The fighting, predictably, centered around Demitri Maximov. He was getting hammered.
Demitri could not stand without being knocked down by Captain America or Shinesta, and could not lie still without being picked up and slammed into the mat by Alex or the Undertaker. Everyone else in the ring had taken at least one quick shot at him at some time or another, since he was perceived as a "safe" target. The only thing keeping him on his feet was that he in the throes of one of the greatest fits of rage ever displayed by a sentient being, between the constant attacks and his own arrogance and his altered theme music. In his current state, Demitri would have barely noticed if someone had removed his legs with a blunt axe.
Now, as if to add insult to injury, Chun Li joined the fight against him, pummeling Demitri with her Lightning Kick. The others cleared out, respectful of the need to remain at a safe distance from someone who could peel an apple with her feet. Demitri staggered backwards.
A moment later, Chun Li fell over, for Tam Tam had run his sword through her still leg. Demitri, blinked for a moment, realized he wasn't being pummeled anymore, and immediately teleported as far away from anyone as he could. He reappeared a few feet away from Siegfried and Balok. Neither of them noticed, intent upon their swordplay as they were.
Tam Tam hooted in joy as he stabbed at Chun Li. "Your scalp special! Look good on Tam Tam's wall!"
"The hell it will," Chun Li muttered, and sprang into a Hazan Tenshou Kyaku. Tam Tam was caught in mid-hoot, and as he landed, had to deal with Captain America as well, who didn't approve of this talk of scalping people.
Demitri watched this with a slight amount of amusement. At least, he wagered, the "heroes" were busy for the moment, having found other fights. Shinesta was now fighting the Undertaker, whom she thought was some new form of undead, and Alex was occupied throwing Anubis around. He could take a moment to catch his--
"GET OUT OF MY WAY! TORNADO KICK!"
As Demitri crashed to the mat, King continued her running battle with Mr. Big. As Big threw a Smasher Wave at her, he moved away as quickly as he could, dodging behind other fighters. King simply blocked it and charged him. Both Anubis and Eddy Gordo tried to get in her way. Both were knocked silly.
Namira, meanwhile, crept around on the borders of the ring. She was unsure how to handle herself, and, truth be told, confused by the dress, speech, and strange magics most of the competitors displayed.
As she considered a plan of attack, a few feet away, Exor stirred and tried to stand up. He was, for want of a better term, ruptured. King had been nothing if not thorough when she had beaten the snot out of him. Namira, suddenly grinning, walked boldly up to it.
"Get away... from me... mortal..." Exor said weakly.
"But all I want," Namira said sweetly, "is to give you a kiss." She jumped up and pecked Exor on the cheek. The alien warlord promptly began shrinking.
Room 1358, RumbleDome Hotel
Geese leaned back in his chair and scrolled the spreadsheet back and forth idly. Eiji had done well in the records department. It was a pity he couldn't alter the draw, but for now, knowing the order in which the fighters entered was more than enough.
Turning slightly, he checked Jan's ropes, and nodded to himself. They were perfectly tight, and someone as sickly as King's brother was unlikely to strain them anyway. He was trying, though. Geese was sure that he would be shouting as well, if he hadn't been gagged.
He scribbled on the Rumble stationery pad next to him, and frowned. He didn't have much time to pull this off, but the rewards far outweighed the risk. However, he would obviously need just a bit more manpower than what he had to field right now. Fortunately, Geese mused, in a situation like this, there were always alternatives.
"Eiji."
"I am here." The ninja stood next to Geese, managing to give the impression that he had been there all along. It annoyed him -- Geese -- greatly.
"I want you to run another two errands."
"I am, as ever, your humble servant."
Geese inspected Eiji for signs of a developing sense of humor. "Don't pick now to get cute with me, Kisaragi." He handed two sheets of stationery to Eiji. "Find these two and offer them an allegiance with me. Be discreet."
"Of course." Eiji nodded once and then left the room. Geese wasn't sure how.
Room 1718, RumbleDome Hotel
"We have a concern in common, Mr. Bison," Heihachi Mishima said to open the conversation. He did not offer Bison hospitality, nor did he issue a greeting. He got right down to business. Bison liked that.
