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You are Akari Takamichi, the best Pyrokineticist this side of the City (or the other side of the city, for that matter), and you're dressed as a crazy-evil princess of fire and stuff. But that's not important right now. What is important is that, after having turned some 'heat-resistant' panels into slag, you've lost track of your wi- err, girlfriend.

She must've wandered off. You can't really blame her. Testarossa's warehouse is huge, and full of all manner of interesting things and people.

…

Also, you were in there for quite awhile. She might have gone to the bathroom or something.

What's your methodology for finding Mato?

>Just wander about. You'll run into her eventually.
>Check the little girls' room.
>Ask some nerds if they've seen her.
>Whistle.
>Something else? (Write-in!)

>>37315890
>Check the little girls' room.
Just as I'm going to sleep, oh well.

>>37315890
>Whistle.
Treating her like a doggy is pretty demeaning, but also far too cute, so I'll just feel bad about it later.

>>37315914
>>37315935
I don't mind whistling if no other anons arrive in timely manner.

>>37315914
Bathroom!

>>37315935
Whistle!

>>37316173
Okay!

Writing!

>>37316246
I hope we can at least make our whistling carry, or this will be a sad state of affairs.

You look about for a few moments, and, after making sure Mato isn't in the midst of the scientists and/or researchers milling about the place, you purse your lips and give a piercingly-high-pitched whistle that makes a few people cringe and drop stacks of papers, and earns you a couple of dirty looks.

It's worth it, however, as Mato comes bounding over shelves and tables to get to you, earning her at least twice as many odd looks as your whistling got you.

…

…

You're actually rather irked by that. They're giving Mato dirty looks!

>GLARE BACK!
>Make faces at them!
>Ignore them!
>Rub Mato's belly.
>Compliment Mato on her promptness!
>Ask her where she was!
>Compliment Mato on her tummy
>Something else? (Write-in!)

[Feel free to pick two or three, so long as the're not contradictory!]

>>37316608
>GLARE BACK!
>Rub Mato's belly.
>Compliment Mato on her tummy

>>37316608
>>GLARE BACK!
>>Rub Mato's belly.
>>Ask her where she was!

>>37316686
>>37316816
>GLARE BACK
>BELLY RUBS
>TALK TO MATO

Okay, writing!

heh
Spellcheck thinks 'TO MATO' is me misspelling 'tomato'
Silly spellcheck

>>37316986
You should add to mato in. And remove tomato. Who needs them?
Anyway, the promised sleep calls. Hopefully the thread fills up, but thanks for running either way.

>>37317034
Yeah! Screw tomatoes!

G'night, anon!

>>37317034
Night anon!

I do hope everyone else turns up quickly, I haven't practiced my evil laugh enough to be left in control.

You place your hands on Mato's flat stomach and rub them gently up and down, purring compliments as you do so.

Mato's eyes drift close as her cheeks redden, and you take advantage of this to direct harsh glares at those who dared to stare at your precious Mato. To your pleasant surprise, you cow them all with relative ease, allowing you to return your focus to Mato.

After awhile, you let up with your rubbing, and, after giving Mato a few moments to recover, you ask, “What were you up to?”

She shrugs. “Eh? Not much. I helped fix an engine and wrestled some prototype robots, nothing too big.”

…

>Ask about the engine.
>Ask about the robot wrestling.
>Praise the Mato!
>Something else? (Write-in!)

>>37317284
>Ask about the robot wrestling.
It goes without saying that we continue rubbing the tummy, right?

>>37317385
Well, resume, rather than continue, stupid words not being the right ones.

>>37317385
>Ask about the 'bots!

Okay, writing!

If anyone's lurking, now would be the time to participate!
I'll play nice, I promise!

You raise an eyebrow. Fixing an engine, you can see- after all, her elder sister is a level three Technopath. It's only natural she'd pick up on some things, especially something (relatively) simple, like an engine.

Besides, Mato's always been a bit sharper than one might otherwise think. The innocence and happy-go-lucky attitude probably don't make her seem any cleverer, you suppose.

Still, you're impressed. You rub her tummy a bit more. “Consider my curiosity piqued,” you say, “tell me more about this robot-wrestling you were doing, won't you, love?”

“O-okay,” she breathes.

Sensing that you're beginning to make Mato uncomfortable, you remove your hands from her stomach.

She gives you a thankful look, and says, “They were about my height, and all metal and stuff. Not like Mokarin-chan, y'know? They have these flat faces without anything but cameras on them, and I guess they're struggling with making them proficient in hand-to-hand combat, so those science-y guys asked me to help!”

