The arena.

It had been several days since the competitors had been told to arrive, and besides from a small piece of paper listing the first set of matches, there had been zero information given to the competitors about the tournament. Those who had been scoping out the island, looking for intel, or just looking for a good time, would have probably noticed something. There was no arena. At least, not in the conventional sense. Nothing reminiscent of a gladiator movie, or of martial arts tournaments. In fact, there didn't appear to be any kind space where one would hold a spectated combat tournament. The thought of the confused looks on the adventurers face brought a smile to the face of Roger Brown.

A few hours ago, he had sent out a missive to all tournament goers, telling them to meet in his private auditorium. As he stood behind an one way glass mirror, sipping on a glass of Merlot, he watched the competitors with great interest. These were not normal people, not by a long shot, and with their enhanced powers and abilities, came a sense of confidence and superiority you just could not find in normal people, which was something Mr. Brown had been purposely playing upon. By making them wait, and interact with their peers and fellow fighters, he had hoped to form animosity between them, and even bonds of friendship. And when the animosity reached it's climax, or the bonds were severed for the hopes of riches beyond imagination? Well, you just couldn't get drama like that in any other setting, and it would drive the spectators wild to watch it.

"My lord." The voice of his Master of Ceremonies rang in his ear, through an earpiece that the black haired CEO wore at all times. The blue cloaked man, however, sat on a balcony, just on the other side of the one sided glass. He sat lazily on the railing, watching the competitors, just as his master had been. "I think it's time to begin."

"Oh, I do agree." Roger Brown said, a small laugh emanating from deep within his chest, as he took the last swallow of his wine. "Please, do continue."

With a nod, the man pushed his weight from the railing, blue cloak flowing behind him as he fell towards the floor of the auditorium. The fall was not that far, in all honesty, but it didn't need to be. It had the desired effect, which was to draw the attention of ever eye in the room. He landed with a soft thud, and fell to one knee, a hand flying up to the hood of his cloak, keeping it securely over his face. The quiet murmuring that had been filling the room before had quickly drawn to an abrupt stop. These were all warriors, and they knew what this meant, something was about to go down, and they sure didn't want to miss what this guy was going to say. From his knelled position, the man snapped his fingers, and with the reverberating sound of the snap, the lights in the room instantly went out, creating a pitch black fog of darkness in front of the people inside. With another snap of his fingers, the sound eerily loud in the darkness, the braziers around the room ignite with a blue fire, giving the room a small, cerulean glow to it. The hooded man had somehow found his way in the darkness, now standing on the other side of the room, on top of a large staircase, that mere moments before, had not existed.

"I'm glad I have you all here." He spoke loudly, loud enough for every ear in the room to hear him clearly. "Please allow me to introduce myself." With a flourish, he removed his hood. Bluish black hair adorned his head, flowing down past his chin. HIs ears, which were long and elf like, poked out from underneath the mess of hair, and bounced as the weight of the hood was taken off of them. His eyes, cerulean and feral, stared out at the audience calmly, almost devoid of any real care. His mouth was in a crooked form of a smirk, revealing a single enlarged, almost animal like canine. A small amount of five o'clock shadow covered his face, giving him a slightly older appearance. "My name is Michael Krieger, also known as Entei, and I will be the master of ceremonies for this event. Some of you may know of me, some of you may not, really does not matter to me regardless. I have been instructed to show you your 'proving grounds', as they were."

A third snap of his fingers, this time, the middle of the floor began to open up, causing heroes and villains alike to scatter in fear of being swallowed by the building. As the floor opened up, a platform began to rise, and upon that platform, two steel chairs. In between these two chairs, was a large, silver server, like what would be used to host a MMO, or other online type event. Michael began to cross the room rather quickly, taking large strides, the group moving out of his way, eager to see what these would have to do with the fighting.

"These." Entei said, stepping onto the platform and gesturing to the two chairs. "Are Biodomes newest piece of technology, my boss has lovingly named them the "battle chairs". Lame name if you ask me, but, I just get paid to light stuff on fire, not to name products." Sitting in the chair, Entei seemed to recline, legs crossed, hands behind his head as he looked out onto the crowd. "Now, what these chairs do, is download your specs, so to speak. Your strength, abilities, even down to the items you carry, and the amount of body hair you currently have, and create an avatar based on that. Afterwords, it will 'download' your consciousness, and place it inside of the server you see next to you, which will allow you to control the avatar the same way you would your real body. The information is then sent to every monitor on this island, and to anyone who paid for the stream world wide."

