Hellion walked over to Emily inside of Kyoto, having been called over by her yet again for another attempt at improving his situation. This time Em had told him that this was an upgrade for both of them, which since it was a change of pace made him a little more optimistic of his chances with it. After Kyoto cleared her throat Emily turned around in her chair in a dramatic way, her face smiling with self-assurance. “Ah, excellent, you are here! It’s all done, but to better show it off we need to have a bit more room…” Taking the hint as the blonde stood up Kyoto walked over to the teleport pad in the room and waited for Emily to join them, and once she did a quick command from her had them both disappear.
Reappearing just outside of the guildhall the duo moved a touch further away from the tiny building at Emily’s insistence before she stopped and handed over a yellow orb to Kyoto. As soon as she took it in hand Hellion found an identical one appearing in his own hand, a neat trick that likely came from how Kyoto and himself shared an inventory to an extent. Emily was all grins as she said “I was watching a few videos of old games when I was hit upon by an idea. Just squeeze the orb and be amazed.” Kyoto did so and watched as suddenly around her a yellow field appeared, rapidly expanding around her and forcing Emily to move backwards out of the way until it stopped, a near perfect sphere the size of a building appearing around her.
The voice of Emily then came from all around Kyoto as she used her Admin Voice, explaining “This is your Safety Capsule. If you look around you can see that it is furnished with basic provisions, healing items, and so on, all while allowing you to see outside through the one-way walls.” Emily shifted the “view” of the screen from her face to show the capsule, and it was revealed that while Kyoto could see out through the walls mostly fine aside from a yellow tinge from the outside it was a mostly opaque yellow. Emily then returned the view to her own face, and continued. “The outer walls of the capsule are slightly flexible but rigid, so it can compress slightly for initial shock absorption and then remain whole. Nothing can break the seal from the outside, and it's large enough that no insect could hope to move it.”
Kyoto was suitably impressed at this, but Hellion had a concern of his own occur to him. Through the mech he asked “That all sounds good, but once it is deployed how do I escape it? Wouldn’t this trap me inside of it too?” An indicator showed Kyoto was a little surprised that she had not thought of that, but Emily just looked proudly smug and let out a small self-satisfied snort. A second window popped up displaying more information, and Kyoto was able to follow along as Emily explained.
“Not to worry, that issue technically came up with the inspiration for this device, so I made some adjustments to the concept. Firstly, you are able to dismiss the construct yourself, you merely need to squeeze the secondary orb three times in rapid succession and say the pass-phrase ‘exit Safety Capsule.’ Secondly even if you are somehow locked inside of it the power supply only remains active for 12 hours, after which it will automatically shut off and dismiss the shield bubble freeing you.” Kyoto had to admit that it sounded reasonable, being able to see all around to know when the danger had past, having supplies to heal and wait things out until then, and redundant methods to leave it to avoid being stuck.
“Alright, I think you have us convinced, we will give it a go.” What proceeded was an hour or two of testing it out, the activation and dismissal functions working flawlessly and quickly. Emily and Kyoto took turns attacking from the outside and inside to test the durability, and as advertised it took anything that they could throw at it and more. Emily even used a few Admin commands to give herself and Kyoto boosted magical skills and all of the spells to see how they fared. No matter if it was fire, wind, earth, light, or any of the others in the game, the capsule did not so much as ripple. The same things applied to when Hellion stepped out to try it as well, not even the double team of Emily and Kyoto trying to both step on it at once made it flinch. In the end the satisfied mech and pilot thanked Emily, even as they joked that hopefully this would not be needed.
A couple of days passed without incident, Hellion being sure to test out his personal Safety Capsule both inside and outside of Kyoto just to be safe. The device activated as intended for him, and when he tried it inside of Kyoto it worked inside the stomach island but not in the command centre. Instead the barrier formed around Kyoto herself, and a quick question sent to Emily got the response that it was another safety feature keyed just to those areas inside of the mech where there was not room. It would not be a good idea to form a massive solid object inside of the corridors and rooms too small to contain it after all, and none of them wanted to find out how much damage could be done if that had happened.
Currently Kyoto was making her way through the dorm hallways, searching for some loose strands of hair. The guildhall was running a little low on that particular resource, so Kyoto had taken up a quick quest to acquire a few lengths to pass the time. She had nearly gotten the requested amount when she suddenly heard a slightly muffled shout, and she turned towards it just in time to recognize that she was next to Emily and her roommates room as the door was flung open. Kyoto instinctively looked up just in time to see the flash of orange that indicated that it was McKenzie who was the source of the shout, before the girl in a rush exited the door and turned in her direction. Suddenly faced with an oncoming shoe in a momentary panic Kyoto activated the Safety Capsule just in the nick of time.
