No problem. Coming up with these things is actually fun.
Killy had never been certain just how he'd managed to get into this particular manner of competition.
An acquaintance of his who was into cosplay in a big way had said something about it once, and dragged him to watch a competition. She'd been fairly enthusiastic about it too, and he guessed he could see the appeal ...
... truth be told, he'd never gotten into fighting games. This, though, had appeared to be on an entirely new level altogether.
Despite some silliness and an almost overwhelmingly female player base ... or was that latter bit a pro instead of a con? He'd never been able to make up his mind about that one. Anyway, despite those, he'd spent the better part of the whole thing actually paying more attention to the fighting than to reacquainting himself with an longtime favorite selection of reading material.
Afterwards, he and Cass had gone their respective ways, but he'd continued on in a muddle throughout the week, then the next.
It had been like living with his head stuck in a barrel of molasses ... a disquieting sensation that only broke when, waking up in the middle of the night on a morning of the third week, he tripped on his way out of the room to get something to drink and sprawled with his face on top of a Battle Angel Alita volume.
That seemed to be a catalyst of sorts, since next day he was blowing the graphic novel money he had saved and alloted for said month on a small winged egg and accessories.
A day lated he could honestly say he'd never fault Cass for dragging him in when she needed an extra pair of hands to work on sewing an outfit together. True, the scale was much smaller in this case, but the skills he'd been browbeaten into learning were finally looked to be paying off and proving useful for something other than darning a pair of socks.
***
"Walking on the wild side! Spitfire, fall in!"
"A crow mocking the bodies of the broken. Morrigan, fall in!"
The entry was done with the usual sort of minimalism Killy used when not going against a new opponent. There was little point in the old game of smoke and mirrors when the people already there knew how you fought.
Morrigan touched down with a slight bending of the knees before she straightened and her Deus had her run though what looked like a brief stretching routine. Relatively primitive as a way of checking if something wasn't amiss with the Angel's range of motion, but it had become almost reflex. After all, when you depended as heavily as Morrigan and he did on her flexibility, it paid to make doubly sure before every match, mock or no.
"Well, if it isn't the Bastard King," the other Deus greeted him after he'd settled in, her Angel bouncing on the balls of its feet.
"I snark in your general direction," he deadpanned back.
Seemingly ignoring the byplay, the two Angels bowed to one-another, before taking up stances ...
Thankfully, it was still relatively early in the day, so they didn't need to reserve a Layer for a one-on-one match like they'd have had to by the time the afternoon came about.
The other angel was shorter than Morrigan, dressed in what looked like a pair of biking shorts, a sleeveless top, gloves that went nearly the whole length of her arms, and sported both armored knuckle and knee guards. Likewise, the ankle boots' front and heel were reinforced, though these were far lighter than the usually clunky knee-length armored boots that most players tended to go for.
All that aside, though, the most prominent feature of Morrigan's current opponent was her hair. It was short and spiky - it hadn't always been, but Killy played dirty more often than not and long hair was too convenient a handhold to pass up for Morrigan's fighting style - and a shocking day-glo orange in color.
He idly wondered if there was a Messerschmitt currently being playtested in Germany somewhere.
There was no more smalltalk exchanged, as the smaller Angel shot forward with a burst of speed that Morrigan never had been quite able to match, the smaller combatant having a slight advantage despite being a power/speed built where Morrigan was a purely speed one.
That wasn't the point though, Killy had decided when designing his Angel.
Spitfire came in directly, telegraphing a punch and reacting to Morrigan's hands raising to intercept with coming down to the deck, planting _her_ hands, and swinging her whole body around in a powerful leg sweep.
Morrigan shifted her stance, lifted her leg, and the the blow pass underneath before stomping down onto the Layer - her opponent had gone with the momentum and rolled to the side to avoid the blow.
Long practice had Spitfire's Deus launch her forward immediately, taking a chance and hoping to capitalize, only to have Morrigan intercept with a forearm angled just enough to deflect before ducking beneath the spin-kick and planting an armored elbow in her gut.
It didn't do a lot of damage, but it did enough. Morrigan waited for her opponent to pick herself back up, as opposed to where she'd have been going after the downed Angel in an actual match.
"That was a new one," Killy's opponent commented. "Looked like one of mine."
