why choose a LESSER evil?

[heromedal]

WHO: Rex and anyone!
WHAT: Rex's idea of campaigning is 'everyone gets a rocket launcher', more or less.
WHEN: May in general
WHERE: The Quad
WARNINGS: SCIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENCE

Once Rex got his hands on €5,000 budget for campaigning, he nearly ran off into the woods, ready to live off canned food for a decade without making eye contact with anyone.

Instead, he set up a miniature example of the sort of thing he'd do regularly as Student Council President with ludicrous anime style authority.

A
So he's not allowed to use supernatural powers- but encouraging people to do the best with their own is fine. With help from fellow tech-heads and... spell-heads(?) following his designs, paid for their time, Rex has created a series of devices intended to let students get a better idea of their limits. Unveiled after a short (and kinda boring) speech knowing what you can do will save your life that has a few anecdotes about asking people about their powers and getting shrugs, there are all sorts on offer to try out. For practical purposes, to show off or just because they're cool.

Of note-

Infinite Bench Press- through clever use of electromagnets that are powered by the energy used to oppose their attraction and magically guided, they've constructed a way for those with super strength to find out just how super without needing thousands of tonnes of metal. Hypothetically there's no limit to how much force it can produce- but it can break so there's that.

The Flying Shoemill- They're shoes that make a barrier beneath their feet, allowing the wearer to run in place but still build up speed. Unless you can outrun your own feet, you can go flat out in them. Don't fall over! You might get shot straight into the air!

Ultimate Bouncehouse- A cuboid frame with especially bouncy magical barriers between the slats. First, you jump in, then you jump out of the way of softballs that are slowly introduced. Do as much dodging as you can until you get smacked. Catching them is allowed.

The Invincible Wall- Perhaps the simplest of the lot, it's little more than a ridiculously reinforced pre-fab shed. The goal is simply to go in and break out any way you can. When it gets knocked down, there's another ready to get set up to replace it.

It's almost like this whole thing is a way for Rex to examine people's abilities and gather data or something!



B
If people play with the work out devices or not, Rex has set up booths for students to have consultations with some of those he has deemed smarty pants, to begin brainstorming ideas to test their powers and design bespoke equipment for them. Rex himself is, of course, participating in this, but others who know their business are available. The idea behind it is covering people's weaknesses or emphasising their strengths.

(( Feel free to one of the people Rex has paid to build and supervise this nonsense! PM me or hit me up on DoctorChimera#5514 on Discord if you got questions or ideas. People who already have toys from Rex have been invited and encouraged to show them off. ))

Comments

B

[yokeye]

It's taken Toki twenty minutes to finally get over to Rex after arriving at this campaign event. There were too many distracting science things to look at along the way. Once he's pulled himself away from the shiny things, he waves enthusiastically.

"Rex! This is great~! I wanted to talk about the watch data, but I figured you might want to use it as an example so I waited until today~!"

He approaches, with a couple new things he has obtained since their last encounter. Most obvious and notable is the yak in step beside him. He also has a helmet/hat hybrid. He's making an effort.

[heromedal]

Rex doesn't say 'is that a yak' because it's a yak. He doesn't say 'that's a yak' because presumably, Toki knows.

...does he? Has he even noticed? Surely even Toki couldn't miss a yak.

"That was a good idea," he settles on, gesturing for Toki to sit, as Rex is naturally occupying a booth. His is a little bigger than the other's, because how else could he fit? "What's your yak's name?"

There. That's not pointing out the obvious nor insulting Toki's intelligence.

[yokeye]

Toki sets as directed, and the yak does nothing. Stands there beside Rex's booth, perhaps bored, perhaps wondering how it got stuck with its task.

"It's Yaku! He probably already had some unpronounceable Outlands name too, though! I just don't know what it is!"

Before Rex even has to ask, he launches into the explanation as to where Yaku came from.

"You remember Mike, right? The goat? Well! It turns out, he was a daemon after all and so he had to go, so we, that's me and Puella and Doreen, went to see Professor Haddock to maybe get a drake instead, but he said it was unwise to give me an animal that breathes fire, and then he suggested a yak!"

[heromedal]

"I see." This is all par for the course, really, and Rex does an admirable job of keeping completely blank-faced throughout the entire thing. He's probably experienced weirder, if not often. "If you mean Doreen Green, I know her. She is a pleasant young woman."

