rakuen | Introduction!

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Introduction!

The tram quickly arrives at 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. There's a woman sitting at a desk ready to check everyone in, but she's not important right now; what the students should pay attention to is the large flat-screen TV set into one of the walls. As soon as everyone has gathered inside, it clicks on and starts to play a prerecorded video. A cheerful woman appears on-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!"

A map of the academy appears on-screen. The woman stands green-screened in front of the map.

"Our academy is fully integrated with a virtual network that includes several layers of tactile, empathic holographics geared toward the battle game Exaclan. Exaclan is a game fought between groups of Players using their respective Weapons; if a Player wins a battle, he or she takes possession of the opposing Player's Weapon. This way, Players can own many, many Weapons. Collect them all!

"As for the Weapons, you might be wondering where those come from. Well, as it turns out, only a few of you are going to be Players. The rest of you are Weapons! Players, if you equip your custom-fitted Exaclan gloves, you will be able to unsheathe your weapon from the chest of any Weapon you own."

Meanwhile, behind the woman as she speaks, a stylized cartoon sequence plays out in which a man in knight's garb pulls a sword from the chest of a woman in an elaborate princess gown.

"Now, since you're all just starting out here, you don't own any Weapons yet. In order to take possession of a Weapon, you must ask permission, and then promise to own and protect it. This is very important! Be nice to your Weapons, and in return, they will bring you to victory!

"The items you draw out of your Weapons' chests aren't real; they are part of the holographic Exaclan system. Each person's Weapon will be different, and they aren't just guns or knives, either. Their form is partly determined by the Weapon's personality, but it's partly randomized. Maybe you'll get lucky. Maybe not. It eliminates natural advantages!

"Now, like I said, the Weapons aren't real, but the damage you do in battle is real. You will feel every blow you take from an opponent's Weapon, and physical damage done to your Weapon will damage the person you drew it from, too. So be careful, or you could cause serious damage!"

The woman holds up one finger, grinning ear-to-ear;

"If you win a battle, ownership of the Weapon you fought against transfers to you. You also earn one Token, and you earn an additional Token for every five battles you fight, whether or not you win. Tokens can be used to buy Upgrades, Link Charms, Memory Charms, and Legend Fragments, so do your best to earn as many Tokens as you can!

"Oh, right, about the Memory Charms... you're probably wondering why there are some things you can't remember. That's just a little precaution we took to make sure that you would participate in Exaclan. You've each been stripped of ten memories: Some of them are very important, but some of them aren't. You can purchase a Memory Charm for five Tokens, which means to regain all of your memories will cost fifty Tokens. Ah, there's a catch, though: You can't use the Memory Charms you buy. You have to give them to other people. So get along with your fellow students and make as many friends as you can, okay?

"Now, if you have any other questions, make sure to consult your Exaclan manuals. They will tell you more about the rules of Exaclan, what you can and cannot do with your Weapons, and so forth. Following this video, the list of Players for this Round will be displayed. Anyone not on that list is a Weapon for this Round. Sorry!"

The woman holds one hand up in front of her face apologetically, but continues smiling as ever.

"In conclusion, welcome to Utopia Academy. Let's all do our best and achieve utopia together!"

The video clicks off, replaced by a pale blue screen stating the following:

PLAYERS FOR ROUND -2:
Dave Strider
Gino Weinberg
Grenn Atair
Koharu Izaki
Molly Hayes

((OOC: Feel free to post reactions and general mingling in this post. From here on, you're free to make posts, fight battles, attend class, etc.! If you have any questions, get in touch with a mod.

Edit: A mod mistook how much Memory Charms cost. They're five tokens, not ten. Oops! So the post has been edited slightly. That is all!))

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Grenn rolled her eyes. While the look was certainly unsettling, looks couldn't kill you.

This place was unbelievable. All this tech and.... Grrr. She hoped there would be weapons she could use from this clumsy monster of a "mobility aid". Had she had her hover chair, she could have fought from that.

He could think what he wanted. She knew that she (unfortunately) had a weapon. Otherwise, what was she doing here?

"Didn't anybody ever tell you not to judge the outside? You don't look like you could produce much of a weapon yourself," Grenn said sharply. Not that she meant it, exactly. She was of the mind that if you were here, whatever was produced would work as a weapon. It was the player's responsibility thereafter to actually figure it out.

Oh, that was right. In all this confusion of waking up someplace unknown and being ushered along, he'd forgotten one key fact.

He was a weapon.

Slowly bringing a hand up to his own chest, Tougyu glanced down and pulled his hand away, as if he was expecting his weapon to be there. When there was obviously nothing, he turned his hand around and glanced at the back of his palm.

"I don't have my glove." He murmured quietly, as if he were just realizing that fact. "I'm one of them..." There was a strange way he said "them." As if them were synonymous with trash.

And yet, he didn't seem overtly angry or even upset. If anything, he seemed... hopeful.

"For now, anyway," Grenn rolled her eyes as she said it, uncertain why the almost-nice words had tumbled out. The only thing she knew about this guy was that he'd seen her lack of legs and decided she was not only incapable, but "broken". (And she had no reason being nice to people who looked down on her.)

