Log:Double Trouble Students

2021/03/05 Radical|Dr. Connor Duran Grimm 1

When walking into this building the familiar scents of chemical compounds can be smelled immediately as they waif through the hallway. The hallway has a number of doors leading off into various labs and lecture rooms as well as faculty offices. The floors here are made of synthetic rubber tiles for easy maintenance, while the walls are painted with a glossy white coating. Florescent lighting illuminates the hallway and most of the rooms. The doors leading into each room are metal with a small mesh reinforced window set within most of them.

It's late afternoon and the last time slot for Connor's office hours when there's a knock at his door.

Connor looks up. "Come on in." When he sees that it's Grimm, he smiles. "Hey there. Serious about actually needing help with math, huh?"

Grimm steps in and closes the door behind her, smiling. Her smile quirks a bit. "Yeah...what did you think?" She's amused.

Connor shrugs and smiles. "I wasn't sure if you really were goign to ask for help. That's all. So...what do you need help with?"

Grimm smirks at that. "Now I'm curious what you expected me to come ask. Some tricky case or mystic question?" she says quietly as she walks away from the door and sits down, unslinging her messenger bag. "I'm really struggling with graphs. Sines, cosines, all that stuff," she says as she pulls out her trig book. She had to retake it after dropping out of his class.

Connor nods. "Okay. Have a specific question? Or should we cover the basics?"

"The, ah, basic laws? I kinda missed that class and had to play catchup, and I'm still not getting it," Grimm asks nicely. "I really appreciate you helping, even though I'm not your student anymore," she smiles.

Connor smiles. "I'm happy to help." He turns your book back to the appropriate chapter. "We'll talk about the unit circle first, and make sure you understand that. Then we'll cover how that translates to Sine and Cosine graphs."

Grimm nods and takes out her notebook and a pencil. She's got a determined look on her face and is focused. "Okay, sounds good." She thinks, anyway. He would know better than her.

Connor smiles. He then goes ahead and coveres the unit circle. (Circle with a radius of 1) He then starts to describe the triangles that are formed as you move the point around the circle. That translates to the Sine and Cosine graphs.

Grimm makes note. The basic circle, she understands, but when he explains the point moving around the circle and how it translates, he can see the light bulb switch on in her head by the look in her eyes.

From the corner of his eye, Connor can see some movement along the floor. A stretched dark shadow from beneath Grimm's chair is slipping out from under his door. Like Peter Pan, Grimm's shadow has detached itself and is snaking away along the ground.

Connor raises a brow. "Your shadow just left. What's up?"

Grimm scribbles notes and looks up curiously. "Huh?" The shadow just finishes slipping out under the door when she looks down at the floor to see she no longer casts a shadow. "Shick..."

Connor blinks. "Not intentional?"

"No..." Gabrielle says with some concern as she sits up. "I mean, it has a mind of its own sometimes. Maybe it hates math, too?" She's puzzled.

Connor nods. "Do you want to find out what it's up to before we continue?"

Grimm chews on her lower lip. "It really has the worst timing. Probably should make sure it's not up to mischief."

Connor nods. "Sounds good. This can wait."

Grimm nods and sets her pencil as a bookmark on her notepad. "Sorry about this," she apologizes.

Connor nods. "It's okay. Really." He gets up from behind his desk. "Not sure I'll be able to track it down, so we'll have to rely on you to find it."

Grimm nods as she shoulders her messenger bag. "I can sense its trail to follow it," she says.

Or one could just follow the source of a distant shriek.

Connor shakes his head, "I hope your shadow isn't a perv." He waits until Grimm is out of the office before he closes the door and locks it. "That way, I think." He heads toward the sound.

"I mean..." Grimm says and gives Connor a look. "I try not to think about it, or I'd shower fully clothed." She looks about for the trail, but his direction helps her catch the trail. "Right. Let's hope it didn't get into too much trouble," she says as they start heading that way.

The shriek leads them to the open stairs up to the chemistry labs. Grimm looks about, the shrieking having stopped for a moment. Suddenly, a beaker flies out of one of the labs and strikes the wall across from it. The beaker doesn't break, but it does make a loud sound to gain their attention.

Connor raises a brow, and pokes his head into the lab. "Everything okay?"

A lone student is cowering in the corner, completely bewildered. The room is in chaos. Supplies and beakers floating about. Bunsen burners on full blast. It's just one student, and the shadow standing before her and holding a hand out, palm up. While detached from Grimm, her shadow has become more general neutral and featureless, just the vague silhouette of a human.

Connor steps into the room, trying to calm the student. "It's okay. It's okay. We can deal with it." He motions to Grimm, to try to get her to do...wathever she needs to do.

Grimm looks at Connor and shrugs helplessly, then walks over to her shadow. "No. Bad! Come!" she scolds it like a dog, and its head turns her way. Its shoulders slump. If it had a tail, it would most assuredly have it tucked between its legs. It suddenly drops straight down to the ground, flattening out, which causes the student to shriek again and the lab equipment to fly and spin faster. The shadow zips across the floor and under Grimm, resolving back into her shadow.

Connor gives Grimm a thumb's up. He then looks to the student, "Are you okay now? Things should be calm now. Well...normal, at least."

