Character Scramble Season 20 Round 0: Eden Prime

[u/TheAsianIsGamin]

To determine Roster Seeding, Round 0 writeups will be ranked from 1-5 by our esteemed panel of judges. Seeding scores will be determined by the judges’ averaged ranks of your stories, with higher ranks receiving higher seeds. All three judges will read all Round 0s.

Your Judges are: /u/TheAsianIsGamin, /u/Proletlariet, and /u/Talvasha

When judge voting goes up for this round, we'll have a WWW moderator lock the thread, preventing anyone from posting more. Make sure to get all of your writing done on time!

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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 20 is Scramble Effect. Round prompts will be based on the many worlds, missions, and memorable moments found throughout the Mass Effect series.

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Round 0: Eden Prime

Lightyears away from where any of its ancestors once roamed, a rooster crows. The sun turns the purple of dawn into a bright, beautiful azure, and from within the arcologies that dot the land, efficient with both energy and space, the people rise just as slowly. There’s much work to be done, out there on the fields, but mornings like this are worth enjoying. The skies are clear, the land is fertile, and all is quiet. It’s hardly the most exciting corner of the galaxy—and that’s just the way it’s supposed to be.

Until an unexpected discovery turns this once-sleepy idyll into a flashpoint. At first, your team thinks this is a simple mission: Recover whatever it is they found, and slip out to get it where it needs to be before anyone can make a fuss.

But the moment your team makes it onto the planet, a firefight breaks out with an unforeseen enemy. Soon, it becomes clear: Something important has been unearthed, and someone wants it. Badly enough to kill for it.

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Round Rules:.

• Galaxy Map: Hundreds of billions of stars, each with its own system of planets. Your round doesn’t have to take place on an agrarian colony—or even on a sci-fi planet at all. But a season like this is about discovery as much as anything else. Start to show your audience where you’ve brought us.

• Find the Beacon: Whether by being ordered to investigate it, or by chance, your team stumbles upon an object revealing something rather sinister. This object can be an artifact showing you visions, a murder weapon, written logs, a witness, or anything your story needs. But it has to be threatening—something your team never would have expected.

• Don’t Worry. I’ve Got it Under Control: A contact or ally that your team expects to help instead betrays you. This contact must come from one of the Class Role Adoption Pools other than the one you adopt from.

• The Price of Revenge: The traitor acts swiftly to take or destroy the object—without care for any bystanders or collateral damage. They set bombs, or a computer virus, or something else that would have disastrous effects for everybody around you. You must choose one of the following prompts:

  • Paragon: There are lives at stake, right here, right now—and besides, you’ve already seen the evidence yourself. The powers that be will just have to believe you. Let the traitor escape, lose the object, and save lives.
  • Renegade: Your newfound mission is too important. Hunt the traitor down, defeat them, and take the object back.

• We Could Use Your Help: Your team comes with two characters, but you must select your third from the unscrambled characters of the Class you do not currently have, listed in tables below the roster here.

Please include in a comment, either before or after your writeup, which character you are adopting, with a link to their signup post.

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Normal Rules:

• Stand Fast, Stand Strong, Stand Together: Nobody can take on a mission like this alone. You’ve got a team of the brightest, toughest, and deadliest allies a Scrambler can find—use them. We’d love to see your characters make full use of their wide-ranging abilities, both on their own and as a team.

• We Will Hold The Line: You know what’s at stake. Failure is not an option. Even if your characters have only a small chance of victory, write that small chance happening!

• Special Tactics and Reconnaissance: Saving the galaxy will take more than the same old tricks. You are allowed and encouraged to mix and match powers, and to develop your characters in any way you wish, both on the battlefield and off. However, your opponents are not expected to keep track of these in-story changes, and vice-versa.

• Every Life Is a Special Story of Its Own: Feel free to give a brief summary to introduce your characters at the start of your post. If you do, you should mention things like powers, personality, history, and anything else that the average reader should know before reading.

• Legendary Edition: Sometimes, Spectres have to go a little outside the lines in service of their mission. You’ll have the same latitude—as long as you go with the broad strokes of the prompts and the rules, you'll be fine.

