r/whowouldwin • u/KiwiArms • Dec 09 '19
Event Character Scramble 12 - Round 2: The Scramble Rangers Save Christmas!
PLEASE NOTE! When voting goes up for this round, we will have a mod lock the thread, preventing anyone from posting more. Make sure to get all of your writing done on time!
It’s morphin’ time.
The Character Scramble is a writing prompt tournament where people compete to write the best story they can. At the beginning, everyone submits characters that meet the guidelines, then those characters are randomized and distributed evenly. From then on, each round there's a new writing prompt for everyone to follow. At the end of the round, everyone votes for who they think should advance, until we have our winner at the end. The winner at the end of the tournament gets to choose the theme, tier, and rules of the next scramble, along with a nice custom flair as their reward. The current theme is based on Power Rangers TV series, and the tiers are Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Godzilla.
Without further ado, here we go!
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It’s Christmas time, and obviously your Rangers are all celebrating (even if they aren’t Christian-- it’s just part of being a modern adult, you know?). It’s started snowing, school is on break for the next two weeks, everything’s going swell for them. Heck, there haven’t even been more monster attacks since Homecoming! All in all, it’s looking to be a fabulous Christmas Eve--
Oh? Your team seems to be getting a distress call from somebody up North, wonder who it could be…
“Help! This is Mrs. Claus,” says the lady on the other end, “Santa’s been Nick-napped! We’ve got our best elves on the case trying to rescue him, but we still need somebody to deliver his last batch of presents! Power Rangers, we need your help!”
Oh, right then.
So, your team has been recruited by holly jolly Mrs. Claus to deliver presents across the Mad Max-style tundra-desert that’s inexplicably right outside your town! Your destination, of course, is the next town over-- Stone Canyon or something. Unfortunately, there’s people out to stop you, trying to hijack the delivery… as such, you’ll have to make it across the snowy desert whilst avoiding a bunch of robotic thugs along the way! Guess they really hate Christmas!
Don’t worry about transportation, though-- if you don’t have a suitable land-based vehicle to use as your ride, Mrs. Claus is more than happy to loan you their new experimental Ranger Sleigh!
You’re being pursued by a gaggle of mechanical mooks led by a particularly powerful piece of robotry. And, of course, there’s that other team of three in a makeshift super-sleigh, with a Zord of their own! Turns out, they think you’re the ones ruining Christmas, and can’t be convinced otherwise! Or, are they under the thrall of the villain? Or, even worse, are they the ones behind Santa’s disappearance?! Up to you!
Normal Rules
Nobody told me there would be Power Rangers!: 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.
Victory is Fun!: This Scramble is about saving the day, not losing the day! Even if the odds of you winning are 1 in 100, explain those odds in the analysis and then show us that 1 miracle run in the writeup!
Never Escalate a Battle: You have your Zords now, but you can’t just use them at the beginning of the fight to end it immediately. Gotta be dramatically satisfying!
No New Powers: 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 Captain America of his shield 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.
Due Date: Voting begins for Round 2 at 7PM PST/10PM EST on Friday, December 20th. Failing to participate or vote will get ya kicked!
Round-Specific Rules
Post Limit: The post limit for this Round is 8 posts, not counting intros/analysis.
- If you elect to make a game for your round instead, it must be at least 7 hours long (but not exceed 15 hours), be made in Unreal Engine 4, and have an aggregated score of 7.5 on Metacritic.
Round Goal: 4319.2 Miles of Desert: You need to cross the barren, deserty-tundra thing and deliver presents to the next town over, by any means necessary! And, if you happen to save Santa Claus along the way, that’s not so bad either! There’s only one rule, you have to travel by land. No teleporting, no flying over it where the baddies can’t get you, you gotta Mad Max this thing baby!
We Need Megazord Power!: You should try to include your Megazord fighting the Opponent’s in some way shape or form-- but how, when and why is pretty much up to you!
What Would Zordon Do?: Your team, no matter their general proclivities, is motivated to save Christmas! I don’t care if you’re Jewish, Dio!
Flavor Rules
Alpha’s Magical Christmas: So did your team have Christmas plans that got rudely interrupted? Or are they a bunch of Scrooges? Either way, they need to save Christmas, so make sure you do so!
I have my own army of Putties!: Who’s ruining Christmas? Who’s the monster of the week? That’s pretty much up to you! If you have a main villain you wanna have working behind the scenes, you can do that or hold off until later, when the default is revealed in a coming round! It's up to you!
- The minion this round is the Grinders from Power Rangers RPM. Deadly robots who are are currently operating high-tech post-apocalyptic gearpunk snowmobiles in pursuit of your team. Also, they can turn into (snow equipped) motorcycles. They have daggers that shoot lasers, too!
