B is for Building (Megasharks)

[Frank "Sunny" Laffont]

"It's alive!" declared Frank, holding her hands up by her sides and cackling like a madwoman. She stared at the... creation that sat in the middle of the arena. Why the arena? "Because the gymnasium is gonna be overloaded with balloons, the parking lot has the glittery flagpole, and nobody really uses the arena for anything useful," said Frank. It's best not to question why she's talking to herself and answering questions effectively asked by her own third person narration. She'd been awake for well over a week by this point, and had quaffed something like three or four illegal energy drinks in the last few hours, so she was mostly twitches by this point.

Oh, right, the creation itself. It was, uh, sharklike. Sharklike, because most sharks were not absolutely massive creations made of what appeared to be paper mache... absolutely massive amounts of it. There were wires and what appeared to be a motor of some kind to propel the creature too, which now hummed to life and made its partially completed "tail" jerk a few times in something vaguely resembling natural movement. It covered a good section of the arena floor though; there were probably whales smaller than this creation.

"Okay, alive, but not really finished," admitted Frank, tapping her finger to her chin and considering. She had several containers about too: paint, glitter and the like, since she wanted to make sure this was just right. After all, a creation of this magnitude had to be absolutely, 100% totally awesome.

And what was more awesome than a megashark?

"I wonder if I can get it to breathe fire..."

[Richard McNeil]

"What. The holy fuck. Is that?" The voice echoed through the arena as the boy strode across the grounds, hands stuffed into his jeans pockets. "First the flamboyant flagpole and now this?" Ricky couldn't help but grin as he walked up to where Frank stood, admiring her still unfinished work. "So you're the culprit behind all the... glitter... and sparkly things..." Of course he was a fan. The antics were a little to cute for him, but he admired the dedication involved in them. Although he couldn't imagine why in the hell she would go to so much trouble.

Ricky stood alongside Frank and looked up the paper mache monstrosity and chuckled as his head shook. What the fuck was that thing?  He thought, his mind still mirroring his initial comment.  It was a hideous contraption.  Holy fuck, is it moving?  "I don't have the slightest fucking clue you're gonna do with that thing, but's it's fucking amazing."  He glanced to Frank, peering at her from behind his dark mirror shades.  "Did you say something about fire a minute ago?"

[Frank "Sunny" Laffont]

"It's a megashark!" declared Frank, throwing her arms out wide. Her arms and her torso were more or less facing the shark proper, while her head had turned to look at the guy. She recognized Ricky, of course. They'd run into each other a few times in passing, between detention and his finding her with the glittery flag pole. She managed to turn one of her hands around to wiggle a few fingers at him. "Of course I am!" she chirped, nodding.

She shifted so that Ricky could come up and get a better look at the... creation. She smiled at him, practically vibrating with anticipation at having someone actually look it over. "It's not done yet, obviously," she said, waving at it. "I've still gotta get the motor thingy to operate the tail thingy and I gotta finish up the head thingy to make it move and look more like a shark thingy instead of a blob thingy but I think the thingy is about seventy percent done. It only needs to be about thirty percent cooler." Frank nodded a few more times, then snapped her fingers at Ricky's next question.

"I did! I was thinking about setting it up to breathe fire out the front! Wouldn't that be awesome? And I'm obviously gonna have it attack people, but, like, not hurt them. Maybe just the mean people. Isn't it awesome though? it's sooooooo awesome!" she squealed and jumped a few times before hugging Ricky out of sheer joy.

[Richard McNeil]

"A megashark..." Ricky repeated, staring at the mammoth... thing. The energetic girl drew out an amused smile as she proudly owned up to her recent antics. Ricky then jerked as if someone had just pinched him. "Oh!" His eyes widened and he looked to Frank. "If you need a motor we can always use one from the golf carts the groundskeepers use!" He would leave out the fact they'd have to dismantled one of the carts in order to do so. Anything to get the job done. "Then the tail thingy and the head thingy would move like a shark thingy." Ricky didn't have the boundless energy of one Frank Cox, but he was just spastic enough himself to keep up.

"But I don't think it should attack people..." He said, frowning some as he turned his attention back to the project he'd just decided he was going to be helping with. "At least not with fire, you know? That would be bad. What if you accidentally singed the skunk girl's fur?" His eyes widened a bit as he realized how terrible that would be. She was a cutie with all her fur.

