Fandom [Closed] Tower of God: Alpha Perspective

[Azure Sky]

Yeon Bulsajo Wants to Shower

You always get yourself in these situations, Jo...

On the floor covered in gastric acid and healing his wounds, Jo contemplated his life choices and the smell of vomit. As he layed there, looking at the ceiling, he had an introspection. He thought about the meaning of it all, the philosophy behind it all, the smell of vomit, how he could have made better choices, and the smell of vomit...

I should take a shower after this.

“Hey, kid, you alright there? I appreciate the help, but a word from the wise. She and I can handle ourselves pretty well. Try to refrain from doing stupid things. Ain’t that right, Eurasia?"

From how Haewon formulated it, Areum saved him.

"I a-am sorry." He replied rather absent mindedly as he got up. He bowed instinctively afterwards as well. Then he looked at all the eaten Regulars beside him. He healed their bodies, but... some of them were already dead. Bulsajo could not bring people back to life, sadly. He was lost in thought, still affected by the unexpected situation.

“Pffttt—hahahaha! Did you seriously get eaten, Bulsajo~? I mean, I know boys are weak, but man!”

A somewhat familiar voice echoed in his mind but he stood there just looking at the crocodile. The voice still burrowed itself in his mind. The voice of a woman laughing at him. Making fun of him. The voice did not sound malicious, but it stung.

Why did the Shinheuh attack me? Who is laughing? Why? Ah... am I funny? I must be funny eh... Hehehe...

"Why are you mocking me, oversized purse? What's so funny?" He asked the crocodile-like Shinheuh. He got no answer. The shinheuh waled in pain.

"Aww, was I hard on the stomach?" He asked as he slapped the crocodile and it fell to the ground. His flame internalised, stimulating his body on a celular level, bringing forth a superior form of body strengthening. The feminine laugh still echoed in his head and with each echo, he layed down a punch.

Crack

"Come on. I hurt you back. Isn't it funny?"

And another.

Crack

"Isn't it funny?"

And another.

Splat

"Isn't it funny?"

And another...

Splat, splat, splat.

As its head became a puddle of blood, Bulsajo was just hitting the reinforced ground. Hurting his arms, making a few dents, and healing himself, over and over again.

Jo needed to be saved. From himself.

Meanwhile, behind him another Shinheuh was moving quetly... for its large size...



This one, however, was more dangerous than the first and larger. It opened its mouth, revealing a myriad of sharp teeth on three rows and gobbled the dead headless crocodile. Bulsajo was too focused on the ground to notice.

simj26 QuirkyAngel The One Eyed Bandit

 

[The One Eyed Bandit]

"Hey, Jo, who's the bitch?" That what was Areum wanted to say, but her lips stayed silent. Instead, incredibly, the boy had left her bereft of reply for the third time in two days. Seriously, she hadn't had much faith in her impromptu band of scoundrels to begin with, but now she was seriously beginning to doubt the merits of their arrangement.

Her first swung wide while she contemplated the situation, finding purchase on the shark-shinheuh's snout and sending it reeling. Megalozilla or no, shark-types always seemed to hate it when you went for the snout.

"Hey, if you have enough time to gawk, how about you two stop chatting shit and start doing something about this little crisis?" Areum spoke both to the stranger-girl, and Haewon. The Yeon was clearly a lost cause, and it was just her luck to be in a situation like this in the company of two motormouths who were more interesting in playing the peanut gallery than defending themselves.

Areum stepped forward, and the shark spat at her angrily. Rows of jagged, needle-like teeth shined out from beneath a layer of saliva, their ridges sharpened to the fidelity of blades. It was clear that whoever was, emphasis on the past tense, the owner of this beast had taken good care of it. It was too bad that she, or more ideally they, presuming that her sorry excuse for a team would stop being useless, was going to have to ruin that.

The beast lurched forward, gliding through the air as if it were the deepest seas, and stretching it's jaw wide, wider, and then even wider still. By the time it had bore down on Areum, it has distended wide enough to dwarf her frame and envelop her fully. Areum dug her heels into the Archimede's hall-deck, surged as much of her shinsoo through her body as she could manage, and caught one of its jaws in each hand. She and the shark slid almost a meter across the deck, and her right arm, already wounded from her previous tomfoolery, stung on impact. The wound it had sustained, however shallow, remebered the pain of the smaller shinheuh's fangs as the shark-beast's bite rippled through its flesh. Her left, too, smarted, and blood ebbed from both of her palms.

She should have expected as much. As confident as she was in her abilities, Areum wasn't exactly surprise that a shinheuh of this size, born, bred and train for combat would be able to put her on her heels. A rivulet of blood-addled sweat dropped from her and onto her face, which lit up with a grinning grimace.

At least the shark had enough courtesy to focus on the matter at hand.

simj26 QuirkyAngel Azure Sky

 

[simj26]

Yoo Haewon
"My, my," the hooded man twirled his knife lazily in one hand, and reached behind his back with the other. "My, my, my, my, my." He glanced at the newcomer. He had thought today would have been another droll, uneventful day, filled with only the prospect of babysitting two Family children. The chaos that now swirled around him like a raging maelstrom, however, never felt so true. So much death, pain, and destruction. He withdrew his arm, drawing out one of his yedo almost as if it had been stuck to his back the whole time. He swept it slowly and deliberately in a circle in front of him, like a practiced tradition. His coat billowed ever so slightly, filled with the excitement of battle. Yet, the man seemed ever so calm, unperturbed, and ever so patient.

Then, in a blink, he was at the shark's side.

He flipped backwards, onto the top of the shark's head, and drove his sword into the top of its snout. He produced a strange pose, with one hand gripping his knife upright, and the other with its palm open, facing towards his knife, almost as if he were offering a prayer. Fog gathered across his arm as he reared it back, and with one motion, struck downwards into the sword's pommel, sending it straight down like an arrow, piercing through the roof of the shark's snout, sinking guard-deep into its head, its tip piercing the bottom of its maw every so slightly, effectively jamming its jaw open with a grisly crowbar. "Let's not hurt yourself too much before the big day, Eurasia," he offered to the girl. A low chuckle emanated from beneath the hood as he now thrust his knife into the exposed head of the shark, and, in its raging protest against his being on top of it, he held onto the knife tight. With a much louder laugh this time, he pushed himself, and his knife, forwards, dragging the blade across the length of its upper body, tracing a grim scar across its back, before extricating it from its hide with a flourish. In a crimson swirl drawn in the air with his bladed paintbrush, he flipped into the air, and landed neatly beside the shark, skipping backwards away from it, almost as if he were dancing to a song only he heard in his head.

"To meet a fight so fascinating, and a girl so cute, in one day? It must be my lucky week," he called to the newcomer over the cacophony, though his hood never seemed to draw its attention away from the shark. A passing glance from anyone would learn that he was not yet done with the shark. Should it recover, he would make sure to serve it as dinner tonight. They will feast, oh how they will feast. The poor Animas (Animae? Animi?) would have to learn the hard way that their pets were still subject to...whatever rubbish was making them go into a frenzy.

 

[simj26]

Sweet
One of the loose Anima had slithered up to her door. She had been too slow to duck out of sight, or perhaps the Anima could sense the presence of live bait just behind the barrier between them. If it attacked, she doubted that the door would hold. In such a cramped space, they'd be flattened against the wall in no time. She glanced at the rabbit, and the spear he summoned at her side. Well, she would be flattened. The rabbit was an unknown factor, but that factor was perhaps an impossibly high number. It was then that Selicity decided to drop in with a lackadaisical greeting, as always.

"You're here. Good. It's not going so well." Selicity dropping in would have normally spooked her enough to elicit a squeak, but not right now. Now wasn't a time to be surprised. With the adrenaline pumping through her system, her senses were sharpened, her mind clear. "This is…" she glanced at the rabbit, and realised that, through their whole conversation, she had never learned his name. "Introduce yourself," she requested as politely as she could manage as she brought up her Inventory. Ajax's voice piped through one of her Lighthouses at that moment, and his face popped up on screen. Great. The whole gang plus one was here. She picked apart her Inventory as she listened to Ajax, taking out a few of her grenades, and slipping her bayonet onto her belt behind her, then made it turn Invisible once more.

"The range of that...outburst was wide enough to reach my area," she explained, choosing not to answer his first question properly. Everything certainly wasn't okay, but she considered this a bit of a standard SNAFU. Nothing more than a huge fish lurking outside her door. He shouldn't have to worry. "Yes, Selicity is with me...along with another guest. Could you…give me a second?"

She strode over to the door, and observed the feed her Lighthouse produced of the hallway outside. "Back off, close your ears, and your eyes," she told both of her companions. She paused for a second to let her commands sink in, before she opened the door and dropped a flash grenade at her feet. She turned away, slipping behind a wall, and shut her ears, just in time for the grenade to explode and fill the room, and the eyes of the beast, with searing light.

Sweet spun out from behind her cover, and, barely taking a moment to level her rifle at the Shinheuh's head, put two bullets into it.

QuirkyAngel Azure Sky

 

[The One Eyed Bandit]

collab with Rantos​

Aimed true and towards the target did the spear fly, a flash of white that reflected in the periphery of the shinheuh. Not for long, as the gaze of the deep sea fish was soon obscured by a layer of frost. Thick ice trapped it, and a white pick snapped it. Breaking the brittle monster apart easily. As it shattered and fell to pieces specks of ice mingled in the air with the sensation of cold and the cacophony of chaos. A sight that would normally render Yeong-Su to panic if it wasn't for the context. At least in the chaos of battle he knew where he was supposed to be. Quickly, he joined Guinevere's side, or rather he stuck to her back. Staying close and activating an encompassing baang.

In the face of his usual pathetic facade, it was easy to forget just how dangerous Yeong Su could be. Guinevere’s spear landed true, the Shinheuh shattered in a glorious fashion, and Guinevere swallowed hard.

Honestly, how much of the work there had even been hers? If the big dumb monster had shattered so easily, she had a feeling it was dead long before her spear had made contact.

"I'll freeze, you fight." Surely, Guinevere had seen him and Mun fight enough times to know how this plan worked.

“Right…” She spoke under her breath, spear still in hand. The Shinheuh was dead, but the crowd was still scrambling. She focused her gaze, her eyes scanning through the throng of bodies until she spotted the source of the panic.

A small cluster of Shinheuh, numbering three, blossoming out from one location. Her first instinct was just to split. With all the people about, there really was no reason why she should’ve been the one to play animal control, but…

She clicked her fingers, and Grasschilde vanished from the pile of frozen Shinheuh, only to reappear in her hands a moment later.

“Three Shinheuh at three o'clock. Two medium, one large.” She barked another set of instructions. “Neither of us excel in close quarters, no? Keep them off of us, and I’ll just pelt them with as much as I can muster.”

“One at a time.” Yeong-Su’s eyes darted in the direction of the Shinheuh. He had a plan, kind of. Watching and waiting as they writhed, their bodies swimming with, against, and through the currents of shinsoo.

It was with a deep breath that his assault started. From where they stood within his baang a sudden mass of ice formed outwards. A flash freeze that followed the current that intersected two of the Shinheuh. Within moments the floating frozen river pierced one as it grew in jagged progression. It carried one of the medium Shinheuh into the body of the other, knocking them both away.

The large Shinheuh was spared a similar fate. A predatory gaze fell onto Guinevere and Yeong-Su as it rushed towards the two of them. The solitary order still fixed into its broken sentience.

“Kill it.” Yeong-Su’s baang reformed around them. An extra shield if Guinevere couldn’t end it as it swam toward them. Though, the baang was formed in preparation for the other two’s advance. Yeong-Su trusted her to kill the fish before them. Or rather, he couldn’t see a future where she couldn’t.

Guinevere’s eyes almost bulged out of her skull. A spear flew from her hands and whistled through the air, into the Shinheuh’s scales, but it did not find lethal purchase. In fact, the hulking beast only shrieked in response, baring a mouth of razor-sharp teeth.

Her heart skipped a beat, and the beast surged forward. Grasschilde dissolved from its flesh, its place in the world to be replaced by Johnson. But, Guinevere’s magic ran an inch too slow. Before John was even half manifested between her fingertips, the Shinheuh was almost upon her. She flinched, raising the half-realized weapon in the air to shield herself just before the beast bowled into her, sending her flying through the air just before Yeong-Su’s baang froze it solid.

“What part of…” Guinevere huffed, a painful gasp interrupting her after every few words. “Keep them… Off us… Did you... Not catch?” Guinevere grimaced. She could feel her muscles bruising, and her bones aching. The Shinheuh had, at least, had the courtesy to only knock her into a wall, and one of the much pointier looking shards of debris littering the courtyard, but it was still painful.

“You didn’t kill it.” The words didn’t come out with the same laboured pain as the recently tossed Guinevere. Yeong-Su stood looking at his partner, spared from the same fate due to the fish’s curved course, only hitting Guinevere and just barely grazing him. He was almost surprised, Mun could have killed the fish without breaking position. But rose-tinted glasses aside, now wasn’t the time for idle thoughts of idolization. Yeong-Su turned to face the remaining fish.

Her mind raced, decided that she wouldn’t be much good in this state, and conjured Jackson. Before Guinevere herself had even fully realized what she was doing, she was gripping its blade, cutting into her own flesh and willing its hex throughout her body. The pain of her wounds was quick to subside, and in response, the two smaller Shinheuh made a recovery of their own. Their eyes boiled with thoughts of revenge and fixed on Yeong-Su.

Jackson flew over Yeong-Su’s shoulder and bored a hole into one of the Shinheuh’s eye-sockets, sending it reeling. The other charged forward without a thought spared for its companion. Though the two Regulars didn’t know it, the psychic command spurning the Shinheuh on had already ended. They were fighting back now purely out of a desire for cold-blooded revenge.

Yeong-Su bent forward, with one foot before the other he set off running towards the still charging fish. His body tilted to the side as he ran, closer and closer to the fish and it’s vicious rows of teeth. A cold sweat beaded on his face, wicked away by the speed of his movement only a moment later. Following him was his Baang, the star trailed him until he was mere feet from the Shinheuh. As Yeong-Su jumped out of the way, the Baang stayed. The fish’s path crossed the hazy orb, passing Yeong-Su, and crashed to the ground before it could correct its course.

Guinevere continued to huff as she watched Yeong-Su’s dogged pursuit of their foes, or as she was beginning to feel was more appropriate to say, his prey. She twirled Jackson in her fingertips as it returned to her grasp, and studied the last remaining shinheuh. Yeong-Su had the offence of the situation more than covered, so all that was left for her to do was provide support.

A perfect sculpture was left in his wake, smoothed over ice preserving the hunger of the monster, to never be sated. There was no time to admire it, as Yeong-Su was already running to the next.

Jackson changed to Grasschilde and then flew through the air once more. The final shinheuh, turning to meet Yeong-Su’s advance, hissed and coiled the muscles in its body to strike. It jerked forward, only to find a sharp sting shoot up its tail as Grasschilde pierced its dorsal fin, pinning it to the wall. It was only enough to stall the beast for a moment, but a moment was all the icy Regular should’ve needed.

Struggle and squirm, the Shinheuh lashed against the wall, the spear, and all that drew near. Allowed one final cry to fill the air before it was silenced. Leaving nothing but another statue, as smooth and lifeless as the rest. All at once, the panic, the chaos, the noise was gone. Leaving the two alone with the onlooking crowd and their thoughts. And what crossed Yeong-Su’s mind next was a disturbing thought indeed.

Guinevere breathed a long sigh of relief as the final shinheuh was brought to a state of deathly stillness. The sight reminded her of something, and her expression stirred momentarily.

“Haha…” Guinevere let out a light chuckle and approached Yeong-Su. For all his dreariness, he could certainly get the job done when push came to shove. Though, perhaps that was just to be expected when dealing with… Someone of his genetic disposition.

