The Battle of the Victors (*S1/2*) - Round 0? - Ill Fortune Theatre
11-29-2023, 08:07 AM
(This post was last modified: 11-29-2023, 12:31 PM by Ixcaliber.)
The next thing Franchesca knew she was sat in a comfortable seat overlooking a bustling theatre. The show had not yet started; the curtains were down and the lights were still lit. She was looking down from above and slightly off to one side. This was probably a private box. The seats were filled with strange beings chattering to one another.
There were hazy humanoid shapes in black, red and green, enormous dice with eyes for every spot that rolled themselves down the aisles when they had to move. There were living casino chips in all variety of colours; everyone seemed to pay attention as the gold chip rolled down to the front row. There were playing cards shuffling down the aisles some of whom when they reached their seats they unzipped their rectangular edges like coats and took their seats as just the rotationally symmetrical representations of monarchs depicted upon them.
Franchesca almost felt like she was back in the dream dimension again and it was only noticing The Baker seated to her left that she managed to ground herself. She also noticed that someone was holding her hand, and glanced to the right to see a furless teenage girl with bright red hair in pigtails and a beat up lime green witches’ hat. Her eyes were gold and she was looking through the crowd in much the same way Fran had been, a wondrous grin upon her face. This must be Ginger.
“Hi. I’m Fran it’s nice to meet you.” she whispered.
“Oh, you don’t remember me?” Ginger looked a little disappointed. “Don’t worry Fran we’re going to be the best of friends.” Ginger squeezed her hand tight and Fran happily reciprocated.
“Hush girls it’s about to start.”
—
The house lights dimmed. The curtains drew back and revealed a rather unremarkable stage, with a small handful of real trees growing out of it for some reason. The only person on the stage was a furless woman in a deep blue suit and tie combination, with neatly combed bleached blonde hair and ridiculously shaped glasses (slanted triangles extending too far on either side of her head) with a bright pink tint to them. She looked patently ridiculous, caught at the exact intersection between two wildly incompatible aesthetics.
“Welcome to the Battle of the Victors, ladies.” she said with a smug grin. “I’m The Authority and I will be your Host for this climactic fight, given that I don’t have a winner of my own… yet. Anyway we all know why we’re here. I’m sure we’re all very excited to get to it and let our Victors finally battle it out. But first I would like to take a moment and pay tribute to the fallen hosts whose contributions to our craft will be remembered even if they will not be represented here tonight.”
A slideshow started up behind her, in somber black and white cycling through still images of a number of entities, mostly humanoid though that was the most they could say to have in common. Most of the names didn’t elicit much reaction from the crowd; The Gamer, The President, The Historian, The Gossipmonger, The Machinist, The Reaper. The Police got a couple of jeers, while The Infanta got a weird half cheer (as if several members of the audience were excited just to think of her and only remembered she was dead half way through their celebration) and several people calling out how much they missed her.
“The Infanta?” Fran accidentally murmured aloud. The Baker shot her a glance. That’s weird. The image looked a lot like someone she knew from her own world, only her Infanta was a deer with soft brown fur.
The final name The Dreamer lingered onscreen for longer than the others and The Authority bowed her head in mournful silence until it was gone.
“Now lets meet the returning contestants. I’ve been a little busy running The Bigger Fight-” a couple of chuckles from the audience “-so I haven’t had time to keep up with all of your individual fights. As such each contestant’s Host will introduce them. Here to represent The Big Fight is The Gambler.”
The Authority stepped off to one side and a pair of entities appeared on stage to a smattering of applause from the audience. The one stood closer to the front was a dull green essence in the rough shape of a human looming over a floating roulette table with a notebook and pencil embedded into their spectral form. The other was a small black machine, no larger than a toaster, with a couple of small aerials and a set of complicated mechanical legs.
