[RP]Eureka Academy: Second Semester

[Exoskeleton]

Eureka, the floating island where students train to be the best of the best. This day all of the students were back and sitting in the auditorium as the curtain on the stage fluttered. The seats were packed to the max with students cheering out loud at something wild. Phelda Stella stood on the other side of the curtain nervous. She had an earpiece in her ear where the voices of Eliane and e could be heard.

“Okay you guys can pull the curtains now.” Stella spoke clutching a mic in her hand.

She looked off to the side behind the stage, there she saw Eliane beside a large speaker. Stella knew she was to press play as soon as the curtain rose. Stella glanced down at her outfit. She wore a blue skirt with ruffles and long boots up to her knees. She also wore a matching blue sleeveless top that cut off half way exposing her stomach and pink bracelets which hung loosely on her wrists. Her hair was out but decorated with a pink bow at the back.

At once the curtains began to open slowly and spotlights instantly flooded her vision. Stella was nervous but she knew she could do this. There was no giving up now. She walked out onto the stage as loud cheers from the crowd erupted at once. At that moment she heard a click from the button Eliane had pressed and Stella along with the crowd heard echoes of the playing music. “What can I do for you?” The music echoed as beats had begun to pick up.

<music>

Stella at once had begun to rock from side to side to get into the mood. The spotlight which was to be controlled by Escaflowne had changed its color to match Stella’s outfit and she had begun to enjoy herself as the school cheered. And as soon as she heard her mark she had begun to the dance, a show which would welcome the students back to a semester of Eureka Academy.

“Far beyond the hazy borders of my heart, I can see a place that’s something like this,
Every now and then I don’t know what to do, still I know that I can never go back.
But the things I’ve seen in those hazy dreams can’t compare to what I’m seeing now
Everything’s so different that it brings me to my knees.”

Stella was now dancing and thrusting in every way possible to the groove of the song. The welcoming parade had begun.

“And though I know the world of real emotion has surrounded me
I won’t give into it
Now I know that forward is the only way my heart can go
I hear you voice calling out to me
‘You’ll never be alone’”

“Agh!” Stella mumbled as she awoke from her dream.

“ I should stop playing videogames.” Stella said yawning. “Worst way to start April Fool’s day.”

(lol Happy April Fools! Did I getcha?(Like I'd ever Gmod other characters) I would have posted in spam for the joke but Anyways the real first post is gonna be put in after I completely finish IDs, talk to people about characters, put the ranking points in for people [this will take about 5 hours from now ^^].)

 

[FireFrenzy]

Nova had always had this romantic image of bikes and bikers, classical case of wind in your hair, no limits, no restraints, life on the open road. All that romantic jazz adout riding off into the sunset, but she also knew just how stupidly dangerous those things were… And it wasn’t that she had gotten tired of the Viper, far from in point of fact, but when ATMA had told her someone had come up with a tecknological suit that would keep her in one piece when she “wiped out”, as it had been known back when she was a teen, was that really this close to a decade ago now?

She had a job, a full time 9-5 grind. Maybe not for the reason most people got them, but still… And it wasn’t like she really minded her job, but when had she become old?

Putting down her glass of ice cold coke she signed the waiter for her check and once more noticed where she was. The road between Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai 400+ miles of tarmac crossing mountains slashing through dense primeval jungle –even if it didn’t look like the images from TV- and some of the most stunning vista’s anywhere on this planet…

At times Nova like these realized… My job RULES! Finishing her coke she put her helmet back on and got back on her bike. The Fireblade was officially called a Honda CBR1000RR, and her normal habit of buying American was not really an option in this particular market, not without going for a y2k, and that was slightly excessive for your first bike, not to mention that the thing was hideous…

Giving the engine a bootful and revving the straight four, she kicked her kickstand out of the way and blasted off into the sunset leaving a thick black line behind her and the smell of burned rubber and clutch shoes. She was up to sixty before she was off the parking lot and doing a hundred by the time she put her knee almost to the floor for the first corner and blasted through the corner. She was taking the long road home, which only had like 1400 corners as opposed to the longer road she had taken up to Chiang Rai yesterday. Working the helmet controls she got the song she wanted, Celldweller’s Switchback was an awesome song for this sort of thing. 5 or 6 corners later she noticed that there was rather little traffic to keep this truly interesting, just as a big lorry came around the corner forcing her to swerve out of its way to a loud string of curses in Thai and a long blast of the horn. Blasting down the mountains and under the trees which had been old before her mother and father had been born was a strangely soothing and exhilarating combination, not unlike the breathing exercises she used to force her body to calm before taking the shot, butterflies of danger with an overlay of quiet and calm confidence. Secure in the knowledge that her tools were the best money could buy and that she was competent in their use.
Or in this case knowledge that if she hit a car right (or wrong depending on your point of view) no matter what laws of physics her suit and helmet could bend Newton and Einstein would still send her to the ICU at worst and to the morgue at best but that her bike had some brand new very grippy tires made of sticky rubber and with deep grooves to deal with any water and other slippery substances that might be present on the road. She was going to be fine, assuming she didn’t get over confident and do something stupid, she thought just as she was forced to swerve back behind a car she had been over taking when an unexpected car came from around a blind corner.

