Still Waters, Another Turn Chapter 2
123456
Show Me How You Do That Trick
123456
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Misa entered the empty dorm room as quietly as she could and shut the door, waiting beside it for almost a minute in order to listen for anyone's approach. She heard nothing but the sound of someone in the shower. She tiptoed across the room to Madoka's bunk, and was poking around in it when the bathroom door opened.
"What are you doing?"
Misa froze and turned slowly around. "I was…er…looking for a…um…a pen! Yeah!"
"In my bed?" Madoka asked in a disbelieving tone.
"I…dropped it?"
Madoka just gave her a disbelieving look, so Misa gave up the lie and heaved a sigh.
"Fine, fine. I was looking for that stungun or whatever that you used on my guitar. Why did you do that anyway?! The guy at the guitar shop said the pickups are totally ruined!"
Madoka's face flushed red as she sat down and began drying her hair, hoping to avoid answering the question.
"So how long are you going to do that?" Misa asked after a minute or so. "It'll fill up with static if you dry it much longer," she added.
Madoka grabbed some clothes from the dresser and went back into the bathroom to change.
"You can't keep avoiding me like this! I want answers!" the long haired girl shouted half jokingly. "Answers!" She fell on the bathroom door and slid down in a mock-dramatic moment, giving the door a light smack for added effect. "Answerrrrrs!" She grinned when she heard muffled laughter from the other side.
"Excuse me, Kakizaki-san, but what are you doing?"
"Eep!" Misa turned to the entrance and saw Iincho standing in the doorway with an odd look on her face. "Er…I was just leaving!" Misa said and bolted out through the narrow space between the other girl and the door frame.
Madoka chose that moment to poke her head out of the bathroom. "Thanks Iincho!"
"So what was Kakizaki-san talking about?"
"Ah…! It's nothing, Iincho, just a joke we saw in a movie last week," she answered before shutting the bathroom door. "Please close the door when you leave!" she called out.
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The phone rang and Kotarou stood up from the game he was playing with Natsumi. "I'll get it."
Natsumi looked glumly at the game board. Kotarou was winning…somehow. Who knew the kid would be so good at monopoly? Though his strategy seemed to be 'buy what you land on and don't let go of it no matter what', he had acquired several of the most sought-after properties. Also, with his refusal to trade, it seemed likely that the game would boil down to a long, long war of attrition where they slowly rented each other into bankruptcy over the course of seven or eight hours or more. Ugh. She hated that sort of thing. She briefly wondered why she had even agreed to play monopoly, but couldn't really remember…must've been Chizuru's influence. She didn't want to play this all day, so, with a devious look on her face, she reached over the game board to the untidy pile of property titles and money on Kotarou's side and began shuffling through it, looking for Park Place. She had Boardwalk, after all, and if she built a hotel…
"You weren't thinking of cheating against a ten year old boy, were you Natsumi-san?"
Uh oh. She had forgotten about Chizuru, who was seated behind her on the couch. "Er, no, Chizu-nee. Why would you think that?"
Kotarou chose that moment to come back. "That was Negi, he wants to do some training later. Hey!" he exclaimed after a moment. "Somebody messed with my stuff! Were you cheating, Natsumi-nee-chan?" he asked, looking across the board at her orderly stacks of deeds and money.
"No, Kotarou-kun, why would you think that?"
Chizuru smiled serenely from her place on the couch while she turned back to the book she had been reading.
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"Asuna-san!" Ayaka called from across the open space beside the dorm. Asuna pretended to ignore the girl as she walked alongside Setsuna and Konoka.
"Pretend you don't hear her!" the redhead demanded. The other two nodded. They were on their way out into the woods for training, after all. It wouldn't do for Iincho to find out what sort of training that was…far too many people knew about it already.
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Ayaka walked stiffly with her arms crossed in front of her chest. Asuna was hiding something from her. For that matter, so were Kugimiya-san and Kakizaki-san, even Negi-sensei! She had an unsettling feeling that they were all laughing at her, but shrugged it off as paranoia. They might be hiding things, but none of them were cruel. But those dreams she had been having…she put that thought aside.
