Arkose stood alone in the nameslates.

Were it the hubbub of Solution Nine's city center, he would find no such solitude─the Arcadion's grand champion was always swarmed by fans. But the man standing in Heritage Found's secluded graveyard could enjoy a moment's obscurity. For in this silence, he was not the Tyrant. Just as the headstone before him was not the sentinel for a body.

It had been the president's sincerest desire to be remembered in such a fashion, a man who had abstained from a regulator in life. After his gambit to attain a cure for psychonekrosis had gone awry and the Lindwurm was finally defeated, his physical form had dissolved, leaving only his heart.

So it was to an empty grave that Arkose quietly spoke.

"Another desolate place to meet."

Once, Arkose had exterminated fiends for a living. Highly proficient with all manner of armaments, he swiftly gained a reputation as one of Alexandria's greatest hunters─and greatest killjoys. Following successful campaigns against monster proliferation, he eschewed merrymaking with his cohorts, preferring to hone his skill with a new weapon rather than fall into his cups. The invitations ceased after he ignored and outright refused enough, and Arkose would have been hard-pressed to name a single friend.

Yet Arkose never felt pangs of loneliness. Only the weak crave company. Arkose was strong. Love and friendship were trifles. The approval of others was irrelevant. All he wanted was to discover how mighty he could become. To that end, he would go to any lengths, master any art, harness the power of any soul. Day in and day out, he held fast to his creed and trained.

He was deep in practice with a new scythe, out in the Thunderyards, when a well-dressed elderly gentleman approached him with an offer.

"Ever consider fighting for the Arcadion?"

Even Arkose, divorced as he was from popular entertainment, had heard mention of the tournament. It was a spectacle for the masses, a gaudy bastardization of the sacred ascension to which he ascribed.

"No."

Despite the blunt rejection, the gentleman was wholly untroubled.

"Well, then..." he mused. "You must be satisfied."

The word was a dagger in his chest. "Satisfied" was the one thing Arkose was not─the one feeling he had long since forgotten. As his training forged him into a stronger warrior, so dwindled satisfactory opponents. When was the last time I fought for my life? Battles that once excited him now bored him, his daily extermination work a tedious and wholly practical affair.

The president of the Arcadion saw his hunger for more. Yet even a starving beast has its pride.

"I do not perform," said Arkose stiffly. "I will not sell myself to an audience."

His unyielding line. The president considered it for a moment.

"Then we shall sell a different man," he decided. "A mask is all you require."

So it was that Arkose made his debut as the Arcadion's up-and-coming babyface, Masked Justice. Concealed by material constructed to withstand feral transformations, Arkose was able to unleash his might free from the discomfort of personal scrutiny. His overwhelming prowess saw him crush opponent after opponent, propelling Masked Justice upward through the rankings. Indeed, the thrills of the arena were quite unlike those of the wild, and Arkose felt his limits tested, to his unparalleled delight.

However, despite his impressive victories, Masked Justice failed to garner popularity.

The reason was obvious: true to his word, Arkose did not perform. He fought for an audience of one and made no effort to charm the crowd. When he should have entertained, he simply eliminated his competition. In the ring, his words were clumsy and insipid, and when interviewed after matches, he dryly reflected on his performance. The president had sold Masked Justice as a mysterious hero with an insatiable thirst for righteousness─but spectators found him emotionless at best and frustratingly overpowered at worst.

Arkose was convinced he had no need for the approval of others, that his quest for strength was ever a personal devotion. But somewhere along the line, he began to note the half-hearted applause and murmurs of disinterest. The trifling affections he had once spurned now held him in restless anticipation.

Masked Justice climbed the tiers until he could climb no further─but the audience's endorsement still eluded him.

The former grand champion departed the ring to thunderous applause and showers of accolades, a testament to the legacy of a worthy and beloved fighter. Masked Justice was coronated with a reception charitably described as polite. Arkose had triumphed, but the truths that had defined his world were unraveling. I worked for this. I was stronger. I won, yet they worship the weak. In a daze, he returned to the greenroom only to be further decimated.

The Arcadion Hour was playing on the monitor, concluding coverage on the match he had just fought. The spectator being interviewed scoffed at Masked Justice's ascension: "Pity the mask has more personality than the man."

Arkose had believed that only strength mattered. Violence was his single virtue. Aside from that, he had nothing to offer.

Having reached a decision, he made his way to the president's office.

"I resign." Arkose scowled. "The Arcadion never suited me."

The president regarded him thoughtfully.

"Something still burns within you," he said. Then, with a comforting smile, "One day your true star will rise. Trust me─I have an eye for these things."

Arkose was speechless. He had come to feel synonymous with his strength, but unlike so many others, this old man saw something different in him. Another star to rise. Heat flooded his cheeks as he bowed his head, humbled by the president's kindness. Perhaps I can trust his eye. ...Perhaps I can trust myself.

His epiphany, however, was followed shortly by tragedy. For the former grand champion and other veteran fighters of the Arcadion were struck down in succession by a heretofore unknown illness.

Psychonekrosis─a disease caused by excessive transfiguration via feral souls. The president was inconsolable in the face of their affliction.

"The fault lies with me," he insisted. "It is only meet that my fighters be cured by my hand."

The president spared no effort. Together with Origenics, he resumed abandoned research into the regenerative properties of the Lindwurm, a legendary serpent native to his own ancestral home. Having inherited the egg of such a beast, he voluntarily infused himself with its soul, that it might grant him similar healing abilities with which he could aid his ailing combatants.

The transfiguration was a success. In becoming the indomitable wyrm, the president gained miraculous powers of regeneration─powers applicable only to his own, bestial flesh. The Lindwurm quickly overwhelmed him, possessing his body and preventing reversion to his natural form. As the ravenous creature began to feed upon his very soul, the president hid himself away, never to return.

