Live From The Unknown
Arena Arcadia Presents Episode 1:
IT LIVES!
Sunday, October 25th
★ ★ ★ INTRODUCTION ★ ★ ★
With a burst of pyro, the show is live. The audience--roughly 1200 people--cheer as a man in bandages and a suit emerges from the entryway and makes his way to the ring with a microphone.
He introduces himself as the Administration, a representative of the various bookers, judges, referees, and miscellaneous staff of Arena Arcadia. He also explains--for those just tuning in, or for anyone who bought their live ticket on accident--that Arena Arcadia is an interdimensional fighting competition. Warriors from all walks of life, from all worlds are brought in with weapons of old, powerful artifacts from bygone days and ancient legends, just to do battle in this very ring.
The rules are simple: a fighter may win by knock out, tap out, ring out, or time out (and a judge's decision). Anything but outside interference is allowed, at the discretion of the judges' panel. Tonight marks the first episode of Arena Arcadia... and as such, it also marks the beginning of a tournament to crown the Worlds Champion. Tonight, he says, the crowd will see things that have never been witnessed before--the bizarre, the unorthodox, and hopefully the highly entertaining.
"Without further ado," he says, "it lives."
★ ★ ★ OPENING MATCH ★ ★ ★
The Spirit of Phlox VS Douglas
0:00 The bell rings and the crowd isn't even sure how to react. Douglas is a 13 foot gestalt or hivemind made of alien worms; their opponent, the Spirit of Phlox, is a swirling mass of indefinite vapor and energy that seems to shift from moment to moment. Douglas circles the ring, likely as bewildered by their foe as the audience is.
0:12 Phlox is the first to cross the ring. Douglas attacks with their double sided lance, but it's like trying to cut smoke. Punches, shoulder rams, thrusts--none of it seems to affect Phlox. She's anything but solid. Douglas goes for broader sweeps and twirls to try and "disrupt" Phlox's form, but she pulls herself back together faster than Douglas can clear her (and "together" is a strong word here)
1:07 Phlox is doing... something, and Douglas realizes it. The collection of Lekgolo that form Douglas's massive body are starting to thrash and squirm; Phlox may be draining the air out of their lungs, scrambling their neural activity, boiling their blood or... any other number of things, no one knows nearly enough about Phlox to be certain. This includes Douglas, who is forced to try and withdraw from the depths of... well, Phlox. Douglas makes an attempt to get out from inside the ephemeral alchemical vapor that is the opponent.
2:34 Phlox is persistent, clinging to Douglas like the stench of death. It's clear that the enormous worm monster is hurting, at this point; it's not just the individual Lekgolo that are convulsing now, but the entire body seems to be off kilter.
4:15 Douglas is literally coming undone, almost spilling out of their armor.
6:30 Half seizing and half melting, what's still cognitive of the gestalt that is Douglas extends one collective hand. Despite lacking a face, the countenance of the hivemind appears to focus on the erratic, rapid jerking and writhing of its constituent parts. Douglas may be realizing something.
7:01 Douglas begins to spin their symmetrical lance like a giant fan. This looks like the desperate last bid of a fading sentience at first, but once they get enough speed going the giant fan does, in fact, start to blow Phlox back.
7:44 The clearer Douglas gets of Phlox, the more the Lekgolo are able to pull themselves together. Coordinating more effectively now, the giant body of Douglas rolls and darts about with shocking speed, continuing to drive Phlox backward with the spinning lance. Phlox seems to become aware of her opponent's strategy, and tries to disperse from the danger zone--but Douglas is too keen to their ring positioning, and too quick for a billowing vapor to maneuver past.
8:46 Douglas successfully forces the incorporeal Spirit of Phlox to touch floor outside the ring; the armored giant almost topples back as the bell rings, declaring them the winner. After leaning into their lance like a crutch and getting their bearings, Douglas leaves the ring under their own power--promptly putting distance between themselves and the Spirit of Phlox. Phlox, who does not appear to realize the match is over, is carefully recontained by her team. Douglas moves ahead in the Worlds Championship tournament.
Winner: Douglas by Ring Out in 8:46
★ ★ ★ MATCH #2 ★ ★ ★
Caxi VS ????
