The other fighters filed out of the cage into two lines once the order from the pit manager was barked in their direction. Spike, well aware of his small stature, was reluctant to leave, and tried to stay hidden in the cage. The pit boss however wasn't fooled, and grabbed Spike, dragging the skinny keyboard cowboy out into the sidelines of the arena. Spike gulped as he scoped out his potential competition; they were mostly ordinary street people desperate to earn money for sustenance and shelter in one of the most dangerous ways possible. The rest were bruisers, martial artists, leg breakers, solos, and cybernetic horrors (re)built to kill.
"Of all the lousy times to be out of weapons," Spike muttered to himself as the pit boss initiated the first bout. Spike stared down away from the violence and began planning his escape. It was said that the only ways out of the blood sport games was to either kill or be killed. Given Spike's martial prowess, it became clear that he'd have to defy that maxim if he wanted to live. He set his mind to the task of finding a way out, and he set his eyes to observing the matches for information he could hopefully.
The first few bouts were first blood matches that ended fairly quickly. Needless to say the professionals were beating the tar out of the street people. But the line into the arena was steadily moving forward, pushing Spike ever closer to the front of the line, but the hacker held on to his cool. He had cracked enough high security systems to realize that panic didn't help.
However, panic set in once Spike was second in line to be hurled into the pit. It only got worse when he noticed that there was some sort commotion coming from the other line. A mountain of muscle was barging its way forward through the line. At first it seemed only as if one would be fighter was a little over eager to get into a fight. But it was only when the second in the opposite line was replaced did Spike start to panic. He recognized the goons who was pushing his way towards being Spike's opponent. One of Morris' team. Suddenly the pieces fell together in Spike's head; cliched as it sounded, there was a conspiracy, and this conspiracy was out to get him killed. How a lowly strike team leader like Morris got that kind of influence, Spike couldn't say.
Oh well, Spike thought as he was pushed ever closer towards the edge of the pit to await a near certain death. Even as he felt as if he surrendered, Spike was still racking his brain trying to find a way out of this, up until the minute he was forcefully hurled into the pit, meeting eye to eye with mountain of muscle and cellulite with yellow teeth, a pair of Hong Kong made cyber arms and a wicked gleam in his eyes. Spike gulped before he put himself on full alert, ready to dodge the first swing.