She continued walking randomly around campus until she spotted Chisame-san looking around furtively for a moment and then run into the woods. Her curiosity piqued, Ayaka followed the other girl into the trees. She had always gotten along fairly well with the withdrawn girl in the past, she thought…well, at least well enough to call her by her given name from time to time, anyway. Was Chisame-san in on this deception as well?
Ayaka entered the woods where she thought the other girl had gone, and was soon thoroughly lost. And to top it off, her long skirt kept getting in her way and hanging up on low-growing bushes. She was considering ripping it to a shorter length when she stumbled out into a clearing and heard the distinct sounds of six people freezing in place.
Arrayed before her were Nodoka-san, Ayase-san, Chisame-san, Konoe-san, Sakurazaki-san, and Asuna-san frozen in various odd poses, all looking at her with clear expressions of apprehension.
"Ah…"
"Oh crap…"
"Iincho!"
"How did she find us…?"
Chisame gaped for a moment and then shook her head. "Don't look at me!"
Ayaka, for her part, was quite confused. Asuna and Sakurazaki-san looked like they were fighting with swords, while the other four were playing with…magic wands? "What are you…?"
"It's a play!" Asuna shouted desperately.
"Really? Which one?" Ayaka asked with real interest. She had an interest in the classics.
Asuna, thinking quickly, named the only play she could think of. "Romeo and Juliet!"
Unfortunately, her answer came just after Yue's "Macbeth."
Everyone else just looked at each other blankly.
"It's a combination!" Baka Red supplied frantically.
"Is that so?" the rich girl asked skeptically. Now that she thought about it, she hadn't heard anything about this. "What part are you playing, Asuna-san?"
"Asuna-san is playing the part of Mercutio," Yue added. "Setsuna-san will play the part of Macbeth."
"Is…is that so," Ayaka asked. "But what about—"
"We have to get back to practice, go ahead and go back to the dorm, Iincho! We'll take it from here!" Asuna shouted enthusiastically as she began to swing her sword around in an exaggerated manner with Setsuna, complete with loud 'Yah!'s and the like.
"But—"
"We've got it! Go home!"
Well, if what she had seen thus far was anything to go by, they certainly needed their practice. So Ayaka went back the way she had come, and soon made her way out of the forest and ended up by the ruined athletic fields.
Somehow, she didn't think they were practicing for a play. She had had her suspicions for quite some time, but…it was impossible, that sort of thing wasn't real. Was it? There were the unusual events during the summer to consider, but… And why was she suddenly suspecting her classmates like this?
"No, I'm imagining things. It's the stress of my position, I suppose. I probably just need some rest," she said aloud in an attempt to provide herself with some much-needed confidence. It didn't work.
"Hello, Iincho. What brings you here?"
The girl looked up at the PE teacher, Max-sensei, and frowned. She still hadn't forgiven him for the kidnapping incident, even though he claimed he had done it for Akira-san's protection. A bit of movement on the far side of the field pulled at her attention, but she ignored it and focused on the teacher standing before her. She had a reputation to uphold, after all, so she bowed politely to him.
"I was going for a walk in the woods, sensei," she replied, not wanting to explain her motivation.
"Really? You should be careful out there, you know. There are wild animals in those woods, and I wouldn't want you to get attacked by a badger or some—" He was cut off with a grunt as a huge hand swatted him aside and sent him flying a dozen feet or more before he hit the ground and rolled to a stop.
Ayaka stumbled backward without looking and tripped and fell down in one of the holes that had populated the athletic fields since the flood. She scrambled back on her bottom just in time to avoid the thing's hand as it lunged for her, and she looked around wildly for some means of escape. The attacker was a Tanaka-san robot, like the ones from the festival. She forced herself to calm down and got to her feet, watching it warily. While she fancied herself a martial artist, she had a feeling she couldn't face something like this, not without a weapon. A quick glance to the side confirmed Max-sensei was still on the ground, though he was moving now. There was no one else around that could help, either. She jumped when the robot's head stopped scanning the field and focused directly on her. It extended one robotic arm and approached as she backed up still more. She stumbled into one of the holes again but maintained her balance as she cursed her unusual clumsiness while the robot approached with its dead eyes.
