The Battle Majestic (Round 4 - Magpie Skies)

Originally posted on MSPA by Baphomet.

---

I totally have to point this out due to relevance, so baph,

This game was about a boy called Vex. He had demonic gauntlets.
Fuse him with this:
Look familiar? I know your is original, but i had to note the resemblance.

Bitey of Brackenwood (the second thing) was not the first satyr. They have a long history in mythology as forest-dwelling debaucherous creatures with a love of trickery, with goatlike heads and legs and human everything else. I envisioned Vex more like Pan as portrayed in Tom Robbins's Jitterbug Perfume, if you want references.

I have no idea what the first thing is but I hate it. I just wanted him to have Cthulhu for an arm. I chose Vex for a name because it means to cause confusion, and it sounds cool.

Originally posted on MSPA by Drakenforge.

---

Right, I'm now playing as a linguistic wolf. Any questions?

Originally posted on MSPA by Weldar.

---

Okay I'm done


Username: Weldar

Player Name: Steven Taylor

Gender: Male

Race: Human

Post Colour: This looks good. Third down on the left #008000

Weapons: He wears a pair of ordinary looking white gloves known as the Master's Gloves, although Steven has nicknamed them the God Hand(s). Steven's main method of fighting is hand to hand and the gloves strengthen his power to some degree. They won't make him strong enough to punch a brick wall be he might be able to leave a decent dent, and the gloves will stop him from breaking his fingers. The left glove is more powerful than the right one but this is somewhat counteracted but Steven is right handed. What really makes the gloves useful in a fight is the fact that they're alive. If Steven wishes so (and perhaps sometimes when he doesn't) the gloves can come off and float around freely. While off Steven can still control the gloves as naturally as if they were his own hands essentially allowing him to fight with four arms. However the gloves are perfectly capable of looking after themselves and if he chooses not to control, them they will simply act on their own, although they will still follow orders from Steven. The gloves can not talk, neither mentally nor physically however just by looking at them Steven can understand any message they may be trying to convey (it's similar to the situation with Dwayne Poncho from Deadbeat), thus they can be used ass effective scouts or lookouts.

Abilities: The true power of the gloves however lies not in how they help Steven fight but in their abilities of creation and destruction. The right glove give Steven the ability to create. He quite literally create anything but as one might imagine creating things take time and effort. To create things the gloves have to use some of Steven's energy and the larger of more complex an object is the more energy it uses. To give a rough example a small simple weapon like a dagger could be conjured up with relative ease in just a few seconds. Something a little larger like say a sword or a club would take a little longer but could still be feasibly done in battle in if the left glove could hold off the opponent. Something more complex like say a large would be very hard to make in the middle of a battle, Steven would have to find a spot where he can be on his own for a minute or two and it would take a fair bit of effort to do so. The gloves can even give life to any object they create, however giving something life doubles the amount of time and energy required to make it. The left glove's power is much simpler, destruction. With a simple snap of it's fingers the glove can destroy any of the right glove's creations.

Description: A wise and weary old traveler who's seen it all. Steven's not one quite yet but he has started down that path. He's only spent about two years wandering the multiverse but already he's seen a lot. Steven looks like a fairly ordinary 18 year old. His dark hair has probably grown a little past the point where he should get a haircut and his facial hair is a bit past stubble but he's not quite a scruffy old hobo yet. He wears an old pair of blue jeans so worn they're almost white, a battered old jacket and some black shoes that are on the verge of falling apart. The very fancy looking clean white gloves look a little strange coupled with this getup. Despite his years of traveling Steven's attitude hasn't changed much from when he was at home. He's generally a pretty friendly guy and tends to look out for other people but he always puts himself first. He's not the kind to go into a life threatening to protect someone unless they're really important to him. Before he had the gloves Steven wasn't a very good fighter and he still isn't now if he's not wearing them. He has some experience with martial arts but was always better at dodging and blocking than striking. He's not very strong but he is fast, he's a good runner and often because of this when given the choice between fight and flight he'll pick flight. However when he gets determined or clouded by emotions he can be a surprisingly competent fighter, add the gloves to the equation and you may well have a formidable fighter. Overall Steven is still just a lost kid who realizes he is in way over his head here, he's more likely to try and make alliances or escape than fight, but if he has to fight, fight he will. However there's more to the story of his gloves than Steven knows, there's things he doesn't know about that could cause some changes.

