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Post by Susan Daunt on Jul 8, 2010 15:40:41 GMT -5
"I can help carry one of the other bags if you can't handle them all, Mr. Modest. I do have a free hand," Susan offered into the confusion, having sorted 'Mannie' into the potential risk to others category of beings.
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Post by Manuel Alvarez on Jul 8, 2010 15:45:34 GMT -5
Mannie let out an undignified yelp and dropped the screwdriver before it could burn him too badly. His hand was still slightly scorched, though. "That was cool! Now I really want to take you apart!" he said cheerfully, lacking malice but still with that strange tone to his voice. "Hey, how does that electrical thing work? It looked a bit like a Jacob's Ladder, but those need a decent power supply, and you're rather small. I don't see you plugged into anything, either."
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Post by Philbert Decanter on Jul 8, 2010 15:45:37 GMT -5
"Sodding shambolic wanker rubish..." A small boy in a stylized high-collar white lab-coat pushes a cart nearly twice as tall as himself, pulling a large bag, and wrangling with a small briefcase as he approached the bus stop. It was at this point, having shoved the collection of luggage for a hundred yards from where his father's private jet had landed, that he should have let his father send some attendents, and worry about fixing all of the things they ruining with their poor handing later.
Having set everything so it wouldn't fall over or roll away, he dabbed his forehead with a cloth and took in the group. Not many people here. A couple of teachers, a scrawny kid. Most of them were all in one group. An elf, if the ears were any indication. Two other boys - although there seemed to be some odd traits about them. And three other girls. They each also had some odd about them. The first two had a particular stance about them - dancers maybe. Someone trained in combat might have the same stance though. The last one just looked weird with that scarf over her head.
More pressing than any of their oddities, however, was the fact that girls seemed to outnumber the boys here. He pulls out a DV-recorder from one of his many pockets and flicks the record button. "Note, accelerate anti-Cooties research," he said, his eyes narrowing. All his research indicated that it was note a real disease, but he was positive it was just a ploy created by the females of the world.
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Post by Parum Callidus Diabolus on Jul 8, 2010 15:51:17 GMT -5
Parum looks down and the boy and the robot, then kneels down to him.
"I told you it was probably dangerous. Is your hand burnt?"
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Post by Manuel Alvarez on Jul 8, 2010 15:57:12 GMT -5
"A little," Mannie said as he looked through his bag again. This time he pulled out a bottle of disinfectant and dabbed some on his stricken hand. He winced at the pain (this particular type was not actually intended for wounds) but didn't let his hand jerk in a way that would exacerbate the burn. "How do you float, ma'am? Do you think the school has a wind tunnel I can put you in?" he asked idly as he continued treating himself.
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Post by Jim Modest on Jul 8, 2010 16:00:01 GMT -5
"Oh, don't worry yourself, little miss." He gives her dynamic smile and a wink then turns back to the carousel. He picks up each piece of luggage and starts shifting it around, testing it's weight and balance. He gives a satisfied nod and and grin, picks up the nearest bag and tosses it straight into the air, followed quickly by the rest of Parum's luggage.
He stands, looking up at the now falling luggage, holding his action pose. Just as the first bag is about to strike him, his hand snatches out and moves it onto his shoulder and positions it on his shoulder, followed by the rest of the falling bags. By the time he's done - a series of actions completed in only a few seconds - he has the entire collection of bags balanced on his shoulder.
Giving it a small shake to check it's stability, and blinding those around him with a flash of his impeccably white teeth, he heads over to where Parum, Mannie and Hyperball are.
<Are you done showing off, Jim? This boy is trying to drown me in questions. I wouldn't mind if I could breathe, because then maybe my misery would finally end. You're supposed to be the teacher here, aren't you? Or did I get signed up to do it while I was getting crushed beneath two tons of folded underwear?>
"Is everyone doing alright?" Jim says to everyone, apparently having missed Hyperball's entire tirade.
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Post by Parum Callidus Diabolus on Jul 8, 2010 16:02:58 GMT -5
"W-wind tunnel? I fly with my wings, and a little bit of magic. But, why a wind tunnel?"
Parum seems a bit confused at the rate Mannie is jumping from subject to subject, as well as his general indifference to his hand.
"I may have some aloe in on of my bags, if you'd like that for the burn?"
She turns to the large man once again, floating up and taking one of the bags whist giving him a wink, then returns to the boy.
"May I have your hand, please?"
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Post by Manuel Alvarez on Jul 8, 2010 16:26:23 GMT -5
"I got burned again," Mannie reported, again in a cheerful yet rather strange tone. "The robot melted my screwdriver and it burned me. I dropped it before too much damage could be done. Hey, can you make it let me take it apart? I'll put it back together better when I'm done." With his uninjured hand he pulled out a few ampoules which, being dark brown in color, completely hid the identity of the liquid inside of them. Though there were labels on the sides, they were in Spanish.
