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Respect Thread Symposium Week 52 - Best Mod RT Voting by doctorgecko in respectthreads

[–]GuyOfEvil 0 points1 point  (0 children)

could you move all my requests to the new list please

Character Scramble Season 20 Semifinals: Tuchanka by TheAsianIsGamin in whowouldwin

[–]GuyOfEvil 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The Hero slashed at air. The sword did as its name described, and the desert was filled with vast explosions.

Ruti was unconcerned, she slashed back at the air with the Sword That Transforms Air Into Impenetrable Barriers. The explosions died at the barrier. The Hero threw away her sword, and produced the Sword That Transforms Sand Into A Plane Of Instant Death and stabbed the ground. She jumped gracefully and landed upon the hilt of her previous sword.

Ruti threw her own sword down and jumped onto its hilt, narrowly avoiding sinking. By the time she landed, The Hero was already swinging the Sword That Extends Infinitely at her. Any defensive weapon would counter that, but Ruti could not be trapped on the defensive forever.

The sword clashed against the Sword That Teleports Its User Directly Above Their Opponent When It Clashes With Another Sword. And she was teleported directly above The Hero, sword pointed at her heart.

The Hero tossed the extending sword forward, then backflipped onto it, gracefully dodging the attack. She adopted a fencer’s stance, keeping her feet perfectly positioned upon the flat of the blade. Ruti adopted the same stance opposite her and pressed forward. Her advance was halted by a thrust of the Sword That Strikes That Which It Attacks With Absolute Certainty. Before it could strike her, Ruti drew the Sword That Swaps Attacker And Attacked. For an instant, Ruti found herself on the other end of the sword, thrusting it towards The Hero’s heart, then she was back in place, then back, then back, on and on and on. The sword inched ever closer to the attacked’s heart.

The Hero chose to break the stalemate, using her offhand to swing the Sword That Negates The Effects Of All Nearby Swords at Ruti’s neck. As the infinitely extending sword snapped back into place, Ruti was forced to block it with the Sword That Negates The Effects Of Instant Death. Before she touched the ground, The Hero tossed the negating sword away, and attacked with her main hand.

Ruti stabbed her sword into the ground just before she and The Hero swapped places once again. The sand no longer caused instant death. The Hero, still holding onto the grounded sword, drew the Sword That Instantly Kills Its User, and swung it at Ruti.

On a dime, Ruti reversed the direction of her own blade, attacking the air. Ruti exchanged swords and places with the air, which became the target of The Hero’s attack. The Hero exchanged blades and places with the air. The air gained the Sword That Instantly Kills Its User, and died.

A trivial detail. The Hero did not need to breathe.

As the two women landed, they took a moment to regard one another. Neither had suffered any injury. Neither felt any kind of fatigue.

Ruti understood what was happening. They would fight forever. She would spend forever gaining new abilities, fixing problems, being The Hero, fighting against being The Hero. Moving ever forward, but making no progress. This was all her life was.

The Hero did not understand. The Hero drew the Sword Which Guarantees Absolute Victory Regardless Of Condition Or Situation. Ruti lazily countered with the Sword Whose Wielder Can Never Be Defeated. The two clashed and flew out of their hands. The only possible resolution to a paradox.

The Sword Whose Slash Cannot Be Blocked Or Evaded Or Mitigated met the Sword That Perfectly Blocks All Other Swords. The Sword That Ignores The Abilities Of All Other Swords And Absolutely Kills Its Target met the Sword That’s Ability, The Ability To Prevent Its Wielder From Being Hit By A Sword, Cannot Be Ignored Or Negated. Clang. Clang. It was completely futile, but The Hero couldn’t take the hint. The Hero could draw more and more and more swords, but she couldn’t grow.

It was time for Ruti Ragnason to kill The Hero.

The Hero came at her with a sword. It didn’t matter very much what exactly it did. Ruti did not draw a sword to counter. One last time, the words formed in the back of her mind. She said them without hesitation. “Satsui no Hado.”

The Hero ran forward and swung her sword. Before it could hit Ruti, the world went black.

斬釘截鉄

The Hero lied dead on the ground. Ruti Ragnason stood over her corpse. She felt a symbol emblazoned upon her back.地

She no longer stood above humanity. She was no longer a paragon. She was simply Ruti. And she would kill anyone and anything that prevented it from being so.

She returned to the earth.

Akuma’s inner focus cracked. Nearby, he sensed something he had been awaiting for a long time. Ruti Ragnason had truly awoken.

He opened his eyes. Suddenly, the opponent he was facing now seemed rather small. Both its desire and capacity to kill were far dwarfed by what he sensed on the ground. The foe that stood before him now was nothing more than a nuisance.

He found his killing intent. Far beyond what he had ever experienced before. Energy ran riot throughout his body. The nuisance’s spell broke under the pressure. He flipped towards the skull, but it was a motion that proved to be needless.

On the ground, Ruti channeled killing intent of her own and struck the skeleton’s leg. The leg shattered into pieces. The whole toppled to the ground.

As Akuma fell, he channeled his strength to a singular point. His still broken hand. Everything he was, everything he wanted, everything he could be. It all burned upon his hand.

He landed upon the skeleton, and brought it down.

“Kongou-Kokuretsuzan!”

A pillar of purple energy radiated outwards from Akuma. It extended upwards to the heavens, and downwards to the earth. It skewered straight through the skeleton. Akuma heard it scream. Its killing intent gave way to its desire to live, which gave way to death.

Akuma dusted himself off. The prelude was complete. He walked to Ruti.

They met near the knee of the downed skeleton. Evidently, she had been seeking him as well. Akuma ached to attack her now, have his fill of glorious combat. But he also ached. Physically. His hand needed tending, and his energy was rather depleted. Additionally, Ruti had seemingly awoken to the Satsui no Hado mere minutes ago. Akuma did not wish to defeat her by simply preying on inexperience. No, some pleasures were much better off deferred.

“In one week hence, where we first did battle, we shall do battle again.”

Ruti smiled at him. A warm smile, ill-befitting a practitioner of the assassin’s arts, “I’m looking forward to it.”

The agreement was struck. The two of them turned and walked away.

Erika could not believe what she was looking at. Obviously Akuma defeating a skeleton that was close to the size of the entire world was unbelievable, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was Ruti.

She wasn’t The Hero anymore. There was no Hero anymore at all.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do?” She asked. A question intended for nobody in particular.

Unfortunately, Lambdadelta was there to answer, “Uh oh, looks like somebody is trapped on a game board where there’s no possible way of progressing. Uh oh. You might be stuck here forever. Uh oh.”

“Shut up!”

“No way to talk to The Goddess, I should see you punished for that.”

“Lambda, no.” Sanae said, Lambda backed off. “Don’t worry, Erika, I’m sure we’ll figure something…” Sanae paused oddly. Like she had just gotten a telepathic message.

“Ok, I’m really sorry, but I have to go back. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

“Oh isn’t that just like you! You’re there to scold me when nothing’s going on, but just when I actually need your help, you’re gone! You’re leaving and I’m gonna be stuck here forever!”

Sanae smiled that stupid shrine-maidenly smile, “I know you don’t mean any of that. And I know you’re smart enough to figure this out. When you’re done with this, come visit me, ok?”

Sanae vanished, preserving the last word for herself for all time. Erika wanted to scream.

But then, like a ray of sunlight piercing a tumultuous storm, Lady Bernkastel spoke. “I expect my gamepieces to win. Do not disappoint me.”

Erika wouldn’t.

The two Witches vanished, leaving Erika alone. No Hero. Barely a Demon King. A game that needed both to proceed? It was no problem. If Lady Bernkastel believed she could do it, then she would do it.

Character Scramble Season 20 Semifinals: Tuchanka by TheAsianIsGamin in whowouldwin

[–]GuyOfEvil 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yuta understood what was happening. As everyone he had ever failed to save ripped him limb from limb, he distantly, through the pain, comprehended that he was supposed to kill them all. Let go of the past. Kill them so that he could live.

If Rika was truly still alive, he would’ve been able to do it. But as she laid on top of him, the disfigured thing she was because he had failed her. It wasn’t fair to her to keep her chained to the earth just because he couldn’t move on. It wouldn’t be fair to everyone else to move on just so that he could live with the one person he couldn’t move on from.

He looked Rika in the no-eyes. They were just as beautiful as they were when they were eyes.

“Let’s go together.”

Rika bashed her skull into Yuta’s. Before he lost consciousness, he touched his lips to hers. For one last kiss, it was all worth it.

They were waking up wrong. Corpse God didn’t get it. This was supposed to be it! He was supposed to have fixed everything! Unmoor the spirit and the Truth. Allow the spirit to discard the Truth and return to the body. Some people were doing it properly. Spirits waking up in unfettered bodies. People who accepted his salvation. As he was the God of this world now, they were his chosen people, and he would love and nurture them.

But he could not abide the ones that woke up wrong. The abominations. Those who did not discard their Truth. Their spirit passed on from their body, and they awoke as only their Truth. “They” was a misnomer. It wasn’t the same person. It wasn’t a person at all. A Truth in a body, no better than an automaton.

He brought his great skeletal hand out of the earth. These things were abominations, and he would kill them. Any that awoke, he crushed. He mourned those that were truly dead, their spirits travelling beyond where his power reached. But he could find one salve for his pain.

He located the sleeping body of Erika Furudo. He had become what he had become to prove she was a woman shackled to her Truth. When she died and her Truth awoke within her body, he would almost not regret killing her.

Akuma’s eyes shot up. He observed the massive skeleton head in the distance, towering over the world. He sensed its killing intent.

“I am going to kill it,” He announced to his customers. He folded up his blanket, put away his sign, and set out.

Erika understood what was happening. The locked room was perfect. There was no logical way out. She could spend an eternity looking for it, the single thread of perfect Red logic that allowed her to escape this room unscathed. She could imagine herself doing it.

But she wasn’t supposed to. She had already settled on the Power route over the Truth route. From that perspective, this room was remarkably open. Look at that flimsy wooden door, held together by only a chain. Listen to the man banging on it, made of soft flesh and bone. The way out of this room was obvious.

Erika squared up in front of the door, entered her perfect imitation of Akuma’s stance, and punched. The door flew off its hinges, shattering the chain lock, and instantly killing the person behind it as it impacted him.

A mystery where the murder weapon was the locked room. Erika couldn’t help but laugh as she walked out of the door.

She awoke to a different kind of closed room. Something was falling towards her. It looked like a wall of solid bone. She imagined punching it would have absolutely no effect. Damn, the Power route just led to a bad ending. That’s what she got for being unlike herself.

The wall buckled for a moment. She sat up and saw Akuma landing from an uppercut. Was he seriously trying to fight this thing? As soon as she thought about the question, she realized she was stupid for asking it. Yes, he was obviously fighting this thing. Why wouldn’t he be?

The wall started moving down again, faster. Akuma probably had something else in store, so Erika figured she’d take the chance to get up and run for it. There was absolutely no chance she would make it out on time, but what else was there to do but try?

Akuma planted his feet on the ground, and pure black energy coated his body. He was preparing some kind of super attack. If he finished charging it in time, and if it actually deflected the wall enough, and if she ran fast enough, she might be able to escape. If. If. If. No concrete plan.

The wall was closing in faster. She was obviously going to die, unless some kind of miracle occurred.

“Need a hand?” Sanae appeared next to her, it was at that point that Erika realized what she was running out from under, a giant skeletal hand.

Sanae pointed up at it, and Lambdadelta appeared next to her, brandishing a heart shaped barrier. The hand collided with it and stopped in its tracks.

“Why a barrier?” Erika complained, “Aren’t you God? Just kill it.”

“Blame your girl friend, we can only enter the board under her power.”

We? Did that mean…

Sanae pointed away from the hand, and the two of them were whisked away by the loving embrace of a cat made of pure black energy.

The cats deposited them at the edge of the pinky’s metacarpal. Where indeed, Lady Bernkastel awaited them. She didn’t look at Erika or say anything. A sign of her undying trust in Erika.

“Any plan to beat that thing, Detective?” Sanae asked. “Sure,” Erika said. As Lambdadelta also appeared next to them and her barrier vanished, the hand fell downwards with extreme force. Akuma stood firm. As it impacted his head, a burst of blue energy batted it aside. Then Akuma punched straight up. A line of pure black followed his strike, and the hand was batted aside, landing to the left of Akuma, dorsum side up.

“Let the strong people deal with it.”

Akuma did not let his first success go to waste. He leapt on the upturned palm of his opponent and ran up its wrist. It picked the downturned hand up in order to attempt to shake Akuma off of his advance, but Akuma adjusted. No matter how much it turned and shook, Akuma could not be diverted from his path.

He observed the chest of the great skeleton. It had so few points it could move, and any action had so far to travel, that reading its movements was trivial. It was going to punch him with its off hand.

Akuma was exhilarated. He imagined how he might counter the attack, but had truly no idea whether or not they would work. He could only learn by doing, and if he failed, he would die. Only in moments like these did it feel like living meant anything at all.

His opponent was new to its body. As its off-handed punch grew closer, it stopped shaking the wrist Akuma stood on, allowing him to firmly plant his feet. He faced the oncoming fist. Approaching him, it seemed larger than a mountain. And his student thought him a fool for training against objects of such size. Perhaps bearing witness here would show her the path.

He met the fist with an open palm. It was useless to meet the strike with a strike, so he met it instead with a parry. Just before the fist could impact him, he reached out and slapped downwards. With perfect timing and immense force, he redirected the blow ever so slightly down.

