Mugen Universe: Tournament of Champions- The Fanfiction Series

[Lord of Nonsensical Crap]

Honour among thieves . . .

Xelloss smiled as he looked down on the arena from his private balcony. In a few minutes, that upstart trickster's team would be humiliatingly defeated by his own hand-picked warriors. Seriously, Vellinor's team didn't stand a chance -- only that vampire and that psychic were a real problem, and they were mere insects against the likes of Inu-Yasha, Cutie Honey and Juggernaut. That would teach that other trickster to ambush him . . .

The Mazoku's thoughts were interrupted, however, when he heard an odd sound . . . something that sounded vaguely like a clucking chicken . . . . somewhere behind him. Curious, Xelloss stood up and looked behind his chair, only find nothing there. Shrugging, the Mazoku turned around, and saw a grinning Vellinor sitting in his chair.

"Nice seat you got here, Xella . . . Xeno . . . . Xolloss . . . . Mazoku Guy!" the Trickster God exclaimed cheerfully.

Xelloss' eyes narrowed in anger. "You," he hissed. He extended his hand, and, before Vellinor could react, incinerated both him and the chair in a blast of flame.

Satisfied that he'd gotten rid of this little intrusion, Xelloss conjured another chair and sat down -- and found Vellinor sitting in another chair opposite him, still grinning.

"Aw come on, just because I got your name wrong doens't mean you have to attack me, Xelloss!" Vellinor said. "See, I got it right this time!"

"Actually, that was for that unprovoked knee to the balls you gave me a few days ago," Xelloss replied icily, ready to for any dirty tricks on Vellinor's part.

"That? Pppph! You Mazoku get irate over the most trivial matters!" Vellinor scoffed.

Xelloss leaned back warily in his chair. "What do you want, exactly?" he asked. "You haven't come to pick a fight, have you?"

"Pick a fight? Please!" The trickster chuckled. "If I came to pick a fight, you'd be little more than a bubbling smear on the ground by now, wannabe!"

"You talk big for a lowly prankster," Xelloss countered with a slight grin.

Vellinor's own grin did not waver. "If I'm so lowly, then why, pray tell, are you and your Hell Lord masters having a collective hernia over me?" he sneered. "You can't hide stuff from me, sucka! I've got eyes on the back of my head!" With that, Vellinor pulled back his hood and tilted his head forwards, revealing a pair of toy google-eyes taped to the back of his head.

"Oh, how very amusing," Xellos muttered. "If you're not here to pick a fight, then why are you here? Other than to inneffectively taunt me, that is."

Vellinor sat back upright, his grin widening. "Why simple, my dear Xelloss!" he said cheerfully. "Are you a betting man?"

Now it was Xelloss' turn for his grin to widen. "Oh, I make bets all the time!" he said. "Usually on peoples' souls, but that's beside the point!"

"In that case, hows about we make a little bet?" the Trickster God offered. "If my team wins, you owe me . . .. oh, about five billion dollars. And a Vespa. And a PSP."

"Done!" Xelloss replied. "And if my team wins, you owe me your soul. And the command of your God-Killer."

"Dealio!" Vellinor extended his hand. "Let's shake on it, pal!"

"Kindly remove your hand buzzer first," the Mazoku said warily.

The Trickster sighed and slipped his buzzer off. "Aw, you Mazoku are no fun . . . "


Coming Soon: Team Vellinor vs. Team Beastmaster begins!

[Golden Darkness]

The Battle Between the Halves of Light and Darkness, Prelude - The Player's Headache

The Player's Main Base of Operations:

"So... do you think the Player has calmed down now?" Leo wondered loudly, as the two VG Cats walked down the hallways of the massive complex that housed the center of the Player's major operations.

"Are you nuts? Don't you remember how angry he was when he stormed out of his own meeting?" Aeris interjected. "Or how angry he looked when he returned without being able to talk to this Celes-person?"

"He left a note with that Rayden guy, didn't he?" Leo stated, oblivious to Aeris' being a bit miffed that he wasn't getting the picture, yet.

"Of course he did, but that isn't the point," Aeris replied, "Don't you know how long it takes him to work out his anger?"

"No, and that's why I'm asking," Leo answered, "I just don't want him angry when we tell him what happened to Carmen."

"Rrrrrr... you're hopeless, you know that?" Aeris shook her head. They were at the door to the Player's office now. Strangely, the usual sounds of rapid fire typing that was usually present when he was in his office, were not to be heard.

"Hmmm... maybe he isn't in his office?" Leo pondered. Aeris slapped her forehead.

"He's hasn't left it, you dope, or security would have known." With that Aeris opened the door...

... only to find the Player slumped over his desk.

"OMIGOSH! HE'S DEAD!!!" Leo exclaimed. Aeris ran up to the desk and quickly confirmed that was not the case.

"Leo, he's not dead."

"Oh... drunk with a hangover?"

"I don't think the Player is going to give up that bit of morals because of what happened yesterday." Aeris sighed. "Quick, get something with caffeine."

"Hot coffee?"

"No! I heard the Player has an aversion to hot coffee after that trouble with Take Two or something. Get him a hot chocolate or one of those Red Bull drinks or..." Aeris quickly stopped when there was suddent movement from the Player.

"No... no... this can't be... I can't be responsible for this... I... can't... be... responsible..." Aeris quickly took a step back, as the Player's flailing movement revealed that he was dreaming, and that what he was seeing in his dreams, he really really didn't like.

"Hmmm... so he's dreaming," Leo remarked. "I wonder what he is dreaming."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOO!" Both cats took a step back as the Player's head shot up from the desk as he was trying to break out from the dream.

"On second thought," Leo commented, "Maybe I shouldn't know."

Coming Soon: More buildup, the dream revealed, the scheming of the Boss and the Deadly Alliance, and finally the explosive match between Team Savior and Team Darkside.

OOC: Sorry about this damn short post. I'll try to have most of the next stuff up tomorrow sometime.

[OverMaster]

-The Bloody Insane Loli Syndrome: Bulleta vs. Evil Tomoyo, Round 2-

A couple of hours ago:

As the dawn approached, both opponents sized each other, each one of them with a perturbed glint in her eyes, while everyone around them fell into a stunned silence. Tomoyo Daidouji kept her crowbar firmly gripped between both small hands, and Baby Bonnie Hood took a more swashbuckling approach to her casual handle of her huge, sharp machete; nonethless, both of them seemed all too ready to lunge forwards and kill the other at any moment.

The impulsive Hood made the first move on the more cold-blooded Daidouji. Tomoyo dodged aside the machete swipe with ease, and swung the crowbar aside, just to have the red hooded blonde quickly ducking under it. Hood countered with a leg sweep, bringing her down to the floor on her butt. Then she swung her weapon down to the now sitting Tomoyo, but she blocked the machete with the Evil Crowbar. They struggled then, with Hood's superior strenght giving her more and more advantage at each moment, making the shorter, younger girlie to lose ground quickly, the blade nearer to her face at each passing second.

"ENOUGH!" Miroku yelled again. "Stop it!! This is insane; you're going to kill yourselves!!".

"That's the idea, Padre!" Hood snarled back angrily, but then Tomoyo took advantage of her momentary distraction to kick her hard in the stomach and make her to stumble back gasping for air.

"Oh man, this is great!" Deadpool seemed fascinated. "So wrong, yet so... alluring in a way..." he sighed. "Might I suggest to bring some mud and--".

"Do it and you die, sicko" Nami and Naga chorused at once.

The girls' weapons collided once more, and then the crowbar's mass and thickness edge trumped the machete, rendering it useless by actually bending it and almost breaking it. Cursing under her breath, Hood threw the weapon back as she gracefully avoided another of Tomoyo's strikes. "WADE! THE PIPE!".

Deadpool stuck a hand into the picnic basket left next to him and pulled out a long piece of leadpipe. "Here, catch it!" he said as he threw it to his teammate. The blonde caught it in the air with a hand and used it to block Tomoyo's next hit. Sparks flew from the clash of both metal pieces, and the girls groaned in unison, frustrated.

"Give it up" Hood snarled. "I can see you lack training... Your rage, your passion, is strong, but you sorely lack focus, and skill...".

"Passion?" Tomoyo smirked in a disturbing way, but then again everything is disturbing in this subplot. "Why, thanks. That's what Sakura-chan always tells me...".

Then, much to Hood's surprise, she just waved the crowbar in the other direction... and quickly, with an arc trajectory, brought it down on her head, breaking through her skull.

"OH GODS!!" Miroku cried in horror, eyes bulging out, as Nami gasped loudly. "She killed her!!!" he shouted, seeing Hood to crumple down to her knees with her hands on her bleeding head.

"Ha, hah" Tomoyo laughed pointing down at her. "Not bad for an amateur, right, Miss Bigshot Huntress?".

"Hood-chan!" the monk rushed to the Darkstalker's side to help her. "Hold on, please! I will--".

"Hands offa me" the blonde grumbled throatily, pushing him aside, her wound beginning to heal with inhuman quickness. "This is only a flesh wound...".

"Huh?" Miroku looked at her head. "What sort of--".

"We have... a gift granted on us by the Authors" Deathstroke explained calmly. "As long as they want, we just can't be killed, ever".

And right then, with above peak human speed, Hood took advantage of the moment to surprise Tomoyo... impaling her through the stomach with the leadpipe. She snickered. "Gotcha... Amateur".

"GAHH!" Nami was bewildered. "Another murder! They didn't say anything about this when they recruited me!".

Tomoyo coughed up some red, gasped wildly for air... and then just grinned perversely. "Very good... But I have that very same gift since the day I was born. Why, Sakura-chan and me always are killing each other just for kicks...".

She dislodged the bloody pipe from herself and handed it to Hood as her own huge wound also healed. "You are very skilled, I must admit it" Tomoyo monotoned, even though she was smiling. "Tell you what. Have you heard about that clandestine side-event they'll be having tomorrow?".

"Yeah. I am so going to enter it" Hood eyed her with interest. "Why?".

"Let's end this there" Tomoyo suggested. "At a field of honor. If I beat you, you'll be my personal slave just like Sakura-chan was. If you beat me, I'll do whatever you want, as your slave, instead. What do you say?".

"Is this... for real?" Skinner doubted, still in disbelief.

"Kids nowadays, huh?" Deadpool smirked under his mask.

"You got a deal, sister!" Hood smiled back at Tomoyo, confidently. "I'll beat you silly and make you my own private punching bag!".

"And I thought Lina was a twisted kid when I first met her..." Naga groaned.



Next: The Golden Glory- Mara vs. Booster Gold.

[T51R]

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark...DETONATE!





“So,” he frowned as he shot through the roads on the fringes of the Tournament grounds, opening up the throttle as far as it would go, the deep blue Yamaha screaming at the top of its metallic lungs as it tore through the landscape, “The Mirror of the Yata‘s been stolen. Not good.” His thoughts wandered back to the half-Jurian who was still being held in stasis, floating weightlessly in the back of the Black Ops van, the mobile base of the Office of Area Reclamation and Reconstruction. “And to top it off, it looks like Celestine‘s pulling out all the stops this time.” He remembered the fight he had watched the previous day. Something was off, he thought to himself as the wind ripped through his pale white hair, especially with the ones who had tried to fight him before. He recognised the suit of living armour as well as the diminutive State Alchemist, not to mention the blue-haired android and their white-suited, airborne striker. Something was different about the way they had fought in the arena, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

The Orochi bore down and streaked towards the nearest town.

Wait, he thought, as he remembered the first time Celestine’s teams had seen action in the Tournament venue, when they had fought over the young man and women who had seemingly gone insane. He cursed himself for not realising it earlier; they had been holding back then but in the arena, all hell had broken loose. Not in the literal sense, he speculated, but in their hearts and minds. He had seen it before in countless cases; during both World Wars that had been the result of his efforts to cleanse the planet of mankind, the Orochi had watched with interest as men on both sides of the conflict abandoned reason for raw, primal instinct. He had watched, the God of Destruction, as soldiers had abandoned empty weapons to charge into the entrenchments of their enemies, bayonets in hand. He had watched, the Destroyer of Humankind, as every brutality committed damned the souls of men. “So. That‘s what happened.” He swung the bike around on its front wheel and plunged down a flight of stairs leading to the sleepy town below, the back wheel hopping uncontrollably as he throttled up and finally found purchase again on the blacktop. “Desperation.” He slammed on the brakes, and cruised to a stop. Stepping off of the elder Morisato’s bike, he kicked the stand down and began down a dingy alleyway full of society’s dregs. He glanced around, at the once-affluent denizens of a society that was slowly being eradicated by the Kaiju as well as numerous other natural disasters around the globe.

