WAYPOINT SHRIL, PT.2

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: All (New Hosts may tag anything from their arrival date on Waypoint Shril forward.)
WHERE: WAYPOINT SHRIL
WHEN: Day :033 - :038
SUMMARY: Come one, come all, to the most amazing show you will ever see! Catch-all for the all ABA! Events, excluding the Demolition Man Derby and Awards Ceremony on day :039.
WARNINGS: N/A, will update as necessary.

I hope you’re all absolutely zazzled and ready to kick things off with a bang! As always, I’m Jaymez St. Jaymez St. Jaymez and I’ll be laying it all down for you as we head into this exciting and definitely deadly five day extravaganza! I’m positively passionate about bringing you all the hottest goss straight from the barrangar’s mouth, breaking down all the most important events that happen on Waypoint Shril for this entire Aurora Blue Arena!! I hope you’re ready, but we all know you’re not! Let’s get it going then!

     ABA! DAY I. THE OPENING CEREMONIES
You’ll forgive me if I scream, won’t you? Have you ever seen anything so zane in your entire life? I know you haven’t, but don’t worry, I’m here to help you process.

So we all know what happened at the big opening, right? Talk about flashy, and did our judges look great or what? I heard from a reliable source that Talius spent the whole night about neck deep in Surellian Smoke Brandy, but you almost couldn’t tell, they managed to keep all their feet on the platform at all times. Anyway, everyone in the stands had a chance to enjoy the show - and the announcements, of course! I have to say, for as long as I’ve been doing this, these sound like some of the best challenges we’ve ever seen. And last time around we had the Great Galactic Cookoff!

Of course, we all enjoyed the show. How could we not? It’s the afterparty that everyone was looking forward to though. Did you catch sight of all the competitors up in the front? The camera loves them, but close up or no you couldn’t get half as close as the people here taking part in the action. After the show wrapped up there was an exclusive meet-and-greet. Sorry, did I say exclusive? Just about anyone with a piece of paper that said ‘press’ on it got into the party. They say it’s business, but you know, it’s funny? I saw a lot more drinks in hand than holo-pads and cam-wires. In my own hand, too, if you know what I’m saying.

Of course, not all the competitors stuck around. Plenty of others ended up drifting off to the more- lets say colorful sectors of Waypoint Shril. Police reported a small brawl down by the SOMEWHERE SOMEWHERE SOMEWHERE, no less than five people had to be taken to the nearby medic station and an entire pop-up artisanal sugar glass stand was destroyed. TUH-RAGIC.


     ABA! DAY II. LIP SYNC FOR YOUR LIFE
I know we all saw it, but hold on to your glitter gloss and pull up your grav-control shorts, because just talking about it is enough to give me the vapors. I can hardly believe what I just witnessed. Did anyone expect that raggedy bunch of Team 010 to turn around such a hot performance? I didn't know Calridians knew left from right, much less up from down but the next time I meet one in a bar I might just have to ask for a demonstration. But of course that wasn't all (PLEASE). If you're anyone who knows anyone, I'm sure you'll be hearing all about the big backstage blowup between those two teams - wow I sure do hope everyone recovers in time for tomorrow events - and who could forget when the stage tilted over and that poor sweet doll from Team Sparkle Ribbon went sliding off that terrible drop and got sliced to, well, ribbons by the laser light show (RIP. YOU WERE FABULOUS AND WAY TO SCORE SOME MAJOR POINTS FOR YOUR TEAM ON THE WAY OUT). Of course, nothing stands up to the entire stagebeing lit on fire - unless, of course, we're talking Miss Mystery's absolutely stunning display of, uhhhh… Well, that dress sure was something, wasn't it? ( *∵* )

OMS [tn: oh my sequins]! So, basically it was completely off the runway. What else can you say? I can barely wait to see what the ones who lived through that bring to the stage tomorrow. Still, I mean I know what you’re saying. You’re all 'Jaymez St. Jaymez St. Jaymez we didn’t come to you to hear what we all saw, even if we do love your dazzling and completely fresh take on the whole sitch.' No no, I know, you want to know what you couldn’t see on your holos. Ok so, you know Baranay Bartrold and his partner Aarara Ang? The pair who were disqualified in round three at the last ABA!!? Well, they’re back again, only this time they weren’t here for the competition. Rumor has it they’ve been taking cash and cred in exchange for SarSarSeven. You know, that completely wrong, oh-so-right concoction that’s said to give absolutely anyone an edge like no other? Of course everything’s got a price, and SarSar goes beyond the hefty price tag. They say that if you take too much of it, you’ll go completely off the rack (gag) and end end up, like, totally changed. Which may explain the attacks we’ve seen. Several groups of people have been found in various states of like, not so good, and people have reported seeing hairy, misshapen shapes in the shadows clinging to the buildings and lurking in the ventilation. It’s totally creep-central……. unless that’s your thing. I’m not about to yuck your yums sweet things.

