Chapter 22 - A Real Win

"It bin a w'ile since ya gotta ril win, huh?" inquired Gina the cheese puff.

Marshfellow questioned, "What're you tryna say?"

"Well," Gina elaborated, "ya haven' won wit'ou' a fo'fit, s'mbody choosin' da cloud, o' ya cryin' in 'bout 5 bouts 'n' 7 chaptas."

"Hey!" specified Marshfellow. "That crying move was strategic. I shall call it, 'The Dehydrator'! Whose side are you on, anyways?"

"She is right, you know," butted in I, the narrator annoyed with the marshmallow. "I guess you do not actually try if there is no girlfriend to win, do you? Lovesick loser..."

Marshfellow shouted, "I am not! I embraced bein' newly single and I move on really fast."

"I am sure the readers have noticed. Hahaha..." I snickered.

"Well, if ya don' win dis one, 'n' achually win it, den you 'n' me are through!" ultimated Gina. "Now ya gots ta win, doncha?"

Marshfellow groaned, "Aww, man! That sounds soft."

Soft usually means tough in that turn of phrase in your world, reader. Do not take vocabulary lessons from places of a different dialect, kids. All of you toughies would not stand a chance here against us softies.

"Are you done?" Marshfellow asked impatiently. "You aren't that soft."

"Well, you are not that handsome," I rebutted.

Gina chimed, "Oh, yeah, he is!"

"Then why are ya threatenin' to not be with me, baby?" Marshfellow queried.

"'Cause I wancha ta win! Do it fo' me, puddin'," requested Gina.

"What little the mysteries of the sixty-six wins seem to mean nowadays," I muttered.

Marshfellow thought for a moment, then smiled. "Yeah, that, too."

Aw, forget it. Enough stalling, silliness, and handsome narrators. To the arena!

Darn. I guess this is another chapter where they cannot hear me. Ahem...

"To the arena!" I commanded.

"Aye-aye, captain!" Marshfellow chanted.

"Dat's my puddin'!" Gina cheered.

"What are you doing standing around, talking? Why do you not actually move?" I asked irately.

"My bad," morosely spoke Marshfellow. "I wanted just a bit more silliness."

I critiqued, "Try harder next time."

"Writer, can I have funnier lines?" Marshfellow prayed.

Give him a minute.

"Soft as a marsh, but still a good fellow; if ya bitin' me, I'll turn your teeth yellow!" Marshfellow felt inspired to say.

Better, but I could write even better dialogue. You would have seen that last chapter if not for an annoying collider and a-

"Excuse me," commented the sixth winner, "do you know where the arena is?"

"Yes! Let us go! Look at my face along the way!" I demanded. "Let us go now, people!"

After another two hours of shenanigans that I did not feel like narrati-

"You didn't tell them how I saw your face and really thought it was-" rudely stated the sweepstakes contestant.

"No!" I interrupted; in a strangely, not-so-rude manner because I am me. "Let us get ready to rumble. Collide."

"I'm not ready!" Marshfellow cried.

"Such a shame, because I quite am, pipsqueak!" mocked his opponent as he bashed his opponent even further to the other side of the arena. "I am of a pedigree known for colliding. They call me King the Spring. You, sir, are about to be bounced. Any last words before the cloud?"

"Yes!" Marshfellow cried; for real, though. "Dehydrator!"

A torrent poured from Marshfellow's eyes, aimed at King; but King easily jumped out the way.

"Really, marshmallow?" King asked skeptically. "Rusting me is the only way you can win?"

"No, but it seemed like the easiest one, though," responded Marshfellow.

The crowd sighed, knowing they were about to witness another cheap tactic victory.

"Relax, audience," King sneered. "No unsavory strategem this marshmallow utilizes shall work upon one such as I."

"Same with lessons to not speak so verbosely. Haha!" chuckled Marshfellow.

King replied, "Your uncouth chiding, while mildly amusing, fails to compensate for the inability to collide. I cannot fathom how people could refer to such a peon as yourself to a new king."

Wow. Somebody realized what the crowd said the first chapter.

"Deon's the peon," casually corrected Marshfellow.

King laughed, "Haw haw haw! You were almost defeated by him as well! Pitiable, surely. Losing to a peon, specifically."

"I haven't felt a loss, yet," Marshfellow winked to a lady whose name I do not know yet. "I can't, and won't, be defeated. I'm a marshmallow."

"You better not!" I scowled.

Marshfellow plainly stated, "I don't have any feet."

"But you ar-" I started.

"You are anthropomorphi-" King tried to finish, but could not due to the impact of Marshfellow lunging at him. "How dastardly!" he howled.

"You said that none of my cheap tactics would work," Marshfellow snidely commented. "Looks like you lied. Plus, you caught me off-guard right at the beginning of the collision, hypocrite!"

King uttered, "Touché. Perhaps I shall consider you a worthy foe. Worthy enough for my best techniques!"

"Bring it!" Marshfellow grinned, beaming with proud eyes; like at the beginning of the sto- Oh, my goodness.

He is actually going to try now. Everybody, watch the match! It might actually be- Oh, darn! Now it feels inconvenient. Ahemhemhem...

"Marshfellow is actually going to try, folks! This could be a real match!" I excitedly exclaimed.

Gina the cheese puff cheered, "You k'n do it, puddin'!" Then, only seconds elapsing, while he was airborne, she passively said, "Neva'min'."

"What the heck was that?" Marshfellow pondered openly.

"Just one special technique. I possess quintuple that," bragged King.

"Your name is generic!" shouted Marshfellow.

The audience gasped at the realization of all of the other unrelated series' characters named 'King'; then they laughed at him.

