r/whowouldwin • u/TheAsianIsGamin • Jul 19 '25
Event Character Scramble Season 20 Round 0: Eden Prime
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!
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.
Join the Character Scramble Discord!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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u/Ragnarust Aug 10 '25 edited 28d ago
"You know that's not what I meant, Erika." Poison Ivy looked Buggy up and down. Was she checking him out? She was probably checking him out. Buggy winked. Poison Ivy rolled her eyes.
"I understand your concern," said Erika. "But trust me, they really are no cause for concern. I brought them along because they were convenient! It won't affect anything."
Ivy was still incredulous but acquiesced. "Alright, fine." She held out a hand. A tree branch leaned down and handed her a manilla folder. "Here. Your next batch of info."
"Thank you~" said Erika. But before she could take it, Ivy pulled back.
"Not so fast. Your end of the bargain."
"I was going to give it to you! Jeez, you're so untrusting. Though I suppose you have to be if you're going to act as a spy." Erika took off her pirate hat revealing a Devil Fruit (when did she put that there?). Devil Fruits were key parts of the Hellbound’s life-cycle. They contained the souls and abilities of those who died while in Hell. If consumed, the souls have to compete for control of the body. Buggy himself ate a Devil Fruit years ago, which gave him the ability to split apart. The battle for his soul essentially amounted to a bad cold, though.
"Here you go,” said Erika. “The Henry Kissinger Fruit."
Buggy blinked. "Henry Kissinger?”
"You see Buggy, the Secretary of Agriculture is one of the most powerful positions in the Chthonic Cabinet. They can commune with any plant in Hell, and know the location of any Devil Fruit… so long as it is still attached to a tree." Erika tossed the Henry Kissinger fruit in her palm. "She has yet to announce it, but Poison Ivy wants to run for president herself, so she's been collecting Devil Fruits on the sly to make her own Cabinet."
"...But why do you have the Henry Kissinger fruit?"
"Because he's valuable," said Erika. "Any demonic leader worth their salt would kill to have Kissinger in their cabinet. And I just so happened to grab it before she could. So now, we can make a trade! Isn't that great?"
Erika and Ivy switched their respective bargaining chips at the same time before stepping back. Poison Ivy rolled the fruit around in her palm.
"Yep, that's the real deal, alright," she said.
Erika opened up the folder. "And this isn't! I asked for dirt on Michael Wilson!" She turned the folder around and showed a single piece of printer paper with PRANKED printed on it. "What is the meaning of this?"
Poison Ivy snapped her fingers. Roots and vines coiled around Erika and Buggy's ankles and held them up.
"I don't like the way you do things, Erika," said Poison Ivy. "Politics are messy, but you're too much even for me."
"Do you hear yourself?" said Erika Furudo. "You are literally holding Henry Kissinger right now!"
"The irony's not lost on me," said Poison Ivy. "It's been a nice partnership, but it's run its course. You were gonna turn on me eventually, after all. I just acted first."
"I would never betray you, Ivy!" said Erika.
"Say that in red?"
"..."
"We're done here," said Ivy. Carnivorous plants erupted from the ground and the screams of boys pierced through the forest. Buggy popped his head off and turned it 180 degrees to see a horde of plants tearing his crew apart. "Shit," said Buggy. He detached himself from his ankle and fell back to the ground. This was the worst day of his life, and he had spent a very significant portion of that life not even technically alive, being in Hell and all.
"BUGGYYYYYYY" said Erika. "POISON IVY BETRAYED MEEEEE! SAVE ME, YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN!"
"Screw that, I'm getting outta here!"
"But Buggy! If I die, something REALLY, REALLY TERRIBLE will happen! To YOU!"
The visage of the Virgin Mary and the words "What Would Jesus Do?" flashed in Buggy's mind. He turned back to his boys.
"Save Erika!" his boys said. "Get her endorsement! We believe in you Buggy! You need to become president!
Tears streamed down Buggy's face. "I promise you, when I become president, the first thing I'll do is have my Secretary of Agriculture harvest you all back to life!"
"Thank you Buggy! You're so generoAAAAAAGHaaaaaaaa," said Buggy's boys as roots tightened around their bones and ground them into dust before ripping them limb from limb in a shower of blood. Buggy contemplated ending his own life then and there, but realized that doing so would just turn him into a tree.
"She must have some dirt on you too if you're staying behind," said Poison Ivy. Thorned tendrils crept closer and closer. "Look. You're not going to win the election anyway. Go home, clown."
"Don’t listen to her Buggy! You can still win! You can still be president! If you save me I’ll endorse you!!"
Buggy detached his pointer fingers and rubbed them against his temples. This sucked. This sucked so much. Think, Buggy, think! He was stuck in a forest fighting a woman who controlled plants. His crew was dead. His foot itched really badly, but it was still caught in the vines. Was there nothing he could do? If only he had access to his ship…
Well. He supposed he could have access to his ship. He just needed some more time.
