Choose your destiny! Flawless victory! [Inevitable Tournament Arc]

[meat_mooks]

No sooner did the Obs Deck descend to Arena Planet LXIII, and the crew allowed to disembark, than they were met by a veritable cloud swarm of cameras. Sleek, elegant things that might have been living, might have been machines, maybe were even magical... but were definitely nuisances as the swooped around to capture video of the crew at all conceivable angles, close up and far away. Their every move from this point on would be on camera.

In front of a small crowd of retainers stood what appeared to be a great circular orb whose only distinguishing features were a nose, and what appeared to be the most overblown mustache ever, which actually appeared to be supporting that two-foot-diameter orb at shoulder height to a tall man. Then the orb took a couple of steps forward,revealing that no, those were actually just really, really hairy legs. A seam cracked open on the creature, and in a voice loud enough to echo across the broad open plains without any need for amplification, it bellowed, "AND NOW! STRAIGHT FROM THE TRANSMIGRATION NINE VESSEL! OUR NEWEST COMPETITORS! FRESH TO THE STAGE OF BATTLE, BUT NO STRANGERS TO WAR--"

It went on like this for some time.

Under cover of this introduction, a small man that to all appearances seemed to be the love child of Richard Nixon and a particularly aggressive Furby stepped forward, and in a bored businesslike tone recited, "Welcome to the tournament. There will be one battle per day. The arena in which you battle will be determined by random draw. Our medical crew will perform all healing necessary and ensure no deaths so feel free to not hold back. Please refrain from accepting any bribes or favors from on-planet spectators--"

"--ARE YOU READY?!" the orb bellowed even louder than before, completely swamping the smaller man's recitation. "THEN STEP THIS WAY!"

And so saying, the orb and its procession began a clearly well-choreographed procession towards a large, medieval-looking fortress that hung dramatically just on the edge of clear vision. (Conveniently, this procession passed several large advertisements.)

Comments

Re: Sekiou vs. Beastboy

[changelingdude]

It was inspiring to Beastboy who took the moment to shift into the shape of a gazelle to dash about playfully smelling the fresh ozone in the air.

[meat_mooks]

"Little brat."

The man facing him sneered behind the belts that covered his face. "Afraid to fight?"

[changelingdude]

The Gazelle let out a distressed noise and almost screwed up his landing before shifting back into human form and rolling to a stop. Sitting up Beastboy looked in awe and a tinge of excitement.

"DUDE! You are like...the most wicked creepy looking guy I've seen in MONTHS! Monster movies got nothing on you!" He praised.

[meat_mooks]

Well now, this would be easy. Drawing back one massive fist, Sekiou lashed out with a vicious body blow at the boy who was too busy yakking when he should have been fighting.

[changelingdude]

WHAM!

Beastboy took the force of the blow and was knocked back a good distance bouncing and rolling across the grass. The wind was knocked clean from his lungs and he found himself coughing with tears in his eyes.

"Not much for witty banter huh?" He wheezed as he forced air back into his lungs still on all fours.

[meat_mooks]

Not when it was this easy, clearly. Sekiou was something of a one-trick pony -- he advanced on Beastboy, fist drawn back again. He planned to simply beat the kid until he stopped moving.

[changelingdude]

But this time Beastboy hit the ground running, as a rabbit.

He was a little green blur running stright for Sekiou, and once he was underneath him he transformed again, into a mighty silverback gorilla!

With the force of a body made almost out of pure muscle he rose up from the grass to deliver an uppercut to Sekiou.

[meat_mooks]

The brute of a man reeled backwards, collapsing onto the ground on his back. The lines around his eyes tightened as he reached into his pants pocket for something.

[changelingdude]

The shift from gorilla to tiger was seamless as fur melted and sprouted fresh. A long thick tail shot out from behind and the muscles reformed in the perfect position for a powerful pounce trying to pin the scary looking man before he could draw whatever weapon he was going for.

[meat_mooks]

An excellent plan, but he hadn't been drawing a weapon. From his pocket he produced what appeared to be a stone sphere with an iron chain attached, a symbol written on that sphere. The ground burst up around him, as all the rock in a wide radius ripped free of the earth to coat his skin like armor.

[changelingdude]

And so you could imagine Beastboy's surprise when his claws found purchase in a stone body instead of skin.

