Re: DEATHGAME 9000 [S!3] Round One: Gamexus X99
02-15-2012, 04:56 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.
It was a success.
Well... it was as much of a success as the Incompetent could ever hope to achieve. Even with the modifications that had made the gentlemen functional their attempts to gather suitable battlers had not been without incident. A couple of gentlemen had vanished into the multiverse never to be seen again, while another had deigned to ignore all manner of interesting or powerful warriors and scour the multiverse instead for piping hot cups of tea. The Incompetent had flirted with the idea of reprogramming the machine's search parameters and sending it back out there to make good on its original function... but to be honest he never had been able to make a cup of tea worth a damn. The rest of the gentlemen had made a couple of extra trips but eventually he had his final lineup of eight.
--------
Though they had not exactly lapsed from consciousness during the journey, the turbulent ride through the backwaters of the multiverse did mean that it took the gathered contestants longer than usual to regain a sense of clarity at the situation they found themselves in. The room was large; roughly the same size as an aircraft hangar, though with a much homier feel to it. In theory it could have been described as spacious, though in practice it was so full of miscellaneous junk that it would be better described as cramped. The room was dimly lit by a solitary light bulb hanging from the ceiling high above, and whatever scraps of light filtered through the high windows. A wooden staircase leading to the only apparent exit from the room took the entirety of one wall. The room was filled with half-finished constructions and inventions, books lying open half finished, blackboards and whiteboards covered in complex and fundamentally flawed mathematical equations. In one corner there was a substantial heap of scrap metal, a large portion of which was clearly recognisable as the charred remains of the mechanical gentlemen that had brought them here. In the far corner an orange skinned man in an odd looking labcoat and tie combination sat upon a beanbag chair, a hefty black controller gripped in his hands. His attention was focused upon a massive television screen upon which a burly man in heavy armour engaged in epic battle with a dragon, stopping flailing his flaming battlesword only to scream at the dragon from time to time.
And so for five or ten minutes, nobody involved was really paying any attention to the passage of time, the contestants remained paralysed in a circle and The Incompetent remained ignorant. When eventually the grandmaster deigned to pause his game and return to the gathered battlers it took him that long again to ascertain that they were in fact conscious. He nervously adjusted his tie and attempted to strike what he perceived as a grandmasterly pose.
“Greetings!” He said. “You are no doubt wondering what is going on here. The short answer is that you’re in a battle to the death. The long answer is that you have been selected from millions upon billions of hopefuls across the entirety of time and space. You lucky few have been given the once in a lifetime opportunity to compete for life and limb and maybe something more in the most exciting battle this side of the multiverse; DEATHGAME 9000!” He paused for effect, glancing across the faces of the contestants, momentarily forgetting their reactions were severely limited by their paralysation. “After we are done with the introductions you’ll be moved into the first of eight devious and deadly rounds. Here you’ll fight up till the point where one of you is defeated. At that point the remaining contestants will be shuttled off to a brand new locale to do it all again. When just one of you is left, that person is the winner and will be returned to their home world, or near enough as makes no odds, with a cool prize of some kind. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
The Incompetent strode up to the first of the frozen combatants; a girl with long dark blue hair, a pale pink dress and a little orange and white rabbit by her side. “Our first contestant is Lauren Spettro and her pet Vergil.” The Incompetent frowned as though that didn’t sound quite right. “From what I have been able to gather they’re a pair of crime fighters from a world in which ghosts are a very real menace. They are most proficient in the art of using improvised weaponry, in their hands anything can become a weapon capable of taking down even the hardiest of phantasms.”
While little about Lynette’s identity was apparent from her appearance, the appearance of the second combatant gave even less away. It was perhaps best described as a shifting ethereal presence, constantly fluctuating between buildings, people, landmarks and animals. “This is Gomorrah. It is a ghost of some kind.” He hesitated for a moment. “The gentlemen that fetched it started talking in tongues and then exploded so I can’t say as I really know much about it, but it looks pretty cool don’t you think?”
The third combatant was an attractive woman in an unusual half labcoat half dress uniform sitting atop a fairly ordinary looking horse. Despite being much more quantifiable than Gomorrah the Incompetent looked just as perplexed as he had when introducing the ghost city. “I have to admit I don’t know who this is. When she got here it became very quickly clear that the gentleman that got her was suffering from a very major malfunction. It seemed to believe her name was Dr. Trisha Bearonrollerblades and that she was some kind of magic veterinarian. So… yeah. I don’t know either.” He stared at the woman for a good minute or so, before rather lamely concluding: “She has a horse.”
