(Author's note: Thanks for reading my story up until this point! I'd really appreciate it if you guys dropped a rating or a review, it would help me know how the story is doing and if I need to change anything. Anyways, enjoy!)

Chapter 10: Intrigue

The Northfront Coliseum was filled to the brim. Thousands upon thousands of players sat on top of their seats. They were all currently cheering and hollering. An intense fight was in action on the arena sands.

Empress narrowly dodged a hand of stingers. The bug-man was turning out to be a surprisingly dangerous opponent. Ever since his bizarre transformation, he had become far faster and stronger.

Vivian threw up a layered barrier, hoping to slow down the bug-man’s advance. It had no effect. His stingers broke through the multiple layers of the shield. Her force fields were unable to do anything to stop him.

He quickly dashed behind her, using the superior speed granted by his wings. He stabbed forward, forcing Empress to teleport out of the way.

“I can’t keep this up,” Empress thought worriedly, “I still need to participate in the other fights.”

She had already spent too much energy dealing with him, she needed to end the fight as quickly as she could.

“I wish I had some bug spray,” Empress thought with a frown. All of a sudden, a lightbulb went off in her head.

She laughed aloud, causing the bug-man’s insect face to frown.

Empress summoned half a dozen barriers, causing them to float in the air in front of her. Then, with a clench of her hand, she purposefully crushed them, turning them into shards.

“Normally I abandon control of them once they break,” Empress smirked inwardly, “What’ll happen if I don’t?”

She had tried to use her barriers to cut the training dummy before, but she never considered using the pieces that remained after they broke.

Thousands of barrier shards hovered in the air, looming threateningly. The light bounced off of them, making them appear like pieces of glass.

Empress waved her hands forward, causing the shards to explode forth like the shrapnel from a grenade.

The bug-man couldn’t dodge all the slivers. He threw up his arms protectively, covering his face. Dozens of shards embedded themselves into his body, causing green blood to flow outward.

Empress didn’t waste her advantage. She immediately teleported to the bug-man’s side, punching forward with her gauntlet.

The blow caught the bug-man on the side of the head, causing an explosion of gore.

Audience members shrieked as pieces of brain matter flew towards them. Luckily, a barrier appeared, separating the crowd from the destruction.

Empress pounded her gauntlets together in a victory pose, soaking in the cheers of the ground. Basking in the limelight was quite enjoyable.

Learning better control over her powers was one of the primary reason she had joined the competition. She owed the bug-man a lot for his help.

Vivian stepped off the stage, going towards the lobby. Her competitors stared sharply at her back, sizing her up.

After a dozen more fights, the man with the hat returned.

This time, Empress drew number five. Her face turned ugly. She wanted more time to recover from her match.

After a few minutes it was already her turn to go out on stage. As Empress faced her opponent, her mouth fell open in shock.

“Y-y-you!” two shouts rang out simultaneously.

Across from her was Rai.

Rai’s brown eyes bored into her, filled with hatred.

“I didn’t expect to see you here Empress,” he spat, soiling the arena floor.

Empress frowned. She hadn’t expected to see him either.

“What are you doing here Rai? Weren’t you staying in the starting zone?”

“After you robbed my bank, business plummeted. No one trusted me to keep their money anymore,” Rai said glumly.

“Is that why you put a one million credit bounty on my head?”

“What? Are you stupid? You think I would waste that kind of money on a bounty?” Rai sneered.

“It wasn’t you?” Empress asked, her eyes going wide in disbelief.

It was Rai’s turn to frown, "I have no clue what you're talking about.”

The crowd listened attentively, curious as to what the participants were discussing

“Can I trust him?” Empress wondered coldly, “Who else would profit by doing that?”

Suddenly, a cough rang out. It was the referee of the fight.

“Can we begin?” he asked, a little annoyed.

Empress blushed, realizing she had become distracted. She could deal with the situation later.

At the judge’s signal Empress dashed towards Rai. Due to Rai’s negation, the fight seemed that it would be a very straightforward one.

Rai sneered, “I learned my lesson. Try counting these!”

He pulled a submachinegun from his inventory, pointing the barrel at Empress’s head.

“Die!” he said firing a barrage of bullets towards her.

Empress was unperturbed. She remembered one of the special qualities of her gauntlets. Negation powers didn’t affect them!

She crouched to make her body a smaller target, she then held her hands out in front of her like a catcher at home plate during baseball.

The bullets from the submachine mashed into her gauntlets and were instantly transformed into dust by the protective barriers. Some of the bullets hit home though, grazing Empress’s arms and chest.

Rai’s eyes went wide, “Catalyst gloves?!”

Empress smiled evilly. She grabbed a rock that laid nearby.

This time, instead of activating her barrier power, she activated her minor teleportation.

The gauntlets caused the rock to teleport out of her hand, appearing in front of Rai’s face. It crashed into his nose, making blood fly.

Empress didn’t waste the opportunity. She dashed forward, performing serpentine maneuver.

A deep sense of dread filled Rai. This situation was too familiar.

He instantly ejected the magazine on his submachinegun, pulling another one from his pocket. He inserted it just before Empress could reach him.

He pulled the trigger.

An idea instantly went through Empress’s mind.

Activating the teleportation on her gloves once more, she held her hands out in front of her.

The bullets touched the gauntlets, only to be immediately teleported away, returning to Rai.

Rai didn’t even have time to react. He was instantly riddled full of holes. Blood shot out of his body like a fountain. He collapsed to the ground.

Teleportation mastery has reached level 6!

“The winner is Empress!” the judge declared.

The crowd went wild.