r/whowouldwin • u/GuyOfEvil • Jan 26 '24
Event Character Scramble Season 18 Round 1B: Tempest Without, Crisis Within
This round covers matches 9-16 in the bracket which can be found Here, check to see if you're in before you write
Round 1B is finished and the thread is locked! Please use this form to vote. Voting ends 48 hours after it began, at midnight on the 22nd. You MUST vote if you are competing!
The Character Scramble is a long-running writing prompt tournament in which participants submit characters from fiction to a specified tier and guideline. After the submission period ends, the submitted characters are "scrambled" and randomly distributed to each writer, forming their team for the season. Writers will then be entered into a single-elimination bracket, where they write a story that features their team fighting against their opponent's team. Victors are decided based on reader votes; in other words, if you want people to vote for you, write some good content. The winner by votes of each match-up moves on to the next round. The pattern continues until only one participant remains: the new Character Scramble champion, who gets to choose the theme, tier, and rules of the next Scramble!
The theme of Character Scramble 18 is Secret Wars. Round prompts will be based on scenarios and setpieces from the original Secret Wars comic, as well as some other classic Marvel stories and scenarios, but will primarily be flavored by each participant being placed on one of two massive teams that will battle it out for supremacy.
Join the Character Scramble Discord!
Round 1B: Tempest Without, Crisis Within
Your team now finds themselves on Battleworld proper, and figures their first order of business is... What was that noise?!
It doesn't take much scouting to figure out the sound was from a lightning bolt which just split a mountain in half. A storm is coming, furious enough to tear a mortal man limb from limb in an instant. Its lightning is enough to split the world asunder, its wind mighty enough to move mountains. Even your powerful warriors would be brought low by its awesome fury. They had better make sure that doesn't happen.
Without much looking, you're able to find a shelter which might do. There's just one problem. Some other people found it too, and for reasons which may be physical, mental, spiritual, or economic, it just isn't big enough for the both of you. However you figure out who's going to get the shelter and who isn't, you'd better figure it out fast...
Because brother, it's starting to rain.
Round Rules:
All The Hurricanes On Earth For A Thousand Years Rolled Into One: There is a storm, and for one reason or another, your characters absolutely cannot be caught in it. Maybe it's like I describe in the prompt, a world rending storm to end all storms, or maybe they just got a perm and can't get it wet. Either way, your team had better not find themselves in it.
Far More Dangerous However, Is The Man Within: Whether your opponent is on your Superteam or not, whatever place you find to hunker down cannot have both you and them inside of it. Regardless of how you settle the disagreement, the round should end with them out, and you in.
Normal Rules:
The Third In A Twelve Part Crossover Series: Although the Guest Pool on the roster only includes unscrambled characters, you will, at all times, be allowed to write any characters in your pool as guests for the round, including characters on other people's teams. Full lists of characters on Team Secret and Team Wars can be found... on those links.
The Marvel Way: It's a comic book, the good guys always win out in the end, or if your team is the bad guys, they'll get to win out in the end, just this once. Even if your characters have only a small chance of victory, write that small chance happening!
In an All-New All-Different Costume: You are absolutely encouraged to write your characters gaining or losing equipment/abilities/injuries/sanity. However, your opponents are not expected to keep track of these in-story changes and vice versa.
Amazing! Astonishing! Uncanny!: Give a brief summary to introduce your characters at the start of your post. Be sure to mention things like powers, personality, history, just stuff that the average reader should know before reading.
Round 1B will run from 1/26/24 to 2/19/24. 11:59 CST.
Character limit is 5 full length Reddit comments, or 50k characters.
While it is fine to go a little bit over, anything that far surpasses this limit will be disqualified. This limit does not include intro posts, or analysis of the matchup.
3
u/Proletlariet Feb 04 '24 edited Feb 19 '24
As the grey tempest built and built all the world's sound and colour crumbled. Wherever the fell wind blew solid matter flecked like ash. People sheltered behind walls that grew thinner every second. Doom and the Captain's capes were in tatters. In the cockpit of Enkidu alarms blared nonstop. System failure after failure. The armour peeled, groaned, and finally with a "Pop" the front panel came loose and blew away.
But still Viral fought on.
He wasn't really thinking now. Not more than one word: 'Mine' and it was all bound up in Captain Underpants. Years of shame and guilt and dissatisfaction had found their home inside one man and Viral was going to tear it all out even if it killed him.
Judging by the burning of his skin as it too flaked apart, it really would.
Doom and Underpants were just standing there watching the storm and talking. Actually talking. As if there was anything to say to each other beyond a vow to kill.
"...you are certain you can stop it?"
"No. But I'm gonna try. Please make sure everyone stays clear."
They were ignoring him. "Combat Fodder." Fine. He was. But Doom was no better than him. People like Viral got the job done. People like Viral--
"DON'T YOU DARE TURN YOUR BACK ON ME!"
He brought his half-dissolved sword down right on his gleaming dome. He'd cleave him in half. It'd be over. One more mission under his belt.
Viral's sword froze.
Doom turned. Eyes enraged. Gauntlet glowing hot from the strain of his telekinetic grip.
"You have destroyed more of my city than he has, dog, and now he is our only hope to save it."
Viral was torn free of the cockpit.
"I have no use for a tool as crude as you. Perish."
The city swelled beneath him. He was flying. Up. Over the edge. And down. Down.
The mechanism that kept Heliopolis afloat generated a strong constant updraft. He was falling. But he'd keep falling. Possibly forever. Or at least until somebody fished him up.
There were worse things that could happen to him.
A shadow grew. Viral looked up and saw his own ravaged mech following him over the city's edge. Its bulk was much too great for the updraft and so it grew closer and closer.
It swallowed him into its gaping cockpit. And they fell together. Down into the waiting Nile.