15th Howl: The After School Numbers Club, Finals Week Edition [Action]

[professorwolf]

It really was too bad that they'd started this up so late in the year. After only a few weeks of meetings, it was finals week, and Lyall, despite doubting he'd get many people studying, had his room set up after class as a good place to get some last minute studying done. His last class of the day had been let go early, giving him a little extra time.

While there were the usual snacks in the back, they were a bit more healthy this time than the last few weeks. While there were decks of cards-- playing cards and various games, both-- out on the lab tables, there were more tables cleared for books, set out with pads of paper and pens. He did have a cake, though, which was probably more silly than serious, upon which was written the words "Happy finals week!" in bright frosting.

Lyall couldn't eat said cake, so the rest of the kids sure had better like it.

Comments

Before the rest show up [CLOSED to Sarah Makinen/Fluttershy]

[professorwolf]

Lyall was putting the last of the snacks out when an unexpected scent caught his attention, and he looked over his shoulder at the door to spot one of the students he hadn't expected to show up. She was a shy one, and one who hadn't really tried making much personal contact with him before.

Still, he offered a smile. Always best to be reassuring, if he could. "Sarah? Everything all right? If you're worried about your grade, I wouldn't be."

[butterfly_kindnesses]

Sarah stops, surprised. She thought she was being quiet, but he noticed her anyway!

"No, um, it's..." Why is she bothering him with this? Surely he won't care - no, no, he will, he's Mr. Lyall. Deep breath, slow down, try again.

"It's about the numbers. And..." she trails off, but tentatively steps into the room anyway. If she's going to show him her hair, she shouldn't try to do so from the doorway.

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura dropped his bookbag down on a desk before giving a stretch. "Two down, five more to go!" he announced before flopping in a chair. "I'm taking more study halls next year, screw this seven classes crap! Too many exams...."

He shook his head, leaning back. "Can you believe they give us a final for gym class?"

[odd_jobs]

That earns a snort of a laugh from somewhere near the snacks table. "Don't knock it, man. It's about the only class I'm expecting to ace cold."

[butterfly_kindnesses]

"Eep!"

Startlement! Sarah wasn't expecting anyone to come in while she was talking to Mr. Lyall. She cuts off what she was starting to say, staring wide-eyed at Bakura, Lyall, and the door in turn.

[scramasax]

Anthony was here. And, for all the stirring it had required, he would have regretted not having been. He was exhausted, and he needed the company, whether or not he could manage to engage.

He hadn't been home in two nights even though he achingly wanted to, because he was petrified of showing his face. Something had been sent, and he'd placated his parents with a few painful calls and texts. He couldn't let them see in case it exposed - anything; in case they talked about it, in case they asked questions he couldn't answer. Surely they were already talking, of course, and he didn't want to hear it; any extra words he could give to emphasize just how abnormal this all was, as with all of this widening, wild abnormality, needed to be restrained - as well and by as hard, desperate work as possible.

If nothing else, dubious doctor's notes (with deep thanks to Dr. Strider); the occasional hand (which he again gave deep thanks for); and keeping his head down literally and figuratively, wearing a hood to help in keeping the sun out of his eyes, never looking at anyone who didn't need to know anything for longer than he had to had allowed arrangement for completing his final exams. Out of class, meaning that he was excused entirely from gym, whatever that meant for his grade. Either way, it justified his turning up, which he had done, likewise, keeping his head down, hood up, and eyes off anyone who didn't need to see anything.

He was making use of those books, meanwhile, in the back, mortified and self-consciously huddling without it having been his conscious intention, hunched over open pages. He had a notebook with him just off to the side, one page of notes to verify their reliability, and another attached to the network - not broadcasting, but connected. Just in case - whatever it was "just in case" for. He wasn't in much of a frame of mind to be distracted by it.

[shiromadoushi]

"Hey."

Bakura flopped down in the chair next to the beleaguered freshman. "How you holding up?"

[professorwolf]

Lyall couldn't help but notice Anthony coming in. Not could he help but notice that he smelled... very different now. Not different enough that he didn't recognize him, but... different enough that he was alarmed. He smelled-- well, dead, almost, if he was going to put a name to it. He'd only smelled death once or twice, but Anthony now had a whiff of it. Once the boy was settled, and had been settled long enough to be comfortable, or at least as comfortable as he was likely to get, Lyall left his own desk at the front of the room behind and moved over to greet him.

