From friends to enemies in less than a day.

The Gauntlet had a way of messing with you, Codi reflected, as she took her place opposite her opponents in the quarter final of the paired bracket. Rokki Thakkar and Targon Fenz had bulldozed their way to this stage of the competition, dispatching a pair from Galactic Force with all the trademark savagery that was expected from their academy. With Rokki out of the singles bracket, they were the last thing for Firequake's formidable travelling support to pin their hopes on.

And all of them had turned up for this match.

For once the Battlecast support seemed to have met their match as huge swathes of seething red generated a feral cacophony of screaming and chanting. Flash-flares popped amongst them in hazy blossoms of wild primary colours. The noise of the two camps felt like it might shake the Arena apart.

Codi focused, letting the thunder of the spectators recede into the back of her mind as she took stock of their next match. She'd watched Rokki and his partner as they ripped their way through the preceding rounds using one tactic: pure, unrivalled aggression. True to form, the Firequake duo only knew how to do one thing. They went forward, and they went forward hard.

There was no question this would be the toughest test so far, and Codi couldn't shake a niggling sense of worry in the back of her mind. Although technically a higher seed thanks to their pre-tournament results, she and Gareth had been fighting as a pair for a lot less time than their opponents.

Between the fighters the arena construct yawned out, a flat disc filled with thick blocks of scaffolding, anti-grav launch pads and low barriers – an obstacle course for the teams to use against each other. Codi's eyes flickered around it, noting the main positions, trying to formulate some uses for the scaffolds. There were plenty of things to swing off and generate momentum, to sweep each other around the arena.

"Let them come," Gareth advised, his eyes appraising the other fighters coldly. "They play wild. We'll have to go reactive."

"You think?" she gave him a dubious look. "You know what they say – fight fire with fire."

Gareth winced. "That saying doesn't even make sense."

"You know what I mean. We should match them. Head to head we should win this in a stand up fight."

But they didn't have more time to discuss the strategy. The arena counter reached five, counting down...

When the klaxon sounded the Firequake team were off their marks with eye-blurring speed, tearing out into the arena, driven on by the screaming of their supporters. Codi found herself moving at a more leisurely pace, inwardly cursing. Regardless of what she'd wanted, Firequake had grabbed the initiative with their explosive start, forcing the Battlecast team to react to them.

That task proved to be more difficult than she would ever have imagined.

Codi slowed, eyes widening as their opponents launched into a series of bizarre manoeuvres. Using parts of the arena as springboards, they leapfrogged each other, the one in the lead dragging the other by their tether forward in great arcs. Each leap increased their speed as they swung from scaffold to scaffold, bouncing off the anti-grav pads and whirling onward like a human cyclone.

"Oh crap!"

She skidded to a halt, frantically waving Gareth backwards. With uncertain steps, she started retreating, seeing that the momentum the Firequake fighters had built up had reached a critical point. They seemed out of control, no longer leapfrogging but simply spinning in mid air, held together by the gravity tether. Rotating with such speed, they became a fast approaching smear of red, and Codi only had a matter of seconds to brace herself for the titanic impact that was to follow. Ramping up the gravity fields of her exoskeleton, she locked her arms in a protective position in front of her face and braced.

She wasn't sure which of the Firequake fighters slammed into her at first. All she saw was a blur of red before a body scythed into her, generating an ear-splitting crack as their exoskeletons met. The force twisted her body into a spin despite the added weight of her gravity fields and she stumbled, only to take a second enormous blow to her back.

Such was the momentum of the Firequake spin that they'd both hit her, one after the other. This time she was catapulted forward, face first into the nearest thick spar of scaffolding. Her skull rang with the impact, but already her fighter's mind clicked to the Firequake tactic. Divide and conquer. They knew she was the most dangerous part of the Battlecast team, and had thrown everything on a gamble to take her out of the equation.

Spinning and keeping her back to the scaffold, she barely had an instant to react as both Rokki Thakkar and Targon Fenz descended upon her. The female fighter swept in first with a wild right hook. Codi ducked, blocked the follow-up left and slammed a kick into Fenz's side. Before she could press that advantage, however, Rokki Thakkar arrived, cracking her across the jaw with enough force to knock her back into the scaffold. She twisted and dodged away from his next swing, only for his team-mate to punch her in the gut.

A wild snarl of frustration tore from her throat as she clattered an elbow into the girl's face. Then she lashed out with her right leg, forcing Rokki to skip back out of the swing and buying her a precious instant.

Grinding her teeth together she angled her body with her left shoulder towards her attackers, absorbing and blocking the worst of the blows, pain ringing through her body. Then with her free hand she yanked hard on the gravity tether to even the odds.

Gareth was hauled into the melee, collecting both Firequake fighters on arrival. He hit Fenz in a tackle, wrapping both arms around the girl's waist, and carried her straight into her team-mate with a crashing jumble of limbs. All three of them hit the ground, still swinging, punches and kicks rattling back and forth. After catching a breath, Codi gave the tether another pull, trying to extract her team-mate from the brawl.

