The two suddenly found themselves transported to another arena. They appeared to be in the middle of a stage, spectators from the crowd screamed and cheered seeing Penelope. Loud speakers facilitated the use of the headset on her head

---

Waya did not like the sensation of being teleported against her will. It was disorienting and she staggered for a second. "Marib-" She looked for Maribel, but the girl was gone. Her friends were gone too and she was left alone with the pink girl... Great... Appraising the arena, she found the whole thing greatly irritating, the music was loud and her sensitive ears did not like it. She sighed again. "God I hate this song..."

It was as if Waya had been cast into a pop singer's concert. As the intro to the song picked up, Penelope looked over at Waya and spoke into the microphone. "Bloody christ...don't adjust your television screen ladies and gentlemen, she just LOOKS like that." she said to the crowd, concerning Waya's lack of skin tone. "Now let's make some NOISE!" The crowd erupted into a fit of screams and laughter.
It was then that Penelope began singing again....
"They Told Him Don't You Ever Come Around Here, Don't Wanna See Your Face, You Better Disappear!" she sang, directly looking at Waya. "The Fire's In Their Eyes And Their Words Are Really Clear...So Beat It, Just Beat It!"
Penelope suddenly lifted into the air to give herself advantage. She had no clue what this one did...if she did anything, but Pen didn't want to run in blind again.

"Michael Jackson was overrated." Waya told her and hopefully burst Penelope's little bubble as she steadily began to levitate, diminishing Penelope's advantage. Before her other abilities, levitation had come to her first as a little girl and if this obnoxious little bitch wanted to fly, fine. She'd been taught how to fly by the best of them.

"Aww....hear that folks? Miss Monocrome here doesn't like my song..." Penelope said and frowned to the stands. The crowd replied with fits of booing and cussing. Pen readied herself, curious and eager to know what this little woman could conjure up.

Waya was searching for something in the pink girl's mind, but having exhausted her telepathy on the Kraken and not being a very good telepath, it was going to take her a while. "You could pick something a little closer to home... The Beatles, U2... I am quite partial to The Who."

Her black eyes tensed, "You're from Earth...that right then?" Pen asked, figuring she was a mutant.

"Yeah and you are too..." Waya said, not having to ask. "Mojo doesn't exactly advertize for talent... I'm guessing you were abducted like we were."

Penelope wanted to go home. She wanted to break out of this place, but doubted this bitch would be any use for that. Briefly, she shut her mic off with a tap of her finger on her ear, "My advice? Make a good impression or you'll get cancelled." Another tap, and it went back on. Waya felt something coil around her calf like an anaconda and begin to whip her down toward the stage floor.

The crowd roared as Waya was pulled down. She didn't like these games, but if she had to play, she had to play, for now any way. Seeing the ground rushing towards her Waya took her shadow, opened a portal under her and rather than slamming into the floor, which was no doubt what the pink girl wanted, she vanished through the black spot in the floor and came crashing in from behind the pink girl. She used the momentum of her attack against her and struck the pink girl from behind with the same amount of force.

"UNGH!" Penelope grunted as the wind was knocked out of her from behind. Portals, huh? Good to know. She slowed in time to not hit the stage and rebounded into the air at her, like a spring.

Waya had seen her do something similar to Junior and knew better to let her go too high. Suddenly, Waya wasn't the only thing holding onto the pink girl. Heavy, strong, constricting, a massive shadowy python began to curl around the girl's chest. Let's see how well she can fight without breathing.

A bit confused, Penelope immediately tried to push outward from her body, hoping to rip the shadows coils from her.

No such luck, not yet any way. The thing slithered and coiled around her. Each exhale caused it to grip tighter, hindering her ability to take in new air. Waya let go of her and landed not far off. "I saw what you did to Rhydian... Didn't care for it much."

Penelope coughed and sputtered a bit, struggling to say something witty in response. To counter, Waya quickly found the back of her head being whacked by a lit stage light. The glass immediately shattered on impact, sending stray electricity from the socket.

