I personally expected that Champion would beat almost everyone, manage a tie against Hercules, and Primus would simply out-Stat him, but we’d see.

The footage we could get ahold of basically confirmed it, and Hercules was 1:3 to tie, 1:50 to actually win, based on what the aliens knew. Primus, however, got even odds to win, lose, or tie, which left me wondering who was managing the betting for such odds... and what Tryco Slatterus had up his back pocket.

He didn’t know Primus could use Core Techniques and Soul Magic, either, and I wondered how he planned to counter the absolute Might advantage of a god of Strength.

Speed would be the only way, slowly overwhelming Hercules’ ability to block and counter him. There was footage within the last thousand years showing Champion capable of some utterly fantastic hand speed, so he was definitely phoning it in most of the time on his personal fights, mentally handicapping himself to make things harder.

Well, we could only do what we could do. I expected the Underline fights to be much more interesting, really, rather than watching Champion stomp over most of Terra’s best brawlers, but that was life.

--------

“So, Dyna, what do you think of your odds if you could use everything?” Cindy asked me, a question on everyone’s minds.

It was late, time for bed, but most of those still up had no more fights, and I didn’t need much sleep.

“It depends if he started grabbing stuff, too. I’m sure he has some pretty awesome stuff in his personal armory.

“If he just goes out there with his fists, I’d beat him.” I had no doubts about it. As a matter of fact, I could probably win with one punch, if I so desired.

“No doubts?” Gwen asked curiously.

“None.” She had no idea of the power I could pull on actively, let alone that which I had stored up. Champion might be ungodly tough and strong, and extremely energy resistant at a cosmic level, but there was no way he could take what I could dish out repeatedly, let alone what I could dump on him all at once.

“Impressive,” MJ acknowledged. Everyone was now calling her Red or Emya now too, since the announcers were. Red Emya, the She-Devil with a Sword!

She’d beaten up Fandral today, one of the three best Asgardians at using a sword... and Sif, who was one of the other two. Only Balder, still back in Asgard, remained. Neither of the two had believed a mortal could beat them without an enchanted weapon or something, and now they knew better.

Fandral was naturally totally taken with her and had started pursuing her in a most passionate swashbuckling manner. Then she put up her Null, and the Asgardian found other fair maidens of many species to share his passions with, gods not liking it when all the magic went away.

“There’s a reason this competition is on his terms,” I said dryly. “When it comes down to it, you either need ultimate defense or ultimate offense to fight. Martial power does not grant the latter, and he doesn’t have the former, despite being who he is. So he just outlaws the higher-end offenses that might be a threat to him, and prospers at his level.”

All the girls present nodded. “Felt naked without my weapons,” muttered Jessica, sprawled on a couch, nursing some blue-colored drink from Sigma Centauri. Having no natural armor, she’d been allowed to wear a set of armor modeled on her own, but naturally with no power components to it, nor attached weapon systems. “No way to hurt anything at range. Totally unnatural.” And the contestants were REALLY good at beating her up when up close.

“That’s the nature of a tournament,” I agreed. “Still, you didn’t do bad, so console yourself. You were fighting people with ten and twenty years more dueling experience.”

Getting by on Stats only took you so far against real experts. It certainly wasn’t helping a lot of them against MJ.

It was also the difference between Fours and Fives in Melee prowess and a freaking Fourteen. None of the Spiders were primary Melees, after all. They did much better following the high-Skills, assassin-friendly Scout Class, which was so much friendlier out of combat in a world demanding ever more Skill points to spend. Influenced by them, Jessica was following the same route, albeit with different Skills.

The Spiders couldn’t fly, after all.

“Alright, to bed, you lot,” I shooed them off.

-----------

The air was festive, the announcers were going at it with the flavor text on a hundred channels, and the gamblers were all poised to see who was going to make the most money.

There were communication relays going straight to Divine Realms. Both Odin’s Court and Olympus were keeping proud eyes on what was going on here.

I’m sure Asgard was a bit miffed that Thor had only finished at fifteenth, but they didn’t specialize in open-hand combat, so, surprise, surprise. That he’d fallen to an enraged She-Hulk just indicated how powerful a pissed-off Gamma Mutate was.

Perhaps they thought that Thor could pull off a miracle, but no, that wasn’t going to and didn’t happen. Champion came in in all his blue-skinned, red-haired glory, towering a good meter over Thor. The two of them, god and Elder, exchanged some boasts or two with suitable bravado, and the fight began.

Yeah, Champion gave Thor a chance to show his stuff, getting off some powerful blows that exploded against Champion like bomb bursts, but he’d’ve had to go berserk to have anything resembling a chance.

Champion’s offense began with some punches that hit like steel girders, and sent Thor rocking across the floor, the big Elder following with light and balanced footwork at great speed. Thor rebounded off the boundary field into a crashing right that laid him low, earning a One Count from the ref.

