"Super Human Bomber Tank!"
With a guttural roar, the sumo wrestler's body expanded again — a second transformation, flesh and muscle ballooning outward as he broke through the shockwave barrier and came charging back with even more momentum than before.
Skye stepped back half a pace, planted both feet, and drove both palms forward.
Two vibration waves detonated simultaneously.
The momentum driving him forward folded sideways. He spun, lost his footing, and the ring boundary was right there — he crashed through the edge and hit the floor outside the arena hard enough to see stars. The crowd noise surged as he lay there, out cold.
Steve Rogers said quietly, "Invisible attack."
The referee stepped forward. "Contestant number seventy wins!"
In the waiting area, two fighters with combat readings in the low teens watched the aftermath in silence. One of them said, "No way to dodge something you can't see."
The other wiped his jaw. "Only tell is the hand movement. Watch for when she raises her arms."
In the Inhumans' box, Jiaying allowed herself a small smile. "The first match went smoothly. Whether she makes the top eight is another question."
Gordon said, "She's had a short awakening window. If she'd had more time, the ceiling would be higher."
Jiaying nodded but said nothing more, eyes still on the ring.
In the audience, Coulson looked at Ward. "Could you make sense of the attack method?"
Ward shook his head. "First exchange, she used one hand and stopped the charge cold. When he powered up and broke through, she switched to both hands and sent him flying. As for what the attack actually is — telekinesis? Object manipulation? I'm not certain."
Coulson watched the ring staff help the unconscious contestant onto a stretcher. "We'll keep observing." A pause. "We wanted Skye on the team. That window is probably closed now."
"There's still a chance," Ward said, without much conviction.
"Less of one than before," Coulson said.
Skye climbed down from the ring and made her way back to the waiting area, the residual adrenaline still working through her shoulders.
Donnie Gill met her with a nod. "Nice work. Your ability had a built-in counter to his."
"Lucky matchup," Skye said. "For you, that fight would've lasted thirty seconds."
Before either of them could say more, footsteps came from behind.
"Donnie Gill."
They both turned. Shang-Chi and T'Challa walked over together, Shang-Chi's expression easy, T'Challa's carrying that particular Wakandan formality he wore like a second skin.
Shang-Chi said, "Long time. Not since the Paragons selection."
Donnie met his eyes. "Mr. T'Challa. Shang-Chi."
T'Challa said, "I heard you went with S.H.I.E.L.D. Good organization. I didn't expect to see an agent competing here." He glanced at the bracket board. "Zone Three. What's your number?"
"Ninety-three."
Shang-Chi went still for a moment. Then he said, "Can't decide if that's bad luck or just the bracket being honest." He let out a short breath. "You're my next opponent. And I won't be holding back."
T'Challa looked at Donnie with something close to genuine regret. "Give everything you have. It's a shame to run into each other this early." He inclined his head once, and the two of them moved off.
Skye watched them go and then looked at Donnie. "That's Shang-Chi. Of the Paragons." She kept her voice even, but her expression said the rest.
Donnie's jaw set. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was running numbers — the intelligence reports Chen Haoran had filed, the power readings that had come back to S.H.I.E.L.D. with exceeded parameters stamped across the top. Shang-Chi's rate of improvement had been steep, and the how of it hadn't been in the report.
"Close-range specialist," he said. "I have range on him. That's something."
Skye looked at him. "You really competed in the Paragons selection too?"
"Didn't make the cut," Donnie said. He didn't sound bitter about it — just factual. "S.H.I.E.L.D. worked out fine."
"What happens after the tournament?"
"Haven't decided." He glanced sideways at her. "Coulson's been trying to bring you onto the field team."
Skye shook her head. "I have other plans."
Donnie read her expression and let it go. That's probably a dead end for Coulson.
The four-zone bracket ran without interruption, each match moving efficiently through the clock. Knockouts came faster than most spectators expected. The field was deeper than anyone had publicly admitted.
In Zone Three, the referee's voice cut through the waiting area noise.
"Contestants number ninety-three and ninety-four, please take the stage."