As he began to babble out a number of long and possibly incorrectly-used phrases regarding robotics and electricity, he held out his injured hand for Parum to look at.
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Post by Parum Callidus Diabolus on Jul 8, 2010 16:32:35 GMT -5
Parum takes a bottle of aloe out of her bag, and then squirts a small bit of it on Mannie's hand. After rubbing it in, she takes a bandage out of her bag and wraps his hand up a bit.
"I think you should leave the robot alone. It seems to be in a grouchy mood."
She puts the aloe back in her bag, and looks around.
"When the bus gets here, you should go to the nurse."
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Post by Jim Modest on Jul 8, 2010 16:47:53 GMT -5
"Ha! Hyperball is always in a grouchy mood, but you get used to him." Jim seemed to be totally indifferent to the stack of luggage that rested on his shoulder, standing there under it's weight.
"I'll also have to ask you refrain from trying to take him apart," he said with a touch of sternness, but his demeanor was still overwhelming playful and inspiring. "He is the last of his kind, after all. Even more so in this world."
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Post by Ada Turing on Jul 8, 2010 18:47:15 GMT -5
"Mellianne! Kahlen!" Ada called, hurrying out from the terminal to join her friends. "How were your breaks?"
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Post by Mellianne Joss on Jul 8, 2010 18:50:02 GMT -5
Mellianne turned to Ada and waved. "Hey Ada! Mine was fine. I spent it in the pool. What about you?"
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Post by Kahlen Jeanne Nox on Jul 8, 2010 18:51:45 GMT -5
"Ada!" Kahlen exclaimed. "My break was great. Got Mikhail." She held up the scarf covered hedgehog.
"How was your break?"
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Post by Less Than Beta East Tundra on Jul 8, 2010 18:53:56 GMT -5
Less turned to look at the approaching girl. "Hello Ada! My pack won some territory from another one while I was there. It's some good land, and right near the coast too. Also, Maker made me some tools!" He held up the drawstring bag happily.
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Post by Destiny Valencia Everett on Jul 8, 2010 19:09:21 GMT -5
On a nearby bench, a girl was fast asleep, her head pillowed on a cheap, paint-splattered suitcase. As the chaos of the new arrivals began to penetrate into her dreams, she stirred and opened her eyes.
A mix-up at the social services office had put Desi on a flight nearly a day too early; but she hadn't minded. Being shuffled off to a "group home" for "troubled teenagers" had not been a very good time for Desi, and she much preferred camping out on the benches at the airport. She was hungry, of course, since one of the bigger kids had (as was customary) taken her money; but she'd managed to gather three packets of peanuts and a candy bar dropped by careless travelers, so it wasn't nearly as bad as it could've been.
Yawning, Desi looked around. The airport was getting busy with new arrivals, and quite a few of them were students she vaguely recognized. She scanned the crowd, looking for more familiar faces.
Finally finding someone she knew well, Desi climbed off the bench and approached Ada. Finding walking too slow, she dropped her suitcase, broke into a run, and prepared to throw her arms around the other girl. "Roomie! I missed you sooo much!"
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Post by Nikolai Zhukov on Jul 8, 2010 19:18:51 GMT -5
Nikolai moved through the airport crowd with practiced ease and the smooth, self-assured walk of a man who knew his way around airports. He'd seen a lot of Griffin Airport lately, coming back at the end of the last semester for about a week to sit his exams. Of course, he'd have done better if he hadn't missed half of the semester tracking a rogue werebear halfway across Kazakhstan for attacking his mother. But that was old news.
There was a small crowd at the bus stop already, and Nikolai insinuated himself into it quite neatly.
