revivalproject | [Open] Time For Sports! I'll Be On Skins

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[Open] Time For Sports! I'll Be On Skins

WHO: Gladio, OTA
WHERE: Sports Days
WHAT: Doing The Sports, Being Shirtless
WHEN: Sports Days
WARNINGS: None ~~Gladio is allergic to shirts~~

I. The Great Tug Of War Battle Open
[OOC: See the first comment below for this thread for the team noted on the plotting. If not that team, see here.]

It's been a long day, and warm at that, and most people doing lots of exertion would probably be a bit worn out now. Perhaps they might even consider changing into slightly lighter clothes too. Most people aren't Gladio. Most people won't have been shirtless all day already. Gladio, smiling to himself, sits down just beyond the competition area of tug of war, smiling to himself, drying his brow with his discarded thank top. Appreciate the view if you want, he will clearly appreciate it.

"This is a lot more fun than I'd expected. Always thought it would be sort of a silly sport. It's just physics. But damn."

He grins widely and then flops back to lay there on the ground. "Once I get my breath, I'm going again. Wanna join?"

II. Have Flag, Will Capture? | Open

A man cannot prize on tug of war alone. Okay, so they can, but Gladio isn't trying to. A guy has to vary his life up. Okay, so he has a bit of friction burns on his hands and he needed a break from that. Gloves, he needed gloves, but there were such more important things to win, so he was taking a break.

Which had him outside of the area of the capture the flag.

"Any chance you're looking for a team?" he says to anyone who approaches. Truth is, he hasn't done capture the flag in a damn long time, and he could use the practice. It's all about tactics and he's down for that.

III. Sack Race Shenanigans | Open

Dawn of the second day. There's Gladio, once again shamelessly without his shirt, considering the games. This time he's standing near the booth for the sack race, holding his burlap tube.

"Are you even listening?" he's asking the projection, holding the tube up. "It's not a sack. This isn't a sack race. It's... It's a pencil skirt race! And this one doesn't even fit my hips. It keeps falling down!"

IV. Meditations On Pry Says | Open

And here, at last, the secret to why Gladio's been mostly shirtless (other than just having weird preferences). The man enters the Pry Says tent, reaches out, and his shirt appearing in his hand in a burst of blue crystals. It bulges with chits and the ringing sound implies their presence as well.

"Alright, time for some shopping," he says with a smile. Things for him, things for Noctis, and then things for their little home place. "What should I get?"

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It's taken part of the day to get them all together, but Gladio's finally got them, a team to be proud of. He nods down the line because it's time for them to strategize. He can do this.

"Well, Men, it's time to prove ourselves. Our task here is to make these Agrii understand that we are strong people not to be messed with. Show them we have strength and teamwork a plenty. But to do that we need to win. And to win we've got to work together. Are you with me?"

Okay, maybe his almost-military background is showing.

Link is attentive, as he listens to Gladio's speech. Unconsciously almost standing at attention, even. He doesn't actually remember listening to any speeches about this, but something about it is familiar, all the same.

So he nods. And then adds, because Link feels this is also important: "I want points."

Lots of points. There was a long list of things he wanted to get, after all.

Much less impressive in this lineup - and similarly, probably the least impressed with Gladio's speech - is Dustin. He really has no business being here. Frail to the point of absurdity, and having watched a round or two of Gladio taking a crack at the projected opponent team, he's run the numbers and determined that there's no way he could contribute anything of value on his own, or even on a team of Gladio-sized individuals. Raw physicality has never been Dustin's strong suit.

Preparing and working around his own shortcomings, however, is something he is well accustomed to doing. Which is why he's wearing The Suit.

The exoskeleton suit cradles Dustin's whole body from behind, like an open-faced mech, with visible clamps to hold his arms, legs, and torso in place, but he hardly seems restricted by it - quite the opposite in fact. He's had a few full days to wear the thing in, and now the suit feels like an extension of own body. Literally, even; his perception of its limbs has gotten precise enough to independently articulate the hands of the suit from his own.

Something he demonstrates now. Arms folded and expression flat, one of the robot hands twists at the wrist in an impatient 'go on' gesture to urge Gladio to wrap up.

"Wouldn't be here if I wasn't," Dustin huffs. "You done, yet? Wasted time is wasted points."

At least someone is appreciative of it, geez. Gladio sighs and looks to Dustin.

"Your suit is pretty heavy and stable it looks like. So you're anchor. If you can dig in to keep us from getting pulled forward it gets easier for us to pull back. Link, you want point or middle? I don't know the strategy of those positions as much. I think front's in a better position to call out when it should be time to pull and all that."

