Walking With a Ghost (1-7)

Rachel · Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2010 5:35 pm

The heat wasn't bothering the griffin. She was more then used to the tempatures. She lagged behind as the others where ushered inside. She starred up at the odd rock formations. With a heavy sigh she headed inside. She looked around at the group, Rocks little band seemed to know who she was, which didn't comfort her at all. So, she made an attempt to make a more proper introduction.

"Hello." She said in as friendly a voice she could muster. But it was clearly strained as she knew she hadn't made the best introduction with the pink monkey last she saw her. "I Uh, Reckon we got off on the wrong foot 'ere. I'm Jack. Uh, Yer the gal that was with Lochert when ya'll fell outta the sky in the city. Right? Sorry 'bout tryin' to arrest ya. It was a kinda weird situation..."

Now that she thought about it, things just got stranger from there.

Target hopped inside and immediately started to gravitate towards Caz, her head fell to a cant as she watched the mole and then began to mimic her. like a creepy robotic mirror. "I love your outfit! Where'd you get it?" She said in a sing-song voice, apparently ignoring Jack's feeble attempt at making peace with these people.

psikeout · Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2010 7:13 pm

"Alright, Juneau it is," he said with a nod. "Easier, anyway."

The white primate jutted a starkly-black-gloved thumb toward the hangar. "We'll have plenty'a room for your board in the wing pannier," he replied confidently, waving the concern off. "You can set it and whatever else inside the hangar door and I'll take care of it."

With that, he started to just go back to what he was doing, but stopped short with an "Uh."

"But I guess I oughta tell you now—We are lookin' at a delay. Tanker still ain't showed up. If you're alright waitin' it out, you're welcome to join everybody else in the building over there."

Mie · Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2010 10:03 pm

For the briefest of instances, upon being asked about her party's own intentions regarding the famed boxing tournament, Jam looked a little puzzled, but quickly shrugged it off.

"Eh, I can only speak for myself," she prefaced, crossing her arms, and dropping back against the curtain-swathed wall. "But... I'unno. Think I'd have a hard time playin' by the rules, y'know."

With little more than an accenting flare of electric tendrils from her bangle, the instantaneously frizzy-furred monkey illustrated her point just in time to be addressed by everyone's favorite sheriff.

She threw a confused glance to Ace, as if to ask what she should do, but hastily fished up her own reply; "Uh..."

Not that it was a particularly good one, but she at least kept trying.

"You were jus' tryin' do what you thought was best for your town," Jam at last conceded with a deflating sigh, dragging a hand through her hair. "I was havin' a really s***y day, you were about to have a really s***y day. It ain't here'r there now. I'd say we both got deeper graves t'dig at the moment."

"For the record, though, I dunno what your history is with Rock -- I could probably guess -- but either way, since all this crap started goin' down, he's been workin' non-stop to do his bit, and help where he could, so... I know his methods can be a little off the map sometimes, but whatever he's doin' I promise you we're better off with him tryin' to do it than not."

Tau · Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2010 11:07 pm

"A delay's not that big of an issue, I've been out here for over a month. A few more hours won't hurt me.."

He turned towards the direction of the tower prior to shifting his focus form the skyline to it. "If you're heading to the hangar alone, I suggest you leave any sweets you may have on you in the shadow of the hangar.."

Juneau would take a few steps towards of the location of the others before he'd paused a moment and spoke up a bit, though what he said wouldn't make much sense to rock, though no one else seemed to be around to hear it.. " Try not to cause too much trouble for him and I'll let you have one of the pink and purple ones. " And with that said he continued off towards the location of the others.

psikeout · Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2010 11:37 pm

Having turned away from Juneau right when he started spouting something about... sweets, and shadows, Rock found himself giving a troubled stare out to empty space—the kind that sighed without truly sighing, for he knew he had scored the privilege of transporting a loony passenger.

Or maybe it was simply someone who'd just spent too long near Pumpkin Hill, because from the sounds of it, he was talking to a ghost.

Rock went on in the hangar without another word, but made the workbench his first stop. Not only did he grab an appropriate ratchet and socket, but also a nice, big, halogen flashlight to hang from his belt. And so, he set off to work humming.

"Not gonna let it get to meee, duh-nuh-nuh-nuh... ... ... I hate this song."

Greens · Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 12:36 am

It didn't take long for Caz to notice her robotic company, and even less time for her to realize she was being imitated, when Targette was pulling a finger through hair that more or less did not exist. This got her head thinking. She slowly waved her hand to the side. Targette followed. She placed that hand on her heart. Targette followed. She held her arm out, stiff as a board until her elbow, with her forearm dangling limply from side to side.

...Targette followed.

