Series: Mob Psycho 100
Biography: Believe it or not, the world is filled with strange phenomena that science is yet to explain. And when people come face to face with them, they are helplessly thrown into the dark depths of fear. But there are those who fight every day to shine a ray of hope into that chaotic darkness. People call them… Psychics.
Reigen is not one of these, but he sure would like you to think he’s one. Owner of Spirits and Such Consultation Office, Reigen works tirelessly to help people get rid of ghosts and curses in their lives. Or at least, he gets the real psychic, his apprentice Mob, to do that for him. As Reigen is not psychic, he deals with the practical. Demons making your body ache? He’ll massage them right out. Spooky ghost in your photo? He’ll exorcise (read: photoshop) that right out. See? He's providing a service, even if it's not exactly psychic as advertised. Definitely not a con-man.
But ah, silly me. This is character Scramble. How is Reigen, a normal man, supposed to contend with the likes of Yang Xiao Long? Well, Reigen comes to Scramble the strongest power of all: the gratitude of his apprentice! So great was Mob’s appreciation for Reigen’s guidance that he is boosted Reigen 1000%! In this state, Reigen has literal and actual psychic powers. And they definitely put him in tier. If you don’t believe me you can just…
Research: The Respect Thread. And watch the show! It’s very good, both seasons.
Justification: Reigen swats away bullets, throws people through walls, and gets slammed through concrete and stuff. Yang’s more mobile, but Reigen should be able to keep up with her. I’d call it a Draw.
Motivation: Reigen’s not really a guy who’s down for killing people, so a Battle Royale will be tough. That said, if he sees someone putting everyone into a big free for all death game, he’s gonna want to give them a stern talking to, man-to-man. So he’s probably one of those “challenge the system” guys.
Or he could try to find a way to somehow exploit it for money. Assuming it's a nonlethal royale, that might be what he does.
Major change: None.
Minor change: Treat the gun-projectile-slapping feat like it’s a bullet speed projectile he’s slapping away.
4
u/RagnarustMay 30 '20edited May 30 '20
Reigen placed his elbows on his desk and folded his hands. A middle-aged couple (or a very unattractive young couple) rocked the desk back and forth, tears dribbling down their unfortunate faces. Both the man and the women clasped their hands together as though in desperate prayer. They were pleading, begging, for Reigen to do something about some other thing, but so frantic were their voices and so unpleasant their timbre that they were completely indecipherable.
“Now, now,” said Reigen, his voice as gentle as a shepherd whispering to a newborn lamb. “One at a time please.”
But they did not go one at a time. In fact, their cacophony grew only louder and shriller.
“Hey, I said—”
Louder. Shriller.
Reigen closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“I SAID ONE AT A TIME!”
Before they could make another sound, Reigen’s arms moved in a blur, one crossing over the other, his hands reaching his clients mouths and clasping them shut.
“ZIP-YOUR-LIP-PINCH!”
(This is one of Reigen’s special moves, where he strike’s the mouth’s pressure points in such a way as to relax the target and trigger content silence.)
The two let out a sigh of relaxation and fell into content silence. Reigen withdrew his hands and folded them once more.
“Now, one at a time, please.”
The women spoke up. As she began, her voice quickly returned to its troubled state. “Oh, Reigen. It’s just terrible! Late at night, we’ve been hearing the most terrible screams from the 50-by-50 Arena right next door!”
The man interjected. “A woman’ s voice, filled with anger and pain! It sounds like… it sounds like… Oh, I don’t even know how to describe it.”
“It sounds like ‘NYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAA!’”
“No, no, it’s more like, ‘NOOOOOOOOOOO!’”
“It’s definitely not ‘NOOO!’ It’s more like… “NNNNNGHRAAAAAAAA!”
“NAAAAAAAAUGH!”
“NAAAAAAOAAAAAOO!”
“NNNNNNNNAAAAAAAARGH!”
And the cries persisted. In these cries Reigen heard the desperation and the terror that these two felt, a wail to be heard, to be saved. He heard them loud and clear.
And they really hurt his ears.
He slammed his hands on the desk. “ENOUGH!” he said before quickly straightening his back, fixing his tie and putting on his trademark smile. “I’ve heard enough,” he said. “And I will banish this spirit!”
The couple burst into tears. “Oh thank you,” said the man. “Thank you!”
Reigen waved off the praise. “Don’t thank me, it’s all part of the job. Speaking of which, I recommend the premium package, if you’d just sign here…”
The 50-by-50 Arena was an odd looking place, a conspicuous pale edifice sandwiched between otherwise ordinary looking apartments. The name was, rather surprisingly, somewhat of a misnomer. By Reigen’s calculations, it was indeed fifty meters wide and fifty meters long. However, the name failed to acknowledge that it was also fifty meters tall. A more appropriate name, Reigen thought, would be the 50-by-50-by-50 Arena. But even this seemed like a bit of a stretch, as he would hardly call it an arena— it was just a cube. Really, it was all in all a fairly egregious case of false advertising, and Reigen had no respect for it at all.
On the surface of the cube was a single metal door. With great caution, Reigen grabbed the knob before quickly pulling back upon feeling its heat.
“Hot! Hot! Hot!” he cried and tended to his hand. This turned out to be an overreaction, as the knob was merely warm. Regardless, even “warm” was hotter than expected. With this in mind, he carefully opened the door.
A light smoke permeated the room. It dulled the already featureless walls. Reigen fanned his hand to try to push the smoke out of the door, but to little success. He looked around. There wasn’t much to say, save for a faint blue light all the way on the other end of the room. As he made his way closer, he could make out a small television, with a few small boxes plugged into it via long black wires. Reigen shuttered. It was gonna be one of those TV ghosts. He just knew it.
