DEATH

Following the end of the quarterfinal matches, each member of the advancing team had been given a new suite entirely to themselves. These new rooms were larger than the previous and included finer services and 24-hour on call room service. Each person had fought their way here and the Hotel rewarded the celebrities with better accomodations.

However, none of these fighters would realize that while they were in their rooms the hotel had been evacuated. Every floor was voided of other guests and staff. They were all outside, equally ignorant of what was happening on the inside of the hotel.

3:00 AM - Morning of the Semifinal matches.

The doorbell of Joshua's suite rang twice in quick succession, followed by rapid knocking.

2:57

Doors parted as Gamma stepped out, the entire elevator shaking with relief now free from the massive weight. Walking at a stressed pace as he forced himself to move slowly and quietly, Gamma counted the doors. Only to find the golden 3 thing mounted on the door, just over the peephole. He noticed the digital card reader that held the door closed unless you had the right key.

Gamma had every key.

Slowly, painfully, Gamma lower a small device to the floor, setting it against the wall across from the door. Scraping his metal fingers across his left pauldron, his claw hooked the linked chainmail strap of an enormous guitar. A guitar with what looked like a small propane tank mounted halfway up the neck, but that was nothing compared to the round steel blade that emerged from the base of the guitar. Somewhere close to two feet in diameter the blade looked like it would have belonged to a massive circular saw, but instead, it was Frankenstein'd into a guitar that looked like it was just carved out of a block of steel.

2:59

Leaning the guitar against the wall, Gamma reached over to the machine and cranked a dial as far as it would go and broke it off. Taking the last few moments to shake his long arms in an attempt to loosen them up. Which was totally useless when they were trapped under thick armor plating. Gamma turned to the door.

Di-ding.

Gamma leaned in, raising his right arm bent towards the door. Knocking with a knuckle.

Thumpthumpthump.

And cocked his left fist back, waiting.

BAM!

Like a cannon ball through the hull of a ship. Big metal fist versus small fleshy dome. Fist would win, and Gamma ripped his arm free from the wooden door leaving a much large hole than before.

Spinning on his massive heels, he swooped up the guitar and laced the chainmail strap around his shoulders. Nearly ripping the pull-chord out of the base of the guitar with a yank, some internal engine kicked on.

It sounded much like an angle grinder. A very, very large one. The blade came to life while Gamma balanced it against his armored side; no use in breaking the blade. At the last moment, Gamma pulled a black cable from the side of his guitar and plugged it into his armor, just between the pauldron and neck.

Then blade hit door and split a section clean in half. One clean sweep and a piece of door would hit the ground, while Gamma kicked in the bottom half as he stepped into the room.

Hitting a few strings on his way in. Noise screamed from speakers in his armor, silencing the grinding sound of the spinning blade. Looked like he wanted to play a few songs.

Along with the seven foot suit of guitarsaw wielding armor, came the slow drafting wave of blue-gray fog. After maybe half a moment the doorframe would be obscured totally by it. Because some a*****e cranked up some kerosene fog machine to 11 and broke the knob off. It'd sit there and spew fog for the next hour and a half.

Letting the guitar just hang there, Gamma kept his right hand over the strings and reached over with his left. Fingers finding a small nozzle under the guitar head and twisting it open.

Ssssssssss

That familiar chemistry lab sound of some kid playing around with the gas.

"...and who are you?"

Gamma hit another chord launching another sonic blast from his speakers. Gamma's armored body worked as an amp, speaker, and voice synth. An extremely armored, bull-proof sound system.

"I

AM

IRONMAN"

See: Voice synth

See: 140 decibels.

Gamma could wake the dead and shook the ground with speech alone. Of course, when the dead woke up they'd be rocking out.

With a flick of his thumb and an inaudible scrape of flint over steel the entire guitarsaw monstrosity was in flames. Lead by a little blue triangle of flame hiding behind the guitar head.

With that, Gamma swung the guitarsaw- flaming guitarsaw- to bear and started in on the whole song. Right hand flying across the metal chords, left hand doing it's job on the neck.

Starting forward one foot at a time, Gamma marched straight for the likely confused as hell Joshua. Aiming the length of the guitarsaw at him like a rifle from the hip.

Well, flamethrower, anyway.

-SIX FEET OF PROPANE FUELED FIRE HERE-

There was a reason security had pulled everyone out of the hotel and ushered them a fair distance away. They all had security to thank for not getting showered in glass, but only had them to blame for missing front row seats of the premier of the first flaming guitarsaw.

