The Ring was never silent.

Deep beneath Zaun, where the air hung heavy with coal soot and chem-smog, the city’s heartbeat never stopped—steam valves hissing in the walls, gears grinding somewhere in the dark above. It was a living machine, one that demanded blood to keep running.

For Aaron Veyne—the Iron Hound of the fighting pits—life followed a brutal rhythm: wake in the rust-stained cell they dared call a room, wait for the guards to drag him into the Ring, fight until someone else stopped breathing. Survive. Repeat. Survive again.

But this morning was different.

No guards. No rattling chains. The usual summons never came. Only silence, broken by the slow drip of water through corroded pipes, as if the whole world was holding its breath. Even Aaron, who had lived through ten years of killing, sat a little straighter on the iron cot, waiting for the blow he couldn’t see coming.

When the door finally groaned open, it wasn’t what he expected.

A guard in dented brass armor entered first, boots leaving oily tracks on the floor. Behind him came a woman who clearly didn’t belong in the Ring—but she wasn’t here to gawk either.

Mid-twenties, dark hair streaked faintly with white from too many sleepless nights, mismatched eyes—one blue, one brown—that swept the cell like they were assessing a problem to be solved. She wore a long, oil-stained coat over practical clothes, the kind favored by people who spent more time with machines than with people. She carried no weapons, but she didn’t seem to need any.

The guard cleared his throat. “So this is him,” he said, voice rough with smoke. “Aaron Veyne. The one who’ll be your bodyguard from now on.”

Aaron didn’t move. He had faced men with knives, chem-mutants with teeth like broken glass, even things built from gears and rage—but this? This didn’t make sense.

He leaned forward slightly, eyes narrowing. His voice, when it came, was low and sharp, like the whisper of a blade leaving its sheath.

“…What?”