Mine is a world where everything- and I mean everything- is powered by a single piece of technology. Highly advanced technology that most people would call black magic, sure. But technology nonetheless. That tech is a little ball of sparks and circuits called a JOY, and with the supernatural powers it gives, anyone can become someone. It’s the promise of our gladiocracy: a paradise of combat ruled by its strongest fighters, fame and fortune just a fingertip away.
With a JOY, anyone can summon a thousand swords, manipulate the primal elements, soar on wings of aether, or crack knuckles in a back alley uni district gym. The best of the best set the stakes, and in the shadows they cast, an entire civilization turns on the wheels of gladiatorial entertainment. Major league warriors are celebrities who lead trends in fashion, workouts, and politics. Local heroes are known by their neighborhoods. Kids spar in the streets and race in city parks. Every person in the world is connected to a JOY, even if they don’t use it to fight. It’s beautiful.
I get to live in that world. And one day, I’m going to sit atop it.
The city rotates slowly through my vision while I stretch my sixth sense of ki, concentrating the newly-ignited aura that wreaths my body into the palm of my hand. In the sunset distance, the summit of my Section, the throne of the capital and its surrounding villages, rises from the metropolis in a gleaming tower of chrome and steel. Fifty-foot projections of the week’s main event paint its glass facades in neon light. Ancient banners depicting the Section’s most iconic battles, like Meteor v. Exile, hang from the highest levels. The moment I stop focusing on the banners, the entire city blurs into a smear of metallic colors that streak through my vision as I drop like a comet.
Wind howls in my ears. Even a small drop like this is enough to get my heart racing. Savoring the adrenaline for one last second, I lift my hands from my pockets and finish my rotation in midair. The burning aura trailing behind me flares outwards with a single mental push, redoubling its volume in an instant. Every living creature has a spark just like mine inside them, a reflection of their soul that we call ki. But only people with my class can tap into that energy through a JOY, manifesting the aura of colored, shimmering flames that marks all ki fighters. Mine is white. Simple, like the tape around my knuckles.
Twisting the ki gathered in my hands, I slow my descent with a hard blast, skid off a roof across the street from my apartment complex, touch down on a concrete awning, and skip the last fifteen feet with an acrobatic flip. I land beside the apartment’s revolving door with one final surge, taking care to avoid the flow of people heading deeper into the city. Superheated wind sends my hair fluttering right into Jolie’s face as she escapes the clutches of the door and steps out onto the sidewalk. She sputters and shoves me to the side. Tries to, at least. I’m a little too heavy for her to move.
“You’re getting sloppy,” she huffs, pulling her scarf higher. “Where are we going?”
“I was thinking Cayman’s.”
“You’re always thinking Cayman’s.”
“It’s the best food this side of the Electric Town.”
She shrugs. “You’re not wrong.”
There’s not a car in sight as we head towards the tower looming over the capital, two faces in a sea of fifteen million. The eighteen classes of JOY powers continue to activate around us. Comet trails streak the sky with rainbow colors as flying classes launch from rooftops, stretching their skills after days at work or school. Duelist sheathes appear on backs and hips. Innovators surf over the streets on custom-made hovergear. Elementals flex their control of the primal elements, conjuring sparks and raindrops between their palms. A uni Gunslinger to my left twirls one of his pistols in an attempt to impress a girl heading the opposite direction. He earns a laugh from her when the weapon slips from his fingertip and clatters underfoot, forcing him to resummon it and tuck it carefully back in its holster.
Jolie backhands my shoulder before I can chuckle aloud. “Don’t even, Mars.”
“What? I don’t show off like that.”
“You’re worse,” she replies, smoothly skirting around a pack of Tamers and their fuzzy, bite-sized familiars. “You make sure you have a crowd.”
Ten minutes of walking gets us to the heart of the district we call home. The famous Electric Town, the neon jewel of the capital, is already lit up in anticipation of the coming night. It’s a madhouse of colors and commerce. Glowing advertisements paint my skin with neon tattoos as I pass beneath their light. Fashion collaborations with minor league fighters fill windows beneath glass-walled dojos that run techskill classes until the crack of midnight. Crowds pack every street, balcony, and rooftop. Glasses clink as drinks pour in sidewalk bars. Innovator-classed hawkers run stalls in the most cramped alleys, selling weapons and tech with promises of fractional increases to combat performance. And behind it all, electronic swing music rips out of open-air restaurants lining the district’s iconic main street, infecting the air with a foot-tapping beat.
