Senator Carter arrived just in time to see the start of the afternoon Pankration, which he called the Dodeka. "It is the oldest from of large-scale Pankration," he said. "There will be 12 rounds, with as many as six matches at a time. A match is won when the opposing pankratiast cedes victory, is removed from the ring, or else rendered unconscious. The final match of each round will be fought in the cage, and then a final Champion round will be fought between the twelve victors."
Twelve pankratiasts were called, two for each ring on the arena floor. All but three wore the red hoods of Century Academy, and half had the markings of the Apollo School. "The selections are made using a differential engine, identical to the ones used for the Reapings," the Senator said. He chuckled. "The algorithms are actually rather more complex. While individual selections are ultimately a matter of chance, strong weight is given to such factors as strength, skill, size, and past performance, so opponents are generally evenly matched. If two pankratiasts are unequal, the common code of sportsmanship dictates that the superior party adjust his style, usually by seeking to throw his opponent from the ring per the grapple."
By the time the Senator was done talking, the matches had begun. One obviously mismatched fight between Apollo students ended in seconds, with a lightweight novice hurled from the ring by his huge opponent. Others dragged on a few minutes, and one pair grappled semi-effectually for almost five minutes before one kicked the other unconscious. "Is it just me," Vixen said, "or do they all stink?"
"What do you mean?" Delly said. "Didn't you see how hard those two were fighting?"
"Exactly," Thread said with a snort. "I don't know Pankration, but I've taught hand-to-hand. If two people who know what they're doing and really mean business go at it, one of them will be on the floor in the time it would take most people to notice there's a fight."
"It is considered bad form for two pankratiasts to finish that quickly," the Senator said. "Usually, they make several passes before either attempts decisive combat, which offers a more balanced test of skill as well as a better show. Still, you are right, this is a beginner's round, and even for that, the talent is decidedly poor. Now, because there are more than the standard 144 pankratiasts, there will be a challenge match..."
Six more fighters were called in to fight the victors, and none of them were markedly better, unless it was one, introduced as Horace, who faced off against the monster who had thrown his first opponent. Two passes by the challenger, also from Apollo and far from a lightweight himself, made it painfully clear that the victor was slow and quite deficient in skill. One more feint drew a lumbering charge from the defender, straight into a kick that laid him out at the challenger's mercy. Three more challengers also displaced the victors, but their victories were clearly owed to nothing more than exhaustion on their opponents' parts.
"Now, the double bye match..." The bottom two rings were left empty, as the victors were called to challenge those on either side of the cage. On the left, Horace easily defeated the defender. On the right a defender from the Odair school, the sole survivor of the original twelve, defeated the victor after a minute of brutal pummeling. Then two rested challengers were called down from the upper rings. The left defender had no great difficulry defeating a battered middleweight, while the Odair student was wrestled to the ground after taking a brutal kick to the abdomen that made him cough blood. Two angels loaded the defeated Odair student onto a hoverplatform for quick transport to the hospital.
"And the cage finale." Even the Senator was dispirited as the last two took to the cage. Horace, clearly the strongest of the two by far and still inferior to the would-be rival bound for the hospital, let his opponent make two desultory passes before grabbing him and slamming him down for a quick but brutal pin. The Senator sighed and shook his head.
"It is the Century Academy, and especially the Apollo school," he said. "Every year, they bring a handful of genuinely exceptional athletes and scores who can barely be called amateurs. They will offer explanations, that do not seem out of reason: They are a very large Academy, with especially liberal admissions policies. Inevitably, their pool of athletes will be uneven. But what they are really doing is deliberately diluting the talent pool, to inflate the scores of the worthy competitors. It should have been dealt with decades ago, but other Academies like the easy victories, and certain parties are very good at making quiet arrangements... Ah, but I have said enough. The next round will be better."
By an improbable fluke, the opening of the second round saw the entry of Cato, obviously among the very best at the Arena. His exceptionally unworthy opponent, also from Century, raised his hands for grappling, which might as well have been a white flag of surrender. The huge young man responded by slapping his quivering schoolmate too senseless to signal surrender, and broke his arm before the judges could order a halt. Cato easily bested every subsequent opponent in the round, and more than one pankratiast conveniently fell out of the ring before coming up to face him.
At the challenge match of the fourth round, Peeta was called, by his stage name Ajax. Delly squealed and clapped, and the Senator pushed a button to sound a fanfare. Peeta made one pass, and then caught his opponent in a chokehold that forced the defender to gesture surrender. "Hm," the Senator said, checking names on a tablet. He pointed to a defender in the upper ring who had already thrown his challenger from the ring. "That young man is the same pankratiast who eliminated Peeta in the grapple. It appears that there could be a rematch."
Peeta plowed through the competition without any particular effort. He won the bye match by hurling the reserve over the barrier, which at least got him breathing heavily. He took a long look at the Maidens' Box as he ascended to the cage. He couldn't see a thing inside, but the odds were he would lock eyes with some current or prospective sponsor. As it happened, his eyes lingered on Delly, who almost fell over. At the top, he assumed a fighting stance, facing the moderately decent pankratiast he had chosen to lose the grapple to. He threw his foe twice against the bars of the cage, waiting for the foe to recover his wits and wind before he moved in and pinned him to become Victor.
Another note: While Pankration was an actual Greco-Roman sport (with some self-described practitioners in the present), the portrayal here should by all means be considered my own invention. (One detail that is historically authentic is the "bye" match.) Judging from what information is available, actual Pankration would have been less organized and probably more brutal than this!