Character Scramble 15 Semifinals: I'm Still Here

[u/LetterSequence]

This round is now closed for voting! Please vote for the write ups in the form linked here. Voting will close at 10PM on April 12th.

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This round is for matches 37 and 38 on the bracket. Make sure to double check to see if you’re in this one!

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Your journey is reaching its end. The location of Kingdom Hearts may be nearly impossible to reach on foot, by land, or by sky. Except there is one way to get there. After all this time traveling, all the information you’ve acquired, all the things you’ve seen, you know the secret. It all involves a door.

“When the door is open, so too will Kingdom Hearts open.”

There’s one door that is spoken of. A door used by a dreaded space captain. This captain stole treasures from all across the universe, and kept them to himself, never to be seen again. This door is a portal that opens to his treasure, and it can also open up to anywhere in the entire universe. It can open the way to Kingdom Hearts.

And that door is located on…

Treasure Planet

So you know where to go. But how do you exactly open this door?

Luckily for you, one brave adventurer holds a map, a spaceship, and the key to this door, and is looking for a crew to help escort them across the cosmos to reach the planet unharmed. That’s when the ideas start to formulate.

Escort or Heist?

Will your team present themselves to this adventurer and offer them aid? In exchange for directions, a split prize, and a companion, this would involve ensuring their safety, providing passage across all of Treasure Planet, fighting off any who would stand in your path, putting your life in harm's way all the while.

Or… will your team simply wait for someone else to take up the offer? If they follow this path, they can stalk the team who joins them instead. By prowling in wait, they can ambush the other team at the vital moment they reach the treasure, and take it all for themselves. However, you’d need to obtain your own means of travel, as losing sight of them means losing the treasure in its entirety.

Space, Land, or Underground?

Traversing an entire planet aimlessly is a good way to get yourselves killed. You’ll need to pick a route that’s safest to get there with the least danger possible.

Do you approach from outer space? Going from above may seem like the route with the least danger, but it comes with plenty of downsides. One wrong move, a stray asteroid, an attack that leaves you stranded from the ship, can leave you floating in the deep reaches of space until you finally perish.

Do you approach from land? It’s the most straightforward and easiest to circumnavigate, but this planet is covered in deep jungles and vegetation, with very little wildlife. Resources may be difficult to manage, the path would be the longest, and an ambush is almost all but guaranteed.

Do you approach from the underground? Beneath the surface is an entire system of passageways, tunnels, and heavy machinery, as if the planet was built by some insane person. It’d get you to the door the fastest if you know where you’re going, but if you don’t… you may be lost under here forever.

The Door

At the pivotal moment when the door is open, what will your team do? It can offer them guidance, lead them anywhere in the universe, and lead them exactly to Kingdom Hearts. But the promise of unlimited riches stands in front of them as well. It is here that what is most important to them will be tested.

All of this being said… this is the final leg of your quest before finally obtaining all you desire. So… what will you do?

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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…: Space Adventurers! The guest in this round is someone who has a vested interest in Treasure Planet. Are they the person who holds the key, who needs to be escorted to the door? Are they the leader of the band of misfits who intend on stealing your treasure for themselves, or the group that escorts the client to the door? Are they a lone wanderer, stuck on this planet, who once resided on the crew of the captain who stole all the treasure? However they show up is up to you!

Setting: Treasure Planet, a mysterious and deadly planet said to hold all the treasures in the world at its core. The solar system surrounding it, deep in the cosmos, bathes this world in purple hues, the lights from hundreds of millions of stars. The planet itself is teeming with vegetation. Thick jungles, moss, mildew, and yet curiously, no life at all. Only the remnants of an adventure long since finished. Underneath the surface, this planet functions as a machine. Deep tunnels that lead to secret passageways, lights that illuminate this world, and cogs turning for some reason or another. There are plenty of paths that all lead to the same place. The door that leads to everywhere, and most importantly, to your goal.

Key Points: The key points of this round are as follows. You must obtain the key to open the door that leads into your ultimate goal (Kingdom Hearts). How you obtain this key, reach the door, and what roles the enemy team and guest fill are up to you.

Post Limit: For this round, writers will be limited to 10 posts, or 100k 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 judgment, 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 April 8th. That’s a full month, so you should have plenty of time!

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Flavor Suggestions

The Door is Open: Your team is heading for the door that resides somewhere on this planet. This door is essentially a portal that can lead to anywhere in the entire universe. While you ultimately have a destination in mind, does such a prospect tempt anyone on your team? How would they react to such an easy method of transportation? Would they try to keep it for themselves? Visit any places before settling on Kingdom Hearts?

Fool’s Gold: The core of Treasure Planet is roughly one hundred million billion metric tons of gold, jewelry, and riches stolen from various cultures and civilizations. Maybe your team is only in it for the money. So, is there something that’d tempt them even more than this? Some kind of goal that’d make them seek out Kingdom Hearts instead of ending their journey here and just nabbing as much gold as they can get their hands on? Or maybe, they’ll get greedy, and try to do both? Remember, it all depends on what your team would do!

[u/Cleverly_Clearly]

Nobody but an insider could've navigated the winding, junk-filled, thug-filled alleyways. Steeljack did it with ease. Maybe it wasn't just street smarts that got them through without getting accosted, mugged, or shivved. It was this air of authority about him. It wasn't like he had authority himself, but there was an aura over Steeljack, something obvious in the way people turned their heads when he walked by. Scarred-up ogres didn't make eye contact with Steeljack, they'd rather put their hands in their pockets or get back to whatever they were doing.

