Character Scramble 15 Round 2: Remember Me

[u/LetterSequence]

Link to the voting form. Voting closes on February 3rd. Voting is required for all participants.

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Hub Post

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This round is for matches 25 to 32 on the bracket. Make sure to double check to see if you’re in this one!

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After escaping some crazy dangerous circumstances, you can truly begin your quest unimpeded by ill fate. It's time to take this quest seriously. In fact, you've even gotten a hot tip from someone as you explore the various worlds.

Legends speak of an individual who, using incredible strength, will, and ideals, managed to summon Kingdom Hearts, and with its blessings, they were given the power to make all of their desires come true.

This person has been dead for a few decades now.

Your lead, immediately snatched away. But what if it wasn't? What if there was a way to speak to this figure, and gain their knowledge? There is. You only need to visit...

Tierre de la Muerte

The Land of the Dead. The resting place of all spirits, for people to remember until they can't any longer. The living aren't supposed to be here, and yet you venture onwards anyway. Your goal is simple. Find this legend, learn anything you can about Kingdom Hearts, and leave well rewarded.

Unfortunately, things aren't that simple. For this land holds a special rule. All those who remain in this land when the sun rises become permanent residents. What does this mean for your team? Instant death.

It may be midnight now, but with no clue where to start looking, another team lurking somewhere else in this world (potentially looking to get that same information before you, potentially looking to entrap you in this world), and the dead around you quite uneased by your presence, you fear the dawn will arrive faster than you anticipate. Better get a move on!

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Scramble Rules

That’s Sora, Donald, and Goofy Too!: Every participant this season received three characters on their team, but many of them might not be a household name. To aid with readability, please give a brief summary of your characters, with enough information so the average reader can get excited for your team before starting.

Let Your Heart Be Your Guiding Key: Your write up will depict a scenario where your team is the victor. Even if your team has a one in a million chance of overcoming the odds, show what they’d need to do to come out on top against the challenge in front of them!

Unlocking Limit Form: Writers are allowed to make changes to their characters in their narrative to fit their story, such as allowing power stealers to gain more powers, teaching martial artists new techniques, or having characters gradually grow in strength between rounds. However, you are not beholden to following what your opponent is doing. When facing another team, you are only required to write their characters as they were submitted. This is to help with ease of research, and make things more fun for both sides.

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Round Rules

Guest Starring: The Living Dead! The guest is a denizen of this underworld, which means they've been dead for a while now. How does that look? Are they a vengeful spirit destined to keep you here past sunrise for intruding on their world? A spirit animal that helps guide you where you need to go? In fact, is the legend, the person you're looking for, the guest themselves? There's a decent variety of options here, so go with what fits your run best!

Setting: Preparing for the Day of the Dead, this world is a sight to behold. Skeletons walk around as people would on cobblestone roads, the houses begin decrepit, but as you venture deeper, grow more rich, more ordained, into grand mansions for the famous, the elite, the remembered. The colors of the various plazas, vibrant neon greens and pinks. Stands placed on every corner to sell some trinket or another. Music blares as you walk, festive Spanish songs played by the residents that celebrate life, and of course, death. In a land this big, it'll be like finding a needle in a haystack. May as well enjoy the sights while you're looking around.

Key Points: The key points of the round are the following. Your team is looking for a "dead" person to gain information from them on how to attain their overall goal, while the other team is trying to stop you, or gain that information before you. This quest for information has a time limit. The guest must figure into this in some way.

Post Limit: For this round, writers will be limited to 8 posts, or 80k characters. While it is fine to go a little bit over, anything that far surpasses this limit will be automatically disqualified. This limit does not include intro posts, or analysis of the matchup. Use your best judgement, if you think your story is too long for the round, it probably is.

Due Date: Write ups will be due at 10PM EST on January 30th. That’s slightly over two weeks, so manage your time well!

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Flavor Suggestions

People Die When They Are Killed: Perhaps your story isn't fantastical in nature, and speaking to a long dead person is out of the cards. As some suggested alternatives, the death could be metaphorical. Perhaps the person you're looking for is only presumed dead and changed their identity, or they're a hero who has long since retired, their other identity being "dead" in a sense. There’s plenty of ways to weave the theme of death into the story without getting literal, so get creative!

Chain of Memories: In the actual film, "Coco," the spirits exist in this world as long as someone remembers them. Is there anyone your team members lost in their past that they cared for? How would they react to the possibility of seeing them again? Would they even want to see them again?

[u/KiwiArms]

Now, 'Hell' was something of a misnomer. It was certainly hellish, and more than looked the part, but it wasn't a place for the damned that Ben found himself in. Rather, it was something far more accepting of all types of people, from all along the spectrum of morality: The Netherworld. Where souls that were lost ended up, be they good, evil, or undecided.

Elsewhere in the Netherworld, entire cosmologies away, there was a river. The Sanzu. Its waters had raised significantly in recent years, and in the process had dredged up something thought lost to the depths. A skeletal junk, hardly fit to float, let alone sail. And yet, it floated all the same.

Juzo looked out at the familiar craft from a cliff across the way, "A boat without its captain. How pitiful. To think, a ghost ship could exist even here..."

"Almost like a metaphor," said a girl who, without Juzo's knowledge, had been sitting not far from him the whole time. "For what, though, who knows."

He assessed this new presence. She clearly wasn't a Gedoshu, so her presence was honestly perplexing to him. He brought a hand to his chin, scratching his beard. "This is no place for a young girl, you know."

"Well," she said, "it's not like I have anywhere better to be." She produced a fishing rod, and cast her line into the dead river below.

"...You won't catch anything, not in this river. It isn't a place that sustains, not living things, it only takes. Nothing that could survive these waters would be worth catching." He shook his head. "Trust me, I speak from experience."

"Well, that just means I'll have to fish harder, then," she replied. "I'm Lana."

"...Juzo."

"Well Juzo, I know why I'm here." Lana hadn't made eye contact with him once so far. "But what's a strapping fellow like yourself doing in a place like this?"

He chose to ignore the compliment. "I'm wondering that myself, these days."

"Lost your way, have you?"

He shook his head. "If it were only that simple. I know my path, but I fear the path no longer exists. Washed away in the storm of circumstance. My fated partner, no matter where I go I cannot seem to find them again... I fear I may truly be alone."

His words hung in the air for a bit, the silence only broken when Lana reeled in her line and recast it. A minute passed without words. The only sound was the Sanzu River's tainted waters gently crashing against the shore.

A ship without a captain, without a crew, with no destination. A ship that should, by all accounts, be sunken at the bottom of the river, rotting away and consumed by the elements. In a way, Juzo agreed with Lana's assessment: it was a startlingly accurate metaphor for the wayward samurai. His death at Takeru's blade was exactly what he'd wanted, wasn't it? And yet he still lived. Summoned into the world by some force unknown, without clear intention. Takeru was nowhere to be found, and all the warriors Juzo had encountered so far had been found lacking... was this, perhaps, his punishment? A cosmic joke at his expense? His karmic damnation, to wander the world forever, fighting countless foes, but never being satisfied by any of them? Given what he had always yearned for-- a lifetime of bloodshed-- without any passion for it?

The thought couldn't be stuffed down into his subconscious. He wouldn't be able to shake it, he hadn't been able to since he first woke back up. If he was truly destined to never find another warrior who could sate his desires, what was the point of continuing? Perhaps he should just give up. Perhaps this was a sign, the reemergence of the Rokumon. A sign that he should let the past fade away, let himself fade away, into the annals of history as nothing more than the memory of a monster.

"...So you're single then?"

"..."

The silence that followed that was of a different tone than the first one, though Lana certainly didn't seem to notice. "Ah!" Her line went taut, indicating she'd gotten a bite. "About time!"

Juzo watched, intrigued, as the girl fought against whatever was snagged on her hook. It tried valiantly to break away, but her skills as a fisherwoman were second to none, it seemed. Thus, despite its great effort, in the end Lana won out, yanking the fish in with all of her might. She nearly toppled over, and Juzo found himself starting to go to catch her. Luckily, that wasn't necessary, as she regained her footing just in time to meet her capture face to face.

Given the great struggle it put up, Juzo had thought initially that she'd perhaps hooked a stray Ayakashi of some fashion. It would make sense, given where they were-- much more sense than what she actually caught. "Ah, it's small," was her appraisal of the fish she held in her hand. "A big-scaled redfin, too... ironic name." She held the fish, barely larger than her palm, up to Juzo. "Can you believe this? Just my luck."

He started to respond, but trailed off. All of the sudden, his ears picked up on something they hadn't before. A woman, singing, somewhere. By the sound of it she was partway through a song, but he had somehow only just now begun to hear it. His ears twitched, trying to zero in on the source, only to come to a conclusion that didn't sit quite well with him: the Rokumon Junk. The boat that once housed Dokoku. The boat that was all too familiar to Juzo. "Dayu?"

He listened a bit more, and ruled her out. This wasn't her voice. And besides that, he couldn't hear a shamisen. But if not her, then who? Had somebody taken the wreck as a home since last he'd been here?

"You go check it out," Lana said, "I'll stay here in case any more fish show up." She gave Juzo a thumbs up. "Don't do anything stupid though, I wouldn't want you to ruin that face."

"...it was interesting meeting you," Juzo said. "I suggest you return home, lest you fall into the river." And with that, he was off.

Lana cast her line again, ignoring his warning. Even if she were to heed it, after all, there was no 'home' to return to anymore. Not that he'd know that.

 

 

"Ladies and gentlemen and others," shouted the horned woman in the middle of the ring, "it's time once again for that yearly tradition we love so much! Our sole solace in this endless realm of boredom and misery!" The crowd loved it. "It's WresHellmania!" Pyrotechnics shot up from the mouths of imps bound to the sides of the platform, cinders and sparks of which fell back down shortly afterwards into the eager faces of fans in the crowd. It was agonizingly painful, but they were hype for it. "Our last sign melted on account of the hellfire, but we got a replacement! Hit it, Asmodeus!"

On cue, the demon named Asmodeus (as indicated by his nametag) pushed a button on his control panel. From his spot outside the crowd, he had a great view of the newly built sign descending into place: a long, rectangular mass of tumorous flesh and eyes held aloft on three pairs of tattered wings. It had fresh wounds, recently carved and burning bright with heat, in the shape of words. WresHellmania DCLXVI.

The crowd began to chant, "This is awful!", with emphasis on each word. They meant it as a positive, though.

"And cuz it's a special occasion," the woman continued, "I got special permission from the people upstairs!" The crowd fell hush, intrigued. "A one time deal! Tonight only, for the first and last time! Get out of Hell free!" Oohs, ahs, and 'what's followed her announcement. "If you can beat the reigning champion in the ring, you'll be free! Released back into the world of the living, alive and everything!"

Well, that certainly sounded enticing. Especially to one Benjamin Kirby Tennyson, who really would rather not spend eternity in this dump. He pushed his way through the crowd, with the appropriate "Sorry!"s and "'Scuse me!"s, until he was up in the front row. "Sign me up, lady!"

The woman scoffed, bending down to size him up. She brushed a few strands of blond hair from her face, only to hold back a laugh. "Kid, you wouldn't last three seconds in the ring with the champ! Get outta here!"

Ben's confident smirk and crossed arms spoke for themselves. He'd been in the ring before, and was pretty dang good at it. So he had to wrestle some demon or dead serial killer or something, no big deal! He'd handle it and be on his way. "Three seconds? In that case, you'd barely be wasting time letting me take a shot at it, right?"

"I... hrm..." He raised a good point. "...you got a manager, kid?"

"Thaaaaat'd be me," Henderson said, carving his way through the crowd and into the conversation. "Henderson, at yer service."

The woman's eyes rolled. Clearly, she was as unhappy as Ben was with Henderson's presence. "I know who you are."

"And I know you, Beverly."

She grit her pointed teeth. "Power."

Henderson raised a fist in solidarity. "Hell yeah sister, fuck the white man. Point is, I'm the kid's manager..."