0:00 On one side: Caxi. She's a lizard person with a portal gun. On the other side: uhh... well, some kind of large automaton with a baseball bat. The ring announcer struggles to pronounce his name, but he's some manner of alien sponsored by Team Erena Arcadia Meta. The bell rings and Caxi begins to circle her opponent, who... does not move. At all. His lights blink, his smokestacks steadily pump out a stream of gray fumes, but otherwise the second competitor in this tournament matchup is like a statue.
0:20 Caxi, growing impatient with her opponent's inactivity, goes on the offensive. She rushes his side of the ring, ready to blitz her foe--but at the last second, he reacts. ...And he reacts well, using his bat to block the claws, narrowly but precisely dodging her tail, then finally shoving her backward. Caxi pauses, seemingly stunned by her opponent's sudden display of proficiency.
1:05 Caxi picks up the pace; creating portals in the floor around her foe, she begins to accost him with wild hit and run tactics, diving into one spatial anomaly after another to build momentum to come flying past him from entirely different directions. TEAM's seemingly mechanical representative reacts with only as much energy as necessary--just barely dodging, blocking, and maneuvering around every attack with the least effort possible. It's measured--a perfect match of required energy, no more and no less.
6:15 Caxi is growing visibly frustrated. The alien she's up against still shows no emotion whatsoever--merely patience. Infinite... patience. The audience grows louder as Caxi continues to escalate her assault, flipping and slashing about at speeds the average eye can barely keep up with. ...But her opponent continues to hardly react. He casually sways, slightly dips, raises his bat just enough to defend himself. He's stepped maybe inches from where he began the fight, yet seems to be in total control of the situation.
10:36 Caxi stops to catch her breath and reassess what she's dealing with. In the brief interlude, the audience gives her a round of applause, clearly impressed with her acrobatic, space-defying feats of portal jumping prowess (even if she hasn't laid a scratch on the other fighter).
12:10 Caxi changes up her strategy; rather than attacking directly, she begins using her acrobatics to try and bewilder him, then create a portal under her opponent to dump him out of the ring via a second portal in the ceiling. This, at least, prompts her foe to move a little more--but his timing is still impeccable, his motions dictated by absolute efficiency. He steps out of the way of one portal after another almost nonchalantly, as though he'd predicted their every placement ahead of time.
15:54 In a mind blowing daredevil maneuver the likes of which the audience can barely follow, Caxi finally manages to dump TEAM's alien automaton out of the ring. Before hitting the floor, however, he casually flies himself back into the ring with a series of rockets built into his body. The crowd actually boos, and Caxi looks like she's about to snap. The nameless alien silently lands, appearing unaffected by what would have otherwise been a close call.
18:00 The judges announce that there are two minutes left in the match. Caxi, exhausted and running out of ideas, pushes onward nonetheless--taking a last, desperate run at her opponent. This time, however, he doesn't just defend himself--he counters. One swing of his bat. One hit. Not even a particularly powerful strike, but enough to say that he has technically struck Caxi should the fight come down to the judges' decision. Caxi, much to her audible frustration, still cannot land a clean blow.
19:00 One minute remaining. Caxi has little left in the tank but she's going all in--committing to every slash, diving forward into her tail strikes, gambling on moves that would be insanely risky against a normal opponent but--
well, this isn't a normal opponent.
She puts him into positions where he HAS to move, where he HAS to put in some amount of effort or take the hit. One hit is all she needs. One good, solid hit would at least put her in range of a debatable draw, rather than a clear loss by decision.
19:45 She makes one portal in front of him, and one portal behind him. She jumps high and dives into one portal, shooting her briefly skyward out the other. Caxi throws the portal gun at an odd angle,
19:50 into one of said portals, slapping it with her tail as she's falling back down so that she and the portal gun are flying out of separate portals at sharp angles at the same time,
19:55 and the alien is forced to choose between defending against one or the other. The only mathematically safe places to dodge would step him into a portal or out of the ring without sufficient time to rocket back. Raising his bat, he defends against Caxi's claws but is hit from the side by the portal gun.
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19:58 Caxi's claw attack transitions into a tail whip... but she doesn't hit her opponent, she hits the rebounding portal gun, slapping it back into a second ricochet off of her stoic foe's metallic hide. There is the scantest hint of a pause, as though he's trying to process the fact that she has actually managed to hit him again.
