Warnings and Such: This fic contains swearing, explicit and exaggerated violence, drug use, and characters doin' it off-screen. Not immediately for the latter, but, like, give it time and stuff.
This starts at around the time Peridot first lives in the bathroom but branches pretty wildly after that. The G.O.F. and many of the historical characters are from the (brilliant) webcomic Achewood.
On that day, a sweaty-smelling hobo entered the Big Donut at around nine thirty in the AM. Sadie popped a smile, breathed through her teeth, and said, "Hi, welcome to the Big Donut! Take your time, we're open 'til 9 pm."
"Ah... yes," the hobo said. He was a tall, broad-shouldered guy, wearing a weathered army jacket, an old black armband, and well-worn boots patched with duct tape and spare leather. His beard, however, was immaculate and shining in the florescent light of the Donut. "Do you perhaps have any donut holes, young lady? Glazed ones?"
"Of course, sir. They're a buck a dozen. Actually, it's kind of a logarithmic scale..."
"Just gimmie as many as you got. I'm good for it."
"Alright! This'll take a minute, I'll need to fire up a graphing calculator app."
The hobo nodded along, pulling out a tightly-wrapped plastic bag from his pocket and counting out change. Sadie wondered if it was okay to dread the next ten minutes, or if that was somehow crossing a line. By the time he'd calculated the cost of four dozen ($6.16) Lars had finally finished making the decaf coffee. He gagged at the hobo's smell.
She poured the donut holes out into a box. "Would you like any coffee, sir?" she said.
He pondered a long moment. "Not today, I think. I will have a glass of your free water, instead."
"Alright, sir!" Sadie said, setting the donut hole box next to the cash register. "Ready when you-" She'd hardly begun sorting the change before the door jingled open. "Just one moment, please!" she shouted, not exactly able to see over the hobo's shoulders at who came in.
A loud bang sent her heart flying into her throat. The hobo fell to his knees, bracing himself against the counter. Behind him, a slim man in a hunting vest and khakis lowered a zip gun made from an iron pipe. He popped it open and tapped a smoking shotgun shell out of it.
"OH MY GOD WE'RE GOING TO DIE," Lars said, leaping to cover behind the counter.
Sadie's eyes flit between the hobo's breath leaving flecks of blood on the counter and his attacker sliding a new shell out of his vest pocket and into his gun with an easy, measured gesture. "That's far enough," the attacker said.
"Stop," Sadie said, not believing how firm she sounded. "Don't hurt him."
"Girl, this is going right through his head. He won't be hurting for long."
He leveled his gun at the hobo's head, and Sadie ripped the cash register from its mount and hurled it at the attacker's arm, not breaking his arm but severing it at the elbow. The register hit the floor with an apocalyptic clatter of shrapnel and coinage. The attacker barely had time to squeal before Sadie had pounced over the counter and at his chest, sending him to the ground. She grabbed his head and ripped it clean off. Well, not clean; flappy tatters of skin and connective tissue dangled from his head, and every drop of blood in his body painted the floor and front door in a series of powerful spurts.
She realized she was about to bite into his head and eat his brain, squealed in shock, and threw the head aside. When she realized her kneeling on the attacker's chest was helping pump out more of his blood, she scrambled off, bumping into the wounded hobo. "Oh God oh God oh God I'm sorry I'm sorry please be okay mister," she said, descending into panicked sobbing.
The hobo smiled, trying his best to keep his head up. "Miss," he said, "you've bought an old man a few more minutes. I appreciate it. I truly do."
Lars, not having found his testicles but remembering he was supposed to have them, lunged for the emergency phone, dialing 911.
"I didn't mean to kill him, but he was trying to kill you, I just... it just... it just came to me..." Sadie said. "Please say you're gonna make it. Please?"
"My time's come," he said. He took a deep breath and gently tugged his armband off. His strength was fading; he could just barely drop the band to the floor. A large, folded piece of paper was tucked in a loop inside. "It's up to you now, lady."
"...what's..." Sadie said.
"My fight... it's yours now. Bakersfield. The Acres. You have it in you. You're made in the milling. I can tell."
