trans_9 | Today, I'm Will [Open]

Being unable to sleep, to put it in layman's terms, sucked. Unlike her parents, Sherry wasn't used to not being able to sleep peacefully, and found herself waking up frequently, clutching whatever was available - the pillow, Claire, Bandit. It was making her cranky, and she could hear herself making snippy remarks in the back of her mind about anything and everything.

Tiredly, she pushed her hair out of her face (it was getting too, too long, time to ask her mother for a haircut) and rolled her shoulders as she stepped into the sensoriums, a hand rustling through the leather bag to reach for her reader. Sherry knew she was supposed to be studying. After all, that's how she spent 90% of her time on the ship when not with the other kidlets.

The scene around her warbled and changed, while Sherry put her bag on a chair and stepped up onto a little pedestal. Not Raccoon City today, or some nameless park in some place somewhere, but the science deck of the Jupiter II from the Lost in Space movie. Technically this was studying, and training, too? Right?

The red and blue hologram of Robot settled over her little body. On a screen, the silicon-based cannibalistic spiders slowly chewed their way through a steel door. "Heart Rate Monitor on, please. Stop it when I get too scared," Sherry told the machine. She flexed her fingers a few times, testing out the claws as the large metal robot on another screen wheeled into view. The claws clanked together and when she leaned forward, Robot moved forward the door. Sherry opened her hands and pushed them forward one at a time, pumping the air and firing shots at the spiders as they came through the hole. Many of the shots went wide, but as she got used to it, they slowly started getting better.

The little girl smiled. ~~Pew pew pew!~~

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Shooting noises are one of the things that has a tendency to draw Vega's attention and, along with his attention, Vega. It's kind of worrisome what this might say about his survival instincts.

Unlike Sherry, he has no qualms in the slightest about not studying. And the Berserk Fury, despite how awesome it is, really doesn't make for good conversation or games or anything fun when he can't go battle things with it.

"Hi Sherry, what's up?"

Vega, just because you like holding a full conversation and playing a sim at the same time doesn't make it polite to do it to other people.

One of these days, Vega, she's going to handcuff you to her and make you study.

Sherry glanced over at her friend and kept pushing her hands forward. ~~Pew! Pewpewpew!~~ The spiders scrabbled and flooded through the doors, but the ones that she didn't manage to miss exploded into blue glop. "Hi Vega. Killing spiders from a movie," she explained absently.

She rocked back on her heels, tilting her body left and right and Robot weaved backwards as she continued to try and shoot. So far, it looked like the spiders were going to win. "What about you?"

Vega watches the screen with clear interest. A swarm! His eyes pick out key points out of habit, mapping them in his head to the Fury's scale and, without really thinking about it, planning how he'd fight something like that.

"Oh, I'm just bored," he says. He's not going to mention his homework, Sherry's the type to try to make him actually go do it. Ick.

Because she wants you to be smarter than a toaster, Vega.

"You're not tired?" Sherry asked and ran over a group of the spiders. The hologram can do a lot of things... she's just glad she can't feel the squishing under her feet. "I haven't been able to sleep at all." And judging by her tone, even the most oblivious person can see that it annoys her.

"...A little," he concedes. Not that Vega will admit to being afraid of the nightmares. That would make him a scaredy cat and he'd hate that.

"I'm not too scared to sleep."

At least some of the time. The rest of it's spent hugging his knees in the Fury's cockpit.

He's been seeing some really disturbing things in his sleep, but he wants to be tough and not need anybody.

"I am." Sherry admitted. "I don't like thinking about some of the stuff that I dream of, so I don't sleep. And when I do sleep..." A spider jumped at Sherry and was splattered against the walls of the ship, "I just end up screaming or crying and scaring my mom."

Sherry sighed, and suddenly felt older than her 12 years. She wondered if that were possible. "I don't like it, and I want it to stop." Suddenly, Robot was besieged by spiders and they crawled up against the hologram, Sherry screeched a little and tried bashing them off her. Unfortunately, the spiders won, and Robot's facade faded from around Sherry. "Darn, I was hoping I'd do better than Will Robinson." She hopped off the pedestal and nodded toward it.

"Do you want to try?"

"What can we do to stop it though?" says Vega. He'd like to fight, but... this isn't the kind of fight he's used to. Even with the zombies there was some physical, real threat he could shoot at. This is even stranger, because even now that he has his Zoid there's nothing he can do with it to help. Besides stomp all over things and fire a charged particle cannon, which would probably just make things worse.

"And sure," he says, wondering who Will Robinson is.

Sherry took a seat on her chair and held her bag to her chest, "I don't know. It's not even something we can throw books at. Unless, you know, one of us can dream up a giant eraser to erase our fears, and crush them with a giant chemistry book." Which would be silly, but useful.

She kicked her feet a little. "The nightmares are stupid and I hate them."

Vega starts up his own round of the simulation. He's always been worst with swarms, really. There are a lot of little things to focus on at once and all of them try to sneak around his attention, and he can only be watching so much at a time. Any practice is good practice.

"I don't think throwing books at monsters would help much, either," he agrees. "It'd probably just make them madder."

He's a bit literal, Sherry.

"But I hate them too. I hope the adults fix it soon. They keep saying they will but I'm starting to wonder if they really are."

Adults are soooo slooooow when they should be doing things right now.

"I don't know either, and it's pretty scary to think about." Sherry sighed and watched Vega play. "Do you think there's something we can do? I mean, I know Roxie's working on things, and she'll probably figure it out in time, but... I don't want her to overwork herself. Or get hurt."

She looked at the monitor again and pointed to the left. "There's a big one coming in."

"Thanks." Vega focuses a bit more to the left to get rid of the bigger spider, but unfortunately that's going to let some of the small ones in on his right.

"I just don't know. I wish I did. Maybe we could ask Roxie if she needs our help?"

"We could. I wonder if she'd accept it, though. We're not..." Sherry waved a hand, "Magical or anything. Well. Maybe Yuri's Borg is, but..." She kicked her feet a little more.

"I guess it wouldn't hurt to ask her." But if Roxie were anything like Sherry (and the little girl strongly suspected it was so), then she probably didn't want to be interrupted while she was doing something. Still, they were friends, and thus, Sherry was obligated to help her in whatever capacity she needed to. Even if it was just to tell her to take a freaking break.

"Then we'll do that," Vega says decisively, as if it's that simple. "When I'm done, let's go find her."

The game's starting to pick up the difficulty, or perhaps it's just Vega willing it to be harder. He wants to be challenged, it's rare that he is in something like this so he enjoys it whenever he can. He's actually starting to have to concentrate to keep the spiders back.

Sherry nodded, with a heavy sigh, "Okay, we'll do that." It sounded easy enough when he said it. "But if she turns you into, I don't know, a toad or something? I'm running away." She settled back in her chair.

"And they're crawling up your back, Vega."

"If she turns me into a toad I'll- What?!"

Oh man they're on him? Ack, she's right! FLAILING TIME IS NOW!

"Whoah!"

Vega jumps around, trying to figure out how to get something off of him that he can't shoot. Oh crap oh crap oh crap, now there are more! He makes a valiant effort to fend off the rest of the swarm, but they rapidly overwhelm him.

He shakes off the hologram finally, scowling at his lost game. Rats. Ah well, it was fun.

He looks back to Sherry. "They're sneaky!" he laughs, already rebounding. He can mess with that sim more later. Or maybe make a different one, who knows?

"So we're gonna go find Roxie now?"

Today, I'm Will [Open]

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