Sitting forward, Entei waited for the first complaint to come in, which was rather quick, and met by him igniting the man on fire who had the balls to speak up when he was not instructed.

"That's what I think about your questions. I don't give a damn about what you think is fair or not. If you don't want to do this, there are various methods of transportation waiting to take you home. For those who accept the challenge, be back here at eight am tomorrow to start your fights. Good luck, and don't bitch out."

A final snap, and the fires went out. After a few more moments of darkness, the lights came back on, and Entei, was gone.


OOC: Feel free to post a response here for the XPs, does not matter to me regardless. On a fight note, however, get with your respective fight partner and ask who wants to start the thread, and go from there. When combat starts, message the OS of your fight, either on Skype, PM, or Cbox to let them know they are needed.

OS for this rounds are: Fights 1, 2, 4, 6 - Odien
Fights 3, 5, 7 - Myself

Hurdled into a room? That would never do. Jeisen grumbled softly to himself as he prepped his gear outside the building before being forced to walk in with the rest of Meta humans.  He let Nolan mapped the building out as the walked through its halls. Jeisen recognized a few of the people here, not all of them friendly faces. A few of them were though. Jeisen gave Uzma a small nod from the back of the room.

Nolan: "A room full of people that could very easily blow up the room? Now just who thought that was a good idea?"

Inside Jeisen's helm, Nolan was as chatty as ever. Not that Jeisen disagreed with him in the slightest though. Surely it would have been better to keep them separate to prevent tensions from rising... wait. This was a tournament. They wanted tensions high. Humans were all the rage for metahuman reality shows, was that what this was going to be? A televised tournament with thousands of people watching (and betting) on it? Jeisen just leaned against the back wall crossing his arms as his cloak fell around him. Typical. He should have figured for that before even showing up to this place. Not that big of a problem he supposed. After all, he came here trying to make a name for the guardians. He had fully expected Entei to be here as well, right with him. What type of a bloody demon doesn't show up at the chance to wallop on a few other meta humans?

As it turns out, the corporate type demon.

A good few hours had gone by and still no host. They went from building tension to just being assholes now.

Nolan: "They don't even have a cheese plate out or anything!"

Jeisen :" You don't eat though."

Nolan: "So? Its the principle of the matter."

Jeisen sighed, but his attention quickly turned from he annoying little claptrap to a sudden movement from above. IT was a cloaked figure falling from above. Jeisen almost drew a weapon, but in a room full of metas, someone would have to be pretty brazen to try and pick a fight with this crowd. Instead, Jeisen just hung back. Good thing too as the floor began to change and move. The two chairs began to rise out of the floor on smooth gears.

Nolan: "Why am I reminded of an electrocution chair? Ah right cause those chairs right there look like them"


Thanks Nolan, pleasant image.

Jeisen: "Just start seeing what info you can get about... oh."

Jeisen took his eyes off the chairs and looked at the man speaking. Just what the hell was Entei doing here? Not only that, why the hell hadn't he let Jeisen know he was running the damn tourney? And what for gods sake did he mean by

"....download your specs, so to speak. ?"

Just what the hell what he trying to do by getting all that information? Jeisen's eyes narrowed underneath his helm as he focsed on entei's face

Jeisen: "Nolan, are you scanning Entei right now?"

Nolan: "Should I be"

Jeisen: "Yes"

Nolan: "Then I am..."

Nolan quickled pulled all the scans he could, ranging from thermal scans to just a simple picture of his face.

Jeisen: "Run the analyse on the pulled data, comparing it to last known scan of Entei"

Nolan: "Running.... running..... instaliation complete, windows 8 booting up. Wait no, Analyses complete... Well."

Nolan paused which was a little unusual for the bot inside the suit

Nolan: "He appears.... Normal. Well Normal as it gets. The hooker seems to be indeed, the hooker we know. All scans are coming back within a margin of error of 2%. Looks like its the real deal."

Jeisen paused... So this was the Entei in front of him? Or was in front of him. Before Jeisen could make his way through the crowd to his friend, the bastard is gone. Not even a passing nod or acknowledgment from him.

Jeisen: "Nolan, check the tracker."

Nolan:"Sir?"

Jeisen: "The tracker I gave him when we first stared working together. Pull it up and its location for the past hour if you can"

Nolan: "One second..... here."

Jeisen blanched inside his helm at the results. He quickly thought over wg=hat Entei was talking about. What was this about downloading the metas? Were they saying what Jeisen thought they were saying?

