Open The King of Fighters: Multiverse Mashup

Read and join here.

---

The day was bright and balmy, not too hot, not too cold. The tournament's dimension was designed that way, maintaining a good environment meant most would be at an optimal level of performance, making the data collected just as optimal.

In front of the living quarters, a large building with many luxurious suites for the fighters to stay in, there was a bit of an odd pair standing watch. One was a young woman in a military outfit wielding a whip. The other was another young woman of roughly the same age, wearing an elegant light blue dress.

They were waiting for the participants, who should appear on a path in front of the living quarters, to appear.

"So, what's your name?", the one in the dress asked.

"Just call me... Whip.", the other replied.

"OK...", the first girl replied, thinking, I have a bad feeling about this arrangement...

Anyone walking up the path to the living quarters probably wouldn't have been paying detailed attention to that which was on the side of the path. They would likely be focusing on the tournament in some manner - deciding how best to fight whatever enemies might be in store for them. This (or rather, a crude form of this,) was what was going through the head of a human skeleton clad in a blue robe and red cape as he was flying up the path toward the living quarters.

Had he (or anyone else) been paying attention, they might have noticed a slight unnatural shimmer of movement to the side of the path. Upon seeing the skeleton, who went by the name of Xykon, the shimmer faded into a white and brown-armored human with a strange helmet, who happened to be carrying a wicked-looking weapon. The human didn't even pause to consider what the best action would be: he knew what he had to do for the results he wanted.

All of that would start with following this skeleton, and taking part in this tournament.

Soon, the human thought, very soon.

With that, it walked up the path.

Big. Colorful. Fancy. Katniss Everdeen gave a shiver. All of this screamed Capitol.

She had to shake her head and tell herself that's not where she was... this was something different. This was just a simple, non-fatal competition, not the wholesale slaughter she had remembered from the Hunger Games... and what's more, this was going to be her catharsis. Maybe it was wrong, to want to take part in such violence again, after the war she had just fought and seen so many die in. But as for now, she was still the girl on fire, and that rage still burned hot and strong inside her. If this was the only way to keep it in check, to keep from snapping and engulfing a loved one in flames... then it would be worth it.

The others who had arrived were... strange, to say the least, but Katniss had already seen the depths of Capitol fashion choices. It was hard to surprise her with mere appearance. Besides, they probably had other skills that would be more impressive. She herself probably looked strange too. She had dragged out her sleek, black and white Mockingjay armor again for the occasion. Cinna's last gift to her would serve her well once again. Slung across her back was the quiver of special arrows, and of course, the sleek-black technological marvel that was the Mockingjay bow, a special weapon that looks like it had been carved out of onyx. ((Sadly I can't find pictures for either of these things, and they're not very well-described in the book. :C))

Not saying a word or giving anyone else the time of day, she stepped up the path, aloof and... well, not necessarily completely confident, but sure enough.

Peeta felt rather...plain, compared to the others he has caught sight of so far, with their odd appearances and general unfamiliarity. It made him think of the Capitol, and that made him clench his hands to fight of the memories.

He continued down the path, finally managing to unclasp his hands to fiddle with the collar of his simple green shirt in an attempt to distract himself from the thoughts swirling around in his head. No, he had more important things to worry about...like where Katniss was. She was the whole reason he had come here, to protect her... He sighed and started to walk faster.

Then he caught a flash of black that caught his eye; there she was! And she was in that suit...that meant she was serious about this... Worry surged in his head, and he rubbed at his wrists for a moment before running up behind her.

"Katniss...!"

Walking up the path to living quarters was Genn Greymane, a large and quite able-bodied man for his age. Carrying a large sword upon his back and holding his head high with pride, which was rather common for the people of Gilneas, as the large buildings loomed ahead of him.

So this is where this "tournament" will be taking place? Genn thought to himself, I have never seen such architecture before, this is something entirely different from what can be found in Azeroth, not even the Draenei builds their homes in such a unworldly way.

He kept walking,with the royal cape of his flowing behind him.

((badpostisbad))

Twig materialized about ten feet from the ground and fell, landing hard. Sky damn... he thought. Looking up, he noticed the living quarters, in their presence. Not knowing what the place was, Twig decided to investigate. He walked towards his destination looking in all directions. Where all the people, and the creatures of the Deepwoods? My, this place is odd.

