Norie Okana was restless and felt more of a miserable failure of 'a human being' than she normally did today. Her first actual assignment! The order came on offical stationary even! In writing! She drained excess energy from that strange girl on the street--- so she could output harder and succeed! She had help!
-- and she failed miserably- and that stupid little girl with the magic revolvers took the gem away and that princess looking girl and the black haired girl with the guns.
Ugh and the yelling. About her use of 'Dark Energy' as 'Evil'. She was certain of a few things.
A:) That Riventon-san was going to be dissapointed in her for failing.
B:) She was going to track that girl down and beat her until the gem came out and she redeemed herself.
C:) She needed to get better at... all this. Somehow.
So there the girl stood- long purple hair and all reaching up to press the call button next to Riventon's lab.
"Riventon-san..." a pause. "It's me. Lac----" a hard breath through her teeth. "Norie." she said.
Riventon flicks the switches necessary to open the door to the sort-of-airlock that keeps the negative energy in his lab seperate from the rest of Eclipse. Sunset Tower isn't exactly a bastion of positive energy, but there's a difference between that and basking in the largest concentration this side of the Dusk Zone.
As the second door opens, Riventon turns in his chair (which he may have done one too many full spins in) to look at her. "Either works. They're the same person, just like Takashi and Riventon are." Are now, even if he tried for a while to keep that from being true.
"I heard what happened... and, well, it wasn't the optimal result, but I understand you ran into some rather aggressive opposition." he says.
"In any case I think I can probably replicate what we were trying to achieve with the gem, it'll just take a little bit more time. My major concern is that since they have the gem they might be able to get some insight into what we're doing, so I'd still like to get it back."
Norie Okana politely waits in that airlock. She makes a squinting face when the fans blow the air and some sort of magic filtration system makes sure there's no floating dark energy in there. Then the other door opens and she walks into the lab.
There's a large concentration of dark energy in here. It's thick. It's a familar feeling to her. It doesn't bother her-- she can survive this kind of exposure. Heck.
She probably would /thrive/ in this exposure. It actually does make her feel a little more comfortable which is super strange to her. It's like the Dusk Zone without the undercurrent of 'Cthulu might be around the next rock'.
She shakes off the feeling. "....you're not upset?" she asks confusedly. She came inhere to be yelled at, dammit! Wait- no she didn't. But. She expected it. "Well. Alright. I still feel like I did poorly." she frowns. "Some Princess looking girl with pink hair and some black haired girl with guns, yes." she says. "And some smaller younger girl with two weird magic revolvers who took the gem." she frowns.
"Nrg, I even took in excess energy and it still wasn't enough to overpower everyone that came." she complains. "I don't know what I'm doing wrong." she crosses her arms with a hrmph.
She's still wearing that bangle she was given. It appears to be in good shape.
Then a pause a blink. "Takashi... is that the other name?" she asks. It's the first she's heard it. She just purses her lips and shrugs.
"You've been in this place a lot recently..." she says. "...I dunno. It feels comfortable in here for me. Like...."
"...coming into a supercooled AC room from like one hundred and ten degree heat." she purses her lips. "Like that."
Takashi shrugs. "Well, I'm not thrilled, but I don't expect perfection. Part of that's probably the scientist in me. If everything worked exactly as planned every time, things would be far less interesting. Think of it as a chance to improve." he offers, leaning back in his chair. "You can try a different approach, or a different teammate, or something else next time."
"It'd be rather hypocritical of me to complain about a failed attempt when I don't succeed all of the time. The catch is, every time I fail, I learn. And eventually the accumulation of that will make it... rather unlikely to continue." he says with a smile.
"Besides, Glitch and Kokoro didn't succeed either, so I'd still be missing a peice." Then he gets up. "Yeah, I find it easier to focus in here. It blocks out a lot of intrusive thoughts. Plus, most people know they can't come in here without freaking out, so they leave me alone." he says with a grin. "Not that I mind you in here. I mean more like, executive-types. Though that's less of an issue lately."
Norie Okana is doing that thing people do when they search thier thoughts, her eyes looking toward's the ceiling and across. She purses her lips. "Mmphh." she says. She just shakes her head. Nope. Still confusing thoughts for her. Maybe it can't fix everything. Or maybe she needs to hang out in more of an enviroment for this for longer.
