The Showdown - Animator vs. Animation 8

This article contains MAJOR spoilers!

It is not recommended to read this article unless you have watched videos related to it. Proceed with caution!

"The Showdown" is the eighth episode of the Animator vs. Animation series and the fourth and final episode of Animator vs. Animation Season 2. It showcases an epic showdown fight between The Dark Lord and The Chosen One.

guzzu, the lead action director for the episode, teased the combat scene by providing a short animatic^[1] on YouTube on February 11th, 2020. On June 13th of the same year, Becker announced in AVM Shorts Episode 18 that the scheduled release for it is sometime during the summer.^[2] It instead released on October 24th.^[3]

Synopsis

The epic final match between The Chosen One and The Dark Lord.

Plot

After his battle with the ViraBot, The Chosen One flies back to his world, trailed by The Second Coming and company. Exiting the IP barrier, he flies down to a shack near a cliffside, while the Stick Gang fall into the nearby bay. Landing down and opening the door inside, he sees The Dark Lord, having survived his punch from their last fight. Before The Dark Lord could react, he is immediately punched and thrown through the wall of the house and knocked back. An unrelenting The Chosen One, angered by his former friend's actions, quickly goes on the offensive and punches him into the cliffside. The Dark Lord lands on an outcropping safely and launches a fireball in the direction of The Chosen One, destroying a portion of the cliff. As he flies back to the house, his path is cut off by an immense laser beam and he is promptly struck by another one, both fired by The Chosen One. The Chosen One flies at The Dark Lord, kicks him near the water level, and flies upwards, and The Dark Lord retaliates with consecutive fireballs, but misses. Both combatants enter the water and The Chosen One flies forward, punching his opponent out of the water and into a side of the cliff. As a stunned The Dark Lord watches, The Chosen One hovers menacingly over the water before charging at him.

Elsewhere, the Stick Gang manages to climb out of the water and arrives near The Dark Lord's shack. Hearing a splash of water, they poke their heads over the cliff to see The Chosen One and The Dark Lord fight. After a few seconds, they walk over to The Dark Lord's shack, with Red slamming open the door. Inside, while Yellow and Blue look down and see more inactive ViraBots, Red and Green look at a computer on a desk and see the portals on-screen are activated and linked to an unknown location. Red sees a black and red wristband and plays around with it. A slip leads him to accidentally pressing a button and opening the hatch doors. Meanwhile, The Chosen One manages to grab The Dark Lord and attempts to laser him, but The Dark Lord pushes The Chosen One's head upwards, causing the beam to harmlessly fire into the sky. Unaware of the open portals, their fight carries them in. They arrive in a YouTube video of The Showdown, with both fighters pausing and unpausing the video at certain moments to injure their adversary.

They then fly out again and land in a Twitter page, where The Chosen One lands on the bottom and The Dark Lord kicks him down and through the website. They land at the front page of Reddit, destroying a post and causing another to increase in upvotes. The Chosen One grabs The Dark Lord and pushes him into another portal, into the search page of Google. The Dark Lord quickly uses the site to his advantage by typing "do a..." and uses the barrel roll easter egg to knock The Chosen One away. They land at a Twitch stream and The Dark Lord uses the rapidly updating chat to injure The Chosen One, before he is knocked away and lands on the Wikipedia Globe. The Chosen One punches his enemy into the globe, destroying it, and they land in a Discord server. The Chosen One scrolls upwards, causing the profile's pictures to hit and stun The Dark Lord, before using his laser vision to knock him back into their world. The Dark Lord stops his momentum from the attack and launches a fireball, which hits The Chosen One as he flies out of the portal. Stunned and hurtling, he is grabbed by The Dark Lord and punched into the water below.

Satisfied, The Dark Lord flies back to his house. Seeing the immensely powerful being flying towards them, the Stick Gang hides in the nick of time. The Dark Lord enters and closes the portals. Thinking he is unseen, he attaches the band Red was playing with to his wrist, causing his eyes to glow and a black and red beam of energy to shoot into the sky, momentarily darkening the world. The Chosen One recovers but sees the beam and grows uncertain. The Dark Lord, now more powerful, flies towards his opponent, eager to end the fight. The Chosen One tries to attack but is knocked back by a flurry of kicks and punches. He attempts to use his laser, but the beam is now ineffective against The Dark Lord, who promptly knocks his head back and throws him away. The Chosen One lands safely but is met by huge red spines, similar to the ViraBot's. He gets impaled by one but is otherwise unaffected and rips it out, using it to knock back the other spines flying towards him. The Dark Lord knocks The Chosen One out of the water and then strikes him with multiple spines in the chest, before punching him back into the water and diving down to continue his assault. Inside the house, The Second Coming, Red, Blue and Green are panicking, seeing their savior overwhelmed by the new threat.

