Oct Resorti: Tier 1 Skit

"What kinda moron decided t'have round 1 be 'throw people out a plane and watch em parachute down'?"
The door to the Judge's Room was shoved open by a rather grubby foot. Look up the extended leg, up the rather damp suit, up the man's vest and up further to the unimpressed face of Shuuya Muto. His hair was dripping wet and he had the expression of a man ready to choke a bitch.
The only other person in the room, the pink-haired woman Shuuya knew only as Kagayaku, blinked and looked up from her reading material. Shuuya barely acknowledged her as he stomped into the room, hands stuffed into the pockets of his rather shabby suit trousers, and threw himself onto the sofa.

"Seriously!" he growled at nobody in particular, grabbing at the tails of his shirt and wringing it in an attempt to dry it out.  Even though there was another person in the room, it wasn't a directed rant so much as a furious undirected ramble.
"One moment, I was sleepin' on a crate in the back of a plane and then next minute, WHOOSH!" This was accompanied by Shuuya throwing his arms over his head, throwing a spray of water through the air as he air-dried. Kagayaku flinched and brushed the water droplets off of the page she was reading and adjusted her monocle.
"The door opens and I get sucked out alongside the competitors! Seriously. Next round? Staring contest. I'm callin' it right now. Simple, safe, doesn't involve me bein' tossed willy-nilly out the back of a friggin' aircraft…"

As Shuuya sat back with his eyes shut, folding his arms over his damp chest and still rambling in a sotto voce rumble, Kagayaku looked over the pages of information and lifted an eyebrow with a small smile on her face.
"Are you saying that you fell asleep in the back of an airplane and didn't expect that to happen, Shu?"
Shu opened an eye as he placed his heels on the coffee table, legs folded. "Wasn't like I walked onto the plane and thought 'nice place fer a nap', Kaga. I kinda, sorta… mumble grumble"
"Sorry? I didn't quite catch that."
Shuuya shifted uncomfortably on the slightly damp couch and mumbled, "I fell asleep in the loading bay before the crates were shunted onto the plane. Don't ask why; long story short, I landed in the lagoon."
Kagayaku winced. "Didn't that hurt?" she asked, suddenly all concern.
Shuuya glared monoptically at her and then spat, "Oh, no~ It was quite the picnic. What gave you the impression that fallin' several feet through the air into water would feel, just fer the sake of example, like running into a brick wall at mach 10? No, m'dear," he concluded bitterly, shuffling onto the couch so that he could lie down flat on his side, "It was like landin' on a freekin' cloud. Try it sometime."

Kagayaku glared at him and sniffed, "Well, pardon me for being concerned for your wellbeing, Shu."
Shu shrugged and curled up awkwardly on the sofa. "Never knew y'cared, Kaga. But, I dun see why you should: the head honchos seem t'think we're disposable or somethin'."
"Maybe so, but I don't see why-- What on earth are you doing?"
"Writing a best-sellin' novel," Shuuya retorted, rolling over the other way before inexplicably trying to scramble up the back of the seat and curl up on the back and curl up. "Whaddya think 'm doin'? I'm tryin' t'get comfortable."
Kagayaku raised her eyebrow at Shuuya again. "By trying to curl up on the back of the sofa?"
Shuuya shrugged, somehow dislodging him from the back of the chair and making him flop back onto the seat of the sofa as if he's been shot. "I dunno; It's probably the Feral transformation gettin' the better of me, but I got a sudden inclination towards sleepin' in highly impractical places."
"Loading bays, for example," Kagayako said smoothly whilst turning the page of her notes.
"Yeah, exactly," Shuuya agreed, flopping an arm over his eyes and trying to dose off, before adding, "Wake me up if any of CYMK come around."

