Link to the original prompt by /u/PotentialSmell

There's no business like grow business, the dirtiest business I know—Farmer-Adept Pete's song, immediately before his death committing Grand Theft Wheelbarrow.

Strict rules governed all of the Gardening Association's competitions. Rules about comportment, sportsmanship, and fair play. Those rules might have even been enforced at one point.

Which is how I found myself hiding in the rafters of Green Thumb Joe's main warehouse and gardening center, hoping the guard dogs patrolling below didn't scent me. One seemed to pause for moment, and my breath stopped. I prayed desperately to Gaia, and a web of my goddess' power surrounded me, concealing me. Soon enough the dogs moved on, and I resumed my task.

Joe's main 'barn' was a sprawling, ten-acre edifice. It had been in the Green Thumb family for generations. Add-ons, additions, and renovations from several different centuries clashed, with no discernible order to the chaos. Huge hydroponic beds gurgled under specialized lights, next to a plot of land still being tilled by a team of oxen, growing crops from the nearby genetics laboratory nestled into a corner of a green mage's workroom.

But my goal lay right in the center of the complex. The boards were weather-worn and scarred. The roof peaked in an arrogant point, proclaiming the glory of the Green Thumb name to all who watched. The four sides glistened with a new coat of red coat. The original barn of the Green Thumbs, from when the family had been nothing but normal farmers working their sad plot of dirt.

Gaia willing, they would be returned to that state again. The barn was completely covered by the warehouse, and I made the five foot drop from the rafters to the barn roof. I froze, but no one seemed to hear me. I slunk to the point of the straw-thatched roof and swung in through the hayloft.

The loft was totally empty, and from the dust no one had been up here in years. The Green Thumbs had better places to store feed these days, but they still used the floor of the barn for their most important projects. Creeping to the railing, I could see my target given pride of place in the center of the barn. The cabbage was the only plant in the patch of dirt, and two acolytes stared at it, ready to work the instant anything went wrong, be it a bug or a weed. The cabbage was green and spherical and glossy and massive and beautiful.

I wasn't sure how long I stood staring before I managed to shake off my wonder. I was a good gardener, a very good one according to my peers, but I knew my limits. I couldn't grow a cabbage that perfect, not without the resources of one of the great gardening families.

Which is why I was cheating in the first place.

I drew my air gun from its holster, then cradled a single silver BB in the palm of my free hand. "Gaia," I half-whispered, half-mouthed, "Please curse this shot. As you bless all my crops, please curse those this strikes." A surge of power told me she'd listened, and I breathed a prayer of thanks, promising again to dedicate my victory in the competition to her.

With the acolytes observing, I had to be careful. I braced myself, inhaled, let out half the breath, then took the shot. The BB struck the garden plot right where the dirt met the cabbage. I waited, nerves humming with tension, but neither of the watchers noticed anything amiss. Finally, I let a smile cross my face as I began the long process of extracting myself from gardening center. Hidden just slightly underground, touching the roots, they'd never figure out why their precious cabbage was wilting, not until it was too late.

This time, I would win.

I awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of screams. I stumbled out of my bedroom, pulling my clothes on as I went. I was still trying to tighten my belt when I walked out the front of the farmhouse into chaos. Black-clad figures were engaged in skirmishing with my security forces in the corn patch. A troll had smashed my largest building, and was currently throwing tractors around as easily and carelessly as a child with snowballs, wreaking indiscriminate havoc. But only one thing was on my mind, and I ran towards my private barn, ignoring the mayhem around me.

Two of the intruders were swinging at the door with axes, and I sprinted yet faster. "Hey! Stop!" I wasn't sure how I'd fight two armed men, but with my sanctuary threatened, I was going to give it my best.

They only worked faster, chopping the door off its hinges a few seconds before I reached them and dashing inside. I passed between the bodies of the guards who had been protecting the building, pausing only long enough to take one of their swords.

Inside, my neatness had worked against me. The barn had no internal walls, and each of the plots of dirt had a large sign helpfully proclaiming the crop growing there. And the assailants were almost at the cabbages, so helpfully marked for them.

In desperation, I hit the light switch and the barn descended into darkness. I was willing to bet that I could navigate my own barn blind far, far better than these intruders.