“So nothing like that” she said to her helmet and herself.

A few hours later she was in Chiang Mai just as her rear tire was beginning to give way, those sticky rubber compounds might be great for traction, they don’t last long. But then no normal tire would keep up for long with the way Nova had been hammering on her tire. Hard breaking for corners, followed by furious acceleration between corners. Breaks would probably be shot too, they were feeling a bit less crisp then when she had started… She knew she had seen smoke coming off the calipers during that last deceleration…

Turning into the center of she found and drove down the Chian Klang road past the Shan-Ri La hotel where she would have been staying had she been in town for longer than just tonight before parking her bike in front of Giorgio’s Quite possibly THE best Italian restaurant on this side of the planet (OOC: Just take my word for it, that place is good even by “Italian food in Italy” standards… Cheap too…)

Before she kicked her kickstand down and pulled her helmet off, shaking her lustrous crimson hair loosely around her shoulders, and stretching some of the creaks out of her spine and other bones. Stepping through the door she suddenly found herself in the holodeck of her ship the ATMA. What exactly the name stood for Nova had never been able to get the AI to tell her, but she did know it was some acronym. Well not enough time to figure that out now…

“Love the new mods, breaks became a little loose towards the end there though…” Nova said to no one in particular, knowing the AI would hear…

“Well you can’t blame me for that you were the one driving like an absolute loon… you should know better than to drive that fast on roads like that without pausing to let the breaks cool… If you must know the pads were shot 50 miles before the edge of town and the disks were warped out of true a good 100 miles before that… It really is a miracle you didn’t crash, but the reason I yanked you out of sim wasn’t that, it was to remind you that your classes restart tomorrow and we still need to sort out a lot of stuff. Starting with having you moved into your house on campus, and discuss a few other things. Ooh and the NWO sent over your retainer for the next school year. Apparently they felt your talents warranted keeping you paid upfront rather than having something like that unfortunate incident last year happen again… I mean this is supposed to be a grooming area for them…”

“Mute, I’m going to take a shower, DO NOT PEAK IN” Nova said as she reached up and unzipped her black and white leathers

At which point a screen on the wall blinked into life with the text “But who else is going to make sure you’re OK? And besides if you want me to help you wash your back I need to be able to watch…” scrolling down it.

“Okay that it, Bob the skull is a bad influence on you… And no I will be quite alright washing my own back thank you” Nova said as the message scrolled to that side of the window. Stepping over the bridge where everything seemed to be running like clockwork, not surprising, ATMA might be annoying at times but he was very good at his job. And it would take something up there with global warfare to get him flustered. Passing the galley, it just occurred to her that she didn’t think she had ever even used that room, she walked into the “captains quarters” which bore a striking resemblance to the rooms of Picard aboard the Enterprise-E. She found a cup of steaming ristretto on her desk which she picked up and walked into “the head” where a steaming bath was drawn…

Now normally this wouldn’t have surprised her, she and ATMA were so used to each other that this sort of thing was a common enough occurrence. Except that this morning the room hadn’t HAD a bath… Let alone one with air jets turning it into a hot tub…

“Unmute, What did we say about major remodeling without asking me first?” Nova asked with the same exasperated tone most women use for unruly children.

“I wasn’t supposed to do it,” Atma’s disembodied voice provided in a tone of a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar… “but don’t you see how this is a major exception?? My job is to make your life easier and more comfortable, and this is doing just that! I know you love these things and I had some spare cycles to design it and fab it up… Go on try it…

As he said this Nova stripped her leathers of, and slipped into the bath with barely a ripple. Old habits might be hard to break, field craft is impossible to break if you get taught well… And Atma was right this was a major exception, all the jets in just the right place to do a sort of water pressure point massage. Nova felt a little shudder run up and down her spine as she relaxed into the warm water.

“Okay, just don’t do it again.” Nova said lazily as she slid back a bit further and inhaled the clean hot water. Just as on the other side of the tub a few pellets dropped into the water dissolving into a shimmer of oils that clung to her exposed skin and hair. Scents of Aloe and eucalyptus reached her. She had never been big on aroma therapy but she had to admit this was something she could definitely get used to…

When she woke up again the water was still warm but the oils had dried up in her hair leaving a bit of dried up gunk. The bath salts had done their job admirably and pruning was kept minimal. Stepping out of the bath she walked up to the window where she could look out and enjoy the scenery while she was dried by a combination of hot air, ultrasonic sound and something called a “surface tension modulator” which basically bent physics and convinced water it had no significant interaction with the world around it causing it to run off her in little streams, choosing the path of least resistance over her curves, which she was proud to notice showed no signs of sagging and otherwise becoming less then -according to a string of ex-boyfriends-perfect, running between her D cups, taking a left at her solar plexus met up with another tiny stream passed around the top of her transverses abdominus before running down along her fit Rectus Abdominis over to the tip of her wide hips where half took a decisive right hand turn and vanished from the view of the mirrored glass and the other half, still a sizeable stream considering the amount of water we were dealing with, streamed down the outside of her long legs, hugging the area’s between the various muscles and tendons before streaming off the foot between her toes.

Being dried in this way never stopped feeling, well, weird, even after a few years. The way water is supposed to behave is so familiar that every deviation from it is very odd. Dressing quickly, she once more noticed that her standard sized closet was bigger on the inside than the one from the C.S. Lewis book… She really needed to figure out how ATMA had done that, not that she was complaining or anything…

“Atma, do we need to sort anything out? Or are we set for the school year?”

“I think we’re good boss, the NWO has had your paperwork vetted last year and we all know how good they are at cover identities… Of course it helps when you can just get a real passport for a fake id…” Atma continued as Nova quickly dressed in a tank top and jeans. “But I think we’re set, barring moving your stuff into your room. But I can handle that easily enough, I have already filed a flight plan for your helicopter ride to the island… So I think we should be good to go. Other then that I think you’re good to go… Well barring a lesson plan of course, I assume you have thought of something for this year? Or were you planning on going in and winging it again… ‘Cause that had less than ideal results…”

“Yeah Yeah I’ve got my first lesson all planned out after that I’ll see what happens…” Nova said as she walked over and looked out the window of the ATMA and down on the oceans and clouds of the planet so far below. This too was one of those moments where her job was just Awesome… No other word for it… “Well might as well enjoy the sight, could you serve my lunch here she asked the ship’s computer’s disembodied voice.”

“Sure thing boss! Gimme a minute, will you be wanting Italian or Greek? I have just found this amazing recipe in my data bases should be simply exquisite! It’s this Greek dish with lamb, garlic and I think it would be great with this ouzo we scored back on earth last time around…”

“Yeah yeah that will be quite alright” Nova interrupted him as she knew he could ramble on ALL DAY if she let him, or was it “it” the personality was definitely male and she didn’t want to depersonalize him to much… Before she could fully pursue this line of thought a table spawned in front of her loaded with Greek lamb and a bottle of ouzo and a water bottle for mixing it with. “One of these days you are going to need to explain to me how you can cook food this good without hands… I know you can’t just have this fabricated by the replicator, wouldn’t come out nearly this good…” Which was true, it was great for fabricating components and non digestible but anything organic in basis was always a little off, doesn’t mind much for astronaut food and MREs but with a meal like this you would notice…

“Well I can’t just tell you all my secrets; you are a girl with OPTIONS…” Atma replied paraphrasing a line from Transformers two… “But what I can tell you is that I have used the local sun to fry that lamb up, which sealed all the flavors inside… I mean they do tell you to make the pan nice and hot…” He said in such a tone that you could almost SEE him winking… “No worries I kept the pan at considerable distance and the temperature was carefully monitored the whole time to make sure nothing burnt… That was rather awkward the first time it went wrong…”

After a meal enjoyed in low “earth” orbit seeing the entire world pass underneath you in 91 minutes, well let’s put it this way, that guy that said that that all the world’s problems seem utterly immaterial once you have seen the earth from space was right (OOC Anyone know who said that? I cannot recall off hand and I hate not giving credit for things like this… Always feels like I didn’t do the research ).

After dinner Nova grabbed her things and was teleported down to the surface where she hooked up with her ride to Eureka Academy’s teacher housing. She was not expecting it to be a MILSPEC Blackhawk, but she had been given worse rides on the company’s dime so she figured she couldn’t really complain. And say what you want about the military they tended to keep their timetables better then civilians… So she hopped into the back, got her headset on and told the pilot to haul ass…

Flight plan or not it seemed that either eureka had some new detection systems in place or the pilot was flying nape of the earth for kicks... Well a couple of minutes later she cruised over the hills where she had helped on her first mission, well helped might be a big word… She hadn’t wanted to start the fight, she would have preferred everyone lived, but she had never had problems over sleeping after FINISHING a fight… Just as she was considering that line of thought she came on the spot of a happier memory, flying over the –still empty- student dorm rooms where she had picked up Amane and Crimson for that date she and “the apprentice” had arranged…

