Today was Peterson. The day before was Smashbone. Tomorrow will be Bloodfall. Don't even get me started on Saints.

For every illegal fighting ring we shut down, three more spring up. It's like a cancer and there's no cure. There will be always paying customers for that shit, and there will always be metas desperate or crazy enough to play in it. And it's not like we can just man the entire damn underground.

Still, wanna know what really scares me? It's that one day something big and scary is going to emerge from one of those rusty arenas. Call me crazy. Sometimes, I can picture it. It's going to be a mutant that will grow too big for those handlers to keep under control. And we'll all be sorry for it. Mark my words.

- Policeman Dexter Praxton

The next three matches were against a man with four arms, a girl with iron for skin and a thing that could have been human once but now was just a mass of tentacles. Dark burned through them, putting inventiveness only in the way he threw them down.

For the show.

It took the betting match reaching a 5 against him for things to change.

The guy had to be barely in his twenties. Yet, he strolled into the arena like he owned the place. With a spotless tan, golden hair and an athlete's body, he looked like the testimonial of a sunscreen commercial.

He even had a second, a little man scurrying after him as a faithful puppy. Fancy. Dark always wanted a second, but second-rate arenas like Bloodfall wouldn't allow it. Or at least, that's what they told him. Evidently, sun-man didn't get the memo.

Sitting in his corner, Dark scanned the man. He arched an eyebrow at the tight, striped costume his opponent wore. It was all golden, not even an inch of it spared from the most eye-watering shade of color. Forget garish. Summerers. Why did they all detest good fashion?

But he knew better than to judge a book from the cover. The man's well-defined muscles and, more importantly, his confidence, spoke of a well-practiced, strong opponent. Or a very conceited one; but judging from the enthusiasm of both the announcer and the audience, that wasn't the case.

Speedster, then. Only a speed freak could bounce around like that in a blood arena.

Dark grinned. He liked speedsters. They were so much fun.

The announcer's warbling voice prattled on. "And, returning from the Saints Arena, the dawning sun! The man with a smile and a fist! Bloodfall Arena is proud to announce the triumphant return of… Lightman!"

The arena went appropriately crazy.

Triumphant return indeed. Saints Arena was the big boys club, the main station for all the best underground fighters. If that dude was forced to return to a hole like Bloodfall, he hadn't much of a fist, or a smile.

Better for him. As much as it annoyed Dark, strong speedsters weren't the kind of people you wanted to tangle with. Not yet at least.

Still, Lightman? Sounded like someone put five minutes into trying to find a fancy name, before shrugging and calling a day. Lame.

Spitting, he got up.

Despite being with him for the last four matches, the audience was quick to find a new champion. Go figure. Well, that was on him. He could be only so inventive when it came to punishing scrubs. You won too much, you turned stale. And people like those loved the next shiny toy, especially if it arrived from an exotic place like the Saints.

It was a lesson you learned quickly down in the pit. You were disposable. When you fell, you were carted away, dumped in the nearest corner and another took your place.

He'd liked to say it didn't touch him, but truth be told, he loved being cheered on. Maybe, just maybe, he was going to hit that guy harder than the others.

Also, money. He got the bets high enough. They were ripe and ready to fall, and so he was. An always champion wasn't good for business.

That was one of the reasons why it came so easily to him to ignore the crowd's boos: he watched with a morbid fascination the man chosen to be his executioner. Like a man could watch a tree about to fall on his house, sizing it up to see if he could chop it down in a way it didn't smash his only home. It was something to savor, in his book.

The other reason was that he was training. Focus was the first thing to master. Mother taught him that.

As the announcer finished announcing the man, Lightman got a mic handed out to him by his second. The man spat some bars, spoke about being back on his turf to clean house and that Dark was a rat for thinking he could steal his spot and things like that.

Dark was intrigued. That was a way to make a spectacle. Maybe it was a thing this idiot picked up from the Saints? Would be fun to try it sometime.

With a dramatic throw of the mic, the match was on.

The audience baying for blood above his head, Dark felt the familiar rush of excitation. It was always like that. Every fight. Every match. Sometimes, he thought he was born for it.

Lightman let his power rip. It wasn't like he disappeared or something. Rather, his body seemed to blur, as if it was trying to shake itself apart. There was a single spurt of sand as the man devoured the distance between them in a moment.

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Taken by surprise, Dark swiped.

It was a mistake. Still a blur, Lightman disappeared from his sight. A moment later, Dark felt a blow between his stomach and chest. Pain shot through him. If he needed to breathe, that would be the moment he found himself unable to do so. Instead, he just stumbled back, snarling and lashing out.

Lightman moved back fast enough that Dark's hand couldn't reach him. There was another spurt of sawdust and the man was back into his starting position. With nonchalance, he dusted his shoulder, eliciting new hollers from the crowd.

Dark rubbed at his chest, frowning. That was his fault. He moved without thinking.

He spat, and took back his position. Boos and insults rained from above, but he ignored them.

Pain pulsed where Lightman had hit him, a little scream calling for his attention. It was like someone had lit a fire inside of him, the heat flowing above and into his brain, where the excitation for the fight nestled.

Oh yes, he was born for this.

Lightman walked around him at a leisurely pace, receiving the cheers of the crowd as he did. He didn't even bother to keep his guard up.

That was annoying.

Before he could think any better, Dark dashed forward. Lightman dodged the first punch by stepping back, his body blurring again. Dark didn't let on. Holding his elbows down and close, he unleashed a series of punches, uppercuts and swings, growling and snarling. Lightman just danced among his barrage, his blurred form bending and swinging around like a golden shadow.

