As I was saying. True magic is the imposition of a narrative upon reality. It is telling a story to the world... and making the world believe it. The dark work of police and politicians. Of rulers. And tricksters. And if magic is narrative... then to be a creature of magic... to be a god... is to be a creature of story. Yes? Your move.
Abilities:
-super goddamn fast (various calculations/sources have anywhere from 200-660 mph to 180 m/s ~ Mach 0.5, Subsonic Class+ to fast enough to travel through time)
-utilizes cartoon physics that defy the laws of reality
-seemingly inexplicable good fortune
-decades of experience successfully evading the relentless pursuits of a genius
Dreyski brings Ezio Auditore da Firenze
Master Assassin and Mentor of the Italian Brotherhood of Assassins
Skills:
- Trained to an elite level in a wide variety of weaponry and unarmed combat
- Skilled freerunner and freeclimber, able to 'synchronise' himself with local environment from the top of tall structures
- Trained to blend into crowds, making himself undetectable
- Extreme durability, has tanked arrows, gunshots, and even cannon fire
- Able to fall from great heights without damage. For extreme falls, has access to Leonardo Da Vinci-designed parachutes to glide to Earth
- Possesses the 'Eagle Sense', which allows him to locate enemies, determine targets, and track where they have come from and where they're going
Equipment:
- Twin hidden blades (upgraded by Leonardo, one bracer contains a wheelock pistol and poison dart launcher)
- Long sword and dagger
- Throwing knives
- Smoke bombs
- Crossbow
- Armour with a perfect balance of weight and strength
- The 'Apple of Eden', a powerful artefact created by the pre-human Isu civilisation. Its full powers may never be known, but known powers include conjuring illusions, casting tangible holograms, and Human mind control (to a fatal level, at short ranges)
Once beat up the pope in a fistfight.
They will fight at the Haunted Mansion (2003 film)
A sprawling bayou manor, Haunted Mansion has various ghosts, secrets, and physics defying set-ups.
- 3 posts each over 5 days which will be timestamped after this post.
- 400 word count maximum per post. If the word count goes over then everything after the 400th word will be cut off.
- Posts must be staggered so whoever goes first must wait until their opponent has responded before they can go again.
- No editing. Once the post is in it is in.
- No rebuttals to each other on the first set of posts. Once everyone has posted first time around then it is fair game to rebut. Don’t mention your opponent (s) in the first set of posts.
- Post links, videos, images gifs etc to your heart's content! These will not count towards the word count.
- Quoting your opponent does not count towards the word count however using words from an outside source/article/reference will count.
- Adding anything extra that is outside the abilities of the Intro may be acceptable, but you must provide a source of it and be consistent with your intro.
- Remember, appearance and formatting counts.
The EXCEL SPREADSHEET OF DOOM has determined that MTH WILL GO FIRST.
Roadrunner wakes up every day as prey. A target. A potential murder victim.
Every day brings another onslaught of attempts on his life. Every day he awakens to face the perpetual, unrelenting, homicidal endeavors against him. Each day bringing new methods and weapons with the sole purpose of ending him. Every day a fresh hell awaits. But he rises. And he runs. And he survives. Time and time again.
For decades he has lived every day surviving exactly what everyone in this tournament wants to do: kill him. You may say, “Yeah, but...” “But” nothing, my friend. An ever changing arsenal of weapons and gadgets, constantly changing scenarios, say what you will about Wile E. Coyote, genius or idiot, it doesn't change the facts: Roadrunner lives and thrives facing and overcoming a never-ending, ever-evolving Fiction Fight.
The skills he has developed in assessing, adapting, quick-thinking, maneuvering/out-maneuvering, turning the tables, escaping, and let's be honest, doing things that would result in the death of someone not prone to the same cartoon durability as Wile, are still there regardless of what you think of his arch rival. His reality-bending, damn-near supernatural, often threat-reversing good fortune is still there. His mind-blowing speed (conservatively ~200mph, potentially more than 100x times that) is still there. And so, you can swap out Wile with anyone you want, you still end up with the same situation: Roadrunner waking up to what is essentially just another day at the office where he's the CEO of winning this shit. The survival skills, the experience, and the abilities that have gotten him to this point will continue to get him to the end of this Fight.
Now he finds himself in a spook house loaded with things that would surprise and fool your average individual but he deals with surprises, illusions, and trickery on a regular basis. “Physics defying”, you say? It's well established that could just as easily be describing the ol' bird himself. Fake paintings, instant holes, flying saucers, giant robots, he's seen and survived plenty of surreal and unreal threats and done his fair share of defying physics along the way. Much like the magic of the previous round, you might not think at first that he's prepared but when you break it down, the basics remain the same, basics that spell success for Roadrunner.
Ezio once again finds himself in an unfamiliar situation. As he takes in his surroundings, he again realises what his task is, even if his opponent is as yet unknown.
