Big Trouble in Little Tong-An
Word Count: 3610
Juri had turned to look at Edward, her mouth falling open in some kind of bemused, slack-jawed sneer.
”Haah? What the hell? Was that English?” She scoffed.
”Pip pip cheerio guvnah!” She swung her arms jovially, before cracking into a giggle.
Rika had, despite her earlier burst of enthusiasm about taking part, been a little nervous about it as they approached. The relatively low turnout (though admittedly still better than yesterday’s official matches) let this mellow out just a little.
The sight of a bowl of rice sitting steaming on the table of a faux
Chinese restaurant that made up one of the stages meanwhile fully distracted her from the observers, and caused her to split off from the spectators as she went for it.
Her gaunted hand was however deftly parried away from the deft palm of an athletic
young man who’d already been present in the stage.
“I’m happy to see you’re enthusiastic about my cooking” he said to the confused and disappointed shipgirl, before explaining that “but you’ll need to wait for the match to start before go about grabbing items”
”Wait… The food’s part of the fighting?” Rika asked, blinking in confusion for a moment before her eyes lit up with delight
”Treasure and snacks? This is the best tournament ever!” which got a good natured laugh from the man, who then introduced himself as “Wang-Tang”
”Rika” The ship girl replied in turn.
”It ain’t a tournament. Tourneys have stakes, and losers weepers. This is- I don’t even know what it is.” Juri said dismissively.
”An excuse to break stuff, I guess. But breakin’ stuff you’re allowed to break is hardly as fun as smashin’ somethin’ someone really likes. That’s where the real rush is,” She crossed her arms and leaned over.
”Rika.” In response the ship girl frowned a little, unsure how Juri was unable to see the superiority of the free food tournament (or game or what have you). Then she tilted her head to the side in confusion and asked
”So… why are you here then?” because if it was to help the UN to make people like this thing she wasn’t doing a very good job.
”What are ya, stupid?” Juri asked. She went to put her knuckle onto Rika’s head.
”I’m here to wreck the place, obviously.” She was here for the Seekers to make a distraction for the Consul. The way Juri saw it, her making a scene only aided in that cause. Not that she wouldn’t have done so, anyway.
“We
are intended to
help get these games off the ground, if you’ll recall,” another woman’s voice piped in. Yayama strolled closer, sword propped atop one shoulder. “Speaking as an expert in brooding angrily, you’d best take it out on something a bit less directly aligned with our cause.” She briefly turned to wave a farewell to Charlotta; the two had been chattering just before Yayama’s prodigiously-sized ears caught the discussion between the two Seekers.
At that point, with all four contestants assembled, the Power Stone Games’ yellow, football-headed
announcer turned his attention their way. Having just started another match in the neighboring Ōedo stage, his megaphone was primed and ready to kick off another clash. “Okay, you four ready?” he called down from his watchtower. “Then get set, ‘cause we’re going in three, two, one, action!”
Upbeat Chinese music, fitting for this arena, began to play as giant takeout boxes and treasure chests flickered into existence around the contestants, able to be used as projectiles or cracked open for the battle-ready goodies inside.
As a veteran of the Power Stone Games, Wang-tang knew just how to kick things off. “Ha!” He deftly scooped up the bowl of rice Rika had been eyeing earlier and slung it straight at her. “Eat up!” Then he skillfully hopped the bar to pop open a treasure chest, then seized the
flower wand within for use as a weapon.
Rika brought up her gunleted hand to block the bowl, which stopped the actually (mildly) dangerous part of the projectile, but did result in her being showered with sticky rice. It didn't exactly hurt her in any way other than psychologically, but it did get stuck in her hair (she’d not worn her helmet specifically so she could eat the food on display)
She wasted valuable seconds shaking her head like a wet dog, spraying rice grains all over, and with a somersault Wang-tang cleared the counter in order to whack Rika with a tricky flourish of his flower wand. When he struck, a flower sprouted from the former abyssal’s head, slowly sapping her stamina.
Yayama, meanwhile, chose to go the more direct route. She hefted one of the takeout boxes over her head and hurled it in Juri’s general direction, using it as a cover for the rush she immediately followed it with. Using her momentum, she aimed a weighty slash at Juri’s legs, aiming to knock her down to the Warrior of Darkness’s level.
