World Tree MUSH

    "Alright we just got paid and I could use some grub myself. C'mon, I know this little place in Japantown."
    That's what Rebecca said after the whole debacle with Dennis' job at the Kabuki waterfront.
    Thankfully Kabuki is one sector away from Japantown, so it's not a long walk. Though it is fraught with people eyeing the pair of cyborgs, and even an attempted mugging at one point but.
    Well, Rebecca can handle herself and there's no doubt Hyouka can handle herself either.
    So. After all that, Rebecca plops herself down at a little out of the way ramen stand.
    "Yo. I'm back. I'll have the shoyu with synth-pork, extra noodles extra veggies~."
    Yes. That's synth-pork she just asked for.

    Hyouka spends the walk completely unperturbed by all the stares they're getting. While she's not really harmed other than a few nicks here and there from bullet impacts, her clothes definitely look like she's been shot several times, so there's bound to be some looks, but she just... isn't worried.

    However, when some gonk is dumb enough to try and mug them, pretty much all she does is look down at her clothes, look up at the thug, look down at her bullet-riddled clothes again... and then break into uproarious laughter. Just... absolutely losing it. If the mugger is dumb enough to actually keep trying, he's getting thrown into the nearest dumpster. Even if the nearest dumpster is a good ten feet away.

    Once they're settling in, the taller cyborg looks over the menu thoughtfully. "...synthetic meat around here, mostly? Hm. Well, not the weirdest thing I've ever eaten. I'll take a bowl of tonkotsu," she decides, setting the menu down. To Rebecca, she adds, "I'll have to take you out to my Tokyo some time. We've got lots of the real stuff."

    Let's just say... That fool finds his new home in a dumpster, yeah.
    Anyway Rebecca sure isn't shaken up about the mugging attempt, it gave her a good laugh.
    "Yeah, mostly synthetic stuff. Real meat's super expensive and pretty illegal for a buncha reasons. Like the Avian Extermination Act of 2063. Definitely meant no more chicken. The 'meat' here's SCOP. It stands for uhhhh..."
    Rebecca's eyes flash as she quickly does an internet search.
    "Single Cell Organic Proteins. It can be made to fit almost any taste though so it's not that bad."
    It's not long before the cyborgs have a pair of bowls set before them, one shoyu and the other tonkatsu.
    "Real stuff? Sounds... Innnnteresting, huh." Definitely something the people of Night City clearly aren't used to anymore.

    "...meat's illegal?" Hyouka blinks a couple of times, then frowns deeply. "That's... that's rough."

    But humanity is nothing if not adaptable, and she's curious to try this synthetic replacement. There's a light, "Itadakimasu~" and then she's digging right in. Om nom nom. "...hmmn. It's... different." She chews on the slice of faux chashu for a moment, then says, "...definitely not as good as the real thing, but it's passable. The noodles are pretty good, though. Takes me back a little." After a few more mouthfuls, she turns to watch Rebecca curiously for a few seconds. "So everyone here really is a cyborg, pretty much? Perfectly normal to just... have built-in wireless internet?"

    "Well that's not quite right." Rebecca corrects herself. "Keeping most animals is illegal within 18 miles of Night City city limits. Beyond that though it's mostly a bunch of bombed out wasteland from the corporate wars, so not the best place to keep animals ANYWAY. You have to be SUPER BOUGIE RICH to afford real meat here and even then 'fresh' food is... Well. It's rare and it ain't cheap." She says amid slurping noodles. How she can accurately hold chopsticks in those massive mechanical mitts of hers is a wonder, but she manages it!
    "Most people yeah." She replies. "It's pretty rare for anyone to be as unaug'd as a newborn, even kids get chip readers for school last I checked. So yeah. Pretty normal."