"Hey. I wasn't sure you'd make it today." He offered a little smile. He couldn't see him very well, with his head turned down and hood up, but the smell was just as obvious up close.

[reckless_fire]

Kenji was a bit surprised to see Anthony among those gathered. If something similar had happened to him, he wasn't sure he'd have the guts to even come out of his room. On his way back to the snack table for seconds, he detoured over to where the younger teen sat, dropping into a seat across from him and offering a weak grin.

"Dude, you've got a yard of guts--but you really need to stop feeling up the statues, y'know?"

[odd_jobs]

Tadashi didn't know who the freshman was, what he was going through or even anything else beyond he was obviously here for that same connection anyone in here shared. But the caged and somewhat hunted body language broadcast itself well enough that he could at least guess that whatever was under that hood was probably a bit more than the wild hair colors showing up in the classroom.

Maybe it was curiosity, maybe it was some shade of empathy on his own less drastic need to go vanish somewhere, but Tadashi put on a genuinely friendly smile, and the chair across the table scraped the floor as he pulled it back.

"Yo! Mind some company?"

[moarnomsplz]

Alex had gone through a lengthy debate with himself about whether he really wanted to socialize, and had finally decided that if anyone could understand what he was going through, it would be these people. Besides, he didn't even have it the worst. The goth-looking guy who'd been the first person to talk to him on the network sure seemed like he'd been hit with something more serious than an inconvenient stutter. Alex couldn't help but wonder, though, if this was just a warm-up for something crazier.

He was still finishing up his finals, and had come over from his school, so he was still in uniform, and had tugged his tie askew already.

He went straight for the cake in a no-doubt-doomed attempt to keep his mouth occupied with something other than embarrassing him.

[ooc: Yep, Alex got his second echo. >D]

[scramasax]

A surprise.

Not a bad one, but a change. The boy who'd connected in the uniform of another school at the beginning of the month and come to the arcade three days ago had taken yet another step closer, had come for the final meeting at Locke City High.

Anthony noticed he'd spotted him - and so that was done. He half-looked his direction, but didn't move from his seat, and offered "Alex... -- how are you?"

His voice was still hoarse, and not loud. He meant the experience, the "change" that he'd said he'd gotten, too, shortly after visiting those statues. He'd said that the worst he'd get were strange looks if he spoke to people, or something to that effect. So far as he could tell, Anthony's own changedness had gotten no worse over these days, on its own.

[icy_heavens]

One final down, and it was the easiest one. Not that he found tests particularly difficult to begin with. He worked hard, of course, but good grades were easy to come by for him.

And while he wasn't at all averse to studying, that wasn't why he came here. He studied on his own, where no one could mess him up. Groups were distracting for that kind of thing.

He gravitated toward the healthier snacks, though he did give that cake a glance. Maybe he'd have that later. When he was done pretending he didn't like that stuff.

[struckout]

Kallie's hair color status: given up entirely. Free of any sort of more recent attempts to dye it, it fell freely around her face, held up off her shoulders only by a half-hearted effort to tie it back... and as pink as ever, pale but noticeably rosy with a naturalness punk kids could only dream of.

The last time Kallie had come here, she'd tried for getting some answers but really only gotten another-- vision... thing for her efforts instead. She'd seen some of the kids have it happen to them right there too, so she got the feeling that physically being around other... whatever they were supposed to be caused a higher chance of the things occurring.

She knew that with each 'pulse' the likeliness was only further increased that something even more disruptive than pink hair and mysterious jewelry would happen to her, but the desire to figure out where it was all going was ultimately higher than her desire to hide away. So, here she was.

... Not that she had any idea how to interact with teenagers- hell, she'd hardly made due when she was one herself. As such, she was mostly stuck in place, sitting on a desk with her feet on the chair and frowning slightly at the others present, a bag of the plainest potato chips she could find in hand. A little further down on the long tabletop was a small stack of fliers she'd brought, advertising Locke City's 'Streaking Summer' event to be held on LCU's campus.

She'd promised her boss that she'd get rid of them, but hadn't really done a very good job so far...

