"Next, on the ONBS channel, we've got official coverage of the Pokémon contests taking place in Hoenn, li...". You switch off your TV and head outside. The breeze is refreshing, the Wingull are singing. You've been training for this moment your whole life. With your 6 trusted partners by your side this tournament is yours, you think as you grab your Trainer I.D. and head for the registration desk in Slateport City. You wave off news reporters looking for an interview, and confidently mull over the moves you've prepared in your head, though you know them inside out already.
This is your time, and nothing's gonna stop you taking the gold home.
Rules:
This is a very simple game. Everyone starts the game with a weapon. At any time during the action phase, you may PM me one of the following three actions:
1. Shoot [living player who is not you].
2. Defend (Shoot Self)
3. Do nothing.
After everyone submits their action or time runs out, all shots are resolved simultaneously, with nonsensical and hilarious flavour to keep things fun. When you submit your actions, you may also submit a weapon to execute your action with. This will help me form flavour and makes it more personalized. I'll pick a randomize weapon if you choose not to select one.
If you shoot a player, you kill them and they die. If that player chose to defend themselves, however, then you die instead. If you defend yourself and no one else shoots you, you die. Or you could steer clear of everyone and just do nothing, idly wishing your life away, but should you survive you will earn yourself a piercing shot. To use a Piercing Shot, you must state in the PM containing your action that you wished to use your Piercing Shot (This will replace the regular shoot). Piercing Shot may be kept to be use in later rounds. A person who is shot by a Piercing Shot regardless of the target's action for that phase.
An example to demonstrate. Reinforce, Yeowie, bbninjas, GM DracLord, Vom are in a game. Reinforce shoots Yeowie. Yeowie shoots himself. bbninjas shoots himself. GM DracLord shoots Yeowie. Vom does nothing. Resolution: Reinforce and GM DracLord die because they both shot Yeowie, who shot himself. Yeowie survives because he shot himself and was also shot. bbninjas dies because he shot himself and no one else shot him. Vom avoids everyone and survives.
There is no altering of an action once it has been submitted unless the host gives permission to do so.
Each action phase is 48 hours long or whenever all living players submit their actions, whichever is sooner. There are no extensions.
If you fail to send in an action, you will die. Be the last player standing to win!
Flavour:
The prologue is at the top of this post beneath the killer music, if you hadn't already seen it. Besides that though, and if it wasn't clear already, the flavour for this round of RAF is Pokémon contests! Because I think this website is getting to be too violent, we're going to go pacifist and stop the killing. In this game, players are eliminated from the game and "killed" by getting eliminated from the tournament. As such, this is a game of manipulation and rigging anything you can into your favour. The actions you send in will remain the same, though. A "shot" is targeting that player for sabotage. Defending yourself is heightening defenses around your act, but due to being distracted, if you find no one trying to rig your act you will score lowly anyway. Doing nothing means that the time you spend outside of your performance can be spent perfecting your sabotage techniques, which is the form a piercing shot will take.
To Sign Up:
It's recommended but not mandatory to post a team of 6 Pokémon when you sign up. This gives you all more control over the flavour than me making up your teams myself. When you submit actions, you can also specify how you want to sabotage other people's acts or how you want to defend yourself from sabotage using these Pokémon.
Besides that though, and if it wasn't clear already, the flavour for this round of RAF is Pokémon contests! Because I think this website is getting to be too violent, we're going to go pacifist and stop the killing.
Hmm, possibly "killer music" wasn't the greatest word choice for a bouncy electropop track, huh? Or for the theme song of a pacifist's edition of a killer game. :v
Ohey, you know what's usually a good idea when you host a game? To give deadlines for stuff :L
Thank you to everyone who's signed up already! Everyone else has until roughly 7PM GMT+-0 tomorrow in order to sign up. I'll be starting to write the second prologue around then, but if you sign up before I actually post it, I'll just add you into the flavour somewhere.
"...and that concludes our news story on the man trying to untangle a Tangrowth. Before we interview the "dunce Dunsparce", we have a news flash. The ship carrying 3 of the Pokémon contest quarterfinalists has vanished, alongside all Pokémon and people on-board. Most notably, the coordinator previously tipped to take the trophy home, Celever, may no longer be able to attend the tournament if he is not found within the next hour. With the entire police force investigating the scene, some contest fans are growing wary of the lack of security here in Slateport..." Vivian Meridian switches off her television and finishes doing her makeup. "This is gonna be one hell of a contest to commentate..." she sighs to herself.
