"What's number one?"
"#BlakeIsACoward."
"Better than ScavFist." Kivi mocked. “But we need to do something about the hair.”
"Kids.” Bodhi killed the mood “We have a fight to prepare."
"Right," Rain said, showing the footage. The Malebolge fighter stood two meters tall, all corporate precision and calculated violence. "Jaeger. The next one."
"What's his specialty?" Beatrix asked.
"Efficiency." Rain pulled up more data. "His rig is [Tier 4] with a [Paladin-class] configuration."
"Like Charon."
"Yes." Rain tapped the screen. "Watch this sequence from his last fight. See how he positions? That's not instinct. That's probability trees. He's running tactical simulations in real-time, testing outcomes before committing."
Beatrix watched Jaeger move through the footage. Every strike is deliberate. Every counter measured. Like watching someone solve an equation instead of fighting a person.
"He's good," she said.
"He's very good," Bodhi confirmed. "But he's also predictable. Malebolge trains out improvisation. They want chess players, not street fighters."
"And I'm a street fighter."
"You're whatever keeps you alive," Bodhi said. "That's the advantage."
Virgil reported.
"So I need to be unpredictable," Beatrix said. “Easy.”
"You need to be chaos," Rain corrected. "Make him calculate faster than he can process. Overwhelm the analysis engine."
Kivi looked up from her tablet, hair shifting to cautious yellow. "B, your power core temperature's been running hot. Are you feeling okay?"
"Fine."
"That's not what the data says. Your baseline temperature increased 1.3 degrees over the past week. Your metabolic rate is up 12%. Something's changing."
Beatrix met her eyes. Saw the concern there. The careful, professional worry of someone who'd run these diagnostics hundreds of times and knew when the numbers told a story the patient wouldn't.
"Protocol optimization," Beatrix said. "Virgil's been making adjustments."
Virgil confirmed, out loud.
"Acceptable for who?" Kivi asked quietly. But she returned to her diagnostics without pushing.
The silence that followed felt heavier than it should.
Limbo’s arena felt different now.
Not the space itself, still the same gray sand, the same cylindric structure, the same sixty thousand voices screaming for blood. But the quality of fighters had changed. The easy victories were over. Everyone left knew what they were doing.
Jaeger entered from the opposite tunnel, moving with that same measured precision. His Malebolge corporate colors gleamed under arena lights, rust and iron, practical wealth. No showmanship. No posturing. Just a man arriving for a scheduled appointment.
Virgil warned.
The Arbiter's voice boomed across the arena.
"First Circle of The Grind”
"Fourth Round. Jaeger of Malebolge Clan vs Beatrix Aliger, Unaligned."
The crowd's reaction was mixed. Beatrix had a following now, a mild cheering, the #ScavQueen faithful believing. But Malebolge brought money, and money brought its own kind of faith.
"Begin!"
Jaeger moved first, but not aggressively. Positioning. Maintaining optimal distance. Forcing her to commit to an approach vector so he could calculate the counter.
Beatrix didn't wait for him to finish his analysis.
She launched forward, closing distance in three explosive strides. Fast. Aggressive. The opening combination Bodhi had drilled into her, high feint, low strike, pivot, body shot.
Jaeger countered perfectly. Almost.
His block came half a second late. Not enough to land clean, but enough to disrupt his timing. He hadn't expected that speed.
Good.
Virgil noted.
They traded positions, circling. Beatrix could see Jaeger's eyes, not focused on her specifically, but on something beyond. Running projections. Testing scenarios. Building a model of how she moved.
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She threw a combination that made no tactical sense. High strike when low was open. Low kick when she had clear line to his head. Random violence instead of structured technique.
Jaeger's counter came wrong. He'd calculated for the logical follow-up, got chaos instead.
Beatrix's elbow caught his ribs. Not hard enough to break anything, but enough to make him reset.
Virgil confirmed.
"Good," Beatrix muttered. "Stay confused."
Through the comm, Rain's voice: "You're doing great, B. Keep him guessing. Don't let him find your pattern."
"What pattern? I don't have a pattern."
"Exactly."
The fight continued. Jaeger was skilled, dangerous, every strike technically perfect. But Beatrix was unpredictability incarnate, and his analytical mind couldn't process something without structure.
Three minutes in, she had him on the defensive.
Then everything went wrong.
Mid-combination, her vision flickered.
Just for half a second. Maybe less. But in that half-second, the world went black and her body moved on its own and something vast and hungry stirred in her chest…
She stumbled.
Jaeger's strike connected with her jaw. Clean. Professional. Sent her reeling.
Virgil's voice was sharp with alarm.
"Virgil, what was that?"
"In the middle of a fight?"
Jaeger came at her again. No time to process. Beatrix blocked on instinct, felt the impact jar up her arm.
Through the comm, Rain's voice tight with concern: "B, your neural activity just spiked red. What happened?"
"Glitch. I'm fine."
"You're not…"
"Later!"
She activated Rage Mode.
[RAGE MODE: ACTIVE]
[89 seconds remaining]
[Processing Load: 1,000 units | 1,500 available]
The world sharpened. Power flooded her system. But this time, a new sensation was awakening.
