Scrap Pit

[Powder]

A slender man with short black hair and a nervous disposition followed by two men carting a large stainless steel box step up to the barbed gate of a large one story warehouse. He enters the gate and walks around to the back to a door guarded by two tall dark men in suits. One of them looks down to a clipboard in his hands.


"Name?"


"M-Mathew Rook..."


After a painful silence, the man scratches something with a coarse pencil and pats Mathew down before ushering him inside. Inside, there are two elevators. A man inside takes Mathew to one, while another takes the men with the box to the other. The lift man closes the metal gate to the elevator and presses the down arrow on the rust covered control panel. There's a heavy jolt, and they quickly descend. A thumping shakes the elevator, and it gets louder and louder as they descend. The elevator stops in a smelly room full of a variety of people. The rumble of the audience can be heard through the solid metal and concrete between the arena and the waiting area. Another man steps up and takes Mathews name.


"Ah, Mathew Rook. You're not on for a while. Just sit tight and try to enjoy the show."


He surveys the room. Everyone seems to be moving around. Two men cart out another large stainless steel box and open the hatch. They take the pieces of the contestants suit and fix them into a large machine at the end of the room. After all the pieces have been arranged, they cart the box away, and a bald man with large muscles steps into the machine. It fastens and fixes all of the parts onto him, and locks them together. Once he's suited up, he steps out and moves around, checking to see if his men need to fix anything. He flashes them a thumbs up steps onto another elevator on the side of the room opposite to the one Matthew arrived in. A match was about to start.


He looks up to one of the several large screens around the waiting room. Cameras stop panning around the audience or showing past footage, and focus on a man behind a counter.


"AAAAND We're back! Is everyone ready to RUUUUMMMMBLLEEEEEE?!"


Although cliche, it never fails to get the crowd going. Following the theme of "Robot Rumble", the name of the event, everything is rumble-this or rumble-that. It's kind of annoying but it helps spread the word. People tend to remember it, whether because it's simple or because it's so cliche it makes people groan whenever they think about it.


"For the fourth round, we have a crowd favorite up against a rookie! Only having played two matches before this, he's got horrible luck with this matchmaking! On the right side I give you, HOME WRECKER!!"

A few people cheer for the rookie as the shield goes down and the large titanium doors open. A shorter man with a business suit looking mech steps out and waves to the crowd. He has two sword hilts fastened to his back and something on his chest glows red and whirls in circles. He must be an energy type.

"On the left side, the man who needs no introduction, you know him, you love him, THE COMPAAAAAACTOOOOOR!!!!"

The crowd roars in cheer as the man you saw in the waiting room steps into the arena. He stares straight forward at his enemy without acknowledging the crowd. His mech is large and bulky. He's a brawling type. Mathew has seen his matches before. He specializes in grappling his opponents into submission.

The event they're competing in is a straightforward fight. Five minutes per round, first one to take substantial damage to a part, gets KOd, or surrender loses. The Compactor is going to win. He's done this many times before. This rookie puts on a good show, and he's a skilled pilot, but he's nothing compared to The Compactor. RIP Home Wrecker.

Mathew loses interest in the match, and decides to mingle with some other contestants watching the screen when the elevator door sounds.

 

[Laggy Lagiacrus]

The match, as ever, was thoroughly predictable - though, there was some small comfort, in the fact that the loser had managed to put up something resembling a fight. While he himself had not participated in anything more than a training match, Alan still judged the people who fought, evaluating their skills from the sidelines. He did fully understand that, to gauge a proper impression of the other pilots and how well he could utilise his own armour, he would have to engage in combat himself - or, indeed, a race. Both seemed popular, but he had a mech built for combat, not for athletics. The Formula Legs were still in development, and the thrusters were more likely to blow his legs off, as opposed to allowing him to blow his opponent's off. He was more or less stuck with the pre-planned strategy - make one up as he went along.

Adam stretched, bored at having to simply watch people getting beaten to a pulp. He himself did not expect to be that good at any point in the immediate future, but he hoped to at least be able to put up a decent fight. He took a swig on his bottle - not containing water, by any means - and looked about the room. These weren't friendly competitions, and that was what he relished - everyone was here to win, not to take part. it could be seen in their eyes, how badly they wanted to be someone - anyone, maybe - into the ground. A dark spark flicking in his eyes, he wandered about the room, his eyes glancing over and dismissing many a person.

 

[Powder]

After the match, the loser and the victor return to the den. The loser is a very enthusiastic man. Obviously the life of the party type. He steps up to the winner and shakes his hand with a grin on his face. "Hey, better luck next time, eh?"

Time passes without much incident. People prepare for the next match, others pick from the buffet or watch the screen. Even less talk to other contestants. One of those people being 'Home Wrecker'. Looking around, Mathew bites his fingernails. He wasn't here. His match was soon, and he wasn't here.

Three minutes until the next match, and a few people are starting to panic. The event coordinator, Mathew, and the rest of the staff. The coordinator presses a button on his headset and steps away to talk through it. The announcer starts going through old footage, stalling for time. He wasn't going to show up, and they knew it. Mathew paces the floor.

A minute left until the scheduled time. The event coordinator bites his thumb and looks at his list. He turns to the room to make an announcement. "Tiny Tom, who's up next, hasn't shown up yet." A man leaning against a pillar chuckles. He must have been his opponent. "Even if something miraculous happens, we can't delay this thing any longer waiting for him. Now I understand there's a few cold suits here," Cold suits are what they called pilots that brought their suits just in case, even though they weren't schedules to participate at all, "At this point, we need to toss someone to the lions. We need someone willing to play to lose."

Matt curses under his breath. He can't afford for someone to play to lose.

((Sorry guy. Fucking insane work schedule this last week. I'm not dead though, and I'll be available more often now.))

 

[Laggy Lagiacrus]

((School hasn't exactly been kind to me, either. Haven't really been able to put down a tangible response.))

Adam looked on with apathy, and raised his hand with just as little enthusiasm as was in his eyes.
"Do we get compensation for losing on purpose?"
He knew this was a stupid question, but he asked it anyway. The only reason he ever got in the ring was for profit - whether it was getting his cut of the bets, being paid to make his loss look convincing, anything that netted him a new part of a stack of bank notes. He wanted to survive, and money seemed to be a solution that was rather easy to come by, in his line of work. Thus, seeing that nobody else seemed immediately eager to take the position, he enquired as to how he would benefit. If the compensation was too low, he'd likely accept anyway. He'd just changed the filter on his rifle, and he needed something to pass the time. He even gave a thought to fighting, instead of pretending to, but dismissed such a notion as something that would force him to use more effort than strictly necessary.
He sat with his arms crossed, eyeing nobody in particular with no particular emotion in his expression.

 

[Powder]

The man looks back down to his clipboard, remembering the face of the man that spoke up and searching for his name. "Of course, of course. You'll be paid just like any other contestant." The man scratches a name out on his clipboard and scribbles something down. Everyone is hurrying about, not sparing any time. "Have you ever contested in the ring before?" He asks, picking him up and ushering him to the end of the room where the suiters were. Matt perks up in panic. "Guys, guys! He didn't even agree yet! That was just a question!" He moves over to the silver haired man with the unenthusiastic expression and grabs his arm.

"Look guy, you don't have to contest this one. You know who you're against, right?" Matt looks over to the man that chuckled when he heard the contestant hadn't arrived. He was watching the whole mess with a smirk on his face. Matt recognized him. "That's Rocket Punch. He's only contested 4 times, but he's won every one."