@Shiyonichi@Blade17@KenjuGuy@Crimson LionThe past 2 weeks had been rather eye-opening for Riku. He kept his own word in regards to the Gundam Maxter. Rather than rush it into a experimental customized build - something he had done with Metal Angel, costing him a tournament - he instead took things slow and first built it straight. Before trying to mess with modifications and customization, Riku had promised himself to pilot the Maxter as a straight build until he was confident enough in utilizing it's fighting techniques.
That... proved far more challenging than he anticipated. In all practice matches, the Maxter was soundly defeated and seemingly unable to keep up with anyone else. But why? Riku had seen what it could do in its featured episodes of G Gundam. That meant the only thing that could possibly be holding the Maxter back... was the pilot. But what was Riku doing wrong, exactly? And then he received some half-joking advice from Takemori-san.
"Heh, well you know... the Gundam Maxter WAS specifically built and designed to be piloted by a trained boxer so... maybe you should take up boxing yourself?"Whether Takemori-san was joking at the time or not, Riku decided to take him up on that advice. As it happened, there was a small gym located in the same shopping district as the arcade. When Riku first went, he originally intended to simply watch some sparring matches and maybe take some notes. But then the Gym's owner noticed him and successfully goaded him into training himself. He argued that if Riku wanted to truly understand the skills and techniques of a boxer, then he should become one himself.
And that was how Riku had managed to stumble into his current training regime. When he wasn't doing gunpla battle practice with the team or helping to build their flasgship, he was at that gym laying into punching bags, jumping rope, and an assortment of other exercises recommended by the owner.
And the boxing and battling weren't the only things proving to be taxing on Riku. When discussions about the team's flagship came up, Riku was quick to make a suggestion of his own. He showed a
clip from a certain anime to the others and argued that they should draw inspiration from that for their ship. Of course, anyone who knew the anime that the clip came from would be quick to point out that that wasn't from the Gundam franchise at all. Would that even be possible?
"I know it's not from Gundam, and most likely our ship will pale in comparison at first," Riku had said, as if he had already prepared this counter-argument ahead of time, "but if we ARE able to successfully emulate it, I guarantee it will put our team on the map as a powerhouse not to be taken lightly." Riku said, also knowing that this would almost certainly put him personally on the map as a genius builder... provided he could actually pull this off, "And just think: How many other teams are going to be basing their ships on the Gundam series, and how many of them are even remotely thinking of drawing inspiration from outside of Gundam? That alone will make our team stand out among a sea of other teams."@Shiyonichi@Blade17@KenjuGuy@Crimson Lion@Renny@DezuelOn the car ride over to where their first Tournament would be, Riku had been placed in the back most seats next to Blade. All the extra work he'd been doing had left him rather tired and he found himself taking short naps wherever he could afford to do so. This very car ride was an example of such a chance. As such, Riku's head had remained rested on his hand and he himself dozed off for almost the entire trip.
His other hand clutched the bag he'd brought with him. The bag contained the team's flagship, as well as 3 of Riku's own Gunpla Builds. One of them was the Leo from 2 weeks ago, now named the Manticore. The 2nd one was the Gundam Maxter, still a straight build - although Riku wasn't entirely confident in using it for today's battles as he was still having great difficulty piloting it properly. And the 3rd Gunpla was a different build, one that had been Riku's main Gunpla prior to when he had built the Metal Angel. He'd use it as a substitute for now until he could eventually master the Maxter.
Riku was awoken by their arrival at the Kishimoto Arcade. Primarily it was Naoki excitedly handing out armbands to everyone that woke him up. Uniforms? Apparently there just was no escaping from them. Riku reluctantly put his on, not wanting to get it into any debates or arguments at the moment. With the all-important bag on his shoulder he made his rounds around the place, seeing who all was there.
"Oh great..." he muttered to himself, spotting the obnoxious white uniforms of Seo and his little band of merry jerkasses. Except now they appeared to be accompanied by two more, who were not in uniform. Mercs? Maybe Seo was trying to make his team look tougher, but Riku took something else away from the Mercs' presence.
"Hiring Mercs, Seo?" asked Riku after he had suddenly approached their team. It was time to do a little psychological warfare, "Should I take this an admission that you and your team suck, then? Or maybe you're just still butthurt about the thrashing I gave you and these Mercs are just here to protect you from me?" he didn't bother waiting for an answer, Riku instead just walked away laughing to himself. The more he could get under Seo's skin, the better.
"Whelp, Seo's right over there." he told Naoki after regrouping with the team, "And you can probably see the mercs he brought with him. I wouldn't worry too much about Seo. The poor bastard is so easy to manipulate I'm sure I'll crush him all over again. The two new guys though... I dunno, they might be pretty tough."
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