As the sun began to rise Nebbie was doing his part to set up the tournament, using magic from his Demon Lord Seed to keep himself awake, at the moment he figured he was good to go on till the sunset once more. Jo-Ro was only just waking up, having passed out within the first hour after sunset.
With his companion spreading the word to all monsters around the mountain about the Tournament, Nebbie had set out to do his best at making a ring, using different types of magic taught to him by members of the staff like Mordecai and Madeline's assistant Penny, a spell to harden one's hand like stone and a spell that let one use the flat of one's hand as a sort of super sandpaper, the two mixed very well, allowing him to shape stone.
He felt he was doing a good job seeing how he was using only his hands to warp the stone, although it was a very time-consuming process after an entire night of work he was at least nearly done.
What had once been a jagged sheet of stone at the base of the mountain was almost perfectly flat, with clear markers as to where the edge of the fairly large rectangular ring was, he was just finishing up when Jo-Ro managed to wake up enough to take the sight of it in.
"Impressive," He decided as he stepped onto the Ring "Truly a worthy ring for Warriors to fight within," as Jo-Ro marveled at the flatness of the ring Nebbie got up, having finished carving a line through the middle, not too deep or wide so that as to avoid the fighters twisting their ankles on it.
"Alright the ring is done, Jo-Ro do me a favor and stand over there," Nebbie stood opposite and did his best to judge the distance with his eyes before nodding "Perfect," He decided, "When the time comes one Fighter will enter on either side, and the first to leave the ring by any means, either by running away or by getting thrown out, will be the loser,"
Jo-Ro seemed to find the entire thing equal parts amusing and exciting. "What an odd idea for fighting," He chuckled, having proven himself to be an all-around good chap the second Nebbie had proven himself to not be a coward, at least by Jo-Ro's standard of being willing to talk to him face-to-face without running.
Nebbie noted that the longer he was around Jo-Ro the better his speech seemed to get, whether his less than stellar speaking had been some kind of act, or if Nebbie had gained the ability to understand the meaning of his speech better with magic was unclear.
Nebbie took this moment to properly look at Jo-Ro, so as to help himself distinguish him from other Ogres in the event that his being the Big one was no longer an adequate way to pick him out.
His nose was round, he had two spikes on the ends of his chin, his ears were pointed, and his skin was a Dark green, with his left arm being way lighter in color than the rest of him. He had Black hair and only had four fingers on each hand, his feet hidden by some ratty looking shoes. His right shoulder looked more like a shoulder pauldron than part of his skin, but part of his skin it was, with three spikes adorning it and it alone. Clothing wise he wore the same thing all the other Orge's had worn, an Animal Skin Toga that went over his smaller and less pointy left shoulder, and the aforementioned shoes.
Nebbie had been nearly confident that the Orge's were going to insist that the fights be to the death, but as Mary had once said, maybe that assumption had been a tad racist of him.
"Oh," Jo-Ro's voice changed, now brimming with only excitement "If it isn't Hellanor," Nebbie thought the name sounded odd, but upon turning to see the new comer, felt it appropriate, The Creature before them was slightly bigger than Jo-Ro, such that if he was nine foot than it was nine and a half.
It was covered head to toe in a thick black exo-skeleton that looked almost like armor, it had two thick arms and a second set of smaller ones with only three fingers, sprouting out of its back was a massive black tail with steam pouring from its end like a freshly extinguished Candle. Only its eyes could be seen, or at least the glowing red flame-like pupils .
"Where is the Battle?" She demanded, her voice being the only real indication of a Gender.
"It starts once all the contestants arrive," Nebbie said bluntly, now relying on yet another Demon Lord Skill that allowed him to ignore fear for a limited time.
Hellanor laughed at him before speaking, "I can smell fear, and you have none even gazing upon me, This, it seems, might be worth my time," Hellanor pulled a massive great sword from her back "Are Weapons permitted In this Tournament of yours?"
"There aren't any real rules as of yet save for the fact that going outside the ring will result in you losing, once all the contestants arrive we'll put it to a vote, if enough people agree then we'll see about providing all contestants a non-magical Weapon,"
"Fair enough," She noted as the Great Sword burst into flames and vanished within it "I suppose in a 'Tournament' using any kind of Magic other than your own is cheating? I think I heard stories of them once when I was younger, but they were only for humans,"
"Yeah well I've always wanted to fight in one," Nebbie declared, "So I'm throwing one, monsters only, all monsters welcome to join, From the Greatest Demon to the lowest, so long as you can understand the rules you can fight!"
