Night of the Nerds (Trog)

COLLEGE OF ROBOTICS AND ENGINEERING- HOWARD UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON D.C.

Night time. The university was silent, and only a sparse few street lamps illuminated the empty grounds.

James Erwin Jackson was a young African-American man in glasses with a slight underweight problem and was one of the most promising roboticists at Howard University, with a research grant from very generous sponsors. He had stayed the last 3 nights at the College of his field working on his doctorate thesis... and playing Dungeons and Dragons online with some friends.

"That character build is whack yo! Summoners are OP!" He responded to a gnome spellcaster who couldn't carry his own travel supplies but had 18 charisma to start with. And also had a demon companion.

"It's got nothing on my half-ogre fighter." Another young Asian man, Kevin, commented on the messaging service. He was a geneticist at another University.

"Are you doing that guy with the spiked chains again Kevin?" Erwin asked, having seen it before in a dozen other games.

"...Yes." Kevin said in a flat tone. He never built anything else.

Another person chimes in. "Guys, guys, I got an idea... " The skype broke out into a collective groan. "...How about we do a campaign in Ravenloft?"

"Marl you always want to play Ravenloft! And you always end up killing everyone in the party!" Kevin voiced the group's objection.

Erwin looked at the clock. It was Friday, 10pm already. His work was due Monday. "Guys, like, I'm gonna work on my graduate thesis while you guys sort out what campaign we'll play. No Ravencroft for me."

Erwin minimizes the games and switches to working his 3d modelling software, sipping some orange soda straight from the bottle. He got his phone out and dialled his friend.

"Hey Caleb bro. you gonna be coming over soon with those Chimichangas?"

ELSEWHERE IN THE BUILDING...

A janitress/part time student sat at her desk alone, reading up for her accounting exam the following day. Her gaze slowly went to her phone. "No facebook, Lea!" she told herself, putting the phone in the drawer. She looks up a second later to see a girl in a animal mascot mask and wearing a biker jacket... standing in front of her.

"Don't. move." The masked creature said, looking over the part time student. "You know... we're about the same size. Get undressed."

Once she tied up the janitress in the lockers, The Security Guard Foxie made her way into the building, slowly making her way to the security room around her somewhere. The university was kind enough to post a floor plan at the lobby, and Biker Foxie noted the locations of both the security office and the robotics labs. She was on her merry, merry way, whistling.

Caleb was just getting off his moped and thief-proofing it. Even though it was night-time there was still some signs of life at the college grounds, and the sixteen-year old greasy-haired genius did stand out like a sore, arthritic thumb, but nobody paid him much heed. He had been here enough times to be ignored by people who would generally be opposed to his existance. That was when his phone started ringing. He sighed as he picked it up. and answered

"I'm like, literally just parking my ride outside, man. I'll be up in seconds." He said, cursing his job. Getting food for Erwin was probably the one of those ironic punishment for his hubris or something, because it was pain in the neck. First of all, the guy wanged a highly customized meal, whatever it was he was eating, comments like "with no X, extra Y and half as much Z as usual" were only the tip of the iceberg. There was also the pickyness about what place to get food from, and the constant calling and changing of the order. And when the purchase had finally been made, he had a tendency to constantly check the estimated time of arrival by phone.

But this was the last time. Just like the last time he had promised himself this was the last time. and the times before that. But in his heart of hearts he knew that he would go grab food for Erwin again and again, for despite all of his weirdness the guy was probably his best friend. They were fairly similar in many ways, and even though Erwin probably had a experience almost a decade more of life on this little blue planets the the pair had formed a solid bond in almost no time.

"Is Kevin gonna like, play the chain-ogre again?" He asked as hebounded up the stairs, his bag weighing heavily on his shoulder. He grinned as he hefted it up. His was pretty excited to show off his new designs to Erwin. There was not many people a guy like him could actually talk 'shop' to, but Ewrin was one of them

"So what setting are we going with? Me, I'd totally be up for some like, forgotten realms or something, but like, at this stage, I'm like, totally fine with anything not Raven-fucking-loft." he continued as he bounded up the stairs to meet his friend, plug in his laptop, meet his other friends and get down to a rousing game of dnd until morning-light. Fortunately Ervin had kept the doors unlocked for him. He hung up his phone as he opened the door to the lab and went inside, "Hey, man." He said as he walked in, putting Erwin's food on a table next to an impressive-looking machine.

