Posted on Friday, 11 June 1999

"Are you ready to GRUMBBBLLLLLEEEEEE?????????" The (New) First Announcer bellows into the mike.

"Pswswsz," The Second Announcer whispers.

"Oh! Right-io! ARE YOU READY TO MUMBLLLEEEEEEEE??"

"Are you an idiot? RUMBLE! RUMBLE! ARE YOU READY TO RUMBLLLLLEEEEE?????"

"Oh.....Yeah.....Sorry....." he takes a huge gulp of breath to yell again, but the other announcer claps his hand over his mouth to stop him.

"No, no! It's too late! You've ruined it all! Let's just get started, shall we?" He grabs the mike from the First Announcer's hand and continues. "Ladies and gentleman! Tonight we have a wonderful, scrumptious, heart-wrenching, stomach-curdling, blood-boiling, head-throbbing, knee-collapsing, clavicle-"

"Knee collapsing?" asks the Second announcer.

"Hey! Who's doin' the talkin' 'ere?" The Second Announcer has suddenly taken on a Brooklyn accent. "I says cullapsin', I means cullapsin'! Who's the dufus who couldn't do th' intro, huh bub? May I continue nows?"

The First Announcer nods sullenly, and starts to pout.

"Now as I said, ladies and gents! Over here in the first corner we have 'Spring to It, You'd Betta' Run Rabbit, Sista' Act Two, Back in the Habit, Air Force trained, SPRING!' Let's give it up, peoples!"

Wolf calls, cheers, claps, boo's, and hisses roar from the audience. Spring unrobes, and does flips the center of the mat, standing adjacent to the ruggedly handsome referee in full 'Xenia: Warrior Princess' attire, foaming at the mouth.

"And in the other corner, what do we have, ladies and gents? We've got 'Leah, the......The former Girl Scout, hopeless Ginger Rogers impersonata', Jazz singin', Tai-Bo Doah' Lady....yeah......" Cheers, wolf calls, whoops, screams, shouts, and even a few boo's and hisses escape the crowd. Leah unrobes and breaks into Tai-Bo warm up moves and a few tap steps, moving towards the center of the ring, where she finally stands still near the extremely hot kilt-wearing referee in her full spandex, body-builder, work-out attire, just like the Billy guy in the instruction video wears, but for a woman, with every muscle rippling (which there aren't many of).

"And, ladies and gents, the man we've all been wonderin' about, and the official referee, one manly man Jamey McLindsey, whom these two lovely ladies are fightin' ovah'....." Pushing a button on the mike, the First Announcer side notes, "What kinda name for a guy is Jamey? These two hotties fightin' ovah' a wuss, or whats?" he asks the Second Announcer.

"Hey numb-skull!" An audience member screams. "You're holding a cotton candy stick, not a mike! Your mike's on your shirt, we can all here ya!" A tortilla lands the First Announcer on the side of the head. The Second Announcer bursts out laughing, only to be smacked upside the head with a different tortilla by bored audience members.

"Can we get on with this?" Jamey whines.

"Yeah, yeah...Go officiate, ya momma's boy!" The First Announcer brushed him off.

"Ok, ladies!" Jamey exclaims. "First of all, I'd just like to say that I'm very honored that you both think so highly of me." Spring and Leah are now drooling, along audience members Cathy, Kathleen, LizM, Ann2, and numerous others. A certain Shawn guy is sitting in the front row, preparing to throw his first tortilla, and whoopin' it up for Spring-a-ling. A cute little girl is sitting wide-eyed and innocent (Yes, innocent and Spring's!) on the bench, munching tortillas, while Shawn tries to explain what's going on. Behind him are about twenty Air Force buffs. Sitting next to him is Edward Ferrars, being almost, if not quite as obnoxious as Shawn, for the sake of Leah.

"Hey!" Shawn exclaimed. "Aren't you supposed to be diggin' some Eleanor chick?"

"Yeah, but I'm mid-story with Leah, here. She's been really nice so far. Definitely not as mean as certain people, not to name any names, Peg, who calls me a weenie. Leah's always been solid. Her family Mafia's got my back!"

Shawn shrugs and chomps on his tortilla, while a group of Italian people in very Matrix-looking outfits enter the arena followed by some Italian wannabes under their protection. Every actual Italian is carrying a tortilla shooting potato gun.

"I am the Godmother," an Italian young woman with frizzy brown hair says hoarsely as she sits down next to Edward and lightly scratches her neck.

"Ed Ferrars. Your right hand woman is writing my story right now. We're tight."

The Godmother nods. "My son....You may call me.....Marisa......This...." she said, gesturing to a dark blond haired young woman sitting next to her, "is Bryony."

"Can we get back to the match yet?" Jamey whines. "You're supposed to be paying attention to me! Isn't this Deathmatch about me?"

"You may continue, my son," Marisa/Godmother allows.

"Finally! Ok. Like I was saying ladies--I'm honored. Anyway, since this match is about me, I'm laying down a few rules. No swearing," he looks sternly at Spring, "No biting or scratching," Jamey is now looking at Leah. "Now each of you ladies may contribute one rule. Leah?"

"I get to contribute? Cool! Ok.....Let's see......"

"Get on with it, Leah!"

"Ok, ok! No need to be bossy, Jamesey! No tickling!

"Tickling?"

"Yeah!"

"Whatever!" Jamey did the W with his hands. "Spring? Your contribution?" he raised a skeptical eyebrow and folded his arms across his chest.

