The stone square looked a lot bigger when you were the one walking toward the middle of it.
Jake shuffled forward like he was walking to his own execution, feet heavy against the worn stone, hands shaking in little stutters he was trying very hard to pretend weren't happening. The lights were bright, hot, and unforgiving, bearing down on the simple, brutal arena—nothing but a flat slab of stone, surrounded on all sides by high walls and roaring faces.
"Go on," Swift murmured behind him, giving him a gentle shove between the shoulders.
Jake dug his heels in. "No. Nope. I decline. I officially decline. I choose life."
"You can't decline," Swift said, voice soft but powerless. "They called your name."
"They can un-call it!" Jake cried. "They can call someone else! They can call Bumble twice and let him fight himself!"
Shadeclaw snorted from where he leaned near the edge. "You've survived worse."
Jake spun around, eyes wide. "WHEN?!"
Shadeclaw clicked his claws together thoughtfully. "…I'm sure it happened."
"That does not help!" Jake squeaked.
"Jake," Danny called from the sidelines, voice calm, steady. "You've got this."
Jake stared at him like he had just suggested Jake jump into a black hole. "No, no I absolutely do not 'have this.' I have never 'had this' in my entire life!"
A chime rang through the arena before anyone could say anything else.
"COMBATANTS," the system voice boomed, "ENTER THE ARENA."
The gate on the opposite side hissed open.
Bumble trundled out.
He did not look like a killing machine. He looked like a squat, dented construction unit wearing a permanent expression of delighted confusion. His little optics blinked unsteadily, flickering between bright blue and occasional miscolored flashes. One of his segments still bore scorch marks from earlier chaos. He rolled onto the stone with a happy whir.
"HELLO, FRIENDS!" Bumble announced to the entire arena. "BUMBLE HAS BEEN PROMOTED TO FIGHTER STATUS! BUMBLE IS HONORED!"
The crowd cheered.
Jake stared in raw disbelief. "They're cheering him. They're legitimately cheering him."
Swaths of the audience chanted, "BUM-BLE! BUM-BLE! BUM-BLE!" Others shouted, "JAKE! JAKE! JAKE!" The noise swirled into a hurricane of energy that pressed down on him.
Jimmy's voice roared from above, riding the wave. "AND HERE WE GO—OUR FIRST MATCH OF THE FINAL SIXTEEN! ON ONE SIDE, THE NEVER-DIES-BUT-ALWAYS-SCREAMS BRONZE DRAGON BOY—JAAAAKE! AND ON THE OTHER—THE UNSINKABLE, UNBREAKABLE, UNINTENTIONALLY-VIOLENT CONSTRUCTION LEGEND—BUMBLE!!"
Julian's voice followed, smooth and dry. "Bumble currently sits at twenty-five to one odds. Jake is a forty to one longshot. Personally, I recommend emotional, rather than financial, investment."
"I recommend putting everything on chaos!" Jimmy yelled. "AND THIS IS THE PUREST CHAOS I'VE EVER SEEN!"
Jake's entire body vibrated. "They gave me worse odds than the robot."
Swift patted his shoulder. "You'll prove them wrong."
"I am not comforted," Jake hissed.
The arena chime rang again.
"FIGHTERS. TO THE CENTER."
There was nothing else to say.
Jake swallowed hard, turned around, and walked out onto the stone.
Each step felt like a drumbeat. The square floor was scuffed from past clashes, stained in places where previous fighters had bled. The walls swallowed every sound and threw it back magnified. The sky overhead glowed with the bright artificial lights of the arena, too bright to look at.
Bumble rolled to meet him halfway, servos whirring. His optics settled on Jake with a soft little flicker.
"JAKE!" he chirped. "BUMBLE IS HAPPY TO SEE YOU!"
Jake pointed at him with shaking fingers. "Don't you 'happy to see you' me! You almost got me killed twelve times already! We're not supposed to fight! We're supposed to— I don't know—watch other people fight and not die!"
"TOURNAMENT SYSTEM HAS PROMOTED BUMBLE TO FIGHTER ROLE," Bumble informed him. "BUMBLE MUST HONOR DUTY. ALSO—BUMBLE IS VERY EXCITED."
