JP between myself and @Burgmond45
YSS Kaiyo II
Engineering
Walter Hyde waited in the warm, somewhat noisy innards of the vessel, his hands in his pockets as he waited. He sent Arete Surinus a notification letting her know that they'd get this class started in Engineering, as opposed to the Lab or the VR Room. While the Laboratory is full of equipment and the VR Room can be a great educational tool, Walter remembered the angel wanted to be a technician, and definitely not the battle varient, either. This reduces the scenarios she needs to learn to being almost exclusively on the Kaiyo II, therefore it would be more practical if he showed her the ropes in this room instead. With any hope, Arete will come out of these private sessions knowing how to take care of this vessel.
A stifled yawn slipped through the room, the blonde angel gently shaking her head back and forth as if to clear it; dressed in her unspecialized uniform, Arete Surinus carried simply a softly-radiating datapad with the specifications of the Fuji-class gunship. Her lips parted into a pleasing smile as she spoke, "Hello, Hyde-Hei!"
"It is good to see you again, Surinus-hei." Walter performed a bow for her as she walked into the room, which she reciprocated. Her presence was enough for him to slack his shoulders and relax. "I see you got your pad; I cannot say I expected this, but I'm happy you have got that. It would save me some breath," Walter joked casually, faintly smiling.
Arete chuckled, "Yeah! It's been something I've been looking over to help me out with knowing what to do.... Though, it's quite a lot to take in."
"Oh yes, very. I've done my fair share of homework on the ship before you have; despite me being a battle technician, I'm more of a general technology technician, with some engineering experience... Not enough to put on my résumé, just enough to qualify on-ship and off-ship jobs."
"Now without further ado, we shall begin the course." Walter moved over to some control panels that stood infront of the two Aether Reactors, Arete's feet taking her to his side. "Starting with this."
"This is... These are the main Aether Reactors, right?" The short not-Elysian looked upwards at the humming machinery, the ship's veinlike pipes and cables quietly pumping energy and coolant through the vessel. "They supply the ship with energy and the aether for some of our weapons?"
The tall Minkan nodded. "Indeed. The heat is harnessed and converted into electricity in a way similar to solar panels. However, how this ship in particular is set up, on top of being a ship of comfort, is different in the fact that these two reactors power different systems. The frontmost reactor is what powers most of the Kaiyo's systems, such as propulsion and life support. The rearmost generator is used only on the weapons systems." He looked at the massive engines, which take up almost two decks of space in front of them. Then he looks at the control panels.
"These right here are the ships Aether Reactor controls. It is one of the few control panels that you will be interacting on the ship; I am sure you know what to use this for, right?
"It's for controlling the power flow and output of the reactors, right? Changing what gets power when needed and the like." Arete stepped towards the console steadily, her eyes exploring the somewhat-unfamiliar layout of the interface.
"Correct. These are also not the only control stations, either; you have one for each machine system in this room. Each of them," Walter touched the screen, moving about sliders and menus about on the display, "have aspects that can be adjusted easily with these touchscreens right here. We hardly use knobs and such, and these touch screens are made of transparent Zesutanium. Do not count them on being busted so easily."
"I want you to try the settings, and get a feel for what you might find in this system."
Nodding, the trainee's fingers tip-toed across the screen. She wound her way out of the setting Walter had gone to, returning all the way to the root menu. From there, a few taps took the two of them into an overlay display of Reactor One, the screen glowing with its tempurature, power output, and aether flow rate on one section while another displayed a translucent rendering of the entire assembly for analysis and monitoring purposes. A set of glowing sliders and suboptions would allow for many of these values to be adjusted, and in the top left corner was an incredibly obvious "EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN" button.
Walter smiled, watching her become more familiar with the control system of the Aether reactor. "A good thing to keep in mind is that while you'll have these control panels in here, Arete, there is also the Chief Engineer's station. That station, up on the bridge, essentionally do everything these individual control panels do."
"You look comfortable with it already, too," the Minkan pointed out. He approached the large machine, and put a hand on the control panel. "Now that is said and done, I'd like to introduce you to our modified hyperdrive system," Walter motioned to the left side of the room. "On top of it serving as our means of warping across the galaxy, it has the added Trans-Dimensioanl Drive upgrade installed in its hardware and software systems. This warp system has a similar layout, yet for obvious reasons has less controls to it, save for," Walter expertly swiped the touch screen and pointed to a button with the obvious "JUMP TO HOME" lettering, [/color=#f19c19] "this feature right here. Pressing this will cause the ship to jump back to Gemini Star Fortress. This feature is found here, and in the bridge; and it's what Hoshi used to jump back into this dimension... Albeit, without any warning."[/color]
"So, that's what brought you guys to Ayenee, right? My home?"
