RP Smash [IC/Conditional Acceptance/PG-16]

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

OOC

 

The last thing they remembered was a tear opening up in their world. One that they fell, or perhaps were dragged, into even before they could register what was going on.
There had been a moment of intense emotion, depending on the individual; anger, confusion, fear. Then...

Silence.
Darkness.

Granted that was not entirely accurate. Silence implied there were sounds to hear. Darkness implied there was light to darken.
No, what they found themselves in was Nothingness.
Complete and utter Nothingness.

Time was impossible to gauge where they were. Perhaps hours, years, seconds, or maybe (a concept that would have never crossed their mind until that moment) negative time, passed as they floated.
Yet, floated was wrong too. To float there needed to be something to float on.
They merely existed there, in the midst of Nothingness, for some period of time.
It was a long enough moment to contemplate existence in its entirety. Yet, also, it was not enough time to even blink.

And then they were somewhere else. In silence. In darkness. This time truly.

They could feel presences around them. Perhaps half a dozen, maybe more, people were nearby. After that period of Nothingness they would feel hyper-aware of the signs of life that came from a living being. Soft breathing, a short rustle of clothing as someone unconsciously shifted, and just the natural feeling of “Something’s there” that one gets when in a room with another.

The room was brightened within moments. A large screen, ten feet wide and five feet high, flared to life above and in front of them.

A face appeared on the screen. Feminine in features yet still just masculine enough for reasonable doubt. The person’s lower face was mostly covered in the collar of their coat. A black, felt-looking, thing with large buttons. Their eyes, however, were in plain view. Electric blue and sparkling with excitement.

"Welcome to Rama-Indri," they spoke in a strong, husky, voice that gave an impression of constantly hinting at something underneath the surface. The kind of feeling you get from fortune tellers or pick-up artists.
“Ah, pardon me, that was sudden wasn’t it? I should start at the beginning. Or, the closest thing to it. My name is Mauvache and you are currently standing inside of my Arena.”

BGM

The walls, floor, and ceiling suddenly lit up and revealed the room they stood in. As well as the other people around them.
Every part of the room was made up of large, three feet squared, panels. Colored dark blue, with lighter blue lighting around the edges. There seemed to be no doors and, besides the screen which showed the image of Mauvache, nothing in the room.

“You are now in the city of Prana, on the planet Rama-Indri.” She paused, her eyes making it clear it was for effect. “Some of you might be confused by the latter bit. You see, Existence is made up of many, thousands and thousands, of worlds. You have been brought to one very unlike your own. In fact...It’s not even the same universe!”

Mauvache’s face vanished and, in its place, was an overhead view of a world that would be unfamiliar to all of them. If they looked hard enough they could notice there were several large patches of blackened earth across its expanse.

And then the view vanished and Mauvache appeared again. “I have brought you here, to a world craving entertainment, to partake in a wondrous endeavor.” The camera shifted, moving upwards, and it was made clear Mauvache had been sitting.

But not any more. So excited was she by the prospect that she couldn’t sit still. Standing fully, with the camera pulling back to show her entire body, Mauvache spread her arms wide. “You have been handpicked by me to compete in my Arena. The battlefields, which you are standing on by the way, will be entirely virtual. This is to keep you from coming to harm. After all we want to entertain, not maim. You will fight against each other in many unique battlefields and earn points. You can use these posts for almost everything here. Food, housing, entertainment, and, if you gain enough, even a Wish from me. Any who doubt my ability to grant such a thing...well, I brought you here, didn’t I?”

There was a slight falter to the excited glint in her eyes and, when she spoke again, she sounded more business-like. “Of course I cannot force you to fight. But, if you don’t, you’ll find it hard to do much of anything here. I’m afraid you’re stuck here for the time being but worry not, you shall, at the right time and place, be sent right back where you belong. So while you’re here, why not have yourself an adventure? Perhaps you’ll even strike it rich!”

The glint was back. “You have attached to you a watch.” If they were to check their person they’d see, as she said, a watch. However its face was larger than normal and had several things besides the time, noon, upon it. “This will allow you to communicate, send mail, though you will only be able to send each other challenge requests, tell the time, and keep track of your points.”

At the mention of points a number would light up. It would read “50“ for all except Xia, who would see “100“ and, next to it, in small print, “Points”.

“Feel free to ask what you need, I’m sure you have many questions, concerns, and comments. But please read over...this mail before. You have free reign to, most, of the Arena and the city beyond. It is currently, to use a system you’d understand, Monday. Which means no battles. But worry not about food, you will be able to eat for free today. But only today. Can’t afford to keep you fed for nothing after all!”

Everyone would see a notification for mail popping up on their watches and, a moment later, it would open up. They would have a strange sensation and the words were transmitted into their mind. Almost like reading but with less eye movement and focus needed.
It would include basic maps, combat rules, farther explanation of the point system, and various other information.

Once this was read the stage would be set and the fighters, cast into a strange world through even stranger means, would be left to their own devices.

[spoiler=OOC]And so it begins! React to...well what just happened. And begin interactions. Reminder that this is a  strange RP so my posts won’t be necessarily weekly. Nor should it be necessary. Be sure to ask me whatever you need. If I am not around and you need multiple bits of info feel free to ask that too. For instance if you need a question answered but also want to know what happens if you go outside, ask both and I will answer when I can.

IMPORTANT: Even if your characters don't understand technology they will find themselves with the knowledge to at least use, and know the purpose, of most of the common technologies. They will not understand how it works, or what it is, necessarily but it will be enough to function. If you wish them not to know how to use something to make things interesting that's fine as well.

 

[Alaina]

 

"Oh it's dark in -" This singular, simple thought was all that ran through the young dragon girl's head before brilliant bright lights had flared to life, momentarily blinding her. As the darkness parted and her senses seem to be re-calibrating, her awareness of her surroundings seemed to spike. There was the presence of others in the room, at least more than one. There was a distinct feeling to all of them, as if she felt that each individual had its own strong presence, but couldn't actually see what they were. She could just tell that there were some that felt like a more bestial feeling than others, and one other feeling of a strange chill coming from somewhere, yet not actually being the general temperature of the air. As her eyes could see more than just white, she simply spoke aloud, "oh that was bright."

 

While her voice was neutral in tone, her eyes and face lit up with curiosity as she looked about to see the room she was in. It was blue. Like the sea! That was nice. Unfortunately, it was not the sea, and that was less nice. However, as the strange giant magical screen thingy lit up as well, her attention was instead directed towards that, as the face of a giant person was shown to them. As she greeted them, Xia gave a wave back with a friendly smile, before standing there and listening to her whole introduction. 

 

While the woman went on to explain their current situation, Xia wasn't entirely following it. She didn't quite understand being on a different planet, or what entirely a universe was, but there was one thing that stuck with her. She was here, at an Arena. Which must've made Mavich the man who sent her the letter to join the big tournament thing in the first place! Though it seemed to be somewhat different than what she had been originally told, yet there was still fighting and still the promise of getting rich. And entertaining people was making them happy, and more happy people was always a good thing. 

