2011-03-18 - Medicine for Loss

Earlier

Within the Earth Cradle's massive hangars stand many strange units, and perhaps the Amenthes wouldn't particularly be standing out if she wasn't... moving... without her framerunner being on board. "Whooah now Amenthes! Settle down!" The unit is kneeled down against a wall and is giving Ascian a rather angered looking stare. It's not speaking or anything, but it is holding a tech between two of its fingers - by his overall. "Set the nice man down." The bluehaired framerunner requests of the mech.

Its feathery earrings where one would expect her ears to be jingle slightly in response, and the Orbital Frame looks at the man. "Put... him down..." Ascian calmly asks the machine again. It turns his head slightly down, as if ashamed, and does as asked. Of course, the moment she lets go, the man runs away as if his life depended on it. "What did we say about the technicians? They are just trying to repair you!" In reply to this, Amenthes raises her hands to her chest. "I don't care they touched you there. There's still armor plating there." The young man groans and facefaults, before turning around. "Anyhow, I have something to do. Wait here."

Now The young man is standing on the railing that looks out over the hangar. He knew that they were expecting two people from a rather exhausting mission in Hindustania - and it was those two people he had 'invited' for something. His blue eyes, one slightly lighter than the other, look over the massive hangar. He could see Amenthes in the distance finally letting some of the techs replace some of the armor plating on her. Ever since he deactivated Duat recently, she'd become more 'lively', and the A.I. had not been able to be reactivated so far. Of course, this was a problem.

But right now, he had more pressing matters on his mind. There were girls, and they were at least one of them had sounded rather pitiful. As a brother to a sister who he'd supported for much of his life - and now was nowhere to be found, he could not help but want to impose his brotherly and protective self onto people like that.

What descends through the hanger doors is a .. a monster of silver plates and obsidian. The bleeding has come to a stop, thankfully, but the simple arrival of the machine causes a dramatic spike in temperature. Once Yatagarasu touches the hanger floor, it shudders and then collapses onto its hands and knees. The negative energy 'feathers' begin winking out, and the spars they hang from fold over and tuck into the back. The glowing red orb in its chest closes over with a black crust, and only then does the machine shift to a more relaxed posture.

Techs attempt to approach it, but the heat radiating from its armor is too much. And yet, the back panels slide apart and Seril emerges, soaked through with...something. Every time she touches the machine while she climbs down from it, the fluid hisses and steams, but she doesn't seem to mind. By the time she's on the hanger floor, her entire body is dry - Along with most of her hair.

Rather than greet the technicians, Seril suddenly becomes preoccupied with her mouth, feeling her teeth with a finger.

The first of the machines to arrive back from the mission in Hindustania is a tall, imposing black sort-- the Assault Dragoon-type machine, the ASK-UC90 Flickerist. On the way back, the pilot took the time to pry out the majority of the knives and the two folding axes lodged in it's frame, save the one that is completely supplanted into the head, just barely above where the visor protects the right eye.

Touching down, the Tesla Drive spins down to standby mode, and the Flickerist walks with heavy footfalls to a docking terminal a few spaces away from others-- and a few extra engineers and a couple of men in lab coats are ready and waiting.

Outer and inner hatches slide open with countless other security and protective measures in between, allowing Lethe Rusina to step out. Her head bowed as not to crack it against the top of the entryway, one leg comes out first, followed by a careful step onto the catwalk. Waves of purple hair spill down around her shoulders as she gets clear, and she straightens herself back up to her full five-nine height.

She is also very clearly Not Dressed for Piloting.

Walking down the catwalk, she pauses when she comes within reasonable speaking distance of Ascian. Her coat has by now slipped back down off her shoulders, and she stands just a little too straight.

Her brain starts to work in overdrive, flicking through all of the files that she actually does have access to, the things in her memory catching up. Once his identity is confirmed, her head nods slightly in acknowledgement.

"W18 reporting, sir."

And then she looks over her shoulder at the other arrival-- and the faintest touches of curiosity reach her mind, even if her face has yet to express it beyond a deadpan expression.

