Beatrix stood in the center of the prep room, eyes closed, breathing measured. A temple of routine. She'd learned to love this moment, the calm before violence, when her team moved around her like priests performing sacred rituals. Each had their role. Each kept her alive.

  Bodhi circled first, professional assessment masking paternal concern. His calloused hands adjusted her stance with familiar efficiency.

  "Weight forward on your toes." He tapped her left heel. "He's going to be slow. Heavy. The second you stand still, he's got you."

  She shifted, feeling the correction settle into muscle memory. Bodhi's training had saved her life more than once. Would save it again tonight.

  "Keep moving," he continued, positioning her shoulders. "Don't let him set the pace. Your fight, your rules."

  Kivi circled opposite, tablet glowing in her hands. The hardware specialist had become something like a sister, sharp-tongued, brilliant, carrying her own ghosts. Her sister's face haunted everything she built, every modification she made to keep Beatrix safe.

  "Boot magnetics are good." Kivi tapped something on screen. "Quick-release functioning perfectly. Remember: toe-tap to release, heel-tap to engage."

  A small remote appeared in Kivi's hand. She triggered it. Beatrix felt the catches in her boots respond, magnetic grip releasing, reengaging, smooth as thought.

  "Beautiful," Kivi murmured, pride evident. "You're going to dance circles around this asshole."

  Rain moved in last, quiet as always. The tech specialist carried the weight of too much knowledge, too many things he'd seen go wrong. He scrolled through Virgil's interface with practiced efficiency, but his movements were tight tonight. Worried.

  "Gravity sensor calibrated." His voice was flat, controlled. "Timer protocols active. Virgil's got the arena mapped down to the microsecond."

  A pause. Longer than usual.

  "Your stress hormones are already elevated."

  Beatrix opened her eyes. Rain was looking at her with an expression she couldn't quite parse. She hated it: Her ears always got red because of it.

  "Be careful in there, B."

  The use of her nickname made her chest tight. "I'm always careful."

  "I know." But his tone said he didn't believe it. Said he'd seen her fight, seen what she became when Rage Mode activated. Seen the way she smiled afterward, blood on her knuckles, eyes bright with something that wasn't quite human.

  Virgil's voice filled her head, private channel bypassing the room's audio.

  A brief pause. Unusual for an AI that processed information faster than thought.

  The statement landed like a promise and a threat. Beatrix didn't acknowledge it. Couldn't think about what "too far" meant. About the fights where she'd lost herself in violence, where consciousness had become a blur of blood and bone and beautiful, terrible clarity.

  "Figured you kids needed feeding."

  The voice came from the doorway. Bodhi stood there with a tray of something that might technically qualify as food. The smell alone was a crime against nature.

  Kivi groaned. "Oh God, not your cooking again."

  "It's nutritious." Bodhi set the tray down with mock offense. "Protein. Carbs. All the shit you need."

  "It's barely edible." Rain picked up something that might have been a sandwich. Might have been a biological experiment. "What is this?"

  "Love. That's what that is."

  Despite everything, the fear, the pressure, the knowledge that in thirty minutes she'd be fighting for her life, Beatrix laughed. Real laughter, surprised out of her. The team joined in, even Rain cracking a smile.

  They ate Bodhi's terrible food. Complained about it. Kept eating anyway.

  Normal. Domestic.

  Beatrix watched them banter, feeling something warm and fragile settle in her chest. This was what she was fighting for. Not just Dante's cure, though that remained the north star guiding every decision. But this. These people who circled her with care, who fed her terrible food and kept her alive and called her "kid" like it meant something.

  She'd never had this before. Never had people who chose to stay when things got hard.

  , she told herself.

  But the thought was there, cold and certain: they were going to leave. Eventually. When they saw too much. When she crossed a line they couldn't follow her past.

  Maybe tonight.

  The Grind announcement cut through the moment.

  > Round of Eight. Beatrix versus Tarasque of Tartarus clan.

  The warmth died. Reality rushing back in.

  Bodhi squeezed her shoulder once. Brief. "You ready?"

  Beatrix stood, feeling the Dreadnought Protocol hum to life beneath her skin. Always there now, always waiting. Enhancement that was becoming less tool and more , changing her in ways she didn't fully understand.

  "Ready."

  She walked toward the arena entrance, feeling their eyes on her back. Trusting them with her life. Not knowing it was the last time they'd look at her quite the same way.

  Not knowing she was about to become something they couldn't trust anymore.

  Limbo had changed.

