The rails came apart in the four minutes between the officer's call and the opening mark, which is legal under a Cup rule about competitor equipment. A fighter may modify any fixture on the floor provided the modification is complete before the match opens.
Nobody had invoked that rule in eleven years, and most competitors have never read it. It exists because the governor's arena once hosted a mining exhibition, and nothing in the charter is ever deleted for being useless.
Vell went at the rail sections with Dismantle rather than a tool. He took four floor plates off their frames, then set each plate down flat in the standing water at a point on the circumference the rails had been holding.
[Grounding path: 4 established.]
Serai Kolt watched him do it from the far mark without interfering, which she was entitled to do and did not. She had sent a note about the venue two days earlier, and she stood at her own mark for the whole four minutes with her harness cold.
