The arena shudders as he hurls his opponent into the sand hard enough to break bones from here.
The man tries to crawl.
Blastaar—Valtron—doesn’t flinch.
He pins the guy down with one foot and lifts his fist.
Ripley grabs my sleeve. “Mama…”
I don’t hear her.
I can’t.
Because all the years I spent stitching myself back together just ripped wide open.
My heart hammers so loud I can barely think.
Valtron.
Alive.
I don’t sleep that night.
Can’t.
I pace.
I swear.
I throw a mug so hard at the far wall it cracks the synth-ceramic paneling and Ripley’s stuffed bramblebear falls off the shelf with a thump.
She stirs in the next room, murmurs something sleepy and sweet, then settles back into that deadweight toddler sprawl, one leg hanging off the side of the mattress, hair a golden halo across the pillow.
I sit on the floor and stare at the cracked mug like it’s got answers.
It doesn’t.
Because therearen’tany answers. Not to this.
Valtron is alive.
Not hiding. Not running. Not rotting in some hellhole blacksite.
Alive.
And not just alive—thriving.Famous.
A goddamncelebrity.
“Blastaar,” they call him.
Like he’s a brand, not a person.
The footage from his last five fights has over two billion views on the net. There are action figures. Holo games. A cocktail named after him that burns going down and leaves a golden shimmer on your lips.
I found it all.
Pulled up every shred of info NovaCast’s archives had and then went deeper, crawling through shadow feeds and side-broadcasts, tracking the man I used to know through a digital haze of blood and glory and spectacle.
