[Preshow] The Dojo

[Karl Jak]

This area contains a mixture of gym equipment and physical fitness courses. Classes are available for signups, much like you'd find in a public gym. There are even a few private dojos where people can get in some last minute training in anything ranging from combat to general survival skills. Lessons are available for signup for those who have limited experience camping or being by themselves in the wilderness.

 

[Edward Elric]

“You’re...not very strong are you?”

Zenitsu’s arms trembled, hanging limp at his sides. He lay all but lifeless with his back against the pleather surface of a workout bench, and directly above him rested a barbell with light weights perched on its hangar. It wasn’t untouched, though! Oh, he’d touched it. He’d given it at least three repetitions before setting it back in place. The part of the endeavor that was trifling his instructor was that the thing had only held about a hundred and twenty five pounds.

“I don’t know!” wailed the straw haired boy, tears welling in his eyes. “I thought I was!”

He looked askance at a far bulkier man a few inches from his head. This man was proudly sporting a Syntech tank top, a crew cut, and a bush of chest hair that a middle aged man would beg to transplant onto his thinning scalp.

He swung out his legs, straddling his young ward’s nose, and looked straight down. Two hands clasped the barbell forcefully and he gave a winsome smile from beneath his clean cut brown hair which stood straight up - surfer style.

“Give it your all, this time. I know you can do it.”

Sweet, sweet Zenitsu lifted his arms and got ready to pick the weights up off of their resting place. He pushed! Oh, did he PUSH!

But he couldn’t do it. They didn’t lift off the rack, though he struggled and trembled and grunted.

“I CAN’T DO THIS!” his exasperated cry rang out.

He boot-scooted down a bit, sat up, and then grabbed his discarded lightning-yellow overcoat from the ground at his feet. Donning it, he stood, and at that moment he felt hot tears welling up in his eyes. Those same hazel eyes locked onto his trainer’s brown ones and he got ready to speak, but found that he couldn’t...for if he did, he would certainly begin sobbing.

“Come on, boy,” coaxed the man - he’d been introduced as Ajax. “You made it past the interviews. There has to be a reason they let you in here!”

He sounded as if he was trying to convince himself. To be certain, he hadn’t seen any evidence of that reason so far.

“W-well,” hiccupped Zenitsu, his eyes brimming again. His voice quavered. “I was sent by the Demon Slayer Corps to banish the Demons working with the Darkseid...uh, guy. B-but they didn’t tell me that I’d have to fight in an ARMY!”

Ajax boasted a hearty laugh, and clapped the now standing Zenitsu on the shoulder.

“Oh, boy! There’s more than Demons here! You’ll be fighting side by side with Demons, even! Whatever army you land in, they’ll be more than capable of handling a couple of black hearted soul-suckers, and the other army as well, I bet!”

Petrification struck.

“OTHER ARMY!? S-SIDE BY SIDE WITH DEMONS!?”

Zenitsu’s knees buckled and he sank onto the padded floor of the Dojo.

“OH GOD! I CAN’T BE HERE! I’M GONNA DIIIIIEEEE~!”

The instructor grimaced, and crouched by Zenitsu. He even offered a hand, placed delicately atop the boy’s straw mop hair in comfort, and smiled.

“Listen,” he said, and then paused. ...definitely searching for words. “You could just, uh...you could find someone. Someone strong. You can just tag right along with someone strong! Maybe an entire unit! If you can find the right people to suck up to, maybe you can survive for awhile! Maybe the entire time, even!”

Zenitsu swallowed his sobs and looked up at Ajax, forcing a grimace of a smile.

“Do you really think so?”

“Heck, kid, I KNOW so.”

...someone stronger. Wasn’t that always the way of it, too? Someone like him, wimpy little Zenitsu, if he ingratiated himself to a stronger and more domineering personality, he could find himself tolerated or even valued…

Valued by someone. If he did services, made himself like a...like a servant of some kind! Like a cupbearer, or a squire, or something like that. Something that would make someone stronger than him take a shining and then keep him around. Something that would make someone powerful shield him from the enemy, or keep him in the barracks while the real turmoil was going down.

He’d come here to learn a little bit about survival.

Maybe he’d learned more than he had expected he would.

A tremulous grin arose on Zenitsu’s sniveling face.

“Y-yeah...maybe I CAN do that!”

 

[Josuke Higashikata]

"One… Two… Three… Four… Five... Five… Five... Five… Five… Five…"

The young, somewhat cowardly boy that regains his courage turns his attention behind him and the instructor. A couple of feet away, a blue power armored soldier keeps doing pushups nonstop and repeating the same number out loud that his mind is stuck on. This new stranger appears to be bigger than Zenitsu's weight and height. It came off intimidating for him just thinking about this soldier who is doing pushups like crazy. He gulps in fear, thinking that this soldier can kill him once the competition begins.

Sweat starts to pour from his forehead, just the sheer thought that ran across his mind. Yet again, he begins to tremble, and fear overcomes him. His face becomes ghostly pale just thinking about the stranger standing not too far from where he and his instructor stands.

"Hey um, buddy, you did well enough pushups after five." The Syntech dojo trainer mentions Caboose while the blue fellow keeps repeating the same number out loud. Suddenly, the soldier stops doing pushups and stands up out of the training position.