“So, this is all of them?” he mumbled, as a scrap of newspaper highlighting a UFO sighting years ago blew onto his leg. He picked it up and browsed through the article with passing interest, then looked over the human toll of Heaven’s Will: hundreds of injured and homeless lined the alley, bloody bandages piled high near the medical stations where makeshift surgical bays built out of tents and plastic sheets muffled the wind upon which screams of pain swept skywards. They were running out of supplies, he reasoned, the screams, the humans were performing life-saving operations without the patient benefits of anaesthetics. “Damn you Belldandy,” he cursed the Goddess, “damn you…not even the humans deserve this, even though they‘re scum.” The God of Destruction stopped beside a young man, his face contorted with pain as he clutched the stump of a leg. The torn flesh and gnawed bone spoke of how he had lost it: a Meganula. Beside him, two young girls clutched his hands, beseeching him not to give in to the agony. “What‘s your name?” the God of Destruction asked.

“His name,” one of the girls next to him replied, “is Kamishiro. Kamishiro Maiku,” she began to sob. “We…we were being evacuated, and suddenly, all these monsters fame from the sky…they…he tried to protect us…he…Maiku…” she began to sob uncontrollably. Next to her, the other girl, this one with emerald-green hair looked up at him with eyes devoid of hope.

“Why…why is this happening!? We haven‘t done anything wrong, we‘ve only started living…as a family...we‘ve only known each other for such little time…”

The Orochi looked with scorn upon them at first, but then reason overcame his raw hatred of the human garbage at his feet. “How old are you?” They did not look old enough to have been making much money, he thought to himself, and as if to answer him the girl on the left of the dark-haired boy opened up her wallet, and then threw it aside. Empty.

“Please,” she grabbed at his coat, pleading with him with her eyes. “Please, lend us some money! I have to get Maiku bandages! Please, he‘ll bleed to death! His…his leg‘s getting infected!” The Orochi looked down at the boy, and saw that she spoke the truth.

“Who are you,” he asked her, “and how old are you?”

“Miyafuji, Mina…” she grabbed harder to his coat, and the God of Destruction realised that she didn’t know exactly who or what she was talking to. “We‘re…we‘re only in high school, Maiku was taking care of us, please! He‘s dying! Help us!” Three children, the Orochi thought to itself, surviving on their own with the eldest the main breadwinner as the younger ones pitched in however they could. They could not have contributed much to the planet being in the state it had been in before the great Tournament began, before his hand had been forced.

“And you?” he looked to the other girl, and then into the distance where a long line of injured awaited medical attention. He could tell that the boy wouldn’t make it; his Ki was fading. Rapidly.

“Onodera, Karen” was her reply.

“You will have to choose how he will be saved,” he answered. “He can drink of my blood, and become one of my Heavenly Kings when he comes of age. He can now sacrifice to me his soul, and live forever within the Place of Nothingness. Or,” he turned back to the long line of injured, many in worse shape than the boy was. “you can choose to remove these people from your path, and bring him to the doctors in their stead. I will take their Ki, their life force, and leave Maiku as the only one left to be saved. Choose.”

Mina looked up at the God of Destruction with nothing but sheer determination in her eyes. “No. If those are our only choices, then we‘ll take care of him ourselves. To the end, if that‘ what it takes. He‘s our brother,” she explained. “The three of us, we have the same mother. We were born at the same time. And if it comes down to that, then I‘ll gladly be here when my brother…” she began to weep, but found several American bills thrust into her hand as the man before here turned and left. Without another word, she sprinted for the closest store. A store on the other side of town, a place that had not yet been besieged for supplies, medical or otherwise. All the while however, in her head, a voice echoed.

“You know that all of you are going to die eventually,” the voice of the Orochi spoke to her, “why do you insist on fighting for your brother‘s life, even when death is inevitable for humans?”

“Because,” she gritted her teeth though the pain of a once-shattered knee playing up again, “Because he‘s all we have, we‘re the only family we know, because he‘s my bother!”




-Across town, several minutes later…-




“Boss,” the Monkey King made his way onto the now-abandoned playground towards where the God of Destruction sat alone at the top of the climbing frame, sipping on a can of beer. “These were all I could find. I‘m sorry, but the Pantheon that I used to know have fortified themselves inside the Celestial Fortress. They fear the same fate as the four Multiverses that have disappeared.” Wukong handed over his list, and the God of Destruction frowned at how short it was.

“Shit,” he muttered. “You‘d think that Gods and Goddesses these days would at least have some balls.” He began to read the list over. “The Greater, Intermediate and Lesser powers of the Realms. The Demi-powers of the Realms. Asgorath and Zorquan. Aerdrie Faenya, Hanali Celanil, Rillifane Rallathil, Titania of the Faerie folk, Sekkerit, Eachthigern, Amalinator, Tyche…” he continued reading. “so these are the only ones who were willing to help?” The Orochi crushed the can of beer as soon as he had finished it, threw it aside and sighed. “The Realms dieties, huh? They haven‘t been seen or heard from for ages, sitting pretty in their own little corner of His creation, that little handful of dimensions given t them at the beginning of time. Think we can depend of them?”

[T51R]

The Great Sage jumped onto the climbing frame and sat next to the deity he served, his Naibo, Ryui now feeling as natural in his hands as it did thousands of years ago when he first reigned chaos in Heaven. “The truth boss? They don‘t know what happened to those aspects of Creation that went missing. I didn‘t tell them about the Dimension Tide anomalies either.”

“They wouldn‘t understand it anyway,” the Orochi replied, folded the list and stowed it away in his pocket. It was, after all as good as a contract when it came time to summon allies. “They locked themselves away for so long I doubt that they‘d understand how Yggdrasil functions here and now. Hell, throw them in a room with Washu and they‘d all go nuts inside of ten minutes. The most important thing is,” he cracked open a couple of brews and offered one to is subordinate, “if they‘re willing to put everything on the line. We know that something is out there, we just don‘t know what it is that could overload Yggdrasil‘s sensor grid just by showing up is all.”

Wukong took an envelope from under his cape and handed it to the God of Destruction. “Alaniel‘s report. Managed to get a copy of it from Flonne. Lady Washu‘s report on the anomaly‘s also in there in the second stack. There‘s also a study on the Dimension Tide activity I thought you‘d be interested in.”

“Looks like you‘ve grown up some,” the Orochi chuckled, “I remember when you first started out with us, we couldn‘t get three hours worth of sleep before you started pranking on us like crazy! And look at you now, forward-thinker and all. Guess becoming enlightened really does something for you, huh?”

“I guess,” the Monkey King shrugged, lighting up a cigarette. “even a monkey has to grow up sometime.” He watched as the Orochi thumbed through the documents, its face devoid of emotion. Wukong exhaled, and watched the smoke curl away into the still air of the tiny town. He had hated it at first, the Great Sage, considered by many to be the Equal of Heaven, being told that he would have to work in a completely new system. Over time however, almost a thousand years worth, he had come to appreciate the intricacies of the establishment. More often than not finding loopholes which allowed for his trickery to go unpunished.

“Holy shit,” the God of Destruction stared at a particular piece of paper with a Chousein’s seal stamped at the bottom of it. “Dimensional Cascade!? Multiplanar engagement capabilities!? Spatial-reality/dimensional-reconstructive manipulation!? Can‘t the woman write stuff in plain English!? I don‘t get any of this!”

“Maybe we should have Shader take a look at…” Both the Great Sage and the God of Destruction looked up, and found the Neko-Demoness standing proudly in front of them. “Well speak of the devil-lady.”

“Well now,” the God of Destruction crushed his second can of beer. “Guess we all know what this means, huh?” he turned to the Monkey King. “So, whose side are you on?” Around them, Uruk-hai appeared from the alleyways and from the bushes while Mazoku manifested. Devils as well as Sinners burst forth in clouds of ash spewed from the earth itself in geysers. The Nazgul soared overhead, the shrill cries of the Fell Beasts piercing the air. The Orochi’s answer came soon enough as Sun Wukong, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven stood with his back towards him and twirled the Naibo under his arm. “Nice to see I‘ve got one friend left in the Multiverse.” Behind the pair, the Black Ops van pulled up, and several more Devils together with their Contractors dismounted. More Uruk-hai joined in the ambush, and finally Aion himself appeared atop the van.

“Ah, how the mighty fall…” he sighed, while pushing his glasses further up his nose.

Wukong glanced over at the God of Destruction, who nodded back and then spoke to the unholy gathering around them. “Hope you guys got your act together…” a cryptic smile formed across his lips. “Because whoever can‘t hack it is gonna be taking that long sleep!”

Moments later, bolts of Heavenly Lighting and thunderous impacts of Wukong’s Naibo split the sky and earth amidst clouds of ash, as screams of Sinners, Devils, Mazoku and Uruk-hai filled the air.



Next...Storylines finally converge, as the unthinkable happens and Twist of Fate begins!

[J Dog]

Mimi and Sora- Conclusion

"Let me get this straight," Jack told the misfortuned duo with a frown on his face. "You got annoyed at me laughing at a video on YouTube, so in order to buffer out my obnoxious laughter, you put on your suits so you may talk to each other in peace, and NOW you can't get your helmets, and thus, the rest of your suits, off. Do you know how dumb that makes you two?"

"Jack," Mimi sobbed, "Just help us. Don't be sarcastic." But Jack wasn't finished just yet; he had walked to the door. "Okay, you two, I will teach you a simple lesson to avoid problems like this." He grabs the door. "This is called a door. What you do with it is that you close it for privacy and to muffle out any outside noises... unless the noises are coming from near the door iteslf." He demonstrates by closing the door, when it broke off and nearly hit Sora. "Now, usually, you don't see that."

"Look, Jack. I know you don't believe us, but what happened has just happened, okay?" Sora bitterly said. "Stop being a jerk and help."

"I'm not being a jerk!" Jack told them. "I just fail to understand that you two would just PUT ON suits when you could've gone outside or closed the door or even have written what you were going to say. Have you two gone bonkers?!!!" It was that when Mimi slaps him in the cheek. "Quit acting like one, and help us NOW!" She yelled.

"Okay, okay, okay. Don't pull an air hose." Jack told her. "Damn." He starts by placing the two under his arms. "Normally, this would look mean, but I don't have much ideas." He then starts to pull and move at the same time, hoping to dislodge the female Digidestined's helmets.

"Careful, Jack." Mimi told him. "I don't want my head pulled off, too." But he dosen't even pull off her head, much less her helmet, because he trips and falls onto the carpet with Mimi and Sora.

"You know, I still fail to understand what you did." He moaned "And, as I said, I don't have much ideas up my sleeve." It was that he figured that grease would make the section that combines the helmet with the abdomen armor slippery, and thus, easier to dislodge. Or so he thought. "If I were you, Sora, I'd take care of Mimi right here before she loses it. I gotta get some... 'things'." He runs off.

In the kitchen of the dorm, two chefs were busy preparing the meal at the time, when Jack barges into the kitchen, still thinking about that line where they say that Jar Jar Binks can defeat Battle Droids instead of Mace Windu, accidentally trips over his own shoe and stumbles, face-first, into a cake. The first chef, a Koopa Troopa, seeing this, rushes towards Jack and hits him.

"Ack! Zee fool!" Chef Torte yelled as he hit Jack with a spatula. "Whaz you'ze doing?!!"

"Aagh! What the hell is wrong with you?!!" Jack yelled. "My god! It's just a cake!"

"It'z not just a cake, but ze cake, youz fool!" Torte replied with another whack on the face. Not enjoying it, Jack instinctively unslinged his hammer and hit Torte, knocking him across the kitchen into a room with a door that said "Rat Traps".

"Oh boy." Jack said with a sweatdrop as Torte came out covered with activated rat traps. "Dude, I'm so sorry about the cake and that, but really, what gave?"

