I skillfully shifted an unlighted cigar stub from one corner of my mouth to the other, surveying the scene.  It was the day of the big tournament and the field was crowded.  All around was activity, camouflaged players milled about, each engaged in the glorious pre-game pass-time of B.S.  Next to me was Lazarus Longball our sharpshooter, his nose buried in a science fiction novel.  While I stood soaking in the ambiance, Grape Ape rolled up in his purple van, bringing 'Sweet' Charity Milquetoast with him.  The Sheikh's car was in its usual place, but as usual, he was nowhere to be seen.  That meant he was close.  "Okay we're all here," I said.  "Let's get registered and get our guns checked."

    Knowing that he would soon get to shoot paintballs Grape Ape chuckled.  a vaguely sinister sound issued from the ape man's huge, barrel chest 'Dahuh huh huh. . .'

    "Geez," Laz murmured, Charity backed away from the big man-monkey.
 
    "Alright big fella," I said trying to calm him down, "It's just the chrono check, don't go and pull that same stunt you pulled last year."  Last year Grape Ape had followed up his chrono check by 'Eliminating' everyone in the staging area.  It seems he mistook the sound of a leaking C.A. tank for the starting whistle.  It had cost me a small fortune in bribes to keep us from being run off the field that day, thankfully everyone had been wearing goggles.

    There was a line at the registration table.  It appeared that the guy who had set the tournament up hadn't arrived yet.  While we waited a battered mid-seventies Ford Pinto came rattling and banging up the 'dirt' road that lead to the field.  It should be noted that what we call 'dirt' in this part of the country is rightly called 'stone' in most other places.  A cloud of blue smoke thickened the air behind the Pinto as it rolled up to the owner's parking spot, sputtered, back-fired, and died.  When the smoke cleared a thin man in a greasy T-shirt stood across the table.  "Okay we're ready to begin registration," he announced.

    By Noon we had reached the table, without looking up the field operator asked, "Who are you?"

    "I'm Captain Amazing, and these are the Misfits."

    "Yeah, right.  Read this and sign the bottom, have your team do the same."

    I took five copies of the waiver and walked away, behind me I heard the field owner addressing the next person in line.  “Yeah, right.  Read this and sign the bottom, have your team do the same."  It was just one of those defining moments in time that always hang with you.  Hearing that familiar old phrase always sorta brought things home for me.

    I had Charity draw pictures to explain the rules to Grape-ape while I read the waiver aloud to the rest of the team, it read like the words of a song. ". . . No loading marbles into your hopper,  No tugging on Superman's Cape, No spitting into the wind, No pulling the mask off of the old Lone Ranger, and No messing around with Jim."  Jim, I took it, was the head referee, and the captain of the team that was favored to win today as well.  They hadn't counted on us being there.

    By three that afternoon we had given the rules a cursory look-over and where ready to proceed to the chrono station.  Laz, Charity, and two refs held Grape Ape while I loaded a single paintball into his gun to chrono it.  The lone ball echoed loudly within the cavernous space of the Team Megabucks Case-At-A-Time^tm Hopper.  I squeezed the trigger.  The muzzle-blast sent the chronograph tumbling and the violet paintball bore a hole through a hundred year old oak at the far end of the field.  I picked myself up, brushed off, and checked the chrono.  'Mach 3' I said to myself.  "Bad Grape Ape!  What have I told you about changing springs?"  Grape Ape began to wail, a truly heart-wrenching sound, and I pulled the truck-spring from his gun and replaced it with one from a ball-point pen.  A second chrono check showed the gun well within the field limits so I returned it to Grape Ape, with one last warning.  "If you change springs again I'm going to take away your constant air, you'll have to use a quick-change."  When you're talkin' about a six-barreled gatling paintball gun that can lay down three thousand balls per minute a quick-change becomes a torture device without equal.

    The big monkey's lip quivered, "Quick-change Bad!"

    "I know," I consoled, "but so are truck-springs."  I felt a tug at my sleeve.

    It was Charity, timid, her svelte frame drifted away from me like a ghost when I turned to face her.   Her tiny voice was just audible above the bustle of the afternoon’s activity.  "Excuse me, I'm really very sorry to bother you Captain, but would it be okay if I, Uh, well, used the chronograph to check my little paintgun?."

    Charity was really a sweet girl, and a real asset to the team, so I was careful to keep my incredibly masculine voice down when I addressed her.  Loud voices startled her.  pulling the cigar from my lips I spoke in honeyed tones, "Why certainly Charity, I'm sure everyone would be pleased if you would chronograph your little paintgun."

