A Test of a Woman's Manhood

"Well, she does have a simple self-repair system..." answered Mill hesitantly. "I've never really tried it on anyone but Anyis, so I'm not entirely sure if it'd work on MeleeMan or Seraphim." Since Anyis's Ectopatcher was, in effect, a patchwork of garbage data floating around the Net, Mill had his doubts that it would be compatible with Navis not built to similiar specifications.

"Hey! I can reformat it just fine, thank you." scoffed Anyis at the concern. "Besides, for you two being so worried about a girl dragging you down, it'd be pretty embarrassing for me to have to patch you up. So if you don't want that haunting you, just make sure to kick the asses of whoever we fight." She pointed to MeleeMan and Seraphim for this, then began looking around the area. "Anyway... Which ones are our opponents? I'm glancing around, and there are way too many here that could qualify as 'Cosplayers'..." pondered Anyis. Upon seeing that there were far too many possibilities, she shrugged and walked over to the designated zone to just let the costumed Navis come to them.
"Hah, I like the way you think. We're going to beat them all so bad we aren't even going to need healing," MeleeMan responded to Anyis, nodding with a smug grin of satisfaction. "Let's beat the hell out of those cosplayers. Wait, hold on a sec... What the hell is a cosplayer anyways?" he asked to nobody in particular, scratching his chin with his fist.

Rania looked back to her PET momentarily, answering with some knowledge she'd picked up at a school anime convention. "Cosplayers are fans of cartoons and video games that like to dress up as their favorite characters. It's kind of fun to watch them get fired up about it," she answered with her limited intelligence on the subject, reminiscing back to her high school days. "I remember a lot of them had really cool swords! I kind of envied them until I figured out that most of the swords weren't real..."

"What the hell? You serious? That's unmanly as sin," MeleeMan responded in disgust, looking around him. "You mean to tell me that these guys are walking around with FAKE swords just to make themselves look cool?" he reiterated.

"Uh, not likely. I'm betting those swords are functional as real weapons," she answered, not wanting to give her navi some kind of wrong impression that would hurt him in battle.

MeleeMan grumbled, turning back to Anyis and Seraphim. "Well damn, guys, this is getting confusing. Do either of you know what an 'Andante' is either?" he inquired, not liking all of the flowery language. "Anyways, I'm going on down to the arena, you guys come too," he finished, moving towards the battlefield in the lower-left position.
Seraphim shrugged, looking at the teams with a slight frown and a quizzical expression. "I don't understand why anyone would dress up as a hero and not try to be one instead? Wouldn't it be more cool to start from the beginning and become a legend rather than be a, well, poser?" He shrugged, rolling his eyes as Erin let out a very nervous chuckle as she quickly turned down the volume on her PET's speakers.
Despite discussions of healer types and whatnot, the group headed for their ring, going up not so many steps to confront their opponents.

Seraphim recognized them instantly. They were the NormalNavis that had been attached with ridiculous "accessories" like long silver hair and dog ears, or really spiky and fraying black hair, or being just really all white.

If anything, "Cosplay" looked like they sucked at what they did.

"Looks like we're all here. Ecks Dee," the silver-haired one blabbered, twirling his giant fang-bladed sword around.

"Can't wait to kick ass, lololol," the completely white one commented, taking a fighting stance.

"This is... to go... further beyond," the spiky and fraying black hair one commented, pulling out his staff.

A screen appeared in front of the challengers, before randomly scrambling between numbers. OdorMan did say that battle modes would be randomly chosen...

[3]

[Team Battle Selected]

[Field Barrier Generating]

Something cylindrical flashed around the sides of the ring as the signal for the fight sounded off...

-Cosplay-
CompletelyWhite: 200 HP
RedSchemeSilverHairBigSword: 200 HP
BlackFrayedHairOrangeSchemeStaff: 200 HP

Terrain: 100% Normal

Meleeman.EXE: 300 HP
Seraphim.EXE: 200 HP
Anyis.EXE: 140 HP

-ROUND 1-
-BEGIN-

((You can target, White, SilverHair, or Orange respectively))
MeleeMan gave a hearty guffaw as he looked upon his opponents. The volume and intensity of the laugh only increased as he realized they were suggested to engage the opponents one at a time. "Please, these guys are hardly an appetizer for the likes of us! I could take all three of em alone, but with Seraphim and Anyis here, this isn't even going to be a challenge!" he smirked, blowing smoke out of his gloves as he prepared his battle routines. "Still, shrimpy or not, they'll give me a chance to test out my new arsenal of weaponry and techniques. Rania, I want to take these guys out in style. Seraphim can usually fight fine at a distance, so we'll let him take care of that. I'll close in and fight at them head to head. Anyis... well, we'll just have to see how she fights, won't we?"

"Alright, what all should I slot you after the lava zone? You may not realize this, but your folder's changed a lot since your last battle. I've traded off a lot of chips for new ones," Rania explained, picking out the correct chip and slotting it through.

