Tourney Spectator Lounge

Aelieth waved goodbye to Mill only to find the expedition to talk with Duke had returned. "No worries, Rose." he smiled as Holoß floated back over to roost on his operator's shoulder, the form of Anyis draining from him as he reverted back to his usual appearance.

He was about to ask how things went over there when Zeo posed his question. "Well," Aelieth began, looking at the monitor, "It's not what I expected for a semifinal arena. But, at the same time, there's been a decent variety so far, so I guess it works. It'll be interesting to see what people can pull off using the arena, aside from eating a face full of frosting."

Steve made his way over and for a moment Aelieth tried to place where he'd seen him before remembering that this was the very same man who had alerted him and Mill that the third round was starting. It was hard for him to determine what was causing the rasp in the man's voice; he could just be thirsty, though the look on his face suggested that there may be some ulterior cause, such as the loss of a match. Deciding not to comment on it unless the man (he hadn't caught a name last time he saw Steve) brought it up himself.

"Hey there," he smiled, trying to make Steve feel welcome, "We're just talking about the tournament at the moment... well, the arena at least." He offered his hand to Steve. "I'm Aelieth."

Rose heard Sabrina's question this time. "Oh, Summ's, " She trailed as she glanced at the empty holster sitting on her belt. "In my PeT, over there." She said, as she pointed at the seat her PeT was indeed sitting in. He apparently was listening, though, as he appeared briefly in hologram form. "Why? Was someone looking for me?" he asked with an eyebrow raised. Pushing the PeT's wireless range he teleported over to the group, standing on a nearby chair.

"Well then, he's over here now, so that solves that." Rose thought, hoping that this was more of a solution than a problem, but assuming the worst in the back of her mind.

In response to Zeo's under the breath comment about the girls dragging him around Rose could only roll her eyes figuratively in order to avoid offending anyone. But she did think it was wrong to include her in the dragging, and rather strange to loop her with Sabrina for that, since the two had followed her on her independent trip across the room.

In response to his publicized question, however, she responded aloud. "It certainly is," She picked her choice of words carefully as dozens of words flew through her mind, "Interesting." Less acceptable alternatives included foolish, lame, unique, ridiculous, strange, and outlandish.

SummonerMan rolled his eyes at this and let out a breath. "Yeah, that's a nice way of putting it." He said, with some sort of obvious message lying behind the bitterness of the words about such a sweet subject.

When Steve, who she had correctly identified from the screen that had shown the battles, approached the group, she planned to respond again. Aelieth beat her to it, though. He also introduced himself to Steve, which was something the female operator had done when the man had been in the lounge earlier. She did still smile, though.

And then she managed to address Zeo's comment, which she decided would be a good idea. "Actually, since we're all just hanging around and being social, and I wouldn't want to interrupt that, I think the interview could wait." She said calmly with a smile. "However, if you'd like to exchange e-mail addresses," Rose continued, now focusing her energies on Steve, "I'd be delighted to contact you later for the benefit of my NetPaper, Gazette.Net."

SummonerMan looked at the upper left-hand corner of his skull as Rose entered some cross between Reporter and living advertisement. "It's almost prostitution." He thought. "I mean, with smiles and handshakes instead of sexual favors, but the basic concept is the same."

Of course, he didn't find the paper to be that trivial, so he respected her relatively effective methods and dealt with it in his usual way.

...She was keeping her PET unattended? That was definitely NOT the smartest thing she'd ever heard. After a silent nod, and once Rose had her attention focused elsewhere (which didn't take long), Sabrina started to head towards the lonely electronic device.

BEEP BEEP! BEEP BEEP!

Barely two steps later, her own PET gave off its 'you've got mail' sound. But she was a tad preoccupied with retreiving other people's possessions, so..."Hey, SplashMan! Do me a favor, and check out the e-mail for me, okay? I'll read it later."

"I'm on it!" The aquatic Navi's hologram vanished, as he reappeared in the PET to fulfill his operator's wish. "Let's see, I bring it up by doing this...oh hey, look who it's from!"

"Don't care. Unless it's from Dad or Mom, not interested right now."

"It's not, but it's from-"

"Not interested right now!"

With a sigh, SplashMan opened the mail anyway, knowing that any effort to try to get her to pay attention was futile. Hmm...looked like it had some kind of attachment. Probably couldn't hurt to download it while he read...

