genessia | Shadaloo and You

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Shadaloo and You

Genessia was in for several shocks. The first of these was when their favorite television programs were arrested in favor of something a little more...red. After the initial static, the image became clear as the inner workings of a tv studio appeared. Suddenly, an ovular, shadowy void appeared in the middle, followed by a bulky, cloaked figure emerging.

It was M. Bison.

"Greetings, worms! It is I, your future ruler and master, M. Bison. I hope you've enjoyed your holidays, for all that is about to end. For New Year's, I've resolved to usher in a new era of pain and suffering. To start with, I will show you the futility of your precious Guardians as they fail to save your city from destruction. Genessia city, to be precise. Channels 3-8 will allow all of you to see your fragile metropolis crumble before your eyes."

To elaborate, each of those channels showed the following:

3. Jack's Bar and Karaoke Club is looking both lively and dead. There's disco musing blaring in the background, but no one's dancing. In fact, all the patrons gaze at a large disco ball on the ceiling, held in a stupor. A muscular man with boxing gloves sits in a chair, grumbling. "Buncha stiffs. What good will brainwashing these punks do?"

4. A Korean woman with skimpy clothing, and a yin-yang symbol in her left eye is seen hunched on the ground, next to the hospital. She gets up to reveal that she has just finished planting C4 charges. With a wicked grin, she turns to the camera, and tosses a detonator up and down. "Come and get it, losers!"

5. The hum and whirr of machinery presents itself to your ears as you see a masked figure with a large claw attached to his arm. To the mechanically astute, they'll recognize it as the Genessia Power Plant. He walks lazily to a control panel, apparently a pretty important one. "How will these hideous wretches survive the cold without power? Feh. Let these ugly flowers wilt." With a gleam, he raises his claw, before cutting the feed.

6. This one's a split screen. On the left, one can see some citizens bound and gagged, next to a strange device they all look very afraid of. It's making a beeping noise. On the right, one gets a glimpse of the coliseum in Attleton. A very large man with an eyepatch has brutally smashed his knee in a would-be contestor. As he crumples to the ground, He turns to the camera. "Weak! Is this truly all your pathetic city has to offer! If you wish to unseat the king, you will have to do better than that!" Looking closer, you can see a device strapped to his chest similar to the one on the previous screen. Perhaps they're connected...

7. Rushing water can be heard as vats of an unknown chemical are moved to and fro by two women, wearing something between a jumpsuit and a sweater. By the dingy look of things, this must be the sewers. More specifically, the water treatment plant.

8. A normal looking suburb, aside from the fact that people are running and screaming. The source of their fear? A large, 2-ton freak with a humanoid form, raging and smashing without the barest trace of intellect or control.

Back to channel 2, Bison was there with an evil grin of his own. "Are you frightened, weaklings? You should be. For I present a nightmare without end. And for dessert, I challenge Captain Hammer himself to display his impotence in the face of this terror for all to see. Don't keep me waiting. Mwuh heh heh heh heh..."
OOC: It begins! In case you couldn't tell, here are the people and their matchups.

Channel 2: Bison & C. Hammer
Channel 3: Balrog & Yang
Channel 4: Juri & Open!
Channel 5: Vega & Blake
Channel 6: Cherise & Sagat
Channel 7: Juni & Juli, Ruby & Janos
Channel 8: Big, rampaging monster and open!

These aren't set in stone. If your characters wanna gang up on one of the Lords of Shadaloo, by all means! Know, however, that Bison may have to beef up security in kind. Okay it with the original people first, of course, in case they'd prefer a one-on-one. If you don't care for the people and just wanna go to town on some Shadaloo mooks, that works too.

With regards to winning and losing, it's up to you! We can play it out naturally, but I don't mind getting whooped, or succeeding and doing some heavy damage to Genessia's infrastructure.

When you're ready to step into the ring, comment with your characters in the appropriate section.

