2024-03-09 - Deal or No Deal
| Title: Deal or No Deal | |
|---|---|
| Summary: In light of being saved from a Hummingbird Orphan, Akari reflects on her experiences with Kyouka Okazaki, and comes to a conclusion. | |
| Who: | |
| Where: A small, run-down apartment | |
| OOC - IC Date: 3/9/2024 - Thursday, April 28, 2016 | |
Akari burst into her apartment and slammed the door behind her with a frustrated grunt. She had barely stepped inside before letting her ears and tails out, and began pacing back and forth in the cramped space.
"That... that girl!"
It just didn't make any sense. Akari had offered Kyouka Okazaki exactly what she had wanted, with some very modest terms, and she had refused to help. And then, when she had-- when she had been momentarily disadvantaged, that girl had then decided to step in, wield the prototype in her defense, and then just... give it back.
There was nothing Akari would've been able to do, not against a fully-powered magical girl. Not against a magical girl and all of her allies.
And she had voluntarily given up the prototype. Twice.
Her tails lashed wildly behind her as she paced. The aging carpet was already threadbare and getting worse as she retrod the same spot again and again, but Akari paid it no mind.
"You're just some... dumb teenager!" she said out loud to nobody in particular. "You can't be that complicated! I've made deals with half the magical underworld by now and you're the only person who's given me any problems!"
Something sharp dug into her palms. Akari stopped in her pacing and looked down to see her hands were balled into fists, and her nails were digging into her skin. She forced her hands to unclench and took a deep breath.
Akari threw herself on the couch with a frustrated grunt and let herself slouch, crossing her arms. She was better than that, of course, but there was nobody else to observe her in this moment and so frankly she didn't care how she looked.
What it ultimately came down to was the fact that Kyouka Okazaki had intervened to save her life, seemingly without asking anything in return, and Akari just couldn't understand why.
But there was someone who understood her intimately.
Akari groaned, covering her face with a hand. She really was in a bad way if she was considering that.
Taking a deep breath to steel her nerves, Akari let out a terse sigh. "Strike Wolf?" She still refused to accept that as his actual name, but she didn't really have the resources to do a ground-up overhaul right now, so she was forced to use it to address the prototype.
Strike Wolf was in his standby form, a small five-sided purple gem hanging from a cord around her neck. The core of the device pulsed pleasantly as he spoke. <Greetings. How may I be of assistance?>
"You spent a bunch of time with that brat. What's her deal?"
The Intelligent Device silently processed this question for a moment, lights pulsing deep within its form.<Please elaborate.>
"She's a teenager. She's got to want something, right? Money? Popularity? I dunno, a boyfriend or... a girlfriend? If she wasn't even a mage why did she even pick you up to begin with?"
<Kyouka responded to my distress call.>
Akari bit her lip. "That's... it? She helped you just... out of the goodness of her heart?"
<Affirmative.>
"But..." sputtered Akari. "... there's no way that someone like that, without magic, would go against a mage without even knowing what was going on!"
She paused and glanced aside. "... right?" she asked herself.
The device's surface shone, and in the air projected a recording of the events that had led to Kyouka coming in contact with Strike Wolf. Akari was very familiar with the scene by now, even without the timestamp displayed in a floating panel or the extra readings hovering around the outskirts.
There was the distress call, that girl was the only one to respond, she almost didn't make it. "Yes, yes, I've looked at this a thousand times already."
The recording paused at the point where Kyouka was shoving another girl out of the way of a fireball. A bright violet rectangle traced itself around the pair, and the image of the save was slid off to the side, and the recording continued. The next image to be saved was Kyouka sliding under the mage to catch Strike Wolf, followed by Kyouka, newly-transformed, defiantly challenging the mage.
The recording ended, only to be replaced by a new one. Akari frowned as she glanced at the timestamp. Some time later. There was... a parade, it seemed. "Why--" She cut herself off as an Ogre manifested, attacked--
From the crowd Kyouka transformed, jumped straight up, and then did a mid-air dashing motion to catch a falling woman. The image of Kyouka saving the woman slid off to join the other still images, and then another one a moment later when Kyouka turned to face the Ogre.
Then another, at the Dark Burger, with Kyouka readily joining in to face an opponent of overwhelming power-- Akari's eyes widened in shock. "What is that thing?"
<Unkown.>
More images joined the others, images of Kyouka fighting various creatures, or saving others, defending her friends. Then images of Kyouka practicing, training with her power, developing it further and figuring out how to create new spells with Strike Wolf.
"I thought you said she wasn't a mage..." muttered Akari with a frown.
<Affirmative.>
"Then... then why did she go through..." Akari gestured at the gallery of images floating in the air before her now. "... all of that?"
A soft inner light pulsed within Strike Wolf as he processed the query. <Kyouka has a strong protective instinct, and a desire to improve her potential.>
The foxwoman frowned deeply. "She... must have kept training without you, too..."
The image of the recent skirmish came up in midair, freezing with the image of Kyouka casting her Protection spell around herself and Akari. <Supposition has a high likelihood of correctness.>
"But..." muttered Akari, trying to process these facts. "Without proper training, there's no way she could do nearly as much without a device..."
<Affirmative.>
Akari reached out and gestured at the most recent image, scrolling forward until the moment where Kyouka was handing the prototype back, and then paused the playback. She sat, staring at that image for a long time.
"... She's honest," muttered Akari with a sinking feeling in her heart. "And principled. She uses power for others' benefits, but not her own."
There was a tremor in her voice as she spoke the next words. "... I can't make a deal with her. I can only trick her, and she's more perceptive than I've been giving her credit for." Akari closed her eyes and sagged back into the couch.
This was never going to work, was it?
So where did that leave her?
Akari stared at the images arrayed before her. Silently, she pulled them towards her, playing through them, studying the data recorded, and sifting through everything Strike Wolf would let her view. Threads of thoughts and ideas started to weave together in the back of her mind, and as she went she started making notes. She kept going until her stomach rumbled at her and then stopped to look at the results.
Yes, this was more than enough.
Hiding her ears and tail again, Akari stood and left, coming back some time later with several large fast food bags. Dumping them out onto a small side table, she then turned to toss off the couch cushions, lifting the folding bed enough to get at her stash beneath.
Everything she had salvaged from her old lab, everything she had collected in all her dealmaking. She pulled it all out and arrayed it on the floor of the dingy apartment. These weren't the best conditions to work in, but... she had to make do with what she had. She replaced the couch cushions and flumped herself down. A small circular device was placed on the table, and Akari slipped Strike Wolf's standby form off of her chest and placed it on the device. Lights lit up to indicate a connection, and the woman reached into one bag of fast food to retrieve a tray of chicken nuggets.
"Okay, Strike Wolf," she said as she dumped several packets of barbeque sauce on the nuggets. "Please call up all of my notes and enter maintenance mode."
She had a lot of work ahead of her.
