KillamriX88

Royal Rumble: Side-story

Kakra watched in horrified fascination as Gregor and his rats descended upon the trolls. Her trolls... That she'd been fighting... At first she was just disturbed by the excess of blood and Gore, but then she found her hands tightening into tense fists.

The talking rat poked his head out, saying they'd need fire.

"Yeah, I heard the pipsqueak!" Kakra snapped, referring to Alexei. She waved a hand, and the ball of light from earlier shot down like a missile and smote the injured troll whose skull had been torn open, searing it's brain into nothing and spreading it's skull like flower petals.

"Fine, I guess I'll take the one on the right..." She grumbled and stomped off, creating another sun burst with a flick of her wrist. Any rats unlucky enough to cross her path got a swift boot to the rear. One particularly large one turned and hissed at her in protest, but scurried off when she hissed back.

The final standing troll was doing its best to hold back the frothing whorde of rats. With it's club and regenerating flesh, the rats couldn't do much on their own. The few that could stay latched on could do little permanent damage. Kakra would fix that.

She broke into a run, catching the troll's attention. It swung its club at her as she got close and she caught it under her arm and twisted, tearing the weapon free of the larger creatures grasp. She continued her turn, building momentum as she shifted the weapon into a two handed grip, and then swung at the troll's legs.

The troll went down, leg taken out from under it. It raised a hand to try and claw at her, but she batted it away, bones shattering under the blow. She the stomped down on the troll's chest and hefted the oversized club high.

"I COME OUT..." SMASH "...ONCE IN A... BLUE MOON... BUT YOU PSYCHOS CAN'T... WAIT... ONE... FUCKING... MINUTE... TO LET ME... ENJOY... ONE... FIGHT!" Each set of words was punctuated by another vicious blow to the troll's head until the club was drenched in blood and viscera and the troll's skull was completely flattened. Her whole body heaved with each breath and she chucked the club flying with a roar, deep into forest.

She stepped away from the troll, but it suddenly sat up.

"AHH!" She explained in surprise, not thinking they were that hard to kill. Surely decapitation would have overridden any need for fire... Or so she'd incorrectly assumed. However, more by instinct than design, she quickly directed her sun burst to strike. It flew at the stump of a neck and embedded itself into the flesh, slowly crawling down into its neck. The flesh actually began to regrow around to the orb of light, creating an eerie red glow... Until it burst, leaving a sizzling crater betwixt the troll's shoulders.

It collapsed once more, leaving the corpse to be beset upon by the rats.

Kakra flicked a bit of gore off her shoulder and composed herself before turning around. Rather than enraged, she looked just mildly annoyed.

"So... Trolls, huh?" She stared at Alexei. "Should we be reporting that too?" She narrowed her eyes. It was pretty obvious that the monsters hadn't existed before his magic had gone off. She was grateful she'd been set free, but even so... Thanks to him her brother's neck had been set at a nice 90 degree angle...

And even now, with all trolls slain... Ivan might have noticed the intense glow of his tool hadn't faded in the slightest.

Royal Rumble: Side-story

Kato swallowed hard. What the hell was wrong with today!? What was wrong with this guy?! There was no way his magic and these sudden monsters weren't related! Yekaterina was witch country, not... not... whatever these things were country! There was no way three monsters like this could have just snuck over to the school!

Probably.

He saw the small guy face off against the creatures... with... a flare gun and a small knife. Was he serious?!

"H-hey, wait a minute!" Kato tried to talk sense to him, but it was too late -- the first monster was on the war path. Dammit, why did this have to happen during the day? Good nature and instinct overrode common sense and Kato ran over to push Alexei clear as the monster charged in, club swinging. Kato turned to look just in time for the club to slam into his head, sending him crashing into the nearby helicopter, shattering what was left of the cockpit canopy, and leaving his body draped over the reinforcing metal.

His lifeless form slowly slid to the ground at Alexei's feet, neck at a jagged angle and blank eyes staring off into space.

Then his body suddenly began glowing until it was completely enshrouded in a cocoon of pure light. He stood up and when the light faded... it was Kato anymore.

It was a girl with blonde hair and blue eyes. She reached down and tightened the belt at her waist, keeping her pants from slipping off of her more slender waist. She then looked up at the sky and took a deep breath.

MoodMusic

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH! IT'S BEEN NEARLY TWO YEARS!" She shouted at the top of her lungs. The creature however, while momentarily transfixed by the light-show, was back on the move. It swung at Kakra and she threw up both arms, catching the weapon, her body covered in a shell of light. Her face turned red as she strained against the weapon. The monster soon gave up on the power struggle and pulled back, just winding up another swing, but Kakra jumped back, landing on top of the chopper. "I'm just gonna enjoy this!" she grinned and leapt forward, launching a flying knee into the monster's face before it could recover from its missed swing.

