Scene #8250: Girls and Garages

Owner	Pose
Cantio	Getting to Cantio's home is a simple enough matter even without considering the directions she had given. The warp gate leading to Cadenza takes Petra right into heart of the city, welcoming her with all manner of soft lights illuminating helpful maps and upbeat tunes pumping softly through speakers at each street corner to celebrate the coming weekend. There's plenty of wide-open walkways, too, with the nearest roads being a fair bit away just to give prospective tourists enough space to not get freaked out by potentially unfamiliar technology. The way to Cantio's home, meanwhile, is shown through all those maps and pointing right at the big palace only a few blocks away. Like the city itself, the palace has its own music going, albeit at a slower BPM and with a lighter overall sound to encourage resting up for those within that might have just finished their own long days at work. Despite being a palace, though, it looks more like a massive concert hall with plenty of people coming in and out (mostly out at this time of day). The only indication that there's a garage anywhere, then, is the fact that there's a conspicuously brick-like structure shunted off to the side of the palace. It's not painted white and purple nor adorned with that translucent plasticky-purple material like everything else is, either. Instead, it's just a basic brick red and sheet metal structure with all sorts of tools strewn about inside and scrap parts outside. Cantio herself is already working on something inside the garage, visible from the open door as she's in the process of sliding some kind of... Hoop? VR headset? Extremely weird girdle? It is unclear.
Cantio	Today, Cantio is dressed for mechanical work rather than goofing off or looking good! That means instead of the usual schoolgirl-y getup, she's wearing a white tank top over stained overalls (purple, of course) with a similarly stained work apron for keeping all manner of tools in* while her hair is tied back in a tight ponytail to keep it from getting caught in whatever moving parts might be involved. *Her tools aren't actually in there, but being carried by a floating drone with a weird-looking face (like they always do).
Petra Soroka	The Kana does not aesthetically mesh with Cadenza. It's jarring to the point that Petra has to stop and consider how to proceed when she arrives at the city. The cold steel tank of a mech with its roaring engines squats in place outside the warpgate as she thinks. On one hand, it feels deeply wrong to drown out the music with the Kana's jets. For some reason, this is the first thing to come to Petra's mind, the fact that her approach would be audible for blocks around, louder than the adorably tone-setting background music. The only way to quiet the engines, though, would be to walk, and not only are the streets inconveniently placed--she's not bringing a mech onto the sidewalk--but it's heavy enough that its clumsy steps could scrape the road's surface. And the lack of roads near the castle would force her to fly at some point anyways. And then there's the problem of being inside the Kana or outside it, because if she's inside, then she doesn't have to be seen with this awful machine, but-- Resentment bubbles up in Petra's chest as she walks beside the Kana towards the castle. She winces at each clanging step, and keeps her eyes locked on the ground in front of her. She doesn't take in the music, or the sights, and by the time she shows up at Cantio's garage, she already looks tired and stressed. Petra's wearing unpatterned overalls with pearlescent buttons, with her bomber jacket and new shimmering scarf layered over top. The front of her hair is drawn back into a bun, pulling it out of her face while keeping most of her bob cut. Unfortunately, this emphasizes the wrinkles of annoyance scrunching up her forehead right now. The Kana, for its part, looks mostly fine. Some scorch marks blot its sides, and a metal plate near the turret is dented inwards. Petra waves in greeting, looking around the garage with curiousity, her annoyance slowly melting away. "Hey, Cantio!"