Even if Walter didn't hide the disdain in his voice, he didn't sit on it for long. He went over to the other side of the room. It was a large panel that was already opened up, revealing a cabinent full of things. "Correct. If you do not have any more questions, I'd like to introduce you to our Standard Damage Control Station. If possible, tell me what you already know about this."
As Arete made her way over, she nodded. "The Damage Control Station is designed to allow for easy access of emergency repair tools and materials to a ship's crew. It also includes things such as firefighting equipment. It's... Generally not used for proper maintenance, though. More for patch jobs during or immediately after combat."
Walter blinked, rendered silent by her words. "...Correct; that was actually what I was going to say," he admitted. After another moment, he took out something that Arete would know doesn't belong in the station; a bottle of lotion. "You sell yourself short, Arete; you're sizing up to be fitting for the job so far."
Giving him a quizzical look, Surinus nonetheless decided to carry on. "I have been reading the electronic manuals. I imagine that has to help." She sighed a bit, her green eyes looking towards the man's orange. "So, what actually made you want to be a technician? I'm sure there's more than just keeping to duty and all of that, y'know?"
"There is." Walter paused, stopping himself from making an excuse as to why he can't share the details. He promised to come clean, and not hide anything.
"My parents were Edwin and Belle Hyde. Edwin as a blood-thirsty Nekovalkyria, and Belle was a civilian Minkan who didn't have a backbone. You can imagine what kind of relationship those two would have... Edwin wanted me to be like her, some sword-slashing maniac among an army of adrenaline-slurping tools, whom choose to embrace what my Yamatai was. That is important, because I don't come from the same dimension as everyone; I come from a worse place where hope cannot exist. A dimesion where our Yamatai was pure lust, anger, and violence. They're the kind of people who'd happily get rid of your wings, and make you into another Neko; and that was if you wanted to be a part of their military."
"I wanted to be someone better than them, to show I'm smarter than an average murder machine, and... I'll admit that biology is a boring topic to me," Walter said, ending it off with something more normal and relatable than coming from a faction of xenophobic mass-murderers.
".....Oh." What an underwhelming response. Then again, not a lot really is worth trying to be lavish about when the subject of conversation involves extended, awkward, and confusing interdimensional travel. And apparently an evil Yamatai or something. "Well, do you think you made the right choice then? Even if they were assholes, you did... Kinda betray your family..."
Walter smiled, relieved that he could just avoid the uneccesary jargon about interdimensional travel. "When you get down to it, I did betray them. And instead of taking the time to become what I want, I'm basically being what Edwin wanted me from the getco, and maybe even as much as an asshole as those two..." He tossed the lotion up, and caught it as it fell. Walter stopped smiling by then, his eyes on the bottle in his hands.
The Minkan chuckled, and looked up to meet her eyes again. "I'm sorry, I can't properly explain myself."
Arete pouted quietly. Her emerald eyes seemed to glint as they focused on him. "Well, I don't think you're much of an asshole." She crossed her arms infront of her round chest before continuing, "Why didn't you decide to be what you want? The Army has plenty of specialization options for you, and outside of those, there's so many opportunities to not work in the milli-tree."
"Well, I came to Ayenee with... Almost nothing, and a messed-up head," Walter explained. "I was broke, had only faulty and half-functioning tech, and nothing was familiar to me back then but Fort Miller. It didn't have any training facilities on-station, let alone one that can be suitable for training potential officers, so I had to pick from the bottom from the barrel to avoid the risk of homelessness. Or, going back to my birth dimension."
A couple of observations he took away from Arete's response; for one, she doesn't feel like she despised him... Second; milli-tree. Walter had no idea why he was fixiated on the word, maybe from how adorable it sounded?
"Hm... Well, I guess it's probably alright, though. As odd as it sounds. I don't know what your birthplace would have been like for soldiers, but I'm kinda glad that we get paid a nice amount here. It sorta helps cover for us if we wanna leave after our three years, y'know?" She gave him a simple smile. Sometimes things force people into situations they can't control. Taking any option at all there... It's something surprisingly many people fail to do.
Arete smiled at him, and Walter smiled back. "Indeed. Thank you for bearing with me, really. It hit me just now that you could have just called me crazy and walked away, and... I would feel disappointed in myself for not taking account to your situation sooner." Granted, he didn't tell her everything, but it was out of the concious fear of driving her away with a bizarre origin that fails to be relevant to anything present-day.
"You're like me, I think. I don't miss my Yamatai, but do you ever miss Ayenee?"