This is an older and wiser Ezio during his search for the Masyaf keys and the library of his ancestor, and re-inventor of the assassins, Altair Ibn-La'Ahad. More aware of the role he plays in a greater game as mentor for the assassins guilds across Europe, he is now less prone to rush in and take unnecessary risks, preferring to observe and picking an opportune time to strike.
In addition, his time in Constantinople with the Ottoman assassins gave him some new gear: the hookblade which extends his reach and allows him to freeclimb more effectively or trip opponents up; and working with Ottoman Admiral Piri Reis gave him access to different types of bombs and methods to craft them. On his person are a selection of bombs, lethal and distraction alike, in addition to his usual selection of blades, projectiles and his Apple of Eden.
Spirits and ghosts won't phase him – he's been spoken to and spoken through by long-dead aliens and his innate Eagle sight can distinguish between the real and illusory. He's also no stranger to creating his own illusions courtesy of the Apple, as with his fight against Rodrigo Borgia showed. In the same instance, the Apple also gave Ezio extra mental resistance against the powers of Rodrigo's staff.
After surveying the scene, Ezio climbs up the side of the building and hops in through an upper floor window, ready for whatever is inside and aiming for the element of surprise.
Roadrunner finds himself squaring off against someone armed with blades, bows, explosives, and illusions, a strikingly similar arsenal to that of his constant coyote rival. These are weapons he is intimately familiar with handling, avoiding, and often causing to backfire against their wielder. Regardless if Ezio is far more skilled than Wile, 'Runner's good fortune simply causes the things themselves to function improperly and unexpectedly:
Bombs will blow up in your face, bows will not fire, illusions will function as though they're reality while reality will function in impossible ways...all because they are being used against him. He can run through stone and battleship-grade steel...he can run through Ezio's blades. I should remind you, he also ran through the coyote behind said steel, so he could simply run through an armored Ezio. As I've illustrated in past rounds, Wile's illusory paintings fail as Roadrunner can interact with them as their genuine subject or as mere paintings, both ensuring his survival and causing harm to Wile. Granted, Ezio's illusions may not be paintings but the essence of Roadrunner's engagement would remain.
As I explained in my first post, the adversary may change, but Roadrunner's skills and abilities remain applicable in every contest. Here, he is essentially facing someone who is Wile E. Coyote maxed out to 11, thus, it will be far more challenging, yes, but it is also awfully similar in many ways to the battles he has been having every day of his entire life. He has been training for this fight from day one. It's time to put it all together and win.
First off, let's stop comparing Wile.E and Ezio. A commonly-held definition for insanity is 'doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results'. By that definition, Mr Coyote is insane. He might be extremely well-heeled to afford to buy all those goods from the Acme corporation, but insane nonetheless. Ezio Auditore da Firenze is not. I previously described that a more mature Ezio would prepare, watch and observe before striking. Once he understands that the target is Roadrunner and sees it speeding through the corridors (more on this later), he would likely fall back to a 'neutral corner' and strategise a way to keep it still for long enough to land a hit.
You say
Originally Posted by mth
These are weapons he is intimately familiar with handling, avoiding, and often causing to backfire against their wielder. Regardless if Ezio is far more skilled than Wile, 'Runner's good fortune simply causes the things themselves to function improperly and unexpectedly
- I put it to you that there is the possibility that the Acme corporation supplies exclusively defective equipment to Mr Coyote.
You also say
Originally Posted by mth
Bombs will blow up in your face, bows will not fire, illusions will function as though they're reality while reality will function in impossible ways...all because they are being used against him
- I put it to you that Roadrunner is designed to be unbeatable...in its own universe. We call that plot armour and plot armour is only as good as the people writing you. Just ask Batman. Unfortunately for you, Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese are long dead, leaving poor old Roadrunner bereft of armour. Ezio may as well be facing this:
Roadrunner - Good luck travelling at time-bending speeds when you spontaneously combust from air friction heating up your feathers.
Good luck opening heavy doors with those wings and beak.
Good luck turning in corridors and rooms without slowing down for long enough for Ezio to strike.
Good luck running through Ezio's blades without impaling yourself on them.
My first post was intended to address potential dismissal of Wile by my opposition. Genius, idiot, insane, however you paint him, does not change the facts/dynamics of their relationship and the skills/experience it has provided Roadrunner. I admitted Ezio's superiority and that this is a greater challenge but I don't think it's fair to brush away the comparison when the similarities are clear. Ezio is still doing the same things, using the many of the same tactics/methods, just doing it as a higher level. At some point, one graduates from the minors to the majors. That doesn't mean one's experience in the minors is suddenly useless, quite the opposite. Roadrunner has put in decades in the minors so now he is ready for the majors.