Cantio	The Kana certainly doesn't look like it belongs next to the soft-future City of Songs, and it'd certainly be easy for Petra to feel out of place moving through the streets with the massive mech in tow. She might even get more of that feeling of not fitting in when those passing by stare at her and her machine, especially when some of those passing by can even be seen giggling lightly in passing at the sight. A more careful eye on those people might make it easier to realize, though, that the light tittering is more happy than mocking, and even sympathetic if she makes eye contact with any of those people waving at her in passing. One of those people passing nearby and chuckling happens to be one of the city's uniformed guards, and they swerve over by Petra briefly to semi-whisper "She rope you in, too? Good luck, and have fun!" in a cheerful tone before continuing on their way. Whether this all ends up coming off as light-hearted and mildly concerned or truly mocking, though, is another story entirely. Cantio's unaware of all of that, of course, and she's just focused on getting that weird loop thing assembled when Petra arrives. With a light grunt, a heavy shove, and a loud crack, the thing is put together, and then she finally spots (and hears) Petra. "Oh, hey Petra! Thanks for coming." Smiling broadly, she wipes her hands off on a nearby towel before heading over towards Petra with one of those drones floating behind her. "Want anything to drink? Or a snack? I've got regular, diet, fruity, tea, frozen, energy." She gestures at the fridge way in the corner of the garage. "Was it easy getting over here?" As Cantio speaks, she peers up at the Kana once she settles to a stop besides Petra, whistling lightly after a moment. "Might be a li-ittle bit too big to fit right now, but I think we can still work here. Er." She clears her throat lightly, trying to rein in her excitement at least slightly. "If you're okay with that, I mean."
Petra Soroka	Petra shrivels up under the--assumed--mocking eyes of the populace. She startles when the guards approach her, and looks up in shock. "W-wait--what? She? Cantio? Rope me into what?" With renewed trepidation and a seemingly confirmed realization that she's being made fun of, she keeps trudging to the garage with her face down, flushed red. "I'll take tea? Iced tea, if you have it." Petra's eyes wander at the question, and she coughs, obviously wanting to avoid answering. "It was, fine, getting here, I guess. So, um, what's that thing you were working on?" She sizes up the Kana in comparison to the garage, and deflates a little. "Yeah, it is too big, huh? If you think it's still going to work, then I'm totally fine doing it here, you're helping me after all." "So, I don't know what your specialty is or anything, but as far as I know, there's only damage on the outside plating. The computers freaked out for a bit too, but I think that was only temporary?"
Cantio	"Iced tea. Got it!" Cantio snaps her fingers with gusto, and... Nothing happens! She turns to one of the drones, then repeats "Iced. Tea." far more slowly before it floats over to the fridge to retrieve THE DRINK for Petra. Thankfully, whatever programming involved in getting that for her also involves bringing her a big cup of iced tea along with a separate, smaller cup filled with ice for her desired level of coldness! "Oh, that?" Cantio glances over at her own weird thing she had been working on, then to Petra again with a confident look in her eyes. "A new experiment! For letting someone remotely control a machine without having to learn complicated controls or anything like that. It's..." She pauses, then sighs. "It's better in theory than practice so far. It works well enough with the drones since they've got limbs like ours, but other types of things are a little less... Accurate. Eventually, though!" She sounds like she's gotten some of her confidence back by that last part, and she maintains it even when Petra shows some trepidation about the Kana's size. "Oh, absolutely. I've been hoping for an excuse to expand my work area, anyway, and I haven't really had a chance to look at a machine like the Kana up close before. Seeing how everything works, what it's made of, what it can do..." Her eyes are practically gleaming with excitement at that, and she only snaps out of it once Petra asks her some more pointed questions. "... Oh! Um. Well, music is my real specialty, but doing mechanical work is more like my... Hobby?" Cantio states the obvious, looking back up at the mech again and noticing those scorches along with the dented turret plate. "Computers, I can do alright with, but... Yeah, real tuning up there would need an expert at that stuff. If you're more interested in making the machine itself run more effectively or beefing it up, though..." In a grosser world, she'd be salivating at the thought of being able to tinker with such a machine. In reality, she just looks normal excited. "Maybe even some alternate forms, if you really want to keep it flexible..."