[Frank "Sunny" Laffont]

"A megashark," repeated Frank, using all the reverence such a creation truly deserved. She smiled, her eyes continued to sparkle with that nearly demonic mirth and enjoyment. That enjoyment turned into a high pitched squeal as Ricky really got into things. Frank clapped her hands and hopped a few times, even turning in a circle. "Yeah! That would be awesome! I just bought a motor on the black market and put it in! Next time we so have to dismantle some golf carts---oh,oh, oh, oh!" she moved over and slapped Ricky several times on the shoulder, "Should we do that now? And use more motors? WE COULD MAKE IT BREATHE FIRE THAT WAY!"

No, Frank didn't think that was an illogical leap. They had so many thingies about which to discuss and grow continually excited. Not that Frank actually needed anything that actually existed to get excited, obviously.

No attacking, Frank looked disappointed for all of about five seconds. She gasped as Ricky mentioned singing Solkat, her eyes going wide. she pushed at Ricky, "You are so right!" she cried out. "We wouldn't want to hurt Solkat: she's adorable," Frank nodded several times before moving to throw an arm around Ricky, gesturing at her creation. "Clearly I need your help and advice in making this, so I do not end up accidentally hurting someone! Tell me, oh wise sage," she turned and knelt before him, "how can I complete my totally awesome project without setting anyone on fire on accident?"

Note: On accident. on purpose was fine. Obviously.

[Richard McNeil]

The combo ended as Ricky didn't see the purpose in repeating the name of the contraption again. He grinned though as he watched the bubbly girl's rambling not just go back and forth, but also up, down, left, right, and into some unknown parallel dimension where direction is meaningless. He let out a low yelp as the stream of thoughts made vocalized ended in an unexpected fit of slapping. An arm came up to defend against Franks excitement. "And yeah." He said laugh as he playfully slapped back at her hands until she stopped. "We can make it breath fire that way." He'd been around the block a few times. He knew his way around an engine. It'd been a while, but he was almost certain he could make the megashark do what Frank wanted. How safe it would be remained to be seen.

Ricky's brow furrowed as he looked up to the... thing. His normally apathetic mind had latched onto the project for all it was worth. Mainly because he knew of the havoc such a machine could cause if let loose upon the campus. Nodding he looked to Frank, blinking as she wasn't there anymore. Shifting his eyes down he caught her kneeling beside him. "Dafuq?" He said gesturing for her to get up. "You don't... stand up." He said his head shaking a little in spite of the grin that was still plastered on his face. "First thing we gotta do is find us a couple golf carts."

[Frank "Sunny" Laffont]

"Fi-yah!" cried Frank, thrusting her hands into the air and doing doing a little dance, all without quite getting up yet. The sheer thought of her absolutely massive, totally beautiful project actually doing something like that nearly blew her poor little mind. She managed somehow, probably because this wasn't much of a stretch for Frank's usual world, where everybody rode magical robot unicorns that shot lasers from their horns and had gun-toting, cigar-chomping t-rexes as side kicks. (The workup was in Frank's room, drawn entirely in crayon, of course).

"Golf carts?" repeated Frank. She tapped her lips for a while, mumbling "think, think, think," under her breath. Soon she was snapping her fingers and working herself up to a standing position. There was a moment when she reached her full height where she wobbled for a few seconds, but it didn't really count. Sure, she had to momentarily grab Ricky's shoulder to make sure that she didn't end up on her butt, but that was pretty normal.

"I know where we can totally get some! There's this stash of vehicles and stuff that they have in this spot at the academy where they've just got this one lock thing that I can totally just chew my way through and we should be going there right now!" and of course Frank latched onto Ricky's hand and began charging off on what probably looked (and likely was) like a random direction.

[Richard McNeil]

This thing was a bad idea. Even someone like Ricky could tell that from the moment he walked in on the strange scene. Still, there was something endearing about the manic energy Frank had invested into this fire breathing... 'megashark'. He didn't have the slightest clue why Frank was on the missions she had chosen, or even how she'd managed to find the time to get so much done in such a short time, but he just shrugged that off as probably being due to Frank having recruited a team to help, much as she had involuntarily recruited Ricky.

It didn't matter. Ricky was interested to see where this thing was going to go. He was still a little distracted by the monstrosity in front of them when Frank snatched his hand and made off for the exit. It took a moment for Ricky to register where Frank was intending on going. His mind scrolled back through the last few things she said. His brow furrowed as he found himself powerless to resist being drug along. "Frank!" He laughed, flailing an arm in the opposite direction. "The motor pool is that way!"