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Round 0 will run from Saturday, July 19th to Saturday, August 9th, 11:59pm US Eastern Time.

The character limit for this round is 4 full length Reddit comments, or 40k 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.

[u/Elick320]

Samurai Jack

Famed hero known throughout the continent. Said to be from the past. Unmatched in combat. His sword is the bane of all evil.

[u/Elick320 → u/Elick320]

"I've heard of you," said Shadow, his voice in more of a jovial tone than before. "I've always wondered how much power you really hold."

"I have no quarrel with any of you." He said with unmatched calmness, as he opened his eyes. "I am here for the building you stand behind."

"Hmph. Of course," said Shadow.

A moment of silence.

"... You are aware of what is inside, yes?" he looked between the group. "Any of you?"

"What a stupid question, of course I am," said Shadow.

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Then what is it?"

The three spoke in unison.

"A weapon," said Shadow.

"A means to an end." said Squall.

"... Rocket." said Kumoko.

"Hm." said Jack. "I believe you are all correct." He walked past the group and they all tracked him. "Inside this bunker is a weapon so powerful, it has the potential to end this war right now."

"Yeah," said Shadow. "That's why we're here, obviously."

"But... it also has the power to cause great devastation."

Kumoko looked down and to her side with her human head, but her spider head looked with a concerned expression.

"Before we continue, I must ask one more question," said Jack. He held his palm open near the hilt of his blade. "Do you all stand against the Nameless?"

Shadow scoffed. "I don't support weaklings." He clenched his fist. "The Nameless fight me and lose, over and over. They are the dictionary definition of weak!"

Jack turned to Squall.

"My mission is to defeat the Nameless. I was given this mission by a rebellion cell leader, and even after her death, it is my job as a mercenary to see it through."

Jack turned to Kumoko.

She... Didn't answer. She stayed silent and stared at Jack.

He sighed. "I can see now where we all stand. We may have different motivations, but we all have the same goal." He stared off into the dark, starry horizon. "The Nameless have destroyed much of this land. We cannot let them continue their colonization, and that starts with gaining control over this weapon."

Shadow nodded. "Then we at least agree on that."

"I expect heavy resistance from Nameless soldiers within the weapon's chamber." Jack gripped his sword, but it remained in the sheath. "I don't—"

"Empty."

Eyes turned to Kumoko. Her gaze shifted slowly in between everyone before centering on Jack.

"It is empty..."

"Empty?" asked Jack. "But that doesn't make sense. A weapon this important must be guarded! Right?"

Kumoko said nothing. Shadow scoffed. "Maybe they all got scared of my power and left."

"Unlikely," said Squall. Shadow stared at him slightly incredulously. Squall walked past the group, threw open the bunker door, and continued forward.

Inside the bunker was still pristine. Nameless facilities were always spotless and futuristic, but in most circumstances were destroyed before entry. Their culture was almost entirely inscrutable, but it seemed they really didn't like the idea of other people getting their technology. So common practice was to scuttle all facilities upon loss. Squall himself was used to this, as he had personally cleared out several entire facilities himself, and even seen some Nameless researchers (They also wore opaque metallic masks. Why?) press the buttons to activate self destruction procedures.

Squall wondered why they would have such fervor to such an irrational goal. The irony was lost on him.

Kumoko scuttled off to the side and interacted with a panel. A glowing yellow circle materialized above the input mechanism, it clicked softly, and the door opened with hiss of air and a gust of steam. She looked at the group and pointed into it with her scythe. "Weapon."

The group entered the room, all with their guard up. None of them knew Kumoko's magic was 100% foolproof, and she rolled her eyes at their inability to conduct magic. In front of a massive glass wall sat a Nameless console, complete with flashing lights, unlabeled buttons, and instructions in an untranslatable language. Behind it...

A rocket.

All four knew what a rocket was, and all four could identify what was on top of it. They all came from cultures that had different symbols to represent the Silent Death. Spots around the world were known to harbor a hostile atmosphere caused by either magical rocks, or unstable chemical isotopes. Jack and Squall saw them as magic. Kumoko and Shadow saw them as science. Their differential upbringings still told them the same thing: weapons that utilized the Silent Death could inflict innumerable destruction onto any target. The Nameless had already deployed four such rockets onto the largest cities on this continent. What few survivors remained exited the ruins of their cities malformed in both body and soul. As if their very idea of existence was attacked.

