[Round Zero: part 1]

[utopiamods]

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.]

Comments

[summerstars]

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.

[idkmybffxiao]

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.

[trollofthree]

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.