rakuen | [Round Zero: part 1]

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[Round Zero: part 1]

At noon on the rest day, every screen in the campus lights up. It's the girl from the introduction again! She's grinning fit to burst, and her voice is bright and excited.

"Good morning, everyone! Round Minus-One is now officially over, so we'd like you to all report to the lobby for a special announcement, immediately! It starts in ten minutes, so don't be late."

The screens all go blank, before simply displaying the flashing text ALL STUDENTS REPORT TO THE LOBBY FOR 12:10.

Reaching the lobby, you find it empty of the usual staff. However, the doors to the tramstation are blocked by a large stage, spanning the entire south wall. In the centre stands the girl, in the flesh and just as sickeningly cheerful as her broadcast.

"Hi, everyone!" She waves, tilting sideways as she does so, and then clasps her hands together. "Wow, it's really great to see you all in person at last! You've all tried a lot harder this week, and it shows! We're really, really impressed with everyone. Ah, even though there was a bit of cheating..." she pouts, and shakes her head lightly, "But that's okay. We forgive you! You all know better now.

"But what we've called you here to say is this! We've been working extra hard too, and we've gotten a lot done with your help. So much that we're nearly ready for Round One!

"However..."

She's still smiling. It's a little unnerving, "We have to do some maintenance first, okay? And I'm afraid it would be a problem if you were all alive for that... you could cause us a lot of problems. So we're going to get rid of you for a little while. Think of this as a final test!"

She snaps her fingers, and your shadows disappear. No, not disappear. That's the wrong word. It's more like... they're abandoning you. Nearly forty pools of darkness flow up onto the stage, and suddenly explode upwards in tendrils and globs of black. The girl laughs as they finish changing, as they take on your shapes. As they reach into themselves and pull out inky replicas of your own weapons. They all laugh with her, in the emotionless tones of the Voice from your dreams.

"You can all draw your own weapons now, okay? Fight hard!"

[mod notice: NOW EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ THIS OOC POST BEFORE THEY REPLY.]

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"Oops!" Huashi didn't so much make them duck, as she crouched down (dragging Sasuke with her, when he'd just gotten up, too!) and lunged forward, blocking the huge star from embedding itself in either of them, or, more importantly, anyone behind.

"You don't look much alike," Huashi said as she squinted at Sasuke's shadow, then did another lunge, swiping the staff in an overhand grip that would have resulted in crushed bones had the reciever been anything near human.

To make matters worse for Grenn, Yuki's Shadow was also heading towards her.

Grenn did, unfortunately, not see Yuki's Shadow before it was right in front of her.

"... erk... Frag. it." Grenn muttered and stared. She'd never have believed Yuki's face could have the expression it did, right now.

Molly yawned when the lady called them out, figuring it would be a boring announcement about how checkers didn't count as a battle and that they really had to fight. Needless to say, the announcement shocked her.

When the shadows appeared, Molly drew her weapon, brass knuckles, out of her chest and slipped them onto her hands. She hit hard, but that was mostly when she had her mutant power, without them she didn't really know how to fight. Sadly she's not aware of this fact.

Reiko stepped out in front of Sora and Romeo as Hiyo's shadow approached. Her eyes narrowed. She never had liked that little girl, but she honestly didn't think that was influencing her actions at all. She just had to protect Sora. That's all there was to it.

"Stay away from her."

While the other princesses and Sora were busy, Yuki was quite suddenly embraced... If by embraced one meant neatly wrapped by several cables that shouldn't be able to move on their own, but were doing just that. A shadowy hand came around from behind and gripped Yuki's chin.

"Don't look now..." Grenn's shadow whispered in Yuki's ear, a sort of discordant metal sound accompanying it. "That's a very... pointy weapon you have there. I didn't know you liked it like that."

His shadow's smile brightens as he nears it. That is not him, and it's not Tony, either. That is someone who sees no problem with threatening to murder Sherlock's friends just to get under his skin.