Her navi gave a deep sigh, frowning and curling his lower lip. "Do you think that I would really be so ignorant as not to know my own weapons? Using chips requires a certain amount of talent too, you know; mastering each chip certainly requires knowing which chips are available to you. It's common sense," he grumbled. "Besides, all I had to do was view the trading BBS. It's not rocket science."

Rania growled, responding in a snappy tone. "How about a little less complaining and a little more proving that your enemies aren't even an appetizer or whatever you were boasting about?"

"Fine. Hold on to your chest pads, cause these new moves are going to blow you away," he laughed, turning his attention to the white navi. Speaking to the navis at his sides, he briefly laid out his plan of attack. "I'm going to go over and set a zone of lava around that one there. You guys are free to proceed however you like. I'm just warning you guys: this is lava. Not kool-aid, even if that's what it looks like. Lava. Don't approach unless you have a safety method in mind," he warned the two, still facing his opponent.

"Hey, that was pretty nice of you. Are you going soft, MeleeMan? What happened to your whole 'I might hit you in the heat of combat' mentality you had earlier?" Rania asked, happy but still unable to avoid teasing her navi.

"Hmph. This isn't going to be a battle that I have to worry about going into a full rage over. Rather, this is an event that will simply prove our superiority in a quick, open and shut fashion as I ram my fists down my enemy's throat," he answered with a grim frown. "Go ahead and give me that areagrab and a firehit. Once I have those, I'll get down to business." Rania complied quickly, slotting through both chips. With a smirk, MeleeMan activated his areagrab, teleporting to his opponent's location. A rational man would have teleported behind the navi, but MeleeMan was no such person. Instead of teleporting behind the navi to get the advantage of surprise, MeleeMan teleported in front of him so as to center his lava burst on all three of the navis. "Time to fry!" he roared, smashing the ground with his fist. Radiating outward, a wave of flames seared the battlefield, transforming the blank panels into bubbling, boiling hot lava. Staying suspended above and emitting smoke from his boots, MeleeMan widened his grin. "Next, let's test your jaw, kid," he whiffed out, swinging his fist twice for his opponent's head, first from the side and then from below.

"Don't get too cocky there, MeleeMan. You've been staking a lot on the idea that these navis can't fight back, but what if you're underestimating them?" Rania reminded her navi in a concerned tone of voice.

"I'm not," he answered resolutely, raising his fists into a blocking stance and preparing to dodge.

*Red Rage- Passive 30 Strengthen
1) Areagrab to CompletelyWhite
2) Lavazone around self
3) Firehit1 to Completely White [80]
4) Firehit1 to Completely White [80 + 30 strengthen = 110]
5) Dodge
Anyis formed her gauntlets, and immediately proceeded to crack the silver-laden knuckles. "I gotta admit I'm actually getting a little tired of fighting other Navis. I've already gotten more than my fill these last few weeks, and it's pretty obvious that those guys were way better than these jokers. This shouldn't take long, especially considering there's 3 of us." Anyis pounded her fists together to rev herself up... looked at her hands, then did it again. A confused expression overtook her face, and she had to ask, "Mill, why am I faster?"

"I bought a speed upgrade with our tournament winnings, remember? That upped your processing power by a good amount, so your movements should be a bit quicker than before." answered the Operator informatively.

"Ah, right, right... Then can you explain what the hell that is?" questioned Anyis suspiciously as she pointed to ragged ghost that had appeared beside her once more.

"Oh, that's... uh... Boogeyman." answered Mill after grasping for a name.

"... Boogeyman?" sighed Anyis, feeling the regret of asking as soon as it came out of her mouth.

"I'm not entirely sure why he ended up looking like that, but I made him as a sort of data vent for you. Back when you explained everything to me, you said you needed to keep burning junk data, so I thought I'd make a small automated burner to help you out. The pushing thing is a coincidence, as far as I can tell." explained Mill, who once again evidenced his dumb luck in programming.

"Oh, how thoughtful~" exclaimed Anyis as she gave her new sidekick a once over. "So you'll just push wherever I tell you to?"

"Just push, yeah. That excludes talking, too." noted Mill before Anyis waited too long on the response that would never come. "Mental commands will make him work, so it shouldn't be too hard."

"Yeah, this should help." nodded Anyis as she turned around to glance at her opposition. Of course, she wasn't alone, and MeleeMan was already ready to charge headfirst towards that white guy. "Oh damnit, taking all the fun... Hey, time for you to show your stuff!" announced Anyis as she pointed to her... familiar? Whatever it was, Anyis had the intent to make use of it. "So... How do I..." pondered Anyis as Boogeyman lowered his arm to give his host a lift. "Okay, good start..." She got one leg up, nearly lost her balance, and finally managed to plant her other foot on the ghost's other palm. Now she was standing on a ghost, which was a first, even for her. "Alright, this could work! Boogeyman!" commanded Anyis, prompting the pseudo-being into action. True to fashion, he pushed, and Anyis in response bent her knees and kicked off, combining the two forces into one hell of a jump that sent her airborne towards that dorky Navi with the staff and leaving Boogeyman to disappear without a trace.