Ascian watches with a look of worry on his face when the Flickerer arrives, hissing a little between his teeth just looking at where one of those axes is planted. A tech suddenly moves next to him and leans over. "Wow. That thing has seen better days." The random technician claims, looking at it. "Yeah. My god. I'm glad she's come back ali~..." He turns his head about at the tech. The tech looks back at him with confusion. Ascian moves back and then points at the machine; "Get over there and go do your job!" Darn technicians, always getting lazy.

He thinks that it is perhaps that behavior that gets miss W18 to call him 'sir'. The young man turns, looking down on the - only slightly - shorter woman and gives her a good look over. The long hair does draw his attention, guiding his gaze towards her face, and finally her eyes. It takes him a moment to actually reassert himself before he nods back into her direction. "Welcome back, /miss Rusina/." He hated that. He hated those people who refered to themselves by their code-names like they were some kind of puppet. "Glad to see you are still in once piece." Ascian lets his gaze quickly skip between her and her machine, then back. "I see you managed to steer your unit well - only non-vital locations seem to have been hit."

Then the Sun God Machine suddenly comes flying in. Or lurching is more like it. He almost expected it to just /crawl/ on all fours all the way, even when it finally settles against the ground and stops moving. He bites his upper lip as the girl then climbs out - and he watches the hissing. His hands move back to the railing and kind of clutch them as he watches the girl clamber out. There was obvious fear that she might just fall off and hurt herself. And when she finally makes her way to the floor, he points at a few technicians and points towards where he is. That ends up getting them to nudge Seril slightly, who was busy with her teeth, and point at Ascian. "I think he's expecting you." One of the techs claims.

And whilst waiting for miss Seril, Ascian turns back to W18. "How was the mission?" He asks.

Oh dear, what little Ascian may or may not know regarding Lethe Rusina.

Not that there's a lot on file.

A customary action she has realized over her months of study in the depths of the Earth Cradle says that wearing accessories that hide the eyes, or the lack of eye contact, is considered to be rude and unacceptable-- and as such, the purple-haired woman removes the translucent wraparound sunglasses, holding them in her left hand.

Green eyes settle on Ascian's own, making only the most subtle of shifts to hold eye contact when it's broken for whatever reason. Her voice never once breaks that soft monotone.

"Performance tests have concluded successfully. While the damage threshhold has been reached for the purposes of this test," she says, glancing back once at the black robot, "ASK-UC90 Flickerist has performed to expectations. Final optimization data has been sent to Mistress Lemon."

Lethe turns just a little more to spy Seril. This time, the gynoid's blank stare is more examining, careful, trying to get a good grasp on why exactly she's jabbing a finger around inside of her mouth.

"Ma'am. Procedure requires injuries and illness to be reported to the infirmary to promote smooth operation and shortest possible recovery times."

When someone touches her, Seril nearly jumps out of her skin with an almost comical "Wah!" of surprise. She stares dumbfounded at the technician for a moment, then turns those big blue eyes in the direction he points. Oh, there's a guy up there? "Expecting me?" Seril's head tilts slightly to one side in visible thought, and she thinks out loud, "He must be the guy from the chatbox.."

Turning, she glances over her shoulder at the immobile Yatagarasu, "Um... You probably shouldn't mess with him. He'll heal on his own, anyway." She remains like that for a moment longer, almost flinching when she at last takes her eyes off the machine. Dutifully, she trots in Ascian's direction, though has once again become preoccupied with her teeth. Something definately feels *wrong* in her mouth, ever since the battle, and she's having a hard time figuring out what.

The techs nod at Seril, all looking up at the machine. They were used to this kind of thing by now. Machines that healed themselves. There's a lot one can say about the DC, but when it comes to strange machines, they are probably the professionals in the world. So they indeed leave it be, and instead dedicate their attention to W18's Flickerist.

