08/17/1934

[outawindow]

WHO: 1934 Persona Users
WHERE: Starting out in the dormitory attic!
WHEN: August 17th, 1934, 12AM-ish?
WHY: Bitches, we gon get ourselves a demon car. Monthly event time!

Comments

[ironhanded]

Truth be told, Jimmy had been rather tempted to skip the whole ordeal altogether. Meetings with all of them - especially some of the other boys like Will and Theo - always just meant a whole lot of talking and not a whole lot of doing, which, he supposed, was a good idea, but just not quite Jimmy's style. It was obvious, then, as the boy made his appearance through the attic door, that he had almost taken himself up on that temptation, because he was sleepy-eyed and still rubbing a lazy hand through his pillow-mussed hair. At the very least, Jimmy had gotten a few hours in before forcing himself up. (For a gentleman always made good on his appointments, and always on time.)

"Hello," he said cursorily to the other students already in the room, dragging his feet until he came to the nearest seat and plopped down - obviously not caring for picking and choosing at this hour of the night. He cast a slow look around. There was Theo, there was Locrine, and there was That Sophomore With the Bear (who was still a lady, so he added a polite nod of his head in her direction after his greeting). Including Jimmy, that made about half of their ensemble. "Ellie's not here yet?" Not that he was surprised - 'making oneself presentable' was always time-consuming, and unfortunately always mandatory.

[steelthyheart]

“I’m not late, am I?” Eleanor inquired, as if on cue. She was still busy tying her hair as she approached the motley selection of chairs, her face freshly powdered. She’d overslept - a common consequence of falling asleep before she could set her alarm clock. As soon as she’d realized the time she had thrown herself together in a meager twenty minutes (a fraction of the time she usually spent), and came rushing down into the meeting room.

Spotting her brother, she took a seat down beside him, hands folding neatly in her lap. Her glance skimmed over the others that have arrived prior to her, giving them an apologetic smile. To her relief, she didn’t appear to be the last one there.

[fairy_tale_end]

Millie wasn't planning to show up, even though it was fun to stay up past bedtime. Even after [whatever investigation had been done], a demon car was scary! And plus, she had no obligation to that Sunday-ruining Theo and his notes.

But Betty and Nina were going and Betty had mentioned there might be food, so Millie climbed up to the attic and entered shortly after Eleanor. She stopped in her tracks at the room entrance. Nobody had mentioned that he was going to be there. And there was no food at all!

She glared, first at Locrine (as she always did) and then at the rest of them. "I'm going back to my room."

[coonskinchariot]

Millie was trying to leave.

Millie was trying to leave! Sleepy as Betty Jo was, that got her moving. Hopping up from the chair she had flopped into, she trotted over and blocked the other girl's escape route before latching on to her wrist and gently -- in her opinion, anyway -- dragged the girl in closer to everyone else.

"You can't go yet! 'Sides, you already came this far, right?"

Even half-asleep, Betty Jo had a grip like a bear trap. There was truly no escape.

[outawindow]

"Evening Theo," Locrine returned happily when the other boy entered the room. After figuring they had enough seating, he sat down himself and gave a cheerful greeting nod and wave to the others that had arrived. The new one he assumed to be Betty Jo. He didn't remember ever meeting her personally before now, so it was nice to see her there even though she was obviously tired. Then Jimmy and Eleanor. Both seemed understandably sleepy as well, but Eleanor still seemed quite pulled together. Only a few more were missing now.

When another came to the door, he eagerly looked up to see who it was. Aaaand there was Millie. That was right... A part of him had put the information that Millie was involved with everything in the back of his mind. He hadn't wanted to think about it for a number of reasons. It wasn't a bad thing really, but it certainly worried him. However, with her here now... This would be an opportunity to finally talk to her? And she glared.

No. No, definitely not. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and turned his eyes to the floor. Best to shrink as much as possible and keep his mouth shut. He waited anxiously for Theo to just get on with what he had gathered them for.

[highfivepriest]

Oh, well, turn out was already better than he'd thought it would be. He gave a nod to the others as they filtered in, preferring to stay standing for the time being (he'd been going all night, why bother to rest now?) even as he replied to Eleanor with, "No, not at all. Locrine and I just happened to be early."

He gave a quiet nod of affirmation to Betty, glad for that talk he'd had earlier with his classmate about trying to find a way to get Millie to listen despite the obvious mutual dislike she had for him; that didn't make her glare any less withering, however. In fact, it seemed to have sent Locrine's sleepily-good mood into complete silence; wonderful, probably some sort of drama between the two that he hadn't been aware of, even though Locrine did seem the sort of skittish type to hide at any sort of conflict whatsoever.

Hmph. Whatever it was, it could wait until later. For now, Theo cleared his throat and spoke up. Best to keep this as short as possible.

"Well then. In preface, I hate to drag you all out at this time of night, but I thought it best to make sure that we weren't interrupted. But I'm sure you can all take a wild guess as to what we're here for, hm? Demonic vehicles, hit-and-runs, a new addition to the team, etcetera, etcetera…" Out came the planner, flipped to the few notes he'd jotted down as preparation. "And I can tell you now that without some cooperation and pooling our resources, I don't hesitate to say that we'll have a difficult time handling any of this."

What? Like there was any need to beat around the bush about these things

[ironhanded]

Jimmy looked between the members of their demon-fighting party. Well, it looked like they were obviously getting along splendidly. Standing, he took the initiative (always the initiative) and closed the door to the attic. "To keep eavesdroppers out," Jimmy explained, except he meant, To keep you guys in. It was a surprisingly...roundabout gesture for the usually direct boy, but he hadn't been brought up in high society without learning anything.

"Wait!" He announced, hands on his hip. "We should all welcome Bear-...Betty first!"