The yellow orb expanded outwards as intended, and the impact of the sole of McKenzie’s shoe upon it made it flex but not break as it was designed to do. However this had the unfortunate side effect of being a round object underneath a foot that was seeking a stable landing, and so both Kyoto and McKenzie suffered for it as the schoolgirl found herself falling over and the mech was sent rolling inside the shelter as it slipped out from under the foot. For the next few seconds McKenzie finished falling down, her bag opening and dropping several of its items on the floor, and the Safety Capsule rolled into a wall and ricocheted back, ending up stopping somewhat abruptly as it ran into a pile of dropped fabric. Not knowing what had exactly happened and assuming that she had just slipped on the floor in her haste, McKenzie mindlessly gathered everything back up into her bag and resumed running.
Kyoto had not expected the sudden extreme movements of rolling on the floor, and so had been unable to brace herself before she was sent bouncing around the interior of the capsule. Thankfully that same elastic resilience that protected the outside also affected the interior, and everything else was firmly attached or strapped down so the only thing bouncing around was Kyoto, and even then little real damage was done to her. Unfortunately she was briefly rendered dizzy and stunned by the event, and so was unable to react before McKenzie swept everything including the capsule into her bag. Left in the dark and amid the clutter Kyoto elected to keep the capsule active for now, as she couldn’t see what if anything might be being held up by the capsule or what was beneath her and so dismissing it prematurely might lead to trouble. She recalled seeing at the very least a very large, very full water bottle, and that was something she wanted to be very sure of the location of before she did anything else.
Several mildly bumpy minutes later Kyoto heard the sounds of some other voices nearby, muffled to illegibility due to the distance and fabric around her. She was able to more clearly make out McKenzie nearby saying “Sorry that I was late, I lost track of time. My bad” before there was a sudden dropping sensation followed by a solid thump as the bag was dropped. Then there was light coming from above as the bag was zippered open, and the face and hands of McKenzie reaching down to rummage around the bags interior grabbing something large. She then began to withdraw it, making more items in the bag shift as it pushed them out of the way and let them settle back down.
That would have been fine, but then McKenzie’s other hand not holding the slightly thin, oblong object reached down and wrapped around the Safety Capsule and began to remove it from the bag as well. Kyoto had clearly seen that McKenzie was not confused or interested before her palm covered the top of the sphere, instead seeming to be fully expecting the yellow orb to be present, which just left the tiny girl more confused. As McKenzie finished pulling the yellow orb out and began to quickly walk with it at her side, Kyoto had a few moments to look around past her fingers to take in some sights. They were outside on some sort of smooth field, and there were other girls around wearing mostly white. A glance back at McKenzie showed that she was also in white, something that Kyoto had missed before in the brief time she had seen her. A few more seconds of observation had it coming to Kyoto, this was the tennis courts, so McKenzie was just going…to…practice…!
In great alarm Kyoto jumped up and scrambled for the release orb, but it was too late. McKenzie stopped moving as she got into position on one of the courts, entering a ready stance facing the net and her teammate/opponent standing on the opposite side, equally ready. As was her habit McKenzie firmly tossed down the “ball” in her hand, and it hit the ground where it flexed slightly before rebounding back into shape, naturally bouncing back up towards her hand. This process repeated two more times, Kyoto inside being also bounced off the “floor” and “ceiling,” the release orb flying out of her hand on the first impact and half rolling half bouncing around the interior as well.
Her pre-game ritual to get used to the bounciness of the yellow “tennis ball” ready, McKenzie tossed it lightly up into the air before rapidly swinging her racquet to intercept it on the way back down in a skilled serve. Upon impact the sphere was sent flying across the court, spinning and bouncing as it landed on the other side where it was intercepted by the other girl, her own racquet sending it right back on a new spinning and bouncing trajectory.
Naturally this was a little slice of hell for Kyoto, as she was spun, bounced and generally tossed around the inside of the Safety Capsule like a leaf in a tornado. It was soon discovered if robots like her could be made to vomit, and the answer was no, but the wild and rapid shifts in her gyroscopic data mixed with minor impact reports created enough junk data and strain on her systems that she sort of wished that she could. Hellion was equally not as lucky but in a different way, as his chair in the command centre of Kyoto’s head was strapped down tightly enough that he stayed in place in it. This was of little comfort however as he COULD get sick and did so, very soon coating just about every surface including himself in it.
Furthermore while everything was securely fastened inside of the capsule so it was not swirling around with Kyoto like shrapnel, that did not prevent her from being smacked into them, adding further pains to the situation. Finally, there was still one other loose object in the interior of the sphere, the release orb itself, and while it was just as slightly squishy as everything else that still meant it was effectively a tennis ball hitting Kyoto all over. The girl could not even hope to grab hold of it to release herself, damn the other consequences, as it moved too fast and erratically to track, much less catch. Even the all too brief periods of relative calm when the “ball” flew out of bounds or into the net for points had it annoyingly get caught somewhere or another, so even if Kyoto could recover quickly there wasn’t enough time to grab it before the game started again.
An hour and a half later McKenzie and her opponent finally took a break, their best of three set ending in victory for McKenzie. The orange haired girl took hold of the ball and walked over to the side of the court, where she idly tossed it into her bag as she grabbed a bottle of water and towel. Drinking it slowly to avoid cramps the girl then reached back towards the ball, only to not find it at first. A few seconds further groping around her bag she found it, or perhaps one of the others she had brought, and took it back out. Briefly she looked at it as something had been bothering her about it before, something like there not being as many white stripes as she remembered and it feeling weird. However on closer examination it looked like any old tennis ball in her hand, so she shrugged it off and began to wipe herself down.
Inside of the bag a very tired and thoroughly beaten Kyoto groaned and panted as she lay down, her pilot and herself glad that it seemed to be over. Mercifully as she was dropped into the bag the release orb FINALLY rolled to a stop next to her, and wasting no time while McKenzie was drinking she had grabbed it and all but shouted “exit Safety Capsule!” The yellow globe then vanished, and she was left alone as the tennis player reached around in the bag and grabbed an actual tennis ball. In the end the small girl jet let out another pained groan, before saying “Ugg, so mark this one down as another problematic solution. At least the worst is behind me.”
Naturally as she finished saying that McKenzie finished wiping herself down with the sweat towel, and tossed it back into the bag where the moist fabric landed on top of her, engulfing her like a parachute. If nothing else it would serve as a very firm reminder to keep her mouth shut, for multiple reasons. Inside Hellion was silently glad that at least he was only getting sight and sound, as well as orientation from the mech, as what had just happened was nasty. Silently of course, because he was smart enough to not say it out loud where Kyoto could hear. Unfortunately for him, he also discovered that the air filtration had its limits, as the unpleasant odour invaded even this sanctum. Hellion had to fight back his coughs, even as he doubled his efforts to try and guide Kyoto out from under the rag.
Eventually after a few minutes the girl managed to extricate herself out from under the moist cloth, which ended up being not a moment too soon as McKenzie then reached down and picked it up again, threatening to bring Kyoto along with it. Even as the small girl did so however, the danger did not pass as the orange haired tennis player dropped her mostly empty water bottle into the bag, and Kyoto was forced to run like Indiana Jones to avoid the crushing weight of the rolling cylinder. At the last moment she was able to get close enough to the top of the bottle that the narrowing mouth made it so that it passed her cleanly by.
With things calmed down again Kyoto took a moment to pant a little bit and catch her breath, trying to ignore the slightly stale smells all around her coming from the bag. Before when she had been in the sphere the air had been clear and everything going on out here was blocked out, but now the girl was receiving all of the lingering smells from months of an active girl who believed in making sure her clothes and uniforms were washed but bags carrying them between said washings not so much. At least the zipper was still wide open, so there was still some general hints of clean air, with occasional bursts of even fresher stirring things up from breezes and things moving overhead.
Sadly this state of affairs was not to last, as practice was indeed over now and McKenzie was just finishing off the last of her cool down stretches. She was liable to feel some of this tomorrow since she had not gotten the chance to limber up before hand, but that was the price she paid for nearly forgetting in the first place. Once it was time to hit the showers the girl briefly considered just going to her dorm room, but decided that the ones near the tennis courts were good enough. Plus it would let her change quicker. She tossed her racquet and sweat towel into the bag but did not bother to close it again, as the locker and shower rooms were just a hop and a skip away anyway.
For Kyoto she had to deal with the sudden return of the two objects to the bag, the cloth thankfully landing further away but the racquet landing closer simply due to its raw size compared to her. Its face alone was bigger than a tennis court to her, so there was plenty of real estate to avoid. She managed it well enough, but then came the lifting of the bag and the wild ride of McKenzie walking. Some of Kyoto's fears from before and why she had kept the capsule up were coming to pass, as the wall of the tennis racquets handle swept across the surface she was walking on, and that was followed closely behind by the water bottle tumbling over from where it had been resting.
Mercifully all too soon the minor admin felt things calm as McKenzie dropped the bag again, but that mercy only lingered long enough for Kyoto to fully regain her footing and start to try and come up with a plan before ramming full speed into the wildcard factor that was McKenzie. When she arrived in the change room the girl had wasted no time in starting to strip, and once she was done she reached down into her bag to pull out her showering towel. Seeing that it was at the bottom she decided to go the extra mile, and pulled out not just the towel but also her school uniform she had in there as well. This caused a massive shift in the bag, and Kyoto found herself falling down right to the bottom of the bag as the ground was literally ripped out from underneath her.
Even then the girl might have recovered, if not for McKenzie noting that she really had everything out of the bag that she needed, and the towel she was using to shower with was a school one that got washed twice a week for free. As such rather than leave everything scattered around the girl elected to simply load up her bag now. Before Kyoto could get up the relative giantess rained down her sports gear and everything else she wasn't going to be walking out wearing into the bag. Socks, undergarments upper and lower, and white Tennis Uniform all cascaded over top of the brown haired tiny girl, and then to make sure it all fit McKenzie stuffed them all in roughly, sandwiching the girl in between the layers. Finally she zipped it all closed, and walked off to take her post-game shower.
Kyoto was not having a good time at all, but was making promises to herself about what she was going to do once she got out. It only took a couple of minutes however before it occurred to the girl that now that everything was packed away in her bag, there was no reason for the girl to actually OPEN the bug until such time as she did her usual laundry on Saturday. It was just a real shame that today was only Thursday...