rakuen | Mei vs Fletcher

Entry tags:

Mei vs Fletcher

MEI CHANG vs. FLETCHER TRINGHAM
Weapons: Grenn Atair & Russel Tringham
Location: The library
Time of day: Afternoon

They'd decided that the winner of their checkers game would be the winner of the battle; the loser would forfeit as soon as the battle had started. It was the perfect loophole.

Fletcher had procured a checkerboard and set it up on one of the tables. Now all that remained to be seen was the winner.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Mei stared at the checkerboard he had set up on the table like it was some kind of foreign object. Sure, it was a board and it obviously had pieces, but this one looked completely different from the ones they had in Xing.

"A-are you sure this is checkers?"

"Huh?" He looked up at Mei. "Yeah... It says so on the box, see?" He picked up the box cover from where he'd set it aside; it was unlike one he'd ever seen before, a flimsy cardboard box with the word CHECKERS on top and a photograph of a checkerboard. "I don't remember checkerboards coming in boxes like this, but this is the same kind of game that I remember..."

"But there aren't any markings on the pieces. How do you tell which is which?" Mei, of course, was thinking of a whole different game. Chess, checkers, same... difference... right? She scowled at the box and rummaged around it for the rules.

READING THE RULES, JUST A SEC. Reading them with so much concentration. So much.

"Which is which?" He tilted his head. Was that really important? Maybe it was an advanced rule, or maybe--maybe the rules were different in Xing. That would be a problem.

He leaned over the table to look at the rules with her.

Russel sat a bit behind Fletcher, and rolled his eyes. "Are you talking about Chess?" he interjected. He was going along with it, mostly because of Fletcher's sensitivities to fighting. "Checkers is something else entirely."

Grenn didn't voice her agreement with Russel, but it was quite obvious Mei had ben thinking of chess, now. She didn't really mind. If this would be seen as an acceptable way of fulfilling an Exaclan battle, she might even, depending on the opponent, do it herself.

And if Mei lost to Fletcher? The boy was hardly a hardship to have to do with, so it wasn't exactly a loss. But, she should probably say something to Mei, the girl was so very frantically reading the rules.
"Just do your best, okay?" So, okay... it was a bit banal. For the moment, it was the best she could do.

"...is it chess?" Mei flipped through the rules. Aaaa, it had been chess. Hey, it wasn't her fault that Xingese chess pieces had the same shape as checkers! "Uh... um... hm. This doesn't sound too hard." She lingered on the pages longer than Fletcher might have to, trying to commit enough of the game to memory.

That done, she tossed the rules aside.

...and by tossed aside, she put them down on the table carefully in case she needed to look again...

"I will!" Mei nodded at Grenn. "Okay! Let's do this! Step one is drawing the weapons so we can fool the system into thinking we're fighting!"

"Right!"

Fletcher hadn't done this before, but he'd read up on how to do it in his Exaclan manual. He dug his glove out of his pocket and pulled it onto his hand, then turned to his brother. "Um-- here goes..."

He reached out to put his hand over his brother's chest and made a grasping sort of motion.

And out came the weapon. Well, the shield. If Russel's priorities had been different, then he would have appreciated its simple elegance. But his initial reaction was to have his forehead meet his palm. "A shield..." he muttered. Suddenly he was very glad for his brother's sensibilities. At least this way they stood a chance at winning.

Fletcher stared in awe at the shield. This was his first time drawing a weapon, or even seeing one drawn. "Wow..." And it was rather appropriate, for his brother's weapon.

...though, even if Fletcher could fight, it would be very difficult to win with something like this. He handed it over to his brother for safe keeping during the match.

"A shield? That's a weapon?" Mei, however, found it weird. WEIRD. Russel, you are weird. While she doesn't say that out loud, the funny look she gave Fletcher's brother spoke more than enough.

Her turn! Mei pulled her Exaclan glove on and turned towards Grenn. She did the same motion that Fletcher had gone through. Reach for Grenn, grasp the air, pull, aaaand...

