[CHIRP ♪♪]

He’s falling. Great.

Gabriel hadn’t realized that quirks weren’t allowed. Even now, he only put the pieces together after hearing Taro’s comments and the disappearance of whatever invisible walkway was in the sky before he tried jumping on it. Because his quirk lacked versatility, he wasn’t reliant on it. Instead, he relied on his big, stinkin’ brain to get him out of problems. Even now in the midst of a fall, he grabbed onto the orb, displacing it from the sticky hand, and shot it out again at his tiles.

“Don’t worry everyone, I’ll catch up!” At this point, he’s busy swinging, stuck perhaps — who’s to know? And the motion is making him dizzy. He drops the orb as it falls to the ground and he curses. “Crap… what if that was the real one?”

The dizziness was getting to him. It’s literally impossible for it to be the right one. What’s he worrying about?

---

Mafdet Khepri Taro Yamada smileyj

[Mafdet Khepri]

"There, there. It's gonna be okay, we'll have that orb in no time." Khepri said with a soft voice while handing over the soda and reaching out to pat Mel's head, should he allow it. The catbug's ears turned, listening closely for trouble in case it came their way. Speak of the devil, there it was. 

"One second," They added with a confident thumbs up. "I'll be right back." 

Turning on their heel they approached the incoming enemy with a skip in their step, utterly ignoring the droid's warning that they were under arrest. At the last moment they ducked under the fired taser and leapt at it. Their four fingered hands landed on its shoulders, or whatever equivalent the droid had, while the flat of their feet set firmly against its center mass. The muscles in their legs bunched and they activated their Slam Jam to add a bit of extra kick to their kick. 

"Hey, do you think you'll dream of electric sheep? I wanna know."

Not giving the droid even a second to reply they kicked out with their full force, both themself and the bot rocketing away in opposite directions. With a bit of a tumble Khepri landed right in front of Mel and rolled back upright.

"Come on, we need to get moving," Khepri said with a smile while offering a hand. "Can you help me find my cat? It's here somewhere but I can't find it."

---

TL;DR:
-Khepri hands a Soda Can to Mel
-Dodges the attack of a police bot and uses their Slam Jam to add extra power to their counterattack
-Extends a hand towards Mel and asks for help finding their cat

------

Tags: CHIRP ♪♪ smileyj Taro Yamada 

[Taro Yamada]

GAME ON!

HP: lmao.

As the other guy who misunderstood the assignment (read: never knew there was one in the first place), Taro fell straight after the Chirp did. Unfortunately though, unlike Chirp, he didn't have anything to catch himself with. So all he could do was crash on two robots that would cushion his fall. Except they didn't make good cushions. The fall hurt like hell.

With a wheeze, the now-human pushed himself off the pile and his eyes locked on a ball that was about to join him. Reflexes he was actually able to train was the only reason he caught it. Watching the other man swing around unaware of the motion sickness he was feeling, Taro whistled for his attention. "Yo! You dropped this." Whether bird dude acknowledged him or not, the grunt would throw the ball up at him anyway.

That wasn't the only potential bomb he had to watch out for. As the announcer mentioned something about poison which prompted him to cover his nose with his shirt - would that even work? He usually saw people had gas masks on to avoid that sorta thing - Taro caught up with his robot dog, who seemed so happy with its catch it was ignoring the cat robot also on the scene.

He clicked his tongue. "Oi, pick on someone else." He placed a slapsticker on the cat before focusing on his companion by petting it on the scruff of its neck. "Alright bud, give it to me." More pets before he held his hand under its mouth. Here's hoping the ball lands in it before he loses it.

OOC: Following Chirp was a mistake so he falls on a bunch of robo cops. He catches Chirp's ball though so he throws it back at him. He sees the robot cat bothering his dog so he slaps a slapsticker on it in hopes that it would stay away, before trying to coax the dog to let go of the ball it caught.

