2015-02-28 - One Night At Infinity
| Title: One Night At Infinity | |
|---|---|
| Summary: Haunted houses are great! Animatronics are better! Asimov's laws are kind of important. Oops. | |
| Who: Kuniko Saito, Kanade Minamino, Hibiki Houjou, Fuu Hououji, Lera Camry, Eri Shimanouchi | |
| Where: Infinity Academy - Haunted House | |
| OOC - IC Date: 31 May 2014 - 02/28/2015 | |
<Pose Tracker> Lingshen Chao [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
The Infinity Institute's big-ticket display this year is a haunted house! A spooky, fearsome display, amped up by the endless innovation of the Infinity Institute's seemingly endless willingness to indulge it's students' frenetic creativity. The drama club has taken center stage, of course, setting up a few chilling scenarios they've got people playing out throughout the tower - ranging from simple anime drama-but-there's-a-vampire to the genuinely creepy; the various chemistry clubs have put forth homebrewed concoctions that glow, smoke, smolder harmlessly, or eat through lead. The AV club is getting a workout with piping noises - footsteps from nowhere, spooky winds, jangling chains - throughout the building, and the Robot Construction Club...
Gave half the classes and clubs their very own animatronic monsters. Most are pretty obviously based on the movie monsters of yore - vampires with exaggerated widows' peaks and hooked noses, wolfmen in jeans and torn tatters of shirts, mummies... uh, mummies.
In the room for Grade 9, Class A, which Chao herself is in, which is rumored to have /its very own class ghost/ (probably not though) (probably), the class has set up in honor of this spooky rumor, with several girls dressed up as Yuki-Onna, kitsune (...they're not very spooky though??) and other Japanese spirits, the class a winding mesh of cardboard facades and banging cymbols from the girl who plays the drums. And at the end, their secret weapon: What appears to be the door is blocked by their designated animatronic, a leering, grinning bear-man, smashing down a fake cardboard door and forcing visitors to slip past to the real exit!
All in good fun...for now!
<Pose Tracker> Hibiki Houjou [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
It has been an incredibly fun festival so far - just an exhausting one on a few levels. For more than one reason, Hibiki Houjou's spirits are incredibly high, and it's showing in the enthusiasm with which she's thrown herself into the events. Being an unattached athlete helping out various sports clubs in a pinch, she's involved herself in half those clubs' events - and counting!
The music club, she's still avoiding like it offended her personally.
In any event, the various classes have each done their own thing - some spookier than others - and being between events, it's as good a time as any to check out her classmates' activities. She's got a towel around her shoulders, and is mopping at her brow as she walks with her best friend towards classroom 9A. "...seriously, though, you should have just told her she'd meet someone tall, dark, and handsome. It's the easy escape clause, and it's probably what she was looking for!....oh hey, they really pulled out the stops for this decor, didn't they?"
<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.
Earlier, Lera did her part! The Kaiju Battle put on by the Library Island Club was a smashing success, and thus Lera Camry has the warm glow of a job well done. She changed back into the blue blazer and skirt of the normal Infinity Institute uniform, and is patting it down as she checks out more of the haunted house -- this time as a guest, rather than a worker! The red-oranged hair girl walks into the room for class 9A and peers around for a moment; she was a few steps after Kanade and Hibiki, having come by herself.
She claps her hands together as she arrives. "This all looks great!" she calls out as she walks in. "I-I mean, very scary, especially that--"
She stares at the animatronic bear. Her expression goes from an apologetic, faked sort of scared into a more real one. Animatronic bears are so... so... creepy! She takes a step backward, eyes widening like saucers. "Um--that's... a bear. It's smiling at me?"
<Pose Tracker> Kanade Minamino [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Kanade sighed as she followed her friend. "But it's one of the most cliche predictions. I wanted to an accurate reading." Kanade had spent a week reading and trying to understand the mean of Tarot cards. She had been certain she had it down to a science and could put that knowledge to good use...it just on the spot she found it hard to remember which direction the Tarot card should be facing to interpret the proper meaning. And she just had a mental block on what meaning the Lovers and Hanged Man card were....maybe she should have just stuck to reading tea leaves.
Kanade glanced around the classroom, taking in the spooky atmosphere. "They seemed to put a lot of work here huh?" The way some of the creatures were smiling at her was creepy, not that she admit it aloud. She knew it was all for pretend.
<Pose Tracker> Kuniko Saito [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
Kuniko Saito...
Is NOT cooking anything at this cultural festival!! No!! Nijimura gets to run the crepery this year!! She's on vacation from cooking for a couple few days!!
