ROUND -1

[utopiamods]

This morning, the marks of ownership disappear from the bodies of every Weapon who was owned during the previous round. The woman from the introductory video appears on the Exaclan video screens across campus, and on all of the computer screens as well.

She doesn't look very happy.

"My, you weren't very enthusiastic this time, were you?" she says, frowning and waving one finger in disappointment. "That's no good. If you don't fight, you can't earn Tokens to buy your powers or your memories back! If you don't even have those, imagine how hard it'll be to earn Legend Fragments!"

She smiles; the shift from her previous expression is sudden and startling. "You know, if you hear the legend, you just might learn a few things!

"We didn't want to do this, but it looks like we're going to have to. Okay! From now on, Players, you can only go three days without fighting. After that, we'll start taking away one Token a day. And you want your Tokens, don't you?" She smiles even more widely, as though she has no idea why anyone might be upset at being forced into such a situation. "To get you all started, we've given you some free tokens! You already had three each, you know, and we've added seven more. That means you all have ten tokens, so visit a booth and get spending."

She pauses, and then snaps her fingers, "Ah, but only Players can do that, so if any of your Weapons want to buy something, you should do it for them, okay?

"I know you can do it! Believe in yourselves and each other, and you'll achieve utopia!

"Now, here are the Players for this round!"

The screen goes blank, and the following appears:

PLAYERS FOR ROUND -1:
Fletcher Tringham
Kevin Smith
Mei Chang
Meryl Silverburgh
Oichi
Suzaku Kururugi
Tsuki Aoi

Comments

[princesspowerful]

Molly was running around trying to find Fletcher. Unfortunately, she wasn't really watching where she was going, she was too busy looking around trying to find the younger boy.

Oof, she runs right into Gino and falls to the ground, she looks up with a scowl on her face ready to tell him to watch where he's going because she's on an important mission but, "YOU'RE SO TALL!"

[trollofthree]

Gino, on the other hand, only staggers a step sideways. He moves to help her up, but she seems to have handled that part fine on her own; he blinks at her outburst, one hand still outstretched to help her up, then straightens and rests the hand on his hip instead, all the better to look down at her.

He knows this is a school, but the number of small children is a bit unnerving.

"Yeah? Maybe you're just short."

[princesspowerful]

She sticks her tongue out, "Nuh uh! You're just too tall!"

[trollofthree]

"Oh?" His voice lilts, amused. "And you decided this just now?"

[princesspowerful]

Pout, "Maybe I did!"

[trollofthree]

He's grinning outright now, but then, "Hey, you're the other girl from our room."

Honestly, he's been out of the dorm so much that he hasn't seen his fellow Pale 1-Bers enough to recognise them off the bat. The fact that Molly is 90% hat doesn't really help.

[princesspowerful]

Molly stared at him a bit, "You're that guy!" Oh Molly, so descriptive, "That guy Kallen doesn't like!" Take it as you want, but Molly has a grin on while saying that, like it's funny or amusing. And she does think it's amusing because Gino is just so tall and funny looking how could you not like him?

For the record, she has a kitty hat on today.

[trollofthree]

Well, you could not like him because he's casually slaughtered several of your friends in Knightmare combat, or because he's an elite soldier of the empire that crushed and enslaved your country with no intention of changing sides, or because he keeps reminding you of everything you lost.

Or just because he's always friendly and overly familiar despite all that.

Like now, as he laughs at her description.

"Right, that guy. But you can call me Gino, for short."