Re: The Grand Battle S2G1! [Round One: Alpha Complex!]
06-21-2010, 05:06 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.
Xadrez's unsurprising reaction to Kracht was to yank out his knife in preperation to seriously upset anyone who tried to come near him - tactics be damned, nothing set the spirit more on edge than things slipping out of his steely control, worse his own self getting mangled up in the gears of fate. Kracht's ingratiating confidence in the occurence of the event did little to allay Xadrez's discomfort with the situation.
The corridor was plunged into darkness, and Xadrez hissed with frustration as he swung his knife around. There must've been at least one scheming traitor's uniform that was slashed to regulation-flouting pieces under the blade, but the tactician's pale gaze narrowed as a sudden weight intruded upon his board - a human form rustling through Xadrez's equipment. To the chessmaster's consternation, he'd never heard the human approach -a mutant, then - most probably teleportation- but before the knife could swing around and pin the intruder down, the weight vanished with its mutant, and something in the box beeped.
Reasoning his own self-restraint would do little to reduce the anarchy surrouning him, Xadrez impaled the knife in his side again and cautiously extracted a trilling PDC. Turning it over and over in his spectral hands, the tactician pondered for a moment before resolutely pushing a button. Flipping it over to peer at the now-illuminated screen, Xadrez spent a few lightless moments decrypting the cypher the message was written in.
Earlier...
In the more fashionable residential quarters of Sector GLN, an up-and-coming CPU serviceman was somewhat annoyed. Her friend's recent promotion to Violet rank had disrupted the delicate balance of the duo's regular games of Chesslike. Smacking irritably at her keyboard as her opponent deployed yet another Violet unit whose moveset was allgedly "beyond her clearance level, Citizen", Clone Scarm took a reprieve from her sulking to peruse the Complex leaderboard.
"Wait, what?"
It was only for the briefest of moments, but for a second Xadrez had certainly leapt to the top of the leaderboard. Right above Friend Computer, before someone or something hurriedly corrected it.
"No way..." abandoning her game for a moment, Scarm reached under her bed and fiddled with a few loose wires sticking out of the wall, twisting them round various exposed bits of circuitry on her PDC. A cursory glance around the empty apartment, and the Indigo connected.
"Yo, Bill. Remember who reset your clone count after that washout in SCV last monthcycle? Yeah well, she wants a favour. Heh, thought so. Try... Fischer. Uh-huh. Sector BOB. That's the one. Mm, yeah, that's real cute of you, but since Cass got promoted I'd almost cracked it anyway. I appreciate the sentiment though. Alright. Crash you later."
The lights finally came on again, and Xadrez was alone save for a scuffle down the hall as a determined pack of treasonous types tried to drag away one of his more implacable foes. The tactician sighed, and dragged himself to the nearest terminal (as per the instructions in the private message) with the monumental effort of one who knows his actions will have far-reaching and distasteful repercussions.
Xadrez's unsurprising reaction to Kracht was to yank out his knife in preperation to seriously upset anyone who tried to come near him - tactics be damned, nothing set the spirit more on edge than things slipping out of his steely control, worse his own self getting mangled up in the gears of fate. Kracht's ingratiating confidence in the occurence of the event did little to allay Xadrez's discomfort with the situation.
The corridor was plunged into darkness, and Xadrez hissed with frustration as he swung his knife around. There must've been at least one scheming traitor's uniform that was slashed to regulation-flouting pieces under the blade, but the tactician's pale gaze narrowed as a sudden weight intruded upon his board - a human form rustling through Xadrez's equipment. To the chessmaster's consternation, he'd never heard the human approach -a mutant, then - most probably teleportation- but before the knife could swing around and pin the intruder down, the weight vanished with its mutant, and something in the box beeped.
Reasoning his own self-restraint would do little to reduce the anarchy surrouning him, Xadrez impaled the knife in his side again and cautiously extracted a trilling PDC. Turning it over and over in his spectral hands, the tactician pondered for a moment before resolutely pushing a button. Flipping it over to peer at the now-illuminated screen, Xadrez spent a few lightless moments decrypting the cypher the message was written in.
Earlier...
In the more fashionable residential quarters of Sector GLN, an up-and-coming CPU serviceman was somewhat annoyed. Her friend's recent promotion to Violet rank had disrupted the delicate balance of the duo's regular games of Chesslike. Smacking irritably at her keyboard as her opponent deployed yet another Violet unit whose moveset was allgedly "beyond her clearance level, Citizen", Clone Scarm took a reprieve from her sulking to peruse the Complex leaderboard.
"Wait, what?"
It was only for the briefest of moments, but for a second Xadrez had certainly leapt to the top of the leaderboard. Right above Friend Computer, before someone or something hurriedly corrected it.
"No way..." abandoning her game for a moment, Scarm reached under her bed and fiddled with a few loose wires sticking out of the wall, twisting them round various exposed bits of circuitry on her PDC. A cursory glance around the empty apartment, and the Indigo connected.
"Yo, Bill. Remember who reset your clone count after that washout in SCV last monthcycle? Yeah well, she wants a favour. Heh, thought so. Try... Fischer. Uh-huh. Sector BOB. That's the one. Mm, yeah, that's real cute of you, but since Cass got promoted I'd almost cracked it anyway. I appreciate the sentiment though. Alright. Crash you later."
The lights finally came on again, and Xadrez was alone save for a scuffle down the hall as a determined pack of treasonous types tried to drag away one of his more implacable foes. The tactician sighed, and dragged himself to the nearest terminal (as per the instructions in the private message) with the monumental effort of one who knows his actions will have far-reaching and distasteful repercussions.
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