19. The Second Fight

[0430]

The next day, we started early.

Thirty minutes stolen from sleep nobody could afford to lose. Vance was already outside when we stumbled into formation. The air was colder than it had any right to be, and the floodlights carved the parade ground into hard-edged blocks.

“Assessment period is over. You’ve been measured, profiled, and catalogued.” He cracked his neck. “I know where every one of you breaks. And starting today, I get to start breaking.”

The Gauntlet had been rebuilt overnight. New obstacles everywhere, fewer handholds, and the balance beam narrowed to a rail. They’d even added a water crawl that was ankle-deep and freezing.

Vance made us complete four runs. Miller cleared the new climbing wall in seconds each time. It took me three attempts on the first run, and it never got easier. By the fourth, my hands were raw, my elbows reopened and bleeding, my thighs cramped from the cold water. The pack was struggling too — but the awakened recruits recovered between runs in ways I couldn’t.

After the Gauntlet, Vance split us. Half to Okafor and half to Kael.

I sat against the yard wall, trying to steady my hands as Kael’s group assembled.

“Full-contact sparring,” Kael announced. “Three-minute rounds. Pairings from your assessment profiles.”

He read names off his datapad. “Torres and Briggs. Priya and Vasquez. Jin and Hsu. Miller and Tiernan.”

Of course.

The ring was ten metres across, the boundaries set by painted lines.

It felt smaller than ten metres when Miller stepped in.

We hadn’t fought since day one, before a week of Ether filled out his frame.

“Begin,” Kael said.

Miller opened with Rotation One. Left hook, right cross, rising knee.

I slipped the hook, ducked under the right cross, then pivoted as his knee flashed past my hip. I sunk a jab into his left shoulder which only spurred him on further.

He came again, faster this time. The hook barely missed, and I felt air skim my cheek. The cross I parried; impact jarred through my forearm and into reopened scrapes. The knee I sidestepped by centimetres.

Then he abandoned the rotation. He flicked a jab as I stepped in, snapping my head back, then whipped a low kick toward my cramping thigh. My leg buckled under the impact. I caught myself, but Miller was already on me, pressing forward and driving me toward the ring’s edge.

Three metres of dirt behind me. Then the painted line. Then spectators.

He was herding me, compressing my space, cutting off the angles.

Only two meters of dirt left.

I planted my back foot on the line and cut hard left instead of retreating. Miller’s momentum carried him half a step past where I’d been. His weight committed forward, rear leg light.

I hit him in the temple. Not hard enough, my grip compromised by the Gauntlet.

“Huh,” he said, almost amused.

He came forward again. Feinted back, then surged forward. A different set of moves, but the same rhythm.

I found the window, my fist flashed in with a glancing shot to his ribs as his weight shifted forward. He absorbed it and answered with a sweeping hook to my body.

I overcommitted, and the blow crunched into my ribs. I almost dropped to a knee as I doubled over, barely catching myself from falling.

“Stay down, and I’ll stop.”

I sucked in a breath of cool air and dashed forwards into a clinch.

He shoved me—three steps back, breaking the clinch.

I saw Miller’s combos forming—the jab, cross, hook—but my feet lagged. The jab smacked my nose, and the world blurred.

I pushed forward into his aggression and clinched again. My arms were wrapped around Miller’s torso, as his elbow dug into my shoulder.

He shoved me off. I stumbled. He threw a knee.

My arm moved reflexively to take the impact. My mind slowed as the background analysis—tracking Miller’s shifts, mapping timing, cataloguing adjustments—just stopped. Like a screen turning off.

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What was left was simpler.

Move. Block. Breathe. Stay up.

Miller threw another set of blows. I slipped the first two, caught the third on my shoulder—my legs couldn’t take me clear. He pressed, and I yielded more ground. He kept pushing on, throwing everything into it.

His breathing changed. His hands dropped, and he overextended a right hook.

I moved on pure instinct, slipped under the swing and drove an uppercut onto the tip of his jaw.

Miller’s eyes went glassy as he fell to the floor.

“Winner, Tiernan,” Kael called.

The yard went quiet.

I couldn’t feel my forearms, my ribs roared, and my nose leaked. My legs trembled beneath it all, but I held—barely.

After a few moments, Miller finally regained consciousness as he fought to rise to his feet. He wiped a smear of blood from his mouth with a ragged forearm before he met my eyes with a fierce glare.

“Nice fight, Rabbit.” Miller spat.

He stepped closer.

“You know I’m going to catch up. Every day, I get faster. Stronger. That gap you keep squeezing through gets smaller every day.”

He walked away, the hitch in his breathing already fading.