On the SexStation, Kai's eyebrows slowly rose as Sakura's diatribe went on and he couldn't help but be impressed by the depth of her vocabulary, though it didn't seem like any of the other organi.....humans....could hear it. When she returned to the group and mentioned wanting to inspect Ammy's weapons, he glanced down at the gauntlet Ruby had designed for him and frowned, twisting his wrist to examine it. It was his, but it didn't quite feel like it fit him, somehow.....
Lifting his eyes again, he made a snap decision and carefully made his way over to where Sakura was still conversing with Ammy and Vieri, making a pointed effort to walk around the area Borock-bot was occupying and thus missing the concerned look Ruby shot him as he did so, and politely cleared his throat to get their attention.
"I.....sorry for interrupting, but I couldn't help but overhear you asking to take a look at some weapons. If that's the case, my friend and I-" - he jerked his head towards Ruby - "-recently acquired some new ones ourselves. I can't speak for her, but would you mind taking a look at mine? Something about it feels.....off, somehow..."
He pulled the sleeve of his coat up to fully expose it for Sakura's benefit and gave a sheepish grin to the other two, rubbing the back of his neck with his other hand.
Meanwhile, on the Network, Ruby's concerned glance at Kai was mirrored in the real world, but he had his back to her, apparently focusing on something in his hands and it went unnoticed. Fortunately for the state of her conversation with Asch and Borock-bot it amounted to little more than a quick flick of the eyes over Asch's shoulder, and so she didn't miss any of their reassurances to her and had to duck her face into the collar of her jacket to try and hide the faint dusting of pink colouring her cheeks at their kindness, though she was well aware that Asch would probably pick up on at least some of her embarrassment, and the flicker of excitement when they mentioned Gundams. Desperate to try and divert the conversation away from her own issues for the time being, she quickly latched on to Asch's last statement.
"W-well, if you'd like me to help I'd be happy to, if I can."
Crossing her legs under the table she schooled her expression and adopted what she liked to call "Weiss Lecture Pose #3", arms folded across her chest with one hand raised and a finger pointing upwards for emphasis. A brief pang of sadness and loneliness passed through her at the memory of her absent teammate/sister, but she shook it off quickly enough to try and replicate the sort of explanation her fellow Copy-Bot would've given.
"Now, since you're still new to all of this I think I should cover some basics-" - she paused briefly to shoot an apologetic look to Borock-bot, who could probably explain all of this far better than she ever could, and continued - "-...When I said you should work on your mental defenses....they've always been there, ever since you first woke up. Probably." She shook her head. "Sorry, I'm assuming way too much about you. Anyway.....you know about the Network now, so you can access your personal Net as well, though everyone I know refers to it as their 'headspace' instead, and rebuild it as you like...-" - she trailed off at the blank look Asch was giving her, and refused to acknowledge the amused smile Borock-bot was currently wearing. Her shoulders slumped in defeat before another thought occurred to her.
"You know....I think maybe just showing you would work better. Sorry if this feels weird for anyone, and sorry about this, Miss A.D.A!"
Closing her eyes in concentration for a moment, she brought up all of her defensive systems and pushed a little more of herself onto the Network. Almost immediately the air changed, becoming slightly lighter and bearing the faint scent of roses, while in the distance behind her a path started snaking out from the park that was the public space to end at the gates of what looked like a massive school complex, and shadowy forms began flitting between the trees on the edges of the park.
Kai startled briefly at the sudden change of atmosphere, looking up from whatever it was he doing as his eyes flashed electric yellow for a moment before calming down as he recognized the change to the Network. With the mental equivalent of a shrug he went back to his business, keeping a wary eye on the treeline.
Ruby turned in her seat to make sure everything had worked okay, and tilted her head slightly at the sight of the Academy building that represented everything she was. Maybe it was just the additional presences on the public space but it looked...almost hazy in places, like it hadn't quite managed to fully manifest. Turning back to her tablemates, she grinned.
"There y'go, that's my headspace. If I let you through the gates you'd leave the Public space and end up in here-" - she poked herself in the forehead with a thumb to illustrate - "and be able to see everything about me, if you knew where to look. Anyway....mental defenses come in two forms-" - here she held up a finger - "-the first is Passive Defenses, which are supposed to keep out anyone you don't want poking around in your head. For me, that's the building over there. The entire place is mine, and even if you managed to get through the gates and doors and whatever without being kicked out, you'd still need to know where to look to find anything important, and the second-" - she held up another finger and one of the shadows in the trees detached itself and darted to the table, revealing itself to be a large, wolf-like creature with a white mask. Ruby reached out with her unoccupied hand to scritch between its' ears and it leant into the touch, panting happily like some sort of monstrous pet - "is Active Defenses, which are controlled directly by you when you're awake and by a set of instructions you can make for them when you're not. These babies-" - she swapped her scritching for patting and the wolf-thing let out a satisfied huff - "-work to attack and force out anyone who gets past your Passive Defense, and they'll show up if you wind up fighting someone else in Cyberspace."
She exhaled and blushed again. "I know that's a lot to take in all at once and I'm not really good at explaining things properly....Um....any questions?"