    She flushed and averted her eyes, a sight which would melt the hardest heart.  "Thank you Captain, I will try not to impose upon you any further today."

    I put the cigar back in my mouth forgetting myself, "No problem." said I as she walked to the chrono station.  I couldn't help but wonder where she had found a camouflage summer dress and wide brim hat.  Must be one of those specialty camouflage outlets I keep hearing about.  She stepped up to the chrono and produced a tiny paint-pistol from her garter belt holster with a blush.  I idly watched the chronograph readout.  After a few false tries she managed the nerve to fire it.

    "Pwinnnk!"

    'Pwinnnk,' thought I, 'Pwinnnk!, I heard the mother-scratching main-spring rattle!' My jaw dropped open as the paintball rolled out the end of her gun barrel and fell, slowly I might add, to land without a bounce on top of the chronograph.  The chronograph wheezed, coughed, and with the sound of an antique cash register displayed four big, flashing, zeros.

    "Goodness!  That should be about enough don't you think Mr. Referee?"

    I looked at the referee, the referee was looking at Charity's exposed thigh.  Being the problem solving type I rushed over, slapped the ref to his senses, and snatched the paintgun away from Charity.  "Is the tank full?" I asked.

    Charity shrank away "y-y-yes."

    Hmmm.  I opened it up, saw what appeared to be the filament from a lightbulb where the main-spring was supposed to be.  "Where'd you get this spring?"
 
    "From a lightbulb."

    "Doohwp!" I did my best Homer Simpson sending my cigar into the bushes, blew the spring out with a short breath, and searched around until I found the truck spring I had removed from Grape Ape's paintgun.  Re-chronoed the gun found it within field limits so I slapped the still staring ref again and handed the gun back to Charity.  "Don't take it out of it's holster again until we're on the field. . ." Looking back at the ref I turned up the volume. . .  OTHERWISE we may NEVER get to play."  I went to retrieve my cigar.  I was still hunting when I was interrupted by a sharp pain in my shoulder.  It was Grape Ape tapping me.  Using a nearby tree I popped my arm back into it's socket and said "What!"

    "Daaah, My sights are off."

    I knew it was just an excuse to fire his gun, Grape Ape aimed using a 'connect the dots' technique common among tournament players.  "You don't use the sights" I grumbled.

    Tears welled up in the big monkey's eyes.

    I thought for a moment, since Grape ape never used the sights anyway I couldn't see any harm in having them zeroed at one hundred and fifty yards.  "Why don't you have Laz help you?"

    "Dah, Longball having gun checked."

    I looked over at the chrono station, sure enough there was Laz, two hundred yards back from the chronograph reading the sci-fi book and waiting for his ball to reach the computer.  And I knew better than to have Charity help him, "Hey Sheikh, you busy?"

    "Yes" A voice answered from a nearby clump of bushes.

    "Think you could find my cigar?"

    "Got it right here Chief, head's up!"

    I caught the cigar, bit down on the end of it and turned to Grape Ape "Alright You win, let's go SET your sights."

    I followed the big monkey grudgingly as he capered up to the target range.  He bit the top off of his first case of the day and proceeded to cram the trademark purple balls into the hopper.  I plugged my ears, Grape Ape gave his battle-cry then locked down the trigger.  His gun made a noise comparable to an unmuffled two-cycle lawnmower engine at full throttle and painted the entire range shocking purple.  I turned around and counted heads to see how many players packed up their gear and went home.  Three whole teams were calling it a day.  "Little low, Big Guy," I said over my shoulder, "Turn the knob next to the direct feed clockwise two turns."

    "Duuuh, What clockwise?"

    I was still trading glances with some of the departing players, attitude is everything in this sport, and I’ve got one, that’s what my expression was saying.  "You know which way a clocks hands move." I reminded Grape Ape when the last of the drop-outs had departed.

    "Duh, Oh Yeah!, real slow."

    I pinched the bridge of my nose, that headache was coming back.  "That's right big guy, REAL slow."

    Grape Ape bit the top off another case, inserted his six barrel plugs and started dragging me by the collar toward the observation area.  I checked my gun as he drug me past the chrono station then plugged my barrel with the cigar stub, safety before pleasure, that was my motto.

    Lazarus and Charity were already at the observation area when we arrived.  As we sat down Charity spoke, "Have you seen the Sheikh?"  The entire crowd, their attention already rivetted on the lovely gal, burst out laughing.   It was the only sound any of them had made since she arrived on the field.

    "Very Funny."  Said a voice from the bushes.

    "You did chrono your gun didn't you?" I asked of the bushes.

    The response came from further up the hill, "Yes, while the judge was distracted."