Who is older than him. And also knows he's a terrifying weirdo, rather than just a weirdo.

"So is it actually a yak or an outlands creature in the form of a yak?"

[yokeye]

"Yes! That's her!"

At Rex's question, Toki tries to think back.

"Well... Professor Haddock called it a yak... and it came from his home in the Outlands... so... if it's a an Outlands creature in the form of a yak, it's still called the same thing somehow!? Or maybe like it was an Earth yak and then was brought to the Outlands centuries ago and they're the same basically! Or it happened the other way and all Earth yaks are originally from the Outlands and humans named them yaks too, which was the Outlands name to begin with!"

Toki shrugs, because he doesn't care where Yaku came from. He's a good yak. And today is about Rex; and things related to him.

"Is Adelaide here displaying her adorable combat suit~!?"

[heromedal]

"I think it's a yak."

But he does raise his fingers to his eye to scan it anyway, just in case. The demon goat thing could well have been picked up earlier if he'd done it at the time.

"I invited everyone who I've done work for to talk to people here, but I don't know if she's here."

It takes him a second to quite register that particular word-

"It's meant to be intimidating, not adorable."

A

[soft_focus]

Boy. This sure is a lot of stuff. Reira's not entirely interested in actually doing anything. The bounce house admittedly looks fairly fun, but mostly she's just curious about it all being here.

And also about Rex introducing it.

Eventually she will probably find him.

"...Where did all the stuff come from."

Other than what was said already, of course, she knows That part.

[heromedal]

He's not hard to find. Not only because there is literally one person on campus he doesn't tower over and that's a giant turtle dragon, but because there's that black cloud hanging over his head emotionally speaking. It's not as dark as usual, because there's so much exciting information to collect and people's problems are fun.

That's to say, solving them, not causing them.

And an ever so weak spike of very small happiness when he spots her and gives a wave.

He's had a haircut! Not quite such a mop, though for some bizarre reason he's left that dangly bit over his nose.

[soft_focus]

A bit of happiness is better than no happiness, even though she wishes he would stop being so upset all the time. Reira gives a bit of a stare instead of a bit of a wave however when she gets close enough, and promptly states the obvious.

"...Your hair's gone," she observes, blinking. "...Why's there less of it?" Not that she doesn't know about hair cuts, it's just, she doesn't know why Rex would bother with one.

[heromedal]

Getting rid of his huge gloom ain't gonna happen overnight. It's hard and he's trying (not much, admittedly).

Rex returns Reira's stare, basically the same except he doesn't have big ol' eyes to do it with, when she points out his haircut.

"Yes. It was starting to get in the way," he replies, running fingers across his temple as if brushing hair behind his ears. H keeps doing that. "And I wanted to look a little tidier for my campaign."

Yet, he left his nose dangler for some reason.

[soft_focus]

"Campaign..." She's seen posters all over, it's true. Reira tilts her head a little bit, as if trying to determine what about the hair makes it 'tidy', particularly for the campaign.

"...I thought the 'campaign' was about which people can tell others what to do best. Or look after the money best," she adds, remembering when she looked up the word 'treasurer'. "...Is only short hair good for that?" Sounds crummy.

[made_up_names]

Peter is, alas, pretty much nocturnal now, courtesy of his pact breaking just a little. Also he almost flunked out of school so uh. Rex might not have seen him since the Hollow stuff, and for good reason.

But he's zipping over the quad shortly before sunset, swinging on his webs - and then coming abruptly to a stop against one of the buildings. Staring down at the arrangements below. "Whoa," he says. "When did you build all this?"

[heromedal]

Well, people don't get more cathemeral than Rex. It says a lot about how much he cares about this whole campaign that he's dedicated an entire day to doing almost nothing but this little event when usually he'd be juggling more than a circus' worth of clowns.

"Bwah!" Rex usually is pretty sharp about picking up footsteps, so hearing Peter's voice from the wall has him jump. It's awkward on a lot of levels. He's just assumed Peter has been avoiding him because... well the whole Hollow thing.

"Uh. Hi." He gives a small wave, feels stupid halfway through and lets his arm drop. " I didn't build all of it myself. I designed it and commissioned others to build it."

[made_up_names]

That would be a fair assumption; Peter probably avoided him some because of Hollow stuff too. But mostly the reasoning was more mundane okay.

