“Oh my Stars, Bethany. What happened to you???” Valeria cried out. As the only other avian-human species in the lineup, there was a connection between the two birds, albeit a tiny one.

“The bitch butterfly Olivia Faraday cornered me this morning and attacked me!” Bethany shrieked as golden tears fell from her phoenix eyes.

Candi had heard of the supposedly magical healing properties of phoenix tears, but at the moment, they were not healing Bethany in the least.

On the contrary, they were making her pathetic situation even worse, as she looked as if she was urinating from her tear ducts!

Lorem Ipsum narrowed his gaze, not in the least sympathetic.

“At least she didn’t break your wing in the same manner that you broke hers yesterday.”

Bethany squawked.

“That stupid butterfly thinks she is better than a bird? We eat bugs like her for breakfast!”

Lorem Ipsum sniffed.

“Looks like she ate you for breakfast this morning.” He clapped his hands to gain attention. “But we have no more time to discuss this matter.”

He turned towards all the others.

“Are we ready ladies? Look pretty and perky.” He shot a derisive glance at Bethany. “The visuals will begin rolling in five, four, three, two, and…”

He turned his back to the contestants and faced the hundreds of media pods that were aiming their visual instruments at the platform on the white sandy beach.

Extending his arms wide, he smiled in front of the cameras with svelte elegance.

“Good morning Galaxy! My name is Lorem Ipsum and I am your host for the event of the century, the Avgo Pageant!”

Canned shouts and applause came from speakers hidden somewhere around the cliff.

“Welcome to the sixth scheduled match of the Avgo Events, the Strength and Vitality tournament!”

Again, more canned shouts and applauses.

The space between the platform and the ocean was separated by a narrow strip of white sandy beach that could hold at most a hundred people.

How people could possible think that a real audience of thousands was standing in the ocean screaming and yelling, Candi could not understand.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, behind me stand the six Heavenly Avgo females who are ready to steal the hearts of all you viewers as well as the endless devotion of Crown Prince Byron.”

He turned towards the contestants on the dais.

“In first place, Candace Farrah!”

More canned screaming and applause rose up as a huge closeup visual of Candace appeared above her.

“Next up is Anaïse Paroles!”

Again, the canned screams and closeup popped up above the silicon girl.

This went on for all the women as he reintroduced each of them to the audience of visual hover pods until Lorem Ipsum reached Bethany Dresden.

Her face was bright red with embarrassment as she turned away and tried to hide the bald spots on her head with her hands.

But the canned shouts and applause had been preset, inadvertently sounding like jeers and laughter of a huge crowd of people.

There was also no way to hide from the closeup visual which hovered over her head. The live visual of a battered and bald red haired woman from the moons of Coraline had been beamed everywhere, exploding into the social media of the Galaxy.

“Ladies and Gentlemen. Might I remind everyone watching at this moment around the Galaxy. We have completed the ‘Face and Grace’ event yesterday, where the lovely and graceful Candace Farrah won by a fairly large margin.”

He cleared his throat.

“This event is solely judged upon ‘Strength and Vitality’ so the women are free to look as they please. Their only goal is to scale this cliff face and spread out in search of the beast of prey that is specified to them.”

Lorem Ipsum’s eyes grew excited.

“Each contestant must subdue and bring the detached head of their specific beast of prey to the platform located above us.”

A visual of the empty platform located above the Palisades Cliff appeared above the women.

“As you can see, Ladies and Gentlemen. There are only five dais on that platform and we have six contestants.”

“Once all five slots have been filled, the event will be closed and the contestant who fails to secure one of the dais will be eliminated from the Strength and Vitality event.”

He turned back to the contestants on the platform.

“Each of you will be picking out your beast of prey.”

Lorem Ipsum hovered over to the women and as before, pulled a box out from his ping-pong hover craft.

“If you will, please take one and show us what you picked out.”

He smiled and extended the box to Candi, at first position.

Candi stared into his eyes and reached into the box. The last time she had done this, she had no choice because she was in last position. This time, all six choices were hers to make.

Her fingers found the balls. They all felt the same. There was nothing in there that screamed out TAKE ME!!!

She randomly grabbed one and pulled it out, holding it up for all to see. The nonexistent audience gave a collective canned gasp, as if they were surprised.

In her hand was the ball with the image of a king cobra.

Lorem Ipsum grinned in that irritable manner, as if he could barely contain his delight in watching her dueling to the death with a giant venomous snake.

Anaïse Paroles, standing next to her reached into the box and pulled out a ball with the image of a grizzly bear. More gasps of surprise and excitement emanated from the imagined audience.

He moved onto Jenna who pulled out a boar and grinned with delight. Apparently, the boar looked to be an easy kill for her.

Bethany’s ball showed a lion. She heaved a sigh of relief, as if lions were not a huge challenge for her either.

Valeria raised her ball into the air with proud declaration. The image was of an Andean condor. It would be the only aerial fight of the Avgo event.

Helene, in last place, got the remaining ball with the image of a coyote. She stretched her mouth into that familiar easy-going grin which showed all her teeth.

Of the six predatory animals, it seemed she had gotten the easiest one to handle. To be fair, none of these animals looked easy to hunt and subdue, but some were more difficult than others.

Lorem Ipsum turned back to the visual pods with excitement in his eyes. He raised his arms in the air.

“Let the games—BEGIN!”