An Inauspicious Arrival
In Which Puchiko Proceeds to Threaten Lab 305 and Makes Off with the Goods
Another lab was not an idea that Puchiko necessarily enjoyed or welcomed. She'd worked hard to build her own lab from the ground up, whereas this one had seemed to just magically apparated - she'd never seen it before, but its presence perturbed her greatly.
So she had decided to confront the presence at its source and kindly and firmly order it to leave - or at least yell at said source until it did what she wanted. Armed with her sense of righteousness at being the sole owner of labs on Gaia, Puchiko marched into Lab 305 with her hackles raised, one finger raised triumphantly and proudly in the air.
"I would like to speak to the owner of this establishment!" she ordered, to no one in particular.
The woman standing behind the receptonists desk gave a rather large jolt of surprise as someone suddenly entered and made a rather loud proclamation. Chloe cowered back a little for a moment before standing up straight, looking anxiously toward the new arrival.
"Ah...U-Uhm... h... he's very busy..." and then added in a meeker voice. "C-Can I help you..?"
"Indeed," Puchiko snapped, marching - nay, stomping - over to the desk and planting her palms on it with separate loud thunks. Her eyes narrowed in a manner that she prayed made her look suspicious and dangerous, but instead just made her look squinty and a little sad. "This building is an affront against me! I demand it be removed at once." Her demands made, Puchiko leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest, though she seemed a little at a loss. For her, the plan had been:
1) Come in
2) Make demands
3) ???
4) Profit.
She decided to just let step three unfold as it would and instead gave the poor receptionist a spasmodic squinty-eyed glare.
Chloe gave another small jump as the woman thunked her hands down on the desk, hands instantly moving up in alarm. Oh dear, she didn't want trouble. But as she heard the terms she became gradually more... perplexed. "E-Excuse me..? I'm s-sorry.. I'm afraid I d-don't understand.. You want... You want Lab305 to be r-removed?" The last word came out as a sort of strangled squeak. Puchiko's spastic squint was doing what she had intended for it to do.
Chloe most definatly thought she looked dangerous. And intimidating. The forceful speaking didn't help.
"U-Uhm.. maybe.... if you give me y-your name and.. uhm... address I can tell Dr. Kyou... a-and he can get back to you?" She figited nervously with the locket around her neck, eyes darting around carefully. Roux wasn't around and maybe that was for the better.
"Removed! Kaput! No more! Bye bye, sayonara, adios, aufved-whatsit. Gone." Puchiko gestured rather frantically as she spoke, as she became more and more passionate about Lab 305's nonexistence. A rather manic glint had come into her eyes and she leaned forward once more, nose twitching and mouth pursed into a tight frown.
"Bad for business," she confided, voice dropped to a conspiratory note. "My lab was first, you see? So you've got to skedaddle. That's the natural order of things. You tell your Dr. Kyou that Puchiko is on to him! I'm not going to be driven out of my own territory, thank you very much!"
Puchiko pulled away then with a dignified "Harumph!" of disapproval. She'd see to it that this place was destroyed, even if she had to rent the wrecking ball herself!
With each exclamation of the non-existance that Puchiko wished upon Lab305, Chloe seemed to shrink. This woman was serious, and she seemed a tad annoyed as well...
But Chloe had made her resolution when she took the job (Kyou had told her she'd have to be stronger, didn't he?) and she held her ground, although waveringly. "I.... I don't think.. we can.. I'm s-sorry... uhm... Ms. Puchiko..."
Puchiko...
She grabbed for a piece of yellow sticky note to write the name down on so she might remember to tell Kyou about all this later. As the tip of the pencil began to decend toward the yellow paper, however, she realized that the name was already on this particular slip of paper.
'Puchiko, Arrow of Time.'
That's all it said, it didn't have any sort of apointment date or time on it. Off to the side was a scribble about how she needed to remember to buy more melon ice cream for both Dr. Kyou and Roux.