"Yeah, I figured five is such a great number to stop on." Caboose speaks in his childish yet straightforward voice that catches Zenitsu off guard completely. Before, his mind was racing with thoughts of this stranger sounding fierce and scary, but the total opposite occurs.

"You've done almost a hundred pushups within two minutes." Zenitsu's instructor mentions, impressed by Caboose's strength that is stronger than the young blonde-haired boy. The dojo trainer's spoken words made the boy shaken by fear even more. "Yeah, I'm so good at doing things like making new friends, dancing, being a good boy, and well lot more nice things." Caboose cheerfully explains with his gaze upon Zenitsu.

The words coming out of Caboose's mouth made Zenitsu have less fear about Caboose, starting to come across him if he's an actual nice person in this unforgiven world.

"Maybe you can help my friend out here, he needs strong people like you to look up towards and tag along with." The Syntech employee smiles, looking back at poor Zenitsu, who needs someone to be encouraged to fight alongside in this upcoming competition. Caboose gasps in excitement at what the instructor said to him.

"I would like to be friends! It is why I came here in the first place, and we can make many more!" Caboose couldn't contain his excitement anymore and walks over to where the two stands, looking down at Zenitsu. His shadow casts over the poor boy, making him scared but he becomes assured about the kind nature of this man. Caboose kneels before the blonde-headed young boy to meet his height.

"Hallo! My name is Caboose, and I would really like to be your friend. Can we please be best buddies?"

 

[Sigmund Vrell]

“Ma’am.” A Syntech employee desperately pleaded, clearly untrained and unprepared for the type of contestant that Dante’s Abyss attracted. Stheno had wasted no time in the recreation dome or the library, instead heading straight for the dojo. However, she had almost no time to exercise before the young intern started to pester her.

“What?” Stheno grunted, going through a light workout before the main event started. It was only right for a mercenary to make sure that they were entering the battlefield prepared, and the disconcerted youth wasn’t making it very easy. “I’m a little busy right now.”

“Ma’am, I just…” The young man started nervously. “I don’t think you should be using the equipment like that…”

“It’s fine.” The gorgon replied, laying down one of the barbells she was using for her bicep curls to wave the man off dismissively. “They’re only loaded with a hundred kilos each. Didn’t want to risk hurting myself before the game, eh?”

“I… I see…” The fidgeting employee gasped, his eyes darting around as he attempted to build up a little more courage. “Well, um… you see, it’s still against dojo policy to use multiple barbells simultaneously, and we really don’t want a lawsuit on our hands, so, could you please just use one?”

Stheno let out a long, hissing sigh as she laid down the other barbell and ran her fingers through her hair. “You’re a real pain in the ass… fine, have it your way.”

Before turning to leave, however, the mercenary bent down and picked one of the weights up like a javelin before turning back to the employee with a grin. “Hey, wanna see how far I can toss this thing?”

“WHA-“ The panicked man said, practically jumping out of his skin. “NONONO PLEASE DON-“

“Bahahaha.” Stheno cackled, dropping the weights and slapping the sweating intern on the back. “Ahaha… man, you should have seen the look on your face. I’m just messing with you. I wouldn’t want to damage Mr. Jak’s facilities. The reimbursement costs would be a nightmare…”

Having been chased off from her workout, the gorgon decided to turn from the physical aspect of the game and to the more social side. Particularly with the new format, more cooperative and less restrictive on one’s gear and abilities, it wouldn’t hurt to get familiar with the other faces entering the competition whether they ended up as friend or foe.

It didn’t take long for her to find a couple of individuals who piqued her interest, namely a man clad in what seemed to be power armour and a surprisingly weak-looking youth who may or may not have been the source of the wailing she had heard (and promptly ignored) earlier. The soldier seemed to be standard fair for a death game, but the swordsman was an outlier. Even as she took a sneaky look at the pair from beneath her blindfold, he seemed… less than formidable. Interesting.

You didn’t have nobodies getting sent to fight to the death in Dante’s Abyss, so he clearly had something that he was hiding. And though she didn’t know what it was, Stheno had a feeling it was something good. The mercenary considered approaching the pair to introduce herself but decided not to be too hasty. Instead, she opted to hang back and discreetly observe through the corner of her blindfold a little longer, hoping to get a read on the soldier and the swordsman.

 

[Altanis]

Once within the actual facility for this...event, there had been only a momentary pause to handle the issue of some paperwork and forms to fill out. A frustrating experience, but a mercifully painless one.

Once done...Altanis and her two companions parted ways; they would go and find a suitable place to relax and observe things from, while she would go and see to the matter of directly studying the others who would be participating in this event. If this was going to be some kind of team-based affair, after all...then it would only be prudent to have at least some idea of just who, exactly, she would be contending with.

A quick search of the facilities had revealed that thus far there were very few who had arrived. Not one entrant to be found among the areas of the park...the library...or even the recreation areas. A shame. The ones who had already arrived seem to have gathered within the dojo. An area of physical training...how appropriate. It certainly spoke wonders to the type of people who would be gathering for this event. She swallowed down her already growing distaste as she perused the area.

It didn't take long to find the others. They stood out well enough...mostly by virtue of lacking the ever-present uniforms of this event's staff. Syntech was nothing if not a very well-presented organization, but its omnipresent reminding of who and what was overseeing and hosting this entire mess was beginning to grate on the hellion's nerves.