"Silence your ridicule immediately, philistines!" King roared. "Your name is that of some kind of product that appeared in a web search engine's results that the writer did not even feel the need to research because a lawsuit is unlikely due to being in completely different industries!"

"Okay," the marshmallow, hopefully with a name that will not get the book canceled, said matter-of-factly. "Just for that, in case this is my last chapter, I will defeat you fairly."

King giggled; the crowd thundered; and Gina squealed. I did not care much. I ran out of beauty lotion; thus my mind and my heart are not in this collision.

"That first technique is called the 'Slink'. If you cannot even outmaneuver that," King smirked, "you shan't defeat even a stone from my neighborhood."

"Ooh, I got next, then!" called the stone from his neighborhood. He has a jetpack with which to compete, for the record.

Marshfellow challenged, " Let's try that again, then! Shall we?"

"Oh, what amusement! Haw haw!" King laughed. "Very well, marshmallow. En garde!"

King crouched into a hollow cylinder, storing potential energy; then released his force forward, but downward as well; and repeated this until he reached Marshfellow's position. They do not call it a slink-

Yep, just slink. No vowels at the end of the word. Not even sometimes.

King used the Slink to grab Marshfellow with, well, either his head or his feet. I do not know. I lost track. Call me racist.

"Racist!" you, the reader, called me unfairly.

Ahem! King was going to use his centripetal force to hurl Marshfellow in the air, just like before; but before it successfully took place, Marshfellow confidently stated, "Mushmallow." As a blob formation, he squeezed under the small crevice underneath the spring, thus outmaneuvering the technique.

"Impressive!" King remarked sarcastically. "Only four more await! I do hope you shall allow me to utilize them all..."

"Bring it!" Marshfellow spoke; calmly, yet with contentment.

"Rocket!" yelled King as, once again, he crouched to store potential energy. Once finished, he aimed at Marshfellow and launched himself, toppling the- nope. Marshfellow actually dodged him. Amazing. I think we all forgot what an athlete he really is.

"Affirmative. You... are better... than anticipated," King panted. "Still... it is... not over... yet..."

"Bring it!" Marshfellow said with a prideful smile stretched to his anthropomorphic ears.

"Twister!" thundered King as he stormed towards Marshfellow, rotating more and more violently as he approached.

"I didn't name this, but here goes," Marshfellow stated nervously as he used what I call the "Top". He spun just about as fast as his opponent. Upon their inevitable clash, they both lost their rotation speed; but did gain whiplash, if it makes you content.

"It doesn't!" they both shouted at me together.

"I stil have two more, oww, special techniques!" King strained his voice.

"Bring... it," winced Marshfellow in pain he deserves for how he treated me last chapter.

"Smasher!" King yelled, again, storing potential energy. He sprang into the air, aiming to fall onto Marshfellow's body. Marshfellow, athletic as ever, narrowly sidestepped it, but King cleverly combined it into Slink, still inevitably landing on top of Marshfellow. Marshfellow reacted quickly, saying "Mushmallow." As Marshfellow shifted into a sugary puddle-

"Dat's my puddin'!" Gina positively shrieked.

Well, King said while she was shrieking about pudding into which Marshfellow happened to turn, "Haw haw haw! You simpleton! Steamroller!"

King lied on his side, rolling towards Marshfellow in his mushmallow state. Marshfellow knew he could not avoid contact with King in time. He rolled his eyes; out of their sockets, of course; towards King's approach.

"Haw haw! What is that feeble attempt?" King cracked.

"Dehydrator," whispered Marshfellow, firmly and clearly.

King propped himself into an upright stance, jumped backward to avoid the waters, and then bellowed, "I knew that you could not defeat me fairly!"

Marshfellow retaliated, "It's okay for you to use all of your moves, but you have to limit mine?"

"Touché," mentioned his opponent.

Marshfellow recollected his eyeballs and rolled them toward his opponent, but with one on each side; the left aimed behind his opponent; the right aimed in front.

"Dehydrator," he said sternly.

King jumped to avoid it, saying, "Haw haw! Your excessively cheap technique still f-"

Marshfellow stated seriously, "Nuking," once he had leapt to King's airborne position; causing a collision that bounced King toward the cloud with intense force.

"Fair enough, marshmallow," King admitted while slowly being rolled into the cloud.

Half the crowd was stunned silent. The other half, proud to have their champion actually acting like one, chanted, "He is the greatest! Again!"

"The gray... test?" Marshfellow mus-

"You better not!" I screamed.

"Well, I am," Marshfellow confidantly, and somehow less annoyingly, claimed. "There's no black and white answer as to how to deal with that move; thus, the name."

Huh. He actually considered this. Okay. I can accept it.

"You did it, puddin'!" Gina hollered.

"Looks like I won me a girlfriend," Marshfellow grinned while holding Gina; then looked confused as to why Gina came to his arms.

Well, if this is the last chapter, not a bad ending, writer. Hopefully this is not the end, though. The cloud, my handsomeness, his dating li- Wait. Why was he confused?

"There she is!" Marshfellow exquisitely exclaimed. He dropped Gina quickly and walked toward a woman, grabbing her passionately. "I want to feel a loss and now I have!" he beamed.

"Is this supposed to make sense?" I questioned belligerently.

Marshfellow stated peacefully, "You heard it wrong every time. I was saying, 'Elloss'."

"He means me, of course," Elloss the boss said triumphantly, grasping her not-as-attractive-as-the-Narrator boyfriend's arm in her own.

"Wutda-" Gina was wailing, but this chapter is already a decent length. Good time to end it.

Gina cried, "But I-"