“CHARLIE NICKLES” flashes on the screen.

I don’t bother wiping the chemical residue off. I answer.

“Doc, change of plans. You’re in.”

I keep one hand steady on the spinal drip feed line. “In?”

“Wargames.”

I pause mid-injection, a millimeter from Subject-6’s skin.

“You prohibited me,” I press the needle through his skin slowly, watching the muscle spasm beautifully around it. “You wanted me in the lab, creating serums for the Corporation.”

“Well, turns out Solomon lost two diptshits, and I owe him for dicking him over in the Captain’s Match. You wanted to sign up for it, so here ya go.”

I almost laugh and adjust the valve on the serum line, listening to Subject-6 gasp and choke.

“Wargames is biological paradise,” I murmur. “ A crucible of collapsing thresholds. I could conduct experiments that no laboratory can replicate and collect a year’s worth of data in twenty minutes.”

“Then you’ll love this next part.” I can hear him grin. “How’s Subject-6?”

I observe him, restrained, sweating, stimulated, pupils blown like he’s staring at god.

“He’s malleable. Pain responses are beautifully conditioned. But he lacks field data, needs live opposition, dynamic stressors, unpredictable variables.”

“Perfect, because he’s in also. Trillionares begged me to help with substitutes, even after that shit with Jennie. I made them beg me with pleases and thank yous, and those cheese-eating dick dancers did.”

I blink once. Slowly. “You got authorization for both.” I don’t believe the last part he claimed.

“He’s a roster member, remember? Solomon needs a miracle. Or a monster. You’re both.”

A tremor shudders down Subject-6’s spine.

“He’s unstable, Mr. Nickles. Volatile. Gloriously unfinished. Are you sure you want him unleashed in the cage?

“Nope, but I’m sure it’ll be entertaining. And if he breaks, that’s on you. Just make sure he produces something spectacular in the cage.”

The call drops.

I lower the phone. Subject-6 trembles. Stepping to him, I make him meet my eyes.

“Hear that?” You’re going to Wargames.”

A tremor racks his body.

“A pilgrimage,” I continue. “A holy place. A field of bodies waiting to be reduced to data points.”

He convulses.

“Don’t worry,” I assure him. “I’ll be right there to curate the collapse. And if your body fails you, I’ll make you a new one.”



Ms. Mansley, before I say a word, understand something: I don’t hate you. I don’t envy you. I don’t resent you. I diagnose you.

You’re not an opponent, you’re a case file with too many red flags and not enough brain matter to comprehend them. You keep pretending you’re some chaotic wildcard, but you’re the easiest formula I’ve ever solved. Every insecurity is visible. Every fear leaks out of your pores. Every insult you throw is just something you’re terrified to face in your own reflection. You’re like a puppy trying to snarl, loud, shaky, harmless.

You insist you’re not a “pick-me,” but the more you insist, the more obvious the pathology becomes. Are you trying to convince us, or yourself? People who aren’t desperate for validation don’t recite their alibis every ten minutes. You do. It’s diagnostic. Symptomatic. Textbook.

If I rolled you into my operating theater and peeled you open, I wouldn’t find bone, grit, or courage. I’d find plastic. Fillers. Hot air. Bubble gum. Hashtags. I’d open your skull and a puff of Sephora setting powder would float out. You’re an aesthetic, Ms. Mansley, not a person. A constant feed sporting athletic wear.

You cry about “proving yourself” without ever defining to whom. Your deceased father? Your boyfriend who hypes you up like a toddler scared of the slide? The strangers online whose opinions you inhale like oxygen? You’re not fighting us. You’re trying to impress anyone who’ll look at you. A brand with abandonment issues.

Your chosen opponents tell on you too, rookies you can bully, veterans you resent, women you call pick-mes to distract from your own orbit around male approval. You don’t want Wargames. You want attention.

So let me be clinical. At Wargames, when I cut you open metaphorically or otherwise, I’m not going to find a heart or passion. I’ll find a woman built for filters, not blood.


The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is our banner.

Mr. Kline rides WAR.

Mr. Oz commands DEATH.

I saddle FAMINE.

Not a role. Inevitability. People think starvation is just an empty stomach, but real famine is collapse. A quiet dismantling. A body forgetting itself piece by piece. That’s what I do. That’s what I’ve always done.

I starve systems.

I drain reflexes.

I weaken muscle.

I suppress adrenaline.

I thin oxygen pathways.

I know the exact point a human being stops functioning and becomes a failing organism. That threshold where depletion takes over is my obsession.

Famine doesn’t crash in like a storm; it seeps. Slow. Precise. Beautiful.

And that’s what I bring to Wargames.

Not chaos.

Not destruction.

Absence.

