fandomhighdorms | Behind the Dorms, Tuesday Afternoon

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Behind the Dorms, Tuesday Afternoon

"Last one of these before the break," Zack mused, stepping in front of the group as they gathered behind the dorms today. "And so today, I want us to do something a little different."

He crossed his arms over his chest, looking over the group with only a fraction of a smile on his lips. "We're not the only reserve group on the island. There's a group for people with powers, and another for those who provide support like first-aid and food to us while we're in an emergency situation. So, today I want us to talk about what it is that both of those groups do that we, as physical fighters, can benefit from. And, in turn, I want ideas about the things that we can do in order to make their efforts run more smoothly. We don't want to be tripping on each other. We just want to see a threat and eliminate it in the most efficient way possible, and teamwork is what's going to get that accomplished."

Arthur gave Zack a quick nod. "There are many avenues in which they can be useful," he said. "The support group already helps us facilitate communication by phone, for example, and tends to our wounded. Likewise, there are spells and abilities that can help us improve our performance in battle."

He... didn't mean for that to sound like a Cialis advert. Honest.

"We've done this exercise before, but I'd like to underscore its importance. Find magic and support members. Talk to them. This is the only way we can find our common ground efficiently."

"Some of us are members of more than one group," Zack added as a final note. "You guys have the advantage here, clearly. The rest of you, powers or no, don't be afraid to swing by one of the other groups this week to see what it is that they're about."

[Open!]

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Cookies!

... Non-chocolatey ones. Zack had gotten his fill of chocolate on Sunday night, thanks.

Ino was... a bit late to the reserves today and when she got there, she felt rather harrassed and looked it while she leant against her tree rather than climbing up it.

Her head ached. Pop quizzes from her sensei back home were not conductive to avoiding headaches, no. And she still didn't know what he'd wanted.

Kennedy's overall good mood had continued right through into today, and despite her attempts to look serious and attentive because reserves were supposed to be serious business, she couldn't keep a touch of a grin off her face as she lounged back against her usual patch of wall and worked her way through a handful of cookies.

Illyria hung back, watching more distantly than usual. Reluctance to give advice was never her problem, but she knew nothing of the sorcerers on the island, nothing of the ones who served aside from the fact that one of their leaders was the irritating, self-righteous girl with the white streak in her hair.

Were they her troops, she could make use of their skills; as compatriots, though, not under her command... It wasn't how she was used to thinking -- nor was the admission only to herself that her usual ways of thinking would not work here.

Talk about the other groups like the horrible gossips you are! Or, rather, talk about what it is that all of us do that we find mutually beneficial, and things that can be done to make our three-reserve teamwork thing run even more smoothly.

"I've been thinking about this," Kennedy began; she'd been thinking about it a lot, actually, though granted not entirely for the purpose of contributing to the reserves. Shut up-- who said indulging in your fantasies a little bit couldn't be constructive? (Anyway, would you be at all surprised to learn Kennedy's fantasies had action sequences? Not those Okay, not just those.)

"Not so sure about support services since I don't hang out there, but we've got a crazy variety of different stuff people in magic reserves can do. Offensive mojo, protective stuff, even wacky things nobody was probably expecting. The TK types can give us a boost with range... some of 'em have major shielding skills... in fact, we could probably use some of the weird things as a distraction, even." She paused. "Kinda think it would help some if we actually had, like, lists of what everybody's good at so we know how to match people up for things."

Zack considered that, and then gave a thoughtful nod.

"From each and every group, for that matter. Figure out who knows first-aid, or who has healing spells. Find out who has a sniper's aim with a rifle, and who is powerful when it comes to stealth, and then compare and try to group people off according to those strengths?"

It looked like a suggestion that certainly had its merits.

Encouraged by the fact that someone was taking her suggestions seriously, Kennedy nodded, her grin broadening. "Yeah, right. Like that. Or how to cover each other's asses, by which I mean weak points. Like how close are the witchy types going to need to be to do their thing, what supplies does everybody need, and who's cut out to guard 'em if they need it? Hell, even just knowing what we've got to work with is a huge start."

She frowned slightly. "We're gonna have to shift lists around soon, too, with people leaving and new people coming in."

Zack gave her his closest approximation to an encouraging smile (which actually did look a little encouraging, and even more or less like a smile, today!) and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Really, now's not a bad time to come up with a suggestion like that, you know? It means there's some time to stop in to the other groups, to see if the people there would be open to something like that, and then to figure out how to organize it before the rookies show up." Headtilt. An actual smile, now. "It would be useful to get the groups working in tandem that way. Maybe group volunteers off by threes, and give them a challenge of some sort, to see how they each account for one another's strengths and weaknesses..."

Kennedy dusted cookie crumbs off her hands and hooked her thumbs into her belt loops, her shoulders shifting into more self-assured lines. "And who's more cool about working with fighters, as opposed to who isn't so much," she considered, remembering. "Not to say there wouldn't be stuff they could do, but it won't do us much good to have someone with kickass mojo or, like, mad analytical skills out in the middle of the action if they're too wigged to use it."

