I toppled Mariana from my lap and ran back to the greenroom. If I remembered right, it would be our turn next. Mariana rushed behind me, causing several instances of collateral damage that included delivering a local old man from his Dementia and need to pay taxes. Downstairs.
“Next participants: Walter Gallardo and … Uppercase x lowercase X uppercase x lowercase X uppercase x Goodest underscore Girlest uppercase x lowercase X uppercase x lowercase X uppercase x!” the collie lady announced, almost falling unconscious mid-sentence due to lack of breath.
We came out on the scenario with a trot. My belts rearranged into a poncho and a suitable hat, my shoes spat opinions about the holocaust that would have gotten me mauled by German Shepherds, had there been any around.
Mariana’s announcers started blaring the sounds of guitars, violins and league-spanning drums[1], and we positioned ourselves in front of each other as the magical spotlights shifted to highlight us.
Clapping ensued in my hands, weird sentences coursing through my central mass of neural processing, sodium-potassium pump working overtime. Mariana clattered her teeth and the public went as mad as a mattress. Good quality mattress, none of that spring shit. I am talking the finest high density foam. Absolute peak sleeping equipment. What do you mean I cannot get another king sized one? I don’t care if I already bought three this week. Do you know who I am? DO YOU HAVE THE SLIGHTEST IDEA OF WHO YOU ARE DEALING WITH, MATRESS DEALER? I am such a prolific writer that my words, printed in the smallest possible font size and put end to end, span more kilometers than the Nile river. I provide solutions for all of the accurate pollination erotica needs of the whole world. And you, minimum wage, forced-smile motherfucker, will deny me from buying king sized mattresses? YOU, RAT? Fine, I’ll buy the mattress elsewhere, there is a mattress store just across the street, and, yes, I’d like chocolate sauce with my vanilla ice cream, thank you very much. Cunt.
What was I saying? Ah, yes, dog dancing arc.
Describing rhombuses in front of the public, we granted the dance a proper start.
The lyrics of my tour de force began being sung by Mariana’s Spanish Announcer:
Si es que los muertos lo desean
y el violín toca sin manos que le sostengan
Si la guitarra su voz alza ella sola
dejen que este mago les cante una chacarera.
I tip tapped, and Mariana moved the wings of her dress with flawless coordination, her mastery of fine ear movements being a pleasure to behold.
Mi padre era carpintero, laburaba de sol a sol
mi madre le rogaba que nunca talara el algarrobo
Que allí mi humilde talento practicaba yo
Hechizando mi guitarra con verso inmortal.
Some people stood to applaud, a… lipidically gifted girl casted a bra in our direction, we jumped to the side in time to avoid the explosion, and kept on dancing.
I was happy. Dancing there, with Mariana, avoiding improvised explosives, I was happy, unlike in the field, unlike when leveling up, unlike… most of my days. I laughed, I felt like the sky would part in two and the faces of the greats of Argentinian folklore would come to watch and spit upon me for desecrating their art.
Hermanos les pido, antes de la sentencia
Escuchen a este nigromante y su chacarera
Que nunca tuvieron intenciones de hacerles mal
Vean, baila mi corazón, y también la perra buena.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
A last cycle of the dance and…
“Enough!” said the tall man. “I have seen enough. Before I grant you two a score, however: tell me, Walter, how does the dog move the dress?”
We approached the jury table as my shoes began randomly generating opinions about my sister. Finally, they were doing something that pleased me.
No, I will not transcribe them, for I want to survive further family reunions. Some sacrifices… I am not willing to make, not for the sake of art.
“It has sort of a pulley system under the fabric,” I said, pointing at an exposed wire near Mariana’s ear.
“So it isn’t magic. It would have been against the rules to use magic to make it seem like the dog moved the dress. However, a work of human ingenuity, a tool, is not against the rules. Congratulations, Walter, you two have earned an eight point five,” He concluded after inspecting the contraption with a sharp eye.
“Nine from me,” said the collie lady, applauding.
“I am undecided. I think both of my peer’s scores are fair for your performance. However, the previous performance made me racist against your kind. Have a seven and be grateful, scum,” said the bald woman.
