[Rail IC] Academy City II: Electrokinesis Is Love~

[AnimeKid]

(OOC: Okay I'll try and do that sometime today.))

Tobio smiles at Soujiro's enthusiasm giving off a small laugh as he does. "That sounds great to me Mei. Okay then Soujiro-san please lead the way." Tobio notes in his mind how nice it is to have actual friends. He promises himself that he would do his best to be a good friend and make sure that this bond lasted.

[Anyr]

Before Krystal had even finished accepting, Kin was already stepping onto her side of the machine. Within seconds she'd deposited her money, selected a moderately challenging song and started it going, whether her fellow player was ready or not.

"Onyourmarksgetsetgoandwe'reoff!"

[Lord-Cao-Cao]

Sojiro laughed.

"No need for the formalities, dude, just call me Sojiro. And sure thing, right this waaaaay~"

He then began strolling down the street, humming the 'Snake Eater' theme from Metal Gear Solid. In no time at all, they were at a certain Arcade-One that none of them had been to before. And it was indeed fancy, being an arcade in the School Garden, with all the new machines and whatnot. Still, it was quite pricey, but Mei simply rolled her shoulders and proceeded to walk to the counter.

There were a pair of girls playing DDR by the window, one of them foreign.

[AnimeKid]

Tobio nods at Soujiro's request to not be formally addressed. When they reach the arcade Tobio notes that it is quite fancy."Wow this place is really nice. A little pricey but still really nice. Good call Soujiro." He looks through the window to see to girls playing DDR.Ara, looks like we might have to wait a little bit unless they have more DDR machines. So what do we do first?" While he asks his question he unstraps his skates and exchanges them for his normal shoe wear.

[Lord-Cao-Cao]

Mei returned shortly with a card with enough money for everyone, and dictated that she was going to pay for the games today. Ignoring Sojiros' protests that he now owed her more money, she pointed to a shooting game-Some obscure one that involved zombies blowing up in spectacular ways courtesy of hails of virtual bullets provided by the players.. House of the Dead 5, or something. Mei stared at confidently, almost impassively-Bearing the very same expression that Ren seemed to have with, well, just about anything.

"No worries, Reijo...Okay, so who wants to go with me first?"

Such confidence was well-warranted. Mei was absurdly good with these shooter-type games, her skill honed by endless hours of fierce, competitive practice with her at-times insufferable brother, Kamakura Kouta. Whilst Tobio might not know this fact, Sojiro certainly did, and he passed a gun to him.

"You first, man. I'll take over when you die. Don't worry about trying to keep up with her, she's just nuts."

[KerfuffleMach2]

Before Krystal had even finished accepting, Kin was already stepping onto her side of the machine. Within seconds she'd deposited her money, selected a moderately challenging song and started it going, whether her fellow player was ready or not.

"Onyourmarksgetsetgoandwe'reoff!"

Clearly, Krystal didn't expect to start that fast.

Ah!

She takes a moment, but gets into it. She isn't bad, really.

[AnimeKid]

Tobio gives Mei a small smile and a sincere thank you for her generosity. He then takes the toy gun and gets ready, when the game starts he does pretty good. He has decent accuracy and almost immediately knew when he was empty and needed to reload. However when the zombies got too close he tened to panic and his accuracy suffered. When they popped up ou of nowhere in a surprise attack he would shoot almost wildly until Mei bailed them out. It was near the end of the first level that he died and handed Soujiro the toy gun. "Aww man I sucked big time. Here you go Soujiro, I'll to do better next time Mei."

[Anyr]

Kin glanced across at her opponent's screen and gave it an appraising look. This Krystal was certainly decent enough, but that was all. Clearly she had been too busy studying and attending classes to put in the time needed to truly master this game. Kin, on the other hand, had spent many an afternoon playing it when strictly speaking she should have been knee deep in textbooks.

Not that this was immediately apparent; Throughout this first song Kin had been holding back and making it look as if she and Krystal were evenly matched. She knew from experience that if she just crushed the other girl, Krystal would probably get annoyed and want to play something else. When the song was over, Kin's score ended up just barely beating out that of her opponent.

"Hey, not too shabby! What do you say we bump up the difficulty a few notches?"

Without waiting for a reply, she pulled up a much harder track and started it going.

[KerfuffleMach2]

Krystal was just taking off her shoulder bag with her free hand when Kin made her comment.

Huh? Oh, um, I guess. Thanks.

Whoah, okay we're starting!

She quickly drops the bag next to the platform and tries to keep up.

