Squash Stack Studio

Welcome to day two of this 2024 InterChron/CrossPlane Fencing Championship, brought to you by Hot Dog on Roller Skates, America’s Fastest (haha! get it?!) Hot Dog.

I am your host Emil Schnauzertrophy! With me is our lead camerawoman Barbara Brickleburger and the referee for the event, Antoine Bidness. We are broadcasting from the beautiful Salle du Brique.

If you joined us yesterday for the CrossPlane League elimination round, you know things got pretty intense here at Salle du Brique! Magic, rock monsters, magic beanstalks, fiendish octopi, skeleton monsters, a fire-breathing dragon, and some highly suspicious slipping accidents! Surprisingly little actual fencing. Here’s hoping today is a little more subdued. We’ve got some talented fencers competing today, so as long as everyone plays by the rules, we should be in for a real treat! Let’s meet the first teams!

First out is the team representing Earth’s past: Yestermorrow! Uh-oh, our referee Antoine Bidness is already shaking his head; it looks like Yestermorrow has fielded too many competitors! And … is that Captain Hook, Barbara? I don’t think a fictional character belongs in the InterChron League; only real figures from the past or future are allowed. Perhaps he’s hoping to meet his nemesis Peter Pan on the piste. We saw Peter yesterday faced off against Eris of the Minotheria, but they flew the coop, so to speak. If Captain Hook thinks he can slide under the referee’s radar pretending to be a historical pirate, he’s mistaken!

Behind Captain Hook come the rest of Yestermorrow, representing many different cultures and periods in our history, all the way back to our club-wielding, cave-dwelling ancestors. I see some very well-known figures, Barbara: with Captain Hook is another well-known pirate – ahem, privateer – Captain William Kidd and the equally famous duelist Inigo Montoya!

There’s General Subutai of the Mongol Horde, advisor to both Genghis Khan and Ögedei Khan, and beside him no less than Ramesses the Great of Egypt’s Nineteenth Dynasty, famous for inspiring Percy Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias.” Let’s hope his legacy here is greater than Shelley’s depiction!

Behind them, Decimus Dimachaerus, one of the greatest – though little-known – gladiators ever to fight in the arenas of Ancient Rome, and beside him, the dreaded French highwayman of the Seventeenth Century, Claude Duval.

Next come the ladies of the team, Artemisia I of Caria, queen of Halicarnassus in full battle regalia, in the company of Queen Aeliana of Atlantis. We are mightily privileged to have such royal guests today!

Bringing up the rear of this decidedly oversized but illustrious team are the mighty Saladin, founder of the Ayyubid Dynasty, and Shūsaku Narimasa Chiba, founder of the Hokushin Ittō-ryū school of kendo.

And the caveman? I’m told his name is … Bert Beatstick, Barbara. Well.

It’s a stirring sight, but the referee is right; Yestermorrow will have to choose its champions – and Captain Hook certainly won’t be one of them!

Next up is the BlueShift Fugitive Recovery Agency, a private company of bounty hunters representing Earth’s oppressive, totalitarian, and fascist future – wait a minute, Barbara! There’s a disturbance at the entrance to Salle du Brique, and it looks like someone else is coming out first! Is that – it is! It’s General Zod, Supreme Dictator of the future! What a pleasure to meet the ruthless tyrant to whom our descendants shall someday kneel! He’s flanked by some truly malevolent-looking killer robots with laser guns, so I guess we’d better give him the mic! General Zod, would you like to make some introductory remarks before the fascistic and no-doubt highly corrupt skiptracers who serve you as an extra-legal police force makes their entry?

“KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!”

Well, there you have it, folks! General Zod!

Okay, next out are the representatives of Team BlueShift! They’re quite a cosmopolitan bunch, representing a number of different alien species in addition to human.

Leading them is the enigmatic Azure Ray – you may know her story, Barbara – she actually began her life in this century, rose to fame as a supervillain, then fell through a time warp to the future, where she is now the CEO of BlueShift Fugitive Recovery Agency.

Flanking Azure Ray is her lieutenant Anastas Antonov, followed by Zed’l Bh’Khey’l – that’s a mouthful – and Zradez Jones – and forgive me, Barbara, I haven’t the faintest idea what planet these two herald from.

Bringing up the rear are Anastas Antonov’s younger brother Andrei and Bunny Squibb, rebellious daughter of Burton T. Squibb, leader of the Interstellar Coalition of Hamartian Ore Reclamation, and one of the wealthiest and most powerful businessmen in the bleak future awaiting our descendants.

Referee Antoine Bidness seems to have his reservations about this crew – maybe it’s the ubiquity of laser swords? I guess we’ll see how they fare on the piste against their much lower-tech rivals!