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

[aureus_veritas]

There's no mistaking that voice.

Nor is there any mistaking the way she addressed him.

One would think Ed would be more ready for a Mei attack... but he's not. He'd been under the impression that she'd developed a crush on Al. Which was... fine, he supposed. Though it did mean that he'd more or less dropped his guard around her. Which means that right at this very moment, Ed's been knocked off his feet with a yelp of shock and alarm and is now being smothered on the floor.

Which is also not good for all the cuts and bruises he's sustained from the Father fight. So, wincing all the while, Ed attempts to squirm free and pry Mei off of him.

"MEI, WHA- OW- WOULD YO- GAH! - GET OFF!! STUPID BEAN GIRL
GETOFFGETOFFGETOFF!!!"

[idkmybffxiao]

Good luck with that. Mei is latched on like a vice.

"I can't believe it you're really HERE and alive and it was so scary and--" The girl ignored the yelling and squirming at first, but the damage to his coat eventually dawned on her. She sat up, though still on him, and blinked. "Aaah! You're hurt!"

Wait.

Waitwait. More importantly, what did he just call her?

"HEY! DON'T CALL ME A STUPID BEAN GIRL!"

[aureus_veritas]

Ed levels her with a look. Yes, he's injured. Plenty of damage to the torso area (the extent of which he had yet to actually check out), cuts all over his face and bruises everywhere else. His clothes were shredded in places and while he'd wiped most of the blood of his face, his hair was still caked with it. As always, Mei is so damn observant.

"I'LL CALL YOU WHATEVER I DAMN WELL WANT, NOW GET OFF OF ME!!!"

He goes back to shoving at her, trying to pry those grabby hands off.

[idkmybffxiao]

The look is more than enough to get her to scurry off of him. The yelling? Insult to injury there. This couldn't possibly be the boy she loved. He was loud and angry and when did he get so short, now that she's thinking about it? It didn't matter. She'll worry about that later. Even without her alkahestry, she might still be able to do something.

"Quit yelling!"

While he may have glared Mei off of him, it doesn't stop her from trying to pry his shirt up and get a look at whatever injuries she couldn't easily spot. "Now hold still and let me see!" Huff. "It can't be that bad if you're still screaming your head off at me..."

[aureus_veritas]

Whoa. Whoa whoa, is she serious?!

"HEY!" Ed swats at her, grabbing for her wrists to keep them away from the edge of his shirt and scrambling into an position that'll make it easier to either fend her off or to get the hell away from her. "You don't need to see anything, I'm FINE!! What the hell's gotten into you?!"

[idkmybffxiao]

"...but what if you need to go to the infirmary?"

Because he really did look to be in bad shape now that she wasn't hugging him to death. Mei tried to twist her wrists out of his grip, planning to keep them to herself after that. "What are you talking about? I can't be happy to see you?!"

[aureus_veritas]

Ed makes a face, waving the question off. "It's a bunch of cuts and bruises, it's nothing that time won't fix."

Then he lets go, scooting away from her a bit just in case she decides to get clingy out of the blue. "And no, you can't! You're NEVER happy to see me!! And yet all of a sudden you're acting--" He gestures wildly at her. "-like this at me!"

[idkmybffxiao]

"I'm not?" That at least answered one question. Her knight in shining armor must have been the other Elric brother, the one actually with the suit of shining armor. Mei flopped down to sit on the floor as well and stared down despondently.

"So it's Alphonse that I like, but he isn't here with you, is he..." It wasn't a question. She already new the answer. Mei would have spotted Alphonse a mile away.

[aureus_veritas]

Ed doesn't feel the need to respond to that as he pulls himself back up onto his feet, dusting himself off with a frown. "He's probably better off. Winding up here out of the blue isn't exactly ideal."

Then he freezes, blinking. Wait a minute. What the hell was she saying? "Hey... Are you telling me you... didn't know who you liked?"

[idkmybffxiao]

"But we would know if he's okay if he were..." Not that Mei would really wish anyone else to be trapped here like they are, but the last thing she could remember before this was they had all been fighting. Not knowing the outcome was a worry that nagged at her from time to time.

She looked back up at him and nodded. "Yeah. I think they took that memory away."

[aureus_veritas]

That makes Ed freeze for a moment. She has a point, he supposes, but still... "He's fine," he says, making the statement as solidly as he can. "Everyone's fine, we just need to get back there as soon as possible."

And then there's that reminder of the whole memory-thing they were dealing with. Ed frowns, brow furrowing. "That's... a weird thing to forget."

[idkmybffxiao]

"They are?" If Ed was saying that, it had to be true, right? He wouldn't lie about his brother's wellbeing. His own, sure, but Al's? At least she could set that worry aside for now. She sighed and got back to her feet, brushing her school uniform off in case of dirt. "Maybe it's weird to you, but it's important to me."

But not to dwell on saddening things.