He drops down neatly, coming over to get a closer look. "That's mostly the same," he says, still intrigued. "Is this the electromagnetic thing you were talking about?"

[heromedal]

"That's it right. I haven't actually been able to produce enough force to reach its limits yet, but in the lab, we got it to 300 tonnes." He waves at it in general.

Also because he's a giant nerd he's going to add-

"Metric."

Rex is stewing on maybe saying something about how glad he is to be talking to Peter again, but isn't sure if drawing attention to it will just make things worse. People are hard. Science is easy.

B

[heartofasamurai]

There is definitely some awe and admiration for putting so much work into his campaign. Seiji had spent more time out of their dormitory than before in the past month or so, and thus had not spent as much time in his roommate's company as he would have preferred, but this event certainly shows a level of dedication, in his opinion.

"A grand showing, one might say," Seiji mentions casually as he stands by the booth, looking over the different areas for people to experiment and participate.

[heromedal]

It might be about the same, thanks to Rex's own tendency to roam about rather than stop by the dorms. All the same, his roommate is just so unfailingly polite he can't help but like him.

"I thought a touch of spectacle would help the message," he replies just as plainly, not shy about his rhetoric tactics. "People do like to play with the products, so catching their interest that way seemed a good idea."

[heartofasamurai]

"It is an encouraging message, considering the purpose of this school and recent events," Seiji says. He does not specifically state said events, but he hopes that Rex had seen enough that Seiji would not need to.

"Do you recommend ones in particular for certain skills?"

[heromedal]

"My thoughts exactly." As for recent events... probably not. He's remarkably out of the loop. But it'd be kind of embarrassing to ask now, so Rex powers through.

"I'd suggest everyone uses each at least once. Understanding the fundamental limits, strength, speed, agility, endurance, is the key to finding one's own path to power."

[heartofasamurai]

"Path to power?" The way it is phrased is interesting. He wonders if he is misinterpreting. "Is power the path we are following here at this school? I had not considered it in that way."

A

[evangelclairvoyance]

The setup has certainly caught Christo's eye, even if he has no plans whatsoever to make use of the devices.

He pushes his glasses further up the bridge of his nose as he comes to stand next to Rex, watching the students using the equipment from a distance. "Interesting... You made all of these?"

[heromedal]

Rex had just finished showing somehow how to use a particular item and directing them towards one of his consultant types, when Christo comes up. He's not going straight to his own booth- a little time to rub elbows seems a good idea.

"Not personally- I merely designed them. Credit is due to all of those I commissioned to assist me." He says it as if he thinks of designing it as no big deal, because he doesn't. He really thinks anyone could do it if they tried, probably easier than he did it.

[evangelclairvoyance]

"I would argue that the design is the most important part of the work. A plan and a purpose are integral to helping something reach it's ultimate potential." He gestures to the equipment with a smile.

"This is an excellent way to help your fellow students grow more comfortable with and refine their skills. I daresay a few of them look like they'd even be quite fun."

[heromedal]

"I'm sure they could have come up with their own concepts without me." He's also neglecting to mention he couldn't stop himself from micromanaging and had a hand in the actual manufacturing of everything too. Control freak. Paranoid. Etc.

"But I absolutely agree with your assessment- I've often been concerned by the lack of foresight of some students who are unwilling to explore their limitations or the mechanisms of their abilities. A shockingly large number use the phrase 'it's magic' with a shrug as if that explains anything." Rex's deadpan tone doesn't vary much, but there's a hint of exasperation there. How is he supposed to imitate other people's abilities and/or create duplicates of them if they don't know how it works? Oh and also they might die because they're ill-prepared he guesses. "It's part of the reason I sacrificed the effectiveness of some of the devices to increase accessibility. If there's anything I wish to eliminate, it's the mentality that we can make any assumptions about ourselves. You cannot overcome a flaw you refuse to recognise."

Says Rex, who actively encourages his flaws.

[evangelclairvoyance]

"To be fair, to those just learning about it 'magic' may be the only way they know how to explain it. But, you are correct. That's no excuse not to know one's limits."

It really is impressive. Accessibility equal to function, an almost game-like quality to the exercises... And the sheer amount of data that could be obtained from them...

"My name is Christo. I arrived here about a week ago. It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr...?"