Magnus blinked.
Everything had gone eerily quiet.
There'd been this sort of quiet din from all the griefers watching in excitement that had faded into white noise in Jesse's mind- but now it was totally silent. Like the entire arena was collectively holding their breaths, waiting for the reply.
Slab had frozen in the middle of turning a page, the page slipping from his fingers and falling open. The green-haired person (who was still unfamiliar) was regarding them through those weird goggles. And Nohr's mouth was hanging open, almost comically wide.
Then Magnus grinned.
"Awright, Tiny," and he stepped forward off the platform. "If you wanna fight me, then we'll fight."
He cleared his throat, and the next words he said boomed out over the arena. "We'll build two towers, one for each of us. Once atop the tower, the two participants will do their best to destroy the other tower and knock the other person off of theirs. The first person to succeed wins this year's DEATH BOWWWWWL!"
Jesse winced and covered their ears, wiping their nose again as the din from the crowd returned, at an almost deafening volume.
"Well, the slugger's gonna die," Hadrian deadpanned.
"Shut up," Mevia hissed at him, red-and-black eyes flashing with anger.
Gill and Maya put their heads in their hands in perfect unison. Radar looked distinctly frazzled at this point, his glasses askew from flying down to hide his face multiple times.
At least Ivor and Harper weren't here to completely murder the four of them for letting Jesse participate in this thing.
The towers were built by magic- when Jesse meekly asked about it, Magnus had shrugged and said he had an affinity for building and destruction magic- the building magic was because he destroyed so many buildings that they needed to build new ones quickly and efficiently- and so before even five minutes was up Jesse was at the top of a tower, looking around.
Fitting to form, Jesse's tower wasn't the tallest.
Actually, it was the shorter of the two.
Okay fine, it was the shortest tower Jesse had ever seen.
At least it couldn't be knocked over easily.
"So, Tiny!" Magnus boomed down from where he was quite literally towering over them.
(Haha, get it? TOWER?)
(... Jesse was sure Aiden would probably have punched them in the face for that pun.)
"You ready?"
Jesse sighed, looking around themselves. "I guess... did you really have to make your tower taller than mine?"
"Of course. At least you get the advantage of not getting knocked over like wooden blocks," he yelled back, making them shake their head.
Hopefully his tower was also not constructed like wooden blocks, or else Jesse couldn't imagine what would happen if he brained himself.
He gave them a huge grin. "Ready?"
Jesse sighed and wiped their face, sniffling to try to keep the snot from dripping. "Ready as I'll ever be, I guess..."
"Fantastic!" And he was abruptly pulling out a block of dynamite and lobbing it at them.
It landed in front of Jesse, the fuse already burning down at an alarming rate. Jesse yelped, grabbed it, and lobbed it hard in a random direction to avoid it blowing up in their face.
It blew up alarmingly close to the crowd, gaining them several screams of excitement that made Jesse wince. Hopefully they hadn't hurt anyone...
Part of them wondered where Axel was and if he was biting his nails anxiously watching the thing, or with the weird thrill seekers screaming their heads off in excitement.
It was highly possible that it was the latter.
Magnus was already prepping more TNT. Jesse was desperately trying to remember a proper spell.
All they could remember was the one to summon a fire for cooking and a shield spell, which weren't very helpful for this-
Unless they could make the shield big enough.
Jesse had approximately ten seconds to make a shield before Magnus unleashed a volley of dynamite on their heads (which was absolutely not what they wanted and would possibly kill them), but the shield spell took an ungodly amount of time.
Reuben was squealing in the crowd from where they'd set the little piggy to stay with Maya and Gill.
Without warning, they were abruptly yelling, "Vermenigvuldigen çoxaltmaq iomadach- uh- pig!"
... did they seriously just-
Abruptly several pigs popped out of nowhere and landed on Magnus's tower and Jesse's. They were very cute.
Yep, their brain had automatically decided to cast the duplication spell and make several little pigs.
"Whoa! Get off, you pigs!" Magnus yelled, trying to avoid stepping on one or kicking one off of the platform where it would undoubtedly splat on the ground.
