Chapter 8 Has Brains in Motion

Ah, spring. The time of rebirth and new life. Hope for the upcoming year…

"EEEEEK! Peyton! What are you riding!" Tamaki screeched. The blond stared in horror at the youngest Ootori child, who was on top of a giant tarantula.

"It's my pet," the pink eyed woman said evenly. "I built it."

"Wow, the detail is pretty good," the twins commented. "It looks like the real thing."

"That's so cool, Ten-chan!" Honey cheered. "Right Takashi?"

Mori allowed for his cousin to jump onto his shoulders. "Ah."

"Did you really build this?" Haruhi asked in awe.

"Yeah." Peyton used her controller to make the spider move around. "I was taking apart the electronics in scary glasses nii-san's room and he threw me out and had people bring me a bunch of parts and anything else I wanted, so I built this."

'This girl...' The host club sweat dropped.

"Wh-wh-wh-why did you b-b-bring it t-t-to school?" The host club president stuttered out fearfully.

"I didn't feel like walking around campus. Plus, this was a good way to test this out in the field. It has more functions than just carrying me around." The raven patted her devices head.

Tamaki whimpered when he caught sight of a strange gleam that flashed through the girl's eyes when she glanced at him, sending him scurrying off toward his vice president. "Mother! Do something about little sister!"

Kyoya sighed. "There's not much I can do about how she uses her intelligence. In any case, this could turn quite interesting." The elder Ootori smirked with future plots in mind.

The other hosts sweat dropped again. 'They really are related.'

"By the way," the vice president continued, turning toward his adopted relation, "what else did you build?"

"Oh," Peyton popped open a compartment hidden within her spider's abdomen. "I also made these."

The newest addition to the host club family held up seven different dolls.

"Mother! Look! Little sister made dolls that look exactly like us!" The host king cooed.

A dangerous glint flashed through the raven haired female's eyes once more. "They're voodoo dolls."

Tamaki turned to stone in shock and horror.

"Ten-chan made all of us!" Honey giggled happily, spinning around with his doll look alike in hand.

"They're well made," Kyoya complimented, holding up his own doll for inspection. "You've got them down to the smallest detail."

"It's more of a challenge if I try to model them after the real things," Peyton reasoned. "Thanks for the pictures, they helped a lot."

Hikaru whistled and turned the doll shaped after him in his hands. "Look Kaoru, she made it so that the clothes can be exchanged."

"And it's made with the same material as our real uniform," the younger twin observed.

"Oh! One more thing." Peyton walked over to the still frozen blond and tugged out a hair, ignoring his protests of pain. She quickly and skillfully integrated the hair into the Tamaki doll and held it up to her older brother. "Now you can sell this for ten times the original price. I made voodoo dolls for each of your themes," the Ootori female continued, taking out more of her work as she spoke. "You can display them on your website for sale. For advertising, you could put a hair in only one of their dolls and then either sell those seven as a set. Or, since these are voodoo dolls, you can jack up the prices for your auction using the reasoning that voodoo dolls like these are believed to help the intended target to fall in love with the wielder."

Kyoya's glasses glinted. "Well done."

Once more, the group sweat dropped, a cold feeling washing over them. 'This combination… seems dangerous.'

"Still, you did rather well on the clothing," Kaoru commented.

"Especially for someone new to sewing," Hikaru agreed.

Peyton blinked lazily. "Of course I did. I was just copying the picture."

'Why you-!' The older twin growled in his head.

"It's not like I had to create my own clothing line for you guys," the pink eyed girl continued, not caring about whether or not her previous words could have offended the two fashion conscious boys. "Creating something new and mimicking something else is completely different. It takes talent and a different kind of intelligence to create something new that other people will like as well."

The two identical boys stared at the girl, stunning into silence. They watched the girl go off and interact with the other club members, completely oblivious to the effect she just had on them.

"Wow, Ten-chan! You're really skilled when you put your mind to it," Mitsukuni praised, flowers seeming to float around him as he spoke. "You even gave my doll a Usa-chan to go with it!"

"Well, that rabbit is always with you, so the doll would be inaccurate if I left it out," the cherry blossom eyed girl rationalized.

"On the other hand," Haruhi commented thoughtfully, "I would have never guessed that you were capable of such work. You always seemed the type to not do anything more than required. You've been so lazy and unhelpful so far, that I'm honestly quite amazed."

Even though the brunette had no ill will behind those words, Peyton's eyebrow still twitched for a moment. The taller female sighed and thought about those words for a moment. "I am not used to this environment..."

"What do you mean?" Haruhi asked gently.

"I have never had a moment that allowed a chance for my mind to go idle. Usually, I must be on constant alert- I always had to be aware, my survival depended on it. The date and their schedules, and how to work around them without upsetting them or creating a situation that they wouldn't approve of...I was always thinking about these thing. But here…I-...I actually become...bored..." Peyton gazed down at her hands in a sort of wonder. "I have actually had a chance to see my supposed intelligence in play, giving what I know a purpose and shape. It is a strange feeling and I'm not used to not knowing what to do with myself."

Young Fujioka smiled warmly, happy for the girl. "Just apply what you know to the real world and try to have fun with it. I'm sure you'll find your calling soon."

