Day 4

[Karl Jak]

Dante's Abyss 2022 - Finale
Face to Fate/Zero
#03 Deadpool, #07 Anders Nazrat, #18 Demetri, #21 Rogue, # 23 John Connor, #30 Gilgamesh​

“We can’t stay here,” Demetri replied as Deadpool remained latched onto his waist. “Either the mouse or Gilgamesh will find us if we don’t take the fight to them.”

“Oh you poor, sweet fool,” Deadpool cooed as he rubbed Demetri’s chin. “We just need to wait it out until they both get destroyed by the rest of the competition. This is how this works. Trust me.”

“You know that almost everyone else is dead, right?”

Deadpool frowned, but before he could continue the conversation with Demetri, the pair both heard the chugga-chugga of death incarnate bearing down in their general direction.

“We have to GO!”

Before Deadpool and Demetri could hop out of the dumpster and dash to escape the train, their hiding place was hosited up off the ground by a woman with gilded hair and sweat-stained muscles.

“How y’all doin’?” Rogue replied as the man hopped over the sides of the dumpster. “Here I reckoned y’all both wanted to go for this ride?” She added with a weary smile as she took a step forward and proceeded to hurdle the dumpster at the oncoming train car.

There was a horrifying screech as Mickey slammed on the breaks and bailed from the locomotive just as the metal- and sandstone- container went crashing through the front car. The mouse landed gracefully as his ride tilted sideways and crashed its way through a couple more buildings before losing its momentum.

“Sons of bitches are gonna catch these hyuckin’ hands,” Mickey growled as he turned just in time to see Rogue as she drilled her fist into the side of his face.

Spiraling through the air like the child-sized projectile he embodied, the mouse managed to shake out that initial shock and catch himself before he transitioned into a literal tumbleweed. Face already swelling below his right eye, Mickey frowned as Rogue came rocketing across the sidewalk, her gilded body uprooting the sandstone surfaces beneath her. When the brawler swung, she found her strike met with the shaft of the keyblade, which failed to yield despite the woman’s awesome strength.

“Well gosh … how’s it feel to know you ain’t shit?” Mickey giggled as he sent Rogue stumbling backwards with a shove of his keyblade. A quick swat of the unorthodox weapon drove the belle of the ball (or, at least, the last surviving belle of the ball) to the ground. “How’s it feel to know you might just need a little more than magic?”

With mounting frustration, she flipped up onto her feet and dug deep into the very real rage that burned through her otherwise ravaged body.

“Aww, gee,” Mickey commented as he hopped gracefully onto a nearby streetlight as a bolt of ki crashed into the sidewalk and missed him by a healthy margin. “It’s fun to try and do the impossible, innit?” The little warrior cartwheeled back to the ground as a second retaliatory blast sheered the post out of existence. “Hot dog! You’re an angry one,” he tittered as he swatted away a third bolt of energy with his weapon and promptly broke into a sprint toward Rogue.

The woman tensed and swung only to scowl as the mouse dropped into a slide between her legs. Holding the keyblade out like a pole, he tripped the woman with an unease that didn’t belong in such a tiny frame.

Collapsing painfully onto her knees, Rogue grimaced for just a split-second at the ground before lifting her head up just in time to see the Proto Buster’s charged barrel staring her dead in the face.

“Buh-bye,” Mickey tittered as he leashed the burst into Rogue’s scowling visage. By the time the woman came to a rest two blocks away, she had lost both her transformed state and her consciousness. “Now then… that leaves,” the mouse tapped an oversized, gloved finger to his chin as he moved in a slow circle. “Where are ya, Wade?” Mickey asked. “I know you’re out there schemin’, uh-huh!”

A rush of footsteps pulled the mouse toward the approaching mercenary, and a lethal discharge of plasma energy scattered the illusion of Deadpool into a number of gory pieces.

“Tricks, huh?” Mickey laughed as he narrowed his oversized eyes and scanned his surroundings. “I’d hate to find a little trickster.”

