Archive for the 'Flash Flash Revolution' Category
8th Official Tournament: Final Round
No suns rose that final morning. It was sad, yet so too was it fitting.
Division One: Call Upon the Seaponies (EuroSHOOBEDOO Mix)
The unusually still surface of the Northern Megamon Ocean was only one amongst the myriad of factors that collaborated together in order to instill xXFluffyXx’s with a sense of overwhelming anxiety. “Are you guys sure that this is…y’know, safe?”
SallowKnight adopted a face of palpable discontent. “Has a single thing that we’ve been forced to do thus far been even remotely safe?”
“What about the time we taught a knitting class for senior citizens down at the learning annex?” ticonderoga360 asked, his statement immediately followed by the simultaneous squawking of millions of seagull-brony hybrids.
“Are you kidding me?!” xXFluffyXx cried out. “That was the most dangerous thing that we’ve done thus far! Remember how bloodthirsty those old folks were? It’s a good thing that they didn’t have any teeth left, otherwise they would’ve eaten us alive!”
ticonderoga360 laughed. “I was being sarcastic.”
The hand that SallowKnight was using to tensely clutch onto the theoretical conch shell had begun to noticeably perspire. Beneath his hovering feet was a darkened abyss of pure Monster energy drink that stretched indefinitely downwards. Only one of the three would be able to avoid having the limitless trench become their final resting place. Despite the carefree nature of their small talk, each of them knew all too well what was about to ensue. Their time of reckoning would come just as soon as they blew into the conch in order to Call Upon the Seaponies.
“Well, there’s no sense of dillydallying any longer than we already have. Whaddya say we get this show on the road already, hmm?” SallowKnight proposed.
XXFluffyXx and ticonderoga360 looked at each other for a moment before smiling. “Sounds good to me,” they said in perfect unison.
Division Two: The Strategy of Emperor
Warm blood dripped down from xSonicBulletx’s nostrils, the goopy mess mildly irritating his lips and chin as it fluttered downwards and congealed into a puddle on the cement floor below him. To say that things were not going well would be a criminally massive understatement. To the left of him was .Rarity, the mythical figure loudly bemoaning the loss of seven of its twenty-one limbs, while to the right arcnmx was crying while text messaging what appeared to be a plate of fettuccine alfredo. Standing before the trio was the Emperor, the world’s handsomest yet most ferocious of emperor penguins.
“We can’t do it,” arcnmx muttered under his breath. “We just can’t.”
“Yes we can!” .Rarity promptly retorted. “This thing isn’t even all that powerful. All you have to do is get one decent hit in and then you’ll be named the winner of the tournament.”
xSonicBulletx wiped away some of the blood from his face with his prized Fruit Roll Up. “Easier said than done. This thing’s strategy…it’s just too perfect! We can’t get anywhere near him!”
“You fools!” the Emperor shrieked as it grabbed an oversized fish and smacked the wall with it. “I have been waiting all tournament for a foe that I can truly call my equal, and this is what I am rewarded with? This sorry lot? Pathetic!”
The remainder of Division Two raised themselves up to their feet. Even if they knew that the Emperor’s words amounted to little more than a thinly-veiled attempt to get them riled up, and even if they knew that it was all but hopeless for them to seek victory, they knew that they had no other choice than to persist. The atrociously plain concrete walls seemed to resonate in perfect harmony with Division Two’s ragged breathing as their willpower at long last became solidified.
It was time.
Division Three: Bloody Tears
Billions of years of scientifically pertinent history was being reduced to ash and rubble all around them. However, rather than standing around and bemoaning humanity’s great loss or attempting to escape from the ancient castle before they found themselves to be just as much a casualty of the destructions as the portraits of hamburgers or tomes of early 1990′s romantic comedies would prove to be, Division Three had much more pressing issues to concern themselves with. A formless blob of blood that had seeped out from the tear ducts of the hi19hi19 statue located in the exact center of the castle was ruthlessly pursuing the remainder of the division throughout the crumbling hallways and exploding antechambers, giving them absolutely no time for rest or repose.
“I’m going left!” beary605 called out.
“Well I’m going right then!” MracY somehow managed to reply atop the intense guitar solo that was being blasted through the castle’s intercom system.
“And I shall go up!” HalfStep added before taking off through the ceiling.
Much to the combined chagrin of the trio, the Bloody Tears did not follow a single person. Instead, it split off into three equally sized imitations of its larger itself and continued its pursuit as if the ruse had never even occurred. The cacophony of curses and swears were hidden beneath the great rumbling of the castle as it was torn asunder by some newfangled force of physics.
“I think…this is the end,” beary605 muttered under his breath. Despite being miles away from the people that he once considered to be his friends, he knew that they were thinking the exact same thing.
Division Four: Go Beyond!! -Jazzy mix-
The twinkling stars of the cosmos had long since been extinguished, their likenesses replaced instead with nothing but inescapable darkness. For Division Four, the earth was nothing more than a distant relic of the past, a memory as insignificant as all others. All that existed for them was nothingness, yet at the same time they persisted onwards towards some far off and more likely than not intangible destination. Every so often badman7772 and PaperclipGames would attempt to murder each other through any means that they could manage, but ___________ always made sure to break the scuffles up before the pair could cause any serious damage either to their opponent or themselves.
One of the three survivors was going to emerge the victor, and each of them wanted it more than anything else. They had not sacrificed everything that they once knew and loved, be it PaperclipGames’ prized huckleberry pie recipe or ___________’s psychic nipple, only to end up empty handed. One of them was going to reach the threshold of all that it is and be bestowed with the ability to Go Beyond, to traverse from one void to another, and win the tournament.
The tense silence that had reigned dominant for the past hour was briefly permeated by a low grumble. “Sorry gang, I’ve been holdin’ that one in since the Ryu Centari!” badman7772 laughed.
Division Five: Playing Super Mario World While Taking Mushrooms
The faces of PriestREA, mirror_eclipse and d4u7211 were illuminated only by the faint glow of the old CRT televisions that were situated in a circle around the windowless basement. The reassuring sliver of light that existed in the crevice between the bottom of the door to the main stairwell and the floor had long since disappeared, vanished along with the rest of the city. Although sad, the trio knew that concerning themselves with the outside world would amount to naught. Their world was in the cavernous basement now, their interests lying only with Playing Super Mario World While Taking Mushrooms.