19:59 He steps forward. He swings.
20:00 The bat connects with Caxi just as the bell has rung. Caxi drops, and the audience resumes booing; TEAM's fighter does not appear to react, merely staring blankly at the downed lizardfolk in front of him.
It takes a little while for the judges to reach a decision, based on their technical evaluation of the fight. By their hesitance, it seems like a very close and difficult decision, but it is a decision they eventually reach regardless.
Winner: Caxi by Time Out in 20:00
Caxi stumbles to her feet, nursing her head to the renewed cheers of the live crowd. She moves on to the semi-finals of the tournament next week; her strange opponent merely stares, unmoving even as the camera cuts away.
★ ★ ★ A BRIEF INTERRUPTION ★ ★ ★
The screen switches on, showing a pale Japanese woman with a big smile on her face. Given the quality of the video, it appears to have been made with a rather cheap camera.
"Hey there!" She says, "My name's Natsuki Rin, with Rin being the first name if you don't use the same name order."
"I'll be having my first match soon, so I hope you're all looking forward to this as much as I am!" She's distracted for a moment by something happening off-screen, as someone else can be heard talking.
"Get to the point? Right, right. Well then, to get everyone hyped up for the main event, I've decided to show this here off!" As she says this Rin pulls a large, spherical object from behind her back. It's very obviously a bomb, and a large one at that: it's about the size of Rin's head.
"This is an enhanced shrapnel bomb. I've been wanting to use this for a while but never got the chance because it's pretty destructive, so I'm excited to finally get to see it in action!"
"And here on camera is a sneak preview of it!"
There is a very audible "wait, what" off-screen.
"Wait wait wait...!" Someone shouts as the camera man start backing away, but it's too late: Rin's lit the fuse and thrown the bomb away from them.
The explosion seems to rock the filming location. Someone screams in terror, someone who's very clearly Rin is laughing happily... It's all-around chaos.
The camera's dropped on the floor, and the screen soon turns to snow.
Then it cuts to black, with an announcement in white letters: "Due to irresponsible use of explosive ordinance, this promotional video has been cut short. There were no wounded or casualties, and Miss Natsuki has apologized profusely for the property damage caused to the studio."
★ ★ ★ MATCH #3 ★ ★ ★
AGINT VS Alph the Prinny, Dood
0:00 Alph the Prinny (dood) has arrived and taken his place in the ring, but after nearly half a minute his opponent has not. The judges decide to ring the bell and officially start the match; AGINT has until the count of ten to show up.
0:04 There is muffled music in the distance; it is assumed to be from a helicopter, which is currently flying over the arena's glass dome.
0:06 The music is getting louder. Something appears to have been dropped from the helicopter; Alph does not realize it, though some members of the audience are attempting to get his attention.
0:07 The object (and source of the music) is revealed to be an enormous server, which comes crashing through the ceiling. Alph attempts to scramble out of the way.
0:08 Alph the Prinny is crushed beneath the large server rack, which has AGINT printed across the side. From built in speakers, AGINT remarks smugly to himself about having stepped in something. He also switches to a different music track.
0:12 After a brief discussion amongst the judges, the bell is rung. AGINT is declared the winner and carted out with a hand truck. A medical team helps escort Alph out of the ring to a few sympathetic cheers. AGINT moves on, and Alph is eliminated from the Worlds Championship tournament.
Winner: AGINT by Knock Out in 0:12
★ ★ ★ MAIN EVENT ★ ★ ★
Leith VS Rin Natsuki
0:00 Though the match has just begun, the crowd is already excited to see where it's going; Rin Natsuki introduced herself earlier in the night, and her opponent, Leith, is a blue-green-skinned young lady with river weeds in her hair, and... hooves. Backwards hooves, at that. Rin is the first to demonstrate what she's capable of--motioning as though to blow a kiss, only to instead freeze the surface of a majority of the ring with her exhale.
