Three Years To Live [IC]

[JNAProductions]

You've seen it amongst you. The signs of the apocalypse. Three years, Earthlings... Three years till we come. Go peacefully into your destiny as slaves, and you will be safe enough. But resist, and you will be wiped from the face of your planet with nary a second thought!

It was just transmitted. Every TV, every phone, every computer. Three years to live... What are you going to do?

Whatever your plan is, you know you can't do it alone. You get on the phone to your friends. You know you've got a secret that might help here-maybe they do too?



OOC Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?604371-Three-Years-To-Live-OOC)

[Lord Raziere]

Jade Refera quickly checks and....yup there is already tweets about Hawaii being gone on social media. Quick check on Science.net.....yup they're right. Okay then. This is bad. This is really bad. She calls Yumi
"Hey Yumi my fellow redheaded academic failure. We got a problem. US is missing its 50th state. Real sad, will have take off a star. Now its only the 49 states of America. The world's most stereotypical vacation spot is no longer and now we all have to make do with Florida. Crazy, crazy Florida. Don't worry I'm sure Florida Man will protect people there from any further attack."
This sarcastic way of putting things is pretty normal for Jade. Your pretty sure this some form of coping mechanism as much as it is humor.
"Hey crazy thought and this is just a wild unfounded question that I'm throwing out here: do you possibly know of any way to fight against something like that?"
She had her own way but y'know. Can't tell in case she Yumi is normal. Because of y'know the usual Peter Parker reasons: don't want to endanger your friends etcetera.

[NineOfSpades]

Yumi felt her phone buzzing, and flipped it open (Yes, flipped: She'd never been able to convince her mom to let her buy an upgrade, and so was still working off an old flip phone for all her communication needs). Jade was on the other end. It was a mixed sight. On the one hand, Yumi was glad to hear from her friend, as today was pretty rough going. She'd pulled an all nighter trying to stay ontop of her history homework, spilled her breakfast cereal all over the cafeteria, and the world was going to end. Getting some stability was needed. But, if she was to be honest, Jade wasn't the person that Yumi was hoping would call.

Beggers can't be choosers though.

"Hey Jade" Yumi said, trying to keep her tone normal and avoid talking about the big thing. Which immediately broke down after Jade brought up the fact that an entire island chain and everyone on it was gone. The sarcastic tone wasn't much helping, this was a big deal and Yumi wasn't processing it at all, so having it thrown up into her face was not what the doctor ordered. "Yeah, things are pretty bad, I'm low-key freaking out" Total lie that, she was high-key freaking out. If her BFF's plan to deal with the situation was humor, Yumi's was to avoid thinking about it as much as possible for fear of working herself up into panic induced paralysis.

Then, Jade asked a very odd question that came from so far left field that it probably had to hop at least a few fences as it crossed through one or two entirely different fields, before arriving at the current field. "Do I know any way to fight against the literal apocalypse?" her voice was incredulous. "J, not going to lie, that's a pretty big order. I don't really have anything at the moment, but maybe if I had some time, I could put a thing or two together." she wondered if this was just Jade being Jade and trying to deal with the stress of the situation, or if there was something more meaningful in the question. It was hard to say. "Why do you ask?"

[Lord Raziere]

"....Sigh."
She breathes out. Whelp. She could either press this further and take a risk like an idiot, revealing what she has, or she can pretend as if nothing happened and try to solve everything herself. If she reveals, there is a good chance that her friend will freak out and call the police and such. Yumi never seemed to have the nerves of steel Jade herself did. For some reason between living in an orphanage, constant brawls and delinquency she got used to things being horrible because the world is horrible. But Yumi despite being in a similar position still has parents. And hopes for the future. And so on. Something like this could break her if she pressed too much, and Jade didn't want to scrutinized by the authorities for what she knows and can do. You can never trust authority.

On the other hand......three years to live.