"Any creature who willingly gets into a ring with me will, if nothing else, be respected for their courage," Hellanor decided bluntly. "Is there a place for early arrivals to wait?"
"Jo-Ro's been sleeping over there all night," with an arbitrary location picked Hellanor sat upon the ground where Jo-Ro had slept and seemed to begin meditating.
Feeling slightly ashamed of himself for having expected all monsters to act in a very hostile way, Nebbie found a new motivation for himself to throw the tournament.
"If nothing else this should help me get a better understanding of how members of Wild races act," Nebbie was already aware thanks in no short part to Mary that Monsters and Inhumans were really only differentiated based on what Races were allowed to live in man made civilizations, and what were attacked on sight,"
"A Greater Flaming Demon and an Ogre, Monsters that are supposed to be some of the most dangerous ones, are more hospitable to me than my own father," Nebbie found the situation mildly hysterical in a somewhat sad way as he went to work on the finer details of the ring,
"Unless my memory is failing me, I think I heard mother and father talking about some sort of Church, the one that guy who kidnapped me that one time was a member of, maybe that Church is the one that decides what monsters can and can't be allowed to mingle with Humans,"
Nebbie was completely lost in thought as he did his task of adding two large circles on either side of the ring to show where the contestant would need to stand prior to starting the match.
Nebbie was just about finished with the first one and was about to move over to start on the second, only to find Hellanor was already nearly finished with it, behind her a small Green creature with long black hair seemed to be painting the side of the ring.
To his right he spotted movement and found another little Green creature, this one with brown hair tied up in a ponytail, doing the same thing as the other one.
"How long have I been working on this circle?" Nebbie pondered aloud, he tried to look in the direction Jo-Ro had been, and instead almost had a heart attack when he realized a massive mob of Monster had overtaken the clearing, the tree line had been pushed back, allowing more monsters to be in the clearing.
He saw what looked like a Troll with a four foot otter standing on its back helping an Ogre as it cut down a tree and tried to avoid having it land on any of the nearby monsters.
What looked like twelve or thirteen of the small Green Creatures that he realized must have been Goblins were hard at work turning the trunk of a chopped down Tree into what looked like a long bench so people could have a place to sit. The Goblins worked at stunning speeds, more impressive was how nice the finished product was.
After being called to A Large man about the same size as Mordecai walked over, getting a better look at the bearded man Nebbie realized it was a Cyclops, who happily picked up the bench, as he left with it the Troll and Otter man he had seen earlier were already delivering the Goblins another tree.
"Hu," Nebbie chuckled, "I never realized Goblins were such fine crafters of wood,"
"It is one of our many talents," The One with a ponytail noted proudly, looking back at him Nebbie realized that of all the gathered races the Goblins seemed to be the only ones who were wearing actually clothing, all with pants, or overalls, one had a straw hat to keep the sun from his eyes.
"To answer your earlier Question," Nebbie turned as Hellanor spoke up, "You began work on it several hours ago, that said now that you're done you should probably set about filling out the roster for the fight, Me and these two can finish it up no problem," being given confirmation by the Goblins, and being told by the female one with black hair that he had a fine talent for stone work Nebbie went to the crowd.
He was just trying to figure out how to pick out the fighters when Jo-Ro made his return.
"Everyone," Jo-Ro called out "The Tournament master's ready to pick fighters I think?" Feeling bad that they had apparently been waiting on him for a few hours, Nebbie watched as several monsters broke away from the main group and, just to help separate them from the main Group, Nebbie had them all gather by the side of the ring.
"Let see, We already have two," Jo-Ro looked confused at the statement before hitting his fist.
"Was it me or Hellanor who forgot to confirm we were fighting?" Nebbie was confused at the notion before Jo-Ro shook his head "Well just to be safe we both plan to participate, That's me, you, and Hellanor down," Jo-Ro rushed to the Ring and Nebbie groaned at the fact that he was now competing.
