Monster Wrangler

Having finished the celebratory dinner that his mother had insisted on having, he left her at his relative's place to return to the competitor's accomodation. He walked down the street, absent-mindedly looking into the windows of the shops as he walked by. Lucy trotted lazily next to him, off in her own world.

It had been a strange day. He'd honestly expected to be knocked out first round, so winning was a surprise - let alone in the fashion that it happened.

He sat down on a bench near a small open area with Lucy resting against his legs, thinking about what was to come.

Calico had been fed and Orlok had... well, he was still carrying the feather Blitz had given him around, so safe to say he hadn't regarded it as a one-off event, but despite being less broke than she had been the day before, she wasn't in a hurry to start chucking onz around.

Especially not since winning Round One didn't mean the whole thing was in the bag. She'd seen some hellacious performances, and...

Well think of the devil!

Partly, it was knowing how rare a zephid could be.
Partly it was the bow.

She gave the kid with the zephid wrecking machine a wave.

Noticing the waving woman, he recognised her from the tournament. He'd been watching the matches throughout the day, and had particularly surprised by hers. With most of his study being focused on vermin, or at least organic monsters, he had no idea how a saturnadus would fare against one of those machines. He had been pleasantly surprised.

Waving back, he stood up and started to walk over to her. "Congratulations on your match. Glad to see a saturnadus win against one of those... things."

"Your girl Lucy there did all right herself."

She grinned.

"But thanks. Yeah, Orlok... really showed out there, not gonna lie. Turns out a Warwolf isn't so touch in its mind. Might be the artificial nature of its mind or something. But I seriously thought we were toast when Rex got hold of his wing."

The happy saturnadus fluttered up and started examining Desmond. In general the normally-furtive Orlok seemed downright chipper.

He looked a little sheepish "I, ah, wasn't really expecting it to play out like that either." The star herself rested near his leg, looking lazily at the woman at the mention of her name, wind humming softly through the vents.

"I must say that I was surprised when I saw the list of participants and their monsters. A surprising number of machines, and vermin as well." There was a notable difference to his tone when referring to the two types.

He was watching Orlok. the colouration were a little different to the ones that he'd seen locally. "Do you mind if I, ah, take a photo of Orlok?" He was already moving his bag to get his camera.

"Go wild. I'd say get video if you have the ability- it catches the play of light on his wings better- and if he's feeling showy, now's the time..."

Orlok was definitely feeling showy, fluttering around quite happily.

"Far as it goes, I don't think any of the constructs made it past round one. I was bit bummed Diva got paired against Suramu- I'd met both wranglers and they're both pretty cool- but at least nobody got hurt in that bout."

She winced at the memory of a dapper little Kileeth getting gored.

"Poor Mister Wiggles."

He pulled out his camera, looking a little forlorn at the mention of video. Those things weren't cheap. One day...

"It looks that way. Our two wins, and the forfeit." He also winced at the mention of Mr Wiggles. "I met the trainer of Mr Wiggles yesterday. She seemed nice."

A little frustration entered his voice "I don't really get how the matches are decided, but that was very one-sided. The kleeth relies on wrapping around its prey and biting. How is that supposed to beat a rare specimen that burns anything it touches?"

"That was a serious mismatch. Frankly, that thing should have been paired against almost anything else. But they probably just pulled our names out of a hat or something. Still... I wasn't sure how Orlok was going to beat a warwolf until he did it. Rex had onboard auto-repair, it's why Orlok made the switch he did."

She shook her head.

"Anyway. That's one round down. If we get paired, whaddya say we have Orlok and Lucy do some kind of show of respect before we get in gear? Like, before the round formally begins? Team Vermin should try for a little solidarity, even if we end up fighting."

"I guess so, yeah." He understood it, but that didn't mean that he had to like or agree with it. "I must admit that I was surprised by that as well. I haven't really studied how those work, but they seem vicious. I'm glad they're out of the competition."

A show of solidarity? hrmm. "Well, I don't really know how to give Lucy battle commands or anything, but she could do something simple like a bow or something if we wanted." He looked a little sheepish "She... ah... mostly just does what she wants. I don't really like telling her what to do, as long as she's not bothering anyone. She's pretty lazy by nature anyway." Lucy herself was currently making a leaf float in a circle by sucking in air through her vents, or blowing air back out through her mouth. She looked content.

"Maybe we could save it for the end- see what kind of shape our monsters are in."

[Because we want to avoid a time warp and the other thread got going before we got to this point ]

She smiled at the zephid.

"You don't fool me Lucy, I've seen how hard you can hit."

Lucy looked up and flopped slightly to one side, bow bouncing. The change in direction meant that the leaf she was playing was blown straight at Calico's face. Desmond blushed slightly.

"That sounds good. To be honest, she's not really one for fighting, but Zephids are pretty strong monsters. I just hope nobody's too badly hurt in all this. I know that there are doctors and everything on standby, but I still worry. I wasn't too keen on joining, but my mum insisted."

Calico smiled ruefully and batted at the leaf.

"I know the feeling. Mom was the one who wanted me on stage. But Lucy's tough. Any luck, we'll meet in the finals!"

Huh, it seems like these tournaments attract people from the entertainment industry. I guess I can understand that.

He smiled "That'd be nice." Having taken a couple of pictures of Orlok, he lowered his camera, leaving it hanging around his neck. "Hopefully we both make it that far."

'Team Vermin, all the way."

She held out her hand to shake.

He took it. "May they prove their value to the world."

"I think we can count on that."

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He smiles a bit, his eyes going down to Lucy. She'd found a new leaf to play with and was back to utterly ignoring them. "I think so too."

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