Sweat beading at his temples, Demetri ushered in a second Deadpool from a nearby window as the real one crept in from an adjacent alley. The mercenary seemed to be overly careful, and the one-lunged thief didn’t know how much longer he could maintain this charade. From his left, he saw another Deadpool jog up and wave to the Mouse.

“He’s over here, Not Jacob”

“Hiya, Wade,” Mickey declared as he jogged by the conjured man and hopped off his oversized feet to give him a low five as he passed him. The Deadpool then made direct eye contact with Demetri, flipped him the bird, and promptly exploded into a puff of orange dust.

Eyes wide, Demetri tried to incorporate some additional elements into the illusions, but it was too little, too late.

Mickey lifted the Proto Buster and fired.

The thief flinched as he dove to escape the burst of plasma. His mouth already filled with blood from a body that still miraculously failed to stop, Demetri literally crawled back up to his feet with the assistance of a nearby streetlight. He glanced around for a sign of Deadpool, but instead, he felt a momentary pressure in the small of his back just before the keyblade tore through his chest.

Eyes dropping to the gore-stained ‘point’ of the weapon jutting out from his previously ravaged sternum, the thief shook his head. “You couldn’t have been a few inches to the left?” He asked through the blood pooling in the back of his throat.

“Next time,” Mickey whispered softly as Demetri fell to his feet in front of the rodent monarch. “Know you’re place and just kill yourself.”

Demetri grimaced. “Chill,” he groaned as he collapsed forward and into oblivion.

Mickey Mouse scowled as he hopped onto the dead man’s back and grabbed onto the handle of his keyblade. “Only thing chill here is your corpse, uh-huh!” He tittered as he yanked back on his weapon, which seemed to be stuck among the tangle of shattered ribs and ruptured blood vessels.

The mouse grit his teeth, and as he yanked his trademark weapon free from the confines of the slain fool, a carefully positioned Deadpool skirted up from behind him and buried his gladius down into the soft space between Mickey’s shoulder blades.

Grip immediately gone, the mouse spun around and opened his mouth as a curse formed on his lips.

Deadpool wagged a finger as he reached down and calmly wrenched his sword back up through the tiny horror’s anatomy. “I know you’re not the real thing, but I hope you know that I’ll still touch myself to this later.”

Before he had hit the ground, Mickey Mouse had erupted into a rapidly dissipating cloud of orange dust, leaving a sullen Deadpool staring at Demetri’s corpse.

”Un-lifed by some type of conjured mirage… how tragic,” With that, Deadpool made rapid strides to return himself to the side of whoever wasn’t dead yet.

Spoiler

#18 Demetri DEAD


5 Contestants Remain​

 

[Karl Jak]

Dante's Abyss 2022 - Finale
Face to Fate/Zero
#03 Deadpool, #07 Anders Nazrat, #21 Rogue, & # 23 John Connor vs #30 Gilgamesh​

John Connor and the Terminator had no idea whether the others were alive or dead.

For the last few minutes, the former Resistance Leader and his bodyguard had played a horribly lopsided game of cat and mouse with Gilgamesh. While they had believed that the fog cover and the shadows of the city would provide them an advantage to an opponent floating up in the sky, the pair of soldiers found themselves foiled each and every time they thought they had maneuvered in such a way to ‘get the drop’ on the golden king.

“You’re slow, Connor!” Gilgamesh laughed as he used the Power Stone to hoist a building up from its foundation. With the structure within his telekinetic grasp, the king scanned the ravaged landscape beneath him for his foolhardy quarry. “Come out and take your medicine! I’ll make sure you get the nice dungeon.”

John Connor, who was about a block removed from the madman’s location, had scrambled his way up to the third story of one of the few standing structures in this part of the city. With the Gauss Rifle still primed, he dropped into a crouch behind the window ledge and started to slowly count down from ten.

As the man spoke numbers to himself, his Terminator companion laid down what would have normally been suppressing fire, if this were anything akin to your standard field operation.

Connor winced when he heard the building crash down upon his ally, but if there was anything true about the T-800, it was the fact that the machine was one resilient son of a bitch. Even when it had been blown to pieces, the machine would endure, even if it required a new chassis. A building? Probably on the higher end of the spectrum of tolerance, but only time would tell.

