Just when Heavy was about to win that match, something happened: his movements became slower, his reaction time increased, he started to stumble all around, and move his head too much from one side to another. Advertisement, retook the upper hand, and once again was able to hook one strike after another.

The fucker down there punched Heavy on the head so hard that the skull turned visible between a horrible fend and his right eye popped out; then, laughing, kicked my little brother on his good arm, bending it too much in a weird angle, the skin turning purple and the forearm taking the shape of an “L”; then, taking my poor, poor Heavy by his leg right before my eye, euphoric, twisted and pulled his flesh turning the shin that had already lost a foot naked of any meat.

“NOOOO!”, I screamed, holding the microphone with such a strength that my nails, when my fingers slipped, were all pulled out.

“Heavy!” the red-haired woman called, worried, no, horrified.

Touching gently my shoulder, the orange-haired boy tried to comfort me:

“You know, I had given up on this world a long time ago, but your brother taught me that there’s still hope. We can make it. Believe in your brother”

I looked to the boy and noticed that he was, actually, looking straight to Heavy down there, serious. Following his eyesight, I saw my little brother escaping the hands of Advertisement using his own blood as a lubricant to slip between the tight fingers, the red liquid evaporating in stem clouds when touching the incandescent metal covering all of the upper-class body.

“I knew it: there’s something strange”, said the woman with an eye patch, frowning her eyebrows. “It’s true that Heavy was wounded before the battle even began, but his agility didn’t just vanish: look, even in this condition way wore than before, he still think and move fast, so fast that he must be using all of his Angel capacity to accelerate his thoughts”

All of it? Does this mean that Heavy is feeling all of that pain?! I thought, seeing my little brother run with a blood-covered foot and an exposed tibia and fibula, blood tears coming from an empty eye sock, both arms completely destroyed.

“He didn’t relax before his final blow too...” added the orange-haired boy, staring with red eyes. “Fuck, what is happening?!”

...Yes, you didn’t drag yourself to here just to cry and do nothing, right Gear?! Think! Use this bio-engineered brain for something useful for the first time in your life and think! Why is Heavy loosing now even though, just a second ago he was about to give the final blow?! I ran my shitty memory, time perception, and logic programs, closed my eyes, and forgot about sounds, vision, tact, pain, smell, and even feelings, focusing only in the puzzle I had: Heavy’s condition, his apps, his opponent condition, and skills… “There’s no such a thing as 100% chance of loss or victory in a real battlefield”... “However is running this show must be as despaired as us: what do you think will happen to him if the upper class down there get out of here bored?”…

Then, what would happen if one upper class died in the show themselves sponsor?

“The organizers are doing something...!” I said, opening my eyes, feeling like I had unveiled the mystery… “But what?” I whispered for myself, ignoring the agitated pair that helped me, staring directly at the tower at the other side of the arena, the glass wall, and the androgynous person behind it.

How could they be interfering with the match?! My attention was stolen when my little brother took another punch on his side and caught blood, a broken rib coming out of his body, piercing thru his skin. His movements became slower, his reaction time increased, he started to stumble all around, and move his head too much from one side to another…

“He’s moving his head too much”, I concluded, widening my eye. “He’s moving his head too much!”, I comprehended, immediately closing my eye and changing my point of view to confirm my theory: not to the filming of one of the thousands of cameras flying all around those dueling, though, but to heavy’s own vision and the virus I had installed in his brain.

When I saw it, the cause of the duel turn around and of so much of my little brother suffering: a thousand windows announcing all kinds of products, like the energetic pills “Perfect Killer” and the App store “You, but Better!”, the colors shinning inside Heavy’s eyes, covering his vision of the upper class, music and voice advertisement playing on the background and letting him also deaf.

Opening my eyes once more, I didn’t allow myself to lost even one single second anymore: I brought the microphone that I still had in hands close to my mouth and, had filled my lungs with air and hatred, shouted, loud enough to make the dirt on the floor to vibrate and those around me to hear, then, just a continuous and all-mighty buzz:

“HEAVY! USE MOVEMENT 7!”, I instructed for one of the 12 movements that came with the CQC program he had installed, and I had studied and fully memorized.

And he used it, trusting me and my voice without any hesitation, moving his wounded body immediately and in response to my command: his legs slid in a spin in one second, and, in the next, he had his heel at the right high and pressing it against Advertisement jaw. The crack of bones being displaced after the wet splash of a skinned foot touch the mother fucker’s face was audible even with the fuss that the public was making.

We hadn’t ended yet!

“7 REVERSED!”, I responded even before my little brother had his limb on the ground again, and, as soon as he could, Advertisement turning to me, confused, Heavy attacked again.