Gamma grabbed a fog machine to make his entrance atleast fifty times better, but he didn't expect it to explode. But since his entrance had been made the kerosene fog a great impromptu fuel-air explosive. No guitarsaw show is complete without it.

An explosion behind and around him wouldn't slow Gamma in the least. Rattle him a bit, but it'd take a lot of exploding fog to move six hundred pounds of IRONMAN.

"HAS HE LOST HIS--"

Starting into the lyrics in deafening volume, Gamma was almost interrupted by a speaker to the face. Except not.

Said black flying box was met with a sturdy metal face. Reeling back as much as time would allow, he threw his back into a full-on headbutt to counter the projectile. The impact would carry directly into Gamma's neck servos, and travel down the full distance of his spinal motivator when he put his whole six hundred pound weight in resistance.

Unfortunately, some thirty pounds of speaker would be just massive enough not to be slammed back fully into Joshua. Instead, get sawcleaved by Gamma, who swung the guitar out to cleave a hefty chunk off the sound equipment.

Bits and ribbons of plastic and wood would scatter into the air and catch fire. Probably from the awesome.

--MIND?"

One speaker down, one luxury suite to go. Gamma was still going ready to GUITARSAW anything that got in his way.

"CAN HE SEE OR IS HE BLIND?"

The latter, because infrared does jack s**t when you're setting everything around you on fire. He'd catch a glimpse of a door shut into it's frame, but only that. There wouldn't be any slam, because nothing could be heard over 140 decibels of Black Sabbath.

Clearly not escaping, because Gamma had inadvertently exploded the only exit that didn't involve terminal velocity.

"CAN HE WALK AT ALL--"

Hell yes, as Gamma demonstrated by stomping his a over to the suspected door. Something told Gamma he couldn't just knock and sucker-punch the guy again. Wood splinters spat laterally across the room on both sides of the door when that spinning blade bit into the door at waist level. A quick shear horizontally to give the door that new-age "Sawed the ****** in half" look.

"OR IF HE MOVES WILL HE FALL?"

Leaning back on his left, Gamma fired his right leg out to cave the door in. Or rather, demolish the top half with an explosive force.

bonk

Did that a*****e just try and poke me in the eyes?

Gamma whipped his head back in sort of a stunned fashion. Chin rising as what could of been a bear trap mount on Gamma's face snapped closed where Joshua's hand used to be. Slamming shut with some fourteen hundred pounds of pressure around twelve teeth and a pair of tusks.

Too bad the Three Stooge-y eye poke usually included a quick recoil of the hand.

Inside the lense housing the camera tried to unfocus and refocus as Gamma's eyes fixated on the pair of fingers in his face. Making a good guess, Gamma lashed forward after taking a step back; probably catching the door frame for another slash.

But still, Gamma was holding onto a flaming guitarsaw. Hard to get close without realizing "Hey, fire hot."

First order of business was OMRGONDFGSFGMHOTMDFGOJNMVROFMSOVMREQVPAFMVOuch.

Because Gamma's brain made the physiological equivalent of shitting it's pants. Blood exploded into every tiny vacant space both in and outside of the arteries, generally making a mess of things. Pressure would build until all Gamma's sense were blinded by gibberish impulses the brain was creating.

Out of reflex and instinct, and greatly in part by a newly acquired nervous twitch, Gamma reeled his head down. Fourteen hundred pounds of pressure applied over the knife-edge blades of all twelve inwardly facing teeth would have just crushed the hand. Separating bone in a surprisingly clean break while teeth scissored through muscle and tissue. Twisting his head about would finish the job and remove all connections Joshua had with his hand.

Gamma was blind, deaf, and had no concept of what was going on around him anymore. The last bit of coherent information the brain dished out was some guy minus a hand, inside arm's reach.

Hands shot out, swinging wide from either side, groping to get some hold on Joshua. A leg moved forward as Gamma leaned into it, still flailing his head around. Basically falling dumbly forward, Gamma might catch a tusk or two in Joshua's face before he hit the ground.

The solution? From the body; more blood. Pump more blood to the brain to purge it before cell necrosis took over from all that blood just sitting there. This solution was akin to trying to drain a kiddy pool with a firehose.

Blood pressure sky-rocketed and Gamma's cardiac cycle doubled.

Gamma's heart was hard at work keeping the blood in his brain from stagnating. Everything was still getting oxygen, it's just there was a ******** of blood already in there. So, the blood up and left.

Eyes, ears, and even forced into the sinus cavity. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how internal hemorrhaging kills you. Hemorrhaging in the brain just ******** you up more beforehand.

