#announcer bug

“Hey there, my good bitch,” Bug said, popping back up in the VIP box next to Danny. “No Sam and Tucker?”

“You sound almost disappointed,” Danny said.

“Of course I am! I love those guys.” Bug turned back to the ring with a frown. “Plus, this is the mod phight. They deserve all the love, my dude.”

Danny almost asked what they meant by mod, but he’d learned that asking a question meant you then had to live with the answer, so he closed his mouth and looked down at where Tali, Vic, and Cat were facing off. Tali had her kazoo, still, while Cat had a ugly looking paper frog and Vic held… nothing, apparently.

“All right binches! Go get this bread!” Bug hit the gong and the match began.

Tali started things off with a flurry of kazoo noises.

“Is that,” Danny said, “a Kingdom Hearts song?”

“Probably,” Bug said with a shrug.

In the ring, the sound of the kazoo was pulsing through the ground, making for unsteady footing. Cat held up their frog and screamed, “The power of Le Pepe compels you!” and the shaking beneath their feet, at least, stopped.

“Oh,” Vic said, staring at her fingernails, “I’m so happy this is happening now. Really, Tali, you should do it more.”

“Okay!” Tali said, and she played her kazoo even harder. Vic toppled out of the arena.

“Oof,” Bug said, “looks like her sarcasm backfired.”

Vic called up from the ground. “Wow, it is so nice down here. I love it.”

“That… seems more passive-aggressive than sarcastic,” Danny said.

“Eh,” Bug said, “it’s a thin line.”

Now the only two in the ring, Cat and Tali circled each other. Cat feinted with their Pepe, then out of nowhere began firing mounds of trash from their hands.

“I’M A TRASH COMMUNIST,” they yelled, “EAT MY TRASH.”

“Now this is what I came to see,” Bug said, on the edge of their seat.

“It is?” Danny said.

Tali waited as the trash began to fall around her, shaking her head. “You are like a little baby,” she said. “Watch this.”

A shower head appeared and water cascaded down. Tali began belting out Simple and Clean, which forced all the trash back and slammed into Cat with impressive force.

“No!” Cat screeched. “The power of Pepe compels you!”

It was to no avail. They were toppled out of the ring, and Tali stood alone.

“Hey you ignorant sluts,” Bug said. “Tali does, actually, have a life. Or like, afterlife. So I’m here to help out or something. Because, unlike Tali, I don’t have a life. Points for me.” They threw up a peace sign.

“Huh,” Tucker said. “Kind of a sad brag.”

“Yeah,” Bug said, holding back tears. “Anyway, this is match ten, a showdown between asandygraves from the mean streets of the carnivorous outskirts and punkhalfghosts from the observant’s keep—which, hey, is also where I’m from!”

Asandygraves strode up to the ring, wielding a metal baseball bat about the size of their forearm. “Let’s get this bread!”

“Alright, so the match will start in five, four, three—”

“Wait,” said Danny, “where’s punkhalfghosts?”

As he said this, punkhalfghosts rolled in on their heelys wearing a shirt that said “i’ll procrastinate anything, bitch.”

“All right,” Danny said, nonplussed.

“Anyway,” Bug said, “round two, match ten, begin!”

Danny expected asandygraves to start swinging their bat around, but, to his shock, they threw it at punkhalfghosts. Punkhalfghosts zipped out of the way on their heelys and asandygraves was left weaponless.

“Well, that backfired,” said Tucker.

Half a second later, the bat was spinning back toward the ring, into asandygraves’s hand.

“Or not,” said Tucker.

“How the hell did that work,” said Danny.

Bug shrugged.

“You think you’ve won because you broke the laws of physics?” punkhalfghosts asked. “Bitch, I’m on heelys.”

They zoomed up to asandygraves and raced around them faster than the eye could see. After a minute of ineffectually swinging their bat, asandygraves fell over, exhausted. “I give,” they said.

Bug climbed back up into the VIP box.

Tucker sighed. “You again?”

“Me again, binch.”

“Why do you only talk in insults?”

“It’s how I show affection,” Bug said. “Now, without any further ado, let’s begin match eleven: purpleillusn versus ghostgothgeek, ice versus ectoplasm, being dead versus being a math geek.”

“What the fuck does that even mean?” Danny said.

“Hm, who knows! Let’s fight.”

On one side of the ring, purpleillusn stood stock still. He said nothing, moved not an inch. Even as nothing happened, Tucker’s heart sped up and his palms began to sweat..

“Oh, it’s the fear itself guy again,” Danny said. “At a certain point I’ve really got to stop questioning this.”

Ghostgothgeek shook her head from the other side of the ring. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said. “I’ve got glowsticks.”

“I’m pretty scared,” Tucker said. He called down to ghostgothgeek, “Hey, wanna share some of those?”

Ghostgothgeek gave no indication that she’d heard him.

“All right, binches. I want a nice clean match! Now break each other’s skulls in!” Bug said, hitting a gong to start the fight.