[Anyr]

This time Kin forgot about her plan to hold back pretty early on. Though she'd deliberately chosen a song which she didn't know very well, that handicap ended up awakening her competitive streak again. Too caught up in the rhythm to care about keeping up appearances, she was soon racking up combo after combo with no regard for keeping the scores level. She didn't even take the time to glance at Krystal's screen in order to check on how she was holding up.

"Now this is a fun song! How's it going over there?"

[KerfuffleMach2]

I've been better!

Krystal had managed to keep from dropping out, but just barely. Clearly, she wasn't used to this game, especially on a higher difficulty like this.

[Anyr]

When the final scores flashed up, Kin found to her shame that she'd accidentally eclipsed her companion's total by an embarrassingly high margin. Not daring to look Krystal in the eye, she coughed quietly and suddenly developed an immense fascination with another part of the room.

"Well, that's enough of that. Ooh, look at that game over there! Let's play that one now; Right now."

So saying, she dragged Krystal away from the DDR machine and towards a shooting game just beside the one which the Judgement party was currently clustered around.

[KerfuffleMach2]

Krystal wasn't really bothered by the score difference. She kind of expected it.

And then she's dragged to another game! She has just enough time to grab her bag, though.

Oh, I know this one. Luckily, she was also fairly good at it.

[AnimeKid]

Tobio having given the controller over to Soujiro is the first to notice the two girls and immediately goes into stammer mode, his normal reaction to pretty girls. He also notices that they are wearing Tokiwadi uniforms. "O-ohayo ojou-sama's. U-um nice i-i-it's a n-nice d-day don't y-you think? A-ano I wonder w-what you're doing h-here t-though, i-isn't Tokiwadi still in s-session?" He has a noticeable blush on his face as he speaks to them.

[Anyr]

Outwardly Kin gave Tobio a friendly smile and inclined her head to him in greeting. Inwardly, however, she was less than pleased with him. By pointing out the fact that the duo would soon be playing truant, he could easily cause Krystal to change her mind about this little outing. Up until now the other girl had been wonderfully accommodating. She'd borne no grudge against the person who'd basically abducted her from Tokiwadai; She'd gone along with pretty much everything that Kin had wanted without complaint; And she hadn't even mentioned (let alone objected to) the fact that their hands were still linked, even though it left her with only one free one and made it look as if they were on a date. It had really seemed as if she'd forgotten all about classes and school...

...Until now. Deliberately not looking at Krystal, Kin mentally crossed her fingers and prayed that this nervous little kid hadn't just ruined everything. Speaking of which:

"It is indeed a nicer day than we've had in a while. And no, our lunch break has been delayed by some trouble at the school."

[KerfuffleMach2]

Krystal hadn't forgotten about school. But, given that she tries to avoid confrontation, and that Kin still kept a tight hold of her hand, she wasn't going to argue about it much.

She gives a warm smile to Tobio. Hi, I'm Krystal. And yeah, there was some weird stuff going on at school.

We should probably get back to class soon, though.

[AnimeKid]

Tobio being observant he usually was could see that the girl who had spoken had forced her smile as it was just a little to wide for a friendly greeting to a stranger. Add that to his shyness and tendancy to be down on himself he immediately bows his towards the ground blushing even more with a sad look on his face. He then says to Kin. "S-sorry o-ojou-sama. I-I didn't m-m-mean to b-bother or accuse you. I-I was j-just asking. I-It really w-wasn't any of my business a-any way. S-Sorry to b-bother and u-upset you o-ojou-sama. I know when someone is being nice for my sake. M-my name is Tobio by the way." the last sentence was aimed at both of them as he turns back to Mei and Soujiro thinking about all the people who had given him false smiles before.

[KerfuffleMach2]

Aw, he seemed upset, Krystal comments to Kin. She turns back to Tobio. If he's close enough, she'll call to him.

Hey, are you okay?

[AnimeKid]

He looks up as Krystal calls out to him. As he and his friends are at the machine just next to them he hears her easily. He blushes as he says, "U-Um, s-sorry if I worried you K-Krystal-san. It's just t-that f-false smiles h-hold b-bad memories for me. B-Because of how n-nervous and e-easily flustered I am. T-They didn't w-want to tell me how p-pathetic they t-thought I was s-so the falsely smiled to my face." It is then that his voice becomes downcast, and his blush disappears as he no longer stammers "They would smile to my face. Then when I got good enough at perception that I could tell their smiles were fake I eventually found out that they would discuss me behind my back. They would laugh at how I could barely talk to girls without becoming a mess, or how I would act like I couldn't talk to people normally or how weird I was. The thing that hurt wasn't the fact that they talked about me, it was the fact that they pretended to be my friends." He then gestures towards Mei and Soujiro, These two? Their the first friends that I've ever had." He then realizes he has been rambling and immediately waves his hands rapidly a luminescent blush on his face. "S-Sorry K-Krystal-san. Y-You were being so n-nice, and I bored you with m-my life s-story."