They were all 16. By the time they were 19, they, whoever they were will come. Then everything dies. Their lives, cut short. Barely out of high school and into college before they end up like Hawaii. Its very possible that if she tries to do this herself? That she dies failing. Heck its aliens, they're super-advanced or something, they might be doomed no matter what they do. But if something like what SHE has exists, then logic dictates others might have it, somewhere, and in that, lies a slight hope of success. A 1% chance is infinitely better than none, and even if its all doomed anyways, she'd rather go down fighting, she'd rather the WORLD go down fighting. I mean what would consequences even mean if they weren't going to live past three years anyways? She seems doomed no matter what action she takes, so she might as well take the path to survive, the path that isn't laying down and dying, the path of Determination.
Doesn't mean she can't do this right though. Revealing this sort of thing over the phone? are you crazy? If the aliens are so powerful they might be hearing. Watching. Call it tinfoil hat conspiracy nut paranoia, but you can't underestimate a powerful alien civilization that can make Hawaii disappear like a magic trick.
"...Sorry Yumi. Didn't mean to stress you out further. If you want an answer to that last question....meet me during lunch. On the roof with our other BFF. I won't force you though. Its your choice. I won't say why, but....think red pill/blue pill. Cya."
She hangs up and gets going. What would pretending as if this wasn't happening accomplish anyways?

[Elbeyon]

https://i.imgur.com/aowlPfC.jpg

You know that sixth sense people have that tells them they are being watched? How the hairs raise up on the back of a person's neck. That little voice inside a person's head that tells they are not alone in the room. Jade might be feeling that? A black glob of goo drips out of a nearby ceiling vent and splats against the floor with a sickly sticky noise. The vent buckles in protest as a foreign body rummages inside. Two black eyes press closer to the vent screen. A voice whispers out as if not wanting to get caught, "Jade. Hey, Jade." The voice belongs to none other than Manami. That weird, creepy kid in school who spends way too much time on the internet. A person can't spell weird without Manami. She looks down from the vent at Jade. "Were you talking to Yumi? Are the phones working again? The aliens hi-jacked everything. Everything. My computer locked me out! I even had the latest triple iron theater firewall installed. The aliens must have gotten to the author before they released the new version. My computer is totally compromised now."

"Man, Hawaii. Everyone has been going crazy. It is just gone. The disappearance has been all over the world news. Everyone is going crazy. May the ocean embrace them. The poor souls are going to need it." She blows air out of the vent. "Jeez, I can't believe the whole place is gone. Where are you going? Do you think Florida Man will pick them up out of the ocean? He is always doing crazy stuff."

[Lord Raziere]

Jade looks up, her steely fierce gaze unchanging
"....Manami, You do know that Florida Man is not a real superhero right? Its just....a constant headline that morphed into a joke."
She raises an eyebrow. Then again at least she wasn't the actual tinfoil hat conspiracy nut. That believes everything she reads online. I mean Jade spends time online to, but Manami takes it to a whole new level. God, their trio was just a bunch of social misfits and losers weren't they?
"They phone worked enough for Yumi to hear me. and if you know enough to hear me then you should know enough to meet me on the roof at lunch were we can discuss this in private. Unless you have a better place thats more private and are willing to contact Yumi to change plans to meet there."
She isn't even going to ask why Manami's crawling in a vent. The drop of black sludge is concerning but Jade was going to wait for the actual meeting to ask about things like that than make a scene.

[JNAProductions]

Outside your rooms, you can hear people that would be charitably described as "In a tizzy," or less charitably as "Freaking the ever-living hell out," as everything sinks in. A lot of people seem to be in shock, but a few are running and yelling and panicking. A smaller number seem confident in the authorities.

Overall... It's hard to say. People haven't had time to properly react yet.

[Elbeyon]

"Are you lopping my leg? How can Florida Man not be real? He is in the newspapers every day. Wait! Are you saying that the government is running some type of manufactured phy-op?"

"I heard-" She cuts off mid sentence as the ventilation system groans under her weight and drops her out on the floor. She falls face ,first head over heels, out of the vent and lands on her butt. "GAH!" She grunts in pain. The vent screen dangles above her off the ceiling until it falls down on her. It beans her straight in the stomach. Her thin arms and legs raise under the attack then collapse down on the floor. She lays there motionless and in pain. She struggles to raise her voice, on death's door, "I'm having stomach pains I'm so hungry." Her voice still weak, "The roof is the perfect place for top secret meetings."

She lurches to her feet with stiff movements. Her pale body mimicking the image of a sickly zombie raising from the dead. "Huh. This is bad. Do you think Yumi can keep the school from freaking out?"

