Hello, Eren, it's Asami. I know it's been a while since we last talked. I was wondering if you would mind letting me take a closer look at your maneuvering gear? I promise I won't do anything to hurt it.
sure. [He's inclined to agree—he's got nothing better to do with himself right now, and it's kind of nice to talk to someone who seems enthusiastic and interested about the mechanism and it's use. Besides, she'd apparently seen something similar before, and comparing notes interesting too.
The "I promise," however, is as suspicious as it is reassuring.]
[ Well, it's kind of him to agree so quickly... though saying she wants to take it apart might not go over well. Sweats. ]
I'd really love to see how it all works, if you don't mind letting me poke around with the machinery a little bit. It's just that this kind of technology would be... revolutionary where I came from. It would level the playing field between metalbenders and... everyone else!
[ Someone's getting too excited about nerdy tech stuff. ]
[Yeah you better instill some confidence in your skills, lady.
Lucky for Asami, Eren's come into the opinion that they ought to take whatever advantages they can find here home with them if they're going to get stuck doing ALASTAIR'S dirty work anyway. (And he's all for leveling the field when it comes to gaps in power. Don't tell him about the Equalists.) So if he hadn't already agreed, she makes a good argument. He raps his knuckles restlessly against his knees for a second while he deliberates. Then.]
I can tune it up but I can't fix it if you break something.
[And then he'd be grounded...not like there are many replacements hanging around, and he only knows enough for routine or emergency maintenance. If only he knew a mechanic.]
[ Unknowingly says the exact right thing to get the hotheaded chaotic good shounen hero on her side... she must be used to dealing with Korra. ]
Thanks! And don't worry, my company builds technology like this, so I'm used to working with machinery. I do this kind of thing all the time. I'll put everything back where I found it, I promise.
[ Lucky for you, Eren, Asami might just be the mechanic you're looking for. ]
To be honest he's pretty willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, and he's weak to people who are passionate about things, no matter what they really are. But he'll definitely step in if she tries anything too funny. (It's not like he's powerless without it—he'd always been better at hand to hand than maneuvering anyway. But it's still a pretty big part of his skillset—and a pretty big part of home.) There's another pause while he chews on it. Then.]
where are you staying?
[The same window they had their first conversation through or—]
why did you ask me that i had to figure out where she's staying ugh i hate you
[By virtue of still being a fugitive, he's not...actually sure he's very welcome at the Abel Inn. The goblins like him well enough. The humans are hit and miss. But he'll make it work.]
yeah. Give me an hour.
[And an hour or so later, there's a sharp rapping noise against her window. This ought to seem familiar.]
[ To be honest, Asami is a little startled by the noise, but she reacts quickly, walking over to the window with her hand already in her electrified glove.
But it's just Eren. What an... unorthodox entrance. But she recovers in an instant, flipping the latch and swinging the window open so her visitor can squeeze inside. As she moves away to sit on the bed in her cramped room, she drops her glove on top of the chest at the foot of the bed, where it lands with a thunk. ]
Hi. Thanks for coming. [ There are only a few reasons she can think of for his need to come in through the back, so: ] Having some problems with the locals?
[and then a bunch of castle guards stormed the room. with lasers.]
[He probably should have warned her. Hindsight. Luckily, she catches on fast. He ducks in through the window about as nonchalantly as someone who's avoiding the law by scaling tall buildings can.
And he hums an answer that probably means "yes" as Asami disarms. Then—]
They're still trying to throw us back in jail. [The city guard. The goblins like them better. The townsfolk are hit or miss. He's at least trying to be a little careful. More importantly, he cants his head over toward her cool weirdo steampunk glove.]
What is that?
[ asami's boobs transform into machine guns and shoot them all down. the end. ]
This? [ She leans over and picks up the glove again, holding it up for a second before sliding it onto her hand. ] It produces electricity, to stun and disable attackers. My father invented it.