Bio: Steven was born in a world much like our own, in fact it may very well have been the some one. There was nothing exciting like magic or superpowers just boring old mundane technology. Or so it seemed. A man named Mr Elephazor ruled this world very few people knew it. Long ago Elephanzor managed to stumble upon an interdimensional gateway of sorts. Elephanzor traveled through many universes and managed to build up a collection of all sorts of strange magics and advanced technologies from all across the multiverse. By selling some of the things he found and using others Elephanzor began to amass a large fortune and build an empire. Eventually he ruled the entire world from the shadows. Steven had lived a fairly ordinary life up until that point but at the age of 16 Steven and a friend, managed to stumble upon the secret of the interdimensional gate and everything changed. Elephanzor tried to kill the two children, Steven managed to escape through the gate but he was separated from his friend and ended up hopelessly lost in the interdimensional crossroads. Steven had no idea if his friend had managed to escape and couldn't go back home, even if he had known the way Elephanzor would have killed him for returning. Steven began wondering through the crossroads entering new universes at random hoping in vain that against all the odds he might find his friend, or at the very least a new world to call home. Steven spent over a year wandering, he never stayed in any one world for more than a few days or weeks. He couldn't sit still, he felt compelled to keep moving, searching, for his friend or for somewhere better he couldn't stop. One day he found himself in a young universe, still in the process of being created by a large vaguely humanoid figure completely enrobed in white, The Master. The Master took a liking to Steven and took him under his wing. Steven stay for the better part of a year in that universe watching The Master shape a world which inspired by Stevens stories of his old life was turning out very similar to his own. Eventually though Steven decided to leave. The Master was saddened but before he left he gave him the gloves, which were made of the very essence of The Master himself as a parting gift. He taught Steven how to use the gloves and told him if he even wanted to return the gloves could guide the way. Feeling reinvigorated and full of hope Steven set out to continue his search. Unfortunately someone else was watching him with interest. The very next gate he went though brought him to this twisted battle instead of it's usual destination.

Originally posted on MSPA by Korbz.

---

He wears a pair of ordinary looking white gloves known as the Master's Gloves

[img]images/smilies/apple.gif[/img]

Originally posted on MSPA by Sruixan.

---

Right, OK, I've updated Drakenforge's character (BTW, when I said new, I was referring to Kaiko, not you) and added Not The Author and Weldar's reservations. Redskap, as a newcomer, gets a priority spot and yousodumb is on the list. This, though, gives me nine profiles, and there's only eight spaces. However, I'm probably not going to have the chance to sit down and write a proper intro unitl Wednesday at the earliest. Until then, I'm leaving submissions open to any people who haven't joined Grand Battles before - I'd rather they get priority and since I'm filling up the spots, reservees then newcomers then return players, another newcomer would sort us out nicely. Otherwise, I shall have to flip a coin...

EDIT: Oh, wait, I forgot that I got a PM from snoomanwaff with another character profile. When he posts it himself, that makes ten... I'm gonna need a bigger coin... I mean, a dice...

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

---

Welp, it looks like the spots'll be filling up quick, but I'll just post this here and stuff or something.

SpoilerShow

Username: MalkyTop
Name: Aventine
Gender: Feeemale
Race: I suppose you could call her human, though her race call themselves something that basically means 'Star-gazers.' The only real difference would be that her race is completely carnivorous, sporting sharp teeth and strong jaw strength.
Colour: This 'un.
Weapon: Aventine doesn't really just go around carrying weapons. She does have a knife hidden away in her sleeve in case she needs to commit suicide for whatever reason. Even though she wasn't supposed to, she learned self-defense, but it's not likely she would exhibit this skill. She has a whip hidden in her other sleeve because she has a niggling feeling that she doesn't have the guts to commit suicide.
Abilities: Aventine's home is in the middle of a desert, meaning she can handle heat pretty well. Unfortunately, she can't handle cold and would possibly freak out at the sight of snow.
Description: Aventine is a woman. For her and everybody in her village, this means that she stays in the background, tends to the house, kills herself if her honor has been defiled, so on and so forth. Her only goal is to get married, and that's indeed what she was supposed to do before getting whisked away.