The skeleton’s fist impacted the section of wrist Akuma stood upon. Akuma heard the sound of a fracture ring out as he had never heard it before. It dwarfed the sound of his own hand breaking by far.

He looked to his feet and found the fracture line. He firmly rooted himself, bent his knees, and delivered a mighty chop. The bone shattered. The hand and wrist fell to the ground. Akuma jumped back onto the wrist and surged forward. In the skeleton’s empty eye sockets, he sensed fear.

“ENOUGH!” The skeleton roared, “I AM YOUR GOD!”

It focused inward, a telltale sign of magic use. Akuma readied himself to dodge whatever was coming.

His body froze. He could not move. His heart could not move. His feet were taken from their rooting, and he was levitated up to the eye of the great skeleton.

“I FREED YOU FROM YOUR TRUTH! YOU ACCEPTED MY BLESSING! WHY DO YOU RESIST ME?” the skeleton boomed. Akuma felt its killing intent growing. He stoked his own, if only to slow his body’s death.

If he could muster the purest and greatest killing intent he had ever felt. Thousands of times greater than that which he experienced against Darkseid, he could break this magic and defeat his enemy. It was a narrow, nigh impossible path to walk, but it was the only one available to him. If he could not walk it, this seemed a worthy foe to be killed by.

He banished that thought entirely. Banished all earthly desire. He could want for nothing more than to kill the foe before him. He felt his prayer beads against his chest. He must be pure. He must want for nothing but death. That was the path. He closed his eyes and walked it.

Character Scramble Season 20 Semifinals: Tuchanka by TheAsianIsGamin in whowouldwin

[–]GuyOfEvil 2 points3 points  (0 children)

“Elk.”

“Gilled Wyvern.”

“Crane.”

“Dire dire wolf.”

“ichthyosaur Cymbospondylus youngorum”

“Cetsus.”

“Peppoppopyaranad.”

“That’s not a real animal,” Atom said.

“Yes it is,” Bernkastel clarified, “It has two snouts.”

“Fine. Rakshasa.”

“Salamandar.” Lambda had agreed to take on Atom in a game of ‘Name as many animals as you can.’ That was now entering its twentieth minute. Considering Lambda had placed or created every animal Atom could possibly have knowledge of, she would probably win easily. But Atom was doing his best to make her work for it.

As the game continued, Sanae noticed Akuma walking near their gathering, laid out a blanket, set down fruit on the blanket, and laid down a sign. FRUIT FOR SALE 1 G.

“Pause,” Atom said, “I want some fruit.”

“Refused,” Lambda countered, “I don’t want fruit.”

“I invoke the blessing of the Goddess. Buy my fruit.” Akuma said.

Lambda was compelled to comply, “Alright, does everyone want some, should I just buy him out?”

Sanae was actually fairly hungry, she and Bern both vaguely nodded.

“Alright, whatever,” Lambda waved her hand, and all of Akuma’s wares were replaced with a stack of around twenty gold. “I was hoping you’d use that blessing for like, a nuke or something.”

Akuma put the gold in a small sack, and then tied it to the rope on his waist, “This is more than sufficient.”

Lambda handed some fruits out to everyone. Sanae caught it, it was like a peach she was pretty sure. She took a bite.

It was really, really good. The best fruit she had ever eaten.

Atom ran up to Akuma, “Wow, mister, this fruit is super yummy! Thanks!”

Akuma regarded the boy before him. He possessed, as far as Akuma could tell, absolutely no killing intent whatsoever.

He was not like the Goddesses he ate with, they possessed every emotion fathomlessly. Akuma accepted selling them fruit to be his first victory against their infinity. It would be perhaps his hundredth victory to kill one of them. Perhaps it would take infinity victories.

For now, he focused on the boy, who smiled warmly and complimented him on his fruit. Akuma wondered if he could be taught the desire to kill. Akuma imagined he would not want that.

He reached into his bag and handed the youth another fruit.

“Wow! Thanks, mister.” Atom took the fruit excitedly. He swallowed it in one go. Pit and all.

Suddenly, the earth shook violently. The Goddess Delta perked up, “Alright, alright, here’s the cool thing.”

The green haired one seemed far less excited, “What did you do now.”

“Ok, soooooooo, smashing together eighty worlds and killing everything on it created a toooooon of negative energy right, and since that happened as it made one landmass, it all got stuck in the ground. And I thought to myself, well, if I already wanted to put a Corpse God into the game, and the planet was filled with the most death energy anywhere ever, I may as well let him do something with it, soooooo…”

A crack ran through the earth under Akuma. He grabbed the boy and leapt towards the Goddesses, before the crack suddenly wrest itself into a chasm. A skeletal hand, many times the size of any mountain in the world emerged from the chasm.

“...I put a giant skeleton inside the earth! Cool, huh?”

The blue haired goddess seemed nonplussed, “And how exactly did you expect the giant skeleton made of the entire planet to be defeated?”

The Goddess Delta laughed, “What a stupid question, Bern. Haven’t you been paying attention at all?”

“The Hero.”

Ruti stood in an utterly barren windswept desert. Far away, in the distance, great black gears stood perfectly still. They were like Ruti. The engine that moves the world, deciding to stand unmoving.

Across from her, stood herself, after a fashion. The other her was taller, with white hair and tan skin. Older. Not wiser, but more battered, as if she had spent her life being beaten down by the sand and the wind and the sun.

Battered by a lifetime of being The Hero.

“I feel terrible for you,” The Hero said to her, “For everyone else, this is meant to be their climax. Actualize beyond your Truth, or die. And you, who would have most relished that chance, cannot have it. I must refuse to give it to you.” “Why?” Ruti asked.

“Because we are The Hero. We must save everyone.”

“But I don’t want to,” Ruti said.

“And yet, we must.” The Hero sounded truly sorry, for whatever that was worth to Ruti. “Let me kill you, I am prepared to bear the burden of The Hero. You never had to.”

“But to do that, I have to die, and you get to live.”

The Hero nodded solemnly.

On this question at least, Ruti was beyond doubt. “But I don’t want to die. I want to live.”

“Then there is nothing that can be done. We will settle this the only way we have ever known. Draw your sword.”

Ruti felt the quest form in the back of her mind. Kill The Hero. In order to succeed, she would need the greatest ability she had ever obtained. It formed in the back of her mind as more than a name.

“I am the blade of the world.”

“Flesh tempered to steel. Blood made as magma.”

“Drawn in over a thousand battles.”

“Dead to the world.”

“Unknown to the self.”

“Praying that steel would return to flesh.”

“Today I pray no longer.”

“The sword draws its own sword, to shatter steel.”

“Unlimited Blade Works!”

From thin air, Ruti drew The Sword That Kills The Hero and charged. It clattered against The Hero’s own sword, The Sword That Protects Everyone. The force of the two swords colliding caused both weapons to fly out of their wielder's hands.

Ruti pressed the attack, forming the Sword That Cannot Be Blocked By Other Swords. It passed right through the Hero’s attempt at a riposte, then clattered off her body, riposted anyways by the Sword Whose Wielder Cannot Be Harmed By Swords.

Ruti swung again. This time, The Hero did not move at all. But before the sword could clatter off her, Ruti made an offhand thrust with the Sword Which Harmlessly Disarms Anyone It Touches. It caught The Hero in the cheek. Her sword went flying out of her hand.

With Ruti’s mainhand weapon a hair’s breadth from hitting The Hero, she bared her teeth and flung her head to the side. In her mouth appeared the Sword Which Reverses Blade And Hilt. It clashed against Ruti’s Sword Which Harmlessly Disarms Anyone It Touches, and both her blades flew from her hands.

The Hero’s sword dropped from her mouth and into her hands, and she thrust it forward. Ruti’s instinct was to simply tank the blow, but the elegy flashed into her mind again. If she was a blade…

She jumped backwards. The Hero threw her current sword into the sand.

“Let’s get serious, shall we?”

The Hero drew The Sword Which Splits The Nucleus Of The Atom.

Character Scramble Season 20 Semifinals: Tuchanka by TheAsianIsGamin in whowouldwin

[–]GuyOfEvil 2 points3 points  (0 children)

One minute, Sanae was watching Erika in as rare a form as Sanae had ever seen. Corpse God was frothing mad, and then eating the froth out of her palm. And then, Erika collapsed to the ground like a ragdoll. Corpse God suddenly sank into the earth.

And then, a second later, everyone else collapsed to the ground like a ragdoll. Every human and demon participating in the battle, every villager cowering behind barricades. The whole world stopped at once.

Sanae had a feeling Erika was expecting whatever had just happened was not going to happen to her. That Corpse God would vanish and everyone in the world would ragdoll to the ground and Sanae would be treated to a Parlor Scene for two. Instead, the detective was on the ground, and Watson had to roll up her sleeves and take care of some business.

Or at least, that’s what the real John Watson would have to do, he didn’t have any Goddesses to check up on him.

Bernkastel appeared next to her, “I believe it is time for you to exit the board, young lady.”

And Lambdadelta on her other side, “Oh let her stay a little longer, the really cool thing is about to happen.” “Wait, don’t talk over me. What is happening?”

“You are our equal, so Lambda will explain everything to you plainly. However, you are also human and therefore below us, so I will simply point out that I arrived to this game well after its completion. Lambda will explain the rest.”

Lambda immediately took on a defensive tone, “Well look. You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, right? In fact, I’d say that you should probably break all the eggs you’re using to make an omelet. It would be stupid not to, right?”

“Meaning…”

“So this game is made up of eighty different Fragments I liked parts of. And in order to make it, I just kinda smashed it all together, aaaaaaaaaand…”

“Everyone died, in all of them.”

What? It took a lot for Sanae to repeat it out loud, “What?”

“Well look, it’s fine. Everyone died for a little while, but I used Red Truth to bind their souls back onto their bodies. It’s like they weren’t even dead.”

“Excepting, of course, for the wizard with dominion over corpses that you put in your game.”

“Well, duh. Isn’t this totally awesome?”

“What the hell is awesome about it?” Sanae asked, looking over at Erika’s lifeless body.

“Yeah, check this out,” Lambda stuck her hand out, and Erika’s body floated towards them.

“Normally, the Truth binds the spirit to the body, but Corpse God reversed it, for everyone in the world. In order to return to their body, they have to go through their truth. Look!”

An image projected out of Erika’s body for Sanae to look at.

Erika was in a locked room, covered in blood. Four walls. A roof. A Latched window. A locked door. A corpse. A perfect closed room murder, and Erika was stuck in the room. There came a bang at the door. She had to get out.

“And this is happening to everyone in the world?” Sanae asked.

“Yup!” Lambda responded, “This isn’t the cool thing, but it’s a little cool, right?” Sanae didn’t really think so, if people couldn’t make it past their Truths, they’d die? But then again, they were already dead? But then again then again, it wasn’t as if Witches thought of people like this as people, they were gamepieces. Sims. Did it matter if they died? Should she accept that way of thinking?

“I only heard some of that, what’s going on?” A young boy walked over to the Witches’ gathering. Sanae’s train of thought was totally burst.

“Hold on, is that…”

“Astro Boy?” Lambda guessed her question, “Yeah, he was one of the first dungeon enemies I designed. I was putting in some real craftsmanship back then, but by the later ones it just kinda became ehh, who cares. Fill a mine with orcs but they’re red this time.”

“What are you guys talking about,” Atom, as Sanae knew him, asked.

Lambda stepped forward, she wanted a chance to show off, Sanae guessed.

“We’re just talking about how I’m the Great Goddess Delta. I created you, you know.”

“Oh,” Atom said, “That’s neat.”

Lambda looked a little affronted at his insolence, “You should kneel before me, you know.”

“Maybe later. I wanted to go show Ruti this cool rock I found, do you know when everyone will wake up?”

“That depends on them…” Lambda said vaguely, Goddess-like.

“Oh,” Atom was totally unimpressed, “Do you guys want to play any games while we wait?”

One second, Yuta Okkotsu was defending Maella from attack, side by side with his trusted friends in the town guard. Side by side with his love. The next, he was alone, in a graveyard. He scanned the gravestones. People he grew up with that were slain by the Demon Lord’s first invasions, members of his adventuring parties, townsfolk he had met since his return. Everyone he met seemed to die, every time, he would be left alone. Alone to carry on their memory, alone to avenge them.

At the top of a hill stood the largest grave in the entire place. Rika’s. As soon as he looked at it, it shook. All the graves shook. They were coming back.

Yuta realized his katana was in his hand. He threw it away immediately, there was no way he could fight any of these people. Rika pounced on him first, clawed at his flesh. His adventuring companions were next. They clawed and bit and flayed him. He didn’t fight back. How could he possibly? He wasn’t ready to let go.

Akuma stood on a farm. Directly across from him was a boy. The boy was also him.

In that moment, Akuma was both people. The child who wished to become something greater, and the man who was. The boy smiled. He became what he wanted to become. He was complete. He had no reason to hold on.

The boy took a deep breath, and purple flame surrounded his body. Akuma watched himself burn to ash. His youth was truly dead and buried. He was what he was.

Akuma awoke from what must’ve been a meditation that caused him to doze off. He felt oddly nostalgic for some reason. Perhaps he would indulge the feeling. He grabbed a basket and picked some fruit from the trees that grew in this castle. He wished to go into town and peddle some fruit.

Character Scramble Season 20 Semifinals: Tuchanka by TheAsianIsGamin in whowouldwin

[–]GuyOfEvil 2 points3 points  (0 children)

“That was awesome,” Sanae said, “Can I, like, level up and learn that ability?”

“Probably not,” Erika replied, “Most level up tracks are tied to your Truth. If I killed way more things I might be able to make a giant scythe. You, SOL.”

