RP: YSS Kaiyō Mission Shichi: Yugen

Meissa patted her little sister on the head a few times.

"Have fun, Kikyo." she told.

Her little sister was the best, wasn't she? Meissa looked up at her "mother."

"Kikyo's been doing alright." Meissa reported.

YSS Kaiyo
Gym room

Not much was heard in the fairly dimly lit room, aside from the deep straneous huffs and puffs from the resident Separa'shan, doing some regular excersise through..... unconventional pullups. With the end of his tail firmly wrapped around a pile in the ceiling, he hung upside down, raising his whole body upwards along the rest of his thick, scaly snaketail, making all the underlying muscle tissue visibly swell up with his movements.

The lower amount of light was pleasant to his eyes, as the bright fluorescent lighting was often a tad too much liking. Not like he needed to do much anyways. The movements varied from pulling himself op forwards, backwards, side to side, and making circular motions in all directions, making sure to stimulate every single muscle group.

As was becoming of him, he couldn't help but mutter his own inner thoughts...
"Haaahhh..... if i'd known......hufff..... it would take...... hmmmnh........so long.....hurrrh.......i might as well..... hhhhgh...... could've..... grrrhg......hibernated.....hnndarnit...!"

Feeling the fatigue catch up to him, making his muscles burn up in strain, Abart eventually loosened his grip, letting himself drop fown to the floor with a loud, muffled 'flop' noise.....

YSS Kaiyō
Gym

Hanna had spent most of the last month training, lifting, and practicing makeup application. After a month's worth of strength and agility training, it seemed fitting that today would be her max day. Once she completed her warm up routine, which included an incremental weight progression between sets, Hanna had set the 45 pound bar with 625 pounds of weight. She planned to attempt one full repetition before dropping the weight.

Maxing presented a high risk for injury, so along with her regular athletic attire, Hanna was wearing two knee braces to support her legs and to prevent injury. Even her Neko constitution was not invulnerable to strain or injury.

Now, all she needed was to find someone to spot her...

After watching the strong-looking Separa'Shan do a full set of pullups, Hanna decided that Abart'huse would be her best partner for the risky exercise.

"Abart'huse, can you spot me?"

The Separa glanced over to the direction of Hanna's voice, with the green-slitted eyes faintly glowing under the low light...

"Hmm? Sure thing Hanna, gimme a sec..."

With a deep breath he raised his torso upwards, stretching his weary limbs for a moment, briefly recovering from his intense workout. Soon enough he slithered his way over to the weight bench, ready to assist Hanna with whatever she had planned there.

"That's quite a weight there... gonna max out today?"

Taking position behind her, he watched the beefy weights she was planning on pumping today, which were formidable, even for her doing. Needless to say the snek was most impressed with her weight-lifting capacity, only increasing his fondness of her.

Gym

"Yep! We're maxing today! If you want, you can join in and I can spot you too. I'm doing squats right now...so that might..be a little...awkward for you since you have a...tail...for legs...but...you look warmed up enough!", Hanna said, as she took in Abart'huse's tall and broad figure.

With that said, Hanna bent over to tighten her knee braces before ducking under the bar to position the weight around her shoulders.

Taking a few seconds to steady her breathing, she felt Abart'huse's presence behind her, giving her more peace-of-mind in case something calamitous happened during the lift.

With her fears assuaged, Hanna hoisted the bar upon her shoulders and took a few steps back. Once she was one pace from the rack, she shifted her feet outwards so that she could retain proper form. After taking a deep breath, Hanna carefully squatted, taking care to bring her rear down as far down as possible so that the rep would be legitimate. Once she was down, Hanna took a quick breath and brought the bar back up, summoning all of the strength within her legs to push the bar upwards.

With a few audibly deep breaths, she had returned to a standing position, this time with the repetition completed. With a visible smile on her face, she re-racked the weight and turned around to face Abart'huse.

"I did it! Let's do bench press now!"

Abart'huse kept a close eye on Hanna, making sure to keep a very light touch on the bar at all times, but not carry any of the weight. That was Hanna's job. Admittedly his eyes did happen to wander over to places they probably shouldn't, but he better kept that to himself, regaing his focus again.

