ZetaRESP

Erica went right to her roommate, running besides her. She only paid a passing glance to the bird because she just thought it was a nice bird. She didn't say anything to Sammi, just ran with her towards the sleeping quarters, as that was where she wanted to be. She had plans to at least visit the entire room and she needed to be a bit more comfortable, as it involved walking a lot and these track suits seemed like a bit too hot for a constant walking. Luckily, she had something else she could wear. It may be a bit too, erm... "elegant" for a simple walk, but she has only 5 outfits with her: The uniform of her old school, which she used in the welcome party; her civilian outfit, which doubles as her pilot outfit; her sleeping outfit, which doubles as nothing; her current outfit, which is the uniform of the cademy; and the one she was gonna change into after a small bath.

Dammit, I'm still not done with the app yet!

One thing is certain: Thank god she learned to run that way, as unlike the regular run, this one spends little energy and is easier for her to cover more distance without getting that tired. Of course, she was nowhere near the speed of a mech, so she was taking a while to cover the distance. She didn't stop, even though she saw the platform pass over her. She looks at her side and sees Sammi running slightly ahead and simply saw her heading the dorms, then took that way. Not for anything like chatting, but because she was gonna head there. It was her final free day and she wanted to try and do something she feared since a while: socialize. She ran begins Sammi and tried to reach her, if only because they technically were going to the same place and it would make more sense for both to arrive roughly at the same time and save on opening twice the door.

I'm reserving a spot as well.

Erica simply stared. She didn't seem any more interested in the whole thing, so she just bowed. "Nothing else from me." She then left the platform and went into the field. She started with a walk, but seeing the field, she sighed heavily and began to run. Of course, due to cultural osmosis given by what's popular in her homeworld of Asari, she ran leaning forward and with her arms angled to her sides and behind her. Much to her chagrin, she actually caught up with the Asari fashion of "Shinobi Sprinting", which was popular among the boys of Asari and that lead to a lot of Robattlers using it, including her. She internally blames the creators of "Cyber Shinobi Ramen-kun" for that storybook in the first place.

Frimon was surprised when he was scanned... mostly because he had no idea of what happened. "Wow... Touchmon, what happened?" Touch was not able to respond before Conner got his plan in motion and Mr. Henderson got in, with Theo in his arms. "What happened there? What's going on?" When Mr. Henderson told him about the digivice thing, he nodded and went to the side of the door, pulling Frimon with him. "Okay, everyone, try to avoid being on its sights for too long! Don't let it try to hit all of us at once!" He pulled a couple of rocks to hurl at the monster once it had entered the room. He was surprised to see the damage it sustained. Frimon was ready to hit it head on, but Touch was holding him. "Come on, let me at him! I can do it!" At that, Touch simply held him above his head with all his power in one hand, and then a stone with the other. "I load, you shoot. This is our double tech." Frimon nodded a bit confused as Touch simply tossed the stone up barely above Frimon's height. "Now!" Frimon saw the stone and simply acted by instinct. "Tail Whip!" He whipped the stone, sending it at full speed at the face of the giant machine digimon. As he did, Touch was ready to quickly move out of the way.

Aaaaand Erica simply sighed at Weston Easton's appearance. She knew about the young man, as her place was not really isolated, but she was not interested in teen dramas like the other girls in her asteroid. She was a tomboy, albeit a kinda feminine one, and she was glad with that. She then thought about the muscle thing and, yeah, she was a bit worried, so while she was already up after her question... "Will girls also get big muscles or we get thinner muscles? The control harness in my mech was already custom fit and refitting it not easy." Still weird to bring, but at least it was a valid question.

