Fight Night [Almaz]

[Ezekiel]

Zeke enjoyed her reaction, and even in the low lights he made sure to see all of it; from the widening of her eyes to the brief sheen of emotion she bottled along with her nerves. He smiled down at her, apparently pleased to have brought her some joy. Deprived people were so easy to please, and they generally required little in the way of actual effort. Sasha was largely the same: content with scraps because their lives had been so shitty up until the point Zeke let them take shelter under his wings. Not that he was disingenuous, just self aware of his own manipulations. He considered himself somewhat expert in weighing the worth of a soul.

He let her soak it in for a moment; the charged atmosphere, the sensory overload, and the fainter roar of more distant audiences. Like a modern colosseum.

Afterwards he began to weave them through. Further in they would find the pits and cages surrounded with seats and platforms for viewing, some public and some more privately intimate. But here, all around them, bright holoscreens depicted the various odds and fighter stats. Zeke pointed up, where the combatants were enshrined like heroes.

“Do you have a particular poison? They cater to most. Who do you want to see?”