“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!”
With those three words the colosseum was transformed. Arcane machinations flickered to life high above the arena in the shape of a hexagon of enormous screens. Cameras started flying around all over the place, showing pictures of the crowd on the monitors above and, as John was very well aware, to the citizens of the Abyss all over the world.
“WELCOME TO THE 17th TOURNAMENT OF GERMAN KINGSHIP!”
The picture changed to the one who was speaking, sitting on a large flying desk. It was a guy with a tremendously comical haircut, brown hair that was combed straight upwards (held there with some very powerful styling gel), giving his head an elongated appearance. He managed to wear his suit, a traditional black vest and white shirt combination, in a most goofy way and generally acted the part of the over-performed. The microphone twirled in his hand between sentences.
“I am Jeff, your main announcer for this wonderful event!” he gestured at the man at his side to introduce him next. That was the simple, straight looking lizardman John had seen earlier. His black scales were sleek and harmonized nicely with his red tie. Around the edge of his neck grew eight horns, four on each side, a dark membrane stretching between them. The membrane tensed up a moment later, as the horns pulled apart when the lizardman cleared his throat. “And I am… well, your human tongues can’t hope to correctly pronounce it anyway, but call me Mister Dra.”
“There you have it, folks!” Jeff shouted. “Aren’t you all EXCITEEEEED?” The crowd broke out into wild cheer.
Dra raised a hand, “In accordance with modern needs, the program will be sent in English, but do not worry, dear viewer, for you should find magically translated versions going online as we speak.” A table appeared on the screen with a list of channels.
“Ah, Dra,” Jeff turned to his co-host, “you should do it like me and just have that ‘could care less about the organization things’-attitude. Just get hyped, man!”
“I think you mean ‘COULDN’T care less’, Jeff,” Dra corrected him in a straight tone. “Otherwise you do care.”
“Potato potato,” Jeff waved off- “What is important is that THE FIGHT BEGINS TODAY!” The crowd below cheered again.
“So, they are playing the goofy and straight man strategy?” John wondered out loud as he watched all of this go on.
“Yup,” Rave, snickering, said. Well, at least one of them found it funny.
‘I like that Jeff guy, he is talking a lot, I like that, he has a great attitude,’ Sylph commented in John’s head.
‘He is pretty obnoxious,’ Salamander said. ‘So, I am sure you would get along.’
Thana was also grinning but for entirely different reasons. Eyes set straight towards the platform across the arena, her fingers individually tensed and relaxed as her hands trembled. She couldn’t wait to punch something. Lydia and Momo were sitting quietly, reading their respective books.
“Let’s break down the format for our viewers at home,” Jeff announced, and a graphic appeared on the screen.
“Both teams have 5 contestants and they will be pitched against each other in three different disciplines over the course of three rounds. The first discipline is the solo fight. Dra, can you run us through how those showdowns will be fought?”
“Certainly,” the lizardman nodded. “As my colleague mentioned, we will have three rounds. In the first one the Candidatum Primus, being Maximillian, will announce his fighter. Afterwards, the Candidatum Secundus, being Lydia, has 5 minutes to choose her fighter to go against them. Then the fight will begin. The winner will then get one point for their team, and both fighters will be unable to be chosen again for the rest of the round. So, if we would have Lydia and Maximillian fight, for example, and Lydia won, it would look like this.”
“…I apologize for the lack of using complete names, by the way, but we only have so much space on the screen,” Dra added.
“That’s how that is, folks!” Jeff shouted, ignoring his co-announcer’s courtesy. “The contestants will be fighting tooth and nail to secure victory for their side. But what is this?! A non-lethal tournament you say?! WORRY NOT, VIEWERS! Thanks to state of the art Fateweaving and barriers put in place by Lady Luna herself, our contestants can beat their brains out with relative ease. An assassination attempt on the battlefield is therefore completely unlikely.”
“Except that it has happened before, of course,” Dra commented. “In the 2nd tournament the Primus team managed to overcome the protective measures and stab the enemy king to death.”
“Oh, Dra, that’s just useless trivia. After all that’s before Fateweaving was developed.”
