Round 1 [new characters and round announcement]

[utopiamods]

You're falling, and you can't remember why. It's a sickening feeling that makes your insides lurch; the darkness and the vertigo combine, and all you can think of is a story you heard once, somewhere.

- I remember now. It's a simple story that everyone knows. A legend of a Princess, the Demon Lord who kidnapped her, and the Knight who fought to save her.

The Demon Lord had kidnapped the Princess countless times, but every time the Knight bested his challenges and rescued the Princess.

No matter what tricks and ploys the Demon Lord used, the Knight would always triumph in the end. This was because--

The world tilts on its axis one last time, and the dream slips from your mind as easily as it arrived. A new voice intrudes on your sleep.

"Next stop: Academy Main Entrance. This tramline terminates here; all change. Next stop: Academy Main Entrance. All change."

Sunlight streams through the windows of the long carriage, making the seats almost uncomfortably warm beneath its waking passengers. The air is muggy and thick, the atmosphere deeply tired. Your nausea settles, slowly. The last of the dream fades.

"We have arrived at Utopia. Repeat, we have arrived at Utopia Academy. Could all passengers please leave the tram, as it is terminating here."

The tram pulls to a stop outside the academy station, and the students onboard are ushered off and directed to the front lobby of the school. They can't miss it; there are signs up pointing toward the main entrance, reading "New student orientation" in big, bright letters. If anyone should care to move off the path, try exploring somewhere else, a teacher will conveniently appear to shoo them back toward the lobby, assuring them that "all your questions will be answered inside".

The lobby is big and spacious, looking more like a university or perhaps a fancy international hotel than a high school. Stood around are any number of students in the uniform of the school. Some of them even look awake. There are several receptionists at the desk towards the back of the lobby, but for now they seem busy with paperwork.


[ Note: the round announcement will go up in a thread once you've all mingled. ♥ ]

Comments

[loyal_liar]

[Lyra's tried several times to get past the teachers to explore the rest of the area, arguing with the teachers in a tone that sounds utterly confident, only to be herded back into the crowd each time, until she decides to try asking her 'fellow students' instead.]

What's going on- have any of you even seen this place before?

[awildcatappears]

[Mikoto really doesn't want to be bothered. After searching all this time, she found her brother and now, her brother is not here. She seemingly cut off all connection with all the other HiME and her friends. She was supposed to be fighting, defending her brother and now--]

[She hears the other girl's voice but ignores her.]

[aureus_veritas]

Ed Elric is not happy.

Between the weird dream and the situation he'd woken up to, he was anything but happy. He'd tried to stop, to inform the more official-looking people that there's been a mix-up, that there's somewhere he needs to be, that he's not supposed to be here - wherever "here" is - and where the returning train is. But somehow he's wound up in this lobby with a bunch of other people that seem to be at least as confused as he is if not as upset. Then again, it would be hard to match how upset Edward is right at this very moment.

So as an alternative, Ed moves through the crowd to try to talk to someone else about this predicament. There has to be someone with an ounce of influence and a lick of sense around here.

[discarded]

Miwako had decided to go back to school, yes, but this certainly wasn't the school she'd meant. She pushed through the crowd, trying to find someone who seems like they would know the answers, and bumps into Ed.

"Ack--! I'm sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going..."

[formerly_known_as_prince]

For the second time that day, Utena gets bumped into. She's not one for hinting by throat clearing or attempting to wheedle apologies out of someone.

"Hey, watch it!" She says, bluntly.

[loyal_liar]

So someone else shares her displeasure. Might as well try to talk to them, right?

"Have you managed to get anything out of them yet? I've been trying, but they won't let us get away."

And being herded like this is starting to make Lyra nervous, though she shoves that feeling down, away from her face and her voice, down to the pit of her stomach.

[eidetic]

Reid awoke rather slowly, not at all surprised he was on a cushiony seat. After all, he and the rest of the team were on the way back to Quantico from another case, and he'd made himself at home along one wall to take a nap. There was frequently no time for sleep on a case.

He sat up and blinked. It was a bit bright for the plane, and there were a lot more people around. A lot more unfamiliar people. He'd been using his blazer as a blanket, and he started to put it back on as he surveyed the scene. He counted the number of people, twelve in all, of various ages and nationalities. None of which were other members of the BAU. Had he been kidnapped again? Whatever had happened, they definitely were organized about it. He was missing his gun, his credentials, his satchel, everything except the clothing on his back.

He smoothed his hair down and stood, still a bit unsteady on his legs.

[discarded]

An adult! Surely he would know what was going on here. Maybe he was a teacher here, or something...

Miwako stepped up to the strange man, so so nervous about talking to someone she didn't know. "Excuse me... um, do you know... where we are?"

