Axl>Rauny:
It's not so much that Rauny lost, this battle.
Losing is, for a warrior, something that must be accepted every so often.
In combat, no one can be perfect.
---
"It's the full body sunburn." Rauny grumbled, as she peeled some skin off her arm. "I swear, those animations are misleading. He shoots you a <i>lot</i> more than it looks. And then finishes with shards of burning energy. And he doesn't aim worth a <i>damn</i>. I swear, I'm not going to be able to sit comfortably for weeks." She finished with a sigh.
Cador>Raijin:
Cador doesn't suffer fools gladly.
Which made this all too frustrating of a battle for him.
After all, the judges, in their wisdom, had decided to arbitrarily hold this battle on his home world.
It turns out that the distance he slowly had to plod is no real bar to sound.
Certainly, Cador would win the battle. He'd won so many before.
But listening to Raijin's comments on religion was too high of a price.
He's not a Scientologist, but he thinks they have some okay ideas, ya know? Those aliens are really out there, Seifer told him so.
Chu-Chu>Connie:
*Two days before the match.*
"Ehhhh. What the hell can we do to make this match interesting, anyways?" Kefka muttered, as he paced. "There's nothing...original, anymore."
"Definitely true." The Profound Darkness, her shifting form hiding her true expression, laughed softly. "We've certainly caused as much suffering as you can imagine, and in so many ways."
"And such beautiful horror can only be done so often before it becomes...plebian." Kuja muttered sourly.
"You guys need a hobby. Aren't we just supposed to judge the match, get paid, and get on with life? Save the massacring innocents for your damn free time." Killer sighed in disgust.
"There's nothing wrong with enjoying your work! I certainly do." Kefka huffed.
"At any event, we've had transformations, transgenderation, giant machines, perverted hordes, women and men in scanty or worse clothing, carnage, cameos, property destruction, theft, rioting, crimes against both man, demihuman, non-human and all the gods in existance, memes, subtle and non-subtle revenge, insanity, incredible misuse of magic, technology and combinations of both, we've played on every weakness in the book of our combatants, we've allowed things that were clearly illegal because it was pretty damn fun to, we've disallowed them for the same reasons, we've put Ghaleon in a short skirt-which, really, is it's own kind of crime...hell, I know I'm forgetting some stuff." Kefka shrugged. "What can we do that's <i>new</i>?"
"....ugh. Just throw a bunch of stuff together. It's new then." Killer muttered sarcastically. "If this is all this pre-match discussion is going to be about, I'm getting out of here." He added, walking out.
"..." Kefka, Kuja and Profound Darkness stared at each other for a long moment, in silence.
Before breaking into smiles.
*45 hours before the match.*
"Let me get this straight. You're hiring me to...fire...<i>you</i> are?" Lexis Shaia sputtered, confusedly.
"Certainly." Kuja noted.
"...But...that...that...I mean, maybe we were all wrong, but I would have put good money on you being g-" "That doesn't matter. Do as you're paid to." Kuja ruthlessly cut off Lexis. "I may not be the strongest here, but I still can shove your pitiful tongue down your throat if you attempt to <i>infer</i> things from this discussion."
"...so...then you are?" "....just shut up and ready the Creamonade." Kuja sighed, marking something off on a list. "You still, I assume, have the water?"
*42 hours before the match.*
"Hey! I had a full house." Sten yelled, as the Profound Darkness materialized on his cards. "And what...oh. Oh, it's...uh...heh...hi?"
"You need to do something. You will not regret it." The Profound Darkness said simply, to the table. "Bring the horse and all of you, and come to the pathetic Light match. You know the one." She intoned, simply.
"....uh...." "....dog versus creampuff." "Oh! Yeah, yeah, uh, sure, we'll be there. Do we get anything?" "...Yes. You will get something." "Sounds good!" Sten nodded happily, as the Profound Darkness, sighing, disappeared once more.
"...this sounds like a really bad idea." Zelos muttered. "Then again, I think we're damned if we do, damned if we don't."