"Right, i got ya." Sharing in her little moment of triumph, Abart was almost getting into it as much as she was. "Though after those situps i think my tail's gotten enough excersise for today..... i probs weigh about as much as this barbell over here anyways..." He said with a slightly akward grin, feeling a bit embarassed at the notion. It was widely believed that separa weighed about as much as a "regular" bipedal person, buuut that's just a species wide hoax from mostly the female members who felt a bit uneasy with the truth.

"Ready when you are."

Gym

"Alright. First, we should take off some of this weight, then we need to re align the rack to chest level.", Hanna instructed.

Hanna and Abart'huse began to take most of the weight off of the bar. Once they were done, the bar was temporarily placed on the floor so that they could move the rack to chest level. They placed the bar on the rack again, and moved the bench slightly beneath the bar.

Once this was done, Hanna looked to Abart'huse: "How much do you want to max?"

"Hmmm......"
It had been a while since he last did a thorough bench press, so he breifly pondered what he would be using today.

"I think i did 240p last time.... guess for now 250 will do for these flimsy arms of mine!" He said jokingly, lightly flailing his arms about like a pair of wet towels, along with a playful flick of his snifflertongue. Soon enough he switched the weights around accordingly, and taking place on the bench, resting his tail out in front of it in a neat upside-down spiral.

"Right, here goes..."

Without further ado, he got right to pressing it as soon as Hanna had taken her place to spot, doing his best to hoist the formidable weight upwards, hoping to do a set of 5 to get back in the groove. The first four repeats went pretty well, but he clearly started struggling with the last one, huffing intensely as he just barely got the bar back up on the rack, with just a liiiiittle bit of help from hanna.

"Phew..... haven't done that in a while..... hufff....." A few small sweatdrops rolled of his forehead, staring up at the ceiling with a mix of sucess and surprise.

YSS Kaiyo:

William walked slowly from the sim bay towards his room. He looked terrible. His eyes were sunken from lack of sleep and it appeared like he had lost a few pounds since they had gotten there. He decided that he would lay down, but only for a few minutes before he returned to training.

Amanozako leaned against the bulkhead, arms crossed over her chest, her red eyes watching William as he trudged along the passageway.

"You look like death warmed over" she commented as he walked, if walking was what one could call it, pas her.

William jumped, not even noticing the Neko. "Amanozako, you scared me." He said stopping and looking at her. "I have just been putting a few extra ours of training." He replied.

"More than just a few, I'd say" Amanozako replied, "Kid, you look like you've pushed yourself past the breaking point, whats ging on?" she asked, pushing herself away from the wall and imposing herself to block his path.

He looked away. "I..." He started. "I'm just nervous about our predicament." He replied. It was half true, but not the entire story.

"Well, I don't think anyone is happy about what's going on right now" she said. "But you're taking working out your anxiety to an extreme here. There's something else going on"

William closed his eyes tightly. "I'm not strong enough!" He said, angery at himself. "I'm not strong enough. Meeting my... I don't even know what to call her, made me realize it. If she had attacked the Princess, I would have gotten her and myself killed. She would have cut me down in an instant." He said, his fists balled up and his fingers turning white.

Amanozako raised an eyebrow. "How old are you, kid?" she asked. "You're just in training, no one's expecting you to be a fully skilled warrior yet"

He looked up. "I just turned 17..." He replied softly. "But I am the guard to the Princess... I have to be able to protect her."

"Tell me this, kid, how good a job are you going to be able to do protecting the princess if you're burned out and unable to stand because of how tired you are?"

William was about to reply, but the word caught in his throat. His fear and anger gave way to a moment of clarity, and he felt stupid. He sighed. "You're right... If we were attacked right now, I would be a liability..."

Amanozako smiled, a rare expression for her, "And you would be, but you can fix that easily" she said. "Also, something to keep in mind. Part of being a good warrior, is knowing when it is time to rest. Practicing is all well and good, rest is equally, if not even more important, depeding on the time" she said and slipped her arm about William as she moved next to him.

