Both Mr. Hill and Mr. Grimm lost, of course.

Both of them were Melee specialists, but Champion was a /25, and they were just /12’s. He just overwhelmed them in terms of hand-speed and technique, in the end, and their incredible durability and personal armor when in Stance couldn’t save them... although they soaked some absolutely tremendous punishment as they did so. Seismic Stomps and Thunder Claps made sure no lightfoot shenanigans were effective against them, any rapid flanking or speed attacks rapidly getting bounced up or away before they could be effective, and the active Tremorsense they both had let them track his position at all times, even if he stepped VERY lightly.

They were used to tracking me with it, after all.

The Rock got in a very fun hit, taking a massive blow that sent him flying for the force field. He curled into a ball, and powered a Heavyfoot Release off the field that sent him back at Champion over twice as fast as he’d been sent flying.

Despite himself, the Elder was smashed tumbling by the impact. It was the only point Mr. Grimm got, but it was for all the showmanship kudos, as the rest of the fight was a deafening hammering down of fists on adamantium and rocky hide, shattering the latter in several instances, and breaking bones that could support thousands of tons when set.

Still, The Rock crawled right up and fought until the end, and if his arms were broken and you could see pebbled gray muscle under his stony hide when he limped off the stage, his long arms hanging there, he got a rousing cheer for the fight he’d put up.

He had also lasted four and half minutes, which meant more money for us in the betting pools, whose odds had rapidly gone up after seeing Champion start his attack at a higher level.

The Mountain Rooted himself so hard he completely distorted the metal plates he was standing on, and blew out Piston Punches like some kind of robotic hammer machine, as much area attack as precision. The blows he was taking in return were being at least partially shunted down into the metal, and when he stepped off to new footing, his footprints were clearly visible in the bent and depressed metal.

Champion took the challenge for what it was, upping the speed and punishment ratios, relying on his own speed and luck to avoid enough punches to win the beat-down race with combination attacks.

Even so, he couldn’t break Mr. Hill’s Root, and The Mountain kept his Stance until the very end, even when he was forced to kneel after a fifty-punch resonance combo hammered him and reduced his ribs to shattered metallic bone fragments inside his chest.

He still managed to walk off the stage, although he couldn’t bow after he was pounded like that, and unlike The Rock, he didn’t manage to get any points of his own.

But he had lasted nearly five minutes, blown through six Vigor uses in so doing, and sixteen different arena plates had been ruptured and torn apart by the force of Champion’s fists and Mr. Hill’s Root. Those who knew what they were looking at could only swallow at the level of punishment he had taken on his way to his loss.

I took care of them both when they came out of the Ring, Dispelling the cosmic energies stopping their Earthpower healing, and then administering a Heal on each of them and a Greater Vigorous Healing for their physical damage, turning hours of healing under the Mercy to getting up and around without a mark on them in about two minutes.

Of course, what it looked like was silver lightning dancing around them for that full period of time, and they twitched and grimaced at the pain of everything coming back together, even Mr. Grimm’s shattered orange hide regrowing as the pebbles fallen from him vanished from wherever they had been swept off to, returned by Mercy.

“Hey, Dyna,” Mr. Grimm said, nursing a big Avatar-sized bottle of Dealer’s Best, and holding another for Mr. Hill for after I was done tending to him. “You said before that you could treat my hide to be even harder somehow, right?”

“Other than you eating more adamantine and diamonds?” I replied, my hands on Mr. Hill’s shattered chest. The show as massive amounts of lightning lit him up from within as he set his face and endured it was probably going to get almost as many hits as his fight. You could see the bones being magnetically realigned inside him, his skin and muscle writhing as they were pulled back into place through Mercy.

“Yeah.” I also had the feeling he was going to be eating more than one dirty diamond a day in the future, and would be sucking on adamantine spheres like jawbreakers.

“I can carve protective Runes into every single rock on your hide and enhance their protective effects. Not much different from using Tats to do the same thing. Fill ‘em with Earthpower, and take their hardness and durability to a new level.”

His baby blue eyes considered the massive figure who had retired to his own booth, the next match set for an hour to make sure everyone could recover in full. “I think I gotta be upping my game,” he muttered in a low voice, barely audible over the crackling of the voltage.

“Damn right, Grimm,” muttered Mr. Hill, his shattered jaw healed up, but the pain keeping his words to a minimum as lightning danced inside his mouth and over the contusions on his head.

Hercules was standing at the side, watching as I healed Mr. Hill up silently. “When you are done, perhaps we could review tapes of the fight, Mr. Hill?” he asked, but it was mostly for me, as I could actually see what was going on.

I was sure Sama was giving him all the advice he could actually need, but it was to be expected, and our feedback came with our awareness of the situation.

“Damn right. You better pound him good, Herk!” Mr. Hill growled with feeling.

“That Luck effect and those resonance combos are terrifying,” Ben murmured with feeling. “Always hitting at the perfect angle, starting to tear you apart from inside... if you can’t shut that down, it’s gonna be bad, Herc.”

The God of Strength smiled, but his eyes were dark and hard as he clapped Ben’s shoulder. “This is not a strike against either of you, but I am a god. Such tricks will not work against me if I ward against them. Cosmic power and divine power are not so different in some ways.”

