“It’s not flight, as you literally have to walk or run around. But, it does mean you can brace yourself against solid air.” I lifted a leg, and pushed against the air behind me, a flat disk of mist spreading out behind me. “So, you can do a videogame double jump in midair, too.”

“And never hit the ground and make a crater?” he spoke up.

“Sounds about right,” I agreed. “But you’ve got a lot of Soul to earn and use for that to happen.”

“Soul Magic, huh?” He looked at the Bars of the Philosopher’s Might on his arm, opened and closed them. “Is there more it can do?” he asked hesitantly.

I smiled slightly. “Tons more. There’s a lot more chakra points that can be opened if your soul is strong enough, too.”

He rolled his baby-blue eyes. “Oh, Sweet Aunt Petunia, not today, Dyna.” He gingerly put his feet down and stood up, and was obviously relieved when there was no throbbing hot spot on the bottom of his soles. “Whoa, that feels freaky. Like I’m walking... on my soul.” He shook his head at himself. “This is too sweet. Does anyone else use this?” he had to ask.

“Hercules is a master of it.”

His jaw dropped despite himself. “Are you serious?” he had to say.

“So is Primus.”

His jaw worked further. “I ain’t never seen anything like this being used by them,” he said suspiciously.

“They are hidden by Boots and Bracers. They’ve got full Fives in both of them. Probably have Soul Tats for all their chakra points,” I said, arms crossed as I recalled seeing them down in Antarctica.

“Wait... if both of them do, then Sama Rantha...”

“And the Bears...”

“And... the Widows?” Suddenly, some of the stuff they’d been able to pull off over the years made sense.

“And the Shielders. They think I don’t know they have the Tats, and just use Core.” I smiled slightly.

“So the Tribes and the Ruskies use this.” He paused. “Wakanda, too?”

“I believe they’ve shared it with them, yes.” Wakandans liked their Tats, after all.

“Atlantis?”

“Doubtful, although Sama may have Tatted Namor and some of his nobler agents.” Maaaaaybe giving him something to keep his head level.

“Huh.” He thought all that over. “All them aliens don’t have a clue we got access to this stuff...”

“That’s correct.” Conspiratorial grins.

“You give this to The Mountain?” he asked shortly.

“He’s had it for some time, just doesn’t use it in public.” Normally practiced with it underwater. He was up to three points of Soul a Tat, and ten in total Capacity.

Grimm took a deep breath. “You know, this could be really useful for Reed and Suzie and Johnny.”

“Ben, it could be really useful for anybody and everybody. Right now, you need an edge. Now, go get those adamantium gauntlets I told Reed to make for you.”

“Gauntlets? Me?” He looked at his arms. “Oh...” Realization spread across his face at my pre-planning.

“You’re going to be fighting Champion.” I let my face drop. “He can break your arms with his blows, Ben. Ideally, I’d want you in full adamantium armor, but that would be going overboard. REALLY ideal would be vibranium armor, but that’s expressly forbidden, as the only way around it is grappling only, which is restricted at the high end. At least with the gauntlets you can block, and he won’t be able to tell you’ve got the Might up.”

“Got it,” he nodded, turning for the door. “Y’know, I expect you’re going to end up fighting him, too.”

I put my hands on my hips. “Someone’s gotta represent the girls up there! Comet isn’t in the same class without a power boost and being able to fly, and Fury’s about the same and prefers weapons.” And if he made it to Sama, he was gonna get schooled hard, but in my estimation, he was gonna be lucky if he got past Herc and made it to Primus.

“I heard we’re gonna see gods and everything competing. This is gonna be big!” Grimm murmured, not knowing if he should sound impressed or annoyed at the hype.

“I heard the same.”

--------

The next day...

“Sweet Christmas come early, what happened to you?” Stark blurted out from the courtyard in back of Mr. Hill’s house, where everyone was gathered.

I looked down at him and smiled. “Last-minute growth spurt.”

Pretty much everyone from all the teams was coming. I waved hi to Mr. Parker and May, who did double-takes on seeing me, as, well, pretty much everyone else did, too.

Peter was all masked up, and was staring at me, as was most of the rest of the team. Wonder Man and Thor were the only ones taller than me right now, and the latter was giving me many curious looks. “You were serious about signing up for this, weren’t you?” Peter asked me.

“So should all of you. Even if you get trounced early, you’re going to learn stuff, and,” I rolled my eyes at them, “the odds you are gonna get trounced early are slim to none.”

Even Jessica smiled at that. After all, they’d been putting in a lot of time training, and no weapons and no flying was all part of it. They were all at least Sevens in one way or another, with Pete a full Ten.

General Rogers was going, representing the Shields, probably much bemoaned by his fellows, and Peggy was coming along in the women’s bracket. At some point the two brackets merged, basically when it all got superhuman enough that gender didn’t matter, and there was a lot of betting over how many women were going to make the top twenty, let alone the top ten.

