Enter The Arena As Your Avatar -- The Spinoff!

Hopping off of the bed, Pietro and Wanda proceed to follow after Claus towards the base's dining area.

Mario tries to Capture Tape, tape Scissors' blades shut, and then roll on the ground until there is no more tape.

Edited by KiriK on Nov 22nd 2020 at 7:03:12 AM

Tape gets captured, but it doesn't really seem to work the way Mario had planned.

Scissors, in a blind rage, doesn't stop its attack, and when the captured Tape gets close enough to try anything...

   999   

Tape is literally cut in half, both halves falling onto the ground. Mario will be forced out, but he'll still be alive and well. Scissors turns back around, pausing when it realizes what it just did.

Aah! It hoits! IT HOITS! Don't do dis to me! I'm a changed adhesive! I won't stick nobody up no more, I swear!", it yells.

"Scissors! Stapler! Ya gotta do somethin'! Ya gotta avenge me! I'm... I'm..."

It then suddenly calms down, as if accepting its demise.

"Ehhhhh, fuhgeddaboudit."

Cracks appear on both halves, after which Tape explodes.

Scissors inwardly curses for this mistake. Tape was still useful enough, it could've still helped. If its tape had gotten Mario stuck again, then, with Mario's allies unable to reach him, victory would have been right there!

... Well, Stapler's probably the second best choice for that.

"Stapler!", Scissors calls out, after which Stapler, pretty angry with Mario for that Final Smash, starts charging up towards him, launching staples at him during its run to try to pin him down.

Edited by DevilPsyco on Nov 22nd 2020 at 2:05:26 PM

Mario gets pinned down, and his fate would be sealed...

"Oi," says a voice from behind Scissors.

There stands Wick, ticked up well beyond his normal limit. "Forget about someone?"

He leaps at Scissors and, anticipating the usual counter, detonates himself in an attempt to shatter its blades.

   FINAL CUT   

"Now, FINALLY! OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!", Scissors yells, but before it can charge it hears Wick's voice. It turns around to look at him, and when Wick jumps, it figures that Mario won't be able to immediately escape anyway, so it now tries to get Wick with Final Cut instead.

That, however, is when Wick detonates, the enormous explosion sending Scissors spinning up into the air and landing onto the ground with one blade embedded into it.

It seems like Wick's plan failed for a moment. But then the cracks appear.

"..."

Scissors has nothing to say. It's so in shock that it lost again, not even to Mario this time but to what it had perceived as nothing but a mook, a future resource for a potential Metal Mistake...

The shock makes it unable to even make a single sound as the cracks get bigger, and as the blades shatter, Scissors explodes the moment after.

Stapler is the only one left now, and it's fully distracted by Scissors' death, potentially giving Mario the opening he needs to escape.

Wick is now upside-down, smoking and twitching slightly.

Mario breaks free and attempts to finish Stapler with a classic Mario move - the Goomba Stomp, five times in succession.

Edited by KiriK on Nov 22nd 2020 at 7:44:02 AM

Stapler is still not paying attention, and it'll cost it dearly. It gets Goomba-Stomped all five times, with each stomp creating and deepening some cracks.

With a few whimpers from Stapler afterwards, all of the cracks become deep enough, glow, and then Stapler explodes.

The Legion of Stationery has been bested!

With the full Legion defeated, all of the missing faces (and other body parts in Mario's case) are restored as well. The NPC people further down the street celebrate in relief.

Meanwhile, all that's left on the battlefield itself is Mario, the upside-down Wick, Rubber Band's statue and a downed Indigo, who... isn't moving.

Mario jabs Rubber Band's statue. Cracks run up it, and then it explodes... into coins. Everywhere. Flooding the streets.

1-up jingle I can't be bothered to make an onomatopoeia

Wick hops to his feet.

Extra Life

The coins reach Indigo as well, granting him an extra life and reviving him. He opens his eyes, then hops back onto his feet.

"(Whoa...)"

Meanwhile, further down the streets, the poor NPC people are drowning in a sea of coins.

Mario rubs his head sheepishly. "Mm-mmm?" He gives a thumbs-up.

"... Mm." Wick nods.

"You really saved us with that gold power-up back there."

Indigo hops over to Mario.

"Yoshi, Yo. Shi, Yoshi! (Yeah, for a second I thought we were toast. You really are as super as everyone says, Mario!)"

Indigo looks contemplative.

"Yosh, Yoshi? Yo-Yoshi. (Who were those people anyway? They seemed to have a vendetta against you.)"

Vs. Kriemhild Gretchen

Iraaxos felt his own attacks taking as much of a toll on him as the attacks of Kriemhild, and he realized that this would need to end, and soon. He reared back as alchemical sigils lit up across his body, before concentrating around his head and neck. He lunged forward as he jaws shifted and morphed into something from a Lovecraftian, drug-fueled, Aztec-inspired fevered night-terror, and a hideous noise emanated from his now quite horrific maw as he shot forward and attempted to bite Madoka in... half? Thirds? Thousands of tiny witch-giblets? Whatever worked.

