(The Arena)

The seven fighters in the arena were having a quick rest before the next wave came out, and they knew that they wouldn't have much time to do so, so they enjoyed the break while they could. Mewtwo, Blazeman and Ace were the only ones in the arena that weren't breathing heavily, but the latter two were still worn out slightly from their previous battles.

Suddenly, everyone heard applause. The seven fighters glanced at the entrance curtain.

"NAKORURU!" (SS)

Nakoruru, the nature girl from the Samurai Showdown series, gently brushed her hair out of her eyes, then pulled out her dagger and jogged down to the ring, her pet hawk flying overhead.

When Nakoruru hit the arena, she quickly went to seek a fight with Chun-Li. "Excuse me?"

"Yes?" Chun-Li asked.

Nakoruru politely bowed. "I am looking for an opponent. I'm wondering if you're interested."

Chun-Li shrugged. "Okay. Let's see what you've got!"

"JACK-5!" (T5)

"You're wondering who I am."

"Machine-o-matic man."

"With parts made in Japan."

"I am the modern man!"

As 'Mr. Roboto' blared through the speakers, the huge Tekken robot came out from behind the curtain and walked down to the ring mechanically. Jane, his creator and only friend, sat in the audience to cheer him on.

"I've got a secret…I've been hiding…Under my skin."

"My heart is human…My blood is boiling…My brain IBM."

"So if you see me…Acting strangely…Don't be surprised."

"I'm just a man who…Needs someone…And somewhere to hide!"

"To keep me alive!"

"Yeah! To keep me alive!"

Jack-5 stepped into the arena and scanned it for any threats. Seeing Mewtwo, the strongest one, as a threat, Jack-5 walked over, backhanding Ace away as he did so.

Mewtwo saw the robot coming and folded his arms. "You looking for a fight? Very well. I suppose I can work it into my schedule."

"IORI YAGAMI!" (KOF)

The crowd cheered wildly for the red-haired Orochi, but Iori paid it no mind. He simply walked down to the arena, hands in his pockets.

In all honesty, Iori didn't know how to feel. Kyo had already been eliminated, so Iori wasn't sure if he should feel pleased that he would do better than Kyo, or be furious that he hadn't been the one to eliminate him.

Once he stepped into the arena, however, Iori saw Billy storming over, a furious look on his face.

You see, back in KOF '95, Iori and Billy had been put on the same team (the third member being Eiji Kisaragi). However, after they lost (in the first round), Iori thrashed both of his team-mates, leaving them behind, cut, bruised and bleeding. Billy apparently still hadn't dropped that, even though it had happened years ago. In fact, one might say that Iori had become Billy's most hated foe rather than Terry Bogard.

Iori raised his hand and blocked Billy's staff. "You really need to learn to let this stuff go." He said simply.

"RHETT!" (S3)

The portly duck's stomach rumbled slightly as he came out from behind the curtain. In Rhett's hand was a halberd, which looked remarkably similar to Sgt. Joe's weapon earlier in the tournament.

Doing his best to ignore his hunger, Rhett walked down to the arena and stepped in. Looking around, he decided to go over to Ace, due to him being the duck's nodal companion.

Ace looked over his shoulder and saw Rhett coming over. "Oh. Hey, Rhett." Ace said as he turned around.

"Hey, Ace." Rhett greeted back.

"So what brings you here?" Ace asked.

"The chance to double-team, I guess."

Ace smirked. "Okay. Let's go gang up on that soldier and guy in the cloak over there." He said, addressing Ralf and Xigbar respectively.

Rhett shrugged. "Okay. Whatever floats your boat."

(Dome; Restaurant)

Lilly Kane did her best to ignore the half-destroyed restaurant and purchased a bag of chips. The younger Kane sibling worked her way around the destruction and left the restaurant, starting her trek to return to her seat.

However, once Lilly turned a corner, she froze. Standing in front of her, blocking her way, were Setsuna, Ash Crimson and Mystique.

Setsuna pointed his sword at Lilly's throat. "Come with us and we won't be forced to kill you." The dark assassin threatened.

