Ahead, Charon walked with casual certainty, navigating debris fields and gravity wells like he'd memorized every hazard. This was his arena. His Circle.
She was just visiting.
Behind them, the prep hangar faded into gray mist. The sounds of other fighters warming up, boasting, bleeding off nervous energy, all of it dissolved into the poisoned atmosphere. Here in Limbo's depths, there was only silence and sand.
Virgil noted.
Beatrix kept her distance anyway. Five meters felt safer than three. Charon stopped abruptly, turning to face her. His expression remained pleasant, unremarkable. Like they'd bumped into each other at a market stall.
“First time this deep?” Charon asked.
She nodded. “Didn’t know it went this far.”
“It goes farther than this.” His voice was soft, almost amused. “Limbo gets worse down there.” He pointed to the side of the cylinder opposed to the star. “It’s where the illusions start.”
“You always give tours to rookies?”
“Only the interesting ones.”
He said it without heat, like a notation in a margin. Beatrix watched the way he placed his feet, exact, silent. Not stalking. Thinking.
"Why are you here?" he asked.
Beatrix thought about lying. Thought about tactical answers. Settled on truth.
"Because I need to know if I belong here."
"And you think sparring with me will answer that?"
"I think watching you walk away won't."
He adjusted the angle of his head, cold eyes still fixed on her.
"You shouldn’t be here," he said simply.
"I know."
Charon smiled slightly. Not warmth. Recognition.
He gestured to the terrain around them. "First lesson. See those?"
Beatrix followed his gaze to three broadcast drones hovering at various distances, their lenses tracking their movements. Standard arena surveillance, feeding data to the networks, recording everything for the betting algorithms.
"Privacy costs," Charon said. He reached into his jacket, pulled out a small device no bigger than his thumb. He activated it.
The electromagnetic pulse was invisible but immediate. All three drones dropped from the sky like dead birds, hitting the sand with muffled thumps. Their indicator lights went dark.
Virgil reported.
"Four minutes," Charon said, confirming Virgil's calculation without hearing it. "Maybe five if we're lucky."
Beatrix braced. She was really alone with the predator.
But Charon wasn’t looking for a fight, apparently. He walked toward a section of terrain that looked identical to everything else, gray sand, scattered debris, broken mirrors jutting at random angles.
"Limbo's designed to kill the unprepared," he continued. "Gravity wells, unstable surfaces, debris that shifts mid-fight. Most fighters spend the first round discovering hazards the hard way." He stopped at a seemingly random spot. "But some hazards are predictable."
He pointed to a patch of sand about two meters wide. To Beatrix's eyes, it looked exactly like every other patch of sand in the arena.
"Watch the edges," Charon said.
Beatrix stared. At first, she saw nothing. Then… there. A slight shimmer in the air just above the sand's surface. Not heat distortion. Something else. The kind of visual artifact that happened when gravity bent light in ways it shouldn't.
"Micro-gravity glitch," Charon explained. "Forms every eight to twelve seconds, lasts about four seconds. Atmospheric pressure triggers it. See how the mist flows?" He gestured to the omnipresent fog. "When it eddies counterclockwise, the well activates."
Virgil said, already mapping the pattern.
Beatrix approached cautiously. The air there felt strange, heavy. "What is it?"
"A flaw in the arena's foundation that the operators never bothered to fix. Most fighters run right through it, feeling nothing but a slight drag. They mistake it for fatigue."
He stepped into the anomaly, and for a split second, his movement seemed to slow, to thicken. "But if you know how to use it, how to push off from its edge..." He made a sudden, sharp movement, and his body launched forward with an unnatural velocity, covering twenty feet in a blink.
"It can be a weapon. A fulcrum for an attack, or an escape route no one expects."
"Why tell me this?"
"I’m a fair man." He moved deeper into the terrain. "There are glitches like this scattered across the arena. Learn to see them, and you've got options your opponents don't."
For the next three minutes, he walked her through Limbo's hidden geography. How to read the dust patterns for unstable surfaces. Which debris configurations indicated structural weakness beneath. The subtle pressure changes that preceded major gravity shifts.
It was the most valuable three minutes of education Beatrix had ever received.
