The light of [[character:Tatenda Ferro|Tatenda]]'s monitor wrestled the only other light in the room for the temperature of the room's illumination. The numbers weren't adding up and it was well past his bedtime; more coffee was simply not going to help him. Maybe it was time that he gave this particular engineering problem a rest for the night.
A glance at the clock in the bottom right corner of the screen revealed that it was 02:27. He had to be up in roughly four hours to get ready for a meeting at eight o'clock. By all measures, it was time to lay off the stimulants and go to bed.
"I'm surprised you're still up."
The voice is both chillingly familiar and explains its own presence. No pokémon was going to ward off [[character:Jagdish Tsukinaka]], unless someone held a gun to its head - and as it were, if one had a gun, one would be infinitely better off aiming it at Jagdish directly.
Sure enough, a glance reveals that's exactly who's visiting, evidently having let himself in - probably by gesturing to Tatenda's companion pokémon to kindly open the balcony door through the glass pane after noticing that the light was still on.
The first sigh was meant for these stubborn calculations, which just won't do, what he wants. Then his head rises, long, black, only some millimetres thick dreads noiseless following the motion, when he turns his face towards the voice speaking to him - must be him, no one else was here.
A short glance to the pokémon that does not seem to know what to do with himself, as if nervous, knowing he isn't supposed to just open doors late at night. But a slight smirk on the dark man's face shows he is not really angry, but understands his decision.
Given the fact that there never was any decision to be made. Jagdish's will will always have to be followed. So he lifts himself from the chair after turning around with it, his dark brown eyes with their golden veining showing a fascinating structure focused at his visitor. "I must have known you'd visit me," he returns with a fine smile on his rather thin lips compared to the normally thicker ones of his people. "Pleasure to meet you again, Jagdish. It must be really urgent for you to visit me at this time."
A little gesture invites the guest to follow him to some very comfortable looking seats, while he turn on some indirect light along the back of the couch. "May I offer you something?"
"I'm still nocturnal, my friend," the unbidden visitor reveals with mild amusement. "I wouldn't have let myself in if you'd turned the light off, but... not to beat around the bush, I recently came into possession of something you might find interesting... and I'd be rather curious if you can figure out a counter for it, as it's stirred up a bit of a fuss with the Council." His right hand rises, revealing a few inches worth of a narrow, black cylinder, balanced on one end against the inside of Jagdish's thumb, near the other end between his index and ring finger. It tells Tatenda nothing - but a moment later, it's casually being thrown his way. "It's a weapon." And, sure enough, catching it, Tatenda can tell the ends of it apart and discover a mechanism to activate it... and a few cryptic settings to play with.
Not yet seated, Tatenda catches this strange device, still glancing at Jagdish, his look in parts sceptical, until his rather unusual eyes lead the way for his fingers to explore this thing in detail. As always his touch seems rather tender and caring, but still objective. His knowledge about mechanisms is shown, when he in fact does not yet activate it, until every part of it is carefully studied. "What is it for?", he asks in a low, warm voice that reminds of a velvet touch, just without the normal seductive intention other people would express with it.
"It's a whip," Jagdish informs him. "It has some interesting properties you might want to explore, though," he adds. "Though you're a bright lad, I have a hunch you have a theory about those already." Motion mostly silent, he shifts to half of a crouch, extending a delicate hand to scritch at the head of the Sneasel that's been trying hesitantly to get his attention.
Like always, when he does some physical 'work', Tatenda uses only one hand to wrap part of his braided hair around the rest at the back of his neck, restraining them from falling into his view and onto the thing he studies. To have better light he goes back to his desk, sitting down on his office chair and turning on the desk lamp. Still he does not activate the device, just look at it closely to get all the details. "A whip ...", he slowly replies, focused on what he's doing.
Then again he stands up, turning his back to his visitor and his companion to best not harm them, when pushing this one button that seems to be the activating one.
Abruptly, three wires unfurl from the inside of the device, falling against the floor like a listless artwork, a thin illumination emanating from them only barely visible in the light, a desaturated beige. Each wire looks to be approximately two metres long, but the glow is peculiar... and, given Jagdish's statement that this upset the Council, a creeping suspicion begins to occur Tatenda as to what might be causing it.
