Zoofights I

The Final

Major Failure — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:15:57 +0000

We've managed to get a satellite feed from the site of the zoofights arena, and let me tell you, the pictures we're getting are incredible. Now we're back on track, let me fill you in on what's been going down in the last few hours.

Mechos and the hulkaphant began limbering up for their clash in the main arena, while in the rooftop battleground on top of the arena's coordination fortress, Burnell awaited, truncheon in hand, for the arrival and release of the Gorillesis, freshly healed from its breathtaking homerun victory over the rhino. Porky Punisher was dusting his deagles ready for his final confrontation when the news everyone had been dreading broke.

Swanmass was out. somehow, the gnawing teeth of God knows how many rats had worn away at the wall of the swanmass containment cavern, and the gristly mess was now seeping over the dismal marshland that surrounds the southern end of the arena complex. Porky - valiant and furious as ever - insisted that the show must go on and rode out to face down the monstrosity as planned.

As we watched him ride out from the complex, hearts skipping a beat, we rang the bell for the day's scheduled combats. The competitors laid in with vigour.

Hulkaphant charged with a speed we never expected from something so big, closing the distance with Mechos in seconds as the first shots of the gatling gun pinged off his hide in puffs of pulverised bone. With a slap of hypertensile steel being released from its catch, the ballista mounted between the beast's shoulder blades slammed its payload out, and straight through the starship-grade composite of the Red Banana's shoulder armour. Skewering the primate through the deltoid before Mechos could even get a shield between its ally and the crossbow, the impact of the bolt sent the whole squid/cannon assembly juddering back more than ten feet. Gritting his teeth, the Gorilla veteran began to shove the bolt through and out of his shoulder while still keeping an armoured forearm on the gatling mechanism. Mechos struggled to right his position after the impact, and bullets once again began spraying into the hulkaphant's armour with increasing frequency.

As the two behemoths neared close combat range, the deafening electronic bellow of a synthesised Japanese choir rocked the arena walls.

"SEGA!"

Gorillesis emerged from a shielded lift atop the coordination fortress, and beat his chest in defiance as it crackled with blue electric fury. John Burnell, even after years of sneering at the most dangerous felons, furrowed his brow in anxiety at the cartridge protruding from the monster's bulky control dome: Altered Beast. The robot monster rose its arms high, and lightning split the sky in two as a downpour erupted on the dessicated stadium.

WRRIIIIIIISSEEE FROM YOWRE GREAAAAVE

From the dampening sands of the arena, trembling, acid-burned fins emerged as three very confused tiger sharks lurched into awareness.

Rain pounded into the swamp outside the arena, slickening the progress of the red, gelid mass as it boiled and rolled to fill every quagmire and puddle. Tendrils seeped into pores between soil particles and flesh sank below mud as the swanmass dispersed over the open ground. As Porky rode out onto the bog, rain bouncing off his chrome armour, beaks and gorilla arms began to creep from the mire. It was then that Porky noticed the headstones.

Swanmass was soaking into the graveyard.

Back in the main arena, the tinkling of bone like smashed masonry, the enraged trumpeting of a terrifyingly large animal, the clashing of chipped titanium plates, and the war hymns of a hovering invertebrate vied for dominance of the soundscape as the air billowed with thick dust, turning to mud which slid down the flanks of the competitors. Acid gushed from the half-severed trunk of the hulkaphant to be diluted harmlessly by the downpour, raising clouds of steam as it drained into the sand. Amidst the gloom, Darth Gorilla wrenched the crossbow bolt from his arm roared, slamming it like a javelin through one of Hulk Hogan's many cloned limbs.

Gnashing his impossibly white teeth and staring with crazy, law-obsessed eyes, Retired Sheriff John Burnell strained against the Gorillesis, truncheon and iridium bat crossed and shooting sparks into the torrents of rain. His justice-sense tingling, the venerable narrator dived to avoid the ragged dive of a reanimated shark as it fell from the clouds, exploding into a wet heap of cartilage as it thudded into the rooftop. Wiping his leathery orange brow, he rolled and held his truncheon straight out to block the jaws of the second shark as it plummeted towards him. Straining to keep it away with all his benchpress-a-train strength, he delivered the shark a tidy headbutt, carving cartilage and flesh with the prow of his coiffure like the titanic grinding into an iceberg. The shark cleaved in two, Burnell rolled once more just in time to avoid the iridium bat as it laid an eight inch dent in the roof. Scrambling to his feet, the sheriff (retired), brandished his truncheon and beckoned the gorillesis forth to single combat.

PPPWOWWWERR UUP

Juddering and wrenching violently from side to side, the robot monster crackled all over with blue arc lightning as muscles swelled underneath iron cladding and steel cables stretched to accomodate veins and sinews of Liefieldian proportions.

John Burnell was not watching. Like mechos, hulkaphant, and every other sentient being in the complex, he was shitting his pants as swanmass burst out of the graveyard with a sound like God punching his dog in the nuts. Looming high under the stormclouds, a tower of flesh crested like a wave, topped by the form of a blazing rhino on whose shoulders sat the saddest frog in the universe.

With the ground and the air shaking as swanmass extricated itself from the putrescent earth, John Burnell realised there was not a second to waste. Without even looking at his opponent, he jammed a blank SNES cartridge into its face and ran for the lift to the arena command dome as the burly monster stumbled around and clutched its own head in confusion.

Down in the main ring, Mechos and Hulkaphant turned to face each other as lightning smashed into the radio transmitter tower high above them. Eyes like wise dinner plates met the gaze of red orbs hidden in bony crevasses and stared as thunder rolled massively across the heavens.

An almost imperceptible nod.

A tiny raise in the eyebrow that no squid possesses.

A trunk and a tentacle, slapping together under a downpour in history's most awesome high five.

Riding the cheetah steed at desperate speeds through the slippery bog, Porky Punisher deagled the tower of flesh with furious accuracy whenever anything like a face boiled out of its decaying folds. Tentacles like freight trains smashed into the wet soil in his wake, sending up showers of rotten globules. Slamming magazine after magazine into his weapons, Porky screwed up his snout in defiance of death. As a pillar of meat battered down in front of him he halted his steed and, with the glory of at least eight million knights, he turned it and rode straight into the heart of the monster.

Mechos, Darth and Hulk emerged from the arena's main gate just in time to see the rear legs of the cheetah disappear into the beef curtains of the swanmass. Desperate to aid in the struggle they bellowed in unison while Darth Gorilla waved a fist and unloaded the gatling gun into the flesh tower. The fight was on.

It was 15 minutes into the battle when porky emerged again. Blackened and bruised, armour peeling away from skin, he landed with a smash next to his new, gigantic allies. Raising a feeble trotter in salute to his fallen steed, he smiled like a champion's breakfast and watched fiery gas blossom from the heart of the swanmass as the cheetah's power core went molten.

The unholy pile screeched in pain and fury, reeling back for a few seconds and allowing the four warriors to catch their breath and prepare for a final stand. Bruised, broken and resolute, with red streams pouring down their skin, they prepared to play out the final act of the tournament that had become a nightmare for humanity.

The swanmountain loomed, and the clouds churned. Eyes narrowed, and muscles bunched. The world hung on a thread, which snapped between the scissor blades of John Burnell's ridiculous voice, projected over loudspeakers.

