Crasical

Mission 'Find out what went wrong' from Vernon Von Grun, run at +1/x8 on a mercs/traps mastermind. Longbow and PPD forces aggrod on each other and were infighting when I arrived at their location. The spawns should probably be friendly to each other.

Don't think we've ever actually met, but I remember your time as the game's Senior Animator. I thought very highly of your work, and Kinetic Melee/Dual Pistols/Dual Blades made such an impression on my teenage brain that I ended up pursuing a bachelors in 3D modeling and animation. I didn't end up ever using the degree, but I've still got it, even if none of the programs I learned are industry standard anymore. Anyway, hope you're enjoying Homecoming.

I finished my character thread/tournament here, it can be added to the list. EDIT: Thank you!

Final Match: Seed 8 Colmilla vs. Seed 7 Ryoko Kobayashi The sun was shining, burning away the lingering winter chill. The day was saved. Even the notice that the villainess, Hivemind, had been broken out of jail couldn't truly dampen Colmilla's infectious good mood. She folded and set aside a newspaper raving about the new gas-grenade wielding heroes taking to the streets, standing up and stretching. She'd perched atop a handy apartment building, enjoying the sunlight and gentle wind. Her hand had just touched the police radio at her belt when she heard, distantly, a yell: "Stop, Thief!". A smile flickered across her face, unseen beneath her mask. Perfect. The day was just a little *too* peaceful. Colmilla landed in the parking lot, glancing up at the familiar green, white and red billboard with its mariachi, the banner for El Super Mexicano, the franchise popular all through Paragon City. She only had a moment before the front doors of the building smashed open, a blur in blue, black and white rushing forward. Ryoko Kobayashi, the dine-and-dash demon of the rogue isles, was zipping forward in a ninja run, both arms laden with bulging takeout bags, a third bag equally overloaded gripped in her teeth. Colmilla tensed, focused on the fast-moving target, and swung, going low with a rising, teeth-shattering uppercut. To her surprise, her target vanished from in front of her in a flash of light and smoke, the trio of bags hitting the asphalt of the parking lot and spilling. Not filled with cash from the register, the three bags were filled with foil-wrapped buritos, tacos, styrofoam containers of enchiladas, and tortilla chips, along with jars of the house salsa, guacamole, and queso. Stolen food, rather than money. Colmilla didn't have time to do more than register this, as the ninja girl landed, sliding back towards the door before her sneakers found purchase. Her katana slipped from its sheathe in a single smooth motion, assuming a basic kendo stance. "...Out of my way." Was the only thing the schoolgirl said before launching herself forward. Colmilla found herself ducking and weaving through the rain of blows, occasionally parrying a blow with the impervium wire inserts in her gloves, the frenzied rain of blows intensifing as Colmilla began to counterattack, throwing punches, kicks, knee and elbow strikes at the elusive foe. Ryoko was the first to break off, realizing her attacks weren't working. skipping back, she slid her sword back into its sheathe with a flourish. Colmilla hesitated for only a second, thinking the girl was surrendering, but instead her hands came up holding glittering metal, throwing stars. Colmilla flipped and tumbled acrobatically through the hail of metal, but though her own reflexes meant that the stars and throwing knives weren't getting close enough to be a threat, the girl was effectively zoning her out, keeping her distance and safely attacking where Colmilla couldn't easily counterattack, flashing away in that arm-trailing ninja stance or disappearing with a smoke bomb anytime Colmilla tried to get close. It was now a race to see if Colmilla would tire or Ryoko would run out of ammunition first. Colmilla wasn't sure she liked the odds on that; the tiny ninja seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of pointed metal. Worse, as the battle roved over the parking lot, Ryoko was starting to pick up and throw some of the shuriken for a second time, extending her supply by ripping the knives out of the cars or asphalt they'd stuck into and re-using them. This required some lateral thinking... Diving into the line of parked cars, she prayed that the unlucky vehicle's insurance was paid up and punched through the glass, unlocking the door from the inside, and then tearing it off its hinges. Holding the door as an improvised shield, she rolled out, caught a fusilade of thrown knives with the door and rushed forward, turning the charge into a slide at the last moment. Crashing into the ninja girl's legs, she swept them out from under her, discarding the car door to keep up the momentum: Her knee hit the girl in the stomach, launching her into the air. Colmilla followed her up with a leap, snagging Ryoko by the neck in a headlock and bringing her back to the ground, the two crashing to the pavement together and jolted out of the hold, both doing rapid kip-ups to return to their feet as quickly as possible. Ryoko spat out some blood, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. "...Guess I gotta get serious..." She brought her hand back to her sword. Colmilla took a defensive stance, ready to grapple her out of any charge, but she wasn't ready for the sheer speed the draw came out at. The girl just vanished, leaving behind brief impressions, afterimages, leaving gleaming white lines in the air as her sword ripped through her opponent, and the arena itself: The cars in the parking lot were reduced to chunks of metal in her path, and the large sign outside the super-mexicano was bisected diagonally, falling from its mounting in two halves. Comilla couldn't defend against all the lightning fast strikes, not coming like they did in rapid succession. All she could do was try and reduce the impact When the storm finally, mercilessly ended, Ryoko was visibly exhausted, panting as she slid to a stop. The shattered cars went up in simultaneously thunderclaps of explosion, as Colmilla sank to her knees, bleeding from hundreds of shallow cuts all over her body. "...Surrender. You're beat." The girl threatened. Colmilla defiantly picked up and hucked a car's bumper at her, which the girl cut in half as it sailed towards her. "Why would I do that? I'm having a *fantastic* time." "...Tsk. Alright. I avoided your vitals, but this next strike will trigger your mediporter." Walking closer, she raised her sword. "...Consider it payment for your stubbornn-AGH?" Colmilla waited until that sword had started to defend before striking like a cobra. Both hands snapped up to grab the wrists holding the sword, while wrenching and pulling them down. Her feet left the ground as she spun herself around the ninja's sword arm, snatching the girl's neck between her knees as she yanked ther arms up. The blade's edge was something to consider, but pulled up into an arm bar, while choking her out with her thighs, she only had to hold the agile ninja until she ran out of breath. "Hehe. No fancy tricks to escaping a hold! It's just strength and stamina! Ryoko struggled until the end, popping several smoke bombs, kicking and squirming, but there wasn't any escape. Despite her injuries, Colmilla's grapple had locked her in tight. Eventually, the blackness crept in at the edges of her vision, and she lost consciousness. Colmilla felt the 'pop!' as the girl vanished, mediported to safety. SHe rolled to her feet, scanning the surroundings. "...Still undefeated...But that girl was dangerous." Surveying the carnage, she folded her arms. "...all this for a bag of tacos...?" Colmilla v s Ryoko Kobayashi Deals smashing damage, resists lethal damage ✔️ Deals Lethal damage, somewhat resists smashing damage. Strong self heal Strong self heal Bonus perception Stealth Elusive Elusive Mez Protection Mez: Immob, Confuse I feel bad about how this project fully ran out of momentum at the end, but it's at least complete now. Colmilla is our winner, Ryoko our second place finisher, and Hivemind our 3rd place. The tournament's now complete! It was a neat writing exercise. I wish I'd finished it back in 2023 like I'd originally intended, but life had other ideas. Oh well. With the event complete, I'll open up the thread to any questions, comments, or feedback. Thank you for reading along.

Wait, what? The 'wreck your defense plus blind' power, the main reason I always first-target Tarantula Mistresses, was an autohit?

I feel like you may expose the question to bias by posting this in the Roleplay subforum.

\o/

Praise!

