Subject: "But..."
Author:
Posted on: 2015-01-16 18:27:00 UTC
Tina watched sadly as Randa reluctantly handed over the watch.
No sooner had Falchion accepted it than Rina stood up. "Stealing back! That makes it locked to us now, right?"
A/N: Happy [belated] New Year, everyone! I thought I'd start a thing, so here it is!
The post with the rules and all of the listed gifts can be found here, and the spreadsheet I will be using to keep tally, including the order of play, can be found here.
**********
"Do I really have to be the host for this game?" Rashida growled, having swept the last bit of dirt away from the now spotless RC. "I don't even celebrate New Year's..."
"Oh come on, Rose! It'll be fun!" Sarah hedged. "We even invited that DMS team you told us about once! You know, the one with... Rayner, right?"
"You did what?!"
"I actually met Rayner just after my second mission," Falchion reminded them. "He's actually a pretty nice guy, though a bit of a hard-ass at times. You don't have to get so upset about this."
"I completely understand his reasons to doubt me, Falchion," Rashida replied. "But has he learned anything at all?! He sent a Ra-forsaken Author Wraith to the Sunflower's office almost as soon as he was out from Medical, for Mafdet's sake!"
"Funny you should mention that - she's coming too," said Sarah. "I really wanted to meet her after what Falchion told me, so..."
Rashida gave her such a murderous glare that she instantly shut up.
"B-but... E.V.L. got her glitter extracted! She shouldn't be too much of a problem," Falchion insisted. "Besides, we were the ones picked to host the Gift Exchange this year, and you can't just turn someone down in front of everyone! It'll look unfair!"
"I know," the Sphinx agent growled, straightening her whiskers. "But if she tries anything stupid, there will be trouble. Anyway, let's just get this event over with. There should be... eighteen guests. This will take a while."
"Eighteen guests?!" Sarah almost shouted.
"To be fair," her adopted brother pointed out, "this is a fairly big RC..."
**********
"Welcome to all of you!" Rashida announced once all the guests had filed in, exchanged greetings, and took their seats around the huge pile of wrapped presents on the coffee table. "It is my displeasure to host the annual PPC New Year's Gift Exchange. I take it all of you brought gifts?"
Falchion sprang up suddenly. "Guh! J-just a sec, Rosie... I totally forgot!..."
Rashida facepawed while her avian partner grabbed some random tinfoil and rushed off to the closet. A moment later, he'd come back with what looked like a large ball of foil, which he quickly added to the pile.
"I can't believe I'm doing this," the Sphinx fumed silently before continuing. "Anyway, the rules for this Gift Exchange are as follows: You will have all received a random number upon your arrival. That number indicates the order in which you will play. An agent in play can either pick a gift from the pile, or steal one from another agent who's chosen previously. A gift can be stolen up to twice before it is locked to a particular user. You must not know your gifts prior to opening them, you cannot choose your own gift, blah blah blah..."
She raised her feathery tail like a starting flag. "Anyway, worst of luck to all of you. Now, let the games... BEGIN!"
"Was that the last one?" asked Falchion.
Rashida checked the list. "Yes, actually, I believe it was the last one. So yes, thank you for attending. Now, run along back to your RCs. I'm tired..."
"Wait, wait! Guys, the countdown's about to end!" Sarah cried excitedly.
"We've got thirty seconds to go," said E.V.L. "Just give all of us this one chance?"
Falchion gave his partner a pleading look. "Rashida... This is our first time hosting this event. And we're so close to the finale. At least let us celebrate the stroke of midnight."
Rashida facepawed. "Okay, fine. Just leave me out of it..."
"Actually, I wanted to give you something too. Wait, wait! Ten seconds to go!"
The party goers looked at Rashida's digital sundial, unanimously counting the seconds until the clock showed midnight.
"Nine!"
"Eight!"
"Seven!"
"Six!"
"Five!"
"Four!"
"Three!"
"Two!"
"One!"
"HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!"
