I let the brown contacts fall to the scarlet sand and opened my eyes, revealing the violet to the world. Violet and Bronze. I breathed in and out, a hundred thousand scents and aromas registered by my senses. I could see the pores on the faces of the shocked onlookers. I could hear their words and process them, so it was like I was sitting by every person as they reacted to my reveal of my mysteriously acquired Path and newfound Rank. There was surprise and anger and fear. I had upturned the social order. Imperators did not fight for the entertainment of the masses. They did not struggle in scarlet sands and spill their own blood with the blades of Servi. They did not dig their way out of a sea serpent’s cloaca. They did not suffer or risk humbling.

“You don’t understand the politics of it. Imperators aren’t exactly well like by most at most of the time. It would cause an uproar if you were to savage one of us too badly, would cause victorious riots if you were to lose a fight to a Servus.” Gaias had said to me when I had first met him. How would the people react as time unfolded further and further? Commodas the Servus gladiator of the Brazen Chains ludus had been a crowd favorite but I guessed Adrias Lucion the Imperator on the Path of the Emperor would not be similarly received.

I kept my face neutral. Perhaps they would spin that as me being cold and emotionless, but I preferred that to the stories they would tell if they saw a smile on my lips or something that could be interpreted by angry, jealous minds as a smirk. Instead, I brought my Keenblade up to my brow and saluted the crowd and then walked back to the platform my Jovium-copper longsword had appeared out of. The platform took me down into the labyrinth beneath where lot of people were waiting staring. The Red Sands arena had never seen an Imperator striding across its crimson earth in the name of a Servus ludus. Sunburst Station itself had probably never seen a Bronze Imperator before. They had many reasons to stare.

I handed my sword to a worker.

“Why?” A Medicus asked. She had the orange eyes of her Path and was a Silver.

“What’s an Imperator doing in an arena?” A Servus worker said.

“How dare you take our sport and rig the game with your abilities?” A Copper Servile woman said.

The others exploded with questions and expletives and more questions upon questions. It was a full-blown interrogation. One I wasn’t really looking forward to doing. I pushed past them and navigated my way to Gaias’s transportation. One of the advantages of being seven feet tall, jacked, denser than ordinary human flesh, and capable of using superhuman strength that outstripped everyone and everything in my way to the parking lot for workers and performers underneath the Hypogeum. I found his car and laid against it, wishing that Gaias would just hurry his ass up now. I didn’t have my wrist communicator, had left back at Livia and my apartment, but if I did you could rest assured, I would be calling him telling him I was attracting onlookers in the car.

I did like the car. It was a terrestrial non-hovering vehicle, one with rubber wheels and a gas engine. It was designed with tall warriors in its proportions, and it let my body fit like a glove into the passenger seat. Gaias ambled his way over to me seemingly unperturbed by recent events and he unlocked the car remotely.

“There you are!” I said.

“Indeed. Here I am, Adrias.” Gaias said, completely unconcerned with the fact that I had just ascended up the Imperator’s Path in front of seventy thousand people.

We got in and drove off, a large crowd forming around our vehicle that Gaias came very close to running over before they backed off.

“You’re going to kill one of them.” I said.

“You know, with how irritating they make parking here in the morning, I sort of want to take a few of the annoying louts out.” Gaias said.

“Don’t get in legal trouble.” I said.

He waved a hand. “I’m Gold. I could probably get away with a few counts of vehicular homicide.”

His light tone and macabre words remind me very much of Antonias when I had asked him if he had faced consequences for burning down the theater I had saved him in.

“The administration of Sunburst Station fined my trust fund, but other than that, no. We’re Imperators. Consequences are for other people.” Antonias had said. Cold, arrogant words. Words that apparently the peak of the Slaves shared in their reflection of greater Paths’ Copper.

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“How did you know about Copper Imperators and Gold Servi?” I asked Gaias.

“Know what about them?” Gaias said.

“That they were comparable. On par. You knew at the beginning that a Golden Servus with a strong Foundation could give the lowest Rank of Imperator a fair fight.” I said.

“Perhaps I just heard it somewhere.” Gaias said.

“Heard it from who?” I pressed. “Outside of me, what Imperator fights a Slave? How would anyone know?”

“Peasant uprisings quelled by superior forces?” Gaias suggested, rubbing his chin. “The person I heard it from could have seen lords passing down judgement on rebellious Servi rioting over food prices or gas shortages or whatever else they find reason to make some noise before they croak.”

“Imperators wouldn’t bother dealing with minor uprisings. They’d send Bronze Militares to put down such a thing.” I said.

