Supers Image game

[Quackhell]

Thanks to Rich McGee and I agree that Duke Bushido was the real winner. Also he is a coward making up some excuse about his phone just so he wouldn't have to pick an image! 😃

 

Sorry if this is a bit boring or convential of an image and I hope it hasn't been used previously, I just wanted to get something up fast to keep things going.

[wcw43921]

Power Master

 

They called themselves The Three Champions--three friends who, on a camping trip in the American Northwest, discovered deep inside a cave an altar with three different colored triangular gems which conferred tremendous powers and abilities to whoever wielded them.  They fought crime, saved lives, helped clean up after natural and man-made disasters--all with a smile and a few kind words for their admirers.  People called them heroes.  Life was good.

 

Then came The Hellfather, who after many years of planning and superhero-inflicted setbacks, was finally ready to make the Earth into his own infernal paradise.  The Three Champions stopped him, apparently once and for all--but it was not without cost.  Two of the Three gave their lives to contain the blast of the Inferno Bomb, which consumed them along with The Hellfather.  The surviving member was so distraught that he gave up superheroics--or so everyone thought.

 

Actually, he had no intention of retiring.  He went into seclusion, where he trained himself to use his powers more effectively--and more forcefully.  And when The Hellfather returned--as he knew he would--he was there to stop him, and beat him within a millimeter of his life.  Ignoring the cheers of the public and the protests of the authorities, he took off without a word--and without a smile as well.

 

As The Power Master, he continues to fight crime, save lives, help those who need it--but it's not fun anymore.  He doesn't smile, doesn't hang out with the public, doesn't make appearances for charity like he did with The Three Champions.  He just charges in, takes care of business, and departs as quickly as he left.  And if you're a supervillain or anyone else who's inclined to hurt innocents or cause harm for its own sake-your affairs had better be in order.

[Rich McGee]

Okay, I'm in.  Once again I refuse to do the obvious despite humming They Might Be Giants' "Particle Man" the whole time I was doing this writeup.  Instead, two different sets of obscure references for added inspiration:

 

Primary 

 

EMT Maxwell Morgan received his powers by pure happenstance while tending to civilian casualties from the Cosmo-God Omegos' attack on New York City.  Caught in a wave of energies refracted through the Prism Absolute, he found himself able to control a spectrum of exotic energies hitherto unknown to Earthly science.  Adopting the heroic identity of Primary, he now uses his fantastic abilities to help protect the innocent from superhuman threats and heal those injured in body, mind and soul.  

 

His circle of friends and fellow ambulance service volunteers are still unaware of his dual identity, but the struggle to balance his responsibilities between the two roles grows harder every day.  The situation is further complicated by invitations to join no less than three hero teams, all of who are offering to help train him in the use of complex power set - something Maxwell feels he badly needs, as he's getting a bit overwhelmed with the whole hero gig.

 

As Primary he displays a remarkable range of abilities, although he can only manifest one group of them at a time, with the color aura radiating from his forehead changing to match his current mode.  Each color offers a very different set of powers:

 

Blue - Enhanced intelligence and problem-solving, potent telepathy and telekinesis

Red - Augmented physical strength and durability, coherent light and heat projection 

Yellow - Creation of simple but durable energy constructs, radiant light emission that heals injuries (physical or otherwise) while dealing terrible damage to supernatural entities of malign nature

 

Switching between power sets is near-instantaneous but requires concentration that he doesn't always have to spare during a crisis.

 

Maxwell wasn't the only person to have been accidentally empowered the day Omegos was defeated.  He's clashed several times with a casually larcenous time manipulator/speedster calling herself Clockstopper who radiates an aura of orange light that resonates with his own when in red or yellow mode.  He's also experienced similar resonance while being attacked by a villain known as the Unquiet, a glowing green spectral entity who can appear and vanish along with its undead minions in a miasma of purple energy.  Who these villains were before their transformation and what their connection to Primary may lead to is an ongoing mystery.

 

Edited December 4, 2023 by Rich McGee

[death tribble]

He is NABLA !

An inverted triangle is called Nabla and so this is his name.

And his power enables him to speed up or slow down a target. The latter is greatly useful with someone falling out of a window or off a building to say nothing of a falling vehicle.

The former can allow someone to move out of the way or to allow someone else to move fast enough to get someone else out of the way.

His reaction time and speed is greater than others which does allow him to beat speedsters more often than not.

[dmjalund]

His/their name is Triax they split into 3 different individuals each with their own energy type. When they merge, they suffer from multiple personality disorder. And can use a weaker version of all three powers.

[Rich McGee]

On 1/11/2018 at 8:58 AM, Christopher said:

For me the issues was the number of Stars not making sense. Pretty sure the US Flag had more then 8 Stars, so I would have to develop some story around why those are only 8 Stars.? For wich my knowledge of US history is way to limited to even find a plausible reasoning.

Very belatedly, you got me thinking about how to explain that almost six year old image.  The "flag background" has seven stripes and eight stars, which obviously never existed in our timeline - the US started with 13 and 13 (one for each founding colony as they became states) and reached 15 and 15 as new states were added, before they realized where that might end up and went back to the original 13 stripes (honoring the founding colonies) and ever-increasing stars (as states were added).  But the US might have grown very differently over time in a different timeline, so here's a rough sketch of a plausible concept for alt history explaining that flag.

 

1) For whatever reason, states get added much more slowly than in our history.  Maybe the native populace was much, much more effective at keeping the colonists from spreading westward, maybe politics discouraged rapid expansion and territories becoming states as easily, and perhaps many original-colony states simply expanded westward rather than founding new states (which leaves four colonies out of the land race, but they might have arranged to "leapfrog" or establish passage corridors or something to keep the Union together).  Personally I like the idea of taking the "North America is special because it has way more supers than it should by population" and starting it early, with loads of native supers drawing a hard line for colonial expansion until the European settlers have been there long enough that they start breeding their own supers population to at least compete (and "prove" they belong in NA and aren't impure, backward, subhuman, etc.).

 

2) Going from that starting point, the eventual Civil War starts with far less than the 34 states (and massive territories) it had historically.  Let's say there was some expansion - this time truly negotiated with the local populace and looking a bit less like colonialist BS - and the Founding 13 have grown to only 15-18 total.  The northern states are still ahead on population and industrialization, while the southern states are still more focused on slave agriculture and refuse to give it up even if they have naturally-occurring supers arising from the Black population.  This time Secession leaves the two sides more even, with all the Founding slave-holding states (including Delaware and Maryland) forming a Confederacy along with some of the new states.  Both sides are smaller and weaker in this setup, with the Union only retaining 8 loyal states (7 of which are from the Founding 13) rather than 23-ish and the Confederates having 7-10 (with 6 Founder states) rather than 11-ish (allowing for the divided states that neither side really fully controlled at first).

 

3) Given more limited resources, less of a power gap between North and South, and possible dangers from the Western border for everyone, the ACW is very different here and the Union fails to re-unite the country.  I prefer to think the war is ended by a massive intervention in the South by native polities (and supers, if they're around) that results in the Confederacy being crushingly defeated.  Their slaves freed and given the right to choose where they want to live, but the whole former Confederacy becomes a new mixed region with a coalition of native and freed Black leaders building something new (and hopefully) in the place of the former US states.  The North wisely goes along with this outcome, leaving the US a much smaller nation but a more united one going forward.  There's a whole new diplomatic balance on the East Coast and continent as a whole is changed forever.

