Warning: This may offend. Descriptions and events in the part two of Nathan’s story are not from my imagination but my son’s. As a sequel and at readers’ request, I asked Nathan’s permission to publish this story. He told me I could if I don’t edit it. The story is yet to be titled.

Part One: https://tribalmystic.me/2014/11/16/the-gift-from-god/

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Part Two:

They drove through the crowded city. Eventually Jack and Prince Toban arrived at the arena, a colossal bio-dome located in the middle of the Sahara. They were quickly blindfolded and separated. Later, Jack found himself in small, cylindrical cell with an open ceiling. The exit was only just out of reach, but the tree lines were visible nearby, as was a huge LCD screen in place of the sky – in case it wasn’t already obvious I’m doing a Hunger Games thing with this, so just picture THAT and pretend I described it really well instead, and that it was an original idea that I thought up.

A man’s face appeared on the screen/sky. He had piercing blue eyes, which would be quite dazzling if they weren’t detracted from by the octopus shape the man’s facial hair and been shaved and sculpted into, (which is supposedly how everyone is going to look in the future, but whatever). The commentator who literally could not be taken seriously began to explain the gravity of the situation. The last man standing would earn food and prosperity for their district. That mean would go free. After an extremely long countdown (in case everyone forgot, it went for 50 seconds in the movie, which was slightly excessive) the cells were dropped and all hell broke loose as the various gladiators raced to the centre of the arena to arm themselves.

Jack glanced away from where he was going for a brief second, and when he looked back he was being stared down by a sexy older woman who lived near him.  She was more eager to survive than she was to mingle. She slowly raised a bat above her head and…very weakly brought it down, feebly attempting to club her sunset haired opponent. I forgot to specify, she was at least 80, it was honestly quite upsetting to witness. Thankfully (I guess), the assault didn’t last for long. Out of nowhere, she was cleaved in half by a man hated by personal trainers everywhere, who understood the secret to building muscle FAST. Time slowed as the elderly woman’s torso slid free from her lower half; I know that’s kind of horrifying , but she was super old, it wasn’t much of a loss. Have some perspective people.

As the juiced up superhuman before him roared in response to his muscular eyes being splashed with geriatric viscera, our charming protagonist made the (probably very wise) decision to piss off into the woods and wait for the majority of fighting to blow over. Jack climbed a tree and waited, bravely sitting around doing nothing in particular as he counted the cannons firing off, marking the deaths of his fellow competitors. The count had been reduced to Jack and two others when he finally dozed off from exhaustion. He awoke to a shaking coming from the base of the tree; it was the steady chopping of a man attempting to cut down Jack’s hiding pla- I mean…strategic watch post. Taking a closer look at his assailant, Jack recognised him as a three-legged penis enlargement specialist, evident by the-…you know what? I’m not going to describe his dick bulge. These things tend to get away from me but that’s where I’m going to draw the line. Jack had almost no time to act, and even fewer options, or so he thought. That was, until, his eyes focused not on the man inconveniently dressed in track suit pants, but rather on the beach ball of a wasp nest attached to the tree several branches lower. The fire-bearded protagonist grasped one of the spears he had fashioned, and hurled it at the hive.  Something completely unexpected but necessary for me to try sum this up happened.

The spear ricocheted and was flung into the bushes, which gave an angry snarl in response. See, there were several genetically modified creatures in the stadium to keep the contestants on their toes, and due to a lapse of good fortune they had stumbled upon the most fearsome one. Quietly at first, but slowly building until the terrible cacophony of the creature’s guttural roar and insidious hissing in a cruel quartet followed a creature that could only be described as a thing that should-not-be out into the clearing. Standing before them was a colossal two-headed grizzly bear. It’s body was covered in mange and scar tissue, everywhere that is, until it’s shoulders, which slowly cleared into scales along the lengths of it’s arms and inevitably ending with venomous snake heads. Now THAT’S a fucking monster; remember what it was in the movies? Big-ish dogs. My two-headed bear thing took all of 30 seconds to think up. In short, Suzanne Collins is a hack. Anyway, the creature swung at Jack’s would-be opponent. He dodged, but the hissing snake arm smashed clean through the trunk of tree our champion was perched on. Jack boldly leaped, and elegantly crashed through close to every branch of a neighbouring tree, cleverly allowing his hardy legs and ribcage to absorb the brunt of the force. After lifting himself back up, he shot into the thick of the woods with his fellow prey, hoping the vegetation would slow the creature down. Unfortunately it maintained its pursuit with ease, tearing down trees as though they were tissue paper, gnashing all 4 sets of its teeth voraciously the entire while. The pair of contestants burst from the tree line, back into the central arena they began in, and sped their way back to the cornucopia shaped armoury.

They darted into cover, and for the sake of plot convenience, found Toban holed up inside. Their nightmarish pursuer’s many faces clashed up against their shelter’s opening. The trio took this brief moment to make some light small talk, before unanimously deciding to team up in order to survive the snake-bear-bear-snake hybrid. Clouds rolled in and drizzle began to spit as they launched their assault on the monster. Closely chasing an arrow fired into one of the beast’s eyes, the three killed it. Not right away of course, there was a huge, dramatic fight. The thing about that is, describing fight scenes in text is hard to do, and tends to be very, VERY tedious. How many ways can you think of to say “X” hit “Y” with “Z” (or the controversial flip of “X” tried, but missed “Z”)? What’s that? Not many? Yeah, exactly. I’d probably end up being forced to repeat words or phrases, then just get disappointed in myself. I refuse to do that, and will instead promise that a fight between a twin-headed grizzly with snake arms, a Nigerian prince, a guy with a massive penis and Jack Buffington was pretty neat. After administering the killing blow, Toban turned around to face Jack, smiling, until all expression was removed from his face. He coughed, his lungs full of blood, and collapsed to the ground. Standing above Toben’s body trying to retrieve his axe was the final competitor.

Jack flew into a rage, and then the two fought for a while. We have just hit the previous issue again, and it’s a bummer because the mood of this fight would have been way cooler. The really angry protagonist fighting the bad guy in the rain on top of a building is always a really cool scene. So yeah, Jack punched the huge-dick-guy, the huge-dick-guy punched Jack. There were occasional kicks too, but mostly punching. Very dramatic. Eventually, Jack’s opponent slipped and fell onto his back. Our leading man capitalised on this vulnerability by planting his weight on top of him and bearing down on the man. It was sort of uncomfortable at first due to the bulge, but the severity of the beat-down only increased. Soon, the last opponent lay broken. He spat out a broken tooth, and grinned. “Go on, kill me” he growled, “Finish this!! Kill me like I killed your friend!!!” to which, a startled Jack said “What? Toban wasn’t my friend, he pulled me into this gladiator bullshit and nearly got me killed. The guy was a jerk”. He paused, dumbfounded at how absorbed in this contest everyone seemed to be “And I’m not going to kill you, I am completely sure, that legally would count as murder”. So our Hero and his temporary, bitter rival just kind of casually hung out until officials of the games realised they didn’t plan on doing anything. The keeper of the secrets of penis enlargement (who I clearly never thought to name) admitted defeat, and so Jack was named the victor. Well, due to a technicality in Jack’s team assignment, food and prosperity was awarded to Toben’s homeland of continental Africa. Our hero didn’t go home empty-handed however. As thanks for his show of mercy, Jack’s rival took him to his homeland to teach him their age-old secrets. And so ends the story of how, by a single act of kindness, Jack Buffington ended nearly all poverty in a country, and was crowned.