“Okay, is the Pink Switch Palace trippin’ anybody else out or what?” mirror_eclipse asked.
“Yeah, it’s like…why do we even need so many coins anyways?” PriestREA replied.
d4u7211 laughed. “Because when you get a hundred coins you get an extra life, duh! Don’t you get it? Super Mario World is all about the pursuit of worldly gains. You go around collecting money, killing wildlife, claiming land for yourself, and knocking down historic fortresses just so that you can chase after the ever-distant figure of the princess. Sounds kinda like the pursuit of the American dream, doesn’t it? Star Road? That’s just a metaphor for fame and fortune or whatever. But it’s like…no matter what you do, ninety-six is still the highest percentage that you can get. The full hundo is always unreachable. This game…this game is…whoa, I swear Yoshi just winked at me!”
“Yeah, he’ll do that,” mirror_eclipse shuddered.
PriestREA slowly lowered his controller onto the couch as he fumbled to light a single Dorito on fire with his lighter. “I always wondered when Mario took his poops when he was busy adventuring. Not anymore though.”
Division Six and Seven: Unconnected.
The eight proliferating members of Division Seven stood huddled around what little was left of Division Six, their faces indiscernible behind their hooded and cloaked figures.
“Wh-what’s the meaning of this?” alloyus nervously questioned.
“Silence!” One Winged Angel cried out before using his single wing to slap alloyus across the face. “You have been summoned here because it is time to end this tournament!”
“Ooh, that’d be great actually,” shadow 1800 distantly replied. “I think I forgot to turn off the dog before I left my house back at the start.”
smartdude1212 cleared his throat. “Hey, take it from me, that wasn’t a very smart thing to do!”
Before shadow 1800 got a chance to respond to his superior’s pun, Herogashix let out a shrill cry of anguish. “Aww cheese, I forgot to tape How To Tape TV Shows with T+tapeolite!”
“Silence!” LongGone tried to shout, but much like his sense of moral decency, his voice was already long gone.
AlexDest silently took off his shirt. “I don’t even know what’s going on here anymore.”
Dynam0, ~Zeta~ and xXOpkillerXx attempted to agree with their counterpart, but unfortunately for all of those that were amassed at the Pizza Hut, the trio was too busy being engaged in a three-way game of Who Can Vomit The Most.
It wasn’t until samurai7694 rose above the clamor that the cowering figures of Division Six were at long last given the means to realize their goals. “Log off,” the seven thousand, six hundred and ninety-fourth samurai commanded them. “Get off the ‘net. Get unconnected and go live your lives in the outside world. First one to, like, I dunno, get married and have kids wins the tournament? Whatever. I already AAA’d this round anyways.”
Division Six solemnly stood up, dusted off their bottoms and began to shuffle off towards the front door in a single file line. Out of all of the things that they could have heard, this was by far the worst.
- Plopadop
8th Official Tournament: Round 7!
Pieces of the earth kindly took a moment out of whatever it was that they had been doing prior to my appearance in order to construct a pseduo-bridge to safely transport me across the bottomless sinkhole that had devoured what was once the state of Michigan however many years ago. The landscape around me felt overwhelmingly eerie, presumably due to the deficit of any conscious lifeforms other than myself. Not even the omnipresent hum of artificial cicadas or the sweet serenade of distant MOSAIC.WAVES could be heard anymore.
It was precisely at that point in time that the ramifications of this planet being on its last leg finally sunk in within my mind. Back then, the only people that were still considered to be “alive” outside of Professor Halogen and myself were the thirty-eight people who stubbornly persisted in seeing the tournament all the way to its bitter end. I couldn’t help but question myself; even if Halogen and I were able to save this world and bring it back to the ways of the old, would there be anybody left to reap the benefits? If saving the world was a hopeless endeavor, then why exactly was I making my way towards the Altar of Synthlight? Was it pride? Curiosity? Boredom? Perhaps I simply yearned to create a swan song of my own before the victors of the tournament were decided and subsequently imbibed with incomprehensible power.
Division One: Enchanting Venus
With nothing but my loneliness to keep me company, I took the opportunity to retreat into my thoughts. Once there were only five poor souls remaining in Division One, there had finally been enough resources to allow for all of them to travel into space. The rockets had launched the day prior, the likes of which resulting in the spread of a noxious odor that could only be described as a disgusting concoction of lilacs, motor oil, body odor and frozen pizzas. Since the suns had already set and the remaining stars had scampered off to perform their unique rendition of The Tragedy of Darkshark in the southern hemisphere, I could easily see D1 suspended in the cosmos. In order to advance onto the final showdown, three of them had to gain favor with the Enchanting Venus, one of the three incarnations of the planet that were birthed when Mars collided with Venus several years prior. A trace amount of selfishness fueled my motives as I silently wished that at least one of them would return safely.
Division Two: LUV CAN SAVE U
A little while later I could hear the sounds of a strikingly different kind of ferocious battle going on several kilometers below me. In return for the great valor that they had showcased over the course of the tournament, the universe had rewarded Division Two with the ability to levitate. It was within the wide open expanse of the sinkhole that they decided to continue their ceaseless war with one another, only instead of relying on bio-augmented weaponry or even their fists wrapped in lunch meat in order to eliminate their opponents, the five remaining combatants were utilizing their words instead. The group hovered around in a perfect circle while attempting to preach to the specific reasons as to why they believed that they should advance over the others.
“LUV CAN SAVE U!” .Rarity the minotaur screamed, its voice loud enough to make part of the pseudo-bridge implode on itself.
“No it can’t!” arcnmx promptly retorted. “The only thing that can save us now is an ice cold can of Doctor Captain Diet Archive. If you folks forfeit now then I’ll make sure to toss one your way once everything is all said and done.”
.Rarity solemnly shook its head. “Can’t do it. I’m allergic to glue…probably.”
Sensing that this debate wouldn’t reach its conclusion any time in the near future, I simply lowered my head and carried on towards the horizon.