Oh, and there was that tramp Garzield. I’ve been told I have to tell you that he held some tacky little off the books game show in some sketchy back lot just after the competition ended and gave away, like, some paltry thousands of Shen to any old rando that drifted in off the streets. Oh sure, he had like a wheel, some doors, and some bright lights but I think we can all agree that they just washed him out. Ugh. No one should wear that shade of chartreuse.

     ABA! DAY III. WAYPOINT WROBO WRESTLING FEDERATION
Get me a sparkling sizza water, because I’m burning up! You think things can’t get any bigger, any better, any bloodier, and then the competition begins! I’m still trying to process and I’m sure all you at home are too. But don’t you worry your sweet little heads, because I’m here to help you get your heads back on straight or sideways or any which way they’re supposed to go. I think we all knew this event was going to be big. I mean, 400 feet is nothing to sneeze at, but did we know it was going to be this big? I mean, first off, you had the fourth place finishers from last year who got in a hee-yooge blowout over whether their wrestler GARBAN THE FEARSOME was, like, an ex-con or an ex-cop? Everyone knows that’s not what it was really about - ahem- Still, you’d think that the way they were trying to fight themselves would make them an easy team to beat, but the team they were up against had a shrevil of a time figuring out how to fight someone who can’t be predicted at all. Then you had PARADA and GUCICI. Sure, they started out normal enough with a fairly rote ‘you stole the love of my life’ storyline, but the twist ending, where they were re-incarnated lovers? Gorgeous! I couldn’t take my eyes off the stage when their half-nelson turned into a full on full grope-sesh. I’ve never been more glad to be posted under the Aircon. And then there were the two teams that kept trying to out-heel each other. I mean, how many orphanages (yes, actual orphanges) did they each burn down? You’ll have to start making more orphans at this rate! Still, it made for a good show, and they really did know how to work the ropes, which you all know Jaymez appreciates.

Of course that's not all. During the day's matches, I hear there was QUITE the upset on Platform Alfa. Apparently some giant ship decided they didn't want to follow the rules and opted to jump the line to park and crashed straight into the platform (R-U-D-E). I won't bore you with the details (fire, explosions, the tragic death of the occasional bystander probably), but I can happily report that that particular ship won't be crashing into anyone else any time soon. The crew's been arrested, expecting of course the captain. Apparently the dastardly drog managed to escape into the crowd and confusion and make his way onto Waypoint Shril. So keep your eyes peeled for any shady looking Roanotian with a cut temple and a scorched jacket. He's probably trouble. >:(

In more RIDICULOUSLY EXCITING news (I know, I know - 'Jaymez St. Jaymez St. Jaymez, what could be more exciting than everything I've witnessed today?' but hold on and regulate your breathing, because this is going to give you an absolute fit), a little lilran told me today that if you hurry right along you might just catch the Late Night Hour with none other than THE Scrilliax Shann, the winner of the ABA! four years ago. Oh my glord, if she isn't just the definition of glamorous and everyone knows her parties are the pinnacle of stellarnomenal. GUH, I'm breaking a sweat just thinking about what it's going to be like. Of course, now this party is going to be exclusive, so I sure hope you have an invite. Apparently only the wildly spectacular (cough), the radically famous, or the stunningly gorgeous are going to have any hope of getting through the doors. But I promise, it'll be worth it. Sure, the last time I saw a holo of Scrilliax she had about five different beings following on their hands and tentacles after her but honestly - not a bad way to live.

     ABA! DAY IV-V. CATCH YOUR BREATH
[Just a clearly heavily staged (and digitally '~*~enhanced~*~') video of Jaymez St. Jaymez St. Jaymez fanning themselves. It's on loop. There is quite a lot of product placement for a five second clip.]

