In a great flash of light, the arena changed. Gone was the stone tile, and the ground under his feet felt rather squishy. Firm enough to stand on, though. Looking down he saw that he was standing on what he could only guess was a balloon, an idea helped by the other shapes floating nearby. Everything was linked within a crisscrossing web of ropework, ensuring none of the balloons strayed too far from each other; the balloons drifted a few dozen yards above a bank of fluffy yellow-pink clouds.
He had no idea if these clouds were just an illusion or if they were encased in a bubble of altered reality and the ground was in fact thousands of feet below. Curious as he might have been, however, he wasn't about to test this, and lose before the fight even began. Ahead of him on another balloon shaped like a bizarre blue turtle a red and white ball appeared from beyond his ability to perceive. Despite his best efforts, being able to look behind the black eluded him, but such musings would have to wait. As the ball hit the turtle's shell it jumped into the air and split open, disgorging a small yellow animal in a twisting vortex of white and black illumination.
The king suppressed a guffaw at the sight of the frankly adorable little creature; even if he were a gruff and grumbling monster of royal might he could still acknowledge the damn thing was almost too cute to fight. Then he heard Shang Tsung announcing the start of the battle, and that cute little rat was headbutting him rather painfully in the chest out of nowhere. Not hard enough to crack him open but he was sure that it was going to bruise ere the night fell. And was that smoke wafting off of it? There was a scorch mark where it had been standing before he'd been bashed...
Growling in annoyance, he swiped at the little rat, but the animal twisted nimbly out of the way of his grasp. And then it... appealed to the crowd? He was sure he was being taunted the way the little thing wiggled carelessly atop the balloon mere feet away from him, playing up to the audience. They were laughing, some cheering, but the rest were just clamoring for blood. They wanted blood? He'd give it to them. Another swipe caught the mouse off guard, sending the pathetic runt flying.
It smacked down harshly on another balloon, this one a broad, squat lizard with a tree growing out of it, whimpering pathetically before forcing itself to its feet. He couldn't jump quite as far as he'd hit the runt, so he had to balance precariously on the ropes instead. Not too terrible a challenge, but the mouse decided to demonstrate a hidden power, showing that it could do more than just launch itself like a mortar at him. Wreathed in sparking energy the mouse bounced off of his body once, then again, sending him reeling with the shocks that had been delivered in the process. Well. Regaining his balance he flexed, and launched himself backwards blindly, before lashing out with a solid right cross aimed behind himself. He was rewarded with a meaty thwack and the cry of the mouse as it got launched again.
Laughing, and right back where he'd started the match, the king began to dictate the pace. The mouse proved pretty nimble thanks to its small size, barely even coming up to his knees, but what it lacked in stature it made up for in unexpected cunning. Clearly, Shang Tsung wasn't picking just any old monster to come and battle him! Grinning savagely, the king threw himself into this kombat, leveraging his greater stamina and durability against the mouse's speed and shock attacks. He was hesitant to use his fire; it might burn the ropes that connected the balloons and leave him stranded, so he had to resort to just his fists and feet.
But he could outlast the mouse, even though he had to play it safe lest he be put in a position where that electric dash that would whittle down even his formidable power. No, he had to get in close and goad the mouse to use his power, especially so since the mouse didn't seem completely resistant to its own electricity; the longer the bout went on the more frazzled the mouse appeared. For several long minutes they danced from balloon to balloon, the king yanking on the ropes here and there to keep them in jumping distance, and at last the king was able to meet another desperate headbutt with one of his own. And his head was a lot harder.
The mouse was launched downward into the spongy fabric surface of the balloon they were standing on, bouncing off the red reptilian's head with a trail of smoke following it through the air. It landed between two of the balloons, clinging precariously to the rope that was now pretty frayed from the way he'd been yanking on them, the ropes probably not meant for one of the king's prodigious bulk. Clearly the little mouse couldn't fight any longer, either, barely hanging on with claws that had snagged the rope reflexively.
"FINISH HIM!" a voice he distantly recognized as his host commanded. The king looked at the frayed rope again, and jumped from balloon to balloon, until he reached the red and white ball the mouse had come out of. With a curious eye he pressed the button on the ball and it beeped at him, a red beam shooting out of the button but not harming him. Chuckling to himself, the king pointed the button at the mouse before thumbing it. The red beam hit home and this time it had an effect, causing the ball to open and suck the mouse inside.
Examining the ball for a moment the king then gripped it in both hands and twisted sharply. The halves came apart with a crack, and the vortex of energy appeared again, depositing a headless mouse at his feet. The head popped out a moment later, expression frozen in animalistic shock and betrayal, before it was obliterated in a blast of fire from the king's mouth. 'Ah, so the rules really are different, aren't they?' the king mused. To the side Shang Tsung laughed heartily and finally called out, as the arena returned to its former state. Blood spurted from the stump where the head had once connected, diluting the ash on the floor into a runny puddle the consistency of gruel.
"Bowser wins. FATALITY!" Shang Tsung sounded as smug as Bowser felt. Oh, this contest was going to be FUN.
So here we have it. A new project.
The rules are going to be simple. I've used the Melee roster, and I'll be working my way through them in alphabetical order for the sake of convenience.
All fights have been determined at random, via d26 (rolled digitally since I don't have any physical die, lul). This means some characters will have more fights than others, and as the d26 has also been used to determine WHO gets fought, it'll definitely result in mirror matches, which are allowed per the rules of both Smash and MK.
And lastly, the number of fights will determine the number of fatalities, again, at random. So if there are, for example, 15 fights, then I'll roll a d15 for how many will end with fatalities. Then that number will be rolled again, to determine which fights get the fatalities. So therefore, if there were 4 fatalities in 15 fights, it would be 4d15 to see who gets sent to the Netherrealm.
Have a nice day.