RE: The Melancholy of Mackie-Chan
11-23-2020, 06:16 PM (This post was last modified: 11-23-2020, 06:21 PM by Dartz.)
11-23-2020, 06:16 PM (This post was last modified: 11-23-2020, 06:21 PM by Dartz.)
And now, for a year. Wikes.
----
---
The woman in front of him stood well over a hundred and eighty centimetres, tall enough that Shinji’s natural eye level ended up nearly dead centre on the valley between her breasts. His eyes dropped from there.
Her clean, white loetard seemed to be moulded to her chest and clung tight enough to her that some of her muscles to highlight themselves as she breathed. It was cut high on the hips to lengthen her already statuesque legs, pulled taught by the high heels on her thigh-high boots.
“Mackie?” he asked. His breath shook
“Gaige,” she answered.
“That’s……” Shinji’s mouth hinged open. His eyes fixed at the tight spot between her legs, before moving rapidly back up to her chest. “I can’t believe you’re wearing that.”
“Everything else tears,” she said. He couldn’t see the expression on her face, but heard the shame in her voice.
“It looks tight,” he managed to say. He could feel his own clothes tightening in response.
“It is.” said Gaige. “But it’s - it’s Sammiwear so it’s designed to be comfortable. Even if you’re not.”
Shinji finally forced himself to look her in the eye. He couldn’t tell if it was the blush on her cheeks or the pout of her lips, but something about her face seemed that bit more childish than her body - immature when compared to the overmature body that still tugged at his gaze. Part of his mind long for her chest to finally burst free.
The same part of his mind that still refused to believe he was looking at Mackie.
She gazed down at him with glacier blue eyes. He looked up.
“People still draw pictures of me as a girl…” he managed to say. “They always make me feel weird.”
Not as weird as the Nadia drawings, but not far off. Hey Shinji, do you know your basic character design was based off a female character without breasts? Hey Shinji, you know your basic internal chassis was female?
For a heartbeat, he hated everyone who thought they were the first to remind him of that fact.
Looming over him, Mackie glared down with a sour look on her face, her lips pursed up like the sucker on an octopus tentacle.
“Do you want to trade?” she said. Her arms folded on top of her chest for a moment, before she moved them to a more comfortable position beneath the pair.
Her arms pushed them up, deepening the valley between them.
“No…” Shinji shook his head, feeling a hot flush of shame. “Have you been able to order a replacement yet?”
“Ah - no. I’m stuck,” she answered, her body stiffening.
For a moment, Shinji sensed something further beneath that.
“Why?”
She forced herself to give a rueful smile.
“Sis damaged the power regulator on my memory chips so she tied it into a power supply inside the body’s interlink circuit. It can’t be disconnected without erasing my memory.”
She tapped a gloved finger on the side of her temple.
“Sorry,” said Shinji - before realising it sounded far too much like a Shinji he didn’t want to be. “I’m sorry that happened.” he said.
“Thanks.” Mackie breathed. “It’s weird. But it’s better than being in a spaceship. At least I can be independent.”
To prove it, she took a step to the side, then back before placing her hands on her hips.
“Mackie….” Shinji began.
“Gaige,” she smiled. “I go by Gaige Kisaragi now.”
“Gaige,” Shinji repeated.
Gaige didn’t smile again.
They both stood in the doorway to Gaige’s apartment, neither sure what step to take next. Gaige shifted on her heels. Shinji looked at her feet - then again at the point where her leotard tucked into the gap between her thighs - then forced himself to look up at her eyes.
Shinji could see the skin scrawling across her face.
“Maybe we could play a game for a few minutes,” Gaige suggested her arms folded under her chest, tension winding and coiling through her muscles.
“I’d like that,” said Shinj - before realising just how it sounded.
A pink blush heated his cheeks as he followed her across the floor of her apartment, Shinji keenly aware of the quality of A.C. Peter’s handiwork. A small part of his mind struggled to remind his body that he was, in fact, looking at Mackie Jaguar. A large part of his body did its best to ignore it.