 

Conveniently, that would leave the post-ACW US flag with 7 stripes (the remaining Founding Colonies) and 8 stars (the "extra" being the one post-Revolution state added (I rather like a misshapen Ohio, which might gain the chunk of land we know as West Virginia, who presumably broke away from the Confederacy during the ACW as it did historically) as seen in the artwork.  So there's that explained.  Who the hero is and what else changes for this diminished US's history leading up to 2023 I'll leave to someone else, but it's not a half bad alt-world setup for a supers game.  It isn't what the alt-history community would call good grounded work, but I've got pre-colonial native superheroes keeping European colonists from even reaching the Mississippi River so that wasn't really what I was going for anyway.

 

With Duke Bushido offline someone's got to write the big posts, right?              

  

Edited December 7, 2023 by Rich McGee

[Quackhell]

Thanks to everyone for their takes on the pic and the quick responses. So good to see this thread active again after being dormant for a time.

 

While I really liked the detail and world building of Rich McGee's entry I am going to go with wcw43921 as the winner. Guess I am just a sucker for a tragic backstory. 

[Rich McGee]

2 hours ago, Quackhell said:

So good to see this thread active again after being dormant for a time.

 

Hopefully it stays active for more than a few cycles this time around.  Going back through old posts it's been through rather a lot of hiatuses over the years.

[death tribble]

Which is why I tried to kick it into action again

[Rich McGee]

Given that I didn't know the thread even existed prior to you doing so, I'm glad you did.

[wcw43921]

Thank You, Quackhell.  Let's see what everyone makes of this heroic figure--

 

[Gauntlet]

WAY WAY WAY to COLORY!!!

[Rich McGee]

2 hours ago, Gauntlet said:

WAY WAY WAY to COLORY!!!

Complaints, complaints.  The burning in your eyes and the throbbing headache will pass when you finish your entry.  It's supposed to be a challenge, and so it is. 

 

So here's my take on him:

 

Mangorilla's latest rampage had been going on for about ten minutes when the first superhero showed up on the scene.  The big ape-man had snatched a police car off the ground and was just starting to swing it down on the pair of officers who'd been crouched behind it when a streak of color flashed by.  A pair of red-gloved hands wrenched his improvised weapon loose in passing, setting it down gently as the super touched down a few yards away.  Staggering, the furious villain wheeled around...and stopped cold in surprise as he saw his opponent.

 

"Who the hell are you?" Mangorilla grunted, a sneer spreading across his bestial features.

 

"Hadn't really decided on that yet, but it didn't seem like the right time to worry about a supranym with lives in danger.  Let's just say I'm the guy who's going to put you back in jail."

 

"Ha!  Big talk, but I suppose you have to be pretty gutsy just to go out in public like that!"

 

"Seriously?  You're going with that?"

 

"Better get used to it until you get a better tailor.  What were you thinking with that costume?  I thought the Particolored Man was an eyesore, but you - I'll be doing you a favor beating you senseless before the news crews show up so you're not caught on camera like that."

 

The newcomer sighed as Mangorilla leapt forward, furry fists swinging - and then he stepped forward, delivered a single efficient uppercut and stepped aside as the unconscious brute collapsed in an untidy heap.

 

"Well, that could have gone worse." he thought as the police advanced warily.  "He should be out for a while, officers.  If you want I can deliver him somewhere?"

 

"Uh, no, we've got backup on the way with a containment truck and lifting equipment." the sergeant replied.  He looked askance at the unfamiliar super.  "You new at this?  I don't recognize you and that costume's...uh...pretty distinctive."

 

The hero sighed again.  "Yes, this is my first time in public.  Went through some MONITOR training when I realized I had powers, and they did a lot of testing before they figured out what I could do exactly."

 

"Well, MONITOR knows their stuff, but...did they talk to you about, y'know, PR and stuff?  That stuff's pretty important for you supers in the long run."

 

"This is about the costume, isn't it?"

 

The sergeant's partner desperately smothered a laugh.  "Well, you have to admit it's...pretty colorful.  Wait, is this one of those alien super-suit deals where you get your powers from it?  Like that schoolteacher back in the Seventies?  I didn't mean to..."

 

"No, it's not quite that simple.  But MONITOR told me not to talk about it too much, so..."

 

At that moment a news van squealed to a halt nearby, the cameraman leaping out with his rig already running.  As he swept the camera around the scene he froze as the most garishly-dressed super he'd ever seen came into his viewfinder.  And laughed.  A dark-haired reporter kicked his shin as she advanced, microphone in hand.  "Hello there. I'm Mary Morgan from TV12 news and I'd like an interview.  I'm afraid I don't recognize you, sir.  May I ask what your supranym is for the viewers at home?"

 

The hero restrained a sigh this time and looked down at his brilliantly-colored outfit, complete with that godawful belt buckle logo and the fake muscles.  Well, fine, he'd known this going to be a problem, so he might as well lean into it.  Besides, he'd always liked his dad's ZZ Top albums.

 

"Well, ma'am, you can just call me the Sharp-Dressed Man."

 

 

 

Mitch Salvatore discovered he had superpowers on Halloween night.  It was a complete accident.  His parents had never celebrated the holiday and he'd grown up without all the costumes and trick-or-treating and pumpkin-carving stuff.  But when a co-worker invited him to costume party on October 31st he'd thrown together a lame superhero costume using some gym shorts, a towel for a cape and a stupid lightning logo pinned to his chest just to fit in.  That turned out to be fortunate when a couple of muggers jumped him (and his date the Sexy Librarian) on the way to the party.  The first one broke three fingers when he punched Mitch in the nose (which remained very unbroken) and the second one broke his flip knife on that stupid paper logo like it was hardened steel.  Mitch was surprised but not dumb, and discovered he could pick two grown men up and knock their heads together without a struggle.  Also had to be careful about not cracking his girlfriend's ribs when he gave her a triumphant hug afterward.

 

It was much later that night he discovered his powers vanished when he was naked, but that's between him and the Sexy Librarian.  They also didn't seem to work when he showered and dressed the next day - until he tried pinning on his "cape" again, and then he was stronger than normal but not on par with last night, and he still nicked himself shaving.

 

Thoroughly confused, he called a 900 number for MONITOR's "superpower breakout" hotline, and within a few hours he was enrolled in their testing and training program while their experts tried to figure things out.  It wasn't long before they decided he had what they called a "psychosomatic power set" that was tied to some element of his subconscious and how it regarded his current wardrobe.  His impromptu Halloween costume had granted him "street level" hero abilities, but after some time (well, a lot - months worth) the scientists found he had a lot more potential than just that.  A whole lot more.  They eventually found that his subconscious preformed at absolute optimum when he was wearing...well, look at that image.  

 

It was almost enough to put him off the whole idea of hero work, but MONITOR could be pretty persistent with someone whose peak performance was up in the top 1% of known supers.  Mitch was eventually convinced to "do the right thing" as his trainers put it, and has begun making a name for himself as the Sharp-Dressed Man.  A silly name, and one connected to a ludicrous costume, but he's still doing good deeds and saving people from danger.

 

The Sharp-Dressed Man is a classic FISS and ranks well up in the top tier in terms of power level when he's in full costume, as well as having the ability to electrify himself at will, with voltages ranging from merely stunning to a full-on lightning bolt.  His outfit is as indestructible as he is, making disrobing him in combat fairly tricky even for those who understand his powers - which are still fairly few.  His extended testing period with MONITOR also led him to getting a lot of training time, so he's quite a bit more clued-in to how the supers community really works than most relative newbies.

