VALTRON
You can smell sweat and steel long before you hear the crowd.
That’s how I know I’m back in the underbelly of the beast.
The fighters’ quarters on Gladiator Prime are a maze of recycled air and recycled souls — tight corridors, blastproof bulkheads, cheap fluorescent strips humming with that low, maddening buzz. Every sound echoes here. A grunt in the showers can sound like thunder. A fist on the wall becomes gospel.
I’ve spent years pretending this place was home. That the noise was comfort. That the roar of the crowd meant something besides blood being turned into profit.
Now I know better.
Rhea’s files still burn in my head. Every line. Every “accidental death.” Every transfer manifest stamped cleared for disposal.
Every lie I helped sell.
I call the meeting the only way you can call a meeting in a place like this — quietly. Off-roster. Off-record.
I pick the ones who matter.
The ones who still have enough fight in them to care.
Jax and Korra first — the twin hammers of the arena. They’ve killed more men than time has counted. Then Marrek the Crag, the half-cybernetic brute who owes me his life. Then Vela, the only one who’s ever beaten me clean, and still calls me “Blastaar” like it’s a joke she’s not done laughing at.
They come in one by one, eyes sharp, shoulders square, trying to figure out why the hell their golden boy looks like he’s about to start a coup.
The air is heavy with suspicion and stale protein powder.
Korra’s the first to speak. “This better be good, Val. I had a training slot?—”
“You’ll want to hear this,” I interrupt, rougher than I mean to. My voice sounds wrong in the close space. Too human. Too tired.
Marrek snorts. “We off-contract? Thought management banned gatherings bigger than three unless it’s televised.”
“They did.”
I flash the jammer. “That’s why we’re here.”
Vela leans against the wall, arms folded. “You look like hell, Blastaar. You sick or just dramatic?”
“Bit of both.”
I grab the holo-disk from my pocket and set it on the table.
It hums to life — a sphere of flickering red light, lines of text and data spiraling like veins around a heart.
“What’s this?” Jax asks.
“Proof,” I say. “That we’re not fighters. We’re inventory.”
Korra’s eyes narrow. “You drunk?”
I hit the projection. Names spill across the air — Combat Loss Summary Reports, Resource Recovery Logs, Biotech Transfer Approvals.
Then the signatures. The same signature on every file.
Drayxon Varn.
The room goes quiet. You could hear a pin drop on titanium.
