The Captain & The Fixer I
Word Count: 2,022
EXP: +3
Rapport: Captain Falcon / Roland (+3)
A climbing challenge, eh? That was nothing Captain Falcon couldn’t handle. A race to the top through harsh environments? As far as he was concerned that was practically like an F-Zero race only without the machines involved! Of course there was the matter of the rope tied around his waist and the rule that he’d be tethered to someone and would have to work with them. Something like that was a little less familiar to Falcon, but all he needed to do was be able to work on a team. How hard could that be? Speaking of which, he tugged the rope and traced its line to find the man he had been paired up with and spotted Roland.
"Guess we’re in this one together, eh? Let’s win this thing!" Cap said with a smile and a thumbs up. It was when he gave that gesture that he noticed the mittens on his hands. He also realized that his scarf had become longer and its fabric more wooly, plus it was wrapped around his face like a full blown muffler. He suddenly realized that his racing jacket felt a bit heavier too and noticed that it was heavier and also lined with fur for greater warmth. And… wait, where was his helmet? Now he was wearing a furry ushanka hat and black tinted goggles wrapped around his eyes. That was quite the more startling realization, especially when he worried for a moment that his identity had been accidentally revealed. But the hat and goggles combination still managed to mask him, perhaps even more so with his wooly scarf now covering part of his face.
Roland could only sigh as he was paired with the guy they were trying to ‘recruit’, if what he heard before was true. The new guy trying to recruit the new guy, was this how these guys operated? Well that wasn’t unfamiliar to him in a way. Well, either way, he was forced to be a team player again and he’d at least give it a good ol’ fixer try. Especially since the monsters of the group were very interested in the stuff here, and they seemed to know way more than they let on.
”Sure pal. I’ll give it a good try. Although I gotta wonder how this works, do we both just jump together or…?” It was soon shown though as Roland was hesitating to get the lay of the land to Captain Falcon’s annoyance that the rope was very important and the two had to basically swing in tandem, using the rope as a fulcrum, to navigate the course in a timely manner. Rubbing his chin with a ”Hm… Ok I see what this is…” Roland made a move to the first platform and gave a quick explanation to Falcon.
"Roger that." Captain Falcon confirmed. "Now let’s show ‘em our moves!" And as he exclaimed this, the Captain - without warning - broke into a run toward the edge of the platform and leaped. Since Roland was the one who’d figured out the trick and explained to him, Falcon naturally just assumed he’d be able to follow his lead so they could give themselves a good running start before the real trick got going. Aerial maneuverability wasn’t that tough for the Captain. His Raptor Boost and Falcon Dive techniques gave him a way to boost himself forward and upward respectively so that he could put some extra oomph into his jump distance. And as long as he could coordinate with his partner, he saw no reason why they couldn’t easily slingshot themselves forward with that swinging maneuver he had explained.
Roland wasn’t too surprised this guy had moves like a fixer, and while Roland didn’t have his fire based mobility, he had his own stuff with his own skill and agility. While he wasn’t a fan of the initial vertigo caused by swinging on the rope so fast, it didn’t take him long to get used to it. And while the larger jumps were difficult for the larger members of their group that didn’t have hacks, Falcon’s competitiveness and Roland’s cooperativeness were all that were needed. That and the ability to actually hold each other’s weight and everything. Granted Midna and Roxas were cheating, but besides them, Roland and Cap were in the lead.
Frankly, even if Falcon did have any abilities that would allow them to “cheat”, he’d still refuse to use them. The man was nothing if not one who showed proper sportsmanship. And that meant completing games and challenges exactly as they were intended, on his own skill alone and nothing else. It was quite the point of pride for him, and in some situations it might even put him at a disadvantage against competitors more inclined to cheat or use dirty tactics. But much like he had done against the two Koopalings in the Kart race, the Captain had proven multiple times that he had a certain talent for overcoming such cheating with his raw skill and determination.
He didn’t know what kind of a competitor his partner was, however. "Cheaters never prosper." He said offhandedly in reference to some of the other teams who weren’t playing completely by the rules, "A man who overcomes a rigged game gains a lot more bragging rights than the one who does the rigging." Was this mostly just a philosophical belief? Yes. But it was one he had built his entire career on, and Cap wasn’t about to abandon that belief any time soon. Roland could agree with Captain Falcon, but in his mind honor was the choice of the winner.
