[battle] Round 2 Preliminaries, part 2

[utopiamods]

Round 2 Tournament Preliminaries

SHORYU vs KALLEN KOZUKI
ROAD KAMELOT vs. GRENN ATAIR
MOLLY HAYES vs. MIWAKO IHARA

Location: Main Courtyard, Tournament Stadium
Time of day: Afternoon.
Special Rules: One Weapon or set of Weapons per battle; Players may not leave the stadium.

[the announcement rings through the campus all morning, on the half-hour: Can all participating Players report to the Tournament Stadium for midday with their chosen Weapons. The event will begin at twelve twenty-five for all other students.

Yes, that's right, the Tournament Stadium. During the early morning of Day 1, the staff were hard at work constructing a stadium in the main courtyard. There's raised seating for all students, and a large open-air ring for the participants. There's more than enough space even for fliers, and a number of raised areas, stairs and chest-high walls to make battles more interesting. At the end of the stadium is a large screen showing the ring from above.]

Comments

[myblueskies]

"Nothing miss!" Had he said that outloud? "I'm done for now Alfredo!"

He tried to shuffle backwards and ended up tripping up over one of the benches and falling backwards. It hurt and he sat up with wide eyes he was now closer to the witch! But a level below her.

It was only then that Romeo noticed her legs, he blinked, had she got into an accident? Surely a witch would be able to fix her legs... maybe thats why she making people dissapear; to make a potion... He bit his lip.

[summerstars]

Alfredo? And then the kid stumbled backwards and tumbled down a level. Grenn winced, but there was no way she'd be able to get down to him easily.

"Are you okay? You're not hurt, are you?" If he was, she'd put on her prostethics and get down there.

[myblueskies]

"Of course not! I fall down chimneys all the time! And I never get hurt!" Well apart from the time he had fallen off the roof and broke his leg, but he was trying to convince her that he was strong enough to not be hurt after a fall.

Even if it did hurt a little bit. Wait, why was the witch being so nice to him? Pretending to be worried when she was planning to eat him, well he could use that to his advantage! He clambered back up onto her level, at least if he distracted her she couldn't eat anyone else, right?

"Why are you here?" Because even if Lyra claimed they had been kidnapped there was no way anyone could kidnap a witch! They'd just fly away!

[summerstars]

"Well... That's good..." At least he was all right, then, but it was surprising to suddenly have him clambed up beside her when he'd seemingly been very reluctant to do anything at all before but stare at her.

"Er... why I am here?" What was that for sort of question? It wasn't as if she knew that! No one of them did!

"Why's anyone of us here? I don't know! Or... uh... did you mean here, at the tournament? I was just gonna watch the last battle..." He may have meant being right here in particular, after all.

[myblueskies]

Romeo frowned, but that made no sense; surely no one could capture a witch! Especially one powerful enough to make someone dissapear, so she was lying. Witches lied all the time!

"Well people said that we were kidnapped, but you should be able to escape easily so why are you here?" He seemed a lot braver now he had decided to distract the witch long enough to let everyone else escape. Being direct was the best way. Show the witch he wasn't afraid of her and he knew her plan!

Of course he was very scared, he just hoped it didn't hurt too much when she fed him to her goblin.

[summerstars]

"Huh?" What was the kid talking about? It took her almost a full agnozied minute to actually get the words to say something.

"Why... should I be able to escape easily?" Grenn frowned and rubbed her arms. Maybe she should just have ignored the staring, this was just completely confusing.

[myblueskies]

Romeo gave the witch a look that said she wasn't fooling anyone and clambered up onto the bench beside her, though just out of grabbing distance. He wasn't that stupid.

"I saw what happened," he said it quietly, so not to scare those around them, though they really needed to escape before he made the witch too angry.

Maybe he could run, get her angry enough and then try and make her follow him to a quieter place, that way everyone else would be safe.

He really hadn't thought this through, Alfredo would be rolling his eyes at him. "I'll think of something Alfredo!"

"If you can do that," he gestured the tournament ring to indicate what had happened, "Then you can escape from here."

[summerstars]

"Do what?" Grenn shook her head and tugged on the hair framing the side of her face. What did the battle ring have to do with anything?

And who was the kid talking to, anyway, besides her? There was no one else close enough. She should have tried to find Gino or Mei after her aborted battle, instead of just getting back to where she'd been before her own... This whole confusing conversation could probably have been avoided then!

[myblueskies]

The witch was a good lier! Romeo frowned, he would have to just be plain. Surely she could not pretend to not understand then. "You made that girl disapear!" His eyes were angry, he was trying to save everyone else but he was pretty sure he was to late to save that girl, she was probably eaten already!

[summerstars]

She had done... what? Admittedly, she'd felt guilty, but there was no reason to do so; if her hacking actually had had some sort of delayed effect of randomly making just the person who was supposed to be her opponent disappear, she'd have been punished, surely.

"I didn't! How'm I supposed to have done that, anyway?" Grenn frowned and shook her head. What did the kid think she was? It wasn't as if magic existed or anything!

Well, at least not in her world...

[myblueskies]

She denied it! But of course a witch would do that, they were bad and lied all the time! He frowned at her question.

"Ma..." He remembered the word that they used instead at this school. "Technology! You made her disappear with technology! Did you make the other disappear as well?" He had heard whispers of other people going missing, and Kuchiawa, he had disappeared one night.

Had he been eaten by the goblin as well?

[summerstars]

While that was surely how whoever in charge were doing things (more like remotely unplugging them, or whatever) how did the kid think she had access to the tech that could do that? Grenn shook herself from her staring and sighed.