See, he's making plans, Dustin. Appreciate the thought here.

Link thinks about it for a moment.

"...Middle," he says. The front it seems is the position where you tell the others what to do. And telling people what to do is...well. Not Link's strong point.

He's much more used to being the one getting told what to do.

Dustin lets Gladio's apparent irritation roll off of him, shrugging the majority of his answer. "Stable, yeah," he explains. Heavy, not so much, although an extra hundred pounds of condensed metal is nothing to sniff at. Dustin would have to take it apart if he wanted to move it around anywhere without wearing it. "Fine, I've got back. As long as we don't start in a lot of mud, we shouldn't go anywhere."

"Hasn't been mud so far," he says, but he frowns as if to consider. What if the Agrii decide this is cheating? What if they make it muddy. Was that something they could do?

"Relying on you to help keep us up kid. And Link, thanks. Your strength is always appreciated."

Link looks at the suit. If mud is a problem - does it sink, then? Or get stuck in the joints, making it hard to move?

These questions, however, Link doesn't ask. He just nods, and then moves to go take a hold of the rope. He looks back at the other two - are they coming?

Dustin shrugs, but gives Gladio an unenthusiastic thumbs-up with an articulated robot hand before also moving to grab the back end of the rope. He really doesn't anticipate that this will be as much of a struggle as Gladio is making it out to be. His estimates based on watching previous matches say as much, anyway. They'll be fine.

Only one set of hands - the artificial ones - close around the rope. His actual hands stay at the ready, though; there's a chance that he might need them to apply some extra pulling power, as meager as that would be in comparison to the raw strength provided by his suit's hydraulics. If it comes down to relying on Dustin's scrawny, natural muscles, though, then the team's probably already lost.

Good. Gladio takes his lead position and waits for a moment to check the other two. He knows once he has the rope in hand he will trigger the competition. Once he is certain he lifts the rope and their simulated opponents appear.

They all look like waifishly lean women. Gladio knows it's a lie.

"Pull on three," he warns. "One."

The opponents lift the rope.

"Two."

They ready themselves.

"Three!" He says and has to haul hard immediately just to counteract how hard the simulated opponents are pulling.

Link pulls.

And he's strong. He doesn't look it, but he's strong. So is Gladio, and Dustin...well, Dustin's not really, but he's wearing some very impressive armour that is probably able to do quite a bit of heavy lifting.

And yet, they're not making near as much headway again the projections as Link would expect. He frowns, and looks at the other team. It's like they're competing against Gorons.

Dustin allows himself to huff in mild amusement at the appearance of the opposing holographic team. Maybe the Agrii have programmed this team to be a little less intense than the past few failed matches - or maybe they have more of a sense of humor than Dustin gave them credit for. Either way, he barely reacts to Gladio's dramatic countdown, simply adjusting to a wider stance and making sure his feet have good traction on the dirt.

Imagine his surprise, then, when he's wrenched forward a full two inches at the start of the match. Dustin hisses a curse under his breath, grinds his heels in and hauls back, instinctively tensing every muscle alongside all of the hissing and clicking servos activating on his suit. The rope goes taut and the suit's joints lock, one after another, accompanied by an ominous groaning noise.

This...is not the sort of active stress test Dustin had envisioned putting his invention through, but he supposes there could be worse situations to have stumbled into. Still, he'll be really fucking embarrassed if anything breaks or they lose, so those aren't options he can allow.

They might not be options they have a say in. Gladio groans as he slides forward, and he has to dig his heels in.

"Pull!" He shouts as he starts to haul back against the intense strain. He needed the other two pulling with him to help take up the slack, otherwise they would get pulled forward again.

Link pulls, and he doesn't let us. Still, there's going to be a point where his stamina runs out. And like Dustin, Link doesn't want to lose either.

He stares at their opponents. Wishes he had the Sheikah Slate, and could use stasis to just...make them stop, a little while. But he doesn't have it, so there's not much he can do unless he can run over and kick their legs out...although...

He looks back at Dustin's suit. Which seems to have locked itself into place. Could they use that?

"Can you hold?" he asks. "Without me?"

"I...fucking...am!" Dustin shouts back through grinding teeth. Still, he can feel the slack letting up a little as Gladio and Link coordinate in front of him, so he uses the opportunity to drag what he can backwards and re-lock the suit in place. Like climbing a cliffside, one hand over the other, the rope inexorably moves towards them an inch, then reverberates to a stop as the holograms redouble their efforts.