She's rather conflicted about her role in life, wanting to stick with tradition because after all, tradition is right, right? But she knows she doesn't feel like committing suicide at the drop of a hat, if her husband dies or if she's been raped. She doesn't want to just stick with the title of 'perfect wife,' but also doesn't want to be condemned by those around her. She has ended up not knowing whether she's pretending to be meek and submissive to hide her intelligence or if she really is that modest.

Right now, since she's about to be married, she's almost completely covered. A white veil covers the bottom half of her face while a white shawl goes around the rest of her head, only showing her eyes and some of her black hair. The rest is basically a thick, white robe and, in case her hands accidentally peep out from her sleeves, thin gloves.
Biography: Aventine only started doubting society once she became a teenager. Knowing well enough that her questions would be frowned upon, she kept quiet, trying to work it out on her own. This lead her to explore the man's role. She watched her brother's training as she did housework and did his practice at night. She has tried wielding spears and daggers and bows. Busy with her double life, she almost forgot that she would have an arranged marriage at eighteen. She had been in her room, dressed in the traditional pre-marriage garb, contemplating the pros and cons of running away when she was entered into the tournament.

Originally posted on MSPA by Weldar.

---

He wears a pair of ordinary looking white gloves known as the Master's Gloves

[img]images/smilies/apple.gif[/img]

[img]images/smilies/icon_up.gif[/img] Right Hand: Creation, Left Hand: Destruction.

Steven is an environmentally friendly character made up of about 50% recycled materials. [img]images/smilies/pc_chummy.gif[/img]

But yeah the gloves come from another collaborative story things thing I did but they way they function has been changed a bit. It was video game related and my character had strong tie ins to the Super Smash Brothers universe and I even made up some backstory for the hands which I'm reusing here for the master. Elephanzor also comes from that story.

Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.

---

SpoilerShow

Giving this another crack after having the green bastard meandering through my head all the while I trekked through exquisite native bush on a three-day tramp. Determining the schematics of a forest spirit certainly is easy while trekking for hours on end. Dear god my feet hurt.

SpoilerShow

Name: Sen

Gender: Technically genderless, but personality tends to male

Font Colour: Bottom-left green in the second pallete of colours on the right.
Race: Tender (hosting seven World Trees)
Tenders are generally mild-mannered, if unintelligent beasts which live to protect and maintain the World Tree, a monstrous mutated plant which has conquered their planet. They are native to the planet Babylon, where they are the only observed fauna (although by definition, they are technically a mobile fruit). They have a symbiotic relationship with the sprawling, endless jungle which covers the entire globe, maintaining it in exchange for the life-giving nectar which they are exclusively reliant on for sustenance (though this nectar has far too much radiation for safe consumption.) Their 'language' consists of chirps, chatters, growls, and clicks; however their intelligence (and vocabulary) would probably be on par with that of a dolphin.

Tenders resemble a cross between an alien forest spirit and a giant axolotl, standing at about 2.5 metres tall with translucent, pale green, faintly glowing skin. Their faces are especially axolotl-esque; with snub faces; rows upon rows of needle-like teeth in their mouths; large, bright, black, blank eyes; and three possibly vestigial gill-like appendages on either side of their face. They have a build like the front end of a horse, with only forelimbs and a body which ends like a pointed teardrop's tip. Their second-most unusual feature would be their abnormally long forelimbs, which are easily a metre and a half from shoulder to wrist, and able to bear the Tender's weight despite their slenderness.
Their hands, however, trump this. Each has four super-slim fingers, nearly a full metre long each, with multiple joints and sharp, pointed ends. Compounded with a highly dextrous thumb with a soft end, these hands are capable of both near-surgical precision and great strength.
Despite their large size, they are lightweight; only about 40 kilos. They can bear their weight on one hand's fingertips without much trouble.

Sen carries the seed pods of seven World Trees on his person; one on each shoulder, one in each forearm, and one each embedded in his heart and stomach region, and one encased in a thin membranous layer at the tip of his tail. These pods remain inert until he expels them onto soil, where they swiftly grow if tended to by Sen.

Weapon: Sen's fingers are capable of piercing through armour, and his teeth would inflict a nasty bite. However, he doesn't fight unless defending a World Tree. The pods are almost indestructible and provide good spot armour while they remain on Sen.

