I--- Ararza Vol 29 Young Female Fighter 314 Official

I wiped the blood from my eyes and looked up at the viewing pods. Somewhere behind that one-way glass, the Oligarch was deciding my fate. Would I be promoted to Vol 30? Scrapped for parts? Or sold to a mining colony as a broken toy?

The explosion was small but surgical. 892’s core vented plasma in a single, directed burst that melted through its own spine. It went limp. I rode the corpse down when gravity switched off entirely, floating in the sudden zero-G, surrounded by the silent, stunned crowd. i--- Ararza Vol 29 Young Female Fighter 314

The designation was "i--- Ararza Vol 29 Young Female Fighter 314." The stutter in the identifier wasn't a glitch; it was a scar. It meant I had almost been decommissioned twice. I wiped the blood from my eyes and

I kicked off a floating chunk of debris, drew the ion dagger hidden in my thigh sheath (not regulation, but Vol 29 didn't follow rules—we followed survival), and let my bleeding eyes do the math. 892’s reactor casing had a hairline fracture from a previous bout. The Oligarch's maintenance was sloppy for Warforms they considered unbeatable. Scrapped for parts

And survivors don't stay in cages forever.

I had three minutes of survival data on 892. It was arrogant. It led with its upper-left arm every time. It overheated after thirty seconds of sustained output. And it had never fought someone who bled from her eyes when she calculated trajectories.