Poppy chuckled and rubbed her abdomen.Myro and Breen immediately knelt to put a hand on the bump.Poppy grinned.“This is them twirling.”
They laughed and got the rest of the character costumes on their respective wearers.
When they got the notice that the opening ceremonies were beginning, they filed to the elevators and prepared to head to the main floor.
Myro asked, “Do you need guards?”
Mik shook her head.“Nope.We aren’t scantily clad, and our audience is younger than most.They will wait for the meet and greet.”
Myro and Breen got into an elevator with Poppy and Dina.
Mik looked at Nyssa and the others who were portraying characters from Helen’s video game.The elevator chimed, and they walked through it, turned, and faced the doors.“Ladies and gentlemen, we are entering the field of battle.Elbows in, and watch your six.”
They laughed and went down the fifteen floors, taking a deep breath in and exhaling as one when the doors opened, and the roar of recognition was unmistakable.Excited kids had a certain pitch.
She muttered, “It’s too late to run.”And she didn’t know whether she was talking to herself or someone else.
They stepped out, the roar followed them, and then the convention attendees followed.The opening ceremony was waiting.
The Tiberia booth was slammed with a crowd twelve people deep.The organizers were wild-eyed as they spoke to Myro, apologizing for the spot they were in.Myro asked a few questions, and from what Mik could gather, one of the floor managers was a huge fan of the Pixie Queen.
Mik watched as Antonio came over and apologized.Myro smiled and said that they were doing fine.The enormous crowd surrounding them was keeping them warm.
The kids were waiting patiently, and others helped manage the crowd as everyone wanted a picture with their favourite characters.
Mik was glad that her character didn’t have to smile.It made things go so much faster as little mage after little mage stood with her, arms crossed and looking into the camera or the phone.
Myro looked at the crowd and grinned then looked at Mik with a grin.
She scowled in character and stood back-to-back with another mini-mage, and then she knelt with a bunch of them.The parents looked on happily, and she stifled the laugh.Each character had equivalents in male and female for game play, and the chaos mage was invariably female.That meant Mik.
The characters in Riot were all power characters.Strong poses and nothing icky.Tiberia was trying to do a whole-body respect movement in all new games.It helped Poppy’s coding and left her all the time in the world for debugging.
Myro walked over and told everyone that the character photos would wrap up in thirty minutes and resume the following day.
Mik watched Nyssa pose and grin with kids.She was allowed to smile.Her character was being introduced in the next update.Sample play was being offered in the gaming hall, and after they tried to play, they came to get a photo with their favourite characters.
When Myro called a halt to the photos, the characters lined up as the photographers had arrived.Images of gaming characters were taken, all the ladies and then all the guys and then the mixed grouping, and both genders for each character.The other chaos mage was an alpha, so it was always funny when she stood next to Harcourt.
Win raised her head from her camera.“Can you float or hover or something?”
Mik looked up.“Harcourt?Manoeuvre twenty-two?”
He grinned and held his hand out.She sat on it, crossed her legs, and surrounded herself with energy.There was a hum in the air, and she put her hands on her knees and looked at the camera.
Win snapped away.“What are you thinking?”
“Choose your fighter.”
Win chuckled.“Can you stand up?”
Harcourt reached to help her, and she straightened while on his hand, went up on the toe of her boot, and stood in a meditative pose with one leg bent.
There was a tremendous cheer from the watchers, and Myro sighed.“We need to get to a panel on equal treatment in the games.”
Harcourt lifted her to get some momentum, and she bounced lightly to the floor, landing on her tiptoes.
Enthusiastic applause greeted her, and the characters lined up and followed Myro to the panel room.