Donnie Gill straightened. His expression had been settling into focus for the last twenty minutes, and now it was there — still, concentrated, reading nothing.
Skye said, "Go show him something."
T'Challa, standing nearby, said, "Donnie Gill runs into you this early, he has no path to the final."
Shang-Chi was already walking toward the ring. He didn't look dismissive — if anything, he looked more focused than he had during the conversation. "His ability is cryo. I need to know how developed it is. S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't cut corners." A beat. "If I lose focus for a second and let it get out, my dad will give me an earful. Eddie too."
They stood facing each other across the ring.
The referee ran through the standard declaration. Shang-Chi settled into a wide stance, hands out, center of gravity low — a Tai Chi foundation with the particular depth that came from Dragon Heart activation underneath it.
"It's a shame we ended up here this early," he said. "But let's not waste it."
Donnie Gill nodded once. "I won't."
He moved without preamble.
Cold erupted from the soles of his feet, spreading outward across the canvas in a widening sheet. Where it touched, the ring surface went white. The temperature drop was immediate and physical — condensation forming in the air, spectators in the front rows instinctively leaning back.
Shang-Chi invoked the Dragon Heart.
Gold light wrapped his forearms. He dropped into the full crouch and slammed both palms flat on the ring surface.
The ice shattered. Not retreated — shattered, a starburst fracture pattern radiating out from his hands, the cold forced back in every direction.
Donnie shifted and sent three ice spikes arrowing in from mid-air.
Shang-Chi flowed into the deflection — a circular Tai Chi motion, both hands spiraling outward. The spikes caught the redirection, reversed track, and came back at Donnie with the same velocity.
Donnie clapped his hands together. An ice wall assembled itself in front of him in under a second, and the returning spikes detonated against it.
In a premium viewing section, Xu Wenwu watched with the quiet attention of a man who had spent centuries evaluating combat. Ying Li sat beside him.
"The Super Divine Water wasn't wasted," he said. "His Dragon Heart power has grown considerably."
Ying Li watched their son direct another golden pulse at the spreading ice across the ring floor. "His command of the Dragon power is clean. But I wonder what the ceiling is for the return technique."
Xu Wenwu shook his head. "Without the ancestral line behind it — the accumulated Dragon Heart inheritance — even with the Super Divine Water, he couldn't survive a full Ten Rings strike."
From his other side, Xu Xialing said, with the particular edge of someone who had been told no, "You're both completely biased. Can I try this super potion?"
Xu Wenwu glanced at her. "The Super Divine Water unlocks potential. Without a Dragon Heart awakening, the body has nothing to unlock. It wouldn't enhance you. It would kill you."
Xu Xialing's eyes went wide. "People die from it?"
Ying Li said quietly, "Those with the potential to grow, grow. Those without it don't survive the process."
Xu Xialing looked back at the ring where Shang-Chi was casually redirecting an ice barrage with both hands, and something in her expression tightened into something harder than envy.
The match had developed into a stalemate of momentum.
Donnie used the ice layer beneath his feet for movement — gliding, redirecting, covering lateral ground faster than he could on bare floor. The cold spread outward in pulses as he moved, and the temperature on the ring surface was dropping perceptibly with each exchange.
Shang-Chi held the center. He used his Dragon power to fracture every section of ice Donnie tried to establish beneath him, and every ranged attack that came in got redirected with Tai Chi economy — minimum motion, maximum efficiency.
The crowd was locked in. Ice-type abilities were visually spectacular under arena lighting, and Shang-Chi already had the kind of name recognition that brought eyes to every match he entered.
Donnie's jaw tightened. The assault wasn't breaking through.
"Shang-Chi." His voice carried across the ring. "I'm not holding anything back now."
He reached for the memory of the Berserker Staff — the unfiltered fury that had run through him when he'd held it, the way the cold had come from somewhere beyond technique. He pulled that feeling forward without the Staff to anchor it.
The release was immediate and massive.
Ice poured from his hands in a torrent — not spikes, not walls, not localized freezing. A sustained flood of cryokinetic energy, blanketing the ring in all directions. The temperature plummeted. Thick ice formations rose from the surface like crystalline architecture. The air itself started to cloud.
