Panic had Elytra rushing through her morning routine, and it was a good thing too, because her collar had her out of her room sooner than normal. Along with the nine others summoned for matches that day (they must not have had enough prisoners to have the six matches of the days before), she was led to the feeding room, to her normal seat, and her normal meal of bland cubes.
She ate more out of necessity than desire, glancing at the others while wondering which of them she'd be going up against. The others were all doing the same.
Once finished, their collars then led them down a new corridor, and had them separated off into cells even smaller than the ones they slept in. As with the rest of the decor in this place, it was nothing but white, with a bench against one wall, while the furthest wall had the door outline like the rejuvenation chamber, back in her cell. Opening it, she found that this room was, in its entirety, only as big as the shower portion of the rejuvenation chamber she was familiar with. No doubt jus to cover the toilet function, rather than the washing utility.
Not knowing what else to do, Elytra sat on the bench and waited for whatever the day was set to bring, trying to focus on everything she'd learned about piloting a mech so as to not spiral out into a full blown nervous breakdown.
Thankfully, the lights in the room dimmed not long later, and on the wall across from the bench, a display lit up. It showed the arena where all the battles had been taking place, the centre of it currently blank, but the stands full of people already howling and chanting.
"WELCOME TO THE FIFTH DAY OF ELIMINATION MATCHES!" The announcer boomed out over the crowd. Unlike the fixed camera angle of the footage they played for them after the evening meal, this camera actually panned up to show the projection across the top of the dome.
"WE HOPE YOU ARE PREPARED FOR THE EXCITEMENT WE HAVE IN STORE FOR YOU TODAY! IN ACCORDANCE, INDIVIDUAL FOOD RATIONS WILL BEEN INCREASED BY FIVE PERCENT FOR THE EVENING MEAL, AND MANDATORY WORK HOURS WILL END A QUARTER HOUR EARLY!"
The crowd went wild at that, the announcer smiling benignly down at them all, and Elytra frowned. Rations and mandatory work hours. Were the citizens of this world live lives as regimented as what she and her fellow prisoners were forced to endure? And to celebrate so loudly over such minor and temporary changes… it didn't paint the most flattering picture of what life was like for the baithaizans in this place. Pryseia had said they were different from the rest of their species, so was this, too, a deviation from the norm? She could only hazard at guesses in that regard.
Still, it was just another reason she would be glad to be rid of this place.
"PLEASE ENJOY THE FIRST MATCH OF THE DAY, AND REMEMBER," the announcer said as the crowd died down, "THE TOIL YOU ENDURE UPLIFTS US ALL!"
And on that cheery proclamation, they brought the strange horn instrument to their lips as they had the first day Elytra had awoken in this place, and blew out a resonant note to begin the match.
On opposite ends of the arena, two doors slid open, and a mech strode out of each. The green mech immediately started opening fire, while the purple one began strafing as it advanced. As she had over the last handful of evening replays, Elytra studied their techniques, hoping that she would be able to remember all she'd learned when her time to fight came around.
The pilot of the purple mech won the first round, destroying the melee weapons of the green mech after the pilot went through their entire ammunition stores.
In round two the pilot in green emerged victorious, utilizing their mech's shielding systems in order to charge the purple mech and destroy its sensor array. Clearly she wasn't the only one learning from how the other pilots fought.
Purple victories for the next two rounds. The first was a drawn out affair, both pilots still hesitantly manoeuvering around one another, until purple managed to bring green to the ground and pin it there. It wasn't the most elegant of victories, but it was a victory none the less. The pilots that went next operated their machines with far more confidence, and when purple managed to smash the gun and toss the sabre that green carried, the victory felt more earned.
And before the crowd could even begin to celebrate the end of that match, the screen shut off in Elytra's cell, and her collar began tugging her up and out of her cell.
Her heartbeat roaring through her skull, she had no choice but to follow.
In no time at all, she was brought down to a small hangar, one that looked like a more simplified version of the one she'd seen the Odazaen in on the initial bloodbath that the tournament opened on. A dozen mechs painted green were lined up in the room, some in working order, while others were in the process of being repaired by hovering machines. If there were people controlling them, either remotely or internally, they didn't pay Elytra any mind as she was guided towards one of the operational mechs.
At her approach, the cockpit of the mech opened of its own accord. She was guided to a small platform, which lifted her to the open hatch the moment she had both feet on it, and her collar urged her inside.
When she sat down, her hands and feet immediately fell to the controls before her. After having spent so long in the simulated cockpit of a T0-K4Y, the real thing was nowhere near as intimidating as she feared it would be.
The familiar harness clamped down around her as the hatch on the mech sealed up, and a moment later, the HUD blinked to life. Running through the startup was second nature by now, the actual mech responding just as the simulated one had.
"Pilot, please advance to the ready zone." The onboard VI chirped a few moments later, arrows and a destination marker overlaid over the live feed from the sensor array. Even though Pryseia had warned her about it ahead of time, the feel of the actual weight of the mech moving at her command was a vastly different experience to what the training sims could replicate. Thankfully, by the time she made it to the ready zone, she felt like she'd gotten a handle on that difference.
Below the mech, the ready zone began to rise and move, the low-light filter on the sensor array automatically activating as the mech was brought through a dark loading tunnel. Soon enough, the audio sensors began to pick up on the roaring of the crowd in the arena, and the muffled announcer whipping them into a frenzy.
Shortly thereafter, the lift arrived at a closed door, and symbols that Elytra recognized as the Baithaiz numerical system appeared on one of her displays. The symbols flashed into new configurations at a steady pace, and she could only assume that they were counting down, as no one had bothered to teach her how to read them. But soon enough they stopped, and the door before her slid open, the low-light filter immediately switching to an anti-glare one as the bright lights from the arena beamed in at her.
Taking a deep breath and focusing on the door opening across the arena from her, Elytra hoped that all the training she'd been through in the sims would be enough to see her through this match. She didn't want Pryseia's faith in her to be misplaced.