Everyone who was in the mood to cheer did so, throwing confetti, cakefetti, and other assorted miscellanies all over the place. Falchion thankfully resisted the urge to throw Spikes as well.
"So... About that gift?" asked Rashida.
Falchion nodded, pulling open a nearby drawer with his beak, and took out several small, black balls, which he offered to her. "I wanted to give you these."
She took them in surprise, turning them over in her hands. "What are they?"
"Dark Balls. A type of Poké Ball from my home continuum - the fourth movie of the anime specifically. I got them from the training mission with Chris and Ami. I told you about a while ago." He nodded to them before continuing. "They were originally used to capture some legendary Pokémon, but I was thinking that they could be modified to quarantine any CAFs we may eventually rescue, so I figured, well..."
She looked at him, her red-pink eyes wide. "You wanted to... give these to me?"
He looked at her with a disappointed expression. "If you don’t want them, well..."
To his complete surprise, she hugged him. In front of everyone.
"I never received a gift from anyone at the PPC. I don't know what to say..."
"You're welcome," replied Falchion. "And Happy New Year to you too."
"Yo, birdie!" Rayner called out to them. "When we're done, can E.V.L. and I stick around for a bit? You may need some extra help to clean up all this confetti!"
If Falchion could have blushed, he would have. "Oh, right... I forgot you didn't like having confetti all over our RC..."
Rashida facepawed again. "This is going to be a long 2015."
[END]
**********
A/N: That took a *lot* longer than I thought it would, but it looks like this RP is officially complete. Thanks for participating, everyone! Hopefully, next year's Gift Exchange won't take two months instead of one. XD
She was far too nice to steal someone else's gift (and most of them looked kind of weird anyway), so she levitated the final package over to her. She untied the bright yellow ribbon and draped it loosely around her hat.
"Ami...?" Miguel began.
"What? It might come in handy someday." She set the box down, then knelt and used her hooves to open it. "Ooo, cookies! I think they're chocolate chip, too! Wait, they're oatmeal raisin...no, chocolate...What the hay is this?"
Tera peered over. "Hm, that's odd. Those are Schrodinger's Cookies - they're either chocolate or not chocolate. But once you take a bite, the waveform collapses... And I don't even know how oatmeal raisin got in there. Perhaps I messed up the recipe somewhere?"
"Oh, please," he muttered under his breath. "The entire point of the so-called "Schrödinger's cat" paradox is to prove that the entire concept of a system being in two conflicting states at once is ridiculous. One thing just happens and then you just open the box to find out what it is."
Naya rolled her eyes. "So... are you just going to apply classical mechanics to everything?" she whispered back.
"I'm not saying that! It's just that once these primitives figure out that all of their measurements were missing key variables then they'll get their heads out of the ground and see that quantum mechanics isn't as confusing as they thought it was."
"Oh yeah, and you know all of this like the back of your hand," snorted the quarian.
The Time Lord scowled at his partner. "As a matter of fact, I do." He pointed a thumb at himself. "Time Lord Academy of Gallifrey graduate, specialization in TARDIS micro-multidimensional systems. And yes, that includes complex quantum effects."
"You're full of it."
"Bah, whatever," said the Guardsman and continued to pout in his corner.
- - -
((Seriously, guys. The wave function is only a probability function. Unlike classical mechanics, which allows you to make highly accurate predictions about a system, quantum mechanics only describes the probability of events happening. Your actual measurement interacts with the system under observation, thus changing the result (ex. detecting photons or measuring electron spin). That's why we say the waveform collapsed: we went ahead and poked it with a stick!
/rant))
Fiorano stood up and walked over to the pile, where only two presents were left. She closed her eyes and grabbed randomly. She picked up a thin package, and, after tearing it open, held out a bar of Bleepolate. "Uh. OK then."
Rashida nudged Falchion with her wing. "Your turn, you stupid bird..."
"Huh? Oh, right!"
The Skarmory stood up, strutting towards the pile, and wondering if he should pick anything. Then he noticed a glint of something metallic...