Jinx CHIRP ♪♪ Mafdet Khepri smileyj

[Jinx]

✧ ARMOR WARS: ARENA 5 ✧

Round 5

The arena looked almost like a winter morning snowball fight. Orbs flying everywhere, a foggy mist spreading slowly across the ground and police trying to break the rapidly escalating shenanigans up. Perhaps the explosions, extreme violence and overuse of tasers were a bit unorthodox but who was counting? Other than the bookies, of course.

"Buoyancy appears to be lacking today. Perhaps we should have been more clear it was 'sink or swim' but the contestants' idiocy is none of our concern. Surely at least one of you will manage to not dissapoint. Or else."

The gas seemed to hiss ever harder the moment Azazel finished speaking. Just in case anyone feared this bad situation couldn't get any worse. With Chirp busy catching his bearings, Taro having a fierce face-off with his own equipment, Khepri's equipment either failing or having gone missing and Mel not having a good time our heroes(?) were ill-suited to provide a solution.

Yet with death as the only other option they had little choice but to succeed in their mutual suicide mission or die trying. The orb demanded it.



At the corner of the street a plinth rose, conveniently close to Taro and Chirp. What was less convenient was that the true orb was currently up above, spinning wildly as it flew through the air. An unfortunate consequence of its previous owner being blown sky-high.

---

Item usage:
-Soda Can: Usage successful.
-Slam Jam: Drawback triggered.
-Slapstickers: Usage successful.
-WatchDog v1: Usage successful

Slam Jam Drawback: Sometimes the mechanism gets jammed and doesn't work as intended, sometimes it's both shoes and other times it's just one. Oh darn :c

Welcome to Armor Wars, Underground Edition! As a reminder, all participants must post at least once per round, but can skip one round if necessary. A second skip will result in no tokens being given. No max on the number of posts per round. There are six rounds total, each a week long, with an optional seventh for everyone to write their closing replies.

If you wish to use your gear, add a TLDR on its usage in your post and we'll roll a die for it. If the roll fails, its drawback is revealed and you're free to RP it out as you see fit

Additionally, if you want to have any cool moments with your character but have it be kept as a surprise, or if you're just unsure of whether an action's viable, feel free to DM me(Jinx) and we could try to work it out!

The next round will begin on 14/02/2024 @ 4pm PST

tag: CHIRP ♪♪  Mafdet Khepri  smileyj  Taro Yamada

[CHIRP ♪♪]

“That’s enough dilly-dallying.” Lives were at stake and he was caught up in the act as a jester. None of his comrades would take charge. Meaning the responsibility fell on him lest he die, too. Gabriel hadn’t escaped Trinity’s grasp to die here, in a battle royale to the death. With the ball in hand and both his sticky hand and tiles in his inventory, he used Free Skipper one last time to catch up to Taro — hopefully.

Blip.

“Wait a second,” Chirp looks to the guy next to him. Then he looks back to where he was… it’s like he never took those invisible steps and dangled for his life! “Who the hell are you?!” Then, Chirp decks him in the face and starts running. There’s no telling if they would get in the way at this point in the race.

Eventually, he makes his way up to Taro who is… Omg is that a — Stop. Focus!

“Taro, see this?” He points to his orb, then the orb floating above the plinth. “We’re gonna Illinois James this sum bitch. Follow me!”

The plan was simple: do what they needed to not die. When close enough, they'd pull the ol' switcheroo.

Tl;dr
- free skipper fails and takes him to npc
- He catches up to taro
- They start running towards plinth (if taro follows)
- His plan is to run up and replace the real orb with the fake orb so they can trick people while they put the real orb in the plinth

---

Mafdet Khepri Taro Yamada smileyj

[Mafdet Khepri]

"We're gonna be fine. It's a straight stretch right to the finish!" Khepri happily explained as they took another left at the next corner while homing in on the area that had the most noise, one hand extended behind them. "There's no need to be afraid. If someone ever intimidates you just remember they’re seventy percent water. Are you scared of water? Well, you should be. Four hundred thousand people drown every year. But that's not the point. I've heard that team work makes the dream work so unless you had a scary dream where everything went wrong we can get out of here together!"