Popping up as he mouthed ‘zero’, Connor fired. The gauntlet shined as the bullets slowed to a crawl in midair, but even as Gilgamesh turned to insult John, he was suddenly joined on his platform by a bloodied, battered Rogue. With no words, she grabbed for his throat, but a flash of the Power Stone seemed to pluck her off of the platform.

“Hands to ourselves,” the king replied as he flexed the psychic power of the stone and watched Rogue writhe in pain as he squeezed down around her chest and throat.

“Nice!” Deadpool shouted as he landed on the platform and jammed the gladius into Gilgamesh’s gauntlet arm before lifting up his unoccupied palm. “I love a good masturbation joke… high five!”

Eyes drenched in unquenchable ire, Gilgamesh discarded Rogue with a flick of his wrist and turned to confront a frowning Wade Wilson. “I believe I owe you something.”

“Is it a pony?”

Before an answer could be had, the platform shuddered as it was hit by a spattering of Gauss rifle fire. Both Gilgamesh and Deadpool turned to see a slightly winded John Connor smiling from his perch, but as the gilded king debated who to turn inside out first, the T-800 launched itself from the rooftop and crashed into the platform.

The impact of a few hundred powers of steel was all the floating platform needed to reach the apex of its structural integrity, and the whole thing cracked apart like an eggshell. One moment, Gilgamesh was about to throttle a spandex-clad idiot, and the next, he was on his royal ass on the streets below.

“Unrelenting mongrels,” he rasped as he used the Space Stone to drop the entire building that housed John Connor through the ground and then out the ass end of a portal forty feet in the skies above Uruk. Pivoting sharply, he aimed the Reality Stone at the T-800 and turned its fancy gun into a child’s water toy. The machine paused, tilted its head at the stream of limp water sputtering from the barrel of its weapon, and a beat later, it was drawn and quartered by the Power Stone.

The building slammed into the ground a few seconds later, and a dust cloud washed over everything once again as Gilgamesh rose to his feet and turned to pry the gladius from his armor. In the end, he had to rip apart most of the plating on his arm to examine the deep slashing wound that would have severed his limb at the elbow had Deadpool not been a few inches lower.

Before he could reshape reality to repair his armor, Gilgamesh was lunged at by a screaming Rogue, whose machete slammed into the metal plate around his neck and dented the material enough to bruise his skin. “Begone,” the king growled as he sent a kick into the erratic woman’s gut. When she lunged back off the ground, he trapped her in the grip of the Power Stone and smiled as he snapped one of her fingers backwards until it laid flat against the back of her hand.

Incoherent screams issued forth from Rogue as a second and third digit were snapped painfully back. By the time he was working on finger four, Gilgamesh was once again jumped by Wade Wilson, who got a fistful of the king’s hair and nearly drove his blade into the side of his head before the Space Stone sent the masked idiot on his own free fall experience.

Eyes set back on Rogue, Gilgamesh eyed the machete on the ground and smiled. “That’s the real one, isn’t it?” He asked as he levitated the serial killer’s weapon up into the air. “You’re walking around with the weapon that killed one of your compatriots, and you deign to vilify and degrade me? How macabre are you?” He asked before launching the machete like a harpoon into Rogue’s gut.

“Ah’ll … kill you,” Rogue rasped as she collapsed to her knees and immediately tried to get a grip on the handle of the weapon with her mangled fingers.

“Shut your mouth,” the king remarked as he hoisted the Infinity Gauntlet. Before he could pop her skull, a gun crashed into the side of his head. Wavering slightly, he turned and sneered as John Connor tried to level the barrel of his weapon with his forehead. “Uh uhhh,” Gilgamesh muttered as he flared the Power Stone and threw the heavy rifle from Connor’s hands.

Even unarmed, John Connor dove forward and took a swing at the gilded monarch.

Gilgamesh easily evaded the strike and lifted the resistance fighter up into the air. “I am a king, Connor,” he rasped. “You and these commoners are nothing to me.”

