r/whowouldwin • u/TheAsianIsGamin • 23d ago
Event Character Scramble Season 20 Round 1A: Lockdown
This round covers matches 1-3 in the bracket which can be found here. Please check to make sure what round you are in before you start to write.
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 1A: Lockdown
Smoke rises in great, billowing columns, from ruined farms and a pillaged skyline. It’s the only sign of what, until just now, had been a pitched battle that no one had expected. The immediate threat has been defeated, but your team knows they can’t rest easy.
With greater peril on the horizon, your team sets out to warn their allies and gather their strength. Sounding the alarm, however, is far easier said than done. It appears your enemy has slipped into the shadows—if, your associates point out, they truly exist at all.
While the important people work on verifying your reports, they’d like to invite you for some rest and relaxation. You refuse. They insist, and their intent suddenly becomes clear. Grounding, benching, stonewalling. Whatever you’d call it, and whatever reason they have for it, they don’t want you going back out there.
Round Rules:.
Grounded: A crash landing on a desolate planet, an attack by hostile forces, or good old-fashioned bureaucracy has left your team trapped. If you want to make any progress on your mission, you’ll have to find a way out of here.
More Trouble Than You’re Worth: Unfortunately, the enemy team really doesn’t want you to leave. You’ll need a plan: Fight, evade, or otherwise neutralize them to free yourselves from their clutches.
Just Punch Udina In The Face: We know you want to. Feel free to indulge in whatever scenes or choices you wanna write. There is no Paragon/Renegade choice for this round.
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 1A will run from Saturday, August 16th to Saturday, September 6th, 11:59pm US Eastern Time.
The character limit for this round 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.
2
u/galvanicmechamorph 2d ago
Welp, I didn't finish but here's what I have so far:
Poison Ivy woke up on the floor with a massive headache. She had no idea where she was. As her vision came back into focus she looked around. Everything was dingy and gray. She recognized the look well. She was in prison somewhere. Again. She was gonna kill Wilson when she found him.
Black Terror punched the wall again. He needed to get out of here. He was going crazy in his room. He woke up about an hour ago. He had no idea where he was. He just knew he needed to get out. So he punched the wall again, trying to make a dent.
“So, how are you doing today?” Athena asked her current captive. She was on a platform currently descending from the upper floor into the hangar.
Metal Wolf didn't respond. They had done this song and dance every day since the trio had been shipped to her prison. She would come in, ask him questions about who he was and what his team was doing attacking a United Planets base, and Metal Wolf would continue the strong and silent routine. Today would be different though. Today, she had a plan.
Athena snapped her fingers once her platform finished its descent. The two underlings riding with her shot up at attention and ran to get to work. They attached large metal plates to different sections of the mech. The feet, the thighs, the chest plate, the fingers. Then the two minions scurried back to Athena.
“I originally dismissed administering electric shocks, as the outside of the mech would act as a faraday shield and protect you from harm.” Athena said. “But seeing as we are moving into long-term accommodations for you, I have time for... slower methods.”
She pressed the button on the side of the platform rail she was holding on to. Suddenly, arcs of electricity bounced from the plates magnetically connected to the mech to other plates on other sections. They flickered in and out of view as they bounced from plate to plate.
“It won't shock you, but enough time like that should heat up the mech to the point where even your life support systems can't keep up,” Athena said. He flipped a switch and the platform started ascending again. “Ta ta.”
Poison Ivy clawed at the ground, right where it met the wall. People who made supermax prisons were always so overconfident. It was always “we've prepared for every contingency” and never “we're reasonably confident people won't break out.” And they always overlooked something. Security always had a one-size-fits-all approach. That was their failure. If they had actually adapted to Poison Ivy maybe they would have been successful, but instead they wanted to be the best at everything against everyone.
“Ah ha!” Ivy said in relief. She had made a small hole in the concrete and dirt was poking out. It wasn't much, but she didn't need much. She poked a nail into the soft soil and concentrated. She let The Green flow through her and out into the dirt. A small sprout grew from where her finger was. It slowly started to ascend upwards. It met the concrete and wiggled its way in between the cement. She pumped her fist in the air and smiled. Then she got up and walked to the wall.
“Hey, Terror. Terror. You there?” She whispered to her cellmate.
“What is it?” He said in a gruff voice.
“I found a way out,” Ivy said. “I'll need your help though. I don't think I can fight my way out on my own.”
“Alright, just tell me when and who to hit.” Terror said. “And Ivy?”
“Yeah?” She said.
“When we get out of here you get the first crack at Wilson. You've earned it.” He said. She just smiled.
Wilson needed to find a way out. Then tried blasting his way out of the cell when they first transferred him here, but there are magnetic locks that kept them from closing his fingers around the triggers. There were magnetic locks everywhere. He couldn't open the cockpit if he tried. Luckily the radio was working, and the mech was soundproofed. They couldn't hear him unless he wanted them to.
“Jody, are you there?” He said into his receiver.
“You're coming in loud and clear.” His secretary responded back. “What do you need?”
“Have the others woken up yet?” Wilson asked.
“I've hacked into the security cameras and yes. They're both up.” She said.
“Good, can you remote that made the rocket?” He asked.
“While they're in Metal Wolf? Sir, that would destroy much of the mech.” Jody said.
“Don't worry, I have a plan.” Wilson said.
Jody sent him a feed of Ivy and Terror. She had replaced it with one that looped so no one could notice Ivy’s plant growing and bursting through the wall. They didn't have a way to communicate though.
“Okay, I trust you,” Jody said. Wilson heard the clacking of keys for a moment. “I've wired the detonation to your console. Just press the button and it'll explode.”
“Alright,” Wilson said. He leaned to the left, pressing his entire body against the left side of the cockpit. He extended a single finger out and pressed the button.
Suddenly, a bunch of alarms went off. The plates attached to much of the mech were blown off of the chassis from the force of the explosion. The right arm of Metal Wolf almost fully disconnected, and there was a massive hole where the right shoulder was. Wilson quickly ran up, scaled the inside of the mech, and jumped out the shoulder. He disconnected the oversized handgun from the mech’s left arm and used it to shoot a hole in the wall. Then he ran deeper into the compound.
Terror could hear the alarms from the other side of the base.
“Shit,” he muttered. “Ivy, you almost done there?”
“I'll have to be,” She said.
She concentrated and focused on the plant she was growing. She closed her eyes and put her hands out in front of her. Suddenly it exploded in size. And violently grew and expanded through the wall. The entire wall, not just her cell but of the entire floor, started shaking. A moment later it all came crashing down. A hole was made not just in her cell wall but in each of the neighboring ones. She quickly ran.
On the other side of