r/whowouldwin • u/KiwiArms • Jan 18 '20
Event Character Scramble 12 Semifinals: The End of Time
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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Your lunar mission was some sort of success, hurray! But, before you get a chance to relax, just as you arrive back on Earth, you realize things are… different.
That is, it seems some evil force has completely taken over the world! Things are all sorts of wack! Monsters and minions are terrorizing and enslaving civilians, statues have been erected of the Villain who’s been behind all the bad stuff this season, and worst of all, nobody seems to realize how wrong it all is!
Whether by logic, being told, seeing old photos change, or slowly beginning to fade out of time, or something, your team realizes what’s up: The baddies have gone back in time and changed history to ensure their victory-- by making it so your team never existed to stop them in the first place!
What’s worse, only your team remembers the changes, and they’re quickly realizing that if they don’t fix it soon, they’ll be erased from history in their current form! So, it’s up to you guys to go back and stop them… while pursued to the past by your opponent’s team, who, in this new timeline, are the loyal enforcers of the villains! Say it ain’t so!
The hows and whens of you going back in time are up to you, but the goal is clear! Save time before time runs out! Stop whatever the villains did to change the past, and defeat (or at least keep at bay) the other team, who will do anything to ensure the ruined future comes to pass!
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!
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: Round 2 is due January 29, 7PM (PST). Failing to participate or vote will get ya kicked!
Round-Specific Rules
Post Limit: The post limit for this Round is 9 posts, not counting intros/analysis.
Round Goal: Racing to Another Time: You need to get to the past and stop the other villains from mucking with history, while trying your best to keep from interfering too much with the flow of history yourself! And, of course, you need to make it back to the future!
We Don’t Need Megazord Power!: This round, the Zords are not required to fight! You can have them if you so choose, but it’s entirely up to you. Just make sure to explain their absence if you don’t!
What Would Zordon Do?: Your team and the opponent’s team, no matter their general proclivities, is motivated to correct the timeline! I don’t care if you want to rig the 1916 Presidential Election, Dio!
Flavor Rules
Timeless Wonders: Once your team is back in time, they need to do their best not to screw with their own timelines, or they risk a paradox beyond compare! So, how do they make things work? Do they knock out and temporarily replace their past selves? Is it a stealth mission? Up to you!
Force from the Future: What’s the villain’s plan for screwing with the timeline? What’s the exact changes they’ve made to the past? What’s the deal with airline food?
That is not Spandex!: color suit cool wear go
I have my own army of Putties!: The villain is up to something in the past, but the exact point in time and who it is are up to you. The only restriction is that it has to be some point relevant to your team’s past-- a past round, their childhoods, the old west where they had an identical set of great grandparents who also happened to know each other, who knows!
- The suggested monster this round is the one who’s messing with the time stream, and the one you’re trying to stop. That is, you basically gotta have one additional foe other than the opposing team, though it can be pretty much whatever you wa-- What? What do you mean I haven’t used Pumpkin Rapper yet? We’re already in semifinals?
- Fuck it, your monster this week is Pumpkin Rapper! He’s messing with the past usin' clever rap and rhyme, meaning you gots to go back in time!
1
u/Voeltz burrunyaa~ Jan 28 '20
JoJo balled his fists and prepared to punch but Belmont held out his hands. "Wait. Wait! Truce."
"Very well, truce. How did you even get here?"
"How did I—That's the question I want to ask you!" Belmont climbed out of the time machine, patted some mud off his fur coat, and took in his surroundings. "I jumped onto this sled contraption trying to continue our fight and suddenly appeared... wherever this is. What is this place and how did we get here?" He stroked his chin and murmured, almost under his breath: "Instant transportation... rather Dracula-esque..."
"This sled is a time machine. It can travel to any time, past, present, or future. We intended to come here, to nineteenth-century London, all along, but our encounter with your friends led to an unexpected detour."
"Well now." Belmont nudged a sewer rat away from his boot. "They're not exactly my friends, per se. I had been hoping to avoid getting dragged into a fight, but seems one doesn't always have a say in the matter. They've still got booze in, uh, eighteenth-century London?"
"Nineteenth, and yes. Although our team has a bit of a sordid history with liquor, so I'd prefer we refrained." JoJo indicated Gloria with a nod.
"Right. Anyway, I'm Trevor. And you...?"
"Jonathan Joestar. But my friends call me JoJo."
"Am I a friend now?"
"Certainly."
"Alright, JoJo." All things considered, Trevor Belmont was taking the entire "time travel" angle quite well. "So why were you and your friends traveling through time to begin with?"
"In the future—some twenty years after the present moment—my brother, Dio Brando, will become a vampire overlord and conquer the world with his horde of the undead."
"Ah," said Belmont. "You know, not quite so different than the present. I mean, my present. Which is now the past."
"Your brother is also a vampire overlord?"
