Secret Ninja Warrior Shinobiman (Part 1)

(NOTE: The following is technically a cutting room floor, for a character that I created to appear in the Las Vegas setting of Zoofights RP. The character and his plotline was abandoned after I realized it was too similar to Harpy's character of Kevin/Dream Girl Kogasa. A similar character, an escape artist superhero named Johnny Gyro, was also created, but abandoned in a similar fashion for not being interesting enough.

The point is, the characters depicted in this post will not appear in Zoofights RP in any fashion this year. They may make an appearance in 2016 RP, but this is extremely dependent on my life-based circumstances not turning out rubbish. And now having probably depressed you, enjoy the post to cheer you up!)

Kaneda "K.K." Kagome has a special secret. He may be an ordinary schoolboy in the city of Sleepy Bay, but he is also the inheritor of the powers of the secret Shadow Clan of ninjas! An ancient ninja prophecy foretells that, when the evil Lord Kroak and his demon armies break out of the underworld, a hero will rise to gather the sacred Shinobi Scrolls and transform into the warrior of legend! And while K.K. may be headstrong, clumsy and constantly hungry for triple-decker cheeseburgers, he is the hero of legend - our only hope against the forces of darkness! He is...

THE SECRET NINJA WARRIOR: SHINOBIMAN!

Today's Episode: "Shinobiman Meets Kroakzilla!"

Sensei has received a letter from an old friend of his - an accomplished scientist named Doctor Wasabi from Honor Ridge city. Wasabi believes he has found another of the ancient Shinobi Scrolls, and requests that Sensei and Shinobiman retrieve it before Lord Kroak's forces can get it for themselves. K.K. soon finds himself being dragged to Honor Ridge city by his mentor, but neither are prepared for the kind of terrible tricks their enemy has in store for them...

Saint Patrick's Dirk (Belated)

"Dirk?"

Dirk made a noise like a hippo imitating a V10 engine, but didn't move.

"Dirk," groaned Pit, "wake up already."

"Just let me stick to what I'm good at, yeah?" grumbled the dark angel, and rolled over

"Would it help if I kicked you?" Pit was starting to get irritated as well.

"Would it give you any satisfaction?" was Dirk's reply, shifting position a little.

"No."

"Me neither, so bugger off. Why is this bed so hard?"

"Because," said Pit, with the tone a primary school teacher uses to address a particularly stupid child, "it is not your bed. It is the hood of a Lamborghini which has been crashed through-"

Dirk was bolt upright in an instant, ignoring the telltale throb of a hangover as he looked around. What he thought was his bedroom turned out to be the dining room, which had undergone a startling transformation since he had last seen it - a lot of green paper shamrocks were pinned to the roofs, and one wall featured a poster of a leprechaun bearing the most tortured cereal-mascot smile possible. The counter surface was littered in empty bottles and glasses of varying descriptions, and an unidentifiable liquid substance was splattered on the floor - probably a spit drink of some kind.

What was more startling, he discovered when he turned his head, was the massive hole in the wall. And the Lamborghini Reventón stuck halfway through it, the hood of which he was currently sitting on. Somehow, despite the forces required for a car like this to break through a solid brick wall, it didn't have a single scratch on it, looking as though it had walked freshly from the factory.

There was a long pause whilst Dirk tried to correlate all this information.

"...and when did this get here?" he tried, at last.

"How the heck should I know?!" cried Pit, throwing up his hands in frustration. "You're the one who crashed it into our house!"

"Let's not shout, okay?" hissed Dirk, bringing up a hand to his forehead. Here came the hangover - and it wasn't a pretty one, lancing through his brain like a javelin made of sandpaper and hedgehogs. With an effort, he pushed himself upright, slid off the hood of the Lambo and staggered around to investigate it. Might as well do something productive, if only to ignore the massive amounts of ranting from Pit he could foresee.

"Looks new," he muttered under his breath as he inspected it. "Hardly done a few miles, I should think."

"Do you have any idea," Pit was beginning to say, "of how much this is gonna cost us. Wes Weasley will be laughing all the way back home - if we can even get him to do something about this!" Dirk pointedly ignored him and peered through the window of the car, taking in the blurry images of black leather, brown Alcantara and several crates of-

"Holy shit," he cried despite the resurgence in head pain. "It's full of beer!"