"You know what, I might as well save myself the trouble of trying to open a present," he said with a mischevious smirk. "Rina, Randa, can I have that watch, please? Hopefully, that'll give you ladies the opportunity to nab a certain something..."
Sarah had to struggle to hold in another fit of giggles.
Rashida meanwhile huffed and rolled her eyes at her partner. "Un. Believable."
Tina watched sadly as Randa reluctantly handed over the watch.
No sooner had Falchion accepted it than Rina stood up. "Stealing back! That makes it locked to us now, right?"
Falchion shrugged and gave the watch back to the other agents. "If you really want it THAT badly, well..."
"That item is now locked and cannot be stolen again," said Rashida. "That's the second time this has happened, but no matter. Just pick a new gift already - we haven't got all night!"
The Skarmory rolled his head at her in exasperation, strode up to the pile, and pulled out a box before heading back to his place.
"Here, I'll get that!" said Sarah, helping him open up the box. Inside was some kind of furry animal skin, which seemed to change color every once in a while.
Rashida looked at the pelt with a disturbed expression, her hackles raised. "Keep that away from me," she growled. "I do not want to know where it's from!"
"Who cares?" Sarah replied. "It's so pretty!"
"Yeah, it's not shiny," Falchion warbled in laughter, "but it'll do just fine."
Narav twitched his ears in the direction of the Falchion/Skarmory/Rashida group. "Well, it's certainly not contaminated or anything," he noted, turning towards them. "I am quite careful. Only residual glitter remains in that, and certainly nowhere near enough to cause any Sue-related effects."
Regardless, Rashida gave the pelt a wide berth. "Keep it, Falchion. If you use it as a rug, though, I will be very disappointed."
The Skarmory shrugged. "Don't worry, Rosie. I see it as more like comforter, personally."
"Or a nest lining, maybe," added Sarah.
(It's been a while since we've picked up on this, but we've only got two more contestants to go. I wonder if we can we finish this already before the month is over?)
"Keelah, what is that thing?" grumbled Naya as she fumbled with the underside of her helmet. "Hang on a second, I just have to..." The quarian pushed a button and twisted a valve under her helmet's chin piece. "There we go. Much better."
The Guardsman, who had pulled a respirator over his face, chuckled at his partner. "Closed off the air intake valve, eh?"
"Yeah. I'll enough air for another hour; I don't feel like scrubbing my suit's olfactory filters today."
"Naya, I believe it is your turn." said Terabyte, raising a finger.
"Oh, is it? Well, then let's see..."
The quarian woman stood up and examined the remaining gifts. There were several small boxes, one oddly-shaped lump, and a long box. She settled on the latter and returned to her seat. She united the strings that held down the box's lid and carefully opened the lid lest another malodorous mini pop out of it. A glint of polished wood caught her eye. She lifted the lid a little further. In the box sat a rifle made of a handsome light blue wood featuring a gold-and-silver hammer, trigger, and sights. Naya carefully lifted the weapon out of the box with both hands.
"My word... now that is what you call a gift," whispered the quarian. She span around in her seat, making sure there was nobody in front of her, and squinted down the rifle's sights while keeping the weapon pointed at the ground. "Iron sights... not bad. Not too heavy, either..." She returned the rifle to her lap and ran a finger along the decoration on the rifle's stock. After a moment, Naya rose her head and addressed the room. "Just a question, though: does the previous owner of this weapon know what this thing fires? It's not muzzle-loading, is it?"
"Who cares?" said the Guardsman. "Look at the thing. It's beautiful!"
Cepha smiled brightly as Naya got the rifle. "That rifle is from Madoka Magica Online! It's a cute little browser game, you get a magical girl and can get weapons and clothes and stuff. That's one of the upper-class weapons - on the S tier, I believe. It's called the Hailstorm, or the Grandine - well, they mean the same thing."
She frowned in thought. "I have no idea about the ammo thing. I think it just fires when you pull the trigger - in the game, you just have to have it equipped to a character and it works. The flavor text says it fires magic bullets, by the way. And not Madoka-style magic, where it chews up part of your soul for power every time."
