The Abrupt Demise

The Killer was bored. He thought he'd grab a bunch of people from a bunch of universes and toss them into another universe to kill each other, because he liked seeing things die. So that's what he did.

So here's the deal. This is sort of a Grand Battle. You will make a profile so that other people can involve your character - no need to get fancy with it unless you're going to use it for something else, too. After I have as many profiles as I feel like, I start the round, and then it's time for you to post.

Then each of you gets one post, in which you kill your character. Whoever has the best death of the round wins; this is entirely up to the discretion of whoever's running that round. Then we start over again.

I'll keep score in this post, I guess.

Entry form, made nice and quick! No need to bother with text colors unless you feel like it, because you're only getting one post each.

Name: What your soon-to-be-dead guy is called.
Race: What sort of crazy thingamajig they are. They can be a human or something boring like that too, I guess.
Gender: Male, Female, Neither, Other, describe it here.
Description: What they look like, mostly so the other dudes can write about being killed by them. (or just seeing them explode if you posted first)
Weapons/Abilities: Expect these to help you in being killed. They can also make things more interesting for everyone else.
Backstory: Completely optional in this case. Not like it's going to matter once they're dead.

I will probably give a brief round intro which will be needlessly elaborate considering the slaughter to come. Just for kicks.

Go ahead and make reserves while you're killing yourselves off, but be quick. There are other people waiting to die, you know!

Username: Ixcaliber
Name: Cornelius Blackheart, Scourge of the Seven Seas TM
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Description: Cornelius is tall with green eyes, long black hair and a long black beard. He is heavily scarred and wears an eyepatch over one eye. He wears black pirate clothing and carries an old fashioned flintlock pistol, and a cutlass.

He is arrogant and believes himself to be the Scourge of the Seven Seas TM when he is actually not very well known and not very well thought of by those who he does work with. He doesn’t much think about other people’s feelings and he is constantly one wrong move away from complete mutiny though he doesn’t realise this. He likes plundering gold and stuff but he more cares about being generally evil.

Weapons and Abilities: He is a reasonable shot with his pistol when he is not drunk. He has never actually used his sword because he normally lets everyone else do all the work for him, while he sits down and has a drink of rum.

Biography: Cornelius tells a different story of his past to anyone who bothers to ask him. In some sarcastic versions he is the illegitimate spawn of the beard god, in others his parents were killed by bearded dragons. In reality he was born in Spain and he decided to be a pirate because he thought pirates were cool. Also he worked with asbestos for a while and it’s super relevant to this profile.

SpoilerShow

Fuck you Cornelius Blackheart!

Name: Roger V. Nitroglycerine
Race: Human.
Gender: Male
Description: Roger wears a custom heavily padded jacket at all times, that helps keep him cushioned and stable. His pants are also heavily padded. He's got neck-long red hair, because scissors make him nervous. He's got a rather pale complexion, with a bit of a sickly green tinge to it.
Roger is overall a nervous guy. Overly cautious about everything he does, he's not much of a thrill seeker, and would rather do nothing but sit down and not move for the rest of his hopefully prolonged life. This is unlikely.
Weapons/Abilities: Roger was injected with an experimental drug to help improve reaction time and speed. It worked! It also made him highly unstable. In a chemical way. It's been determined that if he's upset too much (physically, not emotionally), he and anything around him will be taken out in a large firey explosion. He'd rather this ability not get used.
Backstory: Roger needed money, so he signed up for a secretive test program. Then he learned he was in danger of exploding violently. He was upset by this.

Name: Ricky
Race: Clay bomb humanoid
Gender: Male

Description: Ricky wears nothing but a cloak, but his legs resemble something akin to trousers. His skin is blothy and inhuman looking. He is bald and very, very gaunt. His face and torso look slightly brown compared to the rest of his body.
He is very reserved and respectful, usually without meaning to be. He used to be a slave and has yet to adapt to his new freedom, still calling anyone he meets "Sir".

Backstory: Ricky was a test subject slash slave to an Alchemist from London. The final test his master ever constructed involved both of them dying in a horrible explosion. However, a new life emerged in the form of Ricky, only made out of malleable, and highly volatile, explosive clay.

Weapons/Abilities: He can change which type of explosive his body can be made out of, and has a stock of compounds and fuses in a satchel. He can "dud" his entire body at a moments notice or remove any part of his body he wishes. He creates new clay by eating any nearby resource and breaking it down into compounds, his other organs then purify the clay, but he leaves puddles of weakly explosive sludge everywhere he goes.

Name: Dramatis Persona
Race: Elemental spirit of melodrama
Gender: Gloriously female

Description: A rather robust woman, red of lips and strikingly violet of eyes. Her hair is the auburn of an autumn morning, or the red of heart's blood, or perhaps the subtle summery tones of an antique wooden wedding chest made for a bride who would die by the hand of her betrothed, etc. It floats very nicely in water and is prone to pooling about her romantically with little or no provocation. Her costume is generically Victorian except for when it's Edwardian. She is as lovely as a number of poetic things that are also very lovely, like flowers and baby animals and sunshine.

Weapons/Abilities: A single red rose (very thorny), a corset (prone to bursting), and a entire theater's troupe worth of angst (so angsty). May also be prone to generating small sentimental trinkets, the enormous significance of which has up until this point not been explained. Disarming good looks, heaving bosoms, the whole bit. If you don't love her now, you will by the time she dies in your arms.

Backstory: All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely props.

Name: Stroppford Stroppfordshire
Race: Hippotaur
Gender: All the genders

Description: One part horse legs. One part hippo-man. All parts hero. Clad in a sleek black and fuchsia and chartreuse Hippotaur suit, with intense eyes that change from black to gold whenever he senses stupidity; since he is extremely stupid his eyes are always gold. Wears a chinchilla hat made from his best friend who died in the war. Seven facial piercings inlaid with runes that don't do anything. Missing two hoofnails, still looking for them. Glorious rainbow tail that expels magic hippo dust whenever he shakes dat ass. Which is frequently.

Weapons/Abilities:
-Hipportalyzer, a device that teleports half of a person anywhere in their visual range
-Griddlechucks, waffle griddles in a linked array; standard issue of the Hippotaur army(consisting of only Stroppford)
-Thyme Balm, exactly what it sounds like
-Rainbow tail, full of hippo dust

Backstory: They didn't believe him when he said that the sky would run orange with entropic torrents of Tang. Well, they were right. But that doesn't mean Stroppford Stroppfordshire is going to just sit there and let Destiny punch him in the face.

So into the Burgerfields he wanders, when all of a sudden...

Name: RICKY RICARDO
Race: Quixillian. Four legged, two armed, headless creatures who act with only their sense of sound.
Gender: Hombre
Description: RICKY RICARDO is Quixil's #1 dancing star. He wears his "#1 Dancer" sash and his beautiful and flashy red dancing suit. He wears black tap shoes and skin tight pants. He cares about nothing other than the HONOR OF THE DANCE.
Weapons/Abilities: RICKY RICARDO IS THE BEST DANCER. EVER.
Backstory: THE BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEST.

Name: The UVM (Universal Variable Manipulator)
Race: Cardboard box
Gender: It
Description: The UVM is a lumpy cardboard box with the word "IMAGINATION" written on it in blue crayon with handwriting usually reserved for preschoolers. It weighs far more than an empty cardboard box should and refuses to open under any circumstances.
Weapons/Abilities: The UVM is a complex machine designed to control the environmental variables within several light years in order to bend the universe to its will. There's no logic behind claiming that the UVM has any kind of feelings or desires to do anything with its abilities. It's just a cardboard box. To say the UVM is anything else would just be silly.
Backstory: The UVM was developed in a secret lab by scientists for unknown reasons. Everything else is classified.

The Killer laughed wildly at the seven beings he had gathered. He'd considered grabbing more, but the prospect of their imminent death had tempted him too greatly to delay it any longer.