“Nice job there, kid. I’m sure if Mun were here her heart would be fluttering right now.” Guinevere spoke playfully and gave the taller man an encouraging nudge on the shoulder. “Speaking of-”

“Where is she?!” Yeong-Su put his hands on Guinevere’s shoulders, stopping her statement short by force to ask his own question with a broken tone. After all, if fish were rampaging here, who’s to say they weren’t rampaging where Mun was.

“Where is Mun?!” It wasn’t panic that showed bright in his eyes. Not the usual dread and doom that accompanied his default expression. No, his face was painted in colours of desperation as he demanded her location.

“U-um.” Guinevere’s eyes fluttered and her words caught in her throat. She knew Yeong-Su was a bit of an obsessive, but she still hadn’t been expecting to be manhandled like this. “The arena. Uh, she went there to watch the matches, don’t you re-”

Before she could finish speaking, Yeong-Su was off, pushing and shoving his way through the recoalescing crowd in pursuit of Mun’s safety. Guinevere blinked again, before breaking into a sprint of her own.

“Hey, wait up! You don’t even know where she’s sitting!” Guinevere called after him, exasperation ringing clearly in her words. Being around this guy felt just like babysitting.

 

[Rantos]

Illiam Herlaa
Tags: Azure Sky
Splinter and snap, gush, grind, and growls brought soon to silence. A cacophony of nothing but visceral noise was transmitted across the pocket waves. Mixed with the static of poor reception was the intermittent sounds of a struggle. Though such a word may crop in the minds of the listener, it wasn't wholly accurate to describe the sounds that rang true. The slaughter of flesh and blood. The screams of a strained larynx. Brittle bones go crack as a monster gives a harrowed cry. Sounds of savagery all set to the laughter of an amused child. It went on and on, and on longer still. Till silence took hold of the pocket. The call went on, yet no sound came through.

Time passed.

"Sorry. Got caught up in catharsis." Finally Illiam's voice came through the pocket. "I'll make this quick. I've been thinking a lot about Seefi, how she was taken, and who took her. It made me think what if she won't be the only one. Everything, everyone, all I own could be stolen by this Tower, that's reality. So, I'll own it all. This Tower, I'll take it. If it's all mine, then there's nothing inside the Tower that can be stolen from me, not again." This was his answer.

"I'm not sure how I'll need your help, but sooner or later, I'll have to call on you. I need you to pick up."

The words sounded strange to speak. The level of calm seemed befitting for anyone but himself. But Illiam felt relaxed as he sat upon the pile stacked high. That pile that squished under his weight, a seat made of bone and furnished with flesh. Snakes dug their burrows, smokey black serpents that still ate away at the preditor no more.

"Enjoy yourself. Bye." And with a click, the call ended, leaving Illiam alone to look up at the sky from his new vantage.

 

[Azure Sky]

Hares Have Good Ears

Sniff

"Decent." Was Hare's description of Selicity, based on her smell.

"Introduce yourself."

Ah, she did have a point.

"Von Hare. Average rabbit man." Was his introduction to the cat girl.

Meanwhile...

The Prism Fish floated around. That was the name of the Shinheuh that menacingly waited in front of Sweet's room. It did not belong to any particular Anima. Instead it broke free from one of the rooms where scientists were testing its abilities. A cute-looking creature, but obnoxious.

For one, it absorbed and conducted light as well as cast illusions. Thus when Sweet threw the flash grenade, the fish simply absorbed the light from it for later use. It did however, get disturbed from the sound, becoming confused and angrier than before, moving erratically and hitting its body in the nearby wall because of it, which activated its defensive mechanism. Its body emited multi-colored lights. The colours moved arond the area, forming kaleidoscope-like paterns and simingly distoring the room. The fish itself also apparently split in three blurry copies.

When Sweet shot at the fish, she managed to pop its left eye and grazing its neck, making it cry out in pain. Its body was tough, enough that the bullet remained in its eye socket. Of course, that was of no consolation for the poor creature, behaving uncharacteristically, against its will. As it moved erratically towards Sweet the movement of the paterns hastened. The rainbow light show and distorsions were quite sickening. On the other hand, the poor Prism Fish lost and eye, thus it could no longer properly judge distance. It tried to hit Sweet with its tail but missed. The floating spear near her pointed its tip at the creature.

Meanwhile...

Hare was initially amused by Sweet's demanour. It reminded him of his youth, when his body was not yet a weapon. Just trying to survive. Life was much simpler then. He wasn't a father...

"Back off, close your ears, and your eyes."

Of course, he knew it. It was barely used in any way, shape, or form in the Tower but...

"Is that a flash grenade?"

Boom!

He covered his ears to the best of his ability but he was still a humanoid rabbit. It disturbed him greatly, because of his sensitive hearing.

"I should develop Shinsoo earplugs." He thought as he laid on the ground.

simj26 QuirkyAngel

 

[QuirkyAngel]

Sunhee Yeon
Cute?

It was the first time a boy had ever called her cute before and Sunhee’s face turned a bit red. She shook her head. Nononono. She couldn’t let herself get tricked by a boy. Her cousins would only laugh at her.

Besides, she was still a knight of the Yeon Family. As weird as the self-harming boy punching the ground was acting, Bulsajo was still a direct descendant of the Godmother—gifted with one of the Primeval Flames it would seem. Sunhee watched with fascination as the flesh re-paired itself after each bloodied bombardment of his own hand. Coin-purse? Mocking? For a moment, Sunhee thought Bulsajo was talking about her—since shinhueh didn’t carry purses as far as she was aware—but he took his anger out on the crocodile so Sunhee wasn’t entirely sure.

One of her cousins? A ghost? Was he even seeing what was in front of him?

Sunhee frowned. Dad always did always her to stay away from weirdos like these. Then again, to her father, she supposed she would always be the little girl asking for a bedtime story about the 10 Great Warriors and not an A-ranked regular who was already climbing up similar steps. Well…similar-ish…steps. She didn’t dare to compare herself to Hana Yeon—the beautiful virgin of the ten great warriors and most powerful flame user of their family—but it couldn’t be denied that many Yeons choosing to climb the Tower chose the goddess as an inspiration for their own goals. Herself included.

Of course, that was years ago.

The higher one climbed, the more one became aware of the greater world beyond the pond. Her fire wasn’t ‘special’. While she learned to manipulate her shinsoo into flames, a social requirement for all those that call themselves Yeons, Sunhee discovered she enjoyed learning the way of the sword more. Eventually, her dedication to her blade caught the attention of Lady Yoona Jeongsin Yeon and she found herself among the Yeon Knights, training with like-minded girls to protect her family. To Protect the Flowers of Yeon. Bulsajo wasn’t a Flower, but he was a Fruit all the same and the seeds he carried would be passed onto the future generation.

It was also a little gross to watch.

Therefore Sunhee grabbed the flaming arm before it could continue its fruitless assault on the reinforced floor, feeling the ache of her muscles from yesterday’s training session fade away. “Get a grip on yourself, Bulsajo! You’re making the Yeon Family look bad!”

She considered just knocking the E-rank out, but healers would be needed to deal with the aftermath. Plenty of people have already been hurt by the aggressive Shinhueh. Plenty more Shinhueh would be killed by the Rankers and Regulars aboard the Archimedes. All because of their weak minds. Weak mind just like Bulsajo seem to have. Was he being affected by the ‘kill’ aura too? She’d like to look for the source of the disturbance, but Lady Yoonah told her that her job was to minimize the damage aboard the Archimedes. Priority, of course, went to the carriers of the special flame and business partners of her family. T’wasn’t exactly fair to others Regulars, but that’s life.

She wasn’t supposed to interfere with the climb of others anyway.

“Your teammates are doing their best to protect you,” Sunhee’s grip on Bulsajo’s arm was firm, but not tight as she met the other Regular’s eyes. Was she even talking to Bulsajo? She’d heard, from Lady Yoona, that those who inherited their Family flame could lose themselves to it if they weren’t strong enough. A kooky power to be sure. “Are you seriously going to just sit there hitting an imaginary purse while they do?”

If Bulsajo lost himself to his own power and started attacking her out of anger or something, she’d have to put him down like any other crazy Shinhueh. Sunhee was loyal to the family, yes. However, even loyalty only went so far and, from the Floor test to Floor 107, Sunhee learned that her own climb came at the lives and sacrifices of others. Besides, if Bulsajo couldn’t even control his special flames, then it wasn’t much of loss to the Yeon Family.

simj26 The One Eyed Bandit Azure Sky


Selicity + Ajax
Selicity obediently took a couple steps back, closed her eyes, and blocked her flattened ears as Gladioli opened the door and dropped a flash grenade. Even so, she could still hear the muffled bang produced by the lightbearer’s weapon and the sound of bullets being fired not long after. The smell of gunpowder in the air, and the fish that entered, signaled the start of the battle.

Sel licked her lips, her golden eyes opening delight as she drew Athlene from her Arms Inventory, and prepared to cut herself a nice piece of colorful sashimi in the prettily distorted room when Ajax’s voice once more sounded from Gladioli’s Lighthouse.

“Guest?”

“Oh don’t worry about it, Ajax!” She looked to the rabbit man lying on the ground. “Von Hare is an irregular like Gladioli and Illiam so I don’t think he means us any harm.”

“…This isn’t the time for your jokes, Miss Selicity.”

“I’m not joking,” Selicity frowned. “Gladioli followed him into the Tower, from what I understand of their brief exchange, and now they both want to find a way out.”

“…We’ll talk about this some other time.” Ajax’s tone spoke nothing of his thoughts and his lack of a face made it hard to tell what he was thinking. “Please turn on your observers and send me the visual data of your situation to analyze. I need to check on Golangi so I won’t be much help, but I’ll do what I can from where I am. My advice, once you defeat the opponent before you, is to try and find higher ground where Miss Gladioli can more easily snipe down any aggressive-looking shinhueh that approaches. There’s no telling how many more may come and no telling when this will be over so be sure to support each other until then. Miss Gladioli is the acting light-bearer so listen to her directions as well.”

“Yeah, I know.” Selicity replied as she made the two winged-eye balls visible above her. She’d climbed with the human girl long enough to trust her battle judgement and skill with using a lighthouse. Gladioli wasn’t Ajax, but she could do the job just fine. “What happened to Golangi?"

“I’m about to find out.” Ajax replied. “And Mr. Herlaa? He was with you last, wasn’t he?”

“Talking with a friend.” Selicity shrugged and, with her eyes shut, closed the distance between the her and the pretty shinhueh with a bullet lodged in its eye. Holding the scythe-like hook in both hands, Selicity swung with the intention of decapitating the creature--guess-timating where the head should be . Fish heads were the best part of a fish. Even with all the lights tricking her vision, the fish couldn't hide its delicious scent from the Cat Sidhe. “Look this way, Fish-face! Otherwise your head will come flying off before you know it~!”

Ajax's face on Gladioli's lighthouse monitor sighed.

simj26 Azure Sky

 

[Brendanfp]

Mun Minseo & Quetzal Blitz

A moment of silence was shared between Minseo and Quetzal as the match between Haewon and Mena concluded. Both the regular and high ranker were astonished by the outcome but for two different reasons. Mun, the most ordinary regular, had just achieved a victory over a high ranker, albeit a small victory. Quetzal on the other hand was less shaken by the bet he had just lost to Minseo but instead by the brutal defeat of his star pupil.

The two sat there for some moments more before Quetzal abruptly stood up from his arena seat. As he stood, Minseo felt a wave of anxiety wash over her. Was the high ranker upset with her over the terms of their bet? Would he strike her in anger? He didn’t seem like the type, but when dealing with Rankers she felt it necessary to keep her guard up.

[ping...]

Suddenly a chiming sound from her pocket. Minseo quickly made her pocket visible to investigate.

[3M points have been transferred from Quetzal Blitz]

Minseo blinked in disbelief. She stared at her pocket for a moment and then blinked once more. The regular hadn’t seen this many points since her visit to the underground arena on the 22nd floor and even then the two monsters of that event only had bounties of around 200,000. Minseo was stunned.

For Quetzal, however, parting with that many points was trivial. Rankers dealt with points in the hundreds of millions and some high rankers even dealt with billions of points at a time. If anything it would be a small token from him.

“Sorry, Ms. Mun but I can’t stick around. I have to go check up on my bloodied battle angel. In the meantime don’t spend that all in one place… that’s not a joke on the Archimedes that amount of points could be spent all at once.”
Quetzal fixed his crimson blazer as he began to depart, but Minseo had only finished processing the events that had just transpired.

“Wait! Quetzal… Mr. Quetzal… I don’t know what to say…” Minseo blurted in a rare moment of discomposure.

“No worries! I found your company quite interesting, and plus you won those points fair and square. Ahahahaha!” the jovial ranker replied. Then with no warning, he closed the gap between the two quicker than Minseo could react. His head moved right beside hers. In her ear, he whispered, “...and a word of advice. If any guy is causing a girl like you this much trouble he must be something special.”

Minseo had no time to process the words the man had said before he pulled away and began to head into the stadium crowd, presumably to go check in on the Princess.

It wasn’t until several moments had passed and Quetzal was long gone that Minseo began to reflect on his words.

“A girl like me? He doesn’t know a thing about me” Minseo scoffed under her breath with a hand on her head.

Minseo looked back down at her pocket. It had been a while since she had sent out her location to Guinevere. She wondered what was taking her so long? The final match wouldn’t start for a while, perhaps she could go looking for her teammate.

Minseo looked back towards the bloodstained stage and then got to her feet, and began to make her way towards the arena exit. As she left she prayed that her seats would still be there when she returned.

Azure Sky Rantos The One Eyed Bandit

 

[QuirkyAngel]

Ajax Cruise + Hoangi Lo Po Bia + Ellia Aris Khun + Marie Changler
Floor 30, Archimedes, Princess Haewon's Hospital room

Ajax passed a red -haired ranker as he made his way to Golangi’s hospital room, but his “computer-like” mind was too busy focusing on other matters to take much notice. Irregular? The probability that 3 irregulars ended up on the same floor at the exact same time was too low to even consider, let alone 2 of them just happening to be on his team. Yet he didn’t believe Selicity to be a liar either and she seemed quite insistent on her claim. In the years they climbed together, Ajax never had a reason to doubt the Cat Sidhe’s integrity. That meant something about Gladioli, Illiam, and the so-called Von Hare made her think so.

What did he know about Irregulars? If Regulars were the chosen ones, picked by the floor guardian to enter the tower, they were the unchosen ones who forced their way in. They broke the rules of the tower (laid out after King Zahard took his throne) and their climb typically brought a form of turbulence of some kind. Waves of change that threatened to shake its current, established structure. Zahard seemed to dislike them, though he and his 10 warriors were mostly irregulars.

Ajax’s boss was one as well.

Ajax processed all those thoughts even as he kept an eye on his teammates’ battle against the Prism Fish and entered Princess Haewon’s hospital room with Mari in tow. The Blitz family princess was still soundly asleep in her bed. Nearby, Golangi’s body was laid out in a makeshift bed of blanket and pillows, Ellia Aris Khun seemed to be reading, and a cat boy nursed his injuries. Both conscious regulars looked towards him as he stepped in.

“Hello, Ajax.”

“Where’s Danbi?!”

Assuming Lo Po Bia meant his shinheuh, Ajax released the sleeping tiger creature from the confines of his lighthouse, letting the anima check it for injuries. “Hello, Miss Ellia. How is Golangi’s condition?”

“It’s as you see before you. There’s been no changes since we’ve last spoke.”

Approaching Golangi's prone body, Ajax checked the cat girl's pulse and temperature. Normal. No visible signs of injuries either. By all appearances, the Defender seemed to be sleeping. Ajax tilted his head as he studied the temporary member of Team Hellcats. "What could've caused this?"

“Golangi’s always been a little too sensitive for her own good.” Holangi snorted.

“What do you mean by that, Mr. Lo Po Bia?” Ajax turned to the cat-eared regular that was stroking his sleeping cat. “Do you know why all of this is happening?”

