Evil vs Evil.

It sounds like such an awesome concept, right? Who would win in a fight, a ninja or a tank?
That's something you'd definitely wanna see!
But 'see' is the operating word here.

The massive engine thundered from beyond the drifting smoke long before the start signal. Once the mist had settled, the khaki tower on wheels stood tall in the Arena, yet nobody there to face it anywhere. Not a trace of the ninja girl could be seen. The tank spun its turret around, searching the Arena for anything to aim its gun at. But all for naught.

Finally she appeared, just six feet away from the tank. A masked girl in a tight outfit stretching from top to toe, throwing her camouflage cloak off in a dramatic fashion. As elusive and intimidating as she looked, she was completely unarmed. Save for a single screwdriver in her hand
Why the screwdriver?

The answer came when the tank started falling apart, piece by piece, until finally it collapsed in a heap of scrap metal.
The engine roared no longer, and the battle ended as soon as it began.

Honestly, I'm kinda glad I missed the fight. By only two minutes, mind you, but it might as well have been two hours with how quickly it was over. Who actually pays to watch a ninja fight anyway? That's like paying for invisible paint!

What a ripoff! A travesty! Utterly scandalous even!
But you know what's even more scandalous?

Turns out the Goldfish Knight had been cheating on me!
I know, right ?
During all this time, it turns out he hated someone other than me! Can you believe this guy?

He told me he wanted to kill me. I thought I was special!
Well, so much for romanticism. That's probably what he tells every woman he meets!
To be fair, it's not actually a woman at all. It's a Dark Lord, not a Dark Lady. I suppose killing him is like a job; I'm the one who's really an affront to everything he believes in. That's a relief, I guess. I've got no intention of being anyone's silver medal here. Still, I wish he'd be more open about stuff like that. If we're supposed to be mortal enemies, then I expect a certain level of trust!

Oh well. The Dark Lord Ithere also competed in the Tournament. In fact, he was up next. The H-Bracket was the last Bracket Final held that day. The final Bracket Final. Some might call that the Ultimate Final, and hey! They wouldn't exactly be wrong.
Sure, the Championship Final was still three days away, but that won't be a showdown between a Dark Lord and a Devil.

Day 4 of The 129th Rasheul Great **** Tournament
02:54 PM

"So who do we root for?" I asked without peeling my eyes from the book in my bed.
She peered out from between the huge pile of family sized snack bags in her arms, "Hmm?"
"You know..." I haphazardly flipped a page, "We've got two bad guys fighting each other. Is there any bad guy we want to win? Is there a least bad bad guy?"
"We're rooting for the collision of two apocalyptic forces being as spectacular as we imagine it to be! " Bat Girl dumped the snack on the table, making short work of the ornate glass bowl placed out to contain them, "It's not that one of them winning is better than the other. Think of it like a celestial phenomenon. A meteor shower, or iridescent clouds. Pretty to behold, but get too close to them and WHAM! You crash and burn!"
I flipped another page, "Mhmmm... I'm all about crashing and burning. But still... My Little Goldfish is gonna root for Ithere to win, so that he can fight him in the Finals. Does that mean we should root for Asmodeus? Isn't that what antagonists are supposed to do?"
"Not sure." She shrugged, placing out soda bottles on the table, "Probably shouldn't define ourselves by our relationships with others. At least not entirely. I mean, the reason we think the sky is blue isn't cause someone we dislike thinks it's green."