[Lord Raziere]

"...You would actually believe me if I sarcastically said yes to that, wouldn't you?"
She says to Manami's question about Florida man
"As for the school freaking out....I dunno we're just ordinary students. Calming people down is for like, people in positions of respect and authority. I'm sure the shepherds will herd their flocks soon. I'm thinking of taking advantage of the chaos, no one is looking at us and therefore its a perfect time for a meeting and besides, making a scene to calm them down could be detrimental. At least people know that something is up, and a certain amount of panic is to be expected."
They are in no position to be playing morale control at this point. This kind of thing needs planning.
"Though your hunger is a concern that we can do something about. Lets get some snacks and go to the roof."
She begins walking in the direction of a vending machine then to the roof.

[Elbeyon]

Manami looks away as if she is a little offended by the question. "That depends on how convincing you were."

"I have never been much of a shepherd. We shouldn't make things worse by trying to make things better without Yumi. That is part of their plan. The aliens I mean! I tried to warn everyone. No one ever listens to me when I said the aliens were coming! No! They are already here, among us. We need to meet up with Sakamoto fast."

She looks happy about getting snacks. "Where is my lunch box?" She looks around. "I had-" The box falls out of the vent and slams into her head before falling into her hands. Tears come to her eyes while she stands there staring at the box. "I always did like Tamagoyaki." She follows after Jade while clinging to her box. She cheers, "Jade! Buy me a snack!" Manami will follow Jade wherever.

[JNAProductions]

In just a little time, you're all on the rooftop. Manami is contentedly munching on some snacks, and you can see the courtyard spread out before you. There's a decent amount of people just wandering aimlessly, listlessly. Some people are crying.

Now that you're together, what will you do?

[NineOfSpades]

Revealing Negative Passive Trait "Doesn't Get Pop Culture References" for -8.

+8 story points


"Jade, I don't think Pills are-" Yumi sighed as the line cut out, either because her friend had hung up or due to the cell network being overtaxed. She sighed a little, trying to call back but getting nowhere. "Lunch meeting it is then". Since that was still a little ways off, Yumi felt somewhat trapped by the time she had available. Both long term, and short term. 3 years wasn't nearly as much time as she'd like, and there was a whole host of future ambitions that were stuck in her head and suddenly seemed impossible. It kind of hit her hardest to realize that 3 years wasn't even enough time to graduate, and made the whole school seem entirely pointless. All the textbooks and projects she'd been running herself down with now just seemed to be a pile of papers. And in the immediate, she only had a little while before meeting with her friend, to talk about saving the world. It was the sort of thing that didn't seem real. Like most people, everyone probably, she'd always wanted to make a big difference in things. And like most everyone, it was a lot easier to just daydream about it than try to do anything.

The world was just to big.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Yumi sat on the rooftop, feeling the sun on her face, her brow furrowed in concentration, tongue sticking out to the side in a subconscious gesture. One hand held her juice-box (Slamming-Berry Blast), the other was the cheap plastic straw that no matter what you did, would either break weirdly or punch through the backside of the box as well as the front, causing it to leak everywhere. Perhaps that was the price of mans hubris, for daring to combine all berry flavors together into a single beverage. That, or the manufacturer went with the lowest cost materials that weren't actually toxic to the consumer.

Didn't much matter, having something else to focus on other than the knot in her stomach was way more valuable to Yumi's sense of well being than the junction of juice vs. no juice.

[Lord Raziere]

Jade considers the situation as she munches on chips, sitting cross-legged across from Yumi in a triangle with Manami. Contemplating how to do this. Manami was the one who already believed in crazy things, it was Yumi she had to be careful with. How to break things without being....too forceful. Odd contemplating how to tell them this felt so much like coming out of the closet. But, that was a separate issue for another time, when they weren't all going to die. Or maybe not, given how little time they had...Nah. Best to focus, and change things so that she can someday live to experience love in full. She just had to do this delicately. She finishes her chips.
"So I have gathered you both here today to discuss how to save the world. I'm sure your both wondering how we're possibly supposed to accomplish this, given that we're just random high school students and not even particularly great ones at that. I would be skeptical of such a thing as well in your position.