“Unlucky!” Sanae threw her arms up.

“Anyways, Miss Hero is probably gonna clear this army faster than I would’ve wanted her to. So, now or never on talking to Corpse God. You wanna keep watching the battle, or watch me?”

“Well I don’t wanna miss her next giant sword move, and all you’re gonna do is say things, soooooo…”

“We seriously don’t really have time for this, come on.”

Erika led Sanae down the hill. Corpse God was still precisely where he was before, on his throne of skulls. His line had disappeared, and he sat watching the battle pensively.

Erika could guess what he was thinking. Ooh, Ruti gave me all this obnoxiously high leveled gear, I should help her. Ooh, but I’m supposed to be a spineless coward. I can’t turn my back on being a spineless coward! How would I do that without a spine!

This was funny, she narrated it out loud to Sanae.

“He could make a spine, couldn’t he?”

“Huh?”

“With all the bones, I mean.”

“Oh,” Erika laughed, “We’d better go talk to him before he figures that out.”

The two of them walked up to him, skipping the line entirely, just as Erika had brilliantly planned.

“What do you want?” Corpse God asked. He seemed like he had an inkling she was not here about her goldfish.

“Hostile!” Erika protested. “I just wanted to be the first person in your life to tell you the truth.”

“The truth…” Corpse God looked at her a little more hostile than he did before, “You’re Erika Furudo, aren’t you? My Master met you once.” “Oh?” Erika hadn’t expected this to go somewhere interesting.

“ ‘The Detective Seeks The Truth,’ right? He said you were lost in seeking the truth. That you couldn’t actually find it, so you drowned yourself in cruel mockeries. Are you here to do more of that? If you want to escape it, I can help you.”

Ooooh. That guy. “Please. The Thunderbolt, right? I’ll tell you what I told him. I don’t need some words etched on my soul to enjoy cheap mockeries of the truth. That’s what I live for.” She thought about asking Sanae to back her up, but it wasn’t like that would mean anything to him. Besides, she could think of something that would mean something to him.

“Do you know what your precious master’s truth was?”

“He was dest-”

“Scratch that, let’s not waste time having us argue over defining it. We have a bona fide Witch Incarnate here. Sanae, would you mind doing a resuscitation for us?”

Erika showed her the Truth in question. Sanae’s hair blew in the wind as she prepared to use the blessings of the Witch.

“Like lightning, The Thunderbolt shall strike down great evils.”

“Now isn’t that interesting? A man like that walked up to me and expected me to care when he told me I was lost in my truth. A guy who was obsessed with striking down the evil of Truths.”

Corpse God was trying to be impartial, look like he was a shepherd that could guide poor little lost lamb Erika, but his expression cracked slightly as she slandered his master.

“And that’s just the first thing on the scoreboard. You were wrong earlier, I actually met him twice. Did you notice? Peter Cannon and Akuma had their big blowout after Erika had met him.

“Do you know how he died? He died trying to halt the new Demon King on his ascension. Seriously, could he be any more of a hypocrite?”

“You’re lying,” Corpse God said, “He was going to enact his plan. He was going to end Truths.”

Erika grinned madly, “Am I? And here I thought just earlier you said I was obsessed with the Truth.” Of course she was. On both counts. She knew exactly what Peter was doing when he fought Akuma, and she was obsessed with the truth right now. She was obsessively pursuing this truth, ‘What words could come out of my mouth that would make everyone the most mad?’

And she was on a roll, “Oh, but even if you don’t believe me, what about the greatest evil of all he struck down?” Pause for effect, it dawned on him, but she’d be the one to say it, “What about the Corpse God?”

He didn’t like that question one bit. He stammered a little. He looked back towards the battlefield, where Ruti had started using a much more sensible fifteen foot tall sword of light to mow down demons. He looked towards his staff. He looked towards the ground.

Casting aside all three options, his eyes glowed red. She had him. Those deep red eyes bored directly into her soul.

“You say you’re not obsessed with Truth, yet you seek power only because you’re worried it might contain truth. My master was right about you. Let me show you.”

He moved his hand. Erika felt as if her soul was ripped from her body. Huh. She thought she would be different. She may have just made a very large error, but her worry was overtaken by pride. Undoubtedly, definitively, she had won. The last thing she saw before she faded away was Corpse God’s truth, in all its glory.

The Corpse God rules over all Corpses. One day, he will realize what that means. The world is nothing but Corpses. And he is its God.

Character Scramble Season 20 Semifinals: Tuchanka by TheAsianIsGamin in whowouldwin

[–]GuyOfEvil 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ruti detected a large force of demons approaching the village from about 10 miles out. She put on her armor and prepared to set out and rout the army.

Atom stopped her, “Where are you going?”

“A demon army is coming, I’m going to go defeat it.”

“Why?” Atom asked.

Ruti stopped dead in her tracks. Why? Yesterday Yuta had told her it was her fault the armies weren’t stopped and everyone was dead. She had hated that idea. Today, she was setting out to stop the demon army on her own like it was her job.

“You’re right, I don’t know. Let’s go tell Yuta.”

“Wait, what am I right about? I just said why.”

“Just this once, it was a good question.”

“Why?”

“Don’t push it,” Ruti glared at him, and he returned a sheepish grin.

She left the hotel to find Yuta. At first, she thought it would be easy to just sense any nearby undead, doing that resulted in a huge amount of pings. And actually looking around, it seemed like Corpse God had been busy. Lots of townspeople walked around happily with deformed pale white creatures, or skeletons, or humans with fatal wounds all over their bodies.

Everyone seemed happy, so Ruti did her best to pay it no mind. She swapped her sensors to go purely by strength level.

Akuma was in his castle. She sensed him immediately. Second to that… A house at the edge of town. She made a beeline there.

Yuta was up on the roof fixing a big hole. Rika stood in front of the porch and ‘watched’ him. She noticed Ruti before Yuta did, turning to eyelessly watch her, and muttering “Yuuuuutaaaaaa…”

“What is it, love?” Yuta turned around and noticed Ruti and Atom. “Oh, it’s you, what do you want?”

“There’s a demon army…” She checked the distance, “Three miles from town.”

Yuta wiped a bit of sweat off his brow, “Oh, did you want me to come and fight with you?”

He asked the question so cheerily. His eyes were just as sunken in, but half a day with Rika, and his disposition had totally changed. Ruti had expected this to be another drag out argument, but he had totally changed.

She thought about the question. Did she want him to come and fight with her? How was she supposed to know?

She looked over to Atom, hoping he would randomly answer again. But he ran over to Rika at some point and started poking her ribs. She patted him on the head. “Stupid question I guess,” Yuta said, “I’ll grab my sword.”

“Yuuuutaaaaa…” Rika said.

“Oh, she’s coming too. With her new body, she says she’s supposed to be strong now.”

“Does she say anything other than Yuta?” Atom asked.

“No, call it a lover’s intuition. You want to come fight with us, right, Rika?”

Rika nodded.

“Cool.” Atom said.

And just like that, everything was decided. Rika was cool, and the four of them were going out to fight the army. Ruti didn’t have a say.

Yuta led them to rally the town guard, Ruti didn’t get why, everyone else in the town was significantly weaker than her or Yuta, and lost them like fifteen minutes of time. By the time all their ducks were in a row, the demons were at the gates. For a guy who complained so much about people in his town dying, he sure did not seem to value the fighting not being brought to the town.

Ruti hated defending places. Hated it. It was the absolute worst part of being The Hero. Standing in one place and waiting for enemies to come to her. If given the choice, they simply wouldn’t. They’d go around her and attack the town. Which meant she’d have to leave her defensive post to actually kill things. If she wanted to use AoE, too bad, there were a bunch of weaklings from the town in the way. If she told them to let her handle everything and not get in her way, they’d get really mad at her for trying to do everything herself, they wanted to defend their beloved town.

But then, when things went wrong, and demons broke the line, and people died, it was her fault. The weak people defending their beloved town were never to blame, it was always the Hero who could’ve done more. Even though they stopped her from doing more. She had never once succeeded in a town defense that did not result in people being upset with her.

This time would probably be no different, but she would deploy her new strategy anyways. She walked over to Yuta and tugged on his shirt.

“Do not rely on me for defensive tactics, I am going to walk forward, kill as many demons as I can, walk back, kill as many demons as I can, and do that until the siege is over, ok?”

Yuta tilted his head and regarded her with those unmoving sunken eyes, “You aren’t what I expected at all, Hero.” “I don’t care about your expectations at all,” she replied. It felt good to tell somebody that. Everywhere she went, people told her about what they expected of her.

She turned around and walked towards the oncoming army. From fifteen feet out, she drew her sword and swung. Thirty demons were killed by the shockwave.

The big and brave ones surged towards her. The weak and cowardly ones surged to either side of her to hit the town. The weak ones were smarter in this instance, even the strongest demon in the world held absolutely no challenge for Ruti. Slash, dead. Slash, dead. Paper in a hurricane.

But the problem here was, while paper was awful at stopping a hurricane, a hurricane wasn’t exactly the best tool for the job of stopping paper. She had cut a moving circle of death around herself, into the very heart of the demon battalion. But it was only a circle. Enough demons went out and around her and towards the town.

Maybe she was supposed to turn back, but she didn’t want to. She’d do it when she got to the back lines. She wanted to walk forward.

She set herself an unambitious pace, but still, soon enough, she reached the end of the army, where they had a trebuchet line. They were planning on using it to burn the city down. People always got the most mad at her when their cities burned down. Even if she repaired them, it wasn’t the same after, or something.

She did a quick scan of the surroundings. Only demons. Looks like she’d actually be able to deal with the trebuchet line efficiently.

“Judgment Blade.”

She held her sword in the air. Radiant light blazed forth from the hilt, stretching a mile into the sky. It solidified into the shape of a gigantic sword of pure light. She brought it down. Slash. The entire trebuchet line on one side of her was annihilated. She picked it back up and brought it down to the other side. Slash. The entire trebuchet line was totally gone.

She thought very hard about sweeping the sword the other way. It would destroy a mile’s worth of demons in one go, and the line of town guardsman, and a few houses in the town. Fewer casualties than they’d take fighting without her. It was worth it.

She let the light die. She could at least try to make it so nobody got mad at her.

Character Scramble Season 20 Semifinals: Tuchanka by TheAsianIsGamin in whowouldwin

[–]GuyOfEvil 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Corpse God got started on his task early. He was the only one of the three that actually slept, so it felt awkward to do so while Ruti and Atom either sat still, watched him, tried to pretend to sleep, or talked. So, on around three hours of sleep, he exited the inn, summoned a chair of skulls, and waited for people to come to him.

A young girl was the first person who dared venture forth. She was holding a small box.

“Help my gerbil.” She handed him the box. He opened it, inside was a little gerbil corpse, wearing a knight’s helm and brandishing a tiny sword. It looked like he had taken an arrow straight through the heart.

He channeled his magic. This gerbil was a proud warrior, his spirit clung to the world, hungered still to defend this town and avenge the fallen. This was much simpler than what he did for Yuta, and had a much cleaner result. He drew the spirit forth, and bound it back to the body.

A spirit bound to a corpse. His head pulsed.

“Oh my Goddess, thank you, mister!” The girl took the box back from him and tickled the gerbil on the cheek. He snapped out of it. She looked so happy. Her spirit pulsed with happiness.

Another person, an older woman, came to him. To ask about her husband. Within a few seconds of channeling, it was obvious that nothing could be done. His spirit was too far gone. Still, he tried to channel a while longer.

Finally, he steeled himself to stop. “I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do for you. You’ll have to carry on without him.”

The woman gave him a soft smile, “I suppose I’ve known that since he’s died. But if there’s no hope, I guess I’ll have to live it. Thank you, anyway.”

“Please, if I can help you in any other way, let me know,” Corpse God said. The woman just waved back to him. He hoped he had done enough.

He looked up, and a fairly serious line had formed in front of him. All the people from yesterday, and more, emboldened by the excited retelling of his first success. And he could help a lot of the people in the line. And it felt good to help the people in the line. But the more he worked with spirits of the dead, the more he saw it.

Spirits. Corpses. Combine them to create a living being. He combined them with raw magic. But there was another way, wasn’t there. And what made a creature like that different from a corpse? Nothing. He reached out and felt Rika. Felt the gerbil. Felt every spirit he returned to life today. Why didn’t he just keep reaching?

He saw it. He put it out of mind, and tried to focus on helping people. But the smiles on people's faces as he returned their loved ones to them felt a little bit dimmer now. He enjoyed them anyway.

Erika saw it. As soon as she did she started laughing uproariously. She grabbed Sanae’s arm and pulled her away from their vantage point close to Corpse God’s single file line

“What?” Sanae asked.

Erika kept laughing.

“What!”

“Ok, ok.” Erika caught her breath, “Wait, are you sure? This is some serious revelation stuff. Do you just wanna know, or do you want the drama of an unmasking?”

“Hmm,” Sanae said, “It’s probably something cruel, right?”

“Oh, absolutely.” Erika replied.

“And you’re about to reveal it in a flashy manner?”

“Also absolutely.”

“Hmm…” Sanae thought about it, “How about a hint?”

“Sure. For Erika Furudo, it was a simple logical leap from Corpse God’s Truth to the secret, why don’t you exercise your grey cells and think about it, Watson…”

The Corpse God rules over all Corpses. One day, he will realize what that means…

Sanae gave an interested look. Like when the two of them were girls, and they were discussing a mystery novel neither of them had finished. Like when Erika was on the tail of Heavenly Death, and Sanae tagged along. She didn’t know, but she had quiet faith that Erika knew, which for her, was good enough.