"You don't need to shout, you know..." muttered Mill as he started slotting in chips.

"It's cooler that way!" defended the flying Navi as her right gauntlet coated itself over with ice. As she neared her landing point, though, Anyis noticed that the ground was less... solid now. And a lot more red. "Whoa... Whoa... Whoa whoa whoa! Couldn't you have warned me about the Lava before I jumped?!" screamed Anyis as she continued to fall towards the incinerating liquid. "... Damnit, whatever! I'm water, that's fire! It'll work out!" With her resolve set, Anyis put her frozen fist forward and braced for impact, whether that be the orange guy, the lava, or both...

... Um... or not. Regardless of the effectiveness of her attack, Anyis didn't seem to be bothered by the lava. In fact, a quick check under her feet would reveal paper-thin barriers of data allowing Anyis to stand. At this point, she very much appreciated the fact that Mill bought that FloatShoes program before. Since the prospect of drowning in molten rock was no longer an issue, Anyis activated her next chip to continue her assault on her choice of Cosplayers. "That one from the trader, huh..." muttered Anyis under her breath as a quartet of will-o-wisps appeared around her. "Well, I guess it does suit me a little." As she said this, cold air began emanating from her body and spreading out to the tiny spirits, infusing them with a bitter cold in stark contrast to the lava below. "This'll strike you down to your very soul! Aquatsu Haretsu!" shouted Anyis at her opponent, launching all 4 spirits in a flurried attack.

Mill bit his lip as he fought back both words and tears. Oh god, that was bad. So, so bad. He really couldn't believe Anyis just said that. Granted, it wasn't much worse than the "Time to fry!" he picked up off of MeleeMan a few moments ago, but... Ugh, he really wasn't used to this, and really didn't want to be, ever.

Now that she was out of attack chips for the moment, Anyis... ran. She hoped those two attacks were enough to finish off the staff guy, but just in case, she was already dashing across the lava towards her impulsive ally. Upon arriving, she turned her back to his and said, "Hey MeleeMan, you cover me, I cover you. Hopefully you can put up with a woman defending your back?" A heavy IronShield materialized in her hands as she readied to intercept incoming strikes, although she really needs both hands just to wield the metal mass effectively. While she waited for said strikes to come, she took the opportunity to reroute her Ectopatcher to MeleeMan because... well, with a body that big, Anyis was fairly sure that he was a damage magnet.

Actions:

--Boogeyman (Use Knockback to assist following action:)
1. Push-jump to Orange's location (Knockback-assisted Movement)
2. ColdPunch (170 Aqua damage, Terrain bonus, Impact, Knockback to another Lava panel) @ Orange
--Ice Bleeding (Imbue Aqua to:)
3. AquatsuHaretsu1 (20 Aqua damage x 4 hits, Terrain Bonus) @ Orange
4. Run to MeleeMan's position (Movement)
5. IronShield1 (2 Hit Shield), Cover MeleeMan and self
--Ectopatcher (Heal 15 HP) @ MeleeMan
Seraphim glanced at his allies, then at the enemies they were currently assaulting. They'd both chosen singular attack methods, obviously intending to leave him in single combat with this poseur of a main character. They didn't even pretend to be main characters, they were pale imitations upon pale imitations. Not even fakers. He decided he didn't much like them, although that sword looked weird. "Ah well, it's probably not an upgrade from my old one," he spoke as he brought out his own quite modular and still in working-condition sword. "I can't use any of my special abilities, Erin? What's up with that? Is this a no abilities run challenge or something?"

"Uh, your abilities are reconfiguring themselves," Erin ad-libbed as she tried to figure out how to change the currently shut down abilities with somewhat little success. She shrugged at her companions as to an explanation over her questioning navi.

"Alright, I guess I'm going to have to find some way to get this to work without my skills then and just the more basic stuff. Seems more like button mashing to me though." Fortunately, Seraphim didn't take a great interest in that and instead began his longer-ranged strategy than his allies versus his enemies.

"Alright, just give me those two Mark Ka-nons and I'll work this out fine," Seraphim spoke in a measured tone as he aimed down the sights of his gun-mesh-sword, trying to gauge which way the opponent would dodge. A slight ping emitted as the weapon indicated that it had obtained sufficient data for a lock-on.

"Let's go, mister fake-dressup-hero!" Seraphim amalgamed the word together on the spot as he pulled the trigger. The following series of muzzle flashes from his weapon started with a spiraling blur appearing in front of the gun and a quick blurt of high powered energy in slug form firing at his one foe. This high-powered shot was quickly followed by two more muted 'pak' 'pak' noises as he fired the Mark Ka-non shot from his gun-sword-mesh.

Following his three shots, Seraphim glanced toward his allies, making sure they were both alright. In a low level battle like this, it would have probably been better to use the lower mana area of effect attacks to take care of more enemies at once while preserving some firepower for the next group because these ones couldn't do any damage. He'd have to detail how this worked to the group later.

