The Hiro and the Goddesses - PSL for Hiro and Skuld

[manga_goddess_skuld]

Hey look, another portal to who knows where! There were a few things different about this one though.

For one thing voices were coming out of it in an odd mix of languages before resolving into the one Hiro knew best.

For another? It opened up right beside him, without any tech that he could see on his end that should have opened any such portal.

And if more weirdness was needed? It had gravity. Like a lot of it. He and much of the stuff around him was being pulled towards the center of it.

As to the voices coming out of it:

"You big baka! Mitaru at this mess! Everyone knows you can't make a mon to Yggdrasil with those calculations! That's not a bridge mandala! It's a summoning portal!" A youngish sounding female voice was screaming. "Idiot! Baka!"

An angry older voice, this one clearly belonging to an adult woman was screaming back. "Well maybe if the paper with all the calculations wasn't covered in ice cream I could read it!"

The voices grew louder, or rather, thanks to the increasing gravity, he was pulled closer.

"Maybe if you'd stop making your weirdo medicines and testing them on yourself all the time you could actually read basic Ndiminesional math!" the first voice accused

"Oho?" The second asked, almost purring now, all trace of anger seemingly gone. "Then who should I test it on I suppose? You, dear little sist... OW!" That would be when the first large item made it through. "What in the OW! It's raining... supplies of some sort!"

"I told you it's a summoning!" the first voice called, frantic. "Quick, erase the summoning sigil from the northwest sector."

"If I knew which one was the summoning sigil I wouldn't have used it!" the woman protested as he was falling into the portal.

"How did you ever get your license?" The younger one demanded. "It's this one here!" She started scrubbing at it furiously with the stick end of what looked like a comically large mallet.

Because now he could see the pair on the ground below him. The rapidly approaching ground. The woman was floating above some huge complicated design actually etched into the stone courtyard of some sort of Japanese temple. Her white hair was dancing weightless in the air around her.

The girl, on the other hand was firmly on the ground, fighting to obliterate one of the many complicated symbols, focused and frustrated, her long black hair hanging limp as an odd shaped robot and what looked like a small child tried to help her. "OH FOR GODDESS SAKE!" she finally yelled. "BACK!"

The woman floated up higher, the robot and the child rushed back as the teenager pulled what looked like one of those odd game balls with the wires out... of her shirt.... and threw it on the ground. The ground he was still approaching, though his fall was slowing.

There was a loud explosion that blew him back up several feet before letting him resume falling. More than half of the complicated circle and its symbols had been replaced with a smoking crater. The teenager looked more than a little worse for the wear standing right at the edge of it. She opened her mouth to speak, or cough when the woman finally looked up.

"INCOMING!" the woman said, seeing him falling at them with the last few of his belongings. "Wait, why is he falling as slowly as the book is?"

"SCIENCE!" the teen shouted in frustration. "SAVE HIM!"

"Yeah yeah," the woman said. "On it," she muttered, flying up to meet him, wings coming out of her back, one pure white, one jet black. And as she got closer he'd see that her face, chest, and clothes, had "Idiot!" written all over it in various odd typefaces. Usually with outlines, sometimes with drop shadows.

Comments

[baymaxing]

Oh....okay....

[That just sounded like the guy got flustered around her. Maybe because he liked her. But, well, again it isn't like Hiro is an expert. So instead he just raises an eyebrow when she just casually throws the torch like that.]

Depends on what you still need to do?

[manga_goddess_skuld]

"Attach one end of the cables to Baymax's charging ports and one end to Banpei's power output line."

[baymaxing]

That's it? Alright! You're almost good to go, Baymax!

[Hiro grins, petting Baymax's arm. The robot just tries to say something about hugs. Hiro sighs, facepalming before glancing to her. He holds out his hand, meaning to take the cord to attach to his robot.]

I'll hook up Baymax.

[manga_goddess_skuld]

She nodded and handed him the cables, then shed her heavy gloves and shoved her goggles back down. She slid aside a panel on the back of Banpei's head and attached the other side of the cables to one screw like post that protruded.

"I'll recharge Banpei after Baymax is good to go, should take an hour or two depending on Baymax's battery capacity."

