That did the trick.

Did 'it' too well, actually.

The wrong words said, spoken in an even wronger tone, struck a nerve in him in the wrongest way possible. A single piercing glare, that was the last I saw of him before it happened.

Before he happened.

"Bob's charging!" came the warning, and remark from Tyler too late. "And he looks seriously pissed too."

His enraged yell echoing back conveyed that this next barrage would be the paramount of his efforts… so I readied myself for the impending, planted my feet firmly into the dirt, and took my stand, shield up and ready.

The thing was, I expected him to strike the very moment he closed our distances to each other - it never crossed my mind that he'd begin from afar. Not until it was already far too late.

A tumultuous clang rang, overpowering in that split-instant, every sound and every voice, except one, except Tyler - who I heard barely through the ringing in my ears.

"He threw his sword! That sound! What the fu-?!" He gasped, and from that gasp alone, I heard the terror, the utter shock, and the complete panic that immediately followed. "Fuck, that shit's metal dude! That ain't our prop sword! What the shit?! Who gave him that?! HE COULD HAVE KILLED HIM!"

I heard the clatter, the limp clink, as his blade ricocheted off my shield and landed before my feet. The whole length of my arm absorbed the impact, and it started to ache, but none more so than the surface he first struck… it was throbbing harder, spreading faster.

But it was fine - the idiot just threw away his only means of attack. Couldn't get much worse than that, I thought.

I thought wrong.

A ferocious roar dispersed the shrill ringing almost instantaneously. I didn't even know what was happening - I just knew something heavy, something seriously heavy, just collided with my shield again… and for the first time, I felt it buckle… and there were many other first times that immediately followed.

Stumbling, my legs gave way - no it wasn't a stumble - I flew, my feet left the ground, and I found myself soaring backwards with that pressure, that something heavy still hurling me even further all in a single second's happening… then when that single second came to pass, it ended it all with a fall.

I fell to the ground - hard. I felt the back of my head directly bash against the hard dirt. My helmet must have come loose amidst the chaos, flown off - I heard a distant clatter from somewhere unknown - that must have been it. I heard many other things too… felt many, many things I couldn't begin to describe. The pounding in my head…

Couldn't concentrate… couldn't breathe… I felt all the air in my lungs immediately get expelled out through my lips… I didn't even realize they were parted wide open.

What happened? The world was a spinning, whizzing blur… I tried focusing on a single thing, a single sound… the easiest there was, the loudest there was.

"... Bob... in all my life... tackled him!" sounded a murky faraway echo from a murky faraway voice. "...cheating… fight must… he… be disqualified!"

Then like a snap, the nothing I heard, the nothing I felt, exploded into everything. I regained a grasp of my senses, could see again, hear again… and what I heard first and foremost was the outcry and the outrage from all around with Tyler leading the charge.

"Stop the fight!" Tyler bellowed, the collective voice of the masses. "Judges' call! Bob you are fucking out for using an illegal weapon! The bell's rung! Whistle's blown! Oi, Bob, get the hell off of him! Hey, are you even listening?!"

That heavy sensation never left - in fact, it only intensified, and only then I discovered the what and why of it. Bob loomed directly from above, his gaze, his sadistic expression filled the entirety of my vision.

I don't think he was listening.

Something hard struck me again, something that temporarily turned everything a hazy black, something that flared a sudden throbbing pain all across my left cheek.

Then to my right.

When the black eventually dissipated, I found myself gazing back to a sight I already knew - Bob with his hands curled up into tight balls, one pulled back far into a swing, the other still planted across my face.

"Get staff, get staff! Someone break 'em apart! Fucker went psycho!"

There was a scurry of movement all around, a hushed silence only sporadically broken by urgent whispers, shocked murmurs - and the heavy thud of his fists as he rained down blow after blow.

"No sword now. No cheats. No tricks," Bob said in an almost frenzied whisper. "It's all me now! It's all me that's beating the shit out of you now! Just the way you wanted it, right?"

When he hit left, my head spun right - and I saw the horror rippling the faces of the audience, and Tyler up on his podium on the verge of jumping off of it himself.

And when he struck a hard right, I went spinning left - there was a spectacle of much of the same thing with only one major difference, among the vibrant hues of costumes, the variety of colors overwhelmingly bright; I saw a distinct stark green… how that green glimmered, how that green stared, wrought in the throes of worry.

Ash looked just about ready to get in some well-placed blows of her own. Once again, I found myself staring up at the terror behind her always gentle gaze.

But I couldn't have her interfering… couldn't have her always saving me. I needed to do this by myself. For her sake… but mostly for mine. Told her she didn't have to worry. Told her I'd do just fine. And I intend to make good on that claim.

This was nothing to worry about.

This pain, his every strike, every blow unrelenting, unceasing… the pain I was then feeling...

I felt much, much worse.

He punched another heavy left again, aligning my gaze once more with his - and that was when I decided that perhaps he's gotten in one hit too many already.