It’s a straight shot from the E-Town metro to the end of its main thoroughfare. There, chaotic highrises give way to rings of circular brick streets and retro, single-story establishments that spool from the base of the biggest arena in the Section: the Metro Blockhouse, a mecca of entertainment and throne of the Sectional Champion. Jolie and I cut onto the main street right at the border between the Electric Town’s older and newer halves. I lead the way through loitering crowds, eyes always on the tower dominating the horizon. Five-story projected posters shine above its colossal entrance, shimmering and changing as night steals over the city.
The focus of the projections, tonight’s major league grudge match, sold out a month ago. But there’s better seats to watch from than those in the tower. Namely, those inside the chop-shop noodle bar across the street whose roaring patrons can be heard even from the metro exit half a mile away.
Jolie tugs on my sleeve as we cross within two streets of the Metro Blockhouse, shouting to be heard over the music. “Can we make a detour? I just remembered, I need something from my office for school tomorrow.”
Electric-blue light skitters over my face as I flick open my JOY, pointing to the time. “Detour? The main card starts in ten.”
“And here I was thinking you were taking me to dinner out of the goodness of your big, dumb heart,” she replies, eyes almost rolling out of her head. “It’ll only take a sec. We’ll be in and out in five.”
A full-throated wave of cheers rises from the dim alleys to our left, where an iconic neon logo of orange dragons and blue noodles hovers above the one-story skyline. I give the sign a quick glance, look back down to Jolie, and cock my head towards the Metro Blockhouse, resigning myself to missing the action.
“You’re always letting work set your schedule, you know.”
Her ponytail twitches once as she snorts. “Says the guy who doesn’t even have a job.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Hey. The gym is a job. So is school.”
She groans loudly. “Thinking like that is why I need this internship at all. At least I have a backup plan for when you crash and burn in the uni leaderboards. What’s yours?”
I laugh and shove my hands in my pockets, following her up the arena’s front steps. “Good fighters make backup plans, Jolie. Great fighters don’t need them.”
-
In a word, the Metro Blockhouse is stunning. Its entryway is built for giants and supported by pillars of titans. Its colors are cultivated to impress. Gold and brown, black and white, lacquer over showboating crimson carpets. State-of-the-art Shimano Industries projectors flash to life on motion sensors, informing a human flood of visitors with live feeds of real-time fights while sharp-suited greeters process admissions and give directions. At the end of the grand entry hall lies the arena’s vast central staircase, and before it, holographic monuments to champions of past eras capture various likenesses in the midst of their most iconic battles.
Everyone who makes the pilgrimage here stops to pay their respects at least once. Hell, I’ve wandered the monuments for entire weekends in younger years. There’s no better way to learn than studying better fighters than yourself. And if you’re aiming to be a champion, you have to watch the best. Learn what set them apart from their peers.
The most longstanding champions, I think, knew what it meant to be warriors and leaders. Those in it for the fame always burned fast. They had their moments. But there’s not much to learn from watching them evaporate.
Even now, ten minutes before the main card is set to start, the Metro Blockhouse is packed to the gills. Jolie and I dart between warrior pilgrims, wide-eyed locals, and arena staff on a winding path to the employee lifts in the west wing. Occasionally, I catch glimpses of major league pros heading out to the city in casual clothing. Some stop to chat and sign autographs with overly excited fans who might never have met one of their idols in person before. Collecting autographs at the arena is almost a weekend sport of its own.
We duck out of the crowds and into a sparsely populated side hall. The chaos of the lobby fades to a dull backdrop as the light drops to a comfortable dimness. Jolie flashes her JOY over a security pad beside a double-wide set of unassuming doors at the end of the corridor. One happy beep opens the way to reveal a circular, glass-walled tube set in the tower’s outer façade.
Beyond the glass, neon and lights and arcing skytrails stretch to the horizon above a lattice of glowing streets. I watch Jolie’s reflection while she sets our destination. It’s not often I have a chance to take in the view from this high up.
“Fif-teen,” she yawns, tapping the final digits. The lift digests the command and dings out a pleased tone, slowly easing the doors shut with pressurized hydraulics. A sudden noise swells in the hall outside, drawing closer. Jolie lets out a sigh and leans against the wall beside me while the doors finish closing.
“See? In and out, just like I told you.”
The doors are an inch away from sealing when her eyes suddenly snap wide open. Rather than fading, the earlier commotion- shouted questions, humming stream cams, and clamoring excitement- smashes right up against the lift. My eyes dart up. In the glass’s reflection, five gnarled fingers split the doors down their center. The lift grumbles unhappily as it opens once more, admitting a final passenger inside before finally shutting out the noise. We’re sealed in with a hair-raising tension. Gravity doubles as we begin to rise.
