Uh-oh. Ruff setting up Tumble.
Demon drop from Tumble My goodness!
Wait, Quesa Poblana is back on her feet and she...
She seems to just be waiting in some kind of strange stance.
I... I don't think I've ever seen anything like this.
Yee-haw!
Ladies and gentlemen...
...what a stunning upset.
The rookie, Quesa Poblana, just sent Ruff & Tumble flying
with some kind of special move!
Taking a decisive victory in her GWC debut.
Man. She was so young here.
She was doing stuff at that age
people don't do their whole careers.
It's like her body was designed to be amazing at wrestling.
I wish I knew what happened to her.
How could something as great as wrestling ever make someone so...
...bitter.
Welp, you can worry about that another time.
Back to work.
Ooh, hold on.
An absolutely stunning turn of events.
Ruff & Tumble, tough break out there, guys.
Let's talk about that incredible move
Quesa Poblana just pulled off tonight.
- How... - "Incredible"? "Incredible"?
Now, I don't know what you call that thing,
but it sure as heck were no real wrestling.
The Quesa Poblana's making a mockery...
...of this whole darn organization using them cheap party tricks.
Heck, anyone can do that.
The GWC is for real wrestling.
Wait a minute, guys.
Are you suggesting you'd be able to pull off a move like that yourselves?
We're suggesting that the next time
we see you, Quesa Poblana, you gonna be sorry...
...'cause Ruff & Tumble are gonna figure out what you did.
Oh, yes, we are.
And then...
...it's gonna be your turn to go flying.
You hear me, Quesa Poblana?
- Huh. - What?
They said they'd figure out the Perfect Strike and use it on Aunt P.
Uh, isn't that what you're supposed to say
when you lose?
Why haven't I heard of these guys?
Whoa. They're GWC-sponsored.
Pretty impressive record, too.
They've even got a dojo close by.
Where are you going with this?
Well, Andy still hasn't been able to pull off the Perfect Strike.
What if these guys figured it out?
Could be worth at least seeing if we could talk to them.
Maybe we should pay 'em a visit.
Ugh. What a dump.
Where is everyone?
This is definitely the right place.
Psst.
What are you doing? Hide. They'll see you.
"They"? Who's "they"?
Attack!
- What the... - Who are you guys?
How dare you?
Silence your crusty mouths. We'll be asking the questions.
Now, who sent you?
Was it a Toe? Hmm?
What are you talking about?
Perhaps you'll feel more talkative with our leader.
Rumbleweed's famed master of the Perfect Strike,
the great Ruff!
Wait, Ruff?
Ruff's your leader?
Hey, we did it! We found him.
Does this look like we did it?
We're tied up in a warehouse.
It's the Toe. We're under attack!
Thank goodness. Some normal people.
Please, you guys got to save us. Those weirdos are...
Fools, we're not here to save you.
What? Why?
Because you are clearly new recruits of the Finger.
You will be brought to our leader to face punishment.
Your leader?
Rumbleweed's one true master of the Perfect Strike,
Tumble.
"The Toe, the Finger"? What is going on here?
Psst.
I'm gonna get you out of here.
I'll have you out in a second.
I just need to get these ropes loose.
There.
Come on, move! Now!
I tried to warn you.
Okay. Who are you and what is all this?
I'm Bertie.
And this is Rumbleweed.
This place used to be a wrestling destination.
People would come from all around to see Ruff & Tumble.
Life was good,
and then one day, it wasn't.
Who knows how or why, but all of a sudden,
Ruff & Tumble just hated each other.
And their hatred spilled over to their followers who worshipped them.
And then, well, wrestlers did what wrestlers do.
They became violent.
And the two sides,
one calling themselves the Finger Clan
and the other, the House of Toe...
...began attacking each other.
And they drove away businesses, residents.
Even my own parents were caught up in it.
Can't someone do something?
There's no one left.
And me... Well, I'm not a wrestler.