  Beatrix stopped at the arena entrance, taking in the degradation. The tournament's main fighting space had always been mobile platforms suspended in shifting gravity fields, hence the name. But the pristine mechanical precision from earlier rounds had given way to something more hostile. More .

  The platforms looked corroded now, edges rough with rust and damage. Gravity plates that had been hidden beneath smooth flooring were exposed, sparking occasionally with unstable energy. Machinery ground at the arena perimeter, massive gears, hydraulic pistons, steam vents hissing at irregular intervals. Everything sharp edges and hostile angles.

  The lighting had changed too. Harsh and flickering, casting deep shadows that moved wrong. Made the whole space feel alive. Predatory.

  Chemical tang in the air. Not quite toxic, but close. Ozone from the sparking equipment mixed with industrial oil and hot metal. Something organic underneath, wrong in a way that made Beatrix's enhanced senses recoil.

  Tartarus. This was their influence bleeding into Limbo's design. Making the arena reflect their philosophy: hostile, grinding, breaking fighters down to their base components.

  The crowd roared, but the sound echoed strangely off the degraded surfaces. Anticipation with an edge of viciousness. They knew what Tartarus meant. Knew what kind of fight this would be.

  The Alchemist's voice cut through the noise, amplified to godlike proportions.

  "Ladies, gentlemen, and those who've transcended such limiting classifications, welcome to the Round of Eight!"

  Platform rising beneath Beatrix's feet. Smooth ascent into the arena proper. Crowd noise intensifying as she became visible.

  "Unaligned Beatrix, the Grind's most promising warrior."

  His language had changed. Earlier fights, he'd called her a scavenger, an underdog. Now: warrior. Like he'd decided she was worth taking seriously. Or like he'd seen what she was becoming and found it entertaining.

  "Four fights. Four victories. Technical precision married to raw power. A fighter who grows stronger with every challenge."

  Beatrix's jaw tightened. The Alchemist's showmanship made her skin crawl. The way he turned violence into entertainment, suffering into spectacle. But she needed him. Needed this tournament, needed the prize money, needed…

  "But tonight," Blake continued, voice dropping to theatrical portent, "tonight she faces Tartarus."

  The crowd's energy shifted. Excitement mixing with something darker. They knew what that meant. What Tartarus did to their fighters.

  "The clan of monsters. The house that breaks the human form and remakes it into . Or less. Depending on your philosophical stance regarding the sanctity of flesh."

  Platform rising opposite side of arena. Slower than hers. Dramatic. These people always knew how to work a reveal.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  "Tarasque. Debt-bound. Modified. for your entertainment."

  The crowd held its breath.

  The figure that rose into view wasn't human anymore. Not really.

  Beatrix's first instinct was visceral recoil.

  Tarasque stood nearly three meters tall, but the height came from grotesque augmentation rather than natural growth. His shoulders were too broad, reinforced with metal plating that looked fused directly to bone. Arms too long, ending in hands that were more industrial equipment than flesh. One arm terminated in what looked like a pneumatic press, the other in claws that sparked with electrical current.

  His chest cavity appeared reinforced from outside, ribs visible through synthetic skin designed to look organic but failing horribly. The anatomy was , human structure warped by technology that didn't care about aesthetic integration. Just function. Just power.

  Toxic ports studded his shoulders, releasing greenish vapor that drifted around him like a shroud. Chemical warfare built into his body. No choice, no control. Just constant emission of poison that would make close combat lethal for normal fighters.

  His face was the worst part.

  One side remained mostly human, scarred, exhausted, . The human eye tracked Beatrix with desperate awareness. Seeing her. Recognizing her as person, not opponent.

  The other side was mechanical nightmare. Metal skull plating, exposed servos, an optical sensor that glowed red and dead. No emotion there. No awareness. Just targeting system and threat assessment.

  The human eye held all the horror. All the knowledge of what he'd become. Still conscious, still , trapped inside a body that had been weaponized against his will.

  The crowd's reaction split. Some cheering for the monster, the spectacle. Others falling silent, uncomfortable with what Tartarus had created.

  This was what Tartarus did. Stole and modified the largest, most dangerous humanware they could find. Captured or indebted fighters and forced them into the Grind, treating them as disposable assets. Augmented their own members grotesquely, seeing the human body as flawed chassis to be improved without consent or consideration.

  Tarasque's expression, the human half, broadcast everything:

  Beatrix felt something twist in her chest. Pity mixing with horror.

  Then tactical assessment kicked in, cold and analytical. Dreadnought Protocol already feeding her data, highlighting weaknesses, calculating approach vectors.

