Bars rattled. Obi rolled his shoulders, set his feet, and stepped until the sand took his weight.
The roar arrived like weather - first a wind, then a wall.
"LET THE SCRAPPER'S GAUNTLEEET"
(small, dramatic pause)
"BEGIIIIN!!!"
The crowd went wild.
"WE'RE KICKING THINGS OFF WITH OBI THE LOUUUD!" the caller bellowed, voice bouncing off rivets and railings. "Versuuus… MORROW THE COLOSSUUUS!"
A few laughs leaked out of the crowd before Morrow even appeared. Then the "Colossus" stepped through the gate - a boy built like a broomstick someone had wrapped in a tunic. Knees like knuckles. Big eyes. The crowd went feral anyway. The Gauntlet would cheer a brick if it promised violence.
Obi blinked. "Oh no!" he exclaimed, just loud enough for the front row to hear, "they've sent me a siege engine."
Morrow swallowed so hard it traveled to the cheap seats. He raised his hands the way a person raises their hands at an overexcited dog. Obi lifted his own - palms out, the brass glinting - a little bow mid-walk.
"Hey," Obi said softly, too close for the mics. "You getting paid to be brave or to be alive?"
Morrow's mouth worked. "T-to… to-"
"Great answer," Obi said. "Here's the deal. We make it pretty, you nap nice, you walk out richer and with all your teeth, which I assume you're renting."
The guard snapped his baton once. Go.
Obi made a show for the crowd - hopped twice, shoulders loose, grinning like a sin. Morrow flicked out a jab that couldn't have broken a promise. Obi caught it with his palm, tapped the boy's shoulder like he was ringing a doorbell, then slid to the side and kissed a glove to Morrow's ribs.
Air left the "Colossus" in a startled honk. Obi swiveled, turned his wrist, and placed a second neat touch under the jaw - an off-switch stroke, the kind Louissa had once called "mercy in a hurry."
Morrow folded like a paper fan.
The roar swelled. Boos mixed with cheers. Obi fanned the crowd with both hands, then crouched and set Morrow gently on his side, propping the boy's head on his own wraps.
"The Colossus fell" Obi announced, to laughter. "By crippling charisma."
He raised Morrow's limp arm like a champion's. The crowd howled. The guard shrugged - clean enough. He jabbed his baton toward Obi's corner. "Water."
Obi jogged back, grabbed the battered ladle, and drank like he'd earned it, then dumped the rest over his hair with a hiss. The pen's gate cracked to admit him; the cage swallowed him back into the chorus of breath and mutter.
Between rounds, the Gauntlet was all sound bites and quick gospel.
"...split that guy's eyebrow like a curtain…"
"...Hatewick put two on the floor with the same swing…"
"...graffiti? Four heartbeats, you didn't even see it…"
Obi let the noise skate over him. He polished his knuckle with the tail of his shirt and threw a wink at an exasperated healer. "No need. I'm allergic to extra taxes."
"Next!!" the caller's voice cracked into the pen. "HATEWIIIICK versus OBI THE LOUUD!"
"Well," Obi told his knuckles, "we manifest what we mock."
Hatewick arrived like a walking wall. Baldie, familiar face. And the tattoos? We've seen them before. Broken chain links at the wrists, a crude heart with teeth chewing his shoulder, and letters hammered across knuckles with spelling that needed attention more than the tournament itself: H-A-I-T.
"Hey, hey, hey! Am I having Deja Vu or something?" Obi asked
The crowd loved him the way cartoons love falling pianos.
"That your toys?" Hatewick rumbled
"You already asked. What, is your brain seriously a walnut?" Obi said pleasantly, peering at the man's fist. "And buddy, that tattoo again… are we saving the 'E' for later? I respect budgeting."
A mean ripple of laughter moved through the rails. The guard smacked the gate with his baton. Go.
Hatewick charged like a cart on a hill. Obi took one neat step off the line and smacked the big man's ear with a palm. The sound was indecent. Hatewick snarled, pivoted, threw a hook meant to ruin a week. Obi wasn't there. He left the hook kissing air and wrote a little note on Hatewick's ribs with the iron: dear sir, your liver.
Hatewick's eyes watered. He blinked rage and tried to fold Obi into a hug he would not survive.
"Awwe," Obi said, slipping under and around. "You brought cuddles."
He peppered a jab at the mouth - not to land, just to guide - and Hatewick bit on it, turning his head. Obi ducked the answering swing, planted a heel, and let momentum do what gravity has been begging to do since the dawn of time. Hatewick stumbled. Obi caught the back of his knee slid his shoulder under the man's center, and tilted the world.
A barrel falls fast. I mean, fast enough.
The sand whoomped as Hatewick fell. It was like dropping furniture off a balcony. Seriously like a falling piano. The crowd went up in a shower of sound.
Hatewick pushed on instinct. Obi adjusted his knuckles, with a foot on him
"Say "hate", but add the "E" this time." Obi suggested cheerfully, "Or, the other option would be for you to experience what a smith's hand can do with some brass. Your choice, really! I'm fine with both…"
Hatewick's reply was mostly vowels. The guard, carefully watching, slid his baton between them.
"Enough"
Obi popped up like a cork, bowed with ridiculous flourish, and crowed at the rails, "He spelled N-A-P!'"
The chant started in a corner. "Obi! Obi!" It spread like a grin.
He returned to the pen on a wave of noise, legs bright with adrenaline, stomach a pet shop full of nervous animals. He leaned on the fence, eyes half-closed, breath steadying.
