True Morning

Team VU is Good and Right Fawked

Charon’s voice rang like an organ throughout the arena, the sound pipes on his neck flared like audio bird feathers puffed out for a mating call. The call was heard all around by the multitude, making VU glad he spoke English and did not have this blaring in his head:

“Lords of Scorpio, Gods of Antares, I appoint your earth harvested libation!”

A sawing of wings, as if 747-sized crickets might gather in a swarm and serenade the passing summer, sounded from the upper tiers, causing every man in the arena to shake, for the sound focused down upon them. The only man on either team, for VU was studying them all, his head on the attribute swivel, who did not suffer visible effects, was an ordinary sized fellow on the Red Team with a military crew cut and a healed bullet-hole in his head. He but grinned.

‘Scary—he needs to be taken out mechanically.’

VU then noticed, coming out of his observation mania, that there was another man who did not tremble, wince or tense—the latter being how the Asians were reacting—was, him, VU.

‘I can’t possibly be tougher than these killers. Looks like I scored some cool points based on my obsession with combat attributes.’

Burton nodded to him with stern approval, his mustache seeming to agree with his narrow eyes that VU would do.

Charon then declared as if a brass band could act as an MC:

“Behold the Heroes of the Blue Gate, The Litigants of the Prole Mob of Antares: Slaves of the Gods of Scorpio. They fight with traditional weapons, assigned weapons or, with the tools and rude devices of their factional spectators—wretched Mob of Antares, those heroes who permit your eeksome kind to cheer against your very Gods, your Eternal Masters, upon the Solstice of Winter Conjunction!”

The bottom tiers, occupied by perhaps a half million souls, naked, in rags, painted, dirty, tattooed, of all races, colors, trades and both sexes, the occupants of 5 NFL stadiums jammed onto benches, stood and cheered. The voice was as one, and challenged in collective volume the clarion of Charon’s neck pipes. The scepter in the great gauntlet of a hand pointed at the Blue Team in a sweeping motion. All of them, except for the Spaniard, waved to the audience, whose cheer deepened to a roar, a roar that built up pride and purpose, grim determination and a rampant urge to beat the odds in VU’s old chest.

‘We can do it—this is one bad-ass crew!’ VU thought as he stepped just over the line and motioned with both open hands at his heroes—and the mob surged like an Ocean driven by a storm.

‘What a sound! If it’s a dream, so what—but you know its no dream, VU, it is too terrifying not to be true.’

Charon pointed his scepter down at the Spaniard, who had blazing eyes, as if he imagined battling this demon. The front of the scepter turned red and an outline of some device glowed on the man’s forehead as Charon sang, “Hernan De Soto, bloodiest handed Conquistador, Soldier of Darien, Captain of Peru, God General of Florida slain in 1543, his death hidden by his men as his very name were to the enemy the most frightful bane. For, THE, MOB!”

The red light on Soto’s forehead burned itself as brand, that did not scab, but healed fully in an instant. The brand was of a fist under twin suns. The crowd roared and Soto, only in early middle age, raised his hands to the mob.

Charon continued shinning his scepter and announcing the Blue Team, each member seemingly mesmerized for his announcement, frozen in a kind of wide-eyed wonder:

A tall, broad-shouldered, shaven-headed black, “Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Butcher of the Negroes, murderer of 40,000 white slave masters in a single day, first King of Haiti! Murderer for THE MOB!”

The Mob and the blacks cheered and their hero doffed an invisible hat.

The tall, blond, heavyweight MMA fighter with bronzed skin, in his prime, “Dioxiphos, Heaven’s-Reaper, Olympic Pankratiast, Captain under Alexander, murdered with a poison cup after defeating Koragus the Macedonian in a duel in 326 B.C. Ringer for THE MOB!”

The mob and the Nordics, Aesir and Alpines cheered.

The Reaper of Heaven put fist to heart and extended his open hand to the Nordics.

An elderly, but tall and fit man in close beard stood before Charon, “Rodeo cowboy, murderer, White Supremacist leader, prison knife-fighting champion, Mike Thompson—FOR THE MOB!”

