Welcome to Gaia! ::

The two moons of Alternia were full this evening, and illuminated the arena with their green and red glow. Again, the seating areas were filled with trolls, however this time the atmosphere lacked the bloodthirsty intensity of the previous night. There were less spectators than during the battles, but a few front-row seats had been roped off and reserved for the contestants. Perhaps it had been tasteless to place them all together, with seating cards directing them to sit next to their first round partners, but someone had done it all the same. They had all been swiftly intercepted by a drone before getting too far from the stadium the night before, and presented with a card inviting them to return. There was no obligation, of course, but the royal seal sat on the bottom of the card and reminded them that this was a request from the queen, who probably didn't like being disappointed.

As they crossed the plaza to the arena, most trolls noticed that the grand hotel across the street, the queens official Four Fronds residence, was lit up like some kind of seasonal decoration. Lights glowed from every window, and for anyone curious enough to press their sniffnode up against the glass, they could see what looked like caterers and domestics rushing around, preparing the place for some upcoming event. Even a band was setting up in one of the rooms.

Down in the ring, a stage had been erected, but it stood empty now. Trolls were still filtering in and sitting down, enjoying the snacks being brought around, chatting, and craning their necks to see if any of the combatants had arrived.

Welcome to the Battle Royale closing events! Irregardless if your troll was a participant in, a spectator of, or not at the previous day's matches, they are invited to come watch the awards ceremony, and/or join the queen in her private hotel for a party afterwards. The ceremonies will start fri, 5pm est, but trolls are allowed to show up at any time during or after it.

So much had happened last night and the new night promised to be just as entertaining. All rested up and ready to go Minist confidently walked across the plaza once more. The hotel looked awfully lively and the yellowblood couldn't help but take a gander through the windows. She wanted to know what was up, but felt it would be best to head to the arena. She'd probably find out later, besides, she couldn't wait to see the ending ceremony! While she may not have been the winner of the tournament she still wanted to know what the winner would get.

Speaking of the winner that had come as a complete shock to her. She had really pegged that greenblood as a sure win, but instead that lanky yellowblood she had watched fighting the bumbling redblood had come out on top. Man, that battle had been so intense at the end she had forgotten to breathe until Regina had come down to declare him the winner. She couldn't have hoped for a better end. Maybe she get a chance to chat with him and congratulate him on his win? She had assumed all the contestants had received the same invitation that she had (but she hadn't needed an invitation to stay longer, there's was still so much going on!). Actually, she wanted to talk to a bunch of the other contestants. Maybe not so much Ms. Freckle-Face or the quivering blueblood.

She walked around the stadium looking about cheerfully as trolls milled around and found good seats. Her invitation had mentioned something about reserved seating for the contestants near the front. She didn't particularly feel like sitting around and waiting for things to get started, but she made her way towards the front seating all the same. Her path zig-zagged around and if some had been watching her they probably wouldn't have been able to tell her destination. Eventually, though, she did find her way to the reserved seating. Low and behold someone was already seated and it was a someone she was interested in.

Marching up to Aprife Minist flashed a big grin. "Hey there! Congrats on your win! Dude, it was so epic watching that last fight! I had no idea who was gonna win in the end there. Must have been pretty rough. Your name's Aprife, right? I've heard it a lot recently, what with you winning and all. I'm Minist! I didn't get nearly as far as you, knocked out in the first round." she said energetically. She laughed a bit as her eyes scanned the seats and noticed they had names on them. She didn't care for assigned seating, but her seat was parked next to Zeffer's so it wasn't all bad. Eyes snapping back to the troll in front of her she noted the notebook in his lap. "Hey! What's that?" she asked as she leaned over him to take a peek at what was on the pages.

At some point he had started to pick at the corners of the notebook and pages were bent all over the place, not to mention he had given himself a paper cut on his index finger, which was now unceremoniously shoved into his mouth to stop the stinging. It only served to remind him that there were other, more significant pains he was feeling and the longer he sat still, the more the aches returned. Sometimes he really wished Bumbs was a big ol' giant lusus with rad fighting skills or something. That way he would have been better prepared for this.

A voice met his ears as he zoned, finger still hanging out of his mouth. "Hrm?" he mumbled around the digit. That hand slowly slipped into his lap as he stared up at his new company, mouth drooping a bit, eyes sort of unfocused. He caught the gist of what she was saying and that was probably enough, but when his think pan finally woke up he felt a bit of self-irritation at the realization that his skill was slipping. He was the best at listening, at observing, at catching things no one else did. And now he was sitting here barely catching what someone was saying right to his face. Gog. Damn it.