All he got were abnormal readings of shinsoo and shinhueh acting wildly. Suspects could range from an enemy of the Workshop causing havoc to a workshop invention going haywire and creating some sort of strange reaction aboard the ship. He wouldn’t be surprised if the later were the case. They were on board a ship designed by crazy inventors, after all, and, given the tech challenge was two days away, a regular designing some sort of shinhueh-controlling device with the many tools available aboard the Archimedes wasn’t completely out there—compared to two of his teammates being Irregulars at least.

“Why?” Holangi’s red eyes narrowed. “I haven’t a clue why, but someone tried to forcibly wrest control of all the shinhueh aboard the Archimedes and this is the result.”

“Someone?”

“Likely,” Holangi sneered. “I won’t deny the power of the attack, but it had absolutely zero finesse. The equivalent of an emotionally unstable child smashing its way in and demanding it be heard with little consideration towards the safety of the shinhueh involved or the intricacies of anima control. Definitely not someone from the feline branch--that's for sure--and nothing compared to what I’ve experienced with Lord Yatsracha.” The Lo Po Bia rolled his eyes. “I could’ve easily re-gained control of my beloved cats if my sister weren’t choking the life out of me.”

The bruises around Holangi’s neck proved a testament to his words. Course, Ajax thought it was a miracle the anima was even standing after Ha Mena Arie so thoroughly trounced him in the preliminaries.

“Was it the same for you, Miss Mari?”

“Y-yeah, something like it I guess.” The blond girl shrugged. “My changlings started to go wild before I could really pay attention, but now that I think about it again, it certainly sounded like a person—a really angry person.”

“The shinsoo waves are similar to that of anima’s” Ellia added and Ajax was reminded that the Workshop Khun was a skilled Wavecontroller. He could probably find the culprit if he took the shinsoo readings and matched it with the readings of known anima…but the Tower had produced plenty of anima in the past…and not all of them had such personal information recorded. Knowing that it was unlikely to be some from the feline branch narrowed it down a little…but not nearly enough.

“If Golangi wakes up, she could probably tell us who it is. She’s a victim of the assault, after all.”

“If?”

“I told you, she’s sensitive.” Holangi hissed. “An anima attack of that much emotional instability is bound to have some sort of negative effect on her mind given how empathetic she is.”

Ajax couldn’t tell if the Lo Po Bia was insulting his sister or genuinely worried. Probably a mixture of both. Either way, there wasn’t much for him to do since any medical skills he possessed didn’t relate to the mind and it looked like he would get his answers until Golangi woke up. Therefore, the living ignition simply found a chair and re-focused his attention on the analyzing the situation with the Prism Fish. It used lights to create some sort of optical illusion—much the same way a lighthouse could. And, it was the Light-bearer’s job to shine a light through the darkness and illusions so the Fisherman could more easily reel in the fish. However, Ajax didn’t have his lighthouses near their vicinity and it’d be rude to hijack Sweet’s lighthouses while they were in use. Besides, he was firm in his stance that Miss Gladioli was the main lightbearer in their current situation. He’d picked the team battle to test how well they fought as a team compared to other teams climbing. And teams, in Ajax’s mind, worked best when everyone knew and properly performed their roles—adapting as necessary. Miss Selcity was a skilled fisherman, with enough sense and intuition to know what she was doing, but she was still reeling in the dark. That sort of thing only worked on lower floors. The higher one climbed, the more difficult the challenges and lack of vision would only hinder her against some opponents—especially in the higher floors. Ajax planned for those floors. In a traditional team, the Spearbearers were the ones that did the finishing blow to reeled-in fish anyway.

So whether Miss Sweet chose to switch to temperature scan, produce a counter light to offset the Prism Fish’s light, amplify Selicity’s attack, hold the Prism Fish still with flow control, or even direct/re-direct Von Hare’s spear as necessary to add to the assault, it was her decision. Ajax was simply the backup light to increase brightness as needed.

Mari saddled in his lap. “That your team?”

“Yeah.” Ajax replied. “Minus the rabbit, that’s the team I've been climbing with.”

“How is the champion match going, by the way?” Miss Ellia asked conversationally as she flipped a page of her book. "Have they decided a winner?"

“The finals are likely going to be on hold until all the rampaging shinheuh are dealt with.” He had a lighthouse out there to record the events of stadium, but finding out the victor of the Champion’s match wasn’t as important to him as finding out whether Golangi could continue with the Workshop Battle. Or the reason for the shinhueh on the Archimedes acting strangely.

(mentioned: OverconfidentMagi Brendanfp simj26 Azure Sky )

 

[Azure Sky]

Yume Yu, Arsean, Nox and Why Sleeping is Healthy
collab with OverconfidentMagi ​

"Interesting." Yume on the exterior was calm, but in her mind she extensively analysed the intruder who knew the Regular, but was, without a doubt, a Ranker.

The person that had put down the berserk anima gently touched her cheek before standing. He was tall, wearing a long gray duster and an odd white helmet that made him look like a robot. No part of his skin was visible anywhere. The rubble of the last few floors and this room's ceiling that he'd been forced to break through in order to make it in time now hung suspended above him. It hadn't looked like he'd frozen them with shinsoo - in fact even now the pieces were shifting slightly - it was more like something had caught each and every piece of rubble no matter how large or small right out of the air.


"Now," the masked man turned the glowing slit of his helmet onto High Ranker Yume, passing over the other regular with only a slight pause. "If you don't mind, could you enlighten me, I seem to be a bit confused. What is a high ranker," he placed no respect on that title, "doing bullying a poor regular?" Even with the helmet distorting the voice, anyone could tell that the person speaking was holding back their anger.

Yume kept her usual poker face and was about to answer, but someone else replied.

"The little fish collector. How you've grown." Somewhere between Yume and the intruder, Exodus re-appeared from the shadows. His body engulfed in darkness turned insideout in a grotesque transformation that eventually revealed the form of a pale, seemingly middle-aged man of above-average human stature, long black hair, red eyes, with a moustache and a bit of a beard. The lower half of his body was covered in darkness. Yume bowed as he materialized.

"It's a shame I never got to know you better. We have that damned Prime to thank for that..." He was mostly talking to himself at that point.

"Ah, yes, bullying you said. I am a man that values the concept of taking responsibility for one's actions, so..."

"Responsibility for what, my god? She cheated on my turf. I gave her another chance and she still broke the rules."

"Yes, yes, Yume. But I am the one who asked you to kill her Shinheuh. I am the reason she is in that state. And I love myself for it." Nox Nether was as malevolent and arrogant as always. Even the fact that he was in a weakened state, nowhere near his peak, did not change his overly-confident and diabolic demeanour.

"Did you want to stand up for your pupil, or sister, or pet, or whatever Nyra Carciphi is to you fish boy? Don't worry, I don't judge." He started petting the silver Yazi that he "revived" and put under his control. "Ah..." he realised something.

"I even forgot your name... It's rare that I forget the name of a would-be snack, or familiar. I must be getting old, hahahaha." He was in a good mood. At least on the outside. He was acting overly familiar with Arsean, even if the other High Ranker probably never had anything to do with Nox before. He was just one of the people Nox was interested in gaining as a source of strength, be that as energy to absorb, or a slave to his power. Just like Helios Prime was...

Guh, I just remembered something unpleasant...

"Do you wish for me to take care of the intruder, my god?"

"Where's the fun in that? Fish boy and I should get to know each other better." Nox replied. "Stand back. I want a warmup."

Yume nodded and distanced herself.

The helmeted Arsean stared at the girl's blood on his weapon, a short needle that seemed to come from his palm or wrist. The needle retracted, but the blood stayed where it was floating in the air, slowly gathering into a black sphere.

"God?" The helmeted man leaned back and spread his arms. Two small shinsoo wands popped out of where it looked like the needle had vanished into earlier, and the man caught one in each hand. They were no longer than a pencil, with a pale gemstone on the end. He gave the wands a twirl, and things within the room began moving. The rubble from the man's entrance through the ceiling that had waited patiently as if held in the air by some invisible thing suddenly crashed together and was crushed and compacted loudly into a perfectly smooth sphere. Nyra's dark blood spilled on the floor and covering her small body was drawn into the air and joined the droplets already floating there. The shinsoo waves that Yumi had frozen with her reverse shinsoo control were dragged back, forming a single clear sphere of pure shinsoo no larger than a baseball, all the creatures that had been trapped inside were nowhere to be seen. The three spheres - clear shinsoo, black blood, and gray rubble- orbited the man's body. Curiously, their orbit wasn't regular. There was a gap.

"You're a lot smaller than the gods I've fought before." Arsean turned to face the shady person calling himself a god. "I won't brag. My record trying to kill gods isn't the best. But none of those gods dared to lay a finger on my adorable little sister." Arsean Carciphi was many things. A monster, an unnatural creature, an incredibly powerful anima, an unreasonable high ranker that had stolen part of a floor from the ten families, an insane person that picked fights with floor guardians, but above all he was an obsessive brother that loved his self-proclaimed 'adorable little sister'.


A small white creature crawled out from inside Arsean's coat. It jumped into its master's hand and stared up at him with its single red eye. At his command, the Myan opened its mouth wide and swallowed Nyra in a single bite, despite the creature's body still being too small to manage such a thing. As soon as his sister was gone, Arsean pointed a wand at the Myan and its body exploded with a small pop. No one here would be following after her right away. "Now I'm free to make a mess of things here."

Something else emerged from where the shinsoo wands had - a small vial - which Arsean shattered with a wand. Black liquid, identical to the sphere he'd made of his sister's gathered blood, scattered before being pulled back together in the middle of the three? spheres.

[Phorceed]

The tiny glob in the center reacted, bubbling turning clear as it expanded to absorb the surrounding spheres. The black sphere of Nyra's blood became the template for the thing being made. It was surrounded by the shinsoo from the clear sphere and more that her brother had provided to fuel the process. The metal and stone in the gray sphere became its body. The bubble crystalized and shattered like an egg. Because it had been an egg. The monster that emerged looked like a cross between a mermaid and a centipede, its upper body being that of a humanoid woman but completely made of liquid shinsoo with veins visible within full of Nyra's black blood. Its lower body was long and made of stone and steel, with gleaming scales and blade-like legs.

"Happy birthday," Arsean greeted the new-born monster. He glanced back at Yume. "I think this child might want to play with you."

The monster shook itself awake, black blood gathering as it 'opened' its eyes and found Yume. When it spoke, its voice was a distorted parroting of the girl whose blood had been used to give it life.

"Kill"

Arsean laughed. "I guess it shouldn't be that surprising. She always did have a stubborn streak. Now." He left the monster to the high ranker and walked towards the ominous black figure. "That body, you stole it from some poor regular I take it?"

"Ah, stole is such a poor choice of description. It was a mutually beneficial contract, one could say." Nox happily hummed, looking at the mermaid-like creature that was supposed to be Yume's opponent. "Looks delicious."

[Hi, my name is Nox]

The room simingly distored, with the brightness and color contrast chaning constantly, while the sensation of what was up and down became unclear.

[The Egg]

Nox and Yume where engulfed in a giant dark egg-shaped barrier.

"Yume..."

"Yes, my god."

"Teleport."

"Are you certain?"

"You think I can't handle things on my own?"

"I would never... I merely wish to observe you in action."

"Flattering. But as of now I am merely strong enough to fight against your above-average Tower-born High Ranker at best. I will give you a sight to behold, but later."

"I understand."


Thus, Yume waved goodbye at Arsean and used a device to teleport out of sight.


"Indeed, it's better this way." Nox liked to not give his opponents satisfaction. Obviously Arsean would love to hurt Yume for bullying his sister, so Nox would not give him the opportunity. Even if having her around was advantageous for him.

As the dark egg dissipated Nox looked at the distorted room. For him, it was like home. 50 onyx-like Baangs formed around his body and the silver Yazi grew in size 3 times.

"Well... shall we begin?"

The shinsoo chimera screamed as Yume vanished. Its many steel limbs tore apart the walls and floor as it searched for its missing prey, but the ranker was gone. Arsean supposed it was only natural that the creature would be unintelligent, especially with Nyra so far away and unable to think for it. All the creature had to act on was a vague order to kill and Nyra's hatred for Yume. Well whatever, Arsean hadn't planned on making that thing fight Nox anyway. It could sulk in the corner while he handled the self-proclaimed god.

"High Ranker Yume," Arsean addressed the woman that had left, ignoring Nox completely, even turning his back to the silver eel abomination. "Once I'm done feeding your god to mine, I expect you to have returned here for your turn. If I cannot find you right away, I fear what will happen to this ship in your stead. I climbed this entire tower for petty revenge, don't think you can escape your punishment."

"Amazing speech." Nox clapped. "Apart from, you know, all the nonsense."

Hundreds of blasts were released from Nox's baangs and moved like serpents towards their target. Then Nox jumped inside Yazi's mouth...

Arsean stepped forward, undaunted by the barrage of snaking shinsoo beams rushing towards him. He waved each wand with a flourish in front of him.

[Compression Technique - Distort]

The space between Arsean and Nox's attack bulged outward, forming a lense, and then a second behind it. Each of the blasts passed through the lenses and shrank twice. The force behind the attacks remained, and each punched a hole through Arsean's armor and body easily, but a few dozen holes was much less of a pain than having his whole body obliterated.


The shinsoo blasts returned to their original size behind Arsean, destroying the room even further and tearing through walls to cause further damage beyond. Even the mindless creature had to acknowledge the barrage of attacks or risk being caught up in them. Its water-like face turned towards the two people fighting and the grey eel. "Ya... zir... el?"

A grey energy danced around Yazi as it formed some sort of fusion with Nox. It shrunk by half and aside from its head it had a humanoid body. Its maw opened wide and Nox's head came out of it. Starring at Arsean. Menacingly.

Where Arsean's body was torn through by Nox's attack, glowing orange light filled and quickly repaired the damage, even repairing the armor and clothes. One of his hands had been mostly severed by a lucky shot, and even that reconnected, the dropped shinsoo wand landing back into the fully repaired palm.

"High Ranker Yume," Arsean continued to address the person not present. "You have until I count to ten to return here."

He raised both of the wands towards what Nox had turned into. "One." A single baang formed in front of one of the wands, with a half-dozen popping into existence in front of the other. "Two." The cluster of baangs shot off in an erratic path towards Nox, while strands of glowing orangle light emerging from openings in Arsean's armor flowed into the lone baang. "Th-"

Arsean's count stumbled when the shinsoo chimera lept from behind him at the Nox-eel hybrid abomination. The chimera was shrieking again. Sheesh, these people had really managed to upset his sister for the echoed feelings to still be this strong. Arsean altered the baangs' paths to avoid both the chimera and the other monster. Better they hit nothing than touch his sister's child.


"Three." Arsean continued to pour more shinsoo and that glowing substance into the single baang.

"Aww, you're such a grotesque little snack." He talked to the wierd creature Arsean had summoned, on a pleasant, playful tone, as if talking to a cute pet.

[I will become more hideous]

His arms became multiple eel heads and each eel head had dark tentacles come out of its mouth (from Nyra's deceased jelly fish).

Nox liked to make fun of people that named their techniques, by naming his moves based on actions he would take, or random words. Except one. From one of the tentacles a white sphere was formed...

[Shinsoo Black Hole]

Nox was holding it, waiting for the right moment to unleash its power.

The shinsoo chimera crashed into Nox's monstrous form. The chimera's centipede-like stone and metal body wrapped around Nox and stabbed into the flesh of his unnatural shape.

"Four." Arsean's helmet let no sign of his emotions through his hard surface and voice distortion. The baang Nox had just created had set off alarms, both figuratively and literally within his suit. It was certainly an attack beyond the level of most rankers, that was for sure. He couldn't even begin to measure the amount of destruction he'd have to deal with if he got hit by that. It still felt far too small for a claim at godhood though.

The flow of orange light from his arm into the baang ended. The baang was a swirling mass of light, the ripples across its surface seeming almost alive. Arsean shoved his arm into the baang. The only reaction was a ripple across its surface.

