In the Palm of My Hand IC - Don't cross over yet!

OOC Notice!: Until everyone's sheets have been filled out, there will be no crossing over. All that will go on now will be the characters receiving their messages in however format is possible.

Everything seemed normal in Daten City. It was a period of few ghosts, leaving the Anarchy sisters with not a whole lot to do. Sure there were always sugar and men, but outside of those it was pretty boring.

"Chuck! Chuck! Chuuuuuuuuck!" That damn dog just wouldn't shut up. With he thrust of her leg, Stocking kicked it out the window, glass shattering everywhere. "Just let me eat my shit in piece!" she yelled at it from inside. This didn't seem to affect it much, as it kept yapping the same outside. Suddenly, a streak of electricity crashed from the clear sky, frying Chuck to a crisp. A ghost perhaps?

Garterbelt, being the only one in the church not to be glued to his ass, got out his trust hammer and smashed the crispy dog, forcing a rolled up piece of paper from its mouth. Instead of the typical browned and torn slip he expected, however, it was a clean, white, and overall fancy piece of paper. A fine calligraphy read in black ink: "To Stocking Anarchy". "Stockin'! It's a letter addressed to you so come get it!"

"A letter? By Chuck? Why couldn't it just come in the mail like everything else?" Taking the piece of paper, Stocking read the letter. It was an invitation. To what it didn't say; the only indication it was even an invitation was that it told her to meet at a certain spot at a certain time. "It's probably a scam. Why the hell would it be so vague if it wasn't?" But she kept reading. And at the bottom, there was the one thing that caught her attention.

"A supply of sugary sweets to satisfy a hankering hunger? As a prize? GOD MY OH!" Reaching a near orgasmic level of excitement, her eyes glimmered at the display of delicacies in her mind.

'So I'm understanding you're going to this contest, then?" Garterbelt asked rhetorically.

----------

"Run for your lives!" Peasants ran for their lives as Trogdor the Burninator made his way through his weekly ruin of Peasantry. Thatch-roofed cottages and peasants became engulfed in flames as the dragon torched all he saw. Seeing all that he had destroyed, he gave a magnificent roar.

"Well that certainly went well for a day," he thought as he made his way back to his cave in the mountains. "Not even an archer to be seen!" As he approached the entrance of his cave, a page came running by. "Message for the Burninator!"

"That would be me, of course. Now hurry up so I can burninate you."

"I hath received message that thou shall be-eth commanded to stay-eth in thy cave of dwelling in the days numbering two, for it hath been commanded that thou shall be-eth involved in a concealed event requiring a spell of teleportation."

Trogdor stared at the page. "What the crap are you saying?"

"Stay in your cave in two days, a portal will open in your cave to bring you somewhere secret."

"Well then why didn't you say that in the first place? Or were you just stalling so you wouldn't get killed?"

"Yes."

Immediately after this one word, the page was left to burn as Trogdor made his way to his cave. "Somewhere secret? Another place to burninate, hopefully."

----------

Another day, another fire. As Mr. Game and Watch held one end of the parachute, countless citizens jumped from the blazing building to safety. Or at least most of them did. It always seemed like this building was burning down. If that was the case, why didn't they try to fix it? And how come it never burned down all they way?

When the fiasco was all over, the bell rang. That bell. It rang every hour on the hour every single day. Sometimes the ringer would bring messages. What about today?

It did, in fact. Tossing a letter to the Mr., the envelope flew disjointedly from the sky into his hands. Giving a bell ring in reply , he opened it and removed the paper inside. Good thing there was written language in a land without a spoken one. He began to read the letter.

There was no "From", only a "To". The To, of course, was to Mr. Game and Watch. Whoever this was from, they wanted him to wait in the back of Mario's cement factory in two days. A portal would open up and bring him to an undisclosed area. It had a list of rewards, but it didn't give much else than that.

What was this? A contest? A challenge? It piqued his interest. Having to find out, he set aside doubts for curiosity's sake. He would enter. All he had to do was gather his things back at home. The letter didn't say he couldn't bring anything with him, did it?

Just had to avoid the oil slicks on his way there...

Madotsuki had not noticed the 14th door before - perhaps it had been there, but had hidden itself beneath the lapping waves of her obscured perception until the day she looked at the Nexus through different eyes - eyes that, while remaining sealed shut, perceived not only what Madotsuki had known to be present in this room for her entire life, but what was there here and now.

This fourteenth door resembled the wooden portal to Madotsuki's own bedroom, and for an instant the young girl thought the two to be one and the same, suspecting the door to have only shifted position due to some unknown stimulus. But as she approached the door and gently pushed it open - for Madotsuki was not one to rush discoveries - the world beyond presented unto her a complete and unmistakable unfamiliarity that was not common to the dreamscape.

It was a single chamber, small yet not unpleasantly so, and in the middle of the neat and polished hardwood floor stood an ornate table on four thin, sturdy legs. Madotsuki approached this humble specimen of furniture without hesitation - for Madotsuki was also not one to delay discoveries any more so than necessary - and found on it a note, which she plucked from the table and read.

Opening her eyes was not necessary, as this was Madotsuki's mind, and she instantly knew what was scrawled in neat lettering on the thin, smooth paper, which was this:

Your savior awaits
Break the spell tomorrow night
And one chance is yours

Madotsuki folded the paper into a neat square before tucking it into her sleeve. Silent and calm, she pinched her cheek, and the world swam around her, rebuilding itself, structuring the reality she spent so little time in these days.

She sat up in bed and, out of habit, checked her sleeve - but found nothing. Madotsuki plopped herself into her desk and put pen to paper, recording the events of the night in her Yume Nikki, her dream diary.

