Javias, the Knight of Emerald, and I fought, our reddish orange Jovium-copper alloy swords trailing sparks and blue flame as they soared through air, and they were clashing with violet lightning where our Bondflicker molecular dissociation fields conflicted and expressed themselves against each other. If only one of us had the Bondflicker effect activated, that person’s active sword would sail through the other’s Keenblade just as they would cut into the metal of our Jovium-iron armor.

Javias’s armor was enameled and painted green, but the coloring was coming off in flecks to reveal the grey of the alloy beneath as I scored and sliced and punched his armor with my blade and left gauntleted fist. He, in turn, was cutting into me, drawing the barest few drops of blood from beneath my plate. My armor was far less cumbersome and engulfing than his was, Javias’s covered his entire body while my armor only covered select body parts and major hit zones and targets. It made me more vulnerable, but quicker and more flexible than he was in his suit. I darted and danced like a striking Infernal Drakon with its serpentine bite.

I thrusted and jabbed and slashed at the Knight of Emerald, making it appear like I had many arms at once. Javias bore this assault like a rock against the crashing waves of a seashore. He clashed back and blurred his weapon into my body, cutting into my armor and rattling my form. I ran my blade across his armored neck and was satisfied briefly for a moment to spy blood seeping out from that slit in his gorget neckguard.

Flashes of violet lightning and sparks spraying from cuts in our armor dominated the spectators’ vision of our fight. I wounded him again and again, leaving slow healing wounds infested with the death god’s dust of Thanatosian particles and he did his best to do so to me in equal turn.

I struck him in the shoulder, and he returned with a stab into my breastplate, projecting the coppery blade an inch into my skin and then yanking it out as I raked his side and he needed to ready his guard. Neither of us had shields, perhaps the organizers thought it would prolong the fight too long or make us too reliant on the protection of the thick shields that would do more to guard us. The shields would have a higher percentage of Jovium to make them slightly more durable than our armor and they would be denser and thicker as well.

I evaluated the Emerald Knight and compared him to Alcides. Both had had superhuman Foundations, having developed more than what could naturally be achieved with the Servus Path. Even breeding programs, which I suspected many of my fellow gladiators of the Brazen Chains ludus to have been born of but had never dared asked, couldn’t make Servi like Alcides and Javias. No, this was the work of genelabs. Laboratories that added dna from superior sources like the Militares, Venators, Imperators, Deliri, and Campeadors as well as entirely synthetic sources created solely by Faber and Magister scientists. Alcides had had Campeador and possible Delirus dna, I imagined, and Javias…

The Knight of Emerald likely had Militaris dna spliced into the genecode swimming in the ichor of his blood. The genetic material of those that followed the Path of the Soldier in the name of the Warcaller. In the name of… Ares. Roma’s Mars. Etrusk’s Laran. The Avenger. The Dog of War. Did Javias feel the Warcaller’s voice in his bones and blood and brain in the same all Servi felt the Harvestmother’s singing in our ears when we slept? The mother of the grain’s soothing voice that wiped away the day’s toil.

He fought like how I imagined a Militaris of the Militares would. Not with the thundering blows of a Champion or deft slices of a Hunter or the majesty of an Emperor, but with the slow pounding of the common soldier. Like footfalls in a daylong march. Up and down and side to side came his blade and I danced within and without of its reach. Just narrowly avoiding its sting.

We clanged our blades together and violet lightning danced up the lengths, surging. I punched him in the face and felt his face barely move before he returned my gesture by smashing me in the face as well. I didn’t let the shock of the blow get to me and instead rode out the motion and moved quicker in my dodging of his next blow.

I focused again on the difference between his hefty armor and my lighter, more agile suit of plate. It was almost unfair, but in what direction and in which fighter’s favor it was, I couldn’t tell. His protection and durability versus my brazen speed and lightning dexterity.

The Knight of Emerald was favoring slower, rhythmic blows while I was more spontaneous. For every five hits I struck against his form, he hit me twice. I needed to diverge from this pattern. I created an alternate pattern to lead him along, one of feinting strikes and subtle movements and then brashly launched forward to score the metal along his eyes, cutting it so that it obscured and twisted his vision.