[Atoll]

The baang spread apart, forming a ring around Arsean's clenched fist. He spread his fingers, and glowing branches spread from the ring. With another movement of his hand the branches twisted to grow rapidly in the direction of Nox and the chimera. "Five."

As the Shinheuh latched onto Nox's wierd form, darkness would come out from the places it punctured, trying to consume it. More specifically, it would suck out the Shinsoo in its body, in a similar fashion to a Shadow Fox a certain member of a certain Lo Po Bia branch commonly used.

Where the dark energy touched it, the metal and stone making up the chimera's body began to crumble apart. The humanoid portion of the chimera screamed and ripped itself away from its failing body. As soon as it landed on the floor it began tearing apart its surroundings to reform its shell and attack again.

As for the orange tree- like Shinsoo branches that Arsean unleashed upon him, Nox added energy to the Shinsoo Black Hole until it grew 3 times in size and threw it at the peculiar attack of his opponent.

"Let's test the power output..."

Arsean was relieved to see that the strange technique Nox was using appeared to be a straightforward offensive one. Having seen the offensive power of gods and had that force directed at himself multiple times already, no ammount of destructive power would intimidate him. It was the tricky untility techniques that still gave him a headache. "Six."

[Compression Technique - Distort]

The space between the two odd techniques warped just before they crashed together. The main ring of glowing orange shinsoo was completely obliterated by the shinsoo black hole, but with the change in size of the distorted space the furthest branches were just able to escape the black hole's path of destruction. The small pieces quickly resumed growing, now in all directions, stabbing into the floor and walls to anchor themselves while sending more arms towards Nox. One of the branches found itself intercepted by the shinsoo chimera leaping into its path.

Meanwhile Arsean watched from just next to where the black hole had destroyed everything it touched. He was missing his right arm and half of his chest and head, but already threads of orange light were filling in the missing parts. He held up his intact hand, showing five fingers and two wands held between them. His way of saying "Seven" while his mouth wasn't quite in working condition.

The chimera and the odd shinsoo attack clashed as they stabbed and tore apart each other, but the chimera proved more voracious. Soon the strange orange light was emerging from its own body, continuing to grow and augment the chimera. Instead of a fish or a centipede, the chimera's body now formed an scorpion-like carapace. More legs and even a tail was forming as the orange shinsoo continued to grow.

"Hmmmm...." Nox pondered as he watched the various scenes unfold. Half his body was gone but it healed at amazing speed. Was the Fish boy immortal? No. He was an anima. A High Ranker anima at that...

"A vessel." Nox thought. Of course, a common Anima trick at higher levels. They were the weakness. Defeating the anima , or breaking the bowl was the way to go, instead of fighting all their pets. Or...

"Ah, there's no point in this case, I reckon."

The tip of each dark tentacle became a copy of Nox's head. And each one opened their mouth. Thousands of spiders came out and crawled towards their prey, in this case, the scorpion-like construct that proved to be ridiculously obnoxious. Each spider bite would corrupt the Shinsoo in the creature's body with Nox's.

The chimera screamed and swiped at the spiders with its tail, managing to crush a swath of them before it was forced to break off the tail as it became corrupted. More spiders reached its legs and began biting into the strange orange shinsoo there, darkening it. "Don't... touch..." The chimera reached up with a hand, and a branch of orange shinsoo sprang from its back towards one of the many other branches growing in the room. Its corrupted legs broke off as it pulled itself away from the floor and Nox's spiders.

Arsean raised his wand, and the branch the chimera had grabbed turned to stab towards Nox. The chimera was confused, but seeing Nox coming closer - from its view - its reaction was to jump off of the shinsoo branch and tackle Nox's monstrous form with its own.

Nox t-posed, with all his heads smirking at the chimera, waiting for it to tackle him. As soon as it did, energy from his 50 baangs moves towards it like a myriad of snakes, ready to tear into the Shinsoo and make it his own slowly. Meanwhile the tackled Nox was still smiling malevolently, each face with a different degree and variation of arrogance and amusement.

Arsean's good arm tossed his wands into the air. His other arm had reformed enough that the shape of fingers was just able to be made out, and it raised three fingers, along with five on the other. Eight. The regenerating hand caught the wands. Arsean watched as his sister's child was slowly corrupted and absorbed by Nox. He pointed the wands, and the ends of the orange shinsoo branches sharpened into spikes and shot at both Nox and the chimera, though how long the distinction would continue to matter was questionable.

As the chimera and Nox were pierced by a countless amount of Shinsoo spikes, one of the Nox heads separated from the main body, with a bunch of spider-like legs coming out of its neck. The main body became a mass of black sludge as the Nox head regrew his humanoid body and made Yazi zombie(?) come back to his original shape before fusion.

The 50 baangs separated in many, many small spheres, each launching needle-like blasts at Arsean. They were not very strong, but some of them could corrupt Shinsoo, as the Irregular had previously demonstrated.

Meanwhile...

"Let me show you some fine memories." Nox raised an arm, and a 2-meter raidus dark grey circle formed above it. It displayed Nyra's breakdown from the moment Yume crushed Yazi's head, to Nox stealing its soul and regenerating its body while Yume made quick work of the jellyfish.

Arsean's mostly regenerated body was pierced and obliterated by the barrage of powerful shinsoo attacks. Only blackened bits and pieces remained to prove he hadn't avoided the onslaught.

[Compression Technique - Distort]

[Calciphate]

The space behind the now-humanoid Nox warped. The eel whose body he'd split from made to turn and react, but its body refused to move as it rapidly hardened as if turned to stone from the inside out.

"Nine," said the whole and healthy Arsean stepping out of what appeared to be the stretched-out mouth of some white creature. The shinheuh in question was a Myan, a rodent most commonly used for instantaneous travel between floors. But they worked just as well to transport within thesame floor, or the same room. Arsean's first shinsoo attack that had 'missed' to avoid hitting the chimera had actually been meant to deposit these shinheuh around the room to prepare for a surprise attack from behind. And now Arsean planted his foot on the ground and swung at Nox. As his armored fist passed through the lens of warped space, it suddenly became much larger, larger than the reduced size of Nox now that he'd split from his monstrous body. The massive fist slammed into Nox, sending him flying back. Already wary of touching this opponent, Arsean severed his arm as soon as it made contact. That was probably not necessary as nothing organic had made contact, but he'd rather play safe against a foe whose power he still did not understand.

The force behind Arsean's punch was enough to have sent Nox flying through the far side of the Archimedes, but that didn't happen. Because as soon as Nox had been knocked back, a second small white creature had opened its mouth to catch him. As soon as Nox passed through the warp drive in the Myan's mouth he was gone. Arsean threw one of his wands through the portal after him before the Myan closed its mouth and the path was closed. He waited a half second before...

[Calciphate]

The strands of orange shinsoo he'd left on the wand - which wasn't shinsoo at all but rather a shinheuh that was something halfway between seaweed and coral - had been commanded to attack and consume the Myan on the other side of the connection. Calciphate was the command that caused the coral to die and turn to stone. Arsean had hoped to use it on Nox after he'd absorbed enough of the coral, through attacks and by eating the body of his sister's child, but Nox returning to a manageable size had also worked out.

He'd dumped the self-proclaimed god on the 39th floor. Arsean knew from experience how much of a stickler for the rules the guardian there was, and since Nox was using a regular's body, he'd just arrived on that floor having broken two major rules. First, he was in a regular's body on a floor he shouldn't be, and second, he'd illegally used a Myan's warp drive to get there. Arsean almost felt sorry for the regular that was sharing a body with that guy, but he'd made his bed. And more importantly, hadn't that guy fought and attacked his sister as well? He'd looked like the guy in the clip of his sister's fight. It didn't really matter. What was important was that Arsean had delt with an annoying opponent without killing a regular. He didn't want to get this floor's guardian on his ass for breaking the rules after all.

The orange "shinsoo" scattered throughout the room turned grey and began to crumble as the individual shinheuh that made it up died off. Arsean looked around the room. The projection that his foe had created as a distraction had disappeared, so Arsean would never know what lies Nox had intended to show him. Oh well. He turned to the statue of a Pit Eel that had been a part of Nox's body. It was too dangerous to leave around.

"Oh right. Ten." Arsean projected his voice louder. "High Ranker Yume. I'm done playing with your god, so it's your turn now. Since you haven't shown yourself, I'll take that as you've chosen to run away?"

Yume watched the whole fight through the invisible observers she planted in the room.


Meanwhile...

It was quite annoying. Being sent to another floor, one Nox obviously recognized, and having people stare at his naked body. Since he was still recognized as "Nox" and not "Exodus", the guardian of the floor did not interfere with him yet.


I will have to burn some of the souls to further maintain my form. Eh, what a blunder.


Nox was pensive. How could he get some of them back? That fish boy and his Shinheuh really did a number on him. He pondered there, in the middle of the street, naked.


"Mommy, why is that man not wearing any-"

"Shhh."


"I should get dandy first." With that in mind, Nox went to buy himself a fancy formal outfit. The clerk was initially going to call security on the crazy naked man that entered the shop, but she calmed down after Nox figuratively slapped her with a fat stack of cash.


Message: "Are you in danger, my god?"

Reply: "I am fine. Lost some of my investment, but I am fine."

2nd message: "Have you considered delegating, my god?"

Reply: "Delegating?"

3rd message: "CEOs that don't delegate risks to micro-manage. I reckon gods feel the same."

Reply: "I see..."


Delegate, she said...

Delegate...

Delegate!


"Of course!" Nox realised, as he took a bite out of a crepe he bought from a nearby stand. He was still connected to his "familiars". Well, most of them... He took out Yazi's soul and put a complex spell on it. All while pumping energy from afar into the zombie body of the eel.

[Awaken]

As the stone craked, Yazi was alive! Literally. As its soul re-entered its body, it turned back to its usual self, with some probability of psychological damage and a spell on its soul. Whenever it would kill something, the spiritual energy of that being would go to Nox.

Message to Yume: "Problem solved. Delegated and invested long term. I am grateful to you Yume."

Reply: "It is an honour."

--Back to the current situation--

Message to Arsean: "Greetings. Yume Yu here. Meet me on floating island nearby. I will be waiting~"



Arsean's helmet didn't give away his thoughts as he read the message that appeared on his pocket, but his voice did: "No." That wasn't the deal. The deal was that he'd give Yume until he counted to ten to return here. He didn't feel like chasing her around the floor. Since she wasn't back here, she'd have to pay the penalty.



The pit eel Nox had been controlling had begun moving again, so arsean sent it a command to be still and wrapped more of that orange living shinsoo around it to slow the thing down.



"Leviathan," Arsean spoke aloud for Yume's benefit. He didn't need to speak to communicate with his shinheuh, as he'd been doing since he'd revealed himself. He was a bit disappointed that a high ranker that should know at least a little bit about him hadn't bothered asking him where his signature shinheuh was or why he hadn't used it to deal with the enemy in front of him. After all, a shinsoo battle hardly favored a pure anima. One reason was that Arsean didn't want to be directly responsible for killing Nox, as that would be the same as killing the regular whose body he'd taken over. Some floor guardians were more sticklers than others about the rule that rankers shouldn't harm regulars, and he didn't want to risk that right now. The other reason Arsean hadn't called Leviathan was because it wasn't with him. He'd sent it away before he'd appeared in front of Yume to protect his sister. It was always good to keep some fighting strength in reserve.



The Archimedes shook violently when Arsean's command reached his shinheuh. The shinsoo displaced by the tiny black snake flying next to the ship suddenly decompressing slammed into the ship like a wave. He hadn't grown Leviathan to its full size - he didn't plan on fighting a floor guardian or anything - but half of that was still large enough to cast a shadow over the massive ship. The Archimedes groaned and creaked as the eel's long body wrapped around it, but it was careful not to crush the ship to avoid killing all the regulars on board.



[Compression Technique - Lamina]



"Leviathan, remember to chew your food well." Arsean taunted Yume now that he knew she could hear him. A faint ripple of shinsoo across the eel's black skin was the only indication that he'd used a technique to protect Leviathan from any actually noteworthy attacks coming from those aboard the ship, as from their perspective a giant monster had just appeared from nowhere and was now attacking the ship. Well, that wasn't exactly wrong. Arsean didn't expect that many aboard the Archimedes could actually harm Leviathan, but there were a few other high rankers aboard, and he had just interrupted their sporting event. An extra layer of protection was reasonable.



The enormous black eel ignored the ship itself, instead turning its sights and teeth towards the large chunks of suspendium that kept the whole thing afloat. Leviathan crunched down on the blue crystal, its teeth scratching the surface before the whole thing shattered and disappeared down the eel's throat. The Archimedes tilted as it lost its support, but the eel's body kept it from falling. Two more bites made the crystal on the other side of the ship disappear. Now the only thing keeping the Archimedes from plummeting was the eel wrapped around it.

Arsean chuckled to himself. The workshop could no doubt replace the suspendium to get the Archimedes airborne again, but crystals of that size and quality were rare and expensive. They would not be happy about it. The workshop's ire meant nothing to him, but perhaps it would fall on Yume as well for causing this situation. They might even make her pay for some of the damages. He laughed at how petty he was being.

"Now destroy this thing here, and then a warning shot at the ranker over there if you would." Arsean pointed at the restrained pit eel in the same room as him and then in the general direction Yume's message had indicated. He didn't mean to kill her with this, it was mostly a token gesture, but if he happened to get a hit from this distance he wouldn't complain.

Leviathan's massive mouth opened, revealing all of the shinsoo that had been flowing through the suspendium to keep the ship in the sky. The shinsoo collapsed into a single baang.

[Compression Technique - Distort] [Compression Technique - Distort] [Compression Technique - Distort] [Compression Technique - Distort] [Compression Technique - Distort]

The space in front of Leviathan distorted into five warped lenses one in front of the other. The shinsoo attack that came from the baang inside its mouth was initially wide enough to reduce the entire ship to nothing, but as it touched each lens the beam shrank and became more focused. The final size was barely as wide as a person was tall, but the power remained unchanged. The beam tore through the side of the ship, through the room where Arsean stood, and emerged through the far side of the ship. Many kilometres away, the beam finally met the sea below. It was too far away to hear or accurately guess the size, but its appearance indicated a steam explosion from the water being vaporized on contact.

Arsean turned his head from looking out the hole in the wall to where Nox's eel had been. There was nothing left of it. He looked out the hole on the other side, where Leviathan's attack had entered the room. He could make out the golden eye of his shinheuh looking back at him. "Well, nice aim. Use up the rest on her." Leviathan turned its head and fired off the rest of the shinsoo, this time without the focus of Arsean's compression techniques. A massive beam of shinsoo swept across the sky towards where Arsean guessed Yume was.

The soul of Yazi returned to Nox just as he had finished eating his tenth crepe. He looked at it with a blank expression on his face for 5 minutes. A young man bumped into him as he stood there.

"Hey old man, watch where you're going." Admittedly, Nox wasn't going anywhere. He was just standing still.

"..."

"Hey, you hear me?"

"..."

"M***** f*****. Do you know who I am? I am Ricardo, one of the newest super start rankers! Now bow and apologize."

"Hmmmm. Did you say you were a ranker?"

"Yes, old fart. Now bow and ask for forgiveness."

"Hmmm..." Nox took out some withered flowers from his inventory and placed them at Ricardo's feet.

"What the heck are those, you bastard? Actin' fresh?"

"Flowers for your funeral."

"Wh-" Nox touched the man's chest, absorbing his soul, to use as fuel, and adding Yazi's within. Ricardo's skin became yellow. The young ranker was weak, at least by Nox's standards, but it gave Yazi a stronger body. On the other hand, an eel wouldn't know how to behave in a human body... so Nox just compressed it and put the eel-man in a bowl.



"Now I just need to sacrifice some wild, or other anima's Shinheuh to give it back its original shape..." As for the people who watched him do the deed and were still in shock...

[Sleep]

And so they did. When they'd wake up, Nox was and the entire crepe stand was already gone. The seller received a small fortune as compensation.