She put it out of mind for now, and focused on the matter at hand. By her count, there were three others present...

The boy was a complete mess and a cowardly wreck; she would be surprised if he didn't immediately faint at the first sign of an actual fight coming his way, if he didn't collapse trying to run away from it. She could only guess he was here by some cosmic accident, so out of place did he appear to be. Likely a fair candidate to simply write off and ignore as being useful.

The oaf in blue armor...physically, he seemed quite imposing, and in excellent condition. Not even simply from a 'for a human' standpoint...it was far more than that. However...his mental capabilities seemed almost directly inversely proportional. She would sooner trust a half-trained hound to perform any kind of reasonably complicated task. Suitable as a simple blunt instrument to throw at problems, perhaps...

The last one...was something else altogether. Perhaps not quite as physically imposing as the blue-clad buffoon, but far more put together and visibly threatening in spite of her silence, just from how she carried herself. The same sort of confident and easy presence and demeanor that Altanis was quite familiar with from back home... Bounty hunters and mercenaries, competent and capable enough to boast of and sell their skills for coin. Not surprising at all to find one like that in a place like this. Likely a useful asset.

Slowly, the tactician turned aside and began to slowly pace along at an unassumingly sedate pace. She paused to lightly run her fingers over one of the weights, a brief flickering haze of dark red flaring up around it and it lifted a fraction of an inch up before settling down again. No real difference than back home there.

"This hardly seems like the proper place to be making friends," she spoke up, in her best attempt at a relaxed, nonchalant manner. "Given what we're about to walk into...that will only make it far more painful when they inevitably die, or you're forced to part ways after, no?"

 

[Izaneus Phortea]

An fleet-minded young man somehow found himself in a sort of.. Physical exercise area. Not his forte but nonetheless, there were several things here. Some kind of a signup sheet, a few others practicing their own kind of craft.

A surge of curious energy coursed through him as he inspected everything, from the equipment to the forms of the other people here.

Everything was so...interesting, it was mind boggling, and he loved every moment. It was all so new. it was. A dream come true. So many interesting materials and machines, so many interesting people and techniques, everything astounded him to no degree.

"This is amazing..." He thought aloud smiling excitedly as he walked around the room and inspected what he could. This was the happiest he'd been in years.

 

[Edward Elric]

Zenitsu watched, wide-eyed, as the man in enormous blue armor arose from his physical conditioning. In demeanor the blonde haired craven was a deer, startled, rooted in place, ready to flee in terror at a moment’s notice. His knees trembled, his sensation of fight or flight ignited, he grew deathly pale, and he prepared to sprint from the Dojo with an appropriate amount of wailing if need be.

But the voice that came out of that monster! It was something else entirely. It was…

Oh, no. Oh no, oh no. Is this some kind of crazy powerful idiot!? Or maybe he’s like an animated piece of armor with no one inside that has the lowest amount of intelligence possible! Maybe he’s going to forget what he’s doing and then come after me and then WHAT IF HE’S FASTER THAN ME AND I’M RUNNING AND HE TACKLES ME AND THEN -

Zenitsu hadn’t realized it, but he was letting out a long, low moan of despair while his trainer, Ajax, had struck up a conversation with the armored behemoth. Luckily no one else had noticed his moaning either. Or if they had, they’d been polite enough not to mention it.

“-my name is Caboose, and I would really like to be your friend,” the blue Spartan offered, kneeling before Zenitsu. “Can we please be best buddies?”

That was super intense! That was way too much for someone he just met to be saying to him! Sure, he’d decided to attach himself to someone strong, but shouldn’t that strong person be smart, too!? Maybe he’d jumped the gun in this whole strategy! He shifted a sandaled foot back a step, gritting his teeth. ...he hadn’t said anything yet! Now he was being scared AND weird!

Zenitsu’s hazel eyes stayed trained on the kneeling form of Caboose, a man whose height was so imposing that even knelt he was practically eye level with Zenitsu.

“I-I think that’s r-really...it’s really a LOT for me to take all of this in and I don’t know if I can-” his answer flooded out quickly, full of words but little substance, like a B.P. oil spill apology.

At just that moment, however, he caught another figure in his peripheral vision: a tough looking bruiser type. The woman wore a blindfold and boasted the kind of physique that reminded Zenitsu of a laundry list of reasons he should not be here at this moment. The aura of judgement exuding from the woman suggested that she was also puzzling over exactly what the Slayer-in-orange was doing in this kind of competition.

In the deep reaches of his mind, Zenitsu wondered if he might try to overcome his fears and seek her and make himself useful as a viable attaché...somewhere deep inside, though, he knew he was more apt to pass out on the spot if she approached him than offer up his services.

While he was musing over that, and realizing that Caboose still knelt expectantly before him, yet another voice chimed in from over his shoulder.

“This hardly seems like the proper place to be making friends,” it noted. The voice was cool, calm, collected, casual, and careless. Everything that Zenitsu was not.

His head swiveled quickly, body turning with it, and he beheld one of the things he had dreaded he might see the most - some kind of huge fucking Demon-horse-woman with clever, terrifying eyes and a form that would haunt his nightmares for days to come if he didn’t suppress the entire memory from his mind immediately.

