The midday heat of the Grand Colosseum hung heavy over Ring 1, thick with the dry, metal reek of ozone from the outer edge dampening pylons. Thirty-two academies remained in the championship brackets. The stakes had escalated into open corporate warfare. The lower spectator bowl was packed with over eighty thousand screaming citizens. It waved banners of black and gold. Meanwhile, the private glass-fronted skyboxes of the northern walkway were filled with corporate directors, gene-brokers, and military procurement officers from the Central Garrison.
Overhead, the massive light-projected scoreboards flickered with high-contrast amber lettering: ROUND OF 32 // MATCH 02: IRONFANG VANGUARD ACADEMY VERSUS HIGH-GARRISON BIO-INSTITUTE.
Arthur Vance stood in the southern combat nook, step by step inspecting the feed gearwork of his ARC-7 Mag-Carbine. He cycled the bolt three times with a crisp, oiled click, checking the air-powered pressure gauge. The needle rested dead-center on three crushing deep-sea pressure of freezing liquid propellant. Next to him, Toby sat cross-legged on a heavy munitions trunk, his fingers flying across the keys of their portable test end-post as he monitored the magnetic emissions leaking from the arena’s outer edge broadcast towers.
“The tracking data on High-Garrison is fully abnormal, Arthur,” Toby muttered, adjusting his headset. “Their combat asset, Specimen Apex-B7, isn’t showing standard living biorhythms. Its resting heart rate is already sitting at one hundred and ninety beats per minute. Its blood pressure is triple that of a baseline feline hunting beast. They’ve pumped this thing full of man-made catecholamines to force…