Smellerbee yawned and looked around. After a moment or two, she spotted him; Longshot was perched silently on a higher branch, absorbed in a thin parchment-filled book. He had discovered a love of reading, after the war calmed down. He always had his nose in that book nowadays. Turning her back to the teenager, Smellerbee smoothed down her hair and rubbed her face on her shirt. When she turned back around, Longshot had closed the book and was looking at her, with a very slight smile on her face. His eyebrow then raised up a bit, questioning, and his eyes pointed down for a second.

"Yeah, sure, I'm ready," she replied in her raspy voice, shouldering a small pack as she spoke. She hooked an arm around the branch to her left and swung down...

She landed with a light but distinct thump. As she straightened, Smellerbee was only slightly surprised to see that Longshot had, silently, descended already and was looking in his book once more.

"Fine, I'll go and meet people. You just read your flying boar book." Smellerbee smiled as she said this, and a twitch betrayed Longshot's silent laugh.

The path, only a few feet away from the tree that the pair had camped out in, was strewn here and there with people (and other beings, as well) who were, presumably, here for the fighting. The most human-looking of the bunch, among all of the shiny metal humanoids and skeletons, was a blonde boy, slightly older than her or Longshot. He was accompanied by (running after, really) a rather lean, striking girl in strange clothing. Deciding to make allies as soon as possible, Smellerbee trotted back down the path a ways to meet them. Longshot fell into step behind her, still reading. His bow, although strapped to his back rather loosely, made no noise.

Longshot and Smellerbee soon reached the two; the blonde, unassuming one had almost reached his companion. Smellerbee turned back to Longshot.

"I'm assuming that I'll be making the introductions, huh?"

Longshot just looked blankly at her.

Katniss's attention was completely snapped out of the walk forward, and she turned. She couldn't believe the voice she just heard. It couldn't possibly be...

"Peeta?!"

After her initial surprise, the first emotion to come surging in was anger. Just what was he doing following her here? Not only did she know he was still trying to cure himself of the hijacking, but, dammit, she was here to fight. To, at least for a little while, feed the flames before purging herself of them. And was he going to try to protect her again, like he had back in the Games? As much as she hated to admit it he had a tendency of holding her back... but at the same time she can't count the number of times he'd saved her life... All of this made worry for him come into the emotional equation, making her even more confused. She stomped over to him.

"Peeta?! What... how did... what are you doing here?!" she said, maybe a bit more snippy than she had intended.

Peeta flinched a bit when Katniss snapped at him, taking a step back and folding his arms behind his back. He tilted his head forward and let his wavy blond bangs fall over his forehead before thinking of an answer.

"I wanted to make sure you didn't do anything stupid..." He said, faintly. "And...I could stand to...blow off some steam I guess."

After speaking, he reaches out to touch her arm, smiling that charming smile he was so good at. Hopefully she wouldn't try and shove him into a vase or anything. There didn't look to be any around anyway.

"I can see them over there now.", the girl in the dress pointed out, "Seven... Eight? How many are expected?"

"Eleven.", Whip replied.

"Eleven?", the other asked, "Isn't this 2-on-2?"

"I have this feeling my superiors will make it work somehow.", Whip answered, "Your name is Hildegaard von Krone, right?"

"Err... Yes.", Hilde said, "Just Hilde will be fine."


Phasing in, Makoto dropped to one knee, then looked up with a smirk, then stood up dramatically, though that was hard in her big NOL jacket.

"Makoto Nanaya, reporting in!", she shouted, only to then realize that there would be no communication with her superiors, or anyone for that matter, once she entered this place.

There was an odd collection of people in front of her. Beyond them, the path led to a big, ornate building designed in the Neoclassical style. It was part of a larger group of buildings.

"Hmmm I suppose we're supposed to head to that building there...", Makoto thought out loud, "Or I could meet the other people. On second thought, that sounds like a great idea."

And so, she set off towards the group. There was a metal-clad humanoid, a skeleton, and six humans, though one of them seemed small, and another one of them was an old man with a big sword. Something felt odd about the last one, the small one seemed off, and the others seemed to be having conversations of some sort.

She ran past the old man, who was triumphantly walking towards the buildings, skidded to a top in front of him, and asked, "Hi! I was wondering if you knew anything about the tournament."

Katniss flinched as Peeta touched her and flashed that smile of his. There it was again, his ability to make anyone believe him. She grumbled, her anger at him dissolving away, now more of a tiny irritation than anything serious.

"...Fine. But you remember not to do anything stupid, either. We're not in the Games anymore. You don't have to make any sacrifices for me." she told him. She added in a small smile. If they were going in this, they were going to do this together. No use chasing off someone who could be a valuable ally... especially if it was Peeta, the boy she knew would do anything for her. He had done so many times before.

