Ruban extricated himself from his charging unit, his nodes a brilliant blue hue. He accessed the 'net to check the news and noticed a message for him, left by a G.S. He opened it, and a distorted voice spoke.

"Please head to the Arena to face your next challenger."

He thought about yesterday, of his fight with Matryoshka. "This'll be fun," he murmured to himself. He logged out and headed off to the Arena.

-----

He approached the person at the front desk.

"Excuse me," Ruban asked. "I received a message about a battle?"

"Your name?"

"Ruban."

"... Okay, got it. Head to the room down that hall." He pointed to the hall behind him. "It's the fifth door to the left. You should see your challenger shortly after."

Ruban followed the directions and found the room empty, like last time. He closed the door behind him and leaned against it, arms crossed, waiting. A few minutes went by without anything happening. Then, all of a sudden, Ruban felt a sharp tugging sensation and felt the door he was leaning on disappear. He stumbled for a second, then quickly looked around. He was in some sort of warehouse. There were industrial cargo boxes everywhere, stacked up to 3 and organized in rows. "Hello," someone called out cheerily. Ruban whipped around, looking for the speaker. He spotted him standing atop a stack of cargo boxes. The figure was tall, with medium-short black hair, wearing a grinning white mask, a glaring white suit, white gloves, and white shoes, with a deep, crimson tie. The color of his exposed skin indicated he was caucasian.

"Who're you?" Ruban inquired.

"I am ABRA!" The man declared, puffing out his chest proudly. "The Genocide Magician!"

"Abra... like the Pokemon?"

Abra stiffened. "I... I... I don't even-" he spluttered.

"Sorry, forget I said that," Ruban interrupted quickly. Probably a bad idea to piss off someone who called himself The Genocide Magician. "So... why and how did you summon me?"

Abra took a moment to compose himself. He took a deep breath. Calmed, he spoke."I summoned you here using a book I found. "Ole Magick". As for the reason..."Abra disappeared, suddenly reappearing a short distance away. Ruban tried to take a defensive position, but found that he couldn't move. Abra pulled out a deck of cards, "drew" a sword composed of cards from it and slowly approached Ruban."I was bored," Abra admitted. "I found this spell to summon possible contracts and tried it out. Three failures later, and I got to you." "And you," he readied his sword,"insulted me almost immediately. You're not contract material, so I'm going to do to you what I did to the others." He swung at Ruban's chest. The blade bounced off Ruban's indestructible body. Abra stared at him. "Gimme a sec." He waggled his fingers at the sword and added a few more cards to the blade, broadening it. "Now, let's see here." He casually swung it at Ruban's waist. It phased right through. "Whoops," Abra said tilting his head jokingly. "Looks like I put in too much juice. Let me fix that." He waggled his fingers at the sword again. "Third time's the charm!" He swung again, almost completely cutting through Ruban's left arm at the shoulder. Abra cheered. "Now we're getting somewhere!" he exclaimed.

"That we are," Ruban replied. He disconnected the remaining nodes connecting his left arm to his body. Immediately, he felt his body return under his control. He shaped his right arm into a whip and swung at Abra, but Abra had already teleported away. Ruban looked around. Movement, to his left. He whipped his head around and spotted something diving behind a stack of crates. All Ruban could identify was that it was shadowy and had four arms.

"Over heeere~!" Abra sang. Ruban spun around and ducked as several cards whizzed over his head. Abra called out,"You better be careful! I might take an eye out!"

Ruban hid behind a crate. He thought for a moment, checked his nodes (still blue), and thought some more. A card shot through the crate, grazing his cheek. That decided it.