“In the 15th tournament it was around. Sure, it took considerable effort, but overcoming a Fateweaver’s control to kill your opponent is not impossible. As a matter of fact, because the Fateweaver needs to be inside the reach of the barrier to keep up the Fateweaving effect, just stabbing him is fairly easy. Fateweavers are not the strongest bunch.”
“But none of this matters at all to you common folk,” Jeff shouted. “After all, the number of people that can Fateweave is fairly low, you will never meet them! Average people most likely interact with Fateweavers of the Fateweaver guild, not Fateweavers that can Fateweave.”
“I was just clarifying,” Dra stated. “Back to the rules.”
“YES, BACK TO THE THING YOU ALL CAME HERE TO SEE!” Jeff agreed, shouting into his microphone.
“Once a round concludes, which is after all five contestants have fought once, the next fight will be a group fight with two to five of the contestants duking it out. The number is decided by a random number generator,” the hyped announcer continued, “but for the sake of diversity, the same number won’t be in there twice. As there will be a total of three rounds, you will see as many group fights, and while the solo fights are worth one point, the group fights are worth three.
“The fighters for a group fight are usually picked simultaneously by both teams, but due to a mistake on Lydia’s part during the fighter announcement, Maximillian’s team will get to pick their lineup after team Secundus.
“Once a group fight is over, the next round of solo fights starts, but with a twist! See, while in the first round, Lydia gets the advantage of picking her contestants in response to Maximillian’s, in the second he will have that choice. In the third and final, also best, round you, the live viewers, will get to vote on the matchups. That’s the structure of the fights…”
After that long-winded explanation, Jeff took a dramatic pause.
“HOWEVER!” he then shouted, “There is the third kind of fight, the games!” The crowd started cheering loudly. Evidently, that was the part they looked forward to the most.
John could understand that, seeing Donald Trump play against Hillary Clinton in Smash Bros or something would truly be a sight to behold. Then again, so would be the boxing match. “Games are fights with special rules that you, our dear viewers, can send to us and then will be selected by a committee. When will these games happen? I don’t know, but I can tell you that they are sadly limited to a maximum of two per round.”
“Ah,” Lydia smiled to herself, “It seems they took at least one of my suggestions into this.”
“Don’t care,” Thana cackled. “Did you hear them? I can punch these cumguzzlers as hard as I fucking want, they will be the pigs to my slaughter!”
“And now that we have all of the boring rules out of the way, let us give the word over to the sponsor of this event, the one and only Apex of the Abyss, Emperor Romulus himself!” The camera changed over to the toga-wearing emperor. An olive branch as his crown and sitting on a golden throne (looking massive even compared to the enormous man on it) with Sol and Luna at his side, he had a stern expression on his face. John could almost see him himself, a white humanoid shape on a golden background on the northern platform.
“Citizens of the Empire and people of the Abyss beyond,” Romulus said. “Humans, demi-humans, ab-humans, reptilians, insectoids and all of you in between. It is with great pleasure, sadness and annoyance that I open today’s games. Pleasure, for I know that you will enjoy this tournament, that it will brighten your life for the coming weeks and that it will be a great source of entertainment and stories you can tell. History will record what will happen today and in the coming weeks. Maybe as just another page in the book of the empire or maybe as the ascendance of one of the greatest kings or queens Germany has ever seen. Only time will tell.
“Sadness, I bring for that with the end of this tournament, my old friend Frederik, current king of Germany, will meet his end. He has lived long and fulfilled and did many great things in his time. His shoes are big to fill indeed, and I will be sad to see him for the last time.” The camera showed the decrepit old man, simply smiling at the announcement.
“And lastly, my annoyance,” Romulus thundered, “for neither Maximillian Franz von Habsburg nor Lydia Augusta von Hohenzollern are worthy to follow in my friend’s footsteps. Maximillian, who is interested only in centring his power and making Germany the strongest in the empire. There is no ambition in him to make it the strongest it could be through innovation. Lydia, who breaks with traditions without care and wants to radically rework a fabric of society that has persisted for hundreds of years. May this tournament forge one of you into a person that has the wisdom to change outdated customs while maintaining the soul of what they are ruling over.”
The arena was deadly silent as this denunciation rang all over the world. John saw Lydia’s fist clench under the table, her knuckles went white.
“Arrogant…” she swallowed the rest of the insult. He could only imagine the number of obscenities that went through her head right now. Thana found all of this absolutely hilarious; her loud laughter was maybe the only sound in the whole arena. “Be quiet!” Lydia finally lashed out.
“Nope,” Thana denied her. “I find it so fucking great when you get your ass spanked into shape a bit. Every bit of humbleness that gets beaten into you is fucking superb.”
“Do you not believe me fit for ruling?” the princess asked.
“I think you will be good at streamlining that bureaucratic shit and make whatever you touch financially stable. If you will make for a ruler that makes history books, though,” Thana shrugged, “I don’t see it. You are so out of touch with the common person that it really doesn’t fucking matter. You would only see the Nazis taking over again once someone presents you with a popularity poll. You can govern, sure as fuck, but rule? Well, I don’t give a fuck, not like I will stick around in the country that created me.” Lydia simply closed her eyes and went deep into thought.
“Uhm…” Jeff finally found his words again.
“Well, that was certainly blunt,” Dra spoke.
“It is as you say, Dra, well… How about we give our candidates a chance to present their own opinion on the matter,” the announcer's desk flew over to Maximillian’s platform.
“Do you have anything to s-“ Maximillian ripped the microphone from Jeff’s hands before he could finish asking.
“I am deeply concerned about the emperor’s opinion of me. Is it bad that I want to remain loyal? Is it bad that I honour our traditions? No, I say! I have no interest in dragging out this useless chatter anymore. You, my people, and indeed the very people of this world, want to see the tournament. As their king, I am happy to let actions speak louder than words!”
He gave the microphone back and sat down. ‘I expected more from a person that likes showing off so much,’ John thought as he watched the gravity king fall back in his chair with an obviously disgruntled expression.
‘Mhm,’ Siena moaned; ‘Just look at his torment, delicious.’
Even though he ignored the nightmare elemental, John had to agree that Maximillian did not look particularly happy about how things were going. His worship of Romulus as some sort of idol seemed genuine, so getting such a punch in the gut probably hurt.
The announcer’s desk now flew their way. Lydia stood up and met them at the edge of the platform, still deep in thought. “So, do you want to add something, princess Augusta?” Dra asked. Lydia didn’t answer. Arms folded behind her back, she simply looked ahead. The silence changed from tense to awkward as she just stood there.
“Ehm… I guess we can take this as a no?” Jeff asked and was about to retract the microphone when it was pulled from his hand and hovered in front of Lydia.
“I detest this tradition,” she said, “fighting each other over something as important as the position of head of state. To reduce it to a mere form of entertainment. I find it absolutely detestable, and without a doubt, if -when- I win, I will get rid of it.”
The people started to mumble in annoyance. They, unsurprisingly, did not appreciate having their entertainment titled as something unwanted and detestable.
“Without a doubt, this is a tradition that does more harm than good… I, however, understand what the emperor is trying to tell me, and to ignore the words of the oldest human being would be foolish to say the least. I have my goals, but maybe I will have to reform my ways. An answer I will have to find another day. For our current time, I agree with Maximillian. Let actions speak louder than words.”
She turned away, and the microphone flew back to the announcer. The desk then flew high up.
“Well, that was an okay speech,” Thana told her.
“I am not a great public speaker,” Lydia admitted. “As you say, maybe I am out of touch.”
“Fucking hurray, I was just shit-talking you, but hey, if it does any good!” Thana giggled and earned herself a stern glare.
“Whu, that was a pretty heavy start there, Dra,” Jeff said.
“I can only agree,” the lizardman nodded, “but for all heavy things, there is a countermeasure.”
“AND THAT IS ABSOLUTELY TRUE, FOLKS!” Jeff shouted in attempt to get the hype back on; “BECAUSE WE ARE STARTING THIS TOURNAMENT WITH A GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME!”
The crowd loved it, Lydia pinched the bridge of her nose, Thana let out a disappointed grunt, Rave laughed, and Momo turned a page. John realized once again that the Abyss was full of crazy people.
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!”
With those three words the colosseum was transformed. Arcane machinations flickered to life high above the arena in the shape of a hexagon of enormous screens. Cameras started flying around all over the place, showing pictures of the crowd on the monitors above and, as John was very well aware, to the citizens of the Abyss all over the world.
“WELCOME TO THE 17th TOURNAMENT OF GERMAN KINGSHIP!”
The picture changed to the one who was speaking, sitting on a large flying desk. It was a guy with a tremendously comical haircut, brown hair that was combed straight upwards (held there with some very powerful styling gel), giving his head an elongated appearance. He managed to wear his suit, a traditional black vest and white shirt combination, in a most goofy way and generally acted the part of the over-performed. The microphone twirled in his hand between sentences.
“I am Jeff, your main announcer for this wonderful event!” he gestured at the man at his side to introduce him next. That was the simple, straight looking lizardman John had seen earlier. His black scales were sleek and harmonized nicely with his red tie. Around the edge of his neck grew eight horns, four on each side, a dark membrane stretching between them. The membrane tensed up a moment later, as the horns pulled apart when the lizardman cleared his throat. “And I am… well, your human tongues can’t hope to correctly pronounce it anyway, but call me Mister Dra.”
“There you have it, folks!” Jeff shouted. “Aren’t you all EXCITEEEEED?” The crowd broke out into wild cheer.
Dra raised a hand, “In accordance with modern needs, the program will be sent in English, but do not worry, dear viewer, for you should find magically translated versions going online as we speak.” A table appeared on the screen with a list of channels.
“Ah, Dra,” Jeff turned to his co-host, “you should do it like me and just have that ‘could care less about the organization things’-attitude. Just get hyped, man!”
“I think you mean ‘COULDN’T care less’, Jeff,” Dra corrected him in a straight tone. “Otherwise you do care.”
“Potato potato,” Jeff waved off- “What is important is that THE FIGHT BEGINS TODAY!” The crowd below cheered again.
“So, they are playing the goofy and straight man strategy?” John wondered out loud as he watched all of this go on.
“Yup,” Rave, snickering, said. Well, at least one of them found it funny.
‘I like that Jeff guy, he is talking a lot, I like that, he has a great attitude,’ Sylph commented in John’s head.
‘He is pretty obnoxious,’ Salamander said. ‘So, I am sure you would get along.’
Thana was also grinning but for entirely different reasons. Eyes set straight towards the platform across the arena, her fingers individually tensed and relaxed as her hands trembled. She couldn’t wait to punch something. Lydia and Momo were sitting quietly, reading their respective books.
“Let’s break down the format for our viewers at home,” Jeff announced, and a graphic appeared on the screen.
“Both teams have 5 contestants and they will be pitched against each other in three different disciplines over the course of three rounds. The first discipline is the solo fight. Dra, can you run us through how those showdowns will be fought?”
“Certainly,” the lizardman nodded. “As my colleague mentioned, we will have three rounds. In the first one the Candidatum Primus, being Maximillian, will announce his fighter. Afterwards, the Candidatum Secundus, being Lydia, has 5 minutes to choose her fighter to go against them. Then the fight will begin. The winner will then get one point for their team, and both fighters will be unable to be chosen again for the rest of the round. So, if we would have Lydia and Maximillian fight, for example, and Lydia won, it would look like this.”
“…I apologize for the lack of using complete names, by the way, but we only have so much space on the screen,” Dra added.
“That’s how that is, folks!” Jeff shouted, ignoring his co-announcer’s courtesy. “The contestants will be fighting tooth and nail to secure victory for their side. But what is this?! A non-lethal tournament you say?! WORRY NOT, VIEWERS! Thanks to state of the art Fateweaving and barriers put in place by Lady Luna herself, our contestants can beat their brains out with relative ease. An assassination attempt on the battlefield is therefore completely unlikely.”
“Except that it has happened before, of course,” Dra commented. “In the 2nd tournament the Primus team managed to overcome the protective measures and stab the enemy king to death.”
“Oh, Dra, that’s just useless trivia. After all that’s before Fateweaving was developed.”
“In the 15th tournament it was around. Sure, it took considerable effort, but overcoming a Fateweaver’s control to kill your opponent is not impossible. As a matter of fact, because the Fateweaver needs to be inside the reach of the barrier to keep up the Fateweaving effect, just stabbing him is fairly easy. Fateweavers are not the strongest bunch.”
“But none of this matters at all to you common folk,” Jeff shouted. “After all, the number of people that can Fateweave is fairly low, you will never meet them! Average people most likely interact with Fateweavers of the Fateweaver guild, not Fateweavers that can Fateweave.”
“I was just clarifying,” Dra stated. “Back to the rules.”
“YES, BACK TO THE THING YOU ALL CAME HERE TO SEE!” Jeff agreed, shouting into his microphone.
“Once a round concludes, which is after all five contestants have fought once, the next fight will be a group fight with two to five of the contestants duking it out. The number is decided by a random number generator,” the hyped announcer continued, “but for the sake of diversity, the same number won’t be in there twice. As there will be a total of three rounds, you will see as many group fights, and while the solo fights are worth one point, the group fights are worth three.
“The fighters for a group fight are usually picked simultaneously by both teams, but due to a mistake on Lydia’s part during the fighter announcement, Maximillian’s team will get to pick their lineup after team Secundus.
“Once a group fight is over, the next round of solo fights starts, but with a twist! See, while in the first round, Lydia gets the advantage of picking her contestants in response to Maximillian’s, in the second he will have that choice. In the third and final, also best, round you, the live viewers, will get to vote on the matchups. That’s the structure of the fights…”
After that long-winded explanation, Jeff took a dramatic pause.
“HOWEVER!” he then shouted, “There is the third kind of fight, the games!” The crowd started cheering loudly. Evidently, that was the part they looked forward to the most.
John could understand that, seeing Donald Trump play against Hillary Clinton in Smash Bros or something would truly be a sight to behold. Then again, so would be the boxing match. “Games are fights with special rules that you, our dear viewers, can send to us and then will be selected by a committee. When will these games happen? I don’t know, but I can tell you that they are sadly limited to a maximum of two per round.”
“Ah,” Lydia smiled to herself, “It seems they took at least one of my suggestions into this.”
“Don’t care,” Thana cackled. “Did you hear them? I can punch these cumguzzlers as hard as I fucking want, they will be the pigs to my slaughter!”
“And now that we have all of the boring rules out of the way, let us give the word over to the sponsor of this event, the one and only Apex of the Abyss, Emperor Romulus himself!” The camera changed over to the toga-wearing emperor. An olive branch as his crown and sitting on a golden throne (looking massive even compared to the enormous man on it) with Sol and Luna at his side, he had a stern expression on his face. John could almost see him himself, a white humanoid shape on a golden background on the northern platform.
“Citizens of the Empire and people of the Abyss beyond,” Romulus said. “Humans, demi-humans, ab-humans, reptilians, insectoids and all of you in between. It is with great pleasure, sadness and annoyance that I open today’s games. Pleasure, for I know that you will enjoy this tournament, that it will brighten your life for the coming weeks and that it will be a great source of entertainment and stories you can tell. History will record what will happen today and in the coming weeks. Maybe as just another page in the book of the empire or maybe as the ascendance of one of the greatest kings or queens Germany has ever seen. Only time will tell.
“Sadness, I bring for that with the end of this tournament, my old friend Frederik, current king of Germany, will meet his end. He has lived long and fulfilled and did many great things in his time. His shoes are big to fill indeed, and I will be sad to see him for the last time.” The camera showed the decrepit old man, simply smiling at the announcement.
“And lastly, my annoyance,” Romulus thundered, “for neither Maximillian Franz von Habsburg nor Lydia Augusta von Hohenzollern are worthy to follow in my friend’s footsteps. Maximillian, who is interested only in centring his power and making Germany the strongest in the empire. There is no ambition in him to make it the strongest it could be through innovation. Lydia, who breaks with traditions without care and wants to radically rework a fabric of society that has persisted for hundreds of years. May this tournament forge one of you into a person that has the wisdom to change outdated customs while maintaining the soul of what they are ruling over.”
The arena was deadly silent as this denunciation rang all over the world. John saw Lydia’s fist clench under the table, her knuckles went white.
“Arrogant…” she swallowed the rest of the insult. He could only imagine the number of obscenities that went through her head right now. Thana found all of this absolutely hilarious; her loud laughter was maybe the only sound in the whole arena. “Be quiet!” Lydia finally lashed out.
“Nope,” Thana denied her. “I find it so fucking great when you get your ass spanked into shape a bit. Every bit of humbleness that gets beaten into you is fucking superb.”
“Do you not believe me fit for ruling?” the princess asked.
“I think you will be good at streamlining that bureaucratic shit and make whatever you touch financially stable. If you will make for a ruler that makes history books, though,” Thana shrugged, “I don’t see it. You are so out of touch with the common person that it really doesn’t fucking matter. You would only see the Nazis taking over again once someone presents you with a popularity poll. You can govern, sure as fuck, but rule? Well, I don’t give a fuck, not like I will stick around in the country that created me.” Lydia simply closed her eyes and went deep into thought.
“Uhm…” Jeff finally found his words again.
“Well, that was certainly blunt,” Dra spoke.
“It is as you say, Dra, well… How about we give our candidates a chance to present their own opinion on the matter,” the announcer's desk flew over to Maximillian’s platform.
“Do you have anything to s-“ Maximillian ripped the microphone from Jeff’s hands before he could finish asking.
“I am deeply concerned about the emperor’s opinion of me. Is it bad that I want to remain loyal? Is it bad that I honour our traditions? No, I say! I have no interest in dragging out this useless chatter anymore. You, my people, and indeed the very people of this world, want to see the tournament. As their king, I am happy to let actions speak louder than words!”
He gave the microphone back and sat down. ‘I expected more from a person that likes showing off so much,’ John thought as he watched the gravity king fall back in his chair with an obviously disgruntled expression.
‘Mhm,’ Siena moaned; ‘Just look at his torment, delicious.’
Even though he ignored the nightmare elemental, John had to agree that Maximillian did not look particularly happy about how things were going. His worship of Romulus as some sort of idol seemed genuine, so getting such a punch in the gut probably hurt.
The announcer’s desk now flew their way. Lydia stood up and met them at the edge of the platform, still deep in thought. “So, do you want to add something, princess Augusta?” Dra asked. Lydia didn’t answer. Arms folded behind her back, she simply looked ahead. The silence changed from tense to awkward as she just stood there.
“Ehm… I guess we can take this as a no?” Jeff asked and was about to retract the microphone when it was pulled from his hand and hovered in front of Lydia.
“I detest this tradition,” she said, “fighting each other over something as important as the position of head of state. To reduce it to a mere form of entertainment. I find it absolutely detestable, and without a doubt, if -when- I win, I will get rid of it.”
The people started to mumble in annoyance. They, unsurprisingly, did not appreciate having their entertainment titled as something unwanted and detestable.
“Without a doubt, this is a tradition that does more harm than good… I, however, understand what the emperor is trying to tell me, and to ignore the words of the oldest human being would be foolish to say the least. I have my goals, but maybe I will have to reform my ways. An answer I will have to find another day. For our current time, I agree with Maximillian. Let actions speak louder than words.”
She turned away, and the microphone flew back to the announcer. The desk then flew high up.
“Well, that was an okay speech,” Thana told her.
“I am not a great public speaker,” Lydia admitted. “As you say, maybe I am out of touch.”
“Fucking hurray, I was just shit-talking you, but hey, if it does any good!” Thana giggled and earned herself a stern glare.
“Whu, that was a pretty heavy start there, Dra,” Jeff said.
“I can only agree,” the lizardman nodded, “but for all heavy things, there is a countermeasure.”
“AND THAT IS ABSOLUTELY TRUE, FOLKS!” Jeff shouted in attempt to get the hype back on; “BECAUSE WE ARE STARTING THIS TOURNAMENT WITH A GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME!”
The crowd loved it, Lydia pinched the bridge of her nose, Thana let out a disappointed grunt, Rave laughed, and Momo turned a page. John realized once again that the Abyss was full of crazy people.
