Issue 1 Downtime

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, welcome one and all to the first ever set of matches in the Xavier University Out of Character Battle series! We take you now to the floor and our announcers for tonight, William Stanton and Ayami Morita.

"Thanks, bodyless narrator. We are proud and excited to bring you the very first ever set of matches in our hopefully long-running series of Out of Character Battles. Welcome! Before we begin tonight, a brief rundown of the rules would be in order, Ayami?

"Thanks, Will. The way this works is simple. Two people will be assigned a head-to-head matchup. The narrator will provide a location and a time for the scene--for example, the quad of Xavier's University at high noon. Both characters will have a chance to post a general strategy--what they plan to do against the opposing fighter. Then, other players will, if they desire, discuss the matchups and post their votes as to who wins--a win, in this case, would be a death, knockout, submission, or immobilization for one minute. Whoever has the most votes is the winner!

"As for the specifics, characters who desire equipment of some kind--for example, Bear's collection of balls or Jayda's knives--are allowed to bring their standard loadout, and only their standard loadout, unless the stipulations of the match state otherwise. So, Bear could bring her entire satchel of goodies, but not a special anti-shapeshifter bomb, should she have to face me. And remember..."

"This is happy pretendy-fun-games, so don't get too upset either way, k?"

"Right. Well, we'll go into further detail on the rules if needed. To determine the first champion, we're going to have a double-elimination tournament. You lose twice, and you're eliminated--simple as that!"

"With no further ado, let's get our matches for the day."


Rhiannon "Aquarius" Nightridge (0-0) v. Talia Fawnsworth (0-0)
Location: Danger Room (Setting: Binary's planned Mars colony, 9 AM--earth Time.)
"Woah-hoah! Right of the bat, an elemental matchup that can't be topped. Fire and Water--who will win in this eternal matchup of the elements!"


Alex "Foxfire" Campion (0-0) v. Victoria Valentine (0-0)
Location: A courtroom in the Old Bailey, 9 PM.
"Why THIS match-up, Will?"
"...they can't ALL make sense, can they?"


Rachel "Nomic" O'Brien (0-0) v. Nina "Tramua Pack" Madaraki (0-0)
Location: On the runways at Heathrow Airport, 4 PM
"A vicious battle between roommates! Oh, what horrible fates, to set two friends up against one another in vicious combat!"
"But didn't you set the..."
"Shhh! Geez, Ayami, not so loud."

Hmm..

Initial thoughts.. The elemental match looks good, Alex had better not underestimate Victoria, And Rachel Vs. Nina should be interesting as well, provided, Rachel doesn't shut Nina down early.

I'll wait to vote until the participants do.

edit: Votes- In a space station, fire can get extinguished way too easily. Rhiannon wins.
Nina Needs to take Rachel down in the first few seconds, which I don't think her butterflies will accomplish. Rachel wins.
Based on the strategies for Alex and Victoria, I'm going to go with Alex winning.

In addition, perhaps posting both strategies simultaneously would be a good idea for future rounds- maybe the participants can IM them to Will, who can post them in the thread himself.

Rachel's strategy with Nina is pretty simple. Get into her mind, shut down her heart and lungs.

Nina attaches a regular probe and a doctor probe to herself with the intent of monitoring her body and trying to prevent any instant kill damage. This has a very small chance of working.

If it does, Nina sends probes after Rachel to harass her with sedative doses. While she's distracted she sends out several butterflies up into the air to drop down on Rachel when she gets a clear shot.

Normally I'd go with Rachel on this one; Nina can't fight without air. But if Nina gets close, the game's all her.

If Rachel loses initiative though, or gets hit by a plane, the match is all Nina. I'm gonna vote PUSH; it's really based on the planes distracting Rachel.


Victoria can't feel pain. If she gets that whip into play, she'll win; plus, she's absolutely vicious. VICTORIA.

Rhiannon will probably win that bout, but I always favor fire over water. RHIANNON.

Alright, I'll give my first opinion, as we wait to see if anyone else joins in with strategies.


I'll admit that Nina's probes give me something to think about, defense-wise. It is possible, however unlikely, that they'll be able to either stymie the effects of Rachel's telepathy or even entirely avoid them. However, I think Rachel's mind-zapping powers will overcome them, unless the probes can somehow regulate Nina's autonomic nervous system themselves--I'd say that Rachel's just a little too powerful here for Nina to overcome.