"I'll figure out a way to find that girl and get it back." she grumbles.
"What exactly, are you trying to do with these, Riventon-san? I guess it's ultimately none of my bussiness. But." she says softly.
"I fail to see the connection between a software company and a black gem." she says with a softer tone.
A pause. "Can you program pretty jewelery?" she asks almost teasingly. Of course she thinks she's joking but then Devices are a thing.
"Riventon-san." she asks. "Do you ever have people spout at you about using 'Evil Energy'." you can almost hear the sneer. "Like it's a 'choice' you have?" she asks brow furrowed a little. "Like I can just switch to using something else." she hrmphs. "With a snap of my finger." she insists.
Her delcaration of intent makes him smile again, too. "I'm sure you will. Don't let her get away with it - just because they brought more people. You're still stronger - if not today, then you will be tomorrow. You will overcome her in the end."
"Oh, the connection isn't direct. They're just both part of the same project. The gem in question has an affinity for the Dusk Zone and the energies that we both share. Which means it'd be useful as a focus for a device that channels a lot of that sort of energy. And the software we were looking for was a sort of in-progress work on adapting a virtual space to its owner in real time." he says, with a strange smile. "Trust me, they're more relevant to each other than they seem."
"I could probably program it, but that's not the purpose. Besides, Axion would get jealous if I made yet another device for myself, and your energy wouldn't flow through right without a lot of... oh wait, you're joking." he says, stopping himself and looking down at his papers for a moment.
"Of course. That's what cost me my girlfriend." he says, almost casually. It's easier to talk about it in here, with that black energy coursing through, filling the wounds and gashes as he talks about them, suffocating his emotions and reactions in silence and darkness. "She wanted me to stop. Which is like asking me to stop breathing. Her too. I saved her with that power and even still she was blind to it."
"You've seen those things in the Dusk Zone too, I'm sure. Waiting at the edge, just wanting to get thier strength into this world, to destroy it. The things that are the real monsters rather than us?" he asks. "I don't see how we're ever going to stop them or fight them if we deprive ourselves of the strength this energy lends to you and us. The end of my research would be a death sentance for this world as much as me."
Norie Okana blinks a bit. Girlfriend? Riventon had a girlfriend? She seems so confused suddenly. So utterly confused. So utterly and poorly confused suddenly. "Ah...."
"I'm jealous." she admits. "I don't know if I could feel that way for anyone like I am right now." she admits a little tersely. "I'm..sorry?" she says. Like she doesn't know if that's the appropiate response. "She didn't understand." she says quietly. She purses her lips. She still has roses in safe keeping. Still pondering and confused on wether she should find out if that silly legend was real. She just shakes her head to herself.
"Huh...?" oh! "Nono, I was being teasing." she assures.
She frowns. "Yeah. I know. Those things... I dunno. They ignore me. Or maybe I'm not worth the time. Or maybe they're scared. Or maybe I'm just another one passing through." she shrugs.
She purses her lips. "I've been pondering studying them or catalouging them. Maybe there's species or maybe they're all different." she muses. "I figure you don't need to be a scientist to write down observations." she says. "Maybe I can learn things from it. Or maybe it'd be a nice hobby." she says.
"Like birdwatching!" she says with wide eyes. Yes. Exactly like birdwatching if birds were horrible abomniations.
Right now, Takashi is perhaps as close as he can get to understanding Norie - the two of them have a lot in common and a lot so far apart. He looks at her. "It's okay." he says, almost relaxing into the calm smoothness of the energy in the room. "That really had nothing to do with you. I appreciate it, but it's probably not business I should've shared."
"It's possible they ignore you more than me. They get aggressive if I get too close - like they sense something about me or on me that doesn't belong. Like I'm really just a visitor and it's dangerous to forget that."
"Observations might be handy. I wish I had more time to devote to them, but right now with how they are they're just lower on my priorities list. One problem, one apocalypse at a time." he says, and then sighs. "Some things are just more pressing. But if you can, it might be really handy."
Norie Okana shakes her head. "You can say what you mean. I can get close because I'm not human." she says with a straight face, a hard frown, but still. "Not like you anyone else at least." she says. "Humans don't have weird black... stuff in them instead of blood." she mutters.
