This was the matchup I'd been most dreading. Hayden? Not so much.

  He launched himself onto the stage and landed with a thud. He fixed me with a stare that had all the bad blood two brothers could share. The crowd loved it. Hayden had been the loud talking upstart ever since he started fighting. He wasn’t the only person thinking that this would be his year.

  I was feeling less sure of myself, as I pulled myself into the ring. It just felt wrong to go up against him without our usual banter. “Are we cool?” I asked, hoping that Victoria had finally told him what was going on.

  No such luck. True to form he had no more words for me, just a nasty sneer.

  He was really starting to piss me off. “Fine.” Maybe Andie was right, I was going to have to beat some sense into him.

  The referee directed to two of us to dip our hands in the cans paint hanging in our corners.

  That’s the first thing you need to know about these fights. There are no weapons, and no fists. You can only score by landing an open handed strike against one of three targets painted on your opponent. The fights only stop if you score all three points, or someone surrenders. Even if you score a point the fight doesn’t reset.

  Andie was waiting in my corner with the bucket of blue paint, just being an absolutely adorable assistant. “Good luck.” She grinned up at me as I dunked my hands in the bucket. “Get him right in the face like he got you.” At least I had someone in my corner, and I'm glad it was her. I could only hope Vance and Victoria were urging more restraint on their side of the arena.

  Once we got our hands dripping we returned to the center. I flicked the excess paint off of my hands and into the crowd to the cheering delight of the fans.

  “Fighters ready?”

  We each gave the ref a severe nod.

  “Fight!”

  Hayden and I train together far too much. We each started with a very aggressive charge with an aim to punch the other right in the face. It was like a mirror had attacked itself. However each of us expected this from the other and was easily able to sway out of the way, and avoid the blow.

  For the next part Hayden was faster. After side stepping my strike he bore his shoulder down, charged it into my gut and threw all his weight into slamming me onto the ground. It worked wonderfully. I hit the ground with a miserable thump. The next moment I felt his hand slam down on my chest, scoring him a point. The next moment he rechambered his hand and hit me again square in the face, that was two points for him.

  I let out a roar, and put my hand over his face, and shoved him off of me, which is what he wanted to do anyway. I was useless to him as long as I was on my back, so he waited patiently for me to get up.

  One point to two is not a place you want to be. But the back is the safest target. I could make it through. The crowd was electrified by the that first exchange and was shouting encouragements to us.

  We each took a moment to catch our breath, before starting the next bout.

  Hayden recovered first and charged me for a second time. This time he was just going to bear hug me, it’s the most direct way to attack the back. Just wrap your arms around your opponent. So long as you don’t fear getting punched in the face you’re fine.

  On a larger opponent you might be able to dodge, or duck under their arms, but Hayden was so short that was a fool’s errand. So instead I sacrificed my legs. I let him grab me but jumped in the air just as he did. This forced him to wrap his arms around my legs, and not my vulnerable back. I then bent at my waist so I was folded over him and used that chance to slap his back and tie up the score.

  He then whipped me forward, and slammed me back onto the ground. Even the floor couldn’t fully soften the impact, and I was left reeling from that one. He stood there for a moment weighing how merciful he wanted to be, and eventually decided on not merciful at all. Instead of letting me get up from that spine shattering throw, he grabbed me by the ankles and flipped me over.

  Of course the dangerous part of grabbing ankles is that they are connected to legs. I managed to catch him in the stomach as he flipped me, and winded him just long enough for me to get me my feet.

  We were each down to one target and panting by this point in the fight. We circled for a few moments each trying to find the other’s weakness, but I found his first. I feigned raising my leg for a kick. His instincts were to catch my leg and pull me to the ground. Without even thinking he changed his stance to catch my leg, and that was when I drove my hand through his heart.

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  “Aww man.” He looked down at the blue handprint over his chest, and shook his head. “You tricked me.” He tilted his head to the side and let out a big smile. The type you give to a person who's been the victim of a well executed prank. Now I could since mirth, and joy in his posture, his expression.

  “Are you kidding me?” I gasped and punched him again in the shoulder. “I thought you were mad at me.”

  He shrugged. “Victoria explained things last night, but I still wanted us to both go all out if we fought today. So I figured I’d antagonize you a bit.”

  I shook my head, and got out of the arena with him. “That’s some cheap trick.” I mumbled.

  “Yeah.” Hayden laughed. “Sorry about punching you yesterday.”

  “Somehow I fell like I probably deserve it.”

  “I told him about the monster.” Victoria said as we joined her and Vance on the side lines.

  “Was that so hard?”

  Vance threw his hands up. “It’s not fair. Off all the people to encounter a monster, it’s you two.”

