“Probably,” Rhea says. “But it’ll work.”
I look at her. “You sure about this, Hart?”
“Too late not to be.”
I almost smile. Almost.
It starts small.
A murmur in the halls.
A flicker on the training monitors.
A couple of crew whispering as they pass the medbay.
Then the hum builds. The system flicks. Every screen blinks, all at once.
The fighters freeze. The staff turn.
And the files begin to scroll.
Names. Deaths. Logs.
Drayxon Varn’s smiling signature stamped at the bottom of every single one.
You can feel it hit them like a concussion wave.
Every lie, every bruise, every “accident” — all suddenly too real.
By the time the feeds cut to black, the arena isn’t a workplace anymore. It’s a powder keg.
Varn’s counterstrikecomes faster than I expect.
Two hours later, a squad of security drones and corporate handlers march into the training sector like they own the air. They’re all polished armor and smug smiles, the kind of men who never bled for anything real.
One of them reads from a datapad. “Valtron ‘Blastaar’ Vakutan. You’re hereby suspended pending investigation into data breaches and misconduct.”
The wordsuspendedtastes like acid.
I step forward, arms loose at my sides.
“You gonna say that again, or you want me to carve it into your bones?”
The handler’s face twitches. “You’re off the roster until further notice. Your matches are canceled, your comms restricted, and your access revoked. Any attempt to contact staff or fighters?—”
I spit. Right at his boots.
The glob of red saliva steams on the floor.
“Tell Varn,” I snarl, “he can pull me from the roster. But he’ll have to kill me to stop the fight.”
The handler takes a step back. The drones all raise their stunners.
Korra and Marrek flank me before I can blink, and Rhea’s voice crackles over the comm.
“Valtron. Don’t.”
I grin.
