| An Office Version of Danmaku | ||
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| Summary: Archene Night and Sarah Markham play a little game of Danmaku with loads and loads of pens while Kotal Kahn watches the match.   |
Sarah was currently walking down a street on the west side of NT, lamenting the city's apparent lack of a need for accountants as she pulled out her phone and responded. "Job hunting. It sucks. What's up with you?" "Got hit by some highly powerful being and wanted a practice partner for the day. Are you free?" Archene replies not long after, "Can tell me about the kinds of jobs you can accept and I'll put some words with some friends, they may be able to help you." Sarah grins at the responses. "Sure, why not? And I'm an accountant, though I suppose I could do body guard stuff, or other office work." She steps through a 'shortcut'. Sarah strolled into the arena...from the side opposite the door. She had her usual lazy grin on her face, her hands in her pockets, and a lit pseudo cigarette in her mouth. "I'll have a look to see who might need someone to crunch numbers, heh." Archene, who was looking towards the entrance, looks towards where Sarah was. He is clearly surprised, but then remembers about her abilities, "Didn't think you'd take so little time to get here. I seriously want to get hold of some proper magics. At most being a lamp is start to getting me as much as I can take." He sighs, "Regardless! I needed to ask you if you ever heard of something called Danmaku, or bullet hell." Sarah grins and shrugs. "I took a shortcut." She looks to be in thought for a moment at Arch's question, before shrugging. "Nah, can't say I have." Archene chuckles briefly, "You need to show me how to take those around here." He grins, "Danmaku is basically a tridimensional puzzle full of magical bullets, flying around. There is a host that tries to hit the player, if the player is hit, he loses the game. The bullets can be lethal or just disabling. I haven't got to the part where it is possible to the player to win though, so I wanted you to, be my host and help me practice on it. Just making pen arrays and tossing them at me. Keeping one or some ways to actually dodge them. Being as tricky as you can." He hmms, "If that didn't make sense, I think I can show you a video of it." Sarah grinned, liking the oppurtunity to expand her skills. "Sure, I'm in. How do I host?" Archene says, "Heh, fly a bit around, and begin throwing things my way, preferably the nonlethal kind. You can shout names for pen arrays you make. Just have to remember the objective is to always leave a way out for the player, maybe teach a lesson or give them a riddle." Sarah snapped her fingers, a mug appearing under her feet and lifting her into the air. She grinned down at Arch, her magic eye flaring to life. "You ready Arch?" Archene suddenly gets into what is clearly some kind of fighting position. If Sarah's eye can see life-force or chi, it can easily be seen that there is a lot of it circulating through Archene's body right now, "Always ready." He grins up at Sarah. Sarah shrugged, looking up into the sky as normal pens filled the air around Arch. "Ya know, it's a beautiful day outside. The sun's shining, the birds are singing...on days like these, giys like you..." She looked back to Arch and poised her fingers to snap as her pens arranged themselves so as to form a simple pattern to start. "...look like ya could use a pen." She snapped, and her pens began to fly at him in such a way that a sine-wave shaped path was masked within the pen storm for the observant. This would be fun. Archene grins at Sarah's words... HE FOUND HIMSELF A BOSS! With that, he quickly took a look at the pens coming his way, luckly he found just one path, if there were multiple... he'd end up being worried that he would not be able to find out which is the true path out. Once he gets into it, he seems to switch between quick dashes to a side, to slower walking as he gets to the edge of each ondulation. By the time the storm is over, his eyes are still focused at Sarah, clearly waiting for the next one! Sarah grins and chuckles. "Alrighty then. Now I think I have this." She grins, a 33 grid of typewriter keys appearing under Arch as coffee formed a fence around the grid. The air above Arch filled with 9 large pens, poised and ready to slam down. "Hoped ya brushed up on your mental math friend." Arch was currently stood on the 5 key, the one in the center. She grinned as she called out a problem. "2*5-3!" The pens loomed above, all 9 rearing back to lance into the grid, masking the ones that wouldn't fall with the unified movement. Archene quickly moved onto the 7 key, surely expecting to be right. His math isn't on a master's level but that isn't a hard one at all. "My math isn't that bad," He chuckles quietly. Pens slammed down on every key except Arch's. "2 squared! 3-7 over -2!" Pens reared up, ready to slam down again, this time with a gap leading into a second slam to match the second number.
