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Post by ĸara вelova★ on Aug 31, 2009 14:09:29 GMT -5
The MC's voice boomed throughout the theatre, "There are three guards. The competitor must disable them from attacking. They are not allowed to kill, or injure in a way that would kill, these men. Each guard that is rendered unable to fight, is worth one point."
A door opens, and light streams out. You can see the stage, and you are urged to go forward. When you enter the arena, the crowd errupts in loud applause and whistles. Some are chanting your name. But above this noise, the MC speaks to you, and you alone.
"Try to get as many points as you can, because the more you get in Stage I, the easier Stage II will be for you." The guards all turn in your direction.
"Let's see if Eiji has Stage Fright!"
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Post by Eiji Almasy. on Sept 1, 2009 8:47:54 GMT -5
They made him take off his shirt. Eve had to go with the other girls, to assuage Kaylen's imminent grief when he saw the change of shirts handed out to each contestant. An assistant had walked around, checking each name off the list, and when she got to their corner, it took a considerable amount of time for her to keep down the blush and ask the necessary questions.
"Uhm, excuse me, but who are you with?" She'd asked Draco, who was the extra half naked body hanging around. The blond had looked at her in the eye and stated plainly; "The Hills."
Tristan told him to get lost after that and that had been the last moment of real, relaxed normalcy Eiji had experienced before they'd been split up and carted off.
The real bee in his bonnet was the damned shirt. He'd asked, first, 'are you serious,' and when they said they were, he'd asked, 'is this real cotton?' He'd been ignored at that point and now he was stuck with an itchy shirt and a dumb logo, without any real idea as to what he was doing. The only reason he'd even entered was because he was hoping the luxury home would be situated somewhere near Las Vegas; property in the area was becoming hard to acquire.
The chanting got his attention though, and he peered through the lights to wave at the crowd. Yeah, ok, he loved the attention. His grin fell lighter when he looked at the guards before him.
"Hey," he said in an offhand tone, no trace of excitement, nervousness or anything about him.
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Post by Kirien Melantha on Sept 1, 2009 12:01:09 GMT -5
Eiji's opponents were a trio of lean but muscular young men who weren't very interested in talking to him. One of them, the youth with buzzed hair, was in a particularly foul mood, and gave Eiji a glare and a snarl in response. He was participating in Stage Fright against his will as punishment for accidentally blundering every task his company assigned to him, and he did well to remind everyone of that. He gave the reporters the finger, he shoved his way onto the stage, and with every step he took he angrily stomped his feet into the ground. No, he didn't feel much like friendly conversation, and was counting the minutes til the stupid event was over.
The other two men, identical twins with muscular arms and short blonde hair, reacted to his innocent greeting in another way. They shifted uncomfortably where they stood, and shimmied a step away from Eiji, exchanging glances. Apparently they were more used to loud greetings like "Bro, what up!" or hearty claps on the shoulder, and Eiji's relaxed, casual greeting made them question whether or not he was making a pass at them.
When they were signaled to begin, the three of them spread out in a horizontal line, their batons raised high in the air like Gladiator's swords, and charged, "Raaarrhhh!"-ing at the top of their lungs.
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Post by Eiji Almasy. on Sept 1, 2009 23:27:27 GMT -5
Eiji wished he was watching all of this on TV. As it was, they were taping the tournament on TiVo so he supposed he could live with that. His three guards were hilarious; the snarling one only received an even more amused grin from him while the twins were met with a more wicked tilt of the lips. He picked up on their shiftiness easily; those were the kind of looks he got once he and his friends got a few drinks in and his friends were getting a little friendly. Ok, so sometimes he forgot where they were and got carried away with joking around but nothing ever really happened.
The yelling eventually cut off his thoughts, and the pensive little frown he wore faded away, just like the rest of him. While most people dove or hid to get out of the way, Eiji was more like literally getting out of the way. It was almost reflexive; looking up to see the three of them charging at him, he had merely, well did nothing for less than a moment, breathed, blinked, and he was no longer there.
He reappeared behind them, a distance away, and he allowed himself to settle in the silence of the arena, right before the crowd erupted into applause and whistles.
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Post by Kirien Melantha on Sept 2, 2009 18:18:09 GMT -5
The men charged, batons raised, ready to strike down their foe who stood waiting, as if accepting defeat, when...he disappeared. The terrible trio hadn't the slightest idea what just happened, but they each boasted an enormous ego, and none wanted the audience to think they didn't have control of the situation.
