Board stiff [priv/koala]

Averia grumbled as she made her way upstairs of the dormitory. Shoving and kicking everyone in her path, she finally arrived at the door and very casually kicked it open as she stormed inside. Her eyes scanned the room for the one person she was looking for and finally spotting her roommate, she whirled around for extra dramatic effect before hurling the piece of metal slab towards her. Of course she didn't intentionally wanna hit the girl, lest risk damaging that flawless skin, but she did wanna send her a message. Thus the metal slab crashed against the wall inches from her roommate's face.

"Your piece of crap board is broken! What kind of noob tinkering did you do with that stupid crap! Stupid piece of broken crap!" Averia growled impatiently.

She ran a hand through her hair and sighed to calm herself. It had already been several weeks since she received the metal board and while she was thankful to her roommate that she chose to leave it to her, Averia wasn't very pleased when the board decided to go haywire on her in the middle of the road - going for a sudden brake that threw her off and almost faceplanted her to the dirty cement. Good thing she had advanced reflexes to save her face. Still, she got her hands dirty. And that's what she was so mad about.

"Look," she whined as she skipped her way to the girl and raised her palms so close to the latter's face. "I got scratches on my skin! Ah! My beautiful skiiiin."

Akui had decided to skip all her classes today, seeing as she didn't pick them and all the professors were in fact men...honestly, she had no reason to go. So she just sat on her bed and spent time continuing to get acquainted with her new best friend, Diablo her pet snake.

While she had bought him a number of weeks ago, between the classes she did attend and all the hunts she'd been on recently, she only spent time feeding and grooming him. So she decided that today, she would get to know things he liked and stuff he wanted to do. She learned over the course of about ten minutes that her loved getting his chin rubbed and that he would eat just about anything, but preferred mice for their juiciness and flavor.

She also just learned that he enjoyed hanging around her shoulders and neck when traveling rather than being held, and that he apparently had a Semblance which either was or was tied to his venom. She was playing a silly game with him, making her scroll play snake-charmer music and she wiggled her shoulders a bit to dance with him as he put the moves on like he was a master...when a metal slab that resembled one of her hoverboards just missed her face and slammed against the wall, Diablo ducking out of the way just in time to avoid getting hit by it.

They both turned to see that it was none other than her annoying rich girl roommate that had thrown the board in a sign of frustration and was now whining and complaining about how something bad happened to the board and how she got hurt, shoving her barely scraped up hands in her face.

Diablo hissed and a shine streaked across his body, and he went to chomp down on her roommates hands. Akui quickly pushed her hands back towards her own body and out of their personal space just before Diablo came down to bit them. She then pulled Diablo back and held him, stroking his chin.

"Easy brother, trust me, I understand. It would seem we have something in common: we both don't like sniveling, obnoxious, demanding rich b****es." after stoking his chin for a moment longer, she let him go, to which he slithered up her shoulder and rested atop her shoulders and against her neck as she picked up the board from the other side of her bed. She examined it for a brief moment, already having an idea of what went wrong.

"Noob tinkering, that's some funny s*** right there. So, how did you break it?" she asked calmly and in a non-nonchalant manner.

Averia was quick to pull her hands back from the lunging snake and she narrowed her eyes at him as her roommate pulled him away. She placed a hand on her hip and bent down so she was closer to the snake again. "What? You got a problem with me punk? Huh? HUH? Wanna take this outside HUUUUH?!" she said, her immature side showing as she tried to intimidate the little guy. At her roommate's statement though about not liking 'sniveling, obnoxious, demanding rich b****es', Averia nodded aggressively. She straightened back up with her hand still on her hip.

"I know right? I hate those types as well. So annoying." She said with a shake of her head. Of course it never occurred to Avy that her roommate was talking about her. She wasn't sniveling, not obnoxious, definitely not demanding, and the last part well, she is rich but she's like the kindest person in town - so kind no one would dare call her the b-word.

"So, how did you break it?"

