I liked Karu, I really did. There were, however, some things about her which always unnerved me a little about her.

Natural, I guess, given her occupation, how we met, the license to kill sitting in her pocket. But it wasn't that stuff that usually made me nervous, I'd somehow just sort of accepted that about her like she'd somehow accepted that I was an Exhuman.

But dropping down into the sewer maintenance shaft in pitch blackness with the only light being the blood-red glow of her visor was creepy as fuck.

All around me, I could see nothing but the tiny circle of shadows surrounding Karu, red-stained concrete walls looming around her from the dark, and in the middle of the blackness, those two hazy-looking red lines like a demon in the depths.

"I did not think to bring flares or survival equipment, only combat gear," Karu apologized, her voice at ends with her imposing shadowy figure. She was certainly able to see clearly through her visor.

I lit up a couple swords and the concrete tunnel around me came into existence. "Not a problem," I said.

She smiled. "I confess, sometimes I forget the more mundane applications of your powers. I suppose it is the difference in living with them versus only gauging Exhumans for their potential combat risk, as I am accustomed to. My apologies."

"Nothing to apologize for," I said, turning and looking around. It was cramped down here, a rectangular concrete tunnel with pipes and conduits hanging from supports in the ceiling, maybe ten feet across but only six feet tall. Definitely nothing more than a standard maintenance tunnel, not that I had spent a lot of time crawling around in them.

It was a little damp down here, some of the pipes had condensation on them, others were labelled with brightly-colored plastic bands advising they were hot, or full of wastewater, or what direction the flow went.

As for what direction we should go, there was no indication at all that Steffie would be down here, or if she was, whether she was in the identical blackness stretching down the tunnel to both our left and our right. I had a moment of feeling pretty stupid that we'd just let those Exhumans stuff us in a hole without even considering they might be full of crap. Still...if they were telling the truth, the signal on the app indicated she'd be more down the tunnel on the right, even if neither really went the right way, so that was the way I turned.

We walked for maybe a minute in the uncomfortable, echoing, flickering glow of my swords. I felt like I had to keep my head really low to avoid clipping myself painfully on the pipes, which made my back start to complain really quick. I wondered if the engineers who came out for repairs were all really short...though more likely, they probably just had some kind of vehicle, and I felt stupid for considering it.

I was about to ply Karu for some conversation when suddenly I felt the earth shake under me. Being from Los Angeles, my first thought was that it was an earthquake, and that we'd be buried in these tunnels, but I realized quickly I was wrong.

In an earthquake, the ground sort of wobbles and it takes a moment for you to realize. This was more like...an explosion. I'd been in or near enough of those to recognize the sudden jolting feeling of a wall of pressure slapping you. Definitely more like that than an earthquake.

And...we were looking for Steffie. An Exhuman who exploded as her powerset.

I began running as best I could, hunched over. Karu followed without needing explanation, having an easier time standing despite being only like an inch shorter than me. Her visor helping her awareness, maybe. I didn't know, we had to run.

There were a couple more tremors as we ran, almost enough to knock the ground out from under my feet, and I had to wonder just what the hell it might be we were running into. There were rumors of XPCA experimentation, and of a resistance cell fighting back, but neither of them would be exploding things under the city...explosions were antithetical to both the stringent order the XPCA venerated, as well as the stealth of a secret resistance movement.

So...Soran? I both hoped so, and hoped not.

So we ran for another couple of minutes, my body aching from moving in such an awkward position, and feeling like at any moment, the tunnel would just end outside of my circle of light and I'd smack into a wall face-first. I moved my swords a little further forward to see better the direction we were going, but that really just gave me a better look at more identical tunnel. I checked the holo and again, we were almost right on top of Steffie again.

As I did, there was another boom, one we could hear as well as feel this time, and following it, a completely unexpected sound, cheering.

I stumbled to a stop, and Karu halted beside me, breathing deep but evenly.