1] Charge
2] Charge
*] Aim with Move+3
3] Charge Shot [Red] (200+Break+Fire)
4] MarkCannon [Red] (70)
*] Aim with Move+3
5] MarkCannon [Red] (70)
6] Dodge
*] make sure to be aware of terrain and possible safe ways to dodge.
The fight begun, and each side seemed eager to move, the most eager was Meleeman, who teleported right into the enemies' area and activated a LavaZone. Well... great... (5 DMG to each)

The Red navi and Orange navi promptly yelled, "This sucks, dee ex" and proposed to themselves to get the hell away from the lava, the silver-haired warrior dashed forth at immense speed while the orange one... polevaulted himself...

...right into Anyis, who bore her fist back and slammed the spiky-haired warrior back to the lava before landing on it herself. She concurrently blasted her opponent with four shots of her "Aquatsu Haretsu" pretty much eliminating him straight out.

"No! song oku dude!" the red one cried, finally reaching the normal terrain as Seraphim finished charging his buster. Fearing the worst, the dog-eared navi swung his oversized fanged sword over his head.

*BANG*

A screaming shot of fire raced toward the apparent leader's location who yelled something along the lines of "KILLER MOVE, WIND SCAR ATTACK!" before slamming his sword down and sending big, 5-edged attack at the... other attack, just barely canceling it out.

Meanwhile, Meleeman was duking it out with the all-white navi, who took one of the brawler's Firehit's quite brutally. The vague navi quickly struck back with a Magbolt before being completely creamed by another powerful Firehit. Staggering back, the white navi coughed out what looked like red data before the lava burned her away.

Anyis came rushing to Meleeman's side like a paramedic and channeled junk data into his wounds, though there wasn't much she could do to cure to coming stun to Meleeman's systems. She formed a powerful shield in front of them for the time being.

The red-colored navi felt alone, completely, utterly alone, he didn't even flinch when Seraphim pretty much blasted off his hair with a MarkCannon shot. When the next MarkCannon came, the navi was gone.

Had they won?

*SHIK*

A gaping wound to Seraphim's side proved otherwise, the previously silver-haired navi had simply teleported behind the self-proclaimed main character and gave a brutal thrust, which Seraphim managed to avoid the full nastiness of by sidestepping a bit too late.

The red-navi was cornered, and Meleeman felt extremely debilitated.

Though it looks like, it wouldn't take much to bring the last one down.

-Cosplay-
CompletelyWhite: EJO'D
RedScheme: 70 HP [Normal]
BlackFrayedHairOrangeSchemeStaff: EJO'D

Terrain: 60% Lava, 40% Normal

Meleeman.EXE: 225 HP (stun 1) [Lava]
Seraphim.EXE: 160 HP [Normal]
Anyis.EXE: 140 HP (Floatshoes, whoops) [Lava]
"An easy victory. I barely feel a scratch!" MeleeMan said confidently, keeping his same pose from after he dealt the final punch to the white navi. "It's just a shame the one I had to aim for was a girl. Sheesh, you think I would have checked on something like that first. I would have pulled my punches a little," he laughed. It was hard to tell if he was joking or not, but Rania had a suspicion that he wasn't. Still, even as he finished, he stayed there in that same pose he'd been occupying.

"MeleeMan, the fight's not over. Don't you think you ought to focus on the last enemy?" Rania asked, not wanting the victory to go to his head.

MeleeMan rubbed his jaw, still keeping the same awkward pose. "Uh, I was thinking maybe Seraphim and Anyis would finish him off. Don't want to take all the action, you know. I'm magnanimous like that," he responded, obviously hiding something.

Rania broke out laughing herself, mocking her navi. "What, you, 'magnanimous?' Since when? You're itching for a fight even when there's no enemy in sight, and yet you're passing up the chance to punch your opponent to death? What's gotten into you?" she asked again. As he failed to answer, she fancied a glance at his status bars and found the real answer. "Oh, ha ha ha! The enemy's electric attack stunned you and you were trying to act tough!"

"Act, who's acting? I'm the toughest there is," he grumbled, shivering as he tried to regulate his muscular coordination. "Watch! A little voltage like that is nothing to me. I'll shrug it off in a matter of moments with one awesome flex!" he roared, breaking into a mighty, double armed flex and dispelling the current. "See? Nothing to it."

"Yeah, but uh, you're wasting a lot of time flexing and everything, don't you think?" Rania giggled, still laughing at her navi's antics.

MeleeMan didn't answer, having played through this conversation as much as he cared to. Turning to Anyis, he nodded to acknowledge her good work. "I was on the verge of telling you to stay out of the way, but you know, you're the first ally I've had that's actually run in with me on a strategy like this. With you here at my back and Seraphim plugging away at the enemies, I feel like I can fight to my fullest without worrying," he told her quietly, actually intending to hide the statement from Rania.