Waya bucked forward, her eyes went glassy and as she fell forward into the shower of glass, the python constricting the pink girl shattered. Waya tried to catch herself on the floor with her arms, but they didn't want to work. She slammed into the glass much to the elation of the crowd. Blood poured threw her hair and onto her face and for an agonizing moment, the damage caused by the heavy stage light took away her ability to move, speak or do anything really. She tried to get up, but she felt as if nothing in her body would work right now.

Thankfully for Waya, Penelope was coughing and hacking away like mad, trying to open her lungs back up. The pain was immense as the struggle to breath was her current focus while Waya gathered herself.

Waya had obvious brain damage. It was rather pitiful as she tried to get up, her arms and legs only able to make small, feeble movements. However, she somehow managed to roll over. This shrouded the wound on the back of her head with her own shadow and the wound began to heal. Spider legs of blood reached from the back of her head around to the front of her face as the lights swam above her. She still tried to struggle to get up, knowing there was danger, knowing she needed to protect herself. As the seconds passed a little more came back to her as the wound began to heal.

"You done already?" Pen coughed and watched her get up slowly. She thought about calling Mojo to escort her away, but it seemed the girl still had some kick to her.

Waya could hear at least, but her limbs were still being stubborn. The pain in her head was overwhelming, but she was healing. She could think a little, knew she'd gotten hit in the head. She knew enough to know that she'd made a foolish mistake. She had to get up... had to fight back...

When Waya was to lift her head, it would collide with a solid surface. Penelope had placed basically an invisible box of pure energy over Waya, keeping her in. As smoke fumed over the stage and a laser lights streamed over the crowd, Penelope started singing her song again, practically mocking Waya.
"You Better Run, You Better Do What You Can, don't Wanna See No Blood, Don't Be A Macho Man! You Wanna Be Tough, Better Do What You Can....So Beat It, But You Wanna Be Bad! BEEAT IIIIT! BEAT IIIIIIT! No One Wants To Be Defeated!"

When Waya's skull repaired it's self and she had enough of her mind to draw on her powers, she tried getting up. She found that box-like structure all around her and summoned her shadow, telephoning. In the shadow realm she stumbled and collapsed to her knees. She was free from the box, but still a little dazed. Bound in her own world of shadow though, the pain began to swim blissfully away and Waya began to stand. She pulled a pinpoint of light to her and saw Penelope and the arena.

Penelope was too into her solo to notice Waya had vanished. The crowd reacted, but she was unaware.

Waya watched, letting the darkness heal her. A light... a damn stage light. That was fighting dirty. Waya was used to Skrulls, Acolytes, Genocians... Not wannabe pop idols... She felt the back of her head, finding damp bloody hair, but no wound. The pain was almost gone. Waya was afraid that in order to preserve her own life, she might have to do something drastic.

It was then that Penelope noticed Waya was no longer there and her singing stopped. Vanishing the energy box, she looked around, trying to find where she may have gone.

Waya finally felt strong enough to return to the arena and did so from behind her, through the pool of Penelope's shadow. "That wasn't nice."

Pen flinched and jumped forward, spinning around on a dime. "You asked for it!" she countered. Another few seconds and she would have passed out from lack of oxygen.

"You attacked me first." Waya told her, shadows drawing in behind Penelope. She felt an overwhelming urge to just slap her face clean off. "For you're pathetic little show." Waya did not seem at all happy. Severe brain trauma did that to a girl.

"Oh please...I've been at the top charts for two months now." Penelope scoffed.

"Let's see how long you stay there covered in boils." Waya said, peering into Penelope's mind. She'd never used her telepathy like this in practical application, but she envisioned Penelope looking at her skin and seeing large pussy boils raised in large white heads all over Penelope's body. They throbbed, one on her arm broke open and began to ooze a fowl smelling yellow puss.

"The fuck..." Penelope trailed off, looking down at herself. She let out a loud scream at seeing her bare stomach and thighs covered in leaky pustules. The fowl stench was ripe in her nostrils. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!" she screamed at Waya, who found her body stiff with her limbs stretched out at all sides. "FIXITFIXITFIXITFIXIT!" 