"Um... if ze would listen for a moment, than I'd be more then willing to tell ya." Chet R. Chase, the other chef, replied. "We were making this cake for the winner of the next matchup at ze dome."

"Dudes, there are THREE domes now." Jack told them. "I don't know if you are behind schedule or you primarly focus on the de facto winner.

It was that when Torte and Chet looked at each other with a glance that said "You are the biggest moron that ever cooked". Jack saw a stick of butter on a counter and grabbed the butter. "I came here to borrow this butter, is that okay?" Rather than getting a reply, the two chefs started bickering. It was best to leave.

*********

"Sora... I'm... a dummy for all of this." Mimi said. "Sorry about the suits and everything."

"Mimi, it was MY idea to put them on. It isn't your fault." Sora calmly said. "It's alright. Don't panic about it."

"Well... you say it. But, this isn't really the best thing to happen to us. I mean, if Jack can't get us to get the suits off, we might spend a good part of the tournament wasting our time reloading our airtanks, like, twice a day. And the rations that are in these things don't really taste good. I tried one, and, bleh." She stuck her tounge out. This was that when Jack came in with the butter, somewhat melted. "You aren't going to cook us?" Mimi said, laughing a bit.

"Hah hah hah." Jack impersonated Krankor dully. "Look, just follow along, okay?" He placed the stick on both of their suits and started to pull them off. Instead of the best-case scenario in which the helmets plopped out almost instantly, the worst-case scenario happened; Jack fell almost immediately. "This is starting to piss me off, gals!" Jack said. "Sorry for saying that, but this isn't supposed to happen." He thought for a moment. "I know someone who can help you two out."

Within moments, Jack had Mimi and Sora with Monty Montahue. Jack explained the situation to the man who created Robotman, with Monty nodding. Mimi and Sora added about the upcoming duel with Cosette.

"I see." Monty said. "Dave-7, do we have the tools for this job?" With that, Dave-7 (or Mr. Pi) opened up a Craftsman tool box. "Nope, not really."

"Crud." Monty moaned. "Look, we have to see Dilbert, the guy who updated your suits. Is that cool?"

"Fine by me." Jack told him. It was that with the alien, the nerd, the two Digidestined, and the H-Towner walked to Dilbert's trailer and opened it... to see Kaiba passed out on the couch, still hogtied. Jack went in first.

"What the hell is Kaiba doing here?" Jack asked out loud. The door slammed shut, leaving him seperate from the other four. Dogbert appeared near him. "Bad time to see this, pretty boy." He smiled.

That was short-lived; Monty had managed to pick the lock and the door opened. "You all are persistant." Dogbert frowned.

"Look, Dogbert." Dave-7 said to the canine, "We need to see Dilbert."

"To be honest, I don't know where he is?" Dogbert replied. However, that was a bit of a lie; he knew where Dilbert went.

"You know, this dosen't help much." Mimi whined a bit, with Sora holding her.

(Oh, OM, it's cool about that, I understand. This oughta keep me busy for a while)

[OverMaster]

-The Golden Glory: Mara vs. Booster Gold, Part 1-

The Joker advanced with his head high towards the Arena, ignoring the boos and hisses the public was throwing at him, a look of half-comical smugness on his long facial features. However, when a tomato was thrown to his head, he finally gave an angry glare back at the crowd, and the mass murderer's reputation, coupled with the sheer viciousness of that silent stare, managed to drive almost everyone into a sudden stunned silence.

Satisfied with that, the Clown Prince continued advancing following the rest of Team Nifelheim. When he passed near the seats the rest of Batman's Rogues Gallery was at, though, something made him to stop, catching his attention.

Another grinning Joker was sitting there, looking straight at him.

The bat-clad Joker blinked, then frowned. "Oh. Oh, I get it. Very funny! Har der-har har, Clayface!!".

Then the other Joker's face distorted itself, changing to a still grinning, but in a much more bestial way, mess of mud with two deformed yellow eyes on it. "Try not to be mauled too much, Joker" Clayface mocked him.

"But in any case, we will lament your decease, if it happens..." the Penguin smiled caustically, "with a party in your honor!".

"Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence, fellas" the Clown Prince replied. "No wonder you all are like brothers to me!".

"Puddin'!" Harley Quinn leaned forwards and gave him a big sloppy kiss on a cheek. "For the good luck!". She winked an eye at him.

Two-Face flipped his silver coin, and saw it landing showing its scarred side. "Hm. The bad side. I guess that's a good omen for you...".

"Whatever will be, will be!" Joker shrugged, and walked away, covering the rest of his way to his team's bunker. "But if we win, I'm counting on you guys throwing a victory party for me!".

"We will, Mistah J, we will...!!" Harley yelled enthusiastically.


At the same time, Goenitz walked up to Hanagata and gave him a card. The thin blonde man nodded, and read through the microphone, "Aaaaaand, dear public, this is the lineup Team Nifelheim will be following! Lady Mara as First Fighter, Powerpuff Girl Bell as the second attacker, and The Joker as the third fully active member! Leopold Goenitz will be acting as their designed Striker!!".

Mara walked up onto the Arena, and Hanagata continued, "So, the first round will be Lady Mara vs. Booster Gold, the Justice League's famous 'Man of Gold'!".

"Good luck, Booster" Blue Beetle shook his best friend's hand.

"Thanks for the wish, Teddy, but you'd better worry for that demon-babe instead" Jon Michael smirked with a wink. Then flew into the Arena with the Stark-improved armor he was wearing, and landed in front of Hanagata and Mara. "OK, I'm all ready!". He gave Mara a roguish look. "Care for a date after this? I normally go for the good girls, but I could make an exception in your case" he joked.

"You wish" she grumbled.

"Scenario Setting Number 453: Paradise Island, around Queen Hyppolita's Royal Palace" Washu's recorded voice came to life again, as the ring took the shape of a paradisiac landscape of green fields and lucious trees.

"Ah, what a pretty place" Booster looked all around himself. "Now I don't understand why Diana doesn't spend more time at home with her Mom".

"You know the rules, friends!" Hanagata yelled through his mike. "No killing! No hurting poor lil' me! First one to get thrown out of the ring, pinned down or knocked out at a count of ten, or to surrender like a crybaby, loses! I repeat again: no killing and no hurting me!".

"We got it already, buffoon!!" Mara yelled. "We aren't idiots! Just start over with this already!".

Mitusurugi cried some streams of cartoon tears. "I never get any respect... Fine, fine, then! TEEEEAM NIFELHEIM...! VEEEEEERRRSUS! TEEEEEEEEAM JLAVENGERS! ROUND! ONE! FIGHT!!!!".



Next: Mara vs. Booster Gold, Part 2- Going for the Gold!

[KingEli]

Marvel Super Villian Team-Up:

Doom's Quaters:

"Hmmmm.........Interesting." Said Doom working on a Computer with The Demoness Mara's File on it. "Power over Fire and Lighting, weaknesses: Garlic and Rock n' Roll. Next." Said Doom to his computer showing the next file on the computer showing Bell

"I must thank Loki for this......."

Last Night, Just outside of The Grounds:

"I see you've called me Trickster.............what for?" Said Doom

"To call for an alliance, as we done in the Past." Replied Loki

"Is this some sort of game Asguardian?" Said Doom

"No Game, I need thys assitstance Doom. It seems that another player in this game of chess. Another Trickster it seems. Thou goes by Vellinor."

"Oh Jealous are we?" Said Doom with a Chuckle

"Don't take this lightly Von Doom. He maybe the most Dangerous foe in this game, I have herd Rumors that he is also in the hunt for ultimate power...........Something you care about very much."

"Doom does not fear his Rivals..........yet you make a point Loki. Why be aganist one another where we can combine our forces to fight our Rivals?"

"My point exacly, and for 'payment' here these 'disk' as you mortals call them have information on Every Fighter in the Tournament. Use them well." Loki said before disappearing.

Present:

"I must thank him indeed. Next Computer.......Jedah Doma, maybe the biggest obstacle in the tournament."

[Golden Darkness]

The Battle Between the Halves of Light and Darkness, Prelude - The Player's Headache, continued

The Player's Dreamscape:

Gone.

All gone. Everything was all gone.

Well, not everything. The tournament ground still remained. But everything surrounding it was nothing but a swirling abyss of colors, signifying that reality was surely being erased from existance.

In the middle of the grounds, a shadowy figure stood, consuming the souls of those who have died to increase its power, so it could lay waste to the many opponents that sought to stop it.

"No... this can't be..." the Player gasped, as the figure proceeded to kill all who faced it.

*This shall be the ultimate result that will stem from that choice you made so long ago... Wes... *

"I can't be responsible for this... I... can't... be... responsible..."

*But you are. Your choice will create this event. That's why you must use what we have given you wisely, so you can change the future...*

The Player looked up to see the figure now aiming a blast at him. The light of the gathering energy illuminated the figure's face, allowing the Player a clear look at it.

Before the Player to react to the realization who he was looking at, the energy blast was fired towards him, engulfing his vision in pure whiteness.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOO!"

The Player's Office:

The Player woke up with a gasp, ignoring the looks of the two VG Cat protagonists.

Leo was the first to speak. "Um sir... are you alright?"

The Player turned to the gray-colored anthromorphic cat. "No Leo... not especially what I saw..."

"What did you see?" Aeris inquired. "It must have been heck of a nightmare. And why did you go to sleep anyway? I heard you went a couple of months without sleeping."

The Player paused, trying to catch his thoughts for the moment. "You two, can you promise me to keep what I tell you a secret for the moment."

"Um... sure?" confusingly went Leo.

"That will do. Anyway... you know all that Pantheon info? I've never told anyone this but I was given that info by a janitor in Heaven."

"A janitor in heaven?" remarked Aeris.

"Yes... kinda surprised me too. Well, it turns out that janitor was a plant from a group of high level deities, similar to those Authors bandied about, known as D.E.M. And this group was responsible for inducing me to sleep and sending me this dream."

"And what did you dream?" asked Leo.

"The dream was a message from them... telling me that a choice I made in the past... will result in the rise of the one who will destroy everything. And I mean everything."

"Who?"

"Belldandy's... dark side..."

The Boss' Base of Operations:

The Boss smiled as he contemplated the recent events. Two of the Player's teams have loss, with the Player's main power house team, the Troubleshooters, out of the picture with a devastating defeat. And what a defeat that was.

Of course that won't compare to what will happen today.

"Sir." The Boss looked up to see Jadeite enter the room. "I have some updates for you."

The Boss nodded and allowed Jadeite to speak.

"It seems General Grevious is apparently in place to strike the tournament grounds, with some of them targeting the surrounding hotels."

The Boss, being privy to what the Sidiouses were planning, just nodded. He knew that those two Siths were plotting behind his back, apparently showing that they were more concerned with having loyal apprenticies than supplying forces to his cause. Of course, he had only wanted their resources anyway. Most of the people manning their fleets were concerned with keeping the peace and eliminating what they thought were terrorists and anarchists. Not exactly pure evil.

While he wasn't going to put a stop to these plans, and he may suppliment the attacks himself, he was going to show those two Sith that planning behind his back wasn't a good idea. Not that he was going to keep them around for much longer anyway. He had a real Sith in the wings.

"The reason the hotels are targets is that apparently those close to the Force users in the tournament are staying there."

"Ahh... I see. Well, then maybe we should put some of our suicide bombers to good use, hmmm? And I think some of the plans made by the foes of the Power Rangers can fit into this. Anything else?"

"Yes... the clone of Sailor Mercury that has been created... it's flawed."

"Flawed how?"

Jadeite pulled a piece of paper and handed it to the Boss. "The cloners were using this as a reference to how that Senshi looked like. And I know she doesn't look like this."

The paper in question was a sketch from an H-Manga, that showed the Senshi of Water in all her glory. However the artist who drew the sketch gave her a figure comparable to one Koyori Kokubunji, at least according to some otaku.

"How are we going to switch the Senshi if they can see such an obvious difference in her figure? I demand you punish those cloners and oversee the creation of a perfect clone."

The Boss looked at the Dark General's face and gave a stern look. "Fool, I gave them that piece of paper. I wanted her altered. But no worries, the monster I intend to send has a special technique that affects woman. The Senshi will think Mercury will have fallen victim to it. Now, is there anything else?"

