The crowd roars as one of the pig brothers is airborne and left in the dust.

“Who could have expected this outcome, folks?” the announcing hatted cat man cries out, seeming shocked.

The pig brother on the ground gets up on his feet, and starts yelling something I can’t hear.

“Now settle down everyone,” the announcer says, and everyone settles down, “because our newcomers still have to win one more round!”

They start cheering again.

The driving pig brother goes to pick up his sibling from his spot on the ground, while Seela takes the two of us back to our place in the field, where we started before. She’s practically grinning ear-to-ear. I think she might be enjoying this more than just “making sure that the shots I call are seen through” as she claimed warrants.

“Is everyone ready for round two!?” the announcer calls, which is answered with loud, eager cheering.

“Three…”

Seela revs her thing up again.

“...Two…”

The other wielder almost disdainfully stares me down, revving up his lance, a gesture which I return.

“...One!”

Seela and the other driver take off once again. The other wielder stands up in his cart, taking a deep stance.

Doesn’t he realize that that makes it easier for me to knock him down than if he was sitting like before?

Our lances once again miss each other. Because of his stance, he’s able to hit me first. The moving blades tear a giant hole in my vest, leaving my skin exposed. But as we move forward, the lance bounces off of my chest, as I thrust mine into his. Once again, the sound of metal on metal rings, and he’s knocked off of his feet, and onto the ass he once proudly dared to shake.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

The audience lets out the loudest eruption of roaring, cheering, screaming, whooping, and more noises yet to be heard.

“And we have our winners!” the announcer bellows out, although you can hardly hear him.

Seela takes a victory lap around the field, while I stand up, revving my lance at everyone while we pass by.

We drive towards the announcer, who is still yelling to the audience about the match, and has a lizard woman on either side of him, each holding black leather vests and waving for us to come to them.

We dismount our vehicles, and the lizard women take our blue vests off. When she hands me my new leather vest, I take a better look at it before putting it on. The back features a large, golden embroidered image of a chain lance in front of a cart. The arm holes, the front, and the bottom are all lined with fringe, which has blue and copper beads tied on.

Seela puts hers on as well, which also has beaded fringe all over it. When we make eye contact, she flashes me a huge smile, and turns around, fully spreading her wings to show me the design. Hers has a gold embroidered image of the larger, two-wheeled vehicle.

The announcer, who has been yelling this whole time, reaches for my hand and Seela’s wing, which we both give him. He raises our hands high above our heads.

“Now everyone, let’s give one last round of cheers for our first-time-ever visiting victors, Seela and-”

“Hold on!”

The pig wielder approaches, and the audience goes quiet.

“She’s obviously a cheater!” he points a finger at me.

“Oh, this is interesting! And how are you backing up your claim that Hana, a foreigner who wasn’t told what game she’d be playing until she was already on the field, cheated?”

The audience laughs, but quickly hushes back down.

“She shouldn’t even be alive, with how much force I put into that thrust! She’s clearly wearing a chest plate!”

Seela jumps in, “you mean like the one you’re wearing that clanked so loudly when she knocked you on your ass?”

The audience collectively goes “ooh…”

“Projection will get you nowhere!” the pig man shoots at Seela, then turns back to me, “remove your shirt and show us your chest plate!”

“Let me get this straight, and dear audience please correct me if I’m wrong,” begins the announcer, “you are angry because you cheated in a jousting match, and still managed to lose. You ripped this young girl’s shirt wide open, nonconsensually, in front of everyone, and now you’re demanding that she take it off. Thanks to you, we have already seen very clearly that there’s no chest plate. This is getting to be a bad look for you, am I right?”

The audience is laughing and cheering now. I hadn’t even noticed that my chest was exposed… oh well, it’s covered by the vest now.

“Take sore loser here off the field!” shouts the announcer, and two tortoises come and drag the angry pig man away while the audience still laughs.

“Now as I was saying,” the announcer says, bringing the audience’s attention back, “can I get one last giant round of cheering for our first-ever visiting victorious champions, Seela and Hana!!”

The audience goes completely wild as he holds my hand and Seela’s wing in the air one last time.