The mob and the Nordics went nuts, flags waving among the Nordics, ivory battle horns blowing, knives being pitched into the sands towards the Blue Line by the criminal mobsters. That man stood like a stone.

A tall, bald black man with a gold tooth grinned with his hands on his hips, immune to the mesmerism that had frozen the rest, mouth split in a grin, “The Galveston Giant, Big Cat, Old Smoke, first black heavyweight champion of Earth, Jack Johnson. One with THE MOB!”

The man stepped out, bowed and milled fists at the giant Charon with a golden grin above his glistening chin as the blacks went mad and the mob cheered the antics.

‘How can we lose. Jack looks about sixty, but big as hell and fit.’

The next man was a mustached white Indian, with jewels hanging from his ears and hair down to his waste. He was perhaps 40 and was the most frightening man in their lineup, by far, “From the American Frontier, Indian Hunter, Old Death Wind, wielder of the gun Killdevil, The Man Whose Gun Was Never Empty, the wendigo scalp-dancer, freed from jail for Indian killing by THE MOB, Lewis Wetzel! Man for the MOB!”

The mob went nuts screaming, women even bearing their breasts and flapping them. But the tier of Red Indians took up some indicting chant. Wetzel simply made like he held a rifle and pointed his hands at the red men.

A six and a half foot tall man in early middle age, with long curly black hair and a long curly black beard, “British Navy veteran of Queen Ann’s War, Most feared of all buccaneers, the man who it took five bullets and three swords to stop, Edward Teach, Blackbeard the Pirate. For, THE, MOB!”

The mob went berserk with fury stamping its million feet so hard on the benches that the hungry grains of sand, which seemed like tiny silicon worms, shook like so much rice in a wok. Teach merely cross his arms and grinned at the opposing line, having eyes only for his foes and caring less for the mob than than they had love for him.

A once stout older man who seemed bemused, “The Most Dangerous Man in Britain, notorious scrap fighter, criminal, escapee and problem inmate, who legally changed his name to that of action movie star, Charles Bronson—one man MOB!”

The mob was up now dancing, swaying in a weird ecstasy, as a man after their own heart, who must be totally un-coachable, merely played with the hungry sand at their feet with his toes.

A tall, wiry bald back man of sinister appearance in late middle age, “Inventor of the asagi slaying spear, innovator of bull horn battle tactics, creator of the Zulu Nation, exterminator of millions, Shaka Zulu. For THE MOB!”

The mob cheered. But the single line of blacks above could be heard echoing that urban adulation in a strange rhythmic ululation.

Shaka grinned darkly at the Red Line.

Charon then set the blazing light between Burton’s eyes and the man gave back an otherworldly stare, as if trying to battle the will of the alien MC, “Boxer, Duelist, womanizer, secret agent, taboo breaker, irregular horse captain, seeker of the Nile, author of thirty books this idiot mob will never read, caught by I, Charon, while he sought the Lost City of Zed, Sir Captain Richard Francis Burton. Reluctantly, for, The, Mob.”

Silence reigned, except for a murmur among the Alpines. Burton, did step forward and formerly salute the Prince of Morning, dismissing the various slave races with a narrow gaze.

Charon then set that warm light on VU’s forehead and the subject could hear thoughts in his head as the words sang outside, “Martial Arts Master and drug criminal, Paul Vunak, who once trained pilgrims while on house arrest, Paul Vunak, or VU—trainer for the Blue Gate, the Mob’s Man!”

Never did VU ever think he would get that kind of applause. It was incredible, and sent whimpering Paul further down into the catacombs of his soul, as he bowed and saluted to THE MOB.

Both of his assistants were fixed each at the same time in their own beam, them not seeming to warrant a large brand, but both getting a penny sized rather than quarter sized brand, “Thought criminals and pretentious cultured thugs, one a carpenter, the other a laborer—for their fellows of The Mob!”

The mob laughed as workmen flung tools and everyday items onto the sand while the two hillbillies waved courteously to their multitude of detractors as Burton declared, “It is mankind’s only hope, that the Lower Orders habitually turn ireful upon their own and look to the better sort of man for guidance.”