Chuuya had seen that before. They weren't afraid of Steeljack. He was protected. Somebody important was his capo. Someone scarier than all the bad motherfuckers in here. Most likely, someone Chuuya would have to punch through on his way to Mori.

OUGAI MORI. That name made his blood fucking boil now. Knowing how he got sold out, knowing how he dredged up the most hidden, most hated parts of his history and handed it off to these shady fucks. Sure, ostensibly they were supposed to simply get in and get out. But he knew better than that. Dazai must've known that Chuuya would use this opportunity to pay a visit to his former boss, and take his head.

He just needed to ditch the babysitter.

"If you're lookin' to get into Chiyoda, we can get ya floatin' along the Kanda River," Steeljack said. "We're pretty close to Suginama. They'd never put tanks on our border, never. We'd tear 'em apart. We're not takin' any part in their war. Ain't our country, an' never was."

Chuuya looked around at the ivy-covered buildings. Mori could've been in any one of them. "You're giving us a path straight through to Mishima. Can't really call that being neutral."

"We're not helping you. We're just tellin' you which way to go to get out of here as fast as you can. Everyone wants you out of here as fast as possible. It's somethin' we're doin' to make sure you don't make a damn scene and start hurtin' people. The moment you do, that courtesy runs out."

"Really? I thought I might linger a while. Check and see if anybody I know ended up in this charming little town."

Ooh, he almost caught Steeljack tensing up. Almost. He was able to shake it off like Chuuya hadn't needled him with that comment. This guy was tough. Must've had an old, leathery criminal's soul. But right there, Chuuya knew the truth, that they were hiding Mori from him. And Steeljack knew he knew.

"You're not gonna linger," Steeljack said, "And you're not gonna check an' see if anyone or anything is here. Let's just..."

Seconds earlier, Saxton had looked up, started glancing around like a startled dog. Now Steeljack was doing it as well. Something wrong? It didn't look like anything was going down. They were crammed into a narrow alley that looked like the midway between a wet market and the Gaza strip, clotheslines and barbed wire and overgrown vines tangled all up the walls above him, people thronging around him, bumping and jostling him as they headed past. The smell was foul and the noises were intolerable. But, over the general crowd sound, Chuuya could hear something new. The pop and rev of an engine.

Hale acted first. He swept up everybody in his arms, hefting the big metal schlub and Fourze and Chuuya easily and leaping up out of the alley and shredding through everything in his path. Saxton had touched down some hundred meters away in a slightly-less-crowded plaza. Instantly rock and dirt blew everywhere.

"Fuck!" Stone fragments rocketed away from the impact site like shrapnel. One scraped Chuuya's cheek. "Fuck! Fucking idiot!"

After Saxton dumped them out onto the floor, Chuuya rolled and got himself on his hands and knees. His hands found the rim of the crater. He pulled himself up. Which way had they even come from? He was completely disoriented, his sense of balance kept tilting at a Dutch angle and his stomach was doing backflips. The engine. They'd jumped away from the engine noise. Which alley was it coming from?

There it was! A wolfish howl, a little to his left, growling louder and louder. Shouts of dismay, stomping feet, crashing and creaking and snapping of wood. That sounded more like a damn rampaging monster than a vehicle. Come to think of it, how could anyone ride a motorcycle through a crowded alley like that? You'd have to plow straight through everything and everyone in your path. Unless--

A few stragglers managed to make it out, but that was it. The motorcycle rider blew through, red blood painted over his shining black armor. The sight was so ridiculous that Chuuya could hardly understand what he was seeing. It was a full-on, storybook, fairy-tale knight with a sword the size of a claymore. On top of a motorcycle. A complete mishmash, the kind of incongruity that shouldn't have been able to exist. But there wasn't any time to question the metaphysical nature of the paradox when that paradox was bearing down on them at near two hundred miles an hour.

All of a sudden he'd been completely energized--panic can do that to a guy--and Chuuya launched himself into the air. He was nearly weightless. Just enough that he didn't have to worry about the air pressure. Floating, spinning vertically on axis like a foosball flipper, watching the whole world below. Fourze and Steeljack were just starting to get up. Saxton wasn't even fazed.

The armored rider looked like he was about to plow right through the group. That was what would've happened if he'd kept going, anyway. Instead, inexplicably, he swerved to one side, scraping horizontally across the dirt and coming to a quick and graceful stop. The tires were smoking from the heat.

"See here, are you the brigands who have been terrorizing the country?" He slung his sword over his shoulder, and the damn thing was longer than Chuuya's whole armspan. "Were I to strike you down without the favor of introduction, it would be greater favor than your foul deeds have earned. However, I represent Ser Arthur of the Round Table, and as such must meet the standards set by said Round Table, standards which I imagine you ruthless butchers could not even comprehend, much less--"

"Oh, my God, just shut the hell up already!" Saxton roared. "Enough with the speeches! Just lemme fight a guy without all the speechening!"

"You dare?!"

Boy, Chuuya was glad to be floating away from this.

The four of them were getting smaller and smaller by now, Chuuya was drifting up towards the tops of the taller buildings. Upside-down his foot brushed up against something small and unwieldy that caused him to lurch forward and stagger unexpectedly. A bird. He was balancing on the belly of a buzzard. Actually, it seemed to hardly notice him as it took off, flapping its wings idly and purposelessly over a city that allowed it to gorge itself.

Steeljack looked around. "Waitaminute, where's..."