A little more still had to arrive. Hopefully it wouldn't start without excitement, or it might ruin the feeling of a tournament.

Another participant, perhaps one of the last to arrive, appeared at the path. Not exactly humanoid like almost all of the others, he was a tall warthog-type semi-humanoid thing clad in some yellow and violet armor and a cape, but the dangerous part other than his size was that he wielded a spiked iron sphere attached to a long chain that made for a formidable distance weapon, almost like a cross between a club and a whip. Whomever was paired against this pig would hopefully not be too small.

Goreham-Hogg lumbered down the pathway, not intending to really hurt anybody (although it was tempting - he had to continuously remind himself that these people were, in fact, not looking to infiltrate the fortress from which he had come). He casually dropped his right hand, allowing the ball-and-chain to sag a bit more, since he wouldn't be using it for now. The pig wasn't glaringly huge, but he was taller than the average human. Once he reached the place where the others were gathering, he stopped walking, although he was careful not to get too close to anybody - he wasn't necessarily a mean thing who always wanted to intimidate people.

He scanned the smallish crowd; it appeared to be mainly made up of more humanoid things than himself. The lieutenant relaxed himself, carefully placing the end of his weapon on the ground. It wasn't quite time to get riled up yet.

((Sorry for the bad image, I'll see if I can get a better one.))

Xykon knew that he was being followed, of course. Listen checks rarely failed when you had a +8 bonus and there were several other beings walking right behind you, with efforts to move silently ranging from lots to very little. Bored, the lich decided to see who exactly it was that he would be dealing with in this tournament.

Turning around, he was less than impressed. It was mostly a bunch of humans, though there was that half-pig thing near the end of the group, and right behind him there was a strange white-armored humanoid.

I would have thought I'd be dealing with more capable people, like that paladin or that Orangescabbard fellow (why is he mad at me again?) Instead, this is what I get? White armor's the only one that doesn't look remotely like an adventurer. Very disappointing...

He touched down onto the ground, and approached white armor, who was busy adjusting the large weapon that it'd been carrying on its back, either too busy to notice Xykon, or not caring enough to notice him.

"You're the only really out-of-place looking guy, eh, white armor?" Xykon said casually, "I hope that armor of yours doesn't slow you down - you look like the only real challenge."

White armor said nothing, instead choosing to give a bestial-sounding growl at Xykon.

"What, aren't you capable of speaking common?" Xykon taunted, circling so that he was right next to the being, "or is whatever humanoid species you are too stupid to form any coherent words? Or maybe you just chose Intelligence as your dump stat; I don't really ca-"

Had Xykon known who he was talking to, it probably wouldn't have given him much reason to stop. Since he didn't know the identity of white armor, he couldn't know that he was talking to one of the deadliest soldiers in his world.

So when the white armored fellow struck Xykon with an uppercut that would have cracked a boulder, (without looking away from his weapon, incidentally) Xykon for once couldn't be blamed as his skull was separated from his neck bone and landed in the dirt beside his body. After all, he was just as ignorant of who white armor was as anyone else.

"Real mature!" Xykon's head yelled, "you've made yourself an enemy in the form of me, Xy- hey!" he protested, as white armor walked onward, ignoring the lich, "I'm trying to give a badass threat here! Your not listening is seriously ruining my rep!"

White armor continued to ignore him as he walked up to the two female humans near the end of the path.

"Ah, forget it," Xykon muttered, clumsily directing his body to pick up his skull, "I'll deal with you during the inevitable fight."

Hmm. The girl and her... boyfriend, perhaps, it was unclear, had continued past them, not sparing him or Smellerbee a glance. And then the blonde one had started talking, calling a name that was, although strange, no stranger than Longshot was used to. The talk quickly devolved into a verbal sparring match, an argument with an undercurrent of worry. Odd. Soon enough the anger subsided. They were still an unknown quantity, though, so Longshot reached back slowly and calmly gripped his bow with one hand. His face remained impassive.

Smellerbee looked at Longshot's arm move. Her compatriot wasn't jumpy, very far from it, but he was very perceptive. Another scuffle seemed to have broken out farther down the road, between the shining-armored man and a... skeleton? This place was officially strange.

"Alright, no sacrifices... But I want you to stick with me, okay? I don't want anything bad to happen to you that I could prevent. And besides, you're terrible with people."

