THE ARENA…
A blinding red light swallowed the ring, the sound came afterward.
A deafening, high-pitched blast tore through the arena, rattling the walls and drowning out every scream that had existed only moments before.
The light was so intense that everyone in the arena was forced to shield their eyes.
Hair whipped violently backward. Clothing snapped in the sudden wind.
Dust and fragments of canvas erupted from the ring as the shockwave tore across it. The ropes violently snapped against their posts, stretching farther than they ever should have been able to.
Then, one of the ropes gave out completely. It recoiled across the arena before crashing against the floor.
For several seconds…nobody spoke.
The red light slowly faded, the wind died. The dust began settling, and what remained was silence. A horrible, unnatural silence.
Prisoners stared toward the ring. Nobody knew what they were looking at. Nobody seemed willing to breathe.
Then Shirley's eyes widened. "…Tucker?"
Tucker was still standing. Somehow.
His body remained upright, but only barely. His back was slumped forward, his head hanging slightly, blood trickled from his scalp and down the side of his face.
Cuts covered his arms, chest, and abdomen. Blood had soaked through parts of his clothing, while several sections of his shorts had been ripped apart by the force of the attack.
A long scrape ran across his lower abdomen, blood slowly dripping from it.
His hair was completely disheveled, his fists hung loosely at his sides.
But it was his eyes that terrified Shirley the most. They were open…yet there was almost nothing behind them.
His pupils had rolled so far upward that barely any color remained.
He wasn't moving. He wasn't speaking. He wasn't even reacting. It looked as though his body had simply forgotten how to fall…or more so, refuse to.
Shirley's mouth opened slightly. "…Tucker…?"
Nothing.
The announcer stood frozen. The crowd remained completely silent.
Even the prisoners who had been fighting moments earlier had stopped to stare.
Then, a breath broke the silence.
CH2.
He was still standing too, his chest rose and fell violently.
His right arm hung at his side. It looked completely drained. The red aura that had surrounded it was gone. The muscles in the arm trembled uncontrollably, his fingers barely able to move.
The veins stood out against his skin, his entire body looked different.
Not simply tired.
Drained.
His face was covered in bruises and cuts, blood running down from his forehead and across his cheek, his clothes were torn in several places.
And somehow, he looked older. As if that single attack had aged him by twenty years.
CH2 stared at Tucker.
He took another heavy breath. "…Hah…"
But Tucker didn't respond, CH2's eyes narrowed.
Then footsteps echoed across the canvas.
A man wearing a striped shirt and black pants climbed into the ring.
Nobody stopped him, nobody questioned him. At this point, everyone assumed the same thing.
The referee.
He slowly approached Tucker. The man studied him for several seconds. "Tucker?"
No response.
The referee reached forward and gently touched Tucker's wrist.
His fingers searched for a pulse. Then, his expression changed, his eyes widened.
He immediately checked again, slower this time.
More carefully.
The arena remained completely silent. The referee looked up.
And for the first time since entering the ring…he looked genuinely afraid.
THE PRISON — MYNISTRIA
The presidential car finally came to a stop.
Mengu practically launched himself out of the vehicle before the driver had even fully opened the door.
"FIGHT NIGHT!"
He stretched his arms toward the enormous prison before him.
The structure towered over the surrounding city, a monstrous fortress of blackened stone and rusted metal. Massive walls surrounded it on every side, topped with watchtowers and rows of barbed wire.
Floodlights illuminated the outer walls.
Guards stood at every entrance.
Large metal pipes ran along the prison's exterior, occasionally releasing clouds of steam into the night.
Even from outside, the place felt alive but dead.
Machines rumbled somewhere beneath the ground. Distant screams occasionally echoed through the walls. And beneath all of it came the faint, unmistakable roar of thousands of prisoners.
The Fight Night crowd.
Mengu's face lit up.
He practically marched toward the entrance. "Finally!" he shouted. "I've been away from my arena for far too long!"
Diamond stepped out of the car.
D1 followed.
The moment Mengu was several steps ahead of them, Diamond grabbed D1's arm. "Wait."
D1 stopped.
Mengu continued walking, completely oblivious.
Diamond glanced around to make sure nobody was listening.
Then she lowered her voice. "While he's distracted…" D1 looked at her, "…we free everyone."
D1's expression changed. "Everyone?"
"Everyone from the Ascension Gala who survived." Diamond's eyes narrowed. "Anyone who's worth saving. Our allies. The people who were captured. Anyone we can get out."
D1 looked toward the prison. "You mean…"
Diamond nodded. "Your rings."
D1's fingers curled slightly.
The gray rings were capable of far more than simple teleportation. They could open a way for people to be held in the holding place before being teleported, but doing it on this scale?
D1 swallowed. "…Diamond, I don't know if I can."
Diamond turned toward her.
D1 continued quietly. "I've never tried moving that many people at once. I don't even know if I'm ready for something like this."
