Darkness covered all, leaving only the two voices that spoke from its grasp.
"I AM THE MYSTERIOUS AND ALL-POWERFUL SKULL HEART. I FLOAT BEFORE THEE WITH THE POWER TO GRANT ANY WISH YOU DESIRE, WITH NO STRINGS ATTACHED WHATSOEVER."
Legend tells of an ancient artifact that can grant a woman's wish…
"WHAT IS IT YOU SEEK, ROYAL WOMAN?"
"I...I wish for this war to finally end!"
If she is impure of heart her wish will be corrupted and she will turn into an immensely powerful, twisted being of destruction…
"HAHAHA HOW NAIVE AND DESPERATE YOU MUST BE TO TRUST AN OMINOUS SKULL. IT SHALL BE YOUR UNDOING FOR NOW YOU MUST BECOME THE SKULLGIRL!"
...But I thought you had to be impure to become a Skullgirl.
The sight of an eerie and familiar badland area set the stage for what appeared to be a ruined battlefield, decorated with countless corpses of soldiers who fought for their land. The uniforms of the deceased had patches of the three known nations: Chess Kingdom, Gigan Nation and the well-known Canopy Kingdom, revealing the participants.
A bearded red headed male, appearing in his late 30's or early 40's, laid in wake at the center of a crossroad with bruises and dirt covering his bod. He was dressed in an all black tuxedo with a white dress shirt underneath and a red tie, to top it off he had a stylish beige cloak decorated with gold trimming along the collar and hem, the black umbrella patch, the Canopy Kingdom's symbol, was embedded on the right side of his beige garment. His most notable physical trait was the scar over his right eye.
As the wind picked up, blowing dust from off of the ground, the nameless male slowly turns his head to the right, approaching was a giant of a man, in fact, he was a Gigan, with spiked horns protruding from his head, pointy ears and a teal skin tone, his yellow monochromatic eyes were yellow with a black outline. Unlike the more business oriented redhead the Gigan was heavily outfitted in black Samurai armor that had spiked vines around the shoulders and upper chest plate, seemingly held together with a cherry blossom flower, most likely a button of some sort.
The downed male weakly clenches his left hand at the sight, but then looks over to his left where he sees another figure approaching.
The second figure was a woman who appeared similar in age to the two males. She was a beautiful woman, with long, yet spiky, back length pink hair. She had a more medieval style motif going for her, appearing similar to a witch. She had it all; a large and pointed wizard hat that drooped near the end, a black and sleeveless dress that reached her hips with black, thigh high stockings to go with it. She even had bewitching high heels and black lipstick to match.
Realizing the two factions were approaching the weak man retracts his gaze, now going back to looking up at the sky with a sigh.
The two faction leaders now stand over him, looking down to his weary body and they stay like this for a moment, until the Gigan warrior crouched down and extends his hand out to the man as a means of helping him.
After seeing the gesture the middle aged gentleman snickers to himself and closed his eyes, inhaling and exhaling out of relief. Once he opens his eyes he takes the Gigan's hand and stands.
Out of the thousands of soldiers that took part in the unseen battle they were the only ones left standing. Before them was a lone golden weapon with a silver handle sheathed in the ground.
The tux wearing man approaches the weapon, grabs a hold of the handle and pulls it out from the earth, revealing the weapon to have an umbrella design with a crown at its tip.
Once the umbrella was drawn the three look ahead where they see the dark silhouette of an enigmatic figure in the dust storm that was brewing in the distance. Sensing the looming figure was a threat the Gigan draws his sword, a large katana that made any regular weapon pale in comparison, meanwhile a mystical cloak materializes around the woman's torso, as it blew in the wind it was frequently emitting burning embers, a grimoire also forms before her and she takes it in hand.
Within seconds the approaching figure is revealed, an unnaturally pale woman wearing a tattered and sleeveless corset dress, she had bell-sleeves that covered her forearms down to her hands, in her right she held a large scythe made of bone, the scythe itself had an eye at the end of the blade and a panel covering that concealed most of the snaith, an interesting twist to the design was that it had a top hat, so looking at it made the scythe take the form of some sort of bird. The overall aesthetic was a mix between a traditional scythe and an umbrella, thanks to the panel covering and grip.
With the woman approaching the trio began making their way forward, walking in the direction of the woman to meet her halfway.
