Location: Rustline District, Maatari — The Live Wire
Time: 11:50 PM
➤ RUSTLINE BRACKET — FINAL ROUND
Fighter: Kuraen Vost
T'alü Alignment: Root / Forge Hybrid Pulse
Se'lo Archetype: Terrain Breaker
The punch still rang in Khaz's skull.
The hit detonated across his jaw like a pipe to steel.
White flash. Metal taste.
The crowd didn't jeer. They inhaled and forgot to let it go.
Across the floor, Kuraen Vost rolled his shoulders, golden veins burning bright under sweat-slick skin. Steam curled from his lips where WireBite hissed through his teeth.
Up on the shadowed balcony, two figures leaned into the glow. One impatient, one cool as the night air.
The cool one, "Good. He bleeds."
"Then he'll break.", the other replied.
Kuraen stomped forward; the plates groaned.
[Field Glyph: Quake Strand — Seismic Conduction]
Ripple rings spread under his steps, steel flexing like muscle. He swung both fists, his knuckles wrapped in metallic Forge thread. Shock ran under Khaz's feet. He edged left, then the right fist came.
Like a hammer wrapped in heat.
[Forge Glyph: Maul Motor — Impact Amplification]
The air boomed.
Khaz slid left.
The shockwave shouldered him anyway, pain flaring along his ribs. Another step, another quake. When Kuraen punched, even the air bled.
Khaz raised his forearm to absorb, felt the blow ricochet through bone.
He regained his stance and exhaled through his nose. The chain at his neck fluttered, violet trembling toward white.
"Fold."
[Defensive Glyph: Se'lo Fold — Energy Compression]
A thin field curved around his torso, warping the next blow so it skimmed and skated instead of landing clean. The distortion cracked like ice under strain. Kuraen's follow-up hammered into the same spot.
Kuraen grinned. "Nowhere to ghost to."
He drove in, a piston with rage.
Kuraen ripped his fist back and swung again.
And again.
And again.
Each hit buckled the air as it bled sparks off Khaz's se'lo armor.
Khaz gave ground.
One step. Two.
The field screamed. The world narrowed to rhythm.
Heart, breath, footwork.
He let the quake pass through his legs like water through a reedbed, but the weight still chewed the edges of his guard.
Another Forge Maul. Another quake. Heat peeled at the seams of the Fold. Pressure stacked.
Khaz's breath slowed. The sensation beneath his skin wasn't just his—it layered, a triple-beat rumble threading up the spine.
Kuraen roared, palms open now, fingers hooked like claws. Heat blew off him in stuttering waves. "Stand still," he snarled, "so I can put you under."
Khaz spit a bright line of blood and wiped his mouth with two fingers. The smear looked black under the lights.
He narrowed his eyes. "Sync."
[Ritual Glyph: Spectral Sync — Beast Resonance Merge]
The lights seemed to hitch. Indigo-white flared off his shoulders; a second outline slid over him—broad through the jaw, low in the hips, a Pitbull's silhouette ghosting his frame. His irises went pale, the dead one burning steady. Every exhale carried a low, animal rasp.
Kuraen's smile faltered.
Khaz's stance shortened. His steps dropped to pads and pivots. He cut in low and tight, shoulders brushing Kuraen's ribs as he slid past—one hook to the kidney, a knee to the thigh, and a second hook to the rib.
Short, mean, efficient.
Each impact left a faint echo-maw snapping through the air before dissolving.
The crowd shivered as sound changed with the dull thud of fist to flesh sharpened.
Kuraen roared and hammered down both fists. The floor buckled.
Khaz was already out of his range, circling, head low, teeth bared in something that wasn't a smile. He feinted a dart-in, baited the swing, then closed the space with a slick step through and drove a shoulder into Kuraen's sternum.
The bigger man stumbled three steps, shock leaking out of his aura.
"Come on!" Kuraen snarled, WireBite foam bubbling in the corners of his mouth.
He stomped. Dragging the quake with him like a chained animal. The golden glow along his arms brightened toward white, edges sparking. He was Redloading, dangerously close to burning out.
Khaz blinked sweat from his lashes. The Sync's power clawed at his nerves, hunger and clarity rising together. He felt the triple-beat thrum in his bones—his, then not his, then his again.
Another quake. Another strike. His Fold wavered and screamed.
Khaz lowered his head. His shadowing spectral beast bent with him, ears flat, breath saw-toothing in the steam.
"Fuse."
[Ritual Glyph: Ascension Fuse — Se'lo Spectral Unison]
Everything went black.
When the light banged back on, there was a cyclone in the middle of the pit—violet-white wind tearing at loose smoke and banner fringe. Chains of Ghostglint spun in orbit around Khaz, each fragment leaving a trail of light. His shape doubled and then locked. The spectral hound layered over his frame, shoulders loaded with muscle-light, jawline split by a second, open maw of glow.
His eyes burned white. His breath came out in steam.