I know that Yumi of all of us is the most stressed out right now. I can tell by how tense your body is, the way you walk and carry yourself. Rest assured, I do not want to put you into anything you don't want to. I will tell you this now: I have a secret. An important one. I'm not going to tell you this now. Not unless your willing to hear.

If you do not want to hear this Yumi, and ignore all that has happened for normality, leave now. I'll continue just being your BFF and we'll do this without you. We will do our best to try and save this world for you, and you won't have to do a single thing if you don't think you can handle it. Its your choice, and I don't want to throw you into anything your unprepared for. Things like this...are not for the weak of heart, and its completely reasonable to say that its not for you. So are you in....or are you out?"
She says, spelling out the Red pill or blue pill choice as clearly as possible. She wasn't going to force her friends into anything, she was better than that.

[NineOfSpades]

Negative Rising Trait "Coward" -10 (Rising)



Yumi was more surprised by the seriousness in Jades tone than she was the actual words. And that was...concerning probably wasn't the right word, but it was in the ballpark? This wasn't just some flippant little game to cope, it seemed. She was being coddled, again. Which wasn't unexpected. She knew full well that despite herself, she had never been especially confident as a person, nor did she handle stressful situations very well. It was one of those things that.

She put down the juice box, and looked to her friends. "Everything going on, is terrifying" She said, pulling her knees towards her body for comfort. "I'd rather not have to think about it. I know I'm a coward, and...thats fine, I guess. Not everybody gets to be brave, you know?" she was scared, no sense trying to hide it. "But, you know what? Even if I were to just go hide somewhere, three years from now it won't matter. All I will have done is missed out on time I could be spending with people who matter to me, because I was scared". She looked up over her kneecaps at Jade, then to Manami, before looking back down. "So whatever you are thinking...it might be to much for me, and I might freak out...but I still want to know" She gripped herself, trying to hold everything together, even as she trembled a little.

A thought crossed into her mind, and it was so out of place that she laughed. it wasn't a great laugh, came out horse and a little wheezy, but it was a laugh "And besides, nothing you could say would be any more stressful than the thought of leaving the job of saving the world to my two favorite knuckleheads" she teased.

[Lord Raziere]

Jade listens, nods and smiles.
"Being able to say that despite your own assessment of yourself... is its own kind of bravery. Braver than most of humanity probably, but then again I'm a cynic. Its your decision though, and I'm not gonna force you to do anything. I am glad though."
She stands up, rolling up her sleeves and quickly revealing that anything attached her waist
"Nothing up my sleeves, nothing on my belt...be warned this is gonna be crazy. And a little disturbing"
She then falls into a martial arts stance and her expression takes on a fierce hardened light, her legs spreading out to be battle ready. Her left hand goes next to her waist as to grip some sheathe, and her right hand goes to grip something beside it as if gripping the handle, like she was one of those samurai or ronin from an anime. A strange sensation of some kind of battle aura emanating from her in the air, except its not some empowering feeling of life like one would normally expect- there is something wrong to it.
She slowly begins unsheathing and a black katana of dark pure black energy is drawn from her hands as if from an invisible sheathe. It crackles with red lightning and the blade has purple fire dancing across it. It feels bad just looking at this katana, as if its made of pure negativity and darkness.
"....Y'know how I got kidnapped for a few months and got back and told no one what happened? Thats because my kidnapper was this crazy martial artist, who forcefully taught me this supernatural martial art called Betrayed Hipster Style. A martial arts that draws upon feelings of negativity upon the world, particularly or at least originally, the ones a loyal fan feels when a franchise or celebrity "sells out" or otherwise deviates from what they loved about them, thus the name.

This katana, is one formed from my own negativity about the world and humanity. I don't particularly want to continue wielding this style forever and am trying to make my own-there are also scrolls with other martial art styles on them that the guy had after I killed him that I haven't learned yet- but it proves at least, that magical martial arts exist and that it may be able to do things that could stand against these aliens whoever they are. Don't know how powerful such martial arts are but....its something."
Its pretty weird that a martial artist decided to create a style based off on the betrayal hipster feels when something sells out, but then again, is it any weirder than martial artists deciding to base styles off of snakes, monkeys or being drunk?
"Don't ask me why, I don't know. The other martial arts styles are just as weird and esoteric."


