Re: Intense Struggle Season 2! (Round 4: Deathball Championship)
04-11-2012, 08:31 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Drakenforge.
Karen found herself being stared down by both the contenders and the heavily armed guards that surrounded the room. There was even some sort of amphitheatre level above them, almost completely for the sake of the guards and whoever was dumb enough to want to look over the most well armed group of players. Karen seemed to be a new favourite, looking completely out of place if you ignored the massive sword, though for some of the players it was the sword they were focusing on. The races that spoke english marvelled that she had even managed to walk in the room with it on her back. One of Karen's stray thoughts wondered why the guards around this room in peculiar were different from those she had seen before.
“Listen up Rookie's,” announced a well dressed aviary humanoid from the amphitheatre, “A little bird tells me that some of you don't know how this game works! I don't know how the clutch you managed to accomplish this feat of ignorant bliss but I'm here to fix that right up.”
“Welcome to Deathball Championship, highest rated sport sensation this quadrant has seen in centuries. It has it all, action, tension and a rich and bloody history. Let's go over some details that only apply to us, shall we?,” By now most of the other creatures had started ignoring him, but Karen decided that since she needed to show at least some interest to stay in the game that she wouldn't just drown out his squawking.
“Each of you contenders are quite different from anyone in the other teams; you signed up. The other players didn't have the guts to do it, figuratively speaking since some of them literally don't have guts, and so you guys get some major perks. While we work in a prize for score system you guys even get paid for your 'contributions' to the game, should you survive anyway. The organizers and recruiters even give you identifications that exempt you from most recruitment teams, for a limited time at least. Each of you has no tie to any other volunteer so you're free to try and kill any other competitor you see on the field. Each of you should have a small machine that'll at least dampen the enemy fire from longer ranges, but your safety is absolutely none of our concern so don't count on it to save your life. While the teams usually get assigned colours and symbols to wear, you guys are fine as is. You'll leave when instructed to since you have no goal other than mayhem and misery, so don't try to score any goals out there but feel free to stop anyone else from doing so.”
“Are there any questions? Nope, good. Game starts in five so get pumped already, I've got money down on some of you wimps dying pretty fast, and a personal bet with one of the team managers that the new girl breaks down in tears before she kicks the proverbial bucket!”
He guffawed at his own remark and walked briskly out of the room. Karen suspected that it was herself that he was mentioning but failed to care. There would be no more tears from her in the game, that is, the battle. Even if she had to knock out every single opponent in the ring she would last until Reudic was dead at her feat, burnt to a crisp with each and every leaf, petal and vine reduced to ash.
Her attention was caught when some kind of anthem began to play. Several monitors inside the prep-room lit up a moment later and began broadcasting a live feed of the field. Karen began memorising specific points should see need places to catch her breath or ambush other players. She began checking on individual limbs and muscles, finding herself surprisingly light and flexible after the amount of injuries she had inflicted on herself. Her magic supply was less limited after managing to have a breather for the last while, and she was still enduring the stress of the berserk spell.
She watched the games progress out the corner of her eye, noting the obvious difference in skill the returning players had compared to newer players. She was surprised to see a familiar figure covering his teams assault on their goal, and the announcers seemed very interested in the man from another universe.
“What the hell are those recruiters doing, that noobie looks like he's some kinda space commando. He's not even interested in scoring he just keeps shooting people and I LOVE IT.”
“You think he's cool now human you should wait until you hear his name.”
“Is it like, Magnus Rockjaw or Spacegun Shootsalot?”
“Go to hell”
“Woah what, what'd I do?”
“Nah human, that's his name look it says it right here in print.”
“Oh... awesome”
Karen was unamused at their attempts at humour and just focused on the video feed. Marcus was backing his squad up pretty well, though Karen wondered just how he had managed to get captured in the first place. Though deep inside a dark part of herself briefly thought of using the game as an excuse to wound Marcus so that he wasn't a threat later on. Karen gave the thought no attention and locked it down. So long as Marcus didn't stand between her and Reudic, though he should have no reason to, she wouldn't pay him much heed. She expected him to do the same but she couldn't put much faith in that.