"Excuse me?!" She retaliated almost immediately. "I broke it? Ha, funny joke roomie. Actually, it broke by itself because.. uh, you know, it's very poorly made." She moved a little closer to the board so she could point out what she was talking about. "See this side, I think the sensor's broken. It often scratches against the sidewalks and walls. Then this part over here, unless you press really hard on it won't turn left. Then there's the fluctuations in speed. Until one day, which is today, it just plain out gave up and went into a sudden brake and threw me off." She sighed.

"And don't even get me started with the chariot mode. I only got to enjoy it for two days then it doesn't wanna go up more than a foot anymore! Roomie~ Fix it please~"

Diablo hissed at the annoying girl again, rearing up to be ready to try and bite her again if she came to close to his human in anger one more time. His human reached over and patted him on the head, running her hand down his back in an effort to calm him. He took a more relaxed stance, but he was still ready to strike should this tinier female human attempt to harm his human.

"I would make a remark about stooping down to an animal's level, but I think it would be him to stoop down to your level. You're such an annoying b****."

The girl quickly went on a minor tirade about how it was her fault that the machine failed her because of spotty workmanship and went on about how she thought it was broken and how her alterations to the board were in vain. Thankfully, Akui already had her daily injection a few hours ago, otherwise who knows what might have happened. It was cute how she thought she knew exactly what was wrong with it, but Akui did pick up some vital information from the girl that she could use for further tinkering. She simply looked at the girl with a very slight smirk in the left corner of her mouth.

"...Right. I'm sorry to hear the your board seems to be having some technical issues, but since you're so f***ing superior at everything you do, I'm sure you'll be able to fix this s*** in no time. I mean, hell, you managed to add an addition transportation method to it. Use your superior mind and find out what the f*** is wrong with it." Akui then tossed the board onto her roommates bed and walked over to her closet and pulled out the board she kept, then set it down on her bed and began giving it a good looking over.

"...but I think it would be him to stoop down to your level. You're such an annoying..."

Averia winced at the last word and her shoulders drooped. Sure they had their differences, and her roommate had such colourful language, but she never called her that right in her face before. Then came the patronising statement about how she could fix her own board; basically a long way of saying she didn't plan to help her at all.

She glared at the girl. Sure she was good at fixing devices but even a genius like her had their limits too. Besides, she was too busy being too good at her accuracy and gun handling not to mention being awesome, that she needed to be not too good at something too. Otherwise it would be unfair to humanity. And thus, her tinkering is not the best.

"Fine!" Averia exclaimed. She wasn't one to beg. "I'll fix it myself, you freaking.. useless.. piece of.. nggh."

She whirled around, flipped her hair back and walked to her bed grumbling. She took the board and placed it on the floor so she wouldn't dirty her sheets. Sparing a quick glance at it, she moved to the closet to take her bag of tools, pulling out a whole size of manila paper and laid it on the floor to avoid having to sit on the dirty floor. She then settled on it and inspected the board. You've upgraded your guns to have flashlights and silencers. Something like this is a piece of cake. She assured herself. She nodded. Placing her protective glasses on, she began to tinker.

A few minutes later a minor explosion occurred.

Akui noticed that while she snapped back and took the board to the side of her room to work on it, it seemed like the rich girl had actually...harmed by her words? Akui tried wrapping her head around why she would care what she had to say about her, they were just two girls that were forced to live together in the same room, and she happened to be laid back and impersonal while the rich chick was erratic and disrespectful of her personal space and forcing her to do things she didn't want to. Were her ridiculous antics and constant badgering...attempts at forming a friendship? Nah, that couldn't, Akui was sure she just liked to torture her. Diablo felt obligated to hiss at the girl one last time before she crossed the room and went to work.

