The Gymnast (Commission)

[Bit of an interesting one here, folks! I'll be changing the name of the main character for the public upload, as she's a real person and I know Deviant Art is rather picky about that kind of stuff. But you guys get the real deal here!]

Commissioned by eJm

Written by HikerAngel

“Welcome, one and all,” came a voice over the coliseum loudspeaker. “This occasion marks the 5000th official tournament of the known communal multiverse!”

The crowd went wild, though even that description was likely an understatement. This was an event only held once every 100 years, after all. The kind that grandparents formed their entire personality around.

Ever since the multiverse had been discovered, this was a necessary evil to keep the peace, as it were. The gladiatorialism of it all brought both the common folk and elite together, even if not every eligible earth attended.

The ones that did were usually enhanced in some way. Superheroes looking to spice up their life, Dr. Jekyll-types who have all but given in to their Mr. Hydes and soldiers enhanced by robotics were but only a few of the categories. Point being, the average human would be foolish to enter such a deadly tournament.

And deadly it often got. While a K.O was all that was required to progress forward, many combatants based their stage personas on how willing they were to go one extra step. New representatives were often chosen every year.

“Representing Earth 18850, a new challenger to the ring, but from a realm who has taken the championship before! Please welcome: D33p Storage!”

The man that stepped to the podium resembled more of a gaming PC than he did a human. High-tech gadgets and flowing colors adorned his form, radiating power from the twin Thorium cores that powered his body. Like most super-soldiers from his earth, the abilities that his kind were capable of generated hype from the crowd despite being a newcomer.

“Representing Earth 99456, you love him, you hate him, his monstrous mind doesn’t care either way! Start drumming your hands for: Gleebok the Gray!”

A cage door opened slowly, but Gleebok was not a creature who waited. He ripped the bars into pieces before leaping onto the second podium of the coliseum. At an absurd 18 feet of height, his muscular form was almost too large to rest comfortably on the stage.

Roaring a mighty roar into the sky, the entire audience was silenced in fear. His beastly form had lost all its humanity long ago. All he cared about was violence and the thrill of the fight.

“And of course, our reigning champion! He’s the toughest superhero of Earth 63847 by far! Hell, 63847 might just be the amount of damn times he’s won this thing! Start screaming and hollering for Crescent Man!”

The crowd did as they were told. The cheers reached their peak, as they did every year. Crescent Man swooped low, landing on the metal podium and denting it without putting much effort into the action. While nowhere near as muscular as Gleebok, his body was certainly nothing to scoff at. The powers within him grew with every moon present and on his earth there were ten of them! With twice that many at the coliseum, he was like Superman on steroids.

Then, the announcer paused in disbelief as he read the next name. “Interesting, this next challenger is from an earth that’s never had representation in this event before. Moreover, her accomplishments, while impressive, seem rather… er… well… average compared to everyone else we’ve seen so far. But whatever! Please muster up applause for Earth 00001’s 32-time Olympic medalist, Simone Biles!”

A few claps and cheers from the crowd were quickly drowned out by an overwhelming air of confusion as the 24 year old Olympic gymnast walked casually into the coliseum. Wearing a common red and black tracksuit, she looked more like a turned-around audience member who had accidentally stumbled onto the battle grounds. Regardless, she put on a cheerful grin as she waved to the massive audience, treating this multiverse-renowned event like just another Olympic event for her to go for gold.

Walking up onto a podium near the previous three announced challengers, they all looked upon her with confusion and disbelief. After the crowd had settled, Crescent Man let out a hearty laugh.

“Seriously? They let a slightly better-than-average human compete against the gods? Is this some sort of out-of-season April Fools joke? I mean, it has to be April in one of these dimensions, am I right?”

Crescent Man laughed once more, turning his attention back to Simone to see if she too was in on the joke. But her composure remained as reserved as ever. She then put her hands to her hips, an errant smugness to her cheery demeanor.