"And if I was doing all that, where am I supposed to have this tech, and why would I be here? Don't you think those in charge would be displeased with their kidnapees disappearing?" What was it with this kid?

[myblueskies]

What did she mean where would she have the tech, what was tech? It sounded a little bit like the beginning of technology but surely that came from inside you, or from potions. Maybe she meant her equiptment like that other witch had had.

"I don't know, that other witch just had a room full of it and the teachers didn't mind, maybe you witches are working with the kidnappers! You're here because you need people for your technology!" He was angry now, because why was she still trying to deny it when he was obviously on to her.

[summerstars]

Did he mean the guy (whoever that had been) in the workshop he'd taken over? Must be. And then her brain abandoned those thoughts for the implication of humans being needed for tech? Huh?

"... You don't need humans for technology. I mean, other than a human actually using the tech... And I'd much rather be home, thanks..." Grenn frowned down at the boy, wondering where he got these ideas from.

[myblueskies]

Romeo blinked in confusion, you didn't need human's for technology? Well Romeo knew nothing about technology so it might be true. "So you just fed them to your goblin then..."

He wasn't sure if that was a better or worse fate than being used for technology. Either way he felt very sad for those who had been taken.

[summerstars]

"My... whatnow?"

Goblin? What was that, again? She thought it was some sort of fairy tale creature, but she wasn't sure. And why would she have something like that, anyway?

[myblueskies]

"Your goblin!" The sadness was making way for fustration and anger again. "All witches have goblins so I know you have one! You and your goblin should just fly out of here and stop eating people!"

He could still run, maybe, but the witch had annoyed him to the point he just wanted to make sure she didn't hurt anyone else at this school. Everyone here had been really nice to Romeo and he didn't want them to get eaten!

[summerstars]

... If she wasn't so confused, this would be funny. Goblins? Witches? She wondered where the boy was from.

"... I don't know where... You got that idea, but witches are supposed to use magic, and where I'm from, magic doesn't exist. And neither do goblins..." Question was, would he even believe her? He seemed so very invested in the assumption that she was a 'witch'.

"And I don't eat people. I don't even eat pork," Grenn said and shook her head.

[myblueskies]

This witch was a little bit silly, or she was still lying. This was exhausting and Romeo sighed, "Well yeah Fletcher told me that! But your a technology witch," technology and magic afterall were the same thing, but people here used technology and not magic.

What did eating pork have to do with eating humans? Pork was from pigs, pigs wern't human... all that meant was that she wouldn't turn people into pigs before eating them!

"Well I never said you ate people anyways, you give them to your goblin." He sighed, "Maybe you don't use the word witch here, like you use techology instead of magic, but witches are the only thing that could make that girl disapear." He shrugged, why was he explaining this? He sighed.

[summerstars]

"Hate to tell you this, but technology and magic aren't the same thing... Technology, even if it might seem like magic sometimes, simply comes from cogs and springs on its simplest version. You know, like a clock?" Grenn shook her head and twisted the ring on her finger slowly.

"And if goblins don't exist, which they don't, how could I feed any people, which I haven't kidnapped, to it?"

[myblueskies]

Technology and magic wern't the same thing? Well yes he knew that, after all technology was much more powerful, there was nothing like those walls in the stories he had been told.

She didn't really make sense though because Romeo had seen clocks! Well he had seen them in books and doctor Casella had told him that two sticks moved round and round and that clever people could tell what time it was from them.

But that sounded nothing like the walls or the thing that Gino had shown him that drew pictures of you in a second. "Bu...But how do they make pictures, that can't just be springs and cogs! The walls don't look anything like clocks!"

He frowned again, she might be right about the goblins... Romeo had never seen one! But he had never seen a whale either, or a tiger or an elephant and he knew that they existed! "Well if you didn't kidnap anybody and you didn't feed them to your goblin then who made that girl disapear?"

[summerstars]

"Pictures? Like the screens around the school? You can think of those like a mirror, in a way, that shows a picture that was gotten somewhere else... And if you mean cameras, they... um... The older ones have a special paper in them, that when exposed to light make the scene they were aimed at appear." Grenn wasn't sure how well she was explaining things, because frankly? She didn't have a good grip of the really old technologu, but she didn't want to even attempt explaining something even as outadated as an old digital camera.

... And how should she know who had made the girl disappear?

"No idea... the announcer was surprised too... Maybe it's not supposed to happen like that, so they weren't prepared."

[myblueskies]

But... that made no sense, a mirror was nothing like a clock and how did a mirror keep a picture and move it. And how did light make drawings on paper? It hadn't been on paper the one Gino had shown him, it had been on the box itself.

And of course people wern't meant to dissapear, were they? Romeo had no idea he frowned, "Maybe it was that other witch, well technology man," Romeo shrugged, "He said he was trying to break things, maybe he broke that girl, or kidnapped her to break the fight?"

[summerstars]

"Even if he could do that, I don't think he'd have been able to make anything that could do that this soon." Grenn shook her head and looked down at the ring and the various obstacles.

"She got out. She's probably happy about that." She'd have wanted to get out... to be back where she ought to be, with Lyra and finishing up her stupid graduation.

[myblueskies]

Romeo frowned again, maybe she was right; she seemed to know much more about this technology than Romeo did. But he wasn't sure that the girl had escaped, she had just disappeared; disappearing didn't mean escaping.

"But how do you know she didn't end up somewhere worse, she just disappeared, that doesn't mean she went back home... How would that work, she’d have to go back on the train to go home!"