Ami, Chris, and Miguel edged away from Ari and the mini-Boulder. "Is there a way to politely tell someone their present's making you nauseous?" Miguel whispered.
"Probably not," Ami whispered back. "We'll just have to deal with it for now." She nudged Chris' arm. "It's your turn, by the way."
Chris picked a large, square present with snowman wrapping paper from the bottom of the pile. "Oof! What is this, a block of iron?" He opened it to reveal a thick book titled "The Unabridged Guide to Poisons." "...Well, that's morbid."
"Useful, though," said Miguel with a shrug.
Cepha glared at Des. "Well, how exactly is Amara supposed to know that? There's no label on the box or anything! And anyways -"
Fiorano coughed. "Uh, not to interrupt, but it's your turn."
Cepha made a hmph sound and walked over to the pile, grabbing a thin box out of the (now significantly reduced) pile and tore it open, holding up a unicorn horn. "Uh. Kinda a morbid gift to give, but all right."
Ari stood up. "Oh, it's my turn now, right?" She walked up and picked a sealed box. "Wow, this is shut up tightly," she muttered as she pried it open. "There we go, and - what is that smell Why -" she covered her nose as a mini crawled out.
Upon seeing the unicorn horn, Rayner broke out into a grin. "That horn came from a replacement of King Sombra. I broke it off him myself!"
His partner nudged him irritably, upon which he added, "Well, my partner helped..."
The mini-Boulder, however, elicited a completely different response. A large number of agents covered their noses too, including Rashida and Sarah. Falchion, meanwhile, had lowered his head to the floor in embarrassment and was carefully backing away.
Rashida grabbed the Skarmory by the neck with her forepaw and pulled him up to her so his beak was inches from her face. "What. Did. You. DO?!"
"I'm so sorry!" he apologized frantically. "It was an accident, I swear! How was I supposed to know that was the stinky one?!"
"How were YOU supposed to know?!" his partner growled. "This, Falchion, is exactly why I don't like coming to your parties!"
"Rosie, please," Sarah added. "You can't just leave everyone hanging! Not after they chose us to host this thing!"
"I said I was sorry!" Falchion pleaded. "I'll try to make it up to you, I promise!"
Rashida looked around at the others, who were no doubt having such a good time. The Sphinx agent sighed bitterly.
"All right, fine. Let's finish this. But if you keep embarrassing me like this, Falchion, we are NEVER hosting anything like this again!"
Falchion obediently sat next to her, regretting his awful choice for a New Year's gift...
"I thought the crowbar was from me!" Sarah piped up indignantly. "We'll, my mom, technically, but still!"
E.V.L. ignored her complaint as she stood up and stalked towards the pile. After a few moments' deliberation, she picked up a rather large box. A rather glitchy sound came from the inside.
As soon as she returned to her place next to Rayner, she opened the box - and out popped a pixelated ghost!
Rayner practically jumped out of his skin. "What in Equestria?!..."
"That's a mini-Missingno," Chris commented. "Its name is cyndaquil, we 'adopted' it in our first mission, and as far as I know it doesn't eat."
cyndaquil laughed mockingly. "Hello, Glitter-girl, rainbow-boy!" It promptly phased through the thick book hanging from E.V.L.'s left ankle and reappeared on Rayner's back.
"Oh, yeah, and it has a rotten sense of humor," he said. "Have fun!"
Rayner facepalmed. "I should've known," he laughed. "I've run into some of those during some of my previous missions, but I've never actually kept one. I thought they were just too much trouble. Oh, well..."
"This one looks right up my alley, though," E.V.L. smiled, holding up the tip of her tail for the mini to perch on. "I can now say that I have a friend to bother my partner with."
"Yeah," Rayner chuckled. "I guess you... Hey!"
(Cepha's next in order btw. Earth to firemagic, do you copy?)
"Is it out turn now?" Rina asked, standing up. "It is? Okay!" She pointed at Tera. "Crowbar, please!"
