Boat.
For a few moments, the Sharp Mind found himself smiling, if only a little before his comrades left to investigate. "Very well, er, Miss? Madam? I shall endeavor to make sure that it's all prepared by the time you all return. Do try and stay saf-"
He flinched ever so slightly when he realized the voice was being spoken from one of those drones, his face burning a bit from embarrassment only to jolt even more with Anne shouting out, only to simply shake his head.
"I...believe some of us may already know each other, but I'm not going to assume anything. It's, er, ahem, nice to meet you, Miss Azide? ...Lady Azide? Er, whatever you wish to be called, I suppose."
Giving a meek, if polite bow, the spectacle wearing young man started unpacking the kettle and teacups, getting a little organized.
Hope you weren't expecting anything witty here. Maybe some day.Annette Schrochild - River
"One moment, one moment." Annette's lead drone decloaked and whirred for a moment, the mechanical eye lighting up like a flashlight before slipping in through the broken windows to investigate. "Suppose I should follow my own advice at least partially by scouting ahead..."
Left Behind Drones - Boat
There was a buzzing from the three scouting devices Dr. Schrochild left with the boat as they received visual transmission. "Minor update. The canal levee appears to be abandoned, damaged. Possible signs of attack? In any case, advising caution for the moment until further data can be gathered," the drone behind Sharp Mind chirped in the doctor's voice. The other two rose up and, lenses flickering, one projected a flat hologram depicting the outside of the building in all its dilapidated glory, the other waiting for visual feed from the drone sent inside.
"Ah yes, introductions. I was thinking that would be useful at some point, yes," droned the drone. "Dr. Annette Felicity Schrochild, M.D. of xeno- and mana-biochemistry. Code name 'Justice's Blind.' Stealth and scouting training, enhanced neurology, stealth and scouting drones and stealth capability. Some expertise in standard field medicine."
edited 8th Jul '16 1:10:14 AM by Starbound2
On the Boat
Icara's attention was caught by the mention of introductions. Shyly looking around at the others again from over her book she finally opened her mouth. "Icara Fall. I mostly prefer to be alone... Nice that way..." She looked over at Allura for a moment as if to add on: 'the exception is her'. Allura was one of the few people Icara could be at ease around, due to their friendship after the... Attack.
"I... d-don't exactly have a specialty per say... But it would generally be wise to give me some room when I'm fighting... J-just as a warning."
Annerite knows she shouldn't be that excited over it but she flustered at the thought of deciding how this comrade of hers address her. She turned her back to her for a bit and twiddle her fingers so that she may go through how she may be addressed faster. Lieutenant Azide? Nah, she thought, that's official ranking from the government and she would rather earned such ranks officially, complete with the president gently touching each side of her shoulder with her huge plasma sword. Of course that's not a thing but Annerite thinks it should and that's what matters.
Wait, she come up with a good title...
She turned around with a warm friendly smile, pointed at herself with her thumb and said "Just call me Big Sister Annerite or just Big Sis, if you like!"
A second had passed and already she found an error in her title.
"Errr...wait, how old are you?"
http://www.last.fm/user/sgtpendulum Yo, check out what I'm listening, it'll be heat, brah :^)Ariolus just observed Annette's drones, before turning to the others briefly.
"I suppose I should say my name. I am Ariolus Sight."
His eyes alighted on the slightly opened door of the building, although he didn't enter yet. He would rather wait for Annette to say something first than enter without thinking of the potential consequences.
edited 8th Jul '16 4:44:36 AM by SymeSynth
Creator of the Avatar Arena and its Discord server."My name's Nova Memoir, but you can also call me Tsubaki if you want.", Nova replied. "I could use my magic to make a makeshift torch to light up this place..."
"Never let anyone tell you that something is impossible." - Monty Oum, 1981-2015Allura turned back to the group. "I am Conduit Allura. I have training in several styles of knife combat, field surgery, medicine, and transfer magic for the purposes of damage and enhanced medical techniques."