But, this time, with the meatless leg, and the sharp bones in its end: the upper class had clearly tough bones (when considering his ancient appearance and that he was rich enough to be there, that he probably was old enough to have, actually, the best of archaic technology in his body) covered or entirely made by the gray stuff, but his skin was even weaker than the one of a Worker; Heavy easily cut open his cheeks, the mandible, then, ripping the remaining flesh and falling off just by its own weight and in a waterfall of blood.

Advertisement retreating, the gray protection that he was using as a weapon, a spike, retreating and getting thinner to quickly stop the bleeding, I looked to the astonished upper class that was hosting the event up there in the tower, his face pale, his hands shaking, and continued:

“Advance two steps and execute movement 4!”, Heavy, in a challenging act carrying the will of both of us, put anther cut on Advertisement’s face, opening his scalp the same way Advertisement had opened my little brother’s. “6! 5! 7! 8!” I instructed again and again; avoiding say the same number again so Advertisement couldn’t predict (at least too soon) what would happen; and each time more blood came out of the upper class’ face, Heavy’s attacks too week to pierce his skull, but strong enough to, strike after strike, tear off almost Advertisement’s entire face with his blade leg.

Then, I saw myself speechless: literally, the microphone suddenly flying from my hand in a burst of flames that, had taken me by surprise, took a short scream of pain out of me, my fingers all burned and smelling almost, morbidly delicious.

The shock had passed, I remembered that Heavy was standing even more agony, I looked for the microphone again, but this was already too high and far from me, the only way for me to contact Heavy taken away; getting distracted because of my scream, my little brother immediately was sent flying away, too, by a punch coming from his adversary, and I couldn’t do anything to help anymore.

The other spectators closer to me screamed in angry once they noticed what had just happened, but it was just a few in hundreds out of thousands who were still too focused on the battle; no, even if everyone here got upset, I doubt anyone would do more than just boo, and even if they did, an organization supported by a bunch of upper classes is almost untouchable...

“Don’t underestimate a Soldier!”, shouted the “Star” boy, jumping on the parapet that I was leaning against, the closest part of the stadium to the arena, then onto someone's shoulder, and even in a had just after this, and grabbed the microphone once again, ignoring the flames destroying his hand. His feet touching the parapet again, he extended the hand holding the machine that was, still, trying so hard to flee from me and concluded: “Here! ...I don’t think they will just let the microphone function on tough...”

“No problem!” I started to connect with the machine immediately: I was not a great cracker, but good enough to timidly invade an Angel, and that piece of crap that Star was sacrificing his hand to hold; his skin was carbonizing with the heat, but the orange-haired boy was standing still, his veins swollen in the arm being burned; was less the scum: the real good equipment was down there, in the arena, cameras so small they were impossible to grab, capable of just slid between someone's fingers with ease. “Done!”, I had a way to instruct Heavy once again… But it wouldn’t work forever: the Tournament organizers quickly understood what I had done and were trying to overheat and explode the machine.

“ZUSHHHHH!”

“...Uh?” I looked up, confused, listening to the hissed that suddenly exploded almost deafening: right before my eyes, too close to my forehead, the red-haired woman’s index finger and thumb close to each other, holding a steamy red point that was losing its color. A bullet.

“Star is right, we may be not as strong as Archangels, but we’re in aa pretty close level to the rich boy down there… even so, you should hurry: I may not be able to protect you for long if the attacks become more aggressive; it would put too many other people in risk”.

And the ones responsible for this Tournament already showed that they prefer to be shamelessly cheaters than let their client loose…

“...You’re really Heavy’s friends, aren’t you?”, I laughed in despair; I didn’t really carry about how many people would get hurt, but those guys did, and my little brother too, and while I admired their gentleness to a certain extent, it was painfully frustrating

It wouldn’t end this easy, would it? I thought, approaching my mouth to the too hot microphone starting to give instructions again:

Following my orders, Heavy retook the upper hand in the duel, and more strikes found their target; three more bullets came from different locations, and the red-haired woman stopped all of them worryingly close to my vital organs, one of the shots even came to burn my clothes. But, soon, the movements, even though my little brother was using his sharp leg bones to strike, turned inefficient: all the bleed was quickly stopped by the gray stuff, and Advertisement’s brains were still well protected under his tough skull; stronger ammo started to be shot by the Tournament organizers’ drones.

Then, before I could tell, even though I had contact with Heavy again, all of my little brother's charges turned meaningless, the microphone started to fail, about to explode, and the woman with eye patch warned me nervously:

“This is bad: I won't be able to stop the next bullet”, apparently the staff had brought some crazy gun, even though I couldn’t see it anywhere. “Hurry!”, she grabbed me by my arm, when something clicked inside the microphone and Star started the movement to throw it away.

I freed myself from the red-haired woman’s grasp, took the flying machine from Star and shouted:

“HEAVY, YOU HAVE TO REACH FOR HIS EYES!”

I know this is a situation too much intense for Heavy to use his head this hard, but, hopefully, he will understand me… I thought. Then, the bullet pierced my back and the microphone exploded right before my face.