The door opened to permit Seth to swagger in, ahead of Mr Ginsu. Shuuya raised the arm to look up into the inverted, grinning face and sighed heavily.
"So~!" Seth crooned, tousling Shu's hair. "I heard your dive got a ten from all the judges. Well, Russia's still undecided, but it's a sure thing!"
Shuuya batted the gloved hand away with a half-hearted swipe and a warning growl. "Seth? Not in the mood."
"I have to admit, Shuuya" Mr. Ginsu agreed cheerfully, sitting on the couch next to Kagayaku, who instinctively shuffled up to make room whilst keeping an eye on her notes, "I heard that you clocked the fastest landing time."
"Most of us simply watched from the plane, or through a telescope," Seth said, grinning happily and straightening up. "You go the distance, Shu: You're in the thick of the action, you are! You just--"

What followed was a was a confusing moment in which the two men were a sudden blur of movement, which ended with the two of them in their respective fighting stances at the door to the judge's room. Mr Ginsu and Kagayaku weren't really sure what happened, but luckily enough, the text has been slowed down so the reader can get caught up.
From his position on the couch, Shuuya had tried to make a grab at Seth's throat, claws drawn. Seth managed to slap the hand aside and step backwards as Shuuya moved. The Feral then arched his back and, kicking off of the sofa, threw himself up onto his feet and cracked his knuckles. Now upright, Shuuya then swung his fist around in a wild backhand, turning to chase it as Seth teleported back out of clawing range with a blur of air.

Back in the present, Shuuya's shoulders were slouched so much that he was practically at the same height as the short Jagaian. As Seth raised his hands in a mocking gesture, Shuuya began to growl, locking eyes with the smirking Seth. It was a long, low guttural noise, not changing in pitch, but seeming to unroll a subtle promise that it was the sort of growl that starts in the back of one throat and ends up in another.
"Shuuya," Kagayaku began, in the special voice used for people on the ledges of high buildings, "calm down. You don't want to do this. Your infection is getting the better of you again. Don't let it make you do something you will regret."
Shuuya didn't move, or even make any indication that he heard her; he felt his muscles creaking from the effort of not slapping that silly smirk off of Seth's face. He lowered himself into a stance normally taken by a cat preparing to pounce.
"Seth, if you would please lower your hands, we can get out of this with the minimum amount of throats being torn out," Mr Ginsu, standing slowly and tightening his grip on the umbrella.
Seth stared at Shuuya, still grinning at his condition and how easy it was to wind up the Feral. "It's not my fault the furball's so fun to tease," he complained, still grinning. Shuuya's right foot shifted behind him and his knees bent. With a simultaneous shrug and wave of his hand, Seth vanished with a small implosion of air just as Shuuya leapt.

The Feral hit the wall in the hallway with his shoulder and folded up on the ground. When he stood up, somebody was going to die. He turned on the judges room and let out a wild roar before getting whacked on the nose with the a pink umbrella handle.
"Shuuya, no!" Mr. Ginsu snapped, in a voice of stern authority.
Shuuya whimpered a bit, holding his nose as his eyes watered. He seemed to get over it a second later and hissed at him again. Another whack with the handle of the umbrella and Shuuya seemed unwilling to try his luck again.
"Come on, mate; get it together, now," Mr. Ginsu suggested, smiling as best he could under the circumstances. "Don't make me go and get a spray bottle."

Kagayaku peered out from behind the stern figure wielding the umbrella like a club and stared at Shuuya as he stood there, breathing heavily. That seemed to do it: Shuuya looked wildly from Kagayaku to Mr. Ginsu and then back again. Slowly, he slumped to sit on the floor, claws visibly shrinking.
He put his head against the wall and let out a long sigh, his teeth seemingly growing less bestial as he closed his eyes. The fur on his tail seemed to smooth down, and after a moment, Shuuya opened an eye and mumbled, "I really hate that guy."
"I noticed," Mr. Ginsu agreed. "You're looking a little ragged… Do you want me to go--?"
Shuuya interrupted him with a shake of his head and reached into the pocket of his shirt, retrieving a small spray bottle. He squirted a dose of whatever was in the bottle onto his wrist and then took a deep sniff, which he let out in a grateful sigh. It was like watching a desert wanderer taking their first drink of water.
"What is that?" Kagayaku asked, coming over it sit down beside Shuuya as Mr. Ginsu adjusted the hang of his suit jacket and hung his umbrella on the crux of his arm.
"Extract of some herb," Shuuya explained, shaking the little bottle back and forth between thumb and forefinger. "Can't tell ya what type it is, but it… helps. It calms Ferals down."
"Like some sort of mutant catnip?" she asked, watching Shuuya intently.
Shuuya chuckled and shrugged, rubbing his wrists together and then against his neck to spread the sent around like cheap cologne. "I guess you could call it that."

