First impressions tend to taint your view of a person.

Your hardass boss that kept the act up so well you forget there was a person underneath.

Childhood memories of a parent as strong and composed stuck with you until, one day, you realized they were only human.

Or, in this case, a college student holding off a horde of people with superpowers caused Markus to overlook just how young he was.

Steven couldn’t have been older than nineteen or twenty. But seeing the man in combat had skewed his view of him.

He’d been a solid wall, fending off dozens of people at once.

But seeing him now, the lost look in his eyes drove home just how young he was.

There was weariness and exhaustion there, but that wasn’t all. Markus had seen that look in a person's eyes before.

Guilt and doubt swirling together, making something that ate away at you.

There was a good chance Steven had never been in a fight before the System’s arrival. And he might have only fought monsters before the contest. And now here he was, ambushing someone before they could react.

“Hey, Steven.” The man looked up, his eyes focusing. “You did good. None of us could have incapacitated him that safely without killing him. Thank you.”

Steven slowly nodded, but his eyes were still troubled.

Before Markus could say anything else, a System prompt filled his vision.

The Red Hand has accepted your challenge!

You have opted for single combat. They have chosen group combat. Rolling for outcome… group combat has been decided.

Rolling for location…the strip mall!

Since you have opted to fight in half an hour, you must reach that location before the allotted time or forfeit. Neither side is allowed to harm or obstruct the other before the challenge begins.

The System paused, and its voice lost some of its formal edge.

“That was very sneaky, Markus. Evening the odds before deciding to issue the challenge.”

“I’ll let you get away with it this time since I like to reward thinking outside the box, but there will be a cooldown on issuing challenges after hostile actions in the future.”

“Challenges exist to have a more structured form of conflict. If you don’t want that, you don’t have to interact with it. But you can’t have it both ways.”

Markus nodded at the prompt. He’d had a feeling that doing it like this was skirting around the spirit of the challenge, but he couldn’t care less.

It had worked, and that was what mattered.

He turned to the others. “Are you all ready?”

He got a round of firm nods. Margie was fine, Micheal was visibly nervous, and Steven still looked drained, but there was steel in all their gazes.

Good enough.

~<>~<>~

Markus rarely drove up to his enemies. Oh, there were a few fringe cases, but more often than not, one was jumping the other.

He preferred it that way. The slow tension of walking into a fight was bad for his heart.

It didn’t take them long to arrive. It was barely a five-minute drive, but they waited a bit. They wanted to get one last chance to size up their opponents before this went down, but Markus wasn’t interested in staring at people for a half hour before trying to kill them.

He rubbed his wrist, slowly rolling it around as he stretched his hands. The motions were smooth, not a speck of rust on them.

Part of that was thanks to him keeping in good shape, and the rest was due to the faint blue sheen over his skin.

They were walking into this fight with the deck as stacked as they could make it.

He never thought he’d be helping someone get into some loony toons-like traps to get stronger for a fight, but he wasn’t about to turn down the edge.

Markus breathed deep, holding the breath for a few seconds before letting it out. Once his lungs were empty, he held it for a few more seconds before breathing in.

Out, hold, in, hold, out. Repeat.

His thoughts settled, worries and fears moving aside as steady focus took their place.

He was afraid to fail. Afraid that one of the others would get hurt helping him. Afraid…afraid to kill again.

He acknowledged those fears, accepted them. Then he gently put them aside.

They were useless to him now.

They pulled into the mall parking lot with five minutes to spare, and the Red Hand had made some changes.

Campfires were lit all around the parking lot, crackling away in the cold air.

That’s another point towards the leader having a fire-related Class.

Steven slowly pulled to a stop, and Markus studied the five people waiting for them.

He recognized all of them, but he’d only identified three. Joshua Harding, on the far left of the group, Morgan Smith, one-off from the middle, and Carson Morello on the other end.

He identified the last two with a thought.

The System’s rich voice, tinted with a British accent, spoke into his mind.

Regan Kent

Age: 37

Thresholds passed: 1

Primary Bloodline: Scottish

Nationality: American

Background: This one’s a fighter and a terrible drinker, like many Scottish—

Markus blinked. Had the System…was it being racist?

He started at a young age and realized he was good at it. The fighting, just to clarify. And he quite liked it. It was all downhill from there.

Likes: noisy anarchy

Dislike: order

Well, that was… opinionated. And Markus felt the System might be fucking with him.

The man in question was pale, tall, and clean-shaven, with a broad chin with a thin scar running along one side before dipping down to vanish beneath his collar.

His brown hair was neatly styled back, and he wore a dark jacket and slim grey snow pants.

As they climbed out, he took them in with hard blue eyes.

The last person's information popped up next.

Stacy Williams

Age: 26

Thresholds passed: 1

Primary Bloodline: German

Nationality: American

Background: Stacy enjoys bright, festive colors, event planning, and, as she’s discovered recently, proving herself stronger than the teeming masses.

Likes: woodworking

Dislikes: eggnog

Markus looked the woman over.

Short, with tan skin, round features, curly blonde hair, and dressed in dark snow pants with a white and pink coat with rose embroidery at the shoulder, she looked like…well, she didn’t look like she should be in a gang.

“No racist barbs at her?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Markus snorted as they walked up.

Each side eyed the other. Markus kept his breathing steady, his calm solid as stone.

Regan broke the silence first.

“You can still walk away from this. I’ll let you go.” His voice was deep and relaxed and gave off an easy conference.

“No need for this to go any further.”

Markus met his eyes. The man's face was open, earnest even, but his blue eyes were hard as stone and cold as ice.

Markus chuckled and shook his head. “I don’t believe you.”

The man frowned slightly. “Come now. We can be reasonable, don’t shoot down my offer so quickly.”

Markus wasn’t in the mood for posturing.

“Do I look like I was born yesterday, son?” He sighed and rubbed his mustache.

“We leave, and then what? Suddenly we’re pals? And what about your friend? You made that offer before knowing what happened to him. You’d just leave someone who attacked your group alone, maybe even killed one of your own?”

Joshua rolled his eyes. He was square-jawed and handsome, with styled black hair and dark eyes that practically glowed with eagerness. He spoke up with a snort.

“You have a bad attitude, old man. It’s kinda putting me off.”

Markus didn’t look at him, keeping his gaze locked on the leader. “We walk, and you hunt us. Maybe we get away clean, but maybe we don’t. You aren't going to challenge us to a duel at dawn. You'll come while we sleep or firebomb our cars or some other nefarious pot shot. It doesn't really matter.”

He rolled his neck as the timer ticked away.

“What matters is that this is ending right here, right now.” Markus paused for a beat before chuckling. “Well, in a few minutes when our time’s up.”

Regan stared at Markus for several long seconds, his expression blank. He reached up and slowly tapped his lip. “I think I should have tried to recruit you, old man.”

Markus smiled. “I’m retired.”

“Shame.”

Silence hung heavy in the air, the distant sound of cars and the crackling fires the only things that dared to break it.

That was until the timer reached 1 minute and the System’s voice rose in a shout. “With 1 minute remaining and both parties in position, the arena shall be prepared!”

A miniature copy of the dome overhead blinked into place, stretching from the edge of the parking lot to behind the strip mall.

They were officially past the point of no return.

59 seconds remaining.