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RP: YSS Eucharis [Mission 27 - III] [Side JP] Empty Hand

Primitive Polygon

🎖️ Game Master
(Featuring @Wes)
YSS Eucharis, Armor Bay


Hanako changed out of her uniform in her cabin and went up to the armor bay in her old Type 29 exercise uniform to meet Tsuguka. Once there, she went to the armor racks and found her non-descript Mindy 4 next to her distinctive Mindy 1H. The material on the butt pack strapped onto its rear was still shiny and stiff, showing it had never been used before, whereas the one on the 1H was worn by combat and weather.

With the stiff clomping sound of Jika-Tabi style toe boots upon polished metal flooring, Tsuguka marched into the bay not long afterwards, and then made a brisk bow of respect. Their pilot suit was looking glossy and immaculate as always, but the tension behind their eyes suggested an ongoing workload, of which this meeting was only a piece of the puzzle.

"Shosho." A deep voice, respectful tone. "Thank you for honoring me with this training session. I will see to it that your time is not wasted."

Hanako nodded and stripped off her clothing, and carefully slid into her Mindy 4 feet-first. She adjusted things for a moment and then it closed around her with a soft hiss. She kept the helmet off for now but stepped off of the storage rack. "Please don your suit," she directed.

"Yes Ma'am." Tsuguka immediately levitated into the air, making the most awkward part of attaching her Mindy 4 akin to dropping into a pair of pants on a drying line. It looked pretty dumb and ungraceful, but it was at least amusingly quick. Having gotten in and out so frequently over the last few years, finesse had been very much replaced by a tried and tested way of just throwing it on as fast as possible. Helmet attached, they simply nodded again, actuators squeaking in preparation for action.

Shosho Hanako put her helmet on and radioed the bridge, announcing that they were about to take two power armors on a training flight. Her voice sounded a little different through the communications system. Next she went to the starboard bay door's control panel and opened it. A loud hydraulic drone filled the bay as the massive armored door lifted. Once it was open, there was only an air-containment force field between them and space. Below them, the mysterious machine planet lingered, and above there was black nothingness. After reflexively checking her seals a final time, Hanako hovered out of the ship and then went up to the hinomaru deck, the flat surface in the center of the ship where there was a giant size copy of the Star Army's insignia.

"Other than the advanced teleporation drive, the other main change in the new model Mindy armor is the photonic system. Earlier models had some volumetric capabilities for camouflage purposes but this one is the first Mindy that can project solid volumetrics. Earlier you were talking about melee weapons, and I wanted to show you some techniques for using the photonic system for melee combat."

Venturing out into the void in such a way was secretly quite pleasing to Tsuguka. The backdrop was certainly dramatic, even if it did come across like one of those children's shows back home, when she tried to describe it back in her mind.

Still, the overall focus was on improving her personal skill, and the red lynx was all ears. They weren't an engineer by any stretch, so understanding and manipulating the volumetic system hadn't even really crossed their mind.

"I didn't realize they could be made to perform such... Well, forceful tasks, ma'am." A cautious, respectful tone. "I'm guessing a blade is the primary method of utilizing such a tool?..."

"You can use it for many purposes. I would say the primary function is to use it as a shield, but you can make blades and also some tools," Hanako explained. She assumed a fighting stance and thrust her right hand forward in a fist and a two-meter long glowing orange spike came out of it. "The range of the photonic system is two meters," she explained. "You have two ways to use it. The first is a set of pre-programmed moves. You will find the list in the Mindy's operating manual. You can think of it like a fighting game. You can issue the move commands and the armor will do what you want. The second way is to actually visualize what you want the armor to do and the AIES will interpret that and create the projection. You can also have the AIES respond by reflex and automatically make a shield when you are about to be hit by something. Give it a try."

While Tsuguka experimented with the new features Hanako demonstrated by creating a ghostly hologram of a Rixxikor and then used a solid volumetric shield to push it away from her power armor repeatedly. "You see, you can use it to keep things from touching you."

It took a bit of blundering with the unfamiliar internal menu before Tsuguka could actually make something materialize, and, indeed, the whole process made them feel a bit like they were messing around with the very source code of the shield system. Still, the Mindy 4 had been created with Nekovalkyrja specifically in mind, and soon enough she had summoned a flat orange hexagon of transparent energy in her palm. The first reaction was to direct it around like a physical shield, but spinning it slowly counter-clockwise also turned out to be a strangely functional manipulation of the tool.

"Extraordinary." The Heisho remarked, simply, glancing back and forth between the apparition in her hand, and the disembodied bugman that Hanako had summoned. "Does... Does this have the same physical force as the Mindy's CFS?..."

"You cannot use the photonic shield and the CFS shield at the same time, and they have a roughly equal damage capacity," Hanako answered. She crouched down and a hedgehog-like array of glowing volumetric red spikes shot out from the armor's back.

Tsuguka's competence with the system slowly grew after they grew a feel for it. After observing the strange thorny display, the first thing they imitated it with was a pointer-like triangular sword. The infinitely sharp-looking, polygonal edge was actually a little startling to look at, given it was normally impossible in the material realm.

From there, the experimentation built up to a set of large slashing claws, somewhat imitating a plasma saber idea that some of the other crew members seem to have been bouncing around.

"I suppose it's only natural for weapons to become this way. I never did like how other stuck to the laws of the human body when they fought, but..." A pause, their normally stern voice looking back up to their Shosho with an odd mix of exhilaration and confoundment. "I never thought the standard P-A model could be used like this!"

Hanako projected a little Yamataian flag over her armor's head. "It even has a few taunts in the menu." She then created a set of steps and walked up those before leaping back down to the deck. "The solid volumetrics are strong enough to use as a crowbar in boarding actions. You can also use them as a lockpick, although I do not think that was included with the standard package. SAINT probably has it set up for its armors."

Tsuguka copied the code for the flag, messed around with the physics a little, and soon had a rectangle pleasingly flexible enough to fold over her arm. The next test was, of course, doing this to their simple sword program, and creating a rather strange, coiling, jittery whip-sword by accident.

"How much practice have you had with this system, Ma'am? Your understanding seems very advanced."

She didn't originally suspect that Candon had been using it all this time, but, well, it would be pretty typical of him not to tell anybody about it.

"I actually do not have a lot of practice, but I think it is not something difficult for a Nekovalkyrja to use. I helped design the armor but I did not program the set of photonic moves. Did you know that some of the advancements in photonics were from a technology trade on the Essai Dreamworld? That was a YSS Eucharis mission I led."

"You picked an interesting locale to pass on the torch, Shosho." Was the response. Dangerously close to sassy, coming from a self-described bioweapon, but what Tsuguka knew about the mission back then did include an artificial planet. They were trying not to get too caught in the moment, yet it was also the closest thing to what they had imagined a quest on the Eucharis being like, back when they were a mere trainee. "Perhaps it's provenance... Yes. I can see this tool being very useful, now that we have been forced to rely on close quarters combat once more."

"Would... Would you be willing to demonstrate this system with... Perhaps a little more vigor, Ma'am? Perhaps in the form of a training confrontation between us?"

"Certainly!" Hanako answered. "En guarde!"
 
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