001

[mikangirl]

Who: Nami
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Marsiva
When: Nnnow-ish

[This is not happening.  Nope.  There were happy endings, and sunshine, and portals home, and she damn well walked through one.  Not only does this quiet, sterile place bear no resemblance to, y'know, a brigantine sloop or a crazy ocean, but she's turned up here alone.

She was pretty sure the animus were on the level with the whole going home thing.  The fact the Adstringendum communicator is giving her nothing but static when she tries to use it is, uh.  Not comforting, to say the least.  She explores the accessible area in due haste, looking for anyone she recognises.  Or anyone at all.  And then she sits cross-legged in the middle of the one hallway and tries to get the communicator working by prying at it with fingernails, hitting random buttons, and eventually just hitting the wall with it a few times before tossing it away from her with a huff.

Not happy doesn't really cover it.

She finds the broadcast system, staring down at the controls suspiciously.  She shouldn't know how to use this.  But, well.  In the absence of being able to do anything else-- ]

----

This turning up in mysterious new places thing was old the first time it happened.  Where the hell is this, and what hoops do I have to jump through to get home?  [Sweet, sweet sarcasm.  But at least she's holding onto her temper.]  And where's my staff? 

And-- and who fixed my shirt?

[Serious question, that one.]

Comments

[huaaaaagh]

[Oh man. It's weird to be on the other side of this equation.

He actually starts up a response because the woman's appearance makes him slam the button before he can stop himself; that long, reddish hair, her eyes, the fierce expression- at first glance he'd thought Asuna was here.

He's not that lucky, and now he has to cover for his mistake.]

Ah... I hope you can find your weapon. I haven't managed to get one yet.

[mikangirl]

None of the ships have handy weapons lying around either, huh?

[She smiles faintly.] Thanks. You'd think if we never saw the bad guys, they wouldn't need to take our stuff.

[huaaaaagh]

Some people have weapons, I think, but they're not easy to get. And yeah, you'd think they wouldn't care if they never have to personally deal with us.

[mikangirl]

I guess I'll take it as a sign we can still be a threat. Or something.

[Some consolation.]

[huaaaaagh]

[Tiny consolation.]

Wish they'd meet with us face to face so we could really give them a reason to be worried about us.

[mikangirl]

These types of people like to be faceless. But you never know. [Wonder what would drag them out into the open. She'd totally start plotting about this but she only just got here and is drowning in new info.]

Have you been here long?

[huaaaaagh]

Not at all. A couple weeks, actually.

[He's kind of glad it hasn't been longer, but from what he's heard, most of them are stuck for a while.]

[mikangirl]

Really? [She perks up a bit, because fellow new people are kinda cool. But also, it means it's only been two weeks he hasn't found a weapon, not two years or something horrible.]

So is it as boring as some people claim?

[huaaaaagh]

Hmm. I'm not sure I'd call it boring just yet. I've been keeping myself busy with learning my job on the ship, as well as getting used to living in space. But I might change my mind later, since I already miss a lot of modern conveniences.

[Like the Full-Dive system. He really misses playing games with all his friends.]

It probably depends on what you're used to.

[mikangirl]

I'm a pirate. So just about everything I'm used to is long gone. Although I guess I'm still on a ship.

[Poor excuse for one. :|]

[huaaaaagh]

A pirate? Like- literally, on the ocean, pillaging and plundering?

[Pirates aren't the sort of fantasy genre he's into, but still, that's pretty cool.]

[mikangirl]

[This was apparently an amazing concept in Adstring, too...]

Yeah, more or less. My crew doesn't do a lot of it, though. They could stand to do more.

[huaaaaagh]

[Anything outside of boring reality is awesome, tbh.]

What do pirates do if they're not pillaging, then?

[Clearly he has not read a lot of lore.]

[mikangirl]

Hmm. [Let me think.]

Sail, make friends, make enemies, overthrow countries, haul our idiot captain out of danger, get lost on zombie-infested islands, study the weather, run from the government, scream at idiots a lot. And occasionally wind up in weird places like this.

[Disclaimer: not a comprehensive list.]

[huaaaaagh]

[Wow. That... sure is not what he expected pirates to be doing. He has officially been educated.]

I...

[Wait, what?]

Some of that is almost normal, but- overthrow countries, and zombies? Should I even ask?

[mikangirl]

Well, to be fair, I'm sort of exaggerating on the country overthrowing bit. It's kind of a long story. [So you can ask, but she'll be here for the next half hour explaining.]

Zombies are not my favourite thing. We've only found them on one island and they were made by someone with some pretty unique talents, so I think we won't see them again. But yeah... life as a pirate is pretty strange sometimes.

What do you do for a living?

[You seem pretty young.]

[huaaaaagh]

[He'll take her word for it for the moment, but he's definitely filing that one away for later.

After hearing all of that, he's a bit sheepish when he answers.]

Nothing special, I'm just a student right now.

[A student in a special SAO-survivor school, playing catch-up after being trapped for two years in a deadly video game, but nobody talks about that sort of thing.]

[mikangirl]

Nothing wrong with that. [She just finished being one, so.] What are you studying?

[huaaaaagh]

Mostly just the usual high school subjects- writing, math, science, English... what I'm most interested in right now is mechatronics, though. Heard of it?

[He's not sure just how advanced other-world pirates might be, so he doesn't want to make any assumptions.]

[mikangirl]

[Oh, standard schooling. Doesn't really exist on a lot of the islands, but it's always sounded fun.]

No. Is it kind of like-- robotics?

[She heard mecha and thought of Franky and his weird af inventions.]

[huaaaaagh]

Not exactly, but it's similar. The name is a combination of "mechanics" and "electronics" - literally mecha-tronics - but it actually encompasses multiple sub-fields of a dozen or so engineering specialities. The goal of the mechatronic theory is to create synergy between several different mechanical and electronic systems for optimization.

[Please stop him, he's very passionate.]

[mikangirl]

[...her eyes are glazing--]

That sounds pretty... far out of my league. I get the general idea, but...

[We have a cyborg on ship but he runs on cola and would probably befriend you so fast]

[huaaaaagh]

[...Ahaha. That was probably too much at once.]

Sorry, sorry. The short version is I'm learning how to make machines talk to each other. It's pretty cool.

[mikangirl]

That is pretty cool.

[...heh.]

Think you could make use of that kind of thing out here?

[huaaaaagh]

I'd like to try. I'm the engineer on my ship, so I'm off to a good start with these systems. Just need to find myself a project.