The crowd was as thick, if not even thicker than the previous days of the event. The early "dud" matches had done little to wound the popularity of the match; many more people were showing up because the "real fighting" was soon to begin, now that the qualifiers and first stage were done with.

With a fighter in either corner, the seats nearly packed to standing room only, and the lights gleaming brighter than ever before, the microphone dropped down by its cord into the announcer's waiting hand.

"Welcome to the Starry Nights Colosseum! We have an action-packed extravaganza of boxing competition planned for the ring tonight. It's time for the first event, scheduled for six rounds of competition!"

And so the introductions began, with much shouting and cheering.

"In this corner, wearing blue, official weight: forty-five kilograms, from the United Federation, Sheffer Hawkins!"

Sheffer's reception by the crowd was actually noticeably warmer than last time. A hard-fought victory went a long way.

"And in this corner, wearing black with yellow trim, weighing forty-three kilograms, hailing from sky-high Angel Island, Rodolf Viktor!"

They knew the routine by then—the reading of the rules, the return to their corners, the bell... The only difference from last time was that the competition was going to be harder, and the match twice as long.




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He rolled his shoulders, cocked his head one way and then the other, and bounced a bit on the balls of his feet. His tail, covered all in white hair, much like the fluff around his torso and on his head, flicked back and forth once or twice. Sheffer's opponent looked decidedly like he meant business, focusing all his attention on the hedgehog (and thoroughly ignoring his blowhard of a trainer somewhere behind, a portly albatross familiar to anyone who might have caught the the Tasmanian devil's fight a few nights back).
He probably would have been more imposing if he didn't have a large amount of foam attached to his forehead, sticking out where what could only be his horn (assuming he was the unicorn he stated he was, or perhaps even a mutated goat of some sort) was.

Rodolf breathed deep. The matches were, from here on out, going to be at least marginally less one-sided. He was grateful, at least, that the hedgehog in front of him was one of the number who had won on his own merit, instead of technicality or an unbalanced matchup.
This also put the unicorn on his guard.

"Murder'im, Rudy!" the pompous-sounding albatross yelled around the cigar in his mouth.

Rodolf gave the bird a bemused sort of look, accompanied by a muffled "Rodolf" around his mouth-guard. The look was cut short as the bell rang, and he bristled. Fists lifted and at the ready, he all but cautiously edged towards the center of the ring-- He assuredly wasn't going to run head-long in. Best to see what his opponent would do, first.
No rush, at any rate.

Time wore on, as time is wont to do. Perhaps, or even likely, due to the fact that it was only the first round, little headway had been made by unicorn or hedgehog; punch punch block, punch punch weave duck punch, et al.

In his corner as the first round of six drew to its conclusion, Rodolf once more rolled his head and shoulders around. "This is going well," he remarked in irony to the standing-by albatross, having trouble containing his mild frustration.

"Y'gotta be patient," the large bird said around the cigar in his mouth.

There was little room for more chat as the bell was once more struck. Rodolf, in a minor change of pace from the previous round, wasted no time. Forward he went, instinctively lowering his head a bit as he lunged back into the ring. Fist held back for only a second, it swung forth again towards the hedgehog's abdomen.

Rodolf indeed blocked the uppercut, and groaned for his own part as the hedgehog's punch rang true, straight into his face-- as he leaned forward a bit, even. His head swam as he suddenly found it deeply hard to breathe through his nose. Hands lifted to his face, it was apparent to everyone before it was apparent to Rodolf himself. Indeed, the punch had managed to screw something up-- perhaps it had just been weakened by a few too many blows to the face, but there was now an impressive stream of blood running down from the horned ungulate's nose, streaming into the silvery white mane-like hair around his neck and making it considerably less silvery white.

One gloved hand still clutching his nose, he retreated to his corner with no regard for anything else... and stumbled forward as he did. He was still conscious, but he was in no mood to return to his feet at the moment. Between the injury and the fact that he simply felt it had dragged on far enough, he was willing to accept defeat.

His albatross trainer was a different story.

"Get back IN THERE, Rhody!" he yelled as he jumped up and down, waving his arms, his cigar fallen out and being crushed under his massive feet. He only grew more frustrated as the unicorn only shot him a rather piercing look.