"Replacements incoming," Charon said, checking his internal chronometer. "Thirty seconds."
Right on schedule, three new drones appeared from the mist, their fresh lenses already tracking, broadcasting, feeding the networks.
Virgil confirmed.
Charon's posture shifted. The helpful instructor vanished, replaced by the arena professional. He settled into a basic stance, hands loose, weight centered. Then he gave her something else. One more piece of information she didn't ask for.
"If you lose," he said quietly, "make sure they laugh at you."
Beatrix frowned. "What?"
"Free advice. Might keep you breathing a little longer." He offered nothing else. No explanation. No context.
Virgil noted.
"Your move," Charon said, and the teaching session was over.
Through her comm, Kivi's voice crackled: "Seven thousand viewers just became twelve thousand. The main feeds picked this up. They're calling it 'Charon's Charity Case.'"
"Wonderful," Beatrix muttered.
"Rain wants to know if you've lost your mind."
"Tell him I'm gathering intelligence."
"He says that's what people with death wishes always say."
Beatrix activated her combat apps. Her HUD painted tactical overlays across Charon's stance, identifying seventeen potential attack vectors. His breathing pattern suggested serious cardiovascular augmentation. His micro-expressions showed he was calculating something.
[RISK ASSESSMENT: 1 HOSTILE | CHARON]
[THREAT LEVEL: 5 - EXTREME]
Virgil said.
"I know."
"I know," she said again, harder.
She moved first.
Her enhanced speed carried her forward, closing the distance in a heartbeat. Jab, cross, hook—combinations drilled into muscle memory by hours of desperate practice. Charon slipped the first two strikes with minimal movement, blocked the third with an open palm that felt like hitting concrete.
His counter was casual. A backhand that she barely deflected, the impact traveling up her arm like electricity.
Beatrix pressed harder. Low kick to destabilize, feint high to draw his guard, strike low again to exploit the opening. She was faster than him, her humanware giving her an edge in raw speed. She landed a solid hit to his ribs, felt the impact travel up her arm.
He stepped back. She advanced. The drones chittered with focus lock. A fourth arrived, hungry.
Another combination, this one tighter, more technical. Every move felt clean, purposeful. She was pushing him. Actually pushing him back across the sand.
Virgil said, quiet and urgent.
She ignored the warning. She had him on the defensive, forcing him back across the sand. Her training was paying off. Her upgrades were working. The fear that had been eating her since she arrived at Limbo was burning away in the furnace of action.
She was winning.
Charon's next defensive movement was too slow. Beatrix's fist drove toward his jaw with enough force to crack bone.
Then something changed in his eyes. Not surprise. Decision.
She activated Rage Mode without thinking.
[RAGE MODE: ACTIVE - 10 SECOND BURST]
[STRENGTH: +100%]
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
[DEXTERITY: +100%]
[FORTITUDE: +100%]
[PAIN THRESHOLD: MAXIMUM]
The world exploded into hyperclarity.
Everything slowed. Every detail sharpened. Charon's casual stance revealed hidden tensions, micro-adjustments, defensive preparations he thought were invisible. His breathing pattern shifted. His weight distribution changed.
She moved.
Ten seconds of absolute superiority. Ten seconds where she wasn't a desperate scavenger playing at warrior, she was the weapon Rain had built, the fighter Bodhi had warned against becoming, the monster that could save her brother's life.
Her enhanced fist drove into Charon's guard with force that crumpled his defense. She felt ribs compress under her strikes, felt his careful positioning collapse under her assault. For ten perfect seconds, she pressed the attack with speed and power he couldn't match.
Virgil said, the voice sharp now. Urgent.
But she was winning. Actually winning against the apex predator. Every time she landed a strike, it felt clean. Too clean. Her fist drove toward his solar plexus, ready to finish what she'd started.
Then Charon smiled.
And stepped backward.
And opened his guard completely.
Beatrix's punch hit Charon’s chest squarely. Her momentum threw him away, first off-balance, then gracefully rolling in the sand.
[RAGE MODE: DEACTIVATED]
[RECOVERY TIMER: 00:02:00]
The crash hit like falling off a cliff. Her enhanced strength evaporated. Her hyperclarity vision collapsed back to baseline. Every muscle in her body screamed protest at the cellular damage she'd just inflicted.
