Room 407, backdated to Monday evening

[dude_its_jude]

"No, dude, I was naked."

"With two girls? Dude! You're on!"

"No, no, no! It wasn't - dude - no - I was a cat! And then I wasn't! And it wasn't cool, 'cause I was . . . you know. Happy."

"Dude"Jonesy, I need help

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[the_merriest]

Rikku hopped up to grab both the items, with a quick warning of "They're not fun ones, sorry. Oh. Maybe they are? Dunno. Probably not, though. Okay. This first."

She handed him a metal arm brace. "It's the important one, 'cause it's totally gonna keep you in one piece. It's also ..." She smiled, trying to find the right words. "... It's the best damn armor I've ever made. We didn't have anything this good going up against Sin."

[dude_its_jude]

Jude held it carefully, his eyes widening a little in respect.

". . . whoa. Cool." He turned it over, inspecting it. "You made this? For me?"

[the_merriest]

Rikku smiled back, relieved that he seemed to think it was okay. "Oh! Not the - I didn't sit and put the metal together or anything. I had to get a template from O'aka, 'cause he charges extra but you get an extra upgradeable slot. I burned in all of the extras on it. You've got ..." She screwed her face up, thinking. "I could give you the technical terms, but I think you'd probably just get lost. Uh, no offense, I'm just talking shop. The important thing is: you've got a big invisible wall up - two actually, one magical and one physical - and your armor knows how to fix it if you get hit by one of the weird 'now you can't see for five minutes' effects. And if something bad happens to me, it can fix that, too."

[dude_its_jude]

"Is that, um, going to happen a lot?" Jude asked uncertainly.

[the_merriest]

Rikku laughed and shook her head. "Not even. Most of the things we'll see I can probably take out in a single hit. You can just hang back and watch me go. But if something got in a lucky shot and I passed out or whatever, I don't want you panicking and trying to find the right bottle and ... yeah. This is a just-in-case. Okay?"

[dude_its_jude]

Jude was getting a little wild-eyed.

". . . okay."

[the_merriest]

"It's okay! It's seriously, seriously okay. I promise. It won't happen, and if it did, your armor would pull out a bottle and you'd throw it on me and I'd dust myself off and go 'Sorry to worry you' and I'd be totally fine." She took a deep breath. "I wouldn't be bringing you along if I thought this was dangerous. I mean it. I know I'll be okay because I'm gonna be standing between you and anything even slightly dangerous, and I'm scarier than they are. If I didn't believe that, we wouldn't be going fiend-hunting."

[dude_its_jude]

It was becoming Jude's new favourite word. But it was more confident this time.

"Okay."

[the_merriest]

Rikku smiled back. "Okay."

And pulled out the second item. "And this is your slightly-unconventional weapon: blitzball, plus some special modifications by yours truly." She handed him a blue-and-silver ball with spikes on it. "You didn't seem like the sword type, and claws mean you gotta get real close. Blitzballs you can just whip at fiends' heads and knock 'em out. Wakka was so great at that."

[dude_its_jude]

Jude inspected it. "Baseball o' doom. Awesome. I can totally deal with this."

He tentatively poked a spike. "Uh, fiends . . . I have to like, k-kill those, right?"

[the_merriest]

"Nope!" Rikku said cheerfully. "First of all, they're already dead and they're kinda not real. Secondly, I'm doing the non-killing here. And most importantly: yours is set up with a sleepstrike. You clock somebody with that? They're going down for a nap."

She gave him a lopsided grin. "Never say that I don't know my customer base."

[dude_its_jude]

Jude looked relieved. "Thanks."

[the_merriest]

Rikku leaned in for a light kiss. "It's okay. I know you're not into the killing thing. I mean, I get that, and it's totally cool. I just needed you to have a weapon 'cause you can't put Evasion on armor." She waved vaguely. "The ball can dodge for you. I used one of my teleport spheres on it."

"And you don't have to do anything, just stand there and hang out while I do what I do, okay? But I figured, since I had room for it, sleepstrike was good. Just in case you needed a weapon, you know? Bonk things in the head, they take a nap, you run away, they wake up safe and sound."

[dude_its_jude]

"I totally don't understand like half of that," Jude admitted. "But I trust you. And . . . yeah. I don't want to hurt anything."

[the_merriest]

Rikku nodded. "I understand. It's okay. I, uh. I know this isn't your kinda thing at all. It really ... it means a lot to me that you're coming along anyway. I wanted -- I wanted to make sure that you'd be okay. Not just safe, but okay."

[dude_its_jude]

Jude smiled, tugging her down next to him. "I want to come with you. You told your dad about me yet?"