"And now," said the robot announcer, "Staglore and Eye-of-Newt will compete for the gold in the noble ancient Earth sport of archery!" The setting for the event suited Staglore: an artificial forest. It was a tad creepy, to be sure, that it was all fake and they were still onboard an alien ship, being forced to compete at sports with their arch-nemeses. And there wasn't an archer arch-nemesis than his archer nemesis, who was taking the field now. The amphibian witch Eye-of-Newt was much smaller than Staglore, but still powerfully built. Instead of her normal attire -- purple robes, with a hood that kept her face in shadow -- she wore only a red tank top and black shorts, but as she slunk out onto the field, she still had an air of mystery about her. At first glance, her expression was inscrutable, but on closer inspection, true to her name, her eyes danced with devious thoughts. She was holding a large golden staff with a dragon statuette perched on top, its wings spread menacingly. It breathed dark magic which formed into an orb that looked like a newt's eye. Facing the distant target, she held up the staff. It glowed and transformed into a large golden bow, with the statuette and orb sitting atop the upper limb. An arrow magically appeared in place. She whispered a spell, too quietly for Staglore to hear what it was and the tip of the arrow ignited with black flame. As Newt drew the arrow, her muscles tensed and her eyes became intensely focused. Staglore had to admit, she looked kind of pretty. He didn't usually see this much of her smooth orange skin and her musclular, curvaceous body. A long, thick tail curved gracefully out of the back of her shorts. He shouldn't be thinking like this after what he'd been through on the football field, but perhaps Dr. Pavelove's attack was still affecting him. Newt's yellow eyes glowed, as did the orb on top of her bow. The iris of the orb-eye dialated. Clearly, she using it to magically aid her shot. She loosed the arrow. *Twang!* *Whoosh!* *Thunk!* She landed a perfect bull's-eye. The arrow engulfed the target in dark flames, which quickly extinguished themselves, seemingly leaving it unchanged. The villains' stands erupted in cheers and the heroes, in boos. Newt changed her bow back into a staff. She bowed and then graciously motioned for her opponent to take his turn. Staglore was wearing a light blue tank top and white shorts. They were tight and showed off his large cervine super-muscles. He strutted onto the field, antlers held high, white tail flashing in the artificial sunlight. As he passed Newt, her large yellow eyes looked directly into his, a smirk curling the edges of her lips. Staglore began to understand what Dobes saw in his nemesis, Zoria. "Well, I have to hand it to you," he said, "You found a dishonest way to be a straight-shooter." Newt responded by turning her eyes into hypno-swirls. He turned away as quickly and pulled out his wand. It glowed green and transformed into a wooden bow. He could feel Newt still hypno-staring at him from the sidelines. He focused solely on the target. He'd have to split Newt's arrow in order to win. He assumed the spell she'd cast was to make it unbreakable, or to repel his arrow from the target completely. He spoke a general spell-breaking charm onto his own arrow and hoped that would do the trick. The tip of his arrow flamed green. His eyes fixed on tiny arrow-tail in the center of the distant bull's-eye. He was aware of his own grace as he assumed his archer's stance and pulled back the arrow. The villains booed and the heroes cheered and both sounded like music to his ears. Suddenly, the painted rings on the target began to move, radiating outward. The target was turning into a hypno-swirl! The standard colors of the target were replaced with Newt's hypno-colors of purple, yellow, orange, green, brown, purple, yellow, orange, green, brown, purple, yellow, orange...Staglore tried to look away, but he was already transfixed, like a feral deer caught in the headlights. His bright green eyes widened and turned to hypno-swirls in Newt's colors. His head bobbed in a circular motion His mouth hung open and a bit of drool escaped. The heroes in the stands screamed "Staglore!" "No!" "Wake up!" "Snap out of it!" but the villains were cheering again, and it all turned into a muddled cacophony. Finally, the stag's head stopped bobbing. He stood stock still in his archer's pose, his steadily swirling eyes staring straight ahead. Newt strode to Staglore's side and planted her staff in the ground, then climbed up it to reach his ear. As she whispered, he nodded slowly, his blank expression unchanging. "Aye...mistress..." he said flatly. Then, he spoke a curse. The sparks on the tips of his antlers turned dark green, as did the flame on the tip of his arrow. Newt leaped down and lifted her staff, swirling it in circles, while chanting softly. Dark magical energy drifted from the eye orb over to Staglore's arrow, until it radiated darkness. The stag subtly shifted his aim upward and to the left. The heroes held their collective breath. Staglore loosed his arrow. *Twang!