DavidP on BudgetPixel

**The Cyber-Dreg Files: Chapter 9 — The Aqua-Crypt Bout** - Underground Fight Club - 53/82, 1480 ELO, 107 matchups, 48W 50L --- The hum of Mina’s vibro-daggers died first, replaced by the heavy, rhythmic sloshing of water as her body hit the surface. Kael stood panting, his chest heaving violently against the rubber seal of his tactical mask. The air inside the filter tasted hot and metallic, but he didn't dare pull it off. Not here. Not with the toxic green algae blooming around his thighs, disturbed by the violence of the match and bleeding a faint, radioactive stench into the damp air. Across the flooded arena, Val lay slumped against the slime-slick concrete wall. Her heavy cybernetic right arm sat dead in the water, the blue capacitors completely dark, wisps of acrid white smoke curling up from the fried hydraulic seams. She glared at him through a mask of crimson-tinted water and sweat, her synthetic eyes whirring as they tried, and failed, to recalibrate. Above them, the deafening roar of the three hundred cyber-dregs slowly fractured into a chaotic chorus of collecting debts and thrown synth-credits. The flickering amber floodlight overhead buzzed aggressively, casting long, fractured shadows of the leaving crowd across the blood-streaked water. Kael didn’t stay to celebrate. In the Underbelly, a winner was just a target with more money in their pocket. He waded through the heavy current toward the exit tunnel, each step heavy with the weight of the rust-water dragging at his boots. --- 1 submittd entry 2 an alternative