As SOLDIER, Gaspar was used to a certain level of prestige. The SOLDIER floor spent a lot of time sparring in the training room, and he'd been in the middle of the road, which among the general population, meant he had an advantage in most fights he was likely to get into.

Here? That did not mean so much.

Deepground was divided into four districts, each run by a Tsviet (for a highly varying value of day to day involvement). White Hair, apparently named Weiss in a distinctly Hojo ish dedication to naming his specimens, never left his throne, leaving the ruling of Deepground to his subordinates.

Each division was broken down into further districts, and by a quirk of fate, that first day he had wandered into one of Shelke's. Technically, she was the lowest in the pecking order, with the most undesirable areas and fewest intact buildings, but the Tsviet was also not prone to random violence, making her district relatively safe.

East and West Deepground, the territory of Azul and Rosso respectively, were locked in an endless battle for supremacy. Rosso herself was no respecter of boundaries, on occasion crossing the town randomly like a death dealing storm, but organisational skills were not her strong suit, preventing her from dominating completely.

Nero was completely indifferent to those silly games, but when he cracked down, he cracked down hard. By himself. His people still committed to the sparring matches, but it was obvious they didn't have as much at stake.

Shelke could not afford to be so blasé. She had no interest, per se, in winning domination, but being easy prey, down here, was not a good plan for anyone, even a Tsviet. There was a coup attempt in Shelke's territory a few (days? weeks? months?) after his arrival. It had not gone well for them, as demonstrated by her broadcasting their deaths at her hand. She still had to play the game.

All of this was second hand information. Gaspar's only direct experience of Tsviets came when one…night, probably, when Rosso attempted one of her death storms nearby, leaving them all huddling in the wreck of their shopfront, listening to gunshots and suddenly cut off screams, reduced to hoping that the storm didn't break upon their shopfront whereupon they all would die, probably quickly. She didn't precisely do it often, but it was tolerated as the only means to keep her from losing control completely. As environmental hazards went, he'd seen worse.

They lived to see the dawn that particular day, but after a Rossostorm, that meant more posturing games in the offing. By this point Gaspar had taken enough beatings to know his place. He could take most of the ordinary drones, and some of the heavy armoured soldiers. When it came to elites and commanders, he started taking hard beatings, the kind that made Delphine mad and put him out of commission for days at a time. But she was yet to kill him in his sleep.

When he walked into the battle room, It was still a surprise to see a SOLDIER. These games were DG's substitute for actual gang war, but it was usually voluntary.

Wells had lost some weight, and had a new scar down his right cheek, but he looked raw somehow, dangerous. He took a guard stance, at rest, and looked up at him. From his walk, Gaspar could already tell he was going to lose this particular spar, and Wells knew it too.

Which is why he spoke. Deepground was not an environment that encouraged trash talk, unless you were very sure you were in control.

"Gone native, have we?" Wells said, smiling.

"You're here too, friend." Gaspar said, taut, ready for the spring. They'd sparred enough back in the day for him to know there wouldn't be much of a tell when it came.

"I stayed with my crew. You walked away from SOLDIER. Are you sure you made the right choice?"

Gaspar would have shrugged, but he was still wire tense. Wells saw something in his face.

"You really have left us behind. For what?"

"What was keeping me there? A dead world?"

"If the world was dead, the Mako reactor would not be running."

Hmm. An actual good point. Still… "You think SOLDIER still means any more up there than it does down here?"

"Only one way to find out…"

Unwise as it was, Gaspar could only laugh. "Good luck."

The lunge came, just predictable enough to parry. Maybe banter was good for something.

Sparring on the SOLDIER floor training room played rough by most standards. But they still had some restraint. You were not supposed to deliberately injure your opponent. Deepground had no such inhibitions, and for all his rebelliousness, Wells had obviously taken that lesson to heart. The second strike was a decapitator, and while he managed to fend off that particular strike, it came at the cost of a pommel to the nose that broke his nose and was a clean knockout that took him off his feet. Once grounded and disarmed, it was over, although he could flatter himself that Wells had a few bruises.

"Want to get a drink?" Wells said, once Gaspar woke up, outside the arena. The tallies were being counted, and Wells had an undefeated run, but Shelke's crews had put up enough of a showing to not be pushovers. Which was good enough.

Gaspar laughed again. "A drink of what? Aren't you used to being down here yet?"

Wells' eye twitched. "Some day in the future, then. You gotta have a plan, 'Spar. Otherwise you might as well be dead."

"Speak for yourself. Where's this plan going to take you? There's no getting out of here without help from outside, even if people are still alive out there. Even if they are, they didn't give a shit about us when we were outside, you think anyone's going to put in the effort to dig us out now?"

"Then maybe we go for the throne instead."

In ordinary circumstances, this would be some kind of treason, but this was the attitude expected of everyone in Deepground. Gaspar saluted, SOLDIER style. "Like I said, good luck with that."

Wells smiled. "You change your mind, I'll be here. Or dead."

"Now you're getting it."