"What might this concern be?" Bison said, vaguely intrigued.
"Demitri Maximov."
Bison's intrigue vanished. "He is mine and mine alone." He turned to leave.
"Don't be a fool."
Bison looked back over his shoulder, unsure anyone could be so suicidal. "What?"
"I said," Heihachi repeated, slowly, as if speaking to a child, "'don't be a fool'." He calmly watched Bison begin to shake with rage. "I can appreciate that he humiliated you, since he did much the same to me. But rushing off to deal out vengeance on your own against someone who has proven himself resourceful and powerful enough to dominate you in the past is both foolish and stupid." Heihachi watched his words hit home, gauging their impact. "Your reputation says nothing about you being either."
"I assume, since you dare to speak in such a fashion to me, that you offer an alternative?"
"An alliance, to be precise. You see, I'm not foolish or stupid either."
Bison clenched his fist. "You have one minute to convince me that you are, for whatever reason, worth more alive."
"Don't get melodramatic, Bison. You don't know how." Heihachi produced a flyer and handed it to Bison. "That's what I've had circulating among the less moral participants in this event since early yesterday."
"Two million dollars?"
"Not much, really." Heihachi waved it away. "I don't expect them to bring Maximov in. What I do expect is that they'll keep him off-balance and make him vulnerable. When he isn't paying attention, the time will be right for others who are more deserving of his head to take it from him." Heihachi gestured at himself, then at Bison. "Such as myself, and yourself."
"Why are you approaching me with this?" Bison asked. "Insufficient faith in your own abilities?"
"I'll let that pass. No, Bison, I approach you with this because as resourceful as I happen to be, Maximov is a creature that I do not intend to underestimate. I've seen how many hotel rooms you've taken up with your mercenaries and underlings. Even Maximov, I can imagine, will find it difficult to hide from my bounty hunters and allies, your organization, you, and me."
Bison thought this over for a moment. "Very well. I shall tell my lieutenants to cooperate with you. I enter the ring shortly; in the unlikely event I am eliminated, I shall meet you back here and plan for this operation."
"Excellent. Pleasure to be working with you."
"I'm sure. If you'll excuse me--"
"Of course." Neither man offered to shake hands as Bison let himself out of Heihachi's suite.
Walking towards the ready room, Bison put a hand into his pocket, thinking to himself. Mishima's offer seemed in good faith, and there was nothing at stake worth betraying him over... or so Bison thought. Something seemed wrong, and he was unsure as to what it was. Bison was not used to offers in good faith. They went against everything he stood for.
He felt a piece of paper in his pocket, and pulled it out. He had expected the receipt from his last meal, but instead found a folded piece of Rumble stationery, folded, with his name scribbled on one side. He unfolded it, and read the message written there.
From nearby, unseen, Eiji Kisaragi watched Bison go. With one message delivered, he moved on to deliver the other.
The Ring_
Alex dropped a groaning Anubis to the mat, and looked around for someone else to break. Demitri was nowhere to be seen, regrettably, and he had no intention of messing with either Siegfried or Balok, the first two people he saw, who were showering the ring around them with sparks.
His eyes finally settled on Namira, kicking a shrunken Exor up and into a bottle she had produced from... from... somewhere. (She obviously didn't have pockets...) As she shook the bottle, she laughed, watching Exor rant and rave silently, bouncing laser beams off the walls of his new home and nearly blowing his own fool head off. Calmly, she drew back to throw Exor out of the ring.
"You can't escape!"
Namira shook her head. A moment ago, she had been standing, but she appeared to have lost track of the last few minutes. Her head felt like it had been jammed down into her rib cage. Namira barely managed to struggle as Alex picked her up and flung her headlong out of the ring, where she passed neatly through the dimensional field.
The DimensionCam tuned in, showing on monitors all over the RumbleDome the image of Namira falling from the sky, directly into a bed of gemstones, each one easily the size of her head and stacked neatly.
Namira shook her head and looked around her. Her eyes widened. She was rich! As she tried to gather some of the gems up, she heard a sudden sound from behind her like shattering glass, and the light above her was abruptly cut off by something big and falling quickly.