"Not to mention," Pit went on, "that somebody obviously owns that car, and we're going to have to do a hell of a lot of explaining when we give it back to them!"

"None of it's even open!" Dirk added, still ignoring him as he wrenched the door open and bent over to inspect the goods.

"And how are we-?" Pit suddenly trailed to a stop, and for a moment there was silence. And then the audible smacking noise made Dirk turn his head around, finding his brother with one hand over his mouth and shoulder shaking in a fit of hysterical laughter. His eyes seemed to be aimed downwards, for some reason...

"What?" was the dark angel's confused question.

By way of reply, because he was still giggling fit to burst, Pit suddenly whipped out the Mirror Shield and held it up.

And right there, emblazoned across the seat of the shamrock-green Speedos that were the only piece of clothing Dirk had on, were the words "KISS ME, I'M IRISH".

-------

Some say you could hear Dirk's scream of horror from five miles away.

Hail to the King (Part 3)

~PORT BLACKSAND~

Sam had never seen Star Wars before. The only reason he knew it existed was because the people he associated with often referenced it, usually in a dumb in-jokey way that he wasn't really parlay to. So therefore, he only knew about Mos Eisley being a thing because he had heard that one quote over and over, and had no real idea of what it looked like.

Port Blacksand, he reckoned, was close.

"There's a joke about scum and villainy somewhere," he muttered as he strolled down the grime-ridden streets. He wouldn't have been far-off in making that joke - the general look of the town, even from a distance, was a shifty, side-eyed one that kept an eye out for the cops as it filched someone's wallet, and up close it was no better. Gruff-voiced men and rasp-voiced women hollered out their wares from side corners and crannies, half the populace seemed to stare at the floor or cover their faces as they walked and the smell of damp and poorly-cooked food hang like a foul perfume over the place. The only mercy Sam could find was that nobody seemed inclined to look at him, and when they did they usually gave him a wide berth.

It might have had something to do with Walter trotting by his side, though. It would seem that having a Leowolf - that is, a canine now the size of a lion - next to you was a good way to carve out a decent personal space. A good metre or so of thin air around Sam had gone practically unmolested, and the former Destined Hero had the impression that this was more to do with the wolf than anything about himself. Mind you, brightly-coloured clothing was something of a target for stares in a place like this.

It hadn't felt like long before a nose pushed itself into his leg, and Walter gave a whining bark to indicate that Sam should look at something. He did, and found that they were now approaching a tavern, which looked so ashamed of it's shabby appearance it seemed to by trying to hide itself between all the other buildings on the street. A forlorn, knife-hacked and torch-burned sign swung above the door, and the blond-haired swordsman couldn't help but snort at the faded name etched into the wood "NOBODY INN". At least the place had a sense of humour.

"You thirsty, big guy?" he asked Walter, knowing his guess was not far off.

The wolf replied with a short yap and a mad wagging of the tail.

"Alright," chuckled Sam as he tousled the wolf's furry head. "We'll stop for a drink, and then maybe ask for directions."

The two promptly changed course, and their first obstacle came in the form of a man built like a diseased gorilla, who stepped between them and the comforting warmth of the tavern on the instant they crossed the threshold. His mere appearance turned nearly every head in the bar - it seemed people were accustomed to the routine scuffles that their bouncer got into.

"Fuck off," were his first words, growled out like an industrial meat grinder.

Sam groaned, already familiar with this kind of scenario. "Look," he tried, "I'm not here to cause trouble. I just want-"

"Fuck off, I said," repeated the bouncer, stepping forward. "We don't serve your lot here, with your poncy outfits and too many belts. And take your mutt with you, or else I'll-"

Sam didn't even have to say anything. If there was one thing he knew Walter hated more than anything, it was being called a mutt, mongrel or any sort of pejorative relating to his breeding. A blur of silver-grey shot up from his left, there was a thump and the bouncer collapsed to the floor, half-dazed and clutching his own forehead. And then, in case that wasn't hilarious enough, the Leowolf casually trotted over to the prone juggernaut and sat on him as though he were a cushion from his bed back home.

This set every table in the tavern at a roar at once. It must have been the funniest thing they'd seen all week.