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Post by Jinna on Jul 8, 2010 20:20:27 GMT -5
Nyx was going to pay in spades for this. To look at the girl standing in the corner, scowling at nothing in particular, one might have thought that someone must have insulted her favorite band, burned her favorite book and kicked a puppy right in front of her all within the span of five minutes. This was, in fact, not the case; if anything, Jinna would have been the one doing the puppy-kicking had she been in a better mood (and had there been such an animal handy). No; Jinna had no quarrel with anybody in this airport (yet). As for her caretaker back home, however, well... that was a different story entirely. From behind a thin veil of dark hair (she had let her bangs fall over her eyes for the sole purpose of looking mysterious), the fifteen-year-old sulkily watched the crowd of people milling about the building. She'd already slunk off to the luggage corral to collect her bags, one of the last reluctant few to exit the plane; now, standing alone with her luggage resting at her feet, she couldn't help but feel the tiniest bit awkward. You see, Jinna was used to being seen. Jinna wanted to be as alluring as possible. Jinna needed attention. However, neither her appearance (mysterious, perhaps, but not her typical razzle-dazzle-let's-hit-the-janitor-closet style; her mood had rather detracted from that factor) nor her current mindset screamed LOOK AT ME. For once, Jinna just wanted to go home. These people-- her future classmates-- could have been easy pickings if she'd so desired, but she wanted none of it-- rather a rarity for her. She was being forced to have an education! Against her will! For fifteen years on this godforsaken earth she'd gotten by with the most basic knowledge of English (she could speak it, but writing it was a whole different ballgame; reading only made it as far as road signs, the odd restaurant menu, to a point, and three-quarters of the text found on legal tender) and very simple math. She couldn't tell you how to find the square root of 69, but she could detail to you all the innuendos that came with it. As far as she was concerned, she could spend her whole life getting by with this. Academics were worth nothing! ... Until Nyxara told her that as of her fifteenth birthday she was going to be enrolled in St. Dymphna's Academy, a school miles from the town they'd most recently chosen to settle down in. "Aren't you coming too?" she'd asked. Nyx had merely laughed and thrown another shirt at her (one that didn't show nearly enough skin, in Jinna's opinion) to pack. As if having to attend school (eugh-- even the word felt wrong to her) wasn't enough, apparently it was populated heavily by humans. Jinna had never had a problem with being a demon amongst, as Nyx cheerfully called them, "mortal chattel" (Nyx being older and far more well-read than she)-- the life of a succubus wasn't exactly that difficult, and being able to control many a person's actions with just some simple body language and a little persuasive talking had been a rather obvious confidence booster. But now, going to this... school... miles away from her home... with teachers and such... her belief in her abilities was lacking considerably. What if they called her weird? Jinna had been called many things in the past, but never tauntingly! As if her own mind playing games with her wasn't enough, the succubus had discovered a deeply disheartening chain of unfortunate events during the plane ride. When at home, within her own territory, not being forced to attend some isolated little institution, Jinna had certain... gifts. She'd prided herself on her ability to make things-- anything, whatever she wanted-- appear out of thin air, and the teleporting and possessing-humans gig had never not come in handy. And yet, horrifyingly, she discovered -- first by accident, then through trial and error -- that these key elements of her survival had been stripped at some point during the flight. It appeared as though her glamour had held up (at least, nobody was staring at her, if it hadn't), but... how was she supposed to hunt now? How was she supposed to live? So it was that Jinna -- perturbed, sullen, pale and, for once, not in the mood to be flirtatious-- was thrust into the world of academics, waiting (and dreading) the moment when someone would shove her into a classroom and expect her to DO MATH.
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Post by Mellianne Joss on Jul 8, 2010 20:35:19 GMT -5
Mellianne had glanced off to the side of the group and noticed Jinna. She turned a little bit and said, "Hello. My name is Mellianne!" She didn't really expect the girl to say anything considering the mood the girl seemed to have, but she would feel bad if she didn't at least say hi to the new girl.
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Post by Ada Turing on Jul 8, 2010 20:53:51 GMT -5
"Desi!" Ada said, grabbing her and hugging her.
"It's been fun," she continued, to the others. "I went home, got a shiny new coat, and even managed to convince another friend to come join us!"
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Post by Destiny Valencia Everett on Jul 8, 2010 20:57:44 GMT -5
"Another friend? Who?" Desi asked curiously.
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Post by Jinna on Jul 8, 2010 21:30:49 GMT -5
Oh crap. CONTACT. Casual conversation! Jinna froze when she clued in that she was being spoken to. Think, Jinna, think! What do you usually say when someone talks to you? "Eight-fifty an hour," she blurted, and then paused. Wrong kind of casual conversation. "... Jinna," she ventured cautiously, making no move to get any closer to the other girl. Where she normally might have eyed her up and tried to figure out how to go about getting her somewhere alone-- separating the sheep from its herd, so to speak-- today she merely kept her distance, giving the stranger no more than a cursory once-over. "My name is Jinna." A very uncomfortable (for her, at least) silence passed as the succubus looked around at the group of students. The way she was constantly monitoring her surroundings suggested that perhaps a t-rex was hiding in one of the otherwise unthreatening potted plants near the windows, and that if she turned her back for more than five seconds she was liable to be eaten-- the unsuspecting goat to this Jurassic Park of an airport. Alas, however, the only grounds for such paranoia was the young demon's discomfort over, among other things, having to deal with socializing with those normally looked upon as nothing more than a light snack. When a third and fourth t-rex inspection proved equally as fruitless as their predecessors, Jinna reluctantly turned her attention back to Mellianne. "... How long are we stuck here for?"