She nodded at Icara. "Also I must second my friend's recommendation. She can be difficult to reach while using her magic. It's will be best if you leave that job to me until you're all a bit more used to working with her.
edited 8th Jul '16 11:08:57 AM by guyshane
-dramatic music ensues-Looking up from organizing the small table decorated with dainty looking tea-cups and saucers, 'Alex' seemed a little bewildered at Miss Azide's suggestion, doing what he could to stop his face from blushing a bright shade of red.
...He wasn't even sure how to answer that question. If it made her happy, then a slight fib wouldn't hurt, especially since she looked like she was the older one between them. But honesty was part of code of being a butler.
"I only recently turned 22, Miss Azide. I do sincerely apologize if that makes me the, er, older brother." The purple-haired servant gave a timid bow and tried to keep himself busy, although with introductions being brought up...
It could wait. He wasn't really ashamed of the name that had been chosen, but...he shook his head, trying to shrug off his slightly flustered unease,
Hope you weren't expecting anything witty here. Maybe some day.Off the Boat
A part of Midnight really wanted to stay on that boat. The rest of him hated that idea — there was no way he could guarantee that he wouldn't just doze off again (and by extension, cause trouble due to not pitching in) if he stayed.
So here he was, with the group heading into the building in hopes of opening the canal. He didn't chat with the group, however. Rather, the cat-man was using his mana perception abilities as he walked, his hand holding his pistol in case monsters or other unpleasant fellows attempted to attack.
edited 8th Jul '16 8:34:30 PM by Aquatica1000
On the Boat
"Yeah, well, I've gotten some work done. Minor stuff, had some things removed." Lena replied with a frown, before smiling again. "One of the things I took out was the fish bay and the crane, unfortunately, so no, we don't carry fishing rods anymore. Freight and transport proved to be a little more successful than fishing so we dropped the excess weight, sorry."
"Same for me." Jayce chimed in. He stood at Lena's side and put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm gonna miss watching Lena's harpooning, but, um... for real, if you need to do it, keep the healing minimal so you don't bring back what we've both had to get rid of, arright?"
The Away Team
Ariolus's inspection of the surrounding grasses turned up nothing. Whether that meant there were no monsters or he just couldn't see them was one of those questions every Lens Magus always had to at least consider, however!
Annette's inspection of the room revealed a dingy little control center. There was a blocky control console bolted into the concrete up against one window overlooking the canal to the party's right and a little bit of floor around it, but a large portion of the floor had simply crumbled into nothing. A twisted staircase hung against the left wall, vaguely suggesting a former bottom floor, but where the stairs would have approximately ended there was just water leaking in from somewhere.
edited 8th Jul '16 9:58:04 PM by Taco
Annette Felicity Schröchild - The Away Team
"Dr. Annette Felicity Schrochild, M.D. of xeno- and mana-biochemistry. Code name 'Justice's Blind.' Stealth and scouting training, enhanced neurology, stealth and scouting drones and stealth capability. Some expertise in standard field medicine." She repeated herself verbatim to the away team as if from rote memory, since it seemed they opted to start introductions as well. "...36."
The away team might've been confused why she had mentioned her age, but...
Communication Drones - On the Boat
"...36," the eye drone repeated.
Annette Felicity Schröchild - The Away Team
"Reporting no signs of life within the control room. Some structural damage, partially collapsed floor. Water's seeped into the lower levels, though stairway suggests it was meant to be another floor," Annette reported succinctly. "Can't say whether levee controls are still functional or not. It's clear for the moment; would someone like to investigate in person?"
edited 8th Jul '16 10:14:23 PM by Starbound2
Ariolus closely listened to Annette's report, remembering every single detail of it.
He raised an eyebrow when she mentioned her age, however, appearing rather confused.
"36? What exactly do you mean?"
However, immediately realising that the topic was not important, he shook his head.
"...Nevermind my question. I will be entering the building."
He quickly closed his eyes and concentrated, and something flickered to light above his shoulder: a small ball of flame, which emitted some light and heat.
Afterwards, he headed towards the door, slowly opening it and entering the building, the ball of flame following him in order to provide light. He was headed towards the control room, of course, but he was rather interested in investigating the building as well, and he would take note of every detail he saw.
