"YEAH!!"
Loud cheers rang in an arena — an underground fighting arena lit by multicolored, dancing neon lights.
The stench of blood, booze, and something acrid filled the space.
Yet no one seemed to mind.
They somewhat relished in it, their eyes filled with perverted ecstasy as they gazed at the pit down below.
The Crimson Pit.
An underground circular arena carved into the bedrock of the earth, its sands brownish-red — not from minerals, but from blood.
Blood that was spilling right at this moment.
"YEAH!" another cheer rang, the cheers directed at the lone figure in the arena.
Bloodied, with broken bones showing, he raised his arm — knuckles crushed, dripping with a mixture of his blood and that of his opponent.
"Yeah, Immortal... Immortal... Immortal!" the crowd chanted his name, his ringing ears barely making heads or tails of what they were saying.
But he was sure it was a cheer — one that he had come to expect after every battle.
A battle of flesh against cyberware.
A sick entertainment for the perverted audience, most having their faces obscured by masks.
The 'flesh' stood tall, the 'cyberware' on the ground.
"Immortal!!" the crowd roared in unison, cheering the winner of the blood battle.
Immortal — a fighter who would stand back up no matter what you threw at him.
Equipped with his human body, he fought and won most of his battles against the cybernetic warriors, and even in loss, he would always give them a run for their money.
Most fights between flesh and cyberware were always one-sided, the cybernetic warriors always winning.
Yet, when it involved the immortal, one could only hold their breath — the battle unknown until the last moment.
"This should be my last match," Immortal thought to himself, but for some reason, his voice didn't come as he knew it.
"Match," he echoed the last word out loud, trying to confirm the voice was truly his, and, to his confusion, it came out as that foreign voice.
"Hello! ... Match! ... Fuck! ..."
The strange voice came out of his mouth, a normal, everyday voice unlike his usual hoarse and intimidating tone.
"What's going on?" he seemed to panic, touching his throat.
Maybe he had been punched too hard.
"Hey, put your hand down, I ain't done!" a voice boomed in the arena, louder than any of the cheering voices.
"What the f*ck was that?" he twisted his injured body, looking for the source of the sound.
"Hey, stop moving!" the voice boomed again, enraged, followed by a sharp pain to his forehead.
He flinched, grabbing at it, and then...
The cheers dissolved, the neon lights shattered into white.
The stench of blood turned stale, the sterile tang of disinfectant.
"He seems to be in a panic," the voices echoed again, more urgent, with a tinge of anxiety.
"Don't worry, bǎo bèi, it's alright," a melodious voice sounded,
Though it was meant to calm him down, it only agitated him further.
"What the f*ck is going on..."
Slap!!
A crisp slap sounded, the whole world shattering like glass, his wide eyes now beholding another scene.
He had been dreaming, a dream too real to differentiate from reality.
Standing by his side was a woman.
Her starry crimson eyes fixed on him seductively, a pleading smile on her luscious lips.
Michael's gaze couldn't help but be instantly drawn to her cleavage, exposed for the world to see.
His gaze, undressing her, scanned the entirety of her body, her cybernetic arms which, if not studied carefully, might assume were long opera gloves.
He stared at her curves, outlined perfectly on the flowery embroidered Chinese dress, unconsciously gulping, and before he knew it, his hazel eyes were locked into her seductive, starry crimson ones.
"Do you like what you see?" she smiled seductively, not in the least offended by his stare, instead relishing in his perverted gaze.
"Yeah, would you like to go for a round with me... I'll make you feel the pleasures of the sea," Michael spoke, catching the lady off guard.
The guy before her seemed off — for some reason, she felt she was talking to a different person.
Though awkward, the boy from the morning prior was simply a boy, but the one before her now gave the sense she was speaking with a cyberpunk boss.
And true to her thoughts, it wasn't Michael, but Iron Beard.
The beating he had taken seemed to have mentally exhausted Michael, and now, Iron Beard's consciousness, which had been dormant, finally had a chance to surface.
This wasn't just his habits, ego, or even his personality. This was him, fully conscious and aware.
"Not now, we've got to get you patched up first," she gestured to the other person in the room.
A mad doctor — his eyes replaced by glowing binoculars, a cybernetic tympanum for ears, cybersutures crudely crosscutting across his face.
"Huh?" Iron Beard was taken aback. This was clearly a shady cybernetic engineer or simply, a doc.
A doc... but why was he...
He looked around, finally noticing where he was.
A shady repair shop — not for vehicles, but for humans — and he, the target of repair.
"What happened?" he inquired, thoroughly confused.
He could remember fighting in the arena a few moments ago, but now he was in a hospital.
When was he attacked? Or were they treating him? But he was fully flesh.
If injured, he needed a hospital, not a repair shop.
His memory... only that fragment.
The fragment of a past long past.
Yet he believed was his now.
A fragment he believed was reality, an aftermath of the forced reverse transfer.
"We'll talk later. Let's fix you up first."
The lady kissed his forehead, pushing him back onto the repair table.
A man enticed by beauty, he only smiled, falling into slumber under the guidance of the anesthesia in his bloodstream.
He didn't know what he was here, yet felt relaxed as he believed maybe the higher-ups of the Crimson Arena were finally equipping him with cyberware.
Iron Beard, unaware he was in the wrong body, at the wrong timeline.
"Do your magic, doc. Don't worry, I'll pay for everything," the lady said to the doc, once again staring at Michael's bruised face, her brows slightly furrowed in confusion.
The doc only nodded in response as he began his work.
Michael, about to get an unwanted upgrade.
"My new bǎo bèi sure is interesting," she thought to herself, looking back at the unconscious Michael on the table.
"Let's see... if he passes the test, then I'll keep him."