User blog:Redfork2000/Top 10 Stories by PeaVZ108 (HoEC Season 3 finale update)

Hello everyone! Here I am with yet another top list! (though it's been a while since my last top list, to be honest...) Today I'm doing a new list of my favorite stories written by PeaVZ108, one of the users I've worked with the most recently. Last time I made this list was at the end of HoEC Season 2, and there's many new stories to add in this update. So this time, I'll be counting down the top 10 stories by PeaVZ108, now including the stories from HoEC Season 3!

For this list, I will be including both stories he has written alone, and stories that he has written with several users, but as the main writer, such as Nitro Mania or Hybrid Mayhem. Now, without further ado, let's start the list for the my top 10 favorite stories from PeaVZ108.

Honorable Mentions

 * The Shadow Foreshadowing
 * Quest of the Legendary Rainbow Gem
 * The Shock about the New Shadow

10. Nitro Mania
It might be surprising to see this story this low on the list, when it seems as it would be higher, considering it's similarities to one of my favorite stories from my own library, Red Fork's Rampage. But I'll explain.

The story has Starcade find Eitbit destroyed, and some "evidence" that the LRG did it. Though this is fake evidence, created by the Nitrome Boss to make her believe that the Locked Room Gang has done this. So she calls her allies, the Retro Rebels, and sends them to attack Echo Creek. After defeating each Retro Rebel, the gang confronts Starcade, before the Nitrome Boss takes her, revealing he was the mastermind behind the entire scheme. The gang teams up with the Retro Rebels to save their common friend.

Now, don't get me wrong, I really like this story. It's pretty similar to Red Fork's Rampage in a few ways, and to me, that's good. However, the next stories stand out more to me than this one. Still, it's a pretty good story, with plenty of action scenes, so good job, Pea.

9. The Electric Evolution
Following the common formula of "the gang must defeat each minion, before going to the villain's base for the final showdown", the Electric Evolution still has enough variety to make it stand out from other stories written with the same formula. It focuses on Captain Blowhole and his new allies, attacking each of the seven continents in the world, while at the same time, each of the seven gemstones is lost in one of those continents. The gang splits up to search for each gemstone.

I think the gang splitting up contributes to making the story a bit more interesting, since it gives us the chance to focus on a few characters at a time, instead of having the massive gang go everywhere, blasting away each foe it encounters. One of my favorite parts of this story is the interactions between Captain Red Shell and Captain SnapJaws, and how they go from the latter hating the former, to being two great allies, and even a possible ship. Other than that, the story also contains several intersting interactions between characters, and smart battle scenes, where, due to the small amount of characters per battle, the victory cannot be achieved by brute force, and the gang must use strategies to overcome each of the seven captains. Pretty interesting concept, I really enjoyed this story, even if it used a common formula.

8. Nitro Mania 2.0
Yes, I believe the sequel managed to surpass the original. Nitro Mania 2.0, despite sharing a very similar name to it's predecessor, actually has a very different plot. This time, Olympus is the main antagonist. He sends Dark Starcade to impersonate Starcade, while pulling off a Discord-like trick, using a maze to confuse the gang, but unlike Discord, he traps them away instead of turning them gray. This time, Kyoji and Alice are the only characters to make it through the maze.

Later in the story things get more interesting with the action scenes, and the interesting way Olympus was defeated. Starcade defeats Olympus in an arcade duel, and therefore, recovers the title of Champion of Eitbit. Overall, I believe this is one of Starcade's most epic moments yet. I'm very looking forward to see what Olympus will do in future stories. In my opinion he's an even better villain than the Nitrome Boss from the first Nitro Mania. So congratulations Pea, this is a pretty good story!

7. An Unpeasant Surprise
I'm really confused as to why this story was placed so low on my list last time. I mean, it's one of Pea's best stories from Season 1! This story serves as the debut of one of my favorite characters from Pea's cast: Akasha. Oh hey, Dark Green Shadow debuts here too! Cool.

I liked the idea of Re-Peat Boss's base being taken over by another villain. It gives the feeling that villains, even though enemies to the gang, are not always necessarily allies between themselves.

The story's main plot was that Akasha took over Re-Peat Boss's base, and had Dark Green Shadow impersonate Green Shadow. I tell you, this whole plot of Dark Green Shadow impersonating Green Shadow was pretty well done, and may I add, in a very original way. Nowadays when we see a villain impersonate a hero, we only focus on the combat possibilities, but this story managed to mix in quite a nice slice of life part into the story as well, making the story stay original and fresh, even after so much time. So for this,  An Unpeasant Surprise makes it to the #7 spot.