Division Three: Devilz Staircase
It wasn’t until several grueling days had idly passed me by that I at long last reached the center of the sinkhole. Nicknamed the Devilz Staircase after its discoverer Dan “Razor” Devilz, the structure was an ornate spiral staircase that would’ve been fairly unremarkable had it been located within the generic setting of a haunted manor or futuristic castle. However, since the total height of the staircase was unmeasurable by present-day standards, it stood out as being one of the most magnificent and also most frightening pieces of self-replicating architecture in all of the world. It was on this very staircase that Division Three had been in the process of their futile race to the top.
“The Altar is said to have descended from space, similar to an asteroid,” Professor Halogen’s words echoed within the confines of my head. “The others are making their way towards it irrespective of whether they’re conscious of doing so or not. It is at the bottom of the staircase that you should find what we both seek.”
Division Four: Cutthroat
After only about six or seven flights down the staircase, the steps suddenly recoiled and effectively transformed the entire structure into a particularly treacherous slide. Down and down I went, the light of the moon becoming extinguished, thus leaving me in pitch black darkness. Just when I thought that I would pop out on the opposite end of the world, I came to rest on a comfortable landing pad made out of what I presumed was high fructose corn syrup. The warming glow of a neon sign that read “WELCOME TO THE CENTER OF THE THROAT! IF YOU THOUGHT THAT GETTING HERE WAS CUTTHROAT THEN WAIT UNTIL YOU TRY THE PASTA!” bathed me in pink light and allowed me to breathe a long, highly refreshing sigh of relief.
The place that I soon found myself ensnared within was beige and dreary, as if nature had went out of its way to make it as unappealing as possible. The walls raspily breathed in and out, sometimes sputtering toxic sludge onto the ground beneath them, while the ceiling squirmed around like a restless surface of water prior to a storm. The only feature of the cave that gave me any sort of solace whatsoever was the blurred figure of something vaguely green way off in the distance. With not all that many other options facing me at the moment, I began to walk towards whatever it was, all the while making sure to avoid stepping in the goop that another neon sign professed to me was the current form of Division Four.
Division Five: Lawn Wake XI
Much to my relief, the patch of green turned out to be the front lawn of the Altar of Synthlight. Every blade of grass slouched forwards like an army of vibrantly colored wet noodles. It wasn’t until I had reached the edge of their domain that all at once they suddenly became erect and faced me, their faces uncomfortably expressionless.
“WELCOME TO THE ALTAR OF SYNTHLIGHT,” they spoke in perfect unison, their obnoxiously high-pitched voices reverberating throughout the hollow interior of the cave system. “YOU HAVE INITIATED SEQUENCE LAWN WAKE XI. CONGRATULATIONS. YOU MAY NOT RECALL, BUT THIS IS THE ELEVENTH TIME THAT YOU HAVE MADE IT THIS FAR. WE ARE TASSELFOOT, KEEPER OF THE ALTAR. SPEAKETH NOW THE PASSWORD OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES.”
Memories flooded back like a tidal wave. It was exactly as they said; I had been here eleven times before, and this is where my journey was always cut short. Not this time though. With a deep breath filling my lungs with stale oxygen I opened my mouth and bellowed, “First person to post on your wall! Cheers, Synthlight!”
Division Six and Seven: Stinger
The lawn was silent for a painfully abnormal length of time. At first I feared that I had answered incorrectly, that I would have to endure the trials all over again, but just when I was about to burst out into a stream of uncontrollable tears, every blade of grass graciously bowed before me. A heavy rumbling overtook the cave as the massive temple doors began to parse themselves shortly afterwords.
“Th-thank you,” I murmured under my breath. Tasselfoot remained silent.
As I proceeded to stand at the entrance to the Altar, I recalled what the Professor had told me prior to my departure. “If you make it far enough, which I’m certain that you will, you should find within the compound the Stinger of a flashbulbian insect long since forgotten. Wait several days until the tournament has reached its conclusion so that the victor of each division can teleport to the Altar. Those that appear before you will have proven themselves to be the most powerful of all, and it is their blood that must be sacrificed to Lord Synthlight if we wish to regain stability in the universe.”
“You mean that I’ll have to murder the only people that are left in the world besides me and you?”
“Yes. This is the whole reason as to why we propagated the tournament in the first place. Only those worthy enough will be accepted by Synthlight, and the seven victors should work perfectly.”
I felt myself instinctively clench my fist with enough vigor to piece my palm and draw blood. “Murder?” I thought aloud as the heavy Altar doors closed behind me. “I never thought that it’d come down to something like that. Oh well, I guess I have no choice then. I’ll have to–
1. Listen to Professor Halogen and sacrifice the winners.
2. Try to sacrifice myself instead.
3. Other (specify).
How will this story end? Will the world be restored, or will the losses accumulated in the name of the 8th Official FFR Tournament be made in vain? The conclusion depends entirely on you! Vote in the comments section of this post to decide the fate of universe.
- Plopadop
CBR Presents: Omnicore 2
Coolboyrulez0 (CBR) and FFR are proud to feature the talented in-house musicians on this site with the release of its second compilation album. CBR Presents Omnicore 2 includes 22 tracks representing a multitude of genres. Please support the hard work of these artists and give this album a listen. A free download is available below. Enjoy!
And now a message from CBR:
I’d just like to comment that since there was such a demand for the album, 200 downloads were exceeded within mere days, and that is the limit bandcamp imposes on free albums: It is now 7 dollars, (I do not control this) until the 15th, where it becomes free again for 200 downloads. The album in mp3 format is now available from this link for free, as it should be.
Additionally I want to thank the talented artists that made this all possible — We are also already in the planning stages for our next compilation!
- CBR and the FFR Staff
8th Official Tournament: Round 6!
