He remembers the match. The record disagrees. Rexan Vale has spent years working toward one chance inside the Arena, where licensed Glyphs turn trained competitors into weapons of fire, force, and motion. His debut should be the beginning of a career. Instead, a fraction of a second disappears. Rexan remembers his display freezing. He remembers his opponent continuing to move. He remembers making a choice the official replay insists happened differently. Then it happens again. Commands arrive late. Barriers refuse to release. Training systems anticipate movements Rexan never made. Each incident is corrected, summarized, and filed away until the official record bears less and less resemblance to what he experienced. Rexan is not the only one who notices. A veteran broadcaster begins preserving footage before it can be revised. A Black Badge officer starts questioning the reports she once trusted. Buried beneath the Arena's polished broadcasts and carefully maintained records, they uncover traces of an older match, a sealed witness, and a system designed to resolve contradictions by deciding which version of reality is allowed to survive. As Rexan's matches become harder to leave, winning is no longer the objective. He has to preserve the truth of what happened to him before the Arena turns the witness into the malfunction.