This is not sustainable - Dustin can tell as much already. Gladio and Link are going to tire themselves out like this, and even shunting his stamina through the suit, Dustin still has to dedicate a lot of physical resources to keep the thing running. He can feel its energy requirements spiking, drawing more current through his various physical interfaces with it. Dustin's Element reserves can handle a lot more on that front, sure, but it's far from a limitless supply of energy. He'll run out eventually, or he'll be dragged forward when his teammates drop first.

Speaking of teammates. "Why?" is the first thing to come out of Dustin's mouth, before he remembers who he's talking to. The fewer questions for Link, the better. He hisses in irritation and quickly switches tracks. "--Forget it. Yes. Few seconds. Make it fucking quick."

Nice suit, very useful, and Gladio approves. That said, he's not very much approving of Link right now. What the actual fuck man?

"Titan-Up, Link," Gladio growls as he tries to keep pulling. Which is a lot harder without Link to back him up. If it wasn't for Dustin locking in they absolutely would have been hauled forward by now.

Link does wait until Dustin gives the go ahead before letting go. And the moment he does, he's moving into action immediately.

He runs forward, straight towards the projections. They don't react to his approach, which means they do absolutely nothing to stop Link as he kicks out all of their feet from underneath them.

It is, blatantly, not something permitted by the rules of tug of war. But either Link doesn't care, or doesn't know. Or both.

Once they're all off balance - the two at the ends practically falling over each other - he runs back, to tug on the rope again.

Yeah, he'll take it. Dustin allows himself a moment to bark a laugh about how absurd Link's stunt is, and the fact that it seems to have worked without immediate repercussions, before he focuses back on hauling in the now significantly slackened rope. He could just yank on it and hope for the best, but part of him suspects that the Agrii's game will have some kind of penalty for this, and he doesn't want to catch himself - or Gladio - off-balance if and when that happens.

There were a lot of things Gladio wasn't ready for. This was one of them. What the actual hell was going on? With the other team down they can pull, and he shouts for Dustin to get to it quickly. They need to get that flag over the line.

It takes so little effort to get there, and he almost feels disappointed.

"Guess we win?"

Link, meanwhile - well, he's not exactly beaming. He's still, as he usually is, not the most expressive person. But there's a kind of vibrating intensity to him as he looks at the other two, a kind of unbridled energy.

Gladio might be disappointed - but Link is just plain enthused to have won, and to have solved the puzzle.

"We win!"

Surprisingly, Dustin's in a similar boat to Link. He drops the rope, shaking out his real and artificial limbs with a few energized bounces, and flashes Link a wild, somewhat devious grin.

"Fuckin' nice!" he laughs. "That was quick, too--we could farm the shit out of this one! I dunno if the Agrii's programming knowledge is good enough to compensate for a repeated strategy outside their ruleset, but it's worth a try, eh?"

Dustin turns to Gladio, apparently oblivious to his disappointment.

"Gladio, you up for a few more rounds?"

"I am," he says with a sigh. This wasn't what he'd wanted. He'd wanted to prove they were strong enough. But he had intended to win that thing for Noctis.

"Let's go collect our earnings, see if it's even worth it."

Link is already moving towards the projection that will give them their earnings, a spring in his step as he does so. As for whether or not it's worth it...

"Look!" he says, holding out the points he just received to show the others. As is turns out, they've gotten a lot for this one.

Dustin only has time to pass Gladio a hint of a curious glance at his reticence. Why does he sound so resigned? They won, right? Does he know something he and Link don't about how this game works?

But then Link is back, holding a handful of chits - and not just the single-point ones. Dustin's attention snaps to him, his eyes widening.

"That's--" Counting what I can see, estimate the total based on proportion of each chit type visible and the rough volume, multiply by the number of times we can run this game before sunset, round up to assume strategy optimization-- "--more than enough. Holy shit."

No more time to waste - Dustin's getting those extra Replicator rations after all. He almost breaks into a sprint to get to the token distribution hologram, calling over his shoulder as he does. "Link, Gladio, get back in position, we've gotta milk this for everything it's worth!"

Dammit, it's an effective means to get a large amount of prize points, from what Link is holding. And damn, Dustin's interested too and the kid has been so helpful that he's not going to hold him back from winning what he needs. And Gladio needs those too...

"It's cheating," he says with a sigh, but they need these. With a frown he goes to get his own prizes.

"I have to get my own pay first."

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[Open] Time For Sports! I'll Be On Skins

The Tug Of War Champions | Closed To Those Who Talked In Plotting

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