Jack and Larry jumped into the boxing ring. They put on a show of hopping about and dancing around each other. They flailed their arms as they sparred but never actually landed any punches. This was, after all, only for show. Larry had hatched a brilliant plan in order to scare off the hulk that wanted to fight Jack. He was going to pretend to be a pro boxer turned Jack's coach, and then he was going to make it look as if Jack knocked him out while they were practicing, hopefully scaring off the bully and getting him to change his mind about fighting Jack. Larry had told Jack to pull his punch earlier, but he knew he could make it look convincing by his reaction. Larry could sell anything, be it a crummy used car or a fake punch.

"He's watching!" Larry whispered to Jack. "Hit me!"

"Where?" Jack asked him.

"Anywhere. I'm getting tired." Larry huffed.

Larry backed up and Jack drew his arm back. Then, Jack stepped forward and drove his arm toward Larry. Unfortunately, Jack miscalculated the distance between himself and Larry and had stepped forward a little too far. His gloved fist ended up slamming at full force into Larry's face, causing his head to snap sharply to one side as Jack leaned into and followed through with the punch. Larry grunted in pain and surprise at the unexpected blow as stars exploded in his vision and pain shot throughout his head. He stumbled back. He should've known better than to box with the clumsiest guy he'd ever known, even if the aforementioned klutz was supposedly a boxer in his distant past.

Jack gasped and his blue eyes flew open in horror.

"Oh my God! I'm so sorry! Are you okay?!" Jack whispered to his friend. He was racked with guilt.

Larry slowly turned his head to look at Jack, a look of disbelief and pain on his face. He wobbled a little bit as if he was struggling to stay upright. He was pretty sure he just had a tooth knocked loose. He made a fuzzy mental note to himself to congratulate Jack on the impressive blow once he came to his senses.

"Oh, sure, Jack." Larry blinked and fixed him with a goofy, blurry eyed smile. "I'm just fine-"

Jack cringed apologetically. He could just see the cartoon birds flying around Larry's head. To Jack's utter surprise and shock, Larry then fell over and crashed onto the floor in a heap. Jack's jaw dropped. He hadn't hit Larry that hard, had he? As he surveyed his best friend sprawled out on the floor before him, he realized that he had.

"Um, are you okay?" Jack nervously repeated himself, stupidly asking the question to his unconscious pal. Not surprisingly, he received no answer.

"Tripper, come here a second." A voice called to him.

Jack looked up and saw that Biff Bower, the man he was due to fight, was leaning on the ropes and watching them from the outside edge of the ring with a satisfied smile on his face. In all of the chaos, Jack had forgotten that he had been watching them in the first place.

Trying to act nonchalant, Jack forced himself to walk away from Larry and he strolled up to Biff as casually as he could.

"Oh, are you still here?" Jack grinned cockily. "What did you want to say to me before?"

"I was going to say that we should call off the fight. But now that I see how good you are, I wouldn't dream of backing out now! I can't wait to tear you apart!" Biff informed him excitedly before abandoning Jack and going off to pummel a speed bag in preparation.

Jack's heart sunk. So much for Larry's plan. Jack now wanted nothing more than to punch himself out so that he could join his best friend in lala land. Sighing heavily, Jack turned around and made his way over to his still out cold buddy. He needed to wake him up and to tell him the bad news.

THE END