[b][i]AAcademy - Collab between [@Gisk] and [@Letter Bee][/i][/b]

Ken Illustrious Ikari was of the same age as the students he had under his wing, although very few people knew that. The diplomas - Actual paper ones as well as digital copies - pinned on wooden frames behind his chair, on the wall of his office, showed that he had the intellect to manage an Academy of his own, however. Well, technically.

Facing Hally, the young man - Barely out of boyhood - spoke to the would-be Edgerunner, "I won't beat around the bush; I bought Arasaka Academy's name, changed it to AAcademy, and now Arasaka is sending the Tyger Claws to mess with me and my students. No one has died yet, no one has gotten injured yet, but it's only a matter of time unless someone scares them off. That's where you come in; I need you to chase the Claws roaming around AAcademy grounds, beat up a few, but make sure they are scared, not dead. Can you do that?"

Hally stood when he approached, and almost made to shake his hand out of habit. She aborted the motion, and instead ran a nervous hand up the zipper of her jacket. 

"From what I've heard, you should be happy they didn't send lawyers. Guess the climate ain't right for them at present. This is a little out of Claw stomping grounds, isn't it?" The barest thread of anxiety, as if she might betray unforgivable ignorance.

Ken gave Hally a half-glare at the allegation as he said, "I changed the name enough to avoid a watertight copyright case for them. As for this not being the usual Tyger stomping grounds... You'd be surprised; as a last gesture of spite, 'Saka fed those pricks enough to expand once more and wreak havoc."

He then mused, "So we need some of those pricks beaten. Not dead, beaten. If we kill them, they might descend on this Academy and my students in droves, and I do not want that..." 

So she was gonna rough up some punks that were bothering school children... Big league job, that. When Hally thought of her last conversation with Wakako, though, she started to feel a lot like a beggar trying to choose. Still, if she could distinguish herself, that was street cred in the pocket. Something, anyway. 

She tapped a manicured nail against the pommel of the sword in her grasp, thinking as she re-applied herself to the task. "Okay. Do we know a [i]specific[/i] gangoon that causes the trouble? A head we can cut off the snake?" That was a cool fucking line, right? Then she ruined it, "Uh, so to speak. No, y'know, [i]cutting[/i]."

"Not yet, sadly, but the Claws have been stalking the main approaches to the AAcademy building and grounds, robbing students, mugging them, and otherwise giving them a hard time - It's only a matter of time before someone gets killed."

"They like to pick on students who are alone?" She asked, thinking back to her own time in school. It wasn't Tyger Claws back then, just some older, richer girls. But that was how bullying was done, wasn't it?

"You got a uniform in my size?"

Ken smiled and said, "We do, actually. My policy towards uniforms is to pay for ruined ones personally when the student actually wants to study here..."

An indication of his sincerity and more than a little naivete. The two walked to a supply room. They found a fitting uniform, and Hally was given an unused room as a base of operations, and left to it. She didn’t have much in the way of operations that needed basing, but she left the clothes and her sword there for a few hours while she ran out and bought a more discrete weapon. 

She got back in plenty of time, and got dressed in the AAcademy uniform. Looking at herself in the mirror was odd, she’d worn a very similar uniform for years, and truthfully had never had much of an opinion of it. Now it made her think of an old action flick. Cheerleader Panic, where a school girl went berserk(fan theories even insisted cyberpsychosis) and carved up her whole class. Not one of Hally’s favorites, but she was warming up to the aesthetic. 

Hally pulled her hair loose, and redid it more carefully. A pair of space buns, straight bangs with face framing. She sent a command to her Agent that changed the color to a bright purple right before her eyes. Another mental command gave her glittering eye shadow and glossy pink lips. Was that trendy? Chipping in and moving out had distracted her pretty thoroughly from fashion for a few months. She hoped she looked enough like a teenager, but there was only so much she could do on the fly with tech hair and chem skin. 

The sword was too obvious, so she left it with her street clothes; and she had to wear her own sneakers, but that wasn’t too out of the ordinary for the student body. Hally gathered they were largely what her father would call “underprivileged,” and most others would simply call “broke.” What were the Claws even mugging off these poor kids? 

Hally made a point to be the first student out and walking down the street, ostensibly going home. If she hung back, she might have a better chance of fooling them. But then the thugs might harass some of the students first, and that’s exactly what she was trying to avoid. Being [i]paid[/i] to avoid, in fact. 

