The journey upward was a climb through the geological layers of a dead civilization.
Varian, Gorgon, Lady Venom, and Rix stood inside a rusted service elevator that groaned with every meter it ascended. This wasn't the ventilation shaft they had used for the warehouse raid. This was a "Smuggler's Vein"—a hidden lift shaft mapped on the datapad Varian had looted from the dead Union scout.
"Air quality changing," Rix whispered, sniffing the gap in the elevator doors. "Less rot. More... oil."
Varian checked his gear. He wasn't wearing his Commander's armor. He wore a ragged canvas coat, stained with grease, and heavy work boots. The Sun-Piercer was wrapped in dirty burlap and strapped to his back, looking like a bundle of scrap pipes.
"Remember," Varian said, looking at his team. "We aren't the Iron Legion here. We are nobodies. Hunger-stricken mercs looking for a payout."
"I hate this disguise," Gorgon grumbled.
Lady Venom had covered the giant's magnificent granite skin in a layer of matte-gray industrial primer. To the casual eye, he didn't look like a rare Rock-Mutant; he looked like a cheap thug wearing low-grade concrete armor.
"Vanity is for the living, darling," Venom purred, adjusting her own disguise—a heavy hooded cloak that hid her serpentine tail, making it look like a long, flowing skirt. She wore a veil, obscuring her pale features. "If they know who we are, the Union sends a kill-team. If they think we are trash, they bet against us."
Ding.
The elevator jolted to a halt. The doors hissed open.
They stepped out into the Rust-Jungle.
It was a nightmare landscape located in the buffer zone between the Industrial Belt and the Wilds. Here, the factories had been abandoned for centuries, and the bio-mechanical nature of the world had reclaimed them.
Trees made of twisted rebar and iron-bark shot up into the smoggy sky. Vines that looked like copper wiring draped from the ruins, sparking with static electricity. The ground was a carpet of moss that crunched like broken glass underfoot.
And in the center of this metallic wilderness, glowing like a neon sore, was the city.
The Iron Coliseum.
It was built into the skeleton of a Pre-War stadium, vast enough to hold fifty thousand screaming fans. But around the stadium, a shantytown had metastasized. Towers of welded shipping containers, neon signs buzzing with glitchy advertisements, and open-air markets selling everything from narcotics to beast organs.
The noise hit them instantly. The thumping bass of industrial techno music, the roar of engines, and the distant, bloodthirsty cheering of a crowd.
"It smells like money," Rix drooled, his eyes wide behind his goggles. "And blood."
"Stay close," Varian ordered. "Rix, you're on a leash. Literally."
He attached a chain to Rix's collar. Rix slumped, playing the role of a trained "Scan-Rat."
They walked into the city.
The Den of the Cog-Lords
The streets were crowded with the worst the world had to offer. Cyber-junkies with wires hanging out of their skulls, disgraced mercenaries, and black-market gene-splicers.
Overhead, drones painted with the symbol of a Gear and a Skull patrolled the sky.
[Faction Analysis: The Cog-Lords.][Description: Criminal Syndicate controlling the Rust-Jungle. Specializes in illegal gambling and cybernetics.]
Varian led his team toward the massive gates of the Coliseum. The entrance was a mouth of jagged steel, guarded by two bouncers wearing hydraulic exoskeletons.
A line of hopeful fighters stretched down the block.
"Name?" the registration clerk, a greasy man with a robotic arm, asked without looking up.
"Ash," Varian said, his voice flat.
"And the big uglies?" The clerk pointed at Gorgon and Venom.
"The Golem. And The Witch."
"Original," the clerk sneered. "Entry fee is 500 Credits. Per fighter."
"We don't have credits," Varian said, leaning on the desk. "We pay in violence."
The clerk paused. He looked up, his mechanical eye zooming in on Varian's face. He grinned, revealing stainless steel teeth.
"Fresh meat with an attitude. I like it. You want to waive the fee? You survive the Qualifier."
He pressed a button under his desk.
The floor beneath Varian, Gorgon, and Venom dropped out.
The Qualifier Pit
They didn't fall far—maybe three meters—landing in a sand-filled pit surrounded by a high electric fence.
Above them, the registration clerk leaned over the railing, joined by a crowd of jeering onlookers.
"Standard rules!" The clerk shouted. "Two minutes in the cage with 'The Grinder'. If you're standing when the buzzer sounds, you're in. If not... well, the clean-up crew needs practice."
A heavy gate at the far end of the pit slammed open.
CLANK-CLANK-CLANK.
The beast that emerged wasn't born; it was built.
It was a Cyber-Hound, but heavily modified. Its biological head had been replaced with a spinning circular saw. Its legs were hydraulic pistons. Its tail was a flamethrower.
[Enemy Encounter.][Subject: Scrap-Hound (Warrior Rank - Modified).][Threat: Medium.]