"I guess...I don't care as much as I used to. At least I still have a winning personality?" she asks with a smirk. Not quite a smile, but a smirk. "That's something those things don't have right?"
She shakes her head. "I'm just trying to be useful." she admits. "But if that's useful I'm going to do it. It might help me learn things about myself too." she says.
"But... regardless. I will get stronger." she says. "-- get that gem back." she hrmphs and crosses her arms... then looks down.
"...I'm glad you're not upset. I was prepared for a punishment... honestly." she says. "I mean. Not super duper mad.. not.. ugh. forget it. You know what I'm trying to say." she says as she sighs.
Takashi shakes his head. "Different doesn't mean that different unless you want it to." he says, bluntly. "You're not a monster I create or summon out of my lab. You're intelligent. You're just... going through a bit of a tough patch with your powers." Takashi says, waving his hand a bit. "Still working on that, too. Just busy so it's going slow."
"You've got intellect and purpose. You're not a mindless beast. That's what I know for sure." he says. He doesn't even say it in a soft way - he says it bluntly, pointing out a clear observation.
"I recommend it. It could probably be almost meditative, if you like the form of energy there as much as you do here. Maybe you can see something I can use when I'm working on your equipment. Is that working out okay for you?"
Takashi laughs again. "It seems like you're punishing yourself better than I could anyways, really. But look, as long as you go out there and give it your all, sometimes you're still gonna come up short. It just means we have to improve ourselves."
"You know, I do think anger is more productive than sadness or despair. It seems that way, with our sort of energy. Getting mad makes me want to fight, but more than that, it makes me want to ACT. Getting sad makes me just sort of wallow, and as far as I can tell, it's that sort of despair that's really so dangerous as to have bad effects on us in the long term."
Norie Okana looks at her braclet, and ohs! Right, the bangle. She says. "I think it's working? At least. In some manner. It's making it easier to keep 'Norie' longer." she says. "...less hiding in my closet at home as a buffer. Makes me less weird to my brother at least." she mutters. "Spend most of my energy in school however were hiding would be noticed. She sighs and bites her lip a bit in thought.
"Yeah, the energy here feels like...." she tries to find a way to phrase. "Like I said, 'AC on a hot day'." she says. "Not like cool- but. Refreshing- kind of. So maybe that'd work." she says in thought. "I never tried 'meditating'" she says.
"...I dunno if I like being alone in my head though." she admits. "If I can help it." she says. Then...
"Nrg..I'm kind of hard on my myself I guess." she admits. "I dunno why. Never used to be." she says. She blinks a bit.
"Yeah.. I get angry and I want to do things. I get sad and I.... feel like I wanna just mope away into nothing." she says. "I get sad easily I guess." she admits. "...the thing named me Lacrima afterall... 'Tears'..." she mutters.
"I guess I need to learn.. how to do that. 'Channel Anger'?" she asks. "I dunno. It's easy for me to unfocus I guess." she hrmphs.
"....how do you focus, Riventon-san..?" she asks. "Does it just..come or...?"
Takashi nods, and smiles at Norie. "Well, that's good. I hope it makes you feel a little bit less like a challenged outsider, anyways." he says, nodding. "You shouldn't feel pressured, but I also understand not wanting to let everyone in on the little secret. Most folks wouldn't believe it anyways. Sometime soon I'm hoping I can get a new improvement on your bangle - but that's gonna depend on how much time I lose to the big Eclipse Project here."
That's right, a different sort of reinforcement - the time he spends replicating something she didn't steal is time he can't spend helping her with her own problems.
"It's probably more soothing for you than for me. For me it's like... sinking into a bubble bath and letting the water get between me and all the chaos of the world. It's quiet here. I can focus on things other than the rumblings of my soul." he says, tilting his head. "You know if you don't like being alone you can come in here. You're one of the few people who can. Or just wander around Sunset Tower. Plenty of folks who will accept you here. There's a game room on the third floor, one of those new 'positive work culture' deals."
"I've been focusing on changing the other things into anger my whole life." he says, and gets suprisingly quiet and careful with his words for Riventon. "My father told me that's what happened to my mother... she let the despair, the sadness, the worst feelings get to her. That's how she died. It's part of the sacrifice she spent to give me this power. It's why I have to acheive greatness with it." he says, flexing his fist and dark energy swirls into it. "It doesn't come naturally, though."