Vote: RACHEL

Victoria's got two things going for her. The fact that she can blend into the background, and the fact that plants and fungi are water-based, which makes them vulnerable to an electric whip. She'd try to not get hit as much as possible, sneak around, and try to get her whip around his neck.

Ok, 1st off Water v Fire: Talia can shoot fire and coat herself in it, Rhi can control water and turn into a puddle without conciousness. I'm going with Talia here, she can fly and generate fire so she really just needs to speed at Rhi and blast her, Rhi will either burn as a person or turn into a puddle, where she'll be evaporated into steam (can she come back from steam?). Rhi will struggle to land a decent hit on Talia, she trains for things like this, she should be able to dodge a few globules of H2O (which I'm not sure if she'll be able to find on Mars, though she can take it out of the air, how long does that take?) and even if she is hit, she can just generate some more fire, no biggy. Rhi could try and drown her, but I don't think Talia would let something like that happen easily. Fire ftw.

Alex v Vic: Tough, all life is water-based so Vics whip won't give her any-more advantage than it would against any normal person. Vics' best option would be to sneak around, but Alex is a hive of spores, he could have eyes everywhere, inspecting everything and could morph his body out of any stranglehold Vic put him in. Unless she's sneaky like hell I'm giving this to Alex.

Nina v Rach: Without any time to prepare I can't see Nina winning this, if she had time she could make a mob of Dr Probes and launch them at Rach, but in this instance Rach shuts her down in the opening few seconds.

Let's see, Nina's probes could work for defense, although unless they're seperate entities from Nina entirely they'd get bogged down by a psychic attack as well. Gonna have to go with Vote: Rachel

I'm not too sure about about the full scope of Rhi's and Talia's powers, but according to every RPG ever water>fire, so as long as there's a decent amount of water nearby I'd say Rhiannon, but no vote yet in case they wanna post strategies. I'd like to see how she'd try to manage the Talia being able to fly part, otherwise water extinguishes fire and Talia can't keep generating fire endlessly, every contact with Rhi would drain her.

No game-plan from Alex yet, but fungus isn't more or less water-based than living things in general and he can just shift into something without a neck. Since it's not an open area he could propably just flood the room with spores/toxins and sit it out. Vote: Alex

I think Nina's powers are versatile enough and her tactics unexpected enough that she might be able to squeeze out a win.

Alex and Victoria? Hmm, interesting. I'd really like to see what Alex is capable of. Undecided.

Rhiannon and Talia: Mutually Assured Destruction.

Alex's opening move would be to flood the room with spores design to release the chemicals of an accelerated form of the Psilocybin mushroom into his opponents bloodstream, reducing mobility and inducing multi-sensory hallucinations within minutes. Then he would use his shapeshifting powers to keep her at bay while the spores weaken her. To his benefit, his 'neck' is not required to breath.

I'm going to go with Alex

For the matches I'm not in...

Rachel vs Nina:
- I have to give the edge to Rachel

Rhiannon vs Talia:
- Hard to call given the limited water & oxygen in a space colony. I give Rhi the edge due to her training by her sister and greater direct control of her element.

Heh... for the record, the neck was just a convenient place to wrap to deliver a charge.

For the other matches, I vote Rachel and Rhiannon, too.

Alex
Rhianon

Edited in my votes in earlier post.

I like North's idea of simultaneous posting; I don't think I'll make it a requirement or anything quite yet, but it could work.

As for the Victoria-Alex match, I just think Alex is too powerful here. Victoria has no defenses against the hallucinogens, that I know of, which will throw her off her game enough for Alex to take the victory here.

I'm gonna wait to see if Rhi or Tal posts a strategy before weighing in there.

Rhiannon v. Talia

Tough call, due to the limited supplies for both characters--oxygen and water.

I'm going to say, however, that Binary would include fire suppression systems on her Mars colony, and, while Talia could certainly overcome them, that'd be enough of a hindrance for Rhiannon to take this one.

EDIT: Oh yes, and I'll be officially counting votes approximately....72 hours from now.

Just one last chance to get your votes in...

Rhiannon, Alex, and Rachel

Talia, Victoria, Rachel.