“I thank you two, beautiful specimens. And also the ugly one.” I bowed, saluted the public, and walked back to the grandstands, where Sabrina was cheering on us.
“It was amazing, the whole dance, the act, and the dress worked wonders!” she exclaimed, and then she hugged the inhumanely handsome dancer (Mariana).
“I see your training in dick sucking has borne its sour fruits.”
She crossed her arms and tucked out her lower lip in an ugly grimace. “Why cannot you be a normal friend?”
“I am the best friend a Walter can be. I have not sold you into slavery yet. You may be absolutely mid for a princess but would make a pretty cute maid to be beaten by a drunk husband when the wife ain’t home,” I explained with my best casual tone.
“What kind of answer is that?” she said, her face the very mask of horror.
“I consider it a compliment.”
The people around started screaming, cheering, whistling. I turned above to see what the ruckus was about: Témpera was out on the scenario, and so was her owner. More well-behaved teenagers began flooding the stage, and after a few moments of confusion I realized: The beastmaster was not the teenaged girl. It was the Doberman that, as a director, was gathering her own orchestra of little smelly horrors.
“My God, she is going to harness the power of Tiktok,” I thought out loud.
The Doberman produced a baton out of what probably was her inventory. This, to the untrained eye, would have looked like taking it out of some collar hammerspace. She carefully placed the baton on her mouth and began directing her army of savages. The percussions were just jocks punching some poor chumps to the rhythm. The winds were girls crying for the latest androgynous boyband. The chord instruments were violins and cellos. And you may think “hey, that’s totally normal!” and you’d be right, except for the fact they were played by the most pretentious brats you could imagine. They all seemed to have enough levels in their respective musical skill to do a respectable job, or have practiced a lot. Both, maybe. I began to wonder what exactly did the skill level dictate, because I felt no improvement related to levels when dancing conga, and when dancing chacarera, all breakthroughs were related to my extensive practice, independent on the level. I began to think the universe just had a pathological necessity to add numbers to things, to quantify, even if imperfectly. This couldn’t be the fault of the Argentinian Demiurge, as the only stat would be “world cups won” then.
As our adversary performed her beautiful and elaborate act, I began to wonder something way more important: How much of this universe had been ideated by deities that humanity had already killed off? The Argentinian Demiurge, overworked, asked for death, and seemingly had problem keeping up with the management off all the systems the other left behind. God was half-assing the universe, and it could not go on much longer like that, right?
I was being used, I had been given a second chance at life to be a deliverer of mercy. I had to euthanize this rabid LitRPG land, and how heavy of a chore that was. Planet had teeth, planet had claws. Planet kicked and howled and barked and bit you, sometimes, in the form of a Doberman clearly surpassing any human act of heelwork to music by directing a brat orchestra.
Florencia finally came back from the bathroom, and sat by our side while I hid my face in my hands and wallowed in the prospect of defeat.
“There is still a way for us to win,” A sinister, hungry-for-infants voice whispered on my mind.
“Shut up, Canaver. I know it has to be you. Nobody else would sound so much like a mound of undead pit bulls,” I thought towards him.
“Release me, I will munch the choir down. The cute blonde looks scrumptious.”
“You sound like a child predator. Shut up.”
“I am a child predator!” he argued, and I had to concede that he was technically right.
“Yes, but of the non-concerning kind. Nobody will call the police if I release you in a Kindergarten. Not until you gut a couple of students.”
“… I am an undead mound of game dogs,” he reminded me.
“People see worse things in kinders, more so in New York or Buenos Aires.”
The explosion of the dome’s roof interrupted our beautiful moment. The pieces of masonry fell, crushing some of the screaming girls and beaten nerds. Tempera looked up, and I did the same. Squinting, I could see a figure among the dust. A bulky man covered in a variety of differently-colored skins
“Hello again, pooches and owners. Surrender your bloodline-blessed pets, or face the …widely praised persuasion powers of Dogclad!
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[1] Behold, mere mortals, my gobsmackingly humble attempt at translating “Bombo Legüero”.