"I was just planning to be the announcer or something," he sighed before calling out to the Goblins "Hey do any of you guys have something to write on? I'm gonna need to write down a lot of names,"
Nebbie sat in the shade of a tree as he added the name Borlo to the registry, the Bipedal Warthog looking man seemed giddy as he joined the crowd of Monsters participating. Nebbie looked up, looked back at his list, and then looked back up sharply. So far most of the monsters had all been of a similar short, Wild Man Beasts, Orges, Trolls, a few elemental demons similar to Hellanor but smaller without tails, but the monster before him felt like an odd one, mostly because he was fairly sure it was a Beast-man.
A man with a tiger tail and ears stood before him, his hair matching that of a tiger's coat, he wore the kind of outfits a squire would wear and even had a sword on his belt. He was the best dressed man here even counting the Goblins.
"My name's Rocko," He informed Nebbie simply.
"Huh," Nebbie replied, cocking his head as he looked the Beast-man up and down "what's a Beast-man doing here?"
"What 'is' a Beast-man doing here?" Rocko noted as he looked Nebbie up and down, before adding "I'm an adventure, I was out here on a solo gig and saw the monster swarm, came to check it out incase it was trouble, turns out it was a contest, and my pride as a Beast-man forbid me from walking away from a challenge,"
"That's as fair a reason as any I suppose," Nebbie noted as he added Rocko's name next to the number 24 spot on the list.
"If you don't mind me asking, Beast-man to Beast-man why are you throwing a Tournament for Monsters?"
"Maybe I'm not a Beast Man?" Rocko scrunched his face at the notion, "Maybe I'm just a newly evolved demon who got bored and wanted to punch someone in the face without consequence,"
"Is that so?" Rocko didn't say anything else and simply joined the growing hoard of participants, Nebbie looked back to the line and found an Otter man who informed him it's name was Nelson. Things went on like this for a while until Nebbie ran out of line, After waiting a moment and realizing no one else was coming Nebbie counted the monsters fighting. "Oh no," Nebbie groaned as he got off the ground and made his way to the ring, his presence apparently being enough to cause the crowd to fall into a hushed silence.
"I have some bad news," Nebbie informed the crowd "We have 63 fighters, and for this tournament to happen, we need exactly 64," Nebbie looked over the crowd before clarifying "Meaning if we want this thing to happen before tomorrow, I need one person from the crowd to join the fight,"
Nebbie was met with Silence, looking behind him he understood why, eight ogres, five elemental demons, four trolls, more man beasts than he could count, and two beast-man if he counted himself as one, all in all the Tournament was filled with heavy hitters and power houses.
And the crowd being asked to volunteer was almost entirely made up of much smaller monsters, small man beasts like Squirrels or Moles that barely when over two or three feet in average height, Goblins, Gnomes, Pixies, A few Ogres that looked to be well past their fighting days, a troll that looked as though he was blind in one eye and missing a leg.
"Oh Boy," Nebbie groaned before looking to the ones who were planning to join the Tournament, "In that case we're gonna have to cut down the participating members a little,"
An unhappy miramar filled the clearing, Nebbie tried to at least make some of them feel like he wasn't trying to pull a fast on.
"Naturally since this was a mistake of my own error I'll be disqualified from participating first so…" This was quickly shown to cause more of an uproar than he thought it would, he had thought the monsters would be irritated if he cut them and kept himself, instead they seemed to find him cutting himself out more insulting.
"But this is your Tournament," Jo-Ro's voice called out, "Your vision and everything, you have to fight in it,"
"I'll depart," Borlo the Warthog man decided, earning more irritation as everyone tried to be the one to help the games keep going, Even Hellanor demanded she be cut first over any other monster.
Nebbie was so taken aback by the oddly sweet nature of what was happening that it took him a moment to realize someone was tugging at his poorly made blanket poncho. Looking down he found the Goblin with a brown Ponytail standing at his side.
"My Name is Lars, and I would like to enter this Tournament,"
"Are you sure," Nebbie asked, in doing so gaining the attention of those participating, "You're basically volunteering for a beating,"
"Too much work has gone into this," Lars decided "I shall compete!" He ended his sentence as loud as he could, and earned a cheer for it, if nothing else he would earn respect from his peers and those competing, and Nebbie got the feeling he knew that from the look in his eye, granted it was hard to tell from his very visible fear.