"Not a noise I expected to hear in a sewer," I said.

"Indeed. I would say we were hearing a broadcast of a sporting event or the like, could I not feel the shaking with my own two feet. Something suspicious is certainly afoot."

"Does your visor let you...see sound waves or anything? Can you tell where it's coming from?" I sat down against the wall, my back killing me.

"I am reasonably certain that would be an impossibility. By the time they reached my visor to be perceived, they would not be in the air to track any longer, were such a thing even possible. I can tell general directionalities only, and we are headed towards the source."

"Think there will be trouble when we get there?"

"I am aware you disagree with my prejudices, but I cannot imagine any single thing which would make a crowd of Exhumans cheer which is not trouble."

"Yeah, that sounds about right," I said, and forced myself back upright, pushing my fists into my back in a futile effort to get it to pop or something. Karu moved behind me and then pushed me face-first into a wall, where she then kneaded my lower back with brutally strong fingers. Less a massage and more like she was trying to turn my skin inside-out and punch my spine out of my chest.

Still, I felt a lot...different, when she was done. Hurting in entirely different ways, at least. I thanked her because it seemed the thing to do, she nodded, and then wordlessly again, we shot into the dark.

It wasn't nearly as long before we stopped again. After another tremor, boom, and cheer, I skidded to a halt, almost passing the hole in the wall on my left. It was roughly round, with bits of metal rebar twisted out of the gaps, obviously intentional damage which split off from this tunnel and into what looked like more of a cave. I noted there was a ladder to the surface here, too...if we'd known about it, we could have just come down in the right place and saved the last few minutes in the claustrophobic dark.

So the Exhumans who put us down here were assholes.

The cave tunnel was, fortunately, obviously designed for regular-sized people to walk in, and despite the rough-hewn walls and inconsistent height of the ceiling and unevenness of the floor, was a much more comfortable walk as a result. We didn't have to go far before the passage turned a corner, and we could see light at the end of the next hall. Noise began to assail us as well, muttering and yelling, the sound of a large number of people.

We stepped forward into the light and I had to blink a few times. Not because of the change in brightness, but to comprehend what I was actually seeing.

It was a huge room, round, maybe two-hundred feet across. The ceiling was a dome not too far above us, with bright lights installed in it which cast their light over the rows of seats along the perimeter and into the pit in the middle, where two Exhumans were using their powers in what very much looked like an attempt to kill each other, while at least a hundred others sat and watched.

We found a goddamn underground Exhuman colosseum.

Karu took my arm and guided us into a pair of seats near the back where no others were. One of the contenders ran at the other and tried to grab him with a crude bear hug, that made the air implode with a snap I could feel from here, while the other sidestepped with easy poise. That would explain the tremors, I guessed.

"Ashton, what in the hells is this?" Karu hissed at me over the room's din.

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"I have no idea. I wasn't expecting to find...whatever this is."

"It is an arena. It is an Exhuman fighting circuit." She sounded completely lost for words, and was explaining for her benefit more than my own. "This is not possible."

"Do you think this is behind the irritation the Exhumans have been experiencing? Fighting each other, making them more aggressive?"

She shook her head. "I do not think anything yet. I am still uncertain of what I am witnessing."

I let her sit and think and just kept quiet and looked around. The bench we were on, the benches all of the hundred or so Exhumans were sitting on, they were crudely hewn from the earth, this whole chamber was. It wasn't hard to figure out that one or more terrapaths had built this arena, carving it out directly under the city. Looking at the lights in the ceiling a little closer, I realized they were the same kind on the guard towers outside.

But why? Even for an Exhuman, making this place had to be a lot of work. What did they stand to gain by beating the crap out of each other like this? Like, to a degree, I supposed this was somewhat natural, there would always be people who wanted to fight or establish a pecking order or just watch people beat each other up...but this was the first ever general-assembly of Exhumans, ever. The largest collection of Exhumans in history...and this is what they did?