You didn't need a whole body to materialize... discus. Grenn swallowed the choke, because at first she thought they were from the kiddy game, but no. It was worse than that. Why couldn't it just have been something clean, like a regular laser gun? Nothing wrong with laser guns.

"I hope these rounds go by fast," Grenn muttered, and knew it was wrong to feel defeated already, but how would she convince people that she would be a capable fighter? She could of course show her legs, but depending on their frame of reference, prostethics would maybe mean nothing to them.

At Grenn's murmur, Tougyu glanced up at her again before walking towards her. Once at her side, he crouched in order to get a better look at her legs, staring at them unabashedly.

There really was no doubt about it, she'd never be picked as a weapon. Owners wanted toys who were mobile, able to come to them at a moment's notice. Able to follow them without trouble. Someone like her would be the exact opposite. The owner would have to take care of her.

"You want to be a player?" He inquired, glancing sideways up at her.

Grenn had the great urge to smack him in the face with what was left of her left leg, since it was the longest. That would feel way creepy though, considering... For a moment, everything crashed to a halt and Grenn realized, she didn't remember Lyra kissing her. At all. She knew it had happened, but she couldn't. remember. it. Of all the things---

Concentrate on something else. Like the guy staring at her legs. If she was someone else, she might have joked about where her face was. As it was, such a thing didn't even come to mind.

"For this round, I am a player," Grenn finally snapped, and, tired of the foolish attitude, hauled up the bag that she'd wrestled around the back of the wheelchair, so she could easily get it.
"If I need to, I'll use these," Grenn paused to pull out one of the prostethics. Damn whoever was in charge and hadn't brought her hover chair with her!

She didn't know why she bothered, though. People like him would probably always see her as "incapable", even though she was a full person with or without the prostethics.

As Grenn brought out the metal limb, Tougyu's eyes drifted to that instead.

For a moment he seemed to be considering them, tilting his head this way and that before he straightened fully. "Put them on." He ordered, not realizing she would probably be offended by his tone. Instead, he began to weight the possibilities. She was a player and he was a weapon. She needed someone to protect her and he... well, his weapon... it was made for protecting. He knew that.

For the love of the Name! Who did this guy think he was? Grenn felt her face do an involuntary snarl before smoothing out into a narrow stare. She leaned back in the wheelchair and crossed her arms.

"And what is that going to tell you? That I still am shorter than you?" She was rather proud that the comeback came so quickly and easily. Usually it didn't come so easily to her.

But really, why was he asking (demanding)? She'd obviosuly implied she could walk on them, so what was the use in asking for a "demonstration"? She didn't understand, and felt a great deal like leaving.

"It'll tell me if I can use you." Tougyu replied in neutral tones as he leaned closer, nudging the prosthetic with his arm.

He wasn't entirely sure why he was offering to be her weapon. Why he even cared, really. But there was something in the back of his mind, something telling him that he had to protect something. Someone. That there was a girl out there that he should be beside no matter what and that it wasn't Shishido-senpai. Maybe it was because of that feeling that he was offering himself to this person now. Maybe, just maybe, if he helped her, that awful, gut wrenching feeling that he was forgetting something very important would go away for a little while.

Grenn stared. Tugged at a clump of hair and stared some more. Fragging... She was..! The metal limb was demonstatively waved around in frustration with an ease that belied its denseness, if not absolute weight.

She needed at least one Weapon. She knew this. But this... mud-brained, fragging asshole--!

"Listen to me," Grenn snapped as she first put the left prostethic to the metal connectors, a slight tooth-aching buzz and whoosh of vacuum announcing the connection, and then did the same to the right. "And listen well," Grenn snarled as she stood up, ignoring racing flickers of pain going up her spine and into her brain, static electricity inside her head, her flesh.

"If I actually wore these usually, I'd probably be... useless by now. Most people need heavy pain-killers the like which will not exist for a few hundred years!" Grenn stabbed Tougyu in the chest several times as she spoke.

... Oops. Was she supposed to say something like that?

"You're useless without them." Tougyu remarked, tilting his head to the side as she jabbed her finger at his torso. Still, he seemed to approve of her mobility, even if it seemed a bit shaky. Stepping back, he circled her once like a vulture, mostly inspecting her legs before stopping behind her and stooping down, poking at the metal limb.

"Can you fight like this?"

Was he really as stupid as he was making himself out to be? For once, Grenn gave in to a malicious little urge. She 'pretended' to stumble and stepped down on the toes of his right foot. Not with her whole weight, or even the whole weight of the two-kilo metal prostethics, but stepped either way. There'd be bruises. Hopefully she hadn't broken any bones and hopefully he wouldn't loose any nails, but she didn't think she'd stepped down hard enough for that.

There were needles where flesh and metal met as she shifted her stance, carefully got away from any vulnerable bits.

"I have run an obstacle course with these." Grenn's voice was sharp. "And with a ranged weapon, I could sit in that wheelchair and still win." She may have sounded a bit too sure on that, but hopefully that was true. She hoped there'd be Weapons when she was a player that she wouldn't have to use her prostethics for.