At the last possible moment, instead of attacking, Sherlock throws himself to the ground. The shadow misses its thrust, jumps back, hovers briefly in the air, and then dives for him.

Sherlock barely manages to twist out of the way. The point of the sword strikes the floor beside his left shoulder. Before he can think about it, and accordingly before his shadow can pull back, he reaches up and grabs the blade. Just past the hilt, where it isn't sharp yet.

It hurts anyway. Hurts quite a lot, actually. But that is not relevant data right now.

Several things happen in quick succession: Sherlock lunges up, tightening his grip to keep his shadow from flying out of reach. The shadow hisses and yanks back on its sword, pulling it far enough that Sherlock feels the blade slice into his palm, although it hardly makes a difference to the pain. He twists his hand, which isn't very good for his hand but does slow down his shadow's retreat long enough for him to run it through.

Its red eyes revert to the blank expression they had when it was first formed; it dissolves, taking its sword with it.

One of the beams from Nunnally's -- no, it's not Nunnally's, it's that thing's-- weapon hits Euphemia. The laser burns through the uniform sleeve and cooks the flesh of her forearm, and she screams herself hoarse at the pain. It only connects for an instant before she wildly flails away from it, but it's enough to set her on her knees and involuntary tears down her face. She sits there for a moment, just trembling.

But she manages to stand again, the shock setting in. Stepping in front of Nunnally's wheelchair as though to shield her, she closes her eyes and reaches into herself, drawing her weapon. The pain is so intense she can barely think straight. But she even so, she manages to draw the weapon.

The ugly gun is in her hands, its weight heavy, but she can't remember how to fire it. She can't remember how to fire it. How could something so vital be taken from her when she needed it most? She cluelessly fumbles with it for a few moments before realizing Sherlock is there, he's hurt but he's alive.

"S-Sherlock! Please help!"

"Sister-!!" Nunnally screamed as her sister was hit, and stared at how she was pulling her weapon, unable to look away. This was too much, it was-- she didn't know what to do. Maybe she could use her own Key, but the... damage would be too big. Her counterpart was already using a Key. She jumped as one laser hit the side of her chair, and when she tried to move away, she realized that it'd rendered it immobile. It'd hit the control panel of her chair.

Ichi is holding her own against her shadow self; the thing slashes, she spins out of the way, separating the pieces of her naginata and spinning again. The blades slice the shadow with enough force that it finally disappears with a wisp of smoke and a strangled scream.

She steps back until she's closer to Huashi and the new boy, and more importantly Kotarou. Oichi stands ready to sweep in with her weapon if she's needed.

A laser scorches the wall by Sherlock's head. His left hand is thoroughly nonfunctional; he can see the white glint of three metacarpals through the gash in his palm and his first two fingers have not quite been cut in half.

When the next laser strikes the ground as he climbs to his feet, Sherlock moves his hand into the path of the beam before it stops. That hurts almost as much as grabbing his duplicate's sword, and if those fingers were salvageable before they certainly aren't now, but he is no longer bleeding and that will have to do.

Ignoring the smell of burned flesh and the blood all over his clothing, he staggers to Euphemia's side and offers her his rapier hilt-first. "Trade?"

"Y-yes," she says, and hands the gun over, unsurely taking the rapier in hand. "Can you... help protect us? I have to... to bring Nunnally outside."

She's never trained with a sword, despite Cornelia wanting her to, and she regrets it now. Holding the sword in her not-as-crispy arm, she turns to Nunnally. She rushes over to check her for injuries.

"You're okay," she says with relief.

He fell back down in his former position, taken aback for a second as his eyes watched Huashi fend off the large ninja star. He stood up again, hair falling into his face as he got back into a stance, which his shadow imitated.

"Don't worry too much about it," Sasuke muttered, eyes glancing to Huashi for a second and then to Oichi, whom he had just noticed, and gazed back at his own shadow. "I'll take care of it from here." The boy was stubborn - he didn't need helping defeating his own shadow. The fight was just getting started.