“OH, LORD, MERCY, NO! THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING!” Zenitsu bellowed, his hands writing in the air in terror, mouth agape, eyes practically rolling back into his head. He was practically frothing at the mouth. “I CANNOT BE HEEEEERE~!”

Pell-mell the boy dashed from the crowd, pushed past Ajax, stumbled, tumbled, picked himself back up, then resumed sprinting away from the Dojo at a breakneck pace.

Once he’d stepped out of the exit he pressed his back against the adjacent wall, slumped down by the Dojo’s doorframe, and hugged his trembling knees. The terrified heap of Zenitsu hyper-ventilated into his knees for a few moments, thoughts and heart rate racing, before he calmed down enough to think.

Is that the kind of person I need to align myself with? Some kind of crazy Demon-horse-woman? Or is that the kind of person they sent me here to kill? I’ve only gotten THIS far on luck and…

He thought back to what his Master had told him. About his ‘black-outs’. An immense amount of discipline and training had gone into sculpting the sort of swordsman Zenitsu was SUPPOSED to be. Instead, his cowardice had overridden all of that. Only his muscle memory displayed any evidence of the physical rigors his teachings had put him through…

Muscle memory that only showed itself on two occasions: when he was fleeing…

And when he passed out. When pushed to his limits, Zenitsu found that he would feel that peaking apex of terror...and then he would remember nothing. When he came to, only the carnage around him gave him any context to what he turned into in his unconscious state. A trance-like killer of brutal efficiency.

One last sigh into his knees, then Zenitsu stood, his trembling subsided. Gathering himself, and picturing the deadly swordsman that lay buried within him, the boy stepped back into the dojo and quietly slunk back up to the crowd.

With a sheepish look, still pale and sweating, he tried to offer up a bemused grin that came out looking like half of a dry-heave.

“S-sorry...I just didn’t expect…” he gestured at Altanis, the horse woman, as if that would explain the entire thing. And to be fair, it kind of did. “...you know.”

 

[Josuke Higashikata]

The new stranger that Caboose met didn't go so well on accepting a new friendship he was trying to obtain. However, Michael wasn't offended by this young boy's statement and how he wasn't trusting in creating a new friend. A minor disappointment did come across the blue spartan, but he kept his head up, and maybe he can persuade him about all the fun activities they can participate in while creating a friendship. Before Caboose could speak, another voice breaks out in the room, causing them to catch his attention too. It came from behind him, but the young blonde boy in front of him spoke out and quickly vanished in a cowardly fashion.

Soon after, Zenitsu does return inside the dojo and stutteringly apologizes to the demon centaur woman that scared him. Before she could speak, Caboose immediately reacts to the other new stranger.

The blue soldier quickly turns around, standing to witness who caused the commotion earlier. Behind his helmet's visor, his eyes light up, turning into a kid on Christmas morning that finds out what Santa has gifted him for being such a good boy. She stood about fifteen feet away from the trio of Caboose, Ajax, and Zenitsu. Standing next to him, the dojo trainer doesn't know his other taller trainee had the same reaction as the young swordsman's.

"Oh my god! A pony! I always wanted a pony, but my other previous best friends always said no, and we had no room back at our base for one since we had a tank. Also, some really awesome other stuff! Can we keep her? Can we keep her?" Caboose excitedly hops up and down with so much energy from one of his dreams finally coming true. Meanwhile, Ajax becomes a lost for words about the blue soldier's request and from how slow thinking he has shown.

The animate words coming out loud from within Caboose's helmet speakers did not hit Atlanis very well and made her temper grew bigger for the oaf in the power armor. She gritted her teeth after witness what Caboose called her and did not sit with her well.

"What did you identified me?!" She angrily said with the words barely able to escape from her mouth due to how hard she gritted her teeth. Her eyes angrily light up, focusing on the blue soldier that disrespected her appearance but not purposely.

"You know, a pony. That's what you are, riiiiiiiiiiiiight?" Caboose awkwardly speaks in a confused tone about the unwelcoming manner that she makes. Meanwhile, the blindfolded mercenary still eavesdrops on the current three contestants, studying them from afar about their character traits. Caboose hasn't noticed that he and the others have a pair of eyes hidden behind a blindfold, patiently watching them interact.

"You incompetent moronic buffoon! Don't you put upon me that insulting name! I will make you long to never speak that word directly at me! Do I make myself clear?" the demon, Atlanis rebukes Caboose's dumb actions when first talking to her. Her temper continues to boil inside her, not forgiving the offensive word that describes her appearance.

"Baboon? I am not a monkey. Does it look like I have a tail? If so, I don't know if I should be happy or scared. Maybe scarppy." Caboose confusingly gets her wordplay mixed up as usual when coming across someone formal. Currently, Ajax becomes amused by this interaction between the two but hopes it does not get nasty. If so, he will have to diffuse the competition since the contracts they sign vowed that they have no right to end any contestant's life before Dante's Abyss begins. During the intense conversation, the blonde-headed coward swordsman quakes in his sandals, witnessing how easily the female demon gets tempered. On the bright side, he's somewhat glad that her attention mainly locks onto Caboose.

The blue Spartan's words just added more gasoline to the fiery anger that resides in Atlanis. Following up on what Caboose just said, his idiocy has just baffled the tactician. She was at a loss for words. Never in her life has she met a duller fool than this blue-powered armor buffed soldier. It must be the bottom of the barrel for idiots she met in her life for now.

