitch--come on, just like I touched you. And be tender, we're trying to get Happy Teddy Bear to accept forms of affection that aren't crushing death, okay. Maybe kiss the 'booboo' after, it's like a child, okay?" Haschen turns to snap a salute to everyone. "Ah! Boss!" Haschen beams. "Sorry I was a little slow, you got here fast--I wanted to try and finish this up before you got here so you could get giant teddy bear hugs that, um, we found after we fixed Mr. Bear up would leave bones intact!" ''Abnormalities are what you call monsters where you're from, I take it?'' "'Monster' isn't a technical term. Typically when people of the City refer to monsters, they're speaking of the monsters of the Outskirts and Ruins who actively hunt humans down and kill them. Abnormalities are fundamentally human--they were drawn directly from humans. Just, well, 'Abnormal'. But Petra was in the Extraction Team, she'd be better at explaining what they did down there than I ever could." He bobs his head to Lilian and agrees with her last point. "Yeah probably. Not my field though and she's been good to us."
Tamamo	'I took my best guess and thought you might appreciate an herbal tea.' "Oh, how thoughtful! And yet, how unfortunate that I have not brought gifts of my own, today. I expect not a long engagement, with time for a picnic, or else I should have brought one. Ah, you said that you grew it yourself, yes? I shall be sure to try this, later on." It's a pleasure to meet you. "And you, as well." Tamamo's all gentle smiles. Her grip, when shaking hands, is also gentle, though that's for other reasons. She will probably never take to it with the attitude some hold. There is an implication that she'll give Lissandra a meeting-gift in return, but that might only be obvious to Tamamo. 'Um. She'd just been kidnapped by Parsons right before that, so I mostly just fed her and then put her back.' Now, if Tamamo were to give Petra a 'gentle smile,' it would hold a wholly different implication. "Do you suppose there was no rescue forthcoming? I understand that to be what kidnapping..." Tamamo tilts her head, gaze sliding upward in thought. "...No, one could hardly put 'a captain' in place of 'a princess.' Still, I feel as if the Timekeeper could be convinced to pay a ransom for her. I have that sense of... a sense of 'responsibility' about the role being taken." A bit after, "Incidentally, why was Mr. Parsons kidnapping people? I would not have guessed such from him." She's only been hearing about that Incident piece-meal.
Lilian Rook	'A poor craftsman blames xyr tools' Lilian is saved from thinking about this point by recoiling as if she'd just touched something unexpectedly cold and wet. 'I'd like to suggest real caution around Meat Lantern since while we have found alternative food sources, we haven't really trained it off of eating humans that get too close.' 'Ahhh. Have you thought about becoming less, ahhh... appetizing?' "Well, we can always found out if he's learned his lesson." Lilian scoffs, referencing something that only Petra here would even know about, and unconsciously assigning he/him pronouns to an object of mistrust and enmity. 'Okay, like-- yeah, I haven't been shooting any death lasers down from the sky lately, so sue me. I've still got the death laser.' "Everyone complains when you do something bad, then they tease you for turning soft when you stop. There's really no winning." Lilian says, eyes shut, shrugging and aloofly superior. "The worst thing you can do is act like it gets to you." Maybe she shouldn't be giving that particular advice under these particular auspices at this particular place. 'I-- I did kidnap Regulus recently.' "Oh my god that actually worked?" Lilian opens her eyes very quickly, staring Petra's way with something more subdued than 'giddy anticipation'. "With the predictive algorithm and everything? Seriously? Please say yes." 'Literally like one of those Japanese soldiers that kept fighting World War II for decades after it ended. We're not rushing for time, or anything.' "Far dumber. Those men at least had some sort of conviction driving them." 'uh... well, the technical term is 'Qlippoth deterrance', but you can just think of it as not being emotionally reset and super violent anymore.' "Who among us . . ." Lilian quietly mutters.
Angela	''Oh my god that actually worked?'' "Could just see her getting dunked into the water again and again from here." Fox quips, though probably not that seriously right?
Kale Hearthward	> Have you been spending time in your homeland, Mr. Hearthward, or was it elsewhere? "Elsewhere, setting up some things that were more time intensive than I thought," he says, evasively. "You know. Legacy stuff," he says, as if those two words equate to an entire explanation. > Seeing the old guard come out for this sort of thing has a pleasant vibe "I'm like, the wise* old veteran type everyone looks up to, now," he says, even if none of that was spoken directly towards him. > villagized by its proximity to the village? The parasitic externalities of a pastoral suburbia... Kale frowns a little bit. "N-no? Towns and cities and villages are just places. You're making them sound like they're draining the health away from things that they're near," he says. "Whereas in actuality they're almost always improving the area, and any examples to the contrary are just outliers." > Doctor Maricel Thorne "Oh." He clears his throat, and stands up a bit straighter. "Chevalier Kale Hearthward, Paladins Search and Rescue," he says, matching Maricel's limp handshake with a firm one. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Doctor Thorne." He cannot not posture a little bit, though, even if it's not the time nor the place for it. It's like asking the tide to not go out. "Think this is the year the Watch finally surrenders, Doctor Thorne?" Well, it's the same Fragments- Kale doesn't wait for Petra to finish before he tries to pet Fragments.
Lissandra	"Oh, so we're all doing handshakes, okay." Lissandra says acquiescingly, getting Petra and Tamamo and probably Maricel all in a row with her gentle grip, after habitually wiping her hand on a small cloth from her bag. It was already clean, but oh well. "And it's a pleasure to meet you as well, Doctor Maricel Thorne." She used the emphasis! "I hope you'll forgive me for truncating it now and then, with the understanding that one thing means the other in spirit." She has a humorful little smirk on her face, but she really does kind of hope she doesn't have to do the full name and title thing every time. Also, she basically non-reacts to the bad-taste injection offer; she won't say it aloud, but she has the aura of someone offered leftovers when their fridge is quite full already. When Lilian comments on her gift, Lissandra flips her hair a little bit further from her eyes and shrugs her shoulders. "My reserve of gift options is a little limited, but when the opportunity arises... You know?" "Death laser?" she mutters vaguely toward Petra, unfamiliar with even the barest basics of the children's cartoon world, let alone science fiction of that sort. "That's... Ideal, isn't it? Not to fire the lasers, and I suppose also not to feel a need to fire any lasers. For what it's worth, the residential constuction here is at least charming." She tactfully but noticably choses not to comment on kidnappings; she doesn't know a Regulus yet, and frankly it seems like asking would just complicate what she's really here for. Priorities, folks! Tragically, Lissandra's bag only opens so far; she can't really keep much bigger than a stool in its displaced space, but she does offer in passing, "I know a man and his wife whose profession is carpentry, if you would like to make any particular requests. Our world hasn't adopted multiversal currencies and values, so it should be affordable after the conversion." In other words, she knows some underprivileged folks who would just be happy to get work and don't know what their labor is worth. Talking about Fragments and the abnormality research in general siphons up all her attention again pretty quick, though. She's slightly surprised when one of the little crystals is tossed to her, and rather than trying to snatch it out of the air she just steps in front of it to let it bump her chest and fall into her cupped hand. She shifts it to the other hand and comfortably slides her wand from its 'holster', flipping it from a backward grip to a proper one and swishing it in three sharp strokes near the crystal to check it for magic. This doesn't keep her from paying attention though! "Psychic, again. I had wondered. Power drawn from someone's mind and sense of self, that helps explain this little darling's curious appearance." She is, of course, speaking about Fragments, despite it being bigger than she is. She's less afraid of it than she would be of a bear, but maybe that's a deliberate effort to avoid agitating it too? "From what I recall, that fellow Marc was comfortable comparing what I said about Wild Arcana events to psychic manifestation. Framed against that, a sort of... Disembodied expression of belief or trauma, that seems to be about where I would slot creatures like this into my understanding. Not altogether different from a spirit in principle, even, but less predictable." She turns her wand over and swirls it in tiny circles, like she's wrapping a string around the tip; the crystal Petra gave her floats up like it's being lifted by a pulley, until it's comfortably at Fragments' height. "The 'stories' interest me, as do whatever manner of eggs you speak of- I'm going to callously assume these creatures cannot typically reproduce, and the egg is more of a pupae in a practical sense?"