[baymaxing]

[Hiro takes the offered cables, shifting to plug it into Baymax on his end at least. This much at least, he could figure helping with. Even if he wasn't sure about how he might help with the summoning thing, reversing it to take him back home with Baymax once he was charged.]

Alright. So while he charges up, we can work on how to fix things to get Baymax and I back home, right? Works for me.

[manga_goddess_skuld]

She laughed. "That eager to be gone?"

[baymaxing]

Hey, I just don't want my aunt calling up my friends and the police and all to try find me if she sees I'm gone.

[Otherwise he might be way more curious about all this. About the robots and tech here and everything. He's not sure how long it has been, if time might work differently between here and back home. Let alone how long it might take them to figure reversing things to get him and Baymax back.]

[manga_goddess_skuld]

"You do know time works differently on different planes, yes?" she asked, head tilted on thought. "Worrying and rushing might not help or matter?"

[baymaxing]

In theory, it could. I'm just hoping it doesn't mean more time has passed back home and my aunt isn't freaking out. That's all.

[He would also say Tadashi, but well. His brother wasn't around anymore. Still, Hiro tries to focus on the task at hand, wanting to be useful, feel like he was at least doing something.]

[manga_goddess_skuld]

She rummaged through her stuff and pulled out a white board and a pen. She wrote on the board in Japanese and pointed to each of the things she wrote as she spoke. One said faster, one said equal and one said slower.

"The way I see it, there are three possibilities. Time in your world is moving faster than time here, in which case you've already been here long enough to worry people." She found a pointer and smacked the middle option. "Time moves the same in which case, yes, moving faster is idea." Then the third. "Or time moves slower there and you could spend all day here and not be missed there." She considered. "There are the extremes then, on the faster side, years could have already passed or more. On the slower side, the effect could be as if time has paused there. I can look it up opf course, but the calculations to do that are more than half the calculations to get you home, so we wouldn't really know soon enough to make any notable difference. And even if time moves the same, that is a one in three chance even of things were even thirds, that how long you stay here matters to your friends and family back home, in a practical way."

She then drew a long line from one end of the board to the other and drew a dot in the center. "The thing is though, it isn't a 33.3% chance because it isn't three options. The times being synchronous is a single point on the line. Off by even a second either way is to one of the sides. On the time moves slower there than here scale, we have a range from time being stopped there to time being a fraction of a millisecond slower there than here. Depending on how fine you want to get you can actually calculate all the total number of possibilities in about a minute to a minute and a half but that doesn't get us any closer to actually knowing where on the scale it falls, even of we knew it was this side. So for functional purposes the scale is practically infinite."

She tapped on the other side of the dot. "On this side, we have a scale that starts at a fraction of a millisecond faster than time here, however there is no end cap for the extreme end as we do not know the finite life span of your plane. So while the other was practically infinite on a functional level, this side is potentially infinite. In all that,. the chance that time is moving at a 1:1 ratio is so minimal that it doesn't much bear worrying about!" she gave him a bright smile. That was... oddly her version of a pep talk to cheer him up.

[baymaxing]

W-wait, years? Oh no. Nope, that can't happen! Aunt Cass would kill me! And I have to finish university. The Professor would be furious too!

[Not to mention the panic his friends would be in. He'd really rather not think about going back and finding out that years had passed on their end back home. He would hope it was more the slower option, really. Or equal. He could probably get away with not being missed for a while if he had to, with Cass workin and such. And his usually being out at university or studying in his room.]

I think I'd prefer the slower.

[manga_goddess_skuld]

She nodded. "Me too. But the whole point is that it doesn't matter what you want or how much you freak out. Or rather, it is statistically unlikely to make any meaningful difference. SO! You might as well enjoy yourself while you're here, right?"

[baymaxing]

I guess.....and if we're going to take a bit to figure this anyway, with Baymax charging for a while.

[He just really doesn't want to deal with being grounded because of this, or worse. Still, it isn't like he would be sure how to explain something like this to Aunt Cass. Still for now he just tries to focus on what he can do for the time being.]

[manga_goddess_skuld]

She nodded. "There you go then. Now. Before I can crunch the kind of numbers we'll need to be working with, I need ice cream. So you, me, Sentaro, we'll head out to the ice cream parlour, get a snack, when we get back, I'll charge up Banpei and we can start trying to decode what my sister did to drag you here in the first place."

