Timeline of the Skullgirls story

[Cellsai]

Skullgirls Mobile is set before the events of the console game Skullgirls 2nd Encore. So far all of the story content in SGM has been focused on setting up the events of SG2E. This is fine! Many players of SGM have never played SG2E, so they need to be brought up to speed.

However, it came up in another thread that someone wanted to know the whole story currently available, and here we are!

There were grand plans for a canon story mode in the console Skullgirls called The Nightmare Legacy, but it apparently needed Dahlia, Marie and Umbrella to be playable before Lab Zero started on it, so it never appeared. Currently all we have to go on for the story is the Origins in SGM and individual character stories from SG2E. The latter are all non-canon and contradict each other all over the place, but there are a few events that do happen in all stories, so I've recapped those below.

There's a lot more to the story than what I have below! If you have any questions or spot any mistakes, feel free to discuss!

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The quick and dirty timeline of events is:

Hundreds/Thousands of years ago:
Parasites are worshipped as gods. Sekhmet (Eliza's), Samson (Filia's) and Leviathan (Squigly's) all get into a big fight. Some pretty major parasites die and eventually parasites fade into being a taboo, unwelcome topic.
The mysterious shapeshifter Double begins offering the Skull Heart to women every 7 years, offering them wishes but turning them into increasingly stronger monsters known as Skull Girls.

??? Years Ago:
The Canopy Kingdom creates the Anti-Skullgirl Labs, special research and development units all focused on finding and killing Skullgirls.
Big Band is working for the New Meridian police, but is betrayed by crooked cops. They beat him and leave him for dead. Lab 8 recruits him, healing his wounds and turning him into an anti-Skullgirl weapon.
Lorenzo Medici becomes leader of the Medici Mafia. He is an incredibly old man who is secretly kept young by using the magical Life Gem.

14 Years Ago:
The Contiellos are valued clients of the Medici Mafia. Double presents the Contiello family with the Skull Heart, but Lorenzo Medici has them all murdered so that he can claim it. Sienna "Squigly" Contiello is one of the victims and Squigly's mother becomes the Skullgirl. In a desperate attempt to save her, Leviathan grafts himself onto Squigly. Big Band is instrumental in defeating the Skullgirl.

7 Years Ago:
The Gigan Nation, Chess Kingdom and Canopy Kingdom are in the midst of the Grand War. The Anti-Skullgirl Labs are greatly expand into questionable projects with little oversight. Beowulf becomes a national hero of the Canopy Kingdom when he defeats a massive Gigan (and that Gigan's mother) in a wrestling match.
Parasoul's mother wishes on the Skull Heart to end the war. It twists her wish by turning her into the most powerful Skullgirl ever seen. All three nations have to band together to stop her and while they are successful, they leave a devastated wasteland called No Man's Land between them. An uneasy peace emerges.

Present:
[All the stories sort of collide here, so it's easiest to just go over them person by person, but remember nothing is fully canon yet.]
The Skullgirl Marie appears in No Man's Land. She vows vengeance against the Medici Mafia, who killed or enslaved many of her friends who managed to survive in No Man's Land. Although she is fighting it's corrupting influence, the Skull Heart is rapidly taking her over.

Valentine and a squad of assassins set out to stop Marie before she grows in power. Double and Marie wipe out her squad, but Valentine surrenders and joins them. The Anti-Skullgirl Labs do not know she is now working for the Skullgirl. Secretly she is working deep undercover to find a way to destroy the Skull Heart once and for all.

Parasoul is princess of the Canopy Kingdom and tries to root out the Medici Mafia which has effectively taken over New Meridian. Parasoul drops her war on the Mafia when Marie appears in New Meridian. Parasoul discovers her sister Umbrella was conceived while her mother was the Skullgirl, giving her a strange connection to the Heart.

Filia has no memories, but seems to have some sort of connection to the Medici Mafia. She is now host to the parasite Samson who knows more about her past, but isn't saying anything. He has fallen a long way since his lofty past and is now a crass drunk.

