Anyway, the day before the brawl brought out quite a variety of actions from the brawlers who entered. I have here ten vignettes I managed to snag as I totally-did-not-stalk the people as they performed their last preparations. Hope you enjoy!
1
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The Drunken Gryphon was abuzz with action and activity the day before the brawl. The barkeeper had introduced a 1% off discount for thirsty brawl fans, and that had people there in droves. The people who came for the beer hadn’t expected to see so many brawlers there as well, and one fiter was taking the moment to bask in the glory of the people.
“Why yes, I’m sure I have this fite well planned out,” Tak-Sin said to a crowd of interested listeners. “Morgan and I have spent many hours training and preparing for this confrontation, and I am sure you will not be disappointed by our performance in the arena.”
“Well, if you have a plan, what is it?” An interested voice called from the back. It wasn’t a fan though, it was Scorpion. The young merfolk prince had caught his eye ever since the ninja came to scope out the world’s fiters in preparation for the brawl, but he had made the classic mistake of interpreting the prince to be a princess.
Tak-Sin could see in the ninja’s eyes that Scorpion was smitten, and rather than try to talk tough, Tak-Sin feigned weakness, “Oh, we have quite a few plans, but that mystery fiter has thrown us for a loop! We cannot possibly predict who it is, and I am afraid we might not be able to handle it alone…”
Scorpion pushed through the crowd and thrust a thumb into his chest, “Well I’M not afraid of some mystery fiter! If it is protection you need mi’lady, well I got the right stuff!”
A few murmurs came from the crowd from people who were confused about Tak-Sin’s gender themselves, but Tak-Sin eagerly accepted Scorpion’s help with a clap, “Why thank you Scorpion! I feel so much safer now that I have a big strong protector to keep me safe during the brawl.”
“Yarr?” Morgan asked, but Tak-Sin waved Morgan off and turned back to his adoring fans. There was one face amongst the crowd that was even more transfixed on Tak-Sin than Scorpion had been. The glimmering sheen of Tak-Sin’s clothes ignited a gold lust in the tiny heart of the imp Grutz. He was working his way through the crowd, and once he finally got close enough he tried to swipe the jeweled belt of Tak-Sin.
Both Morgan and Scorpion were quick to lunge at the imp, but Tak-Sin stuck his hands out to hold back his bodyguards. Grutz scurried away, but Tak-Sin called out to the little fellow and waved a coin of gold. Grutz returned, and then the merfolk prince tossed it toward the imp.
“Looks like I earned another friend.”
Grutz graciously took the gold, but he was off quickly to try and find more. It appears a treasure lust was strong in this one.
The business of the bar bothered two fiters as they sat around a table with a big piece of parchment in front of them.
“Alright 17, you helped Stanley out pretty well in that one fite, so I was thinking maybe we could work together to take down a few competitors in this big dust-up.”
17 nodded in approval, happy that Clint was willing to aid him in the brawl.
“Now, I think we should go for that big mammoth first. His skin is deteriorated a bit which should make it easier for us to-“
Clint was interrupted when a small man in green came over and slammed his drink on the table. “Don’t listen to the man, little crab. He’s trying to give you bum tips so ya can get killed!” Aiden Thane gulped down some ale to punctuate his sentence, but Clint was quickly on the defensive.
“What would you know, you dumb leprechaun?”
“Not a leprechaun lad, a claurichaun.”
“I couldn’t care less. We’re trying to plan here, and I’m sure your wee brain couldn’t understand it, so butt out!”
“Oh, I get ya. Send the crab to his death, and that’s just 38 folks left. Picking on the little guys, eh?
“For your information, I will be helping 17 out, and I’m only picking the big guys first because that’s what I know how to fite! If I knew how to fite little guys, we’d be going for them first!”
17 was getting increasingly cramped as the two fought. With each scream, the two got closer and closer to butting heads, and 17 had enough. He pushes them apart with his claws and tries his best to defuse the situation.
“aLliEs?” the crab suggested.
“No way, but I won’t waste any more time on this worthless drunk,” Clint said, popping his parchment up to hide the poorly drawn plans he had scrawled on it.