"

If Tougyu felt any pain, he gave no sign of it. In fact, the only indication that he noticed what she'd done was look up at her with a somewhat annoyed stare.

"Running isn't fighting and a stupid bitch like you wouldn't stand a chance at close range combat." He remarked absently, straightening in case she decided to do something more violent next time. There were only two women he'd take that kind of treatment from, and Grenn wasn't one of them.

Still, here he had a golden opportunity. If fighting was the only way to get back his memories then he needed a player who was willing to take him. And despite the low standards, his window of opportunity was already dwindling, especially since one of the five players was one of Himoto Sora's possessions.

No, the only way he'd get to fight is if he found a player who was as desperate for a partner as he was.

"Make me your weapon."

Stupid..?

"I am not a female dog, slag brain, and an obstacle course requires coordination. Or have you perhaps never run one?" Grenn gave a stare right back. How dare he call her stupid! And what sort of insult was calling someone a bitch, anyway? Humans weren't even related to dogs close enough for the comparsion to be apt!

And then..! To literally demand--! But she knew she needed at least one weapon. It was an accident that they had even started to talk to each other (if you could call it that). She couldn't rely on luck to get her any other possible weapon...

An image of Sora flittered briefly through her head, but it was mentally shook away. Sora had at least two friends here, and one of them could be one of the players; she'd want to be with them. And Grenn wasn't sure how to find her in this crowd, anyway, or start a conversation, especially about this.

"Right." Grenn rolled her eyes and then narrowed her eyes. "But if this is going to be as... painless as possible for both of us, we'll both try to keep insults to a minimum. You can think what you want about me, but if you call me stupid or..." another pause to roll her eyes, "a female dog again, I don't care if I can't play, I am not gonna use you as my Weapon." If she was going to try to be respectful, he was too.

Tougyu tilted his head to the side. "Slag brain...?" What kind of insult was that?

Well, it didn't matter. He had a player, a bossy one, but one nonetheless. That was definitely a step in the right direction. At her conditions of being a pair, Tougyu's eyes took on a thoughtful light as he considered them. For a moment he thought about arguing, about saying how he should be allowed to say whatever he wanted regardless of the circumstances and that she wasn't allowed to deny him that right.

But then again, he was a weapon now and by the unofficial Exaclan rules, weapons had no rights.

So, instead, he shrugged in a non-verbal sort of agreement and looked straight into her eyes. "Make the promise."

She did not want to. This was the sort of person she'd avoid as long as possible, normally. Just her luck that she would accidentally get stuck with such a person.

She did not like him. But, she didn't really need to. She didn't like that "promise" either. The only ones who "owned" people were those who had slaves, and slavery was reprehensible. It happened, of course, what horrible facet of humanity didn't, but reprehensible.

She was tired. There was a faint column of pain going up through her body from her legs. Nothing she hadn't learned to deal with, but constantly there, anyway.

"If you would allow me to... borrow you, for the duration of the round, I'll do my best to keep your weapon as unharmed as possible." There. She hoped that would be close enough to the original 'promise' that it would count. Borrowing, she could deal with.

That had to be the most feeble declaration of ownership he'd ever seen. Still, maybe it would count? Now what would the girl- er- weapon say in this situation? He tried to remember all the ones he'd ever owned and what they had said to him afterwards.

... well, besides the whimpering and scared crying.

Er, something like... my heart and soul is yours? ... yeah, there was no way he was saying that to her, she might kick him again. Maybe he didn't have to? There was one way to find out.

Tougyu started unbuttoning his shirt.

... What. was. he. doing? Grenn stared thoroughly dumbstruck for the moment. That was completely random! She knew she wasn't particularly good at social interaction, but in no way could she see how this might be the result of what she'd said...

"Er... what?" Yes, not particularly comprehensible, that. Grenn shook her head and tried again. "What are you doing that for?" Yeah, that sounded more like a reasonably coherent question.

"Undressing." Tougyu responded blithely as he finished undoing the buttons and pulled the two halves apart revealing a sickly pale, yet strangely muscled torso. Peering down at his own chest, he scanned his skin for the mark signaling his new status as an owned weapon and frowned when he found none.

"It's not here." He remarked after a moment, sounding put out as he peered under the flaps of his shirt as if he could find it that way.

Shaking her head, Grenn frowned. Undressing was obvious, but how it could even be remotely connected... Oh. Why was something supposed to appear? Or had it disappeared?

"What are you even looking for?" Grenn scratched her cheek; if whatever it was had disappeared, oughtn't he be more surprised? And usually things didn't just appear on the body suddenly... Grenn supressed a shudder as she remembered the first signs of the Rot.

"Proof of ownership." He replied, somewhat curtly as if she should know this already. It wasn't her fault that she didn't, she had just arrived after all but Tougyu chose not to factor that into his reply to her ignorance. If they were going to win, he wasn't going to go easy on her.

After several moments of searching his torso and coming up empty, Tougyu stilled and stared at the floor contemplatively.

Maybe it was...? He looked up at Grenn.

"They must have moved it."

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Introduction!

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Oh god I am so sorry this is so late.