A servitor drone buzzed toward Beatrix, its lens focusing on her face.

  [COMBATANT IDENTIFIED: BEATRIX ALIGER]

  [ASSIGNED SUPPORT STATION: SECTION 7-D]

  [ASSIGNED MONITORING DRONE: UNIT B2-10]

  [BROADCAST CHANNEL: ACTIVE]

  The drone circled her once, then settled into a hovering position two meters away. Watching. Recording. Broadcasting her face to whoever cared to watch an unknown get slaughtered.

  Her comm crackled. Kivi's voice came through, warm and sharp.

  “B? You reading me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. I'm in your channel. Only one watching right now. Well, besides the broadcast algorithm. You're not trending yet, so that's... something.”

  “Comforting.”

  “Shut up,” Kivi continued. “I'm keeping the creeps out. Your feed is clean.” A pause. “How's it look down there?”

  “Like a graveyard waiting to fill.”

  “Someone is in a poetic mood. Rain wants to talk.”

  The channel shifted. Rain's voice replaced Kivi's, distorted slightly by encryption.

  “Morning, Operator. How's our girl?”

  “Your girl is standing in hell's waiting room.”

  “Dramatic. I like it.” She could hear the grin in his voice. “Full Rage Mode should be in your queue. Don't install it yet, wait until you're at your station. Less eyes that way.”

  “Understood.”

  “And Beatrix? The installation is going to hurt. Don't activate it for at least an hour after installation. Your nervous system needs time to adapt.”

  “Got it.”

  “Try not to die before I get to see if my code works.”

  The channel cut. Beatrix was alone again with her drone companion and a wasteland full of killers.

  Beatrix pushed Virgil’s warning aside. The Culling was over. The machine had already spit out the survivors and reset itself for the First Circle. Everyone was moving on.

  Everyone but her, apparently. Virgil was kind enough to note.

  The tournament had assigned her a room, medical access, and a team station. A team station. She didn’t have a team. Kivi was technically her tech. Wasn’t too sure what Rain was, besides a nuisance. She wouldn't dare drag either of them into this hell.

  She’d found a service ladder to the roof of the main hab-block. Up here, she had the only thing that felt like an advantage: a view. The cylindrical panorama unfolded, dunes of gray sand and clinging mist in all directions, including above her head, the world curving up and over itself like a sick joke.

  She scanned the reception area below. Acheron’s mystics in their ascetic gray and white guarded the landing platforms, still and watchful as statues. Fighters clustered by clan. The free agents, the ones like her, stood alone.

  The gray dust clung to everything, coating her boots and pants. It tasted metallic, like blood or rust.

  Behind her, a massive transport was landing, three times the size of the hauler that brought her. Miner’s Guild starship tagged with the name D-Pater, a team of Dis clan, stabilizers extending like a predator's legs.

  The ramp descended and a red army emerged, surrounding a crimson-haired woman dressed in full ruby combat suit. She walked like royalty surveying conquered territory. Behind her came an entourage that looked more like an army, technical specialists, medical staff, tactical advisors. Beatrix counted at least twenty people, all in matching Dis uniforms.

  Drones swarmed around the celebrity fighter and her transport, broadcast-quality cameras capturing every angle. The crowd in the reception area stopped to watch. This was money.

  Kivi's voice crackled through the comm: “Holy shit. Is that Kuzima's crew?”

  “Think so.”

  “B, they've got a full medical suite in that transport. And is that a tactical AI core? Fuck, that's military-grade processing.”

  Rain's voice joined: “Count the support staff. Twenty-three. That's a full operations team.”

  Beatrix watched the procession, feeling the weight of comparison. Kuzima had resources. Kuzima had backup. Kuzima had everything Beatrix didn't.

  “We've got pluck and determination,” Rain said, reading her silence. “Totally evens out.”

  “Shut up, Rain.”

  “Make me.”

  Despite everything, despite the gray wasteland and the death waiting in the sand, Beatrix almost smiled.

  Movement caught her eye. Far out in the wasteland, maybe half a kilometer from the prep area, a figure moved through the gray sands with casual certainty. Not struggling with the terrain. Not testing surfaces. Just walking like they owned it.

  Single combatant detected. Distance: 547 meters. Identity: Charon.

  Of course. The figure who knew Limbo like the back of his hand. Who moved through its hazards with casual certainty. He'd been out there training while everyone else was setting up equipment and posturing in the prep area. While Beatrix had been looking around, he'd been learning every grain of sand that might kill her.

  Drone B2-10 led Beatrix toward Section 7-D, her assigned station. She found it wedged between empty space and a Malebolge team setup that bristled with hostile energy.

  The station was basic, a monitoring terminal, equipment racks, power connections for running support systems. Compared to the mobile command center Kuzima had brought, it looked like trash.

  Three Malebolge fighters occupied the adjacent station, their rust-colored gear marking them as enforcers. They stopped working when Beatrix approached, watching her with predator eyes.

  The biggest one, tall, heavily augmented with industrial-grade muscle and bulging eyes, stepped toward the boundary line.