“Don’t worry little crab, I’ll try to avoid you meself. Can’t make the same promise for this stubborn bloke.”
Aiden walked away from the table and out of the tavern, muttering to himself. “Not able to handle the wee folk, are ya? I’ll keep that in mind…”
2
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Prior to the start of the Brawl, a small group of competitors had been whisked away to a strange building. The place was grey and bland, and the many pieces of machinery in the place seemed to be mostly for decoration. There was one machine that was working, and that’s why a few of the competitors had been brought to the building under penalty of disqualification from the Brawl if they did not comply.
Swackhammer wanted the huge droves of money that a Big Bar Brawl could bring in, but he didn’t want the soil of his home planet tainted by dark forces. To try and avoid this, Swackhammer had brought five of the more questionable competitors to be evaluated by the machine to see if their taint may stain the arena. Among them were Permafrost, whose nature as a revived creature put him in questionable undead status. A few of the others were undoubtedly undead though, and to make sure their viruses or curses were self-contained or at least not airborne. Aevar, Forscythe, and Deadhead were all brought there to be evaluated by the machine.
Doomrider had tagged along as well, trying to keep track of Aevar before the brawl’s start. The two had previously discussed possible temporary armistices against other competitors, and Aevar had asked for some aid in trying to do the social part of the alliance that such a thing entailed. Permafrost was the first in the machine, and as the mammoth’s body was searched for unholy energies that may infect Moron Mountain, Aevar attempted small talk with Forscythe and Deadhead.
“Hail fellow warriors. It is a shame we must subject ourselves to these tests, is it not?”
Doomrider was quickly in Aevar’s ear, or at least near to where one would be. “Be less rigid man, these guys won’t respond to some frozen asshole. Unless they are frozen assholes themselves…”
Forscythe turned to Aevar, “I am not pleased with being subjected to these tests, but I have undergone many physicals and health evaluations in both life and death. It does not bother me so much as waste my time.”
Deadhead said nothing, he just stared off into the distance.
Aevar tried his best to unfreeze socially, “This is time better spent training for the battle, not passing an unnecessary test. We must regain some of the lost ground somehow. Perhaps a mutual agreement not to battle each other to make up for the lost time, a truce until such a thing needed to be broken.”
Forscythe considered it briefly. He did not want to be on the other end of Aevar’s sword if he didn’t have to be. “I have already allied myself with my fellow Masque member, but perhaps we can expand our alliance to include you as well.”
Permafrost’s screening completed and he was approved for battle. The mammoth lumbered out of the room, and it was now Deadhead’s turn to be screened.
“Good job buddy, but don’t let the nazi guy get away!” Doomrider whispered.
“Halt, before you submit yourself to the machination, what say you to this band of allies we have created?”
Deadhead stopped his slow shamble towards the machine and turned around. The jaw of the nazi hung open and emitted a dry growl that would have rattled bones if the only one’s present weren’t composed of unnatural anatomies.
“I think that’s a no…” Doomrider said, and Deadhead continued his walk to the machine. The tests began, but the machine quickly began quaking and steaming. There was a huge explosion, and when the smoke cleared Deadhead stood in the decimated device.
“WELL! I guess you’re all screened for battle! It didn’t get no bad readings because it broke, so everything’s all good, right?” Doomrider laughed and took off on his bike, leaving the three undead fiters to find their own way out of the damaged building.
3
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When Aiden walked out of the bar, he passed a tiny campfire where Pozzo and his wagon had set up for the afternoon. The fire had been started a bit early, but it was apparent that he were cooking some food on the fire to try and whet the appetite of the troll who was locked to the front of the wagon. He was not going to feed him though, relying on the strength of a starving beast desperate for food to propel his slave to victory.