Namira was crushed underneath a sudden avalanche of Counter Gems, the dropping of which entitled Donovan to a Flip Sword combo on Devilotte. The Puzzle Fighter tournament continued as if nothing had happened.
"Ouch." Wanderer winced sympathetically.
"That'll definitely leave a mark," Birdman chimed in, "but remember, folks, she'll be back on Rumble grounds within fifteen minutes, alive and well!"
At the same time, another duel came to a quick end. Siegfried, growing bored, wound up and slammed a nearly dead Balok out of the ring and into Virtua Fighter 3, where he staggered around for a while before falling out of the ring. The ring happened to be located on the skyscraper. He made a hell of a racket when he hit the ground.
Back in the ring, Siegfried turned to attack Demitri, only to find that the vampire had teleported away.
In the meantime, Tam Tam continued to harass Chun Li with skulls and fireballs, who was hard-pressed to do anything about it, especially when Demitri added his Chaos Flares to the barrage. Captain America fought Sabertooth a short distance away,
She finally got sick enough of dodging that she decided to do something drastic. Unfortunately, Jeffry McWild came up behind her and powerbombed the decision clean out of her head.
Tam Tam let out a loud yowl of protest. "That Tam Tam's scalp to take! No--"
Jeffry replied to this with the Toe Kick of Doom. The VF otaku in the audience went crazy. However, Jeffry came under fire, literally, from Demitri, who was still merrily flinging Chaos Flares in every direction.
"That is unfair! I shall have to put a stop to this!" Hoisting Tam Tam up in a fireman's carry, Jeffry started towards Demitri with intent to break him.
Chun Li, however, was one step ahead of him. "Excuse me! Jeffry!"
"Yes, miss?"
"Awww..."
Everyone in the ring stopped what they were doing and looked in that direction. Even those present who hadn't fought Chun Li recognized that something bad was about to happen; the air had grown dark around her, and her cupped hands had begun to glow. Those that could blocked or ran away, but all too many were caught in the blast radius when Chun Li yelled:
"KIKOSHO!"
Jeffry, who had expected something else (what, he didn't know, but certainly not that), took the Kikosho right in the teeth, and went tumbling head over heels. Tam Tam slid in a different direction. When he tried to stand, Jeffry's foot came down on something round and he fell down again. This time, he inadvertently kicked the bottle with Exor in it up and over the "ropes".
The bottle, after passing through the dimensional field, shattered on a stone outcropping. The teeny-tiny Exor fell free of it and landed on his head nearby.
Exor was in a state of shock. He was the mightiest warrior of his race, and a pair of mortal women defeated him? This was impossible, inconceivable, wrong -- there must have been something else, something...
"TREACHERY!" Exor teleported to his feet and roared his anger to the skies. He had been brought low by deceit! When he returned to the proper dimension, he would track down the mortals responsible, and each one would be given the death they so richly--
A velociraptor promptly gobbled the bite-sized alien up and returned to its pack. Jurassic Park was no place to be alone.
The Kikosho continued to roll across the ring. Scorpion and Nakoruru, whose duel had only gotten more intense in the moments since Nakoruru's entry, weren't paying attention to anything else. They were blasted to opposite sides of the mat, and Nakoruru was unfortunate enough to land next to Sabertooth, who, sick of being pummeled by Captain America, pounced on her. Siegfried, en route to Demitri, was caught by the Kikosho's edge and went skidding backward like an ice cube on Formica. Bob Wilson, who had been sitting on top of Eddy Gordo punching Eddy in the face, had his back turned to Chun Li; consequently, he was out of the ring before he realized he had been hit at all.
Jamaica
"Here's your Guinness, sir."
"Thank you." Austin Loomis sipped his drink and settled back comfortably into his pool chair. Whatever you had to say about Dee Jay's fighting career, he mused, the man could throw one hell of a beach party. The music was hot, the women were hotter, and the weather was perfect. It rarely was cloudy here; it was always perfect blue from horizon to horizon...