And as that was going on, the PET belonging to one Rose Dunrae was snatched from its seat. Luckily, the hand that grabbed it belonged to one Sabrina Jetto. "Got it. Now to return to sender!"

PING! Download complete. And he hadn't read the entire e-mail yet. Nothing seemed any different, though...wait, that was odd. To one side was a small button, with a circular arrow on it. That wasn't there before...looked like the main PET screen had it as well, so Sabrina could access whatever it did as well. He should probably read the rest of the mail to find out what the button did, but what was it that Sabrina told him? It's no fun if you know exactly what's going to happen? He wasn't so sure about that, but considering who it was from, it couldn't be bad. And thus, he walked over to the button, raised one finger, and pushed it...unaware that the figure of a mermaid had appeared directly behind him when the download was finished.

Not noticing the sudden intense flash coming from her own, the girl with two PETs in tow returned to the main crowd, specifically Rose. "Hey, Rose! I really think you need to keep this with you, even though you're not really using it." She offered the other girl her PET as she continued. "I mean, I don't think anyone here would steal it, but you never know when some nutjob might come in..."

"Yeah, really! You're just asking for it if you leave something like that out!"

"Right, Splash..." Sabrina trailed off as she realized that the voice that just spoke was feminine...and coming from her own PET. Before she could whip it out and check, a hologram appeared on her shoulder...a female Navi with a spear, and one that took up significantly less horizontal space than SplashMan. "What the?! What are you-"

"Doing here? I'm your Navi, duh! ...Well, kinda. It's a little complicated, but since SOMEONE was too busy to read their mail, I guess you don't have time to hear it."

"...HUH?" If one squinted, they could probably see the question marks forming over the Netopian girl's head. "It's fine if you want to switch forms, but what's with the 180 in your personality?"

"Because this IS my personality! Deal with it!" After a quick smile to make sure all who cared that she wasn't too serious, the mermaid Navi turned towards the main group, and took a small bow. She had a feeling she'd attracted a little attention by now, what with the fact she was Sabrina's Navi, but not SplashMan. "I know you guys, of course, but you've never really met me. I'm SplashLady, SplashMan's sister!"

"Oh, Yo. Steve." Steve replied to Aelieth, shaking hands before Rose approached him again.

"Interview? Uh, I guess so." Steve said, scribbling his email onto a scrap of paper and handing it back to Rose. "I mean, I'll do my best, I guess. I'm not too good with interviews." His mouth actually twitched into half a smile.

Then... Sabrina... (he was pretty sure that was her name, anyway) came up and handed Rose her PET. "Heh, theft is the last thing I need to worry about with my old heap." he said, digging his ancient model PET out of his pocket. "This thing is older than I am." He hooked it onto his belt loop, then took his long overcoat off and tossed it over the back of one of the chairs. There were a lot of people in this room, and so a tee shirt was much more comfortable.

Zeo soon stopped staring at the monitors and quickly looked at everyone in the room. The old/new guy, Steve, tossed off his coat and seemed to get more relaxed. Sabrina was preventing Rose's PET from being stolen by technically stealing it. In the process, Sabrina's own PET flashed brightly, which he noted. The boy repositioned his terminal, holding it out in front of him. "Not much going on, I guess," Zeo said to his Navi. ViralMan shrugged. "At least you made some conversation. If you try anything now you might screw up, so just wait. That Sabrina girl's bound to start a conversation eventually." The Navi crossed his arms. "Point me at the monitors again, I was watching." Zeo obliged.

He turned towards Sabrina as SplashLady presumably made herself the center of attention. "Hmm, was that the flash I saw?" he said to himself quietly. Hey, new conversation. ViralMan was right. As if he had heard his operator, ViralMan chuckled. "What did I tell you? She didn't exactly start it. but it had something to do with her," he said. "And while I'm thinking about it, since when can PETs generate holograms?" Zeo scratched his head. "I'm not sure, I haven't checked if this PET can. I'm a bit preoccupied now, I'll look later."

After putting that off, Zeo studied SplashLady with a frown. It changed to a smile a moment later. "Wow, you're pretty cool. You look a lot more interesting than my Navi," he said to her. ViralMan kept silent and self-consciously looked at himself. Zeo directed his next words to Sabrina. "So, did you split your Navi in two or is she another Navi? She apparently already knows us."