“What about this, though?

The King of Uruk scowled at the idiot mercenary’s voice, but a beat later, a gilded spear crashed through the king’s right shoulder. John Connor crashed back to the ground and caught the sight of the sword as it skittered to a stop a few feet away from him.

Meanwhile, an irate Gilgamesh had already wrenched his body around to see Deadpool struggling to keep a half-conscious Anders upright. As if he were puppeteering the sword mage, the mercenary was supporting the other man’s extended hand.

“Stab him again! Quick!”

“I… I can’t see, you fool,” Anders groaned as a pulse of Power scattered both of them once more.

“Mongrels,” Gilgamesh muttered. “You dare stand against fate itself to defy a God-King?”

“Hey, Goldie,” John Connor rasped as he swung the gladius and slashed off the king’s gauntlet hand at the wrist. “There is not fate but what we make.”

Detached from the gauntlet, Gilgamesh glared at his stump as the environment around them started to destabilize. Colors and surfaces slowly began to bleed into one another as John Connor met the gaze of the humbled monarch.

“This changes nothing,” Gilgamesh seethed as John was joined by Deadpool. “You—”

Stealing the gladius, Deadpool drove it through Gilgamesh’s skull as the fabricated reality around them reverted back to what remained of the bunker’s foundations. “Never gets old to kill you.” The mercenary laughed before noticing that Gilgamesh was sputtering oil from his stump and skull. “What the hell? He muttered as the robot sagged to the ground in front of them.

***​

With a growl, Gilgamesh tore off the VR headset and spiked it to the ground.

“What type of trash ‘video game’ was that?” The King of Uruk demanded as he kicked the headset toward some of the tech nerds.

Karl Jak, his smirk barely under control, shook his head softly. “One that you’re bad at, it would seem.”

Gilgamesh scowled. “What’s the point of a game where I can lose? Why make a game where I could actually get murdered by a bunch of mongrels? Who would play that?”

“M-millions of people?” A techie muttered.

“Billions,” another one added in softer tones as he looked up from a screen filled with code.

“What was that?” Gilgamesh barked as the tech crew skedaddled out of the room, leaving Karl and the King behind. “Can I go now or will your army of lawyers boobytrap my bathroom again while I’m sleeping?”

Karl chortled as he held up his hands. “Hey, you signed the contract.”

“No one told me mine was different than anyone elses!” Gilgamesh retorted. “In perpetuity? Who writes that?”

“Who doesn’t read the fine print?” Karl smiled as he turned and winked at the security camera up in the corner of the room.

“Who are you looking at?” Gilgamesh groaned.

“No one,” Karl muttered as he stepped out of the room and waved over Charlie. “Go escort Goldilocks to the VIP teleportation suite.”

Spoiler

#30 Gilgamesh DEAD

4 Contestants Remain​

Deadpool used one application of Focus

All survivors receive +1 Major injury, except Anders, who receives a Mortal Wound

 

[Karl Jak]

Dante's Abyss 2022 - Finale
#23 John Connor, #21 Rogue, #03 Deadpool, #07 Anders Nazrat​

“Gilgamesh” was still spurting electricity from his chest when Deadpool felt something in the back of his neck.

“P-peter tingle?” The mercenary muttered as he glanced around and saw a bloodied Anders Nazrat reaching into his possessions. With eyes wide, Deadpool leapt in front of John Connor as the mage from Arcadia fired the wand of disintegration.

At first, John didn’t know what was going on, but when he saw Wade spin passed him in a smoldering heap of limbs and magic dust, he connected the dots pretty well for himself.

Reaching for Demetri’s Wingman, Anders never got within arm’s distance of the weapon before the Gauss Rifle tore his already ravaged body into shreds. As Anders went limp on the ground for the last time, John swiveled the rifle and had his gaze met by that of Rogue, who was aiming a ghostly version of the same rifle at him.

“Stand down,” she smiled as John Connor frowned.

