Deep in the silent tomb of space, a singular vessel floated aimlessly into oblivion. It was a round steel ball of sorts, with no apparent form of locomotion. Its insides, however, were curious enough to trip a scanner.
One small frigate loomed overhead, its metallic hull bearing the symbol of the Consortium. They always did love shaping their vessels like large gaudy blades. But when the floodlights of the vessel illuminated the drifting orb, there was no apparent response. Whatever lay in there must have been dead.
That's what the Consortium believed.
A thin claw grasped onto the orb, pulling it into a tiny hanger bay designed for salvage and flagrant scalping. Never subtle in their actions, the Consortium was quick to send a squad of Daregen to pry open the pod and plunder its goods. Their scanners seemed rather convinced it was filled with rhodium or some vaguely precious metal immune to corrosion.
Or at least, that's what it wanted them to think.
The pod was cut open easily enough, as the lumbering beasts pulled apart its plating to reveal its insides for all to see. There was, in fact, a precious metal alloy in there. They just weren't expecting it to smile at them in a tangle of twitching limbs and gnashing teeth.
"Ivy." The monster whispered before extending its long claw towards one of the Daregen, crushing both its helmet and its skull in one brief yet merciless action.
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Yrix was rather quick in her step, waiting for nothing as she forged a path towards the arena she spoke of. She was so impatient, in fact, that she tore through every object in her way to save time. Lila felt almost sick to her stomach seeing such raw anticipation. She still felt it was her fault such events were transpiring.
Yrix pointed up towards a towering chalice of sorts, covered in gold plating. "This is where you will settle this. Goddy, I know. But that's our Consortium. The tradition is rather simple." Her voice clicked as if she had a tongue. "Drink deep from war. Swill in glorious blood. And be whole."
"Will this be a lethal engagement?" Lila called out to Yrix with as much Psionic force as her voice could muster.
"That's up to them." Yrix shrugged. "Now then. I'll get things ready."
Yrix left the girls at the entrance of the chalice, its gaping maw of a door looming over their frail bodies. It was an intentional moment of privacy for her students. They did have a lot to say.
"We can still talk our way out of this Ivy, please," Lila spoke up, finding her courage thanks to the warm presence of Lunae. "It's not too late."
Unbeknownst to the students, Rena was aching to chime in. She didn't even give Ivy a chance to refuse before storming into the conversation.
"Don't waste your time, Lila. This Tesselation bitch made up her mind years ago. To even consider you her equal is like bathing in acid." Rena snarled, pointing at Ivy with an accusatory finger.
"Excuse me?" Ivy placed a hand on her hip.
Sonera didn't seem thrilled by the conversation. She just wanted to stand up for Lila, plain and simple. Ivy didn't particularly deserve any special wrath.
Rena focused her index finger on Ivy's brooch. "You heard me. I know what you are. At first, I thought you were just an accessory. Stooping to your level isn't exactly my prerogative."
"My level? You-." Ivy huffed.
"Judgement. Disdain. Summing up one's existence to where they're from. That's you, not me. But the way you wear that brooch. You're not just from Callisto. You aren't under Algernon's thumb. You chose to wear that to the first trial. And you chose to wear it now."
"I do," Ivy admitted.
"Wait, but you have the power to take it off, right?" Lila pleaded. "I saw you make it from thin air."
Ivy silenced her with a wave of her hand. "I choose to keep it on."
Every student, save Sonera, had their eyes fixed on Ivy like never before. She had finally outted herself. Not just as an agitated victim, but as a willing component of Tesselation.
Mina and Dina rolled their eyes aggressively. Lunae seemed confused. And Alia, who knew what Ivy was the first time she laid eyes on her, smiled gleefully.
"Do you..." Rena clenched her fists. "Have any idea. Any idea at all what your people have done?"
"I do. He's my father."
Rena couldn't control her body when it lunged at Ivy. Sonera was the one to stop her, pushing her back with a firm hand and one of her icey glares. The heiress, on the other hand, just squinted in morbid amusement.
"You bitch!" Rena screamed, clawing at Ivy just out of arm's reach. "And you have the audacity to boast about it?"
Ivy grabbed her pendant, allowing herself to fully express herself. She was done hiding.
"I do. And should I not? Is there a sermon I missed? You've all hated me the moment I woke in this place. And for what? My family hurt you. My family is better than yours. I could buy wherever you came from. So what!