Finally, he reached the TV. Static filled the screen. His gaze drifted towards one of the boxes, its bright red and cyan snagging his attention. When he saw it, he froze.
By God.
“A Nintendo Switch!” he cried out. He’d always wanted one of those things! And to think, someone would just leave it lying around like this. Reigen, who hated to see such fine craftsmanship languish away in a dusty old cube, felt he had the right— if not the moral obligation— to rescue the thing.
“NNNNɲAAAAAAaAaAaAaAaah!”
Reigen yanked his hand away from the switch. Fire burst from the concrete beneath him, and he was just barely able to hop out of the way. The flames rose into the air before coalescing into the form of a young woman dressed in a jacket. Orange flame wrapped around her neck like a scarf, and her hair was a bright, flickering yellow.
“O-oh,” said Reigen. “Is this yours?”
She said nothing. Her fiery gaze remained on Reigen. His eyes stayed wide open, and they began to tear up from the heat. He dared not look away. He had a plan.
“My apologies,” he said. “I assumed that someone had left it here, I had no idea that— HOLY WATER TORRENT!”
(This is one of Reigen’s special moves, where he takes a brush dipped in holy water and shakes it in a spirit’s general direction, just as a priest blesses a congregation.)
Reigen took a brush dipped in holy water and shook it in the spirit's general direction. It wasn’t too dissimilar to how a priest would bless his congregation.
It did nothing. The burning woman wiped the water from her face. It was at that point that Reigen noticed she had only her left arm.
“This isn’t holy water,” she said. “It’s just water.”
“Well, you know, Japanese Christians only make up one or two percent of the population,” Reigen said sheepishly. “Which makes priests hard to find, so I had to uh, bless it myself.”
He had dipped a cross made of popsicle sticks into a water bottle.
He continued, even though he probably shouldn’t have. “As I am not a man of the faith, it makes sense that it would be slightly weaker than that of a Catholic, or even a Protestant.”
She continued to stare at him. Reigen coughed (because of the smoke, not because he was embarrassed or anything). And then he called Mob.
“Mob,” he said. “I need you at the 50-by-50 Arena.”
“S-sorry Master… I can’t right now.” Mob said. Immediately Reigen noticed something was off. He sounded distant, distracted.
“Why not?” said Reigen.
“I’m just… busy.” A clacking from the other end of the line.
“With what?”
“Playing Fortni— Home, homework,” said Mob. His voice shrunk again, the way it always does. “I have homework. To do…”
Reigen wasn’t buying it. “Mob,” he said. “What’s Fortnigh?”
“Dammit!”
“MOB!” Reigen was shocked and appalled to hear such language come from Mob’s mouth. It was downright unclean.
“S-sorry! It’s just, I almost got the ‘W’ but— I mean— uh, uh uh— bye.*”
He hung up.
“Mob? Mob! Mob, what’s a ‘W’? MOB!” It was no use. Reigen looked back at the ghost lady, who had, by all accounts, been waiting patiently.
“Sorry about that,” said Reigen. “Apprentices, you know how they are. He actually needs my help right now, so we will pick this up later. Goodbye.”
Just as he tried to leave, a wall of flame blocked his path.
“You’re not getting so easily!” said the woman. “Nobody steals the property of Yokai Yang and gets away with it!”
“What does a Spirit even want with a Nintendo Switch anyway?” said Reigen. “Video games belong to the living!”
“Don't claim to know my suffering!” said Yokai Yang. “Video games are the only hope for me to find peace! For you see, in this very fifty-by-fifty-by-fifty cube, a man cut my arm off, and left me to bleed out and die. In my anger, I haunted this place as a yokai. Spurred by my humiliating defeat, I have searched for the glory of victory to put my soul at ease. My only recourse is the esteemed Battle Royale genre! If I could just claim victory in one such game, then I can be at peace! Except…” She held out her arm-stump. “It’s impossible to win with just one hand! Even games like Tetris 99 are impossible! And so, every night, as I game into the hours of twilight, I scream in rage for each ‘W’ I don’t attain!”
Reigen placed a hand to his chin and nodded. “So ‘W’ stands for ‘win’… I understand now.”
“...Yeah,” she said. “‘W’ stands for ‘win.’”
“Then I suppose it cannot be helped,” he said. He loosened his tie and withdrew the joycons from the Switch’s dock. “I, Reigen Arataka, will help you get this ‘W!’”
He placed the controllers into the grip and handed it to Yokai Yang. She raised an eyebrow and grabbed it— but Reigen still held on.
“Give me the controller,” she said.
“No,” said Reigen. “We will do this together. I will use the right joycon, and you the left! PATRICK SWAYZE ASSISTIVE TECHNIQUE!”
(This Reigen’s special move where he and a ghost partner share in a task such as molding pottery, or in this case, gaming.)
“P-Patrick Swayze?” said Yokai Yang.
“The name is unimportant! When you’re in this job as long as I am, you need to really dig deep for your special move names,” Reigen said. “Now focus! We will get this ‘W.’ Together!”
And so, Reigen and Yokai Yang booted up the enigmatic game known as Fortnite. And with his gentle guiding hands, Reigen led them through forests filled with danger, plains fraught with peril, and towers that were all too tilted. Until finally they reached Victory Royale.
Yokai Yang let go of the controller and smiled. “Thank you Reigen. I will take this ‘W.’ And I will bring it to the next world.”
Reigen waved goodbye. Another job well done. And a Nintendo Switch for his troubles! He grabbed the device and went on his way. As he approached the door, however, a terrible thought crossed his mind.
Wait.
Did Mob blow him off to play Fortnite?