She looked up at the woman, blinked, pushed her glasses up along the bridge of her nose and looked back down at the paper. "M-Ms. Puchiko... d-does the Arrow of Time sound f-familiar to you?"
Puchiko raised an eyebrow at the question. She remembered it vaguely, from some college classes she'd taken years back that had discussed things such as thermodynamics and entropy - it was some sort of dull concept that she didn't quite understand and had likely failed the quiz on. Giving Chloe a blank, dead-eyed stare that she had practiced time and time again in college, Puchiko nodded. She'd expected to blow up a building, not to receive a lecture in theoretical science.
"Uh-huh," she mumbled, a little sheepishly. It did indeed sound familiar, but she'd be damned if she knew what it was. It seemed for the time being she had forgotten about the imminent destruction of Lab 305.
Chloe perked up a little bit. Well if that sounded familiar then it MUST be right. Plus she had written it down.
Plus, when she turned around to peer into the glass case where the Fel Essences and Soul Bottles for guardians were kept, there was a little tag that read 'Puchiko' leaning up against the Arrow of Time vial. Chloe gave a small smile, reaching into her pocket to pull out her ring of keys with a jingle. She got the right one first this time, and unlocked the case, delicatly pulling out the items.
"O-Oh! Th-then you must... b-be here to pick these u-up..? You're very l-lucky, welcome to the family!" She did her best to give a real smile, but Puchiko still unnerved her slightly. Chloe held out her hands delicatly, Soul Bottle in one palm, vial with the Fel Essence in the other.
Puchiko peered at the proffered items with a raised eyebrow, tucking her arms behind her back and leaning forward on her toes to get a closer look. In one an arrow spun round madly, like the arrow of a compass - but there was a definite pattern to its movements, and it more swept and swooped than jerked round randomly. Her curiosity was piqued and delicately she reached out to take the vial in her hand.
"Huh," she said, all thoughts of destroying her competitor pushed from her mind. "Shiny."
But what in the hell was it? An arrow was, after all, a weapon. An assassination attempt! Puchiko should've known. Dropping the vial on the counter (it bounced but, thankfully, did not crack) Puchiko pointed an accusatory finger at Chloe.
"I'm on to you!" she shrilled, finger bumping up against the receptionist's nose. "Your weapon failed! I am victorious!" Now, to burn the place to the ground.
For a moment Chloe thought all things were well, and then suddenly Puchiko was dropping the vial. She gave an inarticulate cry of anxiety and made as though to try and reach out to catch it when suddenly there was a finger poking into her nose, causing her to jerk her head back as her body was still moving forward, making her look quite comical indeed
"W-Weapon?!" Chloe squeeked. "I..! Wh- B-.... N-No, p-p-p-please I w-wouldn't... w-weapon?!"
She was extremly alarmed, did this woman think she was attacking?! But how? She didn't have anything that even looked like a weapon on her.
The sliding doors leading back into lab swooshed open softely and a very rare sight was framed within the opening. Roux, his hair tousled and messy, reaching up to rub sleep out of his eyes, was floating there. He'd been napping but had woken up with all the yelling.
He looked into the lab, from Chloe to this other two leg. The two leg was looking as though she might try to impale Chloe with her finger. He gave a little sigh of exasperation, frowning in that distant, distracted way of his, and floated over.
He couldn't have Chloe dieing, she was his source of.. well everything. While he didn't feel much attatchment to her, he was definatly attatched to her wallet.
He pinned Puchiko with his unblinking bird-of-prey, crystal clear blue eyed gaze and stared her down. If she didn't relax he might have to do something else. He really didn't feel like doing much, the heat and summer time made him very sleepy, but if he was pushed... well.
"You're stupid." He announced in a soft, suprisingly light voice.
"Weapon!" Puchiko cried, pointing to the vial which was rolling on its side in a manner that could almost be classed as dismal. "Weapon! There's an arrow in there! It's an arrow bomb. I won't be killed that easily, I'm too smart." Preening with her seeming victory over the evil that was Lab 305, Puchiko tossed her head lightly and flicked the vial lightly with two fingers so that it bounced and rolled in Chloe's direction.