"Everyone," Nebbie called out, "Can we get a cheer for Lars?" Lars was granted that cheer and joined the ranks as Nebbie called out loudly.
"Now then I would like the contestants, myself included, to find the one they wish to fight in the opening match, keep in mind usually these things would be selected at random, but that would take several days to properly sort out, and I'm sure we're all itching for this baby to start,"
The crowd cheered and the fighters began squaring off, trying to find a good fight to start off with, Lars found himself paired up with Nelson the giant otter, who promised Lars the first few hits. Hellanor picked one of the trolls, and Jo-ro paired up with a Man beast that looked like a Bear.
Rocko had just paired up with a Troll when Nebbie felt a tap on his shoulder, turning he found Borlo the Warthog Man-beast.
"May I have the honor of being your opponent?" He asked, offering his hand, Nebbie firmly believed in first come, first serve, and took the hand.
"The honor belongs to me," Nebbie replied, fully prepared to get walloped as they shook hands, "Alright, once you've paired-up I'll need everyone to stand on the sidelines where the line was, and make sure you stay with your opponent. Nebbie led the way with Borlo and the others who had already paired up in tow.
After some arguing over who would fight who, the last pair teamed up and Nebbie held up his hand.
"Now for the final step before the tournament begins, We will need one of the members of the crowd to hold the roster, you do not need to be strong, you simply must be very loud!" Nebbie found a volunteer almost immediately as the Goblin who had been working on the ring with Lars ran forward.
"I can be loud," She called out, "I was born with a seed of power, The General's seed, One of its powers lets me amplify my voice!"
"Perfect," Nebbie cheered as he walked over to her, Borlo making sure no one stole his standing spot. "Alright you're job is simple, but one of the most important parts, Nebbie kneeled down and handed her the roster as he spoke, "You'll be deciding the fight order," The little Goblin seemed enthused at getting to participate.
"Could I have your name?"
"Ginger," she said with pride.
"Alright," Nebbie got back up and called out, "Ginger here will call a name from the roster at random, she will ask for the combatants names, and will circle their number when she finds them on the roster, the losers name will be crossed off, and if they aren't injured they'll join the crowd, The winner will rejoin the contestant group until the first round concludes,"
Nebbie put his hands together and pointed at the crowd with them, "I forgot, is there a medic or medics in the crowd?" A few creatures raised their hands and Nebbie pointed to the opposite side of the field from the contestants, "All Medics please stand over there, and if either contestant is injured please go to the medics before rejoining the contestant group, or the spectator group,"
Nebbie rejoined the crowd, waited a second and then motioned to Ginger, who jumped a little.
"Oh," Ginger cleared her voice, and then spoke. Nebbie, and presumably everyone, could hear Ginger as though she was speaking right next to him.
"As this is his tournament, and he is number one on the list, Nebbie, please enter the ring with your opponent,"
"Opening act," Nebbie held up his fist, and Borlo bumped it with his, "If you beat me you better win," Nebbie warned with a smile.
"Same to you," Borlo chuckled back, Borlo took the left side of the ring, and Nebbie the right, Borlo introduced himself, and Ginger relayed his name to the crowd before finding him on the roster and circling the number next to his and Nebbie's names.
"Um," Ginger frowned before looking at Nebbie, "Does this tournament have a name?"
"Hm?" Nebbie offered the first thing that popped into his mind, "How about Might Fight?" He asked with a shrug, Ginger took the suggestion as an answer and called out loudly.
"Let round one of the Might Fight Tournament Begin!" The crowd screamed and both Nebbie and Borlo squared up.
Borlo took a stance suggesting he was planning to grab Nebbie and maybe try to suplex him, Nebbie had never fought anyone in his life and just let his arms hang limply at his side.
"Well this is gonna hurt," He waited and then Borlo shot forward, fairly quickly and tried to grab Nebbie, who did his best to dodge the grab by jumping straight up, in doing so he fell back down and hit Borlo's face, ironically saving him from ringing himself out.
