27. The First Rounds

The horn echoed off the arena walls, and the sound folded back on itself. It was denser than the training yard, the enclosed space turning a single blast into a pressure wave that I felt in my chest.

We quickly moved to set up on the platform as a group. If this were Mech combat, the clear sightlines given as we moved would’ve put us in a disparaging spot. But thankfully, this was pure hand-to-hand.

The Barracks 9 squad broke from their gate in a standard spread — two forward, two flanking, two centre. The lead fighter was a tall kid with a tanking deviation, his guard high and steady.

They hit the first partial wall and hesitated, allowing us to reach the platform before them.

“Two forward, splitting left. Right flanker — depression,” Ren called from our platform, the words clipped to fragments, as Jin moved in a blur, gravel spraying behind her boots. The right flanker turned toward the sound, and she tagged him from an angle his rotation guard never covered. She pressed for a few moments, striking him several more times before he fell.

First elimination.

A collective breath echoed from the stands, an intake of breath from over two hundred people.

Hsu worked the western section while Park pinned a regrouping fighter. But the tall kid and his partner were smart. They’d identified the platform and were moving toward it. They didn’t rush and covered the movement with a screening element of two other kids, all covering each other. The opponents shifted their guard towards the lead’s transition gap as they pushed across the terrain; our window of opportunity to exploit it was rapidly closing.

“They’re paired,” Tomás said. “Trained together. The partner compensates in real time.”

I rushed to meet them at the ramp base, towards a small break that Ren had managed to identify. The tall kid stepped forward to meet me, likely to distract and allow for the remaining team to gain the high ground. He came at me with Rotation Two, feet set steady, and shoulders squared.

The blows weren’t anything special, slow, but they hit hard. Clear weight vibrated through my guard with every strike. Though it took me only a few moments to find his rhythm. I slipped through his guard after throwing a feint and hooked his leg, throwing him off balance. I prepped myself to shoulder-check him off the side of the platform, but his partner had finally arrived.

He was exactly where the counter left me exposed. A clean tag to my ribs that sent me to the edge of the platform. I lowered my centre of gravity and pushed myself from the precipice.

I can’t just assault from the front.

I quickly scanned as I moved forward; Jin and Hsu were harassing two stragglers who hadn’t made it to the platform, while Ren dictated the best places to apply pressure. Tomás was nowhere in sight. Park was rushing to meet me and assist with the front two.

Divide and conquer.

I manoeuvred myself so I could face the partner solely. Each time they shifted their positions, I mirrored, keeping only one in front of me at all times. The restricted space disrupted their formation, as I made sure they couldn’t stand side by side. Keeping up the momentum, I jabbed out towards the kid’s abdomen, quickly shifting the trajectory of my blows as I rained down on him.

He was following a typical defensive rotation. I could tell that his Hand-To-Hand combat skill was rather high, and I estimated the sequence of blows that would find an opening in his guard.

Strike high, low, high again, feint the third jab and solid right into his liver.

I mapped out the sequence in real time as the final blow struck his side, causing him to heave over. Taking advantage of the reprieve, I lashed out with a low kick to the kid’s knee, and it buckled under pressure. Before his teammate could make up for the mistake I shoved, hard, knocking the kid off the platform, where he fell two meters with a loud crunch.

Park can deal with him. Only the leader is left on the platform.

I reset my stance and faced off against the brown-haired kid, who was at least a foot taller than me. Before I lunged out, I caught Tomás in my periphery. He was working his way up and around the platform, hoping to climb up and pincer. It was a manoeuvre we had practised for.

So I played my part and grabbed the leader’s attention, engaging in his defensive dance. I stalled him out, blocked and weaved his blows, the movements coming easy to me as his stats weren’t enough to bridge the gap of my predictive fighting.

It took around twenty seconds for Tomás to move into position behind the leader, and when he did, I moved onto the offensive. I stepped into the boy’s guard and began working him down; his deviation allowed sustained hits and boosted his overall stamina. I could have beaten him myself, but this was faster, more efficient.

Tomás lashed out at the kid’s legs from behind, causing him to stumble. I pressed hard at that moment and performed a flurry of blows into the kid. Ending with a strong uppercut that clipped him directly on his chin, his eyes went glassy, and he fell.

Tomás and I shared a glance as I looked around at the arena. Park finished off the kid who had fallen from the platform and moved to assist Jin and Hsu, who had already taken down the moving element. Ren was engaged with one of the stragglers. It didn’t take long for us to break down the remaining foes once their plans had fallen apart.

“Elimination — Squad Tiernan takes the match.”

“Two minutes forty-three seconds,” Tomás said.

“Not a bad showing for the first fight,” I remarked.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

We filed into the staging area. The adrenaline was still high — Hsu recounting the platform fight to Ren, Park sketching adjustments on his datapad.

I stepped apart and pulled up the interface.

[XP: 684 / 750]

The Exhibition combat was generating more strife per minute than weeks of training. Underneath the combat XP, a smaller tick — XP I couldn’t attribute to any specific exchange. The stands. The Tiernans. The ambient weight of being watched. The system counted everything.

I glanced at the observation deck.

David’s posture hadn’t changed — legs crossed, datapad untouched. Michael had leaned forward, the grin sharpened. The unknown woman sat motionless, hands folded.

And beside her, in a seat I hadn’t registered before—

Kael.

Instructor Kael. In the Tiernan section. In the sponsor section. With my family’s delegation. Seated between the unknown woman and the young man as though he’d always been there.

My stomach dropped. My breath came wrong for two counts before I caught it.

Kael. Boot on my chest in week one. Six months of silence. Assigned to our barracks by someone, placed there by someone, and now sitting with four Tiernans at an F-Grade exhibition he had no institutional reason to be with.

Unless the institution is the Tiernans themselves.

“Analysis.” The word came out steady.

“Our terrain advantage is time-limited,” Tomás said. “Barracks 3 watched us. They’ll adapt. The platform is compromised.”

“So we let them have it,” I said. “Invert. Abandon the platform. Set up in the depression.”

“The depression gives me less acceleration distance,” Jin said.

“But more angles. Four blind approaches. You don’t need distance if they can’t see you coming.”

She processed and nodded.

[Fight two.]

The Barracks 3 squad entered with purpose. Their leader—a D-Grade girl with close-cropped hair and calm eyes—directed her team with hand signals. Three fighters broke toward the platform.