[It is a fact universally acknowledged that any post-apocalyptic society will eventually produce three things: Motorbike-riding raiders wearing leather and bones; weird drugs that are probably radioactive; and fight clubs.
Buried deep down in the not-quite lowest levels of the settlement that sprung up in Shibuya Subway Station is the last of those (although also, given what the competitors are sometimes like, quite a bit of the first two).
It's a bad, dangerous way to earn money, but it is a way to earn money, so Yamato finds himself down here more often than he'd like. It's simple, too, you just pick up a coloured token, and when your colour is called, you climb in the old boxing ring and fight it out with whoever has the matching token.
Today, Yamato's token is purple, and as the previous fight ends, the commentator yells for the purple fighters to get ready and into the ring. Yamato's cue to strip off his shirt and clamber in on one side of the ring, ducking under the ropes.
… Except now the commentator is playing up how he's a 'fragile, delicate waif,' and c'mon. He's never been delicate in his life.]
[They did things like this back home. The difference then was that it was a child's game, given as much respect. Nobody in this room is a child, and none have any delusions of being above it all, too holy for basic entertainments. It's an honest way to be, Walter thinks.
He's had almost enough time to adjust to the way the place smells when his color is called. He makes a brief show of taking off his sword and tying it to the ropes with his coat - pure posturing. He doesn't even need to, being a novelty, foreign and a magnet for attention good and bad. But it's fun to watch the same old boyish nonsense pull cheers and jeers again, here, a world away. Likely nobody in this room had been pushed into a lake for any reason, horseplay or otherwise, but they know a taunt when they see a guy stretching, theatrically, as though to quickly limber up before the main event.]
Rattled already? [He flashes a grin, swinging his arms across his chest.] Keep it together, man. We've not even started.
[Yamato gives a dry chuckle, rolling out his shoulders. Some banter is to be expected in this kind of setting, and it's definitely better than the grim, serious fighters who scowl and refuse to indulge in a little friendly back and forth.]
Don't worry. Once we get started, this'll be over too quickly for me to be rattled.
[He flashes a quick grin in return, just for a few seconds.]
No prizes for flatterers! [Okay, time to wrap it up, here comes the bell. Walter drops into stance, ready to spring at the word go - he's used to wrestling matches on the docks, so that's what he's winding up for.]
[ 1) Step back into the now-undigested side of space where Reverie Terminal swings around a lonely planet. 2) Finish the job you started. Turn the place inside out. Drop the refusers on the Bureau's doorstep (with love). 3) Get it moving. Refurbish it, break orbit, and blow this popsicle stand. 4) Uhhhhhhhhhhh
Space is big. Space is...unmoored. But it's not like they're on a deadline - well, no, they are to an extent, the replicators can't make food out of nothing forever - but the current calculations point to the food being likely to outlast the nerves of this nest of devils. At some point, someone will suggest setting a course, and they'll get around to it then. Freedom is a taste too sweet to not just savor for a week or two.
Not that Erika doesn't keep herself busy. She multitasks ferociously, bullying the station's remaining terminals into preparations for the eventual trip planning, hanging over shoulders and reacquainting herself with her nestmates, and...resting. She rests now. It's a skill and a value she brought back with her to the station, along with a few pounds of muscle, a few ounces of worldly confidence, an increased appreciation for spicy food, and also a sword.
The sword lives in her room, but her room hasn't really been her room in any of the days since returning, all her time spent in more central areas, or in the VR room that really should just be declared her room already. Its door still opens onto an impossible space, though one quickly filling up with rough delineations, platforms and walls that are still figuring out how to be walls.
Erika steps through, and the ground is convinced to be ground, glossy ergonomic white in the just-the-other-side-of-real way of VR. She pushes the infinity out to the edges as though clearing a spot on a desk, and implicitly beckons Venus in behind her, hitching the bag she's carrying a little further up her back.]
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Buried deep down in the not-quite lowest levels of the settlement that sprung up in Shibuya Subway Station is the last of those (although also, given what the competitors are sometimes like, quite a bit of the first two).
It's a bad, dangerous way to earn money, but it is a way to earn money, so Yamato finds himself down here more often than he'd like. It's simple, too, you just pick up a coloured token, and when your colour is called, you climb in the old boxing ring and fight it out with whoever has the matching token.
Today, Yamato's token is purple, and as the previous fight ends, the commentator yells for the purple fighters to get ready and into the ring. Yamato's cue to strip off his shirt and clamber in on one side of the ring, ducking under the ropes.
… Except now the commentator is playing up how he's a 'fragile, delicate waif,' and c'mon. He's never been delicate in his life.]
Hey! Stop riling the damn crowd up against me.
no subject
He's had almost enough time to adjust to the way the place smells when his color is called. He makes a brief show of taking off his sword and tying it to the ropes with his coat - pure posturing. He doesn't even need to, being a novelty, foreign and a magnet for attention good and bad. But it's fun to watch the same old boyish nonsense pull cheers and jeers again, here, a world away. Likely nobody in this room had been pushed into a lake for any reason, horseplay or otherwise, but they know a taunt when they see a guy stretching, theatrically, as though to quickly limber up before the main event.]
Rattled already? [He flashes a grin, swinging his arms across his chest.] Keep it together, man. We've not even started.
[It's all banter.]
no subject
Don't worry. Once we get started, this'll be over too quickly for me to be rattled.
[He flashes a quick grin in return, just for a few seconds.]
no subject
no subject
[Yamato drops into his stance as well, arms tensed. As soon as the bell rings, he surges forward, aiming a fast, powerful punch at Walter's jaw.]
ok disclaimer that i'm fucking terrible at fight choreography.
ahaha, no worries
;)
2) Finish the job you started. Turn the place inside out. Drop the refusers on the Bureau's doorstep (with love).
3) Get it moving. Refurbish it, break orbit, and blow this popsicle stand.
4) Uhhhhhhhhhhh
Space is big. Space is...unmoored. But it's not like they're on a deadline - well, no, they are to an extent, the replicators can't make food out of nothing forever - but the current calculations point to the food being likely to outlast the nerves of this nest of devils. At some point, someone will suggest setting a course, and they'll get around to it then. Freedom is a taste too sweet to not just savor for a week or two.
Not that Erika doesn't keep herself busy. She multitasks ferociously, bullying the station's remaining terminals into preparations for the eventual trip planning, hanging over shoulders and reacquainting herself with her nestmates, and...resting. She rests now. It's a skill and a value she brought back with her to the station, along with a few pounds of muscle, a few ounces of worldly confidence, an increased appreciation for spicy food, and also a sword.
The sword lives in her room, but her room hasn't really been her room in any of the days since returning, all her time spent in more central areas, or in the VR room that really should just be declared her room already. Its door still opens onto an impossible space, though one quickly filling up with rough delineations, platforms and walls that are still figuring out how to be walls.
Erika steps through, and the ground is convinced to be ground, glossy ergonomic white in the just-the-other-side-of-real way of VR. She pushes the infinity out to the edges as though clearing a spot on a desk, and implicitly beckons Venus in behind her, hitching the bag she's carrying a little further up her back.]
Watch your step over the edge here.
[Please don't trip.]