Jack sheathed his sword.

"We must destroy it." He looked down. "A weapon such as this has no right existing. It has already claimed the lives of millions, and we would be no better than the Nameless if we were to use it."

Jack's pleas fell on deaf ears. He opened his eyes to see his new allies working with ruthless efficiency to perform barbarous acts just as the Nameless did. Squall took out a tablet and connected a cable to the console. Kumoko turned around and spread her arms out. A floating magical interface showed a top-down map of the entire continent, with labeling in an unreadable language, but the meaning got through anyway. She was picking detonation locations. Shadow teleported to the rocket, disconnected a series of cables in rapid succession, teleported back to the control room, and gave a nod to Squall, who nodded back. The console lit up fully.

"What?!" exclaimed Jack. "No! This is wrong!"

"Not using this weapon would be wasted effort," said Shadow. "We came this far already."

"The hedgehog is right," said Squall. "This will accelerate the mission of ending the Nameless." Kumoko picked a point on her holographic projection, collapsed it, and threw it towards Squall's tablet with an offhand motion. She turned and joined back with the group, and Squall stared at her work. "Launch coordinates," she said.

Jack clenched his firsts. "Just where do you plan to deploy such a weapon?"

"City," said Kumoko. "North. Nameless bases. Dockyard."

"There are countless manufacturing plants there! What about the innocent people!"

Kumoko stopped. She stared at Jack for a few seconds. She opened her mouth, but it took a bit of time for words to come out. "... Acceptable number."

Jack slowly moved his hand to grip his sword. The air in the control room was already tense. Four revolutionaries with differing ideas came to head with each other, and only one wouldn't align. The moment Jack grasped for his sword, the attention was no longer on the Silent Death, but instead on a closer, perhaps more lethal threat.

Samurai Jack wasn't some nobody or person ascribed to vague actions of good. Those who were rescued by Kumoko, Squall, or Shadow, rarely met with their heroes. These revolutionaries left as soon as their "job" was complete, and didn't stick around long enough to make pleasantries.

He was a hero. Samurai Jack's name was known in hushed whispers around the entire continent. Nameless soldiers were fearless, but hesitated around his name. And the kicker? Samurai Jack never killed a single person. No civilians nor Nameless would fall to the edge of his blade, as the glistening steel remained free of bloodstains.

"This sword is for cleansing the evils of this world," said Jack. "You are all saviors of this land. You are not evil. Your actions are clouded because your minds are clouded."

"You dare make assumptions of what I'm thinking?" said Shadow.

Squall stared, but said nothing.

Kunoko narrowed her eyes and dug her scythe into the ground. A black rot spread from the blade to the ground in a pixelated pattern. Jack recognized this as a wordless attempt at intimidation, and refused to waver.

"I do not make assumptions. I merely state that which you cannot identify."

"If you fight evil, you'd kill Nameless," said Squall. He turned to him and kept his hand on the hilt of his gunblade. Its holster shook with his movement.

"Those who live a life of choice, cannot be evil."

"... What?" asked Shadow.

"We are the products of our upbringing," Jack continued. "I have witnessed the darkest souls turn towards the light. Nameless defectors, rulers of the old world, mercenaries, bandits, pirates. Once enemies of the continent who'd behead someone for looking at them wrong, are now willing to lay down their lives for their communities."

He looked up at the group.

"This is what separates us from the truly evil. We can recognize our actions from a new perspective, and become better. I will never draw blood with this blade, until I meet one truly unredeemable. And through my decades wandering this land. This has not once been the case."

"Leader."

Eyes turned to Kumoko, she was staring at Jack.

"Nameless leader," she continued. "He is unredeemable."

"Though the spare reports seem to corroborate such a claim, I will not know until I meet him myself."