When Rodolf outright turned and retreated in a blood-leaking mess, the ref knew that enough was enough. Whether or not he was on Vince's payroll, it was clear that he was a professional, and put professional concerns well over the thrill of the "spectacle" of boxing. He was in Sheffer's way in an instant, turned, shuffled over, took one look at the barely-standing unicorn, and fanned his arms out.

The bell rang repeatedly and sharply. The fight was over; the already roaring crowd went wild. Doctors moved in to check on the combatants, and the ring quickly became crowded again, even as the announcer went to retrieve his mic.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, here in the Starry Nights Colosseum referee Chase Jennings calls a halt to this contest at the official time of thirty-two seconds of the fifth round. The winner by TKO victory: Sheffer Hawkins!"

Minutes later, once Sheffer and Rodolf had cleared out, but before anyone else entered the ring for the next match, and before the announcer could again take center stage, music started being piped in. Spotlights burned brightly on the east entrance; a full entourage of trainers, cornermen, and women of questionably appropriate attire spilled in. Somewhere in the middle of it all, under the confusion of the loud sounds and the rhythmically pulsating lights, was a... giant, white sombrero. As the group entered the wide aisle and spread out a little, it finally became possible to make out the man under the hat: Velo. Gigantic, neon-green shutter shades hid his eyes, and a cape covered in sequins and trimmed with fur was draped off his shoulders. He gave high fives to audience members all the way down as he strutted and danced.

But then—


The stadium went pitch black, save for the flickers and flashes of cameras from the crowd. They were in uproar, already cheering and screaming wildly. Of course, some of the audience was frightened by their sudden blindness. The rest knew that they were in for a show.

Fireworks exploded out of the arena entrance. Music from an era long since passed came to life, shaking the place's very foundation. The light's strobed more neon colors than the entirety of Casino Park. The audience absolutely loved it.

But amidst lights and glamour, where was the actual contender? Who could drum up this big of a crowd without even being seen yet? ... Also, who was this shining star? Although, no matter who it was, he/she was shining bright to see that it could only be

the disco dog. The pink poodle. The alliterative anthropomorth. Mr. Danger.

As the lights returned to their normal hue, he was already posing in the center of the ring. A blue glove pointed straight up towards the ceiling led his hazel eyes and voluminous afro in the same direction. In the other glove, a chain snaked across the mat, ending in the mega disco ball known only as the Morning Funk. A golden tooth gleamed within an ivory grin. And of course, his entire person glowed, powered by the incredibly present music.

In one fluid motion, the poodle swung his entire upper body and launched the mirror ball into the air, where it latched (read: crashed) into the roof and dangled a good height above the ring. More fireworks erupted every which way. More camera flashes whited out the sea of the should be dead from over excitement crowd. It was clear that Mr. Danger had taken the stage once more.

When the audience finally quarter-settled, the poodle bounced back to his corner and met with his canine partner in crime. He put out his hand (either to accept something or prepping a low five... it's hard to tell with boxing gloves on) and asked the fesky, "Y'down to ace this joint, blood?"

The tremendously long-eared little half-husky, half-fennec spun and rendered a low-five from behind. And nearly fell down doing it. The beige pup seemed unfazed, though. "You know it! I gotch'er back!" he shouted shrilly over the commotion. "You just take'im down! An' if you think he's cheatin', you lemme know an' I'll go beat his corner guys with a rubber hose!"

Meanwhile, Velo, standing in his corner with sombrero still parked on his head, dumbstruck. Flabbergasted. Gobsmacked. His gob was the epitome of smacked, his flabber thoroughly gasted, and his dumb certainly struck. The poodle had stepped all over his introduction.

"Velo!" shouted a reporter, leaning over the ropes with microphone. The basilisk lizard immediately regained his composure, he puffed a snort out his nose, tilted his head back (so that he could look down said nose appropriately), and started bobbing around in the same cocky, bobbing, nearly-dancing pre-fight warm-up he'd been doing on his way in.

"Velo, how do you feel about your opponent?"