Which one of them was going to notice first? Oh, it was Fourze. Made sense that Fourze would be the one guy to try and look up, even with a hulking black knight before their eyes. He turned, he looked, and he pointed, and then everyone's eyes snapped to the same ridiculous sight--Chuuya riding the underside bird on one foot like he was slipping on a banana peel. Now that he was thinking about it like that, he suddenly realized that this was not cool, it was gawky and horrible and he wanted to stop doing that. But he was kind of committed to it by this point.

"Chuuya! What are you doing? Help us!"

That's Fourze for ya. Fucking narc.

Steeljack chased after him. No doubt about it now, his number one priority wasn't just escorting them through the city, it was making sure that he didn't get his hands on Mori. Saxton moved too, except for some reason he didn't follow Steeljack's trajectory, he sprinted at a right angle to him to get as far away from him as possible. Maybe it was for the same reason that Chuuya was skipping out. He was looking to pick a fight, he didn't want anyone or anything holding him back or getting in the way. They might've had more in common than he'd thought. Causing trouble everywhere they go, leaving all kinds of bloody messes in their wake, that was the life of a couple of human wrecking balls.

The buzzard was soaring, and the little guys on the ground were getting smaller and smaller.

[u/Cleverly_Clearly → u/Cleverly_Clearly]

Two miles away, a helicopter circled Zaun's city limits. This was a small operation. The first operative was merely functional, in the pilot's seat; the second was the star of the show, hanging out of the open door, one hand shielding his eyes from the sun. After all, his eyes were very sensitive. He was channeling the visual acuity of an eagle and the infrared sight of a bullfrog, allowing him to track his targets in the middle of a crowded city from a distance. It wasn't too hard to identify the specifics. Not when one of them was jumping clear over the buildings like that.

"What do you think," the pilot asked, "You got your guy?"

The other man didn't respond for a moment. It wasn't that he had to think about his answer. It was more that he didn't know how to feel about it.

"That's absolutely Saxton Hale. It's time to move in."

[u/Cleverly_Clearly → u/Cleverly_Clearly]

Hale was starting to learn a thing or two about tactical retreating. So-called "conventional wisdom" said that you retreated from a fight you couldn't win. Hale had cleverly adapted the tactic of running from a fight to suit his own interests--running from a fight to find larger, better fights.

See, Hale understood Chuuya when he flew off. He really got to understanding that guy, even if he was a shrimp with baby arms and hippie hair. He knew Chuuya wasn't leaving because he was scared. He was ditching Steeljack while he was distracted, to go and settle accounts with that boss guy or whatever his name was (Hale wasn't listening).

The point was, it was more like he was delegating the fight to Fourze. This was his sign of trust in the kid. He'd seen him fight, they'd tussled with each other's foes, now he was passing off this badass knight battle to him. There were much bigger fish to fry than this. The sheer aura of violence radiating from the entire city got Saxton's fighter's blood boiling, he was ready to start throwing down and administering dope slaps and dick punches. He just needed to find his perfect match. Clearly, if he just started swinging his legs and arms as hard as he could in a crowded area, then he would eventually run into someone tough.

So he did. He leapt right into another dark alley, straight through a crowd of muscled roughnecks, and did what he did best. They didn't even know what hit them. People started flying through walls, dashed against rocks. Blood splashed. A foot flew through the air and nobody knew whose it was. Yes, this was Hale's truth. The fury, the whirlwind, the deathbringer! He didn't need a reason to fight, he just needed a strong opponent, away from that moralizing kid.

And immediately, things were different. This wasn't like G-CORP, Hale could actually feel those punches. This was beyond simple martial arts training. These were people forged in the heart of battle, people who could take Saxton's blows, people who could perform admirably against an Australian. Finally, he was alive, he was free, he was... he was...

God damn it, he was bored! This wasn't fun for him anymore! Something was wrong, something had infected him. It was that kid! That damn kid, his niceness had gotten him all mixed up, and now he couldn't enjoy picking a fight with a hundred guys at once. The day that Saxton Hale doesn't enjoy that is the day Hell freezes over, but clearly Hell had frozen because he was getting kicked in the kidneys and it was barely mustering a chuckle out of him. What was it? What was he missing that he'd had before, that made him so happy before? All he felt was--he didn't know. He didn't know what he felt, and that was really starting to eat him.

He shoved his way through the crowd, cleared a path straight through the front of the closest building, and jumped! Up, straight through the floors, bursting through each story until he'd cleared the roof, then touched down and hopped away across the avenues. A hop, skip, and a jump, from rooftop to rooftop, putting some space between him and the mob he'd created. It sounded like they were carrying on the fight in his absence, but even senseless violence couldn't cheer him up now.

What the hell was he doing, really? Why did he leave Fourze alone like that, run off to get into a brawl that didn't even thrill him? Had friendship made him soft?

Uh-oh. Now he was starting to have angsty internal monologues. That kid had really gotten his hooks into him.

The wind picked up. Saxton craned his neck and saw a helicopter lowering itself down towards the rooftops. It was sleek, jet black, and had no identifying markers. Black ops, maybe. Hale was familiar with this cloak and dagger stuff, he knew when governments wanted to keep this secret. He shipped munitions to most of them, after all.

Normally, when they hovered in the air like that, some mercenaries would start sliding down on a rope or something, but Hale couldn't see anything along those lines. Yet he could still sense another presence. The pilot up in the heli, and something... invisible? Something busily swooping towards him.