"Then go." Kumoko raised her hand and projected a large magical screen. It showed the continental landmass they were on zoomed out, and a smaller island chain extremely far out. An indicator showed a marker in this location. "He is there. Can give coordinates." She collapsed the screen and turned back. "Then you can leave. Fight true evil." She looked off to the side. "Let us fight this one."

"No."

Kumoko glared. "Illogical."

"I will not spend my time attacking someone in another land, when there are innocents to save in this one." He looked in between the three. "This is what separates me from your group. You fight because you feel compelled—"

He looked at Shadow. "—Whether it's to reclaim a distant memory—"

He looked at Squall. "—To complete a nebulous mission—"

He looked at Kumoko. "—or to remember what you once were."

[u/Elick320 → u/Elick320]

Samurai Jack spoke with unshakable will. "I know each of you. Shadow the Hedgehog. Squall the Mercenary. Shiro the Spider."

Kumoko gasped. She hadn't heard that name in... It must have been years. Before her arrival but after her corruption. It led her to see a moment of clarity, but not for long enough to matter.

"I will not allow you to deploy this weapon," said Jack. "I will not allow heroes of this continent to bring themselves as low as their adversaries. You will all leave this bunker, and I will dispose of this core of Silent Death within that device. If you don't..." Jack waited a moment. "I will be forced to subdue you."

Shadow crossed his arms. "Hmph. Three against one?"

Samurai Jack said nothing. His face sat obscured by the shadow of his straw hat. His hand stayed on the black and white embroidered hilt of his blade. The dark sheath remained completely motionless, as if Jack himself wasn't even breathing.

Shadow held his arms in a combat pose, white gloves at the ready to dismember Jack as he stood there. But something ran through his mind, a new emotion. In those moments of motionlessness, Shadow gained a heightened sense of what was happening to his body. Moisture built up on his hands, the metal on his golden inhibitor rings glistened. Small pinprick feelings of wetness traveled under his fur.

Shadow was sweating. He was afraid.

Shadow had never felt fear before, aside from... Maria. That name. Always a distant memory of his failure and fear. Jack gave him the same feeling as those soldiers did. It awakened a certain kind of primal rage, like Shadow was backed into a corner and could only make one choice.

Squall analyzed Jack. Countless routes to victory ran through his head. He went over the Gods he could call upon, the attacks he could make, the magic in his arsenal, the combat strategies hammered into him by years in school. They taught him to use everything in his arsenal.

It had come to that, finally. The Nameless weren't a challenge, but Squall wasn't like these other two. He knew just who Samurai Jack really was.

And his confidence was wavering.

Ifirit into engaging in close combat—gunblade with magic into GF—Thunderbird with water attack then—demon—

Nothing. Squall had nothing. He was afraid that when the time came, he'd have to attack with nothing but his gut.

Kumoko didn't know.

She wasn't like Squall. There was no conflict on what the right move here was. Her Corrosion attribute could decay anything in existence. She'd restrain Jack with webs and kill him with Corrosion. Simple to apply and effective to execute.

... But was that the right choice?

Pieces of her humanity were desperately trying to break through, desperately attempting to tell her that attacking Jack at all was a bad idea, the outcome of the action didn't matter, nor did the attack vector. The morality was seeping into her brain. She was human once. She was sure of it. Before she was a spider, before she was the incarnation of death, before she was Arachne, Kumoko, or Shiro...

Samurai Jack was a hero. She was a hero. Heroes shouldn't fight each other.

... Was she making the right choice?

The atmosphere in the room grew as if there had been a multi-ton block of tungsten dropped onto each of the four. Sweat grew, minds wandered, their standoff silenced the subtle beeping of the room and blocked the slowly rotating alarm light from the launch chamber. Rot extended out from Kumoko's scythe. The floor beneath cracked ever so slightly every few seconds. Squall feathered the holster of his gunblade. He was anxious. Waiting. Shadow considered within his mind just how far he'd be willing to go to win.

Jack stood at the ready. Legs straight, right hand on his blade as it sat within his sheath. Tension built, stakes rose, everyone held their actions in preparation for someone to make the opening move. Despite the violence not even starting yet, the group was locked in combat. Jack, of course, had done this before. Jack trained under every culture in the world to defeat an ancient evil.

