2491/Stained Glass

Stained Glass
Date of Scene:	20 February 2017
Location:	Earth Court Frat House - Roof
Synopsis:	Naru and Kunzite experiment with a power combination or two. Of COURSE it goes boom. That's okay when it's on purpose, right?
Cast of Characters:	Kunzite, Naru Osaka

---

Kunzite has posed:
It's up around ten degrees out, and sunny, and, blissfully, not raining. Which means that it's a wonderful day to be out on the roof, especially after Kunzite's checked for any unexplained drones that might be scanning the place for Eclipse. Or for WPS. Or for Riventon, which mostly but not entirely overlaps with Eclipse anyway.

No, they are not anywhere near any of the edges of the rooftop. Some chairs and tables have been dragged over, there are thermoses of hot chocolate and coffee, and there's a covered array of Naru-approved emergency recharge foods.

Also a first aid kit and a couple of towels.

"I doubt we'll actually need any of it," Kunzite says, barring possibly the coffee he's actually pouring into covered mugs now, "but better to have it on hand than to regret it later. Especially since Mamoru's out with Usagi at the moment; I'd prefer not to need to interrupt them."

Naru Osaka has posed:
The coffee will be pressed into immediate service. The rest?

Naru flickers a smile. "I expect we'll be fine. I mostly want to explore augmenting.. which I suppose can go weird, but it seems less likely. Being able to .. effectively colour in other people's lines.. really opens up possibilities for working together."

Naru reaches for one of the mugs as he finishes pouring. "I did learn about how much magic I can do before I both need lunch, and a break. Which was valuable in and of itself."

Kunzite has posed:
"Immensely, yes. It's far preferable not to learn that in the course of an emergency." Kunzite draws out a couple of chairs one-handed and sets them together, then folds himself down into one, coffee in one hand, cape idly managed in the other. "What of Kyouko's were you able to work with effectively?"

Naru Osaka has posed:
Naru settles in a chair and tucks her legs up under her. Both hands wrap around the mug. "I can prop up her illusions. That barrier that she used with the witch? I can strengthen and enhance that too. It feels like a lattice work to me, and I can seep into the spaces." She takes a sip of coffee, thoughtful. "The stained glass analogy continues to work surprisingly well."

Kunzite has posed:
"That makes a certain degree of sense. You've had a taste of how I consider and configure magic; it may or may not be as amenable to your techniques as Kyouko. I think, perhaps, it would be best to begin with one of my normal methods of projection, before trying to adapt it specifically to you; you might find a better approach." Kunzite glances aside at Naru, as if he expected her reaction to be visible as much as spoken. "And likely better to sort out projection before trying anything else. Unless you have another preference?"

Naru Osaka has posed:
"With leisure to experiment, I'm finding that I'm fairly flexible in how I approach things." Naru nods in agreement with him. "Which, considering my magic, is not surprising. Yours is also creative in a very different way. I expect we'll find ways to overlap, but mid-fight is a poor time to try it. You have a far more analytical understanding of yours than I do of mine. I still am very much running on instict, trial and error, and making crap up."

Kunzite has posed:
"Partly analytical, partly instinct," Kunzite says. "I don't operate on as deeply scientific a level as Mercury does; an artisan at best. But that in itself may be useful for you, in the long run."

He opens his free hand, and his fingers form a series of three carefully defined symbols, whereupon a distinct pink glow emanates from the palm of his hand -- which he keeps oriented directly upward. Like holding a fire, if the fire were delivered by some demented marketing cupid. Golden flickers flash through it in places, upward and gone, only increasing the not-quite-flame comparison.

"This is the same energy I use in my attacks," he says aside to Naru. "Less of it, and less aggressively focused, but the same. Will it do for experiments?"

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Mmmm." Naru .. Hyalite.. considers the flicker of pink and gold that Kunzite holds in his hand. Another sip of coffee before she reaches over to set her mug down. "Less of it and less agressively focused is fine. To me? When I'm playing in energy, it's playing in colour."

No sketchbook out, Hyalite is considering the little flickering flame, and quirking her head, reaching out for it, with no intention of touching, but a physical gesture helps focus the attention. "That's how it worked when Endy and I combined together, I changed the colour of his attack, and enhanced it that way."