Lissandra	Lissandra has to pause to process what Petra says about her relationship with Fragments and the crystals separately though. "... Do you just like them, or do you also eat them? I'm not sure if this is a relationship where it mimics your diet, or simply enjoys what you enjoy, but differently."
Tamamo	After greeting Emiya Shirou... 'Or are they something more than that?' "All of those for which I have both encountered them, and have learned something of their origins, originate in 'stories.' This sets them apart from what most worlds call 'monsters.' Firstly, a manifestation of a legend... or of a bedside children's tale... is like to be unique. There need only be one, even if a story is something that may change with each telling." Turning from Shirou to Petra, "Is it not so? I have not heard mention of several of the same title, yet perhaps...?" 'Half of it's Nika's-- er, a friend's advice anyways.' 'It looks like one of those little games that Nika and Strawberry play.' "Oh, so it is," says Tamamo, who has also played those games in her efforts to let Nika comfortably socialize, but couldn't at all place the obstacle course portions. 'But it's sort of nice to see him all the same, right?' "Oh, naturally!" And it certainly has been some time since their first meeting. 'This place wouldn't even be here if not for what you did for Love and Justice.' He grimaces a little. Tamamo, who does everything for love, says, "I merely responded to the wishes of a few girls in need... at first. After that, I admit, I did take a personal interest in seeing what might be done to help them change... that is, to change just enough that they might live among humanity." There's a few reasons she might be especially interested in that, should one not be satisfied in guessing that it's merely high-effort compassion. 'Also that would only help any other Foxes, I'd still be...' "'Other foxes'... is it?" '...crushing death...' '...leave bones intact!' Tamamo takes Lilians arm for long enough to lean in and whisper, "I knew it!" She won't be fooled by names chosen in the City.
Tamamo	'You know. Legacy stuff.' "Ah, yes, I see," Tamamo says, as if she does. "Already thinking of it, are you?" Need for an explanation completely evaded, surely. 'That's... Ideal, isn't it? Not to fire the lasers, and I suppose also not to feel a need to fire any lasers.' "Yes, one would think so!" says Tamamo, in the tone of 'Finally, a sane person!' "And yet, Ms. Soroka insists on being a supervillain. She even studied under a doctor of robotics whose most consistently displayed character trait was a hatred of animals." She'd tried to be nice about it at the time, so long as there wasn't an immiment murder risk, but Eggman had been pretty rude to Tamamo, so she doesn't feel too much politeness owed. "At least that didn't rub off on her to her such a degree." 'Not altogether different from a spirit in principle, even, but less predictable.' Tamamo seems about to say something, and visibly shifts to instead ask, "Are the spirits of your familiarity largely 'predictable' or 'unpredictable,' would you say?"
Maricel Thorne	"I hope you'll forgive me for truncating it now and then" "Oh, of course, of course, Doctor Lissandra," Maricel says, nodding agreeably enough to jostle her glasses a little. She doesn't seem to notice they're crooked. "It's the, ahhh... the ectoform of the thing, isn't it? The spirit? Whatever you call me, it'll fit some piece of me or other." Her hand feels weird. Not bad; just a little off-textured, maybe a couple bones short. "Towns and cities and villages are just places..." "Oh, no, no. In a sense, urbanization creates the poor," Maricel says with a little schoolteacherly click of her tongue. "Ahhh, not that I'm not fond of cities... they're a viiiiital stage, in most lifeway-progressions. But can a city grow its own food? What are its relations with the agrarians that feed it? Are they richer, or poorer, than be-fore the city was built?" "Petra's entire stint in villainy is a sociological commentary as well." "It wouldn't conprise me. She has always been a smart girl," says Maricel, adjusting her glasses by the corner and casting one more glance back out of the clinic. "Even that this place is in the sky, divorced from its agrarian periphery... ahhh, it's quite incisive." "Think this is the year the Watch finally surrenders, Doctor Thorne?" Maricel's slightly-miseased lopsided smile falls off as her fingers slip from Kale's grasp. "Now, now, young man," Doctor Maricel Thorne says, looking like he's just said something terribly cringe at Thanksgiving, "must you get political?" - - - - What does Maricel think of Petra's betrayal of the Watch? Maricel does know, and yet it almost seems like she doesn't think of it at all. If she just felt magnanimous or 'patient', surely she'd make a bigger deal of it. Is that just... somehow, not her business? "Also good to meet you in person, finally." "Of course. A pity I never got you in my office," says Maricel, "but this is nearly as delightful." A beat passes as she offers her hand to Fragments to get acquainted with her scent (stale blood; bleach; actually just kind of exactly the same as LobCorp). "... Ahhh, in a doctorly capacity, I mean. Not an organizational one." Another slightly-awkward beat. Her smile doesn't falter. "Your, ahhh, problems, have always seemed so... fascinating." She's really a bit like talking to an older relative. "if I became less appetizing just to survive, could I really call that life?" "I can't," Petra says solemnly. "No, no, I suppose not," Maricel says to both Fox and Petra, with a knowing-sympathetic click of her tongue and shake of her head. She's possibly thinking of them like cleanerfish, now. Or mouth-brooding frogs. Or fruit.
