Gizmo

Bedlam City October 31, 2020 - Sundown "H-hey, how long is this gonna take already?" Robert Meza asked for the dozenth time, fiddling with the expensive looking watch on his wrist and looking about the interrogation room as though he was going to spot something new inside the four dour walls. His chair creaked as he shifted his weight about and his flop sweat made his dark hair fall limply against his forehead. "You got somewhere you'd rather be, Meza? There's the door," Detective Montgomery snapped irritably. Heavyset and red faced he'd left his jacket draped over the back of the chair across from Meza while he paced back and forth in front of the two-way mirror. "The ADA's running late is all. Once she gets your statement, we get you out of the city for a while, like you asked. So until then, just shaddup, yeah?" Meza drew his shoulders together and ducked his head slightly then looked about the room again. "Yeah, yeah, okay. But what's he doing here?" The third man in the room, lounging in a chair in the corner raised an eyebrow over one ice blue eye. "Lucky for you your lawyer knows a police station is a pretty stupid place to go if you wanna avoid anybody on the Mara's payroll," Lou Lubrano replied dryly, smirking in Montgomery's direction. He tugged at the cuffs on his rumpled suit jacket. "Consider me insurance. You like insurance, right Robbie? Firebug like you?" The informant looked away but set his jaw, hands palm down on the table in front of him. "Look, I'm not saying I'm no angel. But I hadda do something this time. Th-they was just kids, y'know? Ain't right." Lubrano's expression remained impassive, partially concealed by his black beard but he paused in silence for a moment. "Yeah, Robbie. I know." A tinny rendition of a cheerful pop tune broke the heavy silence permeating the room. "@#$% ringtone," Montgomery swore as he stomped back to the table and fished a phone out of his jacket pocket. "Yeah?! Of course I'm-- what? You got held up by what?!" With a sudden groan Meza collapsed over the table in front of him, muscles spasming. Lubrano was on his feet in an instant but stopped mid-step at a screeching noise. Mesa's fingernails, suddenly more bestial talons than anything, were carving deep trails in the metal surface. When his head shot up it was with luminous yellow eyes and teeth too large and too sharp for his jaw. He opened his mouth to ask a question but all that came out was a confused growl. He thrashed with another spasm and the table was tossed away from him, torn free of the rusted bolts attaching it to the floor. Montgomery went for his sidearm but was caught in the shoulder by the flying furniture on its way to smash into the two-way mirror, spiderweb cracking but not quite shattering. With tearing polyester, cracking bone and popping watch links Meza's form doubled then tripled in size, becoming a hulking creature covered in dark fur that towered over Lubrano. The beast stumbled froward a step before throwing its head back in a deafening howl, a sound that could be heard faintly echoed through the walls of the police station. Suddenly seized by a need to get away Meza leapt forward, swatting Lubrano aside like a straw dummy and crashing through the mirror in a rain of broken glass. Forcing himself back to his feet and ignoring Montgomery's attempts to free himself from under the dented table, Lubrano looked through the broken pane to see the path the werewolf had torn through the adjoining room and out of the building. Pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket he shook one loose without looking away and put it unlit between his lips. "...huh."

Chitin (10) Kids Table (1) Mantis and the Fox (1) Body Art and Lots of Heart (6) Weird Flex (2)

A startled Ryder managed to launch of trio of plums in three different trajectories as he abruptly straightened up. A streak of light blue bounded through the air as Cyan intercepted one of the fruits while Yellow caught another against her underside, clamping her legs around it and tumbling in tight circles to absorb its momentum. They returned the plums to their creator while Magenta smugly presented a pile of neatly sliced plum cubes. "Whoops! Thanks, guys." He turned to give Eira his attention, tilting his head to one side like a confused golden retriever. "I did? Sorry, wasn't on purpose!" He ducked his head apologetically and palmed the remaining plums again. "I just thought you'd have stuff to talk about with the whole 'designing a body that authentically represents you' thing. She is pretty popular like that, though so maybe it would have gone that way anyway? Either way, smoothies!" He laughed cheerfully and went back to chopping fruit. From a nearby table Black levelled a flat look at Eira and clacked his mandibles once.