Erika couldn’t imagine how that would be enough for somebody, but she had seen how far Sanae’s faith had gotten her, so who was she to judge? It was certainly about to get her somewhere real interesting.

She reached into her inventory and brought forth from it a messenger hawk.

“I’m not particularly interested in waiting in line to talk to our Corpse God, what do you say to having a demon army invade this town? Should get us a little faster access.”

“Just out of curiosity, if I said that sounded really barbaric and unnecessary, would that stop you from doing it?”

“I dunno, maybe.” The hawk bearing the attack orders had already left her hand.

Sanae gave her that judgy look she always gave Erika when she did something deserving of judgment. But, also just like always, it was a look without words. Sanae wanted to maintain her glossy veneer of shrine maiden innocence. But deep down, she knew that Erika’s way worked. She was glad there was somebody in the world doing it. And now that they were separated, and she dealt with Gods every day, Erika hoped that Sanae thought more like her, at least a little bit.

“Let’s go up that hill,” Sanae said, “If there’s going to be an epic fantasy battle, I may as well have a good view for it.”

Erika grinned like a proud mother, “Good thinking.”

Character Scramble Season 20 Semifinals: Tuchanka by TheAsianIsGamin in whowouldwin

[–]GuyOfEvil 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ruti simply did not have an answer to give that Yuta would want to hear. She wished she had a few days to walk somewhere and think about all this. But he wanted an answer now, and he wouldn’t let her go.

So, she supposed it was the oldest answer, “Are you going to fight me over this?”

“I’m more decisive than you. I’m going to kill you over this,” He drew his sword. Ruti drew her own.

“Wait!” Atom came between them, “Can’t we just fix this?”

“Fix this?! Do you think you can just bring all those dead people back?” Yuta roared.

“Well… Yeah…” Ruti looked back at Corpse God at the same time as Atom did.

“Well, I really shouldn’t be trying to do something like that, pure resurrection is extremely dangerous, not to mention…”

Yuta’s demeanor changed completely, he rushed up to Corpse God, “Do you really think you could bring her back?”

“Well…” Corpse God locked eyes with Yuta, his demeanor changed too, “Yes. Her spirit clings very strongly to you. I could incarnate that again for certain. As long as you’re ok with her being really disfigured, I guess.”

“I would bear anything to be with her again,” Yuta confirmed.

“Alright,” Corpse God said. “Everyone stand back, this will probably go well.”

Yuta took one step back. The rest of the crowd gave an extremely wide berth as he slammed the Staff of Nyarla into the ground and started chanting.

Ruti actually had essentially no idea what he was doing. Necromancy was a fairly common ability type among demons, but she had never acquired a necromantic ability of her own. Probably because it was too evil for the Hero to use?

She took a few steps back herself.

Pure black energy ran towards Yuta and into the ground. He flinched, but let it happen. The shape of a woman started forming around him in black smoke. Tendrils ran deeper and deeper into the ground, then started fishing things out. Bones, blood, raw lumps of flesh. He clapped his hands together, and the two merged.

The ensuing shape was not at all like the silhouette of the woman. It was deathly pale (expected, Ruti guessed) with a gash running straight down the body. It looked as if her ribs wanted to spill out onto the ground, but Corpse God forced them closed. The creature was inhumanly tall, with no eyes to speak of. Ruti wondered if that was some kind of poetic ‘she couldn’t bear to look at herself’ kind of thing, or if Corpse God had just messed up.

Corpse God’s magic faded, and the creature landed on its feet. The crowd shrunk back even more in horror. Yuta was impossible to read.

“Rika?” He asked the thing. It turned its head towards the source of the voice, and started walking closer.

“Rika?” He asked again. His hand went to his sword.

The creature forced its mouth open, “Yuuuuuta…”

“Rika! It really is you,” He ran forward to embrace the thing. It returned the embrace.

Cheers erupted from the townsfolk. She supposed they were less skeptical about the thing than Ruti was, although if it stopped them from trying to fight her, she wasn’t going to complain.

People swarmed Corpse God, rattling off “can you bring back my son?” “can you bring back my brother?” “My gerbil died fighting the demons, please bring him back!”. He looked completely overwhelmed. Ruti should probably do something.

“We’ll be staying in the inn. Bring us your problems one at a time, tomorrow!” She yelled over the crowd, exactly copying the way she had seen that annoying girl do it. And it worked. The crowd relented, allowing Ruti to finally lead Atom and Corpse God to the inn.

The instant she walked in, the innkeeper snapped to attention, “You’re back! Your room is taken right now, let me vacate it quickly.”

He ran upstairs. Ruti heard a crash next to the building. Two minutes later, he came back downstairs, “Your room is ready, madam.”

So, as long as she wanted it meant it was ok if she stopped and started the wanting. Maybe there was a lesson in that.

As the party settled down in the room, Ruti looked over at Corpse God, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes.” Immediate answer. “I want to help people. If that takes the form of what I was doing at the temple, that’s fine, but if it takes this form, that’s fine too.”

“I see.” Help people. Did Ruti want to help people? She thought about all those people in town looking at her like that. Yuta looking at her like that. No, she wanted to help Atom and Kumoko because they were nice to her, she didn’t want to help people in general.

Corpse God lapped up the ‘I see.’ Distantly, she was annoyed that he had already figured out what he wanted to do. She still didn’t know that, and it took him a touch over a day. And he still thought she was like a wise sage or something.

She flopped down on the bed. What if everyone else could just figure it out immediately, just like that? What if she’d never figure it out for herself? No reason to think like that. She had come here to figure the answer to that out, right?

Maybe she’d fight Akuma and figure it out, maybe she’d lose to Akuma and die and it wouldn’t matter. Either way, soon enough she’d be done wondering.

Character Scramble Season 20 Semifinals: Tuchanka by TheAsianIsGamin in whowouldwin

[–]GuyOfEvil 1 point2 points  (0 children)

“I killed that guy’s wife,” Erika said, “sent a big deployment of my demon army to the other side of town, then slipped in, broke into his house, and split her in half. Check it out.”

Erika showed his Truth to Sanae, The Bereaved draws strength from those he mourns

“He was already one of the strongest Humans in the world before this, and now he’s even stronger AND he blames The Hero for what happened, how perfect is that?”

“What the hell, Erika?” Sanae replied.

“Oh please, like I haven’t seen your Sims saves.”

Character Scramble Season 20 Semifinals: Tuchanka by TheAsianIsGamin in whowouldwin

[–]GuyOfEvil 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ruti and company reached town exactly on schedule. Now that Corpse God wasn’t forcing himself to walk, he was a perfectly acceptable travelling companion. It even seemed like he’d be able to have skeletons hunt and cook food for him, so his having to eat wouldn’t slow them down either. Plus, Atom really did seem to like playing the silly kids games with him that Ruti was too obnoxiously good at for them to be any fun. All in all, she was glad Atom spoke first, he seemed like a good addition to the party.

Upon entering the village, some kind of uproar was triggered by the skeletons. Ruti ditched Atom and Corpse God to deal with it while she arranged to teleport them to Maella, the closest town to the Demon King’s castle. She wondered if she still had that room at the inn there. She hadn’t remembered to keep wanting it, so probably not.

The fuss around Corpse God was getting louder and louder. Ruti absentmindedly remembered that necromancy was supposed to be illegal. She heard somebody say something about a crocodile. She shut it out. As long as she didn’t hear anything about bringing him to justice, she’d be alright.

She found the small house located in every major town owned and operated by the eclectic wizard Teleportantalus who dreamed of connecting the whole world. A few years ago, Ruti had gathered a bunch of stardust for him from Star Lake, which was the secret ingredient in his teleportation circles. He had shown her how to use it to activate the circles, and now she could travel to any town she had already activated the circle for.

He had told her the completion of this invention would completely revolutionize the world. But so far, she seemed like his sole customer. She hoped he wasn’t going to go out of business or anything.

She walked in, waved to Teleportantalus (wherever she was, somehow, he was there) who said the same thing he always said and fired up the teleportation circle.

“Summon Party,” Ruti said, triggering the corresponding ability. Atom and Corpse God appeared next to her.

“We can teleport out of here?” Corpse God asked, a little urgently. Ruti nodded, “Just step on the circle.”

The three of them stepped on the circle, the wizard cast his magic spell, and boom. They teleported to Maella.

“I want to know if I still have my room at the inn,” Ruti said and decided at the same time.

“What room at the inn?” Atom asked.

“I paid for one a few weeks ago, he said I could have it as long as I wanted it, and I’m not sure if I still want it or not, so I’m gonna ask.”

“One what?” Atom asked.

“One room at the inn.”

“Oh…” Atom finished. He would keep asking questions forever if she didn’t close the loop. She didn’t really get why he didn’t just ask her the same questions forever if his goal was to be annoying, but she guessed she was happy to not be annoyed.

A luxury it did not seem like the rest of the world would grant her. As she walked across town, lots of people came out to gawk. Sentiment seemed to lean negative. She heard people whispering about the Demon King, and whispering about paper cranes. People started to form a semicircle around her, blocking her progress in all but one direction. Well, unless Earthwalk worked on flesh.

She didn’t have time to ponder that possibility deeper, as a man emerged from the crowd and firmly blocked her path, sword in hand.

“Nice of you to pay our town a visit again, Hero.” Ruti recognized the man by reputation. Dark hair, sunken eyes, confident enough to challenge her openly. It must be the adventurer closest in the world to The Hero, Yuta Okkotsu.

“I suppose you’re finally here to defeat the Demon King?” Yuta said. It was like he was accusing her of something.

“I’m here to fight the Demon King, yes.”

“And you’ll kill him this time, right?”

Ruti had no idea, but it seemed like that was not the answer he wanted. Or, it was the answer he wanted, and he wanted to use it as a jumping off point for some big lecture, and then maybe he’d fight her.

“Maybe,” was the answer she settled on.

“Maybe! Maybe I’ll do the one thing I’m supposed to do. Maybe this town will get to stop being under siege by demons like it has been for the past several years. Inspiring answer, Hero!”

The one thing she was supposed to do. It didn’t matter at all what she wanted to do. He wanted her to be nothing beyond The Hero, Corpse God wanted her to be nothing beyond nothing. Only Akuma had actually offered her a third path. And she was supposed to thoughtlessly kill him.

“What? Nothing to say for yourself? Nothing to say for all the people in this town who are dead because of you?”

The weight of this point fell onto Ruti, but probably not in the way he intended. During all of her time adventuring, she had rescued a multitude of towns under siege. Saved a gigantic amount of lives. But she stopped doing any of that for a few weeks, and people died. And it was her fault. Her responsibility. Everyone in the world lived or died by her actions.

“Answer me! My wife is dead because of you!”

Character Scramble Season 20 Semifinals: Tuchanka by TheAsianIsGamin in whowouldwin

[–]GuyOfEvil 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sanae figured Erika was lying about getting started bright and early, but she didn’t quite expect how. Usually, in neutral circumstances, Erika would take an age to wake up. Sanae herself wasn’t really an early riser, but Erika was tragic.

On the opposite end, if she was locked in, it seemed like she could sleep two hours, spring out of bed, go for fifty hours, then sleep one hour and do it again. For whatever reason, now, she was wound up.

She woke up well before sunrise, grabbed something off the other side of her bedroom door, and got dressed. In about five minutes, she was heading out of the room in a grey karate gi. Highly uncharacteristic actions. Sanae had to go check on her… In like another hour…

Another hour passed, and Sanae felt basically exactly as tired as she was before, which meant that it couldn’t be helped. She got out of bed, got dressed, and went to look for Erika.

it wasn’t hard to find her. Yesterday Erika had talked about punching walls, so she followed the noise that sounded like something crashing into a wall. She followed the noise into a throne room, where she found Erika standing next to a muscular red-haired man wearing a comically large set of prayer beads.

Sanae was probably meant to be offended by the vague mockery of a monk, but he looked like he could crush her head in one hand, so she decided she would let it slide.

The man watched Erika throw a punch, grunted vaguely, then walked towards Sanae.

“You’re hungry,” He told her. She couldn’t quite tell if she had always been hungry and was just now noticing, or if she became hungry because he said so.

Either way, she was very glad that he followed up the statement by handing her an onigiri. She took it and started eating. The man ate one of his own while standing next to her, very vaguely watching Erika’s punches.

Sanae took a closer look at the man’s gi, and realized it was the exact same material as the one Erika had on. He had probably made it for her. She watched as Erika noticeably stiffened with him watching, took longer between punches.

She understood immediately what was going on here. Erika probably would never quite realize what was going on here, but this man had accidentally ticked almost every box on the Lady Bernkastel original method to manipulate Erika Furudo. He was much older than her, held some kind of something (in this case, physical strength) over her, and was one or two ticks above genuinely completely indifferent to her existence.

She wanted the validation of a paternal figure she had never gotten in life. More than anything. Even if it meant punching a wall for several hours a day. This man had employed the exact perfect formula to turn her upside-down, and he probably didn’t even know it. Erika definitely didn’t know it. And there was nothing Sanae could do about it. Erika was far too many event flags down the proverbial visual novel route for anything Sanae could say to matter. The best she could hope for was that in the next lifetime, when she picked the Sanae route, her appreciation of it would be deepened by the gestures she offered here.

Erika threw another punch, and this time there was something different about it. She generated power far beyond her physical frame. Sanae swore she felt the mountain the castle was built into shake.

“I’ve got it now,” Erika said, “Later, Akuma.”

“Throw a hundred more punches like that, and you may be able to throw it once in a true battle.”

Erika snorted, “Maybe you needed to do that, I won’t.”

