utopiamods: (The right way to fight Exaclan)
Rakuen Moderators ([personal profile] utopiamods) wrote in [community profile] rakuen2011-02-20 01:24 am

Round 2 [all characters and round announcement]

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 anyone onboard is ushered off and directed to the front lobby of the school. You 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.

Anyway, the many screens are far more interesting. Once a good number of students are gathered inside the building, they all activate at once to show a cheerful, almost cavity-inducing woman in the school uniform. She smiles, waves, and launches into her speech without further ado.

"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?

"Unfortunately, some of you have had to leave unexpectedly... This is a little upsetting, because they didn't finish paying their fees. So they've left a few things behind. Their friends should collect those to remember them by! After all, they might not come back, or they might be back next round! You never know.

"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 outlines the battle system for the newbies as she has every round previous, then claps her hands. The screen goes blank for a second, and then shows a blue screen with FIRST ANNUAL EXACLAN TOURNAMENT in scrolling white text. The girl appears again in a smaller window in one corner of the screen, and resumes talking.

"This is a special round! Exciting, isn't it? Of course, you can keep fighting as you normally do, too, but we'll also be running a tournament! Every Player has to take part, even if you don't make it through the preliminaries, but you should try hard! There's a big prize for those of you who make it to the last rounds. Now, there are twelve of you this time, and you'll all be fighting in the preliminaries."

The screen changes, to show first the list of Players, then a tree-style tournament diagram. The matches for Day 1 are as follows:

Rafiel vs. Hikaru Sulu
Lloyd Asplund vs. Montblanc
Mai Tokiha vs. Yuka Osada


The matches for Day 2 are:

Shoryu vs. Kallen Stadtfeld
Road Kamelot vs. Grenn Atair
Molly Hayes vs. Miwako Ihara


"After you all fight, we'll have six Players left. That means the third day will have three fights again! Ah, the last three days are for finalists only, but we'll talk about that later! If you have any more questions, ask at the desk, okay? Bye for now, and work hard! The fights start tomorrow~"
brokencrane: (☂ confusion; like you're less than)

[personal profile] brokencrane 2011-02-20 06:06 am (UTC)(link)
For most of the presentation, all Yuka could think about was how much the woman in the video reminded her of that woman at Smart Brain back home. Smart Brain couldn't be behind this whole strange school, could they? They were powerful, but not this powerful...and it wouldn't help them make more Orphenochs, anyway, since no one was dying. And surely if they were sending people off to a place like this, they'd send Kiba-san just to be rid of him...no, it couldn't be Smart Brain. But the resemblance was still a bit unsettling.

But she forgot all about that when it reached the list of Players. Because her name was on that list, and she had no idea what to do about it; you needed a Weapon to fight, didn't you? So she'd have to find someone to ask, and she didn't really know that many people here yet, and asking someone to do that for her would be so weird. Never mind that she didn't want to fight at all, and didn't even know how to fight when she was stuck in human form. And she had to participate in this tournament starting tomorrow?!

So she just stood there, staring at the screen in disbelief, and trying really hard not to look as nervous as she felt.
allurprincess: (pic#699490)

[personal profile] allurprincess 2011-02-20 02:45 pm (UTC)(link)
"Yuka!" Sora had made a split decision when the names had come up and none of her group had been amongst them; Koharu had gone towards Grenn, and if any of her princesses asked, Sora would direct them towards some of the Players she knew, but she had seen a name that she wanted to help.

"Yuka, will you be my Player?"
brokencrane: (☂ turn; if you ever ever feel)

[personal profile] brokencrane 2011-02-20 08:19 pm (UTC)(link)
Huh? Yuka blinked as the other girl came up to her; wasn't that the girl she'd helped the other day? "Himoto-san?"

--wait what did she just say. "Um, you really want me to? I don't really know how to fight..."
allurprincess: (yeah just be yourself)

[personal profile] allurprincess 2011-02-20 11:55 pm (UTC)(link)
"That's okay," she smiled and pressed one hand to her own chest, where the weapon would be drawn from, "I'm a sword, so it's easy to use."

Simple, Tsuki had said, like you, Sora. She had to agree, but it did make things a lot easier whilst she was a Weapon. "You don't have to vow if you don't want to, but I wanted to offer, at least!"
brokencrane: (☂ bite; pretty pretty please)

[personal profile] brokencrane 2011-02-21 01:59 am (UTC)(link)
She was a sword? It took Yuka a moment to process what she meant; the whole idea of weapons coming out of people was still weird. But obviously she meant her weapon was a sword. That probably was easy to use, relatively speaking, even if she'd never used a sword before. She'd seen Kiba-san use one and it didn't look too hard...

"No, I mean--" She was so bad at saying things like this. "Er, if it's okay with you, that would be really helpful, thank you."

The vow, right...you had to say you would "own and protect" the Weapon, didn't you? She didn't want to say own, though, it wasn't good to own people. And really she didn't think she could protect anyone very well, either, but...she could try. "Um...if you'll be my Weapon, I promise I'll do my best to protect you."

She knew halfway through saying it that she was definitely blushing, hard, so she ducked her head down near the end and tried to make it look like she was just bowing, really, because they were working together and yoroshiku onegaishimasu~ and everything. And not that she was totally embarrassed about saying something like that.
allurprincess: (ilu the MOSTEST)

[personal profile] allurprincess 2011-02-21 09:42 am (UTC)(link)
Sora nodded along with the vow, her expression simply encouraging and delighted. When she'd finished, she added,

"Yes! I will be your Weapon, Yuka. And... I swear I'll serve you and protect you, too."
brokencrane: (☂ listen; look happy you'll make it)

[personal profile] brokencrane 2011-02-21 05:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Okay, the embarrassment was mostly over now that she'd finished saying it. Except then she heard Sora's statement, and blushed a little again; she was pretty sure the Player was supposed to protect the Weapon, not the other way around, and really she didn't know very much about Himoto-san. But she did seem to know what she was doing a bit better than Yuka did, and it was kind of comforting to hear. "...Thanks."