  Virgil's voice confirmed her analysis:

  The pity got shoved down, buried beneath necessity. Couldn't afford sympathy. Couldn't afford to see him as victim. He was obstacle. Target. Thing between her and Dante's cure.

  But the thought lingered, uncomfortable:

  She dismissed it.

  Tarasque stood motionless on his platform, not wasting energy on unnecessary movement. Conserving strength. Trained response, like a beaten dog that learned not to move without command.

  His human eye found hers across the arena. For a moment, their gazes locked.

  She saw recognition there. Understanding. And worse: . He pitied .

  Her hands curled into fists.

  Blake's voice cut through her spiraling thoughts.

  "Fighters ready!"

  The gravity plates began cycling. Beatrix felt the shift through her boots, familiar now, predictable. Virgil had mapped every plate, every timing pattern. Rain had hacked the arena schematics days ago. Bodhi had drilled her on using walls and ceilings in variable gravity. Kivi had modified her boot magnetics for rapid directional changes.

  They'd prepared her perfectly. Given her every advantage.

  She just had to trust them. Trust the plan. Win.

  The machinery ground louder. Steam vented, obscuring sightlines. The arena becoming maze of industrial hazards and shifting gravity fields.

  Tarasque settled into guard stance. Resigned. Prepared. Already defeated, just waiting for his body to catch up to what his mind knew.

  Beatrix dropped into fighting crouch. Dreadnought Protocol humming, enhancing reflexes, preparing for violence.

  Blake's voice rang out, final and absolute:

  "FIGHT!"

  Beatrix moved.

  Not toward Tarasque, that's what he expected, what his conditioning prepared him for. She went , leaping to adjacent platform as gravity shifted beneath her feet. Boot magnetics released on thought, exactly as Kivi designed. Virgil's voice fed her timing without conscious processing.

  She was already moving. Platform she'd been standing on collapsed into high-gravity field. Tarasque's fist hammered down where she'd been half a second earlier. Impact crater in metal plating. Sparks flying. Platform buckling under the force.

  He was strong. Strong enough to break her with one solid hit.

  Good thing he wasn't going to land one.

  Beatrix touched down on new platform, immediately launching toward ceiling structure. Magnetics engaging at heel-tap, wall-running horizontal as gravity shifted again. The arena had become three-dimensional playground, and she was the only one light enough, fast enough, to use it properly.

  Tarasque followed her movement, but too slow. Everything about his augmentations was , too heavy, too powerful, too rigid. Built for overwhelming force in straightforward engagement. Useless against an opponent who refused to engage.

  Beatrix landed, coiled, launched. Used the shifting fields like currents in water, letting them redirect her momentum. Tarasque swung at empty air, toxic gas venting from his shoulder ports into space she'd already vacated.

  She circled him, never stopping, never predictable. Watching for opening. Waiting for mistake.

  He tried to anticipate her movement. Threw punch where he thought she'd land. Wrong. Always wrong. His conditioning made him predictable—programmed responses, trained patterns. He fought like machine executing algorithm.

  She fought like water. Like wind. Formless, constant, everywhere and nowhere.

  Pride flickered through her. Team effort paying off. Rain's schematics, Virgil's timing, Bodhi's training, Kivi's hardware, all functioning in perfect synthesis. She was weapon they'd built together, and she was .

  Beatrix saw it. The place where flesh met metal, where Tartarus's modifications had been grafted onto human frame. Not seamless integration like corporate or military augmentation. Just brutal fusion, function over form.

  Gravity shifted. She used it. Launched from below, came at him from angle he couldn't cover. Fist connected with shoulder joint, exactly where Virgil highlighted.

  Impact drove through augmentation plating into biological components beneath. Tarasque grunted, pain registering human side while mechanical side tried to compensate. He stumbled, heavy feet crashing through platform edge.

  Beatrix was gone before he recovered. Already repositioning. Already planning next strike.

  She continued.

  Hit and run. Again. Again. Never letting him set pace, never giving him target. Using his weight against him, every move made him slower, every platform buckled further under his mass. Gravity traps affected him more, dragged at his augmented frame.

  He was adapted to brawlers who came to him. Opponents who thought they could match his strength. He had : engage, intimidate, destroy.

  But she wouldn't engage. And his orders couldn't account for that.

  "You are doing it," Rain said through the comms, relief evident. "The plan's working."

  Kivi laughed, delighted. "Look at that movement!"