She settled into her own couch. Shinji nestled himself into an armchair. Gaige queued up the game while Shinji got his hands comfortable on a cool metal controller.
Streets of Rage. The original version.
For a while, it almost seemed like fun.
Gaige just sat there, one booted leg crossed over the other - an Amazonian beauty with her sculpted body. She leant backward with a controller in her hand, manicured fingers working the buttons in a blur.
Shinji hunched forward, leaning toward the screen. Something still sat wrong in his mind, even as they both tore through the game with contemptuous ease.
After an hour, the words finally came to his mouth. “This feels weird.”
The look on her face told him he wasn’t the only one having the idea.
“It doesn’t feel right,” she said.
Neither of them had said more than those few words for an hour But more than that, Shinji realised, he didn’t feel like he was playing a game with Mackie.
“Maybe we should find the others.”
------
Anika stirred the custard with a spoon
“The reactor blew itself up,” she said.
Miyuri felt her self blink. Anika seemed dead certain. “It blew itself up?” she asked, invited more explanation.
Anika glanced around. The Midoriyah cafe hummed with activity, given life by the dayshift dropping in for lunch and the nightshift having breakfast. Every table was full - a dozen conversations creating enough noise that she could be certain nobody would overhear.
She stirred her custard again, winding it into a tight whorl.
“We were running a test. The reactor overheated. One of the liner panels broke off the core, part of the lithium blanket fast-fissioned and blew a hole in the cooling system.”
Miyuri looked at her, trying to read, trying to allow herself to consider if her friend has actually trying to lie to her.
Her face seemed sincere.
There was no lie in Anika's golden eyes, only a real fear that’d kept her from doing more than picking at the cheesecake on her plate. Normally she would’ve finished the third by now.
“You need to tell the truth about this, Anika,” she said. “If you speak first, you will be heard first.”
Anika dug a fork into the cream of her cake, stirring it up and mingling it with the biscuit, but not making any attempt to eat any of it.
“I… yeah but…” Anika paused, before looking right at her. But you know what fandom’s really like?”
You understand. She hoped Miyuri understood.
“People will understand.”
Anika gave her a look, like she was being asked to jump into a fire.
“We saved everyone on the station. We did amazing things. They’ll still turn us into the villains, Miyuri.”
Her voice had a real pain in it, like something had bitten into her soul.
Miyuri knew she could help.
“Going first, lets you control that narrative - it lets you set the stage. The first version of the story is always the one that lasts.”
Anika’s body screwed up tight as the thing latched to her soul bit deeper.
“.....I’m scared.” she said, her voice retreating back into her throat.
“I’m your friend, Anika, trust me.”
Miyuri placed her hand on Anika’s, letting the heat of Anika’s body soak into hers. Slowly the edges of her lips turned up. Light began glimmer in the back of her eyes - the first flicker of the Anika who Miyuri remembered.
Miyuri pulled her hand back
“...maybe…”Anika said, after a moment. She poked again at her cheesecake with her fork, still not looking too interested in taking a bite. She looked at it like it might poison her. “Everyone has an interest in it being us. The builders, the politicians - even people - the truth won’t matter to them, only a story that gives them a nice cosy villain to blame.” She took a breath. “Fenspace runs on stories, after all, and that’s the most convenient story for the most respectable people.”
“That sounds very cynical.”
It sounded like the sort of self-justification that usually emerged from the darker parts of the system.
“Maybe,” Anika said again. “I covered the explosion up,” she admitted. “I also went into the reactor, to find out what happened to it,”
Miyuri, for a moment, couldn’t find the words. The sense of betrayal lingered in the back of her mind - that Anika hadn’t been the person she’d known, mingling with a building disbelief that Anika had stood in front of a burning fusion reactor.
Nobody could’ve survived that. Even infolife could be crippled by intense radiation. But there she sat, apparently unharmed.
“It’s never too late to do the right thing.” she said, hiding her true feelings.
“We don’t have a choice now.” She finally took a bite from her cheesecake.
