GravEdge felt different after Hakon fell. Not louder—quieter. The kind of quiet that comes after something irreversible has happened, when even the walls seem to be listening. Zay noticed it in the way conversations stopped when he entered a room, in the way fighters watched him not with hunger anymore, but calculation. Respect had weight. Fear had gravity. And both bent the air around him as he wrapped his hands and stared at his reflection in a cracked mirror, his swollen eye finally fading from red to a sickly gold. He didn't smile. He didn't need to. Confidence settled in him like a loaded chamber—silent, patient, lethal.
That night, Vega called him up to the observation deck, a narrow platform overlooking the pit. The lights were low, the cage empty below, its surface scrubbed clean but still faintly stained, like memory that refused to fade. Vega leaned against the rail, arms crossed, jaw tight. "Hakon wasn't supposed to be here," she said. "Military doesn't just send legends into underground gyms for fun."
Zay shrugged, gaze fixed downward. "Maybe he missed the smell."
She exhaled through her nose. "He wasn't scouting us. He was scouting you."
That was new. Zay tilted his head slightly, the smallest tell. "Funny. I don't remember inviting the government to my highlight reel."
Vega turned to him then, eyes sharp. "That's because they already know who you are."
Later, Zay couldn't sleep. He left GravEdge without announcing it, slipping into the upper streets where the city pulsed low and mean. He walked instead of ran, letting the night breathe around him. Somewhere between a dead transit hub and a row of shuttered storefronts, he felt it—that sensation again. Being watched. Not hunted. Studied.
"You really don't know, do you?" a voice said from the dark.
The same man from The Molten Lung stepped forward, coat hanging loose, eyes calm. He looked less like a drunk tonight and more like a ghost with purpose.
Zay didn't turn. "You following me now?"
The man chuckled. "No. I've been waiting."
"For what?"
"For you to stop running from questions."
Zay finally faced him. "You got about ten seconds."
The man nodded, like he expected nothing less. "Your coach—Vic. Steel Saint. He didn't run. He was removed."
The words didn't land all at once. They sank in slowly, heavy and cold.
"Removed how," Zay said, voice flat.
"Same way orphan files disappear. Same way promising assets get redirected." The man stepped closer, lowering his voice. "Steel Saint wasn't just a gym. It was a filter."
Zay's jaw tightened. "You're saying my whole life was a setup?"
"I'm saying you weren't supposed to survive long enough to ask."
They walked together after that, an unspoken agreement forming in the space between them. The man finally gave a name—Elias—and little else. He spoke in fragments, half-truths wrapped in implication. About underground circuits monitored by military analytics. About champions groomed, tracked, and discarded once they outlived usefulness. About Hakon not coming to win, but to confirm.
"They wanted to see if you broke," Elias said. "You didn't."
Zay stopped under a flickering streetlamp. "So what am I to them now?"
Elias met his eyes. "A liability."
The word didn't scare him. It clarified things.
Back at GravEdge, Zay trained differently. Less rage. More patience. He studied angles, timing, breath. He watched his sparring partners like puzzles instead of prey. When Lena asked him why he was holding back, he just smiled and said, "I'm saving it." Silas swore Zay was getting slower. Vega knew better. He was getting quieter.
One night, a sealed data chip appeared on Zay's makeshift locker. No name. No markings. Just a faint military checksum pulsing blue. Vega watched him pick it up, her face unreadable.
"You open that," she said, "things change."
Zay turned the chip over in his fingers. "They already have."
Inside wasn't a threat. Or a warrant. It was a contract. An invitation to a sanctioned fight—global broadcast, massive purse, top-tier opponent. The kind of opportunity kids from the Skyvaults trained their whole lives for.
At the bottom of the file was a single line:
SUBJECT CALDERÓN – STATUS: UNCONTROLLED. OBSERVE FURTHER.
Zay laughed softly.
That night, alone in the pit, Zay shadowboxed under the dying lights. Each movement precise. Economical. Deadly. He wasn't angry anymore. He wasn't desperate. The world had finally shown its hand, and it wasn't as big as it thought.
"Observe this," he muttered to the empty cage.
Above him, unseen cameras adjusted their focus.
And somewhere deep in the machinery of power, a system recalculated—just a fraction too late.