Fifty Shades of Gunmetal

[tempus_fixit]

[Lucca's been especially scarce during the stinkbomb incident, content to work outdoors where the smell was... lessened. But now she has a reason to be searching the city and the rooms of the Deeps in particular.]

[Video]

My books are missing! The entire library is GONE! Ohhh gosh, if I don't find them soon... If, if anyone finds any books on robotics, circuitry, solid-state engineering or magiteck, can you bring 'em over? Please!?

[She sounds a little panicked. Everyone has their mote of security, and it seems that was hers. The books are scattered EVERYWHERE, tucked in planters, up trees, in bathrooms, being held by statues, in decorative tureens in the palace district, in coiled ropes down near the docks...]

[Also of note the drier texts are sometimes paired up with some interesting companions. Things bearing titles like "Tangled Pistons of Passion", and "Lust and Superfluids: No Resistance to the Heat." Oh my.]

Comments

[just_some_meddler]

[Elsewhere]

*Thunk* OW!

[Video]


I think I found one.

[tempus_fixit]

[She perks up.] --Oh good! That was fast, that's a good sign! Which one is it? What's the title?

[just_some_meddler]

"...Quantum Entanglement and Bedsheets"

Interesting reading choice.

[tempus_fixit]

[The noise that she makes in return sounds like someone strangling a poyozo.]

That's, that's..! That one's not really crucial to my work here, but... I'd still like it back.

[just_some_meddler]

I bet you do. It looks very cerebral, but...intriguing.

[second_destiny]

...Oh. That explains the extra book on robotics in my apartment.

[tempus_fixit]

[She seems a little more relieved.]

The more books I get back on robotics, the better. Well... the more books I get back PERIOD, the better. Would you mind if I came over and picked it up?

[second_destiny]

Sure, no problem. I'll be around.

[tempus_fixit]

[She'd spoken to Asem before, and it didn't take long for her to remember where he lived. She knocks on his apartment door about an hour later, and waves enthusiastically if he peers through the viewhole.]

Hi!

[Video]

[needtobecleaned]

If you would be kind enough to provide a list of titles, I would be glad to search for them for you.

[Video forevah]

[tempus_fixit]

Ah... [She fidgets. KOS-MOS is an android of sorts, so it doesn't seem QUITE as mortifying to let her know all the titles. Plus she'll be indispensable as a search buddy...] Okay, give me a few minutes.

[She punches up a full list and sends it to her receiver address.]

Thank you, KOS-MOS. I'd prefer you not ask too many other people. Some of those titles are... a little embarrassing.

[needtobecleaned]

[An android and so much more.]

Understood. I will be certain to be as discreet as is possible when searching for them. Is anything else missing?

[tempus_fixit]

Not that I noticed. I was so worried to find my books gone, that I haven't looked at much else!

[departed_child_of_gods]

*She found it sitting by the side of a building. She'd started to read it. Or, well, tried, anyway. Which is where Lucca might spot her.*

I... I get the feeling this is supposed to be dirty, but it is so technical how could anybody tell?

[tempus_fixit]

[She gasps a little.]

I, uh-- I think that might be mine! It's ah... something I picked up when I was looking around int he marketplace and of COURSE I was curious, I mean who wouldn't be, and I figured what could it hurt if...

[departed_child_of_gods]

Geez, stop waffling and just take it already. I didn't even want it anyway.

*She hands it over.*

[tempus_fixit]

[She takes it, fumbling a little, then fidgets with her glasses.]

Thank you, uh... what's your name?

[Video]

[ineedthemforanalyzing]

I found some engineering manuals I'd never seen before...or at least I think they're engineering manuals...

[tempus_fixit]

Those are, those are probably mine, yeah...

[She's not going to inquire further, lest she try reading through them. The wavefunction of technical versus naughty is better left collapsed right now.]

Could you give me your apartment location so I can come over and identify them?

[ineedthemforanalyzing]

Oh, sure. I'm in the Docks district, near the mecha hangars. My name is Latooni Suvota.

[tempus_fixit]

Mine's Lucca Ashtear. I spend a lot of time around the mecha hangar; I'm surprised we haven't met before now, then! I'll be over in a little while.

[And she is, in less than an hour.]

...Hello?

Why no one did this yet is beyond me, so FIRST!

[orewagundamda]

[Setsuna didn't really realize that anything was amiss with his apartment, as he had taken to sleeping in the cockpit of his gundam like he did during the four year period that Celestial Being was out of comission. As such, when he did finally decide to go to this new place, he blinked as he saw a horde of items stuffed inside. One item in particular stood out to him: a book entitled "Proper Melting Techniques: Making Metal Bend to Your Touch". Finding the title strange (Evoking an image of Ian Vashti at work with his Gundam for some reason), he decided to give it a read.]

[Five chapters in, and Setsuna's eyes bug out. Whatever he had been expecting, it was not... well, it wasn't THIS, for certain. But that didn't deter him, oddly enough. He felt a kinship to this 'Amu-ro Lay' and his romance to his first creation, the servant-type Girl-bot named 'Huckebein', how they had to hide this relationship of Creation and Master from the world, forbidden by its laws. Moreover, he felt that he was learning something from this book. He wasn't sure how it would help him EVER, but he knew that something was being taught to him. He needed to study this text more, to find out its secrets!]

[10 hours later, a video feed connects to Lucca's communicator, the face belonging to a blushing middle-eastern man.] Are you the person known as Lucca Ashtear?

I see what you did there. XD

[tempus_fixit]

[It'd been a while since her call, so she looks a little baffled. She sympathetically blushes even without a clue of why he is yet.]

Uhm, yeah? That's me.

I was hoping you would. Also [Private]

[orewagundamda]

[Just sorta... doesn't make eye contact as he shows her the book he had been reading, her name on the last blank page under 'Property of']

I apologize for not getting this to you sooner, but I found myself drawn into the story. [Which is saying something to him because he didn't read books that often.] I'll return it post haste, but I was wondering... Do you happen to have anything related to it that I might borrow? [Just... All the shame. His face is red as a cherry.]

[Private]

[tempus_fixit]

Oh... OH. You found the--

[She brings a hand to her mouth, blushing much brighter herself. She's seen him in the hangar. He's one of the mecha pilots! And... he's kinda cute.]

Uh.. r-right now my books are all over the place, but once I get enough of them back... [She grins sheepishly.] sure. I've got the sequel somewhere around! Oh you're going to like that one. 'S even better than the first.

Oh, uh, what's your name? You know mine already...