It didn't take long for Akui to realize the changes she needed to make to perfect her hoverboard: not only did it need the perfect weight (ergo, with the shape and size, having the perfect mass and balance of said mass) to use her newly devised Magnetic Propulsion Engine successfully, but it also needed to have enough energy to apply it in a consistent manner for the whole board...and it also needed to apply a consistent amount throughout the whole board, without fluctuating at all. If she didn't have these things, the board wouldn't last more than a month of standard use, let alone excessive use.

Akui had just about reached her complete thought on how to apply this new information and actually complete her hoverboard when a loud noise cracked throughout the room and probably the entire hallway outside their dorm. Akui looked to see what happened and saw only thick black smoke, so she walked up and turned a dial on the wall, then walked into her closet and picked up a small device that looked like a remote control, then pressed one green button and then one blue button. The vents around the room made a whirring noise, and the black smoke was all but completely absorbed. As soon as the room was clear, she pressed the same buttons in reverse order, and placed the remote back on the shelf in her closet, closing the door behind her. Diablo poked his head out from under Akui's hoodie to make sure the coast was clear, to which Akui patted his head gently, and in response he nuzzled her hand and slithered back up and around her shoulders.

She then looked at her roommate, smoke stains and bits of soot covering her all over...

...and she just chuckled, and it nearly turned into an actual laugh. She let it go before she sat back down on her bed and started playing with Diablo again. "Sounds like you've just about got it figured out over there, oh Master Tinkerer! I apologize for ever doubting your skill and capability." she spoke in a heavily facetious and mocking tone, acting as if she was treating her like some form of nobility. She did her best to stifle a giggle as she turned the snake-charmer music back on her scroll and started wriggling her shoulders while Diablo rocked his slithery dance moves.

Averia ran a hand on her face in silent frustration after that explosive display of failure. Her right side was soaking wet too as an aftermath of the explosion melting her thin layer of transparent ice armour. With an annoyed sigh, she snapped her fingers and the water crystallized back to ice and retracted to create another layer of armour, leaving no evidence of smoke stains other than those in her clothes. One of the many perks of being an ice master. Still, that was such bad tinkering. Worse than bad, it was horrendous.

Her eyes snapped towards her roommate as she once again mocked her skills. Clenching her jaw in annoyance, she decided to ignore her and go back to the board. She didn't have anything to say anyway.  So apparently you don't use gun powder to power up the boosters. Got it. She noted and continued with her work. However, only a few minutes later and she was lost. This wasn't like upgrading her weapon at all. It suddenly occurred to her that she didn't know what to do, caught in a dead end. Screw this, I give up. Averia wasn't a very patient person anyway, and so she stood up went to the restroom and slammed the door close as she locked herself in.

She reached for her phone, a different one from the device that her roommate gave, then pressed a few buttons to call someone. "It's me. I said it's me, idiot. Not too loud. Send me a new hoverboard now. The top of the line one. As in right now, why am I repeating myself? I don't know, do something about it, just make sure they don't know it's from me. What? That much for a shipping cost? N-No, don't tell them! I don't need their money. I-I can afford that on my own..." Averia said and bit her bottom lip as she looked to the side. "B-but I changed my mind, I don't want it anymore. Bye."

Averia ended the call and glared at the phone. He had one job and he couldn't even do it right. Now she found herself stuck at a stalemate once again. "Gah! Useless people everywhere!" And off the phone went smashing against the wall into pieces before the temperamental girl stormed back out to the room and to her roommate.

She folded her arms beneath her chest as she looked down at her with a huff. "Are you seriously not going to fix it? Like, seriously? I. Am having a hard time here, okay. At least make yourself useful. It's not that hard." she said and raised her eyebrows at the girl. Read between the lines, geez.

Akui continued to dance with Diablo until her obnoxious roommate took off into the bathroom and slammed the door, which startled poor Diablo and had him almost jump out of his scales. Akui turned off the music and gave him a quick rub-down to settle his nerves. She then decided to play some other games with him. This new game was kinda like a playing on a slide, where Akui setup a long rectangular plastic lid and had it propped up against her bed, and Diablo would slither on top of it and slide down. Akui would then pick him up and put him back on the bed so he could repeat the process.

