A Tournament So Soon

Master Hu shook his head. "It's impossible. Not so soon after the last!"

"Yes, I know," Lord Cinderbottom said. He snorted, and two little flames bobbed out of his nostrils, then receded back inside. "But, nevertheless, we have been challenged."

"The entire state?"

"Yes."

"For what?"

"For everything."

"What do you mean, for everything?"

"For all of it. For the whole shebang. Our best man against their best man for King and Country. Winner takes all."

"By whom?! Who could wager such a thing? Who could match your dominions, or our reserves of talent? We have the entire alumni body for the Peggle Academy on our side!"

Lord Cinderbottom sat for a moment, looking regal and powerful and contemplative, before he answered the Master's question. "I'm afraid the challenge was issued by Kat Tut."

"Oh, no," Master Hu replied. "Oh, no."

"Yes, I'm afraid so. She, of course, has the lands with which to wager."

"Yes," Master Hu said, nodding. "Of course. But..."

"Yes?" Lord Cindebottom said.

"Why does she think he possesses talent to match our own? Surely, she would be easily beaten in standard play by you or me, and dozens others, as well." Master Hu chuckled. "I believe even my secretary Tula could defeat him, and she only played in Tournament once!"

"Well," Lord Cinderbottom said, "that is the problem. You see, she has placed an additional constraint upon the match: no one who has previously participatd in the Tournament can play."

Master Hu's eyes widened. "Even one match?"

Lord Cinderbottom shook his head. "Even one."

Master Hu buried his head in his wings. "Who? Who? Who could we find to meet this challenge?"

The Lair of Kat Tut

Kat Tut reclined back on her enormous sofa and dropped pieces of kitty kibble into her mouth. They bounced off her teeth and into the bucket that was her open maw, and she smiled to herself and thought Extra Ball, though soon they would not earn her Extra Balls, but rather Bucket Bonuses. She was okay with this. It would mean competition, and she lived for competition.

Kat Tut chuckled. "It's a perfect plan, isn't it, my advisor?"

"Yes, Pharaoh."

"It will work, won't it?"

"Yes, Pharaoh.

"I have challenged them, and put a condition into the contract which prohibits Master Hu or Lord Cinderbottom from playing, and they were the only two that ever could have beaten me, and only those two if they got lucky."

"Yes, Pharaoh. No one else, and hardly them," the advisor said, though he knew this wasn't true. Kat Tut was a good player, but nothing close to Master Hu or Lord Cinderbottom. There were others that could have defeated her, too, like the magician, but he had disappeared years ago and no one had heard from him since, ever since the last tournament...

Still, it was good to humor the Pharaoh. Disagreeing with her could get you killed.

"And now, with your help, with your knowledge, plus my own natural skill, I shall defeat whatever measly opponent they could bring against me."

"Yes, Pharaoh."

"It really is an amazing plan, isn't it? I'm glad I thought of it."

She did not think of it! the advisor raged. I thought of it! But, no matter. Go along with what she says and wait until the time is right...

"With my Pyramid Power, plus the strength of your... what was it called?"

Renfield Pumpkin stepped out of the darkness. "Spooky Ball, Pharaoh."

"Yes, with your Spooky Ball plus my own abilities, I shall be UNSTOPPABLE!"

Kat Tut began to laugh, and the laughs turned into hissing and hacking, which continued until she was able to expell a hairball. "Sorry," she said. "I hate it when that happens."

"It is forgotten, Pharaoh."

A River Called Da Nile

Kat Tut closed her eyes and focused. She knew where she wanted the metal ball to go, and it would go where she wanted. She threw it.

It richocheted off an orange peg and smashed into a purple one. It bounced off the purple one and went careening into the air, toward a large cluster of blues. It bounced around in there for a bit, racking up points, before dropping onto another orance and bouncing off the rim of the bucket.

It hit another orange and then a green and shot downward. It was going to fall a few feet to the left of the bucket, and Kat Tut threw her arms into the air and screamed, "PYRAMID POWER!"

The bucket transformed into a pyramid. It covered half the playing field, and the ball bounced off its inclined stone side and smashed into another green.

This was the moment.

Kat Tut closed her eyes. Just like her advisor Renfield had said, now. Focus. Call upon the darkness of your soul and channel it toward the ball, possess the ball with this energy, control the ball, own the ball.

"SPOOKY BALL!" Kat Tut shouted.

Nothing happened.

The metal ball ricocheted off another peg and plummetted downward, missing the pyramid and splashing into the Nile River. "Zounds!" Kat Tut exclaimed. "Foiled again."

She turned and walked away from the river and her personal Peggle playing field. This was hopeless. She had been trying to conjure the Spooky Ball for weeks, with absolutely no results. Perhaps it was as the others said, and one could not channel another's special, even with their blessing and instruction. Perhaps this was futile. Perhaps she had deluded herself into thinking that she could win at all. Maybe she had made a horrible mistake, challenging the Empire above. Maybe she was about to lose her whole kingdom. Would they let her rescind her challenge? No, that was against the rules.

She was going to fail. All was lost.

Just then, a glowing green ball fell out of the sky and conked her in the head, knocking her unconscious. As she lay in the sands, staring up with her eyes open and blank, a grin crawled across her face: she had done it. She had called forth the Spooky Ball.

The Empire would be hers.