5 a.m. It was dark. Erica was currently sleeping in the bed, Usami in a small chair next to the bed. Suddenly the clock started... but not loud, it was actually a whistle. She quickly opened her eyes, stood up from her bed, gave a soft hug to Usami and went to the table to have a tea with soda crackers. It was sort of her ritual to wake up, she spent a full hour in that. Once she got her tea on, she went to shower and to dress herself up. She shook her hair, put the goggles on and then simply changed into the uniform that was given to her by the school, ensuring it was fitting well. Once that was done, she went down to the meeting that she was messaged about last night before going to bed. <Good thing I had a soft tea this morning; I would hate feel nauseous right now.> Erica was certainly not expecting her trip to meet the teachers to be a literal trip in a floating device. She then saw the vice principal in there, though she was in the middle of the bunch, so it's unlikely she would had been seen by her specifically. So the introductions were gonna continue, now with the teachers. Mr. John was pretty much like her adoptive father, Dr. Miien Masaru, with the weird "dad" jokes and all that. The dog then popped out from his clothes. She wasn't expecting it. She did pet the dog when it approached her, but that was it. General Education was not really a subject she cared that much, but at least the teacher was homely. Miss. Charlotte was someone she was both totally surprised by and not surprised at all. In one hand, she haven't seen a cowboy or cowgirl in real life ever... on the other hand, Erica herself was deemed as a "time traveler lost" a couple of time due to how everything she makes is steampunk, so she has no terrain. History... she really was gonna listen at that one. The rumors were strong about Heliosians returning in the military base she was on, knowledge was not gonna be wasted. "The Max" was something she had seen a lot in Asari, as some kids there were... well, "imaginative", to say the least. She then heard about his class and thought A) Even if you use a mech, you need to be at least fit enough to survive space and B) Her mech was almost a motion capture with strong hydraulics, so she needs to be fit for the punching herself already. She was not going to fail in that class. Malkin was one of those teachers. Those that seem to deem lost cause those she taught on. She still felt stingy about her battle earlier, so she would have to be sure to not miss on that one. She also took the threat a bit more seriously. After all, it was already a punishable crime to have a Roboframe back in Asari without a license and that required work, she knows how that works. Erica then saw the next teacher... she swears she met her before... Somewhere... <Oh, she was the mechanic woman in the hangar back in the Finback.> Erica was slightly surprised she was a teacher. And in Mechanics, even, one of the subjects she was the most interested on for her "mission". She then took the bracelet with the dome thing and heard the explanation. How would it call her mech? After all, her mech was pretty much hydraulic. Then the vice principal waited for a question and something came to her mind, so she stood up to ask. "Why are we given braces to call mechs if we need to approve Mech Combat first?"

"Hey." His attention was also brought to Kokoro when she went to go to Connor. "Dreifus told me to find you. Something about, Execute! Spirit Evolution! I don't get it, but I can take over whatever you're doing here." Touch blinked and simply did a sign that he understood. "I'm trying to tie this vine to this rock, Then when that... Machinedramon... comes in here, we can push this off and ram it with these, which will hopefully at the very least slow it down, maybe even knock it over," Touch saw Conner and... yeah, that plan was also fine, but not sure if that's what he had to do. "Touchmon-sempai, what are we gonna-?" This was interrupted by another shouting voice. The voice of Conner. "EXECUTE! SPIRIT EVOLUTION!!" Both human and Digimon were in aw as they looked how Conner immediately became... "AGUNIMON!!" Touch felt a bit envious that Conner got the fancy transformation, as he looked at Frimon. 'I guess someone has to play on Legendary here... Wait, what's that I'm seeing in that corner?' Frimon was once again impressed. "I can't believe it! Another Legendary Warrior! This is so-WHOA!!" Frimon was shaken by Touch jumping onto one of the 3 glowing spots, as he had been scanning the room for anything that would had changed after Conner/Agunimon got his thing. "It's time to level up... for our sake." He excavated the light and pulled out what seemed to be a portable game console... only for it to become what could be described as a virtual pet device. "Huh?" He then looked at Frimon, then at the device, then at Frimon, then at the device... and he simply shrugged and pocketed it, while Frimon seemed confused. "Okay, now let's get to the next stage."

Erica saw her leaving and sighed. '<I hope that's not a code to "par-tay all night long"...>'. She was tired after the dance floor made a number on her head and she needed to rest. Besides, she wasn't a nocturne girl, she needed to sleep early and get up just as early. So, she went to her corner and knelt in one of the thin pillows that were next to it and began to ready herself some tea. Reason for this was, of course, she couldn't get herself asleep without a warm tea. She had a heating element that she made and worked with rechargeable batteries. As everything she made, it was kinda steampunk in style. She took her personal blend of tea, which was made to help her sleep and waited for the water to boil.