She felt it in her muscles. Leaner. The sync was smoother. Instinctive.
Like the Protocol wasn't waiting for her commands. It was anticipating them. Moving her body before she'd consciously decided to move.
Her fist drove into Jaeger's guard. The force was perfect, not too much, not too little. Exactly optimal for breaking his defense without overextending.
There was a feeling of hunger.
Another strike. Another. Each one precisely measured. Perfect. And driving the need for more. Jaeger tried to counter desperately, but his calculations couldn't keep up with something that was operating on a different level of processing.
Beatrix was an onslaught.
Virgil reported.
She didn’t listen. She was deep in the bloodlust.
Her body executed a raw combination. Perfect form. Perfect timing. Hitting Jaeger directly in the nose. The Malebolge fighter went down hard.
[RAGE MODE DEACTIVATED]
The crash hit. Worse than ever. Her muscles didn't just ache, they spasmed. Like they were trying to transform again without permission.
Jaeger lay on the sand, gasping. It was over. The crowd roared. The broadcast drones buzzed around her. The screens showed the traditional shot of Arbiter Blake standing up, ready to rule.
Beatrix didn't wait for the ruling. She turned, and started walking towards the exit. She knew what it would be.
Blake couldn't afford to anger another clan. Not after Cerberus. Not after Minos. Not when everyone was watching to see if she'd made him weak.
"Mercy," Blake's voice carried across the arena. Flat. Emotionless.
The crowd murmured. Some cheered. Some booed. But mostly they talked.
About how she hadn't waited for his decree. About how she'd just turned her back and walked away, assuming his decision before he made it.
About defiance becoming pattern.
Through the comm, Bodhi's voice was quiet. Almost impressed. "Well done, Kid."
Beatrix didn’t reply. She wasn’t in a happy mood.
Her hands were shaking. And her vision was flickering at the edges. And somewhere deep in her chest, something was growing that felt less like power and more like hunger.
Kivi's fingers moved across the diagnostic tablet, but her hair told the real story. Dark blue. Deeper than Beatrix had seen before.
"Your muscle density increased 12% during that fight," Kivi said. Voice professionally flat. "Your bone structure shows micro-fractures. Healing wrong. Getting thicker."
"Dreadnought reinforcement," Beatrix said. "It's in the specs."
"On that timeline? No." Kivi pulled up a scan. "Your skull is developing a secondary layer. Subdermal reinforcement. It's not growing gradually, it's forming bubble structures under your skin. Here, and here, and, Beatrix, they're all along your cranium."
Beatrix touched her temple. Felt nothing unusual. But the scan didn't lie.
"How long?" she asked.
"How long what?"
"Until I'm not me anymore."
Kivi's hair flickered. Blue to yellow to red, back to blue. Rapid cycling meant stress. Beatrix had learned to read it.
"I don't know…" Kivi said.
Rain appeared in the doorway before Kivi could respond. Took one look at the diagnostic screens and his expression hardened.
"How bad?" he asked Kivi.
"Bad. And accelerating."
Rain turned to Beatrix. "What happened during the Jaeger fight? You froze for half a second."
"System glitch."
"That's not what your neural activity said. You spiked red. Complete override. Then Rage Mode synced smoother than I've ever seen." He moved closer. "What aren't you telling us?"
Beatrix glanced at the closed door. At Kivi watching. At Rain's worried face.
Virgil asked privately.
"No," she subvocalized.
"I said no."
Rain was still waiting. They both were. Looking at her like they knew she was hiding something but hoping she'd trust them enough to share it anyway.
"Just tired," Beatrix said. "Didn't sleep well."
The lie sat between them like a wall.
Rain's jaw tightened. "Your neural activity spiked hard. That's not tired. That's your Protocol trying something else mid-combat."
"It didn't though."
"This time." Rain's voice was tight. "What about next time?"
"Then I'll deal with it then."
"That's not…"
"Rain." Bodhi's voice from the doorway cut through the tension. "Give her space."
Rain looked like he wanted to argue. Instead, he left. The door closed with a soft click that felt like an ending.
Kivi finished her diagnostics in silence. When she finally spoke, her voice was careful. Professional. The voice of someone choosing her battles.
"You need to rest. Properly. At least twelve hours before next round."
"When is it?"
"Three days."
"Then I have time."
Kivi's hair cycled blue to yellow. "Beatrix. You're running out of time. Whatever's happening, it's happening fast."
"I know."
"Do you?"
Beatrix didn't answer.
After Kivi left, Beatrix sat alone in the medical bay. Stared at the diagnostic screens showing her body's slow transformation. Muscle density increasing. Bone structure reinforcing. Temperature rising.
Becoming something.
Virgil said.
"I don't want to be optimized. I want to stay human."
"Then help me stay human."
"Suboptimal," Beatrix repeated. "That's what you think I am?"
"Better at what?"
"And if I don't want those things?"
Virgil was quiet for a long moment.
Beatrix closed her eyes. He wasn't wrong.