vivarium | CALHOUN HOUR

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CALHOUN HOUR - SURVIVOR

At the crack of dawn, presumably, Calhoun gathers everyone in the first floor warehouse to make an announcement.

"That's right, it's time for another of my special events!" He seems pretty pleased with himself. "I noticed you lazy, fat test subjects really let yourselves go last round! It's like I don't feed you here or something."

"Well, I'm worried about your health, always lazing about and not getting proper exercise. So, I decided to be the change I want to see in the world, and so we're going to do something a littttttttllllllle different this time."

"To stop you guys from getting soft from all the fun you're having here, it's time for a little workout."

From one of the doors Calhoun never lets anyone go through there's a loud, metallic banging sound repeating, as if something is trying to get out. Calhoun does not seem troubled at all by this. In fact, he seems pretty excited.

"The rules are simple, everyone's getting sixty coins to use as they see fit. You'll notice the vending machines on both warehouse floors. Anyone who isn't caught will even get a memory back." But what does that mean?

"So go on, survive for 23 hours, I'll even give you a five minute head start. Good luck!"

And with that he scurries off. Should people hang around they'll get to witness that same door open five minutes later. From the door comes several figures, human in shape but something is very, very wrong.

They seem to be robotic, skeletal humans. At one point they must have had some synthetic skin over them but most of it seems to be melting or ripped off. They don't move very fast, mostly they shamble about until they focus on a target. Better hope it's not you!

BASIC INFO ✖ FIRST TEN HOURS ✖ LAST HOURS ✖ POST EVENT MINGLE

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"That it is-" At least only one of them would be caught if it did catch up? Or it'd be easy for one person to slip away. Before he could consider telling Heiji to make a run for it if it got too close and distracting it Heiji one upped the thing, and Hershel really couldn't help a quiet laugh as the robot bleep blooped angrily, tearing at it's face.

"Well done." He smiled over at Heiji before taking a sharp turn into the garden. No one seemed to be around at least, and Heiji's stunt bought him a moment to think. Time to kill some ~~robot mummies~~ robots. "I doubt it'll just follow us under, it seems smart. Maybe we should try splitting up and confusing it." He said as the robot ambled in through the doorway, probably not that happy about the whole smelly meat face deal.

"All right," said Heiji quietly as they got to the waterfall. He brandished his shinai in the direction of the robot. "When it gets close, you go left, I'll go right!"

The robot advanced on them menacingly, its eyes glowing red in the darkness. The light of Heiji's bracelet cast an eerie gleam on its metal face...

This was the most horror movie shit in the world. When the robot approached Hershel stood his ground, glancing at Heiji before nodding and heading left. The robot definitely seemed confused by this, though not enough to stop for long, and headed after...

Heiji, oh no. Who else, Heiji was trouble magnet incarnate. Hershel frowned and pulled out his shinai as well, there was no way some rotten robot was getting his buddy, no way no how. "Try to lead it towards the waterfall!" Maybe they could tag team swinging annoying shinai at it and trip it up? Wow, dueling robots together, this would have felt familiar if he had memories.

Heiji pulled off a quick thrust, severing several wires at the junction of the robot's head and its left shoulder. With the circuitry damaged, its left arm jittered about, opening and closing its robotic fingers.

He made a break for the waterfall as the robot, apparently fed up with dumb teenage bullshit, lunged after him. Maybe if Hershel could catch it unawares, he could knock it off balance!

Never underestimate dumb teenage bullshit, robot. Hershel took the opening to jab his shinai at the back of it's knees as it lunged, almost falling forward himself with how much force he was trying to put into it. He stumbled but so did the robot, falling face first into the stream near the waterfall.

"Ah- stay away from the water!" Hershel warned, probably unnecessarily but the last thing they needed was Heiji being crispy from electrocution and sporting his own fro, that was Hershel's trade mark, dude, back off. The menacing robot sputtered and sparked as it tried to get up, letting out a highpitched sort of shriek before collapsing in the stream.

Hershel stared at it a moment before letting out a breath he had been holding. "For goodness's sake, what a night."

God, if Heiji had had a phone or a camera or something, they could have taken a picture. As it was, Heiji shaded his eyes against the brightness of the electricity sparking off of the robot, looking enormously satisfied with the results.

Teenage bullshit: number one killer of horror movie robots.

