"Sonic Guy?" "Crusade against the League of Evil Exes" is a title is based upon conjecture. |
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The Crusade against the League of Evil Exes is the overarching storyline of the Scott Pilgrim franchise that drives the plot forward in all the adaptations. The event lasted across a whole year, from March 2004 to March 2005.
History[]
Before the events[]
After seeing Ramona Flowers in his dreams, Scott became obsessed with her. After learning from Julie Powers that Ramona worked for Amazon.ca, Scott ordered some CDs in the hopes of meeting her. Scott received an email from a “Matthew Patel”, stating that they would be fighting soon. When Ramona arrived at his and Wallace’s doorstep, Scott asked her out. Although she was initially reluctant, Ramona eventually caved, and they went out to Hillcrest Park.
After leaving the park due to a snowstorm, Ramona took them back to her place using Subspace. Once there, she made them some tea and went to get changed. Whilst waiting, Scott wandered around the apartment, Scott accidentally stumbled upon her getting changed. Seeing he was cold, Ramona gave him a hug, and they soon had their first kiss. They climbed into bed and started to have sex, but Ramona changed her mind. Scott received a written letter from Matthew Patel.
The next morning, for the second date, Scott tells her that his band, Sex Bob-omb, is performing on Wednesday.
Battle at Club Rockit[]
Whilst Sex Bob-omb performed on stage, Matthew Patel broke in, destroying the roof. Matthew immediately challenged Scott. Scott blocked his punch, sending him to the floor. Scott continued fighting, kicking Patel in the stomach, before landing sixty-four hits on him using the air-juggle maneuver. Scott asked Matthew who he was, and why they were fighting. Matthew revealed that he was Ramona’s first evil ex-boyfriend, noting that he had contacted him as a warning. Scott blocked Matthew’s punches, and dodged his kicks and jumps.
After hearing Matthew’s backstory, Matthew used his mystical powers to summon demon hipster chicks and fireballs, and began to sing. Stephen, Wallace, Kim, Neil, Knives, and Stacey held Scott’s back, and using the power of friendship, they blocked the fireballs with a Musical Shield, long enough for Scott to beat Matthew with a punch, and earn $2.10 in cash.
Skirmish at Casa Loma[]
After hearing that Ramona’s next evil ex, Hollywood superstar/pro skater Lucas Lee was filming a new movie in Toronto, Scott went with Wallace to confront him at the movie set at the Casa Loma. Arriving there, Scott introduced himself, and Lucas walked up to him and casually punched him, before grabbing his legs and flinging him into one of the towers.
Waking up, Scott finds that Kim and Neil have arrived. Lucas offers to take a break, offering him some gatorade, baby carrots, and ritz crackers. Sitting down, Scott inquired about the movie Lucas was filming. Lucas told him that the movie was titled “You Just Don’t Exist”, and that he co-stars in it with Winifred Hailey. This prompted Scott to make a joke about how Lucas was older than Hailey, which Lucas defended by telling him that he didn’t choose who to cast in his movies. Scott asked for any stories he had about Ramona, so Lucas told him that Ramona cheated on him and left him for another boy.
Lucas tells Scott that League almost didn’t accept him, but eventually did because of his grudge against Ramona. Hearing the word “league”, Scott asked what he meant, as he had paid little attention to it mentioned in Matthew’s email and letter. Lucas told him that “league” refers to the self-titled “League of Evil Exes”: the seven people Ramona had dated before him, thus keeping them organized enough to go after Scott one-by-one instead of ganging up on him. Lucas offers to let Scott go, in exchange for his money. Scott insults Lucas, prompting him to switch mood and attempt to kill him. Scott sees the place’s long winding staircase and, remembering Lucas’ history as a skater, Scott asks if he can perform a grind on the rails. Lucas initially refuses, pointing out the “2,000” stairs and rail quality, but goes for it after Scott questions the impossibility.
Lucas grabs his board and starts the stunt, quickly gaining speed as he goes down, soaring from rail-to-rail. Lucas’ final speed is so fast, the infobox keeping track of his speed declares him to be going “TOO FAST TO LIVE”, before he loses control of his speed and momentum, crashing at the bottom and exploding into $14.00 in cash.