"That's right," Zack agreed, resisting the urge to reach for a cookie for himself. There would be plenty of time for cookies after the meeting, after all. "We want people we can work alongside, not another person to worry about while we're fighting. Just like they would need to know that they've got a fighter with them who can watch their backs while they do whatever they have to do, or someone who isn't going to freak out the moment they start casting spells or coming up with tactical suggestions."

~~Except for how that could be super-interesting plotty-wise.~~ "Right?" Give in to the cookie urge, Zack. Give iiiiiiiiiin to the cookies! "No need to make things harder on ourselves that way. We could come up with, I don't know, some kind of practice drills or something? Throw people through scenarios, see what they'd do-- wait, you sort of said that already but I'm all for that. Sounds like fun."

Kennedy was kind of on a roll now.

Kennedy, you should consider yourself some sort of miracle worker. Because in the course of three minutes of conversation, you'd be the first person in weeks who wasn't Ino to actually get Zack to not only smile, but also laugh a little while he got his head geared into military mode.

"I think it would be fun! A little practical application of everyone's different talents, you know? And then maybe we could put teams against one another, or use the Danger Shop for the variety and the realism or something like that..."

The little ~~slot machine~~ gears in his head were turning. And he was totally absently reaching for a cookie.

Edited 2010-04-20 21:54 (UTC)

Oh, did you really want to give her that to inflate her ego any more? Kennedy's opinion of herself was high enough without adding 'miracle worker' to the list. But she grinned back; it was hard not to.

"Why not both?" The cookie thing must be infectious, because Kennedy was reaching for another one too, now. "Make it a little bit American Gladiators, a little bit Double Dare, only with less slime. Like, two teams racing through an obstacle course. It'll be totally awesome. Plus, useful, so no bad there."

And now, there was thoughtful cookie munching! Because if one was going to absently give in to the siren call of the cookie, one had better at least be thoughtful about it, right?

"I have no idea what those examples you used are all about," he confessed, "but an obstacle course, I think we can arrange. And if we do get use of the Danger Shop, I don't see why we need to use conventional obstacles, either. I mean, this is Fandom. Pretty much nothing we'll ever face off against here is anything remotely conventional, right?"

The reserves groups should worry. Zack was contemplating monsters.

And Kennedy-- who would agree that cookie munching while discussing reserves business was the kind of Serious Business that warranted thoughtfulness-- was contemplating demons.

"And nothing some of us are gonna face off against at home is either." A random thought occurred to her, and she laughed. "Though, I don't know if the Danger Shop can swing it so we have to figure out how to fight in different bodies if the island ever makes us swap genders again. Which, by the way, I can so live without ever again."

Zack opened his mouth, and kind of gaped for a moment, there. And then promptly shut it again when he realized that he was doing just that.

"I totally managed to miss that," he shared. "I got lucky, I guess? Not that there's anything wrong with girls? I just probably wouldn't be very good at being one."

Like, at all.

Kennedy opened her mouth and snapped it shut, her shoulders shaking with laughter.

"Girls are awesome, but yeah, kinda not seeing you pulling that off too well. I can safely say I was not a fan of being a guy."

"It seems like it would be uncomfortable, being in a body that just totally doesn't fit," Zack noted, still maybe just a bit wide-eyed. "And I'm saying that as a guy who has been two different breeds of dog since first coming to Fandom."

And he had been a very adorable puppy both times, thank you.

"At least I was still a guy dog."

"My balance was all off," Kennedy admitted, wrinkling her nose. Not to mention other things that were just weird. "Luckily it only lasted a day, which is more than I can say for when I was a hedgehog."

Beat.

"And yeah, still a girl hedgehog. Um, I'm pretty sure, anyway. At least as a dog you could bite people if you had to?"

"And I didn't have to," Zack replied with a grin and a shrug. "I wound up with good puppysitters both times."

And he'd ended up with pretty ribbons in his fur, courtesy of Jan. There was no way he'd ever be able to bite such a cute kid.

"Mostly I think I just chewed on things."

Oh, glorious tangents.

"And I was tiny and chased shiny objects." Kennedy rolled her eyes in amusement. "Not my most impressive week."

Though, it had had its good points. "Anyway, not really something we can simulate... maybe the magic reserves could do it, but I don't know if I'd want that."

Zack gave his head a shake, one hand resting on his hip while the other did the very important work of holding what was left of his cookie.

"I think for now, just getting used to working with people with different skill sets from our own is probably plenty. We have to be comfortable in our own skins before we can start worrying about being comfortable as something that we're not."

... That was kind of weirdly deep, for Zack.

[And now I must sleep! SP?]

Kennedy, who still wasn't incredibly comfortable around some kinds of magic, nodded emphatically.

"Start with the basics and all. Definitely." Said the girl who'd spent years pestering her Watcher about when she'd get to learn all the advanced stuff. "I mean, hey, this teamwork stuff is still pretty new to me. But it's cool."

