A blinding wash of emerald and cyan light illuminated the four colossal holographic screens suspended three hundred feet above the National Colosseum floor.
One hundred thousand spectators in the grandstands craned their necks upward as the official Academy tournament broadcast was abruptly overridden by a high-frequency psionic pulse.
The Academy's golden crest shattered into dissolving pixels, replaced by two massive data tables displaying thousands of lines of comparative combat metrics in high-resolution detail.
"What is the meaning of this unauthorized broadcast?" Rector Malrec shrieked into his microphone, his aristocratic face flushing with mortification.
"Technicians, cut the power to the central display towers immediately!" the rector screamed, waving his gilded scepter toward the control booths.
"The power relays are completely locked under a seventy-two-bit sovereign cipher, Rector Malrec," Vasa's calm, melodic voice resonated from every loudspeaker in the stadium.