Ryder gave Dayvd a cheerful thumbs up, impressed by the well handled apology. He turned the gesture into finger guns in Abby's direction. "Cake is valid, extremely valid! I feel like the other groups are going to go for desserts, though. It's sort of easy mode, like, 'hey we all like sugar, wild!'" Ryder's imitation of someone being overly enthusiastic achieved a level of irony that may have been lost on him. "And this is supposed to be thematically substantial, yeah? So savoury but we can also go rich." He motioned with both hands as though holding something with metaphorical weight. "I'm am super down for the fruit preserves. That's totally my jam." His eyebrows rose into his strawberry blond bangs and his grin broadened enough to deepen his dimples as he waited for a reaction to the pun.

Ryder looked absolutely delighted by Natalia's brief slip in accent but then he seemed delighted by most things. He raised his eyebrows at her as if to say he wanted to return to that topic later then placed a reassuring hand on Davyd's shoulder and kindly but firmly said, "Nobody's being a plate. That's kinda super messed up." One of the little robotic insects that accompanied him everywhere, the glossy black kabuto beetle, crawled up and over the edge of Davyd's desk and somehow managed to deliver a very flat look with its little optic sensors. Ryder clapped his hands together enthusiastically. "Making it vegan is easy! You just need to avoid getting hung up on the normal ingredients and think about the actual result you're going for, y'know? Pancakes are a great starting point! Pancakes means stacks, stacks means layers, layers means variety!" The light blue cricket Robug chirped in cheerful agreement, dancing about underneath Eira's elevated hands. "And I don't want to assume Abby has a maple syrup hookup but, like...?" He gave the Canadian student a hopeful shrug and slightly dimpled grin.

Ryder straightened up at the sound of the sirens, craning his neck to see out the shop's front windows in the direction from which the crowd was hurrying away. "Hey, Mariel? Can you keep an eye on things for a minute? I better make sure everything is locked up out back." An older woman in a tracksuit with her hair dyed bright purple gave him a thumbs up without looking up from the card game she was playing at a table full of retirees. Ryder grabbed Tori's hand in his own and pulled her around the counter and through the swinging door to the kitchen area. Magenta made a series of impressive hops from display case to sink to floor to follow. Once they were out of sight Ryder let Tori go and turned around to face her with a sunny grin. "This is my 'thing'!" He pulled his apron over his head with both arms, his shirt rising above his waistline as he did to reveal a sliver of stomach and a chunky, oversized belt buckle that looked an awful lot like a printer ink cartridge. Tossing the apron to one corner he pressed the tops of each chamber of the belt with a small flourish, a tinny voice announcing as he did, "CYMK! Dream in colour!" Ryder planted his feet and spread his arms wide, commanding, "Chitin! Online!" A burst of displaced air blew back from where he stood, pushing at Tori's sweatshirt and Tango's fur, while lines of light criss-crossed over Ryder's figure, quickly expanding into broad ribbons. With the sound of electronics powering on and ratcheting connectors fastening into place a black jumpsuit appeared from the pocket dimension, followed by armour pieces cast in white and silver. As the wind and light died down his face was concealed by a smooth helmet dominated by multifaceted oval eyepieces which glowed faintly. Rolling his shoulders and hopping from foot to foot energetically he asked his new friend, "So? Wanna go see what's up?" Magenta jumped up to his waiting hand and clacked her forelimbs together enthusiastically.

"Do we have to give an actual report? Feel like 'this guy appeared and started throwing knives' is gonna lead to some follow up questions I can't answer super well." Ryder rolled his shoulder a few times experimentally then offered his hand for Yellow to sit atop. The robotic wasp made a huffy little buzz and planted herself more firmly on Eira's head, earning a cheerful laugh from her creator. "You'll totally see us around! I mean, I think I'm sort of on probation while Dragonfly decides if I'm gonna embarrass her or accidentally turn myself into meat origami with spatial warping tech but I've got a good feeling about it!"