“Nice trick,” Connor muttered before throwing the heavy rifle at the woman’s chest. The gun smashed into Rogue’s chest, and she pitched backwards as her version spat rounds up into the night sky. Hitting the ground and rolling, Connor grabbed the Infinity Gauntlet off the ground and had it on his hand before Rogue had a chance to reorient herself and take aim.

She still pulled the trigger, but the stream of bullets was met with an overwhelming burst of concussive Power that sent a few of them screaming backwards at her chest and stomach. The southern belle stumbled backwards before landing on her derriere. Half overcome by shock, she slumped sideways as her quivering hands dragged her bag back toward her.

“I’m sorry,” John muttered as he took his eyes off the dying woman to see that Wade Wilson—hole punched cleanly through his stomach—was shambling back toward him. In his hand, the mercenary held a shining green stone.

“Don’t apologize on my behalf, Sugah,” Rogue wheezed as she pulled a small device out from her bag. “We all gonna be eating fresh barbeque tonight… propane or charcoal?” She muttered as her blood-drenched hands twisted the activator on the miniaturized warhead. “Ah hope you brought your sunscreen,” she laughed.

So many things happened in a short succession of time.

A screaming Deapdool threw out his hand.

The miniature nuclear device erupted outward, reducing Rogue to a charred skeleton in the blink of an eye as it billowed outward.

Connor, twisted toward his companion in the moments before the eruption of energy, held out his hand, and even as his vision was stolen from him by that initial flare, he felt the subsequent wave pass over him, not like the wrath of Judgment Day, but as a gentle caress. In his head, he somehow knew what to do, and in an instant, he was wreathed in green energy.

Deadpool, who had been madly looking for a refrigerator to hide in after throwing the Time Stone, blinked an suddenly found himself standing with his empty hand outstretched toward Connor.

“Hope your brought your sun—… eh, wait a minute.” Rogue muttered as she glanced around. Before she could factor what had happened, the warhead had been telekinetically willed toward John Connor, and in a blink, it had been reduced to literal dust in the wind. “What happened?” The woman asked as she glanced around.

“Time nonsense.”

“No one else dies,” Connor replied as he hoisted the gauntlet and gave it a snap.

As far away as Markov, the denizens of Cevantil felt the ground literally shudder beneath their feet for a few fleeting moments. Some of them even said they noticed colored comets screaming up through the atmosphere of their beloved, overgrown graveyard of a home World.

One moment, Rogue was dying in the dirt, and the next, she was half-conscious on a hospital gurney with nice mittens on her arms.

Spoiler

#07 Anders Nazrat DEAD
#21 Rogue DEAD
#21 Rogue SAVED

2 Contestants Remain​

Deadpool used one application of Focus

Anders Nazrat used Consumable - Wand of Disintegration

 

[Karl Jak]

Dante's Abyss 2022 - Finale
#23 John Connor, #03 Deadpool​

The pair popped back onto the comet and found themselves in what seemed to be a lounge of some sort.

The clapping of a man pulled their focus from the office décor to the man in the suit standing in the open doorway. Continuing to clap, Karl Jak made his way to a sofa and slipped down into it. “Congratulations on being three of the only survivors in an event that was supposed to be mostly collaborative. The last time we did something like this the survival rate was like, fifty percent. Fifty!”

“Didn’t you send like ten contestants to their death in that hole?”

Karl rolled his eyes. “C’mon, Wade, you know that some things are bigger than murder contests.

“My track record the last few years actually proves that to be empirically false.”

“You can go now, Wade,” Karl replied. “Please take your winner’s badge and let the adults talk.”

“Ooooh, shinies,” the mercenary cooed. “After this, I think I might take a vacation.”

At that, even the normally stoic John Connor found himself furrowing his brow. “Where?”

Deadpool shrugged. “I dunno … probably some dump like Baltimore or the entire state of Arkansas. I like to suffer. It’s good for the soul.”

“I didn’t know you were so jaded, Mr. Wilson,” Karl said over a faint smile.

The mercenary winked to the man in the purple suit before making his exit.