"Hm? What do you mean? We're getting something!" Sten grinned. "...never mind." Zelos sighed. "And Zidane missed this, so we don't even have to tell him! Haha, that'll show him for showing me up so much!" Sten finished triumphantly.
*39 hours before the match.*
"...huh? What's going on?" Mogu muttered, sleepily.
"Heeeehehehehe! Wouldn't you like to know!" Kefka cackled, from atop one of Mogu's bedposts.
"...Yes?"
"Oh, right, I'm here to tell you. Damn stupid 'plans'. Well, anyways! Wouldn't you like to get some back of your own?"
"...What?" Mogu blinked blearily.
"You're the only one that ever lost to Chu-Chu." Kefka spelled out patiently.
"...look, I really try not to think about that too much." "And drink yourself into a stupor when you do?" "It doesn't happen a lot." "Only because you can't afford it much, since you lose so much and your day job is digging for random crap!"
"..." Mogu sighed, finally irritated. "Look, I learned to control my temper long ago-with my...stature, you have to. But if you're offering me some no-strings attached way to get back at the squeaky, annoying puffball that I couldn't manage to beat in a fair fight a long time ago, then sure." Mogu finished, nodding.
Kefka simply laughed.
*36 hours before the match.*
"...you want what?" Bartholomew Fatima mumbled. "Damnit, man, you want me to dig up the keys to a mech before I've had coffee? That's unreasonable."
"...can't believe they got me doing this stupid errand." Killer stated, disgusted. "Look. Keys. Now. Or I slit your damn throat and pour coffee into the hole."
"...well, okay, I can wait a bit for coffee I guess." Bart hurriedly mumbled.
*30 hours before the match.*
"Let me get this straight. You want every thief-or even remotely stealthy person-in League..." Locke slowly said.
"...to...try to steal...Connie's strawberries while she's at the match? Either from her room or from <i>her</i>? And you'll pay us 100000 Gil for <i>each</i>?" Yuffie finished, practically drooling.
"That would be entirely correct." Profound Darkness said, a glimmering of amusement in her voice.
*16 hours before the match.*
"....what? Where have you fools brought me?" Ghaleon yelled, straining at his magical bonds.
"Ehehehehe! Just to an all-night screening of your favorite show, boy-o!" Kefka laughed. "Oh, god, breaking you is going to be easier than breaking Celes with furry porn, and twice as fun!"
"...why...do you know that...?" Ghaleon asked, whimpering slightly.
"I was really bored that day, okay? Now, let the screening of Magical Girl Ghaleon, the Anime, begin!"
*12 hours before the match.*
"Man, it's been sooooooo boring around here the last year or so. I swear, I even miss the poker nights half the time. Though, at least Dagger doesn't want to kill me lately." Zidane pondered, wandering the halls of the League. "That stealing gig was pretty good, but man, even I have more morals than stealing strawberries from a do-HURGHLHK." Zidane cut off, doubling over in pain.
As the Profound Darkness appeared in front of him.
"So sorry. I need this for a moment. It'll kill you to lose for long, but I'll put it right back." She noted, as she wrested something from his stomach with a grin.
The Philosopher's Stone.
"...that...stupid...glowy...thing...keeps coming back to haunt me..." Zidane mumbled through a haze of pain, as the Profound Darkness brandished it to the sky, chanting ominously.
"I don't particularly care which universe this breaks into, which, of course, makes using it to break into one far easier." She noted, as an ominous gate appeared. "I suppose there were <i>other</i>, less painful and universe destablizing ways to do this, but what's the fun in that?"
"EHEHEH-wait, who are you." A strange, horned woman muttered, as she walked through the gate. "You're not one of those meddling teenagers."
"...hm. Strange even by my standards, but you'll do for this." The Profound Darkness nodded, satisfied, as she checked something off a list. "Let me fill you in on what's going on here, and see if you approve enough to co-operate. Because failing to do so means you never go home."
"Sounds good, for a start."
*The hour of the match.*
"Okay, so. What the hell have we all been running around for?" Kefka asked, curiously.
"Oh, you'll see." Profound Darkness smiled.
