(open) with that soul to sell

[sparsity]

Who: mikazuki (sparsity) & various & you!
What: THIS, boy and mecha are reunited. (EDIT: now a catch-all for other prompts!)
When: early april. (EDIT: and through may)
Where: thesa station - hangar deck, space, observation room! (EDIT: now on el nysa, inn wyver, mikazuki's residence)
Warning(s): mentions of kidnapping events, probably some blood. now ft. domesticity.

I. THESA STATION

[ Show us we can trust you, and he shall fall back into your capable hands.

It crosses his mind, from time to time. That promise in the face of a promise. What strength he possesses had been given to him by such things — promises. His home and heart destroyed by a force far more common than the Storm, that was all that was left. And when he had the chance to trade his compliance for another life, his, and everyone else's, he seized it. Sunk his fingers in and clawed his way back, too chaotic and exhausted with dissatisfaction to give up. Mikazuki takes because it is the only way he knows how to give.

No matter how much things stayed the same. He doesn't know what he'd proved by going through the same motions he was always going through, knuckles upside his face and blood in his mouth, deaths that remind him of being fifteen again, but this trip to Thesa yields something different.

Barbatos is no longer under Darma's lock and key. ]

A. HANGAR STATION — THE BLOOD AND SHIRTLESSNESS OPTION
[ Usually standing dormant, Gundam Barbatos cuts an intimidating figure among the Natha mobile suits. Elongated limbs capped with golden claws and notched with inhuman joints, horns jutted from atop its brow like a devil. Its pearly white color shines in the light of the bay, every seam, facet, and angle gleaming as if new.

Finding Mikazuki here with it isn't unusual, his visits with it in tandem with his visits to the stasis unit. He comes here often despite months and months of no changes in the suit's status, always quiet and standing sentinel. Like he's drawn to it by a force that can only be called fondness, stronger than any gravity. But today, the cage mount the machine is usually fixed against is lowered, two maintenance catwalks closed over its chest unit. ...And Mikazuki is no where to be found despite the area looking as if it's in launch prep.

At its front, the forward-facing cockpit hatch yawns open, and there's the sound of rustling around coming from inside. A loose shirt and jacket come drifting out, discarded, but caught harmlessly in the low gravity of the bay. Also an empty space capri sun, and a power bar wrapper...

Because that's not weird. ]

B-THE FIRST. CATAPULT DECK — THE JOYRIDE OPTION (CASUAL/NEW CR)
[ When he finally gets situated in the machine, however arduous a reunion that might be, Mikazuki requests a code for launch clearance once he figures out he's allowed. He's done his waiting, and among all the violent human familiarity and the planet's alien freedom down below, this is what he knows. However unassuming his disposition is, he's quick to grasp at it and hold tight now that he's able. Nothing has to flood back to him — it's already all there.

There's a great lurch and hiss of metal that rocks the catwalks as the cage disengages from the hangar wall, pistons whirring. A static clip fills the immediate area as Mikazuki activates his comm. Voice as mild as always despite the way it booms from the Gundam: ]

You'd better get in here if you're staying.

[ A pause. ]

They're about to let all the air out.

[ You know, no pressure. ]

B-REDUX. CATAPULT DECK — THE JOYRIDE OPTION (CLOSE CR)
[ Maybe it's all of that above, but he's not yet climbed into the suit despite being attached to it by neural system implanted at the topmost curve of his spine. It might seem a brutal, nearly inhuman thing to share synapses with a machine, to share his retinas and his cerebellum, all the blood in his body, but he wears it well. Wears it like it's pumped some of his own colors back into him, vibrancy in every one of his harsh angles.

Hanging out of the cockpit, cord curled in a wide arc behind him, he grasps the hatch with one hand to keep his balance upright and holds his other out. ]

Come on, I'll show you.

[ Be brave. You basically asked for it. ]

C. OBSERVATION ROOM — THE CHILL EXISTENTIAL OPTION
[ He's been told gaining access to this place is also a measure of trust by the Natha's standards. Mikazuki could be curious about that in itself, but he finds that he isn't, brain too full of a comfortable mechanical hum, alive with the presence of the machine he shares his strength and existence with. That's plenty enough for him, giving him a peace he hasn't known since waking up months and months ago. All the metal in his blood is singing, the natural violence of it satiating.

Not as though he looks the part, perched on the rails by the vast panels of glass overlooking the space outside as Thesa orbits El Nysa. Up this high and with no competitive light to silence them, the stars roar out against the sky. Small in comparison to that darkness, his shoulders slope, eyes reflecting the pale, celestial blue glow of the room. He's fixed on no one point, not searching for familiar constellations when there are none.

He only knows them thanks to Barbatos' guidance system, anyway.

With everything awash in that calm color, there's a lot to look at around him too. Consoles meant to track the activities in the hangar, programs monitoring the station's axis and velocity, research materials, projections of star systems thrown about. Out of the blue, he ventures to anyone partaking: ]

If it's hard for you to study like this, I'll go.