The pink is shifting, still with golden flickers, but edging darker in tone, gaining more blues in it. "It doesn't want to listen to me though."

Kunzite has posed:
"Try changing portions," Kunzite suggests. "The two extant colors may have different qualities." Gold -- the energy given him by Mamoru, its hue bleeding through to color his own. Pink -- the dominant color of the kunzite crystal he's named for; but kunzite can also shift to a colder hue, lilac or lavender, or go clear altogether, depending on the angle it's seen at. And then there are the emotional overtones, the qualities that drive him; but neither purity nor affection is quite, in him, what it would be taken for if given the word alone. Nor can he guess how they'd translate to color. So he lets those stay silent, and watches instead to see what she does.

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Mmm." Hyalite grins. "I usually can just /win/ on colouring, I'm not used to colours fighting back. Except when orange was gone from the world. That felt fairly reasonable that it would fight me some." Clearly the challenge isn't yet a discouraging one, but an interesting puzzle. "They feel different, to me at least, the two colours. The gold is more stable, the pink is willing to budge, but it .. mmm."

Naru resettles in her seat again and then aims for another tack. "Alright, so if it doesnt want to shift for me.." Her voice is contemplative, clearly thinking aloud for Kunzite's benefit. "I wonder if it'll let me add a .. filter or a translucent layer on top. The pink stays pink, but ..."

Kunzite has posed:
"If those don't work," Kunzite says, "try it from a different angle." He pauses for a moment, then turns his hand, and for a moment the warm pink shifts to a searing white; but the strain on him is obvious, and he relaxes back into the dominant orientation again. "There are options. This is just the most efficient, and therefore the default."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Oooh!" Naru blinks at the white and even for the brief time it's there, she can wrestle /that/ into a deep brick red before letting it flash back to white and then gone again. "That one basically begs to be meddled with, but I'd rather aim for the efficient one. Which ... I think because it /is/ efficient, it's got fewer hooks for me to grab, so to speak."

Naru mmms softly, prodding anew at the pink as Kunzite relaxes. Shades of pink, obvious only to the most observant. "Its slippery."

Kunzite has posed:
That brick red snaps and spits, rather than being a steady glow; the pink may be slippery, but the white protests, defends itself. Kunzite considers both, but lets Naru prod undisturbed. It's only when there's a lull in her own experimentation that he turns his hand again, angling it for that cooler, slightly deeper color. There's no mistaking it for amethyst -- amethyst is warmer and deeper, more solid. "Slippery is an interesting term. Is this better or worse?"

Naru Osaka has posed:
The snap, the crackle, the protests and defending of the white, the inefficiencies in and of themself give much for Naru to work with, it's likely wildly draining on her too, but easier in so many ways. Overkill, no doubt, but easier.

Naru stretches a little as she watches the colour shift on his hand and considers it. "Different." She decides after a moment and almost as Kunzite stops changing the colour towards cooler and deeper, Naru tries to push it further along that path. As if she can sneak in and edge it further towards darker, cooler, encouraging blue tones to come and join the party.

Kunzite has posed:
Easier, this time, than transmuting the pink altogether. The gold almost flares brighter through it; deeper blues are something that the gold gets along with. Kunzite blinks, two or three times, but if any part of her experiment is uncomfortable for him, it's not enough so for him to voice any comment.

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Ahhh.. it's just picky." Naru murmurs thoughtfully. "Fussy about what colour it'll play with. I can work with that." Blues are well within the realm of what she's willing to work with, pulling it towards that cool and deep, the pink tones still present, but augmented.

Naru takes a moment to reach for her coffee and to recollect her thoughts. "Alright.. I want to try with the slippery one again in a moment. Your variations, so far all easier."

Kunzite has posed:
Kunzite dismisses the glow, stretching his hand while he has the break, then resorting to coffee himself again. "That makes a certain degree of sense," he says. "Anything that contradicts the nature of the energy would be resisted; anything that enhances it without contradicting it would be accepted and carried along. I can't be sure what that nature would look like, from your perspective. But 'fussy' sounds right."

Yes, he did say those last four words without a blink.