Even if for some completely inexplicable reason I legitimately desired to speak of the events that had occurred following the Crow’s Ghost releasing of me from within its abyss, I’m afraid that doing so would amount to nothing more than a series of unsubstantiated guesses. Even now I’m not entirely certain as to how I got from where I was to where I am now. According to biocam recordings that I viewed in private later on, the FFR Governing Staff had traveled to the frozen deserts of southern Florida and collected the last of the Quarks while I was operating on autopilot like some sort of mechanized imposter of myself. It was then, after the the fourth Quark was removed from its ancient resting place, that a series of devastating repercussions were propagated into existence. If the universe had been considered to be of great instability beforehand, then the word to adequately describe what we as a species have been forced to suffer through afterwords has yet to be coined. There were several instances in which I was warped to the onset of the tournament as a silent spectator only to be warped back to the present a few minutes later. My body had fluctuated in age from fetus to corpse and everywhere in between. I had awoken with my vital organs transfused to the walls of my bedroom, only to have them melt into a fine paste that was then greedily devoured by a roaming gang of Betamax tapes moments later.
However, out of all of the changes that had taken place, none had been more disastrous than the loss of the entire FFR Governing Council. Although their fortress persisted, those that once resided within its fleshy walls had been reduced to nothing more than faint relics of the past, ones that served to haunt the hallways and fill me with a nameless dread irrespective of wherever I was in the building. Every evening when I went to sleep I would pray with every ounce of my being that when I awoke the universe would’ve reincarnated those that it has taken from me, but sure enough when morning arrived my surroundings would be as lifeless as they were in the days and weeks prior. If it were not for Professor Halogen, the only person other than myself that persisted, I fear that I would’ve been driven even more insane than I already was.
Division One: Disc Jockey MIKE
Following similarly in line with the eradication of the FFR Governing Staff’s populace, so too had the numbers of those still participating in the tournament dwindled until they reached the single digits. A deficit of meaningful activities to pass the time until the tournament reached its eventual conclusion had resulted in Professor Halogen and I spending the vast majority of our days cooped up in the Control Room, mindlessly watching each and every bit of action on the self-replicating terminals encapsulating us within the dimly lit and foul smelling dugout.
“Now, see, Division One is in quite the dilly of the pickle here,” the Professor casually informed me. “Since we didn’t defeat Disc Jockey MIKE after collecting the fourth Quark, it’s now up to those poor folks to deal with him instead. But see, the interesting thing about MIKE is not the giant microphone that he uses to bludgeon things to death with, but rather the horse made out of CD’s that he’s riding. I hear that if you kill the beast and put its eviscerated carcase into any old stereo system then you’ll hear the most beautiful polka-punk fusion serenade ever known to mankind. I wonder if those restless souls in D1 still have it in them to slay both the horse and MIKE after all of the shapeshifting and the like that they’ve endured thus far.”
Division Two: Walking on a Dream
As far as I could tell, the Professor’s plan for collecting the Quarks had been in the hopes that he could harness their power and utilize them in order to proliferate the reign of the FFR Governing Staff, thus ensuring that he could conduct his various experiments indefinitely, but now that the Staff was no more and there were no willing test subjects left, he had sunken into a state of what I had assumed was absolute despair. His constant play-by-play narration of events that I could very well see with my own (usually) two eyes grew tiresome rather quickly, but at the same time I felt that if putting up with his irksome practices meant that he could keep his mind off of going insane then doing so was a small price to pay in comparison risking a homicidal rampage, even if there wasn’t all that much left to rampage against.
“And Division Two…ho boy are they going to be in for quite the toxic slide ride as well! Now, since they’re in Portland, which as you know is the city where dreams come from, those D2′ers are going to have to traverse the harsh skyscraper-laden environment using physical manifestations of their own hopes, dreams and desires as bridges. Walking on a Dream is tough, especially because it’s so gosh darn embarrassing! I mean, imagine if you had to walk across a projection of the person that you have a crush on giving you a particular harsh spanking, or you eating your favorite meal of theoretical larvae on rye! Wouldn’t that be awful?”
“Yeah, that would stink alright,” I distantly replied.
Division Three: ETERNAL DRAIN [Heavy]
As Halogen continued to ramble on about something that I held absolutely zero interest in listening to, I turned my attention over towards Division Three. On the screen I saw what appeared to be an inverted cone of blinding light that set nearby trees ablaze and made the area’s robotic wildlife short circuit in terror. The remaining members of Division Three continued to wage battle around this structure as if it wasn’t even there. However, their blissful ignorance came to a premature conclusion when the cone suddenly grew to be the size of an overturned Egyptian pyramid. The structure proceeded to consume a robodeer, converting the helpless mechanoid into an elongated beam of pure energy that was subsequently fired into the starlit sky.
“The ETERNAL DRAIN,” the Professor commented, apparently taking notice of my grim expression. “Touch it and you’re banished to the cosmos for eternity. Pretty harsh, huh?”
“You can say that again.”
Division Four: DownTemperature
Silence reigned dominant until the man seated on the floor adjacent to me cleared his throat and spoke again. “I don’t think that we’ll have to worry about Division Four until later on in the week. I mean, look! They’re all encased in proto-ice! The DownTemperature protocol there must have turned the omnipotent thermostat down to somewhere way below absolute zero. They’ll be sitting ducks for a few days until the grand thaw comes later on and frees them from their icy prison cells.”
“Temperatures can get lower than absolute zero, eh?” I thought aloud, not caring about how ridiculous such a statement would have sounded to somebody of this world.
“Well yes, of course,” the Professor smiled in my general direction. “I thought that by this point in time you would have realized that this universe doesn’t operate the same way that the old one did.”
Division Five: 44 Edit
Before the Professor could even finish his sentence my circulatory system had long since come to a screeching halt. “What…what did you just say?” I confusedly stammered.
Halogen stood up and turned his back to me so that he could watch Division Five phase in and out of existence as a result of what I assumed was the 44 Edit procedure, a phenomenon in which their existences were created and then edited forty-four times thereafter in order to ensure absolute symbiotic perfection. “What, did you really think that you were the only person here that remembers the way that things used to be? Jeez, I thought that you were smarter than that.”
“You mean there’s…err, was more people like us out there?”
He solemnly shook his head. “No. It’s just you and I, I’m afraid. Always has been, always will be. It’s kind of strange, isn’t it, that of all the things to turn into a supreme dictatorship, the universe would choose a flash-based rhythm gaming community where most of its members have never even seen each other face to face, or even interacted at that! It’s…almost funny, actually. Pretty hilarious. I’d laugh if I could.”