Petra Soroka	"It looks like one of those little games that Nika and Strawberry play." Petra awkwardly coughs into her fist. "They're, um. Surprisingly good for visualizing the layout of stuff before actually hiring people to build it all. Nika's even got a little house here too." "With the predictive algorithm and everything? Seriously? Please say yes." "It did!!!!" Petra is gleefully excited to confirm this, because she's sooo happy to be able to say "yes" when Lilian instructs her to. "I lost contact with the ratcube for a week, and I thought it was totally bust, but it was just because of Parsons' nonsense blocking the signals. Apparently it worked well enough that, just, the moment the radio storm was cleared up, it nabbed her all on its own." "Do you suppose there was no rescue forthcoming?" "Oh, maybe! But, uh, it seemed... cruel...?" Petra points in the direction of the obstacle course floating on one of the periphery islands, then leans to peek out the window and double check that she's pointing in the right direction. "Like, she was so beat up and tired that she was actually willing to do whatever I asked in order to get some hot food. So there wasn't any point in forcing her to." "And, I don't think he was kidnapping people on purpose. He just had one of his stupid projects go wrong again, and a bunch of people were stuck fixing it for him. I only know some of the details, but it apparently shut down the whole Motherlobe for a week straight." "Well, we can always found out if he's learned his lesson." Of course, it was Petra who sicced Meat Lantern on Lilian before, but of her many mistakes during the war, that wasn't one of them. "It's almost a shame that that part couldn't have been in the video you made. The Fixer powerscaler communities would've lost their minds. You're so cinematic." "I'm like, the wise* old veteran type everyone looks up to, now," Everyone who was around when Petra showed up is 'old guard' to her, and everyone who came around after is new and inexperienced. This makes Kale very much 'old guard' in her opinion, but because he said it like that, she has to interject and make fun of him. "Well, you are old. Your nieces and nephews are over a year old at this point, aren't they?" Petra squints. "What the hell is legacy stuff? You don't mean.... Gross." "I know a man and his wife whose profession is carpentry, if you would like to make any particular requests." When Petra realizes she's the one being spoken to, it still takes her a few seconds to process what Lissandra means by that. She looks around at the classroom, which is filled with a mismatched set of desks and chairs of different colors that all have the Lobotomy Corporation insignia on them, and then looks upwards through the floor at all the apartments above. "Oh, I-- like, to commission furniture? I never thought about that. Furniture is just, like, something that happens. You can find it anywhere, or people give it to you. Though, maybe I'll do that if someone asks for something specific." "From what I recall, that fellow Marc was comfortable comparing what I said about Wild Arcana events to psychic manifestation." "Marc Heller you mean, right? I'd, uh-- trust his opinion on that, yeah. These guys are..." The Abnormalities, she means. "Kind of like psychic 'byproducts' almost, I'd say. They're only psychically sensitive in really specific ways, and they're... actually very predictable for the most part."
Petra Soroka	"Sorry I was a little slow, you got here fast--I wanted to try and finish this up before you got here so you could get giant teddy bear hugs that, um, we found after we fixed Mr. Bear up would leave bones intact!" In the next office, Petra looks past Elliot to observe the stitching on Happy Teddy Bear. Through Angela's memories, she knows exactly every single stitch that was originally on the Abnormality, so it's easy to pick out what her own employees have been adding. "I feel like we'd wanna wear Safety suits even if you got finished before we were here. It'd be so embarrassing if Lissandra or Dr. Thorne had to set someone's broken bones because of a slip-up."
Maricel Thorne	"It'd be so embarrassing if Lissandra or Dr. Thorne had to set someone's broken--" Maricel twists around and leans by Petra's shoulder, glasses catching the light. "Pardon? Whose broken bones?" she says, perhaps a bit too brightly. Only then does her auditory processing filter the rest of the context. Frowning: "Ah."
Petra Soroka	"The 'stories' interest me, as do whatever manner of eggs you speak of- I'm going to callously assume these creatures cannot typically reproduce, and the egg is more of a pupae in a practical sense?" "You're right, yeah! Uh, the ones that do reproduce are usually really scary, and they're more like 'duplications' or 'infections', anyways." Petra chews her lip and looks down at the Happy Teddy Bear, hand drifting towards her pendant like she's considering drawing a gun. "Mm, it's sort of a shame I can't show you it right now." "Oh! Wait." Instead, her hand falls down to her waist, unclapsing a bottle full of mercury-like fluid. The morphmetal flows out, darting towards the projector that Fox had been using until the group walked in. With a staticky hiss, it flicks on again, putting the presentation Fox was running about the eggs back up against the wall. Without any input from Petra while she walks over, it rapidly flickers backwards through the slides, until it gets to a cartoonishly animated video from Lobotomy Corporation's own Training archives. The video starts with an egg hatching inside a containment cell, releasing a scary steam engine golem holding an axe. A cheery-looking nugget walks into the room, and immediately the Warm Hearted Woodsman loses it, scoops them up and shoves them inside their chest, and starts rampaging through the halls of the facility. "So, Abnormalities would periodically breach, almost always for a reason that was avoidable, but sometimes not. For most of them, the only way to get them back into the cell is to beat them to death, but it'd be totally impractical to have to re-extract them every time they breached." The cartoon shows a whole bunch of agents swarming the Woodsman and beating on it with silly little weapons. Eventually they succeed, and it reverts back into a weird egg, which poofs away a few seconds later back into the cell. "But instead, they do that. Limitlessly, even. They never remember what happens before being suppressed, but Abnormalities back before had terrible memories anyways, so it's hard to be completely sure that their resurrection process wipes their memories or not. We haven't experimented much with it, because that's kind of fucked up, but I guessed that it'd be the most interesting aspect of them to you."
Tamamo	'And, I don't think he was kidnapping people on purpose. He just had one of his stupid projects go wrong again...' Tamamo blinks, and silently adjust her internal impressions of Flamel. "I see... so, that is how it is..." 'It's almost a shame that that part couldn't have been in the video you made.' "'Video'?" Tamamo looks toward Lilian for this one. Of the things they often talk about, horrible experiences Lilian wants to spare Tamamo from sharing are, naturally, rarely among them. 'Furniture is just, like, something that happens.' Tamamo gives Petra a look that has the distinct energy of resting her chin on her hand and saying 'fascinating.' Or, perhaps, that of observing a weirdly colorful bug, if Tamamo could be assumed to be the type to sit and watch such things.