“Hey there, don’t sell yourself too highly now! I didn’t earn those twenty five gold medals by sitting on my ass! I worked just as hard for those as I did for this tournament, so while I expect some fierce competition, I think I’ve got a good chance at possibly taking silver!”

The superhero laughed harder than he ever had in his entire life. A few chuckles were even shared between D33p and Gleebok. The corners of Simone’s mouth grew into a subtle frown.

“Oh, that’s rich. What, did you do twenty extra push ups or something? Face it, human. You may be impressive for your species, but you excel at lame-ass gymnastics. Stay in your lane, how about that?”

Simone squinted one eye, her eyebrow following its path. An incredulous look adorned her face. She was definitely fed up with Crescent Man’s antics.

“Listen up, announcer!” She suddenly shouted with great ferocity, silencing all the other contestants out of sheer surprise. “I personally challenge these three, however they please to engage, to a fight to the death.”

The crowd was dead silent. While it was perfectly legal and even encouraged to personally challenge anyone in the tournament, no one had ever challenged anyone in the top three, much less all of them at once.

D33p Storage and Crescent Man exchanged worried glances, more for Simone’s sake than anyone else’s. All Gleebok wanted was a fight, something he’d certainly get either way.

Personnel from the event ran out onto the field, asking every participating member in the challenge if they wished to proceed.

After collecting three confirmations from D33p Storage, Crescent Man and Simone, (plus a “grug” from Gleebok), another announcement was broadcast on the grand speaker.

“A shocking development ladies, gents and everything in between! It seems as though we’re going to be starting off today’s games with a BLOOD MATCH!”

The crowd ooed and awed. Their grandparents had clearly never told them about this.

“What a special event you guys are going to be present for! In this corner, one Simone Biles will take on the top three challengers of this entire tournament, even though her Earth has never even entered the rankings before!”

The stadium booed accordingly, clearly believing she was just some woman with a head full of hot air who wouldn’t even make it past the first round.

“First, Simone will go against D33p Storage. If she somehow survives that, she’ll go on to do battle with Gleebok the Gray. And then, if her mangled, brutalized corpse somehow manages to zombify itself to squeeze past him, she’ll then have to do battle with the reigning champion literally no one has ever been able to defeat: Crescent Man!”

And with a final cheer of approval from the audience, the first match was ready to begin. A massive MMA-style cage arena formed from complex machinery below the coliseum, encompassing the center of the battlefield.

Little did Simone know, this particular cage arena was hand-picked by D33p Storage to benefit him in the upcoming skirmish. He almost felt a semblance of sympathy for the mere gymnast that was his opponent, the tables already appeared to be stacked so far in his favor, he hoped he’d never have to use such an ability.

As the first round neared, D33p still believed that what he was getting into was some sort of prank. Even as he came from the sky, his rocket thrusters kicking up dust and debris, only for Simone to more casually walk into the cage, wiggling her body to stretch it, he thought someone was going to show up any minute laughing alongside Biles. But it never happened.

The cage doors closed behind the two of them—something that didn’t really affect D33p due to his ability to fly—and a buzzer sounded off after a count of three. The match between them had started. This was really happening to D33p.

“Y’know. If you want to get the first hit in one me, I’d let ya,” D33p spoke through his modified mouth, an air of concern present in the robotic voice that exited. “I think I’d really hurt ya if I went first.”

“Nah, don’t be silly, you couldn’t hit me!” Simone responded with a cheerful smile. She was clearly having fun, even if it only rendered as confusion to her cyborgian opponent.

While D33p Storage simply stood there, attempting to strike fear into his opponent with his bulky frame, Simone danced about, her stance more a parody of any realistic fighting one. It was as if she knew how to annoy him to his very core. His people took pride in the fight, it was ingrained into his very culture. So to see his opponent prancing around like an idiot enraged him.

He would end this quickly and painlessly for her.

A large amount of energy founded itself in his core, charging subtly before being redirected into his right arm. A punch flew out faster than anyone in the audience or even D33p himself could process, but it had just narrowly missed Simone.

