The roar of the Colosseum was a monster that had been sleeping for weeks, and it had woken up hungry for his blood.
Even from the palace training grounds, Marcus could hear the distant, thunderous sound of eighty thousand people chanting his name. It wasn't a sound of love. It was a sound of anticipation. The mob was gathering, eager for the spectacle, for the violence he had promised them.
He stood on the practice sand, holding a real gladius. The sword was heavier than the wooden practice blade, its edges sharp enough to shave with. It felt alien and clumsy in his hand, a tool of death he had no idea how to properly wield.
Crixus stood opposite him, his face a grim, stony mask.
"I can't do this," Marcus said, his voice strained. The weight of the sword felt like the weight of his own impending death. "The performance for Galen was a lie. An act. This is a real fight. A man will die. Or I will."
He held the sword out, presenting it to Crixus like a piece of foreign technology he couldn't comprehend.
"You're right," Crixus said, his voice a low rumble. His brutal honesty was a slap in the face. "Marcus Holt can't do this. He would be dead in ten seconds. He would trip over his own feet and fall on his own blade."
Crixus took the sword from Marcus's unresisting hand. He tested its balance, his movements fluid and certain. "But the man who sometimes came to the ludus when I was just a boy... the Princeps who would sometimes spar with the champions for his own amusement..." Crixus's eyes met his, and they were filled with a terrible, reluctant understanding. "The man who knew my father's signature counter-move… he can do this."
He was talking about Commodus. The ghost. He was, unintentionally, advocating for the monster that was trying to erase Marcus completely.
The horrifying truth of it settled in Marcus's gut like a block of ice. To survive, he couldn't just borrow Commodus's memories like a script. He couldn't have JARVIS puppeteering his limbs. He had to do something far more dangerous.
He had to let the ghost take the wheel.
He had to willingly surrender control of his own body to the brutal, arrogant tyrant inside him, and pray to a god he didn't believe in that he could take it back afterward.
A palace herald, his face pale and sweating despite the morning cool, entered the training ground and bowed low.
"Caesar," the herald announced, his voice trembling slightly. "By the decree of the Senate, and with the generous patronage of your sister, the Lady Lucilla, your opponent for the exhibition has been selected."
Marcus felt his jaw tighten. "And?"
"He is a champion worthy of a god," the herald recited, the words clearly fed to him. "The greatest champion of the Ludus Magnus. The man they call the Giant of Pannonia. Narcissus."
Crixus swore, a sharp, violent curse under his breath.
Marcus knew the name. JARVIS had cross-referenced it from the historical database. Narcissus. A legendary gladiator, a mountain of a man known for his immense strength and unnatural speed.
Historically, he was the man who eventually strangled the real Commodus to death in his bath. Lucilla wasn't just trying to kill him. She was trying to rewrite history back to its proper, bloody course.
Later that day, she made her move a public spectacle. In the Forum, before a crowd of senators and citizens, Lucilla held a ceremony. She presented Narcissus, a giant who towered over even Crixus, with a "gift from the Imperial family." A magnificent new set of black steel armor, and a gleaming, perfectly balanced gladius.
It was a masterful, vicious piece of theater. She was honoring the man she fully expected to murder her brother, all under the guise of supporting the games. She was rigging the fight in plain sight, and the crowd roared its approval.
As the ceremony ended, Lucilla's hand rested for a moment on Narcissus's massive, armored shoulder. Her smile was radiant, but her eyes were cold as she whispered something to him. It was a silent, chilling blessing of death.
That night, Marcus went to the Mausoleum. The cold, silent tomb felt like the only sane place left in the world. He opened the laptop, but he didn't need to look at the screen. He just needed the connection.
He spoke to the voice in his head.
"JARVIS. Tomorrow, when I'm in the tunnel. I'll give a mental command. The word is 'Now.' When I give it, you open the gates completely. All of them. Give him full access to motor control, to everything."
ACKNOWLEDGED, the voice of the AI replied in his mind, its tone as calm as ever. INITIATING 'HOST SUBMERGENCE' PROTOCOL ON YOUR COMMAND.
"But you monitor everything," Marcus continued, his own voice a low whisper in the dark. "Every heartbeat. Every chemical spike. The second the fight is over, you do whatever it takes to pull me back. You trigger the safeword. You flood my brain with memories of Marcus Holt. You do whatever it takes."
There was a pause. THE PROBABILITY OF COMPLETE AND IRREVERSIBLE PERSONALITY SUBMERGENCE IS 42%, JARVIS stated, the statistic a cold, hard slap. MARCUS HOLT MAY NOT... RESURFACE.
"Just be ready," was all he could say.
He heard a soft footstep behind him. Marcia stood in the doorway of the small chamber, holding a simple clay water jug and a piece of bread wrapped in a cloth. A humble meal for a man about to face his own execution.
She didn't speak of the fight. She didn't offer words of comfort or hope. She simply walked over, sat on the stone floor a few feet from him, and placed the food between them.
She sat with him in the silent tomb, her presence a quiet, unwavering anchor in the terrifying storm of his own mind. He looked at her, at her calm, determined face, and he realized with a sudden, painful clarity that he wasn't just fighting for the Empire anymore. He wasn't even fighting for himself.
He was fighting to get back to her.
The morning of the fight, the palace was a hive of activity. Servants scurried, guards polished their armor, senators placed their bets. Marcus stood silent and still in the center of it all as armorers dressed him for the arena.
The armor was a masterpiece of gilded bronze and red leather. It was beautiful, ornate, and fit for a god.
"It's too heavy," Crixus noted, running a hand over the intricate breastplate. "The joints are restricted. It's parade armor, not fighting armor."
Another of Lucilla's subtle, poisonous gifts.
As the greaves were strapped to his legs and the heavy helmet was placed over his head, he heard the two voices in his mind, a duet of the damned.
VITAL SIGNS ELEVATED. ADRENALINE AT 180%, JARVIS noted calmly.
And beneath it, a new voice. A faint, arrogant whisper, like a predator waking from a long slumber. It was the ghost of Commodus, and it was eager for what was to come.
The crowd awaits its god.
Marcus looked at his reflection in the polished, curved surface of his own breastplate. For a horrifying moment, his own worried, terrified face was overlaid with the faint, sneering image of the real Commodus, his eyes burning with a mad, ecstatic fire.
He stood in the dark, narrow tunnel leading out into the arena. The air was thick with the smell of dust, sweat, and something metallic that could only be old blood. Through the gate at the end of the tunnel, he could see a sliver of the bright, sun-drenched sand.
He could hear the roar of eighty thousand people chanting his name. Not "Caesar." Not "Emperor."
"Commodus! Commodus! Commodus!"
It was a sound of worship. It was a sound of bloodlust.
He took a deep, shuddering breath, closed his eyes, and gave the mental command.
"JARVIS. Now."