System Chaos
By: Nicki Fowl
The following is the introduction to an event that actually occurred, and has been recorded and even recreated in the various universes of those who have participated in this now infamous event.
An infamous event forever marked as the System Chaos Ultimate Game Tournament.
/
Far out into the universe, at the edge of reality, well outside the notice of all dimensions lived a man and his servant. The servant of this man was not considered special, as he was scheduled to die moments before the man who became his master offered him an escape into servitude. This man offered the slave enormous power and ability, not as much as himself, but enough to allow faithful and unrelenting service to his benefactor.
This story does not center on this man.
No, this story centers on the man who the slave, marked as Dark X by his master, serves. This man was a powerful master of a hidden and forgotten science, which once went under the worthless name of alchemy. This master of trans-reality science, a man by the one day to be infamous name System Crash, was to start a chain of events he himself had assembled that would reverberate across all realities involved. It would twist the perception of truth, laugh in the face of rationality, and risk the destruction of many, many lives.
/
Upon his throne of quartz, System Crash sat, watching his Glass Eye, which was a large orb of glass with clouds inside that sat on a pedestal, and pondering how entertain himself. His head rested upon his hand, supported by his arm, as he gazed into reality after reality, contemplating the answer to this question.
It was then that he struck upon the answer. So many people on 'Earth', in dimension Humana, fought over such trivial things. He was interested in one such debate, and oft visited Earth to participate in the discussion, because of their inability to realize that the subjects of their arguments were not fantasy, but fact. This was the subject of what game universe was the greatest created. It amused him how tiny the Humana dimension had as a perception of what was fact and what was fict. Having participated in 'video games', both as a player and as a character within such designs, he was amazed at the creative ability and the lack of foresight in the Humana dimension. He thought about how entertaining it would be to show those of Earth in the Humana dimension just how feeble they were while simultaneously solving the mystery of the ultimate game.
He continued to ponder this as he watched some of the dimensions, wondering how to go about answering the question...
/
Sonic was racing through the Green Hill Zone, doing exactly what he did best, and on a vital mission. The mission, however, had nothing to do with Eggman or saving his planet. Oh no, this mission was vital to Sonic and Sonic alone. It was a mission of the utmost importance for him to survive.
It was escaping Amy Rose.
"SONIKKUUUUUUUU!" She cried, chasing through a loop and trying to cut him off via spring, then failing and having to find a way back up. Sonic slid to a stop, looking down at Amy, and wiping his forehead, relieved…
/
Ratchet was attempting to make his way through the Starship Phoenix, headed to his quarters after a long day of fighting.
Just kidding, he was in Metropolis, participating in a fight with twenty different rogue soldiers of Dr. Nefarious that had managed to evade capture, and kicking some serious ass. Clank handed him his suck cannon, and he started to have a little fun turning all the small enemies on the big ones. He quipped, "Big things come in small packages!" before laughing his head off like he was insane, which he probably was on some level…
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Sly was dancing his way across the rooftops, almost actually doing just that, as he dodged blast after blast from the shock pistol of his favorite female Interpol inspector. Of course, since they were much closer, this was mainly good natured fun with a hint of training.
Typical.
"Come on, Ms. Fox, surely you can aim better than that!" She simply returned the favor with a shock blast to his rump, which most definitely hurt him more in the pride than in the backside. Oh, wait, maybe that's the other way around. He realized that he needed to be less cocky and more serious around her, and sighed, knowing that was especially true if he wanted her as a Mrs. Cooper…
/
Mario, poor Mario, was in a very bad situation, being hit with fiery blast after fiery blast as Bowser sighed at another pathetic attempt to nab the princess.
Oh, wait, scratch and reverse that.
Bowser leapt four feet as another fireball narrowly missed his feet. Mario was really mad today. So Bowser, hoping to save some of his pride, turned to flee out the door only to realize it was locked. Then he remembered that he had locked it himself, and facepalmed as a very angry Mario, who had had enough of Bowser's constant attacks, got ready to restart his assault…
/
Link pulled a Spin Attack to clear some breathing room, then proceeded to pump bomb after bomb into the crowd from on top of Zelda's new carriage. She turned from the front seat to face him, holding the reins, "Hold them off a little longer Link, we're almost safe!" He would have said that 'Since when is Hyrule safe!', but satisfied himself, as usual, with rolling his eyes.
That was nothing out of the ordinary.
Ever since he'd started to work for Princess Zelda to get closer to her, it's been disaster after disaster. First the Twilight incident, and before that the Ocarina, and even before that Ganon! He was of half a mind to just flip this job the bird and settle down in a nice, quiet village…
/
System Crash continued to think as the Glass Eye clouded and was about to give him a new view he had chosen mentally, when he sat up sharply and snapped his fingers, which cleared the Glass Eye of all clouds, rendering it blank. He had hit upon the solution. He stroked his chin, quietly assessing his answer to the dilemma of the ultimate game. He brushed off imaginary dust on his robes and called for Dark X. "Yes my lord?" "I need you to prepare the Manipulation Chamber for me, and call out for the Grand Arena; we have a tournament to assemble!"
