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 at a disadvantage. But thankfully, this was pure hand-to-hand. Though I did find it strange that we weren't using or given weapons of any kind.
Now that I think about it, we haven't been given access to weapons at all.
The Barracks 9 squad broke from their gate in a standard spread—two forward, two flanking, two centre— giving a strong forward presence. The lead fighter was a tall kid with a tanking deviation, his guard high and steady.
We have to split them apart; we can't fight in a formation against them.
Thankfully, they hit the first partial wall and hesitated, the terrain likely giving them a moment's pause. I didn't have to give a signal as my squad began to move for the platform, hold the high ground and reap the rewards.
"Two forward, splitting left. Right flanker — depression," Ren called from our platform.
We've reached the platform; now it's time to disrupt their formation before they arrive.
"Jin cut the—" I was cut off as Jin moved in a blur, gravel spraying behind her boots.
The right flanker turned toward the sound, and she tagged him on his side in a blitz. The boy buckled under the first blow as she lunged out with a kick to his jaw before moving on.
First elimination.
[XP GAINED: 56]
A collective breath echoed from the stands as we took down the first fighter. The opposing squad had already fallen into disarray as confusion spread amongst their ranks. We'd prevented them from forming up on the platform, and now they were already a man down.
Perfect.
"Hsu, Park. Pincer."
They called out grunts of affirmation as they pushed forward, enveloping their formation from two sides to meet us on the platform. Hsu worked the flank while Park pinned the central group, two of them at once. Park wasn't the best fighter, but all he had to do was pin and hold while they tried to push towards the platform.
The trap is laid. Now what do you do? Do you hold your ground and be surrounded, or try to break out and occupy the platform?
They'd identified the platform and were now moving toward it, regardless of the pincer that was pressing them from both sides.
So that's your answer, so be it.
They rushed with reckless abandon, catching Park off-guard he didn't quite have enough time nor space to properly hold them down in place. Hsu on the otherhand managed to bring down her opponent in the brief moments they let down their guard to turn and run. It was reckless but it also closed the window for our exploitation.
"They're paired," Tomás said from my side. "Trained together. The partner compensates in real time. Well, only two pairs now. Should be much easier."
I rushed to meet them at the ramp base as they pushed through the central ambush, towards the platform that would restrict the overall space they were allowed to fight from. 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, his feet set steady, and shoulders squared.
Straight jabs rolling into defensive posturing, probing out the start of the fight. His blows weren't anything special; they were slower than I expected, which threw off my early rhythm. His jabs landed on my guard, clear weight vibrated through my guard with every strike. But as with all rotation-based fighting, it held a clear rhythm, and it only took me a few moments to identify his.
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, even if I can read them easily.
I quickly scanned as I moved forward; Jin and Hsu were harassing the 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—rotation three— strong straights and hooks that always recentered back to the starting position before launching again. It offered very little opportunity to penetrate. To make things worse, 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 him as he settled into rotation three, a heavy defensive stance. 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. That and he was fighting overly defensive, likely hoping that he could outlast me.
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. I had to keep my energy for the following rounds.
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. 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."
[XP GAINED: 119]
"Two minutes forty-three seconds," Tomás said.
"Not a bad showing for the first fight," I remarked.
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: 431 / 750]
The Exhibition combat was generating more strife per minute than weeks of training.
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 as I tore my attention away.
"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.]
We followed through with our plan, and we moved directly to the gravel depression, setting up in the dip. The lip in the ground directly concealed us from direct observation from a flat position looking directly at us. It was a perfect spot to either spring an ambush or set up plays from. Not quite as good as the platform, but they were expecting that.
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.
They're splitting up already? Bold choice, they must think us easy opponents.
They reached it in forty seconds and found it empty.
She recovered fast, pulling the platform team back to regroup within seconds.
And they're not holding it, huh? Shit. I need to re-evaluate.
"North — two fighters," Ren called from behind me. "Leader west. One escort."
"Jin — north. Park— follow. Try not to engage, figure out their positions and pull back." I called.
They moved off, utilising the terrain to traverse across the arena, keeping themselves hidden. They entered a walled-off section that acted almost like a kill house. I peeked my head over the dip and watched as Jin burst through a gap in the wall, assaulting someone from the side.
"They weren't supposed to engage. Now we have to hope they aren't grouped up as six." I lamented.
The first Barracks 3 kid turned, got his guard up, absorbing the initial strike. Jin found a second angle in the half-second his recovery took, her body flowing through the restricted space without a single wasted motion. Each transition stripped to its essential purpose, each strike arriving from exactly the angle that mattered.
"Well, at least it seems to be working", Tomás remarked.
Park caught the second north fighter from the opposite side. The kid fought back — three genuine exchanges before Park's strikes found their marks. These weren't Barracks 9; they had won their fight.