I'm too weak to do anything.
Anyways, you guys should probably move on yourselves.
Whatever you came here for, you won't find it.
This town's finished.
- Well, don't gotta tell me twice. - Ah!
Uh, Andy?
This feeling from this girl,
it's like a pit, a darkness.
And it's not just her.
It's this whole place.
It's... it's hopelessness.
Is it really right for us to just...
You're here all alone,
and you're saying we should just leave?
Andy, don't even...
I've decided.
Huh?
Andy...
I know, Mikey. There's something I have to do,
something important, and I only have two days left.
But this is important, too.
Bertie, I'm Andy.
These are my friends, Craig and Mikey.
And we're gonna help you take back your town.
What? Why?
- Yes. Why? - Ow!
'Cause it's the right thing to do.
Uh, oh, that's nice of you, but...
But the truth is, I'm probably just gonna leave town myself anyway.
Mikey, talk some sense into her.
Hmm...
Andy's right.
- We are gonna help Bertie save her town. - Huh?
But we'll do it with the power of journalism.
What?
No one knows why Ruff & Tumble started hating each other, right?
Well, the first step to fixing this town
is knowing what broke it in the first place.
Everyone has a story to tell.
If we let Ruff & Tumble tell theirs,
we'll learn how to end this conflict
in a nonviolent diplomatic fashion.
Mikey, you're...
You're both out of your mind!
- What's wrong with you? - These kids...
Maybe they could...
After the split,
they created separate dojos at the end of town,
and they never leave them.
And their followers won't let you inside.
You think journalism will get you past all that?
You Toe spies have the audacity to show your faces again?
Here on our turf?
Uh, is your plan happening yet, Mikey?
Yeah, 'cause this really don't feel like a plan.
It's okay. Just stay calm. Watch.
Actually, you got us.
We were only posing as members of the Toe earlier
because we're undercover journalists.
Explain yourself.
We've come to Rumbleweed to do a profile on the great Ruff.
We just wanted to lay low at first.
That's exactly what those Toe dogs would say.
Mikey.
Well, so deception...
Is that something you'd say the Toe often use against you?
Uh, of course. They're cowards.
Cowards who have thought of nothing
but making life miserable for us.
That's sounds awful.
How is he doing this?
It's called intentional listening.
It's an interviewing technique.
You give your subject space to talk,
then, you repeat back to them what they just said,
which makes them feel heard.
Both sides claim the other is the one who escalated the violence.
And they have evidence.
By earning their trust, we can find the truth.
They can't both be telling the truth.
Obviously, one of them is lying, right?
Sure doesn't seem like it.
Journalist boy!
The master has decided to grant you an audience.
Behold, he of the heavenly digits,
the mighty...
Push, push!
...Ruff!
- Push! - Push.
We're journalists.
We have a duty not to judge.
Our job is not to judge.
So, uh, Tumble,
maybe let's start with how all this came to be.
Hmm.
It all started with her.
Back in the day, me and Ruff, we was unstoppable.
Heck, we was about to crack the top 100.
And then,
this kid showed up.
Quesa Poblana.
We ain't never lost like that.
That move... Oh, it was... It was...
Power.
It was the first time we'd experienced real, true power.
Everything else we'd done up till that point, well...
We might as well be playing patty cake.
I devoted my life to getting better,
to figuring that thing out.
I looked for years,
till I finally realized
what was holding me back.
- Ruff. - Tumble.
It came to me in my darkest hour,
my lowest moment.
The truth.
The secret to that move, that Perfect Strike...
It was in the fingers.
So I created the Finger Clan,
a gathering of like-minded wrestlers
dedicated to mastering the upper digits.
A place where we might...
pursue the truths of ultimate power.
I had a revelation.
The secret to that wretched technique, the Perfect Strike...
It was in the toes.
But that fool Ruff couldn't see it.
And so I created this dojo, the House of Toe,
a place where wrestlers who seek true power...