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He was probably going to be disappointed when Cherise stepped boldly into the arena. With her pencil skirt and business jacket, she hardly seemed ready for fisticuffs. Her kinetic motion-absorbing gloves were snugged firmly onto her hands, as she had a feeling she might have to fend off some pretty nasty hits. But there was no guarantee she would be fast enough to stop all of his blows; she preferred to keep her distance as best she could.

She wouldn't even be here if she knew where the other half of that screen were being broadcast. And while there was a cold part of her that whispered it wasn't worth it, that these people weren't even supposed to be real, the compulsion to do the right thing and protect them anyway was too strong to ignore. She felt guilty even having those whispers of logic in the first place.

"I'm not looking for trouble," she called out, her wand held at her side...not raised, but there for protection if she needed it. "Can we talk?"

Sagat grunted. What an idiot woman, coming into an arena and talking of avoiding trouble.

"All that needs to be said can be communicated through my fists. A whelp like you doesn't stand a chance against a warrior like me. Turn back now, before I punish you for wasting my time." That was about as close to mercy as Sagat was likely to go.

"Whelp? You're too kind," Cherise remarked dryly. She stayed her ground, running over the multiple plans she'd lined up in her head just in case his personality turned out to be a certain way, or his abilities were successful for countering her spells.

She flicked a quiet glance to the sky, noting the gathering grey clouds, and frowned internally. If it began to rain and they were caught outdoors, she was completely done for.

"If you wish for a fight, you may have it," she replied. "But only on the condition that you release the hostages first. I guarantee, I'll give you a match you won't soon forget."

Sagat snorted. As if he'd trust some newcomer he hasn't even fought yet.

"You've yet to prove yourself in battle; your words do not sway me. Even so, this device is connected directly to my heartrate. Only my unconsciousness will serve to release them." He lifted up one leg, knee pointed outward, and curled his arms.

"Last chance, girl."

...Wait, that was all? The only requirement was unconsciousness? If she'd known that, she wouldn't have prepared so many spells and lynchpins! What a dreadful waste.

Likely he would take offense at her use of magic, but that hardly mattered when the lives of hostages were at stake.

"Perhaps these words will sway you," she sighed, raising her wand and letting the tip drift lazily in the air to inscribe broad, sweeping strokes in a hypnotic figure eight.

"Long de sommeil et rêve," she intoned, invoking every insomniac's must-know spell: Slumber.

Bison had told Sagat what to expect from certain inhabitants. While he disdained the idea of knowing an opponent before combat, he did take some time to see which might try a trick like that.

Sagat had finely honed instincts, he could tell when even a word meant the start of a fight. The moment she uttered "Long", he was on her faster than you can say "Knee to the face."

He began with "Tiger shot!", a fast-moving, crescent shape of energy, before going in for a leaping knee attack to close the gap.

It wasn't nice to interrupt a sorceress in the middle of her spellcasting. Nor was it fair that he could say more words than she could in a short amount of time, that jerk.

Cherise gasped as the small blast of energy crashed into her, sending her stumbling back. She had just enough presence of mind and sharpness of reflexes to bring up her hand, catching his knee strike against her palm. The spell woven into the fibers of the glove stopped the kinetic force from causing her harm, but he still managed to knock her back a little.

Seems she was back to her Plan A's and Plan B's all over again. Cherise hadn't anticipated that he would be so quick!

Holding up her left hand defensively and angling her body to present her side rather than her front, she slashed the air sharply. "Vents éveiller!" It wasn't quite so articulate or poetic as her attempt to put him to sleep, which meant she had less control over the charm meant to summon strong winds to her aid. The light breeze immediately kicked up, churning the dust in the colisseum and blasting everyone within the arena with grit and sand.

Cherise continued to back away with quick steps, the wind lashing her short hair against her face. A pity she couldn't shape the air into concentrated physical force or actual blades, as some of her more combat-oriented coworkers were able, but this was fine. What she needed was the sand, and the winds were pulling up plenty for the next step in her plan.

Vega's knee was knocked back, a fact which surprised him given the size difference between the two. Apparently this girl had better martial arts experience than he thought; he'd never seen that technique before.