Abilities: Being a Tender, he has a natural affinity with plants. Unfortunately, most of them are in direct competition with his symbiotic World Tree, so he instinctively decimates them. Despite this, they can be surprisingly co-operative with him.

Description: Sen is an Envoy Tender, designed to carry World Tree seeds to other planets for colonisation. In the interests of survival and propogation , Sen has been gifted with above-average intelligence for his race - though this isn't saying much. It's enough for him to use a bit of problem-solving in unexpected situations that might arise while looking after the World Tree, but it ain't much.
The World Trees, on the other hand, are sentient in a botanical kind of way, and are fixated on their personal survival. Sen is pretty much a tool to them, but doesn't mind. Chemical secretions can trigger high states of emotion in Sen, if that's what's needed to ensure successful propogation.
Of course, they don't realise that the soil they fall on in a Grand Battle is merely a pocket dimension... But Sen plants 'em anyway because he needs the nectar to survive :P

Bio: The World Tree is a failed bio-terrorism weapon on a global scale; an agglomeration of multiple species mutated into cohesion with a healthy dose of radiation. After being discarded on what is now known as Babylon, the plant spread quickly, its nigh-indestructable root system quickly encompassing and strangling the planet while also working into its core. From there, the World Tree utilised geothermal energy to shroud the whole planet in steamy jungle. For reasons unknown, the plant replaced the now-eliminated local fauna with its own beasts, the Tenders.
With the advent of light-speed travel in Sen's universe, intelligent life soon discovered the planet, and the strange two species which occupied it. Unable to permanently scare the colonisers off, the World Tree instead decided to beat them at their own game - and send its own agents to other planets which the plant could conquer.
Enter Sen, the result of a century's dedicated selective breeding to create a Tender with the best intelligence - well - a century's dedicated selective breeding could produce. Being the offspring of a plant, Sen was never going to win any Nobel Prizes, but being the World Tree's best hopes for intergalactic domination it loaded him up with hopefully enough seed pods and sent him into the nearest researcher's trap to be carted off to another, hopefully conquerable, planet.

Originally posted on MSPA by Baphomet.

---

SpoilerShow

My poor oversexed ex-god is disappointed by the lack of female participants in this tournament.

So when are we throwing down? I'm ready to get my write on.

Originally posted on MSPA by Sruixan.

---

My poor oversexed ex-god is disappointed by the lack of female participants in this tournament.

Yeah, I noticed that too. Still, shouldn't be too big an issue, though it would have been nice to have a more various mix in terms of combatants...

So when are we throwing down? I'm ready to get my write on.

Well, tomorrow hopefully. I'm writing the actual introduction of characters now, but I don't have much more than a vague outline of a battlefield yet. It happens to be my grandad's birthday tomorrow, so we're popping over to see him tomorrow afternoon, but as long as I have the location sorted by then, battle should commence somewhen between 6 and 10pm GMT.

Originally posted on MSPA by Opirian.

---

I shall read this one as well, and maybe suggest one of the many worlds I have made as the scene for the first battle. But hey your they organizer for this one.

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

---

I just noticed that the only definitively female character profile made here is mine. Huh. I'm so unobservant.

...I really should have made Aventine more creative. The only thing she's got going is inner turmoil and I've seen enough of that in Hamlet.

Originally posted on MSPA by Weldar.

---

My poor oversexed ex-god is disappointed by the lack of female participants in this tournament.

Yeah, I noticed that too. Still, shouldn't be too big an issue, though it would have been nice to have a more various mix in terms of combatants...

I'm regretting my boring old human already [img]images/smilies/pc_distraught.gif[/img]

Actually maybe I should make my character a girl, the main personality and abilities fit just fine on either gander and it wouldn't make an difference for the ideas I have as to the gloves' backstory, meanwhile it would allow for more interesting interaction with some of the characters and adds some diversity hmmm......

Originally posted on MSPA by redskap.

---

yay regrets

let's everyone not like the awesome characters we created

C'mon everyone, your characters are all awesome! Not mine, because after I wrote it I realized I inadvertently stole a lot of stuff from Baphomet (flawed/scarred arm, murderous voice in the head, etc.), but hey, everyone that isn't a dirty stinking thief, you're all coolio in my opinion. :3

At least I didn't go so far as to steal Vex's goddamn origin story. [img]images/smilies/mspa_reader.gif[/img]

Originally posted on MSPA by Drakenforge.

---

Yes, dirty stinking thiefs are bad. *cough*
I was actually trying to see what Srui would allow, cos the last guy was SERIOUSLY OVERPOWERED MUCH. So I thought "hey, take the piss. You'll submit wulfy after anyway"
... I was intending to use wolf at least.

Originally posted on MSPA by Baphomet.

---

Woah woah woah.

Woah.

What's with all these accusations of idea-stealing here? Firstly, Redskap, you've got an original character there. The one superficial similarity (some sort of super-powered evil arm) is a trope that appears in fiction all over the place - in fact, it has a page on TVtropes, but I'm not linking it because I want you to have a life. As Drakenforge demonstrated, some common themes are bound to appear between any character you or I create and some other work of fiction out there. Beyond the hand thing, they're nothing alike. Mine is an alien satyr with Cthulhu for an arm and mental/reality-warping powers, yours is a dude possessed by the ghost of his serial killer father with lightning powers and mobile bandages. I look forward to murdering working with Blitz, he sounds like a fun character.

Weldar, you've got hand powers too, but yours are sentient gloves that create and destroy matter and fly around to act as spies. Other than the, again, superficial similarities with the boss of SSB, he's nothing alike. Most importantly, you're going to be focusing on the person commanding the gloves, rather than the gloves themselves.

Everyone's cool. We're all cool.

In fact, let's have them all shake hands and be friends right now. No, no, don't mind the purple arm thing. It's harmless.

Originally posted on MSPA by Odinod.

---

EDIT: I'm actually not gonna have the time for it, so nevermind. :c

Originally posted on MSPA by redskap.

---

I guess you've got a point, Baphomet. I just...it felt like even the slight similarities were too close to be okay. I like having characters that are entirely unique, but I guess I need to realize that that's not always going to be the case. Great minds think alike, and all that nonsense.

SpoilerShow

I am not implying that I am a great mind, just that there are bound to be similarities between things every once in a while

But yeah, I'm looking forward to this too. It's been a while since I've played as a homicidal crazy person. [img]images/smilies/apple.gif[/img] [img]images/smilies/icon_up.gif[/img]

Originally posted on MSPA by Sruixan.

---

In two or so minutes time, I am going to get out the random number generator to decide who out of MyifanW, Korbz, yousodumb or MalkyTop are going to be the final competitor. Give me a little while after that and I should hopefully get this thing rolling before I drift off to sleep - I've had what I shall merely refer to as a "busier than usual" day and am currently only being propelled by the most recent acquisition to my music collection and a cup of tea, which basically means I shall probably run out of steam in 58 minutes time. That should surely be long enough to finish typing this intro up, right?

...wait, what's this?

This still taking people?

You have 58 minutes maximum.... make that 57...

Originally posted on MSPA by MyifanW.

---

he dropped out.

Originally posted on MSPA by Sruixan.

---

I said this would start by 10 GMT and it is indeed 9:59 as I type this little bit. All of the info on the location is included in the intro, with the one exception that no-one starts near the light, which shall make sense after you have circumnavigated my overdone wall of text, which is what happens when I try to write quickly, strangely enough... and now, I shall go and edit the first post and the title... any errors, any questions, anything really, will be dealt with in the morning. Or the afternoon, which ever comes first...

Consider two silhouettes, pitted against a spotlight of unknown description. The first, on the left, is the larger of the two, though admittedly not by much. Starting at the top, one can definitely discern it to be human - see, here, a nose, or something doing a marvellous job of masquerading as one, then a mouth, then shoulders, then it all goes wrong. So what if you can't be sure of the details, what with it being black and all, but the bottom half of this being looked more like the gnarled roots of some ancient tree than the punier roots, better known as legs, that define a human being. Now for the second - we finished at the bottom last time, so move your eyes on upwards, past the reassuring appearance of legs, up past what can be assumed to be the torso, and then to the head. Well, kind of a head, for where one would seek an valley for the neck, a mountain for the chin and another peak for the nose, what is actually found is a remarkably smooth curve. The end result is the unshakable feeling that you are looking at a finger on legs. But enough of this. You want something to sink your teeth into, right? So here it comes...