  Bodhi watched with critical eye, cataloging every strike, every position change. Approving nods at her footwork. "Good. Not rushing it."

  Professional confidence among the team. Their strategy working, their fighter performing perfectly.

  None of them seeing what was starting to build beneath the surface.

  Beatrix felt .

  Better than good. The fight was under control, her body responding perfectly, strategy unfolding exactly as planned. Every movement felt , enhanced by Dreadnought Protocol but still fundamentally . Still precise. Still technical.

  The thought didn't worried her. Just felt true. Like finding purpose after years of aimless survival. She was at this. Good at reading opponents, exploiting weakness, using environment as weapon.

  Good at violence.

  Tarasque was deteriorating. Taking damage incrementally, bleeding from human side where augmentation couldn't protect everything. Mechanical systems sparking where she'd hit. Moving slower, telegraphing moves even more obviously.

  His human eye showed desperation. He knew how this ended. Knew he couldn't adapt, couldn't win. Still fighting because stopping wasn't allowed. Debt-bound. Property of Tartarus. Disposable asset.

  , some part of her whispered.

  She crushed the thought.

  Tarasque changed tactics. Wild swing, abandoning his programmed approach. Massive fist cutting through air faster than she expected.

  Beatrix was already moving, but not quite fast enough.

  The blow caught her. Not direct, clipped her ribs as she twisted away. But . Real, bone-deep impact.

  Pain exploded through her side. Momentum drove her into platform edge, metal buckling beneath her. Air punching out of lungs. Ribs bruised. Maybe cracked.

  She lay there for a moment, gasping. Platform beneath her damaged, unstable. Everything .

  For a moment: . Sharp and bright and painful.

  Then: .

  Simple, pure, anger.

  Then: something else

  The Dreadnought Protocol .

  Not the gentle enhancement she'd gotten used to. Not the tactical overlay that made her faster, stronger, more aware. This was . This was…

  Pain receptors dampening. Not gone, but distant. Ribs still broken but she could through it.

  Adrenaline flooding. Normal response, but . Her heart rate slowing paradoxically as system compensated. Combat chemistry flooding her body with compounds that shouldn't exist outside military labs.

  And something else. Something .

  Her muscles felt . Not injury-tight. Growing tight. Expanding tight. Like they were pressing against her skin from inside, demanding more space.

  Brief confusion. Then pushed away by of a different kind. Predator clarity. Target clarity.

  Tarasque standing over her. Silhouette against harsh arena lighting. Preparing to strike again.

  .

  The thought came unbidden. Not "opponent." Not "target." .

  She should have been disturbed. Was disturbed. Part of her screaming that something was , that she needed to stop, needed to…

  But that part was getting quieter.

  Beatrix stood. Felt different standing up. Stronger. .

  Tarasque hesitated. His human eye widening. Recognizing something.

  , some distant part of her registered.

  Her body felt strange. Powerful but . Like she'd grown without noticing. Like the meat suit she wore had been upgraded mid-fight.

  Colors seemed brighter. Blood on Tarasque's metal plating impossibly red. Arena lighting sharp enough to hurt. Every shadow deep enough to hide in.

  Sounds muffling. Crowd noise becoming white static. Machinery grinding fading to background hum. Only combat-relevant sounds remaining clear: Tarasque's breathing, ragged and terrified. His mechanical systems whirring. Hydraulic fluid leaking from damaged components.

  Could she actually hear his heartbeat? Or was that her imagination? Didn't matter. She could him. Track him. Read his body language like text written in blood.

  Virgil's voice cut through, distant but insistent:

  She didn't care. Didn't need timing anymore. Just needed to .

  Was she? Couldn't remember the pattern. Didn't matter. Plans were for people who weren't .

  She didn't respond. Didn't know how. Words and thoughts felt distant. Unnecessary. Only movement mattered. Only violence.

  Tarasque swung. Heavy, powerful, exactly what his programming told him to do.

  Beatrix didn't dodge.

  Both surprised. Her hand, when had it gotten so strong? wrapped around his mechanical appendage. Stopping his momentum. Impossible. She wasn't strong enough. Shouldn't be strong enough.

  But she was.

  Redirected his movement. Used his weight. Threw him.

  Tarasque crashed into platform. Metal shrieking. His augmented mass too heavy, platform couldn't handle it. Buckled. Sparks flying where gravity plates shorted out.

  The crowd .

  Beatrix barely heard them. Wasn't fighting for them. Wasn't fighting for Dante anymore either. Just fighting because this was what she now.

  Predator.

  She moved in.