Miyuri felt herself smile gently, hiding her true feelings. She found herself wondering just how a tribunal would even begin to approach something like this. Anika took another bite of cake, obviously swallowing her words along with it.
Miyuri wondered at what had clouded over her friend’s mind.
“We’re back,” said Shinji’s voice.
The woman beside him seemed to stand twice his height. Miyuri’s eyes were level with her stomach, her leotard clinging tight to toned muscle in a way that it really shouldn’t have done. The thought occurred to Miyuri, that A.C. could do some stunning work, for those who desired it.
Almost too good.
“You’re wearing that?”, she managed to say, before feeling herself flush.
“Body quirk,” Gaige answered, her lips pursing into an annoyed pout.
Of course, Miyuri realised, considering the maker and the original intent of the first owner of the body. Even if Miyuri remembered Jet wearing things that were far more modest - evidently she hadn’t passed on the trick.
“I know something,” said Anika. “We have hot springs.”
“Hot springs?”Shinji blinked. “You have hot springs?”
Miyuri looked at him for a moment, aghast that he could be so easily distracted when something serious was happening. When Anika had just finished admitting to covering up a nuclear accident
“How do you make hot springs in space?” Shinji asked.
“The rock is heated by the reactor condensers, and we run water through the rock.” Anika explained, visibly grateful for the distraction. “They’re as close to the real thing as you can get.”
Miyuri saw a boyish light go on behind Shinji’s eyes. His one weakness was a good, hot bath. Her eyes gave Anika a dark look, letting her know that she hadn’t entirely gotten away with avoiding the hard questions.
“It has been a long journey, maybe a bath would be nice
After all, if it had managed to crack Shinji’s veneer of cynicism, even if only for a moment. And letting Anika relax for a few moments might tease out the truth
Gaige body went rigid, looking for a moment like a cuckoo that’d realised it didn’t belong in this nest.
“Is that okay?” she asked. “With me?”
Anika caught on immediately.
“If you want to take that body into the men’s side, you’re more than welcome.”
A momentary look of determination passed across the taller woman’s face - before the realisation finally hit her.
---
----
---
The woman in front of him stood well over a hundred and eighty centimetres, tall enough that Shinji’s natural eye level ended up nearly dead centre on the valley between her breasts. His eyes dropped from there.
Her clean, white loetard seemed to be moulded to her chest and clung tight enough to her that some of her muscles to highlight themselves as she breathed. It was cut high on the hips to lengthen her already statuesque legs, pulled taught by the high heels on her thigh-high boots.
“Mackie?” he asked. His breath shook
“Gaige,” she answered.
“That’s……” Shinji’s mouth hinged open. His eyes fixed at the tight spot between her legs, before moving rapidly back up to her chest. “I can’t believe you’re wearing that.”
“Everything else tears,” she said. He couldn’t see the expression on her face, but heard the shame in her voice.
“It looks tight,” he managed to say. He could feel his own clothes tightening in response.
“It is.” said Gaige. “But it’s - it’s Sammiwear so it’s designed to be comfortable. Even if you’re not.”
Shinji finally forced himself to look her in the eye. He couldn’t tell if it was the blush on her cheeks or the pout of her lips, but something about her face seemed that bit more childish than her body - immature when compared to the overmature body that still tugged at his gaze. Part of his mind long for her chest to finally burst free.
The same part of his mind that still refused to believe he was looking at Mackie.
She gazed down at him with glacier blue eyes. He looked up.
“People still draw pictures of me as a girl…” he managed to say. “They always make me feel weird.”
Not as weird as the Nadia drawings, but not far off. Hey Shinji, do you know your basic character design was based off a female character without breasts? Hey Shinji, you know your basic internal chassis was female?
For a heartbeat, he hated everyone who thought they were the first to remind him of that fact.
Looming over him, Mackie glared down with a sour look on her face, her lips pursed up like the sucker on an octopus tentacle.
“Do you want to trade?” she said. Her arms folded on top of her chest for a moment, before she moved them to a more comfortable position beneath the pair.
Her arms pushed them up, deepening the valley between them.