    Hyouka nods thoughtfully, processing all this as she eats. "Hmn." After finishing yet another mouthful, she adds, "All that stuff's kind of in its infancy back home. Prosthetic limbs are just starting to hit the market, but they're still pretty rare. Smaller gizmos and gadgets..." A small shake of her head. "We don't really have that stuff. Something to do with the way our cybernetics run on magic. I don't really understand all of it."

    It's here that DARGN chimes in. "The name of the principle is 'Conceptual Anchoring'. I can explain the basics, but I'm not sure how useful the information would be to you."

    Hyouka snorts faintly. "You just want to sound smart. Anyway, full conversions like me... well, I guess we'd be exceptions, but it's so ridiculously expensive I doubt there are more than a handful in the entire world."

    This is when Becca holds a finger up to her lips. "Shh, shh, keep it down with the 'full conversion' shit." She says in a hushed tone. "I know you're from offworld, but if the wrong person hears that they might try and do who knows what kinda shit, like... Try to scrap you and sell you for parts on a scav's table. Or worse: tear you apart in a corpo's lab."
    That said though, she clicks her teeth.
    "Seriously though... That's... That's kind of nuts. Only one guy exists like that here and he's the fuckin' boogeyman of Night City."

    At least Hyouka has the grace to look embarrassed. "O-oh, I... I didn't know it was so rare here," she murmurs, frowning. "I'll be a little quieter about it, I guess." It's here that DARGN offers, "Perhaps a private comm line might be in order." She's already facilitating the connection, and as soon as it's open, the AI adds, "Not that they would be likely to learn much from Hyouka. There's no ambient mana here, so I doubt anyone can use enough magic to even comprehend it." Hyouka huffs, and then replies over the commline, "That's not exactly comforting."

    But at least now she can eat and talk at the same time. "You did seem pretty surprised to find out about me, though. I suppose that explains it. Who's this 'boogeyman'?"

    "It's super rare." Rebecca says over the private line once it's established. "And that likely won't stop the corpo types around here from TRYING. They run the city, they can do as they please without worry about things like 'the law'." But then. She purses her lips.
    "Everyone knows about Adam Smasher." The only thing that pauses her now is a slurp of noodles before she continues. "How that man can string together two words with all his crome... I'll never know. Thing is- here, we have this thing called cyberpsychosis. Get fitted with too much chrome and it... It eats away at your humanity until you're little more than a borg'd out monster, like most of those Maelstrom guys." She says haltingly, pink-green eyes staring down into her steaming bowl of ramen.
    "Or the fuckin' bum that zero'd my bro."

    "That... explains a lot more about your reaction," Hyouka decides. There's a thoughtful look on her face. "I couldn't tell you why it hasn't driven me insane, honestly."

    Immediately, DARGN chimes in, "Hyouka Kiyama, your reaction to a dragon offering you any boon within her power, was to demand a new body you could go adventuring in. Are you sure you weren't there already?"

    It turns out Hyouka's artificial body can blush.

    While the faux elf is looking flabbergasted, DARGN continues, "Were I to conjecture, though, I would surmise it's the magic. Our world's cybernetics have a spiritual component to them, in effect. You're not chipping away parts of your 'self'. As for this 'Adam Smasher'..." For a moment, there's the faintest hint of weariness settling into the AI's tone. The barest note as if the weight of years is settling on her, for just a moment. "...There are many forms of madness. Some of them aren't obvious from the outside. Perhaps he's already there, from another angle."

    Hyouka does look at Becca with a deep frown when she mentions her brother's death, but ingrained Japanese social norms keep her from going anywhere near that topic.

    Oh look at that, Hyouka can blush. That makes Rebecca peer a bit, but she keeps to the topic of conversation. "I take it back. The way DARGN puts it. You're already nuts."
    That's a joke.
    But she's moved on from note about her brother as she slurps some of her ramen broth.
    "Maybe." She asides to DARGN. Maybe that's why he's a boogeyman though. The guy's supposedly unstoppable. He's the head of Arasaka security I heard last and that just makes me wanna keep as far away from Arasaka as possible." Slurrrrp.
    "But yeah I'd keep the whole 'full conversion' thing under wraps here as long as you can."