Gunter had been walking around when he smelled the fried fish that Pozzo and Briar were frying to tantalize the troll. Gunter waddled over, but the camp was blocked off by the wagon and a makeshift wood fence that Lucky could only peer over desperately. Gunter felt the troll’s pain, although the penguin had not been starving to the same degree Lucky was. Rather than try to find out a way to get into the encampment, Gunter conjured up a huge pile of fishsticks in front of himself with the Demonic Wishing Eye. Lucky didn’t even ask before he began shoveling mounds of the fried fish into his own mouth, content to have finally found a meal. Gunter didn’t mind, since the penguin had conjured up more fish than he could eat anyway.
Carla was walking towards the Drunken Gryphon when she spotted the strange sight of the troll and penguin sharing a pile of fish. Carla was enamored with the little penguin, but when she went over to investigate, Lucky got incredibly defensive of his food pile. The beast growled and tried to reach out towards her, but the wagon he was locked to prevented him from instantly crushing the girl. Pozzo and Briar were startled to see the wagon lurching forward, and as soon as they realized their troll was active, the beast began to receive heavy shocks from the collar it wore. Lucky was on his knees in pain, and Briar was instantly by Carla’s side.
“Please don’t bother our troll.” Briar then saw the pile of fishsticks, and not knowing the penguin’s powers, he immediately pinned the blame on Carla. “And please don’t feed him.”
Carla was whimpering from the almost-troll-attack, so she had no problem leaving the group alone. Gunter, however, was still eating the fishsticks. The shock collar prodded Lucky to move away, but he wanted to eat the fish so badly. As he marched forward, the troll continued to look back, his rage building for the penguin who got to eat all it wanted without having a worry in the world.
4
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A temporary training site for Scorched Earth had been built by the Society in a building not unlike the one Deadhead and the other undead fiters had been called to. Unlike that building though, the machinery in this one was devoted to taking readings of Scorched Earth’s power and other statistics. As the Society’s representative in the brawl, they wanted to ensure he put on a good show.
Scorched Earth blasted training dummies with heat blasts and scorched flying targets, but a sudden crash nearby caused the superhuman to cease training.
“What was that?” He asked the group of attendants who were running the training program for him.
“Uh… We don’t know how, but this pig got in here and its knocking all kinds of stuff over. It’s wearing some red costume too, I think he’s from the brawl.”
“Whatever, it’s just a pig. Get him outta here so I can go back to breaking targets.”
There was another crash, but this time it was from the training course. The Custard Kittens had also found their way into the building, and their slimy bodies were spilling custard into important gears and mechanisms. Scorched Earth prepares to blast the cats, but an angry voice on the intercom interrupts him.
“Killing an opponent before the brawl is strictly prohibited, and would lead to your disqualification. Just wait for our custodians to come in there and clean them up.”
“HEYOOOO, What’s going on in here?” WALL!!’s face appeared in the room with the intercom and was busy making a ruckus for the overseers of Scorched Earth’s training.
“What now?” Scorched Earth asked, but all the Society’s employees were all too busy trying to shoo out the tiny fiters that they had no time to respond. It wasn’t until a few hours later that all three intruding fiters were expelled from the factory.
“Scorched Earth, we cannot figure out why, but those competitors infiltrated our testing base and may have gathered confidential information. During the Brawl, you must-“
“No, I’m not fiting those guys! They are just a bunch of small wimps! You actually think a pig stole vital data from you all?”
“Well… He was wearing a costume.”
“Just let me fite who I want to fite. That’s how I’ll do my best. The moment you bog me down with orders on who to kill is the moment some big guy gets the drop on me.”
Scorched Earth continued his training on into the night, and for the duration of the practice, the building had a huge increase in security to ensure no one else ambled on in.
5
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The skies of Orvance were busy the day before the Big Bar Brawl, and for good reason. With the introduction of raised walkways, flying fiters suddenly had the threat of grounded opponents finding ways to reach them.
Dirk had been the first to go down the planet. He had been intending to just eat Doritos and watch Godzilla movies, but a short call from Josephine where he promised to be prepared guilted the dark angel into actually preparing a bit. He wanted to see Josephine the day before the brawl, but he had heard from Widow Maker and a few others about the first Big Bar Brawl, and he was afraid if he spent any time with Josephine before the brawl she may be attacked like Sarah was back during the first year of the event.