Juri had set her hands on her hips, looking around the place half-interested.
”Haah?” She turned with a raised eyebrow to the treasure chest coming her way. Sticking her foot up and out, she caught the takeout box and then slammed it down to parry the slash aimed at her legs.
This cracked the box letting Juri rip off its lid (also with her foot) and grab whatever was inside (still no hands).
It was the mighty
Banana Gun. Juri gave it a squeeze and the singular banana bullet popped out towards Yayama. If it came in contact with her, it would explode! Launching her away.
”Hey, genius, you’re supposed to use what’s in the boxes.”While those two juked it out, a flower topped Rika first launched herself into the air with her featherfall rune to avoid more blooming bonks, before exclaiming
”Treasure!” upon sighting the chest, and firing her grappling hook down at it to reel herself down towards it.
“Hey!’ Wang-tang went after her, but Rika’s agility meant she reached her prize far faster. Once the chest creaked open, she reached inside and pulled out a
swirling disc of quicksand. As she bent down to retrieve it, Wang-tang’s flying kick missed, and he sailed over her to crash into a decorative cupboard. It fell onto him and exploded into a pile of debris with the martial artist’s head poking out, but when he broke free a moment later by flexing, he found a sky-blue power stone among the wreckage.
Rika’s eyes sparkled with desire as she saw the stone. She needed it deeply, and so with a cry of
”Gimme!” she hurled the sandtrap like a throwing glaive at Wang-tang, before firing her grappling hook at the stone. Wang-tang deflected the disc, which became an actual pit of quicksand the moment it hit the ground beside him, then tightened his grip on his power stone to engage in an impromptu game of tug-of-war.
Rika gribbed her end of the cable with both arms, but the little girl wasn’t exactly going to win a strength contest with the full grown martial artist. Which was why she switched tacks. She stopped resting and went with the flow, her grappling hook reeling her towards Wang-Tang while she charged up a vaultbreaker punch to slam into him. A telegraphed attack for sure, but one with enough force behind it that that might not matter one bit.
Yayama, meanwhile, made the mistake of attempting to block the projectile. The resulting blast sent her careening through the air, forestalling any sort of pithy retort. Used to being tossed about, she adapted quickly, transforming her sword into a scythe and using that to hook around one of the restaurant’s support pillars. Rather than aim for Juri, however, she targeted the duo duking it out near the bar, aiming to scatter them like a living cannonball.
Accelerated by centripetal force, Yayama hurtled into Rika and Wang-tang in the midst of their scuffle, and all three shot into the counter. Apparently very flimsy, it shattered like paper mache, allowing the fighters to smack into the shelf of booze behind the bar, then bounced off in random directions with surprisingly minimal damage. Wang-tang sprawled out by the door, Rika tumbled into the quicksand, and Yayama landed near the stairs with the power stone in arm’s reach.
The impact with the bar shelf also sent a number of the cans flying around the restaurant. Cracked open and carbonated, they bounced around like fish out of water. If they hit anyone (or got scooped up and hurled like grenades) they would explode in a fizzy blast, doing minimal damage but inflicting the effects of the
gag beers contained within. As multiple cans bounced his way, Wang-tang hurriedly composed himself and lashed out with skilled kicks to deflect one, then another. Unfortunately, a Blackreach Blonde rebounded off the wall and struck him from behind, forcing him to dance.
Rika for her part was unable to avoid the shower of booze due to being stuck in her own pit trap. She was hit, in rapid succession, by first an Underhill Deluxe, which shrunk her to diminutive size, and then by a Wormhole Special, which caused her to vanish from both the pit and from view entirely.
Having far too many experiences with shady concoctions of all stripes, Yayama elected for teetotaling today after skidding to a halt. Snagging the power stone, she spun around and deftly deflected two cans of beer with the flat of her blade before ducking under a third. “Hah!” A fourth promptly nailed her in the forehead, exploded, and prompted her to start floating up into the air. “Oi!” She snatched at her hat as it made its best attempt at floating away, leading to a rather maladroit juggling act of trying to retain a hold on the garment, the stone, and her weapon all at once.
