During Roger's brief period of time that he had to himself before the next match he contacted Issac.

"No one caught on to our ploy, did they?"

"They are none the wiser, they still hate your guts. Though I say that, your odds for the next round has went up. A lot of people don't want to get burn that badly again. So the current odds are 3:1. The next person you will be facing is a gunner. You ready?" 

"If they aren't at least half as skilled as you, I should have nothing to worry about. Anyways how did Lily do?"

"She finished her match within 1 minute, don't worry about her, according to her match ups she shouldn't have any difficult match ups until the semi-finals."

"Oh, that is great."

"Your next match is starting, stop talking and get going already."

After Issac said all that he had to say he immediately left the chat.

...

AI: After the brief intermission, from the first round of battles. The second round is about to begin. Hope you folks are ready because things are only to get more intense from now on! 

From the audience, cheers and praises were being showered on the remaining 31 contestants, all but Roger.

"Praise our heavenly prince, The Magician."

"Never! Our little Yellow Butterfly princess will reign supreme."

"The formless one, will eat your prince and princess for lunch!" 

...

For our third match of the day.

We have from our left we have our most hated contestant Roger!

Before Roger even had the chance to wave this time, the shaming already started.

"Boooo!"

"Why is he still alive?"

"He seems to be nothing special, in fact besides being a little more sturdy then other Grade E mechanical bodies, he seems to be ordinary."  

"Grrr! He is taking away screen time from my prince charming."

And from our right we have a veteran gun specialist, it is said that he has mastered every type gun in existence on Earth. Please welcome the Rifleman! 

"Shoot him down!"

...

3...2...1... Match begin! 

As soon as the counter made the start sound. The Rifleman already had his gun up and fired at Roger without any chitchat. 

"Pew"

The shot was fire right at Roger's head, it only just barely missed him by a hair width. 

"Huff, Puff" Roger was currently breathing heavily, while thanking the lord that he had been keeping an eye on the Rifleman since the countdown started and not letting his mind wander. 

"Tch" The Rifleman made an annoyed sound, for not being able to end Roger right then and there.  

Right after his near death experience, he finally had his shield up and running. He burst forth towards the Rifleman in a zig zag pattern to simultaneously aim, to dodge and move closer to him.  Roger knew he wouldn't be able to block every single shot with his shield against a gun expert, the best that he can do was prevent himself from getting one shot. Roger knew for this match he could no longer just stand still and be a punching bag, that he had to close in on his opponent in order to win.

As Roger was moving forward, while often taking shots to the side of his body from the Rifleman. The Rifleman was actively circling around Roger in order not to get trapped. The times when Roger did manage to catch up, he launched smokescreens and bombs on the ground as cover ups, while he escape, at the same time returning fire.

He launched volleys of laser shotgun fires at Roger, but Roger brushed them aside just to continue to put pressure on the Rifleman. 

Just as Roger was about to continue the chase. Instincts warned him.

He thought to himself. "There is no way, a player at this level would continue this cat and mouse game all the way to the end, would he?" He thought about it for a fraction of a second longer. "Impossible! I must evade his following shots at all cost."

When Roger finally made up his mind, the Rifleman also thought to himself that it was time.

He tossed a few smoke grenade, covering himself up. He believed that Roger would continue chasing after him this time as well. 

"As soon as he comes through the smoke he is done for!" The Rifleman thought. 

He started charging his shot, which he hasn't done since this tournament started.

Roger soon appeared out of the smokescreen.

The charge shot was fired.

"Boom!" The recoil was so great that it knocked the Rifleman down on his back.

When Roger's peaked out of the smoke and saw what the Rifleman was doing in that half a second he instantly lifted his shield in hopes of diverting the shot and twisted his body by a few degrees.

"Disappear!" The Rifleman shouted.

The audience in the stand was going wild.

They all firmly believed that it was over for Roger.

"End him! Great Rifleman!" 

"Look at that strategic and careful planning. Unbelievable." 

"No wonder why he is one of the top 32 contestants."

But what they all wanted to happen didn't happen.

The AI did not signal that the match has ended. 

The smoke started to clear. After the last shot the Rifleman's weapons have all overloaded. He was now hoping Roger was in an immoveable state.

When Roger could finally be clearly seen, his entire left arm with the shield was blown away.

"Ah, that hurts!" Roger cried as he had his left arm vaporized. No longer does he have a shield but he wasn't actually down for the count.  

Seeing this, the Rifleman knew there was nothing else he could do. He stood up raised his hands outwards to his sides.

"End me"

"My pleasure" 

The Rifleman thought he had it in the bag with that last shot so he basically spared nothing. Since there was no point in continuing on, instead of just surrendering he decided to take the lost like a man.

Roger raised his sword in two consecutively diagonal slash cut his body apart.

"Splendidly done."

"I know."  

The Rifleman blew up.

AI: Match ended! Winner Roger!

The crowd got up and started clapping.

"Thank you, Thank you." Said Roger.

But from the crowd side as soon as Roger started acting all arrogantly, they started shouting at him again.

"This clapping isn't for you! You just got lucky."

"Boooo!"

 Roger was once again shamelessly booed off the stage. 

Back in the waiting room, he told himself that he got to maintain this image all the way until the end, it was the only way too maximize his profits. 

"Beep, Beep, Beep."

"It is as we expected your next opponent is "The invisible One." 

"How did he do in the last round?" 

"No one caught a glimpse of him, from beginning to the end. Before anyone knew it the match was over, the opponent had a hole straight through his body." 

"I guess it is time to give the audience what they want. What are my odds in this match up?"

"5:1! There is no one expecting you to win against a top 10 favorite at all." 

"That is great! My acting skills is paying off."

"Go all in again?"

"Totally, I got this one in the bag."

...

AI: Ladies and gentlemen, today will be the final round of the day to determine our top 16 contestants. Please, welcome Roger the one that always seems to never die.

"Boooo!"

AI: Also please welcome the one without a name, the one that no one in the audience has ever seen, the one we call " The Invisible One!"  

"Ah, I really want to see how the invisible one looks like. I bet they look horrible that is why they are hiding their face."

"Nah, I bet he is a old pervert."

"Look whose talking, only a pervert can sense another pervert." 

"You want to die?"

"Bring it." 

"Cut it out, the match is about to begin." 

Roger was already standing in the arena and opposite to him, he couldn't see or hear anyone. But he knew someone was there or otherwise the countdown timer wouldn't be starting.

AI: 5... 4... 3... 2...1... Match Start!

The battle arena was quiet, but where Roger was standing at, was even more quiet, eerie even.

Everyone knew the match has started, but every single time when the invisible one fights, it as always very suspenseful.  

Roger like all the other contestants that have faced the invisible one, they were looking for clues.

They all tried sharping their senses. But none of them felt anything.

"Looks like it is over, this middle age man had a nice run."

"He will never be able to find the invisible one at this rate."

Just as the people were finished talking about Roger's demise.

A hand tore through Roger's mechanical body it went right through all of his defenses.

In the hand was Roger's energy core reactor.

"Ah, I knew it, the same thing happened again."

"Hey, what is going on? Why haven't the AI declared the winner yet?"

"I don't know. Maybe it malfunctioned?"  

As soon as the hand pierced through Roger's body, he acted like he had fainted. 

The invisible one, was currently also confused and had let down their guard. Right when they did, like a snake Roger grabbed hold of their unoccupied arm. 

Awakening from his death like state, while holding the hands of the invisible one to prevent the other party from moving.

With eyes wide open he stared at the space in front of him and said.

"Did you think it was over?"