Rise to the Occasion (Worm / TMNT)

Rachel, she doesn't talk much.

Mostly she growls at other people, sitting off by herself and avoiding anyone who tries to interact with her.

Mostly.

Becuase there is one easy way to get the girl talking, and talking, and talking. You show her a picture of a dog, and the whole of Rachel's entire demeanor flips on it's head. The girl will gladly talk about any of the dogs that she is taking care of.

"You should come and check out the Community Center." She says with the softest, kindest grin that you might have ever seen. "Brutus is really nice, even though he can look mean." The girl explains, fetching her own phone out of her pocket in order to show off the pictures of her Rottweiler, "Then there's Judas, he's actually really good with kids." The great dane looks all but adorable in the pictures that the girl has on her phone, "And..." She pauses for a moment, quiet for a long moment. "Well... I probably can't let you see Angelica, not up close anyways. She's a rescue from an abusive home... she's... Not good with people yet."

To be entirely honest, the fact that each of these people... Who have all been nothing but nice and kind to you...

There is a part of you that actually does kind of want to go and see this Community Center that they have talked about again and again...

But at the same time... You've waited this long...

Maybe waiting just a little longer... Just to make sure that they aren't going to change their minds and start siding with Emma...

「Monday, March 29th, 2010
Winslow High School
Brockton Bay, ME

There is a part of you that is a little nervous about heading into school this morning. Cassie and Max and Rachel have all gone and invited you to come and check out the Community Center.

You... You didn't do that over the weekend. There was just a part of you that was worried that all of this was going to turn out to be a prank, a joke, something that Emma somehow managed to set up or corrupt, the way that she has done the same for so many other things in the year since she turned her back on you...

So you waited. You didn't actually go to the center the way that you had originally planned. And that means that the next week has started and just...

Well, you didn't do what they asked. What if Cassie and her family don't want to be-

Before you have a chance to really let that thought finish in your head, you suddenly lurch to one side as someone wraps an arm around your neck. "Taylor!" Cassie says cheerfully, and loudly right in your head. "My friend! It is good to see you once again today." The girl smiles, eyes glimmering and bright and you can't help but softly smile back at her.

Is this... Is this really happening? You aren't sure, and it seems just too good to be true, because wouldn't Emma have spoken with them? Wouldn't Emma have done what she does to everyone else and turned them against you?

"How was the passing of your weekend?" Cassie asks, and you barely give the girl a shrug.

"It... Happened, I guess?"

Cassie tilts her head to one side, a worried look on her face. "Well that just is not acceptable." She says, even as she the emphasis to her words. "Weekends are Sacred! They are times for you to rest and recover. Not just physically from the events of the week, but mentally and spiritually as well." She says with a fervor that you've never heard from the girl before. "Father says that all must be in balance, the body, the mind, and the soul. Society, he says at least, has forgotten this, chasing down eternal profits even as doing so damages as destroys us. No! That is Unacceptable! Your weekends must be Fun! They must be filled with Joy and Excitement, or else why bother with school at all?"

That... That is certainly a point of view to have. A part of you has to wonder what Mom would think about that...

And yet, now that you are really thinking about it. Mom... Mom refused to work on Saturdays. Said that was a day for her to recover from the stress, and that she would only do what she wanted to do on those days. That...

That is kind of what Cassie is saying here. "What about you?" You ask, trying to turn the conversation away from what you didn't do over the weekend, before the girl possibly remembers that you didn't go to the Community Center like she had asked.

"My Father and I hosted a Martial Arts Movie Marathon!" Cassie says cheerfully. "Father recently acquired a box set of Lou Jitsu's filmography." The girl says excitedly. "Everything from Crouching Shrimp, Hidden Tiger Prawn to Knees of Fervor, and even his last movie, Brothers of the Hidden Springs, where during an acting stunt he was accidentally killed by his brother Kai Rayti." The girl pauses for a moment, looking a little unnerved after mentioning that last movie. "They... The producers of the Motion Picture aactually decided to use the scene of Lou's death in the movie itself."

That's... Gruesome. "They... Kept his death in the movie?"

"Indeed." Cassie continues, "It made for a very... Somber viewing of the movie." Cassie says, confirms, but before you have a chance to try and ask anything more, the bell for the start of the day rings, which means that the two of you have to split apart in order to head to your individual classes.

---

「Friday, March 31st, 2010
Winslow High School
Brockton Bay, ME

This... Well this might be a bit more pathetic than you really want to admit, even to yourself. Actually, particularly to yourself, but over the last school year, Emma has worked long and hard to separate you from anyone and everyone in Winslow. The rumors that your former best friend have spread have caused people you thought you could trust to turn on you. Then there is Sophia, acting like a right brute and trying to push around those few people who would get close to you. One girl even ended up in the Hospital over the weekend for a cracked forearm. She hasn't spoken to you since. Even Madison, the least of the bullies has managed to ruin friendships by using stupid petty pranks like spitballs and juice spilled onto people in order to ruin any chance you had of making friends.