Jack of all Blades (9) [Maxed] Crimson, Lose Some (9) Chitin (36) Mantis and the Fox (1) Kids Table (9) Field Test (23) Second Coming (3) Ref Point can go to Chitin, rollover from Jack and go to Lou.

“I’m nutritionally balanced!” Ryder laughed with a loose thumbs up Utsuwa, his tone making it tough to tell if he’d interpreted any euphemistic meaning or not. “Nat’s costume is already really good, I feel like goggles would clutter it up. But I bet you wear sunglasses when you go out in like normal clothes, right? Even when it’s dark? Like a cool person.” He mimed putting on glasses and vogued with his lips slightly pursed, hand under his chin. He ran over to join Tori at the window and leaned more than half of his body outside. “Haha, that’s so good! I wasn’t even really thinking sneaking out, I just never had a yard growing up but I always wanted a treehouse, y’know?” Cyan chirped in excitement and hopped from his shoulder to the window sill. Black continued to act like a very unusual cat while Yellow edged closer to Mochi, relieved to meet someone less hyperactive than their respective siblings.

Ryder tilted his head to the side, not unlike a confused golden retriever. "Well, yeah I wanted to introduce them. Do you try to keep all your friends from meeting each other? That seems like it would be really complicated." He frowned slightly. "Man, you put so much work into being like cool and secretive. Now I feel kinda bad for just lucking into finding you out of costume..." On Natalia's bed, Black shifted about so he could gently headbutt her knee. Yellow set down gingerly on the floor and waggled an antennae cautiously in Mochi's direction then backed up several little steps. Magenta meanwhile continued to run about with Tango, crashing into Utsuwa's foot and rolling head over abdomen before hopping back to her feet and continuing onward, undeterred. "Oh! Tori, we're in the room right below this one!" Ryder recalled with a snap of his fingers. "So I was thinking: vine ladder! Right?!"

The Robug on Ryder's shoulder chirped in confusion. "She means me, Cyan." The clarification prompted a series of soft, perturbed chirps as Cyan shifted from foot to foot to foot. Black seemed content to accept Natalia's attentions with his usual stoicism while Magenta running around in loose circles with Tango, unclear who was chasing whom. Yellow cautiously hovered nearby Mochi, turning her attention back and forth between the fox and Tori as if waiting for direction or permission. For his part Ryder stood nearby the remaining chair with his hands on his hips, giving the dark haired girl a beaming grin of pure delight that managed to be absolutely infuriating. "'Natalia' was already taking care of some kidnappers, I just sort of tagged along. Ooh, has she give you a tough-lady-who-can't-be-bothered-to-learn-names nickname yet? Like... just 'Red' or something like that! She's super good at those!"

"It's complicated," Ryder insisted at Utsuwa's continued teasing over American portions, turning about as the door opened. He had just enough time to begin raising his hand in greeting before the disgruntled black haired girl closed it again in his face. He blinked once and hummed softly. "That's... probably fine?" The door reopened to a more familiar face and his sunny smile returned in full. "Hey! This is Utsuwa, we're rooming together! He's super cool and kinda mysterious and fights with swords so y'know, full marks, basically." Magenta didn't bother to wait to see if anyone else was entering the room and dashed underfoot to greet Mochi and Tango, clacking her forelimbs together happily. Black followed after her at a more leisurely pace but headed toward Natalia instead, stopping about a metre away and ponderously craning his horned head up toward her. Ryder watched the latter Robug with a small frown. "Huh." He looked up to Tori's roommate with a growing suspicion. "Wait..." Abruptly his jaw dropped open and he pointed directly at her in animated surprise. "Gold eyes!"

