Tournament of 100

His eyes once again were **** to adjust as they reached the end of the tunnel. Voices rushed at him like ragings winds.

Aaron didn't know what to expect but it certainly wasn't this. A loose crowd of people and a thin aquamarine pool of water. His ankles felt wet as he stepped in.

The O-shaped entrance behind them was cut off by a red barrier. The servants of Leviathan stood on the other side, guns held in a lax position.

A hundred eyes stared at them, full of pity. Their feet were dusted with dirt and painted blue.

"W-what's going on?" Todd asked, trembling. "Why are there so many people!?"

"Relax, kid," said a middle-aged man in a suit. He looked a little worse for wear but ultimately kept together. He was perhaps one of few wearing shoes. "We don't know. We know nothing. Some of us have been holed up here for a week."

"A week!? Why!?" Todd shrieked.

"Again, I don't know," the man replied. "They're waiting for something that's for sure. They said it's almost time."

"First, who is they?" Noah asked in Todd's stead. "Second, time for what?"

"Leviathan, probably." The male shrugged. "As for your second question, nobody knows. Maybe a sacrifice."

"Magic does exist after all…" Todd muttered under his breath. "Maybe they're trying to summon a demon?"

'Is this the Tournament of 100? Just a sacrifice of a hundred and four people?' Aaron knitted his brows together. No, that couldn't be. There had to be something to this. Concern etched the expressions of every man and woman in the massive blue-tinted area. Above was a black void.

The walls were unclimbable, too wet and smooth for a proper grip. Aaron chewed the inside of his cheek, thinking. 'I don't think there's a way out…'

Aaron glanced back at the red barrier. Was it magical? A laser shield? Alien tech?

"I wouldn't touch that if I were you," warned the suited man. "Somebody touched it once and they got third-degree burns. It was bad. He's still recovering."

Aaron nodded and checked the edges. His hand traced down its shape and knocked on it in intervals of five inches. It was just plain rock, much to his surprise.

'This barrier is magic then. Leviathan has a magic user here.' He drew back and stared at the semi-transparent barrier and the guards beyond. They seemed amused by his investigation. Their confidence spoke volumes. They knew there was no way for him to break through it.

'Hm. They're right too. I don't see any way to make it malfunction.'

Noah tapped him on the shoulder. "You done? We should take a look at what's happened at the front. There's something there."

Aaron nodded and with the help of the suited man, Henry, they trudged to the front. The area was larger than Aaron anticipated because the fast walk was at least two minutes long. Henry explained he had been kidnapped in his home, ripped away from his fiancé, Alex. He missed him terribly.

Todd was much better at comforting Henry than Noah and Aaron combined. It wasn't like Aaron lacked empathy but he still wasn't good at conversing with people beyond the surface level. Unless they were women, in which case he could find a…physical solution.

At the front, as the man suggested, was a platform too high for anyone to climb or reach. Even White Rabbit with her super leap wouldn't reach it. It was an impossible task for a human without flight.

"So…who is on there?" Todd asked after a while of awkwardness. Underneath it, the shine of the platform's alloy stood out but nothing else stood out to them. It was just a platform. "Do they toss food from there or something?"

Henry winced. "Yes, they do."

Aaron turned back. There were a lot of people. He could imagine the chaos ensuing when they tossed food. It would be an animalistic riot. When it came to food and water, people would do terrible things.

Many women stood to the side, sitting dejectedly, their clothes torn. The biological gap in physical ability must have put them at a massive disadvantage. A pang of empathy struck his heart.

He could tell some had been here for weeks. With the cool green-blue liquid sinking their ankles, the jagged surface of stone, and the sheer number of people, sleep was a luxury. As his gaze swept the area, he noticed something: there were no children. Not a single teenager. Moreover, many were conversing with one another like old friends.

'It's like they purposely picked out people…and their shoes. Most aren't wearing them. They were taken from their homes.'

This was public knowledge and repeated incessantly on the news. Even so, he sensed something in that line of thought. He was on the right track, he could taste it.

But the theories had to be pushed for later as the platform suddenly screeched. Aaron, Todd, Noah, and Henry leapt back. The platform, which had been glued to its high horse for an unmitigated amount of time, was coming down.

"What's going–"

"It's moving–"

"The fuck…!"

"Finally!"

Whispers, shouts, and anxiety spread among the hundred. They watched the platform descend and the people rushed away from it. At the halfway point, still too far for any normal human to reach, it stopped. They saw two figures–a man and a woman.

It was probably his heightened hormones but Aaron's eyes immediately latched on to the female. Strangely, she did not appear human despite her very humanoid shape. Her skin was paper white–as light as Harley Quinn–and her outfit was a skintight black that covered a side of her pale breasts. Vermillion outlined her gauntlets and the sword she was wielding. Her silky white hair went past her shoulders and her face was fierce yet tinted red by shades of some kind. A gleaming scarlet gem was embedded in the forehead portion of the bizarre helmet-eque spectacles.

Her hourglass figure couldn't have been further emphasized in her getup. And he thought Selina was bad with her skintight leather outfit. This villainous woman was twice as risqué and obscene as the cat.

"Greetings, people of Gotham. I hope you are well." The male expressed himself in a firm and long-winded manner, but also commanded respect. Nobody dared to interrupt him.

His costume was downright terrifying. Badass, even. The garnet mask he wore encompassed his head and appeared futuristic. His hood and armour were blood red and radiating authority. He looked more like a machine than a human. Two cyan dots functioned as his eyes. Aaron scanned him from afar. For the first time in his life, he couldn't find a single weakness. Not a crack or point to exploit. If he came head to head with this man, he would be at the disadvantage. It was the same with the woman. He saw nothing except sheer power.

Two people. A man and a woman. The Gothamites firmly maintained the numbers advantage yet they could see no hope. Not against these two.