The monster staggered back, regrouping with the rest of its trio.

Kakra threw her arm out, a mass of light shooting over to Gregor, covering him in a rolling shroud of flowing light.

"OK! Gregor, you take the one on the right, I'll get the one on the left, and whoever wins first gets the last one!" she called out. It would have been the first time Gregor would have seen Kakra herself, or heard her voice. Before then, he'd have simply seen her occasionally posses Kato, but it was always his voice regardless of who was driving.

If Gregor needed one last shred of evidence to prove that this was the fabled Kakra who Kato insisted lived inside him, the same flowing shroud of energy ignited over her body on top of the shell of light and her eyes flashed orange, just like when she took over Kato's body.

She strutted forward confidentially, grinning madly as she did so. Even as the beasts roared and screeched, she didn't flinch. This seemed to throw the creatures off balance, not knowing what to make of some feeble human being so fearless. She stopped in front of the leftmost one, tilting her head back to look it the eye, daring it to take a shot at her.

It took the dare.

It swung its club at her, and this time she raised but one arm to meet it. Her hand clamped down on the weapon, stopping it dead. The weapon trembled as their might clashed. Her grip tightened and the wood creaked and splintered. Finally the weapon had enough and snapped in half, the beast falling to a knee as it overswung. It lifted it's head and roared, baring its maw as Kakra, but she threw up her other hand and a spark of light came to life, shining directly into the creature's eyes.

She let it go, and the light drifted up into the sky, but before the creature could recover, she smashed the half of the club still in her hand across its jaw, knocking it clean on its ass. She then brushed her hands off casually. However, the beast soon propped itself up, jaw hanging loosely at a weird angle with teeth missing and blood gushing. However, the bleeding stooped a second later and the jaw cracked back into place under its own power.

And she coulda sworn she saw teeth slowly regrowing.

"Ah, shit..." Kakra grumbled... before the middle beast cracked her in the back of the head. Unlike before, instead of going flying, she simply stumbled forward. "That was ch-" And then it hit her again... and again... pummeling her into the ground in a frenzy.

It gave a final, bloodthirsty roar before inspecting its handy work, seeming pleased that she wasn't moving anymore. It then seemed annoyed by something. The ball of light that Kakra had created was steadily growing brighter. The two beasts roared and screeched at it, flailing at it, clearly wanting to tear it from the sky and end its blinding presence and keep it from stinging their eyes.

A crackling noise got their attention back away from it though. Kakra had regained her feet and was arching her back, snapping it back into place.

"That one stung," her lip curled as she spoke. The second charged her, swinging its club, but Kakra wound up a punch and splintered it in one go. She then kept going with a second to its gut, and finishing with a third to its face as it doubled over. The first was already rushing in next, but her momentum kept going as she rounded on it. It clawed at her, but she spun around, grabbing and twisting its meaty wrist, causing it to tumble head over heel as its own momentum sent it sprawling.

"Hey, Gregor? How's it going over there?" She called out as the two monsters attempted to collect themselves. She could beat on them all day, but they could put themselves back together almost as well as she could... and she didn't have all day. She needed to figure out how to kill them.

- - -

Meanwhile, somewhere in the school, a certain farming implement would begin to tremble... and then glow.

Royal Rumble!

@Hammerman

Because it might not have been super obvious at first glance, I just thought I'd mention that Bart confirmed on discord that Aram is indeed "hiding" in plain sight of Christine right now.

Royal Rumble!

@Gentlemanvaultboy@Hammerman@Bartimaeus

---

Rurik hissed in aggravated surprise at the sand attack. He threw up his arm and deployed a shield, blocking the sand, but he couldn't see through his own arm. It was enough for Aram to break line of sight.

"Can you-" Rurik began to speak, but then Bak started ranting that her thermal's had been toasted before blasting Brutus... again. ". . . she's sadistic when angry." He noted with a nervous swallow. Well, so much for using heat vision anyway. He then sighed and dismounted her, walking to the other side of the middle hallway. There was no sign of Aram on either side of the pillars, and he couldn't have slipped out the nearby entrance, as Christine was there.

No, he was most likely hiding behind a pillar. Rurik hadn't lost sight for long enough for him to make it to the end of the hallway, after all. He picked up two chunks of debris from the recent wall breach and charged them with energy.

"OK, Bak. Here's the plan," he said almost casually. He was about ready to get this match over with. "He didn't run past us, so he's almost certainly behind one of those pillars," he told her, "so... ever been dynamite fishing?" He absentmindedly flipped one of the rocks in his hands. "It's simple really, we'll take turns. I take one pillar, you take the next, and so on. If I spook him, you shoot him. If you spook him, I shoot him. Or maybe he just gets blown up..." He shrugged. Hell, this part might even be a bit fun. "OK, Christine! We're gonna flush him out, get ready in case he heads your way!"