She landed hard in the gray sand, gasping, her HUD painting warnings across her vision. Charon stood again, hands back in his pockets. Not breathing hard. Not injured. Not even bothered.
"Good fight," he said pleasantly. "Fast reflexes. Solid integration work. I didn't have a chance."
The drones drank it like holy water. One of them pinged, pushing a clip to the feeds. Beatrix’s HUD flashed as betting scrapes recalculated.
He turned, coat swinging, and strolled out the way they’d come, past the drones, into the ribs and the murk. He didn’t look back.
Beatrix stood still until the tremor left her thigh.
“Virgil,” she said quietly.
Virgil said, his tone carrying something like dread.
Her mouth went dry. “Explain.”
Beatrix watched Charon’s back get smaller, steady. She didn’t follow.
The air rushed from her lungs. The pride curdled into a sickening, icy dread. He had peeked inside of her. He had opened her up, cataloged her soul, and stitched her back together without her even knowing.
She was about to scream when she remembered the drones, three meters away, hungry for twitch, recording her moment of "victory." No. She couldn't… she would not scream. She would not fall to her knees. She forced herself to stand there, frozen, and swallow the violation while the monster who had perpetrated it simply walked away.
“How much does he know?” she asked.
“Enough to beat the version of you that fought him just now,” Virgil said. “Better than you know the version yourself.”
“Could you have warned me?”
“I could have,” Virgil said. “And he would have adjusted and learned slower. I wanted the signature of his method. Now I can build a counter-noise.”
Rage coiled and uncoiled. She pulled her face smooth. She let her shoulders loosen as if she were satisfied and nothing else.
“Build it,” she said.
“I already am.”
Beatrix made her way back to the prep area, alone in the sands of Limbo, every step a negotiation with gravity wells and unstable terrain. The knowledge Charon had given her about the gravitational glitch felt like a cheap payment of what he had taken. .
The prep hangar came into view through the mist. Other fighters were still there, running drills, testing equipment, bleeding off adrenaline. A few turned to watch her return, curiosity in their eyes.
Bulging Eyes sneered. "Big Wolf let you live, ?"
Beatrix ignored him, finding her equipment station. Her pack sat where she'd left it, untouched. Small mercies.
Virgil announced.
"B?" Kivi's voice, tight with concern. "You ok?"
"Alive."
"Your vitals look like shit. What happened?"
"Training."
"That's not training," Rain cut in. "That's data harvesting. Your whole fight just got mapped, cataloged, and filed away in Charon's tactical database. Every strength. Every weakness. Every…"
"I know," Beatrix said quietly.
Silence on the channel.
Then Kivi: "Fuck."
"Yeah."
"We can work with this," Rain said, but he didn't sound convinced. "He's got a snapshot of who you were in that moment. But people adapt. Evolve. Learn new tricks. We've got time before you face him. We can—"
"Not facing him yet," Beatrix interrupted. "Draw is tomorrow."
"Right." Rain exhaled. "Don’t think Charon will be sharing the data."
Virgil noted helpfully.
"Cheerful," Beatrix muttered.
"Look," Kivi said. "What's done is done. You took a calculated risk. It didn't pay off. But you learned something about the terrain."
Virgil confirmed.
"And hey," Kivi continued, voice brightening artificially. "Your channel's blowing up. Eighteen thousand viewers now. Half of them think you're insane. The other half think you've got balls made of titanium. Either way, you're trending."
"Great."
"It is great," Rain said. "Higher profile means better odds if you win. Means sponsors might notice. Means…"
"Means I've got a target on my back," Beatrix finished.
"You had that the moment you punched a wall into scrap metal," Kivi said. "Now you've just got a bigger one. Welcome to the spotlight, B."
The conversation continued for a few more minutes, tactical advice mixed with hollow reassurances. But underneath it all, Beatrix could hear what they weren't saying. She'd shown her hand. Given away advantages she couldn't afford to lose. Made herself predictable in a game where predictability meant death.