 

[Izaneus Phortea]

It was interesting... The people here included someone not so sure of themself, a large... Person in seemingly bulky armor, and someone with a rather short temper.

Of course, it was more than interesting to watch this all play out, but the young mage was beginning to worry weather or not this was going to turn into a brawl at some point. Which.. Of itself was worrying given what he could glean of these personalities.

He had a couple of options available to him.

Option A. Beat it. Just go somewhere else entirely.

Option B. Try to mediate. Though he's not quite sure how well that would work, and could very well end up with him being beaten to a pulp.

Option C. Stay and watch how this all unfolds. At the very least he can keep himself from dying to everyone here. But nonetheless, better safe than sorry right?

Oh choices choices... All were so tantalizing...

 

[Sigmund Vrell]

Stheno did her best to suppress a smirk as she watched the trio’s interactions quickly and chaotically break down within the first few sentences to one another. The ‘pony’ comment in particular threatened to draw an incriminating chuckle from the mercenary, but she managed to keep her cool. If she knew the demon(?)’s type, and she had a good feeling that she did, that comment wasn’t going to go down well. Sure enough, a spat was beginning to brew between the soldier and the scientist with the swordsman quivering to the side.

Stretching a little, the gorgon casually pushed off the wall that she had been quietly leaning against, deciding that it was about time to introduce herself. In truth, she had a soft spot for muscle-headed morons and wailing cowards, and though she knew that they weren’t in any real danger, Stheno felt an obligation to save them from anything nasty that a frustrated and self-important demon might try. Or make it worse, either/or. Strolling over with a casual, confident stride, the mutant mercenary nudged the quaking Zenitsu’s shoulder. The youth opened his mouth to yelp, but only a strangled gasp came out.

“You alright kid?” She asked, giving the swordsman a warm smile, doing her best to be reassuring. The blonde gave a frantic shake of his head, which wasn’t exactly saying much considering the fact that every part of his body was shaking.

“None of this is alright!” He gasped. “What if they fight right here in the gym?! We might get kicked ou-“

“Hey, Hey, don’t worry about it.” The mercenary chuckled, giving him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “I’ll handle this.”

Truth be told, Stheno wasn’t sure if she was about to make the situation better or worse, but even if she couldn’t save the cheerful dolt from a fight, at least she would be inserting herself into a brawl. It was win/win!

“Hey there, big guy.” She said with a friendly grin, approaching the musclehead and putting her arm around his shoulder as if she had known him all her life. “I think you should apologise to the… nice lady here. I don’t think she likes getting called a pony. After all, ponies are animals. They can’t talk and don’t have people faces, right?”

To his credit, Caboose seemed completely unphased by the mercenary treating him like an old friend/child, instead taking a long pause as if in deep thought, assuming he was capable of such a thing. Zenitsu and Altanis, on the other hand, both gave the blindfolded bruiser a surprised look, an overwhelmed and skeptical expression on their respective faces. “...what about a magic pony?”

“Well, I don’t think she’s a magic pony.” Stheno chuckled before pausing for a moment, glancing at the glaring demon beneath her blindfold. Wait… was she a magic pony? After a moment of consideration, she shook off the idea, leaning in to whisper to the soldier. “If she is a magic pony, she would probably want to keep it a secret, yeah? You might have come close to blowing her cover there.”

“Ohhhh…” The soldier quietly exclaimed, raising a shocked hand to his visor. “I’m sorry ma- I mean, I’m sorry ‘nice lady’.”

Altanis, however, did not seem impressed by the apology, even when faced with Stheno and Caboose’s most charming smiles. It probably didn’t help that she could only see half of the face of one of the people grinning at her. Instead, her crossed arms became more crossed, and her scowl deepened with a combination of annoyance and confusion.

“I’m not sure exactly what that excuse for an apology was…” She said slowly. “But that’s besides the point. What’s your game, sellsword? Why are you defending this oaf?”

“Ladon is a machete, technically, not a sword.” The gorgon thought to herself, but refrained from voicing her nitpicking out-loud. Instead, she maintained her best smile, presenting a look of obviously fake innocence. “Well, we could all end up on the same side, and I think it would be best to work out our differences now.”

“Hmph, awfully kind of you. Surely you must realise the odds of us all ending up on the same team.” The demon said, raising an eyebrow. “And what good do you suppose this will do if we don’t?”

“Hah! You’re right, of course.” Stheno conceded. “Even if we don’t end up on the same team, I’d still say we’re better off putting it aside here. Grudges can wait until we’re on the battlefield, eh?”

 

[Altanis]

For several long, awkwardly silent moments Altanis held her gaze steady. Just staring at the mercenary and the spartan with some mixture of incredulity and a fury that had been reduced from 'rolling boil' to a mere 'rapid simmer'.

The blindfolded mercenary was, as expected, proving to be a troublesome sort. If only for the fact that she had, as so soundly revealed, the worrying ability of simple common sense, and at least a modicum of actual intelligence to back it up. Not even to mention that she had stepped into things and managed to stall the imminent violence about to break out. The oaf in the blue armor, meanwhile, had proved himself not just dull or slow-witted, but completely and utterly empty-headed; Altanis had seen more intelligence displayed by some trolls before, for Goreskan's sake!