Jadeite, keeping his thoughts of how the Boss was very perverted out, quickly answered him. "Those in your mecha building divisions are not happy with your command that they provide good parts to that Team Rocket group in the tournament, especially the stuff that came from those raids on the Gundam worlds. They want to know why."

"Simple, I think thsoe so-called criminals have potential. I thought it should be... nurtured. It's possible that Team Nuisance will prove to be... more than a nuisance for everyone else in the tournament. Of course if they fail... well... they are always expandable... and that will make their boss very happy."

OOC: Finally, gotten past all this stuff I wanted to write. Next up, a set of twins meet the mother they never knew, and the two teams get ready for the fight...

[Saint_007]

"The dream was a message from them... telling me that a choice I made in the past... will result in the rise of the one who will destroy everything. And I mean everything."

"Who?"

"Belldandy's... dark side..."
Okay, GD, I'm just a bit confused...
Since the whole tournament's point was to see if the Universe was worthy fo saving or not, wouldn't that mean that Belldandy will destroy everything anyways if the heroes fail?
"Dark side"? Okay, if there was anything "dark" in Belldandy, don't you think that Hild would have had her under her complete control already?! Hell, they implanted a fricking Demon in Belldandy in the canon, and she purified it into an Angel without so much as realising it.
Just wondering:p

[Golden Darkness]

Okay, GD, I'm just a bit confused...
Since the whole tournament's point was to see if the Universe was worthy fo saving or not, wouldn't that mean that Belldandy will destroy everything anyways if the heroes fail?
"Dark side"? Okay, if there was anything "dark" in Belldandy, don't you think that Hild would have had her under her complete control already?! Hell, they implanted a fricking Demon in Belldandy in the canon, and she purified it into an Angel without so much as realising it.
Just wondering:p

It's all his interpretation of what he dreamt.

It doesn't mean he's actually correct anyway. Besides, the futre is very very much in motion. He may be all worked up for nothing.

Everything willl be explained in the future anyway.

[OverMaster]

-Going for the Gold: Mara vs. Booster Gold-

"OK, here it goes!" Booster yelled as he shot himself towards Mara, his personal forcefield zumming to life around himself. "LIGHTNING TACKLE!".

The demoness shot herself upright high into the air in turn, and avoided the tackle easily. As soon as she was floating over him, she conjured a hail of lightning bolts and shot them down towards Booster. The bolts bounced on his defensive shield, but still managed to rattle him a bit.

"Neato" Joker sucked on a lollipop. "This could take them a while".

Mara muttered a curse when she saw Booster hadn't been really too affected by her attack. She side-dodged a Power Beam the hero shot up at her, and then he decided to go flying after her. "Oh, so you want to get me..." Mara smirked evilly, and quickly flew towards him in turn. The audience gasped as they both apparently headed for a straight collision course.

"Take her down, Green Lantern...!!" Mihoshi yelled at him from her seat, her heart somewhat worried about him, and then shook her head and blushed, "Um, I mean, Booster!".

But then, Mara deployed a full demonic aura around herself, and even accelerated ramming head-on against the hero. The personal energy shield and the evil aura collided with a boom, causing both of them to be shot back in opposite directions.

"What a stupid strategy" Joker muttered, licking the lollipop with abandon. "Hit 'im with your head and hope he takes the worst part?".

Mara cursed while stopping in midair before she could be sent out of the ring. At the other side of the Arena, seconds later, Booster also screeched to a halt. Her attempt to nullify that accursed forcefield that was protecting him using her own energy had failed; that had to be very high level technology indeed. Oh well. Time to put Plan B in motion.

As she avoided another of Booster's Power Beams, she pulled out her bottle and yelled, "Get out, Sembei! My Guardian D'Jinn!".

"What??" Booster blinked, and saw how from the bottle erupted a column of grayish smoke, amidst which appeared a tiny man with long, blond curly hair, flashing a smile of perfect white teeth and wearing a fine suit. Booster's eyes became diminutive black points for only a second. "Man... Now I've really seen everything!".

"It's no big deal, Booster" Beetle's voice spoke through his armor's headset. "It must be something like Johnny Thunder's Thunderbolt...".

"It may be a freakin' Thunderbolt, and you tell me not to worry??!" Booster yelled at him.

At the Judges' seats, Asuka Langley Soryu raised from her seat and pointed up at Mara. "Ah-hah! She's using outside help! Breaking of the rules! The man wins!". She had to admit, she found that guy kinda very handsome, a bit reminiscent of Ryouji Kaji. And what the hell, it was better to see him winning than granting the win to that creepy woman.

"No rules are broken" Loki spoke flatly. "It counts as an invocation or summoning, so its is valid".

"WHAT??!" Asuka yelled at him, while Shinji Ikari tried to calm her down, as fruitlessly as ever. "Don't give me that crap, hornhead!".

"He is right" the Phantom Stranger nodded matter-of-factly. "She has not broken any rules yet. She can use her guardian genie if she wishes so".

"Great" the redhead mumbled sitting back. "This stinks...".

Meanwhile, Sembei smiled proudly and exclaimed with an odd accent, "Sembei here for you, Mistress! You want Sembei to give mortal bad luck, hmm? It's done!!". He snapped his fingers. "SHAKIN'!!".

Right at that instant, Booster's armor core seemed to fail, crackling sparks with sudden ferocity, and disabling the forcefield, which just fell down as the hero was shaken by the shocks screaming, "ARGH! What's happening now?!".

"A probability alterer" the grim Phantom Stranger explained for the two puzzled teen Judges sitting next to him. "The genie is causing Booster Gold's armor to malfunction by attacking the probabilities".

"Basically, giving him bad luck" Iron Man concluded, since Team JLAvengers' bunker was close enough to the Jury to overhear him. "Kind of like Wanda's powers... BOOSTER!" he screamed then. "USE THE STRIKER!".

He didn't need to be told twice. And besides, he was always happy to see Jessica Drew around. "SPIDER-WOMAN! COME!".

"On my way!" the red-clad heroine flew to the Arena using her glider wings, and began to quickly shot venom darts to the demoness. Mara dodged some, and stopped the others deflecting them with her cape.

"GOENITZ!" she yelled in turn, and Hld's priest floated into the Arena using his control over winds, then shooting a huge spiral of tornados towards both heroes. It hit them sending them down to the arena ground.

Mara smiled thriumphantly. "Well, his damn shield's over. Now he's ripe for the plucking".

"You the best, Mistress! The best!" Sembei clapped in flattery. "Even if Sembei really did it himself...".

But then, Booster shot up again from the ground as fast as he could, his chest still sizzling out. He had lost the shielding, and Mara apparently had the edge on long distance battle, so he would have to do it up close and personal. He surprised her with a left to the jaw, then a right. He half-smiled as he saw her putting on a face of pain; he was hurting her. Once you got past her magic tricks, she wasn't so tough...

But then, she gave him a vicious madly angry glare, eyes glowering in yellow. She thrusted both hands forwards and unleashed a barrage of massive electric bolts straight on his chest, sending him flying back and breaking through several trees of the simulated stage on the way. "FOOLISH INSECT!".

"Hey... Ted is the insect..." Booster gasped, still joking defiantly even as the pain ripped through him. And he shot another Power Beam at her. It hit one of her flanks, actually drawing out some blood. Mara groaned in pain, and shot even more bolts down at Booster, making all the ground around him to explode in a big boom.

"BOOSTER!" Blue Beetle screamed, rushing towards the arena. His best friend laid there, groaning, struggling to get back to his feet.

"I won't... go down so easily, girl..." he said, but then Mara quickly flew down in a swoop and kicked him in the middle of the face, sending him down again. Then she put a foot on his head and held him against the floor, as his costume continued spazzing.

"Hey! Referee!" she called out. "This one's ready for the count!".

"OK, OK!" Hanagata slided next to them clumsily. "Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven!".

Booster struggled some more, but Mara shocked him again to keep him quiet.

"Six! Five! Four! Three!" Hanagata continued, more and more nervous at each number since he also had wanted that hunky stud to win (1). "Two! ... One! And... this settles it!" he had to say to his own regret. "Miss Mara wins this first round for Team Nifelheim!!".

"HAH!" She raised her arms up in victory. "I knew it! I'm a high level Soldier of hell! I couldn't be denied so easily!".

"Booster! You okay, pal?" Beetle worriedly asked his friend as the medics carried Booster away in a stretcher.

"My pride's my most hurt part, Ted..." Booster gave him a thumbs up weakly. "I'm just stunned, that's all... The armor absorbed most of the damage. I'll be okay...".

Mara quickly applied a basic healing spell on her bleeding flank as the next challenger landed on the ring. The tall, majestic figure of the red-and golden Avenger, clad in special Hulkbuster Armor, was cheered on by the masses.

Iron Man looked at Mara with stern eyes. "Demon. Your luck streak ends here".


Next: The Iron Age- Mara vs. the Invincible Iron Man.


(1) Yeah, Hanagata is as gay as they can come.

[Lord of Nonsensical Crap]

And so it begins . . . .

C Dome

Ash couldn't help but be impressed when he stepped into the arena. The place had looked bg on TV, but then actually standing inside the darned place was a lot different from seeing it on a little screen.

"Nice place," he said, his eyes drifting across the stands and seeing various cheering female fans pointing at him and holding up signs saying "WE LUV U ASH." "Very nice."

Alucard merely grunted. "It isn't bad," he muttered.

"I'll say! It's even bigger than the arena in Corneria!" Fighter exclaimed. "Or was it a stable? Thief told me it was a stable. Maybe it was a horse arena!"

At the opposite end, meanwhile, Ryoga, Inu-Yasha, Cutie, Kagome and Juggernaut entered. "Wow," Kagome said, "it seems a lot bigger from the bottom of the grounds!"

Ryoga merely snorted. He didn't really care about how big this place was -- he just wanted to get this fight over with. The sooner he was done here, the sooner he would be able to move on and face Ranma.

He only wondered if Akane was watching . . .the thought of her, cursed as she was with vampirism, made his muscles tense up. Soon, Akane, I will save you, he thought. I'm gonna smash that Demitri bastard's head open for what he did to you.

In the stands, meanwhile Team Anzell stared down at Team Vellinor. "They don't look so tough," Marv commented. "Hell, I could take 'em on by myself."

"Appearances can be decieving, Marv," Anzell replied calmly. She had seen this team train, and knew that they were not to be underestimated -- particularly that teenager with the makeshift red cape, a psychic of immense power. She couldn't see Vellinor anywhere, though: either he was observing the fight from some secret location, or he was in disguise. Either way, if he tried using any underhand tricks to help his team win, then she would be ready to stop him.

Eventually, the Tenchi Budokai announcer stepped up to the mike and cleared his throat. "Would representatives of the two teams please present their fighting order?"

Both Alucard and Cutie Honey walked away from their respective teams -- for a brief moment, the two locked stares, Cutie's determined expression meeting the vampire's sinister grin -- before they both calmly approached the announcer, handed him their respective cards, and walked back to join their teams.

"Thank you," the announcer said, before reading the cards. "Team Vellinor's lineup will be the following! First up will be the legendary warrior and Undead-fighter, Ash Williams! Following him will be the skilled swordsman Fighter, and third will be the vampire Alucard! Tetsuo Shima will be acting as the team's striker!"

He turned to the other card. "And Team Beastmaster's lineup is as follows: up first will be the martial artist Ryoga Hibiki, followed by the demon Inu-Yasha, followed in turn by the android Cutie Honey! The massive Juggernaut will be acting as striker!"

In the Other Team's seats, meanwhile, Black Mage was practically giddy.

"Would you look at the size of that guy?" he said excitedly, pointing at Juggernaut. "Fighter doesn't stand a chance! He's finally going to kick the bucket!"

"You do realize that this 'Fighter' is on our side?" Sesshomaru said flatly.

"And that killing is not allowed in the first round?" B-ko added.

If they could have seen Black Mage's face, they would have gone mad. But before then, they would have noticed his sour expression. "Quit raining on my parade!" he huffed.

"Scenario Setting Number 622: random graveyard in England!" the announcer shouted, as the ring morphed into a creepy, moonlit graveyard dominated by a small, deserted-looking church atop a hill. Alucard allowed himself a grin at the sight: this place seemed a lot like the place where he had first met Seras.

