Coil sat in a dimly lit room. The only piece of furniture was a stool. The door was locked. A pane of one-way glass dominated the wall to his right. He stared straight ahead, his face a mask.

‘Why did you do it?’ asked the voice. It sounded like Fuse, but it wasn’t her. It was someone else. Someone crueller.

‘It was a fighting tournament,’ Coil replied, his voice flat. ‘I fought.’

The voice took a moment to reply. ‘You had no need to kill your partner. We can’t let unpredictable units onto our team. Why did you do it?’

This time Coil thought before he spoke. ‘Battery didn’t deserve to leave the box.’

‘And why’s that?’ asked the voice.

FIGHT TWO-

‘After the shocking conclusion to our last fight, we’re back in the arena once more with another exciting matchup!’ exclaimed the announcer.

Coil walked out into the arena like he had last time, only now he didn’t have Battery to do the fighting for him. He was on his own. His opponent was a robot of average build and average height. There didn’t seem to be anything special about him at all, really. The crowd roared in excitement. Perhaps Coil’s opponent had some kind of tragic backstory or something.

‘You ready for the beatdown, skinny?’ said the robot.

Coil didn’t reply. He wasn’t interested in theatrics. To be honest, he was terrified. His killing of Battery had unearthed some courage and stability he didn’t know he had, but he was still the same old Coil. Weak. Powerless. Jumps-at-his-own-shadow Coil. He shivered slightly. Some dried out drops of oil still remained in the arena. Coil shook his head to clear his head. He had to focus. With a single, loud buzzer sound, the match begun.

Coil stayed where he was, unsure of how to proceed. His opponent circled him slowly, as if expecting Coil to suddenly jump forward and attack. Clearly he hadn’t watched the recordings of the previous match; the match where Coil spent almost all his time huddled as far away from the fight as possible. The match where the only person Coil had attacked was his own ally. No one who watched that match would fear Coil. Coil was not a thing to be feared. He was an object of pity. The victim of some crime to make the papers, only to be forgotten about the next day. Coil was nobody. That was his advantage. He watched his opponent coldly. No moves had been made yet. Just eyeballing and mistrust. The tension was palpable. Then the robot charged. He ran at Coil, screaming his head off. As he sprinted, he reached across his body and tore his right arm off to wield as a bat. An unconventional fighting style if Coil had ever seen one. The robot reached Coil and swung as hard as he could with his improvised weapon. Coil ducked, surprising himself with the speed of his reaction time, then rolled off to the side, trying to gain some distance between himself and the manic bot. The self-amputee, now with his tongue hanging out in some kind of adrenaline-fueled fervour, continued his attack, more aggressive and frantic than ever before. He swung with his detached arm like mad, desperately vying for a solid hit. Coil simply backed up, allowing the swings to miss. Despite the robot’s intimidating demeanour, he wasn’t actually very difficult to dodge. Then Coil’s opponent stopped. The hand on his detached arm flexed, still somehow linked up to his mind. With his somehow functional right hand, the robot proceeded to pull his left arm off too, so that both severed limbs were holding each other in a kind of strange loop. Coil questioned the effectiveness of this strategy. Or at least he did, until the robot began to demonstrate his psychic powers. Of course. It was always psychic powers. Slowly, the arm loop started to levitate and spin. As it gained height from the ground, its rotation sped up. From both of the linked arms, dozens of dangerous-looking, hooked spikes popped out. Coil realized he was about to fight a spinning wheel of death, and Coil was frightened. His opponent cackled with glee as his bizarre product of self-mutilation approached Coil. Coil began to walk in the other direction, his mind a blur. The wheel sped up its movement to compensate. Coil broke into a run. The audience booed his cowardice, but Coil didn’t care. He just didn’t want to die. The wheel was gaining speed. It spun with an intense purple glow. The armless robot that controlled it laughed with glee as his creation chased Coil in circles. Soon it was moving faster than Coil could conceivably run. It was gaining on him. Coil had to do something. The arm-wheel was within arm’s reach. Coil sprinted as fast as he could, his legs groaning under the strain. He willed himself to be free of his pursuer. Evidently, his will was not strong enough. This was Coil’s second fight. If he survived this one, he would still have six-hundred and eighty to go. If he survived this one. Coil could almost laugh at the idea. One of his legs seized up, having been driven far beyond its limit. Coil stumbled into one of the arena walls. He tried to keep going, but he couldn’t move faster than a shuffle. The wheel approached. It was but centimetres away. It connected with Coil’s chest. Coil screamed in terror, but instead of the wheel tearing him apart, it instead tore itself apart. As soon as it collided with Coil, the wheel ricocheted off like it had just hit a steel wall. With a shrieking crack, it ripped into a dozen pieces that scattered themselves across the arena. Coil blinked. The audience gasped. Coil’s torso had somehow been too tough for the wheel to even make a dent in. The armless robot stood agape, unable to believe what he had just seen. Coil cautiously shuffled over to him, still attempting to process the last fifteen seconds.

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‘… Surrender?’ Coil suggested.

The robot nodded.

Maybe the tournament wouldn’t be so hard after all.