Joshua's kick floored Gamma and his six hundred pounds of vegetable weight. Pushing off his face when he had no sense of balance does that. With a resounding, unheard whump, Gamma'd lay there. Throttling guitarsaw over his midsection with the blade spinning idley.

Laying there, bleeding from every hole in his head, Gamma was content to sit while Joshua TV'd whatever part of Gamma he wanted to.

Blood coursed from around his eyes, out his ears, through his sinuses and into his lungs. Eventually the suit would filled up, but that brain kept going.

Luckily, due to the nature of the MINDFIST, Gamma's brain could cope. Even now his brain was tied to the suit and the onboard computer was watching neutrally. More importantly was how Gamma was joined with his armor.

His brain. Through a port in the back of his skull put there at age fifteen. Ever since then there has been a network of wires and circuits calling his skull home. Thanks to the Neurocontrol net, Gamma was a raging psychopath. After years of use the electrical impules had warped his mind. The very same impulses that were preserving his brain now.

Arguably more machine than man; hardwired for survival.

Where Gamma grew up you didn't live to move out of the neighborhood without being one of the toughest ******** on the block.

Gamma's body was doing what it did best in this kind of situation. Make it worse, make it bleed more.

The body had enough, it was the machine's turn now.

Blood was filling Gamma's lungs as the brain purged, more came from the eyes and ears. When you're in a sealed environment that has blood in it instead of air bad things happen. Several more ports opened on either side of Gamma's neck.

In the event that a pilot is seriously injured and rendered helpless inside the suit, emergency protocols will attempt to preserve them until medical help arrives

So said Deity's how-to manual for powered armor. Something Gamma never read. What was called for in this situation was to remove the blood from the habitable spaces in the armor. And the armor vented. Internal seals closing while the remainder of the air left the armor's neck ports. A vacuum was created by the internal suit just as the additional ports opened; and blood flew.

Twin jets erupted from Gamma's neck, spraying shortly out onto the carpetted floor. Making way for air since you couldn't breathe blood, no matter how hard you tried.

All those microscopic wires and filaments in Gamma's brain told him to sit up. Told his heart to slow down. And told him to cough.

Gamma sat up. His heart slowed. And he heaved blood from his lungs, which just added more of a flow to the draining ports. Gamma sprung forward from the waist up mechanically, knocking the guitarsaw about which found a home grinding at Gamma's thigh and inner arm plating.

Gamma lifted his arm away from the guitarsaw blade and slapped it away numbly. Which was a good sign for Gamma, because his limbs worked semi-consciously. With good old fashioned computers running all the important parts of his brain and regulating functions it just couldn't do on it's on, he was up and moving.

Still attached by the chainmail strap the guitarsaw slipped over and down, digging bladelength into the carpet. Among the spray of fibers going into the air, a leg or two bent. Legs of the armoured variety, as he leaned forward more and put a couple feet under himself.

For some reason Gamma couldn't feel anything below his elbows or knees, and everything looked funny. Especially with trickles of blood stuck to the HUD attached to his face.

He was up, and he still had a guitarsaw at his disposal.

SMASH

Gamma's faculties may have sub-par at this point, but thankfully the armor was doing a lot of the work. Mostly with the standing up and not falling down part. Six hundred pounds of inertial mass went along way in TV fights.

And so Gamma stood there with his new High-Definition Television Helmet.

"...the fffuuuck happen'd?" A doubly muffled voice from inside a suit of armor, from inside a television set.

While pieces of his brain were fit back together like pieces from the wrong puzzle, things started to make a little more sense. Except for the whole 'TV on head' thing.

Slowly, a blind left hand found the neck of the guitarsaw. With one hell of a pull the chainlinks of the strap splintered in a hail of little metal rings.

Now Gamma was wearing a TV as a hat and swinging wildly with a guitarsaw.

Something other than his legs moved him. He committed for another swing and something pushed him just right and sent him floor-ward. Catching a couple knees and an armoured palm on the floor, Gamma wasn't prone again.

The guitarsaw was eating air again, flat against the floor.

Then Gamma realized there was a ****** TV on his head. Weight difference, obvious blindness, etc etc. Craning his neck back, Gamma slammed his head and head analogue into the floor hard enough to ****** the TV up pretty bad. Jaws opened, armour and not, while Gamma screamed.

Luckily the volume on Gamma's speakers had been since turned down. He left Joshua's hand pieces in the broken set while he pulled himself up. The TV slid off Gamma's head and he was up again.

And he took said chair over the back. Luckily all this armor was here or he'd get some serious splinter infections.

Fully on his feet Gamma would step into a wide-arc lateral sweep with the guitarsaw. Because dangerous weapons are more effective when you swing them wildly.