"Welcome, friends!" he cackled. "What's about to happen is very simple. You're all going to die."

He laughed for about fifteen minutes at the prospect, before finally regaining what passed for his composure.

"Well! Before we get to that, let's have some introductions, shall we? After all, these are the last moments of your life. You may as well get to know each other a bit in the little time you've got left!"

The Killer lunged towards a black-haired pirate, and violently pulled him to the front.

"This is Cornelius Blackheart, the Scourge of the Seven Seas! Or so he says, at any rate. He's a pirate worked with asbestos for a while. I think that covers the relevant details."

The Killer flung Cornelius aside unceremoniously, then grabbed a man with long red hair wearing padded clothing.

"This is Roger V. Nitroglycerine! He was injected with an experimental drug that improved his speed and reaction time, but it also makes him highly volatile. Throw him around too much and he explodes." The Killer started shaking him and laughed. "Not to worry, I've turned that off for a moment; don't want you dying before the main event, after all!"

The Killer flung a terrified Roger to the floor, then seized a cloaked man with a brown face.

"This here is Ricky. He's actually made of clay... magic clay, that is. It's pretty explosive. Yeah, he's another living bomb, so what? I like explosion!"

The Killer cackled with glee as he dropped Ricky on top of Roger, then pulled to the front a poetically woman dressed in Victorian clothing.

"This is Dramatis Persona. She's an elemental spirit of melodrama, or something like that. Lovely, isn't she? Yeah, she'll play that up. And then she'll die!"

The Killer resumed his laughing as he shoved the spirit aside, and grabbed the next competitor: some weird thing that looked like a mix of a hippo and a centaur.

"This is Stoppford Stroppfordshire. Ya see his eyes? They turn golden when he senses stupidity, which he always does because he's dumber than bricks. He also has a rainbow tail full of hippo dust, whatever that is, and some other weird junk, like a Thyme Balm. Anyways, he's going to die, just like the rest of you."

Laughing louder than ever, the Killer threw the Hippotaur aside and seized his next combatant-slash-victim: a four-legged, two-armed creature without a head.

"Here we have Ricky Ricardo, the #1 Dancer of the planet Quixil - as you can see by the sash he's wearing. He's the best dancer ever, and, well, that's it. I doubt it will save him from the horrible fate that awaits you all."

Once again, the Killer began cackling, and flung Ricky across the room, then pulled a closed cardboard box over to the front.

"And last, and also least, we have the UVM. It's a cardboard box, you can't open it, it was developed in a secret lab by scientists for unknown reasons, and you're not allowed to know anything else."

The Killer dropped the UVM on the floor, then snapped his fingers. Everyone found themselves standing in front of a brick wall; several armed men were standing in front of them.

"And now here's where you're going to die! This firing squad loves to shoot things, and guess what? You're all things! Of course, if you manage to escape that, there's lots more that can kill you all! I'd say good luck, but you'll all die in the end anyhow."

SpoilerShow

Guess what, everyone. You Are About 10 Seconds Away From Execution By Firing Squad!

As those of you who are familiar with the adventure know, this place is full of completely ridiculous and physically (and sometimes logically) impossible ways to die, so even if you deal with the firing squad itself, there's still lots of other ridiculous options for your deaths! Be creative, and have fun!

Upon arriving in front of the squad, the many guns aimed squarely at his non-existent head, RICKY RICARDO, Quixil's greatest dancer, scoffed at the men.

"Ha ha ha," he said, stepping forward and moving his arm flamboyantly, "You are all apparently very well armed, yes, but a simple perusal of Mon Visage will show that I have no head to shoot."

Ricky Ricardo continued his slow, rhythmic steps around the firing squad. "However, I am certainly one for fairness, as the heads and as such vital organs of the others are much more visible. As such, I will challenge you, to a DANCE OFF."

For a moment, the members of the firing squad looked to each other quizzically. True, they did not know where to shoot this odd alien, however, they could just shoot randomly. On the other hand, they were somewhat off-put by what seemed to be the disembodied voice that was speaking to them.

They agreed.