Yellow takes charge of the situation and hacks into The Dark Lord's system. The Second Coming notices the cursor and thinks of a plan involving noogai3. noogai3, cleaning up his computer after The Chosen One's battle, suddenly sees an urgent message pleading for help. He thinks nothing of it and continues to clean up when another pops up, this time with an image of The Chosen One. He then gets a User Control Account message from Yellow, originating from "The Dark Lord's Console," mentioning The Chosen One's need for assistance. After clicking "Yes," a program called Animator Combat Tool opens up, and with Yellow's assistance and knowledge, the portals in the cliffside open and create a giant cursor, mapping noogai's cursor's movements onto it. Seeing the cursor move, The Second Coming congratulates Yellow for his quick thinking.

The Dark Lord, having knocked The Chosen One into the water again, turns around and is shocked by the appearance of the cursor. Before he can react, he is grabbed and shoved into the cliffside. The Chosen One enters the fray and he and noogai attack The Dark Lord. Pinning him against the cursor and trying to burn him alive, The Dark Lord grabs his opponent and activates a corrosive blade, thrusting it into his chest. The Chosen One falls into the water and The Dark Lord attempts to kill him but is intervened by the cursor blocking his path. He is pulled upwards by the cursor, which disappears when it exits the Animator Combat Tool window. noogai right clicks and a Windows menu knocks The Dark Lord into the water, before he flies back up, shooting a laser from his eyes, and stabs the mouse cursor. The Chosen One flies up to help, punches The Dark Lord twice before kicking The Dark Lord away from himself. noogai then pushes The Dark Lord back towards The Chosen One, The Dark Lord then slicing his way off of the cursor, flying up to and grabbing The Chosen One, then throwing him towards noogai3, who retaliates by hitting The Dark Lord back a bit. then pulling him away from The Chosen One, The Dark Lord quickly punching noogai off of himself and sending several spikes at the cursor. The Chosen One then flies up and grabs The Dark Lord, who quickly knocks The Chosen One off of him. The Dark Lord lands on The Chosen One, slashes him several times with his ViraBlades, before slashing The Chosen One off of the cursor, then flying up and firing several corrosive orbs at The Chosen One and noogai, who both dodge the orbs. The Chosen One flies up and hits The Dark Lord a few times, before The Dark Lord kicks his way off of The Chosen One and ignites his ViraBlades, before shooting a jagged, unstable laser at The Chosen One, who counters with his own laser. The Dark Lord's laser is stronger, and he easily overwhelms The Chosen One, only to get hit by a boulder that noogai previously picked up and is now throwing. He then destroys nine more rocks and dodges three more before looking at The Chosen One and noogai together below him.

The Dark Lord, angered at loss of the upper hand, clones his wristband onto his other hand and summons his army of ViraBots to help him. The swarm overwhelms the cursor, which is unable to react to the ViraBots. The Chosen One tries to burn them and knock them away but is grabbed by The Dark Lord and violently thrown into the cliffside. The Dark Lord then stabs his corrosive blade into the cursor, which splits into four blades on the other side, and he and his ViraBots delete the cursor and crash the program, removing the cursor from the fight. With the cursor gone, The Second Coming's friends panic, especially when they see him running out to help The Chosen One. The Dark Lord shifts his focus to The Chosen One, pinning him down. Just as The Dark Lord is about to charge in for an attack, The Second Coming gets between them and tries to stop the fight. The Dark Lord, surprised, tells his ViraBots to move and ignites his left blade, seemingly with the intent to finish The Second Coming himself, when the he is interrupted by the arrival of the Fighting Stick Figures.

Red tries to attack but is stunned by The Dark Lord's immense speed, knocked to the ground and impaled. He weakly tries to get up but dissolves into nothing. Angered, his friends try to avenge him but are completely outmatched by The Dark Lord. One by one, Green, Blue and Yellow are killed, The Second Coming knocked down and The Chosen One rendered helpless by the swarm of ViraBots. The Second Coming sees the dire situation but is suddenly stabbed from the back by The Dark Lord, seen but unable to be helped by The Chosen One. The Second Coming falls to his knees but isn't dissolving. Confused, The Dark Lord raises his blade into the air to speed up the process quicker. The Second Coming still does not dissolve, and he hits The Dark Lord's face with his arm. Angered and impatient, The Dark Lord slams him into the ground and stabs him again but is stunned by him surviving and weakly trying to hit him again. Now extremely aggravated, The Dark Lord throws him into the sky, rapidly slashing and slicing him up, before slamming him into the cliff and impaling him one last time. Satisfied, The Dark Lord flies up and surveys the ouThe Chosen Oneme of the battle: The Second Coming's beaten, unmoving body, the extreme damage to the landscape, and The Chosen One's helplessness. The Dark Lord opens the portals to the internet sites and orders the ViraBots to leave The Chosen One and enter them. The Chosen One is unable to intervene.