[ She tries not to sound so... conflicted when she mentions her father, but Asami's never been particularly great at hiding her emotions. Part of her is still proud of what he's accomplished, even if the other, bigger part of her is angry and ashamed that much of it was done for nefarious reasons.
She buoys back with a quick: ] Here, I'll show you. [ And then she releases the current and the glove crackles to life, thin blue bolts of electricity streaking briefly across her palm before she turns it off again. ]
[For all Eren can come off as distant or standoffish, he's not oblivious. He catches the odd tone in her voice as she explains and cocks a brow as he stows the grips of his gear, but he doesn't press it. Don't worry Asami, he can empathize on the conflicted daddy issues front.
It's clear from the furrow of his brow that he doesn't really understand what she's describing to him..at least, not at first. Mostly because electricity isn't a concept he's very familiar with. Until she turns on the glove and it lights up like a lightning storm, and his eyes go wide with understanding.]
It's a weapon?
[Rhetorical, mostly. Cool. Seems like he's got a little more faith in her ability to not fuck up his gear after that demonstration. There's a familiar steampunky look to it that keeps it from being too alien, but the electric shock is impressive tech from where he's standing. And because he's always been partial to hand to hand—]
Does it work from a distance or do you have to get in close?
[ The surprise and appreciation on his face make her smile, and she slowly turns her hand over so that he can see more of the wires and mechanisms powering the glove. It's not as lightweight and efficient as she'd like it to be yet—she's gotten into the habit of tinkering with it at times, now that she doesn't have to spend her every waking moment trying to save her company from financial ruin—but it's still an impressive piece of technology, if she said so herself.
(Her father had always always brilliant.)
So she likes to see a little appreciation for tech, even if it's still a smaller mirror of her own. ]
It's close-range only. [ She turns her hand back over, and taps a finger against the circular segment on the glove's palm. ] The electrical current is released from here, and it can only travel around the glove.
[ There's probably a whole explanation about currents and conductors and shit... who knows how the glove actually works... Asami doesn't get into technical details anyway. ]
[Technical details would be lost on him anyway. Eren's not much of a gearhead, really. He's just got plenty of enthusiasm for a good method of kicking ass.
So her demonstration (and her humoring his dumb questions) gets a pretty rarely seen sort of grin out of him.]
That's crazy. I've never seen anything like it.
[He'd like to see it in action sometime...though he's not in a hurry to get himself shocked, either. It does remind him, though—he reaches down to start unhooking his gear from the harness he's wearing.]
You still need something else to level the playing field?
[Even with something like that, she's still looking for ways to catch up to the "metalbenders" she'd mentioned before. He's not exactly sure what that means. But his kneejerk assumption isn't a particularly kind one. If you're trying to balance out power, there's usually a pretty shitty reason for it.]
[ Asami is nice enough to humor all sorts of things, dumb questions included. It's worth it to get a grin out of him, and she smiles back, her eyes crinkling at the corners. If she had her way, she'd convince everyone in the world to see the wonders of technology. ]
Maybe I can show it to you in action sometime. [ Even though that would mean... shocking the shit out of people, but whatever. She's already done plenty of that here; it feels like she can't escape trouble no matter where she goes.
When Eren starts taking off his gear, she takes a sudden interest in it, deeply focused on trying to figure out how everything seems to work together. He's wearing a bunch of complex-looking straps, which the gear appears to attach to—maybe to offset the weight? She gets to her feet and starts circling around him, her fingers tucked thoughtfully underneath her chin.
Ah, there's some other piece attached to the small of his back too, that she hadn't really noticed before. It looks like where the cables extend and retract, as well as some kind of vent. Which makes some sense, since those tubes connected to the boxes around his waist look like compressed air or gas.
Now she's starting to get a good idea of how this all works. ]
That would be nice. [ It comes out distractedly; her attention is already elsewhere. ] So the cables extend from here, [ she points to the reels at each side of his waist ] and then you retract them to propel yourself forward. [ Now she points to the vent thing, though he probably can't see it behind his back. ] Then you release some sort of compressed gas from here to give yourself more maneuverability?