"THIS UNHOLY ENTITY THOUGHT IT COULD GET AWAY WITH MULTIPLYING EXPONENTIALLY AND INCORPORATING THE BODIES OF THE DEAD. LOOKS LIKE IT THOUGHT WRONG. ALL IT GETS.... IS A TASTE OF GORILLA JUSTICE!"

With that Godlike pronouncement, the main doors of the arena swung open in a sunburst of red light, and silhouetted between them was the form of the Sega Gorillesis, command dome shattered and arms held high in challenge. In its head were crammed four cartridges: Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter II, Streets of Rage.... and Battletoads.

Barreling towards the swanmass, the gorilla took a mighty swing with its iridium bat, and connected with the force of a thousand metaphors. Meat tentacles whipped back in retaliation as the bat came down again and again. In the turmoil, the four heroes realised that Burnell, like some amazing police Jesus, had bought them the time they needed to get away from his closing, suicidal gambit.

Not wasting another moment, the champions ran as fast as they could from the swanmass and the gorillesis, locked together on the graveyard plain in a fury of meaty blows.

Deep inside the fortress, Burnell smiled, nodded, and gave the command that would rid the world of swanmass.

From 12 silos buried all around the arena complex, the bristly forms of 12,000 tarantulas, laden with heavy, ripe plutonium, rose on plumes of blue flame and headed for the swanmass.

Fade to white.

THE END.

Final Lineup

Major Failure — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:15:31 +0000

MAIN TOURNEY FINAL: NO FATE BUT WHAT WE MAKE FOR OURSELVES
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HULKAPHANT PLUS, with ablative bone armour, hogan's horns, 6 big beefy arms, neck crossbow and a trunk that squirts acid.

Hulky's been rebuilt once again, this time with plates of jagged, brittle bone grafted all over his skeleton to grow over his ravaged skin in a flaking, horny coat of bleached white. The bone is very, very easy to shatter and not that tough, but it's 2 feet thick in places, and covered in jagged growths. What's more, as well as retaining his six beefy arms, we've grafted an additional pair to the elephant's temples, as a pair of crazy horns. Between those horns, on the crown of hulkaphant's head, sits a hefty crossbow, directly controlled by hulkaphant's brain. The tusks are diamond tipped, the eyes are shielded, and hulkaphant is as tough as he will ever be.

VERSUS

WEAPONS PLATFORM MECHOS AND DARTH GORILLA, with repulsor engines, 2 enchanced feeding arms, and gatling gun underslung saddle

Mechos pulled through, miraculously, after spending a night in a meditation dome with Darth Gorilla. Although we frown on constructive powers here at zoofights, it seems that the prime primate has developed some kind of gift for healing. Bless. Now though, Mechos has lost all but his two feeding arms to the ravages of battle, and can no longer walk. What's more, his remaining arms are somewhat weakened by radiation poisoning and, although still capable of delivering a hefty blow, can no longer achieve the feats of strength famous from Mechos' rhino-snapping days. On the plus side, we've made a lot of improvements. Mechos' remaining arms are now furnished with 6 foot long, 3 foot wide titanium shields at their tips, and plated in steel articulated rings toi their base. To overcome his immobility, Mechos has had a repulsor drive installed in his mantle, allowing him to float mightily above the battlefield at a constant height of 10 feet, and at a slow speed of 12m.p.h. Slung under his body is a suspended saddle for his comrade Darth Gorilla, onto which is mounted Darth's old Gatling gun, which fires at a respectable 400 rounds a minute.
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FREAK'S LEAGUE FINAL: THE DEEP BREATH BEFORE THE PLUNGE
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PORKY PUNISHER AND THE STEED OF THE SAVANNAH, with cheetah head machinegun, axe tail, piston legs and twin deagles.
Porky's back, and in league with the cheetah, who has cleaned up his act, sobered up, and learnt the meaning of justice under the wise eye of his commander. Each cheetah head now has chainsaw teeth, and the legs have been upgraded to be more like those of an AT-ST from Star Wars.

VERSUS

SUPER SWANMASS, a 3000lb, 3 foot high carpet of furious, putrescent ooze, with 20 gorilla arms, 10 beaks, too many wing and leg fragments to count, 200 lobster claws, 200 rat heads and 200 electric whip tails
Please God let it die. For all of our sakes. We're sorry.

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HORRIFIC FIGHT TO THE DEATH WITH TV'S RETIRED SHERIFF JOHN BURNELL
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SEGA GORILLESIS, THE ROBOT MONSTER

VERSUS

TV'S RETIRED SHERIFF JOHN BURNELL, with iron coiffure, reflexes of the damned rock-hard tanned hide, adamantium grin, and truncheon of desolate fury.
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Round Three Outcome

Major Failure — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:01:37 +0000

Fight One: The Lunch of Champions
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Winner: HULKAPHANT, by 22 votes.
The sharks finally ran out of luck against old hulkaphant. They swooped and gnashed, and took off four of the beefy arms, but the big old bastard barely noticed. Hosing his new, ultra-tough wrasslin' hide with liberal washes of acid, before too long the shark's teeth were tragic, fizzling blunt metal stumps. They kept trying to gnaw away at the holes they had dug in the tough hide (helped along by the pooling acid), but before long their chainjaws packed up and they had to resort to pitiful headbutts while the remaining beefy arms mashed at their fragile bodies and their skin melted away to shreds. The elephant was ridiculously eroded once more, but that just gave us an excuse to pimp him out even further....

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Fight Two: The Calm amidst the Swarm
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Winner: MECHOS AND THE RED BANANA, by 24 votes
The tarantulas were stopped, but at what cost? As the spider pit forcefield snapped off, the roar of jetpacks and the rustle of chitin heralded the swarm as it burst into the sunlight and headed straight for Mechos, sending giger counters crazy. Darth jumped from his saddle to intercept the swarm, but only caught three in his metal hands, the rest sliding off his black armour as he landed on the sand. Mechos tried his best to fend off the attackers, but with tentacles so big his aim was clumsy. The tarantulas landed and swarmed over white composite, searching for soft squid flesh to pierce while the sleeting gamma radiation baked Mechos'delicate electronic systems. Seeing his comrade in distress, Darth Gorilla clambered onto him and began ripping spiders off with his fists and crushing them with cyborg strength. As he desperately plucked and squeezed, spiders clustered at the exposed invertebrate flesh between armour joints, chewing greedily and pumping radiation-spewing venom into the messy wounds. By spasming his tentacles, Mechos crushed some of the arachnids between his armour plates, but still drove their fangs deeper into himself. As he began to succumb to the poison, his stalwart friend doubled his efforts to remove the spiders, pummeling them with his forearms and roaring miserably. Before long, Mechos' third tentacle, around which the spiders had concentrated their efforts, gave way at the base in a rip of black, necrotised meat. Collapsing in the sand, the giant squid fell unconscious as a result of the poison and gamma. D.G, shielded against the worst gamma pulses and ignored by the ravenous spiders, finished the job of smashing their hairy bodies even as they chewed away at the ebbing life of his brother. The last spider expired in a tangle of folding legs, leaving a gorilla to haul the dody of the fallen squid into the surgery bays.