"If you get in my way and get hurt," he started, and then gave a small smirk. "It's not my fault." The shadow came running towards the group of three (or four? Sasuke hadn't noticed Kotarou yet) and threw the ninja star, and ran forward to kick the feet of Oichi.

"Y-you're not-- Sister Euphie..." Nunnally reaches out, but stops without touching her, because it looks like it hurts. She feels horrible about this. It was her shadow's doing, and her weapon. It did this. She grips the sides of her chair. "I'm... I'm sorry... It's my fault."

She wants to tell her sister to run to safety without her. The chair is broken and won't roll, and there's no way Euphie could carry her with an injured arm, but the only sound that comes over her lips as she opens her mouth is a choked one, eyes widening in surprised shock. "W...what--?"

The laser goes through both her chest and the chair, and she slowly sags down in the wheelchair.

Just a few seconds. Just a few bloody seconds to familiarize himself with the model, turn the lever from S to E, and look up.

Too late.

He aims for the dead girl's airborne shadow and fires. Twice.

Suzaku caught up with them and they followed Lelouch. In their bout of running, something... no, someone caught her eye. It might have been a flash of a moment, but Kallen's eyesight was damn good.

"Sulu!" the teenager yelled out to him. Hopefully he got the hint to follow because there's wasn't enough time to sit and chit chat. Granted, the lieutenant might have been an outsider by their standards, but he was another person and power... happened to come with numbers.

This time, Huashi didn't go under the star, but jumped, and slammed down, not just her staff, but her whole self. When the star clattered to the ground though, Huashi was standing on it, and pain shot up her feet. Swearing (that for once, actually wasn't translated) in (what some would recognize as very old) Chinese, Huashi jumped off, using the momentum to aim her staff at dark!Sasuke's back.

The shadow goes down on the first shot, even!

Skulking in the shadows and just out of sight, the only sound that emanated from the shadow's lips was the faint echo of crazed laughter and an eerily quiet chant.

"HAHAHA... who wants to plaaaaay....?"

Edited 2011-01-24 22:01 (UTC)

Okay, that had just been really, really creepy. Grenn looked over her shoulder, but Yuki's shadow was nowhere to be found, and she hadn't run into her o-- When she faced forward again, there her shadow was, hanging almost serenely in the air in front of her.

"Hello, Self... Don't look so afraid! This is a game isn't it? A game, a holographic playground, a program! USE YOUR HEAD!" The last bit was shouted, almost deafening Grenn as her shadow tossed its own version of Altair and Vega. She managed to block one, while the other was diverted in the air.

"What do you even mean, this isn't---" Then it's up in her face, this close, and grinning wide. The gums are red.

"A GAME. Do you never use your head, Self?"

Grenn shook her head, stared, and almost distractedly blocked an attempt to bash her head in, another rush of electricity bringing the smell of burned flesh. A game? Wait... That girl. She'd said 'maintenance' and 'get rid of you for a while'. This wasn't---

"Ohhh, I am so proud of you, Self. Remember this when you push retry!" Her shadow disappeared (teleported, she realized), and then there's suddenly two shadow frisbees coming at her too quickly to--

"Whoa there!" First one, then the other disc spun away, deflected by the flat side of Gino's halberd. Like the shadowy Grenn, he was floating several feet in the air like it was perfectly normal. "This is a little unfair, don't you think? Let's fix that."

"This should even it out!"

It looked like Gino himself wasn't the only one taking advantage of the tall knight's defiance of gravity. He hadn't come to the rescue alone, after all! Even if he hadn't realized someone had followed after him on his route to Grenn! A light weight hit him in the back, ran right up it, and, upon getting a foothold on one of his shoulders, the tiny Xingese girl used him as a springboard to send herself flying right at the floating monstrosity that was Grenn's shadow. All in a matter of seconds.

"Hya!"

The leap took her up above them all, giving her the perfect vantage point to send all six of her kunai flying down at the shadow, like a deadly rain of metal.

