Re: Week 4 Weltball game OFFICIAL THREAD

[Admin]

Shortly after the goal, the Kowloon captain finds himself surrounded by three of the Seoul players. He is given a short, brutal beating that lacks any style or grace, but which is undoubtedly effective. #5 is carried off the field and replaced with a much larger player in full combat field armour. The various screens show that this person is known only as "The Kowloon Mangler" and this is their first game appearance.
The crowd is going wild with excitement after seeing some blood and getting to watch a new and mysterious player entering the scene.

10-2 to Kowloon

[Darya Demeter]

Shortly after the goal, the Kowloon captain finds himself surrounded by three of the Seoul players. He is given a short, brutal beating that lacks any style or grace, but which is undoubtedly effective. #5 is carried off the field and replaced with a much larger player in full combat field armour. The various screens show that this person is known only as "The Kowloon Mangler" and this is their first game appearance.
The crowd is going wild with excitement after seeing some blood and getting to watch a new and mysterious player entering the scene.

10-2 to Kowloon

OOC: Wait, what is Han doing on the pitch?

[HanJi]

Han jumped back to his feet. "GET UP YOU DAMN WIMP! YOU GONNA LET THOSE BRAWLERS WALK OVER YOU LIKE THAT?" He yelled, incensed. Then he saw the screens heralding the arrival of someone known as "the Mangler."

Contentedly, he sat back down in his seat. "Oh, this should be good."

[SosieTerrehaute]

Violet shouted in her pidgin Mandarin, a curse of excitement and swears. Both other employees could easily understand her cries of "TOSS UP AN EAR, TOSS UP AN EAR!" She was, quite literally, calling for blood. Her fists punched the seat in front of her, jumping up and down. She screamed like a girl possessed when Han's doppelgänger the Mangler showed up.

Sosie was more reserved, though she learned forward in her seat, giving a grinning wince as poor #5 fell. "About time this got real. Where's the audience voter buttons?" She looked alone the sides of her seat for the panel that would allow her to vote on the plays. "Has this arena been fitted with them?"

[Wei Xu]

Xu shook his head. "Whoever that "mangler" man is, I'm willing to bet he won't make it to the end of the match in one piece. I'm sure he'll do a lot of damage, but coming on like that only makes yourself a target. I'm sure he'll be a wonderful spectacle, but you see number 4? I'll wager he scores a few points AND walks out of the field. Nobody's taking any notice of him, because he's not done much, but I reckon there'll be a couple of "flukes" where he grabs some points and then all the others ignore him again. Of course, I might be wrong - I don't know how these things usually go, after all."

[HanJi]

Han Ji nodded. "He's right, the bigger and more aggressive a player is, generally, the shorter their life expectancy. He's gonna do something horrific, then the Brawlers are gonna pile on him and bring him down. It's an unusual manoeuvre for the Rejects though...they've always focused more on agility then outright strength and brutality. Theres more to this play then we're seeing."

[SosieTerrehaute]

Sosie nodded in response to Han, but turned her head slowly to look at Xu after his little speech. She tilted her head, eyes thoughtful and unblinking. "Huh." She gave up the quest looking for her buttons. "Even still, they're driving the crowd wild. Smooth move if they want to make waves and gain more sponsorship."

Sosie gestured to her sister as an example. Violet cheered, fists punching the air and anyone nearby. Her older, more reserved drained her smoothie, making the classic straw sucking for more at the bottom of a glass noise. "This is gonna be a great play, I can feel it."

[Admin]

The Mangler showed off to the crowd, flexing their arms and striking some terrible poses. While one of the Kowloon players wrestled over the ball with a Seoul player, the three Seoul players who had attacked the team captain only a minute before turned their attention to the newcomer.

All three charged, and in the blank of an eye all three were laid at the Mangler's feet clutching the area between their legs. It was very difficult, even in these good seats, to see what had happened in that moment. From what little you could make out at this distance the Mangler had unleashed a succession of rapid punches to the Seoul players, each one sending its target sprawling.

The Mangler turned to face the Seoul supporters, raised their arms and then extended both middle fingers in a universal display of insult. The crowd went crazy, grabbing the metal cage around the arena and shaking it violently. After a short delay, the Mangler then gave the Seoul captain a swift kick to the stomach and walked away while the captain coughed up some blood. The Mangler could have easily killed or heavily injured all three Seoul players, but appeared content with forcing their captain to leave the field.

