Bioasshard Arena -

He let the solvent flow.

They came for him, of course. They always did. The Arena didn't reward hiding. It rewarded adaptation . If you stayed still too long, the shard would get bored. It would sprout something useless—a third eye on your throat, fingers on your feet—just to remind you who was in charge. Bioasshard Arena

Kaelen didn't move. He didn't raise his hands. He just stood there, watching the ground. He let the solvent flow

His fourth death was his own fault. He’d hesitated. Saw a boy—couldn’t have been more than sixteen—cowering in a pharmacy, shivering, his own shard only half-emerged. Kaelen had tossed him a canteen instead of a frag grenade. A spectator favorite called “Big Jorge,” a mountain of muscle with a diamond-hard carapace, had crushed Kaelen’s skull like an overripe fruit. The Arena didn't reward hiding

First was Needle, a wiry, twitching woman whose shard had given her a prehensile spine that could extend ten meters and inject a paralytic neurotoxin. She moved like a daddy longlegs across the debris. Kaelen saw her heat signature three blocks away. He didn't move.