The framerunner who'd asked for Seril, in the meantime, has kept his attention on W18 since she started talking. God. It was one of those girls - one of those that talks like a robot. He never quite knew what to think of them. In a ways, he didn't know now who he should pity more, the smaller Seril, or the monotone Lethe. "Is that the best way you can describe it?" Ascian asked her, hoping to loosen her up a bit; though that hope was only a tiny flicker of flame amidst a storm. "Like. We did really well - but sadly we lost. Or don't you really feel anything about the whole operation?" Better get that out of the way and really learn what kind of person he was dealing with.

But, not waiting for an answer, he's already turned towards Seril who is /still/ playing with her teeth when she arrives. And whilst W18 proceeds to list what ought to be done, Ascian instead goes through his legs a bit to be at her level and nicely asks the girl; "Something wrong with your teeth? Any of them feeling loose?" He nudges his head forward at her a little. "Come on, show me. Maybe I can tell what's wrong."

"I'm not hurt!" Seril insists. She hesitates, then lowers her hand from her face, "Well.. Not anymore, anyway." Closing an eye, she seems to be moving her tongue around behind closed lips, "There's no reason to see a doctor if I'm not hurt. Something just isn't feeling right." When Ascian leans down to get a better look, she blinks dumbly at him for a second or two before providing the man with a big *fanged* smile. Her canines are more pronounced than they should be, and noticably so.

After a moment, she puts a stop to it, "Did you see anything wierd?" Her eyes drift closed, and she raises a finger to tap her cheek lightly, "I don't think it went very well. I mean, we lost. I wasn't strong enough.. I couldn't take the pain anymore, I had to leave."

Lethe's head tilts only slightly as she tries to parse what he means. Was he asking her what she felt? What kind of emotions the fight had evoked? Or was he merely looking for a statistical breakdown of the fight's progression? Representing it without a chart would be a little more difficult, but perhaps he would accept an oral report.

Those green eyes narrow just a little bit as Seril's teeth are better displayed for Ascian. If she had the emotive capacity, she would frown, but there's just something missing from W18 right now. Then again, she still has a lot to learn-- even Echidna Iisaki, W16, had to dumb down her manner of speech to the most basic level in order to keep things moving smoothly for the months-old gynoid.

Still. It isn't her place to argue, period. "As you insist, ma'am."

"You were engaged with multiple hostile targets, ma'am. The length of time you lasted in a firefight of that intensity was well beyond an expected rate."

A small black mecha pulls into the hanger, it's got a single green iptic eye and bearing only a few markings. Lethe would know it's James Heller's personal machine a Heavy Gear called a Dark Jaguar. He pulls into one of the hanger bays near by and the hatch pops open. James drops out of it, and the flight suit is a bit strange mostly the boxy like helmet that has two red imaging optics which kinda renders the pilot looking a bit like a MP W bot at least till he pulls it off his head.

"Get to basic maintenance and top up the tank."

He calls to one of the techs near by before starting to home in on Lemon's newest creation, The Martian, and the nuclear hellraven.

"Yo!"

Ascian's eyes seem to refocus when he catches sight of those 'fangs'. It surprises him a bit, enough to send a tiny rush of light beneath his eyes - glowing from the Metatron poisoning induced scar that lay there. He turns his head slightly, making sure he saw it right, then stands back up. "Your canines are bigger than someone your age, size, and... well... I assume you're human?" The framerunner asks to be sure. "Basically, your canines look... beastly." He defines what he means to say, after listening to the rest of the girl's pitiable plea. "It's quite alright." He then suddenly claims.

The young man reaches a hand forwards to Seril's head, hovers it over her for a moment with hesitation, then puts it down on her. He pets her lightly. "From what I heard, you did quite well. It's alright to lose now and again." God, if anyone knew about losing. His trackrecord was not particularly fantastic. "Don't let it keep you down, and just strive to do better next time." He then moves his hand away from the girl's head again and turns his head towards Lethe for a short moment. He caught something in her eyes, but he didn't know what. "See. Even miss Rusina thinks you did /really/ well. And she was there."