Angela	''Whose profession is carpentry.'' "If any of our people want to learn carpentry? We probably can handle that." Fox says to Lissandra then pauses at her question. "No, they totally can reproduce. Though it isn't a typical reproduction, usually. What they'll try to do is overwrite a person's story with their own, becoming a sympathetic element to them. That's technically what's going on when our EGO Gear corrodes, their 'story' is starting to overtake us. That's why there can be longterm consequences for excessive corrosion up to and including death. There haven't been that many instances of stuff like that thanks to the chief here." He bobs his head towards Petra. "But it was a lot more common in our other faciltiies." And, as Petra knows, other loops. "I'd love ot show you the eggs but uh--they only show up when the Abnormalities are 'killed', and--we don't really do that here unless we have to. If you're interested in those 'stories', though--pay a visit to the Library. I'm sure Angela would be willing to accomodate you. I could talk about their composition of course, but no hands-on examples." ''I merely responded to the wishes of a few girls in need.'' "...Could think of a few humans who could use your help too." Fox quips. Then he pauses. "...Sorry. Capital F Foxes. My name's Fox, but I'm not ''a'' fox." He does not react to Maricel's understanding that a less appetizing Petra (or Fox) is just not life. ''They're actually very predictable.'' "..." Fox stares at Petra for a moment. "...They're predictable once you learn their rules." He is compelled to correct slightly. "We had a whole system, but most agent deaths happen when the rules are still being figured out." ''I feel like we'd wanna wear safety suits--'' "Oh! Angela allowed us to have some TETH EGO Gear for that purpose! Of course, without some prior evaluation, it would be dangerous to offer anything of a higher grade--" Elliot finishes their work and gives the teddy bear a little kis on the paw before stepping away. "Don't worry, I'll be back tomorrow." They promise, bobbing their head to Lilian and Petra before moving on. ''Petra shows an old training video!'' "Oh shit you still have that." Haschen beams happily. "I helped Miss Hod with voice acting for the screams! My throat was sore for a whole day after!" ''Abnormalities back before had terrible memories anyway.'' "Living stories are a bit stubborn, I guess, ehe!" Haschen smiles. "If we're not going for hugs, we should move on to Meat Lantern." Fox adds laconically.
Kale Hearthward	> What are its relations with the agrarians that feed it? Are they richer, or poorer, than be-fore the city was built? "Well obviously they're richer, because who'd they be selling to, if not the city?" says Kale, though his voice lacks a little bit of surety in that way that suggests he's maybe reconsidering his answer as he says it but also isn't about to change it now that it's been said. > must you get political? See, this is how you trip up Kale, by not taking his bait, and I know it's maybe kind of gauche to slip into first person when writing a pose but now that I write that out it seems kind of obvious, so maybe I shouldn't have bothered pointing it out? Anyway, it works. "... Ah." He deflates, and he's not looking towards Maricel quite so much for right now. > Your nieces and nephews are over a year old at this point, aren't they? "I have more photos of them now! My brother finally learned how to use a camera phone, and he's been sending me stuff." He reaches for his pocket, but Petra is spared seeing dozens more photos of ugly baby birdpeople by what she says next. > You don't mean.... Gross. "... What? No!" exclaims Kale. "Ew. I'm not into girls, remember?" but it'd be totally impractical to have to re-extract them every time they breached. "So is that egg thing... by design? Something intentionally put in there when they got extracted?"
Swords of Justice	'Okay, like-- yeah, I haven't been shooting any death lasers down from the sky lately, so sue me.' Shirou lets out a nervous laugh at that, lying to himself by just assuming she's joking about having those sorts of things. He's really good at believing the lies he tells to himself like that, especially when he clothesline the multiple voices of reason in his head into the dirt. 'I'm like, the wise* old veteran type everyone looks up to, now' "Ah? You're a veteran? Thank you for your service... Mr. Hearthward, was it?" Shirou's painfully earnest with his thanks, having taken Kale's joke perhaps a bit too seriously. Medusa just sighs. 'Abnormalities are fundamentally human--they were drawn directly from humans.' All of those for which I have both encountered them, and have learned something of their origins, originate in 'stories.' "Huh. I guess that means they come in a lot of different forms..." As he thanks Fox for the explanation and greets Tamamo back, a question comes to Shirou's mind with the information he'd been given. If they're drawn from human stories, does that mean there are Abnormalities that are based on superheroes? He doesn't ask that, of course. While he isn't ashamed of his dream and will gladly admit he wants to be one, he's smart enough to know that asking a question like that is rather childish. Maybe if he was three years younger and dumber, though... Petra plays the old training video and goes over the old procedures for how they used to contain and frowns incredibly deeply. He doesn't know what to say, but thankfully, Medusa does. "That's horrifying."
Lissandra	Maricel probably notices during the handshake when Lissandra curiously presses a couple of spots on the back of their hand with her thumb, like she's actively counting the bones. "Ecto..? Ah, I see what you mean." She spends a few moments scribbling into a notepad after slotting her wand away again (either ignoring or not noticing the look at her wand-holster), taking down some shorthand references for various capitalized nouns she's hearing. "Enkephalin? Is that some kind of byproduct of the Abnormalities' lifecycle? Well, it sounds like perhaps only in certain conditions... Perhaps is it closer to a stress hormone? Does it serve any purpose to the Abnormalities themselves? And this 'Qlippoth', if the change in its rating scale is associated with the change in your handling procedures for these beings, does it refer to some kind of failure state in their handling? It's a little hard for me to intuit another meaning, given I'm not familiar with the term elsewise." It seems she's going to be as nosy as she can get away with for right now, but she also bounces onto other subjects without much delay. The praise aimed at Tamamo is pursued by Lissandra's pleasantly-impressed glance and a little hum, and then she's right onto paying attention to Happy Teddy Bear! The name is... Illustrative! The stitching treatment, alongside Fox's elaborations, are clearly gobbling up lots of her focus almost immediately. It's very useful to her understanding, and she processes it through the medium of her own notes the entire time she's talking and walking. "So the medium of fabric is more than just a representative element. You socially acclimate them to reduce the threat of habitual or instinctive behaviors. Bone breaking... I suppose the ability to conjure that much force from stuffing and cloth must be owed to a psychic ability. Through the lens of a 'story'... Does the bear belong to a cautionary tale, about say... Theft, or mistreatment of belongings? Or perhaps is it associated with the idea of an object obtaining significance through the obsession of the owner?" She looks like she knows that she should just ask properly, but it's... Kind of fun to guess. It's like a little quiz, to see if she's developing the proper lens to view this new field through. "... If you mend damage to the body with stitches, will it 'heal' over time like a human body? Or are the stitched portions more or less a form of scar?" But, she's probably being a little overwhelming just rattling off all these questions without looking at anyone but the bear. Eventually, after she's scribbled all her thoughts to paper enough not to lose track of anything, she un-scrunches her neck and straightens back up, lowering her notepad to look over at Tamamo again. The talk about a certain roboticist leaves Lissandra strangely blank-eyed for a moment. "Mm... I suppose it's the privilege of the skilled teacher to be something of a..." She has to fish for a word that feels both insulting and sufficiently polite. "Character. It's rather unfortunate if he lived with such an unsympathetic bias. Maybe he grew up in a place with only pest-creatures..?" She can't really find a desire to pity an animal-hater very much though, and swerves more comfortably to the topic of spirits when asked.