"I don't know what you're saying," Sadie said.
"You will... in time." He rested his head against the counter. "Wish I'd had some of those donut holes. I bet..." He trailed off, his eyes fluttered closed, and he was gone.
The numbness in her chest and head flowed into her whole body. Dimly, the realization that she had murdered a man and bore witness to another man dying was lighting great oil-fires of panic somewhere inside her head. But something else, stronger than panic, was guiding her hand to the armband, to the ticket inside. Through tears, she read:
"This ticket authenticates
RICHARD HEAVEN
for placement in the 2016
GREAT OUTDOOR FIGHT."
When the police arrived, one of the cops looked the ticket over. "And you said you killed this man?" he said.
Sadie nodded, unable to speak the word.
The cop looked at the ticket, looked at the armband, sighed, and said, "You're off the hook. If it's GOF, it doesn't count."
"...Doesn't... count?" Sadie said. The EMTs cautiously led Richard's body out the front door on a stretcher.
"Nope. It's just the cost of doing business." He handed the ticket back. "Richard Heaven, huh? That's a hell of a name to live up to."
"I don't know what the flying fuck is going on," Sadie said, as if she were saying the weather was okay.
"I suggest looking it up," the cop said. "And good luck. And I'd suggest just going home. We'll clean up, I know a guy."
Lars waited outside, sipping from a Cross Country Cup full of coffee. He handed Sadie another. "Well, that was pretty fucked," he said. "You wanna go home? Yours, mine?"
Sadie let her drink's heat spread from her hand to her arms to her chest.
"...Are you alright?" Lars said. "I mean, less alright than you were before, which I guess isn't that... alright. Damn I'm bad at this."
"Lars," Sadie said, "who in town knows weird stuff the best?"
"Dad, what's the Great Outdoor Fight?" Steven said.
"Oh, found one of my ol' Fight books, huh?" Greg said. He was busy checking the de-icer for the car wash's feed system. It was his biggest expense in the winter months, and every issue caught early was precious cash earned. "It's about time you did, anyway! Every growing boy needs to learn about it." He stepped out of the wash. "Oh, hey, it's those donut shop guys, too. Hey there."
Sadie freed the armband and ticket from a parka pocket, handing them over. Greg read the ticket, re-read it, re-re-read it, and began hyperventilating. "Oh my God!" Greg said, "Richard Heaven gave this to you?! How? Does God love you? Or does he really hate you but has a funny way of showing it? Did you kill him to get these? Did you-"
"Reel it in, old man," Lars said. "I've never heard of it, Sadie's never heard of it, and it looks like Steven hasn't either. The hell is it?"
Greg cleared his throat. "Short version, long version?"
"Can we get a medium version?" Steven said. "Ooh, oh, or a song!"
"Well..." Greg said. Lars made a "speed up" gesture as hard and fast as he could, and well above and behind Steven's head. "I'd have to get my guitar, and that's in the van, and my hands are wet-so I'll just give you a quick a capella rendition." Lars made a strangled scream. "A-hem!" Greg strummed an invisible guitar and launched into a brisk country tune:
"'Twas the hardest times of the Great Depress
When bored and under great duress
Our hero rounded up his men
And settled it all there and then:
Who among us is the best
When it comes down to the test
Of fist and kick and headbutt strong
To fight this battle three days long
In this barn-"
"GET TO THE FRICKIN' POINT!" Lars screeched.
"Fine, fine," Greg said. Steven pouted. "So the Great Outdoor Fight is an annual three-day tournament in the Acres, all the way in Bakersfield, Califerne. It's been going on since 1923 and nothing's stopped it. Not even getting completely torched to the ground by the Son of Rodney in 2006! And now-" Greg grabbed Sadie's hand. "You're gonna be a part of it. That's huge! There hasn't been a lady fighter in since 2009, God rest her soul if He can find it."
"Wonderful," Sadie said, patting at sweat. "And, uh, do you know who it is who gave me the ticket?"