"Thank you, thank you!" Sam laughed back and waved as he stepped into the building. "He does headstands, too!" Which probably wasn't true, but he could smell that half of them were already pissed out of their minds, so anything would prolong the hilarity. And as they lapped it up like monkeys at feeding time, he took the time to check the medallion from Victoria, just in case it had any clues as to-

Huh. It was blinking rather brightly. That meant somebody from the Forty-Four, that group of heroes Sam had needed to seek out to try and deal with the Magpies, was in this very building. But where...?

Sam looked up.

Monster Mash: Round 3 - Fatal Four-Way Votes

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys, Girls and those of unspecified gender... welcome to The Monster Mash 199X Fatal Four-Way!

Yes, it's that time of the year again! That glorious moment where we take the four greatest monsters that have battled their way to the top and put them all together for a near-final showdown! Wherever it's the great contenders you know and love, or the rejects who clawed their way back by sheer luck, the Fatal Four-Way is the biggest spectacle of every Monster Mash tournament! Veteran viewers may still remember the climactic tussle of 196X, which - for reasons we're still trying to figure out - somehow resulted in the birth of an entirely new galaxy! Oh, will those wacky Alien Tornadoes ever leave the public imagination...?

...Yes, they will, because they were dumb. And also because that was in the past! Look to the present, sports fans, because the line-up for this year is something to gawp at! All of them were birthed here at GaiaCorp, all of them fought for your amusement, and now they've managed to make their way to the precipice of glory! But who will jump first? Who will chicken out? And who's gonna get turned into giblets by all the others? Only one way to find out, folks, so let's Meet the Monsters!

Clades the Sharktopus
Never let it be said that a loss of limbs could ever keep a champion down! Instead, the Italians commissioned us to replace all of his weak, fleshy tentacles with metallic prosthetic ones. The longest of these two bear extendable laser-blades of the kind he once wielded, whilst the others all contain explosive dart launchers designed to pierce the skin of his enemies. On top of that, he's now been fitted with light-weight nano-carbon armor that should solve the stick problem of him getting cut up a lot during his fights. There's also been whispers of him getting another promotion since his last battle, but we'll have to wait and see about that, won't we?

Daidako the Giant Octopus/Kraken
Okay, Japan, we need to talk. We get that you're happy with Daidako's success. We understand that you want him to represent the country and your company in the best way you see fit. But if you keep dragging him back into your labs so you can keep tinkering with his DNA, then we're going to have to send the SWAT teams to break your kneecaps, because it's just getting silly. And what makes it worse is that we're getting rumors that your planning to increase the amount of human cells in his system - what the hell are you weirdos up to? We swear, if that thing comes back to us knowing how to assemble nuclear reactors, then we'll be charging you for the damages!

Samuel Escardo the Mansquito
So it seems that Samuel has finally found inner peace, able to balance his human rationality and intelligence with his carnivorous insect urges. He's been spending even more time with those monks from Tibet, harnessing an unusual new form of inner energy that our scientists were just on the verge of cracking, and don't you hate it when that happens? But the general gist of it is that, thanks to whatever happened that helped him kill the Mothman, he can now throw fireballs. You know, like in Street Fighter. Also he's a dab hand at martial arts, so don't let him see you carrying any RAID or he'll snap your arm off, quick as a whip.

And introducing...

Tiburon the Mecha Shark
Let's be honest, folks - whilst the idea of entering a shark's head on a tractor would have been hilarious, we at GaiaCorp feel like we need to keep a veneer of professionalism. So we took Tiburon's head and rigged it onto a cyborg body powered by a prototype fusion reactor. We then plated the whole thing in reinforced titanium, added teeth of intermediate alloy steel and loaded the thing up with torpedoes, tracking launchers, electrified dermal armor and a few other sneaky weapons besides. He may be a bit bewildered by what's happened, but the American contender is just happy to be swimming again. Ladies and gentlemen, Mega Shark is dead - long live Mecha Shark!

THE ARENA
That's right, sports fans - we're taking this one to the big leagues! Rather than throwing these four hideous hybrids and savage cyborgs into some random, unsuspecting country and refusing to foot the damage bill, we're hosting this in our very own GaiaCorp ThunderDome! Three times the size of the famous London Olympic stadium, the ThunderDome houses over 180'000 guests and more besides as they cram to see the grand finale to the Monster Mash live and up-close! Sporting a gigantic lagoon for the swimmers, a towering Gladiators-style series of platforms for the flyers and an electrified force-field for the protection of our audience, this is the one place you want to be to view the action!

