[Malevolence]

((OOC: Pardon my long absence, I've been working at camp. Eww.))

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

SMACK.

Alex turned over in bed, and pulled the covers back over his head after hitting the snooze alarm. After a few seconds, he shot up and sat vertically, with a dazed, surprised, and altogether alarmed look on his face.

"Shit. Shit shit SHIT!"

Alex jumped out of bed and quickly pulled on his pair of jeans from the night before, his wallet still in the back pocket. He threw on a plain white t-shirt, buckeled his belt, grabbed a light black overcoat, and ran out the door, mumbling to himself about being late. But he had forgotten something rather important. He ended up actually runing into the door headfirst as he had forgotten to put on his glasses. He stumbled back over to his bed, grabbed his thick-rimmed black glasses from his nighttable, and rushed back out the door - remembering to open it this time.

As he ran through the circular halls of his building, Alex passed a multitude of closed doors, night hall-lights, and loud snoring noises. He then began to realize that it might not have been the best idea to take a flight that left at 5:45 in the morning from an airport half an hour from his apartment. As he walked into the elevator, he realized he was about to participate in a tournament requiring extreme mental strength on about 6 hours of sleep. The door dinged, and he promptly found himself at the bottom of the building within a good 3 seconds, feeling nothing due to the inertial dampeners installed on the elevator.

As he passed the front desk, he saw the clerk, Bowman, just beginning to start up the front systems of the complex.

"Morning, Mr. Nolan," he said.

"Morning, Bowman." Alex hoped Bowman wouldn't stop him on his way out, but of course, his hopes were dashed when he ehard the mag-locks on the front doors click.

"Leaving so quickly? Where's the fire?"

"In a plane's engine, Bowman," Alex said, "and I have to get there...pretty close to now."

"Oh, you're in that Tournament Army thing, right?"

"Tournament of Arms, Bowman."

"Right. Well...wouldn't want to keep you."

"You just did."

"Hmmph," Bowman replied, and unlocked the doors. The maglocks disengaged with a soft hiss, and Alex rushed out the door. As soon as he got outside, he was hit with a blast of cold air, and a prickling light snow. He muttered to himself, and pulled a long, thin gray scarf out of the inside picket of his coat. He wrapped it around his neck twice as he kept walking, letting the two tails flap out behind him in the wind.

-----------

When Alex finally got on the plane, he was greeted by the smell of recycled air and old seats. As he settled into his complementary business-class upgrade, he noticed a mask in front of him. He hadn't been on a plane in over 10 years, so he was, to say the least, a little confused. Just as thoughts of rescue breathers raced through his mind, a voice came over the intercom:

"Good morning, this is your captain speaking. In preparation for our exiting of the atmosphere, we must ask that all passengers in the forward half of the plane put on their oxygen masks. In the event of a pressure loss, all bulkheads will be sealed and jettissoned, to be recovered by a skipper satellite within 1 solar day, so don't worry one bit. Flight attendants, please prepare the cabin for a stratosphere break."

Alex had forgotten that in recent years, atmospheric skippers traveling at Mach 7 had been put into use as commercial aircraft. As he sat back, he looked around. All the people on this Skipper should be either on their way to fight in or watch the Tournament of Arms. He could easily tell the fighters from the spectators - the spectators looked normal, and most of the other fighters were either dressed like they were going to movie premieres or lived in a fantastical version of the 14th Century. Alex looked...somehow normal. As he placed the odd-looking mask over his face, all he could think about was "Shit, I chipped my nail polish," looking at his nails that he had painted black out of sheer boredom the night before. He promptly dozed off.

----------------

Alex awoke to find himself draped over the shoulder of a very large man.

"What the hell?" He struggled, but couldn't quite move. At all.

"Don't bother, you have atmospheric bends."

"What?"

"Your body isn't really able to make any gross muscle movements. You have nitrogen bubbles in your blood. First time on a Skipper plane?"

"Yeah...now what?"

"Well, you don't really need to move to fight in the Tournament, do you?"

"You're on staff?"

"They expected some Bends cases. You're the third. You get suspended in Nitrox gel in the interface tube, so your muscle movements won't matter that much anyway."

"Oh...K..."

--------------

Alex was set up for interface, when suddenly his vision stopped. He reappeared in the form of Taere Flarion, wearing nothing but an underarmour suit, in a blank white room.

"Identity Confirmed, Taere Flarion. Setting confirmed by primary user, Maiden of Gloom." The white space around Taere was promptly replaced by the bridge of what seemed to eb an ultra-futuristic battlecruiser - technologically far beyond the simple ion-driven craft in use at the time. Before him stood what could only be described as an extremely awkward and confusing situation. A woman with white hair, purple eyes, and a large diamond-edged katana stood before him wearing nothing but a skimpy dominatrix outfit. Needless to say, Taere felt strange. After staring for a bit, he recovered his senses, and said:

"Set One, please."

"Confirmed. Loading Set One."

Massive silver and red armour materialized on Taere's body, plating almost every inch of him with an imposing edifice of Idari Battle Armour.

"Ahem," Taere stuttered. "Shall we?"