Austin raised his sunglasses as a man fell out of the perfect blue sky and landed in the sand.
Dee Jay cautiously approached the newcomer. "Hey, mon, you a'right? Was quite a fall, that."
"Yeah, man, it kinda sucked..." He looked around. "Dude, is this a party?"
"Indeed, mon. This is my Thank Jah It Wednesday party." Dee Jay grinned in his sharklike way. "Help yourself to a drink an' a lady, if that be your pleasure."
"Thanks, man, I think I will... I'm only here for fifteen minutes, though. M'name's Bob."
"I an' I Dee Jay, mon." Dee Jay led Bob to the bar, the two chatting like old friends.
Meanwhile, over in the corner, Austin groaned and pulled his sun hat over his eyes. There was only one reason for Bob to be here that he could think of, and he didn't like its implications.
Command Booth
Wanderer looked up from a computer screen. "It says here that Dee Jay's stage has an 'enhanced likelihood' of being chosen for a fighter's destination."
"So what?" Birdman turned back to the ring. "Wow, Shinesta's just battering the hell out of Demitri, isn't she, folks? She's got a lot of nerve."
Shinesta slammed Demitri a good distance away from her and pulled a small gold disk out of her breastplate. "I abjure thee, in the name of Solonor! I send thee back to the black pits in which you came!"
Demitri snarled at the holy symbol and slapped it out of her hand. "Don't insult me, little girl. Demon Cradle!"
Birdman blinked. "She had a lot of nerve, anyway, and she's landed in... She's landed in Gauntlet! That's a lot of ghosts, Wanderer, and they look mad."
"I think she can handle herself, Birdman. She seems to be doing fine so far!" Wanderer flipped his microphone off, idly watching the carnage on the DimensionCam. "So, I saw Austin Loomis in that crowd in Dee Jay's stage." Wanderer opened another soda. "I sense a hidden motive."
"Just because Loomis gypped me out of a--" Birdman began twitching, "-- few... million... dollars... doesn't mean I'm going to try and get revenge on him."
"Right. Sure." Wanderer walked over to the snack cabinet. On his way there, someone knocked on the command booth door, and he opened it. Wanderer promptly choked, as Mai Shiranui came into the room.
"Hi!" Mai looked worriedly at the man next to her, who was apparently intent upon hacking up a lung. "Is he okay?"
Birdman turned around. Mai was wearing her usual nosebleed-inducing skimpy casual wear, and was slapping Wanderer on the back. Wanderer, for his part, appeared to be trying very hard to not look at Mai, and disguising it with a coughing fit. "He should be fine, Miss Shiranui. What can we help you with?"
"I was curious about something. Can we select theme music for other fighters if they don't have it already?"
Birdman considered this. "I can't see why not; it could be entertaining. Just don't go overboard."
"I won't. Thanks! I'll come right back up with a list!" Mai, smiling, bounced out of the room and ran down the hall. Wanderer promptly stood up from his "coughing fit" and dusted himself off.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Birdman asked neutrally.
"I didn't want to look at her -- well, okay, I did, but I don't want to get the crap kicked out of me by Andy Bogard." Wanderer took his seat and resumed his commentary as if nothing had happened.
The Ring
Eddy got up, trying to figure out both where Bob had gone and what the hell had hit him. From his perspective, Bob had literally vanished.
"What the hell was that?" he demanded of anyone around. "Who the hell threw a grenade into the ring? What kind of tournament is this -- AIGH!"
"SHUT UP AND GET OVER HERE!"
Scorpion reeled Eddy in and uppercutted him out of the ring, receiving more cheers for it than anyone from Mortal Kombat had ever gotten. Eddy fell into Quake 2, where, being human and unarmed, he was thought to be a prisoner of war. A marine promptly "put him out of his misery" with a railgun slug at close range.
In the wake of the Kikosho, Anubis ran around like a madman hitting people. As Siegfried stood up woozily, Anubis ran up and uppercutted him. The audience booed. Anubis then ran over to Tam Tam and swept him, knocking Tam Tam on his back for the second time in ten minutes. The audience started throwing things. Yet a third time, Anubis came up to the Undertaker, swung his staff at him, was grabbed, Tombstone Piledrivered, and unceremoniously thrown out of the ring. The audience began cheering and chanting the Undertaker's name.
