Megamix Tournament 4: Revival

by SSBFreak

Years have passed since the third Megamix Tournament ended prematurely, and the host had long since moved onto other things. However, he's back and so is the Megamix Tournament after a long, long hiatus. Hundreds of fighters will enter the arena, but only one will be crowned the champion. (Votefic - Massive crossover)

15. Section Five Results

Section Five Results

(The Arena)

Sakura jumped backwards as Kratos' chained blades lashed out at her from all directions. Sakura was no stranger to fighting people she couldn't get close to (years of fighting against Guile's Sonic Booms will do that) but Kratos' weapons lashed out in a way that just seemed unpredictable and the younger fighter was kept on her toes as she tried to avoid getting hit. She knew what those blades were capable of and wanted to make sure that they didn't touch her.

Kratos grunted in frustration as he continued to lash out, watching Sakura weave and duck around the flying blades. He was used to fighting annoying enemies that were hard to hit but Sakura's potential and experience were giving her an edge as far as avoiding his attacks.

Sakura yelped as she leaned back to avoid a chained blade that flew dangerously close to her face. "You're cutting it real close there!" She insisted.

Kratos couldn't help but smirk as he yanked the chain back into his hand. "Consider yourself fortunate that I'm not aiming to kill here." He admitted. "Your head would be long gone otherwise."

Sakura narrowed her eyes. "Hey! I know you're a violent guy but you don't need to hold back!" She accused.

"You do NOT want me fighting at full strength. I left Olympus as a pile of bleeding corpses." He said. "Even Zeus fell by my hands!"

"Well, my node is filled with some of the best martial arts masters on the planet and I'm a former champion of this exact tournament!" Sakura insisted, getting into a stance. "Come on, then! Don't even think about holding back!"

Kratos watched as Sakura charged him again and narrowed his eyes in return. "Be careful what you wish for, girl." He said as he lashed out his chained blade again, spinning them wildly and in every direction as Sakura charged him, dodging through a flurry of chains and blades as she rushed in close and leapt at him.

Kratos could only watch as Sakura's foot flew at his face. Receiving a hard kick to the forehead, Kratos found himself getting knocked backwards, his chained blades briefly leaving his hands as they clattered to the ground beside him. As Sakura landed on her feet, still in her stance, Kratos pushed himself up and, with a snap of his wrists, yanked his blades back into his hands. "You won't do that again." He said coldly.

"You really think that?" Sakura asked with a smirk.

"YES! Now hold still while I-"

"A-HEM!"

Kratos and Sakura froze in place as they turned their heads towards the new voice, seeing Crash Bandicoot in an unamused, arms-folded stance. His pants lay in tatters around him, leaving him clad in only a pair of heart-printed boxers. In because clear that Crash's pants had been an unfortunate casualty of Kratos' flurry of flying chains and blades.

Without giving either of them a chance to react, Crash pulled a wumpa fruit into view (no one really wanted to know where he was KEEPING it) and bounced it off Kratos' head before pulling a fresh pair of pants into view (again, it's best not to ask where he got them) and put them on before grumbling and trudging off elsewhere.

Sakura couldn't help but chuckle as Kratos wiped a smear of wumpa fruit off his forehead. "You're probably thankful that Crash didn't show up in Playstation All Stars, huh?" She joked.

"Not. ONE. Word." Kratos said through his teeth before pulling a chained blade back.

Lord Hater dove to the side as a winged Koopa Troopa slammed into the canvas where he had been standing. The Koopa, in his shell, bounced off the canvas where he had tried to hit Lord Hater, bounced off the semi-oblivious Petey Piranha's stomach and popped out of his shell in midair, glancing down at Lord Hater while the space tyrant scrambled to his feet.

"Why the blazes are you so fast?! You're a common foot soldier!" Lord Hater insisted.

"A foot soldier who, if just for tonight, has been blessed with abilities from across the Koopa lineup." The Koopa Troopa smirked.

Lord Hater blinked. "And…Isn't that still pretty much just kicking your shell?" He asked.

*POW!*

The Koopa Troopa's shell, almost as if proving Lord Hater's point, ricocheted off his face, knocking him backwards again and making him land flat on his back. The Koopa retracted his wings as he flipped backwards, landing on his feet. On his back, Lord Hater fired a bolt of lightning magic at the Koopa, only for the shelled soldier to dodge out of the way by briefly ducking into his shell again.

"Ugh…I didn't think it would be this hard to recruit you to my cause!" Lord Hater whined as he pushed himself up.

"I told you that I'm loyal to King Bowser." The Koopa shook his head.

"I swayed HIM!" Lord Hater pointed to behind the Koopa.

The Koopa glanced over his shoulder and saw Petey Piranha towering over him. Petey swung a razor-sharp leaf at him but the Koopa was quick to spin his shell and dodge the blow as Petey struck the canvas with his leaf-hand.

"And I thought I told you that this guy just does his own thing. It doesn't take much for King Bowser to convince him to help us but half the time he's too much trouble than he's worth. He'll listen to anyone." The Koopa replied before smirking. "Look. Watch this."

The Koopa folded his arms and looked up at Petey. "Hey, Petey!" He called out. The huge plant creature turned his head to look at the Koopa and tilted his head. "You're a helicopter!"

Petey stood in silence for a few seconds, staring with a vacant expression before standing straight and extending his leafy arms silently. After another couple of seconds, Petey started spinning in place, making a whirring-like noise, before he lifted himself off the canvas and floated in midair, still spinning in circles.

Lord Hater stared at the scene with a slack-jawed expression; one that, after a few seconds, caused his lower jaw to fall off completely. The Koopa quickly used Lord Hater's distraction to bounce his shell off the space tyrant's face, knocking him on his back again.

(Announcer's Booth)

SSBFreak blinked a few times as he watched the spinning, levitating, t-posing Petey hovering above the arena canvas, seemingly with no real set goal other than to imitate a helicopter. "…Huh…" He mentioned. "…That's new."

Khall gave a shrug. "Eh. As far as giant, sentient plant-life defying physics and keeping itself in the air goes…" He mentioned before pausing in thought for a moment. "…This ranks about third."

All of a sudden, the phone on SSBFreak's desk started ringing. SSBFreak looked at who the number was calling from and lifted an eyebrow. "Huh. The Recovery Room is calling." He mentioned.

"Whaddya think they want, boss-man?" Khall asked.

SSBFreak sighed and reached for the phone. "I don't know but if it's because either Psymon, Max or BOTH of them got their teeth stuck in another electrical outlet I don't really want to hear it." He mentioned as he picked up the phone. "Hello?"

Khall watched silently as SSBFreak talked on the phone with an unknown caller. "…Oh, hello, Nurse Joy. What seems to be the problem?...Yes…Uh-huh?...Good, that checks out…" SSBFreak paused. "…Wait, what?...Mass chaos?...REALLY?...Destruction? In the Recovery Room?...Wait, what do you MEAN he just 'broke out'?"

(Dome; Recovery Room)

Nurse Joy sat in the middle of a wrecked Recovery Room, surprisingly the only person or thing in the entire room that didn't look destroyed or mangled. Papers flew everywhere, beds were overturned and several recovering fighters were moaning in pain, in unrecognizable, mangled forms, seemingly just happening to be caught in the crossfire.

In spite of this, Nurse Joy remained neutral and spoke with a little bit of annoyance in her voice. "I MEAN he just BROKE OUT." She insisted. "After waking up he was silent for about five seconds before he just…UNLEASHED himself on the room. The next thing I know half of our recovering fighters have new injuries, there isn't an overturned or broken piece of furniture in the room and, if that weren't enough, he left the room not by using the door but by breaking a hole in the wall BESIDE the door."

Faust was in the process of taking some notes as he inspected the large, unsightly hole in the wall beside the untouched door to the Recovery Room. "Fascinating…" He mentioned as he scribbled a few more notes down with a comically-sized pencil.

(Dome; Hallway)

A lumbering, angry, giant man stomped down the hallway, his huge frame taking up almost the entirety of the corridor itself. It seemed that he was in no mood to even bother complaining that the hallways were barely big enough to contain him as it was; his mind was elsewhere.

Abigail was still mulling over his performance in the ring; not only was he the first elimination of the entire tournament but he fell to a couple of kids that looked like they were just focusing on having fun. He had been made a huge fool in front of the entire multiverse and he had actively avoided going to the Eliminated Seating solely because he knew watching the tournament continue would just sour his mood even more.

And now, to top it all off, when he went to the restaurant to grab something to take his mind off his performance in the ring, Abigail saw that it had been temporarily closed for a bit due to Sheogorath's clones working on fixing it taking their fifteen-minute break at the time he decided to show up. His streak of bad luck was simmering his temper and his skin was already starting to slowly turn a noticeable shade of red.

"I wonder where the gym is in this place…" Abigail muttered. "Maybe if I pump some iron I'll feel better…Or maybe I'll just break a mirror. Maybe I'll do that anyway."

Abigail continued stomping his way down the hallway, his loud footsteps creating a light rumble with each step with how angry he was. In his mind, the whole night was a wasted experience. Maybe it'd be better if he just retired to his room in the hotel and stayed there. He wasn't in the mood to watch any more of the tournament and if he entered the Eliminated Seating and saw either of those two runts that eliminated him in the first place he may just lash out again. That'd be sure to get him hauled away by security.

As Abigail was walking, however, something caught his eye as he rounded a corner, spotting it thanks to a light glow coming off of it. He couldn't make it out from afar but he saw what looked to be something glowing sticking out slightly from underneath a garbage can. His temper slowly being replaced by curiosity, Abigail wandered over and bent over.

"What the heck is this?" Abigail asked aloud as he grabbed the item and pulled it into the open to see what it was.

In Abigail's huge hand, much to his surprise, was what looked to be a glowing, golden brick. Judging by the weight it was pretty heavy, but to Abigail it was nothing as he turned the brick around in his hands, inspecting it from every angle while wondering what it was doing in a random hallway and underneath a garbage can. It honestly wasn't even hidden that well since he could see the glow from far enough away.

"Is…Is this gold?" Abigail asked as he examining the brick. "What is a brick of gold doing here, of all places?"

Gears started turning in Abigail's head. He knew that he was never really one for thinking too hard about things in the first place but he couldn't ignore the fact that he had literally just stumbled upon a heavy brick of gold. Gold that would either fetch a huge payday in a pawn shop or could be melted down to make valuable vanity parts for his vehicles in the shop. After a few seconds of mulling things over, a smirk slowly floated across Abigail's face. He glanced around a few times, as if looking around to make sure no one was watching him, before he shoved the brick into a huge back pocket on his pants.

"Okay…Maybe this night wasn't such a waste after all…" Abigail muttered to himself as he continued walking down the hallway, looking like he was in a bit of a better mood now…

(Multiversal Matchup)

Lin Fei could only stare in bewilderment as she watched the multitude of strange bean creatures fling themselves at the huge, rotating, padded clubs. Those that were batted off the floating platform like a baseball fell into the abyss for a couple of seconds before magically appearing back on the platform to try again. Those that got past the spinning club waddled on determinedly to the next obstacle in the course, a huge fan-like obstacle with spinning blades.

"How in the world are these things just THROWING themselves at this course?" Lin Fei asked as she made her way down the ramp she was on and making her way towards the spinning club herself. "Are they impervious to pain or are they just sadists?"

Lin Fei heard a laugh and turned to her left, seeing another platform with another spinning bat, this one with Giovanni Potage latched onto it. He had already tried jumping over the bat but couldn't quite make the jump and was now holding onto the bat to keep himself from getting flung into the abyss himself. "I dunno but if they deal with this much abuse they'd make GREAT henchmen!" He called out. A few of the Fall Guys tried jumping over the bat he was latched onto but found themselves getting swatted off the platform due to Giovanni being an extra obstacle they couldn't jump over.

As Lin Fei ran at the fan and timed her jump to soar through an open gap in between the huge blades (as several Fall Guys slammed into the blades like a wall directly after her), Proto Man was seen trying his luck with a side path of the obstacle course, facing down the other spinning bat on the floating platform. As Proto Man jumped onto the platform, another couple of beans were sent flying off of it, followed closely by Steve, whom went into the abyss with another "Hey-ooooo!".

Narrowing his eyes behind his shades, Proto Man held up his shield and stood his ground in the face of the spinning bat. The bat struck Proto Man's shield and, amazingly, stopped rotating, pushing against Proto Man's impenetrable shield but not getting anywhere. Several of the Fall Guys watched the scene in awe while several others took advantage of the situation, dashing past the stopped obstacle while Proto Man was holding it at bay. Steve, having just respawned back on a nearby platform, tried to follow the Fall Guys in running past the stopped obstacle only to get hit in the face with a giant, flying lemon (fired from an off-course cannon), sending him ragdolling into the abyss again.

Proto Man started to falter as he tried to push back against the baton. He had thought he would be able to make a bit of ground and force his way past the spinning obstacle using his shield and brute force but it seemed that, slowly but surely, the baton was starting to beat him out. Realizing that he needed to stop pushing against the bat and try to get over it before it barreled him over. Grunting in annoyance, Proto Man dropped his shield and instantly leapt over the rotating bat, barely clearing it as it went underneath him.

The same could not be said for Steve, however, whom was about to run around the stopped obstacle again when Proto Man stopped holding it back. The bat started spinning at a supersonic speed to let out its built-up energy, striking Steve from behind and sending the raider ragdolling clear across the remainder of the course. Steve landed face-first onto the ramp leading up to the finish line for the course, skidded up the ramp on his face from the force of the throw, bowling over a few Fall Guys close to the finish as he did, and skidded clear over the finish line. The instant Steve crossed the line, he vanished from sight to the sound of a small fanfare as the number of qualified players for the next round ticked up by one.

Byleth jumped through the huge fan blades and lashed her sword out, extending it and wrapping it around another spinning bat, pulling herself towards it and using it to propel herself forward, going over a few of the beans as they scrambled to get through the course. Byleth had been relying on her weapons, mostly her linked sword, to help get her through the course; at least going through the course this way kept her out of the way of the others and the Fall Guys. She had seen a few of them standing at ledges with arms outstretched, grabbing oncomers and throwing them off the edge so she knew she needed to steer clear of the Fall Guys just to be safe.

Byleth looked back as she made her way through the course and saw Sagat pushing his way through the obstacles, towering over everyone else there with a couple of grabbers latched onto his legs. It appeared that they had tried grabbing Sagat to keep him from going further in an attempt to troll him but Sagat was having none of it, preferring to simply continue charging through and dragging the failed grabbers along with him, flailing about as they continued to latch onto his legs. Byleth, seeing that Sagat was dominating the round even with the Fall Guys trying to hold him back, lashed out with her sword again, hoping to latch onto him herself and get him to carry her across the finish, but her aim was a little off and all she succeeded in doing was pulling a Fall Guy off of Sagat's leg and launching it into the void.

As Byleth blinked in confusion, watching the Fall Guy fall briefly into the abyss as Sagat easily crossed the finish line (dragging multiple Fall Guys with him and raising the qualified counter by at least seven), Phantom Striker materialized beside her, having just recovered from another failed attempt to clear an obstacle.

"This obstacle course keeps catching me off guard!" Phantom Striker cursed. "Every time I clear that spinning bat I get hit in the face with a flying fruit!"

"Hey, at least you don't have to worry about those grabby bean things anymore." Byleth mentioned with a sigh as she pulled her sword back into her hand. "I think Sagat took them all across the finish line with him."

"Fantastic. So we get to deal with them again LATER." Phantom Striker rolled his eyes behind his mask.

Phantom Striker glanced around as Byleth continued forward, making another attempt to cross the next obstacle. The qualified counter was ticking up at a steady pace at this point with large groups of Fall Guys crossing the finish line and the group was running out of time to complete the course. Phantom Striker's armour was sparking with stored-up electricity that he had been using to keep the grabby Fall Guys at bay but with Sagat taking them all to the next round that sort of negated the skill, at least for now.

Keeping his eye on the spinning bat (the same one that Proto Man had been holding back with his shield), Phantom Striker saw the speed that the bat was going at and suddenly started forming an idea in his head. Realizing that Steve had been hit clear over the finish line by getting hit like a baseball, Phantom Striker jumped down and prepared to let the high-speed bat do the same to him. Phantom Striker stood still as he set his sights on the finish line and aimed himself at it to make sure the angle was right. In a split second, the bat hit him from behind and knocked him forward.

Phantom Striker landed painfully on a platform just off the ramp to the finish line. "Ugh…It seems that the power from that bat is already dropped." He muttered, realizing that he didn't get launched nearly as far as Steve did and needed to make the rest of the way up the finish ramp himself. Phantom Striker pushed himself up and prepared to make his way up the ramp.

"POW! Surprise Sneak Attack!"

Phantom Striker turned around in time to see a huge, boot coming at his face. Giovanni's boot flew straight into the wandering swordsman's face, knocking him to the ground, as the young troublemaker stampeded over him, cackling with glee. Several other Fall Guys followed behind them, trampling over Phantom Striker's downed form unwittingly as their sights were set on the finish line.

"Works every time!" Giovanni cheered with another laugh as he charged over the finish line, followed by the several Fall Guys. In the meantime, Byleth was seen flying over the finish line herself, extending her sword to latch onto the poles of the finish line itself to pull herself across it.

This left Phantom Striker laying flat on his face, his back adorned by the feet marks of multiple Fall Guys and Giovanni's boot imprint. Phantom Striker pushed himself onto his hands and tried to force himself to his feet…

"Wooooo!"

All of a sudden, a lone Fall Guy (having been batted across the course like Steve) bounced off his head, knocking Phantom Striker flat on his face again. The bean flew across the finish line, followed by another cheery fanfare, before another jingle played, as if signifying that the round was over.

The next thing Phantom Striker knew he was suddenly in a box. Shaking his head to clear his vision, he glanced around and saw everyone else in similar boxes set up in a grid system. Looking down, Phantom Striker saw nothing but a huge Plinko board going down as far as the eye could see.

"Uh…What happened?" Phantom Striker asked.

"I don't know. I just materialized here when I crossed the finish line." Sagat shrugged.

All of a sudden, everyone heard a drum-roll as several Fall Guys were forcibly pushed out of their boxes and down onto the huge Plinko board where they tumbled downwards out of view. It was almost as if this is what happened to the ones who couldn't…Qualify…

Phantom Striker's eyes snapped open behind his mask. "Waitwaitwaitwai-" He said just before the back of his box pushed forward, pushing the swordsman out of his box and sending Phantom Striker down the Plinko board with the rest of the eliminated beans.