Which means that for the first time in forever, she's wearing her actual uniform around the place. It looks new. (It is new. She didn't wear it before today.) She has been definitely enjoying the experience of a cultural festival where she didn't have to hustle in the line, though, spending pocket money here and there and drinking coffee she didn't have to make.
Now however she has come towards this haunted house. Slouching her way up to the classroom door, she lingers for a moment, looking around. "... huh," she comments, arms folded loosely.
"Maybe it's hungry," she tells Lera, as she admires the bear.
<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Emphasis in the case of the Kaiju Battle on 'smashing,' Fuu would say if she was asked. But she had fun, everyone else had fun, and nobody took any lasting injuries. She needed to freshen up some after flailing around in an excessively-insulated mascot costume, but that was really all it took.
As for the haunted house - well, it's her school and her year, and the Library Island Exploration Club was certainly taking the haunted house seriously. There wasn't anything Fuu actually needed to *do* for it, but she figured she might as well visit and enjoy it. so she's making her way through the maze of horrors and frights, shrieking enthusiastically (and legitimately - some of those things really DO scare her, especially the thankfully-fake MissingNo. mock-up) ...
It might be nicer if she had a boyfriend whose arm she could cling to, but, well. Fuu's quiet deflection of dates is an established matter of rumors among the class.
"It could be worse, Lera-san," she remarks to her sempai. "It might be all white on one side and all black on the other ..." She shudders. "That *would* send me racing for the exit. That looks suitably ominous without being Monokuma, though ..."
She *does* look like she wouldn't mind making her way back out of the haunted house, the long way around if necessary. Magic Knight or not, Green Lantern material she ain't.
<Pose Tracker> Eri Shimanouchi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
A visiting Ohtori student wends her way around the corridors of the haunted halls which promised 'blood-curdling and bone-chilling thrills'. The chemistry exhibits had her leaning over them in fascination for a while, poking a beaker, before throat-clearing from the students watching her told her it was time to move on.
Eventually she makes it to class 9-A, and as she winds around the cardboard boxes, trying to get closer looks at the girls in Yuki-Onna, and kitsune costumes, a grin spreads across her face. "They sure put a lot of effort into this. But it doesn't seem all that frightening." She says idly to the other girls around her, just before they make it to the final door.
Which is the moment they ger near the cardboard door, with the animatronic bursting through. Skittering backwards, her shriek was quickly muffled, cheeks reddening as she realized that it was /just/ an animatronic, albeit a creepy one. It takes her a few moments to find the words again, through the waves of embarrassment as she stares right at the robot that had surprised her, "Okay maybe a little scary." She admits.
<Pose Tracker> Lingshen Chao [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
9-A has never been known for its...coherent design philosophies? Still, the results of the bear bursting down the fake door has been fairly reliable! At Eri's shriek, Hibiki and Kanade may catch a couple of the girls at the first part of the room exchanging a high five. Success again!
But there's a problem, because the bear ...sits there. It's supposed to slide back a little and make it possible to sneak past, but...
Instead, it swivels googly, eerie eyes down toward Lera and Kuniko, apparently noticing their conversation.
A girl with a side-mounted ponytail - dressed like a militaristic zombie, mostly because it lets her hold an airsoft gun - tips her head and breaks character from behind them. "Uh. Did it break?" she wonders.
And then the bear's mouth opens, revealing a mouth full of sharp teeth, and it breathes, "HUNGRY."
The girl with the sidetail's eyes shrink. "THAT'S NEW AND I'M NOT OKAY WITH IT"
The bear takes a step forward, in the process, tearing down enough facade that the real door is easily accessible.
Meanwhile, a scream sounds from 9-B, too!?
<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.
"I-I hope not!" Lera murmurs, nervously, to Kuniko. She doesn't want to be eaten by an animatronic bear. But, she reminds herself, it's just a haunted house. Nothing in here is dangerous. She looks nervously at the up-and-coming cook, before she shakes her head quickly. Then she looks sideways at Fuu, before she nods once. That would, in fact, be worse.
She still jumps a bit, though, when Eri lets out a muffled shriek and skitters back. Lera gives her a look, before she holds a hand up. "I-It's okay!" she says. "Nothing that can hurt us! It's just the wonders of robotics, like... like Walt Disney, in these United States of America! His army of Servbots has served the Disney Family for years, helping them--" She raises one finger up next to her head, half-closing her eyes while she talks. She starts to smile.
She knows she has this right.
