trans_9 | Cascade [Open party time!]

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Cascade [Open party time!]

Billy had just launched another portal in that maze of mazes, exhaustion setting in. Surely this time he would land on another moving platform of death?

Nope, just the exterior of the finished bathhouses. All polished, systems running, and just about ready to open! Given how sore and exhausted he was, that sounded like an excellent idea at the moment.

With a quick message to the rest of the crew, he set out the 'Open' sign for the first time and took advantage of his owner status---the prime waterfall spot could be his!

((ooc: The bathhouses are now open! Feel free to mingle around, relax, and have a party. Or cause trouble, but that might invite more trouble. Just start a subthread with your character's location and have fun. For reference there are individual showers in front, followed by hot tubs centrally located, saunas further back, and private baths along the side. The showers, tubs, and saunas have smaller sex-segregated units along with a central group unit that's larger.))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Mei-Xing wouldn't be very popular if everything about her became public knowledge.

"Most subjects under the sun, yeah." It wasn't very difficult. She already had a firm grasp on designing and building machinery and chemistry, the rest was just cheat sheets and experimentation.

She slits an eye and cocks her head at the girl, examining her carefully. (And for more than one reason.) "Don't you have any useful skills? Fighting, medic stuff, building things?"

"A few, actually," she said. "Most of them involve either war or politics." Cagalli has experience all the way up and down the military chain of command despite her young age. Realizing she still had the bottle in her hand, she sets it down, wondering for only a moment if it's any good.

"I guess it depends on where I'm needed, and how much free time anyone actually has around here. I do know that I need to help though." She blinks, squirms into a more comfortable position. "If you can't tell, I'm new."

"War's good. We tend to do war around here." Mei-Xing nods, miming shooting a rifle for a moment. "Look a little young to be a politician, though. How old are you?"

"No, I never would have guessed." Her voice practically drips with sarcasm regarding Cagalli's vintage, but she snaps back to her cheery tone in a heartbeat. "Well, some people don't do much at all around here. I guess it depends on what you think you can handle, or how much you want to learn. I know some people offer up classes so you can jon new departments. Aibghalien? I think his name is? Well, he was looking for magical apprentices." She shrugs. "It depends, that's all.

Cagalli takes the sarcasm in stride, having effectively asked for it. "I'm eighteen... for all intents and purposes, it was an inherited position. That is, I inherited being the head of my family, and was elected to the position of Chief Representative on my father's reputation." She sinks into the water a little at the admission. There was no other reasonable explanation.

"I think I'd rather work on the talents I do have, so I don't have to start from scratch. We have mobile suits, and I can pilot those, so I know there's something for me here."

Mei-Xing listens a little, then offers her bottle when Cagalli starts sinking. "Nothing wrong with accepting something based on your old man's reputation. I started off doing that. It just matters if you use their rep as a crutch for the rest of your time, or you make it on your own strengths."

"Well. You can practice mobile suiting? Repairs, maybe?" She rubs the back of her head. "The Drunken Dragon might be able to use you as a scantily clad bar wench?" Hey, the girl didn't look bad. A few rounds in someone, and she might just look drop-dead gorgeous. "Then again, this place might be able to use some cleaning... Unless they get one of the robots in on that."

Cagalli nods; the logic is fairly sound, at least, though she hasn't exactly done much on her own strengths. It was Kira and Lacus who had saved the day, and even they had a lot of trouble doing it the right way at first. She accepts the bottle but doesn't open it yet.

Learning how to do her own repairs would certainly be helpful... she scoffs at the mention of being a 'bar wench' though. "Even if my looks were my strong suit I think everyone can get by without a woman to ogle. I'll stick with my mobile suit for now." The bottle's open, and she... sniffs at it. She's had alcohol before, but barely any of anything strong.

She leers openly this time, just to see what Cagalli would do about it. "Hell, I'd go to a bar to ogle you." Not her best line ever, but... It was good enough.

In retrospect, it would be pretty obvious that Mei-Xing was just messing with her. Hindsight is 20/20 and all.

That's not right now though; "E-eh? That's..." she manages to force out, blushing a bit more than the heat calls for. She's not used to being hit on at all, never mind by another girl, and she scoots away a little further unconsciously. "I mean... thanks... but I'm really not anything special."

Oh dear. She had a shy one on her hands! Luckily, Mei-Xing is known all over the ship for being considerate and kind, and would never embarrass anyone for fun.

Mei-Xing shifts a little closer, negating the scooting away, and slips on a gentle smile. "Nah, I'm serious? Look at me. You've got a nice face. Good eyes, I could go gaga over eyes like that." It was officially a game. How far could she take this?

Cagalli needs an adult! She shifts away again, distracting herself from her incoherency with a swig from the bottle. It's a little stronger and not quite as good as what she's had in the past, but it's not like she even notices right now with a brand new acquaintance edging towards her like this.

"M-maybe my eyes, but look at my hair!" She nervously runs her fingers through it. "It takes professional stylists just to get it to do anything you... you know?" she argues, though it lacks the fire and confidence she usually debates with.

Mei-Xing looks at Cagalli with growing amusement as she takes a swig. Inching a little closer, takes a lock of the girl's hair in her hand and rubs it between her fingers. "I like your hair. I could probably put it into something else right now, if you wanted, but it frames your face really well."

She inches just a little closer, so she's not leaning that far forward, and fights to keep the smile on her face at an amicable level, and not a 'I'm laughing at you' level.

"Eep." Cagalli can't help squeaking a little as the woman touches her hair, eyes darting about for a moment - no one else around, no obvious escape, and who knows what this woman was capable of? Hopefully she's just... drunkenly overly enthusiastic or something.

"I, um... right here? In the bath?" It's not like she has any styling tools or gels or mousse.