Lucien watched as Phantom Striker's yells vanished into nothingness the further he fell down the Plinko board (painfully bouncing off multiple pegs as he did). "I…Think we now have a motivation to not come in last…" He mentioned.

All of a sudden, a screen appeared in front of the surviving players, showing the next round that they were about to play as the field started teleporting again.

Giovanni lifted an eyebrow as he saw the name of the upcoming game. "Tail Tag? Sounds kinda kiddie…" He mentioned as he started vanishing to go into the next game. "Eh, how bad can it be? It's just Tag. It's probably super-simple…"

(The Arena)

Plant Man lashed out with his hands, creating huge, thorny vines that lashed out at Toxtricity and Scyther. The two Pokemon dodged out of the way as best as they could, though Toxtricity received a slap upside the head from a vine, and Scyther cleaved through another vine cleanly with his blade-hands. At the same time, Toxtricity managed to latch onto the vine that had been annoying (slapping) him and ignited his hands with lightning, destroying the vine in his hands.

Stepping back and holding up his hands, Plant Man grunted as Scyther slashed at him, attempting to cut him in half. Plant Man quickly kicked out and struck Scyther in the face, making the bug-dragon Pokemon stagger backwards. As Plant Man generated some more vines in his hands, the Robot Master lashed out with them in an attempt to strike Scyther with a few more of the thorns.

As Scyther was slapped with a thorny vine and staggered even further backwards in pain, Toxtricity made his presence known and slashed an invisible guitar riff, creating a wave of electricity that sliced through the air and struck Plant Man in the face, causing the Robot Master to shout in pain and annoyance as he staggered backwards himself. "Ugh! You Pokemon are bigger pests than I thought!" He snapped. "Though now I'm starting to see how that little electric rat managed to win one of these tournaments."

"Dude, Mewtwo was a top-two finalist TWICE!" Toxtricity shot back. "Don't disrespect that guy's power by not including him!"

"He can't understand you, you dope!" Scyther snapped as he pushed himself up again.

"Well, how was I supposed to know that?" Toxtricity asked as he took his attention off of Plant Man.

It took all of Scyther's will to keep himself from facepalming in frustration (due to, you know, not having any palms in the first place and instead razor-sharp scythes). "How the crap do you just FORGET that humans can't understand us?!" Scyther said indignantly.

Toxtricity paused for a few seconds and gave a shrug…And then a huge vine wrapped around his head, picked him up and chucked him across the arena.

Scyther watched as Toxtricity flew off and turned to face Plant Man again, seeing the Robot Master approaching and generating more vines in his hands. Realizing that he was on his own for now until Toxtricity got his head in the game (which, knowing him, would be never), Scyther gave a sigh and bared his scythes, getting ready to take the plant-based Robot Master on by himself.

Plant Man narrowed his eyes. "Your blades won't get near any of my attacks." He warned as he held out his hand. Scyther watched as multiple petals burst from the Robot Master's hand and surrounded him in what looked to be a magic shield of petals.

Deciding to test how tough the shield was, Scyther lunged at Plant Man and swung a scythe, only to watch as the attack was deflected away, throwing the Pokemon off long enough for Plant Man to create another vine and spike it into Scyther's torso, knocking the flying Pokemon backwards and into the air. However, while Scyther was in the air, he managed to upright himself and started buzzing his wings, keeping himself in the air as Plant Man stood his ground below, staring up at the airborne Pokemon.

"Those blades won't do you any good now!" Plant Man snapped. "Your attacks can't get through my shield and my vines can pick you off from down here!"

As if to prove his point, Plant Man lashed out with everything he had, sending vines at Scyther as the flying Pokemon swiftly flew around the vines as they shot at him from every angle. Every time Scyther managed to slice a vine to keep it away he was force to avoid two more coming at him from another angle. Scyther flew around as Plant Man continued to bombard him from the canvas, knowing that if he let the Pokemon get close he would likely lose the fight since Scyther could cleave through him easily.

Suddenly managing to spot an opening in the vines as they continued to circle and try to ensnare him, Scyther flew downwards and shot through the opening he saw, flying straight at Plant Man and slicing cleanly through the several vines that Plant Man shot up at him. Plant Man stepped back a bit in surprise but kept his footing as Scyther's blade-hands slammed into his shield. Plant Man held up his shield in an attempt to keep the Pokemon at bay but, much to his surprise, Scyther managed to break through the shield with sheer force and the fact that his blade-hands were already absurdly-sharp.

As Plant Man staggered backwards, Scyther was quick to go on the offensive as he lunged at the Robot Master, lashing out with his blades as fast as he could to keep Plant Man from getting any chance to retaliate. Cutting most of Plant Man's vines off his hands, Scyther gave the Robot Master a standing kick to the chest and knocked him away a couple of steps. Plant Man took a second to examine his hands, only to see the useless stubs of the vines sprouting from them. "H-How can you be so FAST?!" He demanded.

All of a sudden, Plant Man's right arm fell off. Plant Man blinked in confusion a few times before yelling in shock. "W-When did you do THAT?!" He continued as he fumbled about, trying to grab at his discarded arm while still surveying the fact that Scyther had somehow been able to cut off his arm in what was very-likely one swing without letting Plant Man realize it.

Likely out of knowing that Plant Man couldn't understand him anyways, Scyther didn't give the Robot Master a response and opted to rush forward, swinging his scythe at Plant Man's torso and creating a huge gash in the metal as he was knocked back, nearly dropping his discarded arm. Scyther took the opportunity to fly straight at Plant Man and, with a powerful upward swing of his blade-arms, managed to send the Robot Master into the air, finally causing him to tumble over the ropes and out of the ring.

Plant Man landed in Plants Vs. Zombies, where he spent the next ten minutes sulking over the loss of his arm while a stupid-looking zombie, likely mistaking him for a plant, started gnawing on his head.

Shaggy and Matt were in the process of fighting Tinker Knight in his huge mech together, Matt leaping onto the top portion of the mech to repeatedly strike the outer shell of the huge machine with rapid-fire punches while Shaggy held the mech at bay by holding onto the huge drill with his hands, somehow using nothing but his bare hands to stop the mech in his tracks.

Tinker Knight shielded his face (which was still hidden behind his welding mask) as Matt's fists assaulted the metal framework around his mech, rattling the entire machine with every blow. "S-Stop that this instant!" He demanded. "This machine is meant to withstand diamond!"

Matt gave a light smirk. "Then I guess that means I gotta throw my punches faster." He said.

Shaggy, on the canvas, gave a grunt of annoyance as he was starting to falter against the drill of Tinker Knight's mech. He was still standing his ground but the power from the mech was enough to catch Shaggy by surprise and nearly make him take a step back to regain his footing while still holding onto the drill. "You'd better hurry, Matt! Like, I can hold against this drill thing but I think he may overload the mech!"

"On it, Shaggy!" Matt said as he started throwing punches like a rapid-fire machine gun, lashing out with what looked to be a hundred punches a second as it looked like he was slowly breaking through the metal plating of the mech itself with his hands. Matt punched the metal plating so fast that Tinker Knight could almost see the Mii creating an after-image that was doing its own punches and seemed to be doing its own damage to the mech.

Tinker Knight scrambled about in the cockpit of his mech as he looked around for a level to pull. Spotting the lever as Matt caused his huge mech to shake and rattle even more, Tinker Knight grabbed it and pulled it, opening a hole in the top of the mech and firing a bolt of lightning out of it, striking Matt in the face and knocking him off the mech. With Matt momentarily off of the mech, Tinker Knight threw a few more switches and brought the mech to life with some emergency power.

Matt landed on the canvas near Shaggy as the lanky youth pulled back and let go of the drill when he saw his memetic friend away from the mech. "Like, this guy's mech is more-powerful than we thought, man!" Shaggy mentioned. "I didn't think we'd be fighting something this powerful so early!"

Matt stared flatly (which, for Matt, seemed to be his regular expression). "You fight SUPERMAN." He reminded.

Before Shaggy had time to respond, a new figure flew in from the side and crashed into Matt, knocking the Mii to the ground under the prone body's form. Shaggy looked in surprise and saw that the newcomer was Toxtricity, having been thrown aside from his previous fight with Plant Man. "Like, whoa, man! Where did YOU come from?" He asked as a dazed Toxtricity pushed himself up.

Matt pushed himself up quickly, finding that Toxtricity wasn't getting up fast enough, and threw the rocker Pokemon off of him as he got up. "Hey! What's the big idea, punk?!" He demanded.

Toxtricity gave a response but, obviously, Matt couldn't understand anything the rocker Pokemon was saying. Matt narrowed his eyes. "Look, I don't take to kindly to being attacked from behind. Maybe I need to teach you a lesson." He said as he slammed his fists together before glancing at Shaggy. "You think you can take the mech solo for a bit, Shaggy?"

Shaggy glanced up at Tinker Knight in time to see several rockets emerged from the shoulders of his huge mech and started to hone in on him. Shaggy leapt into the air, gave a rocket a hard kick and sent it flying right back into the mech, knocking Tinker Knight's machine backwards a couple of feet from the force of the blast. "Like, I'll try, man." He said with a nervous smile and giving Matt a thumbs-up.

As Shaggy engulfed himself in another bright, Dragonball-esque aura and leapt at Tinker Knight's mech, Matt turned to Toxtricity. The rocker Pokemon seemed resigned to having to fight him, realizing that Matt would never be able to understand him anyways. Taking a step back as Matt lunged forward with a hard, flying punch, Toxtricity thrashed his invisible guitar and created an electric shockwave that launched Mat backwards, causing the Mii to land flat on his back.

Matt grunted and pushed himself up as Toxtricity approached, looking ready to thrash some more on his invisible guitar. Matt narrowed his eyes and put up his hand, getting into a boxing stance as he looked ready to take the lizard Pokemon on. Toxtricity strummed his hands several times, thrashing his guitar multiple times and sending several shockwaves at Matt as the Mii stood his ground.

Matt pulled his fist back and lashed out, striking a shockwave with it and causing it to dissipate from the force of the impact. The remaining several shockwaves that followed after the first were met with similar fates as Matt punched his way through all of the electrical projectiles, slowly taking steps towards Toxtricity as he did. By the time Toxtricity saw what Matt was doing, the Mii was close enough to slam his fist into the Pokemon's face, knocking the rocker lizard backwards. This allowed Matt the chance to press the offensive, continuing with a lightning-fast flurry of punches that Toxtricity could only attempt to block in between blows.

Tinker Knight activated his mech to fire another barrage of missles down at Shaggy, whom scrambled around them as they exploded on the canvas at his feet. Tinker Knight managed to get lucky with a missile and struck Shaggy in the face, knocking the lanky youth backwards several feet in recoil. Seeing Shaggy getting hit, Tinker Knight sprung back into action and threw another few levers.

"Eat this, you punk!" Tinker Knight shouted as he brought his mech to life, engulfed it in sparking electricity and revved up its steampunk engines. The mech took off, charging at Shaggy with its drill spinning wildly. "I'll crush that power using my mind's creations!"

Shaggy looked up in time to see the huge mech barreling at him with a spinning drill pointing at him and instinctively held up his hands to block the blow. The mech rammed straight into Shaggy but the lanky youth managed to keep the mech at bay. Tinker Knight saw that Shaggy was holding his mech back with his hands and quickly upped the power in its engines, hoping that he could overpower Shaggy by making his machine more-powerful.

Seeing that the added power he was putting into his mech wasn't doing anything against Shaggy, as well as hearing nothing but the squealing sounds of his mech's treads against the canvas, Tinker Knight looked back and saw dark smoke starting to emit from the exhaust ports of his machine. Panicking and thinking quickly, Tinker Knight threw his mech into reverse and backed away from Shaggy.

"H-How in the blazes are you doing that?!" Tinker Knight demanded. "You're using nothing but your hands!"

"Like, sometimes I don't even really know, man." Shaggy shrugged. "I'm not complaining, though. These powers are totally awesome!"

Tinker Knight looked around his cockpit for another switch to throw, hoping that he had some sort of weaponry that he could use against Shaggy, or at least keep him away long enough to get him out of the ring. Deciding to throw his mech into overdrive, Tinker Knight pressed a large button that caused the drill-like lance the huge mech was holding to open up, revealing what looked to be a huge, steampunk-designed cannon.

Fiddling with the controls, Tinker Knight adjusted the aim of the cannon and redirected it to point straight at Shaggy. "I didn't think I'd be forced to resort to this so soon!" He shouted defiantly. "Be thankful I consider you a worthy-enough foe for this! I was saving it for Shovel Knight!"

Shaggy's eyes snapped open as he watched the huge cannon start building energy. "Zoinks!" He shouted as he turned tail and scrambled to the side as Tinker Knight activated the cannon.

A huge beam of energy fired from the mouth of Tinker Knight's cannon as Shaggy dove out of the way. Seeing Shaggy running making him think he could get the edge, Tinker Knight steered his mech and started chasing Shaggy down with the cannon beam. He looked down and saw that, judging by a meter on his dashboard, the over-use of the beam would be sure to overheat his mech's engines, Tinker Knight resolved to chase down Shaggy and finish him off quickly.

Toxtricity lashed out with a foot and struck Matt in the head, knocking the Mii down and giving the Pokemon a chance to strike him while he was down with a few powerful shockwaves, hoping to stun the Mii long enough to eliminate him while he was disoriented.

However, Matt managed to push himself up as the shockwaves her hitting him from above. Clenching his teeth to block out the feeling of the shockwaves slamming into his back, Matt spun around and roared, lashing out with a fist and punching his way through Toxtricity's onslaught again. Matt pressed the assault again as he continued to step forward, lashing out with multiple punches and catching Toxtricity off-guard.

Toxtricity tried to either block the onslaught of rapid-fire punches from Matt or back out of the way but the angry Mii wasn't giving him an inch. Matt continued to strike the rocker Pokemon in the face, determined to end the fight as quickly and efficiently as possible, and didn't let up even after it was clear Toxtricity couldn't muster the strength to fight back any more. Matt finally stopped his attacks as the dazed, barely-conscious Toxtricity crumped to the canvas.

Matt looked over his shoulder and suddenly took notice of Shaggy running from a constantly-moving laser beam as it chased him down. Thinking quickly, Matt picked up Toxtricity's prone form. "Hey, Shag! Heads up!" He shouted as he spun in place a few times, winding up power as he spun Toxtricity around. Toxtricity started coming to his senses as Matt continued to spin around but by the time he had realized what was happening Matt had already let him go and thrown him.

Tinker Knight, perched in his seat in his huge mech, turned his head just in time to see Matt throw Toxtricity. His eyes snapped open behind his welding mask as he saw that Matt had not thrown the rocker Pokemon at Shaggy for a one-two elimination, or even over the ropes, but straight at the mid-section of the side of his own mech.

*KA-BOOM!*

Toxtricity crashed into the side of Tinker Knight's mech with enough force and velocity that the mech didn't even stop him; he just kept going. Toxtricity was thrown straight through Tinker Knight's mech, creating an explosion upon impact as the rocker Pokemon was sent flying through the explosion on the other side of the mech after he had been thrown clean through it. Despite this, and the fact that Matt had literally just thrown him through the side of a mech, Toxtricity continued flying with no control over where he was going as he flew straight over the top rope and clear out of the ring with no way to get back in as he finally lost momentum and tumbled headlong into a portal.

As a result of Toxtricity being thrown through his mech, however, Tinker Knight could do nothing but sit there as a chain reaction went off, igniting the body of his mech and causing it to explode in a firey blast that rocketed Tinker Knight straight up, cockpit and all, into the air and providing him with a good view of what remained of his mech as it burned on the canvas.

All of a sudden, a figure materialized in midair just ahead of him, having moved so fast that it looked like he had teleported. Tinker Knight saw Shaggy floating in midair, giving a smirk, before spinning around and giving the cockpit he was sitting in a midair flying kick, striking the cockpit with enough force to send it, with Tinker Knight still sitting in it, flying out of the arena as well.

Tinker Knight emerged in a water level in Mario Bros. 3. Unfortunately for him, he was shot out of the portal at an angle and, thanks to the momentum from Shaggy's kick, was sent skipping across the water like a rock as he screamed from atop his cockpit before he smashed into a wall and finally flopped into the water…

…And then, as if to add insult to injury, he was promptly eaten by a giant fish.

Grounder crashed onto the canvas, a victim of a massive overhead throw by E. Honda. Pushing himself up, the mole-like robot turned his head. "Has ANY of what this guy has done actually sumo?!" He demanded as he changed his drill hands into boxing gloves. "Hold on, Scratch! I'm coming!"

Scratch couldn't respond as he was in the middle of getting smacked senseless by a hundred rapid-fire palm strikes to the face. Every time Scratch thought he could get a word out, Honda had slapped him across the face again. He just knew that he would need to get the bolts in his neck tightened after this to keep his head from falling off but he needed to find a way to get Honda to stop slapping him first.

"You're a resilient little robot, aren't you!" Honda laughed as he continued to lash out with his Hundred Hand Slap, refusing to give the chicken Badnik a word in. "Most of my opponents are already down for the count but you're still standing!"

Honda suddenly received a hard hook to the side of the face as Grounder made his presence known with his huge boxing gloves. This stunned Honda long enough to make him stop attacking Scratch as the chicken robot staggered backwards, holding onto his head to keep it in place. Seeing that Honda was stunned momentarily, Grounder rolled forward and struck him a few more time with the boxing gloves, making the large sumo wrestler stagger backwards and giving Scratch a chance to regain his footing.

Once he saw Grounder keeping Honda away from him, Scratch snapped to attention and rushed in to help. "Keep him still!" He directed.

Grounder smirked as he lashed out again, feeling confident in the fact that he was starting to overpower Honda. However, Honda broke free of the barrage of punches by raising a thick arm in between punches and deflecting Grounder's attack, knocking the mole-like robot off balance. Scratch leapt around Grounder and aimed his fist for Honda's throat, only to get swatted away himself, causing the chicken Badnik to land in the crumpled heap a few feet away.

Honda rubbed his jaw, looking a little impressed as he glanced down at Grounder. "Y'know, I haven't felt a punch like that since the last time I squared off with Balrog." He mentioned. "You two are a lot tougher than you look. If you got along better you'd be a more-formidable force."