[KerfuffleMach2]

Krystal shakes her head. Don't apologize. I asked, you answered. If I didnt want to know, I wouldn't have asked.

I'd like to be your friend, if you want. She gives another warm smile.

[AnimeKid]

Tobio looks up surprised as another blush graces his cheeks as he looks up in surprise. He sees that her smile is completely genuine. He then smiles back, nervously but also gratefully. "I'd like that K-Krystal-san. A-Allow me to formally introduce myself, Tobio Ishida m-member of Judgement and currently o-one of the people h-hot on the t-trail of the c-criminal Astraphobia." He takes Krystal's hand blushing madly as he lifts it and kisses the back of it. He had heard that was the proper greeting to a lady in high society. It was still a bit embarrassing though, especially with his nervousness.

[KerfuffleMach2]

Krystal wasn't expecting the kiss on the hand. She blushes slightly, which shows a lot on her pale skin.

Uh...well, my full name is Krystal Jones, student at Tokiwadai.

You're after a criminal? What did he do?

She doesn't recognize the name.

[AnimeKid]

Tobio's face becomes serious as he starts speaking the stammer in his voice once again gone. "Astraphobia is a criminal from a while ago. He is a rouge level 4 Esper that Judgement was issued orders to capture on sight. That was four years ago and the order was rescinded because Astraphobia had killed many members and inspired a fear of lighting into them. However the chase is on again because he caused a riot at Onizuka Middle School that caused at least one person to get severely hurt. We are close to finding him and hopefully we can can bring him in before anyone else gets hurt. If you want the full details you can ask Mei, the girl, I'm new to Judgement" A moment passes before Tobio speaks again back to his normal self. "So umm, a-are y-you guys Espers? I-If so w-what powers do you h-have? I-I have Cryokinetic p-powers actually." He is obviously trying to change the subject to a less depressing topic.

[KerfuffleMach2]

The fear of lightning bit catches Krystal's interest. She'd have to ask him about it later.

Cryokinetic? That's ice, right? Cool. She gives a small laugh to her own pun. I can detect, analyze, and reproduce electromagnetic radiation. I can only go as far as microwaves right now, though.

As for Kin... Krystal will try to show her hand that is currently in Kin's vice-like grip. Once she grabs something, it won't get away.

[Anyr]

Rather than being offended, Kin seemed quite pleased by Krystal's summary of her power. She gave her fellow student a mischievous smile and a mock shrug.

"So I'm a little possessive. Personally, I have trouble believing that anything I grab would ever want to get away."

In the time it took for her face to turn towards Tobio, that smile waned considerably. Since the boy could apparently see through false faces, she didn't bother to put one on this time.

"So if you're supposed to be tracking such a dangerous criminal, what are you doing in here playing games? That sounds quite irresponsible for a member of Judgement."

[AnimeKid]

C-Currently the i-investigation is on hold a-as my superior i-is analyzing a t-trail of breadcrumbs that Astraphobia m-may have left inadvertently left behind. T-The trail was a string of broken c-cameras so he is going over t-the footage in the center t-to try and t-track him. T-The r-rest of are h-here t-to unwind a-and have f-fun while he -finishes up b-because this is his specialty and b-because t-this could literally be o-our last m-mission."

[KerfuffleMach2]

Krystal winces a little.

Last mission? That sounds ominous.

Is it really that dangerous?

[AnimeKid]

Tobio nods, sincerely. "H-Hai, Astraphobia has electromagnetic p-powers so great that he could recreate the effects of a Railgun with bullets. I think that I-I also heard that he could s-shoot bullets out of the air."

[KerfuffleMach2]

Electromagnetic powers... Something's clicking in Krystal's brain.

Souji. He could make electricity in his hand. Is he this Astraphobia guy?

So...he makes electricity?

[AnimeKid]

Tobio nods once again confirming Krystal's question. "From what I have been briefed on he can fire electricity from his body and manipulate the electricity in machines. Using it to attack others or repair electrically based systems. Actually I think the bulletins put up his profile a while ago. silver hair with silver eyes and when he is around electric appliances tend to short out. Sometimes whether he wants them to or not."