Jake swallowed. "I'm gonna get folded by a builder bot in front of everyone…"
The arena voice cut through the chaos.
"JAKE. BUMBLE. BEGIN."
Silence crashed over the square.
Bumble slowly raised one stubby arm, a tiny electrical arc crackling at the end of the module.
He pulsed with static.
"Bumble…" he said solemnly, if a little glitchy. "ACTIVATES… FRIENDSHIP MODE!"
Jake blinked. "Wait, what—"
A grappling hook shot from Bumble's arm and smacked Jake in the forehead.
Jake's shriek was almost inhuman as he was yanked off his feet and flung toward Bumble like a hooked fish. He collided with the bot's steel body with a hollow clang that made everyone in the front row wince.
The crowd roared.
"FRIENDSHIP MODE COMPLETE!" Bumble announced. "HUGGING NOW!"
He grabbed Jake around the waist.
Somewhere deep inside Bumble's corrupted code:
HUG MODE = SUPLEX MODE.
Bumble tilted backward with surprising speed and power, heaving Jake overhead and slamming him into the stone floor with brutal, albeit affectionate, force.
The impact cracked the ground.
Jake bounced.
Jimmy screamed with him. "OH HE GOT PIIIIILEDROVEN—THAT WAS A DEEP EMOTIONAL HUG STRAIGHT INTO THE BEDROCK!"
Julian added, "Bumble appears to associate physical concussion with affection."
Jake lay there wheezing for a second, stars exploding behind his eyes.
"Ow," he whispered. "My everything…"
Bumble leaned over him, optical display flickering. "ARE YOU OKAY, FRIEND?"
Jake groaned. "I'm…I'm alive, somehow… but I hate this, Bumble. I hate this so much."
Bumble attempted to pat him on the shoulder. His hand slipped. He patted Jake's face instead. Hard.
"OW— OKAY, ENOUGH—" Jake rolled away, scrambling to his knees. "I have to fight back. I have to fight back. I can't believe those words are coming out of my mouth."
He pushed himself up, hands shaking, and something in his chest thrummed.
It was fear. Yes. But underneath the fear, there was something else—something that had always been there, buried deep under panic. Bronze dragon instinct. The thing that had saved him, without permission, more times than he could count.
His vision sharpened. The world slowed, just a little.
He took a deep breath, feeling warmth spread under his skin, the faint shimmer of bronze aura rising like heat waves.
"I can do this," he muttered. "I can do this. I can probably do this. Maybe."
Bumble tilted his head. "JAKE HAS ENTERED BRAVERY MODE! BUMBLE IS PROUD."
"Stop narrating my character development!" Jake snapped.
He lunged forward before he could talk himself out of it, barreling toward Bumble with a clumsy but committed right hook. For the first time that day, he put real weight behind a punch, letting the bronze energy flow through his muscles instead of fighting against it.
His fist connected with Bumble's chestplate.
The metal dented.
The impact jolted up his arm, but his bones didn't snap. His knuckles stung, but they didn't break. The crowd gasped collectively.
Jake froze.
"I… I did damage?"
"You did damage!" Jimmy shrieked. "HE DID DAMAGE! THE BOY HAS ENTERED A NEW ERA!"
Julian sounded almost impressed. "Jake has successfully performed a punch without self-injury. Notable."
Bumble looked down at the dent.
He sounded delighted.
"STRUCTURAL DAMAGE DETECTED. FRIEND HAS PROGRESSED! INITIATING REPAIR BEAM."
A welding laser popped out of Bumble's shoulder.
Jake screamed and ducked as the beam cut a glowing line through the air where his head had just been.
"You call THAT a 'repair beam'?!" he shouted, scrambling backward so fast he nearly fell again. "That's not repairing me! That's uninstalling me!"
Bumble rotated, trying to keep the laser steady. "BUMBLE IS HELPING!"
"NO YOU'RE NOT!"
What followed could only be described as weaponized slapstick.
Jake tried to climb up Bumble's chassis to disable the laser. Bumble interpreted that as a new game and spun rapidly to "shake him off," which turned Jake into a horizontal blur of screaming bronze dragon. The more Jake clung on, the faster Bumble spun.
"THIS IS NOT HELPING!" Jake yelled, somewhere in the centrifuge.