He then suddenly turns completely away from them and raises his hand, wagging it to tell them to follow. The young man then also words this, to make sure they knew what was going on. Mostly for W18's purposes though, since he wasn't entirely sure just /what/ to think of her. "Follow me. And I'll introduce you to something I feel like at least /one/ of you two has never actually had." He then freezes for a short moment when he hears Heller calls out. Ascian turns about and raises an eyebrow. "Well..." Blink blink. "I guess you can come too." Assuming that James just wanted in on whatever he'd offered the two ladies, he turns about and leads the entire party toooo... the cafeteria!

Seril watches Ascian as he makes his assessment, still feeling around inside her mouth, "Beastly..? They do feel sharper than I remember." Her teeth were normal as recently as *a few hours ago*, even. When she realized he'd asked if she was human, her attention quickly diverts to her belt, and she tugs her coat a bit tighter to herself, "Of course I'm human. I was born in Helena." wait. Cuba?

Both Lethe and Ascian see fit to praise her, and this combined with a genuine *headpat* makes her flinch a bit with red in her cheeks, "A-ah.. I didn't.. do that well, did I? I didn't even bring down one of the enemies.." Looking down, she frowns, "All I did was make a big mess."

Someone else rolls up with his booming confidence, and this easily attracts Seril's attention. She straightens and shoots a curious look in Heller's direction, "Nyu? Oh, hi!" A hand is raised, waving in the newcomer's direction. Her attention returns to Ascian, "By the way, I'm Seril. What are you showing us?"

Of course, praise from Lethe is questionable. Her voice is soft, sure, but the way that it carries, the quality that it has-- it's like having someone type in their praise into a computer and click the text-to-sound button. In some ways, she actually /is/ reading from a script, a primer of sorts that she was given to ensure that she'll be able to converse at least on a functional level with others.

Of course, 'functional' is somewhat subjective.

About to follow Ascian and Seril, Lethe literally jerks to a halt the moment she sees James Heller headed their collective way. Her arms remaining at her sides, she stands as though she were at attention. Lethe Rusina has superiors-- but there are a few superiors that are more superior than others.

"Mister Heller," she says, as both greeting and form of respect. Spoken for probably Seril's benefit, as well, she introduces herself quickly: "I am W18, designated 'Lethe Rusina.'"

James Heller Psays, "Hey Ascian, Leth, so you're the new pilot of that machine huh Seril?" He nods once to Lethe. "See your getting out and about, good to see." The mention of food is a good idea to him so he's just going to follow along, and wish for the days when Elzam would ninja in and make dinner for the men. Those stories still are told about it but still the cradle had the best food of any DC base.

"Thanks by the way Ascian. I heard you got some of the feds on mars panicing with your Raid."

"Beastly." Ascian had repeated when Seril had repeated his own word. "Or feral. It's kinda cute though." Hey, the young man has weird tastes. He runs around with Hera for a reason! The young man continues on his way towards the cafeteria, now with two girls and James following him, and is taking his time. Seril had already claimed that she wasn't wounded, so he didn't have to worry about that too much. "You'll see." The young man says. "I've got it set ready in the Cafeteria for you girls though. Mister Heller will need to wait."

Even with Lethe having halted for a moment to salute James Heller, Ascian continues on. He assumes that they can find their way to the Cafeteria if they'd lag behind. What he cared about most was getting /Seril/ there. And she seemed to be following right behind him. When they arrive, there's a bunch of people eating, but there is also a nearby smaller table completely clear. A big burly man, wearing an apron with a large suausage depicted on it, is standing there guarding the table for Ascian's return.

The bluehaired bishonen framerunner nods his head at the man, then turns back to Heller. He gives him a hesitant look. The Amenthes had sustained some severe damage during that raid, having been on the other end of Banjo Haran and the Daitarn-1. It'd caused his faith in things to be shaked a bit. But, he still manages a faint smile. "I am glad it had some effect. I heard they lost some important information concerning troop movement. But the plan to attack Acemos has been postponed."