"No," Ben interjected, "you aren't!"

"...and thus, I can assure you, with my Henderson seal of ko-wa-luh-tee, that he is the best wrestler ever sent to Hell!" He was lying, of course. The real best wrestler in hell wouldn't answer his calls anymore. "And since El Santo is currently off fighting Dracula, you're gonna need his talent if you want the main event to be exciting! Nobody else here is gonna be able to challenge the champ like good ol' Ben 10!"

"Ben 10?" Power snorted. "What's that, your age, IQ, or length?"

"It's, uh--" Ben began to gesture to his watch, but opted out. "--well, I was ten when I got that nickname, I guess, but..."

"If he loses," Henderson interrupted, "I give you full rights to all his blood."

"Rights to-- WHAT!"

[u/KiwiArms → u/KiwiArms]

Now, that caught her interest. It'd been a while since she had human blood, and from the smell of the kid, it was still fresh. A rare delicacy in the Netherworld. A vile, toothy grin spread across her features. "Heh. If there's any left when the champ is done with him! You got a deal, you drunk old fuck." She leaned out and grabbed Ben by his hood, pulling him with a lot more force than he'd have anticipated her body to be capable of outputting. He gagged as the shirt caught on his throat, and let out a comedic noise when he hit the canvas of the wrestling ring shortly afterwards.

Ben coughed, taking a moment to knock the wind back into himself. "Hachh!" Standing up, dusting himself off, he figured he should ask 'Have I got any say in this?'... but he decided against it. He'd been a hero long enough to know that he never had any say in it. Better to just roll with it all. "Fine, sure, sounds good to me," he grumbled, "anything to get out of this place."

Power turned her attention back to the crowd. "Alright, boys and ghouls! The appetizer has arrived!" They jeered, unhappy with Ben's whole entire person. The gathered fiends and freaks were positively electric with anticipation for him to get his spine removed from his body. "And now, it's time for the chef!" Her metaphors were confused, but she had the raw charisma necessary for the crowd not to question it. "You know him, you fear him! The undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the Underworld!"

Ben was getting caught up in it, almost. He was excited to see this champion-- hopefully it was the Undertaker, he'd always wanted to meet that guy.

"Standing 210 cm, weighing 150 kg with a kill count three times that! From deep in the Soviet Union! They say he wears the mask because the sight of his true face would kill weaker men, and he has a similar reason for wearing his shorts!" The lights (there were lights?) dimmed, and the crowd fell to a mere deafening roar, partially out of respect, and primarily out of terror. They truly did fear the man Power was hyping up.

Ben looked around, trying to find where the champ would make his entrance from. He didn't see a ramp, or even any doors or tunnels he could come out of-- was he in the crowd? Disguised as a fan, only to have a grand reveal that he'd been present all along? Or was he going to be like, raised up from the floor through a heretofore unseen secret trapdoor? The possibilities were truly endless.

"The cyborg with no mercy! The executioner of the ring! The choujin without limit!" Power quickly got out of the ring. Ben didn't notice her leaving, or he may have followed suit. "Waaaaaarsman!"

The impact of boots to canvas was felt dozens of yards away. Ben, standing near the center of the ring, had nearly been crushed beneath the heel of the new arrival, a man of steel and muscle who'd fallen from the sky above. He'd arrived with arms crossed, back straight, both feet hitting the ground at once. Despite coming to a near instantaneous stop after falling at well past terminal velocity, the behemoth of machismo didn't so much as flinch. Ben, meanwhile, screamed like a young girl at the sheer shock of nearly being stomped like a Goomba by some huge dude who'd fallen like a meteorite not inches away from him.

If the arrival of the man wasn't enough of a clue, the crowd chanting of his name cemented the man's identity to Ben: Warsman.

Ben caught a glimpse of the man's eyes, and the man's eyes caught a glimpse of Ben. And yet, they didn't seem to register his presence. "Where's my challenger?"

Ben, still shaken by the near-boot experience, took a second to response. "Uh, er, that'd be me," he said, straightening out his hoodie. "The name's Ben, Ben Tennyson." He extended a hand to Warsman, who simply stared at him. Ben figured this might happen-- that Warsman would be that sort taciturn, intimidating muscle-guy character, the kind who doesn't return pleasantries.

And then, to his surprise, Warsman returned the handshake.

The man exhaled, a labored, mechanical exhale that sounded like he was a walking iron lung. "Nikolai. Warsman. Nice to meet you."

"O-oh, uh, you too!" Ben smiled. "Let's have a good match, yeah?"

Warsman nodded.

Just then, the ring began to shake. Ben looked around to find the cause of the tremors, but Warsman simply stood stern. Ben called out to Power. "Hey, what's going on?"

Power's shit-eating grin said it all. "Oh, didn't I mention?" The ring, which previously had nothing around it, not even the ropes standard for wrestling rings (an absence Ben had attributed to it being Hell, and thus, them likely not caring much for the standard rules and procedures of wrestling), began to warp at the edges. Dozens of holes opened up like eyelids on the mat, each no wider than a thumb. From the holes first shot steam, accompanied by a hissing sound, followed by the rapid extension of metal bars. The bars reached full height, well above the ring, in an instant, and horizontal protrusions along the lengths quickly stretched to meet other bars, crisscrossing to form a proper cage structure.

Power's arms shot up, and the crowd cheered in time with the action. "It's a Cell in the Hell match!"

Ben smacked his hand up against the metal, trying to get Power's attention. "Hey listen, this is some kind of mistake! I didn't sign up for a cage match!"

"Tough!" She gave a gesture, and the bell rang. Warsman cracked his neck, then his knuckles. "Slaughter's on, wrestling fans! Let's get this party started!"

It was clearly no use trying to argue with her, but still Ben tried banging on the walls, until a call from Warsman got his attention back. "Child."

"Why does everyone keep saying that? I'm not a kid, you know!"