[[sleep well! sp is awesome.]]

"We usually do our missions as solo runs back home, too," Zack admitted, shrugging. "But around here, things just don't work like that. There had to be at least ten of us fighting that big lizard that day, and even that wasn't enough."

Thank goodness for Sunshine.

"So, we'll start slow, and then maybe work our way up to dabbling with the weirder stuff. But once we figure we're comfortable with the strange stuff, I'm willing to bet Fandom will just go out of its way to prove us totally wrong, anyhow."

"I'm choosing to think of it as just making sure we don't get bored," Kennedy decided. "We'd be the biggest bunch of pains in the ass ever if we were all bored for too long."

She looked at him enviously. "I wish I'd gotten to fight the giant lizard. That must've been cool."

"It was so cool," Zack agreed, and that statement was followed up by something that was darn near a bounce. Almost, maybe, a little. "I mean, he was bigger than any of the dragons I've ever fought back home, and way harder to hurt. But I guess the dragons at home have that whole 'able to fly' thing going for them."

And a lot of terrifying attacks that involved shooting crackling balls of flaming energy from space in attacks that somehow managed to temporarily destroy the moon.

Gaia was a special place.

"You," Kennedy said, with actual wide-eyed amazement not at all unlike a kid in a candy store, "come from a world that has actual flying dragons? Holy crap, that sounds awesome."

Temporary moon-destruction aside and all that, of course. That part would be pretty inconvenient.

"Actual flying dragons," Zack agreed, grinning proudly. Any opportunity that presented itself to brag about home was totally a welcome one, darn it! "And griffins, phoenixes, giant bugs..."

He tilted his head a little, trying to come up with monsters that actually made sense to most people around here. It seemed like most people had never heard of chocobos, or poodlers, or boundfats...

"I got a summon item, once, so that I could call Bahamut if I ever really needed to. But... I don't ever really use it around here. The last thing Fandom Island needs is a giant dragon flying around blowing things up."

With names like that (cool names, granted, if a little weird and deceptively cute at times), you'd hope people here would remember hearing about them.

"Awesome," Kennedy breathed, close to bouncing herself. "Well, not so much with the giant dragon flying around the tiny island. But the giant bugs and all? Those things just, like, wander around and stuff, or what?"

"All over the place," Zack confirmed. "Which is okay enough out in the countryside, but when stuff like that wanders into cities, it causes problems. Most people can't just walk out there and take down a Land Worm without blinking, you know?"

Considering a full grown worm could eat a person whole, it would be preeeetty stupid for most civilians to make the attempt.

"I don't think it would be possible to pack everyone up and take the Reserves group on a field trip to Midgar to take down monsters or anything, but I might be able to at least get a couple programmed into the Danger Shop for group training purposes, or something. The training room back home is almost the same deal, so maybe the program would be compatible..."

"So you guys have to keep them away from cities, then. Makes sense." Maybe it was just her interpretation, but Kennedy was all about doing stuff that fell neatly into the categories of fighting evil and looking out for people.

A full grown worm that could eat a person whole was... problematic on several levels, yes.

"If you could, that would rock." Kennedy would be more than happy to try and talk whoever needed to be talked into it to make this happen. Naturally. "Wait... Midgar? Why does that sound familiar?"

Zack gave a lopsided little smile and he shrugged a bit.

"I have no idea. I talk about it a lot, I guess. And I've been taking Ino there now and then to fight monsters, whenever I get handed missions I think she-" won't die completing, "-would enjoy. Plus I'm not the only one who goes to school here who is from there. I mean, there's Elena, and Yuffie's at least been there, and one of the old students was from there too, from what I can tell..."

And now Zack was babbling.

Kennedy somehow managed to attract the babblers, it seemed. Good thing she didn't mind.

"Elena," she said, snapping her fingers. "She thinks I can handle those things."

No, Kennedy, she probably didn't mean the dragons.

"Oh, yeah?" Zack blinked, and then did some more thoughtful cookie munching. "Well, if Elena thinks you can, there's got to be some merit to that. It's practically her job to be able to tell that sort of thing."

Kind of. Along with a lot of more nasty stuff, so far as Zack could gather. But the information gathering bits, too.

"So, if I can get my hands on a copy of the programs that we use back in Midgar, do you think you'd be willing to help me crash-test one of them, sometime?"

When they ping in!

Zack was still carrying the monster of a sword on his back, today. But he was also in what appeared to be a relatively decent mood.

There was smiling happening! Smiling!

It felt nice to do that again.

Arthur was of course, present, and struck the usual picture of being into it and yet terminally uninterested at the same time.

It was a difficult balance to grasp. ~~He would also be on SP due to the player's massive workload at work today.~~

Leto was here too. He would leave Fandom soon, and somehow that made him pay more attention.

My cat has set up a blanket nest in the hallway. Which is adorable. Except she seems to have kidnapped all of my candy to stash in there, too.

I want my Jolly Ranchers back, kitten!

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Behind the Dorms, Tuesday Afternoon

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OOC