"H-Hey! We can run circles around you and you're only doing as good as you are because you ain't even practicing real sumo so everything you're doing is taking us off guard!" Grounder insisted.

"Sounds to me like you two are just projecting." Honda laughed. "How about when this is over I give you two a tour of my new sumo dojo in Metro City? Teaching you a bit about sumo would do you a world of good!"

*BASH!*

Scratch jumped back into the fray, smashing a bat across the back of Honda's head and causing him to stagger forward in surprise. "IT'S!" *BASH!* "NOT!" *BASH!* "EVEN!" *BASH* "SUMO!" Scratch screamed in fury in between strikes with his bat.

Grounder blinked in confusion. "Uh…Where'd you get the bat, Scratch?" he asked.

"Don't ask questions, stupid! Help me fight him while he's distracted!" Scratch snapped.

Grounder snapped to attention and quickly rolled forward to help Scratch while he was hitting Honda from behind with his bat. However, as Scratch was doing so, Honda took off like a rocket, lunging forward and flying through the air headfirst, slamming straight into the surprised Grounder and knocking him back while Scratch whiffed his next swing of his bat, missing the sumo wrestler altogether.

The next thing Grounder knew he was being lifted off the ground. His eyes snapped open. "Oh, no! Please! Not another throw! Those things hurt when I land!" He pleaded before Honda spun and, with all his might, threw Grounder over his shoulder again, causing him to fly backwards.

Scratch's eyes widened when he saw that Grounder was flying straight at him. He held up his bat in front of his face, as if trying to protect himself, and braced for impact.

*CRASH!*

Grounder had collided with Scratch headfirst and the amount of damage that the two Badniks had incurred throughout their stay in the ring seemed to finally catch up to them at once. As Scratch was crushed under Grounder's weight, the two Badniks literally exploded into a jumbled mess of pieces and parts. Scratch's head bounced a couple of times before it came to rest near where Grounder's head hand landed.

"Look at what you did, you idiot!" Scratch's head accused. "How are we supposed to fight Sonic when he enters the ring NOW?!"

"Uh…Maybe he'll trip over our body parts?" Grounder's head asked. "He doesn't look where he's running, does he?"

Honda laughed again as he walked over to the pile. "You two are so entertaining and you managed to put up quite a fight!" He admitted as he picked up the Badnik's heads and held one in each hands as he looked between the two of them. "Looks like I may have overdid it with the sumo, though." He mentioned. "Ah, well. What can you do? Thanks for the exercise, you two!"

With that, Honda tossed the two Badnik heads over his shoulders and sent them flying out of the ring. He quickly brushed the rest of their parts underneath the bottom rope to remove the two Badniks from the ring entirely.

"IT'S NOT SUMOOOOOOOoooooo-" Scratch and Grounder shouted as one as the two heads fell helplessly down into an elimination portal, vanishing at the same time.

The heads of Scratch and Grounder landed in the world of Angry Birds, where they were forcibly set up into a giant slingshot and hurled screaming at a stone structure. Neither of them were very effective.

Antonov punched at an explosive disc, destroying it in one hit as the Duck Hunt duo looked annoyed that the huge wrestler had destroyed a projectile so easily. However, as Antonov was blinded by the explosion of the clay disk in his face, this left his unprepared for Ember to lunge into his stomach with a pair of katars. Antonov was knocked backwards a couple of feet but managed to regain his footing, though he still wasn't prepared for Ember to follow up her attack by swinging her katars upwards, lifting Antonov off his feet and making him land flat on his back.

Pushing himself up to his feet, Antonov instinctively held up his arms as the Duck Hunt duo kicked an exploding can at him. Another explosion knocked Antonov back on his feet but the huge, muscled wrestler remained standing, forcing himself to bear the brunt of the explosion in his face.

Brushing himself off as he gave a smirk, briefly taking the still-lit cigar out of his mouth (how it had stayed in his mouth the whole time was anyone's guess). "You two have amazing teamwork despite just meeting up!" He mentioned. "A tag-team like this is just BEGGING to be included in the G.A.W.!"

Ember, in the meantime, had swapped weapons and was armed with a bow and arrow, pointing the sharp projectile at Antonov. "Sorry. I have a tag-team partner back in Valhalla already and I'm not looking to branch out until we can beat Cassidy and Sentinel in the upcoming 2V2 tournament." She mentioned.

Antonov grinned as he got into a stance, as if preparing for the following attack. "You think you scare me with that pointy stick?" He asked. "After what the KOF board lets into their tournaments on a yearly basis?"

Ember gave a smirk and rushed at Antonov, still holding her bow and arrow in a pre-firing position before letting go of the arrow. The arrow exploded just in front of Ember, covering her in a cloud of smoke. Antonov was expecting her to teleport or make an attempt to blind him but his look faltered a bit as he watched Ember leap out of the cloud of smoke on the back of a large wolf. In Antonov's moment of surprise, Ember's wolf snapped at him and caught him in the torso.

Although surprised by Ember summoning a wolf out of thin air, the Duck Hunt duo quickly recovered when they realized that the wolf was on their side and spawned another exploding can and prepared to kick it at Antonov while he was busy dealing with Ember. However, just as the dog kicked the can and sent it flying into the air, a new figure was thrown into view and ended up falling directly into the path of the can.

*BOOM!*

The Duck Hunt duo yelped as they recoiled back, the feeling of the can exploding much earlier than they were expecting them to making them reel back. They suddenly noticed the new figure falling out of the air after being hit in the face with the exploding can and saw Mimikyu's costume float down to the canvas through the explosion.

Mimikyu slowly pushed himself up, dizzy from being hit in the face with the misaimed exploding can. Suddenly noticing the Duck Hunt dog shaking its head around to shake himself back to attention, Mimikyu put two and two together and turned to face the mismatched duo, deciding to put off helping Hater and Petey deal with the Koopa Troopa for now.

The duck saw Mimikyu's shadowy hand lunging at the pair and quacked loudly, making the dog snap to attention. The dog yelped and backpedaled out of the way as Mimikyu swiped at nothing but the air. Mimikyu pressed forward and shuffled towards the Duck Hunt duo silently, baring its second shadowy hand as he prepared to fight the two alone. The dog took the chance to pull another exploding disc into view and hurled it at Mimikyu in an attempt to keep the disguised Pokemon away from them. Mimikyu responded by lashing out, grasping the disc in a shadowy hand and clutching it, making it emit a muffled explosion from within his hand.

While Mimikyu was distracted with the disc, however, he wasn't prepared for the duck to suddenly detach itself fom the dog's back and start fluttering around Mimikyu, distracting the Pokemon as he swatted around, trying to get the duck to back off. While Mimikyu was dealing with the duck, the dog gave a smirk and kicked another can at Mimikyu, watching as a red crosshair appeared and started tracking it.

The next thing Mimikyu knew, the crosshair had lined up with his face (the real one; not the tilted Pikachu-like head) and created several small explosions that knocked Mimikyu back, dazed, as the duck fluttered back to the dog so that the pair could continue fighting the Pokemon as normal.

Antonov held up his arms as Ember slashed at him with her katars again, hoping to break through his defenses. Antonov quickly pulled his arm back and slammed it into Ember's face once the elven woman had made the attempt to attack him. While Ember was stunned, stepping back a couple of feet from the strike to the face, Antonov reached out, grabbed her and tossed her over his shoulder with a mighty throw. Giving a smirk, Antonov leapt into the air after Ember, doing a stylish backflip as he went over her head.

Ember looked ahead while she was in the air and watched as Antonov fell straight on top of her stomach-first, slamming into the canvas on top of her and crushing her under his weight. Although she had the wind knocked out of her from the attack it did little to slow Ember down (having been used to sharing a node with a literal dragon and minotaur), as she activated a wind-like power underneath Antonov using her katars that lifted the surprised wrestler off of her.

While Antonov was in the air, Ember swapped to her bow and swung it into the air, creating another small cloud of smoke that spawned what looked to be an eagle. The eagle screeched and swung at the airborne Antonov with its claws before despawning again and letting Ember follow up by firing an arrow straight into Antonov's shoulder while he was still falling back to the canvas. Antonov was sent tumbling backwards and crashed onto the canvas headfirst before groaning and pushing himself up. Amazingly, the cigar remained in his mouth and had stayed in one piece for the entirety of Ember's assault.

Antonov couldn't help but chuckle as he grabbed the arrow sticking out of his shoulder and pulled it out. "You've got spunk, kiddo!" He admitted. "You sure you aren't interested in the G.A.W.? Could you at least give me your contact info when this tournament is done?"

Ember narrowed her eyes. "I'd ask how a human can just shrug off attacks like that but…I mean, the crossover events we did with the Street Fighter and Shovel Knight cast kind of told us otherwise." She sighed as she drew another arrow. "Maybe if I aim for your forehead it'll get you to stop talking."

Antonov held his hat as he ducked under the next arrow that Ember fired at him as he rushed forward and swung his arm again, striking Ember with a massive clothesline that knocked the elven warrior off her feet and into the air. Antonov quickly grabbed Ember by the leg and swung her over his shoulder, preparing to spike her into the canvas with one swing.

However, Antonov was unprepared for Ember to slash as his leg with a katar as he was preparing to throw her into the canvas. Antonov shouted as he let go of Ember and staggered back, clutching his leg, as Ember uprighted herself in midair and landed on her feet, getting into a stance and preparing to take Antonov on again.

Ember rushed at Antonov and lashed out with her katars, swinging at each of the larger man's limbs, but Antonov took multiplied steps back, dodging each swing of the blades and deflecting several of Ember's attempted strikes. Giving an amused smirk, and still clutching his cigar in his teeth, Antonov swung his palm out and managed to slip through Ember's strikes, striking her in the face and making her stagger backwards.

While Ember was distracted, Antonov rushed forward and lashed out again, swinging his fists multiple times without giving the elven warrior a chance to react. Reaching out and grabbing Ember by the cloak, Antonov leapt into the air and prepared for a massive piledriver…

*SLAM!*

Mimikyu's huge, shadowy hands slammed down onto the Duck Hunt dog, striking him into the canvas and knocking the wind out of him. The duck tried fluttering around Mimikyu again to distract him but the Disguise Pokemon was too determined at this point to even pay much attention to the flying duck, instead focusing on the dog since he seemed to be the one that could create the exploding projectiles. The dog tried to create another exploding can in Mimikyu's hand, causing it to explode and briefly distract Mimikyu.

However, as Mimikyu backed away, the dog tried to push himself up but found himself too weak to do so, having been knocked senseless by Mimikyu's onslaught of attacks. Pushing himself onto all fours again, the dog saw his duck companion trying to distract Mimikyu and created another exploding disc in his mouth. The dog reared back and prepared to use all his might to throw the disc at Mimikyu, hoping to strike while he was distracted by his duck partner.

And then Mimikyu threw the duck onto him. With the exploding disc still in the dog's mouth.

*BOOM!*

The disc exploded before it could leave the Duck Hunt dog's mouth, knocking both animals off their feet and laying them out on the canvas, both clearly spent and unable to get up, though the dog tried again only to realize that all his strength had finally left him. Mimikyu shuffled over and examined the downed forms of the Duck Hunt duo, as if trying to figure out a means to get rid of them.

*CRASH!*

Mimikyu jumped and turned in time to see Antonov hit the canvas, finally pulling off his piledriver and spiking Ember into the canvas one last time. Ember didn't get up from this attack, showing that she, much like the Duck Hunt duo, was down for the count.

Antonov laughed. "Thanks for the duel, my friend! I'll be sure to remember to track you down after the tournament is over!" He said as he picked up Ember's prone form and chucked her over the arena ropes. "At the very least I should find out more about your node!"

Mimikyu watched as Antonov eliminated Ember and glanced back to the still-downed forms of the Duck Hunt duo. Remembering that he was still needed to help Lord Hater, Mikikyu used his shadowy hands to pick up the dog and duck and throw them over the ropes as well before shuffling off.

Ember slowly came to and found herself floating in the void of coloured portals, signifying that she was being set up to drop into the next round Multiversal Matchup. Looking around, she saw that the Duck Hunt duo had materialized in the void with her. "Well…I suppose that could have gone a bit better." Ember sighed. The dog gave a sad-looking nod.

Suddenly hearing a guitar being played, Ember glanced to her left and saw Toxtricity also floating around, lazily playing an invisible guitar with a bored-looking expression on his face. He briefly stopped playing, glanced at the two newcomers and gave a half-hearted wave. Ember floated in silence before giving an awkward-looking wave back.

(Multiversal Matchup)

"WHAT THE CRAP ARE THESE HITBOXES?!"

The shout of indignation had come from Giovanni, whom fell onto his face awkwardly as the tail that he had been desperately trying to keep possession of since the game of Tail Tag had begin once again vanished from his back in a puff of smoke. The offending Fall Guy who collected it appeared to do so without really even touching him, strangely.

"Seriously! I have to be all up in their business to even TRY to steal the tail but they can take mine from five feet away from me?!" Giovanni shouted as he pushed himself up again. "How is that fair?! This stupid game of tag SUCKS!"

The other Multiversal Matchup contestants seemed to be doing their best to ignore Giovanni's whining, instead focusing on either keeping or stealing tails themselves. Lucien was keeping to higher ground using his agility, Sagat was using his long reach and power to his advantage and Proto Man was keeping the Fall Guys at bay with his shield but the others were having a bit of a harder time.

Sagat saw a Fall Guy trying to approach him from behind to take his tail. He quickly turned around and kicked the bean in the face, sending the Fall Guy ragdolling off the platform he was standing on and down onto a moving conveyor belt. "These pests are somehow even MORE annoying when these tails are involved…" He muttered.

Lucien watched from his perch, preferring to survey the scene from above in a place none of the others could reach. "They're more-athletic then they look." He mused. "But maybe that's just their blind determination showing…"

"Lucien, how the heck are you doing that?!" Lin Fei asked as she scrambled around the box-shaped arena to keep the Fall Guys away from her. "You're just hanging from the wall!"

Lucien gave a light smirk from behind his mask. "Comes with the territory of what I do." He admitted simply. "Pretty sure Ezio stole half of his moves and abilities from me, anyways."

Lin Fei sighed as she went back to trying to keep the Fall Guys away from her. She was able to use her martial arts skills to keep jumping around the bean-like beings as they made attempt to steal the tail that she currently had. She also realized that she needed to avoid Steve and Giovanni since they were currently lacking tails and now trying to take hers. Time for the round was ticking down fast and everyone had realized by now that they were expected to be in possession of a tail when the timer hit zero in order to qualify for the next round.

Lin Fei instinctively jumped into the air as a diving Steve flew underneath her, faceplanting into the floor and skidding onto a conveyor belt that carried him further away from the carnage and leaving Lin Fei alone for now.

However, this left Lin Fei to have to deal with not only the swarm of Fall Guys waddling behind her to try and take her tail but also Giovanni, whom seemed to be lunging at her with desperation in an attempt to take the tail once he saw how close to the end of the round everyone was getting.

"Gimmie that tail, lady!" Giovanni shouted as he took another swipe at Lin Fei's tail, missing as she did a backflip over his head and the heads of several Fall Guys. "H-Hey! Come back here!"

Narrowing his eyes, Giovanni crouched low and created a burst of steam around his legs, launching him into the air and sending him flying at Lin Fei, hoping to grab her tail while she was in the air. Link Fei saw Giovanni flying towards her and quickly swung her foot at him as he was flying at her, striking the redhead youth in the face with a flame-coated kick.

Giovanni crashed flat onto his face away from the crowd of Fall Guys trying to steal Lin Fei's tail. Pushing himself to his feet with a grunt, Giovanni muttered under his breath as he looked around to see if there was another tail he could try stealing to avoid having to deal with Lin Fei. "Ugh…How many tails ARE there, anyways?" He asked aloud.

Suddenly spotting Lucien attached to the wall higher up, Giovanni smirked when he saw that the highwayman had a tail. "Ah! A tail!" He said.

"Stay away, soup-boy." Lucien said coldly. "There's a reason I'm clinging to the wall this high up and it's so that no one can-"

Lucien suddenly leaned to the side as a ball of flaming-hot soup was thrown into the wall near him. Lucien glared down at Giovanni and saw that he was giving a toothy grin while summoning a few more balls of flaming-hot soup into the air, looking like he was getting ready to throw them.

"…If you throw one more ball of soup at me I'm going to stab you in-"

*SPLAT!*

Lucien dodged again as another ball of soup splattered against the wall. Lucien somehow managed to stay attached to the wall as Giovanni continued to throw flaming hot projectiles at him as he scrambled to keep himself from falling off, knowing that the instant he let go of the wall he'd be open for everyone to take his tail. Pulling his pistol into view, Lucien dodged another ball of soup and pulled the trigger, creating a burst of flames that shot down at Giovanni in an attempt to engulf him.

In spite of seeing the flames coming at him, Giovanni kept his smirk and held out his hand, creating another powerful burst of steam that, much to Lucien's surprise, managed to part the wave of fire and cause it to split on either side of him, leaving Giovanni unscathed.

"You should know better to try and use flames on someone who knows how to handle the heat!" Giovanni cackled. "Now then…GIMMIE THAT TAIL!"

Lucien was suddenly bombarded with several flaming-hot projectiles, each one splattering against the wall around him. The highwayman tried to avoid the shots as best as he could but got splattered with hot soup every time a projectile hit the wall near him. Lucien tried to keep his grip on the wall he had latched onto but after a few doses of scalding-hot soup he finally lost his grip, slipped off the wall and fell flat onto his face a couple of feet in front of Giovanni.

The yellow-clad punk gave a cocky smirk as he grabbed at the tail on Lucien's downed form, swiping it and making it appear attached to him. "Yoink!" He said.

All of a sudden, as Lucien was pushing himself up and preparing to draw his pistol again, the round ended with a loud, screeching whistle, signifying the clock finally reaching zero. The next thing everyone knew they were back in the field of boxes overlooking the giant Plinko board.

"That round was pain." Proto Man moaned. "I didn't know these bean things could get so possessive of tails."

"I know. The race round was fun enough but that round just felt like a hassle to get through." Byleth shook her head.

Everyone suddenly heard a loud drumroll as eliminated Fall Guys started getting pushed out of their boxes. Lucien's eyes widened behind his mask, realizing all too late that Giovanni had taken his tail with a split second to spare. He quickly turned to the box holding a cocky-looking Giovanni. "Oh, you little-" He said before the back of his box pushed him out of it, sending the highwayman tumbling down the Plinko board and into the pit below with the other eliminated Fall Guys.