The sound of the room changed again. It wasn't cheers. It was silence, stretched so thin it sang.
Kuraen shouted, "You think this shit scares me? Won't be the first hound I put down!"
He charged, quake rings racing ahead of him. He stacked his glyphs on the move, panic sharpening rage.
[Field Glyph: Quake Strand — Seismic Conduction]
[Strike Glyph: Forge Maul — Impact Amplification]
[Body Glyph: Root Bulwark — Structural Reinforce]
Khaz didn't back up.
He met him.
His martial flow didn't look like technique. It looked like inevitability.
A hook to the collarbone, pivot to an elbow across the ribs, and a shoulder crush through the sternum. Each motion brutally short, economically placed, trailing spectral fangs.
Kuraen shouted rage into the plate and stacked his power burning his Se'lo into a blinding gold haze.
The floor buckled. A bolt of impact lit the rails.
Kuraen howled and swung both fists, overhead.
Khaz was ready to counter.
"Lance."
[Counter Glyph: Signal Lance — Directed Pulse Pierce]
Khaz's lead hand speared forward and a narrow beam of condensed Se'lo slammed into Kuraen's forearm, blowing the strike off-line.
The floor plates shrieked. The balcony shook.
Kuraen staggered out, eyes wide with the edge of fear. He Redloaded harder. Every vein became a wire, aura starting to flicker, the smell of burnt sugar and hot metal rising off his skin.
He dashed.
The world blurred.
Khaz met him head on again.
His martial flow spilling through him like a tide breaking its banks.
Kuraen tried to anchor and swing one last time, both fists blotted out with Forge. He screamed it to the rafters.
Khaz caught the blow barehanded.
For a suspended second, the whole arena hung between two engines: one roaring hot, one humming cold. Kuraen's teeth flashed. Khaz's dead eye burned white.
Khaz twisted his heel, dropped his shoulder, and turned the world upside down.
The throw wasn't pretty. It was decisive. Kuraen's mass lifted, rotated, and slammed into the plate hard enough to ripple the steel. Gold light shattered off his arms like broken glass. The shockwave rippled out to the rails and came back quieter.
Silence took the room.
Khaz stood over him in the Fuse, breath steam, aura shredding at the edges like cloth in wind. The spectral hound overlay flickered, then peeled away in sheets of light. He sank to a knee, one hand on the plate, chain guttering from blaze to ember.
He didn't move for three breaths.
Up on the balcony, the cool voice spoke again, almost to himself. "Ascension Fuse."
The edged one, "That's dead code."
"Not dead," the cool voice murmured. "Just extinct."
Down by the pit, the team from Soldiere MedTech hesitated, unsure if the ritual heat would bite. Spots' mic finally found sound, but his voice had lost its gloss.
"Maatari… just witnessed a glitch in history," he said softly. "No static, no spin."
Khaz pushed to his feet as if climbing out of deep water. The white in his eyes faded to gray; his dead one held its ghost-fire a second longer, then cooled. He stepped back from Kuraen without looking at the officials. He didn't raise a hand. He didn't need to.
The bell didn't even ring. Mirroring his sentiments.
The crowd still didn't cheer. They whispered a name they hadn't been given: "Signal Hound."
Khaz turned toward the tunnel. His left hand shook once before he willed it still.
He walked.
>CLASH OVER<
Khaz climbed the side stairs, the noise below already thinning back into chaos and bets. The chain at his throat dimmed to nothing.
A man waited at the top—gray vest, gold ring, T'alü Moon Reserve in his hand. Smile sharp enough to cut through the haze.
"You're colder than the rumors," he said, voice calm and amused. "That's rare currency around here."
Khaz didn't answer.
"That's fine. I'm not here for conversation." The man took a slow sip. "I'm here for transactions."
He held out a folded card, sealed with a red glyph that pulsed faintly.
"I've got problems that need fixing. Thought you might want in."
Khaz stared at the seal. Said nothing.
"Spots'll vouch for me," the man added. "Ask him. Or don't. You'll come."
He turned and left, the sound of his boots fading into the din below.
Khaz looked down at the card. The glyph pulsed in time with his heartbeat. He didn't like that.
But he was too spent to harp on it.
Time to go.
The crowd outside had already broken back into noise and drink. Smoke from fried cevi-root and synthsauce hung thick in the air.
Spots waited by the alley door, arms folded, smirk set deep.
"You gonna take it?"
Khaz turned the card in his hand. "Who was he?"
"Name's Drev. Drev Rouzeau. Runs half the black contracts in the south. Used to ghost tag for bounty nets. Now he's the head of the Shatter Syndicate."
Khaz's brow barely twitched.
"They don't play Tethari, Khaz. Not for fun. Not for fame. They steal. They deal. They kill. And when they do play, it's for keeps."
A long silence.
"You sure you wanna dance with them?"
Khaz slipped the card into his coat. "You already know the answer." His eyes drifted toward the pit behind them.
"And apparently so does he."