The young man then finally sits down at the table and points at the two ladies to settle down at opposite ends to eachother. Each side had a big mug sitting there, steaming warm. And in the middle of the table stands a metalic cylinder, with in big words: WHIPPED CREAM! (with sugar). That's right. He'd gotten them two big mugs of Chocolate Milk. "Careful, it's still a bit hot." Ascian warns. "But please, do, drink up." He then nods at James. "You want one too?" Before turning back to Seril. "This is /the/ best medicine against a loss, I've found."

Well, that brightens the black-haired girl up, "You think it's cute?" After a bit of thought, she smiles brightly and puts some more swing in her arms as she walks, "Well then I won't worry about them!" Anything that makes a girl cuter can't possibly be a bad thing, right? when James speaks up, she glances over her shoulder, "New machine..? You mean Yatagarasu?" She nods once, "Yes, I pilot that!" Glancing down a bit, she nns, "It's a little frightening being inside it, though."

She becomes distracted by a familiar smell. The smell of food. She can't quite identify what it is, but it smells damn good. The scary looking guy with the apron gets a wary look, though Seril seats herself either way, "It's a little crowded..isn't it..?" Blink. Brown liquid. She eyes the chocolate milk cautiously, as if she thinks it's dirt or something, "...well...If you say it's good medicine..."

Holding the mug in both hands, Seril lifts it and knocks back a gulp as if she expects it to be *the most awful thing ever*. Though, when she sets it down, the girl shoots a dirty look at Ascian for some reason. "...You said this was medicine! It's way too tasty to be medicine..!"

Of course, Lethe follows now that there's a whole /other/ reason to chase after Ascian and Seril. She wasn't due to check in with Echidna /or/ Lemon just yet, given the combat data from the Flickerist was already sent back to the laboratory. For now, she has what would normally be referred to as 'free time,' as strange and horrifying as it is for her.

Free time that brings her into the cafeteria with the other three, to a chair she is indicated to sit down in. Her hands immediately shift to her lap, and she stares at the mug as though it were a completely foreign substance.

"I cannot imbibe this."

Lethe says it as if it were a matter of /fact/, not that she wouldn't like the smell or the flavor. Her hair shifts when she turns her head to say this to Ascian, and the gynoid seems completely baffled that it's still sitting in front of her.

Ascian just watches the girl who's suddenly looking quite a bit brighter and cheerful with amusement and relief. Anything to prevent someone from falling into dispair - perhaps an overreaction on his side; but that is the kind of past he has... the kind of person he's become. Someone who wants to protect, but has found himself stopped at every turn. And that's exactly why moments like this make everything worth it to him. He raises a hand to his mouth and chuckles behind it.

"It's a very special medicine." He taps on the table in front of the metalic whipped cream cyclinder then, and then grabs it in order to place it down again next to Seril's mug. "Now, you should add this to the 'medicine' and make it taste even better." He was going to keep up this act as if this was truly some kind of medicine until she'd tasted it /with/ the whipped cream.

The young man, waiting for Seril to do as suggested, then turns to Lethe. He gives her a confused look. "How come?" He asks her. "Are you on a special diet of sorts? I mean, I assume you know what this is, right? I'm not going to feed you some kind of poison." The young man didn't know that much about the W-series. So he gives the girl a confused look. "Or are you perhaps allergic to chocolate?" He's not going to force it on her.

James Heller isn't in a rush either. "Eh I'm just going to grab a meal nmy self I got back from scouting out some trailers who were doing a free for all pit match. I have never seen a construction mech beat down a military machine like that before." He comments. "I'll pass on the drink."

He now will find a set and he looks at the girl, there isn't that much more known bout her than from what the reports said.

"It is an interesting lookin' machine. If you could even call that thing a machine really."

He flags someone down to get his food set up and then turns back to the others. "So any of you hear of a Jiron Amos?"

The amusing thing is that Ascian seems to know instinctively to use simpler words around Seril. Because phrases coming out of Lethe's mouth keep attracting confused little glances from the black-haired girl. After a moment, she just looks down at her drink, "Huh. Is 'imbibe' like 'abide'? Like, you can't stand it? Why would you hate something like this, though? It's good!" She's at least sixteen, but the girl can be so childish.