All they have to do is find some people who have it coming nbd. We'll make an open log of it. "Come get electrocuted with eren and asami." Honestly Eren is always an option, whatever.
The point is, they're talking tech. Asami's got the right of it, and rapidly. Seems like she was telling the truth about knowing her stuff. He nods once, then stops what he's doing to fish a trigger grip out from under his jacket for her to see. The thing has a sensitive switch or two, finely tuned and personalized to the user. And a place to fit a blade.]
Momentum isn't always enough to keep you going. You control the grapples and the gas with this.
[And, because he can't not—her attention is on the mechanics, his is on the motivation—]
Is there a war going on?
[She wants to level the playing field. This is the obvious assumption, right?]
When he explains it that way, she makes a sound to the effect of aha!, her eyes gleaming as she takes in the trigger mechanism. The slots for the blades, stored along with the gas canisters, are fairly straightforward, though she has to wonder how these crazy long boxcutter-looking swords are necessary. he doesn't... use these in battle or something, does he? To defend himself? Against people?
Even though Eren can't be that much younger than her, by her estimation, she still ends up wondering who decided to let a teenage kid have this kind of weaponry, and frowns. (He has to be what, sixteen at most? He wouldn't have a blade like that if he wasn't expected to use it.)
Then he asks about war and she glances down at him, her frown deepening briefly before she steps back to give him more room to take off his gear. She thinks she understands what kind of world he must come from. ]
Nothing like that. [ She shrugs her shoulders, then crosses her arms over her chest—she's... never really had to explain this before. It's new. ] In my world, there are benders, people who can manipulate one of the elements—earth, air, water, and fire. And some other things too, like metal and lightning, if it's related to their element.
But then there are also nonbenders. Like me. [ She smiles, as if to tell him it's not a bad thing. Of course, Asami's had her moments where she's felt insanely jealous of benders and all the power they had—who wouldn't?—but she's content with being a nonbender. It's never stood in her way before. She won't let it. ]
When I said leveling the playing field, that's what I meant. [ She waves her hand, palm up, at his gear. ] This kind of technology could be used by everybody, not just benders.
[Of course he uses them in battle. What else would you do with a weapon? It's not like wearing a set of 3DMG is any less dangerous than being able to start a fire with a snap of your fingers, or send a boulder flying with a stomp of your foot. Or electrocuting someone with a glove.
He looks at her cuiously as she gives him a little more context of the bender-nonbending dichotomy. After a few months here, he can imagine people with power like that. Magic. Like Bolin, Sakura...Michel and his plots of vengeance and his blotting out the sun. He can imagine all too easily how something like that can be abused. And how much of a disadvantage it is, when you're faced with some enemy that just plain has more power than you do.]
Not just everybody. [Frankly. It doesn't work like that, either.] It's not that easy.
[The learning curve is steep, and dangerous. But he leans the boxy sheathes down against the wall and leaves the harness on, but sets the main mechanism on the room's desk table for her to get a look at. That is, after all, why he's here. Leveling the playing field—even if it's not necessarily easy.]
[ The difference is... well, bending can be used for so many things besides violence. Her glove? That's nonlethal, at least. But a sword like his... there's only one use for something like that, and Asami can't help but notice that it's being put in the hands of a kid. And it must be for a reason—necessity is the mother of invention, as the saying goes.
Regardless, she looks surprised by his answer, her head tipping curiously. ]
What do you mean? Is it difficult to use?
[ But she's easily distracted again with watching him unpack all of the pieces of his gear. She finds herself having to resist jumping right on the main mechanism, which he sets on the desk—she grabs her tools first, which form a very small, pitiful collection compared to the ones she has at home, out of the desk drawer and takes a seat.