Madotsuki's glance drifted sideways - to the corporeal bedroom door, the impenetrable obstacle that had kept her locked away inside the freedom of this uncertain existence - and she knew at once what the haiku spoke of when it referred to broken spells, and that come the eve of the morrow, Madotsuki would take this chance, however mysterious. For if she was certain to die, which had been Madotsuki's utmost intention up until the unexpected dream, she would die knowing that she had opened the door and known what awaited her on the other side.

~~~

There was once a young monster from Shawbrook Forest and he liked to be called Olek. Why this was is both unclear and entirely irrelevant, for Olek had just succeeded in his lifelong dream, the noble goal of saving his humble and poor village from the depths of its poverty. Olek had traipsed across the entirety of Nevermore and freed from captivity a race of ancient ghosts, which had then combined into one giant purple ghost and sailed him back home.

That part was, undeniably, quite awesome. But the very most awesome bit was that Olek had saved his village, which was now prospering considerably with the aid of the ghost-like race, and Olek was a hero!

Tuomas the shopkeeper, of course, had been an evil shapeshifter bent on stealing the treasure for himself all along - but he had fled once he realized that no material wealth was to be found in that ancient cavern. Yes, that was certainly the last Olek would ever hear of poor, mischievous Tuomas. He was almost definitely not hiding in wait behind a large shrub, having finally worked out the details for his revenge the previous night...

But of course, Tuomas was, and he had. As Olek passed by on his way to fetch water, he was nabbed from behind with great suddenness.

"Got you, little brat!" the shapeshifter angered, for the only accurate way to describe the intonation of his voice would be to hastily convert 'anger' into a verb and forget all about the incident. "Now you thought you got away, but I have bigger plans for you! And bigger treasures for you to claim!" He leaned down to meet Olek's eyes. "There be a tournament, and you're going to win it for me, and once I have the prize I'll be the richest squirrel alive! No stupid ghosts this time for old Tuomas, no..."

And with similar rants, grumblings, and general disagreeableness, Tuomas whisked Olek away through Shawbrook Forest.

~~~

The bodies had piled ever higher, the blood had pooled and just as quickly been washed away by the arbitrary impulses of the Auditor - every building and construct requiring little more than a thought to spawn, every player a pawn in the giant game. Hank J. Wimbleton was born to instigate the Madness, to grant death en masse, but due to outside influence he had grown too strong.

The game had grown beyond controllable measures, and the pleasures, gone rogue. The Savior had already challenged the rule of the Auditor, and had been effectively terminated - but not before initiating a Normality Restoration Sequence, which would ultimately culminate in the termination of the Improbability Drive. The Auditor's function was to prevent that from happening, and that was why Hank must die.

Before the Auditor stood the Protagonist himself, blue sparks dancing wildly around his mutated arm, and unreadable eyes concealed behind red lenses. Beside Hank stood Sanford, gun in hand, clearly outmatched yet managing to survive even after the death of his companion Deimos.

And above them towered the Auditor, sword in hand, standing on the spot where the corpse of a Mag Agent had once lain before becoming absorbed into the black fire of the Auditor. Now, the Auditor raised his sword, calling forth all the corpses of past battlefields, and the bodies of those slain by Hank and Sanford mere minutes ago were summoned forth from the cold concrete on which they lay, feeding the Auditor's thirst for power.

Unfortunately, one such corpse was not happy with this lot. Tricky the Clown was not happy with a great many things, least of all the fact that he had been given a taste of true power before meeting a swift termination at the hands of the Savior.

Thus, Tricky welcomed an old friend, as well as the chance to redeem himself and, above all, make Hank suffer like never before.

Hank, observing the dramatic clash between two great forces, predicted the inevitable destruction that was to follow and quickly fled with Sanford in tow. But as the last vestiges of the Auditor's power were corrupted by the influence of The Clown, there was nothing to keep the Improbability Drive going - and then there were none.

...

Relatively speaking. The white energies responsible for Normality Restoration - and perhaps there had been an outside influence or two as well - had whisked Hank J. Wimbleton away to an unfamiliar place.

A place where the Madness could begin anew.

LOCATION: Striker Airship, Women's Changing Rooms

Daisy turned the letter over. "Huh. It's an invitation to a tournament," she noted. "I was never invited to Super Smash Bros., so I guess I could rub this in Peach's face." She put the letter in her locker and slipped on her shoulder pads. "I'll look it over one more time... after I win this match!"

She ran down the hall, into the bays, and skydived toward the arena where the Strikers match was about to begin.

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LOCATION: The Vice, Audience Seating, Row J, Seat 235

Toad looked over the letter again.

"Congratulations! You have been chosen to participate in one of the most renowned tournaments known to any being in any universe!" It went on to explain things about fantastic prizes and such.

Toad skeptically looked at the letter. "Smells like a crossover, just like a Dimensional Clash," he muttered, turning the letter over. On the back was a "fill-in-the-blank" space that stated where Toad would have to wait to be picked up.

"Meh, whatever. It seems a bit more organized than what I'm used to," said the veteran Clasher. Toad pocketed the letter and took to cheering on the home team.

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LOCATION: Toontown Depot

It was past midnight. Casey Jr., the circus train, was busy dozing off. It was a long day for him, for it was the last day of the circus show, and he had pulled the animals back to Toontown.

But he would be rudely awakened when a brick whacked against his nose. It was addressed to him.

Casey wondered why they couldn't use the Toontown mail service.

After ten minutes of struggling, Casey managed to open the envelope (using a rock and his wheel flange).

Casey read it, and shrugged. It was probably junk mail, anyway. Just another one of those fantastic prize contests.

Casey paid no mind to it as he fell back asleep.