The fourth combatant was a jet black figure roughly humanoid in shape with a network of glowing blue wires arranged across his skin. “This is Weaver 16. While I was initially a little disappointed to learn he was not a warbot bristling with heavy armaments and a cold calculating brain designed to be as cunning and ruthless as possible, I was mollified when I learned that this body is just housing for the brain of Doctor Gooding, a self confessed mad genius. Who knows what kind of diabolical machinations the good doctor will have in store for you all?”
The fifth combatant was another machine. It was the largest of all of the battlers, if not in height then definitely in physical bulk. Its chassis was black, its face an expressionless mask at the front of its body. “This is Eric. I didn’t really get much of a briefing on this one,” The Incompetent mumbled something about wear and tear, how the materials were sort of shoddy anyway and how it’s all the Machinist’s fault for designing such fragile gentlemen in the first place, “but I think we can all agree that a machine as bulky and as menacing as Eric here, is most definitely, probably, a warbot. And I imagine in this crazy world from where he is from the green cross is some kind of fierce banner of war. Probably.” The Incompetent frowned and then moved on.
The sixth was a teenage boy dressed casually with a black woollen cap and a pair of glasses. If you cared to look closely you could see that the left side of his face had suffered some light scarring, but by and large, in comparison to the other contestants he was probably the most normal looking of the group. “This is mild mannered Kevin Lambert.” The Incompetent began. “To a casual glance he appears to be nothing more than a normal kid, but Kevin has a secret. When he closes his eyes and whispers his words of power he becomes Indestructible Lad; Defier of the Laws of Physics. If you plan to commit any dastardly deeds in the vicinity of this one I would think again!”
The seventh battler was a woman with something of a harangued look upon her face. Her hair was short and mussed and her eyes were set with heavy bags. The Incompetent looked at her disdainfully. “This is Jolene Kamionsky. Kamansky? Komoansky?” He shrugged. “She was a police officer and she went mad. She’s not exactly who I would have picked if I’d been sent out into the world to choose the most POWERFUL or INTERESTING entities,” he irritably directed this particular portion of his introduction towards the heap of scrap metal in the corner, “but she’s here now so I guess we will go with it.”
The final battler was a young girl with a pair of stunted wings, a floating crown and ragged clothes that were a patchwork of many disparate fabrics. The Incompetent grinned as he regarded her. “And here is the final competitor; Warrior-Queen Eris of the Vetolian Flow.” The enthusiasm in the Incompetent’s voice was clear and sincere, the gentlemen that had fetched Eris had been somewhat affected by her chaotic influence, but he’d believed its every ridiculous word. “Despite appearing to be of a young age Queen Eris is an ancient soul, wild and fierce with the capability to perform feats of magic that would astound even the most cynical of you. This incarnation of her existence was birthed in the volcanic blood of the ashnicorn princes, and still retains a veneer of youthful innocence.” He paused. “You would be wise to take her out whilst you still can, before her true self is awakened.”
“Finally...” The Incompetent said, pulling a swivel chair over to the group of paralysed contestants and sitting down. “Those introductions take forever.” He paused and frowned. “Oh and as for me, I’m the uhm… the uhm… The Amazing!” He grinned triumphantly. “Yes, that is what they call me.” He paused, looked across the battlers faces with a wry smile and then continued. “So now we’ve got to know one another, it’s time to show you to the first round and time for you all to get on with the business of slowly murdering one another.” The Incompetent clicked his fingers and suddenly each of the battlers found themselves somewhere new, somewhere quite separate from the others.
“Welcome to THE DEADLY MAZE.” The Incompetent said; his impish grin obvious despite no longer being visible to any of the battlers. “A twisting labyrinth of unparalleled complexity; its crooked hallways and warped passageways defy the laws of time and space to create the most confusing landscape ever seen. And that is not even to mention the ingenious deathtraps. Indeed watch your step in THE DEADLY MAZE lest you accidentally trip a tripwire and unleash a pack of ravenous hellspawn hungry for your very soul, or cause to come spinning forth a shower of jagged blades to slice you into tiny pieces. In THE DEADLY MAZE your death is not just probable, it is all but guaranteed.”
There was a long moment of silence as the various contestants glanced around at the different environs into which they had been dropped. None of the different locations actually appeared to be what the Incompetent was describing.
“No wait.” He said nervously, his voice now thick with doubt and confusion. “Hang on a minute, where have you all gone?” And for a while that was the last they heard of the Incompetent.
It was a success.