I thought about what Karu had said about optimism, and how the Exhumans here had been on their best behavior when they first moved in, how people were building communities and friendships. I watched one of the fighters laid his hands on the other and throw him bodily into the air a dozen feet. He landed brutally on his side and remained unmoving. The crowd screamed with delight. How had that community become this?

Honestly, it hurt me in a way I didn't know I could be hurt. Nobody seemed to care that the guy out there was seriously hurt, everyone was just screaming and excited, lauding the victor. I'd always thought that...that given the opportunity, Exhumans and humans were the same, that once the oppression element was taken away, Exhuman civilization would look the same as normal life, people being good because good was right, regardless if they had the power over others or not.

But what I saw in front of me seemed to refute all of that. They were savages, like barbarians, or like the ancient Romans, demanding blood just because they wanted a spectacle.

I mean...I guess the ancient Romans did eventually become modern humans, so there was still hope, but it was still not feeling great here.

A pair sat down in the stands above us, sliding in from the side. I glanced back and recognized them. Trish and her guy, the two who had sent us down here to begin with.

"Y'know, there's a rule that all newcomers have to fight," she said with a grin that seemed more angry than happy.

"Where's Steffie?" I asked.

"Really remains to be seen. See, I've got no reason to answer you."

"She's in danger. All the Exhumans here might be in danger. So answer me," I growled at her. She yawned visibly.

"You might think being an Exhuman makes you scary up there, but down here, we all are. You want to show me you're someone to be feared and respected, you've gotta show me."

"Oh, I'll show you all right--" I said, lighting up a pair of swords. Karu grabbed my arm and twisted me back around, and I realized why. All the Exhumans near us were staring at us now, their amusement with the center stage only lasting as long as the battle within it.

"If you want to fight everyone, that's no skin off my nose. But you might have better chances one-on-one in the ring," Trish sneered. "Come on, you know you want to. Look at all these Exhumans, just dying to see what you can do."

She wasn't wrong about that. It felt like this whole section was eyeing us now, and catcalls and jeers were beginning to come from the crowd.

Karu stood at once and pulled me to my feet. "We are leaving," she said.

"Aww, your mom won't let you stay up past your bedtime?" Everyone laughed at us. Karu seemed to bristle at it, but I just wanted to make all these idiots shut up and piss off. These assholes were laughing as their peers were fighting and dying in the ring, laughing as Steffie was God-knows-where, and laughing while Soran was missing, possibly even endangering their lives, and they didn't even know it.

The fact that I was the only one here -- excluding Karu, obviously -- who was trying to keep people safe, that they weren't even working to help themselves, it just galled me, just straight up pissed me off. I wanted to just up and leave like Karu was doing, let these fuckers kill each other and die.

But.

I couldn't. I wasn't that person. They had info on Steffie, which I needed. They might feed their powers into Soran through their ingloriously idiotic deaths, which just made him more of a threat. And they were Exhumans, who were here because of me. If they were fucked up, part of that was my fault.

So I took a deep breath and counted to three.

"Look, I'm trying to help someone. I don't want a fight. Just tell me where I can find my friend and we'll piss off."

She smiled and stood up, and turned to go.

"Wait, please," I grabbed her shoulder. "Seriously. Someone needs our help. She might be hurt, she might be dying, don't you care?"

Her smile vanished and her eyes flickered up and down my face but only for a moment before she gave a hugely exaggerated shrug. "Poor baby. Maybe go ask the XPCA if they can help." She and the others laughed again and I felt stupid and impotent and frustrated at how impossible they all were. "Gonna cry little boy? Go ahead, hug your momma and cry. Boo, hoo, hoo."

I was annoyed to find that angry tears were in my eyes, and I refused to let them come out. Karu took me by the arm and steered us towards an exit, but I broke her grasp.

"Ashton, do not rise to their bait," she said.