[baymaxing]

Huh? Ice cream?

[He isn't complaining. He is just confused how she went from figuring this with Baymax and the portals to....ice cream. Still it isn't like he can talk, given his sweet tooth. His love of gummi bears especially. Hiro gives a shrug before managing a smile.]

Yeah, okay. Sounds like a plan.

[manga_goddess_skuld]

She grinned brightly. "c'mon, let's go see in Sentaro is up for joining us!" She bounced to her feet and offered him her hand.

[baymaxing]

Sure.

[Since the guy had had a bit now, he was hopefully up for it and maybe had calmed down in not seeming so mad at Hiro? Well, they'd find out soon enough. Hiro takes the offered hand and follows her out to the lounge area.]

[manga_goddess_skuld]

Holding his hand and not thinking anything of it, since she had offered it to help him step over the piles of junk on the floor, she headed for a room that had a sign that said "Belldandy's Tea Room." Urd was gone, but Sentaro was sitting at the low table drinking tea with a young man in his twenties or so. The man took one look at Skuld and Hiro's hands, seemed startled, then started to slowly inch back away from the table. And the impending potential explosion.

Sentaro looked to see what Keiichi had been looking st. First he saw Skuld, and his face lit up. Then he saw Hiro and it darkened, then he saw their hands and he looked hurt and furious.

Skuld, however, seemed oblivious. "If you're up to it, Sentaro, I thought the three of us could go get ice cream while we wait for his robot to charge up."

Sentaro looked like he was fighting a war in his own head, then stood. "Fine. Skuld, if you loan him your bike, you can ride double with me."

"Sure," she said happily, then glanced back at Hiro. "That is, can you ride a bike?"

[baymaxing]

[A tea room? Well, he knew about tea ceremonies. Basics, at least. He still blinks at the stranger though, then glances to Sentaro, before following the other's gaze and releasing Skuld's hand, rubbing the back of his neck as he gives a nod.]

Uh, yeah. Yeah, I can ride.

[Tadashi had taught him. Years ago now. And he had no problem letting Sentaro ride with her, given this really, really wasn't any of his business or anything. And he didn't intend to make the guy think otherwise.]

[manga_goddess_skuld]

"Great!" Skuld said, clapping her hands. "I was going to add a gyroscopic stabilizer and outrigger wheels to my bike, but I got out voted on that," she said a bit sheepishly. "Besides, I think bikes are fun just the way they are now. And you should see Sentaro do tricks, he's the best!"

Sentaro flushed a bit and darted forward to grab her now free hand. "Shall we then?"

[baymaxing]

A stablizer? So, something basically like training wheels so you don't fall off?

[Something like that could be useful? He's less sure about adding the wheels but. Well, it sounds like her bike is normal so he should be fine? Probably. Thus he gives a nod, not stopping Sentaro from approaching and taking her hand.]

Sure. I'm guessing the bikes are outside? The garage or something?

[manga_goddess_skuld]

She glared at Hiro for a second then with a huff stalked out past both boys. Sentaro bit the inside of his cheek. He could warn the other boy.... or he could just... not.

"Ah... Best not to mention training wheels to Skuld," Keiichi suggested.

[baymaxing]

Er, do I want to ask.....?

[Maybe she had a bad experience in falling off when she was still learning to ride? Hiro remembers his own initial panic when Tadashi let go of the bike to encourage him to ride on his own. Tadashi had done all of that, been both his brother and father type figure given their parents deaths. Still, it meant that Hiro shouldn't have any problems riding with them to get ice cream at least.]

[manga_goddess_skuld]

"Probably not," Keiichi said.

"Ask what?" Skuld asked, popping her head back in. "Are we going for ice cream or not?"

[baymaxing]

Ask about why training wheels are a no no. But yeah, course we're going for ice cream!

[He grins, grabbing the other bike and shoving one of the helmets on his head. Tadashi had kept at him about that sort of thing after all and well. Habit and all that. Still, Hiro was keen for the ice cream, so if he isn't supposed to know about whatever happened with the training wheels, that was fine with him. He pauses then, as he reaches and finds some cash in his hoodie pocket.]

But uh. I don't suppose the ice cream place will take my money?