He glanced at Bak, "Get your guns spun up. Ready?" And not wanting to give Aram any more time to think of a way out of this... he launched his first stone behind the first pillar. BOOM! A cloud of dust rose, but no bodies went flying. Wrong pillar. "All right then. Your turn," he told Bak, arm held up and palm aimed down by the next pillar. He was slowly charging up more and more energy. If Aram showed his face, he had a few full-powered bolts heading his way.

Royal Rumble: Side-story

Kato jaw dropped, his whole body sagging as his strength left him from sheer shock. He stared at the eloquent, speaking rat in shock and awe. Gregor was clearly a person who had gained rat features, but this... this was a bonafide talking animal.

"I was not prepared for today..." Kato finally broke free from his astonishment long enough to at least speak. First Sasha almost breaking his curse, then a stone man offering him gold, then a girl fell from the sky, then a helicopter followed, and now a talking rat.

Then some sprout of a kid that made Kato look intimidating by comparison-. . . OK, so maybe that wasn't possible, but regardless the small guy from earlier showed up, saying something about reporting them.

"Wh-what!? We didn't do anything! The helicopter fell on Gregor and I wasn't even here! Y-you were the one casting spells, maybe we should be reporting you!" Kato shot back. Somebody had just made the rat talk, and by process of elimination it must have been the little guy... probably. Kato hadn't arrived on the scene until almost everything was over. Well, even so, someone had to help the pilot, and if that got kept them out of trouble then all the better. "Err... b-but maybe you should still help, Gregor, j-just to be safe."

Unfortunately during the day, Kato was about as useful as a paper mache hammer...

Royal Rumble!

@Gentlemanvaultboy@rawkhawk64@Bartimaeus

---

Bak... wanted him to ride on her? Rurik pursed his lips. Well, it didn't get much easier than literally being carried he supposed.

"Yeah, all right." Rurik shrugged. That said, riding on Bak while she was firing her guns wasn't going to be fun. They might not kill, but they still made all the noise. Fortunately, he knew this better than most and was prepared. He pulled two cotton balls out of his pocket and stuffed them in his ears. He then, more curiously, grabbed a few rocks off the ground. There were plenty after Bak's collision with the giant, stone hand.

Once "onboard", Bak took off, picking up speed as they went. She was actually fairly mobile once she got some momentum going. She began blasting away at someone who was already down and Rurik saw that Christine had summoned and subsequently lost a giant statue.

"Hey, I have an idea! Turn right!" Rurik told Bak. No response. She was totally focused on hosing down her target with every gun she had. "I said-! Oh, screw it..." Rurik was the one who had cotton in his ears, but Bak just not listening. So, he instead just clamped his hand down on Bak's head in a claw grip and turned her head where he wanted her to go.

A wall. And with all her momentum, there was no hope of safely stopping in time.

Moments before a painful collision, Rurik leaned forward over her shoulder and threw his arm out. His hand hit the wall before Bak's face could. For a moment, there would have been a relative silence, Bak having lost any targets to shoot at... but then the wall blew apart, creating a nice, Bak-sized entrance for them. Anyone who had been on the other side of that particular wall was in for a bad day. If not from the explosion, then from Bak trampling them.

Now in the "hallway" between the two walls, hopefully coming from the last angle their enemy would have expected, Rurik quickly looked around. Upon finding the nearest Vigilante, he reached into his pocket and pulled out one of his rocks.

"Present for you!" he tossed it casually at them. If they were caught off guard enough to instinctively catch it, they'd soon regret it when it blew up like a small bomb in their hands. Of course, catch it or not, it was blowing up regardless.

Royal Rumble: Side-story

It was a whirlwind. One second his head was on the table, the next he was flat on his back. He lifted his head up to see... up a girl's skirt. Her underwear was-

CRASH-BANG-CRUNCH!!! Fortunately a helicopter crash distracted him from that impending disaster. Despite it all, Sasha was still more concerned about her snack. She had a one track mind, it seemed. BANG! Another crash, this time a dumpster being thrown at the helicopter. Wait. That dumpster. Oh no...

"Wh-what?" he stuttered when Alyona accused him of looking up skirt. "Oh, uhh, I don't know... l-look, I gotta... j-just... b-be right back!" he babbled nervously while slowly backing away before breaking into a hurried jog. "Gregor!" he called out to the rat-man. "H-h-hey, Gregor!" He skidded to a halt a few feet away from the angry rat. "Umm, I-I don't think it was on purpose. N-no need to, umm, r-rip open any throats today." He swallowed hard. He got on well enough with the unusual being that was Gregor. A sort of mutual sympathy. He hoped he could prevent and further... destruction. "Just a bad accident. Umm, you're OK, right? You, uh, you look OK..." It seemed his home had suffered the worst of it. Well, he was sure the school would get a new dumpster.

