Choose your destiny! Flawless victory! [Inevitable Tournament Arc]

[meat_mooks]

No sooner did the Obs Deck descend to Arena Planet LXIII, and the crew allowed to disembark, than they were met by a veritable cloud swarm of cameras. Sleek, elegant things that might have been living, might have been machines, maybe were even magical... but were definitely nuisances as the swooped around to capture video of the crew at all conceivable angles, close up and far away. Their every move from this point on would be on camera.

In front of a small crowd of retainers stood what appeared to be a great circular orb whose only distinguishing features were a nose, and what appeared to be the most overblown mustache ever, which actually appeared to be supporting that two-foot-diameter orb at shoulder height to a tall man. Then the orb took a couple of steps forward,revealing that no, those were actually just really, really hairy legs. A seam cracked open on the creature, and in a voice loud enough to echo across the broad open plains without any need for amplification, it bellowed, "AND NOW! STRAIGHT FROM THE TRANSMIGRATION NINE VESSEL! OUR NEWEST COMPETITORS! FRESH TO THE STAGE OF BATTLE, BUT NO STRANGERS TO WAR--"

It went on like this for some time.

Under cover of this introduction, a small man that to all appearances seemed to be the love child of Richard Nixon and a particularly aggressive Furby stepped forward, and in a bored businesslike tone recited, "Welcome to the tournament. There will be one battle per day. The arena in which you battle will be determined by random draw. Our medical crew will perform all healing necessary and ensure no deaths so feel free to not hold back. Please refrain from accepting any bribes or favors from on-planet spectators--"

"--ARE YOU READY?!" the orb bellowed even louder than before, completely swamping the smaller man's recitation. "THEN STEP THIS WAY!"

And so saying, the orb and its procession began a clearly well-choreographed procession towards a large, medieval-looking fortress that hung dramatically just on the edge of clear vision. (Conveniently, this procession passed several large advertisements.)

Comments

[thewunderkind]

Lash burst out laughing when she stopped speaking.

"Tee hee hee! Wow that is one BUTT UGLY suit of armor! You look like Flak if I put a bunch of razor blades on him...but a girl! At least I think you're a girl. I can't tell from your large mustache!"

The insulting was deliberate. The first step in getting your foes disoriented was insulting them. If it made them angry, she'd take their rage easier. If they ended up being nothing but big crybabies...then this fight would end up pretty easily. Regardless, she wasn't just laughing, but mentally checking the area around to see what she could use against her, in terms of terrain. She was the specialist in this, after all. And if she did try to charge at her in anger, Lash was more than ready to step away, even if her body seemed to say otherwise.

So please, continue to underestimate her.

[meat_mooks]

Little did Lash know that the apparent underestimating was deliberate as well, as was the anger Ex feigned at Lash's furious comments. "I'll make you eat those words and watch them spill from your own intestines as they lie cooling in the snow!" she bellowed, advancing forward through the light snowpack that had accumulated down here.

[thewunderkind]

Ahh. A underestimateception, if you will.

"Oh I'm so scared! Not!"

Lash...stayed exactly where she was. No use in running towards your foe while she was doing a pretty good job herself. Now...how rightly packed was this snow, she wondered...

[meat_mooks]

The snow was fairly loose, having mostly blown down from above. At the sides of the canyon it packed more tightly against the rocky walls thanks to the wind. Hopefully she had a plan to put into effect quickly, though, because the gap would be closed soon enough!

[thewunderkind]

And lo, there was not much more waiting to be had because Lash took out her gun and...fired at one of the more tightly packed snowbanks, hopefully unbalancing her opponent or even more hopefully have the entire thing fall on her and make her fall to her doom. That could be FANTASTIC!

But yeah, hopefully thinking. Regardless, she didn't even wait, and whispered her Commanding Officer phrase, to be prepared.

[meat_mooks]

Without looking at the snow, her foe lifted her shield. A panel on the front slid open; from the inner container concealed within that shield, a massive burst of blood rushed outwards like something from a samurai movie. Four feet from her, it stopped as if it hit a wall, spreading out in a wide disc. When the snow topped onto the broad disc, it fell as if it had slid off the shield itself.

At the same time, the Exsanguinator lifted her sword and pointed it at Lash. Two tubes built into the crosspiece swiveled open as she touched a hidden switch, and more blood poured down the fuller of the blade on each side. It gathered for a moment, thick and wet, before launching itself at extraordinary speed, like a lance, at Lash's chest.

[thewunderkind]

She only had time to dodge to the left swiftly as it nearly struck her and touched the side. "EWWWWW!" She said all to very maturely. "Those attacks are so gross!" Gross and kinda cool, but still gross. The fall caused her to be distracted enough but she held on rather easily thanks to her CO powers. OTherwise...she would have been the one gone in that hole. Rather embarrassing.

"OKAY! NOW I'm pissed off." She moved her sleeves so that her henshin item could be activated and turned into the yellow ranger, unconsciously doing a pose, before taking out the gun and firing at the opponent, using the ranger-enhanced powers to move along the snowbank at rapid speeds.

[meat_mooks]

"Did you seriously just do a magic girl transformation?" the Exsanguinator sneered. She brought her blood shield around in front of her to block the gun shots, which thumped through it and dropped limply on the other side into the snow. The Exsanguinator's sword tracked Lash, but didn't strike out with another shot again -- either it couldn't fire through the shield, or it needed to be recharged.