The Mangler's message seemed to be "Play nice"

12-2 to Kowloon

(( The Mangler likely has some augmentations of some kind, but it is very hard to see what they could be with them being completely covered by the field armour ))

[Wei Xu]

"Hmmm,"Xu said, eyes narrowing. "I might have been wrong - this Mangler might survive this match intact, unless the Brawlers can find someone just as bad. From what I've heard, this doesn't look like it's normal. Definitely looks like they're trying something unusual. Give me a minute, and I'll see what I can find out about this Mangler."

He leaned back in his seat, and his eyes lost their focus as he switched to his internal computer.
OOC: Xu is doing a quick search for the Mangler, starting with the official Reject material

[Admin]

The game started to resemble something civilized after the Mangler turned up on the field. This was unusual because the Mangler was generally not involved in any plays and rarely touched the ball. Instead, they stamped out any sign of overt violence from the Seoul team by literally stamping on any signs of overt violence. Tackles, blocking and similar, ordinary displays of combat were not deemed worthy of this punishment by the Mangler, so the game became more about tactics and athletics than brute force.
The crowd was deeply confused. One the one hand they enjoyed the concept of a powerful player who would lurk in the background and suddenly dispense justice and pain without warning. But on the other hand, the crowd wanted to see some violence.
Supporters of both teams began to bang on the cage walls and demand more action.

In the mean time the New Kowloon team were performing much better and always seemed to be close to scoring another goal.

12 - 2 to Kowloon

[Darya Demeter]

OOC: Current theory as to the Mangler's identity: he is actually a referee who decided to go undercover, and is using his position to make this a `Nice, clean game`,

[HanJi]

"Okay...this is just weird. The Mangler could have put Kowloon even further ahead almost a dozen times now, hell, the way he's fighting when he does just pop up...he could have wiped out half of the Brawlers squad." Han shook his head. "Now seriously, what the hell? I mean, don't get me wrong, the Rejects seem to have room to move now, they're really pushing now...still, it's a weird kinda play."

[Wei Xu]

Xu was back and focused on the game, his brow furrowing slightly as he looked at the Mangler. "Even I can tell this is strange. Is this some sort of attempt by the Rejects to turn weltball into a non-violent sport? All that's going to do is annoy the crowd. And if he keeps trying this for the next few matches, I'll wager he's going to be killed pretty soon."

[HanJi]

"Hell with that, what I'm trying to figure out is how the hell the Rejects can afford to field someone of his calibre. Maybe they're baiting the Brawlers or something? Trying to get them to bring out their big guns, as it were? Surely they have someone they keep in reserve for...problem players."

[SosieTerrehaute]

While intelligent, measured conversation happened on either side of Violet, the younger Terrehaute was somewhere in a frenzy of bloodlust. She jumped down to the wire grate and shook it. When the testicular mangling happened, Violet's optimism at a new piece of anatomy for her collection was ear piercingly loud, but now she just seemed disappointed. "COME ON! Throw me a FUCKING bone, here!"

Sosie, meanwhile, turned to the walking vendor and ordered some Multimeat Kebabs, complete with a few nutribars. "She's got to be a volunteer for the team. Agent maybe, who wants revenge on the sport that screwed her over. Licenses are only a week to get, plus a few physicals any of us could pass. Even Xu." She bit into the overflowing almost certainly mostly synthetic meat-filled-bread with relish.. And mayo. "In a suit like that, the Brawlers need an augment jut to make a dent. Which that have of course, but it's sure to get.." Sosie gestured to her sister, now entirely on the wire mesh of the arena and shaking it with reckless abandon, "Bloody."

[HanJi]

Han bought a few kebabs too, and slipped the walking vendor a dozen extra credits with a smile. "Someone better do something soon. Ever see Rejects fans in a riot? I have. The stadium was nearly ruined completely, not to mention the surrounding neighbourhood. Only time I ever saw the UIG in Kowloon was putting down that riot."

[Admin]

After a few minutes of the crowd literally screaming for blood the Mangler was ushered off the pitch by another substitution. Their replacement was a short, very young player (#9) who moved much faster than their size would suggest.
The Mangler remained at the sidelines and made a few gestures to communicate "I'm watching you" to the Seoul team; they could still be brought back onto the pitch again, and it was clear from the body language that Seoul would not do well out of this arrangement.

The crowd calmed down a little as they watched the new player dodge and weave across the field of play. This wasn't the violence they wanted, but at least it was more interesting than watching the two teams struggle to make any impact on each other or the score boards.

The highest ranking player on field from the Kowloon team (#1) began a new play by drawing the Seoul attackers towards him. He was badly injured by the tackle, which was a wonder to behold in the slow motion reply on the big screens around the stadium. The two attackers dived from separate directions and at different heights, so that when they made contact #1 was lifted off the floor and spun in the air, landing on their head underneath the Seoul players. This made the crowd go wild.