"--dig up the buried treasures at the Haunted Mansion, hidden there by the Pirates of the Caribbean! And before they're destroyed by the Reaverbots!" Lera declares. "It's very OH MY GOD IT'S HUNGRY! RUN, RUN, IT WANTS TO EAT US FOR DINNER!"
She screams the last part out, her eyes opening wide even while the girl with the sidetail's eyes shrink. She backs up, before she spots the way to the door that has been opened. Lera lets out a yell and darts for it. "I'm not tasty, horrible bearbot!"
<Pose Tracker> Hibiki Houjou [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Hibiki and Kanade seem to be taking their time - and the former, at least, is enjoying herself. Part of that, mind, is the conversation. "And that's the problem - you're treating it like it's some puzzle you have to solve accurately for people, when it's supposed to be fun! Like what Waon and I cooked up - that giant soccer ball might not be all about the rules of the game, but it's fun!"
Somewhere outside, someone yells 'RUN FASTER IT'S GAINING ON US'.
"But yeah, this is impressive - look at that makeup, that's really something." She applauds the yuki-onna - and then jumps when a 'werewolf' bursts out of nowhere. "Gah!" Of course, more terrifying is the shriek of terror from further on - what frights remain in 9-A's classroom? Must be something good, given how those yuki-onna are high-fiving.
She rounds the corner, catching up to the others - just in time to see the BEAR. Hibiki's first response is to grin, because that is absolutely awesome - and it talks, too? That's great!
Wait, it's not supposed to talk? Less great.
It's a vengeful zombie robot minion of Walt Disney? That sounds historically accurate. (Hibiki's last history test went poorly.) "That - what's that kind of thing doing here?!" And...oh no. She left her Cure Module back with her sports gear - this is suddenly a lot more frightening than she was expecting!
<Pose Tracker> Kuniko Saito [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
Kuniko recoils as the bear demands food from her. TRAITOR!! She doesn't quite get Fuu's reference, though she does say, "If you're going to use American knowledge, then - then turn it off! It's broken!" at Lera. Say? More like 'kind of holler.'
<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
The fact that one of the girls who's running the haunted house is freaking out is a bad sign, isn't it? Fuu is already backing away from the hungry animatronic bear, even as she suggests, "Maybe it's hungry for bullets, or paintballs, or whatever your rifle is loaded with!"
If this is part of the show, thinks Fuu, then it's a terribly EFFECTIVE part of the show. If it's not ... then there's a very, VERY real problem, one which the sound of screams from next door can only mean is even worse than it looks like up front.
She's keeping her wits about her as well as she can, though, and looking around for suitable improvised weapons. A serviceable bow and some arrows, maybe?
<Pose Tracker> Kanade Minamino [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Kanade shook her head. "I know, but there's still a bit of a method to it you know? There's a reason some readings are more accurate than others, and I just wanted mine to be-" She jumped slightly at the werewolf, and took a minute to calm her heart. "I never was a fan of haunted houses."
<Pose Tracker> Eri Shimanouchi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
As the girl breaks character, Eri, already having been fooled once takes on the attitude of 'fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on...' "Oh come on, this is part of the script isn't it? -Wait." She looks back crosseyed at Lera, at her story, "What's this about Reaverbots!?"
Reaverbots sound bad, if they were teaming up with the Pirates of the Carribean to take over the Disney Empire. That's what her mind heard at least, given the state of panic she was feeding into.
When the high school girl starts screaming, her eyes go bug-eyed, just as the bear takes a step forward. As the bear takes a swipe, she runs on by shrieking herself as she rushes, arms pumping out from the room to the next classroom. "Why couldn't it be a herbivore!? WHY CAN'T IT JUST BE A HARMLESS LITTLE BUNNY?" It hasn't occurred to her yet she can really transform anytime. -And it may not.
<Pose Tracker> Kanade Minamino [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Kanade shook her head. "I know, but there's still a bit of a method to it you know? There's a reason some readings are more accurate than others, and I just wanted mine to be-" She jumped slightly at the werewolf, and took a minute to calm her heart. "I never was a fan of haunted houses."
Then the bear came into view, and despite the setting of what she knew to be a safe haunted house she found herself gulping. "Um...Hibiki, is it just me or is that bear more creepy-" Then it talked and moved. Kanade jumped and clutched Hibiki's arm. "Um...somehow I don't think that thing is normal!"
<Pose Tracker> Lingshen Chao [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
The bear lurches forward again!! Kuniko's spite retains its fixation. "LIKE... ... ... CREPES..."
Oh, good, it's not after human blood, at least.
