A whole crowd sat in Donnyton’s arena to watch the action broadcast on the giant screen, the viewing platform suspended over the sinkhole generated by their own challenge against the Ghosthound a few years ago. Over the past minute, the mood did a drastic one-eighty. The watchers sat in a silence that grew heavier as the challenge stretched on.

Kayle and Mrs. Hamilton sat at a raised dais, originally intended to be announcers who could explain the minutiae of the battle to those with normal Perception. Everyone understood that with so many competitors fighting at once, and with how high their Stats would be, it would be almost impossible for the average citizen to watch the confrontation and make any sense of the conflict. Even with the most high-tech cameras, their minds couldn’t recognize the movements before something else had occurred. The announcers could speak quickly and maintain at least some context for the confrontation.

Yet now, they all watched in silence. The lack of words from the announcers was just one more symptom of the realization dawning over the entire Alpha Cosmos as they observed. Kayle pressed his lips together, squeezing the table with his hands. Mrs. Hamilton kept a more neutral expression, but Donny watched from the side and could tell she was also affected by what she saw.

Donny pulled his gaze away from the watchers and back to the lightning-fast action on the screen. It’s hard, seeing him like this. The rest won’t get it, but he used to be just a hair more powerful than us. Everyone at Donnyton still remembers him as that standoffish college student who had a few dozen Skill Levels of an edge, which seemed insurmountable right when the System arrived. And now…

The Ghosthound approached the group arrayed against him with a crushing wave of tension sweeping behind him. He clashed with several of the challengers, each time crushing the images thrown against him. His Nether storm constantly suppressed their momentum, keeping them on the back foot.

His movements were methodical and vicious as he dismantled their formation. The challengers sustained more and more wounds keeping up with him. Donny glanced sideways at the dais again. The two announcers remained silent. The atmosphere grew heavy.

It’s his Nether Storm, Donny realized. He looked up and widened his perspective, relying on the power granted by the giant Nether Ritual in the core of the planet. Dark tides rippled outward from that Little Moon hanging up in the sky. Even from here, they could feel his cold implacability.

In a very real way, the whole of Expira was submerged in his dispassionate butchery. They had to feel it.

All at once, the clashes became increasingly disadvantageous for the challengers. Alana took a wound, then Kimpap and Illdan, then Paolo and Hank. The pillar exploded in a desperate attempt to destabilize the Ghosthound’s footing, but by the time they hit the ground, the remaining competitors had been defeated and smashed into the ground.

All told, the challenge probably lasted less than a minute. The silence lengthened around them. No one could articulate their feeling, their instinctual sense of weakness, before that display.

When Randidly pronounced the challenge over, Donny felt people around him begin to talk. They couldn’t believe that it had ended so quickly using several methods to rationalize the way things had gone. The most common one was that they decided not to push themselves. Even though several blows had been struck between the two sides, and the challengers had several deep wounds or severed limbs, this was a System enhanced world. Most Classers knew it was possible to fight through such impediments.

To fight and thrive. The Ghosthound’s entire history was filled with such moments.

Yet the bitterness on the faces of all the challengers as they stood up from the rubble, especially Alana Donal and Paolo, finally broke through their vague denials. Smothered by the wide Nether storm of the Ghosthound, people began to acknowledge the result. The challenge had finished.

People in the crowd began to whisper with a new desperation. Especially the younger individuals, those who came with excitement and lacked the Perception to catch some of the exchanges, wondered why things had ended so quickly.

On the stage, Kayle finally cleared his throat. “There you have it. In less than a minute, without relying on any massive displays of image, Randidly Ghosthound crushed most of the top fighters in the Alpha Cosmos. We will dissect how exactly that happened… tomorrow. For now, it’s time to head home. I think we all need a bit of a break.”

Donny sighed.

One young member of the Squad stood up from his seat and shouted. “But- no one got to use their most powerful attack. Everything just seemed… small and unimpressive. Were the challengers just saving their best images and never got the opportunity? It isn’t fair for them to be eliminated like that.”

Kayle’s face contorted in frustration and Donny felt some sympathy; the speaker clearly didn’t understand how the Ghosthound’s mundane attacks was even scarier than a bombastic display.

Before Kayle could gather himself, Mrs. Hamilton spoke. “I think that was part of the lesson that the Ghosthound wanted to impart upon us. The powers that the Nexus possesses are not fair. They will not come to the Alpha Cosmos and challenge us to duels. They have ways to suppress our image potency, to strangle our Willpower, to make us nearly helpless in front of them. The reason that no one could manage their best images was that they couldn’t- Randidly Ghosthound dominated them all, at the same time. One truly powerful image can blanket out eight of our strongest. It’s pretty easy to imagine some other alien coming and doing the same thing to an entire city. It is a humbling truth.”

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The squad member didn’t seem satisfied, but the rest of his group pulled him away. Gradually, the crowd at Donnyton dispersed, talking quietly in small groups as they returned to their homes. The mood remained low and dissatisfied, even as Donny felt the flows of Randidly’s Nether pulling back toward the culprit. At least because of the furious action and unsatisfying conclusion, he felt like the sour taste of this challenge would stick in people’s throats for a while. It was not easy to forget.

When most of the watching crew had left, Donny went up onto the stage. Mrs. Hamilton sat there, staring up into the sky where the Little Moon hung. She nodded in acknowledgment but didn’t look away from the wide-open sky.