"Groovy," Ash said as he walked into the arena, readying his weapons. He knew it was probably wrong, but for some reason he felt right at home in a graveyard: maybe it was because of all the fond memories of zombie-blasting. Ryoga walked in as well, looking as determined as ever.

"You know the rules!" the announcer said. "No killing, and no attacking the referee! The first to get knocked out by a ten count, thrown out of the ring or made to surrender loses. TEAM VELLINOR VS. TEAM BEASTMASTER! ROUND ONE! FIGHT!"

Next: Ash vs. Ryoga!

[Golden Darkness]

Just to let you know, I'm going to take a programming test for a possible job tomorrow, so I probably will not get all the needed posts to start the third fight out yet.

[OverMaster]

Okay, GD, I'm just a bit confused...
[list=1] Since the whole tournament's point was to see if the Universe was worthy fo saving or not, wouldn't that mean that Belldandy will destroy everything anyways if the heroes fail?

A tiny nitpicking for you now: If Belldandy wins, she wouldn't destroy the Universe herself. She still would be dooming it, true, but she wouldn't pull the final trigger on it. That'd be Kami-sama's job. :)

[OverMaster]

-The Iron Age: Mara vs. the Invincible Iron Man-

"Teeeeeam Nifelheim versus Teeeeeeeeeam JLAvengers... ROUND TWO...!" Hanagata yelled out. "ONE! TWO! THREE! FIGHT!!". And with that, he ran back to his shelter so fast his legs became twirling circles for a second.

As soon as the starting bell rang, the Golden Avenger thrusted his hands forwards and let out a massive barrage of repulsor rays from his palms. Mara uttered a curse as she tried to dodge every last one of them, having many more difficulties with it than she had with Booster; this opponent was a lot faster, and his beams covered a lot more of suface.

She flew snaking her way through the onslaught shot at her, and began to pull out the bottle again. "Go forward, Semb--" she started, but then Iron Man shot the bottle off her hand and broke it. A slightly charred Sembei then hovered over the shattered glass now spreaded through the floor, and went pale looking down at it.

"GYAAH! Human go and broke Sembei's home!".

"Quit whining!!" his mistress commanded. "I'll get you another one!! But right now, you have to-- UNNGHH!!!" She woulped, while receiving a blast in the middle of the chest sending her sprawling back to a nearby lake.

"Alright!" Blue Beetle cheered on, with the crowd also going wild. "That's the way to go!!".

"Hnnn..." Mara's wet-soped head peeked out of the water instantly. "GOENITZ!!".

In cue, the priest entered in again and attacked the Avenger with more tornados. Tony flew out of their way and opened beam fire back on him, forcing Goenitz to retreat.

In the meanwhile, Mara flew near him and shocked him from behind with a straight line of flames shot from her hands, while laughing evilly. The mighty armor absorbed all the damage with no major problems, and then Stark turned around to face the woman. "UNI-BEAM!".

From a diamond shaped imprint on his chest, a light projectile was shot, hitting Mara squarely again and sending her down once more, although his time she managed to stop her fall before hitting ground level.

"Not good" Bell observed quietly. "This one fights smarter, and has the firepower to counter Mara's...".

"Whatever" the Joker shrugged finishing his lollipop.

Angrily, losing her temper, the demoness flew up to Stark as she readied a spell. She dodged his new barrage of open fire, until he shot, for a change, a set of twin rockets from his shoulders. She managed to avoid the first one, but the second one hit her in the stomach; he knew she could take it and live, being a demon. Oofing, Mara fell again, this time colliding back-first against the ground. Iron Man swooped down to her.

"That's it..." the demoness, with her nose bleeding, smiled wickedly as she finished readying the spell. "Closer... closer... come for it...".

"Sorry. Maybe another day" the hero said, and then from his armor, the loud sound of Metallica music began to blare through high powered speakers. Mara's face twisted and twitched as she began to spin around uncontrollably.

"AIIIIEEEEE! HOW...??! How did you know...??!!".

"I talked to Skuld recently" Stark smiled under his faceplate, although she couldn't see it. "She had some tips for me. I only wish I had had time to put one of these in Booster's armors too". He channeled the armor's power into one fist, and brought it down in a true Hulkbuster punch on her face. A punch guaranteed to put even a demon down. "This one's for him, by the way!".

"Mara's eyes snapped open for a moment, then closed themselves sleepily. Her arms fell to her sides.

"And that's all she wrote!" Joker sighed shaking his head. "Looks like it's your turn, Toots!" he cackled to Bell.

"Yes" the little girl walked out of the bunker, still with an unfazed expression. "No big problem" she added as Hanagata gave Mara the full countdown.

"AAAND IRON MAN WINS THIS ROUND!!" The thin man from Terra Two beamed a grin, while the public erupted in glee.

"IRON MAN! IRON MAN! IRON MAN!" They sang happily, but then fell silent when Bell entered the Arena. She was only a child! And this would be the next challenger? They were suddenly confused, and shocked.

"That was a good showing" Bell calmly said to the adult fighter in front of her. "But I can do it better than Miss Mara. They told me that thing you're wearing is a Hulkbuster armor...". A sick, wicked grin found her way through her thin lips, as her warrior persona began to overcame her. She held her little tightened fists in front of herself, and proudly announced, "But I have the only two Hulkbusters I need right here!".


Next: Iron Man vs. Bell- The Foils of War... and Miroku meets Kagome again!

[J Dog]

Relieving the Suit Pressure

Dogbert, under pressure by Jack's sledgehammer and Dave-7's advanced skills, finally admits that Dilbert had rushed to Optimus' trailer, but hasn't appeared in a while. And as for Kaiba? He didn't explain his ultimate goal; worldly domination. Meanwhile, Monty moved in and grabbed Dilbert's tools and rushed outside.

"Listen up, girls, I want you to relax for a few moments, and I will get those helmets off." Monty calmly said, "And I'll fix them so that it wouldn't happen again."

"Alright." Mimi smiled. "This is the guy who made these suits' tools, so I'm more than sure about usage of them."

With that, Monty dismantled the neck collar of Mimi's helmet and she finally took it off. Mimi sighed happily. "Now, do Sora! Hurry!"

"Alright, alright, alright. Geez. I don't know what's worse; you or the breakfast burrito I ate today?" Monty grunted as he dismantled Sora's. After the helmet came off, both Mimi and Sora hugged each other.

"Mimi, thank goodness for this!" Sora gleefully said with a tear in her eyes.

"Me too, Sora!" Mimi replied, also crying, but more like someone crying when getting out of something bad.

"Now, girls. I'll focus on fixing the helmets so that you may wear them again, but I'll make sure that you won't focus so worrysome on it in the event of this locking, got that?" With that, he immediately worked on the helmets; cutting this, slicing that.

***********

"...why the hell is Kaiba here, Dogbert?" Jack snarled. "Tell me, before I bat you to Waco!" He lifted his sledgehammer in front of Dogbert's face.

"Well, put that down, Mr. Junior Chamillitary." Dogbert calmly spoke. "I was just talking a business agreement." As he said that, Kaiba regained consciousness.

"Jack... help... me..." Seto moaned softly as he slumped again. For once, Kaiba WANTS Jack rather than to fight him. "Alright, Dogbert, I've seen enough. It's time for doggy to see the stratosphere!" Jack growled. "Dave, get Seto out of here; I'll take Dogbert on."

************

"Hey, girls, help me out!" Dave yelled to Mimi and Sora as he carried Kaiba's body out of the trailer. "We got to take him to the hospital, quickly!"

"Alright, but why?" Mimi asked, "Because Kaiba isn't nice."

"Just help me out!" It was then that Satchel and Bucky appeared.

"Bucky, look!" Satchel said to the siamese cat. "It's Dave!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah! Keep your butt hair on." Bucky grumbled. "Let's just walk over there."

"Oh, it's you two. Hey, can you keep an eye on Jack in there?" Dave asked the two. Satchel nodded, but Bucky wasn't too intrested.

"Hey, Monty?" How's the helmets?" Mimi questioned Monty, who just finished. He rushed over with the helmets, with them slightly sawed open. "I modified it so that you can open up the faceshield in the event of a problem so that you won't face suffocation, and I've added this... thing. I'll tell you more about it." He looked at Kaiba. "What's with the guy?"

"Just help us out." Sora said. "Mimi, I want you to stay here, instead. Jack might be in trouble." Mimi nodded, grabbed her helmet, and rushed to Jack's side, taking pieces of her suit off and placing it back in her duffle.

************

(for this part, it's best to visualize Chamillionaire's "Talking that Talk" from his CD "Houston, We Have A Problem!!!". I'm suggesting, but I wouldn't do it if you are the faint of heart)

"You don't know who you are messing with." Dogbert grinned. "I am Dogbert, and someday, I will RULE THE WORLD!!!!" He holds up a sceptor from out of nowhere. "Saintdom! Give me power!!!!" He jumped outside and the sky turned violent and stormy with a lightning bolt struck the canine. Jack, Bucky, Satchel, and Mimi looked aghast as Dogbert became golden and gained a crown.

"I am... SAINT DOGBERT!!!!" He barked into the newly made void.

"Oh boy..." Jack said, with a sweatdrop, "I'm kinda screwed."

NEXT: Rivermen on LOST, and Jack vs. Dogbert- Thundaga!

(OM, I'm also considering the training part, but I need to know what the heck a Mecha Tama turtle is?)

[Lord of Nonsensical Crap]

"Sorry. Maybe another day" the hero said, and then from his armor, the loud sound of Metallica music began to blare through high powered speakers. Mara's face twisted and twitched as she began to spin around uncontrollably.

"AIIIIEEEEE! HOW...??! How did you know...??!!".

"I talked to Skuld recently" Stark smiled under his faceplate, although she couldn't see it.

Elsewhere, in the middle of Metallica's band practise, James Hetfield suddenly shuddered.

"Dude, what is it?" Lars Ulrich asked.

"You know that feeling I get whenever someone is using 'Enter Sandman' to combat evil?" James replied.

"You mean someone is doing that now?" Kirk Hammond asked.

James nodded. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure something like that just happened."

Lars abruptly stood up from his drums. "This can only be the nefarious work of . .. . NAPSTER!" With that, Lars grabbed a nearby shotgun and ran straight through the wall, leaving a Lars-shaped hole in his wake as he shouted all manner of Napster-related curses.

"We have GOT to keep him off the caffeine," Kirk groaned.

REMEMBER, BOYS AND GIRLS: DON'T DOWNLOAD MUSIC, OR LARS ULRICH WILL PERSONALLY COME AFTER YOU.:D

[OverMaster]

(OM, I'm also considering the training part, but I need to know what the heck a Mecha Tama turtle is?)

Giant mechanical turtle from Love Hina that looks like this:

http://www.anime-ni.co.uk/anime/lovehina03/03.jpg

[J Dog]

Giant mechanical turtle from Love Hina that looks like this:

http://www.anime-ni.co.uk/anime/lovehina03/03.jpg
Gothca! Boy, that's a big turtle; even bigger than Gamera, I think.

[OverMaster]

OOC: Been too slow around here lately. Come on, pals... :( ;)

IC:

-The Foils of War: Bell vs. Iron Man-

"Round Three... one... two... three... FIGHT!!" Hanagata screamed.

The little girl decided to use superspeed from the beginning. She flew on a lightning speed zigzag towards the armored hero, avoiding each one of the Repulsor Rays shot at her, and managed to get close enough to land a solid punch on his faceplate, sending him flying a few feet back.

Stark halted, and felt his nose bleeding under the iron mask. That had been quite a punch. Almost as strong of one of Thor's...

The crowd watched in with awe. Even after Buttercup's incident last day, it was still hard to believe such a little, innocent looking little girl could figt like that. The fact she was so young made harder for many to be as vocal against her as they had been against Mara, as well.

"Okay" the Avenger sighed. "I'll try my best to be gentle against you, but--".

"Don't hold back!" Bell barked, frowning. "My warrior blood would consider that an insult... Never mind my age! Do your best, or I'll pummel you to a bloody pulp!".

"Thanks for the advice" IM said, and raised his arms over his head. "REPULSOR BEAM!".