So that just... Its honestly kind of weird that none of the things that have ruined all the friendships that you used to have, the friendships you tried to make over the last year... None of any of that seems to really bother Cassie or her siblings.

Case in point - "Your... Taylor, isn't it?" A voice asks as you step out of your English class for lunch, before grimacing when you see who it is.
Gertrude is...

there's no real point in being subtle about this. Everyone knows that Gertrude is the girl to go to if you're having problems with... the unclean.

A bottle blonde with an attitude, and plenty of european friends.

In the least subtle of descriptions, she's a fucking nazi.

Honestly, you don't even bother trying to hide the sigh as you rub at the bridge of your nose. "Right, okay. This is happening. What do you want?" You ask, not even bothering to keep the annoyance of your voice.

If the fact that you don't seem particularly happy to see her is noticed, the girl doesn't let it show on her face. Just smiling brightly at you. "Me? Oh, nothing." The girl says, still smiling. "It isn't what I want that we need to talk about, but instead what you want." Gertrude says, eyes glimmering with something cruel as she talks. "Because the way I see it, you've been being bothered of recent." The girl explains. "A rather rude girl and her friends have been screwing with you, and I can help." She explains simply.

"Look, I don't really care what Sophia-" You start to say, before Gertrude gasps.

"Woah now." the girl says, "There's no need to get racist. I was talking about Emma."

"As I was saying." You continue, glaring at the girl. "I don't really care what Sophia says, I'm not in need of any new friends." You say simply.

"Of course not." Rachel says, as she puts a hand on Gertrude's shoulder. "Because you've got plenty good friends as it is, and even if you didn't, you're smarter than to get in bed with losers who worship history's biggest loser." The girl doesn't even bother to glance at Gertrude, instead just smiling at you. "Anyways, Taylor - Mister Hun made me something called Orange Chicken, and I was wanting to use you as a taste tester before I eat any."

You can't help but snort hearing that. The girl is lying, probably. You have a feeling that Rachel thinks that you should be eating more, and has come up with some random excuses for why you need to have some of her food. On the one hand it's a bit weird, but at the same time...

Well... Dad was never exactly a great cook. Neither was Mom for that matter, but since she died the quality of food in the house has only gone down hill. So while you aren't entirely interested in hand outs...

Well, Mister Hun's food is good.

Like Restaurant quality food. It frankly isn't fair that someone cooking like that exists.

---

「Monday, April 12th, 2010
Winslow High School
Brockton Bay, ME

It's kind of wild to think about really, this is now nearly an entire month that you've been going to school, continuing each day to still be surprised that your friends haven't turned their backs on you.

A little less surprised each day, but still surprised.

Now your life is actually starting to approach something that could possibly be considered normal. So...

Maybe that is why you felt...

Confident? enough to do something that turned out to be very stupid.

Ever since your new friends arrived at Winslow, they've been doing everything that they can to help you out. Hell, they've been holding a hand out towards pretty much everyone who is getting bullied, not just yourself.

It was back at the start of the week, you talked with your friends about their own families... Well, Family. It didn't take too long before the three siblings explained the fact that they had a fourth sibling, Anton, who managed to get into Arcadia.

It was just the four of them and their Dad. Biological for Cassie, but Mister Hun is the rests's Foster Parent. Just the five of them.

After that, the question ended up getting turned back around on you. What is your family like?

And well, that is a bit of a whole bag of issues... One that you don't really want to get into... But at the same time...

Despite all the chance in the world that this might be some kind of crazy long con by Emma... You've actually started to trust your friends, and that means letting them see you at your weakest.

So you told them... Well, to be entirely honest, you told them a lot more than you originally intended you. You told them about Mom, about how she was the light and the life of the family. She was the one who managed to get Dad out of his funks when the state of the city got to him. She was the one who helped you with your homework, and how she was a teacher. You even told them about how she got free internet and cable set up in your house, due to the connections she had from back when she was a member of Lustrom's movement.

You told them how she died. Some idiot texting while driving, and how your family never really recovered. Dad tries, he really does... but...

But he always seems so distant, either unable to reach out to you, or just unwilling. You don't know which, and you don't have a clue as to which would be worse. Because you want to believe that Dad is just as lost as you are, that he's struggling to reach out just as hard as you are towards him...

But when you ask him about his day, all you get are these barely monosyllable answers. Often more grunts than anything else. Dad... He's there at the house. He cooks food for two, but he doesn't even look at you half the time... And you don't really mean to say it to your friends, but there are times... Late at night when all that surround you are the deepest shadows... You wonder if he would even notice if you just up and disappeared one day.