The machined man was stunned at the bizarre display. As his brain began to process what had just happened, the scenario seemed more and more intentionally deliberate on Biles’ part.

She had contorted her flexible body in such a way that her hips seemed to curve independently around his mechanized fist. Simone’s smile was all but changed, switching from a goofy one to a more collected, self-assured smug one.

She had revealed a shade of her true colors in that very moment, but D33p Storage wasn’t about to let up that easily.

He built up more energy, distributing it evenly among a flurry of punches towards Simone. But none of them struck her. It was as if every joint in her flexible body was magnetically opposed to his.

The crowd was equally confused, now unsure of what the outcome of this battle could possibly be. She hadn’t even thrown a punch in retaliation and it already seemed like D33p Storage was on the losing side of the battle.

But the cyborg still had that trick up his sleeve. Even though he was rapidly losing energy trying to actually hit Simone, he didn’t particularly care.

So Simone Biles made him care.

After fifty whiffed punches in a row from D33p, her first thrown fist struck true. Weaving around his large arms, she delivered a metal-denting left hook to his side. D33p Storage let out a distorted yelp in pain, error messages and sirens blared from his internal computer. Despite his training with the best of the best, he had simply never been hit that hard in his life.

He attempted to recover, throwing aimless punches left and right, but his balance had been so thoroughly thrown off there was no hope for the poor robot man. Simone then performed a front flip, her toned thighs landing on D33p’s broad shoulder pads. With the momentum gained from her spin, she brought the two-ton man careening to the floor.

She knew she could have ended the fight right there. A little more pressure and the bionic man’s head was scrap metal. But that would have been too easy. The people of this coliseum—much like their olympic counterparts—were here for a spectacle, who was she to deny them that?

What was a simple somersault for her felt more like being launched from a catapult for D33p. She released her titanic hold on his head mid-roll, chucking him in the air like a ragdoll. But Simone wasn’t finished, converting the somersault into a flat-backed position with a single, solitary leg sticking up into the air. As if she knew exactly where the metal man was going to land, her foot caught D33p after he had begun to descend.

A gasp from every single crowd member broke the tense silence. Men from D33p’s rank often weighed upwards of 5,000 pounds! And she was holding him steady with a single leg!

Even Crescent Man, a hero who had been around for thousands of years and was not easily surprised, had his jaw hanging loose.

She held him there for a good few seconds—long enough for everyone in the crowd to fully comprehend what exactly was happening—before effortlessly flicking the metal man into the caged wall with just a curl of her toes.

She stood up tall, arms at diagonals, as if this was just another finisher for a national title for her. But D33p wasn’t out yet. In fact, Simone had just unknowingly activated the ace up his sleeve.

An ear-blasting burst of electricity shot out from the fence, completely re-energizing D33p Storage. He rolled his neck and jumped about in place twice before returning to a fighting stance.

“Don’t think you’ve won so easily, little missy. I may have underestimated you at first, but I won’t make that same mistake twice, understand?”

“Fine by me, I could alway use another warm-up round, Robo-guy!” Simone shot back, as cheerful as ever.

That response did not simmer well with D33p. With an enraged, prolonged yell, he fired a barrage of missiles from various slots in his mechanized form.

The projectiles, each roughly two soda cans in size, honed in on Biles. They had been primed to track her heat signature, after all.

With twenty missiles heading her direction, D33p was sure that Simone would be done for. She may have been flexible, but if she had to dodge his attacks, she was likely still vulnerable.

The missiles came fast, but she was faster.

It all happened at an imperceptible moment. Thankfully, an instant replay from the big arena screens were generous enough to slow down the footage. As the first missile approached Biles, she jumped atop of it, using the flying cylinder as a makeshift high bar. She vaulted from missile to missile, performing impressive flips and spins clearly intended to be viewed in slow motion as the feats appeared in regular speed on the screen. She finished her volley of acrobatics by grabbing one of the highly volatile missiles and performing a produnova with it, dunking the missile directly onto D33p’s forehead and backflipping away from the aftermath.