"Personally, I just did it to kill some time." Kuja sighed. "I don't really have that much to do here."
"Yeah, same here. I'm not expecting much." Killer agreed. "I mean, all it does is cut into my busy scheduel of serial killing Chu-Chu's race. Damn things keep getting revived, I keep putting 'em down." He shrugged.
"A noble pursuit." Kuja agreed.
"Ah, here's the first combatant now." The Profound Darkness noted, with a smile.
As the Yggdrasil IV smashed through a wall of the arena.
"...Well, this is off to a good start." Kefka noted.
"...chu?" Chu-Chu said in a small voice, as she stared up at the city-sized Gear. "...um...did...did I...annoy a judge, chu?"
"Yes." "Yeah." "Oh, definitely." "Man, I killed you four times." Was heard to chorus from the judge's box.
"But, there is a certain interest in fair play here." The Profound Darkness added.
"...that's not chu." "Oh, come now. You can grow to a larger size." "...well, that is chu, but...chu...can't expect me chu grow that big..."
"That won't be a problem. Just grow larger, and the match will begin." The Profound Darkness noted.
The slight giggle she let out was the only indication of the horrors that were to come.
As Chu-Chu's huge form stablized, a voice from within a deep robe cackled with maniacal laughter, intoning a few simple words.
"<i>Magic Wand, make this stupid pink thing grow! MORE!</i>" Rita Repulsa laughed into the night sky, as her wand made Chu-Chu even larger, smashing stands and causing people to flee in all directions.
"...what. The. Hell?" Killer said. "Who the hell is she?"
"Just a kindred soul who was perfectly willing to go along with a demented plan to make life more interesting. I think she had some of the same staleness of life problems we do." The Profound Darkness noted. "And now, let the match, and all subsidiary events, begin!" She called out.
"...subsidiary events?" Kuja wondered aloud.
He didn't have much time to wonder.
"C'mon, guys, let's...uh...you know, what the hell are we here for?" Sten noted, as he stared up at the titanic giant pink thing and the huge mecha, locked in a vicious, potentially-city-destroying struggle that, somehow, had still not gotten far from the ring.
"Profound Darkness not killing us." Zelos reminded him.
"Right! Uh...why else?" Sten added.
"Just that. We're here to be here, as near as I can tell." Seigfried the unicorn snorted.
"Man, are you guys stuck doing stuff like this often?" Junpei sighed.
"All the time, my friend. All the time." Guillaume said, with a flourish.
The small crowd of perverts, confused, milled aimlessly in the arena.
Naturally, they served mostly to be in the way of the small army of thieves, treasure hunters, pirates and assorted miscreants, all with one target.
The happily barking, happily piloting the Yggdrasil IV, Connie.
"<FONT SIZE=5>WUFFIE WUFF WUFF~!</FONT>" she barked, enjoying herself incredibly.
"...wait, she's actually piloting that?" "It's pretty easy to rig up direct motion control and interpret it if you can threaten a few scientists from the right Not Ranked casts." The Profound Darkness grinned contentedly.
Armed with longlines, aircraft, grappling hooks, climbing gear, and even bare hands, a small army of thieves swarmed Connie's mecha, hoping for a single, succulent berry.
Naturally, Connie reacted the only way possible.
Leaning forward, putting the front two arms of the mecha on the ground, and shaking off all the people that were attempting to climb up her mecha.
"Okay, it's about...now, that I start getting why the hell you bothered." Killer noted, as Alonso, shaken free from the mecha, sailed gracefully over his head to land in the stands, out cold.
"Oh, yes. And we're almost done." The Profound Darkness noted.
"...A-Almost?" Killer sputtered.
"You evildoers! Wrecking our homeland which we hold so dear! There is no hope or prayer for your horrific destruction of innocence, no excuse for your depravity!" A mysterious figure shouted, from high in the air.
"...oh god." Killer sighed, burying his head in his hands.
"I, Magical Girl Ghaleon, am here to halt this horrible war and bring peace to you all!" Ghaleon shrieked, falsetto, as she rode a floating platform above both the massive, confused Chu-Chu and the still-shaking-off-thieves Yggdrasil IV.