"Okay, first of all: I basically don't get embarrassed," Ryder told him, holding up a finger. Magenta scurried around Utsuwa's feet and raised one of her forelimbs to echo the gesture. "Pops says its because my self-esteem isn't based on external validation. Jenny says its because I'm kinda oblivious. Either way, bulletproof!" He thumped his fist into his chest twice for emphasis before holding up another finger. "Second, the politics and history of portion sizing in the American food industry are a lot more complicated than that. We can get into that later." Yellow flew in a nervous loop around their heads, buzzing softly to herself. Ryder turned on his heel and knocked on the door.

Claremont Academy Dormitories, Third Floor September 5th, 2020 "I'm not actually sure if the markings are magic," Ryder attempted to clarify as he led Utsuwa down the hallway with Cyan perched on his shoulder and the rest of the Robugs following along nearby, "just that they showed up at the same time she got her magic powers. Which I guess means they're qualitatively magic but not necessarily that they're functionally magic in a meaningful way. Y'know?" He looked over to the more taciturn teenager with a grin to check for understanding or at least continued patience. "Plus Tori's from out of the country, too so you guys can talk about that! It'll be good! We'll have you making friends like an experienced friend-maker in no time!" He gave Utsuwa an enthusiastic thumbs up before checking his phone to confirm he had the correct room number.

Ryder watched Eira work with studious interest then moved his arm back and forth and flexed experimentally. "Not too bad! Don't think I'll need one of your arms just yet!" he assessed with a smile. His good cheer had evidently returned in full with little prompting. Yellow took to the air again and circled about the room before landing atop Eira's head, peering down at Ryder and buzzing angrily. "Well I wasn't going to just let you get hit with a knife!" her inventor protested, shrugging helplessly. "I'll be more careful next time!"

Ryder's father gave another resonant laugh. "Good for the soul is good for the body in my book! Speaking of which, I've got just the thing here." He pulled the top tray of drinks from the stack and somehow balanced in the crook of his opposite arm while plucking free a drink from the tray below it, still balanced atop the bottommost set of cups. "Cocoa and chili, that'll take the chill out of some bones longing for home." He handed the drink to Micah's mother with a broad wink and laughed again; laughter appeared to be his natural state. "Now, don't tell me! I'm going to say... classic egg cream shake with a protein shot for Mr. Workout here! Strawberry and pickle juice to go for this one -- don't ask questions, just try it, ha!" He handed cups to Benny and Davyd respectively, sausage fingers dancing with uncanny dexterity as he practically juggled the trays. "Matcha and super greens for the roommate! Jenny, hold this for me!" The sister took the tray thrust in her direction with a look of long suffering acceptance. She gave the woman with the aviator shades a nod and the smirking equivalent of the dimpled smile shared by her family members. "Hey, how's it going. I'm Ryder's sister, Jenny," she introduced for the sake of the group at large, "and this is our dad, obviously." "Call me Shawn!" Mr. Fujioka insisted, continuing to hand out beverages with dizzying speed. "And these are the Robugs!" Ryder chimed in in response to Pan's question, making a sweeping gesture as though welcoming performers to the stage. The little robots grouped up accommodating for inspection. "So this is Cyan and next to him is Magenta. The shy one is Yellow and that's Black!" He turned to Utsuwa with a serious look. "How do you feel about insects? Any phobias or anything? Sorry, I totally should have asked that first."

"Oh, uh, think about your life choices and try not to let this feed into your pretty obvious persecution complex, okay?" Chitin called to Malachite as he was ushered into the nearby room. He turned around to face Eira to find the sharpened end of the data cable pointing toward him. "Haha, yikes! No, no, I'm good!" He toggled his belt a second time and the glowing edges of the device's dimensional pocket reappeared and retrieved the base armour, leaving Ryder in his normal clothes. The right sleeve of his hoodie was torn about halfway between the shoulder and elbow, stained a dark red-brown. "That probably looks a lot worse that it actually is," he claimed with a poorly suppressed wince. Yellow landed on the wall mounts that had held the first aid kit and made anxious sounds.

