Ciphra

Yu☆Gi☆Oh!: Digital Monsters

Chiharu ran forward facing the Dark Plant monster alongside Ren who was up against the Change Slime monster. "So I just-" she started to ask but her duel disk sprang to life, the deck shuffling for her and then she did as instructed drawing the five cards. "Okay, here goes nothing! I summon Dark Witch!" she blinked as nothing happened. Chiharu tried placing it on basically all of the other slots worried she'd done something wrong. The monster definitely had the highest attack in her hand, a decent defense, and five stars. She just couldn't figure out what was wrong so she turned to Ren with a sheepish look to get more advice. After a small little talk with Ren she the learned that the stars had a purpose for letting her know the level of a monster and that other require sacrafices.

"Okay, this time for sure! I summon Petit Dragon!" With that a very small gold dragon rose from the ground in a small light show and it let out a small cooing noise. "Hey it worked!" Luna cried out with joy cheered up after her blunder was fixed. She went back and forth for a few rounds. Ren helped her grasp the basics pretty quick. She more or less understood that there were several types of spells, but for the most part they were something she used on her turn unless they were quick play spells. Traps had to wait untill at least then end of her turn that she placed them on. Apparently there were more things she'd have to learn as time went on, but for now that would be enough.

"Now I sacrifice my Petit Dragon to summon Dark Witch!" The small golden dragon was then replaced by a woman with dark hair, dark wings, pointed ears, dark gloves, a golden dress, and wielding a red spear. She was facing down the Dark Plant's Flame Manipulator. "Now attack his monster!" The Dark Witch sat up and lunged forward plunging her spear through the chest of the Flame Manipulator shattering it in an explosion of hundreds of pieces and the Dark Plant behind it also exploded once it's Life Points were drained to zero.

Chiharu turned to Ren giving him a crushing hug. "I did it! I can't believe I did it!" She was a bit surprised at how good she felt over all. It was a card game online, not physical like all of her sports or anything, yet she still felt really good about winning for the first time as she giggled and laughed doing a quick little spin with her arms out wide.

Yu☆Gi☆Oh!: Digital Monsters

"Hey! Wait for me!" Chiharu called out as she ran after Ren as he ran off out of town. Thanks to all her exercise it wasn't hard to keep up, though it would have been nice to be given a little more of a heads up before he just took off. She noted a few different types of stores along the way though. A clothing store, general store, and a few others. It was quite surprising how many different types of stores there seemed to be for an online card game. At the same time that just seemed to make it more interesting to Chiharu giving it a more real feel.

When they were outside the city limits a duel disk appeared on her arm which she looked at examining it deeply. "Um yeah, we could definitely start this duel thingy." she mumbled as she looked up and looked around realizing he had pointed out something in the distance. "Oh. Uh, yeah. I suppose it would be the right thing to do after all, but um. How do I do anything to help you help them?" she rubbed the back of her head laughing a bit embarrassed at how clueless she still was about all of this duel monsters stuff.

The game had been super popular for a while now and yet she had never taken an interest. If it hadn't been for the fact that she was trying to connect more with her friend she wasn't sure she would ever had bothered and the prospect of an online game that would put her at a starting level with everyone else as long as she started on it being opened up also helped her feel like she would have a chance. The two monsters going after the carriage were a bit curious and a bit concerning to see though. How were they supposed to deal with them anyway?

Yu☆Gi☆Oh!: Digital Monsters

Chiharu stood there in the square a bit stunned. She had never really watched any duels before and seeing a square full of people that were all dueling for the most part was mind boggling. It had been a bit of a trip getting here of course, but it was good to get to know the area and she definitely knew how to do a circle in this town thanks to Ren. Her eyes finally landed on the dragon statue in the fountain at the middle of the square. "Woah. That thing is intense, is that one of the monster things in the game? If so it's pretty cool. Also Blazing, would Blaze also work? I also can't believe how popular this game actually is just almost an hour after launch, and people are still jumping in every second!" Chiharu was spinning around a little bit trying to take everything thing in at once.

"Well Blazing, shall we go somewhere else to try this out? Meet some locals? See if they have any start up events for free stuff like a lot of schools do for starting things? Try some of the food? Is there food? Will we be able to taste the food? I wouldn't even gain weight either since it's a game!" She was now completely rambling at a high rate and really fantasizing verbally only half talking to Ren. She threw her arms out and did a little spin stuck in her own head space waiting for Ren to make a choice, after all he was the expert on Duel Monsters which means he knew more about this stuff than her.

Yu☆Gi☆Oh!: Digital Monsters

Having just finished a run, a shower, a healthy smoothie, and finally making sure to stretch out really well on her yoga mat, Chiharu had received a final text from Ren. "Guess it is finally time to do this." she said to herself. She looked around her room one final time before taking the plunge. "Bed made, check. Floor clear other than myself and the mat, check. School work done, check. Yep, mom can't complain about me playing games!" She looked over to her desk once more and looked at a picture of her and her sister after the swim competition. They were both wearing the medals they'd won smiling back at their mom who took the picture.