It didn't explode, as she expected, but her fingers were somewhat sore from hitting the glass like that. Never mind! It'd probably explode when it touched Chloe and then she'd be down one adversary, and life would be good!
The arrival of Roux, however, caught her attention. Fierce looks didn't work very well on crazy people, and she merely stuck out her tongue. "And you're ugly," she replied, maturely.
Chloe snatched the vial up quickly and held it tightly and protectivly against her chest. She looked very alarmed. "It's... It's j-just a Fel Essence! S-Something that e-exists but sh-shouldn't, it's n-no weapon! W-We use th-them for Dr. K-Kyou's experiments!"
And then the words were uttered.
"And you're ugly."
The colour drained from Roux's face as he looked at the two-legs before him. His eyes were wide with shock, mouth slightly open. Had.... had she just.... called him ugly?!
Everything was white, pulsing white. The temperature in the entire front room went from summery pleasent to near zero within the span of ten seconds. Before he could think, before Chloe could even sense the danger and react, his hands were shooting forward, fingers hooked into claws as he grabbed for Puchiko's neck.
He was reacting on pure emotion at the moment, he'd never put any thought into how to cause harm, just that he wanted to. How dare this ugly, filthy thing call him ugly. How dare she. She was going to pay, he was going to...
He squeezed a little, never having felt a neck between his hands before, and gave a small experimental shake. He moved his face close to hers and gave a low hiss of rage.
Chloe screamed and nearly lept completely over the desk, vial still held carefully in one hand, the other balled into a fist. She gave Roux a hard THUMP on the back. "ROUX! ROUX, NO!"
Oh god this was it. A thousand things were whirlling in her head.
Puchiko was going to die.
Roux was going to get hurt.
She was going to lose her job, oh god she was going to lose her job. And she'd deserve it too, she was the worst Raeven keeper in the history of ever.
The Raeven gave a flap of surprise at the sudden attack and loosened his grip slightly from around Puchiko's neck.
Puchiko had been right all along - people were trying to kill her! But Roux would be wrong in presuming that he was the first to attempt to strangle her, and while she was certainly alarmed by the Raevan's reaction, she kept herself surprisingly calm. The drop in temperature had caused all of her hair to p***k up, but the cold helped wake her up from her initial shock, and she reacted quickly; soon as Roux's fingers loosened slightly, she pulled a fist back and slammed it hard into the Raevan's face, successfully freeing herself from his icy grip.
Panting slightly, Puchiko decided to get out of that lab - and fast. She'd destroy it later. Clearly all they manufactured were weapons! She was determined to learn their secrets. With more speed than most would've assumed she had, Puchiko darted forward and snatched both Fel Essence and bottle from Chloe.
"I'll be back!" she warned, before scrambling out of the labs with her stolen goods in tow. They'd be sorry! She'd make sure of it.
Roux's head snapped back. The punch had been even more unexpected and painful than the ugly comment. He gave a howl of pain and surprise, reaching up to grasp his face. A few trickles of red leaked through his fingers, his nose was bleeding, but not broken. She'd caught part of his lip as well and it was rapidly beginning to swell.
Chloe was left half kneeling on her receptionist desk, looking startled to not have the essence and bottle anymore. Her eyes turned widly on Roux. For a moment she looked terrified and then a transformation came over the timid little Lab305 Lab Assistant slash receptionist.
Her face flushed red and her lips pressed tight together. She pointed toward the sliding door that lead to the back. "Roux. To Dr. Tsu's office. Now."
Roux began to make a motion as though he'd refuse and Chloe slammed her fist down on the desk with a hollow thump. "NOW."
Roux blinked, affronted by Chloe's attitude. First ugly, then hit, now... Chloe was yelling, and he was being punished, really punished. He was dazed from the attack and so instead turned and floated through the door.
