“Good evening, and thanks for joining us tonight.” Anchor pig’s voice echoed through some speakers that had been set up. “My name is…”

“And I’m Violetta!” The feedback from the mike made my skin crawl. “We have a very exciting match for you tonight! Law expert Ryley versus cheating garbage McGee. Stay tuned!”

What the hell were those two doing? I explicitly said cameras weren’t allowed in the courtroom, so why were they talking like that?

Whatever. They could pretend all they wanted. All I needed to focus on right now was McGee. And also figuring out how this game worked.

Someone tugged on my blazer from behind. “Hey Ryley.”

I turned to see Yaika standing with two purple apple sized balls cradled against her arm and stomach. “Uh, hey,” I said. “Are those for me?”

Yaika stared back at me with her soulless eyes. “No, these are mine.”

“…What do you mean ‘yours’?”

Yaika let out a string of coughs before finally answering. “I’m playing too.”

No she wasn’t. I didn’t need another person drawing this out longer than it needed to be. Besides, she would just get in the way.

Or… would she?

After thinking for a moment, I finally spoke again. “Cool. Knock yourself out.”

Yaika gave me a thumbs up with her free hand. “Will do!” Hopefully she wasn’t going to take what I said seriously and actually make herself unconscious. I mean, it would be pretty funny to see the king shit his pants, but I needed her to throw some balls around first.

“I’ll go let them know,” Yaika said. She started her slow advance toward the table where Violetta and anchor pig were sitting. Yeah. This was going to take a while.

McGee was standing over by the door by himself. He didn’t look particularly nervous. No chunky sweat like earlier.

I walked over to him, but he didn’t look in my direction. On the ground, I noticed two blue bocce balls. I bent down and picked them up. Even though I had held one before, they were still heavier than I expected them to be. How was Yaika’s sickly body even capable of carrying these around?

A few seconds passed, and I finally spoke up. “How does this game work, exactly?” It wasn’t usually the best strategy to let your opponent know that you had no idea what you were doing, but knowing the rules was probably a good idea.

“Aw, it’s super easy, bro,” McGee said in a friendly tone. “One of us, like, throws a special ball called a jaaack? Then, we like, each have two balls and we, like, take tuuurns trying to get our balls as close to the jack as we caaan?”

“That’s it?” I asked.

“Yeah, basicaaally?”

So… almost no rules at all. I was starting to understand why bocce was so popular in the demon world.

“We have a very exciting update for you all,” anchor pig said. “In addition to Ryley and McGee, the Princess will also be taking part in tonight’s match!”

“How exciting!” Violetta echoed. The crowd burst into applause.

“That’s wonderful.” The king couldn’t keep his ridiculous smile off his face. “But… what happens if my daughter wins?”

“We’ll worry about that when it happens,” I said. Seriously, could we just get this started already?

“Very well.” The king nodded. “Let the game begin!”

“Now listen Sir McGee,” Lyili shouted. “I will be watching very closely for any sign of cheating. Arouse my suspicions and I will prepare a guillotine with your name on it.”

I heard a sloshing sound inside of McGee’s body. I assumed it was the slime equivalent of gulping.

“The first player to win two rounds will be declared the victor,” Violetta said over the speakers.

“That’s right.” Anchor pig’s voice was made for this. “The Princess will start the game off for us.”

The crowd went silent as Yaika took a slightly smaller silver ball in her hand. That must have been the jack. She moved her bottomless pit eyes from the ball to the open area in the middle of the room. Then back to the ball. Then back to the floor. Then… back to the ball.

“Throw it!” I shouted.

Yaika coughed, and the ball clumsily dropped from her hand. It rolled a few feet before stopping. Oops.

The crowd went wild. The king was jumping up and down, completely indistinguishable from a soccer mom.

“What a great play by Princess Yaika,” anchor pig’s surprisingly deep voice said. “The other players are going to have to be careful about how much power they put into their throws.” Come on. Were we really going to pretend strategy had anything to do with that?

“I’m, like, up first,” McGee said. A tentacle came out of his body, snatching up a red ball from the ground. He tossed it underhand, and it rolled up just a few inches from the jack.

“What a throw!” anchor pig shouted. The crowd oohed and aahed. Come on, this couldn’t really be that hard.

“You’re up,” McGee said as he passed me.

Here went nothing. I put one of my blue balls in my hand and moved my arm like I was bowling. The ball came out a lot faster than I thought it would, speeding past McGee’s and the jack and into the audience. Fuck.

“Too much strength!” Violetta yelled. “If Ryley wants to get on the board, he’s going to have to control his throws.” Yeah, no shit.

Yaika was next. She threw her purple ball, but it plopped right down in front of her, not even remotely close to the jack. Of course, the crowd cheered all the same.

She pumped her arms in the air. “I did it.”

“What a set up!” anchor pig yelled. What the hell? Her throw was basically as bad as mine was.

“No hard feelings, bro,” McGee said, picking up another red ball. Just like before, he gave it a half-hearted toss. It landed and rolled just slightly, stopping just past his other ball, even closer to the jack.

“Another great throw from McGee!”

“Ms. Lyili!” Violetta shouted. “He’s not cheating, is he?”

“Do not fret, Madam Violetta.” Lyili crossed her arms. “I’m watching him like a hawk.” Judging by her face, she liked the idea of being the referee.

It was my turn again. I took my second ball and rolled it. It went rocketing past the jack and to the edge of the crowd. Fuck.

“No luck for Ryley,” anchor pig said. Ugh, why was this so hard? This was basically just bowling minus the gutters. In other words, baby bowling. This should have been easy.

Before the ‘commentators’ could say another word, Yaika tossed her second ball. It landed in the exact same place as her last one, bouncing off it with a loud clack. It didn’t roll much further. The crowd let out a disappointed groan.

“So close!” Violetta cried. “Just a little shorter and she could have knocked her first ball toward the jack.” I really doubted that was what she was trying to do.

“That’s one win for McGee,” anchor pig said. “After the field’s reset, we’ll be back for round two.”

“See you after these commercial messages!”

Please stop.