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[14thcommander]

It's Hange, Hange, Hange! Were you looking for me? I'll get back to you posthaste. Or when it's convenient.

[ communicator & actionspam it's all good ]

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[ninefox]

She's not wrong. He flicks the golden wings at the shoulder of his uniform.

"I'm a general. And I don't lose. No matter how many no-win scenarios they threw me at. Not since I was a mud-covered corporal dealing with someone else's shit-for-stars orders. In four hundred years as a ghost on a leash, I didn't lose. I know what the enemy is going to do before he does it. And all the best psych surgeons in the world couldn't tease the talent out of me, so they had to make do with a madman."

[14thcommander]

It must be said, her first thought is I wish we'd had you.

"You don't come across like a madman."

Compatriots and enemies alike called Hange crazy.

[ninefox]

He smiles with all his teeth.

"Everyone wishes they had me." It's not anything actually psychic, but he is very, very good at guessing, and he's seen that thought before. In the jawline, in the rhythm of breath, in the eyebrows.

"And I'm well trained enough that I almost never seem mad unless I intend to." Almost.

[14thcommander]

Wow. "Well, it's just a wish. I can't seriously wish the problems of my world on anyone if they have the good luck not to have to deal with them."

Hange doesn't want to win the current war, anyway. She wants to avert it.

"That would do as a motivator to keep someone around, though..."

The big, obvious problem here is, if your one-hit-killer despises you, as he must, given these anecdotes, and he wins every war you throw him at, isn't it only a matter of time til he turns his one-hit-kill sights on you?

[ninefox]

"That's why it was important to stay mad. I didn't commit the massacre at Hellspin Fortress because I had a plan. I'm just crazy. All good weapons are dangerous. No risk, no reward. Give the attack dog enough meat and it'll be fine."

Enough war.

"And Kujen never really imagined anyone else could out-think him anyway."

[14thcommander]

So, either painfully sane or productively mad. That's respectable.

"Did you succeed and then die? Or did you die in the middle of the campaign?"

Of all the wars to possibly lose, he couldn't be looked down on for losing a one-man war against a nation that spans more than one planet.

[ninefox]

"I died and then succeeded. Although it was more of a gamble than I'm making it sound," he admits.

[14thcommander]

Hange nods, then presses her palms together in thought.

"I wonder if Iris mentioned a particular thing to you..."

[ninefox]

"Not particularly enough for me to guess from that description," Jedao answers wryly.

[14thcommander]

"Alright." Hange tends to be very, very blunt, so she just plunges on in. "You remember titans. For a long time their origins were mysterious, but actually titans are transformed humans of a particular heritage - my heritage. I'm Eldian.

I'm telling you this because it's possible for me to be transformed into a titan as well. You could consider the transformation needing to be primed first, and then cued by a user. I'm possibly primed and all the transformation would take is the cue. I don't know that someone here could make the cue work, but I'm guessing probably, or that it might just happen because of the way things around here are. If that happens, I won't be able to stop the transformation or control myself once I'm transformed. I'll just start devouring humans. I need some people who are capable of stopping me if this happens. When I told Iris about this she mentioned you."

[ninefox]

His face folds with concern, but by the end he's smiling. He reaches over and squeezes her hand gently.

"I'd be honored," he tells her, with disconcerting sincerity.

[14thcommander]

Hange smiles back. This has been weighing on her mind; once it's planned for she'll be able to relax.

"Titans range between two meters to sixty meters tall. It's a vanishingly small chance I'll hit the large end of that spectrum - sixty meters was an outlier - but there's a decent chance I'd be ten to fifteen meters tall. Wait, do you know how long a meter is?"

[ninefox]

"Yeah," he says automatically, and then realizing the strangeness of the coincidence suddenly, "Yeah?" gesturing outward with his hands.

[14thcommander]

Don't get distracted. Don't get distracted. Hange's eye squints up.

"... That is extremely strange, have you thought about that?"

[ninefox]

At which point he does think about it.

"...well. Actually that'd be a yibao in high language, and a few centimeters short of a rit in Spharoi, which still held onto some low measurements. I didn't speak English before I came here, it just sort of - makes sense automatically? And I suppose lengths of approximately that size are useful for human activity."