Whispers again:
"...didn't touch her, couldn't even see…"
"...what even happened!?..."
"The mask..."
"NOWW, THE MOMENT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOOR" the caller tore the speakers, quite literally shouting at his heart's content.
(another very dramatic pause)
"THE FINAAALS!!"
The speakers roared again.
"CINDERETTE - versus - OBI THE LOUUUD!"
The gate sighed once again. She walked out, with a weird presence. The crowd's excitement suddenly dissapeared. She was quite short, in a dusty cloak that cut off at the knee, boots that didn't make friends with sand. Her mask was a smooth oval with a shut mouth and blank eyes.
She pulled out two spray paint cans from her cloak.
Obi tilted his head. "So we're decorating, I see! Really love a theme!"
No answer. The mask looked through him.
The baton hitting metal sounded like a proper gong.
Cinderette didn't wind up. She simply twitched her wrists and popped both cans with her thumbs. Color did not pour. White smoke did - fast, aggressive, mean. It hit the air with a bitter bite that crawled up Obi's nose and slammed the back of his throat.
"Ah, of course…" Obi coughed, blinking. "Art."
The world smudged. The crowd's noise turned wet and far away. He stepped sideways on instinct. She moved as a suggestion in the fog, a shape that reappeared only when it was already a problem.
Obi did what every smith learns by the second burn: he reached for his goggles. They were in his pocket because of course. They were always in his pocket. We're talking about Obi here, do we really need an explanation? He snapped them over his eyes with a practiced flick.
The world jumped a shade toward usefulness. Not perfect, just enough. Edges sharpened. Motion drew lines. He could see where she wasn't, which is half of staying alive.
"Cute," he rasped into the smoke. "But forge fumes showed me worse."
The air dragged strangely at his pants. Obi froze, thinking. Smoke moves like water if you give it a river. He squinted through the lenses and found what he needed: vents. Low, along the rails. Little squares of black that never mattered until they did.
He shuffled toward one, counting steps. When his toes kissed a grille, he squatted and slapped the edge. Draft. Weak, but present. He didn't need it strong; he needed it smart.
Another hiss to his left. He slid that way instead, coughing. Cinderette materialized enough to flick a can toward his chest like a nasty bouquet. Obi batted it aside with the back of his wrist, sending the thing skittering.
"Rude!" he wheezed. "No gift receipt?"
She reappeared behind him, almost, almoost striking... Obi's family jewels.
He did the stupidest smart thing he could think of: he grabbed the can she'd just thrown, thumbed its lip - and pinned it over the vent. The flow gulped, then turned hungry. The smoke thinned in front of him and rolled back at her in a lazy spill, not much, just enough to make a quiet person louder.
Her outline hiccuped.
"Hello there!" Obi smiled.
He moved like he was late. Two steps, a bend of the knee, a low sweep that wasn't a sweep so much as an invitation to doubt her own feet. She shifted to compensate - correctly. He expected that. He went the other way, hands light, fingers catching the edge of her cloak.
The world tilted for both of them. Obi's shoulder found her center; gravity did the math.
They landed tangled. She punched - short, efficient. He parried with the heel of his palm, let the blow skate off the brass. She went for his eyes. He flicked the lens rim and grinned. "Please, I'm wearing my good looks."
For a second it was ridiculous - a dance step in fog. He let it be ridiculous. He dipped her like a drama prince, one arm firm across her shoulders, the other controlling balance.
"If we're doing this, at least buy me noodles."
She snapped her head forward, a headbutt. More like a mask-butt. He was already offset - it skimmed his cheek. He rolled, bringing her with him, ending in a pin that used the cloak as a trap.
The smoke thinned enough for the crowd to barely see.
Cinderette stilled. Obi loosened first, in case pride needed the courtesy. She didn't swing. He helped her sit and - because he is a problem - offered a hand up like they were finishing a waltz.
The mask said nothing. She took the hand anyway. Her fingers were cool and steady.
The caller didn't so much declare as surrender to it.
"WINNER? OBI THE LOUUUUD!"
The arena detonated. Sound poured down the rails, clanged on the bolts, ran up into the Tangle and came back twice as loud. Kids on shoulders beat the railings with palms. Vendors forgot to sell. Even the healers smiled grimly like they couldn't help it.
Obi raised a fist, then both, then bowed in four directions because four is funnier than one. He popped the goggles up onto his curls and sucked a breath that wasn't flavored like chemical argument. Cinderette was already walking away, cloak snapping, mask unreadable.
"Hey! Cinderella, or whatever!" Obi called after her.
She took off her mask, and looked back, visibly blushing, and flustered, revealing beautiful long black hair.
"It's Cinderette" she smiled
"Ooh! You got quite the looks, too! I'll be waiting at the forge. You'll find it, the best smithy in the underworks!"
The purse looked heavier than he expected when the clerk pressed it into his palm. The brass token for "finalist" became a second for "winner", edges worn by other nights, other hands. He hooked both on his belt and tested their weight like a smith testing work. Real. Honest. Earned.
On his way out, strangers slapped his shoulder and shouted his name like they'd been doing it for years. "Obi! Loudmouth! Walnut-cracker!" He laughed until breathing became an effort. It didn't taste like fame in his mouth; it tasted like belonging.
Obi tapped the purse, then the brass, then his heart, in that order. "World's loudest smith!" he told the night.
And he walked into the noise that was suddenly, gloriously, his.