Their first real platforming challenge came in the form of a wide gap. Too far to jump, even with the swinging technique they’d just lose altitude along the way and not be close enough to grab the ledge at the other end. Instead they’d have to make use of the three awkwardly placed overhangs, by grabbing the wall, swinging themselves underneath it and back up to the opposite side and then use that to launch themselves forward to the next overhang. Cap didn’t find this particularly taxing, but he wasn’t sure the same could be said for his partner. He just had to hope Roland had the same kind of determination to see this through that he himself had.
Roland had determination in spades, although for this he was just winging it. Doing the cliff hang so Falcon could swing over, using his daggers to hold himself until he could follow his would-be partner. While looking like a beanpole, Roland was quite strong. Give it one thing, at least the City had some amazing augmentations. Looking back, after making it through this section, it was obvious those having trouble before were having trouble now as well. ”I guess this course shows who is athletic and who isn’t huh?” Or he figured, who used their superpowers and who was ‘normal’.
"Separates the men from the boys, you might say." Cap said in agreement. Now climbing up to the top of the structure they’d just been swinging under, they could see the next platforming challenge up ahead. A series of precarious jumps with little more than small blocks worth of platforms to land on that elevated upward toward a long overhang that blocked the path to the next platform above. ”This looks like it’ll take a lot more careful aim and precision than the previous jumps." Falcon warned. But rather than look worried, he instead flashed an eager smirk. "Just the kind of challenge I like!"
Roland looked behind them and besides the cheaters in front of them, so far they were far in the lead. ”Well, so far it’s been pretty easy, so this shouldn’t be that bad.” Roland said as they got ready for this crazy jump. Falcon on the other hand, just cracked his knuckles and neck. They’d gotten this far, so by now he had full confidence that they could do this no problem.
The first jump, for Cap at least, was a near miss. In fact he had to use his Falcon Dive to be able to reach the target and not plummet down to the bottom of the climbing challenge. The jumps after that weren’t quite as far apart. And the overhang proved to be relatively simple to deal with. As some of the only challengers actually performing the climb as intended, that had the unintentional side effect of giving Roland and Cap quite a bit of practice in the art of swinging themselves under and onto the other sides of these things. But then there was a tiny pixel of a platform they had to jump to. Now that looked intimidating but the jump still wasn’t quite as far as that first nearly disastrous one was. After that they were in the clear.
"Yes!" Cap chanted with a victorious arm pump. Up ahead the two saw an entrance to what looked like a mine of some kind. So climbing and jumping in a dimly lit or even dark cavern? That was certainly going to be one way to up the ante on this challenge. But Cap wasn’t worried. They’d done excellently so far so what harm could a little darkly lit spelunking do here?
”Wasn’t this supposed to be a ‘mini’ game? There is nothing mini about this if we can't see the finish!” Roland said, a bit annoyed at how long this was taking. They had left the slower pairs in the dust at this point. Well, so far they didn’t see the end, so he guessed the mines were the way to go. ”Well, unless there is some invisible exit or something, I guess that's where we gotta go. Why do I feel like a mouse in a maze?” Roland said, agreeing with the captain.
"Go big, or go home, I say." Cap said, maintaining his fearlessness. He entered the mine and noticed something kind of surprising. "Ha! Look at that!" He’d spotted another team that apparently managed to break ahead of the pack. It was the ones who had been getting around the jumps by somehow creating platforms of their own. " We aren’t the only ones ahead." In addition he also saw moving platforms. Great, so that meant they’d have to have the right timing in addition to everything else. This challenge was just getting better and better.
”I saw those two cheating earlier. Considering the big bee can’t fly here, I wonder how they got their powers working?” Roland said, rubbing his chin while he thought. But then he could summon his weapons from his gloves, so maybe that wasn’t owers, but items or technology or something. Well, either way, these moving platforms weren’t too bad looking at them. The pair had been pretty good working together so far, so Roland was sure they could handle this bit pretty well too. He went to take the first platform, not having really any of the captain’s flashy fire moves but he had kept up with the guy’s moves so far with his natural agility. Honestly Roland was waiting for the rub here, so far it had been pretty straightforward and just required teamwork and basic physics understanding. Was there going to be something to mess them up soon?
In a manner of speaking… yes there was at least one drawback veering its head now. Cap’s darkly tinted goggles were now making the dimly lit mines even harder to see in. And yet for some unspoken reason he was adamantly not taking them off. The first time this cropped up was when he nearly overshot the first moving platform, but was able to correct himself with a Raptor Boost. And the reason he was refusing to take off the goggles? Well that would mean showing his face to someone. And Captain Falcon’s number one rule in all of his career was to not reveal his identity unless he was first beaten in a race. So unfortunately, honor was taking precedence before reason here. But it wasn’t actively slowing them down… at least not yet anyway.