 

That same testing period found that he can manifest weaker but still useful levels of power without the full costume.  A simple belt with that logo grants him about the same street-level strength and toughness as he originally manifested, as well as enough electrical generation to sting, mess up most electronics, jump-start a car or recharge his phone, although he can't fly.  Adding a domino mask almost doubles his durability and physical strength as well as speeding his reaction time, and accessorizing with red gloves (even less tacky ones) help even more.  No matter how "dressed" he is he can't seem to fly without the tights and boots, and he's not great at it unless in the full costume.

 

Perhaps not the most serious of concepts, but it's way better than getting random powers from a rotary phone dial many readers today will never have seen. 

Edited December 6, 2023 by Rich McGee

[BoloOfEarth]

Rich McGee, all I can say is:  

 

Especially loved the reference to the Greatest American Hero.

 

Okay, I've copied down the text and picture, and will absolutely have him appear in my Champions campaign.  I'm sure my players will get a kick out of him.

Edited December 6, 2023 by BoloOfEarth

[death tribble]

So tragic backstory wins does it ?

 

Hmm. Time to put the fix in !

 

Let us paint a picture of tragedy oh untrue believers !

It is Halloween and all Gordon McRae can find are remnants of Batman's sidekick's costume and a belt that was supposed to be part of the Flash costume. His friends and neighbours are not supporting. They laugh even the little kiddies. But not for long. Oh dear me no.

For a giant sinkhole opens and swallows everyone whole. Everyone ? Not so for Gordon manages to escape. But he cannot find and save the others Not even the little kiddies. Nor one orphaned puppy. So everyone else is dead. And Gordon blames himself for this. What kind of man is he that he cannot save one man ? Or one woman ? Or one child ? Or even a puppy ? Or a goldfish called Abraham Fitzgerald ?

How could a sinkhole do this ? Because it is in the pay of organised crime, the Mafia !

But why would the Mafia do this ? Because corrupt Developers paid them to so they could a new town called something like, I don't know, Pottersville.

so Gordon calling himself the Lightning Robin sets out to face them and defeat them !

 

Except where the town should be, there is nothing. Never has been. And no sinkholes. The roads that should lead there were never built and the records from old papers show that the land was never inhabited or built on. But Gordon exists. He has better than normal strength for a man of his age group. He is skilled in martial arts and is skilled in criminology. But no driving licence or social security identity. So has time been rewritten ? Is he a victim of the Criminal Urban Development Complex ? Is he someone from the Witness Protection programme who has snapped ?

Who knows ?

But do you care enough to find out and help ?

 

[Rich McGee]

33 minutes ago, death tribble said:

a new town called something like, I don't know, Pottersville.

Or you could go with something more on the nose. 

[death tribble]

I was going with something more i keeping with a film popular at this time of year as he did not have such a wonderful life.

[Rich McGee]

I can't remember the last time I heard a cash register ring out with a bell chime.  Modern angels have to walk everywhere.

[Duke Bushido]

On 12/4/2023 at 1:33 PM, death tribble said:

He is NABLA !

 

No; no; no; Good Glorious Gods, _NO_!

 

Okay, look, the every other part you came up with was _great_, but I _implore_ you to pick another name!  Call him The Inverted Triangle if you want, but not....   That other thing, please.

 

I know you're somewhere over in the British Isles, so that probably doesn't hit you the same way it might hit a guy from North America who is active with BACA, but Dude...  Too close., way, way, _way_ too close....  

 

 

 

On 12/5/2023 at 10:20 AM, Rich McGee said:

Very belatedly, you got me thinking about how to explain that almost six year old image.  The "flag background" has seven stripes and eight stars, which obviously never existed in our timeline -

 

Here's a short alternate history:

 

The character's name is Taino, the flag is that of Paid to Rico, and the additional bits to the flag are surrounding Island Nations that have allied with PR after this guy and a military coup restored the native Taino people to rule over the small nation and protect anyone who joined with them.

 

 

There.  Quite possibly my shortest entry ever. 

 

 

 

 

 

On 12/5/2023 at 10:20 AM, Rich McGee said:

 

With Duke Bushido offline someone's got to write the big posts, right?              

  

 

 

 

Thanks for keeping the tradition alive, Sir.  Now sit right over there and let me show you how that works...

On 12/4/2023 at 10:10 AM, Quackhell said:

Thanks to Rich McGee and I agree that Duke Bushido was the real winner.

 

I appreciate the thought, but seriously guys: I only play for fun.  See you guys know the superhero stuff; it's second nature to most of you.  I _don't_ really know it, so-  while this and "dumb criminal stories" are tied as my favorite threads, I use this game as more a writing prompt than a superhuman generator.  You guys are keeping your hand in at whipping up characters off the cuff, and I am,just keeping my hand in at writing on the whole.  Accordingly, my stuff runs long becauase I am fleshing out a moment, or a story, or a world, morw than just a character.

 

I know doe whatever reason, detail trips a lot of triggers, so I announce straight up that I play for fun, period, and as I play a bit outside the intent of the game, I disqualify myself immediately so as not to take anything away from shorter, punchier entries that focus on the point of the game.

 

 

On 12/4/2023 at 10:10 AM, Quackhell said:

 

 

 

Dont be hard on yourself!  That was an _awesome_ image, and now that a winner has been selected, I want to take a minute to post the story it inspired in me:

 

 

The Finals.  

 

Again.   

 

Carrey Porter was used to getting this far.  He started doing the fighting tournaments when he was eleven; he first got to the finals at age fourteen, and he had made it every year since.  Most folks figured Carrey had a knack for World Fighters Showdown- and there was no denying that he did!  Even though the game was almost two decades old now, he had been playing it since he was five, when his grandparents- thinking all videogames were for kids-  had given him Frog Crossing and World Fighters Smackdown as gifts for his fifth birthday.  

Of course, the old Game Box II had been passe for some years, but Showdown had really caught on, and it seemed that every console had a port of it;  he even had the World Fighters Showdown VI on his VR setup.  Pretty sweet, if a bit dizzying.

Ports, though, weren't enough.  He worked all summer when he was 12 and saved every dollar to buy an old refurbished cabinet from that place behind the bowling alley.  It wasn't the deluxe version; it bore the black side panels and white-on-white face that ran from the simple header to the floor, framing the screen-- bit it _was_ World Fighters Showdown III: The Next Generation.  It was the first game with an expanded character roster, and he couldn't play it enough if his dreams of finally proving he was the best in the world were to be realized.  Expanded roster or not, he stuck with his favorites:  the Beast, hailing from the jungle of Africa, and Padre, the monk with the secret from rural Spain.  Sure, he kept his skills up on the new characters, and was actually noted for his skill with Bedrohung, the cyborg from Germany.

But the original cast-- those were the characters in every edition of the game- well, except for 'Showdown IV, when the programmer who designed the Beast demanded a share of the profits, which the publishers avoided by dropping the Beast from the line up.  Apparently they worked something out,  though, because the Beast appeared in the next two sequels and eventually was downloadable for the console versions of IV ( "but not the VR version," Carrey often complained).