There was a frustraited growl, and he shifted forms once more adding roughly 6.1–12.0 tons of weight and planting a very solid foot on the stone armor.

The mighty triceratops felt pretty good about his chances of winning today.

[meat_mooks]

The now-stone giant reached up and seized that massive hoof with both of his hands. Straining mightily, he put the full force of his strength behind his effort... and began to lift the dinosaur's leg up.

[changelingdude]

The long since extinct creatures eyes boggled in shock this guy was hard core!

Another shift into T-rex form, desperately hoping the extra weight would help stall while he tried to figure out an alternative.

[meat_mooks]

As soon as the shift began, Sekiou lurched out from beneath the foot, letting it crash down on the space he had occupied just a moment ago. Rising to one knee, he drove a swift but awesomely powerful punch at the dinosaur's ankle.

[changelingdude]

This led to a rather amusing image of a T-rec flailing his tiny arms as his ankle was knocked out from underneath him. He fell on his face hard and shifted back to human form once more.

[meat_mooks]

Standing, the stone giant clasped its hands together, raised them, then brought them down at the boy in an intensely powerful, but admittedly quite slow, smash.

[changelingdude]

And as the slow smash came down Beastboy seemed to shrink away from it in fear...

And then he continued to shrink.

And shrink some more.

A tiny green housefly shot like a rocket to the underside of the fist before shrinking even further into ant form.

The rocky skin was like a tower of cracked stones to the little green ant who raced up his opponent's arm.

Once upon a time Beastboy had asked Cyborg, Raven and Robin (The three smartest people he knew at the time) where all his extra bodyparts went when he got small. Between the three of them they had come up with some kind of theory involving the space that people traveled through when using boom tube technology and big words that Beastboy couldn't follow.

All he had come up with was that he was awesome and awesome needed no explanation.

Hoping that he was somewhere dangerous and being unable to tell (Antvision was nearly useless for that sort of thing) he slipped into one of the seams where the stones met...and began to grow as big and fast as he could. A mighty elephant!

[meat_mooks]

Stone burst and shrapnel flew as the teen became a titanic creature. Sekiou, who had made a furious grab for the housefly that was doomed to fail, collapsed underneath his weight with an anguished cry. Where the rock had exploded from his form, bones crunched audibly beneath Beastboy's pachydermal legs.

But he didn't seem quite out yet, for the rock armor was already attempting to reform around the wound...

[changelingdude]

Aw come on dude...

Another shapeshift the weight vanishing in a heart beat as a glittering green spider fell and attempted to sink it's fangs into the wound before it closed. An Australian Funnel Web Spider to be exact.

Beastboy hated using venom as an attack, but when he did he always chose the types that wouldn't kill his enemy...just mess them up or hopefully incapacitate them. In this case the venom of Australian funnel-web spiders and mouse spiders works by opening sodium channels, causing excessive neural activity which interferes with normal bodily function.

It was times like this he deeply...dearly missed having the best cable package around. Animal Planet was a constant source of inspiration.

[meat_mooks]

That did the trick. With a gasp, his foe collapsed, and the gathered stone sloughed off him.

The silence lasted all of ten seconds before fireworks filled the sky with color in celebration of his victory.

[changelingdude]

Beastboy rose, weary to his feet and pumped his fists in the air "Whoooo!" He croaked looking pale. All the shape shifting so fast from so big to so small had been exhausting! But it had done the trick in the end.

"Somebody get this guy to a doctor!" He added loudly though he wasn't sure who could hear him.

[meat_mooks]

As if in response to his words, the two of them abruptly disappeared -- reappearing moments later in a hospital room, or so it seemed to all appearances. His foe, the stone armor gone, lay on a bad opposite Beastboy, being examined by a small, badly burned man who leaned heavily on a staff.

"Bah," he said, after a moment, then took the sphere-on-a-chain from Sekiou, turning to toss it to Beastboy. "This is his only power of note, and so now it is yours."

[changelingdude]

Beastboy fumbled the catch and it bounced in his hands once, twice, catching it the third time. "Oh hey uh thanks." He grinned and waved cheerfully at his former opponent...despite the disabling illness that he had brought upon him.

He leaned back in the bed ready to rest and recharge. If the first round had been that tough he wanted to be absolutely sure he was ready for the next round.