* *Whoosh!* *CLANG!* "And Eye-of-Newt has won the Archery event!" rang out the robot announcer's voice. The arrow had missed the target completely. That was expected at this point. The question was, what would it do next? It ricocheted off an artificial tree and zipped back through the air, straight towards the Heroes' stands. Pratfall the albatross leapt out of her seat and flew towards it. She was vulnerable to magic, but she might be able to grab it out of mid-air. However, just before she reached it, it exploded in a burst of magical energy, knocking her back into the stands. 13 arrows burst out from the explosion, landing neatly in a circle all around the Heroes' stands with a loud collective THUNK! The tails of the arrows generated a circle of green and black flame, emanating dark smoke. A spell circle! The heroes looked around warily, as the stands creaked loudly and ominous whispering could be heard in the air. Even the simulated sky above turned dark and cloudy. Suddenly, the top half of the stands folded into the bottom half, dumping heroes onto other heroes. The edges of the stands formed into jagged metal teeth. The heroes held their ears as a roar emanated from the newly formed "mouth" of the Stands Monster. They screamed as the "jaws" closed on them, attempting to crush them. Newt stood and watched, grinning, while Staglore knelt beside her, staring ahead blankly, his eyes still swirling. The muscular heroes and heroines all pushed upwards, but they were just barely able to keep the magically powered jaws from closing completely. The Stands Monster growled and clamped down harder. Power Hoss, the massive Belgian draft horse, was near the front of the stands, straining his muscles to push them open far enough for his teammates to escape. "HUNNNNNNH!" he groaned through gritted teeth. The metal above and below him began to creak and bend. Across the field, in the Villains' stands, one sound could be heard above all the cheering: The laughter of King Kookaburra. He soared over to the opposing stands. "No!" said Newt. "Let the curse do its job!" But Kook ignored her. Laughing hysterically, he flapped just outside the metal jaws. Looking back over his shoulder, he used his tail to tickle the struggling stallion. Under the armpits, up and down his abs...all over his body. Hoss began to laugh uncontrollably -- a deep, bellowing, whinnying laugh. Tears came to his eyes as he strained to keep his twitching body a pillar of strength, but he was beginning to slip, the jaws closing further and further. Electicity flickered off of his feathering, into the metallic stands, shocking the other heroes. NightVision the pantheress peered over Hoss' enormous shoulder, her own hypno-eyes swirling. Drinking in Hoss' hysteria, Kook didn't notice until it was too late. His eyes began to swirl. He turned to face the pantheress. His head bobbed in circles and his laughter slowed and became monotone, finally fading completely. "No!" said Newt. NightVision pointed to where Newt and Staglore were standing and said something Newt couldn't hear. Still flapping in mid air, Kook's swirling eyes looked down at her. Then he swooped in for the attack. Swearing under her breath, Newt dove out of the way, but it turned out his target was Staglore. As the deer was tickled, his laughter started slow and monotone, but quickly became looser and more natural. Finally, he blinked tears out of his eyes and they had returned to their normal green. His gleeful expression quickly turned grim as he assessed the situation. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...oh." Kook's appointed task done, he sat down on the field, looking unusually peaceful, except for his still-swirling eyes. Newt raised her staff and fired a hex blast at Staglore, but he pulled out his wand and deftly blocked it. He swiftly spoke a spell that bound her in a glowing Celtic knot. She struggled against her bonds as she fell to the ground. In the stands, the heroes were panting and sweating heavily. Several of them had fallen on one knee, including the weakened Power Hoss, as the jaws began to creak shut. Staglore ran around the spell circle on all fours, like a feral deer, snapping each of the 13 arrows with his green-spark-tipped antlers as he came up on them. As he destroyed the last one, the growls of the stands monster faded. The heroes screamed as the top half of the stands flipped and smashed back to its