A voice abruptly cut into the live feed. "WAR GODS SUCK!"
"Who was that?" Birdman asked.
"That was Silverbolt. He's the director for the television feed." Wanderer pushed the com button. "Silverbolt, please don't shout into the mike."
"Sorry." Silverbolt, slightly chastised, returned to his camera work.
Anubis, meanwhile, landed in Tomb Raider II. Lara Croft promptly shot him several dozen times, then threw a grenade on his body and ran just for safety's sake.
The Undertaker dusted off his hands and held them up, the better for the audience to admire and/or fear him. That turned out to be a mistake, as Alex promptly dug both his heels into the Undertaker's head.
"Who... are you... who would challenge... the Dark Side?" the Undertaker asked, pulling himself out of the mat.
Alex shook his head sadly and punched the Undertaker in the jaw. The Undertaker toppled.
Off by herself in a quiet little corner of the ring, King continued to viciously abuse Mr. Big. Anyone who had tried to pick a fight with her had gotten a Venom Strike for his trouble. Big managed to land a few decent hits, but King ignored them and continued her assault. Big was being massacred, and he knew it.
As King picked him up by his lapels to hit him again, Big hissed into her face, "Touch me again and your brother is dead."
King's reaction was to throw Big into the "ropes" and, as he stumbled away from them, to Trap Shot him back into them. Big stumbled forward a second time, and she hit him with another Trap Shot. This went on for quite a while.
Finally, King caught Big and kneed him in the groin. As he clutched at himself, King hissed into his ear, "If you lay a hand on my brother, you're going to have one pissed-off woman with the Infinity Gauntlet coming for your ass, Big."
Big's eyes widened as wide as they were able. King smiled sweetly in response, right before punching him over the "ropes". Big landed in River City Ransom, and was instantly clocked with a thrown garbage can. The subsequent bouncing coin was worth a small fortune, as Ryan discovered when he picked it up.
Meanwhile, Tam Tam adjusted his mask and stood up, looking for Jeffry with murder on his mind. He found him a short distance away watching the Alex-Undertaker fight, occasionally darting in to land a quick piledriver or hell stab on someone who wasn't looking. (This was usually the Undertaker, who, for some reason, was often standing perfectly still.)
Tam Tam spat a fireball at Jeffry, engulfing him in flame. Jeffry yelped loudly and hit the mat, rolling around to put himself out. As he rolled, Tam Tam stepped in front of him and picked him up by his hair. "I take scalp now, rude little man. Why you smile?"
A voice came from behind Tam Tam. "I still don't approve of this scalp-taking business, friend."
Tam Tam slashed at whoever was behind him, and his scimitar glanced off a red, white, and blue shield. Sparks flew. So did Tam Tam, as Captain America planted his fist directly under Tam Tam's chin. Jeffry went back to tending to his burns.
"Why you keep pounding on me?" Tam Tam asked plaintively.
Cap caught a skull on his shield. "Stupid question." A Charging Star took Cap through the next skull and into Tam Tam's stomach. As Tam Tam reeled, Cap kicked his scimitar out of his hand, swept Tam Tam's legs out from under him and rolled on top of him, keeping his shield firmly at Tam Tam's neck. "Now would be a good time to surrender."
Tam Tam grumbled. "Stupid hero Americans. You just like Galford."
"I'll take that as a compliment." Cap considered what to do with the man, then noticed Demitri getting the better of Chun Li on the other side of the ring. He settled for throwing Tam Tam out of the ring, and throwing Tam Tam's sword after him.
Tam Tam landed in Adventure Island. He managed to sulk for a good ten minutes before Master Higgins arrived. For the next five minutes, Tam Tam found himself chased around the node, Higgins bouncing stone axes off of his head.
Hallways, RumbleDome Hotel
"Huh... pant... huh... pant..." Rimururu sped around the hotel rooms, trying to find someone--anyone--she knew to be trustworthy before she had to enter the ring. Galford was in the stands, cheering Nakoruru on, and Ukyo was nowhere to be found. The very idea of asking Haohmaru for help made her wince. So, she tried to find anyone else.