"Uh, haha, thanks," he said shortly. "Yeah, I'm Aprife." And she was Minist. At least he had gotten that much. Her energy made him feel a little bit better, he had to admit. Meeting this chick on the street when he was in top form probably would have been a ball. With that in mind, he tried to make himself a bit more interesting, only to see her leaning closer into his space. That he didn't much mind, it was when she asked about the notebook that he mentally stumbled a bit. "Just a notebook," he told her. "You know, for notes." His attempt at humor came with a pretty decent grin, although it hurt his lips. Luckily, the battles had kept him too beat down to write anything particularly embarrassing in this one. All the information inside was about other trolls.

He sort of… vaguely turned it so the faces he drew were in her direction, but that didn't mean the death grip he had just put on it loosened any. Better safe than sorry. That is, until Zeffer showed up. Aprife barely had a chance to say anything before the slug on the arm forced an unhappy hiss out of his throat. Now his fingers didn't want to curl at all, they just splayed out as his muscles complained about the punch. "Thanks, Zeffer," he bit out slowly, sarcastically, but not without this funny little grin that he couldn't help displaying.

"Oh? What kind of notes?" she inquired as she bent down a tad closer. She titled her head as he ever so slightly turned to notebook to show off the doodles he had created. She smiled at them, but before she could crack a joke about his artistic abilities someone else she was very keen to chat to strode up to them. Standing straight with a hand on her hip she grinned at the blueblood. "Yeah, you sure got your a** handed to you in the last round, Zeffer. I was expecting you to last a bit longer, but I guess it can't be helped when it's two against one and one of the two decides to unload a round into you." she said.

At the mention of her encounter with Sempur she burst out laughing. "You heard about that? Well, I guess he was making a scene. I don't really know what his problem was. I was just making idle chit-chat between the fights." she said with a shrug, but she evil gleam in her eyes gave her away. "I wanted to find you too, but I guess we both just got lost in the crowds. Hey! Check this out!" she said before turning her head and parting some of her hair on the side of her head just below her horn. A bare spot was visible and shiny where hair had once been. "I noticed in the mirror before I went to sleep! I think your little electric wands gave me a scar!" Brushing her hair back in place she grinned.

Zeffer smiiirrrrked and flopped down into his seat next to Minist, all too happy to take a load off. Tonight was a night for celebration and merry making, and he was all too eager to see what they would get for making it into the finals. Apparently they were gonna get a chance to meet and party with the queen as well. Zeffer felt a little apprehensive about that part, but he'd see what happened. She seemed okay, for the most part. She had people skills at least, she'd been a damned good MC for the whole event.

"You're welcome, buddy. I know you can take it, since you're the ultimate champ now." Zeffer said it in a playful, half-sarcastic tone, and snickered like the d**k he was, splaying out in his seat with a satisfied sigh. Things really couldn't have been better; he was here with his 'friends' and they were gonna get to party and eat tasty food later on. He nodded to Minist. "Yeah, word spread quick. I heard it got pretty heated, sounds like you really ruffled that guy's feathers....haha, woah!" Zeffer laughed out loud as Minist showed off her scar.

"You got me good too, though. See?" He smiled wide, revealing the missing fang on the upper right side of his mouth, one that she'd knocked right out of his head during their match. He scoffed, and smiled over at Aprife when the question was posed. "Minist pissed off, uhh...Sempur. And that one scared chick too. Called them out in front of everybody."

'Called them out in front of everybody' was pretty much all Aprife needed to convince him that he had been right to bring the subject back up. Whatever this was, it was too amazing to ignore. It wasn't everyday you got to hear accounts of embarrassing moments played out in front of hundreds of eyes. Well… maybe you did if you were Aprife. His notebooks were full of embarrassing moments in other trolls' lives. This was the kind of stuff he was good at seeking out. But that certainly didn't mean he had heard so many stories that the new ones were any less interesting.

