Since spiders were icky, Neon left Atrax for last and moved onto WhoCares instead. The translucent cog spun, rapidly turning into a gate that swallowed his vision whole.
Though this was his second rodeo, the gut-drop of being somewhere and then nowhere wasn’t any easier, consciousness pouring out of one vessel and into an intangible one. Regardless of whatever comfort familiarity failed to give him, the simulation assembled itself around him in a rush of cold white before long.
Pristine snow. Mountains, spreading vastly with all the indifference of a postcard. Would’ve been beautiful, maybe, if not for the fact that the epicenter of his vantage point moved at such breakneck speed that appreciating the scenery ended up being a bit of a non-starter.
And, uh… They were one hell of a character indeed…
[Contestant 21, Something.]
[They/Them. Team WhoCares. Veteran. Convict.]
Neon’s brain struggled to keep up. His anchored sight blitzed through the mountain terrain in the wake of a single figure, cutting through with a forward momentum so relentless it barely constituted running —uphill, downhill, neither made difference.
They were less a person and more like a ballistic event shaped like one. A laser arrow aimed somewhere far off, entirely uninterested in whatever distance remained.
He had to blink a couple times to parse the sight, one half of his attention taken by the impossible speed, and the other pulled by the outfit worn by Something.
Because that armor demanded its due. That much was unavoidable.
It was an insectoid black bodysuit with chitin-like texture, reinforced in overlapping panels of segmented hex plates that breathed and resettled under each stride. Yellow-red lines ran across the chest and wrists, matching the colours of an oversized belt as well as a long scarf-like cascade of digital lights descending from the shoulders. These fanned dramatically, trailing behind like a banner that answered to physics only when they felt like it.
Compound crimson lenses dominated the upper parts of a smooth helmet, and that was about as much as Something offered in the ways of an expression. Whatever waited below the visor, the suit had already decided the world had no business knowing. It gave nothing away. Offered nothing but trajectory. Nothing but speed.
And yet somewhere beneath the weird get-up, Neon clocked a low sound, almost imperceptible when pitted against the gusts of wind and the chaos of motion. A clumsy attempt at a triumphant rhythm with its own melodic cadence.
Seemed to be like… Something was humming their own theme song…
There was also the way they ran. Which was —gosh there was no way to put this tactfully, was there?— a little dorky, to say the least.
In all his 21-years of life, Neon had never seen such a… Sincere way of running. Arms pumping with full commitment. Too much commitment, even. Chin tucked. Fingers stretched. Elbows wide. Scarf flaring on every straightaway as if a primary school kid had envisioned its movements.
Neon found himself arrested by Something for more than just a few seconds. It was just so ridiculously earnest, that he found himself almost charmed by it all. But stop. He had to think this properly.
Blurry as it might be, the environment gave him the lucky break he needed to ground his mind. Something vaulted a ridge without slowing, caught air, then landed cleanly. The descending slopes of snow gave way to blunt rock, and then rock gave way to sand. Desert, suddenly. A different biome.
Changing terrains didn’t slow Something for a second. Their feet kept darting through these newfound dunes as if they weren’t even worth acknowledging. A weirdo on a mission… —That’s when it clicked for Neon.
Something moved in a direct line, direct and unwavering. Their aim? Obviously the designated marks on the map.
This simple deduction brought along a somehow even scarier prospect along with it. Using his own team’s forgotten targets as a reference, rivals likely spawned at opposite ends of the larger arena, and therefore…
He felt his blood going a few degrees colder. There was no universe where Something had just started moving. Nah, they’d been at it for who knew how long. Hours, surely, and without anything as close as consideration to look winded despite their speed.
Just… How? How could such a thing be humanly possible?
Nomine came to mind. He had also displayed capabilities beyond the reasonable. Moved too quickly, endured blows and fire and explosions barely wincing. Was it their augments? Their equipment? Or could there be something more fundamental behind it, a threshold that veterans had crossed at some point that rookies like him couldn’t even see yet?
The distinction felt important, because he had to operate at this level eventually too. At some point, one way or another —be it through stolen or bought or leveled means. He wouldn’t let himself lag behind forever.
But the daunting part of that promise could wait for now. Something’s stride changed in posture, and Neon quickly understood the reason. What began as small shapes on the horizon began to coalesce into bracing, tense silhouettes of two contestants clad in orange jumpsuits.
[Contestant 68, Imperio.]
[He/Him. Team Imperio. Rookie. Convict.]
[Contestant 49, Tora.]
[She/Her. Team Imperio. Rookie. Convict.]
A tinge of sympathy sank on Neon’s chest, even if he already knew the way this ended. How could anyone even start to prepare for an enemy like this? Nomine and him… Would they have managed any better in their shoes?
Neon anticipated an incoming bloodbath. A hurricane of violence descending at the same overwhelming speed as the race that brought him there. What he got was aggression, yeah, just not quite in the way he had expected.
For starters, the first to lunge was Imperio, who threw himself recklessly at the approaching invader. Something changed gears with a fluidity that seemed to cheat time itself, managing a jump and several winding spins before the heel of their boot received the rookie right on the jaw. Needless to say, he was sent packing.