"Of course I do. Richard Heaven is one of the longest-running fighters in history. He's been fighting every year since World War II ended! He's never won, but he always puts in a good show." He realized something. "So, uh, how'd you get his ticket?"
"A guy shot him," Sadie said. "Then I killed that guy with my bare hands and a cash register, and Richard gave me his ticket and armband and said to fight."
"...Oh. Damn. I mean darn."
"I know you meant darn!" Steven said, patting his dad's knee.
"So one of his enemies finally got to him, huh? He had a bunch. Guess one of 'em decided to cheat." He doffed an invisible hat and planted it over his heart. "Good night, sweet prince. Man, that's a lot of responsibility you got laid on you."
"You're telling me. Can we go inside? It's cold."
"Sure, sure! I got coffee, you're gonna need to sit... and, uh, you know, maybe get over the murder..."
Greg walked the teens into the wash's waiting room. Steven tarried behind, waiting for Connie to come back from hiding the chainsaw.
"So, it's simple enough: once those gates open and you go through, the game begins!" Greg took the opportunity to pull out his box of Fight memorabilia: books in varying degrees of mustiness, rolled posters of ancient vintage, buttons and souvenirs and a few sealed holy artifacts-teeth, fingerbones, an eyeball. "No guns, no weapons that were designed to be weapons, and you're good to fight until you fall unconscious, beg for mercy, or are totally out of it for more than ten minutes. That's the basics, anyway."
Sadie leered at a Great Outdoor Fight cookbook. "How did I never hear about this before?"
"Well, do you know who won the last big world... soccer... thing?"
"No?"
"Whole cities are razed to the ground over how the soccer super bowl turns out, but Americans don't 'do' soccer. And Beach City doesn't 'do' the G-O-F."
"...shit, that makes too much sense," Sadie said. "So, uh, killing people isn't mandatory?"
"Naw, though it happens. Kind of hard to avoid. There's not much you can do that's against the rules, except, uh, pro-tip, if it's down to you and someone you don't want to beat the shit out of, decide if you'd rather fight them or the Jeeps."
"The Jeeps?"
"They're Jeeps. That come out and run you over if you can't settle the last fight like a man."
"Oh. So it's not like a title, it's actual Jeeps."
"That they run you over with."
"That they run you over with," Sadie said. "Jesus Lord."
"Yannow, in a way, it's really beautiful! It's as pure a competition as there ever was. Just enough rules to count, you and your fists... you gotta make friends, knowing you may have to put them down yourself if you wanna win... it's like one'a those, uh, microcosms they talk so much about, like all the Earth is in one three-acre lot and everybody's fenced in and you have to fight 'til you're the last one standing by taking every last resource available and never wholly trusting anyone. ... You know, putting it like that, I have no idea why Rose was just as big into it as I am."
"Mom liked the Fight?" Steven said, stepping out of the restroom. He was techncially hanging out in the van with Connie, Greg deciding the Fight was a bit too violent for him.
("When you're older, maybe with a stronger stomach, too."
"But I love Lonely Blades I through XIV! And most of the XXes!'
"There's a difference between a few gallons of red corn syrup and actually seein' Rodney Stubbs-er, doing his thing. Now head out there and hang with Connie. Keep yer pants on, alright, killer?"
"Sure thing, it's really cold anyway!")
"Your mom was a hell of a lady," Greg said, wistful.
"I bet she was," Steven said, excusing himself back outside. Thoughts were forming.
"And here I am getting sentimental when I should be helping you out!" Greg said.
"Like, say, helping her come up with a good reason not to go?" Lars flipped a book around, revealing a truly hideous photograph of a post-GOF fighter. "She's never fought anything but a big invisible monster and that guy she-you know-took out and stuff."
"Giant invis... oh, yeah, the island thing a few months ago. Steven mentioned that! Huh..." Greg scratched his beard to show that he was thinking very hard. He really was, at least. "You know, Sadie, Fight aficionados have a phrase for people like you."
"Is it 'made in the milling?'" Sadie said. She took a sip of her now-just-warm coffee.
"Yeah, exactly!"