Painwheel was a normal school girl who knew Filia in some capacity. She was kidnapped by Valentine and brought to Brain Drain's secret Lab 0. They infect her with Skullgirl blood and graft artificial parasites onto her. She becomes the ultimate anti-Skullgirl weapon, but is turned into a barely controlable rage monster in the process.

Peacock is one of Marie's friends from No Man's Land. She is rescued from her Medici captors by Lab 8, who do save her, but also turn her into an anti-Skullgirl weapon. She's a lot happier with this process than Painwheel.

Beowulf discovers that his wrestling match back in the Great War was rigged as a form of propaganda and he comes out of retirement to prove he's the real deal.

Squigly has been dead for 14 years. When Marie arrives in New Meridian she raises all of the dead in the city and creates an army of zombies. Squigly is revived along with them, but her parasite Leviathan prevents Marie from taking control of her.

Big Band is now a father figure to all of the younger Lab 8 recruits.

Ms. Fortune is a thief opperating out of New Meridian's Little Innsmouth. She and her team get in over their heads when they try to steal from Lorenzo Medici. They're all murdered and chopped up for good measure... but not before Fortune swallows the Life Gem, making her immortal. Without the Life Gem, Lorenzo is aging rapidly and he desperately wants it back before he dies.

Cerebella is the star of the Cirque des Cartes, a hugely popular circus centered on the River King Casino. Unknown to most people, des Cartes is actually part of the Medici Mafia and handles a lot of leg breaking and debt collection for them. She is infatuated with her father figure Vitale Medici who took her in as a child. Lorenzo orders Vitale to recover the Life Gem, and sends Cerebella to do it.

Eliza, long fallen from the grace of being worshipped as a god has been switching identities for countless years. She is now a renowned singer in New Meridian, famous for running charity blood drives. Secretly she uses this blood to feed her parasite Sekhmet. The Medici Mafia eventually find out her secret and blackmail her into working for them. The Medicis don't understand how dangerous Eliza really is however, and have awakened a lust for power they may not be able to contain. [Note, Eliza is actually supposed to be the main villain of the second arc of Skullgirls' story]

Robo Fortune and Fukua are mostly non-canon. Robo is a robot based on Ms Fortune, built by Brain Drain. Fukua is a... dream? clone? Try not to think about it too much!

 

[Kokonut]

Oh wow thanks! Great to see the timeline laid out.
What do you mean the SG2E character stories are non-canon? I have noticed they contradict each other a lot. (Like, Painwheel apparently goes to live in four different parellel universes...) But they were all part of the games, right?

 

[Cellsai]

Oh wow thanks! Great to see the timeline laid out.
What do you mean the SG2E character stories are non-canon? I have noticed they contradict each other a lot. (Like, Painwheel apparently goes to live in four different parellel universes...) But they were all part of the games, right?

Each of the stories is a What If scenario. At the end of Double's story you see that all of the SG2E stories were actually just Aeon and Venus playing Skullgirls.
They're all stories that *could* happen, but in many cases it's really unlikely.

 

[Psyche]

This is one of the achievements for the game on Steam. It basically states that each story is its own string of events independent from the others, though the strings do get tangled a bit at some points. Technically the achievement is earned from completing the story as the original base game cast, but I believe we are meant to treat all of the characters' stories in the same way. Except maybe the giant blood armour Vs. mech duel.

Squigly is murdered when the Medici Mafia appear at her home.

I think it might be worth mentioning that Squigly is a nickname and not the girl's real name. Her name is Sienna Contiello and she is a member of the main rival mafia family to the Medicis, which is why the latter stormed the Contiello mansion and assassinated them all.

Painwheel was a normal school girl who knew Filia in some capacity. She was kidnapped by Valentine and brought to Brain Drain's secret Lab 0.

Peacock is one of Marie's friends from No Man's Land. She is rescued from her Medici captors by Lab 8, who do save her, but also turn her into an anti-Skullgirl weapon.

Just a note that these happened at the same time.