"Showtime," Varian whispered. "Gorgon, don't use the Hammer. Venom, no poison. We need to look struggling."
"Struggling is boring," Gorgon cracked his knuckles.
The Hound roared—a synthesized screech of static—and charged.
It aimed for Gorgon, the biggest target. The circular saw head spun up to a blur.
Gorgon stood his ground. He didn't dodge. He waited until the saw was inches from his chest, then caught the beast by its hydraulic shoulders.
SCREEEE!
Sparks flew as the saw ground against Gorgon's "concrete" armor (really his stone skin).
"Weak," Gorgon grunted.
He lifted the heavy mechanical beast into the air.
"Ash! Catch!"
Gorgon threw the Cyber-Hound across the pit toward Varian.
Varian didn't draw the Sun-Piercer. He didn't even activate the visible Symbiote armor. He channeled the heat internally, warming his muscles for explosive speed.
He side-stepped the flying beast. As it passed him, he lashed out with a simple, brutal kick to its exposed flank.
CRUNCH.
The hydraulic casing buckled. The Hound crashed into the electric fence, convulsing as thousands of volts poured into its chassis.
The crowd above cheered. They loved violence, messy or clean.
The Hound, smoking and sparking, tried to get up. Its flamethrower tail ignited, spraying a wild arc of fire.
Lady Venom stepped forward. She didn't use her tail. She pulled a small vial from her cloak and threw it.
The vial shattered on the Hound's fuel tank.
It wasn't poison. It was Liquid Nitrogen.
HISSS.
The superheated fuel tank met the freezing liquid. Thermal shock did the rest. The metal tank shattered. The flame died instantly. The Hound collapsed, leaking oil and hydraulic fluid.
BUZZZZZZ.
The buzzer sounded. Less than thirty seconds.
The clerk looked down, impressed despite himself.
"Not bad for trash," he called out. "You're in. Team Name?"
Varian looked up, wiping oil from his cheek.
"The Rust-Walkers."
The Pits
They were ushered through a heavy steel door into the bowels of the Coliseum.
The Fighter Pits were a labyrinth of cages, sweat, and despair. Gladiators of every species—humans, mutants, captured beasts—sat in cells, waiting for their turn to die.
"Here's your locker," a guard grunted, pointing to a rusty cage. "First match starts in an hour. Don't wander off, or the collars explode."
He pointed to the metal collars they had been forced to wear upon entry. Varian scanned his.
[Item: Slave Collar (Explosive).][Hack Difficulty: Easy. Rix can disable this in 10 seconds.]
Varian wasn't worried.
"Rix, keep an ear out," Varian whispered. "I need to know who the big players are."
Varian walked to the edge of the cage, looking out through the bars at the main arena floor.
The stadium was massive. Bright floodlights illuminated the sand. In the center, a man with four arms was fighting a giant scorpion. The crowd roared with bloodlust.
But Varian wasn't looking at the fight.
He was looking at the VIP Skyboxes—glass-walled suites suspended high above the arena, where the wealthy and powerful watched the carnage with wine in their hands.
"Zoom in," Varian muttered to his Symbiote.
His vision sharpened, the Genetic Archivist trait enhancing his focus.
He scanned the faces in the central box.
There were Cog-Lords in extravagant chrome suits. There were Union officers in gray uniforms.
And then, sitting in a plush red chair, sipping a glass of amber liquid, was a man in a pristine white lab coat.
He looked older than Varian remembered. His hair was grayer. But the cold, dead eyes were the same.
The man who had strapped Varian to a chair for three years. The man who had called him "Livestock." The man Varian thought had died in the explosion of Sector 4.
Dr. Valerius.
Varian's breath hitched. A phantom pain shot through his arm, right where the needles used to go.
"He's alive," Varian whispered. The rage that surged up was so hot it almost triggered his Solar Core involuntarily. The Symbiote on his arm rippled, sensing the Host's murderous intent.
"Who?" Venom asked, gliding up beside him.
"The Doctor," Varian said, his knuckles white as he gripped the bars. "The one who made me."
Valerius was laughing at something a Union officer said. He pointed down at the arena, gesturing at a dying gladiator as if discussing the quality of meat at a butcher shop.
"Why is he here?" Gorgon asked. "I thought the Church purged the labs."
"He escaped," Varian hissed. "And if he's here... it means the Union is running this tournament. They're testing something."
Varian pulled back from the bars, his face a mask of cold fury.
"The plan has changed," Varian said.
"We aren't just here for money anymore."
He looked at his team.
"We're going to win this tournament. We're going to get invited to that VIP box."
"And then?" Rix asked, sensing the violence in Varian's tone.
Varian touched the hidden Sun-Piercer on his back.
"And then," Varian whispered, "I'm going to finish what the explosion started."