- This round’s monster is: Gat Bot, an evil robot who is in fact made of guns-- er, laser blasters, this is a kids show after all. As always, he’s too strong to be beaten by any single member of your team. Every barrel you see on him is fully functional, capable of shooting powerful energy blasts. And if her fires those two on his torso at once, they unleash a devastating explosion. He’s also got other types of ammo, like powerful blasts of water (which, inexplicably, also causes explosions) . Unlike most of the foes you’ve had to face so far, he’s pretty much no nonsense (aside from his looks).
I Know the Formula!: When your monster is defeated, no matter who you decide for it to be, it will explode-- or turn giant, and then explode once it’s defeated a second time. This doesn't apply to minions. Also optional are colored plumes of smoke exploding from behind your team as they pose when they first show up to fight.
That is not Spandex!: You can’t properly be a Power Ranger team without a set of color coded suits to hide your identities! So, make them wear the costumes! If you want.
1
u/7thSonOfSons Dec 19 '19 edited Dec 19 '19
What was it about these timelines that always left Angra Mainyu with the shittiest opponents? Gwen was one thing. She was annoying, but she was weak, slow, unfit for a real fight. What made her obnoxious was how unpredictable she was.
But Obi-Wan was the opposite. This guy was no stranger to a brawl. When Jonathan called him Master he wasn’t just being polite. But that shouldn’t matter. Angra Mainyu had no problems with people as skilled is this old man. What made him a pain in the ass was how he could predict Angra Mainyu.
It wasn’t like Yosuke. He wasn’t being outsped like some damn goon, by some goon. Obi-wan seemingly just knew exactly how to defend.
Every damn time he moved a muscle, Obi-Wan was ready with a rebute. It didn’t matter the difference in their speed. Obi-Wan could act before every move. He had to stay on the defensive, Angra Mainyu’s relentless pace made it so, which only lead to a more aggravatingly slow paced clash.
By the twelfth time Angra Mainyu’s claws had been destroyed by a swipe of Obi-Wan’s lightsaber, Angra Mainyu was well and truly out of patience. “Doesn’t that goddamn thing ever run out of batteries?” he barked as a fresh pair of talons manifest in his hands.
“And don’t you ever run dry on blades?” Obi-Wan replied.
“You fuckin’ wish.”
Once more their weapons clashed. And once more Angra Mainyu found himself disarmed. But this time came with a follow-up. Obi-Wan held his arm and thrust his palm out towards Angra Mainyu. He felt a sudden and intense blast of pressure in his chest and found himself flung down the hill into the snow. He shook himself off and pushed himself back to his feet.
“Forgot that old bastard could do that,” he grumbled.
“It’s over Angra Mainyu!” Obi-Wan shouted at him. “I hold the high ground!”
“Big fuckin’ deal!” Angra Mainyu replied with more weapons. And more. And more. With a wave of his arms, ten identical claw swords whirred through the air towards Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan flourished his blade and reduced every one of Angra Mainyu’s weapons to splinters. The fangs of a demonic god, fit to cut the throat of the world, broken with a single touch of Obi-Wan’s lightsaber.
Angra Mainyu cursed himself, and drew on that curse to create a new set. He so badly wished he really were a demon. The kind of monster that could tear the old man to shreds. But he wasn’t, not really. So he was content to keep throwing himself at the problem till it fucked off.
He glared at Obi-wan, searching for an opening, for anything to break the deadlock.
Suddenly there was a scream. Jonathan’s? Foo’s? Angra Mainyu didn’t care. For an instant, Obi-wan’s eyes left him, straying towards his apprentice’s battle.
Howling for blood, Angra Mainyu struck.
Foo had heard it in the movies. She’d read it in the books. It was a piece of wisdom that everyone agreed on: Never bring a knife to a gunfight. And what was a fist, but a dumb, stupid, blunt knife? By that logic, she should have been easily winning this fight.
Foo raised her fist, fired two more quick shots, and decided to never read another book. They were clearly untrustworthy.
Jonathan Joestar contorted his body and let the plank-lets shoot past him into the snow. His massive bulky frame belied the speed he was capable of.
Foo grunted in consternation and shuffled through the knee deep snow to keep her distance. It slowed Jonathan down more than her, but it was still annoying. Although it wasn’t as annoying as,
“For every time you fire that gun of yours, Foo Fighters… An angel loses its wings!” Dio proclaimed. He walked across the surface of the snow, not leaving a single mark in his wake. “That is the true spirit of Christmas! A blanket of peace on the world, like freshly fallen snow.”
Foo would never shoot Santa. But having naughty thoughts wasn’t against the rules. But her distraction cost her.
“Dio is correct,” said Jonathan. He charged towards Foo, each of his thick legs churning through the snow like a relentless steam engine. “And though it is temporary, it allows us to learn about this peace and share it with each other! It’ll will eventually spread all throughout the year!”
Infused with hamon, filled with his righteous understanding of Christmas, and carrying the hope of a better future, Jonathan put a period on his thoughts by slamming a fist into Foo’s chest with all his power.