"Nice to meet you, Steve." Aelieth said once the other Operator had introduced himself. Others were taking their turns in the conversation, so Aelieth allowed his eyes to wander as he listened to his comrades' various thoughts and comments. During his mental travels, his eyes happened to fall upon a monitor showing the progress of the tournaments. Weird... he thought, focusing a bit more on what was being displayed. One of the fights seems to be over already... that was fa-... his thoughts stopped short as he recognized an armored boot poking out from beneath a collapsed candle. He knew that boot. A blank expression blanketed his face as he realized that the match hadn't even started yet. The voices of the others continued to buzz in the background.

Holoß, however, was having a much more enjoyable time now that yet another Navi had appeared. His hologram blinked out of existence, reappearing a fraction of a second later before SummonerMan, wearing the other Navi's appearance as he greeted the newcomer. He was about to try and introduce himself (his skill at pantomime would be a large factor in whether or not this would be a success), but suddenly blinked over to Sabrina as a new voice rang from her PeT. Reappearing as Splashman, he was surprised to see an entirely different Navi perched upon Sabrina's shoulder. The bar of light that heralded his transformations zoomed up his body again as he mirrored SplashLady, her smile replaced with a confused expression. He changed back into SplashMan, the same confusion showing in his eyes, as if asking where the original SplashMan had gone to. A question mark appeared above his head, accentuating the silent query.

Uh, hello? Rose seemed to be in La-La Land all of a sudden, and right as she was giving her her PET...oh well. Sabrina reached out, grabbed Rose's arm, placed the reporter's PET in that arm's corresponding hand, and released. There, problem solved. "Now don't go losing it! I mean, could you even imagine how much of a pain it'd be to get it back if you did?"

Though both operator and Navi heard Zeo's following question and knew who it was intended for, the latter chose to answer it first. Probably because she actually had a clue about what had happened. "It's kinda hard to explain, really...I'll just give you the short answer: it's a combination of both." SplashLady really wanted to comment on his compliment, too...but that'd be kinda vain, so she decided to just smile and keep quiet about it.

...And that was about all that was going on. Boooooring. "Hey, Sabrina. I'm all for socializing, but uh...I'm getting an itch to fight, ya know? Something hard, too!"

"Hard, huh? ...Well, Netopia wasn't easy when we busted here earlier. Think its Rogue Net's tough enough for you?" Ha, Rogue Netopia. There was no way she'd possibly want to-

"Sounds like a challenge to me! Let's go!"

...Why did she even bother using logic anymore? Clearly all it did was cause headaches. "Uh...well, if you're sure..." She wasn't expecting a challenge like this...but oh well, maybe they'd get something awesome there. Now, for a good place to jack in...aha, that statue with the port just outside. There wasn't anything between her and it, even though there was some distance between them. All she had to do was properly point her PET towards where the port was, like so...approve access into the Rogue Net, like so...and shout, 'Jack in! SplashLady, Execute!', like so.

"Jack in! SplashLady, Execute!"

Like so.

(I'm off to Rogue Netopia...so long, jerkwads >:0)

...

Well, it seems that Valk's sudden lose due to a random candle falling has left Shamus's mind void of thoughts. After a short while... Shamus finally jacks Gear out of the network, gets up, and leaves the Colosseum.

Steve's head jerked slightly at the words 'Rogue Net'. After all the cost it had took for him to discover it, even disregarding the fiasco in Electown, to hear it used as such a casual tone was... disconcerting. One thing was certain, however: SplashMan was much more powerful than his ranking in the tournament showed, something that Steve privately related to.

But that wasn't what was really bothering him. When he had discovered Rogue Net, it had also meant the possession. Could SplashMan possibly suffer the same affliction?

Not able to pass up the opportunity to observe a fellow powerhouse Navi, Steve turned to Sabrina. "Oh, Rogue Net? Not many folks can get into there, and the whole place is wild. Mind if I send my Navi along? Moving in numbers never hurts down there, plus I'd like to have something to do while waiting for the tournament to end." he asked.

"Wow, that was quick," Zeo commented, looking at a window on his PET.