From where and whenever to somewhere totally different entirely - here there is also darkness with a sole penetrating light, but this time there were seven extra pairs of eyes viewing the scene. Eight orbs, fabricated from some exotic material that each gave off its own fuzzy glow into the aether, small sparks of light, specks jumping from the surfaces of the orbs to pop, to vanish, to be lost in the darkness forever, however long that might be. Each of the eight was a different colour, but one could generally see that said colours were merely various shades of red, green and blue, lumped together in groups dependent on their colour - all except one sphere, this one silently static, a brilliant white and the only one not to hold a sentient entity or two. Seven beings, plucked suddenly from whence they came, now dazed and confused, waiting for something, despite not knowing there to be something about to happen.

The eight orbs formed a perfect ring, and in the centre of this ring, there was presently action. Radiating out from the centre came four beams that travelled for a while, then hit some invisible wall just before the orbs and split, going off to make other ends meet in arcs that soon formed a perfect circle, divided into quarters by the original outbursts. Then rose, from the center of the design, a little arrow, pointing into the newly created sectors, that began to spin, slowly at first, but then picking up some considerable speed, becoming a blur as the quarters were filled with colour - two purples, one somewhat darker and outlined in cream, and two blues, one purer than the other. An agonising wait followed, during which the arrow, which those with keen eyes would have noticed bore a resemblance to the second hand of an antique clock, became just a circle of light, hovering and flickering, but slowing...

A blue. Not the pure one, but one a tad lighter than that. This colour was then mirrored by the final orb, and the spinner evaporated without notice, and peace was somewhat restored for a few more seconds...

All the competitors heard it. A faint, but just about audible tap, tap, tap, tap-

"Ladies and gentl- oh, damn, I can't exactly say that can I?"

"For goodness sake, I told-"

"Nevermind, nevermind. Right, gentlemen, we are proud to present... drumroll please..."

There was indeed a drumroll accompanying what happened next. The last red orb and the first green orb parted somewhat unexpectedly, with all the other spheres shuffling around to compensate. In this new opening, two figures could now be spotted.

"For the pleasure of pure entertainment, for some reason probably programmed into the very soul of the omnipotent mind, it is impossible to beat a good battle. And so, my friends, for the purpose aforementioned, you eight have been gathered here today in order to fight, battle, struggle, scuffle, impugn, brawl; whatever fancy word you wanna use, the end result is the same - The Battle Majestic!"

Timed to perfection, the two shadows came into the light. A billowing black cape, a monocle and a ghastly grin were the highlights of the first, the man who was once mistaken for a tree. Not that one could do that now, though some of the skin was a little gnarled and wrinkled in places, but no. And then the second - well laced shoes, an aubergine pinstripe suit, velvet gloves, and hair. Lots of it. In parody of the orbs that kept the player captive, the golden strands here dropped to the shoulders from all sides, then decided to stay there for a quick break, stopping the casual observer from seeing behind the veil. It looked a lot like someone had dressed a hairball up in a suit, and that was pretty much the case. But there was the tiniest chink in this armour, and through there one contestant had a rather disconcerting view of a twinkling eye, with no discernable colour in the iris. It was this mop that did the talking, and was about to do so again.

"So, chances are if you have a few grey cells to put together, you'll be wanting to know who on (insert world of choice here)" - not many people have the ability to pronounce brackets, but this speaker had obviously been practising - "... I am, and indeed, the identity of my colleague here. I have a couple of names, but for the time being, call me S."

In a voice worryingly like that a grandfather would use to show affection for his grandchildren, the previously silent figure, in the ebony cape spoke up:

"Yeah, he prefers to remain relatively annonymous. I've never quite gotten that - he's probably a bit shy under all that hair. Now, I'm Talis, pleased to meet you all, blah de blah whatever. We are not, I'd like to stress, the beings for whom this fight shall fill the hole of entertainment - we are under orders, from, ahem, those higher up than us, to organise and referee this fight, though I'm not sure about the referee bit."

"Well quite. The Executive like a bit of chaos, and to that end, you might notice if you've had the bright idea of surveying your fellow combatants, that everyone's that little bit different. Variety is the spice of life, they say, but I'd ammend that to the spice of death. Now, let's get to know each other a bit better, shall we? Take it away, Talis."