—

Zophiel, having been absent for a round or two, suddenly burst out of her psychic shell, looking... different, and not in a pleasant way. Her form expressed her more monstrous traits, and glowing lines ran from her third eye all across her body in strange, organic patterns. She rose into the air a short distance and opened her glowing third eye, unleashing a beam of compression and heat so intense that the air visibly shimmering, and the earth was blasted into smoldering embers where the gaze of her eye fell. It also seemed that this process had to take the heat from around her, and that it was also incredibly magically draining as the area around her lost quite a lot of color, and seemed to drop to glacial temperatures alarmingly quickly.

—

Rafisol picked up a glock began chaining her quickest spells together, attempting to build up to a Big Bang. She didn't know why she knew what that was, and neither did she question it. A vortex opened in front of her that seemed to just eat the spells that she threw in to it like an ooze let loose in an all-you-can-eat buffet but with magic and a vortex instead of food and a slime.

   "[Hide]. [Snatch]. [Takeover]. [Hide]. [Domination]. [Disorder]. [Hide]."   

Seliana Gathering Hub

"Hmmm... Looks like some resonator rounds would help out as well. They're specialized against armor and tough scales like that."

She quaffed some of her Entrancing Alembic and rolled her neck to relieve some of the tension in her joints and muscles.

"Are flashpods a good idea on this one? Doesn't look like it's got much in the way of status weaknesses... hmmm..."

Reyna can't help but laugh at Varik. "Sorry, you can't even damage its horns until it enters Dragon Active! Speaking from experience, best to focus on using elemental attacks until that phase."

She turns to Megan next. "Yeah no, don't bother with flash pods. Bring more healing items instead - we'll need 'em."

Mario explains, "They were-a the Stationery Legion, a-from a paper version of me's adventures."

"Whoa. I've heard about Paper Mario and Paper Bowser, but I never participated in that war, so I never saw proof until now."

Edited by KiriK on Nov 22nd 2020 at 9:03:03 AM

Lucien's eyes light up at the mention of this being the first time Ninten's been able to enjoy himself in two years, looking like he completely didn't expect hearing such.

"...come, now, that cannot be true...can it?"

His voice has some hesitance to it, as if he's truly at a loss for words. He continues to listen, looking more moved by the second.

"...well, I...am happy to hear that you enjoyed my hospitality so much. Truth be told, it has been rather lonely living here by myself, so it was a breath of fresh air to have such wonderful friends over for tea. It truly brings a tear to my eye to hear that you found this to be that meaningful."

True to word, and unusually for one who is normally so unflappable, he seems to be on the brink of tears.

"No, you need not thank me. You have already shown enough gratitude simply by being here. I am truly grateful for your friendship."

Looking surprised by Lucien's profound reaction, Grymm and Ugo exchange a glance, and Grymm gives the three a firm nod and a soft smile.

   "Now, I've not known Lucien for long, but I'd say that's high praise, right there."   

Edited by SacredSpirit123 on Nov 24th 2020 at 1:14:35 AM

"Yosh? Yosh... (Paper version? I've never heard of anything like that before...)"

He then smiles.

"Yoshi, Yo! (But you wouldn't lie, and if he also knows about it then I know for sure it's true!"

Then he appears intrigued.

"Yo, Yosh? Yoshi. (But why are you in a place like this, Mario? This is a pretty dangerous place.)"

"That might be a slight problem for me. But I think I'll be able to manage overall. I packed some healing items already as well just to be sure. The last thing I want is to run outta juice to use my magic.", Varik says.

"It... is true, yeah.", Ninten says, after which he looks a little surprised at how touched Lucien is. He momentarily even looks guilty when Lucien's tearing up a little.

"H-hey, Lucien, you don't need to cry."

He does stop looking guilty and smiles after Lucien explains a bit more.

"I guess we can both be equally grateful together.", he happily says. "But no crying, alright? There's a saying in my family that says: 'No crying until the end'. And the way I see it, this is far from the end of our friendship."

His smile then turns a mix of sad and sheepish.

"It... may unfortunately have to be the end of this tea party though. We haven't been here for long, but we didn't really plan to stay away long because we were just going to look for a creature I'd seen around the area of that hut earlier. So everyone at the base is probably expecting us to return soon, and I don't wanna make them worry. Things are already pretty tense in there as is..."

"I'd actually forgotten all about that. Yeah, we may have to go...", Ana says, a little saddened about it.

"We do apologize for bringing it up so suddenly. I hope you're not upset.", Lloyd says, a little saddened as well.

Edited by DevilPsyco on Nov 22nd 2020 at 4:23:05 PM

VS KREIMHILD GRETCHEN CORE

The eye in the sky Winks once more, before releasing another pulse of the Dispair aura, attempting to bring everyone to their knees, or at least, to be distracted, as Kreimhild core unleashes one last barrage of arrows, attempting to end the fight... But the incoming attacks weaken it to the point where its too weak to keep fighting. One more final beatdown, and this thing is dead.