Dark X bowed somewhat reluctantly, "Your will shall be done, my master." Then he turned, clad in dark robes with cloth over every inch of his skin, all as dark as the night itself, and proceeded to fulfill his orders. System Chaos, in his grand shimmering dress for his craft, stared deep into the Glass Eye from atop his throne. As it filled with clouds, he couldn't suppress a grin as he called forth his self-earned abilities to begin his plans. If the Humana dimension wanted an answer, then System Chaos would use his power to reach deep into as many dimensions as he could, pull forward every two-man team he could find, and give them an answer. If he happened to miss some, as he was still human at the core, then his spectators would give him what they wanted, and he would provide it. This, he thought to himself in an evil fashion, would definitely provide some entertainment. He rose, seeing through the Glass Eye that Dark X had completed his duty, and descended the stairs to the throne, unable to suppress the laugh that was weakly held behind his lips and provided an air of insanity to the man that could bend time and space, the mighty System Chaos.
/
Meanwhile… after System Chaos began to weave his power.
Sonic was riding on the back of the Blue Tornado, when a piece of paper advertising the tournament for 'The Title of Greatest Game Created' hit him in the face. As he fell off the Tornado, and unsuspectingly into the arms of Amy Rose, he pulled the sheet off his face, rubbing off a special formula onto his hand hidden onto the back of the paper. The same sheet hit the faces of various characters across various dimensions, causing each of them it turn to pull it off and rub the same formula on the back of the sheet onto each of their hands.
System Chaos smiled menacingly from inside a large mystically shaped circuit that looked like a large and complex magic symbol. Standing in the center circle of the 'cosmic seal' that his had created and used to amplify his reality manipulating abilities, he felt the connection with each of the characters that had rubbed the formula onto their hands, it bonding solely to their body and adopting their DNA. This massive amount of connections all came to him and him alone. He pulled in god-like power from the anti-space his palace resided in, a surge of energy permeating his being and empowering his mind. He reached out from the confines of the small ring at the center of the seal, and a gust of wind blew around the seal, getting stronger and stronger before dissipating into the universes within which his connections existed.
In each of those universes, an accident or event had been brought about which united two people together before whipping them away to who knew where (answer: System Chaos). In Sonic's, world, he was caught by Amy before he vanished in front of Tails' eyes. In Halo, Master Chief showed Arbiter, who, out of character, put his hand on his shoulder before going poof. In Zelda, Link fell on Princess Zelda and then vanished. In each of those occurrences and beyond, a gust of wind blew over the pair before they disappeared. Then eventually, each of their worlds came to a standstill, the entirety of each universe coming to a frozen moment before their residents followed in the footsteps of the unfortunate heroes.
/
The first to appear was Sonic and Amy, who first crushed Sonic in her iron grip before they started worrying about where they were. It was a dark field, and they couldn't tell where they had landed in the slightest. Then Master Chief, Arbiter, Link and Zelda came. Link and his princess girlfriend appeared overtop the Master Chief and Arbiter, who were subsequently squished underneath them. Not the best way to start a friend ship.
They didn't have long before many others appeared out of the abyss from where they were summoned. Vexx, Iron man, Ash Ketchum, a digimon, Pikachu, Harry Potter (yay!), Voldemort (WHAT?), Mario, Bowser, Fox McCloud, Spyro, Sly Cooper, Sora, Final Fantasy's Cloud, NiGHTS, an army of hero pairings sprang from nothingness into the dark and empty field that Sonic and Amy had already appeared in. The appearances continued to accelerate, until all of a sudden, the popping noises just stopped.
The chatter that followed was deafening, and people just moved at random through the mass, like tiny bean bag beans on a vibrating mattress. Then a fireball went through the crowd. Spyro and Cynder rushed to the front of the crowd and saw a huge spiky turtle with red hair (Bowser) and a small squat plumber (Mario) having the strangest fight they'd ever seen.
/
Bowser threw a fireball at Mario, who leapt over it and smashed him in the face with both feet. He bounced back and readied a fire ball of his own. Then a raccoon in blue (Sly) and a fox in gray and green (Fox McCloud) stepped in to intervene.
/
Fox was immediately suspicious of the shifty eyed, smooth talking raccoon next to him, but if it helped stop a fight from breaking out, then he would swallow any doubts and work with him, for now. He opened his mouth to retort, but then lightning streaked through the air. Green lightning. Shoot.
Fox immediately headed for the disturbance, but then he saw the raccoon jumping across the heads of various two-man-teams and a pang of jealousy settled into his stomach. Show off, he thought.
/
Harry was dumbfounded, his rival had somehow returned from death, and now was attempting to kill him. What was more; he had got back his wand. Perfect. "You can evade me no longer, Harry Potter! The hour of your death is at hand!" Harry stumbled and tripped, his wand sliding out of his reach. He swore as Voldemort pointed his wand at him, "Now, at last, your demise is at my wand tip." He then swung his wand and uttered the words of the worst of the unforgivable curses, "Avada Kedavra!"
