RE: Intense Struggle Season 2! (Round 4: Deathball Championship)
10-05-2013, 08:26 AM
A little more than a year before all the chaos surrounding the Deathball arena, in a small Malaysian cafe (on Malaysia the planet, not in Malaysia the country), a number of native Malaysians were quite astonished by the presence of what was, to all appearances, a tourist. They'd never really seen one on their own planet, and while they were familiar with the concept, it'd never really seemed like the sort of thing that they'd see at home. Tourists went to places that were fun vacation spots or places with lovely scenery. Tourists didn't come to Malaysia, whose climate was so extreme that most races had assumed it was uninhabitable until the Malaysians developed spacefaring technology and politely informed them otherwise. Even after being welcomed into the interstellar community, no one really ever visited.
That's not to say that Malaysians were unfamiliar with tourists. They'd been trapped on an incredibly inhospitable rock for their entire existence, and now they had a whole galaxy to explore! Malaysian tourists were commonplace throughout the galaxy, and if anyone were to be an expert at identifying tourists, they'd be a Malaysian, and it didn't take an expert to peg the stranger in the cafe. He had all the traits most commonly associated with tourists, after all: he was very obviously foreign-looking (a human, of all things), he was wearing an absolutely atrocious shirt (Hawaiian, so named for its patterns echoing the Hawaiias nebula), and he was drinking a drink with a little umbrella in it (which, to be fair, was actually a device keeping him from alternately bursting into flames or freezing solid as the temperatures fluctuated by hundreds of degrees every few hours). This visitor was most plainly a tourist, on Malaysia, and it took everyone who spotted him a moment or two to figure out how to react.
For Lloyd Conrad's part, the experience of visiting Malaysia was an odd one. The locals were a rather telepathic race (though it was strictly a write-only ability), and one of their more interesting talents was their particular brand of camouflage: rather than making you unable to see them, they simply made you mentally not notice them. The upshot of this was that, on entering a cafe filled mostly with locals who'd never seen an off-worlder that wasn't actually off-world, he was subjected to the rather strange sensation of entering a mostly-empty crowded room. As the locals' shock wore off, he came to notice one or two here and there, but, by and large, the room had quite a lot of chairs he simply wasn't interested in.
He didn't find it particularly strange, though. He knew quite a bit about the Malaysians, and if it hadn't been for their abilities, he wouldn't have been there in the first place.
-
After loading a few armloads of goods into the back of the truck, Sarika impatiently tapping her talons and making a watch-looking gesture the whole time, Lloyd hopped in the front and started off almost immediately. "So, uh…", he began, not exactly sure how to put it, "sorry for sort of, ah, abducting you."
"That's not important right now," Sarika responded, all business. "We've got to get back to the arena as quick as possible."
"Are you sure?", Lloyd responded. "I've kind of got another stop to make first, and it's sort of an important-"
Sarika cut him off. "Fine, fine. Just make it quick, okay? We need to get back post-haste."
Lloyd did his best, wrenching the wheel around a lot, overusing both gas and brake pedals, and generally being an irresponsible and dangerous driver. (In the end, it wouldn't help them get where they wanted to go all that much faster, but it felt faster, which seemed important.)
-
Lloyd's Malaysian contact showed up right on time. He came in with his camouflage running full force (as one does at a clandestine meeting), and Lloyd might not have known he was there at all if not for the agreed-upon signal (a pair of small scratches on the table next to Lloyd's coaster). So as to not arouse suspicions, Lloyd finished off the last of his drink over a few long minutes, but once he had, he tossed a few universal credits on the table and left, his contact presumably following behind.
Once back in Lloyd's rented shuttle, the actual conversation began. It took more than a few minutes, and things got a bit heated, but it was a conversation about ideology and potentially-dangerous plots to overthrow major organizations, so such was to be expected. The upshot, however, was that they came to an agreement and that work could begin.
-
The second stop, it turned out, was a rather tall platform with a big satellite dish on top (presumably up there to get it above the skyline or something). There was a small building a the base of it, but for the most part, it was just standard tower-scaffolding all the way up. With a quick promise to only be a second, Lloyd hopped out of the driver's seat, grabbed a small package out of the back of the truck, and ran inside.
Sarika couldn't help herself, she was curious about what he was going to do. A quick glance into the future told her all she needed to know: evidently, he planned to detonate some sort of explosive in the building, sending the tower crashing down... right onto the truck Sarika was sitting in. Grimacing, she slid herself over to the driver's seat, and, with a bit of difficulty, pulled the truck forward by far enough that it wouldn't be hit.
About half a minute later, an explosion shook the little building at the base of the tower, and the thing started creaking down. With a crash, the structure landed in the street, missing the back bumper of the pickup truck by the sort of distance that made Sarika wish she'd maybe pulled ahead a bit more. (As irrational as it was, if she hadn't already moved back to the passenger's side, she might still have pulled ahead a bit further, just on principle.) Lloyd ran out of the building moments after, leaping into the truck and peeling away before the heavily-armed security guards behind him had a chance to get a decent shot off.
