Pencillum sat on a chair in his room in the wRHG facility, reading his opponent’s profile on his livestreamer and contemplating his newest matchup.
“So… as soon as I wound him his powers start killing me? What kind of ability is that?” he said to himself.
A slightly deep female voice spoke softly from the sofa across the room. “Surely you can come up with a plan within two weeks…”
Pencillum looked up at the newcomer in front of him. “Yeah, sure… hey, wait a moment, how’d you get in, Pencillia?”
“I have… methods,” she responded, somewhat creepily.
“And… why are you here?”
“Well, I needed some help, you see. The Eastern Pencil Empire has broken away and become the Battle Mech Empire.”
“So…”
“I’ll help you gather… information about your opponent, if you help me plan an attack right now.”
Two hours later, both Pencillians were standing over a large roll of paper, appearing to be a detailed map. Dozens of similar papers, all with numerous pencil marks on them, appeared to be haphazardly placed to the side.
Pencillum spoke. “So, if you take your Violin Warrior squadron #689 here, and back it up with a couple of Pencil Trumpeter squads, then they’ll have to go here, and that leaves you open to send your Pencil Tanks with your Super Penguins here, which allows you to obliterate this unit here, which leaves you open to take the city.”
“Okay, thanks. I have to leave now, so… bye.”
“Bye.”
Pencillia gathered up all the rolls of paper, shoved them into her backpack, and opened the door.
Pencillum suddenly remembered something. “Hey, wait. What about the information?”
“Yeah, I’ll get that to you in two days.”
“Thanks, bye.”
“Bye.”

A very tall man with bright red hair walked leisurely down a street, laughing. A small boy walked close behind him. Suddenly, a buff man jumped out at him, wielding a knife inconspicuously. After a few words were exchanged, the tall man gave the boy a chocolate bar. The buff man walked into a dark alley, and the tall man with the red hair followed him.
From a fire escape above the alley, a teenage girl wearing a black T-shirt and black jeans watched closely, jotting down notes in a notepad with a pencil.

The next day, Pencillia visited Pencillum again.
“So… he kills without mercy, is even better at using blood than I thought, is randomly flirtatious, and laughs constantly?”
“Uh… yeah, that’s about right.”
“Well, that’s just what I need.”
“You have a plan?”
“I was being sarcastic.”
An awkward silence ensued, and after that Pencillia left.

Two weeks later Pencillum strode down a long hallway. Suddenly, he stopped.
“Wait, wait, wait. What is wrong with this? How many times have I strode down a long hallway already? Something is off here. Someone is controlling my life.”
(Yes, someone is controlling his life, but he’s in no position to know that, is he?)
“Well, anyway…”
Pencillum continued to stride down the long hallway until he reached Arena #24, where he turned left and entered the large arena. He looked around it. The glass roof had a dome shape, allowing a very nice view of the beautiful day outside. Or at least that was what it showed – with enchanted glass, you never knew.
“What a nice arena you have here,” he said to no one in particular. “That roof looks especially nice. It’d be a shame if anything were to happen to it.”
He sat down in the middle of the room and waited.

Two hours later a tall man with red hair entered the arena, laughing loudly. “So!” his voice boomed. “Shall we begin?”
Pencillum smiled, took out a very large quantity of pencils, and hurled them up in a circle at the roof.

Numerous explosions were heard. The entire roof’s connection to the walls was vaporized.

The domed roof collapsed in on itself. Pencillum took cover and Chance watched in horror as the entire roof fell in onto the arena. Alarms blared, and when the dust cleared, both fighters stumbled back on their feet.
Pencillum took out a pencil. Chance created a few red tendrils from the numerous cuts on his body.
“Oh, great,” muttered Pencillum, and began to flip pencils nonstop at Chance. The red tendrils maneuvered themselves to block all the pencils. Not long after the pencils began exploding on contact. Soon after the explosions began having no effect on the tendrils.
Chance laughed some more, and the tendrils shot out, aiming for Pencillum’s throat.
“Whoa there!” yelled Pencillum, at a volume much louder than necessary. Chance merely continued laughing. “You’re dead. Problem?”
“Yes,” responded the pencil wielder drily, flipped a pencil at Chance, and suddenly both fighters stood in the middle of a large grass plain.
“Huh,” said Chance. “Hey, do you suppose those are… battle cries?”
Chance looked over across the plains, and saw an entire medieval army wielding nothing but pencils charging at where they stood. A teenage girl ran at the front, screaming something that sounded something like “RICOHNDAROHGAK!!!”
Both fighters looked at each other, rather confused.
The army drew closer and closer until the teenage girl was fully visible.
Pencillum looked even more confused than he already was.
“Pencillia?”

Pencillia looked utterly confused, too.

Chance said flirtatiously, “Hey girl…”

A violin bow suddenly materialized in Pencillia’s hand as it moved through the air, becoming a blur, and finally ending up pointed at Chance’s throat. Pencillum also pointed a pencil at Chance’s throat.

Chance backed off. “Okay, okay…”

Pencillia thought for a moment, and then pointed behind the two fighters.

Both fighters looked where Pencillia pointed, and saw a massive army of towering battle mechs lumbering towards the medieval pencil army.

“Um,” said Chance.