Ghostgothgeek flung out her glowsticks, throwing them at purpleillusn with abandon.

“Where do they come from?” Danny said.

Purpleillusn didn’t move. He stared down at ghostgothgeek like the force of his gaze would be enough to stop her.

After ten minutes of this, one of ghostgothgeek’s glowsticks hit purpleillusn in the head and he crumpled over, unconscious.

“Well that was anticlimactic,” Tucker said.

“Hey,” Bug said, putting their hand over the mic, “do I have to say where they’re from for every round?”

Danny and Tucker shrugged.

Bug rubbed their temples. “You’re both useless.”

“I’ve literally saved the world,” Danny said.

“Useless.”

“Dude,” Danny said.

“Anyway,” Bug said, “round thirty-five.”

“It’s definitely more like round thirteen,” Tucker said.

Bug groaned. “Ok, Mr. Rules Lawyer, it’s round thirteen, with heyheyitsstillgay from Nightmare Valley, where all unicorns go to die, and spacegravedoodles from the carnivorous outskirts. Hey, can you be vegan and live there?”

Spacegravedoodles shouted up from the ring. “No, you cannot.”

“Huh. Bood. Anyway, binches, let’s get this show on the road.” Bug hit the gong. “Fight, nerds!”

Heyheyitsstillgay lugged their duffle bag into the center of the ring and pulled out a Danno. Danny groaned and turned bright red.

“Wait a sec,” Tucker said, turning to Danny. “Is that supposed to be you?”

Danny nodded, unable to speak, and Tucker dissolved into laughter.

Heyheyitsstillgay threw the Danno out at spacegravedoodles, who dabbed it away. “What else you got?” they said, dabbing again.

“Uh,” heyheyitsstillgay said. “Like. A lot, actually.” They flicked out their Dannos faster than the speed of sound.

“Impressive,” Danny said.

“Weird,” Tucker said.

Spacegravedoodles tried to dab them all out of the way, but was knocked off their feet. As they struggled to stand, the very last danno walloped them in the gut and they tumbled out of the ring.

Bug blew their whistle. “Spacegravedoodles had fallen. All hail heyheyitsstillgay!”

“Why are you still here?” Tucker said.

Bug shrugged. “It’s my day off.”

“Dude, Tuck, let it go,” Danny said.

“All right, on to match something-or-other—”

“It’s twelve, Bug,” Danny said.

“Match, twelve, then. Planetgalatica of the Ectoplasmic Expanse, which is real empty this time of year, and gostriley of my nightmares. I mean, Nightmare Valley. You know what, just shut up and fight.”

Gostriley shouted from one side of the ring. “Hey, what if Danny got a job as an x-ray machine? Just turned people’s fleshy bits invisible so you can see the bones?”

Tucker turned to Danny. “Hey, wanna—”

“No.”

Tucker pouted. “Rude.”

Planetgalactica was unmoved. “That’s dumb,” she said.

“Well that’s kinda the point,” gostriley said.

“The point is it’s dumb,” planetgalactica said. She threw her pillow across the room with surprising force. “Nighty-night.”

It hit gostriley squarely in the chest and they went flying into the domed barrier.

“Did she just yeet them out of the ring with a pillow?” Tucker said.

“Yeah,” Danny said.

“Yo,” Bug said, poofing into the VIP box.

“Danny,” said one of the guards.

“Fenton,” said the other.

“Hmm, that’s enough of that,” said Bug as the first guard opened her mouth to continue. Then, they taped over the guards’ mouths to be on the safe side.

“Sorry, friends,” they said. “We don’t have time for that.”

“Time for what?” Tucker said.

“The less you know the better.”

“Wack,” said Danny and Tucker.

Bug cleared their throat. “Moving on. This is round fifteen of sixteen, which you would think means there’s only one left, but that isn’t true! Because time doesn’t exist and words only have the meanings we choose to assign them and nothing matters.”

Tucker blinked. “Well, I guess I’m putting you down for ‘big bummer’.” Tucker made some imaginary notes on his hand. Bug ignored him.

“In this corner, we have cluelessintheusa, who hails from the Far Frozen and is apparently winging it.”

Clueless waved from the arena, showing off the feathers taped to her arms.

“Oooh, a visual pun, that’s a nice one,” Tucker said.

“Aaaaand in the other corner, we have halfaqueen from the Acropolis of Athens and they are chugging some Dr. Pepper right now. Wow. Truly impressive.”

Halfaqueen gulped down the last of their soda and tossed the can away. They let out a long burp.

“Radical sabbatical! And, without further ado, fight!” Bug hit the gong.

Cluelessintheusa flapped her wings at halfaqueen, but all that happened was the feathers flew off. Halfqueen laughed low in their throat.

“Concede the match,” halfaqueen said, holding up their laser pointer, “or I will shine this directly into your eyes.”

“Weird flex, but ok,” Danny said.

“That’s never going to work,” Tucker said.

Cluelessintheusa gulped. After a long moment, she sighed. “I concede.”

“I stand corrected,” Tucker said.