Part 5: Our first tournament

Norman, there's an official tournament this week.

Yes Holly, I know that. We've been discussing it for weeks now. Thank you.


I think it's time to see how Dirty holds up in a fight.


Dirt McGirt has little loyalty and may act confused, OK?

Remember when we found him in the woods?

You mean when he thought he was a mother squirrel and tried to nurse anything he could get close to?

Yeah. I don't think we have to worry about him being confused.




This is so exciting!

Yeah, just listen to how enthusiastic the announcer is.



You could cut the tension with a knife.



Oh, here's the event line-up. Every monster has to fight each of the other competitors. Whoever wins the most matches wins the cup. Do you want to give Dirt McGirt instructions?

Pfft. He's the monster, let him fight his own battles. Besides, I slipped him a few mushrooms backstage.



My boy's apparently fighting some kind of one-eyed fish thing.


According to the stat charts I had Holly swipe for me, fish thing's smarter than Dirty but sucks at everything else. Good thing this is a fight and not a cryptogram contest.


Fish thing opened its mouth, and tried to lick Dirt with the colossal tongue that came out. There are no words for how disgusted I am right now.


As it turns out, Dirty is some kind of canine ninja. He started backflipping on his hind legs, kicking fish thing in the eye each time.


Eventually, it died and and Dirt feasted on his... meat? Hey Holly, do eyeballs count as meat?

I think I'm going to be sick.


Dirty's next opponent was some sort of dog/lizard hybrid. He looks cool. I want one.


Sadly, the triceratops-looking dog is a weakling. I bet his back would break if I tried riding him like a horse. Not like Dirty, here.


As soon as the match began, Dirt sunk his teeth into the other dog's tough, leathery jugular. You'd think his taste for blood would have been satisfied after he ate his last opponent, but he's like some sort of bloodthirsty force of nature.


The time ran out before Dirt could finish the job. However, I don't think lizard-dog will be barking any time soon.


To decide who would win in the event of a time-out, the officials would measure how much blood each monster lost. You'd think that it would be hard to figure out which blood belonged to whom, not to mention collect the spilt blood that was absorbed in sand. But they found a way. It uses oversized novelty scales for some reason. At any rate, Dirt lost the least amount of blood, so he won the match. He then lept onto the scales and drank as much of the blood as he could before security broke out the tranquilizer darts.


About an hour later, the contest resumed. Dirty has one match left, and it's against a Taiwanese knockoff of Barney the dinosaur.


Just like all the others, Barney had better intelligence and little else. Man, if all the other monsters are like this, then Dirt will become like a retarded angel of death.


Even with the thorazine running through his system, Dirt's bloodlust shined through. Since he couldn't reach Barney's throat, he chomped onto his nuts. I swear I never taught him that move.


And again, time ran out before Dirty could finish the job. They had to resort to tasers to restrain him this time. Even with that, he managed to take out one guard.


Once he calmed down, Dirt just stood there, glaring at Barney. The dinosaur, now literally emasculated, cowered before his new master.


Yeah, thanks Mr. Excitement. Wait, what? We won?

We won! We actually did it! I'd kiss you if you weren't so creepy!

You did it, boy! You won! Come here, and give me a hug.


Um... On second thought, you stay right where you are.

I can't wait to see Dirt McGirt's fame status.

I can't wait to see the prize money.


That's it? $800? I guess it's better than having him pull shopping carts, but jeez.

Congratulations on your win. You can go on to the next level.

Uh. Thanks, Holly. I'll do just that. You haven't been eating the mushrooms Dirt dug up, have you?


At any rate, we somehow won! Rockin'. But now that all that frivolity is over, we still have the small matter of what we're going to do with Dirt this month. I'll have to let him rest, but he should still be able to handle a job or two. Plus there's the little matter of feeding him.



So what should Dirty do for this month?