r/whowouldwin • u/OddDirective • Nov 05 '22
Event Scramble 16 Round 3: Twister
EDIT: Round 3 has concluded! While there are no competitive rounds (and thus, no strict need for a voting form), we have put together a form to vote on your favorite round/who you think will win. Please check it out HERE!
Round 3: Twister
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DAY 5
The mission for today seems oddly easy for your Players. “Enter Tower Records. You have 8 hours. Fail, and face erasure.” They don’t wake up too far from the entrance, and the time limit is very generous. But hey, they’ve been fighting for their lives for a fair bit, so they’re glad to have something of a cakewalk to get to the next day.
That’s not what this is.
The Game Master has decided that the gloves are coming off now. They’ve set a simple task to their Reapers; eliminate every Player you can get your hands on. Not only that, but they’ve set up an ambush right in front of the one way to get to Tower Records, featuring some hand-picked assassins- the enemy team. For whatever reason, your Reaper can’t or doesn’t let your Players know- if they’re the Game Master (or even if not), they might have decided that your team has reached the end of their usefulness, or they could be trying to dodge the Game Master’s suspicion to avoid erasure themselves.
Whatever the case, as your team walks into the trap, they come across a lone Player, one who’s lost the rest of their team. Whether it’s because they’re still fighting, or because Players without a team can’t have gotten this far, your Players are tipped off- just in time for the enemy team to come in. To save their life, your Players form a pact with the solo Player, and prepare to face off in a battle for everyone’s second chance…
Scramble Rules
Let ‘Em Know Who You Are: Every participant this season received four characters on their team, but many of them might not be a household name. To aid with readability, please give a brief introduction and summary of your characters, with enough information so the average reader can get excited for your team before starting. That includes your adopted character this time, too!
This World Ends With You: Your writeup will depict a scenario where your team succeeds. 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!
Everybody Has Their Own World: 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.
Round Rules
Setting: This round’s original setting is Tower Records, an iconic music store that outlived its American main branch, located in the heart of Shibuya with shelves stocked with all the latest music, in CD or vinyl. The important parts of wherever the location is is that it’s recognizable by the members of the team, and it can be set up for an ambush. There’s also more than enough time for your team to mess around and do whatever their heart desires before going into the ambush, so you can include other locations as well.
Key Points: The main idea of the round is the following. The Game Master wants to eliminate a whole load of Players, and so sets up a seemingly-easy mission to keep the Players off guard. This gives your Players time to do things other than the mission, but when they do pursue the mission, they meet a lone Player, with whom they extend their pact to stay as a team. During this, they are ambushed, and have to fight against the enemy team for their lives.
Union X: Adoptions! That’s right, it’s the adoption round. We’ve decided to be pretty open about this; there are two possibilities for who you can adopt. The first is that any Player on a team that has already been eliminated is available to adopt. We have also curated a list of unpicked backups that you can choose from. All available adoptions are HERE, and be sure to look through to find someone you’ll enjoy writing.
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.
Due Date: Writeups will be due at 11:59 PM CST on EDIT: Sunday, November 27th. That’s about two and a half weeks. At that point, the thread will be locked, and voting will go up for a few days afterwards.
Flavor Suggestions
Incongruous: Your team members might be suspicious of such an easy mission. After all, the people in charge of this don’t really want you to win, do they? Would they see this as a chance to take a break, and do things casually? Alternatively, would they rush headlong into the ambush the Game Master set up?
Dancer In The Street: Whoever you’re adopting, your team is going to be meeting them in a difficult situation, either in combat or just having come from it. But you can’t just sideline them, you’ve gotta make sure they shine! What do they bring to the table in terms of synergies? How do they fight when they’re backed into a corner? And importantly, how would your team react to finding someone on their own?
2
u/7thSonOfSons Nov 25 '22
Spear heard a roaring “HAHA!” and the sound of metal biting into wood. He heard a thud beside him. He took his eyes off Green for a moment. He saw Girl’s body flopped down at his side.
An immediate error.
The same sharp pressure that he’d felt in his neck repeated. The other side. His arms. And especially his chest. Sharp as a knife but not nearly strong enough to pierce his skin. It didn’t matter. He felt his arm go limp.
He turned back to snarl at Green, and caught a tightly closed fist to the centre of his chest. Spear’s body lit up with an intense numbness. He couldn’t move. Not even the muscles in his face. He teetered for an instant, then tumbled backwards onto the ground.
Moustache was wholly unaware. His attention was on Smoke, or The Giant, or anywhere but where Fang needed it to be. Green stepped over Spear’s body and raised a hand like a knife, aimed right at the base of Moustache’s skull.
Blue’s palm collided with Green’s wrist, sending his strike slicing just past Moustache’s ear. “Stockman!”
Moustache turned. His face paled at the sight of Green. “What in the- Where did this one come from!?”
Blue threw him aside, down on the ground between Spear and Girl.
Beyond them, past the blood pool, The Giant and The Monkey fought. One of its knives stuck out from The Giant’s arm. His swings were reckless. The Monkey was fast. Faster than Spear would have been willing to hunt. It fought like a beast possessed. But Spear would never envy a beast on the other end of The Giant’s axe.
Fang shot forward, trying to snap at Green. He and blue continued their duel as though she wasn’t there. They were much too close to catch one and not the other.
Fang had more pressing matters than to try. Her tail rolled Spear and Girl away from the fighting. Moustache scrambled to his feet, and ran to join them. Fang haunched near the trio. Her eyes were on the growing cloud of smoke.
Spear could only watch as his pack fought without him.
The Giant’s size was proving to hurt more than help. The Monkey was so small and so agile, The Giant was forced to bend and swing from awkward, unseemly angles. He had to slow down just to try, and that made each attack easier for The Monkey to evade. And with every missed strike from The Giant, The Monkey landed five or six shallow gashes in turn.
Blue and Green stepped back into view. The way they fought was unrecognisable to Spear. Savagery and strength were cast aside. It was all so calm.
Blue thrust out his fist, only a hair from Green’s chest, since Green had leaned back before the punch was even thrown, and ran his hand down the length of Blue’s arm to grab his elbow, only for Blue to sweep out his leg toward Green’s ankle which lead to Green raising up his knee which meant Blue could grab his calf, meaning that as the two of them fell-
Fang shifted, her tail swung past Spear’s eyes.
The Monkey screeched as he threw a knife towards The Giant. He ran after it, up The Giant’s extended arm. A cartwheel meant he caught the knife with his foot and carried it forward. Down it’s the Giant’s skull. The Giant turned to greet the blow, and caught the blade between his teeth.
The Monkey’s eyes widened. It tried to yank its weapon free. But in a contest of strength, no monkey could defeat The Giant. His bite shattered the blade. He spat out the bits of metal, leaving shallow gashes across The Monkey’s face. The Monkey bared its frothing fangs and lunged forward to bite The Giant. Its teeth embedded into The Giant’s waiting hand.
“Fjandinn hafi það! Þetta er drykkjuhöndin mín, ofvaxna rottan þín!” Roared The Giant. He raised up his fist, and The Monkey with it, and brought it down like a hammer. An explosion of dirt and blood and dist bloomed from the impact.
Spear strained. He tried to. He tried to stand up or raise his Spear arm or wiggle a finger or to do anything. The best he could manage was to grind his teeth. Fang turned to face him, her eyes wide and unsure. She sniffed at Spear twice, then nudged him over. Onto his stomach, atop Girl. She let out a disgusted groan, but remained unmoving.
From here, he could see where Green and Blue had gotten off to. Blue was breathing heavier. Green was not. Blue was on one knee. Green kicked at his ribs. Blue dropped down below it. Green’s kick stopped just above him. His heel crashed down between Blue’s shoulders. Blue’s armour cracked. He was unhurt, for now, but his armour could not last forever.
Blue was losing. But he was calm. His expression was one of thoughtfulness, not anger. He was thinking. The moment Green’s foot stepped off Blue, Blue shot forward. A tackle. He took Green down with him. Green raised his arms to shield his face from Blue’s first strike. His second strike was met with one of Green’s. That knife edge chop directly to the throat.
Green tucked in his legs and kicked Blue’s chest with both feet. Again his armour dented and cracked. Blue staggered backwards. Green jumped up to meet him. Blue took a quick, deep breath, and raised his fist.
Smoke’s smoke was enveloping the clearing. Rolling towards Spear and Gir and Moustache. Moustache ran from it. Fang scooped the other too up in her mouth, and tossed them onto her back. She ran out of the fog, and in doing so, gave Spear another glimpse of The Giant’s fight.
He was bleeding. A lot. All over. None of them were dangerous by themselves, but the amount of scars and cuts had grown a lot since Spear looked last. The Monkey was winded. Standing slouched, breathing heavy. It threw its knives aside. From under its black coat, it drew out a long shining sword.
“Ooh ooh ooh ah aaah hahh…”
Spear’s eyes widened. So that’s what this was… He shut his eyes. He strained. He fought against his body. Only to speak. “Ah! Ah ooh ooh oh huhh!”
The Monkey ignored him. The Giant popped his knuckles. It sounded like crushing stone.
He heard quiet splashing. Blue and Green continued their exchange of blows. Blue was slowing down. Green threw a punch, and Blue dodged to the side, only to catch a hooked punch to that same side, and when he carried the momentum into a strike of his own, Green caught it and twisted his arm, and when that twist was turned into a chance for a kick, Green caught that too, and dumped Blue into the blood.
The Giant screamed as he charged The Monkey. His axes came crashing down like boulders where The Monkey had stood. It darted forward, between his legs, and slashed at his thigh. The Giant groaned. He whipped around swinging both his weapons, one high, one low. The Monkey did a backflip between them both, and thrust the tip of his sword into The Giant’s forearm.
Green’s fingers were interlocked with Blue’s. He squeezed, and there was a crunching sound of displaced bones. Blue grit his teeth and dropped down to his knee. Green took a step towards him and raised up his free hand. Blue squeezed his hand right back and used his leverage to swing Green down into the blood pool. He carried his weight into a fist, and brought it crashing down on Green’s chest. Green’s legs emerged from the water on both sides of Blue’s waist and snapped around him. Suddenly Blue was dragged under and Green was on top.
The Giant stared down at The Monkey. It ran up the length of his arm, dragging his sword with him. One long ribbon of blood sprayed out from the cut. The Giant laughed like a mad man. He clenched up his muscles, and caught the sword in his bicep. Through the torrential blood spray, his fist crashed through. No axe, only blood and bone and muscle. A massive open palm that slapped against The Monkey and caught him in a fist.
Green held his position. Bubbles from Blue’s attempts to breath reached the surface of the blood pool. Green’s arm shot down, likely around Blue’s throat. His other arm came up. One more knife strike to finish this. Blue’s arm also rose. This time not an empty fist, but holding his fire stick!
PYOOW! PYOOW!
He fired bolts of flame up and into Green’s chest. Green leaped back away. His own armour was singed and scorched.
“Ó! ÞETTA VERÐUR GAMAN!!”
The Giant hurled The Monkey with all of his strength. It screeched widely as it tumbled through the air before crashing into Green. And still further they went. Out of the blood pool, onto the land, crashing into the tree they found Girl beneath.
PYOOW
Another shot from Blue made sure they stayed there. The Monkey’s body spasmed as the shot tore through its back. But then came the axe. Whirling over the water like death itself.
The Monkey. Green. The tree they had found themselves beneath.
All were split in two by The Giant’s weapon. And for the first time in quite a while, there was calm. There was quiet.
Spear’s eyes narrowed. It was so quiet…
Where did all the smoke go? And where was Moustache?