"Ah, fair enough." I nodded, "In that case I sort of wanna root for Ithere. Like, if Ithere won, then the Goldfish Knight would be happy. And it's better if more people are happy than less! Even if it is the Goldfish!"
"You do realize that Ithere declared he would vaporize the city with its entire population once he won?"
"...For real? Yikes. Then yeah, if it's all the same to you I'd rather not get myself incinerated. I've got a book report to write! Yeah, you definitely hit the nail on the head there with that green sky speech. Hold on! Does that mean the Goldfish is rooting for the city to be vaporized? At least to some extent?"
"Not exactly," Bat Girl said, "He himself of course thinks he'll vanquish Ithere before he got the chance."
"...That doesn't make any sense. If there's really no doubt he'll defeat Ithere, then that's more reason not to do it! I mean, what'd he have to prove except that which is already obvious?"
"Well... It's not really about knowing if you can do it or not." Bat Girl shoved her arm into the heap of snack bags, "It's about honour. Saying that you can slay a Dark Lord is easy. Anyone can do it. But to actually do it; then you'd do something that only a few people in history have been able to do."
"So if it was up to him, he'd risk every life in this city... For honour?"
Bat Girl nodded, pulling out the bowl from underneath, "Uh huh. You forget, for a knight, his honour is more important than his life..."
"And his life is more important than every life in the city combined. Yeah, I know. He tried to kill his friend and servant just for touching his precious little stick. How about we change the subject now? "
"I thought you'd never ask!" She poured a bag of Funyuns into the bowl, sitting herself next to me on the bed, "The match will start any minute now."

I shut the cover of the book I was evidently never gonna finish, and changed the channel of the magic mirror. It flickered from the paused image of the disassembled tank, to an overview of the Stadium from above.

"Huh... With how hyped this fight was, you'd think there'd be much higher attendance." I pointed out. As usual the lectars were filled with people, but it didn't look like anything as when the Champ was up. In fact, spotting the odd empty seat was no hard task.
"Yeah, well nobody actually thinks for a second the Tournament can contain this encounter. Keep in mind that to these guys the Barrier might as well be made out of paper. So now only dedicated fans, and the really stupid, want to go out there to get a good look at these titans."
Huh. That made a lot of sense. Still, the Stadium wasn't exactly empty.
"So, what group would most of these guys fit into?" I asked.
"Well... There's an amazing overlap, really. Seems you can't have one without the other."

The contestants came into view. One of them a sexy man and the other a sexy woman.
The man was oozing with confidence. When he shot the audience a nonchalant smirk, they went absolutely wild. Tall, dark and handsome didn't begin to describe him. Pitch black armor fitted snugly on his Y-shaped frame like a bodysuit. I'd be positively terrified, if he wasn't such a pretty boy. Long blonde hair flowing down his back and everything. I wonder just how much time he spent on that hairdo every morning just to undermine the whole harbinger of doom aesthetics he exuded.

His opponent also tried to look dignified and presentable, but fell short by wide margin. Her smart red suit jacket and skirt did little to temper the savage look imbued by her horns, grey skin and feral grin. Really, it's like trying to dress up a grizzly bear in a pink ribbon.
Well, what the attire lacked in proper formality, it more than made up for in sexy points. It stuck to her curves as if painted on. Her skirt ended just short of her pelvis, and the top of her jacket was left unbuttoned to expose her cleavage. A long bushy ponytail poked out from behind her skull, and she kept pushing her glasses back to the ridge of her nose with her index finger.
This lady truly embodied the sexy librarian archetype, who just happened to be a savage demon.

I pointed at the mirror dramatically, "Hey! I know her! She's from Ojou Sama's entourage!"
"You know Ojou Sama?" Bat Girl asked.
"Sort of. Well, no. Well... Actually, yes. She doesn't know me though. The thing is, I've sort of been spying on her." I pushed my index finger against my lips, winking at her.
"Oh... Damn, you crazy bitch!" Bat Girl snatched a Funyun into her mouth, "Snooping on the mastermind of the city behind her back? Now, that takes guts!"
"Haha... Well, I'm not doing it anymore. Turns out half the matches are fixed by her, and she doesn't see fit to include any spoiler warnings."
"To be fair," Bat Girl popped a soda, "It's not like spoiling future matches for those she's got no idea are listening would be the worst she's ever done."

Our little chat had to end there though.

"FIGHT!"

A pink luster surrounded Asmodeus as she rose from the ground. The Dark Lord launched off. His trajectory through the air could be discerned only as a black trail behind him. He lunged at her, suddenly wielding a black lance in his hand. She dodged by spinning to the side, a move that fluently turned into a roundhouse kick with pink lightning tracing the length of her shapely leg.
He flew out of reach, blocking the follow-up kick with his weapon. Arcs of pink lightning shot out where her shin connected to the corporeal shadow.