"This is hitting my weirdness tolerance. I never thought I'd say that again." Kuja noted, as Ghaleon rained deadly magic and, unfortunately, pantyshots, on giant pink thing, mecha, thieves and perverts alike.
"And now, the last stage." The Profound Darkness noted, conjuring a barrier.
As a fine mist of water rained down on the arena.
"...Okay, now that's just screwed up." Kefka noted, as the rain fell around them.
"...I don't get it, what's so special about water?" Killer, newer to the League, asked.
"Oh, it's pretty simple. That water was a special retrofit to a giant cream-shooting cannon called the Creamonade that Yuri made, that transgenders people." Kefka noted.
"...No, really, what's so special about th-...whoa." Killer cut off, dazed.
"Ah, yes. I had Kuja have the water altered as to my specifications. Specifically, to turn everything hit directly by it into women, not just transgender them." The Profound Darkness, her full plan finally revealed, threw her head back and laughed to the air.
"Yeah, okay, half a mile tall giant naked transmogrified into a female human Chu-Chu is <i>way the hell too weird for me, thank you.</i>" Kefka half-shrieked, adverting his eyes and shivering.
"...huh, you broke Kefka. Damn." Killer noted.
"...excuse me, but this is getting way the hell too weird for me too." Rita noted. "Can I go home yet?" "Certainly." The Profound Darkness replied amiably, as she summoned Zidane out of thin air, and, before giving him a chance to speak, simply ripped the Philosopher's Stone from his stomach and calmly chanted the magic necessary to send a certain witch home.
"...someone...remind me what the hell is going on besides weirder than hell crap?" Killer sighed, head buried again in hands.
"It's not going to be Kuja. He passed out when the water hit." Kefka noted, with a sigh. "I swear to god, Ghaleon <i>doesn't even look different why doesn't he look different!?!?</i>"
"Oh, it's very simple." The Profound Darkness noted simply, pulling out a list.
"Transformations..." She gestured vaguely at Chu-Chu, who evidently still had not noticed the transformation. Somehow.
"I brought in Seigfried for insurance, as well as to combine elements of perversion, transgenderation, and transformation. That's the first one. Then there's transgendering, which is obvious. Giant machines...well, the aircraft provided a plural there handily. I do believe that's scanty enough clothing, though I suppose Piastol's current attempts at covering her with spray-on latex counts as scanty, now..."
"...wait, wait, wait. Don't tell me. You did that entire list? What the hell is <i>wrong</i> with you?" Kefka sputtered.
"Oh, yes. The only non-obvious part is that Mogu pulled the trigger on making Chu-Chu the biggest furry magnet in ages. I was surprised to get both memes and cameos in a single stroke of luck, but I was surely happy with it. And now I get to arbitrarily call Chu-Chu the winner due to mechanical interference, thus filling all sides of the legality issues." The Profound Darkness smiled.
"...let's...never encourage her again." Kefka sighed.
Ultimately, the several thousand transgendered perverts and thieves were restored rather easily.
Restoring Chu-Chu down from several hundred feet tall took more effort, but eventually people just beat her up until she shrunk, which worked. Of course, the cure was coincidental. They just wanted to beat her up.
Mogu was blamed for most of the problems-unjustly, naturally, but that's the way the mole crumbles. At least, after being petrified.
Ultimately, this single day will be struck from the annals of all memory, as fast as possible, and all records erased.
Only one person will remember this day fondly.
Connie ultimately was taken out of Yggdrasil IV when, tuckered out, she fell asleep, nearly a day later. No berries were lost-she wasn't foolish enough to leave any anywhere except in her scarf. She experienced, for one day, true, limitless power, that which would make the gods tremble.
She used it, naturally, to gather berries from all over the world.
To feel the joys of flight, to bark at birds in their natural enviroment.
To soar through space.
To dig so far in the ground that she found lava.
To see all that the world holds.
Certainly, the Profound Darkness caused incredible evil on this day.
But maybe the good she caused, by accident, for one, balanced it out.