As the ViraBots pass by The Second Coming's body, his wounds are healed and he disappears. The ViraBots nearly make it to the portals but are suddenly destroyed. The Dark Lord sees this and senses The Second Coming appear behind him, but is too shocked to react or even turn around. He is thus punched down to the water and caught above the surface, before being punched a significant distance away. The Dark Lord manages to gather himself and summons the rest of the swarm to attack back, but The Second Coming destroys them without even moving. The Dark Lord then punches The Second Coming into the cliffside before making an attempt to escape. The Second Coming quickly recovers, and telekinetically hurls a boulder across the lake at The Dark Lord. The Second Coming then flies at The Dark Lord, kicking and punching him rapidly. The Dark Lord then sees a bright green light shine from the eyes of his opponent but is too weak to intervene. He can only watch as The Second Coming ignites his eyes and blasts him with a beam of laser and electricity, before being dragged across the landscape. The Second Coming increases the intensity before splitting a hill, engulfing the entire area in a massive explosion that shatters the hill and defeats The Dark Lord. With the threat now gone, The Second Coming flies down to the computer and using his newfound power to revive the Fighting Stick Figures and the cursor, before collapsing in exhaustion. The cursor gently takes his body to the Fighting Stick Figures. The Second Coming wakes up and is surprised by his friends still being alive. He then rubs the tears in his eyes before being enveloped in a group hug. The Chosen One, similarly to how the Stick Gang reacted to his powers, is stunned by what he just witnessed and bows down to The Second Coming. Unaware of what he did, The Second Coming shrugs at his friends and The Chosen One looks up in astonishment. The cursor then arrives to take them back home, and they hop on and wave goodbye to The Chosen One.

Characters

Protagonists

Antagonists

Other characters

Cave Spider Queen (on a video thumbnail)
Insane Pig (on a video thumbnail)
Ender Dragon (on a video thumbnail)
The Killer Bunny (on a video thumbnail)
YouTube (on a video thumbnail)
Facebook Emoji Group (on a video thumbnail)
Mario (on a video thumbnail)
Purple (on a video thumbnail)
Villagers (on a video thumbnail)
DJ Welch (cameo, debut)

Gallery

Errors

When the Animator Combat Tool window opens, only a part of the window is shaded fully black, instead of the whole command line.
The window style of the Animator Combat Tool is inconsistent throughout different shots.
The Stick Gang are missing in The Dark Lord's shack.
At timestamp 2:32, the YouTube window The Dark Lord and The Chosen One are fighting on is at timestamp 5:30 in the video despite the scene being used at that moment actually being at timestamp 0:52.
At timestamp 4:50, when Yellow begins hacking into The Dark Lord's console, the portals are incorrectly arranged.
During the battle with the cursor, The Dark Lord and The Chosen One, its size is completely inconsistent. noogai’s point of view shows the cursor roughly the same size as all of the stick figures, whereas in the Outernet, it’s shown to be much bigger than the stick figures. While this is technically not an error in itself, it relates to several other errors.
- When Alan is about to slam The Dark Lord with his right-click menu outside the Animator Combat Tool, his cursor uses its 3D design, despite no longer being inside the program.
- During the "chaos" stage (where the battle is so chaotic and fast that it ends up taking place from noogai's perspective instead), the cursor has somehow grown in size to be the same size as it was in the Outernet.
  - The cursor also visibly returns to its standard (outside the program) design and significantly tilts to the left while doing so.
    - As if adding insult to injury, both The Chosen One and The Dark Lord are also larger than normal. While this could simply be attributed to them being closer to the camera, this is unlikely as their sizes are all approximately the same.
      
      Before
      
      After
At timestamp 7:08, The Dark Lord uses a laser on Alan's cursor. It strongly resembles The Chosen One's laser. But at 7:19, when The Dark Lord and The Chosen One shoot their lasers at one another, his laser appears to be more jagged and unstable.
- However, it's possible that The Dark Lord simply needed different types of lasers for combat.

Laser #2

At timestamp 11:25, when The Dark Lord punches The Second Coming, the ViraBot remains are missing.

