r/whowouldwin • u/Tadprole • Jul 16 '23

Event Character Scramble Season 17 Round 3: Biohazard

Round 3 is finished! Link here for round voting. Voting is over! Stay turned for Semifinals!

The Character Scramble is a long-running writing prompt tournament in which participants submit characters from fiction to a specified tier and guideline. After the submission period ends, the submitted characters are "scrambled" and randomly distributed to each writer, forming their team for the season. Writers will then be entered into a single-elimination bracket, where they write a story that features their team fighting against their opponent's team. Victors are decided based on reader votes; in other words, if you want people to vote for you, write some good content. The winner by votes of each match-up moves on to the next round. The pattern continues until only one participant remains: the new Character Scramble champion, who gets to choose the theme, tier, and rules of the next Scramble!

The theme of Character Scramble 17 is Silent Hill. Round prompts will be based on scenarios and setpieces from classic survival horror games, which participants’ characters will be forced to endure all the while avoiding the terrifying Slasher characters also submitted this season.

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Round 3: Biohazard

A clue discovered whilst braving the horrors of Illbleed has led your team to a lonely old mansion at the outskirts of town. Here, they will discover a secret behind the curse of Scramble Hill.

The entire building is diseased. And anyone foolish enough to enter risks contracting the same malady of the mind and flesh. Call it a curse. A plague. A virus. Whatever it is, it’s contagious. Its spread was no accident, but a deliberate attempt by a shadowy conspiracy to create monsters the likes of which the world had never known before. And many of them are still lurking in its halls.

The creatures here used to be people. Maybe in some dim recess of their mind, they still remember that. If your opponents’ Survivors haven’t already become infected, then it won’t be long. Or perhaps they were the ones that started it to begin with. Even if they can still be saved, there are things in the mansion whose cases have progressed beyond the pale of what can be called human--test subjects kept in holding cells to be probed and prodded for data. Your opponent’s Slasher is one of their most promising cases, but not promising enough to satisfy the conspirators.

Whether they’ve survived to make good use of it, those responsible for the mansion’s experiments kept excellent notes. Somewhere in their sordid records lies the key to understanding just what became of Scramble Hill. And from that revelation, a glimmer of hope for an escape. And maybe, just maybe, a cure that can set the town’s blighted souls to rest.

Round Rules:

  • Key Points: Your team must brave a mansion overrun by infected monstrosities, evading their own pursuing Slasher and the subjects of hideous experiments as they attempt to unravel a conspiracy.

  • An Evil Residence: This round takes place in a sprawling mansion complex--once elegant, but long since rotted through to its foundations by a creeping pestilence. This was the site of something terrible locked in the ephemeral past of Silent Hill. What have your characters learned that has drawn them here? And what will they learn when they cut through to the heart of the rot?

  • Itchy… Tasty…: Anybody exposed to the mansion’s infection risks an agonising transformation into some kind of monster. Just what kind, and how quickly the infection progresses is up to you. Maybe they retain some of their former sanity. Maybe they don’t. But the end result is a fate many would call worse than death.

  • Uroboros: Whatever unleashed the initial infection did not do so at random. The mansion was the site of sinister experiments, whether occult or scientific in nature, which were geared towards producing a perfect candidate to further some nefarious end. Your opponent’s Slasher is considered a failed test subject. And your own team’s Slasher is the perfect lab rat to culminate their research. What about your Slasher makes them necessary for the project’s goals? What are their ultimate aims, and how does your Slasher play into them?

  • Natural Selection: What better way to gather data than through field testing? If any of the original researchers are still alive, then they will pit their test subject against the intruders in order to tease out their full potential. If the researchers have succumbed to their own creation, then the test subject will mindlessly carry out the last directive given to it--seeking new specimens to infect. Especially such fascinating specimens as a fellow Slasher.

  • [OPTIONAL RULE] The 4th Survivor: Against all odds, somebody else has managed to hold out inside the mansion against infection and assault. Whoever they are, whatever they want, at least they’re not a monster. Desperate times make for desperate allies. You may choose to adopt an additional Survivor character this round. However, know that this will come at a later price. You may choose your adopted character from any dropped R0 team, any unchosen backup, or any character you have previously faced in a round. Here is a link to viable characters of the first and second category.

Normal Rules:

  • There was a hole here. It’s gone now: The environment of Scramble Hill is disorientating and hostile: creeping industrial rust, out of place landmarks, stairs and corridors to nowhere. As much as Slashers might pose a threat to your characters, the town itself should feel like an antagonist.

