CHAPTER ONE
Gods know no equal
Forgive typos, also subject to change.
All men are not created equal.
No place made that fact more evident than the Colosseum — and no audience understood it better. In the Holy City of Britannia, Rome, Year 172 Post Catalysin, the ground vibrated with the screams of multitudes.
Those who had the money: Senators, nobles, and merchants all gathered. Laughter on their lips, the juices of fresh grapes spilled down their throats. The smell of sweet perfume and heavy wine; the roaring of guards who ordered the gladiators out of the hypogeum beneath the Colosseum. Each season, there was a new round of games, new players, and new victors. Today was no different. Criminals of all kinds and races waited patiently; many would die, and many more would be injured to the point that death would be a mercy. Occasionally a new unfortunate soul would arrive. They’d be stripped of their possessions, of their weapons, and sealed from their mana. Then they would be thrown with the other prisoners, left to fight the rest of their lives in the arena until their eventual death.
They became manaless, scum of the earth who could provide nothing more to the Empire than labour.
Naturally, if only seasoned criminals fought for their lives, the Senators would quickly grow bored, and the arbiters couldn’t have that. So 25 years ago, with the ascension of Emperor Romulus Augustulus XII, it was written into legislation that the manaless who wished to earn gold could fight freely in the Colosseum with those destined to die. In doing so, they might catch the eye of a wealthy Lord who fancied their strength, or even their beauty, allowing them to ascend the ranks and become a servant of nobility. Such a tantalising offer given to people who lived in squalor, a dying minority of the human race. An olive branch of sorts, daring those born manaless to dance and entertain those born gifted on bloodied feet until they could dance no more.
That was the olive branch Levi Balcome planned to grasp on that fateful day.
It was a momentous occasion, worth celebrating with a vivacious match. It was the day that youths who had come of age would be trialled for their mana aptitude. A day their destinies would be sealed by The Palatine Academy. Parents could not go with their children, so many came to celebrate the eventual show of genetic prowess that was their child’s inherited aptitude.
Proof of a superior bloodline, proof of Leviathan’s inferior lineage.
"You ready?"
Levi looked up from the steel sword in her hand. Jackson stood before her. Black armour clung to every hard line of him, flexible enough that when he fought, it was as though he wore nothing at all. It was a higher-grade armour, made for the civil military, sponsored by the Enver family. He stood tall, towering, a weapon’s belt at his hips holding a few empty black hilts. The sealing brand sat beneath his hairline, half-hidden beneath a tousle of messy blonde hair that fell across his forehead. No one would consider he was only a few years older, for he looked every bit the victor he was. Ever since he was old enough to join the adult fights, Jackson Hall had not lost, not once.
Lifting his hand, a smile tugged on his lips. He ruffled her hair, one she had kept cropped to her skull for ease of management. “Make sure you win; it would be a shame to see all my hard work go to waste.”
Levi felt her chest warm at his words. Jackson was handsome, terrible men—it seemed—often were.
She had known him since she was nothing. A starving child with chapped lips and hollowed eyes who had stumbled into the Colosseum with nowhere left to run and no one left to run to. She had been so thin then that the other child gladiators had laughed. Jackson hadn't. He took her under his wing. He fed her. Trained her. Turned the starving child into the woman who now held a sword without trembling.
Leader of the Guild of Beggars, and yet he stood here with the audacity to grin at her like today was something to celebrate.
"You smile so brightly as though you know I will live," she said flatly.
"You will."
"They're putting me against a homunculus, Jackson."
The grin didn't move. If anything, it widened, which told her everything she needed to know about his faith in her survival versus his faith in the entertainment value of watching her try.
“You are a gladiator whom I trained; do not assume yourself so weak that a mere homunculus will be your downfall. The only one that can kill you, Levi, is me.”
Levi bit the inside of her lip. She wished his confidence would somehow transfer to her and grow until it was indestructible. She didn’t just need to win; she needed a patron, this would be her last chance for the next four years, and by then she couldn’t guarantee she’d still be alive.
“I don’t want to die." her voice was small when she spoke. She looked up, the movement shifting his hand until she could see his blue eyes. “But death is better than living one more second as manaless scum.”
His smile stiffened by a fraction. Unlike her, he was born with a great mana aptitude, one that even awakened naturally at a young age without any guidance. As a boy, if he hadn’t committed an unforgivable crime that led to his mana being sealed behind that brand, he would’ve found a sponsor to advocate for his enrolment at Palatine Academy four years ago.
“If It wasn’t for me—” Levi’s voice shook, choking on emotion too thick to voice. Her eyes stung, but she did not let her tears fall.
“Aye, if it wasn't for you, I’d be able to rise above my station, is that what you want to say, brat?”