You nod. They certainly picked the right girl for the job, didn't they?

“They put me in stretchy white suit that was kinda like pantyhose, but for your whole body, and had these little doo-dads all over it, and had me wrestle some of their robots.” She smiles. “So I did!”

You snicker at her description of what can only be a motion capture apparatus of some kind. “How'd it go?”

Mato shrugs. “I dunno. You whistled and I came running.” She blinks. “I can show you, if you want.”

>Agree. Go check out these robots.
>Disagree. Places to go, people to see, etc., etc..
>Something else? (Write-in!)

Sorry for the delay, had to eat!

>>37318614
>Agree. Go check out these robots.
Robots are cool! Admittedly, these ones aren't as cool as the ones our nee-chan-in-law can put together, but still, looking at things is fun.

>>37318695
>to the bots!

Okay.
Writing!

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You agree. It sounds interesting enough, and, if nothing else, you'll be able to make sure that you didn't call Mato away in the middle of something important.

Mato wastes no time in leading you around the tables, desks, and shelves that transform the huge warehouse into a huge maze. She deftly guides you around the stacks of boxes, papers, and books that pepper the open 'hallways' created by the aforementioned furniture.

After a minute or two, you find yourselves in a rather large open area- if this was a forest, you'd call it a clearing, but you're not so sure that the term applies in this case- in which a dozen or so labcoat-clad men and women rush about between a pair of long tables with computers and boxes of paper on them and a quartet of what you can only assume are the robots Mato mentioned earlier.

The machines themselves seem highly utilitarian, especially when you consider that Mokarin is a robot, too. They're largely unadorned, and just humanoid enough to be able to use equipment made for humans- it's pragmatic and simplistic, which, while not particularly awe-inspiring, is probably just what you need to win a war.

The Nazis had all sorts of wondrous weapons and things they were researching, and look what happened to them- they lost.

…

Still, they could use a paint job at the very least.

…

>Approach a scientist/researcher/engineer/whatever these people are.
>Approach one of the robots.
>You came to look, nothing more. Move on!
>Something else? (Write-in!)

>>37318925
Sup' Boss.
I'm lurking around here, but an horrible internet connection prevents me from participating.
Just put an extra vote tp anything involving God-Empress Akari and Xeno-Stomping shenanigans.

>>37319447
>Approach a scientist/researcher/engineer/whatever these people are.
Well they seem to be done with Mato, so that's good. I'd like to hear a bit about the operational parameters of these bots still, assuming they actually work and the science people feel like sharing.

>>37319569
>Talk to nerds

Okay, got it!

>>37319448
>horrible internet connection
You have my deepest condolences, anon.

You decide to talk to one of the people.

Curiosity killed the cat, sure, but the cat wouldn't have been curious if he'd sated his thirst for knowledge.

You approach a woman with dark hair pulled back into a long ponytail and glasses that look remarkably un-nerdy and stylish. Not for any particular reason, other than that she's seated at one of the tables, and closer to you than the rest of her colleagues. Coworkers? Teammates?

…

She's the closest labcoat, and she doesn't seem to be going anywhere. She's typing away on a keyboard that sits in her lap and looks to be connected to a desktop (tabletop?) computer- the same one the monitor in front of her is connected to (obviously).

Mato cheerfully introduces you to the woman, who almost falls out of her seat at your girlfriend's abrupt and energetic greeting, and, after the poor gal regains her composure, she tells you all about what she's working on.

The machines are drones called 'Phantoms,' and the intent is to create soldiers who are both immune to mind-altering abilities of all kinds and inhumanly-precise enough to engage threats with lethal force in urban environments without causing any significant amount of collateral damage.

They're also an attempt to get more boots on the ground, as quickly and effectively as possible- people need to be trained to be effective soldiers; machines don't.

According to the lady, the initial reason to start development was a request for extremely competent crewmen to operate a super-heavy tank of some sort... and the surge in funding that came with that request.

1/2

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“... those are early models,” she says, gesturing to the drones standing on the opposite side of the clearing, “we're working on improving their programming and chassis at the moment, to make them more efficient both in and out of combat.”

She gestures to Mato, a slightly uncomfortable look coming across her face. “Your, uh, 'lady friend' here helped us out a lot.” She clears her throat. “How much older is she, by the way?”

You laugh at that. “She's not. She's just really tall.”

The lady lets out a deep breath that you suspect is a sigh of relief, then tries to pass it off like she wasn't concerned that Mato was taking advantage of a much younger girl, even though it's pretty obvious that she had been thinking exactly that.