6. The Crystals of the Seven Colors
With one of the largest casts ever for a HoEC episode, this is definitely one of Pea's largest stories. The main villain here is Storm Cloud, who plans to take over Gemstonia. He attempts to cast a spell to capture the gemstones, only to accidentally capture several Locked Room Gang members that bear the same colors as them, leaving crystals behind, which are the clues the gang will use to rescue their friends. But Storm Cloud isn't  on his own: He has sent several villains out to hunt down the crystals, such as Opposite Blast's gang, Captain Blowhole, Doughleficent, Akasha and a few others.

The story is an action-packed experience, with the gang splitting up to search for their lost friends. The large cast for this story includes the Gemstones, the Reto Rebels, the Elemental Ninjas, the Red Crystals, the Mane Six, The Animal Advisors, and many more characters.

Once the gang has collected all the crystals, they travel to Gemstonia to free their friends, but it turns out that Storm Cloud has even taken control of the Rainbow Golem, causing him to fight the Locked Room Gang. Once the gang manages to get past him, they manage to rescue their friends, and then fight Storm Cloud himself.

This villain is serious business. In fact, it took the combined powers of Sun Fork and the Legendary Rainbow Gem to take him down. With all of this said, The Crystals of the Seven Colors has definitely won its spot on this list.

5. Forest Fiends
Forest Fiends is a season two episode of Heroes of Echo Creek. In this story, Miss Bloomina and Dark Green Shadow team up to defeat Emma Emerald, and take over the forest. In this story, Emma's royal advisors are introduced, as well as two of Miss Bloomina's minions: Thorn and Petal.

Even though the story itself is pretty straight forward, it still manages to introduce us effectively to Emma's royal advisors, and also allows us to get to know Miss Bloomina a bit better than in her previous appearances. A believe the best attributes of this story are its share of character building, comedy and action.

Character-wise, we learn a lot about how things work in Dr. Zack's team after Opposite Blast and his team left Dr. Zack. It turns out that Miss Bloomina is now Dr. Zack's favorite, and has been given all the privileges Opposite Blast used to have. We discover this throughout her interactions with Payton Piranha early in the story.

Dark Green Shadow and Miss Bloomina make an interesting combination of villains. they had never been seen together before, yet make a pretty reasonable and well-working duo throughout the story. The story gives Miss Bloomina her fair share of development, even to the point of revealing her extremely long name: Miss Bloomina Rosette Magica Petallina Flower.

This leads us to another point that brings this story up to this spot: the comedy. Even though the story was pretty straightforward, it still had enough jokes and funny interactions to keep it all fresh and interesting. We have Mimic, who imitates what his teammates seen, which ends up annoying them sometimes. And if you haven't seen the scene when Blast and Tommy try to stall the hypnotized animals, you should definitely see it. At the end of that scene, there's even a part where Tommy actually asks Miss Bloomina to marry him. Gary Guppy would definitely say it's the CRAZIEST thing he's ever seen.

And we can't forget about all the action that happens during the story. Whether it's when the gang is rescuing the royal advisors, or when they're taking down Dark Green Shadow and Miss Bloomina, the truth is that there's danger at every corner, and the gang must act fast to save the forest from the two plant villains. With all of this said, I think this story has earned its place on this list, and #5 seems to be the most appropiate place, since there's only four stories I like more than this one. What stories will they be?

4. Sakura the Light Ninja
Hey look! It's one of Pea's solo stories from HoEC! Well, I really enjoyed this one. I personally really enjoy the whole elemental ninjas' plot, and how Pea continues to expand on it with each story focused on this plot. This wasn't the exception.

So, Sakura is a powerful light ninja who was imprisoned because of how much destruction she had caused when trying to get revenge on Shogo and his family. Takeshi finds her when searching for a girlfriend for his friend, Sasuke. The Light Sensei warns Takeshi about how dangerous she is, but he ultimately decides to let Sakura go with Takeshi when she promises to not cause any more trouble. However, as we probably expected, she really doesn't regret anything, and is more than ready to continue her plans to get revenge.