Lissandra	So, Lissandra tries to summarize for Tamamo's benefit. "Well, it depends on whether we are speaking socially, or materially. In a material sense, the physical body of a spirit is at least quite predictable. They evoke a particular magical attribute, usually with some connection to their environment, less often with a connection to a specific event. Most don't express distinct physical features, at least not down to the level of a recognizable nose or pair of eyes. Socially... Well, it's much harder to predict. Many spirits are willing to create contracts with humanity, but even those that do may have completely unique feelings about the world, the people living in it, and even their own nature. There are some trends in... Say, water and earth spirits, of being willing to dwell in human society un-contracted. But, the older the spirit, the harder they are to sway. And for especially young spirits, they can change their mind so quickly that it's often dangerous to live near them without a contract." But then Petra shifts from talking about inside-lore back to stuff Lissandra can tune into- really, it kind of seems like she just automatically shifts into a politely-distracted mental posture when people are getting remincisce-y around her. Well, unless she hears something really funny. "Set their bones? Well, better than the alternatives I suppose, but I did come here hoping to study and pick people's brains and not so much to do triage." She blinks, and glances at Maricel, noting "Not literally." with a Tone like she's gently teasing. She's momentarily distracted by the Morphmetal too and doesn't notice what she's doing with it initially, but she regretfully stows the questions she wants to ask for now; if she just jabbers on about everything that catches her eye, she won't get the answers to the most important stuff! For now, she has a presentation to absorb. "So they revert to a neutral state, erasing the factors that lead to the inviability of their body's present state, and then begin life again from a predetermined point?" She takes the assumption of interest in stride, though having it follow directly after 'that's kind of fucked up' does provoke a small hesitation. "Well, it's... Certainly interesting. The process resembles the concept of Chronomantic Reversion, if I were to compare it to a more familiar subject. But it seems unlikely that every single Abnormality would have that level of proficiency over time of all things, that'd be an absurd hurdle to meet as a bare standard. Most of all, I'm curious what regulates the 'base state' that they return to during their regenerative process... Just to rule it out, the Abnormalities arose at different times, in different circumstances, correct? They were not all created at once?" She's not looking at Petra when she asks that, and with the side of her hand pressed to her jaw thoughtfully, she's slowly tapping the side of her pen against the tip of her nose just to fidget while she thinks. Fox elaborates more for her! Yay! Who cares about furniture, she has nerd stuff to think about. "Corrosion? Not corruption? Well, it sounds equivalent at the surface level. That's fascinating though, that they may have not just the capacity but the wish to spread their own... Existential template, in that way. What do you mean 'usually', though? ... Are there abnormalities whose stories involve biological reproduction then? That's peculiar."
Lilian Rook	'I'm like, the wise old veteran type everyone looks up to, now' "They could at least stand to listen to you talk." says Lilian, reversing on her five year old stance on Kale Words. "The fact is that, despite appearances, and despite how it's affected the trajectory of your life, you've stuck it out this long." She seems about to leave it at that, and then experiences a rare moment of emapthic thinking about her own words. "Not in a Sundew way, to be clear." 'My reserve of gift options is a little limited, but when the opportunity arises... You know?' "Naturally." Lilian says, whose suspicion meter had crackled a little at 'one thing means the other' and then died back down again. "It's a pleasure to see you taking to this sort of thing so quickly. You strike me as the sort who is rather used to learning opportunities being inconvenient and . . ." Really bizarre and confusing and set in a completely different context with huge mental overhead? ". . . out of your way." 'This place wouldn't even be here if not for what you did for Love and Justice.' 'I merely responded to the wishes of a few girls in need...' "There's no greater form of love and justice in this world than helping girls in need." Lilian says, smiling in a way that is just self-satisfied enough to be doing it to Fox on purpose, and incidentally not beating the magical girl allegations. 'I knew it!' Making a soft sound at being grabbed, Lilian turns her ear to Tamamo's whispered words, then tries very hard not to laugh. She covers her mouth from the side to whisper back, "Fruits of the tree and all." before deciding she doesn't want to invoke tree metaphors about the City specifically, and changes to "But won't it be so nice when it's all better? Think about it!" Then, with some small amount of excitement raising her volume, she says, "I've never owned a stuffed animal before, so I'm sort of curious to see, aren't you?" 'At least that didn't rub off on her to her such a degree.' Lilian thinks about Curupira for one and a half seconds, and then says "I couldn't even imagine, honestly." 'Oh, no, no. In a sense, urbanization creates the poor' Oh no. They're talking about things that are going to make her sit and think about at weird and uncomfortable times. Lilian averts her gaze and starts trying to think about anything else. Glassy-eyed and inattentive, swordsmanship theory rattles around in her brain like she's trying to block out a mind-reader, quickly losing even the deliberateness of language and devolving into paraphysical touch and simulation. 'Even that this place is in the sky, divorced from its agrarian periphery... ahhh, it's quite incisive.' "Mmh." Lilian cleverly observes. "Is that a particular focus of yours? Where the food comes from? I had to do quite a bit of research on that once." t'They're, um. Surprisingly good for visualizing the layout of stuff before actually hiring people to build it all. Nika's even got a little house here too.' "What?" Lilian rouses from her Thought-Deflecting Stance almost instantly. It's not difficult to explain her off this concern, though, considering it's only poor wording on Petra's part. Surely. 'I only know some of the details, but it apparently shut down the whole Motherlobe for a week straight.' "And, more importantly, got everyone looking at me weird again." Lilian says, frowning. "I wish he'd learn his godforsaken lesson already. I can't exactly help monopolizing people's brains, so they should learn to keep their stupid obsessive impulses in check."
Lissandra	Lissandra seems briefly puzzled by Lilian's take, then resolves it with some kind of unspoken assumption almost immediately. "Learning is always inconvenient and difficult. No, usually what stops me is the sheer insufferability of the people I would like to learn from. If anything, this is a little bit exciting; there are so many methods in this one room, and it's a rare treat to have someone unpretentious giving the little speeches and explanations." So basically, if Petra were being more of a smug brat instead of quite a good host, this would probably be harder for her. "I left my 'home world' to go hunting down new information in the first place, not just to shop for clothes and make a living, you know?"
Lilian Rook	'The Fixer powerscaler communities would've lost their minds. You're so cinematic.' "The . . . ?" Lilian trails off to do simple math in her head. Her eyes narrow instantly. "Is this like the Adachi thing again? It'd better not be. I despise being underestimated just because I keep my skin on." she huffs. 'Furniture is just, like, something that happens. You can find it anywhere, or people give it to you. Though, maybe I'll do that if someone asks for something specific.' "Don't be embarrassing. If you're going to have a classroom, uniformity and order are paramount." Lilian says. Her eyes escalate as they rove deeper into the room, as if expecting tiered stairs and levels, then settle back down reluctantly. "At least some proper desks. Goodness." ''Video'?' "Come on!" Lilian whines pretty much instantly. She's so primed on this after Sonetto's misunderstanding. "The one that the Purple Tear recorded using Yuri as a spy! The video of Gebura's Meltdown! The one that got leaked on purpose to get everyone's eyes on Lobotomy Corp! That video!" 'No, they totally can reproduce. Though it isn't a typical reproduction, usually. What they'll try to do is overwrite a person's story with their own, becoming a sympathetic element to them.' "Is that even reproduction in any biological sense?" Lilian says. "That's almost like an infection, but not even by a living thing." Nobody asked, but, "Which is somehow sort of worse? At least a bacterium is trying to consume and reproduce like every other thing alive is programmed to do; it's just natural and unavoidable, even if it sucks. EGO corrosion is like being dissolved in fucking metaphor. Dismantled by allegorical power tools." 'I helped Miss Hod with voice acting for the screams! My throat was sore for a whole day after!' Lilian winces. "I can . . . see that. You worked very hard." 'If we're not going for hugs, we should move on to Meat Lantern.' "Hey nobody said we aren't going to hug the giant teddy bear." Lilian hastens to interject.