    "Is that legal?"

    Another bush spoke "The printout is attached to my registration form."

    I was relieved, The Sheikh wasn't the cheatin' type but I didn't want anyone to have an open avenue to accuse us of being such.  Big tournament pressures could make decent folks fire their mouths off without first makin' sure their brains were loaded.  After all, there were six bucks worth of ribbons at stake today, that kind of temptation can corrupt a person.

    Our first game was against the Painted Stallions, it would be a standard center flag game, twenty minute time limit.  We took the field and awaited the whistle.  "Alright Charity, get your gun; Laz, put your bookmark in; Grape Ape, take yer barrel plugs out; Sheikh, cover anything that shows."

    I stood back, skylarking, waiting for the whistle, out of the corner of my eye I noticed something.  Charity, in her eagerness to get at the other team, had made the mistake of stepping into what would soon be Grape Ape's firing arc.  An area that encompassed pretty much everywhere.   I glanced at the lead judge, he was raising the whistle to his lips, there was no time for tact.  I grabbed Charity and we dropped to the ground as that lawnmower noise erupted over our heads.  Grape Ape's first burst defoliated every tree and bush within fifty yards of our position, for a fleeting instant I thought I glimpsed the Sheikh diving for an unstripped bush.  I put it out of my mind, must have been a ref.  I hadn't seen any of them all day either.  I got back to my feet, helped Charity up, mindful that all the local oxygen had been depleted by the release of CO2 from Grape Ape's gun.  For a moment it was quiet, my eyes were on Charity.

    Calmly she brushed the dust from her dress, giving Grape Ape a disapproving look, she straightened her hat.  Then one of the Painted Stallions made a dreadful mistake.  Seeing her standing in the open he fired at long range, sending a paintball through the branches above her head.  The ball broke covering Charity in a fine mist of paint.  It grew deathly quiet.  I plugged Laz's ears.  Charity turned to face down-field.  "W-w-why that shot was meant for m-me, they shot at ME!  Who the @$&%?! do they think they are?  Alright you (Portions Unprintable). . .What do you think about that!. . .Huh?. . .Well?. . .What do you think about that?"  Her voice near frenzy.

    Grape Ape blushed, I blinked, and a choking sound rose from a nearby bush.  Down field the Painted Stallions stood up from where they had taken cover, seeming to have forgotten about the game.  They exchanged glances and with a cry of rage and tears streaming down their faces they rushed at us.  To my own credit I hit one of them before Grape Ape 'cleaned-house'.  When it was done I took a few minutes to get Charity to settle down and stop firing.  We still had fifteen minutes to hang the flag.
 
    We breezed through the preliminaries without any major  problems.  There was one minor inconvenience.  During the third game, against Rub-Or-Ducks, Charity got hit.  After that I was forced to keep her locked up inside Grape Ape's van during the between game intervals.  She was positively livid.  The finals found us up against Ten-Ring Circus, a pro team renown for their ability to ‘light-up’ their opponents.  Yeah, that's what makes a good tournament team, thought I.  I had heard rumors that they could wipe a direct hit with their tongues, fire a semi with one hand, make rude gestures with the other, and still scream "Check Him!" over and over again.  I had my own theory that they could also dial their paintguns up with mental telepathy.   And I sure wasn’t looking forward to the sensation of being hit ten or more times before I could scream ‘Out’ if we lost this one.

    "Alright people, this one's for all the marbles," I said as we took to the field.

    "Dah, Marbles?"

    "It's an expression big fella," Laz explained, "It originated around the twenties when children wagered their own collections of marbles against the collections of other children in matches of marble shooting."

    "Marble-shooting Bad!"

    "No, big guy," I interjected.  "Not SHOOTING marbles, marble SHOOTING, it's another thing entirely.  It has nothing to do with paintball."

    Grape Ape's face went blank, anything that had nothing to do with paintball was utterly inconceivable to him.

    "Try not to think about it.  When you hear the whistle be sure you set Charity down before you start shootin', we don't want a repeat of last game."  We had nearly gotten a zillion point penalty for illegal use of cover when Grape Ape had played the entire game with Charity slung over his shoulder.  Had she not completely lost her temper and shot the big monkey herself, we would almost certainly have dropped to third place.  The ref let us off with the threat of 'a harsh castigation' if it happened again.  I had to spend the next half hour convincing Grape Ape that the ref wasn't going to be cutting anything off.
 