He gave a nervous little smile and rubbed Katniss's arm gently, his other hand still behind his back. Anyone behind him would be able to tell he was clenching and unclenching a fist. But he kept smiling, straightening his back and pressing out his chest, as if trying to appear intimidating. His hand relaxed.

"We should find out what's going on..." He added, glancing to the building. "This place is so...so...You know."

Katniss ducked her head as he mentioned her lack of people skills. One thing she could count on him for was to be brutally honest, and what's more, in a way where she didn't even care what he'd said. But when he turned his attention to the building, her own gaze followed. So he'd noticed its similarity to the Capitol, too.

"I know what you mean..." she said, confirming his thoughts, "At least it looks a little more serious. Not as candy-like..."

She couldn't help but smile a bit at his change of posture, though she didn't notice the struggle he was hiding behind his back. She joined him in stepping up to the pair of women who were apparently there waitig for the contestants. She stood back, not even bothering trying to rehearse what she was going to say to them. She had always had better luck just letting things fall out of her mouth. If someone was going to say something important, it would be better to just let Peeta lead in this situation.

"Oh look, there comes one of them.", Hilde pointed out, "They're not all here yet, are they?"

"Not completely.", Whip replied quietly.

The one who approached the pair was a young woman, probably around Hilde's age. She couldn't help but feel a little surprised, but then remembered that she had fought similar opponents before. Still, not exactly the place one would find such a person.

Putting on the warmest face on she could, Hilde greeted her, "Hello. I presume that you are here to in fact, fight in the King of Fighters tournament?"

The Meta observed the two women with the same tone he'd observe any sort of enemy with: cold, analytical, and with all the readiness to strike the moment any of them made a sudden movement.

Even if neither of them look as dangerous as Texas, I still need to be ready...

He followed the third woman that had gone up the path, keeping a steady grip on the bladed weapon, all ignoring the mumbled swearwords of the skeleton following him.

He wasn't sure what sort of mental derangement the skeleton thing had (there certainly had to be something if it lacked any brain tissue to begin with,) but the fact that it had taken a hit like that and still thought it would be a good idea to directly challenge him...

At least those simulation soldiers were clever enough to formulate a complete strategy before attacking me (it helped that they had a soldier of Washington's caliber on their side.) All this skeleton has done is defy the human anatomy by speaking when he lacks a windpipe or lungs to do so. I will enjoy tearing him up when the time is right and finding out just how he did it...

The Meta took a position next to the woman that had already reached the two standing at the path's end. The skeleton arrived shortly after one of the women said something about the tournament being named the King of Fighters.

"Fighters?" the skeleton spoke up, "Lady, I'm not the sort of guy you'd seek out for a fighter's tournament. I'm a sorcerer - I make things explode with my mind, not with flesh-covered fists - if you wanted a fighter, you'd probably have to go back to my world, seek out the nearest guy carrying a piece of metal on a stick, and- woah!"

Having lost his patience, the Meta whirled around and swung the curved blade of his weapon at the skeleton, who barely ducked in time to avoid a blow that would have yet again separated his skull from his neckbone. He pointed at the Meta and started to say something, but evidently decided that it wasn't a good idea.

Growling, the Meta turned to face the women again, deciding that it would be easier to deal with the skeleton when he actually had an excuse to - he doubted unleashing the explosives in his weapon would make a decent impression with these two.

"Touchy," the skeleton muttered as the Meta turned around, "anyways, as I was saying, I'm not a fighter, but I do fit the 'King' part of the name," he indicated the golden crown perched on top of his skull, "so I suppose you let me in on account of fitting the former half of this thing's name, eh?"

Continuing on his way, and having been passed so far by a skeleton that curses like, well, a Sky Pirate, and some others, Twig arrived at his destination, hearing the conversation between two young women, and that skeleton.

"Fighters?" the skeleton spoke up, "Lady, I'm not the sort of guy you'd seek out for a fighter's tournament. I'm a sorcerer - I make things explode with my mind, not with flesh-covered fists - if you wanted a fighter, you'd probably have to go back to my world, seek out the nearest guy carrying a piece of metal on a stick, and- woah!"

Suddenly, a man with a sword swung at the skeleton, nearly severing its head. However, this walking dead frame had managed to dodge and say,

"Touchy. Anyways, as I was saying, I'm not a fighter, but I do fit the 'King' part of the name," he indicated the golden crown perched on top of his skull, "so I suppose you let me in on account of fitting the former half of this thing's name, eh?" Twig wasn't sure how to approach the situation. Does he enter this competition? Or does he try to get home? Not sure, Twig sat down where he stood in order to think.