He put his hands behind his back. "An endorsement, huh… that's a pretty good offer… what say you, Ivy?"
He subtly popped his arms off his torso. They scurried into the forest.
"I mean. If you try to fight me, I'll just kill you."
Buggy stared her down. His arms kept scurrying. They bumped into a tree. "Will you now?"
Ivy gestured to the killer forest around her. "Yeah."
"Well, what if I killed you?" Scurry scurry scurry.
"He can," said Erika. "Killing you is within Buggy “the Clown's” capabilities."
Buggy shot a glance at Erika, surprised. Erika seemed surprised too.
"I can?" he said. "Uh, I can! Yes. Yes, this match is even, right now! So what could you offer me in exchange for walking away?" It was at this point that his arms fell to the ground, outside of his radius of control. He took a few steps back. "Like this. This is what me walking away would look like."
Ivy stepped forward, dragging Erika through dirt as she went along.
"Pweh, pweh!" said Erika. Tears streamed down her face. "There's dirt in my mouth! Pweh, pweh!" Buggy saw no reason to stop moving.
"In addition to letting you live," she said, carefully considering her words. "...I'll consider a cabinet position."
"Secretary of State?
"Taken by Kissinger."
"Treasury?" Buggy said. He stumbled over a root but quickly righted himself and kept moving.
"Not a chance."
Buggy winced, in part because he couldn't steal from the treasury, but mostly because his hands had just reached his ship and he got a splinter.
"Secretary of Transportation," said Buggy.
Poison Ivy considered this. “That’s a pretty big ask.”
“So is asking me to reject an endorsement from Erika Furudo,” said Buggy.
Poison Ivy rolled her head back and forth. “Fine. Secretary of Transportation.”
“Shake on it?”
Poison Ivy held out her hand. Buggy the Clown held out his shoulder and nothing else because there was nothing else.
“Is this some kind of prank?” said Poison Ivy. “Some kind of clown thing?”
Buggy grinned, for yes, it was a prank, a kind of clown thing. Little did she know that he had loaded up the ship’s cannon with a Special Buggy Ball. This prized munition, the pièce de résistance of the Buggy Pirates’ armory, was powerful enough to blow a hole straight through a city block. And Poison Ivy, fool that she was, had allowed him to load it up!
Buggy let out a low chuckle that slowly built to hysterical laughter. “AHAHAHA! You’re in for it now! As if I would surrender my candidacy that easily! Eat this! My Special Buggy Ball!”
Buggy lit the match, and the cannon fired. Dozens of tons of concentrated explosive power rocketed over the shoreline and through the jungle. Buggy ducked down and waited for Poison Ivy to be blown to smithereens.
The Buggy Ball went wide. It smashed through tree after tree after tree. A hail of splinters nearly skewered Poison Ivy, but close only counted in horseshoes and hand-grenades, not Buggy Balls. Buggy and Erika Furudo stared agape at the tunnel bored through the treeline.
Poison Ivy cracked her knuckles.
“BUGGY YOU BIG-NOSED BUFFOON,” said Erika Furudo. “YOU’VE DOOMED US BOTH!”
“LEAVE MY NOSE OUT OF THIS!” said Buggy.
A flurry of killer foliage assailed Buggy. Razor sharp leaves slashed into him and chopped him into tiny bits, which he didn’t really mind. But when the blades of grass stabbed up into needles and the venus flytraps snapped and the rafflesias assaulted his PERFECTLY NORMAL nose with an absolutely wretched scent, he got a bit worried. Though he weaved every piece of his disembodied body through the deadly forest, he couldn’t keep it up for long. The smell in particular was doing a real number on him. He didn’t know what was like to throw up when his stomach and mouth were in different places and he really didn’t want to learn. He darted his eyes around in search of a way out, but found nothing useful. He did see something weird, though.
“Time out, time out!” Buggy said. Poison Ivy did not relent, but Buggy kept talking. “That tree behind you is bleeding!”
“It’s sap, you moron,” said Poison Ivy.
“No, that’s definitely blood!”
Poison Ivy, against her better judgment, glanced back. For once, Buggy hadn’t lied.
Blood seeped from the punctured trees, flowing like lava from the splintered wood. Smoke rose and tinder crackled as flame lapped at the trunk. It scrambled up the tree and fanned out, spread from tree to tree, until the entire forest was ablaze. A crimson glow cast itself over the dark jade forest. The blood congealed and blackened into an unholy sludge. It steadily rose and slowly fell. It was breathing. Buggy collected himself physically, but was unable to do so mentally, as he was scared to the point of nearly straight up shitting himself.