“Whichever newbie is called Karen, time to get on stage!”
When Karen approached him to go through a final check that she was who was next on the list she could notice that that the guard looked almost pained whenever he looked at her. She gave the bare minimal of responses before walking through the large shutters that separated the pit from the grounds. There were several places one could appear from in the grounds so that they didn't get instantly ambushed, though Karen knew the last one sent out had not lasted very long at all, though they had just fallen over and smashed into tiny little pieces which the announcers had found absolutely hysterical. If they made fun of her, Karen was going to make sure they regretted it.
When Karen stepped out into the enclosed dome the sheer volume of the crowd had managed to shake her down to her very core. She heard the announcers just barely over the massive speakers as they told of her arrival and gave out what little background info she had relieved about her character. When they laughed at the obviously fictional video game references and pitied her youth, she summoned a large fireball and sent it hurtling into a speaker, incinerating the material quickly. The announcers lets out a unified “WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT” over the remaining speakers.
The crowd went crazy in delight and even some of the veteran players were astounded. Even with the countless number of races this world held it was clear magic was not common to them
Is it said that the current city that Deathball used for recruitment is the melting pot of every race in the known solar galaxy. You wouldn't be able to walk down the street without seeing at least five different sentient species. It was one of the reasons it had been the most beneficial choice for candidacy as the Deathball managers would you, “Variety is the spice of life!”
Humans were not, as some of the contestants would expect, the social norm.
Sam Clover is human. He has no augmentations, prosthetics or even a single tattoo. Up until recently he had worked as a baker, the bakery in question having belonged to his family for a few generations. When the recruiters came to pick him up, he told them to come back when his shift was over. When they refused and attempted to use force they found out just how deadly bread could be in a pinch. Resourcefulness is what humanity excels at in this world and Sam Irving is pretty good example of it's effects. By the time back up had arrived for the first poor sods he willingly surrendered, but still refused to drop the blood soaked loaf on the grounds that it was “Not selling very well anymore, might as well keep it for the ride”
When he was signed onto the Dusty Vagabonds he told them everything they wanted to know, got his number and tag, left his bread on the bench and genuinely tried to win the match. It's rare for a first time player to actually do very much to further his, her or its team any justice unless they had some kind of criminal or military background, even then it usually accounted only in the number of deaths in other teams. But Sam was surprisingly different, he actually managed to score three times personally and give his team the best score they had managed in seasons. To him, it was just a sport. He wasn't at all angry or annoyed that he had been taken from his life and shoved into the game. His team mates didn't complain at any rate as he tried wresting the Cutting Runners ball from a Female Tryth, a race not unlike some kind of humanoid shark with hard scaly claws. While she was technically unarmed Sam was carrying a metallic bat and was pummelling her pointed head relentlessly. The ball itself rightly belong to them, but the more of them in a teams possession obviously meant more chances to score. He'd only managed to kill the first batch of recruiters and failed to actually cause any casualties in his first game, but his record finally grew as her skull gave way and her body slumped over his leg. What he hadn't expected was the grenade her team had forced her to hold, now tumbling gently out of her recently unclenched fist. He wasn't surprised, while killing your team mates was shunned to make sure the game lasted using them as scapegoats and martyrs was totally fair game. Sam's first instinct was to kick the ball back to his team before the grenade went off. He briefly wondered why it hadn't been to kick the grenade but hindsight was not one of his skills.