The worst part of it all is that you have a feeling that he might not. Not at first at least.

Still, that just means that your friends want to know even more about Mom, and it is because of that that you made this stupid, stupid decision.

You should have known better than bring a physical part of your history here, to Winslow. Maybe you were just feeling... safe now that you have friends.

To explain it in the simplest of terms...

This morning... You brought Mom's flute with you to school. You just wanted to have a chance to show your friends. But there wasn't going to be time for that until Lunch, so of course you put Mom's flute into your locker. What else would you do? Bring the case with you to and from every class? That would have been so much effort.

It would have been better than this.

Mom's flute is gone.

You don't know what to do. Just... Standing there, eyes wide. Before there comes a familiar giggle from behind you. The kind of sound that just... tears at your heart, both because of how much you have come to associate the sound with pain, and because of just how much you used to care for the girl making that sound.

"Oh, hey there Taylor~." Emma calls out. Your hands are shaking, even as you refuse to turn and face the most important of your bullies.

Taking a deep breath, you can hear the air hiss through your teeth. "Emma." You say softly. Still refusing to look at the girl. "Where is my Mom's flute?" You ask.

"Oh?" Emma says, "That old thing, yeah... I noticed that you brought it to school today." The girl confirms what Taylor had been thinking. "And I just couldn't help but notice how shoddily protected your locker was. So I decided to be nice, and take that old thing and put it where it belongs."

What... What in the world is she-

"You know, in the trash." The girl spits out, "Where shit like you and your mother belong." She couldn't. She Wouldn't... Would she...

No, would she? That is not a horrified refusal, but a question.

And it hurts to admit it, but the answer there is nothing short of a completely certain 'Yes.' Because despite everything that you used to have with your sister in all but blood... Emma is without a doubt the kind of person to do this to you.

"Oh, and you better be quick about it." Emma says cheerfully. "Mondays are when the city picks up the trash from the stadium." That is enough to finally make you whirl around to face the girl who once upon a time was your sister in all but blood.
Emma... Your... Your former best friend is still as pretty as she ever was, her blue eyes glimmering like the sea on a sunny day as her red hair falls around her face.

"The Stadium?!?" You barely keep yourself from screaming hearing that, because what the actual fuck. Winslow is a shitty little high school, the worst in all the city, so the school doesn't actually have a stadium for it's own games. It has to use the local college stadium, and that is over an hour by foot. How the hell are you supposed to get to the Stadium before the garbage pick up does?

You don't even know when the garbage- Before you have a chance to panic any further, a large hand lands down on Emma's shoulder. Max steps up. "Ah, Emma." Max says with a dark chuckle. "You've had the pleasure of speaking with my sisters, trying to convince them to drop our friendship with Taylor. But you and I... we haven't talked yet. Why don't we have that talk now." Max all but growls out, pulling the girl back and away from Taylor. As the two start to walk away, Max glances back. "Rachel's out front." Is all that he says.

Once you get out in front of Winslow, you glance around trying to find Rachel, a tiny part of you wondering if what Max said... About Emma talking with your friends was true and this was just-

A sound like roaring thunder, before a huge black motorcycle comes out from behind the school.
Honestly, the bike is scary enough, even discounting the uhhh... Yeah. The rider, and the insane helmet that they are wearing.
"Taylor, what's going on?" Rachel's voice comes out of the mask, and the moment you hear that you find yourself relaxing, realizing that not only is this Rachel, here to help but she doesn't know what is going on, which means that this isn't some stupid way of fucking with her.

"Emma stole my Mom's flute out of my locker." You quickly explain. "She says it's at the stadium."

"The... Stadium? Does Winslow have a stadium?" The other girl asks. You quickly explain the whole thing about the stadium and where it is, after which the girl throws you a helmet, and all of a sudden something clicks.

You're about to skip some school to go ride on the back of a motorcycle.

When did your life get cool?

That really is the question that has to be asked, and thankfully with the help of Rachel, you manage to get to the Stadium just as Sophia herself does. When the girl arrives, seeing the two of you, she just sighs, before handing the case over. "I told Emma this was getting stupid. So take your stupid flute." The dark skinned girl says, putting the flute case down and back away from the two of you. She's made it clear that she doesn't want to fight, and if nothing else Rachel respects recognizing when you are beat.

---

「Friday, April 16th, 2010
Oroku Community Center
Brockton Bay, NH

There's no more room for doubt, there's no more room for waiting. Your friends helped you with something more important than you have words to explain.

So now you are finally going to go and check out the Community Center. Even if they only each mentioned it to you the one time... It'll still be nice to meet them outside of school.

Now that school is out for the weekend you've got plenty of stuff that you can do

What part of the Community Center do you want to check out first?