Moments later, Ricky Ricardo and one member of the firing squad were facing each other off.

Ricky started off with his famous left side twist flip, the dance that once killed his father. As much as it pained him to do, he needed to persevere for this battle.

When Ricky finished the first part of his routine, the chosen member of the firing squad had walked up to begin his response.

Meanwhile, the Martian equivalent of Colonel Buenadia, had just found a rocket ship and seemingly escaped his ruthless martian firing squad. The ship raced through the expands of space to a distant planet called Earth.

Unfortunately, when he began his descent to the planet, he had begun to lose control of the ship...

Back on the surface, Ricky Ricardo had just finished his third round of dancing. Both dancers were beginning to tire, but Ricky saw that his opponent would tire first. As he walked off of the circle, he smirked. Suddenly, the dancing Quixilian heard something odd.

All of the other people in the area ran off as the martian ship closed in. Ricky Ricardo's Quixillian senses heard the ship, causing Ricky to do what he did best. He danced around the ship, making a tango unlike any other. The weary dancer stood, his sash dripping with sweat. He could barley stand as he breathed as heavily as a Quixillian could.

However, he was not done. As the martian colonel evacuated the crashed ship, looking at the new Earth sky, something caught his eye. He squinted at the odd sparkles that seemed to grow larger. Then he panicked. The martian sprinted away from the crash site, hoping that he could escape this other squad.

Ricky Ricardo however, did not see these new ships until it was too late. The Martian firing squad, not being used to the slightly lighter skies on this planet, did not get a clear look at the being out in the small area next to the crashed ship. Ricky Ricardo, try as he might, dodged the first volley of shots masterfully, but... the Quixillian could not avoid them all.

The center martian ship had hit who he had thought was his mark, and Ricky Ricardo, the Quixillian dancing champion, was dead.

As Ricky realised his predicament he quickly forced himself to make a decision. Would he risk leaving himself able to explode or ruin his ability to either escape or defend himself? Speed and power would be massive sacrifices for resilience, even in a battle to the death And yet the master (no wait I'm not a slave anymore), the organiser promised their death. Would he really meet the end of his life?

He cut his thoughts short as the firing squad readied their weapons, items that were forged ahead of Ricky's time. He recognised the word "shoot", and that was enough to give him an idea of what their purpose was. As he made his peace with his life, he reflected on the short, fear driven life he had lived as a free man. He hadn't expected to be given a brief repose by another contestant, especially not an alien that was challenging the squad to a dance-off. He was thankful, and used the chance to sort out his explosive priorities.

'My head and chest are the largest targets, and since they also house my organs, I'll harden them. Just enough to give my arms and legs freedom to move. But if I fall or get hit in my limbs, there'll be nothing left of me.'

It took just enough time to protect his prime body parts when the dance-off was interrupted by an invasion. Ricky assumed it was some kind of comet strike and ran for his life, careful never to trip or look behind himself. Running was something Ricky had come to hate doing, his new mind screamed at him all the possibilities of exploding, experiencing a horrible death. However it soon became apparent that he was being chased. A single soldier had taken to his heels, and was occasionally trying to shoot.

Ricky cursed under his breath in despair. If he was still human he probably would have started crying, but his ability to do so was one of the many things he had lost in his transmogrification.

But he found what he would only hope was his salvation. He was quickly approaching a warehouse, and the door leading inside was ajar. He could find someplace to hide, or lose the soldier and escape. The soldier in question had even stopped firing, possibly because he needed to reload or had ran out of ammo entirely. Ricky gingerly slipped in, since knocking the door too hard could prove to be fatal, and quickly decided he had made a grievous error. The entire warehouse stank of explosive residue. Even the dark explosive puddles he had left during his flight didn’t smell as bad as the room he currently stood in. The warehouse was for storing bombs and other tools of war, and if anyone were to trigger just one, he knew the outcome would be fatal for any party within a hundred metre radius.

