The banner hanging over us had the symbol of the Heartripper Society in sharp relief on a circle of white against a black background. I swallowed hard and looked around, but I didn't notice anyone paying attention. I...wasn't sure what the hell was going on. These people were supposed to be sleepers. Having a giant meeting place like this seemed off, was there another group using the same symbol? That seemed unlikely. I wasn't going to figure any of this out here, we needed to fucking go.

I turned to my friends, my body language clearly telling them something was wrong. Callie stepped in close and I gestured up to the banner. Her face paled as she turned to the others, planning to lead them out with me on her tail, but when we turned I realized there was a problem. The man following Cark was standing in out way. More specifically, he was in plain sight, with no stealth skill active. His eyes were wide and unblinking and fixed on me.

I could tell from the Impact I sensed that he was G rank, though I couldn't tell much else. I'd been told that Heartripper sleepers were usually pretty weak overall. However, that revelation came from someone I was pretty sure could blow up this planet without much trouble, so it was pretty up in the air what "weak" meant in this case. Zeke's standards for judging G ranks could be so absurd as to be unrecognizable to me.

Regardless I was about to find out exactly what he meant, because the sleeper's eyes were fixed on me. He clearly recognized me, or at least my mask. It made me think there might be some way for the handler to communicate with the sleepers over a distance when they were in the trance, which frankly wasn't ideal, but was good information to have. It meant anything one learned the others might learn, so we would need to be careful how much of our hands to show when we fought him.

The question was, were we going to fight him? He was in the way, but this place was crowded, and even if the other Heartrippers were inactive or too busy to be surrounding us right now, fighting him here WOULD tip them off, and then we would be fucked. I cleared my throat, hoping maybe he had directions to not reveal his purpose. Maybe I could bluff since we were so public. "Excuse me man, can I get through? We were just on our way out and you're kind of blocking the hall."

His blank eyes never left their position pointed forward. When he spoke, his voice was flat, empty, and cold. An endless frozen tundra, with no real sign of life. "Heretic." He was dressed in civilian clothes, which was odd for down here, and his lack of presence lent itself to stealth well, but he clearly wasn't afraid to stand his ground. In fact I got the feeling he didn't really do fear in this condition. "You will remain."

That was interesting. There were a bunch of scenarios here, but I could only think of three categories they fit into. Either he'd been following Cark for unrelated reasons, noticed me, and been diverted from his mission. He'd been following Cark because he had met with me and was using him to find my group, or he hadn't been following Cark at all, but had been following us, and the fog had broken line of sight and he'd picked up the trail because he couldn't find us.

The last one could basically be discounted. I would have noticed us being followed with Seek Hidden like I'd noticed Cark being trailed. Not to mention the coincidence of him losing us and picking up Cark, who we knew, and happening to wind up here was absurd. No, he had been trailing Cark beforehand. The reason being related to us seemed unlikely too given who apparently ran this place. Unrelated then probably, which meant that this little meet up was unintentional and I could still get out of it. Maybe.

I played relaxed as I responded. "Still not sure what that means or why I'm heretical but whatever. Am I talking to the handler or the puppet?" No response. "Well I'm going to assume the former for now. If I'm talking to the person in charge then I should point out where we are. You guys go out of your way to keep this place secret, Cark had to actually look to find it, Makes me think you don't want it revealed and scrutinized by the general public. If we fight here all these people might get upset about being stuck. They seem like the violent sort. Might turn into a riot, and then your secret is out."

The puppet just stared, his creepy eyes managing to take in all of me without actually looking at any one spot. "You will remain." The silence dragged on after that, like he was being relayed a message, and he finally spoke. "You have a suggestion." It wasn't a question, there was no inflection or uptick at the end, just a statement relayed through a mouthpiece.

He was right though, I did. "This is a fight club. You don't want us to leave, and we don't want to stay, but neither of us want's to get trampled by a stampede of rioting fight club spectators." I paused. "Well I don't want that and you don't want the attention it would bring. I'm not totally sure if you have a sense of self preservation. So why don't we just play to the spirit of the place. Everyone loves a party. We have a straight fight down there in the arena. Whoever wins walks away. But I want my weaker teammates to be able to leave. Cark can go with them, and Nightstrike and I stay."

