"Ah, jest shaddup up, already," muttered Lilly Lop as she ran the polishing cloth back and forth over one of her thigh-mounted jet implants. It was bad enough to have butterflies in the stomach about what was going to happen next, but the announcer's obnoxiously cheerful and clearly-scripted banter was not helping in the slightest. There were days when she wanted to leap up to the booth, punch through the glass and slap the man so hard his eyes swapped places in their sockets, just to shut him up for five seconds. It would certainly give the crowd something to cheer about that wasn't this complete Mad Max shit-show, at least.
Lifting off the cloth, she bent down a little to check her handiwork. Much to her relief, the shell of the implant was now sparkling. Carbon-fibre, titanium and kevlar alloys had a way of doing that if you kept it up for long enough, and what's more, it had to if their owner was going to stay in the spotlight this year. The competition was getting as fierce as it was outlandish - India's Agent Peacock was currently wowing the crowds with his gaudy outfits and current winning streak, and there was pressure from Lilly's sponsors to try and be as flashy in order to compete with him. She had socked the spokesperson for daring to suggest that, but she knew that he had a point and that she seriously needed to step up her game.
Even as she contemplated this, a green light came on in the wall by her head, startling her for a moment.
"Lilly Lop, it's your cure," droned the bored voice from the speaker, before clicking off. Ah, Norman. At least there was somebody here who resented this complete idiocy as much as she did. Not really her type, though - she'd seen the scrawny, pimple-faced temp at his desk punching holes in timesheets and had immediately shut down. Even the sight of him induced a kind of dull, listless apathy, to the degree where it was almost like an infection and you had to wear a tissue over your mouth to avoid catching it.
Straightening up, Lilly permitted herself one last glance in the mirror. She still wasn't sure how to take it in - on the one hand, she was five-foot-four and proportioned like an athlete should be, with powerful legs and prominent abs being her talking points. On the other, the brown fur, paws, long ears and cotton tail above her rump brought back latent memories of hopping across grassy banks, nibbling flowers and perking the ears up for danger. And on the other hand belonging to this freakish mutant metaphor, the logo of the Masters Corporation gleamed gold against the scarlet metal of her arm, thigh and chest implants, the latter of which hummed contently as the plasma generator did it's work.
It was... a picture, to say the least.
And that was all the thought Lilly Lop gave to it, before turning and heading for the doors that lead to the arena.
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