"AND BLOOD!!!"
God DAMN it!
So saying, the bear raises its arms and emits a bone-rattling roar! Behind them, through one of the curtains, the blonde class presidnet in the vampire costume has picked up a two-way and is barking into it in clipped language. "Hakase! Satomi! The robot is doing something! Shut it down!"
From the other end of the two-way, there comes a riotous snore. "OOOH!" the blonde vampire stomps her foot furiously. "I TOLD that girl to sleep last night! I told her! Oh, don't worry, Prez, robots don't actually go on murderous rampages! My foot!"
The shouting outside is getting louder, as the bear lurches toward Kuniko and its jaws snap shut with a sound like pistons slamming into solid steel.
If anyone can actually hear her over the class and outside starting to panic, the class president shouts, "Get to the robotic club room! They have a shut-down switch there!"
As Eri discovers by ducking out, this own't be all that easy; the halls are filling with students as they hustle out of class rooms, followed by a lurching vampire with shockingly bright teeth; and from another room, the wolf-man emerges, claws gleaming in the dim light. They aren't especially aggressive...but so far nobody has wanted to find out what happens if they get caught!
<Pose Tracker> Hibiki Houjou [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Bullets, arrows, crepes, bunnies - "I don't have any of those! And what's wrong with this thing?!" Hibiki's outburst might be a bit out of place, but some panic is to be expected - no one really could have expected rampaging robots from the robotics club.
She'd joked with her senpai that the Judo Club could put on a demonstration of proper monster-fighting martial arts. Right now, that seems less funny and more appropriate - but all the same, not getting into grabbling range with the Full Metal Bear seems like a good plan. Kanade's grabbing her arm, and she nods at the statement. "Let's get out of here, Kanade - I left something back on the sports field, maybe we can get there in a hurry!" It's faster - and arguably safer - to go back past the haunted hallway here, into the main hall. Dragging Kanade all the way, she rounds the corner and-
-and that's a lot of monsters. And complete and total chaos. "What kind of maniacs built these things?!"
<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.
"I'm an American, Kuniko, not a mechanic!" Lera whines back at her friend, quickly taking a few steps backward. She scans the room for something to hit it with; using her Device would be overkill and revealing. But maybe she could grab a heavy pipe or something? Or maybe she should run away!
"I don't know!" she whines back at Eri, too. "A bunny would be okay! Even a cute bear--um--"
Then she hears the class president yell. She decides to run after Eri, bolting out the door, and leaving the bear behind. As she does, she sees the vampire and wolf-man emerge. She looks at them for a moment, her face screwing up, and then she shakes her head quickly. She starts to sprint.
"I think discussion is the better part of valor, everybody! Let's get to that shut-off switch!"
<Pose Tracker> Kanade Minamino [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
For once in her life, kanade left Hibiki dragged her away without a word of argument. She really, REALLY wanted to get out of here and the further the better. And Crepes? What kind of monster wanted crepes?! However, her hopes of escape were suddenly dashed as they dashed around the corner.
There were more of them...a lot more. Seeing all those creepy eyes locked upon her, Kanade froze, then slowly she felt anger erupt from inside. "Arrg! I've had enough it!" She grabbed Hibiki and started to drag her through the classroom of monsters, kicking away any arm that tried to grab her. "WE'RE GETTING OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW! TAKE THAT TALL DARK STRANGERS! DO YOU HEAR ME!" She madly continued to kick and scream her way through, not fully caring how foolish this may appear to everyone else around her. She REFUSED to let this weird beasts have the best of her.
<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
"You do have blood, don't you, Houjou-san?" Fuu points out helpfully. "But I imagine you're not any more eager to share it with a misbehaving robot than I am, so never mind my saying that - and the phrase is 'discretion,' isn't it, Lera-san?"
Getting to the shut-off switch DEFINITELY seems to be in order, though, so Fuu hurries towards the exit along with the other girls ..
Right out of the haunted house and into the madhouse full of robots acting like they waltzed out of a Mega Man X game.
Never has Fuu wished so much for her archery gear as she does at this very moment. On the plus side, Kanade is starting to beat a path through the malfunctioning machinery, so Fuu follows in her wake, keeping her eyes open for anything that might be useful in defense of her self or her companions.
"Where *is* the robot club's room, anyway?"
<Pose Tracker> Kuniko Saito [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
People are freaking out. People are panicking. I'm their sempai, Kuniko thinks. I should do something about this.
It wants crepes. "Oh," she begins to say, "uh, down a few fl--" AND BLOOD!!
