The fight was now 3 vs 2. That left spider, neon, and shadow to stare them down in the cracked mess of the pit. There was no joking in their manners now. Their formation had been shot, and now it was they who were looking down the barrel of a gun.

  The crowd shouted its approval. Allegiances didn’t seem to matter when they were given a good show, which Cannon and T’balt were all too happy to give them. Cannon taunted them, putting his hand to his ear, daring them to yell louder. T’balt flared a cheeky grin at the one in the mask, Nrv, expressionless in his chair.

  “Ready to clean the rest of this mess?” Cannon stretched his arm for a fist bump. T’balt gladly obliged, before wiping some dried blood from his lip.

  “Let’s finish this.”

  The spider started crawling through the rubble, twisting his body to make himself hard to see. Meanwhile, the shadows started careening around the ring of the pit. They were made darker by the light of the neon’s movement.

  T’balt and Cannon readied their stances, re-equipping their weapons.

  Their opponents pinpointed their attack on T’balt. Likely because he was the quicker of the two. Cannon would have a much harder time coming to his aid than the other way around. Plus, T’balt was still their prime target. They get him. They win.

  He couldn’t block all three of their attacks at once, especially when two of them were coming from behind. He still had his flames. Just because he wasn’t going to kill with it didn’t mean he couldn’t use it.

  He set fire to the ground around him, erupting a volcano beneath him. All three backed off after neon got his hand burned when he got too close. “Damn it.” T’balt heard him say. The man tried to cool the burns by stuffing his hand into his shirt but the temporary distraction was all T’balt needed.

  He threw a gauntletted straight, ready to knock out neon’s lights. “It's over.”

  Then there was a flame. Not his. It appeared right between him and neon in a sphere of destruction. He couldn’t see it coming, and he couldn’t get out of the way. The light blinded him, and he was flung back into the wall with burns all over him.

  “T’balt!” Cannon called, running towards him.

  “Heel!” the bear shouted, sparking another explosion right over top of Cannon. The heat and the force cracked the shell of his armor and threw him to the other side of the pit.

  “Cannon!” T’balt yelled, still trying to ease the fire in his lungs. But it was too late. The explosion happened right in Cannon’s face. He wasn’t moving.

  “I’ve had enough of this shit show,” said Vikram from the top of the pit. “Gotta do everything myself, huh…”

  T’balt’s arm was bleeding through a tear in his shirt. His adrenaline didn’t allow him to feel his burns and shattered skin. “Bastard…” Before he could do anything, another small explosion launched him.

  “This is what happens when you play with fire.” Vikram laughed. “You get fucking exploded.” He summoned three explosions in front of T’balt, who moved just enough for the combustions not to be fatal. But still they did their damage, ping ponging him back and forth until he ended up on his back.

  “Damn it… Cannon.”

  The others were stirring back to their feet. Even the two they had thought were taken care of. Vikram had brought in a healer for them.

  “Heh. Nobody wants to fight fair. What a joke. This whole thing is a joke.” T’balt mumbled.

  Cannon still wasn’t moving. He barely could either. Now, he was stuck looking at Vikram’s ugly, sneering mug. There wasn’t a world where T’balt wanted to let this jackass beat him.

  But this looked to be the end of the line. There was nothing he could do against a band of cheaters. But the more he saw Cannon lying there, the more rage started to sear in him. If he was going to die, he didn’t care anymore. “So what if people can only take 3 loot? If I’m going to die, then at least it's by my hand.”

  He remembered the cracked smile and the deterioration on Monan’s face. It was the look of a demon. If that’s what he had to be, then he would be it.

  Vikram reared his arm to finish the job and send T’balt to an early grave. But things don’t always go to plan. Suddenly, he couldn’t move his wrist. Something was resisting him.

  When he turned around, T’balt was there. Some part of him was gone. His face was cracked like a porcelain doll dropped down the stairs. Black mist was emitting from his body as his eyes were almost glowing with hatred.