"Come on, let's get something to drink, then you can put your feet up and relax"

William listened intently to Amanozako's words. When she slipped her arm around him he nodded blearily. "Okay." He said.

At that moment his stomach rummbled as well. He then realized he hadn't eaten... in the past 2 days. "Maybe something to eat to?" He asked sheepishly.

"Yeah, eating is good too" she said and guided William along to the ship's mess, where they could get food and drink.

William walked along with Amanozako, the smell of food causing his stomach to churn and guggle in anticipation. The adrenaline that was being constantly pumped into his system was finally dissipating, and William started to feel all the aches and pains he had caused himself.

"I really over did it..." He said as he felt his stomach, where the Virtual Wila slammed him into the ground.

"It happens" Amanozako said as she steered him into the mess. "Don't worry about it. Understand what you did wrong, what you did right, learn from it. Don't beat yourself up about it" she said and aimed them for the buffet.

"Here we are" she said.

William's eyes widened and he smiled as he grabed a plate and piled it high with food. He was starving.

He sat down and dug in, and began to wolf everything down.

Amanozako got something for herself and sat next to William. "Don't forget to breath" she said and sipped at her drink before starting on her own meal.

"Okay!" He said happily between bites as he ate. After several minutes, he cleared his plate and he sighed happily. "That was really good."

The dark haired neko nodded, finishing a bit after William. "Yes, it was pretty good" she said. "Well, let's get some drinks to take with us and we can go relax and you can tell me why you wanted to be a princess's bodyguard" she said and got to her feet.

"Sure." He replied with a nod, and moved to grab some drinks. He loaded his arms full of them, before following after Amanozako.

Amanozako grabbed a few drinks and snacks as well, then exited the mess with William. "Leade the way" she said with a nod.

William walked back towards his room, and entered. Finding it empty, and moved and sat down on the edge of the large nest pit. His eyes began to droop now that he had a full stomach. "So what did you want to know?" William asked, forgeting in his tired stupor.

The neko settled down next to him and opened one of her drinks, taking a long pull from it.

"Well, what makes a kid like you want to be a bodyguard?" she asked, noting that he was starting to get tired. The effects of his hard practicing and a good meal.

He shrugged. "I didn't know that was what would happen to be honest." He replied. "Mom...er... Sensei Rei said that she was leaving the school and said that I could come with her if I wanted. She just adopted me, so I didn't want her to go. When we made our way to the capital, we met Aiko and I was told that we would become her retainers. That is the way it has been ever since." He replied, summing up the recent events.

"Hmm" she nodded. He had ended up in his current predicament because of the wants of others, in a way a lot like her early life. "You like what you are doing?" she asked.

He nodded. "I do. I am able to be with Sensei Rei, and I can serve the princess. She is very nice to me, and she is fun to be around." He said, blushing slightly when he thought about Aiko.

"Sounds nice" Amanozako said, turning her gaze to her drink, suddenly remembering how along she was in the universe usually, her mind drifting to Desmond, the one person she could think of that she called a friend, much more than a friend, where he might be right now, if they were ever going to get back home. She took a long drink and pushed that thought out of her mind.

"It's nice that you have a calling and people you like to be around" she said, reclining back, setting her drink down and settling into a more comfortable position.

William nodded. "Plus I got to meet all of you. I'm very glad for that." He replied scooting closer to Amanozako. He laid down next to her. "Thank you... for everything." He added, resting his head on her shoulder.

"Heh, most people are not usually pleased to meet me" she commented, noting William's head now rest on her shoulder. She didn't make a move to push him away. Funny, of all people to be able to talk to or get along with easily on this ship, the kid.

He closed his eyes. "At first I thought you were really scary. But, you are actually very nice." He replied. "I am very happy I met you." He added.

"Hah! Nice, me?" Amanozako laughed and draped her arm about Williams shoulders. "I'm a monster, you know" she said and closed her eyes as well.

"Well, I don't see a monster." He replied, snuggling in closer to her. "I see you as my friend." He said softly, before the Nepleslian boy fell asleep.

