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 Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 4:54 am
A short, white-haired girl in a comically oversized sweater paced outside Mark's office. Sure, Mark hadn't said anything about where this training was, or when, or even if she was qualified for it, really, but it seemed like an opportunity too good to pass up. Reine took a deep breath and reached out to knock on the door, before pulling her hand back for probably the tenth time.
'Come ooonnnn,' the voice in her head grumbled. 'Either do it or don't, ok? This isn't potions class. Stuff probably isn't gonna explode in your face.'
"It could be worse," Reine hissed back. "What if he decides to give a pop quiz and I didn't study?"
There was no reply.
Sighing, she closed her eyes, repeated what she was going to say in her mind five times, then knocked on the door.
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Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 2:22 pm
The door easily peeled open, revealing Mark's "office", also known as his lair was what could only be explained as the world's messiest workshop-turned-junkpile. There was a separate room off the side that lead to a series of surprisingly functional server towers covered in runes, though about ninety-five percent of the main room was just piles of junk. Everything from lava lamps, to action figures, to old bottles of Red Bull covered the expanse, making it nearly impossible to walk to Mark, who was currently sleeping facedown on his desk, next to two boxes of half-consumed frozen pizza and his dual monitor screen setup.
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Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 12:33 am
The sight that greeted Reine was quite horrifying, not to mention the smell of probably mouldy Red Bull, stale pizza, sweat, and who knew what else.
Struggling to dismiss her initial disgust at the state of Mark's room, she tried to reason that maybe he was just so focused on his work that.. he'd apparently given up any attempts to take care of his own well-being and personal hygiene. Here was an opportunity to learn from one of the older hunters - she had to at least try.
Eyes watering, Reine wrapped her scarf tighter around her, pulling at the fabric so it covered her nose and mouth.
'Looks just like the inside of my den,' Celia piped up. 'Smells pretty interesting. I like it.'
Yeah, and that endorsement means so much.
There was still time to turn back if she wanted, to just close the door and pretend she'd never come here at all. Instead, an unexpected surge of willpower compelled her to take one tentative step into the room, then another.
Two steps. That was pretty much all the space left.
"HI MARK, " she called out, hoping he would wake up. "I'm a sorry - oh! I meant - I'm sorry if I'm being a bother, I'm here for that padawan training you mentioned before?"
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Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2017 2:29 pm
As Reine took a step, the pile of junk made a tentative clinking noise, an old computer monitor she was currently standing on collapsing just a couple of inches. Safe, so far.
Her second step however, was less so, stepping on a large custom keyboard that was supported by almost nothing. Her foot would quite heavily sink into something feeling a little loamy underneath the keyboard, something that made an audible squish noise.
Finally, a long few seconds later, Mark snorted, nearly fell off his desk as he tried to roll over and then looked up. He blinked a few times at Reine, and then took off his pilot hat, shaking off a few roaches from it. "Sup," he had totally not registered what she said before and was looking extra pathetic without his overly stuffed coat on, "you here for the pizza delivery?"
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Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2017 3:04 pm
Despite her attempt to be as careful as possible, the small hunter found it much more difficult than expected to avoid the piles of junk in Mark's room. It seemed - to her - a miracle that he even got to his desk at all, either he was a true ninja or he just never left.
The squishing sound only spooked her further; it was a good thing she was wearing boots, she would always wear boots from now on, giant rubber boots, whatever kept her feet safe and clean. Was this really the same guy from the other day? They looked pretty much alike except the first guy looked kind of cool and there were definitely no roaches on him, not that she'd thought to check then.. and this guy was an utter mess.
A billion possibilities ran through her mind - they could be twins, maybe she remembered the wrong guy, it had been really foggy after all - but it wasn't until she felt one of Mark's roaches running up her arm that Reine finally reacted, with an embarrassing scream, flailing and jumping backwards into a pile of old servers topped with a batman figurine.
The ensuing collapse was somewhat like an avalanche.
"NO I'M NOT HERE FOR PIZZA DELIVERY," yelled a voice from somewhere in the debris. There was a clank as Reine tried to move stuff off herself. "I'M HERE FOR TRAINING, YOU SAID SOMETHING ABOUT TRAINING, I JUST WANTED TO BE A GOOD HUNTER OKAY, I -- sniff I'm stuck help"
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