Giovanni watched Lucien fell and only when the highwayman was gone did he finally exhale in relief, dropping his cocky smirk. "That was WAY too close." He lamented.

The survivors suddenly saw that the game was changing again as they saw a window displaying the next game. They were all suddenly warped again as they went into the next game with the suddenly-fewer amount of Fall Guys. The next thing everyone knew after their vision became clear again, they were all standing on a circular platform over a pool of slime. At the middle of the platform was a large pillar with a pair of foam bats attached to it.

"What the heck is THAT?" Proto Man asked in bewilderment.

Sagat scoffed as the machine started coming to life as the bats started moving, slowly spinning around the platform everyone was on. "Looks like we need to do more jumping." He muttered. "I assume these things do that a lot in these games."

The six remaining Multiversal Matchup contestants prepared themselves to start jumping over the spinning bat as the surviving Fall Guys awkwardly flung themselves over the bottom bar as it spun around. The crowded platform was chaos as the Fall Guys and remaining players darted around to try and either stay ahead of the spinning bat or get into a position where they could time their jumps.

Giovanni gave a smirk as he watched the bat move, seeing the others jump over it at the Fall Guys awkwardly dive over it, though some got their ankles clipped by the large beam as it went underneath. The yellow-clad youth crouched as he watched the bat come at him. He was confident in his jumping abilities and, even if he wasn't, he could activate his epithet and use a burst of steam to clear the bat. It seemed that this would be a test of endurance and Giovanni was more-than-sure that he'd be capable of-

*THUD!*

Giovanni tried jumping but found himself held back as he fell flat on his face. Pushing himself up, he turned around and saw a lone Fall Guy grabbing him from behind and keeping him from jumping. Giovanni suddenly realized that this was likely one of the trollish "Grabby" Fall Guys SSBFreak had warned them about.

"Hey! Let go, you little twerp!" Giovanni shouted as he tried to shake the Fall Guy off of him. The Fall Guy remained holding onto him, refusing to let go. Giovanni saw the bat swinging towards him as he started to panic, stepping up his efforts to get the grabby Fall Guy to let go. "I-I'm serious! I-If you don't let go then we're BOTH going to-"

*THWAP!*

Giovanni realized all too late that trollish Fall Guys didn't care about winning. Giovanni received the huge, foam bat to the face as he was sent tumbling over the side of the platform, falling head-over-heels down into the pool of slime with the ragdolling Fall Guy that had decided to bring him down with him.

Jumping over the bat, Lin Fei glanced downward as she watched Giovanni hit the slime. When he didn't reappear on the platform, she came to a conclusion as to what would happen. "Okay. Stay out of the slime. Good to know." She muttered as she watched the bat speed up as it came around again.

(Hotel; Hallway)

Juri leapt at Choi and swung a leg, attempting a powerful roundhouse as the shorter fighter rolled out of the way causing Juri to accidentally strike another garbage can. Juri didn't falter, however, and spun her head around to grin manically at Choi as the smaller fighter bared his claws and rushed her in a desperate attempt to keep her away. Juri leapt backwards as Choi slashed at her and then landed a foot into his face, making the small fighter tumble backwards.

While Choi was on his back, Juri smirked and leapt into the air over him and prepared to bring her heel down on his face. Choi quickly snapped to attention and rolled backwards, slashing at Juri's leg as she hit the floor where he had been. Juri grunted in annoyance as Choi's claws raked her leg but looked otherwise unfazed as she glared daggers at the small fighter.

"Oh, I can't wait to kick out a few of those teeth of yours, shrimp!" Juri cackled as she rushed Choi again and swung her foot in a flying roundhouse, looking like she had engulfed her foot in flames as she did.

"H-Hold up!" Choi pleaded as he rolled to the side, barely avoiding Juri's foot as it flew past him. Due to Kim's rigorous training he knew how to fight someone who fought primarily with kicks and, though he hated it, he was used to fighting insane people as well due to a few KOF fights with Yamzaki.

"You want me to hold up, shorty? You shoulda thought about that before you decided to get nosy." Juri smirked as she kicked again, striking Choi's claws as they were coming at her face, deflecting Choi's attempted attack and following it up with another kick to the face.

With Choi stunned, this left him open for Juri to lash out and strike him with a fast flurry of kicks, bouncing him between the wall of the hallway and her attacks several times. One spinning roundhouse later and Choi was sent flying several feet away down the hall, landing flat on his face. Juri gave a smirk as she approached Choi's downed form, grabbed him by the back of his head and hauled him up.

"You know? Not long ago I'd think that you'd be up for helping out in this little venture." Juri admitted. "But now you think that you can just grow a conscience and try to throw a wrench in things? You don't even know what's going to happen."

"I-I know enough that when things start brewing between villains that it never ends well!" Choi stammered as he swung wildly with his claws while Juri was holding him up, though found that she was holding him just out of reach. "The last time some villains tried something in this dome it caused its destruction!"

"You forgot to mention the part where that's MY problem." Juri smirk as she pulled her fist back and prepared to strike Choi while she was still holding him.

Thinking quickly, Choi spun around while Juri was holding him, managing to generate enough speed that he managed to create a whirlwind around him, surprising Juri by lifting her off her feet and sending her crashing into the wall herself, making her let go of him. Relieved that he could at least even the odds now, Choi quickly rushed Juri and prepared to continue fighting her before she could get up again.

Luca Blight's huge sword smashed into the floor as Lola Pop swerved to the side, avoiding his attack before sending one of her springy fists into his face. Unlike with Zant, this strike did little other than annoy the huge, insane despot as he grunted when the fist hit his face.

"You are doing nothing but make me angrier, clown woman!" Luca sneered. "I'll rip those taffy arms of your off and strangle you with them!"

Lola Pop narrowed her eyes. "You are just as angry as the last one that lashed out at me." She mentioned as she pulled her fist back and got into a stance. "Seriously, what do people have against clowns these days?"

Luca rushed Lola Pop again and swung his sword. Lola Pop held up her hands in an attempt to block against the blow but Luca had put so much of his power into the swing that he broke clean through her defenses, making Lola Pop stagger backwards in recoil. Seeing that he had the advantage, Luca rushed at the clown fighter again and swing his sword multiple times, attempting to hack away at Lola Pop's defenses. Luca cackled each time he swung his sword, knowing that it was only a matter of time before his power broke through whatever defenses Lola Pop had left and cut her in half.

Clenching her teeth in pain, Lola Pop managed to break through Luca's attacks, seeing an opening mid-swing and inflating her body into a balloon, causing Luca's next swing to bounce off of her body, making the huge man fly back in recoil. As Luca recovered, Lola Pop deflated her body back to normal and rushed forward, swinging her fists rapidly and striking the large man in the face several times as the head was the only part of Luca's body not covered in armour.

Luca grunted in annoyance as he swung blindly through the flurry of attacks Lola Pop was giving him. The clown boxer saw the sword coming and backflipped out of the way, having to leap as far as she could due to Luca's longer reach that his gigantic sword gave him. As Luca lunged forward and tried again, only to swing at nothing but air as Lola Pop slammed her fists into the ground and used them to propel herself into the air, overtop of Luca as he went underneath her. Lola Pop quickly slammed her fists into Luca's back while she was still in the air, slamming him into the floor as she landed on her feet.

Grunting in annoyance, Luca pushed himself up just in time for Lola Pop to extend her fist again and slam it into his face, knocking him down again. "Stay down!" She shot.

Luca turned around and glared firey daggers into Lola Pop's eyes. "Never!" He yelled defiantly.

Choi and Juri seemed to be fairly evenly matched at this point; Choi's small size and Juri's flexibility made it hard for either of the two fighters to hit each other once the two had gotten more-used to the others attacks. Every time it looked like one of them was about to land an attack, the other was able to avoid the blow and make an attempt to attack themselves. Juri leapt backwards as Choi attempted to slash at her and kicked off his face in a backflip to put some distance between them.

Juri landed on her feet and gave a dark smirk. "You're still standing. I'm impressed." She mentioned. "You're making this a lot more fun than I thought."

"I'm trying to stay ALIVE!" Choi insisted.

"You knew what you were getting into the instant you decided to start tailing me." Juri said as he eye started twinkling purple again. "Now hold still while I decide on how close to death I'm going to put you!"

Juri rushed Choi and leapt at him, aiming for his torso in a way that she would try to strike even if he tried dodging. Choi saw Juri flying at him with her fingers bared like talons and ducked low, letting Juri fly over him. While he was underneath Juri as she flew by above him, Choi swung his claws several times, cutting Juri's torso and legs several times as she went over him. Juri shouted in pain as she landed awkwardly on the floor and tumbled into a wall.

As Choi pushed himself up and stared Juri down, staying in a defensive stance in case she wasn't done, the psychotic woman pushed herself and turned around, letting Choi get a glimpse of the amount of cuts he had given her. Juri clutched at her stomach, where Choi had managed to draw the most blood, and tried to stand up before grunting in pain and collapsing onto one knee.

"Ugh…You little punk…You managed to catch me by surprise there…" Juri muttered.

"You threw yourself at me without thinking and I'm armed with claws." Choi responded simply, staying on guard because he knew Juri was liable to try attacking him again anyways. "That's on YOU."

"So's Vega and I fight him on a semi-daily basis." Juri muttered. "Great. I'm going to need to get this looked at before I enter the ring…"

"I-I still need answers!"

Juri forced a smirk. "You think I'm going to spill anything, especially when I don't actually know what he's planning yet?" She chuckled. "You're stupider than I thought."

Juri looked at Luca, whom was in the process of holding up his sword as he guarded against another rapid-fire barrage of punches from Lola Pop. "Luca! We need to bail!" She insisted.

"Luca Blight does NOT back down!" Luca sneered through his teeth as he defiantly continued to block. Swinging his sword, Luca managed to break through Lola Pop's attacks and get the clown boxer to back off, leaping away from him.

"I can't continue fighting like this! He caught me by surprise!" Juri replied. "You can't fight the two of them at once!"

"I can fight an ARMY, you gnat!"

In anger, and as if to prove his point, Luca roared and rushed Lola Pop again, only to bounce off of her when she quickly inflated her body at the last second. Lola Pop deflated herself again as Luca was bounced straight into the far wall of the hallway. Luca groaned in annoyance as he pushed himself up again, getting to his feet.

"Are you DONE yet?" Juri asked flatly.

Luca looked conflicted as he stared at Lola Pop, clearly wanting to finish her off but frustrated at the fact that he couldn't seem to do so. Finally, after a few seconds of waiting, he shouted in frustration and turned to Juri. "FINE. We leave. THIS TIME." Luca hissed.

"Oh, no! I've already had one person up and leave without giving any answers!" Lola Pop said as she pounded her fists together. "It's not happening a second time!"

"Sorry, sugar. We don't even have the answers for you even if we WANTED to spill them." Juri chuckled. "Feel free to keep poking around, though. It could make for an interesting night for all of us…"

With that, Juri turned and rushed off as quickly as she could while still clutching her torso wound. Luca grunted in annoyance as he followed suit, though he took one more spiteful swing at Lola Pop (who backed away to avoid the attack) before following Juri. Choi and Lola Pop, despite both obviously looking for answers, let the two wander off, knowing that they were still dangerous to face and they didn't want to risk setting either of them off.

This left Choi and Lola Pop alone in the hallway. Choi finally exhaled in relief, not realizing that he had been holding his breath. "Thanks for that. I was terrified those two were about to kill me." He mentioned.

Lola Pop shook her head. "Don't mention it. I was actually attacked by another weirdo not long ago and I guess I've been trying to find out why ever since." She replied. "I…Don't suppose you'd know what's going on, would you?"

"I followed Juri and listened in on as much as I could but it sounded like she doesn't really know yet." Choi admitted. "I know that Ganondorf is apparently assembling a bunch of bad guys and villains but…That's pretty much all I overheard."

Lola Pop folded her arms. "Well, I guess that's a start, at least. Now we have something to work on." She admitted. "That is, if you're committed to putting a stop to whatever this is."

"I…Guess I don't really have much of a choice, do I?" Choi asked aloud. "I've kinda already fought for my life so I guess I'm committed."

Lola Pop chuckled. 'I guess so. We're going to need more than just the two of us in this, though." She mentioned. "We don't know how many other people this Ganondorf is recruiting."

"I know, but where do we even start?"

"Hey, you two!"

Choi and Lola Pop turned in the direction of the new voice and saw Bear Hugger approaching, flanked by Blizzard Man, Jigglypuff and Machamp. Bear Hugger looked to have an amused expression on his face. "We just passed a couple of injured, ticked-off lookin' baddies. I don't suppose that was you two, eh?" He asked, pointing his thumb over his shoulder in the direction his group had just come from.

"Yeah, eh. We don't suppose you two found anything outta them, did ya?" Blizzard Man asked hopefully. "They didn't seem to be in a talkative mood and the big guy hit me in the head with his sword when I asked, eh."

Choi and Lola Pop stood in silence for a few seconds before glancing at each other curiously.

(The Arena)

Scarlet swapped weapons to her steam-powered sledgehammer and swung it at Engineer's sentry, striking it in the side and toppling it over, rendering it useless for now as she rushed Engineer, looking ready to swing at him with the hammer as well. Engineer hastily pulled his pistol from his pocket and fired a few shots at Scarlet but the steampunk lady was too swift and either dodged the bullets or deflected them with a swing of her hammer.

As Scarlet got close, she swung with her hammer, striking Engineer from above and spiking him into the canvas. As Scarlet stepped back, Engineer pushed himself up, looking a little sore as he rotated his shoulder.

"Okay. Yer a lot tougher than ya look, missy." Engineer mentioned. "And I gotta admit that I'm impressed by those steampunk weapons of yours."

"These are only two but they are still some of my favourites." Scarlet replied casually.

"Man. I shudder to think about what kind of stuff you'd build with Australium…"

Scarlet opted not to respond and lunged at Engineer again. Swinging her hammer with all her might, Scarlet took aim at Engineer's face. However, Engineer held up a gloved hand and managed to block the oncoming attack, catching Scarlet's hammer with one hand. Scarlet's eyes widened as she realized that Engineer was holding her attack back and had just blocked her attack barehanded. "W-What magic is THIS?!" She demanded.

Engineer gave a smirk as he swung his arm to the side, deflecting Scarlet's hammer and sending her sprawling. Scarlet turned to look at her opponent and saw him removing his glove, revealing a primitive-looking prosthetic arm. Scarlet's eyebrow lifted in curiosity. "Oh, now THAT'S impressive." She mentioned. "Considering the time you come from and the fact that you lack the technology that I do, a prosthetic like that is quite advanced…"

Engineer gave a smirk as his metal hand spun around rapidly. "Thanks, missy. Means quite a bit comin' from a fellow inventor." He mentioned. "How about I show you first-hand how this works?"

Scarlet couldn't help but give an amused smirk as she switched to her rocket lance. "Are you challenging me to a fight or are you trying to FLIRT with me?" She asked. "Because I'll have you know that I'm a hundred years too OLD for you."

"Shucks, you know Ah ain't mean it like that." Engineer chuckled as he used his metal hand to load another ammo clip into his pistol.

Scarlet didn't respond again and rocketed forward on her lance, riding it like a horse as he flew at Engineer at high speeds. Engineer tried to use his metal arm to grab at the rocket lance but missed his attempted deflection as Scarlet flew into his stomach lance-first. While Engineer was distracted, Scarlet leapt off her lance, grabbed it and swung it upwards, striking Engineer under the chin ad lifting him off his feet with a jet of steam in what looked like an uppercut with the lance.

Engineer landed flat on his back as Scarlet leapt above him, hoisting her rocket lance above her and preparing to slam it engine-first onto his stomach, which would be sure to cause a powerful eruption of steam when it hit. Engineer quickly rolled to the side as Scarlet slammed the flat end of her lance into the canvas as he jumped to his feet and pulled out his shotgun again. Scarlet saw Engineer pulling out his firearm and acted quickly, holding her rocket lance in front of her face defensively as Engineer fired a couple of shotgun shots into her weapon.

However, Scarlet wasn't prepared for Engineer to follow the failed shots with a swing of his shotgun, using it like a club. He managed to slip past Scarlet's defenses with it as he struck the steampunk woman in the head with his shotgun, stunning her briefly and making her stagger backwards. Engineer saw that he had the advantage now as he lashed out with his metal arm and struck Scarlet with it a few times, knocking her onto her back. It looked like being hit in the face with a metal fist several times had dazed Scarlet to the point of keeping her from getting up again.

"Sorry 'bout this, missy. Maybe after this is over we can talk shop." Engineer said in a friendly manner as he picked up Scarlet by the back of her jacket.

Scarlet suddenly became aware of her surroundings again as Engineer hurled her over the top rope. Thinking quickly, Scarlet summoned her rocket lance and made an attempt to ride it back into the arena so that she could continue the fight. The rocket lance gave her a bit of ground as it looked like she would be able to make it back in with room to spare.

However, Engineer would be having none of that as he pulled his pistol into view and chucked it at Scarlet, bouncing it off her head and throwing her off her rocket lance, finally sending her down into an elimination vortex.

"Eh. That pistol had limited use anyways…" Engineer muttered to himself.

Scarlet landed in Mech Assault. Once she got her hands on a mech, nothing stood in her way.

Falke rolled out of the way as Bowser Jr. rolled by in his clown car in an attempt to run her over. As Falke rolled into a kneeling position, she pulled her baton into view and charged it up with a bit of psycho power as she pointed it at Bowser Jr. in an attempt to fire a projectile at the Koopa prince as he turned his clown car around to make another run at her.

However, Kula chose that time to skate past her on a path of ice, giving Falke a kick to the face as she glided past. Falke dropped her baton as she fired a shot of psycho power into the canvas uselessly and gripped her jaw where Kula had kicked her.

Falke had been fighting Bowser Jr. and Kula ever since she had entered the arena and, despite handling herself well enough fighting them both alone, she was still getting annoyed with their antics and how hard it was to hit either of them. The two seemed to enjoy toying with her since it was clear she was having a hard time trying to keep track of both of them at once. However, Falke had remembered seeing what had happened to Abigail earlier in the tournament with Sackboy and Pete and knew better than to just lash out. To outsmart these two, she would need to fight smarter…

"You can't keep running around me forever, kids." Falke narrowed her eyes as she started pumping more psycho power into her baton.