 

The last part of the presentation involved little things known as watches. Xia stared at it a bit, being seemingly fascinated by the wrist mounted clock, with other numbers put into it. She wasn't quite sure what the whole point thing was, but she had 100 of them! 100 was a nice number. As she continued to stare at the device, a message eventually popped out of it, causing her to recoil a bit at the suddenness of it. Looking at the message, it eventually start to spill out a bunch of information and text, describing just about everything they would have needed to know. While Xia had a difficult time reading things normally, this was surprisingly easy to understand. There was one part which was the "app" section, which looked like it had a bunch of things for her to fill out, but hopefully someone else would take care of that. 

 

Once all of that was said and done, Xia brought her face up from her watch and looked to the rest of the people in the room. Throwing her arms to the side, in a joyous manner, she said, "hello new people!" With a wide smile crossing her face she continued, "oh, it's so nice to meet all of you." The girl's voice was one that conveyed genuine enthusiasm and she was eagerly looking from person to person with a sparkle in her eyes. There were so many new humans to make friends with, some short, some tall, some blue, some white. Her eyes then saw a creature covered entirely in hair, with very weird looking hands and feet, something that she had only seen in stories and on similar magic screens. And then the last thing her eyes saw was a scaled creature with wings, horns, though was about the same size as that of the fur creature. What strange creatures they were.

 

Only further excited by the large collection of people and creatures that were here, Xia knew that in order she needed to follow the steps that she was left with by one of the men back home. First, she needed to introduce herself. Wait, she had already skipped that step. Then she simply had to backtrack! "I am Xia," she abruptly said. With that statement out there, the girl seemed to start thinking again on what the next step was, having a slight yet noticeable pause between statements. Upon remembering the next step she then asked, "who are all of you?" She looked to each of them, eager for their answers.

[Yui]

---

This wasn't Mar-Vell.

 

As Aurora floated around in...well, nothing really, only that one thought could occur to her. Wherever she was - or wasn't - this wasn't the hero school she'd been attending since last year. Another villain attack? Was she being kidnapped now, too? What about August; was he okay? The longer Aurora was there, the more she felt sick to her stomach with worry. Even if he was fine, how would he fare without her? Sure, August was a nice guy, but it was just a hunch that he might...lose his cool.

 

I'm a terrible person sometimes, ain't I?

 

Not long after that thought passed her mind, Aurora felt something. She could hear breathing and the occasional rustle of clothes...somebody was here. The villain? She'd make them regret the day they kidnapped Aurora Burns! Before she could start narrowing down who was the villain here - or at least, the one responsible for her vanishing - a nearby screen flared to life with a...woman? Aurora might have been wrong, but she was pretty sure that was a woman.

 

"Welcome to Rama-Indri. Ah, pardon me, that was sudden wasn’t it? I should start at the beginning. Or, the closest thing to it. My name is Mauvache and you are currently standing inside of my Arena.”

 

The room lit up, and Aurora quickly glanced around at her surroundings. Blue room, a few people...a dog? And a dragon!? What sort of wacko Lord of the Rings room is this? Before Aurora could start asking questions, the woman(?) on the screen continued talking.

 

“You are now in the city of Prana, on the planet Rama-Indri. Some of you might be confused by the latter bit. You see, Existence is made up of many, thousands and thousands, of worlds. You have been brought to one very unlike your own. In fact...It’s not even the same universe!” The probably-lady on the screen went on and on about how they were now entertainers brought here to this place, and they'd fight to earn points so that they could buy things here, and it all just in general sounded like some kind of game. Finally, probably-she said that if anyone had any questions, comments, or concerns, they were to be brought up after reading a mail. A mail Aurora's new watch notified her of, before she...it was like telepathy, kind of. How the words were just planted there into her brain directly instead of through her eyes. This was a lot to take in all at once.

 

"What about our friends & families?" Aurora asked. "They'll get worried if we're gone, right?"

 

"Hello new people! Oh, it's so nice to meet all of you."

 

Seemed not everyone shared Aurora's concerns. This one was definitely a woman with...was that a tail? And scales? Nothing really made much sense here anymore. Were moments like these the reasons adults drank alcohol?

 

"I am Xia. Who are all of you?"

 

"Aurora," the cryomancer answered, raising a hand. "It's, uh, nice to meet y'all." What in the nine levels of frosty hell is this place?

---

[ChampionZero]

Elijah considered himself an expert on weird.

 

Leaving home at the age of 14 to train for a card tournament.

Weird.

Training under no less than three dueling grandmasters before he was an adult in his home country?

Weirder.

Spending six months in a collar playing pet to an amazon Street Duelist warlord? (who took way too much of a shine to a 14-year-old kid, but you won't hear him complaining)

Yet weirder.

 

Being transported to another tournament, planet, and DIMENSION all at the same time, the day after winning a tournament he'd wanted to participate in all his life?

 

That takes the goddamn cake.

 

After processing what this Mauvache... lady had to say (as he learned during the rock opera a few years back, eyeshadow and a sparkly... slit-skirt dress does not always mean that someone is a woman), he realized he still had his trusty Duffel bag in his hand!

 

Dropping to a knee to open it, he sifted through to confirm the presence of all his costumes... His scarf, gloves, trench coat, armor, shutter shades, yep! It was all there, along with...

 

He held up a single bag of his favorite Australian licorice. "Score!" He cheered as he hugged the bag to his face, savoring the crinkly noise that the plastic made. He wasn't going to get his hands on more of this, he suspected, so this would have to do until he found a vending machine.

 

Then he heard two strangers, whose names were Xia(?) and Aurora(?) talking.

 

"Uhh." He dropped the candy back into the duffel and zipped it up, slinging it over his shoulders as he approached the strange-looking people. "Hi. I'm Elijah. Elijah Diamond. But Eli works if you're not keen on using all five syllables."

[Andx]

A dog yawned, stretched and began to sit up upon a bright light shining upon his face with a sound of a person's voice following soon after. He reached his front legs out in front of him as far as he could with some accompanying noises then finally stood on all fours and stretched out each back leg on it's own behind him. Caleb had been having a weird dream. Normally ocean side naps were peaceful but this was different. There'd been all of nothing. Usually there was some sort of dream to accompany it but there had just been nothing and a sort of bewilderment to it all. Just one of those weird dreamless nights. That was until the human-turned-canine began looking around him and registering what all was happening. There was a screen in front of them with some... was it a woman? It was hard to tell as her appearance and voice both weren't clear giveaways.

 

Mauvache as the figure introduced themselves stated they had brought them all here for the purpose of entertainment. And this required they all fight each other. Real or not there were several things here that bothered Caleb. For one he was rather tired of people using magic on him without his consent. In fact, despite the claim of a different planet and universe the dog was convinced this was some trick the Leviathans were playing on him. But second was the fact this sounded something like the tournament the maid girl Camille had run off to. He still remembered the day the sad announcement was made to the staff. But the claim was these fights weren't meant to hurt and without fighting they wouldn't last very long here it sounded like.