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Fight Three: Nightmare Future Knees-up
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Winner: PORKY PUNISHER, by 17 votes.

In the greatest anticlimax of the tournament, the cheetah, with the newfound joy of 20 heads to drink with and only one liver, was far, far too drunk to fight. Lying drooling and passed out on the arena floor, it was an embarassingly easy task for Porky to stride up to the body, hop onto its back and pop open the maintenance hatch on the 900lb biotech hulk. Haxxoring it with silent efficiency, Porky wired his own cybernetics into the cheetah's diminuitive intelligence and enslaved it electronically. With not even a firewall to protect its drunken mind, the cheetah cheerfully gave up control of its body to Porky, who, astride its torso, rose it from the ground and rode it off to the nearest AA meeting.

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Fight Four: Whoever Wins, We Lose
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Winner: SWANMASS, by 9 votes

The worst case scenarios have come true. Swanmass has not been stopped. Frankly, we at zoofights are really, really hoping someone will beat it soon since it keeps growing and it won't communicate with us. The rats did a great job, bloating themselves on its flesh and stinging it into submission with their tails, but then the unthinkable happened. As the rats lay content and hugely distended from their vast meal, tendrils began to emerge from their various orifices. Skin split, eyes popped away to reveal tiny beaks, and red, worming tendrils began to meet and entwie between the rats. Almost before we knew it, swanmass was reforming before our very eyes, bursting the rats that formed a sparser and sparser network around its recombining flesh in ragged puffs of grey fur. Lobster claws, sharp needle teeth and lashing tails flowed into the gathering bulk, while tiny gorilla arms and fluttering wings emerged from the sludge and began to swell. Seriously, fuck that thing. Someone needs to take it out.

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ROYAL RUMBLE[b]
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Royal Rumble results - credited to Gus Hobbleton

Well, Gus, the combatants started out in an octagonal arena, with 60 foot walls, and a glass ceiling. The battle took place at high noon, so there was no chance of shade for the gazelle to avoid sunlight damage.

All the starting places were chosen randomly, with the Gazelle in the upper-left, hippo in the upper-right, Gorilla in the middle-upper left, lion in the middle-upper-right, Cancerman in the middle-lower-left, the dolphin in the middle-lower-right, the rhino in the lower-left, and the gibbon in the lower-right.

Folks I apologize for the lack of graphical representation at the moment. Are cameras were destroyed during the fight, and we're still trying to piece together what footage we have. Either that or Gus is just too damn lazy to draw each round.

The gong sounds, and our competitors leap into action. Well, the Gazelle did. Lightning fast with its vampiric speed, it immediately starts running towards the centre of the arena, away from the pincer between the hippo and the gorilla. On its way it fires a shot at what it considers to be the most dangerous of opponents, THE LION! The shot strikes true, damaging the lion slightly. The lion won't be able to take much like that, though, because it isn't sewn on very well.

Right while the Gazelle is taking its move, the lion begins its retaliation. Ladies and gentlemen, you do NOT piss off a lion with a motorbike for a body. It moves fast, faster even than the gazelle, and closes the distance quickly. It then unleashes its firey inferno. The gazelle is quick, and manages to dodge some of the damage, but it still hurt.

Cancerman immediately takes a coward's way out and starts climbing up the walls. But what's this? He's using his height to his advantage! He launches a string of web at the Gorilla monster. Something is wrong, though. Something in Cancerman's suit got in the way, and he got the webbing all over himself. Fortunately he can just climb out of it, but how embarrasing!

The gibbon is either very brave or very stupid, because it immediately charges at the rhino! Slashing with its dual pitchforks, MISSING ALL THREE TIMES! The Gibbon, of course, knows that it isn't going to live if it stays there, so it uses its enhanced mobility to get the fuck out of dodge.

The dolphin sees its chance, and trundles forward only a few feet. It then lashes out with its tail at the lion and the gazelle. Not only is it attempting to hurt them, but its going for the feet (or wheels). The gazelle gets its legs entangled in the elastic cord of the mace, and goes down in a thud! The lion gets wrapped up, and then smoked in the face hard, but doesn't fall over.

And now all hell breaks loose... The hippo begins lumbering forward, straight towards the Lion. Its slow, though, so it can't complete the distance fast enough to go crazy. It slashes at the lion with its claw, ripping flesh and bone from the lion's fragile head. The lion is in SEVERE pain, but it's not dead yet!

The Rhino, taking guff from the Gibbon and deciding it doesn't like that, charges forward, horn straight out, goring the poor gibbon. The gibbon is hurt, but not dead. Fortunately, the Gibbon has been to the firey bowels of hell and back, so the fire from the horn doesn't hurt much.

There's a sound of energising from across the arena. Bolts of electricity begin to arc across the Gorilla's body. "Sega!" is all you hear from it. It then leaps into action, closing on the closest competitor, which just happens to be Cancerman. Cancer man is 20 feet off the ground, higher than the Gorilla can easily reach. It gets close, closer, AND LEAPS! The Gorilla flies through the air, swinging its club at Cancerman, knocking him from the wall.

The Gazelle, face full of dirt, gets up and starts reloading its musket while giving the dolphin a very very angry glare.

The lion shifts into reverse, backing up and unleashing its flame so fast that nobody knows what the fuck. HOLY SCORCHING HOT RODS, I CAN FEEL THAT FLAME FROM HERE! Neither the hippo nor the Gazelle were fast enough to dodge the flames, and both hurt like hell!

Cancerman jumps up from the ground, and spins more web at the Gorilla, entwining it in his sticky grasp. The gorilla gets itself caught in a bad position, and can't break free properly!

The gibbon realizes he's in a shitty position, and stabs at the rhino, hoping to fend him off long enough to escape. He misses again, and then turns and tries to fly away. The rhino is having none of that, and grabs the gibbon's leg, swinging him around like a baseball bat against the wall.

This time the dolphin isn't playing around. It closes its eyes, then unleashes the most horrendous sound we've ever heard. This sound was so horrible we could SEE IT! The Gazelle just sort of shakes its head, but is clearly unaffected, The lion and the rhino are both stumbling around blindly, holding their heads in pain, Cancerman and the Gibbon both start looking around in terror, unable to see anything, the hippo starts stumbling around more than usual, and the Gorilla is flashing "error" on its console screen.

The hippo and rhino both stumble around for a bit, while the gorilla tries and fails to break Cancerman's webbing.

The gazelle sees its opportunity, and launches itself at what remains of the lion's neck, latching on, and sucking the blood from the lion. the lion, already weak from the previous rounds, drops to the ground.

Cancerman, blind but not yet out of it, tries to pull the gorilla down, but fails. The gibbon cowers in fear, not knowing what to do.

The dolphin once again swings its tail around, first at the hippo, then at the gazelle. The mace smashes up against the Hippo's enhanced legs, and doesn't move them an inch. The Gazelle is not so lucky. The mace swings around, wrapping its cord first around the Gazelle's legs, then twirling up around its back end and tightly coils around the gazelle's nads. The Gazelle goes down, of course.

The hippo and the rhino both stumble around, though the rhino can see again. The gorilla once again tries to break Cancerman's webbing, and does so this time! He then charges forward, knocking cancerman over.

The Gazelle gets up, and runs towards the dolphin, shooting him with his musket on the way.