"Screw it!" Ruban said to himself. He stepped out from hiding, nodes turning white. Several cards sheared through him, but he regenerated too quickly for the cards to do any damage. He grew a multitude of arms and started swiping at everything. Soon enough, he clipped Abra's ankle, then his legs, then his lower back. Abra collapsed a distance away, and Ruban stopped his barrage. He reduced the number of his arms down to one. He walked towards Abra. Abra started pulling out stacks of playing cards and threw them into the air. They formed a dome around him, obscuring him from view. Ruban extended his fingers into blades and started hacking away at the dome. Before he got very far, the dome collapsed, revealing a clown wielding a dagger.

The clown started giggling. Between fits, it managed to choke out, "Master said... he said.... BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME!" After saying the last bit, the clown burst into a fit of insane laughter and slashed its own throat. It fell in a heap, trembling, jerking, and gurgling, before dissolving into nothingness. Where its body was, there was a note. Ruban picked it up and read it.

"Hey there, (insert name here)! If you received this message, then congratulations! You've won a fight against me! Your prize, you may ask? A rematch, with the one, the only, Abra! Esteemed Genocide Magician! Just find me to claim your prize. Don't worry, this is award has a lifetime warranty, so don't worry about an expiration date! Good luck on your rematch! Ciao!"

It was at this moment that Ruban realized what this implied. He was stuck here, in another reality. In an uncharted reality. A reality that allowed madmen like Abra to run amok.

"Oh crapbaskets." It was at this moment that Ruban's Overdrive mode ended, and he blacked out.

Abra exited the elevator, and began leaving the hospital. On the other side of the wing, Ruban was walking out with his 4800 bullets in its cart. Abra observed the strange robot as he walked down. The thing was steely grey and its body was an assortment of pipes except for the head that had these blazing blue eyes and was connected to the body with a small blue ball. There were small round blue balls at the joints that allowed the pipes to bend and allowed him to move like a real person. The two met in the doorway, "nice to meet you," Abra created a hat to tip and step back so Ruban could exit first, "Where’d you get all the money?"

"Competition," Ruban exited the building and turned around. He looked up at the immense building, "it's amazing how seriously this place takes these battles."

Abra stood next to him, "I really don't mind, I think it's fun."

"You've battled before?"

Abra held up five fingers and began counting down, "Vant Raslan, the Ragestormer, he was a fun debut. Majin, a 348 martial artist, brutal fighter. Danny Lo, he’s a thunder magician, strong one too. Matthew Gray, the Manipulator of Gravity, had to smoosh that dude with Funkfreed, he was one hell of a challenge. And just recently Vamprina, a vampire."

"You fought a vampire?"

"I don't think the robot should sound so surprised. All walks of earth and beyond come here." He began walking away, "Hey Robocop follow me."

Ruban jogged up, "I’m not Robocop, I’m Ruban. And no I’m not the sandwich.”

"Abra, nice to make your acquaintance." Without turning he jutted a hand out, and with a firm shake he made his way to the park. They walked through the graceful park and Abra waved and greeted everyone they saw.

"You're pretty popular."

"I do a magic show here every day. Usually around noon." He waved his hand at the incoming twilight, "So you can see that my show's over." Ruban could see the nice man as a magician, though his smiling mask crept him out, the man was dressed in a snappy white suit and had white shoes and gloves. They were making their way to a secluded part of the park, but as they got closer, Abra noticed that the area was quarantined because of a fire. He quickly turned and walked away.

"So why are we here?" Abra stopped in the open football field.

He turned, "Well for your debut fight of course."

"Wait, wha?" Ruban could barely get the question out as Abra grabbed him and chucked him.

Abra popped his shoulder back into place, "Damn you must weigh a ton." He complained and he shot cards at the flying Ruban. Ruban's fingers became tendrils which he used to smack the cards away. They extended to the ground and he yanked on them, slingshotting himself towards Abra. Abra pulled out a blade and sliced, but the blade sparked of Ruban's metal skull and he smashed into Abra. Abra’s back hit the football field and he was dragged along, his suit ripping. Abra kicked out, his two feet catching Ruban on his chest node, sending Ruban off him like a spring. Ruban flew through the goals and Abra blew a whistle, "Goal!" Abra used his momentum to flip onto his feet. When Ruban hit the floor he turned into a lion and charged, bounding across the ground, digging deep furrows with his claws. Abra pulled off his mask and let loose his own lion, and he summoned the tiger as insurance. Ruban fought the two, ripping at the kinks in their armor. He dispatched the two with a swipe of his paw to their head and pounced on Abra.