Oh, and two quick reminders, folks! Voting is now in a tiered style! You simply list the monsters you think have a chance at winning this, in order of your favorite and descending. Think the Big Bar Brawl those Kobbers have, except... better, because this is The Monster Mash. So get cracking, folks!

Second: whoever of these four monsters manages to defeat their opponents has a chance to become the new King of the Monsters! All they have to do is take down the current reigning champions...

Donner und Blitz, the PTERACUDA BROTHERS!

VOTE NOW!

Hail To The King (Part 2)

Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.
- Seneca the Younger, De Providentia, 5, 9.

Sam had wondered why on earth a place would be called 'Megan's Woe'. 'Woe' wasn't exactly a word he associated with historical place-names, especially concerning military leaders or great battles. 'Triumph' was a good, solid name that could be depended on, conjuring images of conquest and celebration in his mind. 'Folly' was also good, and spoke of madness and stubbornness in the face of impossible odds and crippling setbacks. As adjectives go, 'woe' was kind of overtly poetic, and lacked the powerful dramatic impact the former two did.

Arriving there, though, he could easily see how the name would apply.

"Fucking hell..." the blond swordsman muttered under his breath as he took in the scenery. It wasn't exactly picturesque - certainly not in the traditional sense. Mostly consisting of volcanic rock, the landscape was occasionally punctuated with spurts of superheated water from geysers dotted about the place, topped with wispy plumes of gas leaking from cracks in the earth. The crowning centerpiece of it all, impaled on a massive rocky spire and surrounded by plumes of erupting lava, was what might have been a luxury yacht of some kind but was now a burnt, blackened shell of its former glory. All-in-all, not the ideal vacation spot.

At least it's better than Blackpool, said the inner Nicodemus, but Sam was too busy trying to breathe to laugh at that one. The Grandius had screamed it's head off about the level of poisonous gases in the area before he'd gotten within earshot of the place, and thus he'd had to take out and clean the MantraTech Personal Air Filter he carried with him. He barely used it since the one time he'd had to delve into a poison-filled mine to rescue some workers, but it somehow still worked as well as ever despite the neglect, filtering out all the awful toxins and replacing them with soothing, clean air. At least he wouldn't choke to death here.

But then there were the other, more obvious dangers to deal with. The heat, for instance, was something awful - you couldn't just fry an egg on these rocks, you could cook a three-course dinner! Then the water spurting out of the ground was also an obvious problem, as it would be full of nasty bacteria and viruses as well as being hot enough to remove the skin. And to say nothing of the constant volcanic eruptions going on...

Which is why we left Walter behind, Sam's brain reminded him. This place, apparently the site of a major magical battle in this world's history, wasn't really between them and the next village they had to go to, but he'd been about it being close to their route and had advised them to steer clear of it. Sam would have liked to mention that it was pretty hard to do that when he didn't know where the place was, and his suspicions proved to be right when the grass abruptly died beneath his feet. So he'd left Walter behind with the others whilst he went out and scoured the area for trouble.

It was a decision he was regretting already. In fact, as he leaped away from another blast of superheated gas, he was considering just ditching the exploration and-

"YOU!"

Hail To The King (Part 1)

Sam had wondered what the point of getting out of bed today was.

It had started whilst he was having his breakfast. It had been a quiet, stress-free week so far, full of absolutely nothing to bother him and all day to not be bothered in. Walter was dozing by his lap, still struggling with trying to be a morning dog, and although he'd grown as large as a lion by now the landlord had been strangely reluctant to complain. Things seemed to have finally quietened down, at last as far as the former Destined Hero was concerned, and no longer was life handing him any bum hands for the sake of it's own sick pleasures.

And then the Grandius had started beeping and babbling nonsense about dimensional breaches. Sam's first mistake had been to try and figure out what was going on, despite not understanding hadn't a lick of it - in fact, he hadn't been aware that the Grandius could sense things in other dimensions. Oh, sure, he'd experimented with its safety teleportation feature - Priority Three, to be exact - but he'd never really tested the full capability of it at all. And hey, the disturbance was only a few miles down the road...

Sam's second mistake was initiating Priority Three.

VROP.