A few of the cables were clipped by the kunai, writhing like live snakes had that been cut in half, as shadow!Grenn shrieked. The sound had a metallic tone to it, but wasn't an echo. Only one kunai was actually flicked off its path by one of the shadow discus.

"I'd say something about this being a cutscene and that you shouldn't be able to do that, but I have a feeling you won't understand it," Grenn's shadow hissed, but there was a mocking amusement in its voice.

"Nope, sorry~," Gino darted forward, reversing his grip on Tristan for a slash that severed the few remaining cables that had writhed into a shield. He righted himself in the air, and lunged. The shadow screamed again as the halberd's spearpoint went through her neck; the force of the attack took up almost half of the weapon's hilt before its body vanished.

Conveniently, the charge had also put him directly in Mei's path, the princess landing on his shoulders yet again. This time she crouched there, a hand on his head to steady herself. Effectively, she was perching on him. If the circumstances hadn't been "in the middle of a bloody fight", it may have been cute. "I dunno. I would say you sure cut her scene!"

This was, sadly, not followed up by Mei putting on sunglasses or anything of that sort. Sorry. At least it got a laugh out of Gino, if a brittle one.

The tiny girl looked down towards Grenn, smiling at her. "Hi Miss Grenn! Are you alright?" While waiting for the reply, she carefully rose to hop down off of Gino's shoulder. She had to go get her weapons back! Just as she leapt off, there was a faint 'shing' sound of something sharp flying by fast, passing by close enough to Gino's head to scratch his ear. The weapon itself hit Mei mid-jump, a kunai like her own embedding itself in her leg. She cried out and landed hard, though quick enough to shift the landing to her other leg rather than blowing it this time around. She ate up the momentum with a controlled roll immediately after and slid to a halt.

"I---" Grenn ducked under another kunai, having heard the sound of it, but that meant it was free to continue towards Mei or Gino. Grenn didn't bother to look, just tossed one of her frisbees behind her, hoping it'd hit something, at least. "Mei! Are you--- How bad is it?" There really was no use in asking "are you all right", after all. This was just a simulation. This wasn't the end, no matter what happened. But even if it was "just" a simulation, her burnt fingers ached, and she had patches on her arms where the cloth had curled away, edges coal-black, and revealing dark patches of electrocuted skin beneath. It certainly smelled like burnt flesh.

"Mei!" Gino's yell was delayed by the first kunai forcing him into an aerial spin that would have made someone not used to high-speed Knightmare combat intensely sick. Blood dripped from his cut ear down his jaw as he turned. He got a few feet towards her before his shadow attacked, and barely got his halberd up to block the first slash. The second he parried, but this close to Mei and Grenn he didn't have nearly enough room to use the weapon properly.

Mei would have disagreed on it being just a simulation if she knew that was what was going through Grenn's mind. The girl reached back to put a hand on the kunai in her leg. She didn't have to look to know. The black pants of the academy uniform might hide the spreading blood stain, but she felt the warmth of it. What didn't get soaked up by the slacks dripped down to stain her sock, the bright red blossoming across the white.

The girl didn't answer Grenn. She was staring at something just beyond the other. A young girl's laugh came from behind the girl in the wheelchair, then a weight. Someone light had landed on the back and the discus that had been thrown went clattering off to one side as the new arrival tossed it away. One foot planted itself against the back of Grenn's head. "What a wimp! Look at her! Going to cry, you big baby?"

Then she was off the wheelchair with a flip, landing before the fallen princess. The shadowy version of Mei had arrived.

"Still as useless as ever! Are you going to fail to save these people, too?!"

Did evil doubles always either taunt you for being slow in the head, or taunt you for not being able to do things fast enough? Grenn snorted and grabbed the frisbees as they came back to her, and then tossed Altair, keeping Vega with her. The frisbee shot through the air and clipped shadow!Mei's braids as she managed to duck in time. Two of the braids were chopped clean off, though, while one of the others were lost half-way.