She hoped that had ended well, she had given them all they should need for the perfect first date. She would need to ask about that, if she ran into either one of them again. Reflecting like this was a good way to spend the time, and before she knew it she was in her old apartment, which luckily seemed to have survived well without her presence… Something in the fridge had gone bad it seemed eggs and maybe some milk by the smell of things, but that seemed to be the worst of the damages. After a bit of dusting, redecorating and moving into her closets again, always a big moment in a girl’s life, she was ready for the Tarjarani Al Tarufo with a bottle of Riesling’s 1989 Grand Cru Fürstentum Vieilles Vignes. Chilled to perfection and with what looked like lemon sorbet for desert this should be a night to remember. Just as she had said that she noticed that Mozard’s die Zauberflöte was breezing through the air, just beginning on the overture. And that was when she realized this wasn’t going to be a night to remember, it was going to be a night she remembered, a night exactly one year ago to the day in point of fact…

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

As he did every morning, Prince Horatio Nelson Charles the Third woke up in his massive tank, the one in orbit being a decent percentage of the size of his old home. The Shedd aquarium might not have been his Father’s Royal palace in the deep, but it was good to be able to kick it with friends like equals, it was an open secret who, and what, he was but like good friends do it was never mentioned and he could enjoy what he now thought of as “his retirement from the public eye” in peace. He missed them on mornings like this, they were probably all dead now though, it had been what 4 years ago? Lifetimes for most of the denizens of the deep, he would properly honor them later, when his customary salute was more appropriate. It simply would not do to be seen drinking before noon, good reasons and missed friends or not.

So instead he plopped over the edge of the big pool and went into his mobile tank, and rolled down to the kitchens. Where he indulged in his other passion for a while, fine dining, he would need to refrain from his customary condiments while doing so but C’est la vie. A wide variety of fishes served with the best tea the English empire could provide a man of his stature. Jamaican fish tea, which oddly enough is a soup, involving no tea, served with lemon grass infusion. Followed by a steamed crab served in its shell accompanied by a tea he was not familiar with, seemed to be something from northern India, or perhaps Pakistan. Somewhere near the Kashmir valley unless he was seriously mistaken, and he rarely was.

Reaching out with his will he found the interface that could if required vocalize his brain waves, useful for things like telephones and the like mainly, “Atma, what is this exquisite tea you served with the crab. I suspect it hails from the Kashmir valley and I cannot positively place the herbs used. You know how this will drive me mad if you do not tell me.”
“Ooh that would be “Kawa” a traditional Kashmiri drink served in the Kashmir, Ladawa and Jammu regions. Green tea served with a variety of spices, I have used -I regret to say- a prepackaged mixture I procured on Earth when we were there last. To which I have added Almonds, green Cardamom and Za’faran. The recipe calls for the tea leaves to be boiled for one minute before adding the spices, Resulting in a drink that wards of the chills in winter as well as fortifying the metabolism, and both eases digestion as well as is conducive to the appetite, as well as all the usual benefits to green tea obviously.” Atma replied in the clipped British upper class tones of a lifelong and consummate butler. “Will you be requiring me to warm up your customary sniffer of Otard Hors d’Age?”

“I believe not, it is rather early in the day for that particular indulgence mine, but I would love some more of those crabs and of the Kawa. Would you be a dear and refill my tobacco pouch though? I fear I have run out of that exquisite blend of Burley And Virginia leaf you procured for me.” The voice box responded while His Royal Highness dug into his second crab with gusto.

“Of course I can sir, now if you could tell me where you left it or is it in the usual spot?”

“I do believe it is, would you be so good as to put it back when you are done with it?”

“Of course sir, tea’s in the pot and the crabs will be done momentarily, if you will need anything else you knows how to reach me…” The disembodied voice said as it trailed off sounding like he was walking out of the room.

After more exquisite crabs and tea, the prince wheeled himself back to his main living quarters. Where he took a quite contented after lunch nap which resulted in him waking up around 5 in the afternoon. This was just the right time for a smoke and a glass in honor of the memories of his friends… “Atma, Could you please prepare a sniffer of the [FONT=&quot]Dudognon Heritage Cognac Grande Champagne[/FONT]? I believe it the appropriate choice for tonight. And yes I am quite sure about my choice in the matter.”

“Of course sir, I shall require a few moments. Will you be requiring anything else? Ooh Miss Carmine has gone down to the surface, her teaching begins again tomorrow, she told me to pass you a message saying that she could make rooms available for you should you wish to go out and explore. She says she has arranged for something to fill your days should you be interested. A noble endeavor, teaching the children to defend themselves and those close to them from harm, first as an assistant to her but later you could -if your highness wishes that is- take on a longer time position.” Atma spoke in the same clipped Oxford English he preferred in his butler persona.

After carefully examining the options for the duration of a good sized sniffer of brandy and a pipe smoked at his leisure. He found that he would like to share his considerable life experiences with the youth. “Atma, I do believe will take Miss Carmine up on that offer. Could you please arrange for transportation and appropriate living conditions? And whatever else you deem necessary.”