By the end of the month, John's body had begun to change. His bones felt heavier, his skin thicker. He took punches without flinching. Fell and rose without hesitation.
Month 2: Then came The Broken Step.
It wasn't flashy. No spinning kicks. No dramatic leaps. Just footwork. Endless, grueling footwork.
Forward, slide, plant. Pivot. Shift weight. Reset.
If John was even an inch off balance, his mentor would sweep his legs from under him and slam him into the dirt. Again and again. He hit the ground so many times his joints ached in places he didn't know could ache.
But soon, he began to see the spaces between things—the weight distribution of others, the tiny telegraphs before movement. He could shift before being struck, rotate instead of resist.
And through it all, Dog followed.
Sometimes it mirrored John's steps. Sometimes it lay curled up on his training mat, eyes quietly observing. Once, after a particularly hard fall, it trotted up to him and nipped at his sleeve like it was pulling him back into the fight.
John didn't say anything.
But that night, he tore up one of his training shirts and fashioned a crude wrap for the cub to wear—something to shield it from the chill.
He told himself it was practical.
Month 3:
Dog Fang Grapple was where it got cruel.
It was close-range. Brutal. No finesse, no beauty—only dominance and control. Every joint could be a lever. Every muscle, a trap. The mentor demonstrated techniques on John without holding back. Bones creaked. Ligaments stretched. Pain became a dialect of instruction.
Break the elbow.
Collapse the windpipe.
Hook the ankle.
Choke until stillness.
John absorbed it all in silence.
He learned to move like a predator—low, efficient, calculating. His eyes no longer looked for openings. They anticipated collapse. When the mentor smiled — for the first time — it was after John executed a takedown without instruction, pinning him using nothing but gravity and cruelty.
That night, Dog brought him a dead bird.
John didn't say thank you.
But he buried it with the same hands that had choked the air from his mentor's lungs hours before.
Month 4: The observers took notes obsessively now.
John's bond with the cub had grown beyond prediction. He never played with it there was no laughter, no affection. But the cub never left his side. If John bled, it stood guard. If John slept, it curled against his ribs. If anyone approached, it bared its teeth.
And the real signal: John had begun adjusting his training to protect the cub. Shifting his falls. Avoiding high-impact maneuvers near it. The League of Shadows noticed everything.
"The subject now demonstrates early-stage empathy," came one report.
"Escalate pressure. Engineer possible separation. Monitor psychological fracture."
The next day, they sent wild dogs into the training grounds during drills. At first, it seemed like their target was John but it didn't take long to notice their goal as one bi the leg of the cub eliciting a scream. John tore them apart with bare hands. One had gotten close enough to bite Dog's hind leg again. John crushed its skull. Slowly.
The observers didn't interfere. But they noted everything.
By the fifth month, John was no longer just a trainee. He moved like a storm held back by command. The mentor had grown quiet around him, saying less with words and more with nods, blows, and the occasional grunt of approval.
The cub, now more grown, moved with him like a second shadow.
John had stopped pretending he didn't care. But he never said anything aloud. He knew what this was. He'd recognized the pattern from the start.
And yet... he still played along.
He sharpened the cub's instincts. Trained it to respond to signals. Taught it when to bite and when to stay. He didn't name it, not really but he had a signal whistle now. Something only it responded to.
He didn't think about the end. Not yet.
But he knew.
The sixth month began with a shift so subtle it took John a day to notice it. His mentor no longer uttered names like Iron Flow Method or Broken Step. There was no mention of breathing techniques, stances, or lines of movement.
Instead, there were only attacks.
Relentless. Unscripted. Unforgiving.
Each strike from the mentor came from a discipline John hadn't seen before winding, coiled strikes that unbalanced his center. Joint attacks that ignored his breathwork and tension control. Ground movements that bypassed the mechanics of Dog Fang entirely.
These were arts that preyed on the blind spots of John's chosen styles.
Where Iron Flow taught him to absorb and redirect, his mentor struck with staggered pulses that disrupted his rhythm.
Where Broken Step made him fast and fluid, his mentor flooded the space, trapping his feet in misdirection.
Where Dog Fang focused on control and restraint, his mentor came with chaos, faking weakness only to weaponize it mid-grapple.
Each day, John lost. Badly.
His lip split open. Ribs bruised. Fingers dislocated and reset during breaks. The cub now grown lean and sharp-eyed watched silently from the edge of the ring, ears pinned, body tense. It was no longer a helpless companion, but a creature that understood violence.
John never spoke.
But he adjusted.
Every fall taught him a new edge. Every failed grapple revealed a hidden pressure point. He began to fill the gaps in his style with movement that wasn't part of any discipline but born purely from experience.
His mentor said nothing of this. He just kept pressing, more viciously, more unpredictably. As if wanting John to fail.
By the final week, John was still getting hit but not without cost. The mentor now bore bruises too. A limping gait on one side. A slow roll of the shoulder between sparring sessions.
Dawn on the last day came quiet and grey. No orders. No drills. Just a silent summons to the stone clearing.
The mentor stood barefoot in the center, shirtless. No hidden blades. No tech. Just a body honed by a lifetime of violence.
John stepped in.
No cub today. He'd made sure of that locked it in his old sleeping quarters, far from what was coming. He didn't trust the League not to use it. Not now.
He rolled his shoulders, slow. Every muscle ached. But his mind was calm—emptier than usual. The only thought he carried was this: survive long enough to prove you are no longer a tool they can bend.
The mentor spoke for the first time in weeks. "You will use everything. No hesitation."
John nodded. "And if I win?"
The mentor's face remained unreadable. "You won't."
Then he moved.
John barely saw the fist before it struck his sternum.
The air left his lungs in a violent cough as he staggered back — already breaking form. The second strike, a low sweep, caught his shin mid-step. He fell forward, but tucked into a roll, instinct from Broken Step saving him from a bone-snapping finish.
He surged to his feet.
The mentor was already there palm strike to the jaw, then an elbow to the liver.
John tasted blood. He retreated two steps, eyes narrowing. Pain blossomed everywhere, but he locked into the Iron Flow Method to inhale, absorb tension, exhale, release it with motion. His feet moved in micro-shifts circling, adjusting terrain.
When the mentor came again, John twisted around the wrist and tried to trap the arm with a quick Dog Fang hook.
Wrong choice.
The mentor flowed with the trap, using the resistance. He redirected his weight and drove a knee straight into John's abdomen, folding him.