Randa smacked her lightly on the arm. "Hey now, you can't be wasting our present on yourself," she chided.
Rina pouted. "Oh, fine." She picked up a little box instead. "How about this?" She handed it over to Randa, who tore off the paper in one swift movement. Both girls' eyes went huge.
"Is this what I think it is?" Randa asked, holding up a replica of Dumbledore's pocket watch.
Rina could only squee.
...as he watched the agents of RC 3-Apple-14 squee over the watch. "Yeah, she skipped me. Did she even memorize the order?"
"Well, just get on with it," whispered back Naya. "And stop complaining about everything to me. Just do something about it for goodness' sake."
The Guardsman stood up and approached the table. One packet-- a long, rectangular box-- stood out of the pile, but another-- a simple envelope-- caught the ex-soldier's attention. The picked it up and returned to his place. Once settled, he slid a finger down the side of the envelope and pulled out a photograph.
"Oh, lovely." The Gallifreyan man showed the photo to his partners. "See this? The Polaroid, capital 'P'. It's an item that, when its carrier is near death, generates an impenetrable shield for seven seconds. This is definitely going to be useful in a pinch."
"From what continuum does the Polaroid originate?" asked Terabyte.
"Eh, The Binding of Isaac, if I remember correctly," replied the Guardsman. "I just got the game recently. Awesome stuff, if a little difficult."
Naya leaned in close, looking at the photo. "I didn't know that there were Pokémon in that video game. Is it a crossover?"
"No, wha..." said the Guardsman, turning the photo over and taking a good look at it. "Oh. Never mind," he said, carefully putting the photo in his coat's pocket.
((Shoot, I'm so sorry. >_>))
"You, machine. Hand over the scarf."
Terabyte, who had been alternating between practicing to tie the scarf around its shoulders and feeling the fabric slide between its digits, froze in mid-motion and slowly looked up at the Librarian. Its camera-eyes dimmed and its three-fingered hands tightened around the fabric, then relaxed.
"Acknowledged," said the geth as it slowly undid the knot at its neck.
Upon seeing her partner visibly disappointed with this turn of events, Naya leaned towards the robot and coughed: "Takebacksies."
The geth turned to its quarian partner. "Message not received."
From Terabyte's other side, the Guardsman said: "He stole it from you, so you're now in play. You have the option to pick a gift from the pile or you can... steal someone's gift."
Realization flitted across Terabyte's face-- insomuch as emotion can be read from two luminous camera-eyes and a set of metal plates that might be considered eyebrows-- and the geth carefully folded up the scarf and walked over to the Librarian. The sentient AI gave the Time Lord the scarf, took a step back, then extended its right arm. "You, Gallifreyan. Hand over the scarf."
Terabyte looked back at its partners, then back at the Librarian. "Please," it added.
"The scarf is now locked to Terabyte!" Rashida declared. "It cannot be stolen anymore."
"Alright, Des and Librarian," Sarah said cheekily. "It's your call. Again."
“Sorry, guys,” Des told Terabyte and his partners while giving the Librarian the evil eye until the Time Lord threw the scarf in the geth's general direction.
The Librarian returned to his corner, while Des looked around. He settled on picking a small, oblong package from the pile. Taking the silk wrapping off, he found a couple of throwing knives.
“Aren't those beautiful,” he said.
“Here,” Des said, “catch.” After making sure the safety was on, he nonchalantly threw the rifle to Rayner.
He turned to Cepha. “You really can't appreciate it, can't you? First things first, that box is pure adamentine. Have you any idea how much this thing is worth? Some fantasy world races would kill for a box like that one. Second, these aren't just “dried leaves”, dammit! It's Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe-quality Stygian Tea, which is, bar none, the best tea in the whole multiverse.” The bearded human pouted. “So show some respect.”
The Librarian, meanwhile, got up. “You, machine,” he told Terabyte. “Hand over the scarf.”
Rayner's mild interest in Miguel and his friends discussing their new present was cut short by his partner poking him again with her tail.