Of course, nobody even bothered ranking Sama and Briggs. They just sat up there atop the rankings, and nobody bothered to mention them, because challengers had to go through Primus first.

“Everybody ready to go?!” Mr. Hill spoke up, and a crystalline light woke up in a circle. “Inside the circle, and we’ll be out of here. Doc, be obliged if you make sure nothing interferes,” he nodded, and Strange made a smooth gesture, Clea and Wong at his side.

“Hey, where’s Miss Cardsharp?” Tony Stark spoke up. He wasn’t in armor, looking like he was going to a casual dinner party.

“She was like the tenth Terran to walk on board the place, been there for two days,” Mr. Hill growled.

“What’s she – hurk!”

The Earthjump was fast and relatively painless. We abruptly fell down into the ground, and somehow without turning around, fell right back up out of it, our feet hitting the ground as we were ejected and came back down, and it was much brighter.

Johnny jumped in the air, igniting his flame... and ignominiously fell right back down to the ground, happily before he could shout his trademark phrase as he went sprawling.

“I have discovered there’s a Stillflight Field in effect!” he announced for everyone’s benefit.

I grabbed his burning hand before he turned off and pulled him up effortlessly. “No flying above and around the Arena,” I told him, shaking my head. “Also, there’s Interdiction Fields for five miles out. We’ve got a short walk ahead of us.”

Mr. Hill flicked his Disk out. It spun out to its full size, and he sat down on it. Doc Strange and Clea joined him on it, while Wong sat down on Grimm’s, and Johnny belatedly joined them, while Doc Richards and Susan sat with McCoy, the Spiders and Jessica hopped on one, and the Avengers found themselves sitting down on Liberty, Rogers’ Shield, grown to ten feet across and actually able to fit them all as it floated there. Sandman, Murdock, and Nelson hopped on mine, while Nova, Scott, and Bobby shared the last one.

Jean had transferred to Cynosure for advanced psionic studies, but she was supposed to meet us here with Director Cassandra. Professor Xavier was also supposed to come tomorrow, but certainly hadn’t been invited here to compete.

Me, I was still on foot, because I was setting the pace. Sure, Quicksilver could have gotten us there faster, but he was already off sightseeing, we’d have just slowed him down.

“Where’s poker-face now?” Stark shouted at my back.

“She started up a casino and restaurant inside. I think she mentioned something about stealing your booze cellar to get it going,” I called back, as I started skating forward. If a lot of the guys had problems looking away from my ass, I forgave them, even though there was a lot of other things to look at.

“What?!” Stark spluttered, hauling out his phone and making a call to Jarvis as everyone laughed. Dealer had also taken Dr. Richards’ cellar, and he’d made a lot of recommendations on other vintages. Between the two of them they’d made some significant cash investments. Several of them had already paid off big time.

For instance, Pepsi stock was suddenly en vogue, as was Schwepes, for the simple reason that Hillbilly Horse Piss, a mixed drink with Mountain Dew, and Wake Up Cold, another mixed drink with Dr. Pepper, were immensely popular at Dealer’s bar. The Energized versions had suddenly become the rage for stimulant drinks among the fighters there.

There were already a million sapients in the Colosseum. The two cola companies were sending out trucks nonstop here, and negotiating contracts to either supply or have it produced offworld via licensing.

Of course, the booze makers were going nuts, too. Barrels of premier booze were suddenly shooting up in price a hundredfold or more if Champion approved of them.

“Oh, that’s why she had to miss our sparring session,” Clea spoke up. “A... gambling establishment, and a dinery?” she repeated.

“She went down to the Jersey casinos, took a bunch of the gambling stuff they had mothballed, set it up, and is running it all herself. Has a bunch of simulacra dealing and throwing dice. Last I heard she’s fried like a hundred cheaters and made bank off the fines for doing so, and there’s some heavy rollers trying out the cards at her tables.

“She’s been working in some alien card games, too. Hungriz, Squajib, and Dabba are popular among the high-rollers, I’ve heard, but they are liking some of the Terran games as a change of pace.”

“What kind of food?” Grimm asked, his eyes on the space ships parked off to the west towering over the endless rows of cars. Planes and copters were coming in from the east and south, a full-blown set of airfields there to receive traffic, mostly private jets with wealthy people coming here to experience aliens first hand, and lose rather too much money.

E-Elements were the only viable exchange here, unless you had one of the suddenly valuable local commodities. There was a whole new exchange server for things like spices, produce, booze, and other things related to the Colosseum, which could be paid out in E-Elements or Galactic Credits, as you wished. Terran money was obviously worth nothing, of course.

“Spicy,” I replied. “Including some of her own stuff.”