Motionless standing he looks at what was revealed from this thing now, but only his jaw starts to move, pressing his teeth together as if he tries to ease the upcoming tension that way. "Impossible," he whispers rather to himself than to anyone else in this room. One elegant sidestep later the desk lamp stops lighting up the scene and the slender body wrapped in comfortable loose clothes of dark turquoise and violet.
A part of him, the researcher, wins the inner fight and the almost black thumb moves slightly to manipulate the device's settings.
Sure enough, the sheen changes to a dim red. And confirming that gut feeling prompts his pokémon companion to suddenly look alert and crowd subtly closer to Jagdish's left leg, keeping an attentive eye on those three lines.
Tatenda swallows slightly, his throat much too dry to really do so, after looking back to [[pokémon:Barafai]]. "I'm sorry, Barafu ..." Another fine movement of his fingers to change settings, trying to find the position his campanion might like better.
"Who made this?" His eyes focusing on Jagdish, more or less looking over his own shoulder to stand between the weapon and the alerted pokémon.
The wires flicker to green and Barafai's attention remains, but becomes considerably less tense. It looks like the pokémon's interest is piqued, but it doesn't seem to be alarmed any more.
"A man by the name [[character:Dakarai N'Sehla]]," Jagdish comments, the barest hint of derision in his tone, subtle and hard to detect. "He hasn't quoted any collaborators. Doesn't seem the type, either; not much of a team player." A hint of amusement tugs at the left corner of Jagdish's lips, as if there were a hidden joke to be found in those words that might be apparent if one gave it enough thought; but if it is, it's an in-joke.
For a moment Tatenda stands still, narrows his fine black brows and seems to think about that name. Something... no. "I see," he just comments, his focus again centred on this whip. "I never thought this might be possible," he mumbles more to himself, then gently moves the weapon, looking at the way the wires move. He deactivates it again and heads for another table, where some tools are scattered about, picking up some sort of tester to further investigate this weapon that obviously makes him nervous and unease.
"I assure you that makes two of us," Jagdish comments. "If you take it apart, please make sure you can put it back together; I still need it." The casual comment comes with a heavy-handed implication that the unfortunate circuiter who'd created this contraption was going to discover the pain it caused first hand; there certainly wasn't much leeway with one's interpretation to assume anything else. "For what it's worth," he continues, as if nothing morbid had skimmed past the conversation at all. "I've already cautiously prodded at its innards, with some... guidance from the maker..." - with that he means bitter commentary about design that he could have done without and struggled not to consider purest malice on Dakarai's part - "...and it seems the different energies are stored in some sort of crystal, each. The motion of the wires themselves temporarily increase the respective selected energy and it unloads to almost the exact same degree when it strikes its target. Quite clever. As far as I understand what I've seen, the opening and closing is mechanical, so the blasted contraption doesn't even need batteries."
Dark brown eyes, their filigree golden patterning almost glowing from that indirect light, look back to Jagdish and Tatenda narrows his brows again. "Energy crystals containing the essence of a pokémon's elemental powers, yes. But I never thought it would be possible to use this energy once accumulated in these crystals. I never found a way to do so." Again his look glides over this fascinating thing. "It's amazing ... and disturbing."
The words seem to give Jagdish some pause - or at the very least, his reaction isn't immediate. Fingers stroke across Barafai's short fur for a moment longer, then gently detach as he pushes back to a stand. "The crystal technology is familiar to you?" he asks, uncertain if he parsed that correctly.
The dark lips slowly curl into a lopsided smile, showing both: Amusement and tension. "I invented this technology," he then just reveals and lifts an eyebrow. "Thought you'd know that... since you brought this directly to me?"