So they pressed on, running faster, "Raaarrhhh!"-ing more enthusiastically, until they reached where Eiji once stood. The snarling man with the buzzcut led the twins in beating the air with their batons, certain that Eiji had simply turned invisible.
They heard the audience laughing, but didn't know why. Perhaps they were laughing at that silly Gifted, who so foolishly thought he could fool them by turning invisible.
He had to be around there somewhere...
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Post by Eiji Almasy. on Sept 5, 2009 12:08:59 GMT -5
This was like some really bad, late 80's, early to mid 90's crime movie, and his face reflected his thoughts as he watched the guards beat air.
"Oi," he called out, his distinct English lilt amplified around the arena but down where he was, he couldn't hear it above the noise of the crowd, or the guard's ridiculous yelling; "I'm right here."
And because he couldn't be bothered waiting for them to turn back around, acknowledge him and start yelling again, or so he supposed, he reappeared a ways away in front of them, just out of reach of their batons but close enough for them to hopefully realize that he'd clearly been somewhere else before he stood off from where he was 'meant' to be.
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Post by Kirien Melantha on Sept 7, 2009 13:09:15 GMT -5
One of the twins stopped swinging and spotted their target, standing in front of them but just out of reach. He pointed excitedly at Eiji, happy that he seemed to have developed the ability to see invisible people, and charged him without a word to his companions. He didn't "Raaarrhhh!" at all this time; he saw Eiji first, so as far as he was concerned, he was entitled to the first hit. Better not let the other guys in on it just yet.
The other two kept swinging and swinging, trying various heights and directions, until the other twin noticed they were missing someone. He let his extremely angry companion know by emitting a series of embarassed grunts and gesturing to his twin with his baton. The buzzed guard was so angry with his partners, the one for not telling them he had found the target, and the other for not noticing soon enough, that he swung his baton at the closest one's head before charging forward and aiming a low swing at Eiji's leg.
The remaining twin ducked and evaded the angry guard's baton, shrugged his shoulders at the audience, and rejoined his companions.
If they kept charging and swinging, they'd get him eventually...right?
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Post by Eiji Almasy. on Sept 8, 2009 11:36:48 GMT -5
When he first got on the bus this morning, having given up riding with Elliot and his other friends due to both Kenneth and Eve ribbing him about how they didn't get to hang with their girl/boyfriends either, he hadn't imagined that his 'obstacles' would have been this stupid. They didn't even make him want to be polite and talk to them civilly, maybe teach them English as well as explain that he wasn't invisible, or gay or any other theory they may have had.
"Oh dear God," he muttered, when one came up to him quietly and the other two continued to beat at air. Eiji looked vaguely uncomfortable and slowly, to him, the arena and its audience with their hollering and applauding, began to fade to silence. He focused his gift even though he was simply continuing to stand where he was, accelerating time for himself, while it would appear that the first twin was at a standstill. In fact, when he looked over, the angry guard was in mid-charge, his baton just shy off his leg and the other twin was stationary near by.
Eiji stepped around the oncoming baton, a look of consternation on his face, avoided the buzzed guard to stand in between all three guards, looking at each of them in turn. He ran a hand through his hair, looking sheepish right before the audience resumed their noise. There was a break, and he looked almost apologetic to the crowd for having to be so confusing and anti-climatic each time, but the people only recognized that he'd evaded the guards and it didn't take long for them to start up their cheers.
*
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Post by Kirien Melantha on Sept 9, 2009 21:19:37 GMT -5
The guards were really getting frustrated. They seemed to realize that they were never going to catch Eiji, with him going invisible and dodging and de-invisible-ing elsewhere all the time. But they were selected for this job by their boss, promised extra pay...what would happen if they just gave up?
The twins wore identical expressions of embarassment. The match was hardly fair, and the audience was just hoping they'd get thrashed...suddenly they found themselves thinking their boss might be punishing them. But for what? Xerox-copying their behinds was hardly worthy of such serious discipline! Feeling defeated, they tried another feeble swing at Eiji, both aiming for his front.
The angry guard only got angrier, furious that he was being shown-up, and ran fiercely toward Eiji's side, looking much like a furious football player as he tried to tackle him.
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Post by Eiji Almasy. on Sept 9, 2009 23:19:15 GMT -5
Eiji normally didn't like playing with Time, things about relativity and aging too fast and all that; if anything, he could be counted on to consider early wrinkles at least. The more he was forced to use his gift though, the easier it became. That wasn't to say that he wasn't any good at what he could do, it was more that he had made himself get used to living on real time, and simply skipped simple chores such as walking and driving by moving himself through space, not Time.