"High Ranker Arsean... I will kill you for this humiliation."

--Returning to the main issue--

[Message: Miss Yume, we have an emergency! The suspendium stones were destroyed]

Ah...

Yume watched as a big energy wave made a part of her island desintegrate. She smiled.

"This is messed up. Tehe~"

[Message from Yume: That is worrying.]

M-miss Yume?

[Message to Arsean: You missed. Tehehe~"]

"I'm not quite sure you should be laughing given your position," Arsean answered the message verbally. "I've sent your god away and taken your ship from you. Look how far you've run away from me. I can hardly be expected to land a hit from here. Even I have my limits you know." He let out a mechanical sigh. "Those Gong Bang guys would probably be mad at me if I damaged their ship any further. But I think they'd be more upset that you let it happen on your watch, caused it even."

Arsean let the threat hang overhead for a few seconds before clearing the air."Well, I think this is enough for a warning. If I take things much further I'll be in for an earful when I get back upstairs." The voice projected louder, the subtle shift that happened when he went from speaking aloud to himself to speaking at Yume. As he spoke, he paced around the room, kicking up clouds of dead coral dust. "Just try not to fuck with my adorable little sister in the future, yeah? Even if she's the one in the wrong or she started it, it doesn't change what I have to do as her older brother. I'll side with her and against you. So don't make her into your enemy."

Noticing something moving in the dust, Arsean crouched down. The dust swirled together into the uncertain outline of a hand, then an arm and side of a head. "Oh, good to see you're still alive," he said while gently picking up the whispy remnant of the shinsoo chimera he'd fashioned out of his sister's blood and shinsoo. It was running low on both of those components now, and when it ran out completely it would die and disappear. But if he used his own shinsoo to repair it, it would no longer be his sister's child. Well, knowing how stubborn his sister could be, he doubted something made from a piece of her spirit would just fade away quietly. He laughed as he noticed the little thing already trying its hardest to break apart and merge with his glove. Orange strands quickly emerged from his suit to stop and restrain the little monster.

A one-armed Arsean surrounded by reaching tendrils of glowing orange 'shinsoo' emerged from the Archimedes through the hole his partner had shot through the side of the ship, his helmet turning in the direction of Yume. He still didn't know her exact location, and he didn't exactly want to spend the rest of the day blowing up floating islands.

[Message to Yume: I've had my fun, I'll return your ship now. Catch!]

Not knowing if the observers Yume was watching through reached outside the ship, Arsean chose to inform her that he was done playing with her via direct message. It would probably be fine, but he didn't want something stupid like lack of camera coverage to cause the deaths of so many regulars.

Message sent, Arsean instructed Leviathan to release the Archimedes. The massive eel did as it was told, but... "Perhaps I should have been more specific," Arsean mused aloud. Leviathan had tossed the ship further away from the area he was assuming Yume was currently. Oops. He turned his head to watch the massive ship begin dropping out of the sky towards the sea far below. Well, whatever. Yume was a high ranker, it'd be fine if he left this mess for her to deal with.

"Run away? I tried to be curteous enough to challenge you one on one away from the ship." Yume mused. "The only thing people will see is a coward using Regulars as bait." That was the one thing Yume addressed from Arsean's discourse. All the rest was irrelevant. Nox was fine, Yume was not temperamental enough to fall for petty provocations and she did not care one bit about her reputation with the Workshop or about most of the Regulars.

[Message from Yume: Gotcha. Have a nice life. Whoever you are. I will make sure to play with your sister some more once I find her again. Such a cutie. Tehe.]

Of course, Yume would not listen to Arsean. Especially since, with just a couple of exceptions, Yume Yu showed great disdain to almost all anima. Be they Regulars, Rankers, or would-be gods.

As for the ship that was thrown by Arsean's Shinheuh...

Archimedes went towards Yume's island incredibly slow, but not because of her. Some other person was there, with flame blasts erupting from just under his feet and a reinforced body, keeping the fall of the ship steady. The man had an imposing fugure and an air of mistique.

[Message from Wok to both Yume and Arsean: You are both morons. Equally.]

Yeon Wok was having a headache. Why did both his affiliates have to be like this?

"Eh, but sir Wok..." Yume wanted to protest. Through messaging.

"Shut up, woman. Don't make my blood pressure rise!" Wok's voice roared through the skies.

"My my, if it isn't the flaming sleepy shark himself," Arsean dropped down so he could address the ranker that had butted in to stop Arsean and Yume's bickering from becoming a game of catch involving the whole Archimedes as the ball. As usual Arsean addressed someone above him with casual irreverence. "Surprised to see you hanging around down here. I don't recall seeing any Yeon kiddos listed in the bracket, so I doubt your here for the same reason I am."

"Well, none of my business," Arsean shrugged. He didn't really care to keep tabs on other rankers or whatever they got up to in their free time, so long as they didn't decide to pick a fight with his adorable little sister. He looked pointedly in the direction of Yume. "I've said my piece, so I'll just leave cleaning up this mess in your and Yume's capable hands. Smart as she supposedly is, she should have learned how to heed good advice when it's given, but if not that's fine with me. What happens will be as much my own fault as hers."

The shinsoo wand slid back into some hidden compartment of Arsean's wrist, and his body began to pull away as gravity reached up to drag him out of the sky. "Until next time, Sleeper... Yume." He let out a carefree laugh as he fell and spun in freefall towards the sea far below. A large black shape could be seen swimming away under the waves after Arsean plunged beneath the surface.

"...Maybe I should slow-cook that bastard's fish later" Wok was pondering as the ship was slowly falling towards Yume's island.

[Message from Yume: Do you need assistance, sir Wok?]

"No, I am fine. I mean... it is just a ship the size of a small town, roughly millions of tons... What do you think?" Wok's voice roared through the skies yet again as he asked the rethorical question.

[Weightless Field]

Yume created a large low gravity field on her island, enough to greatly reduce the burden imposed on Wok's shinsoo enhanced muscles. As he almost reached land Wok let go of the ship, and Yume deactivated her field, causing a slight disturbance as the ship still "crashed" into the ground, cracking it in the process.

Quiz's face appeared on all monitors.

"To all Regulars and guests. We apologize for the slight disturbance. The events will now take place on High Ranker Yume Yu's personal island."
----
"Sir Quiz, I cannot feel my legs."
"That's because they were eaten by a Shinheuh, John." Quiz sighed in exasperation. Macseth would not be pleased by this.

Rantos cojemo The One Eyed Bandit simj26 QuirkyAngel Brendanfp

 

[QuirkyAngel]

Ajax Cruise + Hoangi Lo Po Bia + Ellia Aris Khun + Marie Changler
Floor 30, Archimedes, Princess Haewon's Hospital room

“What the hell is wrong with this ship?! Who’s in charge of steering!? I demand to see their license!!”

Ajax might have found Holangi’s demand for answers a bit obnoxious, but, truthfully, similar(ish) thoughts were running the living ignition weapon’s head. The sudden tilt of the ship, from the prospective of a passenger, was probably the equivalent of a level 5 earthquake. The tremors caused by an attack as well. Medicine cabinets fell over, spilling pills and concoctions. Sheets toppled. Mari clung onto him while Ajax reacted instinctively, extending the wires from his left reel glove to wrap around one of his floating lighthouses. The wires from his right one wrapped around Golangi as Ellia moved to protect Princess Haewon from falling and Holangi clung onto his sleeping tiger.

“Ajax?”

“I’ll look into it.” Just gotta find a camera to hack into…though, when he found what he was looking for, he almost wished he hadn’t.

“Zahard…”

“I-I’m scared.”

“It’s a Black Pit Eel.”

“Most don’t grow to be that size though…” There was only one ranker in his database who possessed one that large—High-ranker #195, Arsean Carciphi. Was he the cause of the shinhueh disturbance? Or did the shinhueh disturbance affect his creatures as well? If it did, that would be a problem…wasn’t the anima in the finals named Nyra Carciphi? Were they related? Jolted from his ponderings by the sudden acceleration of the ship, Ajax typed furiously, focusing his efforts on readying the teleportation points. He had no idea whether he could make it in time, but that didn’t matter. Workshop Battle be damned. He had no intention of letting his teammates die before they made it to the top.

However, a message appearing from his pocket stilled his fingers: 'It’ll be fine'

At that moment, the ship decelerated.

“Halleluja!”

“W-who’s that?”

“Another High ranker—the sleeper shark.” There were also rumors that he was affiliated with FUG. Did he have something to do with all that was going on as well? Did FUG? “We are fortunate he was in the stands.” He didn’t think Mr. Hyek would let the ship sink either, but he honestly wasn’t sure how much he could depend on Ophidian. His boss was a guide certainly, but he’d be a fool to think Evelyn Wicker valued his life enough to help him out of every tight spot he encountered. And, as strange as it was, Ajax didn't want him to either. It was his climb. His game. He wondered if that illogical thought was a remnant of his old self. “How are the princess and Golangi?”

He had to release the wires from his right hand to type, after all.

“Fine,” Ellia had a steady grip on both girls. “Once we land, I’ll assist the workshop employees in repairing the Archimedes. I’m familiar with the process of refining suspendium…though suspendium certainly isn’t the only way to make something float either...”

Ajax could already see the former disciple’s brain churning and he knew the Khun wouldn’t take no for answer whether or not the workshop employees agreed to her assistance or not. Though she was by no means bad at it, fighting wasn’t her cup of tea. Inventing and fixing stuff was. Even after all these years, even if she was now an E-rank regular climbing with Princess Haewon, the woman who’d been in charge of making him into a living ignition weapon hadn’t changed. “Would you like assistance with that?”

“If you don’t mind lear—,”

The crash landing gave them all another jolt. That was when Quiz's face appeared on the hospital's tv monitor to inform them of the current destination.

“Hey, Ajax! Mind giving me the 411 about what’s going on around here? First is the attack of the shinhueh, then an earthquake, and now we’re headed for the home of Purr Gatorade? Not that I mind that last bit…”

Ajax chuckled. It was just like Selicity to summarize everything so simply. “I take from your chipper attitude that everything’s alright on your end?”

“Hm? Of course! Cats have great balance, you know~ Can’t say the same for fish though~”

Ajax nodded before turning to Ellia. “I’d be more than happy to help with whatever I can once the team battle ends. I don't expect the battle itself to take very long, after all.” It would also give him more opportunities to discuss with her the benefits of joining teams and climbing together. Princess Haewon didn’t win her match, so he fortunately didn’t have to pay for dinner, but she certainly proved herself more than the mad princess rumors made her out to be, thus making her a more viable team member in his eyes. Power was one thing. Willingness to cooperate and work in a team was another. That was one of the reasons he'd been somewhat hesitant when it came to discussing alliances with her. That and distraction. Of course, he had one more newly recruited teammate he hadn’t yet checked on...

Since Selicity mentioned that Illiam Herlaa was speaking to a friend, Ajax simply left a message on his pocket. All their pockets really: 'The Champion Tournament is nearly finished. We’ll meet at ‘Purr Diner’ on Yu’s Island, 6pm sharp, to review the fights and discuss battle plans. See coordinates below.'

Simple and straight to the point. Normally he’d advocate simply meeting at the regular’s apartment they were staying in, but he had a feeling it would be a mess right about now. Which, of course, meant that they’d need to find a new place to stay as well if the cleaning bots weren’t up to the task. Therefore, a cheap diner he found by quickly searching a map of Yume Yu’s private island would have to do. Ajax sighed. As good as any other place he supposed. If Ajax actually had an adventurer’s spirit, he wouldn’t mind exploring an island belonging to a High Ranker that may be a part of FUG. Alas, Ajax didn’t. His only goal was to win the game and ascend to the top of the tower.

Therefore, the living ignition weapon simply straightened his chair to wait for Golangi to wake while Mari peered excitedly out the window.

simj26 Rantos Brendanfp

(mentioned: OverconfidentMagi Azure Sky )

 

[The One Eyed Bandit]

When it rains, it pours, and apparently it pours fish.

Guinevere was in hot pursuit of her panicked teammate when the Archimedes shook. Its metal corridors creaked as a great leviathan bore down on the vessel, though that was beyond Guinevere's perception. What was not, was how the crowd, which was already in enough of an uproar from the previous chaos, suddenly lit up once again. A wall of bodies pushed and shoved its way up and down the ship's corridors, and before long Guinevere was caught up in its flow.

She let out a few yells of protest as she was unintentionally thrown about by the crowd, berating the owners of every other elbow that came close to knocking her teeth out, but it did her little good. Soon enough, Yeong-Su had been reduced to little more than a mop of white hair at the edge of her view, and the state of the crowd was only getting worse. The Archimedes had shook a few times more and then was finally assailed by what felt like a full-on attack. In a distant part of the ship, the sound of the Archimedes' hull not just creaking, but ripping and tearing cried out through the ship, and that was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Guinevere's mind started to race, but it was cut short. She felt a hand on her shoulder, and the next thing she knew she was sprawled out on her back. The crowd didn't notice and after the third of fourth boot had collided with her body, everything went black.

...

"Well."

The crowd, chaos, and even the Archimedes was gone. Instead, there was the smell of old, dilapidated concrete and discarded garbage.

"Quite the tizzy you've gotten mixed up in this time, isn't it?" A voice spoke at Guinevere as she swam into awareness. One that she recognized better than any other in the world. "Honestly, you ought to get a better sense of when these kinds of things are going to happen. One of these days, that lack of attention you pay is going to get you killed, you know?"

The voice's owner, a young girl with a shock of white hair, and a pair of gleaming, yellow eyes, stood over her with a look of false concern painted across her features. She was familiar too, of course, because her voice was Guinevere's own.

Well, Guinevere reminded herself, 'she' wasn't exactly the pronoun she'd ascribe to the thing squatting in front of her.

"Shut up." Guinevere spoke plainly, her voice lacking the practised decorum with which she normally carried herself. "How was I supposed to know there'd be a damn terrorist attack on the biggest event of the year? I just wanted to win some prizes." As she spoke, Guinevere hauled herself up off of the cold cobblestone she'd woken up atop. She didn't need to look around to make a guess at where she was, or rather, where she was dreaming she was. If it reeked of failure and looked like the sort of place where ambition went to die, then she'd doubtlessly found herself back at her beloved old home.

"Oh come now dear, absolving yourself of guilt will do you no good." The other Guinevere retorted, relishing each word that came out of her own lips. "You and I both know just how naughty some of the Tower's inhabitants have been getting lately. If anything, it would've been a miracle if something didn't go wrong at a high profile event like this. For all we know, whoever was responsible for our little interruption through some sort of terrorist lottery! I'm sure those sorts of people have some sort of system in place to make sure they don't all show up and ruin the same thing at once, right?"

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." Guinevere stonewalled her double again, and then finally got to her feet. "You know, I'm starting to think these meetings of ours are the real price of our little arrangement. Servitude beyond death sounds like a blessing compared to having to listen to you make shitty jokes when there's already enough going wrong with my life."

"So mean, and I brought you here to help you out, too. Didn't your mother ever teach you about biting the hand that feeds?" The other Guinevere joked, and then 'caught' herself. "Oh, dear me, I forgot for a moment there. So sorry."

Guinevere groaned. She was pretty sure she'd have an easier time getting along with that Ha brat than she was resisting the urge to punch herself in the face right now, even if she already knew it wouldn't work.

"And what sort of help is it this time? I'm pretty sure the last time you said you wanted to 'help', you told me that you'd need the souls of thirteen dead virgins, a baby goat, and the blood of a non-virginal Princess. What's the catch this time, the baby teeth of Zahard himself?"

"Oh please, that was a joke and both of us know it, though if you did manage to get those teeth, I'm pretty sure I could make an impressive necklace out of them." The other Guinevere made some sort of cryptic gesture around her neck to demonstrate the idea, but the attempt was clearly lost the proper owner of her face.

If looks could kill, boy golly.