When the channel finally closed, she sat alone with her thoughts and the ambient noise of the prep hangar. The social media feeds were still scrolling across public displays, showing her "victory" over Charon to thousands of viewers.
HUD pings came like hail.
[PUSH: PITtalk — ‘Beatrix: THE QUIET STORM?’]
[PUSH: CircleWatch — ‘ODDS SHAKEUP: REAPER MORTAL?’]
[PUSH: MinosWire — ‘SHE CHEATED. DISCUSS.’]
[PUSH: AcheronLive — ‘CHARON’S TEACHABLE MOMENT?’]
Faces she didn’t know had opinions about a fight she hadn’t won. They were celebrating her moment of greatest vulnerability. Praising a victory that was actually a violation. Building her reputation on a foundation of lies she couldn't expose without looking weak.
Virgil noted.
"Everybody profits but me," Beatrix muttered, feeling sick.
She felt tainted. Crowded. Nauseated. She needed to be alone. Real privacy, not the monitored prep area where drones tracked every movement. She needed to process what had just happened without an audience.
The new B2-10 informed her that her room was the only place out of reach for the broadcasting. Good. She rushed into it and slipped inside.
The quarters they gave her were a cage with a bed and a bathroom. Gray walls, no windows, gray floor, gray ceiling. Even the light was gray. But it was clean and tidy. She locked the door and turned the lights off.
Her body doubled up in the bed, staring at her fists in silence. They weren't shaking anymore, but she could still feel her fist striking Charon’s chest. The memory played on repeat, her enhanced speed, her precision strikes, the moment she'd thought she was winning.
Virgil said, and for once the AI's voice carried something almost like concern.
"No intervention," Beatrix said through clenched teeth. "I just need to be alone. Go away."
Virgil didn’t respond. She was alone, as alone as a woman with a voice in her head could be.
Then she finally let herself feel it.
The fear she'd been pushing down since she'd arrived at Limbo. The terror of facing professional killers. The knowledge that she was outmatched, outclassed, out of her depth in every possible way.
The violation of having Charon steal her capabilities. Of being read, analyzed, cataloged like a piece of equipment.
The humiliation of falling for manipulation. Of thinking she'd won when she'd been played from the start.
It all crashed over her at once, a wave of emotion she'd been holding back for weeks.
Her hands shook.
Her breath came in short, sharp gasps.
Her eyes burned with tears.
She forced herself to breathe. Slow and deep. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The way Bodhi had taught her when she was twelve and having panic attacks after her mother died.
The shaking gradually subsided.
The fear remained, but it became manageable. Fuel instead of fire.
She stood, testing her balance. Better. Still exhausted, still violated, still aware of how badly this could go wrong.
But functional.
Virgil announced.
Beatrix's eyes snapped open.
Dante.
She hadn't talked to him since before leaving for Limbo. Hadn't told him where she was going or what she was doing. Had been avoiding the conversation she knew was coming.
Her finger hovered over the decline button. It would be easier. Safer. She could focus on the fight, deal with Dante after she'd won, after she had prize money to show him, proof that her insane gamble had paid off.
But what if she didn't win? What if this was the last chance to hear his voice?
She accepted the call.
Dante's face appeared on her HUD, transmitted through the station's comm network. He looked better than the last time she'd seen him. Color in his cheeks. Eyes clearer. The medical treatments were working.
For now.
"Hey," he said, and his smile was the same one from childhood, before everything went wrong. "Figured I'd check in. See how that corporate job turned out."
Beatrix's throat went tight. "It didn't work out."
The smile faded immediately. "What do you mean it didn't work out? Beatrix, that was our best shot at—" He stopped himself, took a breath. "Okay. Okay. What happened?"
"They said I wasn't a good fit."
"Bullshit." His hands clenched into fists. "You're better than half the people they employ. You can strip a reactor core in your sleep. You've survived the Boneyard for twenty-three years. How the hell are you not a good fit?"
"I don't know."
"Where are you right now?"
The question came out sharp, suspicious. Beatrix felt her stomach drop.
"Work."
"Where. Are. You."
She couldn't lie to him. Never could. But she couldn't tell him the truth either. The silence stretched between them like a chasm.
"Beatrix." His voice went cold. "Where are you?"