After a couple slides, there was a crashing sound in the bathroom and her roommate stormed out in what seemed like some sort of hissy fit. She then walked back over to them and interrupted their casual session yet again and started spouting off.

"Are you seriously not going to fix it? Like, seriously? I. Am having a hard time here, okay. At least make yourself useful. It's not that hard."

Diablo hissed at the rich girl, she was loud and used blinding flashy things that he didn't like and she made his human upset whenever she was around, all perfect reasons to hate her guts. He was picked up though and sat on Akui's bed. Akui clenched her fist and gritted her teeth, then got up and got right in her roommate's face, pressing her forehead against hers.

"Listen to me, you f***ing c***: I am not going to help you with anything. I can't f***ing stand you, not in the slightest. You're a spoiled little rich b**** that expects everything to go her way and for everyone to be at her beck and call, and it makes me just wanna f***ing choke the s*** out of you. It pisses my off that you are my roommate. I wouldn't have had a roommate at all, but if I was forced to pick, you would have been my last f***ing choice. Even now, when you need help, you can't just f***ing say 'Yo roomie, could you help me with this please?' No, even now you are f***ing demanding s*** from me with that whiny ass voice of yours like I f***ing owe you something. The only thing I owe you is my fist that I'm tempted to use to knock your pretty f***ing teeth out with!" Akui was...actually angry.

Sure, she had said stuff like that in the past just for intimidation purposes, and technically she was bluffing but...it was about time for her second dose, and she could tell by the heat in her face and the tightness in her chest that if that girl said one word, she would punch her right in the mouth. Akui never had to deal with her emotions before she arrived at the academy, and there was no way she could stay in this room and not assault her, even with the panic of what her punishment would be...so she wouldn't stay.

Akui growled as she turned around and grabbed Diablo and tucked him in her hoodie, then grabbed her board and stormed out the door. She slammed it behind her and then rushed out of the dorms and boarded up before taking off towards the center of Bellmuse.

Avery wasn't one to back away, thus when her roommate began spitting angry insults and profanities at her, she scrunched her eyebrows, challenging the girl to do whatever she intended to do, only to scoff when the latter turned around to gather her things.  "In case you're too dumb to realise, I wasn't born to please anyone so deal with it." Avery rolled her eyes. She didn't believe the girl would walk out on her at first since her roommate wasn't one to withdraw either, but when she saw her storming to the door, Avery faltered.

"O-oi! Are you seriously walking away?! Don't you turn your back on me! I know you're crap but this is a whole new level of cowardice!" She growled, intentionally pissing the girl off in hopes that she'd turn back and beat her up or something.. anything other than her roommate walking away. But it was futile. The door slammed shut, leaving her there... abandoned.. alone.

Clenching her jaw, Avery flared up at the all-too-familiar tightness in her chest and she kicked the foot of the bed producing an audible crash and a crack on the wall. Still not satisfied, she broke every piece of object unfortunate enough to catch her attention. Even her precious lamp came crashing to the floor, the bulb sparking and coming in contact with the gun powder she used for repairing her board, producing another small explosion. "Oh shi-- oh crap..." she hissed seeing the manila paper catch on fire and spread to the nightstand and to the sheets of her bed.

As she didn't know how to work the vents, she used the only way she knew to stop the fire - her own semblance. Due to her unstable emotions however, what was supposed to be a small sheet just enough to extinguish the flames turned into a burst of thick ice that spread to the walls and floor, eventually covering the entirety of the room. Her eyebrow twitched at the mess she created and she sighed in annoyance, sliding down to the floor and leaning back against the bed.

A few seconds of silence passed and Avery pulled her knees to her chest. 'No. You're not alone.. you're not alone... she didn't abandon you... she's not like that.. calm down, Althea...' she told herself as her head lowered and her hands began to tremble. Shifting her eyes to the bottom drawer of the nightstand, she gingerly opened it seeing two devices: her scroll and the blue handmade phone. Ignoring the latter, she reached for the scroll and headphones, placing them on and blasted some EDM to distract herself. Avery stayed in that position beside the bed until her eyes drooped and she fell asleep.