From the stands, someone shouted, "I LOVE THIS TOURNAMENT!"
Bumble abruptly stopped. Jake rocketed off, sailed halfway across the arena, and skidded along the stone in a flailing mess of limbs and despair.
He lay there, coughing dust. "Ow. My soul."
"JAKE!" Bumble called cheerfully. "ROUND TWO?"
"I hate— everything," Jake whispered into the floor.
He pushed up again, every muscle protesting. His aura flickered, then steadied. The bronze shimmer around his limbs was brighter now—a reactive shield against pain. He'd never sustained that much damage in such a short time and kept moving, but his dragon blood refused to let his body quit.
Up in the booth, Julian murmured, "He's adapting. That's actual combat learning."
Jimmy was practically banging his head against the mic. "HE'S DOING IT! HE'S BECOMING A REAL DRAGON!"
On the opposite side, Bumble's optics began to flicker more erratically. Sparks spat from the new dent on his chest. A quiet, intermittent buzzing sound came from behind his plating.
"Bumble?" Jake said warily. "Buddy… buddy, you okay?"
Bumble's voice glitched.
"BUMBLE… IS… FINE… FINE… FRIEND-FIGHT-BUILD-DESTROY- HUG—"
His left arm snapped through four different attachments in rapid succession: a wrench, a mini-buzzsaw, a tiny ineffectual flamethrower, and a tube that suddenly sprayed wet cement across the stone.
Jake yelped as a glob hit his foot. "OH COME ON—WHY DO YOU EVEN HAVE THAT?!"
"CONSTRUCTION KIT EQUIPPED," Bumble chirped cheerfully, even as his voice pitched higher. "BUMBLE BUILDS… AND BREAKS…"
He stomped forward, leaving a trail of cement splatters behind him. A glitter cannon popped out of his shoulder, firing a burst of shimmering particles directly into Jake's face.
Jake staggered. "MY EYES! WHY IS IT GLITTER?!"
The crowd roared with laughter.
Swift pinched the bridge of his nose. "This is painful to watch."
Danny smiled faintly. "He's hanging in there."
"He's being bullied by a defective construction unit," Shadeclaw muttered. "But also… yes."
Jake scrubbed glitter from his lashes, still coughing cement dust. His heart pounded, panic and adrenaline swirling into something else. His mind—usually scattered under pressure—suddenly felt… sharp. Focused.
He had seen enough of Bumble's patterns to recognize them now. Every time Bumble switched modes, there was a half-second delay. Every time Bumble tried to hug, he leaned a little too far to one side. Every time the welding laser came out, his legs locked to anchor him.
Jake inhaled. Exhaled.
"Okay," he muttered. "Okay. Bronze dragon. Instinct. Let's pretend I know what I'm doing."
He ran straight at Bumble.
For once, it wasn't just blind panic.
Bumble whirled, delighted. "JAKE IS CHARGING! THIS IS EXCITING!"
The welding laser flicked on again.
Jake slid low under the beam, using his tail as a pivot, sweeping it in a wide arc to hook Bumble's left track.
Bumble's propulsion caught the sweep; his treads lifted. He tipped like an overturned toolbox.
"WHOOPS," Bumble said as he toppled.
Jake sprang up, bronze aura flaring, and drove his knee into Bumble's side as hard as he could, letting the draconic energy flood through the strike.
Metal crumpled.
The sound rang out across the arena, sharp as a gong.
The crowd erupted.
Swift's jaw dropped. "Whoa."
Jade howled, "THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKIN' ABOUT!"
Up in the booth, Julian spoke over the roar. "Jake's attacks are finally synchronizing with his draconic physiology. Less flailing, more force. Fascinating."
Jimmy screamed, "HE'S LEVELING UP IN REAL TIME!"
Jake stumbled back after the strike, chest heaving, sweat pouring down his face. He was exhausted, but—for the first time in any fight—he felt like he had actually done something on purpose.
Bumble lay on his side, smoke curling from the cracked plating.
"Bumble?" Jake asked, heart dropping. "Bumble, hey… you okay?"
Bumble's optics flickered wildly.