She picks up the screwdriver first, and immediately sets to opening up the mechanism, her eyes gleaming again. He already gave her permission to poke around so... it's fine. There's no stopping her now anyway. ]
[Done, he perches on the edge of the nearby bed and watches like a hawk as Asami takes a screwdriver to his equipment. She's proven to be pretty smart. Probably knows more about this kind of thing than he does. But, you know.]
Training takes three years.
[So yeah, it's hard. And that sword was put in his hands a long time ago.]
Plenty of people don't make it.
[They wash out. ...Or they die. Finishing is an accomplishment—it means something. That you'd gone through three years of hell and made it out stronger for it.]
[ Three years... that's a long time, but it doesn't sound far-fetched to her. This kind of complicated machinery... it's probably difficult to master, just like driving a satomobile or flying a plane. Except with this kind of gear, your body is doing a lot of the work—her guess is that you have to be in pretty good shape to handle it. ]
What kind of training? Military?
[ It's an idle question. Most of her attention is fixed on methodically taking apart the mechanism—she's almost obsessively organized about it, setting aside each piece she removes in mirror image. The casing sits on its back like a turtle shell, with each nut and bolt lying next to the hole she took it from. (Is it just her, or does everything feel a lot lighter than she was expecting?)
Opening the whole thing up confirms a lot of her suspicions as to how it works, but also manages to surprise her too... somehow. Idk... let's pretend I know what I'm talking about... and she does a bunch of nerd stuff. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
text; un: Asami Sato
I was wondering if you would mind letting me take a closer look at your maneuvering gear? I promise I won't do anything to hurt it.
no subject
sure. [He's inclined to agree—he's got nothing better to do with himself right now, and it's kind of nice to talk to someone who seems enthusiastic and interested about the mechanism and it's use. Besides, she'd apparently seen something similar before, and comparing notes interesting too.
The "I promise," however, is as suspicious as it is reassuring.]
what do you want to see?
[Define "closer look," Asami...]
no subject
I'd really love to see how it all works, if you don't mind letting me poke around with the machinery a little bit.
It's just that this kind of technology would be... revolutionary where I came from. It would level the playing field between metalbenders and... everyone else!
[ Someone's getting too excited about nerdy tech stuff. ]
no subject
Lucky for Asami, Eren's come into the opinion that they ought to take whatever advantages they can find here home with them if they're going to get stuck doing ALASTAIR'S dirty work anyway. (And he's all for leveling the field when it comes to gaps in power. Don't tell him about the Equalists.) So if he hadn't already agreed, she makes a good argument. He raps his knuckles restlessly against his knees for a second while he deliberates. Then.]
I can tune it up but I can't fix it if you break something.
[And then he'd be grounded...not like there are many replacements hanging around, and he only knows enough for routine or emergency maintenance. If only he knew a mechanic.]
no subject
Thanks!
And don't worry, my company builds technology like this, so I'm used to working with machinery. I do this kind of thing all the time.
I'll put everything back where I found it, I promise.
[ Lucky for you, Eren, Asami might just be the mechanic you're looking for. ]
no subject
To be honest he's pretty willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, and he's weak to people who are passionate about things, no matter what they really are. But he'll definitely step in if she tries anything too funny. (It's not like he's powerless without it—he'd always been better at hand to hand than maneuvering anyway. But it's still a pretty big part of his skillset—and a pretty big part of home.) There's another pause while he chews on it. Then.]
where are you staying?
[The same window they had their first conversation through or—]
why did you ask me that i had to figure out where she's staying ugh i hate you
Will I see you soon?
turns this into a fight scene just to make things worse
yeah. Give me an hour.
[And an hour or so later, there's a sharp rapping noise against her window. This ought to seem familiar.]
you're the worst
But it's just Eren. What an... unorthodox entrance. But she recovers in an instant, flipping the latch and swinging the window open so her visitor can squeeze inside. As she moves away to sit on the bed in her cramped room, she drops her glove on top of the chest at the foot of the bed, where it lands with a thunk. ]
Hi. Thanks for coming. [ There are only a few reasons she can think of for his need to come in through the back, so: ] Having some problems with the locals?