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Post by Mellianne Joss on Jul 8, 2010 21:41:05 GMT -5
Mellianne blinked at the first part. That definitely wasn't normal. "Nice to meet you Jinna!" Watching Jinna look everyone over a few times, she wasn't sure what to think of the girl. Maybe she had had bad experiences with large groups in the past. "I don't know for sure. Buses are never on time and I don't know what time this one is supposed to be at. I got here right before the bus left last semester." She took her glasses off and cleaned them with her shirt, showing her purple eyes a little more clearly. When she put them back on, she swept her hair behind her elvish ears.
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Post by Tumult on Jul 8, 2010 21:43:47 GMT -5
Tumult approached the group a little bit more cautiously. Social interaction in large crowds was definitely not something she had experience at. Still, thanks mostly to Facebook and Ada's cell phone camera, she had some idea of who was who.
"Destiny?" She asked, a little tentatively. "I'm Tumult."
[Taken from Tumult's twitter:] @queenofengines: You owe me for this.
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Post by Destiny Valencia Everett on Jul 8, 2010 22:11:50 GMT -5
Destiny gazed at Tumult, fascinated. "You're the girl from the computer!"
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Post by Kahlen Jeanne Nox on Jul 8, 2010 22:19:04 GMT -5
Kahlen had noticed Mellianne introduce herself to the strange girl off by herself. Kahlen guessed that the girl didn't want to be talked to, so she didn't approach her.
"Sounds fun," Kahlen said to Ada.
A new girl joined them, introducing herself as Tumult. Kahlen waved and introduced herself.
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Post by Less Than Beta East Tundra on Jul 8, 2010 23:07:49 GMT -5
At the arrival of Tumult, Less stopped staring off into empty space. He turned to face her and smiled in what he hoped was warmly. "You are Tumult? I was in the computer lab shortly after you became living. I am glad to see that the military people did not succeed in taking you away. Was it Ada who made you a body?"
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Post by Aurora Lumina Robinson on Jul 8, 2010 23:24:51 GMT -5
[Taken from Tumult's twitter:] @queenofengines: You owe me for this. [silversweety55:] Tumult what does she owe you for? [silversweety55:] How do i get friends on this thing? [silversweety55:] Hey everyone, I'm on twitter now!
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Post by Jim Modest on Jul 9, 2010 2:10:27 GMT -5
Jim was starting to the feel the tiniest pang of discomfort after ten minutes of holding all of Parum's bags - luckily the bus arrived just before he had to rebalance them on his other shoulder.
"There we are, good man!" He saluted the bus driver. "I hope whatever stresses caused your tardiness have not adversely affected you!" From anyone else, the statement would have been passive aggressive, but Jim really did intend the statement as a wish of good health. With a well placed kick, the luggage compartment opened in the side of the bus and Jim began to load bags in.
Hyperball, laying on the ground a few feet away, chimed in. <Here, Jim, let me help - oh wait, nevermind, no limbs.>
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Post by Tumult on Jul 9, 2010 3:21:00 GMT -5
Tumult paused for a moment when both Aurora and Less immediately identified her. Being identified as an AI in public was definitely not a situation she'd planned for. She pruned a few recursively paranoid trains of thought, double-checked that a "glaurung.exe" was still in place on her hard disks, and decided to roll with it.
"Yes," she said, both to Desi and Less. "I'm Tumult, Ada and Aurora built this body for me last semester. The military doesn't have me, and won't get me either, if I have anything to say about it."
((OOC: Glaurung.exe is a very, very nasty psuedo-sentient virus. If you plug one of Tumult's disks into a computer that isn't her without the appropriate (and very complicated) precautions, it will take over and destroy every computer on your network. It won't spread via the internet, for obvious reasons.))
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Post by Laquinta Sebuz on Jul 9, 2010 6:21:58 GMT -5
Laquinta looked the additions to the group up and down. That teacher... he looked like he might be trouble, but he seemed naive enough not to notice if she'd only wriggle around enough. The rest of them seemed like regular enough people. Uncommon, but still mostly normal. The only one she couldn't directly get an impression of was the one addressed as Tumult - did the girl not have a regular thought pattern or something? As her gaze wandered, it fell on Susan... and stuck there. Oh, that one was going to be a problem, alright. The snakes under her scarf wriggled a bit at the thought.
Anyway, this was something she should get over with. Introductions. She cleared her throat, and was ready to announce herself when the boy with the mussy hair bumped into her. "Me synchoreite?! What do you think you're doing? Watch were you walk."
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