Lilly whimpered as she leaned her head back slightly to avoid the sword touching her neck. Her heartbeat quickened by the second, and she really wanted to scream for help, but Lilly was afraid that if she did, Setsuna would kill her without a second thought.

"Screw Upper!"

Setsuna was suddenly thrown into the air, landing on his back. Ash and Mystique were taken aback by the sudden attack, and looked around for whoever had done it.

"Come out, Higashi!" Ash said, knowing the owner of the attack.

"I was wondering if you'd know it was me." Joe said as he stepped into view and got in front of Lilly. "Lilly, stand back! I'll handle these guys."

"Joe, you can't be serious!" Lilly said fearfully as Setsuna got back to his feet. "There's three of them and only one of you!"

Suddenly, a new figure dashed by the dating couple in a blur of blue and red, tackling Ash to the ground.

"That one was for earlier!" Sodom said to Ash as he got to his feet and stepped back beside Joe.

"You are certainly a persistent little bug, aren't you?" Ash asked, somewhat in annoyance.

"Pal, this isn't your fight." Joe said. "You make them angry and they'll kill you."

"Look, mister. I've been searching for Lilly here for who-knows-how-many sections, trying to find her before she got kidnapped." Sodom pointed out. "Now that I've finally found her, don't expect me to back down."

Joe was silent for a couple of section, but smirked. "Okay. Let's get these guys!"

"You got it."

Ash growled as Setsuna and Mystique got into their stances. Today just wasn't his day...

(The Arena)

"KIM DRAGON!" (WH)

Anyone that didn't know of Kim Dragon instantly saw him as a Bruce Lee lookalike. As the crowd gave him a mixed reaction, Kim Dragon, wearing his usual fighting attire of a pair of black pants and shoes, rushed down to the arena.

Only four World Heroes were left, and Kim Dragon was one of them. Even still, the node had been experiencing surprising success thus far, and the martial artist was hoping to build on that even more as he jumped into the ring.

The instant Kim Dragon entered, he went for Blazeman. The TFS resident saw him coming, smirked and drew his sword again.

"And now…Mystery Fighter…Number…SIXTEEN!"

"Q!" (Street Fighter 3)

The mysterious Street Fighter came out to a loud cheer, but the masked fighter gave it no mind. Instead, Q was more focused on what Shadow and the others had chosen as a song for him.

The theme for 'Inspector Gadget'.

Q silently looked up at the Sound Booth. Shadow was playing imaginary drums to the beat, Aila was lip syncing to the words and Astaroth was doing the robot behind them.

Q didn't bother to respond, although he probably couldn't. He simply brushed his trenchcoat off, straightened his fedora and ran down to the ring.

Once he hit the arena, Q ran at the quartet of Ace, Rhett, Ralf and Xigbar, hoping to break them up.

"GORDON BOMAN!" (KE)

The large cop came out from behind the curtain. In fact, he was so large that people probably could have thought that he was some sort of double for Chang Koehan.

Gordon walked down to the arena and jumped in. Once he hit the canvas, the entire arena shook, knocking everyone (save Mewtwo, whom was floating a couple of inches off the ground) to the ground.

"Okay. You know what?" Ralf said to Xigbar. "I think I'll go and take down the oversized cop over there."

Ralf walked over to challenge Gordon as Q grabbed Xigbar and spiked him into the ground.

"KIRBY!" (SSB)

As the theme song to his show came blaring through the speakers, Kirby marched down to the arena to a positive crowd reaction. Once he reached the end of the ramp, Kirby floated into the arena.

Once he landed, he went over to the brawl Ace, Rhett, Xigbar and Q were having. Once he got there, Kirby started inhaling and sucked the closest person into his mouth, which happened to be Q.

One second later and Q had materialized outside of Kirby. The mysterious man looked at Kirby and saw that he was now wearing a mask and fedora.

His job done, Q-Kirby then rushed off to start fighting Chun-Li and Nakoruru.

"AKUMA!" (SFA3)

Most people found it ironic how someone like Akuma entered directly after Kirby, considering their complete opposite personalities.

The red-haired Street Fighter lifted a leg into the air and silently teleported down to the arena.