"That's your side of the room. Try to keep your things from spilling over into my side. If you need an alarm clock to wake up in the morning, I won't pay it much mind. I don't have a phone, so don't bother asking for my number in case you need to contact me. Any questions?" "No. It was understood, Sammi." Erica simply bowed at Sammi and went to her chest, which was actually taller than Erica and had several warning labels on it, and opened it up, pulling out a small box with several warnings saying "FRAGILE" and opening it on the corner nearest to the window, revealing it to be a tea set. She also set a small table and a pair of what seem to be pillows instead of chairs. Then she took off the thick mattress off the bed, pulled out a strange mat made of what seemed to be long thin branches and placed them on the bed, then laid a thin mattress over the mat and placed the bed's mattress underneath the bed, not before checking underneath it's clean enough. She knows the whole thing is strange even in her homeworld, but she loves to lay on a less soft bed. "I apologize for this, but I found out regular beds to be too soft and uneven." She finishes making her new bed and goes to the chest and pulls out a few stuffed animals and suddenly stopped, cocked her head and pulled out a kind of old and big white rabbit. "Oh. Usami. You came." She pulled it into an embrace and took a deep breath of relief before taking the bunny and laying it on her bed. After that, she went to large chest and began to undress and swap into her pajamas, which are apparently simply white pajamas with toon carrots as a pattern over it. She also took off her googles and combed her hair so it was straight.

Erica looked at Sammi up and down, somewhat scrutinizing her soon to be roommate in order to be sure she wasn't paired with someone who may drive her crazy. <So far, no signs of permanent sugar rush...> She looked at her and recalled her from the Finback... it was the girl with the strange name she recalled, but also her name seems not to be that... she hopes it's not a strange nickname she gives herself. "If you're here to hand out some sort of pamphlet, I'm not interested." Her answer seemed normal enough, though she her doubts with her reference to pamphlets. "I am Erica Sapphire and I had been assigned as your new roommate." She bowed, as she was supposed to in these situation. "It is nice to meet you again, Ms. Sammi Knett... or do you prefer just Sammi? Because you can call me Rika if you feel more comfortable with short names" She could see her luggage, a big strange chest, was laying in the ground. "I see they did not forget my belongings... at least they handled that properly."

Erica had not much else to do except to head to her room now, as the party seemed to be going to pretty late and she wanted to be up early. She left the ballroom and headed towards the dormitory. The place was strangely made, but she wasn't gonna question the shape. She took the elevator out of convenience as she simply didn't want to be too tired in the night. Once in the door of the room assigned to her, she decided to knock and see if her roommate had arrived. In the Finback, her roommate was a priest called Xa'tok... well, she called him a priest, but he used a term more in the veins of shaman. He was not conventional, but she could stand him. Now, she was sure a female was gonna be her roommate, so she hoped the school authorities didn't go full cliche and paired her with a happy-go-lucky girl... she shuddered at the memory of the last time that happened.

Touch was unable to pull Kokoro out in time and they had to be saved by the now metallic Theo. He was surprised about it. He was confused with what Theo said, though... "Wow... I never thought a legendary warrior would appear..." "Exposit, Frimon..." Touch was new to all this, the fact the Frimon knew it meant that... yeah, he was in the right way. "Uh... well, Mercurymon is one of the 10 Legendary Spirit Digimons-" "Spirit... Didn't Theo say something about Conner and a Spirit of Fire?" Frimon nodded. "It means a second player strong player to team up... Okay, then let's get to the next stage!" He went behind Kokoro, who had already left to the Auditorium. After seeing the new look... yeah, it confirmed him this was the right way to go.

Erica glared at him, doing the best to hide how pissed she was right now. It was obvious how big of a hit to her ego it was, as well at the outright fact she felt dejected. Of course, she said nothing about it. After all, it would be all proven on the test field later. She simply looked at the people in the dance floor going, while she kept sipping her punch. She simply kept sipping at her punch and looking at all the people around. This was gonna be a very long night and she didn't feel like looking for a fight right now. However, she was still not gonna let the offense pass for long.

"Uh, no. I don't dance. Not sorry." She thought for a second at his response. She was certain she asked him to go training with him. Then she realized the setting may lead to issues and tried to reformulate it. "You use your senses for your mech. I use my body for mine. I am asking you to train with me, so we can train what we trained to our mechs." She hoped this time it would make sense about her intentions, as she tried harder to find the right words for it. "We can try and go outside. Besides, this party ambience is not really my kind."