“Hi. I’m The Gambler.” They said. “Thanks for coming. I’m just so happy to see that a concept I invented has brought so much pleasure and enjoyment to so many people over the years, and now we get to put an end to our first two seasons all at once. But of course, you know all that. And I’d assume most of you know Myrrh Curie, the victor of our very first ever Big Fight.” They gesture with one hand towards the black box behind them, while simultaneously restarting the spin of their roulette wheel with the other. “But for those of you who are contestants, or who don’t watch one anothers fights; she is a living modem. She can access the local internet, should one exist, wherever she goes, and provide access to a local network for anyone of her choice. She’s sent me several emails asking that she be allowed to keep some secrets to give her a fighting chance, so I will respect her wishes.”
Fran jumped in her seat as a dark grey envelope shape popped up in her peripheral vision. The Baker shushed her and Fran was lost for words as the envelope seemed to follow her gaze, right on the very edge of her vision, flickering on and off distractingly. With no idea what to do about that she simply tried to focus on the ongoing spectacle before her.
“One last note, for anyone who wants to make any wagers on the results of our climactic battle; I will be open for business, come and see me in Box 1 once the first round is officially in motion.”
The Gambler and Myrrh disappeared from the stage and stood empty for a moment as The Authority took a sip of a fancy cocktail. “Here to represent The Big Fight II is The High-Roller.”
Two entities appeared on stage once again. At the front stood The High-Roller; an enormous heap made entirely of coins, credit cards and paper money. Behind them stood a furless girl in her early twenties or late teens. She had olive skin and dark shaved-short hair. She was wearing a tank top, jeans, leather gloves and a backpack. In her hands she was holding a pair of wide black briefcases, and sheathed at her belt were multiple swords, three on each side of her body. Her visible skin was covered with the remnants of old shallow scars.
“Hello hi. I don’t want to take up too much of your time but seeing as The Gambler got to say a little piece about themselves, well I personally don’t think that big fights would have caught on to the extent that they have done were it not for my contribution to the art. You see I like to think of myself as something of a trendsetter.”
“Please can we get a move on we still have eight contestants to introduce.”
“Fine.” They said. “This is One-Million-Blades-”
“My name is One-Billion-Blades.” She stepped forward, drawing a black and red sword from her hip. “And don’t misunderstand what’s happening here. I’m here to kill all of you bastard Hosts who are responsible for the death of Winter.” She pointed with the blade, drawing it along the boxes where the Hosts and their contestants sat.
“Highroll? Could you get a handle on your contestant please?”
“Oh she’s harmless.” They said, as One-Billion-Blades plunged her sword into the heap of money that constituted their body. “See look, no harm done.” It was at that moment that the blade of her sword burst into flame and set alight The High-Roller. This did seem to produce a reaction. Enormous hands composed of the same physical currencies as the main body emerged from The High-Roller’s form and attempted to beat down the flame, only managing to cause themselves to be more on fire, and they ran (slid?) back and forth across the stage in a panic.
“Stand with me and we’ll make all these dickhead Hosts suffer before they die!” One-Billion-Blades screamed.
The Authority buried her face in her hands as the burning High-Roller and One-Billion-Blades vanished from the stage. “Heavens help us.” She said. “And oh great here’s The Oddball to represent The Mondo Ruction.”
Two entities again. The one at the front was almost certainly The Oddball. An enormous orange billiard ball with the number 5 instead of a face, wearing a multicoloured scarf and a fez. Behind it was a furless woman who appeared to be in her thirties. She had blue hair down to her shoulders and was wearing a black hoodie with a logo for something called My Chemical Romance and a pair of jeans. She looked pretty normal compared to everything so far.
“Worm Hotel!” it said and then gave no further indication that it wanted to say anything else.
The woman stepped forward, past the completely immobile Oddball and spoke up nervously. “Actually my name is Natasha. I’d rather not be called Worm Hotel. God it’s a little intimidating being up here. I’d prefer to go home again if that’s allowed, but otherwise nice to meet you all I suppose…” She glanced around, looking alternately at The Oddball and The Authority. “Is that good? Can I go and sit down again now?”
The Authority waved a hand and both Natasha/Worm Hotel and The Oddball disappeared from the stage. She glanced down at her notes, leafing through a couple of pages until finally she looked back up. “And to close off Season One’s offerings we have The Tormentrix to present the victor of The Inescapable Suffering.”