The budding expression on Jagdish's reveals well before he's spoken a word in response that he had no idea - a borderline malevolent curiosity infects him, balanced out carefully by practised restraint. He's aware that the component parts of the weapon are not malicious in themselves - lest he'd have to judge the makers of any plastic casing ever - but the emotional reaction is still there, of course. No matter, it would fade. He certainly wasn't going to start letting it taint his relationship with Tatenda. "No," he says, conversationally. "As I said, I thought you might be able to help me with a means to counter it, or anything like it that might be made in future." A pause. "Though if you're already intimately familiar with part of the machinery, then I suppose we have a good chance that you can figure something out, don't we?" There's a very slight hint of something in the tone of his voice that doesn't leave Tatenda quite at ease.
The dark eyes widen visibly for a second and Tatenda gulps, his glance fleeing the other eyes. "Ehm... ehm... I-I see... well... uhm... yes, I... - I will see, what I can... do and... uhm... of course."
With the fingers of his right hand idly playing with the edge of his left sleeve, Jagdish inclines his head, vague traces of something resembling an apology mixing into the predatory air, but not quite managing to win the battle of sovereignity over his body language entirely. "I'm laying little to no blame for this on you, Tatenda," he says, slowly, with calculated caution. "You are not responsible for Dakarai's actions. As much as you may be a recent link in the technological basis for the device, its history has deep roots that go all the way back to the discovery of copper," he reasons, though he still doesn't seem to be able to quite shake the air of [[:Arbiter]] that Tatenda knows to be deeply wary of - and he sounds a little like he's trying to convince chiefly himself, though that might just be Tatenda's jaded nervousness talking. "You have nothing to fear from me," Jagdish assures, tone still deliberately steady and smooth, staring across at Tatenda as if there were nothing else in the room at all.
Nervously Tatenda turns the weapon in his fine trembling fingers around and around and tries to put up a calm smile. "Oh, that's ... that's really relieving!" Some sort of brief attempt to laugh about the situation occurs, but he stops it immediately, when he realises the amount of tension that can be heard from it.
For a moment he clears his throat, takes a deeper breath and tries to focus on his new and very urgent task. "Maybe... - maybe something that absorbs this energy and pulls it towards other energy crystals to store it there and... hmmm..."
"There's no rush," Jagdish comments. "Just consider it an interesting puzzle to grapple with in your spare time," he says, quietly stepping toward Tatenda until he's a few inches behind him and slightly to his left, placing a warm palm against his back between his shoulderblades, a gesture no doubt meant to be soothing, but sudden in its application from the researcher's perspective.
"Yes, it... ehm... - it will distract me from this project, where I'm actually stuck." Tatenda nods slightly, the fine motion of his head pointing out a wall of numbers at his screen on the desk. But the sudden touch lets him gasp and freeze for a brief moment, his head turns sidewards, so his eyes can look back over his shoulder to this forever young man, who manages to make him this nervous just because he is Jagdish. The tiny hair in his neck standing on end, but hidden beneath the mass of thin braids.
Two fingers of the hand rested against Tatenda's back let their fingertips knead against his spine in a twin set of gentle motions, one strand of the braided hair trapped under that palm, slid in between ring and middle finger, the rest layered across it, forming a sharp visual border slanted past Jagdish's pale wrist. A moment later, he's bridged the remaining distance and slowly draped his left arm around Tatenda's chest nearly at height of his collar bone, grasping his right shoulder and giving it a squeeze. A curious expression searches Tatenda's face from a side-on perspective.
Such a striking distance of another body was rare in Tatenda's life - unless it is a pokémon or he has to work on something side by side with a co-worker. This kind of nearness was different - especially with this particular person.
So it is no wonder several feelings and emotions overrun him, making him shiver lightly, his slim but nonetheless visible muscles trembling from tension. This is no longer just nervous unease, but tickling sensation, which makes him insecure, not knowing how to react to this attempt of... well... which intention lies behind it?
Tatenda's lips form a thin line, but a light pink tongue tip shows for a brief moment to wet them, while his eyes try to read within the other's. "I... - I will do my best, I swear." His voice is low, nothing more than a whisper.
"Calm down," Jagdish comments, softly. "I'm not going to eat you," he promises with some amusement. Slowly, his hand drifts back down from the grip of Tatenda's shoulder, and fingertips rest against his chest for a moment in the most casual possible gesture. "Just close your eyes and breathe slowly. I don't know precisely what mental corner you've backed yourself into, but as I do know I'm partly responsible, I'd like to make sure you get back out of it. So will you do that for me?"
