Steel Doesn’t Blink
BlackSand Warrior Gauntlet
The doors opened with a dry groan, and Justice Hacker of the Dawn stepped into the sunlight.
The noise hit him first. A wall of crowd-roar rolling over the stands like surf on cliffs, but he didn’t flinch. He never did.
His eyes, one fogged with a faded burst vessel, scanned the arena perimeter. The layout was the same as the last bloodbath. He logged it with practiced disinterest.
The chainsaw hummed in his hand like a sleeping animal. Blue-toothed. Serrated. Heavier than sin. It didn’t purr. It brooded. Like him.
His breath stayed steady beneath the weight of his Skylord plate armor. It pressed on his chest like memory. He didn’t feel the heat. The armor had been forged to endure flame. He had been forged to endure worse.
The sand of the BlackSand Arena always smelled the same. Like hot iron and salted meat. He hated that it reminded him of the alley where his mother died.
He didn’t blink.
He reached the center of the ring. The chainsaw pulsed once in his grip. Still sleeping. Still hungry.
Across from him, the other gate began to grind open.
Verus’s voice echoed through the dust, cold and thunderous: “EDGE. ERADICATOR OF MUSCLE MOUNTAIN.”
Justice didn’t turn his head. He didn’t need to. The weight of the opponent said enough. He could already feel the vibration in the sand. Fast, heavy, precise.
The crowd howled. Names. Bets. Laughter. It all blurred together.
No one alive had ever heard Justice speak. Not after that night. Not after the screaming stopped.
He raised his chainsaw slowly and pulled once on the cord. It roared to life like a beast climbing from its pit. Blue smoke drifted upward.
He felt it in his forearms. In his teeth.
He did not pose. He did not salute.
But he turned his eyes to the top row of the stands, where a small child leaned over the rail. Wide-eyed. Filthy. Alone.
She looked exactly the way he had, once.
He closed his eyes, just for a moment, and pictured her still breathing at the end of the match.
Not for glory. Not for revenge.
Just for the chance to let that kid grow up.
The chainsaw surged.
Justice advanced.
The gate lifted with a hiss of pressurized steam.
Edge, Eradicator of Muscle Mountain, stepped forward. His two-handed sword slung over one cybernetic shoulder, glowing crimson optics narrowing with simulated calculation.
“TARGET: LOCATED,” he said in a voice that sounded like gravel through steel pipes.
Justice stood across the arena, his chainsaw spitting blue flame into the air. His body still. Unreadable.
The crowd thundered like a stadium of wolves, but Edge heard none of it.
His auditory sensors filtered human noise as irrelevant data.
His boots crushed the sand beneath him. Stride steady. Posture rigid. Chrome-plated pectorals flexed beneath a torn black vest. More for intimidation than utility. He had no fear. No doubts. No crowd awareness. He wasn’t here to entertain.
He was here to execute.
Programmed to eliminate magical anomalies. Chainsaws, especially blue ones, registered as arcane-adjacent. That was enough.
“PROBABILITY OF ENCHANTMENT: 83%.” “INITIATING TERMINATION PROTOCOL.”
The blade on his back hissed free with a magnetic pop. He gripped it in both hands like a holy relic, then dropped into a low stance, calibrated for maximum cleave velocity.
His CPU logged Justice’s chainblade swings, even from this distance. Frames per second. Foot positioning. Heat signature. Calculated. Catalogued. Countermeasured.
The match hadn’t begun yet.
But Edge had already started fighting.
Somewhere in the stands, someone threw a mug into the sand. The crowd roared again.
Verus’s voice announced the countdown: “LET. THE. KILLING. BEGIN.”
Edge’s systems pinged the command. His HUD flashed green. He launched forward.
Not like a man running. Like a missile fired.
His feet barely touched the sand. The sword blurred. Too fast for a weapon that size.
Justice stood firm. The chainsaw roared.
Edge’s blade came down.
The first swing should have killed a man.
Edge’s two-handed sword tore through the air with servo-powered wrath.
But Justice stepped into it.
He turned his shoulder, catching the blow on the thickest plate of his Skylord armor. Sparks flew. The clang was deafening.
His chainsaw answered before the sound even faded.
It screamed across Edge’s midsection. Not cutting, but testing.
Edge twisted with mechanical grace and brought down his elbow like a hammer.
Justice blocked it with the flat edge of his chainsaw. The vibration numbed his fingers. His jaw clenched. He didn’t cry out.
He never did.
Edge stepped back. Sensors recalibrating.
“INCOMPLETE DAMAGE PROFILE. ARMOR INTEGRITY: 92%. SHIELDING: UNKNOWN.”
The chainsaw flared again, whirring with rage.
Justice circled left. Slow. Low. A prowling machine.