When he'd left Chloe stood behind the reception desk for a moment before straightening the papers, cleaning the few drops of blood left on the floor, and then going to the bathroom. Where she locked herself in a stall and cried.
What would she tell Kyou?
So she had decided to confront the presence at its source and kindly and firmly order it to leave - or at least yell at said source until it did what she wanted. Armed with her sense of righteousness at being the sole owner of labs on Gaia, Puchiko marched into Lab 305 with her hackles raised, one finger raised triumphantly and proudly in the air.
"I would like to speak to the owner of this establishment!" she ordered, to no one in particular.
The woman standing behind the receptonists desk gave a rather large jolt of surprise as someone suddenly entered and made a rather loud proclamation. Chloe cowered back a little for a moment before standing up straight, looking anxiously toward the new arrival.
"Ah...U-Uhm... h... he's very busy..." and then added in a meeker voice. "C-Can I help you..?"
"Indeed," Puchiko snapped, marching - nay, stomping - over to the desk and planting her palms on it with separate loud thunks. Her eyes narrowed in a manner that she prayed made her look suspicious and dangerous, but instead just made her look squinty and a little sad. "This building is an affront against me! I demand it be removed at once." Her demands made, Puchiko leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest, though she seemed a little at a loss. For her, the plan had been:
1) Come in
2) Make demands
3) ???
4) Profit.
She decided to just let step three unfold as it would and instead gave the poor receptionist a spasmodic squinty-eyed glare.
Chloe gave another small jump as the woman thunked her hands down on the desk, hands instantly moving up in alarm. Oh dear, she didn't want trouble. But as she heard the terms she became gradually more... perplexed. "E-Excuse me..? I'm s-sorry.. I'm afraid I d-don't understand.. You want... You want Lab305 to be r-removed?" The last word came out as a sort of strangled squeak. Puchiko's spastic squint was doing what she had intended for it to do.
Chloe most definatly thought she looked dangerous. And intimidating. The forceful speaking didn't help.
"U-Uhm.. maybe.... if you give me y-your name and.. uhm... address I can tell Dr. Kyou... a-and he can get back to you?" She figited nervously with the locket around her neck, eyes darting around carefully. Roux wasn't around and maybe that was for the better.
"Removed! Kaput! No more! Bye bye, sayonara, adios, aufved-whatsit. Gone." Puchiko gestured rather frantically as she spoke, as she became more and more passionate about Lab 305's nonexistence. A rather manic glint had come into her eyes and she leaned forward once more, nose twitching and mouth pursed into a tight frown.
"Bad for business," she confided, voice dropped to a conspiratory note. "My lab was first, you see? So you've got to skedaddle. That's the natural order of things. You tell your Dr. Kyou that Puchiko is on to him! I'm not going to be driven out of my own territory, thank you very much!"
Puchiko pulled away then with a dignified "Harumph!" of disapproval. She'd see to it that this place was destroyed, even if she had to rent the wrecking ball herself!
With each exclamation of the non-existance that Puchiko wished upon Lab305, Chloe seemed to shrink. This woman was serious, and she seemed a tad annoyed as well...
But Chloe had made her resolution when she took the job (Kyou had told her she'd have to be stronger, didn't he?) and she held her ground, although waveringly. "I.... I don't think.. we can.. I'm s-sorry... uhm... Ms. Puchiko..."
Puchiko...
She grabbed for a piece of yellow sticky note to write the name down on so she might remember to tell Kyou about all this later. As the tip of the pencil began to decend toward the yellow paper, however, she realized that the name was already on this particular slip of paper.
'Puchiko, Arrow of Time.'
That's all it said, it didn't have any sort of apointment date or time on it. Off to the side was a scribble about how she needed to remember to buy more melon ice cream for both Dr. Kyou and Roux.
She looked up at the woman, blinked, pushed her glasses up along the bridge of her nose and looked back down at the paper. "M-Ms. Puchiko... d-does the Arrow of Time sound f-familiar to you?"