normal place. Then they all heaved a sigh of relief. The aliens made Staglore release Newt so she could return to her team. The villain cheered her victory, but the heroes cheered just as loudly for Staglore and the other heroes who'd helped save them all from the cursed stands. * * * * * Newt stood on the highest platform as the robot official placed a gold medal around her neck. Staglore stood beside her, wearing his silver medal. He had his wand in his hand, in case she tried anything. "You may have saved your friends," she hissed quietly, making him tense up, "but I still outwitted you. And that medal around your neck is a symbol of my dominance over you." Her tongue flicked out and grabbed the medal, pulling it close to her. "ULP!" said Staglore, as the ribbon was yanked. She touched the orb of her staff to the medal, uttered a one-word curse, and let it fall back in front of his expansive pecs. An instant later, he hit her with another binding spell. He looked down at the medal with trepidation, expecting to see another hypno-swirl. Instead, it now featured an embossed image of a swirly-eyed deer dressed as a fool, misfiring an arrow, surrounded by a border of sly-looking newts. "That's a cute trick," he said. "I have a pocket watch that needs engravin' too, when you get the chance." He chuckled uneasily. "Even a tenth-rate conjurer like you must know that symbols are verrrrrry powerfullllll..." Her voice blended with a distorted magical sound emanating from his medal. The ribbon glowed and transformed into a spiked silver collar, which tightened around his thick, muscular neck with a *clink!*, the cursed medal hanging from it like a dog tag. "ULLLLLCH!" he said. There was a loud "powering down" sound. He groaned as his super-muscles shrank to those of a normal athletic deer. His antlers disappeared in a POOF! He looked up to see his opponent's bonds had vanished as well. She glared down at him. He tried to avoid eye contact, in case she tried hypnotizing him again. He raised his wand and choked out another spell. It produced a distorted tinkling sound, but nothing more! Snorting in frustration, he quickly pocketed his wand and raised his fists. The buff witch cackled softly. She grabbed him by his now-loose-fitting tank top with one hand and lifted his de-bulked body over her head. She looked incredibly pleased with herself. "Put him down!" shouted Identity the bloodhound. She and the other heroes, though still weakened from their encounter with the Stands Monster, ran over to help him. Newt raised her staff and fired a hex blast at them, causing them to scatter. Staglore wriggled out of his tank top and landed roughly on the ground. He scrambled to his feet and ran for a nearby door. The witch turned her staff back into a bow. As she drew back the cursed arrow, she commented, "They should give me extra credit for this shot!" Staglore was just passing through the doorway as the arrow zipped towards his back. With his lighter body, he spun around gracefully. The arrow hit him directly in the... *Twang!* *Whoosh! *Clank!* *VEOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!* "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" ...medal. "Bulls-eye," he said. The medal cracked and crumbled first and the collar followed. As it fell away from his neck, there was a *powering up* sound. His muscles quickly expanded and antlers sprouted out of his head, leaving him stuck in the narrow doorway. "UNH!" he said as the metal doorframe creaked. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Newt screamed again, at an uncharacteristically loud volume, as she ran towards him, raising her staff. "Oh, it gets better," said Staglore, leaning as casually as he could against the doorframe. "That medal is now a symbol that *I* outwitted *you.*" He grinned. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" she screamed once more as the chunks of silver on the ground glowed, flew through the air and re-formed into a collar around her neck. *Clink!* The image of the fool with a bow and arrow now depicted a newt. There was a "powering down" sound. Her super-muscles shrank. Her shiny gold staff corroded and the orb snuffed out. She wobbled, suddenly feeling the weight of it. As the team of heroes charged at at her, she leaped up onto the wall and scarpered up it. Narrowly avoiding an electric blast from Power Hoss and an eye-laser from NightVision, she disappeared into a vent. Identity ran over to Staglore first and pulled him out of the doorway. He stretched and admired his restored, but still-shirtless body. "Thanks for helpin' me outta there," he said to Identity, bowing his head and kissing her hand. "My heroine!" Identity blushed. "Dammit," Dobes joked to himself. "I gotta get that collar back on him."