Monster Mash - Round 1 Fight 4 Votes

Um... Hello. This is still The Monster Mash 199X, and I'm still Connor Hardy.

Only...

We've had to make a bit of a reschedule. See, we were originally gonna stage THE SHOWDOWN IN THE SERENGETTI between Jeuri the Dinocroc from Africa and Zancudo the Mansquito from Spain. Unfortunately, outside circumstances have forced us to shuffle our timetable around a bit. If you're wondering why I'm reporting to you from a hospital bed with a tube up my nose, well... you'll find out in a moment.

So GaiaCorp realized that just watching giant animals whaling on each other isn't very exciting. The public wants to see something more exciting than just oversized versions of everyday creatures! We have "Monster" in our title, so why don't we have some actual monsters?! Well, turns out we do - the contenders up for this week's fight are based around mythical or legendary animals that haunt the real world today, with science still unable to come up with plausible answers for them! Brace yourself, sports fans, for the face-off between mythical monstrosities we call THE CONFLICT IN COSTA RICA!

IN THE BLUE CORNER...

So Mexico is now a feudal monarchy. Don't ask us how it happened - GaiaCorp deals in mad, unethical sience, not underhanded politics and crippling losses of money. But that's how it is, and now the New Kingdom of Mexico consists mostly of peasants kowtowing to a royal figure with too many privalges and too much money. And every royal figure eventually starts looking for ways to make themselves look more outlandish and wacko compared to anyone else. Like an exotic pet, for example. And what pet could be more exotic than Perez the CHUPACABRA?

 

To the people of Mexico, the Chupacabra is the monstrous bloodsucker that preys on livestock and haunts your nightmares. To GaiaCorp, the Chupacabra is our birthday gift to Eleanor Juarez, Princess of Mexico – mostly because her father paid a shitload of money for it, and mostly because she needed something other than another strapping young male concubine to keep her occupied. Several hours of mixing the DNA of vampire bats, lizards and kangaroos in a vat later, and this was the result. A hopping, high-speed ball of scales, teeth, claws and anger that doesn’t stop until it’s drained everything it can catch of blood. And maybe not even then.

The Chupacabra is a vicious, hyperactive little bugger that moves quickly and fights relentlessly. Capable of leaping up to 20 feet in a single bound, with claws over 4.7 inches long, this rowdy reptile specialises in fast, unpredictable strikes from multiple angles that make it difficult to form a counterattack. It’s light frame makes it speedy, but unfortunately that comes with a frail, hollow skeleton that the scientists have yet to breed out of their current stock. Moreover, every time this thing fights, it goes into a wild frenzy, and landing a killing blow when your nostrils are full of the smell of blood is a tricky thing. Let’s hope Perez can pull that off.

IN THE RED CORNER...

December 15, 1967. The Silver Bridge that linked Point Pleasant, West Virginia and Gallipolis, Ohio suddenly collapsed, resulting in the tragic deaths of 46 people. Investigators blamed a faulty eyebar in a poorly-maintained suspension chain for the accident. Others, however, claim that a more sinister agency lurks behind the incident, a conspiracy revolving around a specific, mysterious figure. A terrifying, red-eyed, leathery-winged figure that haunted the Point Pleasant area from 15th of November last year. The media was quick to dismiss sightings of the creature as a fantasy.

It's not. It's not a fucking fantasy, it's real and it attacked me. It was in the helicopter we were in during last week's match, and it just straight-up hijacked the thing and crashed it into the ocean. I know I sound crazy right now, but answer me this - where are the pilots? Why were their bodies never found, hm? It took them, that's why! It took them away and I can still hear them screaming and what it was saying to them and-

Okay, keep calm, Connor. Keep it professional...

It goes by many names, this thing.  It's "masters" call it Coșmar. It prefers Indrid Cold.

But let's call it what it is - THE MOTHMAN.

 

Okay, let's get this out of the way - this isn't a publicity stunt. Mothman isn’t ours. Not one of our scientists or splicers or mixing vats is responsible for this… nightmare. We only know the Transylvanians made it because this is the sort of thing they get raging vampire boners over. It just turned up outside our offices and it hasn’t gone away since. It keeps turning up in dark corners, watching us with those awful red eyes and that gaping mouth, and you feel sick to your stomach every time it looks at you. We’ve tried everything to get rid of it – bug spray, machine guns, even fucking ATR’s were fired at that thing. And the dust cleared and it just sat there. Grinning at us.

 

It’s intelligent, we know it is, and it knows we know. Bright lights are the only thing that keeps it away, but it’s getting bolder, because it knows we can’t do anything else to hurt it. It flies, of course – those wings aren’t just for show – about Mach 2, we reckon, although Johnny swore he saw it fly faster. And one time, I was brushing my teeth and then it came out of the fucking mirror, oh god, can’t get those eyes away, those staring eyes, someone kill it, please-



THE ARENA
Okay, I'm back, I'm calm...

So Costa Rica isn't really anything to write home about. It got turned into a nature reserve a while back after someone discovered some rare flowers in it, then also became neutral ground when things got tense with the Amazon Territories, and now it's just sort of... there. True, it's full of lakes and pools and it's got lots of nice wildlife, and it's got an electric fence and steel-forged radar dishes and a titanium bunker for the park rangers. But it's kind of boring and nondescript, in GaiaCorp terms. Which is why we decided to let our competitors duke it out here, where there's no environmental advantage to either one of them. As far as we know.

So, sports fans, which will it be? Perez, the Royal Reptile with a thirst for blood? Or that red-eyed... thing from the darkest corners of Romania? Place your bets folks, while the booths are still open and the attendees not thinking about their next coffee break! And warn someone, warn everyone that it's back, and it's going to OH GOD LOOK BEHIND YOU-

VOTE NOW!

UPDATE: After several complaints/shrieking temper tantrums from Her Royal Highness, we've been forced to take drastic measures. In order to preserve a semblance of balance within our tournament seedings, we've gone ahead and released several of our current stock of Chupacabras to join Perez in his battle against the Mothman. There's now at least twelve of the things leaping about and making a right mess of the place, but hopefully their combined strength will be equal to or greater than Coșmar's, with a significant numbers advantage in their favour.

We hope.