"Right! I've already been here for three rounds... though..." Mei wouldn't call Round Zero an actual round. She shuddered just thinking about it. "I don't know how we can leave yet."

[aureus_veritas]

Ed rolls his eyes a little. Of course it's an important memory to her. But at least he got her straightened out on that one, right?

Back to business.

"Did you check all the buildings for any kind of weird machinery? Or even strange arrays drawn out somewhere? Someone mentioned that there are locked off areas around here that might have something, do you know anything about that?"

[idkmybffxiao]

Mei shot him a glare at the eyeroll. She saw that, mister! She doesn't bring it up, though, and only crosses her arms with a grumble. Even as Ed thought the matter was settled, the update on which brother she had liked was already slipping away from her memory...

He wasn't going to be happy when she greeted him at breakfast with another shriek and hug.

"Ah, no weird machines. I haven't been able to get into the locked buildings. I thought I might try to just break a window in on one of the higher floors." Mei wouldn't have a problem getting up there. "Though I think the entire island has an array laid down on it. I don't know how else to explain what's blocking alkahestry, if it isn't something like that."

[aureus_veritas]

Ed's eyes widened. "Wait-- Something's blocking your alkahestry?"

He then turned his gaze upward, looking around at all the buildings. "If there was a giant array... We could verify it with a map or a view from higher up..."

[idkmybffxiao]

"Yeah, and Fletcher's alchemy, so it must have gotten yours, too." So heads up. There will be no transmuting for any of them. "The desk gives out maps, but if you want to see everything from up above..." Mei points upwards. "There's a clocktower."

[aureus_veritas]

"Dammit," Ed growled. No alchemy. This was going to prove a little more difficult than he'd initially thought.

His gaze followed where Mei was pointing, looking for this clocktower. He then nodded, mostly to himself, but he gestured for her to follow him to the desk anyway.

"Then we'll get both. Can't hurt."

[idkmybffxiao]

"Don't worry! I still won a fight even without alkahestry!" And she's a tiny thing, though already knowing how to fight had helped with that quite a bit. When he started towards the receptionist desk, Mei latched onto one of his hands so she could hold it as they walked.

She hadn't even thought about it. That reminder that Ed had given her about Al? Gone.

"So we're going to climb the clocktower?" The girl sounded excited. Running about, solving mysteries in enemy territory with Edward? That sounded soooo romantic.

[trollofthree]

And with the inevitability of a trainwreck in a cheap action film, Gino closed in just before they reached the desk. Arms folded, he slouched in his typical obnoxiously tall way, and grinned a little too widely.

"Hey, you found someone! Gonna introduce me?"

[aureus_veritas]

Ed tried to withdraw his hand when he felt Mei's hand slipping into it, but he must've gotten distracted somehow. Or he figured it was harmless, if a little weird. She liked Al, after all. They'd just established that.

He stopped short when he heard that voice, turning toward it even though he didn't recognize it at all. Deciding that whoever it was had to be an acquaintance of Mei's and that he obviously didn't have to be a part of this conversation, Ed once again attempted to slip away from her to get a map from the desk.

[idkmybffxiao]

Mei let Ed escape this time. He needed to get a school map and his dorm key before they could go searching the grounds for signs of arrays. He wouldn't leave without her, right? Right. She was sure of it. Mostly. Kind of. A little.

Though that did leave her alone to chat with Gino while she waited for him to get back. It would be a most regrettable run-in.

"Giiino! I did! It's Edward~!" The tiny Xingese girl watched Ed walk away, looking more or less like the happiest person in the world at that moment. She turned to the knight and beamed at him. "He's from Amestris and we were fighting the bad guys together and someday we're going to get married and we'll rule Xing together and it'll be the greatest and--" Mei paused, encountering one little hitch in her thought process. "...or was it Alphonse that I was going to marry?"

Oh well! It didn't matter. Edward had gotten here first!

[trollofthree]

Gino watched him leave too, eyes glinting as he appraised the guy for the qualities Mei had spent a while outlining in the last few weeks.

"Wow, you've got that all planned out, huh? Just make sure you've got the right guy before you give him the crown."

[aureus_veritas]

Ed could swear Mei was talking about him, and it was making him twitch. He supposed it made sense to an extent, but he was getting the feeling that it was spiraling out of control and into a realm that he wasn't too thrilled with.

Once he'd gotten what he needed, he tucked everything into his back pockets and headed back over to join Mei and her friend.

[idkmybffxiao]

He would be right. Soooo very right.

"Yeah! I'll make sure!" At least the most terrible things she had said had passed by the time Edward got back to them. Mei twirled around to face him, beaming with the joy of a thousand unicorns smiling way too happily at him. "Ed! This is Gino! He's been here as long as I have and he's a knight!"

[trollofthree]

"Yo." He gave a half-salute, half-wave. The guy looked incredibly suspicious, which, Gino figured, was the right reaction if you had Mei plotting to make you the first of her royal consorts.