"Too much impurities in your blood..." Waya told her. "Leaches will fix that." she reached forward and used the shadows she had gathered from behind Penelope. The person's own shadow was always more effective. Waya manifested a writhing wriggling host of leaches and they covered Penelope's arms legs and belly, latching on and sucking into the skin. This part was very real.

Penelope was using her powers to flick the leeches off, but it wasn't working. In a panic, she looked at Waya and shouted, "STOP IT OR I'LL KILL YOU!"

"There's always someone tougher on the playground isn't there?" Waya asked. Something slick and smiley caught beneath the heel of her shoe and beneath her, waiting for her to fall was a mass of writhing wriggling shadow slugs, smiley, rupturing beneath her as she went down.

Penelope gasped and was starting to freak out now, batting away and things that weren't even there. In the midst of her spazz, she could see Waya, just standing there...mocking her. Filled with fury and rage, Waya's legs were suddenly sliced clean off at the thigh.

Waya's body dropped suddenly and she cried out. The shadows, and telepathic manipulation shed been using against Penelope vanished and blood poured across the stage.

Penelope calmed down when the things were gone from her skin. Seeing Waya, she muttered, "Shit..." Maybe she had gone too far? Yeah... she definitely went too far. Turning her mic off, she shouted, "You made me do it!"

"You little bitch!" Waya croaked, laying back as her legs relaxed away from her body and the blood began to pour. It gushed across the floor and her skin grayed from nearly white, to light gray. Her blood was blue, almost black and the crowd couldn't decide if they were elated, or disgusted by what Penelope had done.

"Medic!" Penelope shouted after making sure her mic was off. "Medic! Need some help over here!" After a moment, there was some clattering backstage before this big, robotic creature scuttled over to Penelope. "Not me, you wanka! Her!" she pointed and it changed course, heading to Waya now.

Mojo's holographic face flickered to life above the arena. "Finish it Penelope... Your fans are waiting..." The robot stopped, seeing that it wasn't Penelope injured. On Mojo's order it left the arena as Waya continued to bleed to death.

Penelope looked at Waya as she bled out. Her eyes tensed and she shouted, "No one wants to see me crush a beetle that's stuck on it's back!"

"You're mistaken Penelope..." Mojo said and she could hear that the crowd had decided that yes, it was enjoying what was happening. "You've an opportunity to pass into a new realm of stardom... You could go from being the lead singer of the Deadly Dancers to you very... own... solo act..." She knew what that meant... she would live in the lap of luxury, these weekly and nightly fights would become more rare, more sought after. Pay per view sales would skyrocket. She;d fight once a month, maybe a bit more... If she killed Waya now, her future was set for as long as viewers found her enticing.
As Waya lay there, bleeding, searching for shadows to come to her aid, they felt thin, dwindling. The robot... She could sense somewhere inside that there was a consciousness of some kind and reached to it. She gasped. The image of being covered in the chum-like substance of her friend Kale swept through her mind and she realize that it wasn't only veronica that had survived. Kale was alive too... though one could hardly call it life. Help me... she reached out to him. Meanwhile her shadow worked beneath the bloody stumps of her legs. Part of her shadow was severed from the rest of her and it fought to return to one piece. This caused one leg to twitch as her shadow fought to repair itself.

Keeping her mic off, Penelope walked over to Waya. "This is such bullshit." she muttered, cringing at Waya's fleshy stump as it oozed blood. Reaching her, she said quietly. "I don't want to kill you. If I make you a tourniquet, can you make everyone in the audience think I sliced you in half?"

"I... I'll heal..." Waya said, weakly, her skin color fading to darker gray as her blood poured out. "I need... shadow... darkness, I'll heal quicker in darkness..."

"If this is a trick, I'll do worse than slice off your legs...." Penelope warned and spun around to her crowd, singing once more as the music picked up. She lifted herself up into the air about ten feet and danced, drawing attention from the crowd as best she could. Penelope would have loved a solo act, but she wasn't about to murder for it. Especially a girl her own age...an earthling mutant no less. Just then, the lights flickered and went out completely. Thankfully no one had noticed the sneaky clear whisp that unplugged them just backstage.