Tatenda knows Jagdish can feel his throbbing heart, which beats as if he had run several miles. Why does he feel like a legitimate focus of the Arbiter's anger, while he himself seems to be easy and tries to calm him down? He gulps again, nods slightly and follows the advices - at least tries to.
A deep breath, wilful relaxation... but a basic part of him stays nervous and... yes... downright fearful, which is not pointless, it never was.
The fingertips against Tatenda's chest rest motionless against his ribs a little longer, then detach completely. "Better," he says, the two syllables barely louder than a whisper. The palm of his left hand sets down against Tatenda's left shoulder as if in conscious attempt to mirror the earlier gesture, but it lingers only for a moment. "Are you calm now?" he asks, tone smooth foremost - and not quite communicating any particular emotion. Perhaps it's best that way, since it means there's no chance of a predatory undercurrent surfacing, either.
When he let go off him, Tatenda again takes a deep breath and tries to hide another shiver that runs down his whole spine to stay as some sort of slightly burning sensation at the tip of his coccyx constantly pulsating within his lower belly and crotch. And he just tries to ignore it, when he nods again.
Tatenda's nod becomes an anchor for Jagdish to purge the last of the undesired emotion out of his system, leaving him in a mostly neutral mood once more, curiosity overtaking anything else. He peels his hand off Tatenda's shoulder and takes a step to the side, putting more of himself into the field of the ex-gymleader's vision.
For a moment, he pauses, peering at Tatenda side-on, silently sorting through options in his mind. He could simply leave the device with Tatenda, he could take Tatenda up to Taqnateh to introduce him to the person who made it (though the chances Dakarai would simply be rude and refuse any helpful information seemed obscenely high), he could tell Tatenda more about the circumstances that ultimately put the device into Jagdish's hands... or he could give in to what he'd wanted to do while in visceral grip of a different mode entirely, now from the safety of complete lucidity and control. It was certainly an appealing thought - not in the least out of retribution or sadism, but simply because it made many things abruptly and unmistakably clear.
"Would you like to know what it's like?" he asks, right hand's thumb hooked against the edge of his trousers in idle posture, head slanted, expression light, leaving room for any and all ways to decline. "It's quite a unique form of pain, after all. Perhaps you're curious." The implication is two-fold. One is wholly obvious: Jagdish's idea of sharing knowledge on the nature of pain always involved its application, that was a fundamental truth. The other is a little more subtle: He knows. He's been through it. It begs the question who did him that particular 'favour', but it's really none of Tatenda's business. For all he knows, it could have been Dakarai shortly after losing his battle.
It feels cold, where Jagdish's hand laid just a second ago. The dark chest rises and sinks with a deep breath again and Tatenda finally opens his eyes again, staring into space for a moment. Then he blinks and his head turns to the side, facing his visitor again, his glance slowly gliding over his appearance, then finding back to his eyes. A long-ish period of silence.
"I... think so," the tall man answers slowly then, not fully sure it seems.
Jagdish's gaze lingers on Tatenda with the barest hint of bemused scepticism for a moment, then he rolls his shoulders lightly and raises his right hand, stretching his arm out infront of him, requesting the item back in a simple, wordless gesture, his stare faintly imbued with fondness and respect.
It seems as if the golden veining within the dark eyes lightens up a bit or at least gets more intense, right before Tatenda looks down to the weapon in his hand, which then is moved and slowly, but doubtlessly with a slight pressure put into Jagdish's hand.
Fingers gently close around it, then Jagdish lets the arm drop, posture casual still. His gaze travels through the roughly 'L' shaped room, assessing the opportunities; then he nods once, mostly to himself, walking across the carpet into the living room portion of the room, the broader space of the two orthogonal parts. With his left leg, he nudges the shallow table along the ground, crafting some more space between it and the couch, before gesturing with his free hand onto the ground before him, two digits indicating at a spot. "Don't worry, I won't get any blood over your carpet," Jagdish quips inappropriately, lips creasing in amusement.