I take what opponents rely on: breath, balance, clarity, hope. I strip the unseen supports of their bodies. Watching realization dawn that something essential is gone is exquisite.

Subject‑6 is my engineered deficit, reduced and repurposed, proof of what remains when identity and autonomy have been starved away.

War fights.

Death ends.

Conquest claims.

Famine empties.

So when WAR burns, DEATH harvests, and CONQUEST advances, I’ll be behind them, stripping what’s left to the bone. I won’t leave the cage victorious. I’ll leave it barren.


Ms. Game Girl.. Amber… whatever patch you’re running this week, listen closely because I don’t repeat myself to defective hardware.

I studied you, not out of fascination, but out of professional necessity. I needed to understand what kind of neurological malfunction produces a creature who loses her memory every other reboot and still chirps about ‘fun.’

You drift through reality on cartoon clouds and act shocked when reality bruises you. You treat combat like a coloring book, then recite your trauma like a child whining about a scraped knee. And somehow, you think that’s noble, think it’s strength.

If I opened you up on my operating table, do you know what I’d find?

Not whatever glitter-coated emotion you pretend to weaponize.

I’d find insulation foam where your cortex should be.

You try to use hope as a combat strategy, as some kind of armor. Ms. Game Girl, hope is the easiest thing to extract, comes out cleaner than bone marrow.

Your respawns and resets mean nothing. You’re not a phoenix. You’re a corrupted file looping the same crash animation. One incision, one shock, one interruption in the cycle, and you’ll stutter like you always do when someone with precision touches you.

Load your game. Spawn your cloud. Smile your pixelated smile.

At Wargames, I’ll open you up in front of the world. And nothing inside will surprise me. Just glitches. Just air.


I guide Solomon Kline and Mr. Oz down the sterile corridors of the lab Oz funded, at Nickles’ request, of course. Every door we pass leaks a scream, a cry. The weak becoming strong. The strong, stronger.

“Sucks but I gotta do what I gotta do since those two bailed. Can’t wait to meet Subject-6,” Solomon says as I badge us into the weaponry room.

“He’s malleable,” I assure him. “He’ll adapt. He’ll conquer. You’ll meet him soon, but first I’ll brief you on my implementations for Wargames.”

They sit. I spread an arsenal across the stainless steel table: vials, dust jars, inhalants, adhesive patches, crystalline ampoules, banned implements.

“These are treatments and countermeasures I’m deploying for us at Wargames. Some I carried over from Black Rainbow. All represent survivable, reversible reassignments of biological resources.”

“Boons and punishments?”

“Yes. Our enhancements. Their starvation.”

I slide the first vial forward, an oil-dark fluid. “Marrow Thirst. It collapses glycogen storage, forces the musculature into starvation. Tremors. Fatigue. Rapid strength-drop.”

“Delivery?” Oz asks.

“Dermal. One swipe. Absorbs instantly.”

Next, an ampoule of swirling white. “Hollow Veil. A vision-starvation mist. Causes tunnel vision, depth distortion, hallucinated flecks. They’ll swing at ghosts.”

“You don’t worry about any of this hitting us?”

“Oh, I never worry, only measure.”

Before he responds, I slide a clay jar forward. “Joint desiccant. Pulls moisture from ligaments, making your target’s joints brittle, unable to absorb impact. Mix it with resin, wrap your fists, strikes become an orthopedic disaster.”

Solomon grabs it. “I’m using this on Scoops first.”

“For us,” I reveal a vial of shimmering gold. “Vitalis-9. Metabolic accelerant. Doubles ATP cycling, recovers energy twice as fast.”

Next, a set of adhesive spine patches. “These increase neuromuscular electrical conduction. Forty percent faster reflexes. Sharper motor control.”

“Why didn’t we hire her sooner, Oz?”

Oz shrugs.

I produce a crystalline vial. “Seraphin. Pain-dampener. It doesn’t block pain, that leads to stupidity. It reframes it as pressure. Focus without emotional disruption.”

“YES! We’ll need that.”

Finally, I place a faintly glowing blue vial between us.

“And THIS for emergencies.”

“Name?”

“Continuum.”

They wait.

“Forces the body into momentary overdrive by cannibalizing future stamina. Godhood for 30-seconds. Then collapse, hard. Violently, potentially. But in the moment? Transcendence.”

Oz ponders. “Side effects?”

I nod. “Remember in Endgame, when Iron Man asked Strange if this was the timeline where they win, and Strange said if he told him, it wouldn’t happen?”

They stare at me.

“That’s your answer.”

Silence.

Finally, Solomon exhales, “…what bout Ayorro? Kieran, if we make it?

“I keep hearing about Ayorro like he’s some immortal nightmare,” I say, producing a Black Thistle Spike.

