012/002 ♐ sensitivity! sensitivity! ⚙ ᴏᴘᴇɴ

[grimgrimoire]

Characters: Equius AU (guest starring Eridan), Ienzo, and YOU.
Setting: Dormitory hallways, and then anywhere at all. (Bargain prices up against the wall!) Backdated to noontime on the fifteenth.
Format: Action. I'll change to match.
Summary: Derps with recorders. Equius (Pet, early stages) is mamaloguing the shit out of his poor matesprit (and being very loud as he does so), and Ienzo (Howl/Lovely Ladies) is being a creepy creeper who creeps. He wants to experiment on yooooooooou.
Warnings: Words. Also a Disgaea!Mao-level creeper warning for Ienzo; there is a good chance your character will die if you tag him.

Part One: Equius ♐

[Walking down the hallway today are two trolls… well, okay. Maybe “walking” is a strong word. One of them, a rather tall yellowblood, is walking. The other one, jadeblooded and supremely confused, is being dragged along after the first with a weirdly clingy variant of holding hands. There’s a little mechanical bug flying along behind them; close inspection reveals that it’s a little babby robotic Virgin Mother Grub. It seems to be batting at the yellowblood’s arms, but every time it does, he abruptly jerks his charge to a different position. Usually one that involves holding said charge very tight to his chest. And also intense glaring.]

[Yeah, Equius decided to tinker with the heart recorders. Unfortunately, through it he has discovered his inner Kankri, and is now monologuing the everloving daylights out of his poor matesprit. But hey – at least it’s just the early stages! Hope you weren’t planning to get anything done the day of the sixteenth, Eridan, because he will not let you. But in the meantime, it’s just an innocent nagging vaguely reminiscent of a certain Queen’s ramblings about her son the Prince and marriage. However, he’s still paying attention to the surroundings; if anyone gets too close, he will stop abruptly and move the two of them away in much the same way he does to the mechanical Mother Grub.

[The mamalogue: spoken as rapidly as is possible to do without sacrificing clarity.]

…You know you can’t keep staying in that room, Eridan, it’s really not good for anything if you do. Roommates are just terrible news as a general rule, and yours are just bad. They’re going to ruin your life, I can tell you right now, they’re going to ruin your life! I want you to be safe, I really do, that’s all I’m trying to do here – don’t give me that look, Eridan Ampora, I don’t know what else I can do to make it clear to you that I’m really not here for anything, anything, except to keep you out of harm’s way. You deserve to be! I’m just saying, there are a lot of monsters in this Tower, and not all of them are the kind that wander the floors at night. We really have to find somewhere else for you to stay. You can’t sleep down in one of the lower floors – oh, god, no, never again, I would hate for that to happen to you, you’d be miserable – but maybe another dormitory would get past the no-sleep law? I’m sure it would. Another dormitory. We can make some kind of arrangement for you in mine, I’m sure we can kick one of my roommates out for a while, or at least share, one of them sleeps at odd hours anyway I’m pretty sure. But the long and short of it is you have to get closer to me. We have to stick together. Because who else is going to take all of these precautions for you, hm, Eridan? Jade? No! All Jade’s going to do is shrug and slap you on the shoulder and say “You can do it, go get ‘em,” but that’s not good enough. That’s not even remotely close to good enough. There’s only one person who really cares about you and really worries about your health and your happiness and your future, and that’s what we’re talking about right now – get back here! – and I want to make myself absolutely clear: it’s for your own good, okay? This is all for your own good. Because obviously you can’t seem to take care of yourself any longer, just look at you! How much shorter are you than me? Half a foot? Half a foot! And you’re thinner. See, this is the kind of thing I’m concerned about, Eridan. I’m not sure you can think of all these things on your own, eating and sleeping and not dying and stuff like that, and that’s why I’m here. Now, come on – come on now – Eridan, that is not the way to the kitchens!

[Note: replies can come from chronomancer as well if he has something to say.]

Part Two: Ienzo ⚙

[Meanwhile, for a somewhat different flavor of maniacal Valentine’s shenanigans, particularly unfortunate individuals may find a short man in a lab coat creeping around the Tower. And we do mean creeping. He may walk as a shadow along the wall, or appear from nowhere, humming a happy tune; any monsters he should run across are promptly put down with an unusual amount of disregard for examining their corpses afterward. The monsters were all peanuts, as far as he was concerned. There were much more interesting things he could be cutting up and examining than monsters.]

[Such as, for example, other residents!]

[If someone is in bad enough relation to luck, they will find Ienzo walking up to them from within a wall, a shadow given form. He’s grinning, grinning in a way that he swore – quite a while ago – he would never grin again. And he’s holding out a little heart-shaped tape recorder. On the label, written in red Sharpie with little hearts drawn around the side, is the word ‘Howl’ .]

[Want to help him out in his experiments?]

Comments

Part one

[wrigurun]

[Wriggle thought she'd heard a familiar voice pass by her room. Familiar in voice alone though, there was just so much of it it couldn't possibly be who she was thinking of. Curious, she poked her head out into the hallway.

That couldn't be Equius, could it? Maybe it was just another unusually tall... whatever he was. Whoever they were, their company was definitely unfamiliar. Normally she would have just gone back to sleep but something else grabbed her attention. It sure looked like a bug, not one that she'd ever seen but that was to be expected in the tower. Hovering closer so as not to alarm in she tried beckoning it closer with her power but it seemed strangely unaffected. That only made her more curious and she reached out in an attempt to grab it, trying to avoid being seen despite how obvious she was]

Part one

[geometry]

[No, there's definitely no way in the world that this can be Equius; maybe it's just the Shadow again? But no fog. So maybe not. But whatever the hell he's doing now could conceivably be the work of a Shadow of some kind, anyway, because you'd better bet he gets fussy over people. He just has the decency to shut up and sit down most times. But now... not so much. Equius stops talking and moving quickly, maybe making Eridan choke a little from just how fast it was, and sloooooowly turns his head to look at the little robotic mother grub. That doesn't last for long, though, because said mother grub promptly flies around him and tries to nest in Eridan's hair, at which point Equius obviously turns him the other way... so he's looking right at Wriggle.]

[Oops.]

What do you want?

[chronomancer]

[Gurgle.]

[wrigurun]

[As soon as she's spotted she straightens up and tries to appear as innocent as possible]

Nothing!

[Relaxing a little, Wriggle tries to get another look at the robotic mother grub]

What's that thing though? I thought you hated bugs...

[geometry]

I don't know what that is, you can take it! [He shrugs and turns his head pointedly away from the little thing, which chitters indignantly and tries to get near Eridan again. Having none of this, Equius swings Eridan away again and swats the little bug towards Wriggle.]

There! Keep it so it doesn't bother him anymore.

Part Two, Library

[tohko_amano]

[Tohko had finished her library duties, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to stop and grab some books before she left. She grabbed two volumes from one shelf, turned the corner..and saw that boy again. She hadn't gotten his name last time..but Namine said he was a chessmaster. However, since Wilhelm was the chessmaster to end all chessmasters, she thought she would be fine.

She noticed that grin though..and the tape recorder. She sighed when she saw him, but she forced herself to be polite.]

Good morning. Need help finding anything?

Part Two, Library

[grimgrimoire]

[He wasn't a chessmaster, normally! Naminé was just wrong. And not taking events into account. That's exactly what happened, it's a thing all the time... oh, Ienzo is going to hate his life after this is over, isn't he?]

[Yes, he probably is.]

[But for now his life is pretty damn good.]

Yes, actually.

[He turns to face her, still smiling like that, and walks a bit closer. He makes no attempt to hide the recorder. She seemed like a normal girl, an extremely annoying normal girl, but... it wouldn't hurt to cut up a control, right?]

I was wondering if there was a music section somewhere around here?

[He knows the answer already, of course.]

Part Two, Library

[tohko_amano]

[And sadly, Tohko's opinion of him probably won't rise after this particular event. Tohko took a step back, reminded of Wretched Egg for a moment before replying.]

We do, actually. Which book were you looking for? Or which musical subject were you interested in?

Part Two, Library

[grimgrimoire]

Lyrics. I've had a song stuck in my head all day and I can't seem to figure out where it's from. I think it's a showtune of some kind?

Part two

[pinnaculum]

[Sephiroth pauses at the familiar sight of a man in a lab coat. Of course, it's not a familiar man, but it's enough to draw his attention. He's curious. He draws his sword, but not with any real intent to do harm. He's only cautious. Lab coats make him both intrigued and wary.

Sephiroth doesn't exactly walk, but he hops nearer, his teleportation lasting the blink of an eye, so it's hard to catch that that's what he's done.]

Hello.

Part two

[grimgrimoire]

[Huh!]

[Look at that. Little kid with silver hair in a familiar style, carrying around a sword and displaying teleportation powers! Ienzo didn't know that the Tower could change people's ages, but wow, so interesting. He doesn't kneel down to the boy, because kneeling in front of a sword would be stupid, and besides, he knows enough about little silver-haired children to figure that they wouldn't appreciate being treated that way anyhow. So Ienzo merely smiles.]

Hello.

What's your name, then?

[pinnaculum]

[Sephiroth looks up at the man calmly, his sword still lowered. He doesn't return his smile, but he has no reason to be worried, and no reason to be anything less than polite, so he answers the question promptly.]

My name is Sephiroth. Who are you?

[If this man is a scientist, Sephiroth hopes he's an interesting one. One he could enjoy talking to.]

[grimgrimoire]

[It really is the same one! Go figure.]

Sephiroth, eh?

I know a Sephiroth.

Have you seen an adult version of yourself around?

[Casually running his fingers over the tape recorder making a heart-shaped bulge in his pocket.]

part two;

[eternallily]

[It's the song that gets Saki's attention. She's not familiar with it, but she catches herself humming along after a few bars. What can she say, it's catchy?

After that, she approaches, a bit of a smile on her face.]

Catchy tune, isn't it?

part two;

[grimgrimoire]

[WOW hello magical slap in the face. That girl has something very definitely up with her, he can sense it from all the way over here, so he was just making his way over when she dedicated to approach him herself! Oh, this is almost too easy. Think of all the tests he can do, Saki. Think of them.]

Oh yes. Do you know it? I've been trying to figure out where it came from, but there are no lyric books in the library.

[And of course he can't look it up on the Network. W h o o p s!]

part two;

[eternallily]

[She would be, perhaps, if she could think in terms of her magic at all at the moment. There's so much she wants to know about the limits of it, just so she can know what hers actually are.

Instead, Saki's blushing lightly, letting her feet carry her closer without consciously thinking about it.]

I don't, I'm afraid. It sounds like it could be from some musical, maybe? Something that would have played in Tokyo, that came from Broadway before that.

I'm awfully curious, though...

part two;

[grimgrimoire]

Well...

[Hm. HM.]

I did manage to find a tape recording of it. Maybe if you listened to the actual song and not my discordant humming, you would get a better idea?

Part 2

[savedbyasong]

[Shion was just coming out of their room when he spotted his roommate. He was still shaken with what had happened with the other white haired man he had met, and so was preoccupied. Didn't quite see the tape recorder, or the worrying grin.] Hello Ienzo.

Part 2

[grimgrimoire]

[Shiiiiiiiion.]

[Ienzo would know his voice easily, them being roommates and all; he was very well familiar with it by default. Hadn't he always been... curious?]

[No.]

[He wasn't.]

[But he is now!]

Hello there, Shion. How are you? [DON'T MIND THE ONE HAND WITH THE RECORDER IN HIS POCKET.]

[savedbyasong]

I'm alright, how are you? [Glancing at that hand, what do you have Ienzo?]

[grimgrimoire]

Doing well! Better than I have in a while.

I'm making leaps and bounds in my... research.

Part 2 because I'm terrible

[notsogrimreaper]

[Wow, where'd that guy come from? Ryoji blinks when he sees the other boy slip out of the wall, but he tries to keep calm. A lot of residents aren't what could be called normal, after all.

Like him. He's glad he reverted back from his true form before Ienzo appeared, and glad that he's taken out a few monsters. He wouldn't want the newcomer to get in trouble, even if he probably could handle himself well enough with those powers.]

Hey there. Were you fighting these things?

You misspelled "wonderful" there

[grimgrimoire]

What, the monsters?

[He glances down at them and shrugs.]

Not tonight, particularly. I have more than enough notes on that species. I take it you were, though?

Fffft with my lateness my wonderful title must have been revoked

[notsogrimreaper]

Ah, just a little. I'm trying to get rid of a couple so that the Tower's a little safer...

Oh, you study them? Are you a scientist then?

LIES

[grimgrimoire]

That's very noble of you. Even though it seems that new monsters get morphed in regularly, you can at least lighten the load.

Yes, I am! I've taken to a bit of biology on the topic of these monsters because the rest of the Tower's magic is still far too mysterious to tamper with. I don't want to doom us all, after all! [Slightly untrustworthy smile.]