Puchiko raised an eyebrow at the question. She remembered it vaguely, from some college classes she'd taken years back that had discussed things such as thermodynamics and entropy - it was some sort of dull concept that she didn't quite understand and had likely failed the quiz on. Giving Chloe a blank, dead-eyed stare that she had practiced time and time again in college, Puchiko nodded. She'd expected to blow up a building, not to receive a lecture in theoretical science.
"Uh-huh," she mumbled, a little sheepishly. It did indeed sound familiar, but she'd be damned if she knew what it was. It seemed for the time being she had forgotten about the imminent destruction of Lab 305.
Chloe perked up a little bit. Well if that sounded familiar then it MUST be right. Plus she had written it down.
Plus, when she turned around to peer into the glass case where the Fel Essences and Soul Bottles for guardians were kept, there was a little tag that read 'Puchiko' leaning up against the Arrow of Time vial. Chloe gave a small smile, reaching into her pocket to pull out her ring of keys with a jingle. She got the right one first this time, and unlocked the case, delicatly pulling out the items.
"O-Oh! Th-then you must... b-be here to pick these u-up..? You're very l-lucky, welcome to the family!" She did her best to give a real smile, but Puchiko still unnerved her slightly. Chloe held out her hands delicatly, Soul Bottle in one palm, vial with the Fel Essence in the other.
Puchiko peered at the proffered items with a raised eyebrow, tucking her arms behind her back and leaning forward on her toes to get a closer look. In one an arrow spun round madly, like the arrow of a compass - but there was a definite pattern to its movements, and it more swept and swooped than jerked round randomly. Her curiosity was piqued and delicately she reached out to take the vial in her hand.
"Huh," she said, all thoughts of destroying her competitor pushed from her mind. "Shiny."
But what in the hell was it? An arrow was, after all, a weapon. An assassination attempt! Puchiko should've known. Dropping the vial on the counter (it bounced but, thankfully, did not crack) Puchiko pointed an accusatory finger at Chloe.
"I'm on to you!" she shrilled, finger bumping up against the receptionist's nose. "Your weapon failed! I am victorious!" Now, to burn the place to the ground.
For a moment Chloe thought all things were well, and then suddenly Puchiko was dropping the vial. She gave an inarticulate cry of anxiety and made as though to try and reach out to catch it when suddenly there was a finger poking into her nose, causing her to jerk her head back as her body was still moving forward, making her look quite comical indeed
"W-Weapon?!" Chloe squeeked. "I..! Wh- B-.... N-No, p-p-p-please I w-wouldn't... w-weapon?!"
She was extremly alarmed, did this woman think she was attacking?! But how? She didn't have anything that even looked like a weapon on her.
The sliding doors leading back into lab swooshed open softely and a very rare sight was framed within the opening. Roux, his hair tousled and messy, reaching up to rub sleep out of his eyes, was floating there. He'd been napping but had woken up with all the yelling.
He looked into the lab, from Chloe to this other two leg. The two leg was looking as though she might try to impale Chloe with her finger. He gave a little sigh of exasperation, frowning in that distant, distracted way of his, and floated over.
He couldn't have Chloe dieing, she was his source of.. well everything. While he didn't feel much attatchment to her, he was definatly attatched to her wallet.
He pinned Puchiko with his unblinking bird-of-prey, crystal clear blue eyed gaze and stared her down. If she didn't relax he might have to do something else. He really didn't feel like doing much, the heat and summer time made him very sleepy, but if he was pushed... well.
"You're stupid." He announced in a soft, suprisingly light voice.
"Weapon!" Puchiko cried, pointing to the vial which was rolling on its side in a manner that could almost be classed as dismal. "Weapon! There's an arrow in there! It's an arrow bomb. I won't be killed that easily, I'm too smart." Preening with her seeming victory over the evil that was Lab 305, Puchiko tossed her head lightly and flicked the vial lightly with two fingers so that it bounced and rolled in Chloe's direction.