Later, if they ever confirm that a yibao and a meter are exactly the same length, it will continue to be weird.

[14thcommander]

"You know what a centimeter is! That's very strange too! I know what a centimeter is!"

Hange holds her fingers apart. It's a centimeter, or thereabouts.

[ninefox]

"Well - sibibao, but that's just a hundredth of the bigger thing to, so -" Yeah. He's nodding. Yeah. That much.

[14thcommander]

"I want to find someone from another world and ask them if they know what a meter is," Hange says, and then shakes her head. Right. Back on track. Back on track.

"Anyway, there's a good chance I'd wind up about five times my height to twelve times my height now, and I'll pursue humans and try to eat them, so you have to be prepared to deal with that. Severing the Achilles tendon causes titans to fall, and severing the tendon of supraspinatus and the surrounding rotator cuff tendons will hinder using my arms, but you have to keep in mind those will regenerate quickly... I actually recommend controlled use of explosives at the nape."

[ninefox]

"I'm going to kill you with a sword," Jedao announces, sounding absolutely delighted.

"Speed? And you mentioned the low density - will that effect your strength, or only momentum?"

[14thcommander]

"You are not taking this seriously," Hange says, leveling a finger at his face. "And you better! Do you know how many humans titans have killed, Jedao? Going on foot against a titan is pretty much pure insanity! Use guns and explosives!"

[ninefox]

"Probably fewer humans than I have," he points out. "And I am taking it seriously!" he insists. "Oh - not a terrible Earth sword. A calendrical sword. And anyway if it happens on the ship, sufficient explosives would probably risk too much collateral."

He leans forward, booping his nose against her chiding finger.

"I promise to use some guns. How do they react when blinded?"

[14thcommander]

"Maybe so, but -" She boops his nose. She rolls with the boop. "But they're probably more directly dangerous than your scrap of a flesh body. The scale, you see - decreased density won't have discernible impact on my strength - anyway titans do use sight to hunt humans at close range, so blinding will help, but the eyes will regenerate too. Your average titan can regrow its head in about two minutes and keep on trucking so be careful. What's a calendrical sword?"

[ninefox]

"I'll show you. Talk to me about speed," he says again, because that's where the real tactical edge comes in, maneuvering and out-maneuvering.

He pulls what looks like an empty hilt from his belt, a beautiful swept basket hilt, with scrollwork engraving on the grip and pommel. He angles it carefully away from both of them, and then ignites the blade, a vivid sweep of orange light, tiny numbers flowing in the center of the beam.

"Don't touch, it slices through living tissue like it's nothing, but it won't damage the barge itself. And -" he flicks it into lance mode: the beam leaps forward, trebling in length until it his the wall and stops, a silent gleaming barrier across the room.

[14thcommander]

“Speed is hard to describe because it can be so variable.”

Hange studies the blade of light with deep interest - it reminds her of Luke’s lightsaber, and lets out a low, impressed whistle at the lance length.

“Does it weigh anything?” Ah, made of pure light, it must be so nice to handle. She wouldn’t want Jedao’s world’s problems, but the weaponry, wow!

“I think our best option, in this case, might be to try you out in the enclosure against a titan or two. If we’re really lucky, I’d transform with arms and legs so spindly I wouldn’t be able to move at all.” A deformity she’s familiar with. “But we can’t count on that. I might wind up an aberrant type, as well. An aberrant type titan displays unusual behavior, the most dangerous being more intelligence than usual. Your big advantage is that when transformed, I’ll probably be about as dumb as a brick, and incapable of planning or strategizing whatsoever. Aberrant types can be speedier than usual, demonstrate more endurance, be smarter, active during night when usually they need sunlight to move... it varies.”

[ninefox]

"Weight no, but there's a small amount of inertia."

Jedao drums his fingers. on the table.

"One of my strengths," he tells her, contemplatively, "Is a slightly uncanny ability to predict my opponents. But I don't know how well it would hold for creatures so far from human. Start with dumb ones and work my way up?"