One of the pigs snuffled at Jesse's ankle. Jesse gave it a quick grin, but then quickly lifted their hands. The little pigs were a good distraction, but Magnus would probably shake it off soon enough and get back to lobbing dynamite at their face. They hoped the distraction would buy them a few more seconds to cast the shield spell.
Which shield spell worked? Why couldn't they have remembered more advanced spells than the cooking fire spell? Why the hell had they remembered the duplication spell but not something more helpful?
Magnus managed to lob another stick of dynamite at them, the fuse burning down faster than Jesse would've really liked.
Which shield spell which shield spell why did Jesse feel like they were taking a test-
"Uhh- lùth Orka kusog industria!" Jesse blurted.
Abruptly, there was a surge of energy in their chest- like they'd just downed seven energy drinks and coffee combined.
Which was nice, but... not the right thing.
The little pig next to Jesse nudged the dynamite to fall to the ground. Jesse squeaked and punted it off to the side, where it blew up- once again near the poor members of the crowd.
Well, actually, they were pretty excited about it, so maybe it wasn't so bad...
Some of the pigs were nudging at the ground, looking for mud. Maybe it was hot.
Actually, yeah. It was very hot right now. Either from the explosions or the fact that Boom Town was located in a desert-like region.
Jesse pointed at a section of floor and made a small circle. "Luto lapok," they recited, and the stones melted into a little mud puddle, which all the pigs on their section of tower flocked to.
"Get off, you pigs!" Magnus yelled, a little frustrated.
Jesse paused, then looked at the base around the tower.
Knock the tower over...
Well, if the base was unsteady, the whole thing would fall over, right?
They hoped Magnus wouldn't get hurt.
They paused for a moment, debating if it was against the rules or not- then decided that the only rule of the Death Bowl that had been stated was 'no eye-poking', so they could do whatever they want within reason and pointed at the ground around the tower-
Dynamite bounced off their arm.
Jesse squeaked and hastily bounced it around, trying not to drop it onto their tower, before chucking it at a different section of the arena. It erupted, sending a column of sand and dirt flying.
(They could hear Slab give a slightly disgruntled "hey!" as they got debris on his book.)
They really needed a better distraction. Or that shield spell...
Jesse threw their arms up and crossed them. "Uh, kalasag schild clypeus mburojë-"
Crap, what was the last word?
They could feel the swell of the spell die as they hesitated a moment too long. It sounded like- parka, right? That was the last word?
No, it wasn't parka... what was it...?
"Slugger's seriously going to die," Hadrian murmured, hand clenching the bar in front of him as he scanned.
"Oh, really? Who wanted to enter them in the Death Bowl?" Mevia snapped at him, her own eyes fixed on the scene as Jesse seemed to be frozen.
Radar had fully ducked down to avoid watching. Reuben snuffled as he watched the multitude of little pigs wandering around on the field.
"Would you two please quit going on about them dying? I don't really want Lukas to kill us both," Maya groaned.
Jesse knocked away another stick of dynamite and threw their hands up. "Kalasag schild clypeus mburogë- karka? Lark?" they asked desperately.
The spell died in reply.
A whole deluge of dynamite came flying down at them, Magnus cackling slightly.
Jesse squeaked and threw their arms up to cover their face, their mind running through the shield spell over and over, trying everything they could think of, no chance to block-
Kalasag schild clypeus mburogë tarka.
That was the right spell.
But they had no time to put their arms in the right position and recite it without the dynamite-
Clunk-clunk-clunk.
Jesse paused.
Then lowered their arms enough to peek.
A bubble had formed around the tower, the dynamite having all bounced off. A few had actually exploded near Magnus's tower.
Magic with no setup at all...
Jesse allowed themselves exactly two seconds to stare before hastily shifting, circling the area around Magnus's tower with their finger, trying to imagine it the best they could- they could worry about it later, when they weren't in the middle of a fight where someone was throwing TNT at them.
"Luto- luto lapok," they recited shakily.