....the fact he had had the audacity to refer to her as a 'pony' only colored her opinion of him slightly.

Eventually she just let out a short, sharp huff and broke her stare off. "If we should wind up on opposing sides," she hissed. "I will spare no effort to ensure you both have as miserable and torturous a fate as possible."

"Sure, sure; that's what the point of this whole thing is, isn't it?" the gorgon countered.

"Hmph. For some, perhaps." Altanis shook her head. "I mean to take it as an opportunity to more directly see what this...unmaking business is supposed to be. I have had encounters with some of the dregs of this scattered collection of worlds who think they are allied with this....Darkseid and his forces." Her scowl returned, in particularly ugly and violent fashion as some unpleasant memory flitted through her head. "....but not any of his actual forces just yet."

"I do not think the scary nice lady likes whoever she is talking about very much," Caboose supplied helpfully. "But I am sure that they just did not have a chance to talk properly and work out their differences."

"There was very little time for any talking to be done," Altanis stated bluntly. "We were far too busy—"

"I think it would be better for everyone if we all had more time to talk," the blue armored soldier went on, seemingly without a care in the world. "Then you could find out how to help with their problems, and stop them from unmaking by making."

"Making what?"

"What?"

Altanis snarled, teeth bared and one clenched fist rising up as if ready to strike. "You completely idiotic—!"

The gorgon tensed up visibly, ready to spring into action if things took a turn for the violent.

"W-Wait, wait!" Before any such thing could happen, however, someone else cut in unexpectedly. The cowering little swordsman, the boy who had run away in sheer terror after just laying eyes on her. Admittedly, such a reaction had been exceptionally amusing and exactly the proper reaction that a mere human should have to meeting her directly. The fact that he actually had the courage to speak up to try and intervene in what was quickly shaping up to be a very violet affair, after his previously displayed antics, was a remarkable enough feat to momentarily stifle the tactician's fiercely blazing temper.

"Silence, boy!" she barked at him in return, and he visibly flinched and recoiled as if physically struck. "Unless you wish to be directly involved as well!"

"N-no, please—!" He was visibly shaking, and quickly scuttled backward with both hands held up before him as if to ward off some impending blow. "J-just don't..." He managed a hapless, flailing gesture around at...well, everything in the dojo around them. "...in here!"

Altanis's upraised fist slowly curled tighter, clawed nails digging into her skin strongly enough that they began to draw blood. It bubbled and hissed as it met the air, drops of it slowly running down her forearm like some kind of ink or tar as it steamed and smoked. The burning feeling of it was enough to rip her mind away from her wish to flay the blue armored buffoon alive.

"....very well then," she finally spat, through clenched teeth. "As you all seem so insistent on, I will save my violence for the actual battlefield." She let her clenched fist relax, bloodied fingers slowly uncurling as she let her arm drop down to her side. "So tell me, then...exactly who you all are. I make it a habit of knowing the names of people who manage to be so insufferable."

 

[Izaneus Phortea]

Iza watched the confrontation slowly come to a conclusion, which, thankfully; didn't end in a bloodbath. Although the question that came after made him think a small bit.

"wait... Have I been insufferable?" he asked himself silently. Had he been an annoyance? He'd just been standing there, watching the events unfold, partially too shy to join in.

But now that he thought about it his actions could be percieved as annoying...

This became a downward spiral which made him a bit downtrodden. The thought at least, that others found him insufferable.

Or could anyhow.

"I would hope I hadn't been..." He muttered out. Staring at the ground in contemplation.

 

[Edward Elric]

Zenitsu quaked. Looking over the other combatants gathered, and oh were they gathered, he had quickly realized that he was in over his head in here. He’d had no business - nay, not even, he’d had negative business - being in the dojo. That much, at least, was completely evident at this point. Boiling temperaments, harsh words, dull wits, and bloodthirstiness; those things were always tossed into the melting pot of dojos and gyms where they were stirred into an unpleasant concoction that usually resulted in violence.

Nope, not for him. This was definitely not for him.

After Altanis’ final lashing remark where she’d bade him to silence the boy in yellow shrunk back from the others. His anxiety hung about him, a gloomy mantle, bringing with it tidings of self-loathing and despair.

I look so stupid right now. I’m a wimp, a shrimpy, wimpy, puny little…

The boy went on to criticise himself in excess, going down a list that included everything from his sunflower yellow haori (stupid, too bright, all the badasses were going to hate him) to his flimsy bodily presence.

As he slid backward step by step, careful not to draw any attention, it became clear that the others had become consumed in their own exchanges. The last thing Zen overheard as he turned away entirely and made for the exit one final time was the diminishing voice of the woman (debatably a Demon-horse-woman) demanding the identities of those who’d drawn her ire.

He slipped out the door, glad to avoid being a part of that discussion.

Once free from the dojo his nervosa - which had reached an apex - began to freefall back down to normal levels. Myriad paths wound from dojo to dojo, each leading to areas with different themes: survival, exploration, wound treatment, courier etiquette...things that would help, inevitably, in the trials to come. The flipside of that coin as he’d come to realize it, however, was that other people were seeking out these lessons and were clearly ready to chew up and spit out a morsel like Zenitsu.