Everyone assumed the worst. But in the midst of their despair, a familiar voice came crackling from the mechanized referee.

By no less than a miracle, the president's apparatus had survived his transformation, allowing his remaining consciousness to communicate through the machinery. Narrowly though he had escaped death, the president now conveyed an ultimatum to Arkose:

"You must destroy me. Slay the Lindwurm and use its heart to do what I could not."

Arkose refused. Killing the patron who had cared for and believed in him was unconscionable. Arkose demanded Origenics pursue an alternative, but the scientist overseeing the project explained their dismal reality─the president had only dared to use the Lindwurm when faced with an insurmountable dearth of solutions. There were no others.

With heavy steps, Arkose approached the grand theater that was the ring where the Lindwurm made its lair. Though every fiber of his being quaked at the thought of it, he hardened himself to his dark task.

Yet he could not slay the Lindwurm.

Arkose unleashed attack after devastating attack, an assault as calculated as it was savage. But the great serpent rendered his power meaningless as it instantly mended its ravaged flesh. Arkose brought all to bear and was rewarded with not even the slightest hint of how to fell his foe.

For the first time in his life, Arkose tasted defeat. Somehow, he staggered from the ring, down and away. Later, the referee came to visit him.

"We need a champion of champions." The president's voice was soft, his intention clear as he continued, "The Arcadion must wear a mask of its own."

By order of the president, the existence of psychonekrosis was concealed from the public. Afflicted fighters were immortalized, their bodies put in stasis to slow the effects of degradation. From that day forward, the Arcadion lived a double life─in appearance, delivering entertainment to the masses, while desperately striving to cultivate a fighter strong enough to defeat the Lindwurm. The final examiner of all aspiring challengers was, of course, the grand champion: Masked Justice.

Arkose took his new duty seriously. As one who had been subjected to the Lindwurm's unbelievable power, he knew that any who could not best him would be useless to the cause. His concerns for his public image withered. His only focus was to cull the Arcadion of weakness, and he showed no mercy to those who faced him.

Masked Justice may not have minded the audience, but the audience minded him. His brutal, unbalanced matches brewed discontent until the floodgates finally burst.

As Arkose defeated yet another inconsequential challenger, the crowd began to boo.

"Give us a show, you boorish bastard!"

"At least pretend to care!"

"You're no champion─you're a bully!"

They know nothing. Not of psychonekrosis, nor the fate of the president, nor the Arcadion's hidden purpose. Arkose understood this, but awash in the hatred, the contempt, the infuriating ignorance of these blithe onlookers, the smoldering hunger within him flared and became an all-consuming conflagration. His hand shook as he ripped the mask from his face, threw its tatters to the ground, and uttered a vicious bellow.

"Cease this insufferable wailing!"

Silence, so deafening that a single breath might echo.

"Do I dissatisfy you?" Arkose hissed. "Does the eradication of incompetence offend your sensibilities?" His heart pounded in his ears as his voice rose in unadulterated rage. "If you would decry your champion, then oust him! The Arcadion ill deserves you─you mewling, spineless cowards!"

The mysterious and righteous hero was no more. This man was not Masked Justice...

"That's what he looked like?"

"Forget a bully, he's..."

"He's a bloody tyrant!"

Tyrant. The word spread like wildfire through the arena, sparking further outcry.

"Tyrannical blackguard!"

"Tyranny! Absolute tyranny!"

"Tyrant!"

The cacophony of voices coalesced into a chant of the single word as Arkose stood dumbfounded. His strength had been begrudged. His false identity had been rejected. Yet the moment he had revealed his genuine anger and arrogance, his true star rose.

That day, Masked Justice vanished. In his place emerged a dictatorial heel who suffered not the insult of lesser fighters. The Tyrant's reign begins.

For the sake of the president─for his colleagues suffering from psychonekrosis─for the challenger who would one day slay the Lindwurm, Arkose embraced his role as villain. His open disdain and unyielding might kindled hatred within the fighters who vied to usurp him, sheer spite demanding they train harder and grow stronger. For an irony, it was this very loathing that garnered Arkose the renown he had yearned for. The Tyrant became an icon of the Arcadion, and crowds roared whenever he took to the ring. The despised despot drove the audience into a frenzy Masked Justice never had.

Many challenged the Tyrant, but none could lay him low. When Arkose himself began experiencing symptoms of psychonekrosis, he knew his time was short. He fought on.

Then appeared the unenhanced warrior.

Like a comet searing through the heavens, this "unstoppable upstart" ascended with alarming speed. Our final hope. Alongside his comrades, Arkose bullied this newcomer through the gauntlet of the heavyweight tier to arrive before the grand champion himself. In the fight for Arcadion's throne, the Tyrant held nothing back, utilizing every advantage at his disposal as he tested the challenger's readiness for the battle to come.

Falling to the ground in defeat, Arkose was elated. Finally.

Arkose rested a hand upon the headstone.

"You were right," he said. "Your eye was true."

Once, Arkose had been a great hunter who valued only strength. Now, he treasured more. The fighters who challenged the Tyrant. The fans who adored the Arcadion. The bright future entrusted to him.

Arkose took to his feet. In the unenhanced warrior's absence, he remained the de facto grand champion. But a new generation was rising, and Black Cat's covetous eyes were but two of many fixed upon the throne. Regardless, Arkose would play his part. So long as fighters continued to honor the president's dream for the Arcadion, the show must go on─and every show needed a ruthless, unscrupulous villain for valiant heroes to overcome.

Turning his back on the graveyard, Arkose traversed the desolate landscape with unerring steps.

The uproarious ring awaited. The Tyrant was heading home.