Chapter 132: The Waiting Game
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I slipped back into the VIP box with my heartbeat mostly under control. The sound ward still hummed over the gallery, turning the arena's roar into background noise.
Illyana didn't look at me. She sat on her bone throne, chin on her fist, eyes on the ring, a small, smug smile on her face.
Yeah. She knew.
Charmcaster dropped onto her floating cushion like nothing unusual had happened, crossing one leg over the other and digging into another bag of chips.
I observed the room to see if anything had changed. Kwannon was standing behind Illyana still, that same loose but ready posture. Where Luna and Amadeus were bent over his tablet, whispering among themselves. Lin Lie watched the fights from the rail. Colleen had claimed a spot on the back bench, sitting small and quiet with her arms around her knees.
I dropped onto a couch and pretended to care about the current match.
Some guy from Lei‑Gong's city was going at it with a woman whose chain‑whip kept turning into ice mid‑swing. Lots of sparks. Cracks in the floor. Stylish as hell.
Although I'd seen worse in a Walmart.
The Lei‑Gong guy finally overextended, slipped on a patch of his own melted lightning, and ate a length of frozen chain to the face. The crowd screamed, the falcon announcer screeched, the winner raised her arms and flared her chi for maximum applause.
That was when I felt it.
Not sight, not exactly. More like the way my bones prickled during Kwannon's meditation drills. I wasn't the brightest when sensing Chi but…
When her chi rose… it then folded. The flare twisted, skimmed along invisible lines in the arena floor, and sank down. Not out into the air. Down into the mountain.
I frowned.
Next match. Two different nobodies. Same thing happened. At their peak, their power bled into the ring, ran through sigils I couldn't see with my eyes, and vanished under my feet.
"Okay, that's weird," I muttered.
Charmcaster glanced over. "You mean besides the bird‑headed announcer?"
"The drain," I said. "You feel it?"
She licked salt off her thumb, then held out her palm. Purple light pulsed over her skin as she traced a quick sigil. A sketch of the arena floor hovered between us, made of lines and circles.
"The Crane Mother's people carved a siphon into the whole platform," she said. "See? Every time some idiot powers up, the array shaves off the top and feeds it into the mountain."
"Feeds what, exactly?" I asked.
"Chi, duh. Life force, spiritual pressure, whatever you want to call it," she said. "This place is a furnace. The tournament is the coal. Nothing secretive though, the important people know it's happening."
I watched another fighter lose control and blow too much energy in one big dramatic blast. The array lit up for a second in my inner vision, grabbed what he'd wasted, and pulled it down.
My own chi reacted, just a twitch, like it wanted to follow.
Note to self. No fireworks when my turn comes.
Illyana spoke without looking away from the ring. "All the cities are currently aligned and joined up. This arena exists in the K'un‑Zi region, and K'un‑Zi is a hungry city," she said. "The Crane Mother is generous, but she's not a charity. You play to become her Champion, she takes her cut. That's how she plans to recover her lost energy fast."
"How much of a cut?" I asked.
"As much as she wants," Illyana said. "She's offering a piece of her authority. Did you think there wouldn't be a price?"
I didn't answer that. I just kept watching the drain.
****
The next name the announcer called out was actually important to us.
"From the Emerald City of K'un‑Lun, wielder of the Sword of Fu Xi: Lin Lie!"
Lin exhaled once, then stepped off our gallery. He floated down like a leaf and landed in the ring without a sound.
His opponent was a mountain of a man in stone armor, carrying a hammer that was basically a boulder on a stick. He didn't look like a subtle man.
The fight was over in one exchange.
The hammer came down. Lin stepped in, and his sword moved in a way my eyes didn't quite track. There was a white line in the air for half a heartbeat.
Then the hammerhead slid off. The stone armor split open from shoulder to hip. The big man took one confused step and collapsed in a heap.
The announcer's speech drowned under the crowd's roar.
Chi tried to burst from the dying man's body. The array caught it and dragged it away.
Lin didn't glow nor did he pose. He bowed in three directions and walked out, sword already sheathed. I was impressed.
"Hope I don't pull him in round two," I muttered.
"Hm? You called me?" Charmcaster asked.
Kwannon's mouth twitched like she wanted to say something and decided silence was better. A few matches later, the announcer shrieked for the "Bearer of America's green beast, the Hulk's Power, Champion of Atlas! Welcome, Brawn!"
Amadeus gave Luna a cocky grin and stepped to the edge. He clicked on the device that was strapped to his wrist. One second he was a spindly genius in street clothes. The next, ebon‑green skin ripped over him, and his frame bulked out into black‑and‑green armor.
Except he didn't look maddened.
He dropped with a grin and cratered the ring.
His opponent was some lightning martial artist from the City of Thunder. Good speed, decent output, bad matchup. The guy jolted Amadeus in the chest with enough voltage to light Vegas. Amadeus skidded back, shook off smoke, and laughed.