Akui was cruising at around sixty miles per hour, flying way faster across hills and knolls than she should be, and while Diablo had popped up once the air was moving by way to quickly and was stinging his eyes so he was now hiding in his human's hoodie shaking in fear of what was going on.

Akui was absolutely furious. She didn't care about that dumb b****'s heritage or anything, no one was going to tell her what to do. No woman, no girl, and especially no man. Those who had bossed her around in her life either never did anything for her or took advantage of her, and she was done with that s*** in her life. She was independent and didn't need anyone or anything...well, at least not anyone she reasoned as she gave the needle in her pocket a quick squeeze.

Honestly, what was her problem anyway? Why couldn't she just admit she needed help, why did she have to be so demanding about everything like she deserved whatever she wanted? Didn't she understand how that made other people feel? Didn't she understand that she wasn't at her little mansion anymore and that she had to grow up and get along with others? Akui hated everything about that girl, literally everything, and the hate flooded through her and had distracted her from from looking where she was going, and she was about to hit some guy at the speed she was going!

Even though he was a man, she still decided to swerve away from him, and in the effort to turn suddenly she clipped the corner of a building and was sent flying and spiraling...until she hit something hard, and everything turned black....


When Akui opened her eyes, she was frozen with fear: the crowd, the dead police officers, the smell of burning flesh...it was all there, right in front of her. Akui, though flooded with fear and hallucinations, looked around for her needle...and she found it, broken and all it's wonderful contents spilled out onto the ground. "F***ing s***, f***ing goddammit! Son of a b****!" The string of curses were of anger, but they were also of the stabbing pain in the back of her head. Akui gritted her teeth and leaned forward, making some sort of mix of a grunt and a hiss...and then she saw the blood dripping around her. She was not in good shape, and she felt super weak, so her aura must have taken a beating to keep her alive. The world around her flashed between it's reality and hers, and panic filled her lungs as the sobbing began. She quickly reached into her hoodie, and pulled out a very frightened Diablo, hugging him closer than she ever held anyone before.

"Oh my f***ing god, Diablo I'm so so sorry, I hope you aren't hurt!" she rubbed his head and then ran her hand down his back, nuzzling him desperately. Diablo returned the nuzzle, and tickled her ear with his flickering tongue, which made her giggle before she inhaled sharply from the pain in her head and neck. She then held him up and looked at her precious snake friend, and it donned on her that she was wrong earlier. She did owe her rich b**** roommate something: she owe her the best and only male friend she had, who doubled as the coolest friend ever. No way in hell would she have walked into that pet shop and found him without her annoying roommate forcing her to tag along wherever she wanted on a stupid shopping spree. She nuzzled his nose with hers, then looked him right in his beautiful crimson eyes. "Come on buddy, let's go right our wrongs..." she muttered affectionately to him as she tucked him back into her hoodie...and fell onto her hands and knees as she attempted to get up. She crawled to a nearby wall and used it to prop herself up, the pain becoming less noticeable, but only because her emotions were starting to flood through. Her legs shaking...no, her whole body trembling like there was a massive earthquake, her emotions all coming forth at once. The aching chest...the wobbly body...the pressuring sobs...she needed to get home quick or she was going to have a meltdown in the middle of town.

She actually found her board, it seemed unharmed as it had landed on some trash bags that were left out for pickup. She wouldn't be able to board it normally, but she was trying to find out a way when a man came up to her.

Miss, are you alright? Do you need any help? While she would have just told him to piss off normally, in her state, she thought him to be one of her old cellmates. His voice match perfectly, and he did look a bit like him. He was the one that always tried to get her to react, the one who thought he was making her enjoy it, the one who always acted like he was doing her a favor or some sort of good service.

"Who the f*** do you think you are?! I won't ever have anything to do with a man again, especially not your f***ing disgusting and pathetic ass...except for killing! Your mine!" she armed Agony and opened fire at the man, but in her state she couldn't hold it straight even with both hands, nor could she see very well. She didn't kill the man, but he ran off screaming in terror, and she could hear other shouts in the distance. It was then that her legs gave out and she smacked the back of her head off a wall, and everything went black...

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Akui opened her eyes and felt a sharp pain in her head and a tickle in her ear. She looked over to see Diablo, then looking forward she saw the room to her dorm. She then slowly sat up and looked at Diablo. "D..." she winced form the pain, then tried to speak again. "D...Did you...get us here?" she asked her loyal pet snake, to which he bobbed his head up in down. "W...Well...I'm not sure...how you did it...but thank you." she picked him up and kissed his nose, then tucked him in her hoodie and slowly stood up. She took the key from her pants pocket and slowly opened the door. It was dark and smelled of soot, which confused Akui in her current state, but her scroll lit up the room enough for her to see what was up. It seemed that some sort of fire happened, and then there was Avi by the bed...wait, what?

Avi by the bed? She had thought of her by her name, not by the mean nicknames she gave her. What was that about? As she tried to comprehend this, she felt her body start to shake...there were higher priorities. She moved as quick as she could and reach over her bed to pull a syringe, which she then quickly stabbed into her neck even though her wound was right there, gritting her teeth through the pain as she waited for the sweet numbing release that eventually flooded her whole body. Her mind clear of fear and depression, she noticed that she only had about a week's worth left of Everclear. She swore under her breath, not wanting to wake her...roomie.

As luck would have it, she actually came to terms with her roomie's behavior. It was after how she treated that man who tried to help her that she realized that there was more to Avi Frost and her demanding attitude. Akui mistreated all men because she was hurt...maybe she mistreated everyone for the same reason? The damage to her side of the room nearly confirmed this, but why would she get so upset about a stupid gangster chick? Akui assumed that she really did want to be friends with her, but she had her own issues as well.

Akui sighed. Well, she just wanted to get in and get out, but it seemed that she would have to do some things she never thought she would along the way. Akui slowly grabbed a folding chair from her closet and set it up in front of her dresser. She then slowly and quietly walked over and grabbed the broken board pieces from Avi's side of the room, but not before catching just the slightest hint of music from her headset, which made her smirk. So, she enjoyed EDM? At least she had a good taste in music, if not attitude.

She used the faint light of her scroll to look at the board pieces...and it was impossible to rebuild the board in it's state, but it was impossible from the beginning, Akui already knew that. However, she would just do one better, and she quietly asked Diablo to bring over some pieces from her closet. Then, she went to work...

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Hours later, she wiped the sweat from her brow. She slowly stood up and viewed her masterpieces: they were the most f***ing awesome creations she made in a long time. She had a smirk on her face as she grabbed a nearby pen and quickly jotted down a note to her roomie. She then attached it to one of the her creations and moved it quickly over to Avi's dresser, position it so there was no way she could miss it, and stuck the note on it. It was around that time a maintenance guy showed up. She informed him to fix everything, but not to wash the pink board, and if any questions are asked it was her fault. He looked at her strange, but then went to work. Akui was feeling light-headed, so she decided it was time to go see the nurse, and she grabbed a syringe and Diablo and headed off.

When Avi woke up, she would see that Akui made her a brand-new hoverboard. It was a deep blue with light-blue (almost cyan) snowflake and ice shard decals that were actually engraved into the board. It would glow that same cyan color when used, and it had a few surprises in store for her. The note would read:

"Your not the only one hurting, don't demand just ask. I owe you for Diablo, but that's not why I made this. It's still a prototype, so that means don't f*ck it up, Queen Frostine!"

Akui smirked a bit as she made her way to the nurses office: looks like she cared after all...

[Pinky, Out~!]