 

As the explanation of the circumstances continued Caleb noticed the watch about his left front leg. Now people were putting things on him without his consent. Wonderful. He was surprised it stayed on given his leg wasn't very large in diameter. As the points were explained Caleb noticed the number 50 on his watch like device. One had to wonder how much that meant in terms of purchasing power. The idea of a wish while silly sounded like fun. He could wish to go home and never have people bother him with magic again. That sounded wonderful. By this point he was fully awake and looked at the other individuals who had been brought here. A girl named Xia was the first to speak. This pretty much confirmed this was Leviathan doing. Though he'd never seen this member of the family before. A cousin perhaps? Another girl spoke named Aurora and then a young man named Elijah. None of these people seemed familiar, were they guests at the hotel? He would have introduced himself but as he was about to he saw a familiar face. A dragon granted but a familiar face nonetheless.

 

"Tes!" he called out with a mixture of excitement and relief. The hotel's AI was here, or so he thought. This only further cemented the idea in his mind. "Had me worried there for a second. Time to spill the beans. What is this place? Let me see all the files. And don't give me anything about the information being Leviathan restricted, you know I've got security override codes." he said as he sat by the dragon he supposed to be his AI friend of sorts. He scratched at the back of his head with his right back paw as he continued looking around.

 

"They sure went all out for this didn't they? The heck's the point of it all? Those damn Leviathans. They could have at least mentioned they were making something like this to me. You'd think the security team would need to know about some new attraction." he continued aloud mostly to himself.

[VCR_CAT]

Aria

 

"Okay, now hit me with the boost... no-!" and then everything went dark. Aria stood there, her hands once holding a large musket now empty as she stood in an empty void. "...guys?"

 

Then the room lit up from a single screen in front of Aria showing... someone's face. Aria couldn't quite tell whose. Seemed a little too dramatic for most people to do this sort of thing, anyways.

 

"Welcome to Rama-Indri," they spoke in a strong, husky, voice that gave an impression of constantly hinting at something underneath the surface. The kind of feeling you get from fortune tellers or pick-up artists.

“Ah, pardon me, that was sudden wasn’t it? I should start at the beginning. Or, the closest thing to it. My name is Mauvache and you are currently standing inside of my Arena.”

 

"I'll say," Aria muttered. Mauvache went on to explain what was going on, Aria only half-listening as she spent more time trying to figure things out for herself. There were a lot of people there, and some who were not... people? Was that a dog? Was this a game? Did Aria stumble across some sort of random event that pulled her from the quest and into this sort of, oh okay. PvP arena mode. So that's what was going on. What was strange is that Aria didn't remember this aspect of the game being advertised ever, nor had she ever heard of anyone suddenly disappearing and re-appearing in... what seemed like an entirely different game altogether. Maybe this was a different game the developers had come up with, and Aria was hand-picked to be transferred over?

 

Mauvache explained the watches they all had, and what they could all do. "Couldn't you just give us phones?" Aria mumbled as she looked through the watch. There was a lot of information here; stuff that she would need to look over sometime else.

 

Finally, Mauvache disappeared and left them in the room by themselves, and the others began to introduce themselves; first being the dragon-girl named Xia. Now there was something Aria never saw in Lore before.

 

"Yo, I'm Aria! Level 45 Corsair!" Aria introduced herself confidently to the different girl. Did that dog talk? "What's your level and class? I've never seen anyone like you around before, did you get some kinda exclusive content?"

[👀 REP 👀]

???

---

 

It had been a long time since Cyanthrax had gotten drunk like that; in fact, he couldn't even remember the last time he got wasted enough to black out. And yet, here he was; blacked out, lost in his thoughts. And yet, it felt like he was completely conscious in a pitch black void. Was he unconscious? Before he could ponder on this idea further, a blinding light pierced the darkness, causing him to recoil. It took a while for his eyes to adjust, but when they did he noticed the others around him, before turning his attention to the source of the bright light.

 

"Welcome to Rama-Indri" The women that appeared on the floating screen spoke behind the collar of her coat. “Ah, pardon me, that was sudden wasn’t it? I should start at the beginning. Or, the closest thing to it. My name is Mauvache and you are currently standing inside of my Arena.” As soon as the mysterious lady finished speaking, the room lit up and revealed the other contestants. An interesting group of individuals, that's for sure. 

The lady went on to explain how the way the battles work. He paid enough attention to get the general gist of things, but he was more focused on the other participants. She got to the part about the watch, which prompted him to look at his wrist. Sure enough, there was a watch there with a little bit too much information on it. The most prominent piece of information was the large 50 that was displayed on his screen. 

 

Almost as soon as the lady left the screen, the contestants started talking. "Hello new people! Oh, it's so nice to meet all of you." His attention was brought to a rather tall girl - almost as tall as he was - who seemed to either be part dragon or be wearing some sort of dragon armor. While the other contestants were introducing themselves, it hit him - for once, he didn't have any type of infamy with the people around him. It was a rather strange feeling; one that he wasn't too sure how to react to it. Turning back to the dragon girl - Xia, as she said her name was - he responded to her question with a small grin. "The name's Cyanthrax; Lion of Pride of the Seven Deadly Sins. You can all call me Cyan, however." He let out a wide grin. "Let's hope you can all keep up with me. Fufufu!"

[Maeriberii Haan]

---

 

Complete nothingness was surprisingly comforting. Her senses numbed, only remaining thing left was her thought. It should have been a nightmarish prospect to be subjected to such situation, but it was surprisingly nice. She felt like she had thought about this before. Once. Years ago. Perhaps not even here. But where? Another world? Another life? Ah, perhaps the holes had started to affect her mind. It was nice to have nothing to worry about for once. If this happened a few years ago, it would be something very unpleasant. It would take an instant before her thought completely self-destructs with all the spiteful, venomous voices aimed at her inside.

 

Ah, she remembered that she used to run away from those truthful thoughts by indulging all her senses in pleasure so she couldn't think about them anymore. But right now, without any sensation to be felt, she somehow could still achieve peace. Perhaps people do change.

 

And ah, a world was then born as the girl enjoyed her moment of respite. Complete nothingness was replaced by the more familiar silence and nothingness, and then, light flooded in as the curtain of the world had been lifted. It was a strange thing suddenly waking up to it, and the girl still had little idea about what was happening. She was still having a hard time feeling herself due to the earlier numbing experience. The first things she checked was whether her limbs were still with her and not scattered around the floor, but that seemed to be a non-issue. Her hat was the next thing she checked, and it was fine too thankfully.

 

And then, presences. Strangers. Looking like...wait, they're supposed to be in the same situation as her? The girl was confused. Everything was still utterly confusing her so that she barely reacted about what happened next as a widescreen appeared on the room, following by a figure that explained what was happening.

 

Last thing she remembered was her tinkering the holes around her using magic, but then...nothing. These figures around her didn't seem to be necessarily coming from her world either. At least, perhaps it was not an accident caused by her gaps so far. Right, she had to gather her thoughts first. Even in this strange new place, she's representing Cherry Heart as one of its proud guild member. Puffing her chest a bit, Angela shook off the disorienting feeling on her mind, and focused on what the figure was talking about now.