  "You lost, scav?"

  Beatrix set her pack down at her station, claiming the space. “Just setting up.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “This section is Malebolge territory.” He gestured to the empty stations around them. "Pick somewhere else."

  “Station assignments aren't suggestions.”

  “Neither is this.” Bulging Eyes moved closer, augmented bulk making the threat clear.

  Beatrix stood her ground. Her hand didn't move toward a weapon, she didn't have weapons to move toward. But her posture shifted, weight balanced, ready. B2-10 positioned itself nearby, recording.

  The Malebolge fighter grinned. “Look at that. Little thinks she can fight.”

  “I think I'm at my assigned station. You've got a problem with that, take it up with arena management.”

  B2-10 voiced: Violation of prep-bay neutrality: 500 creds, one-strike sanction.

  For a moment, the tension stretched. Then one of the other Malebolge fighters called out: “Leave her. Not worth the fine.”

  Bulging Eyes held her gaze another few seconds, then turned away. “Enjoy your station, . Won't need it long.”

  They went back to their setup, but the hostility remained. Beatrix had claimed her territory. Now she'd have to defend it.

  “Well handled,” Kivi said through the comm. “Thought he was going to throw down.”

  “Okay,” Rain echoed. “Time to install Rage Mode. Walk me through your setup.”

  Beatrix connected Virgil to the station terminal, creating a secure workspace. The monitoring equipment came online, displaying her vitals and system status. Her drone settled nearby, still recording.

  “Going to have an audience for this,” she muttered.

  “Can't be helped. Just keep your back to the Malebolge crew. I don't trust them not to scan you.”

  Beatrix positioned herself, then pulled up the Rage Mode installation package. The code was beautiful and terrifying, layers of neural interface wrapped around combat algorithms that would rewrite her body's emergency response.

  She initiated installation.

  The world caught fire.

  “Unghhh…” She couldn’t help but moan as every nerve lit up simultaneously, her body rejecting the foreign code before Virgil forced integration. Her muscles locked. Her vision whited out. She tasted copper and ozone.

  [RAGE MODE: INSTALLING]

  [NEURAL PATHWAY MAPPING: 23%]

  [WARNING: PAIN THRESHOLD EXCEEDED]

  Her hands gripped the terminal edge hard enough to hurt. Sweat beaded on her forehead. The Malebolge fighters were watching, she could feel their eyes on her back.

  “Breathe,” Rain's voice in her ear. “It's working. Just breathe through it.”

  [NEURAL PATHWAY MAPPING: 67%]

  The fire became ice became nothing. Her body went numb, then hypersensitive, then normalized.

  [RAGE MODE: INSTALLED]

  Beatrix released the terminal, her hands shaking. Her HUD showed the new app sitting in her combat suite, dormant but ready.

  “Installation complete,” Virgil reported.

  Kivi's voice crackled: “B, your channel just jumped. You've got viewers.”

  “Just what I needed.”

  “Twelve. You’re famous now.” Kivi laughed.

  “Focus, team.” Rain sounded worried. “Consider testing Rage Mode before the ceremony. Make sure the installation took properly.”

  Beatrix looked across the prep area toward the training section. A dozen fighters were already there, running drills, testing modifications. Public. Exposed.

  Or she could wait. Trust Rain's code. Walk into the ceremony blind.

  She thought about the Malebolge fighters watching her. Thought about Kuzima's resources. Thought about being dismissed as a with delusions.

  She couldn’t afford to be fragile. Dante couldn’t afford for her to be fragile.

  “I'm testing it.”

  “Just remember…” Rain said, but he didn't sound relieved. “...five-second burst maximum. Any longer and you'll crash hard.”

  Beatrix moved toward the training area, her drone following like a floating witness. Some fighters tracked her movement. The unknown. The free agent who didn't belong.

  The training area was a large hangar marked by flickering holo-barriers. Inside, fighters tested strikes against reinforced targets, calibrated reflexes against moving obstacles, pushed their modifications to find limits.

  Beatrix found an empty section with a metal wall, part of the cylinder's original superstructure, scarred and pitted but still standing.

  Her channel viewer count climbed. A hundred.

  “Noted.”

  She faced the wall. Rolled her shoulders. Felt the Rage Mode sitting in her system like coiled violence waiting for permission.

  “Rain, how do I activate it?”

  “Mental command. Just think 'engage' while focusing on the app signature. Your neural interface will handle the rest.”

  “And deactivation?”

  “Should be automatic after the timer. But you can force-stop by thinking 'disengage.' Don't do that unless you're dying, the crash will be worse.”

  Beatrix took a breath. Focused on the app's presence in her HUD.

  Engage.

  The world exploded.

  [RAGE MODE ACTIVE]

  [STRENGTH: +100%]

  [DEXTERITY: +100%]

  [FORTITUDE: +100%]

  [PAIN THRESHOLD: MAXIMUM]

  Her vision sharpened to crystalline clarity. Every muscle coiled with potential energy that demanded release. The ache from installation vanished.