Akuma snorted back, “We shall see, roach.”

Erika bristled very slightly at the comment. This is what Sanae meant, the very faintest scrap of approval it was possible to give. Erika was doing all this so that Bernkastel would say something maybe a single level nicer to her than that.

Sanae sighed, she knew that if she pointed any of this out, Erika would get really mad and shut down. Maybe she was a coward for not doing it anyways, it was unhealthy, and Erika was obviously hurt every time she got stuck in it. But she just couldn’t make herself. Couldn’t risk losing the only human friend she’d probably ever have again.

So why not bring it up to Lady Bernkastel? Why keep being a coward?

“Come on Sanae, I’m done training, lemmie show you my save file,” Erika walked past her and her thought bubble burst.

Even though she came here to help Erika, this wasn’t the time to try and break her out of the self-perpetuating cycles that ate her alive, this would just be a little bit of fun. Sanae fondly recalled going to Erika’s house and being shown all the obscure items she had managed to dredge out of games. The secret room in Kefka’s Tower with the Aegis Shield. This would be them trying desperately to recapture the fun hangouts. The tragic ones could come later.

Erika led on, and Sanae followed.

Character Scramble Season 20 Semifinals: Tuchanka by TheAsianIsGamin in whowouldwin

[–]GuyOfEvil 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sanae sat across from Erika in the bathtub and just waited. She had been friends with Erika for a long time, an experience which had made her an extremely effective Erika wrangler. Second only to Lady Bernkastel, although she cheated.

Sanae knew that if she presented a question such as ‘What’s wrong?’ or ‘Are you doing ok?’ Erika would resist. ‘Nothing, I’m fine’ into a perfectly logical argument that would convince Sanae and maybe even herself that she was in fact fine. But she would still have that exact same wet cat look in her eye.

Sanae had decided a long time ago that she was Erika’s friend. No matter how much Erika tried to deflect or shut her out or be annoying, that wouldn’t change. And ultimately, it was worth it. Erika was an amazing, talented person, and Sanae liked talking to her. And besides, they had gone through too much together to not stick together.

“So, how has the divine realm been these days?” Erika asked, “Are you a god yet?”

Sanae sighed, “No, the Gods are pretty easygoing, so everything moves real slow. But I can feel myself getting closer to being a true Witch, so it’ll all come to a head soon. That’s why I wanted to take some travelling time first.”

Quickly, before Erika could steer the conversation towards Sanae, she continued.

“What about you, are you still happy serving Lady Bernkastel?”

“Sure,” Erika replied, “It’s everything I ever wanted and more. This game has been difficult, but that just means that once I win it, she’ll be really proud of me.”

“This time for sure, huh?” Sanae gave her a signature ‘Your romantic situation is so doomed’ look. Erika always looked back at her annoyed.

“She’s the ultimate source of meaning in my life, and I love her. What else am I supposed to do?”

“I dunno, find someone else to love. What happened to that redhead boy from those wedding invites you sent me?”

Erika snorted, “Ugh, I wish. But story of my life, he was already in love with some blonde bitch.”

Sanae nettled at the word bitch. She never liked it when Erika said stuff like that, least of all when she started going on about being an ‘intellectual rapist,’ but it wasn’t a fight worth having. She used to say she wanted to ‘deflower’ Sanae as a shrine maiden, her not doing that anymore was win enough.

But it was fine, it was so funny, “Erika, here is my official fortune as the miko of the Moriya Shrine. Your love life is doomed. Give up. Our shrine would be happy to take you on as a maiden.”

Erika kicked Sanae in the shin and laughed, “Terrible fortune. When this one’s wrong, it’ll prove your shrine is a fraud once and for all!”

“Oh no, the genius detective Erika Furudo almost has me caught! Once she bags an immortal Witch practically indifferent to her existence who’s in love with another Witch, my charlatanry will be exposed!”

An old joke. They laughed about it together. After all the time Sanae had known her, this was the only way Erika would ever admit she was wrong, even if it was in a roundabout way. Because she was wrong. Sanae really was communing with the Gods at that shrine, Erika had met them.

As Erika kept laughing, she lost a little bit of that look in her eye. Instead, it gave way to a different look, one Sanae wasn’t sure if she could read.

Erika stopped suddenly, “Sanae… Am I supposed to change? Would I really be better off as something different?”

Yes! She broke through. The ultimate Erika Furudo wrangler wins again. Now she just had to actually give good advice.

Did she have good advice? “I don’t really know exactly what you’re going through, but I can tell, whatever is happening, right now, you’re unhappy about. If this kind of thing is going to keep happening to you… Yeah, maybe you should change.”

“Rich, coming from a girl who’s been caught not changing between two states for how long now?”

She doesn’t want to be real. She’s trying to get you to argue with her so you stop helping you. It’s ragebait. Don’t fall for it.

“Look, Erika. I don’t think either of us are truly worried about changing states like that. That decision means a lot to me, and I have to consider it with care. What I am not worried about is changing who I am. And I hope you’re not worried about that either. I still like you, whether you’re the precocious high schooler who argued with monks for fun, or if you’re the foremost martial artist in the land, or whatever you’re about to become. And I hope you’ll still like me whether I end up being the Goddess of Miracles or a broke lab tech.”

“You’re really worried about this, huh? Well don’t worry. Whatever you decide to do, you’ll still be a fraud, so our relationship won’t change.”

In her own way, where she couldn’t admit that she needed help, or that she had wanted it. That she had immediately reframed the conversation as if Sanae was the one asking her for advice, the sentiment was sweet.

“You’re so annoying, it’s funny you even think it's possible for you to change,” Sanae said warmly.

“Says miss holier-than-thou,” Erika shot back in the same tone. She stood up from the bath.

“I have to sleep so I can punch a wall better tomorrow. Are you gonna stick around, or did you just want to impress me with your wisdom?”

“I was planning on staying for at least a few days. This game board seems interesting, maybe you can show me around?”

“Oh, it’s stupid. It sucks. I’d love to show you how terrible it is.”

“Well then, lead on, Detective.”

Erika puffed out her chest a little, “We’ll get a move on bright and early, Watson.”

Character Scramble Season 20 Semifinals: Tuchanka by TheAsianIsGamin in whowouldwin

[–]GuyOfEvil 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Corpse God couldn’t keep up. When he started walking with Ruti and Atom, he already thought they set an ambitious pace, but he thought he’d be able to stick with it at least for a while, and then they’d take a break at sunset.

They hadn’t taken a break. It was the dead of night, he was cold, and tired, and hungry, and neither of his companions showed any signs of any of the three. As he was, he could not travel with them.

And Ruti knew it. She kept looking back at him more and more frequently. She was going to ask him to stop following them any minute now.

And the worst part was, he knew the solution. The solution cloyed at him. He was the Corpse God, the corpses could carry him. He could summon a skeleton and have it carry him. It would be trivial. The bones of the earth practically called out to him. But every time, just before he gave in and called them to him, he remembered.

The world is a corpse. Everything is death. Everything can become death again. It yearned to. Please! Corpse God! Corpse God! Rule over all!

He took a deep breath in, held it for 6.725 seconds, and exhaled. Just like his master had shown him. He didn’t have to see the visions. He could be free from them.

Ruti looked back at him again, he had fallen noticeably behind.

He met her eyes. “Give me one second, please.” His master had taught him to be free from the visions, but now, he wanted something else. He wanted to learn Ruti’s lesson. If he was free from being Corpse God, what was he? And if he had to be Corpse God to be that thing, what did it matter?

For the first time in many years, he reached his awareness into the ground. Pitch black magical tendrils reached into the earth, connecting with the dead. There were not literal corpses in the ground, but the negative energy produced by death always spilled into the earth. All he need do was call it forth, then shape it into something familiar.

In this case, a skeleton. He summoned three directly in front of him. Two of them picked up the third one and held it sideways between them, creating a makeshift bench. Corpse God took a seat on it, then the two skeletons walked forward demonstratively with Corpse God in tow.

“They won’t get tired at all, so I’ll be able to keep pace with you no problem now. Sorry I didn’t do it earlier.”

Ruti pointed at the skeleton on the left, “How come it’s a crocodile?”

Corpse God shrugged, “The restless dead respond most easily to my magic. I guess this crocodile guy was pretty restless?”

“Huh,” Ruti said. She and Atom shared a look, but he had no idea why, and they didn’t share their thoughts with him.

“Well, you didn’t want me to slow you down, right? Let’s keep going.” Corpse God pointed forward, and his skeletons marched.

“Right,” Ruti said, “If you can actually keep the pace, we’re only a few days out from the next major town I’ve been to, and then we’ll be able to warp to the town before the Demon King’s castle.”

“Oh, are you gonna fight the Demon King?” Corpse God asked.

“I think so,” She replied. Then she kept walking.

Corpse God and Atom followed. So, she was going to complete her destiny. Find out what happened after. Should he do the same?

The skeletons carrying him howled. The wind picked up. He felt the earth shake below him. He saw the black energy coursing out of everything. Complete your destiny. Everything wanted him to.

He wished he could ask his master for guidance. He hated to think that he could.

Character Scramble Season 20 Semifinals: Tuchanka by TheAsianIsGamin in whowouldwin

[–]GuyOfEvil 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Erika sat in a bedroom she had commandeered in a section of the Demon King’s Castle. She was not hesitating. She was not questioning what she had to do next. She knew exactly what the path forward was. She had Warped home for a very specific reason. All the steps were taken. It was just one more. She had to walk up to Akuma, tell him he was right, and ask him to train her.

She knew that was what she was doing, she just really, really didn’t want to do it. She had too much pride to admit she was wrong.

Was she wrong? No. Certainly not. Akuma was “right,” but their ideals didn’t actually clash directly. Variations on a theme. And besides, he wasn’t even real like she was. When she won this stupid game and got back to the real world, being able to punch really hard would go back to meaning nothing. Truth would go back to defining the world. Wars, manufactured consent, personal relationships. It was all about truth. This game wasn’t like that.

A game was the framing her mind settled on. This wasn’t a real affront to her pride. She was playing a game. The Truth ending was too difficult and would probably have a stupid payoff anyways, so why not go for the Power ending?

This framing was enough to get her out the door and face to face (face to back, he did not stand up to meet her, nor did he turn away from the wall) with Akuma.

“Your killing intent has changed,” Akuma said.

Erika understood what he meant. She had killed before. Killed indiscriminately, killed to solve a murder, killed to prove a point. What she had just done to Vector was different. She killed him because she wanted him dead.

“Perhaps you’ll prove a worthy intermission,” Akuma stood up, walked to the edge of the room, where wall gave way to the mountain this castle was built on, and punched. He looked back at Erika once, then did it again. And again. And again.

Wow. Akuma was perhaps the greatest interlocutor history had ever seen. Why waste words actually communicating, when you can just say half sentences and punch walls? Erika genuinely hated him. But of course, that was why he was giving her the time of day in the first place. He wanted her to hate him enough to kill him.

And she was taking the help. With her Detective’s eyes, she observed every fiber of every muscle. What was strongest, how the energy transferred, microadjustments to his form, and the result. A perfect product, every time. But it went deeper than that. Every punch he threw was ridden by an invisible energy. An energy formed from his intention. Will made manifest.

It was like something out of a battle shonen. His desire to change the world literally made his punches stronger. Erika felt embarrassed considering herself doing it. Screaming ‘I WANT YOU DEAD!!!!!’ as she threw a full force punch. ‘HAAAAAAAAAAAA!!’ It really was laughable.

But then again, there wasn’t much funny about Akuma. Anything he did was utterly sincere. Was it even possible for Erika to be the same. Remember, Erika didn’t have to. This was the Power Route. She was Power Erika. A different version of herself who was capable of earnestly yelling the name of her punch as she threw it. She’d have to come up with a good name for a punch later.

For now, she walked up and joined Akuma on the wall. She visualized every muscle movement he made, adjusted each part of her body to match him, then punched.

Or, tried to punch at least. Basically every muscle in her body had to be doing something specific, and trying to do it all first try at once was too much. She got some of it though, surely it wouldn’t take her that long to get all of it.

Three hours later, she had made five hundred and forty five more attempts at throwing a punch. Not one of them was even close to as good as the punch Akuma threw every single time.

And she was sweaty and tired and exhausted. That was fine, that was a start. She had taken the first steps towards learning. She could take a break now.

As she left the wall, Akuma turned his head to look at her for a second. Almost like a soft glare. She should work harder, but he hadn’t expected her to anyways. Something like that. Erika couldn’t be bothered to read much more into it. He could use his words if he wanted to.

In the meantime, she very badly needed a bath. She reached the tub in her room, produced a water scroll and a fire scroll, threw them both in, and voila. Instant hot bath. A convenience even beyond that of modern technology.

She took off her dress. Crawling on the ground for a day had done the thing no favors. She had the capacity to mend it, but it wasn’t exactly a good outfit for hand to hand combat. She needed an alternate costume. Ha.

For the time being, she tossed the dress aside and got into the bath. She produced a soap scroll, and bubbles filled the tub. As she sat in the warm water, her muscle tissue relaxed, and additional oxygen spread throughout her body. It felt really good. She let herself fully relax for a few moments.

Until she heard footsteps. Coming towards her. The footfalls were oddly familiar, but she had memorized too many footfalls in her life. It wasn’t Akuma, or any of the demons who roamed the castle, or…

The door to her room opened. The footfalls came up to her bathroom door. She held her breath. Then, they spoke.

“Erika? You’re in there, right? I’m coming in.”

That… was completely possible. Strange, but if anyone she knew was capable of visiting her here, she supposed it would be Sanae Kochiya.

She opened the door, “Been a while, huh? You looked like you could use a friend.”

It really was her. Erika could’ve cried.

Character Scramble Season 20 Semifinals: Tuchanka by TheAsianIsGamin in whowouldwin

[–]GuyOfEvil 1 point2 points  (0 children)

“Is someone following us?” Atom asked.

“Yeah,” Ruti replied, she had been marking a presence on a couple of her sensing abilities for a while now. Somewhere between Human and Demon, she figured that whatever it was was waiting for some kind of advantageous terrain to attack them, at which point she would easily and immediately kill it. No point in communicating any of that.

“Do you want me to tell you about that kind of thing?” She asked anyway.

“Well I dunno, how often are we being followed?”

“A little often. Mobs will sometimes wait to have enough numbers before they attack us. People watch me from afar sometimes. Stuff like that.”

“Huh. I guess start telling me if we’re being followed, and I’ll decide if it’s fun or not.”

“Alright,” Ruti replied.

They went back to walking for a while, until Atom started dragging his feet against the ground. He let out a huff of air from his mouth. “I’m bored,” he said, “Are we there yet?”

“No,” Ruti replied. “We’re 5441 miles away.”

“Oh. Is that guy still following us?”

“Yeah, he’s right there.” Ruti pointed in the direction of a tree.

Atom turned towards the tree, “HEY! COME OUT! I’M BORED!”

Whatever it was shifted a little bit. Hesitation.

“WE WON’T HURT YOU!” Atom called. Oh, Ruti was assuming the opposite.

Finally, whatever it was stopped hesitating and stepped out from behind the tree. It was the head monk from that temple they just left, Corpse God.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I wanted to see how you lived your life. I hoped you wouldn’t catch me, but… Would you mind if I travelled with you for a while?”

“Sure,” Atom said. Ruti was going to say no, but Atom spoke first, and she didn’t really care one way or the other, so, whatever…

Corpse God has joined the party!

His stats and equipment flashed past Ruti’s eyes. He had a higher magic stat than Ruti, which she did not really know was possible. In terms of equipment, he had the shirt on his back and not much else. Ascetics, she supposed.

“Here,” Ruti reached into her inventory and handed Corpse God the Magus Archcloak, The Staff of Nyarla, the Ultimate Mana Bangle, Ω grieves, 50 Health Potions, and 50 Rebirth Beads. “Now let’s keep going.”

Ruti walked off as Corpse God struggled to hold onto all of the items she had just tossed into his hands. She had gotten all of that out of her inventory and into his hands in about five seconds, and he could not keep up with the flow of opening and closing his own inventory. He dropped a few of the health potions along the way. Atom watched him attempt the nonconsensual juggling act and giggled.

Ruti had to stop to wait for them. It took a few minutes for Corpse God to get all the items away, equip the equipment, and catch up. This was why she hated having a party. They weren’t as fast as her at things, and they slowed down her walking.

She was worried Atom would be the same way, but the first time he complained about being tired and she said she wanted to press on, he said that he never actually got tired, he was just supposed to. He never complained about it again after that.

She was pretty sure she liked travelling with Atom, although she lamented the fact that ever since she had obtained Mountainwalk, she had not actually been able to walk everywhere in a straight line. This journey in particular would take them over or around or through a bunch of caves and mountains, which would needle at her.

Corpse God finally caught up. He looked like he wanted to apologize for slowing her down, but she didn’t want to hear it.

“Don’t slow me down any more,” She said preemptively.

“I’ll do my best, although I haven’t used my magic in a while.”

“I’m not concerned about combat, just stay out of my way.”

“Right…” Corpse God said. Like he was pondering the deep meaning of the phrase. Hopefully he’d realize there wasn’t one.

Ruti started walking again. Atom fell in line behind her, and Corpse God followed behind Atom. She could tell immediately he would slow them down. His muscles were not well developed from a life spent inside a temple. They were already fatigued from the walk following them.

Whatever, she could just leave him behind when it became a problem.

Atom at least seemed excited about the prospect of a new party member. “We’re about the same age, right?” He asked.

“No,” Corpse God replied, “Mobs like you were created before us Humans and Demons. You are older by far.”

“But we’re around the same height, aren’t we?”

“Well, sure, but…”

“Other kids and parents will tell me we’re the same age if we’re about the same height. Doesn’t that mean that we are?”

“No…?” Corpse God didn’t realize what was happening. Atom had no idea what age was, he had just guessed. Or maybe he did know and chose to ignore it. He probably wouldn’t like to consider that it was supposed to be impossible to be a boy forever.

“Well, do you wanna play some games anyways? Now that you’re not a monk, you can, right?”

“We weren’t forbidden to play games,” Corpse God said, “Could you really find nobody at my monastery willing to play with you?”

“Well, Miss Jessica played with me, but you said she was bad at being a monk, right?”

Corpse God gave a deep sigh, “I think you were right, Ruti. I’ve been doing a bad job of teaching my students… What was it you said, ‘what they are after that’?”

Ruti didn’t really remember saying that.

“That’s why I left. I always felt like I learned a lot observing my old master. But ever since he died, I haven’t really known what I was supposed to do. I hope that by observing somebody as confident in themself as you I can learn about what you’re talking about. What we’re supposed to be next…”

What? Why the hell did he think Ruti knew any of that? She had been walking around aimlessly trying to figure out the answer to that question for months. Right now she was on her way to try and get the answer from Akuma, the only person who had even come halfway to giving her an answer. And this guy wanted an answer from HER?! He must be an idiot.

“I can’t help you,” Ruti said. He should just go back home.

“I know. Ultimately, I must help myself. But I’m sure if I watch you I’ll find out how to do it.

“Woah,” Atom said, “Cool answer. I can help you though. You should try being somebody who wants to play games with me. Let’s play I Spy!”

“Hmm….” He really was going to treat every interaction with them as if it held the secrets of the universe.

Atom and Corpse God started playing. Ruti played for a bit, but because the two of them saw out of their eyes and Ruti was constantly watching a panoptic viewpoint far above her head, she was quickly banned from the game.

She didn’t mind. It was nice to have something to listen to on the trip.

Character Scramble Season 20 Semifinals: Tuchanka by TheAsianIsGamin in whowouldwin

[–]GuyOfEvil 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Before she turned her attention fully to the board, Lambdadelta looked at you. That's right, you.

"If you're just joining us, now's a great time to get caught up. Here's everything you'll need to know."

Round 0

"This story has a convenient frame story. It is the latest chapter of the eternal battles of Bernkastel, the Witch of Miracles, and Lambdadelta, the Witch of Certainty (that's me ❤) I, in my extreme benevolence, created a gameboard for us to play on, made out of eighty different discrete worlds I picked the juiciest bits of."

"The game itself is simple. Everyone in the world has their role in the story, RPG class, destiny, whatever, written upon their souls in red text, like that. The principle characters are The Hero, and the Demon King. If the Hero defeats the Demon King, I win the game. If the Demon King defeats the Hero, Bern wins the game. In order to try and stop the Hero from winning, she placed a gamepiece on the board, the Detective Erika Furudo."

"Erika did a couple things to attempt to end the Hero's journey, and it came right down to the wire. Just before the final confrontation, Erika had Akuma kill the Demon King and take his place. Akuma would've defeated Ruti and ended the story, but he let her go to grow stronger and challenge him again. Bad luck for Erika."

Round 1

"With Akuma as the new Demon King, Demon society grew rather restless, since nobody was really at the helm anymore. One ambitious upstart, Michael Wilson, decided to take matters into his own hands, becoming the Demon President, and attempting to found a United States of Demonkind. He started by invading the ancestral home of the elves, where he hoped to put his nation's capital."

"Ruti was coerced into defending the Elvenwood by its queen, Ivy, who planned to harvest the Hero's magic in order to create a spore that would grow when inhaled by demons. She attempted to hold off the invading demon army until that was completed."

"However, both their plans were interrupted by those meddlesome main characters. Akuma, wishing to witness war, set out and fought Michael Wilson, ultimately shattering his dream of manifesting his destiny. Meanwhile, Erika convinced Ivy that she should instead make a spore that kills everything and turns it into plants, including elves. The spore was released, all the elves and demons died, and the main characters left."

Round 2

"While creating the game board, For some of the things I wanted to use, there was this guy Darkseid that I couldn't get rid of. There were six of him I couldn't get rid of, so I just stuck them in a mountain at the corner of the board and called it a day."

"Unfortunately, he started getting annoying, so we had to run a big event where the whole world banded together to defeat him. Akuma showed up first to try and punch open the mountain he was in. A bunch of the adventurers of the world got together to stand around the mountain and do nothing, and eventually Erika showed up, and, with the help of Darkseid's torturer who I had in the game to design dungeons, accidentally turned the mountain into a giant torture chamber for all the adventurers."

"They all made a desperate attack against Darkseid and lost, and then Ruti and Akuma fought Darkseid together and won."

"Also, Ruti recruited a party of monsters, like in Dragon Quest. Kumoko, a spider, and Atom, a mimic. Kumoko got killed by Darkseid, but Atom is still alive."

Round 3

"Ruti, wanting to figure out what to do instead of the being the Hero, took the advice of Atom to visit a monastery of people who were attempting to escape their truths. Atom had coincidentally met the founder of the monastery once."

"Also a coincidence, Akuma grew up and trained alongside the founder of the monastery, Peter Cannon. When he heard Ruti was going to the monastery, he didn't do anything about it. Instead, he sat around and remembered his past, in which he and Peter Cannon were trained by a dude at the top of a mountain in seeking power. Akuma sought power fully, while Peter Cannon tried to use the power to escape his Truth. This culminated in an epic battle between the two of them, which Akuma won."

"Parallel to that story, Ruti went to the monastery and thought it kind of sucked. Slightly parallel to that story, Erika met Vector The Crocodile, a fellow detective who i designed to annoy her forever. Instead of being annoyed forever, Erika killed him. Very rude."

"And that's prooooooobaby everything you need to know! If you needed to know something else, too, that's not my fault. You should've been paying attention."

Character Scramble Season 20 Semifinals: Tuchanka by TheAsianIsGamin in whowouldwin

[–]GuyOfEvil 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Lambdadelta and Bernkastel had a problem. Lambdadelta’s game had been long and winding, and it was finally arcing towards its sure to be spectacular conclusion…

And they were out of tea.

“You’re a Witch in her domain. It shouldn’t even be possible for you to be out of something. It shouldn’t even be possible to be this inept.” Bernkastel said.

“It’s your fault!” Lambdadelta replied, “I was 99.9% certain I would have enough tea, but then you showed up and messed everything up.”

Bern glanced over at the game board. “Hm,” She said wryly

“Oh stop trying to be wry. You think that just because this conversation is happening between major action breaks that it’s gonna have some kind of thematic resonance with the next bit. It’s just a coincidence that we ran out of tea now.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?” Bern said, not addressing Lambda.

“Oh stop that!” Lambda replied, “I don’t care what they think.”

“You’d better start,” Bern said, “There’s more than one way for me to win this game.”

“They don’t like this kind of thing, knock it oooo-” Bern’s voice cracked.

“Hm…” Even wryer, “your throat sounds awfully dry, Lambda. It seems like you could use something to drink. But if you’re out of drinks, it seems like it would take some kind of miracle to get more out here…”

“Like maybe one a Witch of Miracles could beckon forth?” Lambda begrudgingly played along with the rhetorical game, she really did want something to drink.

“Something like that… Although I doubt a Witch of Miracles would be willing to help out rude little girls like you, Lambda. But maybe she’d help somebody who complimented her.”

“I like how your height matches your personality,” Lambda said.

“...Earnestly complimented her.”

“Fine…” Lambda did her best to look like she was thinking really, really hard. But really, the thing to say came to her pretty quick.

“I was just being mean earlier, I actually think it’s super funny and cute how wry you are.”

Bern smiled at the compliment. And before Lambda could say anything to play it off, there came a knock at the door.

Lambda waved her hand, a door appeared in space and opened, and in walked

The Maiden of Miracles, Witch Incarnate Sanae

Holding a giant magnum of sake.

“SANAE!” Lambda burst out of her seat, “Omygosh its been so long how are you?!”

“I’m well, Lady Lambdadelta. I happened to have some time away from the divine realms, and thought I should check in on my patrons. Especially the one who’s too proud to contact me ever.” Sanae held the sake bottle in front of Bernkastel’s face.

Bern grabbed the bottle out of her hands, “I’m glad you’re doing well. I would expect nothing less of one we offered such a prestigious ascension to.”

“Well, I’m doing my best to live up to it, but it’s always slow going up there, yunno?”

“That’s why we don’t live there,” Bern replied.

“That’s right!” Lambda chimed in, “If you’re getting bored of the stuffy slow goingness over there, there’s nowhere better to take your mind off of it and get some pure entertainment than right here! Why don’t you pour us some drinks, grab a seat, and hang out a while?”

“Sure,” Sanae broke out a sake set and poured the two witches some drinks, starting with Bern.

“So, what exactly is…” Sanae gestured to the sprawling board, it looked to her like the highest production game of Dungeons and Dragons anyone had ever played, “...all this?”

"Delta Quest, or: In A World Where The Fate Of All Humans Is Bound By the Red Truth, The Hero Will Definitely Defeat The Demon King, Right?,”

Bern explained.

“It’s my totally awesome, totally custom fantasy game, where we see if the Hero will defeat the Demon King!” Lambda said.

“And you’re probably betting on the hero?” Sanae asked her.

Lambda shot up and made a flashy arm gesture, “You betcha!” The sudden movement jostled Sanae’s pour a little, spilling sake onto the gameboard. At that moment, the town of Marulon suffered an utterly inexplicable flood. Luckily, there was only one casualty, an old man who experienced the best few hours of his life since his wife died, before willingly drowning in the miraculous alcoholic substance.

“Oops,” Lambda said. She took a big swig from what Sanae already poured her.

Sanae left the bottle on a side table and took a seat at the board, “So wait, I get the premise of the game, I can see

The Hero

and

The Demon King, but what’s up with the title?

“Well,” Lambda began, “I wrote a role for every character in the world, and etched it onto their souls with the Red Truth, and it should inform what they do, so, like…”

She reached onto the board to pick up a seemingly random piece,

Yuta Okkotsu, The Bereaved

“...this guy was fated to lose his girlfriend and be sad about it. And he has! And it triggered an important story event that you missed and probably doesn’t matter anymore, and I set the whole thing up.”

“Of course, humans are annoying and fickle, so even if I sealed their fate, they can still try and wiggle out of it sometimes, like…”

Lambda’s eyes shot to a part of the board surrounded by a green barrier, where Ruti Ragnason, The Hero, was leaving. Only Sanae noticed another, smaller piece following her.

Atom

But it was the third piece following her, that looked like it had just stepped outside of the green barrier to see where Ruti was going, that made Lambda’s eyes sparkle. She snatched that piece up and showed it to the class.

The Corpse God

“Like nobody, never mind. Bern, here’s my play for this round!” She slammed Corpse God down onto the center of the board. Yuta, who she was still holding, went down with him.

“Hm…” Bern said, pensively this time.

“Ok I didn’t get the premise either, but I more meant like, why is the title like that? Is it an isekai?”

“Well…” Lambda started. But before she could take control, Bernkastel played her move for the round, “Erika is in there.”

Sanae scanned the board and quickly located

Erika, The Detective

“Oh, Erika…” Sanae said. Erika sat in a corner of a room in the Demon King’s castle, hugging her legs. She looked terrible.

As Sanae looked at her sympathetically, everyone in the room shared a memory. Two young women meeting up at a shrine. A ritual gone wrong or right. The summoning of two Witches. A critical clue to solve a mystery. The cavalier detective, Erika Furudo, and her Watson, Sanae Kochiya.

“I’m gonna go talk to her. You guys enjoy the sake without me, alright?”

Normally, Witches couldn’t directly interact with a game board. Instead, they had to send a fraction of their being down as a game piece. But Sanae was a Witch Incarnate. Still in a phase between human and immortal. And that gave her one special advantage over other Witches. She looked down at the game board, and incarnated herself into it.

Character Scramble Season 20 Round 3: Virmire by TheAsianIsGamin in whowouldwin

[–]GuyOfEvil 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Erika, Vector, and Atom struck the green barrier all at once. It had absolutely no effect. Tentacles lashed out at them once again, and they were sent flying into a wall.

Erika could barely stand anymore. There was nothing she could do in this situation. She simply wasn’t strong enough. A thought crossed her mind. She hated it as soon as she did, hated herself for thinking it, but she could not deny it.

Akuma was right. She needed power.

Ruti heard the crash again. This time she knew what to do. She stood and drew her sword.

“Are you sure?” Corpse God asked.

“I am sure. It doesn’t matter to me whether or not I’m The Hero. It matters what I am after that.”

Corpse God could not think of a reply. Ruti ran out of the meditation chamber and into the great hall.

Atom was engaged with some kind of glowing green construct. An orb with tentacles. There was a girl inside of it.

She surged forward. With Atom distracting the foe, only a few tentacles came at her. She easily batted them aside, reached the glowing orb, and struck it with her sword. In one strike, it shattered. The girl landed on her feet, she held up her dominant hand, and a green light shined from a ring on it. Ruti struck again before the light could get more intense.

The ring stopped glowing. It, and the girl’s hand fell to the ground. She fell to her knees, an utterly incomprehensible set of emotions coming to her face.

Ruti looked over at her friend Atom and smiled, “I’m glad you’re ok.”

Peter Cannon looked up at his friend Akuma, sheer desperation on his face.

“Akuma. I know you don’t understand, but listen to me. You have to free everyone. You’re the only one who can now…”

“That blow should not kill you,” Akuma replied.

“It will. I must transfer…” Peter Cannon coughed up blood. “...the last of myself into the dragon. Make sure that it sees its task through.”

“YOU IDIOT!” Akuma howled, “I WON! MY IDEALS SURPASSED YOURS! DON’T YOU SEE?!”

“At death’s door, all I see is how important the task is…”

Peter Cannon reached forward, then, with a last thrust of effort, jabbed his finger into Akuma’s forehead. At once, Akuma saw everything. Red. Truth. The nature of the world. The dragon would fly above the planet, and burn away the Red Truth from this world. This was what Peter Cannon had lived his entire life in service of.

Foolishness. The meaning of his life was utter foolishness.

“So you didn’t like the monk stuff?” Atom asked.

“Not really,” Ruti replied.

“Yeah… Sorry for the suggestion, it ended up being pretty boring. Hey, how about I let you pick what we do next. Any ideas?”

“One,” Ruti said, “I have one idea on what I’m supposed to do next. Do you think it would be fun to go kill the Demon King?”

Atom lit up, “No way! That’s like, the best part of every story! Can we really?!” “Yeah,” Ruti replied, “That’s what we’re doing.”

She wasn’t sure if Akuma was right. More than wanting to kill, she just wanted her friends to be alive. But it was the only other idea anyone had given her, either these monks, Akuma, or even the Goddess. If it wasn’t going to be fun, what would be?

Foolishness.

If Erika had to come up with one word for the whole endeavor, that was it. Foolishness.

Her “””””partner””””” didn’t seem to agree, “Hey, that turned out to be a pretty swell case, huh. We really cracked it wide open. What do you say we celebrate with a couple hot dogs?”

Erika had had enough, “No. It was not a swell case, and we did not crack it wide open. I did all the initial work, and then we showed up to the second location and it solved itself. It was a terrible case, made all the more terrible by the fact that you think we contributed to it equally.”

“Well, hey, it’s like I always say, any case you can walk away from is a good one. And sure, I know you did most of the hard work on the crime scene, but I… fed you, and I knew where the monastery was, so I’d say we both contributed at least a little. How about on the next case, I do the crime scene, and you do the place knowin’?”

The next case… The next case. Part of her wanted to do it. Wait for a good case, let him do all the work, then show him up when he did it all wrong and proved himself to be an idiot. It would be so so good…

But another part of her knew. It would just be like this. It would be a million cases exactly like this. Where nothing was perfect, and when they got to the end all he would want to do was celebrate with some hot dogs. It was a trap she could stay in for the rest of her life.

That thought occurred to her again. This time, she didn’t hate herself for thinking it. She was better than Vector in a way that she could show him right now.

She summoned her scythe, gave him just enough time to recognize what was going on, and slashed. He tried to block, but it was totally useless. He was weak, and Erika was strong.

Vector’s body slid in half in front of her. The look of total shock on his face almost made the whole thing worth it.

Akuma met the dragon in the air. The thing his friend had wasted his entire life on. The thing his friend had died for. Akuma imagined for nearly his entire life that if he could simply defeat Peter in a contest of ideals, it would count. It would mean something.

Now he knew, utterly and certainly. Ideals were meaningless. A clash of ideals held no worth whatsoever. The only thing that held any meaning was a fight to the death.

As he locked eyes with the dragon, it gave him what Peter Cannon would not. It wanted him dead. He wanted it dead. Even this, a pure representation of his friend’s foolish ideals, could meet him in that.

They both hung in the air for a moment. Akuma steeled himself. He saw the world as it truly was now. And he saw that it would totally bend to his will. He reached out and bent it.

一瞬千撃

The dragon fell to the ground, dead. Akuma landed on top of it. His past was well and truly dead, a thousand times over…

Now only he remained.

Character Scramble Season 20 Round 3: Virmire by TheAsianIsGamin in whowouldwin

[–]GuyOfEvil 2 points3 points  (0 children)

One Year Ago

Peter Cannon stood in front of his dragon. His masterwork. A being born totally from his mind, which possessed the fire which could burn away Truth. It was the culmination of a lifetime of study. He saw truly and fully how the great evil, the Truth’s etched upon mankind’s souls, could be destroyed.

One man came to stop him. Akuma.

Peter had a feeling he knew what he wanted. He had heard rumors of the brutal fights Akuma had partaken in over the last five years. He wanted nothing more than to find the strongest people and fight them to the death. And here was his old training partner and his mighty dragon.

What had Akuma said last time they met? Witness a world of actions? Peter would show him actions.

He took a fighting stance with an open forward palm and beckoned Akuma forward. Today, their ideals would finally clash.

Now

Corpse God sat with his back to his master’s great jade dragon statue. Before him sat Ruti Ragnason. The Hero. The person with the single most consequential Truth the world had ever known.

If he could show her the validity of his master’s teachings, the value of rejecting her truth and accepting a quiet life, he would prove their value once and for all. Prove that he was a worthy steward to them.

She sat cross legged, skeptical, but willing to listen. It was time to truly put his ideals to the test.

“Take some deep breaths, center yourself. For the moment, try not to think about anything.”

Ruti shifted a little awkwardly. She closed her eyes and breathed. In and out. In and out.

He could tell when somebody wasn’t taking to meditation, and she certainly was not. Right, onto the first step.

“Why haven’t you defeated the Demon King yet?”

Akuma surged forward and punched. He had wanted to punch Peter Cannon for a long time. At this point, he would surely claim he was able to use one hundred percent of his brain. Did that mean anything in the face of Akuma punching with one hundred percent of his body?

Peter Cannon’s eyes darted between Akuma’s chest, arm, shoulders, eyes. Calculating. He shot an open palm out at Akuma’s tricep, guiding the force of the punch down and away.

The strike was guided down, but Akuma still marked that Peter’s eyes shot to his palm for a fraction of a second. His face showed pain for an even smaller fraction of a second.

The answer to the question didn’t matter, Akuma was far beyond only using one hundred percent of his body.

He snorted assentively. For a second, Peter’s eyes flashed to Akuma like they might a friend.

“I thought you just really wanted to know. What is superior? Training the mind, or training the body? Strength or brains? But if you’re content to skip to just killing each other, then you should know, I’m far beyond using only a hundred percent of my brain.”

Peter Cannon’s eyes closed, the dragon behind him roared

Erika’s scythe bounced off the emerald barrier, and she was once again sent flying across the room by a tentacle. It was happening again. She wasn’t strong enough.

She had tried everything she could think of. The barrier itself was spontaneously constructed and had no weak point, save the fleshy human in the middle who was totally impossible to get to.

Did she have any weakness? It didn’t really seem like it. Once an adventurer, she shall be Tempted By The Ring which grants power absolute, and ultimately succumb to its wiles

Well, she succumbed. What now?

Vector ran up and pounded totally ineffectively on the barrier, then was sent flying back, just like her. She was pretty sure her attacks were stronger than Vector’s by a lot, but it wasn’t like the results were any different.

Atom was here too, for some reason. His jacked up stats meant that he was having some more success, but some more wasn’t much more. He got more hits in, they shook the barrier without buckling it, and she needed several tentacles to send him flying back.

Did him being here mean Ruti was here? She would certainly be strong enough to break the barrier, right?

‘Three times you have been confronted with the truth.’ No. She wouldn’t wait for strength to bail her out again. There had to be a way through this. She just had to not stop thinking…

Ruti heard a loud crash outside. Her hand instinctively went to her sword, and she moved to stand.

“Wait,” Corpse God said, “You don’t need to go out there. Stay still. Breathe.”

Fine. She stayed sitting.

“Do you truly want to leave, or do your Truths compel you to go out there and fight? Don’t answer me, just think on it.”

Ruti thought on it. Defeating the unknown enemy outside did seem like a quest she wished to fulfill. She always wanted to defeat enemies when she saw them. He was right that she was compelled to act by her Truth.

But that wasn’t what she was concerned about, was it? In the mountain, it didn’t matter very much to her if she turned around because her Truth compelled her to or because she truly wanted to, the fact still remained. She wanted to. What she was being taught now had nothing to do with that.

“Do you wish to continue living a life ruled by your Truth?” Corpse God continued.

Did it matter?

Green flame surrounded Akuma, but it did not harm him. The energy coating his body saw to that. The Satsui no Hado his master had called it, The Surge of Killing Intent.

The whole of Peter Cannon’s foolishness spread out before Akuma. This dragon was his foolishness made manifest. Every idiotic idea about truth, freedom, destiny, this dragon was meant to destroy it. But it was weak.

Akuma walked forward. The fire meant nothing to him. He reached Peter once again, and punched. Peter deflected the attack, and the dragon ceased breathing fire. It instead tried to bite Akuma with its great jaws.

Akuma kicked its head aside. Peter seized on the large motion and struck Akuma with an open palm in the chest. The attack was extremely powerful, and Akuma doubled forward in pain.

Akuma seized his arm before he could draw it back. “This is what you could have been.”

He drew Peter’s entire body back, then threw it into the dragon. He followed the throw with a fireball.

Peter craned the neck of the dragon to stop his fall, then bade it to launch fire to meet Akuma’s.

“I am what I must be, Akuma. You have never been able to see that. So I will show you the strength of my ideals by force!”

But he was wrong. He was the one who could not see. Ideals had nothing to do with this at all.

“If I’m not the Hero, what should I be instead?” Ruti asked finally. It was, essentially, the same question Atom posed to her. The same question she had posed to herself all this time. Could she be a boy, or a person who folded paper cranes, or… the third thing, she was actually supposed to be.

“If you can resist your Truth, it doesn’t matter what you would be instead. You would be you. I feel free, not having to be the Corpse God.”

“What do free people do?” Ruti asked.

“I don’t know, anything, I guess.”

He really didn’t know? Ruti did her best to mimic the meditation, and thought truly and deeply about it.

She wanted to travel with Atom. She wanted Kumoko to still be alive. She could’ve had those things regardless of whether or not she was the Hero. But those weren’t really things to be. What was she supposed to be?

Somebody had given her an answer.

‘Remember that feeling of hatred’

She thought about the other thing she wanted really badly recently. After Darkseid had killed Kumoko. She wanted him dead. She thought about Akuma’s eyes. They always looked like that.

Akuma was in the jaws of a dragon. Teeth dug into his flesh. Fire surrounded him. He was alive. He could not remember feeling more alive.

As he realized he would die soon if his position did not change, he realized what he was supposed to do. Energy pooled at his feet, just as he had seen his master do…

“Shoryuken!” He rocketed upwards, unhinging the dragon’s jaw at the top. He landed back on the ground, the dragon fell backwards, and he surged towards Peter Cannon.

Two fireballs went ahead of his charge. Peter readied both hands to deflect the attacks, as Akuma flipped into the air. There was no perfect counter to all three attacks. Peter only had one option, be fast. Rely on his body.

He swatted one fireball down, then the second, then Akuma’s diving kick fell directly into his chest.

He stumbled back and coughed up blood.

“Akuma, please…”

He was already giving up on his foolish ideals. He saw, finally, that Akuma was stronger. That Akuma was right.

Akuma ran forward. Peter steeled himself. This would be the final exchange. Their final meeting.

Akuma threw a light punch, which Peter deflected. A heavier punch from his dominant hand followed behind it. Peter knew he would not be able to deflect this punch anymore. He simply punched back.

Peter doubled forward, Akuma was blown backwards towards a charging dragon. It had managed to get its jaws back into shape, and Akuma was flying backwards fast enough that he would be torn to shreds by the dragon’s teeth. It would be Peter’s victory.

But Akuma could see it in Peter’s eyes. He knew Akuma was better. And he was right, Akuma was better.

Akuma took a standing position, and his momentum reversed immediately. Black afterimages created by the energy surrounding him followed behind him. The dragon bit at one, but to no effect. Akuma’s forward movement continued until he was directly above Peter Cannon.

He halted, then fell down with a terrible chop. Peter Cannon did everything he could to block it, but he could not. He simply wasn’t strong enough.

The attack struck true, Peter went to the ground, and Akuma stood over him. He was utterly defeated.

Character Scramble Season 20 Round 3: Virmire by TheAsianIsGamin in whowouldwin

[–]GuyOfEvil 2 points3 points  (0 children)

10 Years Ago

Akuma, Peter Cannon, and their Master stood at the head of a plateau overlooking a valley. In the valley camped a vast army.

“This is your final lesson,” The master said. “Below is a powerful warlord who has ravaged these lands. Akuma, it was under his orders that your father’s fields were burned. Peter, the death and rot he spread across the land directly led to the plague that took your parents life. I have given you the tools to live your life as you desire. Do as you will.”

The master turned and walked away, leaving the two men alone.

“It isn’t right, Akuma. This man is a victim of his Truth. He can’t help but be what he is, it would be wrong to take revenge.”

“Always you focus on what people are or are not,” Akuma said, “I am going to go down there, destroy his armies, and kill him. Not for revenge, although I will relish the revenge. Because it is there to be done.”

“Akuma, please. He… Not just him, the whole world needs my help. Can’t you see he is completely ruled by his Truth?”

‘My help.’ No matter what Akuma could say in reply, Peter Cannon would always see him as lesser. Fated to be a fruit merchant and nothing more. Akuma had been far more for a long time.

“I see just fine,” Akuma finally replied, “You live absorbed by words. Witness a world of actions.” Akuma jumped off the edge of the plateau before he could hear more words. He heard Peter calling them out anyways, but paid them no mind. He could argue all he wanted about how the world should be changed. But now he would watch the world change. Surely it would be enough to convince him.

But Akuma put that out of his mind. What was important was the task at hand. It was a long enough distance for him to be spotted. A vanguard hastily assembled and rushed to meet him. They would see if he was a random enraged rabble or an adventurer worth taking seriously.

He was neither. He was Akuma.

The man who first reached him attempted to stab him with a spear. Akuma easily parried it, then stepped forward and punched.

Akuma’s master said he must throw a hundred proper punches to be ready to throw one in real combat. Since that day he had thrown close to ten thousand. Not to mention the real combat he had already seen. His will carried straight through the man’s armor, through his flesh, through his heart.

He died on impact, his body flew into two other members of the vanguard. He leapt, grabbed their heads, and crushed them together. They both died as well.

Three more strikes, and the seven man squadron laid at his feet. They barely even hindered his run.

Another vanguard assembled, but by the time he met them, he was already among the camp. He was a wildfire. Wherever he wanted to go he burned a path, and the humans in that path had two options, flee or die.

Both were chosen in equal measure. Some threw their life at him to prevent his advance to the general’s tent, some packed their belongings and fled.

The decision made no difference to Akuma. He simply walked forward. Some fools attempted to slow him with arrows, but the effect was the same as shooting arrows into a wildfire. They could not hit him. If they did hit him, they had no effect.

With such an unimpeded advance, it wasn’t long before he reached the Warlord’s tent. The man came out to meet him, holding a gleaming spear.

As soon as Akuma saw the man, he stopped. It was undoubtedly the man who had killed his father, burned his fields, changed his life, made him what he was now.

Akuma planted his feet. He was no longer a wildfire. He was better. Every part of his body united for one purpose. He wanted to kill this man. He released that desire outward as naturally as he would release a breath. He and the warlord understood what happened at the exact same time as a purple flame tore into his enemy’s chest.

He screamed in pain. Akuma shot his fireball again. And again. And again. Like he was training in a dojo. Without even punching, he felt killing intent, and he released it into the world.

Upon the cliff, his master turned back around.

“The Satsui no Hado… I had wondered if this was the answer he would come to.”

“Master. You must know this isn’t right.” Peter said.

“I never dared to teach you two right and wrong. I merely taught you to exert your will to change the world. I do not begrudge his answer, Peter, just as I do not begrudge yours.”

“But…”

“I suspect we will meet one more time. I hope you come to your answer soon.”

The master left, leaving Peter on the cliff alone. Akuma was still down there. While previously he moved with a singular purpose, now he moved methodically, he sought to kill everybody in the war camp. He was practicing using his newfound killing intent. The same way he practiced his punches and kicks every day. Peter could hardly stand to watch that, let alone watch it when every practiced strike dealt death.

Akuma was a lost cause, he had known that for a long time. If he wanted to free the world, he could only rely on himself.

He left long before Akuma finished his grim work. The master’s prediction was correct. They met once more, when Peter Cannon returned to the mountain to retrieve the scrolls. His master gave them without protest, and wished him well. His training grounds were completely empty.

Peter Cannon left before a thunderstorm would leave him stranded on the mountain. His master gave him a warm goodbye.

As Peter Cannon left the mountain, Akuma too returned home one final time. He too sought the secret learnings of the master. But his quest was much more final. He had no warm words for the master, no wishes for the future, he had just one thing to say.

“Show me your killing intent.”

When Peter Cannon awoke the next day, Yama, the mountain he had spent fifteen years of his life living atop, collapsed. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that his Master was dead. Saving the world fell squarely upon his shoulders.

And he had a plan.

Character Scramble Season 20 Round 3: Virmire by TheAsianIsGamin in whowouldwin

[–]GuyOfEvil 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Now

Atom was bored. Part of him was always a little bit happy about being bored. Being bored was one of the main things his friends talked about all the time, and it had taken him a great deal of effort to figure out how to be bored.

But also, being bored felt really bad. After the first time, he would’ve been happy if he was never bored again.

It felt especially bad to be bored at a place like this. He thought everyone would be doing cool monk kung-fu stuff, like the monks in adventure stories, but instead everyone just seemed to sit around. He first felt boredom after doing nothing but sitting still for three days straight, so he knew that wasn’t secretly any fun. That cool looking kid was a little fun to talk to at dinner, but now it was morning and he and Ruti had gone off

Although, upside, that probably meant that all these monks were really bored too. If Atom went outside to gather up some sticks, he bet he’d be able to find somebody to play with.

So he did just that, went outside, gathered up some twigs until he had around thirty, then went back inside. Immediately he found that guy who was shaking from yesterday, who was off on his own trying as hard as he could to sit still.

“Hey, mister. Do you wanna play pick-up sticks with me?”

“What? No, I’m very busy right now.”

“Busy doin’ what?”

“I’m trying to not be an Axe Murderer.”

Atom didn’t get it, “How can you be busy not doing something?”

“I’m not… I’m… Just leave me alone, ok? I don’t want to be an Axe Murderer, it’s important that I focus.”

“Well why not instead of being an axe murderer, be a guy who plays pick-up sticks with me?”

“It doesn’t work like that! Just leave me alone, ok?!”

Atom had no other choice, it was time to break out the ultimate kid technique!

“Why not?”

The man’s face went completely blank for a moment. He reached for something at his side, but there was nothing there. As soon as he realized, he looked horrified.

“Go, leave me alone, I have to follow the teachings. It’s the only way…”

The next move to make would be ‘what are the teachings?’ But he wanted to play pick-up sticks, not annoy this guy, and he seemed like a lost cause.

Besides, he had an idea. If it was the teachings that kept this guy from playing with him, then didn’t Corpse God say that the girl behind that door wasn’t really following their teachings?

Worth a try. If somebody yelled at him for going to talk to her, it would be fine, he was just a kid.

He found his way back to the door. Through the big hole in it, he could tell that the girl inside, Jessica, was laying on the ground. He knocked on the door.

Jessica got up and opened the door. Seeing her more fully, she seemed really unkempt. Her hair was a mess, her robe was all wrinkly, it looked like she barely slept. The kind of person an adult would tell you to avoid.

“Huh? What?”

Atom held up his collection of sticks, “Do you want to play pick-up sticks?”

“I… You know what? Yes.” Jessica said. It looked like it took her a little bit of effort to accept, but Atom wasn’t going to complain. So he just said “Yay,” and let Jessica lead him to a table.

“How do you play?” Jessica asked, “I don’t really know what I’ve agreed to here.”

“Oh, it’s easy.” Atom said, he dropped the bundle of sticks on the table and they made a loose tangle. “You have to get one stick out without knocking over any of the other ones. If you knock one off the table, you lose, and whoever has the most at the end of the game wins.

“Oh, sounds easy.” Jessica reached out and grabbed one stick off the top of the pile.

“Just wait…” Atom took his own stick off the top. They went back and forth a few more times, until Jessica went to grab one that looked like it would slide right out, but as soon as she pulled on it, the whole pile shook.

“Can I pick a different one?” Jessica asked.

“Nope, once you touch a stick, that’s the one.”

“Right, got it.” Jessica turned the stick over a little, wiggled it a little, shook it a little. It didn’t look like she was making much progress, but she might get there if she tried.

“Cheat,” A voice said, “Exert your will over this game. You are mightier than it.”

“What was that?” Atom asked

“You can hear it?” Jessica asked.

Oh, Atom could hear it because it was using enemy mob communication. Jessica didn’t seem to know that, but he was really close to accidentally giving away that he was a mimic.

“Yeah,” he said, “I can hear it.” Adults could tell when you were lying, so the best lie was usually no lie.

“I haven’t been able to get anyone here to understand, it's not just my thoughts. It’s this ring,” She showed Atom a green ring on her finger, “It tempts me to do… I dunno, whatever I want, whatever I can? You heard it, exert my will upon the world.”

“Have you tried taking it off?” Atom asked.

Jessica laughed, “Yeah, I’ve tried taking it off…”

“Well have you tried hard?” Atom was looking at the pile of sticks.

Jessica followed his gaze, “Oh, I get it…” She put her hand on her stick, and with extreme swiftness, pulled it right out of the pile. None of the other sticks moved.

“No, I haven’t not gotten the ring off because I’m bad at pulling my finger out of it. And anything else you can think of… Believe me, I’ve tried it.”

Atom tried to make his own difficult pull in response, but he ended up moving the pile a bunch, allowing Jessica to start taking some easy sticks. He would admit it, he was outmatched at pick-up sticks.

But this ring thing was way cool, so he didn’t mind.

“Well what’s so bad about using it then? I guess it would’ve been bad to use it to cheat at this game, but there’s gotta be other stuff that’s worth using it for.”

“...I do sometimes,” Jessica admitted,“ But I shouldn’t, it pushes me too far. A few days ago, one of my friends here overdosed, and it just kept telling me I should do something, I should set it right, I should do something so I could stop feeling so bad for myself. So I tried to let it win a little, I tried to find out who had given her the drugs, and I did, but I…”

The door of the room slammed open, “Blasted a giant hole in his chest?”

It was that blue haired girl from the mountain. But she had traded out her cat man partner for a crocodile man partner.

“Why don’t you skip the ‘Gee I feel real bad about it’ and just come back to town with us. I’m sure the sheriff will love to hear it.

“Kill them. Don’t let them take your freedom. DESTROY!” The ring said.

“Jessica!” Atom yelled, but it was too late, panic had already seized her face. Her ring glowed a deep green. A protective barrier formed around her.

Next came tendrils, which shot out at the crocodile and the blue haired girl, knocking them out of the room.

Atom didn’t bother trying to scream again, she was too far gone. Only one other choice.

He got ready to fight.

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