Naru Osaka has posed:
"It does make a lot of sense, I just didn't run into it with Kyouko's." Naru sips coffee, leaning over to reach for a cookie. Her snacks of choice are all fairly high calorie, high fat, some protein bars to augment the easy carb load.

"Which means I'll have to just be aware of what colours you're currently using, and work in that range. Which is easy enough, and probably something I should be doing with most people's, rather than enforcing my own choices upon them willy nilly."

Kunzite has posed:
"Alternatively," Kunzite says, "I could try to structure something designed to hold your energy -- to create that stained-glass effect on purpose." He doesn't give a demonstration on the spot. Largely because he's still holding his coffee, and Naru has a cookie in hand. Break time, for now.

Naru Osaka has posed:
"That sounds like a good choice to explore as well." Naru nods. "I don't seem to have much luck with the lattice on my own. Might be something I get better at, but currently? It collapses if I look at it oddly."

Another cookie as she drinks her coffee, looking thoughtful. "I've a few more sketches in my book too. Do you have a preference on energy doodles? Is there somethign that makes it more easily accessible for you?"

Kunzite has posed:
"Energy is largely energy, for me," Kazuo replies. "It may be wholesome or unwholesome, useful or near-useless, but unless someone or something is actively binding it in place, I can draw upon it all the same. There are some differences; light and heat are most natural, electricity easiest to manipulate in interesting patterns, kinetic energy more difficult. But I haven't seen any patterns in your art as of yet. Not in the works you've let me examine closely, at least."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"I only bind it enough to have it stay, which isn't quite the same." Naru nods slowly. "I think they're starting to get more consistent. It'd be interesting to see if there are any patterns, but I'm not overly concerned, per se." She grins. "At some, when things are quiet, I'll leave you my sketchbook."

Kunzite has posed:
"I suppose that's a way to deal with temptation to stop studying for university entrance," Kunzite agrees, solemn. He glances aside at the progress of her cookie; there's no sense of being hurried, only a check as to whether it's time to put his coffee down quite yet.

Naru Osaka has posed:
"I have a wide variety of ways to procrastinate." Naru points out as she brushes her fingers off from cookie crumbs and sets her coffee down again. "I thought you wrote exams with everyone else, didn't you? Or was I mistaken on that one."

A deep breath, held a moment and Naru resettles in her seat again, reshifting her legs under her. "I suspect, in the grand scheme of things, being able to augment other people's powers is going to be more useful than me with a flamethrower."

Kunzite has posed:
"I did," Kunzite confirms. "I was referring to your exams." The ones three years from now, when there's some small chance of things being quiet for a while.

The mention of the flamethrower draws a brief spark of amusement, though it never touches his mouth. "There may come times when the important part is whether we can augment your flamethrower," he returns. "But agreed, on the whole. Agreed for everyone. Augmentation is the basis of combination -- and the most effective moments are when teams and allies can work together. You were there to see what happened when Nephrite and I worked with Endymion, that time we were attacked up here. You weren't there to see what happened when Prism Keeper Yellow augmented the Senshi and company en masse, but as the recipient, I assure you it was impressive."

Naru Osaka has posed:
Naru laughs brightly and shakes her head. "I haven't decided if I'm writing exams in three years yet or not." She admits with a little shrug. "So I might have /plenty/ of time to fiddle with my sketchbook."

"So far, if I'm the best choice for front line damage dealing, we are so screwed it's not even funny." Naru points out with a grin on the idea of anyone supporting her and her flamethrower. She nods at the idea of working together, however. "When Endy and I combined against the wraith, it would have been amazing, if I hadn't messed it up. I can absolutely see the potential in it. It's why figuring out how to augment other people's skills seems like a good use of my practice time."

Kunzite has posed:
"Out of all the people who frequent this apartment, there are two who can set things on fire," Kunzite says. "If the girls aren't here, and Zoisite's elsewhere, then you're it. And fire is useful."

For the moment, though -- he considers. And then lifts both hands, and shapes a small sphere of darkness between them. "The shadows are containment," he says. "In case this gets out of hand. You'll need to lean over and touch them, or pull your chair around, in order to work with this one."

