Three months later.
The junkyard smelled of oil and rust. To the brothers, it smelled like freedom.
Keonei stood atop a mountain of twisted cars, his dreadhawk whipping in the dry wind. From here, he could see all of Wreckspire—the shattered towers, the dead factories, the roads littered with husks of machines from a time when the world still worked.
This place wasn't much. But it was theirs.
Below, Kai sat cross-legged inside a gutted truck cab, fiddling with a broken radio.
"You know," Kai called up, "I could fix this faster if you'd let me use one of your tricks."
"No." Keonei's voice was firm.
"C'mon. It's just us. No one's watching."
"I said no."
Kai groaned dramatically. "You act like I'm gonna tell the whole world."
"That's because you talk too much," Keonei teased, climbing down. He ruffled Kai's hair as he passed.
"Hey!" Kai smacked his hand away, scowling. "This is a precision instrument, not a toy."
"Sure, sure." Keonei smirked and crouched by their makeshift stove—a dented metal drum with a small fire crackling inside. Dinner tonight was the same as last night: a can of beans split two ways.
"This sucks," Kai muttered, stabbing at his portion with a bent fork. "When are we gonna eat like normal people?"
Keonei stared into the fire. "Soon."
"You always say that."
"This time I mean it."
Kai frowned. "You're thinking about leaving, aren't you?"
Keonei didn't answer.
Because he was.
⸻
Later that night, as Kai snored softly under a patched-up blanket, Keonei sat outside the truck cab, staring at the moon. His hands twitched, and bits of metal scrap floated lazily around him, orbiting his fingers like tiny satellites.
He thought about his promise. I'll get you out of here, Kai. Even if it kills me.
The money he'd stashed away wasn't enough. Not yet. But there was a way to get more.
A dangerous way.
⸻
— Heavy Metal Rises
The fight club was chaos.
Sweat and smoke choked the air. Neon lights flickered over a screaming crowd packed shoulder to shoulder. The pit was a ring of scorched steel, its floor dented from years of battles.
Keonei crouched in the shadows, hidden behind pipes. Up above, in the control booth, Kai sat at a cracked console, headset crackling in his ears.
"You ready?" Kai asked, grinning.
"As I'll ever be."
The announcer's voice boomed over the speakers:
"Ladies and scum, welcome to the Wreckspire Pits! Introducing the challenger, all the way from the scrapyards… the monster made of rust and rage… HEAVY METAL!"
The crowd roared like animals.
In the pit below, the mech lumbered forward. Ten feet tall. A patched-together monstrosity of steel plates, hydraulic arms, and glowing red eyes. Its chest was painted with jagged shark teeth. Smoke hissed from its vents as it raised its fists.
But there was no pilot inside.
There was only Keonei, hidden in the arena walls, pulling every bolt and piston with the magnetic force coursing through his veins.
Their first opponent—a sleek, scorpion-like bot bristling with blades—slammed into Heavy Metal with a deafening clang. The crowd screamed.
"Keo, watch the tail!" Kai shouted into the headset.
"I see it." Keonei focused, yanking the scorpion's tail clean off with a metallic shriek. The bot spasmed and fell still.
The crowd erupted in cheers.
From the VIP balcony, a man in a white suit watched silently, a gold tooth glinting as he smirked.
"Put a bounty on that operator's head," he murmured to his bodyguard. "I want the brat alive."
⸻
Keonei didn't know it yet. But tonight's victory had just painted a target on his brother's back.
And he would burn Wreckspire to the ground before he let them take Kai.