Skirmish at Lee’s Palace[]
After an insult about Toronto provokes him, Scott leaps across the table to punch Todd. Todd immediately reacts, using his vegan powers to grab Scott by his throat and fling him through the wall and outside into the alleyway next to Lee’s Palace. After a minute, Scott gets back up to keep fighting. He tries to kick him, but Todd uses his vegan powers to throw him high into the sky. After landing back down, Ramona opts that he should plan a strategy to gain advantage over Todd and defeat him. Todd threatens (badly) to destroy Scott on Sunday. Before the fight can continue, both parties call it a night and leave.
Skirmish at Honest Ed’s[]
The next day, another battle is hosted at Honest Ed’s. Envy Adams announces the fight, and the two run inside the store to fight.
After making it inside, they are immediately stunned senseless by the cheap prices. Todd points out how he has a highly trained mind, although Scott tells him that they’ll both die. Scott rushes to find protective eyewear, before falling down some stairs. As he assembles a rifle from household items, Todd’s mind begins to break, as he loses control of his vegan powers. Todd attempts to fire at Scott, but his mind breaks, unleashing his vegan powers and destroying the store, making the match a draw.
Bass Battle[]
After Todd attacks Envy Adams, Scott whacks him with his bass guitar, intending to fight him one more time and defeat him. Todd accepts the challenge, summoning his own bass guitar. Todd and Scott proceed to face-off in a bass battle. Todd plays an incredible bass solo, and uses his vegan powers to knock Scott down. The Boys!! and Crash! appear to help Scott; having practiced so hard, their talents have now paid off and they can now manipulate pure sound waves through hard work and will power. They manage to hold off Todd’s powers, but he soon overpowers them, sending the group flying. Scott thinks to himself that Todd is too hard to defeat and he will need some kind of deus ex machina to help.
Immediately, the Vegan Police arrive on scene. Having learned that Todd has broken vegan edge by knowingly consuming gelato earlier, they have arrived to punish him. They use their deveganizing rays to rid him of his vegan powers. Now that Todd is powerless, he screams in defeat as Scott headbutts him, earning cash and an extra life.
Random Encounter[]
One day, whilst returning home from work, an unidentified assailant whizzed past Scott, distracting him. The assailant whizzed past several more times, until finally, Scott hit the person in the boob. The person, a girl, admonished him. Before he could ask who she was, she teleported away.
Ambush at the Happy Avocado[]
One day at work, Scott noticed Ramona having lunch with the mysterious girl. When he interrupted them, Ramona told him that she and the mysterious girl were having lunch. When asked, the girl introduced herself as Roxanne Richter and Ramona tells him they were college roommates. Ramona tells him that after he told over the phone about the earlier encounter, she figured out that it was Roxie, noting that Roxie has put on weight. She also tells him that Roxie is a ninja (although Roxie screams that she is a “half-ninja”). Scott asked if Roxie wanted to kill him because she was dating one of Ramona’s evil exes. When Ramona corrects by saying just “exes”, Scott asks why kept saying that. Ramona told him that it needed no explanation. Roxie sees that Scott doesn’t know what Ramona means, and Scott eventually realizes that Roxie is Ramona’s next ex.
Scott, who doesn’t like to hit girls, cowers behind Ramona. Ramona tells him to man up and fight her, but refuses, using the excuse that Roxie has a sword. Ramona, annoyed, tells him to climb into her Subspace Suitcase and grab a weapon for her so she can fight in his stead. Roxie gets angry that Ramona is taking Scott’s side, telling him that he is cheating on her, and that she isn’t the bad guy in this matter; Ramona, however, tells her to shut up and fight.
Roxie chases them out of the store, wielding her sword, with Ramona wielding a titanium baseball bat. Ramona opens a subspace door using a sub-trac card, and they fight in Subspace. Roxie attacks Ramona, who blocks her with the bat and lands blows on her head and stomach, before kicking her in the face. Roxie questions why they are fighting. Ramona proceeds to insult her, though Roxie retorts that she’s holding back because she still loves Ramona. Roxie phases through her, and attacks her, but Ramona barely manages to block her in time. She pushes Ramona to the ground and leaves the battle.
Battle in Subspace[]
Roxie later invades Scott’s dreams in an attempt to kill him. Roxie attempts to attack with her sword, but he dodges and only loses some hair. Roxie immediately gives chase, revealing that she was the one who opened Ramona’s mind to Subspace. She swings her sword again, and chops off his arm. Scott takes a tumble, with Roxie following. He reminds himself that he is only dreaming, only for her to remind him that people can die in dreams. She tries to kill him again with her sword, as he tells her that he doesn’t want to die in a dream like this. She swings her sword at him again. She requests his last words, but he tells her to stop killing her as he wakes up soon after.
