The Tale of The League Title
It all started when our predictably heroic hero, Antitrust, woke up in a bush. It was the fifth time it had happened. Feeling excessively stunned, Antitrust grabbed a Special Brew, thinking it would make him feel better (but as usual, it did not). Despite bring in his happy place, he suddenly realized that his beloved League Trophy was in danger!
Immediately he called his adversary, I-Arena. Antitrust had known I-Arena for (plus or minus) 57 years, the majority of which were frankly weird. I-Arena was unique. He was outgoing and talented though sometimes a little... lucky. Antitrust called him anyway, for the situation was urgent.
I-Arena picked up to a very unctuous Antitrust. I-Arena calmly assured him that most South American hissing sloths grimace before mating, yet Indonesian devil cats usually earnestly sneeze *after* mating. He had no idea what that meant; he was only concerned with distracting Antitrust. Why was I-Arena trying to distract Antitrust? Because he had figured out how to steal the league Trophy only a few days prior. It was a tempting little league Trophy... how could he resist?
It didn't take long before Antitrust got back to the subject at hand: the League Trophy. I-Arena yawned and relunctantly invited him over, assuring him they'd find the League Trophy. Antitrust grabbed his George Foreman grill and set off immediately. After hanging up the phone, I-Arena realized that he was in trouble. He had to find a place to hide the League Trophy and he had to do it skillfully. He figured that if Antitrust ran at his usual gazelle-like pace, he had at least seven minutes before Antitrust would get there. But if he jumped on the bandwagon? Then I-Arena would be abnormally screwed.
As he pulled up, Antitrust felt a sense of urgency. He had had to make an unscheduled stop at KFC to pick up a family bucket (a mere snack really), so he knew he was running late. With a skillful leap, Antitrust was out of the bandwagon and went jaunting toward I-Arena's front door.
Meanwhile inside, I-Arena was panicking. Not thinking, he tossed the league Trophy into a box of Coco Pops and then slid the box behind his hammock. I-Arena was puzzled but at least the league Trophy was concealed. The doorbell rang.
'Come in,' I-Arena wildly purred. With a quick push, Antitrust opened the door. 'Sorry for being late, but I was being chased by some abrasive noble genius on a unicorn,' he lied. 'It's fine,' I-Arena assured him. Antitrust took a seat wonderfully far from where I-Arena had hidden the league Trophy. I-Arena belched trying unsuccessfully to hide his nervousness. 'Uhh, can I get you anything?' he blurted. But Antitrust was distracted, and I-Arena noticed a stupid look on Antitrust's face. Antitrust slowly opened his mouth to speak.
'...What's that smell?'
I-Arena felt a stabbing pain in his armpit when Antitrust asked this. In a moment of disbelief, he realized that he had hidden the league Trophy right by his oscillating fan. 'Wh-what? I don't smell anything..!' A lie. A dimwitted look started to form on Antitrust's face. He turned to notice a box that seemed clearly out of place. 'Th-th-those are just my grandma's potatos from when she used to have a pet man-eating hedgehog. She, uh...dropped them by here earlier'.
Antitrust nodded with fake acknowledgement...then, before I-Arena could react, Antitrust aptly lunged toward the box and opened it. The league Trophy was plainly in view.
Antitrust stared at I-Arena for what what must have been nine seconds. A few unsatisfying minutes later, I-Arena groped indiscriminately in Antitrust's direction, clearly desperate. Antitrust grabbed the league Trophy and bolted for the door. It was locked. I-Arena let out a curious chuckle. 'If only you hadn't been so protective of that thing, none of this would have happened, Antitrust,' he rebuked. I-Arena always had been a little competitive, so Antitrust knew that reconciliation was not an option; he needed to escape before I-Arena did something crazy, like... start chucking dangerous oil-soaked rags at him or something. Unaware of the bleakness of existence, he gripped his league Trophy tightly and made a dash toward the window, diving headlong through the glass panels.
I-Arena looked on, blankly. 'What the hell? That was excessive. The other door was open, you know.' Silence from Antitrust. 'And to think, I washed that window ten months ago...it never ends!' Suddenly he felt a tinge of concern for Antitrust. 'Oh. You ..okay?' Still silent, I-Arena walked over to the window and looked down. Antitrust was gone.
Just yonder, Antitrust was struggling to make his way through the swamp behind I-Arena's place. Antitrust had severely hurt his kidney during the window incident, and was starting to lose strength. A pack of feral Howwood supporters suddenly appeared, having caught wind of the league Trophy. One by one they latched on to Antitrust.
Already weakened from his injury, Antitrust yielded to the Buckfast-fuelled onslaught and collapsed. The last thing he saw before losing consciousness was the horde of Howwood fans running off with his league Trophy.
About two hours later, Antitrust awoke, his ego burst and his toenails throbbing. It was dark and Antitrust did not know where he was. Deep in the humid disease-infested swamp, Antitrust was lost. Then, to his horror, a misshapen Howwood supporter emerged from the haunted thicket. It was the alpha Howwood fan.
Antitrust opened his mouth to scream but was cut short when it sunk its teeth into Antitrust's earlobe. With a faint groan, the life escaped from Antitrust's lungs, but not before he realized that he was a failure. The League Trophy had eluded him.
Less than ten miles away, I-Arena was entombed by anguish over the loss of the league Trophy. 'MY PRECIOUS!!' he cried, as he reached for a sharpened pencil. With a deft thrust, he buried it deeply into his scalp. As the room began to fade to black, he thought about Antitrust... wishing they could have found a way to share the League Trophy. But he would die alone that day.
All that remained was the League Trophy that had turned them against each other, ultimately causing their demise. And as the dew on melancholy sappling branches began to reflect the dawn's reddish glare, all that could be heard was the chilling cry of distant Howwood supporters, desecrating all things sacred to virtuous men, and perpetuating an evil that would reign for centuries to come. Our heroes would've lived unhappily ever after, but they were too busy being dead.
The moral of the story....?
Let me win and protect the world from all this madness.
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