"Friend" she muttered, letting out a soft sigh, then drifting off to sleep herself.


OOC: JP between Amanozako and William

Gym

"Good...but I think you can do more weight, if you just do one rep. Next time, we'll put two 25 pound weights on both sides of the bar, and we'll add more from there."

With Abart'huses's set done, Hanna began to add more plates. After adding 525 pounds to the 45 pound bar, Hanna positioned herself by the bench in preparation for the rep.

"Alright, get ready to spot me Abart'huse.", she stated calmly as she laid down on the bench. Once she felt the Separa'Shan move into position behind her, she grasped the bar and took a few deep breaths before lifting it above her head. Hanna moved the bar into position above her chest and slowly brought it downwards. With the bar now only slightly above her chest, she began to drive the weight upwards, calling upon all of the power within her chest.

It wasn't enough.

Hanna managed to get the bar up halfway before approaching the limits of her strength. Sensing her struggle, Abart'huse helped Hanna pull the bar up until her arms locked, before helping her to re-rack the weight.

"Aww...well...next time maybe...", said Hanna between breaths as she sat up on the bench.

"Wanna try to do more weight?"

"...hmmm..... alright, might as well give it a shot." With a quick grin, he switched around the weights again along with hanna, hooking on a fair 300 pounds on the bar this time. He was pretty sure he wouldn't get more than one rep in with this one anyways, but still, it would be good progress. With another deep huff he rtook place on the bench once more. As soon as Hanna took her own spot with a quick word of encouragement, he wrapped his fingers firmly around the bar to start his rep.

The light shaking of his arms showed a good amount of effort going into keeping the huge weight in midair, veery gently letting it drop to chest height. With a firm grunt and a face that became more contorted by the second, the bar did make it's way back up on the rack, taking quite a bit more effort than the previous one. He rubbed his hot and slightly strained hands together with some heavy breaths.

"Pheww.....hahh..... i did it.... hehe~..." That toothy grin seemed quite comical on that slightly reddened face, dripping with quite a bit more sweat than before. "Still.... that was a tough one..... am more of an endurance trainer myself so i don't max out like that a lot." He sat up for a second, breifly catching his breath. "Your turn?"

Bridge

Seinosuke was stooped over the currently unoccupied Science terminal, firelike wings brushing across his back like a waterfall of flame. Brows furrowed, he swiped his right hand across the interface to better organise the data as he waited for Eden to appear.

"Hello Mochi-san," Eden said as she arrived on the bridge with Kikyo. She bent down and picked Kikyo up in her arms as she went to the command chair to sit down with her daughter. "How are you and what is this important new development all about?"

Whirling around, the scientist raised his arm into a quick salute as Eden's voice registered with him. He gave Kikyo a big smile, he liked to think of himself as a contact to satisfy the wandering questions of her developing mind. "Mhm! Busy as always!" he chuckled a few times, then gestured to the readings on the terminal beside him. "I thought you'd be interested in this map I've compiled of the local area."

"I would be highly interested in it, yes," Eden said, sureptitiously looking at the terminal. "Mind if I bring those stats up on my console?" she asked.

Mochi nodded simply, "Of course. I've managed to approximate our position and destination, which I can point out to you if you wish?" he replied, leaning against the side of the console as he spoke.

Arblebarble slid into the bridge quietly. She had to take a temporary detour earlier for personal reasons, only catching the last few words of Seino's sentence. "Erm, I'm sorry, I missed that... I think I can fill myself in though, no need to repeat yourself." The was a slightly embarassed blush as she spoke. At least she knew it was something about the interstellar topography of this place, since she helped look over a few of his theories.

Eden smiled at Arbitrated, "Hi Arbles-hei. We were just going over the coordinates and it looks like..." Eden was at a loss for words and gently squeezed Kikyo's hand without thinking. "Explain this to me, Mochi. How can this be?"

"Hey Arbs!" Mochi waved as his face lit up like a christmas tree. However, he knew the revelation he was about to impart may have deep-running consequences not just for the ship but for the whole of Yamatai. As soon as Eden finished, he grew serious once again. "It seems.. Well.. I don't have enough data to know if have travelled to another dimension or.. What I know for sure is we are, as the evidence suggests, in a mirror space. A realm where everything is identical to our own universe but with small yet fundemental differences."

