A thousand clicks away, tucked behind the tinted windows of a high-rise on Teppen's clean side, Albione Gunner sips lukewarm espresso and flicks a gloved finger across the drone feed.

Deadwater Row bleeds across the holo-display—gray and gutted.

Worse than he remembers. Worse than most places dare to look.

The drone sweeps low over the Coffinbox pit, its optics flickering.

Albie leans back in his chair, half-listening to the passive datafeeds droning through his earbud.

Crowd density: low. Bio-readings: erratic. Weapon traces: minimal, climbing.

Good.

The fighters trickle into view, one battered skiff at a time.

There.

He zooms in, lazy as a cat.

A lean bruiser.

A sharp-edged girl.

And a newcomer—small, stubborn-looking, shield rig slung tight across her spine.

Albie tilts his head, studying the girl.

Not corpo-slick. 

Not pit-hardened yet either.

But there's something sharp under the exhaustion.

The way she moves—tight.

Trained.

He smiles.

Raw ore, he thinks. 

Just needs the right buyer.

He taps the display, setting the drone to orbit closer over the pit.

"Let's see if you survive long enough for me to make an offer," he murmurs.

Behind him, his bodyguard—more walking muscle than secretary—pretends not to eavesdrop, flipping through a datapad.

Albie smirks to himself.

You don't always have to steal talent.

Sometimes, you just have to be the first one who bothers to look.

He pings a procurement template to his comms unit.

DRAFT CONTRACT: CONTINGENT ON SURVIVAL.

The drone dips lower over the Coffinbox, lenses humming.

Showtime.

The Coffinbox crouches low in the water—an iron carcass speared through the heart of Deadwater Row. 

Every dented panel and broken window rattles with the weight of the crowd clinging to its ribs.

The structure groans with age and rot, its cargo lifts long dead, their tracks warped into crooked ribs that jut into open air. 

Floodlights dangle from fraying cables, flickering over rust-slick catwalks and half-submerged stairwells that spiral nowhere. 

Tarps flap like flayed skin across its broken flanks.

Down the middle, the arena yawns open—a freight shaft gutted and repurposed. 

The fighting platform hangs suspended over brackish water, chained between the remaining load-bearing columns.

Some nights, the river laps at the edge. 

Some nights, it swallows it whole.

Tonight, the tide's high.

The lower deck is already slick and sloshing, water pooled ankle-deep, shining like oil beneath the lights. 

Chains creak with every shift in the crowd's weight, while tech-betting canoes weave through the wreckage below, runners shouting odds over the drumming of metal and bloodlust.

Anchor follows Banchou and Zeal across a corroded gangplank, boots thudding onto the listing deck. 

The air hits her like a throatful of iron—wet, sour, and coppery.

Above, spectators cling to scaffold walkways and half-collapsed balconies. 

Some crouch on old crane arms, legs dangling as they scream for carnage. 

Others have lashed lawn chairs to fire escapes, sipping moonshine from plastic bags like it's a backyard barbecue.

A man in a gas mask blows a horn made of pipe and bone. 

A woman with a neon mohawk swings a bat against a fuel drum in time with the crowd's stomping.

Anchor tries to keep her breathing steady.

She's seen pits before. 

The one in Oraku had its own madness. 

But this—this is a machine that runs on decay.

Not just violence. 

Spectacle.

And every eye here is hungry.

The announcer's voice squawks through a hacked PA system, dragging across the rust-clogged speakers like nails down a vent pipe:

"COFFINBOX WELCOMES THE LOST, THE BROKEN, AND THE BRAVE—"

The crowd roars.

"—AND BIDS FAREWELL TO WHATEVER'S LEFT OF 'EM AFTER."

A signal flare screams overhead, painting the tower red.

Banchou rolls her neck. 

Zeal flexes his knuckles, calm as a held breath.

Anchor shifts her grip on the rig strapped to her back. 

Her reflection swims in the blackwater below—small, distorted, and shaking slightly.

She steps forward anyway.

Because if you hesitate in the Coffinbox, you don't lose.

You sink.

The klaxon screams again, and the Coffinbox split open.

There was no bell. 

No countdown. 

Just the chaos of bodies in motion and a crowd screaming for someone to break.

Marro thunders forward, crane-arm pistoning out in a blur of metal and hissed steam. 

