Kelvin stood in the cafeteria with stitches running down his stomach
The wound had been carefully treated by someone in the prison with medical knowledge. It would scar. It would hurt for weeks. But it would heal. That was more than he could say for his pride
He approached Garrick, the leader of the Iron Pact, his voice urgent
"Boss, when are you going to do something about that bastard?" Kelvin said. "If we are going to do something, it should be quick now"
He went on to express what he felt, his words tumbling out
"I've seen crazy people before, but that one. He's a monster. Not even in looks alone, but in the way he acts. One moment he was somewhat normal. Next moment he goes and tries to kill me"
Garrick sat at one of the tables in the cafeteria, in the section opposing the blacksmithing area. He was a man in his mid to late forties with a larger build and frame. His presence commanded attention without him needing to speak. His metal jaw caught the light as he turned to look at Kelvin, and his cold black eyes assessed the injured man with complete detachment
"We need to wait," Garrick said flatly
He continued, his voice carrying the weight of someone accustomed to being obeyed
"I can't act now. We have the numbers, but he does have another one with him. And if I go around bringing another rank 2 to near death, what do you think the guards will do to me? In their words, I'd be harming the merchandise"
At this response, Kelvin went silent
A voice broke the silence from behind him. A woman in her mid-twenties with black hair that had purple highlights threaded through it. She had a tongue piercing and numerous ear piercings. Dark eyeshadow framed her eyes and her frame was thin
"Listen to the boss," she said to Kelvin, her tone carrying an edge. "We might have the advantage in sheer numbers, but in this prison us rank 1s might as well just be human meatshields. If they were to fight, it'd be the boss and Tovin against the scarface and the red haired nun"
Kelvin just looked into deep thought, catching his stomach with one hand he turned to the woman with purple highlights and said, ''You make sense Mara, but understand my frustration I want to kill that prick look what he did to me!''
Then a silence ensued and an aloof, deeper voice broke the silence
"Boss, send Brutus"
The voice came from a massive person. He looked to be in his late thirties and was nearing seven feet tall. He was massive and fat, his brown hair covering his eyes in a bowl cut. It was obvious that something was wrong with him. His mental faculties didn't match his physical presence
"Brutus will smash the small people," he said, his voice carrying simple certainty. "Brutus strong"
Garrick's cold black eyes never wavered. He looked at the massive man, then back at Kelvin, then across the cafeteria as if observing everything and nothing at once. His massive muscular frame remained perfectly still, his long white hair falling past his shoulders. The metal lower jaw artifact that replaced part of his face caught the light again, its metal teeth gleaming faintly
"For now we need to wait," Garrick said finally, his tone making it clear the discussion was over
No one argued. No one spoke back. They simply accepted his decision and returned to their business
It was now the fight day
Soren had spent the last several hours mentally cataloguing everything he could remember about the ten names that the lean young man had given him. He didn't know the man's name. He hadn't asked. But the information had been valuable. Brutus. Velka. Mara. Holt. And six others. Each with their own fighting styles, their own magic, their own strengths and weaknesses
In the morning, whilst Soren was in his cell, the guards came earlier than usual to get him
Noelle was awake, kneeling in her usual position of prayer. When she saw Soren being escorted toward the door, she rose and spoke softly
"Good luck, Reed," she said, and then she whispered what sounded like a prayer. She was wishing him good fortune, giving him her blessing before he faced what was to come
Soren nodded to her, then was escorted by the guards
They moved through the heavy metal gate into the cafeteria. Prisoners were still being released from the cells, the mass of four hundred people beginning to fill the massive hall. But Soren wasn't staying here
The guards led him toward one of the four heavy metal gates positioned equally along the sides of the cafeteria. Soren had never paid attention to where they went until now. One led back to the prison cells. One was adjacent to the kitchen. The other two were positioned on opposite ends from each other
This one, the guards opened, and Soren was dragged along through a hallway that branched out into two corridors stretching left and right. There were what seemed to be separate rooms lined along the walls. Stone doors with metal reinforcements
One of the guards took him to a room on the right, opened the door, and revealed what looked like a heavy sandbag with multiple different types of weapons lined along the side, mounted along the wall. This was a training room
The older guard closed the door behind himself as he walked back out. He turned to look at Soren and spoke
"We will come again in two hours, which is when your fight is scheduled," he said. His weathered face showed the exhaustion of someone who had worked in this prison for years. "Seeing as it's your first time fighting here, I'll give you a brief explanation because I'm that much of a kind person"
He giggled a bit, a strange sound from such a grizzled man
"Prepare in this room for the time being," he continued. "You can either use your own weapons, or you can use the weapons in the room with you to fight. Get yourself warmed up. If you don't want to die, you'll prepare properly"
He paused, his expression becoming more serious
"And in case you didn't already know, your magic is still restricted in this room. Only in the colosseum will the restriction be undone"
Then he left, the heavy door closing behind him with a sound of finality
Soren stood alone in the training room
Two hours. That was all the time he had before everything would be decided. Before he would face prisoner 217. Before he would learn if all his preparation, all his information gathering, all his analysis would be enough
In the last couple of days, Soren couldn't pinpoint the person he would be fighting exactly.
But he had noticed a few stronger stares out of the many he already received on a day to day basis. These stares were different from the usual looks of fear and disgust. They carried weight. Intent.
Even when Soren had chosen to ignore the stares, the horrid looks that he received as if he was a monster, he hated the way people looked at him here. It reminded him of when his former teacher Lyra looked at him. How his former friends Anya, Dorian and Noah looked at him once they saw his memories
The judgmental stares. The ones that said he was something less than human. So Soren had subconsciously blocked out all of the stares he received during his time in the prison. Filtered them into background noise. Made them meaningless. But these particular stares were different. They felt more hostile rather than stares of avoidance and anxiety
Soren had noticed that the stares came from people who were seemingly hanging around the blacksmithing area from time to time. The same area where Tovin's Chainhands operated. Where the skilled workers and craftspeople clustered
So Soren came to the conclusion that the person he was fighting might be part of the Chainhands gang. From what Soren could tell, only members of the Chainhands were able to work in the workshop area. Only they had access to that space
From the intel he had gathered from the lean young man, he could exclude some names from the ten he received. But Soren chose to keep an open mind anyway. There was the off chance that it wasn't even one of those ten people he was going to face. It could be one of the names he was about to exclude. It could be someone completely unexpected
A saying came into Soren's mind: don't put all your eggs in one basket
Soren knew that he had to be flexible to survive here. Rigidity meant death. Assumptions meant death. He had to be willing to adapt, to change his strategy on the fly, to respond to whatever reality presented to him in that arena
He didn't know if every fight was necessarily a death match here or just a fight until a clear winner was decided. But from the intel he had gathered, it seemed to point toward the second option. Fights ended when one person could no longer continue. When they submitted or were incapacitated
But Soren found no relief in this fact
It was still a fight with extremely high risk. His obsession with staying alive wouldn't allow him to relax at all. He was constantly tense, his mind running through scenarios, his body preparing itself for violence.
In two hours, everything would be decided