"Well now." Shuuya looked down the hall to see three more figures approaching. One, the taller of the trio, was another Jagaian. For a split second, Shuuya mistook the blonde for Seth and was about to stand up. However, as they grew closer and he realised that Seth wasn't that tall: It turned out to be Alex, who grinned happily at them and gave a lazy salute.
Walking towards them as well was another Feral, whose body language projected the message 'I'm not with these two' in ten-foot high letters. Aonoi caught sight of Kagayaku and Shuuya, folded her arms across her chest and allowed a small smile to flitter across her lips.
The shorter figure turned out to be Nurako. The shortest member of the judging staff adjusted the goggles on top of her head and looked around distantly as they approached, as if not at home with walking with anyone but herself.

Aonoi sniffed at the herb extract in the air and smiled pleasantly at the trio. "Looks like we're having ourselves a party out here. What's the occasion?"
Shuuya reached up and proffered the bottle, as a smoker would offer the pack to a newcomer as Mr. Ginsu began to explain. "Shuuya hasn't had a good day…"
"I heard," Aonoi confirmed, politely declining Shuuya's offer with a waved hand.
"And Seth came along and, well… He went… Shuuya…" Kagayaku tried, fumbling for the right words.
"Lost concentration," Shuuya supplied, unabashedly.
"And went for Seth," Kagayaku finished, grateful that she didn't have to bridge that awkward gap in the conversation herself.

"Did anybody get hurt?"
This voice came from lower down. Shuuya glanced down and gave a startled jump: Nurako was suddenly there, scrutinising Shuuya through her goggles. "If so," she went on, calmly, "I will need to report the pair of you to the hosts: 'Behaviour unbecoming of a Resort Official' and 'Behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace'."
Shuuya blinked, stunned, at Nurako's distressingly deadpan expression. The little girl saying so much without prompting was such a momentous occasion that Shuuya was caught off-guard and simply found himself mumbling, as if he had been caught by a teacher doing something bad.
"Uh, n-no. Not at all. Seth 'ported before I could get my hands on 'im," he managed, trying to break eye-contact with that unusually stern gaze.
"That's a shame," Aonoi murmured, as if talking to herself as she observed the dent that Shuuya's shoulder made in the plasterwork of the wall. "Y'know, Yellow will deduct your pay for that."
Shuuya heaved a noncommital shrug and stood up, putting his hand against the dent in the wall to steady himself. "Funny that: I'm already owed a few pearls as it stands."
"Oh?" asked Mr. Ginsu, voicing the unspoken question. "How did you work that one out, Shuuya?"
Shuuya grinned and gave a cheesy thumbs-up. "I kinda-sorta won round one, right?"

After a few moments silence, Alex was the first one to say anything. "I don't think you can make that stick."
"If anything," Mr. Ginsu observed, "you might get docked more for interfering with the event."
"You'd be lucky to break even," Kagayaku chimed in.
"Y'know what?" Shuuya said, raising both hands to cut people off before they jumped in. "Whilst I still have some pearls to spend, I'mma go do so. Gonna get something to eat." He walked a few steps before turning to the group and asking, "You comin'?"
"Oh, never thought you'd ask," Aonoi teased, smirking at Shu. "How kind of you to offer."
Shuuya blinked and lifted an eyebrow as the others piled past him in the direction of the exit. "Wha-?"
"Thanks, Shu! I want a hamburger!" Alex crooned, punching the air.
"Can't turn down a free meal, mate," Mr. Ginsu said, adjusting his top hat to a jaunty angle with a tap of his umbrella as he passed.
Nurako gave him a curt little nod and continued after the others.
"Wha-? H-hey!" Shu shouted, events having caught up with him. "When did I say I'd pay!? Oi! Get back here!"
Kagauaku smiled politely and gave him a light nudge in the ribs. "You're going to have to learn how to take a joke one of these days, Shu," she observed, before tugging at his wrist. She smiled at him again and said, "It'll help you deal with Seth, for starters."
And then she left him to go join the others.
Shuuya blinked and then chased the others, calling out, "What about dealin' with you freeloaders?"
"What was that?"
"Nothin'…"