The concrete sparring ring at the center of the yard was a slab of raw grey, its white-painted boundary lines fading where the volcanic ash gathered in drifts.
Jack stepped onto it, leaving scuffed marks from his boots as he forced his feet to move slowly.
He put his entire weight into looking clumsy, defeated, and entirely careless about his position.
The wind off the caldera carried a bitter, sulfurous chill that stung his eyes.
He made himself stand in the center of the ring, keeping his hands loose and tucked into his issued jacket, hiding the unnatural stiffness in his right arm.
Hess stood at the edge of the gravel perimeter, the silver whistle already between his teeth.
Ten paces behind him, Kovac stood with his arms crossed over his chest.
Kovac did not look at the ring; he looked at Jack, his dark eyes steady and empty of any human warmth.
“Voss, Ryker. TC-11-9G. Center pad,” Hess barked.
Ryker Voss stepped onto the concrete.
He moved with a clean, fluid grace that spoke of expensive academy trainers and years of nutritional privilege.
He was not wearing his heavy winter coat, only his black mock-neck shirt, and he rolled his broad shoulders with a slow, predatory confidence.
His eyes fixed on Jack, bright with the easy cruelty of a man who had never had to scavenge for his bread.
In the crowd of watching recruits at the gravel edge, Vance shifted his weight, his face tight with concern.
Beside him, Kayla gripped her harness strap so tightly her knuckles turned white.
Jack took a slow breath, tasting the dry grit of ash.
He had to make this look real.
If he defended himself with the unnatural reflexes the device had given him, Kovac would know.
If he showed even a fraction of the strength hiding in his muscle fibers, they would tear him apart to see what lay underneath his skin.
Survival in the Bastion did not mean winning; it meant being invisible.
“Begin,” Hess said, and blew the whistle.
Voss did not waste time.
He stepped in with a textbook boxer’s stance, his lead left hand flashing forward in an opening jab.
Jack saw the blow coming.
In his mind, the punch was slow, its trajectory telegraphed by the slight tilt of Voss’s left shoulder and the weight shifting to his back foot.
Jack could have slipped it easily; he could have stepped inside the guard and shattered Voss’s collarbone with a single palm-strike.
Instead, Jack forced his feet to remain heavy.
He let the jab clip the edge of his cheek.
The impact was sharp and clean, sending a dull shock through his jaw.
Jack allowed the force of the blow to spin him backward, his boots scuffling through the ash as he stumbled toward the fading white boundary line.
“On your feet, scrap!” Hess yelled, kicking a spray of gravel onto the concrete.
“TC-11-9G, move your hands or I’ll have Voss use you as a heavy bag!”
Voss smiled, a thin, satisfied parting of his lips.
“Scavenger reflexes aren’t much outside a scrap pile,” he murmured, his voice low enough that only Jack could hear.
“You people crawl through garbage and call it survival.”
Voss threw a rapid three-punch combination: a left hook to the body, a right cross, and a rising uppercut.
Jack held up his hands in a loose, panicked guard, letting the blows land.
The body shot took his breath, the right cross cracked against his temple, and the uppercut grazed his chin, sending him backward again.
Suddenly, a sudden, freezing needle of pain shot from the device buried in his arm.
It was a cold, rhythmic warning, pulsing rapidly through his nervous system.
The mechanism was reacting to the threat: it wanted to override his muscles, to force his hands up, to drive his fingers into Voss’s throat with lethal precision.
No, Jack thought, clenching his teeth as he fought his own body.
Stay down.
Stay quiet.
He forced the cold impulse back, burying it deep beneath his own pain, refusing to let the device take the reins.
Voss stepped in again, his confidence turning into outright contempt.
He grabbed Jack by the collar of his jacket, twisting the fabric to hold him upright, and drove his knee hard into Jack’s ribs.
The sound of the impact was a dull, wet thud.
The cartilage gave way with a sharp, sickening pop.
At the edge of the ring, Kayla took a sudden, violent step forward, her face flushed with fury.
Vance’s hand shot out, catching her elbow and pulling her back before the instructors could see.
“Don’t,” Vance muttered, his voice barely a whisper in the wind.
“You’ll only make it worse.”
Jack collapsed onto the concrete, his hands clutching his side.
The pain was immediate and blinding, a white-hot spike that made his vision blur.
He lay on his side, his cheek pressed against the cold, ash-strewn stone, spitting a mouthful of dark blood onto the white paint.
Through the haze of pain, Jack’s mind remained cold and analytical.
He had taken the beating, but he had also recorded every movement.
He knew Voss’s style now: the elite academy polish, the tendency to shift to his left heel before throwing a heavy hook, the way his hip turned too early before a knee strike.
Voss was strong and fast, but he was rigid.
He relied on his training, and he overcommitted when he thought his opponent was entirely broken.
Jack stored the knowledge away, locking it in the dark corners of his mind.
“Thought you were used to taking what fell from above. Get back on your feet.”
Jack dragged himself up, his movements slow and agonizing.
He forced his legs to shake, his fingers scraping uselessly against the concrete as he pushed himself into a half-kneeling position.
He looked up at Voss with wild, simulated panic in his eyes.
Voss stepped forward, delivering a final, heavy right hand to Jack’s jaw.
Jack let his head snap back, his body falling flat against the concrete, his eyes rolling up as if he had lost consciousness.
He lay still, his breath shallow, letting his limbs go entirely limp.
Kovac raised a single hand, his voice cutting through the wind.
“Enough. Voss, step back.”
Hess blew his whistle, though his face showed only disappointment that the show was over.
“TC-11-9G, drill concluded. Get him out of the ring.”
Vance did not wait.
He stepped onto the concrete, his face pale as he knelt beside Jack.
He grabbed Jack under the armpits, dragging him slowly toward the gravel edge.
“Easy, Jack,” Vance muttered under his breath, his voice strained.
“Don’t make me carry your ugly ass all the way to the bunks.”
Kayla stood at the perimeter, her eyes fixed on Ryker Voss with a silent, burning hatred.
Voss simply brushed a speck of ash off his shoulder, gave her a dismissive glance, and walked back toward the barracks with the rest of the elite draftees.
Jack let himself be dragged, his head hanging low as Vance supported most of his weight.
He expected the white-hot agony of his cracked ribs to worsen with every step, the torn muscle fibers grinding against bone.
But as they crossed the threshold of the yard, the sharp pain began to change.
Deep beneath his skin, the cold weight in his arm began to pulse.
It was not the violent, warning pulse of before, but a slow, soothing chill that crept along his chest and ribs.
The sharp, agonizing heat of the break began to recede, replaced by a strange, tingling numbness.
Jack held his breath.
Beneath his uniform, he could feel the bruised bone pulling itself together, the torn muscles tightening and aligning without his permission.
The swelling in his face was already beginning to subside, the blood flow slowing to a stop.
The device was repairing him.
It was fixing the damage, correcting his injuries, all without his consent.
A cold dread settled in Jack’s chest, far heavier than the pain Voss had inflicted.
If the thing beneath his skin could heal bone and muscle whenever it pleased, how long before it decided to change something else?
How long before he wasn’t the one choosing to stand or fall?