I exhaled in relief. “That’s good to hear, Master Hercules. You know we’re all pulling for you.”

“It will be an excellent bout,” he replied, with neither confidence nor fear. “His skill is superior to mine, but he cannot equal my strength. It will come down to seeing if one can best the other.”

There was no time-gambling on their match. It was simply win, lose, or tie.

==========

Herakles (Hercules), The Olympian God of Strength

Human/5 (Advanced Human), Native Outsider/15 (Olympian Demigod)

Melee/20; Archer/6, Scout/5; Noble/6, Vizard/5

Strength: 66+ (71+) – No true Upper Limit.

Dexterity: 30 (50 Reactions)

Constitution: 50

Intelligence: 20

Wisdom: 26

Charisma: 30

Notable Talents/Traits: Strongman; Divine Champion; Olympian Demigod (Immortal)

...

=======

God against Elder. I imagine there were gods who had challenged the Elder before, and been defeated.

A god like Hercules, who had trained under Sama Rantha? We’d have to see.

-----

The other competitions were tapering off, too.

General Rogers and Red MJ stood on top of the Underlists, and had withstood all comers, including one another. It turned out the Patriot was a Five-Dragon Ways user, and so completely capable of keeping MJ at bay with the capabilities of a Shielder in open-hand combat.

Of course, once she got a sword in hand, not even his skill with a shield could help him, as he naturally couldn’t use Liberty any more than MJ could use Sonja. He lost a huge amount of defense without his Shield, while MJ wasn’t affected nearly as much. Nobody could take her on properly with a Blade in hand, Way Mastery in Seven Dragons, and a Null powerful enough to shut down any funny stuff.

The Rankings shifted a little. Felicia got up to #7 on the unarmed list, taken out by Peggy at the end. Thunderbird and Natasha finished at #2 and #3 respectively, Danny and Shang-Chi both advanced two more places, but largely positions didn’t shift by more than a couple. The analysts here were pretty good at their jobs.

Still, there were literally hundreds of combatants here, which meant it was a very long list that spanned all levels of power and would form a ladder of progress for literally years as all these fighters could see all the people they would need to beat to improve.

More importantly from the view of the aliens was how everyone stacked up against Champion’s Students, and that was pretty harrowing from their point of view.

None of his Students had been able to beat me or deal successfully with the Juggernaut, for instance. There were so many Terrans who could look down on 95% of Champion’s Students, and across so many combat styles and modes.

Terrans might not have interstellar travel, but they damn sure could fight with the best!

There was no doubt that this superhuman genetic bonanza was going to attract some attention from those looking for slaves, soldiers, and mercs, but then a certain video of someone cutting a Celestial in two became a quadrillions-viewed meme (one day I was gonna ask her how much she made off the views on it), and they remembered that we had chased away a Celestial Mothership and Galactus had left Terra WITHOUT eating the planet.

Also, fighting in a tournament was one thing. Going out into the free-for-all of alien worlds who were armed with super-science weapons was something else.

We were also definitely monitoring the Solar System, and there were the enclaves of Eternals on both Titan and Uranus, who were definitely respected, and probably the main reason there weren’t more aliens in the system, when it came down to it.

There were tons of implications here, and I knew I couldn’t see them all. The big thing was that an Elder of the Universe had been the one to kickstart this.

And the Grandmaster was here. Had been here. Dealer had reported that the Great Bear had sat down across from him at one of her poker tables, won a bloody fortune off the manipulative Elder, and the Grandmaster had abruptly left the planet afterwards, looking a bit unsightly.

I doubted Terra would have ever come to Champion’s attention, so it was the Grandmaster that had pointed him here, for whatever reason. Sama and Briggs had to know it, and had given that Elder a clear sign that they knew he was up to something.

Perhaps he had realized the threat Briggs actually represented. I had no doubts that Sama and Briggs were planning to dispose of the manipulative rotter before he did his whole tricking Death thing and made the Elders truly unkillable...

Probably just to make a Dreadskull out of him, too. I smirked at the thought.

The Summers clan, dragging in Kurt as a new cousin, much to his delight, was talking freely, and I had to admit I’d never seen Scott and Alex looking so relieved and relaxed. Corsair turned out to be a respectable swordsman, and the whole lot of them were now interested in some swashbuckling, especially after Scott and Alex brought out their zweihander-sized Mindblades.

“Ma cherie,” a charming voice intruded on me and the warrior women crew, who had surrounded me in a circle of their own to both show support and get the real story on beating all the people I had. We’d gone through a dozen of my fights as they hung on my every word.

All the women glared daggers at him, and Remy LeBeau just smiled back at them... and magically they were no longer pissed at him interrupting them, rather predatory looks he knew rather well looking back at him as he pursed his lips, wondering what he’d gotten into.

“Where’d you find this little dish, Dyna?” Jennifer Walters asked directly, looking LeBeau up and down openly.

“He’s on the Larceny List. I hope you don’t have anything valuable on you,” I answered. Their eyes all flashed, and if anything, he looked even more tempting right then.