[and then a bunch of castle guards stormed the room. with lasers.]
And he hums an answer that probably means "yes" as Asami disarms. Then—]
They're still trying to throw us back in jail. [The city guard. The goblins like them better. The townsfolk are hit or miss. He's at least trying to be a little careful. More importantly, he cants his head over toward her cool weirdo steampunk glove.]
What is that?
[ asami's boobs transform into machine guns and shoot them all down. the end. ]
[ She tries not to sound so... conflicted when she mentions her father, but Asami's never been particularly great at hiding her emotions. Part of her is still proud of what he's accomplished, even if the other, bigger part of her is angry and ashamed that much of it was done for nefarious reasons.
She buoys back with a quick: ] Here, I'll show you. [ And then she releases the current and the glove crackles to life, thin blue bolts of electricity streaking briefly across her palm before she turns it off again. ]
you should get that ability as an ac reward tbh
It's clear from the furrow of his brow that he doesn't really understand what she's describing to him..at least, not at first. Mostly because electricity isn't a concept he's very familiar with. Until she turns on the glove and it lights up like a lightning storm, and his eyes go wide with understanding.]
It's a weapon?
[Rhetorical, mostly. Cool. Seems like he's got a little more faith in her ability to not fuck up his gear after that demonstration. There's a familiar steampunky look to it that keeps it from being too alien, but the electric shock is impressive tech from where he's standing. And because he's always been partial to hand to hand—]
Does it work from a distance or do you have to get in close?
frowns deeply
(Her father had always always brilliant.)
So she likes to see a little appreciation for tech, even if it's still a smaller mirror of her own. ]
It's close-range only. [ She turns her hand back over, and taps a finger against the circular segment on the glove's palm. ] The electrical current is released from here, and it can only travel around the glove.
[ There's probably a whole explanation about currents and conductors and shit... who knows how the glove actually works... Asami doesn't get into technical details anyway. ]
you're welcome for the suggestion
So her demonstration (and her humoring his dumb questions) gets a pretty rarely seen sort of grin out of him.]
That's crazy. I've never seen anything like it.
[He'd like to see it in action sometime...though he's not in a hurry to get himself shocked, either. It does remind him, though—he reaches down to start unhooking his gear from the harness he's wearing.]
You still need something else to level the playing field?
[Even with something like that, she's still looking for ways to catch up to the "metalbenders" she'd mentioned before. He's not exactly sure what that means. But his kneejerk assumption isn't a particularly kind one. If you're trying to balance out power, there's usually a pretty shitty reason for it.]
no subject
Maybe I can show it to you in action sometime. [ Even though that would mean... shocking the shit out of people, but whatever. She's already done plenty of that here; it feels like she can't escape trouble no matter where she goes.
When Eren starts taking off his gear, she takes a sudden interest in it, deeply focused on trying to figure out how everything seems to work together. He's wearing a bunch of complex-looking straps, which the gear appears to attach to—maybe to offset the weight? She gets to her feet and starts circling around him, her fingers tucked thoughtfully underneath her chin.
Ah, there's some other piece attached to the small of his back too, that she hadn't really noticed before. It looks like where the cables extend and retract, as well as some kind of vent. Which makes some sense, since those tubes connected to the boxes around his waist look like compressed air or gas.
Now she's starting to get a good idea of how this all works. ]
That would be nice. [ It comes out distractedly; her attention is already elsewhere. ] So the cables extend from here, [ she points to the reels at each side of his waist ] and then you retract them to propel yourself forward. [ Now she points to the vent thing, though he probably can't see it behind his back. ] Then you release some sort of compressed gas from here to give yourself more maneuverability?
no subject
All they have to do is find some people who have it coming nbd. We'll make an open log of it. "Come get electrocuted with eren and asami." Honestly Eren is always an option, whatever.