0:06 While Leith slips and slides, struggling to find her footing, Rin begins to pull shrapnel and smoke bombs from... somewhere and hurl them across the ring. Leith manages to avoid the initial blast radius before disappearing in the smoke. Rin continues to throw bombs with a sort of wild abandon, the grin gradually building across her face--she's so caught up in just getting to wantonly throw explosives, it's almost easy for Leith to hide in the bedlam. While it's barely noticeable, Rin also appears to be hovering--ever so slightly--above the ice.
1:17 Leith charges out of the smoke, having snuck up on Rin in the chaos. To Rin's great confusion, Leith is no longer having any trouble with the icy floor--her hooved feet appear to stick to the ground. With the element of surprise, Leith grabs hold of Rin, and the two begin to struggle.
3:55 Leith drags her ghostly foe to the floor and begins applying some sort of shoulder lock or arm bar--but before she can really get the move locked in, she (much like the ring) begins to freeze. The two fighters separate--Leith to reconsider her strategy and thaw her arms a bit, and Rin in a state of panic. "Th... that's not supposed to happen," Rin mutters. "Why are you so... damp?!" Leith does, to be fair, appear quite... sweaty? ...Dank? The mysterious moisture on the surface of her teal flesh does not fare well in the cold proximity of Rin Natsuki.
5:15 Natsuki, back to floating over the ring, begins to actively flee from Leith. "Stay back!," Rin shouts at her opponent while frantically chucking explosives. "Don't you get it? You'll freeze!" Leith gives chase, resorting to kicks while trying to defrost her own arms, but her... er, sticky feet don't quite measure up to Rin's hover speed. Either due to having run out of normal bombs, or perhaps to mask her tactical retreat, Rin now seems to be entirely relying on smoke bombs.
8:45 Now it's Leith who is yelling. "STAUND STILL AND FECHT ME, DAMMIT!" "No!," Rin shouts back, "You can't get close! You're too... moist, it's WEIRD!" By this point, the ring is so full of smoke that the crowd can barely keep track of the antics. The ensuing argument, however, manages to keep the audience entertained nonetheless. "S'NO WEIRD!," retorts Leith, "YE'RE weird, YE FECKIN' ICY BURD! An' dinna say moist, THAT'S weird!"
12:25 Rin, borrowing a page from her opponent's book, begins to hide in the smoke while chucking her bombs about. Leith, seeming to give up on finding and kicking Rin, instead begins punting her opponent's thrown bombs out of the ring as they come flying out. It does cut down on the smoke, clearing the view up over the next several minutes.
17:32 Enough smoke has cleared that both fighters are fully visible. Rin pauses, patting herself down... and clearly realizes that she is out of bombs. Leith, with a crack of her neck, proceeds to turn into a gaunt, fanged horse and charges directly at Rin Natsuki (to the surprise and delight of the crowd). Rin, with a yelp, narrowly dodges to the side as the magical steed comes dashing past.
21:20 Rin dodges Leith's mad horse form for as long as she can--until Leith gambles on a sudden leap, transforming back into her more human-shaped form mid-air and tackling Natsuki. Even as her arms once more begin to freeze--as well as the lower part of her face and other extremities--Leith furiously snakes her arms around Rin's neck, putting her in a chokehold. "No--!," Rin shouts, trying to squirm free--"You're going to freeze! You have to let go!" "DINNA FASH YERSEL' ABOUT GETTIN' ME CAULD!," Leith counters. "S'A FECHTIN' TOURNAMENT, YE DAFT SNAW-GHAIST! Ye didna hae a problem wit' BLAWIN' ME UP, DID YE?!" At this point, it does sound more like Rin's just trying to talk her way out of the hold--it's clear Leith has long stopped caring about the temperature and is all in on this choke, exposure be damned.
21:50 Rin, unable to escape the ever tightening, steadily freezing chokehold, submits. The bell rings, and the arena crew pile into the ring to try and separate Leith from Rin. Leith is pretty well frozen entirely in the chokehold position; both competitors have fully passed out by the time they're pulled apart.
As they're being carted away by separate medical teams, both fighters receive cheers and applause from the live audience. Even if half the fight was obscured by bombs going off all over the place, it's not every day one gets to see a kelpie choke out a yuki-onna.
Winner: Leith by Tap Out in 21:50
NEXT WEEK: Leith vs AGINT, Douglas vs Caxi, new fighters will debut and MORE as the Arena Arcadia Worlds Championship tournament continues!
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