Khepri hoped the person they were talking to didn't have nightmares the night before. That would be a very unfortunate coincidence. Wait, was that why they seemed to be in distress? Nope, riddles always had to have a fun answer and they didn't like this one so it had to be another. Their train of thought was derailed when they passed a groaning man holding his nose.

"Always the face. Why is it always the face?"

"Sorry I'm already working on a riddle maybe next time," Khepri offhandedly replied to them while arriving near the waving man that had accepted a soda can earlier and his friend that had also accepted a soda can earlier. A gasp left them as they spotted something far more important near them.

"Mecha-Mafdet, you're here! I'll join in on the funny dance later, we have things to do!" They playfully shouted at the twitching Robo-cat, not realizing in the slightest that Taro's slapstickers were responsible for its sick moves. Spotting a great many people looking up at one orb in particular their eyes focused on it as well, pupils dilating as they tracked its every motion.

"I don't know who that is," they replied to Chirp, "and I'm also not Taro. I'm Khepri! You're not very good at conversations are you? That's okay, I'll help out!"

---

TL;DR: 
-Khepri rushes through alleys while blathering on and on to the person with them
-Reaches the scene of the crime, ordering their Robo-Cat to help out with the plan™ that they definitely know about and understand.
-Helpfully lets Chirp know they're here to help as well in a way that can't be misread in the slightest

Tags: CHIRP ♪♪ Taro Yamada smileyj

[Taro Yamada]

GAME ON!

HP: lmao.

"Good robo dog." Taro gave more pets to the deserving pup as he retrieved the orb from it. Now... what should he do with it exactly? It's not like it's the real one- at least he didn't think it was if that [True Orb] call from that one woman was any indication before she went boom. Oh well. He lobbed it away from himself, making sure it hit another competitor in the head so they had a chance to- explode since they couldn't catch it afterwards. Oops.

Oh hey. It's bird guy. And cat girl. "Taro is me. Cool that you know my name already, that makes this planning stuff a lot easier," he remarked with a nod. Granted he only knew Khepri's name just now and not bird guy's, but at least bird guy was a better moniker to call a stranger than for himself to be called human. "I like Illinois James. I like the part where he got chased around by a ball."

And speaking of a ball, bird guy was holding one. "Oh yeah. We should pass that to each other so it doesn't explode on the way there. Just follow us for now Sparky." With another pet for the good dog, Taro followed Chirp to the plinth, making sure to keep the ball from blowing up.

OOC: He got the ball from his dog but remembered it's not the real one, so he throws it away to an unfortunate contestant. Seeing Chirp and Khepri group with him again, he follows Chirp to the plinth, assuming they're passing Chirp's ball to each other on the way there. No gear used unless telling WatchDog v1 to stay close counts!

Jinx CHIRP ♪♪ Mafdet Khepri smileyj

[Jinx]

✧ ARMOR WARS: ARENA 5 ✧

Round 6

Bit by bit the cacophony of booming noises began to die down, replaced by much softer sounds such as coughing and wheezing. In part due to the majority of the false orbs being thrown around to devastating and in part due to the gas filling up ever more of the arena. Whichever plan our intrepid survivors were about to execute would have to be done fast, for the only alternative was one far more permanent than their current captivity.

"...I'm speechless. Truly, I have learned much today. I believed I had no expectations for any of you yet clearly I must have. What else could explain the disappointment I feel over your performance? From the bottom of my heart: I'm glad I won't have to pay any of you for this."

With a staticky sound the microphone went offline once more, the silence afterwards hanging almost as heavy in the air as the gas filling the lungs of any unlucky enough to be too close to the ground for their own good. With their shared survival on the line cooperation was the way to go and soon a rallying cry rang out, one that set off a cascade of actions all taking place at the same time!

"Fuck you ShadeShaper! I'm taking you down with me!"

"Not if I get you first, Arsewipe!"