Bronze Match: Seed 4 Hivemind vs Seed 3 Tomb Spider The reinforced steel door of the prison cell rang like a gong as it bent and deformed under sledgehammer blows before violently exploding. The prisoner inside, 'Jane Doe', looked up calmly. One of the PPD Enforcer robots had been cracked open, the plasma manifold having been ruptured and cooking off several of its grenades, the whole twisted wreckage burning merrily, the firelight illuminating the collapsed forms of multiple Awakened Division PPD officers. The man outside the cell didn't exactly cut an intimidating figure. Well-worn blue-jeans, hiking boots, a black T-shirt with the red arachnos spider-legs emblem, an admittedly stylish leather jacket and a broad-brimmed hat. Backlit by flame and holding the long-handled pole-axe in one hand, a weapon that glowed with ominous red light and crackled with magical energy, he still managed to project enough power and confidence to be frightening. "...It's not that I didn't expect Arachnos to send someone to kill me after I was captured, but I expected a single Night Widow, or a team of Bane Spiders. Why is Sirocco's pet archaeologist here?" She raised a hand to brush a strand of white hair out of her face, her arms encased in large shackles that covered her arms from just below the elbow to just past the wrist. Dressed in prison orange, a bulky collar with a purple LED strip surrounding it encircled her neck, a psionic inhibitor. Tomb Spider snorted and tossed her a ring of keys. She let them land in her lap, picking the ring up and starting to try each key on her bindings in sequence. "Apparently I'm not above getting selected for odd-jobs by the high council of spiders. And you're only half right. I'm not here to kill you, I'm here to get you out of here and back to Grandville." The shackles came off with a 'click', and the woman started trying the keys on her collar. "How gracious of you. I suppose they either plan to dissect my brain in some lab, or just want a public execution?" Tomb Spider shrugged and kicked a backpack across the floor to the nameless widow. "I'm authorized to kill you if you resist. You can die now, *maybe* die during our attempted escape, since there are a lot of cops out there, die in arachnos custody, or maybe get re-captured, get moved from this jail to the Zig, and Arachnos will arrange for you to get shivved in your sleep, and die *there*." Opening up the backpack, the widow found a familiar outfit in blacks and greys and yellows. Tomb Spider continued. "All your options are bad. So do me a curteousy, put your costume on and get ready to fight a lot of light-spewing alien symbiotes; and at least die in the way that is the least of a headache for me." The widow sighed, standing up, making a little circular gesture with a finger. When Tomb Spider didn't move, she clarified. "Fine. Turn Around." That got only a raised eybrow. "...I'm going to change. Did you intend to stand there and watch? Pervert." With a long-suffering grunt of annoyance, Tomb Spider about-faced. The widow slipped out of the orange prison clothing, stripping down to nothing before starting to squeeze into her costume, the elastic, skintight material stretching over her skin. The gloves and parts of the upper torso 'clicked' subtly as they were pulled into place, magnetically locking to her skin so that the anti-gravity harness would properly nullify her weight, or that her implanted widow-blades would smoothly slide through the prepared seams in her gloves. Pulling her mask on, she took a second to let her vision adjust to the view through her insectile, segmented goggles, the HUD kicking in after a second or two helping simplify the confusing kaleidescope of images. She ran her fingers through her hair, giving the costume's wings an experimental flick of motion. "Got a comb?" "No. But take your time. I think my arachnobots can hold the elevator for another two, three minutes." "Long enough." She experimentally slid her blades out, examining the green-black sheen of poison on the long spike of metal. She let the bristle of spikes on her left hand retract, and turned. There was one 'clack' of high heels on concrete as Hivemind took a long step and thrust the spike towards Tomb Spider's back. To her surprise, he leapt to the side, his long hammer coming around in an arc that took a chunk out of the doorframe and forced her to turn her lunge into a forward roll; to carry her under the swing and to keep her from being pinned in her cell. She came up out of the roll with both blades at the ready, staring down Tomb Spider. The mercenary held up the fingers on his free hand, a tiny marble-sized scrying stone, a crystal ball, between his middle and index finger. "...If you think I'm stupid enough to turn my back on an Arachnos Widow, you've got another thing coming." Hivemind smirked. "So you *were* watching me change. Pervert." Tomb Spider started to advance, Hivemind drifting to the side on her mechanical wings. Tomb Spider's long halberd had reach and a great deal of mass, but it was a lot slower than Hivemind's twin blades. They both wanted to bait out the first attack, Tomb Spider to ripost her claws and smite her with one heavy blow, Hivemind so she could side-dodge the long hammer and get in close to slice with her blades. Tomb Spider ended up taking the first move, the beeping of his communicator letting him know his arachnobots were being systematically destroyed by the PPD up above. The additional pressure made him feint and then bring the hammer down like he was splitting wood in a crash of red electricity. Hivemind ducked low, to the left, and came up with a poisoned spike of a widow's claw, making Tomb Spider jerk back, using his backward momentum to whirl the hammer around his back, spinning on a heel as he turned the motion into a pirouette with a sweeping horizontal swing, stymying Hivemind's advance. Thrusting his halberd forward Tomb Spider fired a bolt of sizzling energy, trying to drive Hivemind back, only succeeding in keeping her on her toes as she searched for another opening. As the barrage of spell-bolts pock-marked the walls with singe marks, she ducked behind one of the large brick pillars for cover. She waited until the fire stopped, counted to three, and then chose to go right, trusting her Fortunata instincts. The correct decision, it turned out, as Tomb Spider had gone to her left, circling the pillar and swinging the Halberd. She took the opportunity to take a shot at his back, slashing at his legs with poisoned blades, hampering his mobility. Bright blood stained the mercenary archaeologist's blue jeans as he staggered, turning and managing to parry the next stab with the long haft of the halberd, throwing Hivemind onto her bakc and seamlessly moving to a lethal ripost, another huge crushing strike with the heavy two handed weapon. Hivemind kicked her wings into action at the last second and pulled herself out of range of the sledgehammer blow, but the close call made her realize just how much power that weapon held. One solid strike would be all it wold take to end her; and there was no way she could block or parry the attack. She simply couldn't let the attack connect. So, instead, she carefully held herself at just the edge of what she estimated the polearm's reach was, letting Tomb Spider poke at her with jabs and the occasional staff-beam. Goading him into attacking, she slowly decreased the momentum of her dodges, letting it seem like the strikes were missing by sheer milimiters. Her future-sight raced, trying to pick out the ideal moment to attack. After a minute of enduring his blows, she saw it: Rather than stepping to the side to evade a blow by scant inches, she lunged forward and to the side. Tomb Spider turned to track her, but she'd dodged to the opposite side of his injured leg, and the poison-numbed, bleeding limb reacted woodenly, his turn to face her becoming a stumble. All the opening she needed to thrust her wrist blade into his neck. The mercenary's eyes widened with a spray of arterial blood and a gurgle as he stumbled back, falling, and then disappearing in a flash of light and a pop of inrushing air. Recalled back to the arachnos flyer, likely, to get some emergency medical treatment. Unimportant. Hivemind let her claws slide back into place as she faced the elevator out of the PPD lockup. Freedom beckoned. Hivemind v s Tomb Spider Deals Lethal, Toxic, and Psychic damage. Resists all damage moderately. ✔️ Deals Smashing, Energy, and Toxic damage. Resists all damage moderately. Elusive Elusive Mezzes Mez Protection Decent AoE capability ✔️ Pets, team buffs Fly - Fly Stealth, bonus Perception Stealth, bonus Perception It's a matter of life and death ✔️ It's just a paycheck. Yeah, it's been more than a month since I updated this. Home life got interesting (housemate had open heart surgery, a quadruple bypass) and I just wasn't up for it over a hectic December and January. Tomb Spider and Hivemind are extremely well matched. The ending call was just on motivation; Tomb Spider is a supermerc who does what he does for a paycheck (and he honestly dislikes being given jobs outside of his usual artifact-hunting routine); whereas not getting captured by arachnos is a life and death struggle for Hivemind.

There are already rikti weapons for battle axe, broadsword, and katana, if someone wanted to make a rikti-themed character.

Hey, if you say it's a feature and not a bug...

The 'rikti entangler' customization of the Stolen Immobilizer Ray seems a little bigger than may be intended.

At last, the long-awaited butt slider.

Match 22: Seed 7 Ryoko Kobayashi vs. Seed 3 Tomb Spider Leaves drifted down from the forest canopy, high over Primeva. The dense jungle that made up the north half of the zone was infested with the Circle of Thorns and their ancient ruins, as well as Crey scientists, Arachnos, devouring earth, and others. It was a hotbed of conflict. Ryoko was picking jungle fruit. She dropped down from a high branch, stuffing a retrieved avacado into a plastic bag while a banana wobbled from her lips. Once her hand swas freed up and the bag slung back at her hip, she took the banana and chewed for a moment, spitting out a few of the seeds before stuffing the stick of sweet creamy fruit back into her mouth. She continued her saunter down the forest trails, distant sounds of gunfire, chanting, all muffled into an unnerving susurrus under the creak of the old trees. Her conscious mind was several seconds behind her body in unsheathing her katana, leaping up as concealed landmines detonated, boueyed up by the explosions. Dragging her sword through air suddenly heavy with malice, ripping blades of wind dispersed the blast and sliced through undergrowth, fallen leaves splitting in two as her attack tore several lurking arachnobots to pieces. She landed lightly, crouching with her katana held in a reverse grip. "Come out! I can sense you, there's no point in hiding!" The air rippled slightly, Tomb Spider appearing a few yards away. "...You martial artists sure like to talk a big game about being able to sense killing intent. Overrated, I think, personally." "Who are you?!" "Tomb Spider. Looking to settle a score with a naughty tigress who uses these woods as a personal playground. And you're some anime japanese ninja girl, I take it?" "...Ryoko Kobayashi." "...Anime Japanese ninja girl." He repeated. "And one who didn't sense my ambush before she bumbled right into the middle of it. I'm honestly kind of tempted to give you a beating for slicing up my robots and triggering all my landmines." Ryoko flipped her sword around, gripping it in both hands, a more traditional kendo grip. "Try it." "I said tempted. There's no particular benefit for me in fighting you." He shrugged disarmingly. "You're free to continue berry picking or whatever you're doing out here. Just get out of my sight." Ryoko blinked, then slowly sheathed her sword, placated. "...Alright. If you're not going to fight..." She gave a small but respectful bow. "You're more sensible than a lot of Arachnos villains." She half turned before her instincts suddenly screamed. Tomb spider had closed the distance in a shockingly short amount of time, thrusting the huge bronze hammer-axe at her like a lance, the impact sending her flying back into a huge tree with an explosion of lightning energy. The falling leaves ignited as red lightning crackled through them, falling to the forest floor as burning cinders, rapidly igniting the dry undergrowth. Ryoko's vision blurred and spun with double vision. With his back sillhouetted against the nascent forest fire, Tomb Spider loomed over her as a huge dark shape. "...There's no particular reason to fight you, but there's no particular reason NOT to, either. And I knew that being able to sense killing intent was bullshit." He raised the hammer end of the axe up, bringing it down to crush the schoolgirl's skull. Roko's raw instincts saved her again. Even realing, she rolled to the side at the last minute, skidding to her feet, leaping up to dodge the blast of red-green lightning he threw at her from his hammer. More flame spread from the impact point, and Tomb Spider shouldered the long-hafted weapon, sizing her up as he slowly approached. "...You know, you're a lot like her..." Ryoko wasn't paying attention, grabbing one of the avacados from her bag and biting into it like an apple, swallowing down both the rind and the buttery flesh within, feeling her hyperative metabolism start to work, turning the fruit into fuel. "Yeah, now I can see it. You're like Mynx. Self taught fighting style, speed, instinct..." He lunged in, a huge strike followed by two lighter follow-up swings. "You're no ninja! You're a beast, an animal!" Ryoko parried them with a grunt of effort, metal clashing ringing out over the crackling of the fire around them. "A feral, atavistic throwback. There's no technique here, no thinking brain, just reflexes and intuition. Heh. You might actually make a good warmup for Mynx." Ryoko grimaced. "...There wasn't anyone to teach me to fight. I had to figure it all out by myself." She tried a few quick probing attacks before ducking in, spinning as she brought her sword up in a low sweeping strike, the strike bouncing off some magical protection sheathing the Arachnos archaeologist. "I'm fine with being just a beast. I'm not a warrior, or a killer! I'm just a hunter." "A hunter? You're a predator. A prowling jungle cat." More lightning roared from the halberd, Ryoko having to dodge and deflect it, pushed away from Tomb Spider so he had room to bring his long hammer to bear, bringing it down like a sledgehammer in an attack that sent an explosion of energy out from the impact point, impossible to block or parry. "And that means you're never going to really mesh with polite society." He finished, lifting his hammer. Ryoko had dodged, but been thrown by the strike's shockwave, struggling to rise. "...Well, fortunately for you, you're not going to have to worry about it. Animal instincts don't know how to utiize technology." He reached into his coat, pulling out a small detonator. "And you didn't actually get *all* of my landmines." Ryoko vanished in a fireball, Tomb Spider holding up an arm to shield his face, bits of shrapnel pattering off his reinforced leather coat. Lowering it, he viewed the resultant crater with some satisfaction. The burning leaves fluttered down like glowing snow on the prone body of the ninja girl, covered in bleeding cuts and burns from the surprise explosives. "...Not bad for a trial run." His own reflexes kicked in too slow. The long curved steel fang of the jungle hunter pierced through him, the katana finding a spot between his ribs to pierce through his arachnos T-shirt and out of his back. The bit of blood-slick sharpened metal poked out through leather jacket, and he coughed up some blood as it was withdrawn. He pitched forward into the burning underbrush. Ryoko licked the last bits of avacado off her fingers, feeling her strength return to her after being caught in the blast. She swung her katana to flick the blood off it, then re-sheathed it, spitting out the large pit onto the ground. She tensed suddenly, turning to the smouldering archaeologist. "...You can recover that fast fron an injury that serious...?" He half rose, using the haft of his halberd as a crutch. " Heh... You're not an animal... you're a goddamn monster..." Blood filled his lung, turning the end of the sentence into a strained warble. He collapsed again, and lay still. Ryoko silently observed her opponent for a moment, then turned to depart, burning branches starting to fall as the flames consumed them. Ryoko Kobayashi v s Tomb Spider Deals Superior Lethal Damage, Resists Smashing, Energy, and Toxic Deals Smashing, Energy, and Toxic Damage, Solidly resists Lethal damage. Elusive Elusive Stealth, +Perception Stealth, +Perception Health and End recovery/sustain ✔️ No sustain powers Jumping and Speed ✔️ No movement powers Good AoE ✔️ Multiple pets We've reached a point where the contestants are all melee monsters with large defenses, and it makes the checklist end up with the two being very similar, but this eliminates the two Arachnos Agents, who will go on to the bronze match. The finals will be scrapper vs scrapper, hero vs. rogue.