"The elbow finisher was. Nice sweep," the boy responded as the Angels faced off again.
"Picked that off you, really. Not as effective as I would have thought."
"Well, Morrigan gets more reach and impact on hers because of the mass. Got anymore, Erin?"
"Sure," his opponent grinned, just before Spitfire launched herself forward once more. "Let's play."
***
"Alright, hand them over, then you can go in," the girl 'manning' the reception desk said in a tone that carried a fair bit of exasperation.
"Hmm? Wha?" currently standing in front of said desk, the lanky teenager frowned in confusion. "I'm not sure what you mean."
"Killy, you've been coming here for months, don't play dumb. It stopped being cute the ... well, no. It's never been cute."
"Oh, for the love of ... I didn't _bring_ any this time, just so you know," he grumbled. Yeesh. Bring one mildly ecchi comic to pass the time and get branded for life. Sometimes, things just weren't fair. After all, he'd just wanted something to pass the time with before the matches.
"Look, you know the rule. I'm gonna have to ask you to empty your pockets. C'mon, there's kids present. Wouldn't want you corrupting them with inappropriate material, right?"
Alright, so maybe it had been more than once. But it hadn't been anything really explicit ... well, no more than you'd see in a convenience store's magazine stand at least. How that constituted 'corruption', he had no idea. After all, nowadays the news and various other sources did that well enough on their own that they hardly needed his disgruntled help.
Unfortunately, he wasn't going to get in with that justification, true as it may have been. He'd tried reason already. As usual, it hadn't worked.
He set Morrigan down carefully, then began extricating ... keyring, wallet, pack of peppermint gum, roll of bandages, the rest of Morrigan's 'kit', a manga ...
"Aha!"
The girl snatched said booklet open with a triumphant expression and started paging through it to ...
"Oh ickickickickICK!" she squeaked, tossing it to the table almost convulsively. "That was _disgusting_! What the hell?!"
"Language, Kat. There are children present, you know," he smirked, retrieving the Battle Royale volume and gathering up the rest of his things immediately after. "Wouldn't want you corrupting them, now would we? Or the management, for that matter."
Just a bit of fleshing out, a bit of fighting, and another bit of fleshing out.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm
Killy had never been certain just how he'd managed to get into this particular manner of competition.
An acquaintance of his who was into cosplay in a big way had said something about it once, and dragged him to watch a competition. She'd been fairly enthusiastic about it too, and he guessed he could see the appeal ...
... truth be told, he'd never gotten into fighting games. This, though, had appeared to be on an entirely new level altogether.
Despite some silliness and an almost overwhelmingly female player base ... or was that latter bit a pro instead of a con? He'd never been able to make up his mind about that one. Anyway, despite those, he'd spent the better part of the whole thing actually paying more attention to the fighting than to reacquainting himself with an longtime favorite selection of reading material.
Afterwards, he and Cass had gone their respective ways, but he'd continued on in a muddle throughout the week, then the next.
It had been like living with his head stuck in a barrel of molasses ... a disquieting sensation that only broke when, waking up in the middle of the night on a morning of the third week, he tripped on his way out of the room to get something to drink and sprawled with his face on top of a Battle Angel Alita volume.
That seemed to be a catalyst of sorts, since next day he was blowing the graphic novel money he had saved and alloted for said month on a small winged egg and accessories.
A day lated he could honestly say he'd never fault Cass for dragging him in when she needed an extra pair of hands to work on sewing an outfit together. True, the scale was much smaller in this case, but the skills he'd been browbeaten into learning were finally looked to be paying off and proving useful for something other than darning a pair of socks.
***
"Walking on the wild side! Spitfire, fall in!"
"A crow mocking the bodies of the broken. Morrigan, fall in!"
The entry was done with the usual sort of minimalism Killy used when not going against a new opponent. There was little point in the old game of smoke and mirrors when the people already there knew how you fought.
Morrigan touched down with a slight bending of the knees before she straightened and her Deus had her run though what looked like a brief stretching routine. Relatively primitive as a way of checking if something wasn't amiss with the Angel's range of motion, but it had become almost reflex. After all, when you depended as heavily as Morrigan and he did on her flexibility, it paid to make doubly sure before every match, mock or no.
"Well, if it isn't the Bastard King," the other Deus greeted him after he'd settled in, her Angel bouncing on the balls of its feet.