Ascian provides whipped cream, and Seril eagerly collects the can when he says it'll make the drink better. After a moment, the eagerness fades, and she just stares at it with an almost... flat expression. The look of a girl attempting to divine how one uses an unknown artifact. She prods the nozzle, and when that makes it do something, she seems to figure out what to do with it and quickly adds a bit too much cream to her drink, "Never heard that name before!"

Setting the can down, Seril licks cream off her fingers one at a time, "But nope. It's more like a creature. It talks to me sometimes, and calls me its little flame."

'Are you on a special diet of sorts?' "Negative." 'I assume you know what this is, right?' "Affirmative." 'I'm not going to feed you some kind of poison.' "Understood."

Lethe turns her head to regard Seril first. "It is a word that means 'to drink,' as in a beverage, potion, or alcohol," she says, sounding like someone had just handed her a dictionary to read from. With a subtle shift, her head turns so she can face Ascian again from the chair she sits in.

"To clarify," she starts, looking Ascian straight in the eye without blinking, without wavering, and without hesitation, "I am unable to drink this because I have not been configured to consume beverages by Mistress Lemon. If I were to be sent on an infiltration mission, I may have such functionality installed."

There is a strange... look in Ascian's eyes as Seril licks the cream off of her fingers, and he raises a hand before his eyes to stop himself from doing or saying something stupid. He manages to just continue on smiling and shakes his head a little. He knew she'd try it with the chocolate milk soon enough. "Don't worry, you won't overdose on that can of whipped cream. Use as much as you want. And I can easily get some more of the chocolate milk made too." When he says 'chocolate milk', he points at the mug before the girl.

His ears then slightly seem to 'pull' back, as James states that name. "Yeah, I know the name. He's Katharon." He states with certainty. "I managed to glance at the pilot rosters when I was captive on the Argama. I saw that name being mentioned there." He then finally moves his hand away from his eyes and turns towards Lethe as she speaks. He looks right back at her... but that unblinking stare was kind of creeping him out. The young man was simply too nice right now to comment on it. "I see. So I guess you are some kind of android then?" He'd met Ernula once, so he wasn't too surprised with this possibility by now. "Well. If you're not having it."

The young man reaches over and tries to grab the mug to pull it away from her. Who knows. Maybe Lethe would stop him for some kind of unfathomable reason. He had, after all, gifted it to her.

"Hm... Okay." Seril nods when Lethe explains the word she used, "So it's not like abide at all. Okay! It'd be pretty silly if you couldn't abide this, wouldn't it?" She listens, but the poor education surfaces a few times as Ascian and Lethe converse amongst themselves. These unfamiliar words, like 'android' and 'functionality' and 'installed' are all filed away. Maybe she'll remember to look it up later.

Seemingly content with her topping, Seril pushes the can of whipped cream towards Ascian when he reaches for Lethe's drink. Who knows, maybe he'll want it? She then lifts her mug and squints incredulously at it, "I know what cream is. And I know what milk is. Milk doesn't taste like this. It must be that chocolate part." With a shrug, she tries the drink with the cream. Judging by her expression, it's the best thing since sliced bread.

Seril isn't the only one filing information away. 'Jiron Amos,' a Katharon pilot? Lethe ponders for a moment before deciding that it's a name she'll have to look up later-- if not in public information and news, then through whatever files that the Divine Crusade has... that she's allowed to access, anyway.

Lethe does not respond to Ascian taking the mug away, sitting there entirely as though she had expected it to happen. She blinks, perhaps as some kind of mental reminder that she needs to do so-- another one of the many habits and tics associated with human behavior that she needs to pick up on, anticipate.

"Correct. I am the 18th model created by Mistress Lemon. Information in regards to my creation and activation as a front-line soldier in the Divine Crusade is classified. I am currently assigned for training to W16, Echidna Iisaki."