Soon enough, she was rather blatantly doing the robot, grinning widely as her mechanical double shadowed her. "Well, it's not really a full outfit, I guess," she explained, rotating her waist, torso and arms with that distinctive rigidity and precision. "Just kinda stuff from my closet I threw on myself, can't really remember where I got it all..."

"...you're a pretty good dancer, by the way."

Ace on the other hand, was quick to shrug his shoulders in an obvious 'Hell if I know' manner at Jam's unspoken question. And as happy as he was for her that she was in the process of smoothing whatever problems she had with the sheriff over, the cat huffed his nose, still eagerly waiting for his turn to get an apology. As far as he was concerned, he'd earned it the most. For now, he busied himself with the hedgehog's question.

"Yeah, I'm going," he answered casually enough. "Don't think I remember ever bein' in some formal... tournament kinda thing before. But I'm adaptable enough." There was a brief pause while he thought his next words over. "...Nothing personal if we meet up in the ring, ah?"

Sheff · Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 9:55 pm

"It'll just be for the sport, don't worry," replied Sheffer with a small grin. "Or, in this case, the grand prize."

He allowed himself to relax, sinking back into the recliner. The monkey and cat weren't acting hostile at all, even though it was blatant why anyone would be joining the tournament... that is, if they were going to compete. The hedgehog even found himself sizing the feline up, already taking in what his possible competition could be.

"And talking about that," he began. "What about the prize? Any plans for that? That is, if you do manage to be the victor."

Despite Sheffer's own wanting for him, or any other member of the group he'd been traveling with, to win the emerald, he had to admit he wouldn't truly care if this other group managed to get the prize for themselves. He'd witnessed them fight against an evil genius, so why would they have any dark intentions for the emerald? Still, he'd put up the good fight anyway. No point in joining otherwise.

Rachel · Posted: Fri Oct 29, 2010 8:59 am

Jack listened to the monkey, really listened. For a moment after she was done Jack's expression was blank considering what she'd said before replying. "I've recken'd fer a while Lochert's only been playin' the fool. I've been workin' with alotta folks idda locked up on sight a few weeks ago, nothin's as straight and simple as it was. Ever since ya'll fell inta my life thing's 'ave become..." she trailed off. How to best sum up the time she's been exposed to these people?

"Awe. I wish I had a wardrobe big enough to do that..." The robot started to drift from her dancer partner, a moment later started playing some music and rotating parts in ways no mortal could imitate. "Thanks! Sometimes you've just gotta dance!"

The irritating music distracted the sheriff a moment. She grumbled a bit, Jack wasn't apparently a fan of Targette's techno music. "Different." She finished her thought with an air of defeat. Target was rotating freely around the torso while her legs did complex moves that transitioned into a moonwalk back to Caz as she shut off her music. "But 'side from a few things, obviously, I've taken' a liken' to everyone."

"Being a robot is so cool sometimes." She said in a chipper voice. "No one can do the robot like I can! What are you listening to? You know, I could patch it though my speakers. I've got all sorts of inputs and output modes I've been dieing to try out!"

"I might hafta kill Target though..."

Mie · Posted: Fri Oct 29, 2010 11:41 am

And in perhaps unprecedented reason, Jam too, attempted to mend the burned bridge between her and the local law, trying to hear the tough-as-nails hybrid out through her quirky accent, but mostly getting the gist of it.

With little more than a discerningly furrowed brow at the griffin's perceivable allocation of blame on Tails' happenstance on-the-fly portal reprogramming (and, logic following, the group as a whole), the reddish girl merely nodded in assent, knowing that peace, or at the very least, tolerance of one another would make the plane ride -- and presumably the subsequent crazy Chaosol caper -- much smoother.

"Good luck," she mumbled distractedly, as her eyes and ears wandered back toward the conversing cat and hedgehog. "Them things' hardy as hell."

Greens · Posted: Fri Oct 29, 2010 10:47 pm

"Oh that's not fair, I can't do that," pouted Caz, and she quickly fell right out of her dancing frame of mind. "Shucks-howdy."

"Our plans?" Ace echoed. "...I think we can keep at least one secret to ourselves, can't we?" he answered, with a sly and subtle kind of grin.

psikeout · Posted: Fri Oct 29, 2010 11:23 pm

Later...

How long had it been? The sun was vanishing over the horizon, and there was still no word at all about takeoff. Anyone reasonably astute would notice that there had been no telltale engine noises from an approaching fuel truck, though, or, for that matter, sound of anything except the occasional clatter of a wrench or other miscellaneous clanking of metal from the hangar, though even that was too far away to likely hear from the tower.

Eventually, though, the front door of the squat, brick building swung open, and in slogged the white monkey, looking... tiredly agitated.

