Location: The Gullies, Maatari
Time: 07:10 PM
NEW MESSAGE INCOMING…
FROM: Spots Ren
MESSAGE: "wire's heating. tonight's bracket got syndie money riding. keep your se'lo clean and your chain tighter than your temper."
[> KHAZ: "i don't audition."]
[> SPOTS: "then call it a live résumé. doors in twenty. come mean."]
[> KHAZ: "on my way."]
The screen dimmed to black. Khaz tucked the halosync into his jacket and stepped into the night.
The Gullies vibrated with noise. Vendors shouting pulsefruit specials, freighters rumbling over cracked rails, NullTone billboards flickering static light across the rooftops. The air buzzed with heat, spice smoke, and the faint ozone tang of GridLeech towers rerouting power.
He doesn't go straight to the Live Wire.
He preps.
Because Khaz never enters a bracket cold.
He stops by a shuttered corner stall beneath a broken GridLeech tower, where a lone vendor sells late-cycle essentials. Neon letters flicker over a cracked sign: Placebo Foods — because hope's an ingredient too.
The vendor barely looks up. "Rough night, Ghost?"
Khaz drops a few folded Musa notes on the counter. "Boot Sugar. Two sticks."
The man slides a small foil pack across the counter, two thin crystalline rods tinted pale green. Synthetic energy in edible form. Cheap, illegal in circuits, worshiped in Rustline.
Khaz bites one clean in half. The taste hits like static and citrus. Within seconds, his pulse steadies; the hum of his chain aligns to it.
He slips the second stick into his jacket pocket, then moves into a narrow alley where light barely reaches. He kneels, resting his hands on the cracked concrete, eyes closing.
The air stills.
A faint circle of indigo glyphlight blooms around him — quiet, pulsing in sync with his breathing.
Oru'mi.
The practice wasn't for calm, it was for control.
His Se'lo threads glow faintly beneath his skin, tracing the map of his body.
He counts every pulse.
Every breath. Every fracture he's learned to mask.
Wind hums through rusted vents above. The sound becomes rhythm.
He exhales slowly, opens his eyes. The glow fades, but the pulse remains.
"Ready."
He stands, adjusts his jacket, and steps back into the flickering light of the city. His direction fixed, and mind steady, the path to Rustline feels inevitable.
He moved through the streets like part of its current.
Slow, unbothered, cutting through the chaos as though the world had learned to orbit his calm.
Location: Rustline District, Maatari — The Live Wire
Time: 07:59 PM
The Live Wire was already boiling over. The freight pit glowed from below with rows of glyph-etched panels casting pulsing light through steam and smoke.
Banners for Khe'zaar Brew and Placebo Foods flickered above betting stalls. Street runners shouted odds into digital slates.
Khaz stepped through the front arch. The energy shifted; whispers moved through the crowd like a low tide.
"That's him."
"The ghost from the Gullies."
"Did you see what he did to Kurg last run?"
"No one doesn't bleed."
At the far end of the hall, Spots stood on a loading crate, headset crooked, mouth full of fried cevi-root strips. He caught sight of Khaz and waved with an over-the-top flourish.
"You're late," he called over the noise. "And I swear if you driftlined again—"
Khaz cut through the crowd and stopped at the edge of the pit. "I'm here."
Spots grinned. "Good. Keep that same pulse when the lights hit. Big house tonight! The bracket's Syndie-backed. Word is, the scouts are upstairs behind the tinted glass." He pointed to the mezzanine. "You impress them, your name leaves the Wire."
"I didn't come for names," Khaz said.
Spots snorted. "You came for Musa. Same thing."
➤ LIVE WIRE BRACKET — BEAST ROUND (QUALIFIER I)
Sage: Bront Kurg
Talu Alignment: Core Plexus
Se'lo Archetype: Ironclad
Beast(s): Basher Maul
Type: Molten Hulk Prosimian
The Glyph Field lit beneath their boots, veins of orange and gold running like molten circuitry.
Bront Kurg was already in motion. A mountain of a man with muscle and scars, his arms wrapped in metallic pulsebands. He stomped once and the arena trembled, glyph runes flaring to life around him.
His Basher Maul roared up beside him, a hulking ape-like creature of stone and molten Se'lo lines burning through its torso.
Khaz rolled his shoulders. His chain glowed faintly indigo beneath his collar, pulse syncing to his breath.
The bell struck.
Bront lunged, swinging wide. The Basher Maul mirrored him, its fists striking down with seismic weight. The floor splintered and Craterline glyphs began rippling outward in expanding circles.
Khaz stepped into the first wave, boots gliding through dust.
The second wave hit.
He pivoted, ducked low, and brought the Hunterfly up in a tight parry. The collision sent a spark of light through the field.
The third wave caught him.
It wasn't a direct hit, but close enough. Shock tore through his shoulder, spinning him half a step off balance. Pain radiated sharp and hot. It was his first real hit of the night.
The crowd roared.
Bront laughed. "Didn't expect you to still be standing!"
Khaz's response was the faintest curl of breath through his nose.
Tre'co surged from his shadow, triple heads erupting in white-violet flame. The beast moved before the crowd could even blink, meeting the Maul with enough force to send both creatures sliding across the floor.
Bront threw another glyph, "Impact Burst!". The craterline symbols igniting once more, sent shockwaves driving upward.
Khaz's eyes followed the pulse pattern, watching how the glow built in rhythm.
One, two, release. The delay wasn't long, but it was consistent.
On the next burst, he baited it—stepping forward just early enough for Bront to commit.
The ground split.
Khaz pivoted hard left, sliding into the blind spot, and drove the Hunterfly straight through the afterglow of Bront's glyph field.
A cascade of sparks burst out, glyph feedback snapping across Bront's Se'lo threads. The Maul froze mid-swing.
Khaz whispered, "Phase Lock."
[Counter Glyph: Temporal Bind – Short Cycle]
The Maul's glow dimmed, trapped in temporal stillness. Tre'co struck at that instant, his central head crushing through the Maul's chest, the others dragging spectral flame through its torso.
The field folded inward with a soft implosion.
The beast shattered, its body breaking into ash and light.
Bront stumbled forward, aura flickering, Se'lo flow cut short. His eyes widened as the silence closed in.
Khaz stepped past him, chain dimming, Hunterfly folding back with a click.
The bell rang.
The crowd was a storm.
Fans pressed to the rail, shouting, hands full of Musa slips. Heat shimmered in waves from the pit floor.
Khaz sat on a crate near the prep gate, head low, shoulder tense where the earlier shock still throbbed. Tre'co's hum lingered faint beneath his chain.
Steady, watchful.
Spots jogged over, sweat streaking his temple. "Hell of a hit you took down there."
Khaz didn't look up. "Still standing."
Spots grinned, crouching beside him. "Yeah, but they saw it. They know you can bleed now. That makes you real and dangerous." He tapped the rail twice. "Next one's different. Centertide flow dancer named Velari Jinn. Pretty. Quick. And meaner than she looks. Don't chase her—break her timing."
Khaz rose, rolling his bad shoulder until the muscle eased. "Understood."
Spots gave a mock salute. "Good. Keep that phantom glow burning."
The next bell started to ring.
Khaz turned toward the pit.