"You're going nowhere," Warsman continued. "You seem like a good-natured boy, but to have ended up here, in this place of the damned, you must have committed a grave sin." He exhaled again. Ko... Ho... "That is why I am here. Why I fight. To punish evil, to ensure that none who are sentenced here find their way out. If you had not committed some great sin, you would not be here to face me." Ben could see the nanofiber veins of Warsman's bicep flex to the surface, a show of biomechanical vascularity that'd make even the most advanced androids blush. With a tensing of his flexor digitorum profundus, iron blades several inches in length shot out from beneath his knuckles. "Now, face your damnation like a man."

Ben, taking note of the blades, thoughtlessly put forward the first question to hit his mind. "Hey, is that allowed?"

"Oh, don't worry your pretty little head, human," Power chuckled, "because it ain't gonna be pretty much longer."

Ben smirked. "Aw, you think I'm pretty?" He started to fiddle with the Omnitrix, an action which Warsman graciously allowed him to take his time with. "Well, sorry to say, but things are about to get ugly!" He made his selection. "I wouldn't say I'm a sinner, Warsman! I'm actually something of a hero back home!"

Ko... Ho... "And yet, here you are."

"Yeah, it's a mystery to me too, don't worry. But hey, that's what this fight's for, to help me get some answers!" Ben raised his hand. "After all, the only sin I'd say I'm guilty of... is Rath!" His hand came down, and green light filled the ring.

His entire skeleton compressed, losing size and mass, his posture falling to a stance supported by his knuckles. The bones in Ben's arms softened, split in two, then hardened again, now ending in three-fingered hands. His skull regressed down the evolutionary tree that lead to humans before settling on a more primitive design, as new eye sockets were bored into place around the original pair. At the other end of the spine, his tailbone extended out into a full tail as long as his torso. A carpet of ultramarine hair quickly spread across his skin, which was itself now dyed a similar, darker shade of blue.

He posed, all four arms flexed and his tail ready for action. Standing on his short hind legs, he cried out the name attached to his form. "Spidermonkey!"

Warsman had seen a lot in his time as a wrestler. Alligator-sneaker-hybrid humanoids, a guy made of planets, even a polite American. But he had to admit, a boy turning into a mutant capuchin was a new one.

Ben, now settled into his transformation, slumped his arms. "...aw man!" He looked down at his chest. "Come on! I finally get to do a wrestling thing and you don't give me Rath?! Hoo hah ah!"

Power banged the cage, spooking Spidermonkey something fierce. Ben now understood why zoos told you not to do that, because his first instinct was to go for her face. "Don't think the champ is gonna go easy on you just cuz you're on the endangered species list now, punk!" She sneered. "Soon, you're gonna be endangered feces!"

Three eyebrows raised in confusion. "What does-- Why not say I'm gonna be extinct! Come on! Is this your first day?!"

"Shut up asshole, get wrestling!"

Ben couldn't shoot back at her, because it was in fact time to wrestle. Luckily, he was ready to rumbled. Warsman charged at him, a maneuver Spidermonkey was able to dodge with ease by simply jumping straight up. He clung to the cage with two of his hands, looking down at Warsman as the wrestler smashed face first into the cage. The reinforced Hell-steel was able to withstand the impact of the massive man running full speed into it, but it still shook with such force that Ben was worried the whole structure would collapse. "Woah, watch where you're goin', big guy!"

Warsman shook his head, backed up, and looked towards his out-of-reach opponent. "What are you doing up there?"

"Staying away from you!" Spidermonkey's two free hands came up to the sides of his face as he stuck out his tongue, accompanied by a customary "nyeh-nyeh!"

[u/KiwiArms → u/KiwiArms]

"Uraah!" Warsman jumped up, getting surprising height for such a massive, heavy fellow, in an attempt to grab the mischievous primate from the cage wall. He moved with such unforeseen agility that Spidermonkey was only barely able to perform a monkey flip to get out of the way, landing on all sixes behind the cyborg. Warsman quickly performed an about-face, before rushing again at his quarry.

Spidermonkey, again, dodged the attempt, this time by shooting a line of web from the tip of his tail to the cage's ceiling and using it as leverage to pull himself up and out of the way, like a grappling hook. Instead of crashing into the wall again, however, Warsman stopped on a dime and turned in one efficient motion, reaching out and grabbing his opponent by the leg as he tried to escape. "Predskazuyemyy!"

"Waagh!" Spidermonkey was wrenched downwards with the strength of a construction vehicle, and quickly smashed into the ring. The size disparity between him and Warsman was such that the man could crumple Ben like a piece of paper if he so chose, but instead the wrestler had decided to do things the old fashioned way. That is, a vigorous beating.

Before the concussion from the first impact had time to form, Spidermonkey found himself back in the air, swung like an upside-down pendulum over Warsman's head before being slammed back down into the canvas on the side opposite where he'd first hit. And then it happened again in the other direction, harder than the previous time. Over and over, Warsman beat the ring like a mattress with Spidermonkey's ragdolling body. Each meeting of monkey to mat was coupled with cheers from the audience and distressed, pained sounds from Ben, until there was no more wind to knock out of him.

"Urgh... Quit..." It took some doing, but Ben managed to focus enough to aim his tail mid-arc, between craterings. "It!"

"Gah!" Warsman was surprised by the sudden influx of webbing in his eyes, curtesy of Spidermonkey's tail. The substance clogged his vision, and more importantly threw him off his rhythm. His body instinctively reacted to the goo on his face, both hands coming to tear the stuff away as quickly as possible. His grip loosened, allowing Spidermonkey to make his escape. "Scoundrel!"

Spidermonkey leapt to freedom-- that is to say, the wall of the cage that separated him from freedom. "Hey man, every wrestler needs a gimmick!" Taking aim yet again, he spun more webbing at Warsman in three shots, hitting the mark each time. The first hit his hands, currently grabbing at the webbing already over his eyes, coagulating near instantly so as to trap them where they were. The other two projectiles of semifluid spider silk hit Warsman's feet, one for each, the intent being to keep the cybernetic wrestler in place.

A wry smile crossed Spidermonkey's face as he leaned back, directing a question to Power. "Say ref, does this count as a pin? Or do I have to be on him for that?" He jumped down without waiting for a response, onto Warsman himself. The choujin's hands were literally tied, so he wasn't able to stop Ben from crawling around onto his back. "Now just, fall down and let me pin you, big guy! Don't be a jerk about it!"