... As with Russel, out came, well, two weapons. If you'd never seen frisbees or discus, you'd probably assume they were some sort of plates. If anyone looked close enough, one could see the edges were sharp. Very sharp.

Grenn shivered and grasped at her chest, which, of course, was just as it should be. She gave the two frisbees an askane stare. Well. At least they fit for this game, considering what sort of sport they were originally for.

Yeah... if this were an actual battle, Fletcher would be doomed.

"So whoever has the darker color moves first..." He looked down at the board. That was Mei.

Mei gave the discuses a curious look over. Huh, she could probably use these alright in a fight, but beating up Fletcher wasn't the goal of this experiment. She let Grenn hold onto them, just as Fletcher had handed off the shield to Russel, and turned back to start the game of checkers.

"So..." If dark went first, that meant she would make the opening move.

She moved a piece.

AND THUS THE GAME BEGAN.

It was not very exciting.

It was probably the most boring game of Exaclan to ever be played. Anyone watching on the view screens would have every right to get tired of it and walk off to do something else. But Fletcher was happy that Mei had come up with the idea.

He wasn't the best checkers player in the world, but he was a smart kid, and he had the advantage in knowledge. So it wasn't long before he managed to pull ahead in pieces captured.

As if Mei cared if it was boring or not. She forged on, capturing a couple pieces, but it was inevitable that Fletcher was going to win. Her style of play was to move things as quickly as possible, which did not lend itself well to playing by strategy.

She pouted at the board. Fff. Yeah, Fletcher was the winner here. Mei was down to two pieces.

And it wasn't long before he won, taking the two remaining pieces in just one move. He looked up at Mei apologetically. "Um-- s-sorry..."

But part of him was relieved. With Grenn, even though he didn't know her well, he would have five weapons. He had already won the round. He wouldn't have to fight anymore, either for real or by faking it like this.

Shoooot. Mei lost.

"Don't be sorry!" Despite the loss, she immediately scolded Fletcher for feeling bad about beating her in the game. "It isn't like I'm going to be mad at you or anything! Sooo. I guess I have to forfeit now."

How did that even work? Mei looked around the library. How would they know? Very tentatively, she said out loud, "Hey! Game! I forfeit the match!" Maybe that would work. Just. Like that.

"...or do we have to go tell someone?"

The system seemed to accept it as valid; the shield and discuses vanished into thin air the way they would after a battle ended. But what happened next wasn't typical for the end of a battle: The penalty headache struck all four of them.

It didn't last long, only thirty seconds, but it was still enough to let them know they'd done something wrong.

Oh, and the next time any of them went to check their balance at a booth, they would each find it decremented by three tokens -- even if it was already at zero.

"Fff... frag." Well. Okay. So... that probably didn't count, considering the headache. With a sigh, Grenn straightened and frowned at the kids.

"How bad is it?" She wasn't gonna ask if they were okay, that was just stupid considering the headache they'd just been struck with.

"It hurts..." Fletcher complained, holding his head in one hand. "Did they figure it out?"

Russel groaned as the headache hit, but he got over it reasonably quickly. "Guess they're pissed..." he grumbled. He was additionally angry that they were actually capable of doing such a thing to them. "You okay?" he asked Fletcher, looking quite angry indeed.

He nodded, but looked a little upset that their little plan hadn't worked.

That huuuurt, aaaah. Mei held her head and doubled over at the initial pain. "...rrrrgh..." She looked up again after a moment and answered Grenn unhappily, "...not as bad as it could be."

Actually, it hurt more than she had expected, but she had an image to keep up here.

When the lady on the screens appeared to scold them, though, that was it. Mei shrugged off the pain and replaced it with tiny, useless RAGE. She jumped up on her seat and yelled back at the screen. "It wasn't cheating! Your stupid rules didn't say anything about this being a cheat, you're just a bunch of sore losers, that's what you are!"

Sob. She had gotten everyone in trouble. Railing at their tormentors was the next best option to crying about it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Mei vs Fletcher

MEI CHANG vs. FLETCHER TRINGHAM

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject