ROUND 4 - NEW PLAYERS & ROUND CHANGE

[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 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?

"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, and the following appears:

PLAYERS FOR ROUND 4:
Dahlia Hawthorne
Edward Elric
Gino Weinberg
Kanaya Maryam
Lelouch vi Britannia
Rudy Roughnight
Sherlock Holmes
Shiro Tougyu
Suzaku Kururugi
Takuto Tsunashi
Tomoko Oashi
Zoro Roronoa

Comments

[grimauxilatrix]

Kanaya stepped warily out of the tram, she didn't know how she was alive let alone on Earth. Or something similar to Earth because she was quite sure the one she observed was a doomed planet. Her first instinct was to find a computer and contact Karkat, since he was the leader, or maybe even Rose as she would know more about where she is. But her name on the board distracted her. She was a player and had to fight others?

She sighs and speaks articulately, "I have had enough frivolous games to last me numerous sweeps. Have I died? Is this place like prospit or derse? Though the others would be present as well, but all of the inhabitants are pink."

This girl can talk, there's no doubt about that, but what makes her really stand out is her appearance. She has gray skin, sunken in yellow eyes, and candy corn horns atop her head. Do you dare approach?

[allurprincess]

That girl had horns.

Strike that. As Sora turned from her search for Tomoko and got a look at her face, she corrected herself with a start. That girl wasn't human. But she spoke Japanese, and she was new... She glanced around to see if there was anyone who looked the same as her. Finding no one, she jogged over.

"Ah, are you new?" Stupid question, but it beat the 'can I touch your horns?' she had circling in her head.

[grimauxilatrix]

Kanaya's first thought was something along the line of 'her hair is really red' followed by wondering if hair color determined class. By Alternia standards, Sora would be in the lowest of classes, but Kanaya wasn't Equius so that didn't matter as much.

For now, Kanaya decided to see if she knew anything about where she was, "By inquiring if I was new, you are implying that you are not, is that correct? You can provide information about my location?"

[allurprincess]

What. Sora nodded without thinking, then ran the two questions back at a slightly slower speed.

"No- Ah, yes! I can help, if that's what you want," now that she was closer, the girl looked kind of young. "I'm Sora!"

[grimauxilatrix]

What is this? A straight forward answer that didn't involve sarcasm to get? From Kanaya's limited experience with humans, this was a first. And very odd.

"My name is Kanaya. Where am I would be an appropriate started question. Followed closely by why my name is being displayed." She motions towards the board that list this round's players.

[allurprincess]

Sora was nothing if not straight-forward. And happy to help.

"You're in Utopia Academy. It's meant to be a really exclusive school, but because of Exaclan, we fight more than we study..." She grinned slightly, and then turned to check the boards again. There: a name that could be what the grey girl had just introduced herself as. She sounded out the name again. "Kanaya Maryam... Ah! It means you're a Player this time. They choose some of us to fight every week."

[grimauxilatrix]

A player. Wonderful.

"Another game? Earth was doomed, where are we?" We're going to ignore the fact that Kanaya assumes she could kill all of you pretty easily. Humans are so soft. But she was more wrapped up in why she was here and no one else was. If some god wanted to spite any of them, you'd think they take Karkat or even Vriska, but not her. There was the little fact of... "Are we dead?"

[allurprincess]

"I... don't think so?"

But Euphy... well. Sora wasn't entirely sure what was going on with that. So she addressed the more pressing issue. "Kanaya, where are you from?"

[grimauxilatrix]

If they weren't dead then how was she alive? Maybe they were dead but she just didn't realize it. Sora didn't strike Kanaya as the smart type in any way. But even if Sora was the dumbest person here, she's been at Utopia longer and knew more than she did.

"I am from the planet Alternia. It's rather different from your Earth," she looks around a bit, "More complex socially it seems." At least Earth was pro-color. "Perhaps we are dealing with time lines. My memory does not lie. Earth was doomed."

At this point Kanaya was talking more to herself than to Sora.

[allurprincess]

"Oh, you must be from another world," she said this with no small amount of relief. So much that she didn't know could be put down to other worlds; it made her feel a little less stupid. So useful. "Everyone here comes from different worlds and times, you see... Grenn comes from space!"

[grimauxilatrix]

"A crossing of time lines outside of the original then. Or a collection of paradox clones but I'm not aware if paradox clones can reach self realization." She didn't feel like a paradox clone, but then again, wasn't she one actually? Sort of. Could you make a paradox clone of a paradox clone? She couldn't see why not.

Oh, right. Sora is still here.

"What is the purpose of this game?" And with the straightest face ever, "If I kill everyone will the game end and I be returned?"

[allurprincess]

Sora had absolutely no idea what most of that even meant. Which was probably just as well, because she was still in a slightly bewildered, flailing haze when Kanaya popped the question.

"Um."

What did you say to something like that? Sora knew. "You can't kill people.
The entire game is holographic. Besides, killing people is wrong. We have to all work together to beat this game."

[grimauxilatrix]

A fighting game where you're not supposed to kill things? You guys are weird. She kind of misses the imps, that was simpler.