"....You mean like how they're all nekos and minkans? And those uniforms which were.. Ugh." The smol, clad in a loose yet notably covering casual outfit shuddered. She then realized that perhaps she should have changed into uniform again before coming back to the bridge, dismissing the thought for the time being. She continued, "So, what you're saying is, while we're in this weird, uh, alternate reality place, we're kind of still in Yamatai controled space? Ish?"

"'Small yet fundamental differences...'" Eden repeated, trailing off. She was thinking about Eve, Norogumi Eden, and the connection between their own Yamatai and this one. "I believe we are being towed back to their Yamatai to be dissected by their version of SAINT. Or worse, Eve. We can expect no easy treatment from them. We have to break free from them. But how?"

Mochi remained quiet for a notable amount of time, lowering his gaze to the floor in thought. "I'll.. have to run more tests. In every way I've surveyed they use the same technology as us yet they outclass us in size." A finger tapped the metal side of the console rhythmically, then was silenced after a moment. "We must have something onboard that can he-.." he trailed off. "It's an extreme idea but we could threaten to self-destruct if they don't release us. That way they're forced to do something rather than drag us along."

Shan frowned. "I mean, it might work, but what's to say they would just rush over anyways? The operation isn't immediate, and if we say something they would be able to prepare." Silence cloaked the female elysian for a moment. "If they use the same technology, it's quite likely they're using a similar failsafe system to ours on most of their weapons. If we set to bypass our own safeties, it's possible we could bring enough power to the field to surprise them... Although it would put us at some risk, if we can even get enough power to pull it off. But... Have we identified the specific features of their craft? If they only have one graviton device, we could try to damage it? But again, we would need to leave the area immediately-we can't win a one on one fight against a bigger version of ourselves, at least not normally. But at the same time, we'll be in territorry which would consider us hostile-not a place best spent retreating through for a month." Once more, a lack of noise enveloped the young woman.

"I don't want them to call our bluff just for us to look like we are willing to defame the act of seppuku. I don't want to sit here idly, though, either. We are not able to open the power armor bay doors nor the shuttle bay doors and weapons are offline, you know that, Shan. How would we damage their graviton beam projector? There's no way. We're going to have to fight them head on when they release us from the ship. They have to at some point, and if this is Yamatai-like space, perhaps we will have the upper ground by knowing just where their weak points are. Our heading is for the Ketsurui Military Sector. We can not easily make use of that, but we can try. Our only other option is to work with Anastasia as she develops a way to bust us out of the graviton beam's field by going faster than is possible with our current engine setup," Eden said.

Always start with the most insane idea, it makes the others seem more reasonable - a fact Mochi had put to use throughout his academic career. Who knew he'd start using the principle without even realising. Mochi raised an eyebrow as the others spoke, then nodded slowly as their points made more and more sense. 'What factors didn't matter regarding size and class..?" the Elysian scratched his cheek. "How about computers? If we could hack their systems it might let us turn off their beam? I could send a modified science probe through one of our disposal hatches and guide it to one of their exterior ports?" The emerald-eyed man let the idea hang for a moment, then added "If not, there are ways to scramble the targeting computer on the graviton beam, I'm sure."

"I imagine that if we could hack their MEGAMI, they would have done the same to ours already to, well... Stop us from doing it to them. But... Can we power up our Mindies, actually? That disposal probe idea made me think of something... But we'd need to bring the armor down there to do it, if it even has a chance to work." The little one rubbed her chin a little. "Of course, we'd need to figure out a way for them to not just shoot it down as soon as it started heading their way, no matter what we sent out."

"I want you two to come with me to the wardroom to further discuss this with Ana. She has a lot of good ideas about what we should do to engineer a way out of this mess. Would you care to join me?" Eden asked.