"N-nyet!" Warsman's will was as solid as his body, it seemed. "Simple tricks will not be enough to defeat me, ape! I've dealt with your kind before!"

"Monkey, actually."

That difference was more important than either had realized. Growing up in the Soviet Union, Nikolai had to contend with various threats that wanted his head for one reason or another, be it racists who hated him for his cyborg heritage, or agents of the state who found him to be a threat. This included, of course, Stalin's chimpanzee-human hybrids, his most deadly enforcers.

After his mother died, he was left homeless, familyless, for a great deal of his life. Due to this, he fell in with what we'll call a bad crowd of underground wrestlers to make ends meet. Literally underground, they operated out of the sewers. Point is, they were doing so illegally, and soon caught the attention of the Secret Humanzee Police.

He spent a good year fighting off humanzee operatives of all shapes and sizes, armed with tricks and weapons the likes of which humans simply could not wield. They could even use a gun with their feet, if you can believe it. And yet he persevered, he survived, he thrived. It only made him stronger, and by the time he was done, humanzees were simply a myth. And he, a legend.

All that said, though, they never shot spider webs at him, so his past experiences didn't one-to-one line up with the fight at hand, leading to his current troubles.

Spidermonkey, with his foremost pair of fists, began to bang on his opponent's back. "Come on, just go down already!" Thud, thud, thud, thump, thud. "It'll be easier for us both if you just give up!"

Warsman centered himself. "Hnn... never!" He began to exert himself with mathematically precise intent. Spidermonkey, still smacking away at his back, wasn't paying attention to the happenings at Warsman's front. And so, when his finely tuned hearing picked up the sound of tearing webs, he didn't know what to make of it.

Warsman did know what to make of it, though: A mess.

As soon as the first web was fired in the match, he began to compute it. Its material, tensile strength, et cetera. Now, having gotten a very up close look at the stuff, such analysis was child's play. The nanosecond calculations his were completed, commands fired down from his computer brain through the wired nerve endings of his body into his reinforced muscles. The electrical impulse was encoded with the necessary output required of them to properly tear the webs, which were of comparable strength to steel.

Steel, of course, was no match for Warsman.

"Grraaah!" With a mighty roar Warsman's hands were freed, tearing the webbing from his eyes at the same time. Ben was shocked by the development, and more shocked when Warsman proceeded to lean backwards. The move was executed with such speed and proficiency that Ben simply couldn't react properly, instinctively clinging to his foe for dear life as the giant fell onto his back. "Iron Curtain!"

The sound Spidermonkey made as he was crushed beneath a megaton of pure muscle and metal was one that's nearly impossible to write out, but if you were to try, it would likely look something like "Auwaauhooaaaugkkkk!" Give or take an 'a'.

The force with which Warsman fell back was sufficient enough to tear free his feet from their web restraints as well, returning full mobility to the choujin's bag of tricks. Momentum as his ally, he rocked back further, executing a reverse somersault that ended with him back on his feet. He raised his arms, and the crowd went wild.

"Oh shit, the Iron Curtain!" Henderson shouted from the ringside. "That's my favorite move he does!"

"Hnnnn..." Barely able to speak, his lungs reduced to a fine paste, Spidermonkey groaned. "Then how bout you wrestle him instead?"

"My wrestlin' days are behind me," was the response, "I'm into crypto now."

"How do you have crypto in HeEUuGH!"

Warsman had jumped up and fallen elbow-first into Spidermonkey's stomach, surely cracking a rib or seven in the process. He then grabbed the cerulean simian by the tail with both hands. "Here we go!"

He spun on the spot, picking up speed at an exponential rate all while Spidermonkey was helplessly subjected to the cruel callousness of centrifugal force. Warsman must have been spinning at a good fifty rotations per second when he finally let go. Released like a shotput, Spidermonkey near-immediately hit the wall of the cage with his face.

He fell down after a short pause where he was stuck in place, leaving an indent vaguely shaped like his head in the bars where he'd made contact.

"Are you ready to submit, child? I do not wish to extend your suffering more than is necessary, if you've learned your lesson."

Spidermonkey's response was measured and uncompromising. "But Mommy I don't wanna go to school, it's my birthday!"

Warsman shrugged. It wasn't the first time he'd beaten somebody delirious, and wasn't going to be the last either. "In that case, I will now pin you."

"Weeeahoo," Spidermonkey whistled, "you got a funny outfit, mister. Did you make it yourself?"

Henderson's eyes went wide as Warsman approached the defeated Spidermonkey. "No no no! It wasn't supposed ta go like this!" He gulped. Ben couldn't lose this match... no, that was absolutely unacceptable.

From his cloak, he produced something. A book, but without any words in it. At least, no words that we could see. He spoke those words, again such that nobody could hear them. All the same, they had the intended effect: the Omnitrix on Spidermonkey's chest shifted in hue from green to a deep, unnatural purple.

As if on its own, the dial rotated slightly, then less slightly, as if being manipulated by somebody's indecisive hands. With Warsman slowly approaching, it raised itself up, and slammed back down. Another flash of light filled the ring, and when it cleared, Spidermonkey was gone.

In his place laid the one, the only...

"...The Worst?"

His Omnitrix was back to its original classic green, and Ben having not noticed the color change or independent movement of the symbol meant he had no context as to why he was currently in a different alien, let alone this one.

"You've transformed again," Warsman noted.

"Urrghh..." The yellow little creature, looking like a tumor on a dish sponge, struggled to rock from his rotund rear onto his feet. Eventually, though, he got there, and replied, "Apparently. And yet you still don't give me Rath, huh?!"

Ko... ho... "No matter," Warsman continued, "this will be over in a moment."

Ben dreaded what came next. "I... wouldn't be so sure." With a gulp and a prayer, he prepared for the next round of the fight.

