“Keith”

“Is she gonna be okay?” I asked. Faith sat on a stool behind me, looking at the desecrated husk of Dai Gurren with a look in her eyes like she’d just gotten back from a tour in Afghanistan.

I’d rushed back into the pits as soon as their fight had ended. I hadn’t planned on glomping onto her for a big group hug like that, but… She just looked so defeated. And that… What Root had done, and the way she had done it, cold and methodical and impersonal, was just so brutal, and Watanabe… And Faith had been so kind to me the other day…

Part of me felt like a jerk, only caring because she’d been nice to me, only caring because of my friendship with Zeke, but at the same time…

I cared. If I didn’t care about someone who’d just been humiliated in the most brutally professional way possible by her ex-girlfriend on live television, then I’d have to be as big of an asshole as everyone thought I was.

“I don’t know,” Zeke said, looking back at her. The concern on his face was plain to see- he cared about her a lot. Made sense- he’d said they’d been friends for five years, teammates for three. He’d been there with her for her breakup and her transition and…

That was more than just friendly concern in his eyes. Even an idiot like me could see that. The way they were dilated, the way his fists were clenched and his broad shoulders flared out… He liked her. A LOT, by the look of it.

Something green and noxious flared through me, and I blinked rapidly as I tried to parse through it. Was I jealous of him, having someone he cared for in that way to that degree? Or was I jealous of her, because…

Because it would mean that I liked Zeke Underhill romantically?

I gulped and tried to swallow that feeling, shaking my head. “Root could have at least come up for a handshake after the fight,” I said.

“Yeah,” Zeke growled, his concerned face shifting into a glare. “Olivia and I were never that close, but still… This was pretty harsh of her to do.”

“Maybe… Maybe she just didn’t wanna make a big thing of it while the cameras were rolling,” I offered.

“Maybe,” Zeke said, that righteous intensity on his face doing something to me that I was very, very unprepared to process.

I shook my head again. “I, uh, I have to get ready for my fight, but let’s meet up after, okay? All three of us.”

“That sounds good,” he said, leaning in for a hug. I accepted it, and he put his mouth near my ear and whispered, “Thank you, Katie.”

I felt my cheeks flush with warmth, probably going tomato red in the process, and a tingling went through my chest. Butterflies in my stomach, the warm breeze from their flapping wings finding their way up to my heart and leaving it buzzing. My eyes went wide as the warmth of euphoria and recognition and… And attraction resonated through every cell in my body.

I pulled free of the hug with only the utmost of reluctance, and I looked into his big brown eyes a little too long for my comfort or his. I didn’t even realize my arms were around his neck until I noticed his hands were on my hips. And I didn’t notice that until I saw that his olive-skinned face was blushing even redder than I was sure mine was.

I coughed and broke away, and I heard a distant laughter in the background.

My head snapped around as I saw Nate Haverfield wheeling Ansible out towards the arena. “Well look at that- Underhill and his princesses,” he snickered as he walked away. “When’s the wedding, you fairies?”

Any positive emotion was snuffed out of me in an instant, replaced by the acrid and sulfurous vapor of wounded vanity and bristling anger. “Excuse me a minute,” I said as I yanked myself free of Zeke’s grip. “I have to take out the trash.”

I didn’t put on an evil smile as I walked out into the arena. I wasn’t in the mood to be a fun, hammy villain tonight. I was looking for blood. I let the angry sneer on my face speak for itself, stared directly into the camera with that look plastered on for everyone to see while the introductory monologues were given.

Finally, it was time. I hit the big button like it was a punching bag and let Polyphemus loose.

Ansible was a deceptively small, compact machine. Most of its weight was in the horizontal buzzsaw it lugged around, as was most of its power. Poly’s single blade wouldn’t survive a direct collision with that thing, so the key was getting around it. Specifically, to the apparatus that held the spinning saw in place.

I charged while Haverfield revved up his weapon- it needed thirty seconds to achieve maximum velocity, and with two full tanks of lighter fluid on Poly’s sides, I was slower than usual. Or at least, slower than Haverfield was used to me being.

So, I decided to play into that, closing the gap and then weaning myself off the gas to make it look like I was slowing down without realizing it.

The jeering idiot fell for it, thinking he had extra time to rev up his weapon. I disillusioned him of that right-quick, waiting for him to charge me and then pivoting left and unleashing a massive spray of fire from my right flamethrower, then piercing the traction that kept his left tread intact.

“HOLY MACKEREL! POLYPHEMUS PULLS OFF A FAINT AND DELIVERS A BLOW TO ANSIBLE’S TRACTION! That katana is jamming the tread and Keith Calloway is pushing further and further in!” Weston bellowed from the announcer's box.