"I'm kidding! Kidding! Why can't you play nice with me like you do all the Regulars, huh?" Of course, she already knew the answer to that question from that last time she'd asked it, but she still felt the need to voice her protests. "Anyway, I just wanted to give you a warning, per se."

The other Guinevere clapped her hands, and one of the Archimedes' luxury benches appeared behind her, which she promptly started to lounge on. So comfortable, the luxuries of the physical world were.

"Mmm, and quite the warning indeed. You see..." Lounging in her chair, the other Guinevere mulled over her thoughts, clearly considering just how to best communicate them to her much more irritated self. "...The afterlife is like an ocean you see. It has a lot of water and a lot of things swimming in it. Most of those things don't even know they're swimming, they're just doing their own thing, but some of those things are much more aware of their surroundings, you follow?"

"Get on with it."

"Ugh. You follow, then. Basically, what I'm getting at, for your royal impatientness, is that if I'm, like a big fish in a small pond, then a big fish in a big ocean just paid this stagnant little tidepool a visit, and I'd imagine it had something to do with that fun little bit of chaos that's left you so indisposed."

Guinevere raised an eyebrow. She liked about zero percent of what that thing was implying right now.

"Meaning... There's another demon on this floor?"

"Bingo!" The other Guinevere shot up from her seat with a newfound smile on her face. "And not just any old demon, either! One that seems to be able to meddle with death like a kitty would with a ball of yarn! A real, real scary type of customer, understand? I bet if we tried to throw one of our dinky little spears at it, it'd just gobble it up for lunch, haha!"

The other Guinevere cleared her throat.

"Ahem. So, yeah. That's the scoop. Watch your back, I suppose? Believe it or not, I'm not exactly eager to go and meet one of my cousins, or whatever that thing is. Just as likely to eat me as he is to invert the arrangement of your organs, I bet."

Guinevere rubbed one of her temples and sighed. Just when she thought things had gotten as complicated as they could've, with the Workshop Battle's interruption and her team's drama, now she had this to worry about.

"Well, just make sure to keep a low profile and you should be fine. From what I can tell, things are starting to calm down on the outside, so by the time you wake up the threat should've passed. I sure hope that nobody's kidnapped this pretty little face of ours, though! Wouldn't that be a nightmare, haha!"

Guinevere shot herself another icy glare. Even when that thing wearing her skin tried to be reassuring, it still had to throw some snide comment or another in.

She couldn't wait to wake up.

 

[Azure Sky]

Yeon Bulsajo​

Someone grabbed his arm. They were strong. Who was stopping him? Why?

"Yeon Family...bad" Was all he heard in during that time. "Ah, yes, the Yeon Family is indeed rotten. Glad we agree" He chuckled, still not looking at the source of the feminine voice.

As he took a glance at his bloodied hand, the other Jo sighed. Lost in rage again...

Shifting attention to the other person, his short-term detached, emotionally neutral gaze gradually rose to a higher degree of rage than he previously had for the fish. Ah, it was not "who", but "what". Does things, burrowing their way into his life one way or another, those things wearing that filthy flower symbol. Those bloody... abominations.

"What is it? Did your ilk not torture me enough?" He asked, with a look of disgust. He tried to get out of her hold, but he could not. She was strong. He didn't think there was any Regular strong enough to ovwepower him this easily. A Ranker?

"Not giving you the satisfation." As he enhanced his free hand to the brim with Shinsoo, Bulsajo performed a very quick and powerful hand chop... to slice off the arm she was holding, just above the elbow. It began to regenerate afterwards. He looked at the situation around him to get a better understanding.

His team mates were fighting off another Shinheuh, the first one was dead, some dead Regular bodies around, and then there was that thing from the Yeon. He was not strong enough to defeat the woman, and it seemed his team members would need asssistance. But what if the Yeon woman would attack them from behind? No, she would have done so if she wanted.

His thought pattern was distupted as the ship took a quick dive then came to a halt. Followed by a sudden surge of power. A familiar feeling...

Guh!

Jo felt a strong headache as he returned to normal.

"Master Wok?" No, that couldn't be right. Why would he be there?

Turing his attention back at the Yeon girl...

"Gyaaaaaaaa!" He took many steps back until he reached his team mates. The Shinheuh had fainted by then. He also involuntarily released his flames, healing Areum and Haewon of any would-be wounds. But all Jo could think of was the terrying sight of the Yeon woman. As pretty as she looked, all Jo could see was...



He turned around to Haewon with pleading eyes and heavy breathing as his body was shaking.

QuirkyAngel simj26 The One Eyed Bandit

 

[QuirkyAngel]

Sunhee Yeon + Yoona Yeon

“Wha—? What are you talking about? Satisfaction for what?” Sunhee’s eyebrow rose. She wasn’t sure how else to react when Bulsajo cut off his own arm to get away from her. Asking nicely to let go, if he didn’t like it, would’ve worked just as well. It wasn’t as if she had any intention doing anything violent to an E-Ranked Regular…unless he attacked her first. Even then, torture wasn’t really her style. Quick kills were. If giving out death was necessary to climb, then the noble, knightly thing to do was to try and make it as painless as possible. Eyes flickering from the main family boy’s regenerated arm to the bloody one in her grip, the A-ranked regular from one of the Yeon branch families sighed. “You know what? Forget it.”

She felt like she was bullying a kitten with how the main family boy trembled, looking towards Haewon for assistance. Or a lizard, given the quick regeneration provided by the special flames he possessed. Definitely like a lizard. Concentrating the flow of her body’s shinsoo to her hand, she lit the detached limb on fire, raising the temperature of her flames until flesh became nothing but ash. Sunhee knew better than to litter and she doubted Bulsajo wanted his arm back. On hindsight, she could’ve morbidly asked if he wanted his arm back—because she certainly didn’t want it— but she had more important things to worry about than terrifying an E-rank climber who seemed to hate her ‘ilk’ (whatever that meant). The cause of the ship’s sudden tremors for example. Earthquakes weren’t possible in the air. Had they hit another floating ship? Was there a sky battle?

“What’s going on?” Accosting a panicking workshop employee off the streets, the Yeon girl was given a vibrant description of the monster attacking the Archimedes. “Huh…”

A normal person might’ve been terrified, but 107 floors of seeing and/or fighting ‘monsters’ that Test Administrators liked to challenge Regulars with honed her survival sense. “For your own safety, I’d advise heading straight for the emergency evacuation point on this ship.” Jumping into the sea was arguably better than being eaten by a giant shinhueh. Rescue could come later for anyone who owned a pocket and knew how to send a distress signal. Then again, she’d hunted for jewels inside a Zygena’s belly before so surviving inside another shinhueh’s belly couldn’t be that much harder. “Before you do though, mind pointing me to where the ship’s control room is~?”

It’d be rather pathetic if a workshop floating ship didn’t have any defense whatsoever against big bad shinhuehs. Or outside attacks. She had no intention of going down without a fight.

“That won’t be necessary.”

“Lady Yoona~!” The Yeon Knight apprentice waved brightly at her superior who descended from the sky, encased in blue, ghostly flames. “Seems we’re under attack from a big bad monster!”

“A Black Pit Eel,” the high ranker corrected. “It crushed the suspendium that keeps the Archimedes afloat, but the situation is currently being handled. The best thing we can do right now is calm the Archimedes passengers and prevent any more casualties.”

Red eyes glanced around at the carnage of dead bodies, murmuring a brief prayer, as each body Yoona Yeon laid eyes on burst into blue flames. Every innocent person that died because of a high ranker’s arrogant display deserved to be properly buried, but, for now, a quick cremation with her ghostfire would have to do. “Arsean Carciphi is fool and deserves to die like one.”

Everything Regulars used to climb the Tower was created by the Workshop, from pockets to lighthouses to the inventory of weapons and needles. Even the bowls that animas, like the Black Fish Eel, used were a product of the Gong Bang Organization of researchers, which was why even Zahard refrained from making enemies with them. Wise people did not make enemies of the Tower’s item-makers if they wanted their toys fixed. Yet Carciphi made quite the…public…show with his signature shinhueh. Anyone watching the broadcasted Workshop Battle with a logical brain could tell that Ranker #195 was the culprit behind the chaos, given the presence of the creature. Of course, a thorough person might dig deeper into why he set his big eel on a Workshop ship in the first place, but the why hardly mattered in the face of the crime: A High Ranker had interfered in a stage meant for E-ranked regulars and caused unnecessary damage.

Granted, groups like FUG and even certain 10 Families did so all the time, but they were rarely so…obvious…with their interference.

Then again, Zahard probably didn’t care. Gods from outside the tower like him cared little for the lives of ants. Did it make sense for such an uncaring being to be their king? Once upon a time, Shinyoo Hyek cared about such things. Her old god would’ve speared the giant eel whether it had a wall of shinsoo around it or not. His spear, the Empty Voyage, had extremely high shinsoo resistance after all. Her old god wouldn’t have stood for a show of power from a High Ranker, that could potentially bring harm innocents, just for petty satisfaction. Wouldn’t have made use of large eel’s appearance to escape her eyes. Yet that was what Shinsoo Hyek did. Yoona sighed. Perhaps her old god no longer existed and she should just let Shinyoo Hyek remain ‘dead’ as he wanted.

Plans were being made to free Emris with or without him.

“What should I do?” Sunhee’s cheery voice broke through the high ranker’s train of thought.

“Continue to find casualties and offer assistance where you can. If any shinhueh are still attacking civilians, capture or cut it down at your discretion. The Knights of Yeon do not ignore the injustices in front of their eyes. Just consider this additional training before you apply for the 108th floor test. I’ll make a report of the current events to the Family Head.” Adjusting information as needed. “But we’ve finished all we came here to do, so I’ll call for a private shuttle to take us back to the main residence once the Archimedes docks.”

“Aww, so soon? But the workshop battle isn’t done yet,” Sunhee pouted. “I wanted to see how that Arie Swordswoman performs in the finals~”

“That’s not necessary. Your eyes wouldn’t change the results and you should be focused on honing your own blade rather than distracting yourself with the skills of others. As you know, you won’t be able to earn knighthood until you defeat the 134th floor and become a Ranker.”

Sunhee saluted.

Yoona’s red eyes swept over the E-ranked regulars present, her expression remaining as apathetic as always. “While I do not preside over the workshop battle, monetary rewards will be given to noble Regulars that show initiative and assist the Knights of Yeon with this task.” The High Ranker left it at that since she didn’t particularly care either way the workshop participants chose to do. Kids had to make their own choices to climb. Workshop employees were either undertrained or stupid given how panicked some of them seemed, civilians were fighting in the hangers where the escape pods were held, and she’d to go fishing to for the idiots that decided to jump off deck as soon as they saw the big eel—assuming they were alive of course. She could only imagine what would happen if Arsean Carciphi was serious about taking down the ship. As for Yume Yu, the woman in charge seemed to care more about her rules being broken than the lives of the Archimedes passengers. Some of the Workshop's financers, as well as the Yeon Family partners, were aboard as well and the reputation of the Archimedes would take a nosedive if the sanctity of the Workshop Battle couldn't be maintained. Wok may be an enemy of the family, but at least he had common sense. Yoona also thought her family needed to change so she didn't disagree with FUG. However, ever since the ‘death’ her god, she decided to remove the stains from within herself rather than depend on others to do so. Train young girls of the family to think for themselves and be her swords to revolutionize things from within.

Her god was an idiot anyway.

Blue flames burning brightly (almost furiously) at the memory of her encounter with Shinyoo Hyek, Yoona Yeon, the Azure Flame of the Yeon family, turned and shot to the sky as Sunhee waved.

Azure Sky The One Eyed Bandit simj26

(Mentioned: OverconfidentMagi )

 

[cojemo]

Mateo Nemeroff VS Ha Mena Arie
A collab with Azure Sky
​

"Ladies and gents, we apologize for the mild inconveniences today, but as the saying goes, the show must go on!" Quiz shouted enthusiastically as the competitors prepped themselves in their rooms and the audience roared. While the spectators stand had lost its fair share of occupants due to the brief fear of imminent doom via eel consumption, the mood of those attending was anything but dulled. "We still have a tournament to wrap up and a winner to crown. After many rounds of grueling and exciting combat the finale is finally here!" Quiz was particularly excited for this battle, and it was contagious. The crowd cheered loudly. Yet...

"Hell yeah! Easy money, the Ha Arie hybrid will dominate without issue."
"Shut yer trap, laddie! That Mateo kid toppled people physically stronger than him constantly. He will win, because, unlike that gorilla woman, he has a brain."
"Whatever, old guy."

Obviously people would argue who would win even before the match began.

"Finale, huh?" Mena was finished with her meditation and thought a bit about her situation. One of her arms was bandaged and would be hardly usable in the fight, thus she'd have to fight with only one sword...

"Exciting!" She lifted her fist in the air. "Alright, I'll use Hwasan." Since she could only use one weapon, she'd use her Ignition Weapon. Her opponent was crafty. She had to crush him before he could put any plan into motion. Otherwise, it would end like the few fights she had, once upon a time, against Luce.

"Who will take home the crown!?! Will it be Ha Mena Arie, the swordswoman who defeated Haewon Zahard, or will the cunning and determined Mateo Nemeroff manage yet another upset? It is TIME.TO. SEE!!!"

A flash on both sides of the arena transported both contestants, Mena taking one side and Mateo on the other. However, unlike the women he'd be facing, Mateo did not appear ready for battle. Hunched over and on one knee, the boy's face was stained with red as blood dripped down from his visage and onto the white concrete of the stadium. His breathing was ragged, both hands on the floor to support himself as his head hung low with his eyes closed.

"AND.....BEGIN!!"

"Fuck you! Fuck this tournament and fuck you!" Mateo immediately came to life the second the match began, his eyes boiling with spite as he raised his head so his vision could meet Mena's. His hands clenched as all of his muscles tightened themselves.

"You've done fuck all to deserve to be here and yet y-you stand there, thinking you're some tough bitch, huh? L-like you deserve some sort of respect?" He stammered and panted his words, lip quivering with each syllable he spat. He was letting everything out, not even standing up right for a proper fight and instead tossing his thoughts at Mena.

"Answer me!"

Mena's smile disappeared from her face gradually the more she listened to Mateo's outburst. The ground underneath her feet cracked as she moved forward, looling like a blur as she closed in on her opponent.

"Shit." While not an unexpected result of his goading, it was for sure low on his list of preferred outcomes. Left with barely anytime to react, Mateo began rising to his feet, focusing his shinsoo at his side as fast as he could with his reeling vision and cracked skull to create his orb.

However, the past fights had taken their tole.

The orb warped and spasmed as his spent energy failed him, causing it to explode in his face. He stumbled backwards with a wince, tripping over his own feet as his wounded leg stung out in agony.. All of this had occurred within about the time span of a second, and before he even had time to fall Mena was upon him.

She didn't bother to even unsheath her blade and just launched a left kick towards Mateo's side.

Mateo's eyes widened, and just as he brought his left arm to block her foot crashed into it with tremendous destructive power. His appendage broke on impact, barely able to protect his midsection as his ribs cracked and broke from the residual force. Like a rocket his body flew across the arena floor, skidding and skipping across, until he lay still in a angled heap.

Slowly, weakly, Mateo lifted his head as he lay on his stomach, coughing up blood as his clothes stained red and he tried in vain to push himself back to his feet. He could barely see through his quickly blackening vision, but as long as he could breath he'd remain defiant.

"F...Fuck you. You haven't e-e-earned any of this. I...I"

"I was expecting something different from you. " Her tone was ice cold. She understood him somewhat: he was physically outmatched and he was in a very bad shape, thus he needed every opportunity he could for a proper plan. Mena just didn't like it. The way he chose to talk, the words he uttered, the apparent plan to get on her nerves with the victim behaviour and his moaning about Ten Family blood. Despite it being a good tactic, it was a small fry tactic, from Mena's point of view at least. She pouted from dissatisfaction.

And then, just like that, Mateo slumped onto the ground unconscious.