"Having fun? My calling?" The adopted child tilted her head in thought and confusion. "What unusual concepts. I suppose this is one of those 'only time will tell situation', huh?"

"Speaking of applying yourself," the twins said together as they threw their arms around the taller girl's shoulders. "We'd like you to assist us with a little project."

"That will depend," Peyton replied blandly. "Just because I'm actually doing more, doesn't mean I want to do anything that'll turn out to be too troublesome. I'm only doing so much to fill the idle hours and that's it. If it affect me after the given time frame, then it's bothersome."

"No worries!" Kaoru chirped.

Hikaru smiled mischievously. "It's actually very simple."

"All you have to do is..." The twins whispered the rest of their plans into her ears.

Peyton hummed in thought. "Alright. That doesn't sound like too much trouble. Let me go talk to the scary glasses nii-san about the materials I need. However, you should save that for a later time, since all of the preparations will take me a while. But I have something else in mind for now. That alright with you two?"

"Anything to pro happiness is good for us!" The twins gave the girl a thumbs up, letting her know she had the green light to try out whatever plan was formulating in her brain.

xXx

By the end of classes, Tamaki had calmed down enough and was back to full energy about that day's theme. Today the hosts were dressed up in an older style of military uniforms, knee high boots and all. They would represent the men who were sharing one last romantic moment before heading off to war to fight for their loved ones. However, when he stepped into the room after changing into costume...

"EEEEEEEK!" The blond promptly faded right after his shrill shout of horror.

The others stepped around the twitching lumb to see a full blown movie worthy battle field, with the added cliche twist of zombies slowly rising and sinking from the ground.

The Hitachiins whistled. "You really went all out on this."

"This will be cleaned up before our guest arrive, I hope," Kyoya commanded more than asked.

"Of course." Peyton appeared between the two groups, hanging upside down. "The cat puppet weirdo said he approved and should be here any moment to pick up the props. He also asked if he could get the pictures of the idiot blond's reaction. Overall, this turned out quite profitable and somewhat amusing. I can see why you two go through with the trouble just for the outcome."

"I'm glad you've taken an interest in something," the elder Ootori said with a gleeful smirk.

"T-T-Ten-chan, s-s-s-so cool," Honey stuttered, trying his hardest to compliment the girl despite the evident fear on his face with tears clearly ready to burst forth.

"It's alright Honey-senpai," Haruhi soothed, not at all affected. "See? The workers are already taking the stuff away."

Peyton had the spider land on the ground so that she could get off.

"So is that it?" Hikaru asked the American girl.

"That would be a waste of all those class hours," the raven informed the two. "Besides, I haven't even gotten a chance to test drive everything about my mechanical spider."

The twins watched as their newest form of entertainment directed her device toward their leader and start wrapping him up like a real spider does to its freshly caught prey. The spider then dragged the limb body across the room and up the wall, sticking him onto its web.

"Oooh!" The two boys clapped in amusement. "M'lord is going to freak."

"Let's see, now position the dead body right there, spider over him," Peyton mumbled aloud. "Now use vapor to wake up the blond idiot and release a few drops of fake venom."

"That's not very nice you guys," Haruhi reprimanded lightly. "Still...You certainly put a lot of thought into that thing. I'm amazed you were able to make it so realistic. What's in the venom? And how did you make the web sticky?"

"The web is just cotton threading mixed with glue just a little better than what the kids use, that way it's still easy to clean off," the raven explained. "The venom is actually just water warmed by the electronics, but stored safely so that there's no risk of leaking and damaging the equipment. I used a little dye to make it slightly opaque to make for a more visually stimulating result. However, the warm vapor and drops should be scary enough on it's own. All eight eyes are cameras, recording every second and transmitting the results directly to the computer I synced it up to and I used a popular gaming console my classmates had since I was familiar with the controller. I'm surprised that the scary glasses nii-san even owned one, though it wasn't used even once, so I went ahead and took it apart for this project. Getting adopted by a filthy rich family turned out to actually have a few good perks."

Haruhi sweat dropped. "I see..."

"GYAAAAAAAH!"

"Ah. Idiot blond is awake." Peyton turned back to watch the results of her craftsmanship, while the twins grabbed their stomachs in pain from laughing so hard.

"What a wonderful pet you've built," a eerie voice admired.

"It needs work," Peyton rejected. "The movements aren't as smooth as they could be. Anyways, here's your last corpse."

"Splendid, amazing." Nekozawa smiled, his puppet nodding enthusiastically. "I must say, your products are wonderful. Truly, it was a pleasure."

"Eh," the pink eyed girl shrugged. "It gave me something to do and scary glasses nii-san made a profit, not to mention, the twins seemed to be entertained."

Haruhi shook her head disapprovingly, but couldn't help a small chuckle. "I think you should let Tamaki-senpai down now. The guests will start arriving soon."

"Puuu," Peyton pouted. However, she did let the blond down. While the host club president immediately ran over to the brunette female to seek comfort, the American was given a pat on the head by her older adopted sibling.

"Though Tamaki is making a ruckus, you did well." Kyoya looked down with a smile. "I'll be sure to include you with our upcoming projects. Do your best, alright?"

"Hm." Peyton shrugged and turned back to watch the others as they gathered their wits together and headed toward the gardens where the cherry blossoms were blooming. "Only if it isn't bothersome."