Cancer man doesn't even get up, he just shots webs at the wall and pulls himself away. The gorilla hits him on his way out, but doesn't knock him off his web.

The gibbon, his sight returned, takes advantage of the Rhino's stumbling, and runs at him, horns down, and sticks the rhino good.

The hippo and the rhino are still dazed, but are coming back to their senses. The Gorilla once again charges at Cancerman, but trips when he tries to jump.

The Gazelle continues his run towards the dolphin, and leaps at his neck, thirsty for more blood. His teeth slide off the rubbery skin, and make a sound similar to two baloons rubbing together.

Cancerman takes a deep breath, and breathes a furious gout of flame onto the back of the Gorilla monster singing it badly.

The gibbon, not knowing it doesn't have much time left, pokes at the rhino, hitting all three times.

The dolphin doesn't much care for the closeness that the Gazelle is showing, so he swings his tail mace at him again. The dolphin hits, but doesn't knock him down.

The hippo finally shakes off the effects of the flashbang, and hears the sounds of the Gazelle and Dolphin battling. He begins running in their general direction, but can't get there quite yet.

The rhino also shakes off his dazedness, and turns around to gore the little monkey. The monkey lifts up into the air, and lands with a thud.

The gorilla gets up, moves back, and tries to jump at Cancerman again. He gets pretty high, but not high enough to reach Cancerman.

Once again, the Gazelle goes for the dolphin's neck, but misses.

Cancerman, seeing an effective strategy, keeps breathing fire on the helpless Gorilla.

Again, the gibbon tries to fly away from the rhino, and again the rhino grabs him and throws him against the wall.

The dolphin, pissed off at the Gazelle, once again tries to trip him. This first mace goes straight to the face, and coils around the Gazelle's legs, tipping him over. The dolphin then goes for an overhead smash to try and crush the Gazelle into the ground. The dolphin, suddenly losing all of its intelligence, smacks itself in the back of the head with its own mace!

The hippo continues its charge, but still isn't quite there.

The rhino walks up to the nearly dead Gibbon, picks him up, and tries to slam him down on his horn, the gibbon resists, but not well enough, he gets skewered badly, but isn't dead yet.

The gorilla, angered by his inability to reach Cancerman, just throws his whole damn club. Cancerman slips to the side, and the club bounces off the wall before hitting the ground, where the Gorilla picks it up.

After getting up, the Gazelle again goes for the neck, and this time he latches on! He sucks some of the poor dolphin's blood, giving himself so more strength and the cost of the dolphin's.

Cancerman once again breathes fire on the gorilla, and the Gorilla is still too slow to avoid the flames.

The gibbon struggles against the rhino's furious grip, but doesn't manage to break free. Instead of using brute force, the gibbon instead tries to wriggle his way out, taking advantage of his small size. HE STILL CAN'T DO IT! Instead, as a last ditch effort, he pokes at the rhino's face, hitting twice.

The dolphin attempts to break free from the Gazelle's horrible toothy grip, and manages to break free. He launches another trip attempt at the Gazelle, and smashes the poor cervidae in the face once more, knocking him to the ground.

Finally, the hippo completes his charge, and swings blindly at the dolphin, and hits! The dolphin is going to feel that one in the morning.

The rhino finishes the job, planting the poor gibbon onto his horn and twisting him there. Soon the gibbon's body takes flame.

The Gorilla, in rage, launches his club at Cancerman. This time, though, he can't move fast enough, and gets knocked from the wall.

The Gazelle, seeing a new threat to his unlife, gets up and trots away. The dolphin doesn't like friends who abandon him in the middle of hard times, though, and trips him up.

Cancer man gets up, and begins slinging web all over the ground! The gorilla is stuck where he is!

The dolphin, not knowing if he'll survive this or not, attempts to trip the hippo, both attacks hit squarely, but the hippo is simply too strong for the dolphin to take down easily.

The hippo is enraged. He finally gets a chance to unleash the fucking fury. He lashes out with his claws once, twice, thrice, but only the first two hit. Thenthe hippo pulls his hands out of his line of sight, and swings with his deadly lightsabre eyes, and slices the dolphin clean in half.

The rhino, seeing someone who may be a challenge, charges towards the hippo.

The gorilla tries to break free of Cancerman's webbing, but just ends up falling over.

The Gazelle gets up and continues to run away from the hippo, taking a shot on the way, hitting the hippo.

Cancerman again breathes fire on the Gorilla, destroying his webs in the process, but also setting the gorilla on fire!

The hippo hears a new challenger approaching, very loudly, and he too goes to enter the fray

The rhino meets the hippo at the halfway point between them, and rams him with his horn. The gibbon is still attached, and its spikey body does some extra damage.

The gorilla gets up and runs forward to strike at Cancerman again, and smokes him good.

The Gazelle, the heat finally off, reloads his musket and keeps running away from the battle.

Cancer man attempts to save his life by running away. He shoots web at the wall behind him, and lifts himself up. The Gorilla takes an open-handed swing at him as he does, and knocks him to the ground. Cancerman is not quite dead, but he isn't conscious anymore. A ghostly voice emenates from the Gorilla, saying "Finish him!"

The hippo slices and dices and tears down jedi orders. The first claw attack misses, but the rest hit, doing tremendous damage.

The rhino retaliates, swinging his flaming horn at the hippo. All three gouges hit, also dealing massive damage.

The Gorilla approaches the unmoving body of Cancerman. A deep resonating bell sounds from nowhere, and the arena goes dark. The gorilla picks up Cancerman, and a surge of electricity from the Sega Genesis rips through Cancerman's body, causing him to explode in a shower of blood. "Fatality!"

The Gazelle, being the opportunist that it is, shoots at the Gorilla, but misses. This angers the Gorilla. Do not anger gorillas.

The hippo once again slashes at the rhino. This time all four attacks hit, sending blood everywhere.

The Rhino retaliates with his horn of DEATH AND DESTRUCTION AND MORE DEATH!! All three attacks hit, tearing the hippo into bloody chunks.

The gorilla, enraged by the Gazelle, throws his club at it, smoking it square in the face and taking its head off. The Gazelle's body falls to the ground, limp, and also dead.

The rhino, seeing only one opponent left, begins to charge. The gorilla also runs, but towards its club. They both run at the same speed, though, and the Gorilla was closer, and gets ready in time to face the Rhino's assault. As the rhino approaches, the gorilla gets ready to smack it as soon as it enters range.

I really can't believe it came down to this holy shit holy shit holy shit even I don't know how it's going to end and they're both nearly dead!!!

The Gorilla swings his club........ it hits, and does some decent damage.

The rhino keeps on going, and completes his charge, hitting the Gorilla, and skewering him.

The gorilla rears back with its club, and goes for the finishing blow... AND SMASHES THE RHINO'S HEAD CLEAR FROM ITS BODY!

lucky fucking critical for 68 damage.

The rhino's head flies across the arena, before making a sickening splat against the wall! THE GORILLA IS THE WINNER!!! THE GORILLA IS THE WINNER!!

Round Three Lineup

Major Failure — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:00:38 +0000

Fight one: The Lunch of Champions

2 winged Tiger Sharks with leather skin, chainsaw teeth and secondary jaws a la Ridley Scott's Alien

The two sharks, heels of the tournament and rumoured to be in with a good chance at victory, are up against their biggest challenge yet. They've been massaged, patched up and fitted with tiny shark heads that come out of their mouths on stalks to rip away chunks of flesh. But those wings are still looking fragile...