"Greg, I can't see," a voice called.

"Never mind, just focus on the mission. Use your memory. Ten paces forward, then grope around for them," came the reply.

I used the noise to orient my myself and crept towards them.

"Broccoli here. More forward."

"Cauliflower by the feel of it. Back a row."

"Round and leafy, this must be- gurk." I stabbed the man the moment I was near enough. I was careful to ensure that the body did not land on my plants.

"Greg? Greg? Oh hell, oh hell, oh hell." The other man was panicking. Good.

Thwock. Thwock. Thwock. Thwock. Thwock. A wet, yet sharp, noise arose, and I stumbled in my haste to finish off the other man, fearing what it might mean.

Thwock. Thwock. Thwock. Thwock. Thwock.

But by the sound of it, he was on the opposite side of the garden bed, and I couldn't bring myself to step on the near-sacred dirt, forcing myself to circle around.

Thwock. Thwock. Thwock. Thwock. Thwo-urrrrgggghhhhh.

Again, I made sure that the body landed on a pathway, not the garden.

By the sound of things, my guards were winning outside. Which made sense, the whole attack had been nothing but a diversion to let these two planticidal maniacs take a shot at my cabbages. After some fumbling back to the entrance in the dark, I flipped the light switch on and gasped.

I ran to the cabbage patch and fell to my knees beside them. Sixteen beautiful orbs, grown in two rows of eight. Fifteen of them split in two, one still with the ax in the split. Some small comfort came to me when I saw that a single one had survived, but I allowed myself a moment of grief.

"My... cabbages," I said, and wept.

The bodies bore the dreaded tattoo of the Green Thumb. Of course I couldn't let this go unanswered, and I snuck into their warehouses again to spread weed seeds about, everywhere I could.

The next day, my remaining cabbage was kidnapped.

Some dragons owed me a favor over an emergency cilantro incident, and I decided this was at last the time to call that in. And so the next day, the Green Thumb Greenhouses were a smouldering ruin.

I'm still not sure how they stole a silo in retaliation.

But I am proud of the Leek Leak I managed to avenge myself.

The blight that followed proved they were higher in Demeter's favor than I had thought.

By the time the month had ended and the competition day was here, both of our properties were in ruins, and I met my opponent Green Thumb Joe face to face for the first time in the market square for the judgement. He had a farmer's face to him, with farmer's hands and farmer's clothes. The nobility always did marry for looks first and brains second, I thought, as I forced myself to smile and shake his hand.

The judging was... rough. I was forced to present a no better than decent cabbage. Sure, it was round, and large enough, but it was nothing truly special. It was something of a small comfort that Joe's was nearly identical. I'd gone against one of the great growers, and I'd held my own. No matter which of us won, I had nothing to be ashamed of this year.

It was a longer deliberation than usual, and the crowd of onlookers had swelled to twice the size by the time the judges stepped forth. The head judge cleared his throat, and silence fell immediately. "The winner this year, in a split decision, is..."

Fantasies of throttling the answer out of him flitted through my mind as he drew out the moment. Me or Joe? Me or Joe? Me or Joe?!

"...Timothy."

I raised my fist to cheer when it wasn't Joe's name, then the word sank in. Timothy? I thought.

"Timothy?!" Joe screamed. "Who- What- How-"

Some whippersnapper in the crowd shouted, "Yes! Yes, I won! Sweet victory!"

I watched the award ceremony in a daze. While Joe and I have been sniping at each other, some nobody had come in and stolen victory from under both our noses.

When the crowds started going home, Joe and I were left standing there. I'd imagined this moment. If I'd won, I had a speech prepared, about how the big growers were getting lazy and a new generation was moving up. If I'd lost, I'd practiced keeping a blank expression to put up with Joe's remarks. But this was outside any of my expectations.

After a time, Joe turned as if he were going to speak to me, but eventually wandered off without a word. I understood his confusion. At least I'd learned an important lesson. With all my focus on undermining the competition, someone who'd just worked hard and played fair had come out the ultimate winner.

Slowly, unconsciously, my feet started carrying me back to what was left of my farm, and the old song came to me. "There's no business like grow business, the dirtiest business I know."

Next year, I'd make sure to undermine Timothy too.

More of my stories at r/NobodysGaggle