“No…” Shinji shook his head, feeling a hot flush of shame. “Have you been able to order a replacement yet?”
“Ah - no. I’m stuck,” she answered, her body stiffening.
For a moment, Shinji sensed something further beneath that.
“Why?”
She forced herself to give a rueful smile.
“Sis damaged the power regulator on my memory chips so she tied it into a power supply inside the body’s interlink circuit. It can’t be disconnected without erasing my memory.”
She tapped a gloved finger on the side of her temple.
“Sorry,” said Shinji - before realising it sounded far too much like a Shinji he didn’t want to be. “I’m sorry that happened.” he said.
“Thanks.” Mackie breathed. “It’s weird. But it’s better than being in a spaceship. At least I can be independent.”
To prove it, she took a step to the side, then back before placing her hands on her hips.
“Mackie….” Shinji began.
“Gaige,” she smiled. “I go by Gaige Kisaragi now.”
“Gaige,” Shinji repeated.
Gaige didn’t smile again.
They both stood in the doorway to Gaige’s apartment, neither sure what step to take next. Gaige shifted on her heels. Shinji looked at her feet - then again at the point where her leotard tucked into the gap between her thighs - then forced himself to look up at her eyes.
Shinji could see the skin scrawling across her face.
“Maybe we could play a game for a few minutes,” Gaige suggested her arms folded under her chest, tension winding and coiling through her muscles.
“I’d like that,” said Shinj - before realising just how it sounded.
A pink blush heated his cheeks as he followed her across the floor of her apartment, Shinji keenly aware of the quality of A.C. Peter’s handiwork. A small part of his mind struggled to remind his body that he was, in fact, looking at Mackie Jaguar. A large part of his body did its best to ignore it.
She settled into her own couch. Shinji nestled himself into an armchair. Gaige queued up the game while Shinji got his hands comfortable on a cool metal controller.
Streets of Rage. The original version.
For a while, it almost seemed like fun.
Gaige just sat there, one booted leg crossed over the other - an Amazonian beauty with her sculpted body. She leant backward with a controller in her hand, manicured fingers working the buttons in a blur.
Shinji hunched forward, leaning toward the screen. Something still sat wrong in his mind, even as they both tore through the game with contemptuous ease.
After an hour, the words finally came to his mouth. “This feels weird.”
The look on her face told him he wasn’t the only one having the idea.
“It doesn’t feel right,” she said.
Neither of them had said more than those few words for an hour But more than that, Shinji realised, he didn’t feel like he was playing a game with Mackie.
“Maybe we should find the others.”
------
Anika stirred the custard with a spoon
“The reactor blew itself up,” she said.
Miyuri felt her self blink. Anika seemed dead certain. “It blew itself up?” she asked, invited more explanation.
Anika glanced around. The Midoriyah cafe hummed with activity, given life by the dayshift dropping in for lunch and the nightshift having breakfast. Every table was full - a dozen conversations creating enough noise that she could be certain nobody would overhear.
She stirred her custard again, winding it into a tight whorl.
“We were running a test. The reactor overheated. One of the liner panels broke off the core, part of the lithium blanket fast-fissioned and blew a hole in the cooling system.”
Miyuri looked at her, trying to read, trying to allow herself to consider if her friend has actually trying to lie to her.
Her face seemed sincere.
There was no lie in Anika's golden eyes, only a real fear that’d kept her from doing more than picking at the cheesecake on her plate. Normally she would’ve finished the third by now.
“You need to tell the truth about this, Anika,” she said. “If you speak first, you will be heard first.”
Anika dug a fork into the cream of her cake, stirring it up and mingling it with the biscuit, but not making any attempt to eat any of it.
“I… yeah but…” Anika paused, before looking right at her. But you know what fandom’s really like?”
You understand. She hoped Miyuri understood.
“People will understand.”
Anika gave her a look, like she was being asked to jump into a fire.
“We saved everyone on the station. We did amazing things. They’ll still turn us into the villains, Miyuri.”
Her voice had a real pain in it, like something had bitten into her soul.