The head of an enormous wyrm appeared on stage. Its body was that of an enormous serpent so great that it all could not fit onto the stage and so just sort of disappeared off into the backstage area. Its scales were constantly changing colour, pulsing between all the colours of the rainbow and some colours that Fran had never seen before. Around its head were long strings of papers covered in sigils, hanging loose, and brightly blooming flowers tied together in chains.
Upon its arrival there were audible gasps and much murmuring from the audience. Up in the fifth box The Baker was frowning and looking down at her programme, and that was probably true of most of the other boxes.
“Look at how my beautiful my plaything has become.” The Tormentrix announced, and it was only at this point that it most of the audience noticed her. She was standing right up next to the wyrm’s head, giving them gentle strokes. The size of the thing was even more plain to see with someone for scale. She was about a third of the height of this thing and it looked as though it could easily swallow her whole if it chose. The Tormentrix herself had bright red skin, jet black eyes, huge twisted horns and razor sharp teeth. She was dressed entirely in not really enough leather.
“You really mean to claim that this is your contestant?” The Authority demanded.
“Yes.”
“This is Snowflake Fluttermuse?”
“This is she.” The Tormentrix said simply. “In The Inescapable Suffering she was just a simple innocent sprite but since then she has willingly merged her soul with Faerynsormr. The World Devouring Serpent of the feyworlds. Bound and controlled by the fae queens, no longer. Now she will be my weapon for my ultimate victory. Say your prayers Victors, though they will not protect you from my punishment.”
And with that the Tormentrix and the wyrm both vanished from the stage.
“Well… I’m not quite sure how to respond to that. Good luck to the rest of our victors I suppose.” The Authority said. “Next up would be… well this is the point where I’d introduce my contestant if I had one. Let me just check.” Pause. “No, but they do need a yet another new round. They’re really exhausting my supply of fun not yet completely fucked locales. Just putting this out there, if you’ve got any spare round concepts let me know. For now though let’s call this Intermission. I’ll be right back.”
The Authority vanished and the crowd started to talk amongst themselves.
Fran turned to The Baker. “This is a little more intense than you led me to believe.” she said.
“Well that was a little more intense than I was anticipating also.” she admitted.
Ginger squeezed her hand and said: “But you’re Franchesca Fox. There’s no obstacle you can’t overcome.”
“That’s a really powerful show of confidence but I don’t know that I can live up to that hype.”
There were hazy humanoid shapes in black, red and green, enormous dice with eyes for every spot that rolled themselves down the aisles when they had to move. There were living casino chips in all variety of colours; everyone seemed to pay attention as the gold chip rolled down to the front row. There were playing cards shuffling down the aisles some of whom when they reached their seats they unzipped their rectangular edges like coats and took their seats as just the rotationally symmetrical representations of monarchs depicted upon them.
Franchesca almost felt like she was back in the dream dimension again and it was only noticing The Baker seated to her left that she managed to ground herself. She also noticed that someone was holding her hand, and glanced to the right to see a furless teenage girl with bright red hair in pigtails and a beat up lime green witches’ hat. Her eyes were gold and she was looking through the crowd in much the same way Fran had been, a wondrous grin upon her face. This must be Ginger.
“Hi. I’m Fran it’s nice to meet you.” she whispered.
“Oh, you don’t remember me?” Ginger looked a little disappointed. “Don’t worry Fran we’re going to be the best of friends.” Ginger squeezed her hand tight and Fran happily reciprocated.
“Hush girls it’s about to start.”
—
The house lights dimmed. The curtains drew back and revealed a rather unremarkable stage, with a small handful of real trees growing out of it for some reason. The only person on the stage was a furless woman in a deep blue suit and tie combination, with neatly combed bleached blonde hair and ridiculously shaped glasses (slanted triangles extending too far on either side of her head) with a bright pink tint to them. She looked patently ridiculous, caught at the exact intersection between two wildly incompatible aesthetics.
“Welcome to the Battle of the Victors, ladies.” she said with a smug grin. “I’m The Authority and I will be your Host for this climactic fight, given that I don’t have a winner of my own… yet. Anyway we all know why we’re here. I’m sure we’re all very excited to get to it and let our Victors finally battle it out. But first I would like to take a moment and pay tribute to the fallen hosts whose contributions to our craft will be remembered even if they will not be represented here tonight.”
