Per Astra Ad Victoriam
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"What is sparring but a game of strategy, played at speed?"
-The Wicked King
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~The air was pleasantly warm, if just the slightest bit thin. There were no seats for a physical audience in this most recent arena; a plethora of recording devices would capture the action from a multitude of angles and broadcast to both the Infosphere and the ExoNet, two of the more popular galactic communication networks. A large screen set into one wall, visible to all the gathered warriors, suddenly flickered to life bearing text in a variety of languages, and the translation software in his brain turned several of them to English to his eyes. The names of the next two combatants were being announced; Honnorosshu Yomoninso and his own.

  The time had come. It was with no small measure of anticipation that The Omega Man, Jay Omega approached the edge of the combat pit. Jay took hold of the proffered cable, stuck his foot in the loop at the end, and stepped off the platform, slowly winched down the ten feet to the pit's bottom. The hole looked to be roughly twenty-five to thirty feet in diameter, with a hard-packed dirt floor and one other notable feature; the metal spikes lining the walls. Once the fight started, there would be no escape before it was finished. Not that Omega was ever one to run from a fight; his life had revolved around combat for almost as long as he could remember.

  There was no time to reminisce, though; the moment Jay and his opponent - a Yeis'a female - were clear of their cables, a gong sounded, signaling the start of their fight. Immediately, the young woman across from him snapped off a shot from her tournament-issue Baerons'de Oropulse sidearm. Omega dropped prone, his reaction time heightened by the adrenalin surging through his system; even still, he felt the hair on his head stand on end as the stun bolt barely missed him and splashed against the wall in a spray of sparks. The Omega Man fired off a wild array of his own shots as he rolled into a crouch, then tried to sprint into melee range.

  Jay stooped into a baseball slide under another stun round, popped up and juked right around a third. Omega fired wildly again, forcing Yomoninso to dodge the erratic bolts and allowing him to close the distance between them. As he approached, Jay leapt into the air spinning 540 degrees and lashing out with a swift kick that caught Honnorosshu in the side of the head, at the base of her left horn. The Yeis'a woman tumbled to the ground, her Oropulse flying from her grip as she hit the dirt. With a cocky grin, Omega tossed his own sidearm away, and motioned for Yomoninso to come get some.~

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"Per aspera ad astra."
-Lucius Annaeus Seneca
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*Welcome back, True Believers! Are you excited for the Sweet Sixteen? Golly, it seems like just yesterday it was your quinceanera; our baby girl is growing up so fast!*

*Can you just pretend to be normal for one promo? Please?*

*NEVER!!! So, we do that fade in thing where we fade in, and find Los Hombre Omeguloso chilling in his trophy room. It's a pretty austere place; the only decorations visible being the big ass trophy case that is just chock full of alien doodads. Jay Omega is standing with his back to us, hands clasped together just above his butt, eyeing his variety of shiny prizes.*

JAY OMEGA: What up, Stargirl? Congrats on your victory over Vagabond. I understand you're relatively new to the XWF, so you're probably riding high on advancing to the second round of this here tournament.

*Jay throws an apologetic look at us over his shoulder, then turns back to his ruminations. A moment of silence passes, then Omega reaches out and plucks an ivory carving from its stand, then turns to face us.*

JAY OMEGA: I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is where the good times end, sweetheart. See, you're not facing some third rate scrub in San Antonio, Stargirl. Nah you get the dubious pleasure of scrapping with the greatest gladiator this side of Sagittarius A. Speaking of doobie-us…

*Jay pulls out his ever-present black cigarette case, shakes out a spliff, then stuffs the case in his pocket and retrieves a gold Zippo, which he uses to spark his joint.*

JAY OMEGA: This little knickknack is something I picked up on the Jirshami homeworld, after working my way through a tournament similar to this one. The finer details are irrelevant, but the broad strokes aren't; see early on, I came up against somebody who was a complete mystery to me, someone whose skills were comparable to my own, and I was hard pressed to pull out the victory. Now, I can't say for sure that's going to be the situation on the twenty-fifth, but that's the fun of mysteries, ain't it?

*Omega harrumphs in amusement, hits the joint, and considers the ivory carving; a small, multi-faceted obelisk engraved all over.*

JAY OMEGA: Conquering mysteries has always been one of the driving forces for humanity - most sentient life, in fact - ever since we discovered fire and learned to push back against the night. Every great achievement in human history has happened because someone was faced with an unknown obstacle, studied it, tackled it from every conceivable angle, and ultimately overcame it.

*Jay puts the mysterious alien object of alien mystery back on the shelf and takes a deep haul from his spliff, little glimmers of gold glinting in the exhaled smoke.*

JAY OMEGA: Well, I'm working my way toward a great achievement, this whole "king for a year" dealy were all fighting for. And Stargirl? You are an unknown obstacle situated in my path. Unfortunately, the unknown mystery bit seems to have been taken too far; how the fuck am I supposed to scout my opponent when almost all the relevant data has been scrubbed from the Internet?

