Valerie Stride

Valerie Stride
Pronouns	she/her
Occupation	Ranked Coach, Champion of the League

Valerie Stride is a major NPC in Beastieball. She is the current, 7-time reigning champion of the Beastieball League, and coaches the Radical Queens. If she wins this season, her 8th Crown Series win would mark a new world record.

Appearance

Valerie Stride wears an white outfit with black stripes reminiscent of a martial arts uniform, the top of which has one black sleeve, and under which are a dark grey shirt and leggings. She has a matching white headband with a black crown emblem on it, and fingerless gloves.

She has dark skin, thick eyebrows, and large, fluffy brown hair.

Personality

Stride acts reasonably self-assured as the champion of the League, and a little bit cocky. She is dismissive, both towards the up-and-coming player and towards the #3 ranked Barnes McBride, but does not seem to have any contempt for them.

Stride highly values success and seeks to prove herself as ‘the best.’ She has a near single-minded determination to this end, working and training harder than anyone else in the League to truly become the best. She acts extremely defensive and almost afraid when she realizes the Sports King is trying to set her up to fail, right at the cusp of her setting a world record success streak in the history of Beastieball.

Story

Stride is first mentioned by name by the Sports King after the player’s third Ranked victory. He introduces her as the 7-time reigning champion, saying that if the player could beat her in the Crown Series, he’d cancel the stadium project in Rutile.

The player doesn’t meet Stride face-to-face, however, until they and Riley meet Stride in an interview featuring Stride and the player. The interviewer mentions that she is one championship away from setting a new world record, and asks if a dark horse like the player could factor into that. She is dismissive towards the player, saying that she hasn’t kept up with what’s “new” or “hype” for fans in a long time, as they’re all simply waiting on her downfall, and that she only focuses on the top.

The player and Riley can spectate a match between Stride and McBride. McBride remarks that everyone’s tired of Stride, and he can’t wait to be the one to beat her. Stride dismisses his flair, and quickly shuts him down in Beastieball.

After the player's fifth Ranked victory, they and Riley are visited by Stride. She tells them that the King told her about his plans for her and the player to face off. She then tells them to give up now, since their plan would fail anyway. She says she knows the King is trying to use them to take her down, and that she won't allow that to happen.

The player meets Stride in the Beastieball Academy, learning that she was a student of Callisto’s. Callisto notes that Stride is not fond of the player. Before their Ranked match with Callisto, Stride visits the player again in the locker room, reminding them again to back off.

The player later finds Stride in a match with Dominic, catching it just as it ends. Despite Stride only bringing 2 Beasties, Dominic is losing heavily, and Stride wins seemingly effortlessly. After the match, Stride notices the player in the audience. She confronts them once more, expressing how the King doesn’t understand Beastieball, and by setting you up to face her he’s making a joke of the League, and by proxy all her accomplishments. She resolves again to well and truly prove herself the best, and leave her mark on the world.

The Crown Series

SPOILER WARNING This section contains endgame spoilers for Beastieball! Consider yourself warned.

The player faces Stride in the finals of the Crown Series, after defeating the Midnight Machines. However, much to both contestants’ chagrin, the King introduces a new ruleset for Beastieball - HYPE mode. Beasties being at the net builds HYPE, which increases damage. Stride and the player play, but neither are satisfied. One of them attempts to forfeit the match. This causes the King to melt down, and the HYPE meter to expand infinitely.

As other Ranked Coaches come in, each speaking up against the League and building HYPE, Valerie also speaks up, saying that whatever this is sucked, and wasn’t real Beastieball, building immense HYPE.

After the match, Stride reflects that this was all a waste of her time.

Post-Crown Series

After the Crown Series, the player can find Valerie in the Rutile Nature Preserve. She remarks that she was so laser-focused on proving herself through her 8th championship victory that she barely even remembered what happened that day. She did remember one thing, though - the player was actually pretty fun to play against. She offers the player one more match: a real one this time.

After the match, Valerie says that she’s not sure what she’s gonna do now that the League is under heavy reworking. She’d been relying on it as her main measure of her own success, and now she’s not sure what to do with herself.

Valerie comes back and is available for rematches every weekend.