     ABA! DAY VI. LEGENDS OF THE BEAST NINJA GLADIATOR WARRIOR MASTER
I’m- I’m sorry. I just need a second. Flob, my mascara is running, I must look like a total mess. But can you blame me? I am just - floored. Overwhelmed. Like, completely blasted. It feels like I’ve been blasted by the solar winds on Plezas Twelve. This. Was. Incredible. Like, these are the times you think like, wow, I’m so like lucky to be here. To be as fabulous as I am so that I had a chance to stand here and witness some of the most impressive feats of strength and skill and - let's be honest - pure friendship we saw here today. I don’t know if I’ve ever cried harder than I did when Shivarana was hanging from that cage by her one slender clawed feeding arm while Garavan, who had already fallen into the slip-mud earlier in the round finally admitted that she loved her. An incredible upset. And then there was the temple fun-run, where one of the trailing teams managed to successfully guess the correct door seven times in a row before being grabbed by one of the guardians. My head is absolutely spinning. And then there was the team challenge, where one team ended up stuck halfway through their passage and had to make the tough call to cut half of their team off - literally. I’m still not sure how they broke the chain, but it was fully legal. Still, going into the finale at half-strength… Well, I don’t envy them. We lost so many great teams in this challenge. Fargarvaragarvarava will never be able to afford her surgery now. It’s just so heartbreaking. But that pain only makes the victories sweeter, right? And let me tell you, we’ll be popping bottles of sugar water tonight.

Now, if you're like me then you might need some time to recover before you face tomorrow (I am. NOT. READY.). Luckily, that should be totally doable thanks to the ABA!s brave security force. What's that? You don't know what happened? Oh my darlings, I hate to break the news but during the competition there was an unprecedented threat against the Judges lives and all our happiness. Apparently in the middle of today's event, an assassin attempted to get a line on our beloved trendsetters. If you thought for a moment that Saldo Saldo's amazingly mysterious shape looked momentarily unnerved, why it wasn't your imagination. Luckily, the assassin was foiled before anything terrible could occur. Which, like, thank the stars. I don't know what I'd do without them.

But I DO know I certainly wouldn't be caught dead room sharing with a bunch of defunct competitors. Did you know that when you get ejected from the competition, you lose your room and board? Which means that a bunch of shambles of teams are looking for places to crash for the rest of the week. Eughk. Get a job, losers.

KISS KISS, MY LITTLE SAINTS. I can't wait to see what tomorrow has in store for us. We’ll be heading into the last and final event - and we’ll get to meet this year’s victors. Stay with me! I’ve been, am, and will be Jaymez St. Jaymez St. Jaymez, reporting from Waypoint Shril, for this Aurora Blue Arena!!

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((OOC NOTES: This log is the catch-all for all ABA! Events, excluding the Demolition Man Derby and Awards Ceremony on Day :039. You'll notice the structure of this is… atypical. Feel free to glom on to absolutely any of the above hooks and prompts and go absolutely wild with them. No drama is too minor, no explosion too large. However feel free to also create your own logs concurrent to these happenings if nothing catches your eye. That said, please don't log or thread anything beyond Day :039 - you never know when things might wrap up with an unexpected bang. For full details of the events, please see the WAYPOINT SHRIL, PT.2 post. If you have any additional questions, don't hesitate to drop us a note on the Mod Contact page.

'Wait, can I NPC this character?' When it doubt, the answer is probably yes. Use your best judgement, but we encourage you to go wild. Should you desire mod input or for us to bounce into a thread, feel free to reach out to us and we'll be happy to accommodate. We may also be threadjacking some of these threads, however don't feel compelled to wait for us to do so. Have fun and don't get killed!))

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Comments

[blooded]

( damon is actually done by now, but stefan's pissy question makes him stay just a little longer. bothering his younger brother is his sacred duty as an older brother, and this apparently pisses stefan off a lot. he's confirmed that stefan is... alright, mostly. for a given value of alright, anyway. he isn't tearing apart at the seams, so hungry he's struggling with it, or so far gone he'd be a danger to elena.

elena. he should tell stefan about her. damon extricates himself from stefan's mind at last, mouth open with words he doesn't particularly want to say — they were doing so well here on their own, they were friends, without stefan to make things hard for them or weird for her — but the words don't come out. if he hadn't been distracted by stefan's presence, he would have felt her earlier, but he becomes aware of elena only a moment before she actually joins them, striding forward with the fury in her mind bleeding through to theirs. he could probably stop her, if he wanted to. he knows what she's about to do, has seen that particular jut to her jaw more times than he'd like to count.

he doesn't stop her. she swings her fist back and the corner of his mouth twitches up, but his amusement ends about the time he sees stefan reel back — not like damon does, when he wants to keep her from hurting herself on his face, but like the blow actually hurt. the scent of blood hits his nostrils, and damon — damon's intimately familiar with the differences between vampire and human blood. he knows how both smell and taste, and there are differences. they're subtle, imperceptible to a human, but damon is not human.

his brother, on the other hand, is bleeding like he is. )

Stefan?

