Phoneme 5: The day I got a crutch
I always hated competitions. Maybe I'm able to say this because I was never rivaled in my skills as a mechanic. But in my eyes all of this "I'm way better than you"-mentality is wasted effort of the mind. Just imagine how much more we could accomplish if everyone would just say 'I do my job and I do it well because I help people by doing so' instead of 'I'm better than you nahnahnah!' The world would be a friendlier place. Plus, there'd be less stupidity-caused headaches. Move a thought.
Anywhere, where was I? Right, in my workshop, carefully cleaning and dismantling a gun I got from the Agency. These occasions really were a bright sight of my job. I've worked many years for the Agency now, 100% of the time at Beacon. I've noticed how the attitude of the students changed towards me the older I got. I kinda miss the old times now that I look back, the teachers are… stiffer than their students. I start babbling again, don't I?
Nonetheless, I sat in my cellar working as Nightshade rushed in, so I guessed she wanted me to notice her for once.
"Giannini, you gotta see this!", she exclaimed, obviously excited by something. Knowing her I speculated whether it really was something to be excited about or just some random case of 'Nightshades spectacular commodities', so I played safe.
"Nigh, contemplate the last four words that left your mouth and talk again". This slowed her down, luckily. You have to see, with comments of those kind I don't want to remind the people that I can't physically see, but I want to force them to think for two more seconds and to explain their thoughts. And the method I was using had proved to be the most successful in doing so. Also, it always lightens my mood.
"Haha, smart guy, you know what I mean", she started to talk again, "I just thought you might be interested in seeing two higher students in action. So you're coming or what?"
I practically had no choice, she dragged me out of my workshop before I could refuse. Not that I would've but you get the idea. More interesting to me was where I got dragged because my orientation went numb until we reached a large group of students circling something. And then I heard the reason: the clicking and clashing of metal. And then I understood Nigh's excitement. Don't get me wrong, standoffs between students were pretty common -and still happen once every week or so- but according to the huge crowd we had a rare occasion on our hand.
It took a bit of the natural charme called elbows and feet to get through, otherwise I wouldn't have had a chance to percept anything except the crowd but… what? Don't look at me like that. If those guys couldn't take my elbow to the ribs they were hardly qualified to be at Beacon in the first place! Anyway, as I got through I immediately agreed with the rest of the viewers: we had a blue moon. Two of the most dangerous students of Beacon were trying to beat each other, Ruby Rose and that Necros-guy with uncertain last name. I couldn't resist to analyse their style and weaponry as good as possible.
She: definitely specialized in the scythe. I mean, sure, she's renowned for her Ferris wheel technique, I don't have to tell you guys anything about her. He on the other hand impressed me more: slow, minimalistic, almost standing still and deriving her swings with slight movements of the barrel while at the same time trying to land a little poke with the hilt at her vital points. Even a bloody amateur like me could see that his preferred way of dealing with enemies was the 'sneaky-snipey-style' and melee was a mean to an end for him. But the situation turned into christmas as he fired in the air. The loading of the chamber, the clicking of the bolt-action lock and the ejecting of an empty shell told me something beautiful…
"This guy… his weapon is completely analogue!"
Dear Huntsmen, let's talk ammunition for a second. Most of you -and the world is grateful for it- use the not technically lethal kinetic-only type, to minimize the potential danger towards other human beings, or at least it seems so. I still have no idea how those dust-engineered projectiles work but fortunately I don't have to. I'm responsible for the equipment and everyone trying to repair a fired bean belongs to the looney bin. However, a gearhead like me would love to dismantle any kind of weapon and learn everything about its firing mechanisms, the more complex and more moving parts, the better.
Unfortunately in this special case that would never happen to me, as this guy was one of my few regulars who only search for replacement parts, never letting me touch their weapon. Seriously, I even tried to convince him he owed me for tricking me the other day by calling one of his guys 'girlfriend' as joke and not returning, to do the work for him but no, all I got was an 'if you ever need help'… Plus, I learned something from my poor intervention-attempt the other day: don't try to stop two fighting students, it's a health hazard and dumb as hell. So I just stayed there and awed the two combatants until someone I could stick to went back to the main building.
After strolling around for a bit totally without getting lost on the way, I intended the detour through the classroom building, I reached my trusty flight of stairs again. I entered and hit the lightswitch immediately. It has become something like a reflex over the time, I mean why would I need the lamps turned on without customers? It only gets a little embarrassing when said 'reflex' causes the lighting to be switched off unwantedly, for example after entering any other room than mine. It happens from time to time should I be the last one to enter the girl's room after dinner. But we found the bright side of it, at least the evening starts with a good laugh. At my cost, yes, but still.
However, as I sat down at my workbench I noticed something different from when I left, some additional box laying around. I began to sigh annoyed but then I noticed there was no reason to do so. The gift ribbon was a dead giveaway, in case you wondered. Inside the box was a small tube and a note. I had no idea what all of this meant so I consulted the sheet of paper.
'Do not dismantle', was all I read as my fingers ran over the note.
'No shit Sherlock', I thought shaking my head. As if I would salvage a present for parts. Well, except the ones intended for that exact purpose. Anyway, as there was no chance for me to find out the use of this present I had to attend dinner to ask the girls, I had a hunch this was their idea. And as it turned out I was right, the moment I stood in front of them confused with this little box in my hand Mirabelle collected high fives from both sides. Knowing they would explain eventually I sat down and filled my plate. I have no plan where these quantities of food come from or even where the kitchen is but my compliments to the chef, the food has always been top notch here.
"So you got the note and didn't take it apart", Lab was the first to talk, "so you owe me ten Lien Nigh."
…they seriously did bet on whether I'd tinker with the tube before knowing what it was. I mean, it would've been my first impulse hadn't I got this as a present but still, it kinda stung.
"Ignore them", Mirabelle pushed away their bet, "this is a gift from… well, technically everyone. It was Ane's idea to build something like this but a lot of guys you repaired stuff for helped designing, getting parts and building it actually. There's a magnet lock here", she took the tube from me and as the button was pushed it sprung into two parts, the man tube and a small ring, connected by some kind of wire or cord, "…which led you spin the whistle. You switched to draught again, didn't you?" She sighed, actually justified, and handed me the thing again, "just try it out and you'll see…"
And without a comment for a change I just did. It really was a kind of whistle 'cause as the rotating tube gained speed it began to emit a soft, deep hum which widened my clear field of perception. I was stunned by the ingenuity of these students and the trouble they went through just to say thank you. I even kept myself from being snippy the rest of the evening. With this brilliant new addition to my tool belt it was less of a problem for me to navigate through open spaces from now on but strangely bees seemed to be more attracted to my whistle. Though maybe I could find a way to train them to attack people should they start to annoy me. You know me, I always manage to find the bright side of life eventually.
A/N: Finally I got Phoneme 5 up and running. I actually got the idea with the whistle from an old anime movie and thought 'could be helpful'. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and stay tuned!