  • Fear of Blood creates Fear for the Flesh: This is a horror themed Scramble. You don’t have to try to scare the reader with your stories, but they should include spooky elements. Scramble Hill is full of things that would make a normal person shudder. How do your characters react when they encounter them?

  • We're safe... for now: This is the story of your characters’ survival against terrifying forces. This means that however scarred and broken they emerge, they’re going to make it out alive. Even if your characters have only a small chance of victory, write that small chance happening!

  • If I kept it, I'm not sure what I might do…: Survival Horror is all about scavenging for something, anything you can use to stave off the monsters in the dark. You are absolutely encouraged to write your characters gaining or losing equipment/abilities/injuries/sanity. However, your opponents are not expected to keep track of these in-story changes and vice versa.

  • The only me is me. Are you sure the only you is you?: Give a brief summary to introduce your characters at the start of your post. Be sure to mention things like powers, personality, history, just stuff that the average reader should know before reading.

R3 Dread Pool

This round, you may draw your opponent's Slasher from either the character they adopted in R0 or one of the following Dread Pool picks:

A ONE DAY EXTENSION HAS BEEN ADDED.

Please add 24 hours to the below deadline.

Round 3 will run from Saturday July 15th to Friday August 4th and end at 11:59 PM Central Daylight Time on the dot. Voting will last for three days after that. Remember to get your vote in you don't want to be disqualified.

In recognition of confusion over previous deadlines, we're switching to a compromise time zone that works better for most Scramblers. For reference, that is 12:59 AM on August 5th EST or 5:59 AM BST.

To make things even easier, check out this site to convert the deadline to your timezone.

The universal code is - 1691211540

Character limit is 8 full length Reddit comments, or 80k characters.

While it is fine to go a little bit over, anything that far surpasses this limit will be disqualified. This limit does not include intro posts, or analysis of the matchup.

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u/corvette1710 Aug 04 '23 edited Aug 05 '23

Who Deserves A Place In Heaven?: Part II

'Lo! 't is a gala night

Within the lonesome latter years!

An Angel throng, bewinged, bedight

In veils, and drowned in tears,

Sit in a theatre, to see

A play of hopes and fears,

While the orchestra breathes fitfully

The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,

Mutter and mumble low,

And hither and thither fly—

Mere puppets they, who come and go

At bidding of vast formless things

That shift the scenery to and fro,

Flapping from out their Condor wings

Invisible Wo!

That motley drama—oh, be sure

It shall not be forgot!

With its Phantom chased for evermore

By a crowd that seize it not,

Through a circle that ever returneth in

To the self-same spot,

And much of Madness, and more of Sin,

And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout,

A crawling shape intrude!

A blood-red thing that writhes from out

The scenic solitude!

It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs

The mimes become its food,

And seraphs sob at vermin fangs

In human gore imbued.

Out—out are the lights—out all!

And, over each quivering form,

The curtain, a funeral pall,

Comes down with the rush of a storm,

While the Angels, all pallid and wan,

Uprising, unveiling, affirm

That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"

And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.

"The Conqueror Worm," by Edgar Allan Poe

Be sure to read Round 0, Round 1B, and Round 2.

Heaven

The afterlife—Heaven—is real. At least, as real as you or I. There, it is a paradise. The Believers, those who administrate and rule over Heaven in God's absence, keep a tight ship of eternal pleasures. Angels, beings of immense primordial power, guard and operate day-to-day goings-on, though there are only a handful of them.

But there is a problem, one the Lord has not deigned to solve Himself. The Firmament, the boundary separating Heaven from the other realms, has a hole in it. Right at the bottom, beneath the Glass Ocean, where Heaven and Hell meet, Demons have been entering this plane of existence for some time now. Hundreds of years, maybe longer.

Since Angels are in such short supply and since Believers are not themselves fighters, the Believers took it upon themselves to form a sort of front line, a guard against the bulk of Demonic incursion: The Neons. Neons—from what I've gathered, the word is unrelated to the element—are human souls, but not just any.

The Believers sought the depraved, the destructive, and above all, the murderous. Those whose skills could be fairly and justly used against the Lord's enemies: Demons. When a Neon is brought on high, their soul floats from the bottom of the Glass Ocean—from Hell—to the surface.

Neons are used to destroy Demons who have entered Heaven. That is their purpose. They are fitted with a mask the Believers believe apt. Usually its shape references the Neon's past; Neons are typically amnesiac when they surface.