"I kinda am like you, Walter. Taken from my home rather by surprise and dumped into another place... I do mis my home, though. Though... That might be because my home was trying to be nice to other people, heheheh." She chuckled a little nervously, trying to keep herself a little bit calm... Ish. "And some people might call me a wuss, but I liked having my gravikinesis around. I'm... Still not sure what's going on with that."
The Minkan stepped a bit closer to the angel, the bottle of lotion in both of his hands. "Don't be; others had lost such things, too. If I recall, Gravity had a special bond with her dragon, only for her to lose her connection with it soon after, and Mark suffered severe deformities after the jump was made... I had been meaning to talk to the Shosa about that, but it might cost me my position on the ship. That scares me..."
He cleared his throat again. "Still, I liked it, too. Your gravikinesis. I wish I had gotten a chance to see what you could do with that, before the jump."
"Mhm. Maybe another time... And I doubt that the Shosa would remove you from the ship for being curious. I've heard a couple people over dinner joking about how she used to be very... Encouraging, of the crew building positive connections with each other."
She sighed, then. After that, she redirected the conversation a bit: "Well, this... Probably isn't something we should be talking about during my official training time. Y'know?"
"Oh, right! Yeah, we haven't finished your training yet. This section will be a bit different, because this has to do with the maintanence conduits. These run all over the ship." Walter moved over a few feet to the right of the Station as he talked, and motioned to a hole that is about the size of a car tire, if not a tad smaller, when he finished speaking.
"Believe it or not, most of the time you won't be fixing anything in this room while the Kaiyo II fights enemy ships; most of the damage can be found in there, thus it's important for technicians to be able to squeeze in there and fix any leaks or breaks in here. Now, someone like me is a bit too big to go through, which is why I have this." The Minkan held up the bottle of lotion. "It makes moving about less of a hassle for me. Now I want you to try and see if you can get through."
"...Ah. I was actually wondering why you put that in there." The woman looked down towards the circular hole, then to the lotion bottle in the man's hands. Back to the hole. She was a bit wider than thin - even though Sages burn calories like crazy compared to other people, it's possible for them to put on body fat. Arete was careful enough to not actually go overweight, but she still had a bit of a "layer" on her, filling her form a bit.
"Well, I don't think I'll need that lotion?" she mused, "I'm not exactly built like one of those Nepleslian guys, heheh..." Crouching down in front of the threshold, she could feel the unheated air through the door as it opened. Hesitating for but a moment, she pushed forward...
One arm, two arms. Pull yourself forward... Mentally she commented on her progress, slow and awkward as it was. Forward... Now lift yourself up for the boobs and- Her train of thought ground to a halt when the angel's mottled wings bumped at the doorway.
"....Rrrright. Let's try..." After this moment of announcement, she folded her wings down and across her body from below, making a sort of burrito-like wrap on herself to squeeze through - thankfully the conduit itself was slightly larger than the door into it. The last major hurdle here was her hips... But that was a cakewalk compared to the torso in its entirety. Somehow, she'd made it in without getting stuck.... Though turning around was just about impossible.
Yet, despite him relating to Arete so much, Walter couldn't help himself from blushing as her generous form squeezed through the hole, unable to look at her without wondering rather inappropriate thoughts. He was, at the very least, still a gentleman at heart as he opted to talk about anything other than her plumpness. That, and it might yield... Embarrassing results that he didn't want to add to this session. He'd be a creep!
"As I had expected, the wings might be a problem in areas like this, but you should be able to fit through the four conduit entrances on the upper area of Engineering. As you've probably read, there are other entrances dotted about the ship, each of varying sizes. Now I will meet you in the lower floor of the room; use the conduit to meet me down there. You might feel weightless and chilly when you go a bit deeper in; don't feel surprised about it, that's just how all Maintenance Conduits are made. They are made with very minimalistic life support, with a breathable atmosphere being the only normal aspect of being in a Conduit. Remember, meet me at the lower floor using the conduit to get there, I will meet with you shortly to talk about the coolant systems and the back-up energy sources."
"Mhm!" The trainee's somewhat-muffled voice bounced out of the maintenance tube's entrance as she continued to wriggle inside.
