The stench hit Marcus first—copper and sweat, piss and something chemical that burned the back of his throat. The Pit wasn't a place you came to for atmosphere. You came here to hurt people, or to watch people get hurt, and if you were really unlucky, you came here because you owed the wrong people money.
Marcus was all three.
The elevator cage rattled as it descended, the ancient hydraulics groaning like a dying animal. Four stories beneath the abandoned meatpacking plant in the Rust Quarter, past the legitimate businesses and the semi-legitimate ones, down into the guts of the city where the law didn't bother looking anymore. The fluorescent lights flickered, casting strobing shadows across the faces of the other passengers—a woman with chrome replacing half her skull, a man whose arms ended in what looked like industrial pile drivers, and a kid who couldn't have been more than sixteen with eyes that had seen too much.
Nobody spoke. The only sound was breathing and the mechanical wheeze of the elevator.
Marcus flexed his hands, feeling the tape wrapped around his knuckles. Standard issue. No enhancements, no weapons, no drugs in his system. He was going in raw, the way he'd fought in the street brawls that had gotten him noticed in the first place. The way he'd always fought—with his fists and his rage and nothing else.
It was going to get him killed.
The cage shuddered to a stop. The gate screeched open, and the noise hit like a physical wall—thousands of voices screaming, the bass-heavy throb of music that was more felt than heard, the wet smack of flesh on flesh from the fights already in progress. The Pit had three rings running simultaneously on fight nights, but only one mattered. The main event. The big show.
That's where Marcus was headed.
"Fresh meat!" someone shouted as he stepped out. Laughter rippled through the crowd. Marcus kept his eyes forward, following the handler—a massive woman with gang tattoos covering every visible inch of skin—through the press of bodies. The crowd was a mix of everything the city had to offer: corpo executives in suits worth more than Marcus's life, gang members with colors and chrome, underground doctors who'd lost their licenses, tech-heads jacked into the feeds, and the desperate gamblers who'd bet on anything with a pulse.
The handler stopped at a chain-link gate. Beyond it, the main ring.
It was a cage, twenty feet on each side, floor stained dark with old blood that the cleaning crews never quite managed to scrub away. The walls were reinforced steel mesh, electrified at the top to keep fighters from climbing out. Spotlights blazed down from above, turning the ring into a stage, an altar, a killing floor.
"You know the rules?" the handler asked. Her voice was surprisingly soft.
"Anything goes until someone can't continue," Marcus said. "Or until someone dies."
"That's right." She looked him up and down, and something like pity flickered across her face. "You sure about this? You can still walk away. Lose the debt another way."
Marcus thought about the men who'd come to his apartment three weeks ago. Thought about the way they'd smiled when they explained what he owed, and what would happen if he didn't pay. Thought about his sister, about keeping her safe, about keeping her away from all of this.
"I'm sure," he said.
The handler nodded and opened the gate.
The roar of the crowd intensified as Marcus stepped into the ring. The lights were blinding, turning everything beyond the cage into a blur of faces and movement. He could feel thousands of eyes on him, assessing, judging, already writing him off. The betting boards would be going crazy right now, odds shifting as people got their first look at him.
Six feet tall, one-ninety soaking wet, no visible enhancements. Just a human. Just meat.
The gate on the opposite side opened.
Marcus's opponent stepped through, and the crowd went insane.
They called him Sledge, and Marcus understood why immediately. The man was a walking nightmare of muscle and metal. Seven feet tall, easily four hundred pounds, with arms like tree trunks and a chest that looked like it had been carved from granite. But it was the enhancements that made Marcus's stomach drop. Sledge's right arm was completely cybernetic from the shoulder down, a brutal piece of military-grade hardware that ended in a fist the size of a cinder block. His left leg was the same, pistons and servos visible beneath the synthetic skin. Subdermal armor plating covered his torso, the edges visible where it met flesh, and his eyes glowed with a faint red light—combat optics, probably with targeting assist and threat assessment.
Sledge grinned, showing teeth that had been filed to points.
"You're the fresh meat?" His voice was distorted, run through some kind of vocal modulator that made it sound like gravel in a blender. "They didn't even give you a chance, did they?"
Marcus didn't answer. He raised his fists, settling into his stance. Street fighting stance, nothing fancy, weight on the balls of his feet, ready to move.
Sledge laughed. The sound echoed through the Pit.
The bell rang.
Sledge came at him like a freight train, cybernetic leg eating up the distance in two massive strides. Marcus dodged left, feeling the displacement of air as that enormous fist whistled past his head. He countered with a quick jab to Sledge's ribs, putting his whole body into it, and felt his knuckles connect with the subdermal plating.
It was like punching a brick wall.
Pain shot up Marcus's arm. He danced back, shaking out his hand, and Sledge was already turning, already coming at him again. This time Marcus wasn't fast enough. The cybernetic fist caught him in the shoulder, and it was like being hit by a car. Marcus felt something crack, felt himself lifted off his feet and thrown backward into the cage wall. The electrified mesh at the top sparked, and the impact drove the air from his lungs.
He dropped to the floor, gasping, and Sledge was on him.