Chun-Li looked over her shoulder and saw Akuma warp in. Her eyes snapped open. "Oh, crap! It's Akuma!"

Thankfully, Akuma didn't pick a fight with her. Instead, he went over and joined Mewtwo and Jack-5, turning the duel into a vicious three-way fight.

(Eliminated Seating)

Ken grumbled as he slumped in his seat, still upset about his performance in the ring. He had only managed one elimination, and others from his node had done better. He and Ryu were the main characters of the series, and yet people like Sakura, Guile and even R. Mika had managed to do better.

"I don't get it. I pictured myself doing way better than that." Ken mused. "Where did I go wrong?"

"You didn't follow my advice."

Ken looked over his shoulder and saw Jin Kazama looking at him. "What?"

"I told you to lose the overconfidence. My guess is that it just went in one ear and out the other." Jin explained. "If you want to do better than what you did, you'll have to stop thinking you'll do well and actually TRY harder."

Ken opened his mouth to object, but Jin cut him off. "I'm serious. The whole reason I eliminated you so easily was because you were confident you could beat me. Well, I've got two words for you to ponder: Never assume."

Jin walked away from Ken, sitting down beside Xiaoyu.

(The Arena)

"DUKE!" (S3)

Geddoe's rival came out from behind the entrance curtain and glanced down at the arena. Pulling his huge sword from the holster on his back, Duke ran down to the ring.

Duke considered going for Ace first, considering that he was part of his rival team, but as Duke thought about it, he could fight with Ace any day. So Duke settled for Kirby, whom had seen him coming over and quickly got rid of his powers from Q.

"Scared?" Duke asked the ball of puff.

Kirby didn't answer. He simply inhaled again, this time sucking in Duke.

Duke landed on his back and looked up. Kirby was now sporting orange hair, a headband and a scar much like his.

Duke smirked when he saw that Kirby was holding a miniature version of his own sword. "Oh, THIS is gonna get interesting."

"ICEMAN!" (MC)

Bobby Drake came out from behind the curtain and waved to the crowd that was cheering him on. Bobby closed his eyes and concentrated, encasing his body in the familiar ice that he used, becoming Iceman.

Iceman ran down to the ring, jumped into the air and created a slide of ice just underneath him. Iceman slid down the rest of the way and landed on his feet. His first action was to fire a beam of ice at Rhett, encasing the duck in a block of ice.

Ace saw him and his eyes narrowed. "Okay. That was cheap." He said as Rhett broke out of the ice block. And with that, the mercenary advanced on Iceman, leaving Rhatt and Q to continue fighting Xigbar.

"YUKI!" (LB)

Holding her weapon, a pole with a bladed end, Yuki sighed as she stood outside the entrance curtain and witnessed the carnage in the arena.

Knowing that there wouldn't be anything she could do to stop the senseless violence, Yuki went down to the ring and jumped in.

Yuki went around the fight Blazeman was having with Kim Dragon and went over to the duel Chun-Li was having with Nakoruru. With one swing of her weapon, Yuki sent Chun-Li flying away.

Nakoruru eyed Yuki strangely. "What was that for?"

"Seeing that there isn't anything I can do to stop the violence, I may as well go with it." Yuki replied with a sigh.

"And now, the final fighter in this section…"

"DUO LON!" (KOF)

In all honesty, Duo Lon wasn't that surprised to see his former team-mate, Ash Crimson, hanging around with villains a few sections ago. Duo Lon could really have cared less about what happened to Ash, because the ninja's only goal was to find and destroy Ron, an evil ninja, before he got his hands on the power held by Sie Kensou.

Duo Lon stepped into the arena and sprung into action, lashing out at Ralf and Gordon, striking them with an unusual form of energy at the same time.

Ralf rubbed his head. "What did you do that for, man?" He asked.

"It's a free-for-all, isn't it?" Duo Lon asked simply.

Ralf was silent. "Fine. You wanna fight? Let's see if you can do any better than your buddies Ash and Shen Woo."

"They're more of acquaintances, really." Duo Lon muttered. "But okay."