Foo, tiny compared to Jonathan, went flying. She tumbled down the hill and landed in a heap at its base. Jonathan looked down at his hands.
Hamon. Ripple. He didn’t know much about this strange ability or whether it was right to use against a living person, even to protect another. All that had been explained to him was that it harnessed power of life itself.
The power of the Sun.
“It doesn’t feel right,” he muttered lowly. “To bring harm to a woman.”
“Don’t feel too bad, it didn’t really hurt,” Foo replied from behind him.
Jonathan screamed. A dignified, masculine scream of terror. The kind of sound no gentleman should make. There really was no other way to react. There was a Foo Fighters at the foot of the hill, surely. But there was another right behind him. And still more, all around him. Two dozen identical Foo Fighters, at least, rising out of the snow.
“I’ll be blowed!” Jonathan staggered backwards. “I’ve not seen a trick of this caliber in all my days! Pure black magic, that must be it!”
In truth, it was a lot more science than magic. As good as Foo looked (and she’d been told she looks very good), she was a creature of nature. A mere plant. A lot of plants, actually. Well technically Plankton were equal parts plant and animal, but she identified as a plant. She was very plant-y.
And as fun as it was to eat, she could thrive entirely on water and sunlight. So with enough sudden, unexpected intake of both of those things, she… grew. And she grew fast. And something about that punch just put that regeneration into overdrive.
But she wasn’t gonna say that. That sounded lame.
Foo Fighters, the original, stood up and laughed. “No ho ho, Jonathan JoJo. This is no trick of the devil, this is- this is what a Christmas Miracle looks like!”
Jonathan was stunned. A bona fide miracle. Before his very eyes! But that was impossible, wasn’t it? Jonathan clenched his fist. “That simply cannot be the case. You, who understands naught the spirit of Christmas.”
Dio strode between a pair of Foos. “You claim that the spirit of Christmas has blessed you on this eve? You bring an army unto this silent night, and claim to understand the spirit of the season? Like a mere penguin who claims to fly because it throws itself from the cliffside.”
“You think this is an army?” Foo chuckled. Every Foo crossed their arms. “This isn’t an army, this is proof of the real meaning of Christmas. This is my Proof of Friendship!”
“Friendship?” Dio laughed. “Fool girl, you cannot truly believe that this day is one of friendship! Christmas is a time for reflection, for greed, for peace. It is a holy day to step away from it all. To take a selfish moment alone from the miserable world around us!”
The Foos began to approach Jonathan. “You’re wrong, both of you. The world isn’t miserable, it’s a good place, full of good people. And Christmas is the day to celebrate the whole world and everyone in it! Especially your friends!”
Jonathan raised his fists and took a deep breath. He felt a burning in his soul, both at the hamon coursing through his body and at Foo’s misguided belief. “Miss Fighters, I implore you. Cease this… this silliness. Your country is but a mere child in the face of English celebration of this day. Please, let your elders guide and advise you away from this dangerous thinking.”
The Foos shook their heads. “No! We will not go quietly into the holy night! We will do as our people have done since the founding of America: Relentlessly push our way of thinking onto you as the truth!”
For Jonathan, that was the final straw. He would have to break Foo from her Christmas dream. Even if it meant resorting to peaceful violence. His body overflowed with Hamon and Christmas Cheer. Brilliant light began to emanate from Jonathan’s body. The very snow around him was melting.
Jonathan pulled his hand back and over his head. There was only one way to settle this cleanly and efficiently. “Snow White Overdrive!”
He jammed his fist into the snow and a ripple pulsed outward from his body. The Foos stood their ground. For a second, it was as if nothing happened. Then it happened.
The snow exploded outward. Something between an avalanche and a tsunami fired off in every direction. The crest of the wave peaked above even Jonathan’s head. If that woman was going to resort to blasphemous trickery, he would overcome with the ingenuity and grace he’d garnered from his master.
So much snow was displaced, it left a crater around Jonathan. The land around him looked so different. Fresh mounds and hills buried everything in snow. Everything, that is, except Dio. Not a flake of snow marred his Santa suit.
Dio looked about. “Ho? It seems as though that troublesome woman could not withstand the cold reality of Christmas.”
Jonathan nodded. Regretfully, he had to do it. “If only she had seen the light sooner.”
Both their eyes were drawn to a peculiar shaking. A shivering, even, from a certain mound of snow. An arm burst free from the snow, and Foo Fighters dragged herself out. "I'll never give up!"
Jonathan moved towards her, but Dio put his arm out first. “Allow me.”
He hauled Foo to her feet. “Foo Fighters… you are no mere human, are you? You are something else." Dio could feel it. The natural flow of energy from this woman was like neither himself nor Jonathan. It was not a single stream of life force, but thousands, millions of tiny life forces working together…
Ah, so that was it.
Dio laughed, loudly. “Yes, Yes! I see now! Truly, Foo Fighters, you stand by your conviction to Christmas! Now, show me the power of this… ‘friendship’.”