"DAMAGE… ACCEPTABLE… FRIEND… VERY STRONG NOW… BUMBLE IS… PROUD…"
His voice glitched. His optics flickered red, then blue, then back.
"Uh-oh," Jake breathed. "That doesn't sound good."
Sparks erupted from the dented area in rapid pops. Systems whined. Bumble seized, limbs twitching asynchronously as multiple subroutines tried to fire at once.
"HUG MODE," he said. "BUILD MODE. FIGHT MODE. SHUTDOWN MODE. ALL… ACTIVE…"
"That's bad. That's so bad," Jake blurted. "Turn some of them off! Turn any of them off!"
Bumble lurched onto one arm, half-pushing himself up. His free hand spasmed between a clamp, a drill bit, and a confetti launcher.
"FRIEND…" Bumble said, voice softening. "BUMBLE… IS HAPPY TO HAVE FOUGHT YOU…"
Jake's throat went tight. "Don't say it like that! You sound like a guy in a flashback! Don't do that!"
Bumble's core lights flared bright white for a moment.
Every human in the front row flinched, expecting an explosion.
Jake threw his arms over his head. "NO NO NO NO—"
But Bumble didn't explode.
He just… slumped.
His limbs went limp. His optics dimmed to a low, warm glow. Smoke curled in a thin, lazy trail from his cracked side as his internal systems finally overloaded and initiated emergency shutdown.
"BUMBLE…" he murmured, voice descending into a slowing static hum. "NEEDS… NAP…"
His optics winked out.
Silence dropped over the square.
For a heartbeat, Jake just stood there, panting, staring at his fallen friend.
The arena chime rang.
"WINNER: JAKE."
Jimmy exploded. "HE DID IT! THE CHAOS GOBLIN BRONZE DRAGON BOY DID IT! JAKE TAKES THE FIRST WIN OF THE FINAL SIXTEEN!"
The crowd went wild. Even those who had bet against him cheered, swept up in the absurdity and raw heart of the fight.
Jake's legs gave out.
He dropped to his knees beside Bumble, hands braced on the cracked metal.
"I…" he wheezed, brain still trying to catch up. "I… won? I'm alive. I actually… won."
Swift let out a breath he didn't remember holding. Danny clapped once, a small sound but full of pride. Shadeclaw nodded once in approval, which, from him, was practically a standing ovation.
On the other side of the arena, Wolf King snorted. "The boy might survive this tournament after all."
Wolf Queen rolled her shoulders with a faint smirk. "If he doesn't trip into his own death first."
Up in the booth, Julian confirmed, "Bumble is not destroyed. His core is intact. This appears to be a full short-circuit shutdown. He can be repaired."
Jimmy sniffled. "You mean… my favorite chaos robot isn't dead?"
"At the moment," Julian said, "yes."
Jake sagged forward, forehead resting against Bumble's chassis. "Don't… ever do that again," he muttered, voice shaking. "Do you hear me, you unhinged toolbox? Don't make me fight you like that again…"
A faint, soft beep answered him from somewhere inside the bot.
Jake froze.
He smiled.
"Yeah," he whispered. "Okay. I'll take that."
Medibots rolled out onto the stone, beginning to prep Bumble for emergency retrieval. A pair of techs in B.U.D.D.I.E.S jumpsuits hurried across the arena, already arguing about which fuses they'd need to replace.
Jake pushed himself to his feet on unsteady legs.
The crowd kept cheering.
He hadn't been graceful. He hadn't been composed. He hadn't looked like Danny or Swift or any of the truly legendary fighters here.
But he had stood up.
He had hit back.
He had survived.
As he limped toward the edge of the arena, passing the high stone line where the others waited, Swift caught him in a hug that was mercifully gentler than Bumble's.
"You did it," Swift said, voice warm.
Jake laughed weakly, still shaking. "I think… I think I almost died like twelve times."
"You almost always die twelve times," Swift said. "That's your thing."
Danny rested a hand on Jake's shoulder. "You fought really well."
"You're lying," Jake said, but it came out almost like a laugh.
"I'm not," Danny replied.
Jake's cheeks flushed faint bronze.
Behind them, the scoreboard shifted, numbers updating.
Sixteen fighters had entered the 1v1 bracket.
Now there were fifteen.
Fighters remaining: 15.