Petra Soroka	Petra's mouth twitches briefly into a scowl, and a note of uncertainty enters into her voice. "So it's, like a nerve thing? Remotely controlling stuff as if it's your body?" She shrugs and shakes her head, as if she doesn't particularly want to hear the answer. Keeping the topic on a different machine that stirs more familiar discomfort in her, Petra turns to the Kana. "I mean, if you want to poke around in there, you can go ahead. I can point you around at the stuff I know how to operate, but there's probably plenty of stuff I just haven't figured out yet." Petra climbs up the ladder and pops open the cockpit hatch, boots clanging when she swings herself inside. The inside of the mech is, not exactly sanitized, there's still some garbage scattered around, wires and parts disorganized after months of lazily shoving stuff back into place "well enough". It's much clearer than it used to be, though, with the crates of clothes and ramen removed, and other various personal items relocated to her room on the space station. Petra adjusts herself to sit against the open hatch, dangling her legs down across the ladder. Cantio is implicitly invited up to either explore the cockpit or clamber around the hull. Petra's oddly ambivalent about this whole situation, apathetic to the idea of her mech being prodded. One comment does send a twinge of disgust through her, and she opens her mouth before figuring out why. "No. No alternate forms. Or... I don't know, I don't know that I want it 'beefed up'. Just... you know. Whatever it already does." The idea of customizing the Kana at all feels... profoundly wrong. Petra looks sideways at the unadorned metal exterior, then back inside the impersonal, if messy, cockpit. Changing it to fit her feels like a concession, an admission of weakness. No alternate forms. Especially not bipedal ones. It's a tank, not a person.
Cantio	"Kind of! Except I haven't really developed anything quite as advanced as actual feedback, so it's still a proof of concept." Cantio explains with another chuckle, although she does sound slightly less pleased once she considers its limits a little more. "Might be hard to do much if you can't already see what you're touching, you know? Although I wonder how well it'd work with..." She turns to the Kana at first, then gets reminded of something rather important when Petra brings it up: She's never actually seen the inside of it! "Oh, that'd be perfect. Er. For that thing, anyway, but not for... Getting repairs done first. That's... Right! That's what you're here for." She chuckles lightly, albeit a little awkwardly. "If you don't mind, that is. I've heard cockpits for personal machines can be really personal, so..." Nevertheless, Cantio follows Petra up, and she gets hit with the raw sight of the inside of hte Kana's cockpit. Blinking slowly at first, Cantio closes her eyes as she breathes it all in in the most literal sense, managing a slow nod several moments later as a look of understanding comes across her face. "... Okay. I'll be careful with all this, don't worry." She flashes Petra a reassuring smile, then steps into the cockpit gingerly to start checking out the controls. "Changing the function of this too much... Yeah, that'd be too.... Not yet. This is personal to you, right?" She stops sort of actually poking the controls or even touching them, but she does ask quite a bit about what does what. More importantly... "How do the controls feel to you? I might not know much about reconfiguring the controls, but I'm thinking we could adjust the controls so it's more comfortable for you to use. More important things being easier to reach, loosen or tighten them up, that sort of thing." There's a longer pause before Cantio finally decides to ask: "Can you show me how you use it? Identifying your habits from the outside might give us some ideas on how to really make this yours, too." Clearly, she's angling towards changing it precisely to fit Petra. It seems so natural for Cantio to consider, too.
Petra Soroka	Despite having invited Cantio in to poke around, Petra seizes up at her actually doing it. She fidgets in place and looks away, embarrassed, maybe by the mess. To distract herself, she runs a hand lightly down the outside of the hull, practically petting it, and jolts in surprise at the unexpected squeaking created by her nails digging into the metal. Petra makes an uncomfortable noise in the back of her throat. "Personal. Yeah. I mean, I slept in here for months. It's basically home." She laughs, and it both seems to go on for too long and cut off abruptly soon. She climbs into the cockpit and hovers behind Cantio as she pokes around, watching everything she does. The array of screens surrounding the dashboard of dozens of buttons shine dimly over the pair even with the machine being turned off. Petra shivers as Cantio's hands hover over the controls. "Um. The controls work. They feel fine. I mean, a lot of it is computer assisted anyways, I kind of just, encourage it to go through the motions. Not that I'm not, like, piloting it at all, but I mean. It doesn't really need to be changed. It works fine." That obvious discomfort again, about something she asked Cantio to do. "I-I can show you, though. If you want. But maybe, we could look at the damage, outside?" There's a sinking feeling in Petra's stomach, of somehow failed in a performance that she initiated. Having to go back on an offer.