Duel at Ramona Flowers’ Apartment[]
Mr. Chau was ejected from Subspace after an earlier confrontation. He prepared to kill Ramona, but Scott arrived in the nick of time and lets Mr. Chau chase him into Ramona’s apartment, knowing that he was after him, not Ramona. Scott runs up the stairs, with Mr. Chau pursuing him. Roxie Richter is there, while Scott hides in the en suite bathroom.
Roxie asks if he was sent by Gideon to deal with Scott. Frustrated at how no one ever believed in her, Roxie whips her sword out and engages him in combat. Roxie realizes that Chau wasn’t sent by Gideon and Scott had pit him against her to get out of fighting her himself. Scott tells her that he doesn’t like to hit girls, though Roxie and Ramona both point out that it doesn’t give the moral high ground. Roxie and Mr. Chau fall against the balcony railing, breaking it, causing them to fall off the second storey and hit the back lawn. Scott asks Ramona if he really is just a pussy; she tells him he could be less of one.
Hearing this, Scott grabs Ramona and tells her that he doesn’t care for her past and what she’s done, confessing that he loves her and he believes that they make their love work. As a reward, Scott levels up and earns the Power of Love sword. As Ramona watches, Scott prepares to confront Roxie. The two charge towards each other and leap, colliding with each other, and landing on the ground. Roxie, defeated, tells Scott that he will never defeat the Twins, before she splits in half and explodes into woodland creatures.
Duel at Queen and Bathurst[]
The twins, Kyle and Ken, kidnapped Kim to lure Scott to them. Kim texted to him that she was being held at the construction site on Queen and Bathurst. Scott arrived, although he was hungover from tequila from the previous night.
Ken and Kyle called his hangover disrespectful, before engaging him in combat. Kyle tried to kick him, but Scott blocked him, only for Ken to take advantage and knock him down. Ken asked him how Ramona was doing. Scott told him that Ramona was fine, and called out that fighting him together was unfair, as the League members were supposed to fight him one at a time. The Twins tell him that Ramona cheating on them with each other justifies this move, and they have since then pledged to work together. They join hands to activate their Twin-Link and use a Double-Hurricane Kick to send him flying. Even when they tell him that Ramona is a hypocrite, Scott admits that he treated his girlfriends wrongly, but refuses to let the Twins, Gideon, and his past prevent him from being with his true love.
Kim asks Scott if he and Ramona had had a fight before he left to fight the Twins. Although it is true, he denies it. When asked by Ken while dodging a punch, Scott refuses to admit that Ramona’s head had glowed. Kim tries to ask what the Glow means, but Scott asks to change the subject. As Scott blocked one of his punches, Ken told Scott that the reason Ramona came to Toronto for her job; she went there to escape from Gideon and her past, before they attack him with a Simul-Punch.
They tell Scott that Ramona is a runner, telling him that Gideon misses her “services”. Scott tries to keep the fight going, only for Ken to beat him back down with a kick to the gut. They mock his fight for Ramona, asking him if he really thought she’d do the same for him. Kim grabs her phone. Although it’s dead, Kim tells him that Ramona has texted her, asking if Scott is okay and she wants him to come back home. Kim, lying, texts back with, “C’mon! He’s Scott Pilgrim!”. Encouraged, Scott sends the Twins flying with a kick. Ken begins to think that Gideon may have underestimated Scott; hearing this, Scott tells them to inform Gideon that he will be next, before leaping forward and crushing their skulls, earning $79.95 for Ken, $74.95 for Kyle, a $2.00 Twin bonus and unlocking an achievement for defeating them simultaneously.
Showdown at the Chaos Theatre[]
After confronting his mistakes by merging with Nega-Scott, Scott arrived at the Chaos Theatre to fight and destroy Gideon. Envy Adams started to perform, using her lyrics to inform Scott that Gideon was behind him. Gideon punches Scott, but he dodges it, and they assume defensive poses. Scott tries to punch him, but Gideon sidesteps and avoids the punch. Scott asks where Ramona is, and Gideon tells him that he doesn’t know. Gideon tries again to punch him, but Scott backflips to avoid his attack. Gideon sees that Ramona is not with Scott.
