Double

Gundam Build Fighters Imagine! [6/7]

@Crimson Lion Quick question. Metal Angel is, at the end of the day, an AGE-1 Titus. Does it still have the AGE system? Creating new weapons or gear mid-battle could be explained as mere particle emissions that vanish once the hologram shuts off.

Gundam Build Fighters Imagine! [6/7]

@Crimson Lion

Riku remained unshaken. Even as fierce battles raged in the distant mountains, he stayed resolved to remain where he was. So far it didn't look like anyone's score was increasing yet, which could be a good sign for him. With any luck, he might have even been able to wait out the clock and win that way. But he couldn't help but notice occasional flashes of light reflecting in cavernous spots in the mountains. It didn't look like any sort of attack, in fact it looked a lot more like...

"So one of them's not a complete coward after all." he muttered to himself. The reflecting light had to be from the scope of a rifle, which he had to guess meant someone thought they could snipe him. Didn't seem like a very smart idea to him, though. After reaching his spot, the Metal Angel had remained stationary and outputted next to zero particles in all this time. That meant that by now he was basically back to full energy, or very close to it anyway. So even a decent shot would have a hard time taking him down thanks to his high energy levels. Still... wouldn't hurt to maybe play a mind game or two. He watched for any sort of pattern to the flashes, if or when it would show up in the same locations more than once. In the meantime, he reached the hand of his Metal Angel up to the DODS Rifle currently docked into its back and leveled it toward the mountain range. He was aiming for where he roughly predicted the next flash would show up, and when it did...

Riku fired the DODS Rifle, it's drilling beam lancing toward the general direction of the flashing light. There was no way it would accurately hit, but that wasn't the point. What this was was a warning shot, plain and simple. He was sending a message to the would-be sniper: I'm onto you. But Riku didn't stop there. He'd opened up the public channels beforehand and now spoke into it, "Well, what're ya waiting for?" he asked. Everyone would hear this, specifically the sniper in question, "You gonna come at me or not? Or are you too much of a chicken-shit to fight me?" Riku didn't normally trash talk like this, but right now he was using it as a form of strategy. Even without physically taking a swing or shot at anyone, this could very well allow him to get inside someone's head and give him a psychological edge.

The Key of Twilight (Kingdom Hearts AU)

@Stylobilly@Wayward@Bright_Ops@Spectral

To put it simply, the prologue was going to last over the course of 5 days. The Struggle Tournament is on Day 4, the Festival is on Day 5. The 3 days leading up to that was largely going to depend on what you, the players, chose to do. I'll present things, but you would decide if your characters were interested in doing any of things. For instance, the Blitzball game that Wakka is trying to set up is one example of something that can occupy your time for part of the day. The Strugglers in the Sandlot is another example of how your can spend their time. You could also go look around the shopping area, there's places where some extra help is needed getting things set up and you could take part time work helping out to earn a bit of extra pocket munny. And then there's your school assignment. Research the history of the festival and write a paper on it, you could always make some headway doing that as well.

The Key of Twilight (Kingdom Hearts AU)

Shortly after Zack had turned around, it happened. An object appeared to come blazing into The Sandlot from the alleyway he had just turned away from. It was... a ball? No ordinary ball, though, this one appeared to be a combination of blue and white and bore the insignia of a particular sport. The sport in question was one that was normally big in the summer, since it was a game that was played in the water. So why anyone would be playing with a blitzball at this time of year was anyone's guess. But there it was, a blitzball screaming in from beyond the alley and appearing to be on a curveball trajectory leading right to the back of Zack's head.

"Whoa whoa whoa! Watch out, man!?" cried a particular voice. Unfortunately only one of two things would happen. One, the ball would bean Zack right in the head and then ricochet back into the waiting hands of the guy it belonged to. Or two, the ball would manage to miss Zack's head and instead hit a nearby lamp post only to ricochet back to the waiting hands of the ball's owner.