“Three hundred years old. Unkillable. Ancient. Black Rainbow taught me the real anatomy of the undead, not the folklore. I’ve vivisected blood cult elders, dissected vampiric marrow, mapped the necroenzymes that keep their reanimated tissue from rotting back into dust.”

I lift the spike.

“Ayorro’s weakness is necroenzyme disruption. And this? I designed it. I calibrated it. I’m the only one who knows where to drive it. And Kieran? He’s not the only one who’s walked away with a win over Seb and Isaiah; I have too. I denied his boot aimed at Emilia and Aurora. I’ll handle him because science begins where godship ends.”


Mr. Watson… you treat every breath like a test, every match like an audit, every moment like some quiet, poetic meditation on suffering. It’s dramatic. It’s romantic.

And it’s absolutely useless against someone like me.

You keep acting as if you stare long enough into your own failures, they somehow stop being failures. But the second I put my hands on you? All that self-reflection turns to mush. You say the ring audits you? Guess I’ll be the IRS then. I won’t skim your books, though, I’ll rip them open and circle every deficiency in red.

You’re a man trying to rescue his soul, Mr. Watson. I treat souls like clutter, like something in the way, stuff to remove so the work can get done.

And the trust issues you ramble about? I’m a surgeon. Trust is what patients give me right before I cut them open, not because they want to, but because they don’t have another option. You won’t either. In that cage, you’ll trust me the same way a conscious patient trusts me when anesthesia fails, you’ll trust that the pain is real.

Pressure forged you into a diamond of a competitor, extraordinary, but pressure only makes diamonds in ideal conditions. Under mine? It creates shrapnel. Little pieces of Dickie scattered across that Wargames cage. Understood?

Your whole personality revolves around how hard it is to be you, the weight, the expectations, the guilt. Let me give you the medical perspective… people who cling to guilt always break. They resist less. They split in all the right places. Their minds crumble on cue.

To you, you’re the man standing brave against the storm.

And this “storm” you always prattle about?

I’m not that, Mr. Watson.

I’m the scalpel.

Storms are loud and wild and unpredictable.

A scalpel is quiet. Precise. Intentional.

A scalpel only cuts what it means to.

When our Houses are warring, the only measurement that matters is the length of the incision I carve through your confidence. You won’t understand who you really are until your eyes widen and the truth hits you. You’re not the tortured warrior you fancy yourself to be. You’re a body on my table, too late to understand that the moment you stepped inside, the surgery had already begun.


The lab doors open. I step aside, letting the light fall across the restraint frame.

Solomon’s eyes widen. Oz leans in.

“He was Frances Marigold. Never won a match. Always the crowd’s consolation prize. Pathetic. But perfect for this.”

I release the restraints. The body stirs.

“Riiiiise FRANKEN FRANCES!”

He jerks upright, the cage of life snapping shut around a new conqueror. MUAHAHAHAHA!


McGee. A fascinating specimen. Sixty-four years old, a body that’s survived decades of trauma, blunt-force impact, vascular compromise, and questionable decision-making. Your skeletal structure is a map of chronic stress. Osteoarthritis is invading your joints. Your  “deadly left” has lost at least ten percent of its velocity. The body you rely on for intimidation is actively betraying you.

You brag about pain tolerance, but it’s compensation for your deficit in stamina. After fifteen minutes, your musculature fatigues. Heart-rate recovery lags. Microtears accumulate. Your explosive strength is no longer explosive, it’s nostalgic.

You survive on willpower, not function.

You think experience is a trump card, but neurocognitive reflexes decay yearly. Reaction time slows. Split-second counters become approximate guesses. You improvise not because you’re clever, but because your brain can’t keep up with your intentions. Ms. Cassidy exposed this on Anarchy, did she not?

Experience is only useful when paired with functionality. Your body lacks functionality.

Your reliance on excess weapons is just another admission. You need external implements because your internal ones are moot, lacking. Even the Big Scoop is a desperate, high-risk throwback to a career your body can’t recreate.

Nostalgia, Captain.

And your psychology is a maze of family burdens, regrets, missed opportunities. Your mind is cluttered with ghosts that prevent you from focusing on necessity. You compensate with aggression, but aggression isn’t a strategy. It’s camouflage for decline.

Mr. McGee, you’re an anatomical and psychological case study in deterioration. You're brittle, predictable, and dependent on crutches. You’ve survived decades of damage, but longevity isn’t invincibility.

At Wargames, we’ll learn you a lesson real quick-like, ‘boah.’ You’ll learn that survival isn’t supremacy, it’s just delay. While you cling to myths of toughness and legacy, Mr. McGee, I operate with precision. I’ll find my way to you in that cage, and I’ll starve you out precisely the way I need to.