Producer Sutton was pacing.He did this when something was about to go wrong. His feet moved in tight circles behind the production desk in the hotel conference room. His headset hung around his neck. His tablet sat untouched on the table beside a coffee that had gone cold an hour ago."Pandemonium is sending people to Challengers," he said. "Not just Derick. Liam is here. A rank. One of Eugene's top hunters."The assistant producer, a woman named Rachel, looked up from her laptop. "We knew Pandemonium would have representatives. They sponsor half the contestants.""Representatives are fine. Liam is not a representative. Liam is a statement." Sutton stopped pacing. "Eugene sent his best hunter to a qualifying event that should have been routine. That means he's watching. That means Pandemonium is paying attention to what's happening on our train."Rachel closed her laptop slowly. "You think they're here because of the stun gun video?""I think twenty two million views on a clip from o

The Challengers festival turned Denver into a war zone wrapped in carnival lights.Three city blocks had been cordoned off and converted into an outdoor arena district. Giant screens hung from scaffolding towers, broadcasting qualification highlights on loop. Food vendors lined the perimeter. Merchandise tents sold replica weapons and team jerseys. Fifty thousand people filled the streets with the restless energy of a crowd that had come to watch people hurt each other for points.Leon Baldwin stood on the roof of a parking garage four blocks away.He watched the festival through a pair of binoculars that had seen better decades. His grey hair was pulled back in its usual ponytail. His coat was old and wrinkled and smelled faintly of the instant coffee he had been drinking since three in the morning.He wasn't watching the fighters. He was watching the loading dock behind the Minerva's rail terminal.A cargo container was being transferred from a reinforced freight car onto a flatbed

The second day of the Challengers festival belonged to Alencia Walker and Vivie Hart.Alencia's morning match ended in forty seconds. Her opponent, a C rank fighter from the West Coast circuit, threw a combination that should have dropped anyone under B rank. Every punch landed. None of them mattered. Alencia's body absorbed the kinetic energy and redistributed it the way a lake absorbs stones. The fighter stepped back, confused, and Alencia hit him with a concentrated burst of stored electricity that sent him skidding across the floor and into the safety barrier.The crowd loved it. The screens replayed the moment three times in slow motion. The electricity arcing off her fist looked like a white branch splitting across the air.Her second match was harder. A B rank woman with earth manipulation abilities who could harden the ground beneath her feet and anchor herself against impacts. Alencia's first burst didn't move her. So Alencia hit her with three in a row, each one stronger tha

The afternoon round began with Vivie Hart dismantling a B rank grappler in eleven seconds.The man was twice her size. He charged low, arms wide, aiming to wrap her up and take her to the ground. Vivie sidestepped, caught his wrist, twisted it behind his back, and drove his face into the mat with a leverage technique that looked like something out of a textbook written by someone who hated grapplers.The crowd loved it. The commentators replayed the wrist catch in slow motion and debated whether she had studied judo or wrestling or something they didn't have a name for.She had studied neither. She had fought in a war that lasted three hundred years, and the grapplers in that war were demons who weighed eight hundred pounds and had claws instead of fingers.Alencia's match started two rounds later.Her opponent was a C rank woman with wind manipulation abilities. Fast footwork. Quick directional bursts. The kind of fighter who stayed mobile and chipped away from angles.But Alencia co

Three weeks before the Challengers festival, Eugene had sat across from Liam in a private room at the Pandemonium headquarters in New York.The room was designed to intimidate visitors. Dark walls. A long table. No windows. Eugene didn't need any of it. He was intimidating enough sitting in a leather chair with his legs crossed and a cup of tea he hadn't touched."I need you to do something for me at Challengers," Eugene said.Liam sat with his arms folded and his expression blank. He was the kind of man who listened with his entire body and gave nothing back until he had decided what you deserved."I need you to test Derick Cole," Eugene continued. "Not his power. His character.""You already know his character.""I suspect it. I need confirmation." Eugene set the teacup aside. "If he fails, remove him from the team. Publicly. Let him feel the consequences."Liam studied Eugene for a long moment. "And if he passes?""Then I was wrong about him. And I'll sleep better knowing that."Li