He stepped out of the way at the last moment, and the thing flew by him. It skidded across the roof. Plaster and concrete tore up and trenches dug themselves into the ground, revealing two parallel paths like someone pushed their heels in and skidded backwards. The mystery man.

"I thought it wouldn't be that easy," he said. A male voice. American accent. "You can see through the camo?"

"Don't need to. What is that, anyway? Even I've never seen cloaking tech that can fool my eyes, and I sell the best."

"That's because it's not for sale."

The man painted himself out of thin air. Blue and orange scales dappled into view and before his eyes the man reconstructed himself. A tall guy, with wild blonde hair and a ridiculous superhero outfit that paired a jacket with a jumpsuit.

"The name's Animal Man, and that was chameleon skin with some peregrine falcon flight. We need to talk."

[u/Cleverly_Clearly → u/Cleverly_Clearly]

Animal Man

Buddy Baker is a superhero with the alias Animal Man. His story is typical in his world: stumbled across an alien spacecraft, touched it, got strange powers. In his case, he can tap into a "morphogenetic field" that allows him to copy animal powers. Buddy's abilities gave him a deep sympathy for animals, and among his fellow superheroes he's notorious for his activism. Buddy is known to engage in vigilantism and even borderline terrorism to fight against poachers, illegal experimenters, and the like. He's also been through some serious shit. Like, fucked up stuff. Don't even ask.

[u/Cleverly_Clearly → u/Cleverly_Clearly]

"I'd bet we don't need to talk," Hale said. "Unless you're looking for a scrap. Or some kinda major arms deal. Then you can jaw away."

"No, Hale. This isn't about that. This is about you, personally. Once I heard you'd gotten stuck outside of Australia, I knew I had to see you. I called in favors. Went under the Justice League's nose. Got through JSDF-patrolled closed-off airspace. All so I could finally meet the famous Mr. Hale."

Hale struck a circus strongman pose. A singular ripple seemed to ebb out from the entirety of his muscles, like a rock dropped into a pond, flowing from one side of his taut skin to the other.

"Well, you got a meeting with the genuine article. What do you want, an autograph?"

"It's not just what I want. I'm acting on behalf of the Australian government today. They want you to stand trial in their territory, not Japan's. And I want you to turn yourself in quietly."

Oh. Oh. He got it now. "The government is after me, too? Can't anyone just give me a bloody break?! So what, I punched a couple cops! That's like a national pastime down under!"

"I really don't care what they want. I just needed their cooperation so I could talk to you. Back there, you were protected, you had your cronies, the laws were stacked up like a fortress around you. It's not like that here. I want you to tell me something, honestly, face to face. No red tape, no lies."

He circled around Hale's shoulder. Animal Man was radiating--something, a dark aura that made Hale hesitate to step in for the first punch. It didn't seem like he wanted to fight, and yet he seemed so angry...

"Do you know that you hunted at least eight different species to extinction?"

Hale smirked. "At least."

"Not for its body," he continued, "Not even for profit. Do you realize how--insane--it sounds, that you fought and killed so many things that were alive, and felt pain like you and me, and did it in the most inhumane and grotesque way I could imagine, because you wanted to fistfight them? I've wanted to ask you, ever since I learned what you'd done. Do you feel any shame at all?"

Huh.

This topic. He remembered this. This was something that got Hale negative attention before. Most human opponents posed no challenge to Hale, so he took his fights to the animal kingdom, battling the rarest and most exotic creatures and wrestling them with his bare hands. Those fights were usually to the death. Sometimes the animal was the last of its kind. There were these talks, and arguments, and protests, and lots of people shouting at him. They dared to talk that way to Saxton Hale! Nobody tough at all, a bunch of flowy-haired hippies telling him how to live his life, saying he couldn't do this and that!

That was just what the bastards back at Mann Co had done! Just what Mishima and those government stuffed shirts had done! They were always prodding and poking him, criticizing them, trying to fit him into one of their boxes, trying to make him what they wanted him to be! It was like people didn't even want him to exist anymore! All these people that didn't understand him, could never understand him! Because Saxton Hale was an individual, God broke the mold on him, never to be used again, born the strongest, elevated above everyone else, looking for a true equal!

They didn't know what it was like to be alone.

"I make it a policy not to regret anything," Hale said, at last. "I'm a killer. I'm a ruthless, gun-dealing son of a bitch, and I don't shed any tears. It thrills me, even. Knowing that I snap my fingers, and a million weapons ship out and change the world. It's even better when you're right in the thick of the action yourself. Breaking an elephant's neck over my knee as I twist its body into an impossible grapple. Tearing an arm off an endangered gorilla on the highest Himalayan peak. I admit it, I did it all, I killed so many of those critters it'd make your head spin right off your block. And I didn't do it for sport, or for pride. I did it because I am Saxton Hale. I am not nice, I am not easy, and I am absolutely not weak. If I didn't prove it every day, I wouldn't exist anymore. So let me ask you a question, you self-righteous thrift store superhero wanker. Do you have a problem with the way I live? If you do... you'd better be ready to settle it with your fists."

Hale put his dukes up. Two guns more powerful than anything he'd ever sold, already twinkling with sweat and stained in blood. Animal Man gave it a quick glance, then back up to meet Hale's eyes.

"It sounds to me," Animal Man said, "Like it'd be safer for everyone if you were locked up for good."

"They don't make chains strong enough for me."

The two of them stepped forward at the same time, and vanished. And then, with a crack of thunder, they collided.