"Well he's not my brother. I think. Unless the Belmont genealogy is more convoluted than even I know. But the 'vampire overlord' thing, the 'horde of the undead' thing, basically the same. I'm something of a specialist in vampire overlords. If I didn't have my own to deal with I might offer to help you out."
"Yes, well, we think we have a rather foolproof plan to contend with Dio nonetheless. We've traveled to this period to find him as a baby and kill him before he can enact his evil schemes."
Belmont, who had nodded along to everything up until this point, suddenly ceased nodding and raised an eyebrow. "You intend to kill a baby?"
"Well, it's a baby who'll grow up to be evil..."
"But right now it's a baby."
"Right now. But not in the future."
"It's a baby."
At a trot, Speedwagon returned. "Master JoJo, I have procured the location of the Brando household, and by extension, Baby Dio. Shall we finish our mission?"
For a moment, JoJo said nothing. He half-expected Belmont to attack or otherwise attempt to stop them, he sensed a faint antagonism emanating, but Belmont only rubbed the corners of his eyes and expelled a sigh heavy with the scent of alcohol. "I don't quite know how to feel about this, but it's your future, not mine. Just don't expect me to help. I'm skilled in killing monsters, not infants."
"That's fine, Trevor Belmont." JoJo placed a hand on his shoulder. "I know you may think this a cruel deed, and indeed I share your sentiments. When it comes time to do it, it will take all my willpower. I fear that I'll bear the scars of my action for the rest of my life, that not a single day shall pass where I will not remember what I now do. But what I do... is necessary. For my wife and child, for all the people of the world I live in. It has to be done; it must be done. Please, for that purpose, I need you to understand."
But Belmont didn't speak, or even mutter under his breath, or do anything save stare stonily at the cracks between his feet. Speedwagon tugged JoJo's sleeve and implored him to hurry, as they didn't know when Dio would send more minions after them.
"Very well," said JoJo. "Trevor Belmont, please stand watch over the time machine and the woman there, Gloria. I swear we'll return soon and bring you back to your own time."
Again, no response. A deep unease settled into JoJo's stomach. He and Speedwagon sped off through the dingy crevices of Ogre Street, between the jeering faces in open windows, the sounds of men and women screeching bloody murder at one another, glass shattering, a cat yowling as though being skinned alive (and given the destitution of this neighborhood such circumstances were not, perhaps, unthinkable). This sink of depravity and despair was what young Dio had developed inside of, forced to mete out an existence across his formative years in such squalor and oblivion. Harassed by a drunkard father, bereft of a mother. Who could be surprised that such environs twisted him? It was the law of 'Darwin'. Creatures adapt to their surroundings, change form to fit them. Dio, over those first twelve years, his youthful mind like putty to be molded, had changed form—become the creature he now was.
They reached the Brando residence. A simple, filthy, downtrodden hovel like all the others on this well-named street. A light flickering in a window, the same howling of a drunken patriarch. A bottle, broken, flung out onto the street. A baby—Dio—crying.
As they approached the door it opened. JoJo had wondered how they would deal with Dio's parents—his mother still alive at this point—and imagined Jedi mind tricks may play a part. Yet the person who stepped out of the door was not, or could not be, Dio's parents. He was clean, well-shaven, well-dressed, his suit tailored and devoid of even a speck of this street's filth.
He wore sunglasses.
"Miss-ter Jon-athan," he said, the words stretched ever so slightly, emphasis placed on specific syllables, an almost singsong susurrus in the cadence. "My name is—" (necktie adjustment) "—Agent Smith. I understand you have a grievance against my... employer."
"There's only one of him, and he doesn't even have a weapon," said Speedwagon. "Come on JoJo, we can surely take him!"
"Wait, Speedwagon, I sense—"
Another Agent Smith rounded a corner. "Miss-ter Jon-athan."
Another appeared from a window. "Miss-ter Jon-athan."
Another on a rooftop. "Miss-ter Jon-athan."
Another. Another. Another. Another. Another. Another. More and more, still more, from every shadow and passage, from every filthy pit, from every door, every pile of rags. An endless, repeating loop of those same two words, the delivery identical each time, more and more their Hyrum sunglasses catching the light of the Moon—
"Miss-ter Jon-athan."
They poured forward, like a flood, so many that the lines between each individual blurred, and with them they carried slabs of the street, walls from the houses, garbage from the gutters, hurling these pieces onto the Smith that had first spoken, until a tower emerged, a tower of the various pieces of this locale dis- and reassembled, into the form of legs, gigantic and vertiginous legs that stretched high enough to blot the Moon, a torso following, shoulders and arms and neck and a head, skull and scalp developing from all the muck and grime and sewage of this human sump. A giant man, built of it. Its head, its eyeless sockets stared down at them from above. Its hand creaked as it reached out and plucked from the mess two panes of glass so filthy one could not possibly see through them, which it placed over its sockets to form the semblance of sunglasses.
"Miss-ter Jon-athan," came a reverberating, echoing chorus.