Match 21, Seed 8 Colmilla vs. Seed 4 Hivemind The city was in peril! Colmilla ran full out, bouncing off tree branches and shattered buildings, bits of twisted monorail track and the living, screeching bodies of the Devouring Earth monsters as she flew across their twisted Eden. The strange stone spires of the Hamidon thrust above the forest canopy in places, more footholds for her high-flying leaps. As she moved further and further into the hazard zone, towards the huge spire-mountain that guarded the way into the HIve proper, she could make out more of her targets: a mixture of Arachnos soldiers and Devouring Earth. The bane spider's armor had been repainted, the red and purple replaced with bright yellow, and the devoured along with their stone, crystal, and vegetable minions had simply been splashed with yellow paint in broad stripes, denoting their new allegiance. High above the rabble, the villainess Hivemind flittered about on insect wings, alighting atop one of the many stone pillars to survey her pursuer. By her side, one of the bane spider executioners held their kidnapping target: Penelope Yin. The powerful psychic was bound and gagged, her eyes glassy and unfocused, drooling slightly around the hard ball of rubber shoved into her mouth. Drugged? Under some psychic malaise? Colmilla didn't know, and didn't have time to find out. She reached the frontlines of the enemy formation, sliding into an attack in one smooth motion. She leapt, twisting herself horizontal as she went, and grabbed the too-large helmet of a bane-spider. She let her momentum carry her, twisting the helmet around backwards to blind the occupant, while her feet made solid contact with a devouring earth crystal, shattering it in a single blow. The shards of the crystal shot out like glittering shrapnel into the crowd of assembled minions, and she finished her 180* revolution around the Bane spider she let go of the helmet, grabbed his shoulders and planted her knee firmly into his back, an unpleasant crack of shattering ribs and vertebrae as he tumbled to the ground. She juked to one side as an arachnos mace-blast crackled past her from behind, turning and rushing forward. A slide brought her between the legs of a snarling devoured, and she seized its ankles to trip it, bringing it down on its face. She half-rose into a crouch, heaving at the monster's ankles, bringing it around in a giant swing, clubbing several assembled villains with it before heaving it as a giant projectile at one of the giant stone monsters, crushing it to rubble under its own ally. "Impressive!" Hivemind buzzed from high above. Colmilla risked a glance up, snagging one of the arachnos soldier as he tried to use the moment of weakness and dragging him into a choke hold, using the spider as a human shield while she listened to the villain monologue."You'd make a fine minion. I'd take the time to enslave you, but I'm afraid I'm on a tight schedule, so I'll just have to just defeat you instead." "Let the girl go and I'll give you a head start." "Mmm. Two problems with that. Firstly, I need her. My own psychic powers aren't quite strong enough to mentally dominate the Hamidon, so I'll have to be using the world's most powerful psychic as an amplifier. Once I've used her to enslave that big jelly, and have complete control over the Devouring Earth's psychic network, though, I'll be happy to give her back." Hivemind affectionately patted the psychic on the head. "She's cute enough that it would be a waste to have her Devoured, don't you agree?" "Mind control the Hamidon...? You're insane!" "How rude. And you've forgotten, I said there were *two* problems with you giving us a head start. The second one is that our escape vehicle is already here." The huge black bulk of an arachnos flyer slowly, silently, rotated around the bulk of the mountain. Aquiring a target lock on the luchadora took a perfect comedic beat before it launched a salvo of rockets, Colmilla immediately hurling her human shield to safety as the barrage approached. Time seemed to slow as the black-spined rockets with their explosive payload streaked towards her. Saturation bombardment, the air was crowded with projectiles that left nowhere to dodge. Not left, not right, not forward or back. That left one direction: Up. Colmilla leaped up, thrown boulders and tech blasts whizzing past her as she found her first foothold on a speeding missile, jumping to the next. Sure, they exploded a split second after she used one to jump off of, but the explosion behind her just propelled her to the next foothold and the next. Any part of her that decried the feat as impossible had been squashed or burned out long ago, any doubt would have slowed her reflexes or held her back. Everything came back to sharp focus as she cleared the last rocket, out of the slow-motion dreamlike haze. Her fingers hit one of the two circular hover-disks on the flyer and she gripped with all her might, feet kicking at empty air as she tried to maintain a hold on the flyer. She felt it trying to turn, to re-acquire her, as she tried to pull herself up onto the disc. She'd gotten halfway up when Hivemind alighted atop it, her wrists bursting into poisonous barbs as a long straight stinger-blade appeared atop her wrist, stabbing down. Colmilla had to drop back, going back to gripping the ledge with just her fingertips. "Impressive, impressive! You're really a fantastic physical specimine, aren't you? No widow I know could do something that recklessly insane." "Insane? Heh. Luchadors can fly, don't you know?" She had to release and dangle from one hand as Hivemind's stiletto heel came down where her fingers had been a moment later, twisting and grabbing another handhold to dodge the stomps. "I think I've changed my mind." She caught one of Colmilla's fingers with the edge of her boot, eliciting a yelp from the scrapper. "You're worthy of turning into a personal bodyguard." She held a hand out, sending out a sudden wave of subduing psychic force. "Either your brain melts and I turn you into one of my servants, or you mediport back to a hospital, or you let go, fall, and *splat*." She redoubled the psychic pressure, Colmilla grimacing and letting out the occasional gasp or grunt of pain, spots of blood appearing on her mask, blood leaking from her nose, ears, and eyes. "And honestly, while I'd prefer the first option, the other two kind of work for me!" Colmilla choked on her own tongue as her mind burned. All her thoughts, all her memories, were starting to sizzle away, buried under simple, brute force commands: Love Hivemind. Obey Hivemind. Serve the Hive. She really, REALLY wished she had something, anything: throwing knives, a rock, *a gun* would be nice right now. But she fought with her honor and her own two fists, nothing else. She swung her body side to side, buffeted by air currents as the Flyer slowly spun, Hivemind floating above her. Unable to dodge, unable to resist the psychic assault, she started to black out, until her ankle banged against metal. She'd been swinging around, and a particuarly hard banking turn had swung her foot up to impact the side of the flyer. In a flash of inspiration, she hauled herself to the side, planting both feet on the side of the flyer. Wedging her hands between the machine's main chassis and the hover disc, she finally had some leverage, and she immediately pushed with everything she had. Hivemind started as the metal groaned, the hover disk trying to come free from the vehicle. She deployed her spikes again, lunging forward for a lethal stab, and skewered Colmilla, impaling her on the poisoned claw, drawing a splash of red blood, but it was too late. The Disk was torn free and she had to leap back, triggering her wings and stopping her fall. The flyer spun out of control, leaning wildly as it sagged and then impacted the mountain with a thunderous burst. Colmilla fell. Bleeding out, she put her hope on one simple fact: The flyer's hover disc would keep running for at least a few seconds after being torn from the main craft. She hauled herself around, feeling the gravitational current trying to blast her away as she planted her feet on the base of the piece of technology as it tumbled through the air. She looked up, waited until she saw Hivemind, and lept. The propulsive force of the skimmer and her own leap rocketed her up, farther and faster than she could have made on her own. Far and fast enough for her to reach the high-flying former fortunata, and to impact her in midair. Colmilla didn't listen to Hivemind's screech of protest, instead just doing a one two pair of punches to the face to disorient her before pulling her into a midair grapple. Belly to belly, she flipped upside down, trapping Hivemind's head between her thighs, while she used both hands to grip at her forearms just below the elbow, keeping hivemind's arms pinned behind her back where she couldn't make use of the poisoned claws. As they reached the apex of her high jump, she inverted them, starting to bring them down in a whirling cyclone. "Martillo giratorio de plata! SILVER SPINNING PILEDRIVER!" Hivemind's minions had been scattered and disoriented by the sudden rocket attack, and moreso by the crashing flyer, but her hold on them truly broke as their former commande came down in their midst like a meteor, an explosive crash that threw up chips of stone and clouds of dust. Colmilla let go of her opponent and rolled off her, clutching the poisoned wound in her gut. For a haunting moment, she wasn't sure if the fortunata had somehow soaked the attack, before a devoured let out a bellowing roar and attempted to eat a Bane spider, who shoved his mace into its mouth and start unloading energy blasts. Whatever spell on them had been broken. ...and now she had to clean up the infighting before the Devouring Earth ate the brainwashed spiders. She let out a pained groan, taking a moment to slip her tech-medkit out of her belt and run it over the puncture wound in her stoomach, letting the organs, skin, and muscle knit together before replacing the tiny smartphone gizmo in her belt. A hero's work is never done... Colmilla v s Hivemind Deals high amounts of Smashing damage. Resists Lethal, especially at low health. Very low Psionic or Toxic resistance. Deals Lethal, Toxic, and Psionic damage. Moderately resists Smashing Damage Increased Perception Stealth Mez protection Mezzes (Holds, immobs) No Mez Protection WAIT NO NEVERMIND SUPER REFLEXES HAS CONFUSION PROTECTION Mezzes (Confusion) Superior Sustain ✔️ Weak Self Heal Superjump ✔️ Hoverblasting Big Lucha Crits ✔️ Weak to spike damage Whoops, I forgot Super Reflexes actually has confuse protection! That's fun. It comes down to a few things: Colmilla does more damage, but is of a type Hivemind resists. Hivemind does lower damag,e of a type that Colmilla barely resists. Colmilla doesn't have a good way to deal with hoverblasting, having to jump up for each hit awkwardly. They both have self heals, but Colmilla's is better (slotted out) than Hivemind's. It actually comes down to the fact that Scrappers can land critical hits that break the stalemate for me, Hivemind can continously harass Colmilla but doesn't have a good way to seal the deal without abandoning her high vantage point and using her claws, and if Colmilla can land a big crit, that can end the fight with Hivemind being unable to heal back from it.

This is it, the semi-finals. All but one of these characters is guaranteed a podium finish. Who's going to have fought their way here, to the brink, but fail to achieve glory? Who's going to take the crown? It's down to the Scrappers and the Arachnos Soldiers, A hero, a villain, and two rogues.