The Minkan took off his belt, and then his shirt, the former being something of an accessory. He applied lotion to his well-developed frame, his orange tattoo glowing like an etheral picture. He got down to a maintenance conduit, and pushed himself inside. Under normal circumstances, his shoulders would more or less be too wide for even an entrance of a average size, however the lotion helped Walter be just slippery enough to push through. He grasped on the tassels of that lined the top and bottom of the tunnel, and used his strength to pull himself quickly through the conduit. Walter's sensitive senses exaggerated how cool the confined space is, making him shiver as he went down and around, and finally approaching an exit. Now, all the conduit holes on the lower floor are smaller than the ones on top; much smaller. This was by no means a fuck up, this was deliberately designed for only small Nekos with a androgynous body type. The coolant and back-up energy systems can be very volatile if damaged by an invader, so it was ideal to make these entry points small enough to make it difficult to pass through by most.
Then again, if they were to make it so damn small to make it difficult to make it enter, Walter believed that the bright minds behind this ship should look into other methods of anti-infiltration. Anything better than entry holes a diameter of 20 inches, like all these stupid entries at the lower floor. As he slipped out onto the lower floor of engineering, Walter thanked that Yamatai let him keep his Neko-level strength, otherwise he'd have a much harder time getting out.
Arete had a bit of difficulty still making her way through the cramped tunnel network, her relative inexperience with the setup making it rather difficult to move around with any degree of speed. She shivered only a little bit, but the cooled air made her fingers get a bit numb. I should get some gloves for working in here... she thought quietly. At least her wings did a pretty good job keeping the bulk of her body warm.
Walter saw the blonde woman's head poke out of the corner above him as she reached the junction, pausing for a breath and sliding her hands back, pressing them against her skin beneath the uniform to warm them up. She spoke, "Down there, right?"
"Indeed..." Walter looked over at Arete, seeing for his own eyes that she may not be able to fit into the smaller conduit just before them, at least without some practice. His tattoo glowed from his rushing blood as the Minkan bared the chilliness of the conduit. "If you need help, let me know."
"Yeah. Lemme just..." The pale graspers reappeared and searched for purchases in the tubes, bringing her plump body forward in a series of slow lurches. She made a pretty respectable amount of progress before a rather concerning sound tore through the otherwise-quiet network: An unmistakeable rrrrrrrrrrip.
"Shit!" Arete swore quietly with a puff of vapor, before committing to her progress and pushing through, a lower continuous tearing rumbling through the maze of tunnels, making Walter wince. When she was a couple meters away, the sounds stopped - at a meter and a half, she grunted as her own progress was ground to a halt.
"Erm, Walter - I might need a bit of that help you were talking about."
Walter looked down the hole, only seeing half of the angel down the cramped tunnel. Whether or not the blush is coming from the view, or just how cold this place is, isn't unknown to everyone but him. "Yare yare daze... I'm coming!
He slithered down the tight space, his bare skin pressing against hot and cold pipes, giving him some light burns accross his shoulders as he approached the angel. Instead of going head first down the conduit, he opted to go feet first, so he can grip around the edges. Walter could only see that Arete herself was a bit too flush with the tight space. "Grab my ankles, I'll pull you out far enough to where I can grab you."
"O-okay!" Arete stammered briefly before her chilled fingers snapped around the man's ankles, gripping with a pretty hefty amount of force. [color#339933]"Alright, I'm ready!"[/color]
"On three.... Three! Walter pulled himself out the tunnel, thus postioning Arete to be only half a meter away from the entryway. After she let go of his ankles, Walter repositioned himself; now his firm legs are spread out, his feet firmly planted on each side of the, and his thick arms stretched into the conduit, his hands grasped on Arete's firmly.
As she was tugged out of the nook that trapped her, Arete grunted uncomfortably and that uncomfortable tearing sound returned with a passion, then cut itself off. Whatever was being ripped apart was finished.
"Just a little more... Three! With the power of his arms and legs, the Minkan fished out the angel! Granted he pulled hard enough to throw him off-balance, and ended up pulling Arete onto his massive chest as his back hit the floor.
"Heugit!" She sort of shouted as the second round of tugging came around, before she found herself on something that was quite warm and rather slick - oh, that's Walter. She scrambled off of him after a second, looking back into the conduit where a navy-blue strip of fabric lay - part of her skirt, it seemed.
The tutor was second to get up, and curiously glanced at her rear... Pretty much because he wanted to check for where the skirt got torn at. Which, as it turns out, was a pretty significant strip about 7cm wide on her left side. In fact, it was actually quite surprising the rest of the skirt stayed on her given the amount of damage to that one particular area.
Obviously, given his crush for the smol bird person, he thought she looked hot. That much smooth leg, and just a bit of hip, made Walter's heart skip a beat, and his tattoo to eminate a stronger glow from his heart rate, and a blush spread on his face like a plague, among... Other things. His rump still in the floor, Walter spoke up, trying to focus on her rather than her curves. "Would you like me to go get that...? I mean, you look great right now, but-"
Walter silently cursed his entire culture for inserting these sinful thoughts in his head, but at the same time he already has a crush on her, but at the same time... Why did fate give him the worst parents to teach him how to approach a love interest? Why?
