"Huh? Hm?"

Grey woke up to a push to his shoulder, feeling a bit groggy. He slowly remembered where he was, his body recovering with a bit of a lag. He couldn’t help but wonder if he really lacked that much sleep.

The last time he had slept on his own terms was at his apartment back in the city, but he couldn’t even remember the last time he used it.

It was supposedly his for a month, but he felt like he wouldn’t even have the chance to go back at this rate.

"It’s time to go." Mauve said softly.

Grey blinked, his eyes squinting through the light. "Alright. How long’s it been?"

"Seventeen hours."

Grey’s lip twitched.

Mauve was surprised as well. Grey was knocked out cold from start to finish. He didn’t show any signs of waking up even now, he must have put his body through a lot.

"There’s some food if you want some."

Grey’s eyes lit up, his stomach grumbling.

"I’ll take whatever to go if we don’t have much time."

Mauve handed him a box. It was a bit larger than a normal takeout order. It was probably about as wide and long, but it was double the height. There was some heft to it too, like every inch of it was packed full.

Grey sat up and opened the lid, only to be hit with plumes of steam and the scent of seasoned jerk chicken and rice.

"I’m not sure what you like so I could only make what I know," Mauve said.

Grey grinned. "I love jerk chicken, I just can’t get it much where I live unless I travel like an hour. Thanks."

Mauve nodded.

"Wait, you made this?" Grey said, registering her words a bit late. Maybe his mind was still sleepy.

"The raw materials for food are pretty cost effective, but there are pretty high mark-ups for actual cooking. It’s better to do it on our own." 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

Grey looked past Mauve to see that Stella and Brad were chowing down too, but their portion sizes weren’t nearly as large as his own. It seemed they had spent quite a bit on this.

A smile spread across Grey’s lips. His face was obscured by his Helm Frame, so it was impossible to see how genuine it was, but it was certainly there.

He swiped a hand over his face and it vanished.

"Thank you."

After saying this, Grey began to eat with a surprising amount of swiftness. It felt like by the time he stood from the cot he was already half done.

"Alright, off we go," Grey said, feeling mini explosions going off in his belly. That was definitely not from the spice. This food was more special than he knew.

His fatigue was falling off of him in waves and he was suddenly raring to go.

Maybe he shouldn’t have eaten the food someone he didn’t quite trust yet gave him so easily, but hey, if he died, he’d just come back with a new sort of vengeance.

He stepped out of the tent and into the bright lights of dawn.

He felt good.

...

The "tournament area" was really just an open grass field. The Fog of Chaos swirled around them and the group were separated into their little cliques.

The only sign of organization was a little floating cube that bobbed up and down in the middle of everything. After a quick inspection, anyone could see its details.

—

Name: Event Organization Cube

Rarity: Rare

Accepted Type: N/A

Rejected Type: N/A

Description: An event organizer’s dream. A party? A concert? A tournament to the death? It doesn’t matter what your intentions are. Simply fill the cube with your intent and it will decipher everything else through a powerful artificial intelligence. Happy living :)!

Abilities: Please read above.

Note: This object is very sensitive to outside interferences. Please ensure that it is well-protected or well-observed.

—

Grey chuckled when he read the note at the bottom. How interesting.

His eyes scanned the region and the Event Organizing Cube suddenly released a pulsing radiance. It seemed that the parameters had already been decided. It was designed to start now, so it would.

Grey could feel several gazes land on him as things ramped up, but his own attention was on a group of fourteen shadows.

’There are only fourteen of them. Coincidence?’

His eyes narrowed. Did that mean that Amunet wasn’t coming?

He clicked his tongue. How annoying.

A light pulsed around Grey and he was compelled to walk forward. Well, it was more like a pair of fingers pinched the corner of his coat and pulled him forward. If he wanted to, breaking it would be easy.

But there was no need.

Grey was pulled to the center.

Across from him, a woman stood. She had a pair of crescent moon shaped blades on her back.

She frowned immediately when she saw who her first opponent was. Grey, however, was paying attention to the rules that appeared high in the skies.

They were a bit long, filled with caveats, exceptions, and exceptions to exceptions that had likely been hammered out through many long meetings.

But there were only a few important things.

First, there was no killing allowed.

Second, this was a single elimination tournament with the caveat that you could fight a second battle for detailed ranking purposes. Grey had no idea what that latter half meant at first, but he didn’t imagine it would matter to him, especially after he picked out the third.

The third was that the only way for a leader to be selected was for it to be unanimous. That could only happen two ways.

Either this leader would be undefeated or they would have to prove themselves through every potential combination of enemy. Essentially, it was either you won decisively, or you would have to make certain there was no doubt that anyone else could defeat you.

The question was, then, if you weren’t unanimous, how exactly would a "leader" be chosen?

Grey didn’t read far enough to figure it out. He already knew how this would end.

The woman across from him shouted, and suddenly threw one of her curved blades. It sliced through the air with whipping winds.

Grey’s eyes regained focus and he raised an eyebrow.

A pulse came from his Helion Frame and he stretched out a finger.

The rotating blade came to a sudden stop in front of his finger, vibrating until it shook into silence.

Grey flicked his finger and it flew back even faster than it came.

The eyes of the woman widened, death flashed in her eyes and horror painted her features.

But just as her head was about to be split in two, the curved blade stopped again, a line of blood slowly splitting between her nose bridge.

She held her hands up. "I give up!"

She screamed out the words and then collapsed to the ground, sobbing. Her team had to come and pick her up, leading her away.

"Well that was sad." Grey said, shaking his head.

Grey was about to walk away when he felt yet another tug on him.

He frowned.

He was being selected to battle again?