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Chapter 5: Season opener
As a result of the new weaponry it was no longer safe to hold matches in public arenas. Instead now we were taken to remote areas or secured arenas that were littered with cameras. Our season opener was to be held on a large space vessel orbiting the earth. As our small vessel carried us to the arena, I couldn't help but feel a little weirded out by some of our new team mates. First was Ramirez, he was a good man all in all, but he was unstable and snapped a lot at little things. He was sent to us by a nursing home for the mentally ill, they thought maybe venting his pent up rage would "fix" him. Then there was Nikita. She was a very pretty brunette. She came from a wealthy family, yet for some unknown reason she joined the tournament. She claimed the glamourous life was boring to her, but I think there was more to it then that. Finally there was Ophelia… she scared the hell out of me. A special seat had to be made for her on our vessel. It was secured like a cage, bars all around it and quadruple locked. She sat locked down to her seat with a thick metal bar locked down across her chest, another around her arms and waist, another around her thighs and a final one a little above her ankles. Her ankles themselves were locked with irons and her wrists were handcuffed behind her back, and thick steel casings were locked around her hands to keep her from even moving her fingers. She had a steel mask strapped to her head to regulate her breathing in case she got out of control. The only part of her face you could see were her eyes, they hid behind a thick red plastic visor in the mask. Her eyes seemed vacant and lifeless. She was a freaky one, Ophelia was. Apparently she killed her family in a most gruesome fashion and didn't even bat an eye about it. Afterwards she went on a rampage and killed many people. I never heard how many people she actually killed or why she even went nuts. All I knew was she was damn dangerous, and the federal government sent her to fight for us in hopes that an "accident" would conveniently make her no longer their problem. I tried not to make eye contact with her, but she sat directly across from me. Every now and then she would blink, but otherwise she didn't move. We finally docked at our arena and all got off. Special attendants had to escort Ophelia off the ship by securing her into a harness that locked around her waist and chest. Attached to the harness were three long bars, about fifteen feet long. They led her with the bars, safely out of her reach. I couldn't believe they were so careful with her, I also couldn't believe they were about to unlock her binds. A marshal slowly approached her and shoved a large syringe needle into her arm and pushed the contents into her. She seemed to relax her muscles and the marshals quickly freed her of her locks. They fidgeted with the air regulator on her mask and limited her air intake so that she would be very drowsy when the tranquilizer wore off.
"The hell is this?" A voice said in disgust. I turned to see Othello and a band of new recruits behind him. Thunder Crash's numbers had certainly grown over the off-season. I pulled out my enforcer and walked towards Othello.
"Where is he?" I demanded.
"Who?"
"Bernard. Where is that piece of-"
"He's dead." a calm voice said from behind the pack. Malcolm parted the crowd and walked through them. He looked incredible. He had gained quite a lot of weight, all muscle. He donned dark sunglasses and was now sporting a goatee. His entire air seemed to drip with confidence. "You look well, Hawk." I stared at Malcolm for a moment, then shook myself back to reality.
"What do you mean he's dead?" I hissed. Malcolm was so cool, so calm.
"I was quite unhappy with his little incident involving you after our match in the finals. I called him on it, more or less push came to shove. He pushed, I shoved, if ya catch my drift." I nodded.
"So, you run this operation now, huh?" Malcolm nodded to me.
"Bernard had a good thing going for a while, but soon it become more than the demand of equal rights and respect. By the end of last season he had grown from wanting fairness, to himself being a racist. I didn't want to be a part of a team like that. There's a new Thunder Crash now, and we're going to make up for our actions last year." I nodded as Malcolm spoke, I will admit I admired his bravery. He dared to call his superior on something he didn't agree with, and when he had to, he was man enough to do something about it. Malcolm's way wasn't to get respect by complaining about the hand he was dealt in life, instead he would earn it like any other man, and if someone thought less of him simply by the colour of his skin, he knew he was better than that and reminded his team that they all were. From that moment I knew Malcolm would be a great leader for Thunder Crash, I'm glad that down the road I found out I was right.

Sadly my new found respect for Thunder Crash had to be put on hold. A flying probe came into the room and a voice spoke to us all, stating that the death match was about to start. A loud countdown began, and we all scattered, I think we were all more afraid then anything else. I ran into the cargo hold and found one of the flak canons. I picked it up and tried to figure out how it worked. Othello ran into the room and I quickly blasted him with the first trigger. White-hot shrapnel shot into his armour and knocked him down. The particles bounced wildly, I had to dive to avoid being hit. This thing was scary, but at least I scored us a point without seriously harming Othello. We all tried to fight as best we could, but everyone made sure to only shoot the armour of others. We figured we would just keep low scores and let the timer run down. The plan was working until Ophelia… damn that woman. She found a ripper, and we soon realized how it got its name. She pointed it at a member of Thunder Crash and fired. I'm still haunted by the sound of that damned thing. It's one of those sounds that when you hear you just pray to God that it's not coming for you. It's a sound that instantly turns your stomach. The razor disk flew out of the ripper and slashed through the Thunder Crash member's arm, dismembering it easily. We all paused as the rookie howled in agony and dropped to the floor, blood was everywhere. One of our rookies ran to take the ripper away from Ophelia… she got scared and shot him to, decapitating him in one shot. We were all left with no choice but to gun her down, we tried not to kill her but we had to incapacitate her. I was able to get close enough to shoot her in the back with the flak canon. I was so close that her armour shattered open, but she was relatively unharmed. We grabbed the ripper from her and immediately tried to restrain her. The timer ran down and buzzed loudly as we still fought with this screaming lunatic to subdue her. To this day I don't know why we didn't just kill her there and let that be the end of it. Maybe we thought there was hope for her, maybe we hoped to reach her and give her a second chance at life… maybe we were just stupid. Bjorn reached in and pushed the button on the side of her mask, cutting off her air supply and injecting her head with powerful tranquilizers. Marshals appeared out of nowhere and immediately re-applied her handcuffs, ankle chains, hand casings and the transport harness. As they led her drugged body away, the Thunder Crash rookie died. He bled to death on that opening day match. We lost a rookie also in a gruesome display of needless violence. Malcolm looked at our fallen members and sighed.
"All this so their ratings will go up a few percentages." No one else spoke. Malcolm met eyes with all of us from behind his dark sunglasses, he nodded specifically to me, I don't know if it was a sign of respect or consolement or sympathy for our loss or what it was, but we connected on that bloody opening day. Malcolm motioned for Thunder Crash to follow him, Bjorn did likewise for us.


Yup, we've not seen the end of Ophelia don't you worry. Things are going to continue to shape up, but they will be getting more violent from here on out, so if that offends you, turn back now.