I'm from Castillo. I'm the judgmental rich brat with perfect genes. Sonera is the fascist Martian with a cold-blooded murder wish. Lila is a primitive dunce from Earth who could breed with a cow. Lunae is a lying alien from god knows where, and you, Rena, clearly must be from somewhere my family has controlled.
We are what we are." Ivy finished. "And there's no way around it."
The air fell silent. Rena knew what she wanted to say, but refused to give Ivy that luxury. She eventually fell apart.
"Io." Rena sighed. "Earth facilitated its terraforming. It worked. Too well. When your father took notice of the radium beneath the soft soil, well...Earth didn't stop him."
"He took it from you. You weren't strong enough to protect yourselves." Ivy shrugged.
"He slaughtered us!" Rena cried. "There wasn't even an attempt to buy us out or push us away. I know Lila's seen it, the evil money-grubbing oil driller who kicks out the cute little animals. That kind of character? Your father isn't that. He didn't even care to shroud his evil for a second. He sent his machines and killed every colonist he could."
"Yet you survived."
"On a flotilla! Do you have any idea what life is like there? The things you have to do to yourself to survive?" Rena continued.
Lila reached out to her friend, shocked by the history that she had frankly never heard of before. Earth was, after all, firmly under a censorship law thanks to its cooperation with entities like Tesselation.
"Your people were weak," Ivy spoke plainly. "And so you lived weak. Died weak. My father doesn't roll over the strong."
As if to prove her point, Sonera looked at Rena with complete disengagement. She knew Rena was going to ask for her support. And she wanted her to know how little she cared.
"I can't beleive you." Rena frowned, clutching Lila's hand once it was offered. "Yrix was right. It's all just a game. Morals mean nothing compared to violence."
To Ivy's credit, some things were true. Martians like Sonera were, often times, complicit with the iron fist of facism. Not long ago, she had killed her own friend for betraying her family in support of Rena's ideals. But still, that didn't make Lila any less restless, as she tried to pull away from Rena. She had already begun to disagree with her friend, refusing to beleive that Yrix could ever be correct.
Rena stared at Ivy with sheer hate. "Well then, I hope Sonera humiliates you, Ivy. I hope to God she shows you the Martian you've made her out to be. I hope your precious superiority is shattered into pieces. Because you know what? Your right. People are what they are. And you, you worthless lab-grown slut, are just as flawed as the rest of us."
Ivy turned to Lila. She wasn't quite sure why she would bother to do that. She didn't care what Rena had to say. But for some unknowable reason, she wanted to know what was on Lila's mind. She hated herself for that.
Using her Psionic gaze, Ivy called out to Lila. "Do it then. Tell me you hate me."
Ivy was infuriated by what she saw. Behind all that fear and dismay, Lila felt nothing but sadness. She was worried, even, for what could happen to Ivy. Because for all their differences, the two had some kind of understanding. Perhaps one day, they could ask Yrix why.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Yrix was a thorough artist, arranging seats with lit-up artifices all around the arena. It was a colosseum of sorts, recognizable in its almost Roman Gladiator-esque build. The girls could already tell what it was, exactly what Yrix said it was for.
"It's a church to them," Rena whispered to Lila, still believing she harbored similar feelings. "The place they use to settle their matters and commune with their belief system."
Lila begrudgingly played along, her thoughts lingering on Sonera and Ivy. "Might makes right, was it?"
"I hope that's what Ivy really believes in. So she can feel like she shouldn't be alive if she loses. And that's assuming Sonera won't just kill her out of blind rage."
Lila couldn't hold back her feelings. "I hope no one dies. I hope they call it off."
The silent judgment of every other student, save Lunae, could be felt latching onto Lila's back. She took a seat on a human-sized bench, shifting closer to Lunae in the process. It would have been a lot more embarrassing if she still didn't have a migraine over the dueling affair.
"Sonera will be fine," Lunae assured her.
"And Ivy?" Lila frowned, biting back at Lunae's Psionic connection. "I put her in this spot. If I just kept my distance."
Lunae wanted to comment on Ivy's decisions, how she put herself in that place. But somehow the hypocrisy of it all stayed her tongue. She really had no right telling someone to cast aside their feelings and be more honest. Not when she herself had failed to calm Sonera due to her own dishonesty.
Yrix raised her voice, standing on the highest podium decorated with the Consortium's symbols. "Contendors, make your way to the vomitoria."
There wasn't much of an audience that day, just the students. But that was well within Yrix's expectations. She almost wished she could stay there all day. Let her students sort themselves out the way her people had for so many years. If they were supposed to be Psions, it would be better if they started acting like one.