Match 20, Seed 3 Tomb Spider vs. Seed 22 Sable Tentacle Tomb Spider came to, floating in absolute darkness. He put one hand to his head, to rub his forehead, and then make sure his hat was still in place. With the first two important checks completed, he looked around. His eyes weren't adjusting to the darkness, but he could still see things squirming in the darkness, shifting and moving apendages, eyes, mouths, teeth, tentacles, masses that pulsated as if breathing, or pulsing with the beat of a heart. He tried to focus on what had happened, his memories scattered, hazy. He remembered the ambush by the Oranbegan mages, crashing through their summoned demons and acolytes, a half dozen death mages all pooling their power, channeled through an artifact, a warped idol of twisted dead wood... "'sup, d00d." He opened his eyes. Four points of light glimmered in the darkness, another figure drawing near. The cyborg drew near, walking some unseen path that twisted through the air, bearing little relationship to 'up and 'down', if such concepts even existed here. "...What's going on? Who are you, and where is this?" "So, I'm S4ble T3nt4cle. Y0u're in the n3therw0rld, or at l34st p4rt of it, or one of th3m." "...I've heard of you. The Abyss Diver." "Wh0ah, c00l title. But I'm just S4ble. 'S4bes' if w3're fr1ends." "I'll keep that in mind, 'Sable'." The Freak's cheeky grin didn't falter. "So, h0w'd you end up h3re?" "Banishment spell, I think." "Ah, M4g1c." Sable made the disinterest clear in his voice. "Any chance you know an easy way back out?" N4h. Y0u've sunk t00 deep." Sable gestured with his hands. "Ne4r the surf4ce of th1s d1m3nsion, the pr3ssure f0rces you b4ck out. Th4t's how my sh0rt r4nge t3lep0rts w0rk, it's like a d0lph1n jump1ng 0ut of the w4ter and g3tt1ng pull3d b4ck into the w4ter by gr4v1ty but in a d1ffer3nt pl4ce." "...But it's different here?" "Ye4h. Y0u're t00 d33p. You c4n't l34ve anym0re. It's n0t so b4d th0ugh. y0u w0n't age or g3t hungry or th1rsty d0wn h3re." "..That doesn't make sense. This is the netherworld. Dark energies, the draining of life, fire and darkness. Succubuses." "Br000 if th1s pl4ce h4d succubuses, th4t w0uld be S1CK. But no. Th1s is the squ1rming d4rkness, the wr1th1ng abyss, the R3alm of the All-M0ther. All is l1fe, and endl3ss pr0fus10n of gr0wth, c3asel3ss and canc3r0us. Th1s is a hum1d w0mb, a fert1le v4lley, Th1s is the r34lm of the Bl4ck g0at of the w00ds, with a th0usand y0ung!" As he spoke, his voice grew feverish, rapturous, a cultish reverence in his voice. Tomb Spider felt the things in the dark moving more intently, drawing closer to him. "S0, l1ke, rel4x. Y0ure s4fe h3re. The All-m0ther l0ves hum4n1ty. Y0u'll be t4ken c4re of-" Tomb Spider had had enough. He drew his pistol from his shoulder holster under his jacket, thumbing off the safety as he went, barely aiming before squeezing the trigger, snapping off a pair of thunderous shots. The huge magnum desert-eagle knockoff was chambered for a truly disgusting caliber of round, vibration-absorbing super-metals incorporated into the gun to try and mitigate the recoil of the super-dense slug. It was the sort of thing Malta Gunslingers used to punch holes in invulnerable superheroes, and it still had enough kick that his arm practically went numb. Two wet, messy holes upened up in the freak's head, a huge blast of purple ichor blasting out the back of his skull. His eyes rolled back in his head, showing the whites, a ghoulish smirk on his face as he collapsed bonelessly. Tomb spider lowered the gun. "Sorry, buddy. But you got down here too, so I'm betting that teleporter pack can get me out of here..." "0h0h. S0rry, it's actu4lly n0t a b4ckpack. it's w3lded to my sp1ne..." The grinning purple-haired clown slowlly drew himself up off the floor, as if being pulled by a wire. Like an old-style movie vampire rising up out of his coffin, he drifted up, the wounds in his head closing up, his eyes pools of milky white as he grinned in a horrid rictus of a smile. "S0, y0u w0uldn't have b33n able to use it anyw4y.." Meaty squelching rang out, and more lights brightened in the dark. Twisted reflections, shambling parodies of the freakshow defender, suddenly loomed out of the darkness, variations of the man's shape but with raw red flesh and glossy black eyes growing from tumor-like protrusions from their skin. "The All-m0ther w0n't let y0u d1e d0wn h3re, but if y0u're g0nna be l1ke th4t, bro..." Tomb Spider shot him again. He counted in his head as emptied the magazine, controlled shots. Aim for the head, don't bother to double tap. Seven. Six. Five... The imperfect reflections collapsed with sprays of blood, slithering tentacles starting to reach out of the dark, to twine around his arms or legs, and he had to kick off them to try and reposition. Three, two... and the slide locked with his last shot. He threw the gun at the last reflection, then cursed himself, that thing was expensive and if he got out of here replacing it woulld be a pain in the ass. Too late, it was floating off into the void, now. This had turned into a zombie movie. The darkness itself pounded with an angry heartbeat, endless protrosions of flesh growing, manifesting increasingly less man-shaped copies of the original cultist. Masses of flesh, eyes, mouths, tentacles, arrayed without a care. He drew a belt knife, his mouth dry, until he felt a familiar pulse of magical energy. The Halberd. He thrust his hand out into the darkness. Pulling at the connection they shared, he felt it tremble in his mind. The red glow surged out of the darkness as he drew the Halberd of Hequat to him, drawing in its magical energy. He was fire, lightning, invincible and invisible. He swung the ancient mu weapon in an arc, slicing apart the simulacrums, reversing his grip to use the hammer mounted on the back to crush another. bolts of poisoned lightning arced from the tip of the polearm, red and wicked, tearing into the flesh, searing the shambling monsters and pushing them back. The light the red bolts cast illuminated scenes of absolute horror, and he heard screaming. It took him a moment to realize it was his own voice, a yell of somewhere between fear and defiance as he pushed every bit of will he could into the magical construct. The lightning intensified, until it overwhelmed everything, and all he could see was the light. Technician Grant Naylor tapped his tablet. That was unusual, the portal was opening from the other side. That hardly ever happened. He glanced up at the runes of warding over the doorway that kept out the Circle of Thorns in the jungle outside, and then walked over to his neatly stacked, inventoried crates of supplies. He selected his Breach Buddy, a standard arachnos shotgun with a decidedly unconventional load, a scattershot selection of blessed, cursed, axiomatic, garlic-infused, silver, cold-iron, gold shells with a good deal of incendiary phospherous mixed in. Who knew what was going to come out of the portal, so it was best to just throw everything at the wall. And set it on fire, with good measure. He put the gun to his shoulder and sighted down the barrel, just like in training, as the portal surged and flared, before glowing a blistering purple and disgorging a slime-covered Tomb Spider, collapsing on the ramp leading to the portal in an oozing heap. "MOTHERFUCKER." Naylor blinked. Tomb spider half rose, trying to wipe the slime from his face. Once he'd gotten enough of the muck off, he stared up at the shotgun, then up at Naylor. "...Hi, Grant." "Hi, Vic." Tomb Spider v s Sable Tentacle Deals Smashing damage with some, Energy and Poison damage. Good Negative Energy resistance ✔️ Deals minor negative energy damage. Superior Smashing resistance, good Energy and toxic damage resistance Elusive to all positionals ✔️ Elusive to Ranged attacks Stealth and bonus perception ✔️ Stealth Fear and Slow Resistant ✔️ Fears and Slows No -tohit resistance ✔️ Scads of -tohit No sustain powers ✔️ Powerful self heal Sable had a lot more longevity than he should have, but he ridiculously lucked out on getting fights against enemies that he was either uniquely suited to take out, or that were a lot weaker and more specialized than their seed would indicate. HIs luck streak ends here, closing out the quarterfinals.

