estoria | Candroid wrangling [Open]

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Candroid wrangling [Open]

Who: Eiji (

powertotearer, some little robots, and you!
When: IC 7/26
Where: Around the residential district
What: Little robot octopi don't like CYbuddies. Eiji tries to keep them under control
Rating/Warning: None

Eiji discovered something the past couple of weeks--the Tako candroids really didn't like the CYbuddies.

He couldn't figure out why, since after all, they were both small animal robots, but the problem had gotten worse after CERES kindly delivered broken fox CYbuddies to his and Ankh's apartment. Now, they were a threat.

Put simply, the candroids were jealous. And it was war.

So on an otherwise peaceful day, you might see three robot octopi chasing after various CYbuddies in the park or on the sky bridges while Eiji chased after them, with a little robot hawk trying to cut them off before they annoyed another neighbor.

"Takos, stop! Leave them alone!"

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On said otherwise peaceful day, a certain eight-year-old was mostly minding her own business when she heard a shout that startled her. And a sight that...

Okay, it wasn't the strangest thing she'd ever seen in her young life, but it almost certainly ranked in the top ten.

A small giggle escaped her nevertheless, and she rose a hand to her mouth in vain attempt to muffle the sound.

"They're awful loud," Tailmon commented beside her.

"They're probably just having fun. Playing tag or something." Though, when she looked up and saw how...enthusiastic the game was looking, her smile wavered. "I hope nobody gets hurt."

Nobody got hurt, at least, but when Eiji stepped in to protect someone's pet dragon, a spray of ink got right in his face.

"Are you kidding me?"

The Takos, in response, tried to hide behind one another, clearly trying to pin the blame on each other while Eiji wiped his face clean and Taka screeched at them.

Her jaw dropped. Oh...dear...

Glancing quickly around, Hikari realized she had no other option, so she reached up and undid the handkerchief around her neck. She held it out, tentative, as if nervous it wouldn't be accepted.

"Here. For your face."

"Huh?" And there was a little girl handing him her handkerchief, and he felt oddly guilty.

"Are you sure? It's really going to get dirty."

After spending enough time at the zoo watching the differences between real birds and fake ones, and having heard enough about CERES and how they monitor everything, Ankh wasn't the most fond of CYbuddies, either. He also was much more likely than Eiji to find something like tiny metal octopi harassing other robots funny, so of course he wasn't going to join in the effort to stop them. He was too busy sitting off to the side and laughing at the dog that wouldn't stop yapping at them, and had one of the Takos wrap itself around its snout.

Of course, that meant Eiji had to try to unwrap Tako from the dog, which was not going well, especially with an alien woman screaming at him.

"I'm really sorry, they don't usually act like this."

Followed by a glare in Ankh's direction--this was not helping. At all.

Oh, sorry, was he supposed to be helping? He was pretty sure this was entertainment.

"Serves it right, anyway." That dog was much less annoying with an octopus over its mouth. He didn't really care that the dog's owner would be glaring at him, too, then.

Eiji had to bow in response, muttering, "Unfortunately, this is normal for him."

He finally did get Tako free and pulled him away toward Ankh, all while the woman insisted she would lodge a complaint. He just did everything he could to ignore her before confronting both Ankh and his candroid.

"I can't believe you guys."

The offending Tako immediately wiggled out of Eiji's hand and went to hide behind Ankh, knowing perfectly well which of them was on its side. Ankh glanced at it briefly over his shoulder, then turned back to Eiji.

"I don't know why anyone here keeps those CYbuddies to begin with. It's not like they're useful for anything."

"It's okay. I don't mind."

And even if she did...handkerchiefs could be cleaned. At worst, replaced. It was only a piece of pink fabric.

In the opinion of the glowing blue butterfly, those CYbuddies were annoying too. Which meant that it also does try to harass the robots, but unlike the candroids, the little glowy butterfly wasn't effective enough to do anything but chime and glow at the CYbuddies. It was distracting, but it didn't hurt anything so the CYbuddies around its neighborhood had gotten to ignore it.

But now that it had help in the form of those Takos, it was going to cheer - err, chime - them on and try to sort of get in the way of the human trying to stop them. That meant Eiji was going to have a pretty glowing blue butterfly appear in his face and, if given enough time, settle right on his nose.

"Because they're pets, Ankh." Eiji's long-suffering sigh was accentuated with a brief eyeroll. "It's not always a matter of something being useful--sometimes, you want something around because you like it."

He smiled. "Thank you. I'll make sure to wash it for you."

Once he was done wiping the ink from his face, he looked over at the sheepish Takos (who were still sniping at each other a little when he wasn't looking).

"You guys owe her an apology."

They balked for a moment, but he gave them a stern look until they finally floated over toward Hikari, bowing slightly.

The butterfly did indeed land on his nose, just as he was starting to get a handle on the Takos. And he had enough experience with cute, mischievous creatures to know what this meant.

"Not you too!"

The Takos took advantage of his distraction to fly around and start harrassing the CYbuddies again. Thank you, compatriot!

"Tch." Leave it to Eiji to get sentimental about robots. "If they're alive, that's one thing. These things just look like pets." His experiences at the zoo have proved that much. The CYbuddy birds are completely indifferent to him where the real ones won't leave him alone. There's clearly a difference.

Besides, robots built by CERES just seem like a bad thing to keep too close. "Anyway, I don't trust them."

"The candroids?" And leave it to Eiji to sound even more judgmental.

"You don't have to trust something to treat it with some respect. The owners, at least."

He just gave Eiji an incredulous look back. The candroids were made to be useful, Eiji. Not to be pets that were probably spies. That was the difference. If they hadn't been worth it as tools, he wouldn't have liked giving Kougami the extra eyes, either. As for the rest, since when has Ankh been respectful to anyone?

They were adorable, Ankh, and that was enough for Eiji.

"Then maybe worry about the neighbors? Because if they're going to raise a stink about this, then we could end up in trouble."

At least he still had some logic that made sense.

He rolled his eyes, though he couldn't deny the logic in that part. Still...

"It's not like they did any permanent damage." The candroids might be annoying the neighbors, but things could definitely be worse.

"I know, but..."

It was frustrating, and it was hard to put that into words. Eiji wasn't one to go looking for peace and quiet, but he did prefer getting along with people more than anything else.

And a darker part of his mind, one he desperately kept trying to shut up, whispered that it might not be safe for them if they attracted too much attention--CERES couldn't be trusted, after all, and if too many people complained to them about Eiji and Ankh...

He rubbed at his hand for a moment before admitting, "I just don't want this getting blown up into anything worse than it has to be. Remember what happened with the chairman of the neighborhood board?"

Hikari's brows rose slightly as the little creatures came over to her and bowed, not having expected that. A moment later, however, she clasped her hands in front of her and offered a slight bow in return, acknowledging their apology.

At her side, Tailmon watched the girl's actions before she, too, placed her paws in front of her and bowed.

"It's alright. I promise you didn't scare me any." Thinking that was the main issue. "Are you two CyBuddies?"

The butterfly chimed back at Eiji, flapping its wings and shedding little tiny bits of glitter all over the place. It's quite clear that it seems rather pleased with itself, which meant that the Takos should get in trouble as much as they can while it was doing its thing. Sorry Eiji, it looks like you're getting covered with glitter as well as being used as a butterfly perch.

That just delighted the Takos, and they circled around her and Tailmon for a minute. Even Eiji couldn't stay mad at them for long.

"Ah, no, they're called candroids. They're from my world. There's a lot of different versions, but these are the only ones my friend and I have with us."

The glitter ended up all over his face before he had to raise his hands to block it--he didn't want to hurt the butterfly, after all, but he had to try to keep the stuff off him.

"Come on, really? Does Jin even know where you are?"

It is a free-thinking bit of a spell and calls no one its master - at least that was what it was trying to say as it chimed. Of course, that gave Jinga more then a chance to reach over and pluck the butterfly off of Eiji's nose and sigh dramatically, because really. The blasted thing was being much too annoying by half lately.

"Apologies, it seems to have gotten bratty these past few days." There's a series of loud chimes - if they were words, no doubt they would be swears about how dare Jinga get in the way of fun. "The glitter is harmless and will disappear soon."

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Candroid wrangling [Open]

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