Takeshi arrives to his friends, to then be attacked by Sakura. Amusingly, while Kyoji, Akasha and Takeshi seem worried about what's going on, Sasuke ignores all this and focuses on her pretty Sakura is. I'm getting lots of Tornado vibes with this part... Anyway, one of my favorite parts of the story is when Akasha talks to Sakura. She tries to tell Sakura that revenge is not the answer, and talks about how she used to be thirsty for revenge, only to later realize that it brought her nothing at all. The fight scene is interesting in its own right, but I simply love moments when an ex-villain remembers his/her dark moments of the past, and tries to help another character see the light. (dark... light... no pun intended, really.)

Anyway, an even better scene comes when Kyoji and Sakura are finally reunited. Kyoji proves to Sakura that he's her brother, and a heartwarming scene occurs. I just love these moments when two siblings finally are reunited after so much time (you can tell if you read The Ace Plan). Anyway, the story has a great plot, and shows great character development for pretty much everyone involved in the story. Great job, Pea!

3. Hybrid Mayhem
This is without a doubt one of my favorite stories from PeaVZ108's library. But, why do I like this story so much? Let's see:

In this story, Re-Peat Boss attacks the gang, only to be stopped in seconds by one of the gang's strongest allies, Ink Splash. Every time Re-Peat Boss attempts to attack, Ink Splash destroys his machine quickly and without much effort. Re-Peat Boss ends up being out of action for two months, due to having to recover from his defeats to Ink Splash. Angry, he decides to call Dr. Zack, the creator of Ink Splash. Dr. Zack advises that Re-Peat Boss should try to ally Ink Splash, and if that fails, create more hybrids to fight her. Re-Peat Boss does that, and even though Ink Splash at first seems tempted to accept Re-Peat Boss's offer, she ultimately rejects it, showing her loyalty towards the gang. Re-Peat Boss then sends his army of hybrids to attack Ink Splash. The gang then goes to help Ink Splash, and helps defaet the hybrids. However, at the end, the strongest hybrid of them all, Ink Smash, betrays Re-Peat Boss and leaves to take over the world. Ink Splash then convinces the other hybrids to join her, and together they defeat Ink Smash, before deciding to become Team Hybrids.

What I like about this story is how is delivers actions scenes, but also some nice character development, specially for Ink Splash, and also for the newcomers, the hybrids that Re-Peat Boss created, who ultimately became Team Hybrids, with Ink Splash. Although my favorite part is the emotional moment when Ink Splash says good-bye to the Locked Room Gang for helping her change her life and improve, the fact is there's several battles and interesting characters to see, combined with the surprising twist at the end when Ink Smash betrays Re-Peat Boss, this story manages to keep things slightly unexpected, while also delivering a pretty intense emotional moment when Ink Splash leaves with her new allies.

2. The Forbidden Legacy
This story used to be my number one favorite from PeaVZ108's library. Recently though, with the addition of new stories, a new story has taken that position. However, this is still one of my favorite stories, and for many reasons.

This story focuses on Akasha, who has turned into one of my favorite villains recently. She discovers a book, and meets the Shadow Sensei, who offers to teach her the Shadow Arts so sehe can have her revenge. Akasha accepts, but what she doesn't know, is that the Shadow Sensei plans to turn her into his slave. Akasha later fights Kyoji and Starcade, and they can't defeat her with her new shadow powers. They have to play dead to avoid being killed by Akasha. She then returns to the Shadow Sensei, telling him how she defeated her enemies, before the Shadow Sensei turns her into his slave, forcing her through torture. He had used a potion to grant her shadow powers, and that same potion made her experience an extremely painful burn every time she disobeyed the Shadow Sensei. Later, Kyoji, Starcade and the Gemstones work together to rescue Akasha, despite what she has done to them before. Akasha, after being freed, gets rid of the Shadow Sensei for good.

There's many things I like about this story. First, it focuses on a villain, rather than the gang, which is pretty refreshing after so many stories about "the gang defeats the villain". There's some actual character development with characters such as Akasha, Kyoji and Starcade. By the way, I should mention this is the story where Kyocade is proved to be true. This story also introduces us to the Shadow Arts, and to the Shadow Sensei. In fact, this story is what inspired part of the backstory of some of my characters, such as Ace and Captain Dark Shell. The Amulet of the Dark Seas, and The Ace Plan, are two stories by me that expand on what was shown in this story.

One of the things I most appreciate from this story is that it's structure is very different from most stories Pea and I write nowadays. Ever since sometime around Red Fork's Rampage, many stories follow a similar formula: "A villain is attacking, and sends several minions to do the work for him. The gang must defaet each minion, before going to the villain's base for the final showdown." Granted, there are some stories that use this stucture,  but add in enough changes to make the story feel fresh enough, such as Nitro Mania or The Ace Plan. However, the truth is that the formula has been used several times, and a bit more of variety in the story structure would be nice. That's one of the things that makes The Forbidden Legacy really stand out to me, together with the character development, andthe introduction to the Shadow Arts.