It was huge, easily twice as wide as herself, and a good two feet taller. But…Asuna had beaten lots of these robots during the festival, so they couldn't be that strong. Ayaka picked herself up and warily looked at the robot. Slow, very slow. She glanced over at Max sensei and saw that he was up on hands and knees, coughing. There would most likely be no help from that source before the thing caught her, she thought.
So she set her stance and waited for the robot to get within striking distance.
His feet clumped heavily, leaving footprints in the hard packed dirt of the athletic field. And then he was in range, so she moved. The kick to the robot's stomach brought forth a metallic clang and a bruise on her leg, but nothing else, not even a wobble. She limped back a few steps, then shot forward again, palm aiming for the thing's chin. If she could knock it off balance…
It grabbed her hand.
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Max was in a world of pain. He had gotten a glimpse of a huge hand as it smashed a hammer blow into his side as he turned, and next thing he knew, he was lying twenty feet away. Judging from the blood he was coughing up, something had been ruptured. There was also a sharp pain from his lower ribcage every time he took a deep breath.
He got up to his hands and knees and vomited in spite of his best efforts, the act of retching extremely painful. He looked down and was dismayed to see quite a bit of blood mixed in. A startled shriek brought him back to the events of a moment ago, so he quickly looked toward the robot, which had grabbed Iincho and lifted into the air by her hand. It shook her a few times, then turned and began trudging back the way it had come, still holding her up in the air. That wasn't good.
Max got to his feet and used what little he knew of healing magic to patch himself up enough to walk. It wasn't much, as, being a fire mage, his element wasn't exactly known for its healing abilities, but it would be enough for a temporary patch-job.
He just hoped Konoka would be around afterward.
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Ayaka felt like a rag doll. She had been shaken so violently by the big robot that she was still dizzy, not to mention lucky to still be conscious. People died from getting shaken like that, after all. She heard a distant shout and her vision swam up just in time to see Max sensei break into a trot behind the robot.
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"Let her go!" Max shouted, driving a magically-charged fist into the robot's back, making a big dent in the metal plate and causing it to drop Ayaka and almost overbalance, arms pinwheeling. Punch after punch after punch hit the robot as it turned to face him, slowly driving it backward as the girl scrambled away. "Iincho, call someone for help!" Max yelled, not letting his attention leave the robot. "Hurry!" He wished he had some sort of weapon with him; he couldn't just blast the thing or summon his artifact, Iincho would see. This one wasn't like those he had faced on the third day of the festival; encased in thick armor rather than fake armor plated skin, if he hadn't had his mage shield up he would've shattered every bone in his hand on the first hit, not to mention when the robot had hit him first…this might be tough.
Ayaka fumbled for her cell phone and took it out with clumsy hands. She flipped it open and the top half broke off. She stared at it dumbly for a moment…it must have broken when the robot dropped her. She looked back at Max-sensei just in time to see his fist, on fire, hitting the robot's head and causing it to explode.
A vague sort of unease washed over her. 'His hand was burning, he needs a doctor,' she thought distantly as she dialed an emergency number on her dead cell phone. "It's broken," she said aloud, almost in surprise as she plopped down on the ground again, her shaky legs suddenly refusing to support her.
She looked back up at Max-sensei to tell him about her phone and watched him step warily back from the robot, which was now stumbling around and leaning heavily to its left; apparently some major stabilizing apparatus had been located in its head. The robot continued making a long circle to the left until it stumbled over one of the holes in the ground and came down heavily with a sound not unlike a low speed car wreck. There was a loud pop and an electronic sizzle as its arm jerked spasmodically and then lay still. Another electronic pop, louder than the first, followed as faint blue smoke and the smell of burnt electronics wafted through the air. Max approached the class rep, twitching as he walked, as if in pain.
"Are you ok?" he asked as he offered her a hand up, which she looked at blankly.