James Heller nods to Ascian for a moment. "I see, I'll keep an eye on em then. He's got trailer connections enough the Raven's let him into the pits." He humms for a moment he looks to the new W bot for a moment and just nods a little bit. "Yup, She can be harsh even for one of Misstress Lemon's creations. Though I'd advise you all to keep clear of Wodan. He's one focused dude."

Seril gets another look for moment. "I think the young lady likes it."

Echidna? Ascian gives Lethe a momentary stare. He understood a bit better now, the state she was in. W-series. Right. They were with /them/. The crazy bunch who wanted to have a world of infinite war. It wasn't that he didn't understand them at their reasoning... but... it clashed with some of his senses as a BAHRAM soldier. He continues to watch her as he takes the mug away entirely, then happily accepts the can from Seril and starts shaking it... before spraying a royal amount on the warm brown liquid and soon putting it to his lips.

Of course, this being a 'cheer up the girls' quote-unquote mission, though accidental, he still manages to end up with a plume of whipped cream sitting on his nose. The young man goes cross eyes, looking at it, but doesn't actually remove it. No, he wants to see what Seril's response will be, before he does anything. And trying to be entirely serious, he turns towards Lethe and gives her a little nod. "Yeah. You'll need to get yourself some better programs to converse with people. That, or sit around and study human behavior more. Maybe just hang out in this place for a few days."

And back goes his attention to Seril. He nods at James' words. "I think she does." He'd not felt this good and warm in quite a while now. This was all rather good for his soul. "So. What do you think of this treatment to losing." He asks her. "Just think what I might prepare for you if you /win/." Next step, get her to call him big brother.

Seril seems perfectly content. If she were a little younger, she'd be kicking her feet and humming a cheerful tune. As it is, for her age, her feet actually do touch the ground so there's no cute kicking and no cheery humming because her mouth is busy. She's barely even listening to Ascian and Lethe at this point, though when she hears something that attracts her attention, she suddenly returns to this plane of mental existance with a confused sounding "Nyu?"

She blinks at Ascian, then damn near loses it. This causes her to notice her own nose has a dollop of cream on it, and that about kills her. She bursts into giggles, shakily setting her drink down before she spills it anywhere. Trying desperately to calm herself down, she wipes her face with one gloved hand.

"Oh man..! You did that on purpose, didn't you!" Her coat moves in an unusual way and her laughing suddenly *STOPS*. Hurridly, she tightens it down again, then smiles sheepishly, "Ah.. It was pretty funny. But I guess I'll have to wait until I win to see that, huh..?"

Wodan. Wodan Ymir, also one of her predecessors. Of course, he's still in action, using the devastating Thrudgelmir and it's iconic colossal sword. Lethe says nothing regarding the state of Ascian and the whipped cream on his face, treating it as nothing more than a passing curiosity. What the Martian said is true-- she needs quite a lot of work yet. And Lethe acknowledges this the one way she knows how:

"Roger."

Her head turns to look at Seril, somehow able to interpret the noise she makes as a statement of bewilderment or misunderstanding-- maybe she's growing a little bit already. After a moment's consideration, the purple-haired woman starts, "I am not human."

"Deconstructing the explanation into the simplest manner I can achieve: I am a robot."

When his observant eyes catch the strange movement of her coat, young man's head tips slightly to the left in confusion, almost like a wolf or a dog, giving it a suddenly serious look; his pupils dilated somewhat. But when she then gives that sheepish smile, he just smiles on back and nods at her.

"Did what on purpose?" Ascian turns his eyes up and to the left, giving a mock-innocent look that someone not looking for the obvious signs might actually misinterpret as him being serious. He gives her a silly look, then pretends to notice the way she'd wiped her face with her gloved hand and raises his hand to wipe the whipped cream off of his nose. The young man then proceeds to lick it off of the back of his hand like some kind of animal.

Head then turning again, he smiles at Seril. The hand which had been previously whipped-cream covered moves back to the mug, and he proceeds to take another sip, giving Seril a taunting look. Indeed she would just have to wait to see what she'd win. "Of course, there might be a catch to getting a prize that time." He adds, and takes another sip. He just leaves that floating in the air, as his attention momentarily turns to Lethe.