Match 19: Seed 18 RR Hood vs Seed 17 Ryuko Kobayashi Amanda Vines screamed. It seemed like the thing to do. Huge, viney fingers closed around her, the enormous pumpkin-headed halloween monster letting out a fiery bellow. Small arms fire peppered Eochai, the hallow spirit roaring and stomping the ground, sending a wave of fire at the Arachnos Wolf Spiders that surrounded it. Though the bullets were hardly even pinpricks, the giant monster turned and dug one green fist into the brickwork of the WSPDR building and hauled itself upward, scrabling until it's feet found purchase in the brickwork. Slowly, ponderously, it began to climb. Marshall Brass pinched the bridge of his nose, staring down at the blurry still taken from a Huntsman's helmet camera. "...Jenkins." "Sir?" "Isn't the giant pumpking monster usually *smaller*? We've deal with this ridiculous halloween bullshit every year. Normally, it doesn't get that big, and it doesn't USUALLY decide to play King Kong with our star reporter. Brass tossed the photo, paperclipped to the top of a folder containing the report on the incident. It depicted Eochai holding a screaming Amanda Vines in its fist as it hung off one of the two broadcasting antenna atop the WSPDR building. "We're still looking into it, sir. At the moment we think it may have something to do with the Circle of Thorns, or interference from the PTS relays in the area... We're questioning Dr. Aeon as we speak." That cheered Brass slightly. Even if it wasn't actually his fault, he enjoyed the thought that Aeon was getting harassed and possibly even beaten for unleashing another giant monster on Aeon City. "Alright. Options?" "We can petition an attack Flyer in to bombard it, or one of the Patrons to be flown in from Grandville." "Vanguard? They have a DPO near there." "They don't seem to be getting involved, sir. Neither are the Midnight Squad at the university." Brass sighed. "Hire some supermercenary to take care of this, then." Amanda Vines continued to scream. There didn't seem to be a good reason to stop, really. Her voice was beginning to get hoarse, though, and she had motion sickness due to being whipped through the air in the giant monster's fist. With an incongrous little 'ding' the elevator on the building's roof opened up, and a seven-man team of soldiers poured out of it, gas-mask wearing troopers with obscured faces, and one mastermind leading them in a red cape and hood. At a command from their leader, the mercenaries opened fire, their heavy assault rifles barking as their customized ammunition tore through the monster, some poison contained in the capsule rounds bursting, the defoliant causing the fairy pumpkin to wither where the rounds struck. Eochai let out a terrible roar,dropping down and trying to crush one of the soldiers with a huge foot, but they slipped away, some combination of training, leadership, and the floating force-field generator that bobbed near the back of the formation letting him escape the attack with contemptous ease. Red planted another auto-turret, the machine swiveling and launching another canister of plant-killer with a 'foont'. "Medic bag on the ground, take if you need it. Mortars are out. Call if you take a hit... This should be an easy payday." Finally unslinging her anti-material rifle, Red aimed down the sight and sent a high-calibur rifle round through the pumpkin's head, a spatter of orange thrown up from the shot. "And watch your fire! It's got a hostage!" Holzfäller slapped his frankengun and snapped one of its add-ons into place, taking a knee. "Rocket out in three, two, ONE!" He cried, sending an explosive warhead into the center mass of the Fir Bolg. Stumbling, Eochai teetered, starting to fall backwards off the building. "Shit! Get the news anchor!" "Use a grapple line, stop it from falling!" "Something on the motion detectors, there's-" There was a blur of blue and white, and something came up the side of the building, intersecting Eochai near the elbow. With a sharp metal SHINK noise, the hardened vines parted, sliced in two, Eochai letting out a cry of pain and rage as it tumbled from the top of the building. The blue streak plummeted, hitting the falling arm and cutting it into multiple peices landing with a terrified Amanda Vines held in its arms. Ryoko wobbled a moment, awkwardly carrying the newscaster in a bridal carry, her Katana held in a reverse-grip to keep it away from the rescued woman, who she gently set on her feet a moment later. Amanda didn't bother to thank her rescuer, sprinting for the elevator. Ryoko gave her katana a flourish, flicking the vegentable juices off it and then sheathing it. She then looked up, noting the men with guns. "...The hell is that?" "Wow. It's just like one of my japanese animes..." RR ignored Fuchs and Ziegel conversing. "You, identify yourself." "Ryoko Kobayashi. I'm just a hunter passing through, and I saw that big Devouring Earth monster-" "That's not a Devouring Earth! It's an Eochai, they're-" "Big pumpkin monster! Devouring Earth. It's gotta be." RR stared at the schoolgirl for a moment. Thankfully, Holzfäller vocalized what she was thinking: "...Is this girl an idiot?" "Anyway, since I hunted it, it's mine now." "First off, not only is it not a devouring earth, it's not YOURS. We have the contract to eliminate this target." "...Ah, is that so? So, you want to fight over it? That's fine, too~" She smiled cheerfully, her hand going to the hilt of her katana. RR sighed and held up a hand. At her command, all her troops ejected their magazines, slapped in new ones, and worked the bolt to chamber a fresh round. Not only was it good intimidation, swapping to gel rounds to nonlethally incapacitate would make her feel better about trouncing this interloper. "Light her up." Her squad opened up, but the girl blurred, skewing left and right, weaving through the hail of gunfire, her hands dipping into unseen pockets and coming out with fistfuls of sharp steel. The knife and the shuriken spun out on trajectories through the hail of gunfire, aiming at hands, guns, breaking or jamming the weapons and injuring the soldiers. With her initial salvo depleted, the sword came out, a single flawless curved piece of steel that shone like a crescent moon as it whirled through the air, bullets sparking off it as the girl somehow deflected the incoming fire, rushing in for the kill. RR dropped her rifle, hands coming up. One had a webnade and the other a fistful of caltrops, she threw both at the enemy to slow her fire. Her HUD responded to the rapid movements of her eyes, setting the two auto-mortars to hose the girl down with the defoliant chemical rounds. She figured the acid probably having an unpleasant effect on humans as well as plants, and it was more things to huck at the incoming swordsman, anyway. Nothing seemed to slow her down, though, she zoomed around hte caltrop patches, evaded the webnade, and was up in melee range before Red could react. A last ditch option, she grabbed the axe-head from her belt, the ghost-slaying axe's handle unfolding on a collapsing telescoping rod, and she brought it up defensively as the girl brought her katana down. Sparks flew, and Ryoko had to blink backwards a second later as more gunfire ripped through where she'd been a moment ago. Zipping backwards, she spun 180 and ran UP the broadcast tower, ascending it halfway before pushing off and turning into a meteoric drop, crashing into the assembled mercs with her katana drawn, a spinning crashing Lotus Drop that sent out a shockwave of wind that cut just like the edge of a sword would, sending the Marchen mercenaries crashing backwards. Red rolled to her feet and charged, bringing the axe down in a few hard swings, but RR parried it with casual ease, far more skilled at close range than Red could ever be. "God, she's fast..." Red had a moment of admiration, before flinging out several grenades, the cannisters clacking across the ground to Ryoko's feet, who regarded them with a puzzled expression. Clicking her detonator, Red triggered the charge, a cloud of noxious green poison exploding out and engulfing most of the rooftop, Red's mercenary team having to pull back from the growing cloud. "Heh. No matter how good you are at dodging, you can't escape gas." Red watched the roiling cloud with a sense of satisfaction. She checked her troopers, who were limping and injured, moving to grab supplies from the medic bag on the floor. With her back turned, she missed the blue and white streak erupting from the cloud. "...Gross. But I'm pretty used to poison." Red didn't have time to react, a small-size sneaker hit the back of her head and drove her to the ground, the lenses of her gas mask cracking into spiderwebbed fragments as she was smashed to the roofing, Ryoko leaping off her like a springboard after her mercenaries. One arm was held over her nose and mouth, but the sleeve of her shirt was the only concession she made to the poison gas, her katana held one handed as she used her feet to fight, moving so fast she was a blur of color and motion, flashing between the Marchen soldiers, hitting them with bone-breaking force, disabling each of them in turn. As they fell, Red rose, grabbing her sniper rifle, bringig it up and aiming at the back of Ryoko's head, squeezing the trigger. The shot was good, but somehow the high school girl twisted in the air, bringing her sword up and then down in a vertical chop, slicing the incoming anti-material bullet in two the seperate halves continuing on past her and throwing up sparks as they hit the metal of the broadcast tower. "Ugh..!" Ryoko looked up. In a fraction of a second, the ninja girl had crossed the rooftop and was pointing her sword down at her. "It's my win. I'll be taking the monster." After a moment, Red had to nod. Her squad was out of condition. Withdrawing now was the smart call. The moment she relented, the girl beamed, sheathing her sword. "Yatta~ Pumpkin soup, pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake~ Big Devouring Earth monster for dinner~" She bounced off, cheerful. Red groaned, her head lowering to the roof as her head spun. "It's not...a devouring earth..." RR Hood v s Ryuko Kobayashi Deals high amounts of Lethal with some Smashing, Fire, and Toxic. No notable Lethal resistance ✔️ Deals high amounts of Lethal Damage. Modestly resists Lethal, Smashing, Fire, and Toxic damage Elusive to Lethal Damage Elusive to all positionals Stealth, bonus Perception Stealth, bonus Perception Triage beacon and medicine pool for sustain ✔️ Strong single self heal via riceballs Multiple Pets ✔️ Strong AoE (Lotus Drops, Flashing Steel, exploding shuriken) Debuffs (Defense) Resists Defense Debuffs Debuffs (Regen, Tohit) ✔️ No debuff resistance Confuse Resistance Confuse Cone Trump: All out Assault ✔️ Trump: Nothing in particular. Traps specialist ✔️ Can't trap a ninja! Red has been having an incredible showing, but Ryoko has some well placed lethal resistance, better sustain, large AoE attacks to wipe minion crowds, and no particular vulnerability to the mezzes and debuffs that Traps brings to the party. Only one of these rogues could advance to the semifinals, and it'll be the Scrapper, Ryoko, Next week will be Tomb Spider vs. Sable Tentacle, facing off in the last of our quarterfinal matches. Happy early halloween, and see you all then.

Match 18: Seed 4 Hivemind vs. Seed 5 Magia Prisma Magia Prisma's rod came down like a hammer, shattering the huge crystal into a thousand fragments, before she whirled to bring it around, smashing off the arm of a Devouring Earth rock monster. The arm remained animated, crawling on the floor independantly, the fungus inside still linked into the DE Hivemind. Another blow to the rock monster smashed it into pieces too small to easily fight, letting her turn her attention to a third enemy, the huge monsters making the underground cave seem cramped. It was like a dance. Quartz and Cairns, the emanators, were struck down first, then the minions, the Devoured, and any stray swarms taken care of last. Prioritize targets, strike with all your heart, and don't forget to smile! Pose for your fans! She sometimes wish she could just fight, rather than having to fight *stylishly*, but Veditore had made it very clear that due to her unstable nature as a magical girl, lacking teammates, she had to Pose, dance, sing, and smile, to keep her transformation from running out at the worst possible moment. Veditore had explained it in detail, something to do with the glamour, admiration, and cheers of her supporters being converted into magical energy as fuel, but the technical details had been lost on her. So, she flashed a double peace sign and then dropkicked a giant mushroom, splitting it in two. She wasn't sure who she was even fighting cutely FOR, it wasn' as if there was anything else down here to observe her, more details that Veditore had explained and she hadn't understood- "Prisma, look out!" She snapped out of the reverie as slimy tentacles wrapped around one of her legs, ensnaring her up to the thigh, while two huge hands with lamprey-like mouths in their palms reached up for her. She'd lost track of one of the Devoured during the melee, and it had managed to grip her, dragging her down into the pack of nature monsters. The two mouths hissed and gurgled as they slapped against the barrier of light that sheathed her body: "For the swarm... For the mistress...!" Channeling energy into her wand, she brought it down like a sledgehammer, right on top of the head. Momentarily stunned, the creature's tentacle-maw loosened, enough for her to drag her leg free and spin around, swinging her rod in a smiting blow, smashing whole groups of enemies onto their backs, or into walls. "Sorry, Veditore!" "Be more careful... These monsters are strong." The small cat fairy on her shoulder spoke with a deep, resonant baritone. "They're acting weird, too..." She sent an ambling tree sprawling back with a punch, before using her wand to blast the monster with kindling. "Swarm this, mistress that! Whoever's behind this, come out already, or I'll keep smashing your monsters to pieces!" "Hmm... I don't think I like your attitude, but you do have a point. I'd like to preserve as many minions as possible, and if that means challenging you myself..." The shambling monsters of the Devouring Earth receded, growling and grumbling. High heels clicked on the stone of the cave floor as Hivemind shimmered into view, regarding the small heroine with mild amusement. "...Just to make things clear, I won't be taking it easy on you just because you're a child. You cut a swath through my minions, so you can either run away or take the spanking you've earned, you little brat." "I'm Magia Prisma! A magical girl who's fighting for justice! Evildoer, I'll purify the wickedness in your heart!" Hivemind let out an indelicate snort. "...Are you actually hearing yourself right now? I can't believe even a girl your age can say lines like that with a straight face." Throwing out a hand, she manifested her will, energies swirling around the magical girl like a tornado. "On your knees, y-" She snapped her implanted blades out, holding them up in a crossed X. In a fraction of a second Magia had rocketed forward, bringing her wand down with the force of a thunderbolt. No sooner had she parried then another attack was coming, the tiny girl in the frilly pink costume driving her back. She was like a sledgehammer, a wrecking ball, a relentless offense that only grew stronger as she gathered momentum. "You're a Brute?!" "Hey, that's rude! I'm not a mindless, raging monster! Any fury I've got i just righteous indignation!" "Since when do frilly princesses like you fight in melee?! Aren't you supposed to hang back and use support magic?!"You don't watch enough anime! Plenty of magical girls have no problem getting-" "UP!" She swung her wand from below, connecting squarely with Hivemind, launching her into the air. "CLOSE!" She flashed upwards swinging down with both hands, impacting squarely and slamming Hivemind back to the ground. "And PERSONAL!" She gathered up a ball of energy at the tip of her wand, sending a sweeping shockwave down at her opponent. The blast shook the cavern, sending up chips of stone and a cloud of smoke and dust as Prisma slowly floated down, alighting delicately outside the dust cloud. "Magia-" "I know. When there's a big dust-cloud like this after an attack, they're never actually defeated yet." She kept her wand raised and ready. "But she won't have shrugged that off entirely, either. I felt all those connect solidly..." "No! Behind-" Veditore's warning came too late. Hivemind, battered, her costume torn in places, blood dripping from one busted lip, manifested behind the magical girl and grabbed her by the head in both hands. Raw waves of psionic domination flowed into her, and despite the magical wards protecting her mind, and her own raw determination, the flow of energy was just too intense. Prisma tried to raise her wand, to struggle or kick, but thoughts about trying to attack Hivemind were painful, burning in her mind like shards of ice. "Got you." Hivemind hissed as Prisma went slack in her grip. Once she had sealed off all the treacherous thoughts about continuing the fight, encasing them in barries of her own psychic power, she relaxed a little. She adjusted her grip on the magical girl, holding her face in her hands, stroking her cheeks with leather gloves. She brushed her leather gloves over the brute's lips, gently sipping her thumb into the girl's mouth, prying her mouth open. "Sh-shtop..." The girl mumbled, weakly, the most resistance she could muster. In response, Hivemind pushed harder, crushing down the girl's ego and volition. A whimpering noise escaped the heroine's throat, as Hivemind turned her around, looking into the girl's blank, glassy eyes. "Stick your tongue out." She ordered. Prisma complied, "Mouth open. Wide." She complied, closing her eyes and sticking her tongue out as far as she could, mouth open like she was visiting the dentist. Cupping her chin with one hand, she raised the other. With a 'snikt' Hivemind triggered one of her poisoned wrist blades, laying the long spike of metal on the tip of her tongue, and then slowly gliding it down, into her mouth. "Ngh. Ahgnh..." Tiny vocal protests, but she was well past the point of being able to fight back. Hivemind stopped before the needle tip pricked the back of her throat. Even invulnerable, super-strong enemies often had weak points, the eyes, the inside of the mouth. From this position, she could ram the spike through the back of the girl's throat, or upwards into her brain. She literally held the little pink brute's life in her hands. "...Good girl." She cooed. She angled the poisoned blade up, leaving a deliberate, shallow scratch on the roof of the girl's mouth. The neurotoxin in the blades would render her unconscious shortly, but there wouldn't be any permenant damage. She let the blade slide back into her arm, keeping her grip on the girl's chin as she withdrew her psychic influence as well. Magia Prisma jerked as if startling awake, but her body was already limp and useless as the poison overwhelmed her. Releasing her grip on the girl, she let her pitch forward, onto hands and knees. As a final humiliation, she lifted one heeled boot and casually rested it on the back of the heroine's head, pressing her forehead to the stone floor. She ground her heels in, painfully, as she spoke. "Consider this your one freebie, hero. Next time, I'll feed you to the Devoured, and make you another member of my hive. Mediporter, one to teleport." Prisma opened her mouth for a comeback, before she vanished in a blue-white flash. Hivemind hadn't even let her get in the last word... Hivemind v s Magia Prisma Deals Lethal, Toxic, and Psionic damage. Lightly resists Smashing Damage (Strongly resists smashing at low health) ✔️ Deals Smashing damage. Modestly resists Toxic, Greatly resists Lethal, Strongly resists Psionic Elusive to Smashing ✔️ Elusive to Lethal, no evasion vs. Psionics Mezzes (Hold, Immobilized) Mez Reistance Mezzes (Confuse) ✔️ No Mez Resistance Stealthed, bonus Perception Stealthed, bonus Perception Self Heal for sustain ✔️ Self Heal and End siphon Flight Flight Magical Girls are weak to yuri ✔️ That's a rude stereotype! Magia Prisma is a wrecking ball, and she's extremely good at what she does: Scads of smashing damage while having defense, resistance, and sustain through her self heals and energy-drains. When you've got a hammer, or a war mace, everything looks like a nail, but while she's got a hammer, Hivemind has a whole toolbox. Being able to flex into relying on her confusion and psionic attacks, something that Energy Aura's positional defenses can't easily deflect, is why I warded her the win here, as the two were otherwise very evenly matched. So, the innocent magical girl falls to the dark femme fatale, leaving Colmilla the last hero in the tournament, going up against Hivemind in the semifinals.