"Because that's what Mr. Heaven said to me before he died. That I was 'made in the milling.' What's it mean?"
"Means that you're naturally a fighter. You didn't train to hit people, you weren't on eat-a-face drugs. When the time came to fight, you fought hard as you could like the very hand of God was guiding you, I mean I presume that's what it felt like and all. Did it? I've always imagined it would."
Sadie tried to remember how it felt in the moment. It hurt to think about, and trying to find where her mind was felt like kicking a sleeping panther. "It was... I don't know what it was like. I saw what was happening, I saw him just shoot Richard in the back, and... and it got me... I don't know what it got me. I just did what felt right. It sort of just... happened."
"Huh! Thinking about it, that's kinda scary, isn't it?"
"Yeah."
"But at least it felt right."
"I... guess."
"Yannow, my parents used to say, 'if it feels good, it is good. Don't be afraid of your own body.' They got that from a porno, but that's beside the point. Think of it like this, Sadie." Greg sifted through the memorabilia. "Sometimes the world throws us a curveball, and we can either let it hit us, or we can move with it, and something amazing can happen. For me, it was meeting Rose, then it was having Steven, then finding out Steven's definitely putting himself in mortal danger every day for the good of mankind. I don't gotta tell you I've had sleepless nights and a few heart attack scares, but, really, can anyone else say that their kid literally saves the world once a week, give or take a few busy weeks and some months of downtime?"
Sadie bit her lip. "But that's saving the world. This is beating people the hell up."
"It's... okay, yeah, it's mostly about beating people up. But it's also about finding a strength in you that you never knew you had. And using that strength to beat the hell out of 2,999 other men."
"I... I'll have to think about it." Sadie sighed.
"You've got some time. I'm sure you'll come to a decision," Greg said. "And I know I've just spent like twenty minutes selling you on it... but it really is your own decision, Sadie. I think you'll make the right one, even if the right decision is not going."
"Man, you just had to put it like that, huh?" Lars said. He tossed the book back into the box.
"I think I need to take a walk," Sadie said, hopping off her chair and zipping her parka back up. "Come on, Lars."
"Sure, let's. Thanks for the coffee, Mr. Universe."
Greg waved the two off. "Man..." he thought. "I sure hope she decides to go through with it."
In his van, Steven was drawing a map. "...so, if we time it right, it'll only take Lion three of those super portal jumps to get us to the Acres. Then if we fuse into Stevonnie, we'll look like a grown-up and we can go in and fight!"
"You sure it's a good idea?" Connie said. "I mean, we're kinda really strong when we're Stevonnie. We'd be cheating."
"If it's anything like wrestling," Steven said, "then all we have to do is get some guys in leg locks or Boston crabs and we'll be set! Trust me, wrestling is super fun, and it's not like we're fighting monsters or the Homeworld."
Connie shrugged. "Well... it does sound pretty fun. We just have to figure out what we're gonna tell our parents."
"I have just the plan," Steven said, giving her finger guns. "You might say we have a... sporting... chance!"
"...So, like, saying we're going to a sports camp? In February?"
"Yeah! There's a free jai alai camp open around then! I found a brochure at Fish Stew Pizza. We'll make out like fighting bandits! Ooooh, maybe that's Stevonnie's theme! We can make a mask, maybe some... wait, wait a minute, I've got to get some emergency crayons."
"You do that, I'll brainstorm the backstory. And we're gonna need a name," Connie said. "A different name. And, uh. are we gonna say Stevonnie is one thing or the other, like, you know..."
"Like what?" Steven said.
"Never mind," Connie said. Frankly, she didn't think about it too hard either.
The waves churned tonight, the wind sending spiky froth blowing toward the beach. It had been a long, quiet day, Sadie walking through it in a haze of indecision. The beach seemed as good a place to hide as any, sitting on a beach towel and hugging her knees, letting the frozen spray bead on her face.
Hours ago, after parting ways with Lars, she'd hiked home, brought the ticket and armband to her room, hidden it under the pile of teddy bears, and hoped that her mom hadn't heard anything on the news.
