“What is this? A gladiator arena for ants?”
“It’s just a model.”
Yisini laughed somewhat awkwardly as Kairos and Epani inspected the little model battle arena that she had just built. She had taken a lot of time to make sure that everything was perfect and, more importantly, to scale, so it could be built outside of Yisini’s laboratory.
“It’s a very good model, but do we need another arena?” Epani asked, hovering over the tiny structures. “I believe we have a perfectly good one already.”
“Well,” Yisni smiled, “this is a massive remodelling of that same arena. The whole facility is going to be rebuilt from the bottom up, with tons of new features. After all, Kinisis did say that she wanted to see a spectacle!”
Kairos shrugged, not seeming that impressed. “Are these going to be actual fights, or will it all just be for show, like with Temthan television shows?”
“Funny you should ask, actually!” Yisini’s smile was not going away. She had expected and prepared for lots of questions. “The plan is to have a bit of everything. We have the govenmentorial battles where the champions of each race fight each other instead of going to war; there’ll be your much more classic gladiator battles where vok and teams can go and beat each other up for prizes…”
“And a storyline?”
“A very lose storyline. I’m planning on making some awesome, golden gear for the more scripted battles, but it’ll still be based in reality.”
The Whenvern frowned. “I don’t like the scripted stuff.”
“It’s only scripted in that I decide what gladiators fight each other for which prizes. The idea is to have a background story that gives the contenders a reason to stick around. A long term plan of sorts.”
“It’s still scripted…” Kairos tutted. “You decide who gets to-”
“Nope, I’ll have no hand in who wins. I’ll just be setting the stage. A race to the top to claim a massive prize: becoming the Ultra Champion, the most powerful fighter in the entire universe.”
The Whenvern grunted some more. “I suppose it’ll be easier to judge once everything actually starts happening.”
“Of course!” Yisini confirmed. “And if it doesn’t work, we change it all for something that does. It’s all gonna work out.”
“I guess…” Kairos snorted. “This IS going to be death-free though, yes?”
Yisini nodded. “Of course. In fact, I’ve been working on a new system which I call Champion Health Attunement Displays, which can instantly detect injuries, create fake gore and leave the contestants physically unharmed, while also removing the whole transport-away portal system that clogged up the old Dessaron Battle Arena. I call it CHAD for short.”
“Chad?” Epani blinked.
“Did you think of the acronym before or after you started building this system?” Kairos snorted some more. “You are really going all in on this.”
Yisini sighed. “Yeah, I am. I want to make the mortals happy. The ones we have left. Give them a bit of a new spirit, something they can cheer for. After all, they lost more than any of us did.”
Epani smiled, patting Yisini on the shoulder. “I think your plan is brilliant. You can proceed on this project, it will be good for everyone involved.”
“Thank you, sister!” Yisini’s smile returned. “I promise I won’t let anyone down!”