[choseanidiot]

http://choseanidiot.dreamwidth.org/699.html

Someone, in the tram, on the trip up to the building, and then inside the building, stunk of blood. Enki hadn't got a good view of all the people in the small crowd, but someone here was injured. And since he couldn't see who it was, he couldn't put the needed distance between them for him to not feel vaguely shaky. This was not what he needed. Not now, not ever, but especially not now.

"They should just give us more information," Enki looked up at Gaara beside him annoyed at the 'very bysy' receptionists, and their now-disappeared guides. "This waiting ain't gonna make anyone in here calmer." He disapproved of the way whoever in charge was handling this. A lot. They were even worse than--- Who had he chosen as King of En, anyway? Was the king as bad as Shoryu was with his behaviour? He couldn't put his finger on it.

[ninjasloveme]

"They don't need us to be calm," Gaara's arms were folded and his expression blank, as if to spite their strange abductors. Occasionally he would turn, to watch someone arrive from either entrance. The people already in the uniform didn't look any less confused, but it could easily be a trap. No one was armed, and no one was stepping up to claim any kind of leadership. "They have their information. It's more a question of why we're still alive."

[formerly_known_as_prince]

Utena remembers swords. Singing a song of steel, of sharpness and cutting, of pain, infinite, more than one body could seemingly hold, wondering if madness would be a kind of escape. She remembers castles crumbling, a projector, roses hacked from their vines, a Greek chorus singing of places of burial, Lucifer, the prince, the witch who could never be a princess, the princesses, selfish and swarming like flies over a carcass, begging for rescue all of them so many there is no end to them until I feel my small body might begin to crack in places like a statue that has been climbed on too much but I must rescue princesses I am-

The transition was too smooth for her to notice.

-am the pr...the knight who rescues princesses and all the rest (did I just leave something incomplete and is there time to recollect it before I must save the princess again?).




Utena wakes up on the tram. She is going to a new academy. Something happened at her old one and now she can no longer be there. She does not remember what that was.

She is holding the strap with numb fingers. She does not remember how long she has been doing so. She switches hands. The right, which was formerly holding the strap, prickles as feeling returns. She feels as if she should be wearing something on it that is not there.

On her middle finger, there is a patch of pale skin where a ring would have gone.
al
She moves numbly with the crush of other students to the lobby. The architecture seems familiar too. She goes to the desk to register.

"Hi, i'm transferring, last name...Last name..." She's uncomfortable. She pulls her arm behind her head and begins to stretch to her side as she tries to recall it.

[valleycat]

Kitty was panicking. She didn't know any of these people and they seemed just as lost as she did, but that wasn't the biggest problem. She didn't have her powers and she was so used to having them.

When the crowd was exiting the tram and going on campus, she was pushed and jostled a bit. Not being able to go through them was distracting her a bit more than she expected it would.

Maybe she could go through this person?

No?

How about this one?

Sorry Utena, she may have just bumped in to you.

[cheesetwo]

A green-haired girl, seemingly of appropriate age for this place, doesn't seem too interested in mingling in the lobby. She's standing off to the side, aloof, looking around the room idly, not particularly caring about the unfamiliar faces. Though if she looked harder, maybe she'd find one or two that were a bit more familiar.

She's had weirder experiences than this. Somewhat. But usually when she was sedated she didn't end up on a tram to a school.

What with the Order gone now, who would be after her? And from within the security of Pendragon itself...how interesting. But she needed to get back to Zero. Her contract...

[brbdocumenting]

Anya was looking around only mildly interested in what was going on around her. So she was taken to a school? Gino dragged her to Ashford a few times so she figured it was like that.

She spotted C.C. and wondered if she was supposed to do anything, it's not like she had Mordred around. Instead she took a picture, with a bit of difficulty, to remind her that she was here.

[earlofpudding]

"--passengers please leave the tram, as it is terminating here."

The last of the announcement was what Lloyd woke up to. Or had he woken up at all? An overheated tram on the way to a school wasn't where he remembered being last. He watched the other passengers begin filing out for a bit before turning to look out the tram window by his seat.

Okay. That was definitely a school. Why he would be dreaming of going back to school, he had no idea, but it didn't bother him. Dreams weren't supposed to make sense.

"Might as well play along," he chuckled to himself and stood. It was too stuffy to just lurk around in here anyway. Lloyd trailed along after the rest of the group, content to just follow them over to the lobby.

[cheesetwo]

Well, there's a familiar face for C.C., and even one that happened to be on Zero's side. C.C. made her way over to the bespectacled engineer.

"Even you're here, huh?" she casually remarked.

[waddles]

As Rafiel went passively along with the issued commands, he could not help the worried frown that creased his face. Not only because of his unknown location but because of how solitary he felt. For as long as he could remember, he had possessed an unusually strong power of empathy. The ability to feel the emotions of others around him and feel the flux of order and chaos in the world. All herons could do this, it was a gift given to them by the goddess, and yet...