Lilian Rook	'Learning is always inconvenient and difficult. No, usually what stops me is the sheer insufferability of the people I would like to learn from.' "My my, you'll have a difficult time with learning if it's 'people' and not 'things' that drive you crazy." Lilian says, drenched in tones of chiding professionalism, critical gaze cast back over her shoulder, while she is standing on tiptoe to try and wrap both arms around a gigantic teddybear as far as she can smoosh herself into its fluff. "People are always the problem. 'Things' are pure on their own."
Petra Soroka	"Even that this place is in the sky, divorced from its agrarian periphery... ahhh, it's quite incisive." Petra was just praised for being smart, so she has to have something smart to say about this. She's always talking about how she's doing sociological experiments anyways!!!! That's just true! So she should have something to say about... this? This is the kind of conversation that always leads to Lilian getting upset, and usually Petra too, and so if Petra simply trains hard to have the right answer then these conversations will get solved and stop being a problem for Lilian. "I've been reading books." Blurting that out probably is not the right answer. But she was just called smart!!! "I go to college now. Um, actually, one of the books sort of was adjacent to that topic?" Petra seems to only be realizing this as she says it, so she rambles on for a little while longer before eventually stumbling to a halt. "Like, the idea that capitalism is the most efficient system so far for both production of resources and consumption of resources, and a lot of anti-capitalist discussion focuses on the idea of 'going back', instead of 'going through' to progress to something else. Uh. I don't know much about that, though. You said something about the lifeway progressions of cities...?" "Of course. A pity I never got you in my office," The only thing scarier than the first option that comes to Petra's mind is the one that Maricel clarifies she actually means. "I-I don't know what I'd need in a doctorly capacity. Well, okay, no, a lot, I guess. I just-- well, um, mostly hear about your work in the abstract...?" In the form of horror stories and rumors, mostly. "That's why there can be longterm consequences for excessive corrosion up to and including death. There haven't been that many instances of stuff like that thanks to the chief here." "Been a few." Petra's curt correction is entirely about Cinder, who arguably was an example of corrosion happening because of Petra rather than despite her. "And I wouldn't call that reproduction, corroded agents or subentities usually can't continue to reproduce on their own." "Ew. I'm not into girls, remember?" Petra puffs air upwards derisively, fluttering her bangs and rolling her eyes. "You just haven't had good dick yet. Anyways, maybe you bud. I don't know, and I'm not gonna know. Don't be weird." "Something intentionally put in there when they got extracted?" Petra shrugs, twirling her Silver as a teacher's baton between her fingers. "By the time Ange and I were around, what an 'Abnormality' was was already defined. As for the source... well, they probably could've been anything. Who knows how much was intentional?" "Maybe he grew up in a place with only pest-creatures..?" Petra has mostly resisted commenting on Eggman or her relationship with him, since it's a pretty well-trodden subject at this point and it's scary to have to stick to anything that Tamamo disagrees with, but here she just has to interject. "Oh my god, literally the worst. They're some of the most annoying people I've ever met. Lilian met the worst of them, once, actually. I'd take a thousand Kales over one Sonic."
Petra Soroka	"Just to rule it out, the Abnormalities arose at different times, in different circumstances, correct?" "About as different times as you can possibly imagine, yep." In particular, the first extraction of One Sin was about ten thousand years before the first extraction of the Plague Doctor. "It can't be time anyways, because there's a few-- not many-- changes in Abnos that persist after they get suppressed, like Qlippoth instability on some, or form changes, or the Magical Girls' little fixations. They're just healthy, emotionally stable, and back to their... default narrative state, I guess." "Are there abnormalities whose stories involve biological reproduction then?" Petra frowns. "There's Queen Bee. Spore-fucks you until bees come out of you. Lots of exploding into bugs around here." "I've never owned a stuffed animal before, so I'm sort of curious to see, aren't you?" Petra extremely insistently reverses her stance on the Happy Teddy Bear's safety. "Well, obviously we'll get T-04-06 patched up, like-- like, as a demonstration, for Lissandra. So we can't just move on. Haschen, could you do it yourself?" "What?" "W-what?" Petra isn't certain what Lilian's concern is, but she's very worried about doing something wrong.
Angela	''Does that mean there are Abnormalities based on superheroes?'' Though the question isn't asked--the Magical Girls might qualify and there might be similar entities but they'd never be called superheroes because superheroes don't exactly randomly flip out and start killing people do they? They don't do that right? ...Okay, it's probably possible actually. ''So is that egg thing by design?'' Fox ... had never thought about that before. Like, did Lobotomy Corp choose to make them have egg forms? Is it just a natural part of the fact that they're 'extracted' from humans? It's really a Petra question, he supposes. Maybe it's supposed to represent the rebirth or retelling of a story? And a story retold is generally told from the beginning-- He gives Kale a helpless shrug though. He better not just go around guessing. ''That's horrifying.'' "Ahahah.... we ah... determined that being very clear on how dangerous Abnormalities can be helps drive down employee deaths. But that was back at LobCorp, so far our school has had zero deaths. Even with Meat Lantern." Despite Kathy's attempts otherwise. ''Enkephalin? Is that some kind of byproduct--'' Fox is relieved to get this one. "Enkephalin--is actually a chemical produced by humans too, but Abnormalities produce a great deal more than humans can--which allows it to be used as an energy source. Or at least it used to be. With the fall of L Corp, Enkephalin as a fuel is likely to become rarer and rarer though--Abnormalities are still out there. If some other enterprising types want to try capturing and gathering Enkephalin from them--there's nothing stopping 'em." But as far as he knows that hasn't happened yet and frankly the idea is a little worrying. Fortunately, it waould be pretty difficult to recreate the precise circumstances of Lobotomy Corp even if someone else tries jumping into the energy business. "I wouldn't say the Qlippoth Deterrance would ... the facility's goal wasn't to stop Abnormalities from breaking out. It was to harvest energy from Abnormalities. Enkephalin is produced more--both in humans and Abnormalities--in times of stress. So sometimes, we'd have to let them break out in order to harvest more energy. But in a place like this--yes, an outbreak would be considered a terrible disaster. We aren't an energy company after all, and we don't have nearly the sort of security resources as Lobotomy Corp did."
