Welcome to the Program

[airlockedmods]

Good Morning, Champions. In the interest of maintaining healthy sleep patterns, a day/night cycle is in effect. Your presence is expected in the cafeteria in exactly one hour.

[The voice comes through not a large speaker, but through the device that's attached to each Champion's arm. Further investigation of the features of the device will reveal a list of profiles, a mini-map, and a list of rules. The hallways are shiny white and silver, with running lights along the floor and lights on the ceiling, and at the junction of the hallways is a sign with a knife and fork icon and an arrow pointing down the hall.

Welcome to the Excellence Program, Champions. Time to get to know your teammates.]

Comments

[hellahighwater]

[ Something is pretty immediately wrong. You don't go from getting out of your car to sleeping in an unfamiliar bed wearing a space suit and hearing a voice start yelling from your arm. Like, Chloe's had some bad dreams before, but she's pretty sure she can tell reality from fiction. ...Right?

Anyway, she wouldn't be dreaming about something like this. Not with all the shit going on at Blackhell and...how soon she needs to see Max. Honestly, though, it's not that much of a surprise, given the fact that abduction seems to just happen in Arcadia Bay. ...Not expecting the fucking- what is this sci-fi bullshit, a monitoring device or something?- attached to her arm, nor how she can...just leave this room? Chloe's wandering the hallway outside the dorms, fiddling with her P.I.P. and trying to figure out if she knows where she is. Grumbling, mostly. Depending on when you find her, she could be grumbling about a number of different things! ]

Of course this would happen to me. Of course. Where the hell...? [ As she struggles to even get the P.I.P. working, frustrated.

She's...a little distracted, though, when she looks up and sees the goddamn windows? A little, more like completely stopped dead in her tracks. ] No way. No fucking way, I- this can't be...

[ She trials off. If everything that's happened the last two days is possible, why not being in damn outer space?

She...ends up in the cafeteria by the time she figures out how to view things on the P.I.P. It's not that she's bad with technology, you see, just...disoriented. The rules give her a start, and she reacts as she always does: with anger. ] What kind of fucked up Battle Royale bullshit...? This is a joke, right? Come on, what the...?

[ Sure sounds like she's...not thinking it's a joke. Kind of hard to deny when it's all sitting right in front of her. She however runs into something a bit more important, while just whacking at the device on her arm, trying to get it to give her some answers. It's...the profiles. A few, specifically. ]

Champion of...? [ Something freezes her as she's flipping through. Something terrifying- and then she relaxes. ] ...Come on, Chloe. She's not- just 'cause everything's gone to shitsville she's not gonna suddenly morph into some middle-aged Mexican guy.

[ ...Thank God. Thank God, Chloe thinks for once in her life, that Max isn't here. ]

Cafeteria

[photoshooter]

[Well, since this is where he's supposed to be, here Prompto is, nervously wringing his hands and watching everyone else as he jiggles his leg incessantly. His head whips around at the suddenly angry voice, but once he sees it's just another one of them--a girl close to his age, even, further lowering the Fright Factor, he turns towards her in his chair.]

What do you mean, Battle Royale?

[If it's some kind of royal battle, that might start making a little more sense. Marginally. Sort of.]

[hellahighwater]

[ Who is this twitchy loser? Chloe raises an eyebrow at him. ]

You haven't heard of Battle Royale. Okay, guy, sure. The thing where a bunch of kids are put on an island and told to kill each other? That's this.

[photoshooter]

Oh, 'cause of that thing in the rules--wait, what? Is that a thing? Son of a bitch, that's messed up!

[TERRIBLE.]

Why kids?

[hellahighwater]

'Cause it's some fucked up story about the exploitation of minors for entertainment or...something? People suck, the world's a shithole. Shock.

[ ...But yeah, it's pretty messed up. ]

the profiles

[karappo]

Max Caulfield?

[Karamatsu sort of finishes her sentence for her as he approaches, having managed to find her on the profiles before addressing her. There are multiple women with blue hair here, but somehow she seems to stick out a bit more.]

I must say, out of all of the titles I've read so far, yours has to be one of the most intriguing.

[In that he doesn't understand what it's even trying to mean.]

[hellahighwater]

[ Alright, this guy just comes up and starts talking to her, sure. Chloe frowns at him, an edge of suspicion in her voice. ]

What's so intriguing about it? Max Caulfield is my best friend, of course I'd be a champion of her.

[karappo]

[Karamatsu blinks, seemingly surprised by her tone. Not that it's undeserved at all.]

Ah...I guess that would make sense! I just was not sure, since most of our titles connect to some sort of virtue, or, ah...character trait as opposed to an actual person. I apologize.

[Like being a Waste Of Space.]

[hellahighwater]

What, they are? [ ...She may have just lashed out without realizing she's a bit of an odd one out, #JustChloeThings

She pulls up the profiles again and, nearly immediately: ] Holy shit, who hates you?

[ WHAT A TITLE, GUY. ]

Cafeteria

[in4apounding]

Oh, do you think we're here for a battle royal? That could be fun! ...They took everyone's weapons, though, that's a little ofd if we're supposed to fight.

[hellahighwater]

[ ... Alright, this one's insane. ]

Usually that's, oh, a bad thing? Why the hell would you want to fight to the death?

[in4apounding]

What? Why would it be to the death? That wouldn't be fun at all, for anyone! That would just be- I don't know, HORRIBLE.

[hellahighwater]

Yeah, and have you read this thing? [ She waves her P.I.P. around. ] "Horrible" seems like it's these guys' bread and butter.

Cafeteria

[theworldsliveliestcorpse]

This better be a joke. If it's not then I can promise you that whoever's behind this is in for a hell of a ass kicking.

[Like it's one thing putting adults into this, but teenagers? Hell fucking no.]

[hellahighwater]

[ Chloe glances over at her. It's... Oh, wow, hello there. ]

Right there with you, sister. Someone needs a cap popped in their ass.

[theworldsliveliestcorpse]

Hell yeah. Though it might be more fun to throw them to the courts and watch 'em squirm afterwards.

[She's pretty sure that there's at least several major charges here.]

[hellahighwater]

Ugh, long as they don't dodge it. Wouldn't that be something, getting kidnapped by rich psychopaths. [ Grumbles: ] Familiar.

cafeteria

[newcycle]

What's "battle royale"?

[sorry for listening, but Korra's just starting to really realize that... there are a lot of terms she doesn't know. Almost like people came from an entirely different planet.

She's gotta figure it out.]

[hellahighwater]

Wow, seriously no one knows the classics around here, do they? [ Is Battle Royale really "the classics?" Who cares, not like these people know. ] It's a book. Or, a movie. About some fuckers who grab a class of kids and make them fight to the death. Sound kinda familiar?

[newcycle]

No, that sounds awful, actually.

[who the heck would write about that?]

But I guess Rule 7 gave you that feeling, huh.

[hellahighwater]

Bingo. That kind of sick setup seems just like what this place is. Especially with these... [ she jabs at the PIP ] ...things.

The Profiles

[theundertaken]

Someone asking for a Mexican?

[now you've done it]

[hellahighwater]

[ OOPS... ]

Uhhh. Hi, sorry, your name just kinda made me shit my pants for a second there. Thought you were someone else.

[theundertaken]

Ohhhh, yeah. No problem. Most of the other Maxes I meet are literally dogs, so that's cool. Someone you didn't wanna see kidnapped to space, or someone you didn't wanna be stuck in space with?

[hellahighwater]

[ Immediately softer. ] What, no, it's the first one. She's...one of the only people I'd like to be stuck in space with. She's just also the last person on Earth who deserves this bullshit.