"But you won," Erica only gazed a bit to him as he spoke. "I mean, you gave the pirates what was comin' to 'em, the Finback's still in one piece, and nobody died on our end. I consider that a win, and frankly, you should too." She listens at him, and sees his point. It was a victory, despite the consequences... but she was thinking on the news she heard back on the Finback and kept telling herself that that small victory was just that: a victory only for the Finback in that moment. Nothing compared to what may come later. "You are right. It was won over, despite my performance." Erica retook her looking of the crowd and the paced drinking. "Yet it was but a mere test of what will come... specially if the Heliosians are truly returning." She assured to keep her tone low enough for only the two of them hearing any part of her side of the conversation. It was, after all, a private chat between them. "It may had been a group victory, but was a solo deception and a future warning. I will be better next time..." She props herself up from her leaning position and looks at him. He mentioned something about implant for connection to the mecha and her mecha was literally by motion controls... at least, as far as mechanic levers can go. "I want you to come with me training robot." It was good that she said that before going for the typical "dance with me" pose.

"Hm. Well, lucky you." She looked at him and saw him discard his drink, while she wondered about his response. <Lucky? I don't think he's thinking of me being lucky for almost di-> "You got a chance to prove yourselves before you even made it here. Those bandit mechs might have been junkers, but they'd've royally screwed the Finback if you hadn't gotten out there." <Oh... that kind of luck....> She thought for a second and decided that someone with such a tough look and attitude would had liked to fight and whatever stopped him was disturbing him a lot. "Wish I coulda done something, but even if my mech wasn't stuck in the hanger at the time, I couldn't have piloted it." That last line drove her curiosity a bit. His mecha was stuck... and that wasn't the trouble? What does he mean? "I mean, I've been through all the simulators, sure, but I'm not allowed to pilot it until I get all the implants I need, meaning I had to sit there on my goddamn hands--!" Erica blinked. Implants... She knew there were other ways to use a mech than the regular AI drive though digital inputs. She has, for example, a fully analog system for the control of her mech to match the way she uses her Robattle suit. Implants sounds like a deeper level of integration... "Sounds like the kind of system only experts can add or user on." Erica's butchering of Basic was getting subtler, but also more painful... almost as painful as remembering her role in the battle, one may say. "And not being battled was not bad, specially if not battling life real. I almost died for my own sins and it was not my first rodeo... well, it was my first rodeo as giant, but still. I am a Robattler and even then Osiris was hit hard."

"I don't outrank you yet, so don't go calling me 'sir' like that." She blinked for a second... if he's new in the class, then he definitively was not made for this . "I will take a sketch out of that advice, yes." She took a sip from her glass as she glanced at him, finding it a bit amusing how unadapted he was to the sweetness of the punch. "Hey, weren't you one of the pilots who was able to get out and fight during the pirate attack?" Erica did a slight frown at the reminder of her disastrous (at least for her) first true battle on top of her mech. "I was in the battle, indeed..." She didn't really want to get deep into the whole thing as... well, she really had bad memories about it all. Specially, the state in which his mech ended up. Sure, it was still working, it was in no danger of catching fire and the pirates were defeated... but her own performance in the battle was subpar and she really could not forgive herself for how she acted in the battlefield.

The answer from the boy was... well, somewhat expected. "What, do ya think I'm stupid? I know all that!" His way retort was... strangely familiar. She certainly knew someone back on Asari, a girl named Yoko Matsuda, that has the same temper. Sure, she is also a bit of an unrepentant jerk that apparently hates air itself while he only seems angry at the current situation... at least for now. "Just because I'm angry doesn't mean I'm brainless, Goggles." Yup. The exact same mood as Matsura. She looked at him. He seemed like the actual kind of person that prefers a rifle instruction manual to a book of good manners. But... she found him somewhat interesting. She served herself more punch as she replied. "Just because you are upset with the current situation, you are not excused to return the sentiment with the others." She took a sip of punch as she returned to her reply. "And it would not harm you to friend up with others who may get covered your weaknesses in a combat." She kept replying at him without much eye contact... mostly because that's her way to keep calm in a conversation: limit eye contact when subject proves hard to handle. "And what the hell does 'friend up' mean? What kind of wack-ass grammar is that? You speak Rovan or something?" Erica stopped her drinking and placed her glass in the table. It was.. oddly specific how he pulled that one out. "I do try to. I happen to be somewhat decomposed on it, as I had been raised away from my origin. I consider myself Asarian, if you ask, sir." Her posture, her uniform, her speech pattern... if it weren't for the fact she looked like the steampunk lasses from Rovenshire from the neck up, she could pass like a dark skinned Asarian. And that was kind of the idea with her.

