One of the two sunglasses wearing men had been sitting at the desk.“Gooood morning boys and girls! It’s your favorite Arena host!” Said the blonde haired one. “For those that don’t know me yet, I’m Number one!” He posed to add a little flair to his song after so he cleared his throat returning to a normal mannerism. “Today marks the day of the Pre-elims!” He slammed his hands down on the desk in excitement. “For those who are first-time watchers, this is the part of the season where we slim down the numbers!

Number one clicked a button and showed a list of names, hundreds of names scrolled in an ascending order.

“Oooh, I can see a lot of familiar names here!” He sat up in his seat. “This is going to be nothing but HEAT!” He cleared his throat once more going back to his normal self. “I also see a name on here that I’m most certainly interested in seeing. And I’m sure some of you know who I’m talking about.” He gave the screen a wink.

After that the screen was muted, A red-haired girl cleaning glasses. Her uniform was the indication that she was a staff member of a local bar.

“God I hate his voice.” She said, putting another drink in front of Lilith. Turning around she racked one of the glasses on the shelf behind her, “I haven’t seen you drink this much in a long time. Since college?”

Lilith’s face showed nothing but displeasure, “It’s been a stressful few days.”

“Oh?” She turned around and went face to face with Lilith. “Tell me about it.”

Lilith took a large gulp. “Shut up, I don’t want to talk about it.” She slightly turned away from the bartender.

The bartender pulled back from the countertop, “You don’t? But I do. If you don’t I’ll find someone else to talk to.”

“Go ahead, just leave me to drink then.”

The bartender smiled with intent filled with malice as if she was expecting that answer. She turned her head and at to the very first person she saw. A burly looking biker. “Hey! Big guy! want to hear some stories about college girls being wasted?”

Lilith nearly spits out a mouthful. “Velm! Stop! I’ll talk!”

She snickered, “I knew you’d break. So what happened.”

“Last night I met a guy.”

Velm interrupted her, “Yeah, that’ll just look at your body. It’s absolutely sinful.”

“Shut up. It’s not like that” Lilith said before continuing her story. “I have no idea he was an evolved.”

“I don’t see the problem, in my opinion, I think that’s actually better.”

Ignoring her Lilith brought up another topic. “You remember that shady business three blocks away?”

“With that fat dude?”

“Yeah. I owed him quite a bit of money... I don’t owe any more.”

“So wait, You met an evolved and he paid off your debt? Sounds like a guy I’d give a chance.”

Just remembering the night made Lilith shudder a little. “He killed them, He killed every single one.”

“Oh. So that’s why there had been a lot of cops. I had thought they finally fucked up and left evidence to get busted.”

Lilith took another drink, “When I’m around him I can’t help but feel extremely nervous.”

Velm took the bottle from the biker and replaced it with another one, this one full. “So where is this knight in silver armor. I wanna know how deep you’re in right now.”

Lilith did nothing but pointed to the TV screen. Causing Velm to turn around fully to the screen. “Oh?” She unmuted the screen.

A hooded boy with nothing too striking of features stood with his hand in his pockets. He stood directly in front of his opponent. A man with an extravagant costume and red dyed hair, a common practice for Arena fighters, usually something used as a means for merchandise. They were both inside a tiled dome.

“You’re the one who fought that annoying as hell poison user, aren't you?”

“Yeah.”

He laughed. “Just because I don’t have to fight her this time around, I’ll give you a chance quit now and I won’t hurt you.”

“...”

“What was that? I’m gonna need you to speak up!” He cupped his hand around his ear.

“...no.”

“Don’t mistake my kindness. I will humiliate you, I’m not a weakling like Clarice or whatever her name was. I don’t need to hide behind cheap tricks.”

The dome fell revealing two things, The start of the match and the scene they’d have their fight in, today it was a heavily forested area.

In that instance, over twenty balls of condensed heat were shot into the ground where Nikos stood, for an added measure he launched another twenty, and just for the hell of it, he blew up the surrounding area.

Velm whistled, “Whew looks like your boyfriend didn’t even stand a chance against. Ablazing.”

Ablazing spoke up. “I gave you chance, should have taken it, kid.”

Out of the smoke catching Ablazing off guard was a large three-fingered hand that stretched almost twelve feet, The first two digits of the hand wrapped overtop his torso while the lower thumblike one secured the grip. The hand pushed out pinning him against a tree.

The force of the slam was enough to knock the wind out of him. “W-what.” The arm slammed him into another tree, causing blood to spurt from his mouth. The cracking of bones was covered up by the snapping of tree trunks and branches. Nikos lifted him five feet into the air and released him. The resulting fall left him on the ground sputtering out blood. It was unknown if he was still breathing.

Nikos who had still been in the smoke emerged without a single wound.

“I win.” Said, Nikos, as he turned to walk away.

“...c...m...ch..il..dev..” A whisper like voice sounded from the back of Nikos' head.

He turned back around to see nothing had changed. But the voice sounded like it was coming from the body of his opponent. He stepped closer to find that the voice became clearer.

“Ch..ild...de..vour.” The voice was clear in what it wanted. But Niko found himself unable to break away from the trance of this voice. In fact, it was almost like his body wasn’t his, his arm became smaller but changed to being more claw-like, With surgical precision, he tore the fragment from the body, it dissolved into the very skin that held it.

Velm looked at Lilith with a worried expression.