Kula skated a little further before spinning on her feet and turning to face Falke again. "It's the best we can do against you if you keep trying to pick us off with that creepy magic of yours!" She called out. "It's the same magic as Bison's and I know better than to get anywhere NEAR that stuff!"

Falke chose not to respond as she switched her focus to Boswer Jr., seeing him pulling another Mechakoopa out from his clown car, chucking it at her as he drove by her. Falke saw the walking bomb flying at her and quickly fired a blast of psycho power at it from her baton, making the Mechakoopa freeze in midair as she watched its eyes slowly turn purple and the key in its back starting to wind up rapidly.

Giving a smirk, Falke spun in place and hurled the psycho power-fuelled Mechakoopa at Kula as she was in the process of skating over to her. The mechakoopa landed on the canvas directly in front of Kula and exploded in a ball of purple flames, empowered by Falke's psycho power, knocking Kula off her feet and making her land flat on her back.

This left Bowser Jr. to deal with Falke alone until Kula recovered and Falke was quick to take advantage of the situation, stepping to the side as Bowser Jr. drove by again and jumping onto the back of his clown car as he unwittingly took her for a ride.

"H-Hey! Lady, get off my ride!" Bowser Jr. snapped. "I can't control this thing when you're holding onto the back like that!"

"Then how about I take over the controls for a bit?" Falke smirked.

Bowser Jr. tried to regain control over his clown car but Falke was able to manipulate the movement of the vehicle by leaning from side to side, steering the wild clown car towards a cornerpost. Bowser Jr. tried to recover and get control back but Falke drove his clown car straight into the cornerpost of the arena with a crash, leaping off of it just before it hit. Bowser Jr. was knocked about when his clown car hit the post and tumbled out of it entirely as the clown car tipped over onto one side from the impact.

Knowing better than to let Bowser Jr. get back into his clown car, Falke picked up the Koopa prince and drove her knee into his stomach, throwing him away and firing another bolt of psycho power from her baton into his downed form while he was trying to get back up, forcing him away from her again. Falke approached Bowser Jr. and charged another blast of psycho energy, preparing to take out one half of the nuisances before the other one could rush to his aid…

*SLAM!*

All of a sudden, Falke was hit in the side of the head with a bat of ice that shattered on impact, knocking her down and making her shoot another bolt of psycho power into the air wildly. Kula quickly skated over to Bowser Jr. and helped him up.

"This lady's dangerous! That psycho power isn't as powerful as it is with Bison but the fact that she has it at all makes her a threat!" Kula urged.

"Ugh. Papa told me that psycho power stuff was hard to deal with when he fought Bison himself a while back. It definitely hurts…" Bowser Jr. muttered. "We may need to pull out all the stops. You picked up two of those Power Stone thingies, right?"

"Yeah! I've still got them!"

Bowser Jr. pulled a Power Stone into view. "Take this and power up! I'll use my Final Smash on her!" He urged. "We can take her together if we're both powered up!"

Kula grinned. "Oh, this is gonna be fun!" She said as she took the Power Stone. As Kula was engulfed in a bright light, Bowser Jr. dug his single-use Smash Ball out from his clown car and smashed it with a hammer…

Falke pushed herself up, grunting in annoyance. "Ugh…I thought I had more time than that…" She muttered as she turned, only to freeze as she looked at what the two kids had turned into with their new forms. She saw that Bowser Jr. had shapeshifted into a watery version of Mario himself, armed with a magic paintbrush, but she had anticipated that due to it being his Final Smash. Kula's however, was an entirely-different story…

Kula was now a being of rock-solid ice, standing at least twelve feet tall with huge, thick arms and legs made of pillars of ice shaped like huge icebergs. One could barely even see Kula's regular body anymore in the middle of the huge limbs; it was just her upper torso sticking out of another huge mass of ice. Kula's eyes glowed a bright blue as her hair, though still flowing freely, seemed to sparkle like ice. In this new form, Kula had become a literal titan of ice that stood as tall as Tinker Knight's mech when it was still in the ring.

Falke's eyes widened as she cursed out loud and stepped back as Kula looked over her new club-like hands. "Awww…I was kinda hoping I'd get a pretty dress like Elsa…" She lamented in an airy, echoy voice.

Bowser Jr., in his Shadow Mario form, seemed to be looking over Kula's new form in awe. "Are you KIDDING?! That looks AWESOME!" Bowser Jr.'s voice came from somewhere in the watery Mario clone body. "Come on! We can totally whoop that lady now!"

Kula nodded as her massive new form followed Bowser Jr.'s more-swift form to continue fighting Falke. The Neo-Shadaloo member held her ground defiantly as she charged her baton with more psycho power and jumped back as Bowser Jr. swung his paintbrush at her, nearly splashing her with magic ink. Falke swung her baton and clashed against Bowser Jr.'s paintbrush a couple of times but leapt backwards when she saw Kula's massive ice titan form swinging a huge arm down at her, attempting to crush her while she was dealing with the watery Mario clone.

What followed was Falke making every attempt that she could to avoid getting hit by either of the two's new attacks. Bowser Jr. was faster with his paintbrush swipes and Falke new better than to let herself get hit by any unknown substance that the paintbrush generated would do her no good, but he was quick and seemed to come at Falke from every angle with another paintbrush attack. Bowser Jr.'s flurries of attacks made it hard for Falke to keep at bay and trying to find an opening for her to get an attack in was hard enough without having to worry about getting hit herself.

And that said nothing of Kula's new huge form that took every chance she got to swing her huge, club-like arms at Falke every opening that the Neo-Shadaloo member thought she had. Bowser Jr. would swing a paintbrush at Falke a few times and then back away for Kula to take a swing herself. More often than not Falke was too busy trying to deal with one of the two that she completely overlooked the other, leaving her open to attack.

Falke tried to hold up as best as she could but found herself open for too long when, after knocking Bowser Jr. backwards with a hard, well-placed kick to the face, Falke turned to Kula only to see the huge ice titan exhaling a cold wind onto her. Falke backed up slightly as the cold enveloped her, leaving her a frozen statue of ice when the cold wind died down (aka when Kula stopped exhaling in Falke's direction).

Bowser Jr.'s Final Smash finally ended as he returned to his normal form and laughed as he approached Falke's frozen body. "That was so COOL!" He cackled. "Boy, if you found a way to unlock that form without needing those stones then we'd be unstoppable!"

Kula, noticing that she was still in her ice titan form, looked over her huge arms again. "I still don't think I like this form…" She mentioned.

"Aw, don't worry about it! You'd get used to morphing into huge, superpowered abominations! My dad does it all the time!"

Kula glanced over the frozen Falke. "So…How do we decide who eliminates her?" She asked out loud.

Bowser Jr. scratched his head. "Do you have a coin we can flip?" He asked.

"If I had a coin I would have bought ice cream. There's a reason Foxy and Diana don't let me carry spare change any more…"

Before Bowser Jr. could respond, a new figure flew in from out of view and crashed into Falke's frozen body, shattering the layer of ice around Falke and releasing the Neo-Shadaloo member, knocking her very out-of-it form flat on her back. Bowser Jr. and Kula jumped in surprised as they watched Lord Hater pushing himself to his feet, having been thrown into the fray while he and Mimikyu were trying to deal with the Koopa Troopa.

"Ugh…How many different shells does that thing HAVE?" Lord Hater moaned as he suddenly spotted Bowser Jr. Growning in anger, Lord Hater rushed over and grabbed Bowser Jr. by the back of his shell and held him in the air. "YOU! How the blazes have you not CONQUERED anything by now if your forces are as strong as HIM?!" He demanded, guesturing to where Bowser Jr. and Kula saw the Koopa tussling with Mimikyu.

Bowser Jr. blinked in confusion. "Uh…Are you seriously having trouble with a normal KOOPA?" He asked.

"That thing is NOT normal! He's been hitting us with new forms and different shells and…And weapons, and…A-And..." Lord Hater yelled. He trailed off when he, Bowser Jr. and Kula suddenly became aware of the sounds of what sounded like a helicopter floating overhead. As Bowser Jr. and Kula looked around in confusion, Lord Hater groaned in exasperation and looked up. "Get back down here, you idiot! You're not ACTUALLY a helicopter!"

The helicopter noises suddenly stopped.

*CRASH!*

You hear that? That was the sound of a suddenly-realizing-he's-not-actually-a-helicopter Petey Piranha falling out of the sky and landing directly on top of Kula's huge ice form, crushing her underneath his weight. Petey sat up, looked around dumbly for a few seconds and slowly got up, seemingly forgetting that he had spent half the section defying physics and pretending to be a helicopter just because he was told he was one.

As Petey got up, Bowser Jr. caught a glimpse of Kula laying flat on the canvas, out cold from being crushed under Petey's weight and now back in her normal form. Petey seemed to take notice of Kula, picked her up and dropped her over the top rope, sending her prone form falling down into an elimination portal. "H-Hey! That was so cheap!" Bowser Jr. complained.

Lord Hater rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, I'm starting to have second thought about bringing him into my ranks as well." He admitted as he chucked the flailing Bowser Jr. over the ropes as well before turning to Petey. "Now can we PLEASE get back to fighting the Koopa?" He asked. Petey nodded dumbly as he followed Lord Hater, the former leading him back into the fight Mimikyu was still having with the Koopa Troopa.

Falke, laying flat on her back, groaned as she slowly regained consciousness. "Ugh…W-What happened there?" She asked aloud as she pushed herself up.

Unbeknownst to Falke, as she was pushing herself up, Crash Bandicoot slipped into view behind her. Crash glanced to the side and wiggled his eyebrows with a cheeky grin a few times before grabbing Falke by the legs.

Before Falke could register what had happened, Crash had slammed her into the canvas by pulling her down and then hurled her out of the arena. Crash glanced to the side again, gave a wave and moonwalked away.

Falke landed in Battletanx. Unfortunately for her, Bowser Jr. had landed there ahead of her, had already commandeered a tank and was looking mad.

Simon Belmont lashed out with his whip, aiming for Dawson McShane's neck. The cowboy raised his arm and allowing Simon's whip to wrap around his forearm before pulling back with all his might, yanking Simon towards him and leaving the vampire slayer open to a hard right hook to the face.

As Simon staggered backwards, Dawson swung his head and struck Simon in the face again, this time with the spurs tied into his ponytail. Simon retracted his whip and staggered backwards, holding his face for a second, before turning to Dawson and narrowing his eyes, watching as the cowboy got into another stance and gave a cocky smirk.

"You're quick, cowboy. But my resolve is stronger!" Simon challenged.

"Hey, just 'cause you fight vampires for a living doesn't mean you have it rougher." Dawson smirked. "Need I remind you that everyone where I come from is constantly fighting for a second chance at life?"

Simon stared as he drew his boomerang cross. "That may be. Perhaps I need a new strategy against you, then…" He mentioned.

Simon hurled his cross at Dawson, whom leaned to the side and let it sail past. He wasn't expecting the cross to be a boomerang, however, as he felt the cross slam into his back on its return trip to Simon's hand. With Dawson stunned, Simon rushed forward and slammed his fists and knees into the cowboy's body multiple times. Delivering a powerful rising uppercut to Dawson's chin at the end of the combo, Simon launched the cowboy backwards and sent him falling flat on his back.

While Dawson was down, Simon drew his whip and lashed it out, wrapping the whip around Dawson's leg while he was pushing himself up. Pulling with all his might, Simon yanked Dawson into the air with his whip and slammed him onto the canvas a couple of times. As Simon was preparing to swing him into the canvas again, however, Dawson instinctively drew his shotgun and fired blindly, causing Simon to back away in surprise as he instinctively tried to dodge the shot fired at him. This caused his whip to let go of Dawson's leg as the cowboy dropped onto his feet again, uprighting himself before he hit the canvas.

Reloading his shotgun again, Dawson took aim at Simon and opened fire again, this time aiming it for his opponent instead of just firing blindly. Simon acted quickly and threw a bottle of holy water at the canvas near his feet, creating a pillar of fire that melted Dawson's bullets as they passed through the flames with the intense heat. As the flames died down again, Simon threw his boomerang cross again, causing it to cut through the remaining flames and strike the surprised Dawson in the chest, making him stagger backwards as the cross returned to Simon.

Simon again lashed out with his whip, sending the spiked ball at the end of the whip flying at Dawson's face. The cowboy received a sharp blow to the face, leaving him open for a diving kick from Simon and allowing the vampire hunter to get up close with him again. However, as Simon lashed out with his fists again to start another combo, Dawson managed to hold up his arms and block the blows. Carefully waiting for an opening in the attacks, Dawson lashed out with his knee, managing to catch Simon in the torso and making him stagger backwards, leaving him open for Dawson to rush forward and give the vampire hunter a flurry of punches of his own, striking with surprising power and force with each blow. Dawson finished the combo with a hard standing kick and knocked him onto his back.

Dawson smirked as he stood over Simon. "Looks like I'm a bit faster on my feet that the zombies and skeletons you usually tussle with, eh?" He chuckled as he drew his pistol and loaded a couple more bullets into it. "I'm kinda runnin' out of non-silver bullets but I think I may have eliminated the only werewolf in the contest anyways so I guess I came overprepared."

Simon pushed himself up, caught an attempted punch from Dawson and countered, knocking the cowboy back on his feet. Simon fished a new item from his pocket as Dawson was recovering, showing off his single-use Smash Ball. Crushing it in his hand, Simon engulfed himself in a glowing aura. "I won't make the same mistake of continuously underestimating you, my friend!" He called out. "I see now that I need to pull out all the stops for this!"

Dawson cursed. "Crap! I forgot about those!" He muttered, having realized that he had focused on the Power Stones in dealing with Mordex in the previous section and had forgotten about the existence of the Final Smashes for dealing with the Smash roster.

Simon was off like a shot, rushing Dawson and getting up close again. Dawson was instantly on the defensive and made an attempt to roll to the side to avoid whatever Simon was going to lash out but it seemed that Simon was anticipating this. As Dawson rolled to the side, everything seemed to go in slow motion as Simon lashed out with his whip, striking the retreating cowboy in the leg.

That seemed to be enough for Simon to trigger his Final Smash. Rushing in close again, Simon attacked Dawson and summoned a coffin several feet behind the cowboy. With one hard attack, Simon knocked Dawson into the coffin, which slammed shut the instant the cowboy had been thrown into it. Simon followed up by lashing out with his whip, wrapping the chain around the coffin several times as he yanked it close and tossed the coffin containing Dawson into the air.

As the coffin holding Dawson was passing by over his head, Simon leapt into the air and engulfed himself with a holy light that erupted into a huge, towering pillar that shot straight into the forcefield around the arena. The pillar of holy light engulfed the coffin containing Dawson as the audience erupted in cheers for the spectacle. The power of the light shattered the coffin around Dawson , overwhelming the cowboy with holy light that seemed to be naturally emanating from Simon's body as the pillar of light sent him skyward, surrounded in broken splinters, the only remnants of the coffin that he had literally just been trapped in.

As the pillar of light died down after only a few seconds, Dawson tumbled clear out of the arena, too far out to do anything to try and get himself back in as he fell helplessly down into an elimination portal. The audience's cheers at Simon's performance continued for several seconds after the light had died down.

Landing gracefully on his feet, Simon exhaled in relief as he adjusted his bracers and made sure his whip was still attached to his belt. "I didn't think I'd have to use my Final Smash but maybe I gave him too little credit at the start…" He muttered to himself. Maybe he'd have to look up Dawson later and see if that half-vampire from his node fought like an actual vampire…

All of a sudden, something flew into Simon's back from behind, knocking the vampire hunter down. Simon found himself underneath another competitor and pushed himself up, forcing the offender off of him with his superior strength. He quickly turned around. "What is the meaning of this?! You attack someone from behind like that?!" He said before realizing who he was shouting at.

"Like, sorry about that, man! That wrestler guy, like, totally hits harder than it looks!" Shaggy said nervously, backing away from Simon. "Please don't crush me with those bulging biceps of yours, dude!"

Simon narrowed his eyes. "Hmph. It seems like you need a little lesson in manners." He said as he drew his whip again. "I may not like raising a weapon against an unarmed youth but perhaps this will get you to wisen up."

Shaggy backed up a little more, waving his hands in front of his face. "L-Like, don't make me do this, man!" He half-pleaded.

"Do what?" Simon asked flatly.

*POW!*

Shaggy's fist found the bottom of Simon's chin, lifting both into the air. Everything seemed to go in slow-motion for Simon again as he continued to feel the power of Shaggy's fist slamming into his chin, sending what felt like waves of untapped power flowing through the punch as the vampire hunter was launched into the air. As Shaggy finally pulled his fist away from Simon's chin, the vampire hunter rocketed out of the ring as well, reeling from the force of the uppercut.

Shaggy landed on his feet and sighed as he brushed his shirt off. "Like, I told him I didn't wanna do it." He lamented.

"Yo, Shaggy!"

Shaggy turned and saw Matt struggling to get out of a headlock from Antonov. "A little help here?" Matt asked, looking more-annoyed than anything.

"O-Oh! Sorry, Matt!" Shaggy said as he jogged over to continue fighting Antonov.

Simon materialized in the Multiversal Matchup void, floating in space surrounded by the others that had already been there. Kula had arrived as well and seemed to be pouting that her run had ended the way it did (or maybe she was still upset that her Power Stone form didn't give her a pretty dress). Toxtricity was still playing his invisible guitar and Ember was polishing one of her katars, likely preparing for whenever the section ended. The Duck Hunt duo had, by this point, curled up and had fallen asleep, despite still floating endlessly in the void.

"Well, look who it is."

Simon turned and spotted Dawson floating nearby. He couldn't help but give a chuckle. "Doesn't look like you lasted long after givin' me the boot, huh?" He asked.

Simon sighed and rubbed his jaw. "Why did that single punch have that much power behind it?" He asked. "How could a human youth be that strong?"

(Dome; Smash Bros. Locker Room)

Richter slapped his forehead. "Seriously, why did he think raising his weapon at Shaggy would be a good idea?" He asked aloud flatly. "How did he not know about his power levels?! Facing Shaggy is on another level from Dracula!"

Lucina blinked. "How are you the bigger memer of the two of you?" She asked.