This was a clash of equals not used to facing their equal.

The spear shattered in a cloud of shadowy bubbles. Asmodeus pounced on him, ready to claw out his pretty face. But he caught her first. Gripped her by the wrist mid-scratch. With a casual motion he tossed her down with the **** of a meteor, the impact leaving a crater in the ground.
A mist of sand lingered around the devil while she stood up. The Dark Lord raised his hand to the sky. Dozens, no wait, hundreds of shadow lances appeared suspended in the air around him, each far longer than even him. When he lowered his hand, they rained down at her with unrelenting fury. She only barely managed to leap away at the very last second before they pelted down.
Actually, she leaped away just after the very last second. I realised that when I saw her impaled by black spears from every angle, turning her into a pin cushion. One that leaked ketchup from every needle. She hung limply in the air as if crucified on the lances. But that didn't seem to bother her none. She just grinned even wider.
Her gold eyes locked at him, unable to contain their excitement. Excitement that turned hotter with the brightness of her glowing body. The lances shattered all at once, and she flew back to assume a combat pose once more.

Ithere wasted no time launching another volley at her. The lances soared at her like a hail of bullets, only much faster. Yet she kept escaping their range before they could get close. The streak of pink light behind her traced circles around him, as she struck one alluring pose after another. After winking at him she started blowing kisses in his direction.
Mind you, those kisses turned into ethereal purple lip marks that whizzed towards him. Merely dodging them wasn't enough either. These were homing kisses, ones that kept following him in a relentless chase. Like a persistent admirer!
He learned that the hard way after getting struck by a wave of them, leaving purple kiss marks all over his face and suit. The rest of the stalky lips were wiped out of existence with a black lance he swept around him in a wide arc.
He kept creating new spears, which kept pelting down at her. And she kept nimbly dodging them with the grace of a dancer. They soon swarmed around her like flies, leaving her no recourse for escape. She reached her arm out, a surge of pink energy shooting out from her palm as if whipping the shadows. The devil tried aiming the lightning bolt at the hurtling spears, but it soon became clear that the pink lightning had a mind of its own. It swung between shadows in a volatile dance, detonating them on impact in a bright explosion. Clusters of shadowy bubbles were left in its wake.

The trail of pink light behind her solidified as it faded, turning into a dark purple cloud of flashing thunder. The Arena filled with a labyrinth of thunderous clouds where the devil had passed. The Dark Lord merely flew past them without issue, focusing on cornering the devil with increasingly dense swarms of shadow lances.
She soon slowed down. Ithere had her surrounded with a circle of shadowy spears, raising his hand to give the execution signal. Asmodeus's glow grew brighter. Bright enough that the vibrantly pink glow enveloped her, turning her into a silhouette of herself. Lightning crackled from her body.
Ithere lowered his hand, sending the lances skewering the pink figure of the devil from every direction. But they all missed! Asmodeus had turned herself into a lightning bolt and reappeared where it struck.

Ithere sighed, swiping his hand casually to fire even more polearms at her. And she kept evading.
He used increasingly unpredictable patterns of fire, where the lances flew towards one another, only to disperse in a cluster after passing the point where they joined. She flew backwards until she could float between the giant arrows, ducking away from their path. She kept dancing past the bullet hell that way, turning into lightning to flee the onslaught when necessary.
She raised both hands over her head, which glowed hotly in what can only be described as flames made of pink electricity. Her arms swept down like guillotines, releasing pink lightning into the clouds around her. Pink light flashed across the exhaust she snaked across the Arena, moving towards the Dark Lord's position. Lightning struck from one arm in the spiralling clouds to another. They kept striking more rapidly, growing ever closer towards the Dark Lord. He found himself dodging pink bolts of lightning flying at him, evading spots where the clouds drifted nearest. But lightning can only be dodged so well, and he got zapped a good four times before the ordeal slowed to a halt.