 

 

 

 

“You have been handpicked by me to compete in my Arena. The battlefields, which you are standing on by the way, will be entirely virtual. This is to keep you from coming to harm. After all we want to entertain, not maim. You will fight against each other in many unique battlefields and earn points. You can use these posts for almost everything here. Food, housing, entertainment, and, if you gain enough, even a Wish from me. Any who doubt my ability to grant such a thing...well, I brought you here, didn’t I?”

 

The figure's words seemed to both make sense and a total nonsense to Angela. Like, it was exactly the boundary of unintelligible blubber and understandable sentence. It was hard to really describe it, but Angela was sure she wasn't supposed to understand part of what she was saying, yet she understood them. It's just so confusing. So this was what people could do with science. Or was it magic? Ah, it's complete nonsense. She shouldn't care about these things.

 

Oh, an unidentified object. A...watch? Angela couldn't say that she understand what it's supposed to be, but she somehow knew about it. There's a mail sent there, and Angela noticed it contained the information on a lot of thing on this strange land. Even now she disliked reading that much text however, so she skimmed through them to only read about what she needed to know now, and put the others for later reading when she needed them, although she doubted it.

 

And ah, the others had finished reading and were introducing themselves to each other. There's the dragon lady Xia, there's the probably human girl Aurora, there's the boy Eli, the white-haired girl Aria that introduced herself in a weird way. Like, seriously, what did she mean with Level 45 Corsair? Was it like a military rank in her universe? And there's also a dog that seemingly could talk, and a dragon...thing...that kind of looked familiar. In a distant way. Ah, probably just fake memories influenced by the holes. And then there's-

 

"The name's Cyanthrax; Lion of Pride of the Seven Deadly Sins. You can all call me Cyan, however. Let's hope you can all keep up with me. Fufufu!"

 

"That's...a long title. Ah! Right right, I'm Angela Celeste Silkans, the one and only Heaven's Hole of the Cherry Heart Guild and Silkans Trading Company, at your service. You can call me Angela.

 

You know...everything is really confusing now, but...Iunno, I'm starting to itch for a sparring session at least. It's kind of a nice way to relax and be familiar with the place, right?"

 

Right, she almost forgot. She checked her back, and noticed that the long, covered shaft was still there. It'd be annoying if Gungnir wasn't with her when she's transported here. Thankfully she was reminded to bring it to the library due to some similar nature between its innate magic and her mysterious holes.

 

"Like uh, I don't know how things go here, but a short scuffle should be fine. I just want to get a chance to flex my tense muscles a bit. God knows how long I'm stuck being numb there."

 

---

[Tesability Black]

~Tesability's POV~

The lone dragon found herself opening her eyes into nothingness, leaving her to wonder if that purple jerk played a prank on her. She let out a muted yawn after realizing she had been drained of energy...wait a minute.

Wings folded in to make sure the yellow couldn't be seen, she brought a claw to her muzzle in thought. The last thing she recalled was being forced to revert back to her crystal state...and there didn't seem to be anyone around.

Then whom was her current Hunter?

The same paw brought to her muzzle was soon raised higher to block out more of the light that suddenly showed, black eyes closing tight as she tried to rub out the spots in her eyes. "Welcome to Rama-Indri," she heard before slowly lowering her paw back to the ground, seeing an...odd figure on the screen. Potentially a person, but still odd. “Some of you might be confused by the latter bit. You see, Existence is made up of many, thousands and thousands, of worlds. You have been brought to one very unlike your own. In fact...It’s not even the same universe!”

With the room now lit, she could properly peek at the room around her. The feeling that she was in a blue-tinted version of the Internet crept up upon the sight, easing her nerves only slightly.

“You have been handpicked by me to compete in my Arena," she heard before finally raising her muzzle back towards the person on the screen. She couldn't tell if it was a person, a Human or a Mage¹, and it was irking her. "The battlefields, which you are standing on by the way, will be entirely virtual. This is to keep you from coming to harm. After all we want to entertain, not maim. You will fight against each other in many unique battlefields and earn points. You can use these posts for almost everything here. Food, housing, entertainment, and, if you gain enough, even a Wish from me. Any who doubt my ability to grant such a thing...well, I brought you here, didn’t I?”

The more this 'person' spoke, they sounded more and more like a hated Mag---wait, what's this about a wish?

Tesability's mind immediately went back to her short trek through the Pathway to Origin, and planted a paw to the front of her muzzle. "Ish Ai awn da Paff againsh?"

“You have attached to you a watch.” Tesability lowered her paw at this statement, confused for the moment on what was meant by a watch until she finally registered something around the forepaw she's been standing on the whole time. It was indeed a watch matching her coloration and modified to not fall off her. However, hers was a little different compared to the others. There was no buttons on hers, only a screen that wasn't a touch screen. But as soon as she wondered about what else the watch was supposed to do, it suddenly brought up a full menu of capabilities. “This will allow you to communicate, send mail, though you will only be able to send each other challenge requests, tell the time, and keep track of your points.”

“Feel free to ask what you need," the Saint Bernard-sized dragon heard, prompting her to raise muzzle back towards the being on the screen. "I’m sure you have many questions, concerns, and comments. But please read over...this mail before. You have free reign to, most, of the Arena and the city beyond. It is currently, to use a system you’d understand, Monday. Which means no battles. But worry not about food, you will be able to eat for free today. But only today. Can’t afford to keep you fed for nothing after all!”

A loud grumble echoed from her stomach at the mention of 'food', having her double over in pain. "Fud esh wiewd," she muttered to herself, still unused to the new need to eat every so often, as the message mentioned before moved from watch to brain, a familiar sensation to her. As she was processing the information, something connected with her.

"Tes!"

Correction, something pounced her. "Had me worried there for a second. Time to spill the beans. What is this place? Let me see all the files. And don't give me anything about the information being Leviathan restricted, you know I've got security override codes."

She just stared blankly at the Dog, thinking for a second that she might not be the only NetMonster until she remember that she never worked at a hotel. NetMonsters had a travel system that made such pointless, making it easy for one to work on one side of the 'Net and be back home only a few minutes on the other side of it. "They sure went all out for this didn't they? The heck's the point of it all? Those damn Leviathans. They could have at least mentioned they were making something like this to me. You'd think the security team would need to know about some new attraction."

"...wha'sh a 'Waviathensh'," Tesability questioned towards the dog, her voice higher and less clear and composed than the dragon that Caleb was thinking about...

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

¹ = The 'a person, a Human or a Mage' distinction is due to the fact that there are Human NetMonsters and Mage NetMonsters in addition to the human players that took the roles of Hunters. Hunters are sometimes referred to as 'persons' in this case. Human NetMonsters have the advantage against Dragon NetMonsters and Dragon NetMonsters tend to pound the faces of Mage NetMonsters.

