Chapter 31: The Tournament Dawns!

"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." — Mike Tyson.

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BRAAAAAAP!!

BRAAAAAAP!!

BRAAAAAAP!!

Heavy military horns blasted across the central compound with a force that rattled windows and shook recruits out of their bunks. The sound was designed to do one thing and one thing only: get thousands of half-asleep soldiers on their feet and moving before their brains had time to complain.

Micah was already dressed.

He’d been awake for an hour, running through his final preparations in the quiet of his quarters. The Phantom Carapace was hidden beneath his standard-issue academy uniform, the sleek black suit compressed tight against his skin where nobody could see it. The Void Fang was disassembled and tucked inside a modified scabbard that looked like a standard academy-issue sword sheath from the outside. The throwing knife harness was strapped to his thigh, hidden beneath the loose fabric of his uniform pants.

He looked in the mirror. Everything appeared normal. Standard uniform. Standard boots. Standard sword on his back. Nothing about his appearance suggested he was carrying sixty million credits worth of hidden equipment.

’Let them think I’m still the same ten-percent nobody who pissed himself in the arena. The surprise will be half the fun.’

He grabbed his comm-pad and headed out.

The central compound was enormous. A sprawling open space at the heart of the academy, surrounded on all sides by the tall grey walls of the residential and training blocks. The ground was paved in flat stone slabs, marked with painted lines that designated the various combat rings scattered across the surface.

By the time Micah arrived, the plaza was already filling up. Thousands of recruits streamed in from every direction, forming into loose blocks organized by class ranking. The air was thick with nervous energy and aggressive posturing. Recruits squared their shoulders, puffed their chests, and talked loud enough to make sure everyone around them heard how confident they were.

Micah found his spot near the back of the formation. The low-ranked recruits were always placed at the rear, an unspoken tradition that reminded everyone exactly where they stood in the hierarchy. He didn’t mind. The back was where he could see everything without being seen.

He scanned the crowd and found Dexter within seconds.

The academy’s second-ranked recruit was standing near the front, surrounded by his usual entourage of supporters. He was wearing his custom-fitted uniform with the three gold stripes on each shoulder, his steel knuckle gloves gleaming in the morning light. His slicked-back dark hair was perfect, not a single strand out of place, and his jaw was set in that permanent look of smug superiority that made Micah want to punch it.

Dexter was laughing about something with the recruits around him. He cracked his knuckles, rolled his neck, and generally behaved like a man who had already won the tournament before it started.

Myra stood three meters to his left, alone, her arms crossed and her face unreadable. Her short black hair was regulation length, her uniform immaculate, her dual short blades sheathed at her hips. She wasn’t talking to anyone. She was watching the crowd with those narrow green eyes, cataloguing threats, measuring distances, running calculations that nobody else could see.

Micah looked at her for a long moment. She had no idea that the masked stranger who had made her beg for her life in the vault was standing thirty meters behind her, pretending to be a nobody.

’Some things are better left unsaid.’

BRAAAAAAP!!

The horn blasted again, and the crowd fell silent. Every head turned toward the elevated viewing balcony that jutted out from the second floor of the administration building, overlooking the entire compound.

Vice-Principal Jason stepped up to the railing.

He didn’t wave. He didn’t smile. He didn’t make small talk or offer encouraging words. He simply stood there, his scarred hands gripping the metal railing, his eyes sweeping across the thousands of recruits below him with the cold, evaluating stare of a man who had seen too many soldiers die to waste time on pleasantries.

The plaza went so quiet that Micah could hear the birds in the trees outside the walls.

Jason raised his right fist and brought it down on the control console mounted on the railing.

BOOM!

A massive holographic bracket materialized in the air above the compound. It was enormous, stretching from one end of the plaza to the other, glowing bright blue against the morning sky. Every recruit’s name was listed on the bracket, organized into tiers and rings, with match times displayed next to each pairing.

The crowd erupted. Recruits craned their necks, elbowed each other aside, and shouted across the formation as they located their names and their opponents.

Micah pulled out his comm-pad and synced it with the bracket. His match information loaded in seconds, and when he saw the name of his opponent, a cold, predatory smirk spread across his face.

RING 4. FIRST ROUND.

OPPONENT: THOMAS.