The walk turned into a sprint in the case of the Gigan, who couldn't wait any longer and decides to rush ahead and lead the charge with his blade in hand. The scythe wielding woman barely reacts to this new development, only moving her eyes over in the direction of the rushing Gigan, in the middle of dash he was brought to an instant halt as a large skeletal claw erupts from the ground and takes the Gigan in hand, the earth beneath the warrior erupts and an ancient beast sprouts from the ground, letting out a thunderous roar skyward, it was at least 50 feet tall.
Despite the sudden appearance of the skeletal giant dividing the road between the fighters and the mysterious woman the bearded man and witch continue on, braving the dangerous no matter the risk.
The witch uses magic to cycle through the pages of the grimoire and creates magical panels that gradually elevated from the ground and into the air between the towering behemoth legs to create footing for safer travel since the ground was destroyed. The two make haste, leaping from panel to panel which eventually sees them breaking through the dust and landing on the ground behind the colossus.
Seeing that they were able to break through the distraction the scythe wielding woman stops and stares the two down, squinting her eyes menacingly. The red haired man, looks over to the witch and she looks back at him, he tilts his head back and gestures her to assist their Gigan ally. Realizing what he meant she nods and retreats to the bigger fight out of view. Now it was just the mysterious woman and the Canopy Kingdom's emissary. They stare one another down for a while, until the umbrella wielding fighter charges for her.
The woman cracks a sadistic smile and holds her free arm into the air, the sky darkens and thunder detonates with a monstrous boom, instantly shifting day to night. In the background of the battlefield the corpses that lay around were reanimated and threw together by supernatural forces that turn them into a twisted zombified pillar of cyclonic terror, some of them rocket out into the sky while others burrow their way underground, the reasoning for this was anyone's guess.
The Gigan warrior was free from the grasp of the titanic skeletal creature and is seen sliding down its arm as it held it into the air as a means of shaking him off, but as it hadn't worked it swats its claw across its forearm to fling the Gigan off like a bothersome mosquito, fortunately for the Gigan his reflexes were top notch, adding to this the expansive size of his opponent made it seem like it was attacking in slow motion, he jumps arms, leaping from the left forearm and onto the right, where he then proceeded running along to get up close and personal to the ancient ones face.
Supporting the katana wielding warrior from the ground was the witch, who was doing a superb job casting advanced ice magic to cease movement from the giant, she had to run around the ruined battlefield and keep active, but she held her own and continued supporting, even throwing the titan off balance here and there which only brought more time for her companion. Unfortunately this wouldn't last long, she looks out into the distance and sees one of the zombie pillars approaching like some kind of meat worm, she was forced to stop attacking the giant and flee, however the zombie wave was hot on her tail.
The attacking Gigan continued making progress, but catches sight of the witch narrowly avoiding the stalking forces, temporarily distracting him. Unbeknownst to the Gigan warrior a second zombie cyclone was spiraling its way from the ground and into the sky, tackling him off of the colossus and consuming him into its mass. Inside of this collection of corpses the inner zombies were viciously biting and clawing away at the warrior, tearing his armor to shreds due to the rapid attacks, their overwhelming numbers forced the Gigan to fruitlessly twist and turn in an attempt to fight against the bites, but it wasn't enough.
The fleeing witch continued evading the attacking cyclone, but if one wasn't enough then it was about to get worse, shooting out from underneath her was a second cyclone, sending her off of the ground, causing her to fall. The two hordes waste no time diving in on top of her to treat her to the same attacks as the mighty Gigan, luckily she was able to cast a protection spell, casting a protective spherical barrier around herself that kept attackers out - from the inside looking out all she could see was bodies biting and scratching at her bubble shield, a few drops of sweat falling off her head as she tried catching her breath.
Meanwhile, the fight between the sinister scythe wielder and the bearded man took the duo to elevated land, a cliffside that overlooked the land below. He swings and lunges at the woman who merely taunts him by evading all of his strikes and smiling about it, she couldn't even dignify the fight with a defensive response when rousing his anger and winding him down was proving more fun.
With a horizon swing of the umbrella weapon she jumps back and slowly descends to the ground, making an elegant landing a few meters ahead of him. He rushes for her, but in the middle of his actions a zombie clone sprouts from the ground below, sending the man flying off the current cliffside and having him land on a lower portion. After landing on his back he opened his eyes to see the woman plummeting down to his body, he quickly rolls out the way, but at the cost of rolling off the cliff himself which sent him falling several stories high. This was surely going to be his death if he hit the ground, however the woman uses blinding speed to seemingly teleport before him, meeting him face-to-face while falling upside down. She wraps her hand around his neck and shoves his body into the rocky wall and continues plummeting downward.