Within the shadows, lightning flickers -- just once, at first, and off-color at that. Tinged with that same pink, the next with the cool violet. The next that searing white. More, slowly, then more frequent ... then beginning to form a sort of structure, lines and interstices drawn in crackling energy.

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Fire /is/ useful." Naru agrees as she scoots her chair closer to be able to both come closer /and/ lean in to touch the shadowy containment. "Why do you think I default to it most of all? Other than familiarity."

Naru watches the crackling and rippling energy start to settle into a structure, housed within the shadows. This takes more concentration from Naru as she leaves Kunzite's latticework largely alone, not changing the colours of his energy this time, but rather using it as a frame, boundaries as she washes the gaps between them with colour. The blue again, much like what she changed his pink into eventually.

Kunzite has posed:
"Because it suits you." As if that were perfectly obvious. As if no other element or symbol could possibly do as well, for her to reach for in an emergency. And then Kunzite's paying closer attention, and there's a give-and-take between the boundaries and the blue -- she can push those sheets and lines of energy, change where the vertices lie, if she so cares to, and the rest of the system changes in response, trying to find some stable configuration.

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Woah.. yours wriggles more than Kyouko's." Naru says and then laughs softly. "Which probably would be a helluva comment to catch out of context." She frowns in concentration as she settles to shaping colourful energy, almost like she's a magical 'fill' button in paint. Naru has a knack, almost, for settling her colouful shapes percisely into the lines that are there, different colours in different sections.. apparently at random.

Kunzite has posed:
"Kyouko's like Mercury. They're both clever, and both full of tricks, but ultimately, much of the time they think in straight lines. Granting that parabolic curves are straight lines bent by gravity." Kunzite's tone is distracted, a little distant, reflecting his own concentration. "What we're doing at the moment is a form of partnership. Those tend to find balance either by pushing against each other, or by braiding between. Not quite the same."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"All curves are bent staight lines." Naru points out absently.

Naru scoots a little closer on her chair, squinting a little as she unapologetically uses her hands to 'shape' the colours she's fitting in like a mutable jigsaw puzzle. "Right.. where the tension of friction, so to speak, holds everything together. Which.. yeees." Naru nudges, to encourage a few pieces of colour to expand oh so slightly, to settle into pressing against some of the energy latticework.

Kunzite has posed:
And the elasticity, there, holds the colour into place, and where it's bounded properly, the colour holds the energy in place in turn. Stained-glass in three dimensions; or a biological system, cells working with cells --

-- and as it fills, Kunzite is able to draw more and more attention back to Naru and what she's doing, rather than spending it keeping the design from disintegrating.

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Eee." It's not a distraught sound, it's the sound of delighted discovery, the teen girl equivilant of 'eureka!', really. Naru can nudge and shape and further empty spots in the leading are much easier to fill in, as not only things become more stable, but the familiarity comes in how it /should/ feel and look.

Naru looks.. honestly.. much as she does when she's playing with the VR system, her hands adjusting and smoothing and nudging things that, other than Kunzite at the moment, generally poeple can't actualy see. Sculpting the energy reality between them. "The question becomes.. is it actually stronger, or just terribly pretty?"

Kunzite has posed:
"That depends," Kunzite says, and when he glances aside to Naru, his expression is --

It's still not very much of an expression. But what it is there is conspiratorial, alive with a glee both secret and shared.

They're making something new. And something beautiful.

"What are you telling your part of it to do?"

Naru Osaka has posed:
New, creative AND beautiful. It's a glorious thing.

"At the moment, much like the glass analogy.. and the slippery of the earlier pink. It's not much of a do, but a /be/.. do I suppose is to hold light tension against the lattice, but be is the smooth of glass, to have things slide off the surface of it." Naru's words are thoughtful, as if she's never really thought about what she's telling it to /do/ in actual words before.

Kunzite has posed:
"So. Smooth surface. And what is it beneath that surface? Brittle, like glass? Malleable? Solid or viscous, or burning like your fire? Or is it only surface, and nothing else at all?" He glances sidewise toward Naru again. "The other time was you adapting to me. This time is me adapting to you. So tell me about what I'm adapting to."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Oh!" Naru hadn't /entirely/ processed that detail, which makes the question far more reasonable, and understandable. "Smooth. Solid. I'm hoping for not brittle, but I'm never entirely confident on the lack of brittle. At the moment, it's just surface and nothing else."