I decided I was going to tire Javias out and frustrate him. I started by ceasing attacking for a moment and focusing on dodging just barely by small increments and then making minor attacks to irritate the Knight. I slapped Javias in the helmet, rattling him, and then hopped backwards. Javias charged and I turned and ran to the retaining wall that ran in a ring around the entire field of battle dividing us from the crowd. I started running on it with my Copper Imperator’s speed and the Knight of Emerald followed up onto the wall, the two of us defying gravity with the speed of our footsteps as we ran sideways. We ran around the wall ten times and then I jumped back off onto the sand and raced for the middle, Javias following. I stopped at the middle, still turned away from the Knight of Emerald and used my Imperator’s instincts.

At the last moment before he seized my life in his hands, I hopped to the left and then hopped backwards a short distance, letting the Knight of Emerald run forward with the weight and inertia of his frame and armor plate. He juddered to a stop, scarlet sand spraying up from his armored boots as friction slowed his pace. I ran forward and stabbed Javias in the back and through the spine. The Knight’s legs went out from his spinal cord being severed and he toppled over. I yanked my blade out and he turned, his legs useless by his top half still mobile, and caught my left hand with his hand. He squeezed with the fury and frantic panic of a man about to die and broke every bone in my left hand and crushed my gauntlet.

I hammered my blade down and cut off his head, fire following the speed of my blade as it arced downwards through his neck. His blood ignited in the burning touch of the Bondflicker effect and the friction of the alloyed material sheering through his supernaturally and superhumanly durable flesh.

I stood and basked in the approval of the crowd. I felt an electric tingling under my skin. My eyes widened.

“No, not now.” I begged.

The crowd grew louder and the howling beast inside continued to be fed on the sound of their worship. It raked my veins and beat my heart like a drum. It built and built.

“No.” I said, sagging. Breathing heavily. Trembling.

I smelled ozone, the scent of electricity and celestial lightning in the air.

“No!” The advancement did not obey my will, only its own natural path of regeneration and alteration. I felt my shattered, bone fragment lacerated left hand repair itself in an instant, felt the tingling sensation of my flesh drawing together to seal wounds and broken capillaries drawn together to heal bruises that stamped my alabaster marble-like skin. Thanatosian particles were burnt to ash and then annihilation.

I heard the impossibly beautiful singing of the Muses. I grit my teeth.

My fingernails glowed white under my gauntlets as did my teeth under my helm. I closed my eyes.

The scent of ozone increased. The electric high built itself within me, an involuntary smile forced itself unto my lips.

Incandescent, fiery tattoos emblazoned themselves on my flesh.

My blood burned like a star’s fire.

And finally, lightning danced and sparked around my form. It lashed out and struck the ground. I breathed intensely. Some people compared the drug Shine to advancement in Rank, but I found that impossibly false. There was a truth and a purity and a potency to advancement lightning that no recreational drug could recreate or match.

I had never heard seventy thousand people dead silent. I knew what they were stunned by. They thought I was a Golden Servus at the peak of advancement on the Path of the Slave. I could advance no further. The obvious next jump was that I was still a Silver Servus but it was impossible that I could have kept up with the warriors and Infernal Beasts that I had in my journey as a gladiator of the Brazen Chains ludus. I could be a Militaris or a Venator but I would either be too weak if I was Copper and too strong to struggle if I was a Bronze Militaris or Bronze Venator. They had no idea what I was. I didn’t fit into the combat tiering of what they knew about the Paths. Or rather, I did, but the audacity of my choices blinded them from choosing it.

I turned and looked to where Gaias was supposed to be sitting. My Imperator’s eyes focusing in on him. He shrugged.

Jig’s up. My ludus’s owner mouthed at me.

I took off my gauntlets and then my helmet. I looked at the projection screens and saw Servus brown pupilless eyes sheathed in sclera of Bronze. I could feel the sheer confusion of the crowd build and build. How could a Bronze Servus do such things? I decided to bite the bullet and with a sigh, took out my brown contacts to reveal the violet underneath.