The 9 competitors file out onto the stage, as their portraits and Pokémon teams flash onto the huge monitor facing the audience. "Despite the slight difficulties, this competition will proceed as was previously planned!" Vivian cheers. @bbninjas, @Keeper of Night, @mordacazir, @thegrovylekid, @simsands, @double o squirtle, @GM DracLord, @scattered mind and @Professor Palutena all smile pleasantly on-stage, but backstage there are already plans in place for them to take the victory for themselves.
Deadline for Round 1 is Wednesday the 17th of February at 20:30, or roughly 24 hours from this post. Please send in your actions!
You guys haven't submitted yet. I'll probably be updating a little bit later today anyway, but there won't be an official deadline extension, so please ensure you get your actions in!
Vivian Meridian hyped the audience. "Now, to introduce you to the three judges! First, Raoul Contesta, the chief of the Pokémon Contest Society!" Mr. Contesta introduced himself with a grin. "Next, Mr. Suziko! There's only one word to describe him: 'Remarkable!'." Mr. Suziko agreed, cheering how remarkable it was to be a judge in the quarterfinals. "And rounding up our panel of judges is Nurse Joy! Hey kind heart is surmounted only by the number of siblings she has!" Nurse Joy shyly smiled towards the audience. "OK, first up is the Appeals Round! Our first Pokémon Coordinator is double o squirtle, using his Murkrow!"
double o squrtle wandered onto the stage, his Murkrow perched on his arm. To start with, the bird flew around the heights of the Contest Hall, scanning the area for possible rivals who could be interested in sabotaging his act. All of the fearmongering by the ONBS press had got to him, apparently. It took 5 minutes for the act to actually begin, though once it did, Murkrow was a star. It began by firing a Dark Pulse. As it travelled slowly through the air, Murkrow used Brave Bird to plummet into it, creating several dark pulsations around the arena. Then, it used Heat Wave to make them glow an ominous orange. However, double o squirtle wasn't present during this performance, as he was checking backstage for other Pokémon Coordinators. The judges looked down on this. "I thought it was a well prepared mixture of cute and spooky!" Nurse Joy smiled. Raoul agreed, saying that it used the senses well, first creating a chill with Dark Pulse and then humidity with Heat Wave. "But ditching your Pokémon on-stage without you was anything but remarkable, dos." Mr. Suziko frowned. The other two judges nodded their heads in agreement. In the end, Nurse Joy scored double o squirtle a 6, Mr. Contesta scored him a 4 and Mr. Suziko a 3, leaving him with a total of 13 out of a possible 30. "Next, we have Keeper of Night!" Vivian shouts.
Keeper of Night runs onto the stage with his trusty Smeargle. First, the Smeargle hands each judge a slice of cake which was baked at his café Le Smear. "This cake is remarkable!" Mr. Suziko gasped. Keeper of Night then produced a canvas and a paint pallet. Smeargle used his tail to create a portrait of his trainer in the flashiest way possible. He used Metronome repeatedly to add a risk of danger, but luckily he kept drawing moves like Charm and Sweet Kiss. As Smeargle put the finishing touches on his painting, the audience and the judges had both completely melted due to Smeargle's sheer cuteness. Just as it washed its tail off and moved to turn the canvas round so the judges and audience could see it, a rainbow of frozen colour shot through the middle of the painting and gave Smeargle's tail a freeze burn. "What...what was that?" Vivian Meridian questioned, startled. "Keeper of Night, was that a part of your act?" Keeper of Night shook his head profusely. "It was going so well," Nurse Joy sighed, "but without seeing the final portrait, I just can't score you as highly as I would like to..." Nurse Joy showed a 5 to the crowd. Mr. Suziko gave Keeper of Night a 7, while Mr. Contesta gave him a 4, giving Keeper of Night and Smeargle a total of 16 points.
bbninjas was terrified backstage. He looked at his Absol with hesitance. "Absol is the Disaster Pokémon..." he sighed. "I've never had any issues with my Absol and it's one of my closest allies, but after what just happened, I just... I don't know." Vivian Meridian was still in shock, but she introduced bbninjas with the same smile she always puts on. Absol ran onto stage with bbninjas riding on its back. It used Aerial Ace to throw bbninjas off its back and then struck down on him. bbninjas stuck the landing and dodged the sword slash, just as they had practiced in training. The coordinator drew a wooden katana and true to his ninja ways, proceeded to perform an extraordinary cutting routine, mock fighting his trusting Pokémon. The entire time, Absol used its Me First move to mimic bbninjas' attacks perfectly. The trainer ran to the side to get a breath, and allowed his awe-inspiring Pokémon to finish up with a Perish Song. Its melodies were haunting, and the notes hovered in the air with eerie confidence. Absol then used a Razor Wind to strike katanas out in 8 directions, slicing the music notes formed by Perish Song in two. Nurse Joy was speechless. "That was the greatest performance by far today!" she screamed. "It was so exciting and intensive, and then Absol changed the mood entirely... it had the audience under its will. We may have just found the winner of this entire competition!" Nurse Joy scored bbninjas a 10, Mr. Contesta gave him a 9 and Mr. Suziko gave another 10. "bbninjas scored 29 points out of 30! That's gonna be a tough act to follow... good luck simsands!" Vivian Meridian cheered.