"Your hand was on fire," she said.
Max paused. "It's fine, see? You probably imagined it." He watched her closely.
It had definitely been on fire, but she dropped the point; her mind was working oddly. "My phone broke," she said after a moment, showing him the two halves, which were connected by a thin cable.
"That's ok, cell phones are replaceable after all," the teacher said in a failed attempt to be reassuring. He was holding his arm against his side oddly, and his face was even more pale than usual.
"This one was from Asuna-san, after she broke my old one," Ayaka said sadly. Then, as if finally realizing the situation, returned to reality. "Thank you for your help, Max-sensei. I will alert the University Robotics Club that one of their robots has escaped. Thank you."
"No problem," Max said. "Here, you can use my cell, just return it next class, ok? I need to go talk to Konoka, see you later, Iincho." He stopped walking after a moment and turned back. "Oh yeah, stay away from that robot until they come to collect it ok? It could still be dangerous."
"I understand, sensei."
Ayaka watched Max go into the woods and then turned back to look at the robot again. It still gave the occasional twitch, but was otherwise still. It looked kind of strange for a Tanaka-san robot, too. It seemed shorter, for one thing. And the bottom half was built much heavier. Its movements hadn't been the smooth motions she remembered from the festival, either. They had seemed more, well, robotic. Like the way robots in old movies always moved stiffly, arms and legs moving in a jerky manner. Maybe it was an early model? She flipped open Max-sensei's cheap cell phone and made her call to the robotics department.
That robot…why had it grabbed her and not Max-sensei?
She was still pondering these questions when the club members arrived to take their robot back.
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"Thanks, Konoka. I feel as good as new," Max said, standing up and stretching experimentally. "Tired, but good." It was quite useful to have such a strong healer around, especially in a place with as many 'incidents' as Mahora. He glanced around the small clearing and noticed Nodoka all but hiding behind Yue. Apparently the shy girl was still afraid of him. Chisame was seated on a fallen log with eyes only for her laptop, and Setsuna, Asuna, and Konoka were standing before him.
"No problem, Max-sensei!"
"So, what happened to you, anyway?" Asuna demanded.
"Some robot from the robotics club attacked Iincho," he explained.
Asuna's expression changed to show her worry. "Is she ok?"
"Iincho's fine," Max replied. "I'm pretty sure she saw me use my fire to beat it…I think she accepted my excuse, though. Is she ok? She seemed a bit paranoid."
Asuna looked thoughtful as she nodded. "Now that you mention it, she followed me around after school for a while yesterday. She's been acting pretty weird lately."
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Chachamaru entered the Robotics Club clubroom. "Hakase, I have come for my weekly maintenance check."
Hakase looked up from her clipboard. "Hmm? Oh, sure. I was just looking at this," she said, gesturing to a partially disassembled robot that lay on a work table.
"I am not familiar with this model," Chachamaru stated as she scanned it.
"Neither am I," Hakase replied. "It looks kind of like one of the Tanaka-sans, but…it's very primitive. Notice how heavy the bottom half is, as if whoever built it was afraid the weight of the torso would cause the legs to buckle if they were smaller. Then there is the question of the armor plating covering the entire frame; there isn't an ounce of artificial skin anywhere on it! Something so graceless isn't any of our work."
Chachamaru noted the information and saved a high resolution picture to her newly-created 'Unknown Robot A: Tanaka Unknown Version' folder.
"There is no trace of magic in its construction, which would explain some design choices. Also, apparently the main balancing mechanism was located in the head." Hakase gave a tsk of disdain. "The head, of all places! What sort of amateur would put such an important system in the head of what amounts to a combat robot?"
"I do not know."
They both stood there for a moment, looking down at the robot.
"It attacked Iincho-san, but Max-sensei stopped it," Hakase said after a moment.
Chachamaru looked at the scientist for a moment. "I will scan the area for others."
"That's a good idea," Hakase said. "We can do your maintenance tomorrow."
"I understand."
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Author's Note: Believe it or not, just about every bit of anything in this chapter will be important later.