The ViraBot remains are missing after The Second Coming gets punched by The Dark Lord.

At timestamp 11:34, when The Second Coming throws the big rock into The Dark Lord, The Dark Lord is not animated.

Trivia

After nearly being killed by The Dark Lord, The Second Coming is revealed to have powers, which were previously unknown, but hinted at in Animator vs. Animation 4. His new powers make him one of, if not the most powerful character.
- The Second Coming's awakened powers that were shown are:
  - Healing powers that can heal himself and others
  - Shockwave emission
  - Flight
  - Telekinesis
  - A laser attack (which is similar to The Chosen One's but far more powerful)
  - Enhanced strength
  - Teleportation
- It can be surmised that The Second Coming's powers can only be activated by severe damage or trauma, similar to The Chosen One's sudden increase in power when overwhelmed by the giant ViraBot. Also, it seems the power is something The Second Coming cannot control explicitly, as he wakes up unaware of what he just did.
  - The Second Coming's powers involve green life particles, whose name and properties were defined in "Victim," and it can be argued that these powers are a direct result of the particles.
  - A little Easter egg in the video shows that these powers are meant for peace when a group of ViraBots slams into The Second Coming, who instantly destroys them all and cancels out all the waves that they cause when slamming into him.
This episode canonically takes place in 2018, even though it was made in 2020.^[4]
- Several Twitter posts talk about COVID-19 despite the episode canonically being in 2018.
- At 2:30, Animation vs. Minecraft Shorts Season 1 - All Episodes (1-14) (released in 2019) is seen at the "Up next" section, even through the episode is canonically set in 2018. Not only that but some Youtube videos in that section are from 2019-2020.
Every message in Twitter and Discord is unique. Additionally, discord shows people having conversations with each other. These are shown in these images.

You can click on the image and go to the full sized version to take a closer look
Twitter image	Discord image

The Second Coming recovering from his injuries and using his newfound powers might be a reference to the final battle in Avatar: The Last Airbender when Aang goes into the Avatar State and uses his full power to defeat Ozai after being injured.
The removed thumbnail of this video depicts The Chosen One and The Dark Lord with feet and different head shapes. Strangely, The Second Coming appears to be normal looking.
In the twitch chat, not a single person says a message including any letter other than "f", or the occasional "?". Also, about 60% of their usernames include the letter f.
The computer in the shack shows some sort of pseudocode controlling the portals:

open portals(ALL){
  tether portals(ALL);
  set (portals(ALL), true);
  align (portals, dim(WORLD));
}
track (vector, r){
  pin(vector,r,A);
   ${\mathsf {S:}}{\frac {r}{r+1}}$ 
   ${\mathsf {E:}}\int f,(r,y)aA$ 
}
report chaneldata{
  hold all tether connections
  portals align to C(x,y,z,t)
  binary matrix set dim(C)=R
  throw portal(data){r>5.000}
}
mat_bin (A.portal(q+)){
 ${\mathsf {A:}}{\begin{array}{|cc|c|c|}\\\hline 1&(3,7)&&0\\2&(5,4)&&0\\3&(2,6)&&1\\4&(1,3)&&0\\5&(7,5)&&0\\6&(6,1)&&2\\7&(4,2)&&1\end{array}}$ 
}
link subset (vector(i)portal(ALL){
  E:S {A,link(binary)};
  LinkAtl = {Link_|'vector'|];
  windowUI set;
  rnd(text_subspace:ALL)
}

References

↑ guzzu on YouTube Animator vs. Animation Shorts Episode 4 - Teaser
↑ Alan Becker on Texture Pack - Animation vs. Minecraft Shorts Ep 18
↑ Alan Becker on YouTube Community "'The Showdown - AVA Shorts Ep 4' will premiere Oct 24th at 8:00AM EST!! Spread the word!!" : Retrieved 26 October 2020
↑ At timestamp 2:46, when The Chosen One and The Dark Lord are battling, there are several Twitter posts about COVID-19. Screenshot: [1]

Hardcore Manhunt

Animator vs. Animation 4 - Kickstarter

^? Conjectural name

[1] guzzu on YouTube Animator vs. Animation Shorts Episode 4 - Teaser

[2] Alan Becker on Texture Pack - Animation vs. Minecraft Shorts Ep 18

[3] Alan Becker on YouTube Community "'The Showdown - AVA Shorts Ep 4' will premiere Oct 24th at 8:00AM EST!! Spread the word!!" : Retrieved 26 October 2020

[4] At timestamp 2:46, when The Chosen One and The Dark Lord are battling, there are several Twitter posts about COVID-19. Screenshot: [1]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]