He had the weight of humanity placed on him from the moment he could perceive the world.

He knew what he stood for, and he knew what he needed to do.

Samurai Jack pushed his thumb against the rim of his hilt.

The metal glistened a red flash against the rotating light just once.

Shadow rushed forward into a wild jab at Jack's stomach but he lifted his sword out of his sheath at just the right moment to push the hilt into Shadow's head and disorient him for the half second needed to push him away just as Squall leveled his gunblade to Jack's head and fired a shot which Jack split into two slivers that went wide then closed the distance and brought up his sword—

Jack cut Squall's gunblade in half. The ornate metal pattern was now broken in two, with one end floating into the air in defiance of gravity. Squall's expression shifted from its near-permanent seriousness to loss and fear. He had been with that Gunblade for this entire campaign, it was important to him and he didn't even know until now. Squall caught himself focusing on the broken extension of himself rather than the Samurai.

—Jack brought his other hand up and punched Squall in the face and then curled his fist around his blade and punched him in the torso at which point Shadow teleported behind Jack but Jack had fought teleporters both magical and technological for the last decade so he was prepared to throw back the hilt of his sword—

Shadow felt physical pain for the first time, and emotional pain coincided with that new emotion. He was used to being on top of everything. Since the day he lost Maria, Shadow hadn't struggled a day in his life. He was melded with Chaos energy, he knew that now. It was a mysterious power exhibited by even more mysterious gemstones that made him him. With it, he was unbeatable by even the most powerful Nameless. Samurai Jack had just humbled him physically and emotionally by curving his hubris and shoving the hilt of his sword into Shadow hard enough for Shadow to realize that, like the mortals he spent time unintentionally protecting, he too could feel pain and loss.

—Jack reached back to grab Shadow and physically slammed him into Squall incapacitating them both and then Kumoko's webs shot up from the ground so he sliced them several times in a blink of an eye then closed the distance and brought up his blade to block the incoming scythe attack the moment Kumoko even thought of doing it—

Kumoko's corrosion skill was unbeatable. It was a skill that existed outside of the confines of this game that disintegrated everything it came into contact with. And Jack just blocked it. He fucking blocked it. That was impossible. Impossible. Kumoko gasped as he stared at the glistening steel sword not even so much as reacting to the rot spreading from the end of her scythe. She didn't have any actions beyond this point. She wasn't thinking anymore. This was the first time her subconscious had been brought back not by emotional turmoil, but by a more primal desire. And desire to say how much of a fucking stupid game this was.

—Jack curved his sword and flung the scythe out of Kumoko's hands and cut across her body time after time after time again fully aware that Kumoko could regenerate from it easily and doing such a thing was simply delaying her which was in line with his goals so he could now—

Jack stopped. He stood with his back to three barely conscious bodies just as he stood in the beginning of the fight. He slowly brought his blade up to the sheath, and pushed it in. The sound of his sword scraping against the sheathe filled the room and dulled out the console as the tension once did.

His sword clicked, and the metal disappeared past the embroidered fabric. He stood up straight, and sighed.

"I wish one day to meet you again. Squall, Shiro, and Shadow. In a place where we may fight as allies."

He looked back at them.

"I must dispose of this weapon, now."

He turned around and continued walking.

"You will find yourself regretful of who you once were, and you must identify this as strength, and not weakness. When you do, find me."

With that, Jack left towards the launch chamber.

In his final moments, Squall thought of his mission, and why he was even here.

In his final moments, Shadow thought of Maria, and his past.

In her final moments, Shiro thought of her lost humanity.

These were, of course, incomplete thoughts hazed in anger, ego, and fear. Samurai Jack disposed of all of them, at the same time, near effortlessly. It would take time and effort to grow past who they once were.

And Jack counted on that. He counted on them finding who they really were.

But the city of Nara burned.

[u/Elick320 → u/Elick320]

SILK, STEEL, & DARKNESS

Three conflicted revolutionaries with extreme power attempt to reconcile with their past, and try to forge a new future. Though their hubris has been curbed, they still seek one goal above any others. To reclaim their lost pride. To reclaim who they once were.

They were to hunt down Samurai Jack.