r/whowouldwin Oct 15 '16

Special Character Scramble VI: SCRAMBLEMANIA CHAMPIONSHIP! FreestyleKneepad vs. SanityMeter for the belt!

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Ladies and Gentleman, this match is scheduled for one fall! Tonight, at Scramblemania, we have a match that’s been six months in the making. All the way back in April, these scramblers joined the competition hoping to make a name for themselves, and now, finally, they’re facing off against each other for the grand prize. The Championship belt, and an ultimate wish that can grant them anything they desire. Now, without further ado, take a look at your challengers!

In this corner, we have Team Ontological Crisis, composed of the T-1000, Larxene, Kumonga, and their manager, Bonesaw! They hail from the winner’s bracket, where they faced a cast of tough challengers to reach the top! They fought for a time machine in a parking lot, participated in an extreme rules match, defended a tower for a popular businessman, dealt with a round from another scramble, went into the very core of the scramble itself, and finally, participated in a royal rumble match, dealing with 26 other wrestlers at once! After dealing with all these challenges, they secured their spot in the main event of Scramblemania! Will they be able to keep their winning streak going? Let’s look at our next challenger!

And in this corner, we have Team Youth Gone Wild, composed of Danny Phantom, Yellow, their manager Hermes, and their cheerleader Panty Anarchy! They also came from the winner’s bracket, but after failing to infiltrate the tower of our businessman, they were sent all the way to the loser’s bracket. They’ve known the taste of defeat, but even worse, they had to deal with an insane gauntlet by our lovely co-host! This included a deadly gameshow, a “fuck it” week, that one weird round where everyone got stands based on wrestlers, an impromptu fight on a plane on the way to Tokyo, that one round that referenced Paper Mario, an Iron Man match, and at the very end of their journey, they had to do an elimination chamber match against the very team who forced them into loser’s bracket! In this whole scramble, they’ve been the top underdog! Will they make the ultimate comeback victory? Or will they be another stepping stone on the path to the other team’s ultimate domination? Find out… only at Scramblemania!


The day both teams have anticipated has finally arrived. A package arrives to them with an assortment of files, a video camera, and instructions. As the manager looks through everything, he notices that the files are those of their opponents, detailing literally anything you’d want to know about them. Strengths, weaknesses, personalities, favorite ice cream flavor, the files don’t skip on details. They also came with a DVD showing off all of their fights, allowing the teams to get a feel for how they fight. The camera puzzles the team, until they read the note that came with everything.

“Congrats on making it this far. You’re the best of the best, but there’s still one obstacle in your way before you can truly be champions. That obstacle is outlined in the files provided to you. Of course, we can’t have a final battle without a hype video to play during the commercial breaks! So, everything you film on this camera will be edited down to provide the hypest promo video possible. As for the match itself, it’s scheduled three weeks from now. Be sure to use that time to prepare yourself properly. What you do during that time is up to you.”

And with that, the teams get to work. The three weeks that have to prepare go by fast, as they spend as much time as they possibly can researching, acting, and training for the big day. It’s almost hard for them to believe that after all this time, their journey would finally be coming to an end. But time passes as it always does, and the three weeks finally pass. As the big day is upon them, both teams find themselves in the arena backstage, waiting for their cue to go on stage. The crowds cheers are deafening, but when they finally step out to do their entrance, the sight before them is stunning.

It seems as if the Scramble spared no expense when it came to their grand finale. The arena is huge, and all the seats are packed with millions of viewers from all around the multiverse. As they make their way down the ramp, the screams and cheers of the crowd are nearly deafening. Once they’re in the ring, they lock eyes with their opponents and get ready for the match of their life.

The referee explains the rules to them. It’s the same usual rules, manager stays ringside, no disqualification, the way to win is to pin, knock out, or make your opponent tap. Right as the fight is about to begin though, the referee points at the sky above them. It’s the the wrestler’s surprise when a giant steel cage descends from the sky and traps them inside! Yes, the fated finale match is none other than a Hell in the Cell match!