It was a very simple mud spell- there were spells that could turn a whole city to mud, but this just made a few inches of topsoil and dirt turn into mud, and they couldn't remember the other ones anyway.
The ground looked unchanged.
Then, slowly, the base of the tower started to sink, the ground around it darkening only slightly.
Magnus lifted another block of dynamite to chuck at them; it sent cracks spiking up the shield.
Jesse's vision went black for a moment; they trembled a little and wiped their face, still trying not to drip snot everywhere. Hopefully (hopefully) none of the dynamite hit them.
Because, uh, they'd probably be a little bit dead if that happened.
Some of the piggies looked up at Jesse with big eyes. One had a splot of mud on its head.
Jesse shifted awkwardly. "Um... a-attack?" they said questioningly.
The piggies looked up at Jesse for a minute longer, before all of them scurried off.
"Here comes a big one, Tiny!" Magnus yelled. Even from this distance, Jesse could see a maniacally excited grin on his face.
Great, they were going to die.
Jesse let the shield die as he threw this- except it wasn't dynamite; it looked more like a cartoon bomb. Jesse juggled it back and forth for a moment, before desperately chucking it at the base of his tower.
Of course, they'd always been last picked for PE for a reason (okay, well, two reasons), and the bomb soared at the center of the arena, nowhere near Magnus's tower-
A little wave of Jesse's duplicated pigs came surging out from Jesse's tower, bouncing off one of their backs and into another one's mouth. The little pigs all charged at the mud puddle.
They watched, getting ready to put up a new shield if this failed.
The little pigs crowded at a section of Magnus's tower, then quickly began to flee back in Jesse's direction. Even at the distance they were at, Jesse could see the piggy that had grabbed the bomb didn't have it anymore.
They frowned and scanned the base of his tower, before spotting a little spark that had just burned to the base.
The bomb exploded, sending shockwaves of mud flying everywhere and making Jesse stagger a little from the concussive force.
Magnus's tower was beginning to tilt to one side, very slightly.
The little pigs on Magnus's tower, still running around in circles and butting against his legs and being general nuisances, all surged to the side that had started dipping.
There was a small crack.
Jesse didn't actually see Magnus's tower fall, due to having to sneeze right then (of course, very convenient), but they certainly heard it. And felt it. It was such a resounding, crashing sound, with a small yelp from Magnus, that it sent vibrations rumbling through Jesse's throat and knocking them onto their bum.
There was a long silence.
Jesse peeked over to see several pigs wandering around in the rubble of the tower, going to the giant mud puddle Jesse had made to cool off.
Was Magnus okay...?
"And with that, Tiny wins the Death Bowl!" Magnus's voice boomed out, his head popping out of the rubble like he was a meerkat or something.
The demons broke into yells and whistles (as well as a mix of money exchanging hands) at that.
Jesse gave a slightly relieved sound, plopping to sit down on their short little tower.
"Okay, so the slugger didn't die."
"Yes." Mevia eyed him. "And you're happy about that, correct?"
"I'm happy you and Ivor aren't going to murder me in my sleep over it, yes..."
Maya and Gill were too busy cheering until they lost their voices to try to stop the argument. Radar poked his head over the ledge to see Jesse watching the pigs go muddle around in the mud.
"... why are there pigs..."
A/N: Nobody was badly harmed in the writing of this chapter.
Including the pigs.
They just wanna play in the mud puddle it's hot xD
Responses to questions/reviews!
Northern Goshawk: I dunno, is Slab gonna show up more? xD 'Tis a mystery.
472115: Jesse was not standing on the platform, but they could've done that xD
Toni42: Doggo dating sim doggo dating sim
TheAmberShadow: 'Cause the griefers would be annoyed xD / It can't be gotten rid of, but it does make it a lot harder for it to get a hold in things. / ;3 / Probably but it's too late now xD
Guest: I already have the entire story planned out, so who said I hadn't already planned this xD I'm glad you enjoy my stories though!
That's it for now! See ya, so long, and g'bye!