Match 17: Seed 16 Samuel Hain vs. Seed 6 Colmilla Colmilla whirled through the air. The behemoth roared, claws slicing at where she'd been moments ago as she gripped the beasts' shoulders and used them as a pommel horse, whipping her body around in circles before changing her grip to one of the demon's arms and wings, using her momentum, weight and strength to turn the spin into a poweful throw, bringing the Behemoth Overlord up and over, slamming it into the cracked pavement. The demon let out a screech as its corporeal body, bent and broken, dissolved into searing sulferous sparks and dissipated. Taking a moment to catch her breath and let the adrenaline rush subside, she stood up to look at the eerie full moon and the blood-red light cast by the corrupted war walls. Dark Astoria, one of the most dangerous hazard zones in the city... Surely, that meant this was where she could find strong opponents? She felt something strange tug at her, and she turned. Out of the shadows a strange scarecrow shambled, dragging a fire axe on the ground behind it in one limp hand, the scrape of steel on asphalt an unnerving rasp. "Ahahah...Heeeheee.. Ahuhoo, What is this place? What is this power? Fear, death, and darkness... It's amazing, intoxicating...! My unseelie blood is boiling! No, is it frozen instead...?" The abomination's pumpkin head jittered and twitched, rattling about violently as it approached. Colmilla half raised into a combat stance, but couldn't move, to either retreat or attack. Something was wrong, her body wasn't listening... "I can't stand it... I really feel like I'm going mad...! Ahahah, you, you..! Mortal, do you feel it as well? This terrible aura? The curses are so thick, so layered, so myriad and stagnant! Epochs of horror are baked into this land! No? NO! You can't sense it, can you?! Go, then. Join the restless dead...!" With a grunt of effort, the scarecrow hauled the fire axe up in both hands, raising it over its head and then bringing it down in a splitting, execution-style swing at the heroine. With a motion that was smooth and graceful, casually effortless, she sidestepped the swing, glancing down at the axe now buried deep in the concrete. The scarecrow was much stronger than its spindly frame would imply! "...Ah, erh." Sam stared at the strange mortal. With effort, it wrenched the axe from the concrete. Raising it high, he swung it like a baseball bat, a decapitating strike. This time the masked human ducked under the swing. "...How are you doing that?! You're possessed!" "Truly skilled fighters don't need to tell their bodies to move." She seemed slightly amused, as he flailed at her, whiffing every heavy, telegraphed blow. "This is all just reflex and instinct." "Well stop it! I'm trying to kill you, you realize that, right?" So pre-occupied with trying to hit the scrapper, his magic slipped, subtly. He only realized it as the woman suddenly juked under and brought her fist up in a violent uppercut, launching him several feet into the air. Several wood struts inside his body shattered, and he landed badly, scrambling back up to his peg-legged feet. "Yes, you did. I don't know what you are, scarecrow, but I'm going to go ahead and pay you back for the attempted murder now. In fact, I plan to pay you back tenfold, so try not to die before I'm done beating the shit out of you." Outraged, a wave of darkness flew up around Sam, wraiths, black dogs, swarming crows fluttering around him as the shadows he cast became longer and deeper, the dark magic of Astoria pouring into him as he turned his indignation into magical power. "You.... DIE!" The two fighters lunged forward. Colmilla ignored the shadows and shades, the ghosts and monsters. She went right for Sam, pummeling the scarecrow with vicious blows, throws and grapples. The construct seemed immune to pain and unbothered by her joint locks, so she substituted more brutal combat techniques, slamming her opponent into light posts, into the ground, using her feet and fists as he attempted to devour her with dark magic or shred her body with his terrible strength and vicious claws. In the violent melee, a distant shimmer atop a rooftop went entirely unnnoticed. "Leaving so soon?" Romulus turned his head to regard the small floating robotic drone that had some howpierced his optical camouflage. Well, *almost* unnoticed, at any rate. Giving it a wary nod, he responded: "It's finished already, Professor. I don't need to watch to the very end when the conclusion's already this obvious." "Please, no need for the formal titles. I am neither doctor nor professor, just a fellow robotocist. Now, comrade, what do you mean by that? You think the battle has a foregone conclusion?" Romulus folded his arms. "...First off, I want to clarify just one thing. I only came here as a spectator. Out of sheer academic interest!" The drone buzzed about, camera iris clicking. The voice coming through the tiny speakers took a cheeky tone. "So, you didn't come here to cheer her on?" Romulus flushed and glared at the drone. "O-of course not." He pressed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with one hand. "...It's simple academic interest. I just came to impartially observe the match." "..Hmm, I see." Utopia's drone swiveled to regard the match. "She certainly doesn't seem like the type who would thank you if you dove in to help her, even if that monster got the upper hand." "...No, she doesn't, does she." Romulus sighed. "Anyway, it doesn't seem like Samhain has noticed. By now, it's probably too late to react, even if he does." "Oh? What do you mean?" Romulus gestured at the clashing luchadora and unseelie fairy. "...Do you play videogames, Professor?" "I'm afraid not." Romulus rubbed his chin. "...Hmm. I'll try and explain it in reductive terms. Fighting games, Professor. Each player controls a character in the game. They exchange blows, each one of which depletes the health of the other." The tiny drone dipped, simulating a nod. "I'm following so far. And?" "...Some games do not accurately represent the health bars of the contestants." Utopia's drone buzzed about, uncertainly. ."...I don't understand." Romulus gestured as he spoke. "Generally, the game displays health as a bar. Logically, you'd intuit that when it's full, that's 100% health. When it's half full, that's 50%, and when it's empty, that's 0%." "And you're saying that's not the case?" "No, not always. Some games will skew the the bar so that when it's half full, you actually have 66% health left. It increases the sense of tension and danger. It's called 'the magic pixel' in some circles." Utopia's camera drone orbited the teen tyrant. "I see. But I'm not sure I understand the relevance?" Romulus jerked a thumb at the clashing pair. "Colmilla is like that. You can put her on the back foot, beat her down, push her into a corner..." He shrugs. "She doesn't give up. The last ten percent of her health bar is going to take ninety percent of your effort to deplete. Making her stay down, to accept defeat, is nearly impossible." Romulus took his eyes off the fight to regard the drone smugly. "Well, if he had some sort of hidden super move, he might be able to kill her before she can really dig her heels in and power her way through the fight with determination." "Ah. So you heard of my own defeat." Romulus nodded. "My condolences, professor. But it's too late for Samhain to use that ability. Even if he notices that she's just powering through his attacks, using it now would be likely to destroy him, too." "...Well, it's wrapping up. I'm going to leave while her attention is elsewhere." "Right. You're not here to cheer her on, or celebrate her victory." Sam lashed out, snarling, his claws going for the woman's throat, only for her to close her fingers around his wrist. Her leg snapped up, kicking him in the face and then crossing over as she pulled on his arm, leaving him on his knees behind her, his arm trapped between her legs with his wrist in one hand. With one sharp twist, she broke his wrist and arm, then went into a forward sumersault, using her one free hand to bounce forward, her legs coming up behind her to dig into Hain's chest. Compressed like a spring, she waited until the roll was halfway through before thrusting her arm and legs out as fast and hard as she could, letting go of Hain as she did. The scarecrow went FLYING, launched thirty feet into the air or more, and came down with a crack of breaking wood like a bookshelf falling out a window. "You... Curse you! Damn you! Ravens peck your eyes and maggots infest your soul!" Colmilla finally sagged, her injuries coming on all at once. Her costume was shredded in a dozen places by sharp claws, and blood poured from leaking cuts. She still managed a haughty snort. "Sorry, what was that? I thought I just heard the barking of a beaten dog." "Don't think you've actually won, mortal! This body is a shell, a simulacrum! Destroy my puppet if you like, but you can't actually harm me in any way that matters!" "...That so? So if I just..." "Wait, wait, let go of me, don't...AAAAGH!" [...] "This is humiliating. Just smash me already." Colmilla grinned at the jack-o-lantern head balanced on one of the corner posts for her home wrestling ring. "The way I see it, if I do, you'll just build yourself a new body, scarecrow. This way, I can keep you out of trouble." Sam grumbled. "You'll regret this... Samuel Hain v s Colmilla Deals Lethal and some Negative Energy damage, heavily resists Smashing damage ✔️ Deals Smashing damage, modestly resists Lethal damage Modest Evasion ✔️ Superior evasion Stealth Enhanced Perception Superior Mezzes (Hold, Stun, Immobilize) Mez Resistance Superior Mezzes (Terrorize, Confuse) ✔️ No Mez Resistance Summoned Pets Strong AoE No Sustain powers ✔️ Self Heal -Acc debuffs Focused Accuracy .....! ✔️ Scaling Resistance Lethal resist caps at 1/3rd health. Surprise! Man, that bonus scaling resistance in Super Reflexes really came in clutch here. huge defense lets her slip some of the nastiest mezzes, and the ones she's vulnerable to don't prevent her from taking some actions, including healing herself. It comes down to grit and sustain, and while Sam can chain Domination to restore his endurance, he has no way to restore depleted health. Once all his tricks and debuffs are expended and the match turns into a slugfest, the wrestler is the one who comes out on top,