The crowd went silent and stayed as such for a while. It was eerily quiet, until...

"The winner is Ha Mena Arie!"

And the crowd went ballistic. Many loud cheers and also quite a few boos.

"Hahaha, what was that, geezer? That he'd win because of his big brain?"
"Guh. I bet a lot of money on him too."

Meanwhile other people were having their own takes, or salt, to share.

"This wasn't even a match. The kid stood no chance."
"He is bloody useless."
"He fought against a monster that defeated a Zahard Princess. Cut him some slack."
"Fought? You call this shit a fight?"
"Hey, it is impressive enough that he reached the finals."

The arguments continued long after Mena and Mateo were teleported and the latter was taken to the medical area.


------

"Poor boy...you did the best you could. Please be alright..." Taking a quick sip of a hastily concocted bloody mary, a mature and sharply dressed woman hunched forward onto her elbows on the bar counter in front of her, staring intently at the television screen above. While she wasn't quite alone since the bar owner was sweeping up shattered glass and cleaning up after the commotion from earlier she may as well have been, as her bright blue eyes were completely focused on the carnage that had transpired during the tournament. With the place deserted and the televisions volume low, the sound of bristles on the floor and a finger tapping on a wooden counter were what echoed through the room.

"Hey, thanks again for the help with steering away those pests from earlier." The bartender briefly took a break from his work to refill the woman's drink. "If you hadn't been here I can't imagine how much worse this place would look, let alone how much worse I'd look. Seriously, I've never seen someone handle that many Shinheuh with such ease, let alone doing it all without killing a single one. What a marvel you are."

"Oh, yeah, no problem." She absentmindedly responded to the mans praise, barely even registering his words. Frowning, the bartender looked up at what she was focused on.

"You know him?"

The girl turned around in response to his query, masking her sullen expression with a more neutral one. The bartender continued.

"I may not be the kind of kickass warrior woman you are but I've been around my fair share of people and I like to think I'm pretty good at picking up on social cues. You can tell me. You saved my life back there, the least I can do is listen to your troubles."

Smiling, the woman brushed her blue hair behind her ear. "You're too kind, I just did what anyone would do. And yes, I do know him, but you don't need to worry about me. I'm not a youngster after all, I've dealt with a worried heart many times before."

"That doesn't make it any easier though, does it? It's okay, this stuff is all part of the job. He your boyfriend?"

Chuckling, she took a brief sip of her drink. "Not exactly." She looked back up at the monitor above them as the two contestants were teleported out of the arena, her expression returning to that of worry.

"He's my son."

 

[The One Eyed Bandit]

It was hard to tell what was stinking up the more; the Shinheuhs' freshly spilt guts, or that Yeon woman's overinflated sense of self-importance. Areum squeezed her eyebrows together and let out a long groan. Regardless of the answer, it looked like she couldn't even take a day off without it somehow going to shit.

"Fuck it." She announced, to nobody in particular. "This is all a bunch of bloody nonsense, you know that? How can THIS MUCH go wrong in such a short span of time?" The wounds on Areum's arms were still weeping, but they didn't bother her nearly as much as the sheer ludicrousness of her misfortune did. She cast her eyes around the surrounding crowd and took in the aftermath of the twofold crises that'd assailed the Archimedes, which made her feel a little better. At least everybody else seemed to be having just as shitty a day as she was, for once.

"Haewon. Yeon." Areum caught herself and swore under her breath. "Er, the wimpy Yeon. I'm going to go and see if the Arcade is still running after this shit show. Somehow I doubt a bout of light terrorism is enough to keep the Workshop's festivities from going on. Tag along or don't, I don't care."

With that, she pushed past the trio and made her way towards the Arcade, leaving the A-Ranked Yeon with a passing request as she went.

"Ah, and you. Other Yeon. Go away, thanks. The nervous one's been even more annoying since you showed up."

simj26 Azure Sky QuirkyAngel

 

[simj26]

The Other Haewon
"Auuuuuggghhhhh," the hooded man let out a loud, drawn out groan, and crouched down beside the Shinheuh next to him. "What the hell? I was just going to show off a bit more, and you had to give up the ghost right now?" He scratched his head irritably, seemingly completely oblivious about the Yeon kid's sudden shift in mood. He was here to dance, and he was having quite a bit of fun with that tango with the fish. To have it come to a sudden, uninspired, anti-climactic end like this was...frustrating. He touched the tip of his knife against the skin of the beast, and rested his cheek against the other hand. "What a stupid ending," he muttered, as he played with the knife, inches away from fully plunging it into the Shinheuh.

After a second of contemplation, he straightened up, his weapons vanishing from his hands, just as magically as they had appeared in them. He dusted his hands as he watched the Areum girl leave in a huff of annoyance. Truth be told, he could just barely feel an ounce of irritation as well. This scene was chaotic, ugly, and, worse of all, bland. All these things happening, and he couldn't even stop to take in the flavour, before it all ended. Like a ride that came to a stop at uneven intervals, it was disorienting.

"Mmhmm," he waved to Areum as she departed as a formal gesture more than anything else, before turning his attention to the Yeon kids. "I'm not quite sure what's going on with you, kid, but it seems like you need some away time from this lady. Go ahead, go follow Areum, while I vanquish this beast you seem so afraid of."

Straightening his coat, he approached the girl, and offered a hand. "Now, now. It's not part of my personal policy to chase the ladies away, so I must ask that you allow me to escort you out of these premises," he spoke, his tone laden with cloying sweetness. If he wasn't going to get his excitement from killing things, he might as well enjoy some time with a bit of beauty.

QuirkyAngel Azure Sky The One Eyed Bandit

 

[OverconfidentMagi]

​

A man wearing a long gray duster and an odd white helmet that made him look like a robot stood in a small room. The only things in the room was himself, a small table on which the Myan he'd emerged from moments earlier scampered around in circles, and a bed upon which an unconscious Nyra Carciphi now rested. He'd moved her from the dusty floor to the relative comfort of the bed as soon as he'd arrived, and now he stood over her watching her sleep. His single hand, the other being lost on some higher floor where he'd banished that annoying monster to, gently traced the tiny girl's outline. Strands of orange light from his fingertips found where she was broken and began their work of fixing her.

The curious orange strands were not shinsoo, though shinsoo was a part of it. Elysium Flora was their name. Something between a plant, a shinheuh, and a rock. A strange type of fast-growing coral that could grow rapidly and alter its shape in response to shinsoo. The Flora was as much his trump card as Leviathan, though the latter was what he was known for. The number of high rankers that could even tell the difference between his control of the Flora and some unique application of shinsoo was depressingly low. When it came to actual shinsoo control, Arsean was rather hopeless. The only skill he'd managed to really hone, out of necessity as Leviathan had rapidly outgrew testing areas, was compression techniques. In a pure wave controller contest it was likely some regulars on this floor would already be able to give him trouble. But by simply feeding the Flora shinsoo and giving them purpose with his abilities as an anima, even a half-assed wave controller like him could mimic miracles easy enough.

Her body would be fine - his command over the Flora was so precise that he could have reconstructed shattered bone and sewn back together ruptured organs easily enough - but he had no way of knowing what sort of damage this incident would leave on her mind. Arsean wasn't confident enough or knowledgeable enough to direct the microscopic organisms under his control towards the girl's brain. No, that wasn't entirely true... He'd used a terrible anti-anima technique on her when he'd stabbed her earlier, forcibly disabling her ability to broadcast commands to the shinheuh at the source, but at the same time he'd left seeds of his Flora in the wound with the command to grow and repair the damage after a short delay. Crippling an anima was a terrible thing to do, but Arsean didn't have it in him to make such a thing permanent. He'd rather just kill any anima that pushed him that far. Nyra had lost control, both of herself and her power, so he'd had no choice but to shut her down. It was already to the point that knocking her out wouldn't have guaranteed a stop to the command she was broadcasting. If he assumed she was capable of everything he was and more, then maintaining a command while asleep or unconscious, hell even dead, wasn't out of the question. He gently removed the soiled bandages from her face. What he thought as he watched her was, How adorable. What he said aloud was, "How terrifying."


When Nyra's eyes finally opened but before she could quite see or think clearly, she would have sword there was something staring back at her, but when she rubbed her eyes and woke up fully all she saw was an unfamiliar ceiling. She sat up. Where was this? She didn't recognize anything. She reached up to touch her face, and even her own hand looked strange to her. And what were these silvery patches of skin? It kind of looked like a scab, but it was the wrong color and smooth. Nyra's growing confusion began to turn into panic and spiral larger and larger as her memories came back useless. What was going on? Where was she? What was this? Just as she reached full panic, she suddenly looked around the room again with the same slightly confused look as whens he'd first woken up. The panic was gone, completely forgotten about.

Nyra pushed herself off of the bed. She was wearing clean clothes. She didn't recognize them or have any memory of changing, but since nothing else seemed familiar to her that was kind of unsurprising. There was a round black thing on the table beside the bed, and a note stuck under it.

Hey Sis,
Couldn't stick around until you woke up, sorry. I kind of made a mess and need to figure out what to do about it. Anyway, I couldn't find your bowls, or I guess they got broken, so I put the shinheuh I grabbed from the ship into this thing. It's a bit overkill for your level now, but I'm sure you'll figure it out. It's a B-rank bowl, Tartarus, that's basically a bunch of individual bowls all squished into one. I sucked up enough of the shinsoo you'd scattered to fill your eel's cell, but the rest are swimming in my shinsoo right now. You'll have to swap that out. Sorry about that. If you want to talk face-to-face, come to where I am up on the 84th floor. If you'll believe it, I'm a tester there! If you can make it to me I've got a special test just for you I've been holding onto. Don't keep me waiting long lil sis.
Loves,
Your awesome super cool and strong brother

Brother... Right, Arsean. She was climbing the tower to see him. She wanted to tell him something. It was something happy. A headache distracted Nyra from thinking about what it was she was going to tell him. What about her shinheuh? Ow, her head hurt. B-rank... that was really good. Was it okay for her to have something like this as a regular?

Nyra picked up the black sphere. She could feel things inside, but they were fuzzy. She tried to focus on what they were but only succeeded on giving herself a splitting headache. She touched her forehead and was scared to find blood on her fingers. She stumbled out of the room, not noticing that the door had been closed when she woke yet she had no memories of opening it. The door to the room she was looking for, the washroom, was already open across the hallway. Nyra looked at herself in the mirror and was scared for a moment, like she'd seen something else. No, it was just herself. She probably wasn't used to seeing herself without her layers of bandages. Wait, if she'd slept without her bandages, shouldn't her skin be dried out? Nyra's skin was drier than usual sure, but it didn't feel as painful as it should for being dried out. She still wasn't sure what to make of those silvery patches. Right, the blood. Nyra touched her forehead. There was a silvery patch right in the middle of her face, practically between her eyes.

Nyra gripped the black bowl and tried to feel what was inside it while watching the mirror to see what happened. The golden part of her eyes seemed to change a little, like it got less solid whens he tried harder to feel inside the bowl. She pushed further. The silvery scab on her forehead reacted, shifting to orange for a second, and then a drop of dark blood dripped down from around it. What was this? Nyra watched that place and pushed a little harder, then a little harder. As she watched her own reflection for anything to change, she jumped back when the mirror suddenly shattered.

What was that?


One of the many Myan that Arsean Carciphi kept within his abode on the 84th floor suddenly stopped running around and inflated its body to many times its size. The creature's mouth opened and a helmeted individual stepped out. The Myan ran in a circle around his feet before scampering off.

"You look like shit," Arsean commented upon seeing the state his automaton returned to him in.

"Sorry, ran into some trouble," the helmeted individual responded.

"It certainly seems so. I was watching the feed the workshop was broadcasting, saw you called out Levi and everything. Say, what actually happened there?"

"Nyra was in danger." The helmeted automaton raised his single hand and called a lighthouse over, then he pulled a cable from the back of his helmet and plugged it into the floating cube. It took only a few moments for a record of his entire venture to be downloaded, copied, and saved to multiple locations. The original would no doubt want to edit down the parts of Nyra sleeping, so he added a note when that footage began.

Arsean projected the automaton's recording alongside the workshop's reporting of events and synced the feeds.

"If there's nothing else you need right away, I'm gonna go wash off and get some repairs in." The automaton waved his truncated limb around. "If you didn't notice, I'm missing something rather handy."

"Yeah yeah, some repair and recharge," the original waved the automaton off after a short laugh at his own joke.

The automaton removed his clothing and washed the dust and grime of battle from his body, every inch of its outer "skin" being metallic and plastic. He heard the original watching the battle when he was done. He opened the door to the bedroom, a long room covered inside by the waving arms of more Flora coral. Dozens of identical automatons rested against the floor and walls, held in the Floras' comforting arms. This automaton walked through the softly glowing space until he found an open place to rest and lay down among the coral that waved like grass. Within seconds the light of his visor faded and the Flora began pulling open the automaton's body to inspect and begin fixing what needed to be fixed, restocking what had been used up, and replacing a whole arm that was missing. The Flora pulled back as the chest part opened up and a compressed black serpent emerged to slither its way out the door. Leviathan would be eager to stretch itself back to full size after being stuck small for travelling. Once the compressed monster was gone away, the Flora resumed working.

***

"What the hell did you do!?"

Arsean spit his sip of coffee back into the cup and set it on a lighthouse just in time before Meg grabbed the front of him and was shaking him.

"You attacked THE GONG BANG!? What were you thinking?"

"Good morning, Meg," Arsean answered calmly while being shaken. "Coffee?" He gestured to the cup on the lighthouse. Thankfully his own coffee addiction had spread to her since she'd decided to hang around him, so after a few more violent shakes she let go and changed focus to downing his backwashed coffee. Arsean checked his neck before answering. "I don't care who it is, if they hurt my little sister, they die."

"You..." She was glaring at him.

"I didn't kill anyone... anyone important... probably." Arsean answered as truthfully as he could. From what he'd seen in the footage from his body that was there and from the workshop, he didn't think he'd actually caused any deaths. Well... maybe that one regular he'd kicked out to the 39th floor. But really that was on the floor guardian and Nox if the regular died there. "I held back a little, to avoid causing anything messy between Wolhaiksong and the Gong Bang." A lie. He didn't care about starting a war, his automaton had been worried about pissing off the floor guardian. While the body double had most of the techniques of the original, the original body had called dibs on starting any fights with guardians.

"You call wrecking one of their biggest ships on live TV holding back!?" Meg slammed the empty mug back down on top of the lighthouse, hard enough to cause the projections Arsean was watching to fizz.

"Yes," Arsean answered honestly. "And if I'd been there in person it's likely things wouldn't have ended so nicely."

"What are you?"

Arsean broke off a piece of the lighthouse containing the footage of his automaton's fight with the irregular called Nox and handed it to Meg. "See what the uppers in the org think about this. Feel free to keep a copy for yourself if you want, I don't plan on keeping it secret."

***

Upon a throne inside a castle atop a frozen mountain within a blizzard sat a doll-like girl.

Yo Escape Key!

The doll didn't react at all, but this name annoyed her. She sent a response asking what Arsean wanted.

Check this. Worth moving for?

Esca watched the contents of the video Arsean had sent in a few seconds. That was the speed she processed information at. It was no wonder she didn't communicate with people well. Talking was too slow for her brain. But Arsean knew how Esca was, so his next message that came a few seconds later already assumed she'd finished watching the video.

RED??

The doll stopped to think for longer at this than for the video itself. Arsean had sent her the video of him encountering an irregular that called himself Nox. He was asking if this was enough to get the powers that be to take action, either the families or the royal enforcement division. She didn't know. Politics weren't her strong suit. If someone caused a problem on her floor, she'd deal with that, but otherwise she was just an observer. An irregular though, that wasn't something she could really ignore. So Esca did what she felt would get this problem off her plate as soon as possible:

Dear Father,

An irregular has appeared.

Sincerely your daughter,
Khun Gaen Esca

She sent the video to her father. He could decide what if anything was worth doing about it. She sent a response to Arsean saying she'd dealt with it.