Speaking of which, the owner of the bitzball had come bounding up and seemed to effortlessly catch the ball when it ricocheted back in his direction. He had a whincing, apologetic expression on his face as he walked up closer to the group, "Hehe, uh... sorry about that, man." he said with an apologetic grin, "The ball just kinda... got away from me for a second there, yeah?" he scratched the back of his head with his free hand before reaching it out.

"I'm Wakka, but uh... maybe you knew that already, yeah?" he wasn't a complete stranger. Wakka was known around town as the captain of the blitzball team, the Twilight Town Aurochs. Just as the Struggle was the big time sport during the fall and winter months, Blitzball was the rising popular sport played during the warmer spring and summer months. Though it seemed a little odd for someone to apparently be practicing this far into the off-season. Then again, maybe Wakka was the team captain for a good reason? "Oh! Right! Almost forgot about why I came up here! Ha ha! I'm trying to set up my own game booth for the Festival this year! I call it... Blitzball Shootout! A competitor gets a limited number shots to try and get the ball past me into the goal. If they do, they win! If not, well, better luck next time, yeah?" he chuckled, "And the prize you win depends on how many shots it takes for you to score the goal. Cool, yeah? Problem is... the festival committee won't give me a booth slot until I've tested the game out to make sure it's safe and fair and stuff. Tried to get my buddy to help me out, but he's so wrapped up in his Struggle trainin'. Been at the beach all morning since before sunrise. Anyway, I was hopin' I could find someone that could help me with this..." he gave the four a suggestive look, hoping they'd take the hint and maybe offer a hand?

"And uh, hey, I know how to turn the game into a way to help your Struggle training, too! So if ya help me, there'd be that in it for ya, yeah? Might be a good idea, the champ's been using my idea as part of his training regiment, ya know!" he said with a wink. He wasn't lying either. His buddy, otherwise known as last year's Struggle Champion, had indeed used his Blitzball Shootout idea to help his training.

---

@Bright_Ops@Stylobilly@Spectral@Wayward

The Key of Twilight (Kingdom Hearts AU)

@Stylobilly@Wayward@Bright_Ops@Spectral

Important question for you. In light of the unexpected hiatus that the game was on, would you prefer me to expedite the prologue a bit or continue it on its originally planned pace? Bear in mind, my originally intended pace was for about 5 in-game days worth of festival events before having any main plot happen.

Gundam Build Fighters Imagine! [6/7]

@KenjuGuy Ya gotta love how both Jun and Riku seem to have roughly the same amount of bravado and merely project it differently. Jun's all about being in the spotlight and speechifying, while Riku has clearly attended the school of letting actions speak louder than words. xD

Gundam Build Fighters Imagine! [6/7]

"And that's one more mark for my score." Riku said to himself when the Taurus blew. That honestly went a lot better than he expected. With Seo, he knew a good battle plan coupled with some mind games would do him in. His other points were clean shots sniped from afar. The Taurus had been the only unknown variable, and so Riku initially expected for it give him trouble. But it's pilot apparently panicked after getting shot back at so quickly and wound up exploded.

With that, the round ended. Riku reached across the table to his Leo, offering a knowing smirk in Seo's direction. Going ahead and confirming that, yes, the Leo that had harassed and eliminated him was indeed Riku. Riku was also surprised by how little damage he'd managed to walk away from this battle with. Apart from a few minor scuffs and scratches from the Taurus's gunfire at the end, the Leo hadn't taken hardly any damage at all. So repairs were rather short, not even really needed in all honesty. That suited Riku just fine, and even so he didn't intend to use the Leo for the entire tournament. He just wanted to use that opening round as a way to field test it. And he definitely got results from it.

No, Riku put the Leo back in his bag. He had something else in mind for the remaining rounds. Riku hadn't come to the arcade today empty handed. He brought one of his "main" gunpla builds with him specifically for the later rounds of the tournament. Riku even double checked the rules, and indeed saw no rule against what he was doing. So once the second round was announced, Riku took his place at the table and docked - not the Leo - but Metal Angel instead. Its name appearing in place of the Leo's designation underneath where his name displayed on the login screen.

