CheckMate

The crowd went wild - "Kill the knight, kill the knight!" they chanted.

Fred, having already thought this out, stood up, flipped the chess table over with his bare hands and gave a mighty karate chop to the old man's neck. With a *Snap!* the spine broke and crumbled, the ancient flesh ripped, the veins and arteries were shredded, and the whole head flopped off of the body, flew across the arena, and hit some little spider-boy in the stands. "Cool, free drinks!" said the little spider-boy as he thrust his fangs into the soft underside of the head and began to suck out fluids.

The crowd went wild -again! "Kill the knight! Kill the knight!"

"Huh?" said Fred in confused fear.

The molten Tournament Master stood on the upraised dais, and bellowed out: "Let's hear it for our cheating, no-good, old-man-killing, Knight!!!"

The crowd still chanted "Kill the knight!"

"Seriously folks," continued the T.M. "Doesn't it touch yer heart that an otherwise honourable Knight would steep so low as to kill an old man who had beat him fair and square in a military game that every knight is supposed to master anyway!" The crowd whooped and awwwwed. "So let's give it up for our new posterboy, Fred the Rat B*st*rd!!!!" And the crowd went wild yet again (they really enjoyed this kinda thing).

Meanwhile, in the stands, Velus was conversing with dog-faced demon (luckily for Velus the demon spoke canine).

"It's not that I mind the sight of blood mind you," said the demon. "I actually quite like it, but there's something wrong with reverting to brute strength after finding defeat at the hands of a superior intellect. Don't you agree?"

"Uh-huh," said Velus not sure what the demon had just said (Velus was a poor peasant from a poor region of Allaria, after all, a product of the public school system - and the demon had access to near-unlimited, infernal sources of information, obviously a product of a private school. It's a no-brainer as to whom has the better education!)

1. Fred meets his newest enemy - or Fellow Contestant as the T.M. likes to say...

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