Redux Vol1 Ch15: The Tournament

“Toss” he shouted like a military drill instructor, and obediently the eggs were tossed across a distance of ten feet. “Toss” and they once again arced into the air and were caught by the other side.

It had taken an hour or so to tell them exactly what the tournament was about, and to clear up the inadvertent misunderstanding his “to war!” statement had caused, especially seeing as Hethuk had reached instantly for his knives and looked ready to kill, good man that, good man that. Even then they didn't quite get it, he had eventually given up and allowed Hethuk to believe that it was some sort of militaristic training exercise that focused on cohesion in groups, apparently that made some sort of sense to him based on what he had seen of earth culture.

It was close enough.

“Toss.” The tournament started in a few hours or so around lunchtime, so they were getting in some much-needed practice, or rather it would be more accurate to say Jack was gauging them to see who was the best at what so they could be used in the right capacity to crush the Millars. There was no real-time to adequately train them, so instead, he had to see what raw potential he was working with.

He paused for a brief moment and wondered if he was taking this too far, but when he looked out across the lake he could see the Millars doing drills of their own and his fighting spirit was rekindled. It was simple, it was them or the Millars, and he was going to do his damndest to make sure it wasn't the Millars.

The practice was going decently, and he was pleasantly surprised by the three-legged race section of it, he had discovered Hethuk had a way with conveying what he was going to do to the other person tied to him allowing them to work together almost flawlessly.

Honestly what was this man, or for that matter what was this race? They were almost too perfect. Their strength and speed and coordination were all top-notch, far surpassing what a human could do. Jack was surprised they had not conquered the galaxy yet, they not only adapted to any environment they thrived there.

And then there was the fact that they could breed with any race, and even though their children still looked like Trilska were they in fact? He had the sneaking suspicion that they had the ability to take the best genes and abilities from the races they mated with and pass them onto the next generation. Which would lead eventually to the birth of a super race, that would have spread to the ends of the galaxy conquering all, had it not been for one small catch.

A high mortality rate.

Tying one's very soul to another is as risky as it sounds, and if the one you are tethered to dies so do you. It almost sounded like a counterbalance, like a mechanism put in place by some higher being in order to curb what would be that races’ net logical step in the fullness of time. He shook his head and cleared the thoughts out of it, there would be time to think of that later, for now he had to make sure they could win…

***

The sun was mid-way in the sky when they approached the area of lakeside beachfront that had been cordoned off for the purposes of the tournament. There was already a crowd there, several groups of people stood in small clumps laughing and joking. With a somber mood Jack and his group walked up to the registration table.

“Jack! Good to see you again!” an elderly man at the table yelled out, calling him over with a friendly smile. It was old man Coders, a neighbor and general good guy that had been here since they had bought the lake house.

“Joe, how are you?” He asked a smile blooming on his face, it was always good to see Joe, rumor had it he had struck it rich when he had, shall we say, found several million dollars that a cartel he may or may not have had some ties to and decided to take a very long vacation on their buck. Jack didn't know how true that was, but Joe did always have a sidearm and there was always a Winchester model 1897 racked in the back window of his truck, and the fact that he always kept an eye on anyone, and Jack meant anyone that came to the lake...

“Onerier than hell.” he replied, “or at least such is what my wife tells me,” it was his standard reply to such a question, and even though Jack had expected it he still smiled at its delivery.

“Good to see some things never change.” Jack laughed.

“So, you come to put those Millers in their place again? It's really quite annoying, they come to every one of them eats and all they do is brag about how they are the six time tournament winners.” he sighed and shook his head, “You know back in new Mexico we used to make people like that dissa-” he paused and shook his head again a slight smile on his lips “Never you mind young man, I see you are running with a different crew, huh?”

“Oh, sorry, that was rude of me,” he pulled Hisra forward by the hand and presented her to Joe, “This is my fiance, Hisra.”

“Nice to meet you Hisra,” Joe said before taking her hand and kissing it.

“You better be careful old man, I'd hate to see your wife get jealous again.” Joe let go of Hisra’s hand and looked around with a slightly frantic look in his eyes before finding his wife giving him the stink eye and shaking her head. “The way she handled that switch was something to behold last time.”

“That it was, that it was, I married something fierce didn’t I?” he said, and Jack could practically see the cold chill running down his old spine. “And who are the rest of these people?” he asked, Jack introduced them all one by one and soon the old man registered them. “Alright, make sure you kick some Millar’s ass today of I have to hear another one of those victory stories they tell I swear there's going to be a family sedan that may or may not get buried somewhere in the hills while still occupied. Either that or I'll go throw myself into the lake.”

“We all know you can't swim Joe,”

“Exactly the point!” he answered before the both of them burst out laughing…

***

“Toss!” the white egg arched through the sky and landed safely in Jack's palms as he cradled it. He took a step back and prepared his throw, it was just him, Hisra and the Millar brothers left on the field. 45 throws, every time they threw they took a step back to make it more difficult.