[Frank "Sunny" Laffont]

Frank kept going for a few more feet, yelling a bit, before she realized that Ricky was not really with her. That was actually what caused her to stop, and that was more like a motor running down, as she walked forward a few more steps, the yell eventually trialing off to something like a yelp. She turned to look at Ricky, her eyes almost anime-character huge.

"There's a pool for cars?" she asked, practically hopping up and down. "That is so awesome! I always wondered if a Ford was a better swimmer than a Dodge! C'mon, to the motor poooooool!" And Frank headed off in that now right direction, her arm outstretched in a long point. Technically she dragged the "oool" sound of pool out for far longer than even that little bit a few sentences ago would've implied. It's just that dragging that out would be awful to read, so instead there's that little bit. Frank giggled and ran a quick circle around Ricky as she went too, practically vibrating with energy. She soon was digging about her person, producing a packet of candy from what appeared to be no where, chomping into it like she was starving and it was the only thing that could stave off her rampant hunger.

[Richard McNeil]

Ricky's brow furrowed at the manic girl's reaction to his words. "Wait... motor-?" His head shook. "No, that's not... what... that..." He slowed trailed off and shook his head again, waving a dismissive hand. He'd imagine getting through to the girl when she was calm (or what substituted for calm with Frank) but when she was riled up like this Ricky saw no point. He'd just go along with it. After all, just because this megashark thing was a bad, terrible, horrible idea in which no good could even remotely come of, he was still in and wanted to see the project through.

Breaking out into a jog to catch up with Frank he headed off toward fenced in area where the Academy stored their company vehicles. Ricky'd hopped the fence on more than one occasion to steal a nap in the bed of one of the trio of work trucks kept nearby. He'd also wasted enough time souring the campus and its surrounding area to know they also kept the electric and gas powered carts used for the groundskeepers to get around. "See? It's right over there." He pointed out the large section of fenced in parking lot with the long, flat building where maintenance on the vehicles was performed. "Hate to disappoint, but a motor pool is just where people keep a bunch of cars and stuff. It's not an actual swimming pool..." He thought maybe, just maybe upon seeing the facility Frank would get the gist. Maybe.

[Frank "Sunny" Laffont]

Frank technically knew what a motor pool was. She'd heard of them before, even crashed the one at her last school, though she hadn't managed to find the one here yet. Hence why she sort of ran circles around Ricky while he more or less led the way. She did have to dig some candy out of her pocket, which she at while chattering about her plan, which mostly involved sending the shark down the school's courtyard, maybe rampaging a bit or something like that.

See, right there, and Frank was staring. "Yep, that looks like a regular old motor pool. I was kinda hoping that a mutant school would have some kinda freak, mutant pool, y'know? That would've been super awesome. Regular motor pool works though, since we can totally snag a golf cart," with taht ,Frank began walking down the fence, though walking wasn't the most accurate description of her movement, which was somewhere between skipping, running, and jogging. "There's gotta be a entrance, right? With a lock or something? I  can totes chew through a lock though, so nom nom nom."

She moved her hands up and down to imitate the massive jaws of, well, herself, before giggling a little, clearly amused by just the whole situation. She thought she saw a gate and dashed toward it, figuring that Ricky would either catch up or correct her, either way, her course was set, for now.

[Richard McNeil]

Ricky was known as being spastic in his own right but even he could get exhausted by just watching Frank. He did, though, find the girl utterly endearing. He laughed, mostly to himself, as Frank ran her circles and rattled on about this and that. There was something about the girl Ricky thought to be refreshing and unbearably cheerful. As if someone was continually bashing him over the head with a baseball bat made of glitter and puppies. "Nah, sorry." He said once they'd caught sight of their destination. "No mutant cars in swimming pools." He was actually a little disappointed in that. Frank presented a very interesting idea.

"Now we-" Ricky tried to speak but it was no use. The girl had already started for the gate. Which was fine, in the end, because that's the direction Ricky would have been heading in a few seconds anyway. "Woah, hey!" He called, taking off after Frank. He caught up with her in hopes of keeping her from eating through the lock. "You can't chew through the lock." He explained. "That'll raise suspicion. Then they'll check for the parts we're going to 'borrow' sooner. That's less time to build the... uh... Megashark."

Ricky looked to Frank, hoping his logic and reasoning got through. He had no reason to believe she was stupid, on the contrary, that she had managed to constructed such a monstrosity largely on her own was fairly impressive. He was simply concerned her spastic energy would cause his explanation to go unnoticed. He decided acting would be the best course. "Here. Let me take care of this." A hand went into the pocket of his jacket as he knelt by the lock. He withdrew a pair of small, thin, metal picks and started to work on the lock. "Don't spend much time on the streets without picking up a few things." He muttered, mostly to himself. At least his skills were coming in handy.