Sure, Acme may sell some shitty products. However, many of them function just fine prior to and after Roadrunner has been on the scene. Correlation may not always mean causation but eventually the data compiles and the constant becomes clear: Roadrunner's presence seems to have a effect on their function. Hit the button during testing, works just fine, hit it a dozen times when Roadrunner is standing there: nothing, go stand in the spot yourself: kaboom.
Let's not also ignore the stuff with the paintings. Acme's got nothing to do with them...
Sometimes it's just rocks, ropes, boards and shit...
Also, motherfucking GRAVITY is not an Acme product...
Trying to get meta and say Roadrunner is only as good as his writers is akin to me saying Ezio is only as good as the player. Throwing out his abilities because he's not in his universe? My brother in Christ, none of us are in our universe here, we're in Fiction Fight. We haven't all suddenly lost our skills/abilities or Ezio's just a man and this whole thing is nothing. Desperation reach.
Combustion point is moot then. Can run through stone/steel, can run through doors if needed. Can stop/turn on a dime. As for swords and hell, close quarters combat and a few other things you might bring to this fight, this cartoon addresses a lot of that quite nicely:
Ok, let's take you at your word and pretend that everyone's still in their own universe.
This is a tesseract/hypercube, a 4-dimensional shape. Or rather, our best assumption of one, because our three-dimensional brains cannot compute its true form.
Roadrunner exists in a two dimensional universe; Ezio in a three-dimensional one. Do you see where this is headed? Roadrunner cannot perceive a z-axis. While this didn't matter in the cartoons where Wile E. was his dimensional equal, it gives Ezio a clear, evolutionary advantage. And while we're staying in-universe, Ezio has to live otherwise there is no Desmond Miles (and therefore no overarching AC story), and we have an in-universe time and place of Ezio's death: 1524, in his home city.
Originally Posted by mth
Every day brings another onslaught of attempts on his life. Every day he awakens to face the perpetual, unrelenting, homicidal endeavors against him. Each day bringing new methods and weapons with the sole purpose of ending him. Every day a fresh hell awaits. But he rises. And he runs. And he survives. Time and time again.
Originally Posted by mth
For decades he has lived every day surviving exactly what everyone in this tournament wants to do: kill him. You may say, “Yeah, but...” “But” nothing, my friend. An ever changing arsenal of weapons and gadgets, constantly changing scenarios, say what you will about Wile E. Coyote, genius or idiot, it doesn't change the facts: Roadrunner lives and thrives facing and overcoming a never-ending, ever-evolving Fiction Fight.
Funny, Wikipedia lists 49 shorts plus one half-hour film. Hardly every day. Hardly for decades. Hardly never-ending. A sample size of fifty is literally the fifty-first worst sample size to have (fifty-second if you class infinity as a number and not a concept) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wile_E...he_Road_Runner Even worse for you, it has occurred on more than one occasion that Wile E Coyote has actually caught Roadrunner, rendering your argument null and void:
Maybe all Ezio needs is a tin bath (more than likely in a haunted mansion) and one of his bombs?
The final nail in RR's coffin is a lack of aggressive intent. Even in your ninja example (which is not on the above list and should be non-canon) he's acting in self defence. If we look back at the original cartoons, the worst we could say about RR is that he's a massive troll.
There's no active aggression towards Wile E, he just antagonises, runs, and expects good things to happen to him and bad things to happen to the Coyote. And that's a terrible strategy to have, because as we've shown above, at some point your luck WILL run out.
But look on the bright side, maybe Ezio will spare RR the “Requiescat In Pace” as he despatches him to the great animation cel in the sky, and instead give a cheery
This was a good fight from both guys and had to read it a few times. Both started out strongly in their intros. I think Dreyski made some good points about the Acme equipment being defective and that his character had stronger equipment but mth countered this well that the equipment wasn't always at fault and Roadrunner was smart. I think it got a bit distracting when talking about the characters in different and to be honest wasn't a fan of Dreyski's video example because the second part of the video of him being caught with the bathtub and bomb was actually edited footage from other episodes so it didn't really happen.
In spite of this, I think he did argue well that over the piece, Roadrunner didn't have a lot of time and experience if you add up all the time and I think him pointing out Roadrunner being less aggressive is a good point. While his argument had faults, I think he just did enough and showed his fighter at least had a plan of attack whereas Roadrunner relies on good fortune.
Vote Dreyski
Judge CWE
Originally Posted by CWE
A master assassin versus a fast as fuck bird. Interesting matchup that played out exactly how I thought it would.
Road Runner did well this tournament running (for his life), however...
"The final nail in RR's coffin is a lack of aggressive intent. Even in your ninja example (which is not on the above list and should be non-canon) he's acting in self defence. If we look back at the original cartoons, the worst we could say about RR is that he's a massive troll."
...at some point, it's a fight to the death and you need some fight.
Dreyski wins.
Dreyski wins. As always great work by mth in this tournament.
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Originally Posted by mth
