While Odin and Shiva discussed the match, the king of the world approached and addressed the firefighter. “Greetings young champion, we are the king of this realm.”

“Uh, hello, I'm Candide. We are Candide.”

“Candide, yonder crowd cheers thy praises. Hast thou won many glorious battles?”

“I've put out a few fires, your majesty. That's kind of like a battle. This is actually my first fight against a person.”

“Wouldst thou rather win or lose?”

“Aren't I – aren't we supposed to try to win?”

“Nay, entertaining the masters shall be the entire point of the spectacle. A victory can be as boring as a defeat.”

“Oh, that's – oh.”

“We hath won many battles, Candide, and we grow weary. We wish only to return to our humble little palace on our own world. If thou desire it, thou mayst wrench victory from thine first battle.”

“Is this cheating?”

“Nay, nay, we are performers. These cheering peasants, they be village idiots one and all. They art pale faced loons. We shall not die for them, and we certainly shall not kill thee for them.”

“Do the masters – like Odin – know when we throw a match?”

“Mayhap, negotiating the outcome is the better part of the game. Champions have been thusly performing long before we were recruited.” The king made a hand movement indicating that he included both Candide and himself in that “we” as opposed to his normal royal we.

“I guess I'll take the victory.”

“For sooth! Make it look goodly, Sir Candide of the Boar Clan!”

The voice of Odin rang through arena like the giant upside-down bell it was. Odin called, "Homo-Sapien, Go!"

The raspy voice of Shiva came next, launched from a forked tongue and slithering through the air until it filled all the air like an usurper settling into a throne. He cried, "Draco-Slash! Go get him, King!"

The king's scepter flashed as it struck towards Candide's face catching the hero off his guard. Candide staggered backward, seeing stars in his left eye. The king had not intended to strike so hard, but Candide had turned into the blow when he saw the motion and leaned inward for a closer look.

With grand flourish, the monarch spun in a wide circle and brought his scepter crashing against Candide's side. The blow was light but surprising enough to the half-blind combatant that he lost balance and stumbled to the hard ground. The hollow weapon of pure gold was bent by the impact, enhancing the illusion of great force. Candide bit his own tongue when striking the ground and spat coppery blood from his mouth. His spit lacked accuracy and dribbled dramatically down his chin and onto his shirt.

The crowd reminded Candide that he was armed. “Axe, axe, axe, axe,” the crowd chanted in unison. The ground trembled with their rhythm. Candide's ears ached from their cries.

Candide rose quickly to his feet, failed to find his balance again, and stumbled backward to the ground. The monarch answered him with an unsporting but gentle tap to Candide's ribs with his right foot.

The instincts of the firefighter took over. He rose to one knee and he stabbed his axe's handle into king's abdomen – hard. He immediately followed with a rising blow from his axe handle to the king's chin.

“That is more like it, youth!” The king took a stumble backward. “We shall now strike at thine face again. Look alive!” The king's announced move still very nearly took Candide by surprise in his already injured eye socket, and the youth felt the cold gold brush past his face and tickle his ear. Candide truly feared that he might die.

Candide struck with all the fury of a blind cave fish who by some mysterious twist of fate was buttonmashing a game video game controller playing Mortal Kombat. Candide's axe swung high and then low to the king's left and then to his right and then straight forward (or straight enough) where it was caught with a parry of the scepter. Wood clanged against gold just below the axe blade. A new large dent decorated the king's weapon. The king's grin beamed with yellow teeth through a thick beard. “That pleases, Sir Candide. Next time, make thine swings even wider. The spectators in yonder back rows doth appreciate seeing every blow, and the masters are pleased when the spectators are pleased.”

The king pushed the axe to one side and in the same smooth motion brought his long cape whipping around onto Candide's head. As Candide turned away and clawed at the fabric, the king circled in the opposite direction and came up behind Candide's back. The king grabbed Candide around the throat and used his ruined scepter to strangle the firefighter. The king held the youth's still-covered head in an iron grip (but mostly gold grip).

Although Candide lacked experience in gladiatorial combat, he had much experience holding his breath. For a long time, Candide struggled under the cloth cape and flabby arms of his enemy. Spectators held their breath in anticipation but found that their own endurance was not equal. Some passed out. Most others remembered to breath again.

Candide – still not particularly in need of air but feeling frustrated nonetheless – realized that he could not gain an adequate grip while still holding his fireman's axe. He dropped the axe and grasped the king's scepter with both hands. In a feat of Herculean power, Candide pulled the battered baton away from his own throat and breathed again. Then Candide held the scepter with merely one strong arm and used the other to grab the king's collar. He pulled the king over his own shoulder and sent the heavy man crashing to the ground. The king's cape followed him, sliding off of Candide's face.

The king rolled across the ground and came up on his feet. He pretended to trip over nothing in particular and went crashing down again, this time on his buttocks. Forgetting his weapon altogether, Candide charged forward, clinching his hands into mallets. He struck at the king with a right jab, then a left, then another right, and then another left. The king parried every blow with his forearms. Then the fat older man asked, “Be thou ready to finish it, Sir Candide?”

Candide grunted what might have been an affirmative approval but was actually just a meaningless normal grunt.

The king dropped his own weapon and punched Candide in the stomach. That punch was pulled to such a degree that a paper airplane would not have crumbled on Candide's abdomen. The king followed his move with his other hand jabbing upward with two fingers racing at Candide's eyes. In a Three Stooges move, the fingers stabbed Candide's eyebrows, but they looked to spectators like Candide had just been gouged in both eyes.

Candide grabbed both of the king's arms by his elbows. He pulled them apart where they were no longer defending his face, and then he pulled them upwards towards himself. At the same time, Candide dropped his own head low and delivered a painful headbutt to the king. The pain was shared equally by both, but the effect was greater on the king.

The king's eyes rolled upward and backward in his head. He slumped backward. Candide straightened victoriously. The crowd performed a wave.

The king shook his face, pretending to return to a consciousness that he had never left. Candide wiped blood from his mouth as he had heard that brawlers did after fights. The king cried, “We yield, Sir Candide!”

“We do?”

“Aye, the day is thine.”

Candide took the king's hand and lifted him back up to the man's feet. The king's voice betrayed a joy which his face hid. Candide asked, “Is it always like this?”