"Aaaw, isn't that cute. You're finally getting along with your friends!" Rania laughed teasingly. "How uncharacteristic of you."

"Hey, this is no differently than I treat a man. Anyis has earned the right to speak on man-to-man terms with me, I figure. Not like you," he snapped back, spoiling Rania's good mood. "I need one of those coldpunches too... Anyways, for now, send me a gutpunch. We'll finish this battle off without a lot of effort, I think." After receiving the chips, MeleeMan grudgingly went in to pound the daylights out of the final weakened enemy. No matter which way he looked at it, Anyis was a woman. He'd felt that himself firsthand. All the same, she used her fists like a man did. What might seem like a trivial concern to others was to him a serious breach of the code in which he'd conducted himself during the net war: women don't have a place on the battlefield because they can't fight the same way men can. Yet here was Anyis, a tournament semifinalist fighting with her fists just as he would instruct anyone to do.

Luckily there was little more to do against the enemy, so his lack of focus couldn't hurt him too badly. He threw a couple of hard jabs with his right, while rubbing his chin contemplatively with his left. Finally, when he managed to compose himself and realize what he was doing, he charged in with his left arm for a screaming sideways swipe. He figured the safest thing to do after that was assume it was game over and back off, in case his allies were launching attacks as well.

*Passive: Red Rage (30 strengthen)
1) --STUN--
2) Gutpunch to RedScheme (70 + impact)
3) Gutpunch to RedScheme (70 + impact)
4) Gutpunch to RedScheme + Red Rage (100 + impact)
5) Dodge
Whatever experience she had gained from the last tournament seemed to have paid off, because Anyis outright schooled the guy in orange. Fist, spirit attack, dead in a prompt 1, 2, 3 fashion. That ought to have satisfied MeleeMan, who Anyis had since gone to cover in futility as he got hit anyway. She turned around to see her ally's locked-up body, and, quite frankly, MeleeMan would've been an abstract piece of art if Anyis had a marker on her at the time. So, so tempting. However, the fact of the matter was that he was merely stunned for a moment, so her lack of equipment probably was for the best. Anyis opted instead to just defend the meat shield until he could move again.

As she did that, Anyis became aware that Seraphim too took a hit. In fact, he got gashed in the side by that red guy's sword. That was probably bad. It had apparently worked well enough before, so... it couldn't hurt Seraphim any more by trying, right? Anyis switched her Ectopatcher's target for a second time this battle, this time sending the auto-repair sequence to Seraphim. A big cut in his side was not really something the team needed for what was otherwise a blowout, so Anyis hoped the Ectopatcher could at least seal up the damage until the end of the match. That, and MeleeMan, who was already starting to shrug off the stun, probably didn't need it as much.

At this point, Anyis realized that this was a 3-on-1 fight now, and defending herself and MeleeMan with this IronShield was really pointless. The question then became what to do with a shield that can't be used for defense. "Hey Mill, what should I do with this thing?" asked Anyis to her Operator, heaving up the heavy shield in exhibition.

Mill shrugged, then actually took a moment to think on that. "Well... It's heavy, right? Maybe you could crush that last enemy with it or something." He had already seen things get mowed down by Rockcubes before, but a shield would be new for him.

"Eh, might as well. Boogeyman!" shouted Anyis, causing the ghostly apparition to appear once more at her side. "Take this shield..." she said, heaving the IronShield in front of him, "... and push it into that red guy over there." Boogeyman just floated there lifelessly for a moment, then put his arms up against the metal shield. What looked like a wimpy nudge caused the defense to blast forward end-over-end, splashing against the lava over and over until it left the pool and stumbled along the ground on its way to a collision course. What it'd actually do was hard to tell, but at least it was kinda cool.

MeleeMan had by now freed himself from his ailment and was addressing Anyis before parading off to beat the snot out of RedScheme or some similar sort of violence. Needing to respond, she, of course, bragged, "Well, I warned you not to expect anything less! Mill's last Navi was a real bruiser, and he really hasn't changed his Operating style even an inch, so all I can really do is dive in and beat up my enemies before they do the same to me. There really isn't enough time for me to consider gender as an issue. Although... Having you two around this time really reduces the battle pressure a lot..." Anyis had to ponder this for a second, realizing that this was her first time in quite a few battles that she wasn't actually the underdog.

"Huh. You never really struck me as a team player, Anyis." commented Mill on that note. "Almost everything I've seen from you is flashy and attention getting..."

"Oh stuff it, Mill. Just give me another chip." whined Anyis. So she liked to flaunt what she could do. Was there a problem with that?

"Yeah, yeah. I'll give you the AquaKnife, since we seem to be using all the new chips in this fight." nodded Mill as he inserted the digital weapon into his PET.