He was pretty sure officials looked the other way because Gregor's rat swarm saved them a ton of money on waste disposal. Also no one wanted to make him mad.

Royal Rumble!

@Hammerman@Gentlemanvaultboy@Crowvette@Bartimaeus

---

"No clue," Rurik told Christine, staring at the cards. Though, he had to say, on the off chance these things did what they said they did... But why the hell would the enemy just hand these out? "Probably just to distr-"

"HELP!" he was cut off, however, by Bak's cry for assistance. He supposed he should help her up again. After all, how could he let his team do all the work if they couldn't even stand up?

"On that note, uhh, have fun?" Rurik shrugged and turned to jog his way back to their team's flag zone. By the time he got there, Bak was already attempting, and failing to pick herself up.

"We really need to stop meeting like th-" He felt something kinda like a bee sting. Just his luck. Bees? Really? Bak apparently felt it too. Wait, what? In fact, she looked really worried- "AHAZXHXZLZBHBL!" Rurik tensed up and fell to the ground as if seizing. It went on for quite some time until he just lay there twitching, achy, and his teeth kinda felt tingly.

He rolled painfully onto his back. Yep. That was good. He was just gonna lay there until the match was over then. Hew glanced over at Bak. She looked pissed.

"She's not gonna let me lay here is she?" He groaned and pushed himself up. "Ow... ow... ow... Hold on, Bak..." He glanced at the cards again. "Well, worth a shot. Uhhh... Card! Get rid of them?" He held up a card named "Vengeful Dreams." It shone brightly and... then nothing. ". . . of course it's a dud." He almost shoved them into his pocket, but in reality, the wording of the card hadn't really fit anyway. Their opponents weren't really "creatures." Fine, one more try then. He grabbed another, "Diabolic Tutor."

"OK, card... try actually doing something!" He held it up and... suddenly felt like he was having the worst acid trip imaginable. Thousands of images raced past his eyes as the world seemed the fold open before him. "AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" He let out a rather unmanly shriek of fear. "J-j-just give me something to make them stop!" He begged and suddenly, mercifully, it all went away. In his hand in the place of the tutor was a new card -- "Silence."

"Oh..." Rurik said, breathing heavily. Well... he knew the cards actually did something now. "Um... Card! Do, uhh, do your thing!" The card shone and suddenly a pulse of energy surged from it, washing over the arena until it had covered the whole area. And that was it.

He glanced down at Bak, looking puzzled, "So, uhh, I either just made a pretty light show... or I just turned off all their powers."

He walked over and held out his hand to help her up like he had last time on the haunted building's roof, "Wanna go find out?"

Royal Rumble: Side-story

Kato's eyes practically bugged out at the sight of the coin. With trembling fingers he began to reach out to take it, only for Sasha to push it away. One could practically see Kato's expression shatter like glass, looking almost like he might cry. He flailed feebly as he was then dragged away.

Finally, with the coin's mesmerizing presence gone, Kakra inside Kato snapped back to reality.

"Watch it! And stop with the commoner crap!" But as he spoke, trying to pull free, his legs wobbled and he clutched at his head. The golden color faded from his eyes, back to their normal blue. "Ugh..." Kakra had far and away pushed the limits of possession, leaving Kato feeling completely exhausted. "Um, uh, s-sorry... my sister is... uh... impatient. It's been a long time..." Kato tried his best to apologize, not wanting to squander their best chance yet.

With that, he resigned to being dragged to the cafeteria. There was a small problem. The grumpy old lunch-lady/janitor was mopping the floor.

"Mopping floor. Get out."

"Um, I uh, just need to... if you don't mind... be real quick..." Kato mumbled, inching along the far wall, "...don't mind me..." babbling the whole way until he made it to the counter, grabbed two pudding cups, dropped the needed money on the counter and quickly led Sasha outside to some weathered, wooden tables. All the while, the lunch lady glared at him with pure, burning death in her eyes.

Finally, he took a seat, set down the pudding, and laid his head on the table, half trying to hide his face and half just trying to stay awake.

Why couldn't anything be easy? This country, this school, this curse, this girl... and now a lunch lady who would probably poison his next meal. Well, the only way was forward, right?

Royal Rumble!

@Gentlemanvaultboy So it sounded like you might be having discord problems and I haven't seen you in a bit so I'll put this here.

I know you said something about leaving Match 2 to the people involved, but... it's just stagnating again.

So, if you could at least talk to those involved that'd be great, even if it has to be here if Discord is still messing up for you.

Also we miss you.