(Multiversal Matchup)

The quintet of Byleth, Lin Fei, Proto Man, Sagat and Steve stared up at the very-vertical obstacle course in front of them, surrounded by the remaining Fall Guys. The obstacle course, with multiple levels leading up to a finish line at the top, could only be described as a skyscraper of padding, platforms, spinning barriers, swinging mallets and coated from top to bottom in slime that, by this point, everyone left knew would be extremely-slippery on any surface.

"…What the heck is THIS?" Byleth asked flatly.

"Looks a bit like a…Skyscraper of slime…" Proto Man mused. "I guess a…Slime-Scraper, then?"

"If I was where I was about ten years ago I probably would have killed you for that pun." Sagat said flatly.

Proto Man's eyes widened behind his shades. "Augh! I didn't even mean that!" He moaned. "I've been hanging out with Auto too much…"

"How many more rounds of this can there possibly be?" Lin Fei asked. "There are still five of us left."

Sagat sighed. "I don't know but these senseless competitions are starting to get irksome." He mentioned. "Scrambling for a tail was humiliating enough."

The round started as the remaining, dwindling group set off, starting their trek up the long, tall obstacle course. Steve jogged ahead with several of the Fall Guys, saw the beans jumping at the lower walls and climbing themselves up and realized that he could utilize some shortcuts by climbing himself.

Sagat watched Steve scrambling up a wall and pulling himself up and noticed that all he was skipping was a couple of second by bypassing the first corner at the top of the first ramp. "Why are they going through that trouble to shave a few seconds?" He asked aloud as he ran up the ramp the normal way. "It seems pointless."

As Lin Fei rounded the corner at the top of the ramp and started following the group as she made her way towards the first obstacle. She glanced downwards and suddenly saw that the pool of familiar-looking slime underneath the obstacle course starting to rise up, having already covered the starting area at the bottom of the course.

"It's that slime again!" Lin Fei cursed. "It's rising this time!"

"Why does that slime keep following us?! How many games has that stuff been in now?!" Proto Man said.

As the group of Fall Guys (and Steve) scrambled across the first obstacle, a group of disappearing platforms, the rest of the survivors started falling to the back of the pack as they realized that they needed to time their jumps. As Steve threw himself across the platforms with reckless abandon (like he does), the others started to fall behind.

Lin Fei looked down at the platforms as she made her way across. Several of the Fall Guys awkwardly tumbled between platforms or through the air just as a platform disappeared as they tumbled down into the slime, vanishing on impact and eliminating themselves from the game. Seeing that the slime was raising at an alarming rate, Lin Fei realized that everyone needed to pick up the pace and that they couldn't really afford to be careful anymore; they'd just run the risk of letting the rising slime catch up to them.

Reaching the end of the disappearing platforms, Lin Fei saw that the next obstacle was a constantly-running treadmill. "Ugh…Another treadmill. Why does it seem they are as numerous here as those giant hammers are?" She asked aloud as she carefully leapt over to the treadmill and started running so she didn't get tripped up.

Proto Man landed on the treadmill just behind her and started running, managing to keep the pace with little issue due to not having to worry about stamina running out (due to being a robot and all). "That slime is still rising!" He called out. "Is it going to chase us all the way up the course?!"

"I'd say to count on it." Lin Fei. "I also think that the beans things are onto something with taking quicker routes up the course. It allows them to make mistakes at the more-difficult parts of the course and still stay ahead of the slime…"

Proto Man glanced around as he ran. "So how do we do that ourselves? I don't see a lot of ways for us to get to higher ground without going through most of the obstacle anyways." He mentioned.

"I think I can see a way. We just need to-"

"Hey-ooooooo!"

Steve suddenly fell down from the next level up, having been knocked off by an obstacle and landing on the conveyor belt just in front of Lin Fei. Normally, Lin Fei was agile enough to leap over an obstacle like that but because Steve had just fallen down from out of nowhere and directly in front of her he had caught her by surprise, causing her to trip over Steve's prone form and landing flat on her face herself.

Steve quickly realized that he had fallen down to the next level and jumped to his feet to scramble down the conveyor belt a second time as Lin Fei tried to get herself to her feet. Unfortunately, due to being on a conveyor belt, it didn't take long for Lin Fei to be dumped off the edge before she could get to her feet as the martial artist was send tumbling down into the still-rising slime.

Proto Man cursed as he watched Steve catch up to him on the conveyor belt. "Are you just NATURALLY this clumsy or are you doing this on purpose?" He asked flatly.

"Heyo?" Steve asked curiously.

Proto Man sighed as he decided to ignore Steve. "Just don't point your rocket launcher at me." He lamented. "I dealt with that thing enough in the ring."

Steve shrugged as he continued jogging down the conveyor belt for the second time, watching as a couple more of the Fall Guys fell into the slime after bouncing off the conveyor belt themselves. Looking ahead, Steve saw another conveyor belt set up a few feet away from the one he and Proto Man were currently riding on. The racers would need to jump the gap between conveyor belts and land on the second one, not stopping their running the entire time.

Getting ahead of Proto Man, Steve jogged up to the end of the conveyor belt and leapt off the edge, hoping that his timing was right because the slime was at the point where he didn't have another chance at making it. Steve flew through the air, making it about halfway between the two conveyor belts…

…And then a section of the wall pushed out and knocked Steve out of the air.

"H-Hey-ooo-" Steve sputtered as he fell headlong into the slime, getting cut off as he made impact with it.

Proto Man cursed again, though secretly thankful that Steve had just shown him that he needed to watch his surroundings; he just needed to hope that, by the time he reached the end of the conveyor belt himself, his timing would be better and he'd avoid the timed wall trap…

Further up the obstacle course, Sagat was trying to push himself through openings on multiple spinning walls, each one set up on a turntable moving in the opposite direction. Sagat took pride in his size and height but in cases like this he felt like it was more of a detriment. He saw a couple of Fall Guys ahead of him but he was managing to stay ahead of the rest of the pack for now. He just had a couple more levels to go and he would make it to the top of the obstacle course.

"Hmph. I've gained a bit of ground on the crowd." Sagat noted. "They must be having trouble with the obstacles further down…"

All of a sudden, Sagat heard a familiar sound of a chain unfurling. Looking up, Sagat saw Byleth flying over head, using her chain-linked sword to skip the obstacle holding him up entirely. Sagat narrowed his good eye and fired a Tiger Shot into the air, striking Byleth while she was in midair and bringing her out of her level-skipping mode, causing her to crash down on the ground just ahead of him at the end of the current obstacle.

Byleth groaned as she pushed herself up and drew her sword, retracting it back into a regular sword shape again. "What was that for?!" She demanded.

"You're just blatantly cheating with those tools of yours! You need to run the course like the rest of us!" Sagat accused.

"Hey, I'm using the tools I was given!" Byleth insisted. "It's a lesson I teach my students all the time!"

Sagat narrowed his good eye. "Fine. If you insist on using those trinkets of yours then I'll just show you how useless they can be." He said. "I'll beat you to the top with nothing but my natural power!"

"Oh, NOW you're interested in the game?" Byleth smirked.

Sagat didn't respond and leapt over Byleth, lunging forward in an attempt to give himself more range on her. By the time Byleth saw what Sagat had done he was already reaching the next corner and climbing to the next floor up. As Sagat did, one of the couple Fall Guys that was still ahead of Sagat had fallen down, bounced off the platform he had climbed up to and off into the slime.

Drawing her sword, Byleth aimed up at the next level and lashed out, extending her sword and causing it to latch onto a platform to draw herself up to it. By the time Byleth had reached the next level, she realized that she was about to reach the exact same spot on the next level that Sagat was at the same time. Swinging her leg, Byleth caught Sagat in the face with a kick and stunned him, knocking him down as she pulled herself up to the next level.

Byleth pulled her sword back and looked around for another surface to hookshot herself to. All of a sudden, Byleth noticed that she was standing on a track of three lines, each one adorned by a bat that was rapidly moving up or down the line. Seeing that she was standing in the path of one of the bats, Byleth tried to move to the side and found that the entire floor of this level was covered in low-traction slime. Byleth barely managed to get out of the way before the bat hit her as it continued down the path it was on, sailing towards Sagat.

Pushing himself up, Sagat stared ahead and held out his hands, opting to catch the bat rather than try to get out of the way. As Sagat caught the rubber obstacle, he snapped the bat off at the base using his hands, looking more annoyed at the obstacle than anything. Byleth suddenly realized that Sagat was more-than-capable of completing this course using nothing but his muscle as she quickly turned in place and prepared to extend her sword again.

"You won't get that chance again!" Sagat shouted as he lashed out another Tiger Shot, slamming it into Byleth's back.

As Byleth staggered forward, stunned from the projectile, Sagat lunged forward, intending to fly by her again while she was distracted. Byleth seemed to snap to attention as she spun in place and prepared to swing her sword, intending to aim a swing at Sagat's torso. However, in turning around, she ended up slipping on the slime under her feet, causing her to lose her balance and topple over to the side of the course in a bout of lost balance. Byleth landed face first on a panel just off the track.

*BOING!*

Sagat briefly paused as he watched Byleth sail over his head, being launched by a hidden springboard under the panel she had just inadvertently activated. Byleth tried to extend her sword to pull her back onto the course again but by this point the slim had risen too high and she fell headlong into the liquid.

Sagat saw that he was unchallenged and moved further up the course, realizing that he was closest to the end now. Reaching the final turn and climbing up to the final level, Sagat looked ahead and saw a single Fall Guy making an attempt to leap over another gap, only to be hit midair by a flying obstacle, falling into the gap and tumbling down into the slime. This left the roar clear for Sagat to continue up unhindered. All it would need was a couple more jumps across moving treadmills, avoiding a couple more swinging pendulum obstacles and one last climb up what looked to be a slime-coated pinball table to the finish line.

All of a sudden, Sagat heard the noises of someone approaching from behind. Turning in place and expecting one of the surviving Fall Guys, Sagat paused when he saw Proto Man making his way up the previous level, using his shield to defend himself against the force of the rubber bats that would have otherwise knocked him down.

Sagat looked around. "Are we the only two left?" He mentioned. "I don't think I've seen you since this round started."

Proto Man narrowed his eyes behind his shades. "Look, this matchup has been a little hectic for the both of us." He replied. "How about we just finish this round and hope that we can focus on the next one without having to worry about a sea of instant-elimination slime?"

Sagat paused, glanced over his shoulder at the finish line that still hadn't been crossed yet for a few seconds, and then back at Proto Man. "This annoying matchup has gone on long enough. I say it stops here." He said sternly.

"You can't be serious." Proto Man sighed. "That slime is still rising! It'll take both of us out at once!"

"Not necessarily. I'm still higher up the course than you are." Sagat replied casually as a light smirk floated across his face.

Proto Man paused, realizing that, if he didn't make a move, Sagat was indeed higher up the course and would be sure to still be on dry land when the slime caught up to Proto Man. Gripping his shield, Proto Man narrowed his eyes as he stared up at Sagat, who got into a stance. The two knew that they likely only had a few seconds to spare with the still-rising slime but all they needed was for the other to touch the slime first in order to win the matchup and they seemed to be aware of that.

Proto Man acted first, racing at Sagat and arming his Proto Buster. Sagat fired a couple of quick Tiger Shots at the oncoming robot, only to watch as Proto Man's nearly-indestructible shield blocked the shots easily, allowing the robot to continue running at him unhindered. Sagat held up his arms to block a few shots from Proto Man's arm cannon and held his ground as the robot rushed closer.

Lunging at Sagat, Proto Man held out his shield to block any attempted attack as he made the attempt to run past the tall human. However, it seemed that this was what Sagat was anticipating as he quickly lashed out with a Tiger Uppercut, striking Proto Man in the air and launching him up. Before Proto Man could get too far away from him, Sagat grabbed Proto Man by the ankle and slammed him into the ground.

"I tire of this challenge. This ridiculous world has been causing me no end of headaches since we arrived and I just want this to end." Sagat said simply as he stood over Proto Man's form. "Now stay down and just let the challenge end. We've both let this drag on long enough."

Proto Man grunted as he rolled onto his back, seeing Sagat standing over him. He narrowed his eyes up at Sagat. "You…You know something my annoying little brother and I have in common?" He asked out loud before gripping his shield.

Sagat looked down at his fallen opponent.

"We don't know when to QUIT!"

*WHAM!*

Proto Man's shield bounced off Sagat's forehead, causing the large fighter to stagger backwards. As Sagat was distracted, Proto Man jumped to his feet, grabbing his shield as it flew back into his hand, and then kicked Sagat in the chest, making him stagger even further backwards.

Holding his head, Sagat tumbled backwards, realizing all too late that he was approaching the edge of the platform he had been standing on. Briefly looking back as he started falling backwards, Sagat barely had time to shout in surprise or shock as he toppled off the platform and into the slime below.

Proto Man watched Sagat vanish into the slime and sighed in relief, putting his shield back into position on his back again. "That was the strangest competition I think I've ever done…" He muttered.

"Looks like that's it, everyone! We've got a winner!"

Proto Man looked over his shoulder and saw SSBFreak's hologram materialize nearby. "Well, this round turned out to be about as chaotic as I was expecting it to do, even with the unconventional means to complete the courses that some of the contestants had. All I can do is hope that the Fall Guys don't get any ideas from that or else this game could just become Pay 2 Win with all the blatant skill abuse I just witnessed." He admitted, rubbing the back of his head. "Nevertheless, all but one of the competitors has fallen into the void of elimination and we have ourselves a winner: Proto Man!"

Proto Man sighed in relief. "I'm not used to this kind of insanity." He mentioned. "I think I was saved a few times solely because of my shield."

"Hey, you gotta use what you've got in these things, Proto Man." SSBFreak shrugged. "It helped you outlast seven other players, after all."

"AND all of the residents of this world as well, I suppose." Proto Man admitted.

"Wooooooo!"

A long Fall Guy suddenly flew past Proto Man, continuing his way up the course towards the finish line. Proto Man froze, watching the Fall Guy go up towards the finish line, only then realizing that the game hadn't actually stopped when Sagat went into the slime. Before Proto Man could register what had happened, the slime had caught up with him. Proto Man vanished the instant the slime touched his feet, leaving SSBFreak's hologram floating in silence, clearly not expecting what had just happened either.

"…Oh, right. I forgot that there was a game still going on." SSBFreak admitted. "Um…I guess he DIDN'T outlast all of the residents of this world after all…" He looked around awkwardly for a bit. "He's…Not going to be in a good mood when he respawns in the Recovery Room…"

(Dome; Hallway)

"Look, all we know is that apparently this whole thing is involving Ganondorf in some way and it seems he's recruiting people to help him." Choi admitted. "That's what I got out of Juri and Luca Blight when I was listening in on them."

"Well, that'd explain those two bad guys we tussled with earlier, eh?" Bear Hugger turned to Blizzard Man.

"They, they were definitely up to somethin'." Blizzard Man nodded. "And one of 'em was even that Ghirahim guy, eh? He works with Ganondorf, don't he?"

"That's what I've been trying to tell you two!" Jigglypuff snapped indignantly. "He even got those lizards on his side!"

"AND he probably recruited K. Rool and a couple of his lackeys." Bear Hugger added. "We walked in on them beatin' up these two Pokemon-thingies."

"Yeah, and they were definitely looking to go somewhere suspicious, eh?" Blizzard Man agreed. "Yeah, I totally wouldn't be surprised if this Ganondorf guy got them on his side, either."

Jigglypuff stared flatly. "I'm going to kill them." She said.

"Jiggs, NO." Machamp said sternly.

"They're just repeating what I say!"

"You and I BOTH know they can't understand either of us."

To everyone else, Jigglypuff and Machamp's talking was just Pokemon-speak, so Lola Pop folded her arms and nodded as well. "I got attacked in the restaurant by that weirdo Zant guy." She added. "He also works for Ganondorf, I believe."

"Was he recruiting anyone else?" Bear Hugger asked.

Lola Pop paused. "Uh…No. He just…Lashed out at me and tried to stab me while I was ordering food." She admitted. "I didn't see anyone else with him."

"Huh…That's kinda weird."

Choi was silent for a few seconds. "So what do we do? Clearly Ganondorf is up to something and…Well, just from the sound of things he's recruiting a lot of dangerous people." He mentioned. "Juri? Urien? Luca freaking BLIGHT?"

"You think we're outta our depth?" Blizzard Man asked.

"Look at us! There's only six of us! For all we know Ganondorf could be amassing an army!"

The six stood in silence for a moment, looking around at each other and wondering who should speak first to offer their opinion. "Well, things usually happen at these tournaments, don't they?" Bear Hugger asked. "Shouldn't we be focusing on learning more about what may be going on and doing some recruiting of our own?"

"The first stop would usually be the Eliminated Seating but it's still early enough on in the tournament and not as many people will be there yet." Choi admitted. "And I don't know how much more we're going to learn now that they know that people are onto them in the first place."

"Speaking from experience?" Lola Pop smirked.

"Hey, I'm just saying that I've participated in these tournaments more than anyone else here." Choi informed. "Not everyone automatically goes to the Eliminated Seating right after respawning in the Recovery Room."

"So what do we do, eh?" Blizzard Man asked. "Just kinda…Wander around and get into fights with bad guys?"

Lola Pop shrugged. "I've already gotten into two fights. What's a few more?" She mentioned.

Machamp smirked. "I like her already." She mused to herself.

"That ain't the way to go about this, missy." Bear Hugger scolded. "That's just a sure-fire way to getting us picked off."

"So what DO we do? The only lead we have to go on is that Ganondorf is involved with SOMETHING and it's something that involves a lot of recruiting." Lola Pop asked. "It seems like the Eliminated Seating is still the best way to go for now to at least get a few more allies. At the very least it'll get us a few more sets of hands."

"That may be but we may be a little suspicious if we set foot up there. None of us have entered the arena yet and you ain't even a fighter tonight."

Choi sighed. "It's probably as good a plan as ever, though." He admitted. "We should head over there and-"

"Uh…Is this thingy on?" A voice asked through a nearby intercom, one that was probably blaring throughout the dome and hotel. "Could the…Walking Canadian stereotype please report to the Ready-Room-thingy and get ready to enter in the next section? We noticed you still haven't clocked in yet."

Everyone turned to Bear Hugger and Blizzard Man. The two glanced at each other for a few seconds, then looked back up at the intercom. "Which one?" The two asked as one.