[Andx]

Whatever Caleb had been expecting Tes to say in response to his inquiries what he hadn't expected was an odd sounding almost not even English question in return. Was this a joke? What was it the dragon had even said? "Wash what?" he said in response. It took him a bit to process but he realized Tes must have been asking him what a Leviathan was. "Have they been messing with your coding again?" the dog questioned wondering what had happened. He scanned the area again looking for something. "What they didn't put a terminal in here? What kind of operation do they think they're.." he said trailing off.

 

There was no terminal here and as best he could tell nothing of the usual equipment that facilitated Tes appearing in a room. Past the screen Mauvache's figure was still displayed on and the watches about their wrists there didn't seem to be much of any tech. He looked at the screen again then back to Tes. Then once more to the screen and then back at Tes. It couldn't be, could it? Slowly he reached a paw out and brushed it up against the edge of one of the creature's wings. To his alarm he felt it there. That wasn't right. It was beginning to register in the dog's mind that the nonsense Mauvache had been sharing with them was in fact the truth and the Leviathans weren't responsible for what was happening. But he had to be sure.

 

"Tes, it's me Caleb. I've see you like almost every day for the last six years. You've gotta recognize me." he said hoping to somehow jog the creature's memory. But if she was an AI like he assumed shouldn't she just always remember everything? Computers confused Caleb. He just used them he didn't try to understand them too thoroughly.

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

 

This was all so...interesting! They had reacted much better than Mauvache had expected. Some were skeptical, or confused, but there was so much interest! And none of them had tried to attack her which was certainly an improvement.

She examined them as they interacted; seemingly doing their best to adapt.

 

Xia, the half-dragon, seemed she didn't notice the difference in her points. That was probably for the best. Of course Mauvache couldn't help this "gift" it was only natural, right? Xia started the ball of introductions and, for that, Mauvache was grateful. This child would be helpful for easing them all into things.

 

Aurora, the ice hero. The one Mauvache chose for a, frankly, sadistic reason. It would be so fun to see her struggle in the days to come. She was the one to directly ask something of Mauvache.

"What about our friends & families?" Aurora asked. "They'll get worried if we're gone, right?"

"Worry not, they won't even notice! Time and space is not so...linear as one might think." Of course that wasn't the full answer. But Mauvache had no reason to expand upon it. Especially given how her voice gave no hint of there being anything more.

 

Her pet project, Caleb, gave the most amusing reaction. She knew he would have a connection to the dragon-like creature and it was partially why she chose him. She wondered how much he'd learn about this world in his desire to understand what was going on. The mention of the Leviathans gave Mauvache a feeling of both amusement and a hint of annoyance. As if they would be able to do what she had done? But she knew he was trying to rationalize it and she saw no reason to correct him without his prompting. Maybe not even then.

Oh this was going to be so fun.

 

Aria, the gamer. Chosen because Mauvache was curious to see how she reacted to the loses she was bound to eventually experience. And because she would be used to such games. Of all of them she was likely most well eqiupted to dealing with this entire thing. Granted this also meant Mauvache would have to be careful with this girl.

 

Cyanthrax, the demon. Mauvache had to be careful when choosing this one. She knew she wanted someone who could be considered villainous in the eyes of the audience. But she didn't want to pick someone...problematic. She was going to enjoy watching this boy. Especially as he immediately set himself up as some kind of antagonistic presence with his arrogant response.

 

The faux dragon. Chosen for so many different reasons. Mauvache's main reason was simply...she wanted to know how she felt about this creature. It was so bizarre and unlike anything else. And Mauvache had seen many creatures. She craved to see what this creature would do...though, perhaps, she should invest in a translator...

 

And then...Hm, what was this? Ciela, the girl chosen due to her unstable nature. She expected her to react the strongest of them all but she was quite bothered by her words.

"Like uh, I don't know how things go here, but a short scuffle should be fine. I just want to get a chance to flex my tense muscles a bit. God knows how long I'm stuck being numb there."

 

"I regret to inform you that will be impossible." Mauvache said, her voice stern. "Fighting is not permitted outside of matches, which you must follow the rules to set up, and it especially is not allowed on Mondays. Those are the rules and you must follow them. The Arena's automated defenses will react to any display of serious conflict. Now..." She chuckled, and spoke sweetly. "Tesability seems hungry, why don't you all go find something to eat?"

Of course she'd let them talk it out more but she had to be sure they knew that they could leave.

A doorway slid open on the side of the room, allowing any who chose to leave this area.

[ChampionZero]

Elijah gave Cyan a critical, but mildly appraising look. "Um... Jeez. Well, I don't mean to say that your pride is misplaced, but I'm," Elijah realized he had an opportunity to create a whole new persona here. None of these people knew him and after this tournament was over, they likely would never see him again. An idea sparked itself aflame in his head, and he fueled it immediately.

 

"Back in my world, I'm the King of Calisdo." He folds his arms across his chest, letting the statement speak for itself. "I think we could go toe-to-toe pretty fairly."

 

Upon Mauvache's cue to go get some food, Elijah turned and looked at the open door. "Well. I'm never one to turn down something to eat." He glances back at Cyanthrax and the others. "You coming along?" He asked vaguely.

[Yui]

---

"Worry not, they won't even notice! Time and space is not so...linear as one might think."

 

Well, that's good news at least. I think. It wasn't long before introduction started flying across the room. And the dog was talking. Just keeping track of all the chaos in the room was difficult. This definitely wasn't any place Aurora was even remotely familiar with, as Mauvache had said.

 

"Uhh. Hi. I'm Elijah. Elijah Diamond. But Eli works if you're not keen on using all five syllables."

 

"Yo, I'm Aria! Level 45 Corsair! What's your level and class? I've never seen anyone like you around before, did you get some kinda exclusive content?"

 

"The name's Cyanthrax; Lion of Pride of the Seven Deadly Sins. You can all call me Cyan, however. Let's hope you can all keep up with me. Fufufu!"

"That's...a long title. Ah! Right right, I'm Angela Celeste Silkans, the one and only Heaven's Hole of the Cherry Heart Guild and Silkans Trading Company, at your service. You can call me Angela. You know...everything is really confusing now, but...Iunno, I'm starting to itch for a sparring session at least. It's kind of a nice way to relax and be familiar with the place, right? Like uh, I don't know how things go here, but a short scuffle should be fine. I just want to get a chance to flex my tense muscles a bit. God knows how long I'm stuck being numb there."

 

"Um... Jeez. Well, I don't mean to say that your pride is misplaced, but I'm. Back in my world, I'm the King of Calisdo." 

 

Freakin' ROYALTY!? There's talking dogs and dragons and a KING!? What is this place...well, no, what was his place like, more like. But he's not a king here, so I guess we're on even footing? I kinda don't want to fight a dog though...

 

"I think we could go toe-to-toe pretty fairly."

 

"I regret to inform you that will be impossible. Fighting is not permitted outside of matches, which you must follow the rules to set up, and it especially is not allowed on Mondays. Those are the rules and you must follow them. The Arena's automated defenses will react to any display of serious conflict. Now... Tesability seems hungry, why don't you all go find something to eat?"