Making short work of the padlock that kept the motor pool gate secure, Ricky grinned as he stood straight, the heavy metal device in his hand. This way they could now get in, rummage around, and take what they saw fit without alerting anyone to their actions. It could take days (depending on what they ended up taking) before anyone noticed it missing. "Let's go shopping." He said as he unhooked the gate and pushed it open. "After you." He gestured toward the opening.

[Frank "Sunny" Laffont]

Frank's mouth was already most of the way around the lock by the time Ricky tried his "logic" and "reasoning" on her. This did, to the surprise of most parties involved, work on Frank on occasion. It made her stop now, looking at him, considering. "I suppose that could be right, but I don't think there's anyone around and it's not like we really need that much time since the shark is mostly built and--"

And he was already moving, pulling something out of his jacket. Frank was hopping up and down at the sight, clapping her hands. "Oh, oh, that is so awesome! You totes should've said you were an awesome lock picking guy and stuff, though I guess that could've totally been your power or some junk. Be all like 'I am the mutant lock pick' and ---wait, streets? Are you a hoodlum!" she said this with the utmost excitement and joy, as if Ricky had just announced that he was a member of a boy band. "Or are you in a gang or something? do you have some super cool gang sign? Did you have to kill a man," this last was said in a deeper voice than she normally spoke in, another skill that she'd apparently picked up from somewhere, right along with the apparent ability to forsake breathing during normal conversation.

Frank probably would've continued along this line of conversation had Ricky not actually managed to get the gate fixed. Frank burst into gate, hands in the air, giggling like a kid at Christmas. Within moments she was hopping on a golf cart, making herself quite comfortable, all perched atop there and looking snazzy as she could be. "Wait a second," she said, turning to look at Ricky. She tapped her finger to her lips, obviously thinking hard. "Aren't we supposed to, like, be getting something? I feel like we should be getting something...."

[Richard McNeil]

"I dunno. I guess." Ricky answered with a shrug. He sort of knew what a hoodlum was and supposed he could be considered one, although he'd never been called nor thought of himself as one. He laughed, though, and shook his head. "I don't fuck around with that gang shit." Ricky left it at that. He was riding a bit of a high he got from Frank's infectious demeanor. Delving too deep into where he learned the bulk of his tricks would run the risk of touching on things he didn't care to discuss. Instead, he followed Frank into the motor pool.

Looking over the small fleet of vehicles sitting beneath the awning of the motor pool, Ricky contemplated attempting to break into the garage to get what they needed there without cannibalizing one of the carts already in use. "What?" He asked as Frank spoke from her vantage point on the golf cart. "Oh. Yeah. We are." His eyes then narrowed. A thought had came to him, one that was probably a very, very bad idea and yet... it was one he desperately wanted to see in action.

"Hey." Ricky said, trotting over to the golf cart Frank was posturing in. Something in the back of his mind told him to just drop it, to let it go. Fortunately, (or sadly, as many would say) Ricky was born with the amazing ability to not only utterly ignore the little voice in his head that tried to speak up whenever he had a bad idea, but he tended to be encouraged by the voice. A grin slowly spread across his face as he looked to Frank. "Wanna go for a ride?"

[Frank "Sunny" Laffont]

"Coooool, I love hanging out with hoodlums, they're awesome as long as they're not, like, rapists and stuff," Frank paused for a moment, "you're not a----nah, you don't give off that vibe. Besides, you probably would've drugged me already if you were into that. there's not really a point, actually, since if we become friends and stuff I'd totally sleep with you," Frank shrugged, "sex is fun."

She watched while Ricky came over to the golf cart. "I didn't mean now," she said, though she probably would've considered it if she knew Ricky a little better. Having no shame when it came to sex meant that you didn't have a whole lot in the way of shame when it came to where you had it as well, especially if you were Frank Cox. His plan came to light soon though, and Frank was grinning wide again, showing all her teeth.

"Oh yeah! Awesome! We can totally take a joy ride on one of these things! Oh, oh, oh," she hit Ricky with each oh, right on the shoulder, "we should totally tow the megashark with one! It's light and junk to make it portable and junk, so we can totes pull it off," Frank nodded and then began looking around the cart, obviously convinced that there was a key somewhere they should be pinching.