Spoiler: SGM Origin Stories (Big Band & Valentine)

There is a particular incident where the Medicis are holding a group of No Man's Land survivors/refugees as hostages for some nefarious reason, but the ASG labs forces storm the place and rescue the hostages which include Patricia, soon to become Peacock. However, a lone schoolgirl is caught in the crossfire somehow - she is neither a hostage nor one of the mafiosi, but has no affiliation with the Anti-Skullgirl labs. After a brief scan of the girl (presumably either out of curiosity or using an automatic device) Valentine, still working for the Last Hope - the elite black ops squad of the ASG organisation - notices that the innocent child, whose name is Carol, is compatible with as yet untested prototype technologies invented to fight the Skullgirl. After briefly consulting her overall director of operations, Brain Drain, she takes Carol to Lab 0 headquarters (we would hope painlessly) where the human experimentation commences.

 

[Cellsai]

I think it might be worth mentioning that Squigly is a nickname and not the girl's real name. Her name is Sienna Contiello and she is a member of the main rival mafia family to the Medicis, which is why the latter stormed the Contiello mansion and assassinated them all.

I actally had thought about including the Contiello thing, but opted to remove it for the sake of brevity. So many of the cast use nicknames I wasn't sure about singling out Squigly. I went back and added it though!
While doing that I also realized I misunderstood the relationship between the Contiellos and Medici. I thought they were rivals too, but according to the official profiles on Skullgirls.com they're not.

Updated text:

14 Years Ago:
The Contiellos are valued clients of the Medici Mafia. Double presents the Contiello family with the Skull Heart, but Lorenzo Medici has them all murdered so that he can claim it. Sienna "Squigly" Contiello is one of the victims and Squigly's mother becomes the Skullgirl. In a desperate attempt to save her, Leviathan grafts himself onto Squigly. Big Band is instrumental in defeating the Skullgirl.

 

[Psyche]

Ah, I see. I must’ve made assumptions somewhere along the line too, then. I probably followed the prohibition era east coast Italian-American mafia archetype too far. My bad. This makes it interesting, though. Does this mean Lorenzo is just bloodthirsty? It’s like he embodies all seven sins, because he doesn’t even have the right to look for revenge here if they’re supposed to have an allied working relationship.

Oh and I did the real names just so people know what’s going on when SG2E veterans talk about the lore and throw pre-combat ready names into the mix.

 

[Wulfden]

Ah, I see. I must’ve made assumptions somewhere along the line too, then. I probably followed the prohibition era east coast Italian-American mafia archetype too far. My bad. This makes it interesting, though. Does this mean Lorenzo is just bloodthirsty? It’s like he embodies all seven sins, because he doesn’t even have the right to look for revenge here if they’re supposed to have an allied working relationship.

Lorenzo is pretty much in a loop of "I need the skull heart to persevere" because he was using the life gem along with his son Vitale to stay eternally young before Fortune wound up in the mess and basically stole it. Assuming he's gone mad trying to take the heart in order to stay back on top, you can definitely say that he's just a man off the deep end with nothing to lose but everything to gain with the Heart (Just... The whole "Only women can ask for the wish" deal)

I don't recall if I read somewhere before that Lorenzo is banking on Black Dahlia to wish on the Heart for him or it's implied that Dahlia would wish for him, it seems a bit weird aside from the political / power aspect to have the Heart if it can only grant wishes to women. After all, he did kill the Contiellos via Mafia muscle in the form of Black Dahlia's bunny girls, it's shown that Lorenzo is exactly what the Skullheart is meant to warn people of: Excessive power only leads to destruction. (Bonus points if you know where that's from pfftt)

I wanna ponder the theory that maybe Lorenzo really is getting to be unhinged at the start of the story modes, especially how Squigly points out that something else "hurt him, and he won't last." It may even all well be for naught, since Black Dahlia used to work for the ASG, who says she can't simply turn on him (say if he DID got the heart) and use it for her own end? I think she's the real interesting piece in Lorenzo's thirst for power here.