VERSUS

The angriest elephant that ever lived, on tank tracks, with a trunk that shoots acid, hulk hogan's skin and ten big beefy arms

After sustaining a few self-inflicted acid burns last round, we gave the big fella a total skin graft... with the skin of five cloned hulk hogans. For added fun, we've arranged the cloned arms of the famous wrestlers in the fashion of a stegosaur's plates down the back of the elephant, all with full mobility. He's strong, and tough, but can he take care of his ass?

Fight two: The Calm amidst the Swarm

Mechos the 3-legged Squid, and Darth Gorilla

Heroes to millions, the team are back after a heart-wrenching night in intensive care. Mechos is now down to three arms, but they are well shielded, and stong enough to stand on in the manner of a big tripod. The Red Banana, after 18 tense hours under the knife of our chief medic Dr. C. Palpatine, is now fitted out with four prosthetic limbs, a reinforced black helmet, a billowing cape and a suit of tough black armour to support and protect his ruined, scorched torso. If he only knew the power of the dark side...

VERSUS

200 radioactive steroid-enhanced tarantulas with jetpacks and party hats

The boys are back. God have mercy on our souls.

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ROUND THREE LINE UP - FREAK'S LEAGUE
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Fight three: Nightmare Future Knees-up.

1 bulked-out cheetah hybrid with ED-209 legs and no neck, just a huge gatling gun with 20 barrels that fires cheetah heads on ropes. And a tail with an axe on.

So that the last survivor of team cheetah could be with his mates again, we've gathered up their heads, sewn them back together and loaded them all into a giant rotating neck that shoots them out on ropes like some kind of nightmare minigun. To make matters worse, they now also have chainsaw teeth like the sharks. To carry this hellish engine, the cheetah's bodies have been sewn into a hefty biohulk, supported by 6-foot long armoured robot legs. To top things off, the new behemoth has a long, armoured tail with an axe on the end.

VERSUS

Porky Punisher, rebuilt as a ruthless armoured cyborg with a double-deagle trotter

After his legendary performance in round two, we rewarded the lone hero with complete robocop-style upgrades, leaving him speed-boosted, armoured and armed to the teeth with a trotter carrying two built-in, souped-up deagles with 50-round belt magazines, and another built up into a hydraulic, steel-cutting claw.

Fight four: Whoever Wins, We Lose.

200 grotesque and partially mashed zombie rats, with lobster claws and electric whip tails

After feeding ont he flesh of the zombie gorillas, these rats have joined the ranks of the undead, and retain their previous powers. Tenacious, determined and with nasty, gnawing teeth, these guys will have a go at anything.

VERSUS

Swanmass - a creeping tide of unspeakable flesh.

Oh God. It weighs 500 pounds, it has 10 beaks, 20 arms and no compassion.

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ROUND THREE - ROYAL RUMBLE
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Voting instructions: For this exciting new battle, the rules are simple. Our finest retrieval squads have managed to salvage enough from each of our eight defeated teams to make eight combat-ready... things. Now they are set on each other, rising up through trapdoors set inside the arena moat, at eight points equidistant around the arena. Your job, noble punters, is to give each entity a points score, taken from the numbers one to eight. Ie give one point to the shittest competitor, two to the second shittest, and so on up until eight, the score you give to the creature you think will come out on top. Comprende?

Contender one: A lion's head on a motorbike, with twin flamethrowers.

So little of the lions were salvagable, we just reanimated the most intact head and bolted it onto a motorbike, which it can now control and shoot twin streams of fire from onboard weapons. Fast, maneuverable, but easyto take out by killing off the exposed head.

Contender two: 1 vampire gazelle with a jetpack and a musket

The fourth, skewered gazelle was lent a day of life by the ghost of Wesley Snipes, and has been granted with the reflexes of the vampire, the jetpack of the ancients and the musket of the pilgrims. Will slowly crumble to dust in sunlight, but not too quickly to kick some asses.

Contender three: 1 robot monster,patched together from the remains of two heavily-chewed zombie gorillas, with a space helmet.

We took what we could from the stripped corpses of the zombie gorillas, nailed it into a roughly apelike form, and stuck a souped-up sega genesis inside the space helmet to control it. At least it knows how to murder. Immune to pain, resilient as fuck, and armed with an iridium baseball bat.

Contender four: Stallone frog cancer man, now wearing a hydraulic support suit.

Bless him. Now our unfortunate hero fights from inside a suit that supports his withered body and provides himw ith constant pain relief and cancer treatment. I'll be honest with yuo and say he'sno better at fighting than he was before, but at least his health will improve in thelong run, eh?

Contender five: Devil gibbon, with bat wings, pitchfork hands and diamond-tipped horns.

Returned from hell, our last surviving gibbon has made a pact with darkness and now has red skin, leathery wings, even sharper horns and a pair of pointy pitchforks. Still quite small and fragile, but evil as fuck and covered in sharp bits.

Contender six: A woodborged rhino with a depleted uranium horn, which is ablaze with absolutely non-mystical fire.

When we reanimated this sorry motherfucker he wouldn't stop bitching about Mechos, so we got fed up and repaired his body with oak rather tan carbon steel. Now he is a massive woodborg, held together by planks and beams and supported by a mahogany skeleton. The joke's on him though. He's still on fire. And it ain't mystical anymore. It's just fucking fire. He will burn. But he has a half-ton depleted uranium horn, so you can't say we're not fair.

Contender seven: 1 dolphin with flashbang sonar and a morning star tail with an elastic chain.

Finding the super sonar hilarious, we've upgraded it so it now produces a flash of white light, dazzling all onlookers for thirty seconds. And we've given this fellow a stretchy morning star now, so he has a longer reach.

Contender eight: A hippo with wolverine arms, troll legs and lightsabre eyes.

When a pair of interfering jedi tried to put a stop to the tournament last round, our head of security, Mike Grievous, managed to take them out and gave us their lightsabres as a trophy. In our excitement, we resurrected the hippo, sewed up his heart well enough to last a few hours and replaced his laser eyes with these two fetching blades. Now he can be a bit less careful where he looks...

Round Two Outcome

Major Failure — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:59:39 +0000

Fight one: Bake sale
Winner: Sharks, by 32 votes.

Although most punters favoured the sharks to win this one, even the gibbons' coaches were shocked by how poorly they performed. The little bastards, cocky from their victory on the lion battlefield, simply played this like they were on a fucking bouncy castle. While one of the four stayed low and planned a trajectory to skewer the lead shark, his three brethren immediately launched themselves into dangerously lazy parabolas, eggwhisks held high. Needless to say, the sharks swooped, and soon each had a gibbon screaming in its whirling chainjaw. Diesel smoke belched as the jaws worked at tough devil horn, but sure enough the sharks managed to chunk down the gibbons within a few seconds. Whereas two of the sharks chomped the gibbons in such a way as to sever the power feed to the red hot whisks, the third was not so lucky. Glowing crimson metal touched on the fuel supply pipe to the chain jaw, and with a horrible smacking sound the shark's jaw was blown clean off in an explosion of gore and black smoke. With the air stinking of blood, the other two sharks fell upon and devoured their struggling brother there and then, all three crashing to the ground in a dismal, writhing pile of furious hunger. Knowing that he now had no hope of victory once the sharks were sated, the fourth gibbon (in a massive upset to betters) fell to the ground and offered up his soul to beelzebub. Since Mr.B is one of our biggest sponsors, we had to let this slide. The ground opened up and swallowed the last gibbon in a lick of red vapour, disqualifying him and handing victory to the blood-mad sharks, who had barely noticed his disappearance.