As it is usual, Kotal Kahn watches from his high perch in the arena, seated upon his throne made of skulls. His hand rests upon the pommel of his macuahuitl sword whilst his minions sorround him and likewise watch the bout of Kombat happening in the arena. To be certain, this pleases the Kahn a lot. Archene jumps to the 4, then to the 2! Certainly, he is too focused at these events to be able to pay any attention to observers of the match, but clearly, he is having fun or at least, that's what his BRIGHT SMILE says. Sarah lets the grid fade, bringing a new set of pens into play. The pens launched themselves at Arch in many lazy starbust patterns, creating a network of possible escape routes for the quick witted, pens appearing above him and dropping every few moments, forcing him to keep moving as they hounded him. Archene looks at the patterns... but this time, he seems almost worried of how to dodge. He try to stay clear from the starburst patterns as much as possible... almost expecting them to suddenly dart in his direction even as he keeps moving to avoid the pens falling onto him. As soon as he is sure that he isn't on the hit line of a starburst, he goes towards what was the center of the pattern, hoping that in the least, the pens won't come back to it. If not hit, he'll continue trying to do that until there are no more starbursts. Sarah smirks, snapping her fingers, and watching as the entire pattern rewinds, starbursts launching pens like mines to make the back tracking just a bit more interesting. Even the pens that had harried Arch before started pulling themselves out of the ground. "Be kind, rewind the tapes when you're done please." She smirks. Good for Archene, the pens were also coming from the ground! He just follows the original path he took, making sure to not deviant by even a centimeter to be sure he is hit by nothing! Clearly the way back was less tense for him, even as he kept focused onto the pens. Sarah smirked, snapping her fingers and letting the trap spring, a key hidden beneath the ground launching Arch into the air towards a key platform that had an array of pens around it, ready to start the next sequence. "We now return to our regularly scheduled programming." Archene lands on the platform, almost needing to roll over it but only half kneeling before standing up, "Now... this, seems like something I haven't seen before." He speaks given that he finally has enough time to spare to actually say something. Sarah tosses Archene a copy of her trusty calligraphy pen, coffee turning it into a spear of sorts. "Catch!" The pens surrounding Arch aim at him, primed to fire on a moments notice. Strangely enough, they're lined up in four cardinal directions. Kotal chuckles and taps the top of his macuahuitl on the ground approvingly. "Superb!" As soon as the pen-spear is within reach, he takes it... and twirls it in the air, before facing the cardinal direction easier to face while still looking at Sarah. Yes, he knows how to hold a spear, probably. Sarah grins, before snapping her fingers and letting the keys Arch wasn't standing on fall to the ground and fade, leaving only enough room on Arch's key to turn. "It's totally not DDR, I swear..." She laughs and the pens start launching one at a time in sequence, coming with generous gaps at first only to pick up the pace as more pens came. "This is war version of DDR! Clearly! I Know this one!" Archene begins slashing at the incoming pens, which luckly come one at the time. Spinning in place just to always be sure to never stop looking at any direction for too long. After all, he doesn't have eyes on his back. Sarah chuckles and the pens pick up speed, some swerving to miss and come at him from another side, and others being fakes, meant only to make it harder to keep up. "Well then, I hope ya don't mind if I go ahead and crank it up to Oni." Kotal rubs his chin at the mention of War themed DDR. For some reason he feels like he's heard of that before.. "HEY! That I do mind!" Archene begins spinning and slashing in a wonderful war-dance, not even trying to dodge any of the pens that come for him, but as time goes on, he slashes a pen too early wasting time before properly slashing it. Panting as time goes on, focusing to his best to find the exact pattern of this song he is 'dancing'. Sarah chuckles and snaps her fingers, the pens fading and giving him some reprieve as she sets up a new pattern on the ground, Arch's key platform expanding to give him room to relax. "Alrighty then, take 5, the next pattern will be ready momentarily." With a final slash onto empty air and the pen-spear disappearing, Archene sits cross-legged nearly immediately, "Thank you." Circulating his life force less forcefully to rest as quickly as possible. Almost sure that the '5' he has, is in seconds, not in minutes. Kotal says, "Round 2. FIGHT!" Sarah focused on her pattern, smirking as