( it's all he can come up with, at the moment, but he's sure it conveys the source of his confusion well enough for someone who's known him as long as stefan has. )

[martyric]

( Now, she's been working with Misato to improve her general fighting ability. Elena's skills were...abysmal, quite frankly, prior to investing the time in training, but it's been a couple of weeks and things are slowly getting better. Emphasis on the slowly, but the increased strength that comes with the symbiote wired into her system helps things along. All this adds up to an Elena who might not be able to do a lot of damage, but a punch certainly hurts.

Damon might be able to pick up on the difference in the scent of blood that drips from his lip, Elena can feel the difference in the ache that explodes in her knuckles. It hurts, because thrusting your fist into anyone's face hurts, but it's nothing like the rock solid point of contact that Damon's face had presented.

This is becoming a bit of a habit for Elena's Salvatore reunions.

When she sees the blood she steps back sharply, as if it hadn't occurred to her that she might actually hurt him. Honestly it kind of hadn't, the last she'd seen of him had been as a vampire. Actually the last time she'd seen Stefan he'd been running after her as she fled his house, but he'd certainly not been vulnerable like this. Her first reaction is to sharply turn her head to look at Damon, eyes wide and jaw dropped, and then she's staring back at Stefan.

She cradles her fist in her hand, holds it close to her chest, and gapes.

What is she supposed to make of this, exactly? )

What is going on?

( It's the same question that she can hear in Damon's voice. )

[anathematic]

It's okay.

[In the face of their confusion, in the way that Elena cradles her hand to her chest, like his reaction had hurt more than her knuckles cracking into his teeth- it's as instinctive as it ever was, to entirely change his tactics. To go from what might have once been bland, to soft, soothing.

The two of them, for various differing reasons- make him think of skittish animals in this moment, one wrong move-]

It's already stopped bleeding. [It's as reassuring for Elena and the guilt she must be starting to feel, if he knows her as well as he thinks he does, as it is to stall. He knows- he knows that isn't what they're asking. It isn't as if it's abnormal for a vampire to become injured, if the right amount of force is applied. It's that though the bleeding might have stopped, only stings mildly, when his mouth stretches to accommodate speech, and the gentle smile he adopts- it hasn't healed.

If Damon- if Damon was being honest, instead of just pulling his leg, all of this just became so much more complicated than being rescued to some kind of intergalactic station with an alien creature hitching a ride in his mind. Than just being here with some of the very people he'd been trying to protect]

It's- [He starts, then stops. He knows- he knows at a base level that too much has happened, more than he can possibly explain to either of them, more than he ever wants to. A lot of it made dealing with Klaus, in hindsight, seem far too easy. It would be kinder to spare them, until they had no choice to go through it themselves] been a few years, since the last thing that you remember, Damon.

[It's the most mild way he can think of to phrase it. To partially answer the question, and figure out one little extra bit of information. If Elena remembers the same. She'd so very rarely struck him, being the sort of person who tended to prefer pacifism when allowed- but there'd been times when his behaviour warranted it. Was it fleeing, on top of this place, that made her want to lash out? Or something worse? Like the time he'd refused to care about Jeremy's life? A night on a bridge? Abandoning them to their concern, when he'd had no memories?]

Is that the last thing you remember, Elena? That I left? Is that why you're angry with me?

[blooded]

Oh, that's reassuring, ( damon hisses, grabbing stefan and pulling him closer, inspecting the cut on his lip. london caws and takes off from his shoulder, leaving small tears in his shirt that he doesn't even pay attention to. distantly, damon is a little proud — elena's learned a lot with misato, she couldn't have punched like this before — but more than anything else he's terrified, heart in his throat. )

You're not healing, Stefan.

( it's a statement of fact, but said more like an accusation, like stefan is choosing not to heal. damon knows it doesn't work that way, it's just what their bodies do, but what other explanation could there possibly be? he knows elena, says it's been years since the last thing damon remembers from home. he can't be human because there's no such thing as a cure for vampirism, but he sure as hell is bleeding like one. )

She remembers even less than I do, ( he says, tone clipped. elena can speak for herself, would probably be more annoyed by damon speaking for her than anything, but he... he wants to be a buffer between them, somehow. ) She'd just figured out the vampire thing when she showed up. She decked me too.