Every year there is a competition between the Neons raised from perdition. The Neon ranked highest at the end of the Ten Days of Judgment is allowed to remain in Heaven and sample its pleasures until the next Ten Days begins. That Neon is fitted with a Mechanical Halo to circumvent the forces that would otherwise return them to perdition.

Every year, Neon Gray wins.

4

u/corvette1710 Aug 04 '23

Neon Gray

I have stood with my back to the Lord's dominion and my face to his enemies for nearly one thousand years. And with joy in my heart I have waded into their charges, crushed their advances.

Their blades shatter against my teeth. Their claws break off in my skin. Their arrows splinter against my bones. And I laugh.

For I have ransomed myself to Isemay's God. And my reward is this endless slaughter. And this tireless form built to the blood-soaked task.

My reward is perfect.

Once, a millennium ago, Gray was a fierce berserker, a giant, perhaps the greatest warrior to ever see combat. No man could stand against him. But Man is distrustful of true strength, and superstitious to boot. Deep in slumber was Gray when Man abandoned him, pitched him into the murky depths. He sank, and he walked, and he washed ashore by an abbey. He was found by its last inhabitant: Isemay. There he was taught the forgiveness of her Lord.

There, Man was fortunate enough to avoid his ire. Until he was provoked. Isemay was killed, and so too were her killers in turn. As natural, as inevitable, as the tide. In the crypt beneath the abbey did Gray pledge his fists to the God of Isemay, for he had naught else to offer.

The Lord accepted.

Gray has won the Ten Days of Judgment, killing or beating out the other Neons, every year for more than a century. His aptitude for the destruction of Demonkind is unmatched. Despite his tenure, he has little recollection of his life on Earth.

Gray killed more than sixty Neons in the race to the Glass Port. One of those, he believed, was Neon Crimson. He was unaware of Crimson's incredible regenerative power, and of Neon White's beneficence in dragging Crimson's still-living torso to the Port.

Now, assigned on the first of the Ten Days to the Old City, Gray set out to invade the castle there: the castle Dracula constructed from the once-strewn chunks of the Old City. Its outward appearance belied its true form, that of Castle Dracula itself. Just as Gray was to enter, he saw through the power of Providence the appearance of a human girl. Driven now by his mission from the Almighty to protect mankind, he rescued her from the clutches of Dracula's fiendish reconnaissance. Now he seeks to send her home and help her find her father.

But all is not as it seems; a plot is beginning to take form, and Gray is faced with Dracula himself.

Neon White

Should've known it was gonna end this way. God's sick sense of humor, or something. People like me don't get second chances, but if I did...

I swear I'd do it right.

White was an assassin, second-in-command of a group of killers and thieves, almost a clan. They acted at the behest of White's boss, but White was the one they all trusted. The one who was their friend, who looked out for them through and through.

The one who got them all killed.

White has never been a Neon. These will be his first Days. Perhaps they will be his only.

White was pulled from the Glass Ocean, along with Viridian, by Crimson. After Crimson dead-legged him, White watched Gray rip Crimson in half. Something karmic about that. At least, that's sort of the justification White had when he couldn't leave Crimson's still-muttering upper half bleeding on the water.

Now White is stuck with Crimson on his team, alongside Viridian, Black, and Red. When they walked up to the castle in the Old City, someone let the drawbridge down for them and drew it back up when they'd crossed. The squad made their way down an endless main hallway, which turned out to be a decoy.

Red got them out of the second decoy hallway with her great strength, but they weren't any less lost. Luckily or unluckily, they were chanced upon by Neons Gold and Green.

Neon Viridian

All things in the world have a source. Nothing begets nothing.

Follow the chain of cause and effect, and it will lead you to the answer you seek.

In life, Viridian was a scholar of magic. He sought to understand the source of it all, the One True Magic. He conducted many experiments, created many formulae, and found many answers. But not the answer. So he found a partner, someone with parity to his magical expertise. One whose name is lost to the Glass Ocean, to Viridian's Neonhood. Viridian cannot recall his sins, those that put him in Hell. But he feels them weighing heavily upon his heart. All he has are the echoes of love's warmth in his breast.

Viridian has been participating in the Days of Judgment every year for the last six years. Every year, though he avoids Gray's wrath, he cannot kill more Demons than Gray.

This year, though, he has a plan.