Still, Showdown IV introduced the Tag Team Tournament, which apparently just wasn't going to go away, and which required him to find someone else just as good- _almost_- as he was.  Not _quite_ as good, because there could be only _one_ world champion.  The winning team would face off against each other, and the world champion would be decided in a three-out-of-five three times endurance battle.

Ziggy had been Carrey's partner for the last six years.  Ziggy was good- _extremely_ good!- but not quite as good as Carrey.  Or maybe he was.  Maybe Carrey could beat Ziggy not because Carrey had a knack for the game, but because he had a knack for the players.  That was the thing people didn't really appreciate: the same way that a player with years of practice 'just knew' what a computer-controlled opponent was going to do next and could begin preparing even before the computer did it, the same seemed to apply for people, at least, it seemed that way to Carrey.  He could bait an opponent without even thinking about it; once he played against someone a few times, he just got a feel for them.

At least, it had always seemed so, in every bar, every arcade, every bowling alley, every place that had a World Fighters Showdown machine and people to challenge him...  right up until the same place every year: right up until the finals; right up until he got run over by the Park brothers, Chun and Seung or, as they were known in the circuit, the Korean Express.  World Champions in Tag Team every year they entered (which, Carrey noted resentfully, was the same sixteen years in which he had been making it to the finals), and not just _good_, but good enough to be smug about it:  they would take turns being World Fighters Showdown champion.  One year, Seung would simply bow out at the start of the final elimination; the next year Chun would do the same.

It was maddening!  It was as if beating everyone else was more important than being _the_ world champion.   Sure, Ziggy was Carrey's best friend since second grade, but if they ever won the final Tag elimination, Ziggy was going to get the battle of his life!

And here the Park Brothers were, their giggling and insulting eyes laughing uproariously at him over perfectly polite smiles.  Carrey and Ziggy extended their hands, as did their opponents, and everyone shook all the way around.  The brothers each snorted their derision to both of their competitors.  An official reset the game machine, and the match began.

Carrey had won the coin toss for him and Ziggy, and opted to let Ziggy go first, squaring off with Chun.  An official-- dressed in this year's costume to make them stand out-- most years they picked a character from the game and dressed that way, but the fans had started doing the same thing, so they took  different tack the last couple of years and dressed in open-faced morph-suits with black sides and flanks and a swath of white down from the head to the inside of the legs, with stylized representations of the Swift / Solid / Fierce strike strength buttons-- they looked like stylized cabinets from the re-issues ordered by low-budget places like bars and bowling alleys.  Chun and Zig took their stools, the official confirmed they were ready, then reached into the slightly-modified for the event cabinet and restarted the system.  He backed quickly away while the warm-ups and diagnostics ran across the screen.  Soon the familiar "game over" screen came on, and the official reached forward and pressed both the Player Select buttons, then stepped out of the area, back behind the few dozen people who paid for spots right in the pit.

 

The match started.  Carrey looked at the screen and just _knew_ what Ziggy was going to do:  Chun began a feint and even as he started, Carrey knew that Ziggy was going to fall for it- it was almost as if he could _hear_ Ziggy in his own head: "he's jumping in!  I can't believe a player _that_ skilled is going to open with a jump!  He must be underestimating me!  I can do a snatch and flip as he comes overhead, turn it into a suplex for fifteen percent damage and an almost guaranteed stun, and while he's stunned I can unleash my Flame Fandango move at maximum for another twenty percent damage and still leap away before he can recover-!"

"Don't!  Don't do it, you idiot!   It's a-"

It didn't matter that tournament rules prevented them from speaking; that each player succeeds or fails on his own merits.  Carrey didn't even get to finish _thinking_ it before it all played out on the screen:  Chun had indeed fainted; what looked like a leap instead arced forward and low into a tumble.  Ziggy had been guarding high to charge his air grab maneuver, and didn't see it coming until it was too late.  "At least keep up the button charge on the Fandango!" Carrey screamed in his head.  He glanced at Ziggy's hands, and wonder of wonders, he _was_ keeping the mid-high punch button held down, even as Chun's fighter- Chun had chosen the Beast- crashed into him at low height, grabbed him and threw him in the air, moved straight into the thousand claw slash which Ziggy's character fell directly into, then moved to grab-

"Now!" Carrey screamed in his head.  "Now! Now! Now!  If I have taught you _anything-"

Ziggy released the punch button just as the final frame of the thousand claw slash flickered out, and as Chun's Beast reached for a second grab, the corner of the screen filled with flames and Chun's Beast, totally open, took full damage.  Even before the Fandango finished, Ziggy went into an elbow dive-- "perfect!"  Carrey was excited now; "but don't forget that he won't be stunned and his sweep is the longest in the-"  and, as if he was hearing that lesson for the thousandth time, Ziggy initiated a swinging drop kick, an attack that would either force Chun to guard high or it would strike the Beast even as his sweep failed--

The next bit was unnerving.  Chun turned _away from the screen_ and looked Carrey dead in the eyes.  Even as he did so, he set up for an aerial uppercut, knocking Ziggy's fighter out of the air.  All told, Ziggy's avatar had lost sixty-six percent of his damage meter, and his Rage Gauge was only half full.

Chun went directly into the Flying claw maneuver, certain to take Ziggy' s dazed character out with a claw-kick-sweep combo but then Ziggy released the two buttons he had been holding: high kick and low punch.  If charged for a full ten seconds, with the swordsman Ziggy was using, the Special unleashed was devastating.  Instantly, the swordsman began to disappear and reappear all over the screen, thirty times, with a rapier thrust at every momentary appearance.

If Ziggy had been playing anyone but the Park brothers, he would have won, no question.  But Chun was no ordinary player-  no one here was an ordinary player.  Chun was one half of the Korean Express, the undefeatable team that travelled here to New Jersey every year, and every year left twenty-thousand dollars richer and with a handful of advertising sponsorships to boot.

Chun rolled his joystick in a low half-circle forward, setting up for one of the Beast's signature moves.  Instantly the character on the screen leapt forward, prone on the ground, driving himself forward with powerful thrusts of his suddenly-bent-backwards legs.  In an instant, he had slid across the screen, under Ziggy's attack, and at the precise moment the Teleporting Sword Slasher ended, the Beast's arms reached out and grabbed the swordsman by the ankles and yanked and twisted, pulling him flat onto his abdomen and face-- another twelve percent damage, but Chun quickly followed up with a prone grab and curled forward--  as the beast somersaulted forward in a roll, still holding the ankles of the fallen swordsman, he rolled all the way across the prone character, curling his opponent backwards in a modified "throw" maneuver called the Spine Breaker.  

Chun completed the roll, and instantly fed in the commands for a modified throw maneuver called "the Throat Ripper."  The Beast grabbed for the swordsman at the moment the frame glitch would cause the swordsman to appear prone and dazed, Ziggy did the impossible: he pulled off the inputs for an Ultimate during the single frame gap between recovering and the prone glitch caused by the Spine Breaker.  Rather than prone, the character appeared standing in a deep forward lean, sword slicing forward in left-right arc: The Abdominal Slash, and after the pummeling he just endured, his Rage Gauge was full.  Slash, slash, slash, slash, slash-- animated as a combo, it was technically a single attack- unblockable if your guard was down and you were within throw range.  Ziggy's character should be prone, with "Beast Wins!" growing across the screen, but somehow he still had two percent of his damage gauge.  Carrey knew it was useless: a slap would do two percent, but the damage Ziggy was dealing to Chun's avatar was unprecedented.  Carrey was so shocked he couldn't even be impressed-- what was supposed to be an unvoiced congratulations was just gibberish in his head.  Chun's eyes were wide in surprise-- if nothing else, this would be the first moment in history that either member of the Korean Express looked like he was contemplating losing.