Fight two: Clash of the Legends
Winner: Mechos and Red Banana, by 28 votes.

An incredible fight that tested all competitors to the limits, and won the hearts of an already sympathetic crowd, Mechos' latest victory was a sight to be beheld. The giant squid, a fan favourite and tip-off for victory since round one, entered the arena to cheers alongside his warrior brother, the Red Banana. The waving and smiling was in full swing when the holding pen doors opened on the opposite wall to reveal the imposing figure of a blazing rhinocerous, who wasted no time in letting out a bellow of fury and thundering towards mechos. With amazing reflexes, Mechos managed to step aside from the charging beast, and Red Banana entered a combat stance from his saddle high above the arena floor. Mechos prepared to strike with a furious feeding arm, but before he could react, the rhinocerous - now facing away from the tag team - fell to his knees to brace himself and let loose a hellish torrent of searing, oily fire from his arse. In a split second, mechos folded his arms into a shield of composite plate to keep the worst of the fire from incinerating his soft body and his ally, but it was not long before the outer shields of his tentacles were glowing sunset orange. Red Banana crouched low behind the tentacle shield and turned up the air-con in his space hat, peering over the barrier at the rhinoceros, who was still jetting out flames. The team grimly held on for the rhino to run out of fuel, but the flames just flickered more rapidly over the shield rim. After a minute the plating on Mechos' arms began to give way, releasing the ominous scent of fried squid into the air above the arena. Red Banana realised his noble commander could hold out no longer, and in a death defying act of courage powered by gorilla strength, leapt headlong over the shield wall and onto the neck of the flaming beast. Even as his fur burst alight and incinerated, R.B gritted his teeth and held on, pounding on the rhino's eyeports with every ounce of muscle he could muster. Sinews snapped, meat withered and skin crackled, but the space helmet held and soon the ape had driven the electronics of the rhino's eye back into the skull. Furious with pain, the beast bucked and rolled, desperate to shake off its attacker at all costs. Exhausted and burnt almost to the bone in places, R.B was thrown off onto the arena sand, where the blinded rhino trampled and burnt him further. In that moment of sacrifice, Mechos took his chance to wrap his heat-seared feeding limbs around the rhinoceros, haul it from the ground, and with an almighty screech snap its treelike spine in two. In the fury that ensued as mechos pounded the carcass time and time again on the stone walls of the arena, the fire still raging like a halo round the corpse burnt one of Mechos' arms to a cinder. Finally discarding the ragged, smouldering heap in the moat, Mechos picked up the shattered, raw, shallowly breathing body of his comrade and held him in the kind of embrace that only a very, very sad squid can give.

Fight three: Beyond the Chunderdome
Winner: Elephant, by 16 votes.

To be honest we aren't quite sure what the hell happened in the first minute of this match. The dolphins trundled out, the elephant trumpeted, and then suddenly everyone watching fell to the ground with shattered eardrums and a migraine as all four dolphins fired their hypersonar at once. When we stopped vomiting long enough to get to our feet and watch the fight, there wasn't much left to see. Through the boiling clouds of hot acid mist billowing up from the arena sand, we could just about see some kind of melee battle, with a hell of a lot of heavy thumping noises and angry trumpeting. When the mist finally cleared, all that was left was a furious, burn-covered elephant smashing a ripped-off morning star into a pile of meat, and one badly broken dolphin hiding in a corner from the crazed, but acid-blinded pachyderm.

Fight four: A Whole Lotta 'Potamus
Winner: Tarantulas, by 28 votes.

A wasted opportunity for the hippo here: he really could have pulled this off. Like our analysts, he should have realised that in no place on his hippo and trollhide body was the skin thin enough to be punctured by a tarantula, even a steroid-crazed one with a party hat on. We tried to tell him his best bet was to head underwater, but he wouldn't listen. I mean, for fuck's sake - he's an amphibious animal. They are spiders. Fucking dumbass. Instead, he wailed in horror, fired his lasers all over the fucking shop, and slashed the fuck out of himself with his adamantium claws. Within 42 seconds he managed to stab himself in the heart and we called a stop to the match before he embarassed himself any further.

Fight five: He Who Tears Wins
Winner: Cheetahs, by 6 votes.

Those cheeky cheetahs, popular underdogs from round one, pulled out all the stops for their victory in this, the first of the freak's league matches. Our analysts are still debating whether any strategy was involved or not, but by God did those motherfuckers move. Heads flew, propellors caught on wires, and jaws munched. The lions, puttering around in utter bewilderment at the anarchic assault, pooled their chances and doubleteamed the lead cheetah, whose head they managed to maul as it flew towards them. As the wire fell slack from the skull, the second lion managed to get his propellor caught in it and fell to the ground, where he was set upon by two well-launced heads. reeling their heads in, the cheetahs charged the last lion for a bit of impromptu air mauling. The fight was quick and furious, and ended in two very lucky and victorious cheetahs. Tragically, in the celebration that followed, the more drunk of the pair launched his own head into the necrotic swanmass for a joke. Only his brother goes through to round three.

Fight six: Dawn of the Lead (Pipes)
Winner: Rats, by 13 votes.

This battle went very well at first for the gorillas, who made paste of the advancing rats with their pipes and paid little heed to either snapping claws or lashing electric tails. Their undead synapses registering no pain as flesh was ripped from their bones and guts were unravelled from their thoraxes. They continued to pummel on the rats as they swarmed over their bodies, crushing a good half of them before a brave few rats managed to work their way inside the space helmets up the open windpipes of the chewed-up zombies. Zombie logic is not good and, without a thought for the consequences, each gorilla took a huge swing and bashed itself in the head with its lead pipe. Shoot the head, kill the ghoul. Game over.

Fight seven: Get to the Chopper
Winner: Pig, by 17 votes.

No one fucks with an angry pig. The fight started. Porky didn't move a muscle. A throb of rotor blades, a swirl of dust, BANG, a slug through a skull. Another minute of silence. A flicker of tan, the flash of a trident in sunlight.BANG, one through the eye. Another four secods pass, a rock is disturbed and an arm shoots out to execute a gazelle, BANG, a corpse falls with a hole through the temples. The pig walks over to inspect the kill, leans over to grab the trident from the lifeless sewn-on arm, and in one fluid motion slams it point-backwards to skewer the gazelle stalking him from two feet behind. Hardcore motherfucker.

Fight eight: As bad as it gets, and Worse
Winner: Swanmass, by 8 votes.