[u/Cleverly_Clearly → u/Cleverly_Clearly]

Well, there's a lot to analyze here. The juxtaposition of the ancient armor and the diesel machine? The man had mentioned the Round Table--did that mean the Round Table Fourze was thinking of? Was he a time traveler? Did he get frozen in ice like Captain America?

Okay. That should probably wait for later. Fourze was gonna get himself into a bigger mess by dawdling and daydreaming.

"You, foeman of the ivory armor." That sword was sharp. That sword was SO sharp, and he toted it as casually as a cigarette. "Why do you stand and prepare to fight, while your allies abandon you?"

"That's the question, huh," Fourze said.

The knight removed his helmet. He was strikingly handsome. "You seem to bear a higher character than that rabble. Why then, foeman, do you defend their meager honor?"

"That's the question, huh," Fourze said.

"Repetitious foeman, give me your name. If you are indeed a man of standards, so much as a brigand may be, you are at least worth my title, if you will permit me yours."

No, he couldn't suppress those thoughts anymore. He couldn't. Too much of his life was internal. His friends had run off to fight on their own and he was in a dirty crater, and maybe his other friends were dead or hated him now and maybe his grandpa would die while he was still a murderer and a fugitive. This all flooded suddenly into his mind in three seconds while he was standing there and the knight was looking at him on his bike.

He closed his eyes. He pushed it out, and breathed.

"My name is Gentaro Kisaragi. I ain't a knight or anything, but my dream is to make friends with everyone I can. Because everyone needs a friend."

"I see. That is truly a worthy creed, foeman Kisaragi. To repay your courtesy, I shall reveal my name in turn."

And the black knight bowed, and was true to his word.

[u/Cleverly_Clearly → u/Cleverly_Clearly]

Sir Lancelot du Lac

Undeniably the most famous of King Arthur's knights, and often considered the bravest. Lancelot went on many adventures and won many honors, but he is unfortunately known for his failures more than his successes, such as the berserker rages he frequently fell into, and his affair with Guinevere which contributed to the downfall of Camelot.

Lancelot originates from the 12th century chivalric romance The Knight of the Cart, written by Chrétien de Troyes several centuries after the historical Arthur would have lived (if there was any historical basis for King Arthur at all). However, he undeniably exists in the factual present; he is Mishima's successful experiment to write a complex fictional concept into a physical truth.

[u/Cleverly_Clearly → u/Cleverly_Clearly]

Lancelot edged the rim of the crater with the front wheel. It wasn't huge, certainly wasn't bigger than the craters Fourze had seen back on the moon. The scene felt more like he was in a motorcycle cage. Some kind of circus act, a hapless volunteer in the middle of a ring with the stuntman about to bear down on him. But it wasn't anything more serious than what he'd already dealt with before. Fighting the Zodiarts, battling another Kamen Rider, or a ten-foot-tall monster. This was something he could handle.

So why was he so nervous?

The black knight gunned the engine, and barreled down the side of the crater straight towards Fourze.

Fourze had been inside a building when Chuuya Nakahara brought the whole thing down. And he'd fought a guy that tried to hit Yokohama with a sun. A freaking sun. For all he knew, this guy was going to be just as strong. Or stronger. And there was no way to know which was which until he started fighting.

But, if he was too strong, then what was he supposed to do? Not fight? That wasn't something he could give up. Being a Kamen Rider wasn't something you threw aside if it got too hard.

Lancelot was 40 feet away.

C'mon. Come on.

30 feet.

Closer. C'mon, closer.

20 feet.

Now!

Lancelot drove the distance in a fraction of a moment, and by the time he hit the 10 foot mark his sword and arm were already long enough to split Fourze in two where he stood. That was when he had to act.

Water, on!

He swung his claymore, but he simply hit the empty space where Fourze had been. The Kamen Rider had fallen onto his back, pulled his knee up to his chest, and fired a high-pressure aquatic spray straight from his shin to Lancelot's solar plexus. It was enough to stop his forward momentum. In fact, it lifted the entire thing straight into the air, bike and rider.

It was a snap decision. Fourze was quick, but he couldn't sprint as fast as a top-of-the-line motorcycle. That's kinda why he rode one. If he could knock Lancelot off the bike, he could disable a serious advantage. Right now Lancelot spun merrily through the air. Wild vertical rotation easily beyond 360 degrees, twirling like a top, guaranteed to bail in his heavy armor. That was what would've made logical sense.

Instead, in the eyeblink he'd been flipped rightside-up, he speared his sword into the ground, rooting himself in place with sheer strength of arm. Lancelot allowed the bike to swing away, backwards, then swung himself forward again and launched with the momentum, swinging down mightily on Fourze. He had to pump his jetpack to push himself away from the blade, missing the edge by centimeters. What was that? What the hell was that supposed to be?! Was he some kind of acrobat?

No time to question it, here he comes again--

N+S Magnet, on!

He had to risk it. He transformed while Lancelot was bearing down on him, giving him no time to dodge. It wasn't his sword this time--the motorcycle itself was about to run him over, the front wheel a foot away. On the other hand, he was wearing a lot of metal. It only made sense to try and repel him.

Just before he was about to be dashed against the unforgiving ground by a speeding motorcycle, Fourze fired a shot of charged, repulsive magnetic energy that did absolutely nothing.

The front wheel of the bike had lifted slightly off the ground, enough that the tire struck him directly in the gut above his groin. The impact rippled through his whole body. His guts shuddered, his heart beat erratically. Quickly the tire gained purchase on his Rider suit, the treads pulling straight up his chest as Lancelot accelerated through him and pulled him underneath the wheels of the motorcycle. What did that add up to, a man that height, with armor and a full-size claymore and a speed machine like that? Must've been nearly half a ton. Half a ton driving straight over Fourze's body.