Carrey's internal monologue spouted more gibberish, for some reason, angry-sounding gibberish in spite of how he felt about the turn of events.  Chun turned and looked dead into Carrey's eyes even as his hands delivered the final blow to Ziggy's swordsman: three Venom Spit attacks: Medium, Low, High.  Thanks to the swordsman's character graphics, he was guaranteed to hit one of the final two; his animation would not allow him to slip between the low and high the way most of the other characters could.  Even if Ziggy tried to block-- well, any blocked Special Attack did two percent damage to the meter.  It was more a matter of how Ziggy wanted to die at this point.  "Nobly," most fans thought.  "Stupidly" was Carrey's opinion: never give up; go down fighting.  The pinky on Ziggy's joystick hand reached out and pressed and held the Player 2 button.  The swordsman on the screen went into his Taunt routine: he extended an arm, sheathed his weapon, threw his head back and began an animated laugh.  He got a full second and a half before the medium-high blob of venom splattered into his midsection, then he dropped to the ground and the familiar "The Beast Wins!" floated up from the center of the screen.

Chun's eyes directed pure hatred at Carrey.  Unblinking, daring him to react.  "Coaching is forbidden!" thought Carrey.

Wait--!  No; no; he did _not_ coach.  On top of that, he didn't _think_ it either!  The gibberish-- "am I thinking in Chinese now?  Has the stress gotten to me?  Did I have a stroke at twenty-eight?!" poured through his head.  The gibberish melted away, and he thought-- very loudly, he thought--

"How the Hell am I thinking on top of myself?!"  Then his mind burned.  "You will be punished!"  Then it was all done.  Everything was quiet in his head.  It actually took a few minutes for the noise of the crowd-- the thousand or so people who had been watching the gigantic overhead monitors and were going berserk at the turn of events-- to come back to his consciousness.  Shaken, he patted Ziggy on the shoulder, and squeezed it for a moment in an expression of appreciation for the incredible near-upset Ziggy had managed to pull off.  There was a four-minute break between rounds.  An official stepped forward, opened the cabinet, and paused the game.  "That was incredible, Zig!  How did you manage to pull this off?!  I can't tell you how proud I am of you right now!"

"I reckon it was all the drilling the past few months, Carrey" Ziggy drawled.  I swear, I was half panicked after I blew the opening, but then-- well, it all kind of came back; it was like I was just sitting back and watching my hands do whatever I was told-- everything came back.  Kinda like a classroom test, you know when you get to that one thing and you can hear the teacher going over it in your head?  It was like that, 'cept of course, it was you and not some kinda Showdown teacher."  He looked thoughtful for a minute. "Naw, I reckon it was 'zactly the same, since you was kinda my Showdown teacher, so yeah-- it was like that.  I wouldn't 'a thought of none of it, 'cept you'd already drilled into me, and I could hear it playing out in my head each time like we was playin' against each other."

"I don't care how it worked, Zig!  That was _amazing_!  We might actually have a chance!  Look at the screen!  Chun's at _twenty percent_!  Twenty!  Maybe 18!  We have never had them below fifty percent left on the first man when we lost our starter!  Dude, we've got a chance!"  Even as he said it, he could feel.... _something_....

He turned to see the Korean Express staring at him, all four eyes (and one set of glasses) filled with hatred and an absolute hunger for revenge.  An air horn sounded.  Sixty seconds.  Ziggy moved back and Carrey sat at the stool his teammate had blessed with incredible luck.  Things were looking good.  "Not for _you_!" he thought to himself with a heavy asian accent.

Ziggy assumed the position behind the stool Carrey had occupied so he could watch the rest of the match.  Seung likewise stood behind Chun.  An official stood between the players and confirmed their readiness to resume.  Once assured, he unpaused the machine and familiar letters floated across the screen. "Round Two...... The Beast...... Versus..... Bedrohung!.....  3....2.....1......BEGIN!"

Chun was cagey-- extremely cautious, launching ranged special attacks one after the other, at different heights and different speeds.  It was straight up unskilled cheese, but with at best one-third of his damage meter remaining, he was content to resort to the unskilled practice of spamming damage from a distance: even a blocked Special Attack did two percent, after all.

Carrey soaked up roughly ten percent of his damage bar before he had a plan of attack.  He snarled at himself for his brief indecision.  He couldn't believe he just floundered after Ziggy had won them the best lead into the Korean Express in the history of the tournament.  What was _wrong_ with him?!  His head cleared and he became painfully aware of the disappointment he was certain he would see in Ziggy's face if he glanced behind him.  He initiated a rocket leap with the cyborg, which carried him easily over the spammed venom spit attacks.

Chun responded by having the Beast stand and Carrey was certain his opponent was charging a Thousand Slash attack to go off as soon as the airborne Bedrohung was in range, and - "of course!  This is not just the best anti-aerialist attack Jimseung has, a forward-leaping character cannot block!  All eleven hits will score twenty-eight percent damage!"

Who the Hell was Jimseung?  What is wrong in my head?!  He risked a furtive dart of the eyes to the left and saw Chun with his head turned directly towards him, toothy grin and a spider-to-the-fly look in his eyes.  "I am!"  He thought, but with that crazy Chinese accent.  Holy crap!  Th-   Am I thinking with a Korean accent?  Jimseung is Beast!  Why do I -"  Chun was still staring that creepy stare directly into his eyes.  That meant he didn't notice when Bedrohung abruptly stopped his rocket thrust and launched an aerial Long Arm-- he turned to the screen just as he unleashed the Thousand Slash attack and his face fell.

From precisely this point- just premature of the apex of his leap, the Long Arm hit low-- ankles low.  The cybernetic arm extended behind the rocket-propelled hand and the steel fist struck the Beast in the shins, well under the slash attack animation that Chun's avatar would be trapped in for another two full seconds.  His gloating turn away from the screen cost him not just another twelve percent of his damage meter, but an automatic drop in throw priority-- the penalty for being knocked out of the Thousand Slash attack.

Rather than let the arm retract as Bedrohung began to drop to the ground, Carrey did a quick quarter-circle down and back then pushed forward with the Low Punch button and the Fierce power button, causing the cyborg to grab Beast and pull himself almost instantly toward his opponent.  A quick quarter circle down and then backward with a long press and hold on the high kick button and the cyborg rolled his body feet-first, crashing into the Beast with his rocket boots in full blaze...

And doing twenty-eight percent damage.  It was a risky move, as it telegraphed itself badly, and if (as it usually did) failed, it left Bedrohung open, off-balance, and in this case, directly next to his opponent: in range of anything he might care to offer up as a counter-attack.   But in this case, with the Beast's throw priority temporarily lowered and the timing putting Carrey in just the right spot during the precious two frames when the Beast was ending his attack animation but unable to begin a defense or attack animation....  It had been _more_ than enough to KO Chun's Beast, and he himself had suffered only ten percent.  He was going up against Seung's character with ninety percent of his damage bar intact and the flurry of uninterrupted Fierce-Level attacks had almost completely filled his Rage Gauge.  He would have Ultimate Attacks available long before Seung possibly could.  If only he could get as lucky as he did this round; if only he could get as solid a read on Seung's plan as he had on Chun' s...  "No.  Your luck is over here." He thought to himself-  why the Hell am I thinking in Chinese?!"  Only derisive laughter echoed through his mind.  "I have never stressed this hard... I have never had this good a shot!  My cheating will be punished!  What the Hell? I know I'm not cheating!  God; I can't stand the tension...."