The yellowblood did this sort of strange wiggle as he moved backwards towards his seat. Everyone else was getting comfortable, why not him, too? It was probably a good thing no one was behind him yet, though, as his eyes never left Minist once she started recounting her story. At least not until he had to look down to make sure he was still writing on the notebook and not on his pants or the arm of the chair instead. This page dedicated to his newfound interesting acquaintance was considerably sloppier than usual, with words jumping lines and looking like he couldn't decide what the right way to hold a pen was. Not that he cared. No, he made a game of it. Whenever she made a particularly wild hand gesture, he scooted his hand off track before starting to write again. What he had written now was almost verbatim and every once in a while he would actually go back to where her movements made him leave awkward spaces and fill them in with some kind of description of exactly what she had done. That, or a rather emotive smiley face.

When she was finished, he sat back in his seat looking contented. Even some of the pain he had been feeling was forgotten. "That's great. Sounds like a guy who flips his s**t pretty easily." Sempur. He made sure to put a period after the name. The types who couldn't keep it together were always hilarious. Most of the time, he was sure they didn't even realize how ridiculous they were being. Surely it didn't help that his apparent 'punching bag' probably went along with whatever he said. There would be no hope for that guy's education in a situation like that.

Capping his pen, Aprife sighed, but not unhappily. "Seems like you know how to push buttons, though, Minist. Really doesn't surprise me if you're cool with that guy." He gestured at Zeffer. "I've seen what he can do firsthand." It took certain types of characters to keep up with the sharkish blueblood, he thought. Minist seemed like a good candidate already.

Pyre slowly entered the arena for the second night in a row, taking a bit of a different route this time; she was a spectator tonight, not a part of the show. She hadn't initially wanted to stay, just wanted to go home and sulk a bit, maybe relax with a nice Ace Legislacerator game or something, even knowing that Owlmom would be there to pretend to be concerned about the welts covering her body, making her look like she'd swam through a pool of buzzcritters. But she couldn't turn down a royal invitation, even for the oh-so-alluring idea of her lusus making a fuss over some cuts and bruises. Besides, not showing would make her look like an ungracious loser, and that was simply unacceptable.

She glanced around as she tried her best to hide the slight limp her wrapped ankle was giving her, admiring the coliseum while she looked for the section reserved for the contestants. It was a pretty impressive building, maybe not as fancy as some of New Hemisect's towering skyscrapers, but the sheer number of trolls it could contain made it striking and oh hey there was Zeffer's mohawk. That Outill girl was there too, looking...very into whatever she was talking about.

Pyre's eyes shifted to the left, noting a concessions stand at the top of the bleachers. She wasn't especially hungry, but getting something to drink before the festivities started was probably for the better. Even more appealing than the probably exorbitantly-priced bottled water, though, was the troll who'd just gotten in line. Pyruet had almost forgotten about the tiny purpleblood, the girl having been a bit overshadowed by a few other people Pyre had met yesterday and decided she disliked more. Still though, the girl had been disgustingly haughty and entitled, and aside from the height jab--which didn't even count because it was the totally obvious thing--Pyre hadn't even really gotten a chance to try to take her down a notch. Well, she had, but it had been lost when she took entirely too long to formulate a proper response.

Learning nothing from past mistakes, Pyruet slid into line behind Frossa, a slight grin crossing her face. "Hello, again." Benevolent, perhaps even amiable, her voice was entirely free from the hostile undertones that one might reasonably expect, considering the last meeting between the two.

The sound of microphone feedback screeched through speakers ringing the arena, abruptly cutting off the flow of chatter. Stepping out into the arena, the queen strode up to the podium. In one hand she twirled a microphone stand like some kind of baton, and behind her scurried a drone, carrying a box awkwardly under each arm. Arriving at the stand, Regina hopped up onto it rather than using the stairs, and dropping the microphone stand down with a heavy thud. Then, as though performing a magic trick, she carefully produced a microphone and wedged it into place on the stand. The drone deposited the two boxes behind her and scurried back out of the arena as quickly as possible.

Turning her face to survey the crowd, and satisfied that all eyes were on her, the young queen gripped the smooth metal of the stand and pulled the microphone down to her height level.

"Welcome back! Good evening everyone - I'll get things rolling quickly - you've all probably noticed that I've got a little something set up across the street for everyone. So! Tonight we will be celebrating the champions of yesterday's matches, for their spirit, strength, yadda yadda, you heard me yesterday, I'd like to hope you were paying attention! First off, I'd like to begin by inviting the three finalists down. Can I have Zeffer Sirico come and join me on the stage?"

The drone appeared back out the door again, pushing a small set of stairs on wheels. It was swung into place against the side of the roped off seats, and the wheels were locked into place, allowing for trolls sitting in that area to descend directly into the area.