Yeah. That would've fucking killed him if he wasn't in the suit. He wasn't exactly having a good time with it. Why didn't that work? That was definitely metal, he could've pushed or pulled anything with his Magnet form. Unless it wasn't ferromagnetic? That's absurd, was his armor made of stainless steel or something?

Of course. Why wouldn't it be? They knew how Fourze fought by now. They had plenty of time to adapt.

Lancelot circled around, turning in an impossibly tight curve to throw a backhand sword-swing towards Fourze's prone body. He was beaten, sure, but he wasn't dead, it was just one hard hit. He twisted his body away, avoided the blow, but the knight only had to flick his wrist to scoop Fourze's body up with the flat of the blade. Instinctively, Fourze held on. Lancelot revved the engine. Away they went.

That was unmistakable riding talent. Fourze had never really been big on Arthurian mythology (he only knew Lancelot from anime), but he got the sense the guy was good on horseback. He could maneuver the bike underneath him like a steed, guiding it with twists that could've jackknifed if it were anyone else behind the handlebars. He hit the other side of the crater, rode up and jumped the whole thing into the air like a skier off a ramp, Fourze still clinging desperately to the sword. While Lancelot sped on towards another cramped alley, Fourze reviewed his options. Parachute Switch? Rocket Switch? Yeah, Rocket Switch was the way to go--

The sword swung with Fourze still on it and slammed him straight through the wall parallel to Lancelot. The Switch dropped from his hand. Lancelot had sped straight into one of the crooked, tight side streets, pressed in on all sides by buildings, and it was easy enough to simply hold his arm out and let Fourze scrape through the concrete siding. There was no thought, just alternating pain and numbness coming to him in waves, letting up for split instants whenever he tore through one building's wall and just before he smashed into another; agony, nothing, agony, nothing.

Was this another strong one? Like Karna? Like Chuuya? Did it even matter? It took all his energy just to stay conscious through the barrage. He only noticed something had changed when the pain-numbness pattern slowed down, the motorcycle steadily coming to a stop as its engine sputtered.

Of course, you can't ride a chopper that hard, was the first thing Fourze thought when he snapped back to awareness. His other senses came back slowly, then all at once--the realization he was upside-down on his back, the surging aches of his injuries, and the sky full of stars above him.

Once again, he was staring into the Sun. Hanging by that was Mercury, then Venus, and the little blue planet. All the other celestial bodies were in their orders, and their orbits--hell, even Pluto. Fourze blinked. He twisted his neck (painful), saw the other dioramas, reconstructions of spacecraft now half-rotting. Saw Lancelot getting up from his bike, now spewing smoke.

It was a planetarium. Clearly, the place had fallen into disrepair along with everything else in the city. If the ninth planet was still hanging around, it'd probably been built a long time ago. Looking up at the heavens. Surrounded by space itself. It would be a fitting place to die.

Of course, it'd be a nice place to live, too. He'd have to weigh his options, 'cause Lancelot was heading straight towards him.

[u/Cleverly_Clearly → u/Cleverly_Clearly]

What?

Hale thought. For a brief moment. In a white flash lasting a single instant.

Where am I?

His eyes refocused and the world seemed to come in around him. In that fraction of a moment, he saw what had happened. His fist, held out, missing Animal Man by a mile. The hero's own fist, crumpling into his face.

• SUPERHUMAN REACTION TIME (housefly)
• SUPERSONIC PUNCH (mantis shrimp)

He'd underestimated him. No hippie had ever punched Saxton Hale before, hadn't even dared--but this was clearly a super-hippie, forged in the fires of okra and socialism as the perfect anti-Hale weapon. Or something. He was trying a lot of mental tactics to come to terms with the fact that a man that wasn't even Australian had just cold-clocked him with a phantom punch.

That punch flowed into a series of relentless jabs, fourteen or fifteen rolling out near-simultaneously. Hale had to give it to him, the guy knew how to follow up. The most important part of a fight was always following up on your hits, after all, and he wasn't giving Hale the slightest opportunity to counter with his famous fists. All he could do was parry with his forearm. It wasn't like he couldn't take the hits or anything, but it wasn't the kind of punch Hale wanted to take a hundred of directly to the face. Fortunately, he still had his legs.

Saxton stomped down hard. His heel pushed through the floor, and all around him cracks and cervices webbed outward from one side of the roof to the other. That was enough to knock Animal Man off balance for a tenth, a sixtieth of a second, some small timeframe that wasn't enough for a panicked heartbeat. It was, in fact, just barely enough time to throw a killer uppercut right into a jaw, and Animal Man was lifted six feet in the air. When he came back down again Saxton tackled him straight off the building.

Ideally, he would tackle him through the building the alley over, but things never turned out how Hale wanted. How was he supposed to know Animal Man could fall UP?

• FLIGHT (peregrine falcon)

What was the point of that, just to drop him from a height? How could he let go of him? Saxton's grappling was legendary! Animal Man could never escape his tackle no matter what he tried, not that it was skillful or competent, but he was very, very strong. Surely even Super-Hippie here couldn't shake him off that easily.

• ELECTRICITY GENERATION (electric eel)
• POISONOUS SKIN (poison dart frog)

He was trying his damnedest, though.