1. The Return of the Warlord
The season 2 finale of Heroes of Echo Creek, is stll my favorite story from PeaVZ108. But why is it my favorite?

This story focuses on the revival of Shogo the Warlord, one of the most powerful villains the Locked Room Gang has ever encountered. Akasha collected the shards of the Orb of Power to revive Shogo. Although the formula of the first half of the story is pretty generic, with the basic formula of having the main villain send his minions to attack, and the gang must stop them, things get much more interesting as the story goes on.

Shogo kidnaps Starcade and traps her in a diamond sphere, and sends his team out to attack Echo Creek. But these aren't your average minions. No, these are the Ancient Elemental Ninjas, each one with the power of a different God-Element. These are more powerful versions of the six elements of the Elemental Ninajs: Ice, Fire, Water, Electricity, Air and Earth. The gang split up to attack each of these powerful Ancient Ninjas, while a few allies of the gang attempted to take on Shogo himself.

One of the scenes that prove just how much of a threat Shogo can be is when he defeats Ink Splash. Think about it: Ink Splash is probably the Locked Room Gang's strongest ally. We're talking about the same being that took out Galaximus and Bright Spark on her own! For the first time, Ink Splash was seen truly defeated. And not only did Shogo manage to defeat her, he also managed to break her spirit. Later on in the story, Ink Splash is seen doubtful in her own skills, and insists on fighting Shogo again, in an attempt to prove to herself that she's not weak. But it fails, as Ink Splash is defeated again by Shogo later in the story.

Ace plays in important role in the story as well. He attempts to destroy the Orb of Power, and fights Akasha, who was left guarding the orb. Once Ace defeats Akasha, Shogo enters the room and fights Ace as well. Ace can't defeat Shogo, but he manages to escape before his own defeat. He appears in the laboratory, where he discovers another part of Shogo's plan: Dark Starcade.

Dark Starcade is Starcade's evil counterpart, created with the same formula that Akasha stole from Re-Peat Boss. She was used against Kyoji, who actually believed that she was the real Starcade. A smart move by Shogo to break Kyoji's warrior spirit. Eventually, the gang cheers up Kyoji, specially after Ace appears to them, and explains his findings from the lab. With their help, Kyoji manages to pull himself together, and continue the battle against Shogo.

And if all this plot hasn't been enough, then wait until the major plot twist near the end of the story. Tsunami, one of the Ancient Ninjas, turns out to be Akasha's mother! Once Tsunami tells Akasha about what Shogo had done in order to continue his evil plans, Akasha realizes that Shogo never really cared for his family. He only cared for himself and his plans for world domination. Heartbroken, but determined to fix her mistakes, Akasha decides to team up with the Locked Room Gang, and with the help of other elemental ninjas in the gang, they manage to do a five-element combo, shattering the Ord of Power, thus causing Shogo to return to his death.

Even though the beginning of the story seemed to be your regular HoEC episode, over time the story turned into an exciting experience with lots of action, meaningful character development, and several surprises and expansion on Akasha's family. Although Akasha was who had the most character development during the story, several other characters got a good dose of development as well. Kyoji, Tsunami, Ink Splash and even Ace had their own share of character development throughout the story.

The villain of this story, Shogo the Warlord, also shows to be one of the greatest threats the gang has ever faced in their career. Not only is he one of the most powerful villains, but during the story, we were shown that he also know how to break the spirits of our heroes. Ink Splash suffered self-doubt and insecurities about herself after facing her first total defeat, while Kyoji was also heartbroken after his encounter with Dark Starcade. It's interesting to notice that his defeat this time was brought by his own mistakes. The damage he did to his family is what caused Akasha and Tsunami to turn against him, which eventually caused Shogo's defeat. Overall, this is a great story, and definitely deserves it's place as a season finale. Congratulations Pea, you really outdid yourself with this story. And I'm glad to announce that The Return of the Warlord is still my favorite story from PeaVZ108's library.

And that's all for this list. Did you like it? Do you agree with my choices? What are your favorite stories written by PeaVZ108? Feel free to leave your opinions in the comments section. You can also recommend me other top lists to make in the future. Have a nice day/night!