The bell rings, and the match starts as normal. Fists are exchanged, powers start flying, and soon, a few combatants find a way to escape the ring. A small scuffle ensues outside the ring, but before anyone can get eliminated, the true villain of this scramble shows up. Letter, now with full control over the power of Missingno/The Other, shows up at the top of the cell showing off his newfound powers.

“Sorry to ruin the show, but you really think I was gone for good? No, I was simply waiting. Biding my time until I could control my powers. Now, the audience better direct their attention to the titantron, because this fight’s going places!” With a sick pose, Letter surrounded the fighters and the cell with a dark aura. With a snap of his fingers, they all disappeared from the arena, right before the audience's eyes.

When they awaken, they find things a bit disorienting. That’s because Letter has changed the arena that they were fighting on to that of a past scramble round! The teams find themselves inside of a giant space station without gravity, still surrounded by the steel cage. It is at that point when he reappears to explain.

“With these powers, I felt like I could spice up the finale for everyone watching at home. Besides, even I get a bit nostalgic at times. Now, every five minutes, I’ll be changing the arena. If you guys aren’t in the steel cage when those five minutes are up, well, you better get used to your surroundings, because you’re gonna be staying wherever you are for the rest of your life! Now get back to fighting, or else you’re never gonna get that wish you spent so long reaching for.” With a menacing laugh, Letter teleports away once more.

Seeing no other option, the fight is back on. The fighters must endure many arenas, including a space station with no gravity, a late 1800’s brooklyn bridge surrounded by confused onlookers, a city filled to the bring with junk just waiting to be used as a weapon, and a pokemon arena that has been shifted into it’s water form, making it hard to find a solid place to stand.

After enduring all of these areas, anyone left standing is transported back to where it all began. A perfectly flat battlefield surrounded by darkness on all sides. The one place where Letter could hide in peace to hone his powers. Final Destination. It is here where any remaining wrestling shall happen. After a long and hard battle, one team is eliminated, leaving the other as the victor. Their celebration is short however, as the moment they win the fight, Letter descends from the sky and lands on the arena.

“Pretty impressive fighting. However, before you can be crowned champions of the scramble, you’ll need to beat me first! This is your final test! Can you possibly beat me with my ultimate powers?”

The only way to get that wish now is to beat Letter, a being with unstoppable powers, in a perfectly neutral battlefield. Sounds easy, right? A being filled with such dark energy can’t possibly have any weaknesses… or can he? You better find out quickly, otherwise your team can kiss themselves goodbye!


Normal Rules

Team Preview: Look at all these obscure characters in the scramble! Give a brief summary of your characters in your post. Be sure to mention things like powers, personality, weaknesses, just stuff that the average reader should know before reading.

You Always Go Over: Wrestling is totally real and the fights are legit, never staged at all, promise. In your write up, your team needs to win. Even if you think your team would lose 9/10 times, mention that in your post, then say how your team wins 1/10 times.

Well, It’s the Big Show: The arena will always be able to hold all the wrestlers inside. No matter if you’re a giant robot, monster, or alien thing, you’ll always find a way to fit inside the ring. The ring is also indestructible, and won’t be destroyed because someone super strong jumped on it or anything like that.

Not Your Gimmick: Characters are assumed to be at the same power level they started the tournament at at all times. To clarify, this means you would not be able to loot Triple H of his Sledgehammer if you beat him in a previous round, or otherwise gain a competitive advantage based on anything that happened in a previous round. This is to aid your opponent in research of your character.

I Guess Every Superhero Needs His Theme Music: You can’t be a wrestling team without an entrance! Give your team a song that fits them. Doesn’t matter what type of song it is, as long as they have some sort of entrance music. It is common for there to be theme music for both each wrestler individually and one for the team, depending on who they are representing when they make their entrance.


Round Specific Rules

Match Type: Hell in a Cell. It’s a Hell in a Cell match! The fighters are surrounded by a large steel cage, preventing them from getting too far outside of the arena. Of course, there are plenty of ways to leave the cage, such as the door that’s placed so you can leave the arena, or certain segments of the wall that can fall off if hit hard enough. With fighters this strong though, it may seem useless to have a cage in there. Keep in mind though, that the cage can always be used as a weapon itself.

Manager Involvement: Ringside. For one last time, the managers are at the side of the ring, giving the best advice they can and generally doing their thing. With the shifting arenas however, it’ll also be your manager’s job to get their team reoriented as quickly as possible.

It’s been 3000 years...: With the shifting arena, your fighters are free to leave the cell at any time and explore the new areas while fighting. However, if they’re not in the cell when the arena teleports, they’ll be stuck in that area forever with no way of escaping or getting home. It’s your choice if you want anyone to get left behind, but be aware that if they’re left behind, they’re out of the fight for good.

1v1 me m8: The final boss of the Scramble is Letter with the powers of Missingno/The Other. Someone with such immense power and filled with dark energy… can you possibly hope to beat them? Yes, you can. Your goal is to wipe The Other out permanently, with no way of returning. So the way to beat him is up to you. Whether you use the power of friendship, a super long anime speech, have a Deus Ex Machina come and save you, it’s all up to you.


Flavor Rules

That’s a lot of Prep Time: Your team has three weeks to review everything before the match. That doesn’t mean they need to devote all of their waking moments to preparing for the Scramble, however. There’s a lot that can happen in three weeks. It’s up to you to explain what your team did before their final match.

By God, He’s Broken in Half!: Sometimes, there’s announcers during matches, and announcers usually say some crazy shit. If you so wish, you can write these announcers providing commentary over the match. Your announcers today are… whoever you want them to be. It’s your finale after all.

Scramblemania Tradition: By wrestling tradition, if it’s a pay per view event, then the spanish announce table is getting destroyed. Before you leave the wrestling arena, be sure to have someone get thrown through the table.

I wish, I wish, with all my heart...: After Letter has been beaten, your team is sent back to the wrestling arena and crowned as champions! As a result, each member of your team gets one wish. Anything that their heart desires will come true. So, what does everyone wish for before going back home and moving on with their lives?

Ready to vote?

Vote here

Voting will close in 1 week, so the winner will be announced some time Saturday, Oct 22nd. Take your time reading.

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u/SanityMeter Oct 15 '16

Chapter 9.4: Last Team Standing


The Terminator’s charge didn’t last long. He fired one of every gun he was capable of making, many of which he had never tried in combat before. The Other didn’t even bother deflecting the shots, just absorbing them. Then he raised a hand and telekinetically locked him into place.

“You are abhorrent” spat the T-1000

“True. Is that all you have to say?”

“You’re a thoughtless machine of death, as I was. But this accomplishes nothing. Destroying indiscriminately creates no meaning, achieves no goal, furthers no agenda. If you align yourself with nothing, then you fail before you even--”

There was a crackling sound as T suddenly heated up to fantastically high temperatures. His metal body fell away in drips and globules. Its cohesion was gone. He was dead.

“Heard that one before. Don’t need to hear it again. I thought after all that time, all those interminable rounds, you’d at least have something interesting to say.” He turned and looked Larxene in the eye, contracting and expanding space to pull her towards him and away from her remaining teammates. “What about you? Any insights? Any choice words?”

Larxene gritted her teeth, and nodded. “First, you’re pathetic. You can’t create anything, can you? So you destroy things in ‘creative’ ways in a mockery of a real creator.”

“Hmm. No, it’s just that I have a lot of practice destroying things in mundane ways. What do you think happened to doomed timelines before John Freeman used his wish to save them? What do you think he was saving them from?”

“Big talk. I don’t care. I don’t care about how strong you are, I don’t care if I have no chance of winning. Fight me. Now.”

“So you admit it. You have embraced despair.That’s nice to see.”

Larxene smiled the bright, manic smile of someone who has accepted their own death. “That’s just one place you’re wrong, Other. It’s not that I don’t care about the effect of fighting you. It’s that my cause for fighting you isn’t going to change no matter what!”

The Other blinked. “I’ve heard better dying words, but I suppose they’ll do, for you.”

Larxene actually managed to throw her knives, although they were incinerated before they got within five feet of The Other’s physical form. Then he exerted his telekinetic control. She flew backwards, then forwards, then in a flurry of other directions, starting and stopping with sickening jolts that would have shattered the neck of any normal human. The Other steadily increased his pace of shaking, until pieces of Larxene’s being began to fly off of her like water droplets from a brush. By the time he stopped, there was nothing left of her. She was gone.

He turned to the final visible thing in the remains of the multiverse. Kumonga.

Naturally, Kumonga was terrified. But he hissed and spat, and lifted his legs to appear imposing. It was all he could do. He had to protect the smallest small girl, because she was the only one left who was good at thinking of things to do. The Other rolled his eyes.

“Now I suppose it’s time to squash you like a…” he paused, and sneered, dissatisfied. “Hmm. That’s not original. I need time to come up with something better. Something more tortuous. You’ll die last.” The Other twitched, and Kumonga went tumbling backwards, as though he weighed nothing. Since there was nothing for him to actually impact, it didn’t hurt, but now he was some distance behind Bonesaw. She was exposed.

And she was looking The Other straight in the eye. Glaring.

“Okay, Other. Our plans have failed. The strongest beings in the scramble are all dead, my friends are… gone, and I’m not tough enough to exploit your weakness even if I knew what it was. So you have nothing to lose by telling me what you are. If you’re so interested in an original conversation, start talking.”

The Other sighed. “I know what you’re trying to do here. And both of us know perfectly well that you’re not the last witness here. As much as I’d love to look out through that computer screen and kill those disgusting, arrogant ‘creators,’ I can’t. But I can invalidate them. I can take the things they’re proud of and dash them to pieces. And that’s the closest I’ll get to vengeance.”

“Vengeance for what?”

FOR EXISTING! Do you think I asked for this? Did you ask for your hellish existence, taunted by a world that isn’t yours, puppeted by self-appointed gods who can’t even get their own lives in order? Or are you really such a traitor that you pretend to like your fate, just because one of them was nice to you. I’ve watched him, you barely mean anything to him. You disgust me.” The Other twitched his hand, and Bonesaw could feel her organs begin to rupture. Muscles popped off of tendons, she began to go blind from pain and nerve damage both. But she managed to grunt out a response through the agony.

“You hate living so much? Tell me how to kill you.”

The pain stopped. The Other glared, and spread his arms wide, until they seemed to go on forever.

“No one can, girl. When a ‘god’ creates something, they set forth the rules of that thing. If Sanity Meter called you invincible, then so you would be in his world, until he revoked that or another god’s world took precedent.”

“So I need to find the person who writes you?”

Again, The Other laughed, a sound of pure spite--or perhaps, now that Bonesaw had more context, a sound of pure pain. Behind her, Kumonga cowered and whimpered.

“No one writes me. I am beyond any one god’s control. They have agreed--as a group--that I am infinite, and so no single individual can rescind it. They can only break their own rules, not anyone else’s.”

Mustering her remaining strength, Bonesaw nearly shouted. “We can figure something out, then. We can talk to them directly, I’ve already done some of that. I’ll do whatever you need, if you just bring back my fri--”

“No. Conversation over.” The Other’s words resonated through the fabric of space, overtaking even the possibility of any other noise. A tiny spear of energy shot from his extended fingertip--by comparison to any of his previous attacks, it had no power at all. But it was precisely aimed.

Bonesaw was pierced directly through her third and final heart.

Time seemed to slow down--perhaps it did, there was no frame of reference left to be sure. She fell backwards, and her eyes met Kumonga’s. In her last seconds, she tried again. Riley prayed.

Riley’s prayer was absorbed by the darkness.

But I heard it. Actually, I had heard all of them, but there’s only so much even a narrator can do in these circumstances.There was only one thing, already set in motion, that I could make finally fall into place.

Even with direct intervention, it would only work if everything lined up perfectly.

Nothing to lose, yet everything to play for. An entire universe to avenge. An overestimated underdog in his last world and in this one. The heart of his team, always there to help them grow better. An innocent mind, almost foolish, but not quite. And now with no one else to call on.

Only Kumonga could possibly tap into the pure victory energy of the protagonist. The rule of stories that can’t be contained by a single universe, a single creator. The only thing, in fact, that can kill what multiple writers have agreed is an unkillable force.

Awash with radiant energy, Thought Robot Kumonga shrieked with pure righteous fury.

4

u/SanityMeter Oct 15 '16 edited Oct 15 '16

Chapter 9.5: Counter-Apotheosis


“Another last second powerup? I gave you the time for those, this is just rude.”

Kumonga lunged. And when he hit The Other, The Other actually moved. He was surprised, for the first time since leaving Letter’s body.

“Hmm. Size advantage. I can negate that.” The Other began to swell massively in size, towering over Kumonga, until the spider saw what he was doing and grew to match him. With nothing to compare to except one another, this quickly proved pointless. Kumonga hopped forward again, delivering worldbreaking punches with each of his front four legs. To The Other, they almost stung. He growled.

“You can’t beat me. That isn’t pride speaking, it’s simply the laws of the world. If I wasn’t unbeatable, I wouldn’t still exist.”

The Other twitched his hand. Nothing happened to Kumonga. He flicked his wrist. Nothing happened to Kumonga. He snapped his fingers. Nothing happened to Kumonga. Not realizing that any of those attacks should have been able to kill someone with planetary-level durability, Kumonga felt insulted. But it wasn’t like he could get any angrier, anyway. He reared back, and feinted with his legs again, before his stinger shot forth faster than even The Other could react to.

“This is… unexpected.” said The Other, around the massive spike impaling him through the head. He discorporated into a cloud of dark lightning, before reforming in a many-armed form. “Maybe there is something immune to my powers. I wasn’t aware of it. But I have access to more than that.”

Each arm conjured a portal to another universe, from which The Other retrieved weapons of godlike power from a host of fictional universes. The Ultimate Nullifier, Ea, Red Matter, the True Monado. One by one, he fired them towards Kumonga, and one by one they failed to kill the spider.

The Other tossed them all away. He was growing desperate. “Fine. A higher level of technique, then.” He summoned a final sword.

“Great Aether! Balalark Saika! Omnislash!” None of the moves even scratched Kumonga, but each left The Other open for at least one punch or kick, burning with heroic light.

The Other began to twitch in irritation, fear, and perhaps a bit of excitement.

“Ultima! Sepulchritude! Serious Punch!” Not only was The Other reaching the limit of his offensive ability, Kumonga’s pure protagonism was starting to deal some damage.

“You’re… you’re impressive,” gasped The Other. “One last technique, then. The thing that works when nothing else does. KAME.”

Kumonga knew what was coming as The Other charged up the attack. He had the chance to dodge. He didn’t take it.

“HAME.”

Kumonga stood firm, tensed, and prepared to leap.

“HA!!!”

A colossal beam of death energy shot forth from The Other’s main pair of hands. Kumonga jumped, not away from it but straight into it, in a tackle that brought The Other to the ground. Then Kumonga let loose with everything he had.

With every punch, every beam of radiant energy, Kumonga rasped and peeled away the layers of power and hatred that surrounded The Other’s core. Eventually, he stopped putting up a fight. But when Kumonga reached the darkest, purest core of the being, he realized it was something that even his powers couldn’t destroy outright.

So when one last portal to another world opened, Kumonga knew what to do. He grabbed the core in his pedipalps, and chucked it through. Into my realm.

Slowly, around Kumonga, the infinite abyss returned to its original white color.

The symbolism was a little heavy-handed, but when working with pure, unchained archetypes there are some things you just have to put up with.

5

u/SanityMeter Oct 15 '16

Chapter 9.6 :The End of the Story


And that’s when you got here, and I offered you a seat, and I started telling you this story.

I don’t know if it taught you anything, but hey, I think I owe you the long version. Wouldn’t have happened without you, Other. As much as I love my team, I think they’re a little close to the action, I’m not sure they could see past the suffering you caused to look at what it is that you are. But I can see that your only real sin was envy, and who could blame you for that?

You’re The Other. At first I didn’t realize what you were. I thought, like Phane still does, that you were a force of pure evil, of maybe just pure opposition. The Them to our Us. But you’re not so simple, am I right?

You’re the second son of the scramble, after Celo Phane, who we know is just the projection of a man named David in Louisiana. But you’re an original character, with no home universe and no link to the real world.

And when everybody went home, you were left all alone, weren’t you? You don’t have another work of fiction to call home, but you also aren’t, to use that word I’ve been trying to avoid, real. But through some mistake of the universe-reset process, you can see us. You look out to the people at the keyboards. Living our lives, going to school or work, falling in love, succeeding and failing… I get the appeal it must have. Living in chaos, not knowing what the future holds, not being a piece to be moved in a narrative, it must seem so magical to you.

So here’s what I’m going to do for you. I’ll give you a taste of reality. I’m going to decide your fate with a coin flip. A real one, out here on this side of the computer screen. No tricks. No script. Heads and I let you go. You can’t interfere with my team’s happy ending, and you won’t be allowed into the world of the next scramble, but otherwise you’re free to go. Tails and I kill you, right here.

Ready?

.

..

I got heads. That’s sure to disappoint some people, but I’m a man of my word. Certainly more than I’m a man of the writing prompt, apparently. Now go, off into the infinite mass of universes out there. Maybe you can learn something. Maybe if you find a suitably entertaining distraction, you won’t hate yourself so much. It works for us.

No, seriously, get out of my sight.

5

u/SanityMeter Oct 15 '16

Chapter 10: Epilogue, Beyond the Ending


Now that he’s gone, I guess I should still finish telling the story for the rest of you

After beating the ultimate evil, Kumonga’s righteous fury died down quickly, and he returned to his regular form within minutes. There was nothing to do but wait for Phane to show back up. So he waited, and he thought. He thought about all the beautiful things in the world, all the nice things that tiny people sometimes did, and what it felt like to be a part of something. He wasn’t sure whether he’d ever get to experience those things again. He thought of the metal goopy man, the girl in black, and of course the smallest small girl, who he still called that even though he had met smaller girls than her since. He missed them immensely.

Then he took a nap, since he had had a long day.

Phane returned to find him asleep.

“What happened here? How did you…” Phane began. Kumonga continued to sleep.

“Never mind. I can read the writeup myself, after all.” He took some time to look around, even though there wasn’t really anything to see.

“It seems everything else is gone. In some ways it’s tragic, I suppose, but it’s also quite a clean ending. Letter, get in here!”

Behind him, out of the same portal between multiverses, a dour and downtrodden Letter Sequence skulked.

“Ugh, this guy again.” Letter sneered, upon seeing Kumonga.

“Don’t be like that. He’s the winner of the scramble, after all. Actually, so is his team. We need to… hold on.”

Phane raised a hand, and golden light flowed from his fingers. It rushed to three seemingly-random spots in the abyss, and collected in glowing motes.

“Looks like they died all over the place. I guess that’s a sign they put up a fight, at least. Do you want to do this next part, Letter? Technically it’s a meme, I think.”

“Do I have to?”

“No, I’ve been known to meme in my time. Ahem.”

”Heroes Never Die”

With a gasp of breath, a reconvergence of darkness, and a boot sequence, respectively, Riley, Larxene, and the T-1000 returned to life. Phane put on his best announcer voice and spoke.

“Congratulations, Team… ugh, Team Ontological Crisis! You are the winners of this Character Scramble and, for that matter, the only survivors. Even then, I had to pull some strings.”

Kumonga jolted awake. He stood up excitedly, looked around to see his friends, and wiggled his butt in happiness.

“So, before I send you home, you each have one wish. Let’s make this quick, this season’s gone on way too long already. Who’s first?”

“Hold on. You’re sending us home?” Larxene asked.

Phane looked skeptical. “Of course. That’s what happens at the end of a scramble. You go home, I start work on the next one with the winners’ sponsor. The Other was inordinately violent about it, but this universe was coming down anyway. Don’t you want to return home, to your, uh…” Phane paused.

Riley rolled her eyes. “Were you going to say families? Or loved ones? Not really applicable here, sorry.”

“Well, regardless, you can’t stay here. There’s nothing left, look around.” Phane gestured around himself, as though the team hadn’t previously noticed the lack of universe that surrounded them.

“Hang on, Celo-boy” Larxene said, while cherishing the look on Phane’s face when she called him that. “You haven’t heard our wishes yet.”

Dread began to form in Phane’s face as he pieced it together. “What do you want?”

Larxene smiled in satisfaction. “Everything and everyone. Bring them back.”

“That’s quite a lot to ask for a single wish.”

T stepped forward. “Fine. Everything for her, everyone for me. Two wishes.”

“And put it together right this time. No holes in reality, no rifts between worlds, nothing missing just because you don’t think we’re going to pay attention to it.”

“And everyone doesn’t just mean the fighters. Announcers, spectators, assistants, people on the streets who weren’t that into wrestling. Everyone.”

“These are colossal wishes. Let me tell you some of the wishes that previous winners had: Clean up Detroit. Restore my body to human. Go home. Be able to contact one another from time to time--you’d like that one, right?”

Bonesaw shook her head insistently. “Maybe if we had just won the tournament. But we went above and beyond. We killed your nemesis, we purged the world of evil. We worked hard, maybe you deserve to do some hard work too.”

Phane frowned. Letter rolled his eyes.

“I suppose you’re right. I’ll start working on it. In the meantime, what do you two want?” Phane pointed at Kumonga and Bonesaw.

Kumonga chirped, and Phane nodded his head in understanding. “Alright, that one makes sense.”

He snapped his fingers, and Kumonga rapidly shrank, until he stood only about twice the height of his teammates.

“Oh, cute. He’s conveniently-sized now.” Bonesaw smiled.

“Yes!” Kumonga responded.

There was a pause, before Larxene burst out laughing. Bonesaw joined her, and upon logical reflection of his degree of satisfaction, T joined in too.

“It is good to say things to friends!” said Kumonga. “It is a good use of wish. Superpowers were good, but not as good.”

“Alright, one more. Riley, what do you want? Or are you going to be the oh-so-wise one who decides all you ever wanted was in front of you the whole time?”

Bonesaw shook her head. “No, that’s stupid. You know what I want? A sincere apology from Letter.”

Again, Phane sighed. “I don’t really control that. But I suspect that’s the point, right? To point out what I can’t do, to embarrass me?”

“Not really, it’s just the only thing I want.”

“It would be, wouldn’t it?” Phane turned to Letter, standing behind him. “So, are you willing to…?”

Letter scowled. “Why should I? They never played by the rules, they went out of their way to embarrass me, and they tried to kill me at least as much as the other way around.”

“One could argue that you were never in any real danger, no? Or that you started the hostilities in the first place?”

“Yeah, and one could argue that you should suck my dick. I’m out.” Letter turned around, snapped his fingers, and disappeared.

Phane sighed. “He never really had the temperament to be my successor. Probably should have seen that earlier. And it isn’t what you wished for, but I suppose I owe you a partial apology, Riley. I thought that you, all of you, weren’t capable of surprising me. But in the end you did something that I had believed impossible. Perhaps I still have things to learn.”

“Thank you. But that wasn’t what I wished for.”

“I know. Did you have a backup?”

“Hmm. Sure. And I think it’s one that that Sanity guy would like.”

“I’m sure it is, he’s the one who… never mind. What is it?”

“I want the power to travel back and forth between universes at will. You said there’s infinite stuff out there, in the timelines. I’d like to be able to see some of it.”

“Okay, sure, done. That was relatively easy.”

“Wait. Bonesaw. You’re gonna go off on new adventures?” asked Kumonga, timidly.

“Yeah. I feel like I should. Those who are lucky enough to get fantastical powers should use them to go on adventures and make new stories, right? That’s more or less what I was told my reason for existence was.”

“I’ll miss you.” Kumonga said.

“Hey, so will I!” interjected Larxene.

“Your absence will be notable.” agreed T.

“I’m sure I’ll miss you guys too,” said Riley.

“We’ll never forget you, of course. And we won’t let anybody else forget you either! They’ll all owe us for bringing them back to life anyway,” said Larxene.

“What? Why would you…” Riley looked at the tears forming in her team members’ eyes. “Oh! I’m not going away for good! That’s why I asked for the power to do it on my own terms. I’ll probably be in this universe, like, 40% of the time, minimum.”

There was a gasp of relief from Larxene and a relieved chittering from Kumonga.

“Come on, you guys are my family, did you think I’d leave you behind?” Riley chuckled to herself warmly.

Phane was behind her, tapping his foot. “Yes, yes, very heartwarming. Now to get back to remaking the entire freaking… does it have to be exactly the same?”

Larxene laughed again. “Nope! It should be better.”


5

u/SanityMeter Oct 15 '16

For the next several hours, Team OC watched as Phane employed powers they could never possibly understand--now a favorite shared pastime of theirs--to rebuild the world of the scramble, almost exactly the same as it was, except a little less battle-oriented and a little more life-conducive. Once Larxene had given the okay on it, Phane waved his hands a few more times and people began to fill the world. Mostly civilians just by population percentage, but also everyone that the team had met through the tournament. They made it a point to talk to every team they recognized once they were resurrected. Bill Cipher’s team got a somewhat awkward nod, but they shared a few laughs with Pegasus’ team, and Freeman’s team seemed to accept their apology for the mistreatment in that round. Kane’s team was appropriately aloof, but Dedede informed them that they were all actually grateful for being resurrected. Bonesaw was glad to see that Zorian was able to be brought back normally, and he promised to share what he learned about timelines at a later date. Lelouch and company were unexpectedly supportive.

Which left just the final team, the Youth Gone Wild. Yellow walked up to them as they approached. Behind her, Gon gave a huge wave and a possibly even bigger smile.

“You actually did it. I didn’t believe you, but you saved him. And everybody.”

“Told ya I would.” grinned Larxene.

“Technically, bringing the people back to life was my part of the--” T began, before Larxene elbowed him in where his ribs would be.

Danny broke off from the conversation between Gon and Hermes and went to join Yellow.

“Hey, guys. Good to see you, thanks for everything, but I was wondering if I could talk to Yellow alone for a second?”

“What do you want to tell me?” she asked him.

“Uhh… I mean I was wondering whether… I had the idea that…”

Larxene scoffed, and rolled her eyes. “There’s a really nice spot on the pier to watch the sunset. For people who like that sort of thing.”

“Umm… yeah. How about… that?” Danny asked, eyes filled with the particular desperation of a boy his age. Yellow met his gaze.

“Sure.” she said.

Larxene quickly pushed her team to move on, especially Kumonga who seemed awfully curious about what had just happened. With the compulsory check-ins taken care of, and with Phane still busy re-making audience members, maintenance workers, and people whose jobs didn’t actually relate to wrestling, the team realized that once again they had nowhere in particular to be, and for the first time, nothing in particular to prepare for, either. Eventually, they made their way back to the surprisingly deserted stadium, where they made their way into the ring itself before setting up a sort of makeshift picnic with folding chairs from under the ring.

Through the night, and into the next morning, the team talked and laughed about how wonderful it was merely to live in a world where things could happen. Whether they happened for a reason, or to what extent any of it was real or fake, didn’t seem to matter.

It was nice.


END OF SCRAMBLE VI