*Omega shrugs and makes a facial expression that clearly articulates the feeling of "what the fuck?" he's experiencing.*

JAY OMEGA: Astra has no social media presence, so I can't get a sense of the fanbase's opinion of her. There's no biography for her anywhere online - like anywhere - so I can't look into her background. Even her past promotional work in the XWF has vanished off the supposedly secure servers, so I have nothing to build a psych profile with. I've got two measly matches to work with here; Stargirl's underwhelming debut on Anarchy against 60s superhero throwback the Atomic Bat and some fungus enthusiast by the name of Sound the Mold, and her equally underwhelming victory against Vagabond at the last Warfare.

*The Omega Man puffs his doobie, exhaling more gold-glimmering smoke, then waves his hand dismissively.*

JAY OMEGA: Yeah, everyone loves a good underdog story, and Stargirl was definitely the underdog last week. But truth be told, she barely eked out a win after having her ass handed to her all match. And that doesn't bode too well for Stargirl, because I'm a warrior several orders of magnitude greater than Vagabond. If she struggled against him, she's going to get crushed by me. And that's not a knock on Vagabond… Okay, I guess it kind of is, but fuck him, what's he gonna do? So yeah, Vagabond sucks, but Astra still had to nail him in the taint in order to pick up a tainted victory. And while I might have balls of tungsten carbide, that's really just a metaphor for how badass I am; my giggleberries are just as vulnerable as anyone else's.

*Jay gives a nonchalant shrug and steps away from the trophy case, motioning for the camera to follow him as he walks past, out into the hexagonal corridor.*

JAY OMEGA: The firmness of my dangley bits aside, I don't intend to allow myself to be distracted as easily as Vagabond was. I am laser focused on bringing home that crown, and there ain't a man or woman on Earth who's gonna stop me without damn near killing themselves to do it. Well, okay, there are a couple of people who could derail me, but luckily most of them don't exist in this universe, Corey Smith ain't wrestling anymore, and Mark Flynn is too busy trying to elevate the fodder Pryce has been feeding him, so the number is effectively zero.

*Omega takes a right at the intersection, and the camera banks around the corner and through a glimmery cloud, catching sight of The Omega Man standing in a fancypants starship elevator.*

JAY OMEGA: I may not know much about Astra, but I know that number ain't changing any time soon.

*The elevator door slides shut, signaling the end of the production, and the scene fades to black.*

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"Nothing is more intolerable than to have to admit to yourself your own errors."
-Ludwig van Beethoven
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~Overconfidence had always been the biggest source of the numerous ass whoopings Jay had received in his time, and today was no different. Some would call it cockiness, others sheer insanity; after all, who in their right mind would give away their advantage? And in the moment, Omega might have been inclined to agree with those detractors, were he able to spare the slightest bit of attention for something so inane. Jay had thought that, once disarmed, the fight against Honnorosshu would be more closely matched; then she had sprung at him with a speed and ferocity akin to a predatory animal, and Omega had known in that moment that he'd fucked up.

  The Yeis'a woman had attacked with a flurry of blows, distressingly few of which Jay had been able to avoid or deflect. His troubles were only compounded by Yomoninso's masterful use of her prehensile tail; despite how common such a feature was in the galaxy, Omega wasn't overly experienced in tangling with tailed bipeds. Honnorosshu was clearly much faster than he was, and her strikes hit harder than most humans Jay had scrapped with, implying she came from a higher-gravity world. That sparked something in the back of Omega's mind; his wife Tasha also came from a high-gravity world, and they sparred often enough that Jay had figured out a few ways to counter her inherent advantages.

  Now, scarcely ten minutes later, Omega was reconsidering the discarded Oropulse. But no, he would stay the course; he had one final gambit to play, and it would either win or lose this fight. Yomoninso came at him with her fist cocked and The Omega Man stepped into the blow in anticipation, taking the shot square to his ribs and latching an iron grip on the Yeis'a woman's arm. Jay reeled her in for a short arm elbow strike, blocked the expected counterattack, then clamped on a bear hug, lifting the smaller fighter off her feet. As predicted, Honnorosshu used her tail to sweep at Omega's legs, and he pivoted as they fell, landing atop his opponent with all his weight and driving the air from her lungs.

  Jay didn't dare give Yomoninso even a moment to recuperate, nor could he risk relaxing his crushing grasp; it was a conundrum inexperienced warriors often fell prey to, but Omega was a seasoned combatant, and was accustomed to using his head in situations such as this. Again and again The Omega Man drove his forehead into the Yeis'a woman's pretty face, until she finally went limp in his arms, and he was able to dizzily drag himself to his feet. Despite the usual satisfaction that came with victory, he didnt feel good about this win.~