The Curious Case of Diligence University

[X]Do not flip him off.
-[X] Make sure the tentacle does not do so either.
[X]Leave him be.

.

"Then fine. You said no." You sigh disappointedly, continuing your conversation in lower tones. "But it would be kind of cool, you know? Like- "Hello, everyone! My name is Althorn and I'm an attempted murderer! I'm a tech nerd and here just for the hell of it!" You know, that kind of stuff."

"You're not getting over that, are you." Althorn's face falls slightly. "Why is this club so goddamn important to you?"

"I've aimed to be in it since I was a kid. But it's not that important." You've just heard so many stories about it. Alumni of the school were in your family, after all. For example, there was...

There was...

You pause. You can't remember. You can't-

The world starts to go black around the edges.

"No!" You catch some people's attention at the outburst, but in general people are focusing on a very energetic new member's introduction, which makes them a little less likely to notice some girl to the side. Althorn reaches out, but you shove his hand away, covering your ears quickly. Loud. It's too loud.

But that's fine. You're in the Science Club. They have to have medical science practicioners somewhere. This has happened before. You'll be fine. You'll be fine.

"Blackfields!" Althorn grabs you by your shoulders, shaking you hard. "Hey. Snap out of it!"

"Don't- don't touch me." You push him away again. No contact. Contact makes whatever this is worse.

You hate your blackouts. They come so- so randomly. You feel too happy, you feel too sad, you feel too angry- then a few minutes, and black. Nothing. You have to calm down. Excess of emotion leads to losing your consciousness and apparently disappearing from the public eye. Fine then. You're fine.

You count numbers under your breath. "One, four, six, two. Three, seven-"

Out of order. Your brain starts to calm slightly, your mind clearing. But not enough. "Sinnar. Recite numbers. Out of order."

"Two," he begins, obviously confused when you start repeating after him. "Four, twelve, seven, three, three, one. What's happening?"

"Blackout," you explain quickly. "It's fine. Keep going."

You're not going to go incognito in the middle of a meeting room with this many people. And god knows you're not going to cause a scene to do whatever the hell it is you do when you're like this. You focus on the numbers, whispering them one by one and letting the rest of the world fade away.

Finally, finally, you're home free. The darkness is gone, replaced with glorious clarity. You sigh in relief, looking up. "Thanks, Sinnar."

"No problem, Blackfields. But, ah..." The boy fidgets slightly. "Do you have a medical condition or something? Cause you should probably head over to the nurse."

"I'm alright." Honestly, you do feel better. The recent events seem a little clearer now. Which makes you wish you'd flipped off the boy who's obviously Michel's right-hand man, but hey, the past is the past.

At the thought, your little tentacle raises as if to make a gesture roughly equivalent to giving him the finger. You push it back down reluctantly. "Bad boy. Don't tell the guy he's shit. Wait until we're alone."

"... I have several questions."

"No comment." Your good boy is not going to be mocked in front of you.

Thankfully, Althorn lets it go quickly. Nice to know he actually has self-preservation. "So, uh... guess your name being Blackfields really fits, huh?"

"What?"

"Blackfields. Blackouts." He shrugs like that's something everyone with half a brain would think of. Less than half, if he's any indication. "Duh."

"Stop being a three-year old and listen to the introductions."

When you both look back up, though, everyone's stopped talking. Michel takes out his phone, pressing a few buttons before smiling angelically out at the crowd.

"Alright, that concludes it.To everyone who introduced themselves on this fine day, thank you so much. It is an honour to have all of you here."

The oil-splattered student grins. It stretches across their face unnaturally, leaving a chill running down your spine. "We're always happy to have new test subjects!"

And before you can react, a set of large, almost spiderlike metal appendages shoot from the student's back, grabbing everyone who'd made their introductions. Including, of course, you.



[ ]Write-in.

[X] Command tentacle to protect you.

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Your scream at being pulled up is entirely justified. Obviously.

You grab uselessly for the seats, but the mechanism pulls you up anyway, dragging you feet-first into the air. Your bag almost falls at the sudden movement. It would have if it wasn't for your tentacle's efforts- it wraps around your arm quickly, grabbing on to your satchel with the other end.

You shoot a terrified look towards Michel Hallow. The club president's eyes are open, revealing a pale blue just on the edge of white. His smile hasn't faltered, not one bit. It almost makes you want to hurl.

"Be not afraid," he says dreamily, almost like several people aren't hanging from spider legs. You think the time travel girl might be having a panic attack. "This is but a test, nothing more. All you are required to do is escape."

"Should we keep the mechanisms intact?" Basil, the thaumaturgy boy, looks impressively calm even suspended in the air. "That would be more of a challenge, wouldn't it?"

"If you break my creations..." Your impromptu captor trails off. It's a wonder how much threat they can pack into a single ellipsis.

You gulp down the fear rising in your throat. Or maybe it's bile. You can't be sure. Right, then! No damaging the machines. Or else you're probably going to get skewered or something, and wouldn't that be a terrible way to start a club meeting?

"Tentacle!"

Your sharp order sends your creation into quick, decisive action. The tentacle lets go of both the bag and you, latching onto the clawlike end of the leg that grabbed you and- secreting slime? You did not mutate that in.

Either way, the slime quickly makes its grip more slippery, which leaves you with the confusing problem of getting the hell down. Dropping is not an option, not when you'll break your legs from this high. Maybe...

Your pet can stretch to about ten feet. And a drop of about three feet from there will sprain your ankle at best...

"Stretch!" you order, and almost instantly it wraps around your waist and stretches to its longest possible height. There are a few audible gasps. Great; you like a bit of fame as much as the next person, after all! You grin smugly as you descend, dropping the last few feet and landing in a clumsily executed forward roll. You're pretty sure someone's clapping at this point.