"Alright good note for next time," Nebbie noted as he took in the rings size, "Make the ring a little bigger maybe,"
"I appreciate that," Borlo said as he got back to his feet, "But I suppose it wouldn't be much of an opening act if I threw myself out in the first few seconds," Borlo snorted and pounded his chest, "As thanks I'll make sure I put on a show, do your best to do the same,"
"A strange stance," Borlo noted as he and Nebbie began circling each other, the crowd cheering them both on in excitement, "But that kick doesn't lie, he could probably throw me out of the ring with ease, he's just trying to let me have my fun and the audience theirs," Borlo snorted as he stretched his arms out across his chest, "Alright, charging attacks won't work, lets try some fist action," Borlo ran up and swung at Nebbie, he dodged the punch offering no counter-attack, Borlo swung, missed, swung again and missed, on his fourth swing he swung downward, as Nebbie moved to get out of the way Borlo opened his fist up as it shot past Nebbie and just barely managed to grabbed hold of the Beastman's tail.
Borlo swung sideways with all his might, and in doing so the string keeping Nebbie's tail in place like a belt snapped, allowing Borlo swung Nebbie like a club up into the air and face down into the ground, pulled him back up, and slammed him back down, on the third try just as he lifted Nebbie the beast man's legs swung out and smashed into Borlo's face. Nebbie was sent tumbling towards the ground as Borlo lost his grip and barely managed to land inside the ring, Borlo fell over and his arm hit the outside of the ring.
Borlo thought he was done momentarily, but Nebbie was quick to call out to him. "Don't think you're getting out that easy, Either your feet need to touch the ground outside the ring, or at least fifty percent of your body needs to be out of bounds,"
"The Master of the Tournament has made the call," Ginger declared for all to hear, "Borlo is safe! The fight resumes!" Borlo got to his feet and swung at Nebbie, this time however the Beast-man met him halfway, blocking his punch with a kick of equal strength.
"I take it you've gauged enough of my strength to fight properly then," Borlo noted, almost sounding sad, "And yet your arms still hang loose," The Warthog shook his head, "I heard a rumor you started this Tournament hoping to punch someone, I see now you meant that in a literal sense, you can't punch me without knocking me out can you?"
"Don't take it too hard," Nebbie called back, "I just suck at holding back is all,"
"The hell am I talking about?" Nebbie demanded of himself, "I don't know how to throw a punch, I'd probably break my hand!" Nebbie kept kicking in rhythm with Borlo's punches, soon matching his strength and speed, the crowd certainly seemed to love it as they started splitting into Team Borlo and Team Nebbie.
Nebbie had expected the majority of the support to be for Borlo since he was a native to the mountain, but apparently he was a fairly popular pick, although nearly every man-beast, ogre, and troll was cheering for Borlo, his fans where mostly the Goblins, the elemental demons not participating, and several Bipedal Otters who just didn't match the man-beast vibe enough for Nebbie to consider them part of the same race since the man-beast had oddly humanoid builds while the Bipedal were just really big Otters wearing pants, Nebbie also had the support of the one legged troll, and a single man-beast that looked to be a vixen.
"There are a lot of Goblins in these mountains," Nebbie realized, the Goblin population almost matching the ogres, man-beasts, and trolls combined.
"I know," Borlo agreed, "usually a Goblin hoard this size would be wiped out by humans or Hobgoblins, but they provided us with clothing so we make sure to keep an eye on their nest, some of the monsters who wanted to come had to sit the competition out just to make sure nothing happened to the goblins who didn't come,"
"You have a lovely community," Nebbie replied, the two still matching each other blow for blow, "You should all consider bunching up, I imagine the Goblins could make better clothes, maybe even armor if you all pooled your resources together,"
"I've never heard of such an idea," Borlo replied before smiling, "But until today I've also never heard of a Tournament, so who knows what the future holds for the mountain," Nebbie jumped away from Borlo and took a deep breath.
"It's been fun," he decided, "But there are thirty-two fights to get through before the first round ends, so let's put a lid on this opening act,"
"Thanks for humoring me," Borlo replied simply as Nebbie held up his hands, Borlo charged forward and full speed and jumped as he pulled his head back, and swung it down onto Nebbie with the full weight of his body, his most powerful attack, Nebbie pulled his arm back and swung at Borlo with an open hand smack, Nebbie's hand collided with Borlo's belly and Borlo was sent flying back.
Borlo slid across the ground and slid to a stop well outside the ring. He held up his hand in a fist, and Nebbie copied him as Ginger marked a line through Borlo's name.
"Nebbie wins the first round," She called out, her voice echoing over the crowd and contestants cheering.