Kuniko sucks on her teeth, eyes wide in half-suppressed terror. "We haven't got time for a discussion, Camry!" she says, because it looks like nobody much is going for the switch. But the bear's focused on her... do I smell like food?! she wonders.
But then Kuniko crouches slightly, arms spreading. "Yeah," she says, backing up a single big step, possibly into someone else or a piece of haunting equipment. She is moving approximately towards the elevator lobby, though. "Yeah, come on, beary bear bear. You want crepes?! You want blood!?"
I want to scream, she thinks.
<Pose Tracker> Eri Shimanouchi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
The hallways are no better, as Eri takes one glance over her shoulder as the bear calls for their blood, "Get out of there!" She yells out in warning, now that she's relatively safe for the moment. Though turning around, she finds herself faced with a vampire across the hall. Jamming her finger towards it, she yells at Lera, "Forget that! How do Americans deal with vampires!? Didn't you have those books with the sparkly vampires!?"
Darting to her right, she almost runs right smack into the were-wolf vampire, her nerves finally getting used to this. It was still terrifying, but now that she was expecting it, and had time to process it. It wasn't /quite/ as bad as labyrinth. She backpeddles a bit, trying to follow Lera's lead, "Valor? Uh-uh! No heroics yet! And maybe you can't tell but I don't go to this school! So you'd better lead the way!"
<Pose Tracker> Lingshen Chao [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
The bear glares at Kuniko and lumbers - further into the room, apparently enticed by the people still here.
"The Middle School clubroom is up the stairs and to the right!" the local class president calls back. "Find Lingshen Chao or Satomi Hakase! They built these things!"
Then she jumps right at the dumb bear, barking, "Ku Fei! Support!" Another girl, dark-skinned and dressed like a Chinese hopping vampire, emerges from behind a curtain at a run, and the two apparently fighting-trained girls decide to find out if Robot Hate-Bear is an opponent you can take on with a mix of judo and punches.
Early results do not appear positive, but it gets the departing crew time to get a head start before Angry Bear suddenly smashes the whole door down and joins his comrades in the hall, slowly picking up speed as he marches through the crowd after the girls. He gnashes his jaws unpleasantly!
Meanwhile, Kanade and Hibiki are charging forward screaming - well, one of them is and the other is sort of forcefully encouraged to follow, anyway. They are soon confronted by the deadly power of Wolf-Man, who brandishes both claws at them and lunges forward in a way that is virtually begging to get kicked in the face.
<Pose Tracker> Hibiki Houjou [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
The shoe's on the other foot- not that Hibiki's really complaining. It's fun when Kanade gets angry, and even better when it's at a target other than her! The hall's getting filled with monsters, though - or robots, same difference - and so the wild charge meets some opposition.
One stray comment catches the charging Hibiki's ear, though, and she feels the need to comment. "This isn't normal for Infinity, by the way! It's something like half as many robots usually!" She'd comment further, but...
Well. Robot wolf-man threatening anyone and everyone, but more importantly it's threatening her friend. It might not be exactly what her senpai had suggested, but... "The Judo club will now be giving its demonstration!" She lunges past Kanade to meet the robot's charge, ducking under the claws like they're grappling hands - just with more of a penalty for being hit - and catches its lunge with a solid stance. Use the opponent's momentum, and shift...
"R- Kanade!" Not a full throw, she doesn't have quite -that- solid a stance, but enough to maneuver the thing's face into prime kicking range for her partner.
<Pose Tracker> Kanade Minamino [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Kanade ducked as a lizard monster tried to grabbed her, when Hibiki's announcement of the Judo Club demonstration caught her eyes. All her battles as a Precure kick in as she dodged attacks and let Hibiki get a clear shot at the robot wolf-man. Seeing what Hibiki was implying, Kanade gave a rare impish grin. For once, just this once, she would admit she was happily to tap into how her friend did things.
"Pretty Cu-Er I mean," she charged straight ahead and gave a full kick "Creepy Robot Repel Kick!" she cried at the top of her lungs and gave the robot a mouthful of her heel and was a bit gleeful to see sparks fly.
<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.
"Wh-whichever!" Lera says back to Fuu, and then she yelps, because Kanade charges them. "Wait, Houjou-san, I think--"
The President calls out, and she blinks. "I know Chao--right! After them!" Lera yells. She goes running, watching as Hibiki suddenly lays into the wolf-man. She blinks a couple of times. Then, she decides she can't be outdone; a mage adventurer must be ready for every occurence, including a swordfight when revealing her identity as a fabulous alien explorer would be unwise.