That's two, even if they did ignore me. Jin's probably still pissed off.
"Marcus — main element approaching from north. Four of them," Ren whispered.
The squad leader reached the depression with her escort. They hadn't spotted us yet, but they would soon. I sucked in a cool breath of air and signalled for the ambush to be sprung. We each took a moment before exploding out of the dip, taking the weakened group by surprise. Hsu engaged their leader, cleanly tagging them twice before she called the ambush.
"Form up!" The opposing squad lead called.
With my squad engaged, I pushed out and intercepted their tallest fighter. He was strong, and his strikes carried weight. The first exchange drove me back a step and kicked dust into my mouth, the gritty, mineral taste of the arena. Even with the ambush, I was on the back foot. I recentered my body and watched as he moved, blocking and weaving through the strikes.
I watched his left side with my eyes and probed in that direction. Once I was sure he was following my eyes, I looked to his right. His posture shifted.
Good.
I threw out a hook to his left side, catching him off guard as my fist sank into the kid's abdomen. He stumbled as the breath escaped his body. I capitalised on it and slammed a palm into his nose and then a haymaker into his temple.
He fell down like a sack of potatoes, throwing up dust and gravel into the air.
That's three down.
[XP GAINED: 78]
Now for the squad leader.
She'd pushed Hsu back to the depression's centre, while Tomás and Ren engaged with the others.
I moved to assist Hsu with the strongest of the individual fighters left. They were engaged in a heated round of exchanges, the opponent faster and stronger than Hsu. But now there were the two of us, I charged at her blind side while she tagged Hsu several times in a devastating combination, almost sending her sprawling to the ground. I lashed out with a leg kick and swept her off her feet, and she fell to the ground.
I tried to land a stomp, but she rolled barely out of the way in time and quickly got to her feet before I had time to exploit the opportunity.
Shit, she's got quite a few levels on us. No wonder Hsu was having so much trouble.
Stepping up to meet her, we began to exchange a flurry of blows. She was aggressive, overly so, yet her stats allowed her to keep up the momentum.
She fights similar to Miller, prioritising rotation four. Ok, I can work with this.
My opponent came at me with a set of rolling strikes that forced me to cede ground. She was quick and left very little room to exploit. I just had to wait out the current movements and then strike as she resets to her starting position.
Her blows came in a relentless wave of pure aggression, wide swings with a strangely tight stance. But even the greatest of storms eventually fade into mist.
The time came, and her rotation came to an end, as she sank back into her starting position. I moved, reversing my retreat. I came at her quickly with Hsu finally getting back into the fight, slower than before, but I welcomed the assistance. The sight of two bodies coming at her must have overwhelmed her now fatigued mental state. I threw a straight to her jaw, which she barely parried. I twisted with the parry, letting the momentum of the blow follow through before turning on my hips to throw a kick into her abdomen, it landed strong as she was sent sprawling.
Hsu moved in from the opposite direction and leapt onto her, pinning her to the ground. She rained blow after blow onto her downed body until finally a hand went up.
A shout from the western side broke my concentration as I turned to look. The squad leader's last fighters caught Jin and Park out of position as they attempted to regroup at the dip. They fought well, but their opponents were tough. Jin managed to bring down her opponent in a swift set of strikes, but Park had been dealt a heavier hand.
Three direct strikes, heavy and accurate, landed into him. He fell to the ground and raised a hand.
Shit. That's one less for the next fight.
The final fighter looked around the arena and nodded before raising his hand in defeat.
"Elimination — Squad Tiernan takes the match."
[XP GAINED: 254]
Holy shit that's a lot ofXP.
The staging area was quieter the second time. Park met us outside the arena with his arm held gingerly, a medic applying something to his ribs that smelled like antiseptic and ozone. "Cracked?" Tomás asked. "Bruised," Park said. "I'll live. She hit like a freight train." I sat on the staging bench, drank some water and let the squad settle.
[XP: 13/800]
[LEVEL: 16]
[STAT POINTS AVAILABLE: 4]
I smiled. I hadn't had a free stat point to distribute in a while. I placed it into agility. The other three points I sank evenly across, strength, agility and vitality.
The bracket updated.
PHASE ONE — ROUND THREE
SQUAD TIERNAN vs SQUAD OSEI
I scanned the bracket for the upset.
Squad Miller — ELIMINATED, Round Two.
Miller was in the stands. Sitting alone. Briggs was beside him but not close.
Osei was across the arena. Watching us, calm and comprehensive. His network arranged around him — fourteen people who hadn't needed to shout a single command during their matches.
"Well," Tomás said, closing his notebook. "That's not ideal."
We had a terrain strategy they'd watched us execute twice. Whatever Osei had learned in the last hour was already integrated into his network's tactical framework.
"Round three," Jin said.
Nobody added anything.