Haku was quick to raise his pistol. Using his wind powers and going demon wasn't exactly the most tactical choice right now. The others might see things he didn't exactly want to divulge yet. As he stepped closer towards a wary but feisty-looking Lucario, a similar barrel poked him from behind. Before he knew it an air of clicks sounded off one by one and a party of four had turned into a dance of death.

"Be cool, guys." one of them chimed. "We can figure this out."

Hopefully.







Theme
Welcome everyone! This Semi-Finals theme is called Ready Round Robin Hood.


It was suppose to be a simple job. How could it have gone so badly?

The Hermit had busted you out of your ironic temporal prisons for your unique talents, and a chance to return to the surface and get back at the Host who threw your lives away. That was 24 hours ago. Now, here he lies face flat on the floor, in a puddle of his own sweat and saliva. Strange fact: there were no bruises or defensive wounds on his body. He appears to have been killed from behind...presumably from someone he trusts. And since no one but the four of you knew about the plan to get out of here it only stands to reason that at least one of you did it. Or two. Or three.

Maybe The Host secretly got to the fink and telepathically struck him a deal. Maybe he's just looking out for Number One all this time, and killing off his comrades will prove himself worthy of returning to the tournament. One thing's for sure: there is definitely a traitor in this room and nobody's leaving room until the circle of trust has been restored, even if it takes recapping everything that's happened in the past 24 hours.


Classic Standoff Principle
The room is tense as each of the four competitors have raised their pistols at each other in the following fashion:

Lucario is aiming at Dominic
Dominic is aiming at The Crystal Warrior
The Crystal Warrior is aiming at Haku
Haku is aiming at Lucario

At this point, it doesn't matter who killed The Hermit or sabotaged your plans for escape. What matters is that everyone's integrity has been put into question and it is up to you to get that trust back. After a bit of back and forth and through obvious deduction, you've all come to the conclusion that the sabotage was a TWO-MAN JOB. Ergo, out of the four of you, the two most flimsy of storytellers will be gratuitously shot and left for dead, leaving the less-treacharous of their number to move on to the next stage.


Write What "Really" Happened
Despite the setup above, this is still a 1 on 1 match. This will be a meta-battle; your characters will be telling a story about how and why you think your suspect caused it to all come crashing down. For the actual bracket see below.

In this round, each participant will literally tell a story OF their actions 24 hours ago. You must cover the ff:And that's it. As soon as every story has been told, the polls will decide which one makes the 'most sense' AKA which story is the best.


Whirled His Story
Now because this is all from your character's perspective, you don't have to mention what exactly everyone did or where everyone was during the whole event. To fulfill condition a of the above requirement, you can just mention something in passing, for example "Lucario was on lookout. I heard his threw a shadow ball to blind some sentries temporarily while everyone else snuck in."

Just focus your tale on you and the person you're blaming as essentially this is still about clearing your character's name by implicating your target.


So What Was the Plan Again?
Here's the fun part. I will no longer provide any specific details for the Heist itself (unless you choose to pick some Antes). Those are up to you now. It could be a laser-abundant hallway. It could be guards everywhere. It could be all sorts of sensors strewn around the joint. The only conditions that need to be fulfilled are the 4 main ones up there. Have fun.




Feel free to ask more questions



Recap on the Pts System
Just putting this here for reference:

Votals - Natch. In every voting period after both entries are submitted, every vote is worth FIVE POINTS.

Ante - These are "miniwagers" you can take on if you think you're losing just because of popularity power. For this round, Ante's will add an extra element for you to write about in addition to your objective. Scoring is as follows: you take an Ante you have to work with and bet 5/10/15 points. If you fail to achieve it, you'll lose that much. If you succeed, you'll get 10/20/30 points in return! There will still be three categories: Easy/Medium/Hard. Your opponent cannot take the same Ante type as you (both of you can't go easy at the same time). Also, every Ante is different for everybody; an easy for you may not have the same conditions as an easy for another guy.

Bonus Wins - In addition to the current objective of the Round, there will be an extra Bonus Win condition that is constant for all the Rounds. Points for this Bonus element will always be constant: TWENTY POINTS.

CNC Benefits - Competitors will get TEN EXTRA POINTS for every battle in this tournament they CNC. They must both vote AND comment why they voted for that person. It could be as simple as just liking some specific thing. CNC Points will not count if the comment is vague or unhelpful and you can only CNC a maximum of THREE times. Moreso, if the cnc is extremely detailed, explaining more than just one thing, the cnc-er will get an EXTRA FIVE POINTS.

Judge's Favor - In any of the votable threads in any round, if any of the three judges has deemed an entry very exceptional, fully utilizing the environment given to him, he will recieve Me or acute's blessing by announcing so. A judge's favor grants an extra FIFTEEN POINTS to your current score. Please note that when the judges vote in your battle that is NOT the blessing, but rather we will declare it in a separate post. The blessings also come when the Rounds are ending to prevent favortism or bias.