    Rebecca has now seen a pouting elf. Well, sort of. She counts visually, at least! ...even if she doesn't have any of the physical or interpersonal grace...
    Hyouka gives a little nod-nod at Rebecca's advice, though. "I'll do that," she replies over the comm. "Will I have to be more careful with my FISTEAU system? Lightning's not all I can do. If I have time to swap out, I can switch to Fire, Water, Ice, Wind or Earth, too. Would people look at me weird for any of those?" She pauses a second before adding, "Come to think of it, what about AI? You don't seem that bothered by DARGN. Is that normal here?"

    "Heeeeeh..." Pouting elf is amusing. But then Becca sets her now empty ramen bowl down.
    "AIs... Well they're not that BIG here, but they do exist. One of the city's most expensive cab company is run by an AI named Delamaine, so." So there's that. But on to the topic of Hyouka's mitts.
    "The element-thingee is a little out of the ordinary but that? You could probably pass them off as state of the art Gorilla Arms I guess." She considers, holding up one of her mechanical looking hands.
    "You'll get some funny looks for being an offorlder no matter what you do, any way. I guess."

    That just has Hyouka grinning a little. "That, I'm used to. I do a lot of offworld adventuring." She's content to munch on her ramen a little, but then another question hits her. "What about you? What all augments do you have? Aside from the big fists, anyway. Is your skin artificial?" It's very noticeably pale, faintly blue-tinted... very unusual! And after all, Hyouka herself doesn't actually have a whole lot of gimmicks in her body. Just the FISTEAU, and basic physical and sensory augmentations. Being here has opened her eyes to the things that could be done with cybernetics.

    "It's a bodysculpt." Rebecca answers on the topic of her skin. "Think of it as one big full body tattoo. I got a bunch of Mox tattoos on top of it, too. I used to run with them for a while." She explains, before pointing at her eyes. "I got these done. They weren't cheap, but any good solo worth their eddies rolls with thermal and low light vision. Reinforced legs, and then I got these babies." She says hoisting her hands up. "I can use the biggest of guns without so much as rattling from the recoil. They're the best." Pause.
    "Other than that, some basic quality of life stuff, a chip reader, and health monitoring system and the like. I'm not THAT in to chroming up like... Some people." Some people she clearly knows.

    A bodysculpt? Hyouka whistles. The technology here really is something. "That's quite a suite. I've got enhanced senses, but I don't have anything like IR or UV. Other than the physical parameters and the fists, my body's pretty... basic I guess?" Well, other than Dragonheart Mode. But that's not exactly something she can access at will. "The dexterity on those hands must be nice. When I switch on the FISTEAU, I can punch the engine out of a car, but my fine dexterity is pretty much nil. Fingers are way too big. Main reason I'm mostly a brawler... mm, well, I suppose that's not quite true. Guns don't really feel like my style."

    "That is unusually self-aware for you, Hyouka," DARGN observes, amused. Hyouka huffs.

    Bulky as Becca's mitts look... Hyouka has the right of it, they're pretty surprisingly dextrous.
    But the solo nods. "Chyeah, I saw what you did to that Tyger Claw car.
    IT was hilarious.
     Setting her chopsticks down delicately, the smart aleck solo transfers some eddies to the stall owner via the weird dilated pupil flashy eye thing.
    "I can't say I've ever seen someone win bringing fists to a gunfight and win before. You're the first time. Especially in Night City where everyone's got iron."

    Hyouka can't help a little grin at that, and she reaches up to press back on the hair on the left side of her head, just enough to emphasize the elf ear a little bit more. "Well, my fists are magic, after all~." She has to transfer her own money in a more mundane fashion, but she's happy to do so. It was tasty enough. "In any case, I... well, I won't do anything on the shadier side. But if you've got something relatively above-board like the kidnapping, feel free to get in touch."