"No taking hostages," she blew a quick kiss to Shawn and Olivia (who is no longer innocent, but being even louder than her father).

"Love you, honey!" Shawn shouted.

Leah smirks. "Hen-pecked," she mutters.

"What was that?" Spring demands threateningly.

"Hey! Hey! Ladies!" Jamey interrupts. "Save it for the match, I got a special new whistle just for this, and I wanna use it!"

"So blow it already!" Spring and Leah retort in unison.

"All right, all right!" Jamey raised the little silver whistle to his lips and blew. Nothing happened. No sound, no nothing. The auditorium was silent. "Aw, man! Mary!" he looked frantically into the crowd. "My whistle broke!"'

A pretty young woman hurried up to the ring and handed Jamey a new whistle. "There you go, honey," she said soothingly. She gave him a quick kiss and returned to her seat on the bleachers. Jamey blew the whistle again, which thankfully worked, and Spring and Leah went to work. Spring pursued savagely, and Leah tap danced away. The first blow occurred when Leah tripped over Spring's foot.

"Hey! That's not fair! You tripped me!"

"Not in the rules, hun. Get up and take it like a woman!"

"That's it! You asked for it!" Leah switched to Tai-Bo mode.

"Oh, Yeah?!"

A lot of swings and misses occurred, none of which caused any damage. Ten minutes later, Jamey started whining again.

"Hey! I thought you guys were fighting over me! No one's winning!"

A miss aimed kick on Leah's behalf hit Jamey in the stomach, knocking him over, heels in the air, kilt around the neck.

The audience roared, and Spring and Leah collapsed laughing.

"I knew it!" Spring yelled.

"I always wondered what was under there.....!" Leah giggled.

The ladies quickly helped their embarrassed ref up, though it took several tries, since they were still laughing. Once Jamey was righted, they put all funny matters aside and resumed fighting. More jabs, kicks, punches, and almost foul language came from the two women in the arena. A hard blow knocked them both to the far edges of the mat.

"Hiyah!" Spring yelled, as she flipped back to the center.

"Grr!" Leah met her there, but Spring paused.

"Gr?"

"Well....yeah! I mean...you said 'hiyah', what else is there to say? You can't say geronimo or eureka, that's just plain stupid."

"I'll tell ya what's stupid!" Some JERK yelled from the bleachers. He looked suspiciously like George Wickham. "This match! You're both fighting over a wuss! And on top of that, no one's winning!"

Leah and Spring look at each other.

"You can have him," they say together.

"No really! You can! I've got Shawn, and well....After meeting Jamey? You can have him. He's all yours!"

"Oh, no! You can have him! I insist! You and he will get along better, I swear!"

It continued on in this fashion before a Ninja Turtle entered the den.

"Leah? Are you almost ready to go?" the Ninja Turtle asked.

"Spring, I'm bored, and Olivia's asleep. Can we go yet?" Shawn complained.

"Mary can have him!" Spring and Leah decided, exasperated.

The arena cleared out, leaving only Spring, Shawn, Olivia, Leah, and the Ninja Turtle. They were all preparing to leave when Spring called Leah back.

"Hey Leah? Who's the reptile?"

"Who? Oh! Gabe!" The Ninja Turtle unmasked to reveal a nicely tanned, very buff, brown eyed young man, a year or two older than Leah. "Gabe, this is Spring. Spring, this is Gabe."

They shook hands, and Gabe offered, "I'd season this place with my usual puns, but I'm still recovering from day light savings."

"Good show, Leah!" Ed Ferrars jumped onto the stage and gave Leah a quick kiss. "Who's this?"

"This is Gabe. Gabe, this is Edward Ferrars."

"So this is the guy you're madly in love with, huh?"

Edward blushed and the two men shook hands. Gabe spontaneously broke into song. "It Had to be Hugh!! It Had to be Hugh!" he danced around, pulling Leah into some of his swing moves.

Gabe and Leah stopped dancing and singing and everyone turned at the sound of footsteps. They were just in time to see Mary and Jamey holding hands, skipping out the door. After a quick glance around, Spring, Shawn, and Olivia, Leah, Gabe, and Edward followed suit as they skipped off into the sunset.

"Oof!"

"Ow!"

"What the...?"

Spring reaches out her hand to touch the strange obstacle. "It's a glossy!" she exclaimed in surprise. "Duh! Mary and Jamey are fiction!"

Jamey and Mary became distant figures in the twilight, while everyone else groaned, realizing they had run into a stupid piece of paper. The six were suddenly standing in Leah's entryway, next to the computer. A colorful piece of paper finished printing momentarily. The silhouettes in the background looked surprisingly familiar.

"Wow. That was really stupid," Leah commented as she picked up the sunset print.

"That was worse than most of my jokes," Gabe the Ninja Turtle agreed.

"Here you go, Olivia! Something to remember your first deathmatch by......" Leah hands the picture to the cute little girl, then realizes something. "Uh.....Spring? Shawn? What are you doing in Illinois?"

Husband and wife look at each other and shrug.

"Looks like we'll be skipping home!" Spring said.

Leah, Gabe, and Edward settle down for a nice, quiet game of Hungry Hippo in their Ninja Turtle pjs, while Spring, Shawn, and Olivia skip off into the sunset, swinging their arms.

Five minutes later....

"Mommy? Are we there yet?"

THE END!