[i]All furnish’d, all in arms;
All plumed like estridges that with the wind
Baited like eagles having lately bathed;
Glittering in golden coats, like images;
As full of spirit as the month of May,
And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer;
Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.
-Shakespeare, History of Henry IV, Part I[/i]

Among all the stars in heaven, there is nothing quite like the feeling of sitting in the pilot’s chair as you start a mecha. The power of the crystal fire races through the machine, causing the metal to thrum deeply with it. The feeling rises up through a pilot, starting in the legs and the thighs and surging through their chest, until the heart wants to beat in time with it. The systems come to life and the pilot receives a rush of data. It feels like growing, or perhaps like the world shrinks. It feels as though nothing could really offer a threat. Not through iron skin and thrusters of blinding white light powered by the crystal fire. 

In private, the temptation is equal parts desire to do nothing and to race. To bask in the power, to sit and experience it all, yet to sprint, to set the thrusters to max and fly as hard and as fast as possible to feel no less than the full thrill that the experience offers. 

Now stack on the desire to pose for a cheering public, the thought of loved ones back home, and some pre-match jitters to get a slight taste of the feelings of each pilot at the start of an arena season.

The Arena is bejeweled for the beginning of its fifth season. The nanobots have been in constant buzz working upon Hybrasilian bio-engineered seedlings and the result is that the oft-sandblasted arena planet of Akar finds itself covered with the emeralds and sapphires of a lush forest dotted with rivers and lakes. The trees are massive, easily ten stories tall with layers of thick canopy that would allow an enterprising mech to set an ambush without even using a stealth generator. Travel is slow and limited with such low visibility though, causing command of the heights and the waterways to offer a pilot clear lines of sight for combat. 

This is how things are arranged for the start of the season. A thousand hidden cameras with mobile AI are placed strategically throughout the forest and accompany every pilot to capture the action. With all new combatants, a hundred small fights will soon by breaking out across the planet. Word has spread not only in TC space so near to Akar, but all the way to the homeworlds of Hybrasil and Zaldaria that the season is starting! 

The luckiest, wealthiest, and most cunning patrons of all species are here in Akar, packing the bars and the hotels of Akar Prime and Akar II so that they can watch the live feed ahead of the recordings being sent out by couriers and container ships across the jumps lanes. Word is also spreading that upon Akar Prime, a high fashion house is recruiting pilots to sponsor their clothes and that the competition has brought more than a few illicit interests out from hiding to participate. 

Welcome, one and all, to the Arena!