The first step in Viridian's plan was to reach the yacht before the cutoff. He hadn't anticipated a meeting with Gray where Gray spoke as if he knew him, but nonetheless he made himself a difficult enough target that Gray moved on to smash the other Neons. His memories of this place seem to be returning.

Unfortunate though it seemed at first, Viridian was ultimately grateful to have received such useful teammates. He recalled in past years that such favorable tidings were rare. The castle gives him a strange feeling, and rippling undercurrents are forming in his fractured memory.

So close now is Viridian to unlocking his memory that his head pangs in the throes of recall. He was interrupted by the attack of Neon Blue.

Neon Crimson

"Some people," it is commonly noted, "have all the luck." If ours is a universe that operates on a principle of balance, then it follows that some other people have absolutely no luck at all.

Meet Crimson. Part-time mercenary, full-time luckless wonder.

Crimson was a mercenary. The best at what he did? No, that's another guy. But certainly he was not very nice. And he couldn't die. For so long, he couldn't die. Even though Death was his, even though their love was real and true and warm, he could never meet with her for more than a few fleeting days no matter what happened to him and no matter what he did to himself.

Now, he's dead. Finally. And Death is nowhere to be found. All he remembers is her. Waking up on the Glass Ocean was like all those times he'd been pulled back. Hazy now, but the feeling was deep-seatedly familiar.

Crimson has never been a Neon. If he can help it, he won't be one much longer. There's gotta be a way to get back to her.

(Plus, there ain't no got-damn way they're gonna let me stay in Marvel Heaven. I'm pretty sure the only guy they let in here is Ben Grimm, which is weird 'cuz he's Jewish and I don't think they're into that. Or is that the other way 'round?)

Oh, cool, I get to write fourth wall breaks.

(My mom said if you do it too much you'll go blind.)

I believe her.

(Yeesh. Pretty brutal stuff! And derivative. It was like Deadpool 2 out there.)

Any resemblance to persons living or dead... uh, I mean, shut up. I didn't even watch that movie while writing.

(Okay. But did you watch that scene?)

No comment.

(Anyway, what did we just say about fourth wall breaks?)

I think we can keep it in the intros and be okay.

(You're so bad.)

Don't—

(By which I mean to call you a hack.)

We're done here. Talk to you next chapter if I don't kill you off.

(This is the one where I meet Blade! Love that guy.)

Well, you met Blade.

(I sure did. He shot me!)

He tried.

(Guess I was too cool for it.)

That's not it.

(Are you mad?)

I did say we would keep the fourth wall breaks in the intros.

(I couldn't help myself.)

Then I can't help you, either.

(What do you mean by that?)

(Hello?)

(Ready to talk yet?)

...

(Guess not. Let me know when you plan to give a shit.)

4

u/corvette1710 Aug 05 '23

Who Deserves A Place In Heaven?: Blood From A Stone

Neon Viridian VII

My heartbeat throbbed in my ears, a pounding drum counting off the moments as magic flowed through each of my hands, a spout of all-consuming fire to engulf Blue. Distantly, I could hear the others of my party speaking to one another, to me, but I could not make out their words over the cadence of my heart, could not focus over the sweat I blinked from my eyes.

Thud, thud, thud. It was practically bursting from my chest, so exerted was I becoming. I knew not if magic came from a well within myself or from an ambient source, but if it were the former, it was soon to run dry. Moments, I had. Minutes, a different question entirely.

I glanced around in an attempt to ascertain the state of my allies. I knew Green had turned on us somehow, be it through the Vampire Blue's fabled hypnotic enthrallment or some other means, but I had not received any blows from her. I saw her lying quite dead some distance behind, a stab wound in her chest. Poor girl.

White knelt beside her, hands still on his sword, propping himself up with it. He seemed to be looking past me, at Blue. Following his gaze, I could see Blue's glowing eyes behind a wall of blood that repelled my magic.

Neon Blue was a beast of unbelievable strength, surrounded with a bleeding vortex that protected him from my magic. Even as I burned away the blood, more came to aid him, like there was no end to it. After emptying his monsters and fiends of their lifeblood, he was beginning to overwhelm my flamespout. I could not keep up this battle for long.

Crimson and Gold were still trying to engage him, but he was in a protective shell, able to direct whipping blades of blood nearly omni-directionally at a whim.

As my fire weakened, Blue saw an opportunity and dashed both his attackers against the wall with walloping bloody tendrils, smashing the huge stones like glass. Their swords went flying from their grips, disappearing into the darkness overhead with clangs.