"Sadie, sweetums, the news said you killed a guy today!" her mom, throwing open her door. "Are you doin' okay?"
"I'm fine, mom!" she shouted. "It was rough, but I'm alright now."
"Arright, good to hear. I got General Tso's!"
"Thanks, ma."
It was good Tso's.
So here she was, facing the beach, belly full of ideas, as absolutely unsure of anything as she had ever been. Thinking about college gave her palpitations. Thinking about a career made her want to find a gas station that didn't card and get wasted on bum wine. Maybe going to Califerne and fighting thousands of people because some guy had the bad luck to die in her store... she'd rather be getting a career at college right now.
She closed her eyes and listened to the surging of the waves, the distant cries of insomniac seagulls.
She hoped against hope that her mom had learned her friendship lesson from last time. She hoped that she wasn't secretly a psycho killer who just needed an excuse to pop off. She hoped that she could make any kind of decision at all.
"God," she said, "you're not real, but humor me for a minute. What should I do?"
The wind and the sea answered: a bottle glinted in the starlight not far away. She rocked onto her feet, hiked across the slushy sand, and fetched it. She brushed sand from its cork, wrenching it out with her bare hands. She tapped out the rolled-up slip of paper within. Her heart pounded. What did this mean?
She unrolled the message. In 30-point Comic Sans was printed the phrase "kill urself fagot."
She crumpled the page and gave the moon a mean glare. "Fuck you, God," she said, eating the message. "You wanna poke Sadie Miller with a stick? Well here's what you fucking get!" She hurled the bottle directly at the moon. It hit a seagull, glass and gull alike exploding.
Sadie considered the seagull's minced remains as they alit on the sea. She supposed she should have felt guilty, but seagulls, like God, could go fuck themselves.
"Good shot," someone said. It took her a moment to recognize the voice.
"Hey, you're... Garnet, right?" Sadie said. "One of Steven's alien buddy-moms?"
"Guilty as charged." She was unfolding a beach chair just a few yards down the beach. "How are you doing?"
"I'm... getting along. Aren't you cold in that skintight outfit thing?"
"I'm only cold if I want to be." She took a seat. "I heard you've had a rough day."
"You and probably everyone else. Has any word got out about the ticket and everything?"
"The what?" Garnet lay a second lawn chair down.
"Okay, so that didn't make the news." Sadie took the seat, wondering vaguely where Garnet had gotten it. She gave her a quick rundown of the situation.
"Hm. Sounds intense." She tapped out some aromatic weed from an ancient-looking tin onto fresh wrapping paper. Again, no idea where she got them from.
"That's one word for it, yeah. So I've just been out here angsting about it and killing a seagull. I mean, did you hear any of that?"
"I did, yes." Garnet took a long, slow drag off of her cigarette, holding it in a good long time, before letting it billow out of her mouth in a series of thick clouds. "We all have our moments where we wish we could find the omnipotent creator of the universe and strangle them with their own intestine for the temerity of creating a flawed existence just because he likes to be inscrutable. I hope you understand this is not a tenable emotion."
"Yeah. I just had to, ya know, work it out."
"Of course. Life is stressful. We all have our valves. I can't smoke with Steven in the house, you understand, and if I smoke around Pearl, she takes it as a sign that she can drink, and then she gets drunk, and then she starts calling Amethyst 'the purple N-word.' And if I smoke around Amethyst, she finds out where I keep my weed and eats it."
"Uh, on that subject..."
"I grow it myself. I have plenty." She offered Sadie the joint.
"Thanks, man." She took a nice long draw, letting the smoke heat her lungs. "Man, that is seriously good."
"I don't settle for less."
"I can tell. Mm! It's been months since I've had some. Ever since they busted Hydro Pump Johnny for selling weed to a statue he thought was a cop 'cause he'd eaten a bunch of loco weed seeds."
"I read about that. Wish I was there. Must've been a hoot and a holler, like they used to say."
The two enjoyed weed in silence, passing the joint back and forth 'til all that remained was a roach balanced in a fine pair of jeweler's tweezers Garnet procured, again, from nowhere in particular. "Say, Garnet..." Sadie said.