“Toss!” the call went out and Jack tossed his egg to Hisra with a soft underhand pass that arched high up in the sky. She moved to catch it, but as she did her foot caught on some unseen root and she lost her balance for a split second.

But that was all that was needed.

The egg slipped past her hands and hit her square in the chest, splashing egg white and yolk all over her bikini and in between her breasts. With a look of dismay and disgust she looked down at herself.

“Winner is Miller's!” the announcer called, out, as Jack stripped off his shirt and went over to help her clean up with it. The act of taking off his shirt caught the attention of many women in the field, his muscles were well defined, the result no doubt of his father training him in several martial arts from a young age.

He handed his shirt over to Hisra who moved to clean up the mess, the yolk had dripped down in between her breasts and traveled all the way to her navel, and with deft hand she wiped it all away, and he wasn't ashamed to admit he rather enjoyed watching her do such.

“Get a room you two, this is the Lalson Lake Family Tournament, keyword there being family!” Yelled Joe from the crowd with a laugh. Hisra’s face turned bright red and she tried to hide herself by pressing up against Jack almost like she wanted to melt into him. Her antics however only caused to make the crowd roar with laughter more. Jack gave her a peck on the lips before he made his way to the next event, his mind both remembering the rather appealing look of her chest shiny with yolk, and thinking forward to the next event.

Jack and Hethuk were bound together at the ankles. They were down by two points to the Millers, but this was to be expected, seeing as half his team had never done anything like this before except for the short practice they had earlier that day there was bound to be some mistakes.

That made this race, and the next event the arm wrestling contest all the more important, they needed this race to tie, and to secure their victory they needed to win at the arm wrestling. The last two events.

The sun was getting lower in the sky as they all lined up at the start line.

“Inside outside?” Hethuk asked, Jack simply nodded. Jack was standing there bare-chested, and soon so was Hethuk as he stripped off his shirt as well. Once again Jack admired the alien’s physiology, he would have made the greek sculptors proud with his ridiculously defined abs and pecs. The women in the crowd sure noticed him, that much was made obvious by the number of conversations that seemed to instantly die down.

“Ready, set! GO!” the announcer shouted, and with an easy rhythm the two of them started their cadence.

Inside

Outside

Inside

Outside

Once they got the rhythm they began increasing the pace, until soon they were doing something no one in the history of the Lalson Lake Family Tournament had done before during the three-legged race.

They were actually running.

Anyone familiar with running a three-legged race will tell you that it is next to impossible to get so in sync with your partner to do anything more than a slow jog. But here they were, two ridiculously toned men tied together at the ankles, actually running.

Like this there was nothing anyone could do to catch them, they didn't even have a prayer, they crossed the finish line just as the others were reaching the halfway point. Only one point remained and the victory was theirs.

“And so we have a tie-breaker!” Joe said, speaking into the microphone, the crowd cheered wildly, this had been the most exciting tournament in the past couple of years, of this he was sure. “Contestants, enter the field!”

Jack walked out from the left and took his seat at the park bench. Zachary Miller, the biggest of the Millar bunch came out and sat opposite from him. In the seated position Zach was a head taller, when standing he was two. Weighing in at a massive 275ish this beast looked like he could eat Jack alive in a single bite.

“Contestants ready?” Joe asked in an excited voice, the two men put their arms on the table and clasped hands. “GO!” he shouted.

Two sets of Biceps flexed, and much to the crowd's surprise neither men’s arm moved at all, in fact, if not for the slight quiver of the arms it might not look like they were fighting at all.

“Wow Miller, you have gotten better at this since we did it last,” Jack said in a casual voice, as though he was simply talking about the weather.

“Uhggg” Miller grunted, a bead of sweat ran down his face and he started to turn red from exertion.

“You know I would like to thank you for this, it was really hard for me to see our family lose last time, I thank you for the opportunity to fix that.” a demented smile spread on Jack’s face.

“Who says you will win?” Zach grunted, obviously having a hard time.

“I do,” Jack's smile widened to a maddening degree, and with a slow and casual ease he started pushing the Miller’s arm backward. He could have easily just slammed it to the table, but where was the fun in that?

No.

It was much more satisfying to slowly press his arm back, allowing him to grovel in his powerlessness. With his smile still in place and not a bead of sweat to be found Jack pushed his hand all the way down, causing a sharp sound as Zach’s knuckles rapped on the wooden table.

“And we have a winner for the semi-annual Lalson Lake Family Tournament!” Joe called out as the crowd roared.

“See you next time?” Jack asked, offering his hand in a handshake to Zach. the Miller smiled and took the offered hand.

With a tight squeeze he nodded, “Next time.” he said before turning to leave. “Next time it will be our victory!” he called out over his shoulder.

“I look forward to the challenge!” Jack responded back to his vacation nemesis.