Chapter 66 – Terms of Fire

  The Arena Reset

  The training arena looked like it had already survived a siege.

  Tiles were gouged, walls scarred, and dust still hung in lanternlight shafts like smoke from an old battlefield. Almost twenty bouts had scarred the ground before this one, turning the sparring ring into something closer to a war zone.

  To Seven, it looked familiar.

  Cover, choke points, firing lanes—his soldier’s eye saw a battlefield.

  But here, he wasn’t fighting with the tools he knew. Here, it was a trap.

  On the far side of the ring, Arne vaulted the barrier in one graceful leap, landing with a cocky grin plastered across his face. He twirled his rifle once, the runes along its stock sparking a cocky pulse of crimson light.

  “Ladies, gents, and floppy-eared friends!” Arne called, bowing low with exaggerated flourish. “Today’s lesson is simple: if you can’t adapt, you burn out. And our dear recruit here—” he mimed a finger gun at Seven, “—has the bad habit of breaking anything he touches.”

  The crowd chuckled.

  From the engineers’ section, Brinley crossed her arms, her silver-streaked hair sticking out in frazzled tufts. “If you give him one of my prototypes, he’ll blow it up in under five minutes,” she muttered loud enough for Miss Hopps to hear.

  “That’s the point,” Arne shot back with a wink, as though he’d been waiting for her outburst.

  Without warning, Arne tossed something across the arena. Seven caught it instinctively.

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  A chunky magic-tech handgun, its dull silver casing etched in faint sigils and runes. Heavy—too heavy—clearly built for a War Rabbit’s grip.

  Before Seven could process it, Arne lobbed a second weapon: a lever-action shotgun, its mana chamber glowing faintly like a banked ember. The cells inside thrummed with compressed energy, waiting for a wielder’s mana to determine their punch.

  Seven turned the shotgun over in his hands. Cruder than his Nameless Wing rifle, but familiar enough. A lever, a chamber, a stock. He tested the action, the metal clacking with a satisfying snap. His muscles remembered the movement of an M4, a shotgun, an M9—but these were not his weapons. They hummed with a power he couldn’t trust.

  But that wasn't all Arne was going to give. He had terms for this bout to test his liability and take the survival test. Given his cocky side, Seven has been living in harmony, but he has to make Seven remember that outside is dangerous, and there are no rules once you leave the city walls. The city's laws mean nothing outside; even if Seven managed to survive, Arne will have to remind them that grit won't be enough.

  Arne planted his rifle’s butt on the floor, leaning on it like a cane. His grin widened.

  “Here are the terms, rookie:

  – We fight until one of us drops, or until Ripper calls it.

  – Rounds are nonlethal, dampened by the wards.

  – If one of those beauties in your hands misfires, overheats, or—” he mimed an explosion with his hands, “—goes kaboom? You’re out. Fail by frag.”

  The crowd rippled with laughter, though a nervous edge threaded through it.

  “Ridiculous!” Brinley snapped, stomping her boot. “Those aren’t toys for a test! He’s not stable enough with mana to channel into them!”

  “Exactly,” Arne said smoothly, giving her a theatrical bow. “So let’s see if he survives without turning himself into a fireworks display.”

  Miss Hopps’ crimson eyes narrowed, but she didn’t stop him. Her silence was permission. She wanted to see what Seven would do, stripped of his rifle, his enhancements, and his safety nets.

  Seven holstered the handgun at his hip. Its weight reminded him of the sidearm he once carried on Earth—the familiar click of magazines, the smell of powder, especially the smell of spent gunpowder. Gone now. These magic-tech weapons weren’t built for him. They were unstable, unpredictable. The weapon's power is also based on the amount of control and skill the wielder has, but also on the limitations of the gun.

  He racked the shotgun one-handed, the lever action snapping into place. Not the same as before… but close enough.

  Ripper stepped between the two combatants, his significant presence cutting through the restless crowd.

  “Conditions are set. No lethal mana. No breaking toys. Fight until you can’t.” He raised his hand, every muscle in the room tightening as the signal loomed.

  On the benches, Fluffy leaned forward, tail flicking like a metronome. “Oh, this is gonna be wild,” she whispered, wide grin betraying nerves.

  Seven rolled his shoulder, phantom pain throbbing in his empty socket. His heart hammered. He glanced at the arena floor again—the shattered tiles, the cover. Arne would thrive in chaos. Seven would have to survive it.

  “Ready when you are,” he called, voice steady despite the pulse in his ears.

  Arne crouched, rifle glowing as kinetic glyphs shimmered along its barrel. His grin was a predator’s.

  The crowd hushed, every gaze locked on the pair.

  Ripper’s hand hovered.

  The bell rune waited.

  And then—

  Silence, heavy as thunderclouds before the storm.