This was it. It's game time.

The Friday before the tournament, Ben gave his most unreasonable practice yet.

Under the guise of being ready for the tournament, he combined the theoretical practice with physical practice, demanding they exercise while he read to them and quizzed them on the rules of Hero Games. Group punishment for wrong answers, and there was always a wrong answer. He gave Stanley breaks to not put excessive strain on his 'healing arm', which injected some spicy hatred in the hearts of the children. When Katherine couldn't keep up because she had been suspended for three weeks and missed practice, her own weakness almost brought her to tears while the boys enjoyed schadenfreude at the evidence of their efforts.

After practice was over, Ben dropped a nugget of absolute wisdom on the children.

"If you guys want to be in the best shape of your life," he told the cast, "then you'll want to take an ice bath."

"What?"

"Ask your parents for help, but fill a tub half-way with ice, then take a dip in it for thirty minutes."

"That's insane!" Michael complained, "We're not eskimos!"

"It's for healing," Ben offered. "Stanley, you can ask your father. He was in sports medicine. The process that your body uses to generate heat carries a lot of the same nutrients it uses to repair itself. Top level athletes do it, and real heroes do it, too!"

The kids looked doubtful at Ben, exactly as he wanted. He had just spent the last hour torturing them, and now he was suggesting further torture. In reality, an ice bath triggers something akin to a survival program throughout the nervous system that hijacks all spare nutrients and powerbombs them into bodily maintenance.

In short terms, stress-induced healing.

None of them would actually do it. Dunking yourself into freezing water took dedication that only a fat paycheck and sponsorship deals could pull off. Stanley might do it if he brings it up with his dad, the pediatric sports medicine specialist, but none of the other kids had the kind of parents to go out at seven at night to pick up all the ice.

Ben would almost felt like donning his old tuxedo, top hat, and theatre masks for how evil he was being. He waved the kids goodbye and double-checked that the van was ready for game day.

The tournament would be held on fairgrounds three hours away from Jefferson High School. Ben had booked a hotel with a Groupon for all the other parents for a brief vacation start with everyone arriving at the hotel two hours before the first game. They would check in, drop their bags off, then head out to the fairgrounds. The fair was just twenty minutes away from the hotel and would be the stage for a legendary mettling by Ben, who had packed a bag for some of the softest malevolence in the world.

The van was booby-trapped, not with high explosives or caustic acid, but bad brakes. They would screech and squeal the whole time, and even warp the rotors if he kept pressure on them for long enough, which he planned to. The A/C was also weak, something unnoticeable on short trips with small groups, but in the forecasted 92 degree sunlight, it would become a problem. One of the tires had a pin-needle hole in it which might hold the entire weekend, but could also flatten the tire if it grew any larger.

Ben went home with a giddy skip in his step, and ordered some more TFC for Idet and Tiki Misala for himself. He was pigging out for two reasons, one of them being how miserable he was planning to be for the whole weekend he was going to have to chow down on some good food to keep himself sane. The other was to build up some gastro-intestinal distress with a big plate of beans on toast next to a glass of raw milk for breakfast, and the smell of some spicy Indian food hotboxing the van would drive everyone insane.

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As Ben went to pick up his delicious treats, he received a notification on his phone that almost made him swerve off the road. He could see it without his eyes, but he whipped the phone out anyway and stared at it just to make sure he wasn't being duped. He enlarged the notification and scanned the image he was sent like a police investigator with a bad gut feeling.

Displayed on the phone was Katherine in a bikini standing in front of a jacuzzi with Garrett, Gary, Michael, and Stanley in swim trunks. Standing just behind the jacuzzi was Jeff Chevis with his arms around Patricia and Brandon Grainger, bags of ice in their hands as the small jacuzzi was filled with water from a hose.

"FUCK YOU FUCKING CHEEKY PARENTS," Ben screamed, "CARING ABOUT YOUR KIDS WELL-BEING LIKE LOSERS! YOU FUCKING SUCK! YOU-"

Ben ranted the whole way to the pickup and even swore unholy words at his phone while paying for his food. The cashier just smiled nervously at him as he paced the counter and disturbed the other customers. He took deep breaths in and out the whole way home, deep enough to make him light-headed as another picture popped up on his phone of the kids fully submerged and shivering. Jeff was clearly the mediator here, making sure nobody would freeze too much.

As he pulled into his garage with the steaming food in his passenger seat, Ben considered taking Jeff out. He was likely going to be the biggest threat to his teams loss in the tournament. It wouldn't be too difficult, but that would release the floodgates of his wife,

Ben never imagined in all his years of cunning ploys and devious schemes that he would have to match wits with a pediatric sports medicine nurse practitioner.

He walked into the house to see Hannah was inside, drinking tea with Idet as Ben carried the food in.

"I'm not in the mood," he said before anyone else could speak, then broke into Idet's fried chicken bucket and ate the first piece. He slid the phone to them with the pictures and they started gossiping on how cut Stanley was.

"What's the problem?" Hannah asked as Ben dug into the tiki misala burning his nose.

"The children are recuperating with ice," Idet said. "This will undo the fibrous muscle damage Ben has been instilling in them for the past three weeks."

"AND by making it a PARTY," Ben shouted while tearing into the food packaging, "it will REDUCE STRESS as well. FUCK!"

Ben grunted as the burning sensation of Indian spices spread across his face from speed-eating.

"THAT'S IT!" he suddenly shouted, slamming the island countertop and swiveling off his chair. "Touch my chicken and I'll liquify your fingernails."

Ben disappeared into the garage and the explosive sound of a 20 gallon air compressor filled the house. Occasional light flashed from the garage door as something was welded, then the high pitch of compressed air passing through an impact wrench echoed across the family room.

Ben re-entered the room with slightly scuffed cuffs, "Well, that was pointless."

"What did you do?" Hannah asked, biting through the crispy, oily skin of a chicken leg.

"I was making a guillotine," Ben said.

Hannah looked confused and Idet shimmered in confusion.

"Just something I've been building for fun," Ben explained while grabbing his delicious chicken curry. "I thought it would relax me a bit more, but I want to wait until it's the right time to finish it."

"What are you waiting for?"

"It's part of my mayoral race. I was going to cut pumpkins and watermelons in half and host a function. It was also going to be a Halloween decoration."

"I don't think that's going to go over well. It's super weird to bring something like that to a political rally."

"Hm. Right. Optics would be bad if Wilkinson doesn't do something disastrous. Or if I don't undermine his rule accordingly. No, that would backfire later."

"You're probably all set up if you just match everything Wilkinson does for his campaign, plus one."

"Plus one?"

"You know, if he's got seven banners you need eight. If he's got a hundred signs, you need a hundred and one."

Ben calmed down as he went over some plans with Hannah for name recognition ideas, until she put a hand up and asked a very pertinent question.

"What happens if the kids do really well in the tournaments? Wouldn't it be bad for votes to give up coaching?"

Ben's mind suddenly disconnected from his consciousness as he envisioned a future where he was stuck forever as a hero team coach for high schoolers.

"I'd just get more use out of the guillotine if that happens."