Finally, she returned to Lion's room. "LION! PLEASE BE HERE!" She hammered on the door with the pommel of her knife.
The door swung open. Lion, wearing a bathrobe and dripping wet, looked out. "Rimmy? We thought you'd gone to bed or something--"
"No, no, it's not that at all! I overheard a conversation, and--"
"Hold on, Rimmy. Breathe." Lion ushered her into his room, looked up and down the hallway to see if this was a practical joke, and closed the door. "Now, then, what's the matter?"
Rimururu told him everything she had heard coming from Lord Deimos' room. Lion's face went quickly from disbelief to irritation to anger.
"Let me change into my fighting gear." Lion rushed into the bedroom and closed the door. "Can't we just warn Guy?"
"Not unless we're in the ring with him. All the fighters are sequestered before the Rumble. That's why I couldn't talk to my sister." Rimmy blinked. "For that matter, why aren't you sequestered?"
Lion sounded guilty. "I slipped one of the security guards a bribe. I hate being cooped up before a fight." He came back out wearing a hooded sweatshirt and shorts. "All right. Who do we know that's trustworthy?"
"Well, besides my sister and Ukyo and Galford, there are the Street Fighters. Nakoruru always speaks of them in the highest regard. Terry Bogard's a fairly nice person, but I only talked to him for a few minutes at the fair... so's Ryo, but he's a hero, so you'd expect that."
"Ryo!" Lion snapped his fingers. "Rimmy, have you been watching the broadcast at all?"
"No... why?"
"Someone tampered with Demitri's theme music." He grabbed her arm. "Ryo's one of the only people who'd think to do something like that. Let's see if he's in the sound booth." They rushed out of the room.
The Ring
Nakoruru, torn and bleeding, finally managed to back away from Sabertooth, who made a great show out of licking his claws and laughing at her. She pointed, and Mamahaha streaked down towards Sabertooth, her wings and claws on fire.
"You have got to be kidding." He swatted Mamahaha out of the air and snorted. "You ain't even worth the time it'd take to kill you, little girl. Birdie!"
The telepath, seated comfortably just outside the forcefield, perked up and lifted her gun. Nakoruru's eyes widened as Birdie pulled the trigger, bringing to bear enough firepower to sink a battleship.
What Sabertooth and Birdie had both forgotten about, if they'd ever noticed it to begin with, was the forcefield around the ring.
The audience dove to the ground, screaming, as bullets ricocheted in every direction. The entire west side of the RumbleDome instantly became riddled with holes. In the cheap seats, a snack vendor pitched over with a bullet in him, his hot dogs flying into the air (he took the job knowing the dangers). Brian Battler was shot in the chest, woozily declared himself 'Number One', and fainted; a couple of Bio-Freaks, who thought that the show was just getting good, yelled in pain as their arms were blown off. Birdman and Wanderer both threw themselves under the counter as the command booth's window shattered.
"MIMIC!" Birdman shouted.
The Security Officer's voice came over the intercom, doing an eerily accurate and completely unnecessary imitation of Gogo Dodo: "You don't have to yell."
"Get down there and throw that psycho in the brig!"
"Right away, mon capitan."
Nakoruru watched all of this anxiously, until it occurred to her that she hadn't been shot and she wasn't likely to be. Standing up, she watched Birdie being dragged away by Virtua On mechs, lifted her knife, and charged Sabertooth's back.
As Nakoruru ran at Sabertooth, she passed Alex, who was planting the Undertaker neck first into the mat for the fifth time with no visible effect. Alex was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with the mat.
This time, the Undertaker sat up stiffly and fixed Alex with an icy glare. "Now... you shall feel... the true power of the Dark Side..."
"Whatever." Alex grabbed him by the head and tossed him out of the ring. The Undertaker landed in Night Slashers, spending his fifteen minutes fighting with Christopher, who, like Shinesta, mistook the Undertaker for some kind of undead. Not much got done before the Undertaker was forcibly deported, but Christopher was later heard to remark that he had "actually gotten tired."