As he looked back at the fallen grenade and thought of how dying felt like a black shape appeared in front of him. It seemed to shorten a little and rise again after just a moment, and Sam noticed that it had an appendage now holding the grenade. He tried to get some kind of curse or expletive out just before it went off but was surprised to find that instead of a fiery explosion the grenade's top half just fell to the ground with the black powder innards spilling out after it. With the tension mostly over, Sam noticed that the black shape belonged to a darkly clad girl with a large hat, and in her opposite hand held a long blade. She quickly returned it to its sheath and stood over the recently deceased Tryth, failing to give it any real notice. Since he didn't see any team markings or armour Sam expected that she was a volunteer player. He didn't care how young or feeble she looked, she was armed and was an opponent, the gave dictated that he should just kill her then and there. Why she had stopped the grenade didn't matter to him as he raised the bat for another beat down. He tensed the muscles in his arms and swung his arms down only to fail to connect at all. His arms didn't stop until they reached so low that they stopped in reflex before throwing him off balance. He rose them again to throw another strike only to find that the bat was now about half its previous length, now ending in a perfectly angled cut. The girl was also now gone and his team was trying to get him to join them on scoring again. He tossed aside his now useless weapon and wondered just what kind of player he had met, if that creature had really been a player at all.
After managing to disarm the first person to attack her Karen had quickly used her skill set to vanish before he could throw a second attack. Now she was using magic to cling to whatever clear material was keeping the audience from experiencing harm during the match, and it was giving her a very clear view of what was happening on every side of the match. Of the five current teams, the Cutting Runners had a lead of two goals and three kills, with the last two teams not yet managing to gain points in either area.
She took a deep breath and focused on what needed to be done. She could easily ignore the scoreboard, though her name was in the corner under the current team-less players to keep score of kills. It was just and the first creature sent out at the moment, but she couldn't see where the star player was. So she stayed where she was, to the annoyance of the audience and announcers, right up until a certain object was launched into the ground from the top of the stadium. After it impacted Karen could see that it was some kind of rounded shell which had landed amongst several players, and each member seemed excited by its arrival. They fought over it for a time until an opportunistic player managed to pop the shell open and quickly made off with whatever had been kept inside. From her vantage point Karen could only see a grey shape with a green tube it its paws. It managed to make it back to its teammates current resting spot and seemed to show off what it had gained. She didn't recognise the team but they kept staring back up at her every now and then. It was only when she found Marcus firing rounds almost exclusively at their team that she began to worry.
However her delayed thinking speed had cost her as they threw caution and morals to the wind and fired their new rocket launcher directly at her. Movies and video games always exaggerated personal rockets as being slow to maximise the drama and pyrotechnics but in truth they travel extremely quickly. Karen barely had time even with her heightened reflexes to use an ability and flash out of the way before the rocket impacted of the clear wall. The force of her jump caused Karen's body to flip forwards giving her an upside view of where she had leapt from, but she managed to recognise the scene of carnage even with it facing the wrong way. The wall hadn't managed to stop the blast and at least 30 seats worth of viewers had taken horrible damage during the blast. The anger in Karen rose until it hit a barrier, ultimately never reaching her current consciousness. She was not angry nor scared by the scene owing to her magic influencing her emotions, but her sense of honour told her that something had to be done. She built five fireballs in mid-air and sent them spiralling down onto the creature that had fired the rocket at her, four exploded on the floor around him keeping him separated from his team with a wall of intense heat while the fifth detonated around his arms and chest. It wasn't enough to be lethal but Karen knew it must have been intensely painful. A very quiet voice gave an almost silent praise, once again not managing to cause Karen to truly notice it. She continued to fall but slowed her descent with a simple spell before her velocity caused her any harm.
Unknown to her the dark fog that had been forced out of Reudic's foliage had been floating around seeking a new host. Reudic had seemed like a great choice barely an hour before but it was not too unhappy with its current situation. It was free of the castle at any rate and there were plenty of weak minded creatures that it could bend to its will at any moment. It practised hesitation however and sought out a new host that could be easily moulded while retaining their strength. Of course the intensity of the violence of the current Deathball round attracted it, and it was there that the darkness found two familiar shapes, one of which was not fighting it's very faint whispers. Had it been capable of doing so it would have erupted with glee at the prospect before it, now it just needed a little bit of a kick to finally gain the leverage to take over the young body.