A slideshow started up behind her, in somber black and white cycling through still images of a number of entities, mostly humanoid though that was the most they could say to have in common. Most of the names didn’t elicit much reaction from the crowd; The Gamer, The President, The Historian, The Gossipmonger, The Machinist, The Reaper. The Police got a couple of jeers, while The Infanta got a weird half cheer (as if several members of the audience were excited just to think of her and only remembered she was dead half way through their celebration) and several people calling out how much they missed her.
“The Infanta?” Fran accidentally murmured aloud. The Baker shot her a glance. That’s weird. The image looked a lot like someone she knew from her own world, only her Infanta was a deer with soft brown fur.
The final name The Dreamer lingered onscreen for longer than the others and The Authority bowed her head in mournful silence until it was gone.
“Now lets meet the returning contestants. I’ve been a little busy running The Bigger Fight-” a couple of chuckles from the audience “-so I haven’t had time to keep up with all of your individual fights. As such each contestant’s Host will introduce them. Here to represent The Big Fight is The Gambler.”
The Authority stepped off to one side and a pair of entities appeared on stage to a smattering of applause from the audience. The one stood closer to the front was a dull green essence in the rough shape of a human looming over a floating roulette table with a notebook and pencil embedded into their spectral form. The other was a small black machine, no larger than a toaster, with a couple of small aerials and a set of complicated mechanical legs.
“Hi. I’m The Gambler.” They said. “Thanks for coming. I’m just so happy to see that a concept I invented has brought so much pleasure and enjoyment to so many people over the years, and now we get to put an end to our first two seasons all at once. But of course, you know all that. And I’d assume most of you know Myrrh Curie, the victor of our very first ever Big Fight.” They gesture with one hand towards the black box behind them, while simultaneously restarting the spin of their roulette wheel with the other. “But for those of you who are contestants, or who don’t watch one anothers fights; she is a living modem. She can access the local internet, should one exist, wherever she goes, and provide access to a local network for anyone of her choice. She’s sent me several emails asking that she be allowed to keep some secrets to give her a fighting chance, so I will respect her wishes.”
Fran jumped in her seat as a dark grey envelope shape popped up in her peripheral vision. The Baker shushed her and Fran was lost for words as the envelope seemed to follow her gaze, right on the very edge of her vision, flickering on and off distractingly. With no idea what to do about that she simply tried to focus on the ongoing spectacle before her.
“One last note, for anyone who wants to make any wagers on the results of our climactic battle; I will be open for business, come and see me in Box 1 once the first round is officially in motion.”
The Gambler and Myrrh disappeared from the stage and stood empty for a moment as The Authority took a sip of a fancy cocktail. “Here to represent The Big Fight II is The High-Roller.”
Two entities appeared on stage once again. At the front stood The High-Roller; an enormous heap made entirely of coins, credit cards and paper money. Behind them stood a furless girl in her early twenties or late teens. She had olive skin and dark shaved-short hair. She was wearing a tank top, jeans, leather gloves and a backpack. In her hands she was holding a pair of wide black briefcases, and sheathed at her belt were multiple swords, three on each side of her body. Her visible skin was covered with the remnants of old shallow scars.
“Hello hi. I don’t want to take up too much of your time but seeing as The Gambler got to say a little piece about themselves, well I personally don’t think that big fights would have caught on to the extent that they have done were it not for my contribution to the art. You see I like to think of myself as something of a trendsetter.”
“Please can we get a move on we still have eight contestants to introduce.”
“Fine.” They said. “This is One-Million-Blades-”
“My name is One-Billion-Blades.” She stepped forward, drawing a black and red sword from her hip. “And don’t misunderstand what’s happening here. I’m here to kill all of you bastard Hosts who are responsible for the death of Winter.” She pointed with the blade, drawing it along the boxes where the Hosts and their contestants sat.
“Highroll? Could you get a handle on your contestant please?”