After three hours of the most tragic fighting we have ever seen here at zoofights, we just couldn't let this one go on. Pausing every few seconds to collapse in a coughing fit, our bow-legged superhero pounded on the advancing tide of stinking, fly-covered meat with every bit of his prodigious strength, keeping it at bay from his ever-decreasing circle of safety. Roasting it with his bronchitic flame breath he managed to wither it and sear it at the edges, but the 500-pound swanmass never gave up. Eventually, the frogman fell to his knees and wept, ready to die there and then. As the beaks and fists slithered closer, we decided that, although the mass had victory in the bag, spiderfrog deserved a good break for once. Within minutes, he was safe in our labs...

Round Two Lineup

Major Failure — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:58:44 +0000

Fight one: Bake Sale.

4 Gibbons with springs instead of legs and red hot eggwhisks for arms. and 6 inch devil horns.

these rum customers have been souped up as a result of good performance in round one, and are now armed with high-tension springs to bounce on, and intensely heated eggwhisks emerging from their heat-shielded wrists. Oh, and they have six inch devil horns. And nasty pointy teeth.

VERSUS

3 Tiger sharks with wings, leather skin and chainsaw teeth

Fan favourites, these bastards of the sky now sport vulture wings, whirling razor teeth powered by a diesel engine, and a coat of supple but tough, gimp-grade black leather. We love them, but hey - the iron spikes were too hardcore.

Fight two: Clash of the legends.

1 Rhino with infrared sensor eyes, flamethrower butt and mystical propane fire.

Back from the hospital barns, this furious hulk can now see in infra-red from its shielded eyeports, and has had its colon replaced with a turbine that can eject searing gouts of oily flames. He is certainly not to be fucked with. Furthermore, he is no longer in the blind panic that consumed him in round one.

VERSUS

1 Giant squid with a general grievous-type exoskeleton, 4 arms left, and a stalwart gorilla comrade.

Teaming up with his former enemy in a touching union of ideologies, the bullet-riddled body of the warrior-philosopher is now held together by bone-white alloy plating and hydraulic joints, making his four remaining arms formidable limbs that he can grasp with, or walk upon like long legs (note that he has foresworn weapons and now fights only with his augmented tentacles). atop his mantle is a saddle from which his friend the gorilla sits vigilant, ready to fight to the death in service of his brother.

Fight three: beyond the chunderdome

1 seriously pissed-off elephant with tank tracks and a trunk that squirts concentrated acid.

Just as he was last time, but even more jaded and cynical. Not to mention the retrofitted trunk that can gush a warm torrent of sulphuric acid over the arena floor and any unfortunate enemy.

VERSUS

3 dolphins on wheels with morning star tails, pink crash helmets, and ear splittingly loud sonar.

Basically, dolphins are gay sharks. To reinforce this unfair stereotype, the only upgrade we've given these callous wankers is the addition of a fetching hot pink crash helmet. EDIT: as a last minute upgrade, we've allowed them extremely loud and harsh sonar, which bursts ears and causes a physical shockwave, but renders them effectively blind while in use.

Fight four: A whole lotta 'potamus

1 hippo with laser eyes, wolverine claws, standing bipedally on the legs of a cave troll

We approved of this vile, self-serving hippo, and so we've sorted him out with the best upgrades from our limb freezer. Now he strides the earth on the hefty legs of a mordor troll captured in one of our company's recent interdimensional safaris, and slashes at all comers with arms grafted on from a clone of marvel comics' Wolverine, who we grew from a strand of Bolt Vanderhuge's pubic hair.

VERSUS

200 radioactive tarantulas with jetpacks..... and Party Hats!

saddened at the loss of the taarantulas lost in the nuclear blast over at our battle atoll, we hatched another batch of eggs and gave them fun party hats to liven up the drab horror of the killing field! Also, their plutonium levels have been altered so, while still radioactive, they cannot cause another horrific nuclear explosion.

FR3AK's LEaGuE:

Fight five: He who tears wins.

2 lions with cyborg torsos and propellor engines instead of a lower body

Dredged from the moat and sewbn back up where their cannons had torn them loose, these lions have been nursed back to health and patched up with steel plating where they dmaged themselves most, on the face and forearms. They now sport turbines instead of legs that allow them to putter through the air like a fleshy spitfire.

VERSUS

3 cheetahs that can fly and can shoot their heads like recallable grappling hooks.

A significant upgrade on the previous models, these ruinous drunks can now recall jettisoned heads on a strand of unbreakable carbon fibre, kind of like the harpoon guns they use to take down the AT-ATs in Empire Strikes Back. And they have albatross wings too!

Fight six: Dawn of the Lead (pipes)

200 rats with lobster claws and zapping tails

The rats we managed to extricate from the wounded rhino now have snapping crustacean claws and lashing electrfied tails that have a low voltage but hurt like fuck.

VERSUS

2 Zombie gorillas with lead pipes and cracked space helmets.

The two gorillas crushed by the squid have been reanimated by our team of occult specialists, and have learnt to make basic use of the lead pipes we left in their holding pens.

Fight seven: Get to the chopper.

4 gazelles with helicopter blades on their heads, tridents, and short-circuitng, intermittent predator-style stealth camo

Does exactly what it says on the tin. Since these guys sucked so much last time and all, we spruced up the four we managed to resuscitate and slapped 'em back in the gym rady for round 2. Their invisibility fields are flawless, but tend to flicker on and off uncontrollably.

VERSUS

1 heartless, stone cold vengeance pig in black kevlar-spider silk armour, 'master chief from halo' -style helmet, and waving a desert eagle handgun.

The sole surviving pig hast lost his soul and gained a suit of black-ops armour. Like a porcine punisher, he is resolute on murdering every last monstrosity that gets in the way of the perfect world he was never allowed, using the souped up deagle holstered at his hip.

Fight Eight: As bad as it gets, and worse.

A heaving, quivering mass of necrotic swan flesh, rolling along the ground in a slow-moving cataclysm of groping gorilla arms and snapping beaks.

Not really knowing what else to do, we swept up all the swan chunks from the hippo battle, put them inside a chalk circle, and turned on every machine we could find nearby while hiding in a nearby bunker with crucifixes. The result is this hideous, oozing mess, something like a sea anenome made from nightmares.

VERSUS

Crippled, tragic spiderman frog with cancer.

Surveying the site of the nuclear blast a week after the spider/frog battle, we found this pitiable specimen leaning against a rock, coughing up blood and hobbling along ina blue and red costume. Technically he has amazing super powers, but he's also sadly riddled with lethal tumours. He can jump over buildings, but his legs snap on landing. He can shoot webs, but they tend to be speckled with his own blood. Poor bastard.

Round One Outcomes

Major Failure — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:57:46 +0000

Fight one - The Sound and the Fury

Winner: Gibbons, by 5 votes.

The fight started with a bang, quite literally, as two of the six lions slammed forward at cannon speed into the mass of gibbons as they swarmed out from their holding cell, mouths open and roaring. One missed completely and smashed itself to paste on the arena wall, while the other managed to slam into three of the primates, tearing one in two and sending the other pair high into the air to land with a sickening thud. The lion was set upon instantly by the other gibbons and eliminated, the cannon torn free from its ass and battered to pieces by furious clubs. With blood in the air the other four lions moved in for the kill, and the gibbons dispersed from the initial cluster. There was a fiar amount of circling and snarling, but within only a minute carnage had erupted again in a dustcloud of swinging bludgeons, flailing rollerskates and gore-splattered stone projectiles. When the smoke cleared, two lions had fallen under the demented pounding of the four surviving gibbons, but each had taken an ememy in its jaws. The corpse of one gibbon and two wrecked lions bobbed forlornly in the moat.