 

"Well. I'm never one to turn down something to eat. You coming along?"

 

"Count me in," Aurora replied, raising her hand and following the King. Food...Aurora had a particular hunger for beef stew, just like papa used to make. What kinds of things would the others eat? Did the dog eat dog food? What did dragons even eat in the first place? Aurora was particularly curious about the animals of the group. Of course, if beef stew wasn't an option, there were plenty of cheap snacks out there too. Pretzels were a particular favorite of Aurora's. Fresh pretzels...Aurora's mouth nearly started watering at the thought of having both that and the beef stew together. With some sort of minty tea as a drink...

 

Focus, me! This ain't a vacation; I need to put on a good show for the people on Ra...whatever this place is called. I'll have to ask about that with whoever's in charge of food.

---

[👀 REP 👀]

???

---

 
"That's...a long title. Ah! Right right, I'm Angela Celeste Silkans, the one and only Heaven's Hole of the Cherry Heart Guild and Silkans Trading Company, at your service. You can call me Angela. You know...everything is really confusing now, but...Iunno, I'm starting to itch for a sparring session at least. It's kind of a nice way to relax and be familiar with the place, right?"" Cyanthrax turned his attention to the girl that spoke. Apparently she called herself Angela Celeste Silkan, the one and only Heaven's Hole and, uh... "You're one to talk! You're title is way longer than mine is!" He puffed his cheeks a bit as the girl spoke, crossing his arms. His attention was diverted from her when the younger fellow spoke. "Back in my world, I'm king of Calisdo. I think we could go toe-to-toe pretty fairly." Cyanthrax couldn't help but smile, before approaching the supposed king. "You think you're anywhere near my level? Just because you're a king? Don't make me laugh! I'd crush you and anyone else here in a fight - in fact, why don't I crush you now?"  However, before he had a chance to attack the king, Mauvache interrupted. Apparently, they weren't allowed to fight at this moment. He let out an annoyed sighed - while the idea of ignoring the lady in the screen was tempting, she had brought him here somehow. Probably not the best idea to cross her. "Tch, whatever." He spoke under his breathe before stretching. "You guys better have some alcohol to go along with the food!" He made his ways towards the doorway that had just opened.

[Alaina]

Xia's face continued to be lit up as everyone went around introducing themselves as well. This was great! People seemed nice enough and all curious about each other as well. There was the one guy who was taller than her who seemed to go by some kind of long name, but was shortened to Cyan. Which was a blue. So he had to be a nice person as well. Then there was the fur creature that spoke! That was new! She had never met a nonhuman who could speak in human languages. This was followed with the strange scaly creature who she wasn't sure what language they were speaking in. Maybe it was just some kind of lizard speak. She would have to try and learn it later. While she was looking to each new person, her attention then snapped forward and down to the girl who had spoken directly to her. 

 

She looked at the girl, her expression very confused as to what she was saying. Her name was Aria, she was a "level 45" and had something to do with coarse hairs. She brought her hand to her chin trying to figure out what exactly the question this Aria meant. She didn't quite understand what "level" was, and the only "class" she knew of was what one of her other friends referred to in regards to teaching her things. But that didn't seem right. No. Oh, this wasn't going well at all. It would be bad if she didn't answer the question, but it would probably be bad as well if she didn't give an acceptable answer. Racking her brain for an answer, she then just hit another part of the question that she could answer. Pointing to herself she hurriedly said, "I am the only me I've seen too!" Thinking on the next part, which she figured meant "why do you look like that," she seemed a bit pensive before hitting some kind of conclusion. Her voice being more confident this time said, "I got this way because my guardian really liked me."

[VCR_CAT]

Aria

 

"the name's Cyanthrax; Lion of Pride of the Seven Deadly Sins. You can all call me Cyan, however." Aria heard a voice from elsewhere in the room speak out. "Let's hope you can all keep up with me. Fufufu!"

 

This supposed "Cyanthrax" (Jesus what a screen name) proceeded to argue with another contestant, demanding that he was a "demon" and the strongest one here. Aria visibly cringed as she overheard this discourse.

 

"Oh my GOD you just can't go anywhere without the edgelord roleplayers, can you?" Aria said out loud, more to herself than anything.

 

"I am the only me I've seen too!" Xia replied, prompting Aria to turn back and face the dragon girl.

 

"Huh?" Aria said, confused.

 

"I got this way because my guardian really liked me."

 

Aria's expression devolved into deeper and deeper confusion, as she scratched her head. This Xia girl wasn't lying, her expression was too... bright and cheerful to be someone just screwing around and roleplaying, and that wasn't exactly a character model from Lore. Aria glanced at her outfit, and acknowledged that she was who she was in the game, and last she checked there wasn't any other kind of VR game like Lore. So if she retained her character model when transported to this new game, then how is anyone else here not like her?

 

"Oh! This is a single player game! That makes sense!" Aria proclaimed, snapping her fingers. "Dang, they did a good job with the interactions here, then!" Aria paused, her hand still scratching her hair. She felt every bit of it, including the air around in the room, the clothing against her skin, the smells, everything. She lowered her hand gently placed it on her wrist. A pusle.

 

"oh my god it's all real," Aria muttered to herself, her face slowly turning a shade of red as she realized how weird everything she said was. Aria lowered her head at this revelation. "Okay, let's just... get some food. Forget I said anything."

[Maeriberii Haan]

---

 

 

Well that was disappointing. Angela put down her spear as she listened to how Mauvache decided that it wouldn't do her good to start a fight now. The others seemed to be up to go eating, but oddly, Angela didn't feel hungry now. She was having an odd itch she just realized ever since she went into this place, and it kind of prompted her to try exploring around. And well...there were some itches down there too, and she wondered whether there's anywhere here she could let loose a bit. But more importantly, she did need to travel around to get to know the area, now that she's stuck here for the time being. She did get the information from the data sent by Mauvache earlier, but...like hell she would read that much info. But before she could go anywhere else, a sentence struck her ear in the midst of people's chatter.

 

"Back in my world, I'm the King of Calisdo."

 

"You...don't really act like a king. You sure you're one?" It wasn't a malicious or a remark that was meant to be offensive or hostile, Angela just felt prompted to say those words to Eli. Was it just her gaps acting up? But even then, she knew that the royal-types don't really act like him. Realizing that her words could be taken in a bad way though, Angela decided to speak up again. "Uh, sorry for that."

 

She opened up her watch's interface again and glanced at the map to see anything of interest, but at the moment, nothing here would really draw her. Perhaps she needed some rest, but the virtual thing on the apartment felt like something she could mess around with a bit.

 

"Hey, I'm coming to the apartments, trying to secure a room while looking around for anything interesting. Anyone want to come with me?"

 

---

[Tesability Black]

~Tesability's POV~

 

"Tes, it's me Caleb. I've see you like almost every day for the last six years. You've gotta recognize me."

