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

[greennotgold]

Fletcher was still hanging around the lobby. If he'd been a Weapon again this round, he would have left for class already; this time, though, he wanted to gather as many Weapons as he could. If he could get five, he wouldn't have to fight.

Just his luck: He heard a new voice speaking from somewhere nearby, saying something about getting a Player. "Ah..." he spoke up. "Did--did you need a Player?"

[scott_pilgrim]

As soon as Scott heard those words, he turned to face the other person. "Yeah! I'm one of those weapon guys, or something," he said, looking to the ground a little bit. Scott still wasn't sure he liked being stuck as a weapon, or whatever. "So I need a player. Are you one?"

[greennotgold]

Fletcher nodded; he was uncertain, but he could do this. "Y-yeah. Um, I'm trying to protect all the Weapons who don't want to fight, so--if you want, I can be your Player."

[scott_pilgrim]

Slightly pausing for a tiny bit, Scott then nodded. "Hey, sure! I mean, I bet I'm a great weapon! And I mean, I wanna fight... but not as a weapon, or anything."

[greennotgold]

"Okay!" Fletcher smiled. Three down and two to go! "Um, then I... I vow to protect-- wait, um, my name is Fletcher Tringham. It's nice to meet you." Couldn't forget his manners.

[scott_pilgrim]

"And I'm Scott Pilgrim!" Scott said, giving a hearty grin, and holding out his hand for a handshake. He was pretty happy with this, all things considered. He had a player now -- no need to be worries about not being able to do anything, right? Right.

[greennotgold]

Fletcher shook Scott's hand, feeling a little proud of himself. "And I vow to protect you, Mr. Pilgrim!"

Okay, the kid was kind of a dork. But his heart was in the right place.

[scott_pilgrim]

...Hey, Scott would be more of a dork if he could be. But oh well, he gave a little chuckle at the handshake. This was so... formal! "So... can I just go off and do whatever now, or something?"

[greennotgold]

"Uh-huh! Oh, I should write you a note first or they might not let you into places like the library." Or, well, the swimming pool or whatever, but Fletcher considered the library more important. He pulled a pen and a folded up piece of paper from his pocket -- he'd saved it after writing Sherlock's note -- and found a desk to start writing on.

[scott_pilgrim]

"And the other cool places, right?" Scott asked in a slightly more excited voice, as he followed Fletcher to one of the desks. As you might have guessed, Scott is not the sort of guy to just hang in libraries or whatever. But as long as he had this note, he could just fight once-in-a-while this round and then spend all his time slacking off.

Right?

[greennotgold]

"Um--right." Sometimes Fletcher forgets other people don't like libraries as much as he does. "And it'll let you get dessert after dinner, too."

Fletcher signed the note and handed it over to Scott. "And if you need to buy anything from the booths, you can transfer your tokens to me and I'll get it for you, since only Players can use them." He didn't quite have the Exaclan manual memorized yet, but he was getting there.

[scott_pilgrim]

Scott gives a nod as he takes the note. "Thanks, man! I'll keep that in mind." he then said, before pausing. Did he want anything yet?


...Nah. He wanted to wait and get more tokens, before buying everything up. So Scott started to walk off, with his shiny new note. He was ready for this round-thing.