[ Despite not being loud or disruptive, he feels it, momentarily personal. The space at his side is so achingly empty that nothing else here is louder to him. ]

Comments

[braidedwonder]

[ Duo isn't the type to grill Mika about how the hell this works - he works best by watching, by anyone's measure. Howard and Heero both had marveled at his ability to tear something down and put it back together just by watching the process once. It's a bit of an idiot savant talent - he'll confess that much.

It doesn't take more than that motion to go around the asteroid belly down before Duo is muttering to himself with wonder written all over his stupidly grinning face - ]

Holy fuck. It just does it itself.. [ Well, he can give Barbatos one thing - it is more advanced that Deathscythe. ]

[sparsity]

[ It's all of Mikazuki's years of honing himself routed through the teeth of this machine. It's his potential given shape, given sharpness and energy beyond human limits. This is just a taste of it, the way Barbatos swivels upwards, animalistic knee joints bent as it crashes down onto an asteroid, claws sinking and kicking up a spray of space dust. It coils and vaults off again, wheeling further into the tight quarters the field provides.

Luckily, concentrating on his piloting, the rakers and buttons getting a minimal workout in the process, it's easier for him to show than to tell. ]

[braidedwonder]

[ It's all very.. wondrous to him. He'd spent so long in flight simulators, had spent so much time weaving in and out of asteroid fields both virtual and real to learn how best to dodge and dive through them, both in space craft and his Gundam. All of that relied on his hands and his reflexes, which had become a hellacious weapon all their own. If Heero trusted him to pilot a ship with him in it..

Well that had given his ego at least a little of a boost. ]

That's unreal.. I'd have to do all of this in maneuvering in Deathscythe. But then again I don't think the implant thing even exists in my universe so..

[sparsity]

It's just a different skill.

[ And a different set of choices they faced growing up, from one orphan turned pilot to another. Mikazuki isn't so dense as to not recognize that. Even without the implant, he would have found a way to translate his body to the machine roaring around them right now. He gives it his all either way. ]

For us, the decision was easy.

[ Even if the implant's success rate was abysmal, leaving around half paralyzed and worse off.

Cutting the verniers, Mikazuki allows Barbatos to coast on its own momentum before something new emerges, a great rushing sound from high on the torso unit. On the cameras, a tail comes careening out from the machine, bladed tip embedding into an asteroid. Its thick, prehensile cable coils, like it has a mind of its own. It hauls it around and sends it flying to crash into another, causing an icy cloud of minerals to plume up from the impact.

Deathsycthe has its wings, Barbatos has its tail. ]

[braidedwonder]

As is everything when it comes to these mobile suits.. [ Duo notes it in an almost removed tone, spitting out things he's heard before when he'd brought up the Zero system to the men who'd created their mobile suits. He'd seen how it had effected Quatre, and it wasn't really the best first impression.

Though he'd be a liar if he hadn't thought about trying it himself. ]

It's suffering and pushing through either way, right? [ The same reason Duo had gone ahead with becoming a pilot, honestly. If something happened there was no one left to miss him, and either way he was going to struggle and claw his way through life to get to somewhere more comfortable. There weren't any other choices. ] Same reason I chose being a pilot, too. Didn't have anyone left to miss me and either way it was clawing my way out of a shit hole so I figured I might as well do it off colony if I had the chance.

[ Keen blue eyes scan the screens around them, bouncing back and forth with a frown of concentration on Duo's usually smiling face as he picks out what's going on. The tail - well.

Duo's eye brows raised near instantly as he watches it seem to decide its next move all on its own - ]

You deciding that or is that an AI?

[ Can't hurt to ask, right? ]

[sparsity]

[ It's familiar enough, even if those loose ends that Duo had tied up for himself had become the fabric of Tekkadan — boys with no one who needed them forming the iron connection, binding themselves with blood. It's one path of many, two similar choices with very different outcomes.

Mikazuki might not have anything to say to acknowledge it, but his silent concentration speaks plenty. ]

It's me.

[ The appendage loops, itching for something to sink into. ]

When I pilot like this, it's hard to imagine not having a tail.

[ That's how interwoven they are. ]

[braidedwonder]

[ Had Duo stayed on L2 instead of trying to sneak on to a carrier and off to another colony, maybe to Earth, his destiny would have been invariably different. Whether that was death or forming that type of bond with another gang of orphans he'd never really know. Who knew, he could've maybe made an ESUN version of Tekkadan if he'd been around on colony long enough.

They'd never really know. More so now that his universe as he knew it was apparently 'destroyed.' ]

That's so.. cool. I never woulda thought that someone would eventually pilot like this but it makes total sense..

[ Well.. ] In terms of the mobility of the suit and all. Mortality rates and stuff... euuuh...