Starting Positive Trait: "Betrayed Hipster Style" +10 (Falling)

[Elbeyon]

Manami prostrates and prays before her lunchbox in the the group's typical triangle formation. "Praise to Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare
O Blessed One, Ministry of Health
Precious treasury of tranquility,
Bestower of supreme inner fortitude,

You, who love all beings without exception,
Are the source of happiness and health;
And you guide us to delicious food.

Your body is well regulated,
Your speech is supreme, purifying antibiotics." etc.She raises and sits after her prayer is complete. The little ritual is rather new and only been going on for the last few days. The lunch box opens and reveals her lunch. Fresh octopus! It sits there staring up at her with dead eyes. Manami picks up one of its tentacles and slurps it up like a mass of noodles. Chewing through its flesh until it flops back into the box.

Manami agrees with Jade's first sentence right away, "We have to save the world!" She is more caught off guard by the second idea, "I didn't think about how to save the world."

She looks to Yumi to see her reaction to Jade's prompt.

She agrees with Yumi too, "Oh, yeah, the whole world is going to blow up. That is scary." She raises a small little fist. "We can't waste time and miss out on all the important stuff just because we are all going to die! You have made a wise decision to fight for your life!"

She laughs at being called worrisome.

Jade gets her attention. Nothing up her sleeves? Is she doing a magic trick? Manami watches intently. "I love magic tricks!" Wow, Jade looks like a samurai with that stance! She jumps to her feet when Jade pulls out an energy sword out from between her fingers. "Being kidnapped gave you powers!? You must have awoken an inner strength! Oh, you were taught! That makes sense!" A large crow lands next to her octopus lunch. "Betrayed Hipster Style." She nods along as if she is understanding everything and it makes perfect sense. "Wow! That is amazing. Jade is amazing! With your martial arts you will be able to beat the aliens for sure!" The bird hops closer to the lunch box.

"Your awesomeness has inspired me Jade! I got inspiration! I now know how to beat the aliens!" She clinches both of her hands into fists. "The only way we can save the world is by starting a club! We are going to recruit some students! And, start G.U.A.R.D!"

The crow hops forward and grabs the octopus. Manami sees this and jumps forward to grab the her lunch. "No! I am so hungry!" They each grab a tentacle and start a tug-o-war. The bird lets go and flies at Manamithe. She runs as it starts pecking her in the head. "G! Global! Gah! U! United! A! Agency! R! Reaction! D! Division! Ahhh!" She turns around, energy building in her first, and throws a punch at the bird. Air forms around her knuckles as she catches nothing but air. The bird pecks her in the head again and Manami fights it on the spot but the bird appears to be winning. "I'm not a fish bird-kun!"

[Lord Raziere]

".....Yumi please tell me you have a saner response to being told that your foolish BFF is going to fight aliens with a katana made of their negative thoughts and feelings and has already killed someone. Like. Fear or astonishment maybe anger, creeped out or disturbed, y'know something to make sure reality makes sense?"
She then considers the crow Manami is fighting.
"Y'know I can kill that crow for you, if you want. Not sure about non-lethal yet, still getting that down, but I could definitely kill it."
Turns out being nonlethal is HARDER than lethal. Sad fact, but true. Being nonlethal requires more control after all.

[NineOfSpades]

Yumi was...unprepared for glowing energy swords made from nerd-rage. She wasn't sure anyone, anywhere, ever, was prepared to just have that drop into their life. And, had she time to overthink it, probably would have freaked at least a little. But Manami was being...herself...and that sort of deflated the scene pretty hard. Yumi made an apologetic gesture, glancing to her friend and trying to keep a streight face"Sorry Jade, I'm afraid I don't have much to say here, G.U.A.R.D. will certainly benefit from your membership though" before she could hold it and burst out laughing, rolling backwards to lay on the rooftop, looking at the sky above as the clouds drifted by. "I was worried I wouldn't be able to get a good laugh in today, with everything. Thanks Manami"

[Elbeyon]

The bird is still chasing her around and pecking her. "Don't worry Jade. Everything you said made perfect sense. Yumi is right. You will be perfect in GUARD! You are the one that inspired its creation! We just need to get enough members to form a club!"