He grabbed for Hershel's hand to shake it. "Hey, congratulations. I think this counts as at least adventure number three or somethin'. You can tell your folks all about how ya defeated a marauding robot!"

You did it, murdergame kids, you killed the hell out of that menacing robot.

Hershel couldn't help a smile as he shook Heiji's hand, amused despite himself. "I doubt my folks would want to hear about the dangerous things we've done here." He answered dryly. "And I hardly can claim full responsibility, at least half of that defeat was thanks to you."

God damnit he was starting to like adventures a little what the hell was wrong with him. "So, how many robots does this make for you?" He knows you've probably been going around beating robots with puzzles and shit, don't lie.

It would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you darn murdergame kids!

Hershel clearly needed to stop fighting it; adventures were the best. "There was that one that Jake and I shoved in the incinerator, and then we rolled a couch on top of some others... Aww, who's counting?

"You know, you shouldn't be so modest, Hershel. I mean, how many people can say they destroyed a robot? Ya know, maybe you should go into field work. If you end up studying archaeology, that is. Rescue artifacts from forgotten tombs and so on."

Yup, amusement. "Ah, I see, only a few then." Let's be really Heiji was probably the robot scourge at this point. "Snake and I managed to destroy one, actually." Almost by accident but shhh they're not insanely lucky it's pure skill. "In the waterfall too."

And he looked a touch sheepish. "I don't know, I'm not really like you with the snap decisions and problem solving." He trailed off before admitting: "I guess maybe doing some more ruin investigations wouldn't be so bad though. Maybe with spider repellent."

Totally going to file that waterfall story away for later, Hershel.

Heiji laughed. "I figure most people would call it 'being reckless'. But it's nice to be appreciated! I bet you have to know all kinds of stuff in order to go traipsing around ruins. Like which animals and plants are dangerous, which areas of the site ain't structurally sound... that kinda thing. So it's kinda like being a detective, yeah?"

He was a fool for mentioning it... Now ask him about how he beat up a robot with Jake too.

"I can't say I ever thought of it that way." Hershel answered, pausing for a long moment as he thought something over. If he was honest he felt pretty useless most of the time here, he didn't have a lot of skills besides the puzzle solving that really helped that much so he wasn't all that sure he even had ruin exploring skills Heiji mentioned. Still, sitting around whining about it was even less helpful, so why not do something about it.

And he would, being useful ahoy. "Hey, Heiji, you know first aid to an extent, right? You were quick to act when we were stabbed."

Look at you, Hershel Layton, total badass.

Heiji sat down in the grass, listening for more robots but not really hearing any for the moment. "Sure, I know some, I guess. Though that time it was more a matter of wanting to stop all that blood from oozing outta my leg. Plus, you never really expect a knife to come flying outta nowhere like that."

That's him, what else could those bird eyes mean.

"No, I suppose you don't." Hershel answered with a touch of amusement before going serious again. "Do you think you could teach me what you know? Whenever people are hurt I really don't have the slightest idea of what to do and if I'd make it worse. With the way things are going I can't imagine it won't be useful to know a little more regardless."

"Of course!" said Heiji happily. He was only happy to help Hershel out -- after all, what were friends for? And besides, they could always knew more people who could do first aid.

"I think you mighta learned some already, though. I mean, it seems like you spend a lotta time looking after people."

Hershel smiled, not surprised Heiji agreed but still pleased. Learning was fun even if it was for kind of shitty reasons like 'I need to know what to do when I inevitably get stabbed again.'

"Thank you." He answered, shaking his head a bit. "Maybe, I've picked up a little from watching what you and Jake do at least. You both seem to have a pretty good grasp of how to handle situations like that, Ema and Kuzuryuu too."

"Yeah, though for me it kinda makes sense," said Heiji. "I mean, if I'm running into crazy situations all the time, I probably had to figure this stuff out."

And naturally it didn't have anything to do with him just randomly knowing shit, no certainly not. "Okay, soon as this stuff's over, we'll get started!"

"I'd hope you would, given the adventures you've had..." Hershel replied dryly. Still not over some of those stories, man.

"Alright." He answered, clearly pretty determined about this. After a beat he spoke again. "Really, thank you for this, Heiji, I appreciate how much you're willing to humor me with nonsense like this." Teaching kendo, Japanese and now this. Let no one say murdergames weren't educational.

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CALHOUN HOUR - SURVIVOR

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