He closed the door behind him and wandered across the room to a breaker panel on the wall, all the while avoiding looking at the eyes of all those who doubtlessly wanted to know what the heck was going on. Well, except Dr. Henshin, who hadn't budged from the couch. (It was hard to tell if he was even still breathing.)

Without saying much at first, he opened the metal door on the panel and snapped a couple switches over. There was a series of loud, reverberating, electronic "clunk" sounds; the orange, late-day-hued lot outside lit up brightly through the windows, but there wasn't a view for long before Rock stepped up to each and pulled a lever, closing what seemed like a set of blast shutters, then pulling heavy curtains over them.

Finally, he stopped, turned to everyone, and blurted abruptly, "Bad news."

He crossed his arms and sighed. "Tanker was too slow gettin' around to us. The driver called and said he won't be coming today."

Mie · Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 12:11 am

Over the course of Rock's absence, Jam had attempted to fill in for him as at least a passable host. Things continued much in the same was as they had initially, even after the arrival of another even stranger addition to their clientele. After several awkward moments of introductions and superficial banter, the brightly colored simian offered up the contents of their host's drink stores (which consisted of tap water and Hilltop Drop) to his patrons, and obliged the usual, "make yourselves comfortable, etc." niceties. From then on, she milled about the room pretending to be busy reading things, watching things, or piddling on a netbook. Every now and again, she would drift toward Ace or Caz and converse lowly with them for seconds-long stints, before eventually returning to her idle busywork.

When their much awaited pilot at last dragged back through the door, Jam's expectantly curious gaze fell on him as he went about his odd set of tasks, only to just fall upon hearing what he had to say.

She scrambled off her stool, and approached, asking in a cautiously small voice, jerking a thumb back over her shoulder, "Uh, what does that mean for them?"

Rachel · Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 3:35 pm

In response to Jams comment about killing Target, Jack smirked a bit but settled into a seat for a while. Then her FAVORITE white monkey returned, turned on the lights then shut metal shutters. Jack was upright when the shutters came down, her hands on her hips, well one on her hip and the other on her gun sicne that pretty much took up more of that hip space on that side.

"Mean's we're spendin' the night." She replied to Jam, then looked at the shutters Rock closed. "What's the meanin' of all that?"

Needless to say Rock just charging in and closing those shutters down made the griffin a little nervous.

Tau · Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 4:29 pm

Having since quietly made his way into the tower structure Juneau had chosen to mostly leave the others, whom had all arrived together, alone up until up now. Having not yet stowed his belongings in hanger he was searching through his satchel pack before pausing to look up in response to the sound of the shutters activating and the Sheriff's question.

"Not all of them seem familiar with spending the night this deep in pumpkin hill..." Juneau would shake his head as he switched to searching through one of his vest pockets a few moments before removing his palm PC. "... This will prove to be... an interesting night."

Having found the object he was searching for he quietly buckled his satchel pack and slung it over his shoulder while keeping his focus on the palm computers screen, flipping through a few keys with his thumb.

psikeout · Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 5:09 pm

Rock was just about to reply when Juneau spoke up, possibly for the first time that evening since his conversation out near the hangar.

The primate looked off to the side, and reluctantly (or perhaps grimly) nodded.

"And for that reason, I'm glad you folks seem comfortable with the idea of stayin'," Rock added, although he still sounded none too happy about the situation as a whole. He wandered over to a metal ladder that was hanging down near one of the walls, and started up it while he continued. "Once the sun sets, you won't find anybody willing to come out here. The roads are dangerous at night, and the, uh, locals make it... worse."

At the top of the ceiling-height ladder, he freed a hand to unlock and swing open an overhead hatch.

"You guys can come up if you wanna take a look around," he offered.

What a mess. Maybe it could be called making the best of a bad situation. But anyone who followed Rock up into that second-story control tower would soon begin to see that there wasn't a whole lot of "good" to be spoken of around a place like that at night.

The small room, with big, sloped windows lining all four sides, cast their reflections back. The inky glass was a portal to visuals of great contrast; there were spotlights all over, shining down onto the first story roof of the tower building, as well as onto the surrounding lot. The hangar was very nearly lit up like a fireworks store, itself. But there was a very clear, divisive line just feet from the structures where the light did not reach. Beyond it, there was the darkness of late day shadows, and the beginning of lights of an entirely different sort.

A signpost not far away pulsated with a gentle blue glow—warning signs, not unlike the ones the group had passed in their van earlier. Overhead, the delightfully unique faces of Pumpkin Hill began to shine all in unison. It would have been easy to almost think of them as being festive, the overgrown Halloween decorations that they were, if not for the grim truth that they were real, gigantic, and had no earthly rationalization to their very existence.

Walking With a Ghost (1-7)

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