Which is why she yanks a fallen rod from the floor -- it may have come from a robot -- and lifts it up. "All right, Judo Club!" she yells. "This is--um--traditional American swordfighting!"
She runs forward. To her credit, her form is good; she does a leap into the air, pivoting at the waist as she does, and swings the rod for the vampire's head with a quick swing of the rod. "Chao can help! She's made great meatbuns before and stuff! I bet she'll know what went wrong!"
<Pose Tracker> Eri Shimanouchi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
"So the killer robot rampages are normal, so long as there's not so many!?" With her state of panic somewhat controlled, there's still a note of sarcasm in her voice. "When you put it that way, the occasional feral animal escape seems a little tame!"
And yet, the Judo club, and now the high schooler beside her were now fighting. With the call of 'no heroics' ignored, she decides to get into it herself, not to be outdone. Rushing over to a fog machine, she offers a sharp tug to an extension cord, feeling it come loose from a distant surge protector just as the machine sputters and dies with an electric sizzle. Looping it around her arm several times, she eventually starts to toss one end round and round in an easy circle.
Hurling the plug end and letting loose the loops, she tries to angle it just so that the cord before it strikes and causes the plug to wrap loosely around it. "Ohtori students have their pride too!" Apparently using an extension cord as a whip was harder than it looked though given the difference in material, as she has to duck inside its flanks in order to grab the plug and pull it inside one of the lengths. After that, she scampers backwards and tries to give a sharp tug, "Try to shove it over!"
<Pose Tracker> Kuniko Saito [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"Dang! It saw through my trickery!" Kuniko declaims as the bear pivots away from her to start eating middle schoolers. But then!
In comes a hopping vampire to attack it with bloody assault! "Huh," Kuniko says, startled but not really able to sustain additional anxiety and terror. Girls lunge outwards, and the bear is chasing.
Kuniko can see that others are whacking on it with the power of their American swordsmanship, Darkstalking, and Ohtori pride. Kuniko uses her own power - of hustle (if not loyalty or respect) - to start bookin it towards the club room. "CHAO!!! OI!!!"
<Pose Tracker> Lingshen Chao [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
The Wolf-Man Robo lunges at Hibiki, who - immediately demonstrates her wicked judo powers!! It's a heavy thing, but that just means Hibiki has even more power to use against it! It's more than enough to get it in position for Kanade to boot it in the face. GOOD NEWS: It is apparently not an evil Super Monster robot, because instead of breaking her foot or something horrible, Kanade's kick manages to indent the face; sparks fly, and the thing goes limp other than twitching ineffectively occasionally.
The robots thus proven to not be ULTIMATE MENACES, the attack can begin in earnest. But they're still rough; they're metal, not kleenex. That pole from Lera bashes the vampire's head aside, but it turns a twitching eye on her a second later, and its eye begins to glow ominously! Is it going to mesmerize her with its deadly robot powers!?
No it's actually a sighting laser. Its jaw drops open. A NERF ball painted to look like a bat shoots out to clobber her in the face.
That's when Eri manages to wrap it up, though, pulling it further off balance. "BLAH!" it declares, in a distorted robo-voice. "I VANT TO NOT BE HIT VITH STICKS! BLAH!"
Kuniko hustles on ahead. The number of robots isn't actually HUGE...but there was one or two per classroom. She has to dodge three mummies, two ninja turtles (??), and one pair of Reptilians, one of whom screams "YOU MUST BECOME ONE WITH THE AARDVARK!" as she charges past - toward the robotics club room!
When she gets there, Chao very conspicuously does not answer Kuniko's bounteous exclamation points. You might have to knock.
<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Upstairs and to the right. That sounds easy enough, and Fuu calls out a quick, "Thank you!" to the class president on her way out the door. "Don't get killed, please!"
Because nothing casts a shadow of gloom over a school festival like real corpses in the haunted house. Fuu doesn't have much time to think about it, though, sticking close behind her companions, and scooping up a dropped bow and quiver from somebody else who's already fled and abandoned some useless-to-them accessories. At least it's *something* she can use ...
Although given how the robots are pressing into what would normally be considered hand-to-hand range, the bow might not do her much good either. Case in point, Fuu is on her way past a classroom door when the door is slammed open - right off its hinges, in fact - and another robot comes lunging out, nearly flattening Fuu underneath the door. There's a loud yelp from the glasses-wearing archery team member, and she fumbles around under the dislodged door, trying to work out how to get loose without exposing herself to additional danger. It's ironic; the door that she's stuck under is potentially her best protection, at least for now ...