"It's Arseni- Forget it, just die already!"

As some of the remaining orbs and a wide variety of items were put to good(?) use the true orb reached the apex of its flight, hanging motionless for just a moment before beginning its descent. With the sole way out of this death trap being seconds away from shattering on the floor it was now or never.

Do or die. Whether the orb reached the plinth or not, one way or another the competition would end within the minute.

---

Item usage:
-Robo-cat: Usage successful.

Welcome to Armor Wars, Underground Edition! As a reminder, all participants must post at least once per round, but can skip one round if necessary. A second skip will result in no tokens being given. No max on the number of posts per round. There are six rounds total, each a week long, with an optional seventh for everyone to write their closing replies.

If you wish to use your gear, add a TLDR on its usage in your post and we'll roll a die for it. If the roll fails, its drawback is revealed and you're free to RP it out as you see fit

Additionally, if you want to have any cool moments with your character but have it be kept as a surprise, or if you're just unsure of whether an action's viable, feel free to DM me(Jinx) and we could try to work it out!

The next round will begin on 21/02/2024 @ 4pm PST

tag: CHIRP ♪♪  Mafdet Khepri  smileyj  Taro Yamada

[Mafdet Khepri]

"Let go of me you freak!" The man whose hand Khepri had been shouted while wrenching their arm free. With a befuddled stare the catbug looked over their shoulder.

"You don't have pink hair."

"Wha- Yeah I don't what do-"

"Why don't you have pink hair?" Khepri asked while looking him up and down. The man looked completely different from the one she'd been intending to bring here. Oh well, they shrugged. It was time to focus on more important matters. 

Their gaze was transfixed on the true orb, thoughts of Chirp's plan momentarily forgotten as they tracked it with their eyes until instinct overwhelmed them. Crouching in place their leg muscles flexed as they unconsciously tried and failed to use their quirk to increase the tension before leaping up all at once, their rocket boots compensating for the lack of quirk and shooting them higher than they could have even with it.

Their outstretched hand made contact with the true orb, grabbing it and bringing it to their chest. With their goal achieved they snapped out of their funk.

"I don't have a landing strategy," Khepri muttered to themselves as gravity began to take effect. Rearing their arm back they looked in the direction of Chirp and Taro before throwing with all their might. "Catch!"

------

Tags: Taro Yamada CHIRP ♪♪ 

[CHIRP ♪♪]

“Khepri,” Gabriel doesn’t have time to engage with the absurd. Scripts weren’t his only wheelhouse, he dabbled in improv, too. ‘Yes, and’ would shine through as he nodded to their inane rambling — Gabe, bad at conversation? Please. With all the hearts he’s broken, it’s a surprise Retsu was the first to pull a gun on him, “Tutor me sometime!”

It’s a fake request. After tonight, he’d hope to never see any of these bastards again. Khepri was just a victim, but with the way they acted, he wouldn’t be surprised if they volunteered.

They prove their reputation, they used insane physicality to… activate their jetboots. Underwhelming, but Gabe was able to catch the ball, now wielding two of them. They didn’t need his plan, Khepri took the lead and gave them an opportunity.

“No time to Illinois. We need to be two clowns on a unicycle.” Without warning, he tossed one of the balls to Taro and then motioned for him to toss it back. Then, he’d toss the other ball, too. It was at the exact moment he lost track of which ball was which was that he realized he didn’t have to use the decoy in the first place.

Fuck. He thought. I hope he’s keeping track… Then, he sees Khepri falling. “Huh… don’t think I’m getting those lessons.”

Tl;dr
- catch ball from khepri
- Confuse self by juggling both balls w/ taro
- Hopefully taro keeps track… if not it’s up to him to choose which ball when we arrived woo
- IDK HOW TO HELP KHEPRI DONT DIE IG LMFAOOOO

---

Mafdet Khepri Taro Yamada

[Taro Yamada]

GAME ON!

HP: lmao.

