Contender

## About

**Contender** is a Rare Character that can be found and recruited via an Event. She is depicted as a tough, black haired woman in a Boxer's outfit, complete with head guard.

When Contender joins the party her Strength, Fitness and Attitude stats are revealed. Her Strength starts at 4, while her Fitness and Attitude start at 6. She has a +3 bonus to Fitness, making her effective Fitness 9. She also has a Vitality of 5. In addition, she always starts with 0 Shooting.

The Contender is very strong and is a powerful fighter, but is unable to pick up any weapons as she will only use her boxing gloves.

## Encounter Text

### **Upon Encounter**

*The group checks out an abandoned boxing gym and finds a woman there in full boxing gear. She is wailing on a punching bag with blistering speed. Her responses in conversation are all non-sequitur, random sayings about boxing.*

### **Upon Recruiting**

*Contender punches her gloves together. Time for some road training!*

### **If Party is full**

*Contender gets pretty agitated about everyone crowding her to ask her to join. She unleashes a big uppercut right to [Random Character]'s chin. Yeah, that's a real knockout punch! The team wonders if they should make room for the boxer...*

```
[Character] -1 Health (non-lethal)
Choice to leave Contender behind or boot someone out to make room

```

## Quotes

* *"One two... one two..."*
* *"I'm brutal and ruthless!"*
* *"You're not Alexander!"*
* *"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee..."*
* *"Coach, I'm ready for the championship!"*
* *"Speed's what's important, speed wins, speed kills..."*
* *"Gotta keep my training up."*
* *"Who's sparring with me next?"*
* *"Last fight seemed like the other guy was under the weight class..."*
* *"Stick and move... stick and move..."*
* *"I'm gonna punch that zombie!"*
* *"It's all about the footwork!"*
* *"What would coach have me do right now?"*
* *"When I get out of this I'm so firing my Promotions Manager."*
* *"This is all my Promotions Manager's fault!"*
* *"I remember my first fight with 'Glass-Jaw Joe', I lost."*

## Epilogue

*"One-two... one-two... I'm brutal and ruthless!"*

*Contender ran around punching things and muttering. People, animals, statues, you name it.*

## Special Abilities

**Contender's** unique weapon, the boxing gloves, can kill most Zombies in 1 or 2 hits. In addition to her high damage basic attack, she also utilizes a special ability called "**Uppercut**" which causes her to fling an uppercut that can hit multiple zombies knocking them over, dealing more damage, but has a longer cooldown and is more tiring. When under player control, the Uppercut is accessed via the 'Swap' key. Contender will never use the Uppercut while controlled by the AI, which should be considered when selecting the team leader.

## Trivia

* She may be based on Little Mac from the Punch-Out!! video games, as evidenced by a quote about losing a fight to 'Glass-Jaw Joe', a possible reference to Glass Joe from the same series.
* She may also based on the character Rocky from the Rocky Movies.
	+ If Contender is indeed based on Rocky, that means there are two characters based on roles played by actor Sylvester Stallone, the other being Rambeux.
* Sometimes, in a mission, she quotes different boxers, like Muhammad Ali's infamous line, "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee."
* If you win with Contender you will earn the **World Champ** cheevo.
* Although she is always known as the "Contender", her Cheevo refers to her as the "Boxer". This is also the name she is referred to with in the game's files.
* Her name is set to "Champ" in the O\*P\*P lobby.

 Driving