It didn't explode, as she expected, but her fingers were somewhat sore from hitting the glass like that. Never mind! It'd probably explode when it touched Chloe and then she'd be down one adversary, and life would be good!
The arrival of Roux, however, caught her attention. Fierce looks didn't work very well on crazy people, and she merely stuck out her tongue. "And you're ugly," she replied, maturely.
Chloe snatched the vial up quickly and held it tightly and protectivly against her chest. She looked very alarmed. "It's... It's j-just a Fel Essence! S-Something that e-exists but sh-shouldn't, it's n-no weapon! W-We use th-them for Dr. K-Kyou's experiments!"
And then the words were uttered.
"And you're ugly."
The colour drained from Roux's face as he looked at the two-legs before him. His eyes were wide with shock, mouth slightly open. Had.... had she just.... called him ugly?!
Everything was white, pulsing white. The temperature in the entire front room went from summery pleasent to near zero within the span of ten seconds. Before he could think, before Chloe could even sense the danger and react, his hands were shooting forward, fingers hooked into claws as he grabbed for Puchiko's neck.
He was reacting on pure emotion at the moment, he'd never put any thought into how to cause harm, just that he wanted to. How dare this ugly, filthy thing call him ugly. How dare she. She was going to pay, he was going to...
He squeezed a little, never having felt a neck between his hands before, and gave a small experimental shake. He moved his face close to hers and gave a low hiss of rage.
Chloe screamed and nearly lept completely over the desk, vial still held carefully in one hand, the other balled into a fist. She gave Roux a hard THUMP on the back. "ROUX! ROUX, NO!"
Oh god this was it. A thousand things were whirlling in her head.
Puchiko was going to die.
Roux was going to get hurt.
She was going to lose her job, oh god she was going to lose her job. And she'd deserve it too, she was the worst Raeven keeper in the history of ever.
The Raeven gave a flap of surprise at the sudden attack and loosened his grip slightly from around Puchiko's neck.
Puchiko had been right all along - people were trying to kill her! But Roux would be wrong in presuming that he was the first to attempt to strangle her, and while she was certainly alarmed by the Raevan's reaction, she kept herself surprisingly calm. The drop in temperature had caused all of her hair to p***k up, but the cold helped wake her up from her initial shock, and she reacted quickly; soon as Roux's fingers loosened slightly, she pulled a fist back and slammed it hard into the Raevan's face, successfully freeing herself from his icy grip.
Panting slightly, Puchiko decided to get out of that lab - and fast. She'd destroy it later. Clearly all they manufactured were weapons! She was determined to learn their secrets. With more speed than most would've assumed she had, Puchiko darted forward and snatched both Fel Essence and bottle from Chloe.
"I'll be back!" she warned, before scrambling out of the labs with her stolen goods in tow. They'd be sorry! She'd make sure of it.
Roux's head snapped back. The punch had been even more unexpected and painful than the ugly comment. He gave a howl of pain and surprise, reaching up to grasp his face. A few trickles of red leaked through his fingers, his nose was bleeding, but not broken. She'd caught part of his lip as well and it was rapidly beginning to swell.
Chloe was left half kneeling on her receptionist desk, looking startled to not have the essence and bottle anymore. Her eyes turned widly on Roux. For a moment she looked terrified and then a transformation came over the timid little Lab305 Lab Assistant slash receptionist.
Her face flushed red and her lips pressed tight together. She pointed toward the sliding door that lead to the back. "Roux. To Dr. Tsu's office. Now."
Roux began to make a motion as though he'd refuse and Chloe slammed her fist down on the desk with a hollow thump. "NOW."
Roux blinked, affronted by Chloe's attitude. First ugly, then hit, now... Chloe was yelling, and he was being punished, really punished. He was dazed from the attack and so instead turned and floated through the door.
When he'd left Chloe stood behind the reception desk for a moment before straightening the papers, cleaning the few drops of blood left on the floor, and then going to the bathroom. Where she locked herself in a stall and cried.
What would she tell Kyou?