He was still on high alert; he could easily react to any suspicious sound, and his sword was drawn and ready to strike.
Creator of the Avatar Arena and its Discord server."Deus Snipe. Now, let's get this over with. Don't see why ya had ta say how old ya are, Prof Drone."
He nodded at Nova at her suggestion of a torch.
"Alright, light the place up, Bonfire. Just not in the sense of setting it on fire."
In one quick movement, he shadowed Ariolus, staying right behind him and entering as Ariolus did, bow drawn and pointed into the shadows. It was clear when it was scouted. Didn't mean it would stay that way.
"Well, if the controls ain't working, what do we do then?"
"Well...that's awkward," Annerite confirmed 'Alex's suspicion rightly, if her blushes wasn't enough of an indication but, hey, at least she get some comfort knowing that 'Alex' felt awkward along with her. She tried to wipe that blush off her face and lift her smile up and affirmed "Ah, but it's the spirit of the title, right? And...errr-"
Her effort to try and nullify her blush was wasted as she twirled her fishtail braids. "-Besides, I kinda wanted to be called Big Sis-"
Then when Lena explained that fishing was out of their MO, Annerite turned around and said "Aww, what a bummer. Well then..."
She paused herself as her face got covered by her own tank top as she took them out by the strap.
"-let's go with the old noodling technique, boys!"
She threw that tank top over to 'Alex', then she quickly unbuckled it, pull down her cargo pants and kick it behind her with no real target, revealing her to be wearing a pink sports bra and a standard modest short. She ain't got no shame when she has nothing to show off with that B cup breast and her ass, while looking good for some people, could only get so big from squats and deadlifts alone.
"If there's any monster coming around, drop this into the ocean," she quickly added as she quickly summoned and drop a wind rocket behind her. "And don't press the prime button at the bottom!"
With that being said, she did a corkscrew for shits and giggles and dived into the water.
http://www.last.fm/user/sgtpendulum Yo, check out what I'm listening, it'll be heat, brah :^)"Alright, let's try this."
Slip entered the building and created a little gust of wind, blowing him over to the controls. He could have just jumped but with structural damage he didn't want to risk a hard impact. He looked around for any way of turning it on so he could check if it worked.
"If it doesn't we'll have to force it open. Might wreck the thing but we have enough physical force that we could get it moving."
Basic Boat.
...36? I guess that explains it. Shaking his head and quietly replying to the drone that the doctor definitely sounded quite qualified...the young man's attention turned back to Annerite, a bit confused at why she was a slight, if cute shade of red.
And finally noticing he was nearly half a foot shorter than the blonde-haired girl with mechanical legs simply made him avert his gaze. "W-Well, I, er...don't mind if that's what you wish, Lady Azid...I, er...'Big Sister. I've never really had an older sibli-"
Caught completely off-guard by the young woman tossing her shirt in his direction and while he managed to catch it, he found himself frozen to the spot and at a loss for words. And doing his best to keep calm.
Hope you weren't expecting anything witty here. Maybe some day.Boat team
Allura laughed lightly and waved, as if to physically clear the air of Jayce's concern. "Oh, no, don't worry about that. I'm nowhere near strong enough to regenerate missing tissue. And even if I have to heal you, your body will prioritize healing and I'll keep an eye on the input to make sure it doesn't revitalize any cancerous cells. In fact, I'm currently working on a technique to eliminate tumors without invasive surgery, although it's still in the alpha stages."
The healer, seeing Annerite dive into the water seemed to pause for a moment before shrugging. "Why not?" She said out loud before stripping down to her underwear herself, leaving her armed with only her transfer daggers, the wires of which apparently connected into her forearms. Allura retracted the wires so the blades laid along her forearms before jumping into the water and swimming around slowly.
-dramatic music ensues-On the Boat - Communication Drones
The drone circling Sharp Omniscient whirred slightly as it watched the two women abruptly disrobe and dive into the water, as if in pause. "As though we're on vacation..."
The Away Team - Annette Felicity Schröchild
"As though we're on vacation..."