"Doing what I have to do."
"That's not an answer."
"It's all I can give you right now."
Dante leaned closer to the camera, studying her face through the holo. His eyes narrowed.
"You look different."
"Tired."
"No. Different." His gaze traveled across her features, cataloging changes she'd hoped weren't visible. "Your face is thinner. Your shoulders are broader. Your eyes are..." He trailed off. "What did you do?"
"What I had to."
"Stop saying that!" His voice cracked with frustration and fear. "Stop being cryptic and just tell me what the hell is going on!"
Beatrix wanted to tell him everything. Wanted to confess about the Grind, about the humanware, about the choices that had brought her to this gray wasteland. Wanted him to absolve her or condemn her or do anything except look at her with that mixture of fear and suspicion.
But the words stuck in her throat like broken glass.
"I'm handling it," she said instead.
"Handling what? Beatrix, you're scaring me."
"Don't be scared. I've got a plan."
"Your plans scare me even more." He rubbed his face roughly, exhaustion and illness showing through the facade of strength. "I got that remote analyst job. Started yesterday. It's not much, but it's something. Maybe fifteen percent of the bills if I work doubles."
"You're supposed to be resting…"
"I can't rest while you're out there doing god knows what!" The words came out raw. "I'm not stupid, Beatrix. I know you're keeping something from me. I know you're in some kind of trouble. I can see it in your face even through this shitty holo connection."
"I'm not in trouble."
"Then where are you?"
The question hung between them like a blade. Beatrix opened her mouth. Closed it. Tried again.
Nothing came out.
Dante's expression crumbled. "You can't even tell me. Whatever you're doing, whatever you've gotten yourself into, it's bad enough that you can't even tell your own brother."
"Dante…"
"I don't want your money if it costs you this much." His eyes were wet now, tears he was trying to hide. "I don't want to live knowing you destroyed yourself for me. Do you understand? I'd rather die than watch you become someone I don't recognize."
"I'm still me."
"Are you?" He wiped his eyes roughly. "Because the Beatrix I know wouldn't lie to me. Wouldn't hide from me. Wouldn't..." He gestured vaguely at the screen. "Whatever this is."
The silence stretched. Beatrix could hear medical equipment beeping in the background of Dante's feed. Could see the IV line still attached to his arm. Could count the days he had left if the treatments failed.
"I'm doing this for you," she said quietly.
"I didn't ask you to."
"You didn't have to."
"Beatrix." His voice steadied, finding strength somewhere deep. "Promise me something."
"What?"
"Promise me that whatever you're doing, whoever you think you have to become, you'll still be you when it's over. I need my sister. Not some stranger wearing her face."
The words hit harder than any of Virgil's tactical assessments. Harder than Charon's manipulation. Harder than anything except the knowledge that she couldn't promise what he was asking.
Because she'd already changed. Already become something else. Already crossed lines she couldn't uncross.
"I'll do everything I can to come home," she said instead, her eyes breaking.
Dante heard the evasion. She saw it in his eyes.
"That's not what I asked."
"It's all I can give you right now."
He stared at her for a long moment. Then nodded slowly, accepting what he couldn't change.
"The nurse here," he said, voice carefully casual, "she's from the outer sectors. Says people who work the hard jobs come back different. Harder. Less..." He searched for the word. "Less themselves."
"I won't forget you," Beatrix said. "That's a promise I can make."
"That's not enough." But his smile returned, fragile. Sad. Forced. "But I guess it'll have to be."
The connection held for another few seconds. Neither of them speaking. Just looking at each other across the void, memorizing faces in case it was the last time.
Then Dante's hand moved toward the disconnect button.
"Wait," Beatrix said.
He paused.
"I love you," she said, almost choking. "Whatever happens. However this turns out. I need you to know that."
His face crumpled for just a second before he forced the smile back.
"I know," he whispered. "I love you too. That's why this hurts so much."
He killed the feed.
Beatrix sat alone in the empty room, staring at the space where his face had been. The silence pressed in from all sides, heavy and absolute.
And she sat in the dark, numb and hollow, trying to remember why survival mattered when the person she was surviving for didn't want what she'd become.