Tatenda's glance follows Jagdish, watching him rearranging the living room, while his thoughts draw circles around what will happen next, leaving him a little bit disoriented when his visitor speaks again. He takes another deep breath, then starts to loosen some knots holding his top in shape and place.
The piece of cloth is left at the back of his office chair, folded once to look ordinary. Tatenda's left mouth corner lifts a little, trying to honour the humour, then he kneels down as if getting ready for a ritual. Maybe Jagdish remembers some of the scars yet slightly visible, which are forming a bizarre pattern throughout his whole body.
The dark skin seemed like such an alien canvas, forbidden by social convention, deeply woven into a past he had nothing to do with but rang of a cautionary tale of moral fibre that he was about to walk all over indiscriminately. Perhaps it was good Jagdish was so invisible in public and these moments were hidden from view - the predatory confidence with which he held himself, pale as a ghost as he was, young and inexperienced in life as he looked, would invite to all the wrong conclusions. There was neither venom nor lechery fueling him - just a twisted desire for a communication beyond words.
A deliberately timed flick of the wrist spills the three wires with a crimson tinge from the confines of device as if the gesture alone were responsible, his gaze lazily trailing after it for a moment, a distant part of him creasing his lips in admiration of the technology at his fingertips, however vile in effect. Then his attention is back on Tatenda and a disconcerting smile flowers onto his face. "Brace for it," he comments, far too lightly for the circumstance, as if he were making some fleeting, shallow joke - and a moment later those lashes swerve outward in a momentary flick, before reversing their motion abruptly as if alive with a spasm.
A sense of heat and burning without fire snaps against Tatenda's back, as if had struck him with thin poles of red-hot metal - briefly enough that no damage was done, but long enough for the nature of it to register to him. Of course, that was no more than an illusion, and on rational levels, that would be apparent to Tatenda - but it felt much more intense than anything that should have come from that whiplash, than it had the right to be. Jagdish hadn't struck him hard, but it felt like there had been significantly more power behind the whip's bite than the Arbiter had physical strength in those comparatively frail arms of his.
Air flows deeply into his lung, muscles visibly getting tense. Tatenda obviously braces for 'it', as if he knew too well about how to keep breathing. His hand had dragged his long, slim braids over his shoulder, their ends now curled up on the floor between his knees, while his head slightly sagged forward, but his chin not yet touching his chest.
But when the whip hits, he's not really prepared for this yet unknown sensation of real illusion... or illusionary reality... or... well, the last time was way too long ago to not let him gasp, teeth clenched tightly. But at least he does not scream... not yet.
Mercifully, the sensation is quick to fade, leaving only a laughable trace of a regular whiplash across his skin, a whisper only distantly reminding of the obscenely unnatural sensation from before.
A soft sound disturbs the tense silence, and wirey arms wrap around Jagdish's lower left leg near the knee, prompting an instinctive glance down from the Arbiter. Barafai's clung to the limb, eyes closed, posture a pleading, downcast one. The Sneasel wouldn't dare attack him - there was too much unspoken, instinctive affection it felt for Jagdish to allow for such behaviour - but it could and would plead with him. "It's all right, Barafai, we're not doing anything Tatenda doesn't agree with," Jagdish says, softly and sincerely, smiling lopsidedly, letting his free hand drop for a moment to touch it against the creature's head.
That seems to quieten Barafai, though it stays clung to the Arbiter's leg regardless, perhaps for some sliver of comfort, eyes tightly shut.
Motion ripples through Jagdish's form again, the hue of the three wires shifting to a vivid yellow, and with little delay between the transition and the motion, another lash at snaps against Tatenda's back, biting at his skin, jerking at muscle fibres and causing the hair on his arms to rise, creasing his skin with gooseflesh, leaving the cold, awkward, deeply unsettling sensation of a skindeep electric shock behind.
Knowing that Barafai really does care makes Tatenda smile a little. He will assure his companion later that he is well... - at least he hopes to be well then, since there is a tiny doubt gnawing at his mind, slowly growing. Had this really been such a good idea?