[u/KiwiArms → u/KiwiArms]

Juzo pushed open the door, nearly rusted shut at the hinges. Having made his way onto the Rokumon Junk, he found that the voice was coming from within a familiar room, but upon entering he was confronted with an unfamiliar girl. "Who might you be?"

The singing stopped, and the girl with a flower for an eye looked up at the man with a sword for a heart. She was sitting alone on a pillow, doing nothing in particular. "Does it matter?"

"Not much, but I'd still like to know," Juzo said back, sitting across from her. "Are you the one who raised this boat from the river?"

"Can't say I am," she answered, "I'm just somebody sitting in it."

He took in her presence. "You're not human, but you don't feel like an gedoshu. What are you?"

"Hmph. You sure want to know a lot about me for somebody who ruined my alone time. My name, my nature... the answer to both questions is the same. Zero."

He still had more questions. "And why are you here, Zero?"

"Why are you? I died. I was supposed to stay dead. I was supposed to be free of this tumor," she growled, and Juzo took that to mean the flower in her eye. "And I'm not, and it's still here, in me. Part of me." Her voice was shaky, but her tone stayed strong. "I just woke up here, in this shithole boat. And now you have all the same information I do, jackass. No more questions."

Silence.

"...You were singing."

"I said no more questions."

"This isn't a question. It was... nice. It reminded me of somebody."

"Is that right?"

"Yes. She's dead now, sadly."

"Lucky her."

More silence.

In a flash, both of them were standing, their swords drawn and placed at the other's throat. "You're quick," she mused. He grunted, returning the observation. They knew how these things go. They were both drawn here, to this derelict, for a reason. Both felt the bloodlust radiating from the other the second they were in the same room. A pair of killers in a room together with no purpose can only ever lead to one result, and that's for them to act on their nature. Either they'd kill each other, or they'd figure out why they were brought here. Regardless of the outcome, the only way to reach that point would be to fight.

The fight started in Juzo's favor. He knew the ship. He wasn't exactly intimate with it, but he definitely knew more than she did. Not breaking eye contact with Zero, he shook the floorboards with a stomp.

Vibrations travelled through the undead wood of the room up into the walls, then the ceiling, where it jostled free a dozen or so of the Susukodama that took shelter there. Tethered by long hairs to the rafters, the ghastly faces fell to eye-level with the pair, catching Zero off guard. Giggling like gossiping children, the hairy spirits repeated over and over her words. "You're quick! You're quick! You're quick! Hehehehehe!"

The distraction only lasted a fraction of a second, but it was enough for Juzo to take the advantage. He brought Uramasa down in a diagonal slash across Zero's torso, intending to strike her down in a single stroke. She had enough of her wits about her to prevent that, however, by way of sliding back, just out of reach of the tip of his blade. She regained her balance and went on the offensive, dashing forward to close the gap she'd just created. She swung her sword upwards from the floor, inverse of Juzo's own initial attack, and he caught it with a parry. The loud sound of their blades clashing, accompanied by sparks, startled the Susukodama enough for them to flee.

She used the momentum from the rebound of their clash to lead into a spin. Juzo was caught off guard, her strike now coming from the opposite side as the previous one, so quick he could hardly move to intercept in time. He was able to, however, and once more Uramasa clashed with the strange woman's sword.

Deep in him, under the skin, he felt a twinge of something familiar.

They clashed blades again and again, every strike coming from a new angle and parried with blinding speed. To an onlooker, it would seem choreographed. Scripted. Like two dancers in a ballet, performing the same intricate, beautiful routine they'd practiced a thousand times. The reality was that both were improvising, having to strategize and restrategize on the fly to cover for openings created by their opponent's reactions. It was more like speed chess, played by two supercomputers.

She thrusted forwards, and he dodged. Unfortunately, the floorboards weren't what they used to be. Weak wood gave way under the stress of their dance, and as consequence Juzo was snagged. He wasn't able to get as far from the blade as he intended. The tip of it broke through his clothes and tore his skin, piercing his right shoulder. He winced, but took the opportunity to strike back. Uramasa cleaved the air between them, swinging horizontally towards her midsection. She too managed to only barely dodge, the cursed sword slashing open a shallow wound across the exposed part of her stomach.

They put space between themselves again, assessing the situation. That feeling in Juzo grew, and it was deeper than he first thought. It wasn't just under his skin, it was soaked into his muscles. This...

Before his very eyes, he saw Zero's wound stop bleeding. The skin stretched across the gap to reconnect, sealing the wound shut, the only evidence of it having ever existed being the blood she'd already spilt. "You're quite impressive."

"You too," she shot back. "Handsome and good with a sword, if only we'd met under different circumstances!"

He smirked. "You and I both know it would end up like this anyway."

Silently, he allowed the purple flame to envelop him once more. Human flesh was replaced with Gedoshu, and Uramasa's wailing grew worse. It was music to his ears.

"Neat trick," Zero mused. "And now that you aren't as handsome, I won't feel so bad about killing you!"

She dashed forwards, and Juzo prepared to block her strike. Following a pivot faster than they eye could see she was at his side instead, slashing upwards with her sword. Though it was a blade, it felt more like a blunt instrument with how hard it hit him, the strike sending him flying up and out of the room, onto the main deck of the Rokumon. He grunted at the impact but maintained his composure, grabbing on to a stray rope from the mast and using it to swing back around.

Zero had anticipated this, however. She jumped after Juzo, to follow up the attack. He had done the math in his head and concluded that she wouldn't be able to reach him with the jump, however, so he allowed his body a moment of relief to recollect himself. That moment of relief was a mistake he'd regret, something that became clear when he saw her foot kick off of the air behind her, with a flash of violet light, propelling her forward with renewed velocity.

Her blade once more speared through him, this time in the stomach. The location was clearly intentional-- was she actually getting back at him for where he'd cut her moments prior? How petty.

The momentum carried both of them past the mast, where gravity caused their trajectory to arc downwards. They landed Juzo-first, his back smashing through the top deck of the ship and into one of the rooms below, the brig by the looks of it. Zero, midair, had positioned herself such that her feet were planted firmly on his body as she drew her sword free from his midsection. That wouldn't kill him, she knew as much, but it'd likely keep him stunned long enough for her to make her next move.