Nonetheless, he continued undaunted. Or at least, he would've if a sand gust hadn't blocked his eye sight. He raised his arms to guard his eyes, still trying to keep a lock on her and brave through the sandstorm. What was she up to?

The sand began to cling to Cherise's obscured form, adhering as if drawn by a magnet. She muttered rapidly in French, pronouncing each syllable exactly while trying not to spit out the sand that kept striking her mouth. This part was the trickiest, casting three spells in quick succession. The last two had lynchpins and needed only to be assigned targets to be complete, but shaping the sand to be compact and firm in a specific form had to come first.

Then came the two illusions. The first, a mirror image of her face and body, was laid over the sand golem she'd crafted. The second was to cloak herself in invisibility. The winds died as she abandoned her focus in maintaining the spell, and visibility began to clear.

Sagat was welcome to punch her sand double as much as he liked. She needed time to free the hostages.

Sagat launched a kick into the double, happy to see a target. Or at least, he was until he felt the impact.

Unless she was using some kind of armor, Sagat was sure this wasn't normal. He'd kicked a lot of people before, and the impact his leg made with didn't feel right. And more than anything else, he trusted his instincts.

"Foolish girl. A tiger cannot be so easily tricked." He sniffed the air, a bestial kind of calm falling over him. He filtered out the scent of blood, sweat...anything that he knew wouldn't cling to his target. At least, not yet.

His eyes were fixed on the ground, watching to see any disturbances thereon. Cherise hadn't engaged in flight yet, so he guessed that she was still earthbound.

So he launched a volley of tiger shots in multiple directions. He didn't expect them to hit, but to suss out his quarry. Once he saw the telltale signs of a dodge, he'd have her pinned.

He would be wise not to turn his attention away from the Sand Cherise for long, because it wasn't going to sit there and allow itself to be pounded upon. It flinched when it took blows even though it felt nothing, and it retaliated with heavy, driving punches.

As for Cherise herself, she cursed under her breath when it became clear how quickly he'd discovered the ruse.

Blasts of energy surged through the air. Was he crazy?! What if he hit the hostages?! The sand scuffled slightly in front of them as the sorceress spread her hands wide, whispering a single word of French as she threw up a translucent shield that pulsed faintly every time it was struck with Sagat's thrown chi. If she'd had more time to weave the shield, she might have been able to change its composition so that it was strengthened by the energy instead of merely nullifying it. But she was starting to grow spent as it stood, and she didn't have a lot of time to work with.

Sagat flinched at a sand fist arced into his back. With a roar, he simultaneously gave it some elbow and knee, in classic Muay Thai fashion. He began to truly hate his opponent. Hiding was one thing, but to let something else do your fighting! It was as if she didn't understand the language of combat at all.

As he tango'd with the sand clone, he caught a diffusion of light on his periphery. He didn't know much mysticism, but he knew when there was monkey business. He kicked away his erstwhile sandbag, and leapt knee-first towards that general position.

It was true. Cherise knew nothing about martial arts, or anything beyond very basic self defense. Right now, she doubted the heel of her shoe would prove much of a weapon against this monster of a man. Eyes widening, Cherise scrambled to get out of the way. She threw herself to the ground out of desperation, resisting the urge to cough. She couldn't give away her position. She had to keep spinning spells and illusions, keep him off balance, until she had enough time to weave a proper slumber enchantment.

Then she felt something wet plop onto the back of her hand. And into the dust. Where the rain started to fall, it began to melt away the complex magic she'd woven so carefully. She could feel it dissolving, like a sugarcube dropped into a glass of water. Soon she would be visible, and her sand golem would melt into so much wet sand. Even the winds she'd whipped up were dying down.

Pushing herself to her feet, she searched frantically for cover, but found none. Colisseums didn't exactly provide much in that regard. She tried a stunning charm, risking the sound of her voice, but with the falling rain her wand was useless.

Well. Bollocks.

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Shadaloo and You

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