What she hadn't banked on was Rokki Thakkar latching onto the back of Gareth's exoskeleton. Her single, sharp tug brought both of them flying towards her and she had to sidestep to avoid another collision. When they hit the ground, Thakkar had his brawny arms wrapped around Gareth's throat in a choke-hold. While Gareth had managed to jam a hand between his neck and Thakkar's forearm, he was in a precarious position.

Codi moved to help him, but before she could get there a flash of magenta hair in the corner of her vision arrested her progress. She let out a wordless growl of irritation as Targon Fenz lunged into her path, swinging like a windmill. Although the blows were easily avoided, it forced to back up before she could retaliate.

Stabbing two blocks left and right, she opened up Fenz to a savage punch in her windpipe. The girl coughed and staggered backwards, trying to breathe through the pain. Codi took a step forward, winding up to remove this obstacle for good.

But Fenz dove in under the blow, catching Codi by the leg and coiling herself around her at a seemingly impossible angle. Suddenly the Firequake fighter was directly beneath her, clinging on like a limpet. Codi wrenched one leg free and tried to stamp down on her opponent, but Fenz arched her back to avoid it, and then caught the descending leg and gripped tightly.

Anger exploded in Codi's veins as she tried to dislodge herself, knowing full well that Fenz was only trying to delay her and stop her from helping Gareth. She leaned down, raining a storm of blows on the girl, but Fenz was slippery, squirming, blocking and changing position to avoid the worst of it. Every time Codi thought she'd freed herself another hand would get a hold of her.

Finally, she dropped with her full weight as Fenz tried to twist away yet again. With precise aim, Codi jammed a knee against the girl's neck and pressed down hard, trying to make her pass out. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself not to let up, even as the veins bulged in the Firequake fighter's neck and temple. Her eyes started to roll and Codi felt the grip around her loosen ever so slightly.

Then Rokki Thakkar's forearm hit her in the face like a metal bar.

The massive force smashed her to the ground, snapping her head backwards and sending a lightning bolt of pain through her neck. She retained enough of her wits to force herself into a backward roll away from her adversaries, scrambling upright. When she looked up, both Firequake fighters were advancing toward her.

Codi pulled on the tether to help Gareth reposition, but to her horror she felt heavy resistance, and her team-mate did not come soaring to land by her side. She glanced over and saw him still on the ground after enduring Thakkar's onslaught, spluttering for breath.

Shit.

No-one was going to help her now, and two against one, Codi didn't like her chances.

Firequake's top team didn't waste any time either. It was like being thrown into a whirlpool full of rocks as she parried, dodged and retaliated where she could. She tried to scramble away on the scaffold, but Fenz caught her legs and pulled her back to earth. When she landed, Thakkar was waiting with a vicious flurry of blows that swept up her torso, ending with a punishing swing that connected with her right eye.

It knocked her flat, and Codi rolled several feet before coming to a stop, face down and moaning in pain and frustration. Her body ached and she tried to get up again, but she only made it to her knees, trying to draw in enough breath to move properly.

A shudder of anguish passed through her when the klaxon sounded. All she could do was sit there, listening to the announcer as he made the result official. Firequake had won. Rokki Thakkar and Targon Fenz were going to the semi-final, while Codi and Gareth would be slinking back to their dorms in defeat. No amount of anger could change that now.

The noise from Firequake's supporters clogged up the air, a frenzy of joyous elation that washed down into the arena. Codi couldn't block it out, screwing her eyes shut and wishing the ground would just swallow her whole.

No such luck.

She felt a hand beneath her armpit, and in a swift motion she was tossed back to her feet. A steel-like grip caught her around the waist as she tottered for a moment, and without thinking she reached out, putting her hands on the shoulders of whoever had helped her up. To her shock, when she opened her eyes she found herself looking at Rokki Thakkar. The other fighter's face was shining with rivulets of sweat, his animal features split with a childish grin. She took her hands off his shoulder-guards as though she'd been scalded.

"Looks like I win this round, girl," Thakkar said in a breathy chuckle. "No hard feelin's, huh? I'll see you soon. We still got unfinished business." Then the grip around her waist released and he walked backwards away from her, clenched fists raised into the sky as the Firequake fans went wild. A moment later Targon Fenz leapt on his back with a maniacal whoop, wrapping one arm around his shoulders, the other extended high in salute to their support.

For a moment all she could do was stare, cheeks flushed red, confusion and anger bubbling just beneath the surface in an unpredictable cocktail. Her body trembled with the urge to do something, but she couldn't figure out what it was. Her fists clamped shut so hard that she felt pain in her muscles from the tension. Then a hand touched her elbow.

"Codi," Gareth groaned, his face still screwed up with the pain of their exchange. "You okay?"

"What the hell do you think?" she spat, unable even to look at him.

Codi disengaged the gravity tether and stalked from the arena, bitterness coiling through every bone in her body, the unfamiliar taste of defeat like ash on her tongue.