Instead, he was flying around the air, his orbitars spinning around as he practiced by shooting clouds. He didn’t know what Moron Mountain’s sky would be like in comparison, but he figured as long as he practiced something he would not have technically lied to Josephine about practicing. What Dirk didn’t expect was the airspace to be so occupied. The orbitars shot aside a huge cluster of clouds to reveal the shell of Gamera rocketing right towards him.
Dirk dodged and screamed after the turtle, but Gamera didn’t seem to hear him. On his back were grocery bags full of Doritos, booze, and Gamera movies. It wasn’t what Dirk had quite planned for today, but it was close enough that he tried to pursue the turtle for a night of fun and drinking.
What he hadn’t realized was he wasn’t the only one pursuing Gamera. Utsuho gradually comes into view, and soon the two are engaged in conversation as they fly after Gamera. Utsuho was apparently chasing Gamera as a test of her speed, and Dirk decided to go with that idea as well because chasing after a guy solely based on his grocery choice was a bit weird.
There were still two more fiters flying in the sky, but as Gamera, Dirk, and Utsuho passed by, they followed for yet another reason. Rainbow Dash quickly caught up with the other two, and Tank puttered along behind the main group.
“Hey guys, I’m just up here teaching Tank a bunch of my super cool aerial acrobatics!”
“We’re training, got to be a good flier to win this one! So many folks with wings around this time!” Utsuho said.
“I’m less worried about the other fliers and more worried about folks with guns. Being shot out of the sky like a duck in Duck Hunt is a lame way to go,” Dirk said.
“Well, not many people have guns… But oh! Can’t that one guy use spirits like bullets? Sounds like a big guy to watch out for!” Rainbow Dash said as she flew backwards to show just how much faster a flier she was than the others.
The three continued to talk as they pursued one turtle and a turtle pursued them. They eventually agreed to all go for Deadhead in the beginning to clear up the skies. “Alright then! But don’t get in my way! If you mess up my cool moves, you’re toast! Come on Tank, I’ll show you how to do a barrel roll! I heard rabbits really liked those things. Maybe you can show it to Angel when we win!”
Rainbow Dash and Tank took off, and Dirk was ready to use the disbanding of the group as an excuse to leave and go back to space himself, but Utsuho and Dirk slammed into the back of the turtle as it slowed down. The groceries fell of the turtle without him realizing it.
“Looks like we caught up, hey Dirk?”
“Sure does! Well, I gotta go. Training… shooting stuff… all that.” Dirk flew off to go back to his room and play video games all night. Utsuho went off to actually train her shooting stuff and all that, and when Gamera finally did land and reach back for the groceries, he found them gone.
“Well crap, now what are WALL!! and I supposed to do during the Brawl?”
6
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Off in an unexplored corner of the ZFS cruiser there sat a library that was not often visited. Today though, it had quite a group of interested folks dropping by. Wheeler had converted the room into his own little skatepark, so when Mrs. Commanderson brought a group of 30 preschoolers in for a field trip to that portion of the cruiser, her first task was to clear the skateboarding snake out of the library.
Wheeler had mistaken Commanderson for some sort of level enemy and was fully prepared to engage her in combat before he saw the groups of young children who followed her in. Wheeler wasn’t ready to make to make a bad impression on the children, so he decided to flip by the “enemy” and do a series of tricks to impress his target demographic. The kids cheered, but Mrs. Commanderson quickly shushed them and told them to check out a few books.
While the kids were perusing the shelves, a few other folks came into the library and began looking around. Two such folks were Leonardo and Ricard, and determined not to waste much time, they approached Mrs. Commanderson.
“Madame librarian,” Ricard began, “We are looking for some texts on former fites.”
“Yeah, this guy needs to learn a few scary faces to conjure up during the brawl!” Leonardo added.
Mrs. Commanderson cawed at the two freelancers, “I’M NOT THE LIBRARIAN! I’M A TEACHER! YOU WILL HAVE TO FIND THOSE BOOKS YOURSELF! AND BE QUIET IN THE LIBRARY! ERAAAAAAK!!!”