Well... it was as much of a success as the Incompetent could ever hope to achieve. Even with the modifications that had made the gentlemen functional their attempts to gather suitable battlers had not been without incident. A couple of gentlemen had vanished into the multiverse never to be seen again, while another had deigned to ignore all manner of interesting or powerful warriors and scour the multiverse instead for piping hot cups of tea. The Incompetent had flirted with the idea of reprogramming the machine's search parameters and sending it back out there to make good on its original function... but to be honest he never had been able to make a cup of tea worth a damn. The rest of the gentlemen had made a couple of extra trips but eventually he had his final lineup of eight.
--------
Though they had not exactly lapsed from consciousness during the journey, the turbulent ride through the backwaters of the multiverse did mean that it took the gathered contestants longer than usual to regain a sense of clarity at the situation they found themselves in. The room was large; roughly the same size as an aircraft hangar, though with a much homier feel to it. In theory it could have been described as spacious, though in practice it was so full of miscellaneous junk that it would be better described as cramped. The room was dimly lit by a solitary light bulb hanging from the ceiling high above, and whatever scraps of light filtered through the high windows. A wooden staircase leading to the only apparent exit from the room took the entirety of one wall. The room was filled with half-finished constructions and inventions, books lying open half finished, blackboards and whiteboards covered in complex and fundamentally flawed mathematical equations. In one corner there was a substantial heap of scrap metal, a large portion of which was clearly recognisable as the charred remains of the mechanical gentlemen that had brought them here. In the far corner an orange skinned man in an odd looking labcoat and tie combination sat upon a beanbag chair, a hefty black controller gripped in his hands. His attention was focused upon a massive television screen upon which a burly man in heavy armour engaged in epic battle with a dragon, stopping flailing his flaming battlesword only to scream at the dragon from time to time.
And so for five or ten minutes, nobody involved was really paying any attention to the passage of time, the contestants remained paralysed in a circle and The Incompetent remained ignorant. When eventually the grandmaster deigned to pause his game and return to the gathered battlers it took him that long again to ascertain that they were in fact conscious. He nervously adjusted his tie and attempted to strike what he perceived as a grandmasterly pose.
“Greetings!” He said. “You are no doubt wondering what is going on here. The short answer is that you’re in a battle to the death. The long answer is that you have been selected from millions upon billions of hopefuls across the entirety of time and space. You lucky few have been given the once in a lifetime opportunity to compete for life and limb and maybe something more in the most exciting battle this side of the multiverse; DEATHGAME 9000!” He paused for effect, glancing across the faces of the contestants, momentarily forgetting their reactions were severely limited by their paralysation. “After we are done with the introductions you’ll be moved into the first of eight devious and deadly rounds. Here you’ll fight up till the point where one of you is defeated. At that point the remaining contestants will be shuttled off to a brand new locale to do it all again. When just one of you is left, that person is the winner and will be returned to their home world, or near enough as makes no odds, with a cool prize of some kind. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
The Incompetent strode up to the first of the frozen combatants; a girl with long dark blue hair, a pale pink dress and a little orange and white rabbit by her side. “Our first contestant is Lauren Spettro and her pet Vergil.” The Incompetent frowned as though that didn’t sound quite right. “From what I have been able to gather they’re a pair of crime fighters from a world in which ghosts are a very real menace. They are most proficient in the art of using improvised weaponry, in their hands anything can become a weapon capable of taking down even the hardiest of phantasms.”
While little about Lynette’s identity was apparent from her appearance, the appearance of the second combatant gave even less away. It was perhaps best described as a shifting ethereal presence, constantly fluctuating between buildings, people, landmarks and animals. “This is Gomorrah. It is a ghost of some kind.” He hesitated for a moment. “The gentlemen that fetched it started talking in tongues and then exploded so I can’t say as I really know much about it, but it looks pretty cool don’t you think?”
The third combatant was an attractive woman in an unusual half labcoat half dress uniform sitting atop a fairly ordinary looking horse. Despite being much more quantifiable than Gomorrah the Incompetent looked just as perplexed as he had when introducing the ghost city. “I have to admit I don’t know who this is. When she got here it became very quickly clear that the gentleman that got her was suffering from a very major malfunction. It seemed to believe her name was Dr. Trisha Bearonrollerblades and that she was some kind of magic veterinarian. So… yeah. I don’t know either.” He stared at the woman for a good minute or so, before rather lamely concluding: “She has a horse.”
The fourth combatant was a jet black figure roughly humanoid in shape with a network of glowing blue wires arranged across his skin. “This is Weaver 16. While I was initially a little disappointed to learn he was not a warbot bristling with heavy armaments and a cold calculating brain designed to be as cunning and ruthless as possible, I was mollified when I learned that this body is just housing for the brain of Doctor Gooding, a self confessed mad genius. Who knows what kind of diabolical machinations the good doctor will have in store for you all?”
