Vela’s the first to scoff. “This looks like faked feed crud. You know how easy it is to?—”
“Rhea decrypted it herself,” I cut in. “This came from Quinn. He died for it. They’ve been running Combine scrap through the pit. Using our matches to cover transfers. Every fighter who ‘dies accidentally’ feeds the machine.”
Marrek laughs once, bitter. “And you expect us to swallow that?”
“Check the logs yourself,” I snap. “You ever wonder why they don’t let you see your own med scans? Why bodies vanish before the families even get the ping?”
Korra frowns. “Dren died last month. Mid-match. Heart failure, they said. No retrieval. His payout got ‘reallocated’ to his sponsor.”
Vela’s smirk fades. “And Sloane,” she mutters. “Broke his neck in the quarter-finals. No burial. Just… gone.”
One by one, the names start coming. Quiet at first, like ghosts speaking through them. Then louder.
The anger spreads like contagion.
Jax slams his fist on the table. “You telling me they’re harvesting us?”
“Not just you,” I say. “All of us. Our blood keeps the Combine rich. Every weapon that shows up in the black markets — that’s us. Our bones, our parts, our fight footage.”
Korra’s eyes glisten with something she’d call sweat if anyone asked.
Marrek’s jaw flexes until the metal creaks.
“You sure about this?” he rumbles.
“I wish I wasn’t.”
They fall silent again. The air hums like a live wire.
Then Vela straightens. “If this is true… we don’t need the Council.”
I meet her gaze.
“We don’t.”
That’s when I feel it.
The shift.
The fracture turning into a fault line.
The fire starting to catch.
Rhea slips into the room halfway through. Hood up, quiet as smoke. She gives me the smallest nod — she’s already doing her part.
While I was convincing warriors, she was planting bombs — digital ones. She’s good at that. Terrifyingly good.
She taps her compad once, and I see the glint of pride in her eyes.
“The leak’s live,” she whispers. “Anonymous source. Internal network. Every feed node inside the arena’s about to get a data package in three minutes.”
“Encrypted?” Vela asks.
Rhea smirks. “Temporarily. Once the timer hits zero, it decrypts everywhere. Comm panels, betting kiosks, locker feeds, the big screens. You’ll hear whispers before they can kill the signal.”
I love the way she says “kill.” There’s steel under that word now. Not malice. Precision.
“You’re insane,” Korra mutters.
