Joy woke up with a brutal hangover. His head pounded and it felt like one hundred little men had taken up residence in his head. He was their landlord though, and they should pay rent, not ruin his headspace.

  But maybe that was all his fault. These were the woes of the landowner. Truly, if he just gave his headspace for free to the tiny twerps maybe they wouldn’t jump so loudly in his skull.

  Despite the protestations of his head, Joy stood up from his surprisingly comfy position on the ground.

  Joy looked left, then Joy looked right. He scratched his head and removed the dirt from his hair. Something felt wrong.

  He was certainly not on his bed. He seemed to have passed out in a corn field near the inner circle of Vena Cava.

  Joy immediately took a moment to assess his situation then came up with a plan for the day. He decided that what he desperately needed was something to cure his hangover. Then he would procure some new clothes for the fight; the underwear and rags were chafing him quite badly and he would prefer to fight in something looser on the boys. And maybe somewhere along the way he could pick up some breakfast.

  Joy set out of the cornfield at a reasonable jaunt. Letting his hands pass through the field of corn, touching life as gently as he could.

  When Joy arrived at the main circle of Vena Cava there were many stares that followed him. Joy reveled in the attention lavished on him, for these people were obviously enamored with seeing a semi-finalist for the knight tournament in person.

  He kept up this illusion of grandeur until one of the guards that watched the farms and kept the peasantry from ruining them by walking through, gave Joy a stern talking to. He told Joy that there were homeless shelters that he could go to, and that if he was ever caught in the fields again, they would have to throw him into jail.

  Joy was affronted that someone could think that he was not the wonderful, amazing, perfect Joy. So, he tried to show the man his coin from the knight competition, in the hopes that he would recognize its value and show Joy some real respect.

  The man didn’t even look twice at the coin, he just told Joy off again and said to tell a more believable lie the next time he tried this.

  Joy sighed, completely mortified by his treatment. But something on the back of the coin stood out to him. On one side the familiar script showed:

  Tomorrow.

  Midday.

  Round Two.

  But on the other side, a single name was embossed in bold big letters:

  Ramses.

  It was almost impressively lucky that Ramses was fighting three friends in a row. It would be impressive if the brackets weren’t decided ahead of time by some committee of fools that tried to make the most interesting matches.

  Joy sighed as he thought of the dreamy Ramses. His beautifully bald head, his empty eyes, the vacant expression on his face, the way he went on and on about his previous love and how he would never be the same. He was just dreamy. Or maybe Joy was just projecting someone else onto him.

  Joy was ecstatic to be facing off against the villain of Theo and Lillian’s stories, yet he was reluctant to fight the man. He was vibrant in his own depressing way and Joy didn’t want to put himself in front of that.

  But a job is a job, and Joy knew that he was going to fight Ramses for the prince’s ambitions, and he was going to win. He knew the greatest weakness of Ramses and he wasn’t afraid to use it in his pursuit of victory.

  Joy put his wickedest grin on his face as he started walking towards the arena. Plans upon plans unfolding in his mind.

  __

  Lillian had watched the previous round of the tournament with great zeal. It had been a truly epic showing of skill between equal fighters. The two women had unique gifts; one could flatten herself to become thin while the other could make her opponent mirror her motions selectively.

  Neither ability sounded that impressive on its own, and yet they both somehow were fantastic fighters. The woman who could turn thin was named Thimble, had found that the density of her body stayed the same when flattened. She could essentially turn her body into blades. Her favored technique was to attack her opponents with flurries of blows; every time her hand struck it would flatten to a sharp point and slice deeply into whomever she was facing.

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  The other woman, Soppressata, was inventive with the motions she forced her opponent to copy. Blade hands were forced towards crotches, hair was pulled, and embarrassing falls that were spectacular were seen by all.

  The entire match had been an exhibition of timing. Thimble needed her blade hands to strike decisive blows against Soppressata. However, Soppressata could use those hands to her own advantage with her gift.

  The entire match would have been decided on who could use those hands better.

  However, Thimble changed the script midway through when she realized she could just pummel Soppressata the normal way, sans the blade hands.

  The debacle took a lot of time and effort. Many stratagems were employed by both sides. Vicious attacks were shared, and yet one solid punch to the noggin sent Soppressata to the ground unconscious and Thimble was declared the winner of the match.

  Lillian had cheered with the crowd as Thimble the Nimble, sponsored by Luna’s Productions, was crowned a victor and told that she was going to become a finalist.

  But there was a knot in her stomach that she couldn’t make go away. She could feel it in her bones that something was going to happen with the match between Joy and Ramses

  She hadn’t been all that pleased when the match between Thimble and Soppressata had been announced, because that could only mean that Joy and Ramses would be fighting in the second round.