A big ball of energy was shot from his jointed palms, and split itself in several beams of light, each one going for Bell at a different angle. Once again, with uncanny agility and speed, the girl managed to dodge every last one of them, evn though this time it took her a lot more effort. She sweeped down to Stark in the proccess, and threw a punch to his stomach. But he was waiting for it. He sidestepped it, and then threw a fist of his own against her face, hard.

The public didn't know if to cheer or boo when Bell staggered back, muttering something not pleasing at all.

Iron Man followed with another punch, but she managed to elude it this time. He lashed out with a kick, and she received it in the chest. Finally, she stopped another kick catching his right leg with a hand, and used the grip to slam him against a nearby tree, splitting it by half.

"Beeeell...!!" Joker yelled. "Kick in the nuts! Kick in the nuts! That never fails!". And he laughed.

Ignoring him, Bell just ducked under Tony's next Repulsor Beam, and when he called Spider-Woman for assistance, she jumped over her Venom Stings, grabbed her by surprise around the midsection, and threw her out of the ring while avoiding one of Iron Man's shoulder rockets.

"Whoa, she really can fight!" Harley Quinn mused.

"Still too green" Khalia opined. "She's mainly relying on her speed edge, and has some solid skill, but she still lacks experience".

The next of Stark's shoulder rockets hit Bell and shook her, making her to yelp. The armored man flew to her, hoping to finish her before he was forced to put too much damage on her. But he was stopped at midway when Bell shot him with heat vision, gritting her teeth.

Then she swooped down to the floor. Iron Man followed her quickly. Before she could rip off a chunk of the ground to hit him with, he landed a jab on her face. Snarling, never hesitating, Bell countered with a right to his stomach area. They began to trade mighty punches that made the ground to tremble around them, as Asuka, Shinji and the public watched in mute shock, Joker laughed maniacally, the Phantom Stranger just sat stoically, and Loki smirked, pleased. Stark had been a thorn on his side often.

Finally, the armor's power battery had started to run out of reserves. The little girl seemed a bit wore down, but Iron Man's suit had suffered far more apparent damage. And she finally took advantage of it by jumping with superspeed to his face, grabbing the golden faceplate with a hand... and ripping it off with a powerful yank. Revealing Tony Stark's face for everyone to see, to the public and cameras. For the whole world.

"Damn! NO!" Spider-Woman yelled. The secret was out... again. (1)

As a general gasp sweeped through the audience, the Joker pointed at the Arena and gasped melodramatically. "Oh, NO! It can't be! Iron Man really is... is..." then, not being a native of the Marvel Universe, he just scratched his head and grunted, "Who the hell is he anyway?".

To his credit, Iron Man didn't allow it to distract from the fight too much. He still was throwing a new punch at Bell one second after that. But still, the momentaneous distraction had given her the scarce time she needed. She ducked the punch using her small size to her advantage, ripped out a really huge chunk of the Arena Ground, and squashed it down on Iron Man's head, making the whole dome to tremble.

"OH, CRAP!!" Blue Beetle yelled.

"F**k, no..." Wolverine mumbled on his seat. "Now you too, Tony...?".

Bell stood there over a huge mess of arena parts and the lying body of the Golden Avenger. She zapped him with heat vision a bit more for good measure, and called out, "Mister Referee. Come here, please".

The public watched with helplessness how Hanagata gave Iron Man the countdown to ten. Bell had won, although she was panting and seemingly somewhat spent.

"That's my sweetie...!!" Joker cheered on. "Just one last guy to go!!".

Blue Beetle silently stepped into the ring, facing the girl with an unusually serious attitude. She was a Superman-level being after all, he mused as they eyed each other. Finally, he spoke, a bit slowly.

"Girl. I think you need some discipline. And Blue Beetle's Discipline School's just in".


Next: Bell vs. Blue Beetle- The Spoils of War... and Ryouga Hibiki vs. Ash Williams- The Lost and the Groovy!

(1) Tony Stark had been, the MU public thought, 'retired' as IM for a while after his identity was revealed some years back.

[T51R]

~Twist of Fate: Interlock~



The room remained silent, even for its inviting ambience; he walls were tan, with pottery and plants lining the beams, making it look like the inside of a Swiss cottage. Soft leather and dark oak made up the furniture, with careful application of glass at the dining table and the entertainment area. The balcony itself however, was a different story; it faced the forest behind a large clearing, in the middle of which a large natural pond sat with reeds jutting towards the sky. Keima noted that there were several doors that led to the living area where they were. Bedrooms no doubt, he thought to himself, and began looking around. He found the remote control for the TV, and soon enough Rind and himself were watching Mara being carried off of the battlefield while the Iron Avenger stood triumphantly.

“At least,” Rind observed, “this one knows that he is a hero, and acts like one.” Like many others, she too was disgusted with the actions of one of Celestine’s premiere teams. “It will not be long now,” she patted Keima on the head, “so please be patient.”

She walked out to the balcony, and looked up at the blood-red sky. “Something evil is on the wind,” she whispered to herself, small flashes of light coming through the trees where the hills once stood. She grimaced. The hills. They weren’t there anymore. To credit their absence however, the view had become even more dramatic; in the distance, standing like a symbol of hope, was the majesty of Mount Fuji itself. Thunder came over the horizon. Akira, she thought to herself. He must be enjoying himself, especially with so many groups of heroes and villains turning up to challenge him at the Icy Cold Sphere beneath the streets of Tokyo. Action was everywhere, she surmised, and things were going forward at an incredible pace. She gripped her battleaxes harder; she would have liked to be a part of it, to be testing her own skills against Earth’s finest, but for the moment more important matters needed attending to. She turned as a knock on the door filled the room, Keima jumping to his feet and turning the TV off. She looked at the boy, and nodded. “Come in.”

Keima felt himself twitch as the doorknob turned, his body becoming electrified by the prospect of finally being able to meet and talk with his father once again after so long.

“Hello, Keima.” Urd smiled as she entered the room, looking more confident than she had been when they last met.

“AUNT URD!!!” The boy raced to meet her, before a thousand and one profanities filled the room, followed by Nudoru and Miso, the former clutching his forehead and bleeding all over the rug. Rind acknowledged her peer, then stepped away from the balcony and stood before the massive Aberration of an angel.

“What happened to him this time?” she sighed.

“Il a frappé sa tête sur l'armature de porte et je pense que son crâne est criqué.” It answered, and almost as if to confirm the fact, Nudoru’s brains began seeping onto the floor. Much to Rind’s disgust. “Yup. Defininitely a fendu,” it shrugged as its host fell onto the lush carpet, dead again.

The Valkerye sighed. “I trust that your little…excursion was beneficial?” She turned to the Goddess of the Past with an inquisitive expression on her face.

Urd nodded. “I think I have the key now. To why he is the way he is.” he thumbed towards the bloody mess beside her with the nine-foot tall monster plopping itself down beside Keima on the sofa causing the by to squirm a bit. “What about him?” The Valkerye handed her a sealed envelope in reply with a grim look on her face. She and Urd exchanged glances, while the Goddess of the Past slowly opened it and began reading through the contents. All the while, Rind remained silent and grim. Urd indicated the balcony, and the pair left the boy and the Angel to their own devices while near the doorway, the God-Killer got back to his feet. Outside, as soon as they were out of earshot, Urd drew the shutters and breathed in the clean air. Air free of the stench of crime, so unlike the atmosphere of old Gotham. “Washu‘s sure about these?” she held up the Chousein’s report. “Because frankly, this is impossible.”

“It is accurate,” Rind nodded towards the bottom of the page at where Washu’s personal seal had been embossed in pink wax. “I personally thought that your Herald was possessed of some manner of super-speed. However, that would be redundant; according to Washu,” she looked out at the forest, the pinpricks of light nowhere to be found. “He was shifting between multiple dimensions so fast to different coordinates within this one that it looked like it was speed. The truth was in fact, according to her, that he hadn‘t moved from the same spot while fighting Athena’s Knights. Are you familiar with the Kameis, or Holy Cloth that the Greek Gods and Goddesses wear as part of their ceremonial armour?”

Urd nodded.

“It has been thought to be unbreakable, yes? I saw with my own eyes your Herald shatter it. The interesting thing is exactly how he managed it. I believe you are familiar with the mortals and their Unified Field Theory?” Rind watched as the Goddess of the Past flipped back to the contents page and found the correct paragraph halfway through the report. “He managed it by literally moving, at increasing velocity through our time stream in both positive and negative temporal and spatial orientations, then coming back to a singularity point in the present where he dumped the energy he had gathered along the way. According to Washu, this could only have been achieved if it were done at the very same moment in the same spatial locality but yet…”

“Rind, this…” Urd snapped the thick pile of paper shut. “This is bullshit,” she muttered under her breath. “You‘re telling me that he went to both the beginning and the end, just to build up enough kinetic energy while remaining in the present!? That‘s not possible, it just isn‘t!”

“It didn‘t happen only once,” Rind explained, “the Kameis has been proven to be all but indestructible except under very specific conditions. This was not one of the situations that it was engineered to cope with. When the experiment ended, Athena‘s Knights were almost naked. The confusing part was, when he started shifting, he kept doing the same thing over and over again. Washu concluded that he is what you said he is; something designed, engineered and built to destroy beings like you, like me, like…”

“My Father,” Urd finished for her, “did Washu have a theory about how all this was possible?”

Rind remained quiet for a moment. “She thinks that, to an unknown degree, he exists on multiple planes. However, this was only through monitoring the elements surrounding the testing area. Her instruments did not register him. A conundrum. Here, but not here. There, but everywhere.”

“Omnipresence used as a weapon, is that what you‘re trying to say?” Urd huffed. And peeked into the room where Keima and Miso were watching the Iron Avenger and Bell going toe to toe amidst repulsor-basts and super speed blows. She threw open the doors, and pointed to the mess on the floor behind the sofa. The God-Killer’s facial features had been mangled beyond belief as a girl with impossibly long black hair, dressed in a tattered and dirty white dress crawled her way back into his PSP that was between his cold, dead fingers. “How the Hell did he manage to summon SADAKO WITH A PSP!?” Urd cursed, veins beginning to bulge all over her forehead. She approached the God-Killer’s corpse, and pried the PSP out of his armoured gauntlets. She popped the card out, and began to blush. Rind swiped the card away from her fingers.

“Goddess Love Session number…isn‘t this the pornographic file that you send to mortals so that…” She stopped, noting Urd beginning to grow fangs and glowing eyes. “Never mind. It appears someone has overwritten it with another file.” The screen on the PSP began to glow again, a silver ring forming amidst the static. “Don’t even think about it,” Rind muttered as she looked straight into the screen at the woman brushing her hair in the mirror, and began to shake the unit rather harshly. “Don‘t even think about it, or I‘ll slap you with so many seals you‘ll be working overtime when you get out!” Promptly, the PSP turned itself off. The Valkerye looked down at the corpse of the God-Killer and sighed. “Again.”

[T51R]

~Twist of Fate: Interlock, cont'd~



A knock on the far side of the room filled the air. “Looks like it‘s time,” Urd brushed her hair away from her face. The pair entered the room again, while Urd tucked the file under her arm. “I‘ll read the rest later. If anything it will give us an idea of what we may be fighting if this…thing…should come to Earth.” She made her way towards the door, and turned the knob.

“Mistress Urd,” Beenuel entered the room first, followed by Skuld, Occult and Nakoruru. In tow was a thin black-haired girl who seemed rather nervous at being in the same room with two Goddesses, a Valkerye, an Angel without a face and a corpse. “Allow me to introduce Melody,” the God of Animals presented the girl, “from the Magic Kingdom.” He indicated that she was to then make her way around the room properly presenting herself to the others, which she did. And then she came to the God-Killer, who had just gotten back to his feet and twisted his face back into its normal shape. Beenuel smiled approvingly when she finally looked back at him. All the while, Keima tried to keep himself under control as Rind had told him to, so that his father would get the impression that he was a strong boy.

“I‘m sorry to hear about your home,” Urd led her to the sofa, which Miso had conveniently vacated in order to fuse back into is host. “Keima, come here.” The boy did as she asked, and Skuld opened the door.

“Keiichi, get in here!” she whispered while peeking out of the door.