Robots were immediately dispatched to fix the problem, but with the lights and cameras out, Waya sighed as blissful shadow blanketed over her body. Shifting, moving, her legs, adjusted by her own shadow, were reunited with her thighs and the meat began to knit together. She would be weak with blood loss for a while, but in the shadows her body healed as quickly as it could. "Thanks..." She sighed and relaxed as her legs knitted back together and the bones reunited painfully.

Hearing Waya's voice in the darkness and noting how sincere it was, Penelope figured they were squared. "Oi! We need to make this look convincing. " she whispered, "When I give the signal, make everyone think I've sliced you in half, got it?"

"That's a... little harder than it sounds..." Waya said. "There's a lot of people here..."

"Are you bloody joking now?!" Penelope asked, a bit furious Waya wasn't able to go along with the plan. "Christ..." she huffed, realizing there wasn't much time left before the lights went on. "I could slice up your leg and make it look like I've killed you-?!"

"I... I can do it." Waya said. "I think... I hope... I'm kinda weak at the moment if... if you hadn't noticed."

"I'll try to distracted them as long as I-" the lights flickered back on and Penelope had immediately propelled herself away from Waya's person.

Waya snatched her arm before she could get away and saw to it that at least Penelope had blood on one hand before she could get away. Without time to focus and manipulate the minds of everyone here, the best she could do was act. She reached for Penelope as she backed away and rolled over into the pool of her own blood. Thankfully her legs remained fastened to her body as their healing slowed under the lights. They were attached, but without shadow they would take longer to heal. Effectively, she pretend to die, twitching a little in her own blood as she stilled and left her eyes open to sell the effect. Members of the crowd gasped, realizing what Penelope had done.

It took Penelope a bit longer to figure out what Waya had schemed. Noticing the blood on her arms and the way Waya was twitching, she muttered into the microphone, "I... I did it..."

The crowd erupted in applause as Penelope came to terms with what she had done. Where will they take me? Waya's voice rang in her head. Where to the dead go?

Penelope tried her best not to moan as her fans erupted in cheerful triumph. The vibrations were intoxicating to say the least. Hearing Waya, she thought back, I have no idea...let the medic take you downstairs and out of sight.

The robot? Waya asked, Kale?

Penelope spun around and bowed several times in the spotlight and thought, You know him?!

What's left of him... Waya told her. Circumstances are complicated, but we thought he and Veronica were dead... apparently they were taken here...

That's when the robot scuttled across the stage. It had fragment's of Kale's skin throughout and mangled limbs in unhuman bends. It looked as if a robot had taken over Kale's body and exploded from the inside, out. Reaching Waya, it began to pick up the body with what looked like a giant spatula and a claw.

Waya wasn't sure if she could trick someone that was mostly machine into thinking she was dead, but she remained still, effectively dead as the thing that had once been Kale, scooped her into it's shovel and prepared to remove her from the arena. Meanwhile, Mojo appeared above penelope, congradulating her.

"I...really did it, didn't I? I killed that little cunt..." Penelope said with a slight grin to Mojo.

"And a fine job you did it seems." Mojo. "Too mad the little bitch managed to put out the lights. That would have been lovely captured on film... Tell us, tell your fans how it felt..."

"It..." she trailed, "It felt...good. Really bloody good!" Penelope's voice got louder, heightening the anticipation for her crowd.

The crowd erupted shouts and screams back at her. "Tell us Penelope... What was it like to see the lights die in her eyes?"

"IT MAKES ME WANT TO DO IT AGAIN!" Penelope shouted, shoving a strong fist into the air triumphantly. "I'M THE DEADLIEST DANCER OF THEM ALL!"

"You heard it ladies and gentlemen!" Mojo's hologram shouted above her. "Tune in next week for even more bloodshed!" And Penelope vanished from the arena, victorious, taken to Mojo's private office for an audience.