With everyone introduced, we're now going to move on to the Quarterfinals! We're a full 2/3rds of the way through the tournament, and it's going to be fights from here to the end. We've got five of our eight slots taken by high seeds, but a few surprises have snuck in: 16th seed Samuel Hain, 18th seed RR Hood, and 22nd seed Sable Tentacle, reckoned to be the third weakest individual in the tournament, have made it to the quarterfinals. We've also had both our #1 and #2 seeds, Cosmic Cow and Looter Goblin, eliminated. Our brackets are favoring the Arachnos VEATS as well as Scrappers, with both archetypes having yet to lose either of their two represenatives, with the remaining four a mix of Defender, Mastermind, Brute, and Dominator. That does mean that Blaster, Controller, Tanker, Sentinel, Stalker, and Corruptor have all been eliminated. We're also down to just two heroes, Colmilla and Magia Prisma, with the rest of the contestants being either rogues or outright villains. We'll be doing the quarterfinals, semifinals, bronze match, and finals, covering the final 8 matches, over the coming weeks. See you there.

Match 16: Seed 6 Peyote Patrol vs. Seed 22 Sable Tentacle "Hey. Y'know. Hey." Peyote barely gave the cyborg slumped over the bartop as he pried his cheek up off the slightly-sticky wood, instead continuing to polish one of the glasses. "Hey. Hey. Bartender. Hey. I bet I could beat you in a fight." "...That's a weird thing to say to someone out of nowhere." Sable gave her a broad grin. "It's true, though." Peyote plonked a bottle of beer down in front of him, taking his empty away. "Alright, I'll humor you. Why do you think that?" Popping the cap off with a metal thumb, Sable drank greedily before setting the bottle down on the bartop. "First. You're all spikey and fiery." Peyote didn't bother questioning how he knew that, she'd demonstrated her mutations a few times in the bar. Voluntarily or involuntarily, the bartender erupting into flames probably was memorable enough that word got around. "...And I'm pretty spike-proof. So it's just the fire-" "And the poison." "Huh?" "Poison. My spines are poisonous.' "Okay, but, like, *Barely*." She raised an eyebrow at his dismissive stance. "And, more importantly, I think your fire shields won't really protect you that well from my dimensional blasts." "It's more like sunlight-" "FIRE SHIELDS." " Peyote rolled her eyes. "Alright, smart guy, so you might have a damage type advantage." "Yeah, but it's more than that." "Oh?" "Stealth." "...Stealth." "Yeah, I can fade out of dimensions-" Peyote shook her head. "Nope." She tapped the brim of her hat. "Secondary mutations, heightened perception and broad vision spectrum." She pointed a clawed finger at him. "Which also means that your master-of-darkness stick of blinding people so they can't hit anything? Not gonna be effective on me." "...I mean, it's a LOT of darkness, it'd still be kinda effective..." "Look, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt about the poison, you give me the darkness immunity. Fair?" "...Fine." "So, we're one-to-one." "I count it as one-zero. You being able to see through my dimensional miasma just negates my advantages, it's not an advantage in and of itself." Peyote gave him a level stare as he drank the rest of his beer, wordlessly replacing the empty bottle with a new full one once he had drained the contents. "So, what else?" "Tentacles?" "Excuse me?" "I can summon lots of tentacles. They're useful for *all kinds* of things." Peyote flushed slightly. "...I'm not *weak to tentacles*." "Liar. But fine, more broadly, submerging into the otherworld is pretty disorienting. You're a slow moving, vulnerable target getting entangled in the tendrils of the netherworld, whereas I'm doing short jaunt teleports and attacking from range." "I've got a few ranged attacks of my own. I wouldn't be a sitting duck." "Okay, but you're not *specialized* around them like I am." "Alright, fine. Point to you. What else?" "I'm two points up, you need more?" "Make it 3 and I'll concede that you could beat me in a fight. Otherwise, we've been giving each other too may edge cases." "Okay, okay. And I get a prize for three, right?" "Sure, sure. You get a prize." "Hmm. In that case... regeneration." "I can do that too, y'know." "Hmm, but is your stronger than mine?" "...Kind of hard to measure such things." "Well, between me and Greg..." "Greg?" Sable waved his hands vaguely. "Greg! Walking...shadowy nightmare man. He's a bro." "...So Greg is helping you, huh? So this isn't a duel anymore?" "It's a duel, Greg's like, a summon. He doesn't count." "See, this is that edge case scenario I was talking about..." "...Hmm, fine. You're good at pokey-area-of-effect-death-nova-destruction, so you could attack me *and* Greg at the same time. I'll concede that much. I think the healing is still a draw, though." Sable snapped his fingers, the sound coming out harsh and metallic from cybernetic hands. "Cosmic horror." "Oh, really?" "Yep. I can broadcast a frequency of the other dimension I tap into. It's real freaky and hard to deal with. Only a few people resist it." "Alright, I admit that I don't know what you're talking about, so maybe I couldn't defend against it-" "Which is three. So I win." Peyote sighed and took his empty beer bottle, turning around and dropping it in the recycling bin. "Yes, good game. You can probably take me in a fight. I admit, I'm not really all that strong, so don't get a big head over it." She felt a sudden stir of energy behind her, the Freak suddenly pressing against her back, hands slowly gliding down her hips. "So, with that decided-" He was interrupted by the organic 'Shlk!' of Peyote's thorns deploying, piercing him in several places. Blood and clear sap mingled as it dripped from the myriad wounds, but the Excelsior pumping through his system turned it into a distant distraction, a tingle or buzz, rather than a painful wound." "So, with that decided." He repeated. "I think it's safe to say I can handle something a little friendlier than a full on fight, right?" Peyote pushed him away, stepping back and turning around, angry. "What the hell?! Was this your idea of flirting?!" She stared at the broken-off thorns, the blood, and the sheer ambivalence the cyborg was exhibiting towards them. Sable shrugged. "Yeah, kinda. I bet you can't really 'get friendly' with anyone without burning them or poking them fulla holes, so I figured establishing that won't be a problem was a good step one." "I'm a *cactus*. What is wrong with you?!" That actually elicited a barking laugh from him. "Freakshow, baby! We're built different." "No. Hard no." "C'mooon, at least think about it!" "I thought about it, and I've decided no." She shook her head. "Now get out from behind the bar." "C'mon. I only came over here because you looked lonely." Peyote glanced up and down the bar. The pounding club music, the distant sound of laughter, chatter. People were having fun, just somewhere else. This particular bar was almost always underutilized. "I'm FINE. Now-" "Just one kiss? You did promise me a prize." Peyote sighed, glancing up at him. Her cheeks flushed. It was true, she was bored, she was lonely. And he was...handsome, in a way, even if he put her nerves on edge. Their difference in heights made her stretch up onto tiptoes. One of his hands pulled back her wide-brimmed hat, letting him get close to her face. Her jaw was too wide, oddly shaped, her tongue slim and thin and too-long, her saliva thick and sappy and lightly sweet, tinted green. Her thorns slid free again, piercing the Freak as he held her, one hand behind her head, holding her hat, the other holding her waist... well, gripping her by the ass, if she was being honest. The temperature between them rose swiftly, unnaturally, until she knew she was uncomfortably hot to the touch. The kiss, when it finally broke, both participants short on breath, should have left Sable with burned lips and hands, bleeding from the huge spikes piercing his body. The injuries, instead, were so much more minor, and they didn't seem to bother him at all. "...Shall we take this down to the base portal?" He asked, giving her a little squeeze. Peyote, her cheeks flushed a deep green, pressed her face against his chest, letting out a half-hearted little grumble. "...I think we'd better, yeah..." So yeah, Peyote was... Whatever the opposite of a Ringer is? You probably guessed it by the fact that she's a spines/fire brute, but Peyote is my farming character. I just kind of worked into the narrative her stranding in Pocket D, for the novelty value of having a level 50 Praetorian. So like a deep sea creature that can only survive around underwater geothermal vents. she's only specialized to exist in Fire Farms, against basically everyone else, she's got nothing. Being permentanly trapped in the D also puts a damper on her ability to get into scraps, so instead she and Sable just talked it out. Sable advances another round, but how many more brackets can he climb simply by meeting enemies that are uniquely vulnerable to his powers?