Tyger Claws actually aren’t all that hard to find, if you wanted to for some gonk reason. Hally already got from Mr. Ikari the streets that they were most commonly hanging out on, and from there she looked for the one that people were noticeably avoiding. Sure enough, a bunch of prototypical Claws were loitering in a stairwell that let off onto the sidewalk. Hally deliberately didn’t look at them any more than she had to. She put her eyes to the ground, angled slightly away and… 

They took the bait. 

She nearly ran into one of those big studded clubs they liked as it was thrust into her path to block her. The surprised look on her face was more real than she would ever admit, but of course she knew this would happen. There were two others flanking him, and one that Hally could just about feel leering behind her back. It would be fine. She had her own surprises. 

“Chips, pretty girl. No need to reach, Ai will get them.” 

The one behind came in closer, and Hally realized they must be a pick-socket. She couldn’t let them get her skill chips off of her, or she’d be useless in a fight. So she let the fight-soft kick in; a hand came up lightning quick and grabbed the club. The gangoon had a lax grip, trying to swagger as he was, and lost control of the weapon as Hally slammed it into his face. Blood flowed, and she yanked it out of his hand, spinning and dropping in a fluid motion. She jabbed the end of the club behind her, striking the pick-socket(a girl in athletic wear and a high pony) in the belly. She went down like a sack of potatoes.

Hally was standing again, and raising the club in a pre-programmed motion straight from a sword manual somewhere. But she held back. The gangoons were already cowering. The first guy was squatting on his heels, holding his face and sobbing, one of his chooms was backing away slowly, hands up and wide eyed, and the other was already gone. The girl behind her was whining like… well like a teenage girl who had just been jabbed in the gut by a cybernetically enhanced mercenary. And that’s exactly what she was, now that Hally stopped to examine the remaining “gangoons.” They couldn’t be any older than the kids they were mugging. Not a lick of chrome between them, either.

Hally pointed the commandeered weapon at the one who was still standing. He had a wispy mustache, and the kind of cheap wraparound mirrorshades you can get in a vending machine. He was still holding a knife, just a metal slab with an edge really, but he didn’t seem to even know he had it. 

“Drop it,” he did, “Just what are you gonk kids playing at?”

The boy stared at her for just a second, before realizing he was the only one available to answer, then he explained himself all in a rush, “They just said - We were just getting chips, cards and shards and stuff!” 

“[i]Who[/i] ‘just said’?” Hally took a menacing step forward, brandishing the club. She didn’t think she could really hit him now that she’d gotten a better look at him, but he didn’t need to know that.

The kid glanced to her right, and Hally turned around in time to see the blade coming down. Later on, Hally would look back on this moment and feel like a goddamned action hero. In the moment, however, she mostly felt the tanto slicing into her left shoulder. It had been meant for her throat, but her fight-soft had kicked in again, and the stolen greatclub had moved against her will to strike the man’s forearm. His slash went wide, and cut into first jacket, then shirt, then Hally. Blood flowed, but her arm still moved, and she used it to palm strike his chest, sending him stumbling back. 

He wasn’t some kid. This man was a Tyger Claw of the type Hally was used to seeing around Japantown. The type she saw people cross the street to avoid. Floppy neon green hair, a plasticky face plate with subdermal LEDs. A silk shirt and slacks, which was actually worrying. That was something someone in charge wore. 

“If it isn’t Papa Tyger,” Hally tried to sound cool while she could feel her heart rate skyrocketing. 

“[You may call me Daddy, if you like],” he spoke in Japanese, but her Agent translated it automatically. He was moving back toward her, holding the knife in front of him in a much more natural stance than the one Hally had adopted. 

“Ew,” was all Hally said as she pulled her brand new collapsible baton from her pocket with her free hand. In one motion, she drew it, extended it, and smashed his knife arm at the wrist. He was looking at her more obvious weapon, and Hally was glad she had this one in reserve. His hand bent at a weird angle, and the fingers twitched oddly, but he just looked at it in mild surprise. She had broken chrome, not bone. There was an ominous ripping sound as the left sleeve of his nice shirt tore open, revealing a mantis blade that was slowly, almost theatrically, unfolding from his arm. He looked at her with a curiosity that set alarm bells ringing in Hally’s head. 

Before he could take another dramatic step toward her, Hally triggered her Sandevistan. The world around her slowed, and Hally moved through it like a knife cutting the air, shoving the end of the club into his torso. He was no gonk kid, and Hally put more into the move than she had last time. She didn't stick around to see the effect, though. While her neurons were still burning on overdrive from the speedware, she turned and sprinted up the nearby stairs, fleeing on an upper pedestrian walkway.