"Okay. Lesson one. Unless you are in combat, the words 'Roger, Acknowledge that, agreed, Affirmative, Negative and Understood' do not belong. Proper replacements are 'I see, gotcha, that's true, alright, no -- with an explaination as to why, and I hear you'." Ascian nods. "In that order. Other versions, I am sure you can gather from talking to others." The young man smiles, feeling accomplished by trying to teach the robot to talk in a more relaxed manner. Surely, this could not go wrong.

James Heller food arrives and he digs on, the man's quiet for a bit till he takes a break from the grea foodening really. He looks over to Ascian for a moment. Totally has his reasons but hey not many understand yet, or the true horror of a lasting peace. Prehaps only her and Gym's people really do.

"Ya, if you're sent on covert work Lethe you do need to behave more like a human or you'll get outed. There's a lot of tech freaks out there who'd take ya or your siblings apart just to figure out how Lemon made ya."

No need to bring up code ATA. It made sense for the drone W bots but he always thought it was creepy the numbers had em.

"Row Butt," Seril says. If she's teasing, she's not doing a very good job of it. She repeats the word a few times under her breath until she gets the pronunciation down right, "Robot, robot.." After a moment's thought, she just shrugs it off and lifts her mug to her lips with her eyes closed, "It doesn't bother me if you aren't human. You seem like a nice person, even if you're a little bit like a doll."

The girl hums lightly, then downs some more of her drink. Carefully checking to make sure she hasn't de'faced' herself again, she grins, "This is really good! But what do you mean there's a catch? Isn't winning the catch?" Those blue eyes settle on Ascian, full of curiosity. Pause.

"So this Lemon lady, is your mom?" Now her eyes are fixed on Lethe. Oh christ.

"Oh, it's quite simple of a catch. You'll just have to start calling me your big brother." The young man grins before he flicks his gaze quickly between Seril and Lethe. In a way, the interaction between the two was amusing him. Though he wondered if Seril had told the truth about where she came from, when she didn't even know the term 'robot'. He wasn't going to tease her about it though.

Ascian finished his own mug around the same time Seril takes that big gulp of hers, and now is just pouring some whipped cream into the mug, and using his finger to get it to spread around and get those last remnants of chocolate milk on it before just licking it up, whilst giving Seril a silly look. He then finally gets up. "Anyhow." It doesn't look like he is about to wait for the response from any of them.

"Anyhow." He repeats himself and steps out from the seat. "I should get going. It's been a pleasure to meet you, little miss Vaskell, miss Rusina." He bows his head at both of them, and then nods knowingly at James - before quickly shooting one last glance at the smaller of them all. "I'll have your answer another time. So take your time to concider my unreasonable offer." And with that... he wanders off. What a strange guy.

James Heller says, "But remember, Echidna is your superior, so listen to her orders if they supercede our stuff after all."

He muses at Seril's comment about w18 being a bit of a doll. On some level it was fitting but there was always something odd with the numbered ones really. "See ya, later Ascian."

"Robot," she repeats one more time, just so Seril can get the pronounciation down. But she has to focus now, as she's getting a very important lecture as to human slang and lingo that would allow her to ease her dealings with the people on the base and in combat. She watches Ascian's mouth form each and every word, hit every syllable, and commits every word to memory.

"Understood," she says in reply.

It's a learning process.

Lethe's head tilts as she looks at James, attempting to parse his explanation not of what to say, but /why/ to say it. It is logical, even if she isn't nearly ready enough yet to go on an infiltration mission. However, she does nod at him. Especially as to where Echidna is concerned.

"Mistress Lemon is my creator," she also clarifies.

Suddenly pushing back from the table, Lethe rises, her coat rustling and hair shifting along her back as both drape. "Good-bye, sir. I must leave as well. I am due to report to W16 regarding today's sortie."

Sliding on her sunglasses, Lethe steps out from around the chair and carefully pushes it back in before making a confident stride for the door.