  “What the hell?” Vikram responded. He had traveled from the bottom of the pit to the top in seconds. T’balt kicked him square in the gut, and he flew like a bullet to the bottom of the pit.

  The others still in the pit saw what happened, but they didn’t process it in time. T’balt was already on them with his speed loot. He squashed the spider with a single punch right to his spindly spine. But for good measure, he added a kick to the stomach and another punch from his gauntlets.

  Then he flashed to shadow, hardening, strength, and even to the healer. With a flurry of speed attacks, T’balt sent them one by one crashing into the wall of the pit.

  The fourth loot in his system drove his adrenaline to a frenzy. It was all that drove him, the will to fight. To survive. It was an animal instinct no different than the beasts outside this place. But it was what he wanted… power. Power that would take back control of everything.

  He found Vikram trying to crawl back to his feet. He seized the tattooed thug by the neck, ready to unload all the pain and frustration of this iteration on his sleezy, greasy face. But neon jumped in the way.

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  There were flashes. Lines of light and smoke careened around the hotel basement as the two clashed over and over, trading blows. Neon’s light was fast, and it seemed that when pushed to its limits, it could keep up with T’balt’s own. But while neon could keep up, he didn’t have the sensitivity loot T’balt did.

  T’balt could always see the light coming before it flashed, but now he had the speed to do something about it. At the top of the pit, he grabbed neon by his collar as he tried to flash away. Then he pulled him back to drive his fist right into their mask. The mask flew off, and the guy fell over trying to stop the hot blood from spewing all over the ground.

  “All bets are off! Somebody kill that guy! Everyone!” Vikram cried.

  T’balt forgot about the crowd. The ring of thugs around him. There were now all on him, ready to loose their loot upon him.

  T’balt breathed heavy, feeling his own bodyweight starting to fight him. With a 4th loot in his stack, he wasn’t going to last forever. “Well, I took on 6. Why not a hundred?” He cracked his neck, preparing for a long fight.

  But none of them wanted to be the first to approach, leaving a strange standstill. “We scared?” The black smoke eeked out of the cracks in T’balt’s face. “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine when I wake up.”

  T’balt could see some of them shaking at the sight of him. He must’ve looked the same as Monan did then. When he killed Ellie and tore the church apart. But he didn’t care. If this world wanted to make a monster of him, then that’s what it’d get.

  “Hey, don’t move another muscle.” Down in the pit, VIkram knelt next to Cannon, who was unmoving but breathing. The bear let sparks of combustion spark from his hand as it threatened Cannon’s head. “Just let it end… or I’ll blow muscle heads dome off right now.”

  T’balt unconsciously took a step forward.

  “Don’t!” Vikram threatened.

  T’balt stopped, knowing even with his speed, Vikram was far enough away that he wouldn’t be able to get to Cannon in time. Chewing his teeth, he put his hands up in surrender. “You’re nothing but a cheap coward.”

  “I’ll be the coward who's alive… now!”

  The thugs kicked T’balt to the ground, stuffing his face into the concrete floor. Once Vikram saw that T’balt was unable to move, he stepped away from Cannon, at least keeping up his part of the imaginary bargain. “Traitorous trash.” He spat on him.

  T’balt watched, his adrenaline uncooled.

  “Now it's over for you,” the bear said. “I don’t know where you came from or how you got this strong, but I’m sick of you.” He reared his hand to launch one final explosion and finally call an end to this drawn-out battle.

  “Vik… It's time to stop… He’s right. You are a coward.” A deep voice emerged from the crowd. A voice too familiar.

  “Monan!” Nrv finally looked up from his game. Not just that, but he was actively running at Monan like a frolicking child as he walked in the room. Monan took his place on Nrv’s throne before putting a hand on his head. Monan smiled at him and gestured for Nrv to take a seat on the arm of the throne. There, Nrv kicked his feet back and forth, now seemingly obsessed.