Spoiler

#03 Deadpool SURVIVOR/WINNER

1 Contestant Remains​

 

[Karl Jak]

Dante's Abyss 2022 - Finale
John Connor​

“Well, John,” Karl replied once the door was closed. “You had a quiet time on that ‘island’, didn’t you?”

“Did anyone survive who went into the sinkhole?” Connor inquired.

Karl scowled. How was he supposed to get a rise out of this guy wandering in almost literal circles and avoiding mostly everyone if he wouldn’t even nibble the bait? “No,” the CEO answered as he pulled the tablet from the inside of his suit jacket and handed it to Connor.

“Why send them in the first place?”

“OF all the people, you are telling me I should have stopped to consider the odds? How many times did you send men into missions where they knew they weren’t returning?”

“It’s not the same.”

“What makes any of them different from Kyle Reese? Oh, wait – these people will likely wind up alive again through the magic of this place,” Karl replied as he gestured around him. “While your dad remains dead in the 1980s.”

Connor scowled and shook his head. “Let me rephase… ‘was it worth it to send those soldiers to their deaths?’” In response to that, John had the tablet dropped onto his lap. On its screen, there was a number of topographical details, image files, and a slew of video files. “You continued to film them?”

“You miss the point,” the producer retorted. “That’s everything about Saren’s present headquarters. I’ve forwarded that information to a particular Colonel in the Markov military that you might remember,” Karl sneered. “I’m sure that he’ll be able to make out of it.”

“That won’t save Cevanti.”

Karl rolled his eyes before snatching the tablet back and stuffing it into his pocket once more. “It’s a lot more than anyone else has done over the last two years!” He rasped as he stood up from the couch and pressed out the crinkles in his suit. “You owe a final press interview… it’s part of your requirements as Grand Champion.”

Connor frowned as he held up his right hand. He still had the gauntlet on his hand, but the collection of stones had vanished during his transit back to the comet. “What do I do with this?”

“Keep it,” Karl replied. “Those stones are still out there, y’know. Wouldn’t want them falling into the wrong hands,” he snickered.

“You try to play savior while seeding your weapons of destruction across the Crossroads?”

Karl shook his head. “Don’t for a moment think I wouldn’t prefer to be down there,” he rasped. “You think your carefully curtailed run-ins with the unmaking were harrowing?” He walked back to Connor and glared the man dead in his eyes. “The last chump let himself fall into the hands of the unmaking, and I will not make that same fucking mistake.”

Connor remained silent as the other man collected himself for a second time and slipped out of the waiting room. As the door shut and locked behind Karl, another on the opposite side of the room swung open. Rising to his feet, John Connor moved to address the audience that awaited him.

Spoiler

0 Contestants Remain

#21 John Connor WINNER​

John Connor receives ‘Infinity Gauntlet’ (Relic) – it is devoid of stones but is probably still good for punching people in the face.

John Connor receives ‘Belt of the Grand Champion’ (Undropping Relic) – This character-bound championship belt is your lasting trophy showcasing that you are the champion of “Dante’s Abyss XIII”

 

[John Connor]

I took a breath as I walked toward my audience. In the background, there were distant cheers of my name. “Connor! Connor! Connor! Connor!”

I looked at the infinity gauntlet on my hand and blinked.

I then walked forward toward the swarming crowds as they started to cheer out loud.

(Song playing in background is Fate and hope)

As I walked in, the cheers came to a slowed pace.

These crowds were here for me. I couldn’t believe it. I had won the DA and I looked around taking in the cheering.

I haven’t seen this crowd since the fate of humanity rested on my shoulders.

I raised my voice with my hand lifted up high “Citizens, there is a new storm brewing! One not of mechanical nature! I fought for 32 years against mechanical foes and an Artificial Intelligence named Skynet. I came here to conquer a new foe! One even greater than Skynet! Maybe the crossroads biggest challenge yet.

With your help, maybe we can all fight off this new threat… together!!!

I am John Connor, your new Da Winner!

Join my growing Resistance against the unmade threat and take back what’s ours!!!

Connor! Connor! Connor! Connor!

Loud roars were heard on everyone’s television set as the T800 eyed Marcus and Blair “The war has just begun…”