Angela	Meanwhile, Haschen handles questions about THE BEAR. "The damage is part of the story, so--the Happy Teddy Bear's body will break apart faster than is really natural."Happy Teddy Bear is a story about abandonment, actually. A forgotten doll gathering dust, but also--you know--the sort of...way affection can be distorted when love has been lost or abandoned. A yearning that is dangerous for others. The Happy Teddy Bear is most dangerous to those it grows attached to--so we are trying to help it learn less detructive ways of expressin care and appreciation." She pauses. "No--they weren't all created at once." ''Corrosion? Not corruption?'' "Corruption sort of has a moral implication. Maybe even malevolent intent. It's not there, really, it's just something that can naturally happen when you graft something else onto your psyche for a while and don't keep it regulated." ''Been a few.'' Fox hesitates, looking at Petra for a long moment, then he dips his head, quietly acquiescing. ''Lots of exploding into bugs around here.'' "And being absorbed by trees!" Haschen chirps merrily before saluting Petra, "Mhm! He's all ready to hug! Please collect the TETH EGO Gear along the wall if you are nervous!" There's a set harvested from Spiderbud, one from Punishing Bird, and one from Forsaken Murderer hanging on the wall! But Haschen, in her most basic of all EGO Gear, waddles over to the giant teddy bear and gives him a biiig hug. "Behave and you'll get lots of hugs today, buddy bear!!" And then she steps back to allow others to get in on hugging a giant stuffed animal, freshly stitched to its old self.
Tamamo	Lissandra talks about spirits, and Tamamo listens, occasionally nodding with a subvocalization. Afterward, she says, "When you mention 'water and earth' spirits, it brings to mind how similar that sounds, and yet, how truly distinct it is, from 'sea, river, land and mountain spirits.' It may be that this is a sort of collecting of things together... that is, a categorization, that is not merely intuitive, but consistent in your homeland and its neighbors. Those of my own familiarity, however, would find far less in common between spirits of the river and of the sea, despite the one flowing into the other. Is that not curious?" 'But won't it be so nice when it's all better? Think about it!' "It is so..." says Tamamo, a trace of reluctance in her voice only a holdover from the mood brought on by thinking about the City and its products. 'I've never owned a stuffed animal before, so I'm sort of curious to see, aren't you?' "I suppose such things were uncommon in the lands I once traveled, as well. Ah, there were dolls of cloth, but not the same sort of... among other things, not of such a size, generally speaking." She may have been made unclear as to how big a teddy bear 'normally' is. 'And, more importantly, got everyone looking at me weird again.' Tamamo's mental file on Flamel updates to include 'persistently obsessed with Lilian,' with an added note of 'danger level: kidnapping' and a curiously scrawled '(accidental?)' 'The one that got leaked on purpose to get everyone's eyes on Lobotomy Corp!' "Oh!" says Tamamo, inexplicably relieved, "That video, of course. I thought it had something to do with a 'meat lantern.'" 'Uh, the ones that do reproduce are usually really scary, and they're more like 'duplications' or 'infections', anyways.' 'Is that even reproduction in any biological sense?' "They maintain a sort of 'uniqueness' of existence, as I thought. Each, a single entity, even should it spread to fill a larger space."
Lissandra	Lissandra clearly wasn't prepared for her comment about pests to lead into 'the most annoying people', and initially looks dumbfounded at Petra before side-glancing at Kale when he's referred to explicitly as a comparison. "I... See." There's a bit of residual slowness caused by her trying to figure out in the background why the comment about good dick sounded like some kind of aphorism. She's still catching up on things like this, for better or worse. Unfortunately the words 'spore-fuck' only deal additional damage, and Lissandra has to rub her own forehead with her fingertips a moment like she's trying to preempt a literal headache. "... Horror stories must be especially common then. I don't think you could have provoked my disgust any better than you just did, Petra. It's been a while." She escapes enthusiastically into topics that don't have as much to do with reproduction. "So Enkephalin is a sort of psychic whale-oil analogue? I'm not too surprised that someone would think to try and squeeze a fuel source from whatever new power they discovered, but to risk so much on something so abhorrent is... Well, it reminds me how disappointing people can be." She seems at least relieved that her impressions were relatively on-base in interpreting the bear's nature, though the previous feeling of disgust is still keeping her from smiling immediately. She takes down a couple more notes, scratches something about chronomancy out, and stows her notepad and pen again. Lilian's bit of scolding is met with a slight roll of the eyes, especially given the hug she's going for with the explicitly quite dangerous bear. Even pretending not to care, she can't quite help but watch the bear's arms, like she'll somehow discern the moment when the tension becomes too much and someone might get hurt. It's always hard to pretend she doesn't care at all about someone potentially getting hurt... Tamamo's observation about the Spirit-talk gets an agreeable couple of nods back, and Lissandra seems very slightly bothered by the distinction somehow. "Curious is right. The inconsistency between worlds shows itself maybe more than anywhere else, in how 'spirits' are considered to exist. The best that I can truly say about the meaningful difference seems to be... The spirits I am familiar with are almost more of a symptom of their environment, rather than a true element of it. I've done some, admittedly hasty, reading on the subject of Earth's own various supernatural aspects, and it seems far more common there to presume a direct and intrinsic connection between spirits and the natural world. I'd quite like to learn more, especially if the distinction may be relevant when using spirit-embodied prosthetics on people of other worlds."
Lissandra	Lissandra doesn't initially seem to plan on going in for a big bear-hug, herself... But it's part of the poor thing's treatment, isn't it? Even if she won't risk her own spine so casually, she can at least pretend to contribute; a subtle gesture disguised as another hair-flip simultaneously makes her true body vanish and overlays it with an illusory recreation, which she has walk over to take a turn hugging the bear after the others finish. Though first, the illusion is steered over to the protective equipment and shown perfectly naturally slipping into the Forsaken Murderer's suit (due to looking the most normal, relatively speaking), complete with little adjustments to her hair and the fit... Despite those EGO sets never physically being moved, beneath the illusion. The false Lissandra looks, feels, sounds, and even smells quite real, but by necessity it has to be quite gentle in its squeezing to keep from giving away the ruse. That, and if the bear squeezes enough to crush a person for whatever reason, the illusion simply won't put up resistance to the pressure; it's entirely the bear's own restraint determining whether her little fake-out is found out. When she speaks in the process, her voice even comes from the illusion's position! "There you go, sweetheart. It's nice to be gentle, isn't it? You'll make lots of friends that way, I'm sure." Even a teddy bear is a kind of critter, and so the transitive law of sweethearts, darlings and so on remains unbroken.