The explosion had already faded by the time the replay ended. The victor couldn’t have been more clear, as only one of them still had a head attached to their shoulders. Despite a “turnabout” victory over her opponent, Simone seemed to be more geeked out that she successfully performed a produnova vault during her slow-mo display.

“Yes! I totally nailed that last part on my first try!”

A bout of silence overwhelmed the stadium, only broken by the thud of D33p Storage’s headless body falling to the floor. No one could quite believe what they had just seen, but Simone took the silence in stride. After all, she was used to leaving her audience awestruck.

Needless to say, the two people that jokingly bet for Simone could be walking away multi millionaires.

“I know, I know, I make it look easy!” Simone said aloud, preaching to the crowd. “But trust me, perfecting some of those moves takes years of practice! Although, I’m normally balancing planets and the likes, so a few thousand pounds of metal wasn’t much of a challenge!”

An irked sneer grew on Crescent Man’s face. Who did this human think she was? Lifting planets? Why hadn’t he heard of these feats? She was clearly a liar, he thought, a very lucky one at that.

Dodging every attack? Redirecting his own missile just to kill D33p Storage? Crescent Man’s ego refused to accept this victory as any more than a fluke. She clearly relied on whatever gimmick she could get her hands on to win. Gleebok the Gray carried no such gimmicks.

Upsets occurred all the time with Earth 18850 cyborgs. They were inconsistent; Gleebok was not. A being of pure rage, he only seemed to get stronger with the more damage he sustained. One punch from him and Biles would be no more than a red stain on the rocky floor.

Crescent Man flew up to the commentator’s booth and within seconds of being “convinced” out of his awestruck state, the announcer readied the crowd for round two. The caged arena for D33p Storage was deconstructed, although nothing was formed to replace it.

The stadium itself was Gleebok’s arena.

Once again, Simone didn’t seem concerned. Even as a large cage—one several times the size of Gleebok himself—that was dragged on wheels by men twice the size of Simone didn’t seem to phase her. This may have been the most highly anticipated moment of the event for everyone in attendance, but for Simone, it was Tuesday.

The large men didn’t even get a chance to lift the bars suspending Gleebok. His hulking fists tore through the enhanced metal like it was typewriter paper. A loud roar shook the very foundation of the coliseum itself. Everyone was shocked into silence—everyone except for Simone.

Biles had been staring the beast down the entire time, unblinkingly. Even though Gleebok was the far more terrifying presence at the moment, there was a certain power brewing behind the gymnast’s eyes, one that dwarfed even the brutish creature before her.

The cage carriers tried to calm Gleebok, but nothing could satiate his rage. The men, titans of the championship in their own rights, were effortlessly ripped to shreds. Bureaucracy did not decide when this battle began, Gleebok did.

Shaking himself out of a stunned state once more, the announcer hastily pushed the buzzer to reveal the start of the next round. No countdown required.

With all of his carriers reduced to corpses littered about his body, the only person left in his sights was Simone herself. She remained in position, her only movement being a pivot onto her back foot, as if she were attempting yet another vault.

Crescent Man chuckled softly from his vantage point. Biles was still treating this like a silly competition, even seconds away from surefire death. A bit of a shame, really. The superhero had been itching to tear that big smile off her face himself.

And then, for the second time that very day, Crescent Man’s jaw dropped.

As if her beastly opponent had triggered a proximity detector that activated Simone, she suddenly sprung into action faster than Gleebok could react. Sliding forward on one foot while crouched, she tripped the hulking beast up with a sweeping kick—only to deliver a devastating left hook directly to his face before his falling body could even hit the ground.

A painful roar, one that could have been mistaken for a whimper on a lesser creature, echoed about the stadium. No one during the entire run of Gleebok the Gray’s storied history in the multiverse tournament had ever managed to topple him, much less this quickly and with what appeared to be such minimal effort on his opponent’s part.

“C’mon… get up, you worthless bastard…” Crescent Man muttered under his breath. The superhero was growing tired of being proven wrong so many times in a single day. “She just got a lucky strike on you. Stop underestimating her.”