Green lightning streaked toward him, and another foul word slipped from his lips as he closed his eyes, accepting death.
It was only for death to be cheated of his soul once more.
When he realized he was still alive, he cracked open his eyes, to see a boy in clawed hands (Vexx) in front of him, green light coming from in front of him. He'd gotten a hold of the Killing Curse in his clawed hands.
/
Vexx mentally swore as he held the storm of green energy in his Astani War Talons, feeling the fatal intent of the curse. He'd acted without thinking, the pale figure reminding him of Dark Yabbu, and his great anger at him. Somehow, he'd caught the green light from the figures stick, and now had no idea what to do with it. So, he decided to throw it upwards.
Lofting it into the sky, he assumed a battle stance in case the green energy came back. When it exploded, his gaze turned from the sky to the figure that had reminded him of Yabbu, until a shadowy version of himself sprinted past. The figure would have to wait; Vexx charged his talons and sprinted after the Shadow Vexx, doing his best to take it down.
/
Sonic and Amy had not moved, too stunned by the amount of people here. Both of them had a bad feeling about it. Sonic turned to Amy, who asked a question that was already on his mind, "What is going on here?"
Her question was about to be answered.
As if it carried immense power, a platform lit up an end of a stadium. A figure stood on top of it, a very familiar figure; System Crash.
/
"Heroes," he cried to the masses below, "heroines, allies and enemies of immortal forces, lend me your ears and your time! I have brought each of you here with one ally, in order to see which pair out of all of you is the greatest of all! You have each heard the call, you have each done mighty things in your own right, and now I have summoned only the greatest of you here to finally see which team is the ultimate!"
"Who are you?" a purple dragon (Spyro) called. System Crash chuckled, "Who am I? I am the master of the Un-verse, the king of the castle Unbroken Silence in of which the Grand Arena you now stand. Here, I am the lord of trans-reality science, a god in my own right. I am emperor over time, space, and even truth! I am the mighty being known as System Crash!"
At first he paused to allow his words to take effect, and then he heard laughter break out from Bowser's mouth. "Hah, you, master of reality! Oh that's rich, that is RICH, haw!"
Then the laughter started to spread, until almost the entire crowd was bursting with mirth. However, not everyone was as cheerful as Bowser. Some people, like Sly, had seen insane people, and although System Crash did not appear to have completely lost his marbles, those few that had seen the other side of the veil of sanity could tell when a person was lying like someone off their rocker, or when they are crazy with power and yet were very, very sane.
System Crash was one such case of a sane man with insane power, and Bowser was about to regret his little insult. Without moving an inch from his proud stance, System Crash lifted Bowser into the air and proceeded to turn him to see the expression on his face. "Do you think that I lie, that I am as crazy as a mad cow now, as I control the materials of you very existence?" He walked on air a few steps just to show off his power, and made the wind curl around him to accent him with a frightening aura, "DO YOU?"
He flicked his hand at Bowser, who was released, and turned back to the pedestal. He spun his hand in the air, and a podium rose from the top of the stone. He placed his hands on it, eyeing his captive crowd, "Make no mistake, I and I alone am supreme here. I have disabled any god-like abilities and I hold the key to your freedom. Do NOT fuck with me."
His winds died down at last, and he smiled at his 'audience', "Now, many of you, most likely all of you, are wondering why you are here, am I right? I'll get to that, and you need not be afraid, I will not be actively participating in the event. What's more, I am at heart, a normal man." He took a breath to relax himself, since they saw he was getting a little excited, "I have brought you all here because I wish to find a worthy team. I want to find a pair who is strong, cunning, slick, fast, and above all, determined enough to survive. I want to find the team who is worthy of the greatest of honors, I want to find those who deserve the title," he paused for effect, "Champion of the System Chaos Trans-Dimensional Tournament!"
As he roared his goal, the lights in the arena lit up as if moved by his objective. They lit themselves as they got further and further away from him, illuminating an arena that was the sides of five football fields, maybe even larger. Stands came forth from the banished darkness, revealing throngs of screaming, roaring, and completely energized fans, all from each and every participant team's home. A special ring, encased with glass, wrapped around on the inside of the stands, level with the field, and full of people all from the Humana dimension.
"Now," called System Crash, master of this realm in which they currently resided, "in the immortal words of the city of Rome, from the lips of the emperors, from the Humana dimension, LET THE GAMES BEGIN!"
Pretty good, huh? I hope so, because next chapter I will be introducing what the competitors will be fighting for, besides the glory, and also, as a bonus for anyone who reads this story, I will post the rules of character team submission. So for any of you who wishes for a chance to have your favorite forgotten game put in the limelight, this will finally be your chance to show everyone how great they are! Get ready for the drama, the action, and the cross-dimensional feuding of SYSTEM CHAOS!