Leonardo and Ricard took off into the bookshelves with no direction, but eventually the grey knight found the section where fite write-ups were stored. It was apparent the archives had been torn up and lost a bit, but amongst the books they did manage to find some of the fites from the first year, a novelization of the first Big Bar Brawl, and for some reason the only available copy of a write-up of the second year was a black and white manga book. Leonardo turned to hand Ricard the books, but the minstrel was further down the row looking at other literature. Leonardo walked up to his ally and Ricard greeted him.
“Look at this Leonardo, they have songbooks with all the national anthems of a planet called Earth. This would be quite an interesting collection of work to research.”
“What you need to research are these books,” Leonardo said, slapping the fite books into Ricard’s hands. “You can read those song books on your own time, but we need cool and tricky illusions for the brawl! Try to find the scariest looking guys or the ones with good win records.”
Ricard looked sad, but he made sure to sneak the national anthem book into his pile for later reading. The sellswords were about to go check out their books when a voice called out from nearby.
“Looking for a good book, eh? How curioussssss these tomes they lend here are. Just look at this one.” Mr. Daniel had appeared beside the freelances without them noticing, and now he was much too close to them for comfort. He held up a leather-bound book and began to peruse its pages.
“Do you not find it odd that we humansssss think our words are so valuable we kill other things just to contain our stories? The author of this book found his tale so important that not only did he have a tree die to tell it, but he took a beast’sssssssss life to give it an outer coating that lends it an air of inappropriate sophistication. The tale the author tellssssssss within is quite boring and bland, so does that make the sacrifices of the ones who died for it meaningless? Their legacy lies in the horrendous drivel of a tale this writer should never have shared with anyone.”
The freelancers were slowly trying to walk away as Mr. Daniel ranted about the book in his hand, but the Monster Handler just drew closer and closer as they tried to backpedal away. Ricard decides to indulge the man, “Just what book are you holding in your hand?”
“Oh, it’s my autobiography, would you care to read it?”
Before the freelancers could respond, Mrs. Commanderson ambushed the group with her trademark shriek.
“ERAAAAAK! I TOLD YOU TO BE QUIET IN THE LIBRARY!! MY CHILDREN ARE TRYING TO READ!!! GET OUT OF HERE, BWARRRK!”
Mrs. Commanderson started flapping her wings at the three, and they all fled the library. Leonardo and Ricard had brought the books they were looking at, but Daniel had managed to snag a different tome than his own life story as he was shooed out. It was a universal bestiary, and the Monster Handler had a few ideas of what he might be able to do should he understand some of the creatures he was going up against.
7
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Many fiters had their own methods or setups for training, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a training area built just for those who wished to use one. A huge shooting gallery has been set up in a room aboard the spaceship, and it had everything from generic red-and-white targets to giant moving machines to near indestructible metals to blue-and-green targets!
Only three people were taking advantage of this course though. Samus had arrived early and was training on the many moving target and robotic AIs for almost half the day. She didn’t think she would have to share her shooting range, but Ulrika and Chet came to join her late in the day.
“I don’t see why we’re doing this Ulrika, if we couldn’t shoot what we were aiming for neither of us would be here today.” Chet groaned, dragging his huge decashot in with a grimace on his face.
"They set up a buncha jigger for us! There is nary a way I'm skirtin' a chance to blow apart some geegaw! Oi! Just post up and boot and rally a bit. Pafado estas ne ĉiam estas tasko vi scias!” Ulrika’s arm cannon flips open and immediately begins blasting apart some of the targets Samus hadn’t been able to hit. Samus glowers at the Karzantium woman and tries to step up her own shooting, but the plasma blasts of Ulrika’s cannon were simply far superior to Samus’s gun.
Chet sets up his Decashot and prepares to take a shot, “Just a waist of valuable ammo.”
The roars of Decashot fire, targets shattering, and beams blasting covers up the not so stealthy arrival of three sneaking Coneheads.
“Alright! We’re here!”
“Why are we here again?”
“I don’t know, why are we here?”