A spotlight clicked on, far above the orbs. This focused on a green sphere, and presently all the colour drained away, leaving its contents plainly visible.

"Goodness only knows quite what this is, and to be honest I'm not entirely sure, but Sen here is the result of bio-terrorism gone mad - take note of those pods you can see, that's where the real trouble lies. Not that Sen alone doesn't cause trouble..."

The spotlight swirled once again, settling now on the orb dictated by the spinner, turning it transparent once again.

"This is John Swift. Notice the big stick? I'm being a bit unkind, calling it a stick; it is, if one wants to get technical, an amplifier of magic, that of ice in this case. That's the main thing to watch out for here, but it isn't the only thing, I hasten to note!"

By now one could tell that the spotlight was choosing its path randomly - well, no, it wasn't, but still...

"Next we have Vexmagog. You won't believe your ears if he told you what he was capable of, or your eyes, or your nose for that matter. Be wary too of that arm of his - there's more to this dishevelled deity than meets the eye, if the eye can be trusted."

"Now for Alexander Striensand - he's a minor, folks, so not too much bloodshed and general gruesomeness in front of him, alright? Well, OK, actually he's more than capable of causing that himself, what with his power over fire and all that..."

"OK, this really is a wolf. Yeah. Um, yeah. I'm not exactly sure how one really introduces a wolf, but then this is technically a not-wolf, so I don't have to. Seriously though, watch out here - there's something going on under that fur of his..."

"Quite how someone gets the last name Helix I've no idea, but Jacob Helix here has got it attached to him, along with a nice broadsword, a love of classical music and some so called "quantum magic". Have fun with that."

"Remember folks, we can't help the way we were born, which in Blitz Wykerr's case was something of a bizarre circumstance that ended up with him having a bond more substantial than normal with his father. He's also currently "asleep", but that's not what it seems... trust me..."

"Finally, we have one Steven Taylor, who isn't sporting those rather fetching white gloves just to keep his hands warm - they've got some power in them, let me tell you - one hand to create, the other to destroy, and I'm not telling you which one's which."

The spotlight faded, and once again the hairball took centre stage.

"Right, here's how it works - you guys get set loose in some location, one of you kills someone else, the remaining seven get a nice change of scenery, another canvas to splatter red, and this continues right done 'till we get one lucky bugger, better known as a "winner" who is let loose to roam freely, with only those nice little moments at two in the morning to remember this by. Got that? If you want me to repeat anything, or to answer any questions, tough."

Light. Actual, proper light. Now the contestants could see that the orbs they inhabited were set down in what appeared to be a municipal park, if it weren't for the lack of any soul in the vicinity. Or any breeze, for that matter. That should have been noticed, for it would have given them the second inkling that something wasn't quite right. The first should have been the horizon. And the sky. Well, actually, the lack of a horizon or sky, for it appeared that this park, as normal as one would find in any town, was positioned on the interior surface of a gigantic sphere. Buildings could be seen clinging on to the walls, and as one by one the gazes of the players moved upwards, it became apparent that the light was coming from a smaller sphere, suspended in the centre of the sphere in which they stood, that was hung from a pylon protruding from a uptown tower block.

"Welcome to round number one - Wainwright Omega 57 is, I believe, the proper name for where you currently stand, but for simplicity's sake I shall refer to it as a Bubble Universe, for that is what it is. It's a colony, to be held in orbit around a body of your choice, where human settlers can live whilst the terraforming of aforementioned astronomical body takes place. Or at least, in this case, once lived. I don't know whether you can make it out from where you're all standing, but there's a bit of a hole in it... I don't, by the way, know what's outside, but out there there isn't any air, so good luck finding out. Actually, to be brutally honest, I don't know why there's still air in here, but if it's been here for twenty-three years, I doubt it'll be going anytime soon. But yes, there was a bit of an impact, meteorite I think, and that kinda caused everyone to abandon sphere, which is a pity really. This place was the first of its kind to actually be a proper town, with schools, hospitals, offices - everything. Artificial gravity keeps you to the surface, so you can walk up the walls of this sphere onto what's currently the ceiling, if that takes your fancy. It might, actually, because if you climb that pylon up there, you can go into the light source there. It used to be the nucleus of this place, regulating tempetature, humidity and all that - I bet you could have some fun up there. But I waffle unduly - too much more and I'll ruin the fun of finding it out for yourself. Go now; let the battle commence!"