His allies weren't fairing much better, the witch's barrier was seeing cracks forming and trying to maintain the barrier against this level of assault was draining on her magic. She closed her eyes, teeth grit, and and summons up more of her strength to make the barrier explode, repelling the cyclones and breaking them apart, dead bodies were raining from the sky, but once the dust cleared she was revealed to have suffered a little damage, her clothes were tattered and a small stream of blood trailed down her face from her forehead.
The Gigan ceased his erratic struggles and grabbed a hold of his katana, squeezing the handle finally readied a proper counter now that he was mentally in the right place. From the outside of the cyclone, at center as it soars through the sky, the meat worm is torn in half, the Gigan warrior performed a spiraling blade spin that successfully broke him free of the bide. His armor was practically gone and he drops out of the sky, falling to the ground where he makes a crash landing, nothing to break his fall.
The ancient colossus approaches the small crater the Gigan created and looks down to see him lying unconscious at the bottom. It raised its foot above the hole with the intent of stomping the Gigan to death, but a red light just ahead catches it's attention.
A large and distractingly bright red ball of concentrated magic is fired into the dark clouds above and soon alights them with a brighter hue, a more orange color. A few seconds pass and the clouds began giving birth to giant meteorites, the colossus takes a step back as the weight of the situation hits it, but it was soon met with a violent fate, being pelted into oblivion by flaming meteors from the heavens. The witch held the grimoire skyward as both her eyes were emitting a mystical burning aura, this was a visual que of her full power.
After further decimating the landscape, turning the once barren land to a collection of giant craters, the witch collapses and is left winded, breathing frantically as she was nearly unable to breathe after using so much of her power. The Gigan warrior was safe, somehow managing to be overlooked by the meteorites, chances were she controlled them to miss her ally, but nevertheless he was still out. While laying on the ground she manages to see the emissary of Canopy still fighting, though not in his favor.
Upon being dealt an unseen blow the man is sent sliding across the ground, clearly winded and no match for the power of this demigoddess. As she slowly approaches him he stands on his own, weapon in hand and slowly charges her, swinging his umbrella only to be met with a guard by the woman's scythe. After their weapons clash she kicks him back a few, but she goes back for another attack, this time coming underhand with his hand, only to have it blocked by the scythe again, this time she commits, overpowering and parrying him by sending the bottom of the snaith across his face, she used enough power to send him flying back where his back hit a rock pillar.
Unable to continue the man slowly slides down until he was sitting on his bottom, panting and exhausted.
It was about time to end this charade, with her scythe in hand she slowly approaches him with a piercing glare on her face. Before she could get any closer she flinches as a fireball struck her back, she even jerks forward from the impact.
Hearing her grunt, the injured redhead looks up and sees the witch standing with her finger pointed toward the powerful woman, revealing that she was the one responsible.
Looking over her shoulder, her back sizzling from the fire ball, the demigoddess vanishes for a moment, taking both fighters by surprise. When she appeared again she was behind the witch, kicking the crook of her knee thus causing her to collapse onto her knees. Now that she was in a submissive position the scythes blade underlined her throat, execution style.
Seeing the state of his ally the now tense male looks on, wide eyed, at what was being presented to him.
The demigoddess doesn't go through with killing her, she just stands there, looking the man back in the face with dead eyes, that is until a twisted smirk slowly takes shape as she inched the blade closer to her neck, silently daring the man to make a move.
He remained still, paralyzed with the fear of losing another comrade, but it was because of that he regained the will to act, telling himself that he HAD to do something. He quickly got up and took a single step forward, only to be met with an invisible force that had so much power behind it that it sent him flying through the rock pillar he initially hit, shattering it in the chunky fragments.
After a while the Gigan warrior recovers from his fall and gets out of the crater, only to see the witch at the mercy of his enemy. He inaudibly gasps and just seconds later the woman pulls back on the scythe...
Having witnessed such a gruesome end the once mighty Gigan falls onto one knee, helpless before letting out an infuriated shout toward the sky.