I kept going, jamming my sword in deeper while spewing fire from both my makeshift flamethrowers. A guttural scream, gravely and primal, erupted from deep within my chest as I slammed Ansible into the screws. I kept the bot pinned there for a full ten seconds before I was required to back off, so I wheeled back five feet and situated myself in front of the slats where kill-saws would be emerging in the next minute.

“We’ve gotta see some movement from Ansible soon or Nate Haverfield is gonna get counted out,” Derek Benes said.

And sure enough, Ansible screeched to life, the left tread just barely operating as Haverfield sent the bot charging towards Poly. But there was one problem- the broken tread made Ansible pull to the right while it was moving forward. Not severely, not enough to be unworkable, barely enough for most people to notice. Marty and Derek didn’t address it all.

But I wasn’t them. I wasn’t most people. I wasn’t most pilots.

“C’mere you little bitch,” Haverfield snarled from five feet away. “I got something for ya’ that you might like.”

“Not in your wildest dreams, old man,” I hissed.

I waited, driving in circles around the four matching slots at the center of the box.

Waited.

Waited.

Ansible started closing in while I completed a rotation, aiming for my right-hand gas tank.

I pulled left and rammed my sword deep into the wiring that kept the buzzsaw running, then bathed the enemy in my righteous fire. I withdrew, going backwards and getting Haverfield to chase me.

I cleared the garden of slots just in time for the kill-saws to burst up from below, ripping apart the remainder of Ansible’s left tread and carving up a chunk of the right one as well. Haverfield limped across the battle box towards me. I made laps around the box, forcing Haverfield to have to readjust.

Smoke started coming from his machine, out of the mutilated remains of his treads as the bot moved only an inch at a time.

“THIS IS JUST BRUTAL, DEREK!” Marty shouted. “WOULD YOU BELIEVE HAVERFIELD CAME INTO THIS FIGHT COCKY! AND NOW HE LOOKS LIKE A DEAD MAN WALKING! AND A VICIOUS RETURN TO FORM BY RESIDENT BAD BOY KEITH CALLOWAY!”

I flinched at the sound of my own name. My… My professional name, if nothing else. It struck the flint of my dysphoria and poured gasoline onto the fire of my rage.

Then, Ansible stopped moving altogether.

“We need to see some movement, or we’re gonna count you out!” The black and white striped shirt clad referee said to Haverfield.

I didn’t wait for the countdown to start. I charged one more time, both my flamethrowers unleashing columns of orange-red wrath as I slammed into Ansible from behind. It went straight into exposed wiring, and the flames from my bot ignited the diesel from Ansible’s engine.

“10! 9!” the referee started counting down.

When I pulled away, there was a gaping hole where the back of Haverfield’s bot used to be. Both its treads were ripped apart like papier mâché, and its weapon was non-functional. And it was on fire.

“CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS! WHAT A STATEMENT FROM POLYPHEMUS!” Derek said.

I did a victory lap as the crowd went wild and the countdown finished.

I won. My hands were trembling as I walked away from the battle box, Haverfield glaring daggers at me.

A hideous buzzing went through my head as people shouted my name from the crowd: “KEITH! KEITH! KEITH!”

It turned to a rotting feeling in my chest, like I was dying piece by piece every time I heard the name. And yet the heat of my temper refused to cool. Derek shoved a microphone in my face for the interview.

I really, really, wished he hadn’t.

“How you feeling right now, Keith Calloway?” Derek asked.

“I’m feeling like the sheriff is back in town, and anyone who expects what happened to me last week to happen again this season is an idiot,” I said, venom dripping off of each syllable. “I think that anyone who expected me to be on a downward spiral needs to be a taught a lesson, just like I taught a lesson to that rank amateur Nate Haverfield tonight. Anyone who wants to take a shot at me, be prepared to be broken and humiliated. And anyone who insults me or my friends, same goes for you!”

“WHOA, MAN! Loving the intensity!” Derek said. Of course he did. The crowd cheered and put-up hands when I said what I said, so they loved it too.

Of course. This was what they wanted me to be. This was the man I taught them to expect me to be. The man who was slowly killing me, inch by inch.

“You got anything else to add?” Derek asked.

DON’T SAY IT DON’T SAY IT DON’T SAY IT- “Yeah. Olivia Root, Team Tooth Fairy- nobody is allowed to beat Dai Gurren but me. If we meet inside the battle box, I’M GONNA FREAKING DESTROY YOU!”

I literally dropped the mic after I said that, the feedback a shrill shriek that nobody liked. It was painful to listen to, but nearly as painful as my own words had been for me to hear. I marched away, fists balled, hating every fiber of my being with an intensity that made my hatred for Nate Haverfield feel like nothing in comparison.

The noise all fell away behind me as I marched back into the pit, dragging Poly on a sledge behind me. I could barely hear anything, barely feel anything, barely even register everything.

I put Poly down in my workstation, and I walked away, not sure where I was going, knowing only that I wanted to escape from my own skin, hide from the identity I forged for myself over the course of this competition.