But with the next impact of intense energy he stops thinking again, his body heavily twitching downward, shivers running up and down his spine, while he just tries to breathe as normal as possible.
If Jagdish could read Tatenda's mind, he might bemusedly comment that of course it was worth it - there would be no marks coming from this so casual introduction to the weapon's feel, after all, and memory of pain was naturally fleeting. And this was telling Tatenda so much, plucking all that work out of the cotton wrapping of theory and converting it to a practical, tangible effect. Jagdish heaves an audible breath, letting the sensation against Tatenda's skin dim back down to its more regular twin ache - then another ripple of colour travels down the wires, turquoise displacing the yellow hue. A subjective instant later, a deeper chill still bites diagonally across Tatenda's tense skin, trailing across one shoulderblade in passing.
It is a little bit like someone emptying a bucket of ice cold water over his back and Tatenda gasped, unable to breath for some chilled through seconds - or just a brief moment like the blink of an eye? His hands no longer rest on his thighs, but directly on the floor, he himself bent over deeper than before. The deep black skin of his back seems to absorb the cold and heat up from the strike itself, as if the two reactions would more or less cancel each other in the end.
The three wires linger on the carpet after settling back down, while the skin of Tatenda's back thaws out of its imagined freeze, feeling like it's lightly creasing and curling. Then the light shimmer at the edge of Tatenda's vision extinguishes, and a slightly alien sound accompanies the wires' withdrawal. Before he can quite move enough to glance over his shoulder in curiosity, Jagdish's already cautiously freed his leg from Barafai's grasp and four fingers set down against Tatenda's right shoulder lightly and silently.
Still Tatenda needs a short moment to find back to himself after these intense sensations, while he realises more and more the effect his invention has and might have in the future. There's a strange mixture of pride and unease lingering inside of him, when he finally looks back over a still finely trembling shoulder, then closes eyes to take a deep breath.
His hand reaches out to gently pet his pokémon to ensure it that everything is okay with him. "No need to worry, Barafai. I'm sorry, if this shocked you," he also comments in a low, gentle voice. Finally he looks up to face Jagdish, but every word seems strange, when he tries to form a sentence, so he just pushes himself up from the ground again.
The steady voice prompts a subtle smile creeping onto Jagdish's face. The fingers against Tatenda's shoulder drift up along the smooth, black skin and curl against his shoulder, applying a light squeeze - then let go, allowing Tatenda tomove freely. "Interesting, isn't it?" he asks, in deliberate understatement.
If this touch by Jagdish adds to this strange feeling inside? Tatenda gulps lightly and tries to apply a half grin, but that is much harder than he thought. "Yes... interesting," he states, still short on words, obviously better used to only have Barafai around. He clears his throat. "So... uhm... I... - I'm supposed to work on something that defends against this weapon, am I not?" Yes, back to business, back to known terrain, maybe then this strange feeling stops distracting him from thinking.
Jagdish's stare lingers for a moment, trace of incredulousness in his expression, subtle but existent, as if he were questioning if Tatenda's change of subject was made in earnest. Then the moment passes and that sliver of tension leaves him - if Tatenda would rather deal with the topic in introspection, that was his prerogative, and given all their prior experience with each other, he doubts Tatenda would merely try to ignore it. The smile warms again. "That would be great," he confirms, emphasising the notion with a nod.
Tatenda's look clings to that whip as he slowly nods to the spoken words, then blinks to face Jagdish again. "It is... intense and... hm... not entirely painful, but... intense, yes," he tries to explain, what he felt, but then his eyes flee back to the metallic object again. "May I disassemble it? I need to know, how it really works. It's the part, which I never found out. I found a way to store the energy in these crystals, but I never found one to use it, to get it out in a intended, directed way."
Then he again faces the Arbiter. "What do you think about this particular weapon? About this technology?"
A soft chuckle spills from Jagdish. "Ask me again in a month," he comments, casually, a self-deprecating tinge in his tone. He could probably give an honest answer now, but he knew that he couldn't be sure that's what it was until he'd had enough time to distance himself from the visceral emotion Dakarai had induced with the reveal of that weapon, and it would be at least another two weeks before he'd rid himself of the useless urge to disintegrate the infernal thing. He breathes audibly once, then nods. "As long as you put it back together right, you can take it apart all you please."