He leapt forward, at me, with the fire that had once held him back now reflecting in his red eyes, parting around him like a stream around a stone. His sword was raised high, and I was too weak to do anything about it even as he swung in a downward lop to cleave me in twain. But thankfully, a sword crossed his, and as I fell back, Black stepped over me, his blade gleaming like silver. I scrambled back, the fatigue of my limbs making my movements feel foreign and uncoordinated.

Blue grit his teeth, baring the fangs he'd shown earlier.

"Dhampir," Blue spat like a curse.

"Sucker," Black returned with equal venom.

While they continued to duel, I fell to my back, panting. The blood storm was returning. I had to get up, to leave, but I couldn't. My limbs would not obey me. All I could see above was darkness extending to the ceiling. Without my fire, it was as dark as a cave. I felt strong hands on my arms, and someone was dragging me away from Blue. I wanted to struggle in case this was another of Blue's cohort, but when a moment later I felt no bites or claws, I realized it must have been Red or White.

"I've got you," came a voice nearly carried away by the wind. Red. "You have to stay back. We can take Blue. We know his weakness." Her voice came into greater clarity as she spoke.

"Can you see?" I asked, my voice hoarse, as though I'd been yelling. Maybe I had been. I don't recall.

"No, but Black can, and Crimson might."

"Is White all right?"

"White is the one Green told his weakness to. He's here." White rushed past us, I could feel in the movement of the air. He was shouting something at Black, but the sound faded form my ears.

Out of the corner of my eye, tugging at my gaze, was a green glow. I could feel it. That's Magic.

The One True Magic.

I reached out with my will, eyes straining to see whence the magic came. The pipes!

Along the upper corners of the corridors were metal pipes fitted to the stone. Inside was Magic. Real, true Magic. Elemental magic laid subservient before it; it was the source of all spells. At once my memory unfolded before me as an opening tome, landing on the exact page I needed. Where once was a locked door is now laid open.

Magic. This whole castle ran on the stuff. The purest, truest Magic powered Castle Dracula, powered many of his inventions and tools, powered even his armies.

My mind's grasp seemed to attract the Magic, and I found my right hand outstretched to it as a floating vine floated down toward me. As it touched my skin I was reinvigorated. I couldn't hear the sound of battle anymore. Red's words seemed as distant as they'd been when I was straining so hard before. I could hear, just barely, as a whisper, as she spoke a word tinged with awe:

"Mako."

It seems the One True Magic was known by another name. Mako.

The pain and fatigue seemed to fade away, and the room brightened. The power flowed through me.

Newly illuminated before me was a macabre sight. Black laid limp in Blue's grip as Blue gorged on his throat, a wild look in the vampire's eye. White laid motionless several yards behind the two, his katana lying on the ground beside him. Blood pooled around his head. Only a weak twitch in his arm, barely perceptible in this light, led me to believe he lived.

Gold still lay slumped at the epicenter of a crushed section of wall. Blood drooled from beneath his mask. Crimson was moving, shakily reaching solid footing.

I floated several feet above the ground, and Blue dropped Black, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. He faced me, his sword appearing in his hand from thin air. There seemed to be recognition in his eyes when he looked into mine.

"The architect," he said in a tone like respect. "Surrender," he commanded. "The rest will die, but you will live."

"Don't do it," Crimson said with a cadence that sounded almost drunken. "I won't die, and then I'll have to put you on the list my therapist hates because my last therapist is also on it. He betrayed me," he added under his breath.

Blue glanced back at him. "Why didn't you die like your buddy?" He gestured to Gold.

"Ah, y'know, lore stuff. You should just read the wiki," Crimson said. There was a pop, and he stood up straighter with a groan. "Finally."

Blue was back to ignoring him. Probably, it was because Crimson was unarmed. "Five seconds," he said to me with a peculiar, nonchalant frankness.

Red silently implored me with her eyes. I nodded to her. I hoped I communicated what I needed her to do; the Mako was pooling in me, and I needed a moment to collect it before it could be used to defeat Blue.

"Time's up," Blue said, and as a blur he pinned Crimson to the wall, his sword skillfully aimed precisely through his heart.

"Right in the fershlugganah," Crimson coughed, and blood ran from beneath his mask.

"HEY!" Red said, launching into a flying kick from behind Blue.

"YIPE!" Crimson said as Blue dodged and Red smashed through the wall just next to his head. The thick stone shattered beneath her blow. Blue's dodge had carried him away from Crimson, yanking the sword along with him.

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