“Are we really so weak?” Mrs. Hamilton mused. “In the grand scheme of things, I mean.”

Donny shrugged. “Well, its certainly easier to accept the Ghosthound’s refusal to open up movement into the Nexus if we think so. Hard to know how many individuals like him exist in the Nexus though.”

“True,” She whispered. She tilted her head to the side, seeming to weigh the remnant Nether flows that filled the air. “However, there will be consequences for this. It’s already weighing heavily on Kayle. A demonstration like this, making the power the people of Expira fought so hard for seems unsatisfying and inconsequential, will discourage more individuals from pushing themselves. I feel like the sedentary faction will gain a significant portion of the population. It’s one thing to make power seem impressive and flashy. But this-”

“Are you scared?” Donny asked.

Mrs. Hamilton blinked and turned to look at him. Then she laughed. “Yes, Donny. I’m very scared. Could you feel him? His emotions, the utter contempt he possessed when he looked at our most talented eight challengers? Well, it’s dumb to say. But sometimes… it’s difficult to imagine that this is the same person who helped build up Donnyton.”

“Yea,” Donny said softly.

*****

Missy Carp’s eyes were bloodshot from lack of blinking as the nonsense commentary of the news outlets continued to try and grapple with what they had just witnessed. Without any powerful fighters themselves, the news relied on slowing down the footage to a series of jerky blurs to explain how and why things had happened. When the picture was too grainy, they simply fell back on what each fighter had been known to do in the past.

Each explanation, each dissection, was more dissatisfying than the last. Missy let it all flow together and become white noise in the back of her head. Because what was important about the challenge was the feel. And even after a half-hour, that feeling hadn’t left her.

Compared to the legitimate physical challenge presented by these fighters, her political machinations seemed pointless. Even if she gathered momentum, would the shift in public opinion be able to slow him down? The Alpha Cosmos was his body, but that went both ways. If enough thoughts could influence him, he would be able to pay back that interference in kind.

With a lot of concentrated force.

Missy shivered. Of course, there were those who had the capacity to understand that devastating feeling and those who didn’t. A watcher’s senses needed to be well-honed to truly understand how monstrous the Ghosthound had become.

To understand the way his fingers curled almost lazily around them all, ready to rip out their hearts at the first sign of resistance.

“Aw, shit, I’m tired of this.” A tattooed man with a goatee blew a fat raspberry. Missy glanced over to the next cell as he began to pace. “People just blowing smoke up the Ghosthound’s ass to win favor with him. That was no honest fight. Probably to secure secret deals or something to actually make it to the Nexus and keep the average fella out of the cash flow.”

Missy raised her eyebrows, too freshly removed from her fear of the Ghosthound to understand what he was saying. But his voice had attracted the attention of some others in the surroundings.

His chest swelled with pride at the attention. He walked over and hopped down onto his bare bunk, suddenly the picture of confidence and wisdom. “Yea, look at how chaotic the footage is. Y’all fallin’ for this grainy shit? How many times light or debris get in the way of the camera; that’s how you can tell its all a setup. Kharon and Donnyton and probably fucking commie Zone Seven were all involved in this hoax to keep us in the dark. And these aliens, from other planets? Fuck. Do I need to explain it all to you?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Another prisoner growled.

Sneering, Mr. Goatee was only too happy to explain. “So yea, we’ve got portals to different places, but how do we know they aren’t just far away places on this planet? Any proof there are other planets we can live on? Anybody ever get a Skill that lets ‘em breathe without air? And why don’t I suddenly see these new planets hanging in the night sky? What we do know is that the Nexus exists; otherwise, why did Expira- and can I say how shitty it is that the System won’t even let us say the true name of the planet- why did Expira suddenly go to shit?”

Goatee jabbed a finger forward. He truly believed every word of what he was saying. “We might have Skills and shit, but the world didn’t change. The top 1% controls everything, spoon-feeding the average dumbfuck opinions through the news and shit. This is the perfect example. After all the fucking hype of the long-ass tournament, this is the fight that we get? It felt tired and disappointing. Obviously fake. Obviously a hoax.

“And you know why? Because they had built up the Ghosthound to be a super powerful being, more than everyone else combined.” The man waved a hand. “Yet he’s just a fucking guy, like everyone else. He takes stinky shits after eating greasy food. There was no way to fake him being some sort of partial god like people whisper. These tournament winners are probably almost as strong as he is. So they just dragged everyone else down to make him look better. Made it really messy and gritty. But jokes on fucking them, we just saw all these people fight. We know what they can do. Suddenly they are shitting the bed, all at once? Yea, fuck off.”

All the other prisoners mulled this over. From a few of their expressions, Missy knew that those people with any sort of actual capability recognized this man for a fraud. Yet on others, she spotted doubt. Her eyes widened and she began to breathe more quickly. Because across all of Expira, most people weren’t very discerning. They just waited for someone to convince them.

On the television, the droning voice of the announcer continued. “Even now, it’s difficult for us to capture and recognize the true power of the Ghosthound-”

“That,” Missy blinked several times. “Is actually a really good idea.”

Goatee snorted. “No shit. I’m not in here because I’m the sort of sheep that just accepts the fucked up status quo, am I? I’m an Alpha. I see something, I take something, ya dig?”