33. The First Dump Tackle (heh)

PAIR 34 (TIERNAN / JIN) vs PAIR 2 (BARRACKS 6)

Dayo was smaller in person than he’d looked on Park’s footage, yet he exuded an air of confidence that laid everything bare. He rolled his shoulders as he walked through the gate, each movement unhurried, his breathing steady and even. His partner Rachel settled into her Rotation Three shell the moment the horn sounded — high guard, elbows locked, exactly the fortress stance Park had shown us on the datapad less than an hour ago. But where the clip had made her look mechanical, in person, she carried a sharpness in her eyes that the footage hadn’t captured.

We moved across the arena together. I took the vanguard position, hoping to draw in the opponents. The plan of attack: don’t go anywhere near Rachel, defang the beast, then deal with the other later, via grappling.

Dayo came forward, meeting us in the centre. Lead foot planted, hips already beginning the rotation that would drive his first combination. I recognised the opening from Park’s clip — shoulders committing before hips, the weight transferring to the lead foot a half-beat before the strikes launched. I had the counter mapped and started my lateral step the moment his shoulders moved.

His combination arrived and passed through the air I’d just been standing in. My lateral step carried me left, angling around the arc of his hooks where the follow-through would leave his ribs exposed. My guard was set, my weight transferred, the angle clean.

His weight returned to the centre before I arrived. His hips snapped back faster than anything I’d seen in the exhibition, the committed extension collapsing into a reset that left no gap between the end of one combination and the beginning of his guard.

Shit, he’s fast.

His follow-up combination caught my guard before I could pull back. My feet slid back across the gravel, and the vibration from a single blocked combination ran from my wrists to my shoulders.

I tried the counter again on his next sequence. Lateral step, inside angle, same entry point. His recovery beat me to the centre for the second time. The frustrating part was how predictable he was — Rotation Four cycled through the same committed sequences over and over, and I could read every single one of them. I knew what was coming before his hips started turning. My brain was already bored, but my body was losing.

“Jin — slow left.”

Jin fired from my right. Three seconds of acceleration, and the gap between her and Dayo collapsed. She tagged him clean during the recovery window — two strikes to the ribs that landed with sharp precision.

Dayo absorbed both hits. He rolled his shoulder where the combination had landed and reset his guard, already pressing forward again.

Rachel tried to get involved, Dayo pulled back, and she entered my range, cutting me off from Jin.

Clean plan, separate and dominate.

While Jin engaged Dayo, I turned my attention to Rachel, trying to find a way past her and follow the game plan. She’d been advancing during the exchange, disciplined and patient, each step deliberate. She was positioning herself to cut off Jin’s escape lanes, all while herding me away from her.

I intercepted her before she could complete the cut-off. Straight jab to test her guard distance. She caught it on her shell, elbows tight, and the shield deviation pulsed on contact — a ripple of force that ran back through my fist and stung the knuckles. She watched me absorb the sting, and the corner of her mouth twitched. She wanted me to hit her again.

I feinted at the opening after her second combination. A flitter of Ether fired across her forearms, discharging into empty air, even before I landed a blow.

Wait what? I thought it was automatic.

The hesitation must have shown on my face as she stepped into my range and threw several punches that I stopped with my guard. The punches weren’t anything dangerous; she had likely leveraged her stat points to match her deviation to the utmost.

I dropped stance, letting a hook fly over my head. Leveraging my position, I came from underneath while the shield reset, tagging her below the guard’s coverage with a left hook to her exposed side.

She staggered. She was back in her shell within a second, but this time she adjusted — shortening her cycling period, launching combinations faster with less time spent in the protective guard position.

Jin’s burst ended. Dayo pressed her during the reset window, his combinations arriving with mechanical precision. Jin gave ground, buying seconds.

I left Rachel mid-exchange while she reeled from the blow and sprinted toward Dayo’s flank. His next combination was already launching toward Jin as he committed his weight forward and his attention with it. I came in low and struck behind his knee barrier and drove a straight right into his exposed side the moment his hips buckled under the extension.

The hit landed. His combination toward Jin shortened by a fraction — the instinct to address a threat from an unexpected angle pulling his focus for half a beat. I made eye contact with Jin as she fired. Two seconds of burst, two clean strikes to the ribs she’d been targeting all fight.

Dayo turned on me. I was inside his Rotation Four’s effective range, too close for his committed combinations to generate full power. He shortened to compact hooks and uppercuts. His compact hook caught my guard and drove my elbow into my own ribs. The follow-up uppercut glanced off my shoulder as I turned with it.

I tagged him. Clean, square to the jaw as I turned with one of his blows. My best punch of the fight — good angle, proper weight transfer, my hips driving the strike.

His head turned maybe two centimetres. He blinked once, reset his guard, and came forward.

Oh come on, I know that was clean!

Jin’s next burst fired from his left side while he pressed me. I’d pulled his guard right. She arrived left. Three strikes before the burst ended, each one finding the gap my positioning had created. Dayo adjusted, splitting his attention between the two of us, his Rotation Four cycling between threats. Every time I stepped forward, his guard shifted a degree toward me. Every time it shifted, Jin had a wider opening on the opposite side.

Rachel caught up to me in moments. I was faster and had managed to close the gap sooner, but she was high on my tail. Her rhythm was faster than before. The mechanical fighter from Park’s footage had been replaced by someone actively evolving and changing her solutions.

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My reads on Rachel’s cycling were faltering, and my eyes’ signals to Jin were arriving a fraction late. I was fighting two fights and losing both.

Shit, I have to change this up. We keep getting driven apart. If I drag the two apart and trust Jin to win her fight, it’s possible. But that Dayo guy is much tougher than I originally thought.

I drew Rachel toward the arena’s eastern barrier, where the loose gravel would restrict her movement.

She needs solid ground to reset her stances. If I can drag out that reset time, then I can exploit it.

Her feet caught the gravel as she had to stop herself from slipping. The cycling slowed, each transition taking a fraction longer.

“Jin — Full send!”

Jin fired. I heard the crunch of gravel behind me and kept my focus on Rachel, keeping her locked down. I tagged her twice — ribs and forearm, the shield pulse stinging through to the bone each time. My ribs burned through the wrap. My forearms ached. My legs shook. I kept fighting.

Rachel’s guard returned a fraction slower after her next combination—even slower than usual— her right elbow arrived late to its protective position, the shell open for a quarter of a second.

I threw a straight right through the gap. It connected clean to her jaw, and her head snapped sideways. I followed with a left hook to the body, but a lick of Ether flashed across the area that sent fire up my arm. I winced as I pulled back, my fist already beginning to bruise as the Ether trickled up my arm and to my bruised ribs.

“Gah!”

I buckled, caught myself on the ground below, pushed back up and raised my guard.

“You’re not the only one who can read people, Tiernan.”

Rachel came forward. Three more exchanges: strike, block, sweep, jump. I was getting slower. Every strike pulled me further and further into the abyss. But I still had a plan.

I waited for her commitment. I sank a weakened hook into her ribs once again and purposefully lessened the power I was putting into the strike. I felt the Ether enter my arm again, ravaging my body. But the weakened strike I proposed received weaker feedback.

“Fuck…” I feigned.

I let my guard drop for a second and invited her in. She came at me hard, committing a wide strike; the plan was on.

I slipped the cross and continued forward, the look of surprise evident on her face.