The blade materialized in Anyis's hand as a jagged spike of ice on a small handle, true to her style. "Hmm..." she thought for a moment, and realized that since MeleeMan was running over to the last opponent, and since Seraphim was also there already, her following would just make things crowed. Instead, she decided to let the boys have their fun, and the only thing she'd try was her aim. Anyis pinched the icy blade in between the index and middle fingers of her gauntlet and tried to gauge the distance between her and that goofy cosplayer. Knife throwing was neither a speciality to her or something she even did occasionally, so she needed a good amount of time to even feel confidence about the angle. Once decided, Anyis flicked her wrist forward, sending the AquaKnife cutting through the air towards RedScheme's head. Once that was done, she pretty much just sat back and watched what her teammates were doing. The end result would probably be like watching a pair of jocks beat up an otaku, but Anyis figured it could be good for a laugh or two.

Actions:

1. Defend MeleeMan with IronShield1 while he's Stunned
--Ectopatcher (Heal 15 HP) @ Seraphim
--Boogeyman (Combine with next action:)
2. Flying Shield Bash - Boogeyman pushes IronShield1 into RedScheme (???)
3. Take Aim (Accuracy boost to next action:)
4. Throw AquaKnife (75 Aqua damage, Slashing, Accuracy+) @ RedScheme
5. Watch Seraphim and MeleeMan beat up on the cosplayer (TEAMWORK?)
The rest of the team finishes off the giant sworded navi without much of a hitch, an autonomic voice declares their victory and all step out of the arena.

-Cosplay-
CompletelyWhite: EJO'D
RedScheme: EJO'D
BlackFrayedHairOrangeSchemeStaff: EJO'D

Terrain: 60% Lava, 40% Normal

Meleeman.EXE: 225 HP
Seraphim.EXE: 175 HP
Anyis.EXE: 140 HP

-VICTORY-
GET: Nothing.
FXP: 1 Static
+1 Extra for Teamwork
+2 to Anyis for Team Healer

Some progs came up while the group stepped out of their ring.

"You will be refreshed now, please wait a moment," the Progs announced, before suddenly casting a stimulating wave of green light over the group. If the operators checked their PETs, they saw all their navi's HPs completely restored. Maybe Anyis' concern was a bit unfounded.

Meleeman.EXE: 300 HP
Seraphim.EXE: 200 HP
Anyis.EXE: 140 HP

Well, it didn't look like the other matches were going as fast as yours. Want to sit and watch?

Current Matches in Play:
[MPatrol vs Team Sports] (Forward)
[Andante vs Cosplay] -FINISHED-
[Dynasty vs Strikers] (Forward Left)
[Kingdom vs Outcast] (Left)

[Just wait]
"Ha, sweet. That was easy and fast. Look, we're the first battle done out of all four. I guess now all there is to do is sit back and figure out what the other chumps have in store for us in the way of becoming footstools. Come on guys, let's see which battle is worth watching," he laughed, dusting off his jacket and walking out of the stadium. He was actually a little miffed to be feeling so limber and healthy after his battle, as if that one magbolt had never hit him, just because it felt like unneeded sympathy. "Still, the next battles can't be that easy. Even for powerful fighters like me, the small fries run out eventually and all you've got left is the real men."

Rania turned back to her screen, smiling as she saw that MeleeMan was victorious and in good spirits. "So? You've decided that Anyis is worthy as an ally now?" she asked, hoping to reaffirm what she though she'd seen in the battle.

MeleeMan crossed his arms, mentally recalling the events of the previous battle. He guessed she'd done pretty well. "I guess she did pretty well," he grunted, moving on to the outskirts of one of the arenas to survey his competition. "Let's see... What the hell is MPatrol and Team Sports? Let's check out the cushioning on these footstools," he snickered, restating his previous joke, which he thought was pretty swell and worth another say just in case anyone missed it the first time.
"... Well, that was a little unsatisfying." sighed Anyis as she clapped her hands together, making those heavy gauntlets disappear in favor of her long white gloves. "This outcome was obvious from the start, but... it happened so fast that I didn't get to have any fun!" Since she had actually come out of the match without a scratch, Anyis was fairly oblivious to whatever challenge the Cosplayers might have posed to them. The damage MeleeMan and Seraphim incurred was already gone at the favor of the officiating team, so her previous concern with her allies' wounds was gone as quickly as the wounds themselves.

"I still don't understand how you define 'fun' at all." muttered Mill into his PET. "Do you really expect this to be easy all the way through?"

"If there was another team on par with us, they would've finished already too, right?" replied Anyis with a rather unique brand of logic.

For how overconfident he knew she was, Mill really couldn't muster up a good counter to that. "... Well, whatever. MeleeMan is already going over to scout the other matches. That's a good idea, so go after him." In the mean time, Mill wanted to regroup his thoughts so he'd have a response against his Navi next time she tried that logic.

"Eh, there's nothing better to do." shrugged Anyis as she leisurely followed after MeleeMan. She heard the footstool joke as she caught up, but opted to just let MeleeMan enjoy his moment before she mentioned that any enemy they defeat would just EJO before he could do anything else to them.
"Hm. I wasn't wearing this beforehand. I must have screwed up with my inventory slots." Saying so, Seraphim summoned his SP, which settled comfortably around his body. Shrugging, the navi looked about. "Well, if we're going to be waiting, I suppose we should go view the opponents as much as we can. The best way to get a circumstance bonus on our next encounter is to observe how they fight so we can better avoid them. That's why everyone hides their best moves until the final fight, y'know." Speaking to Erin, who nodded while not really listening as she reconfigured Seraphim's signature abilities.