Next to charge was Tora, whose punches were deftly intercepted by the armored warrior as if they had no weight to them at all. They remained in that lock until Something decided it had to end, still somehow counting with enough time to signal with two fingers to her right side.
A warning the burly woman seemed to pick up on instinct before Something wound up another kick. The defense of both her arms did little to contain the heavy blow, and soon she went airborne in a calculated arc that landed her right on top of Imperio.
With both opponents down, Something settled into a wide and dramatic fighting stance. Perfectly silent, one of their hands rose to curl their fingers, taunting Team Imperio to come at them.
Imperio spat sand and fury in equal measure, shoving his partner aside and forcing himself upright with the kind of stubborn pride that only made things worse. Tora held back, her eyes narrowing, watching as the other rookie launched himself back to the fray —muscles bulging with enough force to tear through his jumpsuit.
In response, Something… Flinched?
No, that wasn’t right. Neon could tell that the energy behind the reaction wasn’t the kind one gave to a threat. They weren’t even looking at Imperio. This was more like they just remembered they had left the stove on back at home.
One gloved hand signaled for Imperio to halt, while the other began fussing with the oversized buckle of their belt, completely unhurried. For a surreal moment, all three of them stared. Imperio, Tora, and Neon too, suspended in shared bafflement.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
The charge resumed before the tinkering ended, which in fairness, was the tactically correct call on Imperio’s part. Didn’t amount to much. Something’s scarf moved instead of its owner, snapping from intangible to rigid and deliberate. It caught the incoming fist at the forearm, wrapped around the wrist, and redirected the momentum sideways in one continuous motion.
Imperio got bonked in the head for good measure, and Something just kept adjusting the buckle until a mechanism was triggered.
[Skill: Beyonder Lvl 2]
Many rooms to explore, but the doors all look the same.
Light bent wrongly around Something’s back. There wasn’t any other way to put it. A seam split the desert air, its edges rippling with the visual language of heat mirages, peeling back reality to widen into a portal from where a different man stepped through.
[Contestant 98, Whatever.]
[He/Him. Team WhoCares. Veteran. Respawned.]
The coat was the first to arrive, long and black and imposing in the specific manner that only worked if the person wearing it had the physique to fill it. Gray-lavender fur trimmed the collar and framed Whatever’s large shoulders like a lion’s mane. Looked a bit absurd and over the top, but you’d need to be courageous to tell that to its owner.
Whatever was tall, dense and rugged. The VileSports matte undersuit clung tightly to his prominent muscles, stocky and thick from neck to forearms. Though not much more covered the upper part of his frame, the picture shifted below, with tailored slacks and polished dress shoes. Short dark hair slicked back from a face arranged around a nose that had been broken more than once, set back by someone who wasn’t trying very hard.
Rather than assessing his opponents, Whatever’s black eyes focused more on adjusting the wedding ring on his right hand, worn over the undersuit’s gloves. He looked like a crime boss —a crime boss who had never stopped being a thug.
“Finally. Was getting bored out of my mind.” Cracking his neck and a shoulder, Whatever’s gaze rose to take stock of the situation with a menacing ease and a deep voice that drained Team Imperio of all their aggression. “One for each, as was agreed.”
>> “But unlike a sick fuck like you I’m not gonna play with my food. So…”
Whatever’s left arm extended forward without further ceremony, the pleasantries clearly over. Immediately after, an entire armada materialized over his back with the distinct flourish of techno-ether —artillery cannons and rotary machine guns blooming into existence around their summoner, aiming forward in unison.
They held a semi-transparent, ghostly lavender tint to them. And yet every piston, every barrel and every joint quickly initiated an obviously tangible dirge of motion.
[Skill: Spiritual Machines lvl 6]
But first get your hands all dirty with grease.
“Pains me to do this.” Whatever voiced, not sounding pained in the slightest. He spoke exclusively to Imperio, who found himself at the opposite end of the siege unit. “But your fortune ran out the moment we became your rivals.”
>> “Better luck next time. If you get one.”
The rookie had no window to react. One moment he stared up at the infernal army of multi-barreled reapers, and in the next, there was only the aftermath of their roaring discharge.
No smoke rose up. No flashes of gunfire, no recoil nor discarded shells. Spiritual Machines left none of those afterthoughts behind, truly feeling like they weren’t really there at all. But the impact was genuine. Furrows had formed into crates over the sand framing what was left of Imperio, desert rising in a slow cloud around his shredded remains.
Neon felt his stomach turning. He hadn’t imagined he’d ever get a front-row seat to someone getting gunned down like this… And the experience was something he could’ve done without.
But movement erupted before his conscience could settle. Tora burst into motion. Fast. Genuinely fast, not reckless-fast like Imperio. The skill she activated was faster still.
[Skill: Totally Bounded lvl 1]
Stay with me, below the length of these chains.
Bands of a dense and kinetic thread lashed outwards from her like compression rings, coiling around Something and Whatever’s frames and pinning the spectral artillery with a muted crack. For one caught second, everything locked up under the restraining force, and she didn’t wait to see how long it held.