No more lightning strikes. Instead the clouds swelled, fissures of pink light spreading in a complex network across its surface. It looked like a single big sausage pulsating with an alarming flicker.

A magnetic whirr blasted throughout the Arena as a spot along the cloud detonated in a flash of light. Then another. And another still. The trail of blasts spread quickly, coiling all along the cloud as if the whole thing was primed with fireworks. Remnants of spectral mist blew every which way. Which also exploded. The Arena erupted in a blinding flash, a paroxysm of light bursting towards the Dark Lord. Its rays reached towards him, closing in on him like an inescapable wall of pikes.
And yet he was smiling.

The searing light engulfed him, along with everything else in the Arena. Nothing could be seen past the eerie white glow. The Barrier resembled a snowglobe full of radioactive milk.
And all I could do was stare and gawk.

"...The fuck?"
I didn't even notice my trembling hands until I looked down and saw the Funyuns spilled out on my lap.
"Told you they were the real deal." Bat Girl took a Funyun from my lap.

...I'd say they went beyond the real deal.
Listen, I can only do so much conveying what I saw, but you just gotta be there. Not that I was there either, but... Even if you were there, I'm not sure you'd get quite the same picture as I did.

See, that was the power of a tactical nuke. That sounds bad, sure. But have you ever made a tactical nuke before? I know I have! Nevermind how I did it or where I store them right now. The point is, those babies ain't exactly easy to put together. You won't come across the technology needed to make them in a cereal package. Same thing with the material. Not exactly anything you make on an assembly line. Just putting a single one of them together is an industrial effort. Once you've done that, then you've got yourself an 800 pound bulky warhead in need of regular maintenance until you spot something you need blown to smithereens. Then all you need is some way to fling that behemoth at your target from back behind safety.
And figuring that out is an ordeal in and of itself.

So nothing about nukes is convenient. It's tedious and expensive from start to finish. But goddamnit if it isn't worth it! The boom alone is enough to permanently remove two to three city blocks from the map.

And these guys toss around that kind of power like candy!

"Yeah, these guys mean business all right." I agreed, "Remind me, what exactly does the Goldfish hope to do against this natural disaster that walks like a man?"
Bat Girl laughed, "Why, he's got the Holy Lance Jaivardhan, of course. That weapon has the power to pierce his Invincibility Barrier."
"Oh, that guy got an Invincibility Barrier?" I cocked my head, "Oh, yeah. I totally forgot. Well, that's one less thing he needs to worry about then. Still, what planet does he live on where that little stick makes a lick of difference?"
"Yeah... It's a bit of a stretch all right." She sighed, "But the way I see it, it's not so much that the spear makes it a sure kill. Nothing else short of a devil's power can so much as put a scratch on a Dark Lord. But thanks to the Holy Lance he has one chance to put an end to his reign of terror. And of course, he is gonna make the most of that chance. So I guess it's all just a matter of... Hope. "
"Oh, if anyone is all about hope, it's me. I love hope! Hope's the best! But one thing hope is not, it's facts. And the fact is that for Ithere, we all might as well really be goldfish."
"Fair enough," Bat Girl nommed another Funyun, "But what about you? You think you'd be able to take them out in the upcoming finals?"

I shrugged, "I dunno."
"You dunno... So you're saying you've got a chance?"
"I don't know that either. I don't like to have prejudices about what I can accomplish. Even a goldfish can make a difference if it swims into the right place at the right time!" I took Funyun from my lap as well, "But yeah, it's gonna be a hell of a challenge. And goddamit if I'm not looking forward to it!"
Bat Girl looked at me with a grin, "Maybe you've got more in common with Goldie than you think."

The Arena dimmed soon enough. Smoke drifted past the looming figure suspended in the sky.
Ithere was completely unscathed, save for a single drop of blood trailing from the corner of his mouth.

"Ah, you got me with that one, Devil." He wiped the blood with the back of his hand, "Well done. You have my commendations. But not enough, I'm afraid. And I believe now it is my turn. Do try and keep up, will you?"