“Wait, I think I know!”
“Tell us!”
“Wait, no I don’t.”
“Oh! It must have been me then! Well, you noticed how few choice babes were in the brawl, right?”
“Yeah! Total spider sausage party!”
“And the only chicks are dumpy kids!”
“Well, not two of them. See those two there? Only hot babes in the brawl.”
“Hey man, I don’t dig armor. Where’s those babe’s bodies?”
“I heard she has something called a Zero Suit.”
“Zero suit?”
The Coneheads stared intently at Samus, the bounty hunter too caught up trying to outshine Ulrika to notice she was being ogled.
“She’s not taking it off.”
“Yeesh! Just two hot babes!”
“And one is only hot if she gets naked!”
“Wait, is the Zero Suit really just her naked?”
“I don’t think so…”
“We should ask!”
“Might as well, there are no other hot babes to chat up.”
“What about me, boys?” A robotic voice came from above the Coneheads. Hypotenuse was clinging from the wall like a spider with Light Work crawling around beside her. She dropped down and stood above the Coneheads. “Am I not attractive?”
The Coneheads started walking backwards.
“Oh yeah, totally.”
“You’re like, a 7!”
“I’m totally into octopuses!”
“Yup, the arm thing really does it for me!”
“We gotta go, we uh…”
“We left our son in a stove!”
“We have a son?”
“We have a stove?”
The Coneheads didn’t stick around much longer though. The three tripped over each other to escape the intimidating sight of the 16-armed woman. Hypotenuse laughed as they fled, and Light Work gave her an odd look.
“Do not worry little one, I was…” a sudden crackle came from Hypotenuse’s mouth, much louder than her previous French malfunctions, “KRZZT, simplement s'amuser.” Light Work clambered up her to try and repair the vocal malfunction, but Hypotenuse grabbed him and pulled her into her chest like she was clutching a teddy bear. She didn’t mind her malfunction, but it had gotten worse since Sine updated her fite programming. She had decided to scope out Ulrika and Samus to gather data on their fiting styles, but all she was seeing was a pissing contest between two people trying to prove their arm cannon was better.
“Allons petit, nous avons plus de gens à KRZZZT gather data on.” Hypotenuse exited the room as quietly as she had entered, and soon Samus and Ulrika found themselves without any more targets to shoot. They looked at each other, and although Ulrika didn’t seem to bent up over the contest the two had, Samus was eager to prove her superiority later in the brawl, but she had more pressing combatants to fite.
Samus walked out of the room and pulled up her visor, looking over a public posting of the fite roster she had scanned. From her experiences with foes like Ridley, she knew her first target would have to be the giant reptile Gamera.
8
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Besides the target range, the Fite Yer’ Mates organization also set up a weight room for more traditional forms of training that involved bulking up. General Cleft was trying to use it, but the Moon Cleft balancing dumbells on his head did not really help his strength at all. It did help him get good at balancing things on his head though, but his spikey head made that a very difficult skill to ever find a use for. When Saxton Hale came in leading Moosh with a trail of Reese’s Pieces, the Cleft dropped his weights and went over to investigate.
The Australian walked by a bunch of benches and pilfered all their weight, cramming them into a giant bowl that he could easily heft up and down. Why was he carrying such a giant durable bowl? Well he had just finished feeding Moosh from the big old bowl and was now bringing the bear in as additional weight for him to benchpress. Moosh flew up on top of the weight bowl and sat down munching on some of the food Saxton had given him. Saxton began to press the entire collection of objects like it was nothing.
When Cleft saw the Australian lifting more than he could, he was immediately determined to show his own American strength off. However, Saxton had taken all the weights, so Cleft went racing out into the hallway. The speedy stone almost ran into Ariel, who had heard about the target range and was eager to check it out. The rushing rock almost collided into the tiny archer, but when he came to a full stop he spoke to her.
“Any idea where a patriot could find something incredibly huge to lift? This is a national emergency!”
“A national emergency?”
“Well, a personal one. Some Australian is in the weight room benchpressing tons of weight and this big blue bear! I need to show him what’s what!”