The fifth combatant was another machine. It was the largest of all of the battlers, if not in height then definitely in physical bulk. Its chassis was black, its face an expressionless mask at the front of its body. “This is Eric. I didn’t really get much of a briefing on this one,” The Incompetent mumbled something about wear and tear, how the materials were sort of shoddy anyway and how it’s all the Machinist’s fault for designing such fragile gentlemen in the first place, “but I think we can all agree that a machine as bulky and as menacing as Eric here, is most definitely, probably, a warbot. And I imagine in this crazy world from where he is from the green cross is some kind of fierce banner of war. Probably.” The Incompetent frowned and then moved on.
The sixth was a teenage boy dressed casually with a black woollen cap and a pair of glasses. If you cared to look closely you could see that the left side of his face had suffered some light scarring, but by and large, in comparison to the other contestants he was probably the most normal looking of the group. “This is mild mannered Kevin Lambert.” The Incompetent began. “To a casual glance he appears to be nothing more than a normal kid, but Kevin has a secret. When he closes his eyes and whispers his words of power he becomes Indestructible Lad; Defier of the Laws of Physics. If you plan to commit any dastardly deeds in the vicinity of this one I would think again!”
The seventh battler was a woman with something of a harangued look upon her face. Her hair was short and mussed and her eyes were set with heavy bags. The Incompetent looked at her disdainfully. “This is Jolene Kamionsky. Kamansky? Komoansky?” He shrugged. “She was a police officer and she went mad. She’s not exactly who I would have picked if I’d been sent out into the world to choose the most POWERFUL or INTERESTING entities,” he irritably directed this particular portion of his introduction towards the heap of scrap metal in the corner, “but she’s here now so I guess we will go with it.”
The final battler was a young girl with a pair of stunted wings, a floating crown and ragged clothes that were a patchwork of many disparate fabrics. The Incompetent grinned as he regarded her. “And here is the final competitor; Warrior-Queen Eris of the Vetolian Flow.” The enthusiasm in the Incompetent’s voice was clear and sincere, the gentlemen that had fetched Eris had been somewhat affected by her chaotic influence, but he’d believed its every ridiculous word. “Despite appearing to be of a young age Queen Eris is an ancient soul, wild and fierce with the capability to perform feats of magic that would astound even the most cynical of you. This incarnation of her existence was birthed in the volcanic blood of the ashnicorn princes, and still retains a veneer of youthful innocence.” He paused. “You would be wise to take her out whilst you still can, before her true self is awakened.”
“Finally...” The Incompetent said, pulling a swivel chair over to the group of paralysed contestants and sitting down. “Those introductions take forever.” He paused and frowned. “Oh and as for me, I’m the uhm… the uhm… The Amazing!” He grinned triumphantly. “Yes, that is what they call me.” He paused, looked across the battlers faces with a wry smile and then continued. “So now we’ve got to know one another, it’s time to show you to the first round and time for you all to get on with the business of slowly murdering one another.” The Incompetent clicked his fingers and suddenly each of the battlers found themselves somewhere new, somewhere quite separate from the others.
“Welcome to THE DEADLY MAZE.” The Incompetent said; his impish grin obvious despite no longer being visible to any of the battlers. “A twisting labyrinth of unparalleled complexity; its crooked hallways and warped passageways defy the laws of time and space to create the most confusing landscape ever seen. And that is not even to mention the ingenious deathtraps. Indeed watch your step in THE DEADLY MAZE lest you accidentally trip a tripwire and unleash a pack of ravenous hellspawn hungry for your very soul, or cause to come spinning forth a shower of jagged blades to slice you into tiny pieces. In THE DEADLY MAZE your death is not just probable, it is all but guaranteed.”
There was a long moment of silence as the various contestants glanced around at the different environs into which they had been dropped. None of the different locations actually appeared to be what the Incompetent was describing.
“No wait.” He said nervously, his voice now thick with doubt and confusion. “Hang on a minute, where have you all gone?” And for a while that was the last they heard of the Incompetent.
Spoiler
Heaven Help Us | Make Room!!!! | I'm Not Okay (I Promise)
Hang 'Em High | The Only Hope For Me Is You | Zero Percent | Early Sunsets Over Monroeville | DESTROYA | Demolition Lovers | To The End
Surrender The Night | Disenchanted | The Ghost Of You | Party Poison | Vampires Will Never Hurt You | The Jetset Life Is Gonna Kill You
Hang 'Em High | The Only Hope For Me Is You | Zero Percent | Early Sunsets Over Monroeville | DESTROYA | Demolition Lovers | To The End
Surrender The Night | Disenchanted | The Ghost Of You | Party Poison | Vampires Will Never Hurt You | The Jetset Life Is Gonna Kill You