  She felt unstoppable.

  Her fist drove into the metal wall.

  The impact rang like a bell, a sound too close to the crack of the Glock, to Vera’s scream. For a nanosecond, she wasn’t in the hangar. She was in the sand, the gun kicking in her hand, the smell of blood and cordite in her nose.

  Metal crumpled inward, creating a fist-sized crater in plating designed to withstand hull breaches. The sound carried across the training area.

  Fighters stopped mid-drill. Heads turned.

  Beatrix pulled her hand back. Power sang through her nerves, demanding more…

  [RAGE MODE DEACTIVATED]

  The crash hit like falling off a cliff.

  Her muscles screamed. Her bones ached. The hand that had punched the wall throbbed with pain that had been hidden behind chemical suppressors. Her vision swam.

  Beatrix leaned against the wall she'd damaged, breathing hard. Five seconds had felt like flying. The crash felt like hitting the ground.

  Worth it.

  Around her, fighters were staring. Some calculating. Some afraid.

  “What is she running?” someone called out.

  Beatrix didn't answer. She pushed off the wall and walked away, feeling their eyes follow.

  Her channel viewer count: 1,847.

  Kivi's voice was sharp with concern: “B, that got attention. You're trending in three forums already. Some guy came up with a nickname: 'Scav Fist.'”

  “Ugh. Terrible name.”

  “Agreed. But you're not anonymous anymore. The algorithm flagged you as a potential upset candidate.”

  Rain sounded worried: “The big players will have seen that. They'll be planning counters.”

  “Let them plan.” Her hand still throbbed, but the pain was fading. “I needed to know it worked.”

  “It worked,” Rain confirmed. “Beautifully, terrifyingly, perfectly. But Beatrix? Every champion in that prep area now knows you've got a power spike app. They'll be ready for it.”

  Then the silence came.

  It started at the entrance and spread like a cold wave. Conversations died. Fighters found reasons to look elsewhere. Space opened in the center of the room like water parting.

  Charon walked into the hangar.

  Medium height, plain clothes, fully scarred body, even the face, a testament of his last fight, where he was beaten by Jon Kane and left to die by everyone.

  He stopped in the center of the room. His eyes swept the assembled fighters with clinical detachment.

  “Fools.”

  The word cut through the silence like a blade.

  “Training here. Safe. Controlled.” His voice carried without amplification, quiet but absolute. “Limbo will eat you all.”

  No one moved. Professional killers reduced to statues by one man's contempt.

  He turned toward the arena entrance, toward the gray wasteland that waited beyond the hangar.

  “I'm going to train there. In the hungry sands.”

  The dismissal was complete. They were children playing at war while the real warrior went to work. Beatrix felt her jaw clench. Felt the familiar burn of being dismissed, being small, being nothing.

  Then the scav’s rule thrummed in her skull: Own the floor.

  Charon knew Limbo. He moved through its death traps like they were garden paths. That knowledge was the ultimate terrain advantage. She couldn’t beat him in a fight. Not yet. But she could study him. Learn what he knew. Every glance at a dune, every slight adjustment to the gravity, was a data point.

  She was going to walk with the spider to learn the shape of its web.

  The words came before thought could stop them.

  “I’ll walk with you.”

  Every head turned.

  Charon stopped mid-step.

  The silence stretched like drawn wire. Somewhere, a drone's motor hummed.

  Then Charon turned his head, not his body, just his head, and looked at her for the first time. Those empty eyes measured her. Not sizing up an opponent. Cataloging a specimen. Several seconds passed. An eternity compressed into heartbeats.

  He didn’t smile. Didn’t frown. Didn’t acknowledge her challenge with anything but a slight, almost imperceptible tilt of his head.

  Then he continued walking toward the sands.

  Not a yes. Not a no. An allowance. A predator tolerating something curious at the edge of its territory.

  Beatrix's legs moved before her brain caught up, following him across the hangar floor. Behind her, she heard the whispers start.

  “Is she insane?”

  “Did you see what he did to Ajit?”

  “Dead woman walking.”

  Bulging Eyes laughed. “Free entertainment. Someone record this.” But he stepped back as Beatrix passed near him.

  “I know.”

  Rain's voice crackled through the comm, tight with worry: “Beatrix, what the fuck are you doing?”

  “Training.”

  “With Charon? Are you…”

  “I'll be fine.”

  “You don't know that. He's…”

  “I know exactly what he is.” Beatrix kept walking, following the scarred man who made legends nervous. “That's why I have to do this.”

  Kivi's voice, softer: “Your channel just hit five thousand viewers. They're taking bets on how long you last.”

  “What are the odds?”

  “Thirty seconds. The over-under is forty-five.”

  “Bet on me.”

  “B…”

  “Bet on me, Kivi.”

  Silence. Then: “Okay. I'm in. Don't make me regret this.”

  Charon reached the arena entrance and stepped through without looking back. The gray wasteland swallowed him like he was part of it.

  Beatrix followed him into Limbo.