Gideon pummels Scott, yelling that his plan had been so meticulously thought out, he’d thought Ramona would stay with Scott. Scott tells him that everything was complicated, but Gideon yells that keeping Ramona should be simple. He rears back and lands a hard punch on Scott’s chest, allowing him to steal the Power of Love from him, and causing Scott to level down. Gideon kicks Scott into a game cabinet. Scott tells him that Ramona is gone. Hearing this, Gideon tells him that this makes him the newest member of the League of Ramona’s Evil Exes; he offers Scott membership, telling him that together they could control Ramona’s future. Scott refuses to join him. Hearing this, Gideon stabs Scott fatally, and he dies.
In the afterlife, Scott wakes up and finds Ramona. Ramona admits to feeling badly messed up in the days leading up to her disappearance, noting that she didn’t want him to get messed up either. She tells him that staying would’ve complicated everything and she’s come back now for herself. She hates herself for running every time, but she wants to change, and apologizes to Scott for not treating him right. As she apologizes, he kisses her. She accepts the kiss, before pulling away to finish her apology. Scott quickly starts kissing her; he lays her on the ground, but she shoves him to the ground and straddles him. He tells her that she is forgiven and since he thinks he’s dreaming, they should make the best of it and make out. She climbs off of him, revealing that he is actually dead; he’s not in Heaven, and unfortunately, she’s not an angel. Scott’s Extra Life that he gained from defeating Todd appears and revives him, sending him back to the battle, with Ramona shooting out of his chest. They prepare to confront Gideon together.
Seeing Ramona’s return, Gideon falls back on his original plan. On his cue, a large cryogenic freezer descends from the ceiling. In six of seven cryo-stasis pods are six girls. He reveals that these girls are his own exes, who got away. He plans to unfreeze them and date them at a time of his choice, but he will only enact this plan once Ramona is frozen amongst the lot. He activates the Glow, and spreads it across the crowd in a laser-like beam, causing everyone’s heads to glow.
Gideon tries to stab at Scott and Ramona, but they dodge the attack. Their glowing heads cause them to argue with each other. Scott asks why he’s still fighting Gideon, saying that she left and she didn’t say anything about defeating Gideon’s “ex-girlfriends ex-boyfriends.” Gideon strikes Scott, telling him how his statements agree with his own and Scott is totally on his side. Ramona tells Scott to look at her and focus on the fact that despite everything, she still came back to him, telling him to finish his quest for love. When Scott asks who started his quest in the first place, Gideon tells him that it was all Ramona’s fault, as Scott avoids another blow. Ramona begins to regret her decision to return, calling the decision a mistake; Scott angrily tells to “go back to wherever the hell you were!”
Ramona tells Scott that the Glow was all Gideon’s creation. Gideon reveals that the League’s creation was entirely accidental: after Ramona left him, he got drunk and complained about her on Craigslist. The other exes all saw his rant, and responded: Gideon saw this as an opportunity to wreak revenge on Ramona. He yells at her for dating all these people. He tries to strike her, but she vaults over him, telling him that they weren’t so bad when she dated them, and that they likely turned to villainy because of his influence. Landing on the ground, Ramona asks why he even wants her back, telling him how he treated her when they were together. Gideon yells at her, calling her an “insolent whore”, before landing another strike on Scott. Scott asks Ramona if she had a plan. Ramona tells him that her plan was “the usual one”; confessing that maybe she couldn’t change, she begins to disappear. Before she can fully disappear, Gideon stabs her in the back.
Gideon immediately pieces together that Ramona rides the Glow into subspace. As she lies dying on the floor and losing blood, Gideon explains to Scott how the Glow is a weapon of emotional warfare, used to seal a victim in their head with their emotional baggage, but Ramona uses it to her advantage. He also explains that it was how he made his fortune and there’s no cure for it, before disappearing.
In his arms, Ramona tells Scott that Gideon only saw their relationship as an experiment, using the Glow and subspace to worm his way into her head.
Scott climbs into Ramona’s Subspace Suitcase, using it to access Ramona’s mindscape. There, sitting on a throne, Gideon holds control over her head. The Slave Ramona sits beside the throne in lingerie, handcuffed on a leash. Scott yells at Gideon to let Ramona go, but he gloats that this is her innermost desire. Scott charges towards Gideon, who grows in size. Scott leaps and headbutts him, sending him, Gideon and Slave Ramon to the ground. Scott grabs Slave Ramona as they fall and land. Gideon explains how the Glow has no effect on him, owing to him being trapped in his mind since childhood, before slicing Scott in half and gloating that he has no power here.