<Pose Tracker> Kuniko Saito [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
Kuniko knocks.
Actually she hammers on the door. "Chao!! Your robots are out of control and are eating the ninth graders! You made a robot bear and it's killing everyone! This is too realistic for a cultural festival, tell us the deactivation code or -- or something!!"
<Pose Tracker> Hibiki Houjou [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Stomp. Shove. Clang.
At its heart, Judo is about using an opponent's strength and movement against them. Trying this thing on a full-fledged robot might be a recipe for disaster, but things this close to human size and weight...it works. And Kanade's shoe proves it.
Kanade takes a moment to shake her foot out - solid metal is harder than she usually finds it - and ducks to the side to grab a broken length of door trim. It's not much more than a cudgel, but better that it break than her.
Hibiki continues to go bare-handed - this is what this art of hers is for. "Great! Could use some swords right now - wait, what was that about feral animals?!" Okay, so this isn't the only crazy school. Terrifying to know. And now someone's run ahead to try to get the robot-maker...but there's a lot of the things. How many did the club even make...
The one Ohtori student aside, it's bedlam. None of the guests were expecting this, students and family alike are panicking, the twelfth grade class president just ran by with a giant robot ferret chasing him...Hibiki and Kanade nod to Lera and Eri. "Right - we'll try to hold the line here. Dealing with the source of this, we'll leave to you - good luck!" The pair clap hands together, briefly - and then charge the advancing robots, to buy others time to deal with this.
"Don't underestimate a woman's pride!"
"TOO BAD, YOU'RE GETTING STICKS!"
<Pose Tracker> Eri Shimanouchi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
Pulling the other end of the extension cord over her shoulder, she makes a slow advance in the opposite direction, pulling with all her might. It's not /considerable/ might, given that she's an untransformed middle schooler, but she's at least athletic enough to keep the line taut. If only the thing wasn't so heavy!
Looking over her shoulder, she sees the targetting laser. Remembering a creature that wielded a laser sighted sniper rifle she'd once fought, she all but shrieks out, "SNIPER, D-" Which is when the painted bat shoots out. "Oh." She clears her throat. "Well I /vant/ you to shut off! But only one of us is going to get what they /vant/!"
Hibiki and Kanade though are there to hold them off, and so in one quick motion, she lets go, hoping the sudden shift would give throw the vampire off-balance for them. "Don't do anything stupid! We're all getting out of here." And as she rubs a finger around a ring, she considers the thought of doing something rash... and ultimately decides against it, finger slipping away. "We'll meet up for festival food once they're less murdery!"
In the bedlam in the background, another visiting middle school student rounds the corner with a delighted smile on her features as she spots an animatronic turtle standing upright. A moment later, she freezes, her features locked up in horror. Screaming at the top of her lungs, she turns and runs alongside the twelfth grade president, arms flailing as she flees from the robo-ferret with an expression of absolute terror.
Eri on the other hand, starts running up the stairs. Right past the Robo-Reptiles. Ducking a swipe, she keeps charging, flailing her arms Kuniko's way, "HEY! JUST BREAK IT DOWN IF IT ISN'T OPENING! I DON'T WANNA FIND OUT HOW AN AARDVARK IS INVOLVED!"
<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.
The nerf ball flies at high speeds and strikes Lera in the face, throwing her into the air a little comically. Foam can still pack a punch, if it moves fast enoughh. She yelps, going airborne, and hits the ground. Her feet kick off it a few time, making her stumble to keep her footing and not slip. She looks back at Kanade and Hibiki, then she nods fiercely. "Right!" she calls out. "Leave it to us, we'll get to the bottom of this!"
Then she glances, briefly, at Eri and nods -- and starts running too. And starts screaming, too, at the robotic ferret. She swings her steel pole at it as she closes in, trying to smash it out of the way. She throws a foot forward, then, and does a fast pivot on her heel.
That puts her face-to-face with the reptilian robot. Her language fails her. "I don't like violence but I guess I love the violence of words!" she bellows, as she thrusts the pole at it, then swings it up to uppercut its snout. "Prepare for WORD TORTURE! Let's go, samurai! Rah, rah, freedom, FREEDOM!"
<Pose Tracker> Lingshen Chao [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
The vampire gets dragged off-balance by Eri, enough that it ends up flat; the girls are able to rush past the other robots! They're threatening and menacing and shooting various annoying-but-not-actually-dangerous artillery at people; but nobody, so far, has been caught in some of that stuff that looked actually pretty dangerous gleaming on their bodies. Maybe it was all really good prop work?