Ariel had stopped listening when Cleft mentioned the bear. The archer stomped into the weight room and shouted, “Just what are you doing Saxton Hale?”
“I’m lifting weights of course! Got to keep the body in tip top shape!”
“That’s not a weight up there! That’s a living being!”
Moosh decided to pipe up at this point, “But he’s feeding me for doing it…”
“Listen, you don’t have to be humiliated just to get food. I know a place you can get it easily. My family is nuts about food, so I know all the good places.”
Moosh fluttered off the pile of weights and hovered over to Ariel. “Will you really feed me?” Barkle popped out of the bear's fur as Moosh spoke, and Ariel reached out to pet the dog.
“Of course. Just come with me.” Ariel picked the dog up off Moosh and began petting him as they walked away from the weight room.
“You can ride me if you want ma’am.”
“No thanks… Although I may take you up on the offer in the brawl. I’ll keep you safe and you do the same for me, okay?”
Saxton Hale had continued to lift his weights for a bit after they left, but now it was ceasing to be even a bit of challenge.
“Gah!” he said as he tossed the bowl aside, “Might as well be benchpressing notebook paper.” Saxton stormed out of the weight room. If he couldn’t get find a good challenge now, perhaps someone during the brawl could push him to the limit. He wasn’t too enthused though about the contestant selection, and there was no time he was going to waste time on wimps.
A few minutes later General Cleft came bursting into the empty weight room.
“Think yer so tough, Aussie? Take a look at this!”
Cleft shook a tiny shake weight at the empty room, gradually slowing down as he realized no one else was in there.
9
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Over on Moron Mountain, the final few preparations were taking place for tomorrow’s brawl. Scrawny little aliens known as Nerdlucks scampered about the arena hooking up cables and ensuring the gravity boosters worked.
Mr. Swackhammer oversaw it all from his chair, chomping on a cigar and letting the ash crash down into a tray held by an unfortunate little alien. The preparations were going as planned except for an incident involving his Curse Screener. There was just one last thing he was waiting for…
A Nerdluck scampered in with a message for Swackhammer. “Sir! Sir! The box with the mystery fiter in it has arrived!”
“Excellent! Bring it in!” Swackhammer got out of his chair and clambered down to the floor below. Jumpropeman appeared beside him.
“How’s it going friend?”
“Your mystery fiter just got here. The people are gonna pay big bucks to see what you got for us this year ghost!”
Pushed in on an anti-gravity dolly by a workman who was well on in years, the giant box looked similar to how it looked the first year, except it was about 40 times taller. The box was made up of strange red metals that steamed and smoked constantly. The front end of the box had not one but two peepholes for terrifying red eyes to peer through. The front end of the box was also absolutely riddled with various locks, enchantments, and other knickknacks to keep it shut.
Swackhammer stared up at the absolutely massive mystery box, and what caught his eyes the most was a little sticker on the side that said “To: JRM, LOVE: Satan. XOXO”
“What the hell is this Jumpropeman?”
JRM laughed and began to explain, “Well, you know Satan. We get the word devilish from him for a reason. Never can take that guy seriously.”
Swackhammer continued to stare at Jumpropeman in disbelief. “I know Satan?”
“You know what I mean man!”
Swackhammer looked the box over and didn’t look too happy. “Just what is in this crate exactly that you had to order it from the devil himself?”
“Well, you know that whole deal about no souls going to Hell thing? Well, we worked out more than a few deals thanks to Devil Ed. We get this bad puppy here, and some demon down in Hades gets his chance to rumble with Ed until the brawl is over. Shame he couldn’t come back, but I’m much more excited for what I got in this here crate.”
“And that is?”
“I ain’t telling! But I couldn’t have got her without pulling a few strings. Kinda hard to get a dead gal into a brawl without some way of bringing her back.”
“She’s dead?”
“Well, she’s died at least. Either way, I’m sure everyone is going to go insane when they see it! Now I got to go get ready myself! Been a while since I fought with just the old jump rope!” Jumpropeman disappeared to go train, but Swackhammer was still looking the box over.