Slowly, the elder Morisato entered the room. Keima willed himself to stand fast, and wait for his father to enter. Soon, he found himself standing face to face with a young man a bit taller than his mother was. He took a step forwards, not knowing what to say, not knowing if his father would accept him at such a young age. “I…” he started stuttering, but willed himself to stop. He locked eyes with the young man before him, just as Rind said he should, and bowed deeply. “I am Morisato. Morisato Keima. I am your son, and I am honoured to meet you.”

The room fell into silence as the boy sprang forwards and embraced his father, tears flowing freely at last as he buried his face in his father’s chest. “Dad…”

[T51R]

Next...Interlock continues, as two very unlikely guests join the party! Rind finally gets the workout she's been waiting for, and the action comes to the Fighter's Lodge as Aion and the Office of Area Reclamation and Reconstruction makes it move, under new management!

[J Dog]

Thundaga- Jack Stallwall vs. Saint Dogbert, Part I

"Behold my ultimate form!" Dogbert roared as the four "combatants" stared in horror at what had now became of a cynical, heartless canine; he became a cynical, heartless canine with supreme power! "I shall smite you all for being idiots dumb enough to battle me!"

"Dogbert, time out!" Jack said, knowing that Dogbert ISN'T like this in the comics. "What the hell has gotten into you? This ain't you!"

"Well, well, well. The rival of Seto Kaiba actually cared about him for a moment." He bit back with his rapier-like wit. "Well that ain't you either; you are actually a punk-ass kid who listens to too much hip hop music and brands that sledgehammer like a know-it-all! And besides, being kind to that Tachikawa girl is B.S!"

Mimi didn't like that one bit; Jack was, and always will be, kind to others in her heart. "That's enough, you bad dog! Jack will make sure he'll neuter you in no time flat!"

"When I'm done with him," The Supreme Ruler of Dilbert's World said, "I'll deal with your yappy mouth, got that?" It hit all four that Dogbert wasn't just becoming powerful, but he was also losing every last shred of decency to humankind, no matter the origin, and possibly, the entire cosmos; becoming cold and ruthless in the process.

"Alright, that does it! You don't mess with Texas!" Jack yelled as he struck first blood by leaping into the air and pounding Dogbert's body, causing him to slam into the earth with a quaking thud. But, even with that move, Dogbert came out unscathed.

"Oh, you call that a strike. I'll show you a true strike!" He said as he lifted his sceptor and the darkness in the sky returned. "I'm going to make a fool of you and run off with your funds! Behold; THUNDAJA!"

"Thunjaga?" Jack confusingly said, knowing that you don't go beyond 'Thundaga' (the only -aja around is probably 'Curaja', but that's it)! But, he felt his true wrath by being struck with a gigantic blow. Satchel covered his eyes in ghast, not wanting to see him get electrocuted. "How do you want to be, Jack?" Dogbert smiled as Jack was screaming with all the volts cruising through his body. "Deep fried, or extra crispy... what the?!!!"

Jack lifted up his sledgehammer and diverted all of the bolts into it. "I forgot to tell you; I'm a bit of a dynamo myself, and that just isn't my jersey." He smiled, referring to the 'Dynamos' jersey he was wearing. "Granted, you shocked me for a while with that move." He chuckled, but that died out with a frown. "But, I'll love doing this to you!" He slammed the sledgehammer into the ground, and caused the area to shake. "Behold my next move; Thor's Wrath!"

A giant orb of electricity rammed into Dogbert, with it combining with the dog. Little was said out of the Patron Saint of Technology; he was whammed into a wall. Jack ran towards the knocked-out Dogbert. "I guess I won this fight. You didn't have much." He said, but Dogbert got back up, though he started showing fatigue. "It ain't over, Stallwall! Observe my next move!" He lifted out a laser gun. "You say you are from Space City, eh?" He barked, mentioning the oft-mentioned nickname of Jack's hometime, Houston, "Well, prepare to be the first private citizen to travel to the Moon! SONIC OBLITERATOR!"

It was that with Dogbert fired the gun, releasing a giga-sized laser beam. Jack avoided it with a somersault from "Star Wars: Battlefront", and Mimi dodged it as well. Satchel and Bucky were looking at this battle.

"Bucky, we gotta do something! That crazy dog is going to blow up everything."

Bucky blew a raspberry. "Yeah, right. Like that'll effect us." Satchel grabbed Katt. "That includes US, you dumb cat! Now, we gotta help those two kids out!" He roared, returning to the scene where he finally stands up to Bucky (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/59/Satchel_threatens_Bucky.JPG). But rather than cowering, Bucky agreed. "I'll pound that guy and food him at the same time."

Dogbert panted a little. "Lucky move, you fool. But, I'll make sure that I can obliterate you." He lifted up the Sonic Obliterator again. But that was futile; he was wrapped up in vines. It was Palmon, who showed up, that did the deed.

"Palmon! Thank you!" Mimi smiled. "Now, digivolve and help out Jack!"

"Gotcha!" With that, Palmon digivolved into Togemon and jumped in front of Saint Dogbert.

"You gotta be joking!" He sneered. "A cacti with boxing gloves?!! You gotta be out your your tiny minds."

"No, Dogbert. It's the beginning of the end. You should've seen her fight Kazuma Kuwabara. And I might as well show you something cool as well." Jack said. With that, he charged into Dogbert, knocking him in the air. "Rocket Away!" He yelled as he leaped up in the air, slamming through Dogbert and the fiery halo that was made with a hot launch, and knocking him into the ground.

"Give up, Dogbert?" Jack asked. "You might as well."

"Kid... you got something. But be warned; in a few moments, you'll be fearing your life. I'll show you why I'll become the ruler of the universe someday!"

Coming up: Dr. Rivermen tries to escape from "The Others", with MechaDorado held hostage, and Dogbert reveals his ultimate attack, that could effect the tournament for the remainder of the series.

[OverMaster]

-Team Nifelheim vs. Team JLAVengers, Finale: Bell vs. Blue Beetle- The Spoils of War-

Bell felt something was odd, even slightly wrong, when she tried to analyze the Blue Beetle's new armor with her supersenses. It just didn't allow her a good hearing of the man's heartbeat, nor his breathing. And then there was something else that could be chalked to intuition if she had believe in it. It was as if there had been something... slightly sinister about the power that man was wielding now. And after hanging around with Mara and Hild, she knew evil mystic powers when she ran into them by now.

Never mind. Her duty was still the same. She had to make her Father proud.

"Rouuuuuuuunnnd Four..." Hanagata started. "One! Two! Three! And FIGHT!!!!". He jumped out of the way again, as Bell began shooting Ted Kord with scorching eye beams. They just bounced on the man's suit's supernatural aura, barely making him to stagger a couple of steps back.

"Hnnnhhhhh..." Joker raised a green eyebrow. "Funny. That laughingstock never seemed so powerful before. Then again, neither was I week and a half ago".

The Beetle's antennae sparked, when he rushed towards the white Powerpuff Girl, throwing her a punch that she barely could block in time. Then he used his other hand to punch her in the head at the same time. Bell actually whimpered a bit, in surprise, when she learned that had caused her some actual pain. Even in her battles with Blossom and Iron Man, very few attacks had caused her pain, and now this man had done it in his first try.

She retaliated with a vicious headbutt to his gut, and followed with a roundhouse kick that made him back away. He merely reacted then by shooting her with a stungun, but she dodged the shot.

"Not good" Yuusuke Urameshi grunted from the first row. "No matter how many powers that scarab-thing has, they're for nothing if he can't reach her speed and actually hit her".

"Have faith" Koenma frowned, sitting next to him. "The Scarab's powers are almost equal to those of a Green Lantern ring!".

"Big deal" Yuusuke snorted, crossing his rams behind his neck. "And I still tell you that's for nothing if he can't hit her with those powers in the first place".

Koenma just intensified his frown, but said nothing. He hated to admit it, but Urameshi had a point there.

Bell was flying all around Kord now, shooting eye beam after eye beam at him, forcing him to stay at the move and block with his mystical shield continuously to avoid being rattled. Eventually, he got tired of it and decided to deploy his new Beetle wings and fly after her in turn. Once he was airbone, he shot her with the scarab's electricity cannon, sending her tumbling back in the air, slight burnt marks now on her face.

Damn, I really hate to do this to a child... he thought. But this kid's no normal toddler. Anyone who's in cahoots with Joker is just asking for it...

Bell stopped her spinning back in midair and speeded like a bullet straight into him, tackling him down even though the armor's shielding was hurting her. As she grinded him against the floor, and headbutted him again and again even though her head was feeling in fire, she forced herself to remember him. Father. Doctor X, the man who had created her, the one who trusted her. He was counting on her skills, on her might. She thought back of Susan, and how he would probably be watching her fighting now. Of GIR. Never mind her current teammates were three unlikable jerks. This wasn't for them. This was for her real team, her family.

She was used to the strain, from all the training sessions with Zim and Samantha back at home. This was nothing to her, right?

With a wild grunt that almost sounded like a growl, she grabbed Beetle by the throat as he was calling, "SPIDER-WO--", and chucked him out of the ring, her eyes burning with savage intensity, her hands burned with the shield's touch. Beetle stopped in midair and tried to go back at her, but she instead bulleted her way at him and strongly planted her feet on his face with a bestial grunt, kicking him definitely out of the ring. Once he tumbled down out of the Arena, for good measure, she finished by ripping off another big piece of the ring and throwing it on him, pinning him down long enough for the off-ring countdown to reach ten.

She then smiled, and weakly whispered, "I did it... I really did it...".

And fell flat on her face.

Blue Beetle bursted from under the huge mass pining him down, still willing to fight. He still looked like he could do it, too. But Hanagata, after a consulting look at the Jury, was already announcing for everyone, "AND THIS IS IT, FOLKS!! The Judges have decided, Miss Bell wins this round for ringout, thus granting the win to Team Nifelheim!!!".

"What??!!" Beetle yelled. "No way!!!".

But then he fell silent, seeing the sorry state his tired opponent had been left in. She was thriumphant, and yet the most hurt of both of them. The magic had shielded him against most harm, but she hadn't had that luck. She laid there, panting, wheezing, as Beetle felt, in a way, pity for her.

Joker crouched down and happily patted Bell's fallen form on the head. "Yo, Sweetie, you da man!! But you could have left one for me!".

"Joker..." she weakly smiled up at him. "I need to rest for a while, okay...?".

The public was sourly disappointed, but also moved in a way. After last night's Ifurita incident, they wanted to see the heroes winning. This was another low blow to their hopes, and it showed. Yet, part of them also were feeling it for the hurt child, and the paramedic units were faster than usual on their way to the ring.

"What..." Asuka Langley was muttering. "I know she's evil, but...".

"Child, even black has its shades of gray" the Phantom Stranger brooded gravelly. "Sometimes, even those who have darkness on their hearts can push themselves to sacrifice for others. We will see far more of that in the future, I fear".

"I don't like this at all..." Shinji groaned sadly.

As they carried Bell away to the Medical Wing, and Joker was left behind chuckling and alone with an expresionless Goenitz, the public began to leave the Dome, with both confusion on their hearts and fear for the future. Another supervillain team had gained its way to the next round.

The feeling of doom seemed to be everywhere.


Next up: Ryouga vs. Ash, and Mel Kompson's Training reaches a New Stage!

[KingEli]

Aftermath:

"Dammit!" Said Kord

"Don't feel too bad Teddy, I mean you gave it all you got." Said Booster

"Yeah.............but I held back a bit. I FELT REALLY uncomformable fighting kid. She's not even old enough to be a Titan for God's sake!"

"Hey nobody faulting you man." said Luke Cage "I Mean would any of us Good Guys REALLy fight a kid at our full potenial?"

"Yeah your right, we wouldn't.........but Booster Would." Ted said with a chuckle

"HEY!" Said Booster "Just Because in 25th Century, all people are equal and it dosen't matter who we hit dosen't mean I Would do such a thing."

"Suuuuuuurrrrrreee."

"You mean, you just run up and hit a girl or your wife, no problem?" Asked Spider-Woman

"Well, Yeah."

"That's one @#$% uped Future." Said Luke.

[Golden Darkness]

OOC: Ok... I'll probably get my next post ready some time tomorrow... most likely I'll get the matches started Sunday.