Anchor steps into his path without thinking—shield raised, rig braced, feet sliding on the slick deck.

CLANG.

The impact slams through her bones, but the shield held. 

Sparks spray. 

Marro reels backward—not from pain, but from surprise.

Anchor pivots hard, sweeping the edge of her shield low. 

It cracks into Tico's knee as he tried to flank her. 

He goes sprawling, arms flailing. 

A snarl of frustration bursts from his mouth.

Behind her, Zeal vaults across a rusted gap, cracking a loose cable mid-air. 

Banchou catches it mid-sprint, swings low like a whip, and drives her boot into Sanka's chest—sending the woman flying into a scaffold post.

Banchou lands with a smirk. "Next."

The crowd roars—confused, electrified. 

Anchor isn't supposed to hold her ground. 

She isn't supposed to win trades. 

But here she is, tanking hits, redirecting them with tight pivots and shield angles Banchou has burned into her muscle memory.

Marro charges again. Anchor meets him head-on. The platform groans beneath their weight.

Zeal ducks past Kel's first swing, letting the brute's momentum carry him into a steel beam. 

Sparks fly. 

Zeal darts in, elbows him twice in the ribs, and kicks off his chest to land clear.

Everything works.

For a moment, the fight belongs to them.

But nothing lasts in Deadwater.

The floor lurches—chains groaning as water surges upward through the seams. 

Someone triggers a controlled flood. 

Probably Marro. 

The bastard fights dirty and doesn't like surprises.

Anchor slips. 

Just slightly.

Tico is waiting.

His blade nicks her leg—shallow, but sharp enough to jolt her focus. 

She staggers, breaking their momentum.

Banchou sweeps in from the flank, closing distance on Sanka, eyes locked on her target.

She doesn't see it.

Marro pivots fast, piston-arm twitching as it recharges. 

His gaze locks not on Anchor—but on Banchou's blind side.

Anchor turns—too far away. 

Her shout vanishes into the crowd's roar.

Zeal is closer.

He doesn't think. 

Doesn't warn. 

Just moves.

One arm locks around Banchou's torso, yanking her off balance—backward, out of range.

She twists, about to snap at him—right as the piston slams forward.

It catches Zeal instead.

High in the thigh, brutal and unforgiving—punching straight through flesh and plated weave. 

A wet crunch echoes across the arena.

Zeal grunts. 

Staggers. 

But doesn't fall.

Anchor barely catches herself against the rail, heart pounding. 

Her eyes snap to him.

"Zeal—!"

He's already retaliating. 

Blood soaks his leg, but he surges forward and slams Marro's faceplate into the deck hard enough to dent steel.

"Stay on your mark," he mutters, voice low through clenched teeth. 

"I'm fine."

He isn't.

But Banchou doesn't see the full picture. 

She only sees the reckless dive, the collision, the blood. 

Her jaw clenches.

"Idiot. You didn't have to showboat."

He doesn't respond.

The rhythm collapses.

Kel crashes into Banchou, shoulder-checking her into a column. 

Sanka's baton snaps across Anchor's ribs, discharging another shock. 

Tico scurries overhead, skittering across scaffold lines with manic glee.

The water creeps higher. 

Up to their ankles now.

Anchor tastes blood and rust. 

Her shoulder screams. 

Zeal is limping. 

Banchou breathes hard, a cut above her brow leaking red into her eye.

But they don't fall.

Not yet.

A final klaxon cuts through the air.

"AND THAT'S TIME, YOU FREAKS—DRAW!"

The Coffinbox explodes in boos.

Someone throws a chain.

 Another hurls a boot. 

Flares pop along the balconies, casting the pit in molten orange and furious smoke.

Banchou slams her hand against the railing. "We had that."

Zeal limps toward the edge, one hand pressed hard to the ragged hole in his leg. 

"Could've done better," he mutters, smiling like it doesn't hurt. 

Like he didn't just bleed for someone who didn't notice.

Anchor stares at him—shaking, not from fear, but from adrenaline with nowhere left to go.

He catches her eye. "Hey."

She swallows. "You—why'd you—?"

He waves her off. "Happens all the time."

It doesn't.

They limp off the platform in silence.

They need medical. 

They need credits. 

They need a fourth.

But more than anything—

They need luck.