Somewhere near Limbo----

Peak Box, VIP room 02,

"Oh come on, let's make a few bets. It'll be fun." he whined as he faced Tim and Saki.

"Enough, Travis" Malko finally spoke. He hadn't said a word since he had come into the room up until this point. He had decided that not thinking about whatever was going to happen was the best way to deal with this. So he had simply watched the various qualifying matches. Now each stadium had only 4 participants remaining.

As he simply watched the three competitions, he had devoted all his attention to the participants and their methods. He was sure there would be some hint of Travis' plan visible. But as much as he focused, he couldn't find it.

The competition for Fulcrum members in Stadium 3 had been pretty much the same. Two sections had their winner decided by achieving the target goal and two had been reduced to last man standing wins.

The competition for Sharp End members was still going on in Stadium 2 but the fights that he had witnessed were quite normal.

As for the competition for Grey Matter, it too seemed to be progressing normally. Though the format was new, he hadn't seen anything that caught his attention. The types of operatives had been more or less the same as usual. Only #28 had caught his attention for attempting to revitalize the scout type operative but he had not succeeded. Malko made a note to check on the man to figure out his progress. Though participant identities were not revealed unless they got first place, any of the data could be accessed by any him or the heads-of-department.

As he stole a glance at the subordinate who had earned the code-name Jester before he himself had become a head of Fulcrum in the past, he thought about what the man had done to get such a name.

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Stadium 1, Staging Area 1

Bink sat in his room with his tools spread out when there was a knock on his door. As he slid all his tools into his backpack quickly, he took out his special lighter and kept it in his left hand.

Satisfied that he was prepared, he called out, "Yes, come in."

As the door to his private room opened, he watched the waitress bring the food he had ordered in. He gestured to the now empty table and she wordlessly began placing the various dishes in front of him. While he eyed the dishes, he kept her in focus using his peripheral vision.

Once she had finished serving the dishes, she took a look at him and began to leave. But just as she was about to step through the door, she heard a loud rumbling. She looked around and saw the man at the table turn beet red. Giggling a bit, she left and closed the door.

Having seen her leave, slipped his right hand out of his pocket and put the item into the backpack as well. His face instantly turned back to its normal complexion. The item in his right hand was a recorder with several different audio clips recorded onto it. He frequently used the noises on it to test people around him. It had started out as one of the few quirks he had but after it saved his life twice, he made it a habit.

He took out a fork and a test tube from his backpack and began taking small pieces from the various dishes and put it into the test tube using the fork. As he waited for the reaction to the test, he took out his tablet and read through the updates on the rest of the tournament. As he swirled the test tube one last time, he began to turn the page on the tablet and froze. The test tube had turned blue, indicating a compound sedative that assembled itself from the various dishes.

He immediately flicked open his lighter and took stock of his surroundings. He pressed a nother button on the side of the lighter and a small nedle emerged from the bottom of the lighter. He was just about to plunge it into his thigh when his tablet pinged with a message. He paused and looked around warily as he opened it up to read. His eyes widened as he read what message told him to do.

He waited for a while and then put out his lighter. Then he thought some more and shrugged and began eating all the food.

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Stadium 3, Staging Area 2,

As the announcer called out the 5 minute countdown to the end of the match, there were only two competitors left in the fake environment. The task was a simple capture the flag type game where the flag was one of the dummy bots of the participant's squad. Except that they had to kill the flag while protecting their own. And all four remaining competitors had been put in together into the same arena. Participants #1 and #20 had already been disqualified by stray shots from #15's erratic shooting.

It had taken all of Rashida's patience not to just win the match and be declared champion. As she watched the poor fellow flailing his gun about, her phone bleeped causing her to dodge the spray of bullets which swept the position she had just left. As she relocated, she looked at the phone she knew she had switched off earlier in the day and read the message that nearly got her shot.