Champion backed off to let him get up, and resumed the attack. Thor tried to block, but didn’t have the hand speed or technique. A blow to the breadbox doubled him over, an uppercut sent him up to the dome, crashing there and bouncing back down.

He was still flailing as “Two!” resounded, and Champion stepped up to hit him in mid-air. Thor shot across the entire hundred-meter ring like a cannonball, passed the Ring-Out circle, and the fight was over in about two and a half minutes.

Anyone with eyes could see that Champion had been phoning it in.

------

So the fights continued, Champion barely needing to take a rest between them.

He was impressed with She-Hulk’s tanking ability, and goaded her with disdainfully arrogant chauvinistic taunts to get her rage up to the level that had been able to take on Thor. He didn’t stop with the taunts as he started pummeling her, testing out her rising invulnerability and strength, taking a couple hits from her almost politely to showcase that she still wasn’t a match for him. Probably to her total astonishment, he slammed a blow down onto her head that drove her skull two inches into the proto-adamantium floor for a one-hit TKO.

From there it was a march up the rankings. The bets were not to see if he won, but how long he’d take. The more skilled the opponent, the longer he would let the bout last, gradually escalating his offense and defense until his opponent could no longer hit him or defend against him.

Hero lasted an honorable four minutes, pulling out every trick he knew to make it last that long, and then was just plain overwhelmed in a quick series of exchanges that ended up with him in a Ring-Out while semiconscious.

Atlas was almost disdainfully disposed of in two minutes for relying on his size and the strength from it... and got two broken legs out of it. Plainly, Champion had no problems fighting opponents who were even taller than he was, and if they didn’t know how to fight, he punished them for it.

The Hulk was actually pretty hyped up from his cheering section, and Champion was plenty willing to taunt the shit out of him to get a better fight.

Then he broke the Hulk down with some fantastic handwork, definitely infused with some anti-healing effect so that the Hulk couldn’t just mend the bruised muscles, paralyzed nerves, crushed throat, swelling eyes, and cracked bones. Still angry, but unable to think or move, the wavering and dazed Hulk was sent through the Ring Out at three and a half minutes, only a little slower than his cousin.

Gilgamesh actually got a full five-minute fight, just so Champion could test out his techniques, but it was obvious that someone who could take a full blow from an enraged Hulk wasn’t going to be harmed meaningfully by the champion of the Eternals. He was Three-Counted with a final double Thunder Clap slam to the ears that was certainly not a nod to someone else who had beaten him, but he was also the first one to walk out of the arena under his own power.

The Abomination earned himself a three-minute fight, his attempts to grapple turned against him with a fluidity that made the bigger Champion seem like he was half-serpentine or something as he wound up and twisted the smaller Gamma Mutate like a toy. By the end of it, Blonsky had all his limbs dislocated and most of his ribs broken as he lay there stunned on the ground in a TKO.

Namor made it to four minutes, and actually managed to land more blows than anyone else had up to that point. He also took some tremendous hits, and without his water boosting him, likely would have ended up with a crushed chest. He was Three-Counted with a massive backfist ending the fight, sending him flying across the arena, and not coincidentally ending up near the exit to the Atlantean delegation.

He was the second one to walk out of the arena on his own.

------

“It is good to see that you chose to join the battles,” Champion laughed deeply at En Sabah Nur, who had shifted form to loom just as tall as he was.

The infuriated Egyptian mutant lord could only glower back at him as he began to weaponize his body. “I aim to repay the indignity of this charade tenfold!” he swore in his ancient native tongue, which the Elder naturally had no trouble understanding. “Prepare to be humiliated, alien!” he cursed, blades and spikes erupting all around him.

Champion just smiled at the sight, undeterred, and also did not hesitate to go right on the attack when the ref called out “Fight!”

It was a blood-chilling display of strength and agility from the Elder. Champion was bounding between all those cabled limbs and striking tentacles, thrusting body-spikes and hacking limb-axes, not bothering to tank anything that might be the slightest bit dangerous. Precise blows shattered spikes and drove them through Nur’s vaunted armor, or tore off the axes and blades and used them to hack him open. Sweeping hands imbued with energies at least at the level of the Celestials ripped through Nur’s biotechnological form, shattering the cyberpathic connections and severing his control of his body bit by bit, even as he desperately kept trying to attack and track the bouncing blur of blue that was the Elder of the Universe with a ceaseless, rolling series of impaling spear-arms and sweeping body-scythes.

I watched En Sabah Nur end up a limbless head on half a chest, all of his scattered limbs and lower body refusing to respond to his commands, leaving him helpless on the floor.

Champion made no further moves and had no words for him, turning away with a wave of his hand as the referee announced the TKO. The cursing, swearing and totally helpless En Sabah Nur could only be dragged away, dismissed as the irrelevant thing that he was.

Still, he had lasted five minutes as Champion entertained himself with Nur’s bodymorphing. It was a decent show for an inferior combatant not there by choice.