"Hey Pony Boy," she muttered in a clearly uninterested tone, "it's your turn."
"Huh? Oh, right!" He stood up and brushed back his multicolored hair, grinning in triumph.
"Y'know what, I might as well throw this gift-giving conga line a curveball and steal from somebody." He turned and pointed at Des and the Librarian. "The rifle, if you please!"
E.V.L. gave him a look that practically screamed, "What in Cocytus are you thinking?!"
"In case I need to off a Sue without making too much of a mess," he explained. The ex-Ficubus, unsurprisingly, did not look relieved at all.
((It's Des' turn now, right? I'm 90% sure of this but I just wanted to check.))
(I sent a reminder to him a half hour ago. He should be getting a response ready soon.)
((I was starting to worry I somehow missed that it was my turn or something. ^_^))
((For realsies this time.))
Miguel Correa glanced at the index card labeled "10" in his left hand. "Oh, it's my turn," he noted. "Chris, Ami, do you think I should introduce myself? I don't know anyone here besides Falchion, and..."
"If it makes you feel better, neither do we," Chris replied.
"It's kind of exciting, actually," Ami said, giggling. "Like we're meeting celebrities!"
Miguel laughed, too. "Thanks for the perspective, Ami." He picked a medium-sized box with snowman wrapping paper from the bottom of the pile. "Well, this looks interesting."
He opened it and was met with three very familiar smiling faces--Totoro (and his two nameless buddies), Mei, and Satsuki. "YES! We got some Hayao Miyazaki movies!"
Chris and Ami perked up instantly. "Excellent! How many?"
"Lemme check..." Miguel turned the box around and counted the DVDs. "Whoo, almost twenty. Which one should we watch first?"
((Hey, Skarmory. Just a heads-up: I done goofed and accidentally attributed the Grandine rifle to Des in one of my replies. Make sure to change it to the Lancer!))
- - - - -
As Amara puzzled over the tea leaves, Terabyte stood up and wandered over towards the coffee table. The robotic agent stared at the gift pile for a couple of seconds and grabbed a soft-looking package. The geth returned to its seat and, with machine precision, unwrapped the gift without tearing the wrapping paper. The robot lifted a faintly glowing red scarf out of the package and admired it.
"A scarf!" exclaimed the Artificial Intelligence as it ran its mech-digits though the knitted fabric. "It is very... pretty. I like it," said Terabyte as it tied the scarf around its neck.
Behind her opaque visor, Naya arched an eyebrow. "I think that's the first time you said you found something pretty. Keelah, that's so weird."
The Guardsman fake-wiped a tear from his eye. "Lookit, Naya. Our machine intelligence of a partner is learning the meaning of beauty! I'm so proud of him!"
"Don't ruin the moment, you jerk," shot back Naya with a playful swipe at her partner's shoulder.
Cepha looked over at the geth. "Ah! Amara made that. She knits a lot of stuff." The Puella Magi pointed at the white scarf she was wearing. "She was working on this when we first met. Though I don't think that her knitting has any magic powers in it." She gave a questioning look to Amara, who shrugged.
"Well, I do not know if it has any particular magical abilities. It is probably inherently magical, if that's quantifiable."
Cepha poked Amara in the side. The former Witch glanced up from where she had been knitting (what she had been knitting was indeterminable, given that she was using her hair-hands and regular hands at the same time.) "What is it?"
"It's your turn to go up and pick." Cepha nodded at the pile.
Amara set down her needles and walked over, staring intently at the presents before picking up a box and heading over to where the RC 1.877, 97, and 8888 groups had been sitting. She tore off the paper and held up a metal box. She pulled the lid off and frowned. "A metal box full of dried and shredded plants?"
((I'm going to ignore Eatpraylove's post. Seriously: not cool, dude.))
“Why am I even here?” asked the Librarian. He was sitting in a corner, as far away from everybody else as possible, having decided that leaning on the walls wasn't a good idea after having some Sar-plasm stick to his coat.