With one down it, there was no need to hold back anymore - the demigoddess could feel a horrifying power build up inside of her, her body is set ablaze in Theonite and she endures a painful transformation. Once it all settled her metamorphosis was complete, her eyes were now branded with Skull irises, marking the successful conversion to a fully corrupt Skullgirl. She was now missing a lower half, she no longer had her legs and had nothing but her torso, her spinal cord dangling from the dressed portion of the dress.
With a new will in mind she slowly ascends to the sky, gaining even more strength than before, tornadoes spiraled around her as the raw intensity of her power manipulated nature itself, thunder going off untamed, unspeakable gusts of wind overpowering homes and cars and monstrous tidal waves devastating what little establishments remained in No Man's Land.
"Year after monstrous year has passed since I gave you my wish, yet nothing has changed - our people still suffer... Why?! Why has the war not ended as you promised? Answer me! Why have you done nothing? ANSWER ME!"
"Because you were not pure of heart then, nor are you now. And so you will suffer the consequences."
As countless skulls came to the Skullgirls aid the once redheaded male stood his ground, blood running down the left side of his head, over his eye and down his cheek as he prepared one final strike. Seeing his last stand be made before her, the Skullgirl wondered if he really intended to defeat him with such a pitiful rebellion.
She telepathically readied her scythe as he readied his secret weapon.
He ran the umbrella's runner up its silver tube, having the panel open to reveal that the canopy was actually 8 seals that unleashed some form of powerful energy that formed at the tip of the umbrella.
By the time the Skullgirl could recognize what these mysterious seals were she swung her scythe, going in for the kill, but her attempt was a little too late and she couldn't save herself, the umbrella unleashed an extremely powerful blast that apparently did so much damage to the Skullgirl that she ended up vaporizing in the blast, her screams slowly fade out as the silhouette of her figure bleaches out in light of the blast.
This last resort came at the cost of a sacrifice, despite the fact that she was taken down the scythe was still moving through the blast, the blade cutting through the energy and just before it could swing against the noble Canopy emissary the battle is cut out of memory.
You were once entitled to your own sorrow
But, now, it falls on your children.
Cutting to the outskirts of the battles climax, someone takes a step forward.
Watching the events play out from afar were Big Band, Panzerfaust, Ileum and a peculiar young woman, couldn't be no more than 18 years old, a redhead, with her tied into a ponytail and nothing but her school uniform to wear: a sleeveless vest with a white dress shirt underneath and a black dress. This was the exact face of Canopy's future leader.
A/N: Since I started writing Skullgirls I always wanted to try writing a battle for the Skullgirl considering how powerful she is, like an actual duel to the death, but seeing as how Marie is an important character and doesn't have full control over her powers I don't think anything I could've done would've made the battle pop out in comparison to the others. Not only that, Marie doesn't have anyone to fight because she's still in control and is only targeting the Medicis, and let's be real, I don't think they could handle Marie lol. Squigly mentioned Lorenzo fought a Skullgirl before but I don't know what the hell that means.
Spoiler warning ahead: This takes place during Queen Nancy's ruthless run as the Skullgirl, we have King Franz(Parasoul and Umbrella's dad) team up with the Gigan Nation leader, Gilgamesh, to stop Nancy's carnage, because like Skullgirls mentioned in game — it took a combined effort of the three nations bring her down, which brings me to my next bit regarding the third kingdom, the ruler of the Chess Kingdom.
The ruler of the Chess Kingdom is an OC I made to fill the void for the nation since we never got any news regarding a canonical ruler, whereas King Franz and Gilgamesh were. All we know about the Chess Kingdom is that it is a medieval styled setting with a touch of modernism, their culture is also based around magic, which is why I designed her with a witch aesthetic, her design was inspired by the Sorceress from Dragon's Crown, Nine the Phantom from BlazBlue, Blair from Soul Eater and the Autumn Maiden from RWBY. I even gave her a name — Queen Iris.
The fight was intended to be longer, in fact it takes place in the middle of what was intended. Originally the nation's leaders fought alongside their people, showing how they all got killed. The fight between Gilgamesh and the colossus was longer, in the same fight Iris and Gilgamesh were meant to use a team attack that ended in Gilgamesh decapitating the foe, but I didn't want to burn myself out with a chapter that wasn't meant to be anything big in the first place.
Guess that's about it. If you had trouble visualizing that zombie swarm cyclone thing just look up the Demon Tide from Kingdom Hearts or watch Ponyo when she uses giant swarms of fish to traverse from sea to land, I honestly wasn't sure how to go about describing it to provide a clear example.