"Khall, you idiot! You need to be more-specific!" SSBFreak's voiced scolded in the background through the intercom.

"More-specific? You mean there's more than ONE walking Canadian stereotype in this competition thing?" Khall's voice asked. "Uh…Okay, then. The…Real hairy human guy that likes to hug bears?"

"His name is Bear Hugger!"

"There is NO way that is his real name. Who the heck names their kid 'Bear Hugger'?" Khall's voice asked. "That's like naming your kid 'Bald Bull' or 'Pizza Pasta'."

Bear Hugger blinked as the sounds of SSBFreak's head hitting his desk several times echoed through the intercom. "Huh. We musta been wandering the dome longer than we thought." He mentioned. "I didn't realize it was already coming up to Section Six."

"Wait, this is good! You can see if you can do some scouting in the ring!" Choi interjected. "It'll give us a head start and warn other people about what's going on!"

"Uh…Sure. I guess I can do that, eh." Bear Hugger shrugged. "The bunch of us could when we enter the arena…Well, I guess except maybe for the Pokemon."

Jigglypuff stood in silence, her eye twitching. Everyone else seemed to ignore her for now.

"Remember to keep your eyes peeled for anyone who you think we could use on our side." Choi reminded. "I…Really don't think we can be picky at this point. If they are willing to listen and chip in, I say fill them in."

"Sounds like a plan. Hopefully we can get a few allies outta this." Bear Hugger nodded. "You head on over to the Eliminated Seating and start recruiting, then. I guess I'll either meet up with you all in the ring or after I'm out."

The others seemed to come to an agreement, wishing Bear Hugger luck as he wandered off down the hallway to get ready to enter the arena. The others went off in another direction, hoping to track down the Eliminated Seating and get in without being spotted by the security team, hoping that they were busy dealing with something else when they arrived.

(The Arena)

Lord Hater fired several magic lightning bolts at the Koopa Troopa, hoping to get lucky and land a hit. The Koopa's small frame and agile nature was making him as annoying to hit as Wander would tend to be and the times Lord Hater DID manage to land a hit the Koopa had turned his back and the lightning had struck his protective shell instead.

Needless to say, this was making Lord Hater angrier every time his shots failed to land a hit. "Can one of you two hold him down while I build up some energy?!" He demanded.

Mimikyu suddenly made his presence known by lunging into view and grabbing hold of the Koopa with a shadowy hand. Mimikyu quickly turned in place and hurled the Koopa backwards, sending him flying straight into Petey Piranha's always-open mouth. Petey was knocked backwards from the force of the Koopa flying down his gullet and was knocked backwards on his feet, screeching to a halt. Petey stood in silence for a second before groaning and holding his stomach.

Lord Hater blinked. "Uh…That works, I guess?" He mentioned.

All of a sudden, Petey's stomach lunged forward a bit, pulling the huge Piranha Plant ahead a couple of steps, then his back lunged backwards, pulling him back again. Lord Hater and Mimikyu watched as Petey was knocked about from the inside several times, pulling the huge plant in every direction and even into the air a bit. Petey stood in wavering silence after the lunging stopped, looking queasy, as he fell flat on his back.

The force of Petey falling over launched the Koopa out of his mouth. The Koopa was launched into the air and then, while airborne, grew in size by at least five times. Lord Hater screamed as he saw that the now-huge Koopa was overtop of him and scrambled to safety as the giant Koopa came crashing down onto the canvas.

"Now you can grow in size?!" He demanded. "When have you ever been able to just do that?!"

The giant Koopa gave a smirk. "Giant Land; Mario Bros. 3." He recounted.

"I-I thought those things were a sub-species and not something you could-"

*POW!"*

Lord Hater was cut off by a huge Koopa fist to the face, sending him rocketing across the arena. The large Koopa looked over his shoulder and saw Mimikyu sitting there, staring up at him curiously for a few seconds before having a pair of shadowy hands emerge from underneath his cloak, appearing ready to take him on alone with Lord Hater across the arena and Petey down for the count.

The Koopa looked over his huge hand. "Ugh. I don't have a lot of time in this form…" he muttered. "I need to make this fast…"

The Koopa lashed out at Mimikyu with a huge fist, striking the canvas as Mikyu wafted around the fist like a paper bag in the wind. While the Koopa was distracted, Mimikyu lashed out with his shadowy hands, wrapping them around the Koopa's forearm and using his strength to lift the much-larger opponent up into the air, slamming him down onto his back and causing the Koopa to revert back into his normal size to be able to slip out of the surprised Mimikyu's grasp.

Seeing the Koopa getting loose, Mimikyu pressed the assault further, making another attempt at a grab as the Koopa slid backwards, narrowly avoiding getting grabbed again. The Koopa took the chance to duck into his shell and spin himself at Mimikyu, striking the Disguise Pokemon in the face (his real face; not the disguise's face) that sent him flying backwards. Mimikyu reached out on instinct, managing to grab hold of the still-prone Petey Piranha as he kept himself from flying too far back. Mimikyu narrowed his eyes at the Koopa and leapt at him, lifting his disguise and preparing to swallow the Koopa into the darkness underneath his cloak.

The Koopa's eyes widened when he saw that his attack didn't send Mimikyu flying backwards as far as he had hoped. Ducking into his shell, the Koopa spun around in circles on the canvas, quickly stirring up what looked to be a tornado that shot into the air and lifted the surprised Mimikyu into the air, again like a bag in the wind. Mimikyu fluttered about in the air, trying to regain his footing to keep himself from floating out of the arena, as the Koopa finally stopped the twister and popped back out of his shell again.

The Koopa looked around as saw Petey slowly pushing himself to his feet. Thinking quickly, the Koopa rushed over to Petey, jumped off his huge head (knocking the huge plant down again, and sprouted wings on the back of his shell, turning his sights towards Mimikyu, whom was still in the air, Mimikyu saw the Koopa flying at him and lashed out with a shadowy hand, hoping to land a hit and deflect the Koopa, but his aim was off due to being disoriented in the air as the shadowy hand flew past the Koopa, whom tilted to the side to avoid the blow.

This left Mimikyu open for the Koopa to fly into, bouncing off and then flying straight into him again. The Koopa proceeded to bounce off Mimikyu several times, knocking the Disguise Pokemon further into the air with each hit, before backing away and lining up another shot with Mimikyu, whom looked to be too disoriented to try and upright himself anymore. Rearing back, the Koopa flew straight at Mimikyu, striking the Disguise Pokemon with a direct hit to the torso that knocked Mimikyu further out of the arena, opting to let Mimikyu fall into an elimination portal when he was too far out to try and get back in.

Mimikyu tried to extend his shadowy hands to grab the arena and pull himself back into the ring but found that he was still too disoriented from being hit so many times in succession and was unable to recover. It took a little longer due to his lighter weight but Mimikyu slowly floated downwards into an elimination portal as the Koopa returned to the ring.

"No! My minion!" Lord Hater wailed from the arena. "Now I'm stuck with just the plant!" Petey smiled dumbly in response.

Mimikyu landed in the doll mansion of Resident Evil 8. Seeing Ethan Winters running around and destroying dolls, Mimikyu decided to do the smart thing, find a corner and sit perfectly still.

Scyther held up his scythe arms in front of his face as a small earring struck them, blowing up like a tiny grenade. Despite blocking, Scyther felt the full force of the explosion and found himself being knocked backwards on his feet, screeching to a halt as he lowered his guard to watch Leona pulling another explosive earring into view, preparing to throw it at him.

Taking to the sky with his wings, Scyther avoided the next earring thrown at him and flew at Leona, swinging an arm at her in an attempt to cut her down. However, Leona swung her arms downward at the same time, timing her swing as a crescent-shaped slash formed in the air around her arms, striking Scyther as he was getting close and knocking him back again.

Leona saw that Scyther still remained in the air and narrowed her eyes. "I need to keep that thing grounded…" She muttered to herself as she jumped into the air, managing to grab hold of Scyther's leg and swinging him down once she had a hold of him, spiking Scyther into the canvas and giving her an opening.

Scyther grunted as he rolled himself over, seeing Leona swinging her arms down at him while she stood over him. Scyther acted quickly again, swinging his own arm that deflected Leona's attempted attack, throwing her off balance and leaving herself open for Scyther to get up and strike her a few times with his blades.

Forcing herself to push through the pain of getting slashed multiple times, Leona lunged forward and struck Scyther with her shoulder, hitting him in the face and knocking him flat on his back. Leona was quick to get on top of Scyther and struck him several times in the face, trying to force herself from leaning too far into her violent side and getting off of him after a few strikes. However, as Scyther was getting up again, Leona started charging up an energy around her fist that slowly looked like it was taking the form of a blade.

Scyther looked at Leona in time to see her lunging at him and plunging her energy-coated fist into his stomach. Leona pulled her fist back as the area she had attacked on Scyther's torso exploded, launching the winged Pokemon into the air. However, Scyther managed to upright himself in midair and spread his wings, keeping himself in the air, as if realizing that staying on the ground wouldn't be a good idea dealing with Leona.

Leona narrowed her eyes. "So you want to play that game?" She asked. "Fine. I guess I'll just need to clip those wings of yours…"

Leona waited for Scyther to fly in close before crouching low and flying past him, striking him in the side as she went by. As Scyther was stunned in midair, Leona zipped back, striking him again on the return trip. The next thing Scyther knew Leona had hit him several times just by jumping past him, attacking him each time, over the course of just a few seconds.

Finishing up her attack, Leona coated her fist in energy again as she rushed at Scyther and slashed, creating what looked like a v-shaped slash in the air with the movement of her hand that cut through Scyther. The winged Pokemon shouted in pain as he was brought out of the sky, landing flat on his back again.

Breathing a few times, Leona made a mental attempt to calm herself and keep herself from going too far lest she accidentally awaken her Orochi powers. Seeing that Scyther was pushing himself to his feet again, Leona grabbed another explosive earring and raced at him, attaching it to his torso as she dashed past him.

Scyther looked down and saw the glowing earring attached to his torso like a sticky bomb and instantly started panicking, fumbling to get the earring detached before Leona detonated it but realized that his lack of actual hands were making it hard to get it detached without accidentally stabbing himself. Knowing he was short on time, Scyther glanced at Leona and rushed her, reaching out with his scythe-hand as he flew closer.

Leona tried backing away but was unable to avoid Scyther as he flew into her, taking the two of them into the air above the arena. Leona's eyes widened as Scyther flew higher, realizing that he was intending on either catching her in the explosion when her earring went off or dropping her like a rock to the canvas below when the bomb went off. "Get off of me!" She shouted as she kicked herself out of Scyther's grip before the two of them got too high.

As Leona fell down towards the canvas, she glanced up at Scyther and prepared to activate the explosive earring before she noticed that the glowing spot on Scyther's torso wasn't there anymore. Quickly realizing that Scyther had somehow passed the bomb back to her when the two of them were close, Leona glanced around to see if she could find the bomb before it went off. She suddenly noticed the glowing orb attached to her side and ripped it off, preparing to throw it.

*KA-BOOM!*

The bomb exploded in Leona's hand, coating her in a cloud of fire that she fell through on her way back down to the canvas. She landed back-first onto the canvas, dazed and disoriented, a victim of her own explosive. As Scyther landed nearby, Leona struggled to push herself up only to realize that the combination of the explosive and the long fall had taken too much out of her and she was not able to get up again.

Leona looked up at Scyther as he approached. He stared at her silently, as if acknowledging her abilities, before lifting the ropes of the arena and pushing the prone Leona underneath them (since picking her up was kind of out of the question with blades for hands). Leona was too weak to make an attempt to try and grab the ropes as Scyther was pushing her under them as she tumbled down into an elimination portal.

Crash Bandicoot received a sharp blow to the head, courtesy of Engineer's wrench, as he staggered back, stars spinning around his head. Engineer quickly grabbed a sentry gun that had been knocked over, uprighted it and hit it a few more times with his wrench in an attempt to upgrade it as quickly as he could.

"Let's see how you like dealing with a couple hundred pounds of pure Texas steel, you orange devil!" Engineer grinned as he continued hitting the top of his sentry.

The stars finally vanished from around Crash's head as he glanced at Engineer. "Buh?" He asked before freezing, seeing that Engineer had upgraded the sentry he was working on. The next thing Crash knew, Engineer was smirking and pointing at him as the sentry gun started firing multiple rounds at him. Crash scrambled to get out of the way as the sentry continued to fire at him, tracking his movement as the bandicoot ran about.

Pulling a Wumpa Fruit from his pants, Crash dashed at the still-firing sentry, leaping over a volley of bullets that it had shot at him before landing directly on top of the sentry. Using the Wumpa Fruit, Crash jammed it into the barrel of the sentry, plugging it up and stopping the bullet fire.

"H-Hey! Stop messin' with my machines, you rodent!" Engineer said as he pulled his shotgun into view again. "You're as bad as Spy!"

Crash jumped into the air as Engineer shot at him, zipping to the side as Engineer tried to tail his and pick him off from a distance. Engineer tried shooting a couple more times but when he was forced to reload his shotgun Crash took the chance to rush at him, grab the barrel of his shotgun and go into a tornado spin, pulling Engineer with him with a surprised yell. Crash spun around wildly for several seconds before stopping his tornado abruptly, sending Engineer straight into the air.

Grinning in anticipating, Crash leapt into the air after Engineer, got above him and performed his body slam, throwing himself directly on top of Engineer while he was in the air and slamming both of them down onto the canvas, knocking the wind out of Engineer as Crash took the time to do his trademark shuffle dance on his downed body.

Grunting in annoyance, Engineer lashed out with his robotic hand while he was on his back, grabbing hold of Crash's leg. Crash froze as he looked down. "Eh?" He asked aloud before Engineer flashed a smirk and activated his metal hand, causing it to spin rapidly without having to move his arms. Crash's expression drooped as he looked to the side just before being yanked off his feet and being forcibly spun into another tornado, this time at Engineer's mercy as the mercenary pushed himself up before slamming the still-spinning Crash into the canvas, letting go of him and causing Crash to spin about like a top on his head for several seconds before finally stopping and skidding to a halt, ending upside-down on his head and shoulders.

"Heh. You're a bit of a smart-aleck even though you don't talk. You know that?" Engineer asked.

Approaching the downed and still upside-down Crash, Engineer pulled his foot back and prepared to kick the bandicoot in the face. Crash quickly sprung to life, pushing himself off his hands and sending him flying feet-first into Engineer's face. As Engineer was knocked backwards, Crash pushed off of the mercenary's face and pulled out his yoyo, throwing it out and bouncing it off Engineer's nose, stunning him a bit more.

Pulling his hand away from his nose, Engineer looked at Crash just in time for him to kick him in the stomach, making him bend over in pain and put his face within range for Crash to give it a solid punch, knocking him back again and causing his hardhat to fly off on impact. Engineer quickly felt his head, as if checking for himself that the hardhat had been removed, just before Crash jumped into the air and bounced off his uncovered head.

"Augh! Stop doing that, you twitchy-" That was all Engineer could get out before Crash performed another belly flop from above, this time directly overtop the mercenary's head, crushing him again underneath Crash's surprising body weight. Engineer tried to swing his wrench to deflect Crash's attack but the bandicoot was too fast and the mercenary found himself at the mercy of Crash's combo.

Feeling like he wanted to step the attacks up a notch, Crash looked around and spotted Engineer's sentry that still had a Wumpa Fruit plugging the barrel. Grinning, Crash spun over to the sentry as Engineer groaned and pushed himself up, looking dazed. He quickly picked up his hardhat as he glanced at Crash, getting ready to continue the fight, only to freeze when he saw that Crash was now holding his sentry above his head, jumping into the air above Engineer and with a grin on his face.

Engineer stood in silence for a second before placing the hardhat on his head.

*CRASH!*

Crash bludgeoned Engineer with his own sentry, breaking the gun apart upon impact and burying the mercenary in a pile of metal and unused bullets. Engineer didn't seem to be getting up from this one and appeared to be finally down for the count. Crash grabbed the prone Engineer by the feet, went into another tornado spin and let go of the mercenary, throwing Engineer clear out of the arena.

Engineer crashed into the world of Minecraft. Within two minutes he had built a convoluted-looking flying machine that ran on redstone and pistons and was flying it across the sky.

Using his chained blades, Kratos slashed one of Sakura's fireballs in half as it flew at his face before yanking the blade back into his hand. Acting quickly, Kratos rushed at Sakura and swung the blades multiple times, striking the young woman several times and finished the combo up with a kick to the chest, knocking Sakura on her back. Sakura rolled backwards on her back as Kratos swung a chained blade down at the canvas and propelled herself to her feet, lunging forward and landing a flying kick to Kratos' face, making him grunt in annoyance as he staggered to the side.

Kratos looked otherwise unharmed and looked more-unamused than anything. "You're quick, girl. I was right to go to you first." He mentioned simply.

"Should I feel flattered?" Sakura half-joked.

Kratos gave a light, but still menacing, smirk. "You provide a good fight; one that I haven't seen since Olympus." He admitted. "The fact that you are a reigning champion in your own right will make victory that much sweeter if I win."

"IF you win?" Sakura asked.

Kratos narrowed his eyes. "I've come to know that anything can happen outside of your home node. Even during my days in the Battle Royale I learned that even a cloth doll or a clown armed with a simple knife could still beat me in a fight." He mentioned. "It's not like back on Olympus where I can go one a one-god rampage against all the deities on the mount."

Sakura couldn't help but give a smirk, though it hid a shaky feeling that she was in a bit over her head. "Well, I hope I'm not going to disappoint you."

Sakura acted first and lashed out with a spinning kick, only for Kratos to suddenly swap weapons and pull out a pair of large gauntlets, which he used to block the blow and catch Sakura by surprise. Kratos lashed out with a gauntlet and struck Sakura in the torso, launching her into the air slightly. While Sakura was in the air, Kratos lashed out with another chained blade, wrapping the chain around Sakura's torso while she was in the air and swinging downwards with all his might, pulling Sakura straight into the canvas.

Kratos pulled his chained blade back into his hand, pulling it off Sakura as he did, and then ignited the blade itself in flames before spinning it again, aiming for Sakura's side. The younger fighter managed to push herself into the air from her back, going over Kratos' blade as it went under her, landing on her feet.