"How do I feel," echoed Velo as he started to ramble in a strange, familiar-sounding near monotone. "I don't feel, I fight, 'cause I'm the best there is, the fastest thing there is, and when this here's done, everybody gonna say 'float like a Velo, sting like a Velo,' 'cause it ain't gonna get any better'n than the show I'm gonna put on tonight for—"

"Do you not take your opponent seriously?" the reporter interrupted.

"I take him serious, I take him dang serious, in fact, I take him so serious that th'next time I need beauty products for my hair he's gonna be the first man I go see—he is a man idn'e, underneath all that pink, 'cause—"

The reporter went wandering off mid-sentence to go get Mr. Danger's opinions. Velo frowned for just a second, but turned back to working the crowd, waving his arms around as if he'd already won the fight, and so on. Some very lucky child even received his shades.

Well, he would have if they didn't bounce off the child's head. Whatever.

The reporter tapped the poodle on the shoulder. "Mr. Danger! Your opponent has already defeated Sonic the hedgehog himself. How do you feel about this fight?"

"He's black saber, y'dig?"

"... I'm sorry?"

Mr. Danger turned to see Velo's pre-victory celebration and smiled. "I'm sure he's ringin' and thinks he's so restracto, but that's aaallll static. This scooby's gotta get keen to the game, else all his jive might get him bent. Word?"

"... Word?" The poor reporter, not even sure if his interviewee had even used words, stared at his microphone almost as if in defeat. He slowly sauntered off possibly to finish his package, or to go back to school for linguistics.

*DING DING DING DING.*

The announcer was at the center of the ring. It was time to start. His microphone began to descend...

... It had Mr. Danger's disco ball hung to it.

Unsure of how to approach his task, the announcer stepped around the ball a couple times, arms out as if he was trying to stop someone from advancing up a basketball court, then finally just reached for his mic underneath, and held the whole big, glittering assembly toward his mouth as best he could.

"Ladies and gentlemen—it's time for the second dazzling event of the evening here in the Starry Nights Colosseum! In this corner, wearing blue with white trim, weighing in at 58 kilograms... 'with fro'..., it's the Samurighteous Phat Pharaoh of Phunk, South Island's undisputed king of the dance floor, Mister ... DANGERRR."

"And in this corner, wearing white, red, and green, official weight: 40 kilograms, the sportsman of the millennium, the fastest thing in the ring, Velo... Wilder!"

Amid deafening cheers, the two were ushered to the ring to "hear" the reading of the rules. Or rather, just stand there while girls screamed for Velo like he was a one-man boy-band, and an obnoxiously loud and bright dance party went on in the area reserved for Mr. Danger's cornermen and guests.

"... rabbit punches... no kidney... ... ... clean out there... ... when I tell you to, got it?"

It was hard to hear.

The disco dog was ready. He was bouncing on his feet, punching his gloves together all while the crowd kept alive and the music was... beginning to fade off. Not good.

His smile quickly fell and he stopped moving. Funky D went into this fight under the impression that the house music would stay on. Why would they turn off something so righteous, after all? Nonetheless, he kept his cool. The poodle turned to Lark in the corner, challenged with getting across his message in a loud, tuneless arena. He motioned towards his ears as best he could with boxing gloves on. Hopefully, the smaller pup would get the idea, or he was going to see the idea very shortly.

(Predictably, Lark did not get it, and only imitated Danger, grinning and putting his dukes up and pumping them as if to encourage him to fight.)

Mr. Danger turned back to face Velo. He brought his glo--*DING.*

Zoom.

Just like that, Velo was across the ring and bouncing and throwing jabs at Danger's schnozz like he was doing some boxercise. Bap-bap-bap-bap.

Not a good start.

Not in the least. Each fist made contact with Funky D's face and they hurt something fierce. He staggered back for breathing space and got his hands up as fast as he could.

And this was how ... most of the round would go.

Punches. So many punches. They rattled against Mr. Danger's gloves, hooked around his guard, and punched any part of the poor poodle that wasn't covered for so much as a split second, as if Velo was playing whack-a-mole against a live body. But none of the punches were devastating. It seemed the lizard was almost toying with the not-so-toy poodle.

"Yooff grrnuh futt bihck 'rr wut?" asked (or declared? stated? conjectured?) Velo unintelligibly through his mouthguard.