Round 2:

Barstool vs the undefeated Guitarsaw.

What reached Gamma was some sawdust and a spare wooden stool leg. What was going for Joshua was fourty-some pounds of steel in the form of a massive guitar.

Off the recoil of the first swing, Gamma threw it as hard as both arms worth of artificial muscle could handle. No technique necessary; just aim and heave.

Weapon Finesse was for pussies.

Following that immediately was linebacker Gamma as he charged into the kitchenette, long arms wide, aimed to put Joshua into a wall. Whichever half was still standing from the guitarsaw.

themightyjello Wrote:

Joshua double-jumped ASAP; launching clear to the ceiling.

Which was only about ten or eleven feet from the ground. Gamma could probably reach up and be less than half a foot from touching it.

Joshua would double jump and probably have to duck mid-air against the ceiling.

Gamma would single jump and clear probably three feet thanks to all the massive hydraulics in his legs. Seven-foot, angry IRON MAN plus three feet of air made for an equal plane of collision.

BAM

Gamma on his rising flight nailed Joshua to the ceiling. Now with a whole lot-o-Gamma in his face, he'd get dragged along. In the ring of physics, Inertia leaped from the turnbuckle--

BAM

Six hundred pounds of sailing armoured man would slam Joshua into the wall. And then Gravity came in with the steel chair--

BAM

They'd both hit the ground on that one.

Combo points?

Landing on some sort of countertop in the kitchenette after nailing the wall, Gamma almost fell on his a**. Instead, he was on his feet, more or less stable, in front of the counter.

Only to find that Joshua was hitting him in the side of the neck with his own guitarsaw.

Would have been to be able to hear s**t like that coming.

A reflexive twitch would hunch the left shoulder and tip his head towards the blade, while the left hand shot up to bat it away. Sparks flew off in a semicircle arc when the steel hit the suit's titanium skin and blood smattered ports. Bits and pieces of metal flew off with the sparks as the steel teeth of the saw chipped as well as Gamma's own teeth chipped and scattered metal fragments in all kinds of directions.

Missing a few teeth and a tusk, he'd manage to keep his head.

While that right hand went down to the counter and yanked a drawer off it's runners, casting much the contained silverware to the floor. Swinging it to bitchslap Joshua with a silverware drawer partly full of fancy eating utensils.

Whipping his arm back around on the recoil, Gamma threw the wooden drawer down the countertop to the sliding Joshua. Taking a moment to retreat and collect himself, more importantly; something to hit Joshua with, Gamma took a couple steps back and pulled out a fresh drawer.

Moving back towards the kitchenette entrance.

With another drawer in hand it's contents spilled across the tiled kitchen floor. Knives of varying size and type getting kicked around as Gamma shuffled himself backwards still. Until a free hand hit something metal, and solid.

Tossing the wooden drawer forward at Joshua, Gamma turned to seize the front of an oven. Heavy hands folding the lighter steel panels of the stove beneath them and Gamma tipped the entire thing forward easily.

With more area to grab Gamma would lift the thing up and hold it before him. A few hundred pounds of electric stove made for a pretty good shield and club.

One step forward and that short stubby chord tore free of the wall.

Gamma heaved the whole steel box forward like he was checking a basketball to Joshua. Typically one couldn't catch hundreds of pounds of steel and angry cooking appliance. Which is why Gamma was fast after it.

Throwing it at Joshua, Gamma charged in aimed to bash the stove with a shoulder tackle right when it got to Joshua. Making for one very poor choice in places to stand.

Suddenly the tile floor turned into some lame swamp or desert. Guess some hotels just come with the whole swamp-floored kitchens.

Quicksand or not, it wouldn't stop the whole mass of metal flying through the air. Big metal ovens are hard to argue with when they've got some velocity behind them.

Gamma's arms would spring out to the sides and try and grab something solid. All the surrounding tile as well was, presumably, all swampy too.

Then he'd get stuck with his head sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor with his arms straight out to the sides, just inches below the surface.

Gamma took the stump in the eye, because there wasn't a whole lot to do about it. Actually, there was. Blood on a lens housing wouldn't do a lot to any sensors, but it'd be a pain in the a** to see.

But those long arms were buried under a bit of tile; strength out parallel with the ground.

CRASH

Tiles would explode as Gamma's arms snapped bent and free of the floor. They flew up to grab Joshua by the whatever they could reach. Hopefully grabbing him by either side of the head, which was possible thanks to Gamma's unnaturally long reach.