 

[Psyche]

Lorenzo is pretty much in a loop of "I need the skull heart to persevere" because he was using the life gem along with his son Vitale to stay eternally young before Fortune wound up in the mess and basically stole it. Assuming he's gone mad trying to take the heart in order to stay back on top, you can definitely say that he's just a man off the deep end with nothing to lose but everything to gain with the Heart (Just... The whole "Only women can ask for the wish" deal)

I don't recall if I read somewhere before that Lorenzo is banking on Black Dahlia to wish on the Heart for him or it's implied that Dahlia would wish for him, it seems a bit weird aside from the political / power aspect to have the Heart if it can only grant wishes to women. After all, he did kill the Contiellos via Mafia muscle in the form of Black Dahlia's bunny girls, it's shown that Lorenzo is exactly what the Skullheart is meant to warn people of: Excessive power only leads to destruction. (Bonus points if you know where that's from pfftt)

I wanna ponder the theory that maybe Lorenzo really is getting to be unhinged at the start of the story modes, especially how Squigly points out that something else "hurt him, and he won't last." It may even all well be for naught, since Black Dahlia used to work for the ASG, who says she can't simply turn on him (say if he DID got the heart) and use it for her own end? I think she's the real interesting piece in Lorenzo's thirst for power here.

Mhm, Dahlia is definitely one of those pieces from the middle of the jigsaw puzzle without which the picture doesn’t make sense. But didn’t Lorenzo still have the Life Gem at the time of the Contiello incident? I thought Ms. Fortune’s story pretty much started and ended with Marie as the latest Skullgirl?

 

[Wulfden]

Mhm, Dahlia is definitely one of those pieces from the middle of the jigsaw puzzle without which the picture doesn’t make sense. But didn’t Lorenzo still have the Life Gem at the time of the Contiello incident? I thought Ms. Fortune’s story pretty much started and ended with Marie as the latest Skullgirl?

Yup, I was just using the life gem to illustrate what Lorenzo had at the time before he sorta goes unhinged. Assumedly, the life gem incident is around Mobile™ timing of like, 7 months or so before Marie so yeah: She's still current events really.

The problem with this tho is: Without the life gem, does this mean that the amount of time that was stalled literally comes back in a matter of minutes for Lorenzo to age so much? Or was it in the span of the months before Marie arises again? Because if so, Vitale obviously hasn't aged as much as one would imagine or think (Probably because he likely only used it for a little bit of a while unlike his father) but that is still yet to be said.

 

[Cellsai]

I got the impression that Ms. Fortune's whole thing had happened very recently before SG 2nd Encore starts up, meaning it's only been a few days/weeks since Lorenzo has started falling apart. No real evidence to point to a concrete timetable of that though.

Is there any indication that Vitale even uses the Life Gem? He's never shown in older flashbacks, and could be exactly as old as he looks.

 

[Psyche]

Indeed, I thought Vitale was all natural. I would love to know more about the Fishbone Gang though.

 

[Wulfden]

I got the impression that Ms. Fortune's whole thing had happened very recently before SG 2nd Encore starts up, meaning it's only been a few days/weeks since Lorenzo has started falling apart. No real evidence to point to a concrete timetable of that though.

Is there any indication that Vitale even uses the Life Gem? He's never shown in older flashbacks, and could be exactly as old as he looks.

I used the SG wiki since there was an article that stated the family used the life gem to stay in power much like Lorenzo since there's a picture of Vitale on the Medici tower stage that "seems" to be an older version of him along with what is considered "Filia's father". That piece could simply just be only theorized, but I only assumed the family shared it just so they wouldn't really have reason to worry about age / death. (assuming if Lorenzo had Vitale in the prime of his youth, it wouldn't be far fetched for Lorenzo to let Vitale use the Life gem for a taste of its power / show off his power and show how important it is to them I imagine?) We don't really have any concrete evidence that anyone else sans Lorenzo had used the life gem so I'll retract it till it's confirmed!

That said though, it's definitely true there is no real correct "timing" aside from Fortune being perfectly "put together" at the time of Mobile (Which was, I think, a few good few months before Marie rises? I don't recall the specific timing but it's said that Marie rises up in the fall? Dunno if that means Mobile takes place in the spring or late summer.) But if that's the case, then that must mean by the time SGE™ comes out in the timeline Lorenzo has aged back to what he "should" be like you said since Fortune had to have swiped and took the gem for herself just before having to die and come back again.

Thank you for clearing that up for me!