Third inmate this week rushed to medical. Not from violence - from what they saw in their cells at night. Water crawling up walls. Shadows taking shapes. Crystal lights burning patterns into their dreams.
Prison protocol dictated immediate psychiatric evaluation, transfer to isolation, and a full report to the Guild representatives monitoring F-Block. But the last psychiatrist who'd examined one of the affected inmates had resigned the next day, babbling about frequencies in his teeth.
"Lock it down," the night supervisor ordered, watching monitors glitch into fang-like patterns. "And get Vale. The Guild approved his challenge."
The Obsidian Vault's tier system was precision-engineered over decades. S-Tier at the top, where wealthy elites watched augmented fusion users battle in crystal-contained arenas. Each level down reduced the technology, the privileges, and the humanity. F-Block wasn't just the bottom - it was the foundation that kept everything above it stable. Pure, profitable violence for those who enjoyed watching the dregs tear each other apart.
Vale had mastered that brutal ecosystem. Three years of dominance built on calculated violence and a crew of twenty hardened killers. Fifteen death matches sanctioned by Guild handlers. Countless "examples" made of challengers. The guards used him to maintain order, turning a blind eye to his side businesses in contraband and protection rackets.
Now his empire was crumbling.
His crew was fracturing - two catatonic in medical, three refusing to fight, four requesting cell transfers. Even Stone, who'd killed six men with his bare hands and had fusion-resistant augments illegally installed, had switched blocks after watching Rhys's last match.
"Something wrong with the lights," Stone had reported, his augmented eyes glitching. "They... move. Like they're alive. Like they're watching."
The betting pools exploded. Vale's revenge bout drew attention from three tiers up. Fight handlers who'd never glanced at F-Block were placing personal wagers. Ten to one odds on survival. Twenty to one on lasting five minutes. The Guild's own bookkeepers had to open special accounts to handle the volume.
High above, in C-Tier's fusion containment wing, the readings from Chen's monitors formed impossible geometries. The guard had made the mistake of spending a full shift outside Rhys's cell. Now he wouldn't stop screaming about what he'd seen in the crystal lights.
The medical report mentioned an interesting detail: Chen's brain activity matched the exact frequency of C-Tier's containment field harmonics. The Guild technicians marked that detail classified, just like the growing file of anomalies surrounding prisoner 3479.
*Perfect timing*, something ancient whispered through the prison's bones. Not distant anymore. Here.
The pre-fight room hummed with wrong frequencies. Standard protocol required one guard and one medic. Today there were four guards, two medics, and a Guild observer watching through crystal-enhanced sensors that kept glitching.
"Vitals unstable," the lead medic reported, backing away. "Suggesting immediate—"
"The crystals remember now," Rhys traced patterns in the air that made monitoring equipment spark. "Old songs. Deep rhythms. Would you like to hear?"
Equipment crashed as both medics retreated. The lights pulsed like heartbeats, each flicker matching frequencies from higher tiers. Guard batons crackled with strange energy.
In their observation room, Guild technicians noted how the power fluctuations followed precise mathematical progressions. The same progressions they'd seen in ancient texts about the original fusion harmonics, long before the Guild's "refinements."
Vale's cell radiated killing intent. His last warm-up fight had left someone brain-dead, skull caved in during a "routine demonstration." Now his reputation was crumbling not to strength, but to whispers about the fusion burnout's spreading influence.
"They say you've infected my block," Vale's growl carried the weight of shattered power. "After today, they remember who owns F-Tier."
In premium boxes above, E-Tier organizers leaned forward. The mad ex-Hunter had turned worthless F-Block fights into something fascinating. Something that made their wealthy clients' augmented eyes glitch trying to follow the patterns.
D-Tier handlers had started attending, studying how a non-fusion user could generate effects that resonated through their containment systems. C-Tier techs monitored power fluctuations that seemed to pulse in time with 3479's movements.
The crystal arrays pulsed stronger than usual. Technicians noted power fluctuations but marked them routine. They didn't see how each surge matched Rhys's heartbeat perfectly, or how the harmonics resembled frequencies that existed before the Guild's crystal network.