At seed 6, we have our second Brute and our final character for the tournament: The Pure Praetorian, Peyote Patrol. Elena Flores predates the Praetorian Empire by ten years. Young enough to have seen countless soldiers go to war against the Devouring Earth, and never return, or worse, return only to die of their wounds or the virulent tellurian plague. She remembers watching Chairman Cole doing battle with the city-sized Hamidon in Mexico, and his victory over the giant monster. The formation of the empire, The era of relative peace and reconstruction that followed. It felt like the tide was turning, the Devouring Earth beaten back. Even the disaster that destroyed First Ward seemed only to be a misstep on the road forwards. For someone who's earliest memories were of the Hamidon Wars, Praetoria City was a dream. Elena had her needs catered to, food, water, shelter, and even education: Remembering the horrors of war, and those bodies being shipped back from the front line, she entered a career in medicine. A registered nurse, she wanted to heal the sick and injured, to ease the pain of those around her now that she was no longer so young and helpless. Her mutant expression came late in her life, in her early 30s rather than at puberty. Commensurately, it was an intense, violent expression, the kind that twisted the body into an entirely new configuration. For Elena, it was agonizing, the transformation taking days and leaving her immobile for the duration. Her bones shifted, her skin hardened. She took on the characteristics of a plant: regenerative, green-skinned, her flesh dense and filled with sappy green fluids. Huge thorns thrust out of her skin, filled with a numbing poison. Her photosynthetic body could absorb enough solar energy to not only make eating obsolete, but to create a glowing shield of heat and light around her, a corona of flame. Elena's career, her life in praetoria, ended with her mutant expression. Not only did her dangerous auras make simply being near other humans an unnecessary hazard, her appearance as a plant-human hybrid evoked the monsters of the Devouring Earth. She couldn't get close to anyone, and nobody *wanted* to get close to her. Of course, a career in medicine was no longer an option, even without factoring in the laws of Praetoria: Mandatory service in Powers Division for anyone with mutant abilities. In one fell swoop, Elena became 'Peyote', a Powers Division operative. Peyote's career was adequate but not exemplary. She hadn't exactly asked for the position, and despite goading she never attempted to become part of Praetor White's Top Dogs. She did what was asked and little more, her lack of ambition combined with poor 'marketability' due to the nature of her mutation leaving her to work mostly in low-profile jobs, often relegated to patrolling the tunnels below Praetoria. For a period of several years, she bounced between her job, her home, to soak up sunlight in quiet isolation, and Studio 55, where she honed her skills as a barfly, drinking heavily to somewhat dull the pain of her own powers, the dull ache of generating the large thorns that she used to fight. Her lack of public visibility may have been what caused Provost Marchand to select her as an infiltrator to Primal Earth. The presumption that her absence wouldn't be noted, and the fact that she had proven her loyalty with years of service, undistinguished as it was. Whatever the reason, the order was given, and Peyote reacted in abject panic. War? Praetoria was going to war, again? The scars of the Hamidon Wars had hardly healed. Would she, too, become one of the next generation of faceless casualties, that endless parade of dead and dying she'd witnessed as a child? Trauma, or perhaps cowardice, overwhelmed her. She could have tried to warn the people of primal earth, or turned to the Resistance, or brought up her protests to Praetor White, or even, perhaps, the Emperor herself. She could have refused the assignment and bore with whatever re-education Mother deigned she required. Instead, she fled. Studio 55, her favorite drinking spot, had a portal, for those that knew where to find it, a portal to an interdimensional safe space known as Pocket D. She entered the club to bargain with DJ Zero for asylum. For whatever reason, the cosmic entity granted her request: His policy of neutrality didn't extend to forcing her to leave the nightclub to whatever fate awaited her back home. In exchange for favors for the transdimensional demigod, he gave her access to some of the backrooms and sublevels of the building: a place to build herself a place to sleep, eat, and shower. Even to this very day, Peyote Patrol remains in Pocket D. She heard news, gossip, among the superpowered patrons: Emperor Cole, Tyrant, defeated. The Devouring Earth had reclaimed praetoria, destroying much of it. Last Bastion, the last portal to Praetoria, had been defended, but the planet was evacuated, the bones of her world now picked over by technological scavengers. The slow, awkward, painful integration into primal society of the refugees, with lingering tension among the loyalists and the former resistance. Peyote has convinced herself that she cannot move on to Primal Earth; her cowardice and betrayal would be something that neither her former allies nor enemies could tolerate; her refusal to stand with either side then now meaning she has no friends in the present, no way to make her life in that world. Instead, she does odd jobs for DJ Zero, she plays the simulator game for prizes and trades those with heroes for information and trinkets from outside the club. And she bartends, having gotten fairly good at it with years of practice since the Praetorian War came to a close. Peyote, the great praetorian traitor, endures. Peyote Patrols is a Mutation Brute with Spines and Fiery Aura as her powersets. Her ancillary pool is Energy Mastery, with pool picks in Speed and Leaping. Her notable powers are as follows: [Cactus Biology: Thorns] Peyote can grow and regenerate long, thin spines filled with a numbing chemical toxin. They replenish themselves quickly and thus she often breaks them off inside enemies. Growing them is uncomfortable, bordering on painful, and has inspired her self-medication with drugs and alchohol. [Cactus Biology: Solar Absorption] Peyote appears to be capable of generating shields of flame: In actuality, she is simply releasing banked up sunlight. The aura of heat and light is intense enough to act as both a weapon and a shield. [Cactus Biology: Regeneration] Peyote can rapidly restore damaged tissue via wild regrowth. Even if fully defeated, releasing a surge of solar energy can allow her to return to battle.

Match 15: Seed 3 Tomb Spider vs. Seed 19 Cursed Gold Idol The crackling, crimson lightning of the Mu ignited the dry, leathery skin of the walking dead, turning them into blazing torches. The light of their immolation cast dancing shadows on the ancient crypt, Tomb Spider advancing with the Halberd of Hequat held high, grip smoothly sliding along the haft in an overhead, wood-chopping swing that smashed the floating mask and its attendant malicious spirit to splinters. The shaman, an overweight man in glasses who looked like a high-school principle, looked ridiculous dressed in the beads and furs and bodypaint of the Banished Pantheon. The Shaman started to speak. An incantation, or a plea for mercy, or a vicious taunt in the name of Lughebu, his god. Victor didn't wait for him to finish. He lashed out, remorseless, snapping the shaman's neck with a single hammer blow to the side of the head. For all the man looked like a hapless fool, by the time you were commanding the throngs of the living dead, you were deep enough into the service of the dark gods to have done some reprehensible, unforgivable things. Not that it had mattered. He'd killed men who were far more blameless than the wanna-be pawn of the dark forces he left behind him as he advanced into the ancient temple complex. He traced gloved fingertips over the crumbling stone. A temple to Ermeeth? Definitely Oranbegan make, at least. He dragged the radio out of his belt, pressing the button on the side. Hold, tap tap. Tap, hold. Tap tap tap. 'Deploy Arachnobot Support'. He heard the skittering of metal claws on stone long before he saw them. He'd outfitted Fortune and Glory, his personal arachnobots, with a pair of headlamps, giving him more light to work with now that the burning zombies were behind him. Several spiked pits, a dart trap, and a rolling boulder later, he entered the center chamber of the temple. The dias had been desecrated, the once magnificent statue of Ermeeth worn away to the point that it was essentially featureless, and dwarfed by the huge wooden Totem, crackling with green fire, that lurked nearby. That was all more or less expected, what was LESS expected was the young girl sitting on the cracked altar, swinging her bare feet as she nibbled on a choclate bar. Red markings, like tattoos, ran all over her body, in barbed and swirling tribal patterns, and her hair was a supernatural white. The mysterious child raised a hand and mutely waved at him, but otherwise was engrossed in the candy. Wordlessly, his eyes slid to the Totem, as if demanding an explanation. "Fool... Interloper... Though you have come seeking the Idol of Xipe Totec, you will find only your death! Our new toy, this wayward spirit, will send your soul screaming to Lughebu-" "...You're noisy." The girl suddenly spoke up. Her free hand, that she'd used to wave, lifted, palm forward, and gathered in light, an orb of fire the size of a golf ball, then a softball, then a basketball, expanding to the size of a exercise ball. The fireball, the golden spark of fusion, a miniature sun, rushed forward and blew the Totem to kindling in an instant, the shreds of the exploding wooden construct pattering down, burning. "..And I'm neither your toy nor a spirit. I am a God." She turned her gaze back to Tomb Spider, who took an involuntary step backward. "...Who *are* you?" "I am Xipe Totec, Red Tezcatlipoca, Lord of the East. God of-" "Goldsmiths, corn, and the cycle of death and rebirth." He finished for her. "You know of me. Good. What is it you desire, supplicant?" "...I am not here to pray. Spirit, Idol, whatever you are. I'm here for you." With a wave of his hands, he sent the two arachnobots scuttling forward, web spinners set to capture mode. He unslung his halberd, advancing behind them. The robots pounced on the small child, entangling her in sticky webbing, cocooning her from the shoulders down in just a few moments. She seemed unperturbed, staring up at him; her shining eyes not reflecting any recognizable human emotion. "I told you. I'm not a spirit. I am a god." It was half his minimal magical aptitude allowing Victor to recognize a massive magical working, siphoning away his life and vitality, and half pure instinct and reflexes. He dove backwards as the Idol sucked in his energy, his potential, a violent life-devouring curse that pulled everything he was in and converted it into nuclear fire. His arachnobots were caught in the spell too, something of their power torn away and used to fuel the massive atomic pyre that erupted, consuming them both in seconds. Where the girl had been bound a massive golden statue kneeled, slowly rising to its full, towering height as the light and heat of the blast died away. Tomb Spider ran. He had no interest in playing chicken with the magical golem and seeing who's luck ran out first, not with it having supercharged itself. Instead, he drew the shadows around him, the halberd turning him into a flickering shape in the darkness. Down the hallways he'd so patiently cleared of traps and snares, blessing his foresight to ensure he had a clean escape route. Behind him, the idol pursued. Laser beam eyes scorched marks into the walls, sending molten rock pouring down like candle wax or splashing up like a volcanic geyser as solar spheres cracked into the stonework. As he ran, he pointed his halberds at some of the jams and bypasses he'd used to get past the traps, zapping them with lightning to re-arm the ancient mechanisms. The dart traps just bounced off the idol's golden skin, but the pit traps made the Aztec god stagger and slow, enough for him to gain some distance. Enough for him to reach a fork in the path, and choose the 'wrong' direction, slamming his foot down on a stiff stone pressure plate and then dive for safety into a small alcove. The grinding of old supports being pulled away to release the huge stone slab rumbled and shook the entire temple as the Idol, eyes blazing, turned the corner, only to be nearly flattened under a multi-ton block of stone. forced to kneel, its arms quavering under the weight of the trap. More atomic fire swirled around it, lancing up into the crushing trap, and molten cracks started to appear, the huge stone starting to melt, vaporize, and crumble, until the idol could heave itself to its feet, the hot stone dripping over it as it surveyed the surroundings, spotting the alcove. It could see the distinct outline of Tomb Spider's wide brimmed hat peeking out from the small indentation. "I am a god who loves humanity. However, you, who will not worship, who do not accept my blessing, and yet seek my power regardless. You will be destroyed, sacrificed. Your blood and heart-" The idol cut off, suddenly. It had reached the alcove but found it to be empty, the hat having been carefully balanced on a small piton stuck onto the wall. Tomb Spider emerged from his invisible cloak to strike before the Idol could turn. He couldn't wait for that stolen energy to dissipate, this needed to end in only a few strikes. HIs first was a wide, baseball swing, sending the idol sprawling to the ground. The second was an overhead chop, bashing it and rending the soft metal of its body, and the final swing was a huge and shattering blow, driving the idol to the ground. Panting, Tomb Spider watched as the gold body melted away, leaving behind the girl he'd seen before. Reaching down, he checked her pulse: Still alive, but unconscious. With a groan, he picked her up by the back of the neck like a kitten and tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. "The things I do for a paycheck... you're lucky M.A.G.I. was the highest bidder today, kid." Tomb Spider v s Cursed Gold Idol Deals Smashing, Energy, and Toxic Damage. Some energy resistance ✔️ Deals Energy damage. Heavily resists Smashing damage, some toxic resistance, no energy resistance. Stealth ✔️ No Enhanced Perception High Defense High Defense No sustain abilities ✔️ Spammable self heal and end restoration. Multiple summoned pets ✔️ Fulcrum shift and heavy AOE Innate mez resistance Strong Stun effects Treasure Specialist ✔️ Is a Treasure The tomb raider and treasure hunter has the kind of experience you need to deal with these sort of things. Also, I'm really excited, someone actually PM'd me in game and told me they were a fan of this whole tournament. Extremely cool. The next match, Peyote Patrol vs. Sable Tentacle, will finish up the second bracket of 8 and bring us into the final third of the tournament, with the quarterfinals, semifinals, bronze match and then our final match for the prestige of tournament champion.