Fight two - 2 proud, 2 prejudiced

Winner: Rhino, by 20 votes.

What a horrible spectacle. The opening bellow of the rhino was swiftly drowned out by a deafening screech and the rustle of paws on sand as the tide of fur advanced. The beast charged forward onto the carpet of flesh, popping bones and searing fur into reeking ashes, but as it turned to charge again, the tide was upon it in its moment of slowness. meat sizzled and white keratin slashed through ranks of rodents, but even fire and rage could not keep the hairy fiends from eyes and soft anal flesh. The rhino went down screaming, but after two minutes of agonised twitching, the last of the ashes fell away and nothing was left on the searing hide of the ungulate. Wounds cauterised, we dragged the animal off the field and removed all survivors from its rectum.

Fight three - Oh God, Flying Sharks

Winner: Sharks, by 38 votes.

Jesus christ, what a massacre. The sharks did *not* need that spiky metal skin. 17 cheetahs launched their heads immediately, their jaws simply bouncing off the horrid hide of the winged predators. The three that remained were so drunk they didn't appear to realise there was a fight on, and so slumped gently into the moat for a nap, where by some ridiculous luck the sharks were too heartbroken to follow them.

Fight four - A noble death.

Winner: Squid, by only 3 votes.

The sheer, courage, nobility and honour of this struggle brought the audience to tears. As the blast doors of the squid's contemplation chamber folded open, the gorillas immediately opened fire with soviet precision, drilling 400 punishing dents into the squid's armour and severing its nunchuck tentacle. The stoic squid pressed onwards into the hail of fire, gazing sternly through its shielded viewports as it tried to ignore the pulsing of the drugs and steel itself for the grim duty of conflict. Bullets slammed into it like hail, the gorillas working in perfect unison to feed ammo belt after ammo belt into their ancient weapon. Armour turned cherry red with the friction of repeated impact, and grew thin in places, while four more arms were torn off in the agonising lurch over the sand. As it drew near the gunners, with the muzzle flashes refelcting grimly onto their black glass bubble helmets, it screeched a defiant prayer to Allah and hurled forwards its two strongest feeding arms. With the crack of hooked suckers on antique steel the tentacles wrapped around the gatling barrel, and with godlike strength twisted it in a U-bend. All in an instant the hail of bullets ceased, and the gorillas abandoned their post in a well-drilled maneuver, spreading out to surround the squid. Grabbing blades from the invertebrate's fallen arms, three advanced, hacking - a lucky swipe slashed off the lead pipe arm at its base, while another struck sparks against a parry from the squid's staff. While the one-on-three duel continued, the fourth gorilla dived onto the squid's helmet, pounding on its vision ports with a mighty fist. Roaring in defiance, the squid ejected a gush of cloying black ink which splashed over the visors of the three gorillas around its legs. They stumbled in confusion, giving the squid the time it needed to crush the necks of two with its arms and sever the third with a deep katana slash. The single remaining gorilla hopped off the squid's face and picked up an inky broadsword. Exhausted, bleeding, and with no hope of winning the duel, it stood in bolshevik defiance before the world's largest invertebrate, clutching its battered sword. The two opponents stood for a minute like that, wordlessly staring, until they dropped their weapons and embraced with the solidarity of bothers in arms. Enough souls had died this day.

Fight five - Mungle in the Jungle

Winner: Elephants, by 50 votes.

The gazelles really sold themselves short here. Bleating like the idiots they are, they immediately outflanked the elephants and began prancing, their blades and clubs flashing in the glaring sun. So far so good. The decisive moment of the battle came when all nine gazelles had the genius idea of slamming into one of the elephants at once, sword horns first. They leapt as one, and their combined weight rocked the huge bulk as their sowrds slammed into grey hide. Organs ruptured, blood gushed, and the elephant's head slumped as its heart gave out. The stupid motherfucking gazelles forgot about the other elephant. Trumpeting in delight, it trundled over to the twitching, embedded gazelles and plucked them one by one from its ruined comrade like grapes from a vine, flinging their struggling carcasses against the arena ramparts. GG, Gazelles.

Fight six - Wetlands War

Winner: Hippos, by 33 votes

As many punters predicted, the fight - at first a confused, blundering affair of sneaking and singed feathers - quickly escalated into sheer horror when one hippo went berserk and began to spin round madly. The air was suddenly silent except for the eerie hum and hiss of flesh evaporating. In the microseconds before their heads were sliced cleanly in two, the other hippos turned in rage on their betrayer, vaporising his limbs and sealing the wounds. This only served to bring him closer to ground level, where his swaying head managed to ravage the cluster of swans until all was still except for a light snow of soft down and the seeping of a great pool of blood into the sand.

Fight seven - The Horror, The Horror

Winner: Dolphins, by 29 votes

True to tragic form, the pigs did not have a good time at all. The tank fired one shot as a protest against the senseless horror of the world, a shot which, alas, managed to blow apart two of the five dolphins spectacularly. As the wet pop of pistol shots hitting pork sounded from inside the tank, the angry surviving dolphins closed in rapidly and began to pound the tank with their morning star tails. As the soft bacon tank caved in under the rain of blows, one pig had his gun knocked out of his hand and was pressed inside with his dead compatriots. The tails thumped on the mound of slowly collapsing ham, while inside, one desperate, weeping pig endured the living hell of being entombed in bleeding gammon. In time the dolphins gave up in disgust and trundled off, but one intensely angry pig remained in the wreckage...

Fight eight - Your overconfidence is your weakness, your highness...

Winner: Tarantulas, by 22 votes.

The slap of a confidence-building team high-five, the rush of jetpacks, and the screams as sensitive souls in muscular frog bodies were penetrated by dozens of steely fangs. Not a hint of fire breath, not a bicep flexed, just a trio of huge bodies sinking down under a writhing ball of hairy limbs and blue exhaust flames, before the whiteout of a tactical nuclear detonation. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the definition of tragedy. Thank God we held this fight on an island in the Pacific ocean.

ROUND ONE LINEUPS

Major Failure — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:57:26 +0000

Fight one: The Sound and the Fury

The very first Zoofights

Major Failure — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:32:53 +0000

In 2005, the very first Zoofights took place in a thread on the forums over at www.somethingawful.com.

Unlike later Zoofights, it was a text-only affair; the work of a lone fool driven by midnight questions about which animals would win in fights with each other.

But it soon grew beyond its original scope, giving some readers legitimate nightmares about mashed up swans.

After being introduced to 16 competitors in 8 match-ups, participants in the thread argued over likely outcomes, choosing favourites and casting their votes for them.

After winners were declared, the eight losers got to fight each other again for a chance to stay in the tournament, albeit patched up with substandard prosthetics.

This "Loser's League" has remained a crucial factor in all subsequent Zoofights, usually producing one or more horrendous villains for the latter stages of the tournament.

What follows is the transcript of ZF1, minus the audience commentary which informed some of the between-rounds "upgrades". When a chance presents itself, I'll go back and include some of the astute musings on animal combat that took place in the original thread.

Bon voyage!