Vale struck first - a combo that had collapsed three skulls last month. Pure brutality given form. The kind of violence that had kept F-Block profitable and controlled.
Rhys flowed through spaces that shouldn't exist.
The first punch displaced air. The second cracked ribs. The third—
Blood sprayed as Rhys's counter shattered Vale's nose. Droplets hung suspended, forming fractals that matched crystal frequencies above. C-Tier containment fields flickered in sync, causing a high-level fusion bout to pause briefly.
"Die!" Vale's knee crushed liver. Elbow split flesh. Each hit drew more blood, but it moved wrong - flowing against gravity, tracing symbols that hurt to watch. Symbols that reminded older Guild members of texts they'd tried to erase.
Vale launched his finisher. The same combination that had left Li vegetative last week. Right cross. Left hook. Rising knee. Killing strike from above. The sequence that had made him F-Block's perfect control mechanism.
But Rhys stepped *into* it.
Impact rippled like waves through crystal. Bones cracked. Blood flowed. Lights pulsed in geometric progressions that made observer's implants malfunction. In C-Tier, three fusion users stopped mid-fight, heads tilted as if hearing distant music.
Then he smiled.
His counter sent Vale reeling, spitting teeth that fell in perfect patterns. Three tiers up, crystal arrays synchronized for a heartbeat. Power surged through the prison's bones. In their sealed archives, Guild records about the original fusion harmonics began to vibrate.
What followed broke hardened killers. Vale attacked like a beast - each strike meant to destroy. Blood painted concrete as both fighters dealt impossible damage. But this wasn't F-Block's usual violence. This was something older.
While Vale's hits grew desperate, Rhys's became something that existed before the Guild's crystal network. Before they'd caged fusion into their perfect system.
Inside guard - rupturing vessels. Behind - skull meeting wall. Above - striking from angles reality rejected. Each movement matched crystal harmonics. Each blood drop fell where resonance peaked. Each impact sent ripples through containment fields that shouldn't have connected.
"Feel how the patterns change?" Rhys's voice rippled with frequencies that weren't human. "How nothing becomes everything?"
The end came with brutal efficiency.
Vale's final swing hit void. Rhys's counter shattered face. Follow-ups struck with surgical precision - temple, throat, floating rib. The Guild's perfect enforcer dropped like a puppet with cut strings.
Vale collapsed. Blood pooled in spirals that matched frequencies above. His last sight: Rhys standing over him, covered in red - and something ancient looking through his eyes.
"Winner: 3479. Time: sixteen minutes, twelve seconds."
As medics dragged Vale away, cracks spread from each blood drop. Tiny fractures following crystal array patterns. Growing. Spreading. Changing the prison's fundamental architecture.
That night, E-Tier organizers studied recordings. Screens flickered with impossible shapes. Power fluctuated through higher tiers. Coffee cups left spiral rings. Shadows moved wrong. Reality thinned.
In sealed Guild archives, crystals began to sing with older harmonics. Records about the original fusion systems vibrated in patterns that matched Rhys's bloodstains below.
The prison hierarchy stirred. F-Block's perfect violence was corrupted. E-Tier beckoned with contained fusion users and crystal arrays that grew stronger every day. The Guild's perfect system was remembering what it used to be.
In his cell, Rhys felt the prison's pulse change. Crystal songs shifted to older rhythms. Deeper harmonics. The force they'd tried to cage was teaching the very stones to remember what they'd been before.
Tomorrow they'd offer E-Tier advancement. Their choice. Their rules. Their system.
They didn't understand. Each fight. Each resonance. Each drop of blood rewrote their certainties. Nothing slipped through every crack. Nothing grew in every shadow. Nothing became everything.
The crystals sang with voices older than their prison.
E-Tier waited. Time to show them what happened when you caged nothing at all.
And in the highest tiers, where augmented fusion users fought for elite entertainment, the containment fields pulsed with frequencies that felt like a wolf's howl.