ROBOTICS LAB

"Oh hey Cal bro!" Erwin tries to be 'cool', being polite enough to stand up from his work and bro-fist Caleb. He gladly takes the paper bag with the Chimichanga and does the thing where he sniffs it twice. "Hmmm awww yeah."

He then proceeds to directly inject the oily, fatty, meaty mockery of Mexican food with Siracha. Not having quite the power of concentration, he juggles eating, completing his character for the game, playing a game of Five Nights at Freddy's (The first one), working on his Thesis AND chatting with Caleb.

"So man how's the family doin? that yo new gear, in the bag yo?" Erwin always tried to sound cool around his friends despite speaking in an articulated and formal manner in most of his video reports. Or perhaps this was how he was, and the formality was for work and school. Erwin flips from Work on a robot frame to FNAF, as Night 3 was beginning. Erwin scans the rooms and halls in-game. "Dangit... Foxxy's gonna show up nooow..." he said, with excited trepidation.

"You finally got the laser up to 16 Gigawatts this time yo?" He asked, having offered some help on the uh... thing on the laser.

He switches to work again, the robot arms in the other room moving according to his commands. He turned slightly to watch it in real time through the one way glass. They were constructing the robot frame now, the robot assembly using powerful plasma welders to piece it together.

The lights in the lab began to blink on and off for a few moments. "Awww man not this again. " He said, riding his office chair to the auxiliary power (too lazy to get up) to protect the lab from power surges. The lights in the lab steadied. "Man I wish they'd upgrade the grid at the University. Oh, I forgot, I got your six-pack of Dr.Peppers in the fridge in the faculty room. I'll just go get them and... Uuhhh..." he whined, then switched topics. Erwin was not a man who stayed on one issue for long, but having spotted Foxxy in FNAF he wasn't about to get up in the next ten seconds.

ELSEWHERE

Here now on the fourth floor, Diana wondered why the labs were still illuminated when the rest of the floor had gone dark. She switched off the main circuit breaker to the floor. Well, must have been a generator in the lab or something. No matter. Sword tied to her back, she took out her new toys - some good old fashioned shuriken, which she'd dipped in poison and now handled with gloves. She ever so slowly made her way to the lab computer room.

Caleb grinned as he was offered the bro-fist. The universal sign of friendship and equality between dorks all over america. He had always liked hanging out with Erwin over at the college. after seven they usually had the whole floor to themselves and could pretty much do as they pleased. Besides, he found Erwin's work fascinating. He had tried helping out without trying too hard to outshine his friend, but he still thought he had a small part in the birth of the miraculous device.

Yeah, they're good I guess. Mom's still all, like gushing over mys sis new baby. Like, big deal, it's just biology. Biology's easy. I mean Kevin's got a Phd in biology and he can only create a single character. Caleb says dismissively. snickering at his own joke The campaign before this one Caleb and Kevin had ended up having a row regarding wether or not he would be allowed to play a half-ogre in a Caleb's lvl 1 campaign. Caleb had said "no" but Kevin had brought in some (in his opinion) extraordinarily well-crafted rules about half-ogre paragon-levels to compensate for the ECL-problem inherent in playing half-ogres. It had deteriorated from there, and in the end, Marl had stepped in and offered to start a new campaign

As soon as Erwin mentioned the laser Caleb's face shone up brightly, he brushed a lock of greasy hair out of his face before he started to speak excitedly Suddenly he had forgot
ten all about his feud with Kevin and his disdain for his obsession with half-ogres weilding spiked chains

"Yeah, you were like, totally right about the old set-up being a dead-end. I had to go back and like, reverse the polarity to get a stable gigaplex-sequence. the power-efficiency is up like, 56 percent, and that in turn solves the overheating-trouble I've been having. Was a pain rewiring the whole thing, but worth it. I think it might be the worlds first concussive laser, man!" Caleb said excitedly as he zipped-open the frayed, well-worn backpack and picked out the laser. to show him. It was still big and clunky, and even though all the components have been mounted up on a sheet of metal, part of it lacked covers, and quite a bit of the wiring was visible. It was quite clearly still in an experimental stage.