Once you're confident you've allayed the poor woman's concerns, you...

>Try to find Testarossa.
>Try to find out more about this 'super-heavy tank' she mentioned.
>Leave the Warehouse.
>Something else? (Write-in!)

>>37320715
>Try to find Testarossa.

>>37320893
Okay, anon, something's come up. I'll get back and writing as soon as I can.
Sorry.
Who knows, perhaps the delay will give more anons time to join us.

>>37320715
>Try to find Testarossa.

>>37320893
>>37321172
>Try to find Testarossa

Okay, writing!
Thanks for your patience!

>>37321051
Boss, it's the same Anon who posted
>>37319448

I just tried to post my vote Ten times only to fail all Ten attempts.
My Computer's internet is useless, my Cellphone's is unreliable and my Modem just tried to kill me via electrocution when I tried to restart it.
Sending you a vote has become a matter of Honor, for I refuse to yield to whatever corrupt machine spirits are controlling my Internet connection.

Take this, my Love, my Anger and all of my Votes!

>>37320715
>Try to find Testarossa.

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>>37321930
Oops. Dropped my trip.

>>37322106
>pic related

You find Testarossa easily enough- it only takes the two of you a few minutes of exploration to find her.

Unfortunately, it seems she's not available to talk, and won't be for some time. You can see her through the huge windows in every one of the walls of the room she's working in, clad in a labcoat that's been cut down to fit her small frame and standing on a stool at a fancy-science-table-thing in the middle of the room.

There's maybe half a dozen others in there with her, as well as a load of crazy science-y-looking things that you'd normally see in a mad scientist's lab in a movie or something.

The armed guards at the door made it very clear that nobody was to be allowed entry while the people in the room were doing their stuff, and that you- specifically- were doubly not-allowed, on the orders of Testarossa herself.

You were somewhat offended by that, until you found out that they were trying to synthesize some sort of 'super-fuel' to use in that super-heavy tank you heard about earlier. You can't really blame her for not wanting a Pyrokineticist present in that sort of situation.

…

You never really considered it before, but there's probably lots of jobs your powers would prevent you from having.

…

Oh, well. You weren't exactly planning to work on an oil rig or become some sort of park ranger, so it's not much of an issue.

… You're not particularly keen on waiting for Testarossa to finish what she's doing just so you can talk to her.

>Try to learn more about that tank people keep mentioning.
>Leave the Warehouse. It's time to move on.
>See if you can't help with some more projects here.
>Something else? (Write-in!)

>>37322585
>Try to learn more about that tank people keep mentioning.
Did somebody say tank? Yes please.

>>37322585
>Try to learn more about that tank people keep mentioning.
Curiosity!

>>37322616
>>37322670
>What's all the fuss about?!

Okay, writing!

You ask around, but nobody really seems to know much about this 'super-heavy tank'.

Anyone working on something related to it knows only the details of what they're working on/towards. Other than that, you get lots of not-particularly-informative answers like 'It's like a heavy tank, but even bigger and heavier.'

It's awhile before you manage to find out (from a guy with a big mustache) that the person providing the funding for the tank-related projects would have to be both extremely wealthy AND technologically advanced enough to be able to take the materials requested and actually make the thing.

Mato comes to the same conclusion as you, and is tap-tap-tapping away at her phone before you can even ask her, “Are you thinking what I'm thinking?”

Her phone beeps almost immediately, and she scans the screen quickly before handing it to you.

Mato's message reads,

>Miku-nee, do you know anything about a really big tank?

And her sister's response:

>Yep. Making one right now. Why do you ask?

…

You give the phone back to Mato and sigh, “Why am I not surprised?”

She shrugs. “We should've guessed.”

You nod. “Yep...” you trail off, then find that curiosity has taken hold of you once more. “... Can you find out where it is?”

Mato grins. “Way ahead of you,” she says, snapping her phone shut once more.

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I think we'll end it here for today. Short thread, I know, but I'm running out of steam, and I've gotta be up early tomorrow.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/EsperQuestQM
THE LAND OF ASKING: ask.fm/EsperQuestQM

Archives:
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=Raildex
http://archive.moe/tg/search/tripcode/!!qoqPha6r78V/type/op/order/asc

Go ahead and ask any questions you might have, whether here in the thread or over on ask.fm! I'm glad to answer them!

Ask.fm's probably better, though, as I can't really 'miss' a question asked through it.

Anyways, goodnight/morning/evening/afternoon/whatever, and thanks for playing!
Hopefully we'll be a little more populated next time!

>>37323840
Thanks for running boss.