  Lillian had already dealt with one man overcompensating this week and she did not need to see another try to avenge her in the field of combat. But she did admit that she and Theo had made up last night. There was something cathartic about the two of them working through their differences that made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

  Normally, Theo was ice cold, but he had really tried to explain the way he was feeling to her last night and that had made her feel better about the absolute nonsense he had done in the arena earlier that day.

  Today, Theo was looking rather nervous. His foot kept tip-tapping on the ground. He was nervous about this match between Joy and Ramses. Maybe it was some manly pride or maybe he was genuinely worried about Joy’s safety. Either way he was not the normally cool and unflappable Theo.

  Therefore, Lillian decided to capitalize on his weakness. She bumped his shoulder and said “oops” and she sprayed all the snacks she had been hoarding on her lap over him. Ketchup and mustard stained his pants. Liquid oozed down his shirt, and a look of absolute indignation crossed his face.

  Lillian had never been more pleased with herself. His foot had stopped tip-tapping, which was a success. Although, his eye had started twitching instead. Maybe she would have to buy some more snacks to spill on him.

  Lillian shivered a little and glared over at Theo. He would never admit it, but he was a petty man. He was freezing the air around her in minute amounts. Not enough to form any real ice, but just enough to cause the air surrounding her to get a little cold. He was giving her a literal cold shoulder.

  Maybe it was deserved, but that wasn’t the point.

  “On this side of the arena we have the most radiant man to have stepped out of the outer circles of Vena Cava. He is a true icon of the common man. He is the ideal that any man can become powerful no matter their background put into human form. He is handsome but his heart is taken by a woman that has escaped Life’s grasp and awaits beyond our deaths. He is Ramses.”

  The crowd roared as the announcer finished his introduction. On the far side of the arena, Lillian watched Ramses cautiously walk into the arena.

  There had been nothing special about the arena during the previous match and it seemed to be the same for this one. There were no more tricks with terrain anymore. It was all going to be sandy boring matches from this point forwards.

  Ramses stepped into the sand and found that his footing didn’t slip. Lillian noticed that he readjusted his shoe quickly, to make sure it didn’t make him slide during the match.

  Ramses wore nothing flashy or fancy. He wore a simple tunic of muted colors. His bad head was the only shiny thing adorning him, otherwise he had no jewelry to speak of. He was austere and Lillian enjoyed the counterpoint he brought to all the pomp and circumstance of this event.

  “In the other corner we have Joy.” These introductions were certainly getting shorter. What did this announcer have against poor old Joy? Lillian thought about these things but decided that they didn’t really matter so she started hooting and hollering with the rest of the crowd.

  The crowd’s yelling wasn’t louder or quieter than Ramses’ cheers. It was different though. Ramses had gotten the entire crowd up to a fevered pitch. However, Joy’s entrance was met with sedate emotions from most of the crowd. All except some fervent fans who screamed to make up for the quietness of the rest of the crowd.

  In another section there was a group of men and women with faintly red tinted skin and the remains of horns growing out of their heads. Every single one of them put everything they had into their shouting, and they filled the arena.

  Lillian took a sip of her drink to quench her raw throat from all the screaming she had been doing, then promptly spit it out directly into the man sitting in front of her.

  What was Joy wearing?

  He was wearing a polka dot suit, covered in rainbows and unicorns. But most importantly he had no shoes on. She wanted to cry at his outfit, however he was tentatively stepping into the sandy arena and pulling his foot back from it. He was burning his feet on the sand of the arena.

  The scene was so ridiculous Lillian thought she might be dreaming.

  She grabbed Theo and tried to wake up. But nothing happened, so she shrugged, unbothered by his incredulous look, and went back to laughing her heart out at Joy.

  He bowed towards the audience with a smile on his face, the suit bending stiffly along with him; it looked brand new. The audience laughed, but oddly there was something regal about him. There was something majestic in the way he was totally unbothered by his own state of disarray. He was the man he was, no matter the clothes he wore.

  Lillian held her breath as the match started.

  The two men squared off against each other both indicating that they were prepared for this battle. Then the announcer raised his hands to his face and yelled, “begin!”

  A force blew into the stadium and slammed into the sandy ground, spelling the word out on the arena floor.

  Lillian watched as Joy swept his arms out to the side and asked, “do you want to play a game?”

  At the same time Ramses closed his eyes and said, “her hands are justice.”

  Hundreds of ephemeral hands appeared around Ramses and Joy simply smiled as the game began. Lillian thought he looked happy.

  So, she joined her voice with the crowd and screamed with joy as the match started in earnest.