Scraankral Kot’ils
Scraankral Kot’ils, the only heir to the legendary warrior Crer’eol Kot’ils, was a proud alien. Like all advanced extraterrestrial species, he spoke perfect English, though he sometimes confused “would have” and “would of” in writing.
His world was majestic. Lava fell from the sky. The moons were purple—all seven of them. The suns were ruby red—all three of them. The mountains were spiky, and the sand was grainy.
Scraankral was the chieftain of the Zewhaibar tribe, one of the seven tribes fighting for the throne. Right now, he was walking towards the Sacred Cave, where the fight for the throne was held once every four years—the only proper way to select the leader.
Each of the seven tribes was unique with their own looks and culture. Right now, Scraankral was fighting against an opponent from tribe Random 1. The woman looked like human, but taller, and with pink skin. He won, so he moved on to the next round against the representative from tribe Random 2. This guy looked like human, but with a fat belly, green skin, and an elephant tail. Scraankral won again, so he moved on to the last fight against the opponent from tribe Random 3.
This opponent was not like the other ones—she looked like an octopus, but much larger, and she could fly. Scraankral knew she’d be hard to beat.
The flying octopus could command powerful magic, so she flew from far away and threw rocks at him. Scraankral dodged to the left, then he dodged to the right. He jumped forward, then he rolled backwards. The fight was extremely thrilling.
In the middle of the epic battle, Scraankral suddenly recalled that his skin was impenetrable, so he stopped moving and let the rocks hit him. They didn’t do anything. Scraankral stood still in place, staring at his opponent menacingly.
His stare was too intense that the flying octopus decided to fly towards his face and fought him in close range. She punched him, then he punched back. It went on for about two hours until Scraankral recalled that he had a special ability called Hard Punch. He squeezed his fist tightly and used the Hard Punch.
The octopus collapsed on the ground, never getting up again.
Scraankral won.
The crowd erupted into cheers and applauses. Some people had tears in their eyes, even though they had never met Scraankral before. He supposed it couldn’t be helped—his irresistible charm, it could inspire anyone.
He smiled and winked to the crowd. Then, suddenly, he heard ringing in his ears, and his vision blurred.
The next moment, he fell on a marble floor, his head hitting the ground first. He bounced up, ready to fight—which of these tribes had schemed to murder him? Maybe all of them were planning this together.
Around him stood four other people, all with human appearances, just like him. Far away, an old man was smiling at them.
Scraankral focused all his senses. Whatever dirty scheme they had—he wouldn’t let them succeed.
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Aevangelina Queen
Aevangelina Queen was the princess, head of the ministry of science, and Principal Inventor of her country—the Republic of Strong Nation.
Every day, she was busy inventing and overseeing all projects in her country, including building infrastructure, manufacturing all machinery and equipment, the cyber security system, vaccine testing, artificial intelligence, weapon designing, game development, data science, space exploration, financial policies—just to name a few.
Right now, she was in a scientific laboratory that was equipped with the most advanced, cutting edge machines and equipment. Every floor was shiny, filled to capacity at every minute. People were always looking at holograms, and building holograms, so they could have more holograms to look at. These were extremely useful for the laboratory, which performed all sorts of research, in all fields of sciences.
A middle-aged man was approaching Queen, his hair was messy, and his skin was sickly pale. He was one of the best scientists in the Republic of Strong Nation. He had studied and worked in computer science for over two decades, but in front of Queen, he was no better than a rookie apprentice in need of guidance and supervision at all times.
“Princess Queen, can you check this program for me? I just can’t get the script to run,” he was gazing at Queen with admiration.
Queen smirked and nodded. Her posture oozed confidence. Her voice was always adamant. Her presence filled people with joy.
“You tried.” She smirked again—it was her default smile. “This program relies on caenorhabditis elegans to run an exosome, so here, you must perform a neuroplasticity infused with hippocampus. But instead, you used acetylcholine in the norepinephrine, of course it’ll show an error. The solution is simple: please turn your computer off and on again, and it will work.”
“Wow, thank you, Princess Queen. I never thought of that before.” His mouth opened widely to form an “O” letter, and he left hurriedly to continue his research.
She moved on to the next project. Within an hour of work, she had solved all of the problems in the laboratory, and some more for their neighboring country after a five-minute phone call.