The little robot hopped about excitedly at the attention and Ryder laughed, shaking Davyd’s hand while balancing the box. “Ha, Cyan’s with me! This isn’t that heavy it’s just—“ The contents shifted noisily again and one of the flaps popped open. Another mechanical insect, a mantis in white and saturated pink, crawled out from within and perched confidently on the edge of the cardboard, clacking her forelimbs together. “Magenta?! Well you weren’t even supposed to be riding in there!“ This excuse did not appear to impress the mantis. He set the box down and Cyan hopped up to join Magenta. “Roomies! That’s awesome! Your tattoos are wild! Have you met Tori yet? She’s going here too, has like a whole body Celtic thing going.” He gestured around his own face as though tracing swirling patterns in the air. A booming laugh came from down the hall. “Remember to breathe, Ryder!” A barrel chested man with black hair pulled back into a bun and a luxuriously thick moustache ambled over time the door carrying a large suitcase in one hand and balancing a veritable tower of takeout cups in the other, three trays of four each. He wore a red and yellow pineapple print Hawaiian shirt with khaki shorts and comfortable looking sandals. He gave the teens a beatific smile. “What a set up! What a group!” Bringing up the rear was a young woman with her hair shaved on the sides, the hair on top pulled into ponytail and poofing up in front, wearing a light blue sundress belted at the waist. A robotic black beetle walked near her feet while a yellow wasp buzzed about over her shoulder.

Erik waved a hand dismissively. "There really aren't, kid, believe me. You're in the right place." He folded his arms and gave the teenager a deeply unimpressed look. "As something of an authority on both alibis and brooding, yours could use work. Here's the deal: I've know plenty of people who had whatever their thing was 'well controlled'. You start slipping, we'll know," he indicated himself and Raina with an index finger, "and we'll help. You try to be a tough guy and hide it, in doing so putting the people here at risk?" He arched an eyebrow. "Then we have a problem. Now, you got a name?"

With a soft clack of mechanical components something greenish-blue bounded down the hallway to land near Utsuwa's feet. Roughly palm-sized the little robot had the form of a cricket rendered in chunky shapes. It craned its head upward in the direction of the number on the open door and bounced up and down excitedly. "Chirp!" "Cyan, wait up!" A teenager doing his best to jog under the weight of a large cardboard box rounded the corner. Tousled strawberry blonde hair, a patterned button-down in black, goldenrod and lilac over a white t-shirt that had been splattered over time with a spectrum of pigments, faded blue jeans repaired with mismatched patches of fabric and nails painted in bright candy colours combined to make a veritable kaleidoscope of a figure. His reprimand for the robotic insect was half laugh, a broad grin dimpling his cheeks slightly. The contents of the box shifted noisily as he caught up to Cyan. "Hey, 206! That's us! Good job!" He gave the group of young men congregating around the door a smile that managed to be even brighter and tried to balance the box in one hand so that he could offer the other. "Hi! I'm Ryder!"

"That feels weird but I guess it makes sense?" Chitin allowed as Malachite's mouth was covered in duct tape. "Oh! Yeah, she's fine!" He toggled one of the chambers on his belt, prompting a powering down sound and another burst of displaced air as the yellow components of his armour vanished to their pocket dimension and Yellow reverted to her original formation, separate from the helmet. The little robot buzzed about Chitin's right shoulder making concerned noises. "Hah, I'm fine too, Yellow, honest!" Despite his assurances now that the fighting was over he was clamping his left hand down over his right arm, which was hanging at his side. "I got in the way of his knife," he explained to Eira, sounding more embarrassed than anything behind his faceplate. "Man... Cleaning blood out of the inside of the suit is such a pain..."