Thanks ya dollface <--<< Arsean

 

[Azure Sky]

Kaleidoscope​

Minerva, Wok, and Quiz

"What were you three morons thinking?"
"Sir Wok, I..." Minerva was pouting as she attempted to explain.
"Shut up. I will tell you what you were thinking." Wok's tone was like that of a drill sergeant. Minerva was the unlucky recruit.
"You thought it'd be a big, fat riot to mess around with a frikin' punny-ass Regular as a pastime, the hobo (Nox) thought it would be a big, fat riot to mess around with a punny-ass fish (golden eel Shinheuh) along with the helicopter brother of the punny-ass Regular. And don't get me started on that single-minded, obsesive, f******..."
"Darjeeling, mister Wok?" Quiz interjected. He also had biscuits.
"Ah, thank you very much, indeed." Wok took a sip out of the dark bronze liquid. "Mhmm, the medium-bodied nature, fruity and floral notes, along with that pleasant briskiness. Most exquisite."
"With all due respect, sir Wok, I..."
"How is the project going?" Wok asked, on calm and emotionally neutral tone. There was a brief silence, before Minerva switched back to business mode.
"The assets have not been damaged, nor any data lost. A few of the scientists suffered some psychological damage, and a couple of them lost a limb, or two, but nothing too alarming. Should not hamper our reseach much. Quiz will brief you on the details."
"Very well."
"To start..."

The Arcade

"Welcome to the Arcade! In the words of Mr. Quiz you can play arcade-style games, earn coins, buy mistery boxes. You may find trash, or you might strike gold. Coins can be converted to Tower currency and kept if one so desires, but they won't amount to much unless you play continuously all day long. Also, mystery boxes can only be bought with coins. It's nice and dandy, but don't forget that some mystery boxes might contain lethal poisonous gas. Low risk of death, statistically, but keep in mind." A robotic voice announced.





Bulsajo did not want to stay in the company of the Yeon women any longer, so he followed Areum.

Von Hare

"Well... that was a pathetic display from myself, earlier." Von Hare said as he deflected Sel's scythe strike with one of his spears. After Nyra's influence ended it just got confused and scared. Its species was usually not aggresive. "It would be a shame to kill such a magnificent creature." he said, as the Shinheuh assumed a defensive position and distanced itself from its aggresors. Von Hare was a swift killer, but he was against killing certain creatures and certain types of people.

[To Be Continued]
[Next: Ha Mena Arie visits Matheo; The second contest: Team Battle]

Rantos simj26 The One Eyed Bandit cojemo Brendanfp QuirkyAngel OverconfidentMagi

 

[simj26]

The air shifted again. "Wait!" she held out a hand towards Selicity, trying to prevent her from launching her attack. Her attempt was rendered ineffectual as Von Hare simply deflected the attack. Sweet sighed with relief. Looks like Von Hare could feel it as well. Sweet's eyes darted over the Shinheuh, and she sniffed the air. Something had changed. Something was different. Her grip on her gun loosened slightly, and her Lighthouse waned. The beast's musculature was relaxing, its eyes were barely paying any attention to the group any more, and the fury that seemed to boil under its eyes had abated. Sweet relaxed ever so slightly. The worst was over. Whatever had sent it into a frenzy earlier had vanished. To tell the truth, Sweet didn't want to know what had caused the episode. If her guess was right, the aura came from the arena, and to be able to affect Shinheuh from all the way over there was a terrifying thought. Again, she was reminded of her own humanity. Surrounded by beasts and monsters.

"It's going," she commented lamely as the Shinheuh slithered back away from them. She lowered her gun, and scratched her cheek pensively. The announcement came over the PA systems, and Selicity scurried on over to one of the Lighthouses to chat with Ajax. A detour to High Ranker Yume Yu's personal island, huh? Did they really mess up the ship that bad that they had to land? Again, the whole thing about being surrounded by monsters slowly drifted into her head again. Sweet slumped onto her bed, dusting off the debris from its covers, and fell back onto it, sighing deeply. This was too much excitement for just one day. She hadn't even prepped for the actual event that they were supposed to participate in and already, she was running on fumes.

"I don't suppose you guys are planning to stick around," she murmured to both Selicity and Hare. "Excuse the mess," she joked softly. Whether they answered her or not, she didn't know- her eyes closed as she made her jape, and fell asleep, exhausted from all the activity.

Azure Sky QuirkyAngel

 

[The One Eyed Bandit]

"Bro, these games suck ass! They cheated me out of all my points!" One Regular complained to another, crossing paths with Areum as she wandered towards the Arcade Hall.

Areum had never been one for gaming, and as she walked into the Arcade Hall, she noted that she was especially not one for public gaming. The Arcade had only been open for a day now, give or take, and it already reeked of piss and body odour. She'd paid one or two visits to the floor's local gym while she waited for the Workshop Battle to start, so the prior wasn't a foreign smell to her, but somehow the iteration of the aroma that plagued these halls was just so much worse.

A robotic announcer blared out over a loudspeaker, going over the rules for anyone that'd either been bird-brained enough to already forget them, or hadn't paid attention in the first place. Of these, Areum classified as the latter, so she paused at the Arcade's entrance as she let herself be educated as to the rules.

"Surprisingly straightforward for these guys..." Areum mumbled to nobody in particular. Even if she wasn't much of a gamer, the order of things here seemed simple enough.

"Well, Yeon, let's do our best, huh? I'd give it a fifty-fifty chance that we're able to play for more than an hour before there's another major crisis." Saying it out loud, Areum reckoned those were pretty good odds; or, at the very least, they were probably better odds than whatever was attached to the gambling machines in here.

Wandering through the building, Areum let her gaze roam about the various displays and cabinets. She was almost impressed. She'd spent a lot of time reading over the past few months, so she was quite caught up on the latest technological advancements in the Tower, and she was pretty sure she recognized a few of them being put to use in the Arcade's games. It was just too bad that they were being wasted on, well, games.

Equally impressive was the location's patrons, and in more ways than one. Some of them had already raked up scores high enough to make the eyes of even a gaming neophyte like herself bulge out of their sockets, while others put on shows of anger that even a prime candidate for rageaholics anonymous (again, like herself) cringe.

Honestly, she didn't get it. They were like, just games, weren't they?

game - dance it up:​

After patrolling the building for a dozen or so minutes, Areum eventually settled on a dancing game that she'd seen featured by a few of the travel vloggers that she followed. It didn't seem too complicated. Watch the screen for approaching symbols, and then stomp the playmat when the hit the right point on the screen.

To either side of the machine, a pair of oversized fans blared cool air in the direction of the platform, which caused her dress to flutter quite insufferably but she chose to ignore it. As soon as Areum stepped up onto the machine's 'stage', the monitor lit up with colours and the accompanying speakers howled some sort of hyperactive greeting at her, and then, after a swiping through a handful of prompts, the game begum.

Things started off simply enough. Following the beat, Simple patterns worked their way up, and Areum shuffled her feet in turn. Simple enough, she thought, and as if in response both the beat and her confidence dropped. All of a sudden, the patterns started to flow like water. First an open faucet, then white water rapids, and finally a waterfall. Areum's score steadily worked its way downhill, her hits shifted from "GREAT!"s to "OKAY!"s to "BAD!"s, and she could have sworn that the fans were getting faster too.

Her suffering went on for a few more minutes as she desperately clung to what little chance she still had at victory. Eventually, she started to wonder just how fucking long the song she'd chosen was, because she was pretty sure she'd been at it for at least ten minutes. That, though, was something she'd never get the answer to.

Wearing a dress into one of these things was apparently not an advisable manoeuvre, Areum learned as she slammed the heel of her foot into her dress's hem and subsequently found herself ass-flat on the floor a few moments later.

A few Regulars which had gathered around the machine chuckled at the sight, and Areum was pretty sure that she heard the snap of a camera somewhere in the crowd. The, evidently, not-so-agile Regular stayed sat where she'd fallen for a few moments, her eyes still fixed on the screen until her performance rating eventually dropped below the threshold, and a hearty "FAILED!" blared out from the speakers.

"Fuck." Was her only response before she picked herself up off the floor and stumbled offstage. This was why she didn't play video games.

game - dance it up:​

Part of her wanted to ditch the Arcade there and then, but given her team's inclinations to do anything but be productive, Areum figured that she didn't have much better to do anyway. The next game to catch her eye was an equally loud-looking cabinet, proudly displaying a neon logo, custom gamepad, and what it described as "The biggest roster since R³X!".

The sight was even more alien to her than the dancing game. The previous game had at least been grounded in an actual real-world skill, but mashing buttons and jostling a joystick? Not only did that sound like an innuendo, but it just sounded fucking stupid.

Never the less, though, she'd be lying if she said that she wasn't a little interested. Because of her absence from the Champion event, she'd missed out on a chance for a good old fashioned duel, and now she was kind of itching for it. Though, she wasn't sure if that was actually because of the missed chance, or if she just needed to vent after all of the bullshit she'd endured over the past couple of days.

Nevertheless, after that moment of postulation Areum sat in front of the Arcade cabinet, and took a moment to flick through the instructions.

"Seems simple enough..." Areum thought aloud as she skimmed through the final page. She had to admit, the was a lot of buttons; somehow even more than the dancing game had featured, but the core of the experience seemed simple enough. As long as she slammed her attack keys fast enough, she figured there wasn't much of a chance of her losing.

With all that in mind, Areum tapped a continue prompt and was soon greeted by the selection screen which, frankly, was much more confusing than anything the instructions had thrown at her. That tagline hadn't been kidding; she hadn't seen this many faces crammed so closely together since her last Family photo. She spent a few seconds, or, well, more like a few minutes staring at the cluttered mess of a display before finally letting out a frustrated groan, and just hitting random.

Her character display flicked through hundreds of different images for a few moments, before finally settling on an offensively familiar face.

"Silentia Zahard!" The machine's speakers exclaimed as Areum instinctively slammed her fist into the gamepad. The machine didn't budge an inch, and a merry "Confirmed!" was the only result of her outburst.

The machine moved on to a loading screen, and Areum sat there stunned out of her mind. She hadn't counted how many people had been on the roster, but what were the odds her being the one the randomizer settled on? Even one of the other princesses would've been a Better result. Somebody had to be fucking with her.

Right as Areum was starting to delve into the randomizer being attached to some sort of irony algorithm, the loading screen finished and the screen transitioned to the fighting arena. She was matched up against some helmet-headed Ranker that she didn't recognize, and she was honestly glad it wasn't a familiar face.

When the game began with a boldly declared "FIGHT!", Areum was honestly impressed with how quickly it went south. She limply tapped her attack keys once or twice, to which 'Silentia' launched a couple of bone-themed kicks in response, but both only made contact with the air. Then, out of nowhere, her sprite was being juggled like a chainsaw at a carnival. A flurry of shinheuh surged out from the other player's character, locking her into a combo that she clearly didn't have the skill to escape.

Yet, strangely, she wasn't even upset. In fact, it actually felt kind of good. Not losing, not her losing at least, but rather getting to watch that cow Silentia eat a pile of shit fatter than her ass. When the round concluded and the next one begun, she didn't even bother fighting back, instead electing to just sit there and enjoy the show.

That, the Areum concluded as she excused herself from the cabinet, was a shockingly effective form of therapy. She'd have to see if she could pick up a mobile version of the game the next time she had a moment.

game - test of strength!:​

With her... Successful defeat in tow, Areum marched through the Arcade Hall with a newfound sense of purpose. She'd spotted a familiar sight during her initial sweep of the building; one of the strength test machines that she'd tangled with on one of the prior floors.

When she finally caught sight of it, Areum approached it with an air of confidence. Video games were something she'd readily admit she didn't have much talent for, but breaking shit was another matter entirely. Stepping up the device, Areum summoned all three of her Bangs and wrapped them around her right leg.

She did a quick warm-up stretch, performed a pair of test kicks, and then slammed the side of her foot into the machine hard enough to make it bleed. A set of lights on the device shot up, the internal computer calculated her score, and the next thing she knew Areum was walking away from the machine with a set of shiny new coins rattling in her pockets.

Maybe this place wasn't so bad after all.

Azure Sky​

 

[Rantos]

Illiam Herlaa
Tags: The One Eyed Bandit Azure Sky
Mentioned: QuirkyAngel
He should really respond to that message. But there were so many pretty lights, such egregiously assaulting stimuli clearly took priority. Or rather, it forced its way into priority. As soon as Illiam entered the arcade, thoughts of responding to Ajax were all but rendered from his skull. His ability to think only going as far as his eyes could see. And at all time his eyes rested upon some kind of machine, colored machines, gizmos that went boop, bop, and bing. Had he heard of arcades before? Of course. Had he been in one before? Of course not. He was impressed, as far as first impressions went, even if he had to plug his nose as he looked around at the games.

What attracted Illiam to the arcade was the announcement. With the way they described the games, the caveat of misery behind every victory, made the experience as a whole rather tempting. Though walking through the isles of cabinets and past smiling faces Illiam couldn't help but wonder if the announcement was an over-exaggeration, or if the regulars were faking their enjoyment. Either way, he felt lied to. He took it personally.

Well, there was nothing left to do but try. Illiam found himself gravitating to the loudest and largest game in the arcade. He witnesses regulars flailing like mad on a stage set to music. Was this dancing? Couldn't be. In his limited experience witnessing, and at times mocking, the art form he knew enough to know the name of this game was a misnomer. Yet, he still cut in front of a line of patient Regulars, much to their protests, to get his chance at the Dance It Up stage.

The menu was already hard enough. Illiam spent a while with the touchscreen, trying to select a song. His first mistake was made here, as he selected the hardest difficulty. Start. The hook played, and Illiam got ready. He knew this game through watching. Hit the panels below in time with the arrows on the screen. Easy enough. And as the first arrow came speeding up, Illiam knew what he had to do. Left arrow, left foot.

Miss.

Okay. The next arrow came soon after the first, a single miss was inevitable. What mattered now was the right foot. Miss. Okay, left foot again. Miss. Right foot bottom. Miss. Left foot top. Miss. Left and right at the same time. Miss-Miss.

Well, this was troubling. Illiam had never seen the word miss used more on a screen in his life. The word barely seemed like a real word as the crowd cheered.

"Miss! Miss! Miss, miss!" All in time with the beat of the song. If anything, the crowd managed to match the song's tempo better than Illiam could. 30 seconds in, Illiam stopped moving altogether. He stood tall on that stage, watching each and every miss as it passed before his eyes. That two minutes felt like an eternity. All capped off with a rousing round of applause as the crowd yelled "Zero! Zero! Zero!" A witty vocal observation of Illiam's score.

After the Champion Fight SimulationNothing really cured embarrassment like muscle pain. Illiam hadn't gone into the simulation with much expectation, but after leaving with an almost wholly numb body, yet not a single scratch, he was colored impressed. Not just by the technology, but by the strength of the Champion too. It was enough to make him regret not entering the tournament for real. Not only would fighting her have been the highlight of this trip, but he'd at least walk away with the prize money. In that regard, the simulated victory felt hollow.

Well, no matter. As something else caught his eye. A flash of green and red, solid colors that could make him hurl. The woman of sour temperament, tactless words, and a punchable face. It was five years too early for Areum to not incite petty emotions within Illiam. So he followed. Keeping careful distance as he watched her test her strength. She managed an impressive score and walked away from the machine just as quickly as she had arrived.

Illiam was next up. Four Baang's crackled to life around his fist as he approached the machine. He had a few options, if he wanted to win he could just break the machine and be done with it. But he didn't want the high score. He wanted triple.

The message was sent soon after Illiam collected his coins. A message sent to Areum, a single picture of his score, three times Areum's own, give or take a few decimal spots. Accompanied by the single word:

"Triple."

Spoiler: Dice rolls

Dance it up:


Champion:


Test of Strength

 

[The One Eyed Bandit]

rolling again for later

 

[cojemo]

May as well also roll for a post I have in mind