He tapped the name for more information. A profile loaded on his screen. A photo, physical stats, Flux rating, and a brief combat history.

Thomas was enormous. That was the first thing the photo showed. He was built like a refrigerator that someone had taught to walk upright. His shoulders were so wide they barely fit in the profile frame, and his arms were thick with muscle that looked like it had been carved from stone. His torso was covered in tattoos that ran from his neck down to his wrists, intricate black patterns that probably meant something tough and intimidating to the people who cared about that sort of thing.

His Flux rating was listed at thirty-eight percent. Strong. Not elite-level, but strong enough to manhandle most recruits without breaking a sweat. His combat style was listed as "Heavy Frontal Assault," which was military-speak for "I’m going to run at you and hit you until one of us stops moving."

His record was impressive. Fourteen wins, two losses, both losses to top-five ranked recruits. Every single one of his wins had ended in under thirty seconds.

Across the plaza, Thomas had already checked his own comm-pad. He looked up from the screen, found Micah in the back of the formation, and laughed so loud that half the plaza heard it.

"There it is!" Thomas bellowed, his voice carrying across the crowd with practiced ease. He turned to the recruits clustered around him and spread his arms wide. "I drew the coward! The ten-percent nobody who got lucky in the arena and somehow landed first place!"

The recruits around him burst into laughter. A few of them clapped Thomas on the shoulders, grinning at each other like they’d just been told a great joke.

Thomas started cracking his knuckles. The sound was sharp and deliberate, each pop produced for maximum effect. He rolled his massive shoulders, his tattooed arms flexing, and sneered in Micah’s direction.

"Ten seconds!" Thomas shouted. "I’ll give him ten seconds before he’s on the ground crying for his mama! Actually, no. Five seconds. I’m feeling generous today!"

The crowd around him roared with approval. Recruits from other rings turned to watch, drawn by the noise. Money started changing hands almost immediately, with bets being placed on how many seconds the fight would last and whether Thomas would knock Micah out cold or just knock him out of the ring.

Micah watched the entire display from the back of the formation, his face completely expressionless.

He didn’t shout back. He didn’t make threats. He didn’t even roll his eyes. He just stood there, his hands in his pockets, his weight balanced evenly on both feet, looking at Thomas the way someone looks at a fly that has landed on their dinner.

The tournament marshal’s voice cut through the noise.

"ALL FIRST-ROUND RECRUITS TO YOUR ASSIGNED RINGS. RING 4, FIRST MATCH, BEGIN IN FIVE MINUTES."

Micah pulled his hands from his pockets and started walking toward Ring 4.

He moved through the crowd without drawing attention. Recruits parted around him without looking at him, their focus on their own matches and their own opponents. He was invisible, just another body in a sea of uniforms.

He climbed the stone steps of Ring 4 and stepped onto the platform.

The ring was a square space, roughly ten meters by ten meters, bordered by low stone walls that marked the boundary. The surface was flat stone, worn smooth from years of use. Four pillars at the corners held up a canopy that provided shade for the combatants.

Thomas was already there, standing in the center of the ring, his massive arms crossed over his chest. His supporters filled the spectator benches around the ring, their voices a wall of noise that pressed in from every side.

"TEN SECONDS! TEN SECONDS! TEN SECONDS!"

The chant started on one side of the stands and spread like wildfire. Within seconds, the entire Ring 4 audience was screaming it in unison, stamping their feet and pounding the benches.

Thomas soaked it in. He raised both arms above his head, egging them on, his tattooed biceps flexing for the crowd. He turned to Micah, who was standing quietly at the opposite end of the ring, and pointed at him.

"You hear that?" Thomas grinned. "That’s the sound of your funeral, coward. Ten seconds. Maybe less."

Micah looked at him but said nothing. He assumed a relaxed, unorthodox combat stance, his perfectly optimized muscles loose and entirely ready to explode into absolute, maximum-velocity motion the second the official starting whistle shrieked.

Through the flawless, incredibly precise lens of his Beast Analysis Talent, Micah stared directly at the hulking, arrogant brute. Thomas’s supposedly overwhelming, highly praised speed actually appeared incredibly sluggish, deeply clumsy, and completely riddled with glaring, highly exploitable defensive holes.