Karen found herself being stared down by both the contenders and the heavily armed guards that surrounded the room. There was even some sort of amphitheatre level above them, almost completely for the sake of the guards and whoever was dumb enough to want to look over the most well armed group of players. Karen seemed to be a new favourite, looking completely out of place if you ignored the massive sword, though for some of the players it was the sword they were focusing on. The races that spoke english marvelled that she had even managed to walk in the room with it on her back. One of Karen's stray thoughts wondered why the guards around this room in peculiar were different from those she had seen before.
“Listen up Rookie's,” announced a well dressed aviary humanoid from the amphitheatre, “A little bird tells me that some of you don't know how this game works! I don't know how the clutch you managed to accomplish this feat of ignorant bliss but I'm here to fix that right up.”
“Welcome to Deathball Championship, highest rated sport sensation this quadrant has seen in centuries. It has it all, action, tension and a rich and bloody history. Let's go over some details that only apply to us, shall we?,” By now most of the other creatures had started ignoring him, but Karen decided that since she needed to show at least some interest to stay in the game that she wouldn't just drown out his squawking.
“Each of you contenders are quite different from anyone in the other teams; you signed up. The other players didn't have the guts to do it, figuratively speaking since some of them literally don't have guts, and so you guys get some major perks. While we work in a prize for score system you guys even get paid for your 'contributions' to the game, should you survive anyway. The organizers and recruiters even give you identifications that exempt you from most recruitment teams, for a limited time at least. Each of you has no tie to any other volunteer so you're free to try and kill any other competitor you see on the field. Each of you should have a small machine that'll at least dampen the enemy fire from longer ranges, but your safety is absolutely none of our concern so don't count on it to save your life. While the teams usually get assigned colours and symbols to wear, you guys are fine as is. You'll leave when instructed to since you have no goal other than mayhem and misery, so don't try to score any goals out there but feel free to stop anyone else from doing so.”
“Are there any questions? Nope, good. Game starts in five so get pumped already, I've got money down on some of you wimps dying pretty fast, and a personal bet with one of the team managers that the new girl breaks down in tears before she kicks the proverbial bucket!”
He guffawed at his own remark and walked briskly out of the room. Karen suspected that it was herself that he was mentioning but failed to care. There would be no more tears from her in the game, that is, the battle. Even if she had to knock out every single opponent in the ring she would last until Reudic was dead at her feat, burnt to a crisp with each and every leaf, petal and vine reduced to ash.
Her attention was caught when some kind of anthem began to play. Several monitors inside the prep-room lit up a moment later and began broadcasting a live feed of the field. Karen began memorising specific points should see need places to catch her breath or ambush other players. She began checking on individual limbs and muscles, finding herself surprisingly light and flexible after the amount of injuries she had inflicted on herself. Her magic supply was less limited after managing to have a breather for the last while, and she was still enduring the stress of the berserk spell.
She watched the games progress out the corner of her eye, noting the obvious difference in skill the returning players had compared to newer players. She was surprised to see a familiar figure covering his teams assault on their goal, and the announcers seemed very interested in the man from another universe.
“What the hell are those recruiters doing, that noobie looks like he's some kinda space commando. He's not even interested in scoring he just keeps shooting people and I LOVE IT.”
“You think he's cool now human you should wait until you hear his name.”
“Is it like, Magnus Rockjaw or Spacegun Shootsalot?”
“Go to hell”
“Woah what, what'd I do?”
“Nah human, that's his name look it says it right here in print.”
“Oh... awesome”
Karen was unamused at their attempts at humour and just focused on the video feed. Marcus was backing his squad up pretty well, though Karen wondered just how he had managed to get captured in the first place. Though deep inside a dark part of herself briefly thought of using the game as an excuse to wound Marcus so that he wasn't a threat later on. Karen gave the thought no attention and locked it down. So long as Marcus didn't stand between her and Reudic, though he should have no reason to, she wouldn't pay him much heed. She expected him to do the same but she couldn't put much faith in that.
