Another short update.

The .37 percent gravity is a cake walk. I jogged with the rest of the members of House Mars around the little section of territory around our fortress. This was familiar. I saw the hidden spot where the matches were hidden. The ability to make fire would be important in the future.

Fitchner blathered on about the valley we were in and the terrain around us. My mind was on other things. My eyes occasionally strayed to Titus. I couldn't help but glare at the back of his head. I couldn't reveal myself to him, nor did I want to kill a fellow lowRed.

I had to kill him.

He was a liability to me. A liability to Fitchner. A liability to the future. A future I could never see again. I had to kill him before he became a danger to us all. The lowColors must rise again. He was the single greatest threat to my mission.

I had to kill him soon.

Why was I here in the past. Who had sent me? I wanted to scream.

Titus glanced over his shoulder and caught sight of my glare. The unstable fuck grinned at me. He slowed his jog to so that I was arms reach from him.

"You got a problem with me Andromedus?" He showed a lot of teeth in his mad smile. I smelled his rank breath. He was looking forward to killing Golds. Looking forwards to killing me. I knew when someone wanted to kill me.

We would be here for ten months or when one tribe conquered the others. I don't think I could take ten months of Titus. "No." I ground out through gritted teeth.

I was never very good at hiding my emotions.

"You sure look like you do," He grinned ever wider. "Why don't we settle this now!" He called out loudly.

"We are in the same house you idiot." I replied. "We are supposed to fight the other houses."

"But you want to be Primus don't you." He asserted. "Thats why we have to fight"

Such a lack of logic was astounding.

For a Gold, I was large. Pushing 8 feet in height, I was thickly padded in muscle.

For a Gold, Titus was a giant. A little over 8 ft tall, he was near half again my weight in muscle.

Fitchner stayed silent and watched. It was not his place to interfere with tribal strife. Simply to observe and tell us the rules. I could see a medbot flying out of the trees and floating in the air above Fitchner's head.

They wanted us to fight. Were they insane?

There was a sonic boom as Proctor Mercury, Proctor Minerva, and Proctor Apollo made an appearance from Olympus to watch in person. "Get on with it then!" Fitchner called down as his hoverboots lifted him into the air to float alongside the three other proctors.

"How about a couple of razors for a proper duel then?" I called up, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

Two razors dropped to the ground. One at my feet. One at Titus's.

That... I did not expect.

I had changed the future too much already. There must be a lot of interest in me if they were this excited to see me fight.

Cassius, Roque, Lea, and the rest of House Mars was baking away from Titus and I in a circle.

"Cunts." I muttered. They were trying to kill me. Then I remembered I had killed two obsidians the night before... Were they just wanting to see anyone die?

I turned my attention to Titus, He still had a blood thirsty grin on his face.

I picked up the razor and changed the settings. It extended out into a curved blade as I pushed the button on the hilt. I looked back at Titus to see him rushing me, razor extended to skewer me. He did not intend to wait for a proper duel.

I dodged to the side and made a single swing as he passed by.

The top of his body, separated from the bottom with a wet splatter. His top half lay face down in the valley's grass. Blood flowed out of him like water from a busted canteen. Killing him was easier than killing a gray lurcher. I'd killed plenty of those.

A few of the students from house Mars gasped as the Proctors cheered.

"I'll be taking that back" Fitchner called from above me. The razor deactivated and jerked itself from my hand as a magnetic pull drew it from my hand into his own gloved one.

My mind was numb. I'd acted on instincts alone. I'd killed another Red. I'd eliminated a threat to the future in the only way I'd found that worked.

By killing it.

888

That night, we ate a deer that Fitchner had killed on the way back to Fortress Mars. Everyone was avoiding my gaze, except for the ever chatty Cassius. Even Antonia stayed oddly silent for once, around me.

"Jolly good show my good man."

Cassius slapped me on the back.

"I'm glad I could entertain." Sarcasm was quickly becoming the norm for me.

My temper was boiling, just under the surface. The battles I had fought. The friends I had lost. The enemies I had killed. All of it... All of my struggles. All my sacrifice. All of my friend's sacrifices.

My mouth tasted of ashes.

Cassius continued blathering. "I say, as Primus, I will make you my second man. Your skill with the razor is obviously superior."

I snorted into my goblet of water.

"No Cassius." I laughed a cold and bitter laugh. He was such an arrogant boy.

"I'm already Primus." No one argued.