Reading through the message, her eyebrow twitched as she wondered how this message had arrived with perfect timing. She sighed and adjusted the bot she had been carrying on her back, the 'flag'. She slipped him of her back and held t it front of her like shield. And then switched off the phone making it beep with a power-down tone. Then she braced herself as bullets began flying her way.

To her chagrin, none of the bullets hit the bot in front of her but two ripped into her left arm. As she shrugged off the pain and performed surgery on the wounds using her ability, she watched as #15 took a closer look at the area he had just fired at and took aim at the bot he could see. Within a split-second, he took aim and tracked the bot as Rashida flung it to the left while she flung herself to the right. And let loose a long stream of bullets at the bot.

Despite his shoddy marksmanship, 3 of the bullets blew sizable holes through the bot but he did not notice that his gun was now out of commission, the result of one string Rashida sent his way as he stopped firing at the bot. If he tried to fire the gun at her now, it would backfire and blow up in his hands. As she watched him find her a few meters away from the bot he had just gunned down, she felt a cold thrill run through her as he lined up his sights on her.

A moment later, there was a shrill scream that resounded in Stadium 3 as an announcement sounded out, "#26 has been eliminated, and this Tournaments Fulcrum Champion is #15, Arnold Ungler! Congratulations Arnold!"

As Rashida watched the field medics crowd around the 'champion' and his mangled hands, she chuckled once and walked out of the stadium towards the address she had received during the match. It was only once she turned in her NV band, that people who passed by her felt an ominous air around the small smiling woman who seemed to be humming her way down the road.

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Stadium 1, Staging Area 2

#9 sat in a chair, having watched most of the matches on a nearby by screen to get hints as to her possible opponents and their styles of fighting. She had already identified three participants who could be problem. #7 was in her group and used a variety of firearms in an extremely efficient manner but she had already found a way through that method. #18 was a weird one using tonfas and getting through every fight with one hit. She felt something off about him but had decided to drag out the fight if she got to him since his fights seemed to be too short. #21 she knew very well. That jerk was cruising through his opponents. Still, he was #18's problem in the next match. Nobody from group 4 had interested her and her own group had been trash.

As she went through her playlist and music settings, she put on her clasp-style headphones and entered a world of silence. She sighed in pleasure at the lack of noise. Gemma had been born with an extremely keen sense of hearing to the point where it could interfere with her daily life. And during fights, the ambient noises could sometime save her from an unanticipated attack or cripple her due to volume of sound. So she had developed her taste in music and learned every possible move she could. Her style of fighting twisted these moves into the rhythm of any song she listened to.

This did limit her due to the fact that any experienced combatant who also liked music might pick on the rhythm she used in combat but she had never encountered that till date. And she had applied the same strategy to her ability 'Quartz Body'. The ability allowed her to change her body into quartz. She had used it to unleash devastating strikes.

Recently though , she studied the mineral in her off time and discovered that with practice and knowledge of the environment she could also use it to phase in and out most types of earth and rocks. Even more surprisingly, she was able to make use of less well known property of quartz called piezoelectricity to generate small charges of electricity. It couldn't shock anyone, but it could be stored and it helped with recoil. The stored charge could then conversely be released to create more force. It was a minor application but one she had started to love.

As she got her playlist started, she saw that it was her turn up next against #7 and she walked into the Arena,

----Tut----

He kept staring at his hands as though they were going to fall off and disappear any moment. He'd won every match with one hit and he could feel himself surging with energy. He still hadn't taken off his disguise and he was surprised at how calm he had been in each fight. Everything had gone smoothly with no plan B type of strategy even needed. Three fights back to back within a few seconds.

"When it rains, it pours. No wait, is this what it’s like to be strong?" he wondered. He shook his head as he watched the first semifinal match. #9 reminded him of someone though he just couldn't place the name. And #7 was nowhere close to winning. #9 dodged every shot and had already landed several blows. #7 was struggling to keep and was almost about to fire a point-blank shot on #9's ribs, when #9 seemed to slip down in an odd manner causing the shot to be miss by a hair. and then #7 got knocked out by a beautiful uppercut.