Voltage like a city power line ran through his heart, toxin enough to kill an elephant ran through his body. Hale was familiar with these animals, but normally their defense mechanisms were just a pleasant tickle to him. This was scaled up and massively intensified, like a kid's balloon swollen into a zeppelin. That was enough to make him let go.

But the fool flew back for him! He barreled right into his torso while Hale spun in freefall, blasting down to bounce off another roof and landing on another still. Hale shoved him away and got to one knee.

"Must feel like a haunting," Animal Man said. "All the animals you've killed, beating you down one by one."

"They're just stupid animals, for God's sake!" Hale said, exasperated. "They don't," huff, puff, "even think! They don't have brains!"

"That's so ridiculous I don't even know where to begin. This is why I wanted to talk to you! If you could just understand, about the animals, maybe things could change."

Hale tore a chunk out of the roof and threw it at Animal Man, shattering over his guard.

"I don't want to change! Why should I, suddenly, have to change when everything was fine before!? I don't need to be fixed, damn you! I'll tear you apart! I'll beat you to death, then no one can lecture me!"

He bounded towards him. There wasn't any need to talk it out or think about it. Just punch. Just break things. It always worked out, that wouldn't change, he wouldn't change. His fist just had to reach him.

And, at the last moment--

CLAP

--he phased through Animal Man's body and tripped onto his face. What the hell kind of animal was that supposed to be? No--it didn't feel like he passed through him, more like his position suddenly changed. How?

"This city is full of exotic life," Animal Man said. "The toughest, strongest, strangest people in the entire country... Did you think I couldn't copy humans?"

• SWAPPING THE PLACEMENT OF TWO OBJECTS WITH A HAND CLAP (Aoi Todo)

Come on, stand up, keep fighting. Animal Man was already running up on him just to press the advantage. Hale pulled himself to his feet and turned around just in time for a fistful of swords to slash across his body.

• BLADE FORMATION (Kotomine Kirei)

Animal Man's speed, boosted by flies and ants and cheetahs, was faster even than Bradley's and with sharper blades. "I could take your Australian body, too, use your own strength against you. But I don't have to. The last thing you need is more ego stroking."

It was all he could do to keep the slashes away from the vital parts of his body, but now he felt himself slowing down, his joints stressed by an unfamiliar pressure. His shoes sank into the concrete like a palm of God was pushing down on him, and instantly he knew what creature he was copying.

• GRAVITY CONTROL (Chuuya/???)

It was the moment he realized that the blades pierced his heart. Hale sank over Animal Man's body, being held like Christ off the cross. His breathing slowed. In the distance, through the swimming blood in his brain, he heard the encroachment of more black helicopters. Helicopters coming for him.

Hale grinned as the blood dripped down his jawline.

"Guess it's time to start taking this serious." Nobody ever lost after they said a line like that.

[u/Cleverly_Clearly → u/Cleverly_Clearly]

The Occupied Zone was in the deepest pit of poverty. It was hard to believe that Mori could exist in a place like this, let alone be born into it, but Dazai's intelligence network had never failed him. It made sense, anyway. Any information about Mori's past was a total blank. Chuuya had bumped into plenty of crooks who covered up their identities, but nothing looked as strange as his secret attempts to check Mori's history. It'd make more sense if he never had a birth certificate in the first place.

One question, though: If Mori had come here, to his hometown, then where was he? Answer: Somewhere ostentatious.

That's what he was scouting for. The fanciest-looking place in this scummy cesspool. His eyes weren't much better than average or anything, and the awkward way he was flying over the city wasn't helping, but it wasn't hard to notice one building that stood out from the others. Well, it was just an apartment building like many of the others in the seemingly-abandoned city. But it wasn't partially destroyed, or covered in moss, or on fire. And the lights were on.

Chuuya let go of his gravitational hold on the bird, and his foot peeled away from its belly without it ever caring he was there. He was plummeting now. Angling downwards like a javelin, falling at some strange angle totally at odds with conventional physics. He wasn't going to let anything get between him and his target. Not even God's natural laws.

He crashed straight through the outer wall. It was just another building, just another hallway, like the stupid hallways he'd been fighting through in the office building. The difference was that it looked like someone had made an effort to clean it. Even though the ceilings looked leaky and the floor looked like some serious mold damage had been done long ago, it wasn't dusty, and there were lanterns hung up to keep the place looking cozy despite the lack of conventional electricity.

More than that. He could feel it. Mori was here. Mori, Mori, MORI!!

In his rage, Chuuya might've been able to jump up to the next floor like Saxton, but that wasn't his style. He sprinted, valuing speed over precision, twisting his body so his feet left the floor and he ran straight up the wall. Everything in his vision spiraled out of control once he found the stairs. He never touched a single stairstep. He was throwing himself upwards, using walls and ceilings as footholds, treating any surface like a floor. All he cared about was going up, towards that hateful feeling he'd gotten, this aura of incredible power! Another floor up, and another, twisting through stairwell after stairwell. And once he was there--he knew, he knew. Knew he was there. Knew something was there, anyway.

Yeah. He ended up being surprised.

This was just another level of the apartment building, probably the topmost one before the roof itself. It was a straight and narrow hallway, twice enough room for Chuuya to hold his arms out. Doors lining the sides, apartment numbers. The look and smell of fresh paint in a functional but cozy beige along the walls. At the far end of that hall was a door--Maintenance Office--with a guard out front. Pink hair. Massive, heavy gauntlets. She'd pulled up a folding chair right outside and sat down, one leg lazily tucked over the other. Of course Mori wouldn't make it easy on him, this shit was just like what happened with Karna. The speed bump before the boss fight.