"Naive!"

Uramasa, guided by Juzo's hand, pierced through Zero's left Achilles tendon. She cried out in pain, and Juzo took the opening. With his free hand he grabbed her other leg and pulled, forcing her weight onto the now crippled and impaled ankle. This lead to the expected result, Zero losing her balance and falling over, off of Juzo. She hit the ground with a thud and a "Fuck!", and Juzo withdrew his sword, to the added effect of further slicing her leg.

"You have passion, anger, skill. I dare say I haven't seen somebody like you in..." His mind would have wandered, if it wasn't focused on the battle at hand. "...a long time."

"Feh..." She struggled back to her feet, supporting herself on her sword while the seconds necessary for her leg to heal ticked on. "You say that like I'm not the one winning this fight so far, jackass!"

"The first thing you should know, Zero..."

Her leg was all better now, so she didn't let him finish. She struck out at him with a flurry of blows, each thrust of her blade reaching the apex before the previous one's afterimage had faded. He blocked every single one, and parried the final strike such that it knocked her off her stance. She got ready for him to counterattack with his sword, but instead she was met with a headbutt. That monstrous skull of his was harder than it looked, and much harder than that of a human, or even an Invoker like herself. The strike left her dazed for just an instant, which was all the time he needed to follow it up with the slash she'd been expecting all along, this time across her throat.

"...is that I only just started fighting."

[u/KiwiArms → u/KiwiArms]

Zero stood there, her throat slashed open deeply enough that most people wouldn't even bother to choke on their own blood before dying from the injury. And yet, she stood there. Juzo was enraptured.

He was fascinated as she gurgled through the bleeding, the wound suturing itself in real time like her others. Experimentally, he slashed her again, just as it had healed over, and again it began to heal. What about the chest, then? That healed too. What if he cut off her ear, would that heal? Slower than the slashes, but yes, he could see flesh start to bubble into formation from the wound shortly after he lopped it off.

His probing torture of her with his blade unfortunately held his attention longer than it should have, leaving him open. He thrust Uramasa forward, intending to test if she'd heal from a removed heart-- and was pushed back, into the wall, by a pink sigil that formed in Zero's defense. Stunned by the sudden forcefield, he was struck by Zero's followup, a thrust of her sword that sent him through the wall and into the next room.

Dust didn't have time to be thrown into the air, let alone settle, before Zero was hitting him again. Or rather, her sword was, as she'd thrown it at him. It cleared the distance between them like a lightning bolt, and struck him just as hard. Had be been any lower to the ground it would have cleaved his head in half right down the middle, but instead it hit him in the chest. Her sword wasn't stopped by his body, however, and kept going until he felt the guard against his skin. He felt it spearing his lungs, pinning him to the wall of the Rokumon. It felt fantastic.

Zero was at her blade in the blink of an eye, clearly seething with rage at this point. "Fucker!" She gripped it by the hilt and twisted, eliciting a scream of ecstatic agony from her foe. "You'll regret ever--"

"Hn!" He delivered a swift kick to her midsection, sending her flying back and taking her sword with her. Quickly his eyes darted around the musty storage room, searching for Uramasa. It had been knocked from his hand by her strike, and he'd lost track of... there! "Gotta-- Agh!"

Zero, kicked back up onto the deck, had found a knife, left over from when the ship was inhabited. It was thrown back at Juzo with deadly precision, impaling his hand through the back of his palm as he tried to grab for Uramasa. This delayed him, but did not deter him. He tore the knife free without any finesse or care, making the wound worse than necessary in his haste to get his sword back. His sword cried out for him, and he answered its call.

He jumped up to meet her on the deck. His arrival was immediately met with an overhead slash from Zero, which he blocked with the reverse side of Uramasa's blade. "Yes, yes! This is why we're here!" He pushed up back against her sword, knocking it away before elbowing Zero in the chest. "To fight! To fight forever!" Her breath knocked from her lungs, he went back on the offensive, slashing her from the shoulder to halfway down the chest.

She roared in anger and pain, and grabbed his sword by the blade. "You..." She dragged herself forward, along the length of Uramasa. By now, the only part of her that wasn't dyed crimson by blood was the flower in her eye. "...piece of shit!" To emphasize her declaration, she punctuated it with a headbutt, revenge for his own earlier. It had the same effect on him that his had on her, causing him to stumble back. His hands loosened their grip on Uramasa, which she proceeded to fling from her body-- embedding it in the mast.

She began to sing. She began to sing, and the blood on her clothes began to listen.

He reeled, recovering from the blow just in time to catch sight of what she was doing. Bright light, brighter than the stars, it flowed from every inch of her. It was beautiful. Perfect! More, more! He went to draw Uramasa, only to realize that the blade was no longer on his person.

Her song had calcified into a roar, a guttural cry of rage. It was like a chorus of angels to Juzo.

It was clear, now, what he felt. It wasn't just in his muscles, no, this was in his body to the deepest parts. Down in his bones, in the marrow, that's where this feeling was, like it was intertwined with his very DNA. This is what he lived for, what he'd forgotten. Zero... she was perfect. Somebody who would be his match, his opponent, his partner. Not a replacement for Takeru, no... in much the same way a second love does not replace one's first. He was moving on.

"I think I might be in love with you," he said, meaning every word with absolute sincerity. "I can't wait for us to kill each other." He meant that too, just as sincerely if not more.

She tackled him with the strength of an oncoming train, and together they fell off the ship and into the depths.

 

 

Rostam, across the shore, looked on. "Damn, I sure am glad that he's in there and I'm out here."

Lana, looking up from her fishing, gave him an inquisitive look. "...how long have you been standing there?"

He gave a hearty chuckle, deep from his belly. "Whole time! Guess I have a Presence Concealment skill I didn't know about!"

"A what?"

"Don't worry about it, kid."

"So are you that guy's friend, then?"

"I'd like to think so," Rostam mused, "but I doubt he sees me the same way! We're kindred spirits, though. Like sharks and dolphins."

"...those aren't really all that similar, you know."