"Also, the other team will probably be stronger by the time they face us. Happens all the time in order to scale with fights and make them balanced against the player characters. So we'll probably get a challenge too, Meleeman." Finishing his talk toward Meleeman, he kept walking as he followed his allies.

"Wait, aren't I supposed to lead the way?" Seraphim muttered to himself, sounding puzzled as he hurried slightly ahead.
Seraphim had obviously not heard of cutscenes where main characters lagged cooly behind his party members who rushed ahead while chatting about cushioning.

A crack to their left and a blaring horn sound indicated the victory of another team. On the other hand...

MPatrol apparently consisted of those NormalNavis that had Metool helmets from before. One of their team was down, while the other two were at pretty low health and were bracing pickaxes tiredly.

Team Sports, consisting of a Basketball player, a Tennis player, and a Quarterback all grinned menacingly, seeming to have taken little damage and seemed to just be toying with MPatrol.

"Now... do you think you can dodge it again?" The Basketball player, registered as "Passer" as indicated from the floating holoscreen above the stadium, taunted, spinning his ball on one finger, before clutching it and bringing his arm back. "Cover me again, Server!"

"Not a problem," Server, the Tennis player, replied, tossing a few balls up into the air, then smashing them with great force at the Metool-theme navis, who cringed up and cowered as the balls missed them by inches.

"Gotcha," the Basketball navi grinned, his Basketball glowing green before he threw it with undue force at the first navi, the impact and rebound combining to ricochet off the navi's body into his partner, both of which groaned from the impact and were promptly EJO'd.

"Pathetic," Passer spat, catching his rebounding ball and twirling it on one finger. "Let's watch that last match, Server, Blocker."

"Sure/Roger that," the other navis replied lightly, walking out of the stadium, stopping in front of Progs on their way out and heading toward your left.

Well, might as well watch that last match, eh?

[To Dynasty vs Strikers]
MeleeMan grunted, not giving the sports navis any credit for their brutal display of wiping up the metool-helmeted opponents. "Those guys got an even worse team to fight against than we did. At least our guys stood fighting. The metool guys saw a tennis ball coming at them and ducked back! If you can't survive light-contact sports, how the hell are you going to survive on the battlefield?" he asked his allies, shrugging his broad shoulders. His mood had seemingly been spoiled, but in reality he was pressing his gloved knuckles together hard, brimming with anticipation at showing the dominance of his team over this supposedly dominant group of sissies who happened to get an easy fight.

Clapping his hands over the shoulders of Seraphim and Anyis, he smirked in the direction of Team Sports, grinning smugly. "Alright guys, let's go over and watch the last battle play out. Hopefully there's somebody here in this tournament worth fighting!" he laughed, herding them merrily over to watch the final bout of the preliminaries.
Anyis yawned in response to the completely one-sided slaughter delivered by the sports team. Lopsided matches were only fun if you were in them and on the winning side, so watching this, coupled with her general lack of interest in what the competition was doing, made this a rather dull spectacle to her. "They all seem pretty arrogant for a team that fights with a bunch of balls. That other team probably was too weak, but I wonder how these guys would like their own shots getting hit right back at them. That's kind of sport-ish, right?" pondered Anyis as she entertained herself with the thought of knocking Team Sports off their pedestal by beating them at their own game. By and large, though, she still wasn't really impressed with the competition compared to who was in the last tournament. The whole thing was just leaving Anyis pretty underwhelmed, really.

As she grappled with the fiercest parts of her disinterest, MeleeMan opted to muscle Anyis over to the last remaining match, with or without her consent. "Fine, fine..." Anyis sighed, "... maybe we'll get to see a match last longer than a minute this time."
"That's not very sportsmanlike," Seraphim remarked with a frown as he observed the swift domination of the poor metool team. He sighed, then looked from side to side as he trudged off to view the final match. At least they were getting a view of their opponents and their methods of fighting. (If a bit skewed.) He didn't like these sport-navis, though, and somewhat hoped that they would be fighting them next so he could show them a lesson.

"Alright, what are these last opponents called..? Dynasty... and Strikers? Silly names. Way sillier than cosplayers, I say. Either way, we'll beat them all the same. Meleeman and Anyis seem to be powerful enough to do this, at the very least." Erin shrugged, saying the backhanded compliment with enough of a vague tone in it to make it implied as sarcasm. "Well, that is to say, I hope we can win our next matchup quickly," Erin patched up her statement with that additional line, then clamped her mouth shut before she could vilify herself even further.
As they reached the final stage, the rest of the combatants had gathered around and there was quite a lot of murmuring. The other team that had finished their match seemed to be the bunch of misfits that didn't have a particular theme and were possibly the ones dubbed "Outcast." It consisted of this giant... yellow... blob, a Green lizard-like navi with giant claws, and a hooded figure in a worn blow cloak. A particularly devastating aura seemed to come from the hooded guy.

