CONTINUED:
IN THE THUNDERDOME
the great beast Yaxley-Lennon is charging straight for Miffed Matt.
MATT'S P.O.V. - YAXLEY-LENNON
roaring in, the creature's fists going up high, higher, coming down with the force of a crashing asteroid.
CLOSE ON MATT
not moving. Waiting. Surely too long. Finally, right as the fists smash down, Matt leaps away. The fists slam into the earth, throwing up sand, and Yaxley-Lennon is temporarily staggered --
-- which opportunity Matt takes to unleash a flurry of punches into the beast's legs, thighs, torso.
It's the tickling of a gnat. Yaxley-Lennon barely notices. Looks down at Matt, twists --
-- and backhands the smaller man, hurling him clean across the arena.
Matt smashes into the cage's metal bars. Falls, winded.
Yaxley-Lennon springs, surprisingly agile, up into the air, coming down directly at his wounded prey.
Matt shakes the tweety-pies off just in time, rolls, and Yaxley-Lennon's knee comes down right where Matt's head was a moment before.
Matt tries to run, but Yaxley-Lennon grabs his leg, flings him as if he were a child's doll at the roof of the cage.
Matt thuds into the bars, cries in pain, but grasps on. He's clutching to the roof, looking down as Yaxley-Lennon gets a run up. Matt scrambles to hook his legs up and round the bars.
YAXLEY-LENNON
leaps, powerfully, as --
MATT
gets his legs through, lets go his arms, hangs down --
-- and grabs onto the speeding meat-bullet that is Yaxley Lennon, twists with the creatures momentum, lets go.
Yaxley-Lennon is fired, spinning, into the bars, which groan and buckle as they are struck by the force of the behemoth.
The impact would kill a lesser man. But Yaxley-Lennon shrugs it off. Gets back on his feet, rips off a buckled length of cage -- makes for a perfect lance -- and roars at the sky.
Yaxley-Lennon takes the lance and starts jabbing it at Matt, who's still up there clinging to the bars at the top of the cage.
Matt dodges the jabs, swings across the cage like monkey bars, arm over arm across the arena and down, dropping on the other side, pirouetting, coming to rest breathing heavily facing his opponent.
Yaxley-Lennon bellows mightily.
The creature claws the ground like a bull. Lowers its helmeted head. Raises the lance. Charges.
Matt yells and runs to meet the juggernaut.
FROM HIGH
as the two enemies close the space.
MATT
at the last moment feints, dives under the lance and right between the giant's legs --
-- but not fast enough. Yaxley-Lennon, dropping the lance, brings a brutish foot down as Matt passes, right into the smaller man's ankle.
A sickening crunch. Matt howls in anguish.
Yaxley-Lennon is relentless. That one second is all he needs. A huge fist thumps into Matt's chest, knocking half the life out of him. Another fist into his skull. One more, an uppercut, pushing out teeth and saliva and blood, the force arcing Matt upwards and backwards and over on himself.
Matt crashes to the ground, broken, destroyed.
Yaxley-Lennon stoops to pick up his lance, turns back to Matt, raises the lance to the heavens, ready to bring it down right through Matt's limp frame.
The Crowd, who have been going ballistic this whole time, pause in a pregnant silence.
MATT'S P.O.V. - YAXLEY-LENNON'S HELMET
and the noise coming from within. Now Matt is close to the beast, and there are no other sounds, he can hear a continuous buzzing, like that of a hornets' nest, emanating from the helmet.
What the hell? Matt's curiosity gives him the strength to rouse himself from the depths for one final gambit.
He dodges the downward thrust, grabs the lance in both hands, and with all the strength left in his body he jabs it back upwards, angling it under Yaxley-Lennon's helmet, prising the metal headpiece free and popping it off like a Pringle top.
Yaxley-Lennon goes flying backwards, but we follow --
THE HELMET
rolling, rolling across the sand. It comes to a halt facing up, a small electronic device visible in the lining inside the helmet, playing the National Anthem over and over on a loop.
MATT
takes the lance, leaning on it for support, and, dragging his injured foot, hobbles over to the downed Yaxley-Lennon. Raises the lance above his head, preparing for a finishing blow --
-- as Yaxley-Lennon rolls over onto his front.
CLOSE ON YAXLEY-LENNON'S FACE
grinning simply. It is the face of a child, naive, confused, blinking in the harsh lights of the arena.
YAXLEY-LENNON
Where da buzzy-buzzy go?
MATT'S FACE
utterly shocked.
YAXLEY-LENNON (CONT'D)
Buzzy-buzzy make me anggy. All da time buzzy-buzzy, no fink of other stuff.
UP IN THE V.I.P. BOX
Grand Humungous Timmartin is on his feet. He bellows down at the combatants.
TIMMARTIN
Yaxley-Lennon, our brave warrior, you almost have him. Just a little more!
YAXLEY-LENNON
Me no wanna. Me wanna sun lounge, play fly-planes, no do smashy-smash.
The Crowd is agast. But the day demands a victor.
ANNOUNCER
Well, Miffed Matt. It appears the final move must go to you. The Numberdome will have its five pounds of flesh. Strike, now.
CROWD
Finish him! Finish him!
Matt looks up at the Announcer, the crowd, at Timmartin and Farazze leering down from their pod. Looks at all of them, at the makeshift lance in his hand, slick with his own blood. Finally at Yaxley-Lennon. And --
-- he drops the lance in disgust. It rattles to the ground.
MATT
Get someone else to do your butchering for you.
ANNOUNCER
uncertain. Looking to Timmartin.
TIMMARTIN
pauses for a long beat. Sighs.
TIMMARTIN
So be it.
He nods, and a brawny LIEUTENANT steps forwards, raises a scavenged rifle, squeezes the trigger.
ON YAXLEY-LENNON
as the bullet pierces his heart. The huge man slumps, dead.
No one moves.
Then the crowd erupts. Screams, howls, commotion everywhere.
A second bullet thuds into the ground where Matt was standing --
-- but he's already on the move, running towards the gap in the cage where the metal bar that became the lance was torn off. As a third bullet ricochets off the cage beside him he ducks, pushes himself through the hole, and is away, into the chaos of the Spoon Town night.
CONTINUED ONE MORE TIME...
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