"Of course, I think I've explained this result of our work so far anyway. At least we know where we're going so we know how long we have before we reach..." he trailed off a little, probably trying to fathom what sort of experiments they would all be put through. With that the Juni stood to indicate he would follow the others out.

"Assuming we couldn't get out of this, yeah." The short one followed Eden out of the room. Sure formality and protocol may have broken down significantly, but the little Shan still held Eden in very high regards.

Eden led them to the wardroom and addressed Meissa with a nod, "Mochi and Arbitrated and myself should likely have a conversation with you about your plans."

YSS Kaiyo - Wardroom

Meissa, in the time Eden was gone, folded up the photo Kikyo drew and handed it off to Mat.

When Eden walked in, she was taking a big drink from her water bottle filled with that murky fluid. In the month she trained Yoshida, the smaller Neko had also gained a similar bottle filled with similarly bitter liquid. Meissa smiled a little as she looked at Eden.

"Let me guess," Meissa told Eden. "You need something blown to the black hole in the center of this galaxy and back."

The angel got up to her feet. "I'm already in."

YSS Kaiyo - Bridge

Kyoi looked up from the game she was playing. Move faster than the beam would allow...

"Sorry about this, Iemochi, but I couldn't help but listen in." the fox got up, brushed herself off, and reported. "It's very possible that their crew isn't as well-knit together as our crew. A lot of their crew seemed quite distant from each other, which we could psychologically turn to our advantage."

"Call me crazy, but maybe our greatest weapon here is our telepathy." Kyoi continued, her tail softly stroking and wrapping around her chair. "If we load it with the right information and fire it, it will always hit. Unless we the crew are knocked out, it can't be jammed. If there is information on how more intimate links work, we can use that to our advantage as well."

Of course, there was no such thing as "crazy" in situations like these. Only "what worked."

Wardroom

Anastasia had retired to a corner table of the Wardroom, quietly reading a book of some sorts on her data pad. She looked up at the approaching captain and set the tablet down on the table. "Yes, Captain? Would here work?"

Wardroom

"I see no reason for it not to, unless you would rather take us to go over the information in a simulation," Eden said, looking over to Saki while she held Kikyo's hand.

She let go of the small Neko and prompted her with a small, "Go on," to see if she would want to make the grand journey from herself to Misaki on her own.

Attention back on Anastasia, she said, "What would you prefer?"

Wardroom

Kikyo looked up at Eden with her little violet eyes which seemed to be asking 'Why?' before she walked back over to Misaki. Saki herself hadn't moved from her seat, only now moving to pick up her youngling and sit her on her lap. Kikyo looked up to Misaki then over to Eden and Meissa.

After a moment or two of thinking, Kikyo looked up to Saki and asked in an oh so innocent voice,

"Mommy? Are we going to go back to our home soon?"

Misaki kissed the youngling's forehead and replied, "Soon, baby, soon."

Wardroom Gathering


Arblesmarblesthebarble clapped quietly and politely when Kikyo walked from one mother to the other, giving a little cheer as well. She quieted down soon after, pushing Kikyo's question to the side for the time being as she turned to face the rest of the gathering.

Bridge

Mochi let the others make their way to the Wardroom as Kyoi grabbed his attention. As she spoke, her plan seemed to become more and more viable. "No need to apologise! Using telepathy had never occurred to me." The scientist took a few moments before he spoke again - "Even better, from the reports our mirrors sounded very similar to us. Perhaps our telepathy will be indistinguishable from their own."

"Perhaps it is possible to chemically make the telepathy louder or better yet.." he trailed off, mind whirring silently as it normally did in these situations. Mochi raised his head a little from its thinking pose to meet Kyoi's eyes. "This is definitely a possibility, if you would like you can accompany me to the Wardroom?" the Juni requested calmly, turning his body towards the exit. "If we're not going to crash, that is." he smirked.

Wardroom

Anastasia thought for a moment. "Well, the simulation isn't set up a yet but if given a little time, I can get it accustomed."

She trailed off, before looking back at the group that was slowly focusing on the conversation. "My modifications can get us far away, very fast, but I'm not sure if they can break through the IYS' grip, yet. That's why I want to run more realistic simulations."