“Socialisation,” Des reminded him as he browsed the pile of gifts. The Librarian huffed, and Des gave him a doubting look before returning to the pile. He sat down, closed his eyes, and put his hand on a random gift. He picked it up – it was long and not quite light. Tearing the wrapping off, he revealed a vaguely ellipsoid rifle.
“Well, well, like I didn't have enough of those.”
Ari got up and walked over to Des and the Librarian's spot. "Hey, you two." She nodded at the package. "So... firearms? Is that a good rifle to have?" she asked with the mild confusion of someone who knew very little about firearm specifications.
From her seat across the table, Naya laughed. "Hey, missy! That right there is probably one of the best rifles in the galaxy," said the quarian, pointing at the Lancer in Des' lap. "It's an automatic, air-cooled turbocharged mass accelerator that makes World One assault rifles look like paintball guns. It collapses into a little box when not in use, it almost never breaks down, it's crammed with stabilizers and recoil reduction systems, and it never runs out of ammunition during battle. It's the perfect rifle."
"Until it overheats," added the Guardsman. "Then the rifle just locks up and refuses to fire until the cooling systems kick in."
Naya sighed. "Yeah. It does overheat, but only after you squeeze out a 50-round burst, which you shouldn't be doing in the first place."
- - - -
((Collapsible firearms! Whee!))
...hoping to catch the fellow Time Lord's eye but froze when he saw Des unwrap the rifle.
"What is that thing?" he whispered to his quarian partner. Naya looked up from the multimeter she had plugged into the maintenance port in Terabyte's robotic body and turned her gaze towards the Floater holding the rifle.
"No idea," she replied. "Hey, TB. Do you know what that rifle is?"
The geth turned in his seat to point his camera-eyes towards Des. "Searching... One possible match: Madoka Magica Online S-tier weapon: Grandine rifle. Special ammunition required for use."
"I don't know what that is, but I want it," said the Guardsman. "So how does present-stealing work again?"
"I think that we all take a gift for the first round, then we move on to a couple of stealing rounds," said Naya. "I guess we'll just sit back and watch for now."
The Guardsman nodded, eyes still fixed on the rifle.
"We're actually going to go through one round," Rashida explained. "So that means that if an agent is in play, they can steal from someone immediately. The person whose gift has been stolen from will be in play until another gift is chosen from the pile."
((Also, the Grandine doesn't require any special ammo. It's magic! I suppose you could say that you need to be someone capable of using magic to use it, though the Puella Magi status of anyone in MMO is debatable, to say the least.))
((Man, I'm bad at descriptions. That was supposed to be the Lancer.))
Miguel cleared his throat nervously. "Hello, everyone, my name's Miguel..."
"Hello, Miguel," half the crowd responded in their best Alcoholics Anonymous voices.
"Very funny. Uh, I'm working with Chris and Ami--" he indicated his partners "--and I hope I get to meet some of you later, once I know what I'm doing." He took a random large gift from the pile and opened it. "...A Guide to Poisons? Wow, that's morbid."
"Useful, though," Chris said with a shrug
((You seem to have skipped Des, Amara, and Terabyte's picks. Miguel gets the number 10 pick according to the tally sheet.))
((It's also not very much fun to have someone dictate what characters other than their own do. So saying something like 'half the crowd responded' isn't great? Just a thing for future reference.))
((This is what happens when you click "Post Reply" instead of "Edit Message by mistake >_
((...might've picked that gift. You gotta wait your turn, man.))
Tera looked at the crowbar. " Doubt I'll be able to copy that trick."
Lana grinned. "Ah, that one's mine. Got it off an ATLA fic, if I remember right."
Narav considered the gameboard before moving one of his High Lord figures a few squares forward. "Ah, I believe I'm next?" He loped over to the pile and plucked out a small rectangular package out of the pile before walking back. The Canim, noticing that Theia had made her move, captured one of her Steadholder pieces and opened his gift, holding up a CD set. "Hm."