Her legs carried her in a dead sprint towards the shimmering portal Something hadn’t bothered to close. Whatever rolled his neck, uncaring, like a wrestler who had already patted his tag-team partner on an easy match.
“Careful there, freak.” He wasn’t talking to her; he didn’t even move an inch. “Your prey is about to get away.”
Something’s helmeted head tilted, but more than panic or surprise, they seemed to just be annoyed at Whatever’s remarks. The brief indignation ended with a hilt being drawn from an impossible compartment in their wrist, expanding into a toy-like blade as it cleared its housing. The scarf undid the first layers of Totally Bounded, and the sword wielded clumsily did the rest.
But even as Tora dangerously closed the distance to Beyonder’s gateway, Something didn’t chase. They adjusted their posture instead, leveling the blade over the back of one arm as if aiming a crossbow. Did that thing double as a gun? Neon filed the question away and braced for another merciless shot.
In its place, a dip in the atmosphere prickled every hair he didn’t have in this bodyless state. A localized wrongness he could perfectly feel, as if the air had forgotten how pressure was meant to work.
[Skill: Instant Crush lvl 5]
The perfect song is framed with silence.
Space collapsed downwards on a localized point. A shockwave lifted the sands as gravity executed the square meter of desert around Tora. The dunes compressed. Whatever lay beneath them compressed. And the woman above it all… Compressed just the same.
Calling it a landing was an understatement. There wasn’t even any cry. The crushing force came too fast for protest, flattening Tora and leaving a bloodied impression on the ground as if a giant had decided on a whim that this particular patch of sand needed to be half a meter lower.
“Done.” Whatever yanked Totally Bounded away from his collar, and then an arm. The freed hand reached into a pocket, producing a weird device quickly tossed and caught by Something. “Don’t want your weird portal shit on me. Can’t make sense of it anyway.”
>> “For the record, I want it to be known that I could’ve gotten us here faster.”
Perhaps having had enough of it, Something lifted their sword towards Whatever. Viewed outside the blur of combat, the weapon really didn’t look like much —a prop from a discount bin, plastic and weightless. But after seeing what the toy could do, Neon was fairly certain he’d have frozen before it on the spot.
Whatever didn’t even take a glance.
“Aah? The fuck does any of that matter now? We did the thing. It’s over.” He turned his wedding ring again, seemingly holding far more interest than their partner’s indignation. “That said, ‘imma be seriously pissed off if we’re not top ten ‘cause of your bum ass.”
The focus of his gaze drifted past them both. Whatever’s gaze rose to drift past them both. Past the sands and past the corpses. Past the frame of the simulation itself, scanning for an audience the desert didn’t have.
“Gotta make a clear statement for every fetichistic fuck watching.” For half a second, it genuinely felt like those flat, black eyes had fixed directly on Neon. “This season.”
>> “ It belongs to me.”
Something elected not to dignify the bravado. They lowered the sword, releasing their wordless admonishments, and shuffled through their belongings as if running what looked like a personal inventory —folding the blade back into the housing in their wrist, then doing the same with the device Whatever had thrown at them. The portal followed, sealed with a gesture of their hand.
Ritual complete, they congratulated themselves and rushed to climb the nearest dune. Standing at its crest, they crossed their arms facing the setting sun over the sea of sand, scarf flowing under a non-existent wind. Adding corny insult to corny injury, the humming resumed. Softer now, satisfied, slightly melancholic.
Was this the ending credits theme? Damn…
A sharp exhale pulled him abruptly back to his room. It took him a while to dispel the nausea, but this was it. He now had two more terrifying veterans to catalogue. WhoCares? Well, he did.
Spiritual Machines alone could reshape a fight, and summoning guns was almost certainly only the outer layer of what the skill could do. The complexity of all those moving parts made Neon doubt their summoner relied on raw aggression alone.
Whatever was economical. Used exactly what the situation needed and nothing more. For all his crassness, there was a precision underneath that didn’t belong to mindless brutes. He was probably quite intelligent, and that made him all the more difficult to confront.
Then there was Something, the silent enigma themselves. They probably had chosen that name thinking it’d make them look mysterious. It didn’t. It sounded incredibly stupid. Stupid just like how they ran. Stupid just like all their cheap-looking equipment.
But there was no arguing against that speed. Against those reflexes and combat senses. Even less against Instant Crush. The masked larper was a real threat, no matter how ridiculous the package was.
What Neon’s overview failed to parse was simpler than all of that. WhoCares had only gone for their designated rivals, and didn’t indulge in indiscriminate murder like the Harmgivers. They clearly could have, yet they didn’t. Nevermind appearances, were they just disciplined, or had they drawn a line they wouldn’t cross at some point?
Brutal circumstances conditioned people towards brutal deeds. Neon knew that much. But did they erase the moral codes running underneath? He had no real way of knowing from this. And well… That kinda made him want to meet them.
He also really, really didn’t want to fight them.
At his command, the Atrax thumbnail expanded into a swarm of shadowy spiders crawling all over his HUD. Blegh. His tongue clicked, and his skin crawled in sympathy. Third and final jump, and then he could rest. What sort of monsters were these two going to be?