smashacademy | [video] DRAMABALLS AWAY

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[video] DRAMABALLS AWAY

[RIIIIING. RIIIIIING. RIIIIIIIIIIIING.

What little asshole pulled the fire alarm? Who knows, but after about 30 minutes of being herded to and milling around on the grass, it's announced that this was likely a prank since there's no discernible fire anyone can identify. It's safe to return back to your dorm rooms, and REMINDER; DON'T PULL THE FIRE ALARM AS A PRANK OR YOU WILL GET DETENTION!!! Seems like another ordinary day at Smash Academy, right?

No, there's something a little more ominous in the air...]

Attention, Smash Academy. This is Mayor Tabuu speaking.

[Whoa, something must be really important for him to address Smash Academy's network specifically.]

Eggman is a filthy liar. He's betrayed all of you! The insipid, fat, lumbering oaf is abusing his power and must be stopped.

[Wait... didn't... Tabuu authorize Eggman into Martial Law? Since when has Tabbuu used such flowery insults? SOMETHING WEIRD IS GOING ON.]

He's turned against you, and is robotisizing your own kind! Eirika's been missing from our--your fair academy and this is why! She's been kidnapped by him and was robotisized! If he's not stopped--

[BZZZTTTT--KSSSSHHHHH--! Suddenly, static! WE ARE INTERRUPTING THIS FEED FOR A VERY IMPORTANT HIJACK...]

ATTENTION, SMASH ACADEMY! Listen close and listen well! I am Dr. Ivo Robotnik, the world's greatest genius, and YOUR SAVIOR! I come to you with DIRE NEWS... Your beloved Mayor Tabuu is a FRAUD! An IMPOSTER, created to impersonate him and deliver this city into the hands of your REAL nemesis! Not I, my subjects, someone FAR worse than me!

I speak, of course, of one SETH RICHARDSON! Yes, your friend Seth has been a VERY busy boy this past year! the DRUGGED LOLLIPOPS he's been feeding into the city have caused no end of trouble for everyone! But that's not the LEAST of his crimes... No, with the money he's made from the drugs he's sold, he's created POKEBALLS capable of capturing ANYONE, even HUMANS! And replacing them with PERFECT DUPLICATES, completely subservient to his will!!

I have done my utmost to PROTECT you, to keep you SAFE from the madness Seth's machinations have wrought! And now it's time to STAND UP and TAKE YOUR LIVES BACK!!

Me? That's laughable, truly laughable! How desperate must you be to point fingers at someone such as me, you insipid, fat, lu--bloated worm! Who's honestly going to believe you with your track history? Who could've forgotten your ridiculous and stupid Incredible Interstellar Amusement Park? Or that time you tried to eat everyone's history? Face it, you've had your fun and your time is up. Tabuu wants you out and so does everyone else. If anything we should be standing up and rising against YOU!

Besides, where did you even get all this nonsense about me? I'd like to see some evidence, if your tiny, feeble, cotton-filled brain can comprehend that.

Oh, you're going to EAT those words, you smug, freckle-faced punk! You see, I got all this information from a rather reliable source. Our mutual friend Ulki, who happened to overhear your discussion with your SUPPLIERS, filled me in on ALL the juicy details he overheard. He even brought a little surprise. But don't take MY word for it...

[The camera pans to the side. Ulki is there, flanked by two Badniks. In his hand is the stolen Catball.]

See for YOURSELF.

[Seth stares blankly at the screen, even paling a little bit. Mary... He'll kill her! He'll kill her a million times over. Seth manages a twisted smile but resolve is cracking. He's sure Eggman isn't trustworthy and he could convince everyone else of that, but the bird...]

Ha... ha ha ha! So what? That could be a rock with a pawprint on it for all any of the lot of you know!

[Ulki looks hardly so convinced. ]

Shall we open it then? Besides, [He spins the ball around in his hand, showing the pawprint that was previously obscured.] How could you have known that?

[Seth is brilliantly caught in his own lie, worse yet, he still jumps too eagerly at the chance to cover it up.]

No! Don't! [His lips twitch and his smile is a bitter one, forced and seething.]--You don't know what that would do... do you? You might push a wrong button and hurt whoever's inside. I wouldn't put it past either of you, given your penchant for blatant idiocy anyway.

[Camera pans back to Eggman.] HURT whoever's inside? Now there's an interesting thought... Since when has letting a Pokemon out of their ball HURT them? Now I'm DOUBLY curious to see what's inside! Or would you rather just CONFESS?