With that, the duo were gone, with no sign of any mechanism through which the disappearance could have taken place. The cages, at this signal, started to move, each following its own trajectory, to deposit each player a fair distance from the others, for where would the fun be in having the bloodshed commence immediately, The Executive had asked.

Originally posted on MSPA by Kaitostrike.

---

___Alexander was released in a collection of fauna.Already,devastation was fresh in his mind.
___"This should be fun."
___He spotted another combatant in the distance,but could not see who they were;not that it would help much anyway.He knew next to nothing about any of them,but that guy with the creepy arm intrigued him.Alex came to the conclusion that he would be better served staying where he was and waited for the others to act.He sat down under a tree and thought of ways to mutilate each and everyone of them.

Originally posted on MSPA by Weldar.

---

Steven's mind raced, one sentence one of the strange being had said stood out to him, "one lucky bugger, better known as a "winner" who is let loose to roam freely". Were all the other contestants like himself, was this the fate of all those who entered the gates wandering the multiverse, was being able to roam considered some kind of privilege you had to fight for? And if all the other contestants were wanderers then perhaps, no he'd already seen the other contestants none of them were familiar. It was probably for the best, this was a fight to the death the last thing he wanted to have to do was kill the friend he'd been searching so long for, in fact he didn't particularly want to kill anyone nor did he think he was really capable of doing so. Still it looked like he didn't have a lot of choice in that matter.

The strange beings had finished talking, all the contestants had been set down on the battlefield. Steven had been so busy thinking he'd missed the last part of the speech, the description of the arena. Steven look around the bubble, he'd never seen anything quite like it. It made sense though from the little snippets he heard of the description he'd gathered this was a man made space colony of some sort, the dimensional gates never seemed to dump him in the vacuum of space, they always came out on the surface of a planet and the planets in question seemed to have much better odds of containing life than would be normal. Still nothing about the place seemed to out of the ordinary, it seemed to be a fairly normal city apart from the fact it was on the inside of a sphere. None of the other contestants seemed to in his immediate vicinity, that was good. Steven began creating, he didn't want to fight but sooner or later he would have to so he may as well use the time he had to prepare. A small glowing blue ball appeared floating just above the palm of Steven's hand, the ball grew larger and slowly started to take shape.

Originally posted on MSPA by Korbz.

---

John was released from his cage in a hollow tree. "What the hell?! You dare challenge me, tree-beast? I, the magnificent John Swift, shall destroy you!" He shifted around in the tree as best as he could, and used his magic to freeze and shatter a large portion of the tree. "Hah! Now you'll fall over on some random beast or something crazy like that!" He walked behind the tilting tree, kicked it, then walked off in some random direction.

Originally posted on MSPA by Drakenforge.

---

Wolf's mind was ablaze with conflicting thoughts and feelings. Not only did he have to deal with completly new sights and smells and sounds, but the very world was different! Wolf was scared. He was alone, a packless not-wolf, He thought of the seven strange smelling taillesses* that were described to him. He could still smell them, but they were all scattered around. Then wolf thought of the Moose-hair-short-name and Tree-paw-nice-tailless that had greeted him. Wolf killed his prey to eat them, and to survive he might have to fight off rival wolves, but now he had to fight taillesses, a feat wolves would not do unless they had the bad-smell-frothing-mouth madness. One part of the speech made no sense to Wolf. They said he someone would die, but the rest of his speech became blurred. What had come next?**
Shaking his body to rid himsel fof the bad thoughts, Wolf examined his surroundings. The world stretched around him in every directions. By looking up, Wolf saw that if he loped in the same direction for long enough he would end up where he started.
But the smells. Or rather, the lack therof. There were no smells of prey or territory or life or fast-wets. It seemed devoid, lifeless.
He padded down a street, heading in the direction of the faint smell of one of the taillesses.

SpoilerShow

*Lack of tail. Humanoids.
**It's a scientific fact that wolves have absolutely no way of depicting or understanding the future, or any terms concerning it. So Wolf has no idea what happens at the end of the round, or the game. Or anything in future tense. This is one of the facts I enjoy knowing about.