Lilligant lulled onto the stage with a quaint smile and demure presence. She used Leech Seed to plant a few seeds in soil in a ring around her, calmly and precisely. The judges whispered to each other at how underwhelming an entrance it was. Lilligant then used Sunny Day to intensify the warmth of the contest hall. This had taken about 10 minutes, and the judges were starting to get bored. simsands shouted "NOW!" to his beloved Pokémon, and she responded with style. She used Quiver Dance to accelerate her speed, which in addition to Chlorophyll meant she was lightning fast. She pulled members of the audience on-stage with Charm and then used Teeter Dance, which looked incredible with her high speed and precise footwork. The audience members on-stage proceeded to stumble around for a bit, before Lilligant redirected them to hug the trunks of the seeds she'd planted earlier, which were now fully-grown oaks. She stood in the middle of the ring of trees and used Ingrain to hold her into place. She then used a bewildering Hidden Power Fire, searing the trees separate from their roots, their trajectory headed straight onto the audience members holding onto them, still in a daze. The room went silent and tense. Nurse Joy began shielding her eyes. Lilligant produced the largest Light Screen in recorded history. The trees were redirected from their current paths and began all swarming onto the Pokémon herself! She let out a swift Swords Dance, and with those formed swords, she first cut the roots tethering her to the ground formed through Ingrain and then sliced each and every tree into wood chippings within a matter of seconds. The judges all agreed that it was a "remarkable" roller coaster of terror and relief, and stated that the daring shown by Lilligant and sudden changes in atmosphere deserved 10/10. simsands left the hall with 30 points and a great deal of complacency.
GM DracLord was on-stage next. He smiled at his Scolipede, and their act commenced. Scolipede created a mixture of Spikes and Toxic Spikes, and then used Rollout straight over them. It became a whole new monster, with an punkish but somehow alluring appearance. It then used Venoshock to coat itself in venom. It had totally transformed its exterior into something captivating, but this wasn't the entire motive. GM DracLord above anything else was preparing for an ambush -- he'd wiretapped the other coordinators' phones before his act and overheard someone's plans. Sure enough, a charging mountain of rock crashed onto the stage from the audience. Scolipede used Screech to startle it, and so rather than a Head Smash, the Pokémon sort of stumbled into the beast. It limped off-stage with spikes in-toe. GM Drac finished off his performance and earned a respectable 23 out of 30. "We've seen better today," Mr. Contesta smiled encouragingly, "but if you get through to the next round, I think you have a lot of potential! Your style is very different." Vivian Meridian then announced that the next Pokémon Coordinator to take to the stage would be thegrovylekid!
thegrovylekid walked out onto the stage with his Tyrantrum, and changed his stance as if to begin his act. Nurse Joy immediately screamed at him to stop. "Sir, your Pokémon isn't well!" she cried, as she ran onto the stage with her Chansey. "There are huge gashes in its foot, see? And it looks as though it's very badly poisoned. I'm sorry, but if you can't take proper care of your Pokémon, you score a 0 from me. We'll call for an ambulance and get this dinosaur sent to the hospital immediately!" The other judges had no choice but to agree, and thegrovylekid walked off-stage with 3 0s and a heavy heart, ready to accompany his Tyrantrum to the Pokémon Centre. "Damnit, I shouldn't have tried to ruin Drac's performance." he sighed under his breath.
The commentator was briefly lost for words, but pulling herself together, she introduced mordacazir to the stage! His Sandile, donning a fashionable pair of glasses and a large toothy grin, did a huge backflip and then dug instantly underground. The judges were impressed with the entrance, and the audience cheered like crazy. They had needed a change in atmosphere. The Sandile bit at the air with character and then formed a Sand Tomb around its trainer! mordacazir cried out for help melodramatically, and Sandile leaped into the air. After striking a pose with Swagger, it used Rock Tomb to surround its trainer in a forcefield of brute force. The rocks stacked up with perfect precision. The Sand Tomb died away due to a loss of energy, but the sand remained, transforming the stage into a beach-like ambience. mordacazir shouted from inside the cage even more dramatically than the last time, and Sandile used Taunt to show off yet more charisma before pounding the rocks away with Beat Up. With further showmanship, Sandile grabbed its trainer out from between the rocks with Snatch and then took a bow. "That was truly remarkable!" Mr. Suziko charmed. "I love it when trainers get really involved with their appeals!" He gave the duo a 9/10, while Nurse Joy awarded an 8 and Mr. Contesta a 7. "That scores you 24!" Vivian cheered.