Cantio	Cantio's eyes light up again at all the screens going on and seeing all those buttons capable of so much in front of her, and the temptation to start pushing any of them, all of them, even just one of them is massive. The only thing stopping her is hearing those strange little noises from Petra, and then Petra speaking up about how it all actually works for her. "Home, huh...?" That explains quite a bit. Even she notices that discomfort, and Cantio nods once before turning to Petra again with a gentle smile. "Sure thing. Messing with custom OSes and things like that are a little-" Very. "-outside of what I'm used to, so.. Yeah. Let's see what we can tune up instead of making big, sweeping changes. Something that can understand your intent and interpret that into its own movements, though..." She strokes her chin thoughtfully. "... I might know a person or two that could actually help you with that kind of stuff, if you're interested. Totally get it if you don't, though." That reassuring smile remains, and then Cantio scooches out of the cockpit to finally give Petra's apparent home-space some room away from her inquisitive eyes and hands! By that logic, the outside should be totally fine for Cantio to inspect. "Do you know what this is all made of out here? Just steel, or some kind of fancy local materials?" Calling some drones over to help her float around the surface of the Kana, Cantio doesn't hold back as she traces her hands along the machine to test its surface, poking her hands into its joints, feeling the more subtle angles on its various surfaces to get a better idea of how it's all supposed to be shaped before finally moving towards the turret to get her hands deep in there. "This kind of damage might be a little tricky, but some extra materials to... Hm. Replacing some of it would be easier, but I think I can reshape it back to where it should be. Maybe even..." She pauses, then shakes her head. "No remodeling, right. Just... Repairs, maybe a little bit of optimization. A little more aerodynamic here, or a little more reinforced there without sacrificing aesthetics..." She's starting to get a little too eager again.
Petra Soroka	Petra pushes her hands into the pockets of her bomber, twisting her fingers into the inner fabric in invisible anxiety. "I... this might sound weird. But I actually don't want it to understand me any more than it does. I don't know. I keep thinking that I should turn the computer assist off, too. Get better at using it on my own merits, rather than making it less difficult to pilot. Does that make sense?" Each word coming out of Petra's mouth feels like a surprise, none of the thoughts formulating in her head before coming out of her mouth. But it feels right. Improve her worth as a pilot, not rely on tricks to make her more comfortable. And absolutely not allowing it into her head. Some of that tension drains out of Petra's posture when Cantio turns her attention to the outside of the mech. Petra follows her, poking her face out into the air. Oh god, it still does smell in there a little bit. Even after all the cleaning she did. "Ummm, well, I don't know what type of metal it is, specifically. The people who made it are a bit nuts, all the material in here is recycled from whatever they took with them a century ago when they got Unified. So, I guess, it's steel if they had steel back then? Maybe something else, though." The Kana, to all of Cantio's inspection, is airtight, incredibly precise construction. It's built with the machine precision of a weapon that a military's budget gets stretched for, a crown jewel of engineered shock and awe. The scorch marks practically rub off at her touch, nearly unblemished underneath, and the turret is only damaged because of the millimeter-tight gap around its swiveling base being intruded upon by the dent. The construction of it is stunning, and there's no way it's meant for someone like Petra. The pilot herself gazes over Cadenza, strands of her blonde hair fluttering as she leans out, grasping the frame of the hatch to steady herself. Abruptly, nonchalantly, she asks, "Hey, Cantio? You used to fight with Lilian, right?"
Cantio	"Steel... Good. That makes it easier, then. I know plenty of places we can get that without too much trouble, so we'll have plenty to pick from later." Cantio doesn't elaborate on where those places are, or how much/if she's going to pay for it at all, but she sounds confident again. She's about to get distracted by the Kana once more, but stops herself as she turns to Petra abruptly. "You don't want it to become a crutch." She replies, suddenly taking a firmer tone as she draws her hands away from the Kana. Although she's still glancing at it every now and then, she keeps her attention firmly on Petra now. "You'd like to be stronger on your own merits, right? Something that's part of you instead of an extension. I..." Petra mentions Lilian, and Cantio starts piecing more things together from what she's heard. She inhales slowly, then giggles after a few moments. ".. Mhm. I did fight with her. Argued, got into some physical fights, saw a lot of things I shouldn't have, felt things that I'm... Frankly kind of ashamed about in retrospect?" Another awkward laugh, and then she takes a seat on a chair made of drones, facing Petra directly now with a studious gaze and a forcibly neutral tone. "Are you asking because of things going on between you and her?"