“Whichever newbie is called Karen, time to get on stage!”
When Karen approached him to go through a final check that she was who was next on the list she could notice that that the guard looked almost pained whenever he looked at her. She gave the bare minimal of responses before walking through the large shutters that separated the pit from the grounds. There were several places one could appear from in the grounds so that they didn't get instantly ambushed, though Karen knew the last one sent out had not lasted very long at all, though they had just fallen over and smashed into tiny little pieces which the announcers had found absolutely hysterical. If they made fun of her, Karen was going to make sure they regretted it.
When Karen stepped out into the enclosed dome the sheer volume of the crowd had managed to shake her down to her very core. She heard the announcers just barely over the massive speakers as they told of her arrival and gave out what little background info she had relieved about her character. When they laughed at the obviously fictional video game references and pitied her youth, she summoned a large fireball and sent it hurtling into a speaker, incinerating the material quickly. The announcers lets out a unified “WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT” over the remaining speakers.
The crowd went crazy in delight and even some of the veteran players were astounded. Even with the countless number of races this world held it was clear magic was not common to them
Is it said that the current city that Deathball used for recruitment is the melting pot of every race in the known solar galaxy. You wouldn't be able to walk down the street without seeing at least five different sentient species. It was one of the reasons it had been the most beneficial choice for candidacy as the Deathball managers would you, “Variety is the spice of life!”
Humans were not, as some of the contestants would expect, the social norm.
Sam Clover is human. He has no augmentations, prosthetics or even a single tattoo. Up until recently he had worked as a baker, the bakery in question having belonged to his family for a few generations. When the recruiters came to pick him up, he told them to come back when his shift was over. When they refused and attempted to use force they found out just how deadly bread could be in a pinch. Resourcefulness is what humanity excels at in this world and Sam Irving is pretty good example of it's effects. By the time back up had arrived for the first poor sods he willingly surrendered, but still refused to drop the blood soaked loaf on the grounds that it was “Not selling very well anymore, might as well keep it for the ride”
When he was signed onto the Dusty Vagabonds he told them everything they wanted to know, got his number and tag, left his bread on the bench and genuinely tried to win the match. It's rare for a first time player to actually do very much to further his, her or its team any justice unless they had some kind of criminal or military background, even then it usually accounted only in the number of deaths in other teams. But Sam was surprisingly different, he actually managed to score three times personally and give his team the best score they had managed in seasons. To him, it was just a sport. He wasn't at all angry or annoyed that he had been taken from his life and shoved into the game. His team mates didn't complain at any rate as he tried wresting the Cutting Runners ball from a Female Tryth, a race not unlike some kind of humanoid shark with hard scaly claws. While she was technically unarmed Sam was carrying a metallic bat and was pummelling her pointed head relentlessly. The ball itself rightly belong to them, but the more of them in a teams possession obviously meant more chances to score. He'd only managed to kill the first batch of recruiters and failed to actually cause any casualties in his first game, but his record finally grew as her skull gave way and her body slumped over his leg. What he hadn't expected was the grenade her team had forced her to hold, now tumbling gently out of her recently unclenched fist. He wasn't surprised, while killing your team mates was shunned to make sure the game lasted using them as scapegoats and martyrs was totally fair game. Sam's first instinct was to kick the ball back to his team before the grenade went off. He briefly wondered why it hadn't been to kick the grenade but hindsight was not one of his skills.
