fandomhigh | Fandom High Graduation Ceremony, Class of 2012, Early Saturday Evening (Part 2)

Were you all enjoying your graduation, children? Ingvar certainly hoped you were. It was so much fun, after all! Though... it could be a little more fun, couldn't it? It felt as if something was missing somehow. Something to really make it... fun.

Ingvar knew what it was.

And so, while the graduates were still on and around the stage, the earth began to rumble. Large black clouds of smoke pushed out of Ingvar's volcano and into the air, obscuring the sky and the moon. Soon, the air was covered in a thick black blanket of darkness.

The tune of the rumbling shifted.

Around the stage, clear protective walls sprung up. This was not Fandom's first tango on graduation day, thank you. She knew how to take care of what was hers.

Unfortunately, Ingvar knew its mother well. Moments later, it began to rain: a thick downpour of familiar plastic poppets in varying levels of creepiness, but also nice, brown, fluffy ...red-eyed, sharp-clawed teddy bears. And leading the charge, teeth-first--

"DROP BEARS!"

[OCD is up! Have at it! Audience | Grads: Fight! | Grads: Hide! | Aftermath | OOC 1 | OOC 2]

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Jono was going to go out on a limb, here. He hadn't met General Caraway before, but he had noticed that he'd been speaking with Laguna earlier, and there was a family resemblance at play here.

"She's fine," he said, calmly, as he stepped up beside the man. "She's got Squall with her, and she's a force to be reckoned with on her own, mate."

"My daughter is in there," General Caraway seethed. A moment later, he noticed that the newcomer was not anyone he knew, or had ever seen before, and yet seemingly knew who he was.

"I do not know who you are or why you are speaking to me, but I do not approve of being dragged here and forced to watch while my daughter is thrown into a cell and attacked by demented beasts."

It was as if you could measure how frightened he was by how acidic his words tasted.

Yeah, it wasn't like Jono hadn't heard that tone before. Not even the first time it had been directed at him.

"Well, you'll have to take that up with the island across the water there, won't you? It isn't as though the Administration plans these things, though they certainly do their best to plan for them. Last year, when I graduated here, it was Vikings." A pause. "I'm one of Rinoa's friends. And trust me, I've seen what she's capable of, and what most of the young men and women in there can do, for that matter. Have a little faith in your daughter, sir."

Have faith? Every time he turned his back, his daughter ran off and did her utmost to get herself killed. She ran into occupied Timber, took up with SeeDs, became a Sorceress -- he had half a mind to think she did these things just to spite him.

If he could wrap her in cotton and keep her on a shelf, he would. Or at least surround her with bodyguards and guard dogs. Would she never think of her own safety?

"If my daughter is ... harmed," he said, although that wasn't the word he meant, but that word, he couldn't bring himself to say, "then I shall go home, and fetch an army. I will return here, and find this Administration, and kill every last one of them."

There was no vigor behind it. It was less bravado and more ... an empty shell.

General Caraway had very little left. Much of it was inside a clear plastic wall, fighting drop bears.

"And your army wouldn't survive to tell the tale," Jono replied, still perfectly calm. Still perfectly casual. "Your daughter and her friends have saved your world several times, now. Against sorceresses with the power to rip time itself apart. Why in the world would they have any trouble against a handful of teddy bears? Be reasonable, man. When Rinoa talks about you, I get the impression that you've got a cooler, more calculating head about you. Please, don't prove her wrong."

General Caraway stared at the boy (who, it seemed, was an alarming shade of grayish blue; he was going to file that) for several seconds, trying to either intimidate him into submission or think of a more cutting rebuttal.

Unfortunately, the more pragmatic side of him was increasingly convinced that the boy was in the right, as loath as he was to admit it.

Finally, he sighed. When he spoke, it was towards the wall again.

"She's wrong," he said. "I have little pragmatism left in me."

Galbadia was still in ruins, and his daughter made it a practice to have play dates with death. It was a wonder he slept.

"You're speaking of Ultimecia," he continued. "The rumors suggested that there were off-worlders lending assistance with that. Were you involved?"

"With that, and with the death of Adel," Jono replied, crossing his arms over his chest. "I don't have another fight like those left in me, but the blast that took out that... large flying... monstrosity of a weapon, that was my doing."

So, yes. Yes he had been involved.

"Jonothon Starsmore. My mates know me as Jono, though. You might or might not have heard that one before, I've got no bloody clue."

Jono did, in fact, seem to ring bells. The paperwork his daughter had mentioned, perhaps? Or maybe it had been in connection to the events the boy had just claimed participation in. Perhaps even both.

He straightened, slightly. "I owe you a debt I cannot repay," he said, "as do many in my world, though few may ever realize it."

It was stiff, but General Caraway was stiff. He had spent his life in the military, but it ran deeper than that. Only Julia had known how to soften him around the edges, and she'd been gone for a very long time.

Jono could handle stiff, too. Most of the people he'd worked with in both the X-Men and Weapon X (loathe as he was to think too hard about Weapon X) had been so stiff, Jono had wondered how they'd managed to make room for the broomstick.

"I have enough of my own debts to repay," he noted, evenly. "This only begins to balance it out a little."

If Jono didn't watch out, he was going to get a big hug and a hearty thump on the back. "Oh, hey! Good to see you again! You've got the whole..." Laguna gestured vaguely at his own face. "...It looks good on you. How've you been?"

Oh dear god it was hugging him.

"I've been worse," Jono replied, shrugging his shoulders a little as he attempted to writhe free. He was still not the hugging sort. Not really, anyhow. "Keeping busy, really. And... yourself?"

He was being civil! See him be civil?

CIVILITY.

Oh. Not the hugging sort. Right.

Laguna should have figured Squall would find people like himself to hang out with. He let go gingerly, but kept smiling at Jono. "I've been better, I've been worse. Haven't been burned to the ground by this warhorse" -- he jerked a thumb at Caraway -- "so that's something, right? AND, more importantly, I haven't had to deal with any floating doom-towers lately. Good job, there, kid."

"Yes, well... I like to do a job thoroughly when I do it," Jono noted, only a little awkwardly. "Especially when it's all-or-nothing like that particular situation was."

What with Adel sucking Rinoa's power out of her like a living battery, and all.

"You have any more problems with floating doom towers in the future, and..." Well, Jono wasn't going to do that over again. Ever. "... I'll see if we can't figure something else out."

Fandom High Graduation Ceremony, Class of 2012, Early Saturday Evening (Part 2)

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