From the moment they arrived at the press conference, Jess had known that the demon's game was rigged. She had stood silently between Srinivas and Joe, making herself as inconspicuous as possible while Mike tried his best not to further screw up a public relations nightmare. He didn't do a terrible job of calling out the asshole preacher. But then Nallit sent Mike into the fight, offhandedly including the sentence "If you win, Mike, come back to where I'm holding your hostages for another surprise" among his commands.

Jess did not like the implication that another surprise would involve the three hostages. She and Srinivas were just sirens, capable of using the noetic and teleotic talents. Hardened bodies and vasted minds were great, but they had no answer if a kinetic boiled their blood or submerged them in the river. An aeronaut like Joe had the kinetic talent in addition to the noetic one, which had more combat application than a siren but still left a major gap with no ability to harden a body. The three of them were not a great choice for combat. Srinivas hardly had any combat training as he worked with Sam as a trainer.

Her concerns were soon swept aside by the spectacle of the battle royale. Even lacking the senses to follow the details, she had enough second-hand knowledge of coronas to grasp the general outline of the fight. Nallit had raised up a small army surpassing Mike in pure strength. She tensed tighter and tighter as events transpired. Every kill Mike made came harder than the one before it until he curled into a ball to passively accept his beating. She only let herself relax when Mike stood victorious over his final foe.

The other survivor, the man who had attempted to flee, hovered beside Nallit, begging for his life. As Mike plodded across the broken ground towards them, Nallit brought his hands together in booming claps. "Well done, Mikey! You put on a nice little show! Now it's my turn!" Nallit flourished his hands and the garments adorning the surviving enemy ripped apart to leave the man explosed. With an even more dramatic motion, Nallit proferred one hand to the empty air. A knife slowly formed in it, looking like a time-lapse video of an icicle forming. Nallit smiled at the blade, then stabbed it into the helpless man held before him.

With gleeful cackles, the demon disemboweled his victim, pulling free the entire digestive tract with his bare hands -- ignoring his talents because, presumably, he wanted to get his hands dirty. When the grisly task had been completed, Nallit let the man fall to the ground. "Cowards don't got no use for guts," he pronounced. "So you can run away now that yours are removed. Go on now. Do the escape thing."

"I'm dying," the man wailed from the ground.

"Maybe if you collected all your pieces a doctor could put them back in you," Nallit said.

"Can they really?"

"Nope. You're dead, Fred. Fly off so I don't have to hear your last moments. Otherwise I'll get motivated to participate in your passing."

The dying man flew off towards the north, moaning prayers as he went. Nallit crooked a finger and the preacher shot through the air to land before him. "And you, ya silly twat, what are you doing trying to sneak away? You are on my naughty list."

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"You can't kill me, we have a deal!"

"Uh, our deal said nothing about not killing you."

"You promised I would have an army in exchange for letting you take the hundred best! I can't have an army if I'm dead!"

"Hey, shit-for-brains, I ain't promised you an army. I promised yer church an army. And they got one. You . . . well, you get to have a holy experience. We're gonna have us a crucifixion. It's going to be so much fun. For me, that is. You're going to positively hate every moment of it. Now zip the lip, I got business with the winner of the death match." Nallit's voice grew louder. "What are you dallying for, Mike? You won! I'm super duper pleased with you. That choking business is water under the bridge."

Mike had stopped ten feet away from them. "What is the surprise you have for me?"

"Oh, that. I'm going to have your three hostages fight my three hostages. I brought a kinetic, a noetic, and a teleotic. We each pick the lineup of our team. Our number ones fight each other. Number twos, threes, same deal. The cage is ruined, so we're going to find an alternative venue. How about the roof of the casino? Be over there in five minutes and have your lineup chosen. The standard 'or else' clause is definitely in play. Follow the rules or disproportionately bad things will happen, Michael."

When the demon launched into the sky with a number of other bodies, Jess shoved her face into the shoulder of Srinivas. Sam had promised this would be safe. Jess would never let her live this down.

Mike cleared his throat. "Ideas?"

Joe's response came fast and hard. "Demote Sam."

"Ideas on the best order for you to fight," Mike said.

"We don't know what order Nallit is going to choose, so how does it even matter what we do?"

Srinivas patted her on the back. "Mike? I am thinking we send strongest first. That mean Joe since he have kinetic talent. Kinetic beat noetic or teleotic."

"Or we save the strongest for last," Mike countered. "Really it depends on what we think he will do."

Jess turned around to face Mike. "What should a siren do in this kind of fight?"

"Harden your body, send out a meme blast, and smash their skull in," Mike said.

"What if we get a kinetic and they stay out of range?"

Mike sighed. "Then Nallit steps in. Who's up first?"

"I'll go first," Joe muttered.

"Second?"

Jess raised her hand.

"That puts Srinivas up last. We'd better get over there before Nallit decides we're late."