Once she was on her feet, Sakura rushed Kratos again and lunged at him with another spinning kick as he was distracted with his weapon. Kratos received multiple sharp kicks to the face as Sakura landed on her feet and swung her fist upwards in a Shoryuken, striking Kratos in the chin and launching him upwards. Sakura waited for Kratoss to fall closer to the canvas before striking him in the torso with another flying kick, launching him backwards.

Uprighting himself in midair, Kratos dug his chained blades into the canvas to keep him from sliding out of the arena and hauled himself to his feet. Narrowing his eyes, Kratos watched as Sakura rushed him again, holding up his blade and letting the young woman kick it. Once Sakura struck the blade, Kratos lashed out with his second blade in a counterattack, striking the younger woman in another combo.

Sakura was pushed backwards as Kratos unleashed a lightning-fast combo of flaming blades. Sakura was slashed several times as the god-slayer's blades cut all over her body and she struggled to get her arms up to make the attempt to block the attacks. Before Sakura could find the chance to get her guard up, Kratos had wrapped the chain of one of his blades around her waist and Kratos pulled the weapon into the air, hauling Sakura off her feet and slamming her down on the other side of him before pulling the chain back into his hand.

Pushing herself up, Sakura looked up and saw Kratos swinging a blade down at her in an overhead arc. Rolling to the side and allowing Kratos to slam his blade into the canvas, Sakura fired a Hadouken into his chest, knocking him backwards. As he staggered backwards, Kratos lashed out with another blade, attempting to strike Sakura while she was recovering from her own attack.

Sakura saw the chained blade coming at her, however, and swerved to the side to avoid the weapon. This time, however, she grabbed hold of the chain just as Kratos pulled the weapon back and allowed herself to be pulled in close to Kratos while he was attempting to return his weapon to his hand. By the time Kratos realized Sakura was flying straight at his face, she had given him a hard hook and knocked him to the side.

Realizing that she had an opportunity she needed to take, Sakura rushed Kratos and delivered another fast combo of punches and kicks. Kratos attempted to swap to his gauntlets again but Sakura was too fast and when she saw that he was attempting to switch weapons she landed a jumping kick t his face to stun him again. By this point, Kratos was struggling to find an opening or even get the ability to block Sakura's attacks; all he needed was to find a way to stop her attacks and he should be able to find an opening to continue the assault himself.

He wouldn't get the chance, however. Sakura seemed to know that she was against a dangerous and deadly opponent and forced Kratos towards the ropes as she dealt blow after blow. Seeing how close he was, Sakura yelled and landed one final Shoryuken to his chin, launching Kratos into the air and over the ropes. Knowing that Kratos could pull himself back into the ring using his chained blades, Sakura lashed out with a Hadouken that struck him in the face midair, throwing him off long enough for him to tumble into an elimination portal.

Kratos landed in War of the Monsters, a tiny flea caught in the middle of a kaiju fight between a gigantic stone golem and an eyeball in the middle of a creature made of electricity. Kratos went to town on them both and lay waste to the city they were fighting in.

Squirtle shouted and slammed his fists into the canvas, creating a geyser of water underneath the feet of Lilly Pendragon. The aristocrat was launched into the air and landed flat on her face. Pushing herself up, Lilly looked ahead just in time to see Squirtle spinning at her, hitting her in the face with his shell and knocking her back even further.

Lilly grunted and pushed herself up using her sword. "I don't know why I keep coming to these tournaments." She muttered. "Do you just see me as a free elimination at this point?!"

"Squirtle!"

Lilly moaned. "I don't know what I expected." She mentioned before drawing her sword. "No matter. I'll take my frustrations out on you regardless!"

Squirtle activated another Hydro Pump and fired a jet of water from his mouth. Lilly dashed forward, using her sword to cut through the water as she ran, and then gave Squirtle a sharp kick once she had gotten close enough. Soaking wet but otherwise unharmed from Squirtle attempted attack, Lilly swung her sword through the air in an attempt to dry it out as Squirtle pushed himself onto his feet.

Lilly lashed out with her sword, swinging it down at Squirtle in an attempt to finish the fight. Squirtle quickly sprung to life, however, and spun his shell to the side as Lilly slashed at him and fired another water jet into her face, using enough force to launch her backwards and send her falling onto her back a few feet away, her sword sticking into the canvas beside her.

Seeing Lilly down, Squirtle rushed forward, ducked into his shell and rode a powerful-looking wave towards her, aiming for her face. Lilly was quick to get up, however, as she yanked her sword from the canvas and held it in front of her face, blocking against Squirtle's attempted attack and keeping him at bay. Lilly swung her sword, deflecting Squirtle's attack and knocking the turtle Pokemon away from her and making him land on the back of his shell. Seeing Squirtle down, Lilly rushed at him and swung her leg, striking Squirtle's shell and kicking him like a football.

In the air, Squirtle managed to upright himself and generated a wave of water underneath him to slow his descent to the canvas again. Squirtle saw Lilly swinging her sword again and fired another jet of water from his mouth, striking Lilly's sword and deflecting her attempted attack, throwing her off-balance and leaving her open for Squirtle to strike in the face with his tail, stunning her so that he could follow up with a few more punches and kicks. Squirtle finished up the combo with another water geyser underneath Lilly, striking her in the face due to her stepping backwards a couple of steps.

Lilly landed on her back and grunted in annoyance as she pushed herself up again. "How am I supposed to beat this thing?" She muttered to herself before glancing at her sword. "Hmm…I think I have an idea…"

Squirtle saw that Lilly appeared to be on the ropes and started charging up another Hydro Pump, firing a huge jet of water at Lilly's face from a few feet away from his opponent. However, as Squirtle was activating his move, he suddenly felt a huge electrical volt shock him. Squirtle shouted in pain as he stopped his Hydro Pump to see what can happened. "Squirt?!" He asked aloud.

Lilly stood her ground, holding her sword that now seemed to be surging with electricity. Lilly had apparently used her rune to augment her sword which, somehow, seemed to have given her an electrical edge over Squirtle's water-based attacks. Lilly gave a smirk as Squirtle stepped back in surprise, not anticipating this turn of events.

Lilly was off like a shot, racing at Squirtle with renewed vigor. Squirtle stepped back again, opting to duck into his shell while he formulated a plan. Not being able to utilize his powerful water attacks was not something he was anticipating. He may be forced to rely on his Blastoise-level strength for this fight if he could get close enough to attack Lilly while she had the longer reach of her sword.

"Get out of that shell, you stupid turtle!" Lilly shouted. "You think you can just hide like a coward now that I have the ability to fight back against you?!"

Squirtle remained in his shell for a few seconds as Lilly struck it with her electrified sword a few times, showing that his shell was actually providing some protective cover from the lightning. Waiting until Lilly was between swings, Squirtle shot out in his shell and lashed out with his tail, striking Lilly in the face with enough force to briefly stun her. Squirtle saw an opportunity to get close as lashed out with his short arms, hoping to land a hit hard enough to do some serious damage.

Lilly was faster, however, and managed to shake off the stunned state she was in in to to see Squirtle making an attempted attack. Lilly quickly held out her sword in front of her, causing Squirtle to punch her electrified sword instead. Squirtle yelled as several more high-powered volts went through him, causing him to back off in pain.

Knowing that she didn't have much time before her rune wore off, Lilly rushed forward and swung again, stunning and electrifying Squirtle a second time and keeping him at bay. As Squirtle collapsed to the canvas, stunned with electricity, Lilly picked him up and, with one arm due to him being lighter, chucked him over the ropes and out of the arena.

Squirtle landed in Overcooked, where he was roped into making an attempt at making a plate of pasta. As it turned out, Squirtle is not a good chef…

"PK Thunder!"

Lucas generated a ball of mental energy and steered it towards a giant balloon in the air that had Tingle suspended from it. Tingle was about to make an attempt to drop a large bomb from above on top of Lucas but was caught off guard when Lucas' PK Thunder flew through his balloon, causing it to burst and drop Tingle out of the sky, causing him to land flat on his face.

While Tingle was down, Lucas stepped back and held his hands out. "PK Freeze!" He shouted as he generated another ball of psychic energy, this one looking ice-cold to the touch, and directed it towards Tingle.

Tingle seemed to notice the PK Freeze coming at him and quickly inflated a balloon from his backpack, popping it and propelling himself forward into a roll so that he could avoid being hit. While Lucas was still distracted with directing the PK Freeze, Tingle rolled straight into him, striking him a few times and knocking him back, allowing Tingle to push himself up, looking overall unaffected by what had happened.

"Your magic tricks are so neat, Mr. Fairy!" Tingle said in glee. "If I can learn how to do them myself I'd become so respected as a fairy myself!"

"I told you that I can't just teach you my powers!" Lucas mentioned. "I don't think you have any psychic potential at all!"

Tingle didn't seem to register what Lucas had said (due to having a bit of a one-track mind when it came to fairies) and pulled a few more bombs from his backpack, proceeding to chuck them at Lucas with no real aiming in mind. Lucas quickly rolled to the side, knowing that a PSI Shield wouldn't help much against explosives, as the bombs exploded on the canvas around him. Lucas quickly rushed over to Tingle, ducking underneath the wave of bombs the green-clad man was throwing, firing a quick burst of psychic energy in Tingle's face, knocking him backwards and stopping the barrage of bombs.

Not letting this set him back, Tingle jumped to his feet and rushed at Lucas. "Perhaps I should show you just how prepared I am to learn your magic!" He said as, while lunging at the psychic boy, he reached into his backpack and pulled out a huge, golden statue in Tingle's own image that was as big as he was. Tingle slammed the statue down onto the canvas, launching Lucas into the air with the shockwave it created on impact.

While Lucas was in the air, Tingle inflated a large balloon in his backpack and popped it once it was three times Tingle's size, launching him into the air in a flying tackle, slamming into Lucas in midair in a flying tackle. While in the air, Tingle pulled another bomb into view and kicked Lucas away before throwing the bomb down at him.

Lucas landed flat on his back and quickly noticed the bomb above him. Thinking quickly, Lucas lashed out with his hands while he was on his back and launched a PK Fire upwards, striking the bomb while it was still airborne and igniting it on impact.

*KA-BOOM!*

Tingle flew right into the bomb just as it exploded, launching him into the air with a surprised yell. Tingle quickly inflated another balloon to keep himself either in the air or to slow his descent as he floated down from above. Unfortunately, this just made him a larger target as Lucas sent another PK Thunder through his balloon and sent Tingle falling down into a free-fall again.

While Tingle was falling down this time, however, Lucas focused on him and activated his psychic powers, catching Tingle in the air and holding him in place for a second. Swinging his hands around, Lucas telekinetically threw Tingle around, slamming him into the canvas a few times to knock the wind out of him with each strike. Lucas made an attempt to psychically throw Tingle from the arena while he was dazed but after Lucas let him go Tingle sprung to life and spawned another balloon to keep himself from going too far. Tingle quickly deflated the balloon again and dropped to the canvas before Lucas could have the chance to shoot him down again and landed on his feet.

Realizing that he had a better chance against Tingle if the latter stayed in the air, Lucas generated some psychic energy and pointed it at the canvas.

Tingle, in the meantime, was giving an amused, child-like laugh. "You're making this fun, Mr. Fairy! I'm learning so much!" He admitted. "Maybe we can swap notes after this is done! I can show you how to make life-sized sculptures!"

Lucas gave a smirk. "No." He said simply as he fired a psychic blast at the canvas, launching Tingle into the air. Crouching low, Lucas jumped into the air after him and landed several hard kicks to Tingle in the air. Tingle tried to upright himself in the air or bring another bomb out of his backpack but Lucas was faster and continued to hit him with swats and kicks as he gathered more psychic energy in his hand.

Giving Tingle one final kick, Lucas narrowed his eyes as he watched the wannabe fairy tumble away. "PK Thunder!" He shouted, generating another ball of psychic energy, steering it towards Tingle as he looked like he was trying to summon another balloon to get back into the arena.

Tingle flailed about as he tried to generate another balloon but Lucas' PK Thunder slammed into his stomach and sent him tumbling away, cancelling out his attempt to inflate a balloon. The PK Thunder carried him further and further outside of the arena before dissipating, letting Tingle fall down headfirst into an elimination portal.

Lucas sighed in relief and lowered his hand, relieved that the fight was done but annoyed with himself that he had struggled as much as he did in the fight. Remembering that he still wanted to try and read Crash Bandicoot's mind, Lucas turned around to do a quick scan of the arena. Crash was in the middle of his room and, for some reason, seemed to be imitating Engineer's Yee Dance rather than his trademark shuffle dance while E. Honda appeared to be laughing at the sight. Shaggy and Matt had backed away from Antonov, opting to keep their distance from someone all too eager to tussle with them, while Lord Hater seemed to be lamenting the loss of "his most-competent minion" while Petey was giving him a dumb-looking, awkward pat on the back. Lilly Pendragon was wringing water out of her hat, Sakura was taking some deep breaths to prepare herself for the next round due to looking a little fatigued and the Koopa Troopa seemed to be cycling through a few of his different shells, trying to decide on which one to use next. Finally, Scyther was perched on a cornerpost, eyeing the rest of the survivors in the arena to see who he should go after next.

Doing a quick head count, Lucas realized that the section had ended. He turned his attention towards the entrance curtain, knowing that the next section was about to begin and the next wave of fighters was about to enter…

(Multiversal Matchup Void)

Tingle looked around as he floated in the multiversal void. "Oh! So many colours! Did I get warped to the fairy dimension?!" He asked aloud.

Ember rolled her eyes. "Is he ALWAYS this one-track?" She asked the Duck Hunt duo, who barked and quacked in confirmation to answer Ember's question.

Leona tried her best to ignore Tingle's nonsensical ramblings and seemed content to float in silence, knowing what would be happening soon and that she needed to be prepared for the battle ahead. The only thing she allowed herself to hear was Toxtricity still playing his invisible guitar. She had to admit that when he wasn't thrashing punk music his music was actually pretty soothing.

"Oh! Heya, Leona!"

Leona looked over her shoulder and saw Kula swimming over. "I didn't think you'd get eliminated that quickly." She mentioned. "I swear I would have come over to help you but I kinda got distracted helping out my new friend."

Leona sighed. "Well, what's done is done. There's nothing either of us can do at this point." She replied.

Kula looked around. "Is…That eight? Are we all here?" She asked.

"I reckon so, missy."

Kula and Leona looked up and saw Dawson and Simon floating overhead, floating by themselves rather than get involved. Dawson gave a tip of his hat in response to Kula. "That weirdo in the spandex was the eight so I think we're due to warp pretty soon." He replied.

"SECTION FIVE…ENDED." The void's robotic voice announced. "PREPARING PORTAL."

"Right on cue." Simon sighed. "I wonder where they're going to dump us."

Kula grinned. "I hope it's somewhere colourful!" She beamed. "Maybe ice cream-themed as well!"

"And I thought that fairy guy had a one-track mind." Leona gave a light smirk.

"I'm ready for whatever they throw at us." Ember mentioned as she drew her bow and arrows as she looked down at the white light that was starting to engulf the entire void again. "Hey, heads up down there!"

Toxtricity, floating off by himself further downwards from everyone else, suddenly perked up and stopped playing his guitar. Toxtricity only had the time to look down and stare in bewilderment as the white light engulfed him, followed by everyone else in the void.

RESULTS (19 Votes)

Main Event

SCYTHER (PKMN): 14:5 = 9 (Plant Man, Leona Heidern)

CRASH BANDICOOT (PAS): 14:6 = 8 (Falke, Engineer)

SHAGGY (MV): 13:6 = 7 (Tinker Knight, Simon Belmont)

LORD HATER (WOY): 15:8 = 7 (Bowser Jr.)

ANTONOV (KOF): 12:7 = 5 (Ember)

MATT (WS): 12:7 = 5 (Toxtricity)

LUCAS (SSB): 12:7 = 5 (Tingle)

KOOPA TROOPA (SMB): 11:8 = 3 (Mimikyu)

E. HONDA (SF5): 11:8 = 3 (Scratch & Grounder)

SAKURA KASUNAGO (SF5): 12:9 = 3 (Kratos)

PETEY PIRANHA (SMB): 11:9 = 2 (Kula Diamond)

LILLY PENDRAGON (ST): 10:9 = 1 (Squirtle)

(ELIMINATED)

SIMON BELMONT (SSB): 10:9 = 1 (Dawson McShane)

MIMIKYU (PKMN): 12:11 = 1 (Duck Hunt)

ENGINEER (TF2): 10:10 = 0 (Scarlet)

LEONA HEIDERN (KOF): 9:10 = -1

EMBER (BH): 9:10 = -1

SCRATCH & GROUNDER (AOSTH): 10:11 = -1

KULA DIAMOND (KOF): 9:11 = -2

TINGLE (HW): 8:11 = -3

TINKER KNIGHT (SK): 8:11 = -3

SQUIRTLE (PKMN): 9:12 = -3

BOWSER JR. (SMB): 9:13 = -4

TOXTRICITY (PKMN): 7:13 = -6

DUCK HUNT (SSB): 7:13 = -6

KRATOS (PAS): 5:14 = -9

DAWSON MCSHANE (EC): 5:15 = -10

FALKE (SF5): 4:15 = -11

SCARLET (BH): 3:16 = -13

PLANT MAN (MM): 3:16 = -13

Current Top 10 Eliminations: Lord Hater (7), Mimikyu (5), Sakura Kasunago (4), Crash Bandicoot (4), Bowser Jr. (4), Engineer (3), Squirtle (3), Scratch & Grounder (3), Blanka (3), Mario Mario (3)

Multiversal Matchup

PROTO MAN (MM): 107 Points

SAGAT (SF5): 102 Points

BYLETH (SSB): 98 Points

STEVE (BL): 86 Points

LIN FEI (BH): 80 Points

GIOVANNI POTAGE (EE): 70 Points

LUCIEN (BH): 64 Points

PHANTOM STRIKER (SK): 54 Points

Side Battles

"Surviving the Sadists"

CHOI BOUNGE (King of Fighters) and LOLA POP (ARMS) scare off JURI HAN (Street Fighter 5) and LUCA BLIGHT (Suikoden Trilogy)

13 to 6

Survivor of the First Section: Lord Hater is officially the last remaining fighter from the first Section still in the main competition. Only time will tell how far he can keep this up.

And So We Fall: This section's Multiversal Matchup was the closest one yet. The lead swapped between the top three multiple times before Proto Man got the last minute votes needed to win.