Erica was, of course, right next to the place where Kansuke popped out from. She was not amused by his antics. "The other people seem to find amusement in the relaxation, sir." She sipped a bit of punch, speaking to him without direct eye contact. "I would suggest you to 'friend up' some people... it would be catastrophic to try and start a rumble right now and here." She finished her punch and left the glass sitting on the table. "I would suggest you get with the house leaders, but they already stated they are not taking people in until tomorrow."

The moment Devimon appeared, Frimon was about to jump into the action, only for Touch to stop him. "Touchmon, what are you-?" "<We already got the prize of this cavern and this is far beyond our level.>" He slowly steps back as the Devimon charged for attack- "EVERYONE DOWN!" Touch didn't questioned it and simply rolled out of the way of the MASSIVE GOLDEN LASER THAT CLEAVED THE BIG DARK DEMON INTO DUST!! Of course, because he was already about to skip, he ended in a different pile than the others. "Okay... that clinches it, I guess..." Touch simply stares at his partner's remark, then at the giant mechanic dragon-like creature in front of them. "Everyone! Run into the auditorium!" Touch saw the newly armed Mr. Henderson trying to rally everyone away. "We need to get as much distance between us and this monster as we can!" "Hai, Sensei!" Touch picked up Frimon and headed back to the group. "Everyone, we have to-" "OI! What's the big idea blowing a hole in our school like that!? The easy exit is nice and all, but someone could get vaporized, like... like that guy you vaporized! What's so important in here you're willing to blow it up just to find it, huh!?" Touch stopped cold hin his tracks at hearing her senpai literally scolding the creature. '<Senpai is get herself killed!>' Touch missed no mark and before the the monster would do anything to her, he rushed as fast as possible and aimed to tackle her away from the monster's face. "<What are you doing?! This is a Perma-Death game, senpai! We must. Stay. Alive.>" He then tried to drag her back to the auditorium, if needed, internally musing at the irony of the situation.

"<I see you are not used to the common tongue. Would this be preferable?>" Erica was surprised to learn that Kris actually knew how to speak Asarian and she did it pretty well. She nodded at her question. "<Yes, miss. I'm sorry if my language comes off as strange, I was raised in Asari for most of my life, it is my main language.>" She bowed in respect as she listened the answers from her. "<We each have our own criteria for joining our house but it's different for each of us. I prefer to wait until the day of the test to give my criteria. Otherwise I can't get accurate results.>" "<Oh... I understand... Then I guess I'll see it tomorrow...>" She had made her mind already: Tomorrow, she was going to try for the Steel Hounds. It is the most obvious choice, after all. About the second question... "<Well, tomorrow you'll likely meet all the teachers. But you'll learn here to use mechs, fix mechs, as well as learn fundamentals that everyone should learn.>" Erica listened well and nodded, then bowed to her. "<Thank you for your time and patience.>" She retreated to the tables with the drinks. She decided that, maybe trying to socialize with someone was fine. She still wished to get in a slow dance, but this was what it was. She looked at whoever was standing next to her.

"I do have a question, sires." Erica bowed as elegantly as she could as she spoke to them. If it weren't for the fact she was not born in Kuma, she wouldn't look that odd doing that, specially given her clothing was very in tone with Kuma academies. "I would like to know if there is any test to enter a house. I also wanted to know what specialties are in the Cademy itself." She refocused in her mission of knowing more of the mechanical aspect itself in order to be useful to her people. Failing was a no-go in this regard for her, so she wanted to be sure to not only know how to do it, both piloting properly and designing a proper mech, but also how to teach it as well. Because, indeed, the ultimate plan for the Asarians was to rearm themselves after the Kuma Ring war left them pretty down on their luck. Because of that, she needed to not only hone her skills, but also her mindset. She had to become a proper instructor.

Touch was surprised by the voice and what happened later was not assuring. He seriously feared this may had been a bad idea... then he tried to rationalize this in his unique way: Conner was the one in the front when this opened, so the "child of light, child of flame" must be him. He noticed that Conner himself did not have a digimon with him... He placed held Kokoro's hand as firm as he could. "<Kokoro-senpai,>" His voice was as firm as he could muster. "<Please step back and let Conner claim his power.>" He also had a serious expression, which also surprised Frimon. The little mon eventually sided with his partner, then looked at her at the same expression and nodded. "Please, Kokorosenpaimon. Trust in Touchmon."