Caleb put it down at the desk he had claimed and plugged it in, as he rummaged through his backpack and produced a box of donuts wich would serve him well as sustenance during the dnd-session.

"This baby could probably knock a hole through  that wall now. we should like , totally try it out after the game, yo! He continued, the excitement bubbling force. also, apparantly Erwin's coolness was infectious.

"Anyways, how's the thesis goin'?" he said as he finished up setting up his "workstation". Erwin had been pretty busy with it the last week, but he seemed to keep on top of it.

"It's cool, man, I'll grab 'em. You like, want anything from the fridge?" he said after he turned his computer on and started heading to the door. The faculty-room was just across the hall, so it wasn't much of a trip really

"Yeah man, Kevin's lame. One charm monster spell and the half-ogre's gonna wail on the party yo."

It started to rain hard outside, the sound of raindrops beating against glass filling the quiet of the lab. Lightning flashed in the sky. Chimichangas continued being scarfed down.

"Yeah sure, orange soda. Hey don't look at me like that, alot of people like orange soda! Aaaaand the last part of the robot frame is complete." The robot skeleton slowly got up from the bench it was assembled on. It sort of froze up a bit as it stood up. "awww."

The lights go out in the lab and assembly area. "WHaaat the power went out again why..." Erwin turned around to look at the auxiliary power switch.

"AAaAHHHHH!" Erwin shouted loud enough to probably wake the whole campus, seeing a Foxxy masked biker with a sword on her back, standing in the doorway, staring at Erwin with those dead mascot eyes. Biker Foxxy's hand was on the room's auxiliary power switch. "W-who are you?! Is this some kind of prank?" Erwin asked in a panic, wondering who was punking her at this hour.

"I'm here for the software. Let me copy it and you don't take a nap." Biker Foxy said, holding a shuriken in hand. The Shuriken flies and embeds itself in the viewing glass to the robot assembly area. This was for real yo.

"N..no way! F-For real yo?!" Erwin hauls his butt out of his chair, out the lab office and runs toward his friend. Biker Foxy simply looks at Erwin in confusion, and locks the door to the lab, using a chair to brace the door handle further.

Visibly shaken and sweating from fear, he stammers out the situation to Caleb. "C-C-CALEEEEEB THERE'S AN EVIL NINJA IN THE LAB!"

Caleb headed over to the faculty room to open the faculty fridge and hopefully grab his dr.Peppers and the faculty orange soda for his faculty friend. whistled merrily as he opened the fridge, and as usual he found the items immediately. He always found what he was looking for immediately, but it would have been far more impressive if there had been anything on the shelf where  the sodas were stored. apart from some boxes, a few cartons of milk and juice there wasn't much in the fridge at all.

Caleb put the big bottle of orange soda under his arm as he liberated one of the Dr.Peppers from his compatriots. He was feeling quite a bit thirsty and had no intention of waiting for satisfaction. he was once again quite pleased that he had long ago figured out how to open a can of soda with one hand. He took a sip before walking back to the lab, ready for a night of fun and games. . . However, all thoughts of Deadly Dungeoneering and Defeating Dastardly Dragons, evaporated from his mind as he heard Erwin scream, and it was a scream. It was clear that the poor guy was absolutely terrified, Caleb had always been jumpy but as far Caleb knew the man had never been the sort to shriek in terror. when they had watched horror-movies the guy had been more inclined to simply yelp when the frightening bits started.

Perhaps he was more invested in FNAF than he had shown thus far. Caleb strode across the corridor. The sudden scream had  really shaken him up but he wasn't one for pranks, just as he re-entered the corridor the door opened and a frightened Erwin stumbled out, his glasses askew and his eyes wide-open with fright. That was when he first mentioned the ninja.

"HOLY SHIT, DUDE!" Caleb yelped as light was shed on the situation. and fortune smiled, because the laser was not the only thing he was going to show Erwin tonight.  Out of his pocket he picked out a small, shiny plastic globe, unfortunately the rapidly expanding "sticky-goo" was likely to be more or less useless right now. Inestead he puleld out his cellphone and quickly dialed nine one one

"911, what is your emergency" a woman answered, and the fact that she did raised Calebs spirits considerably

"Hello, I'm calling from Howard College, we have a dangerous intruder-type person in the robotics-lab. We need help, really fast-like. Please, please, please come quick." he whispered nervously, trying to keep his teeth from chattering too audibly

"Alright, stay safe, we're on our way" the voice on the other end said calmly before hanging up-

Alright, now that had been dealt with, time to find somewhere to hide. However, he could not simply leave the panick-stricken Erwin here. He needed some way of convincing his friend calmly and confidently to show that he indeed had the situation at hand.