"Concede!" He roared. Blood gleamed off his metal body.

Abra pointed to the left, "Angry tiger," Ruban turned and the two felines clashed. Abra pointed to the right, "Enraged lion." The lion bulled into his back and sent him sprawling. He swiftly turned back into his human form and created a dome. He check his nodes, they were orange. Ruban took in a deep breath and concentrated. The nodes began spinning and the energy level slowly rose, until they shined bright white. His parts contracted and he exploded out, blasting the two cats away. Abra brought them back and simply stated, "Funkfreed!" His trusty war elephant bulled out and smashed towards Ruban. He held out one hand and tendrils shot out, picking up the 7 ton elephant. He chucked the behemoth at Abra, who had to quickly dissipate his elephant before getting crushed. He looked back down and got a full on hit in the chest by Ruban's hammer fist. A few ribs cracked as he was blasted back, skidding past the goal post. Ruban turned into a serpent and wrapped around Abra. He coiled around, crushing Abra’s chest.

"Concede!" He tightened his grip. Abra's mouth piece faded away and he blew fire on Ruban's head and nodes. The heat was nothing to Ruban, but he was afraid Abra wouldn’t stop so he detached himself. He looked at Abra, the man looked broken and there were 2nd degree burns all over him. Abra pulled his mask off and reached in, pulling out a syringe. He injected it into his arm, and visibly relaxed. Ruban charged and stabbed at Abra with his arm which he turned into a sword. Abra grabbed it and the force slid him back, his legs creating furrows in the ground. Ruban could feel the hand and arm break but Abra didn't let go. Abra waved his hand over his suit and turned it crimson red, and then reached into his portal, pulling out a mace. Tightening his grip on Ruban's hand he nailed Ruban’s blade into his broken arm so it couldn’t move, then he began whaling away at Ruban, the mace denting and bending Ruban's parts. Ruban tried to flatten some pieces out to create a makeshift armor, but the mace pummeled on, breaking through and smashing into Ruban more and more. Ruban finally detached all critically damage parts, including his fist and drew back. Abra ran after, his arm hanging loosely by its side, still clenching Ruban's fist. He dropped the mace and pulled out a long sword, hopping onto a horse he manifested. Ruban created a shield with spikes and propped himself, he looked at his nodes and noticed the white was fading, "Dammit." Ruban sighed and he abandoned his defensive approach, instead creating a motorcycle. He hopped on and with a rev of the engine, charged at Abra, forming a spear. Abra quickly dropped his own blade and he leapt off his horse before impact. The horse impaled itself onto the spear and unbalanced Ruban, who spun out of control and fell off. Abra landed on top of him.

"Concede!" Abra shouted mockingly, Ruban tried to force himself up but a look at his nodes discouraged him, they were fading to black.

"Dammit." He mumbled before shutting down. Abra poked the body with his foot, then with a wrench pulled the head off. He whistled, "Funkfreed!" The elephant poured out of the portal. He gave it the head and pointed at the goal post on the other side, "I want you to fire this through that goal." Funkfreed took the head by his trunk and with a sharp and deep breath intake, shot it. The head soared through two posts and bounced away into the surrounding trees. "Goal, Abra Kadabra Alakazam!" Abra cried enthusiastically, he held his arms up and threw his nearby mask into the air then fainted, falling onto his back. Funkfreed sighed, used to the routine now, he picked up his master's body and trundled into the woods, finding the head of Ruban he marched back to the hospital, his tail looping around the cart and pulling it behind him.