"Y'know," Vi said, "I wasn't trying to trick you. Steeljack was gonna show you guys the way through, into Tokyo. All we wanted you to do was stick with him and not get yourselves in trouble. 'Course, I wasn't naive enough to think you'd do it. That's why we're sitting here shooting the shit right now, right?"

Chuuya growled. "I don't have time for this. The human garbage you're protecting sold out the whole country. Don't get in the way of what I have to do."

"What part of this is so hard to understand? We don't care what's going on out there, that's why we didn't start shooting at you the moment you set foot in the city. Their problems aren't our problems, and your problems aren't our problems. But, I can tell you don't get it, or maybe you do and you don't care, whatever. So let me put it this way. I'm going to sit in this chair here. And if you make me get out of this chair, for any reason, I'm gonna break your face. Don't make me be that person."

He did not have time for this shit. He should just... start up Corruption. Dazai would be there to pull him out if he tried it, anyway. And if he used it, no matter the risks, he could crush her like a grape. He just had to peel off his gloves. And tuck them in his pockets. And he--

Seized suddenly, slumping against the wall, fresh paint smearing over his suit like blood. Red ichor drained from his nose, blood vessels beating in his neck, ba-DUMP, ba-DUMP, ba-DUMP--

There was an indescribable pain in Chuuya's chest, termites chewing at his heart muscle, travelling through the arteries all the way up and down his arms. Breathe in. Breathe out. What the fuck was that?

...that thing you turned into. It looked like it was killing you.

Unbelievable. Suddenly he'd burned himself out, he couldn't use his strongest attack anymore? He'd wasted it on a midcard fight, with Mori and Yamada and Mishima still squirreled away in complete safety? But what if he--what if he had to...

Something came up the stairs, thundering metal CLUNKs and the sound of labored breath. Behind him. He didn't even have to guess who it was.

"You got here fast," Vi said.

"Had to, borrow a, bicycle." Steeljack huffed and puffed through his words. "Also, might've, broken a, bicycle. Eight, hundred pounds."

"Well, pull yourself together, we're gonna kick this guy's ass in a few seconds. It'll be fun."

God, he had to fight two fucking people like this. And Vi was already getting out of her chair. What did he do? How was he going to play it?

Stop. Focus. Blink.

Vi sprinted for him. Chuuya stepped back, just barely dodging her first swing, swaying out of reach of her follow-up hooks, waiting for the right moment to counter. The right moment didn't come. Cold steel arms wrapped around his torso from behind, kept him from moving, and Vi clapped both her fists down on his cheeks to pop his head like a watermelon.

Chuuya shook the thought out of his mind. That's not gonna work...

Okay, Steeljack's coming in from behind, so he can't get pinned. Chuuya stepped to the side, matador-style, turned so he could keep both of them in his vision at the same time. He clapped with all his strength, sent shockwaves through the air to throw them off-balance. The two of them were heavy enough already, wasn't hard to get them stumbling. Chuuya reached into his pockets, grabbed a handful of bullets, and snapped them off at Vi. Three rounds missed. Two went through her stomach and shoulder. In that half-second he looked away, Steeljack lurched towards him, grabbed Chuuya and folded him in half backwards like a piece of paper.

Shit, that wouldn't work either...

He could see it in her eyes. She was watching, too. Playing out the scenarios in her mind, waiting for him to slip up. Chuuya doubted Steeljack was the kind of guy who could track these thing internally. He'd probably start swinging the moment he caught his breath, or if Chuuya caught up to him. So maybe...

Chuuya feinted a step forward. Vi reacted, but Chuuya didn't move that false step--before his foot landed, he suddenly started to slide backwards, "falling" down the hall in the opposite direction with his gravity control. He just had to do it fast enough to grab onto Steeljack, and from there, 800 pounds of metal meant nothing. He could decrease his weight to that of a plastic party cup.

"Don't move, lady. I'll crush him."

He'd repositioned himself, making Steeljack a shield between him and Vi. Cowardly, sure, but it made her slow to a stop. A full-frontal fight would've been suicidal in his condition, not to mention she had nearly a foot of reach on him. He had to play this like a real crook. Use every advantage he could get.

Vi kept her gauntlets up, shifting her weight, trying to feel out a strategy. Steeljack was bigger than Chuuya, by a lot, but he couldn't fight against him with his gravity so thoroughly reduced. He could barely exert any force on Chuuya. He sure could get in the way, though. Act like a barrier while Chuuya put his arm over Steeljack's shoulder, a couple of bullets clenched between his fingers. He snapped. They fired! It was just like his imagination--she blocked with her gauntleted fists, but one still slipped through to pierce her torso. Unlike in his imagination, that didn't seem to slow her down.

More to the point, she was lunging at him. Did she think she had a way around his shield, or...?

No. Instead, she threw a haymaker squarely into Steeljack's stomach, sending him and Chuuya down the entire length of the hallway and through the back wall. If he wasn't so beaten-down, he wouldn't have made an amateur mistake like that. If he was willing to use a body as a meat shield, why wouldn't these hardened criminals be willing to punch through their allies? In fact, Steeljack might've accepted this as a possibility before it happened. Right now, Chuuya was crumpled over a broken couch, the hole in the wall in front of him. He was in the living area of one of the apartments, a weightless Steeljack was floating on the ceiling, and Vi opened the door like the smashed-open aperture wasn't just a foot away from it.

He tried to get up--