“Normally folks have to pay just to get in here, but I guess we don’t normally get people bringing a monster to the door,” Zirconium said as he led the way to another wing of the underground. There was a faint twang of Minnesota to his accent.

  “This place is a lot bigger than I was expecting,” I said, casting my gaze to the rounded roof of the tunnel. “How did you do all... this?”

  “Hm? Oh, a lot of the excavation was done by me.” Zirconium raised a hand. It glittered from the electric lights fitted to the wall, as a drill-shaped lump of... well, zirconium, glittered into existence. A Materialist. There really was one for every kind of element in the world. “Our boss had a few engineers come down to reinforce it, setting up the lights and that. I tell ya those boys work fast. Well, we do plan on using this spot for a while.”

  It sure was a lot of effort to put in if it was only going to be used for a short stint.

  “Ah, here we are,” Zirconium said.

  The waiting room, as it turned out, looked a lot like a locker room. I spied various aspiring combatants seated around, catching their breath and drinking as they waited for their stint. I even spied the red-skinned woman, who sat morosely as a man in a white coat tended to her wounded arm.

  A fat stack bills was in her lap, but she didn’t seem too thrilled about her victory.

  “So, er,” he said, pointing up at Rover. “Where’d you find this fella anyway?”

  “Abandoned on the streets, like all strays.” Stretch tutted and shook her head. “A damn shame.”

  “Well,” Zirconium seemed to smile, shrugging at the group. “Make yourselves comfy, I suppose. When it’s time to fight, an announcer will come along to get your boy.” With that he hurried off, leaving us alone.

  After a short pause, Foresight sighed and glanced around us. “So what now?” he asked. “We found her, but...”

  I nodded grimly. “She has more muscle on her side than I thought she would. Impact’s powerful on her own, but Knuckle is no joke,” I murmured. “And as for Zirconium... Well if he could carve those tunnels, his power can effect a wide area at least.”

  “Okay, okay,” Cheshire raised her hands. “So things might seem a little tougher than we first thought... and it already seemed tough to start with. But not impossible.” She motioned for us to keep our voices low. We were far from everyone else present, but walls tended to have ears.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “We just need a plan. If we can take Knuckle and Zirconium out quickly, we can focus all our energy on Impact,” I said. I folded my arms. “Might be that my toy soldiers could get something close to her platform. In all that chaos out there, nobody would see them. Explosives, maybe.”

  Foresight cocked his head. “Can you build explosives?”

  I scoffed, giving him a flat look. “You don’t need to be an Artisan to build a bomb.” Though building one strong enough to matter was the actual problem. Knuckle wore sturdy armour, and Impact would have to be an idiot if she didn’t have some sort of barrier around herself at all times. Even so, the chaos of a big bang could go a long way to giving us the upper hand while they were disoriented.

  “Maybe...” Stretch anxiously hugged her elbows. “Maybe we could... bail? This is more dangerous than we thought. Fighting one person here would be tough, but all three? STING grunts and Wares’ henchman are small time compared to this.”

  Give up? The very notion made the cords in my neck tense.

  With the favour I’d asked from Furnace? We’d be up a creek if we backed out. And I needed to get into Society. With each day that passed, that trail left by Sidewinder got colder and colder.

  No, I wouldn’t allow that. I couldn’t allow that.

  “Do you never want to work in this city again?” I asked severely. “Because if we bail, we’ll never get work again. And for rookie villains with zero connections? Going independent is a fast track to hitting jewel stores and becoming a punchline on late night TV.”

  The others shifted uncomfortably, save for Cheshire. She was the one who shared my goal and interest, after all. “Toymaker’s right. We’re not backing down. We just need to be more careful with how we proceed.”

  “Right,” Dynamo said with some reluctance.

  “Don’t be cowards. Don’t get spooked. Keep cool fucking heads and we’ll get through this,” I said firmly. “When the time comes we jut need to split up, pick our targets properly.”

  I looked up as footsteps sounded our way, watching as a portly man in a striped referee shirt made his way toward us. He paused, peering up at Rover, and sniffed hard enough to ruffle the hairs of his bushy moustache.

  “Guess this is the new guy, then?” he asked.

  “That’s right,” said Cheshire.

  The referee nodded. “Your critter is up. There’s no rules. Naturally. Just fight to the death, or until your opponent can’t get up no more. Since you’re new, you get five hundred bones if you win, and ten percent of the betting pool. The more you win, the more your base pay grows. Naturally, ya can’t bet on yourself or your opponent.”

  “So uh...” Foresight cleared his throat, suddenly anxious. “Which of us gets the money?”

  “I don’t give a shit about five hundred bucks,” I said, giving a dismissive wave of my hand.

  “Yeah, uh, go for it man,” Stretch said. There was some awkwardness among the others, something about Foresight I didn’t know. But I also didn’t much care.

  I turned, staring up at Rover. “Okay, Rover, you follow that man out there to the arena. If someone in there attacks you, you attack back and keep attacking until they’re down. If they can’t get back up, leave them be. Do you understand?”

  He stared at me with those big fishy eyes, translucent membranes flickering over them like the eyes of a snake. “Ghhhhhg,” he rasped. It sounded, almost, like a noise of agreement.

  “Good boy,” I said, giving him a thumbs up.

  He grinned at me, revealing rows of ghastly hooked teeth.

  The ref turned and led Rover off, leaving us alone. “So uh...” Stretch scratched at her neck. “What now?”

  Foresight lifted a joint from his hip pouch and opened a slot on the bottom of his helmet. “Guess we should make like the locals, and take in the show.”