Naru frowns a little, thoughtful. "It never occured to me to make it burning.. I can adjust it as needed, although I'm not sure I can adjust it fast enough in a fight, but doing this? I can fiddle with it. So malleable to me.. probably to you as well, you can futz with my stuff, can't you?"

Kunzite has posed:
"If this explodes," Kunzite says, "and it's brittle, it'll send shrapnel like glass. If it's just surface, then the fragments of it will plaster against anything they hit surface-on, but potentially slice through anything they hit edge-on. If it's burning --" He shrugs a shoulder, careful not to disrupt the containment. "It'll burn. I can't interfere with what you've put into this unless I absorb it and put it out again first, and then all I can do is put it out again as the same kind of energy, or process it into my own, or entangle it with something else I've taken in. I can reshape it. But I can't change its nature except in certain specific ways."

His eyes gleam again, as he doesn't smile at her. "So. What do you feel like playing with?"

Naru Osaka has posed:
"It always feels as if I expect you to be able to manipulate things more than you can, but your ability to work with what you do have, is amazing." Naru considers the pros and cons of varius surfaces that it /could/ be.

"There's something utterly cathartic and beautiful about shards of shrapnel like glass, but I probably need to work on how strong I can manage to make it before it explodes with the brittleness." Naru considers and then mmmms. "See how much flex we can put in the whole structure will give us a good idea on how much physical damange it can take before being a liabiity."

Kunzite has posed:
Kunzite glances aside to Naru, his eyebrows lifted. "Being a liability? I was thinking of it in terms of a method of attack. In which case, the explosion is in fact the plan. I can't sustain energy output on a level high enough to make something like this effective as a defense; my defenses work on another principle entirely, one less amenable to support. Though this might, of course, be intended as, or become, something different altogether."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Usually I'm entirely too close for the explosion not to be a liability." Naru points out and then grins. "That being said.. I can extend things /far/ more effectively when it's not my latticework, when I'm providing the innerbits and not all the bits. Then.. yes. I can see it working as a method of attack. Especially when it's presented as a decoy defense, that invites the hitting."

Kunzite has posed:
"Mn. My problem is that I can't expand this efficiently, at this juncture." Kunzite does not, quite, shift uneasily. Not quite. "I don't have the resources to fuel that kind of energy expenditure at a size large enough to make a convincing decoy defense. What we might have is something that might echo Sky Jack's attacks, say. Or a very interesting kind of grenade." There's a brief little tug at the corner of his mouth, finally, when he says that last.

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Mmm." Naru considers as she wriggles her fingers and stretches out her portions to lightly press against the framework as a whole. "What works best for giving you extra resources? Or.. can I do the heavy energy lifting? I haven't yet /really/ found my energy edges, other than needing a snack. Oh and being drained, but that's not me finding them." It's a matter of fact query, thoughtfully proposed, with no more weight to it than 'what size batteries do you take?'

"Stained glass grenade." Naru sounds delighted. "Attack them with beautiful, and if I'm /really/ invested, overly moralistic design choices!"

Kunzite has posed:
"Those are all useful questions, but they're also questions that we can address after we're done with the matter at hand." Kunzite tilts his head a little, and his hair comes within a breath of sweeping the shadow that contains the multicolored glow. "Let's finish playing with this first, so I don't have to try to explain things while also keeping it from dissipating." Or exploding early. "Presume something explosive for now, then, and make any changes you'd like; then, shall we try it out?"

Naru Osaka has posed:
"I have no clue what you might mean about focusing on something that probably wishes to explode." Naru flashes a quick smile. "Explosive seems to fit well, and we're aiming for bittle to get the shards." She's making shifts and adjustments as she speaks, as if using the words as a checklist for the proto-stained glass grenade that they're builidng together. There's a certain aesthetic to the colours, done without even really needing to think, to arrange it into a colourfully pleasing whole, inspired by ecclesastical glass, if not precisely a replica. "Alright.. I'm so accustomed to stablizing things, I'm not quite sure how to convince them to shatter on purpose."

