Welcome to Gaia! ::

Ducking down to help Ami shuffle all her papers into her folder was a secondary instinct, the quirked little smile he gave her was a bit harder to muscle up. He was still nervous, still a bit awkward about this whole "committed" thing. The talk with Eva had been a massive help, but he still felt lacking. Maybe he'd need to go see Marcus soon. "Trading seats might be in your best interest." He chuckled softly, giving her hand a light squeeze before reappearing at the table.

He was a trainee, he was expected to do some goofy things.

"Afternoon, Leon. Do I smell Lacoste?"

Ami sighed, leaning on the table to reorganize all her papers. Luckily she'd compiled most of it into something short of ten pages, so it didn't take too long. Still, it was time wasted. Lex got furrowed eyebrows as he squeezed her hand. It was appreciated, but this was a professional place, baka!

"Moving would be rude." Etiquette was everything, after all. Robert's innuendo only further the light pink color that had formed on Ami's face from embarrassment. "Not yet anyways."

Leon's address made her slightly more agreeable. Nothing like an attractive man in a suit calling you miss. "You look like your necktie is choking you. Nervous?"

Melvin was organizing his thoughts on how best to stay on track with his presentation without going off on some unnecessary tangent when Leon turned to him and gave him a hard smack on the back that nearly had his face hitting the table.

Bracing himself, he just rubbed a shoulder, slightly flustered that the dark gray turtleneck somehow had come off as him getting his jollies off with other sweater-ish wearers. "Not really. A sweater vest is completely different than a sweater." He straightened the seams of his jacket. "It is nice to see everyone dressed for business and not looking like they rolled out of bed." To see some people in their best had been a bit distracting when he was trying to focus. Dr. Stephen's smile for one had him dying to ask what sort of products he used in his daily regime against tartar buildup. He bet he flossed three times a day.

Was it a bit warm in here?

Melvin cleared his throat with a curt 'ahem'. Taking off his jacket to set it behind his chair, he adjusted his glasses and readdressed Leon. "You look good in a suit. Nearly didn't recognize you."

Ami sighed. All this whispering and comments on clothing was getting them absolutely nowhere. She wanted to discuss ideas, not listen to idiots babble about innuendos and sweater vests.

"Somewhat," Ami responded dejectedly to Leon. "Why don't you give your presentation? Get it over with and what have you." More like "go first so I don't have to."

Stephen winked.

Someone likes you.

Doubt it, but if he keeps smiling, then it's not bad. Some guys liked big butts and legs, a strange few had a thing for bleach-white chompers.

Wait. What was he doing now?

He had a presentation to focus on! Not perfectly maintained teeth that could put the Sun to shame.

At the call for the next presentation, Melvin slowly rose. After Dwight gave his own presentation of sorts about…some high tech Bluetooth thingy (he had to look away at one point so he didn’t risk having a seizure), he felt better about his own. At least his made some sense.

He didn’t have a Powerpoint or even a printed billboard. He didn’t have his own laptop runiced yet and had to borrow a lot of the computer time in the labs, but he had his paperwork all in a binder. Breathing deep, he rose up. “ Sirs. Recently many hunters have gone into various places in Halloween to retrieve various artifacts that hold a great deal of power and create various effects and are even capable of being runiced and used by hunters to assist them. This is something I want to take great care into researching in hopes of working with the other departments to possibly develop other runic devices or even improving our own. If these artifacts can be used on the field, we have a great deal of new information to research that can them be applied to what we already have documented.”

“To be more specific, I hope that the new data could help create more resources to better aid the Moon department to tending to the wounded in future battles and to bring more of our own home and to the Infirmary. If the Moon department has more resources available to them on the field, our causalities could drop. Considering the horsemen are probably gearing up for another attack, not to mention the other monsters of Amityville that seem to be assisting them, creating better shields and healing resources to be used in battle could give a definite edge that could be provided by researching these new artifacts more thoroughly to lead to some later prototypes.“

He set a hand on the binder he brought. “I’ve already started research on my own artifact but I’d like to call upon every hunter with artifacts. I also considered going to various artifact destinations just to test the area to see if it differs in any way from the other areas of Halloween to be able to somehow create or influence these artifacts. For something that seems protected by large creatures that take up that much fear for our own hunters to fight, even they know that they hold a lot of power here and yet don’t want the general populace of Halloween to have it.”

Rin was wearing a dress. Leon could see her legs. every bit of Melvin's argument was lost by the revelation.

"Glad to see i'm not the only one dressing up for this." the boxer offered politely to Rin. He could feel your eyes on him Clarice. the silence that stretched after the blondes presentation grew fat and pregnant in the absence of sound.

It looked like everyone had something to prove. except robert.

The doctor listened to Melvin with a fairly indulgent smile until the younger man finished. Turning away he held out his hand, "Dwight, give me your wallet."

The tech hesitated for only a moment before a raised eyebrow had him fumbling to hand it over, his expression containing both curiosity and apprehension. Flipping through it he finally addressed Melvin, "Quite ambitious of you, Mr. Potter." He pulled out a card, tossed the wallet back to Dwight, and then took out a sharpie. "A bit vague and lacking focus, but as an intermediate, that's not entirely a terrible thing. Clarice, do we do we have for lab availability?"

"Lab 3b isn't in use mornings and afternoons."

"Excellent. Clarice will give you the key, Melvin. Be sure to keep any battle testing to the sparring grounds, though." Turning to his assistant, "Rather than a desktop or laptop, assign him one of the new tablets for entering data. No budget and no equipment replacement until practical results are shown. Location testing will be up to you and anyone you can convince to follow along. I suppose you need some authority to go about requiring people to share their artifacts for science."

Looking up, he smiled at Melvin and tossed the card to him. It was laminated and had a professional looking badge attached, as well as several handwritten amendments from the doctor:



"That's the extent of what I'm willing to give you at the moment. Next?"