Before he could get an answer, though, an amazing three minutes of humiliating punishment had passed, and the bell rang, signaling the close of a train wreck of a first round for the D-dog.

"D! D! What were you doin' out there, man?!" Lark shouted anxiously. "He's rollin' you like a radio flier!"

Mr. Danger popped out his mouthpiece, hoked a little blood into a pail, shook his head a little, and gave Lark a weak smile. "He's zippy. No joshin'."

His cheeks were all cut and bruised already, but overall he was lucky for such a ham of an opponent. That first round was a mistake and he was gonna fix it... after a quick moment to pause. His head needed to stop spinning for a minute.

"Lark, we need to feel the funk, y'dig?"

"Ooohhh," blurted Lark in realization. "No wonder you got no rhythm..."

While the cutman tended to Danger's grievous wounds (they were probably much less than the poodle felt they were, mostly since so many of the punches penetrated directly to his pride), Lark disappeared from view, then popped back up with a boombox as large as he was.

"Round two, Deebro! Show'im the what-for!"

*Click.*

A song started up.

"Er, wait. You can't box to this jungle jump music..."

He switched tracks.

"Grooooooooooovyyyyyy."

*DING.*

The pink poodle came out swingin'. Figuratively. His feet were in time with the beat. His arms moved in ways seemingly invertebrate. The glowing disco dog had turned into an unstoppable dancing machine.

... This was a boxing match.

Meanwhile, Velo had been playing the crowds, even from before the beginning of the round, hoppin' and boppin' around with his arms over his head.

"Y'all gonna wanna watch this."

And with that, he turned back to Danger, seemingly oblivious to his new groove. He began to approach, swirling a fist behind him in a big, exaggerated wind-up.

"Here it comes! Watch it now!"

Unknowingly, he walked into the gaping maws of Danger's funk to launch a full-power haymaker.

The next picture in the ring was Velo's fully extended punch hitting air and the disco dog on the side already leaning in for a hit. The next, a strong left hook almost certainly making its mark. The poodle's moves were seemingly instantaneous, in tune with his current groove. He was launching a clean punch on a steady mixup of either every beat or every offbeat.

And from how it looked, the D wasn't letting up anytime soon.

The crowd gasped then roared as Velo, stunned and staggered, whipped around under a sudden counter-offensive, his eyes bugging and scaly jowls flapping with the force of the beat. Or rather, beat... down.

He recovered. Make no mistake about it, he was still fast, and he got away from it and won some distance with his footwork and general quickness. He began to wish he hadn't spat out his mouthguard for the sake of mouthing off, though, because the time for talk was long passed.

...

Unfortunately, all the speed in the world couldn't have made the round much easier. Danger was rhythmic, but his patterns were awkward. He moved loopily, he punched with odd beats, and he never stopped moving. And Velo got his glove stuck in the poodle's hair four times, necessitating careful ref intervention with each event.

By the time the bell rang on the end of the round, Velo went back to his corner and stood there, flummoxed.

"Th'hell'd they put in his water? I want some."

"Listen, you just gotta find your rhythm," explained his trainer emphatically.

"Rhythm?" repeated Velo quizzically, looking at his trainer like he'd grown a third foot out the center of his forehead.

"You gotta get in your groove!" the trainer expounded.

"Yeah, um."

"You gotta get in your groove!"

"Okay, yeah. Groove. Y'know, pardner, now'd be a reeeal good time for some kind'a actual strategy, 'cause I'd just go take a walk out in a field in a pair'a nice shoes if I was lookin' for horsesh—"

"Nonono, you just gotta listen," encouraged the trainer uselessly, "you gotta feel the rhythm, you gotta—"

Velo turned and looked directly at his trainer with a simultaneously blank and murderous expression. "You want rhythm, son, I will give you rhythm when I play drums with your face after I finish gettin' my gall-dang tail handed to me by some disco-pants-and-haircuts-shoppin' dog-and-pony-show glitterbomb because you won't say words that actually mean things!"

*DING.*

"Mouthpiece mouthpiece mouthpiece," he requested hastily, before getting one shoved in his mouth, and stepping out to face his foe again with immense irritation.

