Vore is a brutal industry, and today was a reminder of that for Vorelando and Kobe. Today was the date of the annual culling, a tournament early in the college vore calender designed to separate the pretenders from the men in suspenders.
Neither Kobe nor Vorelando had been graced with time to prepare for this tournament, they had spent the month since the jungle gym incident recovering both physically and psychologically. This out them at a disadvantage compared to the other schools, most of which did not have a similar selection process. Voregia State would be the only school in the whole state to be sending less than 20 participants to the tournament.
The school’s logic for this approach was simple.
“We’re not going to help you win the 400 meters if you’re not capable of even finishing the marathon!” Vorezingis had told the five of them.
If they wanted to go pro, they couldn’t let something as insignificant as this tournament stand in their way.
The five students and their mentor had arrived Atlana the previous evening and stayed the night in a 5 star hotel. It was now morning and they were all at the breakfast buffet, waiting to hear what the draw would be.
Vorelando had woken up the latest of all of them. He’d been told they were meeting at 9, so he had met them at 9, not realizing they had really meant 8.
“You’re late Jones.”
“No I’m not.”
Vorelando sat down beside Kobe and started digging in to his full continental breakfast.
“Any word on the draw?” Vorelando asked Kobe.
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“Not yet, should be any minute though.”
He pointed at Vorezingis who was scrolling through his tablet incessantly. There was a worry that two of them might get drawn in the same bracket, even if the chances were slim. There were dozens of brackets each consisting of 8 contestants. It was statistically unlikely that they’d be drawn together but it wasn’t impossible.
“They’re in.” Vorezingis yelled before he began scrolling with both hands and his nose.
After a moment of tension, he let out a sigh of relief.
“You’re all in different brackets.”
The group let out a cheer and then toasted each other with orange juice.
“Do any of our brackets overlap on timeslots?” One asked. “I want to see my brothers prosper if the bureaucracy of time will allow it.”
“Steakhouse and John’s brackets are scheduled in the same time slot, otherwise you should be good to go.”
“Don’t worry about watching my matches boys, I’m sure they won’t be all that interesting.”
John stood up from his seat and adjusted his cufflinks. He was wearing a suit, remarkably well dressed for a vorer at this kind of tournament.
“Vorezingis sir, do you think you could send me on my bracket? I have some prep work to do.”
“Of course John, do what you have to do.”
John put his hands in his packets and strolled away from the table incredibly casually.
“Good luck boys, I’ll see you at the end of the week.”
Kobe clenched his fist subtly. He still knew nothing about the mystery man that had saved him in the jungle gym and it seemed no one else did either. He had thought this tournament would be a good chance to do some up close analysis, but that idea was now dead. He’d have to settle for second hand accounts of his matches, as recording of this tournament was forbidden.
“We shall also take our leave, we must return to our meditation pods for at least 3 hours today.” Two said as he and one left the table.
“Kobe?”
“Yeah Vo?”
“You think you could help me out preparing for my match?”
“I got a match to prepare for myself.”
“Come on man, I’ll order some takeaway for the two of us.”
This caught Kobe’s attention.
“You gon get them Signature Atlana ribs?”
“You know it.” Vorelando enthusiastically replied.
“Fine, you know the way to my heart, down that BBQ slicked trail. Hurry up though, I want to have time to watch the other matches too.”
Kobe and Vorelando walked off with their arms around each other’s shoulders, leaving Vorezingis alone to drink is remaining 12 glasses of grapefruit juice.