At least he was away from them now, though. The paths seemed free of roaming participants and staff - certainly at this point they’d all begun whatever lessons they’d fancied, which was well enough for the scrawny swordsman as that left him alone in the great open. Admittedly he’d never flown through the wild expanse of space on a mysteriously terraformed comet owned by a shadowy billionaire-esque figure, so all of this was rather new and terrifying, but with the harsh interaction in the dojo behind him the straw haired boy felt a little better about his prospects.

So he set off down the path, humming a little, and daydreaming of a pretty girl in a pink kimono that moonlighted as an occupant in his thoughts in the rare, happy moments he found himself away from society. That’s where he found his joy - on the fringes. With the weirdos, the outcast, the cowardly, and the downtrodden. Now that’s where he belonged. Fuck all of these violent soldier-types and domineering commander bozos.

And yet he’d been born under the wrong sign, it seemed. Danger rode him: he was the pole, and terror was the stripper. It had always been that way for as long as he could remember - even before the slippery succession of events that had resulted in his unfortunate appointment to the Demon Slayer Corps. All of those unfortunate missteps and they’d led him right here, ready to slay the ‘Unmaking’, where he was certain he himself would become Unmade.

After all, only that strange light in his heart that ignited when all else was dark had kept him alive so far...and that couldn’t last forever, right? Sooner or later he’d black out, and instead of awakening to an unexpected victory won by his subconscious warrior, he would never awake at all.

But wasn’t he supposed to be revelling in good cheer, here, before he departed!? Holy shit, how easy it was to stray down that ugly path of wallowing. He shook his head to ward off his negative nature that buzzed about his head and nipped at his brain like harrowing horseflies and set off elsewhere. The further he was from the dojos the happier he’d be.

Clip-clopping along in his sandals, thumbs in the hemline of his hakama pants, his yellow-orange haori fluttering in the breeze (was that a breeze, really, if he was on a comet?), Zenitsu made for the library.

After all, there was no safer place for a coward or a weakling.

 

[PJ]

Anita had wandered off somewhere, leaving PJ to find herself entirely lost in what seemed to be some sort of flamboyantly over-designed training facility. The ground level had been filled with a bunch of dojos and private rooms, but after making her way up a few flights of stairs, PJ found herself standing in the middle of a steel chamber. Jutting up from the ground, a computer console awaited her, and on the opposing wall, a piece of expensive-looking machinery sat idle.

“What expensive contraption are you?” The solider whispered as she tabbed the screen with an index finger to bring it out of its stand-by state. A cursory glance revealed that this was some type of training software that utilized virtual reality. PJ was familiar with similar technology, as Capsule Corporation had a whole line of ‘clone fighting chambers’ that the fighters frequently used to hone their technique. “What are you?”

After some scrolling down the list of what seemed to be training programs, her eyes caught a familiar name. Clicking the ‘Gilgamesh’ program, PJ was ushered to a bonus screen where she was supposed to select the difficulty on a sliding scale from ‘Malefactor’ (there was an angry emoji next to this option) to ‘Pal of Kings’ (a smiling, mouse-eared emoji demarcated this selection).

“That’s okay, I already know I could take Gilgasaurus Rex,” PJ snickered as she pressed the back arrow and continued down the list of training programs. Her eyes came to rest on a program simply called ‘Sorcerer’ that was authored by a programmer named ‘KJ17’. Since the program didn’t have a sliding scale, the woman simply had to click a second button to verify, and with a crackle of electricity, the large apparatus on the far side of the room hummed to life. After a few moments, a central array of diodes spat out a cluster of light beams that danced in the air in front of PJ as they created a green wireframe of a human form. Fast forward a few moments, and a man with dark hair, Asian features, and flowing, medieval attire was standing on the other side of the control console.

“Hello,” the man intoned as he sized up PJ with eyes that, outwardly at least, seemed harmless, but anything more than a cursory look revealed that there was something far more unsettling behind that disarming visage. “I’m a high-level program… are you sure you want to lose your soul today, User?”

PJ snickered softly as she waved goodbye to the man and hit the ‘cancel’ button on the console.

“Your loss,” he spoke with a callous sneer before fading out of existence.

“What else they got?” The redhead continued down the list of programs until another caught her eye. After verifying her entry, the virtual reality machine generated what appeared to be a four-foot humanoid turtle with furry ears. “This one is kind of cute… are you a tutorial mode?”

At that, the blue turtle’s features twisted into a sneer far more malicious than anything PJ had encountered this side of the wastes of Mesa Roja. “You insult me like that, you fucking Homo sapiens?” The turtle reached behind its back and drew and assault rifle. “I will rip out your fucking entrails and fe—” PJ hit the kill switch and took a step back as the angry reptile vanished back into the nothing from when it had spawned.

“Having a fun trip down memory lane?”

PJ’s features twisted into a look of confusion as she turned around to see a cowboy in a spandex body suit casually leaning in the doorway. “Can I help you?”

The cowboy tilted his hat before pushing away from the door. “How-dee, y’all. Name’s Arthur Morgan.” After he was done talking in what had to be the bargain bin equivalent of a cowboy accent, the man thrust a hand almost entirely into PJ’s stomach. “I’m the champion of these here parts, yessir.”

Ignoring the outstretched hand, the soldier took a step backwards and eyed the machine to make sure it hadn’t loaded some sort of program without her knowing. “Why do I not believe any of that?”