Slave Ramona glints mischievously at Scott, before transforming into the real Ramona. Ramona breaks her handcuffs, grows to size, and confronts Gideon. She confesses that part of her does belong to Gideon. However, she reveals that while it may be true, all her other parts are done with him. She summons these other parts -numerous other past Ramonas- and orders him to get out of her head. He reluctantly complies, but before he does, he raises the Power of Love and attempts to kill Scott again. Before he can strike, Ramona sends forth her army of Ramonas, before ejecting them all out of Subspace and back into the real world, where she blocks Gideon’s strike with her Subspace Suitcase, destroying it, causing the contents to spill out into the real world, sending Gideon flying back, and disarming him.
Ramona grabs the Power of Love, earning it, and healing her stab wound; she declares to Gideon that things between them are officially over. Envy asks Gideon if he is okay, but Gideon proceeds to coldly insult her. Seeing this, Scott reflects on his past relationships, which makes him see that he and Gideon are no different from the other. Upon making this realization, Scott levels up and earns the Power of Understanding sword. Gideon grabs Envy by the back and pulls out a sword he had hidden inside her dress in case of emergencies. He tells Ramona that he is a genius and she, his muse; Ramona tells him he is “a dead genius.”
The final phase of the battle begins. Scott swings his sword at Gideon, but Gideon blocks the attack, gloating that things between Scott and Ramona are never going to work, having witnessed their entire relationship. He and Ramona clash blades. Hearing how Gideon witnessed their relationship, Scott thinks that he was Gideon the cat. Gideon furiously debunks this, which prompts Scott to ask why Ramona named her cat Gideon. Hearing this, Gideon asked Ramona if that was true, but she told him that she had her own way of working out her problems. Gideon pressed a button on the Chaos Theatre’s pyramid stage, activating a staircase. As the three made their way up the stairs, Gideon blocked another blow from Scott. When he tells Scott that his method of spying on them should have been obvious, Ramona finally sees that Gideon was using the subspace highways to get into their heads and control everything: he confirms this, telling them that Scott’s memory problems were due to him tampering with his memories.
Ramona, angry at this revelation, swung her sword hard enough to whack Gideon’s sword out of his hands and send it flying. At their mercy, Gideon slumps onto his knees, gloating how his defeat won’t change anything, as they are each other’s worst enemies. The two consider this for a moment, but then they both agree that for what he’s done, such as tampering with their heads and forming the League of Evil Exes, he is, without contest, much worse. They use an X-Strike on him, cross blades, and cut across him, finally defeating him for good. Gideon explodes into $7,777,777 dollars worth in cash, which all falls very painfully onto the crowd.
Aftermath[]
After defeating Gideon, reconciling with Envy Adams, and talking with their friends, Scott and Ramona left the scene in the elevator. Tired, they embrace. Scott asks Ramona whether or not things could go back to the way they were before. Ramona tells him that things before were never like that, telling him that change is natural for a person’s growth. She finally confesses to Scott why she really runs: she fears commitment, as she feels stuck. She compares it to being swept away by a river, and holding onto something or someone for dear life makes her feel stuck, like she’s not going anywhere. Scott tells that if they try, maybe they could get somewhere with their relationship and she won’t feel that way anymore. He warns her that there will be bumps, but if they stay together, their love will be worth it. He takes her hand, telling her that all they have to do is just hold on. She tells him that she’s not good at holding on, but he repeats words of advice that he had heard earlier from Kim and Wallace: “Hey. You’ll get it. It just takes practice.” Hearing this, Ramona is encouraged to try and she smiles happily at him.
After seeing Knives off at college, Scott climbs up a staircase and meets up with Ramona on top of a hill. Ramona opens up a subspace door. He tells her that they should try their relationship again, a sort of soft reboot for them. Ramona smiles satisfactorily at him and she offers him her hand. He takes her and she pulls him up the rest of the stairs. They look at each other ready for the future, and they jump off into subspace together, holding hands.
Trivia[]
- Unlike every other adaptation, this event is not the main focal point of Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, and instead the main event is the Disappearance of Scott Pilgrim, however it is mentioned that these events still happened for Future Scott Pilgrim.