Regardless, Kuniko slams on the door hard, while Lera beats the stuffing out of the smaller reptilian robo. "And to say such things during out first meeting!!" it wails. "My amazing knowledge of Norwegian wedding customs has no power here!?"
The big one stands by impassivley and mutters, "Ard??"
Meanwhile, Kuniko's slamming fist almost beans a cute, long-haired girl in the face when she swings the door open with a sleepy scowl in her eyes. Her hair is up in twin pigtails that go far longer than Chao's ever did, dipping way below her neck; her face has thick glasses. Her name tag says 'HAKASE, SATOMI'. "Chao's not here. Did something happen?" she asks bleerily, and peers to the side at the pandemonium outside. "Huh. I thought we commented those routines out. Is that what this is about? Well..." She hems, tipping her head to one side. "I mean, philosophically, I'm opposed to deciding the course of a thinking machine, you know? It's not proper. It starts a really bad precedent to--"
Behind her, a pale girl who must be in costume as a robot or something, to judge from the weirdly slightly green skin, leans in and notes, "Professor, if students are harmed, the club budget could be adversely affected."
Satomi spins on her heels instantly. "Right, off button comin' up!"
It takes about thirty seconds before she finds and pushes it, and the robots immediately go stiff and reset to a ramrod straight repose in comical unison.
<Pose Tracker> Kuniko Saito [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"Geez! I'm not trying to talk about someone's civil rights or self determination here!" Kuniko says hotly to the legendary Satomi. "I just want that damn creature to not eat any of the underclasswomen before it's too late! They're going to be awful - and like she says, yeah, horrible death for real does impair the budget!"
After this, she leans in the doorjamb breathing heavily and looking at the robot cosplay girl. "... Are you, uh, going to be going out there for the haunted -"
She can hear a faint 'bewwwww' in the distance. Her head sags forwards in relief.
<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
There's a loud yelp from downstairs as Fuu finds herself no longer wrestling to keep a robot from getting its hands on her through the dislodged door ... and instead finds herself *pinned* under the door by a robot's dead weight.
At least it's motionless dead weight now. The crisis seems to be over ...
<Pose Tracker> Eri Shimanouchi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
It takes every iota of Eri's composure not to reach forward, grab the sleepy Hakase Satomi by the shoulders, and shake her as she starts discussing the implications of free will in rampaging animatronics. "Think on the philosophical implications la-" 'Right, off button comin' up!'
A hand finds her forehead. "What is wrong with people at this school?!" They made Ohtori students seem positively well-balanced! Her shoulders slump the moment that everything shuts down, muttering aloud. "Next year maybe you all should consider something like a group dating cafe for the cultural festival. It'll have one hundred percent fewer reaverbots." A beat, "Probably."
<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.
"Not one bit!" Lera yells at the reptilian robot. She slams a few more hits in it, before she wheels quickly -- and stares for a moment, looking towards the open door. She stares for a moment while Satomi Hakase explains that she may have a moral quandry with shutting down the robots. Her left eyebrow twitches in a slightly off-kilter, on-edge way.
Before she can shout at her, though, someone else interenes. Her shoulders slump, then, and she nods; her metal rod drops from her hand with a clatter.
"That was crazy," she says. "I, for one, don't welcome our robot overlords--um!" She turns her head, looking down at Eri, and frowns for a moment. "This isn't really normal for Infinity. I mean... not quite. I guess things got a little out of hand here. But the rest is great. You should check out the kaiju exhibit, it's really cool!"
She has to shamelessly plug her thing.
<Pose Tracker> Lingshen Chao [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
The 'cosplayer' blinks, neutral-faced, at Kuniko, tipping her head with a faint, curious vocalization. But she doesn't answer the actual question. Or Eri's, which gets a similar response.
But when Hakase emerges again to announce success, a few school administrators are also marching down the halls, checking in on things. In the lead is a taller man whose eyes dart about, taking in everything rapidly from behind his rather odd glasses. He looks to the girls clustered around the robotics club room, nods to himself, and approaches swiftly. "You should investigate the machines for signs of tampering," he announces, too flustered for preamble. "Similar sabotages occurred throughout the building."
Hakase blinks, quickly waking up from that. "T-tampering...why would someone want to do that? These things aren't that dangerous!"
Brief smash cut to Fuu still trapped under a robot ghost.
"Oh, that's easy," the administrator says, a certain frustration edging into his tone.
"My office was broken into during the commotion. Someone has stolen the keys to the Infinity Institute's innermost chambers."