Nothing. He could not sense the minds of the beorc around him, nor the tangible energies that must surely be present in this world. What, or who, had taken that from him?

As his white wings shifted slightly against his back, unable to be still in this uncertain situation, the heron brought a hand up to his heart and willed himself calm. He would be strong, he would simply have to find a way back home or wait for Nailah to catch his scent. It wasn't as if he'd never been captured before, after all...

[loyal_liar]

Did that man... Have wings? Yes. Yes he did.

Lyra stared for a moment. She'd seen angels, of course, but angels never seemed quite solid- not beings of flesh, but made of light- of Dust. This man seemed utterly solid... But staring wasn't polite, and Lyra averted her gaze, watching him out of the corner of her eye.

"Definitely different worlds," she muttered to herself.

[utopiamods]

Once everyone has mingled a bit, a large flat-screen TV set into one wall clicks to life and a cheerful-looking woman appears on the screen. When she speaks, she's so chipper you might just feel your teeth starting to rot.

"Good afternoon to our new students here at Utopia Academy! Thank you for choosing to enroll with us for this, our first semester of the new year. Our battle system is the best in the world, set up for you, our students! I hope that you all had a fun journey here, and that you've all made some new friends! You're going to need them soon, so keep them close, okay?

"Now, I'm going to explain the rules for you. Make sure to listen carefully, and remember, you can find all of this and more in the Exaclan manual!"

She goes on to outline the Exaclan system; the video is the same as the one the that all the previous arrivals got to see. Once she finishes, the screen goes blank and the following appears:
PLAYERS FOR ROUND 1:
C.C.
Edgar Roni Figaro
Edward Elric
Euphemia li Britannia
Haruka Kuchinawa
Huashi Sun
Lyra Silvertongue
Mikoto Minagi
Rapunzel
Russel Tringham
Scott Pilgrim
Utena Tenjou
Yuki Yagizawa

[myownfuture]

And now Yuki was a Player? Was every round going to be like this?

Not only her, but Kuchinawa also... This would be interesting.

Reiko looked around. She supposed she might as well go find Yuki and make the vow with her.

[formerly_known_as_prince]

"It's wrong to own people!" Utena shouts at the screen, suddenly very angry. Her pale fists are clenched and she's so rigid she's almost shaking.

She knows that she knows this and she knows that she knows why she knows this but she doesn't actually know why she knows this or at least can't remember, although now she knows why she can't remember why she knows this Rumsfeld would be proud..

[monkeystail]

Scratching her neck, Huashi swayed back on her heels. So she was a player this round. With a frown, she stared around the crowd, wondering who to attempt to vow to... Maybe she'd ask Ichi? Even if she still didn't trust the woman, Ichi had a sword, and a sword Huashi was familiar with. It would be a good start, at any rate.

But she'd probably also have to ask random people. She wasn't sure she wanted 'random people' around. But what else could she do? She had to, as far as she'd understood it, play, otherwise she'd lose tokens, and getting into less than zero would just make it take even longer to get memories and upgrades... Scowling, Huashi planted her fists on her hips and looked around, wondering where and how to start.

[loyal_liar]

So she was a player for this? Well... She'd have to find weapons then. And since she didn't know anyone here... She didn't intend on claiming to 'own' anyone, but she'd have to play along if she wanted to get her memories back and figure out what in the world was going on. And she would definitely protect everyone she could.

She pulled out the glove she'd gotten from her bag and put it on. Now all she had to do was convince people that despite all appearances, she could actually fight. Lyra wasn't big, but she was nimble and not at all fragile, despite all appearances.

"Hey!" Lyra began turning to everyone she could see, asking each of them some variation on a single question. "Do you want to be my weapon?"

[earlofpudding]

Did somebody say fully integrated virtual network including several layers of tactile, empathic holograms? Because that was where Lloyd stopped listening. Everything else the woman on the screen was saying just wasn't as important. The entire campus was fitted out with something like that? Now this really was starting to sound like one of his dreams~

Lloyd did a turn around, scanning the building they were in for what he would assume were projectors. He couldn't spot anything obvious. Aha, these people were good at hiding them. That had to be it. "...now how would a glove trigger a tactile hologram? Hmmm." Better question. "How did they even construct a tactile hologram?"

Forget all this nonsense about some game. The man in the labcoat was going to wonder about the tech even needed for this silliness. Surely it could be put to a better use.

[valleycat]

Kitty looked at the screen, none of the names looked familiar, except for Utena who she has met earlier. Where exactly was she, she thought, and why was she taken? If anyone was going to kidnap her it would be because of her powers but here she couldn't use them for some reason.

"What's this game, like, all about?"