“Don’t be so sure of that.” Gaias said. “Young ones, thinking they know everything. There’s plenty of men who just like to get their hands dirty and let loose when their leashes are slipped.”

“Regardless, the way you said it, I don’t believe you just heard from some stranger in a dive bar or in the agora marketplace. You knew it like it was truth. Like it was personal.” I said.

He laughed. “You got me.”

“I knew there was something more.” I said.

He tapped a finger just below his brown and Gold eyes. “I’m Gold. I was a gladiator for the Sapphire Hooks ludus before I left it to start my own gladiatorial school.”

“And?” I said.

“I’m getting there, boy. The Imperators would never deign to fight in an arena, yes, but they do need people to train with.” Gaias said.

“They could fight each other.” I suggested.

“Sunburst Station’s current crop of Imperators is a bit lacking and has been for a good number of mortal generations. They’d never admit but some of us could beat some of them, especially those who have never trained a day in their life and those who overindulge in substances.”

I agreed with that. “I went to a party with some of them. Got Shine slipped in my drink, and I had to beat the crap out of the Imperator that did it. I had thought at the time that Velias could hand that boy’s ass to him.”

“Just so. Those that get serious and want to keep themselves in shape need strong, trained opponents to train them. Thus, they make contracts with the gladiatorial schools. That’s how I know a Golden Servus can tangle with a Copper Imperator.” Gaias said.

“But not a Bronze one.” I guessed.

He laughed. “Yep. Your days as a gladiator under me at the ludus is over.”

“What if I had had it happen off camera and in private instead of so publically? What if I had transitioned to the second Rank without anyone knowing?” I said.

“You’d still be out. I wouldn’t let you fight.” Gaias said.

“Against your honor?” I said.

“Against my sense of self preservation. Someone would find out.” Gaias said. “You think whatever uproar you get for having fought as a Copper Imperator is bad, you would be horrified to see how angry people would be if they thought you had an advantage and were just playing with our people.”

“What if I had new contacts that hid my sclera? Made Bronze into Copper?” I wondered.

“You wouldn’t be able to hide the changes within.” Gaias said. He squeezed my arm with his full force of his hand, but I was unharmed by his grip strength.

He ruffled my hair. “You’re more than mortal, Adrias. You can’t hide the kind of glory and majesty of your Path on the Rank of Bronze. People would ask questions on why your wounds don’t bleed even with Thanatosian particles. They would ask why you could take everything short of a decapitation and keep fighting. They would ask why your movements were so impossibly fluid and brilliant and breathtaking. How you seemed like the Warcaller’s own blood and kin.”

“I get it.” I said. I decided to change the subject from ousting from the bloodsport instead to focus on the man’s past. “So, Sapphire Hooks, huh? Tell me about life back when you were young. Tell me about when you were a gladiator.”

“They called me the Bronze Bull because I won an exhibition match against a Silver as a Bronze. The name stuck long after I had advanced to Silver Rank and then Gold Rank. I eventually got a bronze helm with bull’s horns on it. Damn thing got trashed every fight and I would have to commission a new one.” Gaias said.

“Why didn’t you just paint a Jovium-copper helmet bronze?” I said.

Gaias was silent for a few moments and then I started laughing.

“Shut up, boy.” He growled.

“Who did the great Bronze Bull face?” I said.

“Oh, you know. The gauntlet. A little bit of Infernal Beasts, a little bit of multiple lesser opponents, a little bit of equal opponents, and a little bit of superior opponents.” Gaias said, recounting his past days as a fighter, his eyes growing distant as he fantasized about memories of old glories and long departed victories.

“Well, I guess they weren’t superior opponents then after all.” I said.

“No, I faced quite a few who were better than me. Never underestimate the power of luck.” He said.

Gaias dropped me off at my apartment and I went upstairs to the room Livia and I stayed in. Funny, she was off somewhere. I was just about to get into the shower when I heard a noise.

My wrist communicator had gone off. I looked at it. Antonias. Toni.

-Holy shit!- He had sent.

Then a moment later.

-We have to talk. We can get you into the Scholarium now that you’re godsdamn Bronze.- Antonias said through the communicators.

I typed back a reply.

­-The Scholarium?- I said.

­-It’s the school for young Imperators to become officers in the Solar Guard.- Antonias said.

-It’s on Iulius.- He added a half second later.

Iulius. Capital planet of the Apollo system. I felt a little unsteady at the thought. I had heard lots of things about the capital from my lowly and distant homeworld of Lavinius. Some of it good. And some of it downright wicked.