I turned to Benny, who looked upset but had a gleam of understanding in his eyes. We'd played Doom Sovereign together enough to have some codes for certain situations. Everyone loves a party was a code we used to use in game for when we were outmatched. It meant the other person should go get help while the speaker kept the bad guys busy. Jessie looked upset and was about to interrupt what Callie cut in. "I agree, let our two friends pass and we'll fight for you in your little fighting pit. It'll be a hell of a show too."

The blank sleeper just stood there for a minute, clearly having orders relayed. "Your terms are accepted. A battle will be fought." He snapped his fingers and about six other people stepped up to surround us. "The weak are unnecessary. The heretic and his companion will stay." The sleeper stepped aside to let the two of them pass. Neither of them looked enthused about going, but Cark looked even more upset to leave. His cover was almost definitely blown already, considering he was being followed, and he might not get back in.

He whirled on the man standing to one side of the exit. "What is this place? What is the symbol, what do you have to do with the missing kids? Why do some of them end up here?" I knew he couldn't give up the chance for information. It seemed like his problem and ours might be related, and I was ready to help him when things here were over, but he was clearly afraid he was going to miss out on his only possible lead.

As usual, the sleeper didn't react, eyes trained forward, but he did answer. "Those who come here are failures. The ones who break." That...was bad. If I was understanding then I knew where Cark's sister had gone. I also knew what had happened to all the other missing kids, bar the ones who ended up here. It even made sense. Ascendants started as mortals, and mortals would have no reason to check if their kid had been implanted with sleeper programming when they were taken.

It also explained why this wasn't a bigger deal historically. They got returned mostly, and after a few years it became just a scary story they barely remembered. It even made sense from an infiltration standpoint. Trying to work people into the population would be harder than just using people who already were. No one would ask "hey, did you get kidnapped for a few weeks as a small child?" They would just ask where that person was from. Cark's problem and ours were intertwined in a way I hadn't expected.

It also meant that we weren't just running down a sleeper cell we could wipe out, we were looking for missing children too, and that changed a bit about how we had to go about this. I stepped up and put a hand on Cark's shoulder as he started to retort. I leaned in close. "We can help you later, but for now I need you to get my friends out of here safely. We have the same problem and we know it now, so we're on your side. Please." His jaw clenched, but he looked at Jessie and Benny.

He didn't know them well, but he had drinks with them, and they were H rankers caught up in a G ranked mess. Someone so invested in helping his sister wasn't going to let a pair of newbies get killed because he was impatient. He growled but nodded, gesturing for the two to follow him. Jessie was upset, but she stayed quiet, following the lead Callie and I set. She and Benny were rookies and they knew it. So was I for that matter, but I had a bit of a knack for this. She swallowed hard as she passed me, giving me a shaky smile before the three of them vanished down the hall.

I wasn't worried about them getting hurt with Cark here. The guy was kind of a badass from what I could tell, but more importantly, all the combat ready sleepers would be staying here to style on us in the arena. They were definitely going to be coming at us together, but the battle was the least of my concerns. Callie and I knew each other's tricks well and we'd fought often enough to be able to work together a bit. These low level clowns weren't an issue, especially not for the two of us.

Once they were gone we made our way down to the edge of the pit surrounded by the cement steps. We waited for the current fight to be over (a fire user who expelled flames for propulsion and a teleporter) and then hopped down to take our positions as the announcer came over speakers we couldn't see. "We have a special treat for you tonight ladies and gentlemen! All the way from the vaunted Ascendant Academy, we have a pair of fighters trained by the Unity themselves!"

The other sleepers dropped in after us, at least I assumed so from the numbers what with them having stopped to put on a bunch blank black pull over masks. The crowd went wild, clearly recognizing them. "For the home team we have the Silent! You all know them, the secret force fielded by the Bleakest Depths themselves." They seemed unconcerned by the seven to two odds, but I hadn't really expected them to be anyway, this was a fight club, and they would get to see a fight, that was enough for them.

The cheers died down and the announcer completed his introduction. "From the Academy we have Solomon and Nightstrike! A pair of powerful fighters that should prove a challenge to even our own ringers!" I didn't know if he had any clue how strong we were, but he clearly didn't care much either way. I doubted any of their fighters were that tough, otherwise they probably wouldn't be here. Either way though, I wouldn't underestimate them. I was going to give my all to this fight, I wanted to see what the Heartrippers were capable of.