"GET'IM, D! GET'IM GET'IM! YEAH! WHOO! D TO THE DANGER, IT'S TH' PUNCHIN' PINK RANGER!"

Velo gave an ugly look to Danger's corner.

It was priceless. The goofy lizard was reeling. And the audience was loving this show! Their energy was just flowing out of the stadium incessantly. They had to keep this going.

"It's tiiiiime to boogie, baby!"

The next track began to pulse from the boombox. The disco dog leaped into the fray, much akin to the last round. This time, however, the swings were bigger and the poses, already glowing spectacles of pink, were even more striking.

All the while, he was smiling real hard. Mr. Danger was putting on a performance for the ages.

Determination burned in Velo's eyes.

As much as he was learning the hard way not to underestimate people, he'd come too far for things to end this way, especially in the third round. He fought with everything he had, and, it showed.

An amazing, sweat-pouring round of whiffed and blocked punches followed. Velo avoided the bulk of Danger's punches by reflexes alone, but found himself too "off the rhythm" to ever catch Danger with a solid blow in reply. Counterpunching just didn't work because the dog never went the direction he expected him to.

With eyes wide and a little bloodshot, Velo bobbed and weaved like a streak, hurling machine-gun jabs, hooks that could have started tornadoes, crosses that fanned the audience, and uppercuts that very nearly made the ceiling lights sway.

It was a setup, though: a setup for a knockout punch, the pursuit of the perfect opening. And in some thousandth of a second that Velo thought he had it, he lunged in with an incredible punch...

only to get it stuck in Danger's hair again.

All the way up to the elbow.

Velo seethed.

The poodle's Samson-esque locks had locked Velo before, but they got him good this time. The opponent was clearly starting to lose it. The fight would just get messy if it kept going. Of course they were gonna have to wait for the ref again, make everyone wait up for them, and build up all that energy from square one before that would happen. No, this wasn't how it would go down.

Mr. Danger popped out his mouthpiece and gave the lizard the goofiest grin he could muster at such a weird, awkward standing position. "Hey yo Scooby!"

A blue glove quickly rose up and lightly bopped Velo in the face.

"Got yo nose."

...

Something must have snapped in Velo's head, because just as the ref got there, he let out a sound probably better suited to a charging celtic warrior and yanked his fist back.

And around. And in a circle.

A gigantic cyclone of lizard and hair culminated in Velo throwing Mr. Danger like a discus straight up in the air, as far skyward as he could physically manage. As soon as this was done, it looked like he felt a little... better, somehow, as if removing the annoyance from his glove in this way soothed his nerves, but he nonetheless positioned himself to welcome the poodle back to Earth when he came down, and rared back.

"Scooby this."

Perfect.

The canine, now airborne, tucked his body in and spun through the air, much akin to a pink comet across a sparkling, camera-lit night sky. He was going to make contact with the closest moon in orbit; the sparkling, celestial body that watched over this entire match: The Morning Funk.

Funky D met both feet with the surface of the titanic disco ball, forced into a solid body chamber thanks to the sheer might of that throw. He then looked down at his green target and launched himself downward in a head-on corkscrew.

... This was a boxing match.

And this was the punch to end all punches.

The collision of the century.

The kind of strike that would make the heavens quake.

And it sounded like:

poof-tudd

Velo's fist vanished into Danger's hair. ... As did his head. And his upper body. And everything above his waist, except for a single, flailing arm.

"RRMMF MFF MUGHHH"

Velo was trapped in Danger's hair. It was like quicksand. The more he struggled, the more he was consumed by the hungry pink tendrils.

Meanwhile, Funky D was upside-down, slowly making his way to the ground as his head host wiggled himself around. This sort of collision would normally be the cause for alarm, but between a roaring crowd and the stranged out faces of all the cornermen, he was just having a good time. The glowing pooch extended his arms out and stretched his legs straight up in the shape of a 'd.' Dangerous.

Having made his mark, he looked over to Lark and waved his arms to get his attention. "Lil' T! Y'all can cut the track. We solid."

"Aye-aye, Mista D!" replied Lark cheerily as he reached over and jabbed a button on the boom box. The energetic music stopped.