...would discover its secrets...
by training in the way of the lower digits.
Wait. I'm sorry.
That's why you call yourselves the Toe and the Finger?
Because you divided wrestling into the upper and lower body?
That's why you guys are fighting?
The mysteries of the Toe are not to be trifled with.
Oh. Uh... What my associates mean is
it's just such an incredible tale.
So did you succeed?
Succeed?
You know, with Quesa Poblana.
Did you master her move and use it against her in a rematch?
Why would we do that?
Incredible.
You guys learned more about this conflict in one day than...
Well, than I have in years.
Are you serious?
All we found out is that these two washed-up delusional half-wits
are leading other delusional half-wits.
And... And they took wrestling,
this thing that's supposed to be pure and good,
and twisted it with their weird petty weirdness.
You're right.
Don't you guys see?
The power of journalism worked.
Just think about everything we learned.
The followers are zealots.
They're the ones engaging in the violence.
Ruff and Tumble may be the leaders
but their beef is just with each other.
Losing to Poblana made them lose their way,
and in trying to find it, they grasped onto whatever they could.
Even if it was something as silly as fingers and toes.
It may not seem like it,
but what's underneath all this is just hurt.
Huh?
Oh. I said, uh... That's interesting.
It's almost like if you could just, uh,
get them out of their dojos and away from their followers,
they could maybe just hash it out.
Ow!
Master!
How dare you interrupt my f--
Finger meditations?
Apologies, sir. But this has just come in
from the villain, Tumble.
Um...
Is this really gonna work?
They probably figured out the letters were fake.
Craig.
Excuse you. My forging skills are top-notch.
Tumble!
Ruff!
See, right on schedule.
Hey, Bertie isn't here.
Who cares? She probably left town already.
No. Craig, we did all this for her.
Someone should go get her.
Oh, come on. Why me?
Never doing anything nice again.
Don't worry. This is all gonna work out.
Once the leaders make peace,
their followers will have no choice but to follow suit.
We're really gonna help this place.
I hope so, Mikey.
Well, well, well.
You yellow-bellied old goose.
I always knew you'd come crawling back on your toes.
Oh, what the hell you talking about?
You're the one that caved.
I'm just surprised you wrote a letter.
I didn't know you could write.
Now you wait one-trick-a-pick-a-minute, Tumble.
I didn't send no letter. You did.
Are you calling me a liar?
All right, I see what this is.
- What are they doing? - They're not supposed to fight.
I had enough of your blustering.
I think it's about time I shut you up
with my Perfect Strike.
No, you the one gonna be shutting up.
My Perfect Strike here is strong enough to level this whole town.
Well, my Perfect Strike can bring down this whole county.
Uh...
That doesn't look anything like the Perfect Strike.
Master!
It was a trap, just as we suspected.
Apologies, Master Tumble.
But we knew those Finger cowards
would never be honorable enough to show up alone.
Looks like you in some real trouble, huh?
Ain't nobody scared of you.
You're as bad a wrestler as you was a husband.
They were married?
Okay, This is getting out of control.
Stop, everyone!
Everyone, stop!
The journalist?
Bertie! Yo!
Huh... Isn't that her parent's room?
Y'all set this up?
Yes. We thought if you just got together and talked,
you'd see how dumb this whole thing is.
Fingers, toes, upper body, lower body.
It's all stupid.
You wrestle with your whole body.
That's how it works.
That's number one.
And number 2, you two need to get over it.
You lost to Poblana. Then what?
You got divorced.
You quit your team.
You did all this.
Why?
Because you lost?
People lose.
Get over it!
You bald, jelly-legged gerbil.
I should have known you hired this scrawny reporter to sabotage me.
You lying old bat.
You the one hired them to undermine me.
Okay, this is...
Uh...
Bertie, you in here?
Whoa.
Weird. Someone broke into Bertie's house
and left a bunch of empty boxes of explosives.
Hello, idiot.