Kunzite has posed:
"Let the shattering be my worry, for now," Kunzite says. "Just think about the glass. That's a medium; it should work well enough for you. And tell me when you're happy with it."

Naru Osaka has posed:
Naru is quiet a few moments, concentrating on the 'glass', adjusting and fiddling not just with colour, but brittleness and strength. "I need to do more reading about material scenes." She notes almost absently and then finally nods. "Try that."

Kunzite has posed:
There's a moment more of pause, while Kunzite adjusts the energy in turn. And then while he summons up a larger sphere, a greater containment -- shimmering shadows, a good eight or ten feet in diameter. The frown of concentration is fixed, between the number of effects he's maintaining, and he doesn't try to speak --

-- he just launches that bright stained-glass (overly moralistic or not), letting it arc up into the shadows, not overhead so much as at an angle -- sparking and sparkling --

The burst of energy he sends after it it is tiny and concentrated, more like a bullet than a beam.

It breaks the balance, and the caged lightning writhes, snapping back into the 'glass,' shattering it and exploding it outward --

-- shrapnel in a rain of color and brightness --

He's moving before it strikes the outer containment, up and out of his chair and kicking it out of the way, flicking his cape out and across and bowing down over Naru's chair so that that secondary armor covers them both. Because, as he said, his shields are not so good against kinetic energy.

Color-glass carves through it, splinters and shards driving down to skitter across the rooftop, shred the nearer first-aid kit, puncture the plastic of his cup.

... it is entirely possible that she has never seen Kunzite grinning like, well, a teenager before.

Naru Osaka has posed:
As there's a burst of energy and Naru can /guess/ on how this is going to go, shields or not, she's hunkering down, with an arm over her face, in anticipation of things going boom.

And they DO, and it is a glorious sparkle of shattered colourful glass /everywhere/ and a moment or two before Naru peeks out around her arms and to where Kunzite has gained sparkles of glass in the protecting of her with his cape.

His grin brings about a brilliant grin from her and an absolutely delighted 'EEEEE'. "That was /awesome/!"

Kunzite has posed:
Kunzite brings his cape back carefully, and shakes the glass out where it's not liable to fall into important things. Like Naru's shoes. The toss of his head is careful, too. Even if his expression's settled back into its normal lines, there's a brighter gleam in his eyes. "Something that'll need care, but for now it has its uses, and there's always the possibility of refining it in ways that will keep it from affecting allies; some people have figured out how to do that, and your approach makes it likely you'd be able to, as well."

(Wouldn't that be useful for a flamethrower?)

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Well it's likely to be a little different every time." Naru agrees as she bends down to pick up one of the larger shards that remains, the tactile feeling of the glass augmenting her mental picture of just exactly how it is supposed to be. There's something very satisfying about having in your hands what you just imagined a few moments ago. Very satisfying. "Flexibility is something that is one of my strengths, so I shoudl be able to customize as needed."

Naru is still grinning as she settles back in her chair and then considers their coffee and how much glass got into them. Thank goodness for lids. "How bad was it on your energy?"

Kunzite has posed:
"That one? Not so bad. Small-scale." Naru's coffee is likely all right; long cape is long. Kunzite's coffee is dripping from puncture holes. He fetches one of the towels without comment to deal with it. "Larger ones would take much more energy. You know the formula for the volume of a sphere. That's why I generally construct shields out of energy drains rather than energy proper; less energy expenditure to begin with, and a constant inflow to help balance it out."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"I wonder if that's why I can't get a lattice of my own to work properly." Naru speculates as she reaches for her own coffee. "I have just energy to work with, not drain, and I need to practice more to get more efficient with my use of it. Mmmm. Possibly." She huffs a breath, just to ensure there's no glass dust on top before she takes a sip.

Alright, so back to the question of your energy resources." Naru isn't going to let that go yet, tucking herself back into her chair.

Kunzite has posed:
"Extensive," Kunzite says, "but not unlimited. Easiest way to recharge in a fight is simply to absorb an attack; that's already focused energy. Most other recharge methods take more time. Dark energy, or things tainted by Witches, or similar, are ... problems."