King Namor was noble enough to return the bow, especially after the showing I’d made. “Dynamo,” he greeted me shortly, having met me several times in conjunction with the FF, although I’d never gone to Atlantis. Of course, he’d also watched my recent vids, in addition to hearing reports of me manhandling Atlantean troopers.

“A word of unrelated advice on En Sabah Nur.” His slanted eyes narrowed at the name. He’d refused the challenge offered to him, on the grounds that I had not engaged him, and if Mr. Hill and Mr. Grimm chose to fight him, it meant nothing to him. “I believe you are classified as an Atlantean Mutant, right?” I asked him in a professional manner.

“That is true,” he agreed. Having little wings dripping aeropsi on his heels was kind of a giveaway.

“En Sabah Nur believes himself to be the ruler of all mutants, so there may be conflict between yourself and him in the future as he attempts to exert dominance over you.” His blue-grey eyes sparked in suppressed anger. “However, he is powered by cosmic energies and protected by armor and weaponry infused into him by the Celestials themselves. You will not be able to harm him with mortal weapons or pure brute strength.”

Before he could say anything, I continued, “I called on the power of Jarnbjorn, the Axe of Thor, to imbue my fists to neutralize that advantage of his. I will suggest that you request of Father Poseidon to anoint the Trident of Rulership he left your people with his blood, Blessing it to do the same.

“This will not help you now, but if he should come to Atlantis in the future, well, the two of you won’t be wearing Mercy Bands, and you can send him on his way.”

He considered me thoughtfully for a moment, then nodded slowly. “I will make the request after the tournament. I do not think the Father of Oceans will deny Atlantis such protection.” He brought his hands up, indicating readiness to fight. “Thank you for the recommendation. It will not affect our fight, however!”

I smiled in return. “No, it will not, Your Majesty.”

“FIGHT!”

------

He had nothing to stop my sticky-fu, and his Water Aura meant that he was approaching my enhanced Might, not exceeding it. Combined with Philosopher’s Might and Water Elemental Command, he was at an inferior level from the beginning. I had agility that he did not, and my command of sparkfoot exceeded his I’m-not-flying by a considerable margin.

Also, he really didn’t like beating on the adamantium covering my forearms, or like it when I hammered on him with it.

As this was my last serious fight, and he was a fairly fast and nimble opponent compared to most of those I’d fought, this also ended up being more of a tanking match. I blocked and parried more than I took his blows, of course, and Penetrate Damage Reduction meant every single blow I pounded into him was grinding into his flesh and bones, instead of dispersing across his body.

He had good reflexes, somewhere in the 30 range for reaction time, but I was sitting at a solid 50 for those, with the Red Eyes reading his attacks and combinations, and after alternating between making his footing very slippery and nailing him to the ground, he definitely had a time of it.

Still, he got in his punches, more than any of the others save Gilgamesh had. He was definitely ready for getting stuck, immediately trying to push or pull me into follow-up attacks, spinning or whirling to keep me at range from my own attempts to close in if appropriate, or attacking my arms if I was sticking to him.

But all that meant he was responding to me, and I was dictating the engagement. While extremely skilled at basic combat, he didn’t use any of the more advanced Profound styles. Even if Sun and Moon styles were all I really knew, they were still a notch higher than what he was using.

Eventually his arms were mostly paralyzed from me slamming his nerve junctions, his ribs were creaking and threatening to break on him with every rasping breath he was taking, and the number of blows to his breadbasket made every single inhalation a sucking pain.

He was stunned when I swept his feet and my foot axed him down for the first point, as sweeping was not something a swimmer or flier normally has to contend with. The second point was an elbow to the temple after a brutal series of blows to his solar plexus, dropping him to his knees stunned as I walked off the haymaker to my cheek.

The third point was a very precise frontal kick to the jaw as I nailed him to the ground with area Attract while holding onto one of his wet arms. If Mercy hadn’t been in effect, he would have lost a bunch of front teeth as he hit the ground after the kick.

“K-O Three and Match to Dynamo!” the referee called out in great satisfaction.

On the main Challenge Board for tomorrow, my name moved up to five from six, and King Namor’s dropped down a slot. Others would be challenging him now.

Ho, there was a woman in the top five, who wasn’t named Sama Rantha. I was satisfied with how well I’d done, and the cheers and applause being piped in meant I had a lot of people who approved of how I’d done it, too.

--------

I basically spent the rest of the day watching final pre-Challenge matches, as all the lines of combatants were ranked out by their performances. Since those who didn’t accept challenges and tried to hide their skill couldn’t compete, and the beings here were VERY good at measuring skill, hidden or otherwise, there weren’t going to be many dark horses at all.

Stamina in combat was one of the most prized attributes here, so the combats tomorrow were going to be a hell of a slog. Since everybody fought every round in an attempt to rise, if you were placed low by dark horsing and hiding your skills, you had a VERY long slog to get to the top.

The fighting would continue until everyone had someone above them who had beaten them, which could mean a LOT of fights. The #1 would continue defending their position until there was nobody in the top twenty who they had not beaten.

If you were in more than one line, that naturally meant twice as many fights. Stamina!

Red MJ (the announcers all pronounced it Em-ya) was in the top ten on both open hand and weapon for the lower tranche. She read as completely human, but there was no denying she was superhuman in all respects once she got to fighting, but wasn’t at the level of true Powered who could toss cars around and stuff.

Which didn’t mean she hadn’t been owning them in swordplay...