  I smiled at him. I was just happy to see he hadn’t gone to the mansion despite my warning. “You want it too bad. You've got to have an aloof air about you."

  "Well Victoria, I can understand." Vance laughed. "You're the confusing one."

  Andie joined me on this side of the arena and gave a cautious smile to everyone. "I'm assuming these are happy laughs."

  "He was punking me." I said, wrapping my paint covered arm around her shoulder. She didn't seem to mind at all. When you came to the festival half the fun was from getting paint on you.

  Hayden spotted our coziness and smiled. "I'm glad to see this happening by the way." He'd been teasing me about her long enough.

  "Right?" Andie squeezed me back. "I had to ask him of course."

  "That checks out."

  Up next was Cyrus' fight with that brave unnamed man. To none of our pleasure we had to watch that perfect specimen of a man defeat his opponent within the first few swings. I'd been doing well all day, but couldn't he have struggled just a little bit?

  "Do us proud." Vance tapped me on the back with his fist.

  "Just imagine if you lose, Cyrus personally come up to each of our surf boards and cracking them over his knee." Hayden coached. The message was clear, no prize money no beach. What good were a bunch of beach bums without their boards anyway?

  "Can't have that." I smiled at him, then looked to Andie. "Can I get a good luck kiss?"

  She gave me a coy look, and bit her lip. I'd never seen that look before, and I think I like it. "Weren't you paying attention, I rolled a one on our date."

  Her and everyone else on the island. "I think that just means I'm luckier when I'm with you."

  "This is really sickening." Before Andie and I could share a truly epic kiss Victoria gave me a supportive push towards the arena.

  It was time for my dance with destiny.

  I'd been fighting with Cyrus since I was a kid, and he'd never looked more intimidating. Tall, muscular, and with a lot more flowers in his hair than me. I always came in second place against the guy. If I was ever going to make something of my life, it was going to be through him.

  He might have had every advantage you could want in a fight, but this time I wasn't afraid. I'd seen real monsters.

  Cyrus was just another guy.

  "Don't forget!" I said slamming a foot down on the stage, and getting into my stance. "You're picking up the tab tonight!"

  All he did was smirk, and assume his own fighting stance. He didn't want the audience to see him wasting words on a loser like me.

  The Ref stood between us, jumped back and started the fight.

  What followed was the quickest fight on record. I charged forward for another aggressive hit against his face. He was prepared for this, so prepared. He'd obviously been paying more attention to my fight than I had his. He took a single step forward, twisted his stance and his his palm colliding with my face. He hit me with such force that my head tilted backwards behind more torso. I started pinwheeling to avoid falling on my back. One step back, three steps back, and before I knew it I had fallen into the audience, into someone's strong arms.

  It was a defeat by ringout, and Cyrus had only needed one blow.

  The mood in the audience was contentious. Some were disappointed that the fight had ended on what felt like a fluke. A few myself included were just upset that Cyrus had won. Everyone else realized they were a part of sports history and roared in triumph. Flowers, candy, bras and bracelets were thrown at Cyrus as he stood there with that cocky smile. He walked over to me cooly as the crowd chanted his name. "Now you see the difference between a slacker in a star."

  It was hard to admit, but he was right. If I'd trained more, studied his fights more things might have been different. Not that I would admit any of that to him, or myself in that moment. I was much to upset by the humiliating defeat.

  "Cyrus! Cyrus! Cyrus!" He strutted about the stage, absorbing the island's praise. He was there god, their champion.

  "You okay buddy?" Asked the man who'd caught me.

  "Yeah." I pulled myself up. "Thanks for the save, I..." I froze. The person who'd caught me was, "Ian!" He wasn't supposed to be here. He was supposed to be at the mansion. Had they lived? Did Ian know that I'd turned him in. Was he here to kill me?

  "Told you I wouldn't miss this." He winked at me, and then put a hand on my shoulder. "Don't think less of me for what I'm about to do. I'll explain everything to you later." With that he moved past me and jumped onto the stage himself. "Nice moves."

  Cyrus looked at him with a smile. "Another Slacker looking to get smacked down?"

  Ian just smiled and folded his hands. "Wild Magic, Two Stars." There was a puff of smoke, and an old looking tome appeared before the man. So I was right, he was an outsider after all. The tome flipped through it's pages rapidly, like some kind of slot machine, before landing on a particular page. The book glew bright blue for a moment, and a single bolt of lightning ripped from it's pages, directly through Cyrus.

  Cyrus had been our champion for less than a minute when he died. His smoldering corpse fell to the stage with a weighty thud. As he died, all color seemed to fade from the world, as the sun finally began to set.