"I've never actually seen a hedge maze in person," Ryder admitted, looking thoughtful, "but that sounds kinda awesome? Like, here I am, walking into the backyard a few steps and boom, now I'm in a cool forest maze! Seems like the same thing but, like, more?" He gestured with both hands held parallel to each other as though illustrating the maze path. 'Hedge maze' and 'boarding school' suggested a pretty wealthy family but then again he was enrolled more or less at a boarding school now, too and he didn't really have a good sense of how many people in Europe just had mazes. He continued wiping down the counter while Magenta played with Tango. "Anyway, definitely excited! I don't really get nervous which is probably a big part of the number of things I've accidentally set on fire?" He laughed cheerfully. "Meeting a bunch of new people from all over the place who can all do cool stuff? How cool is that!"

Erik let out a heavy breath and a soft stream of Spanish profanity hopefully neither of the younger pair understood. "You'd think Summers could send me a courtesy text when she gets another magic sword kid but I think she's still ticked off from that time Talia went all parent-teacher-conference on her." He released his lighter and withdrew his hand from his pocket, folding his arms and giving the teenager a critical once over. Setting aside the overwhelming miasma he looked tightly wound, expression controlled and body language minimized. There'd be time to pry into that later. "In that case we'll work something out. If you can tamp down on the cloud hanging over your head I'd appreciate it, though. We've got folks here who are sensitive to that sort of thing."

Roommate Assignments First Floor Room 102: Zachary Anderson AKA Howl and Pol Rothstein-Frasier AKA Shift Room 107: Felix Century AKA Legatus and Adam Lanchester AKA Specimen Room 111: Tremayne Hannigan AKA Sureshock and Charles Pym AKA Nevermore II Room 112: Luke Landers AKA Nightscale and Leon Moore AKA Paper Second Floor Room 203: Pan Barrie AKA Forever Boy and Micah Roebuck AKA Thunderbird Room 206: Ryder Fujioka AKA Chitin and Utsuwa Ranaga AKA Kensei Room 213: Davyd Palahniuk AKA Horrowshow and Benicio Wang AKA Octoman Room 214: Benjamin d’Amato AKA Rebound and Heroditus Stylianos AKA Artificer Third Floor Room 301: Elizabeth Grey AKA Masque and Abigail Storm AKA Arcana Room 302: Veronica Danger and Danica Holmes AKA Chelone Room 306: Victoria Griffen AKA Kid Celtic and Natalia Koschei AKA Nocturne Room 309: Lulu Beaumont AKA Crystal-Gazer and Eira Katastroff, AKA Angelic Fourth Floor Room 401: Kendra Farron AKA Chronia and Calliope San AKA Madame Raven Room 403: Olivia Lord AKA Arrow IV and Muirne Sceadusangere AKA Shadowborne Room 410: Ashley Smith AKA Watchdog and Judy Smith AKA Daystar Room 413: Tabitha Hannigan AKA The Spectacle and Astrid Torsten AKA Ms. Thursday Intramural Squad Assignments Red Squad - Elizabeth Grey - Victoria Griffen - Adam Lanchester - Olivia Lord - Utsuwa Ranaga Blue Squad - Pan Barrie - Benjamin d’Amato - Danica Holmes - Ashley Smith - Judy Smith Green Squad - Felix Century - Veronica Danger - Micah Roebuck - Pol Rothstein-Frasier - Heroditus Stylianos - Astrid Torsten Orange Squad - Ryder Fujioka - Natalia Koschei - Davyd Palahniuk - Abigail Storm - Eira Katastroff Violet Squad - Lulu Beaumont - Kendra Farron - Tabitha Hannigan - Tremayne Hannigan - Leon Moore Grey Squad - Zachary Anderson - Luke Landers - Charles Pym - Calliope San - Muirne Sceadusangere - Benicio Wang

"Could you get those forms from earlier for me, before I forget?" Erik asked Raina, jutting a thumb in the direction of the reception desk. There hadn't been any forms from earlier but walking over the the drawer would put Raina on the opposite side of their guest. "Well, we don't really have unsupervised off-hours," he told the young man apologetically, taking a few casual steps in the opposite direction while continuing to wave his empty hand about in an attention grabbing manner. "We do book chunks of time for sparring, self-guided workouts, that kind of thing though, sure! Are you with a school club or a youth group or anything like that?"