she worked. She could only imagine using some of these in combat. She let the key Archene was on lower to the ground, depositing him on one side of the arena, while she floated over to the other. She chuckled at Kotal's outburst, putting the finishing touches on the wave. "Alrighty then, the game's simple. Make it all the way over here to me, and ya win." She shrugs, grinning as her magic eye continues to burn. "So...ya ready?" Archene does stand up as he hears the classical, 'Round 2. FIGHT!' He takes a deep breath, nodding at Sarah, "As ready as I'll ever be," He grins, crouching slightly, almost as if ready to dash! Sarah grins, snapping her phone shut and slipping it into her pocket. "Ya called this Danmaku, right? Well, I guess it's time to call curtains...all I've got left to say before the final act is this: Welcome to hell, friendo." She raises a hand and snaps her fingers and pens flood the arena, arranging in complex patterns and sequences, many paths leading to her in the chaos to the trained eye, but no clear way of knowing if any of the paths would lead to her. From above, the pen storm looked to be something out of a computer's music visualizer as the whole swarm thrummed to an undeard beat. This was where the kid gloves came off. She couldn't make this truly hellish without spoiling the game, but this was pretty damn close in her opinion. Now, there is something you don't see everyday. A true bullet hell. He doesn't even spend time attempting to answer, he looks about the entire storm... murmuring, "Yes... this one is, just..." He sighs focusing onto the pen storm. And he then just dashes in the direction it feels most right. While magical eyes might not catch it, divine eyes that have insight into reality itself would easily be able to notice that whatever he is doing is far being just randomly guessing which route to take now. While it isn't exactly reality warping, it is something that feels close enough. There don't seem to be any real outward results to it however. At most, he seems to be just Lucky to have found a path that might just lead to her. Or maybe not. Lady Luck can be a fickle one. Sarah's grin tightened somewhat as he just picked the path leading to her from the get-go. She noticed he wasn't paying too much attention though, just seeming to have guessed. She relaxed a bit as a pen caught him in the chest, following in the shadow of two other pens he had dodged around. As the pen burst on impact, the rest of the hellish salvo faded. He'd made it about halfway into the storm. "...Damn. That was...uncanny." She let her magic eye extinguish, flopping onto the ground and lighting a new pseudo cigarette. As he is hit by the pen... he is left dazed for a moment. Just how, did he lose this one? He says, "Oh well," raising his hands in resignation before sitting down, relaxing his body, "I lost this one, but I have to say... it was a pretty enjoyable game. Specially the war DDR. Remembers me of some war-dances I've attempted but with a modern rythm. Hope you liked being the final boss of our little game." He chuckles quietly. Sarah chuckled. "Next time, I'll have to make it harder if the path was that easy to sniff out." She shrugged and rubbed at her eye. Archene says, "Wasn't easy at all, I even had to cheat a bit to actually find it." Archene snickers, "Though we had no limitations on how to win, so it isn't cheating you at least. But if that was the path then.." He facepalms, "I'll be sure to train harder for next time."" She glanced up and arched a brow, her magic eye bloodshot and irritated. "Ehhh? Cheated?" How the hell would he have managed that? "Does cheating luck about here count?" Archene snickers, "I just guessed the way." Sarah just stares. He...he really -had- just guessed. "You just...got lucky?" She deadpans. Archene says, "As the ancients said, Luck is a skill, and there is none more masterful than me beneath the gods!" She chuckled amd stood, making to leave. "Luck, a skill...riiiight..." She shrugged. "Eh, whatever, I'll just have to remove the chance from the final attack. That's all." Archene says, "I mean, I never played dice with gods and reality warpers, so I can't be sure if I'm their match. But against anything else, I'd really win." He... pouts at her, "But why, it was fun to have a chance against someone as mighty as you. And others wouldn't be able to even guess! They'd just be lost in which way to follow and just get hit while thinking of the right way." He snickers." She calls over her shoulder as she leaves. "If they pay attention, they shouldn't have to guess." She shrugs and steps into a shortcut, a text hitting Arch's phone as she did so. "That was fun. Let's do it again sometime." Archene lets out a sigh after she leaves, "This is what I get for trying my best." With that, Archene types, "Whenever you are free." | |
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