Monster Mash - Seedings

It's the year Ninteen Nintey Something, and we've got a crisis on our hands.

 

Major Failure's sudden dissappearance was like someone snatching our security blanket away and then setting it on fire. Not only did it mean that no more animal pugilism would be coming in any time soon, but it threw a lot of distrust against the Zoofights Foundation for such a ham-handed attempt at a cover-up. Why did they not tell us sooner? Did they ever intend to tell us at all? What other secrets were they hiding from us? The result was a mixture of panic and anger. Voices were raised, stones were thrown, and before long Gravitas and his snarling companion Enforcer Wolf found themselves struggling to hold back the tide of angry rioters.

There were many, of course, who said good riddance to all this. These were the people who never really approved of Major Failure's near-dictatorial grip on the entertainment industry, who were glad that the hippo had gone and left the companies to do their own thing free of their ties to Zoofights. Perhaps, they said, things would get back to how they used to be. Perhaps the ways of rampant captialism and corporate competition could flourish and bloom now that the many companies of the US no longer bowed to one man and his whims. But then again, these were the people who sympathized with the plight of the Sea-Algae farmers of Communist Spain, so what the fuck did they know?

Of course, with Zoofights out of the picture, the resulting scramble to capitalize on the gaping niche left over in the Prime Time slot was something fierce. The entire world tried to get in on the act, with more and more pale imitations springing up in the name of the opportunistic buck. Japan's Kaiju Daikessen cornered the market for city-destroying abominations, but little else, while Australia's Animal Arena failed to grasp the subtleties of what made the original so great. A gorilla with chainsaw arms is far more satisfying to watch than a chimp with hacksaw arms, after all. And not many people like kangaroos that much.

But there's one that we can't really put our finger on.

Monster Mash. The title's something you'd expect from a primary school kid's art project. But GaiaCorp's little pet project is something unique, at least - the monsters are owned by countries rather than corporations, and there's no idiotic amounts of money riding on them unless you count the plebs betting stupid amounts of their own life savings. More to the point, the creatures aren't crudely stitched-together hybrids in constant pain - they're genetically engineered by GaiaCorp's finest genetic engineers, with months and even years of DNA research gone into making these things. While that might not sound as appealing as the bleeding wrecks Zoofight's surgineers barfed up for us, it has a certain charm to it.

Like one of those shitty sci-fi straight-to-VHS movies or something.

As I sit here writing this, the T.V. in front of me is showing the seedings of the current contestants. Not as many as Zoofights, but what can you expect from a company that hides out in the backwarters of Hawaii in case Manhattan gets trampled by giant demon fairy robots or whatever's happening in that wacked-out shitehole?

Should be interesting, at any rate.

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Yes, I am doing this. What with Major Failure gone missing and all, we ZFRP'ers are kinda starved for animal-biffing-animal matches at the moment. And being the kind soul that I am, I'm going to have a crack at doing a similar thing over the next few months or so to try and tide you over. Except with SyFy's mutant monstrosities instead of tigers with muscly arms or something. So here we go.

Just like in Zoofights 6, you vote for which monsters you want to appear first based. Using that information, I'll create a bunch of showdowns for you to disagree heavily on, just like in the old days. Then I'll tally the votes and use that to decide which of the monsters wins. It's a basic tournament bracket, meaning there can be only one winner. Which one? YOU DECIDE?

Now, fair warning: I am no Major Failure. I don't think I could handle the same workload as he could before he left, not by a long shot. So unfortunately, there's no Losers League to decide the inevitable Godbeast our champion has to fight to become King of Beasts or anything, and there won't be as many fancy pictures, with more of a writing focus going around. So in that respect, it's more like the Kaiju War Chronicles or something.

That said, if you want to contribute anything, do feel free to contact me via my ZF PM's or the Chatzy. I'll accept pictures, Photoshops or even music suggestions. And if you want to try your hand at writing a battle, I'll let you have a go at it. Never let it be said I never shared my things with anyone.

Now, get to votin'!