“Not sure, Ma’am. That statement is one hundred per-cent legally correct,” he spoke as he reached behind his back and produced a small book of some kind. “This here’s my journal, with all my deep, dark cowboy secrets, mmhmm. You just give this here litter-chore a good readin’ if you don’t believe my grizzled cowboy secrets.”

“I’ll pass,” PJ said with a faint chuckle as she moved to step passed the man. Instead, he stepped sideways as well, and the woman immediately felt her fists clench.

“Whats yer name?”

She debating kicking the cowboy in the groin, but there was little about this man that screamed intimidating at the moment. “You can call me PJ.”

“Can I call you Piper?”

“No.”

“Okay, so Piper,” ‘Arthur Morgan’ paused as he leaned in a little too close to the woman’s head space. “We have more in common than ya think.”

“We have nothing in common.”

The cowboy recoiled as if struck by a blunt object. “Don't tell me he’s writing you straight?”

PJ furrowed her brow. “Not that it's any of your business, but I’m not str—”

“No, not that type of straight!” ‘Arthur’ groaned as he threw up his hands in exasperation. “Why couldn’t he have sent the guy with the time machine? Hell, the perpetual retread of teenage angst would have at least had some wiggle room I could work with,” the man’s shoulders sagged as he glanced back at the woman. When he spoke again, he was distinctly missing the hokey accent. “Just remember to never trust clowns. Or people with accents in general.”

With that, last year’s champion departed, leaving a confused PJ to ponder what she’d just endured.

 

[Josuke Higashikata]

"My name is Caboose, scary nice po-, I mean scary nice l-lady. It should be easy to remember my name. Anyone I met remembers my name, especially ME!" Caboose stammered in front of the demon tactician to be a little more polite this time around but finishing off childishly emphasizing his name. "Do you have a name too?"

"Of course, I am Altanis. May that name stick with you for eternity." The demon tactician presents her name, gazing hard at the fool in the blue spartan power armor with her spoken last sentence, proposing a threat toward Caboose. "Atlantis, that is such a cool name. I liked that movie too." Caboose compliments the other contestant's name but confuses her name with a different one, making Atlanis' blood boil to anger as before back on the whole name confusion game. The unwelcoming angry eyes directly stare back, going straight through his gold reflecting visor into his own human eyes, similar to a ballistic bullet that would shoot through his clean glassed gold shield, impacting his brain.

Her hands turned into clinch fists once more, with her nails digging into the same spots on her palm. Immediately, the blindfolded gorgon mercenary attempts again to ease the bridge of violent tension that Caboose rebuilds, not intentionally.

"Listen, Caboose's ears here haven't been great since the war. He was in my squad at one point, and we've saved our asses many times before. Isn't that right, tough guy." The female gorgon is diffusing the ticking time bomb of a fight that could happen quickly, trying to trick Altanis that she has known Caboose as a pal before registering Dante's Abyss. In Caboose's mind, he is now confused and attempts to process if he has met this now "pretending" friend from the past.

"I don't reme-, OW!"

Stheno reacts in no time, elbowing the blue spartan hard into his right side to make his mouth shut before revealing her lie. That makes him react, bending his upper body and twisting his arms to press hands on the spot that feels pain. Standing next to him, she quietly whispers in his ear. "Listen, you have to play along if you don't want to die before the damn game starts!"

"O-okay. If we are whispering, is this supposed to be secret?" Caboose replies whispering back at Stheno.

"Yes!" She answers the blue spartan's simple, quiet question. "I'm good at keeping secrets!" The power-armored soldier excitedly responds at the nature of hearing other's secrets, although he has no good track record of keeping secrets.

Awkwardness has fallen on this conversation while Caboose and Stheno whisper to each other. Atlanis, on the other hand, was started to think that the two were being suspicious with her judgmental eyes. Annoyance did linger on her longer because of the two lower beings standing across from her. Finally, the blue spartan regains, standing up straight and facing toward Atlanis. "W-why uh, yes! We are best buddies! S-she even knows m-my secret muffin recipe too! We are s-so good at keeping secrets between e-each other. Yes, T-that is why!" Caboose is trying his best to play Stheno's little game in front of the demon tactician.

In response, she rolls her eyes with annoyance at the two non-demons that stood a couple of feet away in front where she stands. Atlanis had no words to say toward the two after the out of nowhere "suspicious" comradery they had shown about each other by getting off the hook quickly. "My name is Stheno, by the way." the gorgon mercenary pronounces her name that Atlanis requested earlier.

"Caboose and Stheno, Intriguing names…." Atlanis thinking about the creative names that these newly met strangers hold. Luckily, this madness is ending because of the dull soldier in blue thought about departing from the dojo.

"Well, I had fun talking to the nicer blinded lady and the scary not-pony lady here, but all this talking is making me want to have ice cream. I can come back with a big banana split sundae for all of us to share and become even better friends." Caboose kindly offers to both ladies that he is chit-chatting alongside.

"It's fine. I'm not hungry." Stheno replies but declines Caboose's offer, and Altanis outright rejects his kindness due to the tomfoolery she had to witness with his introduction.

"I reject your buffoonery, swine."

The blue soldier does a silly goodbye wave and walks toward the exit of the dojo, leaving the place.