A roar went up from the viewing stands. The sudden shift from Banner's suicide, to the Hulk's appearance, to the ticket throw, to Selene's ambush was more than anyone had expected. The dramatic reversals sent a buzz through the crowd.
Marcus and the other vampires exchanged small smiles of relief. Marcus visibly relaxed his grip on the armrest. For a brief, tense moment when Shang Chi claimed the coin, they'd thought Selene was eliminated. If the siblings had combined their tickets, one could have advanced immediately. And with Selene having already lost to Tony Stark once, nobody expected her to defeat him.
Banner sat on the cool dirt in the shadows, his upper body exposed and still cooling from the transformation. His shirt was in tatters at his feet. He watched the scene unfold with a hollow, resigned acceptance.
He'd successfully forced the Hulk out, but the outcome was worse than doing nothing. The Hulk hadn't helped. He hadn't fought. He'd just surrendered Banner's only coin.
There was no chance of making a wish through the Dragon Balls now. His shoulders slumped. He'd have to work with Mr. Blue, find a purely scientific solution to eliminate the Hulk. Banner ran a hand over his face, wondering what wish the eventual winner would make. He just hoped it wouldn't be something catastrophic.
Shang Chi grunted, trying to push against the boot pinning his chest. Selene didn't even look strained. She knocked him unconscious with a single, precise punch to the temple. His body went limp.
She quickly searched his pockets, retrieved his remaining gold coin, and added it to her own. Three coins total. Selene had qualified for the finals.
"Brother!" Xialing screamed, charging to rescue him. She whipped her rope dart in a high-speed arc.
Selene caught the steel dart mid-swing, her gloved hand closing around it with a dull thud. She yanked Xialing off balance, pulling the rope from her grasp, and kicked her hard in the stomach in one fluid, economical motion.
Xialing flew backward and tumbled across the clearing. The siblings were helpless, like infants compared to Selene's enhanced abilities.
Selene didn't bother taking Xialing's last ticket. She'd qualified. That was all that mattered. She sprinted toward the island's center, moving at a superhuman speed that blurred her form between the trees. Now she just needed to reach the arena.
Xialing crashed hard into the underbrush and rolled, the wind knocked out of her. By the time she pushed herself up, wincing, Selene had vanished completely.
She rushed to her brother's side. Shang Chi lay still, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. Xialing's hands hovered over him, shaking, uncertain what to do.
A quiet sound of displaced air announced Smith's arrival. He descended from above, landing softly beside them.
"Xu Xialing, Xu Shang Chi has lost his eligibility. Leave him to me." His voice was calm, professional.
Xialing looked up, her face tight with anger and failure, but she nodded reluctantly and stepped back.
Smith looked toward the shadows of the trees. "Mr. Banner, your battle is over. Come with me."
Banner emerged from behind a large oak, his bare chest smudged with dirt, and walked over.
Smith grabbed the unconscious Shang Chi with one hand and Banner's arm with the other, launching straight up into the sky toward the transport aircraft. He deposited Shang Chi into an open medical pod, the lid hissing shut. Then he turned to Banner.
"Wait here. The preliminary round will end soon. I'll escort you and the other eliminated contestants to the viewing stands for the finals."
Shortly after Smith's aircraft departed, Tony's red and gold armor streaked over the forest canopy.
"JARVIS, scan for any remaining moving targets in this sector."
Inside the helmet, Tony watched the data scroll. The targeting computer locked onto a single heat signature almost immediately. It was Xialing, limping through the trees. Selene's attack had injured her severely, slowing her movement to a crawl.
Tony's HUD highlighted her position with a green bracket. He smiled. "Found you. My third ticket."
This time, Tony took no chances. Having been completely surprised by Selene's impossible speed, he opted for an overwhelming ranged assault. Small, segmented missile tubes deployed from his shoulder assemblies with a series of quiet clicks.
"Sir, this is your final micro-missile payload," JARVIS noted.
"Let's test her capabilities," Tony murmured. "Hope she's not another tough one."
The missiles launched, leaving smoking contrails.
High above, Smith, who had just dropped off Banner, saw the attack developing on his own monitor. He swore, shoving the aircraft's controls forward. He dove toward Xialing at maximum speed.
Xialing wasn't Selene. She was just human. A direct missile barrage would vaporize her.
Xialing heard the whistle and looked up, her eyes wide with terror.
Smith reached her a split second before impact, dropping between her and the incoming rockets. He fired multiple, rapid-fire energy blasts from his wrist gauntlets, detonating Tony's missiles prematurely.
The explosions bloomed in a chain reaction across the sky, a concussion of fire and sound. Even with Smith absorbing the brunt of the blast, the shockwave threw Xialing backward like a rag doll. She hit the ground hard, but she was alive.
Tony landed, his armor's servos hissing. His faceplate retracted, confusion evident on his face. "What's wrong, Smith? Why'd you interfere?"
Smith pointed at Xialing, who was coughing up blood, struggling to breathe. "You won, Tony. She couldn't survive your attack otherwise."
Tony's suit clanked as he landed beside Smith. "Looks like I'm advancing to the finals."
He walked over to where Xialing was slumped against a tree trunk, all the fight gone from her body. "Xu Xialing, please surrender your ticket."
Her face was pale, streaked with dirt. She pulled the single gold coin from her pocket. With a weak, defeated motion, she tossed it toward Tony.
Tony didn't catch it. He watched it land in the dirt at his feet, then bent and picked it up.
He held up all three coins for Smith to see. "I'm heading to the center arena. I'll leave this one to you."
Tony's faceplate sealed. His repulsors whined, and he launched skyward without another glance at Xialing.
In Tony's assessment, anyone competing in this tournament should be formidable. He hadn't expected two normal, baseline humans to enter. She couldn't even survive one micro-missile volley. She claimed a profound family heritage but was far inferior to that leather-clad vampire.
Xialing watched him go, her eyes burning with shame and bitter regret. She and Shang Chi had possessed two tickets between them. Both eliminated in the preliminaries. The failure was a physical weight, unbearable.
Smith gently lifted Xialing and flew her to the waiting transport aircraft. He barked an order to the staff inside. "Put Xu Xialing in the medical pod. After treatment, return both siblings to the base."
Selene and Tony reached the mountain summit arena, a large, open-air stone platform, at almost the same time.
Fox, now in a different outfit, stood at a central podium. Her voice amplified, booming across the viewing stands.
"Ladies and gentlemen, our preliminary round is over, and our finalists have been selected!"
The six smaller screens monitoring the island merged into one massive display.
"Our first finalist: Iron Man, Tony Stark!"
A wave of applause erupted. The screen lit up with a compilation of Tony's performance. His armor gleamed as he flew through the trees. Missile barrages carpeted the forest floor. Repulsor blasts demolished targets in bright flashes of blue energy.
A still image finally froze on the screen: Tony in mid-flight, weapons deployed, missiles streaking toward their unseen targets. It was the ultimate expression of technological superiority.