Why don't you confess to being unwanted? You're an utter failure at everything you do! None of your plans has ever worked and for good reason: they're dumb. Your fiancé could have picked so much better.

[WISE AND MATURE WORDS FROM SETH RICHARDSON.]

YOU'RE GOING TO REGRET BRINGING HER INTO THIS, YOU PONCE!!

Now hear this, everyone! I am calling for the ARREST of Seth Richardson! Soon my robots will arrive at the academy gates to assume control of the school until he is IN CUSTODY. Submit, and you will be spared. Resist, or otherwise interfere with my efforts, and you will be ARRESTED and ROBOTISIZED INTO MY ARMY!! THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING!!

[Seth makes a grande display of open arms, smugly psychotic grin plastered on his face as if to say, "Dare ye cometh at me, sir?" The fact Eggman just declared robot season open is just as bad as the next line out of him:]

You have no control over me. I'd sooner die then let my plans be interfered by a corpulent, tactless, wretched ignoramus such as yourself! I'll take what's rightfully mine from you whether you and your bushy, unkempt mustache like it or not. [He makes a fist at the screen.] Considering you an equal gentleman would be an insult, so instead of proposing a fair and just duel, I'll promise you this: If you so much as show your face around here or FDC and get in my way, I'll fucking rip you apart!

[WAIT HE'S NOT DONE YET--Seth ducks out of the screen just a moment an returns with something around his neck. Yes it's Flurrie's ~~big balls~~ necklace he's fingering coyly.]

Oh, and tell Flurrie if she wants these back she can come and get them. They're not quite my size.

[Eggman's hands clench into fists of rage.]

YOU... WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU, YOU'LL SPEND THE REST OF YOUR LIFE SCRUBBING FLOORS AS A CLEANING BOT!!

I quiver with fear!

YOU WILL BE!!

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[Rhys had the news on just to make filler noise while the infirmary was somewhat empty, with the exception of Mary, who was just brought in. The news report didn't take long to catch his attention when he heard Tabuu address Smash Academy, so he paused what he was doing to listen on intently.

Intently became intensely when he saw Ulki of all people in the clutches of Eggman's robots. He gasped and voiced his name and felt his heart race while he paid close attention to what was going on, trying to make sense of it all. The last he saw of his dear friend was a solemn parting lacking in explanation as he left Mary to be tended to and departed in a strange and cryptic hurry. This must have been the reason.

Oh Ulki...

He didn't trust Eggman's numerous schemes, but he was positive Seth was up to no good. It was obvious who his biggest enemy was in all of this. Rhys was no stranger to battlefields, and he could already tell the school was going to be part of it in only a matter of time. Everyone was going to have to either pick sides or ~~be a green unit~~ tiptoe around the field in an unaffiliated wariness. It didn't matter to Rhys. He knew what he needed to do. But for now, he needed to make sure Mary was taken care of. He couldn't leave her side.

He shifted his attention to the fearful girl, assessing her reaction before making a move. He could already imagine seeing Seth's ~~ugly~~ face on the screen wasn't going to make her feel any better, since he was the main source of all her wailing.]

Wouldn't you know it, Mary had finally stopped her crying and sniffling when the broadcasting began. The second his voice crackled over the TV she wailed anew, grabbing the nearest object - a near-empty glass of water by her bedside - and throwing across the room. She didn't have the strength to get it much further than a few metres beyond the foot of the bed, though...

Why was Seth on TV all of the sudden?! She didn't pay attention to a word that was being said, only that he was there and that he'd hurt her. She wanted him to hurt, too. Even worse than what happened to her.

Edited 2013-08-27 17:13 (UTC)

The poor girl was a mess... Knowing Seth's insidious character, he didn't have to take a broad leap of the imagination to picture what kind of treatment he must have given her. Watching her like this and knowing the person responsible, a rare flare of resentment licked at his heart. The rest of him was teeming with sympathy that felt like one great big squeeze.

He came close to her and knelt down to her level, the aching compassion emanating from the eyes he gave her. He touched her shoulder, gentle as can be. "He can't hurt you anymore."

"How come he's being so mean!? He was always-- always so nice to me!" The thought of what was gone now just brought forth a new wave of tears and she grabbed Rhys' hand, squeezing a little too tight. The sorrow on her face quickly hardened into something more like hatred, however.

"Is that fat guy gonna hurt him?"

The healer winced faintly at her grip, but tried to ignore it for her sake. It was difficult to find a way to communicate what she needed to know, but do it without being too harsh. "He might." Before she could say anything more, he added, "I think that... Seth might have been mean all along."