“Listen, Mr. Prime Minister. You just need to research harder, work stronger, type faster, think better, that’s all. What’s so hard to understand?” She spoke on the phone with the leader of the other country. He stuttered for a moment, then thanked her for such a flawless solution he couldn’t come up with.
Afterwards, she got in a helicopter for a visit to a nearby orphanage. The children—she always thought of the children.
She watched the clouds from her seat, saddened, tortured by the fact that she still hadn’t figured out how to land on the sun.
Suddenly, a loud bang startled her. She looked up and saw the helicopter on fire.
God damn, I forgot my Strong Superpower Suit, 3S, at the lab exactly on this day. What an unfortunate coincidence! Queen winced as her body fell from the sky.
Before she hit the ground, however, everything around her turned black.
When she opened her eyes, she was no longer in her own world.
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Viper
“Another one!” Viper grunted and ordered another big glass of beer, his sixteenth of the night. He drank every day from sunset to sunrise to forget his tragic life, and to forget this awful world filled with very bad, very evil people.
Viper used to be an assassin. His world had been grim. Every day, he saw people tortured, beheaded, got their fingers chopped off, got their toes chopped off, got their eyes pierced through, got their dicks marinated in mango-pineapple sauce before being grilled, among other stuff.
These experiences were horrifying—the visual part—there were a lot of blood, crushed organs, insects, sharp objects, bullets, explosions, and then more blood. But they never frightened him, because he was a weapon, and a weapon had no fear.
He never wanted to be a part of these missions, but he couldn’t escape his fate. He was raised and trained by the Ninja Association to be a professional assassin, and he was damn good at his job.
The Ninja Association took any case, if the buyer was rich enough, but Viper himself only accepted cases where the victims were evil people—in fact, he preferred these people to not be labelled “victims”. For example, three years ago, he killed a middle-aged woman who was mean to the beggar. She even kicked the dog on her way to a restaurant. Although Viper didn’t see any proof of her other wrongdoings, he was certain the bitch was officially Satan, and he was doing God’s work.
The Ninja Association, despite its name, mostly used guns and explosives in their missions, although their members always carried a katana with them, just in case they suddenly had an urge to fight in close range—it had happened more times than Viper would expect.
Viper was a master at using guns—he never had to reload bullets, he dodged bullets like a wind, and he never missed. The leader of the Ninja Association called him their “perfect weapon”. He was very sad about it. He wanted to be more than just a weapon, so he drank all day and he drank all night.
“Fuck you!” Viper wasn’t talking to anyone; he was just cursing at the air. He cursed a lot: at his enemies, at the people he killed, at his friends, at the bartender, at random people on the street. People were terrified of him, a six-feet assassin, muscular, drunken, cursing at clouds. It was expected.
One person wasn’t scared of him, however. His wife, Python, was a gorgeous woman who was perfect in every imaginable way. She warmed his heart and changed him for the better. The first time they met, she gazed at his eyes and smiled softly.
“I think you’re very cool,” she said, her dimples deepened. “A six-feet assassin, muscular, drunken, cursing at clouds. You’re, like, the coolest guy.”
He quit the Ninja Association to marry her and live a normal, peaceful life together.
“I’m quitting you.” He told the leader of the Ninja Association, Mr. King Cobra.
“You think you can quit us just like that?” King Cobra laughed evilly.
Viper didn’t care. He left the building, feeling hopeful about his future. But three months after their wedding, the Ninja Association found their house and murdered his wife.
“NOOOOOOOOOO!” Viper yelled in agony when he got home. He held her cold body in his arms, and his eyes turned red. He declared to the clouds. “I WILL REVENGE.”
A week later, here he was, at his favorite bar, drinking for the last time before he infiltrated the headquarter of the Ninja Association and destroyed it from within. He would do it tomorrow night, on Christmas, when they least expected it—who would plan an attack on Christmas? Even the assassins from the Association weren’t that cold-hearted.
I’ll teach you a lesson. You should have killed me. He never understood why they had spared his life. Nonetheless, the Ninja Association always had strange rules that even Viper couldn’t understand.
When the sun was starting to rise, he walked back to the hotel room. When he opened the door, however, it wasn’t the same room he had rented.
“Welcome to the Epic Tournament, Chosen Ones.” An old man in weird Halloween costume was talking to him.