[J Dog]

Thundaga- Jack Stallwall vs. Saint Dogbert, The Shocking Conclusion

Dogbert was looking stranger and stranger, based off Jack's actions. He had three ideas about what was with the canine:


Dogbert was truly evil, and he was actually hiding the true actions in the comic strip and TV series
He was possessed by something else, and that using him beyond his actual feats and abilities.
Dogbert just got lucky, but at the same time, lost his mind


"Okay, this crazy fight is going to end soon, and you know it." Jack told Saint Dogbert, who was holding his sceptor with both paws. "Apparantly, if this drags on, something crazy is going to happen to both of us."

"Yeah. You wouldn't like that?" Dogbert smirked, but his voice was started to evolve into a demonic tone, a sign that the second idea was the actual reason of this. "I got one final act to perform, and you shall get your money's worth on it." He started to shake a little and struggled to lift the sceptor up into the air. Normally, that would look stupid, but maybe the final stunt will be the reason of this.

"Jack," Mimi asked. "Do you really think that Dogbert is really mean now? He's acting a lot funnier now than he was a few minutes ago, and I mean a weird kind of funny."

"I'll see if I can make sure that he won't cause any more damages. I got one final move as well. Let's just wait and see which one deals the more extreme blow to the opponent. Just wait, ok?"

"Don't hurt yourself." She replied. Jack then laughed. "No offense, but when you fight, odds are you are going to get hurt. But I'm not going to die just yet. That'll be years from now, got that?" Mimi nodded.

"Show me that move, then." She grinned. "I want you to now knock some sense into Dogbert!" After saying that, Jack jumped into the air, and lifted his sledgehammer up into the air. He channeled electricity back into the hammer and planned for another Thor's Wrath instead of the ultimate move he was talking about.

At the same time, Dogbert was almost finished with his move, with the sceptor glowing in a rainbow of colors and haloed a strong light. "I give you my ultimate move, the Ray of Elimination! Enjoy!" It was at a cost that Dogbert would probably not survive this move, but he decided to unleash it as well. The sceptor unleashed a shining ray that grew in size much like a tsunami and moved towards Jack. Jack unleashed the Wrath on the ray, but that barely slowed the ray. Togemon slammed into the ground and aided into slowing the ray, which might have destroyed the whole grounds if it was left alone.

"Do not... belittle me..." Dogbert said with a grunt. "I will defeat you all! Will defeat you all!" Bucky and Satchel snuck up behind Dogbert.

"I'll show him who's the boss around here!" Bucky grinned. "Me!"

"Uh... Bucky, the boss is that woman Belldandy." Satchel corrected him. "You should might as well realize that."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." He walked towards Dogbert with a golf club. "Prepare for a whacking of feats!" He bit as he swung at Dogbert.

"What?" Was Dogbert's only reaction as he got hit by the club, and lost his balance. With that misfortune, his ray weakened.

"Time for me to end this nonsense!" Jack said as he jumped upwards and aimed towards the stunned saint.

"Jack's Ultimate Dynamite Megaton Kick of Giga Destruction!" He roared as each word was echoed and pouned his feet into Dogbert, with each kick creating a sound boom and pounded the saint into submission.

"Game over, Dogbert." Jack quietly said, knowing that he finally won the battle. Of course, it was strange enough to see that a strange form appear out of Dogbert and then it floated off.

"What on earth was that?" Mimi asked Jack, wondering about it. "Never mind that, the important thing was that we beat him. Now, let's go to the hospital." Jack didn't reply. "Jack? Jack?"

"Dogbert, why the heck did you get yourself that way?" He said with a little emotion. He turned his head towards Tachikawa. "Listen, this pretty much gave me a little to think about. You gotta figure out that your foes aren't all that seems. I just hope Dogbert improves after being knocked down like so."

"What about Kaiba?" Mimi questioned. "Will you focus on that?" I mean, Dogbert really hurt him."

"In some parts, Kaiba deserved that. But, I know that it wasn't Dogbert. I know you have Cosette coming up in a while, so I might as well teach you a little trick of the trade. Wanna learn?"

Mimi nodded. "Yep!" She said.

"I knew you'd say that."

Meanwhile, Bucky told Satchel to get Dogbert's body. "We will find a use for him."

"Can't we just take him to the hospital?" Satchel questioned. But Bucky insisted instead that he'd be looked at first.

**********

Dr. Rivermen was in a cell in one of the bunkers, with one of The Others holding guard. He figured that soon, he'd bust out, and get out of this hellhole. But how?

Next: Rivermen's escape, and Jack shows Mimi a trick only Houstonites had known.

[OverMaster]

-The Lost and the Groovy: Ryouga Hibiki vs. Ash Williams, Part 1-

C-Dome:

"Okay" Ryouga gravelly said as he headed for the bathroom, that is, out of the ring. "So, let's begin with this...".

"Hey, I'm over here, moron!" Ash yelled out. The Eternal Lost Boy of Nerima stopped then on midway to the ring's border, and turned around to face him.

"Ah. Yes, I see. Gomen".

"I can't believe it" InuYasha groaned. "What kind of braindead gets lost in a fighting ring as soon as his fight starts??".

"No need to excuse yourself, kid!" Ash replied as he shot his shotgun at Ryouga's legs. "I'll be more thankful if you just stay quiet there and let me to finish this off easily, instead!".

"Like hell I will!" the martial artist roared, jumping over the shot and launching a flying kick at the American, which he eluded rolling to a side just in the nick of time.

At the seats of Team Beastmaster's companions, Kagome Higurashi, sitting next to Honey's best friend, the thin and serious Detective Aki Natsuko, cheered on, "Do your best, Ryouga-kun! He's no match for you!".

Then something else caught her attention. Someone had just arrived to the seats next to theirs. It was a group of four, including a fully bandaged odd man wrapped in a gray trenchcoat, a little black haired girl, a buxom redhead young woman, and a young Japanese monk... and old friend of hers.

"Miroku!".

"Miss Kagome!" The lead newcomer smiled pleasantly at her. "It eases me to no end seeing you are still alive and well! And I must say, this world of yours really is as... fascinating as you always had told us, even if we happened to arrive at a far from adequate time...".

"B-but what are you doing here?" she blinked, puzzled. "I didn't think you could--". Then she sweatdropped, noticing he wasn't paying her any attention anymore. Instead, he had slipped to Aki's side and held her hands between his, sighing with fascination as little hearts floated all over his head. "... I should have expected this...".

"Fair lady, are you a friend of Miss Kagome's?" the amorous monk was putting the old charm on the dark haired Detective. "Truly, your beauty outshines that of the sun and the blue sky. I wonder, would you make me the happiest man in the world and bear my--".

But then he had to stop and shut up, since Aki was now pointing an official gun of the Tokyo Police Department on his face. "The answer is no" she coldy replied. "Kagome-san told us a few things about you, and I know enough about you by now to know better, Miroku-san. Now just give it a rest before my hand is forced...".

"Ah-ah hah..." He nodded, quickly slipping his right hand away from Aki's butt.

"Men" Nami shook her head. She smiled at Kagome. "Hey, nice to meet you. I'm Nami, one of the monk's new partners, and friend to Zoro, member of Team Swordsman!". She offered her a hand.

Kagome shook the hand offered in a friendly way and smiled back. "Pleased to meet you too, Nami-san". She then looked down at the Evil Tomoyo, and cooed, "Aaaaawwww, and you're such a cutie!!".

"Thank you. You have great legs and a nice ass, too" the girl replied in a dry, yet interested, tone. Kagome did a shocked double take.

"W-what...?".

"Eh, excuse Tomoyo-chan, please" Now it was Nami's turn to sweatdrop. "She is a bit... odd, too". And she whispered on Kagome's ear, "But if she offers to take a picture of you, NEVER ACCEPT IT, okay? For your own good".

Slowly, Kagome nodded in agreement, since she was now feeling some sort of evil aura coming out of Tomoyo's petite body.

"And the bandaged gentleman is Mr. Skinner" Nami tried to drift the conversation to another topic as she gestured towards the Invisible Man.

"Hello" was all of Skinner's greeting, and Kagome, somewhat rubbed the wrong way by now, just waved a hand a bit on his direction and smiled weakly as response.

"But..." the black haired Japanese teenager doubted, looking again at Nami, "What are you doing here? Are you going to challenge that Akira character, or--".

"Nothing like that" Nami shook her head, sitting next to Skinner. "We'll tell you about it later. We can't speak about it in public". Her eyes turned slightly bitter as she looked down at the Arena, where Ash and Ryouga faced each other once more. "But it is big, that I can tell you from now".


Next: Ryouga vs. Ash, Continuation. Also, Mel learns Nabe-Fu, and Blokk gets his own Camera Crew!

[OverMaster]

OOC:

T51R, a couple of questions about Akira's battles that are supposed to be happening right now.

What are the purposes of those? I mean, obviously, it's not 'Beat me and get to challenge Belldandy', because then the Tournament would be redundant. I'm guessing it is, instead, a kind of 'Beat me and Heaven will stop attacking Earth with giant monsters, volcanos, earthquakes and Uwe Boll movies until MUGEN is over. But if Belldandy wins, we'll still eliminate you all anyway', deal. Am I right?

Also, could we have some of the discarded, eliminated MUGEN teams going to challenge Akira now that they can't advance in MUGEN? They may not beat him, but I figure they'll think trying is still better than just sitting there watching how the others continue fighting.

[Saint_007]

which really begs the question, why would Heaven perform such a large-scale genocide? I mean, if I were religious and this sort of crap happened, I'd switch allegience to the Devil. I know, Ragnarok and all... but why the need to start massive upheavals like that?

[T51R]

which really begs the question, why would Heaven perform such a large-scale genocide? I mean, if I were religious and this sort of crap happened, I'd switch allegience to the Devil. I know, Ragnarok and all... but why the need to start massive upheavals like that?

Basically its to bring out both the best and worst in humans and give the human race a chance to either prove their worth and shine, or for it to damn itself and embrace chaos. Remember, plenty of elements in Heaven oppose this plan, and thus MUGEN is possible. MUGEN is happenning because a tiny part of TOAA/Kami-Sama believes that mankind is inherently good, while at the same time wanting to eradicate evil. THis is the reason that he agreed to his daughter's terms of competition between light and dark; so that it would be pretty damn clear that good prevails even though the cost may be high.

The thing is, mankind itself has to believe this, and it has to believe that they can decide their own fate for the better[free will]

[T51R]

~Twist of Fate: Interlock…Part 2~



“And this was where I used to live,” Keiichi flipped through the pages of an old album as Keima looked on, in awe of how many happy memories his father and aunt had shared during their brief time together, before she perished in battle against an enemy that was all but incomprehensible. “That‘s Tamiya,” Keiichi pointed to the tanned mountain of muscle, “he‘s one of the Motor Club‘s directors. We used to live in the same dormitory. Well, at least until I got kicked out.” It had been that way for the last our or so, not counting the time it took for the elder Morisato to come back to his senses when he was told how Keima’s mother was. He did not question it; he knew better than to mention the Ultimate Force in front of others who were not familiar with it. “And here‘s where we live now,” he turned the page, and the boy gasped at the panoramic spread of the entire courtyard of the temple Keiichi and the three Norn sisters called ‘home.’

It was beautiful, the boy thought to himself, so unlike the bio-sphere he had grown so accustomed to; after all, it was where he had been raised. In a barren wasteland where humanity as well as many other races lived out their twilight. He looked up at Keiichi, the pair of them sitting on the sofa which had been shifted around to face the rest of the room. Sitting around them, the rest of the occupants went with the pair on their journey of nostalgia. Beenuel, ever-attentive, caught every word; he wanted to know more about his young apprentice. Especially why it was that she was so enamoured by technology when her own divine powers were just beginning to blossom. Skuld however seemed a bit preoccupied, staring across the room in the opposite direction of Keiichi, trying her best to hide her blushed cheeks. Occult and Nakoruru simply sat with their own thoughts on the matter, while
Urd’s herald paced about the room, looking curiously over Keiichi’s shoulder every once in a while if he passed that way. Melody however, was busy exploring the place and seemed uninterested in the conversation that was going on; she wasn’t accustomed to events of such magnitude and to her, the goings-on