And when the time came for the round to begin, "Metal Angel, launch!" and he sent the blue and white brawler machine out onto the table. It became easy to tell why most of the players avoided the western valley... and it was because Riku placed himself there. A place where an ambush was impossible due to the wide open space. No tricks, no traps. Just the intimidating-looking Gunpla standing there like a statue... waiting. Riku knew his performance in the last round put him way ahead of the others, and that would almost certainly mean some would be tempted to target him. But putting himself in this location meant that the only way to target him... was to challenge him openly. So there the Metal Angel stood, waiting for whichever player was brave enough to challenge the leader of the scoreboard first.

@KenjuGuy@Crimson Lion@Shiyonichi@Blade17

Gundam Build Fighters Imagine! [6/7]

@Blade17@Crimson Lion

It was apparent early on that Riku had miscalculated the Zero's speed, and he knew why too. The bird mode, he'd forgotten to factor in the suit's Bird Mode. That meant the Zero was going to be on top of him much sooner than originally calculated. To top it all off, his long range scanner was picking up a faint signal coming from the desert. Someone had been watching, and if it was a sniper they only needed a well aimed shot to take Riku down.

Why couldn't it ever be simple? He made his Leo take a few steps backward, and then turned it around to face the landing Wing Zero. No plan, no back up, no weapons worth a damn that could be used against it. Still, his gambit paid off. He was at 3 points which would all but guarantee him first place in this round. So even if he was terminated now, there was no way to stop him from advancing to the next round. That being said, Riku much preferred to not see his brand new build be completely trashed in its first operation. And that was when the Zero's pilot spoke.

"Hm?" Riku was genuinely confused. Why talk? Why offer to help, in fact? Why not just blast him and score a point? Riku rarely ever communicated with his opponents. The thing he'd said to Seo a moment ago was the exception. Most of the time talking to one's opponents just gave them a way to get inside your head. Hell, it was a trick Riku himself had used before. But this scenario necessitated that he go ahead and respond, "I dunno if you were paying attention, but that 'stupid' stunt of mine just secured my 1st place ranking in this round. By now it's statistically impossible to dethrone my lead. Hold on-" his Leo's scanners interrupted him. Yet another signal? Faint, but surprisingly close by, within the canyon itself even! Well sonuvabitch, someone was trying to use his own tactic against him!

"Someone's out there in the desert, scoping both of us out. They're too far for me to reach in time, but I'm guessing that won't be a problem for your Zero and its bird mode. You can have them." while he said this, his Leo took one more step forward and he readied his missiles. Whoever was hiding back there was much closer by now, and Riku was willing to bet he could get the jump on them so long as he was quick enough on the draw with his missiles. The second he spotted movement, he let loose a salvo of missiles into the canyon corridor. He didn't lock onto anything, since doing so would take more time. Instead he merely hoped whoever it was would find themselves walking into an unexpected salvo missiles. Once Riku could make out the shape, he identified the target as a Taurus. And he let his missile pods reload themselves while he locked onto their position.

"I'll take the rat who thinks he can use my own gambit against me!" he said, mostly to the Zero but since it was on open channels, Nishiyama in the Taurus would hear it too. And with that, Riku unpaused his music and deliberately chose a specific song to play through his earbuds. In addition to firing his second salvo of missiles, Riku also quickly leveled his long rifle to take aim. The specific rifle he chose was a bit special, as it's long barrel combined with a scope attachment allowed it to be used as a sniper rifle. However, it also came standard with a 120 round box magazine plus a semi-automatic assault fire mode that allowed it to be used as a more traditional assault weapon for occasions precisely like this. So unlike with the sniper shots from earlier, Riku unloaded semi-automatic rapid fire at the Taurus in addition to sending out salvos of missiles. Time was rapidly running out, as was everyone's particle levels. No reason not to go for a last minute 4th point just to truly dominate the scoreboard. Go big or go home.

Gundam Build Fighters Imagine! [6/7]

@Blade17 The 90mm Long Rifle is ballistic. It shoots bullets, not beams.

Gundam Build Fighters Imagine! [6/7]

Posted. And with a pretty epic use of music, if I do say so myself.