She laid out on her yoga mat stretching one final time before putting the device she'd got the very same day on her wrist. She was nervous but excited to try this out after all this time of not bothering with these types of things. It would be a new experience and a way to spend more time with her friend.

"Connect: Digital Monsters."

Chiharu felt a bit disoriented at being shifted nearly instantaneously. The next thing she knew she was floating in the sky with a black ball floating in front of her. She wasn't familiar with how this was supposed to work, but knew that games did some weird things from what she heard at school. Then words started popping up.

Running protocol: Avatar.
Welcome, Nakano Chiharu.

The black ball turned into her and the game wanted her to change her appearance. "Hm. I didn't think there would be so many options." Chiharu blinked a couple times looking at all the various options. She spent a bit of time trying out different ideas and then kept hitting the reset option. "I need to stop over thinking this. Okay, keep the blue hair, match the eyes. Choose something sporty still. Morph the face a bit mcolourore to still be cute, but not recognizable. Ummm. I guess that will do, yeah!" She finalized her appearance easily spending a good ten minutes or more after starting the process.

Running protocol: Eraser.
Please enter a custom name different from the one before you.

"Oh. I really didn't think this through...Sparkle? No. Crystal? No." This went on for several more minutes before finally she figured out a name. "Yeah! Luna will work!" With that the game finally moved on.

Eraser protocol complete.
Running protocol: Root.
Welcome to Digital Monsters, Luna.

Then with that finally over with twenty-five minutes after starting up the game Chiharu was brought into the starting carriage along with more beginning players. Granted she was too busy looking at her hands, shoes, playing with her hair, and feeling the material of her new clothing to fully pay attention to the guide. She was fascinated with the level of detail and textures. The only thing that she really caught out of the whole thing was that she was headed ot a place called Radix.

When she got to the town finally she saw a guy approaching every girl that was arriving at the city. At first she thought he was just some weirdo until she got close enough to realize that the person kept asking if the girls were Chiharu which caused her to giggle for a moment before going over to him. "I'm over here Ren!" she waved and called out as she approached.

Once she had got to him she paused looked around a bit and then smiled looking at him. "Okay so far not too bad. The creation step was a bit more than I expected so it took me a little longer to make my character, and I hadn't really thought of a name either, but I made it! Also I have to admit it looks a lot more real than I expected it too! So um...Yeah, I kinda missed the intro part while looking around. What's the plan? How does all this work?" She was smiling actually excited to learn more about the game.

Yu☆Gi☆Oh!: Digital Monsters

Chiharu

Real Name:
Chiharu Nakano

In-game Name:
Luna

XCOM: Retaliation

Standing in front of his new team lead at ease, Cole looked thoughtfully blank. He kept eye contact, but it was as if he barely saw the woman in front of him. His posture showed that he was serious and fully attentive, so it wasn't as if he was being rude, he just had one of those looks in his eyes that showed neutrality. She briefly covered his record, it was obvious that they probably new about all of his classified work by the way she was talking about it, and that wasn't surprising given the resources he had seen so far. When she finally asked him a question that she wanted answered he immediately answered showing his attentiveness.

"Ma'am, what I know is that the enemy is an invasive, intelligent, and organized group. They have advanced weaponry, good amount of numbers, with military tactics of some degree, and many unknown variables that should be expected to throw our plans in disarray most likely. However I also know that they can be killed. If they can be killed then there is a way to win." While he had a French accent to a degree, you could still here his accent from home as well. He had a mix from the two places he lived since he'd only been away from the states for a little over half a decade now.

XCOM: Retaliation

Okay so I had some family stuff come up including the canceling of the reunion that I was dealing with so I'll get to posting right now, probably won't be super lengthy cause I haven't had time to think hard on it but it'll be something!

XCOM: Retaliation

@NPC@Ciphra

You guys still in?

@Ithradine

Yeah, school just started up for summer classes and those hit the road running so that hit me hard for the first few days sorry about that. Also just got in the Discord, so there is that to. Also Family Reunion is this weekend so I'm going to try and manage a reply before I go to sleep tonight and then I might be able to with my Ipad over the weekend if I need to by then or finish up my post if need be from that.

XCOM: Retaliation

Also I was about to start writing my first post but it might need to wait till tomorrow unless I can catch a break from all the people calling to wish me a happy birthday, sorry if I don't get a chance today!

XCOM: Retaliation

Welp, good luck to the rest of the Europe guys! Apparently I've been chosen for a different squad so we'll see how this goes lol, and given the survival chances, good to everyone I supose?