He turned a corner and there they were, a little army of cavernous mouths and wide, leering eyes. Hungry eyes. They were stout, short creatures but each had the strength of many men within them and black hearts full of a will to wickedness.

"Just in time for dinner, half-orc! But our wicked king, Arnaud Chevailler, has requested we save your head just for him!"

At the hearing of my arch-enemy's foul name a crimson mist rolled in front my eyes, banishing from my mind whatever remnants of mercy and kindness my hard half-orc barbarian's life had not yet stamped out. A seething, raging hatred filled me up so that I had no recourse but to dart amongst the troll hoard, swinging my mighty battle axe fast and free to let whatever blood it could!

A brutal storm of cuts, thrusts and hacks left arms hewn from shoulders and bodies separated form heads until the trolls themselves were outnumbered by that gruesome mound my hacking and slashing had built of their misshapen and now dismembered body parts.

Though I was but one, single half-orc with naught but my horned helm, battle axe and fur loincloth to aid me, the coward trolls retreated from as were I a wild fire sweeping through a forest and they the pitiful forest creatures, helpless and doomed in my path, yet unable to get out from it. How easily did my one push back their many!

Even as they retreated, it was for naught. For then did she appear, silhouetted a top the rolling hillside, the moon glinting off the links and scales of her scanty chain-mail bikini, her thick black hair swaying in the breeze like a black battle flag, her long sword resting easily on her broad, beautiful shoulders.

"My lady, will you not smote these coward trolls, servants of the wicked, hated Arnaud Chevailler?"

"Nay milord, for I do so love his accent. I hath become his wicked mistress that I might hear from him all the days of my life!"

Suddenly, my very enemy appeared before me.

"I told yew, yew are beneeet me! You are nutin t'me!"

My rage surged as I leapt over the entire troll army, landing in front of the wicked Arnaud to do him battle in fair combat!

"Pah! I spit on yew!"

With the speed of a striking serpent the villain spit one gob after another upon me until I was utterly engulfed in an inescapable cocoon of spit.

"Enough spitting! There is a lady present, wicked though she be! Have you no decency?"

And yet, she merely cackled her approval, as her new lord spat upon me again and again and again and...

"Noooooo...! No more...spit..."

KnightMask awoke with a start, sitting straight up his bed, scattering the Conan the Barbarian comics he'd read himself to sleep with.



Slam Masters gym, later that day...


"No, Steve, I don't have anything else to add. Arnaud is a great athlete and I'm honored to have the chance to step into the ring against him. He was kind enough to wish me luck and I really appreciate that. And I wish him luck as well. I thought me and World-1 International had a heckuva battle...so I hope this match is every bit its equal. God willing, we'll bring out the best in each other and maybe even walk away a little wiser and tougher."

Sayors held the microphone up to the catch-wrestler's mask while KM engaged himself in a series of handstand push-ups on the gym's dip bar.

"So there's nothing to these rumors of a personal grudge between the two of you?"

KnightMask hopped down from the dip bar.

"No Steve, not at all. I don't know where that's coming from. We did have some words about the nature of this country versus the one he hails from, but I made my points, he made his and that's in the past. I'm sure the longer he's hear the more he'll come to see what a great country this is."

Oksana Kasian, a fitness champion who trains at Slam Master's to supplement her regimen, calls over her shoulder as she passes the two on her way to the locker room, "Arnaud! My, my, my!"

"What an accent!" she shouts behind her as she enters the women's locker room, fanning herself briskly.

"So, like I was saying," KnightMask begins, "I....I..."

Steve Sayors interjects, tentatively, helpfully, "No bad blood?"

"Yeah, yeah, that's right. No bad blood at all."

Grabbing the nearest throwing dummy, KnightMask subjects it to a series of the hardest suplexes he can muster.

On Bret's Baddest with Bret Badness, a local Lansing radio show

"Arnaud Chevailler...what's up with that guy? I mean, he is a real a-hole, isn't he? You must just hate him. I mean, lets see...he said you were stupid, beneath him, uhhhm, what else...he spit on you..."

"You know, Bret, actually, I just--"

On Pro-Wrestling Roundtable

"--appreciate the opportunity to compete--"

On the Jim Rome show

"--against a highly trained, highly accomplished athlete. If anything--"

In the bathroom, at the tail end of an impromptu interview by Joel the janitor at a house show

"--I'm grateful to him for the opportunity to get to share some mat time with him."

"Man, good for you. You know, you really are a class act, KnightMask, just like they say. I mean, if a I had spit on me as many times as that guy had, I mean...I don't care if I'm just a fat, out of shape janitor...I would kick his ass, some how, some way right then and there! Heck, I might take this broom and shove it--well, you know, point is, you're a classy guy KnightMask! And here I thought it was all an act! Shame on me...I'm gonna tell my kids...."

Joel waddles out of the bathroom, whistling as he goes on his way. He stops at the door.

"Here, lemme hold the door open for such a class-act. Man that's great, a real-life superhero..."

KnightMask walks through the door as Joel holds it, feeling a little warm and fuzzy when suddenly he finds himself face to face with a life-size, cardboard Arnaud Chevailler. It reads, "Catch the XWF's newest superstar, every Wednesday night!"

He stands still for a moment, as he listens to Joel's merry whistling fade and fade into the distance. He checks over both shoulders.

He stares at the cardboard cut-out. He takes a deep breath. He looks down. He walks away...

...before whirling around, tackling the statue to the ground--"How about that, Arnaud?"--gouging at its face and eyes--"What do you have to say about the US now, you punk?"--ripping its head off,--"Hard to spit on someone when you don't have a head, isn't it?"--pounding it,--"Still think you're better, you elitist snob?"--swinging and banging it like a club and tearing it apart until it is utterly, utterly destroyed.

Breathing heavily, his anger spent, KnightMask gets up...and begins to walk away.

"Feel better, sugah?"

KnightMask turns to see his training partner, the redheaded lady wrestler known as the Southerner, leaning against the wall, finishing off a chocolate ice cream bar and smiling in amusement.

"Absolutely."

"What is it sugah? You look like you seen a ghost--oh, this little thing."

KnightMask, in silence, continued to stare at The Southerner's Arnaud Chevailler t-shirt.

"Ah've always been a suckah for a boy with an' accent."