Juri let out some half amused noise from behind the cover of a pillar. Those beers went insane. After Yayama had elected to attack the others instead, Juri’s contrarian nature obligated her to sideline herself, which left her able to duck and cover. Hands on her hips, she considered when the best time to get involved would be. If at all. She flicked the banana peel forward into a random spot.
”Alright, c’mon, gimme some!” She jumped up to meet Yayama in the air. She aimed to snatch at the power stone and push the zero g gnome away with her feet.
”Yoink!”By now there were only four beers still bouncing around, but while dancing Wang-tang couldn’t defend himself when a can of foamy orange Flintlocke’s Delight ruptured at his feet. The moment the fiery grog entered his system, explosions began to go off every second or so, each of which sent him hurtling around the room in a random direction. Of course, within the first few blasts he happened to cannon straight into Juri, potentially dislodging her grip on the power stone formerly known as Yayama’s. Then he proceeded to cause havoc around the restaurant, destroying plenty of furniture. In the wake of his devastation he left behind a
Ramblin’ Evil Mushroom, an
Inflate-a-bull that could give anyone a bouncy mascot suit, and two more power stones, one orange and the other lime green. By the time the Flintlocke’s Delight wore off, Wang-tang’s was laid out flat on the floor, his eyes spinning.
Juri sat up a few feet away from him, crossing her legs and setting her chin in her hand.
”Wait, there’s more ‘n one of those frickin’ things?” She pointed at the power stones.
”What the hell do they even do?” She got up and started walking over to one. She picked up the lime green one and held it between two fingers. She was going to try crushing it between her hands like a powerup, or even taking a bite out of it.
A swirling blast of purple energy shot toward Juri’s outstretched arm. After escaping from the pile of wood formerly known as a table she’d careened into, Yayama tossed an Unmend in Juri’s general direction. This was closely followed by another can of beer, one that she didn’t bother checking the label on before smacking it like an expert batter using the flat of her blade.
At that very moment, the tiny Rika reappeared, now shivering sporting a dusting of snow. This, however, did nothing to change the current situation, as she had re-appeared in the sandtrap pit and was promptly sucked back down into it again.
Juri stumbled as the Power Stone was wrenched out of her hands by an Unmend. She ducked underneath the beer and glared at Yayama.
”Annoying little brat.” She said, heterochromic eyes glittering with violent intent as she lowered her stance. Then she looked at Wang-tang, and the karmic punishment loop Rika was undergoing. For what? No real trophy, no screaming, no fun? Was she really going to be satisfied by doing the equivalent of throwing a pie in Yayama’s face? And what if she lost to some scrubby, random item? Juri had her pride to consider.
Despite all her big talk earlier, since everyone else was eagerly engaging in slapstick destruction, Juri wasn’t as interested anymore. She rolled her eyes and stood up straight, setting a hand on her hip.
”I really can’t be fucked to deal with this. Don’t you wanna go help peewee over there?” She jerked a thumb over at Rika.
Yayama stood up and rolled her eyes (or, well, eye) right back at Juri. “You know, if you don’t want to engage with all this nonsense, you could at least treat it like practice for a battlefield. Learning how to deal with chaos is as important as any other fighting skill.” She propped her sword up on one shoulder to free a hand for gesturing at the other woman. “And more important than that is learning how to take a bloody break. Keep yourself wound that tight and you’ll break apart long before you get to anything important.”
”I deal with chaos,” Juri used her fingers as the legs of a walking person.
”By buzzing off. Which is what I’m gonna do right now. The only uptight person around here is a tryhard like you, shorty.” She pointed at Yayama and smirked.
Yayama just sort of looked at Juri for a moment, flummoxed. “Suit yourself, then,” she said with a shrug. It wasn’t her responsibility to give Juri an attitude adjustment, and she certainly wasn’t going to let a comeback as weak as that get a rise out of her.
She’s calling me uptight while refusing to participate in something for fun? Interesting approach, that. The lalafell casually walked toward the Power Stone Juri had dropped, scooped it up, then hustled her way toward the next one.
Juri turned to leave, but stopped as she watched Yayama walk around.
