I wasn’t in a hurry, so when Simon Williams started boxing at me, I just swatted his hands around and slammed my fists into his chest, sticking to him as I did so he couldn’t rebound off them, and pulled him into a 1-2 combo.

“Well, I kind of owe them,” he gasped, clutching at his chest after a couple of exchanges. His ribs were already cracking under my hits, but I wasn’t pressing him.

“Uh-huh.” I wrist-locked him, and clocked him right across the jaw, slammed an elbow down to dislocate his shoulder, and half-spun to drive a foot into his sternum, taking him off his feet and down into the ground. There was a crunch as the armored heel on my foot drove him into the proto-adamantium flooring. “Go west, to L.A. Find out how your powers actually work.”

“One!” the ref called out, and, my heel sticking to his chest, I lifted him off the ground as he was going to try and roll away, and instead found himself lined up perfectly as I stood there on one foot.

The BOOM as I flattened his nose cleared the area. I hopped and spun, releasing the Attract and whipping him away as the ref shouted, “Two!” and the dazed Simon Williams went limply through the Ring Out hole fifty paces away. “And Ring Out! Match to Dynamo!”

---------

The dark-skinned man in front of me was tall and proud, a perfect physical specimen, and carried himself like a very experienced physical combatant.

He had also just cleared the 100-ton limit, and plainly knew how to fight.

“Master Hero,” I acknowledged him, hand over fist, and he returned the gesture. We were about equal height, and he looked me up and down in interest.

“Asgardian magic?” he sensed.

“Totally cheaty, I know. If you think you can dispel it, go right ahead.” I wasn’t worried about contested Caster Level checks, even if this guy was an Eternal. His skills had stagnated a long time ago with a shortage of viable opponents and reasons to fight. I was actually surprised he was here. “I hope you take this opportunity to avail yourself of Champion’s students, sir.”

He seemed slightly surprised as we both settled into our stances. “Oh, you think I will not meet the Champion himself?” he smiled.

“FIGHT!”

I flicked forwards, and our arms moved, rotating around one another in a blur of speed before I exceeded his speed and sent his blocking arm wide. He couldn’t move on foot quite as fast as I could, and suddenly my extended kick was in the side of his face as I had his arm locked to my palm, with even a surge of Eternal energy not breaking the full force of my Attract.

With no rebound possible, he took the full force of my kick, rattling his brain as I laid him out sideways in the air. Then I was in the air in the second of time he gave me, my foot still stuck to the side of his face, rolling in a full circle in midair, his face following my foot as I came down in full splits on the ground, only his head was between my heel and the metal.

“Argh!” he shouted as I let him go and rolled back and up to my feet.

“One!” the ref called out, as Hero shook his head, hands trying to catch my leg a full half-second late, rolling and up onto his feet more out of instinct then anything.

He didn’t have heavyfoot per se, just flying giving him position-anchoring, which required concentration. He cleared the blow to the head with Eternal vigor, looking for me in front of him, except I was behind him by then.

His knee collapsed as I slid in and kicked in, dragging the same arm backwards as I stuck his knee and my foot to the plates, and whipped a backfist into the back of his head that left him lolling for a moment in my grip.

“TWO!” the ref declared.

Ringing him out was a non-starter, as he’d just ground himself from midair with his ability to fly on the way. I let him go in accord with the count, and he took a couple seconds longer than before to get back to his feet.

“You are... very strong and fast,” he said, his eyes starting to light up, and particle effects swirled around his hands. “I may... have to break that magic,” he reasoned unsteadily, wondering why his head wasn’t clearing as fast as it should.

Because Blooding is stopping your accelerated healing factor, I noted silently, moving in without hesitation.

Eternals didn’t have the best Damage Reduction normally, counting on energy projection and flight to make up for any weaknesses as basically a race of Paramounts. He’d have to grab me to try to break the Wrecker Buff, and, well, he wasn’t fast enough to do that.

Especially with my gauntlets on.

I smashed directly into his hands, forcing them back as his bones cracked under the virtually unbreakable metal crashing into them, and he backed away with fake lightfoot under the force of my punches, totally forgetting as he skidded that I could stick to him.

To be fair, the fact was very anti-instinctive, and the second he let me start pushing him was also the moment he was letting me drag him.

My left jabbed out, cracked his forearm, and stuck to it as his arms guarded his face. Instead of coasting back and rope-a-doping the blow, he found himself being pulled back with my fist. His own strength meant his personal weight was inconsequential, and his arm didn’t even extend out as I hauled him back and up to me.

His eyes got a little wide as my foot came up under his arms and went to full extension under his jaw.

Which I stuck to as I back-arched, rolled my hip, and drove his head into the metal again.

“Three! KO and match to Dynamo!”

He took a good minute to claw his way up off the floor, bright Eternal blood misting as Mercy addressed the brain-shaking and skull-crunching he’d just gone through.

“I think you’re a little rusty, Elder,” I informed him calmly.

“I think... you may be right.” He clutched his aching head, nodding at me slowly. “You have definitely earned your ranking in my eyes, Miss Dynamo.”