The big man's boot—the cybernetic one—slammed into Marcus's ribs. Once, twice, three times. Marcus felt bones break, felt something inside him tear. He tried to roll away, but Sledge grabbed him by the throat with that massive metal hand and lifted him up, slamming him back against the cage.
"This is what you get," Sledge growled, his face inches from Marcus's, "for thinking you can play in our world."
He threw Marcus across the ring.
Marcus hit the floor hard, skidded, left a smear of blood on the stained concrete. His vision was blurring, red creeping in at the edges. He could taste copper, could feel blood running from his nose, his mouth. Something was very wrong inside him. The pain was everywhere, a white-hot agony that made it hard to think, hard to breathe.
The crowd was screaming. Some were chanting Sledge's name. Others were just screaming for blood, for death, for the spectacle of it all.
Marcus tried to stand. His legs wouldn't cooperate. He got to his hands and knees, coughing, and blood spattered on the floor beneath him. Too much blood.
Sledge walked toward him slowly, taking his time, playing to the crowd. He raised his arms, and the Pit erupted in cheers.
"Get up," Sledge said. "Come on, meat. Give them a show."
Marcus got one foot under him. Then the other. He stood, swaying, and raised his fists again. His right arm wasn't working properly—the shoulder was definitely broken—but he could still fight. He could still—
Sledge's fist took him in the face.
The world exploded into stars and darkness. Marcus felt his jaw break, felt teeth come loose. He was on the ground again, didn't remember falling. The taste of blood was overwhelming now, choking him. He tried to breathe and couldn't, something blocking his airway. He coughed, spat out blood and fragments of teeth.
Through the haze of pain, he could see Sledge standing over him. Could see the man's boot rising, preparing to come down on his head. A killing blow. The end.
Marcus thought about his sister. Thought about how he'd failed her.
The boot came down.
And stopped.
There was shouting. Confusion. Marcus's vision was fading, but he could see figures rushing into the ring. The handler. Others. Medical team? No, something else. Someone was arguing with Sledge, and the big man was backing away, looking confused, looking angry.
Someone knelt beside Marcus. A man in a suit, expensive, with cold eyes and a colder smile.
"Marcus Chen," the man said. His voice seemed to come from very far away. "You've got spirit. I like that. But spirit doesn't win fights down here. You need an edge."
Marcus tried to speak. Blood bubbled from his lips.
"I'm going to give you a choice," the man continued. "You can die here, right now, on this floor. Or you can let us save you. But I'll be honest—the cure is worse than the disease. You'll live, but you won't be human anymore. Not entirely."
Marcus's vision was going dark. He could feel his heart struggling, could feel his body shutting down. Somewhere in the distance, someone was screaming his name. His sister? No, couldn't be. She didn't even know he was here.
The man held up a syringe. The liquid inside glowed with a sickly green light.
"What's it going to be, Marcus? Death, or something else?"
Marcus tried to speak. Couldn't. He moved his hand instead, reaching out, fingers grasping weakly at the air.
The man smiled. "Good choice."
He pressed the syringe against Marcus's neck and pushed the plunger.
The liquid was cold going in, so cold it burned. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the pain hit.
It was worse than anything Sledge had done to him. Worse than anything Marcus had ever felt. It was like his body was being torn apart from the inside, every cell screaming, every nerve ending on fire. He tried to scream, but his broken jaw wouldn't work properly. The sound that came out was inhuman, a gurgling roar that didn't sound like it came from a human throat.
Because it didn't.
His body was changing.
Marcus could feel his bones shifting, growing, breaking and reforming. His muscles were expanding, tearing and rebuilding themselves larger, denser. His skin was hardening, scales pushing through, rough and thick. His face was stretching, elongating, his broken jaw healing and reshaping into something else entirely. His teeth were falling out, new ones pushing through—sharper, longer, designed for tearing flesh.
The pain went on forever. Marcus was dimly aware of people backing away, of shocked voices, of the crowd's roar changing from bloodlust to something else. Fear? Awe?
When it finally stopped, Marcus lay on the floor of the ring, gasping. But the gasps sounded wrong. Everything sounded wrong. He raised his hand—except it wasn't his hand anymore. It was larger, covered in dark green scales, tipped with claws.
He stood. The movement was easy now, effortless, despite the injuries that should have left him crippled. He was taller. Much taller. He looked down at his body and saw muscle, massive slabs of it, covered in reptilian scales. His clothes had torn away, unable to contain his new form.
Someone held up a mirror. Marcus stared at his reflection.
The face looking back at him was barely recognizable. His skull had elongated into a crocodilian snout, filled with rows of razor-sharp teeth. His eyes were yellow, slit-pupiled, predatory. His body was humanoid but massive—six and a half feet tall, nearly three hundred pounds of scaled muscle and primal power.
He looked like a monster.
He felt like a god.
The man in the suit was smiling. "Welcome to the game, Marcus. The real game. Now let's see what you can do."
In the corner of the ring, Sledge was staring at him, and for the first time, the big man looked uncertain.
Marcus smiled, showing all of his new teeth.
The crowd went absolutely insane.