“Insane, huh? I got an idea. Nerdlucks! Get over here and start cracking these locks off. Get one of those locks on it, what’re they called? Hook and eyes? Just put that on there.”
The Nerdlucks got to work cracking off the locks, a few singed by the still steaming metal as they worked.
“I have the perfect plan. We’re gonna post an auction online, and whoever is the highest bidder we will fly into the Big Bar Brawl to open the box and reveal the Mystery Fiter. We’ll make millions on that alone! Plus we can get a concession stand going, a betting corner, do we have any foam fingers laying around that don’t say "The Monstars:? Get a marker and start writing fiter’s names on those.
"We’re gonna be rich, boys.”
10
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As we were broadcasting the pre-fite show, we came across a curious situation where a few fiters had lagged behind instead of boarding the vessels to go to Moron Mountain for the fite. Here is what we found them doing just before we herded them onto the vessels that were to carry them to the Big Bar Brawl.
“We’re gonna be rich, boys”, the television said as the ninth part of the pre-fite show came to a close. Widow Maker had stayed behind in the bar a bit longer than most other people. The insect clicked off the television with her claw and got up, giving Sheryl her money and preparing to set out. Before Widow Maker set out, she spotted Purnima slowly making her way down the halls.
“What are you still doing here?” Widow Maker asked the grub.
“Oh, Widow Maker! How perfect! I was just putting the finishing touches on Bunnymund when alack! A tear appeared in the folds of my dress! I could not risk the public image of the Deadly Efficient line by appearing in such a dreadfully tattered rag! I had to sew up a new dress, one more appropriate for the battle ahead! Can you see the three motif present?”
Purnima spun around in place, but Widow Maker honestly couldn’t tell how it was different from the other dress. The three motif was more related to the materials, but Widow Maker nodded in order not to offend the bug.
“My, is it almost time for the brawl already? Why have you lollygagged behind? I figured you to be one champing at the bit for this fite to begin!”
“Yeah, that’s actually why I stayed behind,” Widow Maker said, “Apparently every year there is a big pre-fite show where they show you how everyone is preparing. It’s full of good information that would really help everyone else to know getting into the battle.”
“Did you glean anything useful from the broadcast?”
“Kind of. Some of it was disconnected nonsense, there was something about Spider-Pig and a bunch of small guys invading one of the Society’s bases. But there were also quite a few alliances formed, a bunch of hints for the mystery fiter, and apparently the guy to watch out for isn’t Aevar so much as Deadhead. That guy’s got something up with him. I sniff a godbeast on the horizon…
What I found curious though is the lack of Yahoo Bot and Hater.”
Oh. Oh crap, we did forget about them didn’t we?
The camera whisked around the ship in its search to find Hater, but all it could find was Yahoo Bot and Bing Bot. With so many people focused on the brawl, the ship was quite calm and it was easy for the two robots to plaster advertisements all over the place. The robots did it with such amazing speed that the camera could barely keep up with them. In fact, the two robots quickly made their way towards where Widow Maker and Purnima were chatting.
The two robots gave both bugs a flier for their own personal search engines and then rushed off to deliver more spam. The two bugs looked at the leaflets and found the nearest trashcan. The two bugs tried to cram the papers into the trash can lid, but they were both too lost in conversation too notice that the papers didn’t go in, and that the trash can was actually Hater.
The droid turned around and looked and saw the two ads on the ground. All day people had been trying to shove those papers into his head mistaking him for a trash can, and he was getting fed up with it. If he had the time, he’d show those litterers just who was the trash around here!
Hater beeped out a curse in binary and took off for the ship that would ferry him to Moron Mountain, all the while trying to dodge disinterested spam targets who were eager to dump their unwanted pamphlets onto the poor bin-shaped bot.
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That's all for this pre-fite show! Tune in tomorrow for the main event and see what this all means, if any of it means anything at all! I'm pretty sure that part with Spider-Pig is really important!
And until the Big Bar Brawl 3 begins, stay lovely folks!
Love, Jumpropeman. XOXO