scattered mind then rolled onto the stage -- quite literally. The rollerskates gave him fluid motion, so that he could mimic the movements of his Suicune on the surf. The Suicune performed an impressively variegated routine, utilising a wide array of different elements. It first summoned a Tailwind, and then a Mist. A wind-boosted Gust cut the Mist like a knife, forming a dazzling gleam of sparkles in the air. It shot out an Aurora Beam, the bullet-like velocity of rainbows combining with the mist to form the spinwheel of pure eye candy. "Wasn't that Aurora Beam what was fired at the Smeargle earlier?" Mr. Contesta whispered to Nurse Joy, who shushed him in her focus. Mr. Contesta repeated his concerns to Mr. Suziko, who simply replied "yes, yes, it's quite remarkable." after clearly not paying attention to what Raoul had said to him. Suicune finished up its act in style -- a Shadow Ball was pierced with Scald and dissipated into yet more shine and sparkles. "It was a real treat to watch from start to finish -- my favourite act of the night!" Nurse Joy laughed. The other judges agreed, as scattered mind was the second Pokémon Coordinator to take home 30 points.
"And last but not least, Professor Palutena!" The doors separating the foreground from the back opened for the ninth time that night, but no Pokémon or Coordinator was to be seen. "Hold on a second while I investigate..." Vivian Meridian frowned. As she hustled downstairs towards the coordinator's quarters, she was greeted by a police officer who had been spectating the show off-duty. He briefly explained to her that Professor Palutena's Pokémon he had been planning to use in the round had gone missing -- Seel! Vivian immediately helped the search efforts. Hours passed, but the cameras were still rolling. The judges had taken up to a bit of showboating. Nurse Joy began talking about the inner workings of Pokémon medicine, while Mr. Suziko performed a short skit on the etymology of the word "remarkable". They then invited audience members onto the stage for them to show off their hidden talents. It ended up being the most entertaining round of Pokémon Contest history, with full ratings all around. This was until Vivian stormed back on stage, dragging mordacazir by his ear. She stood in front of the camera ONBS was using to live feed back onto its channel. "This terrible man used his Sandile to batter and trap Professor Palutena's Seel underground!" She cried. The audience gasped. Mr. Contesta fainted. "This level of foul play is not permissible at these events. Hell, it's not permissible at all! Visibly showing rage, Vivian handed the handcuffed mordacazir over to the police officer, and then handed a noticeably bruised Seel over to Nurse Joy. "mordacazir is going to jail, so that leaves a free spot open. Professor Palutena is going to get a bye due to these terrible, terrible circumstances!"
It was in the moment that bbninjas and simsands both had an idea. mordacazir may have got caught, but they didn't have to. They began formulating plans so that their lust for victory would be satiated...
Vivian redid her makeup, straightened herself up and then rebooted the cameras for the outro. "This has been a lot of fun for almost all the day, everyone! We're all very sorry for mordacazir's unreputable behaviour, and we hope nothing like this happens again for as long as Pokémon Contests last! The 5 acts progressing to the next round are @simsands and @scattered mind, each with 30 points, @bbninjas with 29 points, @GM DracLord with 23 points, and Professor Palutena due to his well-earned bye! We're really sorry to say goodbye to @double o squirtle, @thegrovylekid and @Keeper of Night, though. I hope you come back next year, better than ever! As for @mordacazir... well, good riddens."
Players:
bbninjas (earned a piercing shot)
simsands (earned a piercing shot)
scattered mind (killed Keeper of Night)
GM DracLord (counter-killed thegrovylekid)
Professor Palutena (counter-killed mordacazir)
mordacazir (counter-killed by Professor Palutena)
thegrovylekid (counter-killed by GM DracLord)
double o squirtle (suicide)
Keeper of Night (killed by scattered mind)
Hope you guys wanted a novel, because apparently that's what you got! Dx Was this too long? If so, please say so in-thread! I'll try to be a little more concise in the next chapter, but since there are fewer live players now, it shouldn't be as big an issue anyway. Deadline for submission is Friday the 19th February at 19:00 GMT(+-0). This is more like a 48 hour deadline because this took way longer to write than I anticipated, meaning I wouldn't be able to give a 24 hour deadline and post the chapter without sleeping inbetween. However, I will update once all actions are in, which should really be before then.
Hope you all enjoyed reading this verbose chapter!