And that was how he ended up in the wreckage of a village in a place he didn't recognize, with an equally-confused Walter by his side.

Things got even more confusing when, upon wandering out of the town, Sam located what he assumed were the people of the village, madly evacuating their former homes in a frenzy of panic. All his questioning could get out of them was that something had arrived from seemingly nowhere and trashed the village without breaking a sweat, and it was in the opposite direction he had come from. So Sam made his third mistake of simply flying back the way he'd come, using his newfound powers instead of walking.

It was, admittedly, a lot faster, so he arrived at the massive iron-gray, factory-esque building in a few minutes or so, wondering what on earth it was doing there. And then he ran away from the massive, rapid-firing gun turrets in almost half that amount of time, swearing like a sailor with a stubbed toe. But he'd lingered long enough to notice the familiar symbol plastered on the side - the double-headed, spread-winged crow of the Magpies, the criminal organization who he'd run into on more than one occasion and specialized in... well, being a criminal organization.

So what was it doing here, building factories and raiding towns?

Unfortunately, he never got enough time to figure that out by himself, because then he came face-to-face with a very large army. It was lead by some guy named Caleb, who happened to be the king of that particular piece of country, and had gone up in order to check out reports of super-powered people trampling his villages and ransacking his people. And, of course, when a dude lands in front of you in a pillar of flame, you're not exactly going to ask any questions. Especially when you've already been told about it by the evacuees of that village.

Sam did the sensible thing and surrendered.

He didn't know how long he'd spent in that prison. Not that it was uncomfortable or anything - the food was decent, the cell was comfy, but the chains clearly needed greasing because they chafed like crazy. But the former Destined Hero had no idea what day or the week it was when Walter suddenly prised his door open, took his sleeve in his jaws and lead him out of that camp and across a field or two to a hotel in some other village. On the morning when Walter trotted into his room with the Grandius in his mouth, wagging his tail happily, did he realize that his own dog seemed to know this strange new world better than he did.

So he had no complaints when Walter lead him out of the hotel and through a dozen more miles of countryside. It was here that Sam noticed something very odd indeed about this world - it was like looking at a patchwork quilt up close. One minute, he'd be walking past some farmland, then ten miles later it'd be all steampunk and copper, then farmland again, then early 20th century tech... The blond warrior had a bit of trouble wrapping his head around the whole thing, and wondered just what had happened to get things into such a state.

Eventually, he came to a very large market town, which seemed to be in the middle of a trading convention with a strange civilization of... well, the Grandius translated their name as "Skinweavers", so that was what he was gonna call them. Walter had indicated, by barking, that he ought to have a word with some of these people, and by this time he'd long given up on whatever reasoning the dog had on doing any of this. Also, he was tired, hungry and more than a little fed up with this shit. If the dog wanted him to speak to the scary face-painted tribesmen, then that's what he'd do.

Their first question, when he filled then in on the situation and what he needed, was wherever the local law enforcement could handle the issue. When he told them, in no uncertain terms, that this was extremely unlikely, they decided to take him to their leader instead.

Sam was really starting to regret getting out of bed.

Party Crasher (Belated Valentines Special)

The day had started so well, too.

Stanley didn't know much about Valentines Day, or how it was meant to work, having heard only second-hand reports from the others. But he'd decided that if there was any day that he could take a break from his work to show how much he appreciated Gemma, then that was the day. And if he was going to do that, he was going to do it the best way he possibly could, and in the best way he knew how. Hey, if there was anything he didn't get right, then it'd be the thought that counted, right?

The spot he picked for the picnic was perfect, too - overlooking a lake, the sun in the right position, peace and quiet far away from human habitation. Of course, some of the other hunters had raised eyebrows at his choice, and asked him if he really wanted to go there, but Stan couldn't see why. The place was almost uninhabited! There was no way anything could go wrong with this idea, he was sure of it - and if it did, he'd be more than ready for it.

Well, the day held out when the actual foray began. They reached the place in good time, and Gemma seemed to genuinely marvel at the natural beauty of the place. Stan had laid out the blanket and procured the basket, and the whole thing had proceeded very pleasantly, in the young hunter's opinion. The wine was accepted heartily, the food was complemented and everything seemed set to go absolutely perfectly. There were times where the boy had almost fancied his heart would burst out of his ribs from excitement.

That was when the Brachydios decided to crash the party.