“RICOHNDAROHGAK!!!” screamed the medieval army. Pencils flew through the air and battle mechs fired laser blasts, dealing heavy damage. Numerous battle mechs fell to the ground, but many more pencil warriors lay dead.
Suddenly, loud screeching was heard. All turned in the direction of the screeching, and saw a massive… mass of penguins waddling towards the battle mechs, brandishing rocket launchers and launching volleys at the battle mechs. In all the chaos, Pencillum buried a pencil in Chance’s left shoulder.
“Did you forget that we were still fighting?” said Pencillum, with a smirk on his face.
“Aaargh…” groaned Chance, as he pulled out the pencil with an effort. Blood streamed from his wound. The blood formed a small puddle on the ground, and suddenly rose up and splashed Pencillum in the face, blinding him for half a second. In that half of a second, solid blood tendrils wrapped themselves around Pencillum’s neck, beginning to choke him.
Pencillum struggled against the tendrils, but he was too weak, and the tendrils continued to choke him. As soon as he began to feel that he was about to fall unconscious, the tendrils fell back, as lethal laser fire aiming for Pencillum’s neck emitted from a nearby battle mech. Pencillum instinctively raised a pencil to defend himself, but the blasts stopped as the battle mech was blown to smithereens by a nearby penguin.
“You know what, that’s it,” muttered Chance, and immediately charged at Pencillum. Pencillum glanced up and saw a tall British redhead with the look of a madman charging at him (which, he noted, is something he may want to avoid seeing in the future). Great, he thought, Blood rage. Now I can’t beat him in a straight-up fight, but maybe I can set a trap…

Pencillum quickly turned and ran directly into the middle of the battle mech lines, dodging small hovercraft that apparently exploded on contact with other things. They can’t shoot me here; there’s too much risk that they’ll hit one of their own, he thought. Chance blindly followed him, chasing after him with incredible speed. The pencil fighter considered his options while running, then ducked out of sight for a moment and then began climbing up the foot of one of the largest battle mechs. Chance followed, then looked around, confused, until he spotted Pencillum now climbing on the leg of the battle mech. Using the blood from his wound in his shoulder, he fashioned himself a ladder and scurried up the ladder towards Pencillum.
Pencillum heard a clang, looked down, and saw a blood-red solid ladder against the foot of the battle mech with a man quickly climbing it. He hastily climbed up, allowing a few red-tipped pencils to fall out of one of his pockets. He turned back and watched them fall to the ground, explode, and take out a chunk of the ladder. The ladder began to tip, but it began to change again, this time into a blood-red rope ladder.
Great, thought Pencillum, and began to climb at a much quicker pace. Chance still slowly gained on him until finally Pencillum reached a staircase. It was marked ESCAPE. Without much thought the pencil fighter hoisted himself onto the staircase and hurriedly climbed it. He heard a clang behind him and knew it was Chance.
Pencillum hurtled down the hallway as fast as he could, almost slamming into the railing at the turn in the process. He turned the corner and found a door. With my luck, it’s probably locked, he thought. He quickly tried the door, and to his surprise, it opened! He slammed the door behind him before realizing that he was in the very large cockpit of a highly dangerous battle mech.
The pilot of the battle mech stood up and turned around.
A very pretty blonde woman stood up – and leveled a gun at Pencillum.
The door opened, and in stepped Chance.
“Hey, wait a second, aren’t you that girl I met in a bar two years ago?” said Chance, confused.
It won’t matter now, will it? thought Pencillum.
An explosion rocked the battle mech, and Chance was promptly thrown back out the door.
The next moment a pencil was in the girl’s shoulder, the gun was on the ground, and blood streamed from the wound – wait, blood. Right. Pencillum hastily tried to throw the body in an out-of-the-way place, but it was too heavy for him to lift. He instead kicked the body as hard as he could. Multiple times. The body finally rolled to a dark corner under a control panel, and Pencillum hoped that Chance wouldn’t notice it.
Suddenly, his mind screamed, DANGER INCOMING! Danger? But – where – he thought, as Chance stepped out and kicked him onto the control panel. Stupid useless foresight ability, Pencillum thought, as he rolled off the control panel. The battle mech took off off the ground, turned around, fired a few blasts from its ion cannon into nowhere, and then had its foot open up, letting out several blue metal spheres about the size of a monster truck that bounced on the ground and apparently exploded when they touched a human or a battle mech.
Chance’s opponent groaned as he tried to get up, only to be met with another solid kick. And another one. And another one. And another one. Meanwhile, a few blood tendrils began to wrap around Pencillum slowly choking him.
Pencillum flicked a pencil into the air. The giant battle mech turned into a completely regular-sized flowerpot. In midair. While the two fighters were in it.
Both fighters fell straight down.
Well, that didn’t quite work the way I wanted it to, did it? thought Pencillum.

Pencillum flipped another Improbability Pencil.
Both fighters landed on the ground hard.
The ground buckled, sank, and bounced back into place again, springing both fighters into the air, where they were fired upon by a flowerpot apparently using flowery laser weapons.
Huh. I doubt that’s happened to anyone else before, thought Pencillum.
Chance did a backflip in the air and landed on his feet. Pencillum didn’t bother with the backflip.
“GIANT EXPLODEY METAL SPHERE! RUN!” screamed a passing Pencil Warrior.
Chance turned and saw a “giant explodey metal sphere” bouncing towards them.
Pencillum charged directly at the dangerous-looking sphere. Chance followed as fast as he could.
The pencil fighter continued to dash right at the massive “bomb”, secretly dropping several pencils on the ground. Their tips landed pointing straight down, so the pencils stood up off the ground. Chance followed, almost catching up…
…and then tripping over the pencil trap, flying directly into the giant explodey metal sphere…
…which exploded (obviously), wounding numerous pencil fighters and battle mech controllers alike…
…which caused the large amount of exploding hovercrafts to explode, which wounded many other fighters…
…which ended up, when the dust cleared, with Chance lying on the ground, moaning and holding his forehead, nose and ears bleeding, Pencillum standing over him.
“So… do I win?” asked Pencillum.
“Too… much… blood…” groaned Chance.