"I snark in your general direction," he deadpanned back.
Seemingly ignoring the byplay, the two Angels bowed to one-another, before taking up stances ...
Thankfully, it was still relatively early in the day, so they didn't need to reserve a Layer for a one-on-one match like they'd have had to by the time the afternoon came about.
The other angel was shorter than Morrigan, dressed in what looked like a pair of biking shorts, a sleeveless top, gloves that went nearly the whole length of her arms, and sported both armored knuckle and knee guards. Likewise, the ankle boots' front and heel were reinforced, though these were far lighter than the usually clunky knee-length armored boots that most players tended to go for.
All that aside, though, the most prominent feature of Morrigan's current opponent was her hair. It was short and spiky - it hadn't always been, but Killy played dirty more often than not and long hair was too convenient a handhold to pass up for Morrigan's fighting style - and a shocking day-glo orange in color.
He idly wondered if there was a Messerschmitt currently being playtested in Germany somewhere.
There was no more smalltalk exchanged, as the smaller Angel shot forward with a burst of speed that Morrigan never had been quite able to match, the smaller combatant having a slight advantage despite being a power/speed built where Morrigan was a purely speed one.
That wasn't the point though, Killy had decided when designing his Angel.
Spitfire came in directly, telegraphing a punch and reacting to Morrigan's hands raising to intercept with coming down to the deck, planting _her_ hands, and swinging her whole body around in a powerful leg sweep.
Morrigan shifted her stance, lifted her leg, and the the blow pass underneath before stomping down onto the Layer - her opponent had gone with the momentum and rolled to the side to avoid the blow.
Long practice had Spitfire's Deus launch her forward immediately, taking a chance and hoping to capitalize, only to have Morrigan intercept with a forearm angled just enough to deflect before ducking beneath the spin-kick and planting an armored elbow in her gut.
It didn't do a lot of damage, but it did enough. Morrigan waited for her opponent to pick herself back up, as opposed to where she'd have been going after the downed Angel in an actual match.
"That was a new one," Killy's opponent commented. "Looked like one of mine."
"The elbow finisher was. Nice sweep," the boy responded as the Angels faced off again.
"Picked that off you, really. Not as effective as I would have thought."
"Well, Morrigan gets more reach and impact on hers because of the mass. Got anymore, Erin?"
"Sure," his opponent grinned, just before Spitfire launched herself forward once more. "Let's play."
***
"Alright, hand them over, then you can go in," the girl 'manning' the reception desk said in a tone that carried a fair bit of exasperation.
"Hmm? Wha?" currently standing in front of said desk, the lanky teenager frowned in confusion. "I'm not sure what you mean."
"Killy, you've been coming here for months, don't play dumb. It stopped being cute the ... well, no. It's never been cute."
"Oh, for the love of ... I didn't _bring_ any this time, just so you know," he grumbled. Yeesh. Bring one mildly ecchi comic to pass the time and get branded for life. Sometimes, things just weren't fair. After all, he'd just wanted something to pass the time with before the matches.
"Look, you know the rule. I'm gonna have to ask you to empty your pockets. C'mon, there's kids present. Wouldn't want you corrupting them with inappropriate material, right?"
Alright, so maybe it had been more than once. But it hadn't been anything really explicit ... well, no more than you'd see in a convenience store's magazine stand at least. How that constituted 'corruption', he had no idea. After all, nowadays the news and various other sources did that well enough on their own that they hardly needed his disgruntled help.
Unfortunately, he wasn't going to get in with that justification, true as it may have been. He'd tried reason already. As usual, it hadn't worked.
He set Morrigan down carefully, then began extricating ... keyring, wallet, pack of peppermint gum, roll of bandages, the rest of Morrigan's 'kit', a manga ...
"Aha!"
The girl snatched said booklet open with a triumphant expression and started paging through it to ...
"Oh ickickickickICK!" she squeaked, tossing it to the table almost convulsively. "That was _disgusting_! What the hell?!"
"Language, Kat. There are children present, you know," he smirked, retrieving the Battle Royale volume and gathering up the rest of his things immediately after. "Wouldn't want you corrupting them, now would we? Or the management, for that matter."
Just a bit of fleshing out, a bit of fighting, and another bit of fleshing out.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm