thecapitol | Better Luck Next Time

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Better Luck Next Time

Who| Kousuke Nitou and you!
What| Nitou got killed early in the Cornucopia. Now, he's got to deal with it.
Where| A random sports bar, later a random park.
When| A few days after Nitou's back from the dead.
Warnings| Drinking, overeating, possible accidental bicycle violence.

[A - Sports Bar]
Last time Nitou had died in an Arena, it had been different. He'd been doing well for himself, at least up until that point he'd eaten some dried meat and an alien thing had burst out of his chest. This time, the defeat had been a little more humbling; he'd picked a fight he couldn't win, and he'd paid the price. He hadn't gone quickly, either. Plus, this arena looked like a scenario he actually knew how to survive in. But no, he hadn't even had much of a chance.

Last time, Nitou's coping methods had involved hoarding obscene amounts of mayonnaise. This time, he vowed to do things a little differently. Go out, have a bit of fun, and act like he's not bothered at all. It's a good plan. A great plan...only his best friends are still in the Arena, so what's he supposed to do? He has no idea until his wandering through the city finds a sports bar.

It's not long at all before he's in that sports bar tossing back a few beers, eating a few mayo-covered wings, and hooting and hollering each time Haruto or Gary is on the screen. They're his important rivals, so of course he's going to cheer them on! If he can't win, maybe one of them could. Of course, Haruto and Gary are both Tributes from District 11, and Nitou's in District 5. This just might be a problem for some...or it might be more understandable, if they've seen some of the tabloids romantically linking Nitou and Haruto. (Even if Nitou will vehemently deny it.)

Nitou's not really worried about any of that now. He's just going to relax and cheer his friends on. That's it. Of course, if his cheering gets a little too animated..."Oops, sorry about that!" Yeah. He's just spilled a beer on someone.

[B - Some Park Somewhere]
Blowing off some steam in the guise of training is a good idea, at least in Nitou's mind. No one can yell at you for training. And the exercise bikes in the gym at the Training Center gave him an idea. There's nothing to see here, nothing to see, just a Tribute out on a bike ride enjoying a little fresh air...

...only when he thinks no one is looking, he's doing crazy bicycle tricks. He's doing jumps, flips, and wheelies, and he's generally riding recklessly through the park. Hopefully he won't accidentally come close to crashing into anyone.

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Megan was trying get her life back to "normal" now that she was back in the Capitol. Of course it was kind of lonely in the D1 suite with only her escort and mentors for company. No wait, scratch that. It's kind of awesome in the D1 suites with just them for company. How on earth did she hit the jackpot like this? Three gorgeous men who work out all day, strutting around in various levels of dress, sometimes lounging, sometimes yelling at each other. Megan almost swooned thinking about it.

The one downside? They're pretty strict about exercising, and as such she's expected to complete some timed runs every afternoon. She could always dig in her heels and resist, but how could she say no to Valerius? Ugh, he's such a stud.

So that was why Megan was jogging through the park despite the ice and snow and the cold winter temperatures. She was bouncing along happily, thinking of the praise Barbie and Sergius would have to smother her with upon her return when she spotted some dude doing weird stunts on his bike.

... Wait a second! She knew that man!

She stopped suddenly in her tracks, unsure if she should laugh at him or run. After all, he'd tried to steal her mana, or whatever! But instead of acting, she settled for standing there slack jawed.

At first, Nitou doesn't see her; he's too focused on performing a bike jump that gets him up on a bench and popping a wheelie. He's holding that position when he saw Megan jogging there. He froze there in his wheelie, to his credit not falling and busting his face open at the shock of seeing her there like this. "Uh--hey!"

He figured he needed to apologize for that whole trying to eat her thing in the Arena, though he wasn't at all sure if she'd even stop to listen. He put the bike back on two wheels atop the bench, intending to chase after her if she tried to run away. It probably wasn't the least threatening way to try for an apology, but he just wasn't good at such things.

If she still had her powers, she might've have teleported away. But she didn't, and besides that, X-Men didn't run from confrontations, even if they were with unpleasant mana eating weirdos! So she resolved to stand her ground, hands on her hips as he stopped with his bicycle tricks and gave her the once over.

"Hey yourself." Megan said, scrunching her nose a bit. It occurred to her then that she didn't recall his name. "You're Haruto's friend. The cannibal one."

"Aw, come on," Nitou whined, "it was just mana, and it would've been for Chimera, anyway!" He slapped his stomach for emphasis. Not that it made things that much better. "Would it help if I said I was sorry?" He looked sorry, at least. If uncomfortable with being called a cannibal could be considered sorry.

"And I'm Haruto's rival. Rival!" Given the way the media had been portraying the two of them lately, Nitou felt the need to stress that bit.

"It might help a little, yes." She pouted a little, not quite ready to accept his excuses just yet. "And it's all well and good that your Chimera was hungry, but that's my magic you wanted to feed it! It could've killed me, you know!"

Megan paused then, deciding that it was high time for a proper introduction. "Right, then. You're his rival. We were never really introduced you know."

"And Chimera could've killed a bunch more people after me if he got out!" Even though that hadn't happened when Nitou died; the big monster got out, ate Nitou, and then just sort of decided to take a nap like a giant lazy cat before something poofed him back to the Capitol. Oh, well. How was he to know? Chimera was a jerk anyway.

But hey, there were introductions to make. "I'm Kousuke Nitou, Kamen Rider Beast." And he's popping another showoff wheelie at that. "So what's your name?"

Megan wasn't sure that she believed his excuses, but it didn't exactly matter now. That was all in the past, and she was nothing if not a forgiving person. After all, she'd forgiven Illyana Rasputina for corrupting her soul, stealing her innocence, and filling the void with black magic. If Megan could forgive that she could forgive anyone.

"I'm Megan," she said, watching with amusement as he pedaled around. "Megan Gwynn, codenamed Pixie of the X-Men. You and Haruto are both Kamen Riders? What's that whole thing about anyway?"

"Well, that means we transform into sweet suits of armor to fight monsters, and we're pretty awesome wizards!" Nitou laughs. "But I'm more awesome. Awesome-er. He's my rival, so I gotta be more awesome than he is!"

And, of course, there's the matter of what she's told him. "Pixie, huh? So that's a code name? You're not actually a pixie?" Oh, he'd made an even worse potential dining choice than he thought, probably...

Well, now. That sure explained a whole lot of nothing. Megan was even more confused about him than she had been before. He was like a magical Iron Man, only more obnoxious and into bicycle tricks.

"Of course I'm not a pixie." She huffed a little, though it was only for show. "I'm a fairy. Half-fairy, actually. The other half is a mutant. It's all very technical, you see."

"Oh, hey, that's pretty cool!" Nitou doesn't seem at all fazed by this. Fairy-mutant is far from the strangest thing he's come across, and it is his way to just steamroller all over weirdness without worrying, anyway. "So you do magic and stuff?" Because Chimera had sensed it on her, and now he's just assuming.

"Not on the reg," Megan said, tossing her pink hair over her shoulders. "I mean, I can do magic. But mostly I use my mutant abilities to do stuff. The magic is just a complicated medical side effect of my awesomeness. It's all very complex, you see."

"But why not use the magic too?" Nitou just didn't get that. Magic was adventure, and adventure was great! "You know, double up on doing stuff awesomely?"

"Magic isn't as awesome as it sounds." She was very steadfast in this pronouncement. She was an authority. She totally knows. "You have to know spells, and I haven't learned all that many of them, partly because my magic is black magic, and everyone knows black magic is corruptive. Duh."

Really, having to depend upon a leech of a chimera for all his magic should give Nitou a similar opinion of magic, but no. "You don't have to know spells--magic rings work just as good!" He was an expert on that. Really. He swore he was. "And what, there are different kinds of magic?" It was all magic to him. All edible.

Megan rolled her eyes. Clearly this guy had no idea what he was talking about. "Excuse you. Which one of us is the fairy here? I'm pretty sure that if there was a way for me to do magic without spells, I'd be in the know. Right?"

But she softened a little when he asked about the different kinds of magic. It wasn't something she'd considered much until her soul had been sucked from her body. Before that, all magic seemed good. She'd had no reason to think otherwise. "Well, there's white magic, which is pure and good, and there's black magic, which corrodes anything pure and gobbles it up." Like Chimera, maybe? Hm... "My soul used to be made of white magic. It was the purest soul ever to enter the realm of Limbo. Illyana said so. But she drained it out in order to form the bloodstones to make the Soul Dagger. And then she filled the empty places inside of me with black magic. So inside, I'm actually evil, but as long as I don't use the black magic, it's not a big deal. Surprise."

"Hey, I'm just saying there are things like magic rings and stuff that let people do magic without spells," Nitou protested. That's how it worked for him and every other wizard from his world, after all.

Gobbling things up sounded very Chimera-like, and Nitou kind of glanced down at his stomach at the mention of that. "..she never gave you a choice in that whole draining thing, did she?" Chimera hadn't really given him a choice the first time, but then he'd gone and sought the monster out a second time after freeing himself. No one had ever really claimed him to be particularly rational in his quest for constant adventure.

She shook her head, wings dropping a little. "No. Well, I mean, I guess maybe on a technicality? Illyana threatened to kill all of my friends if I didn't surrender to her. So that's dubious concept, at best. If I had to do it all again, I'd try to fight back, I'd work harder to find a way around it. But not even magic can fix all that. I am what I am now, just you average everyday mutant-pixie with a mostly missing soul."

Oh. It was like that..."Well, y'know...if we get our powers back or anything...maybe Haruto or I could try to go into your Underworld, y'know, see if we could do anything." He shrugged, a little embarrassed. "Like we'll go in and take care of people's Phantoms before the magic there kills them. So maybe our magic could take care of what your world's magic can't!"

Megan looked surprised, stunned by the offer really. She hadn't considered that Nitou would want make an offer like that. He hardly knew her and all.

"That's very nice of you," she said, a bit of hope returning to her voice. "Maybe I'll take you up on that sometime. But until then, let's maybe resolve to at least be better friends."

Offering to help someone in a situation like that just seemed natural at this point. Help a Gate, stop a Phantom from being born...even if this was more than a little different...which could make for an adventure in the process, really.

Nitou grinned and gave her a big thumbs up. "We can do that! And I won't try to eat you again, even if Chimera wakes up again!"

"Is that a promise?" She asked, cocking her head to the right. "Because getting eaten is quite near the bottom of my to-do list of life. I happen to like what's left of my soul, you know. I'm rather attached to it."

"Super-solemn wizard promise, yeah." Nitou crosses his heart and tries to look super-solemn to accompany this. "You're off the menu, don't worry!"

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Better Luck Next Time

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whoops that was supposed to say consent ;;

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