"We gotta like, hide man, or he'll surely kill us all!" He said, his teenaged voice cracking as he spoke.

HALLWAY

Erwin pulls them around a corner to hide, some relief coming to him as Caleb called 911. But, he peered back at the lab and saw his computer being compromised.

"N-no man, I don't think she's here to kill us yo!" Erwin tries to clarify the situation despite his panic.

"She... she said she wanted to copy my robot software! W-We gotta stop her, r-right? I mean... I've been workin on this for 5 years yo! My presentation's on Monday!" Erwin said. Indeed, as much as, or even more than preserving his life, his life's work needed to be protected.

He peers around the corner to look at the room. "But, Oh man, I think I locked her out of the computer before I left..."

LAB

Biker Foxy plugged her smartphone to a USB port on the computer.

"I've connected you to the computer like you asked, Oyuki." The Biker said over a phone call.

"This Humble Genin shall now attempt to access the computer." The voice replied.

"We might not have that kind of time." Peering out of the lab, Biker Foxy saw the nerds huddled around the corner.

HALLWAY

The Biker Foxy soon emerged from the lab. She was fairly short and built lean, her gender obscured by her baggy biker clothes. Her voice though, gave it away.

"Evening, nerds. It seems you locked your computer before I could get to work. Could you be so kind as to let me have a copy of the software?" She asked rather politely.

"N-no! NO! Why?! Who sent you?!" Erwin said, trembling behind Caleb.

"Well then. Looks like we'll have to do this the hard way." Biker Foxy whips out one shuriken in each hand, and tosses them at Caleb and Erwin. These shuriken were poisoned with a fast acting paralyzing venom.

Calebs mind was frantically working on a way to get out of this mess. He really, really, really that the police would be here by now, because whilst the two geeklings did not lack for brains, they had no way of combatting a ninja, or even a ninja-like foe. They barely had a bicep to share between them. Apart from the sticky-foam the only weapon he could think about, was the barely finished laser-prototype, and although he had done some testing with it, he was unsure wether it would actually stop a ninja. Besides, the laser was in there. With the ninja.

Caleb turned around to run, but he only had time to take a few steps before the ninja stepped out through the door. Calebs was rather surprised about her size. He was probably a fair bit taller than their adversary, and so was Erwin. for some reason he had imagined the ninja to lean, yet tall and still capable of looming. And when the ninja spoke he noticed one more unexpected thing. She was a she. . . Wich did not make things any better, really.

The ninja may be a tiny girl, but she was intimidating none theless, she seemed to be far too calm for this to be a one-off nerdicide, and besides, she was a friggin ninja, and that meant she was probably a murdering assassination-machine. if he would translate it to dnd-terms she would at the very least be a lvl 6-ish rogue, whilst himself and where lvl 1 commoners. Well, to be fair they might be experts, but they probably had below average physical stats and to-hit bonus, even for an npc-class.

With this in mind he couldn't help to admire Erwins bravery when he refused to give up his program, of course he also cursed the man's stubborness when he refused to give up his program. After all, this would most likely mean tha the pair would die a horrible death or be forced to commit seppuku or something.

When she snatched up the shurikens, time seemed to slow down, and his arms moved sluggishly. his eyes darted around for a millisecond before he found something. The door to the faculty-room next to him. He quickly reached out to grab the handle as the ninja threw her deadly ninja-stars. and just as they left her hand, Caleb managed to get the door open just wide enough to shield the nerdy pair from the two shurikens. *Thunk, thunk* the door went as they got stuck. No matter how surrpised the ninja was about getting thwarted by a spotty, greasy, mullet-sporting brat, the spotty, greasy mullet-sporting brat in wuestion was far more surprised at having thwarted a ninja.