Norie Okana nods. "It does help a little bit. At least. I feel less worry about it." she shakes her head. "I know it isn't a priority, besides I don't think it's... quite been a month yet? So. Yeah." she nods matter of factly. She sort of looks around the room a moment, not something she'd done a moment ago.
She nods. "Why do you flood the room with this energy anyways? Is it just for the help it gives you concentrating? or does it help your experiments?" she asks.
"Yeah I imagine this musn't be very good for anyone that isn't used to this kind of exposure..." she thinks. "Probably'll make them sick or worse I bet." she says.
Then a blink, and head tilts. "There's a game room? Well. I'll check it out then." she says softly. "Honestly I haven't. Really looked at anything. I have this neat card pass and haven't even used it besides to get in and out of UMBRA..." she admits sheepishly.
"I guess I'm used to feel like I consistently have my hand caught in a cookie jar." she admits.
When she listens about channeling anger she grows a little mopey. She'd only been at this a few months. Riventon's been this way his /whole life/? That's way more time.
"Well..I know I have plenty of time to figure it out." she mutters.
She seems to make a lighthearted joke. "Maybe I can somehow sleep for a hundred years then all my problems will be dead." she says. "Or too old to actually do anything about me." she says.
Takashi nods a bit. "Yeah, it'll be a month soon. I'm still getting data on how it affects you, too. And it's helping me figure it out. It just takes time to work through it.
"It helps me, and it helps my experiments. Some of the stuff I'm working with - some of the things I'm building - they'd be really unstable out in the real world. I can only really assemble them in here - get the stable. Otherwise I'd be working in the Dusk Zone and the lack of proper equipment there is a real drag." he says with a smirk.
"As you comment - it also keeps nosy Eclipse executive types out of my hair. Since it's so unsafe, I can work in relative privacy."
"You should really explore more. There's no sense in being an all-powerful entity like you'll probably end up being one day if all it does is make you miserable." he says, putting a hand on her shoulder as he leans forward. "Really, don't let it control you so much. You control your power. Not the other way around." He leans back.
"That just means you'd get different problems, really. The only way to fix em' is to solve em' now."
Norie Okana purses her lips. "Yeah- and- and I bet physics work differently there. It might be stable there and then just be unstable again when it comes back out into the 'real world'." she says, lacking a better term for 'Back to Earth'. "I mean if movies or anime are anything to go by. But that might be really lame to take examples from that."
She head tilts. "Yeah...I'll explore. I figure. If I'm not supposed to be somewhere, my card won't lemme go in. If it does, then that's a security fault anyways." she insists.
"Ugh I don't think I can be happy but I'll settle for smug satisfaction." she insists crossing her arms and pointing a finger up.
She then looks down. "Mmph..." she mutters softly. "I'll figure out a way to handle my problems. Right now. I'm pretty sure Sky Jack and.. this very Pink girl wants to kill me. So If I come in with like. Stakes through me or something, you'll know why." she says gently.
"I bet he's stupid enough to think that'll work. I bet it'll still hurt." she sighs as she gently closes her eyes.
"I should get going now, Riventon-san. Thank you for your time. I'll work on figuring out how I can find this girl with the revolvers now." she says as she sighs a bit.
She'll wait for Riventon to say his piece, and then-- gently give a soft bow-- and off she goes!
Takashi laughs a bit. "I had someone study magical girls from manga, once. It was more relevant than you might expect. Course' that didn't end so well in the end... so don't get caught up in morality or something dumb like that."
"You should have pretty high access. You work for me, and I wanted you to be able to go anywhere I needed you. Pretty much anywhere but the executive offices and the basement should be open."
"Smug satisfaction may be the best kind of happy we have access to, really." he says with a wink."Certainly it's my favorite. Putting idiots in there place is a true joy."
"Try not to get staked. If for no reason than that healing yourself would cost more energy." he says, pragmatically. "The answer is to teach him a lesson if you see him. Teach him he can't possibly stop you. You don't need to kill him - just hurt him badly enough he knows that you could." he says. "In fact, I don't recommend killing him. Might do bad things to your energy. And if you hurt him maybe he'll tell all the other morons to stay away."
"Remember what I said - control your powers, don't let them control you." Takashi says as she bows and steps away. Perhaps, far easier said than done.