The point is, they're talking tech. Asami's got the right of it, and rapidly. Seems like she was telling the truth about knowing her stuff. He nods once, then stops what he's doing to fish a trigger grip out from under his jacket for her to see. The thing has a sensitive switch or two, finely tuned and personalized to the user. And a place to fit a blade.]
Momentum isn't always enough to keep you going. You control the grapples and the gas with this.
[And, because he can't not—her attention is on the mechanics, his is on the motivation—]
Is there a war going on?
[She wants to level the playing field. This is the obvious assumption, right?]
no subject
When he explains it that way, she makes a sound to the effect of aha!, her eyes gleaming as she takes in the trigger mechanism. The slots for the blades, stored along with the gas canisters, are fairly straightforward, though she has to wonder how these crazy long boxcutter-looking swords are necessary. he doesn't... use these in battle or something, does he? To defend himself? Against people?
Even though Eren can't be that much younger than her, by her estimation, she still ends up wondering who decided to let a teenage kid have this kind of weaponry, and frowns. (He has to be what, sixteen at most? He wouldn't have a blade like that if he wasn't expected to use it.)
Then he asks about war and she glances down at him, her frown deepening briefly before she steps back to give him more room to take off his gear. She thinks she understands what kind of world he must come from. ]
Nothing like that. [ She shrugs her shoulders, then crosses her arms over her chest—she's... never really had to explain this before. It's new. ] In my world, there are benders, people who can manipulate one of the elements—earth, air, water, and fire. And some other things too, like metal and lightning, if it's related to their element.
But then there are also nonbenders. Like me. [ She smiles, as if to tell him it's not a bad thing. Of course, Asami's had her moments where she's felt insanely jealous of benders and all the power they had—who wouldn't?—but she's content with being a nonbender. It's never stood in her way before. She won't let it. ]
When I said leveling the playing field, that's what I meant. [ She waves her hand, palm up, at his gear. ] This kind of technology could be used by everybody, not just benders.
no subject
He looks at her cuiously as she gives him a little more context of the bender-nonbending dichotomy. After a few months here, he can imagine people with power like that. Magic. Like Bolin, Sakura...Michel and his plots of vengeance and his blotting out the sun. He can imagine all too easily how something like that can be abused. And how much of a disadvantage it is, when you're faced with some enemy that just plain has more power than you do.]
Not just everybody. [Frankly. It doesn't work like that, either.] It's not that easy.
[The learning curve is steep, and dangerous. But he leans the boxy sheathes down against the wall and leaves the harness on, but sets the main mechanism on the room's desk table for her to get a look at. That is, after all, why he's here. Leveling the playing field—even if it's not necessarily easy.]
no subject
Regardless, she looks surprised by his answer, her head tipping curiously. ]
What do you mean? Is it difficult to use?
[ But she's easily distracted again with watching him unpack all of the pieces of his gear. She finds herself having to resist jumping right on the main mechanism, which he sets on the desk—she grabs her tools first, which form a very small, pitiful collection compared to the ones she has at home, out of the desk drawer and takes a seat.
She picks up the screwdriver first, and immediately sets to opening up the mechanism, her eyes gleaming again. He already gave her permission to poke around so... it's fine. There's no stopping her now anyway. ]
no subject
Training takes three years.
[So yeah, it's hard. And that sword was put in his hands a long time ago.]
Plenty of people don't make it.
[They wash out. ...Or they die. Finishing is an accomplishment—it means something. That you'd gone through three years of hell and made it out stronger for it.]
no subject
What kind of training? Military?
[ It's an idle question. Most of her attention is fixed on methodically taking apart the mechanism—she's almost obsessively organized about it, setting aside each piece she removes in mirror image. The casing sits on its back like a turtle shell, with each nut and bolt lying next to the hole she took it from. (Is it just her, or does everything feel a lot lighter than she was expecting?)
Opening the whole thing up confirms a lot of her suspicions as to how it works, but also manages to surprise her too... somehow. Idk... let's pretend I know what I'm talking about... and she does a bunch of nerd stuff. ]