She grabs the crow by the neck then turns towards Yumi. She smiles a bright smile and gives her a thumbs up. Dark blood runs down the side of her head. "I am happy to help, Yumi." The crow bites her on the hand, and Manami lets it go in pain. "Ah!"

Manami slugs a couple misses at the bird. In response to Jade's offer, she says, "Help! Try not to kill it if you can. It will only make things worse!"

[JNAProductions]

Make a roll to beat the bird. 5+ to kill it, 7+ to subdue it.

[Lord Raziere]

"I guess Guard is the name we're going with. It fits at least."
She comments. You can just hear her lack of capitalization or acronym in it. She turns to the bird problem
"Okay...I'll try....Betrayed Hipster Style: Outrage Speed Slash!"
She changes the grip on the weapon slightly, then speeds forward to smack it away with the flat of the blade in a flash step, hoping that she did this right. Betrayed Hipster Style wasn't cut out for this sort of thing? Like different martial arts were better for different purposes, but with enough skill, one can adapt. Like you know so well that you know how to use it in a strange way. This technique was to draw upon the speed at which a hipster became enraged in response to betrayal which was seemingly instantaneous, or nearly so.


rolling to nonlethally smack bird away
[roll0]

[JNAProductions]

The bird squawks and tumbles down, almost knocked out. It feebly wriggles on the ground for a few moments before its wings settle in and it fades from waking.

You now have an unconscious bird where you are.

In addition, you hear someone opening the door to the roof, perhaps coming to investigate what exactly three students are doing there.

[Lord Raziere]

Instantly the katana dissipates and Jade changes her stance to her normal brawler one.
"Stupid bird."
She turns to the person opening the door, putting her hands in her pocket and acting like her normal, delinquent rebellious self
"Oi. Whats up? We were just having lunch in the nice open air. Stupid bird trying to take our food. Showed him what-for eh? Always did pack a strong right hook."

[JNAProductions]

You see the gym teacher, Mr. Irding, looking at you. "Are you guys okay?" he asks, unusually kind. "You're just having lunch, right? You're not... Worried? Panicking?"

[Lord Raziere]

"Yeah we're okay. What, you never punch a bird before? Kooky feathery birdbrains need it now and then."
She wasn't yet sure who she should reveal her martial arts power to. Someone like a gym teacher is definitely not the authority figure to start with, probably? Probably not the right time either. These sort of things need to be done at the right time, right place, right person. Some accidental reveal like this would be full of too many misunderstandings and potential for things to go wrong.
"But I wouldn't expect someone old like you to be caught up on the latest memes."
Mostly because memes have the lifespan of mayflies these days. Appear for a few days, maybe a couple weeks then dead just as fast. She personally didn't actually like them, she was more of a referential humor kind of person, but it was useful to play up the stereotype of a meme-obsessed millennial now and then. A thought occurs to her.
"...What made you think we're panicking? and shouldn't you be on the ground floor, where gym is held?"
Either the guy has some really good ears or....something else. And if he could hear the katana and the bird thudding against the roof from so far away that would be something.....inhuman all by itself. A gym teacher being close enough to the roof to hear that was improbable.

So either said teacher was in just the right place, right time to hear something, or something else was going on. Given that the aliens could wipe out hawaii, were able to communicate in the same language as them despite no one ever meeting them officially, she was pretty sure they are advanced enough to spy on them while being in disguise, and there might be more supernatural martial artists like her out there. And this does seem out of character for him. So. Concerned teacher just doing his job and has a caring side they've never seen before, or something supernatural in hiding detecting her abilities somehow?

[Elbeyon]

She says while scrapping with the bird. "We should call ourselves DEFfense! Defend! Earth! Force!" She runs towards Jade. "Get it! Get it!" She ducks to try to avoid getting hit by the energy blade then pops straight when Jade knocks the bird down. She mocks it with Jade, "Stupid bird! That is what you get for attacking me! Jade will beat you up!" She rubs her finger into its cheek. A sigh. "You knocked it out. Awesome!" She leaves the bird alone.

She approaches her octopus on the ground and picks it up. She must have stepped on it during the fight. The thing lays there in her two open palms. Her mouth moving closer with drool as she thinks about eaten the dirty thing. Her brain fights her hunger to try to stop her from eating the contaminated food. Tears end streaming down her face and she drops her precious lunch.