Miyuri knew she could help.
“Going first, lets you control that narrative - it lets you set the stage. The first version of the story is always the one that lasts.”
Anika’s body screwed up tight as the thing latched to her soul bit deeper.
“.....I’m scared.” she said, her voice retreating back into her throat.
“I’m your friend, Anika, trust me.”
Miyuri placed her hand on Anika’s, letting the heat of Anika’s body soak into hers. Slowly the edges of her lips turned up. Light began glimmer in the back of her eyes - the first flicker of the Anika who Miyuri remembered.
Miyuri pulled her hand back
“...maybe…”Anika said, after a moment. She poked again at her cheesecake with her fork, still not looking too interested in taking a bite. She looked at it like it might poison her. “Everyone has an interest in it being us. The builders, the politicians - even people - the truth won’t matter to them, only a story that gives them a nice cosy villain to blame.” She took a breath. “Fenspace runs on stories, after all, and that’s the most convenient story for the most respectable people.”
“That sounds very cynical.”
It sounded like the sort of self-justification that usually emerged from the darker parts of the system.
“Maybe,” Anika said again. “I covered the explosion up,” she admitted. “I also went into the reactor, to find out what happened to it,”
Miyuri, for a moment, couldn’t find the words. The sense of betrayal lingered in the back of her mind - that Anika hadn’t been the person she’d known, mingling with a building disbelief that Anika had stood in front of a burning fusion reactor.
Nobody could’ve survived that. Even infolife could be crippled by intense radiation. But there she sat, apparently unharmed.
“It’s never too late to do the right thing.” she said, hiding her true feelings.
“We don’t have a choice now.” She finally took a bite from her cheesecake.
Miyuri felt herself smile gently, hiding her true feelings. She found herself wondering just how a tribunal would even begin to approach something like this. Anika took another bite of cake, obviously swallowing her words along with it.
Miyuri wondered at what had clouded over her friend’s mind.
“We’re back,” said Shinji’s voice.
The woman beside him seemed to stand twice his height. Miyuri’s eyes were level with her stomach, her leotard clinging tight to toned muscle in a way that it really shouldn’t have done. The thought occurred to Miyuri, that A.C. could do some stunning work, for those who desired it.
Almost too good.
“You’re wearing that?”, she managed to say, before feeling herself flush.
“Body quirk,” Gaige answered, her lips pursing into an annoyed pout.
Of course, Miyuri realised, considering the maker and the original intent of the first owner of the body. Even if Miyuri remembered Jet wearing things that were far more modest - evidently she hadn’t passed on the trick.
“I know something,” said Anika. “We have hot springs.”
“Hot springs?”Shinji blinked. “You have hot springs?”
Miyuri looked at him for a moment, aghast that he could be so easily distracted when something serious was happening. When Anika had just finished admitting to covering up a nuclear accident
“How do you make hot springs in space?” Shinji asked.
“The rock is heated by the reactor condensers, and we run water through the rock.” Anika explained, visibly grateful for the distraction. “They’re as close to the real thing as you can get.”
Miyuri saw a boyish light go on behind Shinji’s eyes. His one weakness was a good, hot bath. Her eyes gave Anika a dark look, letting her know that she hadn’t entirely gotten away with avoiding the hard questions.
“It has been a long journey, maybe a bath would be nice
After all, if it had managed to crack Shinji’s veneer of cynicism, even if only for a moment. And letting Anika relax for a few moments might tease out the truth
Gaige body went rigid, looking for a moment like a cuckoo that’d realised it didn’t belong in this nest.
“Is that okay?” she asked. “With me?”
Anika caught on immediately.
“If you want to take that body into the men’s side, you’re more than welcome.”
A momentary look of determination passed across the taller woman’s face - before the realisation finally hit her.
---
I love the smell of rotaries in the morning. You know one time, I got to work early, before the rush hour. I walked through the empty carpark, I didn't see one bloody Prius or Golf. And that smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole carpark, smelled like.... ....speed.
One day they're going to ban them.