Petra Soroka	Petra is quiet, her eyes unfocused. She leans out of the cockpit further, only precariously supported by her arm, all of her weight directed downwards into her wounded leg, shooting lances of pain up her body, tracing-- She seems surprised that Cantio answered her question, not entirely registering that she'd said it out loud. She blinks, and meets Cantio's gaze with steady eyes. "You're ashamed? Why did you stop fighting? Because of her, good heart?" The last two words sound alien in her mouth, echoing something rather than continuing the sentence fluidly. "Were you scared of her?"
Cantio	"I was ashamed, yeah. Once I learned more about her, about what she went through, I..." Cantio leans back in her seat and crosses one leg over the other to start rubbing out a cramp in her leg, letting the drones adjust around her until they look less like robotic mini-Cantios and more like an uncomfortable L*go recliner. "I kind of wished I didn't because it was easier to hate her before that. Er... At the time, I mean, not now. Now, I don't..." She strokes her chin again. "I don't hate her anymore, but it's not like I... Like? It's complicated." Indeed, Cantio still looks mildly confused about whatever it is she means. That last question has her nodding once. "I was. She was stronger than me, more skilled than me, and all I could think about for a while was getting stronger than her. Better at fighting, better at using my powers, more skilled at what I had, but getting stronger is more than that. Even if you improve your skills, you'll still be limited by what your body can do." Cantio explains, reaching for the Kana's turret once more to slide her fingers over that dented section. "How hard you can hit, how fast you can move, how much damage you can withstand. Magic, psychic, whatever energy..." Once she figures out where the dent would otherwise keep that turret from moving properly, she starts pushing her knuckle against it and making herself bleed in the process. It's not elegant at all, and she just casts some healing magic on her hand before continuing without so much as a wince. "And then there's power that you gain from other places, that costs something. It can be more than just enough power to overcome someone, but to overcome everything." In that small space in front of her reddening and still bleeding hand, time starts to move faster. It's an incredibly localized effect, but she's using it to fast-forward the process of pushing that dent back into place. It's like watching a time lapse video going on in that one specific spot, with hours of steady pressure applied to the dented section in a matter of seconds so as to not cause undue damage to the turret itself (and also avoid ruining the point she was making). "Other people, logic, reality, all sorts of stuff that you can't get on your own. What are you willing to spend, Petra? Who?"
Petra Soroka	"You're the most neutral person about her that I know. You used to hate her, and now, you just... don't. I don't get it. Isn't it so obvious that she went through that stuff? She's untouchable. That's what irritated everyone in the first place, back when apparently everyone hated her." Petra's eyes slide off of Cantio's face and stare blankly into the distance. Her voice grows in intensity, but not volume, like she's emphasizing each word with her chest. "It's so obvious. There's no way to become like that otherwise. So. Were you one of the ones who went to her house, and looked through her history, and decided that whatever fucked up shit happened to her made her a hero, intrinsically? It wasn't her actions, right? Just guilt? Losing steam because of that is so, boring." Petra shakes her head, strands of hair coming loose from her bun to frame her face. She takes a long drink of her iced tea, silently watching Cantio's demonstration. She clears her throat, and her voice is more level when she continues. "Beating her by getting stronger doesn't seem possible. I mean, personally, socially, spending those things like reality, she's incomparable in all of them. But beating, isn't really the only option? I'm not like that. I don't want that. I don't hate her." Silence hangs between them for a moment, heavy with unspoken words. "I don't know. It seems like everyone's reasons for stopping hating her are, so weak. Like no one really understands why. Just that they're uncomfortable with it, now. Hibiki and Candy, too." Petra reaches out and touches the newly reshaped plate, stretching out her arm and torso across the mech, practically lounging on it. She twists to face Cantio. "What would I be spending all that for, anyways?"