Mei-Xing grins, like a cat toying with her prey, and slides closer, almost pressing against Cagalli. She really was too nercous to do anything, wasn't she? "Right here." She slips both of her fingers into Cagalli's hair, exhaling a whispered spell. When she slides her hands down to the girl's neck, the hair straightens, parting itself down the middle. It curves gently inward, but it's all straight and neatly kept together.

"See? Frames that cute little face of yours." She smirks, tilting her head to the side. "I retract what I said earlier. I'd pay to ogle you." Please, give her more delicious reactions.

Shivers ran up Cagalli's spine as Mei-Xing slid closer, winding fingers through her hair. Even so, she had to wonder what the woman was saying until she felt something strange on her head. Her hair... something was actually happening to it! It was some kind of magic.

Her momentary curiosity was banished by Mei-Xing's next comment. "B-b... no, that's... not really..." She crossed her arms over her chest defensively despite being covered with a towel.

Mei-Xinb looks down, as if noticing the towel for the first time. "Why are you so flustered? I'm giving you a compliment?" She gently tries to brush Cagalli's arms away, hoping to hook a finger into her towel to pull it off.

"Let's see what else you have to offer..." It's so adorable, like a teenager with her first lover!

She doesn't want to use too much magic, here. If Cagalli gets too scared to say stop with all seriousness, it'll get very awkward. But if she can just keep the girl blushing and squeaking, all will be good. Uncomfortable was fun, fear was annoying.

"Thanks... but um, you're a little close..." Cagalli didn't want to get on the wrong side of someone who could use magic so casually, especially if she held influence - even more likely if she made something as desirable as alcohol.

Gentle doesn't work on Cagalli's arms though, and she clings tightly to the towel. It would be one thing to be naked in front of Lacus, or most other women really, but most women didn't give off such blatant creeper vibes. "P-please don't touch my towel."

"Am I?" She pushes closer, in that case. "Do you have a... problem?" Mei-Xing's practically touching Cagalli's nose with her own now, whispering the words. "You're blushing. It's cute."

At the clinging, she stops and plants her hands on either side of the the poor girl. To be fair, she doesn't know Cagalli's naked under the towel. After all, she's wearing a bathing suit.

Cagalli freezes, her face turning bright red as Mei-Xing gets closer and closer. Before, she was too close for comfort, but now she was starting to feel threatened.

That feeling is vindicated when she's surrounded by arms and a woman coming onto her in a bathhouse. "P-please... you're too close," she stutters, wide eyed - though still more with nervousness than fear. If she has to, she can fight, but she'd rather not have to hurt anyone so soon after arriving - no matter who would or wouldn't get in trouble.

She's stopped peering into Cagalli's aura, she doesn't feel the sudden feeling of being threatened. Instead, she leans in without a word, closing her eyes and pressing her lips against Cagalli's. Give her this, she's a decent kisser.

After a heartbeat, she sucks Cagalli's lower lip between hers. After only a second, she pulls back, and resumes leaning at a 'safe' distance away, letting Cagalli hopefully feel comfortable again. "Yes, you're far too hard on yourself."

Something in Cagalli's mind seemed to break for a moment, all thoughts grinding to a stop. She was being kissed by a relative stranger. Not a light, chaste, ghost of a kiss... a real honest to god one, no matter how brief. "Y-you..."

The moment her brain kicked back in, she immediately threw a hard straight at Mei-Xing with the hand that wasn't holding the towel onto her body. "Don't touch me again!"

Mei-Xing looks up to see the fist heading for her, then instinct and training takes over. She surges up, sliding her arm around Cagalli's. She raises a leg, then sweeps Cagalli's, sending them both splashing into the water.

She scrabbles to put the other girl down, trying to immobilize her. At the same time, her mind races to remember the entire formula, headware working overtime to feed it into her mind so she can wrap a spell around the both of them.

They're underwater. But a tingling feeling later, coupled with a thin ribbon of blood starting to flow from Mei-Xing's nose, and suddenly breathing's not a problem. "Settle down!" She just talked. Underwater.

It only took an instant for Cagalli to realize that this had been a bad idea. The woman was faster, stronger, and better trained, on top of having magic. So, she stood... zero chance.

Then she was pinned under her underwater of all places. For a moment she struggled at the thought of being drowned, until she heard a voice... and realized she wasn't drowning, and was being straddled by the woman, on her back, her towel having nearly fallen off. "Wh-what are you...?" she wasn't even sure what question to ask, honestly.

Mei-Xing sighs in relief, the girl isn't struggling. Good. Not that she'll let her up. "Keeping you from trying to punch me again, that's what I'm doing!" There's a beat. "...I had to cast a spell so I didn't accidentally drown you. Sorry about that, you took me by surprise."

She acts like this happens every day. "Got a bit more fire to you than I thought. I figured you'd be the shy type 'til the end." She adjusts her grip, taking a moment to make sure that Cagalli can't wriggle out from under her. Then again, with the weight of things underwater, it'll be harder than she expects.

She blinks, then takes a look down at Cagalli's towel. "...You aren't wearing anything." That is... That's a revelation right there.

Wait, what? This is the girl who was just...

And now she's... Cagalii shakes her head as best she can underwater before speaking. This woman was just messing with her the whole time? She had a mind to... to do something after they got out of here. "So what, you were just playing with me the whole time? Just... trying to get a good reaction out of me?"

She leaves the lack of clothing alone for now.

"Partially." Mei-Xing admits it sheepishly. "Yeah. But I wasn't lying about how good you looked, at least? If you took up wenching at Kang's bar, you'd be pretty popular. He doesn't even make you wear stupid clothes, so."

She has a naked girl pinned down. This bears careful consideration.

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