Edge mirrored the movement, eerily synchronized. As if they’d fought this match a hundred times before, but never to the end.
Edge feinted high. Justice didn’t bite.
He shifted the saw into a reverse grip and lunged, aiming for Edge’s dominant wrist.
Clever. Not brute. Calculated.
The blade bit shallow, drawing sparks.
Edge retaliated with a spinning back-kick, hitting Justice square in the chest. He staggered, but held the chainsaw.
“DAMAGE REGISTERED.”
Justice didn’t speak. He breathed, once, and surged forward again.
They met in a flurry of steel and chain. Sand kicked up like smoke from a forge.
Justice ducked a slash, pivoted, brought the saw up hard. Not to kill, but to maim.
Edge took the cut along his shoulder. Armor sizzled where magic met metal.
He didn’t flinch. He slammed his forehead into Justice’s jaw.
The chin of the Skylord plate cracked.
Justice’s head snapped back. Blood filled his mouth.
First blood.
The crowd shrieked like feral dogs.
Verus said nothing. Just watched. Arms crossed. Waiting.
Edge raised his sword, high, execution-style. The glow of his optics dimmed. A blink. A hesitation.
Justice didn’t wait.
He surged forward, lifted the chainsaw beneath Edge’s ribs, and pulled the trigger.
Sparks. Steel. A spray of something too thick for oil.
Edge stumbled. Then corrected.
“CRITICAL SYSTEM DAMAGE. FUNCTIONALITY: 68%.”
He brought the sword down in a brutal arc.
Justice dove. Rolled. Came up behind.
Breathing hard now. Just a little.
He adjusted his grip.
The chainsaw howled.
Edge turned.
He advanced like a slow avalanche.
Not rushed. Not flustered. Each step carved grooves in the sand. His sword dragged behind like a plow.
His synthetic skin, stretched over alloyed muscle, was streaked with oil and grit.
Justice felt it. The vibration in his left elbow. Something had cracked. Not broken. Yet.
His breath hissed behind his helmet grill. Controlled. Contained.
Edge raised his sword. Didn’t swing.
Then spoke.
“YOU ARE BLEEDING.”
Justice didn’t answer.
He shifted the chainsaw, resting it on his shoulder.
The engine revved.
The crowd quieted. Slightly.
Edge moved first.
A sudden leap. Sword sweeping down.
But Justice was already sliding under.
The chainsaw carved upward, catching Edge’s knee.
Sparks and fluid sprayed.
Edge landed hard, dropped to one knee.
“MOBILITY REDUCED. REASSESSING.”
Justice didn’t hesitate. He went for the sword arm. The chainsaw dug deep.
Metal shrieked. Edge faltered.
But not completely.
The sword came down again, cutting a gash along Justice’s back.
He grunted.
His blood hit the sand.
Hot. Real. Mortal.
Edge turned. Slower now. One arm limp.
“STILL FUNCTIONAL.”
Justice, bleeding. Staggering. Lifted his chainsaw.
The moment tilted.
The robot was slowing. He was draining.
One had limits. The other had a deadline.
And somewhere in the stands, Jabir leaned forward. Watching not the weapons, but the wounds.
Both warriors had begun to leak.
Not oil. Not blood.
Something finer.
The chainsaw sputtered.
Then flared, high and clean.
Justice tightened his grip. Blood slid from his palm.
The handle was slick. But the blade was steady.
Edge stood crooked. Sword dragging.
One arm dead. The other trembling.
“PRIMARY OBJECTIVE…INCOMPLETE…”
Justice stepped forward.
Each step a drumbeat.
Edge raised his blade. One last swing. Clumsy.
It missed.
Justice stepped inside. Planted his foot. Twisted.
The chainsaw drove into Edge’s chest.
The scream of blade through metal was deafening.
Blue sparks erupted. Oil. Smoke.
Justice didn’t stop.
He buried the blade to the hilt.
Edge’s voice clicked. Then failed.
“OBJ...”
The rest never came.
His crimson eyes blinked twice.
Then went dark.
Justice stood still.
One hand on the dead machine’s shoulder. The other gripping the chainsaw.
The crowd paused.
Then erupted.
“JUS-TICE! JUS-TICE! JUS-TICE!”
He didn’t raise his hands. Didn’t turn.
He pulled the blade free, slowly, oil trailing from its teeth.
And walked away.
Not limping. Not shaking.
But changed.
Behind him, Edge’s body slumped.
Collapsed into dust like the idea of something strong, now hollowed out.
Verus’s voice cut through the noise: “VICTORY TO JUSTICE HACKER OF THE DAWN.”
High above, in the shadowed box, Jabir said nothing.
Not yet.
Because he’d seen it.
The moment the blade entered the heart.
And the faintest flicker of light...
Not oil.
Not fire.
Entered by: 0xB9D1…4eA5