She tells the teacher, "I am going to starve! My stomach is going to shrivel up and disappear!"

[NineOfSpades]

Yumi frowned at her friends show of force, and attempted to attend to the bird as she was able. "You didn't need to do that" she scolded "It was just a harmless little bird". Gently as she could, she tried to help the bird back up and check it over for injuries. She wasn't a vet, and didn't really know what she could do to help it beyond giving it some protection while it regained its balance, but it was better than doing nothing.

[JNAProductions]

"Someone saw you and pointed you out to me. I... Well," he says, holding back some tears, "You remember how you had a sub last month? My son... He'd been going through tough times. He... He took his own life. I know, I'm a hardass, I'm strict, I'm not well-liked by you all. But I don't want to see anyone else doing anything so rash. I don't know what kind of troubles you have," he continues, "and I was just worried you'd do something drastic. Come back down-you're not supposed to be on the roof. Classes are canceled for today, but the rules still apply."

[NineOfSpades]

Yumi blinked, discomforted by seeing a teacher, an authority figure, so openly upset. He also seemed to be dearly misreading the situation "Don't worry, nobody is doing anything. We are just eating lunch. We'll pack up and come down, sorry to have caused a problem" She moved slowly, making sure the bird was ok. The animal seemed to be stunned still, so she let to be as she packed up her stuff, but did take a moment to take some of the meat from her sushi and leave it for the bird to eat "Sorry my friend caused you trouble" she said, politely, clapping her hands together as if giving a prayer and offering a small bow. She then packed up the rest of her lunch, and motioned for the other two to do the same before they eneded up getting into trouble.

Oh Maiden of the ....

Yumi blinked "Hmm? Sorry, what did you say?" She asked, confused, thinking she'd misheard Jade or Manami. The voice she'd heard had been faint and the words hadn't come through clearly.

[Lord Raziere]

"I said nothing, Yumi."
She says raising her eyebrow at Irving's story. Plausible enough, in motivation. It would be suspicious to press him on who pointed them out though. As they walk down from the roof and get out of sight and earshot of him, she says
"Okay, so that was close. Anyways, I'm figuring that if my...ability exists and aliens exist, then its possible lots of other things do as well. In theory if my supernatural martial arts stuff is real then there must be more out there, martial artists who can help. Better it might be possible to teach other people how to use them, and who knows? its something normally impossible, might help us kill them aliens."
There was a hope that they would reveal similar secrets, but that was always a slim one. Guess she had just been too much of a stupid comic book nerd or something. Would have to figure out the fighting aspect alone. Still it was good to have friends if only to have people to support her and bounce ideas off of. She wasn't sure if Manami and Yumi had the drive to learn martial arts as well, so she would hold off on offering it for now. Let them support the cause of at whatever level they're comfortable with.
"We need a better meeting place, preferably off school grounds. After that, I'd say a good step is to figure out if we can get any evidence from what remains of Hawaii, if any. They made it disappear, but I'm thinking it can't truly be some vanishing act. If it was it would just....be magic. Which unfortunately, we can't rule out. There has to be some evidence of what they did. If we can figure out what happened to Hawaii, then we can figure out what the aliens capabilities are. There has to be something to it, some logic or design they run on to make it happen.

We do know a little how they think though: the fact that they are able to do this then send a message to announce our doom means that they like some form of psychological warfare, and prefer it over being completely surprised, or are confident enough in their abilities that giving us three years to prepare means nothing to them. and that they have a means of at least FTL messaging, something probably near or on the planet that can cause an entire island chain to disappear or be destroyed that all our technology can't detect, but for some reason they themselves still need three years to get here, which is still definitely faster than light travel but by how much depends on where they come from. Otherwise, if they could get here instantaneously or if they were already here, why wait around for three years? they're clearly advanced enough to make all our puny almost class one civilization tech look like cavemen inventing fire, they would just steamroll us now in that case. So in all likelihood, three year travel time is fastest they can go for whatever distance they're coming from. Lets hope the distance is from within the galaxy...farther they come from, the more energy they can harness, the more advanced they are."
She says trying to logically figure out the problem in front of her.
"Thoughts, Yumi, Manami?"