The bell meanwhile rang, but... no one could go to their corners just yet, and the officials didn't seem to know what to do, anyway. The ref just kept standing there in a confused ready stance with his empty hands held out, clueless about how to even approach the mess.

"Theeerrre we go. Alright now!"

The heightened sense of Danger was now over, along with the round as it were. His glow diminished ,the pitch of his voice heightened to normal, and most importantly, his iron curls loosened their death grip on Velo's torso. In another fluid motion, Mr. Danger leaned his body over and placed his feet on the ground, slowly peeling the basilisk out of his afro. The result involved a few split ends, but certainly the lizard's scales would grow back.

Reoriented, the disco dog gave Velo a pat on the back and then raised his and the lizard's arms to the crowd. For some unexplained reason, those folks still had the energy to keep cheering (and their cameras still had room for more photos). It was pure entertainment for all those involved, except for maybe the poor ref that probably gave up on figuring things out at this point.

"Brother, now spin some jive about how that wasn't restracto as all somethin'! Scope that out!"

"I'm havin' a T printed after this," Velo commented to the other boxer, looking... mentally tired. "'I got stuck in a giant fro and all I got was this lousy shirt.'"

He wandered back toward his corner, but stopped. His eyes suddenly went beady and he froze for a second. He swirled his tongue in his cheek, spat it out, and plucked a pink hair off with the thumb of his glove.

"Eaah," he shivered.


***


And so the match went. There were a few rounds left. The music kicked back on, and the fourth round was another match of groove versus sheer will and skill. Danger had the finesse; Velo had the speed and endurance. Even despite the poodle's glowing dance power, the round was too close to call, with the judges in a split decision in Velo's favor. The fifth followed, and was a split decision in Danger's favor.

It was insanity.

"This guy's actually damn good," Velo conceded to his cornerman while resting and waiting for the final round, getting water splashed in his face, and all that other good stuff (which he actually found marginally irritating, but put up with because it was a boxing thing).

"Like I told you, son, he's in his groove!"

"I'm this close to puttin' you in a six foot groove with a marble headstone if you say that friggin' word one mo—"

Something had gotten the lizard's attention.

Over in Danger's corner, Lark was skimming through tracks on the huge boombox's pop-up volumetric display.

"Get mellow! You got this one in the bag, D," said the creamy fesky. "Let's get a steady tune for a steady finish!"

"Right on. Hit us up with somethin' to get down to!" The D was gettin' himself psyched up for one more go.

Click went the box with one more song.

"Oooooooh, I loove this song."

"Somethin' wrong?" asked the burly bear of a trainer in Velo's corner.

"Nothin' at all," replied the lizard with a hazy, far-off look.

"Then what is it?"

"I love this song."



*DING*


The competitors grooved out of their corners. Velo, with the fresh air of a second wind flowing about him, stepped up and held out his dukes to tap gloves in goodwill for the start of the final round. And Mr. Danger followed suit.

The lizard was a good sport and a great fighter thus far, but something was a little different this time. The poodle squinted to make sure; it seemed as though Velo had a faint glow of his own. Sure enough, that blur of teal was akin to his own pink haze, which meant the boombox had hit the right track.

They were in the groove. Funky D's brow furrowed and his mouthpiece-laden smile stretched from cheek to cheek. His feet were moving him to the music, harmonizing with the subtle sway of the elbows keeping his hands on the ready. It wasn't long before they'd collide in a flurry of fast hits and striking poses.

For the first time in the fight, Velo wasn't going as fast as he could. He wasn't belting out punches as hard and tight as was physically possible. He was... loose.

Jabs and hooks, crosses and jabs, still quick, but no longer thrown with the intent of a sound beating—instead, they were thrown with the intent of the sound of the beat. Steady, and right on with the allegro moderato, he swerved and swooped, and dodged and juked under punches with slides and rhythmic shuffle steps, grinning lopsidedly all the way.

The two fighters met head to head in a full round of fluid, non-stop action. They were weaving and grooving to the music, scoring points and entertaining not only the crowd or the officials, but themselves. This was a boxing match.