[coonskinchariot]

Betty, still latched on to Millie as if the girl would vanish into thin air if she didn't, gave a surprised blink at Jimmy's suggestion. It was nice, of course, and introducing herself to everyone was obviously very important, but... somehow, she got the feeling Theo really wanted to get down to business. (Also... "Bear"? That was a nickname she could get used to.)

She gave the gathered group a smile and a small wave with one hand. "Um. Glad to be here." Short pause. She laughed sheepishly. "I feel like I've got a lot of catching up to do with y'all."

[outawindow]

Bare? Bear? Heavens! Either nickname struck Locrine as rather strange. The first... well, she seemed properly dressed at the moment, but no woman with a good reputation wanted to be given the title Bare. Bear was not quite as bad in comparison, but she certainly wasn't a hairy girl either. Deciding that there was something he was missing, he tried not to focus on it any further.

"It's a pleasure," Locrine replied when he finally got enough courage back to speak with a certain someone in the room. It would've been rude to simply not reply, after all. "I'm Locrine Whittle. U-um. I'm the RA who works in the library. Just in case you didn't already know." She may have already learned that much from the others she had talked to, but... well... you never really knew.

"It'll be good to have someone else with us given the...," he hesitated, trying to think of the nicest words to put it. But... there probably weren't any truly nice ways to explain the situation. He looked back to Theo. "The demonic car situation."

[reportthetruth]

Had he been paying more attention to his watch, William would have noticed the time slowly tick past the agreed meeting time from Theo. He had been so wrapped up in the book that he was reading (quite fascinating from the perspective of another journalist) that time passed without giving him a slight nudge to indicate he had something else to do. His stomach rumbling was actually the thing to draw him back into the present and glance down at his watch to see the time--

And to promptly let out a soft swear, throw the book aside onto his bed, and snatch up his notebook.

He slipped out of his room, hurrying up the stairs to the attic. Voices were already muttering away as he climbed the latter--just a small handful of people: Locrine, Theo, and James, of course, as well as a few girls he still didn't know the names to (but one looked remarkably like James).

Locrine was just finishing an introduction as he slipped into the back of the room and into one of the mis-matched chairs that was missing a foot so that it rocked awkwardly depending on where he shifted his weight. But at least it looked like he hadn't missed much. Flipping open to the recently used page, William popped the cap off his pen and sat poised, ready and listening to get some kind of explanation for the events he had only heard whispers of from the others when they were recounting their finds.

[highfivepriest]

Now that everyone was more or less actually here (Theo gave a subtle nod to Will as he snuck in the door, moments before Jimmy closed it in one of his rare moments of reasonable thinking), he could finally get down to business. …Except for introductions. Right. Even Aequitas was crackling in his head for patience that he didn't have. They had work to do; the car killing people in the streets was top priority.

"Well, there really is no other way to put it, Locrine," Theo stated, glad that the ball was rolling again. "As some of you might have already heard, Campbell and I went to go investigate the rumors that have been flying around. Long story short, it isn't some sort of exaggeration. Even though it's pretty damaged, it's highly aggressive, extremely fast, and was completely capable of moving on it's own and making decisions without any sort of driver at all."

He sighed and pushed his reading glasses up the bridge of his nose. That in itself wasn't going to go over well, and most of it was what they'd already known. The other information he'd managed to piece together after being shaken around like he had? Fly with them like a lead balloon. "We had a bit of a scrap with it. It shrugged off most physical attacks - popped the dent right out, actually - and Aequitas' electricity confused it more than actually hurt it. We caught it by surprise, none of the other victims have had even a chance to fight back."

He had a plan for this, really. You just had to get all the facts laid out first.

[ironhanded]

Right, the facts.

Excitedly, Jimmy nodded throughout the whole account, and with his typical dramatic flair, added the most important part of the entire story to the end, without even once returning to his seat (rather, he just seemed to hover near it, as if bursting with too much energy to settle down). "And then!" He paused here, gathering his thoughts before concluding, with enough triumph that one would have thought it were his victory, "And then, Betty summoned a bear and it almost ate it."

[outawindow]

And there was William to join the group. Locrine offered him a wave, trying to reassure himself still that there was no reason to feel awkward. Especially not among friends. Right? Ahem. Then it was on to the further explanation of why they were there. He had gotten a bit of it, of course, but it didn't seem any better hearing things for a second time in more detail. "O-oh my," he couldn't help but be surprised by idea of Betty's bear eating a car. That explained the bear title though. "That is something." Something, but obviously wasn't quite enough given their current meeting.

"Then what we need to figure out is how to truly stop it if we're the only people who can do anything..." Not that he himself was really ready to believe he could make that much of a difference, but he was still willing to do everything he could to help. The older boy looked up for a moment in thought. He wouldn't know for sure what they could use against it until he saw it himself, but maybe... "Physical attacks and electricity may not be the best. Perhaps we should think of it like a car then? It's obviously more than a car, but those sorts of strengths may suggest that the weaknesses are that of a vehicle's."

[highfivepriest]

Well, Theo wouldn't have exactly said that Betty's persona, "George", had eaten anything. Rather, it was more like watching a dog on the chase, nipping on someone's heels. Whatever damage they had done had been negligible; the car had been more taken aback than actually hurt by them. But… but...

"I was wondering about that," he said, his brow furrowed. "Anything we did to it didn't seem to hurt it at all. But when it showed up, it had obvious mechanical damage to it - you could hear it from a mile away, and it was already smoking and burning up oil."

Treating it like any other automobile, albeit a deadly, bloodthirsty one, would be the most direct way to deal with it. "But the first step to any sort of success would be to stop it from moving at all. Without a way to move, a car is harmless."