ViralMan glanced out at him. "Yeah, that candle falling was pretty anticlimactic though."

"What?" Zeo asked. "I was talking about this reply on my mission request," he replied, searching for a spot to jack in. He watched Sabrina run outside and send her Navi into the net. "Hey, what are we doing?" ViralMan asked, confused. Zeo wasn't sure if Sabrina would come back, but he followed her out to the port and sent his own Navi into the network before retreating back inside as subtly as possible. "Find the NetSquare portal," he said, "and make your way to Yumland Net. That's where the mission will take place. Tell me when you're there."

Still a bit confused, ViralMan sighed, shook his head and walked towards the NetSquare portal.

((ViralMan's off to Yumland. Zeo is still here.))

Rose was surprised to watch as her friend went over and picked up her PeT without her permission. Rose's eyes visibly widened with shock, though she recovered face very quickly. "She's just trying to help." Rose thought, calming herself as she kept an eye on her friend and tried to continue paying attention to the other people and battles. "She couldn't have known that she'll be delaying my downloads and could get in trouble for doing something like touching other people's stuff."

Rose watched, interested, as one battle ended and another continued. She found herself somewhat saddened by the result of the ended battle. She figured Shamus did, too, as he left shortly after that. Though her second favorite competitor was out, she was now left to root for her friend and first place hopeful Anyis.

Of course, that battle wasn't going incredibly for poor Anyis, but Rose continued hoping and rooting for Mill and the girl herself.

Of course, she was so caught up in the battles that she wasn't being observant enough to comment on things people were saying. She turned back to her friends as Sabrina closed the PeT she had lifted back into it's rightful owner's hands. Rose managed a quick, "Thanks," before she moved off from the group to begin busting.

Rose then watched as Steve, too, wandered off to try and join her.

And then as Zeo and his Navi jacked in as well.

SummonerMan said a quick "Whatever." As he rolled his eyes and disappeared back into his PeT. "Figures, I show up and everyone leaves. Whatever, I see no need to stick around for long. " He thought. He hadn't really enjoyed that copy-cat Navi's "imitation" of him, and though he had restrained himself from saying or doing anything about it, said navi still hanging out out there wasn't a factor contributing to him wanting to hang around.

With most of her friends busy, Rose turned back to her good friend Aelieth. "Hey there." She said again, with a little half wave and awkward smile. She hoped he'd have something to say, though she felt up to ad-libbing something.

Completely ignored by SplashLady, Holoß turned back to see what SummonerMan was doing only to catch him disappearing back into his PeT. A pouting demeanor came over the Navi, even though he had no lips to pout with, and he skulked back to Aelieth's shoulder, switching back to his own form as he sat down, crossed his arms and glowered off into the distance. Without other Navis around, there was no fun to be had for him.

Aelieth remained oblivious to Holo's newly acquired foul mood as Rose tried to pick up the pieces of the conversation. "Hey yourself," he said, returning her awkward smile with one of his own. "Well... it seems that the others are starting to get a little bored of the lounge," he said, noting the already apparent fact the rest of the group had decided to throw camaraderie to the wind and go off to do their own things. Casting about for topics, his line of thought fell to the future.

"So, any plans after the tournament? Aside from writing up the piece on the fights, that is..." he asked before realizing that the question could be interpreted as him wanting to know something completely different than the original purpose of the question. Heat rose up the nape of his neck as he hoped she didn't read into the question any further than face value.

Eh? Oh hey, it was Steve. And he wanted to team up with her. Admittedly, she was interested in seeing how good DruidMan was after he got so far in the tournament...plus, there was safety in numbers. Nope, Sabrina couldn't think of a single reason not to join forces. "Sure thing! I just finished a battle, so now's a great time for you to come in! Come on, let's rock!"

Steve smiled. The last time he had team busted in Rogue Net, it hadn't turned out so well. It could only be an improvement after that!

"Oi, lazy." Steve said into his PET, where Druidman was snoozing in a hammock tied between two trees. "Wake up, I'm sending you into the Net."

"I'm lazy, dude?" Druidman remarked, cocking an eyebrow as he tumbled out of his bed. "This is coming from the guy who ate a koolaid packet and washed it down with a spoon of sugar and a glass of water because you didn't feel like stirring it up, man?"