    The whistle blew and the air erupted with the sound of paintgun fire as Ten-Ring Circus opened up with their .68 Auto-Hosers.  I ducked down just in time as one of the Ten-Ring clowns painted my picture on the tree I had been standing in front of.  I missed part of the game when I became engrossed with the remarkable likeness.  I made a mental note to have him sign it later.  At just that moment he did, from about ten feet away.  Not to be out done I stuck my gun up and painted the pallet my opponent hid behind up like the Mona Lisa, complete with that mysterious smile.  He countered by making my cover up in a stunning rendition of the Sistine Chapel, accurate to the detail with layered color and fore-shortened images.  I got a little worried.  Scarcely audible above the din someone said Hit!, Hit!, Hit!, Hit! Hit! ten times.  I looked up and witnessed two referee's with cattle-prods and Mace forcing a paint-soaked Charity from the field.  This was not good.
 
    We just had to hold them for a little while, give The Sheikh enough time to work his way around behind them.  I popped up and signed my Mona Lisa.  "Dah, Hit, Dah, Hit, Dah hit. . ."  I swallowed hard as Grape ape, sobbing, left the field.  Then it happened.

    Above the cacophony of chattering air-guns a single shot chimed out, followed by another and then another.  The Sheikh.  Three of the Ten-Ring boys where leaving the field.  Then a horrendous burst of fire from the other team, yet this time no paintballs whizzed past my position.  There was a long silence.
 
                "Ahhh, <Choke>, Ahh  Hit,. . . Hit, hit, hit, hit, hit. . ."

    The Sheikh was out.  But he had done well, three of the Ten-Ringers were gone now.  Laz was lying down not far away.  It was even odds, two of us, two of them.  Suddenly we were pinned under a rainbow canopy of paint, one of them had opened fire.  I saw the other running for our flag base, flag in hand.  They had decided not to go for the max, we had put up too much resistance, but if they hung that flag they had it won.  “Laz!" I shouted.
 
    Laz put his bookmark in, set his book calmly aside, checked the wind gauge built into his thermal-imaging, telescopic, night scope.

    "LAZ!" I reminded.

    Laz idly glanced at the fleeing Ten-Ringer, now over a hundred yards distant and putting on yardage with every passing second.  "He's not in range yet, too close."  He pointed his custom 72 inch,  fluted, rifled, ported,  ceramic coated, stainless steel, two-piece, venturi-barrel skyward.
 
    My heart stopped beating as I waited for him to fire.  I saw him press the button and the micro-processor controlled motor began easing the trigger back slowly to avoid jostling the gun. I heard the hammer drop and the building whine as the paintball navigated its way through the maze of channels and grooves within the paintgun barrel.  Bursts of gas exited the barrel at intervals along its length as the ball passed.  A few agonizing seconds later the ball cleared the muzzle and emerged into the turbulence free vacuum created by powerful motors at the end of the barrel.  There was a faint vapor trail as the ball accelerated into the air and passed through the canopy of leaves over our heads.  I watched the sky for the tell-tale puff of white smoke as the paintballs second stage booster kicked in, then my eyes fell upon the fleeing Ten-ringer.  Two hundred yards away he took a staggering step then stopped and began to look sky-ward like a man who had been hit by a large raindrop from a clear blue sky.  A moment later a referee escorted him from the field.
 
    "Nice one Laz,"
 
    "Not my longest, but within the top 3 percent I would say."  Laz pulled a scientific calculator from his pocket and began to figure out the final percent.  "Top 2.7 actually."

    "Can you do anything about this last one?" I asked.

    "How far out is he?"

    "Ten feet."

    "Nope," Laz replied picking up his book, "too close."

    I ducked as another volley of paintballs ripped the top planks off of my pallet cover.   I was reminded of my theories on the Ten-Ringers mental telepathy.  "Can't you just shoot straight up and drop it in on him?"

    Without looking up Laz answered "Nope, he's west of us, Corialis Force would cause the ball to curve to the west resulting in a hit to the top third of his cover, I could do it if we were in South America, assuming of course, he was still west of us."
 
    "Great" I thought, I always knew that someday I would be able to blame the earth's rotational direction for costing me a big tournament.  "Can't you just fire a few hundred shots at him and pin him down?"
 
    "No, there are only three minutes of game-time left and it would take the balls at least that to achieve re-entry."

    "Drats," I exclaimed still looking wistfully at my portrait.  Then it hit me.  Luckily for me it bounced off.

    "Hey Ten Ring!"  I shouted. "That's a real fine likeness you painted of me but you forgot one thing, I don’t go ANYWHERE without my cigar."

    Ten Ring took the bait, stood up and tried adding a cigar to my portrait.  I let him have one right on the loader.  That's why they call me Amazing.  We hung the flag.