   "Is my salvation... not enough? Is my blessing not what I thought it was? Why are you still rejecting an end to your pain... after all this... Do you wish to continue through such a horrid existance?"   

The eye in the sky goes bloodshot, before finally closing.... A starry sky returning.

Shinji, having already managed to endure the mental assault, doesn't turn his gun on himself, firing it towards kreimhild, breaking off more matter, firing until his gun begins to click, being finally emptied.

It's time to finish this.

Vague park in hub centralis

A girl in a hood was sitting on a bench, looking a bit nervous

She was whispeirng a little to herself

"I dont get it...where am i?"

she had both hands on her hood, pulling it so you couldnt see any amount of the sides of her head

Thor is able to power through the Despair aura and just wordlessly try to bash Gretchen into a pulp with one mighty swing of his hammer, sending quite the potent shockwave around.

   "... Well... yeah."   

Dante unleashes his charged attack - Judgement, an onslaught of sweeping slashes of Devil Sword Dante ending with a tremendous explosion of demonic power! Afterwards, he is forcibly reverted to his normal form.

"Well... I don't-a know," Mario admits.

"To fight Bowser?" Wick suggests.

"A-no..."

'Big ol boss fight

seeing as madeline was extremely high in the air she began falling downward on purpose, taking out a drill

She was nearing the ground, about to drill into her adversary, if not stopped it would likely be very high damage

Kyoko

Kyoko rushes the arrows approaching her, deflecting them back up towards the big eye. As caught up in righteous fervor as she is, the attempt to despairing her only makes her enraged.

"Haaah!"

She follows the arrows with one last toss of her spear.

70%

"OK."

Oh, looks like he finished all his food. He experimentally handles the ice knife, trying to get a feel for its weight.

"So do we leave as soon as we're done eating here?"

"Yo? Yoshi. (Oh, does that mean you also arrived here without knowing how? The same thing happened to me.)", Indigo says.

"Yosh, Yo, shi. Yoshi. (Unfortunately I dunno how to leave this place to go back to the Mushroom Kingdom, so whatever your reason for being here is, as long as you're here, you should probably stay at one of the hotels. There's enough to go around and they're usually the safest parts of this place.)"

He looks happy.

"Yo, shi? Yoshi! (Be sure to be careful, okay? The Mushroom Kingdom needs their hero healthy in case Bowser causes trouble again!)"

Edited by DevilPsyco on Nov 23rd 2020 at 10:33:59 AM

Disgusting, thinks Wick.

"Okay!" Mario runs off.

"... Well, there he goes."

Indigo happily waves after him. Only once Mario is clearly gone, even waiting a few seconds after just in case he turns back around, does he quit the act and let out a sigh.

"(Good, I can finally quit acting so stupid.)", he says before glancing at Wick.

"(I can't tell whether you found my performance dumb, amusing or both, but do me a favor and spare me the criticism. If I don't act like every other Yoshi in front of him, I'm not gonna get anywhere.)"

He then smirks.

"(But this is good. Next time we run into him he'll see us as friends, and it'll allow us to get closer to the information we're looking for.)"

Seliana Gathering Hub

Megan noted this, and said, "Gotcha. While I can't bring more potions from my realm for... let's call it 'reasons' for now, I can definitely pack a health booster, some potions from your world, and some of that healing dust I've seen you use. As long as we're careful, this should go nice and smooth."

Vs. Kriemhild Gretchen Core

Whatever powers sustained Iraaxos were beginning to deteriorate, and so he decided to place what remained into a single attack. If this did not work, then he would be quite dead. If it did work... he'd still probably be quite dead, but so would Kriemhild, by his estimation.

   "By the power entrusted to me by the spirits of my forerunners, I sentence you now to the bottommost pits of Naraka. [Primal Majick: Prometheus Flare]."   

The second the last syllable left his fanged maw, a great glow of primeval fire built up throughout Iraaxos's draconic body. It leaked between his scales, shone forth from his eyes and horns, and seeped out of his thousands of wounds. The air grew hot as he opened his jaws, and out rushed a torrent of the purest and most absolute expression of raw, elemental fire. Color drained from his scales as he focused the raging inferno directly onto Kriemhild Gretchen...

—

Zophiel shouted, half in pain and half in anger, as she focused her Balor-esque Third Eye Ray even more strongly onto The Witch. Her arms and legs took on a darkened, burned appearance — Mageburn, of the same kind that Rho had experienced after summoning beyond his capabilities. It seems that she had also gone well beyond her mystical capabilities with this ability...

—

Rafisol spammed as many spells as she could into the vortex, but eventually, she recognized that she had run out of time to stack up spells. The vortex then proceeded to spit out a thrumming torrent of raw, magical energy towards Kriemhild Gretchen.

Heehoo magic go BRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

Edited by OmegaShadowcry on Nov 23rd 2020 at 4:02:41 AM