Seung replaced his brother on the stool, but instead of psyching himself up, he spent the entire four-minute break staring daggers into Carrey's eyes.  "Enjoy your last few minutes as a champion!"  Carrey retorted, unable to think of anything better.  "That was weak." He thought to himself.  "Yes; it was" he agreed, with an accent.  

Ziggy patted Carrey's shoulders hard.  You got this!" He boosted.  "Me and you, all the way, Carrey!  The hometown boys!"

"Your companion is a fool" he thought to himself.  "Ziggy? Dude, I love that guy!  What's wrong with me?"

At that instant, Seung laughed and turned to the screen.  The official confirmed that they were ready to play and unpaused the machine.  Carrey barely noticed the words floating across the screen.  He was getting a bit rattled at himself; his mind had been going to some strange places since this match had started.

At some point he was aware that Seung was using Ray, a street thug / hometown hero character from "East Coast, USA!"  Odd choice; he wasn't a particularly popular character.  Every sequel was precluded with rumors that Ray was being replaced by a 'better" character, yet he had been in every version of the game since the original. His specials weren't particularly... "Special," except for that wierd Delta Kick thing that chained perfectly with itself.  The Shuffle Punch could be absolutely devastating-- if it ever actually hit someone.  That thing didn't just telegraph, it called you before knocking on your door to deliver the telegraph.  Carrey couldn't recall the last time even a nine-year-old had fallen for it.

Ray's big advantage was speed.  His high-powered moves weren't any better than anyone else's, but catch an opponent in just the right frame before they touched the ground, and a skilled Ray player could walk him all the way back to the corner with a seemingly endless rapid-fire assault of light and medium-strength attacks that chained flawlessly up to the game's maximum thirty-two hit combo limit.  The problem was that few people were fast enough and skilled enough to enter the repetitive sequences flawlessly.  Even Carrey shied away from Ray when he had the choice.  Sadly, he realized that Ray, more than any other character, suited the Korean Express's relentless, mechanical approach to the game.  There was a good chance that he was going to lose thirty seconds in.  Even a blocked flurry, comboed long enough, would easily charge the Rage Gauge.  The trade off for Ray's weak and limited specials was God-level Ultimates.

"I suddenly don't like my odds." He thought.  "They will get much worse, cheater!" He finished.

Okay, that crap had to _stop_.  He was starting to think there was a whole extra person in his head.  More laughter.

Fifteen seconds in and he hadn't found an opening.  As expected, he was steadily blocking an onslaught of attempted long-chain combos, barely finding the cues for when to block low and back to mid- he admitted that it might just be pure luck; he wasn't convinced he actually _had_ seen all the cues.  Maybe he was, after sixteen years, finally getting a read on Seung.  Or maybe this was exactly how he himself would play Ray.  Who knew?  The important details here were that he was at ninety percent with a full Rage Gauge and Seung's Ray was completely untouched and-- aw, _crap_!  Seung's Rage Gauge burst into flame.....
 

Aw, _crap_.  Carrey was pressed hard against the right wall, miraculously shifting his block from mid to low and back at just the right times.  That was going to fail eventually, though, and the instant Seung got an opening, an Ultimate was coming.  Carrey was even sure he knew just one.  The Omega Kick- basically the Delta Kick chained three times- wouldn't work this close in.  Sure, the last kick would get him, but at this close range, the first two would strike too high to actually touch him.

It would be the Flaming Shuffle Punch.  Every bit as humiliating to get tagged with, but with seriously-ramped-up damage and Ray bathed in fire the whole time for that extra gaudiness.  It couldn't possibly miss: it was a modified uppercut that started at the ankles so it would connect with anyone who was close enough, and brother, the animations were on top of each other; you just couldn't get closer than that.  The upper cut finished with Ray's fist extended well over his head before it looked back into the next cycle, and the sliding movement element that gave it the name and Carrey's avatar being already pinned to the wall at the edge of the screen meant that Seung's Ray would just juggle him for all four uppercuts in the Ultimate cycle.  Easily sixty-five percent damage with there; possibly seventy.  At best, he would come out of this with twenty-percent of his damage bar, dazed, and his Rage  Gauge snuffed.

"Screw it!"  Thought Carrey, face twisting with the mania of frustration.  "I'm doing _something_!"  He refused to go down without struggling through every painful inch of the fall.  He had been charging both mid-height attacks and the Fierce button.  Why not?  They didn't take him out of the blocking stances after they were pressed, and they might be useful.  The first two-thirds of the controller input left him in Block anyway.  Go for it.  Die swinging.

Carrey dropped the joystick to the straight down position, rolled a quarter-circle back and up to the hard back position, then dropped without rolling it back to down and repeated the quarter roll- entering the inputs so fast an observer couldn't actually tell what they where, but the slamming of the joystick could be heard twenty feet away.  He continued on, dropping the controller for a third time to the straight down position, hoping, just _hoping_-

Seun screwed up.  Was it a botched input? A failed button?  Carrey would never know; he was busy.  All he knew was the miracle he needed was playing out right before his eyes.  Just as he dropped the joystick to the down position for the third time- the commit point at which a miracle happened.  Instead of Seung taking him out with an Ultimate- he got the miracle.  Seung... stopped.  Not for long- maybe two frames.  He stopped pressing buttons and held the joystick at neutral for just the briefest instant, a horrified look on his face even as he did it.

Carrey rolled the joystick down and forward in a quarter circle, releasing both mid-height attack buttons as he did so.  Bedrohung- Menace; the German Super-Soldier cyborg, raised a forearm in a defensive position and the back of his jacket ripped open and four jet nozzles extended out beyond the tattered edges and ignited.  Ultimate!

Ultimate Knee Kick, specifically.  The cyborg flew forward, one knee forward, into Ray, grabbed him by the shoulders as his knee sank deeply into his animated opponent's abdomen, then flew nigh-instantly to the wall at the end of the arena three screens away, smashing Ray into it and crushing him with his knee.  The moment the pair hit the wall, Bedrohung, hovering in front of Ray, shoulders still clasped in steel hands, began to pump his legs back and forth- left, right, left, right- driving his steel knees over and over into Ray's middle.  Carrey spammed the Fierce button like a crazed woodpecker, rapid-fire presses in an attempt to extend the duration of the attack while the combo counter climbed.

Seung seemed to snap back to attention as the two characters flew across the screen and began waggling the stick furiously in an attempt to shorten the attack.  Seung won the input battle and threw Carrey's Bedrohung, Carrey's zeal for a few more strikes had cost him the fifteen percent Finisher.   Still, the first smash and eleven additional strikes- and as an Ultimate- had been ridiculously effective, and had left Ray's damage bar at forty_five or so percent.  Carrey was overjoyed; it was rare to get the full twenty-second charge it took to bring the initial slam up to forty percent, plus two percent for each additional strike over four--

No time for gloating, though.  Whatever had thrown Seung off his game had been shaken away, and even at these odds, either of the Park brothers was still an incredibly dangerous opponent.  He thought for just a moment he saw the player to his left sweat.  Was that glistening brow just his imagination?