And just like that, Tut realized that he would have to beat Gemma if he got through the finals. He'd seen and felt that same uppercut last year and after watching it replayed over and over recognized it immediately. He then switched on his own phone and brought up the previous fight of his next opponent. This guy was pretty good at his techniques but overtime someone came close to really landing a solid strike on him, they'd mysteriously weaken the punch and he'd counter them. Recalling the folder he had been given and the offer inside it, he bit his lips and pushed down his desire to fight Gemma again and got through the fact that he'd have to lose this match.

As the announcement for his match came up, he waited for a minute before leaving the room and dropped off his NV band at a desk near the canteen. As he exited the stadium, he heard the announcement disqualifying him and sighed.

His phone trilled and he opened it eagerly and read the message he had been sent.

Putting the phone back into his pocket, he started walking towards the residential area.

---Gemma---

"F***ING HELLFIRE!! I just got done with a fight and I have to go back in again?" Gemma exclaimed at the referee.

"Well, the other fighter is ready and waived their rest period."

"Because he won by default!!!"

"Either way, you have five minutes or else you forfeit." and the referee walked away.

Her plan was now ruined because of that stupid #18 ditching his fight. The job offer had specified that she needed to get second place but once she found out that she would fight him, she had decided to beat 'him' up and then forfeit. But now she wasn't sure she could beat Ian while she was close to empty.

She desperately looked through her playlist for a song that would get her through this. Finally she found the one song she hadn't listened to ever since she first started creating her own fighting style. She set it to loop continuously and walked into the arena.

She could almost make out that picture-perfect smile through the blur the NV band created. He was wielding a bo staff. Seeing the staff, she put on her knuckle dusters and immediately took a stance. As the announcer rang the gong, she stood there without moving while Ian started twirling the staff lazily and circled around to her flank.

As he got into position and began leaning forward, the first few bars of the song began playing and she slipped into that familiar trance-like state. She dodged his initial few strikes with few subtle moves and continued moving slowly towards Ian with long strides and casually sent a few 1-2 punches his way. he blocked the majority of them while getting pushed back. as the song launched into its second section, her strikes were laced with even spaced kicks alongside the punches with an occasional flurry of jabs here and there. The few swings of his staff were calmly brushed aside before she continued her assault.

Two minutes of this and she suddenly started barraging him with jabs and light kicks which then switched into strong stroking strikes that made him feel chills. This pattern stopped suddenly as she suddenly doing a slower version of the Ali shuffle and feinted several times and then made a few full swings that made him retreat as he felt the force from the air disturbed.

And then she began increasing the force of the blows progressively once, twice thrice and then suddenly started lashing out almost indiscriminately and caught him on his torso several times. Keeping him on the defensive, this new barrage lasted for almost a minutes before it began to peter out as she seemed to lose steam.

As he finally moved forward, he finally activated his ability but just at that moment Gemma slipped past his staff in an almost magical use of footwork and sunk her fist deep into his gut.

Then she seemed to come out of her trance. As she looked at the scene before her, the fatigue hit her and to the surprise of the entire audience, she collapsed while watching Ian desperately hold onto his last meal as it threatened to burst out. But to his credit, he kept it all in and stayed standing.

A few minutes later, she heard a loud voice announcing Ian as the Sharp End Champion for the Tournament. But she barely heard it as she stared at the song that was still playing on her phone. She sighed, "Guess I'm still not capable of Queen." She blinked as the familiar tone rang out from her phone showing a new message with directions and instructions.

And she closed her eyes thinking of the man who had visited her in the gym and what he had told her about 'What ifs'.

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Do review/comment.

I would like to dedicate this chapter to my dog Rover, 17 years old and the most handsome and weird dog I ever loved. I miss you already. Your howling went perfectly with the rhapsody.

Spoiler : Rover