Round one of the best-out-of-three match began, and the action was more intense than anything I, or probably any elite warrior in the history of mankind, had experienced before. He chose Sub-Zero as his fighter, of course. And although it was a pretty badass move for me to select Raiden, that limited me to simple punches and kicks and blocks, because Sensei Billy and I both knew the tell to my special flying-torpedo move. If I even tried it, he’d just block me and beat my ass.

Plus—and I hate to admit this—the dude was fucking good. His reflexes, his tactics, his kinetics were all off the charts. Nothing seemed to rattle him. He was totally locked in. Pure focus, pure concentration. Pure silence.

And that was my in.

“Are you really gonna do that? Like, that’s your actual move right now?”

He was right in the middle of a combo attack—actually pretty nice—but out of the corner of my eye I saw him flinch.

“Shit, so damn predictable!” I shouted. “Look, look, look—I bet I know what you’re gonna do now, I can totally read your mind, you’re gonna do an ice blast… now!”

I mean, Sub-Zero only had two special moves, the slide and the ice blast, so it wasn’t exactly brain surgery—but that didn’t matter right now.

“You did it!” I howled. “YOU DID IT! See, I knew you were gonna do it. I knew it! I can read your mind, dude!”

His hand slipped on the joystick, and I got in a combo attack of my own.

“I saw that!” I said. “Your fucking hands are sweating!”

“Hey, watch the language!” his mom shouted from the back.

“Sorry, Mrs. C!” I called.

Then to him: “Honestly, I have no idea what your mom’s name is, but I was feeling ‘Mrs. C’ so I just went with it. Hey, does that stringy thin mustache of yours just look like pubes, or did you actually have that, like, surgically transplanted from your nether region?”

This guy got so annoyed, he actually reached up to check his damn mustache—and at that moment I caught him with an uppercut that sent him flying, blood spurting and spraying everywhere.

“FINISH HIM!” the announcer commanded.

And that’s what I did.

I’d won the first round, but I still had to win another to get best out of three. And then, yeah, I went and lost round two.

Don’t ask for details. There’s nothing interesting about losing.

“I meant to lose that one,” I said, smirking. “Seriously, I totally did. I just did it to mess with ya.”

And you know what? I said it so seriously, with such amazing, ridiculous confidence, with such massive, gigantic ten-year-old balls, that somewhere deep down I could tell he believed me. Shit, I almost believed myself.

“More speed! More violence! More intensity! More momentum!” I bellowed.