Eiji became the central figure again. The crowd's noise rose and then lowered considerably; he was only accelerating a few minutes, and not as fast this time. He batted the batons away, annoyed again, and then jumped, as in through space and all that, till he was behind the buzzed guard, who was still in the act of running. Eiji used the buzzed guard's back as a ledge of sorts, his hand on the back as he pushed off and disappeared, restarting time again.
He reappeared on the other side of the stage, looking terribly bored. Maybe he should have just moved them to the outside of the stadium and saved himself all the trouble.
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Post by Kirien Melantha on Sept 11, 2009 22:13:03 GMT -5
Even the audience's enthusiasm was waning as the fight dragged on, and with no visible damage done to the guards! Eiji just kept moving around the stage, which they found jolly good at first, but they wanted some action! He was supposed to cleverly bash them on the head with their batons, something, anything!
The buzzed guard pinwheeled his arms when time started up again, looking perplexed as he tried and failed to gain his balance. He fell and bashed his nose on the way down, triggering a very nasty nosebleed.
The more he bled, the more he panicked, clamping his hand desperately over his nose. It seemed that, despite his desire to beat Eiji up, he couldn't stand the sight of blood. Not interested in fighting until his nose stopped bleeding, he turned his back to the others and removed his shirt, holding it firmly against his nose.
The twins were mad. They were sick of all the stupid running-back-and-forth they were doing, the audience was clearly against them, and they hadn't been able to get in a single hit! Funny, their plow-em-over strategy worked hundreds of times before! 'There must be something weird about that slippery little girly boy,' they thought.
"Stop running away, sissy boy!" They jeered, determined not to take another step until their opponent did something other than run away. "What're you afraid of, huh?! You afwaid of the big, bad men wiff the sticks?!" They waved their batons at him threateningly, and forced themselves to burst into a fit of laughter.
Maybe if they were lucky, he'd just run out of time. That would certainly make them look better!
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Post by Eiji Almasy. on Sept 12, 2009 10:27:21 GMT -5
He was cheating. It felt a lot like it and it was definitely more than a little abnormal, so it must have been cheating. He disappeared again, at a run and appearing as a blur, as he moved forward a minute or so to bring himself closer to the buzzed guard's baton*. Picking it up* he disappeared entirely, this time moving through space, to then reappear behind one of the twins, to their right, as he swung the bat down as he would in a particularly savage game of golf, aiming for the side of the knee.
Eiji took a step to the side and looked like he walked right into a pocket of space, disappearing and then after a tense moment, reappeared in front of the other twin, like he was being pushed by some unseen force, his hands wrapping around the guy's shirt. As much as he hated getting dirty, and he was part French so he wasn't even exaggerating, the clock was ticking down even faster, and he couldn't keep on messing around if he wanted someone to declare the guards defeated; how could they when he kept on speeding up and slowing down, and then speeding up the real time?
He hoped to bring the remaining twin along with him, hurtling them through wherever he had to go whenever he jumped through space, before re-emerging ten feet up in the air on a slight angle from the bleeding buzzed guard. He shoved the twin away from him, in the direction of the buzzed guard, slowing down time so neither of them could fall instantly before he sent himself to the opposite end of the stage, resuming time as he left.
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Post by Kirien Melantha on Sept 12, 2009 21:16:56 GMT -5
The twin who had been golfed in the knee yelped in pain as his knee gave an unpleasant crunch. Tears filled his eyes as he pitifully clutched his knee, mumbling incoherently through sniffles and sobs. Even if Eiji hadn't broken his knee, it sure hurt and it made a positively yucky sound, so he wasn't moving until he got medical attention.
The other twin leered at Eiji and eyed his brother's discarded baton, thinking only of revenge. But before he could get to it - before he could take a step, even - he was seized roughly by the shirt. He just knew that little creep was gay!
His eyes bulged as he reappeared in midair, and he tried frantically to warn his comrade of his descent, but the other was too busy nursing his bloody nose to pay much mind. He landed on top of the buzzed guard, who seemed to have passed out in response.
"It looks like all three guards have been disabled!" The MC announced, and the crowd erupted into applause. "For Stage One, Eiji Almasy has earned three points! Let's see how he does in Stage Two of Stage Fright!"
(Let me know if I misinterpreted anything.)
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