I leapt towards him in a split second and had my fist through his gut. He looked down in shock and opened his mouth as if to make a comment, but I put the Wingman between his eyes and unloaded every bullet until I was shooting the window behind his desk, which shattered.

I glanced at his corpse, which was now without a head. I threw the body towards the window and let it fall towards the ground.

The sound of laughter bounced off the walls of the room. I looked back at this Blisk guy.

"Y'know kid, that wasn't too bad. I think you've got a future in the Apex Games as the Tartarus Legend." He held out a red card with a devilish looking skull on it.

I took the card and looked at the corpse of Hades. I didn't really have anything keeping me here besides the need to not return to the Syndicate, which sponsors the Apex Games. But it would be nice to find an… outlet for my killing potential.

"Will I be protected from the Syndicate? Because if not, it's gonna be a no."

Blisk laughed, "Of course kid, the Syndicate will never bother any of my Legends if they know what's good for them. That actually brings us to another reason I was here." He looked at the window that I threw Hades out of, "I was here to make a deal with Hades about getting him to join the Syndicate, which would make him a Legend. Now that he's dead, we need someone to sign the contract, and someone to join the Games."

"What're you getting at, Blisk?" I asked, already dreading the answer.

"Well Mr. Abara, how do you feel about being the new Hades, only for the sake of the Apex Games?"

"Oh. I thought it was gonna be worse than that. Yeah, sure, whatever. I'm never coming back to Tartarus after this anyway so…" I shrugged.

Blisk grinned, "Perfect. Sign here, Hades."

He pulled out a contract, which I skimmed through briefly to find any hidden clauses. When it came up clean I signed under my new name, Hades.

I walked through the checkpoint at the Solace spaceport, where they keep the Apex Dropship. This was my first official match and I was feeling a bit anxious. I took a deep breath and stepped onto the dropship.

The ship was full of people, a few stuck out to me. One was a tall figure sitting in a corner carving. They were dressed in bulky clothes with a respirator mask and a bizarre bit of headgear, a raven was perched on their shoulder and was staring intently at what they were doing. Another was a large Somoan man, probably just shy of six and a half feet tall, he was chatting and laughing with a few of the people. He was dressed in bulky bulletproof clothes and had a shield strapped to his arm. The last one to particularly stick out was an older man about the same height as me, but much bulkier. I couldn't tell if the bulk came from his physique or from the yellow hazard suit he was wearing.

"Hello friend, you must be new!"

I jumped a little bit and whipped around to see a modified blue MRVN. On its chest-screen was a smiley face and it was holding out a hand as if it wanted me to shake it. Up its arms were yellow zipline cords, and strapped to its back was a zipline gun. I didn't know how to react around this thing so I was just gonna play it safe. It didn't help that everyone in the dropship was now looking in our direction as the MRVN spoke to me.

"Yes, I am."

"Well that's super awesome, I can't wait to kill you!" It's screen got angry and then changed to a pink face with heart eyes, "Or help you depending on the circumstances!"

"Likewise." I deadpanned.

Apparently that satisfied it, because it nodded and walked off. This place was just weird.

"You get used to it." Said a voice from my right.

I looked over and saw a woman who was probably in her late thirties. She was tall, maybe about six foot and had short hair and dark skin. Strapped to her back was a blocky grey gun of some sort, and she had white and yellow canisters clipped to a bandolier. She seemed strict, for lack of a better term.

"Yeah?"

"No. But you'll pretend to." She then looked over to a timer, "Word of advice, don't hesitate. Nobody else will."

I nodded.

"You say that now, but being in the ring is different from any experience you've had before. Don't think you're safe just because it's a game. It's your first match, you die, you don't come back."

I nodded again, and looked at the timer. Thirty seconds until our arrival to Kings Canyon. Strict wasn't the right word to describe her. Intense. That was more fitting. I didn't have a lot of time left so I threw on my jacket. It was long and probably went just below my knees and was mostly red with white trim, the grey bodysuit I wore underneath was nearly skintight. I clipped on a belt that had several vials of red liquid. The greaves and gauntlets were modified, they no longer had tubes stretching across my body, they were solitary now.

3

2

1

On the screens that decorated the walls of the dropship, the squads appeared. I was paired with the intense woman, Bangalore, and a hispanic man who spent the whole ride fidgeting and playing video games. He had goggles and a mask with teeth and a hood. On his vest there were multiple syringes of green liquid, and from the knee down he had cybernetic prosthetics. His name was Octane.

The Professional Soldier and the High-Speed Daredevil.

Great.

The screens then flashed again and highlighted a specific person.

"This is your Champion." An automated voice declared.

The modified MRVN was the Champion. It was known as Pathfinder, the Forward Scout. Its team-mates were Wraith, the Interdimensional Skirmisher and Mirage, the Holographic Trickster.

This would definitely be an interesting match, that's for sure. There was a symbol next to Octane's name. An arrow was pointed down with wings next to it and a crown on the top.

I could hear the manic grin in his voice, "I'm the Jumpmaster, duh."

Oh no. They put a psychopath in my group.

"Hades, the Vampiric Surgeon. Good luck on your first match." Bangalore said without looking at me.

"Blah blah blah, stop talking! Let's go!" Octane whined, as he pushed the both of us out of the drop ship.

"SHIIIIIIIIIIIT!"

I was gonna die here.