"Hm?"
"You think I should go to the Great Outdoor Fight, right?"
"That depends."
"On what?"
"If you want to."
"I... don't know if I want to. It feels like I'm being forced. But Steven's dad said something about curveballs and rolling with them. And I guess he made a point."
"Perhaps he did. Perhaps he did not. But this I can assure you, donut child." She rolled a fresh joint. "We go through life only once, and there is so much in that life that happens only once... and so much that can never happen." She brushed the end of the joint against a red gem in her other palm, lighting it. "I have always wanted to go to the Great Outdoor Fight. But it's not something I could ever do. I'm not human. I'm two magical gems in a state of fusion. I could never fight them fairly, in as honorable and pure a contest as there ever was."
She handed the joint to Sadie, who looked the smoke over, as if trying to figure out what it was.
"It's not going there and raising your fist that's the problem, is it?" Garnet said. "I can feel it."
"Garnet... I don't want to be a murderer." She took a bracing drag off of the joint. "I've killed someone... in self-defense, I mean, kinda, I guess. But if I go there, and if I fight like that, just, automatically... I don't know if I want to win like that. Or worse, fight like that and then lose."
"Donut child," Garnet said, putting a powerful hand on her shoulder, "if you are afraid of this power within you, then the Great Outdoor Fight is the first place you should be going."
"But..."
"You did not know, until this morning, that you were capable of killing a man so perfectly. There is no time and place on Earth so extreme, so all-encompassing, as the Great Outdoor Fight. If you turn away for fear that you are a killer-then you will never know when and how this power of yours will manifest. What if you get too angry at your daughter and the power emerges and you pulp them between your hands like the halves of oranges?"
"...like, pressing the halves together or something?"
"What if the stick-boy raises his voice at you for forgetting the trash? Will you throw him out of your tenth story apartment and impale him on a wrought-iron fence? If you should be angry behind the wheel of a car, will you drive that car into a school bus, board that school bus, pull out your fish-gutting knife, and-"
"Okay, I get it."
"-make yourself some kindergartener-bone wind chimes?"
"Seriously, please stop."
"Sorry. The image popped into my mind and I found it tremendously funny." Sadie found it impossible to tell if she was kidding. "But you can grasp what I'm getting at, yes? If you are a killer, if this beast of yours takes delight in death, it is only here where you may ply your trade and find out the shape of it, what satisfies it. If you are not-then you will instead find the shape of the warrior within you. If you fall, you will fall in pursuit of yourself. If you win... it is because you are too beautiful and perfect to lose."
Sadie closed her eyes and took a steady breath.
"February is two months away," she said. "I'll have to save up for a train ticket or something."
"This can be done."
"I think... I may need to train."
"I can arrange for this."
"Like, you know somebody?"
"I know myself." She moved her hand from Sadie's shoulder to her own breast. "I will teach you all you need to know. You sought Steven's father's aid, yes? We shall consult with him as well. In all of Delmarva there is no man who knows the Fight as well as he. The stick boy will be at your side, as he always is. Together we will give you the tools you need to be victorious. And when that gate closes behind you, you will use these tools to carve the name of Sadie Miller into the canon of long-time dudes."
"Richard Heaven."
"Hm?"
"If I'm gonna do this-if I'm gonna close that door he opened-it'll be in his name."
"A soubriquet rouge. Like a true champion."
Sadie smoked half the joint in a single breath that made her lungs feel like popping. She coughed and hacked a cloud of richly-scented fog. "If you got more weed to spare keep it coming because oh my God I can't believe I'm doing this."
Garnet rolled out a blunt. "I have all you need and more, donut child."
"My name's Sadie."
"I won't remember it."
"Just like my fifth grade teacher."
"Just like what now?" the mayor said.
"Jesus Christ, where'd you come from?!" Sadie said.
"It's a public beach and I'm not sleepy, is all!" Mayor Dewey lied. "Don't worry, voter, if you feel the need to partake, I feel the need to remind you Delmarva legalized marijuana a few months ago." Dewey was dressed the opposite of warmly, with trunks and sandals and a VOTE FOR MY DAD shirt speckled with spray. "By the way, did I hear an inspiring speech for my inspirational survivor?"