Actually, before that, there is one major thing that you have to admit. This.... This place is nothing like what you expected when you heard Community Center.

To be entirely honest, you had expected a little hodunk building, with barely enough room for a hundred people...

But now that you are actually hear. Yeah... You remember the construction starting for this place. That had been right before you left for Summer Camp, and just...
Really, calling this thing a Community Center isn't giving it the... the... recognition? the Respect? The thing takes up not one, but two whole city blocks, with the road in between the two compounds being gated off. This place is bigger than Winslow. Its bigger than four Winslows.

You completely lack the words to explain what a massive place this is, and just... Woah. It must have cost millions of dollars to build this thing.

Why the hell is it here in Brockton Bay?

Like... Seriously? Who the hell looked at Brockton Bay and said 'Yes, this is the kind of place that I should spend lots of money trying to...'

Okay, no. Brockton Bay is exactly the kind of place that some rich person would look at and think that they could fix with a ton of money. Still, Dad has been saying that there have in general been more jobs since the school year started, and some of that had to be this.

So maybe whoever the rich person in charge of this might have actually been onto something.

Stepping into the entrance area, you can see that there are a number of different people milling about. Most seem to be talking to one giant of a man. He has to be at least 6'4", but you wouldn't be surprised if he was actually 6'6".
To be entirely honest, the guy does look a little intimidating, but at the same time... "Alright," The giant of a man says softly, a surprisingly kind smile on his face. "Welcome to the Oroku Community Center, what kinds of community activities are folks looking for today?" Again and again he helps all these different people, the smile on his face never wavering.

"Welcome, young lady." The giant of a man says, holding out a hand to shake. "This is your first time here at the Center, isn't it?" He asks, and you carefully nod, even as you shake his hand. "So, what'cha looking for today?"

"Well, I was hoping to either find Cassie, Max or Rachel." You say, not sure if he would even - But the man's eyes light up, his grin going all the wider.

"You must be Taylor Hebert." The giant of a man says. "I'm Hunter Atilla Jones. Cassie's father, and Rachel and Max's Foster Dad. You can just call me Hun. If you're looking for the girls - Cassie's probably over in the Dojo, working on her self defense, and Rachel is almost certainly out in the Yard with her pups. Max... Max is probably with Anton over in the Media room working on their raps. Of course, there is more still if you there is something in particular that you want to do."

So what are you interested in?

Choose two, for now.
[ ][ComCen] The Media Room
- Max and a friend of his named Anton are in the Media room... Rapping? Ok, that sounds interesting.
-- Rolls to increase Diplomacy. Meets Anton
[ ][ComCen] 'The War Room'
- Apparently Hun is a huge fan of some complicated sounding Table Top games, and he went and took over a pair of rooms to play them. They are some table top Miniture games, where you like, control an army and stuff. The rooms have some top of the line tech that makes it so that the two tables, each on in a different room shows what is on the other table, which means that the teams are able to talk with each other without alerting the other team.
-- Rolls to increase Martial, Rolls to Proc Depression
[ ][ComCen] Study Groups
- Over in one of the rooms, there is a general 'Study Area' set off with a number of volunteer tutors willing to help anyone with any problems that they are having with their class work, no matter what it is.
-- Rolls to increase Stewardship, Chance to meet interesting people
[ ][ComCen] Meditation
- Not too far from where Rachel is hanging out with her dogs, there is a sand, rock garden thing, and there is an older man sitting there, offering to teach meditation to anyone who is interested.
-- Rolls to increase Intrigue, Meet an interesting person, Rolls to Proc Depression
[ ][ComCen] The Library
- It's not like an actual library, but just Hun's own personal collection of books that he owns, along with books that have been donated to the Community Center. The room itself is still nice and quiet, with super comfy chairs.
-- Rolls to increase Learning, ???
[ ][ComCen] The Dojo
- So apparently, the Dojo actually offers entirely free Self Defense Classes. And Cassie teaches the most basic level, so that is something that you could try and learn from in order to be just in general safer.
-- Rolls to increase Prowess, if Prowess roll is met, then Proc Untested
[ ][ComCen] Laser Tag
- It appears that a group of kids have worked together to take over the Gymnasium as a Laser Tag room for the day. Probably honestly for the entire weekend, given just how much work it is to move things around. Still, they've turned the room into a maze of boxes of all shapes and sizes, something to spend time on.
-- Roll to Proc Depression, ???
[ ][ComCen] Talk with Mr. Hun
- Cassie's Dad is a huge guy, and he's the supervisor for the entire building, so there has to be some interesting things that you can learn from him. After all, it is just polite to know your friend's parents.
-- Roll to Proc Depression, ???
[ ][ComCen] The Computer Room
- The Computer Room in here is so much better than the one at the Library.
-- Check up on the News over the last couple of weeks.