The opaque glass walls of the grooming paddock slid open with a pneumatic hiss, revealing Zirka. A roar, a living, vibrating wall of sound, slammed into her from the unseen masses of the Velvet Colosseum. The glare from a thousand floating lumen-orbs, each the size of a grown man’s head, hammered down, stripping away all shadows. This was it. The Grand Finale.
Zirka stalked onto the platform, the floor cold beneath her reinforced boots. Her Doom-Maw, a mountain of obsidian scales and coiled muscle, already filled the far end, its triple-lidded eyes tracking her with the lethargic curiosity of a predator that knew its place. It was massive, even for a Doom-Maw, its head alone the size of a small land-skiff, fanged jaws capable of pulverizing durasteel. But today, its fate, their fate, rested not on its ferocity, but on the sheen of its hide.
In her hand, Zirka gripped the new comb. It felt wrong. Too light, too smooth, a subtle thrumming beneath her calloused fingers that didn’t match the solid, weighty tools she usually wielded. Vondur had handed it to her moments before the doors opened, his face unreadable as ever. “Last-minute upgrade from Jargal’s people,” he’d grunted, his gaze flicking to the digital display on the comb’s side before it winked off. “Finishing polish.”
Zirka didn't like new tools. They were unpredictable. Hesitation was a luxury she couldn't afford. Yul’s face, pale and small in the glaring light of Jargal’s threat, flashed in her mind. This was for him. For his future. For her vengeance.
She approached the Doom-Maw with the same coiled tension she’d use to approach a rival pit-boss. Aggression, even in grooming, was her language. She held the comb high, ready to dive into the intricate patterns of its dorsal scales, to buff them to the mirror-finish demanded by Vorag’s elite. The beast let out a low rumble, a sound that vibrated through the floorboards and up Zirka’s legs.
Its head shifted. Slowly. Too slowly for a groomed beast, too fast for a docile one. Its pupils, normally dilated and placid under the influence of careful conditioning, were contracting, sharpening to predatory slits. A low growl, deeper than the first, rose from its throat, rattling its scale-plates. Its head lowered, just an inch, then two. Its massive snout dipped towards the comb.
No. This wasn’t right. The Doom-Maw never reacted like this to grooming tools. Its instincts were flaring. Predatory. Something was wrong with the comb. That hidden thrum, that sudden, alien vibration Zirka felt, was agitating it. The digital display Vondur had glanced at. It wasn't a timer for a polish. It was a countdown.
Her mind, honed by years of instant life-or-death decisions in the fighting pits, snapped shut. *Bomb.*
There was no time to drop it, no time to throw it clear. The beast was already reacting, its instincts to eliminate a perceived threat overriding its conditioning. It lunged, not at Zirka, but at the offending tool in her hand. Its fangs, each one like a polished obsidian dagger, snapped wide, aiming to crush the vibrating device.
Zirka reacted. Not with thought, but pure, raw instinct. She didn’t dodge. She didn’t retreat. She *tackled* the Doom-Maw. Not its head, not its body, but its lower jaw, a desperate, impossible lunge that put her entire weight into pushing its fanged snout *away* from the comb, even as her own hand still gripped the handle.
She hit it with a grunt, her shoulder slamming into the rough, scaled underside of its jaw. The beast roared, surprised, but the impact, however slight, deflected its bite just enough. The comb, ripped from her grasp by the momentum, spun free, arcing through the air for an instant before it crashed against the polished metal wall of the enclosure, inches from the Doom-Maw’s scaly hide.
The explosion was immediate, deafening. A geyser of brilliant green acid erupted from the point of impact, spraying outwards in a sickening mist. The air filled with a searing, metallic stench. The Doom-Maw recoiled with a shriek of outrage, its vast body shuddering, scales rattling like a thousand falling coins. Zirka, thrown backward by the concussive force, landed hard on the floor, the sound ringing in her ears, the acid mist stinging her eyes.
Through the haze, she saw Trillia. Trillia, lingering near the outer cordon, crumpled to the tiles in performative distress. Her hands flew to her face, her slender body shaking with manufactured terror. Her voice, thin and reedy, tore through the chaos, amplified by the nearby broadcast mics. “Oh, the trauma! The sheer, unadulterated horror! My nerves! My delicate nerves are utterly shattered!” She dissolved into loud, theatrical sobs, a perfect picture of a helpless victim.
But the audience, a sea of faces illuminated by the lumen-orbs, didn't seem to care. Their eyes were fixed on the Doom-Maw, now pacing agitatedly, and on Zirka, slowly pushing herself up.
Vondur, who had appeared from somewhere behind the beast, moved with the unhurried precision of a man who treated every crisis as a minor inconvenience. He stepped over Trillia’s whimpering form as if she were a discarded broom, his heavy boot passing inches from her outstretched hand. He didn’t spare her a glance. His eyes, dark and sharp, were entirely on Zirka. He gripped her arm, his fingers running down her sleeve. “Burns?” he grunted, his voice a low rumble, cutting through Trillia’s wails.
Zirka shook her head, feeling the sharp tang of the acid in her nostrils, but the Doom-Maw’s deflection had saved her. Her battle-scarred skin had escaped the worst, though her arm throbbed from the impact of her tackle. She pushed Vondur’s hand away, her gaze sweeping the floor where the comb had detonated. The acid was already eating into the metal wall, a fizzing, smoking wound.
Then she saw it. A piece. A small, charred fragment of the comb’s casing, miraculously intact, lying near her boot. It was obsidian-black, but catching the harsh glare of the lumen-orbs, she saw an intricate, spiraling motif etched into its surface. A crest. A family crest. Trillia’s family crest.
Her vision narrowed. The screaming, the lights, the roar of the crowd – it all faded. Only the crest remained, stark and damning. Her fingers closed around the casing, the rough edges biting into her palm. She rose to her full height, ignoring the persistent ringing in her ears. Trillia’s sobs, still echoing through the broadcast, grated on her last nerve.
Zirka turned, her gaze burning into Trillia's feigned distress. Trillia's tear-streaked face snapped upward, a sliver of raw, panicked triumph baring itself across her mouth before vanishing behind trembling fingers. But Zirka had seen it. She always saw it.
“Enough,” Zirka’s voice, normally a rasp, sliced across the floorboards. The word was not loud, but it resonated, silencing Trillia's theatrical wails mid-sob. The drone cameras, which had been buzzing around Trillia, now swiveled, sensing the shift in the arena’s energy. They zoomed in on Zirka, on her grim face, on the small, dark fragment in her hand.
Zirka stared directly into the nearest lens, then stalked toward the central dais, where the head judge, a stiff-backed woman named Jurah, stood, clutching a microphone. Zirka reached her, ripped the mic from her hand, the sudden movement rattling the woman, and raised it to her lips. The amplified sound of her breath hissed across the entire Colosseum. She held up the piece of the comb, the family crest glinting under the lights. “You want a show, Vorag?” she snarled, her voice booming across the entire broadcast. “You’ll get one. Let’s talk about fair play. Let’s talk about professional reputation. Let’s talk about exactly whose ‘delicate nerves’ are truly at stake here.”
She let the quiet pool over the tiered galleries. “Because this isn’t just a pageant anymore. This is a tribunal.”