But he was trapped, with the way he had came leading to his assailant, so he instead began carefully jogging through the rooms and stockpiles, careful not to touch anything. He thought ahead, even if he were to escape, how long until the lone firing squad member caught up, or finally managed to shoot him? Ricky needed to get rid of him, and with a warehouse full of explosives, the thought he had just the ticket. He found a suitable hiding place and knelt down. Carefully placing his dominant hand over his stomach region, he forced his fingers into the touch clay, knowing just when to stop and cup his fingers around a special organ. The clay flowed around it as he pried it from his body, leaving no trace of clay on the yellow skin. It was originally a human kidney, now evolved into something entirely different.

A trigger. This organ gave Ricky the ability to detonate his body at will with weak electrical signals. He had a pair of them, but had to have one functioning in his body at all times, so that he could replicate them. It was advanced enough that he could leave them to send out a signal after a specific length of time had passed, even when it was not located in his main body. He gently placed it into his left hand, and with his right began pressing down around the bicep of that arm. The clay started turning a light brown, signalling that the clay was safe to ply and easier to remove. His arm came free, and with his remaining arm he gently sat the arm behind several large white sacks.

With the time bomb placed, Ricky was now able to return to the outside. He had not heard the soldier enter, but as he peeked at the entrance he realised the door was shut. The soldier must have closed it after he entered, so that he could hear it open if Ricky escaped. The clay man thanked his new fortune and quietly snuck towards the door. It was just on time that he finally reached out for the handle and turned.


Only to find the door resisting to his pull. A worried twitch affected Ricky’s eyes just as he realised that instead of entering a warehouse full of volatile explosives the soldier had just locked him in until reinforcements arrived.


And even with newly crashed alien soldiers arriving, all three parties of creatures turned to see the plume of smoke and fire that had just erupted on the horizon, marking the death of Ricky the free slave.

Cornelius was not drunk enough for this shit. There was some kind of dance off and alien invasion force or something, it was all too much for Cornelius to take in with this pounding headache. He watched as the firing squad chased away the other competitors in this battle. Finding himself completely forgotten about, he decided he would go in search of some alcohol to make this whole sorry mess make at least an ounce of sense. He pulled himself to his feet, straightened his jacket and hat and strode towards the nearest building he could see. In this state of confused sobriety he couldn't really make out that it was the jail until he was inside.

It was a sparsely decorated jail, at the far end of the room there was a row of cells in which sat a mustachioed and miserable looking man. In front of the cells the prison guard was leaning back in his chair reading a newspaper. As per regulations the keys to the jail were hanging from his pocket, just out of reach if someone were to try to grab them while trapped in the cells.

At Cornelius' clumsy approach the jailor looked up from his paper a look of outrage plastered across his face. "Hey you, aren't you supposed to be being put to death by firing squad?" The jailor asked.

"They let me off for good behaviour." Cornelius said. He leaned over the desk and pulled open the desk drawers. They were filled with knives and explosives, bottles of unmarked medicine and fragments of shattered glass. There was rather unfortunately no alcohol.

"I've not heard of that ever happening before." The jailor said suspiciously. "I should call this in."

"I wouldn't if I were you." Cornelius said. "The captain killed the other guys and it was such a rousing success that he went boozing and whoring and by now he's probably a little busy if you get my meaning." Cornelius paused in his search for alcohol looking the jailor in the eyes. "Where do you keep the booze?"

"But it was only five minutes ago." The jailor said.

"You questioning your captain's efficiency? That sounds like mutiny to me." Cornelius said. "I dare say you'd get a date with a firing squad of your very own if you go around questioning orders like a little communist. Now if are you done writing your own death sentence can you tell me where I can get a drink around here?" For a long moment the jailor stared at the pirate, his eyes probing Cornelius' face looking for some telltale sign that all this was bullshit. He couldn't find one.

"There isn't any in here." He said resignedly. "There's a bar just a little way from here."

"Think you could show me the way, provide me with a little coin of the realm perhaps?" Cornelius asked.

"I can't leave my post." The jailor said reflexively.