[shiromadoushi]

"So, the tables have turned, eh?" Bakura joked as he headed over. "Though, really, not so much since I know why you're here," he smiled before peering over at the fliers, pausing to frown a little.

"...don't tell me they have a streaking club now..."

[odd_jobs]

The fliers were, at the very least, good at attracting attention. One scruffy looking kid had immediately snatched one up and let out a long burst of laughter. "HAHAH! Seriously? This is rich! Oh man, can I keep some of these?"

Tadashi grinned and waved one of the papers around. "I know at LEAST one guy who's gotta be there."

[reckless_fire]

Until the moment he strolled into the room, Kenji wasn't sure whether or not he would even attend this time. He wasn't really in the mood to be sociable, but on the other hand, there would be food. That he could always use. Also, this would be the last meeting for the year, so he figured he might as well go as not. Somewhere in the back of his mind, barely acknowledged, was the thought that these people were among the few that he could talk to about all the weird shit that had been going on the past few months--not that he really wanted to talk about any of it right now. But just the knowledge that he could was sort of...comforting, in a way.

As he made his way toward the snack table, he ignored the tables set up for studying--yeah, that wouldn't be happening anytime soon. Right now, the cake was his objective, and after cutting himself a generous portion, he retreated to a seat a little distance away from everyone else to enjoy it and the surfing magazine he'd brought in peace.

[odd_jobs]

Tadashi sat on an open spot on the table near his friend, proudly offering a couple of fliers. "Dude, I think we are socially obligated. No! Morally obligated, to do some distribution work."

[not_good_not_wicked]

The normal procedure for new kids is normally to kind of awkwardly shuffle in trying not to catch attention. Marisa flung open the door confidently and barged in like she owned the place.

"This is the Numbers Club, right?"

Eventually after some conversation, though, she ended up go over her own history notes, trying to figure out the differences between Locke High's curriculum and Lumberton's. She's being helped by a can of red bull and a slice of cake. The constant leg jiggling is suggesting that maybe that might be a bit more sugar than a person strictly NEEDS.

[professorwolf]

Hey, it's another new girl-- and another of his students he somehow hadn't realized was on the network. Lyall looks a bit startled, and a bit concerned, but he does wander over to say hello while she's cutting herself some cake. "Marisa, welcome. You're right, this is definitely the 'Numbers Club'. Here from the network?"

It was vague enough that he'd only get a funny look if she wasn't from the network itself, but specific enough that she'd get it if she was.

[icy_heavens]

He couldn't help but notice that twitching. And it was pretty easy to see the cause. He hadn't yet given in to the temptation for cake himself, so he actually was snacking on a few of the healthier options.

But really, cake and red bull? Was this crazy girl trying to overdose or something? Besides, that could only go horribly together purely from a taste standpoint, right? People were so weird.

"Overdoing it on the sugar, don't you think?"

[peacefulwinter]

Winter, meanwhile, is here for another reason entirely - she'd wanted to ask the professor a last question or three in preparation for her bio final. Her arrival happens to coincide with the whole idea of there being people here for non-finals reasons, and as she stands in the doorway she's supremely confused, before she shakes herself and continues into the room.

"Mr. Lyall?"

[professorwolf]

"Oh-- good afternoon, Winter." Lyall gets up from where he's sitting behind the desk, and beckons her over to join him. Hopefully no major conversations about the network or anything related to it are going on just now, or the poor girl is likely to get a bit confused.

Obviously, he has no idea she's on it, too.

[odd_jobs]

It was his first day at the numbers club, and there wasn't anything stranger to Tadashi than being after school, in school, in a classroom with a teacher in it, that he wasn't in some way in trouble for something.

There was almost an awkward feeling of expectation around it, or maybe just an itch up his back that really set in that things were somehow really, really different.

The fact still remained that Tadashi really only knew how to deal with awkwardness one way... by filling up the silence.

"So, teach? What do you say to academic amnesty? I mean, life changing, danger around potentially every corner, memories doing the funky chicken in my subconscious.. That's gotta count at LEAST for a baseline B."

[professorwolf]

"You had all year to manage something like a B all on your own," Lyall answered dryly from his table at the front of the room, his laptop up and his expression not the least bit surprised at the question. "I'm would only even consider granting leniency in a very few circumstances, none of which are yours."

He smiled at the boy, half apologetic and half amused. "Sorry, Tadashi."