Diamond stared at her for a moment. Then placed a hand on her shoulder. "You don't have to do it perfectly."
D1 looked at her.
"You just have to do it," Diamond said.
D1 glanced toward Mengu.
He was already halfway to the entrance, practically skipping. "Come on!" Mengu shouted without turning around. "I'M NOT MISSING A SECOND OF THIS!"
Diamond smirked. "See?"
D1 frowned. "See what?"
"He's already distracted." Diamond answered.
Mengu disappeared through the prison entrance.
Diamond's expression became serious again. "We get them out while he's watching the fight."
D1 looked toward the prison. "And if he finds us?"
Diamond's hand slowly curled into a fist. "Then we improvise."
D1 hesitated. "And if that doesn't work?"
Diamond looked toward the entrance.
Her expression hardened. "Then I kill Mengu myself."
D1's eyes widened.
Diamond smiled faintly. "But let's hope it doesn't come to that."
She started walking.
After a moment, D1 followed, her hands balling up into a fist beside her, slightly trembling.
THE ARENA…
Tucker's head felt as though it were spinning.
A ringing filled his ears, growing louder with every passing second. His vision blurred, unable to focus on anything around him.
But slowly…everything began to fade.
It felt as though his entire existence was being squeezed into a single point, his body, his thoughts, his memories, all of it compressed together until there was nothing left.
For several seconds, it felt as though time itself had become ancient.
Hundreds of years old.
Still naive. Still confused about its own existence. There was no physical connection.
Nowhere to look. Nowhere to stand.
Tucker was simply…drifting.
Alone.
Then, gray figures began to emerge from the void.
At first, there were only three.
Their bodies possessed strange, almost ethereal shapes, but the light radiating from them was so brilliant that Tucker instinctively raised his arms to shield his eyes.
The three figures began to move.
They formed effortlessly, their bodies multiplying and intertwining with one another.
One became three, three became dozens, and dozens became hundreds.
Dozens became hundreds.
Until they all seemed to merge into something far greater.
Then, a voice spoke.
The light dimmed. Tucker slowly lowered his arms.
Before him stood a figure. Except he wasn't alone. Behind him was another figure, and behind that figure, another.
And another.
And another.
The shadows continued backward for what seemed like thousands of figures, forming an endless chain with no visible beginning or end.
It resembled a family tree stretching infinitely into the darkness.
At the very front stood an old man.
His hair was gray and silver, spiking in a style strangely similar to Tucker's.
His eyes were a piercing blue. His skin was pale.
Tucker stared at him. "…Who are you? Where am I?"
The older man regarded him sternly.
He wore a long purple robe that covered his entire body, "It does not matter where you are. For that is the least of thee's worries."
Tucker's eyes widened. He tried to speak again. Nothing came out.
Then one of the shadows behind the old man spoke. "Fear not, Tucker, for we are here to aid thee, not to harm thee. Be at ease."
Tucker stared at the countless figures behind him.
They seemed connected. Like generations upon generations of the same existence.
Another shadow spoke. "Hath he truly the making of an heir? One so feeble as this?"
Tucker's eyes widened further.
Then another voice emerged from the endless shadows. "Ne sois point si impoli. Accueille notre invité."
Tucker's expression changed with every sentence. He couldn't understand what was happening.
The old man in purple finally raised his voice. "Calm the chatter."
The shadows fell silent. "Tucker Fetcher Riley, we are the only things keeping you from visiting death's door itself."
The old man's eyes narrowed. "But the question is…"
A shadow from somewhere deep within the endless line interrupted him. "Dost thou wish to return?"
The old man slowly turned his head. He looked annoyed. "I was supposed to say that!"
Silence.
The thousands of shadows offered no response.
Tucker stared at them. He shook his head.
Was this a dream? Had he actually been hit by CH2's attack?
Was he…dead?
"Did I really get hit by it..?" Tucker whispered. His voice trembled, "Am I…dead?"
He looked between the old man and the countless shadows. "I don't really understand what you guys are saying but…I wanna go back."
His voice became more desperate. "I wanna be with Shirley!" Tears began gathering in his eyes, "There's things for me there! I need…I need to…I promis—"
His voice cracked. "I…I said…"
The words became tangled together. He couldn't finish the thought. Tears rolled down his cheeks.
The old man stared at him.
Then, in a surprisingly gentle voice, he said: "Wipe those tears from your eyes."
Tucker looked up.
Then, a loud, authoritative voice rang out from somewhere deep within the thousands of shadows.
"Me paenitet nos te diutius retinere non poutines. Perge in via tua; victoriam videbis. Inter folia autumni victoriam tuam invenies. Vale nunc, Tucker Fetcher Riley; iterum conveniemus."
The words echoed through the endless void.
Tucker barely had time to comprehend what he had heard.
Then, everything vanished.
It felt as though something had swallowed him whole.
And then…spit him back out.
Reality returned all at once.