”God, you must get tired,” She added with a chuckle. Before she left, she stepped on a broken table leg. With her foot, she kicked it across the room like an arrow. It smacked into the tiny Rika and knocked her out of the sandpit.
”Oh, yeah. It’s practically a spa date!” She laughed with a raised hand on the way out.
Given that said ‘spa’ ended with Rika splatting face first into a wall, the odds of her joining the next one the team’s ladies ended up going on was now incredibly unlikely.
She hung there for a few seconds, affixed by the odd sticky mix of snow, booze and sand. Then the shrinking potion wore off, and the resulting sudden increase in volume caused the girl to be launched off of the wall and to go tumbling across the floor till she collided with the remains of the table, sending splinters flying everywhere.
Despite everything, she was in relatively good condition due to having skipped out on a lot of fighting to take a snow day, and so still had a fair bit of spring in her step as she hopped to her feet with an
”I’m still good”.
Odd’s where that wasn’t going to be a state of affairs that lasted very long.
“You sure about that?” While Rika had been ragdolling about, Yayama had busied herself with collecting the remaining two Power Stones. “Looks like it’s game over from over here,” she said, waggling the hand holding them in a neat stack. The lalafell then lifted them over her head, where they began to glow. “Alright, Churro, time to have some fun.”
A cloud of what seemed like pure darkness burst from her, and out leapt a version of Yayama, but cloaked and wielding her scythe. “Honestly, you do realize I have a name? Of course, I know that, but you adamantly refuse to use it. . . Anyways, I suppose it’s time we dust up here.” In a flash, she(?) darted toward Rika and barraged her with a dizzying series of scythe swings, before teleporting through a sudden rift in space and doing the same to Wang-Tang. “Shall that be sufficient, madam?”
The transformation subsided quickly, leaving Yayama as she was before. “Good work, Churro,” was all she said in response to whatever entity had briefly taken over her body.
In the wake of the spectacular super move, Biff’s voice rang out across the restaurant arena. “Wowee, what a finale! Just goes to show that the power stones are no joke, victory hinges on getting your hands on them! Looks like this game’s winner is…Yayama Yama!”
After a few moments, Wang-tang revived and slowly picked himself up from the ground, rubbing his head. “Oof, that went downhill fast,” he muttered. “Been so long I forgot we had those beers. Oh well!” He dusted himself off, then put his hands on his hips. “Nice work, you two! Even though your friend bowed out, it was a fun match. Guess it’s not for everyone, though.”
To his side, Rika blinked a few times before sitting up and asking
”Wait, is that what those are like? Why do people even drink them, bleh” before standing up and dusting herself off. She was a little sour from how pearshaped everything had gone, but if the beers were infrequent enough to be forgettable, she was down for another round.
Certainly she wasn’t sour enough that she did have the curiosity to ask
”So who was your inside friend Yayama?” while being rather glad that they’d announced her name. They hadn’t really directly interacted after all since the Lalafell joined the seekers, and it had somewhat slipped her mind.
“Oh that? That was Churro, normally he’s just my sword.” She hefted the weapon for emphasis. “We met a while ago while I was. . . well, it’s a long story, but to make it short, we cooperated under some unusual circumstances and the arrangement’s worked out for both of us. Pretty amicable for a voidsent, isn’t he?”
”I… don’t know what that is?” Rika asked with a questioning head tilt, before righting it as she quickly added
”a void sent I mean” as if she was worried it might seem like she didn’t know what a sword was.
“Right. The short version is that they’re demons, and the long version would involve explaining what the Thirteenth is and a bit of basics of aetherial mechanics, so I’m going to skip that one for now.”
”I… ok? Sure?” Rika replied, a bit hesitantly, before shrugging and saying that that all
”Seems neat” and that
”I’m glad you and your sword are friends” while giving a happy nod of approval.
She elected to leave it at that, turning her attention back to Wang-Tang. “I, for one, thought this was a fun little bit of chaos. Are you going to keep hosting these? I’ve got tourney matches to prepare for, but I’ll try to keep hitting these games when I can.”
“We’ve got more on the way!” Wang-tang confirmed cheerfully. “Basically, we’re going today until nobody wants to ready up again. So if any of you are game for more, take five and then find yourself a new stage!”
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