Luckily for him, Gleebok did recover quickly—and rather angrily at that. But that was his greatest strength, even when opponents gave the beast trouble, it only made him stronger as a result.

But Simone wasn’t even going to give him the chance to utilize any of his rage.

Once he was back on his feet, Gleebok scanned the area for Simone, but she was nowhere to be found. Audience members were shouting at him, attempting to fill him in on her whereabouts, but he couldn’t comprehend what they were saying. Even a phrase as simple as “she’s right behind you” went in one ear and out the other.

While the once-unmatched creature couldn’t see her, he certainly felt her suddenly lifting him up from behind. With the way his body hunched forward, he was as helpless as an upside-down turtle once Simone got her hands on him.

But “hands” would be selling the gymnast short. She had lifted him up into the air with just a singular index finger! Gleebok the Gray—who was easily five times the size of Simone and only grew larger with rage—was now completely at his tiny adversary’s mercy, being suspended in the air as if he was weightless!

The beast gripped at whatever he could, tearing at her tracksuit—yet not budging her actual body an inch. After Simone had decided that his fun time was up, she began to spin him around on her finger vicariously, much like a basketball player would, only sideways. She didn’t even need to apply any assistance with her other hand, the torque of her finger was more than enough to keep the twenty foot tall beast spinning about like a propeller above her head. Any faster, and Simone might’ve been able to take to the skies with him!

Simone then retracted her finger, leaving Gleebok’s spinning body to the devices of physics. Without Biles’ petite finger, the massive creature was sent wildly flying off, crashing into the sidelines of the arena. The supposedly impervious stone that the coliseum had been constructed with cracked under both the mass of the beast and power of Simone’s negligent throw.

“Phew, I guess I outta thank you for that, big guy.” The gymnast said, stretching her recently exposed calves and shoulders now that her tracksuit had been torn to shreds. “I really need to remember to let my skin breathe while I do activities like this!”

Underneath her first outfit was far more traditional attire for someone of her profession. A sequin leotard that hid none of her muscular physique while giving the audience more to gawk at. Her beauty was stupendous, only matched by her overwhelming strength. Truly a spectacle of a human specimen to behold.

But Gleebok the Gray did not care for such trivial attributes. He was pissed! Muscles bulging with pure rage, he ascended another foot in height as he charged once more at his puny rival.

His growing form would prove to be his greatest weakness as Biles executed her next move. He threw a punch, but she was quick to grab it, holding his bulky arm hostage under her far slimmer armpit. Zipping around to the back of his body once more—which pulled the beast’s arm into quite the awkward angle—she repeated the process with his right-sided limb.

She wrapped her legs around his, bringing him to a kneeling state. With all four of his main appendages locked into Simone’s unbreakable grasp, all he could do was lash out uselessly as his uncontrollable rage only grew within him.

Gleebok could feel his bones cracking as his far larger body was forced to contort to the proportions of her smaller one, creating a dangerous feedback loop. His roars became more desperate and pained as for the first time in his life he had been thoroughly contained. No walls had ever kept him for long, yet the iron grip of someone one-sixth the size of him was not only holding him down, but actively killing him.

And then it did.

With his less-than-developed brain unable to think of a way out, his rage continued to grow until it literally shattered his spine. No matter how powerful he became, it was simply no match for the raw output of Simone’s strength.

Only at that very moment of hearing Gleebok’s bones shatter did Crescent Man realize that Simone had not been lying at all. To crumple the hulking beast like a piece of tissue paper would most certainly take the strength of gods worshiped by gods.

Gleebok the Gray drew his last breath and the victory bell sounded off once more in Biles’ favor. She could have easily finished with silver, but the opportunity for gold was right around the corner. Crescent Man seemed to agree.

Before the announcer could so much as declare what the next match would entail, the Superhero rushed Into the arena and unleashed a stream of twin laser beams out of his eyes. They connected directly into Simone’s torso, resulting in a large explosion that covered the area in blinding dust and smoke.