That was the Hulk's physique after all, even if worn by someone else.
Then he grabbed the man by the ankle and used him to mop the floor a few times. It was very gentle, by Hulk standards. Lightning flared and got eaten by the siphon, leaving the poor bastard twitching. It wasn't elegant, but it worked.
Amadeus waved up at us like he'd just scored at a basketball game.
Luna shook her head. "Show‑off."
****
The rest blurred.
A guy who thought he was the next Iron Fist and clearly wasn't.
A swordswoman from a spider city who never touched her opponents with her hands but somehow always left them tangled and bleeding.
A talisman‑thrower who covered the ring in paper animals until he ran out of breath.
Every time someone went big, the mountain drank deep.
By the time the last prelim ended, I'd had enough.
The falcon‑man glided to the center, shouted something in an old dialect that the Omnitrix translated easily but I didn't bother to pay attention, and a huge jade construct unfolded above the arena.
Names slid into place on a bracket tree. There were a lot of names, but many fewer than what had been in the prelims. It'd be quicker next time.
I scanned until I found "TETRA‑MAN (LIMBO PATRONAGE)" in the lower-left corner.
Across from it read "BRIDE OF NINE SPIDERS".
My stomach did a slow roll.
Hmm, familiar name…
It took me a second to properly recall who that was. I'd read Immortal Iron Fist back in my old life. Bride of Nine Spiders wasn't technically from K'un‑Zi originally, but given the current situation, she was trying her luck.
She was an interesting one. Surely not some Thanos, but she fought using suicide bomber little spiders that messed with people's channels. I didn't remember the rest clearly, but I think she also used hallucinogenic venom, soul webs, and drains that didn't show on your skin until you were already dead. I wasn't sure, maybe I was mixing her up. Although I clearly recalled that she could Dimension Travel.
Not someone you want crawling around your energy network.
A small symbol above our names read "TWO DAYS" in characters that the Omnitrix translated automatically.
Two days of preparation. Better not get poisoned in the meantime.
"Matches resume in forty‑eight hours," Kwannon said quietly, confirming. "The cities will feast and trade in between."
"In other words, chaos," Charmcaster said. "Stalls, drunks, scams, and terrible chinese music."
"Hey, Chinese music isn't terrible. How can you insult five thousand years of artistic evolution? Hmm, maybe longer considering the situation. And festivals," Luna said. "You say it like it's a bad thing."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah."
The bracket shimmered, then turned translucent. Up in the higher galleries, powerful auras winked out one by one as city rulers and courts left. The mountain tugged on my chi again. Stronger this time. For a heartbeat, the whole city seemed to breathe in.
"First circuit filled," Illyana murmured. "She's storing nicely."
"How much more can she pump into that thing?" I asked.
"As much as she thinks she needs," Illyana said. "These thousand year old creatures are bad at moderation, you see."
She set her empty teacup aside and rose from her throne. Even out of her Darkchilde form, people got out of her way on instinct.
"We have two days," she said with a yawn. "I have to endure a formal banquet with the Crane Mother and her friends tonight. Ben will be coming with me. Ah, and you witch, before you argue," Illyana's eyes flicked over Charmcaster, "You are not invited."
Charmcaster clutched her chest in mock offense. "Rude."
"You would turn half the table into frogs," Illyana said. "On purpose."
"Not half," Charmcaster muttered, studying her nails.
Illyana ignored that. "There will be a market in the lower tiers. Go lose yourselves for a while. Try not to sell your souls in a back alley. That's my job."
"So what, we're tourists now?" I asked.
"For a day," she said. "Tomorrow, if you're all still breathing and not in jail, I'll show you the parts of K'un‑Zi the festival guides don't mention."
She looked straight at me on that last line. Dragon bones, shrines under shrines, all the fun stuff.
"Any laws I should know before I go offend someone important?" I asked.
"Don't touch anything that glows red," she said. "And if someone offers you a bargain that sounds perfect, walk away."
"That's it?"
"Hey, this is already more legal advice than most mortals get in a heavenly city," she said. A tiny smirk. "But you're Ben Tennyson, what's there to worry?"
She sliced the air with her hand. A golden portal yawned open, spilling out a view of some ornate hall lit in cold blue.
"But yeah, behave," she added, and then stepped through and was gone.
Amadeus let out a low whistle. "Is she always like that?" he asked.
"Worse, usually," Luna said.
Kwannon rolled her shoulders once. "We should move before the streets clog."
"Yeah," I said, pushing up. "Let's see what heaven sells at street level."
We filed out of the VIP box and into a side corridor that sloped down toward the lower tiers. The air got warmer and louder. I was already beginning to hear distant drums and the buzz of too many voices.
I shoved my hands in my pockets and followed the others toward the glow of lanterns and the sound of a city that only woke up once every eighty‑eight years.
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