Things aren't normal...in fact, the floating items are swirling about more violently. Grimm chews on the right side of her lower lip. "I...am starting to think my shadow wasn't doing this..."

Connor sighs. "Or not." He focuses, looking to see if there's magic involved with what is going on.

There is in fact no magical trace to what's going on. The female student presses further into the corner and sinks down to the ground, drawing her knees up to her chest. "Wh-why is this happening??"

A microscope caught in the swirl of floating items barrels toward Connor's head.

Connor is busy staring at the anomaly when it comes flying at him. He manages to barely duck in time. "I have no idea why this is happening. What were you working on in here?"

The microscope zooms past Connor and smashes into a wall, falling to the ground. "I-I was just doing a makeup lab for class and studying for midterms," the student stammers.

Connor looks to Grimm, "Can you sense anything?"

The student looks to Grimm. "Are you the one doing this? Why?"

Grimm looks around again, then shakes her head. "I'm not. And actually...no. No magic. Nothing supernatural or psychic...aside from the fact that these things are clearly--OW!" She gets beamed with a beaker just as she says that.

Connor points to her shadow, "Any chance she knows? She was in here for a reason."

Connor then says to the student, "What was your lab work on?"

Grimm rubs her head and scowls at the beaker that hit her. That actually hurt her a little. "It might, but communicating with it is limited. I'll try and commune with it." She ducks down a bit to avoid future bonkings and looks to her shadow.

The female student shakes her head. "I was just doing an experiment on evaporation and intermolecular attractions. Well, trying to...I wasn't able to figure it out and then things starting to fly around. Hey, that's my homework!" she cries out as she sees papers flying out the door.

Connor tries to grab the homework before it disappears out into the hallway.

The papers slip through Connor's fingers and go out the door, doing a loop as they go.

Connor sighs. They probably won't go too far. He chases them for a bit, seeing if they'll just continue, or if it's proximity to the room that matters.

They slow and speed up and move randomly. He's able to catch up for another try near the next lab room.

Connor reaches for them again as he closes in. It reminds him of chasing papers outside in the wind.

Connor grabs all the papers, one at a time. He stacks them up and glances at them as he returns to the lab to see if anything (figuratively) jumps out at him.

There's a thunk and another cry of complaint from Gabrielle. The items are swirling more hectically now, turning into a mini maelstrom. Grimm has ducked under a table for some cover briefly, rubbing her brow. She's going to have at least two lumps from this. The female student is still cowering. When Connor returns, the student looks relieved. "You saved my homework!" The objects in the room slow their momentum and become a bit more sedate.

Connor blinks as he sees the change, and he looks toward the student. "I think I know what's doing this."

Connor smiles. "You are. You relaxed and calmed down...and it slowed down. I know you don't believe me...but humor me. Focus on looking at me. And breathe deeply, trying to relax."

The student looks up at Connor. "What? That...it can't be. It's that creepy girl and her shadow, isn't it?" The items start to move faster a little, but the girl swallows thickly, nods, and focuses on Connor. She takes slow, deep breaths, and the items begin to slow again.

Connor smiles. "Good. Just like that. Keep breathing deeply. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Deep breaths."

The girl keeps doing it and finally the objects slow to a stop after several breaths...and then they all drop like rocks, leaving the room quite the mess. But at least it's not a hazard anymore.

Connor smiles. "You...are a telekinetic. I dont' know how or why...but that was you."

"A what? So...wow. That really was me?" she asks in disbelief.

Grimm finally climbs out from under her "bunker", rubbing her welts. "It definitely wasn't me...hey...I'm...I'm not--nevermind. Yeah, fine," she grumbles, unable to deny her creepiness.

Connor nods. "Yup. If it happens again...just breathe like I told you to. It'll calm down. You might have been freaked by the shadow. Or it was drawn here when you were freaking out over your work. Either way...that was the cause."

Connor hands the student her homework. "Here you go. I'm Dr. Duran. In the math department. If you end up needing to talk about this with someone, my door is open."

"I...I have powers! Awesome!" The girl says. She doesn't seem very superheroic at the moment. Glasses, a bit on the curvy side, but everyone starts somewhere. She finally pulls herself up to her feet and accepts her homework, looking so relieved as she hugs it to her chest. "Thank you, Dr. Duran. But, um." She looks at all the destruction in the room. "Am...am I going to lose my scholarship over this?"

Connor shrugs, "I don't know. Go ahead and report what happened. Maybe just state...what happened, not that we suspect you caused it. Perhaps the university will blame this on Dr. Fogg too, for all I know."

Grimm rubs her head. "Maybe we can even clean up some of this before you get in too much trouble. Or yeah, blame Dr. Fogg and his students," she chuckles.

Connor says, "Actually, I can put the report in if necessary. But yeah...let's clean up what we can, so we can take stock of what is damaged."

The student nods slowly at Connor's suggestion. "Okay. Thanks, Doctor. I'll do what you said."

Connor goes ahead and helps to clean up. He's familiar enough with the OSHA rules that he's not at a loss when dealing with various labels if necessary.

Grimm helps...in her own way. Several shadow goblins rises up from portals on the ground. Short, hairless, horribly looking little creatures that look akin to hairless bipedal french bulldogs. They scurry around tidying up. And get into mischief.