"What in case this reject escapes?" Cornelius asked. "Here let me save you a little time." He pulled from his waistband his flintlock pistol, and in one smooth movement he took aim on the unsuspecting prisoner and pulled the trigger. The bullet passed between the bars and into the prisoner's head killing him instantly.

Then that unhappened and Cornelius was standing looking at the prisoner very much alive, his hand upon his flintlock pistol. "What in the blazes was that about?" He demanded. The jailor gazed incomprehendingly at the prisoner, glancing back at Cornelius in bewilderment.

"I would advise against shooting the prisoner." The jailor said hesitantly. "I would have to arrest you."

"I did shoot him. Then I unshot him." He looked down at the uncomprehending jailor and decided to try another tack. "You know what it was probably pre-emptive drunkeness."

"Pre-emptive drunkeness?" The jailor asked.

"Yeah so you'd best get me to that pub unless you want to cause a paradox." Cornelius said. "If it's that sack of shit you're worried about we'll bring him with us."

"That's against regulations." The jailor said nervously.

"Yeah well haven't you ever heard of giving a dead man a good send off, a last night as it were?" Cornelius asked.

"No, not exactly." The jailor said. "It's pretty much protocol to keep prisoners locked up and not to go drinking with them."

"Ugh fine." Cornelius said. "Why do you have to be such a stick in the mud?" He strode around the desk, in one swift movement producing his cutlass from it's scabbard and resheathing it in the jailor's chest. "I try to be a reasonable guy but in the end it always comes down to the bloodshed." Cornelius sighed, grabbed the jailor's keys, pulled out his cutlass from the poor guy's chest and watched him die. "Such a pointless waste of life." He said. "And I guess this one is sticking."

After resheathing his cutlass, in it's scabbard this time, he strolled over to the prison cell spinning the keyring on his finger. "Hey prisoner guy." He said. "How did you do that before?"

Colonel Aureliano Buendia looked up at the stranger. Time after time he'd died one way or another, and each time something would snap him back, back to before he died and give him an opportunity to try again. Never before had anybody else noticed that it had happened. "You saw that?"

"I saw it." Cornelius said. "I want to know how you do it, and learn it for myself."

"Get me out of here and I'll teach you." The Colonel lied. Cornelius appraised the prisoner. He was certainly in a position in which Cornelius himself would have said anything to get out of it. He'd have said that day was night, that red was blue, hell even that cirque d'soleil was a fun and entertaining night out well worth the ticket price.

"Fine." Cornelius said. "But if you try any funny business I'll kill you again." pause. "And again. And you know just keep doing that until you get the point." The Colonel nodded. He'd worry about how to deal with the pirate when he got there, and so Cornelius warily unlocked the door.

Colonel Aureliano Buendia pushed open the door and stepped out of the cell. Cornelius indicated they leave immediately, he wanted to get pissed and he reckoned they would be back pretty soon. Colonel Aureliano on the other hand knew the moment he set foot out that door he would be dead. He needed a disguise. He started to change into the jailor's clothes, stopping only to instruct Cornelius in no uncertain terms to stop looking at him, he didn't swing that way. Finally he was ready to go.

Together they stepped out of the door, to a chorus of 'there he is' from guards that had assumed that jail was the last place a wanted man would want to go. The guards raised their rifles on the pair. Cornelius quickly pulled his cutlass and held it to the Colonel's throat.

"I'll kill yer jailor." He said. "Don't think that I won't. I'm particuarly good at killin' things." Even as he said it Cornelius knew there was no way out. The longer he hung around here the more armed guards headed towards them, and the greater the chance that The Colonel would be recognised. "What's yer secret?" He whispered. It was now or never.

The Colonel did not reply. There was a loud bang and there was nothing to reply to any more. The guard who took down Cornelius was a crack shot. There would probably be a commendation in his future. The corpse of the pirate fell to the floor and The Colonel backed away from it.

"I erm..." he started hesitantly. "I guess I'll go home and have a shower. Got no more prisoners to guard anyway." The other guards weren't interested. They had prisoners to hunt for. The Colonel slipped off, for the moment a free man.