Lana and Riaa looked at their numbers. "Us now, I guess?" asked the drider. The two walked over and each grabbed a present out of the heap. Riaa tore hers open, holding up an oddly-shaped pendant, while Lana unwrapped a heavy camoflage vest. "Huh. This looks durable," the former Smoke Knight noted.
The Guardsman shifted in his seat, looking at Lana. "As long as you make sure the ceramic plates are intact and that you're wearing the thing properly, this should stop all but the biggest chinks of metal from getting to you. I'm not gonna lie, it's heavy as heck, the deltoid protectors sometimes get in the way, and you sweat bullets with this on your back but the vest can stop most things up to and including seven-point-six-two rounds. Well, I say 'can'. It all depends how close you're standing to the shooter and the angle of penetration of course... but I digress. If ever you need to replace the ceramic plates, you can get some more at the Armoury."
- - -
((Here is a better view of the vest. Note that the shoulder pieces and the groin protector are Kevlar only, but technically speaking those parts of the body aren't as "important" as, say, your heart. Hence the ballistic plates: these things work.))
E.V.L. huffed apathetically at Riaa. "Oh, you got the amulet? That was from my first mission with this rainbow-haired meathead right here," she said, lightly poking Rayner in the cheek with her tail. He scowled and pushed the tail away.
"The Sue of the MLP fic we tackled that time received an amulet from Twilight Sparkle to contain the magic of the four alicorn princesses," he explained. "We restored the magic once we tore her like, oh, twenty new assholes or something. So we figured we'd keep the necklace as a souvenir. Well, at least until now, anyway!"
Falchion and Ami looked at each other, their faces sharing identical expressions of considerable discomfort.
[A/N: If any of you recognize the gifts belonging to your agents, feel free to respond to the recipients with their reactions!]
Sarah burst out laughing. "That crowbar belonged to my mother! I wasn't there to see it, but from what I heard, she was able to store it inside her cleavage! Don't ask how that works, seriously..."
A number of other players burst out laughing, the rest of them murmuring amongst each other in a mixture of confusion and amusement.
"All right, my turn!" Sarah cheered, stepping up to the pile. After a few seconds' deliberation, she picked up a rather long package, moved back to her place next to her brother, and opened it up.
"Brrrr, is it cold in here or is it just me?" she asked, picking up the two-handed sword whose blade seemed to exude some kind of frosty vapor.
"Careful!" Rashida snarled before her partner could swing it around. "You could take someone's head off with that!"
[Correction: That should be "Sarah started giggling uncontrollably." Don't want any repeated sentences!]
Agent Theia looked at her number. "Guess I'm going first, then?" She asked. She stood up from where she'd been playing ludus with Agent Narav and prodded Tera.
"What?"
"You're number 2, aren't you?" Theia nodded at the slip of paper in Tera's claws. The two agents walked up to the gift heap. "Well, let's see then." She looked at the variously-shaped presents and grabbed a gift wrapped in paper with pictures of cheery zombies on it and went back to her spot, moving her Steadholder piece up to the skyboard.
Tera frowned at the heap. " So I shall take... this one! " She grabbed an oblong present and headed back to where she had been working her way through a small hill of holiday cookies.
Sarah looked at the two of them, a little taken aback. "Oookay... I'm number 3, which means I'm going after you two, but... aren't you supposed to open up your gifts and show what you got to everyone before the next round?"
"She's right," added E.V.L. "Maybe we should all know what we got immediately rather than have everyone open up their presents all at once."
[[OOC: Huh, ok, I thought we were only supposed to find out what was gotten at the end. I guess I'll just pick randomly out of the list on the GDOC?]]
Theia looked up. "Oh, right, sorry." She carefully unwrapped her gift and held up an egg. "...Uh, what is this an egg from?"
Tera shrugged and tore open her box, pulling out a crowbar. "Huh. Guess this'll be handy for something."
Rina's eyes grew huge when she saw the crowbar; her fingers were already itching to steal it.
Randa, meanwhile, nodded at the egg in Theia's hands. "That's from our adopted CAF- a Hedwig replacement that barks. You might want to put it back in the incubator."