A wide smirk grew on Crescent Man’s face. She may have been far stronger than anyone could have anticipated, but she wasn’t invincible. At the end of the day, she was just as vulnerable as any other human when it came to laser beams.

But then the smoke cleared and the superhero’s mouth opened wide in disbelief for the third time in an hour. Discounting the soot produced from his vision piercing a section of her leotard—there was not a scratch on her body. After brushing the ash off of her toned tummy, it was as if Crescent Man had never attacked her at all.

So what? She was more durable than the average human. Far more, to be exact. Her body may have been the first thing his laser vision didn’t at least singe, but the confident superhero knew that he had several moves in his arsenal more potent than it if the situation required.

Remaining stationary from a floating position in the sky, Crescent Man called upon the strength of the many moons above. He took a deep breath, inhaling several thousand times the amount of air commonly ingested into his lungs. His powerful body compressed the air infinitesimally thin, creating a blizzard of frost breath upon exhale. Reaching the lowest degrees of Kelvin, he was certain that not even gods could survive being in the center of the chilling whirlwind.

And yet, once the temperature normalized, Simone didn’t even have as much as the sniffles. In fact, she was beginning to look rather bored.

“Are you really just going to hide up in the sky? That’s no fun!” There was clear disappointment in her voice as she vocalized her complaints. “Oh well, I guess I can always come up there if need be.”

The once-fearless superhero felt a sense of dread building within his gut. He tried to flee, but Simone was simply faster.

With an upward lunge from a stand-still, she launched herself three hundred meters into the sky to impact with Crescent Man before he could even take off into the sky without her. While she herself could not fly, it didn’t matter. Now that Simone had a hold on the superhero, she was never letting go.

As they cascaded into the upper atmosphere, Crescent Man went for a desperate headbutt, striking true on Simone’s face. However, the attack only served to further injure the disgraced superhero, leaving a sizable bruise on his forehead. Then, as if to rub salt in the wound, Biles retaliated with the same attack. She bashed his face in with several forehead strikes, each leaving a poignant residue of the perfume she wore, almost like a calling card.

Simone continued to carry him into outer space, far outside the limits of the coliseum, but such flimsy rules no longer mattered. She was going to flex her prowess upon her first major critic by any means necessary.

It wasn’t long until the two of them collided among one of the many moons that orbited the parallel earth, but Simone didn’t stop there. She kept putting force behind her ascent, somehow pushing off against the very fabric of the universe itself to shove Crescent Man deeper and deeper towards the core of the moon until it exploded from the sheer force of her effort.

While both of them had survived the explosion, the superhero felt noticeably weaker afterwards. With one of the moons destroyed, 1/20th of his power well had been sapped from him. Simone continued her onslaught, smashing him through moon after moon until he was no more powerful than an average human. It was then that his true killer would become apparent. With no more moons in the immediate area to enhance him, he was as good as a civilian trapped in the vacuum of space.

Crescent Man flailed about like a newborn as his oxygen reserves depleted until eventually he stopped moving entirely. The reigning champion of the multiverse tournament had just been defeated, his fate left to a corpse orbiting the planet much like the very moons he had harvested power from.

With her challenge complete, Simone pushed off from a nearby chunk of moon, aiming her trajectory back to whence she came. Entering the atmosphere at dangerous speeds, she resembled more meteor than man.

And then, like a true gymnast, she stuck the landing.

The entire foundation of the coliseum cracked under the force of her indestructible feet striking the stone, yet she treated the landing as any other successful display of her acrobatic prowess. The massive crowd would have cheered, but most of them had been stunned by the mere aftershock of her descent. Not even the announcer from his cushy booth was safe from her accidental display of sheer power.

After things settled down a bit and Crescent Man’s body was discovered by telescope, Biles was awarded the Multiversal Medal of Victory, which she accepted with great honor.

“Wow, this whole thing was a lot of fun, even if it was a bit trivial for me. I should participate in these events more often!”

And with that, the American gymnast made her return to her earth of origin. The multiversal tournament would never be the same after that day.