She bit her cheek harder, nodding shamefully. If not for her, why would he dare go against a Senator of all people and be charged with high treason, though he was only fifteen? “If you hadn’t insisted that Senator Marcus leave me be, you would’ve made something of yourself, Jackson. You would’ve been able to leave this place and find your family. You could’ve been great—”
“That’s why you will win, won’t you, Levi?”
She fell silent, brown eyes betraying her orders and tears slipped through her lashes.
“You will be great, you will receive a Patron, and you will become greater than I ever could.”
Manaless scum—great? Though her thoughts were as such, she dared not say them out loud, not when Jackson needed her to leave this place.
She was almost twenty-one; she was too old to remain under the protection of the Beggar's Guild, and though she had asked him to take her as a consort numerous times, he had refused her. Binding you to the Colosseum would be a travesty, Levi. he said with soft eyes. I won’t be able to live with myself if I did something like that to you.
She had begged, pleaded, and reasoned; it all fell on deaf ears, and he pushed her, despite her intentional state of undress, out of his chambers and shut the door in her face. She remembered that night and how she had wept bitterly.
Two hands cradled her head and brought her face gently forward. Levi snapped out of her thoughts as a small kiss graced her forehead. Then, he pulled her close, hugging her tight as if this were the last time.
And perhaps it was.
The broadcast flickered across the screen mounted opposite his seat box in the Colesseum, all colour and noise and spectacle. Midas watched it idly, his fingers working to peel the grapes in the bowl set before him, one of many bowls, all piled with pastries, fruits, and candy, many he wouldn't even bother to taste.
Behind him, Bai Zhenmao said nothing. He rarely did. The white mask caught the light from the screen in intervals, and the mana-guns at his back sat, ready to be drawn at any moment along with the Dao at his side, protected inside its scabbard.
The Palatine Academy's entrance results would be announced tomorrow. As a son to the Emperor, Midas had already received his letter—Scholar Track, First Distinction—which surprised no one and pleased him less than it should have. It was the only door open to him, the only path he could take. As usual, he would spend the next four years in rooms full of people who pitied him and as usual, he would become the most dangerous mind in every one of them.
A small smile graced his lips as he popped a grape into his mouth. He wheeled the wheelchair forward just an inch so he could reach for the wine glass beyond. It seemed to be covered by a strange film, one that disappeared the moment he touched it, allowing the chilled drink to flow easily down his throat.
You see, Midas, had never been able to use his legs. Born to the Emperor and a formidable General, there was no option of remaining as he was. He would either have to undergo specialised surgery or Augmentation to replace that which had failed him. But his mother—the General of the 17th Conquered Territory, daughter of the Great Ramses Enver—augmentation was not an option, nor were the years his father wished for him to spend under advanced medical care. So, with swift discernment, General Enver took her child to her bosom and left Constantinople for the 17th Territory. She kept her son away from the Holy city, and the capital for 22 years until Midas’s return was inevitable. The royal Academy was not an institution a prince could simply ignore. It was necessary if he wished to be considered for succession in the future.
So there Midas sat, awaiting the first orientation for the Scholar’s track. White hair falling just above his shoulders, emerald eyes clear and spectacular. He was reaching for his glass when the arbiters' voices rose above the crowd noise.
"Citizens of Rome! Senators, nobles, and honoured guests—today, in celebration of the Empire's future, we present a match unlike any other. Open to all who dare volunteer. No rank required.
No mana required. Only courage—and the willingness to face what awaits in the arena.” The crowd hummed with barely contained giddiness. This would surely be the match of a lifetime.
“The prize: twenty thousand pounds, paid in full to the victor. Twenty. Thousand. Pounds."
A pause followed, as if the arbiter knew that in the small, impoverished homes of the manaless, children were shifting closer to their screens, ears ringing at such an astonishing amount.
"The match begins at the third bell. Volunteers, present yourselves to the gate. And may the conquered mourn! And the conquerers remain undone!"
Midas set the glass down. Twenty thousand was nothing to the senators shifting in their seats below, nothing to the merchants dabbing wine from their lips. But to the manaless watching from the cheap stands or the cracked screens of lower Rome—twenty thousand was a lifetime. Several lifetimes. Enough to believe, briefly and wrongly, that the risk was worth it.
No criminal would volunteer. What use had a man sealed in the Colosseum for money he could never spend?
No. This was bait for the desperate.
Midas leaned forward slightly in his chair, a dangerous glint dancing across his eyes.
Perhaps, he thought, my luck is about to improve.
Leviathan held her breath as her platform rose from the ground. Her heart beat wildly in her chest. Her palms were already damp with sweat. She held on tight to her sword, already unsheathed. There was no telling what homunculus they would unleash, nor what the other participants would try and do to her. Her only goal was survival.
A feat that bordered on impossible.
A/N: I like comments.