Tesability shifted into a sitting position with wings folded in to completely hide the yellow of them, foreshoulders drooping a slight bit. She did feel sorry for this Dog not!NetMonster, but she really isn't whomever he was talking about.

As far as she knew, there was only one Tesability...right?

"...Ai be asweepsh a won' tiem," she started off. "Woaks fwom a fwoppie deesk bai a wiewd pewshons fow a twip thew a 'Paff of Owigen'."

"Tesability seems hungry, why don't you all go find something to eat?" ...whoops, the being talking with her and several others made her forget to listen in to what was happening around her and now, she had no more idea of what was going on. A slight yellow blush beginning to form around her cheeks against the super-dark-grey scales, she flapped into the air before flying out of the room, keeping a 'sniff' out for the strange smell of food...

...

She landed near one particular source of food, the now-familiar smell of the 'chicken' in her nostrils. She didn't have a problem with it, so she wondered if she could get another one. Pawing over towards the source, she had to hop up on her forepaws to bring them up to the counter. "Hey, what can I...well, you're a new face," she heard as the person behind the counter turned to face her before giving a chuckle. "Guessin' you're one of Mauvche's competitors, eh?"

After an exchange that included several requests to repeat herself due to her fangs botching up her speech, Tesability finally got herself a 'whole chicken' that she could eat...bones included, since she seemed to like the tastes of the brown stuffs inside them

[ChampionZero]

"You...don't really act like a king. You sure you're one?"

 

Elijah noticed he was being addressed and tilted his head back and forth in thought for a moment.

 

"Uh, sorry for that."

 

He chuckled. "Don't worry," He said, following. "We're from different dimensions it would seem, so our respective ideas of what a King is and how they should act are likely to differ. I'm from a rather modern society, so the role of King has it's own nuances. Besides, I had to overthrow the previous king single-handed: I deserve to act however I damn well please."

 

Elijah giggled internally. This was what he lived for. He was going to have to start calling his Game Face "The King."

 

"But enough of that. If I'm going to be dragged into an arena I didn't want to be in for the third time, I want to get something to eat too!" Using his new watch, Elijah pulled up a map of the place and plotted his path to the nearest source of food.

[Alaina]

After stating what she did to the girl near her, Xia cocked her head in confusion as the girl seemed to be lost in her own thoughts about something. As it stood, everyone seemed to be looking to get some kind of meal to eat, which made sense. Food was generally a good thing to have, after all, and she could've used some food herself. However, before following everyone else, the light blue haired girl, Angela, spoke up about going to find "a part mints," which sounded equally as exciting. Looking over to her, face lit up with enthusiasm, she raised her hand saying, "oh, I will!" With that, the girl walked over to the blue headed girl and proceeded to leave the premises of the room they were in. 

 

Outside the room, the duo founds themselves in a white hallway. Immediately in view, across from them, there was a door that looked quite similar to the one that they had just exited out of. While Xia was curious about what had lied beyond it, the door seemed to be unusable as a bright red sign above it said, "Closed For Day." Well phooey. Trying to find where else to go next, the girl looked to the right to see a wall, and to the left to see another door. Walking to where the other door was, it became clear that this was an elevator, mostly due to the button next to it that said "call elevator." Looking at it she simply said, "hello Elevator," before curiously pressing the button to see what it would do. Her face lighting up in surprise as the door opened up, she then proceeded to go into the small room that was beyond them. 

 

Looking around the area, it was a very small room, like a box, and one that had the doors close automatically once they were inside. The only thing of note to the room, as well, was a large collection of buttons near the door, all labeled with a number of some sort except for one in particular. It had the label of "Apartments." Apartments.  A part ments. A part mints! That must have been what she was looking for. Feeling momentarily proud of herself, the girl went to go push the button, only for a voice to come out of nowhere saying, "please show your apartment key." 

 

The girl became more alert as the voice came out, trying to look around to see where it came from, before she noticed that the watch she had was glowing. Looking at it with a face of wonder, the girl tried to figure out what was going on, when a glowly, somewhat see through model of what looked to be a key. Figuring this was the thing that they needed to use in order to get inside, the dragon girl went to grab at it, only for her hand to pass through the key image. A bit surprised by it, the girl went to go trying to grab at the key again, only for the same thing to happen. A more pensive look appeared across her face as she tried to figure out the riddle behind this glowy key thing. 

[Maeriberii Haan]

 

The dragon girl seemed to have roughly the same idea as Angela on how did this world even works. Which was to say, completely nonexistent. She was just moving around, wondering what was up with everything, and then she and the dragon girl entered a small room all of the sudden. What was up with that? It made Angela nervous a bit. Granted, the dragon girl was seemingly more interested in trying out the buttons, and suddenly there was a voice asking for a key of sort.

 

Angela frantically checked her watch to see if there was anything about it. She saw that a key was being projected by the dragon girl's watch, and after several frantic tries, she managed to figure out how to do the same. But what's next? It's not like the key was tangible. And there's no door that would need to be opened either, aside from the door of this small metal room. Were the two stuck? Angela felt a bit bothered by that possibility. Of course, she felt nothing now, but between boredom and the potential heat, she might start consider...but for now, she was satisfied with just eyeing Xia. Her eyes focused on her figure, a thought suddenly passed through her mind.

 

"Hey, maybe we should show that key image somewhere? That's what the voice wanted, right? Maybe there's some sort of eyes or anything similar here that we could flash the key image on, or something like that."

 

---

[VCR_CAT]

Aria

 

Somebody else in the room announced that they were going to check out the apartments, and Xia excitedly ran off with her. Three others broke off to look for food, while the... dog and the... thing went off on their own already. Aria stood there in the room, her expression betraying her disappointment in the situation. Just when it looked like she was starting to really make some friends with Lore, she's dumped here, at the bottom of the social pyramid, and forced to claw her way back up once again. The room was a lot more quiet with just Aria in there now, a silence broken by the loud growl of her stomach.

 

"Well, it's not like I'm without something to do," she said with a sigh, look at her watch and pulling up a map. "funk!" she exclaimed dropping her arms. "I can't read ENGLISH!" she glanced at the watch again, and felt her cheeks flush again. Something about this place broke the language barrier, and she realized that she was speaking english the entire time. "Thank goodness nobody else was here," she mumbled as she went down the hall hunting down the place that provided food that reminded her of home. It had been a long time since she had a proper pork cutlet.

[Alaina]

 

As Xia continued to swat her hand at the shimmering key image, it continued to not actually be a physical object and her hand continued to pass through it. She didn't quite get what she was supposed to do until the blue haired girl next to her had given her a suggestion on what to do next. Look or a place to put the key image, hm? She looked at the shimmering key. She then looked around to see a glowing blue scanner. She looked back and forth between the two, before she finally brought her arm up slowly and cautiously to the scanner. As they got level with one another, there was a "beep" noise, as it sounded like a low hum was whirring all around them. While a bit confused as to what was going on, eventually the door opened up to reveal another room. 