Joshua in hand, Gamma would kick his legs and wobble his metal self until the floor decided to let go. Without the weight distributed across the arms in the floor there wasn't a whole lot holding Gamma up.

Didn't Joshua know who Gamma was? Well, no, obviously not.

He was the Juggernaut IRON MAN, b***h.

Naturally a brain without the required energy dies or... stops living, but Joshua had steeled gamma against his own attacks. At the moment, Gamma's brain was being fueled by a hydrogen fusion cell mounted in the back of the armor. Fibres jammed into Gamma's brain would supply all the energy needed to all the areas required to maintain motor function. Gamma'd have the hallucinations of a life time and his body would go numb, but the armor was doing all the work.

Of course, Gamma wouldn't be able to see for s**t anyway thanks to the dust settling into the drying blood on the lens housing. Go figure.

So what would be the first thing a warped, brain-numbed psychopath do? Kill the a*****e responsible. Lobotomize me once, shame on me.

Lobotomize me twice and I'll break your neck.

Gamma pivoted at the waist to his right, twisting both hands down and over. Playing math with mass would say that Joshua's body would be flung outward with the centripetal force while his head was stuck in a vice. Putting some fifteen hundred footpounds of torque where Joshua's cervical spine should have been.

NOW who's braindead?

Still blind and mostly deaf, Gamma didn't have any real way of telling where Joshua was or what he was doing. Stumbling around a bit in the main living room area he bumped into a coffee table.

Bumped into translated into stomped on and the legs flew out from under the weight in different directions. Gamma'd feel around and find the broken end of a piece of wood.

Ahh... Nothing like rubbing the grain-y end of a wooden stump into a lens to make your day complete. A solid edge would scrape at the blood and clear up the lens while the fibre-y bits could absorb it.

Joshua was taking him too lightly. Gamma was beyond human mind and body; soul was irrelevant. His muscles bound by an unseen strength, but those limbs kept moving.

Weight gathered and Gamma felt it through the armor. He took a step forward and his foot sunk into the floor. More and more invisible weight gathered and the armor's spinal motivator seized. Joints in the legs locked, and the armor wasn't happy.

[WEIGHT LIMIT EXCEEDED]

But still, the armor held. With a clenched jaw Gamma managed to growl around his teeth.

"Son of a b***h."

Just because the armor was rated to withstand it does not mean some shitty hotel room floor was. After a moment of slight shifting in the floor, death rattles from the building supports, it gave way. Gamma upended face first into the ground. After eight floors on his face, he managed to get his arms up to shield it.

Good thing someone put a hotel in his way. Forty four stories of freefall would kill a normal person.

whamwhamwhamwhamwhamwhamwhamwhamwhamwhamwhamwham

They always say that the fall isn't bad, it's the sudden stop at the bottom. As long as Gamma could hear the sound of floors and furniture exploding around him, he must have been in good condition.

Relatively speaking.

His body already felt completely off from the brain damage he had sustained, but the rapid vibrations jarring him inside his suit had numbed his whole body.

whamwhamwhamwhamwhamwhamwhamwhamwhamwhamwhamwham

Gamma couldn't even remember how high up he was; he really didn't care. Already so completely out of it all he could do now was see what happens when the earthquake of floor crushings stopped.

whamwhamwhamwhamwhamWHUMP

Ding. First floor lobby; restaurant, bar, and sauna.

It stopped. While he couldn't hear it outside the ringing in his ears, he could feel bits and pieces of furniture and flooring/roofing falling and landing on his back.

Landing on his arms first and foremost kept him from shattering his skull all over the inside of his helmet. At what cost remained to be seen, because his arms felt pretty ******** weird and when he tried to move them it felt like there was gravel in his joints.

So he rolled over; in his little crater. That fancy marble shattered and caved in under the force of the Gamma torpedo. Looking up at the forever-tunnel of concentric circles made from the hole he punched in forty four floors.

Gamma raised his right hand and shot his middle finger up towards the ceiling forty-six floors away. Because that was the most important finger.

"Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom."

-- General George S. Patton

"...MEDIC!"

Security was everywhere, and everywhere included the lobby. They'd be on Gamma instantly, wondering why there was a new set of skylights.

One would reach down and try to peal Gamma from the marble. This attempt would be met with an armored boot to an armored groin and a gruff

"Get the ******** off of me."

as Gamma rolled himself onto his chest and pushed himself from the ground. Staying a moment on his knees to try and collect himself.

Security would guide him into a medical transport where Gamma would be shuttled off to an emergency surgery facility. He'd start the morning with some invasive brain surgery and maybe some heavy drinking.

Gamma - HP: 2% - AP: 30%