The Spiders had done well in the Powered line, but the rules that forced them to engage were their bane. Spiders did best with hit and run, tangling stuff up, and so on. While they could do the sticky-fu they’d learned from me, that wasn’t enough to stop a lot of the brawlers they were dealing with, especially among the Students.

Peter was strong enough to hit the top Twenty Powered Underlist in spite of that, but simply had problems dealing with the increased level of invulnerability as things progressed. The girls were bounced out earlier, and Nova wasn’t quite strong enough and tough enough to hang, either, since he didn’t have the skill or speed to make up for what he was still lacking in power.

There were several Widows and Shielders in the top twenty on both sides of the Skills Underlist, along with some of the best martial artists in the world.

Luke Cage and Danny Rand had shown up yesterday and thrown themselves into the ranking fights. Even the short time training had helped them both improve tremendously, although Luke didn’t make it into the top twenty on the Challenge Line. Danny scored top twenty in the Underline Unarmed List, basically representing K’un Lun there. I noted that martial artists from four of the Heavenly Cities had made it into the top twenty, also.

#1 on the Weapons Underlist was Red MJ, who notably had scored well up the Powered List and beaten several Students who should have cleaned her clock, as well as the hammer-wielding Thor. #2 was General Rogers and his mastery of the shield. Even England’s Black Knight was in there at #14, although he couldn’t use his famous Ebony Blade here, and directly trailing him was his rival the Swordsman at #15.

On the other side on the Unarmed List, Red MJ was at #4, General Rogers was at #1, a renowned Tribesman hero named Thunderbird was at #2, and Natasha Romanova was at #3. It was noteworthy that MJ hadn’t fought any of the three above her, and so was considered less adept in unarmed combat.

I considered that VERY amusing. Still, highly skilled Shielders and Widows dominated the pure martial artists, although the Tribes still had a very strong showing. It was noteworthy that the Mandarin’s Ten Rings, the Yellow Claw, and the Hand hadn’t managed to get anybody into the top twenty on either Underlist, much to their displeasure, although the Silver Samurai, an independent, had made the Weapons List.

Well, almost anyone. Shang Chi was at 20, just below Danny Rand at 19. It seemed the former had fled the Ten Rings his father worked for and undertaken studies in the Tribes, and he was a master of Wind and Fire styles now. He had plowed a path through many members of the Murim, and defeated at least one champion of the mystic cities, too.

Peggy was the only woman of the Shielders to make it into the final twenty on both Skill Underlists, to the surprise of nobody who actually knew her. The fact Red MJ was atop her husband on the Weapon Underlist was the big surprise there.

Draufganger’s triple-rapier style was certainly entertaining to watch, but highly dependent on his being able to teleport. Without it, Kurt didn’t have the speed or power to hang, although he certainly did try hard.

Quicksilver, Aurora, and a couple other speedsters had all run into their bane: people with reflexes fast enough to track them and skills enough to take them out with just one or two hits, which they often didn’t see coming. Thunder Claps, Quake Stomps, Flares, Wind Blasts, and similar things only had to incapacitate them for a second or two, and in fights at that level, they went down.

Most of the top twenty fought a dozen matches today, solidifying their positions and confirming their wins as they challenged and were challenged in turn.

I noted that daughter or descendant of Logan, Lora, had also made it onto the Unarmed Underlist, coming in at #7. She was probably gunning for MJ, who had pushed her off the top twenty Weapons list with a horribly one-sided fight of sword against wrist razors, forcing her to scrap all day to make it back up to #18 before the rankings closed at midnight.

It was a lot of fighting, and the galaxies were certainly getting an eyeful of different combat styles. Ki, Chi, Psi, Magic... everything except science (beyond pure technique) was on the table, as power armor and weapons weren’t allowed, which were the big science-side Buffs.

Wanda confirmed for us that there was literally no other planet known that had combatants using all four styles, potentially five, and doing it so well. While the human race wasn’t anything spectacular as a whole, the fact that there were individuals who could pull off what we were doing was definitely something that other races were looking at.

It made us a valuable resource, or great potential allies or future partners... or maybe conquerors, depending on who was looking at us.

No wonder the Kree and the Skrulls had been interested in us for so long, although simply being a species the Celestials were working on had doubtless piqued their interest.

En Sabah Nur received four beatdowns in a row. Juggernaut literally pummeled him to ‘death’. The Rock tore him apart with great energy and skill as spikes and blades chopped at him. The Mountain pummeled him AND tore him apart, using those spikes and blades to help him do it.

Hercules smashed Nur apart nearly as fast as I had, and that was with Nur on the lookout for the rapid kill. His fists were carved with bloody Runes as he ripped, tore, smashed, pounded, and rent his way through all of Nur’s Celestial body, impaling him several times on his own manifested spikes and blades as he did so, nailing him to the arena floor and really making a statement about what he thought of the guy.

Apocalypse fell to number seven, below Juggernaut and above Namor, who he had beaten soundly. I personally wondered how Champion was going to handle him, but the greatly humiliated Apocalypse had no stomach for trying to take on Primus, which was the first smart thought he’d had all day. Primus was just waiting to chop him into kibbles.

The Top Fifteen were set. Tomorrow’s fighting would start off with Champion taking on the hammerless Thor, who’d managed to brawl his way through the likes of Wonder Man and Colossus to grab fifteenth. Then would follow fights against She-Hulk, Hero, Atlas, The Hulk, Gilgamesh, the Abomination, Namor, Apocalypse, Juggernaut, me, The Rock, The Mountain, Hercules, and Primus.