the infrared scope on pointlessness

(A/N: the italics at the beginning are the bits I took directly from One True King)

"So, what do we do then?" said blond Bert.

"How do we win?" asked blonder Beckett.

"How else? Make Tedros kill Agatha," a voice said.

The crowd turned to Hort.

"It's the second test, ain't it?" he groused, waving his cup, splashing cider everywhere. "Dear ol' Teddy spears her and he wins. Then all he has to do is finish the third test and the Snake's dead. Trade Agatha's life for ours. That's what a king would do."

The Clearing went silent.

"What?" Agatha gawked at him, suddenly cold. "How could-- Hort, I thought we were friends--"

"What you get for hoardin' Sophie to yourself," Hort murmured.

A beat.

Agatha flamed furious red.

"SOPHIE?" she shouted. "YOU THINK I SHOULD DIE, BECAUSE YOU'RE STILL JEALOUS ABOUT SOPHIE NOT PAYING YOU ATTENTION? YOU SNIVELLING LITTLE RAT--"

Then Tedros appeared over Hort's shoulder.

No one had noticed him stand up, but suddenly he was there, and his hand closed hard on Hort's collar. He wrenched him around, Hort opened his mouth indignantly--

Hort was much burlier than he had been in first year, and for all intents and purposes, he probably should have been reasonably able to hold his own in a fight. But he was drunk, he was not paying attention, and unlike Tedros, he had not played rugby religiously in first year.

If she was honest, Agatha had been expecting something along the lines of angsty silence on Tedros's part.

Not for Tedros to open-hand clout Hort face-first into a tree, with a ridiculous amount of power behind it.

A few of the younger first years screamed. Beatrix cheered, loudly, and got shushed by a few people. Agatha took a very decisive step back, suddenly sensing that Hort was going to get a lot more than a verbal bashing.

For a second, there was complete silence in the Clearing. Hort staggered backwards from the tree, the pattern of the bark plastered to his cheek, gaping.

"You just--"

Then it seemed to dawn on him that Tedros had gotten a hit in.

With a roar, Hort hurled himself on top of Tedros, and triggered a clear-cut brawl.

Tedros was faster, naturally, since he was sober; he flipped them over, forced Hort onto the floor and swung for him, a hit which Hort only just avoided. He jabbed his knee into Tedros's gut, and Tedros deliberately drove his elbow into Hort's neck, knocking the wind out of him. Hort flailed wildly and managed to catch Tedros in the jaw, knocking him off him, and into the grass. Newly free, Hort scrabbled out into the clear-- and got firmly flattened into the dirt by Tedros hurling himself on top of him.

The Clearing erupted into chaos. A handful of first years sprinted for the castle, no doubt to summon the rest of the professors, and were nearly flattened by said teachers emerging in a stampede from the Tunnel of Trees. The older Everboys, Tedros's friends and classmates, hooted and hollered, and Beatrix and Mona scrambled up one of the oaks for a better look. The Nevers were openly betting, and most of the Evergirls looked stuck between being interested and being horrified.

Agatha glanced furtively around, suddenly glad for her newfound irrelevancy in the face of the fight, but also slightly stunned. Tedros got into fights a lot, but this wasn't really a fight; this was a brawl serving as a revenge mission.