*CLANG*

The sound of steel against steel turned Andante's attention back to the match and Seraphim had to shield himself from a flash of embers that came over the audience while Meleeman and Anyis were kind of unaffected.

A chinese-style body armor clad navi spun out of the air, wielding a naginata with deadly grace as his opponent, who Seraphim immediately recognized as the flaming hair guy that was two people ahead of him in the registry. He had apparently just rushed forward with some sort of flame-imbued charge attack when the other guy stopped him.

"Tch! Cera! Are you done with the analysis yet?" the fiery-bladed warrior called back, gripping his broadsword tightly.

"Hold your horses, Engetsu! I'm having trouble because you're moving them all over the place," a uptight voice shouted back.

Looking back at Engetsu's side, they could see one navi in a giant black suit of armor and then... what looked like a mini-mobile fortress. Two machine-gun turrets were at the sides of what looked like a complicated security monitoring console with multiple holoscreens. If one could look far enough, you could make out a female navi dressed in a navy blue cardigan, that had long flowing green hair and shiny glasses behind the machinery.

"Shouldn't you help too?" Cera asked the armored navi dryly, but all he did was sit and wait. Cera sighed as she moved her fingers rapidly across the console, the information on the screens changing rapidly in resonance with her computational analysis.

"......." one of the other warriors called in a foreign language, it certainly wasn't anything Rania, Mill, or Erin was familiar with, but it sounded like a taunt.

"..............." another warrior grumbled, tightening his grip on stakes attached to chains.

"........." a female warrior in an elegant qipao called, brandishing iron fans.

"Tch! You guys are pissing me off with your fancy talk! Burning!" Engetsu ordered, probably to his NetOp, as he covered himself in flames once again. The tribal-dressed swordsman let out a war cry as he charged forth, blade at the ready.

"He never gives up, does he?" Cera sighed, the screens on her console flashing a brilliant green as the machine gun turrets locked on to something. "Ready?"

"As if you needed to ask" a deep, rumbling voice chuckled from underneath the armor as he stood up. Grunting, the knight slammed down a pretty thick broadsword as he glared at his opponents, his movements accompanied by a clanking noise as he progressed forth.

"Ngah!" Engetsu growled, his attack stopped by chains coming from holes in space and binding together into a tight net. He bounced back on his butt, much to his dismay. "Dammit! Face me like a man will you!" Engetsu grumbled, shaking his fist at the chain-wielder, who was apparently able to shoot his weapon through space to appear anywhere he wanted... within a certain distance.

"........" the chain-wielder mumbled. Anyis could've clearly though he said "Serves you right," but without real mastery of their language, who knew?

"Move aside Engetsu, you're in the way," the armored navi growled, smashing through the chains in one powerful sweep and sending a shockwave toward the other navis, who jumped out to the sides.

"Gotcha," Cera smirked, the machine-guns firing rapidly at the naginata-wielding navi, jacking him out after a couple of rounds. "Great! Next I'll... !!" Cera gasped, a chained stake coming from her upper right.

".....!" the chain-wielder growled as he performed his specialty.

"My am I popular," Cera commented sarcastically, stomping on the ground with a platform shoe as she summoned a rook to intercept the stake, which bounced uselessly off the chess piece.

"....!" the chain-wielder gasped, before being tackled by a burning Engetsu.

"Heh! I finally got one of you! Take this! Blazing Escalade!" Engetsu growled, performing a series of curving up slashes into the chain-wielder, knocking him higher and higher into the air before warping away. The warrior EJO'd before he got to the ground.

"...." The qipao-wearing fan wielder cried, as the black knight approached her, bringing his sword to her neck.

"I'll let you surrender. Go." the knight ordered.

".............!" the fan wielder yelled, activating what seemed like a Windracket and shoving the full force at the knight who...

....wasn't knocked back. Must be SuperArmor.

"I'm willing to extend my offer..." the knight growled.

"... ......." the fan-wielder sighed, falling down on her knees as the horns signaled the end of the match. The remaining warrior sighed as she jacked out.

----

After much debate, it seemed this would be a team-battle exclusive tournament. You were beginning to bet OdorMan really wasn't getting his ideas straight with this tournament.

After the roulette, it seemed Andante was facing Team Sports next. There was a portal to a customized arena to the right.

Well, let's move on.
"That armored knight seems the most honorable and level-headed of the lot. They have a hothead and a spunky female character as well. Altogether, they make for a pretty decent team. I don't think they really have much in the way of healing though, so we should be able to take them out pretty easily." Seraphim analyzed as he took in each part of the fight. He glanced at Anyis, somewhat curious as to her opinion in this particular part of the battle. She had expressed derision as to the metool-type characters who had been pathetically defeated. What would she say here?