(Preshow) Preshow Facility

[Albert Wesker]

When she had arrived here, things had still been relatively empty and quiet. Just the employees of the station. That had quickly changed, though, as more and more people had shown up. Contestants, spectators, and more employees seemed to just pop up out of the woodwork. All a bit much for Cerise. She had retreated rather quickly to the library here, and squirreled herself away in relative isolation and quiet. Others had come and gone, occasionally, but she remained unbothered. Focused on her own business.

A nice book or two. And a dataverse connection to keep updated on the coming of more participants and contestants, and updates on the status of the event's starting. Hours or days or weeks, hard to tell. Time was strange and fluid in the Omniverse. She'd once left the Pale Moors to go do a little scouting and poking around some other verses; it had been a four week trip, and barely four days had passed when she got back to check in with a friend. That had set the precedent then, but this one seemed to solidify it even more. A very strange precedent. Strange and unsettling, even after so long here.

In that way she had sat there quietly. None of this craziness about going out there and interacting or seeing what her competition was. Not making herself known. She could keep as much of an eye on things as she wanted from here. And besides...she worked better with improvising and figuring things out on the fly.

When the pairings and matchups for the tournament were finally announced was when her focus finally shifted wholly to the actual events going on here. Looking over the way things had lined up...hmm. She'd been match up with...Gildarts? What a bizarre name. And they'd been matched against...yet more odd names, Jibrill and Harley Quinn. It wasn't a surprise that none of these names really rang any bells to her, but it was mildly frustrating that it forced her to search out what information she could about them. It was even more frustrating when she could only find any real details about one of them.

"Gildarts..." she murmured softly, looking over what she'd found. "...you seem to be...quite the powerful one..." A lucky draw, some might have said. And it was true, a powerful ally was definitely a boon. But it was also another minor concern. "I'll have to...really put in the effort to stand out here...with such a strong partner." Getting overshadowed or not getting a chance to really shine and show off her skills, as the man in black had wanted, just wouldn't do.

The little snake faunus just took a deep, steadying breath as she stowed her phone away and got up. Carefully returning the books she'd borrowed to the shelf where she'd gotten them, she slunk her way off. Out of the library, to go lurk and poke around. Try and find her partner, and speak with them in person.

Cerise has stopped hiding in the library and started wandering in search of a Gildarts.