In his box, Smith watched the output with quiet assessment.
"If someone handed him the Casket of Ancient Winters," he said, more to himself than the others, "Donnie Gill's ceiling would look very different."
Bulma glanced over. "The what?"
"Frost Giant artifact. Capable of planetary-scale freezing. Odin recovered it after the war." Smith watched the ice continue to build on the ring surface. "Loki once used it to freeze Heimdall solid in seconds." A pause. "Donnie Gill is a long way from that. But the underlying principle is there."
Fox said, "Could he freeze the entire arena if nothing stopped him?"
"Maybe," Smith said. "We don't know his actual ceiling yet. Without the X-gene and with limited reserves, cityblock scale is probably generous. But in a ring this size, unchecked?" He considered it. "Possibly."
Bulma watched Donnie drive forward. "He still can't figure out how to get through Shang Chi's defense. That's the problem."
"It is," Smith agreed.
Shang-Chi let out a full breath.
"Dragon Power."
The golden light expanded, wrapping him completely. He stepped into the full Tai Chi form — every movement precise, deliberate, the Dragon Heart feeding energy into each deflection point as the torrent of cold came in. The ice swirled around him in the technique's circular motion, gold and frost interlocking, the cryokinetic energy bending away from him without ever landing.
Donnie pushed harder. "Let's see how much you can handle!"
But the ice wasn't landing. It was circling, dissipating, redirecting into the ring surface to either side of Shang-Chi's feet.
Shang-Chi pushed both palms outward.
The absorbed ice energy reversed direction and struck Donnie full in the chest.
Two cryokinetic forces collided — Donnie's own output turned back against him.
The detonation spread across the ring in every direction, frost erupting outward in a concussive wave. The audience nearest the barrier flinched back instinctively.
A column of fire dropped from above and cut the spreading cold off before it reached the spectator area. Chen Haoran descended in a controlled descent, firebird wings folding closed as he landed on the rim of the arena in his tournament official's uniform, the flames dissipating the outer edges of the ice cloud cleanly.
The crowd reacted immediately. "It's Vermillion!"
When the frost cleared, the picture was simple.
Donnie Gill stood at the center of the ring encased in his own ice — an ice sculpture in the shape of a man, arms still extended from the final push. Shang-Chi stood three meters away, unharmed, Dragon power fading back to a gentle glow around his hands.
A beat of silence.
The ice shattered from the outside in. Donnie Gill collapsed, unconscious before he hit the canvas.
The referee stepped in. "Winner — contestant number ninety-four!"
Staff came immediately, stretcher deployed, Donnie lifted carefully and carried off. Shang-Chi let the Dragon power recede completely and walked to the rope without ceremony.
The audience processed it.
"That's what superhuman combat looks like. It's terrifying."
"Shang-Chi didn't take a scratch. Not one."
"The ice kid ran into the wrong draw. Different zone, he makes the final."
"He even had enhancement and still couldn't do it."
In the audience, Ward shook his head. "That was an awful draw. Different zone and Donnie makes the final — probably."
Coulson said, "If he can't beat Shang-Chi, the final is a different conversation entirely."
Beside him, May said, "The final is that difficult?"
Coulson gestured toward the waiting areas across the four zones. "Iron Man, Blue Dynamo, Blonsky, Sif, Captain America, Black Panther, Shang-Chi — those are the names we can account for. Then there's Skye, whose attack method we still haven't pinned down. The mage from Zone One. Two unknowns in Zone Four — a large man and a woman, and the readings on both of them were off the charts." He paused. "There are too many deep competitors in this bracket. Even without the Shang-Chi matchup, Donnie Gill's path to the final was never clean."
Fitz said, a little awed, "I didn't know there were this many extraordinary people in the world. And every one of them fights completely differently."
Around him, the rest of the team nodded, tablets already out, logging everything they'd seen.
The bracket rolled forward. Three zones running simultaneously meant most of the audience was missing matches — catching broadcasts on secondary screens, or waiting for the replays. The arena had the layered noise of a place where too much was happening at once, and all of it was worth watching.