Lilian Rook	'Like, the idea that capitalism is the most efficient system so far for both production of resources and consumption of resources, and a lot of anti-capitalist discussion focuses on the idea of...' 'Come on. Please be normal.' Lilian quietly thinks to herself. 'You just haven't had good dick yet.' 'Ccome on, please be normal!' Lilian to herself very very loudly. 'Well, obviously we'll get T-04-06 patched up, like-- like, as a demonstration, for Lissandra.' Lilian's pensive expression clears up after a triple blink. 'No, everything is fine, actually'. 'Enkephalin--is actually a chemical produced by humans too, but Abnormalities produce a great deal more than humans can--which allows it to be used as an energy source.' "Oh my god I'd always wondered if it was literally the same thing or if it was just another stupid name, or like, as totally irrelevant as the Kaballahh!" Lilian gasps. "Like, was anyone else thinking that? I mean Netzach was using them like opioids! And look at how you get it in the first place!" Lilian drags out a lower-toned "Fuck." as if a great weight had just been lifted from her mind. 'but also--you know--the sort of...way affection can be distorted when love has been lost or abandoned. A yearning that is dangerous for others.' Lilian really, really wants to hug the bear now. She squeezes it extra hard pretty much on cue. 'It is so...' Lilian looks at Tamamo with vaguely pouty eyes. Like she's suddenly not entirely sure that she remembers an upcoming important date, or that she hasn't noticed a new haircut or accessory or something, but is patiently waiting to be proven wrong. 'And being absorbed by trees!' "I don't want to hear about trees today." Lilian says, momentarily forgetting that not everyone reacts to being cut off like a piece of point and click adventure dialogue in the same way as Petra. 'That video, of course. I thought it had something to do with a 'meat lantern.'' "I'm so afraid of knowing what that means." Lilian says, in exactly the same tone.
Maricel Thorne	The longer one scrutinizes Maricel, the more inexorably one is drawn to the conclusion that she's not a real human being. Of course, she's a real being. She's a real person. She is even a real animal, unlike the Abnormalities, and maybe even a real mammal. But 'talking, bipedal, largely-hairless mammal' is as close as you are going to get. The blood vessels under her skin aren't where they should be. When she turns her head, the tendons in her neck stand out in odd places. If you really scrutinize her, even the way her chest shifts as she breathes seems a little off. It's too subtle a game of spot-the-difference to give the average person an uncanny-valley feeling, but it's something. To a trained eye, the differences are too pervasive and subtle to be the result of deliberate self-modification. Nobody optimizing their own physiology would stop and think "my fingernails need to be a little more opaque". So then, what? Is she an evolutionary relative, like Denisovans and Neanderthals? A shaved talking dog squished into human shape? "You just haven't had good dick yet. "Pffffghhb--bwuhuhuhiiii...!" So it's kind of impressive that she can uglylaugh exactly like your mildly obnoxious aunt. "Snork. Oh, oh, I'm sorry," she says, lifting her glasses and wiping her eyes on her sleeve post-giggle. "Ahem. Yes. Mmh." "focuses on the idea of 'going back', instead of 'going through'..." "Ahem. A-- ahem. Yes, well, attempts at a kind of reversanchism are always doomed," Maricel says with a casual little flitty-wave of the back of her hand. "Peasantism, ahhh, led to urbanism. If we should regress to peasantism somehow, wouldn't it only give way to a new urbanism? Foolish to love the egg and hate the beetle. The present, I believe, is always the fruit of the past, and one must judge a tree by its fruit. If the present leaves something to be desired, how could the past ever save us?" "When the future is dark, one must put one's faith in a brighter future beyond it. That's all," she concludes a little lamely, while stuffing her hands back in her coat pockets. That part is given out loosely and matter-of-factly, as if they were talking about fishing or assembling a table. "Is that a particular focus of yours? Where the food comes from?" "Oh! Yes, yes. How a people are fed, what they make and how, the nervous systems of their organizations..." She perks right back up for Lilian. "Those are matters of the most, ahh, basal health for a macrostructure of people. Not that the rest isn't worth caring about- you know, culture and all- but how can anything else be healthy, if those are ill?" "But I am surprised. Where did your research take you, Lilian Rook?" - - - - The notes on the Bear decaying give her pause for thought again, as she studies it while leaning against a wall. "I see why they've been difficult patients," she muses. "If they 'reset' upon 'dying', and are calmest then, then is any straying from their natutypical state 'ill health'? If the bear's tendency is to degrade, should it be stopped from degrading, or encouraged? Is, ah- conformity to archetype the most we can hope for, or the least...?" She's more animated than usual, right up until the end there. It's meant half for Lissandra, and half for Petra and the former Agents. When her turn comes, she gives it a hug perfectly trustingly, and lingers for a little moment to thoughtfully pat its arm and manifest a neon-staticky pressure to telekinetically rub its head. Her eyes don't shut- they stay on its face, as if she could observe something in particular from a reaction- but it's still earnest. . . . "Now! Well. Shall we go see the Meat Lantern?" she says, much too chipperly.
Angela	Happy Teddy Bear doesn't squeeze anybody to death today! But it does hug firmly like it's mimicking the strength it receives back. Maybe Abnormalities that aren't kept in cells and tormented for energy are a bit less likely to do murder. Nevermind that Haschen sort of breathes a small sigh of relief when the bear finishes hugging everyone and nobody gets wounded. It's a new ''hopeful'' academy, but that also means some of this is just new territory for everyone and there's always that little fear in the back of the mind that maybe everything will snap apart in an instant. ''I don't want to hear about trees today.'' Haschen flinches like a proper supervillain minion caught overstepping (version: perky). "Don't worry, Dame Commander! Meat Lantern is more of an anglerfish? ... Anglerflower? ... With teeth? Not a tree at all so there's nothing to worry about!" ''Is any straying from their natutypical state 'ill health'?'' "Good question. But it's also pretty normal to want to step into a sad story and make it better for the ones who didn't deserve to suffer, right? A human body's natural state is decay, if less quickly, but we still try to keep people from becoming corpses." He scratches at his face with a fingernail. "Course, if it was easy to apply one set of rules for dealing with the Abnormalities to them all, they would probably have a more definitive name." And then onto the meat lantern! "ARRIGHT, MEATY!" A voice shouts from an open containment cell door (not unlike the ones at Lobotomy Corp) as a young woman with red hair pulled back in a bun--also a former clerk--wearing a blood smeared apron that says 'MADE WITH LOVE AND SOME OTHER SHIT <3' on it. She has what looks like a long poker and a big chunk of bloody meat on the end which she holds up over what looks like a white puffy bulge in the center of the floor with a glowing flower dangling enticingly over it. She shakes the poker until the meat slides off and it tumbles down, resulting in the white puffy bulge opening up vertically into a massive set of jaws that CHOMPS down onto the meat chunks noisily before returning back to normal. "Claire handles meat lantern. Uh. We haven't really figured out a way to make it not eat people but it at least seems fine with ''any'' sort of meat so... Might send this back to the Library soon though..." Claire seems to be giving meat lantern her undivided attention and barely throws a wave back to Petra while keeping her distance. "But now you've seen a pretty wide breadth of Abnormality engagement! Thank you for joining us on the tour." Haschen adds in her best tour guide voice.