Re: The Grand Battle S2G1! [Round One: Alpha Complex!]
05-23-2010, 05:16 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.
Xadrez was... well... disconcerted was probably the best word for his reaction to the brashly sudden turn of events. The spirit had, just moments prior, been engrossed by the beginnings of a brawl in the rear of some human establishment; the context of which Xadrez cared little for. It possessed a vague understanding of the motivations that drove men to their mutual destruction, but had made the decision, eons ago, to not pursue it if the data of the act itself could account for itself.
This trivial little fight was forgotten with this sudden, keenly sensed distance, discomfiting all the more for the fact Xadrez had no idea where he was. All the context the spirit had meticulously constructed, scaffolding to its myriad calculations, was now cast away. All the odds that Xadrez had gathered and postulated and tested and relied upon for the humans, its humans; gone.
Had Xadrez not been immobilised throughout the Observer's introduction, it would've raised a spectral arm and swept it across the jet-black plate, scattering the mismatched pieces every which way - a motion half frustration, half acceptance. Conceding it could not do this, the spirit was content to listen, the knife in its back itching to forge a new set of variables to adorn the board before it, sullied as it was now in cluttered irrelevance.
Eight recurring foes were studied to the tactician's fullest extent while all bar one were held in this condition of "immobility"; as the inexcusable antagonism of this "Observer" had firmly placed it in Xadrez's fiercely calculating mind as combatant; compounded with an understanding of shifting locales. If the spirit had eyelids, it would've blinked with surprise at how it had been described, but instead allowed itself a few tangents before focusing on the remainder of the Observer's messages. Who was this Director? Another foe? Plausible, considering the way the Observer had referred to him on amicable terms. These thoughts, their permutations and implications, lingered uneasily in Xadrez; this whole competition, and most of all his position in the midst of it, were strange and new. Only on a few choice occasions had Xadrez ever made the combatants he studied aware of his presence, and the results he had gleaned from those tests did little to allay it in its present state - never had all factors; all foes, now, of Xadrez personally; understood him to even this meagre extent now.
The stage was thrown into darkness, and the eight contestants found themselves in Alpha Complex. Xadrez made the first move; unusual for the phlegmatic spirit - but it had already run the preliminary odds of the potential scenarios through its head and decided this action would not cost it - or would cost it the least. The other contestants were snapped out of their reverie by the long-awaited smack and clatter and rattle of hordes of game pieces being swept off the obsidian, struck clean across its surface flawed only with a highway of gold. Leaders, generals, dignitaries, bounced and rolled under narrow, uncomfortable cots; entire armies scattered into disarray as the solid blocks of their chess pieces were shattered on the concrete floor.
A meaningless world of stone people littered the ground. The disc tilted to fit through the exit, before levelling out again once outside in the corridor. The spirit deliberately chose not to look at any of them as it turned and drifted up the worn-out hallway.
Xadrez was... well... disconcerted was probably the best word for his reaction to the brashly sudden turn of events. The spirit had, just moments prior, been engrossed by the beginnings of a brawl in the rear of some human establishment; the context of which Xadrez cared little for. It possessed a vague understanding of the motivations that drove men to their mutual destruction, but had made the decision, eons ago, to not pursue it if the data of the act itself could account for itself.
This trivial little fight was forgotten with this sudden, keenly sensed distance, discomfiting all the more for the fact Xadrez had no idea where he was. All the context the spirit had meticulously constructed, scaffolding to its myriad calculations, was now cast away. All the odds that Xadrez had gathered and postulated and tested and relied upon for the humans, its humans; gone.
Had Xadrez not been immobilised throughout the Observer's introduction, it would've raised a spectral arm and swept it across the jet-black plate, scattering the mismatched pieces every which way - a motion half frustration, half acceptance. Conceding it could not do this, the spirit was content to listen, the knife in its back itching to forge a new set of variables to adorn the board before it, sullied as it was now in cluttered irrelevance.
Eight recurring foes were studied to the tactician's fullest extent while all bar one were held in this condition of "immobility"; as the inexcusable antagonism of this "Observer" had firmly placed it in Xadrez's fiercely calculating mind as combatant; compounded with an understanding of shifting locales. If the spirit had eyelids, it would've blinked with surprise at how it had been described, but instead allowed itself a few tangents before focusing on the remainder of the Observer's messages. Who was this Director? Another foe? Plausible, considering the way the Observer had referred to him on amicable terms. These thoughts, their permutations and implications, lingered uneasily in Xadrez; this whole competition, and most of all his position in the midst of it, were strange and new. Only on a few choice occasions had Xadrez ever made the combatants he studied aware of his presence, and the results he had gleaned from those tests did little to allay it in its present state - never had all factors; all foes, now, of Xadrez personally; understood him to even this meagre extent now.
The stage was thrown into darkness, and the eight contestants found themselves in Alpha Complex. Xadrez made the first move; unusual for the phlegmatic spirit - but it had already run the preliminary odds of the potential scenarios through its head and decided this action would not cost it - or would cost it the least. The other contestants were snapped out of their reverie by the long-awaited smack and clatter and rattle of hordes of game pieces being swept off the obsidian, struck clean across its surface flawed only with a highway of gold. Leaders, generals, dignitaries, bounced and rolled under narrow, uncomfortable cots; entire armies scattered into disarray as the solid blocks of their chess pieces were shattered on the concrete floor.
A meaningless world of stone people littered the ground. The disc tilted to fit through the exit, before levelling out again once outside in the corridor. The spirit deliberately chose not to look at any of them as it turned and drifted up the worn-out hallway.
peace to the unsung peace to the martyrs | i'm johnny rotten appleseed
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow