Let the Games Begin, Chapter 4- Opening Ceremonies

Chapter Four

Opening Ceremonies

            Lee Toren sat at the table with the two other judges for the Games, both of the other men being somewhat awed by being in his company.  Among the Guilds, William Deus had a reputation as one of the best there was, and an excellent leader with a skilled crew to work with.  But in the overall underworld, Lee Toren’s was the best known name.  Guilds, independents, and almost all of law enforcement knew his name, knew who he was.  He had a list of warrants stretching back almost to the fifth century of the Fifth Age, almost four hundred years ago.

            He was an old Gnome, and one hell of a thief to have survived all these years as a professional working largely on his own.

            The other two judges for the Games had been former Headmasters themselves, operating thieves’ guilds that had long since gone out of business due to a lack of numbers.  First, there was the olive-skinned Human sitting to Lee’s left, Armand Tortulona.  He wore a rumpled brown suit with a clip-on tie and an off-white button shirt that had clearly seen better days.  Several days’ worth of stubble stood out on his cheeks as he stared at the cards in his hands.  His eyes, a drab green, showed no hint of his thoughts.

            The other judge, seated to Lee’s right, was an Illeck of indeterminate middle age, dressed in baggy black jeans and a green hooded sweatshirt.  He kept the hood up, largely concealing the head that the man kept shaved bald.  Cedric Morovane, formerly the elder and leader of not so much a Guild as a ‘family organization’, the Morovane family syndicate.  Until ten years ago, nobody living in the Palen city-state could open a newspaper or listen to a radio news broadcast without coming across the name for some reason.  Now, only a decade later, the entire organization had seemingly disappeared from the records of Tamalaria.

            It had taken a lot of money and a lot of threats to make things work out that way, Lee thought, both of which had been supplied by the Tavmore family syndicate now running the underworld in Palen.  Due to their reputation, both Tortulona and Morovane had been easy choices for judging the Games, and together, they had selected Toren to act as High Judge this year.

            Yet neither man had said more than a few words to him since arriving to await the competing guilds’ representatives.  Lee broke a long silence then.  “I fold,” he said, tossing his poker hand flat on the table. 

            “I’m out too,” said Armand.  Morovone smiled to himself and raked the coins in the pot to himself, tucking the coins away in a pouch.  “Hey, it’s almost time.  Someone’s going to show up pretty soon,” said the Human. 

            “Agreed.  Help me put this table back,” said Lee.  He lifted one end of the table over his head while Armand held his side about mid-chest height, keeping the table level as they carried it over to the wall. 

            “Am I setting up the targets,” asked Morovone. 

            “Yeah, we may as well get that one out of the way quick-like,” said Lee.  He watched as the Illeck brought several archery target blocks out from a room adjacent to the large central chamber of the toy store’s basement.  “Give things a sense of urgency, you know?  We can probably assign the High Value event tonight as well, since they needs some time to complete it.”

            Morovone finished with the targets, eight of them lined up in all.  As he came over to the other two judges of the Games to inspect the spacing, the door at the top of the stairs, into the store itself, creaked open a short distance away.  “Dat’ll be our first contestants,” said Armand.  The first competitor to come through the doorway on the opposite side of the chamber was a regal woman, her pale skin radiant in the dim light offered by the overhead lights.  Following right behind came another sheet white woman, and the two linked their arms like close friends or lovers. 

            Both were Illeck, and the sight of them in their long, raven hair and midnight blue evening gowns made Morovone break out in a cold sweat.  “Helen Vanik,” said the first woman.

            “Amanda Setine,” said the second woman.  Immediately behind them appeared another three females, a Cuyotai, a Gnome and a Jaft. 

            “Cailee Parthridge,” said the Cuyotai.  She wore the traditional tan vestments of an archer and thick soled combat boots.

            “Harley Morerock,” said the Jaft, nodding her head.  Lee wondered how many faces she’d crushed in her life.  The Jaft woman made him think that perhaps Jafts would be better off if they mated with their eyes closed and if they turned all of the lights off.  In the entire city.  For a week.

            “Yvonne Wendil,” offered the Gnome woman.  Lee gave her a brief once-over, noting the careful removal of any facial hair, the obvious and recent dye job to make her hair chestnut brown, and the subtle sway of her hips in her jeans.  For a Gnome, the woman was positively stick-like, showing almost no paunch at all.  Not natural, that is, he thought.  And yet…

            Shaking his head, he offered the women a brief bow of his head.  “The Sisters of Night, it is good that you have come.  Were you followed, by chance?”

            “Only by us,” said a newcomer’s voice, its owner stepping into the basement with his group lined up behind him in a paramilitary fashion.  “Kimichi Kazuya, Headmaster,” the Lizardman said. 

            “Watari Ichigo,” said the Human on Lee’s left end of the line behind the Ronin. 

            “Nobuo Kentaro,” said the Illeck Boxer.

            “Jake Zero,” said the four-armed, armored gentleman.

            “Koby Nellis,” said the group’s Wererat.  Lee made a brief introduction, and suggested that the groups get acquainted with one another.  He checked his watch as he turned away from the assembled guild agents.  The other groups had two more hours to get there before the ceremonies were officially underway and they were banned from participating.  He wondered, with a smile, how close to the finish line Deus and Fly would come sauntering in.

            “Ms. Ridge?  Ms. Ridge?  Sally!”  Someone was shouting practically in her ear to bring her out of her reverie, and when the Human Psychic finally shook her head and came groggily to consciousness, Lester Joelly stood over her.  She was sprawled on the couch in the den of her suite.  She looked up at him with a dazed expression, and he shook his head.  “It’s time for us to get to the ceremonies, Ms. Ridge,” he said, adjusting his crisp black business suit and tie.  His hair was slicked back over his head, his whiskers proudly waxed.  He looked sharp, she thought. 

            Curious about the reasons behind his formal appearance, she decided to probe into his surface thoughts.  There, she found him thinking about a certain female Wererat, a member of the competition with a group from the city of Arcade.  He’d come across her information file during the day and had her tailed by some of the Koikara Group’s intelligence agents throughout afternoon, gathering information and pictures with the newly redesigned cameras the Gnome Unified Scientific Front had released to the public for sale a few years back.

            He apparently was entertaining potential romantic pursuit of the young woman.  Irked and irrationally jealous, Sally snorted aloud and got up off of the couch.  “Where are the others?”

            “Waiting downstairs for us, Ms. Ridge,” he replied.  He scratched the back of his head absentmindedly, then gave her a stern glare.  “You were poking around, weren’t you?  Just now,” he said, his voice pitched low. 

            “And if I was?  Are you trying to hide something from me, Lester,” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.  He said nothing, choosing instead to demure and keep his peace.  But she heard the words he said to himself in his mind.  Fucking trespasser, he spat in his mind.  Sally retrieved her purse from an end table, headed into the bathroom to fix her hair, and was out in the hall waiting for the elevator with him in minutes. 

            “My apologies for seeming harsh back there,” Lester offered.  “I just, I don’t like it when you go trolling around in my head.”

            “Apology accepted and returned in kind,” she said, deflating a little.  “I didn’t mean to pry.  You just seem a little, well, overdressed for the occasion.  How are the others?  Are they excited?”

            “Except for Victor, yes,” said the Wererat, redoing a cufflink on his left sleeve.  “He seemed a little more agitated than usual, distracted even.  If you want to do some digging around, you may want to try and get a fix on him.”  Sally cleared her throat uncomfortably, trying to think of how to reply.  “What’s wrong?”

            “I can’t,” she said plainly.  When Lester raised an eyebrow at her, she shook her head.  “I’ve never been able to get into his head.  Whenever I try, I just get drowned out in a wave of emotions, usually anger, hostility, frustration.  It’s the same way with just about any Berserker I’ve tried to prod.”

            “But he’s not a Berserker,” Lester observed.

            “No, but he’s very unstable, emotionally speaking.  The mentally ill and the emotionally unbalanced are hard for any Psychic to read thoroughly.  I’ve only ever known one who could do it with any degree of success.”  The elevator dinged as they reached the ground floor, and the doors whooshed open to reveal the lobby of the structure and a pert woman seated at the security desk.  Sally knew that the woman kept a loaded auto-crossbow tucked under the desk.

            “Who’s that?”

            “A black-furred Cuyotai in the Elven Kingdom, a young man named Straig.  His school had a field trip at our Whitewood Research and Development building a few years back, and he knew that one of our security people was planning to blow the place sky high.”

            “I thought you caught that guy,” said Lester.  “You were there when they apprehended him.”

            “Yes, but the man was a total schizophrenic.  That young man told me directly.  I’d gone down to the communications research level, where their tour was, to talk to the class about what we were trying to accomplish,” Sally said, approaching the doors to the street.  She could see the other three agents out there on the sidewalk, Turpin engaged in small talk with Norbert Channel.  The Human Ninja, Turpin, was dressed in a simple farmer’s tunics.  “He pulled me aside and told me that the guard had voices in his head, and they were telling him to do bad things to me and his coworkers.  That’s when I had Internal Security search his apartment.”

            “I seem to recall it was one of the only times Flant turned in a report on time,” Lester said. 

            “Yes. Imagine that.”

            “This could be bad,” said Seth as the man they’d cheated at the gaming hall table cocked back the pull bar on the machine weapon in his hands.  The card dealer, having lost his job for losing the gaming hall twenty thousand total gold, was furious to put it mildly.  He knew he’d been made a fool of, and he’d lost the only decent job he’d held in years to boot.

            “In hindsight, it might have been best to deal with this man before he became a problem,” added Esmerelda, her own eyes locked on the two other armed men at the opposite end of the alley.  They, like the card dealer, possessed cybernetic implant eyes, cutting-edge technology recovered from the ruins of the research and development labs of the Fourth Age.  While the Gnome Unified Scientific Front had good intentions in the long run, they needed money like any other reputable organization.  As a result, they had to agree to performing certain procedures on people they might not otherwise associate with, especially when the money being offered was not only a large amount, but sitting right in front of them.

            Stephanie, her bow always in hand when she traveled on foot with the group, took a quick sniff of the air.  A subtle ozone scent had become discernable, a good distance away yet but approaching at speed.  “You pissants are going to give me back that money, all of it,” growled the card dealer, his red optic flashing blue.  In the right half of the man’s field of vision, a skeletal and muscular x-ray display of the rats in front of him showed up, pinpointing major joints and muscle bunches that, if shot precisely with one of the bullets in his automatic weapon, would destroy clusters of nerves that could temporarily cripple his targets. 

            Jefe Gabriez, meanwhile, wondered momentarily how bad their circumstances were.  He knew about the two men behind the group, facing down Esmerelda.  He’d also caught a brief glimpse of two more men, each with a cybernetic eye, holding long barreled rifles aimed down at his group.  Five of them, five of his people, but the key difference was that these people had machine weapons.  Firearms, he thought bitterly.  Gods, I wish the Gnomes and Dwarves had never found them.

            Gabe, meanwhile, was thinking over the odds of snatching the gun out of the big card dealer’s hands.  Performing such maneuvers in combat situations was one of his specialties, but guns weren’t something he liked the idea of snatching.  With a sword, if he failed the grab he could be cut or stabbed in the arm, nothing serious.  With a firearm, he could catch a bullet in the face if he wasn’t careful. 

            It was at that moment that Stephanie saw a small, spherical object fly over their heads and land in the middle of the aisle.  The card dealer didn’t even register it, keeping his one organic eye sighted down the barrel of his gun at Seth.  That one, he thought, that’s the scrawny little prick responsible for the whole thing!  But one of his men on the rooftop bordering the alley had not only seen the device, but his scanner had identified it, all too late.

            “Greg, EMP!  EMP,” the man shouted.  The sphere popped open into a plated cube with a glowing blue light.  A flash erupted up and down the alley, and within a half mile radius of the device, every electronic piece of equipment inexplicably failed.  The men all clutched their heads and wavered from side to side, the snipers falling to the ground from their perches.  One of them fell on his back, knocked unconscious by the impact but otherwise okay.  The other sniper, well, he landed on the top of his head.  The crunch of his neck snapping echoed almost as loudly as the card dealer’s screams.

            The inside of his head had turned into molten slag heap of high-pitched whining, and his right arm and leg were buckling at their motorized joints.  The other two armed men on the ground at the other end of the alley appeared to have fallen immediately to unconsciousness.  Confused, the Pack of Liars looked around at the downed men. 

            “Our benefactor, I believe, is approaching,” said Claudia.  Jefe moved to the front of the group, drawing out a long knife as a lumbering Simpa in a sleeveless combat vest approached.  The man was armed like a one-man infantry platoon, a sword on his back alongside a spear, a revolver on his right hip and a hand axe on his left hip.  The werelion stopped a few yards shy of the Pack of Liars and put his hands on his hips. 

            “Who the fuck’re you, and what the hell was that,” Jefe barked at the Simpa.  He waggled the knife in the Simpa’s face, but the man didn’t budge or show any emotional response whatsoever. 

            “My name is Portenda,” said the bounty hunter.  “That device is a concentrated blast electromagnetic pulse generator, good for one charged use,” he said, pushing the knife aside and stepping past the group to retrieve his tool and stuff it away in his rucksack.  “And part of my contract agreement is to make sure that nobody from outside of the Games interferes with the contestants.”

            “How did you know that device would take them down like that,” asked Jefe, keeping his distance from the bounty hunter. 

            “I’ve dealt with these guys before.  Last year, in fact, they had a sizable bounty on their heads.  They were given a slap on the wrist sentence for breaking and entering, as well as unrecognized combat.”  Jefe gave him a cockeyed glance.  “It means that the fight was not accepted as an honorable combat by the police, and so they had to step in, or tried to anyway.  That’s besides the point.  Follow me to the ceremonies.”  Portenda turned away, and led the Pack of Liars to the toy store.

            Well, here we are, among a bunch of real thieves, Paul Stockton thought after introducing himself and his team from the Tacha Forus machine shop.  He could not stop looking over toward the white-clad Ninja among the Midnight Suns, whose entrance into the basement of the toy store seemed to have been preceded by a sudden decline in the temperature of the building.  And then, of course, there was William Deus and his Hoods.

            Only the hosting guild remained to show up, and the ceremonies, as tradition dictated, could not begin until they arrived.  The only guild allowed to arrive whenever they so chose, the hosting group could very well make all of these men and women hold their water until the next night, should they choose to be so callous.  It wouldn’t be an unwise move on their part, Paul thought.  It would give them a brief psychological advantage over the competition. 

            But as midnight approached, a man dressed in a butler’s outfit (he recognized the fellow instantly as the same man who had brought him the invitation) came down the stairs and swept the room with a wide bow.  “Ladies and gentlemen, my master, Mr. Twitch, and his entourage,” the man said.  Twitch came into view then, adorned in a set of loose black cloth pants, a royal purple vest, and a poet’s shirt, ruffled at the collar and cuffs.  His hair, oiled back over his head in raven black, glistened in the light of the dim bulbs hanging in the ceiling overhead. 

            Paul Stockton didn’t trust the man the moment his eyes fell on him.  Anyone who that butler would willingly call ‘master’ immediately qualified as a suspicious and most likely evil sonofabitch in his book.

            Little did he know it, but Anna Deus was thinking roughly the same thing, though she had not been given her invitation by the butler with the monocle and the long, dagger-like nose.  Not, of course, that she should trust any of the people in this chamber except her own men and perhaps Lee Toren.  She knew of judge Morovane, but that was more in a manner of passing fancy, as the man’s outdated operation techniques had made him an interesting figure in the underworld until about a decade earlier.  But knowing of the man didn’t lean her in the direction of trusting him worth a grain of salt. 

            Never trust outsiders, she thought.  Not unless you’re in a position to squeeze cooperation out of them, and even then, keep your eyes sharp. 

            “And so we are all gathered,” announced Lee Toren, stepping into the center of the floor space, one of the bare bulbs shining down on him like a spotlight.  He didn’t fail to register the little familiar nods and waves between the Pack of Liars and one Mr. Flint Ananham.  Relatives, or former cohorts, he wondered.  “Welcome, one and all, to the four hundred and seventeenth running of The Games.  I am most honored High Judge Lee Toren,” he said, grappling with himself to repress a joke at his own expense.  He failed, of course.  “Never thought I’d hear me own name in association with the word ‘judge’, leastwise not wivout an intermediary loik ‘signed off on a warrant for the arrest of’.”  That commentary earned him a unanimous round of laughter and light applause from his audience, and he gave them a small bow of his head.  “Thank you, thank you.  I do children’s parties too.”  More laughter.

            “Roit then,” he pressed on.  “This year’s Games, like all Games previous, shall consist of ten separate events, all of which will take place within the next ten days, if all goes according to schedule.  The winning Guild shall receive a grand prize of twenty-thousand gold coins, kept in a secure location of knowing only to me and my fellow judges,” he said, indicating the other two judges.  “Second place takes home ten-thousand, and third place takes home five-thousand.  As fer the rest of ya, well, you gets ta keep whatever you can get your hands on while we’re in Ja-Wen.

            “The following rules,” he said, pulling out a dated scroll, blowing some of the dust off of it, “shall remain in place for the entire duration of the Games.  First of all, as hosting Guild, the Shades are allowed to mandate the protection and safety of any shops or stores that they have listed as clients of their ‘protection fee services’.  Secondly, no contestant may substitute out for another member of their team once they have begun their events.  Thirdly, there shall be no interference with the completion of the Games from within the Games themselves.  That is to say,” he said, holding the scroll aside, “that nobody here goes to the police and fingers another contestant in order to get them eliminated from the Games.

            “Next, any contestant being arrested in the commission of a crime not included as part of the Games will be held responsible for their own legal representation and consequences.  They shall also be immediately disqualified from participating in any further events.  Lastly, the rules of each individual event must be adhered to, except wherein you think you can get away with it.  After all, we’re a bunch of thieves.  Cheating is part of what we do.  Just don’t get caught doin’ it.”  He rolled up the scroll and handed it to Morovone, who tucked it away in his coat.  “Now, any questions?”

            “Uh, just one,” said a booming voice from the Midnight Suns group.  Rage stepped forward, his mangled eye standing out in the light from only a foot or two over his head.  “What happens if someone gets caught doing something illegal but it’s part of one of the events?”

            “Ah, a good question,” said Armand Tortulona.  He moved slightly from his spot leaning against a wall back in the shadows, and gave Rage a patronizing smile.  “Dat will be taken care of by our crack team of bribers and blackmailers.  Da right t’ing’ll get done with that, and the contestant will allowed to continue participating in the games.  However, if the team that person belongs to places, the necessary fees will be removed from their overall prize.”

            “Thank you judge Tortulona,” said Lee.  Rage nodded and moved back to the rear of the Midnight Suns’ grouping.  “Any other questions?”  Silence from the gathered brigands.  “Excellent.  Now, if you will turn your attention to the wall behind the Pack of Liars and Sisters of Night over there,” he said, pointing to his right.  Everybody moved aside to look at the target blocks.  “We have already prepared for the first of the events, the Knife Throw.  We shall give you ten minutes to select your contestant from your team, and then we’ll get it under way.  While you’re preparing for that, we shall also be giving every team a pamphlet outlining the other event we’ll have starting tonight, since you’ll have a week to complete it.”

            Anna pulled her people aside, but within the confines of the basement, they didn’t have much room to work with, pinched between the Koikara Group and the Lenak Petara against one wall.  “Okay, I assume you’ll be fielding this one, Flint,” she asked the Wererat.  But her Guild Prime, still dressed in urban military BDUs surprised her by shaking his head. 

            “Nah.  Jerry here is an expert with thrown weapons, sir,” he said.  Anna looked at the Illeck Pickpocket on her team, and despite his drab and dour overall appearance, she could just make out the beginnings of a smirk.  “I think he’s our best bet.”  Anna nodded and looked once again at Norbit, her eyes seeking any sign of reluctance in his dark green eyes.  She saw none, thankfully.

            “Very well.  Do not disappoint us early on, Mr. Norbit,” she said.  “But don’t pressure yourself either.  Thaddeus Fly will likely throw for the Suns, and he’s as good as good gets with a throwing star or knife.”

            “I understand, sir,” Jerry said, taking up a position opposite the throwing blocks.  Morovone handed Anna slip of paper in an envelope, which she opened and unfolded.  The other three men with her all craned in for a look at the other event Lee had been alluding to.  The paper read; ‘Each team will be given one week, with one member, to secure the most valuable item they can within the city.  There are no restrictions in terms of using appraisals or seeking magical assistance, but the item must come from within the city of Ja-Wen, and must be no larger than a strongbox.  –Lee’. 

            “Hmm.  A bit vague, don’t you think,” said Norman Adwar from Anna’s hip level. 

            “Perhaps so, but that can work to our advantage,” offered Calvin Licht, the Jaft Thug.  “After all, who’s to say how much something is worth if they don’t know any better?”

            “True, but no larger than a strongbox?  What’s up with that,” asked Flint.  “If I steal the deed to a house, do they judge the size of the deed, or the size of the house?”

            “We’ll pose that question when we get the chance,” said Anna.  “Looks like they’re lining up for the throws.”  The rest of the Hoods mixed and shuffled in among the other agents and operatives freely, letting the eight contestants for the knife throw move in a line two steps toward the throwing blocks some sixty yards away now. 

            Fly had indeed opted to take on the knife throw for the Suns.  Ridley Poe, the Illeck Rogue/Aeromancer stepped to the line for the Shades.  Turpin, in his grunge attire, represented the Koikara Group.  Esmerelda Logan for the Pack of Liars tossed her long hair out of her face as she approached the throwing line.  For the Sisters of Night, Amanda Setine loosed her headmaster’s arm and moved like a silken specter to the line.  Koby Nellis, the only distance fighter in the Lenak Petara, looked nervous as he gave the judges a brief grin.  And lastly, from Paul Stockton’s group, Brailor stepped up in a black Ninja suit similar in design to Fly’s.

            “All right,” said Lee.  “Each and every contestant gets three throws.  You will note that each target block has been numbered,” he said.  Anna looked at the blocks, and could see a small red numeral painted on each block.  “We will go down the line, and ask each contestant to throw at the numbered block rolled on this here dice,” he said.  Of course, Anna thought.  A straight-up throw wouldn’t really show off much skill, now would it?

            “We will not only take into account where the knife hits, but how deep and at what angle,” added Morovone.  “This will give us a better overall impression of your abilities.  Of course, you may get lucky and roll the target directly in front of you three times.  But that isn’t very likely,” he added. 

            “First throws will be given to the Shades,” said Lee.  Ridley Poe drew a slender throwing knife made of blackened steel from his hip, silently banking some of his mana into the weapon.  Lee held up the die in his hand, and rolled it on the floor in front of him.  “Target number five,” he called out.  Poe stood across from target number three.  Eyeballing the angle to his target, he hurled the knife, his wrist snapping out and to the side for a wide throw.  The blade, he thought, would miss the target block’s bull’s eye by a fraction of an inch.  Best not to let too much be known too early, eh?  He manipulated the mana without a movement or word, and the knife buried itself an extra inch and a half away from the bull’s eye.  Still, not a bad throw.

            “Target number eight,” Lee called after the roll.  Poe grunted.  From where he stood, the throw would be almost unmanageable without an obvious use of magical force.  He drew another knife and spilled mana into it instantly, tossing it in the general direction of the target block and trying to at least hit the damned thing.  None such luck, however, and the knife struck the wall with a loud ‘clang’.  Lee rolled the die one final time.  “Number three!”  With barely even looking, Poe hurled his last knife straight ahead, pegging the bull’s eye on its bottom arc. 

            The three judges wrote down some notes on small pads, and then moved forward.  “Roit then, next group up is the Sisters of Night.”  Setine didn’t get much luckier than Poe, and never once had her own block called for her to throw at.  “Next up, the Lenak Petara.”  Nellis, though he knew that it would likely earn him a beating later on down the line, completely fouled up all three of his throws, hitting the wrong blocks altogether.  “Next up, the Hoods.”

            Jerry Norbit held his first throwing knife at the ready, almost in a gunslinger’s drawing stance.  Lee rolled the die, and watched it come tumbling to a stop.  Norbit was standing across from the four block, right near the middle.  He could potentially have little trouble with the throws he rolled.  “Target number one,” Lee called.  No sooner said than thrown, and the blade sank at an angle just outside of the number one block’s bull’s eye.  Lee rolled again.  “Target six.”  Once again, a good hard throw, just outside of the bull’s eye area.  Lee rolled the die, and it came up eight.  “Target eight.”

            What happened then could not be fully explained by Norbit, not until much later, when all was said and done with the Games.  All he knew for sure was that he’d used the right angle, had aimed carefully as he whipped the knife around.  But when the knife flew from his hand, it jittered slightly, juking high up and striking the wall over the target block and failing to hit at all.  He cursed his luck silently and returned to Anna and the other Hoods. 

            “I don’t know what happened,” he said. 

            “Don’t worry, we should still place at this rate,” said Flint, smoking a cigarette as he sat against the wall.  “It’s down to my cousin Esmerelda, the guy in the coveralls, and Fly, who I guarantee you is going to win this thing.”  Flint’s cousin performed well, as did the Human, Brailor.  But when Thaddeus Fly stood to the line across from target number one, Flint got to his feet to watch this spectacle. 

            When Lee was about to roll the die, Fly raised his hand to stay him a moment.  “Judge Toren, I ask that you roll all three target numbers for me, and then let me take my throws,” he said calmly.  “That is not against the rules of the event, is it?”

            “Certainly not,” answered Lee.  Anna watched the audience around her carefully, and noted the way that the Shades’ contestant, Ridley Poe, seemed to grimace at this turn of events.  Lee rolled the die three times, and looked up.  “Your targets are two, five and eight.”  Fly’s hands whipped about his torso, and he was seconds later juggling a batch of throwing knives. 
            “I’d also like to note for the record that though you said we each get three throws, you never restricted us to one knife per throw, did you, honorable judge,” Lee said, leering at the rest of the competitors.  Anna almost burst out laughing.  This was just the sort of act she’d come to expect from the Black Draconus Ninja. 

            “Right again,” said Lee.  Fly ceased juggling, gripping the knives between his fingers and launching them in a graceful but high-speed blur.  Another group of knives flew a second later from his hands, and then a third and final volley.  The target blocks had been torn to shreds, numbers two, five and eight.  The contestants clapped politely, except for Rage, Clarissa Weeks and Niles Potts, three of the other four members of the Midnight Suns. They hooted and hollered like a group of college kids.  Akimaru gave his sensei a respectful bow, which Fly returned in kind. 

            “Well, I should think the winner is pretty clear,” said Lee a few minutes later as the groups separated and mused over the Knife Throw event.  “As for second place, the three of us have conferred and agree that it goes to Mr. Ridley Poe and the Shades.  For third place, we have conceded a point to Mr. Norbit and the Hoods.” 

            And so the Games were officially underway, and the backstabbing could begin proper.