Rules
1. You must first post here as a sign that you are still alive and active with the following:

2. You may then begin writing your entry as usual. You may then post it in this thread as well when you're done. IN SPOILERS. Please DO NOT make your own thread. No googledocs. No textuploaders. You must. Post it here.

3. As soon as I have both entries of the same bracket, I will put up a voting thread in the battles section and the voting may commence. If your opponent fails to produce an entry and post here, he/she will be forced to forfeit and the other guy will move on to the next round!
3.5 If you do not acknowledge yourself in this thread in the next 4 days, the bracket will shift to appropriate an opponent to fight with to prevent easy byes. Latecomers will then recieve deductions of 20 pts no matter what.

4. Aaaand that's it. You have until two weeks from now AKA October 7, 2013 to post all your entries. The deadlines for the polls themselves will be a week from whence they are posted.



"Mexican Standoff" Loser's Bracket Semi-Finals:

Nikx232 vs GamerXD8
Nikx is blaming GamerXD8's Character
GamerXD8 is blaming BirtDog's

Antes:
Nikx - Medium: Haku recalls that one of the phases of the Heist concerns stalling a hallway of Guards for 30 minutes without raising alarm. Subterfuge was definitely used instead of brute force. They also couldn't be knocked out or killed. Incorporate this scenario into the Heist recollection.

GamerXD8 Easy: Begin and end your tale with an explosion.


BirtDog vs Codincx
BirtDog is blaming Codincx's Character
Codincx is blaming Nikx's Character

Antes:
Codincx - Easy: Include at least 1 of the other Losers not in this Round (either from last round or the 2nd round of the winner's bracket) and incorporate him/her in the heist. They don't have to make an active participation but you have to explain why they didn't show up to the standoff.

BirtDog - Medium: What's this?! It turns out you were actually holding TWO guns to begin with. You are now blaming TWO people with the 2nd choice as anyone you want.



Bonus Exhibition Match: BoomerangReturns vs Crank; they're blaming each other.

Antes:
Crank - Hard: Hollywood feels a pang in his gut as he convulses a bit. He's bleeding! If he doesn't attend to his wound soon, he could keel over and debilitate himself further... Crank must write his story with a maximum of 6500 words, as well as incorporate Hollywood's massive internal wounds and how he acquired them.

BoomerangReturns - Medium: Incorporate an Epic Car Chase in your story.

Bonus Condition
As you may have guessed, I hope you've watched enough Ocean's Eleven because the Bonus Pts will go to the one who can write up the Most Entertaining Heist. That's it :P To be clear, an "entertaining" heist is one that works. Where all the pieces turned delightfully, down to the getaway when things went sour.


Good Luck!

Well, this should be a fun round.

Good luck to you all! I can't wait to see the entries of the final four

After much thought, I think OLit is once again mroe suitable for this thread.

Hey Boomer and anyone else who is out: if you wish to participate here as well then do so. It's not just for anyone's benefit but your own. :D

Hmmm? What do you mean by that Hewwy?

Well I'm just saying if you want to do something like this, then go ahead. I'd love to read what you got. Just post em separately in the OLit section as if your character was still in the tournament.

Ahh I see. Can it be any wRHG that can be the suspect, do I have to specifically make four suspects like this, or is it totally free world?

It's totally up to you bro. It might not even have to be constrained by this round's requirements. I wish to inspire anyone, not just make a tournament for the sake of making these ridiculously high-powered rounds with fancy rules.

Heh, if there's a #3 (or more) I'm up for a blame game with you Boomer!

Hey you and Boomer should totally go at it. Both of you can submit your entries here too and I'll put up a bonus thread just for the two of you. For fun ^^

That'd actually be pretty cool. Anything to add some more writing to this place. Plus it'd be an honor, I hear Crankubas pretty good.

Soooo... hypothetically, if I were to ask for a, say, anti. Like a hard one for instance, would I get one by chance?

And thanks Boomerang! I hope I don't disappoint you then!

I'll have to take a serious look at these rules then as like a template, get myself to writing. Ill probably start after I finish my clan weekly

Looks like I stole Gamer from you Birt~! >:P (TeeHee)
Nikx232 vs. GamerXD8 and accuses him of the crime~!
Medium Ante is selected!
LETS DO THIS THING!!!! >8U

@Hewitt: I also take this intro to mean that Alt. Haku has come out and I will be writing with him as the lead? (T-that...actually sounds like a lot of fun! o.o)

Nikx232 vs GamerXD8.
Imma blame Birtdy!
I'm feeling high, so Medium Ante to go! Fuck me up NAO! jk... I mean it, Hewwy.

@Gamer: Can you expand more on both Lucas' and Rio's personality?