Division Six and Seven: The Ordeal Becomes Great
“Wait, so the reason that you’ve been borderline insane these past few weeks isn’t because of the FFR Governing Staff’s demise?”
“Correct. You see, much like you, I’ve been trying to get humanity back to the place in which they belong. I thought that if all four of the Quarks were reunited then I would be able to harness enough power to figure out exactly what caused this shift and undo the process as well, but as you can see such an outcome never came to fruition.”
“I…I think I know how to fix everything though,” I said after a particularly lengthy bout of silence. “I have to reach something called Infinity. Do you know what that is?”
“I do. It’s only a concept, but it’s still theoretically possible. Hmm…I suppose that idea could show some sort of promise. It’s just that I don’t…wait…wait, yes, that’s it!” Halogen suddenly cried as he pointed at the monitor showcasing Division Six and Seven suspended in what appeared to be Super Sonic Hummus. “I understand it now! I understand everything! Tell me, Ensign, are you willing to do whatever it takes to undo the errors in this universe?”
Any semblance of hesitation was nonexistent within myself as I immediately answered with an emphatic, “Yes.”
“Excellent. Well then, from henceforth the ordeal, or rather your ordeal, becomes great, and I don’t mean ‘great’ in the ‘agreeable’ sense either.”
- Plopadop
The Official Is Back On!
The site ran well all day today and appears to be fixed. The tournament songs are up for all the divisions. Because of the delay the dashboard is reflecting an incorrect date for the round’s end. Please refer to the second post of the tournament thread for the round end dates.
On another note thanks to a tiebreaker in d6 and to TC_Halogen for stepping the file, we now have a new event token called Fractured Sunshine that has been given out to the top 16 in every division. Speaking of the tiebreaker, those who are involved remember it’s only 24 hours long. So get those scores in!
Finally, for the first time ever those who were eliminated last round are going to get a 2nd chance to battle it out for vROFL! We hope this makes up a little bit for the issues with the site in the last bit of the round. We’ll be starting this after the tiebreaker is over so keep your eye’s out for more details!
Official Tournament Postponed
As I’m sure many of you have noticed the site has been experiencing some issues. Due to the constant up and down of the site we’ve decided to hold off the tournament until it is fixed. I don’t have any exact dates as to when things will be up and running again, but the issue is being worked on. Once the site is stable again we will resume the tournament and the round will still be a week long regardless of what day of the week it starts on.
Sorry for the delay guys.
8th Official Tournament: Round 5!
Even if you ignore the whole “being the only sentient life form in the entire universe that is able to recall a period of history in which time and space were actually bounded by laws that kept life coherent and stable” thing, I’ve always considered myself to be a relatively lucky person. The number of Rock Paper Scissors matches that I’ve won greatly outnumber those that I’ve lost, and not once have I ever purchased a lottery ticket without winning at least some sort of prize. I wish I could say that the inexplicable affection that the cosmos hold towards me is the main reason as to why I’m still alive right now, but unfortunately I know all too well that there’s a much more significant purpose for my proliferation than what I’ve been told. Besides, at the end of the day the simple fact remains that the Quarks could have chosen any old person on this planet to embed themselves within, but for some hapless reason they had picked me. I suppose that it wouldn’t be all that much of a stretch if I said that I had used up more than my fair share of luck prior to now and have been forced to endure the consequences in the form of being made into the unluckiest person in the entire world.
The day began with two suns rising in the east and one in the west: not exactly the most agreeable of conditions for a ten-person convoy that had to trek its way across the treacherous Canadian wasteland. We took cars and trucks for as long as we could before being forced to switch over to bio-rigged dune buggies and experimental Waste Walkers, the pungent odors of which being almost too much for even the iron-stomached B-Mah to handle. Once we reached the infamous Niagara Bonecase a few hours later, we left our vehicles to be devoured by the ravenous hordes of mechanized protovultures before beginning our ascent of what I recall was once a proud and noble waterfall, now reduced to nothing more than a highly disorganized pile of human remains.
Division One: Move It Groove It [Standard]
Somewhere way off in the distance we could hear the sounds of Division One waging an intense battle. It felt oddly sobering to realize that the tournament didn’t bring itself to a standstill out of respect for us having left the FFR Governing Staff complex in order to seek out the rumored location of the elusive third Quark. If anything, the war was carrying on with more steam than ever before. Far too many lives had been lost over the last few days for us to produce an accurate measurement. However, despite their numbers continually dwindling down towards the inevitable sole survivor, the atrocious discords of fierce bloodshed never lessened by even the slightest amount. The Desire Drive phenomenon that had plagued the division’s physical forms the last time that I had come across them had apparently been rectified during my absence. Now, in what many have interpreted as being a particularly macabre celebration, they were commemorating the return of their proper bodies by intensifying their respective offensives to nearly catastrophic degrees.
“Gosh darn savages,” General Jimerax muttered under his breath.
“Hey, come on now, we all started out in D1 too!” Professor Halogen laughed. “Just let them Move It Groove It for now. They’ll tire themselves out by sundown anyways.” He paused. “Well, assuming that there is a sundown tonight, of course!”
Division Two: Futari, Hajimari.
Bones cracked and turned to dust under our heavy footsteps as we continued to ascend the Bonecase. A ceaseless stream of perspiration streaked down from my forehead and irritated the entirety of my face with an itch that would remain unscratched thanks to the fact that my hands were presently bounded together behind my back with poison-enriched handcuffs. Every so often Professor Halogen would look over his shoulder and proudly display a smug expression in my general direction, one that made me consider pursuing my options for escape all that much more.
“Sir, we just got some news in,” A2P, one of the Governing Staff interns, suddenly called out. “It’s Division Two. They’ve…they’ve…”
“Paired up?” Professor Halogen interrupted the pallid-faced child. “Yes yes, I see, it’s just as we predicted then. Futari, Hajimari. Named for the Japanese’s week-long festival in which they bind together with their loved ones and experience their day to day lives as a single entity, so too does this phenomenon cause two combatants to fuse together irrespective of whether they want to or not. Essentially the playing field just became a bit of a buy one get one free sale: take out one person and you’ll take out two. This should be a very interesting turn of events indeed.”
Division Three: Beatrice
The next few hours that passed by provided little in the ways of eventfulness aside from an unfortunate incident involving femur-induced hysteria. It wasn’t until we had reached final stretch of the Bonecase that everything went to hell. There, with its body appearing as a silhouette due to the three suns just over its shoulder, was Beatrice. Similar to the Jazzman, Beatrice was a powerful entity with international renown for possessing the ability to comprise any physical form that it so desired to, just so long as it met a minimal height of at least thirty meters. Today it had assumed the likeness of a rather barbaric monster, complete with slimy tentacles that stretched out for kilometers upon kilometers and a mouth full of whirring buzzsaw teeth.
“Yowzas! Where the heck is Division Three when you need them?” B-Mah cried out.
“Probably wiped out by that thing already!” Jimerax solemnly lamented. “Come on, let’s get the h-e-double-hockey-sticks outta here before it gets us too!”
“No!” Professor Halogen promptly shouted back. “There is a way!”
Division Four: Into Your Eyes (Boyinaband Remix)
The Professor spun around and confidently strutted over to me in perfect synchronicity with the monster bellowing a hollow, unearthly shriek. “You,” he said. “You can save us. The power is within yourself, and I don’t mean that as some lame after-school special sort of thing either! I need you…no, we all need you to quite literally go inside of yourself and confront that which is hidden within!”
“Uhh…okay?” I uneasily replied. “If you take off my handcuffs then I suppose that I can give it a try, whatever it is.”
Halogen shook his head. “That’s not necessary. Actually, if anything, the handcuffs will be of great assistance to you. All you need to do is to take the two Quarks that are bonded to your nervous system and redirect them Into Your Eyes.”
An immense amount of pain wreaked havoc throughout my already frail body as I complied with the Professor’s request. “Now what?”
“Now we do this,” he said as he rummaged around within the depths of his back pocket until he eventually came across the object of his desires. A small cosmetics mirror, the surface of which ornately engraved with the letters P.A., was soon unearthed and shoved directly into my face. For a moment I caught a glimpse of my reflection, my hair hilariously disheveled and my skin clinging for dear life onto the rest of my face, before the two Quarks within my eyes consumed my consciousness and took me to a place far removed from both the rattling Bonecase and Beatrice’s increasingly large figure as it angrily ran towards us.
Division Five: Crow’s Ghost
The sweltering heat of the Canadian wastes soon vanished and were instantaneously replaced with a temperature that was neither hot nor cold, warm nor cool, comfortable nor uncomfortable– it simply was. Interminable darkness constituted the entirety of my surroundings and stretched on for as far as my eyes could see. This place had no ceiling, no floor, no anything: in this world, it was only me and the pale birdlike entity that was hovering within arms length of my chest.
“Hello Plopadop,” it spoke, its voice mimicking mine to a uncannily high degree of accuracy. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you in the flesh. I am the Crow’s Ghost, the keeper of the Quarks. However, disdain towards. I too wish to see its decimation and for life to return to the ways of the old.”
“Oh yeah? If you’re not the one that’s responsible then who is?”
The ghost remained silent for a disproportionately lengthy stretch of time. “Such matters are of petty concern. The rest of your kind can debate amongst yourselves once all is rendered stable. You are above that. You hold a much higher purpose, one that nobody else can fulfill.”
“Why me though? Why not some other random schmuck? What did I ever do to deserve all of this?”
Even if only for a snapshot moment in time, I could have sworn that the ghost had smiled. “There will come a day in which you will learn the truth. For now though you must simply trust me.”
Division Six and Seven: Infinity
“Trust you? Why? What the hell do you want me to do?” I asked it, all the while making a point of expressing my impatience. “Should I harness the power of the Quarks, believe in the power of friendship and emerge from this cliched metaphor for introspection in order to fire a big laser beam that takes Beatrice and allows the rest of us to collect the third Quark? And then what, are we going to collect the fourth one, fight the person responsible for all of this, and maybe even learn that a bad guy wasn’t all that bad while a good guy wasn’t all that good? In a world as messed up as this, there’s no way that something so hackneyed could be possible!”
“No, that will not occur,” the ghost replied with saintlike calmness. “Or, rather, that did not occur. You see, the world persists outside of this realm. Beatrice has been defeated by the group that you refer to as Division Three, the third Quark has been collected, and your convoy is already traveling towards the fourth. Similarly, collecting all four Quarks will serve to do nothing but proliferate the reign of the FFR Governing Staff.”
“Then why are we doing all of this?”
“Because,” the ghost spoke, “it’s the only way for you to reach Infinity.”
- Plopadop
8th Official Tournament: Round 4!
Even to this day, long after I’ve learned so much and forgotten all that is objectively insignificant, I still haven’t the faintest of ideas as to how long I had been knocked out for. I suppose that such matters are of trivial concern though, especially seeing as how measurements of time hold absolutely zero implications in a world where wormholes can open and close with no rhyme or reason whatsoever. My consciousness fluttered in and out of coherency as my eyes slowly opened themselves up and treated me to the sight of an all encompassing darkness. A pungent, familiarly chemical odor invaded my nostrils and immediately filled me with a sense of dread. The puddle that I was laying face down in was that of V-Slime, the substance necessary to enter and exit the FFR Governing Staff complex. I didn’t even have to raise my head upwards to know that I had been dumped in the outside world.
“Halogen,” I scornfully muttered as I wearily brought myself up to my feet. “I always knew that you were up to no good, but actually going as far as to sabotage me? And B-Mah, I thought you were my friend. What happened to those countless rounds of Shirtless Mario Party that we played together in the PX? I guess it’s true…I really am alone here.”
Spreading out before me was a vast plain that looked vaguely reminiscent to the government mandated pictures that children would draw of their parents. The sky was a skeletal gray, the clouds effervescently pink, and the sun was shaped like a businessman’s tie. Every blade of artificial grass was perfectly identical to those surrounding it and refused to change shape even under the most magnanimous of weights. Trees of varying size, taste and texture intermittently dotted the landscape, the likes of which occasionally interspersed with what appeared to be antique bunkers of sorts. The scene would have been idyllic, if not downright beautiful, had it not been for the atrocities taking place a short distance away from me.
Division One: DESIRE DRIVE (LLS HARDCORE REMIX) [Standard]
Even in their tattered and sullied state, I easily recognized the infamous Division One uniforms; discerning the identities of the people that were wearing them, however, was a completely different matter. Their bodies were only vaguely human, stretched and distended to the point that they adopted the likeness of cars, trucks, motorcycles and other common vehicular standbys. The poor souls indiscriminately tore their way around the field, occasionally ramming into each other in what resembled a gory rendition of bumper cars. I had heard of this phenomenon before: people called it the DESIRE DRIVE. It seemed to occur whenever there was a massive influx of amorous emotions juxtaposed with anger and rage, a requisite that was presumably met thanks to the tournament. Thankfully this was only the [Standard] version of the anomaly. Sticking around to see what the full metamorphosis would entail wasn’t exactly anywhere near my list of current priorities.
Division Two: ULTRAnumb
With great haste I retreated into a nearby bunker and descended down below the surface until natural light no longer warmed my back. It was there in the tepid darkness that I came across the remnants of what was once a vibrant Division Two, each and every one of them now reduced to nothing more than piles of human-shaped sludge with highly distorted faces. As I cautiously edged my way closer and closer towards the largest of the clusters of humanoid mush, one of them happened to emerge from its stupor long enough to notice my presence.
“Hey buddy,” it listlessly greeted me.
“Howdy. What the hell happened to you guys?”
The thing attempted to smile. “We’re numb, guy. No, not just numb…we’re ULTRAnumb. It feels…so nice. So soothing. There’s nothing wrong with this. Nothing at all. Care to join? It’s ni~ce.”
I melodramatically shook my head. “I’ll pass, thanks.”
“Suit yourself.”
Division Three: Entry
With not all that much in the ways of any other viable options available to me, I was more or less forced to recede further and further into the sprawling depths of the bunker. Every step that I took loudly reverberated throughout the hollow interior of the structure and engendered clouds of dust and debris to shower down upon me. By the time I finished descending a nearly three kilometer long spiral staircase, I was covered from head to toe with so much dirt that my skin was completely obscured from the outside world. Thankfully though my efforts were not in vain; I soon came across Division Three, each of them huddled together within their individual cliques around the perimeter of a room so large that I couldn’t see the ceiling. I proceeded to glance around in search of a familiar face, eventually finding one in the form of the exiled staff member and resident android Netjet.
“Plopadop,” he solemnly greeted me. “Nice to see that you all the way down here. Come to do some sightseeing?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Something like that. What’s going on?”
“We beat ‘em. We beat the Jazzman, but…look! Look at what he did!” Netjet cried while motioning towards the center of the cavern. “I’m assuming that’s what you’re here for, right? Go ahead and take it; none of us want anything to do with it. This…it all went to hell.”
Division Four: Quark
With a tumorous lump growing in the pit of my stomach, I maneuvered myself over to the middle of the room only to discover a hole barely large enough for one person to squeeze through, along with a rusted ladder affixed to its side. Despite not knowing what I was in for, I nevertheless descended even further downwards. After all, what else could I do?
Once a few days of climbing had passed I finally hit the bottom. It was within that claustrophobia-inducing space that I found not only the charred remains the Jazzman’s powerful mustache but also a small glowing object that was housed within an ornate glass enclosure. I wanted to refuse to believe what I saw, but at the same time I knew that what was resting within that enclosure was indeed genuine.
Finally, after so much searching, it was almost within my grasp: a Quark, one of the four universal power supplies that allowed this world to function without receding into a state of utter disrepair. The one and only reason that the FFR Governing Staff possessed any sort of power over the laymen of this universe was because they had collected one of the Quarks a few years prior. Up until now, the whereabouts of the other three were a complete mystery to all.
Division Five: Sleep
The glass case automatically rose up as I approached the pedestal. Even when standing such a sizable distance away from the legendary object, I could still feel its immense power serging throughout my body. For that brief instance I felt small and insignificant, akin to the Desire Drivers or the ULTRAnumbers. However, I knew that I couldn’t afford to stand around wallowing in self-deprecating sadness. The utopian future that I had been striving for all this time was at long last within my grasp.
However, it appeared that the cosmos still held a grudge against me. The very instant that I grasped onto the Quark I felt unfathomable pain overwhelm my entire consciousness, all the way to the point that I was forced to enter into a state of hybrid Sleep if only to maintain my rapidly diminishing sanity.
Division Six and Seven: 2-9
“This is the second time that he’s gone to Sleep in the past two hours,” I heard a muffled yet still unfortunately discernible voice inform some unknown presence. “He’s too important to get Kkrusty’s Disease. Perform a full blood to V-Slime transfusion and place him in the cooler for now.”
“Halogen,” I attempted to sputter out.
“Oh, good morning, Ensign!” the bearded man grinned at me. “Have a good sleep?”
“Wh-why…did…y-you stick me?”
“Because,” he said as he gently patted me on the head like a common household tapir, “it was the only way. We’ve been through this scenario, oh, what was it, twice already? Or was it nine? Oh well, somewhere between 2-9. This was the only way that we were able to locate it.”
“Locate…what?”
Professor Halogen pointed at the pair of glowing dots that aimlessly danced across the surface of my left palm. “I think you know fully well, young man.”
- Plopadop
8th Official Tournament: Round 3!
The blaring siren pierced my skull with its obnoxious whining and made every single muscle within my body tense up in opposition. All around me people dressed in uniforms that were more or less identical to mine frantically scampered around from Point A to Point B and back again with no real purpose or meaning for doing so. As much as I would have liked to stick around and chuckle at their misfortune, I knew all too well that the sounds of sirens reverberating their way throughout the entirety of the base signified that there was an imminent catastrophe on the horizon. There wasn’t any time to waste. I needed to hurry. I needed to get to the Control Room. I needed to bring the universe back to the way that it was, the way that only I seemed to be able to recall.
As far as everybody else in this crazy place was concerned, the universe had always been exceedingly unstable. The elements of time and space were in a continual state of nonsensical flux, one that would engender drastic changes in both the landscape and the timescape. Sometimes we would witness the instantaneous birth and/or death of billions of people, a bustling city appearing where there had once been a unfathomably deep lake the night before, or a tree suddenly sprouting the completed version of an augmentation that the pseudoscience team had been tirelessly slaving over for years. The world that existed before you closed your eyelids in order to blink would be nothing more than a faint relic of the past by the time your eyes greeted the world once again a split second later. Everybody else simply accepted that this universal inconstancy was the natural course of things; after all, their way of life was all that they had ever known. I, however, was different. I could remember when things actually made sense, and I was determined to regain that peacefulness no matter the cost.
Division One: Pembroke Welsh Corgi
The fleshy door dissolved into a yellowish mush as I approached it, thus giving way to the dimly lit Control Room. The sirens still sung their atrocious symphony off in the distance as I promptly made my way over towards an ashen-faced B-Mah.
“Plopadop!” he immediately cried out. In addition to being the director of the Pseudoscience Department, B-Mah was also the closest thing that I could call a friend in this universe.
“What’s with all the noise?” I questioned him with purposefully flippant casualness.
“Everything’s gone wrong,” he scornfully muttered to himself as he keyed in a few strings of numbers into the computer terminal in front of him, a gesture that resulted in the image of a small brown and white colored dog being brought up onto the screen. “See this dog? We’ve called it the Pembroke Welsh Corgi for right now. Don’t ask why, it’s not important. What is important, however, is that this…this beast is causing untold havoc upon our base! You know the lounge on B15, the nice one with the automatic bassoon player? He peed in it. He peed all over the nice furniture! Now, normally the folks in Division One would deal with the cleanup and the destruction of the dog, but since the Tournament is going on there’s nothing that we can do!”
Division Two: ice valley “beyond the searoad”
“And that’s why there’s an emergency?” I confusedly asked.
“Part of it, yes. You’ll see in a minute. For now, look at this,” he instructed me while motioning towards a new image. From what I could tell from the biocam’s grainy resolution, there appeared to be a narrow stretch of ice that extended far off into the purple horizon. “That’s where was ParagonX9 island used to be. We were successful in enacting the Blue Marine routine, but the results of doing so weren’t exactly within our calculations. A significant portion of those that were working on the routine or were utilizing the Walk on Water function at the time have become encapsulated beneath the ice a little further away.”
“Whereabouts?”
“There, just beyond the searoad. We aren’t entirely sure as to why just yet, but everybody in Division Two suddenly stopped their fighting and grouped together to head in that general direction. It’s like they’re all on the same team now. Our scanners haven’t detected a triple or a jumpstream or even a single jack in over twenty-four hours!”
“Maybe they’re just trying to rescue their superiors?” I politely suggested.
Division Three: Jazzman – Super Mario Bros
B-Mah apathetically shook his head. “We thought of that already. It would make sense if it was just Division Two that was acting like that, but look at Division Three! They’re doing almost the same thing! Working together, I mean. Those that managed to escape from the ice only did so because they found a pipe along the seabed that lead to another pseudoreality, one inhabited by Jazzman.”
I had heard of the Jazzman before. Pipes would suddenly pop up out of the ground and unsuspecting people would crawl into them in order to investigate. However, not many have lived to tell the tale of what they encountered down there. From what we did know, the Jazzman was a massive theoretical entity, his height encroaching upon tens of thousands of meters at any given time, but at the same time he was nevertheless a subterranean being. Blue overalls, a red shirt, and a moustache that had long-since rumored to be the source of his power all gave him a humanoid appearance that lulled people into believing that he could be reasoned with. Those poor souls were sadly mistaken.
“Hopefully with all of the talent in Division Three they’ll be able take him down for once,” I said.
Division Four: Slam the Door (Rogue Remix)
“Yeah, hopefully. Losing all of D3 would be…bad,” B-Mah trailed off. “However, I really hate to say this, but we have bigger fish to fry at the moment. There’s trouble on the horizon for Division Four. One of them, we aren’t entirely sure as to who yet, slammed The Door. Y’know, that big hairy thing thing that’s just off to the side of the public washrooms in Zedd’s Shed that has the DO NOT SLAM THIS DOOR sign next to it? Yeah, that one. It may be an act of sabotage or some sort of newfangled strategy by one of the rogue players, but we don’t know for sure yet.”
“Sounds like there’s a lot of things that you guys don’t know for sure yet,” I forced myself to laugh.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I hate to admit it, but yeah, you’re absolutely right.”
Division Five: Undiscovered Colors
By this point in time, the sirens behind me had yet to subside and I was growing increasingly weary of B-Mah’s ramblings. Of course I could see that Division Two ganging together irrespective of their allegiance and that somebody slamming The Door were issues of great concern, but they weren’t that grievous enough to warrant the entire base being scrambled.
As if to read my mind, B-Mah smiled. “Well, let’s get into the meat of the situation then, shall we? Approximately two days from now archeologists working in the Flashbulb Islands will have discovered a particular tablet that outlines exactly what we’re facing right now. At first they’ll call it a prediction, but they’ll soon come to realize that it’s more of a prescription…a checklist of conditions, if you will. The only prerequisite out of the five that hadn’t been met until now was the appearance of several undiscovered colors, namely sige and tyon, but…well…Division Five found some a few minutes ago. That’s why the sirens are going. All of the conditions have now been met.”
Division Six and Seven: Weapon
I swallowed the excess buildup of saliva that had congealed within my mouth down into the pit of my stomach. “What does that mean?”
“It’s appeared. The Weapon.”
“What?!” I loudly cried out as I grabbed B-Mah by the collar of his shirt. “Why the hell didn’t you say so earlier?!”
“Because we needed time to do this,” a familiar voice, one not belonging to the man that I was presently clutching onto, hoarsely chuckled.
A cold chill accompanied by an immense amount of pain suddenly shot down the length of my spine as I felt something parse my skin and invade the interior of my body. My strength almost immediately fleeted. A desperate struggle to resist the inevitable raged within my consciousness, but in the end my efforts proved to be all for naught. Even with oppressive darkness swarming my already hazy vision, I somehow managed to catch a brief glimpse of Professor Halogen’s stoic facial expression hovering above me before I fell face-first into the warm, writhing floor and lost consciousness.
- Plopadop