“Oh she’s harmless.” They said, as One-Billion-Blades plunged her sword into the heap of money that constituted their body. “See look, no harm done.” It was at that moment that the blade of her sword burst into flame and set alight The High-Roller. This did seem to produce a reaction. Enormous hands composed of the same physical currencies as the main body emerged from The High-Roller’s form and attempted to beat down the flame, only managing to cause themselves to be more on fire, and they ran (slid?) back and forth across the stage in a panic.
“Stand with me and we’ll make all these dickhead Hosts suffer before they die!” One-Billion-Blades screamed.
The Authority buried her face in her hands as the burning High-Roller and One-Billion-Blades vanished from the stage. “Heavens help us.” She said. “And oh great here’s The Oddball to represent The Mondo Ruction.”
Two entities again. The one at the front was almost certainly The Oddball. An enormous orange billiard ball with the number 5 instead of a face, wearing a multicoloured scarf and a fez. Behind it was a furless woman who appeared to be in her thirties. She had blue hair down to her shoulders and was wearing a black hoodie with a logo for something called My Chemical Romance and a pair of jeans. She looked pretty normal compared to everything so far.
“Worm Hotel!” it said and then gave no further indication that it wanted to say anything else.
The woman stepped forward, past the completely immobile Oddball and spoke up nervously. “Actually my name is Natasha. I’d rather not be called Worm Hotel. God it’s a little intimidating being up here. I’d prefer to go home again if that’s allowed, but otherwise nice to meet you all I suppose…” She glanced around, looking alternately at The Oddball and The Authority. “Is that good? Can I go and sit down again now?”
The Authority waved a hand and both Natasha/Worm Hotel and The Oddball disappeared from the stage. She glanced down at her notes, leafing through a couple of pages until finally she looked back up. “And to close off Season One’s offerings we have The Tormentrix to present the victor of The Inescapable Suffering.”
The head of an enormous wyrm appeared on stage. Its body was that of an enormous serpent so great that it all could not fit onto the stage and so just sort of disappeared off into the backstage area. Its scales were constantly changing colour, pulsing between all the colours of the rainbow and some colours that Fran had never seen before. Around its head were long strings of papers covered in sigils, hanging loose, and brightly blooming flowers tied together in chains.
Upon its arrival there were audible gasps and much murmuring from the audience. Up in the fifth box The Baker was frowning and looking down at her programme, and that was probably true of most of the other boxes.
“Look at how my beautiful my plaything has become.” The Tormentrix announced, and it was only at this point that it most of the audience noticed her. She was standing right up next to the wyrm’s head, giving them gentle strokes. The size of the thing was even more plain to see with someone for scale. She was about a third of the height of this thing and it looked as though it could easily swallow her whole if it chose. The Tormentrix herself had bright red skin, jet black eyes, huge twisted horns and razor sharp teeth. She was dressed entirely in not really enough leather.
“You really mean to claim that this is your contestant?” The Authority demanded.
“Yes.”
“This is Snowflake Fluttermuse?”
“This is she.” The Tormentrix said simply. “In The Inescapable Suffering she was just a simple innocent sprite but since then she has willingly merged her soul with Faerynsormr. The World Devouring Serpent of the feyworlds. Bound and controlled by the fae queens, no longer. Now she will be my weapon for my ultimate victory. Say your prayers Victors, though they will not protect you from my punishment.”
And with that the Tormentrix and the wyrm both vanished from the stage.
“Well… I’m not quite sure how to respond to that. Good luck to the rest of our victors I suppose.” The Authority said. “Next up would be… well this is the point where I’d introduce my contestant if I had one. Let me just check.” Pause. “No, but they do need a yet another new round. They’re really exhausting my supply of fun not yet completely fucked locales. Just putting this out there, if you’ve got any spare round concepts let me know. For now though let’s call this Intermission. I’ll be right back.”
The Authority vanished and the crowd started to talk amongst themselves.
Fran turned to The Baker. “This is a little more intense than you led me to believe.” she said.
“Well that was a little more intense than I was anticipating also.” she admitted.
Ginger squeezed her hand and said: “But you’re Franchesca Fox. There’s no obstacle you can’t overcome.”
“That’s a really powerful show of confidence but I don’t know that I can live up to that hype.”
Spoiler