Taro didn't know what kind of pink hair the cat person was talking about, but the guy they pulled with them sure didn't have any. But then they left him behind to leap in the air, grabbing the real ball as it came down. "Nice catch."

As they passed it back to the duo though, the grunt did notice no one was going to catch the cat as they fell to the floor. He couldn't do it; he needed to help prevent the ball from blowing up. In any case, cats landed on their feet right? But this was a human cat. Who was nice enough to give him that can of soda even though it sucked. They might not be cat-like enough to land on their feet. And bird guy seemed to want them to live to. So sure, he could do them a favour. "Nah, they'll be fine. I got it."

He looked between his robot dog and the man Khepri brought with them. The man's eyes seemed to widen in realization as Taro smiled. "Sparky? Chase." The automaton barked at the man before it started running, herding the stranger towards the cat person. If they were lucky, the guy was going to break their fall.

Speaking of luck though, Taro heeded bird man's words and juggled the balls between them. He wasn't even much of a juggler usually, but he guessed the threat of exploding let one pick up some new skills under pressure. Unfortunately, he lost track of which one was real as well. And by the time they reached the plinth, both orbs were in his arms.

Taro looked to his temporary partner in crime. "Hey- I didn't keep track of which one was real. So I just wanted to say it was nice knowing ya." With those parting words, he placed one of the orbs on the stand.

Fingers crossed it was the right one.

OOC: Taro uses WatchDog v1 to chase Khepri's buddy towards them in the hopes that they would land on the guy so he broke their fall. While that happens, he passes the two balls between himself and Chirp, eventually losing track of which one was real as well. He just puts a random one on the plinth and hopes for the best. It's been fun everyone!

Jinx CHIRP ♪♪ Mafdet Khepri smileyj

[Jinx]

✧ ARMOR WARS: ARENA 5 ✧

Epilogue

Silence. All encompassing and as impactful as it was momentary. For the shortest second after the orb made contact with the plinth the entire world seemed to stop, holding its breath in anticipation. Then, with a level of finality akin to the ding on a microwave right as your hand reaches to open it a second too late, the plinth glowed gold. Its essence bathed the arena in its radiant light not unlike a localised aurora borealis.

The sheer potency of the energy contained by the true orb made it very clear what would have happened had it made contact with the gas filling the arena.

The hissing sounds stopped the moment the orb found its final resting place. In their place the sounds of whirring gears and clanking chains could be heard.

"Your final challenge arrives. We had thought some amongst you might be equipped to handle it but clearly we vastly overestimated each and everyone one of you."

As the mechanical clanking grew louder its source became clear. Behind the plinth a heavy gate opened like a portcullis, chains drawn tight and gears continuing to strain under its weight as they pulled it up one turn at a time.

"The rest of your lives await. Good luck. You all clearly need it."

---

Item usage:
-Slam-Jam: Usage successful.
-Robo-cat: Usage successful.
-WatchDog v1: Usage successful.

Welcome to Armor Wars, Underground Edition! As a reminder, all participants must post at least once per round, but can skip one round if necessary. A second skip will result in no tokens being given. No max on the number of posts per round. There are six rounds total, each a week long, with an optional seventh for everyone to write their closing replies.

If you wish to use your gear, add a TLDR on its usage in your post and we'll roll a die for it. If the roll fails, its drawback is revealed and you're free to RP it out as you see fit

Additionally, if you want to have any cool moments with your character but have it be kept as a surprise, or if you're just unsure of whether an action's viable, feel free to DM me(Jinx) and we could try to work it out!

The thread will be closed on 28/02/2024 @ 4pm PST

tag: CHIRP ♪♪  Mafdet Khepri  smileyj  Taro Yamada

[Jinx]

☆ MISSION SUCCESS ☆

One challenge to rule them all.
Great thread everyone!

+ 100 Tokens!!

Chirp: 75 // 175
Khepri: 0 // 100
Taro: 100 // 200

tag: CHIRP ♪♪ Mafdet Khepri Taro Yamada