The round went by like a blur. (A blur with numerous freeze-frame photo-ops, anyway.) The ref was bewildered, but he wasn't any square. Even he ended up bobbing along without realizing it, so into it that by the time the final bell rang—

*DINGDINGDING*

—he almost forgot to get in between the boxers and signal the end of the fight.

Like most discos, the party was over before it seemed to even start. The canine shuffled back in a moonwalk, clapping his gloves and bobbing his head. He seemed ready for another few rounds with all that extra energy. Odds were that he probably already had another dance party lined up after this to assist with that issue.

He looked to his opponent, sure that he was probably just as amped up as he was. He then threw out an awkward, thick blue gloved thumbs up. "Far out fightin', dog!"

Pumped was a word for it. He was having a hard time slowing down. He expected to just be relieved to have the fight finish, but in truth, it had only really begun to get fun.

In reply, he flashed his own red-gloved thumbs-up. Or... tried to. His gloves were kind of stiff. (He pried one of his thumbs up with his other hand. He hoped Danger got the message before the officials and corner crews started crowding the ring.)

Eventually, the music had to be dialed down, because it was time for the announcer. Velo almost had a twinge of disappointment on his face.

The microphone (and, subsequently, disco ball) lowered again. After a little fussing and fighting, and some shaking of the cord, the ball fell to the floor with a heavy thud, and the announcer looked to his card.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have a split decision!"

Audience tension!

"Judge Martin scores: 58, 56; Judge Carlyle scores: 56, 58; Judge Lowery scores: 59, 55, for the winner by split decision: Velo! WIIILDERRR!"

"Dawww!" went you-know-who in the background.

"WHOOOOOOO."

Velo threw his hands up and bopped around as was to be expected. ... His good sportsmanship was kind of going down the tube already.

"YEAH."

...

But even in his celebrating and jumping up on the turnbuckle and general obnoxiousness, he still stopped over by the poodle to give him some pats on the back and pose for some photo ops with phony freeze-frame punches.

"I tell you what, Pinky, you ain't half bad," declared the lizard as genuinely as he likely ever would. "We're gonna go have ourselves a party. If you 'n your crew wanna bring those two left feet'a yours along, maybe I'll teach you a few things 'bout dancin' outside a ring."

"Hahaaah! If you can keep it caposhi and all that kangblabla, then me and the afas will be by your doorstep, Scooby!"

The poodle was dancing about and cheering all the same. He was still all fired up after that performance, and who wouldn't be? Lark would come around soon enough, probably once they were hitting the dancefloor. It didn't matter that there was a winner or loser, because in the end,

there was always a party.

The next fight had a lot less... trumpeting and showmanship. It was kind of like the room deflated a little when Velo and Mr. Danger's voluminous egos exited the arena. The mood constricted further when the next contenders entered, and the dullness was replaced with a kind of hushed, anxious excitement. The gigantic boxer who had very nearly killed a man in the ring a few nights before was about to have his next bout, and against someone who looked a third his weight.

"Ladies and gentlemen, get ready for the next exciting bout of the evening here in the Starry Nights Colosseum!" said the announcer, standing at the center of the ring as always.

"In this corner, wearing black, official weight: 49 kilograms, his combined Defense Forces Sports and Professional record: 16 wins, all by knockout, 3 losses, no draws. From Spring City, South Island, Lazarus 'Rock' Lochert!"

Attention shifted from the white monkey to his gorilla-sized opposition.

"And in this corner, wearing green, official weight: 150 kilograms, his record: 2 wins by knockout, no losses, no draws. From Starlight City, South Island, Bo 'Flex' Bopper!"

Never before did Rock look quite so skinny compared to someone else.

The boxers were motioned to the center, the ring cleared, and the rules were read. The bear stood about one and a half times the primate's height. It wasn't quite the kind of pathetic slant seen between Mako and Tank, but it was still pretty bad, and a match-up that would never happen in a conventionally-sanctioned boxing match.

Perhaps wanting to avoid giving the bear the gratification of being looked up to, Rock stared holes in his opponent's chest instead, making no eye contact. He looked more intensely focused than he had in either of his previous two matches; maybe he had some idea that he was up against something seriously... bad.

When he went back to his corner, seconds before the bell, he mumbled something through his mouthguard to Mack.

"Think they'll let me stand on my stool for this?"