The arena reset.
Fight 7.
Drake of Virex against Ordin of Solmara.
The Virex sections gave Drake their aggressive territorial response—the sound they had been producing for their fighters all tournament. The Solmara sections gave Ordin their focused disciplined acknowledgment. The neutral sections organized themselves around the attention this matchup deserved—the seventh fight of Class 2, the bracket nearing its first-round conclusion, the crowd's investment in the stage itself climbing as the number of remaining fights shrank.
Drake walked out of the Virex tunnel.
He moved with a restless energy—not still for a moment, his weight shifting constantly, the specific quality of someone whose ability rewarded motion and who had built a fighting identity around never being stationary. As he crossed the floor small wisps of flame curled up from where his feet touched the stone—faint, controlled, the fire trail beginning before the fight had officially started.