The next arm he rose, the blow that he next chose to hurl at me, his knuckles trembling, tightening, reaching - missed.

Like a gust of wind had suddenly steered his fist off-course, an invisible force deviating his strike to the dirt below just mere inches from my face. Bob's eyes filled with surprise, but all for the wrong reasons.

For this was far from the most surprising thing to come, Bob…

I took that pause between fists to strike. I retaliated. He wanted my face bashed in so bad, how about I just do the job for him? Upwards, I rose fast. Upwards, I collided hard. Instantly, I heard, felt, and saw the impact simultaneously as my forehead slammed against his.

He only had time for one agonizing scream before I seized him with both arms, and toppled him to the ground, effectively switching our positions with one another.

And let me tell you, the view from up there, the angle I got staring down at him… I never saw any more clearer. The shade of white he turned, the smile he had so rapidly gone. Here's your surprise, Bob.

Surprise.

I struck him, the same way he did me - I could feel the springiness of his skin, the sturdiness of his cheekbones against my knuckles. I barely remembered the last time I hit someone - middle school fights - back then, I didn't have a clue how exactly I was supposed to hit somebody. I still don't.

But I was learning now… and I was learning fast.

Left, right, left, right. I was just giving him a taste of his own medicine, and it didn't take long to see that he wasn't a big fan of the flavor. He tried to stop it, stop me, doing everything he could think of in a spur of desperation - flailing his arms, shaking his head - all to no avail.

"Stop! Stop it! I said stop!" came a strangled yell from the stands. "You've won! He's lost! He's disqualified! Just leave him alone!"

The distress I heard in that shout was not lost on me. A stranger wouldn't have bothered, a friend maybe, but family? Absolutely.

I paused briefly to turn briefly, veering my eyes to the source of those demands, not a surprise that I landed my gaze onto the judges' stand, but it was certainly was a surprise seeing just who exactly was Bob's elusive benefactor - take away the fake wizened beard, remove those drabby robes - The Wizard above resembled Bob almost to a tee.

"You're hurting him, can't you see?!" He kept shouting. "He just wanted the prize, alright? He didn't mean to hurt anybody! Just let him go!"

Just how disillusioned do you have to be to get to that level of denial? Didn't mean to hurt anybody? Does he seriously think that Bob did no wrong? Brotherly love was good… but this was an extent too far.

Clearly, Bob was too used to having things his way… and his big brother did worse to affirm that toxic mindset of his.

Well, I'm here to show him otherwise. Sorry big bro, I ain't gonna let him go.

My gaze snapped back to the beaten battered Bob - shriveling into short whimpers - and I raised an arm again, winding it… tightening it.

Then just right as I let my fist loose, something came between the both of us - a bulky thing, a shiny thing - Bob rose a shield, bits of grime and dirt sliding off its gleaming surface.

A last-ditch attempt to stop me in my tracks.

It's only too bad I wasn't stopping. I couldn't stop. This… this right here, was the paramount of my efforts. This single strike.

My fist continued to fly, and I felt everything surge into every tendon, every vein, every joint. I heard myself yell, and I heard myself strike.

There was no resounding clangor, no hard muffled thud. Instead what filled the silence was a rupture, an explosion heard and seen by all, and I had the front row seat.

My arm had completely burrowed through the shield. Punching a hole in its exterior that extended the width of my fist… and past it, beyond what I could see, I could feel the tip of his nose grazing on one of my knuckles, and the warmth of his damp breath trickling the surface of my palm.

Then after one last pathetic whimper, his hold on the shield slipped, and I heard a dull thud.

Bob had fainted.

In the stands, the silence stayed to linger… a quiet where no one dared move, and no one dared speak. Except for one, of course… there's always the one, the only one…

"Bob… Bob's knocked out…" whispered the incredulity in Tyler's breathless voice. "He… he did it. Big Man did it. Even after all that, he won."

It was as if that statement only dawned on him after he said it, and after it had… it's he couldn't stop repeating it, his smile slowly growing wide with every single one.

"He won. He won. Oi, Big Man won! Guys, he won! Ladies and gents, he beat the shit out of the bastard! Can you believe what the hell just happened?! My man won his spot!"

The silence was like a dam, and Tyler was the crack that had it bursting at the seams - before long that damn crumbled and the silence was broken by the violent stream of cheers that flooded through.

I could hear nothing but the cheers as if they were trying to batter me with the affirmations, the insistence, the absolute certainty that I won, that I was the one standing victorious… and that they were all for it.

It was a harsh noise, a shrill one too… but never has something so ear-grating sound so pleasing all the same.

I slowly began to move, rising to my feet, and the applause only intensified further, finally reaching its breaking point when through aching, bruising cheeks, I mustered a smile.

Must have been stupid-looking, painful-looking too… still, that didn't matter to them, the trumpets still blared, the fanfare still played.

Okay, guys, I get it already…

I won.