"I don't see how anyone could do Rumble Circuit for a living," Janus said. "I wasn't even fighting and I’m feeling exhausted." Night had come and both Itzel and Gurk were sitting down on the grass. Trenches and small indentations were scattered across the park-turned-battlefield as the two combatants settled down to collect their energy.
"It's not something everyone can do," Itzel replied. She sat crisscross, leaning back on her hands as she took in a few deep breaths to rebuild her stamina. "Not only is physically exhausting, but it's just so competitive. Pretty much everyone with an affinity has dabbled in a Ranked Challenge or two."
"Yeah," Gurk replied. He lay on his back, his head to the side as he watched the moon slowly creep up over the horizon. “It’s tough.”
"That’s why I think I’ll leave it to those that actually know what they’re doing.” Janus stepped closer to the fighters. Both had their eyes closed, basking in a calm gust. “What's the next part of the plan?" Janus asked. "You two going to spar some more? Or are we going out for a bit of Exterminating before calling it quits?"
Itzel wiped her brow with the back of her hand. "I think you know the answer," she replied in exhaustion.
"Sounds like you're done for the day."
"Exterminating can wait. Gurk's win against Tonko combined with all the money we got from killing Essencima back at the Refinery Sector put us in a good spot. I think we can afford to focus on getting Gurk ready for his big upcoming Challenge."
"Ready," Gurk said in a huff.
"Trust me, big guy. You can never be too ready when it comes to Rumble Circuit. We've gotten the physical part down, but you know what the next step is, right?"
"What?" Gurk asked, tilting his head up just enough off the ground to look at Itzel. She was tapping the side of her forehead.
"We've got to work on strategy next."
With a brief groan, Gurk let his head drop back down on the grass.
"We're going to be analyzing some replays of Siergi's matches?" Janus asked with enthusiasm.
Itzel gave Janus a long nod. "As much as I can't stand that guy, it's our best bet to make sure Gurk knows what's coming. We've got plenty of content to work with seeing as how all of Siergi's past Broadcasts are available on the Network. We're heading home and we're going to watch as much of his stuff as we can." Her eyes then moved to the crocodile laying belly up in the grass. "And we'll be taking notes, too."
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"Great," Gurk mumbled, not bothering to lift his head up.
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"Is everyone ready?" Itzel asked. She stood by the projector stuck to the wall of the main room and activated with a wave of her hand. Gurk had gotten comfortable with his floor blanket, having wrapped it around his legs as he sat with his knees bent upwards. Janus reclined on the sofa, watching Itzel go through the menus as he kept his arms crossed. "Now remember Gurk, we're studying. This isn't meant to be fun. It's supposed to be productive, alright?"
"Got it!" Gurk let Itzel know that he understood where she was coming from by giving her a pair of big thumbs up.
"Good. Now, where is Siergi's page? Oh, here it is. Let's start by watching his most recent Challenge." Itzel proceeded to tap through another menu, only to be greeted by a large red box containing a message that filled up the entire screen.
"A Premium Subscription to Siergi Alabock's page is required to view this content."
"What?! Who would pay three thousand Tokens a month to watch Siergi's past Broad—" Itzel's narrowed in at Gurk. "Don't tell me. I don't want to know. Just verify your subscription for us so we can get this over with."
"Fine." Gurk stood up and brought up his UIC in front of the screen. The message disappeared and a long cascading list of past recordings became visible. Itzel pressed the top option and the screen began to play back the Challenge.
"Let's see here. It's Siergi versus Collin Prinkett. The guy was rank 10,090 in the local circuit."
"Is that good?" Janus asked.
"Ha. You could get to rank ten thousand just by winning one match. The guy's either new, a total scrub or the most likely scenario, a combination of both. Siergi probably agreed to Challenge him because he knew he'd be an easy win and I wouldn't be surprised if Collin dropped a hefty sum of Tokens to appear on the Broadcast."
"What rank are you?"
Itzel's lips curled. "I should be 3,663! But that Challenge with Enidri lost me a lot of points. Now I'm at 5,601."
"That's low," Gurk said. Itzel gave him a mean glare as her hands went on her hips.
"It's still better than you!"
"Not much!"
"What's Gurk rank?" Janus inquired.
"5,724! And that's after he beat Tonko in his gym." Itzel answered. "But once you're towards the middle rankings, it fluctuates too much for rank to actually measure skill. A single loss against a low-ranking opponent can completely annihilate your position. And then it'll take weeks and weeks of straight wins to get back to where you once were.
I'm telling you, the points system is a total mess for everyone that's not in the top eight percent. That's why a lot of people who make money off Rumble Circuit do so because of their personality on Broadcasts rather than their skill and ranking. And that's why Labrisson doesn't have any famous Rumble Circuit competitors! Doing regular Broadcasts is expensive and everyone in the city is broke."
"I see. That makes sense. You need Tokens to make Tokens, correct?"
"Exactly." Itzel looked back towards the projector and resumed the recording. "Now let's got down to business, shall we? I'll be stopping this Broadcast a lot, Gurk. I don't want you thinking that we're watching this for fun. You know how I can't stomach this guy's personality."
"Fine," the crocodile grumbled as he cozied up with his blanket again.