At least Tatenda is able to smile again, when he watches and hears Jagdish chuckling. "Well... maybe I can reveal its secret and use the knowledge for good intentions." But it feels very strange, almost wrong, when he again takes this device from the Arbiter to keep it this time. He really has to look after it, so no-one else will find and use it.
"I assume you know that I'm working on weapons as well - but just to stop any usage of pokémon as weapons. ...also these should be weapons that defend people, not to just attack."
A brow arches lightly. "Of course," Jagdish observes. "That's why I came to you in the first place, after all. There aren't that many people to approach about pokémon-related weaponry on Sehto." A pause. "Or anywhere else, for that matter."
Now it was Tatenda's turn to chuckle. "Of course," he repeated, but not in an imitating way. "It's just... strange to see a weapon like this, using my most promising technique in the most unintended way." He sighs deeply. "I would understand, if you'd like to... hm... punish me for making it possible at all." A half grin in the end. "But at least it's one step forward to a... hm... intended usage of my invention."
Again he looks closely at the few details that are of interest for an addict like him. "Oh... by the way... should it be something like an armor for you or another human being or rather a pokémon or... well... a shield maybe?"
"The physical impact isn't the problem," Jagdish shakes his head. "An antidote," he suggests, instead. "I could run those wires across your skin and it'd still scramble your nerve endings. Whatever causes that can probably be countered in some way other than by simply physically blocking the strike itself, right?" There's a tinge of curiosity in his tone - he's no specialist and he knows it, after all, and he might be on the wrong track.
A sort of evil-ish smile enters Tatenda's face; a smile that is only known by a handful of people - if at all. "I'm relieved it won't be that simple," he comments and approaches a shelf to fetch a tiny crystal, which glows in fluctuating turquoise colours, to give it to Jagdish and let him take a look. "This is, what was my first successful transfer of a pokémon's energy into a crystal."
His glance finds to Bafarai with a warm smile. "I thought of something that is able to drag the used energy of a strike into another crystal in the defending device, which then uses the technology of the whip itself to strike back."
"If that's feasible and not counter-productive," Jagdish nods, calmly. There's a pause as he tilts his head - and abruptly changes the subject again. "You're feeling all right again?"
"Well, not entirely. It should let the attacker feel, what he wants to let his opponent feel. ...if that makes any sense. I still have to invent it, so that's just theoretical, of course." Tatenda moves his head from side to side in a yes-and-no manner. "If 'not like usually', but also 'not bad at all' means 'to feel all right again'... - yes."
The observation prompts a slow nod from the Arbiter - though whether it's as specific as to mean that the definition does encompass it, or if it's simply an acknowledgement that he's not in any lingering pain is hard to say... and irrelevant. Jagdish smiles, tilting his head the other way slightly. "Then perhaps I should leave you to your new puzzle," he comments. "When do you next have time for a chat, though? Proper time - not to discuss the contraption, just in general."
Dark fingers close around the small crystal again, then Tatenda's look finds the ceiling, when he tries to remember his appointments. "Uhm... let me take a look." He approaches the desk, places the whip on it and bends over the keyboard to look up some dates in his timetable.
"How about the day after tomorrow in the evening?"
"I'll pay you another visit then, if that's all right," Jagdish negotiates. Without a watch on him, he doesn't know how much of Tatenda's time he's just taken up, but at this time a night, no time is a good time, really - they can keep pleasantries for next time they meet and perhaps discuss some finer points of the whole context this is set in.
Dark, long fingers fly across the keaboard to add that new appointment to the timetable, then Tatenda stands up straight again and looks back to Jagdish, smiling and nodding. "All right. I should be around after seven PM. Would you like to have dinner then?" To place the tiny crystal back into it's place, he walks across the room to his shelf, then again looks at his visitor.
"If you ask like that, the answer is obviously 'yes'," Jagdish responds, a broad grin distorting his face.
{{tag>[raw]}}