As Nakoruru made it to the other side of the ring, Sabertooth had already jerked King away from Siegfried. With a growl of rage, he slammed King into the mat's surface three times and threw her away, then turned to Siegfried with a vicious grin. "What have you got, runt--"
"Quite a lot, creature." Siegfried hit Sabertooth with the Master of the Blade; he'd been planning to use his Critical Edge on King, but he reasoned it would work just as well on this creature. It did. Sabertooth fell, a bloody mess. "Mind the lady next time, villain." Siegfried smirked.
"Good advice." King rushed forward, kicking Siegfried in the back three times before roundhousing him into the "ropes". Siegfried's armor conducted the current directly into Siegfried, and his limbs began to shake convulsively.
"Very good advice." As Sabertooth weakly stood up, Nakoruru cut into him from behind with her fourteen-hit combination. As she landed the final slash, she began to glow. At the same time, Sabertooth fell limply over the "ropes" and into a certain Brazilian fishing village. Blanka ran over to him and started gnawing on his head.
King, inspecting Siegfried, finally picked up his fallen sword and pried Siegfried away from the "ropes" with its hilt. The pseudo-knight fell, smelling sort of like an electrical fire, and King Tornado Kicked him out of the ring, throwing his sword after him.
Siegfried hit hard, leaving a crater in the stone floor he landed on. As he climbed out of it, he looked up. His sword had landed next to him, and he saw a gigantic dragon a short distance away, flying around and breathing gouts of fire at two warriors on the ground.
"I CHALLENGE THEE, WORM!" he roared, snatching up his sword and rushing into the fray. The King of Dragons roared back at him, and dove to the attack.
"Suicidal and delusional," Wanderer muttered. "That boy's got the grand slam of mental illness riding around in his skull."
"Watch it," Birdman advised.
In the center of the ring, Demitri grabbed onto Chun Li, and as she struggled, let his fangs slide out. "You're spirited, girl... good. That makes you taste so much better..."
Captain America's shield bounced off of his face, and he dropped Chun Li. At the same time, a sharp pain lanced through Demitri's back.
"GET OVER HERE!" Demitri was pulled clean off Chun Li, and the waiting uppercut sent him flying.
"You're going to regret that..." Demitri, as he stood, realized that Scorpion had called his shot very precisely. He was surrounded.
On one side, Scorpion and Nakoruru, Nakoruru still glowing with rage, stood, trying to look at both each other and Demitri at once. On the other were Captain America and Chun Li, Cap helping Chun stand. Behind him, Alex and Jeffry waited for their chance. Alex cracked his knuckles with a sound like gunfire. Directly in front of him stood King, who was every bit as enraged now as she had been when she entered the ring.
"This is your last chance to give up!" Captain America shouted.
Demitri snarled. "Not likely."
As they charged him, the door to the ready room opened, and new fighters began to enter the ring.
ELIMINATIONS: King, Alex: 2; Cap, Demitri, Chun, Jeffry, Nakoruru, Scorpion, Siegfried, Undertaker: 1.
CURRENT ELIMINATIONS LEADERS: King 2, Alex 2, Captain America 1, Demitri 1, Chun 1, Jeffry 1.
VOICE OF THE PEOPLE: "If something truly horrible could happen to Eddy Gordo, could it be even worse than possible by human imagination? In fact, I'd like to see some kind of Tiwghligh-zone [sic] type death for him. I know characters come back, but could you make an exception for Eddy? Dead Eddy is much better."
CLOSER THAN IT LOOKS: It's worth noting that everyone except Anubis, Namira, and Exor came within ten votes or less of at least getting an elimination... things were pretty close. Get yer friends to vote next time. :)
See you next round!
The Harried Scribe:
Thomas "Wanderer" Wilde
The Laconic Editor:
Christopher "Birdman" Bird
The Typically Unreachable Hired Thug:
Isaac "Mimic" Sher
The Wizard of HTML:
Scott "Silverbolt" Archer
[NEW: http://www.slack.net/~arctic/rumble.html]