Have a blank stare. She obviously wasn't expecting that. But then again she wasn't really expecting Sora to go 'Oh yes, kill me and you can' leave either.

"Pitting Players against each other does not coincide with your previous statement that we are to work together. In fact they are clearly in opposition to one another."

[allurprincess]

"Just because we have to fight each other doesn't mean we have to be enemies," she explained, without missing a beat. To her, there was no contradiction. "Winning battles gets us tokens, and we can use those to buy our memories back or make ourselves stronger. So, the more we fight, the more memories we can buy for everyone!"

[grimauxilatrix]

Kanaya was finally gauging just how idealistic Sora was, a bit like John in a sense. Though John could kill the imps, she imagined that Sora would just make friends with them like Tavros did.

"Internal conflict moves you forward." She sounds like she's contemplating the idea, it's something she was actually used to. On Alternia when they were young they were forced to fight for the better of the planet. So it made some sense to her. But at the same time, not really.

"Memories? What has happened to my memories?"

[allurprincess]

"They take ten memories. To make us want to take part," she held out one hand and tugged back her shirt sleeve to show the delicate bracelet with its two charms. "Buying them back is the only way to remember again... sometimes you don't know what's missing until you remember it."

[brokencrane]

After nervously checking the Player list -- she wasn't on it this time, thank goodness -- Yuka took a few minutes to look around the lobby and see who else was there. It didn't take long to spot the girl with the horns; she did kind of stand out. Then again, Yuka already knew there people of different species here, and this girl wasn't really any stranger than Montblanc-san was.

She got close enough to hear the end of the what the girl was saying to herself. "Um, excuse me...are you new?"

[grimauxilatrix]

Kanaya sighed and crossed her arms, obviously annoyed at her question, "I am aware that my physical appearance differs greatly from your species. Unless you are daft, I assume that you would recall seeing me. So I shall ask, is your inquiry completely necessary?"

[brokencrane]

Yuka flinched slightly from her tone; she did know it wasn't the best starting question, but she hadn't known what else to say. "U-Um, well, I haven't seen you before, no... but I haven't met everyone here, and I was sick when the train came last week" -- and she was pretty sure sleeping for a week and a half wasn't normal, but the nurse had insisted that she was fine and it just happened to people at the school sometimes, so maybe it wasn't a big deal -- "so I thought maybe you could have come then, but you were looking around a lot and you sounded confused, so I wasn't sure..." She trailed off, biting her lip. Hopefully she hadn't made the other girl mad...

[grimauxilatrix]

Kanaya realized that she sounded a bit bitter, but that wasn't her intention. She doesn't understand sarcasm so it was really more of a straight forward question than a backhanded one, although it seemed to have the same effect.

"I was not mindful of your outstanding medical condition, my assumption was uncalled for. I am unaccustomed to not being able to view time lines of those I am with contact with. Face to face interactions is foreign to me as well."

[brokencrane]

...Okay, so Yuka didn't know what she was talking about for half of that, but it was good that she hadn't meant to be mean about it, at least. "It's okay..." Must move the conversation to something less awkward now! "Um, what's your name? I'm Yuka, Yuka Osada."

[grimauxilatrix]

She looks up at the board before answering, Yuka wasn't a player. Kanaya knew that she needed weapons in order to win the game, and maybe if she won she could get back to where she should be. "My name is Kanaya Maryam, I am in the position of Player this round, are you searching for one perhaps?"

Straight forward as always.

[brokencrane]

She was a Player already? Yuka hadn't realized you could be assigned as one when you'd only just arrived. That didn't seem very fair. "Nice to meet you, Kanaya-san. I, um, well I wasn't really looking for a Player right away..." She did think it would be a good idea to find a Player this round, since the restrictions on unowned Weapons were kind of annoying, but she hadn't expected to find one very quickly. Suzaku-san was the only person on the list that she really knew, but she didn't know him that well, so she wasn't sure yet if she wanted to bother him. She wasn't sure if she liked the idea of being the Weapon of someone she'd just met, though...

[grimauxilatrix]

"My name is Kanaya," she answers. What is this -san thing? But she nods once, "Is it common practice to procrastinate on acquiring a player?" Again there was no bitterness or anything behind her words, they were just straightforward. "Or is it custom to do so?"

She needed more information about this game, or a human to tell her all about it. Where there protocols she needed to follow? She was already told she couldn't just kill everyone. That was sadly disappointing as that seemed to be the easiest way.

[brokencrane]

She was confused for a minute; that's what she'd said, wasn't it? Oh, but the other girl wasn't Japanese, obviously, she wouldn't know what it meant. No one else had asked about it, so it hadn't occurred to her. "Oh, um, in my language at home it's polite to add -san to people's names. It's rude to call someone by just their name if you don't know them very well."

"Um...well, you can do whatever you want, really. I think most people do it on the first day just because it's easier... I know someone else on the list, so I was going to ask him first," she added. That wasn't exactly the plan, but it seemed more polite than saying she didn't know her at all.