What he had _not_ seen was Chun slowly move from behind his brother, slide gently around behind Ziggy, and come to stand just behind and to the right of Carrey.  Ziggy hadn't bothered to enforce the protocol simply because at his height of six-three or so and Chun's height of five-five, Ziggy could still see the screen fine.   It was unfortunate that Zig was so easy-going and so intent on the big screen over the game cabinet.    Actually, Carrey noticed in his periphery, _everyone_ was watching the big screen well-above the cabinets.  This was the most exciting Finals match in years, and no one wanted to miss the action.  

 

That also meant that no one noticed what Carrey himself, and what Ziggy's ... generous proportions (Ziggy made no secret of his love of food- particularly confections- or his disdain for exercise) would likely have hidden from anyone who might just have happened to _not_ be watching the big screen.

Chun had initiated a Flaming Shuffle Punch.  Not because he had any real hope of hitting Bedrohung at this distance, but because each blocked uppercut pushed Bedrohung back one-fifth of the screen, and he would have to stay blocked until the entire move was finished.  As soon as the Ultimate started, he took his right hand from the buttons and carefully extended his arm toward Carrey.  Simultaneously, Chun extended his left hand toward Carrey.  "Burn, Cheater!  Burn!" Carrey yelled at himself, confusing himself,enough that he nearly lost his concentration.  Then both of the Park brothers extended an index finger and touched him at points halfway from his temples to his ears

And there was an audible snapping noise in Carrey's head.  For the single, tiniest instant, he was locked inside his brain, out of communication or even input from the world outside of his mind, and for a split second, he was wracked with a spasm of pain not reflected by his unresponsive body.

And an instant later, he was God.

He understood _everything_.  He understood that the Park brothers were both prions, that they could communicate telepathically, that they had been cheating for years by silently coaching one another during gameplay.  He understood that they could also insert a small amount of confusion into an opponent if he was close enough- enough to throw off his game.  They could read an opponent's mind and know his intentions even before he could put them into action, making it ridiculously easy to dodge, defend, counterattack.  They could, by working together, inflict pain and even lock another Psion away from his abilities for a short period of time.

He also understood that _he_ was a Psion, though he had never been aware of it, and it was that unawareness that kept it from manifesting until now, in the company of two other psions.  He also understood that they thought he had been coaching Ziggy telepathically, as they had been picking up some of what his anxiety had pushed toward Ziggy, though this was merely a result of their own abilities.  Carrey had, just those few minutes ago, absolutely no idea who to make his thoughts appear in another person's mind.  The Park Brothers had been crawling through his mind trying to assess his abilities and to distract him with confusion.

He understood that he had caused Seung to pause briefly, and that had made them decide to act.  He understood that the stunt they just pulled was some kind of mind bar meant to lock him away from his abilities, and he understood how they had miscalculated.

He knew they had miscalculated because they believed that he was both aware of and in control of his abilities.  What they had intended as a lock against his abilities was actually the psionic shock that awakened his defenses and brought to him a keen awareness and understanding of his abilities.

Mostly, though, he was aware of exactly how powerful he was, and how hilariously outclassed the Park Brothers were.  They were cavemen with rollerskates amongst the more pedestrian cavemen.  He was a diesel-driven locomotive, and their day was not going to go at all the way they expected it to.

 

He pushed back at Chun-- hard.  He felt Chun's defenses snap like a brittle shaft of sun-dried straw.  Chun clutched briefly at his head, staggered, and fell.  Instantly, the official was next to him, cradling his head and slapping his face.  He took a radio from his belt and called for assistance.  Weirdly, no one thought this was strange.  It was unusual, but not unheard of for some of the fans to simply faint under the tension-- particularly those that hadn't eaten for a day or two, too absorbed in the action to notice the passage of time.

 

"No; don't even think about it!" Carrey's mind sent back to Seung-- Carrey had sense a desire to leap to his brother's aid.  This would have caused the officials to stop the game and declare a rematch.  Carrey wasn't interested in anything but victory, here, in this moment.  "He will live; I have done to him what you thought you could do to me.  Try it again, and I promise you that he will not survive the trip out of here."

 

Seung lashed out in anger, attempting to drill deep into Carrey's pain centers-- "Stop that!" Carrey chided, delivering a psionic "slap" across Seung's psyche that caused him to reel physically.  Carrey politely paused his character and waited for Seung to recover.  "No; I do not want to win _that_ way" Carrey pushed the words into Seung's mind.  "I want to take you down.  All these years-- all these years you have been cheating, coaching, assisting, clouding my judgement and my actions!  No; you _will_ suffer for that; I promise.  But tonight, you win or lose based on your _skill_ versus whatever the Hell I feel like doing to you.  Do you understand?  One tiny tendril probes my mind, and I will leave you paralyzed, locked entirely in your head. "  For a brief instant, Carrey paused his play again and ran electric agony through Seung's pain centers.  "Or possibly _worse_.  Now play!"

 

An official, confused by the faltering play on the big screen, stepped between them and paused the machine.  "Are you okay to play?" he asked Seung.  "Under the circumstances, we can call the game and set up a rematch if you wish to be with your brother."

 

Seung glanced past the concerned official and across to Carrey.  Carrey sat motionless on the stool, but he made certain that Seung saw the room twisting and distorting around him-- reality itself was now his to play with.  Seung watched as electricity sparked and raced up and down Carrey's body.  He glanced at Seung with raging coals in his eyes and an abyss surrounding the small pit in which they sat.  "I play!" Seung said hastily.  "I play!"

 

The official started the unpause timer from ten seconds and stepped away.

 

"Excellent choice," Carrey cooed inside Seung's mind.  "But first, let's make sure there's no more cheating, okay?"  Seung felt an iron door slam shut in his head as if it were a physical blow.  Gone.  He could not feel the crowd; he could not feel his brother.  He could not read the surface thoughts of the man seated next to him.

 

3.... 2...   1.... Begin!

 

Carrey became irritated.  Then he became angry.  Then he became _furious_.  Seung--

 

wasn't very good.  His play was average for one of the casuals at the bar in the middle of the week.  It was just... average!  How the Hell was this possible?!  Carrey probed into Seung's mind.  It wasn't a front; it wasn't fear.  He just wasn't good.  Apparently his brother wasn't any better.  All this time-- All these years, they were world champions based entirely on _cheating_!  On reading their opponent's minds-- not just knowing their opponent's next moves, but even knowing what particularly countermove their opponent might be most concerned about, and using that against them.  Carrey, it turn out, really _was_ the best in the world!  Robbed year after year by a pair of telepathic grifters!

 

It was incredibly hard to keep himself from lashing out, from releasing all this rage into the crowd around him.  This wouldn't do; this would not do!  He couldn't defeat a Seun who was playing so absolutely mediocre in the finals!  He would not get any recognition beyond being the jerk who took advantage of a guy too distracted with worry over his brother's condition to play well.  There was no glory in that!