"MY HAIR!" Dark Mei shrieked and whirled around, back towards Grenn.

The resulting hail of dark kunai was badly aimed, but got the job done almost by accident. Several went wide to thud into Gino's shoulders and back as he ducked down away from his shadow's attacks, blood soaking through into his collar and staining his blazer an even darker red. Tristan's tip dropped as he twisted away from the strikes; meanwhile, the shadow Gino laughed, the sound echoing and empty, and shoved his double aside with the butt of his halberd. His next strike was aimed directly at Mei.

Mei didn't have the breath to yell Gino's name, to warn him before it was too late, or to even scream when he keeled over. The girl ripped the kunai from her own leg, not caring or perhaps not even aware of the tears streaming down her face in reaction to the pain. She raised it as the halberd point came down at her, putting it between herself and the weapon. She caught it for the briefest moment, a second of stalling, but Mei had always relied on her speed to evade. She didn't have the strength to block properly. The tip of the shadowy Tristan shoved past the kunai and hit her right in the chest. Flesh and bone buckled under the spear. All that was left for her to do was to stare at the Dark Gino in shock. He grinned back, looking oddly cheerful with a warped version of Gino's normal smile.

"This is what you get for that stunt before," He sing-songed, pushing the halberd in by increments. That done, he twisted the handle and lifted, so she was dangling several metres from the ground. "See you~"

A flick of the weapon, and she went flying limply towards the wall.

Just a simulation. Just. a. simulation. She had to believe that now. It may be strange to believe what her shadow had taunted her with, but Grenn had heard what their "conferencier" had said. Maintenance. Take you out, for a while. This was not permanent, however much it looked that way. However sickeningly real the crack had been as Mei slammed into the wall. She almost, selfishly, wished her shadow had taken her out earlier. Then she wouldn't have had to see that. Then her head whipped up, and almost on autopilot she twisted one discus in the air, making several kunai clatter against it uselessly. She swallowed and stared at the two shadows. She hoped it didn't hurt as much to die, as it did when you got injured.

Gino was about to find out, anyway. Even as he turned to re-enter the fight, the shadowy Mei giggled and recalled her knives with a flick of her wrist. He buckled again, contorting in mid-air as blood streamed around his neck and down his arms from the jagged tears in his back. "Damn you--" he managed to grind out, before a kunai embedded itself in his throat and his body dropped unceremoniously to the floor. As blood spread over the floor around Grenn, the two shadows looked down in satisfaction at their work.

Then they stopped. Straightened, turned towards Grenn, and smiled.

Kallen, no, this wasn't her. This version of her was deadly. You thought Kallen was a good fighter, imagine her with her skills and an unlocked weapon. Sonar.... revenge... these skills were deadly and she just knew how to use them.

She was no Euphemia slaughtering the Japanese, that's for sure. Her aim is more controlled, not rapid wild fire. She don't have the mind to reason or the time to talk to you. You got time to talk, you have the time to drop dead right in front of her.

If you're moving, she's shooting and she's hitting you. Good luck protecting yourself, IF you can because if you hide, she WILL find you.

Head whipping around at the sound of his name, Hikaru spares his own fight just a few seconds of precious concentration to locate the speaker. He's in pure fighting mode right now, a deadly mix of army-level training and expert training in his preferred method of battle. A lot of it is muscle memory and basic instinct but it's no weak fight he's putting up here. And with a foil. Once he's found the body attached to the voice he's following, shadow chasing after.

"Kallen!" he calls, but doesn't say more. It's recognition, affirmation, not a question.

From nearby, a tiny shadow takes aim with its bow and lets loose an arrow. Its accuracy isn't any better than average, but it has one advantage on its side: It absolutely will not hesitate to take a life.

Watch out, Molly.

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Page 3 of 13

[Round Zero: part 1]

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shortest tag ever

Re: shortest tag ever

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ITT GORE.

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if you want your character killed, come here.

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