In her vulnerable state, it was easier to believe that. Seth had always been a bad guy and wasn't just nice until she did something wrong and he got tired of her. She wasn't the wrong one, he was. He was!

"He tricked me the whole time, right? I didn't... I didn't make him mad, he was always going to do it, right?!"

It was easier to hate him if he'd always hated her first.

It wasn't like Rhys to be so disenchanted about a person's innate goodness, but in this case, some aspect or another of Seth's life had lead him astray into a depravity abysmally far from redemption. He used people like fruit- ate away all the good parts and threw away the pit or the peel or whatever was left of them. Anyone who had it in them to hurt children... Rhys accepted that he could never hope to understand the inner workings of a mind belonging to such a person. What Seth could have done to manipulate and harm Mary he'd rather not ponder, except to level with her experiences, understand her suffering so she could heal. Those scratches ran deeper than just her skin, and if only, he wished, his staff could penetrate emotional wounds as well as those of the body.

"Seth has done quite a few bad things to hurt other people," he told her. "You're not alone... He's a master at playing pretend to get what he wants, if that makes sense. That's why it's so hard to know any better. Any time he was playing nice, he was only thinking about himself. He... hurt me, as well."

Unfortunately, it made a lot of sense. Mary wouldn't admit it, but she understood how someone could play pretend to get what they wanted. She just never expected herself to become a victim of someone else's plans.

She and Seth weren't very different at all, were they? ...Did that mean she was bad, too?

Rhys was being nice to her now, probably because he didn't know her history. She wasn't about to delve into it for him now, even if she desperately wanted someone to tell her that in her case it was different and that she was in her full right to have tricked and manipulated people to save herself from her life of solitude. Unlike Seth, she had a perfectly good reason for everything she did.

Her mind flashed forward to more recent events that had taken place in the school itself.

"A lot of people got hurt because of him, right...? He told me to hurt people, too. He did! It's not my fault!"

He was familiar with at least one of the bad things Seth coerced her into doing, despite not being completely... "present" for it. Thanks a lot, Seth. That didn't change the fact that his heart went out to Ai and Vianca upon learning of the damage. Likewise, he did not feel any animosity toward the committer of the deed- Mary. Perhaps disappointment and confusion. But she was young and children could do nasty things without really thinking about how they were hurting someone, and it made sense that Seth would tell an impressionable young girl to do such an atrocious thing. He probably found some way to make it seem like it was perfectly fine, even the right thing to do.

"I don't think you can be blamed too much," Rhys confirmed, running a thumb over her small fingers. "You trusted him then. When you trust people, it's easy to do what they tell you to do without much question. But hurting people... It should never be okay."

"It's not." Her ears burned in embarrassment at the thought that she'd ever thought otherwise, when so many people of all ages kept telling her the truth. It took getting hurt to change her mind. She hanged her head, golden locks obscuring her eyes.

"Everybody's going to be mad at me. Vianca was." And still was, though Mary seemed clueless to that fact.

"I wouldn't count on everybody," he reassured her, taking her hand with both of his now. "But as for the people you hurt, that sounds normal. When people get hurt, or have the ones they love get hurt, oftentimes, they will get mad at the person who did it. Like what happened when Seth hurt you- it made you very angry with him, didn't it?"

"Uh-huh..."

Ah, she got it now. Why people got upset with her for what she did in the first place. How they might have felt. Mary had never given much consideration to the feelings of others as long as whatever they were feeling ended with them contributing to her own happiness.

All of these sudden realizations and changes in perspective were a lot for her to take in. She stared at Rhys' hands around her own, then brought them closer to her face and pressed her forehead against them.

"...I'm really sorry."

He raised his eyebrows in mild surprise, and his lips formed a heartfelt smile. "But it doesn't mean they will stay mad forever. Just now, I could feel through your apology that you truly felt bad about what you did. If you came up to the people you hurt and told them you were sorry... I think they will be able to find forgiveness."

"Okay," was all she managed to say, though it didn't feel like enough. If Rhys could be nice to her like this, then maybe everyone she'd hurt would be fine, too. He was right, all she had to do was apologize. But it had to be a really good one. It would take time to think about...

"Thank you."

Besides, judging from what was going on on the television, everyone would be a little too preoccupied for her to apologize right that moment anyway.

Which was exactly what they needed to shift their focus on. Rhys maintained his smile and nodded in response before dropping their conversation to a more serious level.