"We still need Steffie. If I have to kick her ass to find her, I'll do it gladly," I said.

"There are other ways. We still have the app. Let us leave with our dignity intact."

"Dignity?" mocked the girl. "Your little bitch of a boy is practically crying his eyes out because he misses his best fwend sow much," she said. Again everyone laughed, even though what she was saying was stupid. I wanted to say something really biting, something that would shut her right up. But I didn't have anything, and that made it worse. I was just mad and still trying to do what was right.

I thought, maybe if I were religious like Karu, I might feel a little better knowing that this bitch would be burning in hell for eternity or something. After a lifetime of ruining people's lives. It seemed such a distant consolation, when I could just smack her in her stupid fucking face right now and solve everything.

"What'd you say your name was? Trash?" I asked.

The smile on Trish's lips flipped instantly as the collected Exhumans oooohhh'd her.

"If we fight and I win, you tell me everything I need to know about Steffie. Where to find her, why she's down here, everything. Got it?"

"If you win."

"Lady, I will kick your ass so hard you will be tasting your own anus."

She grinned the same angry-unhappy grin again. "Big talk for such a little prick. I'm not going to stop hurting you just because you cry."

Karu stepped in. "Ashton, be serious and be wise. An Exhuman duel is idiocy--" she stopped as someone jerked her hair from behind and sent her clattering down two rows of stone seats before she could stop herself.

I lunged at the one who'd assaulted her, who jumped backwards out of my range up a couple steps, their hands beginning to glow and crackle with a pink aura.

"Ashton, do not!" Karu yelled, rising to a knee and probing her scalp for blood with a gloved hand. "Let us leave this place."

"Fuck that, I'm not letting them get away with jumping you." I spun on pinky glowy girl. "Yeah you, fucking coward!"

"You want to go?" she hissed with a rude gesture.

"He's mine first," Trish said with a stomp for emphasis. I realized we had the attention of the entire arena now, which made me swallow hard and remind myself of our mission here. I went to Karu and helped her up.

"You okay?"

"I am without injury. Now please, let us go."

"No," I shook my head and lowered my voice. "I have a better plan. The app lead us here, find out where it leads."

"It leads somewhere around here, we have ascertained that. But these miscreants insist on waylaying us, and I do not think we will be able to proceed without a fight. We should withdraw for now and return when we have…" she looked around uncomfortably. "Less attention."

"I'll get you less attention, and we'll proceed with a fight. I'll take on Trish and while they're distracted, you can continue investigating. Okay?"

She chewed her lip a little and glanced about at the crowd staring. "I maintain to be a foolish idea."

"I'm not sure they'll let us leave without fighting anymore anyway. Besides, I got this idea from you."

"Are you insane? I have said nothing but--"

"No, I was thinking, left alone, these Exhumans might eventually find their path back, like how even we are descended from the carnal savage brutality of Roman gladiators."

"I doubt many gladiators specifically survived long enough to sire you as a descendant, Ashton."

"The point is, you believe in doing things to effect change, not just wait for it to happen. So I'm going to kick this girl's ass and then I'll have some authority to tell her exactly what I think of her and her stupid attitude and posse."

Karu shook her head. "This continues to be a moronic plan, and I am offended by my inclusion in it." She glanced around again and I noticed the crowd had pressed further in on us, and was raising a din. "But I suspect we have little choice at this turn. If there is to be a fight, I will spend it as you advised."

I turned to yell back at Trish, but Karu stopped me one more time. "Ashton, this is an Exhuman with unknown powers. If she is no stranger to this arena she has practiced them, as you have practiced yours. Your victory or defeat here...it may be nothing greater than a coin flip, as it were."

"No, it won't be," I said, stepping up and forward. "You forget, this is my turf. Under those lights, in front of that crowd, I'm the star player of the Black Sharks. This is where I grew up, where I lived." I shot her a confident grin behind me. "And it's time I took my place back from assholes like this one."