I couldn't understand why they weren't stopping the fight. 

Thiss had just admitted to wanting to essentially kill Akash, to rip his body of its individuality and add it to their growing hive mind. 

Surely that was against every rule in the book?

<Unfortunately… it's not. Akash's body would still be alive,> BB said, <Though how one of the Morde Kash managed to make their way through the Initiate selection process and into the tournament like this is yet another mystery.>

I'd never even heard of the name before, but if they were anything like the cybernetic hive minds I'd watched in TV shows and seen in video games, then if Akash let himself become infected by whatever method they used to convert others to their kind then it would be nigh impossible to get him back again. 

Every instinct inside me was burning, telling me to jump through the window, crash down into the battleground and blow Thiss away with a cavalcade of energy beams. 

But I didn't. 

I knew that Akash would never forgive me if I jumped in and saved him like that. He'd think I was insulting him, calling him weak when he was the furthest thing from weak. 

I'd just need to trust that he could handle himself in this situation. 

"And what would happen to me, if I decided to join your so-called collective," Akash called out to Thiss as they circled one another, each alien making sure to keep their distance. 

"Your biological and mental individuality will be added to our own, subsumed into the core-mind," Thiss stated, "You would become one with the Morde Kash, and the Morde Kash would become one with you." 

I shuddered at the announcement. These things could grow to be a bigger threat than the humans and the null space invaders combined if given enough time. It seemed as though, with the Guard's attention otherwise engaged, terrifying creatures like the Morde Kash had been given plenty of room to grow and develop on their own. 

"I think I'll have to pass on that," Akash said. 

Before Thiss had a chance to react, Akash engaged a move that I'd never seen him make before. 

A series of projectiles launched themselves out of his back. They were spherical with a kind of exhaust valve at one end, spewing out green smoke. The spheres careened toward the Thiss at dizzying speeds. 

They were able to dodge the first, the sphere exploded against a wall so massively that it shook the entire stadium. But the second, third and fourth spheres all managed to find their mark. Thiss was bounced between them like a pinball, before the last explosion knocked the cyborg down to the ground. 

Unfortunately, it didn't seem as if the explosions had really done much to Thiss. They were up again in an instant, and had retaliated with an attack of their own. 

A thick stream of insect-like creatures erupted out of Thiss's hands and flew toward Akash. That had to be it. That was how they converted people to become one of their own species. Those bugs had to have been some kind of techno-plague carrier, intent on latching onto a piece of prey and turning it into a Thiss drone. 

Clearly, Akash understood the true danger of the situation. 

After a quick chant, one of Akash's vines began to glow a bright green. He whipped the vine out in front of him and started to spin it, faster and faster, until eventually, it was moving so fast that it just looked like a solid shield. 

The techno-plague insects ploughed into Akash's spinning vine and were shredded completely as they did so. Scraps of metal were scattered around the battlefield until there were no more carriers left. Akash had survived the attack. 

But the Morde Kash known as Thiss was looking to press its advantage. 

The creature leapt across the battlefield toward Akash, but the tree-like alien was ready. A vine whipped out from his back and slapped the Morde Kash out of the air with a brutality that I had never known from Akash. 

The cybernetic alien crashed into the ground hard enough to leave a spiderweb of cracks in the manna-resistant material. But Akash wasn't done there. 

Three more vines emerged from his back and began to hit the Morde Kash over and over again in rapid succession, pummelling the alien harder and harder with every blow. 

Eventually, Akash stopped. But by that point, the Morde Kash's body was nothing but a sparking wreck, with limbs bent at odd angles.

"You… Will… Join… The Morde Kash…" The broken alien screeched, its voice warbled with the sound of broken components. 

"No," Akash said, "No, I don't think I will."

A final vine thwipped out and launched the Morde Kash into the wall that was furthest away from Akash, where it lay silent in a sparking heap. 

Akash had managed to do it. He had survived the assault from the Morde Kash. 

In a flash of light, both competitors vanished from the arena. Akash was teleported to the medical bay, where he pushed away the drone that immediately tried to tend to any wounds the tree-like alien might have had before leaving the room entirely, not bothering to rejoin the rest of us in the viewing station.

Thiss the Morde Kash, however, was nowhere to be seen. They had been teleported somewhere else entirely. 

<Hey Jacob, we've just received a communication from Squadron Leader Belana. He wants you to meet him, but without anyone else realising. Pretend you're going to the toilet or something else you biologicals need to do,> BB said. 

I stood and made a show of stretching out my back until it popped in several separate locations. 

"Are you okay, Jacob Lyre?" Yr'Arl asked as I stood. 

"Ah, yeah, just need to go to the toilet," I said with a smile before making my departure. 

I had a feeling that Akash had been summoned too. No doubt the incompetent squadron leader needed us to bail him out of some sort of problem… again.