"We may need to evacuate the infirmary. I have a feeling other people are going to get hurt out there, so I'm going to go fetch some supplies from the closet and bathroom and such so I can help. Wait right here. I will be back shortly." He squeezed her hands and then let go and stood to leave.

While everyone else was gearing for battle and worrying for their safety and the state of the city, Naoya was having a grand time. This conflict was providing quite the entertainment. Perhaps he would've been more personally invested in the outcome if either technologies were something that he coveted for his own purposes, but as it stood he was ready to sit back and watch the two forces rend each other to pieces.

The programmer strolled casually through the school, observing the reactions of faculty and student alike. It was when he passed the school nurse running in the opposite direction of the infirmary (to get more supplies, no doubt - a war wasn't a war without casualties) that he decided to take a look inside to see if there were already any victims. Call it morbid curiosity.

There seemed to be a young girl here already. Naoya put on a cryptic smile as he greeted her. "So, it seems you are the first to fall."

Rhys had gone to the bathroom. Or went to get supplies. Or went to get supplies for the bathroom. Mary, admittedly, had not been paying too much attention when he explained where he was going, nor did she have the energy to put up much of a fuss about it. She didn't really want to be left alone, but she was so emotionally drained that staying away from other people seemed like a nice thing for now too.

But her solitude didn't last very long before she got an unexpected and unfamiliar visitor with an excellent choice in words. Her face twisted, looking to be on the verge of another tearful outburst, but she had no tears left to shed. ~~In her embittered state she moved to Alaska to surround herself with huskies.~~

"No, I got pushed," she whimpered.

Naoya chuckled, somehow finding mirth in this hurt young girl's vulnerability. "I stand corrected," he said, almost playfully. "You were pushed because you were weak. Such is always their fate."

Tucking his hands into his billowing sleeves, he slowly approached to take a better look at her. "But... you don't have to be weak forever."

But strength was for big tough guys, and she was just a little girl. It was supposed to be okay for her to be weak. Mary might have just gone on thinking like that if she hadn't ended up falling victim because of her own weakness, and now that Naoya pointed it out, she found herself suddenly loathing that part of herself.

She was strong back in the gallery, strong enough to hold her own against Garry when she needed to and get out of there. But this world, she was noticing, was nothing like that. It didn't bend to her whims and was full of betrayals.

"I hate being weak," she hissed, looking away. "If that's why I got pushed, then I want to be really, really strong!"

That was exactly the kind of answer Naoya was looking for. Such resentment in her voice, such hurt and frustration in her eyes - a perfect candidate to become a demon tamer. What would she do once she received such power? The programmer simply couldn't wait to find out.

"Then I'll leave this with you." From out of a sleeve, he pulled out a shiny new COMP and placed it down beside Mary. A colourful, innocent little device that contained untold potential within; it lay there, waiting for her to pick it up and become its master.

"It's a tool, to use however you see fit. It will give you the strength you desire." She wouldn't have to take orders from anyone ever again - Naoya certainly wouldn't be one to police her.

Edited 2013-09-05 00:51 (UTC)

"Huh?"

She put her hand over the COMP, narrowing her eyes. She knew exactly what this thing was...

"I don't mean being strong in a video game!" The nerve of this guy, getting her hopes up like that. At least a video game would be fun to play while she was stuck in a sick bed.

Naoya laughed at the misunderstanding, but didn't correct her. She would discover the COMP's functions soon enough - and he wasn't one for handholding anyone, not even children. The programmer's part in this was complete.

"I meant what I said," was his cryptic reply, looking thoroughly amused by Mary's indignation. Though ignorant, her outburst was fuelled by honest desire. "Just hold onto it. In time, the means for true power will be in your grasp."

Cryptic as he may have been, Mary didn't have even the slightest suspicion of any hidden meaning behind Naoya's words or present. She turned the little system over in her hands again and again, trying to work up the mood to play something. Hopefully it was a cute game like Pokemon Ranch or Hello Kitty Island Adventure instead of one of those boring shooting ones.

"Um... Well, thanks for the game, anyway..."

Naoya tucked his hands back into his sleeves now that his task here was done. "We'll meet again," he promised with a warm smile. "May you thrive until then."

That said, the programmer stepped away and ghosted out through the door, as though he was never there. The clacking sound of his wooden sandals echoed after him a little while, and then they too, were gone.

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[video] DRAMABALLS AWAY

ACTION: REACTION

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Later in the infirmary

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it is whatever DS colour you want

It's totally the special Animal Crossing one.

LUCKY...

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