Dark kept the assault up, advancing at the same time. He wanted to force his opponent against the wall, or a corner. If he could catch him there…

Lightman moved just as he had that thought. The man's blurred shape suddenly disappeared. Dark dropped his gaze, seeing him shift around his feet. He tried to shift on turn, but he wasn't fast enough. Digging with his knees into the sawdust, Lightman got to his back.

He must have been turning on himself, because the slam Dark felt had the strength of a battering ram. It pitched him forward and against the wall. Before he could stop himself, he smashed face-first against it.

Gritting his teeth, Dark planted a hand against the stone. He felt a punch sink into his side, then another, right in the same place. Just as he expected a third, he turned around and swung.

Lightman barely dodged the surprise attack, Dark's hand passing a hairbreadth away from his cheek.

The man stepped back, his shape retaking its firmness as he stopped at some distance away. For a moment, there was startleness in his eyes, but he quickly retook his cocky expression.

Not quickly enough.

Dark leaned against the wall, a hand against his side. He growled, snapping his mouth like a dog. Those fists had dug a hole into his flank. It was the problem with speedsters. They usually didn't have super-strength, but they didn't need it. For them, it was all about momentum, and they were all super-hard – no dirty thoughts intended – to resist the friction of the air. Combine those two factors together and you get a man that moved as fast as a locomotive and hit just as hard.

Above, the audience hollered. It was his blood they wanted now. They wanted to see him down on the ground, bleeding and broken.

Assholes. Dark spat.

Watching his opponent, he wondered what it felt like being invulnerable; or at least, thinking to be as such.

Being so much faster than anybody else did things to a man's ego. Being impossible to touch was the same as being impossible to wound or stop. Invulnerability, or at least the closest one could get to it. It was easy to let it go to your head. That's why speedsters were easy to recognize. The aura of confidence they carried wasn't something you saw every day, not even amongst the strongest heroes.

Dark didn't get it. The fight was the fight because it was exciting. And it was exciting because there was pain, to give and to receive. What was the point of just crushing and crushing? It was just so damn boring!

And the pain. Dark licked his lips, finding some blood from a ripped lip. Well, it wasn't so bad. He couldn't speak for broken bones, but he never minded having that ache in the stomach because he hadn't eaten his full. It kept him sharp, awake, and the same was for a few hammer fists from a speedster. It was life. And he was all for it.

"LIFE!" He screeched. His voice overwhelmed the crowd's and suddenly there was silence.

"IT'S ALL ABOUT LIFE, DON'T YOU SEE?" He looked left and right, watching the people above with widened eyes. "FIGHT IS LIFE. BLOODTHIRST IS EMOTION, AND EMOTION IS LIFE." He spread his arms to embrace them all. Yes, because they were all in there together. All of them, in that marvelous game that was life. "AND PAIN! PAIN IS LIFE TOO!" Lightman watched him, dumbfounded. Grinning at him, Dark pushed a finger against his cheek, the darkness swirling around it into a talon. Slowly, he dragged it down, drawing a line of blood. "So let us share it. You and I, Lightman. We're going to be brothers, yes?"

That scared him. They all fought in the arena for a reason. For money, for desperation, for excitement, for glory. But only the nutjobs enjoyed the pain.

Suddenly, Lightman realized that he was closed into a cage with one.

Dark didn't think of himself as a nutjob. He just had a slightly different pedigree. But he loved the fight. He loved the struggle. And the pain, well, he didn't mind it. It was all fuel.

And he could hear Mother's approval, from the back of his mind. That was all he needed.

When he charged, howling and snapping, Lightman was a smidge too late. Dark's punch hit him in the shoulder, almost lifting him from the ground. Yelling in pain and surprise, the man blurred himself and moved away. Dark gave chase, still howling, still swinging.

Speedsters were strong, no mistake. But like everything, they had weak spots. They lacked, bar the best of the best, endurance. Their bodies devoured energy at a ferocious rate, allowing them to keep up their superspeed only for brief periods. Those bursts of speed very often turned into direct hits, and if one was good enough, one hit was all you needed. But it meant also that a speedster had to be savvy in when and how to use his power, lest he runs out of juice at the worst moment. And that meant that, despite what one could expect, a speedster had both a higher and lower margin of errors than those without their speed.

And fear bred mistakes. At that moment, Lightman was both scared and hard-pressed. And Dark didn't believe a reject from the Saints could show him more than he had already seen.

Lightman desperately tried to regain distance. He backpedaled and weaved, even tried his trick to move at ankle height. But Dark kept his gaze on him, on the eyes that, despite the blur, he could see were filled with fear.

Fear. It made his howls run higher.

Suddenly, Lightman's body started to lose its blurred quality. With a scream, he attacked, pelting Dark with his fists. But it wasn't enough to stop him, not with the darkness covering him once more.

As the blur ended, Lightman had just the time to blink before Dark's claw closed around his neck.

Laughing, Dark lifted the terrified man into the air. He held him like that, for all to see. Grinned into his wide eyes.

"Not good enough to be my brother." He flashed his teeth. "Meat."

Then he slammed it into the sawdust with all his strength.

Lightman didn't move anymore.

The audience was silent. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. A rare moment.

But Dark knew that it would all turn to rage and indignation. He had messed with their fun. He was supposed to fall then. He wouldn't be welcome anymore to Bloodfall, but it didn't matter. That place had given him everything it could.

It was time to move on.

Dark let his gaze move around the crowd, enjoying the moment of silence. He tipped his hat and, without looking back, left the arena.