Cantio	"I don't hate her, but... I mean, it's not like I like-like her? It's..." Cantio wrinkles her nose a bit, clearly having some trouble figuring out the words to describe what it is exactly she feels about Lilian. "I... Like her more than I did at the start? I just don't like her as much as everyone else does, and whatever happened in her past doesn't erase what she did to me." Without elaborating on what exactly that was, she nods slowly at the next question about the house. "I was there, yeah. I don't think it made her a hero at all, and it was't guilt that stopped me. It just felt... Petty? To just think about beating her when there was so much else I could have been getting angry about. What happened there really put her.... Her-ness into perspective, though, and she's improved a lot since then. If she had been like this from the start, though, I'd probably like her m-" Wait. No, that doesn't sound right. Cantio furrows her brow again, still looking thoughtful about all of it. "... I might not have chased power the same way I did before. Or the way I am now, even if I don't really care about beating her anymore like I did before." She finally pulls her hand away from the Kana after several more hours' worth of constant pressure to that dent in those few seconds. It's possible that her efforts could have resulted in a cleaner result what Cantio could have done with a proper hammer. "Maybe it is boring, but now I have a better idea of what matters to me than I did before all of that. I have a responsibility to everyone here before anything else, so I'm getting stronger for their sake. Becoming a better ruler, one that can provide and protect everyone here, and destroy anyone that threatens them... If I happen to get so much better at it that it happens to get on her nerves in the process, it's... Not like I'd complain about it." There's a blatantly petty tone in Cantio's voice at that last part. "What you're spending it on, though... That depends on what you want." She floats over slowly before stepping off the drones and onto the mech, taking a seat beside Petra. "Is there something you need to protect? Or something you want to achieve? What are you fighting for?"
Petra Soroka	"Everyone views things like that, you know?" Petra bites her knuckle and squats down, folding her legs beneath herself awkwardly. "Lilian being different would've made you less driven to chase power. You're chasing power to change yourself into a better ruler. And then lastly, at the very end, it's all to make this city better." Petra slides a hand into her pocket, fiddling around before pulling out an unlit cigarette. She spins it around in her fingers, not looking down. "Most people can't do that, right? Most people don't have that effect on the world. The way she acts shapes people so strongly that the world changes, out in ripples." Petra tilts her chin up, smiling. "Do I need to want anything other than that? It's not something petty, I think. I want to see what happens when that force is directed at me. The kind of ripples that the collision makes." Petra pulls out a lighter, and flicks it open. She fumbles, trying to get it to light, multiple times. Blushing, she fiddles around with her hands, to get a better angle. "She's a crucible." Petra finally gets the lighter to work, then coughs. She puts the cigarette in her mouth, and fluidly, too quickly, lights it. She turns her face away from Cantio.
Cantio	"I... No, I think still would have. I already did even before all of that happened, but he direction would have been..." Cantio doesn't finish thatthought. It's too much to speculate on there, and she's not quite ready to give Petra such a noncommittal answer. "You're right about the ripples, though. I don't even know if she realizes it, either, but things really would have been different for all of me if not for that." She looks at her own hand for a moment, seemingly considering something before shaking her head and tugging one of her drones over. "Cherry." And then it goes to finally get Cantio a drink. As it does, she eyes Petra curiously when she reveals what it is she's looking for, and she looks just a little confused at what that's supposed to mean. "You... Want her to keep saying what she's been saying to you? Um." That, more than anything else tonight, has Cantio looking rather baffled. "O... Okay. That's one way to get stronger, certainly, or even just to find out what your limits are. Just be careful not to crash into her too hard, or you might not be able to get back up right anymore. Otherwise..." A curious glint crosses Cantio's face, and then she lays back along the mech as well, still gazing at her own hand. "Consider figuring out how to mess with reality. That's how I got her attention. Wear a mouth guard."