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There's an interesting little group making their way toward the Cooper farm. It consists of three smallish dragons and what looks like an enormous ball of light.

No one's said much on the way back. For Rachel, it's out of frustration. They took it down and that's a victory, but they didn't get the father, the guy that started the whole thing, and that's making her tack it down as a failure.

But she'll mention that when they land.

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These recent fights with Tobias leave her more worn and tired than any battle. When he flies off (back to the city, back to the destroyed cathedral to see what he can find, maybe just for lunch), Rachel watches until his wings are out of sight.

Taking a deep breath, she runs both hands through her hair and turns to the farm house. She still needs to tell Lucy and now she wouldn't mind some fruit either.

On her way back out is when she notices the robot, with a bowl of fruit salad in one hand and a fork in the other. Rachel stops in her tracks and looks at it, obviously considering the man to be the least important part of the image. If she were back on her world, this would probably be some sort of art installation piece.

Here? There's not a lot of 'probably' that actually works out.

She appears on his blind side, but he's looking around periodically. Neil doesn't like to be unaware of his surroundings.

He raises a gloved hand and waves, in that understated hello-stranger way, then stands up and walks down the incline of the robot's leg. It's pretty steep, but he only stumbles once, and arrives on the ground in one piece and on his feet a few seconds later.

Hooray for him.

Rachel's hands are full, so she just nods a greeting, still mostly eyeing the robot. And the robot, even, gets a gesture with the fork.

"What is it?"

"It's a mobile suit. My mobile suit."

Neil glances back up at it, not bothering to hide the fond smile.

"It's usually less full of holes. A friend of mine here is working on that."

Rachel arches a brow and looks up at the robot - the suit? - again.

"...you ride around in it?"

"When it's working, yeah."

"Doing what?"

If it's just a really complex art installation piece, she'd be a little disappointed in the Shatter world.

He raises his eyebrows (one of which is hidden by the eyepatch).

Soft: "It's a military vehicle."

Well, then. At least she isn't disappointed.

Then again, and perhaps encouragingly for the tone Neil just used, Rachel doesn't look at the robot with any sort of invested interest. Just curiosity. Because... well, what does she need machines for?

"Huh."

"They're pretty common where I come from, but nobody around here's heard of them."

"Yeah, that's pretty standard," Rachel replies with a shrug. She's still looking a little thoughtfully at the robot, but by the time she's speared a grape in her bowl, her attention's on the man instead. "It's kind of rare for anyone to be from your specific version of home."

Not really rare, but kind of.

"So I gather. You're a bring-in, too, then?"

Rachel nods. "Also standard."

So far as she knows, it's just Lucy that's native.

"The way I hear it, there's not many left from before... whatever."

It's easy to see that the thought troubles him.

Rachel shrugs again. This doesn't concern her much. There were worse worlds to be thrown to.

She pops a grape in her mouth and points back at the house she'd come from. "Lucy would be able to tell you something about it. It's her house."

"Yeah?"

He follows the gesture, interested.

Without thinking: "Her gravestones, too?"

Rachel arches a brow, obviously surprised. "Gravestones?"

"...I probably shouldn't..."

Neil looks mildly embarrassed.

"I was walking around and I saw them. They're over that way--" A nod to someplace presumably on the other side of the house. "A pair of boulders with names carved into them. No dates, but they're new. A year or two."

He shrugs.

"None of my business either way, I guess."

Rachel's eyes narrow slightly. "Probably not," she replies bluntly.

She has no idea what the gravestones are or who they're for, but if they're Lucy's, it's in her personal opinion that this guy shouldn't be asking questions about them.

Nodding toward the house again, Rachel spears a bit of melon on her fork. "Lucy's usually in the kitchen, or out by the bunker. She can give you the history on things," sort of, if she feels like talking, "but if you want to know about what's going on right now, talk to Mel."

"Thank you. I'll remember that."

And now that he's single-handedly destroyed the conversation--

Something catches his attention; he glances up, past Rachel, at the corner of the bunker.

A few seconds later, the soft, mechanical click-click sounds again; a few seconds after that, a round orange thing bounces into view. It's spherical, plastic, and a little smaller than a basketball.

"Hello! Hello!"

Neil grins.

The way his eyes travel, Rachel's immediate thought is that it's a trap, that he's trying to get her to look away so he can attack.

She may or may not be still hopped up from the last battle - oh, and the thing with the cathedral, too.

Of course, then whatever it is shouts and Rachel turns sharply and stares.

"Haro! I was wondering where you'd run off to."

He crouches down to get on the thing's level and holds out his arms, into which it gleefully hops.

Warning: toxic levels of cute detected.

"Sorry," he adds, looking back up at Rachel. "This is Haro, my copilot."

When he stands back up with the robot tucked under his left arm, he offers her a hand. (He's wearing plain brown gloves.)

"My name's Neil."

More robots. Weird.

(but even Rachel isn't immune to the powers of cute. she may be smiling just a little bit.)

"Rachel," she replies, reaching for his hand just a moment too late. Her grip is strong but not overbearing, and she only holds on for a second before releasing him. "So you have robots piloting robots?"

"Yeah."

Haro rotates until its two little red eyes are facing Rachel. They blink on and off in a regular pattern as it speaks. "Nice to meet you! Nice to meet you!"

"He says everything twice," Neil explains, a little apologetically. "I think it's a programming quirk. There aren't many like him in the world-- my world-- so it's a little hard to tell."

Rachel nods, looking at once unnerved and amused at the little thing. She doesn't have much experience with robots, just the Chee androids, so she's not exactly sure how she's supposed to treat it.

Other than to repeat it, anyway.

"Nice to meet you, too."