The doctor continued mumbling to herself without discernible cause as she followed behind her teammates into the control center. She kept one drone outside the building to patrol the perimeter, sent another drone into the watery stairway to investigate, and sent her last remaining one down the hole in the corner of the room.
Boat team
"I heard that, Doctor." Allura commented, swimming closer to the shore to address the drone. "Do give me some credit here. I'm never really unarmed anymore, side effect of cybernetics and all that."
She turned to the rest of the group. "As long as we swim in shifts so that the boat always has at least two people on full alert guarding it, we should be fairly safe taking some time to ourselves."
edited 9th Jul '16 2:48:23 PM by guyshane
-dramatic music ensues-Matthew nodded in assent with Allura's comment, hefting his staff in his hand. While everyone had been chatting and introducing themselves, Thunderbolt Reckoning remained silent mostly because he was still watching the outside world for any sign of treacherous Monsters.
"I can be one of those people," he replied. "I'm not really up for swimming anyway."
Allurand and surrounding world loading, 28%...Finding his face burning brighter from embarrassment with yet another of his team-mates and one of their medics, no less, casually follow suit and dive into the river. Hopefully this wouldn't be something he'd have to get used to...although with the drone speaking up...
"...I suppose that you're right, Doctor. in a sense, a-at least. We're...technically not on any real mission, so I guess they want to have fun with...er, the spare time we have."
Finally regaining his composure and returning to the task at hand, he returned to brewing the tea while keeping an eye open on the off-chance a Monster decided to appear out of nowhere, nodding in agreement with Matthew.
"...That would make two of us, sir. Er, ahem, I'm...'Alex', by the way. Or you're welcome to call me Sharp Omniscient, like the ones who gave me the name."
Hope you weren't expecting anything witty here. Maybe some day.Boat Party
"No-not-not cancer, it's like, um, something else, see..." Jayce glared up at the sky and turned red as two of the Lens Magi stripped jumped into the water, trying to keep his professionalism.
Lena sighed and dragged him to the cabin. "C'mon, loser. No subtlety, I swear."
As the two Lens Magi dove into the water they were surrounded by all sorts of colorful freshwater fish; they swam in intricate patterns, bunching up in some parts and almost making a point to stay out of some columns of water in the river. Their strange idiosyncrasies made for easy pickings.
Away Team
As Slip approached the controls, he found that the panel was totally dead. It was a simple enough setup, though: there was a glass screen on the far left of the panel, and along the rest of the panel there were two buttons and a lever. The buttons were labeled Upstream Gate and Downstream Gate. The lever had three points marked along its track: Regular Flow, Downstream Level, and Upstream Level. The buttons and the lever's labels were all translucent, as if to suggest there should be lights behind them too.
Boat Time
"I can also stay on guard for the boat... Not to much for swimming... A-at least... Not right now..." Icara said as she stood up. Walking over to the edge of the boat where she could see others she nodded slightly as if to acknowledge 'yeah this is happening' and simply set about watching, both her teammates, and for any danger.

Already Annerite grinned like an idiot as she felt her ego being boosted with small tokens of appreciation of her demo with little spurts of claps. Her smile fell apart and her arm went from uncooked spaghetti to cooked as soon as she saw the doctor ain't even giving her an acknowledgement.
Her ears perched as soon as someone called her Legs, she turned to the speaker and said "Legs? Really? That's the best you can manage?" though she won't be expecting any answer as she see that the nicknamer went away. As she walked back to the boat, though, it does reminded her of something more urgent. "Guys," she shouted in the general direction of the boat group. "Have we actually introduced each other or something? I kinda kept quiet about it because I'm kinda the new gal on the team, I can't remember any of your names and I don't wanna embarrass myself but it turns out that we have not been referring each other by real names either. Ermm, I'm Annerite Azide, by the way."
"Oh, by the way, Cap! You have any fishing rods? I think we might be here for a little while."
edited 7th Jul '16 7:00:47 PM by sgtpendulum
http://www.last.fm/user/sgtpendulum Yo, check out what I'm listening, it'll be heat, brah :^)