Jeisen: "Something doesn't sit right with me here. Tight beam a codded message to Uzmas cell, we need to get out of here."

Or not get out of here. This wasn't sitting right with Jeisen in the slightest. This whole place was beginning to feel less and less hospitable. Time to fake an exit and figure out what was really going on here. Jeisne quickly exited the room, plan running rapidly through his mind.

Island
Diana was a bit surprised they waited a few days to start up anything after announcing the match ups. It was only after a few hours after the arrival dinner that the energetic girl decided to go exploring, visiting everywhere that was permitted on the island first to scope out security, then using her talents to sneak about, mostly spying on the rich spectators staying there. The Island's measures to protect its clients prove a challenge even to the Blood Sword, and she gets nothing of value or interest from them. She also notices no set pieces where which spectacular battle could be held.

On a fine day just as Diana was lacing up her high cut boots and putting on a jacket for another walk about, she received the missive to the tournament. Finally, she thought, and headed to the locker to retrieve her equipment. The Blood Sword's mood seemed to have become mellow lately, though this would change once the blood started flowing. By herself, Diana felt strangely thirsty the second she held it again, the familiarity of its weight, the balance of its design. She drew it and gave it a couple of swings. She parries a shadowy foe. Satisfied, she sheathes it. She leaves the locker after a few silent minutes, eager to let the killing to begin.

Auditorium
The auditorium- and the other participants- came into view soon enough, and Diana offered them polite greetings if little else. They passed by a long hallway with a one way mirror, and the assassin paused in her stride and felt the one living man behind it- watching them. She grinned his way, briefly touching the mirror before heading to the performance.

Diana watched the spectacle of it all as the mechanics of this tournament were revealed. She did not recognize Entei nor did she care, though his display of fiery power proved interesting, getting a reaction from the blade. His power was innate, but supernatural.

"So this whole tournament is going to be played out like some kind of video game..." Diana asked, feigning a tone of disinterest but her eyes were locked on the hyper reality gaming-esque rig like the closet geek she was. It was a set up to have a tournament without anyone suffering horrendous, life changing injuries. At first glance.

"I suppose getting killed in this tournament would be a bummer. Let's get this over with then." She said, looking around at her fellow competitors first to see if they'd go through with the information probe. It was an unusual mechanic, and it didn't take a genius to realize there was something nefarious with the idea that sensitive information would be extracted from the competitors.

"...Do not trust... Do not give secrets..." dark whispers emanated from the sword, audible to those with acute hearing.

"I doubt their programs can 'really' figure us out." Diana muttered. Without much ado, she hopped over to the chairs when it was her turn, or if no one else wanted to go first. She took her seat, and let the machine do its work...

It had been a few days since he arrived, the only info Lucius got on anything was a piece of paper and a visit from the blue cloaked guy. It was getting rather annoying at this point, but it did give him time to make the connections he came there for, so in a way he didn't care if the tournament started at all. He got yet another invitation from the mysterious host, he was invited to his personal auditorium for whatever reason. He hoped a few questions would be answered at this little get together, if it went on any longer he would take his time elsewhere.  He made his way downstairs from his room and into the auditorium, he then casually leaned on the wall and waited for something to happen. He decided to wear his gear instead of casual clothing, not having his items on hand at all times was uncomfortable. Not to mention it might intimidate his fellow competitors, so that was a plus.


After a few minutes, just as Lucius turned to leave, the blue cloaked man from dinner jumped down from the balcony  above and landed on one knee. It gathered attention, but it wasn't all that impressive, not like what happened next. With a snap of the mans fingers, the lights went black, not long enough however for Lucius to activate his night vision. Blue fire lit the torch like devices on the walls, illuminating the room and bringing the man into view once again. He removed his hood, reveling a face Lucius knew he saw before, but couldn't quite put his finger on."Hector, try to find a voice match in your database" He said telepathically to his A.I. As Hector searched his files the man showcased what they would be using for the fights.


This left a bad taste in Lucius' mouth, he didn't come to play a data collecting video game, he decided before the man even finished he wouldn't be participating. "I have the results, you will be quite surprised" the A.I. said as he showed Lucius his recording of the bank job he had done about a month ago, then the video froze on the fire guy that nearly killed him. "Thats your match" the A.i. said telepathically to Lucius. "This is indeed a surprise, we're aborting this mission, to much risk involved" He responded as he left the auditorium.  He would stick around for a few days to see everything unravel, but he sure as hell wouldn't give his specs to anyone.

((I'm dropping out of the fights, i still want to be in the non fight parts however))