  “I knew it,” T’balt said. “So you ARE behind this group.”

  “T’balt… So you did come looking for me,” he scathed. “I’m flattered, really. I had a whole plan set up for you this iteration, but I couldn’t find you. Little did I know you were right in my lap this whole time.”

  “Monan, you know this guy?” Nrv spoke through the mask.

  “Yeah… See, that right there is my best friend. You have a best friend, don’t you?”

  “No.” The more Nrv talked, the more he sounded like a little kid.

  “Well, I’m sure by the end of this, T’balt can be your best friend too,” Monan teased.

  “Monan,” said Vikram nervously. “What brings you here?”

  Monan whispered to Nrv. “Mind shooing away the bear. He’s getting on my nerves.”

  “Really? Okay,” said Nrv.

  A whip of electrified light cracked across the room. It seared across Vikram’s chest, who stopped, clutching his heart. A few moments later, he fell flat on his face… dead.

  “What the…” T’balt reacted, but he should’ve been used to this kind of thing from Monan by now. But he had what T’balt was now sure was a kid do his dirty work.

  “Now that that’s out of the way. Let go of the guy. And someone clean up this pit. It looks like hell,” Monan said.

  The Nrv members did as he commanded, cleaning up the bodies, the dead, and the unconscious, including Cannon. They let go of T’balt.

  He was still struggling because of the extra loot in his system. He felt his energy draining from his body, like the blood was being sucked out of him. He was getting weaker, and his vision was blurring slightly. “Where are you taking him?” T’balt said, pointing at Cannon.

  “Oh... want to heal him? That make you happy? Then we’ll get it done.” The others took it as an immediate command. T’balt didn’t know what to make of it.

  “What are you playing at?”

  “Just showing a bit of love. I’m glad to see you, ya know. After that talk, those weeks ago. You were all like… please… no.” He played up a crying voice. “I didn’t think you’d be up for our game this time around.”

  “You mean the game where you try to kill me?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “That sounds like a fun game,” said Nrv. “Can I play?”

  “You might get a turn here soon. But there’s someone else who asked first.”

  “Asked first!?” Exclaimed T’balt. “I told you I don’t want any part of your game. I just want to be left alone!”

  “No. No. I think you’ll dig this one, T,” he said, wagging his finger. “See, I know I’ve caused you a lot of issues lately. And I want to make it up to you. I want to give you something that I think you need.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It's another go in the loot killer pit.”

  “The only person I need a fight to the death against is you.”

  “I can see you’re overloaded. Not thinking straight. I told you to keep it to 3. Otherwise, it goes straight to your head. But sure, I’ll make it even juicier for you. You win this next bout, and we’ll fight. One on one.”

  T’balt didn’t need much convincing beyond that. It was a solid chance to get Monan out of his life. “Fine,” he said.

  “Remember. The bout is to the death. You don’t win until the other side dies…”

  T’balt closed his eyes. He should’ve known this was coming. He hadn’t killed anyone yet. Not directly. He knew the world was ended, but it was a line he didn’t want to cross unless he absolutely had to. He’d seen firsthand what killing does to people. He remembered what seeing people killed did to him. Maybe this counted as a reason he absolutely had to…

  It would be reset once he or Monan died. Maybe that would save him, knowing that person wouldn’t stay dead. Though Monan seemed a little too smug when he made that point.

  “Who am I supposed to be fighting then?” T’balt asked.

  “Alright, bird.”

  A shadow dropped from the ceiling, dressed in all black. Her hair was long, black, and flowing freely from her head, unbound by any pigtails. Her face held the cracks of a long-held rage aimed directly at T’balt. “Long time no see, Tibby.”

  And that’s when T’balt knew he had been caught in a trap from the very start. A fly was trying to untangle from the spider’s web, only to realize that his struggling only made him more trapped.

  “I thought you two had some differences to work out,” Monan chided as T’balt stared into the eyes of a vengeful Chosa Sonomiya.