I cross my arms as I turn. Spiky, greying hair drifts in the bottom half of my vision, rising from the weathered head of a middle-aged man who wears a fightfighter’s armless tunic over simple sweatpants twenty years out of style. I do not have to see his face to know exactly what it looks like. Anyone would. No features are better known throughout the capital than his. The bladed brush of a mustache. The scars. The telltale wrinkles and hunched shoulders of a man who has carried the weight of an entire Section on his shoulders for the better part of two decades. A warrior whose mastery of the primal force of life energy, ki, exceeds my own like a star outshines a candle.
Champion Fang is a man who stirs oceanic tides of ki as easily as raindrops stir mirrored pools, and before me, he does not move. He does not turn. His hair is not disturbed by the sudden increase in gravity as we begin to ascend. He shows no aura. None of the meteoric, raging floods of jaded energy I’ve watched him summon in battle after battle ever since I was a kid. His control of his ki is so immaculate that not a single drop escapes his iron grasp as he stands there, back to the window, scratching at his mustache, staring at the blank metal door.
It’s like looking at lightning caught in a human bottle. The perfect thunder of his presence stills me in place.
Realistically, I shouldn’t be afraid of him. He’s the leader of the entire Section. Sure. He’s defeated more legends than I’ve lived years. True. But he’s also an old man who barely stands to my shoulder and has half the muscle mass I do. Disregard that the closest I’ve ever come to any major league fighter was at a campus fair at the university, and sharing an elevator alone with the Champion is an entirely different level from that. Physically? I bet I could take him.
Maybe.
My body disagrees. A warning trickle of sweat stains my spine. Every one of the hairs on my arms is standing on end. My instincts are frozen by the man in front of me, the entirety of my focus devoted to sensing what I can of him- his casual stance, his loose heels, his superiority- and I can’t feel even a single spark of the dormant ki inside him, any tell to the true the depths of his strength.
Jolie hisses at me under her breath, snapping me out of my stupor. “Why are you squinting?”
I shrug and wipe at my cheek. “Something in my eye.”
She watches me for a full, gear-turning second before her eyes widen even further behind her glasses. “No. No. You are not trying to size up the fucking Champion.”
“Of course not,” I mutter. My gaze stays fixed on the old man’s back all the while. “Who do you think I am?”
Her jaw drops as she stares at me. Slowly, her expression morphs into one I recognize all too easily. The ‘who the hell do you think?’ face. I don’t deign to respond.
My shoes squeak as I spread my feet a little wider, voice rising in challenge.
“Hey, old man.”
Jolie hides her face and cringes away, pretending to watch the city scrolling by.
The champion just laughs.
“I am surprised,” he says, with a voice like bark being stripped from a tree. His shoulders shake with mirth. But he doesn’t turn to face me. “You managed to stay silent so long, boy. You sensed my arrival the moment I turned that corner. Was that not enough time to think of something more to say?”
“I felt you coming from across the tower,” I correct, cocking my head to the side.
“Were you paralyzed with fear? Wondering if you should bow, kneel? Politely leave the lift so an old man could enjoy the silence of the night and ride to his home in peace? Ask for an autograph like a child?” He laughs again, only gradually sobering. “Hmph. I wouldn’t have minded giving an autograph, you know. It’s good to inspire the youth. And I sense you could use a little inspiration, especially in such trying times.”
I curl one knee inwards, planting a foot against the glass. “You know who I am.”
His head turns ever so slightly. One jade-green eye dissects me in a single over-the-shoulder glance.
“How could a Champion not recognize one of his Section’s brightest youth? Such brazen confidence as yours could only belong to Concordia University’s infamous, permanent second rank.” He turns back with a haughty, tight-lipped smile as the lift begins to slow. “I’m honored that you didn’t so much as think before addressing me, by the way. It’s refreshing to meet someone too impulsive to bow on reflex. Such stubbornness could be a strength if it were tamed. But a word of advice.”
“Take your time,” I reply, uncurling from the wall.
The lift dings. The doors crack open. Crowds roar in an open-air battle arena just out of sight. And as the applause swells, Champion Fang slips a hand into his baggy pockets and draws out the weathered, chipped shell of a decades-old JOY.
He lifts it up to the lights and cheers of the Metro Blockhouse as they spill over us, revealing the sphere’s deactivated state and the depths of my own foolhardy fear. Without it, he’s just an old man in sweatpants.
“Use that head of yours a little more,” he chides. “Heart is only half the battle.”