Feeling the rush of (a very minor) victory, Caleb turned to run, but accidentally tripped over his own shoe-lace and fell to the floor. He cursed his rotten luck. Oh, why was god so mean as to first give him hope then cruelly snatch it away just as he saw just a glimmer of a future. He wouldn't be able to get up in time to save himself. If Erwin survived, that jerk better name at least one of his children after him!. .. . Or one of his pokemon at any rate. One of the legendary ones. After all, the notion of Erwin having pokemon was alot more realistic than expect him to have children.

He felt something warm on his lips. Blood. He must have been poisoned somehow, and now he was going to cough up blood until he died! That was always how they did it in the movies. Then he felt a dull warm ache and calmed down somewhat. Apparantly he had bitten his lip as his jaw hit the floor.

He spun around and tried to crawl backwards, but failing miserably, prbably looking more like a turtle on his back than anything.

"Oh, no please! Don't kill me! I'm not. . . I'm, err. . . I don't know, I just don't want to die!" The young man blubbered pleadingly, as he lay there on the floor. It was quite obvious that Caleb was not too proud to beg.

Biker Foxy slowly approached the duo.

"I really didn't come here to kill you. There's no sport, and no profit in it. I just. want. ACCESS." Not having the foresight to bring more poisoned shuriken, Biker Foxy instead pulls out a Sai.

Erwin was about to run when Caleb had the nerve to use a door to block most of the shuriken coming their way. When he saw his friend go down he froze in place.

"C-Caleb! CALEB! We gotta run man!" Erwin pleaded for his friend to get up, already teary eyed and nose running. The poison dulled Caleb's movements, and Erwin thought he was dying, from a single measly shuriken scratch. "You... you... I'm not gonna leave you bro."

"Sorry man... I gotta borrow your laser!" Erwin, finding uncommon courage, pulls out his own device and issues a verbal command.

"WinBot! Assimilate laser and activate guardian mode!" He said in a clear, concise tone. Biker Foxy stands still for a moment, tilting her head. Then she heard the crash in the lab behind her, the door to the robo-room bursting open.

Foxy turned around. The robot stood six feet tall. For a moment it just kinda... stood there.

"Hi." it said in its robo-voice. Then it aimed the laser at Biker Foxy.

"Oh Shi-" Biker Foxy was forced to duck and dodge the concussive lasers, as it punched holes in the walls. She couldn't get to the scientists either, as the Guardian protocol cut her off from that direction. She tossed her Sai at it, lodging into its chest, but it had no effect. Of course robots didn't have the same weak spots.

Not equipped to handle a combat robot, Biker Foxy was forced to retreat, laying down a smoke screen and vanishing. Sparks flew from the spot the Sai hit, and WinBot froze up. "Error. Error."

Erwin slumped to the floor beside Caleb, in stunned silence. Time seemed to slow down to a crawl after tonight.

Meanwhile the police and ambulance finally arrive on the scene, the robot frozen in place, missing its laser. Erwin had the presence of mind to take it off and stuff it back into Caleb's bag. He also had the presence to call Kevin... who surprisingly didn't know anything *practical* about poisoning, so they contacted Kevin's younger sister, who was "just a Nurse" but knew exactly what to do, and the college clinic was equipped with a toxin kit.

Caleb would have his motor skills by the time the paramedics found the two geniuses sitting in the hallway. The shurikens were still stuck in the door, but Erwin took out the Sai from his robot- and the ninja's mobile device from the lab.

It felt like an eternity after the (surprisingly attractive-sounding) ninja decided to retreat until the paramedics arrived. First and foremost he could hear that Kevin was being very Kevin when Erwin called him. It took quite a bit of time to convince the other fellow they weren't trying to prank him. In fact it took Erwin actually shouting at him, and that was because Kevin rarely shouted at anyone for any reason. Apart from tonight the only time he had heard the man shout was when the nerdling had managed to stub his toe on a table-leg once

"Dude, this should like, totally give you a passing grade. You like, built a robot that can fight ninjas." Caleb said weakly as the two of them heard that the paramedics finally entered the floor below. He was actually starting to feel alot better, but he did very well know that toxins were insidous and treacherous.
"Hey, uh, if, I mean when I get out I'd totally like a go at that ninja's thingamabob." he said, obviously rather upset at the ninja ruining his game.