“I’ve a few more egos to climb up before I get that high, elder,” I told him politely.

He burst out laughing despite himself, his walk growing steadier as he headed off the platform.

Half a dozen Students of various species were in the queue, some of them with interesting expressions after seeing the Eternal getting smashed into the floor that hard, and still getting up and walking away.

-------

His four legs broken and his four blade-limbs shattered, the insectauroid Brzzxixizt had to be helped off the circle, his crushed face where I’d head-butted him down still a mashed ruin of pedipalps and steely chitin.

It was the Juggernaut’s turn.

He’d been getting a lot of attention in his matches, quickly solidifying a position on the main ranking tranche. His almost-total invulnerability to attacks, inability to be stopped once he started walking, and the thundering force of his hits were getting him a lot of attention. He was walking pretty confidently as he came forward.

Electricity crackled over the cuts in my uniform from the bug’s claws, fixing them up. The thing had been relying on the preternaturally hard and sharp edges of its forelimbs to do what brute force had not, but I had true Invulnerable-style Damage Reduction, not Hardness. It could barely break my skin with the force behind its attacks, and it had an unpleasant surprise when I used Versatile Unarmed Strike to make all my blows piercing and slashing as I needed, chopping right into its limbs, sticking to and shattering them, then cracking all its legs in appreciation for the bloodletting it had wanted to unleash.

Healing Reserve and Mercy was taking care of the rest quickly, so I was fine. I could even blow Valences if I needed to, as I had precious little to spend them on otherwise.

I found it amusing that Sandman and Cain had the same last name, which had prompted Sandman to quietly tell me his was a pseudonym, as he had wanted to cut himself free of his family. Given their shared family troubles, he and Juggernaut actually got along pretty well, and when he was in town, Juggernaut had a standing invitation to Mr. Hill’s table.

His buddy Black Tom, not so much, but it was a Big Strong Guys table, not the whiny treacherous plant-manipulator table.

Cain Marko loomed over me nicely, domed helmet giving him a full eight feet of height, the mystic armor of his station bulking up his humanly impossible mass even further. He was the Chosen of Cyttorak, the Juggernaut, the Unstoppable Force, and not even Primus could stop him once he got moving.

From my perspective, he was a unique and focused Warlock Pact.

Primus could send him straight over the horizon and out of the atmosphere, so Cain Marko wasn’t too overboard. Taking a dive into interplanetary space had no appeal to him... and I was pretty sure Sama had casually torn his armor completely off him, wrapped him up like a pretzel, and offered to dismember him to see how good his healing factor was at some point or another, given how he and Black Tom Cassidy had sharply curtailed their West Coast activities.

“Hey, Dynamo,” he greeted me carefully, treating me warily despite the difference in size. He’d seen my weight limit. “Big shift in tactics,” he noted carefully. He knew I lived with Mr. Hill and Dealer, but we’d ‘never met’. He loved Dealer’s beers, of course.

“Gotta represent, Jugs,” I winked at him calmly, unflustered by the size difference. Weight was just a small number at this scale. “Ima warn you of something before we start.”

“Yeah?” he rumbled, bringing up his big hands. Of course he wanted to wrestle a bit, although that wouldn’t go the way he wanted, either.

“Argent Savancy.” He blinked, and I saw him frown abruptly.

The first time he’d come to New York and started throwing his weight around, Mr. Hill had wandered over to straighten him out. Dealer had broken his force field with Argent Savancy, and once that happened, Mr. Hill had brought the hammer down on Cain Marko hard, while Dealer had casually blasted Black Tom all over the place with some diamond-Suited attitude adjustment.

The two had lost most of their arrogance around New York’s underworld, and everyone was happy. Cain getting his ass buried under the foundation of a new skyscraper going up when their attempt to kidnap Madam Web went sideways due to Peter mucking things up, not so much.

When Siryn had gotten involved, Theresa Cassidy hadn’t been happy to find herself stuck in a Silence where she couldn’t do anything, removed from the pair of mercs, and sent off to her real father back in Ireland. My, hadn’t that been a fun family reunion, as neither of them had known the truth of the matter before then...

“Shit,” Cain mumbled, as a familiar argent light flickered over my fingers, much more metallic than the hot white arclights sizzling around my biceps.

This was not an unknown function, although the silver lightning didn’t look quite like Dealer’s. I’d crapped out a few Doombots and supervillains over the last few years with it, and, um, Tony Stark’s defenses once or twice when he got into his I’m Always Right mode. Susan used it to work on her Girding, and her force fields had gotten a LOT tougher over the last few years because of it.

“FIGHT!”

He could only go forwards, but he wasn’t fast enough or flexible enough to touch me, especially telegraphing everything like he was. His hands found air as I slid by his right leg and chopped the back of his knee.

You couldn’t stop him, but you could help him forwards awkwardly.

His left leg was still going forwards as the silver lightning flashed up and converged on his head, and he screamed at the feedback as it went right through his eye and mouth-holes.