 

With a triumphant and excited look on her face, she turned to Angela with both thumps saying, "yay, we did it!" As she walked into the next room to see the spoils of her victory, her expression dropped into one of shock at the sight. They were in...another magic box. This one had been much larger than the one before, and the buttons across the wall were different. They were simply pictures of arrows denoting left, right, up and down, with one in the middle saying "open," and a sign above it saying "don't cross the streams." 

 

Pumping herself up to figure out what the mystery behind these buttons were, she figured that the best way to start was to simply push them at random. Intensely staring at the buttons, she simply hit up, up, left, down and then open. As the new magic box seemed to take in her inputs, the door eventually opened and the duo then found themselves staring down a new area. A long hallway, a gray carpet along the floor, with wooden looking doors each with panels similar to the glowing one in the elevator lining the walls. Looking closer at the doors, Xia could tell that they were numbered, but every time she looked to another door it seemed like she just didn't know what the last doors numbers were. Spooky. The thought of writing tally marks across her arm crossed her mind, but shaking the thought off, the girl proceeded to venture forth into the new room. 

 

Walking up to the first door she saw, the girl attempted to simply shove it open, putting her hand to the wooden looking rectangle and pushing against it. It would not budge. A pensive look crossed her face as to how to open this door with no handles, when her attention was drawn to the beeping panel next to it. Thinking it the same as the elevator, the girl simply put her watch to the scanner only for it to respond with, "Invalid Key." 

 

Invalid?! "Oh no!" The dragon girl hung her head in defeat as she was best by the mystic squares once again. Looking to Angela with her shame apparent on her face she said, "I'm sorry Ange. I couldn't solve this door's secrets." 

[Maeriberii Haan]

---

 

 

"I'm sorry Ange. I couldn't solve this door's secrets."

 

Angela was as confused as Xia about what were they supposed to do. Was there any other sort of key needed to enter the rooms? Angela brought up her watch to start looking up for information about the key, and after skimming it for a while, she was convinced that it's supposed to be the right key. So why wouldn't the door open? Angela manifested her key too and flashed it towards the supposed scanner, only to get the same response of "Invalid Key". It was frustrating, and something was definitely wrong, and so Angela repeatedly tried to flash the key over and over again, and when that failed, she repeatedly knocked on the door to see if she could instead push it open.

 

"Invalid Key. Guard has been notified. Please report to nearest Guard Station"

 

"Wait, wait, wait, what is going on?"

 

Angela looked at the dragon girl on her side. She was starting to panic. Oh, how much was she unable to deal with the authorities well. She was sorry to drag Xia into this mess, but she was starting to get desperate to enter the room too. Ignoring Mauvache's words on not starting any form of violence in the city, Angela pulled her Gungnir and started to make rapid random thrusting moves around, while chanting for a bit. With the swings stored and the attack chant made, with all of her might, Angela thrusted her spear towards the door. In the span of one second, something like a hundred spear thrusts were made in an instant towards a singular point on the door, but then suddenly the lights turned into red.

 

 "The guard is on their way. Please remain in position."

 

"...Gah, what kind of mess are we in now...? I'm sorry, Xia."

 

Angela stopped her attempt to drill through the door as a shimmery barrier surrounded the two of them, around 10 feet wide in estimate. Something was coming, and whatever it was, it wouldn't be good news. With Gungnir in her hand, Angela stood her ground, preparing herself for whatever she had managed to summon, and shortly after, a creature revealed itself. It was a monstrous floating head, really large with 6 feet in width, and purely made of flesh. It had a singular eye on a first glance, but careful examination that what looked like its tentacle hairs were actually eyestalks too. Its teeth are bared at the two trapped inside of the barrier, and it definitely looked like trouble.

 

"It looked ugly...well, I guess we have no choices but to fight it...right?"

 

Angela stood her ground with the spear prepared, wind starting to pick up around her body. Had the barrier wasn't there to block her, she would have started attacking in that instant. She only hoped that Xia wouldn't get into much trouble after this. Damn that Mauvache for not giving even basic guide on how this world works in the first place. What kind of host would do that to their guests?

 

---

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

---

Aurora, and Cyanthrax

---

As the two fighters gathered, apparently deciding where to eat, they would find themselves in the hallway outside of the room. They would remember that they walked out of it but, upon second thought, couldn't quite remember actually moving. In either case the white walls of the hallway were none too inviting and they would soon realize the only place to go was the elevator.

As they stepped inside they would find themselves in a small box with a single keypad with buttons for five floors and an "apartment" button. Their watches would respond to their desires and show the map of the Arena. It would indicate that the second floor of the Arena, one floor below them, would be the best place for food.
Down there they'd have two options. The concession stands, which were nearest, and could get Aurora the pretzels she craved, and the bar, which would have more specific options and, as the demon had desired, drinks.

Whatever they chose, the area they found themselves in now was a long hallway, with the same white walls as the above, that branched off into several rooms.

They would see several people moving from room to room, cleaning, eating, and going about their business. The most notable thing would be that the majority of the people had some kind of animal parts. Usually ears, tails, sometimes more however. They seemed to notice the fighters but, upon reflecting for a moment, appeared to realize who they were and let them go about their business.

---

Caleb

---

The dog was moved out of the room after the trio. He seemed to have been undecided as to where he would go and so his watch remained inactive. He'd notice Aria leaving, though she seemed to not notice him, and he'd be left as the only one there. Several moments passed before a spherical robot, two-feet in diameter with a glowing blue light in the center, approached him. "The virtual battlefields are closed for the day. Please move on." It would repeat this several times.

---

Aria

---

Aria, entering the elevator after the duo, would notice her watch flashing a notification. Evidently spurred on by her desire it gave directions to the bar, where she would have the best bet at finding the food she desired. She would see the same hallway as the trio before her but, as she left the elevator on the second floor, the three had already went to their chosen destination. Aria would have to pass by the rooms along the way to reach the bar, at the far end of the hallway.

---

Tesability

---

Having entered the concession area before anyone else, Tesability would be watched more intently than the others. She was the first of Mauvache's fighters to intermingle with the workers after all. The man behind the counter, dark skinned with tiger-like ears, tail, and whiskers, watched in fascination as she devoured the chicken. "Not many people appreciate good meat in the way I do, good to see one of you fighters has fine taste!" The man said.

The other workers seemed to not be very busy as it was a Monday, no fights scheduled, though it looked as though customers weren't barred from the Arena as there were some people milling about still.

A small group of young men and women were slowly getting closer to Tesability while she ate. Soon enough they'd be around her, pestering her with questions about who she was and what she did and when she'd make her debut.

"Hold it now kiddies Mauvache don't want her fighters to be swarmed like that, back it up a bit." The man at the food truck Tesability was eating at said gruffly. The group looked annoyed at his words but didn't pester Tesability more. Though they still looked at her expectantly, hoping she'd say something to them.

[spoiler=OOC]Alright so to be clear the order of who gets into the elevator is.

Tesability

Xia and Angela.

Elijah, Aurora, and Cyanthrax.

Aria

Caleb

Also try and at least check where the people above you in order went before posting so you know if they'd be there when you...get wherever you're going.