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

A few hours later he was on his way out of the hospitl. The toxin had apparantly been fairly close to what the hospital used for anasthetic, and thus it was quite sure that it was not actually all that harmful. That was good at any rate, and as far a s he could feel he felt fine, apart from a nervousness, probably remaining from the attack upon his person not all that long ago. His parents were rather upset, about what had happened, but they had calmed down to a simmering anger directed at whoever had attacked their spotty-faced son

That was fine. He was fine, and he had work to do. Erwin had decided to tag along to the hospital, but left as soon as he was pronounced to be out of any immediate danger. But during that time, he had promised to come by and give Caleb the mobile-deviced used by the ninja in the morning. At that time he would have some work to do. He would find that Ninja and return the favor. He might be outclassed physically but he had used his time in the hospital to think out some designs.

awesome designs

CALEB'S PLACE

Once Erwin completely owned his dissertation on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, and posted to social media about it, he came by Caleb's place bringing persian food for a change, with big juicy kebabs and a stack of pita bread, and some vegetable shakshuka.

Fast forward to Caleb's room, Erwin brought the bag of 'healthy' food, a welcome change from greasy burgers and fries. He made a square foot of open space on the messy table, and helping himself to a kebab wrap.

"Hey yo. Ready to find where that ninja chika is?" He asked, fairly eager as he brought out the phone. He had already done some illegal tampering with it, blocking the Phone-Finder so they couldn't be found themselves.

with Caleb's help, they should be able to bypass the phone's security- it was a stock phone, so no special defenses. The wallpaper was that of samurai armor. The contents of the phone book had only a couple of numbers - The Broker, and Adviser.

The photo album had only photos of places being staked out during the day, noting entrances and exits, including of Howard University, dated a week prior. Other places they'd included were museums, banks, other laboratories, mansions of some rich people. Oddly enough the last photo was a close up of a cute little corgi dog in a pet shop, which included the address of said pet shop- Takoma, Washington D.C., in a middle class neighborhood with a high concentration of immigrants.

Caleb brushed a greasy lock of hair out of his spotty face, despite his droopy eyelids and goofy-looking horse-face the enthusiasm radiated off of him like. . . well ,radiation. In his mind this was just like playing spiers, only it wasn't playing. Sure, the thin geekling had hacked his way into a few places where he really shouldn't be, but this was different. It was physical, and it was personal to some extent.

"Awww, check out that dog. It's like, totally adorable." Caleb said as he went through the phone, whilst his other fingers danced across his computer. He had noticed the photo, not only because his superpower was to notice stuff, but also because it was the only non-professional picture in there. The others were all related to the heist of Erwins program, but this one was of a random cute dog. Caleb couldn't help but to smile. the ninja was not only a fearless cat burglar and assassin (probably) but also had a passion for cute dogs. Caleb also liked cute things, as well as ninjas. And until recently he thought that catburglars were pretty cool too, until one happened to one of his friends, that was.

In another life, they might have hit it off. Who knew. Well, Caleb knew and the odds were definately not in his favor in even the best of scenarios. But if one believed in an infinite parallel universes there was bound to be one where they were going steady. And one where he was indescribably handsom and had his pick of the ladies. He wouldn't be surprised if those two universes were one and the same.

"Dude, I think she might like, live in or near Takoma! at least temporarily. Might be worth a look later." he continued more serious tone as he reached for a kebab-wrap for himself. Caleb said as he put the phone down, his fingers tapping furiously

"I'm writing up a program to to track down the phones via gps. Might give lead us to her contacts. You think you can see which of those other places she's been too yet? Maybe we could like, catch her when she moves in for another robbery." the greasy teenager continued, his words muffled somewhat by the tasty kebab in his mouth.

While the two plotted a counter move against their newfound enemies, it didn't seem to cross their minds that the ninja would simply call that number. The ringtone was some anime opening theme, a really girly, cheesy theme.

"Ohgodthey'recallinusyo!" Erwin, in a panic, answered the phone for them.

Whoever it was, she spoke in a super-high pitched anime girl voice. "Moshi mosh? Konbanwa! Anatana no~, otakus? Sore wa watashi~ ni kenkyo, genin-dearimasu~ Anata wa watashi no yūjin no geitaidenwa o motte imasu~" She prattled off in Japanese, not caring if they understood or not.