"Nah, they're both reptiles, both live in the ocean, both eat stuff. It's pretty much one to one, I think."

Lana was left without words. And so was Rostam, especially after a glob of crimson gel latched onto the girl from behind and dragged her back, much to both of their shock. "God's goats, what was that?!"

Lana, fighting valiantly against the "I don't know, but I'd appreciate some help with thi-- Mmmph!" Her mouth, now covered by that same substance, clearly continued to shout some muffled expletives at the situation.

Rostam started after her, as any hero would when faced with a young lady in peril. The chase lead them behind some bushes, to a clearing, where he saw... he wasn't quite sure what it is he saw, actually. The mass of goo had rejoined with some other mass of good that had been waiting for it, in the process freeing Lana from its clutches. She coughed up some of the stuff, reviled by the taste.

"Bleh! Raspberry!"

Rostam, sword drawn, approached the slime with caution. He'd heard tales of adventurers coming across gelatinous beings like this before, but they were normally cubic, not-- "My word!"

It was clear now that the goo was not itself animate, but was instead puppeted around by some sort of miniature apparatus the likes of which Rostam had not before seen. It was shaped like a saucer and zipped around like a humming bird, the goo following it like iron filaments follow a magnet, until it had all been collected in a single red mass. The device then hovered above the stuff, at about the height of a man, and the substance quickly took a form that was vaguely humanoid.

"Surely," he said, stepping between the figure and Lana, extending an arm to guard her, "this is the trick of some vile Deev or sorcerer. Worry not, young lady, I'll protect you from--"

It was now, up close, that he made out two key features of the entity: A pair of eyes, staring right at him, filled with rage... and a familiar dial atop the floating disc that controlled the thing.

"...Master Tennyson?!"

No response.

"Garshasp's beard you had me worried! I haven't seen you since that vile demon possessed your body a few days ago! We freed you but then you... just disappeared!" To Ancient China, but this Rostam didn't know that. "And this form you're in, if I recall what you told me correctly... this is Goop, yes?"

"You're being awful friendly with this guy considering he tried to drown me in gelatin," Lana remarked with an unamused scowl.

"Fret not, child," Rostam assured her, "this is a dear friend of mine, Ben Tennyson! Surely, he had some reason for-- Ngmph?!"

Rostam's head was very suddenly held in a bubble of the substance of Goop's body, catching him off guard and causing Lana to jump back in surprise. "Some friend!" She fumbled around with her bag, trying desperately to find something. "Come on, where's that Pokeb... got it!" Producing a red and white ball, she chucked it in the direction of their assailant, with a shout of "Primarina, I choose you!"

Unfortunately, Goop was able to throw part of himself at the ball to intercept it. It was soon engulfed in red ooze, the pressure of which stopped it from opening and, thus, from releasing the creature held inside. Lana, in turn, was forced down by one of Goop's appendages, his arm extended to the length necessary to close the gap between them and his 'hand' expanded to completely pin her down.

"I'm not here for you, girl," he said, his almost comical voice at odds with the situation. His attention turned to Rostam, who was still being Goopboarded. "So you're Rostam, some say Rustam. I've been waiting to meet you." He freed the man from his goopy prison, and Rostam fell to his knees, gasping for air and coughing up slime.

"W-- hauck-- what are you d-doing?!"

"You were right to figure this one was named Goop, you know," said Goop. He reached up to press the Omnitrix's dial on his saucer. "But you were wrong about the other thing."

A red flash. Goop disappeared, and was replaced by a human. A human with red eyes, and white hair.

Albedo pressed a button on his Omnitrix, creating a field of energy to keep the two from escaping. "I am not Ben Tennyson."

[u/KiwiArms → u/KiwiArms]

Warsman was out of breath. He had lost track of how long it had been. He had stood there, beating on his opponent without mercy, without stopping, for the entire time, and yet the little yellow bastard seemed none the worse for wear, despite his complaints to the contrary.

And like that, the thirty-minute mark ticked over. Warsman knew that it meant he could not continue. He knew when to give up. "I..." he gave a labored exhale, struggling to raise his voice, "...yield."

The Worst, who had been pounded into a literal crater in the ring, gave a weak thumbs up and a faint "Yaaaay" in response.

Power banged against the cage. "That is such BULLSHIT! You go back to beating the shit out of him this instant!"

"You heard the man, Gerty," Henderson chuckled, arms crossed and spliff firmly between his lips. "He yields! A yield's a yield, and a deal's a deal! My boy Benjo gets to come back to life, it's right there in the contract!"

Power wanted to argue... but fuck it, he was right. She knew Henderson, had known him a long time, and she knew better than to argue rules with him. He'd always win, no matter how absurd his stance seemed.

"Fuckin... fine," she grumbled, waving for the crew to open the cage, much to the crowd's disappointment. "But I won't forget this, you old fuck. Next time it's gonna be you in that ring getting your shit pushed in, got that?"

He smiled, looking at her over his aviators. "Haha, not so!" He whipped out a piece of paper, a contract for the match. When it was signed and where he got it, nobody could say. "See, I'm Ben's manager, right? And as such, I'm entitled to 15% of his winnings!"

She followed so far. "Right...?"

"And what are his winnings, exactly?"

"To... come back to life wait that's bullshit!" She grabbed him by the collar. "How are you gonna come 15% back to life anyway, huh asshole?! You know that's not how this works! No deal!"

"If you don't like it, take it up with the man upstairs," chuckled the old bastard, "but it says, right here in dried virgin blood, that I get 15% of his winnings, and that means I get 15% of his revival!"

The Worst, still dazed from his beating, could only offer a "What?" from his spot embedded two feet in canvas.

"Grr....!" Power lashed out at the nearest demon, tearing their head from their body and throwing it into a crowd that eagerly scrambled to catch it. "Fine! You'll be dead again in a week anyway with how much you smoke, dickweed! And I'll be waiting, remember that!"

"Oh Marge," Henderson said with a smile, "I could never forget you!"

"So, uh," Ben said, now back in human form but still trapped in the mat, "how do... I get home, exactly?"

TO BE CONTINUED!