Polar “Gamester” Tundros
(deceased)
General Facts
Age: 45
Gender: M
Cause of Death
Fatally burned by Jon Crawley’s Magic Advance spell in
Super Battlers 5.
Occupation
Magical Gamer
Appearances
Regular Titles: Books 29 and 37
Super Battlers: Books 3 and 5
Immediate Family
None (assumed)
Character Summary
Polar Tundros, also known as “the Gamester,” first appeared in Book 29, when he
kidnapped Santa Claus from his workshop. The evil, fractured-by-evolution polar
bear then kidnapped the Battlers by tricking them into gathering at Gold
Battler Deyon Davis’s house for a meeting called by Andre Rice and filling up
the house with sleeping gas. As soon as they were asleep, he and his cohort, Funguin
Waddlesworth, brought the Battlers to their Palace of Fun,
where he challenged all of them to play his games. Although all the Battlers
refused, at first, telling them they were holding Santa prisoner changed their
minds.
As they played Gamester’s games, one Battler at a time was eliminated. Deyon
lost in his first game, Ride of Risk. Silver Battler Maurice Eazel lost in the
next game, Musical Despairs. No one lost in the third game, Burning
in the Rain. That struck a negative chord in Gamester and made him start
cheating in the next few games. In the fourth game, Ice Cage, he made White
Battler J.J. Rountree fail to escape his cage in time after he’d successfully
managed to get out. Then, in the game following that, Rolling Blunder, Orange
Battler Kesse lost when he originally rolled a number (twelve) that would beat
Gamester’s number (seven), but Gamester used his magic behind his back to
switch the dice to two. Finally, in the last game, Hide ’n’ Go Sizzle, while
Green Battler Aaron Rountree and Red Battler Jon
Crawley were hiding, he peeked and saw where they hid, which helped him
find Aaron, but not Jon.
Gamester, with only Jon left, treated him to attend the Feast of the Champion.
Jon agreed to attend it, but that’s when he found out from Funguin that
Gamester had cheated to make sure he was the last Battler left. After that,
Gamester decided to carry out his plans for Jon — making a meal out of him.
There was a motto in the Palace
of Fun: “Strive to be the
winner!” But Jon found out the second part of it: “Become the Gamester’s
dinner.” Gamester was about to eat Jon alive when Funguin saved him and led him
to a safe place to hide.
Gamester spent a short time looking for Jon and Funguin and as soon as he found
them, Jon challenged him to a final challenge — a winner-take-all challenge. If
Jon won, he’d release the other Battlers, whom he’d turned into game pieces,
and Santa. If Gamester won, he could eat Jon and Funguin. Gamester accepted and
challenged Jon to a deadly, lifelike game of rock, paper, scissors.
The loser would fall into a boiling-hot pot of water. Although Gamester had the
upper hand, at first, Jon came back and beat him. As Gamester plummeted into
the pot, he vowed Jon hadn’t seen the last of him. He’s been Jon’s ultimate
enemy ever since.
He popped up again
in Super Battlers 3 as a participant in Bin
Dare’s tournament on Dare
Island. He faced off
against Jon in his ice cave arena. He also faced off against Vivian
DiCapa, Maurice’s girlfriend, since she was with Jon. (The rules of the
tournament were that everyone present had to participate in battles.) Instead
of fighting, they just played one of his favorite games — Swing or Surrender.
He’d swing from rope to rope behind Jon and Vivian as they did the same thing
while trying to reach a podium at the end of the course. If Gamester caught
them first, anyone he grabbed would automatically lose. He would’ve caught
Vivian had Jon not boldly sacrificed himself to make Gamester catch him,
instead. So he let Vivian go. But as his prize, he ate Jon. He happily enjoyed
having finally eaten Jon, but his happiness was short-lived when Jon (off-page)
climbed up his throat and out of his mouth, since his stomach wall was
magically shielded by Dare against any attempt to burst out of it. The first
time, he just got re-swallowed, but the second time was a success. So Gamester
was left high and dry — and without Jon in his stomach.
