A Demon With Wings

Eight

"Welcome one, welcome all to the tournament!" announces the...well, announcer, a man with golden skin and blond hair. Everybody in this freakshow village is blonde and has gold skin. "May we introduce our players! First of all, from the Golden Team!"

Each of the ten warriors from the Golden Team steps forwards and shouts his or her name out loud. I only pay attention to the first few.

"Mary Walters," announces a young woman of about twenty, with long blonde hair and golden eyes that seem to sparkle in the faint firelight from the torches the Gold Miner Hunters planted around to give off light.

"Ayla Barsotti." A cold girl with short blonde hair, golden eyes and a scar running from across her face, splitting her face evenly in two diagonally.

"Barry Kemp," says a man. Blonde, golden eyes, pale gold skin. He's wearing a hijab.

Wait, a hijab?

I'm confused and smell a whole gallon of those rat shits, but I'm too distracted to think.

"And the opposing team, from Team A!"

What the fuck? We're called Team A?!

The cheers and shouts immediately die down.

"Evangeline Youngspire," says Evangeline in her best fierce voice.

"Goodwin Yates," says Goodie sweetly. "Can I have a biscuit?"

Great. Just great. Now they're booing and laughing at us.

"Kevin Whitehunter," announces Kev in the most spirited voice I've ever heard him utter, besides the time he told us to chase the Shiram who had 'kidnapped a baby'. There's a fire glittering in his eyes, and he's not going to back down.

"Trixie Alluni."

And it's my turn. "Orson Goldbloom."

The cold king begins to explain the rules. "Weapons will be scattered across the battlefield. You will all be released at the same time to fight it out. Places, everybody!"

The onlookers/audience/miners/hunters take this as a cue to cheer.

I'm escorted to a certain place, in a circle alongside the other fourteen players. The animals will run free.

"On your marks, get set, go!" hollers the announcer.

I see that the Golden Team is already charging at us, so we have to move fast. I scan my surroundings. Wow, the Gold Miner Hunters have a practice battlefield complete with forests, hills, rivers, fields, basins and grasses? At headquarters, we angels only use virtual reality devices for training!

"Go!" I shout, pointing at the woods. Following me, the others all run into the woods after me. The Golden Team follows, but we're faster and we loose them in half an hour.

I make a brief roll call.

Orson, present.

Kevin, present.

Trixie, present.

Goodie, present.

Evangeline, absent?!

Oh, Evangeline, what did you get yourself into?

We've picked up quite a few weapons and useful stuff, and we decide to sort them out.

Wow.

We have a spear, some rope, three daggers, a weird thing called a khopesh and a crossbow that nobody has any idea how to use.

Trixie immediately claims a dagger, and so does Goodie and Kev. I decide to use the khopesh, for it is a sickle-sword, and I might be able to use it best. We split the rope into quarters, and each keep a quarter. I wrap mine around my waist a couple of times before I tie it in a firm knot.

I volunteer night watch, and I tell the others to get some sleep while I watch out for any members of the Golden Team. As the others all fall asleep, only Goodie remains.

"Miss Orsin, a story?"

"Fuck you," I say, and I hear the boos.

Pish. Like I care.

"Hansel had a sister named Gretel. He loved her, and wanted to love her, marry her, fuck her and have whores and bitches with her, but their parents said no. So Hansel cried a river of shit.

"One day, their parents were poorer than ever, and their stepmother wanted to dispose of them like fucking trash shits, but their father said no. The stepmother took Hansel and Gretel out into the woods to try and get them lost, but Hansel dropped stones into a trail after them, and they could find their way back home.

"Turns out Hansel got stupider and stupider, because plot. He turned from a stupid little cunt into a fucking, idiotic bastard. He left a trail of bread crumbs, but the birds had eaten his trail, so that Hansel had officially gotten both his and his lover/sister's fat asses lost.

"They wandered deeper into the woods, and they came across a house made of gingerbread and candy. They started to eat it, because they were hungry, and a woman came out and yelled at them. But upon hearing their sad, sorry tale, she invited them in and gave them a hot meal.

"Some versions of this story say that Gretel pushed the woman into the oven and baked her because the woman was secretly a witch and wanted to eat Hansel and his pretty bitch. But instead, they pushed her in and baked her simply because she was ugly and looked like shit/a witch.

"The two thieves took the woman's jewelry, and dragged their sick asses home yet again. Don't ask me how, they were lost a day ago. They sold the jewelry and became the fucking kings of the fucking universe, and ruled their fucking universe with their fucking power and fucking wealth...all because they were rich as fuck. And after their father died, Hansel married Gretel, and they became the king and the queen...simply because they were rich from stealing what they shouldn't have taken.

"The moral of this story is to steal as much stuff as you want, and instead of killing bad guys, you should just push them into a nearby oven, and give out Baddy Brownies to the homeless, because eating them yourself would make you fat as fuck."

That story feels rushed and sounds like plain shit, because it is.

"Goodnight, Miss Orsin," says Goodie, settling down to sleep.

I don't know why, but I feel oddly content.

"Goodnight, Miss Giidie."