However, in the second before the tackle was made #1 had thrown the ball forwards, deep into Seoul held territory. The Seoul goal defender was waiting for the ball to land in his outstretched hands when #9 appeared almost from no where. #9 climbed up the goal defender, collected the ball and then jumped off their shoulders.

The all ready excited crowd turned into a frenzy of cheers on both sides as both teams scored points within seconds of each other. At that moment the stadium voting keypads lit up in front of everyone's eyes and asked for both scores to be rated for artistic style. Two simple "Y/N?" holograms hovered in front of everyone who was still in their seats.

[SosieTerrehaute]

Sosie looked at the play with eager eyes, and almost choked on her kebab as Number One went down. She gave a little yelp as Number Nine scored, but she took that moment to swallow and continue laughing. Her response seemed to make no sense. However, when the little Holoscreens came up, she stopped giggling to croon a quick "fancy" and award points to the Rejects, and not her own team, the Brawlers. "YOU'RE IDIOTS!" She shouted, and began to giggle again.

Violet climbed over the first row of seats to give both teams points, eyes wild and fiber-optic hair glowing intensely pink at the ends. her feet rests on the armrest between two people in front of her, neither of which seemed two bothered. This is what you came to the front row FOR. "Did you guys see that?" She had given up on English, and was back in Mandarin now. "Screw this, I'm going back on the wire!"

Violet scrabbled back down, taking a familiar place on the ceiling of the arena, body flat and face right against the mesh. There were a few other people dotted around in similar positions, but most avoided such close proximity to the danger zone. Violet seemed.. a touch mad.

[Wei Xu]

Xu's expression was thoughtful as he entered his votes - a yes for the Rejects and a no for the Brawlers. "Very sensible to take that Mangler off. They've given the crowd a few moments without too much violence, and now that it's back they're going crazier than ever. And yet the Brawlers know that they can't do too much, or he - or she - comes back on. So all the really nasty stuff can be done by the Rejects, and that gets the crowd behind them, while the Brawlers lose their support because they can't do anything. Very clever."

[Admin]

The results of the votes came in and awarded bonus points for style to both the Brawlers and the Rejects. This being the lower leagues, any display of tactics and coordination was usually rewarded with at least some points. This set the scores to:

25 - 8 to The Kowloon Rejects

The game changed significantly once #1 was carried off the field by a team of medics. In Weltball there are only two substitutes, so once again the Mangler was forced to step out onto the field. The Mangler pointed at the two tacklers and the crowd went insane, excited to see what revenge would be meted out upon the two unfortunate souls.

Instead of replacing #1 as a defensive player the Mangler took up a forward position. This kept the tackling players and the Mangler at opposite ends of the field, which once more confused the crowd. Their confusion was soon replaced with astonishment as the game restarted and Rejects began their play from were #1 had fallen. #9 started with the ball and simply ran forwards, avoiding two Seoul players, and ran directly for the Mangler on a collision course.

The crowd took a collective breath in as they waited for what promised to be something interesting. People at the back of the crowd were watching the giant monitors around the stadium so they could see the action in slow motion and in greater detail than they could from their seats.

As #9 ran forwards, The Mangler bent down and cupped their hands. #9 put one foot in the Mangler's grip and the next second was flying through the air, avoiding the entire Seoul defensive line as they dropped the ball in the goal. Everyone cheered. Air horns blared. Style points were awarded automatically.

39 - 8 to Kowloon

[HanJi]

"COME ON! YES! YES! THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!" Han was on his feet pumping his fist into the air. "KEEP IT UP YOU GLORIOUS BASTARDS!

[SosieTerrehaute]

".. And that," Sosie said with her mouth full, "Is what powered armor can do." She swallowed the rest of her kebab aggressively and licked her fingers, and immediately opened a Razzbury and Ham Nutribar. She smiled a little at Xu. "I'm excited for when the Brawlers get angry."

Violet continued her shaking of the cage, laughing delightedly even as her hometown lost. She shouted down at the Mangler, "C'mon, gimmie on of their ears." She seemed in a better mood though, what with the more exciting plays.

[Admin]

(( Summarising the rest of the game, because the week is about over now >.> ))

That was the last really stunning play by #9 and the Mangler. The Rejects continued to have an unstoppable attack, but found that their defence was suffering because their two best players were busy at the front. This allowed the Brawlers to grab a simple goal from the weakened Kowloon defence, though this did not do them any good. No other players were retired, as no one wanted to upset the brawler and Kowloon played a very safe game.

Final score: 59 - 20 to the Kowloon Rejects

[Admin]

(( I completely forgot to reward everyone for your excellent roleplaying.

+1 conviction points for you RPers in this thread. ))

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