Gamester returned in
Book 37 and brought Deyon and Jon, along with Shauna Davidson and Diahandra
Christian, the Blue and Purple Battlers, who’d just returned to Alexandria, back to his Palace of Fun
to take part in another round of games. This time, however, there would
be three prizes — a spell to get Maurice out of his coma (which he’d
been in since Book 33, thanks to Liam
DiCapa), the antidote to Aaron’s poison (he’d been poisoned in Book 36),
and a kidnapped-from-captivity J.J. (Gamester had kidnapped J.J. from DiCapa,
who’d kidnapped him in Book 34). The four Battlers accepted his challenge. But
Diahandra was eliminated in the very first game, Rueful Roulette. But Deyon,
Jon, and Shauna managed to win and get the antidote for Aaron as the reward.
Both Deyon and Shauna were eliminated in the second game, Chaotic Cards. Jon
alone managed to win and was rewarded with the spell to awaken Maurice from his
coma.
Jon faced Gamester
by himself in the final game, the Battle Game. If Jon won by scoring more
points in the battle, Gamester would release J.J. But if Gamester won by
scoring more points, he’d get to eat Jon. Though Gamester got the upper hand,
at first, Jon used his two Battler Animals — his fire-breathing dragon, Pyro,
and his cat, Torch — to defeat him. (Gamester, as a bonus, finally learned that
Jon had taken possession of Torch, who’d formerly belonged to him.) However,
Gamester broke his deal with Jon of releasing J.J. from his captivity and ate
him instead. But Jon used a Volcanic Eruption spell on Gamester to make him
change his mind. So Gamester threw J.J. up and he left his Palace of Fun
with Jon. So for the third time, Gamester had lost the battle — and his chance
to put Jon in his stomach.
Gamester didn’t return
for quite a long time. But he finally came back for his last and final
appearance in Super Battlers 5. Having been tipped off an anonymous source that
Jon would be up near the North Pole with Aaron, searching for six lost Battler Crystals,
he quickly sought them out himself, found them, and lay in wait for his quarry.
To make their visit more interesting (and possibly fatal), he magically forced them
to play two deadly, life-sized games. The first was a giant game of chess, in which
the pieces on sides on board to forced to try and kill Aaron and Jon, but only within
the rules of the game. Jon quickly figured this out and used that knowledge to make
the queen piece of one side defeat and destroy the king piece of the other side,
thus granting them freedom from the game. However, he wasn’t giving up on
trying to get rid of the two boys that
easily. He then coaxed them both coaxed them into a cave that actually served as
a secret entrance into his Palace
of Fun. And once they’d gone
through it, they found themselves trapped on a giant roulette wheel. A roulette
wheel that saw one of its numbers and spaces at a time vaporized by an enormous
laser whenever a ball landed on it. Jon managed to escape a glass box Gamester had
magically trapped him in, but just as he was about to free Aaron, as well, Gamester
brought Jon to a room of his palace that he was in, separating the two boys.
Now that Gamester had
revealed himself to his long-hated prey, he challenge him
to face him in one final battle. If Jon won, he’d get the Battler Crystals he’d
found before the boys had gotten there. But if Gamester won, he’d finally get to
eat Jon, this time with no chance of escaping from his stomach. Jon accepted, and
the battle instantly got underway. Jon got a few good hits on Gamester, but Gamester
proved to be a more formidable opponent than his last battle with Jon in Book 37
and just clobbered him with a series of
game- and toy-related attacks and spells. He even managed to destroy most of Jon’s
Battler costume, revealing quite a bit of skin and almost rendering him completely
naked! But Jon, knowing he needed to defeat him before a ball landed on Aaron’s
space of the roulette wheel and anxious to stop that from happening, cast a Magic
Advance spell and pummeled Gamester with a barrage of giant fireballs that came
down at him from the sky. The fireballs burned Gamester mercilessly, and by the
time the spell had been cast, he’d been mortally wounded. With his last few breaths,
he kept his word to Jon and gave him the Battler Crystals he’d certainly earned,
said his final goodbyes to the prey he now knew he’d never get another chance to
eat, and then died. And with him dead, he could no longer sustain his Palace of Fun with his magic, and so it came crashing
down, but not before Jon rescued Aaron and the two boys escaped alive.
Gamester was Jon’s
ultimate enemy. His tendency to speak most of his lines like a game show host
made him quite an annoyance to Jon and the other Battlers. However, his game- and
toy-related magic made him a surprisingly fierce opponent for Jon to face.
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