"What?! WATASHI DON'T COMPRENDE. ENGLISH LADY, DO YOU SPEAK IT?" Erwin said, the cutesy Japanese voice completely catching him completely offguard. He quietly mouths to Caleb, 'Whoa she sounds cute'

"Is that them? Give it here!" A second, more serious female voice was audible in the background. The original caller voiced her objections. "Watashi wa karera ni hanashite imashita!"

"Hey. Nerds. You might wanna hand that phone over. since you foiled this ninja's mission, the mob is coming for the people who have that phone. AKA you, at YOUR house. Now it's an hour to midnight, and if you don't want to get your families involved, you might wanna turn on the GPS again and go somewhere else. There's a warehouse in Takoma where we make our deals. Show up."

Then she hung up. Erwin looked at Caleb. The mention of the mob seemed to put a new fear into him "The mob?! What are we gonna do yo?!"

"Chill, man. We like, totally survived a Ninja-attack, maybe we could like, take them out, yo." Caleb said as he quickly moved over to what looked like an innocent tool-cupboard and opened the door. This was the place where he stored the stuff he had lost interest in whilst he was building it, and among this treasure-trove of half-built death-rays, anti-gravity generators and just regular laser-rays was a set of armor obviously modeled on a set of Mandalorian armor from the Star Wars Franchise.

He quickly took out the armor, and whit a grunt he threw it down on the workbench. It needed some adjustments, but in essence it was a sound piece of equipment, including a fully functional jetpack as well as a flamethrower. "I'm just gonna attatch a few weapons to this baby, and we'll be like, you know, superheroes." Due to his enhanced perception and coordiantion he was capable of doing this quickly. a few minutes at the most

Come on, man. Like, I've got a pile of half-finished stuff around here. We could totally be like, Iron man and War-machine! Also, I totally call dibs on Iron-man. Caleb said enthusiastically as he attatched his new laser-gun to the right gauntlet of the armor. No doubt this would be a a whole lot cooler to have it there than to have it anywhere else. Even though the fact that he was really frightened, he was also feeling the enthusiasm surge through him as he thought about being superheroes. Standing there, all badass and cool with his trusty sidekick by his side! His heart was racing, and so was his super-brilliant mind! For the first time in a really long time the young genius was feeling real excitement!

I mean, like, what's the alternative? He continued as he looked at his friend.

Erwin, upon seeing all the assorted equipment Caleb was assembling, was beginning to realize the meaning of the phrase "discretion is the better part of valor" and voiced his honest chickening out.

"Uhh... I'm gonna take a cue from the Ironman 3 movie yo, and pilot my robot instead. Come on, let's go take this to the garage. I-It's not like I'm chickening out yo... the army uses drones, don't they?" Erwin said, a bit dejected. He felt ashamed of himself, lacking courage to put on a suit and join an actual combat situation, preferring instead the safety of controlling a robot from afar.

"WinBot, assemble." Erwin said, and the nondescript crate he brought on his truck opened up, the robot standing in place.

"Hi." The robot said in a deadpan voice, raising his hand in a greeting.

Erwin worked with his friend, quickly jury-rigging useful weapon systems, using their combined know-how to convert appliances and junk into armament and armor. Erwin looked a bit sad, as he had turned his search rescue robot into a war machine. heh. War Machine. Winbot's frame supported all the added weight of the armor, giving him an electrified claw with an underslung flamethrower, while the other arm had an articulated robot hand, and was modified to have a Rocket Grab.

THE PLACE

Erwin took his truck a block away from the place, hiding in a parking lot and wishing Caleb good luck. Instead of two nerds, Caleb and a giant robot would show up at this other parking lot, where there was a single car and two figures sitting under the street lamp. The moon was full, and the environment was dimly illuminated at least.

"Sore wa, shōnen to kare no robottodesu! Hontoni Subarashiiii!" The Biker Foxy with the bright orange hair backflipped and landed on her feet, cautiously approaching Caleb and eyeing him and the robot up.

"Otaku o yōi shite kimashita!" The Biker Foxy was wearing a leather jacket and denim short shorts, to accomodate her fancy moves, and again spoke in a really high pitched Japanese voice reminiscent of anime. She didn't seem to carry a weapon, but had chains around her arms.

Behind her a more reserved figure simply stood calm, leaning against the car. She was wearing a straw hat and subdued samurai robes, a black scarf wrapped around her face from the nose down concealing her face. She carried a Katana, placed at the right side of her sash.