 

There was only one thing to do.  He had been robbed of the sensational feeling of finally defeating his rivals, but he would not be robbed of the glory of being champion, of having clawed his way to victory!  He reached into Seung's mind and knocked Seung into the driver's seat.  "Move over, you cheating turd!  Let me show you how the game is played."  For the next sixty seconds, Carrey played both characters, controlling Seung's character through the simple expedient of controlling Seung himself.  He put on an incredible show of blocked combos and just-missed Specials and Ultimates and barely-dodged finishers, creating for the record what was probably the greatest, most skillful game ever to be captured.  This would, for the record, go down as the greatest match ever played by Seung Park (which, Carrey had to admit to himself, did rankle a bit), but at the two-second mark on the countdown (one second was, after all, a bit cliche), Carrey's Bedrohung, down to a pixel's width of damage bar, would miraculously deliver a forty-five percent Ultimate to Seung's character-- a bit of overkill, being as how Seung's character had only fifteen percent of his own damage bar-- but it made for great theater.  Besides, he thought to himself, in competition, there is no kill like overkill.

 

The crowd went nuts; the PA announced Carrey and Ziggy as the new world Tag-Team champions, and announced that the final match between himself and his partner Ziggy would begin in two hours.

 

"You can have it, Zig."  Carrey thought, absolutely bitter with rage.  All these years-- all these years, he had been the best-- and he didn't even have a chance to prove it properly thanks to those cheating little---

 

Then something went really, really sideways in his head.  "No; there _is_ a way to at least get the vengeance I deserve!"  He walked into the crowd, changing slowly as he moved through them until Carrey was gone and a large, powerfully-muscled man strode the path he began.  He was completely naked.  He walked up to an official hovering near the rear wall of the venue.  "Yo-wah clothes," he commanded in a heavy Austrian accent.  "Give them to me."  Unable to stop himself, the official stripped and handed the morph suit to Carrey, who stripped and struggled into it.  Then he turned and walked back into the crowd.  Tired of the fight against the crush, he mentally nudged everyone he encountered to the left or right, out of his way.  Tiring of that, he simply reached out with his mind and _threw_ them out of the way, parting them like Moses parted the Red Sea.  The confused crowd watched in horror as what appeared to be an official strode through the gap, burst into a colorful flame, and began to reshape the room, causing it to sway crazily, the walls pulsing and undulating as if alive; gravity no longer made sense. 

 

Carrey strode to the slumped, crying form of Seung Park, still on the stool in front of the arcade cabinet.  "Are these tears of a bitter loss, or of the humiliation of being ridden like puppet?!" he demanded.  Seung remained silent.  "I have changed my mind," Carrey  spoke into Seung's head.  "You and your brother have earned my wrath, and so much more!  Your brother will _not_ live to see tomorrow!  Not after everything you have taken from me!  But don't be afraid--" Carrey consoled.  Suddenly, Seung flew straight up into the air as if he had been jerked by the chin.  He stood, spinning slightly in front of the entire audience.  "You," Carrey started again, "will not have to watch him die."  Then Seung spun in two directions at once as if he were a wet rag being wrung out.  There was a series of sickening snaps and pops cracking through the silent auditorium, then Seung's lifeless body fell to the ground in a broken pile.

 

The audience screamed and panicked and attempted to run anywhere-- everywhere-- all at once, but found they could not move a single muscle between them.  "You will all be fine in a few minutes." Carrey barked into their heads.  "You are merely in my way.  Be glad that Head Games has no quarrel with you."

 

Then he walked out into a brand new life.  Gotta make a quick stop at the clinic first, though.  There was one last Park Brother he needed to see...

 

 

 

 

 

And Thanks, Rich, for taking up the torch for long posts.

 

 

 

Edited December 11, 2023 by Duke Bushido

[Rich McGee]

9 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I know you're somewhere over in the British Isles, so that probably doesn't hit you the same way it might hit a guy from North America who is active with BACA, but Dude...  Too close., way, way, _way_ too close....  

Too true.  Been trying not to mention it...

 

9 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

The character's name is Taino, the flag is that of Paid to Rico, and the additional bits to the flag are surrounding Island Nations that have allied with PR after this guy and a military coup restored the native Taino people to rule over the small nation and protect anyone who joined with them.

I rather like that one too.  Not sure it isn't compatible with my idea - if supers emerge from populations at much higher rates on and around North America, the Caribbean is likely to put an end to attempts at European colonialism early in the timeline - and might be a popular destination for former involuntary residents of the Confederacy post-war if the local inhabitants welcome them.  A "Federated Island Nations of the Caribbean" could be a serious regional power player with a big influence on international trade, what with no giant hulking superpowers anywhere in sight.

 

9 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

And Thanks, Rich, for taking up the torch for long posts.

NP.  I naturally tend to fall somewhere between "just making a character" and "proper writing exercise" anyway for this stuff, although it varies a lot depending on how inspired I am. 

[Rich McGee]

So, anyone else getting in on the Garish Wonder here?  We're getting close to a week and there've only been a couple of us so far.  Maybe we need to sweeten the pot by agreeing to delete the image afterward so it isn't lurking here waiting to assault your eyes for all eternity, but only if we get at least a couple more entries? 

 

[Asperion]

Where did this highly colorful guy come from? Who is he? These are questions that people are asking since he suddenly appeared a few months ago.  Going by the name FULIMADE, he suddenly shows up when there is a situation that requires his unique abilities. 

 

Spoiler

About three months ago, a dimensional rift shot Fulimade from some unknown place.  Now,  he attempts to continue things as he know before,  thinking that he is in some ttrpg reality. 

 

[wcw43921]

That's it.  That's the last straw.

 

I'm not declaring a winner.  Whoever wants to can post the next image.  I'm not playing this game anymore.  I thought this was something people could work with, but all anyone can do is comment on how stupid it is.  Of all the things I've posted in this thread, I never thought people would have problems with an image because the colors were too bright.
 

Post something that meets with your approval.  I'm done here.

[Rich McGee]

It's not like my last one went over well either, with most commenters saying it was a fantasy miniature and only one making an effort to come up with a supers-connected concept.  Which is hilarious to me, since it's part of the largest range on non-Heroclix supers figs ever made and has been for over 20 years now.  Didn't get me in a dither, I'm kind of glad no one recognized the source.  

 

As for yours, you can't deny that is a very bright costume, further accentuated by it being an actual human being wearing it so none of the softening effect comic images benefit from.  Didn't stop me from engaging with it seriously, but how can you possibly expect people not to see the colors first and foremost on him?

 

You've soured me on the game too.  Congrats.  I'm out too.    

[Quackhell]

Wow...did not expect this thread to come back strong and then die because of a couple of minor comments. Oh well I guess it is what it is.   

 

Ah screw it here is my entry anyway.

 

The extradimensional wizard Zzyzx had already defeated the Minuteman in a pitched battle in Pawtucket Rhode Island when the Odd Squad showed up. Zzyzx fired bolts of energy that animated a car and mailbox into monsters. While the Squad's leader V and the Jade Spider dealt with them, Wonder Worm stretched his elastic body around the mad mage. Zzyzx let loose more bolts wildly and one struck a poster advertising a Halloween supply store and the image of a garish hero was animated and brought to life. Randy Pankowski, aka the cursed Goat Boy, prepared to battle this figure. Surprisingly it did not attack Randy, but dashed to save some bystanders from falling debris. Then this new creation struck a mighty blow to Zzyzx knicking him out. The Odd Squad was stunned and questioned the newly minted hero before them. 

 

"Who...what are you?" they said in unison.

 

"Well friends I am...THE BRIGHTEST BOLT!"

 

With that he disappeared in a flash of light. Since that day when danger appears or innocents are at risk there is a chance that it will appear in a flash of light to once again save the day.

 

Bonus...here is the Odd Squad.

 

 

Edited December 12, 2023 by Quackhell