A playful, feminine giggle crashed through the room, stimulating Walter's already-thumping heart. With a twinge of redness to her face, Arete's voice carried on a little bit more, her youthful laughter filling the otherwise emptyish space. "Eheheh, well, thank you for that! Though, I'm sure I can probably retrieve that by myself, 'slong as you promise not to look..."
Was he cute? Yeah, he was cute. In personality. The muscles were... Okay.
"I, heh, I, uh... Yeah." Normally stoic and level headed, even a bit harsh, Arete just makes him soft and palpable like fresh mochi. Once again, her heart charmed him out of his wits. He laughed along with her, his blush complimenting his eyes nicely. "Yeah, we're almost done with the tour. You go in right now if you like!"
"Just... Turn away or something, m'kay?" Walter immediately knew why she'd ask that when his mind cleared. He stood up and looked away from her, his heart pumped excitedly as dirty thoughts plagued him.
"Thanks." Shortly after her appreciation, Walter heard the undoubtedly familiar signs of somebody wriggling into a maintenance shaft, making their way further in. After a few seconds of this it briefly stopped; a muffled grunt called out before the awkward scrambling noises returned. After what felt like an eternity, a gasp-like breath cut through the room from the smol.
"Got it. Getting back out was a bit tough, eheheh."
"You'll get used to it," he said reassuringly before he turned to face his crush. "Thankfully we got stairs if you just want to move from floor to floor. This was also where I put the snacks at, I didn't know if you still wanted them or not."
The lower floor had few dedicated parts. Several large vats that are coated in frost, a cluster of small reactors, the lower half of the Aether Reactors, and the snack table. It had a bowl of bagged snack foods, like chips and popcorn, apples and pears, chocolate chip cookies, and doughnuts. To the side, cups that sat around a couple of jugs, one being water and the other being punch.
As the pair of foreigners made their way downstairs, the shorter one beelined the snack table, tossing an apple into the air and snatching it back with a satisfying smack. "I think this'll hold me until dinner, thanks. I should change pretty soon anyways, and then work on either replacing or repairing this skirt. Thanks for the time, though, Walter!"
By contrast, Walter chose to take a cookie from the bowl. "The pleasure's all mine, Arete. Truth be told, I... I also wanted to put these lessons together because I also want to spend more time with you, on top of wanting to help you become more familiar with the material so you can have an easy transition into being a technician." The flushed Minkan took a bite from the sweet snack in his hand.
"Your company is among my newfound liberty, those in which I never took for granted. On top of that, there's still some more things I'd like to tutor you in, like MEGAMI stuff and power armor stuff... And, well, I was hoping maybe we could do other things aside from that?" Even if Arete looked like she enjoyed his company, Walter still had doubt; was he still being too forward? Would Arete take it the wrong way? What if this is all boiled down to just be worth nothing? What if she already has a crush on another guy? What if she doesn't even like guys? Maybe she doesn't like guys that look muscular like him?
A small pat bounced on Walter's shoulder. "Relax a little! I can practically smell the tension coming off of you! It's fun to spend time with you, Walter - though I do think that we should try and keep these lessons professional. That's pretty much the only thing letting me learn from you instead of going back to training."
The technician relaxed visibly. Rather than drone on and on, he just rolled with what she said. "For sure. I want them to be a good time, but I will keep the lessons professional, first and foremost." The half-naked technician smiled, and nommed on his cookie. "That also means this will be the last time I dress down, hehehe. I don't need to be shirtless to teach you how to reset Mindy software."
"Jokes aside, I'm happy you're having a good time. Though if you want, you can leave early; there was only a couple of things left in here, nothing you can't learn off of articles."
Sighing lightly and leaning back a bit, Arete ambled through her next choice of words. "Mmmmmaybe this time, yeah. At the lest, I'll need to patch my skirt, or replace it. Mitsuko's probably going to be so mad at me..." She chuckled as she said that. The mousy neko was usually mad at a lot of people, in a sort of adorable way. "Just for a bit of a refresher, what should I look at? I'm sure you had something more specific in mind."
"That would be the coolant system and the emergency power system. You only need to learn their functions, as well as refresh on how to maintain them," Walter responded without delay. "We'll not go over how to repair the machines in here until after power armor maintenance."
Nodding, Arete's response was efficient: "Alright. ...Enjoy the rest of your day, Walter." With a crunch from her apple, the brown-winged woman walked towards the door - she needed a fresh skirt.