"Okay," he said, still a bit breathless, "that's done. Now, to the arena?"
"Step on it," Sarika said, looking determinedly out the window and wondering whether Lloyd was really as prepared as he was pretending he was.
That's not to say that Malaysians were unfamiliar with tourists. They'd been trapped on an incredibly inhospitable rock for their entire existence, and now they had a whole galaxy to explore! Malaysian tourists were commonplace throughout the galaxy, and if anyone were to be an expert at identifying tourists, they'd be a Malaysian, and it didn't take an expert to peg the stranger in the cafe. He had all the traits most commonly associated with tourists, after all: he was very obviously foreign-looking (a human, of all things), he was wearing an absolutely atrocious shirt (Hawaiian, so named for its patterns echoing the Hawaiias nebula), and he was drinking a drink with a little umbrella in it (which, to be fair, was actually a device keeping him from alternately bursting into flames or freezing solid as the temperatures fluctuated by hundreds of degrees every few hours). This visitor was most plainly a tourist, on Malaysia, and it took everyone who spotted him a moment or two to figure out how to react.
For Lloyd Conrad's part, the experience of visiting Malaysia was an odd one. The locals were a rather telepathic race (though it was strictly a write-only ability), and one of their more interesting talents was their particular brand of camouflage: rather than making you unable to see them, they simply made you mentally not notice them. The upshot of this was that, on entering a cafe filled mostly with locals who'd never seen an off-worlder that wasn't actually off-world, he was subjected to the rather strange sensation of entering a mostly-empty crowded room. As the locals' shock wore off, he came to notice one or two here and there, but, by and large, the room had quite a lot of chairs he simply wasn't interested in.
He didn't find it particularly strange, though. He knew quite a bit about the Malaysians, and if it hadn't been for their abilities, he wouldn't have been there in the first place.
-
After loading a few armloads of goods into the back of the truck, Sarika impatiently tapping her talons and making a watch-looking gesture the whole time, Lloyd hopped in the front and started off almost immediately. "So, uh…", he began, not exactly sure how to put it, "sorry for sort of, ah, abducting you."
"That's not important right now," Sarika responded, all business. "We've got to get back to the arena as quick as possible."
"Are you sure?", Lloyd responded. "I've kind of got another stop to make first, and it's sort of an important-"
Sarika cut him off. "Fine, fine. Just make it quick, okay? We need to get back post-haste."
Lloyd did his best, wrenching the wheel around a lot, overusing both gas and brake pedals, and generally being an irresponsible and dangerous driver. (In the end, it wouldn't help them get where they wanted to go all that much faster, but it felt faster, which seemed important.)
-
Lloyd's Malaysian contact showed up right on time. He came in with his camouflage running full force (as one does at a clandestine meeting), and Lloyd might not have known he was there at all if not for the agreed-upon signal (a pair of small scratches on the table next to Lloyd's coaster). So as to not arouse suspicions, Lloyd finished off the last of his drink over a few long minutes, but once he had, he tossed a few universal credits on the table and left, his contact presumably following behind.
Once back in Lloyd's rented shuttle, the actual conversation began. It took more than a few minutes, and things got a bit heated, but it was a conversation about ideology and potentially-dangerous plots to overthrow major organizations, so such was to be expected. The upshot, however, was that they came to an agreement and that work could begin.
-
The second stop, it turned out, was a rather tall platform with a big satellite dish on top (presumably up there to get it above the skyline or something). There was a small building a the base of it, but for the most part, it was just standard tower-scaffolding all the way up. With a quick promise to only be a second, Lloyd hopped out of the driver's seat, grabbed a small package out of the back of the truck, and ran inside.
Sarika couldn't help herself, she was curious about what he was going to do. A quick glance into the future told her all she needed to know: evidently, he planned to detonate some sort of explosive in the building, sending the tower crashing down... right onto the truck Sarika was sitting in. Grimacing, she slid herself over to the driver's seat, and, with a bit of difficulty, pulled the truck forward by far enough that it wouldn't be hit.
About half a minute later, an explosion shook the little building at the base of the tower, and the thing started creaking down. With a crash, the structure landed in the street, missing the back bumper of the pickup truck by the sort of distance that made Sarika wish she'd maybe pulled ahead a bit more. (As irrational as it was, if she hadn't already moved back to the passenger's side, she might still have pulled ahead a bit further, just on principle.) Lloyd ran out of the building moments after, leaping into the truck and peeling away before the heavily-armed security guards behind him had a chance to get a decent shot off.
"Okay," he said, still a bit breathless, "that's done. Now, to the arena?"
"Step on it," Sarika said, looking determinedly out the window and wondering whether Lloyd was really as prepared as he was pretending he was.