You reach out, catching your slippery pet as it drops down to join you. "Good boy. You did so well for big sis!"

The tentacle... purrs? You didn't add that part to its repertoire, either. Fucking squids and their ridiculous rate of genetic mutation.

Ah, well. A little purring's fine by you. After all, you've pretty much pulled off an action movie stunt, your tentacle's gained a few new abilities, and you're the first to get down! All's well that ends well.

You turn to see the council of three staring at you. The student who's still growing metal spider legs out of their goddamn back is giving you an unreadable look. Michel's violent fanboy is somewhere between impressed and envious. And Michel...

You don't like how his gaze has narrowed onto you.

You look away from them, your attention instead going to the students who were once trapped with you. Marry's starting to breathe normally again, and she's rewinding a pocket watch frantically while resolutely not looking at the ground. Basil's starting to glow with blood red light, chanting fuck knows what at the delicate electronics he's going to presumably glitch out. There are a few students you hadn't noticed hanging too, some girl who's grown about seventeen wings and is swinging a sword of glowing holy light at the legs and a boy who's trying to hack the obviously not computer-based tech.

They don't look to be getting too far. The pocket watch is doing nothing. The glow of magic keeps flickering and dying. The girl with the sword clearly doesn't know a thing about using it and the legs can't be hacked for obvious reasons. It's... kind of pathetic, actually.

These are the kind of people you'll be spending valuable club time with? Pass. You'll take Althorn any day. He had the balls to actually try and shoot you.

Still... it'd be pretty mean to just leave them there...

.

[ ]Help one of them down.
. . [ ]Who?

[ ]Leave them be and go back to your seat.

[ ]Break the machine suspending them all.

[ ]Write-in.

[X]Help one of them down.
-[X] Winged Swordsgirl

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Feeling pretty sure you're probably going to regret this, you nod to your cute little tentacle. "Okay, sweetie, you think you can do the same for the nice girl with the bright lights? Can't get up there all on my own, you know."

You're not entirely sure if it understands you, but you're going to take the little bob of its tail end as a nod.

And so it is with great ceremony that you get your pet to shorten again, take aim, and fire. "Ready-set-go!"

Your baby goes flying, wrapping instantly around the metal of the winged girl's capture machine and looping one end around a part of her waist between the sets of wings. She doesn't scream, her eyes only widening as she turns to your pet. And you hear a bright laugh from her, and she grips the slippery loop tight. "Alright! Let's get out of here."

"Not so fast." The oil-splattered student flicks their wrist, and she is swung suddenly against the wall. It doesn't hit, but it's close enough that there are gasps, and someone in the crowd screams. "Speed isn't going to save another one of you."

"Lucian! What have we said about unnecessary violence?"

"Must 'ave forgotten," Lucian drawls. "Sorry, boss. I won't pull that trick again."

"And what other tricks are you willing to play?" Basil asks. A smile is stretching across his tired face, and you wonder to yourself just how many of these students have sadomasochistic urges so you can avoid them. Althorn's enough. "Surely that's not all your appendages can do."

"Not even close." Lucian grins. Three, then. Sadomasochism, you've decided, is the worst kink. "I'm playing a bit of a game myself. For every person who gets out, the difficulty is upped for anyone still caught. Best get out fast, boys and girls, 'cause this is not going to be a fun ride."

"Right. I've had it." The magician slams a palm against the metal, which gives off red sparks and is quickly covered in runes the shade of blood. "Release!"

Whatever mechanism is suspending him lets him go, and Basil drops, landing on his feet. You're pretty sure he's broken a leg with that stunt. But to be honest, he looks like he's broken bones before. You figure you can leave him be.

The winged girl whacks your tentacle immediately, and it begins secreting that slippery fluid you did not make it make. The spider leg angles upward quickly, to keep her from falling, but she- okay, that's wrong on multiple levels- tears off a wing and slices the metal apart. A good portion is pulled clean off, enough to send her crashing down. You're not imagining the way Lucian zeroes in on her, or the way their almost instinctual smile grows predatory at the action. She just made an enemy.

The tentacle elongates as she drops, wrapping completely around her and acting as a living buffer when she hits the hard floor. You rush towards them quickly, pulling flesh away to free her face. "Are you okay?"

"Y-Yeah, I'm fine. Jesus, what the hell is this thing?" She carefully frees herself from your baby's hold.

She's still holding the wing she ripped off. At a closer look, its feathers are made of a ridiculously sharp metal, and with a strong enough swing, you don't doubt it could take someone's head off. You pull your tentacle completely off of her quickly. The cuts on it amount in the thousands, each thin and sharp and probably, definitely caused by her excess of wings.

"It's okay, sweetie! Big sis has you." You stroke the unharmed portion softly, watching the cuts dribble little bits of green blood. You must not have heard any pained noises when it was that high up. "I'll get you fixed right up, okay?"

The winged girl shoots you a confused look before sending her broken wing flying. It slices cleanly through computer boy's mechanism despite Lucian's effort to pull him away, and she catches him by flying up there. You watch as the club president's companion curses, quickly pulling their metal legs back. "Alright, just one of you... left..."

You follow their gaze to where one of the legs has been messily separated, and where Marry stands, sheepishly cleaning herself and that pocket watch off. She's where she was sitting earlier, and there's a mass of students that are somehow suddenly displaced. "Damn. I really need to reconfigurate that."

You look at your injured tentacle, and at the remains of metal appendages, and you feel a pang of slight pity. You all really need to work on less destructive escapes.

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[ ]Apologize to Lucian.

[ ]Go back to your seat.

[ ]Talk to the others.
. . [ ]To who?

[ ]Write-in.