As he looked back at the fallen grenade and thought of how dying felt like a black shape appeared in front of him. It seemed to shorten a little and rise again after just a moment, and Sam noticed that it had an appendage now holding the grenade. He tried to get some kind of curse or expletive out just before it went off but was surprised to find that instead of a fiery explosion the grenade's top half just fell to the ground with the black powder innards spilling out after it. With the tension mostly over, Sam noticed that the black shape belonged to a darkly clad girl with a large hat, and in her opposite hand held a long blade. She quickly returned it to its sheath and stood over the recently deceased Tryth, failing to give it any real notice. Since he didn't see any team markings or armour Sam expected that she was a volunteer player. He didn't care how young or feeble she looked, she was armed and was an opponent, the gave dictated that he should just kill her then and there. Why she had stopped the grenade didn't matter to him as he raised the bat for another beat down. He tensed the muscles in his arms and swung his arms down only to fail to connect at all. His arms didn't stop until they reached so low that they stopped in reflex before throwing him off balance. He rose them again to throw another strike only to find that the bat was now about half its previous length, now ending in a perfectly angled cut. The girl was also now gone and his team was trying to get him to join them on scoring again. He tossed aside his now useless weapon and wondered just what kind of player he had met, if that creature had really been a player at all.
After managing to disarm the first person to attack her Karen had quickly used her skill set to vanish before he could throw a second attack. Now she was using magic to cling to whatever clear material was keeping the audience from experiencing harm during the match, and it was giving her a very clear view of what was happening on every side of the match. Of the five current teams, the Cutting Runners had a lead of two goals and three kills, with the last two teams not yet managing to gain points in either area.
She took a deep breath and focused on what needed to be done. She could easily ignore the scoreboard, though her name was in the corner under the current team-less players to keep score of kills. It was just and the first creature sent out at the moment, but she couldn't see where the star player was. So she stayed where she was, to the annoyance of the audience and announcers, right up until a certain object was launched into the ground from the top of the stadium. After it impacted Karen could see that it was some kind of rounded shell which had landed amongst several players, and each member seemed excited by its arrival. They fought over it for a time until an opportunistic player managed to pop the shell open and quickly made off with whatever had been kept inside. From her vantage point Karen could only see a grey shape with a green tube it its paws. It managed to make it back to its teammates current resting spot and seemed to show off what it had gained. She didn't recognise the team but they kept staring back up at her every now and then. It was only when she found Marcus firing rounds almost exclusively at their team that she began to worry.
However her delayed thinking speed had cost her as they threw caution and morals to the wind and fired their new rocket launcher directly at her. Movies and video games always exaggerated personal rockets as being slow to maximise the drama and pyrotechnics but in truth they travel extremely quickly. Karen barely had time even with her heightened reflexes to use an ability and flash out of the way before the rocket impacted of the clear wall. The force of her jump caused Karen's body to flip forwards giving her an upside view of where she had leapt from, but she managed to recognise the scene of carnage even with it facing the wrong way. The wall hadn't managed to stop the blast and at least 30 seats worth of viewers had taken horrible damage during the blast. The anger in Karen rose until it hit a barrier, ultimately never reaching her current consciousness. She was not angry nor scared by the scene owing to her magic influencing her emotions, but her sense of honour told her that something had to be done. She built five fireballs in mid-air and sent them spiralling down onto the creature that had fired the rocket at her, four exploded on the floor around him keeping him separated from his team with a wall of intense heat while the fifth detonated around his arms and chest. It wasn't enough to be lethal but Karen knew it must have been intensely painful. A very quiet voice gave an almost silent praise, once again not managing to cause Karen to truly notice it. She continued to fall but slowed her descent with a simple spell before her velocity caused her any harm.
Unknown to her the dark fog that had been forced out of Reudic's foliage had been floating around seeking a new host. Reudic had seemed like a great choice barely an hour before but it was not too unhappy with its current situation. It was free of the castle at any rate and there were plenty of weak minded creatures that it could bend to its will at any moment. It practised hesitation however and sought out a new host that could be easily moulded while retaining their strength. Of course the intensity of the violence of the current Deathball round attracted it, and it was there that the darkness found two familiar shapes, one of which was not fighting it's very faint whispers. Had it been capable of doing so it would have erupted with glee at the prospect before it, now it just needed a little bit of a kick to finally gain the leverage to take over the young body.