"Yes," Garnet said. "Donut child is going to compete in the Great Outdoor Fight."
"Oooh. Interesting. Tell me more."
"I'm-gonna head home. See you, Mayor." Sadie clenched the joint in her teeth and snagged her towel and Garnet's blunt. "She knows the score, she'll fill you in."
Garnet tilted her head. "I'm not doing anything else tonight. And a chair has been vacated."
"I'm always open to my city's favorite aliens and the interesting things they have to talk about."
Sadie went home, let the high overtake her, giggled her ass off at YouTube videos 'til 4 am, and fell into a calm, sweet sleep.
When she woke up, she ambled up the stairs for breakfast, pouring some milk and fetching a couple of chocolate muffins from the chocolate muffin cabinet. She paused when she saw the note her mom left there every day.
"Hi sweetie! Saw you on TV-good luck my little fighter!" It was on new boxing-themed stationary. There was a box of Wheaties, some bran muffins, a drum of protein powder, some mouth guards, hand wraps, a Fite-Tite Elastoband, and two fresh packs of chocolate muffins standing guard by the half-empty one.
She took her muffins and chewed them decisively. She crept into the living room, sat down, flipped on the TV, found a recording of the morning news on the DVR, and played it.
"-is that right?" Mr. Smiley said, holding up a microphone to Mayor Dewey, who was standing in front of a hastily-erected display prominently featuring a cardboard standee of Sadie, her head crudely photoshopped onto the body of Ronda Rousey.
"It is indeed!" Mayor Dewey said. "Our very own homegrown heroine Sadie Miller is out to conquer the Great Outdoor Fight! As we send our condolences to the family of Richard Hea-" One of his bodyguards whispered in his ear. "-ah, by request of the family of Richard Heaven, we are sending no condolences to anyone, as he has been, and I quote, 'exiled' from his family for decades. But we are nonetheless going to wish luck and give our whole support to Ms. Miller as she goes to face incredible odds in February!"
"What an event!" Mr. Smiley said, mugging for the camera. "Am I to understand the whole town is invited to some manner of adventure festival?" He was reading off of cue cards, it looked like.
"You bet your bottom dollar, friend! Tourists, if the hike to Cali is a little too much, hop on in to Delmarva's coziest seaside town and join in the fun! There'll be rides, prizes, maybe a little Valentines Day fun for the fine folks who like their fun to be a little gentler! And while our lady Sadie is down in Bakersfield taking on all comers, we'll be running our very own kids' martial arts championships and a Ms. Queen of the Beach beauty contest-by invitation only, of course. Something for everyone, guaranteed!"
"Now, for the people at home who aren't quite up to date on the whole 'Great Outdoor Fight' thing, what exactly is it?"
Mayor Dewey blinked. "An event, to be sure! And, while I have the mic, may I call attention to my Kickstarter to get the rights to Red Dwarf so I can start a Kickstarter to make a new season of Red Dwarf? I'm thinking Felicia Day in a starring role."
Sadie switched off the TV.
She finished her breakfast, that is to say the breakfast she intended to have, and prepared for what she hoped would be her morning exercises and not some exercise in ludicrous shenanigans.
The ludicrous shenanigans, it turned out, would be slightly later.
HEROES OF THE G.O.F. STAT CARD
(Clip and Save for Your Collection!)
Richard Heaven (II)
"Look out world, I'm coming for you!"
AKA Sadie Miller, Sexy Sadie, The Southland Slasher, The Sun of Perdition, Angry Kid
Cool +0, Hard +2, Hot +1, Sharp +1, Weird -1
No Heaven: When you maliciously offend someone's aspirations or most deeply-held beliefs before their eyes, take +1 harm forward against them.
The new Richard Heaven never expected to be part of the Fight, but the opportunity fell before her! Can she stand her own, or does the Heaven legacy have even further to fall? Only the future knows for sure...