"Whatever, shortstack." Steve replied. Now he knew that both he and Druidman would be okay, because if they had no problem ribbing each other, nothing else would bother them.

And with that, Druidman tore a hole into the fabric of the net, and dived into the deep, dark, unknown.

Duke wandered back into the spectator lounge and sat down, yawning. "Coffee's starting to wear off already," he grumbled. He looked up to see if he could try to take a nap between rounds, only to see...the other match had ended long before his.

"Great," he muttered, waiting for the announcement of the final round.

"Well, that didn't take long at all," he said after all of ten seconds. Pushing himself to his feet again, he wandered back into the lobby to sign in.

The instant her Navi returned to her PET, Sabrina put the electronic device in its holder on her side, and started racing down the street, waving back at Steve for a sec. "Sorry, but there's something I gotta take care of! See ya!"

However, unbeknownest to her, a small ball of light shot forth from the PET holder, headed straight for her former busting partner's terminal. It was nothing harmful, however; just a small piece of data with Sabrina's e-mail address in it...

(BACK TO ELECTOPIA, NAMELY SCILAB)

"Right, well, I think I'm out too." Steve said, gathering up his possessions, "The final will probably be televised, anyway."

As he turned to leave, however, he reembered something. "Oh, right, Rose. I'm still up for an interview or whatever. Here's my email." he said, busting out his PET to transfer it to her, and taking note of the new address in his contacts.

"Anyways, peace."

Rose began to reply to Aelieth after a pause to watch the end of the match. She was rather depressed by the result.

It also wasn't long before people came and left, with the net result of the lounge containing only herself and Aelieth, in addition to Zeo off busting in a corner.

She had waved quickly to her friends as they left and accepted the contact transfer with Steve. "Thanks." She added quickly, hoping he'd catch it before leaving.

"Well, " she said, "I guess Mill lost then." Rose obviously wasn't incredibly satisfied with this development. "So much for my finalist picks."

SummonerMan was rather disinclined to comment. He hadn't felt particularly attached to either of her picks, and he wasn't incredibly let down by their losses.

"Oh, after the tournament." Rose said, getting back on track. "Assuming it ends at some point."

"Well, after all this work and all the paper producing work, I'll probably be relaxing for a bit. You know, it's been a long day." And indeed it had. Rose had been so busy and seen and met so many new people the mere hours the tournament had spanned seemed to her like weeks.

She had considered it, but decided not to read further into his question, as Aelieth had been relatively straightforward and friendly so far, so she had no reason to believe he was trying to pick her up. Especially considering how long they had none each other, in addition to the variation in their respective ages.

She awaited a response patiently as she watched the final round of the tournament, hooking her PeT back up to download the whole match and the ones she had missed from afar.

"I hear ya..." Aelieth concurred, hidden relief that Rose either didn't catch or decided not to question the accidental double meaning behind his earlier question safely covered behind a thoughtful expression. "So... Pianissimo versus Red.... Didn't see that coming," he mused. "Well... the Pianissimo part, maybe," he added a moment later, "but death by falling candle was definitely not the note I expected Valkyrie's match to end- or start- on." Once again it seemed that Aelieth defaulted on the tournament to maintain the conversation.

He left the statement open ended, allowing for Rose to comment if she wanted to, or to just be an independent statement and hope that something else to talk about would present itself.

Zeo's head shot up from staring at his PET. He glanced around and saw that only Rose and Aelieth remained standing several yards away from him. ViralMan was busy fighting for his digital life, so why not try and make more conversation? Several reasons why not. Regardless, he heard Aelieth's comment about the tournament which drew his attention to the monitors. "Oh, looks like that powerful looking Navi won the other semi-final," he said to himself. And he was facing...the little red Navi. This was going to be awesome, he was sure.

Figuring he could probably talk to his new acquaintances here and still operate his Navi (which only amounted to sending chip data at this point), Zeo strolled back over to Rose and Aelieth. "Sorry about that. Had something to take care of in the Net," the boy apologized. "I'm kinda surprised that red Navi managed to make it to the finals, but considering what she's been doing the last few rounds I guess it could be expected. She was more of the dark horse last round though." Zeo took another glance at the situation in his PET before wiping all traces of the new frown off his face and saying, "So, now the obvious question: who do you think's going to win?"